Pivot - Amazon union defeat, Alibaba’s antitrust fine, and Walter Isaacson on CRISPR

Episode Date: April 13, 2021

Kara and Scott talk about the failure to form a union at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama; this was the biggest unionization effort in the company's history. They also discuss China's antitrust fine against the e-commerce giant Alibaba, and how the company is actually benefitting. In Friend of Pivot, we are joined by best-selling author Walter Isaacson to talk about his new book The Code Breaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Pivot comes from Virgin Atlantic. Too many of us are so focused on getting to our destination that we forgot to embrace the journey. Well, when you fly Virgin Atlantic, that memorable trip begins right from the moment you check in. On board, you'll find everything you need to relax, recharge, or carry on working. Buy flat, private suites, fast Wi-Fi, hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. delicious dining and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London and beyond, and see for yourself how traveling for business can always be a pleasure. to get your customers to notice you, Constant Contact has what you need to grab their attention. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform offers all the automation, integration,

and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by their expert live customer support. It's time to get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And Cara, this is Preet Bharara. Bharara? Bharara? What's his name? Preet? Bharara. Bharara.

Oh, my God. He's joining Vox. He is. What do you think about it? Bharara. What am I talking about? Why am I—oh, God. Bharara. Preet Bharara. I think—what do I think, honestly? I think there are a few people who have fallen further faster, as evidenced by he's now on Vox. Let me get this. No, no.

Manhattan DA to a podcaster to Vox. Oh, come on. I mean, something's gone wrong. Why can't you look at it as we're building a powerhouse brand here, huh? A powerhouse brand. That's what's going on. That's what's going on. That guy is seriously classing up the joint.

He has heavy-duty brain. He's got a lot of brain's going on. That guy is seriously classing up the joint. He has heavy-duty brain. He's got a lot of brain matter going on. But also, just you can listen to his voice. And I can now say this, that he's joined the illegitimate world of podcasting. I think he would be a very gentle lover. I imagine him, that voice, after a bout of lovemaking saying, honey, honey, I'll make some hot pockets and break out the Lancer's wine. I just think he'd be a very gentle lover.

I'm not going to go into the history of some lawyers in New York, but there's quite a few that have issues. That guy's got a brain the size of Fox. He's huge. I mean, he's seriously, I don't know what we're paying him, but he basically classed up the joint.

That's a big deal for us. Bank off. We're going to be hanging with Preet quite the joint. That's a big deal for us. Bank off. We're going to be hanging with Preet quite a bit. He's coming on. I'm going to bring him on next week, and you're going to be your best behavior. You can be nice to him when he comes on and discusses things. Oh, no, no. I've already decided he and I are going to be very close friends.

Okay, good. He and I are going to be very close friends. He's wonderful. He's really great, and he knows where all the bodies are buried. He's Mr. Legal Expert and all kinds of stuff. And he's actually – he's a really – he has many interests beyond just legal. I think he's really kind of enjoyed getting fired by Trump because – Well, he made a career out of it.

Well, yes, but he also is a very good legal person. Anyway, all right. Well, the Southern District. I mean, actually, the Southern District, if you could SPAC that thing. Yes, I know. That's one of the best brands in the world. Did they base the Billions guy on him? They may have. Oh, that's interesting. That's interesting. Because you know what my other opening was going to be? No. I'm Scott Gallo, and I just matched

on Tinder with the Queen of England. Is it too early for her to date? Is it too soon? Is it too soon? Where do you come up with that? I got to be honest. I got to be honest. Older women love me. Women my age and younger women want nothing to do with the dog. Can you imagine if she fell in Where did you go with that? I got to be honest. He's single. I got to be honest. Older women love me. Okay. Women my age and younger women want nothing to do with a dog. Can you imagine if she fell in love with you? That's like a movie. She met you in front of her. I can see it. I can see it.

And then you could do an Oprah interview together. I'll tell you one thing, though. That Prince Philip guy, he's another hottie. That guy was hottie. We're going to move on. That guy was hot. Okay. Do you see that guy in a kilt?

I do. That guy was a tall drink of lemonade. Okay. And he was a class act. Rest in peace. Not every time. He had some missteps. Look at his life as a movie. Don't focus in on the few frames that weren't great. That guy was a class act. Yeah, there were quite a few of those frames. Anyway, it's fine. You know what? Rest in peace, Prince Philip. Call me. Queen of England, call me. Okay. Microsoft is acquiring speech recognition firm called Nuance. Good segue. I don't know how to segue from that statement. But nonetheless, they bought a $16 billion deal and nobody's paying attention. Everyone's focused on whether Substance is good for the world or not.

Healthcare. Healthcare. Cloud products for healthcare. Well, thanks for that thoughtful analysis of the situation. Well, they're all getting into the big businesses of health care. It's speech recognition. Just say cloud and health care. We can't be wrong.

Nuance is a speech recognition. It's a longtime speech recognition company. So it's like I'm feeling sick or the tone of voice or things like that. It's really going to be important. Telehealth is a big deal. Even though my brother gets all mad about it, telehealth is a big deal. And how it's not going to be doctors, it's going to be more computerized. It's 100% the way it's going to be.

So pre-pandemic, what percentage of visits were virtual? Oh, do you have statistics? I do. Okay, then give them to me. Well, guess. What percent of doctor's visits were virtual pre-pandemic? Huh. Between I have no fucking idea and I don't care.

Correct. Okay, What is it? 0.8% of visits were virtual. Do you know what they were during the pandemic? What? 30%. Wow. And so this is, I mean, again, largest, I always get hit hard. People say it's not a consumer industry, but I would argue the largest encapsulated industry in the world is healthcare. industry, but I would argue the largest encapsulated industry in the world, U.S. healthcare, is we've never seen a channel shift like that. I don't think in any... I mean, okay, so theaters went from 5 billion a year to zero, but that's $5 billion. 30% of healthcare is arguably, you figure two-thirds of the 3 trillion are services that can be done outside of a doctor's office, so the potential market $2 trillion. So you had what was effectively a $600 billion transition in channels.

I mean, we've never seen anything like that. I know. It's going to be a big deal. So everyone's got to get their tech going correctly, not just their following HIPAA laws, but how tech is going to work and how people are going to do this. And so there's going to be a couple players,

Amazon, Microsoft. Google has tried and is not as aggressive in this area now. And Apple. Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon. So Siri was this failed thing sitting on top of an iPhone. I wonder if they'll incorporate voice. I said a few years ago, I thought wearables, AR, 3D printing were all stupid, virtual reality. But the technology I've always been bullish on that I thought was the

most important technology the next 10 years was voice. And I wonder if they're going to incorporate this into office and they'll have niche, like office for hospitals or office for healthcare, and they'll incorporate it into... Because that to me seems like, you know, Microsoft offices are kind of their iPhone. Yeah. And I wonder if they're going to build around that. Say that again. That was really smart. Well, I'll say it in a deep Glaswegian voice.

It was, yeah, I think offices there, all these guys have kind of one thing that is their gangster move. Amazon, it's prime. Apple's the iPhone. And I think, obviously, Microsoft Office is the strongest recurring revenue relationship in the history of business. Right. All right. So, Nuance calls itself conversational AI. Just remember.

So, it's voice. Conversational AI. It's not just healthcare, but it's financial services, too. But healthcare is where it's really done deeply. It's been building deep domain experience in that area. It's been building deep domain experience in that area. So it's clearly a move in that direction is this idea of giving more tools for its customers, 100%. It's a great, once again, Satya Nadella, very smart. He's a very canny man, I have to say.

He is canny. And Microsoft's been in speech systems for years. A hundred years ago, there was another one, Dragon Systems. They had Cortana, if you remember, all kinds of things. So it's not an area they don't know about, but I think it's just tech applications in healthcare is going to be a big, big business, and especially artificial intelligence. Thank you. That is my speech. Yeah. Yeah. You really went out on a limb there.

Oh, I'm just kidding. It's very profound what they're doing here. They're making smart, they're buying smart things. They're buying smart things that fit in nicely with their stuff. Now, Netflix, interesting, will be the first U.S. streaming home for Sony Pictures theatrical releases. This is now a big shift by these big studios. But meanwhile, Warner Brothers CEO Jason Larson says starting this next year, the company's biggest movies will debut in theaters before moving to the streaming service. I think they're going to move very fast to the streaming service though. So it's sort of a little pap to the filmmakers for four seconds, but it's not going to be any 90 day kind of window. Yeah. They look, I just watched, I just watched, I was forced to watch. I had a bro night with my 10 and 13 year old boys on Friday night. Yeah. And I said, what do you want

to watch? And of course it was Godzilla and King Kong. I had to do that last weekend. Oh my God. It's like, it's literally, why would they even make a different movie? It's the same goddamn movie the first time. It's the same plot line. Neil Patel said it's the most intense movie about wireless charging he's ever seen. It's just, I don't, it's like they say, okay, how do we spend a quarter of a billion dollars such that we can justify people having to take their son? I literally don't get that movie-making genre. You know, I liked it a lot better than I thought. But we saw it, there is a class of movies that kind of blockbuster, basically movies that appeal

to 15-year-old boys that can stop, do a drive-by to this dying complex called the movie theater and pick up a half a billion to a billion dollars. And it's like, it's kind of reminds me of the office argument. The fastest way to process information is binary, either zero or ones. And we want to categorize everything as we're all going to go back to the office or none of us are. And the reality is 98% of companies are going to be somewhere between. And what you're going to see in movies is that you will still have first-run movies

that stop by the movie theater for a four to 12-week window, but the world has shifted dramatically. And you're going to see a lot more films. The power has seeded dramatically to the streamers. You're going to see a lot more films go straight to- Well, I watched Thunder Force this weekend, which is Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer, which was clearly for the—it was a kind of a satiric superhero movie, essentially, of buddies.

And I know it felt like one of those movies that Melissa McCarthy does. It just goes out and moves around and does okay. And it was fine. It was exactly where I wanted to see it on my screen. Well, yeah, that's the equivalent of straight-to-video for the digital age. But it wasn't straight-to-video. It was a little better than that. You know what I mean?

I just think this is just inevitable. The move to the theaters is only for very big films like the next Black Panther or whatever, which you do want to see in that way. But most of these movies do much better, whether they go to Netflix, Sony Pictures is doing, everyone sees the writing on the wall of this is going. I think that's right.

Anyway, Scott, you're on the cover of New York Magazine this week. Hello. Tell us more. Well, finally, New York Magazine has decided to do their own Sexiest Man Alive 2021. They did not. It was a toss up between me and George Clooney and Michael Jordan.

I know I'm talking about, by the way, if I were the sexiest man alive, would I be like Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt or George Clooney and go on to win it twice and be worth hundreds of millions of dollars? You know who I'd be the sexiest man alive with people? Nick Nolte. Like somewhat talented, but probably should have never been on the cover and had some serious fucking demons to deal with. I am the Nick Nolte of New York Magazine.

Anyway. What's the thing about, we got to get to big stories. What is the thing? I'm sorry. I haven't eaten. I'm like literally hallucinating right now. I see that you did CrossFit and haven't eaten, but I had a lovely lunch, a very healthy lunch.

So we talk about, I'm fascinated by the idea of volatility. And that volatility is embrace is directly correlated to how shitty your life is. And essentially, I think America is breaking down because for the first time in our nation's history over an extended period of time, a 30-year-old's life is shittier than his or her parents was at 30. And I think that is the root or the incendiary underneath the Me Too movement, Black Lives Matter, the GameStop movement, these mass shootings. I think it makes everything worse. And what happens if you're in a supermax prison, live sentence, you want volatility. You would opt for a nuclear strike on your city if you're sitting in isolation in supermax.

And when your expectations and your desires and your hopes for a better future go down, you want volatility. And so we're embracing cryptocurrencies, we're embracing mob squeezes in the stock market, we're embracing to a lesser extent, but we're embracing conspiracy theories because volatility, all we have done, all we have done the last 20 years is the shareholder class that speaks to their senator on average once a month and that controls and has weaponized the government. All they have done is effectively tried to suppress volatility. So in 2008, there was almost a financial crisis. So we spent $700 billion to make sure that we didn't go into

depression. But baby boomers have now decided they not only won't tolerate a depression, they won't tolerate a recession. So we have issued $6 trillion in stimulus to make sure that there's this champagne and cocaine party keeps going, even if the hangover is gonna get much, much fucking worse. And so we have this massive suppression of volatility. And unless you let the gale forces

of creative disruption blow, young people never get a shot so what we want to do is keep existing businesses in business owned by baby boomers such that young people can't come in and release that restaurant for 50 cents on the dollar which we talk about here this is something so you brought together in this piece this is it's called the unified monetary theory of people and biden and it's got all kinds of good art scott i just got to tell you it's a very sexy looking story yeah it's um i. And it's got all kinds of good art, Scott. I just got to tell you. It's a very sexy looking story. Yeah, it's already getting some heat,

which I'm excited about. And even one of my colleagues at NYU said it wasn't awful. That's what he wrote. This isn't awful for you. He wrote for you. Oh my God, that's so funny. But yeah, I think there's something here. I think that if we're not careful,

whether it's your ability, it all comes down to this one thing. The general compact in our society has to be that our 30-year-olds do as well as we did at 30. And if that's not working, full stop, don't pass go. How do we have more protection of people on low cluster wages and minimum wage? How do we have vocational on-ramps

for the two-thirds of young people that don't get a college degree? How do we transfer wealth back to renters from homeowners and get rid of this ridiculous mortgage interest rate cap tax deduction? How do we help people who are make money through their salary, i.e. younger people, by not charging lower taxes on current income versus investment income. We need a serious retransfer and it's not it's no longer about we're doing the right thing. It's about self-preservation because at some point when the bottom 40% of America and young people see the two men are worth more than they are, they will figure out a way to take their wealth away.

That is the basis of economic history. At some point when the bottom half way. That is the basis of economic history. At some point, when the bottom half figures out the fastest way to double our wealth is through volatility, whether it's violence, under the auspices of another worthwhile movement, whatever it might be, under the auspices of going on Reddit, the hostility, the justified hostility is created a desire for volatility because our government won't let the markets be volatile on their own. All right. Okay. All right. Everybody read it. Scott on volatility. What a shock. Anyway, it's an excellent article, actually. The Queen of England and I are dating. It's not as bad as it could have been. What does he say? It was less... They're like, man, my professor said like, I never hear from this guy. And he's

kind of my rockstar idol. And it's like yeah this wasn't awful for you this okay this was not awful for you this was not awful for you all right big stories we're going to big stories Amazon workers in Alabama warehouse have voted against unionizing this was one of the biggest efforts in organized labor movement in Amazon's history workers cast nearly 1800 votes against a union giving Amazon enough to defeat the effort. Ballots in favor of the union were fewer than 30% of the votes tallied. Now, it wasn't all the people there. I think about half, a little bit more than half, voted. It seems like a small loss, but this is the biggest movement to unionize at Amazon,

garnering interest all the way up to President Biden. But Amazon has gone on an aggressive campaign to squash the efforts, arguing its workers have access to rewarding jobs without needing involving a union. Amazon has 1.3 million people now. It's hired about a half a million in the past year and now has the freedom to handle those employees by its own will. What do you think?

What do you think? You said this, you said this. This is your correct prediction. Yeah, this is, look, this is a big deal. And what you have is an organization that's the second largest employer and the only organization in the history of the United States to hire a half a million people, maybe even the world in just 12 months. So arguably it represents, there's always a tension between capital and labor. So Amazon is capital. Labor, there's real issues here. There's a lot

of stories coming out of the warehouses, essential workers. This has literally put on stage the biggest issues around the tension between capital and labor and in between the role that unions play. And by a vote of two to one from workers in Bessemer, the crisp answer is they don't play a role. I think this is basically, it's that notion of how did I go bankrupt slowly and then suddenly? We're in the suddenly phase for unions. This is, I think, I mean, keep in mind in almost any vote, you win by a few points, they got the shit kicked out of them. They did. Let me just push back on something. I think in other parts of the country, it's going to be different. I think in New York, they're going to start organizing in New York near JFK.

Queens, biggest union town in America. Yeah, that's what I mean. I think it's going to be different every year. This is by no means over for- I'm sorry, that's LaGuardia. Queens is, wait, is JFK. Anyways, sorry, go ahead. Go ahead, go ahead.

This is going to be a long-term effort by the unions in other parts of the country. This is not the most perfect. Like you said, people had been elevated through Amazon through these parts of the country. Other parts of the country are much more union-oriented and don't and have more things. So I think it's going to just continue these skirmishes all over the country for Amazon. This is going to be their number one issue besides the marketplace issue that they have. I think that is a significant problem. This is going to be their issue going forward, just like it is for anyone who has this problem.

You know what was my eye-opening moment? So I have a long, I don't know, history with unions. I was a 16-year-old box boy and then a box boy my freshman year at UCLA. a 16-year-old box boy and then a box boy my freshman year at UCLA. And the reason I was able to pay for my fraternity bill and my tuition is because a union made sure that a box boy at San Vicente Foods made $8.50 an hour instead of $4. And it was life-changing for me. It meant I could afford to go to UCLA. And by the way, San Vicente Foods did just fine overcharging for food to sell to people in Brentwood. And so I've always had a very strong connection to unions. But at the same time, I remember when I went on the board of the New

York Times, I thought, gosh, these have got to be the most pro-union people in the world. And it became apparent in about a hot minute that the shareholders, the board, the controlling family had nothing but contempt for the union. Nothing but contempt. And I thought, well, what's wrong here? And the reality is unions have done a terrible job managing their brand among the public. And no 25-year-old who has their shit together comes home and says, mom, dad, great news. I'm going to work for the union. They've just managed their brand terribly. The brand means, has these terrible associations of corruption,

of not upskilling the workers at the same pace. They try and leverage situations to increase their compensation through exogenous situations as opposed to upskilling their members. So I just, look, and I almost worry. I worry that unions give us cold comfort. We need antitrust.

We need minimum wage. Unions aren't doing their job. How do unions get organized going forward to appeal to young people where it would work in Bessemer? I'm not so sure it would work in Bessemer. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. But there's ways to do it. They do it in other parts of the world where unionization is much healthier.

I think that brand has the same resonance with young people as Sears and Blockbuster at this point. All right. But I do still think employee initiatives are not going away for Amazon. They have too many people working for them. Oh, agreed. I just, yeah. It is a big vulnerability for them and also an asset. And now they could also lead the lobbying on minimum wage, getting it up to $15. They could lead on all kinds of health benefits. And as you said, instead of tweeting obnoxious things, they could just be a leader in this area. Take a negative and turn it into a positive for themselves. I agree.

I think they will lip sync to increasing the minimum wage, but there are no union dues involved in minimum wage. And so I don't think they're going to be a warrior for minimum wage, but there are no union dues involved in minimum wage. And so I don't think they're going to be a warrior for minimum wage. And I also think the biggest hit to unions that's happened in the last decade- I'm talking about Amazon, but go ahead. Yeah. Is unfairly or fairly, they were seen as trying to exploit the pandemic to increase the compensation of their teachers instead of putting kids first. Yeah. That's a broken relationship. And I think that that just, if you're a parent and you hear from a union that we're not sending our teachers back who average age, primary school teachers, average age is 33.

I mean, they're not exactly a vulnerable group. I thought unions really handled that poorly. And it's hard to categorize, it's hard to generalize and stereotype unions because there's just, you know, there's several hundred and some are outstanding and some are corrupt. But I literally think this was a seminal moment. I think this was, I don't want to call it the last nail in the coffin of unions, but this is turnout. I think the fat lady is on the stage here for unions. And I think it's an opportunity for them. It's good to lose. It's good to lose badly. They've been losing a lot. They've had a lot of good the last 30 years.

I got it. But there's a way to win. There's a way to have a winning argument to workers. Look who's taken workers' rights. It's the Republicans with populism. You know what I mean? Like, there's an opportunity to win back. It was interesting that I don't think Biden lost anything by doing this, saying he's for the workers. Oh, no downside. But why isn't the United States Senate the strongest union in the world representing all workers? That's what I understand. Yeah, yeah. All right, well, interesting.

It's a big win for Amazon. I don't think it's over. Scott does think it's over. So for unions, I don't think it's over by any stretch. I think they'll double down in areas they can. That's you kissing the ass of your master's in fine arts book club. I know how smart you are.

No, I'm not. I was in a union. I was in a newspaper union once. I arts book club. I know how smart you are. No, I'm not. I was in a union. I was in a newspaper union once. I'm not anymore. I'm still in a union. Are you? Yeah, UFW for my classification at Stern. Oh.

Yeah. What is the UFW? No, I'm sorry, the UAW. Somehow, United Auto Workers ended up representing a certain classification of academics or professors at Stern, and I pay dues, or I used to pay dues. Wow. I think I'm in SAG because I was on Bill Maher once. You might be in SAG. I think they enter you into something where you can join SAG. Because I've been on a bunch of TV stuff, but otherwise, I don't believe I'm in any unions. And I have mixed feelings on them, but mostly positive if they're done correctly. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

And we'll be back to talk about Alibaba's first big antitrust find in China and have a friend of Pivot, bestselling author Walter Isaacson. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter.

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to tell you what we found. We'll bring you the answers you need every Wednesday starting September 18th. So follow Explain It To Me, presented by Klaviyo. We are back. Let's talk about Alibaba's first major antitrust fine in china over the weekend chinese regulators hit the asian e-commerce giant with a 2.8 billion dollar antitrust fine its official said alibaba had broken the country's anti-monopoly law by preventing merchants from selling their goods on other shopping platforms to put into context alibaba reported profits of more than 12 billion dollars in the last three months of 2020 alone then the ant group an affiliate

a financial affiliate behind Alibaba, announced a sweeping overhaul of its business in response to demands from Chinese government as part of a rectification plan, which sounds scary in a communist country. The company said it would apply to set up as a financial holding company, which would bring closer supervision and requirements.

Ant also said it would change the way it collects and uses personal information to improve data security and prevent abuse. The company says it will improve corporate governance and better adhere to rules about fair competition. Gosh, sounds like things when maybe we should do in this country, but China just decided it. I don't know. You know, there's stuff behind the behind the scenes stuff here, but interesting moves. What do you think? Well, we did do this in this country, and that is we find, the FTC find Facebook 5 billion in July of 19.

It was the largest in history, and distinct to the fact it was barely, and this is the scale of things now, the previous biggest find was 22 million. So this, you know, this was literally 500 times the size, but it was less than 1% of Facebook's market cap. And the stock went up 3% the day they announced the fine because the market hates. Did you see what happened to Alibaba stock today?

Up? 8%. Yeah, there you go. So we've been to this movie before. And quite frankly, if I were, and I'm thinking about this, I only like to buy stocks I'm going to own, at least think I'm going to own for five years. Alibaba is going to, I think similar to Facebook, the year after they cleared up this insecurity, the market hates unknowns. I think this thing is up 20% to 30% by the end of the year. If you look at it right now, it's trading in a multiple of earnings that looks like a meddling internet company in the US. I think Alibaba, relative to its performance right now, is the cheapest internet stock in the world.

I do think people are nervous about what China could do at any one time. I think that's the, and more effectively than antitrust people here, or how slow we move around these things. See, I would argue that that's a bit of a American view. I would argue we're more volatile and have our head way up more, our ass much more, other than being a communist autocracy. And I'll give you that we have a better system. As it relates to the internet and antitrust,

we've got nothing on them, nothing. And Ant is a juggernaut, Alibaba, everybody, we're so, and I'm guilty of this we're so narcissistic we think that all innovation takes place within a seven mile radius of sfo alibaba is more innovative than any finance delivery grocery payments they are everywhere e-commerce internet companies together in one cloud it's just like they kind of dominate and they're fascinating character and if they've managed to put this behind them and Jack Ma doesn't end up behind bars and there's some what I'll call greenfield where they say, okay, we put this behind us, that stock goes to multiple of revenues versus multiple of EBITDA. So I'm just very bullish on Alibaba.

And we've been to this movie before. Once the quote unquote fine is put behind them, the stock tends to trend up. So there's a big story. They've come to an understanding, the government and Alibaba, I suspect. Including, you know, and it's also just the ownership of these Chinese companies.

There's a lot of data leakage going back and forth between the government and the companies. But it's interesting that the Chinese government got made a, they're making a statement here by controlling Ma in some way. Well, the government is supposed to regulate these guys when they get too big. But this was an equivalent what I'll call slap on the wrist. Their stock's up 8% today. Yeah.

So what is a fine supposed to do? When you get a parking ticket, you don't come home and celebrate. Or when you get a speeding ticket, you don't come home and go, we just got richer, everybody. I got a parking ticket. But when you find a big tech company, you come home and they're richer. They're wealthier. So I think this is really interesting, and Alibaba is a juggernaut. In my view, Alibaba is the best value internet best value internet stock. By the way, Charlie Munger made his first public stock purchase in seven years today or Friday. Alibaba. Alibaba. Yeah, I would agree. He's quite a character, Jack Ma. Maybe we'll get him to come over to the US, talk to us about things.

I like that. Yeah, he was wonderful. At code, he talked so fast. He was so excited about all the various things he had done. And he's really quite a, he's a fascinating character. Can we leak the panel you suggested at the beginning of the call? No, we haven't asked yet. Oh, come on. No. Come on.

Let's just say the name of it. Rub the dog's belly. No, we got to ask. We got to ask and find out. Scott wants to do a panel at Code, which is coming at the end of September. Can I give the title of the panel? Yeah. Aggrieved White Males. Yeah. Oh, it's going to be the best. I'm going to see what I can do. I'm going to see what I can do. There's a lot of us out there.

You picked two great ones other than me. Okay. This is so good. There's plenty. There's plenty of those people. All right. Let's bring on a friend of Pivot. Bring on a friend of Pivot. Walter Isaacson, someone I've known forever, is the author of a new book called Codebreaker. He's also the best-selling author of so many things, including the book Steve Jobs. And Walter, welcome. I feel like you've got so many things behind your name that I don't know which one to pick, but we've known each other for decades, I guess. I think friend of Kara is probably the most important and somebody who, when I go to the gym, listens to both of you all the time. Very nice, Walter. So Walter's from the South. So this is his very polite way of

saying such nice things about us. Anyway, let's talk about you and this new book. And I do want to get back to sort of where we are with Apple at some point at the end, since you wrote that massive book on Steve Jobs. So tell us about Jennifer Doudna. I did an interview with her also on Sway, but talk about why you chose her as a subject and where does she fit into the other narratives you've written? You and I grew up in the digital revolution, you know, with the Steve Jobs and the Bill Gates, and it produced amazing things. It brought, you know, microchips into our homes with our personal computers and iPhones became platforms. And I thought that's totally transformative. But as I'm looking at the beginning of the 21st century, starting with the sequencing of the human genome, and of course,

climaxing with gene editing tools, and for that matter, RNA vaccines that we can program, I realized that molecules are the new microchip, and the first half of this century will truly be a biotech revolution, just like you and I lived through the digital revolution. And Jennifer Doudna is just, as you know, because I've heard her on your podcast, but also I've spent the past four or five years hanging out with her, is a perfect entree into that because she discovers the structure of RNA just the way Watson and Crick helped discover with Rosalind Franklin that of DNA. And she and her advisor figure out how RNA can replicate and be the source of life on this planet, then how it can be a guide for gene editing tools. And now we're using it as a messenger to create

vaccines. mRNA, messenger RNA. Messenger RNA to create vaccines. And of course, she's thrown herself into the moral and ethical issues. So there's a lot of colorful characters in my book, but like any writer, it's good to have a central character that I can hold their hand and the reader can hold our hands. And we go step by step through a journey of discovery. Scott's going to have a question. But can you generally explain CRISPR for those who don't know what it is? Just very briefly. Yeah, it's simple.

It's just something bacteria have been doing for a billion years. They have clustered repeated sequences known as CRISPRs in their genetic material that takes mug shots of any virus that attacks it. So if the virus attacks again, they cut it up using a guide RNA. And that's pretty useful in this day and age of us getting attacked by viruses. What Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuel Sharpe and Jay and others discovered was a way to repurpose this, to recode that guide so it would cut our own DNA at a targeted spot. So we could say, cut out this genetic flaw or cut out this gene or fix this. And so they repurposed the CRISPR system of bacteria to be a gene editing tool for us.

Scott? So in any exciting technology that hits sort of this parabolic increase in outcomes, there's externalities. And obviously you really got to know this field. What do you see as the two or three biggest risks we face with this explosion or this envisioned explosion in biotech, if you will? I think that first we should say it's going to be a godsend in so many ways. People who are blind, who have sickle cell anemia, Huntington's, Tay-Sachs, cancer, all these things are going to fix. Having said that, the two biggest things I worry about are, A, if this sort of genetic supermarket isn't free, and it won't be, the rich could buy better genes, and we could

exacerbate the inequality we have in our society. Not just exacerbate it, but encode it into our species the way in Brave New World or in Gattaca. Meaning they don't get sick or they don't get... Or they have children that are six inches taller than the rest of them. Or they decide, with all due respect to Scott, that I want a full head of blonde hair for my... Hello. And they edit their own children and they buy better jeans for their children.

And eventually it could even be things like memory or intelligence or height or muscle mass or eye color or anything. Secondly, I think if we let this just be a free market thing, that it could end up being what I would call a free market eugenics. Now, eugenics, we think about the Nazis or even Cold Spring Harbor in the early days of the United States, 20th century, where the government mandates certain master race things. I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about individual choices where people edit out the diversity of our species.

Behind me, you can see on your little squad cast thing, you know, these big doors behind me that open to a balcony on Royal Street. I remember walking with your two sons. They were visiting once. And Royal Street is filled with all sorts of characters, short and tall and fat and skinny and creole colored and black and white and gay and straight and trans and deaf and hearing enabled. And that's what makes our species so cool and so great and creative and resilient. And if we allow people to say, I want to edit out anything that's, I call a deviation from typical, that's a bad thing too. Depending on what typical is. Correct.

Aren't we? Right. I use typical because whenever I use normal, people say, well, that's a normative term. So I'm trying to figure out typical for me on height is say whatever I am, you know, five foot seven. Right. But, you know, and if somebody's being born at four foot six, you might say, if that's a genetic condition, we should fix it. And they can be typical species height.

But if somebody's going to be born like I am at 5'7", then that's an enhancement if you give me another 8 inches. You wouldn't correct us. It's your genes. This is not for existing people. It's your children. Right. Right. This is not for existing people.

It's your children. Right. Right. Although even with muscle mass, that can be regulated. We have myostatin. That's a genetically controlled in our body. And in theory, you could, especially in younger children, have greater muscle mass. But height is something you probably, yeah. No, no, I won't go into your Twitter feed, but I know that Scott doesn't need more muscle mass.

Even Walter Isaacson is mocking me. By the way, Walter, when I read your stuff, you definitely sound five foot eight, just so you know. Thank you. Five foot seven. Just so you know. Yeah, you're taller than you look on a podcast. That's a nice thing to say. Go ahead, Scott. Go ahead, Scott.

Well, just around the fears around income inequality, aren't we already there? Zolgesma is this drug, a knockout drug for muscular atrophy that basically cures an incurable disease, but you need $2.1 million for two doses. And I just got a GoFundMe for it from a couple in Holland trying to raise money for their daughter. And I don't think they're going to make it.

And I think the kid's going to die. I mean, aren't we already there? I'm hearing these things. You know, one of the things is people say, well, we shouldn't use CRISPR. I get 12. I'm not kidding you. I can scroll through my phone here. 12 a day at least of people saying, I want to show you the picture of my

four-year-old son. Yeah, it's heartbreaking. Or my 12-year-old granddaughter. And he has this, or she has that. Can you get me in touch with Dr. Doudna? Can you help fix it? And as you say, that's heart-rending. So that's why I don't want to stop research into this, because we can fix genetic diseases. Secondly, Jennifer Doudna has taken the problem that Scott, you illustrated, which is it can cost a million dollars to fix sickle cell in the patient that got cured last year. How do you bring that cost down? There are a couple of ways of doing it. One is that you can do it in the body, so it doesn't mean taking out stem cells.

There are ways to make this much cheaper. But the other way to do it is to do it in the sperm or the egg or the early stage embryo. So it's inheritable, and it means that you wipe out sickle cell once and for all for one quick edit, and that's cheaper. But that's a line we have to be careful about crossing making inheritable edits let me ask you because one of the things you know you and i and all and also scott has watched sort of the internet sort of morph into something pretty ugly when everyone had this hopefulness around it and it's a you know when you get into gene editing it's even more

like the idea and there's been a million sci-fi movies like i can't there's dozens and dozens where people do this not just brave new world but you know so many of it when i was a kid there was a not a kid a younger young person there was a play called twilight of the golds if you remember which was editing out gay it was terrifying to me as a gay person you could edit out the child of this couple uh who's a gene editor um what do you um who jennifer talks a lot about the ethics of this because she had the issue with the Chinese doctor who was using the technology to, I think it was clone. Is that correct? What were they doing? No, no. It's an interesting question because what the Chinese doctor did was make inheritable edits in very early stage embryos to eliminate one of the receptors for HIV,

the virus that causes AIDS. There was shock. It was everybody was upset. You shouldn't be, that wasn't really necessary. You shouldn't make inheritable edits. Well, after this year of the pandemic, the notion of doing edits that might make us less susceptible to viruses, you have to remind me, okay, what was wrong with that? Now, obviously, it was wrong because we're not ready.

It wasn't safe. He was a sloppy doctor. But if we could safely edit out receptors for certain viruses and know that we didn't have unintended consequences, it'll take a while before we can know all that. So who gets to decide? That's the thing. I mean, the internet's sort of been run like Wild West and you see where we are. There's nobody getting to decide any of this stuff

or it's just grown up without decision-making. So who's on the front lines of this? I know she's talked a lot about this, but who gets to pick what's, and because it's a big wide world with lots of people with money, lots of different opinions on humanity. How do you figure that out

once this medicine is out into the public? Well, I think we have to have some social consensus. And by we, I mean you and me and Scott and everybody listening to this. We shouldn't just give it to the politicians or the scientists and say, you figure it out. And that's why I wrote this book, because the science isn't all that hard, but the moral issues are, and we should all have a right to chip in, whether you're in the disabled community or differently abled community, or you have a child with genetic disease, or you don't want us messing with mother nature. We should all talk about this. The biggest issue, and I deal with it in the book, it's somewhat complex, but y'all have talked about this on your podcast before,

And I deal with it in the book. It's somewhat complex, but y'all have talked about this on your podcast before, is to what extent it should be regulated by government and society as a whole, and to what extent should it be individual choice? Right. And on a lot of reproductive decisions, of course, we like leaving it to individual choice. That's what we do in a free market system. But if you left everything about gene editing to individual choice, you would have this problem of editing out the diversity. You would have this

problem of the rich buying better genes. And so maybe it's like vaccine distribution. Some people will buy their way to the head of the queue, but not many people actually did because we had a social consensus of here's how we're going to distribute this new vaccine. And I think we need to develop that with CRISPR as well. But who? Yeah, I think it'll, I mean, we already have two groups working on it. Jennifer has gathered all what I call the national academies, which is the Chinese Academy. There's a character in my book named Dongqing Pei who's been working on it. And they've put the doctor who did that early stage embryo editing into jail because they decided it was a violation.

The Royal Academy in Britain, Europe, the United States, National Academy of Sciences, and Jennifer and David Baltimore and other people you know, Peggy Hamburger, part of that process. The WHO is doing a parallel process, and we do have to try to get, but it's like basically the regulatory agencies. It's not that hard. Like the FDA, people can get off-label drugs or do treatments the FDA hasn't approved, but not much.

I mean, most people don't. And if we get a consensus of the FDAs around the world, we can keep this genie or this gene in the bottle to some extent. This is a different kind of genie, Scott. Yeah, my question is more, I'm interested to get into the head of Walter Isaacson. I read Andrew Roberts' biography of Churchill, and I had the same feeling when I finished that book than when I finished one of your books. And that is, you know, you know these people. And more than anyone maybe who's alive today, you know better the most successful people or the most impactful people in the history of our society. people in the history of our society. And so my question to you would be, of all of these people that you know really well, a few questions. One, who in your view was the most self-actualized or

led the most rewarding life, just personally? Who was the most tortured? And then my third, and I'll repeat them again if you need, is if you decided, and I'm not saying this is the right decision, but if you decided you wanted to raise young men and young women that might have a chance to have that kind of impact on the world, do you see any commonalities in terms of how they were raised or their upbringing? So let's start with happiest, most tortured, and then any insights as a parent. Well, when it comes to most happy and driven, you also get the most tortured because he's one of the great people with, it contains multitudes, and that was Steve Jobs. I mean, he really was self-actualized. He really invented himself, had, as Cara and I have talked about many times, a reality distortion field that

sometimes worked. But he also had a lot of demons that caused him to be a pretty rough character. Jennifer is a much more happy person, but she too has insecurities that come from being a young woman told girls don't do science and being an outsider in Hilo, Hawaii, where everybody else was Polynesian. So, I think most of the people in my books have some extent been outsiders, especially Leonardo being born out of wedlock, gay, left-handed, and having to go to Florence, where he gets accepted, but he keeps asking, how do we fit in? And Jennifer's keeps asking, how do we fit in? And Jennifer's always asking, how do I fit in? And Steve Jobs always asking as an adopted child

in this weird environment, how do I fit into the cosmos? The other thing that they share is this amazing curiosity that's a basic curiosity. I call it the tongue of the woodpecker because Leonardo wrote one day in the margin of his notebook. He wrote in the margin of his notebook and the 10 things he wanted to know that day described the tongue of the woodpecker. Now, how do you do it? I mean, you have to get a woodpecker, open his mouth. I mean, who? But he was just basic curiosity on that. And he writes, why is the sky blue? And I realized Einstein had that in his notebook. Jennifer thought about that as a child. I'm looking outside these windows. I see a blue sky. I've outgrown my wonder years. I quit asking so many stupid questions as grownups would

tell me, don't ask me. But they all refrain from outgrowing their wonder years. And they not only have a passionate curiosity about basic things like blue skies, why water swirls when it passes a rock, they also have a curiosity about all aspects of nature. They're able to see patterns that ripple across nature. As you know, as Steve Jobs, he loved calligraphy and dance and music and theater when he's at Reed College, but also coding. And he's the one who, and Kara's been to so many of those, when he launched a product, the last slide was always that intersection of two streets, the liberal arts and technology. It was. Well, Leonardo's Vitruvian Man is that exact same intersection. Well, Leonardo's Vitruvian Man is that exact same intersection. He's standing there naked, self-portrait in, who won the Nobel Prize this year, my funniest encounter was her. She said, I didn't get to have a ceremony. And then I said, well, you get one

next year. And she goes, no, we don't. We don't get any, you know, go to Sweden and do the whole thing. But one of the things is, what is she focused in on now? Is it pandemic stuff? Because we talked a little bit about it. So how, looking out at what's happened over the last year, we've been taken down, digital and advanced as we are, we're editing genes, this and that. We've been taken down by a virus, essentially, just like that, because we're so physical. But what is her outlook on that? Right. Almost exactly a year ago, early March of last year, she sent her son, Andy, to Fresno by train to be in one of Dean Kamen's, you know him, first robotics, robot building competition. And at 2 a.m., Jennifer wakes up, nudges her husband, Jamie, and says, we got to go pick up Andy, you know, because this pandemic seems to be spreading. They're closing the book. So Andy's an only child. So when they arrive, you can imagine he's

not happy, but they convince him to come along. And just as they're leaving the parking lot, they get a text saying robot competition canceled. And so Jennifer, when she gets back to Berkeley at about 7 a.m., summons scientists, 50 of them, to meeting as partly in person, partly by Zoom, to say, how are we going to pivot and repurpose what we're doing to fight the coronavirus? So for the past year, she's been using CRISPR to make home detection kits,

which you'll get in a few months. They're being emergency authorized, but it's not yet manufactured. Well, you can just get in a few months. They're being emergency authorized, but it's not yet manufactured. Well, you can just like a pregnancy test, have saliva, put it in the machine. Do I have COVID? Do I have, my kid have strep throat? Is that tumor resurfacing? It'll be like Steve Jobs' iPhone. It'll be a platform that people will build their own apps on. There's so many platforms off of this pandemic. Yeah. And the platform will be able to say, I can use this machine to study your gut microbiome, to see if you're eating the wrong yogurt or something. So this will bring biology into our

homes the way the first personal computers in the 1970s brought microchips into our home. personal computers in the 1970s brought microchips into our home. And so she's working on these home detection tools. She's working on a very advanced way of looking at just using CRISPR to kill viruses rather than stimulate our immune system. And she's working on testing technologies. She's also doing what Scott asked about, which is, all right, we've used CRISPR to cure sickle cell. It costs more than a million dollars. How do we get it down to at least $10,000 where maybe insurance companies and Medicare and Medicaid can afford it? Scott, last question. So you're limited to one more person you can do a biography on. Oh, good one. you're limited to one more person you can do a biography on.

Oh, good one. Well, I'm going to have to consult with you all. I actually, you know, if I don't go back in the Wayback Machine, there are three or four people around today that have that curiosity across disciplines. Obviously, Bezos is very interesting. Elon Musk is interesting. But perhaps we're still in the middle of the story. I want to see how we're old enough to know how this movie ends, what's the next reel of this movie.

I am deeply fascinated by Bill Gates. He's somebody I admire and in some ways has been a subject of controversies that are unfair. But he has that interest across so many different fields. He bought Leonardo's scientific notebook, which is the Codex Lester, because he understands the beauty of Leonardo being interested in things. So with Bill Gates, whether it's climate change or vaccines, but also creating personal computers, being one of the people who did it, but now doing nuclear energy, it gives me a chance to look at many different things. I haven't decided yet. I've probably gone too far. I got another one,

Dolly Parton. You know what? It's a joke, but man. It's not a joke. It's not a joke. I'm playing her songs now. Singer, songwriter, donate, fascinating person. We missed Mardi Gras here because it was closed down. So instead of having floats, people decorated their homes as floats, and people drove by them. And my favorite on St. Charles Avenue was a shrine home float to Dolly Parton. Send me photos. With all of her music and a big, big picture of her and the vaccine she had helped to fund. Dolly Parton.

You know, it shows that the human species, even in times of a pandemic crisis, can rise to this challenge. I find Dolly Parton riveting as a creator and, you know, the best-selling songs of all time. I'm sure she feels the same of you. No, I doubt it. I don't know if she knows who I am, but best-selling songs of all time she feels the same of you no i doubt it i don't know if she knows him but best-selling songs of all time people don't really writing really yes like i will always love you yeah well that's why she's so rich to be able to give all that money to moderna scott any last questions you don't know you which one of those what do you think of those three uh you're asking me? Yeah. Which of those three did you mention? Not Dolly Parton.

Hands down, Bill Gates. Hands down. All right, Scott. Hands down. That means that if I do this, you will have me back. Okay.

He is so good, isn't he? He is such a charmer. And I will put you in the acknowledgement that as much as you do, Okay, all right. I truly agree with you. I just think you can get into anything. Climate change. Yeah, you. That's such a germ. Okay, all right. I truly agree with you. I just think you can get into anything.

Climate change. Yeah, you got it. You can get into anything through him. Yeah, and Musk isn't over. We could be in for the Howard Hughes portion of this. You know, Howard Hughes was this brilliant. Howard Hughes. Howard Hughes.

No, I'm not going to do Howard Hughes. I'd rather do Dolly Parton. There's one moment. And definitely Bill Gates. I'm glad we've reached that consensus. Eventually Musk will be the one. But don't tell anybody. All right, I won't.

Good. Nobody's going to tell anybody. Sarah is safe with us. Good. All right, Walter, thank you so much. We will be down in New Orleans as soon as we can. New Orleans. Love it.

What? Love it. All right. Thanks, Walter. Bye. Bye-bye. All right, Scott. One more quick break.

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that guy is so charming. Isn't he charming? He's a charmer. Gosh, charming guy. They were saying he was going to run for Louisiana mayor of New Orleans, but he didn't. That's got to be an awful job. He's way too smart for that. Way too smart. Yes. So my win is there's a consortium of CEOs getting together with direction or shepherding from Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who I think is becoming the most influential academic in the world, to talk about actions they can take or to at least maintain in the news cycle these ridiculous voter suppression laws in Georgia. And I think it's really a... Everyone talks about companies

shouldn't be politicized, but I think these are Ken Frazier and Ken Chennault who reek of integrity, have a vested interest, and have decided they want to use their blessings and their hard work and their success to ensure that the people behind them have an easier time than they did getting to the top of corporate America. they did getting to the top of corporate America. And I think it's just a wonderful thing. It's a win. These guys, it represents risk for them. It represents damage to shareholder value in some ways. It would be easier for them just to not do this stuff. It's not easy to coordinate a bunch of CEOs and get on the same page as everything. And Georgia has managed to unify competitors and get them on a call. I'm fascinated the Republican Party is giving up. This group of people is going to do what they want to, and they are not going to listen. Mitch McConnell's statement about don't get into politics,

like, screw you, Mitch, like, in terms of that. I think you're right. I think you're right. All right. What's your fail? Well, I just, there's something around the brain, I think, once it hits 50. I don't know about you. I think I understand cryptocurrency is better than 99 something around the brain, I think, once it hits 50. I don't know about you.

I think I understand cryptocurrencies better than 99% of the public, and I don't understand cryptocurrencies. That's about right. And I think that basically bank CEOs have so badly missed crypto, and Coinbase is supposed to go public on Wednesday. I think it's a direct listing. We will talk about that Thursday, I think. public on Wednesday. I think it's a direct listing. We will talk about that Thursday, I think.

It's a direct listing, which means they try and pair the demand by coming out at a first trade that better calibrates the actual demand. Regardless, I think the stock goes up. I think it's a monster. And I think a decent question in the boardrooms of Credit Suisse or UBS or JP Morgan or BAML or Goldman Sachs is, how the fuck did we let Coinbase happen? I mean, Coinbase is basically an exchange in a trading desk of a financial asset that on the day of the IPO is going to be worth more than Goldman Sachs. And these banks, granted, they're hamstrung in terms of... They're hamstrung in terms of... You know, they poo-pooed it. I was terms of you know they poo-pooed it I was around remember yeah because they don't understand it years ago I did the same thing I'm like it's going to zero

which is loud for me saying I don't want to put in the time to understand it yep I agree I'm glad you've come to that conclusion as an agreed by mail but anyways my loss is I think the bank CEOs and boards have to ask themselves some questions

that this is now a $2 trillion asset class and people want to trade in it. And now we have Stripe, PayPal, and Coinbase. And there will be transactions in it. There will be transactions. Are all worth more than the traditional banks. And so if you're on the board of one of these companies, you're like, okay, what the actual fuck? Isn't this the business we're in? Do you know of these companies, you're like, okay, you know, what the actual fuck? Isn't this the business we're in?

Do you know what? A grieved person, I agree with you. I'm going to do very two quick wins and fails. Wins, I think the prosecution in the trial, in the Derek Chauvin trial really is what it is. I think he's doing a great job. Great job. They could just have not done as good a job. I think they're doing an excellent job making sure it will be very hard for this jury not to convict.

I know this has been a history. I know this could happen again and again, and it keeps happening again where cops get off for egregious behavior. But I've been watching a lot of it, and I'm very impressed by it. Well, the blue wall has been breached here. Cops generally have a fraternal order of not speaking ill of each other. And they've all said what happened here was. The prosecution's very sharp. I just, I've been watching them and I don't do.

Not as good as Marsha Clark. Remember her? I love that they got bonuses. And then someone said, other than letting a murderer off scot-free, what did you decide they should get bonuses for? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a case. And then she went on like Inside Hollywood or something. I'm like, oh, gosh.

That's my win. I'm sorry. weekend that got that got so much play the viral video uh of the officer um shooting the pepper spraying the black army officer who was in the car just he was trying to get out safely of the car um and this officer just escalated beyond belief what could have been a very simple stop it shouldn't have been a stop in the first place a new car but the video itself was so astonishing the kind of behavior the aggressive behavior by the cop that was it cannot be explained away by you you don't understand what it's like i it was really um it was really eye-opening this officer's been fired virginia's looking into it but i thought this guy this uh this lieutenant handed himself

in a very what would have been a dangerous situation for him beautifully and and really was uh was was calm cool trying his hardest to de-escalate and the cop was just just problematic on every level thank you there you go there you go so two cop things um so uh so anyway so we have a lot to come with there's a lot going on this week. There's going to be a lot about the pandemic. I just did a great interview with Dr. Michelle Williams, who runs Harvard's Chan School. And we're going to talk a little bit about opening the country up because the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says

the U.S. economy is about to start growing much more quickly. But he also said that he's worried, and the outlook has brightened substantially, but at the same time, he warned against reopening the economy too soon amid a new spike in cases. So maybe we'll talk about that on Thursday, how we're going to open. As you know, I had my, I don't know if you read my Twitter feed, but I had my first giant lesbian outdoor dinner party, and we were all so excited to see each other again. Thank you. Yeah, that sounded, you called it saucy.

It was saucy. We hadn't seen each other in like a year. It was great. We were all vaccinated and we still did it outside, but it was really, it was- I feel triggered. I don't like to identify social events by their sexuality. Well, it was all lesbians.

Their sexual orientation. Okay, fine, whatever. And you want to do a panel called aggrieved white men. Okay, great. Okay, Scott. I'm not aggrieved white heterosexual men. Okay. And in fact, that's who it is.

Which is all redundant. That is all redundant. All right in fact, that's who it is. Which is all redundant. Exactly. That is all redundant. All right, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back Friday for more. We will. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your question. The pivot podcast link is also in the shows.

And please read Scott's excellent cover story. That's right. The New York Magazine. Nick Nolte. Volatility. Sexiest man alive, 1997. Volatility, Scott. Read us out.

Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Ernie Andretat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box Media,

the home of Preet Bharara. Bharara? Bharara? You know, we should have him on. We should have him on with Brett Fav the home of Preet Bharara. Bharara? Bharara? You know, we should have him on. We should have him on with Brett Favre. Preet Bharara. Favre. Brett Favre and Preet Bharara.

I don't even know how to say that. By the way, he and I, come back, check out the friendship that is going to develop between the dog and Preet. Check it out. First, you need to learn how to pronounce his name. We'll see you Friday. Have a great week, Carol. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic.

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