# AI CapEx Bubble, Media Consolidation, and Crypto Winter

**Podcast:** Pivot
**Published:** 2026-02-10

## Transcript

Megan Rpino here.
This week on A Touch More, Gotham FC's Arose Lavelle joins us to talk about FIFA's very first champions cup, her incredible year of wins, and some of her greatest pranks of all time.
Unfortunately, on yours truly.
Plus, with the WMBA's CBA negotiations still stalled, I gotta ask the question is it time to worry?
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Really, they tend to orient towards the things that they like about the season instead of just sort of seeing it as a time of year to endure.
How to embrace the winter.
That's on the next Explain It to Me.
New episodes every Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts.
Jeff Bezos, let me speak to you directly.
I don't like you, you don't like me, so what?
Hi, everyone.
This is Pivot from New York magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher.
And I'm Scott Galloway.
Go Seahawks!
You like the Seahawks?
I like Jodie Allen, the owner.
Uh sister of Paul Allen.
I know her tiny bit.
Um, I knew Paul, her brother who died, um, who was one of the Microsoft founders.
Just really cool lady.
And uh, I can't stand Robert Kraft.
I think he's a terrible person.
I the whole cat's family was for uh the Patriots, it's only because they live there.
Nobody likes Robert Kraft.
So I was happy about that.
I like the Seahawks.
Well, I'm happy you're happy.
Yeah.
The thing that summarized how I feel about it was the Elmo account said, I hope both teams have a really fun time.
That's about how much I care about the Super Bowl.
And the other one was Elmo said, he's not a bad bunny, he's a good bunny.
He's a good bunny.
We'll get to that.
But first, let's have a little bit of um resist and unsubscribe.
How's it going, Scott?
You everywhere.
You're like, you are like the village whores, they say.
But go ahead.
No, I'm not I'm not a whore.
I'm a whore.
I'm a hoe.
I'm a hoa.
You are everywhere.
We have a montage of Scott everywhere.
Let's check it out.
Resist and unsubscribe.
Resist and unsubscribe.
Explain to me why I should unsubscribe from Amazon Prime.
If you really want to hurt or send a message to the president.
What he does listen to is the following.
If you look at the times when he has really checked back, immediately responded and pulled back.
It's been when one of two things has happened.
The bond market yields have spiked, or the SP has gone down.
This is when he backed off of his plans to annex Greenland.
It's when he's backed off of tariffs.
When you go after big tech platforms with just a small decline in spending, this is what moves the market.
I think the string we can pull here is to go after the subscription revenues of big tech that now represents 40% of the SP.
You're hitting them with a $10,000 decrease in market cap with just one subscription cancellation.
So this is a chance to go after the soft tissue of big tech whose leaders the president appears to be listening to.
Soft tissue, you make hard.
Tell me.
So tell me where we are.
Came out of the gate strong.
We're getting about 100,000 uniques a day.
And I asked ChatGBT if I wanted to get 100,000 uniques with no paid, or what would it cost me to drive 100,000 people to a site.
Okay.
It was interesting.
It said 100 to 200,000 for the site, but it would take four to five million dollars.
So we're getting quote unquote 45 million dollars in traffic to the site with and I haven't paid a dime for anything.
No, just your time.
Um but it started going down earlier in the week.
So I did some research on the uh bus strike in Alabama and then the Kimmel thing.
And what it ended up was that the study from Kellogg, which I'm really into about, protests that are effective versus those that aren't, is the unsubscribed to Disney were actually declining dramatically, but the thing that got Disney to reverse course was a ton of uh um media that was shaming them and creating dissent.
And that the media that impacted that was traditional media.
So I decided on Tuesday I was gonna get on as much traditional media as I could, and I was able to do it.
And then all of a sudden the site visits are now back to about 100,000.
But just to do the math, uh a good e-commerce site gets two to four percent uh conversion.
This gets more because these are people just coming to the site.
People are unsubscribing two to five platforms, so let's call it three.
So I'm thinking I'm getting about 10,000 unsubscribes a day or 300,000 subscribes over the course of um anyways.
I've done the math here.
I think I think I can notionally take about a quarter of a billion dollars of market cap out of these companies.
And does that change anything?
It doesn't, but it's irritating.
It's a voice in the choir.
And I asked ChatGPT what it thought of the resistance movement so far.
A one is you throw a party, no one shows up, it damages your reputation, makes other protests less successful.
In 10 is the president and Sam Altman are, you know, forced to scale back some of this stuff.
And it said right now you're at a six, and that is people in product management teams are probably talking about it, but not the executives yet.
Oh, they are.
And I thought that was sort of a fairly honest appraisal of where we are.
But yeah, I've I've been all over the place.
I've heard from a lot, my my sons know about it.
Like I'm just telling you, it's got a lot more uh I'm getting texts from people I haven't heard from in a while.
Um, so it's interesting.
And they all like it because here's why.
They have it's you can do something, right?
Like, I can do that.
That's easy, right?
It's not easy.
I just I should do that.
Like it gives you permission to do something you kind of were gonna do, and it it gives you a framework and instructions, right?
So that's why it's successful, I think, in that regard.
I think you have to do some more podcasts, maybe, possibly.
Yeah.
Maybe Joe Rogan, that's where I would go.
Yeah.
Well, Rogan has invited me, but yeah, next week.
This week was traditional media.
This um sorry, last week was traditional media.
This week I'll start doing The O'Vaughn, those people.
More pods and stuff like that.
Um, I need to do I was just on Pierce Morgan and that digressed into a food fight with some ultra-conservative guys calling me desperate and trying to tank the U.S.
economy because we lost the elephant.
Yeah, that's what you're doing.
Um, but anyways, yeah, I I think you're right.
I think I have to not food fight people.
Don't do the food fights.
Don't go on any of those.
Like, you should go on like a Brett Bear or someone like that would be useful, but or any any of the more reasonable people over there, not at handy because it's a food fight.
Like, you don't need a food fight for this.
Like, you need a like just let me explain it to you.
I think Rogan baby with The Vaughn, um, any of those people, and they like you, right?
Go on the let them, go on Mel's thing, go on, like go on.
Yeah, but Mel makes you come up to Boston.
That's the problem.
Mel invited me on.
I really like Mel's podcast.
Then you have to hug everybody.
So I was invited to go on the PBD podcast, but similar to Mel, he makes you come to him and he's in Fort Lauderdale.
So I don't know.
I should probably make the effort.
Oh, not that guy.
Well, yeah, I'm not sure.
He's a terror.
He is constantly wrong.
If you want to be part of the resistance, you have to go behind everything.
He's gonna do a food fight with you.
Whatever.
You're gonna do end up doing a stupid food fighting.
I you need to go on people that want to listen and we'll have a normal debate with you, but not like, ooh, you don't you don't want to be used as a chew toy for the right on this one.
I'm I'm sorry, it just doesn't chew toy for the right.
Yeah, yeah.
I like that.
Um, so I don't know.
Well, well, I'll think of more ideas.
I have some more ideas and stunts.
I mean, like, you'd be better off on like a Mr.
Beast or like somewhere like something where there's more yeah, like that kind of stuff.
Like just one of the one of the ground zero CEOs called me Saturday morning, and they're so good, they're so smart.
They're just like, I just want to understand it better.
How are you?
What could we do better?
And like I got off the phone and I'm like, maybe I should take them off the list.
I'm like, oh my god, it's worth it's what they do.
It's what they do.
These are massaging your feet.
That's what they're doing.
They're massaging your feet, they're not like your feet.
They're like, you know, we have some disagreements, but I really respect what you're trying to do here, Scott.
I'm like, oh my gosh.
I saw the post made you one of the 50.
You gotta believe I was number 49.
Yeah, right there.
But hold on.
Oh, they're after you.
They want to message your own.
Hi Trump.
Hi Trump is one of the fifth.
I didn't even know there was a Kai in the Trump family.
Yeah, she's a good golfer, I guess.
That's fine.
Yeah, whatever.
It's a pretty it's a pretty random list.
You know what I say.
You could smile more.
You could smile more.
No smiles in those pictures.
No, the reason I have a hundred thousand dollars in veneers is so I don't have to fucking smile.
I understand.
I was just I was just using the lady thing.
Anyway, let's get to the Super Bowl.
Anyway, I'll think of more ideas.
I'll think of I'm I appreciate more stunts.
More stunts.
We could let's figure out a stunt for South by Southwest, something like that to keep it going.
That's coming up.
You didn't watch the Super Bowl, right?
No?
No.
I have almost no interest in the Super Bowl.
So did you watch any you watch the ads on other places where they have I watched some of the ads that people sent to me.
Yeah.
Many of them stand out.
I still like the anthropic ones I have to say.
I thought I thought they won the day.
Uh I didn't like the one on the Jewish kid being bullied.
You didn't I didn't I don't too to virtue signaling.
I think there are better, more effective ways to talk about the risks of anti-Semitism.
I I actually don't in a weird way I feel like it almost normalizes it or raises the prospect of bullying a Jewish kid.
A little after school special kind of tone that kind of thing.
Yeah I don't know I I'm so far out of it but I have I do see my kids at school I'm shit I don't know this is like a it's so funny what I noticed with I don't know if you've noticed this I went to my kid's school uh when he was a seventh grader in middle school, and there were ninth graders come down the hall, and I was way behind him, and I thought, oh, this is gonna be interesting.
In the seventh grade, if I ran into ninth graders in an unsupervised environment, they would pants me and throw me in the trash and take my lunch money.
Sorry.
And instead, now they're like, hey little man, and they high-five them.
Yeah.
I think things have changed a lot.
For some people.
In school.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't.
Anyways, but um, the ads are always fun to watch.
I don't I just could the whole bad bunny thing.
I'm like, he's the most popular entertainer in the world.
Let him sing.
Let him cook.
We'll get to Bad Bunny in a second, but my favorite, I I liked, I really like the anthropics.
I like the elf ad.
I like the funny ones.
The elf ad.
There's a whole bunch of them that were super funny.
And I I prefer those.
And of course, I have to say, the Lay's potato chip ad got me.
Got me.
Oh my god, I thought that was so fucking ridiculous.
I know, but it got me.
I agree.
I knew about the family farm.
We fetishized manufacturing and farmers.
The family farm is a corporation that's bought out all these little farmers 30 years ago.
And yet it got me.
I did I want I was like, don't, don't.
Oh how many, how many college grad girls do you think are trying to help dad with the family?
Like right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She's she's in PR for Prada dating a hedge fund manager.
And her father's put her through Hollywood.
Yeah.
And she's hoping, she's hoping to get a mini-series.
But no, she's gonna go home to Iowa to farm with a wear a car heart.
She had a beautiful that car heart didn't have a speck of fucking dust on it.
Did you notice that?
She had like It was a Ralph Lauren ad.
I know, I know.
Nothing to do with the family.
But the potato chips are delicious, let me just say.
I like a lay's potato chip.
They're quite good.
They're good chips.
They're a good chip.
They're a fine chip.
Um, I'm trying to think which other one was funny.
I didn't like the really, I didn't like the Emma Stone one or the George Clooney one.
They were weird.
I don't want the weird ones.
I like the funny ones like the Instacart.
I thought the elf one was funny.
Um I have I I will have to say the Jesus one was good.
The Christian, like Jesus knows.
I thought it was Oh, those are always nice.
That not always.
That one was well done.
No, the way uh I thought they were really powerful.
I don't know if it's the same people, the the Jesus washed their feet, that one.
That was a good one.
Do you remember that from a few years ago?
That's a different one, yeah.
This is a different one.
Yeah.
That kind of reminds me, and it's uh not totally related, but just FYI, Donald Trump is mentioned more times in the Epstein Files than Jesus is mentioned in the Bible.
Just saying.
Or that the word meth is said in all eight seasons of breaking bad.
Yeah.
But anyways, not related.
Not related.
Um anyway, they were they were pretty, they were decent ads.
They weren't I wouldn't I would say the anthropic still, head and friggin' shoulders.
I opened A had one that was somewhat effective, a little bit, I guess.
No, that was good.
It was solid, but not like the anthropic.
They got knocked out by anthropic, I thought.
But if the thing I looked at, or the the the only kind of insider thing I found really interesting is if you look at the ads, a quarter of them were AI.
Uh 15 of the 66 were AI.
The last time tech was as dominant in the Super Bowl in advertising, there's been two times in the last 50 years.
Oh, when they all went out of business.
One was in 2022 when it was called the Crypto Bowl.
And it was Binance and FTX.
And look what in that year, that was the year crypto blew up and there were a ton of bankruptcies.
And then the time before that, what year?
The money coming out of my butt year.
Remember that one?
It was 2000.
January 2000.
Uh, a quarter of the ads were from dot com.
And look what happened.
So if you look at economic history as a ratio or as the ratio of tech ads being above a certain amount, it implies this year is when AI crashes.
Yeah.
I'll tell you when I hate it, was the Mike Tyson one.
I'm sorry.
I just like I it was my government money.
Like it was my dollars paying for Mike Tyson, who has issues of his own, to tell me to eat an apple and that fat people are loathsome.
I'm sorry, that was really grotesque.
I've met Mike Tyson, he's a chain smoker.
I know.
I was literally like, that's my fucking tax.
I was just telling me to eat an apple.
Thanks.
That was really gross.
And of course, these Maha people are such you know it was all their friends that made the idea.
And of course, Brett Ratner was the director.
Oh god.
Sexual harasser was someone who convicted him.
I think that's them waving their middle finger in our face.
Yeah, but I know.
That's my money.
That's my like I that's my money.
Cut it out.
Don't tell me to eat an apple.
But let me just focus on the bad bunny halftime show.
It knocked it out of the park with a projected 108 uh 28 million viewers.
Apple was the one who did it, and Rock Nation was the producer.
They've they've been doing that's Jay-Z's group, has been doing a lot of the really great Super Bowl uh ones.
And so Jay-Z's been in charge of picking Super Bowl halftime for the last seven years.
They've been really good, actually.
Uh turning Point USA, of course, had a live stream of an all-American show featuring Kid Rock, who looked like he was lip syncing, it seemed.
I I the reaction and re re-reaction to Bad Bunny show was so joyful and fun, and it was so full of if you wanted to go into it and look at the layers of you know, he's such an artist.
Like he's he's not just the biggest artist in the world.
But not just that.
It was so full of stuff, but you could also just enjoy it if you didn't know about it.
It was fun.
Right.
And there was always I realized like people asked me what I thought of the performance.
I'm like, uh it's not for me.
If Tom Petty or George Michael can't be there, which they can't, but what I realized is it's not for me.
And it was a brilliant move on behalf of Roger Goodell because the NFL is investing in the future because more than 50% for the first time ever of people under the age of 18 are non-white.
And people identifying people saw it as anti-American at Puerto Rican or Ecuador and Fox.
No, Reagan said it best.
Anyone can come to America and be an American.
And that's uniquely what makes America America.
They're so buttered because they are not the culture war, is they're not winning it.
Nobody wants to watch Kid Rock.
And by the way, I should I should do a dramatic reading of Kid Rock's lyrics.
You know, these people that were they were defending, including that guy's show.
You want to go on?
They're like, oh, Kid Rock.
I'm like, literally, he talks about putting balls in the mouth.
Come put your ball in the room.
Okay, but the rhetoric there is now do rap stars.
Of course, but it this wasn't Bad Bunny.
Like, fine.
Like, so it was a bunch of really small.
It was pretty clean.
I agree.
You know who the other big winner was in the Super Bowl?
Was the prediction market apps?
Yeah.
Calci download spike last month, uh, the app recording four million downloads in January.
That's up from less than two million in December.
And not only that, it's going to be a good one.
You knew it's killing.
It's killing the gambling apps.
The prediction market apps from DraftKings and FanDuel got just a hundred thousand downloads.
Certainly the more people that use it, the better.
Um, but let me just finish up on Bad Money.
It was a great show.
It was very like, you know, you had Pedro Pascal as a background person.
And and and Cardi B and um uh uh a whole bunch of people.
And I thought Ricky Martin was lovely looking fantastic, and they gaga was great.
It was so joyful.
And for them to like attack it and shows just what a bunch of fucking losers they are.
I'm sorry.
They just really are.
They it was so beautiful and so ha life affirming and forward thinking, and it is where our country is in a lot of ways.
And I all I wanted to do is like I've been trying to um take Spanish myself.
It's a beautiful language.
I took it for five years in high school, or I took them to seventh or twelfth grade.
I can barely order in a Mexican restaurant.
Me too.
I have to learn this.
Is the year I learned Spanish.
This is the year I think.
But but what I try to do is I try to take economic trends away from the Super Bowl, specifically the advertising, and the two trends are the following.
One, it looks like this is the year that AI might crash because there's so much cheap capital going into it vis-a-vis the Super Bowl.
And the second thing is there's been a huge transfer in economic value or market capitalization from the gaming apps to the prediction apps.
In just the last three months, the earnings per share estimates for Flutter Entertainment, which is the gaming or the gambling apps, has been cut in half.
And DraftKings earnings estimates are also down 29%.
The biggest apps were the gambling apps, and now the speculation markets are taking their are eating their lunch.
Absolutely.
And as you noted, the NFL made a great choice here in terms of how it handles smart smart, really smart.
But um also good for San Francisco, looking great.
All these people are like, what were they talking about?
Looking great.
San Francisco's on the upswing.
And uh I have to say, um, oh, it was great for it, it's great for your city.
It was like Chamber of Commerce.
I the only time I turned it on uh was late at night, it was like 11 30, and it or and it started, and it was this uh immediately this beautiful vista of the Golden Gate Bridge around around the golden hour.
And you're just like, wow.
Occasionally there's a moment where you're in California, and you're like, why did I go?
All the time.
Why did I leave the gas?
Exactly.
Every fucking day of the week is placed on Sundays.
When I wake up at my house, the fog comes in over the Golden Gate, cleans all the shit out of the air, and then it's crystal clear and sharp.
And I mean, it is a beautiful.
Every morning I wake up there, Scott, I weep.
Louis's moving there, just so you know, my son is will will be moving to San Francisco and working for someone who's in politics there, but I'm so jealous of him.
Anyway, he's living in our in the cottage.
Almost says bad bunny's a good bunny.
He's a good bunny.
Um, anyway, um, let's move on to the to speaking of crypto.
Well, the Dow hit a milestone high of 50,000 last week.
Crypto has been heading the other way into a crypto winter again.
Bitcoin has just had its worst weekly decline in more than three years, down roughly 45% from its all-time high last October.
The downturn is being blamed on a few things.
Volatility in other markets, tariff fears, uncertainty around Fed share nominee Kevin Morse.
I don't know about that.
The ongoing decline has been brutal.
For some of crypto's biggest champions, Michael Saylor's strategy, I know you're an admirer, just reported a $12.4 billion quarterly loss.
Wow.
But don't expect a Bitcoin bailout.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant said congressional hearing last week that he has no authority to do that.
Um course, Trump was crypto president.
Nice job, David Sachs, by the way.
Um they got what they wanted, the crypto people from Trump, everything they wanted.
Um they got rid of uh the as the Gary Gensler, they got rid of Sherrod Brown, they got rid of critics.
What's happening here?
Well, first off, I should just point out that I am easily the worst crypto investor in history.
Yes, because you just put it.
I finally threw in the towel and I bought some shares in a Bitcoin treasury company.
I bought it at 14, and within 45 days, I sold it at $4.55.
Oh, nice done.
Well done.
Well done.
Yeah, well done.
Uh look, CoinMarketCap's crypto and fear greed index is now at a nine, indicating extreme fear.
This is the highest reading in the index's nearly three years of existence.
Bitcoin, they Bitcoin's basically been cut in half since it's high.
And investors um had two and a half billion dollars of Bitcoin liquidated in just one day alone.
Even after Friday's certain Bitcoin, Bitcoin and then the others have gone down 90.
Now, not like the Milani according to Trump.
Oh, the shit coins, yeah.
Even after Friday's rebound, Bitcoin is down 43% from its peak.
And then the and the stocks related to Bitcoin per year comments have been hammered.
MicroStrategy is down nearly 70% from its peak last summer and down 15% this year.
Coinbase is down 60% from its summer peak, down 30% this year, and Tom Lee's Bitmine is down 85% from its peak and 34% this year.
Crypto volatility is currently about 8x higher than that of the S P 500.
But what I would say is the following, and I don't get this market.
I I I I respect that Bitcoin has established itself as a tangible asset because of scarcity value, because of its technology.
I think the rest is pure speculation.
But what typically has happened over the last decade is when Bitcoin has these drawdowns and there's all this fear over the last 10 years, when we look back, those have been buying opportunities.
So I don't, I mean, I I always like to talk about what I'm thinking of doing.
If Bitcoin keeps getting hammered, I actually might buy a little bit.
Not because I believe in crypto, but because I like diversification.
And I do think this market is incredibly volatile.
I do think Bitcoin has established itself as a legitimate asset class.
But there's just what's unusual is typically Bitcoin is meant to be, it should benefit from a weak dollar in inflation, and it's not.
And it should uh it ends up that it's not the default contraindicator of a weakening dollar.
So silver, gold, that's kind of stuff.
We'll see.
At the end of the day, the crypto is really it's not investing, it is speculation.
I I would argue that a little bit of money, one to three percent of your portfolio in Bitcoin may not be a bad idea.
And only Bitcoin, not the other shit coins.
I would not do any of the others.
The others to me are just greater full theory come to life.
Yeah.
And you have to watch it every day and all this that it can take a real you volatility is fine.
If you're willing to endure volatility, it means you'll get greater returns.
But what you want to do is you want to diversify across multiple volatile asset classes such that your mental health is somewhat protected.
You know, you just one of the reasons I like owning real estate is I don't have a scorecard every day.
Yeah.
You just hope for the best.
If you if you're looking at your phone too much, and you're really good at this, if you're looking at your phone too much because you're checking your stocks all the time, A, that's that's a hit to your human capital, and B, you don't want to be, you never want to go all in on one thing because the markets trump individual dynamics and e Amazon.
If you bought $10,000 worth of Amazon in 1999, it was worth $400 by two by the end of 2000.
And that takes a huge emotional toll on you.
So what you want to do is you want to be, you want to be diversified and you want to be in good good ETFs, good indexes, and then put them away and not look at them and think of them as things you want to hone for five or ten years.
Look at them once a quarter if you can.
I don't look at all.
But you know that's yeah.
Yeah, I I think your approach to investing is actually the right approach for you.
It doesn't really matter.
My kids I'm just thinking I was doing again the math again that I keep forgetting to do.
And I'm like, well, when when Saul is gonna be able to drink, he'll be 21, Alex will be 37, I'll be a hundred and fucking twelve.
So it doesn't really matter to save for retirement.
It doesn't.
You don't even buy green bananas anymore.
I all I need is money to put me in a home and have nice nurses.
That's all I and I I can swing that with what I've got, even if I lost a lot.
Anyway, I'll be pushing you around.
No, no, wrong.
I'll be pushing.
Other way.
Uh and I'll hire really hot nurses.
I'll manage that.
I'll manage that side of your life.
I'll manage them for you.
What are you talking about?
I'm like, yes, he's a little handsy, but just like put up with it.
You know, I'll give you an extra 10.
A little handsy.
A little handsy.
Handsy ish.
Slap them.
Just slap them.
I told you.
Yeah.
I already have my my nurse picked out.
A guy named Manuelo, very big, with very well voicedurized hands.
I'll have some men there that manhandle you.
Anyway, let's go on a quick break.
We come back, Amazon's spending spree and what Jeff Bezos is saying about the Washington Post's future, all stupid things, just FYI.
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Scott, we're back.
Amazon's spending plans are making waves on Wall Street after the company signal massive categories ramp up.
Amazon said it expects to spend about 200 billion dollars in 2026, nearly a 60% increase from last year.
Uh CEO Andy Jassy justified the spending by sending strong demand for AI, robotics, chips, and satellites.
Makes sense for their business in a lot of ways.
The announcements appears to spook investors, though, sending stock down 10% and wiping $133 billion off of Amazon's market cap.
What a massive amount.
Let's talk about $1.2 billion last year, down from $9 billion the year before time.
Even though profits uh jumped roughly 45%.
So, what Scott says is corporate taxes.
Just like this has been a boon for Trump has been a boon for these people.
Um, so talk a little bit about these spending, because you know, they they they need to spend in robotics.
They obviously need AI to go with the robotics and chips and of course satellites delivery.
They they have such an unusual business that it's both analog and and and advertising and where they market things.
It seems like a company that should be spending here, but your thoughts?
Well, uh the problem with, or one of the things that makes our economy so fragile is there's just a small number of companies that can make the can allocate this sort of capital.
And this week and last, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft unveiled plans to spend a combined $660 billion on AI build-out this year.
That's a 60% increase from last year.
Apple is the only big tech company whose CapEx decreased from last year.
And the in the sheer magnitude is just shocking.
That's three times the global RD of the pharmaceutical industry.
So we're now spending more on data centers and chips.
We're spending treble what we're spending on trying to research treatments for cancer and diabetes.
It's more, they're spending more than it costs to build the U.S.
Interstate highway system.
We're spending more.
Those those four companies are going to spend more than we spent on the Apollo Moon program and the International Space Station combined.
And it's the equivalent of spending about $2 billion a day on AI.
And but what I think you're looking for, if I look at the stocks that are responding to the market positively versus negatively, it's okay, a big I is really impressive because it separates you from the rest.
Like SNAP can't spend billions of dollars to increase the AI targeting of its ad stack of its ad stack.
Most companies just can't spend that kind of money.
But the companies, the company that's really done well here is a company that not only has the huge I, huge capex, but also is right away showing that they can garner the return that justifies that I.
And that company is Meta.
Meta is showing uh increased click-through, increased advertising, increase ARPU, and it's saying this is working for us, so we're gonna outspend every other media company in the world, maybe with the exception of Alphabet.
But these types of investors, there's just no getting around them.
They're absolutely staggering.
I can't figure out if it's good or bad.
I guess it's I'm hoping it results in a lot of vocational jobs.
Wouldn't you imagine lots of their business does need this kind of stuff?
Like you're thinking of speaking of advertising, they do a lot of it in marketing, right?
So they have to understand what's effective to to bring up for people when they search on Amazon.
Um, their their logistics of of their various centers where they the fulfillment centers, the robotics.
It seems like a lot of this stuff does lend itself to AI being more efficient in that or giving them efficient instructions.
It's it would I would imagine their business lends itself to this.
And you're right, they're the only ones that can spend this much.
Um and then once it's spent, nobody can catch them ever, ever.
Ever, ever, ever.
It's just gonna have very weird second order effects.
Because if you look at where the money's being spent, if you look at data centers, most of them could have their lights up during the day.
They uh a huge data center that costs hundreds of millions to build, employs what a Chile's employs.
And so obviously a huge burst in vocational skills, but then what happens?
There's no really ongoing employment here.
And what what I look at is all right, if you think about I mean, people say is AI going to affect me.
And my standard line has been AI is not going to take your job.
Someone who understands AI is going to take your job.
And what you need to think about is AI complementary to what I'm doing, or is it a substitute?
And Justin Woofers, the economist from Michigan, pointed this out.
If you think about sex, my mother was a secretary.
She would be out of work right now because AI came along and word processors.
At the same time, everyone thought ATMs was going to put bank tellers out of business.
There are now more bank tellers than there were pre-ATM ATM.
Because what they said is, let's use technology to upskill you so you can give people mortgages, figure out their financial planning.
So it just is at a ground level, it's like, okay, how do I use AI as a weapon as opposed to being on the wrong end of the weapon?
But this is the economic reshaping here is just is staggering.
But I do think we're at that point now with all great technologies that end up going on to be hugely important.
That this is um, I think we're overdue for a correction.
And the technology I keep coming at, and I'm about to buy stock, is Nova Nordis just hit a like a five-year low.
Nova Nordisk actually rebounded yesterday, but Nova Nordis, uh, the maker of, I think it's I forget which one it is, was Emperor Rugovi.
And I'm I always tell people the most important technology is not AI, it's GLP one.
And talk to somebody who loves AI and uses it.
So yeah, there was there was an ad for it.
No, Serena really Super Bowl, by the way.
Well, talk to anyone who's someone who uses a lot of AI at their work, really enjoys it, gets a lot of use out of it.
And then there, but that person is also on GLP1.
Ask them what's having a more profound impact on their life.
Can you can you do a short rant about the corporate taxes and the benefits of being in the Trump administration for these companies by sucking up?
Well, look, as a percentage of as a percentage of GDP, corporate taxes have never been lower.
And as a percentage of uh GDP wages have never been lower.
And as a percentage of profits, corporate profits have never been a higher percentage of the SM of GDP.
In sum, there's always a healthy tension between capital and labor.
But basically what you have with AI, shareholders love AI.
Because what you're seeing across all of these companies is margin expansion but no incremental increase in employment.
And then lower taxes.
That's great for shareholders.
And then the lower tax argument is basically the strategy for the last 40 years in the Republicans is if we just lower taxes, it'll trickle down.
All it's doing is just pushing back debt on young people.
But if you just look at the balance, if you just assume at some point we have to pay for our Navy and our parks and for food stamps, the question is, well, who pays?
Yeah.
I can't believe they went from 9 billion to 1.2 billion.
That is a savings.
That is a oh God, I wish my own.
Amazon's under the Trump's new tax law, the companies, this is Amazon's corporate tax bill fell to 1.2 billion.
Automatic expensing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's really the tax code has gone from 400 pages to 4,000.
And the 3,600 paces, one by one kind of fuck the middle class.
And it wasn't, these aren't malicious people say, let's fuck the middle class.
What they are is really talented people on behalf of lobbies like Amazon that says, let's figure out a way to expense all capital expenditure in year one.
But it's Trump's new tax law.
It's it's even more advantageous to them.
This is this is what this was always the game, folks, is them getting more for themselves.
It really was with Trump.
I some of them don't like him, some of them do.
This has been happening across Democratic and Republican administrations.
That's quite a lovely.
Okay.
I I agree with you, and two things can be true at once.
Biden, for all the talk about progressive policies and the need to reduce the deficit, taxes on corporations went down during the Biden administration.
So here's the bottom line: the only way you get re-elected, which must include reservations and blowjobs, because these people cling to power like an African dictator.
So that was both offensive and a hate crime and racist.
But these people have decided that they will do anything to stay in office, and the way they stay in office is with a thoughtful lobbyist who says, oh, just implement this one little tax change called 1202 where entrepreneurs and VCs get their first 10 million out.
And incrementally, what we have done is lower taxes on the 0.1% in corporations, and we haven't raised taxes on the middle or low income.
That's a myth.
What we've done is we've raised taxes on future generations with $7 trillion in spending on $5 trillion in receipts.
So the people who've had their taxes increase the most are a 55-year-old who is now 25.
Because we have the full faith in credit to borrow that money.
That full faith in credit and that borrowing power will go away.
And at some point, someone's gonna have to pay the piper either through massive inflation or revolution or much higher taxes.
Yep, absolutely.
Yes, kissing up works.
But um speaking of kissing up, Jeff Bezos is finally speaking about the future of the Washington Post following last week's layoffs.
He said in his statement, the Post had an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity.
Bezos added that readers provided a roadmap to success and that data tells us what is value were to focus.
Well, data, they all left after he did any number of things.
The Bezos statement came shortly after uh post CEO and publisher Will Lewis announced his exit from the paper.
I think I think it was exited from the paper, uh, allegedly.
Uh post CFO Jeff Donofrio, I met him when he was at one of the tech companies that was CFO, is stepping in as acting CEO.
I I'm gonna comment on this.
Data tells us what is value to focus.
You're kidding.
No shit, Sherlock.
At the same time, you have to create products that doesn't necessarily follow data.
You have to use both data and creativity to create a journalistic product.
I mean, anyone would tell you don't get together with Scott Galloway, data speaking, and of course it worked out beautifully.
You have to have lots and lots of things that go into media.
Jeff Bezos has made a number of errors recently over the past two years, and that's the reason people have fled in droves from the post, as other places are doing much better in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the numbers are up.
Um lots of really interesting independent media companies.
It's not true that he couldn't do something better here.
And of course, he's never blamed himself for this fuck up.
Will Lewis, good riddance, has been terrible.
Bezos didn't Bezos again did not step in and deal with this guy when he was very clearly fucking up.
So that's my thoughts.
You don't have to have any, but you can.
What I don't get is, and maybe you've done some reporting here.
We have this idea about putting together a new group.
The bottom line is it's subscale.
Why wouldn't the New York Times or even the Wall Street Journal take this on and start out some of the overhead costs, but take that traffic and a great brand and try and do something with it?
They could.
They could.
They could.
I would think Bloomberg is always sort of the one that's a good thing.
Oh, Bloomberg, that's a great one.
Bloomberg to me would be the most but he's you know, he's getting on.
I mean, I hate to say it.
A younger Bloomberg, certainly.
Um, that's that's always that was one of the possible buyers way back when when they were trying to keep it out of Rupert Murdoch's hands.
Um, but you're right.
The the the Wall Street Journal would be interesting.
The um, but why why?
I mean, I could let's I'll call Meredith Leving and ask her and she'd probably just go, uh, what do I need that for?
Yeah, I don't know.
Well I need that headache.
What do I need that headache?
Yeah, but they take they've got a great, they've got a great Washington firm.
They what do they get?
What are they getting?
Nothing.
Well, I'm just gonna be very I'll t I'll tell you how this would work.
They would go in, they buy the brand, they buy the subscription, they pick their 40 or 60 percent most talented uh journalists.
Most of whom they've hired, but go ahead.
They'd they'd clear out the admin, the sales teams.
I mean, uh the bottom line is print journalism, or whatever you want to call this type of journalism is in structural decline.
And it requires, and everyone wants to talk about reinvention.
Sure, you have to miss innovation, but more than anything, it requires consolidation and cost cutting.
And the Washington Post, but I mean, why wouldn't I just think that the Washington Post would be an outstanding Washington Bureau, and they've built a lot of credibility.
They have a big they have a decent subscriber base.
It's not a decent subscrib.
It's not a decent, it was until this past year.
It's it's cratered because of decisions Jeff Bezos has made.
I've heard their traffic, their their website traffic is off by nearly a half in the last three years.
Anyway, um it's it's but you're buying you're buying a great brand, a vehicle is how I look at it.
Right, but what you'd have to do is I mean, to a certain I hate to say this, it's almost it's a perfect candidate for a prepackaged bankruptcy.
Oh, it's that is you declare bankruptcy, you clear out all the obligations, including probably an overpriced headquarters, all the obligations they have, and you say, okay, 30% of you are are keeping your job, and that's it.
I mean, this is no solution here is elegant that's gonna paint a brave newer everyone's hoping.
If there's some guy who comes in and thinks, you know what, I got five or six billion dollars, I'll waste a billion over the next 10 or 20 years, fine.
I don't know if that person, it's like they say in therapy, no one's coming to save you.
It's a great it is a great brand.
Uh there's a it's a great brand, and there's a lot you could do with it that's different.
And that that if if you had some of the breathing room.
But you got this meddlesome owner who every time he meddles does something stupid.
He hires Do you think he's meddlesome?
I I do.
I think he is.
I think he's the he he meddled in the Kamala thing.
It was him.
He meddled in um all manner of things here.
He's meddled in a lot of stuff.
And you know what, let me just tell you, Jeff Bezos, let me speak to you directly.
You are an astonishing entrepreneur.
You did amazing things with Amazon.
You went left when everyone went right, everyone didn't believe you.
You really know how to run an e-commerce company, and you're okay at space.
I think it's a little bit more of a luxury for you, but whatever, go for it.
I don't care if you spend your money there.
But you don't know squat about media at all.
And to to act like you're an expert in this is really exhausting, and you're not.
You suck at it, you should get out of it, and you're just not good at it.
I don't know why we listen to you for five seconds on this not topic.
There's lots of smart people who know about this.
You should put the put it in their hands or just sell it.
Just sell it.
You don't care.
Buy Vogue, Jeff.
Yeah, go, bye-bye.
The problem is whoever buys this is inheriting an unsustainable cost structure.
Yes.
And so it's either a pre-packaged bankruptcy or you say to the current owner, look, you're gonna have to do the hard work and clear out a lot of the costs here.
Which he may be doing and you probably have to bolt it on to another infrastructure, whether it's Bloomberg or the NYT or the Wall Street Journal.
But if a bunch of people get jonesed up into raising money and finding people and try and reinvigorate the thing, you're basically gonna create, you know, it's trying to bring Frankenstein back for a second time.
Well, I would agree.
There's a lot of people who contact me and they get disappointed because they go, Well, that's not economic.
Like, let's we need this.
One of the things that the reporters do is they're like, We have need this for democracy.
I agree with that, but you still have to run a business.
Like I I say that I'm like, don't make that the argument.
It's of course the art, it's the it's the understanding.
The press is very important for the future.
It's always been.
And uh it's part of the many things that are that help our our democracy thrive.
And that's not the argument.
You have to create it's I always say I said it to someone, I think they were disappointed because they wanted me to be like, let us grab like Joan of Arc.
I was like, it's called the news business.
You gotta make a business out of it, and you gotta figure it out and get the costs in line.
And what I think he's happened here is, you know, it's been so um distant and meddlesome at the same time.
It's Will Lewis was incompetent and meddlesome at the same time and kind of cruel not to say anything while you did it.
I mean, how as you say, how you leave is how you how you begin, like how you leave is critically important, and him showing up all ragged look at the NFL parties while he was laying off people, just not a good look.
It's just not a good it's not respectful.
And these people have worked hard, a lot of them.
And so most of them actually.
And that's the I don't know.
I don't know.
You're right.
It has to something, something fresh SM.
But to me, it's a great vehicle for somebody, for including, I have some ideas, but you know, it's a great vehicle, and it's still not a dead brand.
That's my feeling.
It's not, but it certainly could.
People will say that this is another example of how democracy dies or the Washington Post dies.
And this is the bottom line.
Without there's a ton, and a lot of these people will end up at places that there's a ton of sharp, critical, anti-establishment new media brands, the Intercept, Democracy Now, Jacobin, Chapo Trap House, Citations Needed, Navarra Media, uh, The Bulwark, True Annon.
Well, a lot of them aren't doing original reporting, but go ahead.
Yes, go ahead.
Well, that's that's the correct point.
And that is there is no or little economic viability in hard hitting investigative journalism, especially at the local level.
The amount of grift and corruption and like name your local state, you know, capital, because there aren't any reporters covering any of this shit.
But the notion somehow that we're not gonna have any really thoughtful, interesting, you know, progressive media if the Washington Post goes away.
No, all of those people will go to smaller, cool little media firms that are doing a great job, and quite frankly, have figured out a way to be more economically viable.
Total cash flow positive, apparently.
Does the Atlantic do well?
Yes.
Very smart.
Nick Thompson, Lorraine is a great owner.
Jeff Goldberg remembered tough.
They're making products people want.
Like it's not this is the thing.
Like we'll stop talking about this.
Jeff, you're bad at this.
Just at least have a talk with me.
Just meet me.
I don't like you.
You don't like me.
So what?
Big deal.
I'd love to have a talk.
I know you're a smart person.
Um, but you really need to do something else and not sell it to a hedge fund or the wrong owners.
Just do the right thing, just for the last, for the last time, do the right thing.
I don't know.
I can't handle the Atlantic.
Every headline feels like it was written by someone who's disappointed in you but still wants to be invited to your wedding.
They've done some amazing reporting, it's not true.
They've done you don't read it enough.
You just read headlines.
The Atlantic doesn't do hot takes, it does foreplay for a conclusion you're already disagree with.
It does not it's the only one that also has concern.
Sometimes I call bad Atlantic and Good Atlantic.
Sometimes they do the most irritating things.
So you would like it.
They're contrarian.
I think I think the Atlantic is what happens when someone at the bar who's like a woke person that's not that attractive makes eye contact with you.
No, no, it's doing great.
It's doing great.
Anyway, let's go on a quick break and we come back.
The latest media merger gets Trump's seal of approval.
When it comes to the new Melania movie, here are some important numbers to remember.
40 million.
That's how much Amazon paid Melania Trump's production studio for the rights to the film.
It's the highest price ever paid for a documentary.
35 million.
That's about how much Amazon spent marketing the film.
28 million, how much went to the first lady.
And 7 million.
That's how much the Melania movie made on opening weekend, which is honestly pretty good.
And certainly more the mini box office insiders projected.
So, how did this movie get made?
Who's it for?
And if this is finally Melania Trump's side of the story, what does she have to say?
That's coming up on Today Explained from Vox.
Listen weekday afternoons, wherever you get your podcast.
Over the last several years, AI companies of all shapes and sizes have been desperately trying to get their hands on every bit of available data to make their models better.
This week on the VergeCast, we have the story of how Anthropic destroyed hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of books, and fed them all to Claude.
Plus, we have information on who in tech is in the Epstein Files, what's going on with Netflix, whether it's woke, whether it's gonna buy Warner Brothers, and whether Peloton is gonna successfully sell you a treadmill ever again.
All that on the VergeCast, wherever you get podcasts.
Scott, we're back with more news.
This is an interesting speaking of media stuff.
This um President Trump is now endorsing Nextstar Media's takeover, a $6 billion acquisition of Tegna, saying it will help knock out the fake news because there'll be more competition.
These are two giant local uh firms.
Back in November, Trump seemed to be opposed to the deal, writing on true social, no expansion of the fake news networks.
Now, I guess they they sucked up to them because of Jimmy Kimmel, everything else.
Next star owns or partners with over 200 stations, with the addition of Tegna, it would cover roughly 80% of the company country.
Excuse me, I would call that a monopoly.
Uh the FCC uh currently prohibits companies from owning broadcast stations that reach over 39% of USS, so that's double.
Um, so Trump obviously shifted because I don't know, is there a donation somewhere, something else?
I don't know.
But it's it's a massive it they're allowing this merger and then opposing the Netflix one.
It's it's so ridiculously hypocritical every time they turn around, they they like one thing but not the other.
Any thoughts on this Tegna Nextstar thing?
Yeah, but the Atlantic is like the person that ruins brunch by asking about the long-term implication of eggs.
Okay.
Move along.
They're doing great without your without your insults.
What tell me about it?
Every Atlantic journalist thinks that sex is a phase you'll outgrow.
Okay, let's move along.
Next star, Tegna, much more significant.
I I've told you and I are both talking to Democratic candidates for president.
And one of my one of the platforms I think they should adopt is um trust busting.
You you we need to go the other way.
We need if you want to bring prices down, you can't have three chicken companies, you can't have three pharmaceutical companies, you can't have four streaming media platforms, you can't have one search engine.
You need to break all of these guys up.
We need to go the other way.
And we need to separate the whole point.
I mean, let's can we talk about Ted Serrandos congressional testimony?
Because I think it's related.
Sure.
You had some coin-operated Republicans who are being funded by the Ellisons.
Tim Scott's particularly recently has been on a tier.
Try to say I'm worried about Netflix claiming that 50% of Netflix children's programming is LGBTQ content.
Yeah.
And and just so you know.
They never cared about antitrust.
Media companies are allowed to have a viewpoint.
Yes, they are.
Box has a viewpoint that has a bias.
CNN has a viewpoint, it has a bias.
Netflix, as far as I can tell, is the most apolitical of all.
They really are.
And the way it works in a capitalist society is the person with the biggest check shows up, and then it goes under regulatory review around whether the concentration of power will ultimately be bad for consumers.
It has nothing to fucking do with how much LGBTQ content you think incorrectly has been incorporated into kids' content.
And to see all of a sudden these Republican lawmakers start talking about media bias and free speech, it's just insane.
It's like, okay, how much money are you getting from the Ellisons who don't want to do what you do in a capitalist society and just pay more for the prize you want?
So this politicization or weapon is a the Trump Trump should have nothing to do with any of this.
He should be, oh well, as far as I understand, highest bidder wins, and I appointed the FTC and the DOJ to do a review.
That's it.
But even the Ellis.
He shifted.
He shifts on everything depending on who gives him money.
But that's, you know.
Yeah, so I don't.
I hope that.
And by the way, I've said, and I talked to Ted Surandos over the weekend, I've said, I hope neither of them get it.
I think there's too much concentration of power here.
I don't think I don't think one man should control TikTok, CBS News, and CNN.
And I also don't think Ted should control what is kind of, I'm gonna call it the Walmart of content with Netflix and the LVMH, HBO.
I'm like ultimately that'll give you too much pricing power.
It'll be good for shareholders.
I would, if I were on your board, I would tell you to do exactly what you're doing.
But we don't need one man owning TikTok, CBS, and uh CNN.
And we don't need one person owning HBO and Ted is not the Ellisons.
The Ellison's our own.
Well, one company, but they'll all be focused on you you get my meaning here.
I get it.
Except that the Ellison's have promised to change of all the people that are actually trying to change it, the Ellisons have promised drunk they'll make CNN.
Netflix is the least political.
Correct.
Their bias is more subscribers and shareholder.
Correct.
That's what their bias is.
The Ellisons seem to have more of a quote unquote political.
Yeah, yeah.
More of a political bias.
Although at some point they're gonna have to be.
What I don't get, you know what they've really missed?
And I told Ted this on Saturday, and he's just not like this because he's too much of kind of like a gentleman farmer.
If if Netflix wanted to go gangster, they'd do the following.
They'd get every single labor union in Hollywood to recognize one fact.
If Netflix takes over, let's assume one of them gets it.
If Netflix takes over uh Time Warner, I think employment will be flat, maybe to a little bit down.
If the Ellisons get this thing at the price they're gonna have to pay for it, and they're kind of ground zero for AI.
Do you know what's gonna happen to the employees at these companies?
Yes, I do.
Dad is gonna say, all right, we've got to figure out a way to justify this cost.
By the way, I am huge into compute and inference, and I'm buddies with Sam Allman.
I have no love for Brian Cranston or these directors or these precious screenwriters or script writers at SpongeBob SquarePants.
How can we use AI to take out eighty, eighty percent?
That is their big calling card, even though I don't think they have any specific.
Hey, writers guild, uh, AFTRA and SAG, do you realize the literally the ass fucking and not the good kind you are about to get if the Ellisons and AI have to justify the price that Zaslov has been able to get.
Larry's numbers are off rather significantly, too.
He's lost billions and billions.
He's way down.
I mean, he doesn't have the extra money to spend, so they're really gonna cut.
They're really gonna cut because this is a ridiculous extravagance for them.
This is an extravagance.
This is a yacht that they're buying.
Um I would agree.
But on that topic, the the FCC under, you know, village idiot Brendan Carr has launched a probe into the View.
The FCC is investigating whether the show broke equal time rules for interviewing political candidates after the show interviewed Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Tallerico.
Uh I I think what the view should do is invite Brendan Carr on and have them eat him, all those ladies, because they would take him apart bit by bit.
Another thing that's stupid, like just stupid.
Like, what are you doing?
This is not making the airwaves safer for anybody or better or more fair.
This is just you playing politics for your next job, you dumbass.
All right, that's all I have to say about Brendan Carr.
Your thoughts?
We need an FTC and a DOJ that do their own.
This is FCC, but go ahead.
Yeah.
Well, okay.
Yes, all of the above.
Uh these aren't supposed to be weapons of enriching the president and his allies.
This is all the same.
This is all cut from, you know, the same cloth here.
These are supposed to be independent agencies that think about the consumer, also think about shareholder value, also think about the health of U.S.
markets.
But again, it's the boring shit nobody wants to talk about.
Our markets have become way too consolidated, and the result is they have way too much pro we, you know what we have?
We have two good schools in every major city.
We need five.
They need to be competing with.
I just went through this early admissions bullshit.
They quote unquote take the admissions rate from 9% to 14%.
So we all go early decisions.
Do you know what that means?
It means if you get in, you have to go.
What what do you think happens if you the deal is the following this happened with my son?
You pick one school, they they tempt you with a higher admissions rate.
If you get in, you have to immediately withdraw all applications from every other university.
What does that do?
It gives you no pricing power.
You can't ask for financial aid.
You can't ask for a scholarship.
So what do they get to do?
They get to increase their prices faster than inflation, which education has done.
And by the way, the agency that provides accreditation such that you can get debt from the government, low interest debt to pay for your student loans, has not admitted almost any new universities.
So in every major city, there are two great schools, and that's it.
That's it.
Did the Galloway's just get the bill for school?
Jesus Christ.
I know, I know.
I'm almost like a big thing.
Karen, it's lucky I'm a rich man.
I know.
I sat my son down yesterday.
I'm on my last couple of couple of books.
I want to give you a lesson in tuition and what it means to pay for tuition and post-tax dollars and how much this meal plan is going to cost you, and just how ridiculously blessed you are.
And by the way, be fucking nicer to your mother after I go through these numbers with you.
Okay.
It is Do you realize the galloway's just got the bill?
When you think about the means of getting ahead and the means of establishing a family and saving, you think about education, you think about housing.
And what has my generation done?
They have purposely created scarcity such that the houses and the degrees we already own skyrocket in value, which is absolutely fucking young people.
How on earth does any middle class family send a good but not freakishly remarkable kid to college these days?
How does that happen?
You know one of the reasons why these gambling sites are booming and gaming is booming?
Because if you're not saving for a house, you're more inclined to buy crypto or do stupid shit with your money.
And you're less inclined to stay in a relationship or taking a risk on a relationship because you're not saving for a house or building anything.
Yes, indeed.
Yes, indeed.
I did do a 529 many, many years ago for the boys, and I was very aggressive and I was glad I was.
The stock market did well and was able to pay for their college using that.
But I have to say it's not.
I know sometimes those 529s aren't the way to go, but that's what I did, and it worked out for me.
But God's got a good idea.
I got the tuition.
My this I'm like, I said to my son, I'm like, this is a state school?
Yes.
Wait, hold on.
What's going on here?
This is a state school.
I know.
You haven't even gotten food and living.
Oh my God.
I know, I know.
Welcome.
You know what?
I'm gonna go down there with you when you go visit him.
Oh, we're gonna have so much fun.
We'd have so much fun.
We're going to the UVA.
We're gonna go to the UVA Cal game.
It's gonna be amazing.
I'm coming down there.
I love UVA.
Oh, it's gonna be a ton of fun.
He's already told me.
I told him last night I'm coming down for the UVA Cal game.
You know what he said?
Not like, oh, that's gonna be funny.
It's like, I don't know if I can get your tickets to the football game.
I don't know.
It doesn't matter.
We just wanna come down.
We're gonna ride horses.
Something tells me I'm gonna I'm gonna figure out a way to get my own ticket.
He's already making excuses.
He's already envisioning me embarrassing him in front of his friends.
He's already trying to discourage me from coming to a football game next semester or in fall.
Yeah.
Anyways, we're going down.
All right, we're going.
Scott and I are riding our horses down there.
All right.
One more quick break.
We'll be back for wins and fails.
Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails.
I think I'll go first.
My fail, as always.
Elon seems to be abandoning his plans to go to Mars.
He posted over the weekend that SpaceX has shifted its priorities to build a self-growing city on the moon in order to get to Mars so that we can save the human race.
This guy changes his tune so much.
It's just like, oh my God, when are you gonna stop believing this nonsense?
He's done an amazing job with the things he's had here on Earth, but not not compared to the lies he tells about what he's gonna be doing in the future.
But he's going to the moon, folks.
So that's what he's doing.
Again, sounds good.
He should go.
I think it's a great idea.
More Elon off the planet, the better.
Sounds great.
My win is I got Scott Galloway to watch He did Rivalry.
How'd you like it, Scott?
I did it on Edibles when I was jet lagged, and I am rethinking everything, Cara.
I am absolutely rethinking everything.
I thought it was I thought it was wonderful.
I really um it's just really well done.
And I think it's important.
I think young people need to have more sex.
And there's a lot of sex in it.
Oh my God.
Crazy sex.
Um, sex is their way to get to intimacy.
You do see that, right?
That's how they move.
Well, dudes use sex or intimacy, women use intimacy for so no wait.
Women use sex or intimacy, men's use intimacy for I think this stuff is important.
I uh, you know, I I did some of it kind of shock me, and like I immediately had to go to that lesbian series just to get my mojo back.
Yeah, a little bit, a little bit.
Um I'll tell you what is interesting.
I interviewed the creators, so you should go listen to the show.
I saw that.
They're Canadian, right?
Canadians, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I want to do an erotic drama about the behind the scenes going on of the world's best badminton team.
That's what everyone's saying.
Like they're like, what about rugby?
What about this?
Can I make one other observation?
I think one of the things about it, and then you can get through win and fails, is that there's this there was one of the things they said in the interview, and I think that there was this whole incredible market of people who like this particular book series.
It's a romance novel for w women, right?
This is a women, straight women uh oriented romance novel that was hugely popular.
And one thing they're like, how could it miss when it had such a massive market of fans?
And people ignore these markets, and that's that's one of the reasons.
It's already caught on with everybody else, but the initial strength of it was for this romance novel market, that all these sort of guys that are like green lighting things did not understand.
And I thought that was a real win for smart creators who understood, who understand where their fan base is in market.
So I thought that was it.
I talk a lot about the business of heated rivalry with these guys.
Um, and so I thought that was it's just a real win on a business point of view, too.
Yeah, and uh I go I come back to when I was thinking about a heated rivalry, because everyone's asking me, what do you think about your um I think a decent place to start an entire political platform or guidance for a political system, an economic system, it sounds corny, it's love.
And that is all right, if if people can't make enough money in a low employment economy such that they're so stressed out they can't raise their kids well, that economic policy is getting in the way of love and we need to revisit it.
If the divorce rates are skyrocketing because of economic anxiety, and because 40% of of h households have medical debt, that's getting in the way of love.
We need we need to stop it.
If if if any sort of discrimination is stopping people from loving each other, committing to each other, and I think marriage is a good thing because it, you know, it stops you from exiting relationships.
Just because they both have outdoor plumbing, that's getting in the way of love.
I think you could reduce.
I think the whole nation, the whole idea of a a prosperous nation, we tend to think it's the SP.
It's not.
It's someone's ability to find someone else and to share their life with them and notice each other's life.
And that's why I'm I I think the sex recession among young people is absolutely terrible.
And I also think about all the men I grew up with who basically imposed, society imposed on them a set of rules and standards that said you're not supposed to be in love because your your inclinations towards love are total are perverted according to our laws.
But I think you could literally start from the notion of love or connecting with someone economically, spiritually, psychologically, financially, and reverse engineer into what makes good uh public policy.
Yeah.
Anyway.
There you go.
Love, sweet love.
That's what bad buddy said.
That's my platform.
That was what he said.
Love.
Okay.
So wins and losses.
Okay, wins and veils.
Okay, so my win, my win, I'm trying to bring attention to some younger creators who I just think are outstanding.
And I consistently find myself on this one creator's, I brought up Kyle Scanlins, this young, gotta be 26 female economists who I keep bringing on uh Propchi.
Uh, but recently I find myself just absolutely obsessed with this guy on TikTok named Gio Husar.
And he talks about economics and geopolitics, and he'll go deep into the weapon systems of Ukraine versus Russia.
And while the oil infrastructure for Russia's collapsing, he'll talk about the Fed and interest rates.
And this guy is just so it's like the eighth-grade kid who was kind of introverted and good at math, and he's found TikTok, and he's just fucking fascinating.
And he does, you can tell he just does the work.
And so much of my thought uh leadership or my views on economics and geopolitics are informed by this guy's amazing work.
So people are consistently asking me where what are my sources of information?
I get a lot, I gotta be honest, I get a lot from social media.
And this one guy on TikTok, Geo Hussar, for geopolitics and economics, is a gift.
And it's also to be clear, a real endorsement of these platforms.
He's not, he's not um, you know, he's not Dan Rather, or he doesn't have, you know, he's not um Brian Williams.
He doesn't have that polish.
He just does the math.
And he's sort of unafraid.
Anyway, my win is Geo Hussar.
Uh he's fantastic.
Check out his content.
My loss is the following.
I I've cr I fairly get criticism for too easily comparing uh the Nazis to the Trump administration.
And what I do think is fair, though, is looking at kind of late-stage Weimar Republic and what was going on then in the Trump administration.
And some of the things we share were a secret police loyal to one man, not to an institution, a collapse in the cultural and economic standing of middle class men.
Back then it was about industrial industrialization and automation.
Now I would say it's about AI.
This notion that the enemy wasn't abroad, but it was the enemy within the fact that we started shipping people to different sites outside of the country where they had some sort of legal protection.
What we also had in the 30s was a lot of the people in power very purposely started comparing undesirables or their enemies, whether it was gypsies or socialists or trade unionists or Jews, they started comparing them purposely to animals.
And when I saw the president this week compare the Obamas, President Obama and First Lady Obama to animals, to apes, you know, we have seen this before.
When you normalize the dehumanization of people based on their ethnicity or on their beliefs or on their religion, you have to shut that shit down right away.
And the notion that, oh, he didn't see it, or you can't take him literally.
Well, okay, what would, you know, the the 60 million people who died in World War II would like a word.
When the president of the United States is referring to past presidents and people who have been an absolute blessing to this society, when he starts comparing them to animals, we are 1930s Germany.
It has never been accepted before in our society.
We have never normalized it, we have never allowed it.
And this individual is talking about he's referred to his political enemies as vermin, as animals.
And so all of the notion that more Republicans have not stepped up and said, we just can't have this.
And so my fail is that so many people seem to be making excuses for it and not checking back on it.
This is a different level of danger when we start convincing people, and we need Republicans here.
Democrats will always find reasons for why everything Trump does is wrong.
If at some point Republicans, you know, John Thune, who I think is a good man, if he doesn't stand up and say, you can't equate our political enemies with animals.
Well, they only do that like Tom Tillis when they're not running again.
Then they get then they Well, then they find their balls.
Yep.
Yeah.
Anyways, my win is the Geohoussar, my loss is the normalization of referring to people as animals.
It leads to very dark places.
Yeah.
I think your comparison is just fine.
But anyway, uh, before we go, listen up.
You if you have a juicy situation you'd like our advice on, call us at 855-51 pivot.
Think work, dating, family, finance, make a juicy people.
This is not career advice ask.
This is I want to date my co-worker, or I made a huge financial decision, I regret type ask.
We want something a little more personal.
Um, we can't wait to hear from you on that.
And elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, for the latest episode of On, I spoke with longtime defense attorney Abby Lowell, who is representing some of the most high-profile targets of the Trump administration right now.
People like New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and independent journalist Don Lemon.
And this is very much to Scott's last point.
Let's listen to a clip.
I don't know that I thought that them going after Don Lemon was their highest priority.
Right.
I should have known better.
Because what we know about this administration is they're very good at basically saying, if this is my right hand, pay attention to it while I do something with my left.
They are the administration of distraction.
Okay, that's absolutely true.
Okay, that's the show.
Uh thanks for listening to Pivot.
Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
We'll be back on Friday.
Scott, read us out.
Today's show is produced by Larry and Aimon's Roy Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.
Ernie Inner Todd engineered this episode.
Rich Shidley edited the video.
Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ms.
Severe, and Dan Shallon.
Deshaq Careau is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts.
Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.
Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.
You can subscribe to the magazine at Nymag.com/slash pod.
We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.