Skip to main content

Joe and Mika's Mar-a-Lago Visit, Big Tech Derails KOSA, and Guest Kristy Caylor AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Pivot

· 83 min read

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Joe and Mika's Mar-a-Lago Visit, Big Tech Derails KOSA, and Guest Kristy Caylor) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Go to PodExtra AI's podcast page (Pivot) to view the AI-processed content of all episodes of this podcast.

View full AI transcripts and summaries of all podcast episodes on the blog: Pivot

Episode: Joe and Mika's Mar-a-Lago Visit, Big Tech Derails KOSA, and Guest Kristy Caylor

Joe and Mika's Mar-a-Lago Visit, Big Tech Derails KOSA, and Guest Kristy Caylor

Author: New York Magazine
Duration: 01:19:27

Episode Shownotes

Kara and Scott discuss Morning Joe anchors Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski revealing they paid a visit to Donald Trump to "restart communications," and the sheer brilliance of The Onion buying Alex Jones's Infowars. Then, the news of RFK, Jr.'s HHS Secretary nomination rattles the markets, and Trump says he

wants someone "big" for Treasury Secretary. Plus, the Kids Online Safety Act stalls in Congress, thanks in part to Big Tech's $90 million lobbying efforts. Our Friend of Pivot is Kristy Caylor, founder and CEO of Trashie, a clothing and tech recycling platform. Kristy explains how her company is tackling the monumental textile waste from fast fashion. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Summary

In this episode of 'Pivot,' hosts Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway discuss Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski's visit to Donald Trump, signaling a shift in their approach amid a polarized political landscape. They explore The Onion's acquisition of Alex Jones's Infowars, highlighting the complexities involved. The episode also addresses RFK Jr.'s nomination as Health and Human Services Secretary, its adverse market impact due to his anti-vaccine stance, and the lagging Kids Online Safety Act in Congress due to Big Tech lobbying. Guest Kristy Caylor shares insights on combating textile waste from fast fashion through innovative recycling practices.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Joe and Mika's Mar-a-Lago Visit, Big Tech Derails KOSA, and Guest Kristy Caylor) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_04
Support for Pivot comes from BetterHelp. What comes to mind when you hear the word gratitude? Maybe it's a daily practice, or maybe it feels hard to be grateful right now. Don't forget to give yourself some thanks by investing in your well-being.

00:00:13 Speaker_04
BetterHelp is the largest online therapy provider in the world, connecting you to qualified professionals via phone, video, or message chat. Let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp.

00:00:23 Speaker_04
You can visit betterhelp.com slash pivot today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash pivot.

00:00:33 Speaker_06
Support for this show comes from Arm. There's only one company at the heart of all the technology that makes podcasts like this one possible. It's the same company that powered the smartphone revolution and is helping define the AI revolution.

00:00:44 Speaker_06
The company is called Arm. Arm designs compute platforms for the biggest companies in the world so they can create silicon and solutions to power global technology.

00:00:53 Speaker_06
ARM became a NASDAQ 100 company in less than a year of its IPO and is proudly NASDAQ listed. AI-enabled ARM CPUs are able to provide the compute platform for the global AI revolution in the years to come. Visit arm.com slash discover to learn more.

00:01:12 Speaker_04
Support for Pivot comes from Solidime. Creating highly advanced AI is complicated, especially if you don't have the right storage or critical, but often overlooked, catalysts for AI infrastructures.

00:01:22 Speaker_04
Solidime is storage optimized for the AI era, offering bigger, faster, and more energy-efficient solid-state storage. Solidime delivers the capability to meet capacity, performance, and energy demands across your AI data workloads.

00:01:35 Speaker_04
AI requires a different approach to storage. Solidime is ready for everything the AI era demands. Learn more at storageforai.com. I brought politics, sex, wicked. I am literally the Dave Chappelle of the cultural zeitgeist.

00:02:00 Speaker_06
Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, the end of my cold.

00:02:07 Speaker_04
And I'm Scott Galloway.

00:02:08 Speaker_06
Yeah. How do I sound, Scott?

00:02:10 Speaker_04
You sound better.

00:02:11 Speaker_06
Better. Although it was an exhausting weekend. I had Sol's birthday, so we had a million three-year-olds running around. So I had plenty of time to rest.

00:02:18 Speaker_04
That's a lot. That's a lot. I know.

00:02:20 Speaker_06
It was. It was a lot. Where are you now?

00:02:23 Speaker_04
Yo estoy en Mexico, in Cabo San Lucas at the Baja Summit, yeah, where I'm meeting people who will say things like, yeah, after selling my company and I decided to take a year and really focus on my sleep. I'm not exaggerating.

00:02:40 Speaker_06
Wait, what is a Baja Summit? What in the world?

00:02:43 Speaker_04
That's a good question. It's a community, you know, God, everything's a community now, but these young, interesting people got together and bought a mountain somewhere and then started inviting people.

00:02:54 Speaker_04
The way I would describe it is Learning Man, and that is during the day, it's a bunch of TED Talks, and at night, everybody does X and listens to DJs.

00:03:02 Speaker_04
And, you know, you meet people in vertical farming who are trying to explain why they're poly or not poly.

00:03:08 Speaker_04
A lot of guys in their 50s who either, my sense is they're mostly rich kids who have pretend jobs, who wear beads and are like, I don't know, one twist of psychotic fate away from being Jim Jones.

00:03:19 Speaker_04
It feels very culty, but it's also very interesting and they get good speakers. And it's also, it's a lot of fun. Everybody's really friendly. It's not, they've done a, it's an interesting thing. It's quite unique. I don't know how,

00:03:32 Speaker_06
How did you get invited to this Young Persons Academy festival?

00:03:37 Speaker_04
I don't know if you've heard, but I speak quite a bit. They invited me at Summit at Sea two years ago, and I did that.

00:03:45 Speaker_06
Oh, it's these people.

00:03:47 Speaker_04
I really enjoyed it. And they said, do you want to do the Cabo thing? And I have speaking gigs out on the West Coast. And rather than giving me a speaking fee, which they don't do, they let me bring a bunch of people.

00:03:56 Speaker_04
So I brought a bunch of my friends who, like me, are in their arrested adolescence midlife crisis. And so we're all partying down here. It's a ton of fun. I'm really enjoying myself.

00:04:05 Speaker_06
So man-children, in other words. You're not listening to any of the speeches, are you?

00:04:09 Speaker_04
I don't go to other people's content, let's be clear. I'm not interested in what anyone else has to say.

00:04:14 Speaker_06
Is there anything you learn from it?

00:04:16 Speaker_04
I had a really illuminating conversation. I had like a two-hour lunch Arnold Palmer sojourn meet up with Jessica Yellen, and she always kind of helps me understand what's going on in the world and the media.

00:04:27 Speaker_04
And I find her very thoughtful and very interesting. Oh, that's good. I listened to, you know, Peter Diamandis talk about, you know, that we're going to be growing ears in our refrigerators and all that other crazy shit that's not going to happen.

00:04:38 Speaker_06
Oh, Jesus.

00:04:40 Speaker_04
And what else? The woman who runs OnlyFans spoke. That was sort of interesting. Creator economy, if you will.

00:04:47 Speaker_06
That has nothing to do with life extension, but okay.

00:04:50 Speaker_04
Sure. A lot of biohacking. I'm pretty sure you would hate it. I would hate it. Yeah, you would hate it, but it's, yeah, I think it's fun.

00:04:59 Speaker_06
I'm open-minded these days. You kind of have to be, don't you?

00:05:05 Speaker_06
We've got a lot to get to today, including how Trump's cabinet picks are moving markets, plus our friend at Pivot is Christy Kaler, the founder and CEO of Trashy, that's kind of your name, my name for you, and clothing, recycling, and rewards platform.

00:05:17 Speaker_06
We've got, you know, there's a lot going on. You saw Joe over here in the real world.

00:05:22 Speaker_06
Joe and Mika shared on Morning Joe that they went down to Mar-a-Lago, speaking of trips and sojourns, I don't think, unless they were hanging out with Elon, I'm not sure there were any psychedelics happening, but to meet Trump face-to-face for the first time in seven years to, quote, restart communications.

00:05:39 Speaker_06
Even though, I think he called her dumb as fuck or something like that. He was passing around information about Joe killing one of his aides. But let me have Mika try to explain what they thought was important to meet with Trump. Let's listen.

00:05:54 Speaker_00
And for those asking why we would go speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back. Why wouldn't we? Five years of political warfare has deeply divided Washington and the country.

00:06:10 Speaker_00
We have been as clear as we know how in expressing our deep concerns about President Trump's actions and words in the coarsening of public debate. But for nearly 80 million Americans,

00:06:24 Speaker_00
election denialism, public trials, and January 6th were not as important as the issues that moved them to send Donald Trump back to the White House with their vote. Joe and I realized it's time to do something different.

00:06:41 Speaker_00
And that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but also talking with him.

00:06:47 Speaker_06
What do you think of this move? I mean, a lot, you're getting a lot of clap back, largely because they were like, really, at some points, I'm like, calm down, Joe and Mika, about Donald Trump.

00:06:56 Speaker_06
But it's a pretty big shift for them, given how loud they were. And so, you know, essentially calling them a fascist every morning on morning television.

00:07:06 Speaker_04
I think they're doing exactly what they should be doing. I don't, he's the president. They command the highest rated show on MSNBC for four hours each morning. They talk a lot about politics.

00:07:18 Speaker_04
So to engage with the freely elected president, I'm surprised at the pushback. I think that's exactly what they should be doing. Maybe. And what am I missing here?

00:07:28 Speaker_06
I think they were particularly vehement. It's interesting. A lot of people who are like, he's such a fascist, he's a dictator, are now going the opposite way. So who do you believe? Did they ever believe that?

00:07:41 Speaker_06
And he did say some pretty salty things about him, beyond belief salty. I think she called her dumb as a prick. I forget what he called her. Something about her facelift, this and that. It was pretty ugly.

00:07:53 Speaker_06
But they didn't say what happened at this meeting. If they're going to be real reporters, I get it. Otherwise, I'm not really clear. They didn't say what happened at the meeting. It was on background. But what's the, I don't know.

00:08:06 Speaker_06
It just seemed they were super vehement, and now they're shifting rather quickly. But I guess so.

00:08:11 Speaker_04
Well, the far right, when people who are the biggest fans in the media, they get criticism. They, in my opinion, they were, I like Joe and Mika because A, I think it's great TV. I think they just do a fantastic job.

00:08:23 Speaker_04
Two, I think they haven't pulled any punches. They call it as they see it. And I think it reflects what Well, both on the president and on them, he's the president.

00:08:37 Speaker_04
If they're going to have a four hour show every morning and talk about politics, to have a direct dialogue with him, I think is important. They're putting their egos aside. He said some insulting things. Fine. He's the president.

00:08:48 Speaker_04
we'll go down there and talk to him. And I also think it reflects well on him to a certain extent that he's engaging with people in the media who've been critical of him. So I don't... I see this as a feature, not a bug.

00:09:00 Speaker_04
I don't understand why people seem so triggered by it.

00:09:02 Speaker_06
I just think when someone's... It's interesting because I know you talked to Charlemagne Tha God, but he was talking about this. He called Donald Trump fascist, and then he was sort of perplexed why Biden would be so friendly.

00:09:15 Speaker_06
given he went on and on about it. I think it was about credibility and believability. If you really think this, what are you doing? I think it's a good thing to discuss. They felt like a branch of the Democratic Party to me.

00:09:28 Speaker_06
That's what they felt like when they were going on and on. I don't think they're journalists at all. I think they're discussioners or pundits or something. Commentators, yeah.

00:09:36 Speaker_06
Commentators, but I mean, then actually, I mean, she spent a lot of time with people who had been dying of abortions because of Roe.

00:09:43 Speaker_07
Mm-hmm.

00:09:44 Speaker_06
I don't know. It just they were I felt like they were a branch of the Democratic Party. So that's just me. I guess I heard them differently than you might.

00:09:51 Speaker_04
Yeah, but you're I think if if the president's people called Kara Swisher and said, we'd like you to come down and talk to the president.

00:09:59 Speaker_06
I think they called him, but go ahead.

00:10:01 Speaker_04
Or whatever it might be.

00:10:04 Speaker_04
I think you do a service to the country and to people to go down, be Kara Swisher, or be Joe and Mika, ask hard questions, and try and engage in a... We need more, I don't want to call it forgiveness or grace or generosity, but we need more reasons to interact with one another as opposed to just writing each other off.

00:10:24 Speaker_06
Yeah, that's true. It's just these two. They were super in Trump's tank and then they were super anti and now they're like, I want to know what happened at the fucking meeting. That's all. I don't believe why they're keeping it from us.

00:10:37 Speaker_06
And so I don't know. It feels like a little bit like a Comcast wants to play nice because he's threatened to take away the pull up broadcast licenses of NBC. CBS, I believe. It feels a little, that's why I think people are doing that.

00:10:50 Speaker_06
He's made all kinds of, you know, I have to say, I do think Charlamagne has it right. It's like, let's hope he's not a fascist, and if he is, call it out. But what he said was fascist, the things he's been saying are.

00:11:02 Speaker_06
And so, I don't know, I don't know, it's just weird. Anyway, They have a very liberal following and have been particularly vehement, so the shift was rather dramatic. This is interesting. I love this. I like humor in dealing with these people.

00:11:20 Speaker_06
The onions acquisition of Alex Jones' Infowars has been paused.

00:11:24 Speaker_06
While a federal bankruptcy judge reviews the auction process, the parody site was named as the winner of the bankruptcy auction last week, but lawyers for Jones complained how the auction was handled.

00:11:33 Speaker_06
A group of Sandy Hook families who filed the defamation lawsuit against Jones agreed to accept smaller payouts to increase the value of Onion's bid. A hearing to review the auction process will be held this week.

00:11:44 Speaker_06
The CEO of the Onion parent company has said the sale is still underway as part of the standard process. I love this. I thought this was very perfect. It's a great way to use satire to buy up Alex Jones's stuff. I don't know, I kind of like this one.

00:11:59 Speaker_04
I mean, this was the first time I thought, if there is a God, he has a sense of humor. Yeah, exactly. I love this. And I actually thought about, I wish I'd known or been more on top of this.

00:12:08 Speaker_04
I'm really curious what it went for, because it gets a lot of traffic, I think, to turn it into a nonprofit talking about gun control or for a podcast that's on the left to take it and just absorb the traffic.

00:12:23 Speaker_04
Supposedly also with the purchase, you get a lot of supplements. I guess that's how they made their money. Seriously, you get supplements. Onion was saying we don't know what to do with it.

00:12:32 Speaker_04
I don't know if the, it sounds to me like the auction's probably gonna go through. The fact that it was filed by Jones's people just seems like, I don't know, grievance or whatever it is.

00:12:39 Speaker_06
Yeah, I just love it. This is how you, you know, this is how you show, I think the Onion has gotten really good since Ben took over. I think it's really fun. I think he's having a lot of fun with it. I think it's humor.

00:12:51 Speaker_06
You know, the Wrights spent a lot of time, did a lot of humor stuff, and it might as well be funny, right? And biting and cutting in a really clever and witty way.

00:13:02 Speaker_06
I think it's a really nice way to, like, especially this son of a bitch, you know, he deserves all the embarrassment and shit, but just being angry at him is not enough. To mock him, I think, is always the best way. I love mockery.

00:13:14 Speaker_04
I love mockery, Scott. It's like, what can you do about it? This is a vile person who has brought more despair to people who are already grieving tremendously. I mean, this really is a vile human being.

00:13:27 Speaker_06
And the question is... You know I think you should die, but go ahead.

00:13:31 Speaker_04
And this is something I've struggled with my entire life, the difference between being right and being effective. And I like to virtue signal and crying to TikTok or scream on Twitter about Alex Jones, you know what's more effective?

00:13:42 Speaker_04
Making a shit ton of money and then go buying his assets out of bankruptcy. That's more effective. If you really want to push back on this stuff, then don't go on Twitter, send some money to Planned Parenthood.

00:13:55 Speaker_04
Don't, crying to TikTok, identify some candidates who you think you could get behind and start bringing some presence to. To a certain extent, the Peter Thiels and the Bill Gates of the world, they get the fucking assignment.

00:14:11 Speaker_04
They're not on social media screaming. Although lately they are.

00:14:15 Speaker_06
Did you hear they're all victims? They're the resistance.

00:14:18 Speaker_04
No, the counter elite is the term I like.

00:14:20 Speaker_06
The counter elite.

00:14:21 Speaker_04
The counter elite. The counter elite. I'm worth 13 billion dollars, but I'm the counter elite.

00:14:24 Speaker_06
And I'm the counter elite. I am the resistance.

00:14:27 Speaker_04
They're such a rebel.

00:14:28 Speaker_06
They are the Death Star, the rebels.

00:14:31 Speaker_04
Such a rolling stone, isn't he?

00:14:32 Speaker_06
Oh my God, they're so fucking... See, that's what they're doing now. They're becoming like the way the liberals annoyed them, right? They're counter elites. They're the resistance. They're the fighters. Give me a fucking break, you rich fucks. I love this.

00:14:47 Speaker_06
I love what The Onion's doing. It's time for us to start being mocking bros. That's what I say. I've been listening to a lot of bros because I've had to listen to Charlemagne's podcast with Andrew Schultz, who I do not think is funny.

00:14:59 Speaker_06
I think he's a horse's patoot. Really?

00:15:02 Speaker_04
I think he's great.

00:15:03 Speaker_06
I don't know, he's loud. I would think you would like him. I see the appeal. Let me just say, I see the appeal. I do, but I think we can do better.

00:15:11 Speaker_06
Anyway, here's another thing, speaking of mockery, unfortunately, Mark Zuckerberg has given his wife another gift. Let's just listen, and we will decide if we like it or not.

00:15:25 Speaker_03
Till sweat drops down my balls Till all these bitches crawl Oh skeet skeet motherfucker Oh skeet skeet goddamn Oh skeet skeet motherfucker Oh skeet skeet goddamn

00:15:42 Speaker_06
Oh my, it was an acoustic cover of Get Low by Mark Zuckerberg and T-Pain, which Zuckerberg recorded as an anniversary gift to his wife. Part of me loves it, the other part is can't you just get her like, I don't know.

00:15:53 Speaker_06
On Instagram he said the song was playing when he first met his wife at a college party. I kind of like it and yet it hurts my ears. How do you feel?

00:16:02 Speaker_04
I love it, I think it should be private.

00:16:06 Speaker_06
He loves to perform it. Remember the statue of her in the backyard?

00:16:11 Speaker_04
But when you do that, it's not a gift for her, it's a gift for you. You want people to look at you giving someone a gift. And so I love this, I think it's hilarious, I think it's great.

00:16:20 Speaker_04
it's important to, with relationships, look, women love gifts more than men. And women have a special relationship with cocaine, jewelry, and gifts. And if you're a guy and you don't recognize those things, you don't understand women.

00:16:35 Speaker_04
And maybe you don't get jewelry, but trust me on this, you need to buy a woman in your life that's important, your mother, your spouse, your girlfriend, jewelry.

00:16:46 Speaker_04
And that's part of the assignment, is things you don't get, you don't need to get, you just need to get that they really like these things.

00:16:52 Speaker_06
But you like the song, you just like, would like, he does perform everything, he has to be like... It's fucking adorable.

00:16:59 Speaker_04
If it's for him and some of their friends and he does it at a party, but putting it out, I think it just cheapens a little bit, but on the whole, more power to you, brother.

00:17:10 Speaker_04
You got the money, you're in a relationship, you love that person, you've done something creative and unique. I think we need more of that, not less of it.

00:17:20 Speaker_06
What would you make for me?

00:17:22 Speaker_04
I swear, I knew you were gonna ask that. I think I would do some sort of bad karaoke of Rock Lobster or Dance This Mess Around. Has anyone seen?

00:17:33 Speaker_06
Would you be naked?

00:17:35 Speaker_04
No, I wouldn't want to upset you. Yeah, I've been working on a lot lately, though, on the testosterone. Naked, I look 59 and 7'8". It's all coming together. Since the scrotum lift, it's gone from sad elephant to really healthy anteater.

00:17:50 Speaker_06
I feel like there needs to be a performative performance by you at me to show your love. I feel unloved.

00:17:57 Speaker_04
Oh, no. Do as I say, not as I do. Whenever I do anything nice for other people, I want everyone else to know about it. Yeah, right. Whenever I give money, I want to make sure that they put out a press release.

00:18:07 Speaker_04
Yeah, I definitely have the same problem as him, but I can recognize it because I suffer from the same thing.

00:18:12 Speaker_06
Mar, keep being awkward.

00:18:13 Speaker_04
Keep being awkward. You be you, my man.

00:18:15 Speaker_06
You be you, my man. That's all I got to say.

00:18:18 Speaker_04
You showed those people in high school. When they wrote in your yearbook, stay cool. You aren't, but you got really fucking rich. That's even better.

00:18:26 Speaker_06
You're leaning into uncool. You keep doing that. And by the way, you can't sing. OK, but that's OK. It's OK. It's the thought that counts. Anyway, let's get right to our first big story.

00:18:41 Speaker_06
The post-election Trump bump has come to an end, with the markets closing lower last Friday and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq seeing their biggest one-day losses in two weeks.

00:18:49 Speaker_06
The downturn is being attributed in part to President-elect Donald Trump announcing RFK Jr. as his Health and Human Services Secretary. Shares of major vaccine and drug makers, including Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, tumbled in the wake of the news.

00:19:03 Speaker_06
What do you think shares of Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk fell? He's against Ozempic, by the way. as processed food stocks including PepsiCo, Coke, and General Mills.

00:19:13 Speaker_06
The markets were also reacting to Jerome Powell saying the Fed is in no hurry to make further interest rate cuts. What's your take on this? And the pick in general? He says he wants to make America healthy again. They have to stop with this.

00:19:25 Speaker_06
make America whatever again. America was never healthy. Let's start with that R. R. McKay Jr. which I loved eating at McDonald's on the private plane with Trump and Elon Musk.

00:19:34 Speaker_06
It was someone likened it to making the cop take the drugs just to make sure he's not a cop.

00:19:40 Speaker_04
Yeah, that was it. Making the new guy do drugs to make sure he's not a cop.

00:19:42 Speaker_06
Yeah. Oh, he looked such in pain. What a fucking asshole. He talks about McDonald's being poisoned and then he's sitting there with one. What a dumb ass that guy is. Anyway, what do you think of this?

00:19:52 Speaker_04
It's like when you're in Vegas and a pro asks you to show your genitals and make sure you're not a cop. I just heard about this. I wouldn't know first hand, but I've heard that happens. Big Ed and the Twins, sure.

00:20:02 Speaker_04
Anyone wants to see Big Ed and the Twins? That's fine.

00:20:03 Speaker_06
I'm waiting for that Rock Lobster video with that. I want that for my birthday. December is my birthday, but go ahead.

00:20:10 Speaker_04
Look, the market has been remarkably right, and I see that as a negative four-licking indicator because Moderna, on word that Kennedy would be head of HHS, was down 21%. Yeah, Pfizer down seven, Eli Lilly.

00:20:27 Speaker_04
I mean, this is tens of billions, if not even maybe over 100 billion in market value drawdown because this guy has a reputation. He can't fool anybody. He is crazy anti-vax with the with the key, you know, the operative term there being crazy.

00:20:45 Speaker_04
It's very disappointing, because what I would argue is that whenever you have the far left on the far right come together on something, it's a really bad fucking idea, whether it's reckless spending, anti-Semitism.

00:20:53 Speaker_06
Yeah, you're right. He's left. He's so far left, he's right.

00:20:57 Speaker_04
Well, that's what happens. They meet around the bend. They come together at crazy. And actually, the anti-vax movement originated on the far left. You know, don't let corporations.

00:21:06 Speaker_07
Oh, it did.

00:21:07 Speaker_04
Yeah, don't let corporations put crazy shit into your body. And then the far right picked it up because for some reason, science and experts became associated with the left.

00:21:16 Speaker_04
And I would argue and I think this is there's real evidence here that everyone is so fucking fascinated by innovation and chop metal chopsticks, grabbing a rocket and photo sharing apps and GPS, and rightfully so, it creates a lot of economic value.

00:21:30 Speaker_04
But if you were gonna talk about how we come together as a species and use communication and education and cooperation to accomplish something really incredible, the most positive innovation of the last couple hundred years I would put forward is vaccines.

00:21:46 Speaker_04
And there is nothing that has come out of our great academic institutions that's been privatized, that has capitalists,

00:21:54 Speaker_04
that has capitalist fuel, that also government weighs in and says, we can distribute these things in low-income areas, that have saved more lives than vaccines. Maybe is it food distribution? I don't know what it would be. Or pesticides, maybe?

00:22:08 Speaker_04
In my view, vaccines kind of, arguably, some of the best things ever. I am so pro-vax. If anyone's holding edibles or vaccines, meet me in the bathroom, and I'm gonna show you that the only thing better than feeling high is not feeling unwell.

00:22:22 Speaker_06
He tries to be cute about it and says I have questions, and I don't think that's the case. I think he's done more damage. I call him best friend of measles and polio. I think Zeke Emanuel, who's the brother of Ari and Ram, appointing RFK Jr.

00:22:36 Speaker_06
to the HHS is a big mistake. Well, I'll admit he has a few important ideas on chronic disease and processed food. I mean, yeah, everybody, we all think processed food sucks.

00:22:45 Speaker_06
These are over-foreshadowed by his problematic views on vaccines that threaten to walk back major progress we've made. Above all, appointing people like RFK Jr., who will bend to Trump's every whim, is guaranteed to be truly dangerous."

00:22:57 Speaker_06
I think he's right. I think that's 100% right. We can agree with some of the things, but this guy is anti-vax. I'm sorry all you people. He's not questioning it. He's truly anti-vax and try to stop pretending it's otherwise.

00:23:11 Speaker_06
What do you think of the GLP drugs, the impact on U.S. economies and global economies? I mentioned drug maker Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly saw shares drop. Are people going to listen to him here enough to do lasting damage to the industry?

00:23:25 Speaker_06
Kennedy has been critical of things like Ozempic in the past, calling it a drug that will, quote, gladden the wallets a big farm execs and think everyone should rely on eating better produce, I guess.

00:23:35 Speaker_06
That's his thing, which I think everyone should eat more produce, Robert, but seriously, seriously.

00:23:43 Speaker_04
The really upsetting thing about RFK Jr. is that, in my view, he is so good on a number of issues. He talks about the unholy alliance between the food industrial complex, PepsiCo, General Foods, you know, McDonald's, they wanna get you addicted.

00:23:59 Speaker_04
Let's go meta on this. So when our species left the savanna, there was an absence, there was a dearth of sugary, salty, or fatty foods. It was really hard to come across these things. And so when you found them, you gorged.

00:24:10 Speaker_04
There was an absence of safe, free play because there was always threats everywhere around. There was an absence of mating opportunities. 80% of women on this planet have reproduced, only 40% of men.

00:24:20 Speaker_04
So when you get industrial production of all of these things, People develop addictions to food, addictions to gambling, addictions to porn. And what GLP-1 has done, as far as I can tell, is it's like scaffolding on our instincts.

00:24:35 Speaker_04
And it says, look, even though you can find more calories then you can consume based on industrial production. Almost anyone can eat as much as they want. They can gorge. We're going to turn off that signal.

00:24:46 Speaker_04
And people on these drugs report that they're drinking less alcohol, they're biting their nails less. What's even even more amazing about these things is not only are they eating less shitty food,

00:24:56 Speaker_04
the people on these drugs are eating more fruits and vegetables and grains. It's as if this thing is is actually calibrating what's good for you and what is bad for you.

00:25:05 Speaker_04
And when you look at the one thing Americans share other than a Netflix subscription and Amazon Prime, it's that we are 70 percent of us are either obese or overweight. And obesity is

00:25:16 Speaker_04
the COVID or it is the epidemic that kills more people every year than COVID ever did.

00:25:22 Speaker_04
But because there's so much money involved from large corporations and hospital clinics and knee replacement and kidney dialysis and statins and pharmaceutical and McDonald's, We pretend that you're finding your truth. No, you're not.

00:25:34 Speaker_04
You're finding fucking diabetes. And he is very good on this issue. And then all of a sudden, it's like, huh?

00:25:41 Speaker_04
What you wanna... This bullshit that he said repeatedly that the best thing you can do when you see a woman with a newborn is go up to her and say, don't get her vaccinated. Jesus Christ. Christ, really?

00:25:54 Speaker_06
His cousin, Carolyn Kennedy, who's U.S. Ambassador to Australia, I didn't know that, doesn't tend to speak up, said a lot of negative things about him. There's a whole story on it.

00:26:04 Speaker_06
She goes, others are just getting to know him, but she said everything he says. I don't think most Americans share them. He's, you know, he's denied, he's against vaccination.

00:26:13 Speaker_06
Just so you know, Stalin himself is a vaccine safety activist who questions corporate influence on science. His critics say he's promoted conspiratorial ideas about public health intervention, widely viewed as one of the most important advances.

00:26:26 Speaker_06
He's embraced a debunked theory on vaccines can cause autism. He's questioned COVID-19 vaccinations. He's also been leaked to a measles outbreak in Samoa.

00:26:34 Speaker_06
And, you know, Kennedy, Carolyn Kennedy, the daughter of JFK and Jackie Onassis, said her family was united in terms of our support for public health sector and infrastructure, the greatest admiration for the medical profession.

00:26:47 Speaker_06
And Bobby Kennedy has a different set of views. It's very unusual for her to speak out. His whole family says he's as crazy as can be.

00:26:55 Speaker_04
I just hope he comes clean and I'm being serious here about steroid use. I've seen him without a shirt on. He's 70. That guy's on HGH or some sort of or Deca. He's on some sort. And by the way, I'm not sure.

00:27:08 Speaker_04
I'd love to hear him defended and talk about it. But he doesn't want a needle around a vaccine to stave off polio or rubella or measles. but it'll inject human growth hormone to look jacked at 70.

00:27:21 Speaker_04
And by the way, he might have, I take creatine and it's brain protective and heart protective. I'm not, hormone replacement therapy I think is, they're finding it's a very positive thing for both men and women.

00:27:33 Speaker_04
A lot of people say that the biggest instance of malpractice was discouraging women from hormone replacement therapy.

00:27:39 Speaker_04
So I'd love to know his views on it, but just be clear, as someone who works out a lot and is beginning to look like Monty Burns despite every fucking thing I'm trying to do... that guy is on some form of steroids.

00:27:54 Speaker_06
And I would just- Can you just say allegedly?

00:27:56 Speaker_04
Just say allegedly.

00:27:57 Speaker_04
That guy, I mean, I would argue, I would speculate that he might be in fact taking some sort of humongous, and I would just like him to speak openly about it and get his views on it because they seem to me somewhat contrary to this notion, but don't put- I do think that picture did a lot of damage, honestly.

00:28:12 Speaker_04
Which one?

00:28:12 Speaker_06
If he cares so much why, with him at the McDonald's box, the Big Mac. How the fuck could he do that after he called it poison? Like, what a dumbass. He's just such a dumbass.

00:28:22 Speaker_06
Anyway, should investors be worried about these Trump cabinet picks impacting markets? The stocks of major defense contractors also dropped last week following Pete Hegseth's announcement. God, the Washington Post wrote a story about him.

00:28:37 Speaker_06
He looks very dangerous as a person.

00:28:39 Speaker_04
Why do you say that? I'm asking for an answer, not as a comment. Why do you think he seems dangerous?

00:28:45 Speaker_06
I was reading the story. He looks like, look, this guy, whatever happened in that encounter with this woman, I think he attacked her. This is my feeling, Pete. This is what it looks like.

00:28:56 Speaker_06
He was already downstairs bothering women when this woman came and got him, right? That he doesn't even question. He sounds like, he reminds me of a sexual harasser. He reminds me of, I've had that happen to me in college.

00:29:09 Speaker_06
He looks like the guy in college. He has the tone and ability of, every woman looks at him and goes, cover your drink when you're around this fella. That's, you know what I mean, that kind of thing.

00:29:20 Speaker_06
And between him and Matt Gaetz, I mean, they feel like weird sexual aggressors.

00:29:26 Speaker_06
But, you know, whatever, whatever Pete said, the fact that he paid off a woman, you know, it's just like Bill O'Reilly, you know, oh, you know, I just paid her off because. Then there were tapes where he did say the things. She said, he said, right?

00:29:39 Speaker_06
So they're just all such weird. This whole gang of this GOP are all fucking each other down there at Mar-a-Lago. It's weird. It's a weird group of people. I'm sorry. Like, you know, there's the rumors of Corey Lewandowski and Kristi Noem.

00:29:53 Speaker_06
There's the rumors of, like, they all seem like Caligula down there. I don't know. It just, like, yikes. I find, you know, they talk about liberals being loose. I feel like they're, like, creepy. And I don't know.

00:30:06 Speaker_06
And then the guy who actually grabs some man's nuts, you know, it's always something.

00:30:12 Speaker_04
Yeah, the only thing is, I would push back a little bit.

00:30:14 Speaker_04
I think it's unfair to conflate Peter Hegseth, is that his name, with Bill O'Reilly, where Fox paid some woman $20 or $30 million after supposedly he was forcing her to watch gay porn and then describe it to him.

00:30:27 Speaker_04
You don't pay someone $20 or $30 million just to make a nuisance lawsuit go away. Matt Gaetz supposedly has a witness, a credible witness, that says she witnessed him having sex with a minor. That's pretty serious shit.

00:30:39 Speaker_04
And in the case of Pete, first off, he served very honorably. He, 20 years, I think two bronze stars. I mean, he really is a decorated service person.

00:30:51 Speaker_06
Hold on, let me finish.

00:30:54 Speaker_04
I think he does not have kind of the executive management experience or the gravitas around that would qualify him to oversee 3 million people. I agree with you there. He is, he did pay somebody off to drop a suit.

00:31:10 Speaker_04
I don't see, I gotta think that's gonna go away, because it doesn't accomplish what it's supposed to. You can see a scenario where someone accuses you of something, and to make it go away, you just pay them.

00:31:19 Speaker_04
Let me be clear, I don't think he's qualified for the position, but I do think it's unfair to compare him to what Matt Gaetz is undergoing.

00:31:28 Speaker_06
Yeah, okay. I mean, the whole gang of them, it's just, something's happening down there, something in the water.

00:31:34 Speaker_04
But what do you, I'm curious, I don't understand, well I think I understand incentives. What is the Machiavellian weird 5D or 0D chess that's going on with putting gates forward? Is AG, I don't, do they think if they…

00:31:51 Speaker_04
If they offer a blood offering, and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski convince the people, and supposedly there's 20 or 30 Republicans who've said, no fucking way, then does it make some of their less crazy but still grade A crazy picks more likely to get through?

00:32:06 Speaker_04
What's the strategy here?

00:32:09 Speaker_06
I think so, unless there isn't one, he just feels like it. He was on the plane at the last minute and he had another person for AG and then suddenly it was Matt Gaetz.

00:32:19 Speaker_06
I think sometimes it's just his whim at the moment, he just wants to do what he wants to do. You know, here's another one. Trump has yet to name his treasury secretary, though he's reported meeting several contenders at Mar-a-Lago.

00:32:29 Speaker_06
This is a critical job, right? A critical friggin' job. He said he wants someone big for the role. Apollo's Mark Rowan is in the mix now. I have a lot—you and I have regard for him as his former Fed governor, Kevin Warsh, another very qualified person.

00:32:44 Speaker_06
Elon Musk threw his support behind Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick. over hedge fund manager Scott Besent, who many, many people on Wall Street, I have been checking, think is highly qualified in an ex-post over the weekend.

00:32:56 Speaker_06
So, I'm not just because Elon threw his... Lutnick has a terrible reputation compared to Scott Besent, and is obviously a look-at-me kind of fella, right? This is lunacy, the way they're deciding this important job, and the same thing with the AG.

00:33:11 Speaker_06
That one, I think he was on the plane with Matt Gaetz and just decided, let's fuck with the liberals, or I don't... I honestly don't know. loyalty, I don't know.

00:33:20 Speaker_04
But I would argue that the nominees for Treasury Secretary are incredibly impressive and competent and normal compared to the nominees across all the other stuff.

00:33:31 Speaker_04
They're all, I mean, Howard Lutnick, I know people have some issues with, but generally speaking, these are talented, smart, accomplished people who you can imagine in the role. I'm a big fan of Mark Rowan. I like that

00:33:44 Speaker_04
I've spoken at Apollo conferences where he's spoken. This guy is a blue flame thinker. He is.

00:33:50 Speaker_06
That's why I'm like, okay, great. Yeah, sure.

00:33:53 Speaker_04
And also, the reality is, now, granted, Kennedy could do a lot of damage with HHS, but you're going to have pretty serious checks and balances. The reason why this position is so important

00:34:07 Speaker_04
is regardless of policy, if the economy doesn't grow, everything just gets harder to do. And the adult in the room needs to be the person around economic policies, in my view.

00:34:19 Speaker_04
This is, everyone says, you know, Taylor Swift was person of the year last year. No, it wasn't. It was Jerome Powell. These people have more impact day to day on people.

00:34:28 Speaker_04
I think America is a platform for two things, primarily, and this is where I think Democrats have fucked up because they've lost this. One, defending our shores and our citizens, and two,

00:34:36 Speaker_04
creating the atmospherics of prosperity so you can develop economic security for you and your family. If you want more rights given to people, help them get more money. That's the easiest way for them to gain rights. So I like this.

00:34:48 Speaker_04
And the thing I also really like about Mark Rowan, although I have no influence over these picks, As I thought, in contrast to some other famous billionaires, he handled the anti-Semitism on campus really well. He was forceful yet dignified.

00:35:01 Speaker_04
He had a problem with the president of Penn. He got his big game trophy on the head and then he went quiet. He didn't start talking about reforming education. Yeah, he wasn't, look at me, look at me. He's like, this is my objective. I'm upset.

00:35:15 Speaker_04
They fixed it or they took action. And now he's gone back to his day job. So this guy strikes me as having a decent amount of humility, forceful yet dignified. And I'm telling you, we want a high IQ person in this role.

00:35:29 Speaker_06
Yeah, he really is. If anyone's spent any time with him, he's really a sharp cookie. He really is. He's well-regarded. I mean, that would be a good serious pick. I would like him in a Democratic or a Republican administration, someone like that.

00:35:41 Speaker_06
Lutnick seems like a horse's patoot. I'm sorry, he just does. He loves being on camera, and he strikes me as an unserious person in that regard. I get his reputation, but having checked, I've called like a dozen people Nobody likes him.

00:35:57 Speaker_06
They like Scott Besant, and I think the issue around Scott Besant is that he worked for Soros, which I think you either work for Soros or a bunch of different people as a great investor.

00:36:07 Speaker_06
That's what you're holding against him, so he's a little independent. I think that's their issue. I think that's why Elon wants someone like Howard Lutnick he can push around.

00:36:16 Speaker_04
I know a lot of people who work for George Soros. When it comes to money, George Soros does not suffer fools. The Soros funds are very serious, very competent, and they aggregate outstanding professionals.

00:36:30 Speaker_04
Having worked for George Soros, and it's not a political position. He was there to just make George richer. I mean, that's what he's there for.

00:36:37 Speaker_06
I know, but I'm just telling you that's what's going down over there. But I do think one of the, it's critically important, this is a serious person.

00:36:43 Speaker_06
I think they're trying to get someone like Mark Rohn or Scott Besant, who to me are very serious selections, to say yes on tariffs. They may not be able to quite as easily.

00:36:54 Speaker_06
I think this has to be a person who makes the calls in a way that's not, it has to be political, but not, you know what I mean, in the interest of the economy, according to them and their theories.

00:37:06 Speaker_04
How do I make long-term adult, non-political decisions that are gonna help? I mean, here's the issue. Prosperity is here, similar to the future. It's just not distributed equally.

00:37:21 Speaker_04
How does this person make really good decisions that ensure we can argue over a bigger pie? We're always gonna argue, but the pie grows. And this person has to absorb a massive amount of data and also make hard decisions. Chairman Powell,

00:37:34 Speaker_04
Raising interest rates 500 points angered almost everybody. Elizabeth Warren was pissed off about it, people on the far right were pissed, and he's like, no, this is what we gotta do, folks.

00:37:47 Speaker_04
And as a result, inflation came down faster in the United States than I think any G7 country, and it was already back to its target level.

00:37:54 Speaker_04
And that kind of leadership, intellect, and quite frankly, folks, even though America seems to be against it, expertise and people who have PhDs who actually studied this shit,

00:38:08 Speaker_04
Anyways, it feels like this is the only substantive conversation around his nominees other than, wait, let me get this. Someone saw him having sex with a minor. Let me get this. He's against vaccines. I mean, it's all dancing with the stars.

00:38:24 Speaker_04
And then we go to PBS for a few minutes.

00:38:26 Speaker_06
I'm like, what are you doing? frittering away your chance here. I mean, it's just, he's just, you know what, he's trolling and pranking, and he's got to cut it out. He's got to cut it out on this serious topic.

00:38:36 Speaker_06
He really wants to be historically, you know, he's still, he's just a terrible person, Donald Trump, but he could help a lot of people. Anyway, let's go on a quick break.

00:38:45 Speaker_06
When we come back, Big Tech leads the charge to derail the Kids Online Safety Act, and we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Christy Kaler, about how her company is reducing clothing waste. You know I'm a big recycler in the era of fast fashion.

00:39:03 Speaker_04
Support for Pivot comes from Mint Mobile. Most people don't love jumping through hoops to get a great deal. And yet, so many companies advertise can't-miss deals only to move the goalpost the moment you try to sign up.

00:39:14 Speaker_04
Wouldn't it be amazing if companies just offered what they promised? That brings us to Mint Mobile, whose great deal is actually a great deal. When you purchase a new three-month phone plan with Mint Mobile, you'll pay just $15 a month. That's it.

00:39:26 Speaker_04
No strings attached, no sneaky fine print, just a great deal. All Mint Mobile plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can even keep your phone, your contacts, and your number.

00:39:37 Speaker_04
You can get this new customer offer. And a three-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month by going to mintmobile.com slash pivot. That's mintmobile.com slash pivot. You can cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash pivot.

00:39:50 Speaker_04
$45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on the first three-month plan only. Speeds slower above 40GB on unlimited plan, additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details.

00:40:06 Speaker_06
Support for Pivot comes from Vanta. Whether you're starting or scaling your company's security program, demonstrating top-notch security practices and establishing trust is more important than ever.

00:40:15 Speaker_06
Vanta automates compliance for SOC 2, ISO 7001, and more, saving you time and money while helping you build customer trust.

00:40:24 Speaker_06
Plus, you can streamline security reviews by automating questionnaires and demonstrating your security posture with a customer-facing trust center all powered by Vanta AI.

00:40:33 Speaker_06
Over 8,000 global companies like Atlassian, FlowHealth, and Quora use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time. You get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com slash pivot. That's vanta.com slash pivot for $1,000 off.

00:40:54 Speaker_06
Support for this show comes from Arm. Have you ever thought about the technology that makes this podcast possible? Whether you're listening on your phone, in your car, or via a laptop, there's also the data centers that make it all work.

00:41:05 Speaker_06
One company is at the heart of it all. It's the same company that powered the smartphone revolution and is helping define the AI revolution. That company is called Arm.

00:41:14 Speaker_06
Arm designs compute platforms for the biggest companies in the world so they can create silicon solutions to power global technology. Arm became a NASDAQ 100 company in less than a year of its IPO and is proudly NASDAQ listed.

00:41:26 Speaker_06
Arm touches nearly 100% of the globally connected population. 99% of smartphones are built on Arm. Major clouds run on Arm as well as all major mobile and PC apps.

00:41:37 Speaker_06
Now their engineers are tackling the insatiable demand for compute and power efficiency that AI is creating. AI-enabled ARM CPUs are able to provide the compute platform for the global AI revolution in the years to come.

00:41:49 Speaker_06
But for now, relax and enjoy this podcast. It's very likely running on your very own ARM-powered device. Visit arm.com slash discover to learn more. Scott, we're back.

00:42:07 Speaker_06
A campaign against Kids' Online Safety Act is in full swing as the bill has been stalled in the House for months.

00:42:12 Speaker_06
A new report from The Wall Street Journal details Big Tech's willingness to dump cash into lobbying efforts and lean into culture war issues with liberal lawmakers' lobbying efforts focused on concerns the bill could censor LGBTQ youth, although I think they fixed that part of it.

00:42:25 Speaker_06
And with conservative lawmakers, the focus is on potential for censorship of anti-abortion positions. Meta and Alphabet have spent nearly $90 million in the last three years lobbying about a range of issues, including COSA.

00:42:37 Speaker_06
COSA would assign platforms the duty of care, which would hold them accountable for addressing issues like mental health disorders, bullying, and sexual exploitation. Also, at the same time, Brandon Carr has been over at the FCC.

00:42:51 Speaker_06
He wrote part of Project 2025. He's also very anti-tech. So interesting times. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the Trump administration, because it has a very strong anti-tech ban, especially J.D. Vance. So do you think they'll hold firm?

00:43:06 Speaker_06
Are they going to be more empowered once Trump takes office? I'm not so sure. You know, I think they may be wishing for the Biden administration again. So what do you think? $90 million they're spending.

00:43:19 Speaker_04
Yeah, I just look. This is, I thought we were going to get this one, now I'm not as sure. There's been 40 congressional hearings on child safety and social media, and there's been zero laws. And this is not perfect, but perfect is not on the menu.

00:43:36 Speaker_04
And I thought we were going to get this, and now it looks as if

00:43:39 Speaker_04
The delay in obfuscation and the weaponization of our government and the fact that there are, that ByteDance has one lobbyist for every 11 members of Congress, Meta has one for every eight, Amazon has more full-time paid lobbyists living in D.C.

00:43:53 Speaker_04
than there are sitting U.S. senators. And money has always played a role here, but essentially big tech has really mastered the art.

00:44:02 Speaker_04
I think there's a lot of backroom deals that involve our security apparatus, but 5% of kids under the age of 18 qualify as being addicted to drugs or alcohol, 5%, and that's a lot.

00:44:14 Speaker_04
If you know 10 households with two kids, that means somewhere there's a kid who's an addict to drugs or alcohol. With social media, 27% qualify as addicted.

00:44:25 Speaker_04
There's never been, I don't think there's ever been an entity, a sector, or a private company that has ever been this guilty of addicting our children than big tech. And yet there's absolutely no laws.

00:44:39 Speaker_04
And so I got excited that this seemed like it was going to go through. And now it feels like big tech is winning again.

00:44:47 Speaker_04
And every day they have their lobbyists out there giving money, playing golf, coming up with thoughtful reasons around why you should be, express your concerns. And now it feels like it's at risk. I find this all very

00:45:00 Speaker_04
discouraging, but I don't feel like I have the insight to handicap it. What do you think is going to be here?

00:45:07 Speaker_06
I think they just don't want any regulation whatsoever. I think they want no laws whatsoever. And so they're nitpicking every single one of these laws. There's been lots of problems with COSA. There is no question about that.

00:45:18 Speaker_06
But they've managed to do different things to it. There's not going to be any rule that's going to be good. And that's the point. They don't want any law. They don't want anything at all. They don't want a privacy law. They don't want antitrust renewed.

00:45:32 Speaker_06
They will hold this stuff up as much as they can.

00:45:34 Speaker_06
And it's going to take serious bipartisan work together away from all the censorship versus hurting LGBTQ youth, both of which I'm concerned with both of them, right, by the way, more the young gay people. They don't want anything passed.

00:45:54 Speaker_06
They don't want a duty of care. They don't want a duty of care. And every other industry has a duty of care in some way, whether it's an airplane or a pharmacy, you know, big pharma.

00:46:06 Speaker_06
Maybe they manipulate things, but can we get one on the friggin' books and then figure it out from there? They just don't want any slight bit of edge to get them to stop. And they will do anything it takes.

00:46:18 Speaker_06
This has been a historical thing for these people. And they'll do it as long as our... I'd even be like, go Brendan Carr, even though I think some of his things are loony. I'd go Lena Kahn, go, just to muck up their works for five seconds.

00:46:33 Speaker_06
But you saw Amy Klobuchar get mowed down. You saw Ken Buck get mowed down. It doesn't really matter. They mow everybody down.

00:46:40 Speaker_04
And Congress hasn't passed a major bill to protect children online since 1998. KOSA does put in place protections for kids online, like regulating addictive features and harmful content.

00:46:52 Speaker_04
I mean, this is tech lobbyists continue to maliciously stirred down on Capitol Hill using one unfounded narrative with Democrats and another with Republicans. I mean, with Republicans, they've been stating that COSA censors speech. What the fuck?

00:47:09 Speaker_04
We're worried about a 12-year-old's speech?

00:47:12 Speaker_06
Yeah, Johnson has said, I love the principle, but the details that are very problematic.

00:47:17 Speaker_04
And let me tell you what's behind all of this. The six most popular social media platforms earn roughly, get this, $11 billion in just one year from advertising that targets, wait for it, Children. Children.

00:47:35 Speaker_04
Social media companies have existed with very little regulation for 30 years and want to keep it that way. I mean, okay, so what's going on here?

00:47:42 Speaker_04
$11 billion, as it say, COSA would not censor, limit, or remove any content from the Internet, and it does not give the FTC or state's attorneys general the power to bring lawsuits over content or speech, no matter who it is from.

00:47:56 Speaker_04
The bill passes First Amendment scrutiny because it is content neutral. We're talking about kids here.

00:48:04 Speaker_06
They don't want to do anything. They just they play them. They play these sides.

00:48:09 Speaker_04
And this is light touch good regulation. It's important to note that there's no new rulemaking power for the FTC in COSA, nor any ability to create rules about content. So this whole free speech bullshit doesn't hold water.

00:48:24 Speaker_04
It's $11 billion they're making, and we have seen evidence everywhere that social, the more time kids spend on social, the more likely they are to be depressed, anxious, and engage in self, Harm.

00:48:39 Speaker_06
You know what we need to do, Scott?

00:48:40 Speaker_04
What's that, Kara?

00:48:40 Speaker_06
Can I just tell you? You and I need to go down to Mar-a-Lago and discuss this with the president. What do you think?

00:48:48 Speaker_04
I would do it. I'd just like to see the two of you in the same room.

00:48:50 Speaker_06
Oh, share a McDonald's. I like McDonald's. Can I just say, I love fucking McDonald's.

00:48:54 Speaker_04
You love McDonald's?

00:48:55 Speaker_06
I do. I do. I do. I eat it, not infrequently. I don't eat it very much. I know it's bad for me, but I got to tell you, I love it. I take the kids. Amanda's always horrified.

00:49:03 Speaker_04
You go to Mar-a-Lago. I want to go to Tulum with Don Jr. I'd like to roll with him. Me and Don Jr.

00:49:09 Speaker_06
You can go hang out. We should go together. We have to make sure Elon's not there, the guest who wouldn't leave, because he'll come at us. But we need to go and talk about this with him, because that's the kind of people we are.

00:49:19 Speaker_06
We're looking for common ground. Honestly, I would go down there if we could talk to him about something like this, right? For this, it's worth it for me. And I would eat the McDonald's, President Trump, I would eat it.

00:49:29 Speaker_06
Anyway, all right, let's get to our friend of Pivot. Christy Kaler is the founder and CEO of Trashy, a clothing, recycling, and rewards platform. They also just recently started doing tech stuff, getting rid of all your tech crap that you have.

00:49:49 Speaker_06
I'm really intrigued by this company, although I find it, I'm sort of confused about how it could possibly work out. Cuz everyone has their sad recycling stories, Christy, you know what I mean? Like you find out you recycle and it doesn't work.

00:50:01 Speaker_06
So explain what it is and how it works exactly, cuz there's a lot of clothing that ends up in a landfill, right?

00:50:07 Speaker_05
Yeah, 85% of our clothing ends up in landfill. It's actually 17 tons, million tons per year. So it's about 112 pounds per person in the US every year. So I think that the universal truth is just everyone has too much stuff.

00:50:22 Speaker_05
And typically recycling is actually kind of either inconvenient, we don't know where the clothes go, even only Goodwill sells about 27% of what they collect and we're like, what happens next?

00:50:33 Speaker_05
So with Trashy, we created a product called the Take Back Bag, which is really fun and exciting. And people do it from the convenience of their own home. They fill it up with anything from any brand in any condition.

00:50:46 Speaker_05
So it's quite convenient on that sense too, and they mail it back to us. So this is soft clothing, shoes, shirts, things like that. Yeah, so your shirts, your shoes, your bags, your accessories, it can be towels and sheets.

00:51:01 Speaker_05
You send it back to us and then we have a big recycling center where we meticulously sort and grade all of the product. It actually goes into one of 253 grades. So it's a very detailed process, and then we find the next best use for it.

00:51:14 Speaker_05
So that can be reuse, that can be recycling, that can be downcycling, fiber recycling, but we control the whole process. So we have complete visibility into it, we know where it goes.

00:51:24 Speaker_05
And so where most programs are opaque, we provide a lot of transparency.

00:51:29 Speaker_06
Fast fashion, for people who don't know, it's become a huge industry, particularly in the last few years, with the rise of companies like Shein and Timu. Scott's a big proponent. I'm gonna get him, pull him in in a second.

00:51:39 Speaker_06
But just so you know, Amazon, interestingly, just launched your competitor in that field last week with a storefront called Hall. Cuz they got in trouble cuz they were just throwing everything out. If people return stuff, they just threw it back out.

00:51:52 Speaker_06
They didn't ever return it. I'm just curious, what's your take on these companies? And I'll note a couple of stats. The average consumer buys 60% more pieces of clothes than they did 17 years ago. Not Kara Swisher, but others.

00:52:05 Speaker_06
The number of times a garment is worn in decline is around 36% in the last 15 years or so.

00:52:10 Speaker_06
So talk a little bit about, people are moving into this, but you wonder if you have the disappointment you've had in the recycling business, which has shown that most things you recycle don't get recycled.

00:52:21 Speaker_05
Yeah, I think there's a lack of transparency in the recycling process. It's a very kind of antique network of people recycling clothes, so you don't get a lot of transparency and visibility into what's happening.

00:52:32 Speaker_05
But to your point, we're consuming more. I mean, do you guys know how many products Sheehan puts out per day? 7,000? Yes, between 2,000 and 10,000 per day. So on the macro scale, we've moved, I mean, it makes Zara look like luxury.

00:52:46 Speaker_04
I should get a free trip to Mar-a-Lago. I thought that was outstanding.

00:52:48 Speaker_05
Seriously, that was outstanding.

00:52:51 Speaker_04
Look how impressed Chris is. Seriously. That's great. Anyways, go ahead. Sorry.

00:52:55 Speaker_05
No, so we've moved from fast fashion to instant fashion, which I think is why everybody's taking note, like we have to do something about this. We can't keep putting that much product out into the world.

00:53:05 Speaker_05
It's estimated that we lose about $600 billion in value every single year. It's remarkable, obviously, the Sheehan effect, the Temu effect, you talked to kind of the increased consumption numbers.

00:53:17 Speaker_05
I think it's time that we all kind of took note that we need to do something about it. It's estimated that we lose about $600 billion into landfill every year in value from fashion, textiles, technology, toys.

00:53:32 Speaker_05
But most business models really are not that effective. So either people don't do it because it's not fun, or it's not convenient, or it's not rewarding. There's not like a what's in it for me kind of component to it.

00:53:45 Speaker_05
And so, you know, those are the pieces we really play with, all embedded with, like, how do we build a really good business model that works? We need to get the flow of economics working.

00:53:53 Speaker_05
We can't just say we need to do it because it's the right thing.

00:53:56 Speaker_04
Nice to meet you, Christy. One of the things I like about what you're doing, I find it sort of ineffective, unrealistic to believe that you're going to talk young people into consuming less.

00:54:05 Speaker_04
I also, and I'm an investor in the space, I think young people need more access to products for a lower price. But at the same time, trying to figure out a way to deal with one of the externalities here, I think it's really important.

00:54:20 Speaker_04
I mean, the fear I have is that people worry that recycling was nothing but an attempt by people to make them feel that they were actually addressing the problem.

00:54:30 Speaker_04
And there's been a lot of information that recycling, quite frankly, is just a more emotional benefit than actual benefit. What happens to these products if organizations like yours don't get ahold of them and repurpose or recycle them effectively?

00:54:48 Speaker_05
Yes. I mean, I think the term recycling is often applied in a very broad way. And so sometimes people take products in, they kind of skim the cream off the top, try and resell them for profit, and the rest unfortunately ends up in landfill.

00:55:01 Speaker_05
That's not discussed. I think that's pretty typical, even with the modern resale platforms. I think, unfortunately, that's often done at lowest cost. So they're bundled up, they're shipped offshore.

00:55:16 Speaker_05
We have a whole concept called waste colonialism that we talk a lot about. But it's really the infrastructure to properly process materials.

00:55:26 Speaker_05
hasn't been modernized in order to handle the volume and handle it with precision so that we can actually keep 95% of what we collect out of landfill, which is what our process is able to do. It doesn't mean that it's perfect.

00:55:40 Speaker_05
Some things are downcycled, some things are reused. You have to have kind of a broad approach to where these products can go. But taking them in in the first place is really critical. We have a gap in the collection cycle, and we have a gap in sorting.

00:55:55 Speaker_05
And really the transparency around sorting and where things are being recycled after that. So explain the business model then to us.

00:56:03 Speaker_06
What is the business model? Cuz that's where the, you have these colorful bags, I've done it a couple times, and then you get stuff, right?

00:56:09 Speaker_05
Correct. You get rewards. Yeah, you unlock deals. So basically business model works that we've created this, as I said, kind of recycling service. It comes in the form of this package that's fun and bright and convenient.

00:56:21 Speaker_05
Customers are willing to pay for that. So that really creates the relationship. And then after recycling, you unlock deals and rewards at places you like to shop. And that can be anything from like Uber and DoorDash to Nike and Adidas.

00:56:37 Speaker_05
So it's a broad range of rewards, which we found really important. Because I think you don't always wanna recycle your jeans and buy new jeans. You might wanna recycle your jeans and buy dinner.

00:56:50 Speaker_05
It's just a much broader universal kind of incentive platform that gets kind of the consumer into their next step of kind of their journey in a way where they're also extracting value.

00:57:03 Speaker_06
So you're not like chastising them saying, oh, you shouldn't buy things. It's that you don't want them to go to better places, presumably.

00:57:10 Speaker_05
We want to collect them all. I think I totally agree. It's unrealistic to think that consumption is going to slow down. There's nothing we can do to do that, frankly. You know, that train's kind of left the station.

00:57:22 Speaker_05
If we can engage on the post-consumer moment, if we can say, hey, we know you've got that pile. We know you've got cords and chargers hiding in a drawer. Let us help you. Most of the time people are like, how did you know?

00:57:34 Speaker_05
And I'm like, because we do this.

00:57:37 Speaker_04
So from what I understand, Timu and Xi'an are going to be responsible for 20% of all holiday purchases, which is just- And now Hall, which Amazon is trying to copy them, but go ahead. That's right. I mean, other than just the consumption culture,

00:57:58 Speaker_04
more for less, what do you think is going on here? Because we had typical fashion, then we had fast fashion, I would describe this as on-demand fashion.

00:58:07 Speaker_04
Can you talk about why this category has just become, I mean, it really is, the explosion here is staggering. Any thoughts as to why these companies have become so dominant so fast?

00:58:21 Speaker_05
I mean, I think you have a few different forces at play at the same time, which is the Xians and Temas of the world have kind of hacked cost of goods and speed to market.

00:58:33 Speaker_05
So they can really drive that frequency of launch in a way that nobody's been able to ever before. So that 10,000 styles a day, I mean, they often pride themselves on 98% sell through.

00:58:47 Speaker_05
They're not making these decisions nine months in advance, they're making them two weeks in advance. And so they've really figured the market out. So that kind of demand cycle is really fast for them.

00:58:58 Speaker_05
I think obviously social media and our access to kind of trend information product is really important in driving this forward, particularly with the Gen Z kind of community. that's where everything exists. And so it's a rush.

00:59:13 Speaker_05
It's pretty human nature to kind of have that consumption cycle. And I think there's a really interesting conflict in values because it's often the same people who are like, we need to save the planet.

00:59:27 Speaker_05
Which is an interesting tension that we're facing.

00:59:30 Speaker_06
Right. Which Patagonia has done, right? If you think about it, a bunch of other regions. Patagonia makes a big deal. You return them and they fix them. I did that for Louis. He happens to like this one Patagonia jacket and they fixed it.

00:59:42 Speaker_06
You know, and he preferred that, which was instead of a new one, which was interesting. But you're now moving into tech recycling. Now, I know Apple does that to an extent. What is tech recycling?

00:59:54 Speaker_06
Because I've got cords from the 60s, essentially, or whatever. Where do those go? Why are you doing this, and where do those go? Obviously, you want to do as much stuff that you can actually make money from. Presumably, you can from this stuff.

01:00:08 Speaker_05
Yeah, I think it's getting the consumer engaged is one piece. And so what we found is like we've had helped, we've helped, we've distributed over 600,000 take back bags just for textiles in the last 12 months.

01:00:21 Speaker_05
And when we speak to consumers, they're just like, please do more, like help me more. So we know the demand is there on the consumer side.

01:00:27 Speaker_05
To your point, like Apple and other platforms have kind of their buyback programs, but they're not handling old chargers, cords, the actual drawer stuff that you don't know what to do.

01:00:38 Speaker_05
In a similar format, you know, we see there's just such a huge opportunity and we build the supply chain to support that so we can take those products back and recycle them into materials, into componentry.

01:00:49 Speaker_05
Alternatively, that typically ends up in landfill. So it's pretty similar stats to textiles. But you can make money from, presumably, that's a lot of money. Yeah. copper off of it.

01:01:00 Speaker_05
It's, I wouldn't call it a lot of money, but there's a revenue stream to it, which helps the business model work. So that, you know, that value that I mentioned that goes into landfill typically, we're extracting some of that.

01:01:11 Speaker_05
You're extracting, right, rather than garbage pickers. Rather than garbage, you're getting the, you know, the metals, the plastics, the componentry where possible.

01:01:20 Speaker_05
And then all of that's, you know, when we take back electronics, it's incredibly important too, the data sanitation,

01:01:26 Speaker_05
So the supply chain piece of what we do, the integrity of that is really essential to making this work well and delivering on our promise.

01:01:34 Speaker_06
Yeah, it would be bad if you started killing people by doing that.

01:01:38 Speaker_04
So people have zeroed in, I would argue unfairly on fast fashion. Do you think that Apple and Nike, because of their incredibly positive brands, get a bit of an undeserved hall pass?

01:01:49 Speaker_04
Or is fast fashion really that much worse than some of the other kind of more aspirational brands that have supply chains in China?

01:01:56 Speaker_05
That's a great question. I mean, I think on a unit-by-unit basis, fast fashion is a key player in those statistics that we just quoted and the growth of that consumption cycle.

01:02:06 Speaker_05
I don't think that gives these brands a pass that are kind of the incumbents with large supply chains and large businesses. Patagonia, I mean, I think they've done amazing work, but their business is a billion dollars a year. I think it's grown four.

01:02:20 Speaker_04
It's nothing. It's a pimple on the elephant.

01:02:22 Speaker_05
Yeah, I get it, I get it. But it's, I mean, they're still producing product. So I think that, you know, overall, if you're making product and you're selling it to a consumer, 85% of the time it's ending up in landfill.

01:02:34 Speaker_05
Everybody should be engaged in this conversation.

01:02:36 Speaker_04
Let me ask you, just a quick follow-up. Who in your mind is the worst and the best of a large iconic brand or retailer or everyone from Walmart to Amazon, if you were to pick

01:02:48 Speaker_04
the people doing their level best and the people doing the worst, which brands would be at the top and the bottom of your list?

01:02:56 Speaker_05
Oh, gosh, that's a really tough question to copy plot. I mean, I think I think actually Nike has done good work, particularly on upstream supply chain historically and materials innovation. And they continue to do that. I do another best.

01:03:10 Speaker_05
I do think Patagonia has led the way, not as large in kind of changing consumer mindset. Worst, I would say right now. knowing the Xi'an team's kind of working on things a little bit. I don't know if the Tianmu team's working on things in the same way.

01:03:25 Speaker_05
I'd say that's bad. I would say Amazon's, you know, pretty responsible as well.

01:03:30 Speaker_04
You would say Amazon is responsible?

01:03:32 Speaker_05
Yeah. They're not being responsible. They're responsible for the problem as well.

01:03:36 Speaker_04
Oh, I see. Excuse me.

01:03:37 Speaker_06
That sounds right. Yeah, they throw everything in the trash when you return it, FYI. If you send something back, it never goes anywhere. It's like crazy. I almost don't want to return things to them. Anyway, perfect. This is great.

01:03:48 Speaker_06
Christy Kaler is really interesting business as a CEO and founder of Trashy. Thank you very much.

01:03:53 Speaker_04
Thanks, Christy.

01:03:54 Speaker_06
Thank you, guys. All right, Scott. We are so solutions-based, aren't we?

01:03:57 Speaker_04
Oh, yeah. That's right.

01:04:00 Speaker_06
Fixing it. Let's mail a box of Trashy down to Mar-a-Lago on our visit. Okay. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

01:04:14 Speaker_04
Support for the show comes from HubSpot. Picture this, you're at a party and someone asks you what you do as a marketer. How do you even begin to describe it?

01:04:22 Speaker_04
You have to generate leads, score them, contact them, create content, gather data, and tomorrow, do it all again, and wonder if it's even working. Marketers are spread way too thin, but HubSpot has a better way.

01:04:35 Speaker_04
With the help of Breeze and tools including Content Remix, now you can turn one piece of content into a suite of assets. Pinpoint the best prospects with predictive lead scoring and level up your campaign's KPIs with a new analytics suite.

01:04:47 Speaker_04
So your day-to-day becomes less busywork and more driving revenue through the roof. And most importantly, you'll have a way easier time describing what you do at parties. Visit HubSpot.com slash marketers to learn more.

01:05:05 Speaker_04
Support for the show comes from Z Biotics. I love a good cocktail. I love a good drink. You've heard that before, but I don't love feeling rough the next day. That's why the Z Biotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink might be a real game changer.

01:05:18 Speaker_04
Pre-alcohol is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic by-product in the gut.

01:05:30 Speaker_04
It's this by-product, not dehydration, that's to blame for your rough next day. Pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this by-product down.

01:05:38 Speaker_04
Just remember to make Z-Biotics your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. So I tried this, because Daddy loves to drink.

01:05:47 Speaker_04
I, like Winston Churchill, believe I've gotten more out of alcohol than I've gotten out of meat. Anyways, took this thing, I had two, maybe three drinks, and... The next day I did feel fine.

01:05:57 Speaker_04
So I am now a user of this product and I can endorse and say that I'm using it. So there you go. There's my personal experience. Go to zbiotics.com slash pivot to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use pivot at checkout.

01:06:13 Speaker_04
Zbiotics is backed with 100% money back guarantee, so if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Again, that's zbiotics.com slash pivot and use the code pivot at checkout for 15% off.

01:06:32 Speaker_06
Support for Pivot comes from Ether. If you're looking for a perfect piece to add to your winter wardrobe, let me introduce you to the Woman's Aura Puffer Jacket from Ether Apparel. I love this coat so much. I feel like a rich person.

01:06:44 Speaker_06
I feel like Scott Galloway wearing it. I feel like, oh, hey. I'm part of the crowd. Aether is a premium outdoor brand known for blending high-performance with effortless style.

01:06:53 Speaker_06
Their new winter collection has everything you need this season with timeless high-quality pieces for both men and women. And the Aura Puffer Jacket stands out for all the right reasons. It's very lightweight, it's warm, it's clean, minimalist design.

01:07:04 Speaker_06
makes it incredibly versatile, whether you're heading to the city or out on an adventure in the mountains. It was built for elegance and functionality. It was just how I think of myself.

01:07:12 Speaker_06
It's not been cold enough to wear it, but I'm so excited to put it on. I am elegant and functional. It's warm. Its design is beautiful. I literally feel like a rich person suddenly, and I love wearing it. The things I love to do outside is nothing.

01:07:26 Speaker_06
I do not like to be cold. And so being warm is my goal about the cold times, and this jacket really does it. Get ready for your new adventure with Aether Apparel. And for a limited time, our listeners can get 25% off orders over $400.

01:07:39 Speaker_06
Just go to aetherapparel.com and use the promo code PIVOT25 at checkout. That's A-E-T-H-E-R, apparel.com, and use the promo code PIVOT25 for 25% orders over $400. Don't wait. That's EtherApparel.com. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails.

01:08:05 Speaker_06
Go first.

01:08:05 Speaker_04
My win is going to shock you. I met a guy down here who just sold his company and he reached out to a friend of mine who knows First Lady Alania and said, I'd really like to get my, and this is a serious story, true story, my resume in front of

01:08:22 Speaker_04
or Department of Government Efficiency, because I'm interested and I'm going to work for a group in the government that is very focused on solutions.

01:08:30 Speaker_04
And they have said, Vivek and Elon, to their credit, in my view, that if you're looking to bring a private sector, innovation, work your ass off vibe to this group, we want to hear from you. And I do think there's value in trying to restore

01:08:48 Speaker_04
some of the aspirational, more merit versus tenure-based culture to government work. I think that it's lost a lot of prestige. People still have a lot of prestige for our folks that serve at the highest levels or serve in uniform.

01:09:03 Speaker_04
But I worry that some of our best and brightest young people, unlike Israel, even unlike the UK, don't think I'm really good at what I do, which logically means one of my options should be to go to work in a government role.

01:09:16 Speaker_04
And so I do like that they're trying to create this aspirational feel around it. I think that's a positive, and I wanted to call that a win. My fail is I just want to just, again, the fact that we're normalizing the notion

01:09:32 Speaker_04
that somehow vaccines are bad. Just some stats here. U.S. childhood immunization from 1994 to 2013 prevented 732,000 deaths and 21 million hospitalizations from vaccine-preventable disease. COVID-19 in the U.S.

01:09:49 Speaker_04
prevented 139,000 deaths in just the first five months, reducing projected fatalities by 20%.

01:09:57 Speaker_04
And then, overall, vaccines save millions annually by preventing infectious diseases and their complications, highlighting the need for robust immunization programs. worldwide.

01:10:11 Speaker_04
I mean, these things really are, if you were to hold up something that is like, okay, our species kind of gets it and there's real hope here. The measles vaccination prevented millions of deaths, but in 2023 saw a 20% rise

01:10:27 Speaker_04
in global cases, preventable cases, due to poor coverage, leading to get this 10.3 million cases and 107,000 deaths.

01:10:39 Speaker_04
So the World Health Organization says over 22 million children missed their first vaccine dose, contributing to outbreaks in 57 countries. So anything that normalizes the notion that

01:10:51 Speaker_04
These things are 99.9, but there are just so few things that create so much positive, that prevents so much death, disease, and disability across communities, quite frankly, that really need it. These things are inexpensive.

01:11:06 Speaker_04
They're easily distributed. So I really hope that we check back on what is a, you know, get the easy stuff right, you know, and this is the easy stuff. These things work. They're a gift.

01:11:20 Speaker_06
Yeah, and also, by the way, let me just say, Operation Warp Speed, which was one of the better things of his administration. He really is moving away from it. I'm like, you fucking idiot. That was something really amazing that you did.

01:11:32 Speaker_06
Like, take fucking credit for that thing. That was impressive. And I know people do like to trash Trump all the time, trashy Trump. But that was something that was great. That was something that was intuitively good, right? Like, so it's possible.

01:11:47 Speaker_06
I don't believe he's walking away from it. That drives me nuts. Okay, I agree with you on the government thing. The only thing I would say about that is they also trash government workers like incessantly in a way that's cruel.

01:12:00 Speaker_06
By the way, there's so many amazing government workers, so stop insulting them that way. Like, oh, they all have to be cut. Econ's just irritating, but Vivek Ramaswamy is just always has to trash, always has to trash people. No one's ever good.

01:12:17 Speaker_06
Everyone sucks. It's the same part of we're the counter-elites. They're not. You're a bunch of elites. Stop insulting really good government workers. Some things work, some things don't. We can make it better. That's my feeling on that one.

01:12:28 Speaker_06
All right, my win is I'm going to be seeing Gladiator soon, which is very exciting.

01:12:32 Speaker_07
Gladiator 2, you mean?

01:12:33 Speaker_06
It looks, Gladiator 2, it looks really good. I love that palm of skull. I love, I hear Denzel Washington's amazing. I know I've talked a lot about Wicked, I'll get to that in a second, but I'm so excited to see that movie. I'm going to go by myself.

01:12:45 Speaker_06
I'm going to go by myself to see it. That's how much I love the movie.

01:12:48 Speaker_04
It's frustrating good, my son's song. Yes, yes.

01:12:51 Speaker_06
But there's another movie that I've heard is fantastic. Aubrey Plaza, who I think is wonderful, is a movie called My Old Ass.

01:13:00 Speaker_06
And it's about this young girl takes, I forget who the other lead is, but she takes mushrooms and meets her older self, and they have this relationship. And I've heard it's wonderful. I'd love to meet my younger self. It would be just interesting.

01:13:13 Speaker_06
I don't know.

01:13:14 Speaker_04
I don't think it'd be that interesting. Anyways, go ahead. By the way, I saw Aubrey Plaza when I went to that WNBA game.

01:13:20 Speaker_06
Yeah, yeah, did you?

01:13:21 Speaker_04
Which, as you know, I'm totally down with the WNBA.

01:13:24 Speaker_06
You're a famous lesbian, Scott Calloway.

01:13:26 Speaker_04
New unofficial spokesperson for the lesbian community.

01:13:28 Speaker_06
Yeah, I knew you would like it. I'm so glad that worked out. My fail is, I think, like I said, with them insulting everybody and doing everything, I think they're overstepping really quickly and becoming sore winners.

01:13:40 Speaker_06
It's not, the numbers are really moving, and so now it's 49.3 versus 48.4. Oh God, here we go again.

01:13:47 Speaker_06
No, let me just say, they're now doing things like, calm the fuck down, this was not as close as you think, besides that, but NFL players are doing the Trump dance, did you see this?

01:13:58 Speaker_06
Like they're doing that stupid weird, you know, jack off dance he does, where he looks like he's jacking off two horses, you know the dance he does. They're doing that.

01:14:08 Speaker_06
this isn't going to endear you to anybody being sore winners, just stop it, like, whatever, do your stupid dance, but so did this guy, this UFC fight, they're all doing the dance. Let me just tell you, you think liberals are irritating?

01:14:22 Speaker_06
You're fucking irritating too, and I agree some liberals are irritating, but You know, there's no, this is not, we need to, we do need to get along. And you're just being douche nozzles about it. So whatever.

01:14:34 Speaker_06
It's not going to make me think you're better. It was close, Scott. I don't care what you say.

01:14:37 Speaker_04
We need to pivot to the center. We absolutely got destroyed. We need to rethink America as a platform for two things, defending its citizens and its shores and creating atmospheres to get more money.

01:14:48 Speaker_06
In any case, don't be a sore winner. Don't be a sore loser, don't be a sore winner. I'm just sore. You're just sore, yeah. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind.

01:14:59 Speaker_06
Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. We'll be doing another call-in show soon. Submit your voicemails with questions you'd like to ask us live on the air and let us know where to reach you.

01:15:11 Speaker_06
Also, Scott, I'm sure you remember Barbenheimer last year, but you're familiar with Glickid? Glicket, get it? Wicked and Gladiator 2 are coming out this Friday and people are planning to see both movies back to back. I have seen Wicked.

01:15:23 Speaker_06
I'm going to take Clara to see it tomorrow night here in D.C.

01:15:25 Speaker_04
We can talk about how movies are making a comeback. Anyways, I'm sorry, go ahead.

01:15:29 Speaker_06
This you need to see in the theater. Wicked, you absolutely need. And Gladiator 2.

01:15:33 Speaker_04
You love that. You love Wicked.

01:15:35 Speaker_06
I love Wicked. It's really good. You'll see. They're trying to recreate that Barbenheimer magic, which I thought was kind of cool. I love that. That did bring a lot of people back to the theater. They did great. Are you going to go to either?

01:15:46 Speaker_04
No, you won't. I might go. I'll definitely go to Gladiator. I'm not sure.

01:15:51 Speaker_06
In the theater, you want to see it though, right?

01:15:53 Speaker_04
Yeah, I think so. I'll probably go see it.

01:15:54 Speaker_06
Yeah. I like when these movies do well in the theater. You don't have to discount that experience. But speaking of Wicked, I just spoke with the director of that movie, John Chu, for the latest episode of On with Kara Swisher.

01:16:04 Speaker_06
He explained to me how he used your favorite device, Scott, the Apple Vision Pro, to edit the movie. It turns out he's a closet geek. Steve Jobs is his god. He grew up in Silicon Valley, by the way. Let's listen.

01:16:17 Speaker_02
Once I got the Vision Pro, I found it. It changed the game for me because I put it on and I wasn't on a computer with my editor over somewhere else, which feels very limiting. I don't get interactive with it. My blood's not pumping.

01:16:30 Speaker_02
But with the Vision Pro, I could make the screen as big as the room. And I could walk around and pace the way I do in the edit room. I could lay on the couch the way I do in the edit room. and then I could bring it closer.

01:16:39 Speaker_02
We were doing visual effects on it, and so I could give notes and use my finger to mark things.

01:16:43 Speaker_02
And this is people in the Bay Area, this is people in London, this is people in Canada, and 40 people are on this, and I'm on my couch, and I can look at it, what it looks like 20 feet wide, and what it would look like on an iPad.

01:16:56 Speaker_06
Anyway, it's a great, it's a really interesting interview. He's super geeky and in a really interesting way and also very creative. And his movie comes out, obviously, the first part of it comes out.

01:17:05 Speaker_06
He's also working on all kinds of cool... Is this, he's the director for Wicked? Wicked, mm-hmm. He did Crazy Rich Asians.

01:17:11 Speaker_04
You know, supposedly, I mean, they're so excited about it, they've already, um... They've already given a green light for a sequel, but it's about Mitch McConnell's sex life. It's called Something Wicked This Way Comes. Oh, that's good.

01:17:25 Speaker_04
It's a really bad joke. I brought politics, sex, wicked. I don't know what to say. I am literally the Dave Chappelle of the cultural zeitgeist.

01:17:35 Speaker_06
Mitch McConnell, he shall be in our rearview mirror, and that's good enough for me. Okay, Scott, that's the show. Where are you going next?

01:17:44 Speaker_04
I told you, I'm going to Vegas for a speaking gig, then I go to L.A., I'll be at the Beverly Hills Hotel again trying to find famous people to stare at, and then I go to Vegas for F1, and then I go to Brazil. Oh my God, your life.

01:17:56 Speaker_06
I'm going to be in New York this week.

01:17:57 Speaker_04
All right, I'm sure I'll hear about it. Say hi to my doorman.

01:18:02 Speaker_06
Yeah, no, I'm not staying at your house. They're putting me up. I'm doing a secret thing, a secret show.

01:18:06 Speaker_04
A secret thing.

01:18:07 Speaker_06
Hmm. Yeah.

01:18:08 Speaker_04
Okay.

01:18:08 Speaker_06
I'm doing a secret, I'm doing a pilot. I'm doing a pilot for a show.

01:18:12 Speaker_04
Nice, good.

01:18:13 Speaker_06
Yeah. All right. I'm not supposed to talk about it, but I'm like completely indiscreet. But you will. Yes, that's correct. But you will. I don't understand secretiveness. I don't understand secretiveness. It's not bragging, I don't understand it.

01:18:24 Speaker_06
The transparent, that's what we are. We broke, as we said, we broke the fourth wall. I got a call from Stephanie Rule, by the way, who was complaining about us insulting cable while we go on it. We can do both. I was like, are you going to bitch me out?

01:18:35 Speaker_06
Are you going to bitch me out in the morning? She called this morning. I was like, no, we said it's a terrible economics, and it is. And your numbers are declining overall, and we love your show, and it is. Our issue was it could be good.

01:18:48 Speaker_06
There's ways to make it good. There's ways to make everything good. And we do it because we like it, correct, Scott? and it helps our podcast.

01:18:54 Speaker_04
She's like you, although she'll call me, she won't even say hi to Stephanie, she'll be like, you really disappoint me. And I'm like, oh no. And I'm like, oh no. And I get scared and also I gotta be honest, a little turned on, a little turned on.

01:19:05 Speaker_04
I don't know what's coming next.

01:19:07 Speaker_06
Now she's going to call me. Now she's going to call me. I kind of like it. Stephanie, we love you. Call and yell at us. Call and yell at us. Anyway, I'm excited for this song you're going to make for my birthday. You have a month. You have a month.

01:19:18 Speaker_06
Less than a month. So get on it. Okay, Scott. That's the show.

01:19:24 Speaker_04
Read us out. We'll be back on Friday with more. Read us out. I'm reading us out. Okay, today's show is produced by Larry Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and I taught engineering this episode.

01:19:35 Speaker_04
Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Saverio, and Dan Shulon. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

01:19:46 Speaker_04
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 care. Have a great rest of the week.

01:20:02 Speaker_06
Support for this show comes from United for Business. Something you want to hear when you're building a business and you usually take it as a sign of success is that you're going places. But who do you turn to when you need to actually go places?

01:20:13 Speaker_06
We're talking about business travel, folks. United offers the most diversified international route network among U.S. airlines based on the number of international destinations served.

01:20:22 Speaker_06
And now you can meet your business travel needs with ease with United for Business. No matter how big or small your company is, United offers travel solutions made just for you. Get started at uafly.co slash pivot.

01:20:39 Speaker_01
Support for this show comes from the ACLU. The ACLU knows exactly what threats a second Donald Trump term presents, and they are ready with a battle-tested playbook. The ACLU took legal action against the first Trump administration 434 times.

01:20:56 Speaker_01
And they will do it again to protect immigrants' rights, defend reproductive freedom, safeguard free speech, and fight for all of our fundamental rights and freedoms. Join the ACLU today to help stop the extreme Project 2025 agenda.

01:21:09 Speaker_01
Learn more at aclu.org.