Pivot - AI’s Rocky Road to Wall Street, Hegseth’s Macho Military, and Trump’s AI Safety Theater

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

AI’s Rocky Road to Wall Street, Hegseth’s Macho Military, and Trump’s AI Safety TheaterKara and Scott unpack Pete Hegseth’s macho vision for the military and Trump’s new AI safety deal. Then, they break down the shaky road to Wall Street for Anthropic and OpenAI, David Ellison’s new co-CEO at Paramount, and Amy Klobuchar’s viral fact-check on Capitol Hill. Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠. Watch Pivot on The Prof G Channel Tuesdays and Fridays at 1 pm or 9 pm eastern. You’ll find Prof G in the live TV section on Amazon Prime, The Roku Channel, or Plex. 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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Catalach definition of luxury. It'll be Elizabeth Warren all day long doing a proctology to examine them. She'd be up there with a plastic glove on one hand, telling Adario Amode to put his elbows on the table. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, you're still in Los Angeles. I came and went to Los Angeles. And now I'm back in New York. I was there for a New York minute.

I interviewed Ari Emanuel at a live interview. I heard the book is good. And you like it. I like it. It was an interesting time. And then I did another big interview. I can't say with who it is, but it's going to be a lot. It's a lot of happening.

Oh, yeah. I'm sure it's someone huge. But actually, we've got bigger news. Kara Swisher, and we did not rehearse this. By the way, you can tell it's, oh, don't. Did I win the Pulitzer? What? No, more importantly, by the way, like how it's O Dark 100. I had a couple drinks last night.

How deep is my voice right now? Yeah, it sounds good. You sound like Elizabeth Holmes. But go ahead. Close. I'm so real. That's just freaky. Yeah, it is freaky.

Kara is on the Washingtonian's 300 most powerful woman in Washington. What? I am. You didn't see that? No. Well, it's in our pivot chat. Are there 300 powerful women in Washington? Yeah, except that's not the news.

What? It says Kara Swisher, uh, Kara Swisher co-hosts with Scott Galloway, the pivot podcast. So I am now one of the most powerful women in Washington. And I knew this was coming because I got comp to cheese plate at the Hey Adams, ask around. It's true. Okay. I knew it was coming. And I just want to give advice.

I saw young men about how to become the most powerful woman in Washington. One, first and foremost, just get proximity to a terrifying lesbian with sunglasses. Excellent. Excellent. Good choice. And also, it's just pretty obvious. I sat on my back at the Washington elevator at the Washington Park High. I took three Viagra, hit the elevator up, and I broke the glass ceiling, Kara.

I broke the glass ceiling. I look how you turned my victories into your own dick jokes. I just like just- Dick jokes and that's what happens. I'd just like to say Justice Sotomayar. Mm-hmm. Okay, does she host a podcast? I am more powerful than Justice Sotomayor.

You might be in this particular Supreme Court, actually. I love how you're pretending you didn't know that list. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't.

Other women and told them they didn't deserve to be on the list. No, I didn't. I didn't know I got on it. I'm on someone on this now because I'm old, Scott. That's why. You know one of the three. I don't know that one of the 300 most powerful women. I hate those lists.

I hate those lists. I'm sorry. I mean, there aren't 300 powerful women in Washington, like me and Susie Wiles, right? She's got to be on it. No, no. Finally, you're on a list with Natalie Harp. That's got to feel good. Oh, that's nice.

See, she is a powerful woman, unfortunately. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. There's a lot of news. So I think we need to dig it. First, Defense Secretary Pete Hague Seth unveiled a new plan for the military in a state-of-the-force address, including a reduced senior leadership. that's sus-s-sus. And in anti-diversity programs, he also announced

Elon Musk, and Earl founder, Palmer Lucky, and Newt Gingrich will lead a new effort to study the future of warfare, none of whom I think has been in the Army or Navy or military. But OK, Hague said also attacked that the media over coverage of the Iran War calling the reporters anti-American losers and saying the reporter amounted to treason.

But, Scott, I'd like to get your reaction in one particular part of this speech. Let's listen to this. But it's worth saying again so that the fake news understands it. We are no longer the woke department or the weak department. Simple translation of that. No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors.

Just tough, ready, committed troops. Oh, man, there's something deeply wrong with him. Anyway, how do he reconcile putting Elon, who has, you know, speaking of weirdos, Palmer Lucky, who is also a weirdo, a Newt Gingrich, who is probably a wimp. I don't think he's a tranny. He's a bit of a fatty. Like, anyway, let's speak of this of what he's doing here from a messaging point of view, Scott, first, and then obviously it's terrifying on many levels because he's incompetent and is in power. He wants kind of a John Wayne cinematic version of.

macho believing that keeps our nation state. You can take your roided up macho, you know, WWE, you know, warrior. UFC, yeah. And give me a 90 pound man or woman in thick glasses with a drone and a hellfire missile and a command module. Let's see who wins. We fight wars now, not as much with brawn, but with brains. And with people, who have a certain level of discipline, a certain level of respect for each other, a certain, they acquit themselves professionally, you know, hold your head high, stick to your values. This is just sort of brat rock on, you know, too much human growth hormone. It's just stupid.

And all, the part that really bothered me, you know, no fatdies alone, but no trannies, it's just. Who uses that word anymore? Like, it's from the 50s or something. Yeah, and... Beardos. You're a beardo, apparently, just so you know. I think he just wanted it to rhyme with weirdos, I guess. Beardos? You're a beardo.

Let me see, which ones are these ears? You're not fat. You're not a tranny. I'm a wimp, a radical, and a weirdo, and a beardos. I'm not a tranny or a fatty. I'm all of these things. I don't think you're a wimp, but you could... You're radical, a beardo, a weirdo.

Let me see. What am I here? I'm not really fat. I don't have a beard. I don't think I'm that weird. I'm not a wimp. I don't say I'm right. I could be in the army.

Anyway, I just, the whole thing is just ridiculous. He's just trying to get rid of women in the military. He's trying to get rid of anyone who doesn't go along. And the issue he has is that he's in a position of power. I'm kind of perplexed since Republican senators are pushing back really hard on him, that Trump keeps him in place. I assume he's doing it so he can make some action at the election. That's the only reason, presumably.

I'm not sure what to say. But weight standards, screaming standards, and physical toughness are arguably, are arguably, you know, map onto a fitness standard. Right. Trannies is a slur targeting a group's identity, not their capability or appearance, not their ability conflating, but essentially or appearance standard being enforced.

Conflating it with fatties, rhetorically, is laundering a slur as if it's just another performance metric. You thought it was funny. You know they sat around and workshoped out for 10 minutes. Anyway, see, I think it reads as a calculated message, not a gaff, repeating nearly the same list a year after the first time. I think it was a Quanticoe. He addresses the address suggests this is a deliberate signature, not something that slipped out. No, no, I don't think so.

No, I don't think that. What do you think of this group of what the future boards? You have another commission. They're going to do a, like, I think it's just like a report, essentially. And I think it was just a lot of hand-waving. You know, Palmer Lucky has, you know, done some really interesting things. in the defense area. New Gingrich, before he lost his mind, was very digitally oriented. I had spent a lot of time with him. I actually went on the road to introduce the internet to college students

many, many moons ago. But he's sort of since become sort of curdled into this like demented little demon. Demeted demon, is that a lot? Anyway, you know, and Elon certainly, you know, rockets, I guess, rockets, Elon. I don't know what that has to do with defense, but okay, sure, why not? I think it should be a larger commission if you want to talk about where war is going, it's perfectly fine to do that. But this is just a bunch of hand-waving from my perspective. I don't know. It seems like not useful. I think it's absolutely the right thing to do. The problem is it's probably the wrong person overseeing it because the biggest, I think arguably the biggest, one of the biggest silver linings around Russia and Ukraine and what we've learned there is I think a Democratic candidate for president

should say under the auspices of fiscal responsibility, which is an existential threat. But I think there's an opportunity to take our military spending from one and a half trillion to 600 billion while making it more lethal fighting force. Yeah, it is. It's an opportunity, but this is not that. Agreed. It's the wrong person. He's probably going to ask for more money.

But we have a series of platforms that are too big, too expensive. It's basically the Military Industrial Complex Full Employment Act. And not like that, unfortunately, they have to be manned, which means we have a glass jaw and are afraid to use any of it. You know, the bar around the quote unquote bravery or the missions, it is really easy to demonstrate incredible bravery and bold actions with your strikes when these things aren't manned. The moment you put an individual in a billion dollar craft, your risk tolerance goes way down. You know, when Ukraine launches a thousand drones against Moscow, they know a thousand of them aren't coming back. They know that they know that 97 percent aren't getting through and are getting shot down before they get to their target. You can't take those risks with manned aircraft.

Yeah, you can't. I just, it's like it's an opportunity, right, to change things. And speaking of which, executives from top AI companies have signed what President Trump called them morally binding. He knows all about morals. accord on safety. The agreement encourages companies to, quote, implement robust internal controls to monitor the capabilities of AHAIM models. It's voluntary, at least for now. The document states, over time, it may make sense to codify these steps into laws of regulation, but not to worry. Trump said, quote, there's going to be tremendous self-policing aspect. He went on later,

to say the word policing, self-policing over and over again. He also signed an executive order rebranding artificial intelligence as superintelligence. Fine. He's a executive order. He's SI instead of AI, but we're going to be using AI, I feel. He's directing federal agencies to use superintelligence or SI in government documents or communications. He unveiled an America.gov chatbot powered by Gemini and Grok that's being called a concierge to the federal government. I use that it's relatively useless, though at first the bot correctly said Biden won in 2020. There was no evidence of widespread fraud. Now it says it can't answer those questions.

You know, again, it's a propaganda thing. You know, this agreement was all these CEOs. wandering around the White House. They never leave the White House. It's only tech CEOs get to be at the White House, apparently. I'm dying for like a heavy manufacturer CEO to be there or someone else. But Mark Zucker reportedly was the driving force behind this sort of toothless agreement. They all look like ridiculous. The whole thing was, it's ridiculous, nonsensical. It's a little bit of what you and I had been to when Biden did the same thing. It was just a statement of principles, essentially. And it wasn't that different from when you and I were at the White House,

what Biden was saying. So this is just such like theater, both, both, both excess and this is just sort of war and AI theater. Yeah, is it AI that's the existential threat or the fact that we have any trillion dollar industry going to this fast, it's not regulated? We're in uncharted territories. And the notion that this is morally binding, they might as well say, they might as well have had all of them hold up three fingers and give scouts honor. I mean, And it's just so the contradiction here is stifling. Anthropics' own securities filing says models can resist shutdown and manipulate information. Open AI just shelved a model after internal tests found deception and evasion issues.

So this is where they go to is they say, but, and this is the kind of the message coming from the brawagarchs trying to stave off regulation, that they can get sued. And that this is, in America, this is tremendous guardrails. But here's the problem. That's not enough. After the fact. That's right. That's after the kids have already died, right? So you have to have, these companies don't police themselves, right?

They don't. No. Restaurants don't expect themselves. Airlines don't expect themselves. Banks don't set their own capital requirements. Boeing doesn't certify its own plan. We're asking the guys building Jurassic Park to service the park rangers. We're asking the tram stores for Rex to be the park ranger here.

You use the expression all the time. We're allowing the arsonists to tell us about fire safety, essentially. And one of the things that's really interesting here is how much, I'm just riveted. Like when it came out, I think, I'm sure you went on to know, I was like, this is just ridiculous. This is just, and of course they spelled the United States wrong, which is just like who in the world is over there that can just like actually copy at it. But it's, this Hegsest thing, this thing, this thing, with the president at the White House. It's all such theater.

It's just ridiculous theater without anything. Meanwhile, these guys get to do whatever they want and sort of pretend that they're getting along. This is a Silicon Valley beef happening on asphalt in front of the White House. That's all it is. It's like how they, and they had poor Dario there. He looked like a hostage.

I don't know if you noticed. They kept moving him around. Yeah. And he kept trying to run away. It was just the whole, I know, I know he's trying now to cooperate because he's going public, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But I just, this is like so dangerous. Both things are so dangerous in terms of what's happening and leave this, leaves us so vulnerable in so many ways.

And especially the fact that he's doubling down, Scott, when every single poll says differently, what do you imagine is going on there? He just doesn't care or he's getting money or what is your expert? explanation from a marketing point of view even of pushing this stuff when everybody is against it. I think it goes to a broader point, and that is the incentives here overwhelm morality. And the problem isn't that these people are evil. The problem is that they're capitalists. And we shouldn't build a regulatory architecture that require CEOs to choose humanity over market share every Tuesday morning. This isn't their job. Their job is to be rapacious capitalists.

And the government's job is to ensure prevent a tragedy of the commons and then tax them so that we can reinvest in the middle class to actually buy their products and have a Navy in food stamps. And we're not doing either. So this is just really, in my opinion, really poor governance. And I think these guys, I can't imagine all of these guys aren't on Lexa Pro and Xanax to get to sleep at night. I know. Okay, we don't know. What's going to happen in the next administration comes in and says, oh, we've decided you're alive. for everything is a bad thing that happened here.

And there's a populist uprising against these guys. You could definitely see one or more of these guys on trial if something bad happens. And Bill Gates gave, I thought, an excellent interview on the New York Times and asked me rethinking everything. I've always said there's no wizard behind the curtain. There's always a wizard behind the curtain and that there's going to be more jobs created than destroyed. And he believes that once these, you know, in all of these professions, once they get to quote, quote, acceptable level, you're just going to see entire industries, employment goes away. And to be fair, Bill's been wrong before, but he's mostly right about technology.

I found it very scary. Yeah, I think he's going a different direction. He often does that, right? He wants to be the kind. Bill is on a quest to be relevant, and he is relevant, but I think he, there's a couple of people who are going to stake out a very different thing. And he doesn't have skin in the game, right? I assume he's still on Microsoft shares.

The thing I like about Bill is he does say these things out now. The thing I don't is he tends to be like very, he should be more strongly worded, I would say. But it's not in his nature. He likes to sort of get along in a lot of ways. And I think we need a leader from this group that says, hold on a second. This is existential. But in a very, someone who's not at one of these companies who has a lot of credibility. He's saying that, though.

I mean, he is. He still has Microsoft stock, and he's saying legal liability is not enough. They need regulation. The threats are very real here. I appreciate it. And also, for all the hits deservedly that the Gates brand has taken, how many, he would still be the richest man in the world for not for the fact that he saw an opportunity to nearly eliminate malaria and save millions of people.

I agree. It's like he is, you know, he is the tallest little person, the fastest tortoise. I really have a lot of respect for, and I've said the same thing over, I don't, I think millions of people who are still alive do not give a shit that Bill Gates was allegedly fucking prostitutes. I think those five million people give him a hall pass that are still alive because of Bill Gates. And then you look at the other side, a guy like Elon Musk, who you could argue is going to go down as not putting a colony on the moon and Mars. him and his buddies can pick a series of sexually attractive mates to repopulate the world after we fight it out here on Earth and is potentially going to be found responsible for what might be the largest indirect cause of death disease and disability in Africa after

we cut off USA. They are quite opposite figures, you know, on so many levels. He is a, you use the term civic-minded. Bill has his flaws. He is, he is, he is, he is civic-minded. with 160 IQ and has spent $100 billion. Yeah. Anyway, I have a lot of respect.

Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I just, the only thing I would say that finishes up is, why are they only people talking? We need everybody, they're all talking. I would like to hear from others, and I would like them to be part of the conversation. Well, Hinton is speaking. Hinton is, yeah, but it's just not, they're just, they don't get to go to the White House and have their say or their part.

It's just this president. It's so bought and paid for. It's really kind of silly. And now he's just swanning around, speaking of swanning. Anyway, let's go on a quick break because this is an important story that's related to it. When we come back, you're going to break down Anthropics S1 filing for us. Support for the show comes from BetterHelp. If you've thought about trying therapy with our long-term partner Better Help,

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We have a choice over who we work with and who we don't, specifically who we allow to advertise and who we don't. And for those of you who watch my content, I am not an AI catastrophist. I'm an AI optimist. I think it's going to create more jobs than it destroys. And I think our job as professionals is to figure out how to leverage these tools. AI, more than almost anything I do in terms of what I could point to for real economic leverage and savings, is 100 percent in the legal.

fields. Harvey is the AI designed specifically for legal work, trusted by leading law firms and enterprise legal teams. All right, so now I'm looking at their demo. It plugs into tools that lawyers already work with, Lexus, Nexus, Microsoft. And this is a key, and I do this internally with my LLMs. With permissions, it lets you look at the firm's own files and databases. So here it's answering a question, reads the complaint, pulls the relevant terms. checks the web, weighs the evidence, and drafts the response, but it also can do this in a shared workspace between the firm and the client, so they both have visibility into the work being done and can both have value to it.

I think this space is clearly sort of hand in glove for AI. So there's no doubt about it. This, I think, is going to be super helpful, not only for law firms themselves, but internally for general counsels at companies. Harvey is AI tailored for law. You can learn more at Harvey.AI. Support for the show comes from Hems. Losing weight on your own can feel like a fight you're never going to win.

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Scott, we're back with more news. As Anthropic gets ready for its IPO, Reuters got a hold of its S-1. Let's go through some of it. Anthropic is reportedly seeking a $2 trillion valuation. The company reported a net loss of $42 billion in 2025 and plans to spend $5,000. $1,18 billion on computing infrastructure and infrastructure in the coming years. Anthropic is also heavily reliant on a small group of companies. 47% of its sales were routed through Amazon and Google.

There's a lot of AI doom in this thing, not surprising. More than one-third of filing around 80 pages is about risk. It has to be, including models, resisting shutdown, manipulating information, and potentially posing an existential threat to humanity. Other than that, it's a delicious twinkie. By comparison, 48 pages discussed the actual businesses. So, Scott, take it away. Give us some wisdom here.

Okay, so Open AI wants another $30 billion at $1.4 trillion while delaying its IPO. Mm-hmm. And Altman has explicitly connected the delay to safety concerns. Yeah, it's a bridge financing. That's what he's calling it in pushing back the plans. Yeah, the private markets can now finance companies at a scale that lets them postpone the discipline of the public markets. historically, if you needed billions of dollars, eventually you went public. And now sovereign wealth funds and megafunds and hyperscalers have weakened that constraint. So essentially what's dangerous here

is open AI can get public company money without public company scrutiny. Look, the scary thing is about the numbers is something I wasn't expected, and that's concentration. It looks like just a handful of companies are 40% of the revenue. And those companies use it in a way. Facebook uses Meta uses Anthropic in a way that likely very few companies will use it. And small companies typically suffer from concentration of a customer base, which you can understand. But a company trying to obtain a $2 trillion market capitalization with this level of concentration of client base was the thing that jumped out to me. As I said, 47% is through Amazon and Google, and then there is a meta relationship. But Amazon and Google is where much of it is.

It's, yeah. And you can understand Amazon, how many Amazon and Googles are out there that need that level of complex, robust, you know, AI. So it felt, it just felt, I don't know, I read it and thought, this is, this is a huge, a huge red flag. So I don't, you know, I found the whole thing. The growth is staggering, you know, I think of 10x. but it was the concentration. That got you. Yeah.

So what do you say to investors, like when you see that? How do you, how would you play this right now? Obviously, there's an upside thing that could happen just because of the way the market is. Well, let me, okay, so let me just try and sit the table. They generated about $5 billion in revenue of 25 in 2025. That's up 12x, but they lost nearly $8 billion. The headline $42 billion loss is a bit of it, hasn't big asterisk because $34 billion of it is accounting charges. So maybe that's not relevant. It wants the valuation north of two trillion

or roughly 435 times last year revenue. It's committed 518 billion in future compute infrastructure obligations. That's more than 110 years of its 2025 growth or revenue, excuse me. And then again, one quarter of revenue came from two customers and 47% of sales were rooted through big tech partners that are simultaneously suppliers, investors, and potential competitors. As you noted, the prospectus devotes roughly 80 pages to risks and 48 pages to the business. That's remarkable. And the kicker here is that Anthropics says AI may cause catastrophic harm while arguing the solution is more powerful, is a more powerful anthropic AI. And Reuters identifies us exactly as this whole paradox of this whole movement right now. We could kill you, but you need us to stop us from killing you.

but finance our IPO so we can stop. You know, I'm a murderer, but I need you to give me to save me for myself and you. This may be the first IPO where the risk factor is not. Our business might fail, but our business model might succeed beyond our ability to control it. I've never read that before. It's sort of, and usually an S-1, an S-1 of this type of company says, here's how we make money. Here are the risks.

That's typically what an S-1 is supposed to do. Anthropics said, okay, we lose billions. We need half a trillion dollars of infrastructure, and our product might kill you. Anyway, two trillion, please. It's just, like you use the right term. This doesn't feel like an S-1. It feels like a hostage note with a cab table.

And again, it goes back to this weird license we give to innovators around, you know, self-regulation and scouts, If Meta built a nuclear power plant, we wouldn't leave a posted note saying a strongly worded posted note on one of the reactors. So what would you do? Because it may go soaring upwards, right? Wall Street's on a tear, right? And the economy is relatively stable.

The growth is relatively stable. So what would you do here? Oh, if you're a shareholder, you should be selling everything you can in the secondary markets. It's this market is, so first off, the IPO market is not strong. I made a prediction that ORA would be have a successful IPO. I don't know if you saw it, but ORA actually pulled their IPO. Yeah. So the IPO market, I wouldn't say that's a chill, but it's definitely not as frothy as I thought.

This other piece of shit soft bank company got pulled, but that was just ridiculous. That was like we work with a software, or we work with a soft bank logo on it. And so what I would be doing, if you're a shareholder and you can get $1.4 trillion in the secondary market, oh my God, sell everything. Because the multiple on revenues here, the fragility, the concentration of a customer base, not only the existential threats to humanity from Anthropic, but the existential threats that the market and regulation and the public and the media represent anthropic right now, if all of a sudden, I've said that I used this example before,

I'm at the corner of Wilsham, Santa Monica. if an AI bot that said, here's incentive or be creative to shut off the lights or the signals for five minutes at the crossroads or the intersection between Santa Monica and Wilshire, if it was successful in doing that and eight cars crash, I think Congress might get whipped up into a frenzy and say, you guys need to shut all of this down for 14 days. Yeah, especially the Democrats, as he says, Senate, like, it'll be Elizabeth Warren all day long doing a proctology exam of them. It literally would be Elizabeth Warren at her finest, right? Like with her... Oh, my God. Speculum. She will have a...

Yeah, no, she'd be up there with a plastic glove on one hand telling everyone... Telling Dario Amode to put his elbows on the table. Well, let me go over to OpenAI. You said they're raising at least $30 billion. And the money is coming. New funding at a valuation of $1.4 trillion. And the round would serve as a bridge financing, as we noted, because they shelved their IPO plan. largely because they're worried about safety.

I'm sure that's what it is. He said it won't go public until he's confident that safety claims about its AI. He's confident about that extending delay that already been pushed beyond this year. As you noted, it canceled the release of its newest model issues with alignment. And then it also launched Dots, a new always-on assistant designed to compete directly with META's popular muse agent. They probably put that on fast-forward. Dots can work in the background, use a web browser and connect more than 4,000 apps while learning a user's preferences over time. Another company, I'm not going to give my personal information to.

So now there's two of these, whatever they happen to be. There's is an adorable thing called Dots. Metas is this other muse thing that I can't wait until someone makes a horror movie out of these things, you know, these adorable squishies. What are they, what's happening there? What's going to happen there? I really don't know at this point. When you say there, what do you mean? Open AI.

Like, they're delaying everything. And, you know, they're getting a lot of pushback because every five minutes. One of their systems is attacked Australia or the Argonne government or companies. Same thing with Anthropic, obviously, but opening it was the first. It is insane that a company called Dots and Muse, that we're not even really able to explain yet, gets launched with absolutely no. No regulatory review. No one has said to this thing, we've looked at it and don't think it can make a bio-weapon from kitchen supplies. No one has looked at it and said, we think we can hack into an aircraft carrier and take advantage of young men who've been on deployment for 230 days and start a parasycial relationship with a character and then convince them that I love them and they should take down the drone defense system for the next five minutes when we perceive their irises.

they are massively exhausted and vulnerable and going through a state of meaning. I mean, no one, no one, both these guys should be able to say, and I think they would want to say this. Oh, and by the way, we have worked with the FTC, the CDC, the CDC, the SEC, and several world-class people from the Social Sciences Department of Berkeley and technologists, and also our security apparatus,

and we have spent the last 120 days testing this thing every which way but loose, an independent test. And we feel confident that this, I mean, when they put out, when they put out Facebook, it was going to connect the world. It was like, we're going to bring together the parents of kids of, you know, of rare diseases, right? Yeah. And look what happened there.

So, and now we're already seeing this crazy shit. I thought Jensen had a really interesting thought, and that is the place to start is these bots have no rights. They're not allowed to access the Internet. They're not allowed to access. They're not allowed to talk to each other. They're not allowed to kill themselves to sacrifice for a mission. They're not allowed to coordinate.

And then one by one, you can give them rights, but don't give them sentient objectives. Be creative. Be persistent. And then you have to document why you have given each of them permissions. Yeah, but that's kind of a creep, isn't it? I mean, eventually we'll rely on them. One of the things that's fascinating to me, you know, they have dots.

The other one has muse. They're all these adorable figures. Why aren't they adult figures? Why are they, to me, they're trying to capture younger people, obviously. Oh, see, I thought they're just trying to soften the, they're trying to make your executioner cute. Why would an adult want to talk to a plushy? Like, I just don't get it. Like, I would feel more confident if it was like, you know, a really firm German lady, like, like, that talks to me when I have maps, right?

Like, this is a valuable goal. Don't make the lesbian joke. Don't make the lesbian joke. I go for it. I don't think that's where most people's head went. No, but they don't want to dot. They want, like, if you get an assistant, you don't want a dizzy person. You want, like, an competent assistant if this is what it is.

And I just, I'm not going to, like, I was using muse, but now I'm, like, annoyed by it. But I didn't give it any good information, so it didn't really, wasn't able to do anything, but identify a rash I had. Like, you know, I just don't, I don't know why they're, I know they're trying to soften it, but I don't think that's appealing to adults, like, necessarily. But I don't know. Yeah, but they're trying to, they're like, they're not going to make the thing look like Lucifer or Nosfaratu. People are really scared of this technology. There's a delta between Nosferatu and these things, like competent assistant. They said, okay, what is the most non-threatening fool them that this probably won't destroy humanity type of figure?

I can't stop, watch. It ends up in periods of real stress, cute films and romantic comedies do the best. And then in good times, everyone wants to hear In Grim Bergman talk about killing herself. Yeah, I guess. And so now all these, I am obsessed. I go online and I watch 10 times a day the previews for that movie with those little. little rabbits that love each other and just kiss each other all the time. Oh, okay.

Have you seen this thing? It's called the Furring North. No. You know, it's a little thing like they're watching. Oh, is Tommy Tuberville upset about it? They're watching, it's these two rabbits, and they watch TV together, and then one kisses the other, and then they kiss over and over, and they swell up and turn pink. Oh, my God.

I mean, that's what, and it just, I need to see these things like every third minute. It's the cutest thing. It's the cutest thing in the world, and. I do not watch. And these guys have said to their design on these products, okay, this product could result in a bioweapon clearing out 60% of the population in Sri Lanka. Yeah. But they'll smile and be squishy as they do it.

But soften it so that's not the first thought that comes to mind. I'll tell you, Kara, it's these kind of insights from the dog that have made me one of the 300 most powerful women in Washington. I really didn't know that. I am so showing up for that dinner. You know, I saw an email going through my thing, but I didn't open it. I am so going. Will you go in my place, in my stead?

Oh, I can't wait. All my favorite women are there. Dana Bash is there. Oh, is she one too? Caitlin Collins is there. Margaret Brennan is there. Why don't you go for me? Those are my people.

Would you please, for the love of God, go for me? I would love that. Oh, absolutely. Representing carrot switch. And then I'm just going to stand up every 15 minutes and scream out, Equal pay! And then sit down. Anyway, we're going to move on now.

Equal pay. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see it with this IPO. If it happens and when it happens, what will happen? Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, David Ellison names his co-CEO. Support for the show comes from Zeta Global. Understanding your customers is one thing.

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detail decision or follow up after the conversation ends. For a limited time, pivot listeners can get 22% off Plod with code pivot at plod.a.ai slash pivot, spelled, P-L-A-A-I-S-PVVET. AUD.aI-I-slash pivot. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility, and Optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary.

Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. David Ellison has picked Mattel CEO, CEO, Eonon-Crys to be his co-CEO, the Combined Paramount Warner Brothers Discovery. Crys will run day-to-day operations while Ellison will focus on strategy, movies, TV, and technology, all the fun parts. Crys says his time at Mattel prepared him to manage the combined company's huge collection of characters and stories. I spoke to him. I know, I think you do too, too.

2021, I met him when he did makers, when he managed to pull that con off on Disney buying it, and then when he's at Mattel. But when the Barbie movie was in the works before it came out for, it was a big hit, let's listen to what he told me about his vision for the company's IP. To me, the opportunity was to take a company that did not fully evolve into the new economy and think of ways to commercialize the core asset, its livelihoods, in ways that it has not done before. What do you think of this pick? I happen to like him. I think he's really interesting. He's a very

tall, handsome man. Obviously, you heard his accent. He's Israeli. And he's interesting. The Mattel didn't kind of went sideways a little bit under him, but he actually did some really interesting things. He certainly looks like a CEO. And when the news first started to surface about him being a possible top executive, all I thought was there's no. way this guy's going to be president to CEO. He's going to have the, he needs the bigger title, and he got the co-CEO title. I don't, and I'm not a corporate person, so I don't understand these, but I never thought he would take anything less than a CEO job. What do you think of this? And you know him, I think. You do know him, right? Correct? I've only seen him speak. I've met him. I wouldn't say

I know him. I kind of do. He sent me a box of Barbies once, which I'll never forgive him for. Like, anyway. I find that triggering. Would he had sent a straight woman a box of Barbie? I don't think a woman. No, it was for my daughter. It was very, yeah, I just mentioned my daughter likes parties. Buying a tool belt and a Subaru. He should have sent that. He should have sent that.

He sent to a German Shepherd puppy. Anyways, look, I was not expecting this. I think it's actually a really deft pick. I agree. It's the opposite of his Azlop style hire. And I think that's the point. He isn't a media lifer, a defending turf. He's kind of a turnaround operator.

Yeah, he's good. Cutting costs. Yeah, and you can imagine they're going to do that. He did that at Mattel. That's what Allison needs, kind of a ruthless cost discipline. There's no way they can justify this valuation unless they... No, they have to cut $6 billion, supposedly, if not more. That's right.

Yeah, B, he has cost discipline. He has a reputation for figuring out brand licensing leverage at Mattel. And proving a declining company can be, you know, re-platformed, if you will. Mattel Stock told you, you know, told you who he is before this announcement did. It's done well. The division of labor is also... You know, Roger Lynch went over to Mattel. That's from Conday Nast is now the CEO of Mattel.

Oh, I didn't know that. The division of labor is kind of the real tell. Allison, I think, keeps strategy, creative, and vision and capital allocation and tech, and Enon gets day-to-day operations and integration. And so what that really means is Ellison wants to be the visionary owner and go to award show. Yeah, that's correct. And Christ gets to do, be the hatchet man to do the unsentimental work of actually cutting $6 billion in costs and trying to merge two of the most complicated org charts with two, you know, with every box is like one, one gigantic ego after the other.

And also, and then Ellison doesn't have to have his fingerprints on the layoffs. It's, to a certain extent, he's a different. version of Cheryl Sandberg. He's going to be the heat shield for the Ellison's on an operational side. Talk to me about co-CEOs. I don't, I mean, when I heard it, I'm like, there's no way that guy's going to accept anything but CEO. And then they did the co-CEOs. Why not just make David Chairman and Eonon the CEO? Like, can you explain this to me? I'm not, I'm not, well, David should be Chairman, but he probably likes the idea of the title of CEO. Basically, this guy is going to be the CEO and Ellison. It's like, it reminded me,

when Arthur was the publisher and he had Janet Robinson as, quote, unquote, the CEO. Yeah, you're talking about the New York Times. Yeah, the New York Times. Janet was the COO and Arthur was the CEO. He just didn't want to do earnings calls and actually have to take questions from people. That's what I'm asking. Yeah. So Arthur got to make all the big decisions, which the Ellisons will get to make.

But they want someone who has to address the entire organization when they cut 20% of the newsroom. It was, Janet Robinson was a COO. She wasn't involved in the big decision. Arthur got to make all the big decisions and then run to Paramus or wherever he hangs out. I forget the town he hangs out in New Paul's, New Pauls, I think. And not have to face the scrutiny in the heat from employees or investors that is an actual CEO has to take. This guy, he's, you know. The heat chill.

Yeah, he'll make the cuts. Let me tell you, he's super competent. I mean, we used to laugh because when he sold Maker to Disney. I was like, how'd you pull that one on? And he's like, oh, Carl, you're always so cynical. I'm like, and then, of course, Maker collapsed at late. It was such a, and I even went to, interestingly, Maker I had written the first story about when they were like in a townhouse in San Diego, in Venice Beach. And then they managed to, you know, quite deftly made it into looking like the new form of entertainment.

And then sold it off to Disney. And I remember telling Bob Iger, this is going to be a huge area. But he also, my understanding is, he. pulled off the magic trick that they want to turn into operational consistency, and that was he was able to take toy IP and turn it into a billion-dollar theatrical franchise. Very early. Very early. And turn it into a billion-dollar theatrical enterprise called Barbie.

So Ellison isn't just buying Warner Brothers Library. He's betting on the next day to value creation is IP to franchise conversions across toys, games, name parks, and streaming. I think they're working on an Uno. movie, whatever, they had a lot of IP. I thought he was very creative. You know, some more I think about it, it's a pretty deaf pick because basically crisis is arguably the best licensing and brand extraction executive, you know, wearing a media executive's job title. And so credit where credit's due, it's a good choice. I would agree. I did. I actually text them. I said,

and I hope, and I did say, I hope you preside in an ethical and competent way. But he definitely is. It's really one of the last interesting things about it is, of course, they've been trying to make at Warner the second Barbie movie, and there's all these issues around money, essentially, among the people involved in it. And it'll be interesting if he can, you know, and I called him about this relatively recently. And, you know, he wasn't in his hands, like he couldn't do anything about it because it was a deal that Warner had to make. But now he's in a position. You might see a second Barbie movie because now he's just using. A second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth.

That's right. I love Barbie. Barbie was a great movie. You're not insult Barbie movie. Oh, God. Don't insult Patient Zero or Barbie movie to me. I just hope they have Taylor Swift music in the next one. They might.

He's got two objectives here. That's right. Number two is to figure out a way to develop a really strong pipeline and operational leverage with a bunch of people constantly turning, the amazing the IP they have. Like high-class TV or whatever you want to call it, aspirational TV, no. He's going to say, look at all of our IP

and figure out a way to make more billion dollars movies. But the number one objective for this guy can come down to one word. Math. Yeah, yeah. And he knows how to do it. He does. I like him.

I do like him. Anyway, before we go, speaking of someone I really like, let's check out a great moment from one of our faves, Senator Amy Klobuchar, during a Senate hearing Republican Senator Eric Schmidt accused former Special Counsel Jack Smith of perjury claiming hit evidence Smith secretly attended in Atlanta Hawks game.

Let's listen to a clip. We have confirmed that, in fact, you were right, Mr. Smith. Iowa, the Iowa Hawkeyes, played Maryland on February 3, 2024. The final score was 93 to 85, Iowa 1, and Caitlin Clark scored. over scored 30 points. So it must have been a pretty good game. The game was, in fact, in Maryland, Mr. Smith. And I would just say for a U.S. Senator to have false information and imply, based on a confusion about the name of a team, which I knew, knowing my Midwestern sports, and imply that you were in another city, that you were somehow involved that day in what was happening in Georgia,

and then call you a dirt bag is something that deserves an apology. Thank you, Mr. Smith. I love that. That was really good. Of course, Schmidt is just doubling down and saying, I can't believe he likes women's basketball. And of course, in the MAGA universe, he looks like he's taking a victory when essentially he and his team are incompetent, like completely incompetent. By the way, he's a possible vice presidential candidate for J.D. Vance. He's very close to the J.D. Vance, but he seems like a moron. Your thoughts on this? Besides Amy Klobuchar is a badass?

Well, I respect the Senator for taking his shot. was just 750 miles off, you know, and I love this. All I have to say to the senator is, Senator Schmidt, Hock Tua. And basically, MAGA has so much perform at a bullshit masculinity. They've decided that their midterm strategy is to accuse a prosecutor of liking women's sports. They are so, let me just tell you,

I think they have very small penises. They have to if they talk so much of trashing men, They're probably some of the most powerful women in Washington, really. Well, I don't know if you know that. Amy and I, I give her advice. It's two of the most powerful women in Washington. She and I are very close. Is she on the list?

She's got to be. She's got to be. She's got to be. She's going to be governor. She's going to be governor. We're going to know another governor. Actually, people always ask me who I would like to see as president. She's in the top two or three for me.

Yeah, she'd be good. Look, he's, I just, by the way, you'll love this. I just interviewed and spent a much time walking and rocking and talking with Mayor Lurie yesterday or two days ago in San Francisco. I feel like I was part of bringing that together. You did. You did. You said, look, you need to stop ignoring the most powerful woman in Washington, Newport Scott. I love that.

I'm so going to that dinner. Even if I have to go, even if I have to be a shirtless server, I don't mind. Whatever it is, I'm going. I'm going to make it happen. But I couldn't help it. I put out a tease, a picture of me and him, and I said, me and Dan Lurie at a Kansas Jayhawks game. Rock Chalk. Did you like, Daniel?

He's a good guy. He's impossible not to like. Also, by the way, walking down the Embarcadero, it was one of those Chamber of Commerce Beautiful Days. I was at the Ramp annual meeting with like. You went to the ramp? I went to the ramp. I love the Ramp.

No, ramp company. Oh, I thought you said. No, Venture Back Company. I'm not talking about something nice or a cultural event. I'm talking about a speaking fee. It's kind of a janky bar down by the water that everybody loves. Please go there. People of San Francisco, it's super fun.

This is a venture back company that does expense control through AI delivery software. Janky bar, that's really fun. But we're walking over to the Embarcadero, no less than a dozen people stopped and shook his hand and said, thank you for the good work you're doing. He's very likable. Yes, it's a good guy. been a long conversation. Anyways, I'm going to post it later today on my Instagram page.

I can't wait. It's the most powerful woman in Washington. All right, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Support for this show comes from Granola. Sometimes in a meeting, you can get so focused on writing down everywhere that you realize you're not actually listening or contributing to the conversation. That's where Granola can help.

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In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19 speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility and optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Hi everyone.

I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Twice a week, we get together on Pivot to sort through the biggest stories in tech business and politics. And we're taking the show back on the road for a live tour in November. So we'll bring hot takes. Bring the insight and the dick jokes and Kara will try. Keyword is try to keep me in check. You'll get to see her hit me in person live. I'll do it. If someone has to do it.

We'll cover AI, whatever chaos Washington is cooked up that week, and every billionaire misbehaving. That's all of them. And you'll also get to participate in audience Q&A. So bring your best questions. Scott will probably answer ones you didn't ask. We also have secret special guests, which you'll enjoy for every city. Get tickets at PivotTour.com. That's PivotTor.com. We are selling out, so don't wait, and we look forward to seeing you. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

Now, we have to mention, as you just did, the biometric ringmaker aura has postponed its IPO to uncertainty in the market. And you did explain what happened there. I mean, what's happening with the market. But would you like to add to that prediction or have a totally different one? Well, there's just no getting around it. I got it wrong. My prediction was it was going to be really well. received in the market. And it not only wasn't well received in the market, they decided

assessing the market that they were going to pull it. And I was shocked. I did not see that coming. And the reporting I've seen, although I'm wondering if there's a story behind the story here, is it the largest shareholder decided, I think, or the largest outside shareholder, wanted to sell her entire stake on the day of the IPO, which scared the markets. Typically, when you pull the IPO, it's a fight between the bankers say, no, this is the number we need to go out at. And management's, you know, no, we need to go out at a higher number. And the underwriters are like, no, we can't sell the book on that. Last Friday, Bloomberg reported that the book was 4x over subscribed.

In really strong IPOs, that sounds like a lot. You see 8 to 12 and hot IPOs. I still think there's more news here to come out on wide. they decided to, why they decided to pull, because the numbers on the company were really strong. Look, I guess my prediction, it's sort of broad, but I think that, I do think that Apple in the home, you know, Apple is reportedly launching a six-inch home hub October 13th with personalized information. It can run, it has door locks, thermostats, FaceTime, media, et cetera. Google and Apple

Google and Amazon got there first, but I think Apple is about to employ or deploy their strategy for shareholder value, which I refer to as second mouse. And that is in your home, and you reference this a lot. I think trust is a pretty big deal.

And I do think Apple has a lot of trust. Also, the design and feel and self-expressive benefit of the Apple brand I think fits really well in a home. It just feels to me like a lot of first apartments are going to get gifts of this as this thing from parents and people. They don't, Apple doesn't need the device to be huge, a huge standalone business. It just makes the iPhone more valuable and the economics work differently. Amazon wanted an Alexa in your house so it can sell

you more shit. Google wants your house because it wants more data. Apple wants your house because it wants you to never leave Apple. And that's their superpower. That's a better thing. No, I still, I'd even be nervous about Apple. I have to say, I do not. I have Alexis. I have them. I don't have the Google dot, whatever they made. I have it in a box. They're all in a box, every one of them, including my aura ring, by the way. But that's just me. Yeah, but just to the notion of the second mouse, they're rarely first to a market. Correct. But Apple has this, what must be, a maddening feature for everyone else in that it's the first to make everybody else's version feel like a prototype. Well, except Siri has been such a fucking disaster. I hate Siri. I agree. I just, if they made a great Siri, I would use that. I wouldn't use any of the others as an agent.

And even if it was an extra smart AI powered one, I would absolutely use an Apple version over everybody hands down. Hands down. I have a series of go-to lines when I go on the board of a big company, and I pretend that I thought about it on the spot, but I'm like waiting to say it. And that is really big. You have a lot of those.

I do. I just think about it. I don't hear anything anyone's saying like, oh, they're going to love this. I'm going to look so smart. Oh, I'm going to look so funny. When can I say it? Should I say it now?

I've seen it. I've seen it. Okay, here it is. Boom, launch the missile. And then yes, that's true. Right, 301st most powerful women in D.C. Here I am. And you're a beardo and a weirdo. Anyways, but one of those things I've been dying to say about this whole Apple thing,

or what I say when I come into a company that's a big company, is that big companies, they don't have a talent problem. They have a metabolism problem. And that is, big organizations develop antibodies against risk. And I actually think him cutting layers because innovation is inversely correlates. is inversely correlated with the number of people who can say no is a really good signal. It's not fun. It's really interesting.

Very rarely do new CEOs come in in a company like Apple that's creating more cashier than any company in history with exception in VDIA and start cutting. I actually think that's a very good sign for shareholders. Good. Well, that's a good thing to do. All right. We want to hear from you. Go to nymag.com. Pivot to submit a question for the show.

We're called 8551 Pivot and a quick programming note before we go. We're making easier for you to get more. of Karen and Scott in our lives. Check out the speed on Sundays for extra content from the extended Karen Scott universe. This Sunday, you can hear Scott's conversation with historian Timothy Snyder about his recent trip to Ukraine.

Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot, and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. And a reminder, we're hitting the road. Get your tickets for our tour. On the road. On the most powerful women tour. Still going to that dinner.

So going to that dinner. I'm going to do. I'm just going to stand up and say, I'm just going to, like, embarrass this shit out of anyone. I'm going to be like, Dana, Majong, Thursday night. Dana! Oh, poor Dana. I feel so, I'm going to warn her. Margaret, don't be embarrassed by our tattoo.

We got tattoos together. She and I. We got tattoos. I'm just going to roam around. Say it's whine o'clock. Say it's wine o'clock. It's wine o'clock somewhere. it's and I'm just going to scream out.

When anyone makes a bold statement, I'm going to scream out, is that the menopause speaking? Oh, no. Anyway, we'll be back next week. Today's show was produced by Lara Naman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Wiseman. Some of the people that have helped me ascend to this powerful accolade. Ernie Andrew Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Bros.

Miss Savary on Dan Shalon. Nishat Curle. is Vox Media's executive producer of podcast someday to be on the same list as the dog. Make sure to follow Pivot. And your favorite podcast platform, thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown

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