# AI Branding Wars and Media Consolidation

**Podcast:** Pivot
**Published:** 2026-02-06

## Transcript

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Stop.
Yes, Termin for Einbar of Stepstone.
Do you ever look back on something you posted on the internet and think?
Well, that was cringe.
Yeah, I mean I look back at that stuff and I'm just like, it's so emblematic of the era.
And it's also just like why did I think this would age well, like in the slightest.
This week on explain it to me from Vox.
What to do with your online regret?
New episodes on Sundays wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, the edibles are kicking in.
Hi everyone.
This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher.
And I'm Scott Galloway.
And what the fuck is going on behind you, Scott?
There's like Scott Scott, also Scott.
To explain for listeners, Scott has a new background in his studio, and guess what?
I'm not in it.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Oh, it is.
Oh, look, it's Ed.
The metaphor I would use is that you're my first wife, and these are Belarusian hookers who I What is happening?
Uh do you want the honest truth or am I supposed to be snarky around this?
Whatever, either one.
It's probably a bad explanation.
Uh no, I'm very focused on enterprise value and um uh prov Vox owns a piece of pivot.
No, we do, but go ahead.
Go ahead.
Well, we uh we own it, but Vox, everyone uh the thing I hate about the corporate structure and ownership of Pivot is that everyone has veto authority, but no one has control.
I like having control.
And as you know, about five years ago I started launching my own pods.
And quite frankly, it's uh your pivot has the biggest reach.
Mm-hmm.
Um my pivot.
And now it's my pivot.
It's like our children, your children.
Go ahead.
But I'm very focused on um trying to create distinct enterprise value that I have control over.
So Pivot, Pivot is the biggest and the best, and kind of your firstborn, and I I love it and I'm fond of you.
But in terms of trying to build enterprise value, I'm focused on the Prof G pods because I control it.
And let me tell you, you're the same way.
You have on with Kara Switching.
I just have on, that's all.
But go ahead.
Well, but control is an addictive substance.
It is.
And I like making decisions.
And quite frankly, we get we make a lot of money from Pivot, but it's very difficult to figure out a path to enterprise value because Vox kind of controls or semi-controls the IP.
So I'm just very honestly very focused on building enterprise value around the plethora of podcasts we are developing here at Prop G.
Yes, but let me make an argument.
They don't actually control it.
We can do whatever we mostly do whatever we want.
You know that.
It's it's me you're talking about.
It's gonna be very difficult for us to sell pivot for a shit ton of money, and that's the business that I'm in.
Well, not well, in a couple of years we can, certainly, correct?
Yeah, I guess the terms of the agreement are the IP turns.
So it's just me that's your problem.
No, I don't I I like working with partners.
I've always had partners in my business.
I think that when I advise young entrepreneurs, I'm being serious, do it with a partner because the most rewarding thing, and I think the most rewarding thing in life is to raise kids with a competent person that you love and and also to build economic security with someone you care about.
It's just uh I think that is really rewarding.
I also think it's much more rewarding to build businesses with someone else.
I think one of the most rewarding things about Pivot is you and I have built it together, and occasionally we get on the phone and we just bask in our success, and it's really fun.
The way I describe it is inevitably when I travel, because I I'm usually on a corporation's time, I stay at these amazing places.
And inevitably, if I'm when I'm alone, I get upgraded to literally the presidential suite at the George Sank in Paris.
But if you're in it alone, it's like it didn't happen.
It it just doesn't mean anything.
So I do think building businesses, I've always had partners.
My partner at ProvG Media is Catherine Dillon, who I've worked with for 15 years.
My partner at Pivot is you, and to a lesser extent, Jim Bankoff.
The but yeah, the most rewarding thing is building something with a partner.
But uh with respect to the pictures behind me, I want to set ProvG uh up in a corporate structure position such that I can sell it for a shit ton of money to an old media company that's panicking that they're not in the fastest growing out supported medium.
Is that too much information?
Oh, and then what are you gonna do with your first marriage, Pivot that got you all that that got you?
This uh I I'm still here.
I'm gonna be able to do that.
That made you attractive to Russian whores.
What what I take you to the Olive Garden every Thursday night.
When we get drunk at a convention, we might have some bad sex.
Right.
But you know, I'm still here.
I'm still here.
I'm hanging around until the kids go to college.
Oh, yeah.
Until Taylor and Zoe go off to college.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
You know.
I I gotta be honest, Kara, at this point in my life.
Yeah, it's like this this uh resistance subscribe.
A lot of people reached out to me and said, why didn't you organize with these people and like these?
Yes, I heard that.
I've gotten a lot of calls from people.
The idea of getting a bunch of activists and liberal uh media figures on the phone and trying to get consensus, it sounds like my worst fucking nightmare.
Yeah, I got that from like a dozen people.
Who too was the last one?
Katie Kirk?
Katie Kirk, I think.
Well, yeah, Katie reached out to me.
And to be honest, yeah, they're right.
But my view is I'm a ready-fire aim guy.
I'm gonna do what I can do.
I've got a ton of momentum.
And then you do your thing and I'll support you.
But the idea of getting on the phone with all of these people to decide whether Netflix should be on the list or not, that's just not my stuff.
I know that.
I know it.
I everyone was like, why do you do that?
I'm like, because he doesn't like you.
Like, I don't know.
He just wants it to be a little bit more than a little bit.
No, it's not that I don't like these people.
It's like I would rather take a leadership.
Yeah.
No business I have ever started made any sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But my and not only that.
You want to do your own thing?
This goes to a deeper spiritual thing.
One of the things I don't like about getting older, I used to be more fearless when I was younger.
I used to call people I wanted to meet.
Uh and I used to approach people.
I used to go to crash parties I wasn't invited to.
And now I'm just sort of recently heckling from the cheap seats.
I have very strong opinions about everything, but I'm doing less.
And I want to move back to taking risks and actually doing shit and risking public failure.
Cause I think that has been uh other than being born a white heterosexual male in the 60s and the irrational passion for my well-being of my mother, the thing, the reason I am somewhat successful is I've never been afraid of public failure.
Yeah.
I've gotten more afraid as I've gotten older.
I want to get more, I want to get in the game.
I wanna I want to get back on the field.
Yeah, you gotta get back.
Yeah, it's okay.
You can leave me.
You'll see what happens when you leave me.
Anyway, I don't really care.
I have other things I can do.
Um I'm leaving you.
I still return your angry text messages at 2 a.m.
Guess who called me the other night?
You, because you wanted to chitty chat with your favorite person on the planet.
But let me just have an edible and I was bored, no one else would talk to me.
I had to call someone in Eastern Standard Time because everyone else was asleep.
So no, but we've been sharing you and Jerry, speaking of looking ridiculous.
What why why were you in a fur coat looking like a unsuccessful pimp for your resistant unsubscribe?
That made me laugh my ass off, I have to say.
With a hat.
Well, tell me where it's where are you right now?
Give me a quick update, and then we've got a lot to talk about today.
So I I like I think the truth has a nice ring to it.
Out of the gates, it was bigger than I expected.
I got to about 100,000, 150,000 uniques a day.
It is leveled off and it's not growing.
And I'm not hearing from as many CEOs.
So I've been doing some research around how do you sustain a movement like this.
And one of them was join with people because great on the sum of its parts.
Yeah, yeah.
I will take over this island on my own.
I'm like one of those Japanese soldiers in the hills of the Philippines 20 years after the war has ended, terrorizing everybody.
Yeah.
No, but this there was a study done out of Kellogg, and it found that it's actually not economic damage, it's public shaming vis-a-vis the media.
It's media attention.
And so I've gonna be going on CNN once or twice a day.
I was on MSN Now.
I've been on MPR.
I'm about to go on You need to go on Fox.
Yeah, I'm probably gonna go on Fox.
I mean, I'm like you, this is gonna sound arrogant, but it's true.
I can get on any network any day of the week.
Oh, and I get it.
And what's interesting though is when I do, and I'll come back to the when I do these crazy unchained, you know, weird, he's definitely not running for president now videos.
Uh they get about five or six hundred thousand to a million views.
And when I go on CNN primetime, I get three to four hundred thousand.
Yeah.
So the power of social is so powerful.
And what I find about social is it's a chance to be your spirit animal.
And people love that.
People love I went up to, I went up to, you know, my partner's closet.
I grabbed a fur coat and a ridiculous hat because I was going to talk about Lamb.
Stop pretending it's your hat.
What's that?
It's your hat and coat.
But go ahead.
Well, I like to spend sixteen hundred dollars at Kimosabi and Aspen for a hat that I look like Billy the Special Child, who's the latest the latest winner of the Make a Wish Foundation in El Paso, Texas.
Oh, you look so ridiculous.
I look totally fucking ridiculous.
Ridiculous.
Anyway, where are we going with very briefly resistant unsubscribed?
We have a lot to talk about today.
There's so much.
So a lot of the organizations that do actually organize, Defiance and Indivisible, um, I'm coordinating with now.
Uh I'm trying to reignite the momentum, and I'm I'm going on a bunch of public media, and I'm hearing it isn't I mean, granted, I hear from people who are supportive, but I'm hearing from high school kids saying I'm trying to get my entire senior class to unsubscribe from Spotify.
Will you do a Zoom?
So I I'm trying to, I hate to admit it, but I'm trying to the worst thing, what's even worse than fighting with your allies is fighting without them.
So I'm trying to do a better job of reaching out, which I hate.
I know, but you're gonna have to, sweetie.
You gotta have to take the village.
It's it's kind of leveled out, and I need to re-establish, I need to reestablish some momentum.
It's a good idea.
People got excited about your good idea, right?
And uh we'll talk about the Washington Post later because I've gotten 900 calls about that.
People are back to the Well, you know, the Washington Post and and journalists are just so fucking precious.
You guys should have trust about it.
Scott, I need you to stop.
300 people are you literally 300 people are fine.
I'm gonna slap you back to last Sunday.
But first, let's first stop.
We'll get to the Washington Post, and you better collect yourself, because I'll slap you.
I will, I'll slap you back to last Sunday.
That's the dynamic here.
I say something stupid and then you say, and then you come in with your warriors of wokeness, and everyone's like, I love careful.
I'm on character.
It's not warriors of wokeness.
300 people lost their jobs.
You could have a little empathy.
Anyway, 20,000 people lost their jobs at UPS, Karen.
Well, so what?
You know what?
The Washing we all the Washab is a debt of gratitude for the stuff they did for many, many years.
You know, whose parents put them through Sarah Lawrence, and they're more precious than everybody else.
They're not more precious, it's still important.
It doesn't matter.
You don't have to stack rank people's misery.
Come on, that uh that's not true.
I'm not doing that.
But we should talk about it because I do have some thoughts on it, and I know you have some thoughts on it.
We will we're gonna get to it.
But first, we're gonna talk about anthropics, something really kind of fun.
Um, it's taking aim at OpenAI and ChatGPT with a series of Super Bowl ads, poking fun.
It is the perfect satire at recent news that ads are coming to chat uh GPT.
I want to play one of the anthropic ads, all of which there's four of them, I think, that feature a young man visiting a therapist to talk about his mom.
Let's watch.
How do I communicate better with my mom?
Great question.
Improved communication with your mom can bring you closer.
Here are some techniques you can try.
Start by listening.
Really hear what she's trying to say underneath her words.
Build conversation from points of agreement.
Find a connection through shared activity.
Perhaps a nature walk.
Or if the relationship can't be fixed, find emotional connection with other older women on Golden Encounters.
The mature dating site that connects sensitive cubs with roaring cougars.
What the tagline appears on the screen at the end that says ads are coming to AI, but not to Claude.
Uh, they struck a nerve with Sam Altman, the CEO of uh OpenAI.
Sam posted on X the ads, made him laugh and then went on to share a novella sized rant, as TechCrunch put it.
He argued the campaign was dishonest and misrepresented how ChatGPT would ever use ads.
Oh my god, fuck him if he can't take a joke.
I I think these ads are brilliant.
They actually the way they depict chatbots is perfect.
That pause, the smile, the kind of lowest common denominator advice.
But you uh these are great branding, as you told me.
So tell me, as a Mr.
Brands, what do you think about these?
Uh this is genius, and this will be seen as the pivotal moment for when in 12 months anthropic is more valuable than open AI.
This is a definition of intelligent branding.
And one construct or vehicle for great branding is you ladder the competition.
Well, the way you ladder the competition to try and zero in on the soft issues, you go, we're this, they're this, and then you say, okay, is this point of differentiation uh truly different?
Are we really different this way?
Two, does anyone care as irrelevant?
And three, can we own it?
Is it sustainable?
So in this instance, they said, All right, uh, we're not gonna have ads.
Is that different?
Yes, chat GPT is having ads.
That's truly differentiated.
Right.
Is it relevant?
Yeah, it is relevant because you're providing your most intimate information.
There's a memory around AI, and the idea that it's not giving you the best answer, but an answer it can be monetized, is really uncomfortable for people.
And then is it sustainable?
Mostly unless open AI, which is a non-zero chance, they might backtrack on this.
But basically, this is the perfect branding.
It's differentiated, it's relevant to consumers, and it's sustainable, and the execution here is just gorgeous.
It's just beautiful.
This occasionally, like when Hyundai came out with their seven-year warranty ad, that changed the complexion of Hyundai.
Occasionally there's an ad campaign that literally changes everything.
They're fewer and fewer because people don't take advertising as seriously.
They take real-time innovation more seriously.
This will be, this already is the ad of the Super Bowl.
This is going to be the moment when Sam Altman, quite frankly, shit the bed, and Dario became the new face of AI.
Uh, but I believe this will be the pivotal moment with also a focus on enterprise versus the consumer.
They're going Dell versus versus gateway going consumer, or they're going enterprise versus consumer.
This is a consumer play because it's all about people asking advice from these things.
Let me tell you, one of the things that really struck me, and I don't know how you felt about it, was the tone of voice of these, and the the one is better than that.
I just saw another one, and it was a lot of things.
The execution is fantastic.
It was a woman talking to another business plan and was offering her whatever, a web, like a like a like a web space kind of thing.
Um, but the voices and the and the lack of emotion and the lack of empathy in their voices, and yet they're the robotic nature of people.
This is what AI sounds like to people.
The shift in the tongue, it goes from human to anodyne.
Mm-hmm.
It is genius actually.
And the thing about it.
And pauses the pause until they answer.
Because no one would do that, right?
Everybody jumps all when they talk, they have a normal interaction.
But the pause is what got me was perfect.
Well, the Super Bowl is basically the ads aren't worth it.
Whatever they're charging, eight, eight million for a 30 second.
It's not worth it.
The only way it's worth it, and you know, right you know if the ad was worth it before the ad ever airs.
And then it's how much play is it getting on YouTube.
And and already, Anthropic's ads are worth more than they're spending because everybody's talking about its buzz.
Ben Stiller's ad for Instacart is gonna be the silver medalist here.
It's fucking hilarious.
It is.
It's with um what's his name?
Benson Boone.
Yeah, he does flips and everything.
Yeah.
But basically, don't do the flip.
This has nothing to do with the ad on the Super Bowl.
It's about your permission to be evaluated and go viral because you're advertising at the Super Bowl.
Yeah.
And already Anthropic has gotten a huge, huge return.
And also, if you'll notice, Sam Altman is sounding very defensive.
Oh my God.
I laughed, but like, you know, that that he should have said nothing or said that was funny.
Those are the only two answers.
But this was this was a pivotal turning moment.
Yeah.
What do you think?
I thought I just loved it.
I thought it was perfect.
It also was, you know, it really put a finger on what people don't like about AI, right?
It really did.
Yeah, they're such like ew, like, oh, like it's not a person.
And it it was, it was actually, kind of in their brand of we're not those guys, right?
Like it also, it it didn't say what they were, but it said what they weren't.
And I think that and what they aren't is something that's very unattractive to people, right?
What what they are is attractive.
It's like I want to, I want to use this AI, but I don't want that.
Like that's what I thought was effective there.
It was anyway.
Good job, uh, Claude, and oh and anthropic.
It really is.
And they and Sam really should have just said that was really funny, loved it.
But what kind of stuff?
What's more uncomfortable about this is the following.
The number one use case, do you know what it is?
Therapy.
So imagine you're giving someone the most intimate details about your life, and then the AI decides where to insert an ad.
It's imagine I've I've been I'm getting served all of these ring light therapists that are quote unquote mental health professionals telling everyone, you don't need a job, you don't need a relationship, you need to work on yourself first.
Yeah, that that's helpful.
Anyways, they imagine I heard one of these ring light therapists recommending a dating site, and I thought, is this person being compensated by this dating site?
Imagine sitting down and talking to a therapist and giving them your most intimate details, and they say, Oh, you should absolutely go on Lexapro.
And by the way, I'm sponsored by Eli Lilly or whatever.
Although doctors are, aren't they?
They I mean that's a that's a tale as old as time.
Anyway, people are using AI yeah as a more trusted doctor than their doctor.
People are going to AI.
Yeah.
I mean, doctors get all those gimmeys from pharmacy people, you know, that.
Like there's a whole and by the way, that's been seriously pulled back and regulated as it should.
I used to get invited to these dinners to speak about uh back when I was running a brand strategy program, I used to get invited to these dinners with with neurosurgeons sponsored by Sando's or whatever.
Yeah, and they've pulled back on that a lot because they realized, but if you're giving AI the most intimate deal, if you're saying to AI, okay, I have pank I have prostate cancer, my Gleason scores are this, and I don't know whether I should have my prostate removed or if I should just continue therapy, low-fat diet.
The idea that the AI might be trying to figure out what ad to insert at that moment.
Yeah.
Yeah, it has a very Facebooky feel to it.
I'll tell you.
With Google, you expect it.
With Facebook, you expect it.
But right now, everyone's under the impression that the AI is there for trying to help them.
Absolutely.
All right.
Moving from that, uh let's run through a rapid fire update of all the Epstein news that's happened since we talked.
I mean, seriously, this is just first, let's listen to what President Trump had to say to CNN's Caitlin Collins when asked about Epstein's victims.
This was something else.
And then J.D.
Vance followed up with a really even worse version of it.
But let's listen.
Yeah, what did you say?
Go ahead.
What would you say to the survivors who feel like they haven't gotten justice?
CNN has no ratings because of people like you.
You know, she's a young woman.
I don't think I've ever seen you smile.
I've known you for 10 years.
I don't think I've ever seen a smile.
Well, I'm asking you about survivors of Jeffrey I've seen some stuff.
Because you know you're not telling the truth.
That was something.
Let me say, I think the reason she got under his skin is because what she was talking about was the survivors of Donald Trump.
You know what I mean?
You mean that he's mentioned 5700 times.
Yes, exactly.
I think he knows.
Deep in his in his incredibly narcissistic denial personality, he knows, right?
And so he knows what happened.
These people know what happened.
And so, you know, it's typical old man says, I never seen you smile.
I've had that women have that happen to them all the time.
Smile, sweetheart.
Yeah, you should smile more.
You should put Kara Swisher on the back of your thing and say thank you.
But um, that was really something.
And uh and then what was incredible is that JDN's followed it in a really ridiculous interview with Megan Kelly, in which he said, Well, he just wants her to have fun, you know.
Oh my god, he's he's the cringiest cringe of he just takes something that's bad and makes it worse, which is really hard to do in this situation.
I thought I see it's funny, I had a different reaction there.
I kind of expected it from J.
What I thought was especially heinous was Megan Kelly defending.
The president referenced her menstrual cycle.
There's a there's gotta be a line where uh someone has a certain level, and I go back, you know, uh not just not just men, everyone should have a code and lines.
You don't the key isn't to be likable.
You everyone deserves boundaries in a relationship and boundaries around the behavior they will accept and not accept.
When the president insulted the looks of Senator Cruz's wife, that should have been a red line, and it should be like, I'm never supporting you ever again.
And when the president referenced Megan Kelly's menstrual cycle, that should have been a line where she would, I would think, for the rest of her career go, this guy has a problem when it comes to women.
And I was, I was uh texting this morning with uh Molly, John Faust, and the the thing I've been trying to wrap my hands around, I want to get to your viewpoint here around the Epstein files.
And the problem is, or I see the biggest problem is that what we need is a thick layer of an institution that we trust.
And that used to be the Department of Justice to go through in the FBI these these three million pages and say, okay, our job is to use discretion and the rule of law to parse what is illegal criminal behavior that deserves public attention, and what does not deserve public attention, like being on an invite list to a party in St.
Bart's that Jeffrey Epstein was gonna because right now we're over punishing shit that is trivial and superfluous, and we're under punishing child rape.
Yep.
Everything has been mushed together.
And it because we don't trust an institution to go through this and say, this is criminal activity and warrants public scrutiny and legal scrutiny.
And quite frankly, folks, we're not even gonna release this shit because all it does is impugn people for no reason.
But the problem is there's no arbiter, there's no institution that traditionally we've had trust in that we're comfortable with doing it.
So everyone's like, release the files.
They release all three million.
I don't even know if this is helping right now.
No, there's more.
They're they released half.
They've released half.
They're not gonna be able to do that.
What are your thoughts?
Uh I just, he's a pig.
I'm sorry.
He's just an old man pig, and JD Vance made it worse.
And Megan Kelly, forget it.
She's a bluffer to all of them.
And she's gonna put this on her show.
So, hey, Megan, good to give you content.
You'll attack me and not Scott, who's appropriately critical of you, but that's fine.
Whatever you want, girl.
I've been on Megan's show.
Have you been on her show?
No, of course not.
Why would I?
Why would I say that?
I still don't get it though.
I think she's very talented.
She has turned into something else, Scott.
You're not paying attention.
No, no, no, no, no.
Don't interrupt my sentence to scroll points with your woke warrior.
I got oh still.
What I was going to say, well, let me finish, is that I register that she, like Candace Owens, has literally gone off the fucking deep end.
Yeah.
And I can't figure out if it's because the rage algorithms love rage baits, so they get more money every time they say something incendiary, or they have literally gone insane.
Like they haven't taken a red pill.
They've swallowed like, you know, a red cyanide pill.
But I would argue over the last few years, Megan has gone very, very conspiracy theory and has decided the more insane incendiary shit I say, uh, is it that she's making money, or is she has she seriously lost her shit?
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't honestly, is she she's I don't care.
She's just one of those people I've decided to like put in the trash bin of my whatever.
She can she can say whatever she wants about me.
If I provide good content to her, knock yourself out, girl.
Anyway, next up, Bill and Hillary Clinton have agreed to be deposed on camera at public hearings in the Epstein investigation.
When I interviewed Ro Connie, he said they absolutely should.
I agree.
So should President Trump.
They should also bring him in.
They should bring all these people in.
Um, but they're having them, and Hillary did this morning, was like, bring it on.
Like, I'm a little scared for the Republicans, honestly.
And she wants cameras there.
She's like, so obviously she's got something up her sleeve.
And I wouldn't, I don't, I think this woman is run out of fucks after being like whacked around.
I mean, some of it is her fault, but boy, if they just she's she's loaded for bear, I would say, is my feeling.
And um, they could throw them, they could she's gonna talk about Trump the whole time.
That's what she's gonna do.
It's funny in my going back to my brand strategy course.
I do people as brands, and I look at them as brands and break down the core attributes.
And I did the Clintons and I did Bill and Hillary, and they both, especially Bill, but their brand attributes that are so powerful.
First off, Bill has Oprah-like empathy.
I generally get the sense when I met Bill Clinton.
I thought, this guy cares about me, I'm gonna support him the rest of my life.
I got you get the sense he genuinely like cares.
And it's so it comes across as so genuine, it's hard to believe it's not genuine.
Anyways, the second thing is you would never want the Clintons on the other side of anything you're doing.
These people are ruthless and smart.
I don't care if you're I don't care if you're picking players for a softball team.
If these people had no athletic ability, I would still want them on my team because they would figure out a way to kneecap the second baseman.
Throw a I think she's good at I think she's gonna be able to do it.
If I I can't wait for this, and if I were if I were the Trump administration, the last fucking thing I would want is that was too much cameras on a very well-prepared 155 fucking IQ Secretary Clinton.
Because did you see did you see Trump said I like Bill Clinton?
Like he was talking about.
Oh, all of a sudden he's trying to be like, they're pretty good people.
And they shouldn't have to undergo this.
You I'm sorry.
Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton are testifying.
Could these could the Trump administration be any stupider?
More stupid.
And you're gonna have a bunch of trust me, there's gonna be three or four moments.
Where some idiot staffer has given a bigger idiot Republican Comer.
A stupid question.
And you are going to see one of the Clintons slap them back so silly.
I can't I literally can't.
I'm not gonna watch this.
This is my Super Bowl.
I can't wait for this.
Only person I've ever knocked on doors for.
Yeah, anyway, m then let's get through the last two.
Melinda French Gates, another smart cookie, said references to her ex-husband and uh filled her with unbelievable sadness that he along with others needed to answer the question that remained.
Gates himself apologized yet again.
But I thought Melinda Gates handled herself with so much class given she keeps getting asked about her the behavior of her ex-husband.
Um, I would hate I would hate that.
I would hate that.
I thought she handled well.
And and let me add into that, you can pick either one.
CBS is pulling a 60 minute segment with longevity guru Peter Atia.
But the network's news editor in Chief Barry Weiss is reported refusing to fire him the contributor.
Um I'll weigh in very quickly here.
I've heard from a lot of Aramount people, they really want him gone.
And they should, because you can easily replace him with someone like Scott Galloway, for example, who knows all about the he's you know, Scott could actually longevity person now.
Yeah, I're the longevity person.
I'm using it for marketing.
I'm like, great, keep this, like keep this uh Epstein soiled um person who already a lot of people think is a bit of a grifter uh on there.
And plus she's added uh um Andrew Hooper in.
I know you like him, but and and Mark Iman, who is really I'm sorry, it's just cod swallow a lot of the stuff he he blablaz about.
Um anyway, uh either one.
Melinda or Yeah, but okay, so I I think I think Melinda French Gates joins a crew of women, and this is sexist, who seem to have a different approach to how they acquit themselves when they become billionaires.
And that is they're more focused on philanthropy, they demonstrate grace, they demonstrate empathy, focused on their kids, and th they have just I mean, I've told you this.
Kind of one of my personal heroes is McKenzie Scott.
Yeah, McKenzie Scott.
The approach she takes to her life and giving versus the other half of the marriage.
It's just there's something about the female brain, and this is sexist because I'm distinguishing between the sexes.
It's actually.
And by the way, let me be clear.
Let me let me piss off women.
I think men, oftentimes the male brown brain, because of testosterone and more risk aggressiveness, sometimes, more than often, make outstanding entrepreneurs.
And I think that male aggression has put us on the moon and discovered vaccines.
So let me give some credit that it's also disparaging, or people are gonna take it as a hate crime against women.
When they become billionaires, it appears that the female brain is much more about how do I help others versus how can I have the most fucking fabulous life with with, you know, in aspen.
There does seem to be a real distinct difference between these divorces and how the female side of the equation acquits themselves versus the male equation.
I would say Sergey Brennan and Ann Wajiski is another example of that.
They're everywhere.
Look at these examples everywhere.
She got dragged to Epstein Island by him too.
Look at all these examples everywhere.
And then also, though, and I think we're gonna agree on this or disagree on this, but I want to I think Dr.
Peter Atia is a fucking distraction here.
Let his colleagues, let his podcast listeners, let his podcast network, as far as I can tell, he did not commit a crime.
He just comes across as a creep.
Hold on.
Hold on.
There is credible evidence that the president of the United States, who has been mentioned 5,700 times, may have engaged in child rape.
So I could give a flying fuck about a longevity doctor and the creepy emails he sends.
This is about criminal activity amongst our our cabinet and our our president, not creepy emails from a wellness doctor.
So I don't know.
Sorry, go ahead.
I get your point.
And I I'm gonna say yes.
But do we have again, as I said before, do we have to stack rank these things?
I mean, you can say, and I agree with you.
I repeat it.
Once we want it about indictments, of course there's about to be able to do that.
They should be.
We should be focused on criminally indicting the people who have who have abused young women or young women, not women, young girls.
Girls.
Children.
Let's just go right to children.
I'm not speaking of Megan Kelly trying to figure out which age is okay.
None of them.
The 15-year-old, they're 15.
They look like they're 18, so it's okay.
They're wearing, you know, extensions, you know, like, oh my God.
Like, so I agree with you on that.
That said, it's okay to say, ew, to a like Howard Ludnig, yuck, what a liar uh about his his affiliations with thing.
It's okay to say, wow, Peter Adio, what a creepy dude.
It's okay to do that also.
That's all.
I just don't think you have to like be a DOJ releasing to the public information and to grand juries again on diamonds on criminal behavior.
And quite frankly, they should not be releasing Kevin Warsh or whatever his name is, it comes out, he's in the Epstein files because he was on an invite list.
If we had institutions we could still trust that aren't perverted by the presidents, total overrun of a coequal branch of government, you could have an FBI and a DOJ that would say, here's the information we're releasing because it's pertinent, and here's the information we're not releasing because all it does is create distraction and dilution of the real criminals.
But the guy who was head of Paul Weiss, who acquiesced very early to the Trums, he had to step down because of his.
I mean, I'm just saying there are devils.
I agree with you.
I think we are actually agreed on this.
Um, but I just would note that Peter Atier wrote the worst thing about being friends with Epstein was that he couldn't tell a soul about the fine financiers's outrageous life.
I wouldn't want to work with this fucker.
If if AI went through every email you sent, could they find shit that makes you look really bad?
Not like this.
No.
Not even close.
No.
No.
Yeah.
No, and not you either, by the way, FYI.
I don't think so either.
Come on.
Like it's mostly you like yelling at me, really.
That's what happens, people.
Oh, yeah.
Me yelling at you.
I think you got the prone.
I think you got your pronouns off there, or whatever we're calling.
Me yelling at you.
So you can make it.
No, no.
Cheryl sent you're being unfair to Cheryl Samberg.
You know what?
We had a lovely chat last night, Scott and I did, just so you know we did.
We talked.
We spoke last night.
Two two nights ago.
Last night, two nights.
Anyway, we had a lovely time.
Um okay, let's go on a quick break.
We come back.
Alphabet earnings.
Really interesting.
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It may not feel like it, but Trump's approval rating is some of the lowest in recorded history.
And it's fallen to new lows in recent weeks.
As the nation reels from recent killings of two anti-ICE protesters in Minnesota.
But not everyone thinks he's also unfortunate that the ice is being blamed for like just murdering somebody who is just so innocent, which isn're hearing from Trump voters.
A, they were provoked, B, he got ran over.
And you know, it just it's hard to tell what's real and what's not anymore.
He's delivered on virtually every promise he's made.
The economy is booming right now.
He closed the border.
We're not getting any more illegals in.
That has been done.
That was a major promise.
That's been done today, explained.
With him wherever you get your podcast.
This week on Networth and Chill, I'm talking about what happens after you've mastered the basics.
How to build wealth that actually lasts for generations.
With the top 1% holding nearly a third of the nation's wealth and 98% of them being men, breaking into generational wealth isn't just about getting rich, it's about changing who gets to stay rich.
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I'm answering your questions about calculating your net worth, whether you should rent or buy to build wealth, and how to pass your retirement accounts to your kids without losing them to probate courts.
Whether you're just getting started or already maxing out your 401k, this episode will show you how to think bigger than just making money today.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com/slash you're rich BFF.
Scott, we're back onto some earnings.
Alphabet B earnings and revenue expectations with a net income up almost 30% from the year prior.
Well done, Sundar.
The chai.
Uh the company expects 2026 cap expense to be this is incredible.
Uh 165 and 175 billion, which could be more than double 2025 spending.
And obviously, all on AI shares are down 5% in the last uh couple of days because of the time of the taping.
What do you think of these alpha minerals?
Because you've been focused on on the Google, the owner of Google.
Uh Alphabet was my stock track pick for 2025.
That the this is nothing short of staggering.
Um annual revenues uh at 400 billion right now, YouTube revenue up 9%, Google Cloud up 48%, Kara.
Oh, and by the way, OpenAI was supposedly going to kill Google Search.
Search is up 17%, Google Services Revenue up 100%.
They moved forward.
14%.
They finally moved fast.
The market was a little spooked by their CapEx expenditure.
In this case, it's a feature, not a bug, because they have the money to do it.
And you want to talk about a comeback story for the ages.
Back in 2022, the market decided that search had an existential threat with Chat GPT, and the stock was off 40%.
And guess where, guess where the stock is now since it hit that low?
It's up four fold.
And since the quarter that ChatGPT was released, Google search revenues are up 48%.
They get about 90 to 95 times the number of queries as ChatGPT.
And the thing I took away from this, these earnings were two things.
One, staggering.
And two, I think OpenAI is fucked.
They're getting attacked from the side, bianthropic with incredible positioning, highlighting their their soft tissue around advertising.
They're getting attacked from above by Alphabet, which has more probably IP and a fire hose of two billion people a day to point at their own AI platforms.
And they're getting attacked from below by these open weight LLMs out of China.
I I saw this and I'm like, Jesus Christ, this company is on fire and well managed.
And then I thought, there is no, I think we have seen the peak of open AI's valuation.
They're supposed to raising money at 850.
I think that'll be the high water mark.
All right.
Oh well, interesting.
Are now on to Disney, the company top earnings and revenue expectations with experienced department reporting over $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time.
That's the parks.
Overall revenue for the entertainment segment of the company was up 7% year over year.
Not bad, but he made another big announcement.
Uh the CEO Bob Iger.
Josh DeMoro will replace him.
He has been at Disney for 28 years and most recently served as chairman of DC Experiences, which makes it roughly 60% of the profit last year.
The company also promoted top television executive Dana Walden to president and chief creative officer.
I mean, it she gets the um consolation prize, I guess.
Once again, Scott, uh Caro was right.
Let's listen to who I predicted Disney would choose in the October of 2024.
Um, any idea who is who's gonna be the next uh Bob Iger?
Probably be someone internally.
Probably I'm guessing either Josh or uh Dana Walden.
It just seemed like it's hard to run a company like Disney if you haven't been there 103 years.
Um so uh we asked our friend and founding partner, Puck Bill Cullen for his thoughts on the transition.
Let's just quickly listen to him, what do you have to say.
In many ways, it was the inevitable choice.
Uh in some ways, it was the most ironic choice.
Uh, I say the ironic choice because of course uh Bob Chepek uh ran the parks and events uh division of Disney when Bob Iger selected him to be his first successor, and we all know that that did not work out uh at all.
And now he's got uh DeMaro as his uh successor, uh also from the Parks division.
And I say the inevitable choice because look, let's face it, that's the division that's been hitting it uh out of the ballpark uh for the last few years.
He's been monetizing uh the Disney IP uh beautifully.
They were also very smart in keeping uh the people uh around uh at uh Disney uh who uh have the skills that he doesn't have, uh including Dana Walden promoting her, Alan Bergman, Jimmy Pitaro, uh running ESPN.
So he's got a good cast around him.
If Domorrow can keep up uh what he's done at uh in in the parks and uh department and uh increase the Disney stock price, which of course is what everybody wants him to do because it's floundered for the last couple of years.
Uh he'll be a success.
If if uh he can't do those things, and it's a big question mark still, uh, he may go the way of Bob Chapik.
Uh it's too big, actually.
But uh what this really interesting.
I thought that was really smart.
I mean, i i uh i it's still you Scott and I both think this company's gonna get bought for some reason.
Just right, correct?
Are we still on that train?
If it if it doesn't get if it doesn't get bought, it's inviting an activist.
They'll give the new CEO a 24-month honeymoon period.
But I wouldn't be surprised if someone is aggregating stock right now because if you look at the 10-year returns of the SP, it's almost quadrupled.
Disney is flat.
And Bob Iger is the guy who decided after a successful tour of Vietnam to go back and basically has had his legs blown off.
I mean, the the one of the worst decisions in history in corporate history, personally, was for Bob Iger to decide to shoot his successor and come back in like he was MacArthur.
He wasn't.
He anyways, um this company will have an overhang on it until they do the following.
This should be good bank, bad bank.
It should be, if you will, it should be um the streaming service, the studio, and the parks.
They feed each other IP, their synergy, and there's flywheels.
And then they've got to get rid of um ESPN, ABC, Cable Networks, FX, Freeform, Disney Channel, Natcheo, because these things are just an anchor.
The linear businesses are just awful, but the experiences, the parks and cruises and streaming are growing and getting profitable.
And when you have a conglomerate like this, what the market does is they find the shittiest business, which is the linear business, and they assign that multiple to the entire company.
So Disney is probably, in my view, is one of the few values or good buys out there right now because it has unmatched IP.
The parks business, assuming that the tariffs are reversed and people start coming back to the US at some point, are is singular.
I don't care what anyone thinks.
If you don't take your kids and spend $1,400 a night in a shitty hotel three or four times before the age of 10, they call child services on.
They have a monopoly on the city.
It's not just that.
Not just that.
It's toys.
You have to have Disney Plus.
They they still haven't caught on to some trends.
That's my worry for them is they've got a lot of old trends, right?
A lot of old stuff.
Like uh K-pop demon hunters, for example.
That was Netflix again.
Like and some of the other ones that are very popular with kids, the more cutting edge ones, they don't seem to be on top of them.
So I would imagine that uh Dana and uh there has to really focus on that.
Like the what is hot, like they they they have the traditionals and frozen two and uh I mean three and four are coming out, which of course we have to see, and then we'll have all the things.
Um, but you know, they missed a lot of turns on the newest kind of viral phenomena that are very lasting too, right?
And so that would be my thing.
And but content isn't the point, it's the parks, it's the streaming, it's the IP, and what do you do with that?
And so to me, they have to really um understand, maybe have a little more of a range in IP or something like that, like as if as they're doing over at Netflix and other places.
Just they could be a little more innovative, but you're right, it has to be spun off.
Let Jimmy Pedaro run all of those.
I'd known him for a long time from Yahoo and very smart executive.
Their their experiences division in Q1 reported three times the operating income as the entertainment division.
The entertainment division while the the Crown Jewel there, the streaming services are actually getting some leverage.
Their operating income was up 72%.
So if you have this unbelievable singular business with enormous modes called the experiences division and you have the studios which create IP for your streaming services which is getting momentum.
And right now, you know, Netflix is Walmart and Disney is L VMH in the sense that Disney has a singular positioning around family that will be very strong for a long time in command margin.
Those two growth companies together and then you shed the problem child, the linear networks this company immediately they could I I said this last year.
I think they could sell and they won't do this ESPN ABC Entertainment Global Networks FX, all that shit, NetGeo I think they could sell it for a dollar and the company would be worth more in six months because it's an enormous overhang on those makes a lot of profits.
Every analyst, every analyst report says the following.
Good, good, great, good, but there's always a but, and that is these huge cable companies.
And by the way, that company's done it before he leaves.
You know, done.
I think he wanted a bigger number.
He put a for sale sign on these things 24 months ago.
He did, yeah.
But private equity, and there's a con now it's like whatever the one is from Comcast, someone is going to consolidate these things.
Yeah.
And by the way, that'll probably be a good stock because someone will come in and start cutting costs faster than revenue declines.
And people usually overestimate the speed of revenue declines.
That'll be a good business.
It'll be a totally different business.
There's gonna be a lot of activity because look, if Paramount doesn't get uh doesn't get Warner, that's gonna be someone on the lookout.
You've got Comcast sort of waiting in the wings.
I went to an Olympic party last night.
Boy, they have a great month coming up.
They've got the Super Bowl, they've got the Olympics, and they've got the NBA, something or other.
Uh they're calling it legendary February.
Um, you know, they've got to do something.
So there's gonna be a lot of activity here.
And you're right, the spinoff of ABC provides an opportunity for any of these players uh going forward.
Anyway, let's go on a quick break.
When we come back, uh, we're gonna talk about the Washington Post layoff, and I'm gonna get some advice from Scott Galloway.
Scott, we're back with more news.
The Washington Post has laid off about 30% of its employees.
The cuts impact both business and newsroom roles, including over 300, the roughly 800 journalists.
Interestingly, I looked at old memos.
Bezos had added up to a thousand.
He really grew it, and now he's on growing it.
Um, in all sections, the company have been impacted with a focus on sports, local news, and international coverage.
Executive editor Matt Murray told the staff the company had lost too much money for too long and will now be focused on national news and politics, business and health.
Uh maybe they can hire Peter or Tia.
Um, I want you not to say people are precious right now.
I want to talk about this because I've gotten dozens of you know, I had been interested in looking at figuring out a way to buy it.
Um I've gotten lots of calls this week from both employees, very wealthy people, people who are civically minded here in Washington, rich people.
Um what do you think's gonna happen here?
I mean, let me just very briefly, since I worked there again, I started in the mail room.
The way they did this, Bezos hasn't said a word.
The CEO didn't talk to any employees, hasn't been seen since they did this.
They handed the bag to Matt Murray to deal with it, which to me was just cowardly.
Um, you know, I put on threads.
Uh Bezos has twice the muscle, and then he's half the man from when I met him.
Um, but and that was a personal insult.
I meant it in a really very significant way.
Um what do you do with this?
What do you do?
And what do I when I get all these calls?
Like I'm doing great with the podcast, although apparently you're leaving me.
Um, I'm just banging Belarusian horrors.
It's fine.
Uh I don't care.
Consensual.
By the way, who's we'll real quick, who would have thought Hunter Biden would come across as so wholesome?
All these prostitutes are on TikTok saying he was respectful.
He likes they're all like they're all like he likes crack and having sex with grown women.
And he looks wholesome right now.
He does.
He's not in the Epstein files.
I have to say, yeah, I agree.
He looks like Richard Thomas from the Waltons right now.
Who else did I do?
Maybe Gavin Newsom.
I'm like, how did you not get in the anyway?
Um tell tell me what to do here.
Tell me what you think.
Obviously, let me just tell you, thanks, Jeff.
Really, the economics have changed.
Everybody knows this.
Stop lecturing us on things they know.
They definitely had to cut costs.
If I took it over, I I'd got cause not in this nasty, prickish way while I'm appearing with Pete Heggseth, uh, looking like I've had way too much Botox.
But uh, and I would say something to them if I was doing this, given how rich I am, and I certainly could afford it.
I don't mean to say he has to lose money, but boy, the look is so bad.
It's such a bad look.
Him swanting around Paris while he's done this and then not even speaking to them.
The whole thing just stinks the way he handled this.
Of really good people who will find who will find jobs at some point.
And but it's a lot of people in the market all at once.
So what to do here without insulting journalists?
Go ahead.
Okay, so this is Kara Swisher calling me at 11 p.m.
or midnight, asking my advisor on the Washington Post and if and how you should get involved.
Is that accurate?
Yes, correct.
Okay.
First thing I say is, hold on a second.
I gotta take my dogs out to pee because I just took edibles and I'll forget.
And if they pee on the stone, I'm I'm gonna be in a world of heritage.
That's the first thing I say.
All right, so now you're gonna.
I take the dogs on a walk and I think about it.
This is what I would say to you.
Don't touch this thing with a fucking 10-foot pole.
Because here's the bottom line.
Who should own?
First off, Jeff Bezos has made a terrible personal brand error by not doing the following.
He should have said, I have incredible reverence for uh journalism for free speech.
I bought this because I think it plays an important role in our society.
It has come to my attention, or I have decided I'm just not the right owner.
And he should have sold it to Bloomberg or some other billionaire two years ago, and they would have had a going-away party for him, and he should have wrapped himself in uh the importance of great journalism.
And there are what's so sad right now about the Washington Post is from I would call it kind of 2018 to 2023, they were on an upslope.
I started reading the Washington Post, I subscribed to it for its business news.
I thought they did a really good job of business coverage.
Talented journalists, an important good stories.
Yeah, an important American asset.
And he should have gone out.
Instead, he looks like someone who is purposefully trying to disassemble it limb by limb.
Now, the reason you should not get near this, Cara, is because if you were worth 10 billion and willing to allocate two or three billion over the next 10 or 20 years, I'd say for the good of it.
Have at it.
Yeah.
Have at it.
It's philanthropy.
Because here's the bottom line.
In an era of social media where two-thirds of news is now garnered off of social media where they don't have to pay for content, long-form, thoughtful fact-check, investigative journalism is a shitty business.
And also, let me be clear: the few newsrooms I have been in, and I've been in some important ones, there's a general expectance and entitlement that, oh, you're some rich person and you're funding my very important civic duty.
And I find there's a lack of recognition of the fact this is a private company that needs to figure out a way to make money.
I think that's been starched out of them.
But go ahead.
I agree with you.
I still think they find themselves especially precious and that billionaires owe them a living.
I don't think that.
And there may be, they may be, there may be billionaires who see an opportunity here to, if you could find a billionaire backer who said, this is so important, and there are amazing journalists, it's an important asset.
We have fewer and fewer of these assets that actually do the work and people trust.
This plays an important role in society.
I'm hoping that someone pops up and says, I'm putting together a an advisory board of 12 amazing journalists, business people that will be the oversight board, other than writing a check for 200 million dollars to subsidize this thing every year, I'm not going to be involved because I see the importance.
The same way someone writes a one or two hundred million dollar check to their favorite, you know, to PETA or to, or to uh, you know, Planned Parenthood or to whatever it might be, PBA, what whatever their philanthropy, the NAACP, this has become a philanthropy.
And I say that in the best of terms in that is it has a social good.
But as a capitalist endeavor, this shit just doesn't make any sense.
Unfortunately, if you got involved without without having billions of dollars to throw at the problem, you would just get, you would get all of the frustration with none of the credit or the appreciation, regardless of your skills in journalism.
So unless you're willing to partner, unless you can find a billionaire who says, okay, I'm going to take your guidance around an advisory board, we're going to run this thoughtfully, we're going to impose some discipline on it, but we're willing to lose 100 to 2 million, 100 million a year.
It's just going to be good money after bad and more frustration.
Could there's no restructuring of this from your perspective?
I mean, it doesn't have to be what it is, right?
You and I have both started businesses and quite successful ones.
Unless you're gonna milk it, there's no business here.
There's no cap there's no for-profit business here.
Right.
That's what I'm saying.
What else could you imagine it being?
I think it's a good idea.
What's the one in the London that you where you live?
The Guardian, right?
Don't they?
Right.
I I think in order to get profits, you have to engage in rage baiting and A-B testing and a lack of fact-checking, and not uh the New York Times has done everything right in my view, in terms of investing early in innovation and technology, and it's still a small shitty business.
Only fans will do more revenue than New York Times this year.
Absolutely.
So what do you do?
I I of course you invest in digital.
Of course you have more subscription programs, but the the the only business strategy here is the following.
You have to find a de-pocketed billionaire who says this is such an important asset.
It has such positive externalities for our society that it's worth me cutting a check for 100 to 200 million a year.
But the notion that someone's going to come in and reinvent the Washington Post with new subscriptions and new ideas, no, it's not going to happen.
I don't think that.
Let me tell you, I think there is I agree with you.
It's not a big money.
And you're right.
The New York Times is incredibly successful and it's a very small business.
I wouldn't say it's a shitty business.
It's a small business, right?
It's not, I sorry, Meredith, but it is.
It's small.
Um, but but she's done a great job with her small business.
And unbelievable.
And it's profitable, which is great.
I wonder if you could do that here and have a similar juxtaposition because the post has always been the sort of the jan to Marsha at the New York Times, right?
But I like channeling.
Pretty distant second.
I know it is a second.
It is.
And of course the journal is in there too, and that's going to undergo something when Rupert goes, you know, there's that's going to change.
Um but but it's a really interesting to me.
I know it's emotional.
I know you know you think it's emotional, but I always think like if I was handed ZBS, I'm like, I don't know what to do here.
Like I wouldn't.
The post, I'm like, well, what if we tried that?
Like, it feels like there is some opportunity here, and I don't mean to make a lot of money.
That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about making something that is sustainable, useful, profitable enough, right?
So that and and serves an enormous profitable in terms of society, right?
In helping society and helping really good journalists do what they do best and get get out of their way.
That's my feel.
There is no way you can maintain the quality of journalism and the fact checking in the investigative reporting, unless you have someone who recognizes the public good outweighs the profit mode here.
I agree.
And we keep we keep finding new people who think that they can have both.
And the reality is if you want to give people bodily autonomy and have planned parenthood in Mississippi, you're gonna lose money.
I mean, this is a public good.
Yeah.
It plays an important role.
And I pray I can't for the life of me figure out why Bezos didn't find this is the bottom line, Republican billionaires by football teams, Democratic billionaires by media companies.
Except into whatever he turned into.
Why didn't he call Michael Bloomberg and say, Michael, you already have a newsroom to handle take this off my hands for a dollar?
And Bloomberg, whatever you think of Michael Bloomberg, he's a hero of mine.
Yeah.
I think he cares about I think he cares about democracy.
I think he really appreciates journalism.
He tries to hit it down the middle.
I think he would do a great job with the post.
And he's not so insecure as Jeff Bezos.
And at some point, one of these, one of these 30 or 40 something crypto or tech billionaires is gonna pop up.
Uh, Matthew Prince from Cloudflare just pulled out of my ass.
He strikes me as a really thoughtful guy, a really nice man.
I'm like, is your legacy gonna be a a cloud-based company, or is it gonna be maybe saying journalism is important?
I'm gonna take a billion dollars and over the next decade, I'm gonna make sure that the Washington Post continues to have a lot of Or maybe maybe a lot of these people.
No fear or no favor around DC politics, or it's a consortium of them.
But it but the first meeting has to be the first meeting has to be let's be done.
Stop the fucking consensual hallucination.
We're gonna lose a hundred million dollars a year.
It's easy.
It's not easy, it's just pleasurable.
Like this era, if I'm telling you, if I were advising you personally, I'd be like, don't get fucking near this.
Look at your life right now.
You're having an impact, you're making a shit ton of money, you got young kids at home, and you want to be up late at night talking to the editor of something saying why he's pissed off of you because you went from eleven people to nine.
You don't need this shit at this point in your life.
Anyway, I do I would say, let me just tell you, the pe you please give to their guild.
They got laid off.
These are people who've done an amazing public service.
And I gave a a substantive amount of money for me to that.
Well, I'm sorry, I I I'm gonna piss off everyone.
Why are we giving money to people laid off at Amazon?
I do that with lots of layoffs, my friend.
You don't know that.
Do you do it with the 12,000 people laid off at Amazon last week?
Uh there, if there's a fund, I'd be happy to give to it.
Absolutely.
I do.
I do.
I'm sorry I do that a lot.
You don't know that.
It's quite a little thing I do.
Um, anyway, I will.
If there's one a fund for Amazon, please let me know, and I will be happy to give to it.
Uh no, you won't.
You're not gonna give money to people laid off at Amazon.
I will corporate.
You're wrong.
You're wrong.
Just because you're a greedy fuck doesn't mean I am.
I give a lot more money at least.
You really think greedy fuck is the same thing.
Yeah, I don't think that.
I think you give a lot, I think you're very generous.
I'm just saying.
Anyways, uh, I don't I I would I would like to know what the severance is.
I'll give you an example.
Th this cupcake thing called Sprinkles, the the female co-founder came on and said, This is not what my legacy wanted to be.
She sold the private equity and she gave people one day's notice when they all got fired.
Those people should be publicly shamed like crazy.
I would like to know what the severance is for these 300 people, but there are massive layoffs everywhere.
I agree.
And also those people ranking.
Those people those people are being laid off.
I this is gonna sound weird.
In some ways, they're they're gonna be better off.
The Washington Post gets very talented people in an effort to reduce costs, they've hired, they've gone younger and younger, because younger people are willing to be underpaid.
You're gonna see so many new substacks.
Mm-hmm.
You're gonna see so many little Puck is gonna hire a bunch of these people.
You're probably gonna hire one or two of these people.
These people are gonna go on to greener pastures as opposed to being subject to the whims of a billionaire who wakes up and thinks, True, oh, I don't, I don't I don't know how I feel about the post.
Lay off 300 people and keep my distance from it.
But what the fuck is he thinking?
Not finding someone else to take it off his hands.
I don't get it.
I just don't get it.
I know.
And let me just let me say a lot of the decline recently, I mean, it's definitely a secular problem, has been directly because of his stupid ass decisions.
There there was one after the next.
So a lot of this problems were because of the way he's been managing this.
And his CEO, let me just say, Will Lewis, you should be ashamed of yourself of how you've behaved and all your idiotic ideas.
We have a bunch of producers at our different podcasts.
I don't know if you can see, I have some of them behind me.
I know that, yeah.
But I I called, I sent a message to the woman who runs our company and said, we should be reaching out to some people at the post, find people that we love.
The post right now is literally a recruiter's dream.
Yep.
Everyone at the post, even the ones that the ones that didn't get laid off, will return your call right now.
Yep, that's true.
And these are very I don't quite frank I I I I feel sorry from the sense that this was their dream job.
These people are gonna be just fine.
Yeah.
These these are very talented people.
So I don't I I think part of capitalism is I get it.
You know, if you make if you make it easy to fire people, you make it easy to hire them.
I think I would bet 95% of these people in two years look back on this and go, yeah, I miss it.
It was great training, and I'm making more money and having more impact and more relevance now.
Yeah, it's true.
And I don't have to wake up and hear what a guy and parting in St.
Bart's thinks about layoffs.
I don't it's true.
It's true.
But in any case, Jeff, you're such an asshole.
Anyway, uh, one more quick break.
We'll be back for predictions.
Okay, Scott, let's uh hear a prediction.
Um, I I'm going to take a moment though, uh, before you do that, uh, to say uh Savannah Guthrie's family uh with their mom missing.
I know I've met her mom, she's amazing.
I I hope, I hope, hope they find her alive.
And it's so sad what's happening.
It's getting far too much like media is sort of jumping all over it in kind of an untoward way.
But if that helps get her back, I'm all for it.
Um, but I just want to send my love out to her family.
She she they're wonderful people.
It's really interesting, isn't it?
How some stories really kind of I mean, uh, 35,000 people have supposedly been murdered in Iran.
And that but this story really hits you because a people really, really appreciate and have a lot of fondness for Savannah.
But occasionally there's a story and it just it grabs you, right?
I mean, this story his story has really grabbed people because this is kind of everyone's nightmare, not knowing what's happening, not knowing what's going on.
But I I was really struck at how and it it's nice that occasionally people slow down and when they hear an individual story, it really moves them.
And I think actually I think the attention being brought to it is probably a good thing.
Probably is.
I think there's a lot.
If anyone sees her mom, they're gonna know it.
That's right.
Right?
That's right.
Yeah.
So I think it's anyways, I'm there's a surprising not big number of kidnappings too, like in this country.
It's very rare.
Yeah.
So we all talk about the fear of kids and kidnapping.
It's all over TV, but it's not true.
It's it's very it's very, very rare.
All right.
Let's hear a prediction from you.
So uh effectively, I don't know if this is really good news, but essentially, um there are social media bans breaking out all over the world.
Norway has a complete ban under 13, Belgium requires children under 13 to have parental permission, Germany requires parental consent for users age thirteen to sixteen, Italy requires parental consent at sign up for users under the age of fourteen, and Spain just announced that it's going to um it uh it's the latest country, uh they're banning social media kids under sixteen.
Eighty-two percent of Spaniards support banning social media for kids under fourteen.
Greece is also nearing a social media ban for children under fifteen.
Australia's implemented a similar ban.
I also just a shout out to my colleague Jonathan Heid.
I think this would have happened anyway, but he's expedited it, and I think he deserves a lot of credit for this.
Sure has.
Um I mean, if you for those of you thinking about going to academia, you can go into academia, study social science, get a PhD in psychology, and someday get entire nations to ban phones in schools.
So to think that academics don't matter, it's you can have a lot of impact.
Anyways, that's not my prediction.
Um, my prediction is that this is essentially not only common sense around our children, but this is the beginning of reciprocal tariffs.
What do I mean by that?
Other nations are sick of the sclerotic, irrational, punitive economic warfare that the Trump administration has levied on them with tariffs.
And their tariffs are the following: they're gonna start banning our social media platforms.
Uh, the UK is already going after X.
You are going to start to see over the course of the next 12 to 24 months, entire nations say, you know what?
Maybe we don't need YouTube here.
Maybe Meta should not be here.
Maybe and they'll be Zoom.
I think France is stopping using Zoom and the government.
They're going to blanket in, okay, Meta is bad for children, which is true.
But the real motivation, in my view, is going to be like, you know what?
We're kind of sick.
If you're going to start making it harder for Americans to buy our Mercedes and our Vuitton, we're going to make it harder for people to watch YouTube and be on Instagram.
I think European nations and the rest of the G7 are sick of big tech coming in, sucking billions of dollars out of their economy in exchange for opening a Facebook office in Milan.
Their newspapers are going out of business, their media companies are going out of business, their manufacturers are going out of business.
And this is essentially the thing that is tipping these companies over and giving them the backbone to start banning these things, and it's going to go up the food chain pretty soon.
You're going to see a large nation say, you know what?
I don't think we need Google.
So this is, while it's being done under the very righteous and worthwhile cause of protecting children, which I celebrate and I think is important.
Effectively, what this is is a reciprocal tariff.
And pretty soon it's going to start creeping up.
You know what's going to happen?
Big countries are going to decide, you know what?
We no longer wanna use Goldman Sachs and McKinsey to do our banking.
If you're going to start fucking with us, we're gonna start fucking with you.
And they certainly speaking of consumers, they're consumers.
So they can speak with their, they can walk, they can walk.
That's the thing.
And there are alternatives.
I love the idea of consumers speaking with their with their spending power.
Yeah.
I think it makes all the sense of it.
I know you do.
That's why you look like a like an unsuccessful pimp this week.
What's your outfit for next week?
I don't know.
I'm thinking I bought I I'll give you a hint.
I'll I'll give you a hint.
Okay.
I have a hockey jersey and I'm not wearing any pants.
Oh, nice.
That's good.
Good.
Beyond brands.
That's perfect.
That's perfect.
On trend and on brand.
Uh that's a really that's really important, Scott.
And I think you're right.
This is there are before when when these come Europe was not innovative the way the US has been on all these services, there are alternates right now.
There are so many alternates to everything.
If the if Silicon Valley thinks they hung the fucking moon, well, they did.
They might have, but no longer.
And there are alternates in every single category now that you don't have to put up with the ridiculous midlife crisis antics of Jeff Bezos or whatever, whatever fresh hell Meta's gonna leap unleash upon us.
There are choices now.
And some of them might be China, by the way.
And that's that's saying a lot if they're that's where they're going.
So I agree with you.
I think it's really important.
Um, just so you know, everyone, we will talk about Moltbook and Open Claw next week.
It's fine.
Agent to agent was always the plan, but um, we'll talk about that.
It's interesting.
And we also will talk about um uh section 230.
There's been a new bill to overturn and replace it.
Um oddly enough, I ran into uh Joseph Gordon Levitt uh this week and he was here helping.
We'll talk about that next week because section two there is really interesting.
I had some really interesting discussions with him and others about it.
Can I just say I love the image of you being barely able to see over the mail card going around and people mistaking you for a 15-year-old boy?
Can I just say I love that image?
I love that you started the Washington Post mail room.
That is really cool.
I reorganized it.
That is really cool.
It was so messy.
I reorganized all the boxes because I'm so anal retentive.
I remember doing that.
Like, what are you doing?
I'm like, this is inefficient.
And I was like, in college.
It's true.
I was slightly.
Hey little fella, don't worry, he'll grow.
Oh, wait, no, that's Kara Fusher.
Anyway, they didn't know my name at all.
And let me tell you, from doing that, everybody who was talented was nice to me.
Untalented people were assholes.
It was really true.
I worked in a mail room.
I worked in a mail room of Southwestern University School of Law where my mom ran the secretarial pool and we used to have lunch together.
And here we are together again without my picture behind you.
Anyway, I'm not offended.
But here's the thing.
I'm gonna have to move to a five.
Everyone's all over me.
Are you selling your Apple stock?
Did you unsubscribe to this?
I'm gonna have to move to Ted Kacinski's shed and have no entertainment and have a ham radio.
Because I'm running out of things to unsubscribe to.
I wanted to binging that gay hockey thing, which I think could easily turn me something.
Yay.
What do you think?
Really quickly.
What do you think?
That's just funny because we'll have a bonus episode tomorrow.
I spoke to the executive producers of Heated Rivalry about how they made the breakout hit for a fraction of the cost of other major streaming shows and what they've got coming out next.
What do you think so far?
I made Scott watch Heater Ribley.
I think it's an important series for young men to watch because there's different forms of leadership and masculinity and empathy and love and sexual identity.
And I'll I gotta be honest, Kara, every time I see something like this, I'm reminded of how many people I lost to AIDS back in the in the 90s.
And I don't think I hope and trust that young people and especially gay men realize how important science is and how fortunate they are and that America has made a lot of progress around these issues.
Uh I can't watch anything about gay men and not think about the 90s.
You and I both, absolutely.
Anyway, I'm so glad you're watching it.
I hope I can't wait till you get to episode five.
Anyway, we want to hear from you, and we have some homework for our listeners today.
Send us a message about your favorite or least favorite Super Bowl ad after the big game on Sunday.
Go to ny mag.com slash pivot or call eight five five five one pivot.
Also, I woke up this morning in a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, a half bottle drink of Jack and a condom hanging out of my ass.
I don't know if that has anything to do with anything.
We're taking that out.
Go to nymag.com slash pivot or call eight five five five one pivot.
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Today's show is produced by Larry Amons Noy Marcus and Taylor Griffin.
Ernie Interchot engineered this episode.
Manolo Moreno edited the video.
Thanks to also Jibros, Miss Severe on Dan Shallon.
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