Pivot - AI Spending Spree, Crypto Winter, and Kara's Message to Jeff Bezos

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Kara and Scott break down the Super Bowl ads, and the backlash over Bad Bunny’s halftime show. Then, they look at what’s next for crypto, as Bitcoin and major tokens plummet. Plus, Amazon and Big Tech continue their AI spending spree, Trump throws his support behind the Nexstar–Tegna merger, and Kara has a message for Jeff Bezos. Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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To learn more about how CoreWave powers the world's best AI, go to CoreWave.com slash ready for anything. Jeff Bezos, let me speak to you directly. I don't like you. You don't like me. So what? Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine

in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Shack Alloway? Go Seahawks! You like the Seahawks? I like Jody Allen, the owner. Sister Paul Allen. I know her tiny bit.

I knew Paul, her brother who died, who was one of the Microsoft founders. Just really cool lady. And I can't stand Robert Kraft. I think he's a terrible person. And the whole Katz family was for the Patriots. It's only because they live there. Nobody likes Robert Kraft.

So I was happy about that. I like the Seahawks. Well, I'm happy or happy. The thing that summarized how I feel about it was the Elmo account said, I hope both teams have a really fun time. That's about how much I care about the Super Bowl. And the other one was Elmo said, he's not a bad bunny. He's a good bunny.

He's a good bunny. That's how I like you. The Naga lost its fucking mind. We'll get to that. But first, let's have a little. little bit of resistant unsubscribe. How's it going, Scott? You everywhere. You're like, you are like the village whores, they say. But go ahead. No, I'm not, I'm not a whore. I'm a hoa. I'm a hoa. I'm a hoa. You are everywhere. We have a montage of Scott everywhere. Let's check it out.

Resist and unsubscribe. Resist and unsubscribe. Explain to me why I should unsubscribe from Amazon Prime. If you really want to hurt or send a message to the the president? What he does listen to is the following. If you look at the times when he has really checked back, immediately responded and pulled back, it's been when one or two things has happened, the bond market yields has spiked or the S&P has gone down. This is when he backed off of his plans to annex Greenland. It's when he's backed off of tariffs. When you go after big tech platforms, which is just a small decline in spending, this is what moves the market. I think the string we can pull here is to go after the subscription revenues of big tech that now represents four.

40% of the SMP. You're hitting them with a $10,000 decrease in market cap with just one subscription cancellation. So this is a chance to go after the soft tissue of big tech whose leaders, the president, appears to be listening to. Soft tissue, you make hard. Tell me. So tell me where we are. Came out of the gate strong. We're getting about 100,000 uniques a day. And I asked Chat, GBT, if I wanted to get 100,000 uniques with no paid or what would it cost me to drive 100,000 people to a site. But go ahead. It was interesting.

It said 100 to 200,000 for the site, but it would take $4 to $5 million. So we're getting, quote, unquote, $4 to 5 million in traffic to the site with, and I haven't paid a dime for anything. No, just your time. And your outfit. But it started going down earlier in the week. So I did some research on the bus strike in Alabama, and then the Kimmel thing. And what it ended up was that the study from Kellogg, which I'm really into about, protests

that are effective versus those that aren't, is the unsubscribed to Disney, where I'm actually declining dramatically, but the thing that got Disney to reverse course was a ton of media that was shaming them and creating dissent. And that the media that impacted that was traditional media. So I decided on Tuesday I was going to get on as much traditional media as I could, and I was able to do it. And then all of a sudden, the site visits are now back to about 100,000. But just to do the math, a good e-commercial. site gets two to four percent conversion. This gets more because these are people just coming to the site. People are unsubscribing two to five platforms, so let's call it three. So I'm thinking I'm getting

about 10,000 unsubscribes a day or 300,000 subscribes over the course of, anyways, I've done the math here. I think I can notionally take about a quarter of a billion dollars of market cap out of these companies. And does that change anything? It doesn't. But it's It's a voice in the choir. And I asked ChatGPT what it thought of the resistance movement so far. One is you throw a party, no one shows up, it damages your reputation, makes other protests less successful. In 10 is the president and Sam Altman are, you know, forced to scale back some of this stuff. And it said right now you're at a six.

And that is people in product management teams are probably talking about it, but not the executives yet. Oh, they are. And I thought that was sort of a fairly honest appraisal of where we are. But yeah, I've been all over the place. I've heard from a lot. My sons know about it. Like, I'm just telling you, it's got a lot more. I'm getting texts from people.

I haven't heard from in a while. So it's interesting. They all like it because here's why. You can do something, right? Like, I can do that. That's easy, right? It's not easy. I just, I should do that.

Like, it gives you permission to do something you kind of were going to do, and it gives you a framework. and instructions, right? So that's why it's successful, I think, in that regard. I think you have to do some more podcasts, maybe, possibly. Yeah. Maybe Joe Rogan. That's where I would go.

Yeah. Well, Rogan has invited me. But, yeah, next week, this week was traditional media. This week, I'll start doing... The Yovonne, those people. They love you. More pods and stuff like that. So, yeah, I need to do...

I was just on Pierce Morgan, and that digress into a food fight with some ultra-conservative guys He's calling me desperate and trying to tank the U.S. economy because we lost the election. Yeah, that's what you're doing. Idiots. But anyways, yeah, I think you're right. I think I have to... Not food fight people.

Don't do the food fights. Don't go on any of those. Like, I think you should go on like a Brett Bear or someone like that would be useful. But or any of the more reasonable people over there, not in handy because it's a food fight. Like, you don't need a food fight for this. Like, you need a, like, just let me explain it to you. I think Rogum would be good, Theo Vaughn, any of those. any of those people and they like you, right?

Go on the let them, go on Mel's thing. Go on, like, go on acting. Yeah, but Mel makes you come up to Boston. That's the problem. Mel invited me on. I really like Mel's podcast. Then you have to hug everybody. So I was invited to go on the PBD podcast, but similar to Mel, he makes you come to him,

and he's in Fort Lauderdale. So, I don't know, I should probably make the effort. Oh, not that guy. Well, I got it. He is constantly wrong. If you want to be part of the resistance, you have to go behind enemy law. He's going to do a food fight with you. Whatever, you're going to end up doing a stupid food fight.

You need to go on people that want to listen and we'll have a normal debate with you, but not like, ooh, you don't want to be used as a chew toy for the right on this one. I'm sorry, it just doesn't. Chew toy for the right. Yeah, yeah. I like that. So, I don't know. Well, I'll think of more ideas. I have some more ideas and stunts.

I mean, like, you'd be better off on like a Mr. Beast or like something where there's more like, like, something where there's more like, like, like, that kind of stuff. One of the Ground Zero CEOs called me Saturday morning, and they're so good, they're so smart. They're just like, I just want to understand it better. How are you? What could we do better? And I got off the phone and I'm like, maybe I should take them off the list.

I'm like, oh my God, it's what they do. It's what they do. You start massaging your feet. Oh, my God. That's what they're doing. They're like, you know, we have some disagreements, but I really respect what you're trying to do here, Scott. I'm like, oh my gosh.

I saw the Post made you one of the 50. You got to believe I was number 49. You weren't. But hold on. Oh, they're after you. They want to massage your food. I'm with Kai Trump. Kai Trump is one of the, I didn't even know there was a Kai in the Trump family.

Yeah, she's a good golfer, I guess. That's fine. Yeah. It's a pretty random list. You know what I say. You could smile more. You could smile. No smiles in those pictures.

No, the reason I have $100,000 in veneers is so I don't have to fucking smile. I understand. I was just. I was just using the lady thing. Anyway, let's get to the Super Bowl. Anyway, I'll think of more ideas. I'll think of more stunts. More stunts.

Let's figure out a stunt for South by Southwest, something like that, keep it going. That's coming up. You didn't watch the Super Bowl, right? No? No. I have almost no interest in the Super Bowl. So did you watch any?

You watch the ads on other places where they have them. I watch some of the ads that people sent to me. Yeah. Many of them stand out? I still like the Anthropic ones, I have to say. Yeah, I thought they won the day. I didn't like the one. on the Jewish kid being bullied.

You didn't? I didn't. I don't. Too virtue signaling. I think there are better, more effective ways to talk about the risks of anti-Semitism. I actually don't.

In a weird way, I feel like it almost normalizes it or raises the prospect of bullying a Jewish kid. A little after-school special kind of tone, that kind of thing. Yeah, I don't know. I'm so far out of it, but I do see my kids at school.

Shit, I don't know. This is like a message. It's so funny, what I noticed, I don't know if you've noticed this. I went to my kids' school when he was a seventh grader in middle school, and there were ninth graders come down the hall, and I was way behind him, and I thought, oh, this is going to be interesting. In the seventh grade, if I ran into ninth graders in an unsupervised environment,

they would pants me and throw me in the trash and take my lunch money. And instead, now they're like, hey, little man, and they high-five them. Yeah. I think things have changed a lot. For some people. In school. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't, anyways, but. The ads are it was fun to watch. I don't, I just kid. The whole Bad Bunny thing, I'm like, he's the most popular entertainer in the world. Let him sing. Let him cook. We'll get to Bad Bunny a second. But my favorite, I really liked the Anthropians.

I like the Elfad. I like the funny ones, the Elfad. There's a whole bunch of them that were super funny. And I prefer those. And of course, I have to say the Lays potato chip ad got me. Got me. Got me. Oh, God.

I thought that was so fucking ridiculous. I know, but it got me. I agree. I knew it was coming. The family farm. We've fetishized manufacturing and farmers. The family farm is a corporation that's bought out all these little farmers 30 years ago. And yet it got me.

I was like, don't, don't. How many college grad girls do you think are trying to help dad with the family? Hot cop, she's hot too. Like, right? Yeah. She's in PR for Prada dating a hedge fund manager. And her father's put her through Hollywood. And she's hoping to get a mini-series.

But no, she's going to go home to Iowa. a farm with her dad. And we're a car heart. She had a beautiful, that car heart didn't have a speck of fucking dust on it. Did you notice that? She had like a car. It was a Ralph Lauren ad. I know, I know. It had nothing to do with the family farm. But the potato chips are delicious. Let me just say. I like a lace potato chip. They're quite good. They're good chips. They're a good chip. They're a fine chip. I'm trying to think which everyone was funny. I didn't like the really, I didn't like the Emma Stone one or the George Clooney one. They were weird. I don't want the weird ones. I like the funny ones. Like the Instacart. I thought the elf one was funny.

I will have to say the Jesus one was good, the Christian, like Jesus knows. Oh, those are always nice. Not always. That one was well done. No, I thought the really powerful one. I don't know if it was the same people, the Jesus washed their feet, that one. That was a million years ago. This is a different one, yeah.

This is a different one? Yeah. That kind of reminds me, and it's not totally related, but just FYI, Donald Trump has mentioned more times in the Epstein files than Jesus is mentioned in the Bible. Just saying. Or that the word meth is said in all eight seasons of Breaking Bad. Yeah. But anyways, not related.

Not related. Anyway, they were pretty, they were decent ads. They weren't, I would say the anthropic still, head and frigging shoulders. I open air had one that was somewhat effective for a little bit, I guess. And that was good. It was solid, but not like the anthropic. They got knocked out by anthropic, I thought. But if the thing I looked at, or the only kind of insider thing I found really interesting is

If you look at the ads, a quarter of them were AI. F-15 of the 66 were AI. The last time tech was as dominant in the Super Bowl in advertising, there's been two times in the last 50 years. Oh, and they all went out of business. One was in 2022 when it was called the Crypto Bowl. And it was Binance and FTX. And look what in that year, that was the year crypto blew up

and there were a ton of bankruptcies. And then the time before that, what year? The money coming out of my butt year. Remember that one? It was 2000. January 2000. quarter the ads were from dot com. And they're all gone.

And they're all gone. And look at like and look at what happens. So if you look at economic history as a ratio or as the ratio of tech ads being above a certain amount, it implies this year is when AI crashes. Yeah. I'll tell you when I hate it was a Mike Tyson one. I'm sorry. Just like it was my government money. Like it was my dollars paying for Mike Tyson who has issues of his own to tell me to eat an apple and that fat people are low some.

I'm sorry. That was really gross. I've met Mike Tyson. He's a chain smoker. Perhaps. I know. I was literally like, that's my fucking text. I was just telling me to eat an apple. Thanks. That was really gross. And of course, these maha people are such, you know it was all their friends that made the edit. And of course, Brett Ratner was the director. Sexual harasser was someone convicted of brave. I think that's them waving their middle finger in our face. I know. But fuck them. That's my money. That's my money. Cut it out. Don't tell me to eat an apple. But let me just focus on the bad money and half time short. It knocked it out. I know it. out of the park with a projected 128 million viewers. Apple was the one did it, and Rock Nation was the producer. They've been doing, that's Jay-Z's group, has been doing a lot of the really great Super Bowl ones.

So Jay-Z's been in charge of picking Super Bowl halftime for the last seven years. They've been really good, actually. Turning Point USA, of course, had a live stream of an All-American show featuring Kid Rock, who looked like he was lip-sinking, it seemed. The reaction and re-reaction to Bad Bunny Show was so joyful and fun, and it was so full of,

If you wanted to go into it and look at the layers, and, you know, he's such an artist. Like, he's not just, the biggest artist in the world. But not just that. It was so full of stuff, but you could also just enjoy it if you didn't know about. He was full, it was fun.

Right. And there was all. And I realized, like, people asked me what I thought of the performance. I'm like, it's not for me. Tom Petty or George Michael can't be there, which they can't. But what I realize is it's not for me. And it was a brilliant move on behalf of Roger Goodell

because the NFL is investing in the future because more than 50% for the first time of people under the age of 18, are non-white. And people identifying, people saw it as anti-American to have Puerto Rican or Ecuador and Flach. No, Reagan said it best. Anyone can come to America and be an American. And that's uniquely what makes America America.

They're so butter, because they are not, the culture war is they're not winning it. Nobody wants to watch Kid Rock. And by the way, I should do a dramatic reading of Kid Rock's lyrics. You know, these people that were defending, including that guy, You want to go on there? Like, oh, kid rock.

I'm like, literally, he talks about putting balls in the mouth. Come put your ball. Okay, but the retort there is now do rap stars. Of course, but this wasn't bad bunny. Like, fine. Like, so it was a bunch of really hot. It was pretty clean. I agree.

You know who the other big winner was in the Super Bowl? Was the prediction market apps. Yeah. Cali downloads spike last month. The app recording 4 million downloads in January. That's up from less than 2 million in December. And not like that. What did they say?

You know, it's killing? It's killing the gambling apps. The prediction market apps from Draft Kings and Fandul got just 100,000 downloads. Certainly the more people that use it, the better. But let me just finish up on bad money. It was a great show. It was very like, you know, you had Pedro Pascall as a background of person and Cardi B and a whole bunch of people. And I thought Ricky Martin was lovely, looking fantastic, and Lady Gaga was great. It was so joyful. And for them to like attack it and shows just what a bunch of fucking losers they are. I'm sorry. They just really are. It was so beautiful and so life affirming and forward thinking and it is where our country is in a lot of ways. All I wanted to do is like I've been trying to take Spanish

myself. It's a beautiful language. I took it for five years in high school or I took him to the seventh to twelfth grade. I can barely order in a Mexican restaurant. Me too. I have to learn. This is the year. I learned Spanish. This is the year. But what I try to do is I try to take economic trends away from the Super Bowl, specifically the advertising, and the two trends are the following one. It looks like this is the year that AI might crash, because there's so much cheap capital going into it vis-a-vis the Super Bowl. And the second thing is there's been a huge transfer in economic value or market capitalization

from the gaming apps to the prediction apps. In just the last three months, the earnings per share estimates for flatter entertainment, which is the gaming or the gambling apps, has been cut in. half and Traff King's earnings estimates are also down 29 percent. The biggest apps for the gambling apps, and now the speculation markets are taking their, are eating their lunch. Absolutely. And as you noted, the NFL made a great choice here in terms of how it handles that. Smart, really smart. And the beautiful visual of San Francisco on the front, which was, I'm sorry to tell you was a rainbow flag kids. But also good for San Francisco, looking great. All these people are like, what were

they talking about looking great? San Francisco's on the upswing. And I have to say, Oh, it was great for your city. It was like Chamber of Commerce. The only time I turned it on was late at night. It was like 11.30 and it started. And it was this immediately this beautiful vista of the Golden Gate Bridge around the golden hour. And you're just like, wow. Occasionally there's a moment when you're in California. You know like, why did I leave again? Why did I leave again? Exactly. Every fucking day of the week and twice on Sundays. When I wake up at my house. The fog comes in over the Golden Gate. means all the shit out of the air. And then it's crystal clear and sharp. And, I mean, it is a beautiful city. Every morning I wake up there, Scott. Louis's moving there. Just so, you know, my son will be moving to San Francisco

and working for someone who's in politics there. But I'm so jealous of him. Anyway, he's living in the cottage. Elmo says bad bunny's a good bunny. He's a good bunny. Anyway, let's move on to speaking of crypto, while the Dow hit a milestone high of 50,000. thousand last week. Crypto has been heading the other way into a crypto winter again. Bitcoin has just

had a worst weekly decline in more than three years, down roughly 45 percent from its all-time high last October. The downturn is being blamed on a few things. Volatility in other markets, terror fears, uncertainty around Fed chair nominee Kevin Marsh. I don't know about that. The ongoing decline has been brutal for some of crypto's biggest champions, Michael Saylor's strategy. I know you're an admirer just reported a $12.4 billion quarterly loss. Wow. But don't expect a Bitcoin bailout. out Treasury Secretary Scott Basson said congressional hearing last week that he has no authority to do that. Of course, Trump was crypto president. Nice job, David Sachs, by the way. They got what they wanted, the crypto people from Trump, everything they wanted. They got rid of

as the Gary Gensler, they got rid of Sharon, they got rid of critics. What's happening here? Well, first of all, I should just point out that I am easily the worst crypto investor in history. Yes, because you just put it. I finally threw in the towel and I bought some shares in a Bitcoin Treasury Company, I bought it at 14, and within 45 days, I sold it at $4.50. Oh, nice done. Well done. Well done. Yeah, well done. Look, coin market caps, crypto and fear greed index is now at a nine indicating extreme fear. This is the highest reading, and the index is nearly three years of existence. Bitcoin, Bitcoin's basically been cut in half since it's high. And investors had $2.5 billion of Bitcoin liquidated in just one day alone. Even after Friday's...

And certain Bitcoin. Bitcoin and then the other. Others have gone down 90, like the Melania coin, the Trump coin. Oh, the shit coins, yeah. Even after Friday's rebound, Bitcoin is down 43% from its peak. And then the stocks related to Bitcoin per year comments have been hammered. MicroStrategy is down nearly 70% from its peak last summer and down 15% this year. Coinbase is down 60% from its summer peak, down 30% this year. And Tom Lee's Bitmine is down 85% from its peak and 34% this year.

Crypto volatility is currently about 8x higher than that of the S&P 500. But what I would say is the following. And I don't get this market. I respect that Bitcoin has established itself as a tangible asset because of scarcity value because of its technology. I think the rest is pure speculation. But what typically has happened over the last decade is when Bitcoin has these drawdowns and there's all this fear over the last 10 years, when we look back, those have been buying opportunities.

So I don't, I mean, I always like to talk about what I'm thinking of doing. If Bitcoin keeps getting hammered, I actually might buy a little bit, not because I believe in crypto, but because I like diversification. And I do think this market is incredibly volatile. I do think Bitcoin has established itself as a legitimate asset class. But there's just, what's unusual is typically Bitcoin is meant to be, it should benefit from a weak dollar in inflation. And it's not.

And it ends up that it's not the default contraindicator of a weakening dollar. It's silver, gold, that's kind of stuff. We'll see. At the end of the day, the crypto is really, it's not investing. It is speculation. I would argue that a little bit of money, one to three percent of your portfolio in Bitcoin, may not be a bad idea. And only Bitcoin, not the other shit coins.

I would not do any of the others. The others, to me, are just greater full theory come to life. Yeah. You've sucker. I call them sucker coins. You have to watch it every day and all this stuff. It can take a real, volatility is fine. If you're willing to endure volatility, it means you'll get greater returns. But what you want to do is you want to diversify across multiple volatile asset classes such that your mental health is somewhat protected.

You know, you just, one of the reasons I like owning real estate is I don't have a scorecard every day. Yeah. You just hope for the best. If you're looking at your phone too much, and you're really good at this, If you're looking at your phone too much because you're checking your stocks all the time, A, that's a hit to your human capital. And B, you don't want to be, you never want to go all in on one thing because the markets trump individual dynamics. If you bought $10,000 with Amazon in 1999, it was worth $400 by the end of 2000. And that takes a huge emotional toll on you.

So what you want to do is you want to be diversified and you want to be in good, good ETFs, good indexes, and then put them away and not look at them and think of them as things you want to hone for five or ten years. Look at them once a quarter if you can. I don't look at all. You know that. Yeah, I think your approach to investing is actually the right approach to investing. It doesn't really matter. My kids, I'm just thinking I was doing again, the math again that I keep forgetting to do it. I'm like, well, when Saul is going to be able to drink, it'll be 21, Alex will be 37, I'll be 100 and fucking 12. So it doesn't really matter to save for retirement.

It doesn't matter. You don't even buy green bananas anymore? All I need is money to put me in a home and have nice nurses. That's all. And I can swing that with what I've got, even if I lost what. I'll be pushing you around. Oh, no. Wrong.

Other way. And I'll hire really hot nurses. I'll manage that. I'll manage that side of your life. I'll manage him for you. What are you talking about? I'm like, yes, he's a little handsy, but just like put up with it. I'll give you an extra 10.

A little handsy. A little handsy-ish. Just slap them. Hansy-ish. I told you. Yeah. I already have my nearest picked out. A guy named Maduelo, very big, with very well-moresterized hands.

I'll have some men there that manhandle you. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back, Amazon's spending spree in what Jeff Bezos is saying about the Washington Post future. All stupid things. Just FYI. Support for this show comes from Delete Me. Whether you're a public figure or a private citizen, it's easier than ever for bad actors to get your personal information. I've tried Delete Me a lot, and I really have had a great time figuring out how much information data brokers have about me.

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you can own your individuality, create freely, and scale fearlessly. Ready to create a website, go to Wix.com slash Harmony. That's Wix.com slash Harmony. Scott, we're back. Amazon's spending plans are making waves on Wall Street. straight-off the company's single massive cat bags ramp up. Amazon said it expects to spend about $200 billion in 2026, nearly a 60% increase from last year. CEO Andy Jassy justified the spending by sending strong demand for AI, robotics, chips, and satellite makes sense for their business

in a lot of ways. The announcements appears to spook investors, though, sending stock down 10% and wiping $133 billion off of Amazon's market cap. What a massive amount. Let's talk about this. they are at the same time. The suck-upperie that Jeff Bezos has been doing, and Andy Jassy too, for Trump is reaping benefits under Trump's new tax, other companies' corporate tax bill, fell to about $1.2 billion last year, down from $9 billion the year before, even though profits jump roughly 45%,

so what Scott says is corporate taxes, just like this has been a boon for, Trump has been a boon for these people. So talk a little bit about these spending, because, you know, they need to spend in robotics. They obviously need AI to go with the robotics and chips and, of course, satellites, delivery. They have such an unusual business that it's both analog and advertising and where they market things. It seems like a company that should be spending here, but your thoughts? Well, the problem with, or one of the things that makes our economy so fragile is there's just a small number of companies that can allocate this sort of capital.

And this week and last, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft unveiled plans to spend a combined 660 billion on AI buildout this year. That's a 60% increase from last year. Apple is the only big tech company who's CAPEX decrease from last year. And the sheer magnitude is just shocking. That's three times the global R&D of the pharmaceutical industry. So we're now spending more on data centers and chips. We're spending treble what we're spending on trying to research treatments for cancer and diabetes. They're spending more than a cost to build the U.S. Interstate Highway System.

We're spending more. Those four companies are going to spend more than we spent on the Apollo Moon program and the International Space Station combined. And it's the equivalent of spending about $2 billion a day on AI. But what I think you're looking for, if I look at the stocks that are responding to the market positively versus negatively, it's okay, a big eye is really impressive because it separates you from the rest. Like Snap can't spend billions of dollars to increase the AI targeting of its ad stack. Most companies just can't spend that kind of money.

But the company that's really done well here is a company that not only has the huge eye, huge CAPEX, but also is right away showing that they can garner the return that justifies that eye. And that company is meta. Meta is showing increased click-through, increased advertising, increased ARPU, and it's saying, this is working for us, so we're going to outspend every other media company of the world, maybe with the exception of Alphabet. But these types of investments, there's just no getting around them.

They're absolutely staggering. I can't figure out if it's good or bad. I guess it's, I'm hoping it results in a lot of vocational jobs. Wouldn't you imagine lots of their business does need this kind of stuff? like you're thinking of, speaking of advertising, they do a lot of it in marketing, right? So they have to understand what's effective to bring up for people when they search on Amazon. Their logistics of their various centers, the fulfillment centers, the robotics, it seems like a lot of this stuff does lend itself to AI being more efficient in that,

or giving them efficient instructions. I would imagine their business lends itself to this. And you're right. They're the only ones that can spend this much. And then once it's spent, nobody can catch them ever, ever, ever. It's just going to have very weird tech and order effects, because if you look at where the money is being spent, if you look at data centers, most of them could have their lights up during the day.

A huge data center that costs hundreds of millions to build employs what a Chili's employs. And so obviously a huge burst in vocational skills, but then what happens, there's no really ongoing employment here. And what I look at is, all right, if you think about, I mean, people say, is AI going to affect me. And my standard line has been, AI's not going to take your job, someone understands AI is going to take your job. And what you need to think about is,

is AI complementary to what I'm doing, or is it a substitute? And Justin Wilfers, the economist from Michigan, pointed this out. If you think about, my mother was a secretary, she would be out of work right now, because AI came along and WordProx, At the same time, everyone thought ATMs was going to put bank tellers out of business. There are now more bank tellers than there were pre-ATM.

Because what they said is, let's use technology to upskill you so you can give people mortgages, figure out their financial planning. So just as at a ground level, it's like, okay, how do I use AI as a weapon as opposed to being on the wrong end of the weapon? But this is, the economic reshaping here is just, is staggering. But I do think we're at that point now with all great technology. that end up going on to be hugely important, that this is, I think we're overdue for a correction.

And the technology I keep coming out, and I'm about to buy stock, is Nova Nordus just hit like a five-year load. Nova Nordus, actually rebounded yesterday, but Nova Nordus, the maker of, I think I forget which one it is, was Amperka-Ragoe. And I always tell people the most important technology

is not AI, it's GLP1, and talk to somebody who loves AI and uses it. Speaking, there was an ad for it. And Serena really interested in Super Bowl, by the way. Well, talk to anyone who's someone who uses a lot of AI at their work, really enjoys it, gets a lot of use out of it. And then, but that person is also on GLP1. Ask them what's having a more profound impact on their life.

Can you do a short rant about corporate taxes and the benefits of being in the Trump administration for these companies by sucking up? Well, look, as a percentage of GDP, corporate taxes have never been lower. and as a percentage of GDP wages have never been lower. And as a percentage of profits, corporate profits, have never been a higher percentage of GDP. In sum, there's always a healthy tension between capital and labor. But basically what you have with AI,

shareholders love AI. Because what you're seeing across all of these companies is margin expansion, but no incremental increase in employment. And then lower taxes? That's great for shareholders. And then the lower tax argument is basically, the strategy for the last 40 years in the Republicans is if we just lower taxes, it'll trickle down. All it's doing is just pushing back debt on young people.

But if you just look at the balance, if you just assume at some point we have to pay for our Navy and our parks and for food stamps, the question is, well, who pays? Yeah, I can't believe they went from $9 billion to $1.2 billion. That is a savings. That is a, oh, God, I wish my taxes. Let's just repeat that, Kara? Amazon's, under the Trump's new tax law, the companies, this is Amazon's corporate tax bill fell to $1.1. Automatic expensing. Yeah.

Yeah. Profits down 45%. It's really, the tax code has gone from 400 pages to 4,000, and the 3,600 pages one by one kind of fuck the middle class. And it wasn't, these aren't malicious people say, let's fuck the middle class. What they are is really talented people on behalf of lobbies like Amazon that says, let's figure out a way to expense all capital expenditure in year one. But it's Trump's new tax law.

It's even more advantageous to them. This is what, this was always the game, folks. them getting more for themselves. It really was with Trump. Some of them don't like him. Some of them do. This has been happening across Democratic and Republican administrations. Yes, agreed, but this new tax laws, 1.2 from 9 billion. That's quite a lovely good... Okay, I agree with you, and two things can be true at once. Biden, for all the talk about progressive policies and the need to reduce the deficit, taxes on corporations went down during the Biden administration. So here's the bottom. So here's the bottom line, the only way you get reelected, which must include reservations and blow jobs,

because these people cling to power like an African dictator, so that was both offensive and a hate crime and racist. But these people have decided that they will do anything to stay in office, and the way they stay in office is with a thoughtful lobbyist who says, oh, just implement this one little tax change called 1202 where entrepreneurs and VCs get their first 10 million out. And incrementally, what we have done is lower taxes on the 0.1% in corporations, and we haven't raise taxes on the middle or low income, that's a myth. What we've done is we've raised taxes on future generations with $7 trillion in spending on $5 trillion in receipts. So the people who've had their taxes increase the most are a 55-year-old who is now 25. Because we have the full

faith in credit to borrow that money, that full faith and credit and that borrowing power will go away. And at some point, someone's going to have to pay the piper either through massive inflation or revolution or much higher taxes. Yep, absolutely. Yes, kissing upwards. But speaking of up. Jeff Bezos is finally speaking out the future of the Washington Post following last week's layoffs. He said in his statement, the Post had an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity. Bezos added that readers provided a roadmap to success and that data tells us what his value were to focus. Well, data, they all left after he did any number of things. The Bezos statement came shortly after Post CEO and publisher Will Lewis announced his exit from the paper.

I think it was exited from the paper, allegedly. post-CFO, Jeff Donofrio. I met him when he was at one of the tech companies with CFO, is stepping in as acting CEO. I'm going to comment on this. Data tells us what is valuable. You're kidding. No shit, Sherlock.

At the same time, you have to create products that doesn't necessarily follow data. You have to use both data and creativity to create a journalistic product. I mean, anyone would tell you, don't get together with Scott Galloway, data speaking. And, of course, it worked out beautifully.

You have to have lots and lots of things. that go into media. Jeff Bezos has made a number of errors recently over the past two years, and that's the reason people have fled in droves from the post as other places are doing much better in The York Times, Wall Street Journal, the numbers are up. Lots of really interesting independent media companies. It's not true that he couldn't do something better here. And, of course, he's never blamed himself for this fuck up. Will Lewis, Goodridden's, has been terrible. Bezos, again, did not step in and deal with this guy when he was very clearly fucking up. So that's my thoughts.

You don't have to have any, but you can't. What I don't get is, and maybe you've done some reporting here, we have this ideas about putting together a new group. The bottom line is it's subscale. Why wouldn't the New York Times or even the Wall Street Journal take this on and start out some of the overhead costs, but take that traffic and a great brand and try and do something with it? They could. They could.

They could. I would think Bloomberg is always sort of the one. Oh, Bloomberg, that's a great one. Bloomberg, to me, would be the most, but he's, you know, he's getting on. I mean, I hate to say it. A younger Bloomberg, certainly. That's always, that was one of the possible buyers way back when,

when they were trying to keep it out of Rupert Murdoch's hands. But you're right, the Wall Street Journal would be interesting. But why, I mean, I can, I'll call Meredith Levin and ask her and she'll probably just go, oh, what do I need that for? Yeah, I don't, wow, I need that headache. What do I need that headache? Yeah, but they take. They've got a great, they've got a great Washington firm.

What do they get? What are they getting? Well, I'm just going to be very, I'll tell you how this would work. They would go on, they'd buy the brand, they'd buy the subscription, they'd pick their 40 or 60 percent most talented journalists. Most of whom they'd hired, but go ahead. They'd clear out the admin, the sales teams. I mean, the bottom line is print journalism, or whatever you want to call this, type of journalism, is in structural decline. And it requires, and everyone wants to talk about reinvention. Sure, you have to invest innovation, but, but more than anything, it requires consolidation and cost cutting. And the Washington Post, but, I mean, why wouldn't, I would just think that the Washington Post would be an outstanding Washington Bureau, and they've built a lot of credibility. They have a decent, they have a decent subscriber base. It's not a decent, it's not a decent, it was until this past year, it's cratered because

of decisions Jeff Bezos has made, direct decisions by Jeff Bezos. I've heard their traffic, their website traffic, is off by nearly a half in the last three years. Anyway, it's, it's, but you're buying. You're buying a great brand of vehicle is how I look at. But what you have to do is, I mean, to a certain, I hate to say this, it's almost, it's a perfect candidate for a prepackaged bankruptcy. Oh, interesting.

And that is, you declare bankruptcy, you clear out all the obligations, including probably probably an overpriced headquarters, all the obligations they have, and you say, okay, 30% of you are keeping your job, and that's it. I mean, this is no solution here is elegant that's going to paint a brave new where everyone's hoping. If there's some guy who comes in and thinks, you know what, I got five or six billion dollars, all waste a billion over the next 10 or 20 years, fine. I don't know if that person, it's like they're saying therapy, no one's coming to save you. It's a great, it is a great brand.

It's a great brand and there's a lot you could do with it that's different and that if you had some of the breathing room. But you got this meddlesome owner who every time he medals does something stupid. He hired. Do you think he's meddlesome? I do. I think he is. I think he meddled in the Kamala thing. It was him.

He meddled in all manner of things here. He's meddled in a lot of stuff. And you know what? Let me just tell you. Jeff Bezos, let me speak to you directly. You are an astonishing entrepreneur. You did amazing things with Amazon. You went left when everyone went right.

Everyone didn't believe you. You really know how to run an e-commerce company. And you're okay at space. I think it's a little bit more of a luxury for you. But whatever, go for it. I don't care if you spend your money there. But you don't know squat about media at all. And to act like you're an expert in this is really exhausting, and you're not.

You suck at it. You should get out of it. And you're just not good at it. I don't know why we listen to you for five seconds on this topic. There's lots of smart people who know about this. You should put it in their hands or just sell it. Just sell it. You don't care.

Buy Vogue, Jeff. Yeah, go by-bye. The problem is whoever buys this is inheriting an unsustainable cost structure. Yes. And so it's either a prepackaged bankruptcy or you say to the current owner, like, you're going to have to do the hard work and clear out a lot of the costs here. Which he may be doing. And you probably have to bolt it on to another infrastructure, whether it's Bloomberg or the NYT or the Wall Street Journal. But if a bunch of people get jonesed up into raising money and finding people and try and reinvigorate the thing, you're basically going to create, you know, it's trying to bring Frankenstein back for a second time.

Well, I would agree. There's a lot of people who contact me, and they get disappointed because they go, well, it's not a canon. Like, we need this. One of the things that the reporters do is they're like, we need this for democracy. I agree with that, but you still have to run a business. Like I say that. I'm like, don't make that the argument. It's of course the argument. It's the, it's the understood. The press is very important for the future. It's always been. And it's part of the many things that are, that help our democracy thrive. And that's not the argument. You have to create. I always say, I said it to someone. I think they were disappointed because they wanted me to be like, let us grab like Joan of Arc. I was like, it's called a news business. You gotta make a business out of it. You gotta figure it out and get the costs in line. And what I think he's happened here is, you know, it's been so distant and meddlesome at the same time.

Will Lewis was incompetent and meddlesome at the same time. And kind of cruel not to say anything while you did it. I mean, as you say, how you leave is how you, how you leave is critically important. And him showing up all ragged look at the NFL parties while he was laying off people, just not a good look. It's just not a good.

It's not respectful. And these people have worked hard, a lot of them. And so most of them actually. And that's, I don't know. I don't know, you're right. It has to something fresh as happened. But to me, it's a great vehicle for somebody, including, I have some ideas, but you know,

it's a great vehicle. And it's still not a dead brand. That's my feeling. It's not, but it certainly could. People will say that this is another example of how democracy dies or the Washington Post dies. And this is the bottom line without, there's a ton. And a lot of these people will end up at places. There's a ton of sharp, critical, anti-establishment, new media brands, The Intercept, Democracy Now, Jacobin, Choppocin, Chapo-Trap House, Citations Needed, Navarra Media, the Bullwork, Truan.

Well, a lot of them are doing original reporting, but go ahead. Yes, go ahead. Well, that's the correct point, and that is there is no or little economic viability in hard-hitting investigative journalism, especially at the local level. The amount of grift and corruption and, like, name your local state, you know, capital, because there aren't any reporters covering any of this shit. But the notion somehow that we're not going to have any really thoughtful, interesting, you know, progressive media if the Washington Post goes away?

No, all of those people go to smaller, cool little media firms that are doing a great job, and quite frankly, have figured out a way to be more economically viable. The Atlantic. Total cash flow positive, apparently. Does the Atlantic do well? Yes. Very smart. Nick Thompson, Lorraine is a great owner, Jeff Goldberg, and very stuff. They're making products people want.

Like, it's not, this is the thing. Well, let's stop talking about this. Jeff, you're bad at this. Just at least have a talk with me. Just meet me. I don't like you. You don't like me. So what?

Big deal. I'd love to have a talk. I know you're a smart person. But you really need to do something else and not sell it to a hedge fund or the wrong owners. Just do the right thing. Just for the last, for the last time, do the right thing. I don't know. I can't have on the Atlantic.

Every headline feels like it was written by someone who's disappointed in you but still wants to be invited to your wedding. They've done some amazing reporting. It's not true. They've done, you don't read it enough. You just read headlines. The Atlantic doesn't do hot takes. It does foreplay for a conclusion I already disagree with.

God, it does not. It's the only one that also has concerned. Sometimes I call it bad Atlantic and good Atlantic. Sometimes they do the most irritating things that you would like it. They're contrarian. I think the Atlantic is what happens when someone at the bar who's like a woke person that's not that attractive makes eye contact with you. No, no.

It's doing great. It's doing great. Anyway, let's go on a quick break and we come back. The latest media merger gets Trump's seal of approval. Scott, we're back with more news. This is interesting speaking of media stuff. President Trump is now endorsing Next Star Media's takeover a $6 billion acquisition of Tegna, saying it will help knock out the fake news because there'll be more competition.

These are two giant local firms. Back in November, Trump seemed to be opposed to the deal, writing on true social, no expansion of the fake news networks. Now, I guess they suck. because of Jimmy Kimmel, everything else next to our owns or partners with over 200 stations with the addition of TegNOT would cover roughly 80% of a company, country. Excuse me, I would call that a monopoly. The FCC currently prohibits companies from owning broadcast stations that reach over 39% of

U.S. assault, so that's double. So Trump obviously shifted because, I don't know, is there a donation somewhere or something else? I don't know. But it's a massive. They're allowing this merger and then opposing the next. Netflix one. It's so ridiculously hypocritical every time they turn around. They like one thing, but not the other. Any thoughts on this Tegna Next Star thing? Yeah, but the Atlantic is like the

person that ruins brunch by asking about the long-term implication of eggs. Okay. They're doing great without your, without your insults. Tell me about this one. Every Atlantic journalist thinks that sex is a phage you'll outgrow. Okay, let's move along. Next star, Tegna, much more significant. Kent. You and I are both talking to Democratic candidates for president, and one of the platforms I think they should adopt is trust busting. We need to go the other way. If you want to bring prices down, you can't have three chicken companies. You can't have three pharmaceutical companies. You can't have four streaming media platforms. You can't have one search engine. You need to break all of these guys up. We need to go the other way. And we need to separate. The whole point, I mean, let's, can we talk about Ted Serendos congressional testimony? Because I think it's related. Sure. You had some coin-operated Republicans who are being funded by the Ellisons.

Tim Scott's particularly recently has been on a tear. Try to say I'm worried about Netflix claiming that 50% of Netflix children's programming is LGBTQ content. Yeah. And just so you know. They never cared about antitrust. Media companies are allowed to have a viewpoint. Yes, they are. Box has a viewpoint.

It has a bias. CNN has a viewpoint. It has a bias. Netflix, as far as I can tell, is the most apolitical of all of them. They really don't. And the way it works in a capitalist society is the person with the biggest check shows up. And then it goes under regulatory review around whether the concentration of power will ultimately be bad for consumers. It has nothing to fucking do with how much LGBTQ content you think incorrectly has been incorporated into kids' content.

And to see all of a sudden these Republican lawmakers start talking about media. media bias and free speech, it's just insane. It's like, okay, how much money are you getting from the Ellicons who don't want to do what you do in a capitalist society and just pay more for the prize you want? So this politicization or weapon is a, Trump should have nothing to do with any of this. He should be, oh, well, as far as I understand, highest bidder wins, and I appointed the FTC and the DOJ to do a review. That's it. He shifted. He shifts on everything, depending on.

who gives them money, but that's, you know. Yeah, so I don't, I hope that, and by the way, I've said, and I talked to Ted Sarando us over the weekend, I've said, I hope neither of them get it. I think there's too much concentration of power here. I don't think one man should control TikTok, CBS News, and CNN. And I also don't think Ted should control what is kind of, I'm going to call it the Walmart of content with Netflix and the LVMH, HBO. I'm like, ultimately, that'll give you too much pricing power. It'll be good for shareholders. I would, if I were on your board, I would tell you to do exactly

what you're doing, but we don't need one man owning TikTok, CBS, and CNN, and we don't need one person owning HBO. I mean, Ted is not the Ellison. The Elisons are owners. Well, one company, but they'll all be focused on, you get my meaning here. I get it, except that the Ellison's have promised to change, of all the people that are actually trying to change, the Elisons have promised Trump they'll make CNN. Netflix is the least political.

Correct. Their bias is more subscribers and shareholder value. That's what their bias is. The Ellison seemed to have more of a quote-unquote political. Yeah, yeah, more of a political bias. Although at some point, they're going to have to be. What I don't get, you know what they've really missed? And I told Ted this on Saturday.

And he's just not like this because he's too much of kind of like a gentleman farmer. If Netflix wanted to go gangster, they'd do the following. They'd get every single labor union in Hollywood to recognize one fact. if Netflix takes over, let's assume one of them gets it, if Netflix takes over Time Warner, I think employment will be flat, maybe to a little bit down. If the Ellisons get this thing at the price, they're going to have to pay for it,

and they're kind of ground zero for AI, do you know what's going to happen to the employees at these companies? Yes, I do. Dad is going to say, all right, we've got to figure out a way to justify this cost. By the way, I am huge into. to compute and inference, and I'm buddies with Sam Allman. I have no love for Brian Cranston or these directors or these precious screenwriters or script writers at SpongeBob SquarePans.

How can we use AI to take out 80, 80 percent? That is their big calling card, even though I don't think they have any specifics. Hey, Riders Guild, AFTA and SAG, do you realize literally the ass-fucking and not the good kind you are about to get if the Ellison's and AI have to justify the price that Zazlov has been able to get. By the way, Larry's numbers are off rather significantly, too. He's lost billions and billions. He's way down. He doesn't have the extra money to spend.

So they're really going to cut. They're really going to cut. Because this is a ridiculous extravagance for them. This is an extravagance. This is a yacht that they're buying. I would agree. But on that top of it, the FCC under, you know, Villis, idiot, Brendan Carr, as it launched a probe into the view, the FCC is investigating whether the show broke

equal time rules for interviewing political candidates after the show interviewed Democratic, Texas Senate, candidate James Tullerico. I mean, what the view should do is invite Brendan Carr on and have them eat him, all those ladies, because they would take him part bit by bit. Another thing that's stupid, like, just stupid. Like, what are you doing? This is not making the airwaves safer for anybody or better or more fair. This is just you playing politics. for your next job, you dumbass. All right, that's all I have to say about running car. Your thoughts?

We need an FTC and a DOJ that do their job. This is FCC, but go ahead. Yeah. Well, okay. Yes, all of the above. Yeah. These aren't supposed to be weapons of enriching the president and his allies. This is all the same.

This is all cut from, you know, the same cloth here. These are supposed to be independent agencies that think about the consumer, also think about shareholder value, also think about the health of U.S. markets. But again, it's the boring shit nobody wants to talk about. Our markets have become way too consolidated, and the result is they have way too much. We, you know, we have, we have two good schools in every major city. We need five. They need to be competing with it.

I just went through this early admissions bullshit. They quote-unquote, take the admissions rate from 9% to 14%. So we all go early decisions. Do you know what that means? It means if you get in, you have to go. What do you think happens? If you, the deal is the following. This happened with my son.

You pick one school, they tempt you with a higher admissions rate. If you get in, you have to immediately withdraw all applications from every other university. What does that do? It gives you no pricing power. You can't ask for financial aid. You can't ask for a scholarship. So what do they get to do? They get to increase their prices faster than inflation, which education is done.

And by the way, the agency that provides accreditation such that you can get debt from the government, low interest debt, to pay for your student loans. has not admitted almost any new university. So in every major city, there are two great schools, and that's it. That's it. Did the galleys just get the bill for school? Jesus Christ. I know, I know. I'm almost done.

Kara, it's lucky I'm a rich man. I know. I sent my son down yesterday. I want to give you a lesson in tuition and what it means to pay for tuition and post-tax dollars and how much this meal plan is going to cost you. and just how ridiculously blessed you are. And by the way, be fucking nicer to your mother after I go through these numbers with you.

It is, do you realize? The Galloway just got the bill. When you think about the means of getting ahead and the means of establishing a family and saving, you think about education, you think about housing. And what is my generation done? They have purposely created scarcity such that the houses and the degrees

we already own skyrocket and value, which is absolutely fucking young people. How on earth does any middle-class family send a good but not freakishly remarkable kid to college these days? How does that happen? You know one of the reasons why these gambling sites are booming and gaming is booming? Because if you're not saving for a house, you're more inclined to buy crypto or do stupid shit with your money. And you're less inclined to stay in a relationship or taking a risk on a relationship because you're not saving for a house or building anything. Yes, indeed.

I did do a 529 many years ago for the boys. And I was very aggressive. and I was glad I was. The stock market did well and was able to pay for their college using that. But I have to say it's not. I know sometimes those 529s aren't the way to go, but that's what I did. And it worked out for me. But God, it was tuition. My, this kid, like I said to my son, I'm like, this is a state school? Wait, hold on. What's going on here? This is a state school? I know. You haven't even gotten food and living. Oh, my God. I know. I know. Welcome. You know, I'm going to go down there with you when you go, visit him.

Oh, we're going to have so much fun. We're going to the UVA. We're going to the UBA. We're going to go to the UVA Cal game. It's going to be amazing. I'm coming down there. I love UVA. Oh, it's going to be a ton of fun. He's already told me. I told him last night, I'm coming down for the UVA Cal game.

You know what he said? Not like, oh, that's going to be funny. It's like, I don't know if I can get your tickets to the football game. I don't know how it works. It doesn't matter. We just want to come down. We're going to ride horses. Something tells me I'm going to figure out a way to get my own ticket.

He's already making excuses. He's already envisioning me embarrassing him in front of his friends. He's already trying to discourage me from coming to a football game in fall. Yeah. Anyways, we're going down. All right, we're going. Scott and I are riding our horses down there. All right, one more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I think I'll go first. Go for you. My fail, as always, Elon seems to be abandoning his plans to go to Mars. He posted over the weekend that SpaceX has shifted his priorities to build a self-growing city on the moon in order to get to Mars so that we can save the human race. This guy changes his tune so much. It's just like, oh, my God,

when are you going to stop believing this nonsense? He's done an amazing job with the things he's had here on Earth, but not compared to the lies he tells about what he's going to be doing in the future. But he's going to the moon, folks. So that's what he's doing. Again, sounds good. He should go, I think it's a great idea. More Elon off the planet, the better.

Sounds great. My win is I got Scott Galloway to watch. He did rivalry. How'd you like it, Scott? I did it on edibles when I was jet lagged, and I am rethinking everything, Kara. I'm absolutely rethinking everything. I thought it was wonderful.

I really, it's just really well done. And I think it's important. I think young people need to have more sex. There's a lot of sex in it. Oh, my God, crazy sex. I know. Well, sex is their way to get to intimacy. You do see that, right?

That's how they move. Well, dudes use sex or intimacy. Women use intimacy. No, wait, women use sex or intimacy. Men's use intimacy for... I think this stuff is important. You know, I did some of it kind of shocked me, and, like, I immediately had to go to that lesbian series

just to get my mojo back. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. I'll tell you what's interesting. I interviewed the creators. You should go listen to... I saw that. They're Canadian, right?

The Canadians, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to do an erotic drama about the behind the scenes going on of the world's best badminton team. That's what everyone's saying. Like they're like, what about rugby? What about this? Can I make one other observation?

I think one of the things about it, and then you can get to win and fails, is that there's just, there was one of the things they said in the interview. And I think there was this whole incredible market of people who like this particular book series. It's a romance novel for women, right? This is a women, straight women oriented romance novel that was hugely popular. And one thing, they're like, how could it miss when it had such a massive market of fans? And people ignore these markets. And that's one of the reasons. It's already caught on with everybody else.

But the initial strength of it was for this romance novel market that all these sort of guys that are like green lighting things did not understand. And I thought that was a real win for smart creators who understood, who understand where they're fan bases in market. So I thought that was. I talk a lot about the business of heated rivalry with these guys. And so I thought that was, it's just a real win on a business point of view, too. Yeah, and I come back to when I was thinking about a heated rivalry, because everyone's asking, what do you have a lot of your rivalry? I think a decent place to start an entire political platform or guidance for the political system and economic system,

it sounds corny, it's love. And that is, all right, if people can't make enough money in a low employment economy such that they're so stressed out they can't raise their kids well, that economic policy is getting in the way of love and we need to revisit it. If the divorce rates are skyrocketing because of economic anxiety and because 40% of households have medical debt, that's getting in the way of love. We need to stop it. If any sort of discrimination is stopping people from love, loving each other, committing to each other, and I think marriage is a good thing because it, you know, it stops you from exiting relationships. Just because they both have outdoor plumbing, that's getting in the way of love. I think you could reduce, I think the whole nation, the whole idea of a prosperous nation, we tend to think it's the S&P, it's not. It's someone's ability to find someone else and to share their life with them and notice each other's life.

And that's why I think the sex recession among young people is absolutely terrible. And I also think about all the men I grew up with who basically imposed, society imposed on them a set of rules and standards. It said you're not supposed to be in love because your inclinations towards love are perverted according to our laws. But I think you could literally start from the notion of love or connecting with someone economically, spiritually, psychologically, financially, and reverse engineer into what makes good public policy. No. Anyway. There you go. Love, sweet love.

That's what bad buddy said. Love. That's my platform. Love. That was what he said. Love. Okay. So wins and loss?

Okay. Wins and veils. Okay. So my win, my win, I'm trying to bring attention to some younger creators who I just think are outstanding. And I consistently find myself on this one creators. I brought up Kyle Scanlan, this young, got to be 26 female economists. So I keep bringing on Prop G. But recently I find myself just absolutely obsessed with this guy on TikTok.

named GeoHusar. And he talks about economics and geopolitics, and he'll go deep into the weapon systems of Ukraine versus Russia. And while the oil infrastructure for Russia's collapsing, he'll talk about the Fed and interest rates. And this guy is just so, it's like the eighth-grade kid

who was kind of introverted and good at math, and he's found TikTok, and he's just fucking fascinating. And he does, you can tell he just does, the work. And so much of my thought leadership or my views on economics and geopolitics are informed by this guy's amazing work. So people are consistently asking me what are my sources of information? I get a lot, I got to be honest, I got a lot from social media. And this one guy on TikTok, GeoHusar, for geopolitics and economics is a gift. And it's also, to be clear,

a real endorsement of these platforms. He's not, he's not, um, you know, he's not Dan Rather or he doesn't have, you know, he's not Brian Williams. He doesn't have that polish. He just does the math. And he's sort of unafraid. Anyway, my win is Gio Hussar. He's fantastic. Check out his content.

My loss is the following. I fairly get criticism for too easily comparing the Nazis to the Trump. administration. And what I do think is fair, though, is looking at kind of late-stage Weimar Republic and what was going on then in the Trump administration. And some of the things we share were a secret police loyal to one man, not to an institution, a collapse in the cultural and economic standing of middle-class men. Back then, it was about industrialization and automation. Now, I would say it's about AI. This notion that the enemy wasn't abroad, but it was the enemy within, the fact that we started shipping people

to different sites outside of the country where they had some sort of legal protection. What we also had in the 30s was a lot of the people in power very purposely started comparing undesirables or their enemies, whether it was gypsies or socialists or trade unionists or Jews. They started comparing them purposely to animals. And when I saw the purposefully,

present this week, compare the Obama's, President Obama and First Lady Obama to animals, to apes. You know, we have seen this before. When you normalize the dehumanization of people based on their ethnicity or on their beliefs or on their religion, you have to shut that shit down right away. And the notion that, oh, he didn't see it, or you can't take him literally, well, okay, What would, you know, the 60 million people who died in World War II would like a word. When the president of the United States is referring to past presidents and people who have been an absolute blessing to this society, when he starts comparing them to animals, we are 1930s Germany. It has never been accepted before in our society.

We have never normalized it. We have never allowed it. And this individual is talking about, he's referred to as political enemies, as vermin as animals. And so the notion that more Republicans have not stepped up and said, we just can't have this. We cannot go back. We cannot be like Wymer, Germany. We can't have democratically elected leaders referring to their political enemies as animals. And so my fail is that so many people seem to be making excuses for it and not checking back on it.

This is a different level of danger when we start convincing people. And we need Republicans here. Democrats will always find reasons for why everything Trump does is wrong. If at some point Republicans, you know, John Thune, who I think is a good man, if he doesn't stand up and say, you can't equate our political enemies with animals. Well, they only do that like Tom Tillis when they're not running again. Then they get. Well, then they find their balls.

Yep. Yeah. Anyways, my win is the Geohusar. My loss is the normalization of referring to people as animals. It leads to very dark places. Yeah. I think your comparison is just fine. But anyway, before we go, listen up.

If you have a juicy situation you'd like our advice on, call us at 8-5-5. 5-1 pivot, think work, dating, family, finance, make it juicy people. This is not career advice ask. This is, I want to date my coworker or I made a huge financial decision, I regret, type ask. We want something a little more personal. We can't wait to hear from you on that. And elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, for the latest episode of On, I spoke with a long time defense attorney Abby Lowell, who is representing some of the most high-profile targets of the Trump administration right now, people like New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and independent journalist Don Lemon.

And this is very much to Scott's last point. Let's listen to a clip. I don't know that I thought that them going after Don Lemon was their highest priority. Right. I should have known better because what we know about this administration is they're very good at basically saying, if this is my right hand, pay attention to it while I do something with my left. They are the administration of distraction. Okay.

That's absolutely true. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Amin, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intert engineered this episode. Rich Schibli edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Ms. Severe on Dan Chalon. DeShaw-Koro is Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine to nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things, tech and business. business.