# Apple AI Hardware, Chip Sovereignty, and Political Risk

**Podcast:** Pivot
**Published:** 2026-05-12

## Transcript

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All right, you ready?
Yeah, what show is this?
Where are we?
Oh, stop it.
Where are you?
It's your main show.
It's the one that fuels all the others.
Hi, everyone.
This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher.
And I'm Scott Galloway.
So, I didn't hear from you yesterday on Mother's Day, but that's okay.
No, I'm teasing.
I'm teasing.
Yeah, I can't even imagine the Royal Ascot wedding coronation jubilee that is Mother's Day at your house.
It is.
It's great.
I got so many things.
It was really nice.
Alex, I came back from Europe yesterday, and Alex was at the airport with balloons, and we took a picture in which I looked like a hobbit, which was sweet.
And then the littles left me the most beautiful.
things they did.
Clara did a whole book to me, Mutter, M-U-T-T-E-R.
And Saul did this beautiful shrinky dink, which I liked.
I like a shrinky dink.
And then decorated something.
And then Louise called several times.
So that was really fun.
I just can't imagine the operational complexity of Mother's Day in your household.
Seriously.
Three mothers.
You got three mothers, an ex.
a ceramic mug business and somebody definitely crying in a Subaru.
It's got to be.
That's Louie.
It's got to be.
There's a lot, a lot of moving parts.
There's a lot of mothers.
Yeah.
No, I have to say, and also my mother too.
Oh my gosh, I forgot.
Lucky.
Yeah.
Alex wins the thing.
He went and made flower bouquets with my mother.
He, and went out with her for lunch.
He hung out with Megan, which was great and did all kinds of things with Megan.
And then he met me and he went out with Amanda and the kids.
to a playground and played with the kids and helped her.
And so Alex wins Mother's Day, I would have to say.
That's nice.
What did you do for your lovely wife?
Not a lot.
All I do is remind the boys to call her.
Oh, wow.
That's what I do.
I basically, a lot of angry texts of something along the lines of, have you called the person that gave you life?
Oh, nice.
That kind of thing.
Because men are just not that considered on their own.
There's this illusion that my boys are incredibly considerate, thoughtful people in this household.
Yeah.
And it's their prefrontal cortex walking around whose name is dad.
Yeah, yeah.
Do you have a good memory of your mother for Mother's Day?
Since you were so close to him.
That's a nice, that's a generous question.
I don't remember specific Mother's Days.
I don't, yeah, I don't.
I remember them when I was out of the house and when I was older more than I remember them when I was younger.
We used to do the same thing, Kara.
Whenever it was anything resembling a celebration or a birthday, we used to go to this deli on Western Boulevard called Junior's Deli.
Oh, yeah, of course.
And get the brisket dip, and my mom would get the lox eggs and onions, and inevitably a waitress who had been there 20 years would just come over and talk about how much I'd grown, and then we'd get halva on the way out.
Halva.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's a nice memory.
I love those.
In any case, I'm back from Europe.
I know you're concerned.
I was at Cambridge.
Oh, you're back from Norway.
No, I was in England.
I was in London with Tina Brown's event, which was great.
Then I went to Norway.
We're big in Norway, Scott.
I have to tell you.
That's good to know.
Many fans.
The Nordic Media days.
That'll get us another 10 or 12 downloads.
Well, there's only 5 million people in Norway, but I got to say, they're really good.
They were really great.
audience and then i was at cambridge at university at the cambridge union which was really fun i got to stay at king's college which you know is the the punting boats and the beautiful lawns and the giant cathedrals and everything.
It's quite a beautiful town, Cambridge.
One of the things, they're so obsessed with Trump, all these countries and the danger he poses.
And they're all very concerned about these U.S.
companies.
And, you know, and sort of the feel is, are they colonizing us?
You know, backwards colonization, which is, I know, a loaded word, but we're sort of extractors of their stuff.
Anyway, it was really interesting to hear.
I learned a lot by just hanging out with them.
all these people from Europe.
Yeah, my thesis is that London is going to boom over the next three years.
And not for the right reasons, but my thesis is that there's been this enormous transfer of human and financial capital out of London into the Gulf.
Even if you talk to kids who are about to graduate from college, there'll be a few of them that are planning to go to Dubai.
And my thesis is that Traditionally speaking, these masters of the universe from Europe who all migrated to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Riyadh, that in the last several weeks, their wives have been on there taking their kids to school and seen an incoming projectile and then went home and said, we're out of here.
I think that the veil of the veneer of security and safety, more security than safety, they're still exceptionally safe places to live, has been pretty badly punctured.
And I think that's going to move, have a dramatic reversal of the tides into Geneva, Milan, Madrid, and London.
Also, I hate to say it, but beautiful, beautiful places.
You know, the same thing, oddly enough, is happening.
There's just more statistics out of San Francisco in terms of the recovery and everything else, which is interesting.
And, you know, just in real estate terms, I...
I had someone contact me to buy my house.
The housing market is now on fire.
Everyone's moved back, which is really, it's just an interesting shift of these people.
And then they complain, you know, they complain, complain, and then they come right back.
Because they are the, I don't like to pick and choose places, but I have to say they really are the best places.
These beautiful New York, San Francisco, London, Milan.
They're just.
beautiful places to live and full of really interesting people.
I don't know.
Anyway, it just struck me.
Look, I've been, as I said, for the last 30 years, I've been molesting the earth for business and my reductive analysis of all regions, if I were to describe the world and where to live and for what reasons.
America is still the best place to make money and Europe is the best place to spend it.
If you're in the making money part of your life, then you should absolutely figure out a way to get to the U.S.
or one of 20.
super cities where two-thirds of all economic growth will take place.
It's better to be good in Shanghai than amazing in Melbourne.
Actually, Australia has a pretty robust economy.
But if you have the luxury of being in a part of your life where you have the disposable income and flexibility, it's very hard to...
to beat Madrid.
It is a night.
I was walking around thinking I could live here.
Madrid, Paris, Oslo in northern Europe in the summer.
I was thinking.
I mean, the south of France.
Oh, maybe we'll just take a quick hop over to Capri or go check out.
the sites in Rome, Europe is fantastic.
Of course, you have to have money to do that.
One of the things that though there is sort of hanging over England is this, you know, this Darmer government is in real trouble.
It's going into a multi-party system and obviously the Nigel Farage.
group restore, whatever the fuck they want to restore, reform movement is really gaining power.
But it's more like a fractured power, like a many-party system.
And if the conservatives are falling off the map, it's just they're very worried about Nigel Farage being the prime minister, that's for sure, a lot of people.
Or else creating a situation where they can't form a government.
too many different power centers.
And then the Greens are also gaining, which is interesting.
Like I don't, I am blissfully unaware of UK politics, but I would have, I think people would have a difficult time thinking of one person that's done more damage to the UK than Nigel Farage.
I would agree.
I would agree.
If they pick him, boy, do they deserve what they get because this guy.
I think if I were Starmer, I would be running on Baxit.
They should absolutely rejoin the EU.
It's just few more self-inflicted wounds than our entry into Iraq and also the UK.
He is a nefarious figure.
And so, I don't know, so Putin close and just the whole thing, the whole, every bit of Nigel Farage is awful.
I don't know where to turn in that way.
Anyway, we should get to the news.
This is a really interesting story, I thought, and I was paying attention.
It was a...
The FCC's lone Democratic commissioner is accusing the Trump administration of waging a, quote, sustained coordinated campaign of censorship and control against ABC.
In a letter to Disney CEO Josh DeMauro, Anna Gomez said the FCC under Brendan Branda Carr has been weaponized to pressure a free and independent press and all media into submission.
The letter comes after ABC accused the FCC of attempting to chill free speech, which it did in a petition filed last week.
That filing is tied to the FCC's probe into whether the view...
He's not an independent person he's supposed to be.
He can have his opinions about things, but he has made...
become more censorious than all the left he accuses them of and is making all manner of business threats.
It's interesting that Disney and ABC is pushing back rather hard under this new CEO, something probably, I suspect, Iger wanted to do, but felt he couldn't at the time.
But any thoughts on this?
Well, yeah, they're learning.
They have figured out that second wrong to...
Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump's cock has not paid off for them.
No.
Remember the economic warfare that DeSantis was trying to levy for political reasons?
And it doesn't pay to appease these guys.
They did push back on DeSantis, if you recall.
Remember, they sort of played games with him for a while.
Meh, sort of.
Yeah, they did.
With Trump, they did not.
That is correct.
And now go to the legal veracity.
This isn't legal ambiguity.
This is a government harassment campaign with an FCC seal on it.
Saying that the equal time probe or that the view violates equal time, that basically essentially means Fox and Friends have been violating equal time for 25 consecutive years.
This is just ridiculous.
And then the lone FCC or the lone Democrat.
on the FCC is a woman named Anna Gomez, who essentially is yelling into a void while the institution continues to be weaponized against the press.
It's not, I mean, Commissioner Gomez basically can't even dissent.
It's more like a hostage note when she writes her letters of dissent.
So this is nothing but again, more weaponization of media or weaponization of our government agencies to try and squelch free speech.
It's just insane.
When they talk about, I mean, all this bullshit that supposedly Democrats call for violence and the language they use.
And Brenda is just making it worse by giving these stupid speeches with this smug little, you know, shit-eating grin that he always has on his face.
And again, Brenda, I'm following you everywhere you go after you leave office, and I will make sure people understand what you did constantly.
This is, and I hate to say this, but it goes into our next story.
Do you want to talk about gerrymandering?
Yeah.
We will.
Yeah, I can read.
I mean, for people who know, obviously, this got big press has redistricting wars ramp up ahead of the midterms.
Democrats are facing some major setbacks.
The Virginia Supreme Court just struck down a voter approved map that could have netted the Democrats up to four House seats.
It's not over yet.
We'll see.
It's going to go to the Supreme Court.
But the Supreme Court, of course, did its business by weakening the Voter Rights Act in recent ruling, setting off redistricting pushes in several southern states.
Republicans could now have around 15 new winnable districts, but Trump's approval ratings are still a massive hurdle.
As one Democratic strategist put it, Trump has the power to rig the maps, but he doesn't have the power to get his approval rating higher.
It could slap back at them.
It's really interesting.
One of the long shot options reportedly tossed around in Virginia, lower the mandatory retirement age for the state Supreme Court and replace the entire bench.
I think there's a bunch of things they may have to do.
But what's a real shame is that now the Democrats are going to have to gerrymander their states, which is not good for any.
None of this is any good to be breaking this precedent of 10 years following the census to do this.
What is essentially stealing?
Just when you look at the map in Tennessee.
It's insane.
Like there's like people are 210 miles away from other voters, which is crazy.
It's crazy.
It's a crazy map.
And it's all done to retain power, which I think they won't actually doing this.
I think people are offended by having their votes stolen from them.
Well, Democrats, and I agree with this, wanted to fight fire with fire or gerrymandering with gerrymandering.
And they lost both the map and you could argue the moral high ground, although I think it was the right move.
And you can't argue with the fact the other side is destroying democracy.
I mean, Tennessee is the template, right?
There's two Democratic congresspeople in 2020, Nashville and Memphis.
Republicans redistricted Nashville in 2022, and now it's Memphis.
The playbook is pretty straightforward here.
They find a Democratic district and they redraw the lines until it disappears.
Now, I actually believe, I don't believe, I mean, A really interesting message and the right message for a candidate, specifically a presidential candidate.
And right now, the only one actually talking about fucking issues is Rahm Emanuel.
They're all just cosplaying Obama, hoping rhetorical flourish and talking about breaking bread with Jews and Muslims.
And we need to come together.
Although I have to say, Newsom got the job done in California.
He like hit them hard and won.
He fought back and he won.
He fought the law and he won.
Yeah.
But we need structural reform.
One.
A really decent talking point and issue for a presidential candidate would be the following.
Within 90 days, I'm putting up for a vote in the Congress and the Senate to de-gerrymander the entire United States.
Six Republicans, six Democrats, we're going to use technology.
It might be just as much as putting a grid on top of the United States map and saying, okay, it might be AI, whatever it is.
but we need to de-gerrymander the United States.
And then I think another structural form, and it goes to a larger issue, a lot of the world's problems right now can be reverse engineered to old men who won't fucking leave.
It infects, it infects, it creates fascists who find reasons to deny democracy.
It creates a public.
investment that lacks investment in young people and children.
It creates a demographic collapse because young people don't get money because old people keep voting themselves more and more money.
I see it in academia.
Young academics are leaving the field because there's no fucking room for them because a guy who was the bomb in 1988 in Gap 1 Accounting won't fucking leave because we give him tenure about the time they become totally unproductive.
There needs to be a shedding, a healthy shedding of skin.
I have self-imposed term limits on boards.
You need to move on.
And one of those structural reforms should be term limits and age gating for the most important people over the long term of the United States, and that is our Supreme Court.
At both at the same time or one or the other?
Yeah.
For God's sakes, if you're 72, your prefrontal, your brain is shrinking.
Your brain starts shrinking at 45.
By the time you're 72, most people have a very difficult time with cognitive function.
And I'm sure there's exceptions that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was very smart at 80.
She should have been forced to retire at 72, as should the rest of them.
You need young thinking.
You need people who occasionally have a fucking child in the house so they can relate to the issues facing young people.
You don't want to pack the court because all that means is when a Republican gets in, they're going to expand the court from 12 to 30 people under their watch.
You need age gating and you need term limits.
But more than anything, a great talking point for a Democrat right now would be, I am going to de-gerrymander the U.S.
within 90 days.
I'm going to put a vote up and you can find out who is not up for true democracy here.
Right.
Absolutely.
I mean, one of the things, it just, when you look at these maps, you know, at some point, obviously gerrymandering's been around forever, but these are like, the Republicans are committing unnatural acts.
They really are.
It looks like a weird sex...
position, the way they have drawn these things.
And it's grotesque.
It's grotesque.
And you know what it was?
I have to say those images from Tennessee with those fat white old men laughing at young, very vibrant, interesting black legislators.
Like you're nothing more.
It really did look like the Confederate South.
They look like the Confederate South.
It was aversion and then laughing.
You all, by the way, y'all are going to die of a heart attack relatively soon because you look.
It looked like you could get out for a walk or two.
But one of it just was the visuals were so like these old racist fucks.
And I'm not sure that's and then at the top of the heap is Trump, who looks like who's cognitively.
I keep saying this, Scott, we have to you know, we did it with Biden.
I think we have to zero in on his cognitive difficulties that just continue.
And today, Dr.
Oz and the other one, Brit, Katie Brit, were like talking to him like he was a toddler.
Like a toddler when he was something already.
Mr.
President.
It's like you talk to someone in old folks' home.
He's old.
Age gating.
Again, age gating.
No one should be allowed to run for president if when elected they're going to be older than 70.
Pick a number.
Have neurologists decide.
But at some point, neither Biden nor Trump should be entrusted with overseeing the Sixth Fleet or NAFTA agreements or trying to...
stay up till four in the morning to get the votes they need, whatever it is.
This is a young person's job.
Agreed.
You know, when I said that to you, I think you were surprised.
You were like, hmm.
When I said, I'm leaving at 72, I have 72 and that's it.
That's it.
I'm gone.
I'm off to Cambridge.
That's the number you've picked, 72?
Yes, I bought myself a cap in Norway.
I bought myself a cap.
I love it.
I'll send you a picture.
Yes, that is it, 72, and I'm gone.
I'm gone.
Like, see you later.
Maybe I'll sit and write historical novels from my cottage in Cambridge, but I'm gone.
Like, gone, gone.
I'm pretty sure your third wife's going to be Susan Collins.
I think you're going to be one of those tech people that goes MAGA on us.
No, no, Susan Collins.
And I'm up to you, Mary.
By the way, if a man and a woman need a marriage license to get married, what do two women need to get married?
A liquor license.
Oh, very funny.
I don't think that's sexist.
I think it's profane and vulgar, but I don't think it's sexist.
I don't think it's funny is the issue I have.
It's not that funny.
It's not that funny.
Anyway, these redistricting, I think he cannot fight the polls.
The polls are so bad.
Everyone doesn't like him.
That's one thing I did, the message I gave to people.
I was like, he is widely, he has his group that like him, but I got to tell you, you got to watch the cracks in MAGA and you got to watch the polling, which is everyone is sick to fuck with this guy.
And he is cognitively disabled.
I'm going to say that in every single show until the 20, past the 2026 election.
That's a cold comfort.
That we as progressives are serving ourselves up this morning, and that is that Trump can't rig the maps, but he can't rig his approval rating.
It will infuriate people.
That's the hope, that basically segregating voting again, taking away, neutering certain parts of the Voter Rights Act, this ridiculous, corrupt gerrymandering that will come back to Hahnemann vibes.
And my fear is the following.
Okay, tell me, because I have a fear too.
I believe that America is still highly sexist, highly luxist, and opts for a person who may be wrong more often than not, but is effective versus people who are right and ineffective.
And this is the key distinction between the Democrats and the Republicans right now, is the Republicans are wrong in being highly effective.
And Democrats are right and virtuous and totally fucking ineffective.
I'm not so sure.
This whole thing with the ballrooms and the weird, the thing with the weird title base and et cetera, it's just, it's getting like.
I don't think people vote based on a ballroom.
No, I know they don't, but it's a part of the whole crazy old man thing.
One thing that I will say, I was with a bunch of cyber experts and the two things they did point out, I think correctly, is one, the Russians are preparing to attack during the midterms, you know, in Trump's favor as they, as.
Recent studies have shown they did, obviously, against both Clinton and Harris.
I'm sorry, they're going to attack.
You know, online.
Oh, cyber attack.
Cyber and information fuck-upper-y, essentially.
And then the second thing is, I sat next to one guy who's an American who was talking about, who's obsessed with Steve Bannon, and he feels they're going to try to, and Trump has sort of...
talked about it a little bit, go to 80 districts that matter and put martial law in place or create all manner of ICE and Proud Boys, etc.
If you listen to Steve Bannon, he does talk about this.
And I think a couple of the cyber people were paying a lot of attention to Steve Bannon and what he's doing.
And that sack of, that meat sack of rumpled whatever is very effective in many ways, speaking of effective.
Although I can't believe he keeps hanging on looking the way he does.
Anyway, let's go on a quick break.
When we come back, a game-changing feature coming to Apple's AirPods.
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Scott, we're back with more news.
This is really interesting.
Apple's reportedly reached the late stages of development for new AirPods that include tiny cameras designed for AI features.
Who said they were going to put cameras?
You and I have talked about this.
The cameras would help Siri understand what's around you so you could ask questions about objects, landmarks, or directions in real time.
The new AirPods are expected to look similar to AirPod Pro, but with slightly longer stems to fit the camera hardware.
This is astonishing.
I think Apple originally wanted to launch the AI wearable sooner, but delays in its upgraded Siri pushed the timeline back.
You will, of course, lose 50 pairs of these, Scott.
50.
50.
By the way, this has no pods in it because I can't find them.
Oh, my God.
Jesus.
I can attest in near...
Scott's New York apartment, there's so many AirPod cases everywhere.
And there's like one AirPod in them.
Some are never been opened.
It's really funny.
I love those things.
So talk about this because they're obviously privacy because a lot of people have been pushing back on the metaglasses, which sell just okay.
They're popular but not that popular.
So talk a little bit about this because there is a privacy issue here, like people looking out at the same time.
It's inevitable you're going to have these heads-up displays in some way.
And this is a version of heads-up display that isn't in your face, which I think is more effective that it's in your ear, of a camera in your ear.
I love your thoughts on this because you have big thoughts on visual, like heads-up displays.
Well, as much as I hated mixed reality headsets and the Oculus, I love this.
And it goes back to a very anthropological thing.
What is harder for people to adapt to when they lose their vision or they lose their hearing?
vision, I guess, but not seeing.
Hearing.
Okay.
All right.
As a matter of fact, when your hearing goes, you stop processing words and you become more, this is going to sound strange.
Well, it's not strange.
People have a much more difficult time maintaining societal contact, relevance, and relationships when their hearing starts to go as opposed to their vision starting to go.
Your hearing, the last sense to go when you die is hearing.
You're supposed to, when people pass, you're supposed to keep telling them that you love them.
Supposedly, that's literally the last sense to go.
And I think it's the most underrated of the senses that we have over-invested in visuals and under-invested in hearing.
AirPods, if they were a distinct company, just AirPods would be a Fortune 50 company.
And what is Apple doing here?
They're turning your ears into eyes and sending the footage.
Unfortunately, they might be sending the footage to Cupertino, but the AI wearable race.
is now happening.
What's interesting though, is it's not happening where people thought it was going to happen.
It's happening in their ear canal.
So Meta has Ray-Bans.
Apple has AirPods.
Google probably has some glass thing.
I don't know what they're calling it this week.
They originally had contact lenses.
Remember the long time, we broke a story about them working on contact lenses with visuals in them, but go ahead.
The problem here, I think it's a great idea and I'll buy one.
The problem is The hardware at Apple, the hardware is always ready before the software.
And they wanted to launch this sooner, but Siri is probably one of the worst tech products of the last 10 years.
It is.
It really is.
And Apple, I mean, think about it.
Apple has the world's best supply chain and the world's most embarrassing AI assistance.
It is.
It's so bad.
I hate Siri.
If you think about...
I hate Siri.
I mean, essentially...
AirPods as they envision it right now with cameras is essentially because of a very weak AI assistant overlay.
It's like a Lamborghini chassis waiting for an engine that works.
So the hardware will be the best looking hardware, the best operating hardware.
The problem will be...
the AI overlay.
And I told you what I believe.
They have to get it right.
I think they're going to shit can Siri and license it to someone else for tens of billions of dollars.
Right.
Yeah.
Why not?
Just make it good.
Like I am constantly Siri call Scott or Siri, you know, text Scott or something.
And it never works.
It sometimes works.
And it just, it should work every single fucking time.
But what if it was Gemini?
What would, what would, Gemini needs to catch up.
What would Gemini pay Tim Cook or the new guy?
To design something.
To say, We're your default AI.
Look, Siri, just talk to me, even though I didn't want to.
Go away, Siri.
I think they're in the pole position here.
I think the most elegant move to massively throw $10, $20 billion a year to the bottom line would be to have a bake-off and say, one of you is going to be the Intel inside of Apple.
That's kind of a big thing to give up, though.
But they're not good at it.
Just like with Maps, they're just not good at it.
Well, search.
They gave it up in search, and it worked out well for them.
Yeah, exactly.
Let me ask you a physical question.
So when AirPods, people do not remember this.
When AirPods first came out, people made fun of the look of it.
You remember.
You look like an alien.
You look like you're wearing earrings for men.
And then everyone just loves them, right?
And they fall out of your ear.
Now, if they're even longer with these stems, it could look odd.
But it seems to me the best solution is the in-the-ear.
AirPod looking like things, not over the ear, not around the neck, over the head, except, you know, I'm on an airplane.
I wear, you know, a pair of really good noise-canceling headphones, but that's different.
So you think that's okay.
And the privacy issues, you don't have an issue with the people.
It can see everybody and it's recording, presumably.
Well, that is a big issue.
I haven't thought that through, right?
Because you're not supposed to be taking pictures of people's kids.
the surveillance.
Government, if you go into the White House.
Uploading your data, your whereabouts.
But no one creates tech hardware that is a better signaling device than Apple.
And pulling out your iPhone, I've always said, pulling out your iPhone is like pulling out an Amex Black card, but for a billion people, not 10 million.
It says that you get it.
It says you're one of the seven most wealthiest people on the planet.
It says you're probably in the creative arts industry.
It just...
It is incredible signaling.
I wear my AirPods.
If I'm at a conference and I just need to get somewhere without speaking to people or I'm just feeling exhausted by people, I just put my AirPods on and I act like I'm talking to somebody, like I'm speaking to myself.
I know that trick.
But let me just say one of the things.
I'd like to not look at my iPhone anymore.
I use my watch quite a bit, but it's not good enough.
And if my AirPods were better, I would not pull my phone out at all.
100%.
You know, that's the thing.
So I think this is really interesting.
Another interesting piece of tech, and we're very tech heavy today.
SpaceX chip making project in Texas will have an initial price tag of at least $55 billion and could eventually grow to $119 billion.
According to a public hearing notice, the project called TerraFab will create chips to power AI for SpaceX and Tesla.
I think this is a smart move by Elon.
SpaceX is asking for tax breaks for the project, of course, which will be discussed at a hearing next month.
Texas will definitely give it to them because that's what Texas does.
They bend over.
Speaking of bending over, SpaceX is, of course, preparing to go public with one of the largest IPO offerings in June.
To me, more than the robotics focus, this is really important.
I mean, the way they do energy is sort of rapacious to the people living in the areas they're living in, and it's getting a lot of pushback.
But the idea of your own chips, all these companies really have to.
be in that game, it seems like.
And it's important.
Elon really does know this.
I don't think he's as highly technical as he makes himself out to be, but he does understand this is the heart of it.
I agree.
This is a really smart move.
And it's one of the most interesting.
And it's also, quite frankly, it's fundraising.
It's going to be a big slide in his roadshow for SpaceX IPO.
They're talking about a $60 to $120 billion chip fabrication plan, TerraFab, and it would be bigger than the...
The biggest one in the U.S.
right now is a $65 billion plan from TSMC.
So the world's most advanced chipmaker with 50 years of experience, Elon, is trying to out TSMC, TSMC.
So it creates, he's very good.
He and Trump are both obsessed with being in your fucking face every day, and they're very good at it.
And so this is...
I think it's going to happen.
The guy is a big thinker.
Yeah, exactly.
Like XAI went nowhere.
It may or may not.
He may not be very good at this.
It doesn't matter.
It is a great, this guy is a big thinker.
He's bold.
He's pulled off some incredibly big, bold.
Yeah, this is the right direction.
Yeah.
Let me say, he did surrender XAI by doing the anthropic deal.
Just everybody's left.
He's not going to win here.
He could win in this.
And I think he probably might.
This is a better.
focus for him.
Speaking of focuses for French prosecutors are summoning Elon and X's former CEO, Linda Yaccarino.
Oh, Yaccarino, where did you go?
She's doing some health company.
To face preliminary criminal charges into X, the investigation includes charges of child pornography and sexualized deepfake.
It was interesting when I was in Europe, they were like, oh, he's not going to go anywhere.
I don't really care.
I'm glad a government is doing it, right?
Because ours certainly wouldn't.
And they should face an investigation of what was happening.
there at X doing all this?
Who made the decisions about these child pornography and sexualized deepfake creations?
I'd like to know, and I'm glad a government is pursuing it.
I don't even care if they win.
I'm glad they're doing it.
That's my feeling.
There you go.
And more power to them.
At some point, big tech executives, their flight pattern is going to look like gerrymandered because they're not going to be able to go over the airspace.
The world, we forgive.
We forgive these founders, especially during the Trump administration for the economic growth.
Yeah, these sociopaths is the word I would use.
Yeah, but we are net gainers from big tech.
We just are in the U.S.
They still should pay the price for stuff like this.
I agree.
That's not to say we shouldn't hold them accountable.
It's not to say they shouldn't be subject to the same rules and regulation as other industries.
But if you had a red button to push and do away with all big tech, you wouldn't want to do it.
And for all the problems and externalities, there isn't a single nation in the world that's presented with the opportunity to say, put your headquarters here.
The problem is, you know, the big tech, I don't think Italy is a net gainer from big tech.
The U.S.
is, but I'm not sure other nations are.
Yeah, they are.
And so a lot of these nations are doing the math and saying, you've got it at our media companies.
You don't pay that many taxes here.
you haven't really increased employment a lot.
You're just creating tremendous disruption.
And sexualized deep fakes.
Yeah.
And also you now appear to be an existential threat to our kids' emotional and physical well-being.
We're not down with, you know, the idolatry of innovators for a lot of good reasons and some bad is, has totally.
kind of infected or overwhelmed the U.S.
The worm has turned a little bit.
AI is way down.
People are realizing what a negative impact this has had on our children.
And then going much bigger, it's manifesting itself in terms of being ground zero for frustrations around income inequality.
But these other nations just aren't that impressed by these guys.
They're like, okay, you broke a law.
We're going to charge you.
Yeah.
I like the activity.
And I think, as you said, a long time ago, early in our relationship, someone has to do a perp walk.
whether it's chatbots and kids dying or something like that.
Someone has to go to jail.
They won't, but I like the effort by these governments.
And I don't think it's, I think someone needs to investigate how they made these decisions about sexualized deep fakes and child pornography on whatever service that doesn't and what they did to stop it or not stop it.
I think it's important for public to know.
There was a guy, I think it was a McKinsey partner on the board of Goldman, and he took insider information and traded on it.
He went to jail.
Think about what's happening in the Trump administration around oil prices.
Think about what's happening in tech in terms of teen self-cutting and depression among teen and being weaponized.
You said you expect the Russians to cyber attack us.
They've been cyber attacking us.
Yes, they know.
They use these poorest platforms that are totally focused on shareholder value.
They create lists of people who are pro-Ukraine or people who are polarizing and they infect their...
comments and the people's perception of them, they diminish their credibility and they create fights everywhere to try and atomize this.
We're attacked every day and the ultimate Trojan horse is big tech who charges them a small fee to go sit inside the Trojan horse and start attacking America from within.
That's correct.
And by the way, they'll shift in a dime.
I don't know if you noticed, suddenly David Sachs is like, Anthropic's going to be really successful after needlessly attacking.
I heard all of a sudden he likes Anthropic.
Oh, God, he's such a...
Let me just tell you, we were right about that one.
Like immediately when they're back, because he's losing the fight over unfettered AI and they're just better.
That's all.
Anyway, he was lying the first time about when they attacked him.
And for a government official to do that to an American company without any proof is really grotesque.
I don't mind if there's proof, but in that case, it was because he wanted to feather his own nest.
Anyway, let's go on a quick break and we come back.
We'll check in on the Trump phone.
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Why are you like this?
Megan asked Cheryl why her t-shirts are more than just a fashion statement.
There's just so many things that we could really champion for women and other marginalized groups.
And I just heard from so many people what it meant to them.
And so we've continued that.
The conversation with Megan gets into why Cheryl is the WNBA goat, from being one of the first openly gay coaches in the WNBA to standing with her players during Black Lives Matter.
She also recently became the winningest coach in WNBA history.
You should check it out.
Why Are You Like This?
Wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
Scott, we're back.
It's been almost a year since the Trump phone was announced, and there is still no sign the device is anywhere close to shipping, but that hasn't stopped Trump Mobile website from continuing to accept a $100 deposit for the phone.
The fine print notes, a pre-order deposit, provides only a conditional opportunity if the Trump Mobile later elects to offer the device for sale.
And while the phone was initially touted as being made in America, the site now describes it as being shaped by American innovation.
It looks like these aren't coming and that people have lost their money, which we said would happen.
This is exactly, you know, I'm not sure where the phone ranks among various Trump griffs.
Another Trump venture where things weren't looking so great, Trump Media just posted a net loss of $406 million.
And I think they made under a million dollars in revenue driven largely by unrealized losses in crypto holdings.
And while they're doing all this grift, the Pentagon has released a batch of, quote, never before seen UFO files on a dedicated government website.
The files include details from over 400 reports from the 40s in recent years, including several Apollo missions.
President Tope touted the administration, transparency and truth social posts, saying now the people can decide for themselves what the hell is going on.
We cannot decide.
There are just more lights.
Hey, I can get more out of just like a book I buy at the airport about these things.
So it's just a lot of, you know, hand-waving all over the place.
And grift.
I mean, the Trump phone, which Scott and I both said was never going to happen, is not going to happen, people.
And that's 60 million bucks or something like that.
I think that's how much they collected.
It's grift.
First off, this wasn't a down payment on a product.
It was a donation.
I don't think anyone's going to care.
I think the likelihood that he was ever going to have a competent phone probably didn't escape these folks as it relates to aliens.
I'm convinced that aliens have been monitoring us, including all of our media.
And if we're really honest, about two-thirds of our media is porn.
So I think this explains that the aliens aren't using anal probes for information.
They're just trying to speak our language.
Can I ask you a question?
Do you believe in aliens?
I'm just curious.
When you think about UFOs and you see these pictures, and let me tell you, everybody, I looked at some of these pictures.
They look like the pictures you always see, bright lights.
Things moving across the sky, unexplainable phenomena, often lights, you know, or lights moving in a pattern or something like that, which could be explained lots of different ways.
Do you actually believe in aliens, sir?
This is going to sound like I'm on edibles, but I'm not.
But I believe in everything.
What do I mean by that?
If you believe, well, there's some logic here, I think.
Like Loch Ness Monster?
Well, no.
Most astrophysicists believe.
It appears the infinite space theory that space never ends.
So space never ends and it's regenerating and the space-time continuum curves and space never ends, that means everything exists.
That means everything that's happened has happened before.
Because if space never ends, that means...
the infinite possibilities of everything exist and everything that you can imagine is out there.
Oh God, I need an edible at this point.
Okay.
That means we exist all the time, forever?
You and I?
No, it means that if there's an infinite number of universes, at some point there's a universe very similar to ours with similar lifespans, similar earth and gas and organisms and similar carers and scots.
And if you don't believe, if it's not exactly like it, just keep going through infinity and eventually you'll get to it.
Oh, wow.
This is like the plot of Interstellar or something like that.
Well, if space is infinite, and I'd like to hear an argument for how it couldn't be, then of course there's a galaxy and another alien intelligence that can send probes here.
Having said that...
I don't think they'd be that interested with us.
So I don't.
Yeah, we're so boring.
Do I believe they exist?
Yes.
Do I believe the ones we have seen are actual alien intelligence or life?
I don't think so.
Maybe they're flashes from another universe.
Maybe that's what we're seeing.
Like in all the sci-fi or the Marvel movies, all the different universes, suddenly the sky gets ripped open and one of the universes comes in to this one.
You have to close the, it's always having to close a fucking portal in those movies, which I never understand.
But I vaguely do.
I think we should ask aliens to hunt down all the people on Jeffrey Epstein's island.
I think we could call it Alien vs.
Predators.
They show that.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
I would like the aliens to arrive just about now.
That's what I would like them to do.
You ready for it?
I would like them to come now.
It's time.
It's time.
It's time.
Either Jesus or them.
I don't care.
Jesus needs to come back or they do.
I don't, either one.
I'm good with anybody showing up and like getting our, that's the distraction we need.
And, and I would like.
But that's what this says, Kara.
Yeah, a distraction, of course.
This was meant to be a distraction.
Of course.
Absolutely.
Anyway, well, we wish you will come, aliens.
All I got to say is if females invade the earth and kidnap men with large cocks, you're in no danger.
And I'm just writing this to say goodbye.
Oh, can I have your stuff?
I'd like your stuff.
Can I have your stuff?
You have my stuff.
I show up to my house in New York and I'll be like down two cashmere sweaters.
I know you've been stealing my sweaters.
Yeah, that's true.
I have your stuff.
They're in Brooklyn right now.
Anyway, you can stay at Brooklyn anytime.
You'll never come to Brooklyn, which is fantastic.
Never.
I've been there twice.
Both times to go to the new Soho house over there.
That's it.
Alex and I will be in Brooklyn.
That's where we're going.
If you're not on the island called Manhattan, there's no reason to ever visit the Northeast.
Well, Legs and I will be in Manhattan on Tuesday.
The Northeast is so overrated except for- Seven by two mile island.
That's it.
Let me just say.
The rest sucks.
Legs is going to be in Brooklyn with me and he's going to eat.
You know, tonight, by the way, let me just say it's Amanda's birthday today.
And happy birthday, Amanda.
We're going out for oysters tonight in D.C.
And I'm literally going to have to take out a small loan because Alex is coming.
Last time we took him for sushi, it was like $400.
Anyway, one more quick break and we get back wins and fails.
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People are big mad about data centers in the United States this summer, but don't sleep on how mad people are about flock.
Flock cameras, if you haven't noticed them, don't worry, they've noticed you.
You may have heard about them in your reels or on Flock Talk.
I have never in my life been as pissed at the government as I am now that Flock cameras exist.
Americans are going to war against Flock AI surveillance cameras and people are going around and literally sawing them down, absolutely destroying them.
An AI surveillance apparatus goes against the very essence of freedom and the core values of our country.
It's not right, it's not conservative, and it sure as hell ain't American.
Flock surveillance cameras have popped up all over the nation, every state but Alaska.
But this year, dozens of cities and counties across the country have cut ties with Flock.
And on Today Explained from Vox, we're going to tell you why.
Megan Rapinoe here.
This week on Why Are You Like This?
I got to sit down with legendary Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve in Chicago during All-Star Weekend.
We get into her personal style of activism, how she supports her players as people, and why she proudly considers herself a dyke.
Then we learn if she's more of a mommy, daddy, or baby.
Check out the latest episode of Why Are You Like This wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
Okay, Scott, wins and fails.
I feel like I should go first.
You go first.
Speaking of conspiracy theories, this is one that I find very troubling.
And look, listen, I even kind of believe it.
One in four Americans think the April shooting at the White House Correspondent Center was staged, according to a new survey.
Roughly one in three Democrat respondents said they believe the event was staged compared to one in eight Republicans.
The same thing with the other.
A lot of like...
Margiella Green, all these people think the shooting in Butler was staged.
I just feel the falling off of assuming, and this does go back to Kennedy assassination and before.
There's always been a conspiracy theory-minded populace we have.
But it's just a little, it's slightly depressing because like, remember when you said, I thought Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself.
Just like nobody believes anything.
And I find it really depressing that our shared...
Like I get conspiracy theories and I see why you might think this and I hate myself for even saying, oh, maybe it was, right?
Without any proof.
And I find that feeling in me really gross.
I have to say the conspiracy theory minded.
But you become more that way as you live in this world where AI and social media and everything else just sort of spins your brain in a way that's really gross.
And speaking of clarity, I have to say one thing is, first of all, Matt Damon on Saturday Night Live was superb and he looks like he's great in the Odyssey.
He was superb.
That was a superb show.
SNL is really bringing it.
He's a really solid actor.
Anyway, but I have to give, talking about clarity, Chelsea Handler at the Kevin Hart roast was fucked.
Fucking super.
So was Tom Brady, by the way.
But let me say, Chelsea Handler handed it back to the MAGA sort of adjacent comedian bros.
You love that.
I thought of you when I saw that.
Let's listen to her call out the comedians who went to the Saudi comedy festival.
Now that your favorite leader is making the draft mandatory, I assume that all of you will be signing up to go fight in Iran.
Or do you tough talking pussies only go to the Middle East for comedy festivals?
She had so many lines.
That was a nicer one.
And then she had some choice words for Tony Hinchcliffe.
And she said, Tony is what happens when women don't have safe access to abortion care, which I thought was funny.
And then also, like, who's warming Joe Rogan's balls in their mouth now that you're here tonight?
He looked sick the way she attacked him, and it was so good.
She did such a good job.
I have to say, Chelsea, I love you.
Marry me.
I gotta say, so good.
She was fantastic.
And they just, he was so uncomfortable.
Like they can't take a joke, these people.
They can dish it out, but they can't take it.
And Chelsea put them down, put them down.
And I love to see it.
Anyway, your thoughts?
I agree with you on that.
So my wins and fails.
My win is Mayor Momdani's pied-à-terre tax.
I'm not even going to get into whether...
The city of New York should be cutting costs or spends too much money.
I don't have enough domain expertise.
I'm a resident of Florida.
But the percentage of federal employees as a percentage of the population has steadily gone down.
I've never bought that there's just waste fraud and abuse everywhere.
And if we're going to get our fiscal house in order, do we need to cut spending and raise taxes?
The answer is yes.
So I'm just going to talk about the raising taxes side of it.
If you're going to raise taxes, it feels to me that there's a very legitimate argument.
that the people who have done the best over the last 30 or 40 years are the very wealthy and specifically owners.
And it's pretty basic.
Productivity has gone up 45 degrees.
Wages have gone flat.
The delta between those two lines is trillions of dollars in value creation.
And almost all of it has gone to the top one, if not the top 0.1%.
So it seems to me that just basic math is It makes sense for the wealthiest among us to pay a disproportionate amount of incremental taxes needed to operate this great experiment called the U.S.
to pay for our Navy to pay for food stamps.
And the problem is, okay, so what do you do in New York if you need to raise revenues?
Do you increase corporate taxes?
The problem with that is, and Jamie Dimon pointed this out, J.P.
Morgan has gone from 30,000 to 20,000 employees in New York in the last 10 years because it's a very expensive place to do business.
It is.
No question.
Meanwhile, in Texas, it's gone from 10,000 employees to 30,000.
So at some point, you get diminishing returns.
And a lot of the people that work at corporations are middle-class people who commute in from the different boroughs.
So you got to be very careful about raising costs on business because New York is getting to the point where a lot of businesses are contemplating leaving or at least doing the bulk of their hiring somewhere else.
Then you think, well, we could just go after all rich people.
The problem is there are a lot of people in New York making a half a million, 600, 800 grand a year as a couple.
And they can't.
I was that couple and I had to leave because.
It's just so goddamn expensive there.
And you're already paying 13% to 14% incremental taxes.
So I like the idea.
And let's bring this back to me.
In 2017, when I sold my company, I made the mistake of giving NYU, I think, 2% of the company.
So the dean called me and said, can you come up here?
And when the dean calls you and says, come up here, it's either very good or very bad news.
And he said, we just got a check for X.
And he said, first off, thank you.
He said, if my math is correct, that means you sold your company for Y.
And I said, yes.
And he's like, I need you to move out of faculty housing right away.
That's right.
You lost that house.
And he said.
You liked that house, didn't you?
I loved it there.
It was all a bunch of 110-year-old widows from some 10-year history professor that died 40 years ago.
No one makes eye contact.
No one talks to each other.
I loved it.
Washington Square Village.
It was amazing.
No one even looks you in the eye.
Occasionally, there'd be a little mimeograph paper saying, join us on the third floor to celebrate Lois Frankel's life.
Occasionally, there was a notice about someone who died.
That's it.
I absolutely love it.
Anyways, he said.
He was really funny too.
Peter Henry, one of my role models and the best boss I've ever had.
He said, you're in strategy.
He's like, answer me this.
What do you think the objective is of faculty housing?
And I'm like, to provide housing for young faculty who could otherwise not live here.
And he's like, bingo, I need you to move out next week, not the week after that.
Anyways, I bought a place, which Kara Swisher is very fond of.
It's been one of my second homes.
And I spend about, I don't know, about 60 days a year there, maybe 90, I don't know.
And here's the bottom line.
This tax, I figured out, I did the math.
If it goes through unfettered or- I'm the one that told you about this, by the way.
You told me about it, so I began looking into it.
It's unlikely to, it'll be watered down.
But if it goes through as Mom Donnie has proposed it, it would be an incremental $100,000 a year tax on me personally.
I'm not fond of that.
It's a form of a wealth tax because all that really does is take a, say, a condo worth $10 million and make it worth $8.5 or $9 million because it's an extra $100,000 a year.
But here's the bottom line and the reason why I think it's a win.
One, our municipalities need to get their fiscal house in order.
Two, it's clear that if there's going to be incremental taxes, it should be on the wealthiest among us.
And three, a tax on second homes, which is also being proposed, by the way, in San Francisco and Montana, is a very elegant way of going after those of us who, quite frankly, have the money.
Right.
It's over $10 million, the house is correct?
Over five.
Over five, okay.
In addition, you get a twofer here, and that is if people decide to sell, it does free up housing stock.
So nobody likes a tax.
I get it.
And the wealthy are going to come out of their skin.
I get it.
Ken fucking Griffin needs to shut the hell up.
He looks like a- Hold on.
I'm not done with my wins and my fails.
All right.
Okay.
I get it.
I actually think as far as taxes goes, which nobody likes, see above the meaning of the word tax.
I think this is an elegant, thoughtful, less bad tax.
My little lesbian communist from San Francisco, finally.
Go ahead.
And as long as I can roll out of my apartment and I have the money, which I do, and go to Jack's wife, Frida, and sit there and order a latte and watch the freak show of commerce, sex, capitalism, art, fashion, walk by me, it is worth a hundred grand a year to me.
And it's still worth that to a shit ton of people because if you have a second home in Manhattan, my brothers and sisters, you are doing just fine.
Yeah.
Pied à terre.
So the pied à terre tax.
And the second home tax being proposed across municipalities that need to raise revenue.
It is an elegant, thoughtful tax.
This is what you're not going to like.
My fail is Mayor Mamdani and his class warfare against the rich and doxing Ken Griffin.
That was totally, totally out of line.
I would agree with you.
Totally out of line.
And here's the problem with Democrats.
We want to redistribute virtue, not income.
Propose a tax on the wealthiest.
I get it.
Get on with it.
Stop complaining about billionaires.
Do your fucking job and raise taxes on the wealthy.
But instead, do not go to their homes and dox them.
And this is what's going to happen.
This is what's going to happen.
Ken Griffin, who had a $6.5 billion project underway in Manhattan, supposedly has given a quarter of a billion dollars to New York-based charities.
You know what he's going to say?
Fuck you.
And he's absolutely going to take capital he was investing in Manhattan and move it to Florida and Texas.
And here is the problem with Democrats.
We'd much rather signal virtue than do our fucking jobs.
And that is, it is one thing to be right, but it doesn't matter if you're ineffective.
And the Democrats are going to lose if they continue to try and with this undercurrent of young men are the problem, don't have problems.
Most white people are racist and all billionaires are evil.
Well, guess what?
You're going to lose the young male, the wealthy, and quite frankly, the white vote.
If you keep this class warfare demonization of success up, one of the most wonderful things about America, and the reason why we have consistently attracted the best and brightest around the world, is we celebrate success.
Now, do we need to redistribute income to the middle class?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
But notice how they never talk about Oprah or Beyonce.
This is identity politics at its worst.
It's demonizing success.
And you are going to end up with lower treasury receipts, but great.
You're going to virtue signal.
All right.
Let me ask you, what is the thing?
Because I think the most effective messaging around this area, and I often would be saying, are billionaires off?
I'm like, not all of them.
No, of course not.
Like, you know, I think the most effective way is to say everyone needs to pay their fair share.
That, I think, is a very effective thing.
And you're saying the same thing.
And remember, I think Gore tried to sort of demonize rich people, of course, which is ironic since he is one.
But one of the things that I think is effective is everybody should pay their fair share.
Like everybody shouldn't get breaks.
Everyone shouldn't get to meet with the president if I don't, right?
Everyone shouldn't be in a meeting where they get stuff.
I think the get-well, they're getting good stuff of them standing there and pulling in like Scrooge McDuck all the money is a very good message.
Like why do they get the best bits and you don't?
I think that is not demonizing them.
It's saying- fair share.
This is how much they pay.
This is how much you pay.
This is how much corporate tax has gone down.
This is how much your taxes have gone up.
I think that is fully a great way to do it.
And I agree that I didn't love the thing of using Ken Griffin.
I think you could have done much wider is all these people have second homes and they should pay a tax on it.
And that's that.
And they're very rich and they can not just they can afford it.
They don't have they don't have to pay taxes.
And win with math is the way you kind of do it with people in a smart way.
That's my feeling.
What about you from a marketing perspective?
What do you think?
If teachers unions were much more powerful and they had figured out a way to weaponize government and were getting paid five hundred thousand dollars a year on average, plus benefits, plus retirement, they would not be saying enough.
We don't need any more.
People will always respond to incentives in a capitalist society to get more and more.
Until we get rid of Citizens United, the wealthiest among us will weaponize government and always incrementally cede the transfer of power of our economy from laborers and consumers to investors.
The entire shooting match around income inequality is the following.
The point of America is to...
to make the jump to light speed by evolving from an earner to an owner.
Because once you're an owner, your wealth compounds tax deferred.
And owners are more so powerful and have such powerful lobbies because of Citizen United, they keep coming up with new tax breaks.
I can buy a jet today and write the whole fucking thing off in year one being cashflow positive.
If I own a home and I put it in an LLC, I'm an owner.
I can sell it, don't have to have a capital gain.
I can roll into another investment property, put it in a trust, $30 million exemption, and start building a dynasty.
Until we have an elected populace, elected representatives who stop transferring capital influence, well-being, health per year series from labor and from consumers to shareholders.
None of this is going to change.
And the key to all of this, none of this happens unless you do away with Citizens United.
And for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who keep complaining about the wealthy, well, then do your fucking job.
When you controlled all three houses of government, taxes went down on the rich during the Biden administration.
So everyone can, it's like the guy complaining that the game was rigged is wearing a referee's uniform.
Yeah, I agree.
You need structural reform, but demonizing billionaires.
Everybody does the same thing.
Everyone responds to incentives and feathers their bed the most they can.
I also think they do it to themselves.
I do think, on the other hand, the look of the Bezos's at that Met Gala wasn't good.
Totally different issue, but I agree with you.
I think they do it to themselves.
They do it to themselves, so let them do it to themselves.
Rent Venice.
Everyone knows how that feels.
I agree.
I have to say, I agree with you.
You're right.
I think it was a rare misstep by Mamdani, who's a little more deft as the way he handled Trump.
Very savvy politician.
I thought that was a little cloddish of him.
I think you're right.
I think you're right.
Anyway, those are good ones.
Although Ken Griffin's still been a whiny bitch about it.
Anyway, he's always a whiny bitch.
Smart guy.
I understand.
Really smart guy.
All of them need to stop talking.
Every one of them.
Anyway, we want to hear from you.
Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind.
Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.
And we have a specific question for you listeners today.
Who do you want to see co-host with me in August when Scott goes away?
a vacation.
We have, we already have a really good list actually.
And they're really good, including Chelsea Handler is coming.
So I'm very pleased about that.
We want to hear your ideas and maybe we can get them for you.
So we'll pick at least one from the people, the suggestions of the people.
And don't be kooky.
Don't be like, you know, the Pope.
I can't get the Pope, although I'm working on getting an interview with them.
But I mean, I mean, I could try to get the Pope, but it's not going to work.
So email us, call us, or tell us on the socials.
We want to hear.
Your suggestions, I would prefer an alien if that's possible, if anyone's listening from up there or tapping into this show.
Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe this week, On On With Kara Swisher, I'm talking with author and journalist Patrick Radden Keefe.
He's one of my favorite journalists.
He writes amazing books.
Obviously, he wrote about the opiate crisis.
He's written about the crisis in Northern Ireland.
He's just an amazing journalist.
His new book is called London Falling.
It's about a mysterious circumstance that surround the death of a 19-year-old who was pretending to be the son of a Russian oligarch.
I asked Radden Keefe why he's drawn to these true crime stories.
Let's listen to a clip.
I don't really even think of myself as a crime reporter, but it is a situation where when I go out and I kind of pursue what's interesting to me in the world, it's often stories about people transgressing in one way or another.
It's often stories about people kind of using their own charisma to change the world a little bit, to find some little wormhole, some loophole they can get through, or actually to kind of reorganize the world in a way that they would want.
It's funny because we talk about those stories as if they're outliers, but I feel as though that is the era we live in.
It's a great interview.
So smart.
Also, he's very handsome.
Scott, he was in, he was in the movie too.
Yeah.
That will be.
That, hands down, will be on Netflix within 24 months.
Oh, I think he's already sold it.
I'm sure.
Say nothing was already made.
I hear that story, and I want to know more.
That's correct.
It's going to be great.
I actually was asking him who's going to play the kid in the movie.
I think he's already sold it.
I believe so.
By the way, it's a riveting read.
It's really, you can't put it.
I'm not sure it has that as much meaning as he's putting in it, but it's a fantastic read.
And it is, it does, it's about modern day London too, which is interesting.
Okay, that's the show.
Thanks for listening to Pivot.
Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
We'll be back on Friday.
Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Wiseman.
Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode.
Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Saverio, and Dan Chalon.
Nishat Kroa 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.
We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.
Support for this show comes from SoFi.
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