Pivot - Anthropic IPO Chatter, Bitcoin's Turbulent Week, and Kara Gets Caught in a Scandal

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

First up: Oprah loves Scott, and Kara comments on her role in the Nuzzi-Lizza-RFK Jr drama. Then, they react to reports that Anthropic is eyeing an IPO, and Sam Altman declaring a “code red” at OpenAI. Plus, what it means that Netflix has sweetened its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, and Scott’s coming around on Bitcoin. Stay tuned for predictions to hear which members of the Trump administration Scott thinks will get the boot soon.Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-for-free at O-D-O-O-O-O-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-D-O-O-com. I usually walk out of things and go, I killed it once again. 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, I just want to tell you, my mother-in-law agrees with you. you. She's a psychologist. And I remember I said she was going to be mad at you about your therapy rant the other day? Well, it turns out she agrees with you. Go on. I would like to tell you it's incredible. So here, I'm going to just read it to you because she's so thoughtful about everything. And she goes, my thought is I agree with Scott on every point he makes. I know you were joking about

your mother-in-law coming after him. I listened to that part about therapy twice to make sure I heard understood what he was saying. He was a little too strong at first, maybe understandable to me because of the off criticisms from people who didn't get or even read his book, and he has good points about the therapy industrial complex, too. Anyone who listens to Scott knows he isn't blaming women, and that criticism is bullshit. He is smart and nuanced and completely capable of complex understanding. Homelessness, poverty, and the lack of sustaining empathy and available relationships are chronic root causes along with traumatizing experiences in biological vulnerabilities of serious mental distress and disturbance. The interpersonal therapy

we think of as discovering and addressing unconscious convicts and deep hurts can be helpful in freeing people to be their fuller selves, working through an accepting loss, disappointments, etc. And so she goes on, and she said certainly, as Scott also points out, therapy of this kind is not even remotely available to the vast majority of people. She agrees with you, everyone. And the last thing she said, I don't believe Scott is saying that the competent and ethical therapists are overselling the benefits of therapy. We're thinking that structural economic vulnerabilities and secure food, housing, income chronically and experienced trauma are healed through talk therapies. But as the other marketed efforts unscrupulous practitioners may and do take advantage of struggling people, and I'm sure Scott would agree that health care, including mental health care, needs to be broadly affordable and available, not just for the well to do. Boom.

There you go. You're now getting married to Amanda. Yeah, I'm trying to think. Because I know you were upset by the therapeutic response. Well, hearing that, my instincts or my muscle memory is to come up with a snarky comment. But the reality is, and you should pass this along to your mother-in-law, I really needed to hear that. Because when you just constantly getting comments on TikTok, I mean, the reviews of the book have been 98% positive. But when you get a significant number of TikToks and reels,

your feed from people who clearly haven't read the book saying, this guy is a pipeline to the red pill. I like to think of myself as an off ramp from the red pill. And the thing that really hurts is here's another man blaming women. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm not blaming women. Anyways, so please pass along or trust your mother-in-law is listening to this. I needed to hear that. It feels really good. So thank you. No problem. I mean, I think what was, she's an avid listener, pivot. And I think, as I was thinking of it, I thought a therapist would be mad, but, you know, people are much more thoughtful. And I think what you're dealing with is people that just do these five-second takes, like hot takes on Scott Galloway. And I get that from people about you.

And I'm like, no, that's not true. Like, that's not, the blaming women thing, I have gotten from a lot of people. And I'm like, you didn't read it then. You didn't read it then. That's my, usually my defense. Well, what's interesting is that, and if you look at big tech algorithms, And if you look at headlines, we do a lot of A-B testing around titles to see what YouTube title or thumbnail will get garnered the most headlines or the most downloads. The one trend that is overwhelmingly clear, the more incendiary negative comments or words and titles, the more clicks. And also, they did an analysis. Inflammatory, negative commentary in headlines in the media is up 140%. It's true.

And so, you know, if someone wants to say on reviewing a book, this is what he gets right and what he gets wrong, that's not nearly as powerful as I can't stand this misogynist. Yeah. I mean, it's just every algorithm and profit incentive is to be as over the top, and quite frankly, not over the top positive. I, you know, to say, I just love, love, love this. Yeah. No, say why this is, you know, why this is dangerous.

You know, I nearly almost got in a fist fight. Someone said, oh, he's sort of like Jordan Peterson. I'm like, he's the anti-fucking Jordan Peters. And I'm like, they're a j-they're in the same category. But Jordan Peterson, I think, is quite negative. I mean, I know you like parts of his stuff, but I was like, couldn't be more different. Anyway. Anyway, thank you.

Thank you for coming to my defense. Thank you for protecting me. I appreciate it. No problem. When we walk down the street, I need you to walk on the street side to protect me from splashes from carriages. I shall. I shall shiv people. But I have, actually, you cheated on me with Oprah.

I didn't know she'd fall in love with me, Karen. I didn't, it wasn't planned. We met. It started innocent. Let's listen. I think she did a little bit. This was a very strange little thing she put up. I think it was on Instagram. Let's listen to what she said about you. Scott Galloway has written a book called Notes on Being a Man.

You know, he's a great podcaster and one of the thought leaders of our time. And I think he has his finger, his thumb, his whole hand. on the pulse of what's happening with men in our society today. So, Scott, you had your whole hand on men? That was interesting to hear. Yeah, and then my forearm and then my full torso is on the scale. I'll tell you. Tell me about Oprah.

You were upset. Not upset when you left. You were sort of equivocal, I would say. Well, let me just say I'm really enjoying this podcast so far. But when I left Oprah, I don't know about you. I have trouble processing stuff in the moment. People say how to go, I'm like, I'm not sure. I walked out of there.

First off, Oprah herself, individually, is clearly a genius, but she surrounds herself with real pros. And you could tell they spent a month recruiting the audience. They had these videos, the lighting, the venue. I mean, these people give really good TV. And I walked out of there, and I maybe even have called you, and I'm like, I have no idea how that was. You did.

I was sort of like, oh, that's too bad. You didn't have a good time. I usually walk out of things and go, I killed it once again. Yet again. I was right. Hello. Fantastic. Hello.

That reminds me so much. When I knew my, of course, I got to turn this back to me, I remember I took my, you know, in Delray Beach, Florida, every weekend is on the sidelines of a soccer game. And my son was so excited, he got put in goal. He wanted to be a goalie. And within, like, I barely even, like, they kicked off the ball, and there was a goal on them. and then another goal. And I was texting his mom going, oh, my God, another goal.

And finally she said, stop it, stop it. And I'm like, oh, my God, he is going to be so traumatized. Like, it was like 11 to 1. Yeah, yeah. And at one point I went to the coach and like, can you just get him out of goal? I was one of the most painful 90 minutes I've ever spent.

Oh, well. We walk off the field and I'm trying to think about, okay, how do I be in reinforcing? I put my arm around. I'm like, so how to go out there? And he's like, great. Did you see the save I made? He made one save.

I love you. That's fair. I'm like, this kid's going to be fine. Yeah, yeah. You did great out there. Yeah, you would focus on the 11. Yeah, well, good for him. That's good.

Anyway, you were great. I watched the whole thing. I've decided she's making you into the new whatever, her person. You know, she's like, so far her record's not great. I like the Nate guy who does the decorating, but Dr. Phil and doctor, I tolerate Dr. Oz because he's your friend. Dr. Phil asked me to come down to Dallas, actually. I think they saw me.

That's not happening. You may not go. He's a terrible person. He follows around ice raids. and uses them for a good. Yeah. That's not good. Do you know Oprah?

You know actually who I held? I met her once. Is Gail King set me up with Oprah? So, Gail King is really generous and nice. She is. You're perfect for Oprah. I do. I met her at Cheryl Sandberg's house

at one of these things that Cheryl put together. And I didn't know what a vision board was, and it was a moment because I wasn't fully in the Oprah camp. She looks great. But I have to say, she's like a tractor beam. Like, she touches your arm and she goes, you know, and I apologize for not knowing what it was. And I said, I'm sorry I didn't know what a vision board was. And then she touched me on the arm and she put her hand in front of my face.

And she goes, that's because you have a vision board in your hair. She has that Bill Clinton magnetism. You get the sense. You meet her and she's like, oh, my God, this woman really likes me. And the fastest way to get someone to like you is to like them. Yeah. So you immediately like, oh, she really likes me, which makes me like her. She has that Bill Clinton, like, magnetism.

Look, see, right in the air. She's going, chapter beam. I was like, oh, no, I'm being Oprah. Anyway, you were great. Of course, while you're getting fame and fortune from my mother-in-law and Oprah, I am being called. Kara Swisher's in the news. I'm in the news with, I'm a swizzle stick.

You're a swizzle stick. Yeah, the New York Times referred to the Olivia Nudzi, Ryan was a drama as a cocktail of cockamamie with a swizzle stick of Kara Swisher. Give us the cliff notes. I'm going to do this super quick. Olivia Newtsey had a digital affair with RFK Jr. Wasn't it more than digital? I don't know.

She says digital. He's denying it completely. He's a big liar. Does that mean online or fingers? I don't know, Scott. It's pictures, I think. I don't know. I don't know.

You're dragging me into this. I don't want to know about it. So it was not good for a journalist to do this. What do they wear? I get it. Listen, it's none of our beeswax, but it was wrong for a journalist to do this and then not disclose it

And she was covering the presidential campaign, and he was a candidate, right? Kind of an issue. It's fine if you're, you know, an episode of scandal, but not if you're living in the real world. Anyway, I found out about it through means nothing to do with Ryan, nothing to do with her. And Ryan is her ex. Ex, her fiancé. They were getting married. They were getting married.

Oh, yeah. And I wasn't even told by him that they broke up. In any case, I found out, and it was through other means because it was getting out. And I was worried about this. And the minute I found out, I knew I had to tell New York Magazine. And I was hoping that Olivia would do that. Or Ryan, or one of them would do it, but nobody did it. And so I called, I confirmed it. I made sure it was accurate and did reporting on it. And then I told David Haskell, it's the only person I told at Vox. Later, I did talk to Jim Bancoff, but I thought the editor was the right way to handle it. And I didn't want business involved.

And you told me, and I had no idea what to do. No, no, I didn't exactly. I had, what does I mean? What does that mean? So anyway, that was later. I actually told you later. So I told them, and I said, you need to talk to Olivia. She can't cover the presidential campaign of this is true.

And I said, you need to investigate and you need to figure this out and then disclose it to our audience. And that's all I said. I moved on. And I've been dragged back in, one, because Olivia has put me in her book, calling me her mentor. And essentially, I ratted her up. but I didn't. I did the right thing. And then Ryan has done in retaliation for her book,

which got very badly reviewed, deservedly, I will say, having read it, I, she should have written it and put in a drawer. That's how I feel about this book, like written it and put it in a way. It feels like Kamala Harris' book. No, Kamala Harris' is really good in comparison. So, but I would agree with you on that, too.

So he started to write a series on his substack, trying to attract readers. I don't know what he's doing. I've told him I think he should have written one piece if he felt he had to and moved on. But he's decided to do this. And in this newest episode of like the really grotesque pickwick papers, as I like to call it, as someone told me,

he has put me at the end. He has all these hot kickers at the end. And the last kicker is a well-known journalist just texted me three letters. RFK, and then the last line is Kara Swisher had cracked the case. Like I'm fucking, like Encyclopedia Brown, but the case of the make it fucking stop you too. And so I got dragged into their ridiculous drama.

Thank you, that's it. So a couple things. One, I teach a course on crisis management, and there's only three things you have to remember, but they're really hard and people end up not doing it. The first is you have to acknowledge the problem. If she had just come out and said, I'm human, the heart sometimes overrides

the brain, as it does to a lot of men and a lot of women, I fucked up here. And then to take responsibility, my fault, I'm not going to accuse my, you know, my fiance or even RFK, this is on me. And then third, overcorrect. And I'm not entirely sure how you do other than, other than showing contrition, you just try to overcorrect. She's done none of that. And then one of the many damaging things about this is, like, I don't know that many emerging journalists. I, She caught my eye because I thought her work on Biden and other people was fantastic. She is clearly a rare talent, and she has really shot herself in the foot here. And if you look at the damage done in crises, it's typically not the detonation, the crisis itself.

It's the shrapnel. And the shrapnel is your attempt to cover up, excuse it, not take accountability for it. That's when people get really angry. And the other kind of sad thing about this, and it does represent a dual standard and sexism in our society, It's almost like we kind of expect RFK Jr. just to be a pretty low character human being. But the reality is, it just, how Olivia handled this, sort of plays into the worst cartoon of women not having control over their emotions in a professional context. And I'm not saying, I don't think that's reality. I don't think they have any less or more control than men.

I've never bought, oh, there's so many people out there saying women are better managers. I'm like, well, show me the data. I don't think they're any better or any worse. Actually, it's probably not true. They're probably better relationally and better managers. But anyways, this just plays into this trope of how it feels like it's set women back like two minutes on the cosmic clock of women's progress. I would agree. Because she just looks terrible here.

Yeah, and she keeps doubling down. And he does too. And the whole, I literally, I hate being a side character in this. And I hate that now they're using, like, now they've made me a character, which I'm like, I just did the right thing and I'd like to leave, please. Like, make it fucking stop. And the book's not selling, by the way. It's not like, I don't know how many substacks he's selling either, but it's the whole thing is just not a good look for journalists.

It's not a good look you're right for women. It's just, it makes us look like fucking idiots. Like, instead of we made a mistake and we're going to tell the audience everything. Exactly right. It's as if they don't have friends. Because a good friend with any reasonable perspective would have sat down and said, this is exactly what you do. I fucked up next.

Don't talk about it. Don't write books about it. Don't go on Morning Joe or Substack interviews and try and position it that it was your fiancé's fault and drag other people into it. Just I fucked up. I take responsibility next. I'm going to continue.

If New York Magazine doesn't want me around, I'm going to continue to try and make a living as a journalist. She's a vanity fair. I don't know if she'll say it. I always thought the way she corrected it is by doing good work again. Just doing good work again. Work right through it. That's exactly right.

Work through it. With work, not about you. Work through it and not about this scandal because she's just digging herself deeper and deeper. Yeah. I would recommend reading the reviews because I thought, even though everyone's like, oh, there's no, no, they're quite kind. It's what the editor should have done. Like, especially Becca Rothfeld, who I think is amazing at the Washington Post did a great review. I thought it was incredibly fair. These people actually said it was lack of honesty. Again, I don't want to talk.

It's one of these topics. I'm like, let's fucking move on from this. Stop, like, stop doing the, all of you, stop doing the fucking fan dance and leave me out of it because I'm a swizzle stick. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to, including what's going on these Trump accounts for kids and why investors are worried about a crypto winter. Things are going bad with Bitcoin. But first, Anthropic is exploring an IPO as early as next year, according to the Financial Times, tapping the law firm that advised on Google's and LinkedIn's IPO. That's interesting. Though the official word from Anthropic is that it hasn't decided when or if it will go public, but it feels like it is.

Anthropic is also reportedly pursuing a private funding round that would value it above $300 billion. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodi was at New York Times Deal Book Summit on Wednesday. While he didn't talk about the IPO directly, he did discuss the risks to play with all this AI spending. Let's listen. When the timing of the economic value is uncertain, there's an inherent risk of underreacting or, over extension. And because the companies are competing with each other, and frankly, we genuinely need to compete with, you know, our authoritarian adversaries. There's kind of a lot of pressure to push things. So I think there's some amount of irreducible risk here. And I absolutely don't

want to deny this. But at the same time as that I think there are some players who are not managing that risk well. I like him a lot, I have to say. I like his product. I like the way he talks about safety. I talked about him last week when David Sacks was insulting the company for talking about safety as if there was some thing. What do you, I'm going to add on one more thing and speaking of other AI players, Sam Altman is clearly feeling the heat from Google Anthropic and others. He told employees this week that the company was declaring a code red to improve chat GPT, delaying other products in the process like an advertising product. So do we, do you think we see an anthropic IPO before an open AI IPO and how, talk about the bubble

fears. I know you're a fan of Anthropic as a product, as Claude. But talk a little bit about this. I really think Dario is one of the people I appreciate because he, I don't always agree with him on everything, but at least he seems to be telling the truth. I know it's like a, it's like the lowest bar of all time. He's positioned himself really well as sort of the more measured, honest, less cheerleading. You know, he even said, he even acknowledged that this is probably going to, at least in the short and the medium term, destroy a lot of jobs. And he offered up the notion that maybe the exceptional market share or increases in shareholder value should be taxed to help pay for some of the retraining. And he's been pretty, I feel like he's a pretty

honest broker here. And he's been a nice, a little bit of a nice antidote to Sam Altman, who I think is a little bit overexposed. And Anthropics positioning is a little bit different. It has a much smaller consumer footprint, no mass market product like a chat. It primarily is in the business of enterprise APIs, and it's really deeply integrated into finance, legal, health care, super strong partnerships with Amazon. And so they're trying to position themselves as sort of high trust, enterprise first LLM provider. And I like that positioning, because in my experience, and I'm biased because I like B2B, but B2B typically is more consistent. If a company signs an enterprise or a sitewide license, they tend to not, consumers are fickle on the upside.

Something can get hot. You don't even know why. Like, why is, you know, LeBoooooo? Like, explain to me the logic behind that. But they're positioning themselves. But go ahead. They're positioning themselves as sort of the enterprise AI. And it's, you know, Open AI is sort of universal AI platform.

and Anthropic is sort of enterprise safety and reliability leader. And I think that's a really good positioning. And it sounds basic. And they have, the tradeoff is they have slower consumer adoption and less cultural buzz. But some of the things they have tried to do is reduce hallucination rates, better model control, better governance, better regulatory comfort. Better safety. And they stepped on, I mean, it sounds basic, but they basically stepped on Open AI and said,

we're thinking about going public, and they've got a ton of attention. So I think this was a really smart move. They also did settle with copyright, Charles, if you remember. That's right. He's trying to, yeah. Right, right. So, you know, whereas ChatGBT is about subscriptions and API usage and enterprise licenses and integration fees through Microsoft's and Azure Anthropic is really about API usage

and enterprise contracts with long-term commitments and also cloud partnerships. So I like, it's also priced premium relative to competitors. It's more, and marketed as a safer alternative for regulated industries. So Open AI now, you know, this, I've always talked about this idea of what if it becomes Netscape, right? This is my fear. And not Google. And that feels like that. It feels like Google's going to stay Google or whatever it happens to be.

Which one's going to have the IPO first? You know, the honest answers, I don't know. It comes down, it's a lot about the cab table, your shareholders. But you've got to think that Open AIs, bankers are saying, let's file tomorrow, let's go. Wouldn't it be good if they went together? Would it be a bad thing? I don't. What would be the best thing for both companies is if one goes out and rockets and gives everyone a chance to breathe, and then institutional investors look at the 80% first trade up on X-Firm and pile into Y.

I don't think they want to go public too close to each other because they'll soak up all of the quote-unquote. quote, LLM, IPO capital. Right, and there's worry at the same time among investors. I think Anthropics should probably go fast. That's what I would do about. Well, it is, quote, it's an instance where they, quite frankly, can establish a leadership position because Open AI right now is pretty dominant in almost every, you know, I mean, open AI is trying to become a full operating system for AI with consumer and enterprise ubiquity.

Yeah, and even products. is trying to focus on enterprise and also the safety and more nod to the regulatory environment of different verticals in enterprise. Open-A-I is doing too much stuff. That's what I feel like. I'm like, Turducken, we have a Ter-Dur-Duccan problem here, and maybe just focus on the product itself.

I don't know. I always worry when they're, we're going to do this. And now we're opening a store and selling T-shirts. And by the way, we hired Johnny Ive. I was like, great, but can you say no to something? Like, that's, you know, being very disciplined. Anyway, we'll see what happens. That was a great interview.

I recommend it. Our favorite Canadian, Anna Ross Circuit, had a good day. Yesterday, did a bunch of really good interviews. That is great, isn't he? Yeah, he did a great job. And he had a little more teeth, Andrew. I appreciate it. You were a little more toothy with people, which is great.

I thought they were great and very insightful interviews. Another story, the latest bids are in for Warner Brothers Discovery. Netflix has come back with a mostly cash offer after leaning on its stock for the initial bid, but the stock has been a little bit down, actually. Pyramount is also putting together an all-cash bid financed by Apollo and some Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, despite denying that involvement a few weeks ago. That'll tell you everything you need to know about these people.

And Comcast has reportedly made a cash in stock bid that would merge NBC Universal with Warner Brothers Discovery. Up next, Warner Brothers were there except one of the offers are moved to a third round of bids or break itself up like it was going to. One thing that I find really particularly disturbing is that, Well, first of all, the Paramount bid has a $5 billion breakup thing because they're so confident in their closeness with Trump and White House officials and some Republicans

are already raising antitrust concerns about Netflix. Part of their main strategy is Trump loves us and we'll do whatever it takes, which is really horrible. You know, whatever. That's their strategy. It's so non-economic what they're doing here. And then involving the Saudis is really, I can't believe that they would be.

big in, any foreign country would be a big investor in owning this much of news and entertainment. I find that troubling. I don't mind them owning the golf things, but this is a whole other story. Your thoughts? Emerson Junior High School, ninth grade, we had the ninth grade prom. Oh, dear. Buckle up. Where's Ann? Where's Ann? Where's Ann? And you know, you have your rude. You have your pattern and how you walked to school. And my junior high school was not a hallmark.

There were just certain roots you didn't go down because there'd be a kid there that got used to sort of beating you up or asking you for money. Are you beaten up? Oh, I was pulled into bathrooms and beaten. Yeah. No, it wasn't...

Not me. It wasn't... I mean, not a lot, but yeah, a lot of that. And by the way, I'm not going to... In a weird way, I think some of it was probably good. You learn negotiation skills and adversity. Don't break my face. Yeah, go ahead.

The reason my nose goes to the right. I can't wait to see how this relates. Going from home economics to Spanish class, me and my best friend Brett Jarvis would pass Kelly Mayhew and Lynn Sugamora. And Lynn was this beautiful, intelligent 14-year-old. And we neither of us had dates. And I just yelled out as Lynn was passing them by, Lynn, will you go to prom with me?

And they both laughed. And the next day, she cornered me outside and said, were you serious about me going to prom to you? And I'm like, you don't have a date? I mean, Lynn was beautiful. And said, no, I'm like, yeah, yeah, will you go to the prom? And she said, yes. And then Amelia go to the next class, and I tell everyone, I'm going to the prom,

Lynn Sugamora. And within, like, the next day, she's like, five guys have asked me to the prom in the last day. So once people knew Lynn was actually going to go to the prom and would go with Scott Galloway, all of a sudden, everyone decided to bid for Lynn Sugamora at the prom. Wow. Okay. All right. I can see it.

By the way, she left the dance with Ashley Tucker and broke my heart. But she went with you. Yeah, she did go with me. You got her a corsage. Oh, yeah, the big thing we wrap around and like a tuxedo that I didn't know how to put on. And I didn't have a tie. Anyway, and of course in the high school gym. And it was great.

We played rock lobster and they put steam out. They put live lobsters on the floor. Anyways, end scene. Back to Warner Brothers. I got this wrong. I thought the Ellison's were going to show up with the biggest bank and get this done. And it appears what has happened is that Ted Serendos and the Roberts family have said, you know, these assets kind of are singular.

We should pull out our pencils. And it's like to a certain extent, and this is one of the failures managers make, and that is they typically don't appreciate an employee's value until about the day after they leave. Right. And that is they think of, they have a tendency to look at people through the lens of which they entered the organization rather than saying, if you really want to know what someone is worth, imagine they're leaving and what you would pay them.

And the same thing's happening here, and that is there are a set of assets and also streaming platform and HBO, which, by the way, HBO still is the premier, the premier draw for talent. And whenever I've been involved in any type of Hollywood thing or series, if the producer, the actors could pick the distribution platform,

of all of them, they would pick HBO. Talent loves HBO. Anyways, and also with Warner, there's just some singular assets. Yeah, they decided what the fuck, I'm getting in here. And everyone's showing up with what I would argue, it seems right now kind of an irrational amount of money. And I think it's like, well, okay, except for Comcast, our stocks are up.

Netflix on a balance sheet level makes a lot of sense because they have so much freaking money and shareholder value right now. But I am surprised, and I got this wrong. I thought the Ellison's were going to walk away with this. Here's what I find offensive is that their whole strategy is we're friends with Trump. I did talk to someone from Comcast. I'm like, you know what?

Just fucking sue them and win. Like, because, by the way, Trump the last time tried to stop the AT&T merger member with Warner, they lost. Trump has maybe seven, eight months left on this thing that he has any real power, right? if he loses that last election, they just very troubling for the Republicans. And so to me, I'd lean into, yeah, your entire strategy is we're friends with the president

and we can make a stupid rush hour four for him because we're big fucking suckups. And by the way, let's drag in some people from, let's drag in some people from the Middle East who shouldn't be in this thing at all. And they lied about it. They denied it. And they're there.

Like, this group of people is the sketchiest group of people you could think of. By the way, the best owner probably is Comcast on a basic level if I had to pick and then spin off the news things, interversant or whatever you want to do. Netflix is definitely as frightening for both Paramount and Comcast because they would own everything, as you know. So there are antitrust concerns. At the same time, doing this non-economically because your pals with the president is about the most non-capitalist thing I can think of. And I just, it's like, really, you know, I, I hate to say this, but, you know, just because

your dad is friends with the president, it doesn't mean you get to own everything. Like, sorry. Like, and I feel like the others are better, are better suited. Now, I get the more people are going to want to take the best deal. But if they keep larding this, Donald Trump's my best friend, it's going to bite them so hard later. That's my feeling. I mean, I don't know.

We'll see. We'll see what happens. I find that it's all quite confusing, so I just want to give a bit of a breakdown or an unpack of what's going on around the bids. Paramount has made five bids so far, and all cash, and this is the interesting part, with a $5 billion breakup fee, which is them saying, trust us, we're butt buddies with the president, this will go through. No one else is going to offer a $5 billion. I think that's probably the largest breakup fee. That was a child to me. That was like, you're not going to win this.

We're on the inside track. Yeah, but it also is, we're in security. And they're also looking to buy the entire business, and they argue a spinoff would be a taxable event. And the stock, by the way, when they announced all this was down 7%. Netflix is submitted to mostly cash bids. That's obviously attractive. They're looking to spin off the cable networks. The stock, again, fell 5%. I'll say, by the way, folks, the reason stocks fall when they get into the M&A race is the on top acquire is that two-thirds of acquisitions do not pay off. Comcast has also submitted two bids, which are a mixture of cash and stock, like Netflix. They would also spin off the cable networks, and their stock was up about 1%. Or put another way, Paramount has submitted the best and most aggressive bid on the table, which doesn't mean it won't be bested, but so far they look like they're in the lead. Now, let's talk briefly about what each company would get from Warner Brothers, why they're attractive. Paramount's looking to absorb Warner's streaming subscribers, and combined a Paramount Warner streaming service would have about

200 million subscribers, making it roughly even with Disney, but still behind Netflix at 300 million. Yeah, they got to get it. They would also, the combined entity would be the most watched broadcast network and two of the five legacy film studios and eventually possibly even TikTok with the Ellison's. Netflix wants Warner Brothers content,

studio and subscribers by absorbing, by absorbing kind of the high-end content, things like The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, the Wires, Harry Potter, DC Comics. Netflix could force some subscribers to switch over. And Warner also holds rights in various markets for almost every sports league, which would bolster Netflix's entrance into live sports. Netflix, though, looks at this and thinks, you know, we've done really well, staying focused.

You might be overpaying. And as a result, Netflix shares fell 6% on Wednesday. And then Comcast wants Warner subscribers, but mostly it's IP. One of Comcast's biggest long-term weaknesses is a lack of modern. IP, they've got lots of legacy hits, films like E.T. King Kong, Jaws, but nothing on the scale of Disney, like a Marvel or Star Wars or Pixar or Warner. Also for its parks? Yeah, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones. And theme parks are also one of Comcast's most profitable businesses. This acquisition would give them a lot of IP for, you know, Game of Thrones ride, right? So this is, I find

this fascinating. I got this wrong. I thought the Ellisons were going to walk away. It appears that everyone wants to take Lynn Sugamora to the junior prom. Okay, we'll end on that. Let me just say, if I was compact, bring it on to Trump. That's what I would say. Go ahead. And by the way, let me make a little point here and someone I happen to like. But the person who, the lawyer, the general counsel for Paramount here is Megan Delrahim, who was the person who lost the case for the Trump. He was at the Justice Department. And he was, so he's the one doing this. So it's a really interesting situation. Sorry, Megan, but return my call. Anyway, he won't. because he's probably scared of the illness and is being mad at him. But he's a very smart guy, but he didn't win that case. So push back on this guy. Don't like put, just push back. It's, there's, you might be able to win by pushing back.

It's enough. It's enough saying daddy's friend. Daddy's friend is going to help us. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back very quickly, we're going to talk about Michael Dell's $6 billion donation for so-called Trump accounts. Support for the show comes from Vanta. Startups move fast, and with AI, they're shipping even faster and attracting enterprise buyers sooner.

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Scott, we're back. Tech mogul Michael Dell and his wife, Susan Dell, have pledged $6.25 billion to fund 25 million Trump accounts for kids. the donation will extend the reach of the new child investment accounts beyond the pool made eligible by the big beautiful bill. Now, most children 10 and under who were born prior to the qualifying federal date will receive just $250. I don't know what you think of this. I feel like why don't we just text Mel Gouldell properly, his fair share, and then decide where to put the money, including towards kids. This is symbolic.

He did one of those White House things, calling it Trump accounts. The whole thing feels rather grotesque to me. go for it. Yeah, I think the Dell's, look, I think if you give $6 billion to try and inspire saving and investing in the markets for kids, I think they deserve praise for this. I realize I buy into the notion of what Anand Girida says, that if we're just reliant on the generosity of billioners, they get to dictate social policy, not our elected leaders. And you're right, we should have a progressive tax structure such that we could figure out a

long-term solution. But I really find the criticism of the Dell's unfair and really unproductive because at some point, billionaires just say, okay, you win, I'm just not giving anymore. I don't think it's, I think they should be praised for this type of philanthropy. I feel like it's the company man giving out company, you know, company towns and they were run by one oligarch essentially in a lot places. I'm going to let three people go to college, and I'll decide. Meanwhile, keeping everybody down. Like, I just, I'm sorry. But do you think they're trying, I think the system is fucked up. I agree that we need structural reform, but I don't, I don't think the Dells are trying to keep anybody down. I don't think it's just like, why don't you just get taxed normally

and let our, that's a structural issue. I get that, but I, this whole like performative calling them Trump accounts, you didn't have to call it that. I agree. Like, it's just like gross. It's just gross. If you want to give money, give money the way McKenzie Scott does it. I'm sorry. By the way, McKenzie Scott gave $40 million to a teen suicide prevention charity I'm involved with. She is probably paying attention to you because of Oprah. She is extraordinary. No, no, I can't take credit for it. I'm just one of their donors or smaller donors. She, and I don't know her. So in no way do I want to in any way say that I was in any way had anything to do with this. She might be listening to you. But she is, well, three,

who was my person of the year, McKenzie Scott. I got to say, that's how I want billionaires to be. There's just no denying that when the female side of the partnership gets divorced from these 100 billionaires, they immediately start giving money away. I mean, there is, there does appear to be a difference in the way men and women approach their wealth. And I would argue one is much healthier.

Anyways, I love the idea in theory, and that is, I think, one of the advantages that China has over the U.S. is they think in 50-year increments. And I believe Social Security is totally unsustainable. And because it's so popular, because of the age of Congress and the old people keep voting, that I think we need to do similar to what Australia did and other places do. I would give $7,000 to every baby born. That's $40 billion. And then basically not let them touch it until they were 65, and it's a million And then within 30 years, when you saw the end of Social Security, because we'd no longer need it, interest rates would come down and pay for the program.

So I would want something on a bigger scale. Australia has something super return. I forget what it's called. But this stuff, I like it. I think we need something bigger and bolder that has a structural shift to get rid of Social Security in the long term, such an interest rate start coming down in the medium term. Those all sound great. But honestly, this is just for sucking up.

Another suck up to Trump. That's what I feel like. Anyway, I don't think it's the best way to do it. That's all. And again, it's not capitalism as I see it. But let's go on to crypto. Bitcoin remains turbulent, despite the crypto president being in office, down 30% from its peak at one point this week. Bitcoin and other crypto assets have endured bigger drops, losing as much as 80% of value and then turning around, as we know.

But the market appears spooked and worried about a crypto winter. billionaire Michael Saylor's firm's strategy, which pioneered selling corporate debt to buy Bitcoin, announced it raised $1.4 billion to insure can meet future. payments. And Harvard, who had gotten it at the wrong time, the school increased its Bitcoin investments to $500 million last quarter, pensioning leading to a 14% loss. Very briefly, let's do this real quick. What do you think about this? This is an ongoing story we really need to be paying attention to. So I like to call balls and strikes, and I talk a lot about my personal finances to hopefully educate people. And I like to call out my losses, my fails. I have not had any Bitcoin exposure. And then a few months ago, I said, fuck, I need some

exposure. I bought one of these Bitcoin treasury stocks at 14 bucks a share. I think it close today are at $5.50. So I've had my stock. I got in it exactly, me and Harvard got in exactly the wrong time. And call you Harvard. But having said that, I'm actually thinking about adding to the position because essentially a Bitcoin is an incredibly volatile asset. And that's what young people like about it. Or young people think this system's rigged so they've invented their own asset classes, but it's off roughly 25% from its peak in October. It's down 12% in the last month, but it's essentially flat from where it started at the beginning of the year. And it's the result of kind of a derisking trade that has been ripping through the markets. And Bitcoin is an especially

risky asset. It's a bit of a canary in the coal mine regarding how risk sentiment. Risk on, Bitcoin goes off, up, risk off. Bitcoin goes down. Very good point. It's three times more volatile than the S&P 500. Retail participation in crypto is roughly two times out of U.S. stocks. And the top 100 Bitcoin holders control about 15% of total supply. That's incredible. Did you see the military is getting, like privates are getting into Bitcoin? That made me like, okay, this reminds me. Oh, young man. The risk aggressive brain of young men. Remember e-trade and all that stuff, day traders. I felt like, oh, oh, oh. Yeah. Actually, I think the next big one, I think Bitcoin's going to have oxygen taken out of it because I think the next Bitcoin, the next crypto,

is going to be prediction markets. But anyways, the, this also people use, so here's a stat, 18 to 34-year-olds make up 51% of all crypto holders. Adults, 45 and older, make up just 22%. So it's the opposite of stocks. And male users are about two-thirds of all crypto owners. And 73% of male holders report active trading versus just 48% of women.

Folks, at some point we have to acknowledge, generally speaking, women are different than men. Yes. The way they approach philanthropy, investing, everything. You know, when you talked about that a couple months ago, you were investing, I thought, I should maybe. And then I didn't. I said, too volatile for Kara Swisher. I'm going to keep my, I'm going to sit on my pile of money, and I didn't. So a friend of mine named Eric Jackson, who's sort of this, he says, really interesting. I love Eric.

Investor, nice guy. He and I became friendly back when I started L2. He's like pounding the table saying that this is an incredible buying opportunity. And it's not a financial advice, but I am going to add... Where's scaramucci? Look, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. So, yeah, it's off 25% in 60 days, but that takes it back to where it was at the beginning of the year. And I'm actually thinking about adding.

I do think... I don't like these shit coins, but I do think Bitcoin has become a legitimate asset class. They will consider it, Scott. Probably not. You know what, for me, it's a diversification play, although it's not as diversified as people would like to believe it's probably pretty correlated in the NASDAQ.

But it's been, this is a highly levered asset. So when things are good, everything's very good. And when things get, the sentiment turns against it, it gets especially. It's kind of the tail of the whip of risk aggressive investing. I would argue, though, that the new crypto, and I've been thinking a lot about this, is going to be these prediction markets. Oh, that's a really smart. We'll talk about that more.

That's an interesting time. I agree with you. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Costco coming after the Trump administration. Speaking of like that we've had a. enough. Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that

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Scott, we're back with more news. Costco has sued the U.S. government for a full refund on tariffs that is paid if the Supreme Court rules them illegal. The complaint argues that Trump administration misused emergency powers to implement tariffs. Two lower courts have already ruled that Trump exceeded his authority. I love Costco. I love every bit of Costco, and I love how they're just like, yeah, we're liberal and that's the way we're going to stay. Same thing with there's several companies like that, like Patagonia and others. And they do rather well, both of them.

what do you think of this? This is really interesting. I feel like it's time to fight back. It's time to like that's enough, my friend. That's enough of your antics, your ridiculous taco antics. If Hobby Lobby wants to take a more conservative approach to their business, or if Target doesn't want to sell merchandise, celebrating pride, consumers have the right to boycott them. They have the right to do that. I think private enterprise, unless it's discriminating against your customers or your employees, I think private enterprise gets to do what it wants. And Chick-fil-A has always been known as being more conservative. You don't like Chick-fil-A? Don't eat a Chick-fil-A. I got that from you. So as long as you're not discriminating based on, you know, employees or customers, and I think companies should have, companies now, unfortunately, for many of them, get positioned politically whether they want to or not.

The smart ones try to stay out of that mess. That's correct. But you're going to have Trump, a guy who left a trail of unpaid subcontractors and bankrupt casinos tell Costco how to run business. I mean, Costco is one of the most impressive retail companies in the last hundred years. I love that they're suing him, though. Like, you know what? And do you realize that only, I think it's only 2% of the revenues come from membership?

Basically, Costco is we sell you everything at our cost, and then you pay us, whatever it is, are $100, $180 a year, and that's where we make all our money as membership. It's only 2% of the revenues, but it's like half their operating profits. and the model is so genius. It's so simple, but it's so fun to shop. It's also a great product. Like, I don't just think, like, if it was kind of a shitty product and you have to drag your way through it,

it's actually so much fun to go to a Costco, and they have good hot dogs. It's the only place where I go in for paper towels, and I leave with a kayak, a gallon of salza and a financial crisis. And like 900 croissants. No, I leave with a kayak. I need peanut butter. I got to buy this kayak.

Where's your kayak? I love kayak. Yeah. Do you have a kayak? No, I've been kayaking. That's the closest I think I've came to death. My buddy Doug Telcher at Berkeley decided we should go kayaking. And I took one lesson in the pool at...

The flippy kind of kayak or the flat kayak? Oh, no, no, no. The hardcore, like, down a river kayak. That is... And I went down the American River and it had rained. And I flipped over immediately and started hitting my head, almost unconscious. No. And you were in one of those little skirts, things like that.

Oh, you got to do a wet exit. And if you don't get out fast, you can drown. I know, it's true. Oh, my God. But anyways, Doug Teltzer almost killed me. No, got Cotton and Eddie, as they say. Yeah. I like getting gas at Costco.

I like to save 11 cents and wait half an hour. I love Costco. Good for Costco. There should be more of this. Get in there, Comcast and Netflix. Call up your lawyers. You know what, also they embraced? When I was joking about Margie Taylor Green, she has the energy of a woman who returns a half-eaten rotisserie chicken to Costco.

People love that. Okay, so just so you know, but Costco, like Nordstrom, has basically, no matter what people return or how stupid it is, take it back. You could literally show up and hand them the ashes of your broken dreams and they'll still refund you. I mean, it's like, it's, by the way, I can't help this. One of my favorite retail stories is about Nordstrom. and this guy, every year they have an annual meeting and they bring all the managers, and they're supposed to tell the most outrageous customer service story

for a prize. And one guy stood up and said, old man shows up, brings tires you bought at the store, and they're bald and asked for a refund, and we gave it to them. And someone stood up and said, we refund you shit all the time, and he's like, we don't sell tires.

And it ends up, it's the most lovely story. It was an old man struggling with dementia, and he showed up with tires and obviously did know where he was and the manager came down and gave him a $50 certificate and said, we're taking these backs, here's this certificate, can we call your daughter? Can you imagine how loyal you are to Nordstrom

if you're that family? I've spent a lot of time with the Nordstrom's back in the day, the original Nordstrom. Oh, on Pico. I used to go to the one on Pico. Nordstrom was where the rich people and they had a piano player. Yeah, it had a piano.

But you know, the one in Seattle, one of the original. That's where it was founded. Yeah, I spent a lot of time with the Nordstrom. loved dealing with them, I have to say. They were just loved. I went up to visit Jeff Bezos, and I was like, ugh. And then I visited the Nordstrom, was like, yay, that was my day. And then over to Microsoft, which was in a pleasant place, and got yelled at by Steve Bomber. See, that was my life back then. And anyway, all right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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We've been saying predicting stuff. But, by the way, another lawsuit, I predict New York Times just sued the Pentagon for infringing on First Amendment rights of being able to cover stuff. There's going to be a lot more lawsuits, again, by companies now against Trump. That's my prediction. Everyone's like, that's fucking enough, dude. I call it the this fucking guy situation. This fucking guy, I'm going to sue him. Anyway.

When I was living at home with my mother and had nothing going on when I was like 24, by the way, I was one of those men I talk about all the time. I used to go to Nordstrom and cosplay someone who had their shit together. You just feel like when you're in there, you must have your act together. Yeah, because you're buying like $90 sweaters. And you're like, I must have my act together. I'm in Nordstrom. Yeah. And, yeah, it was.

Or my favorite was. I would go into the fragrance section and just take every fragrance and it was like a chemical ambush. I'd start seeing my ancestors and my credit score at the same time. Oh, fragrance masking. All right, my prediction is the following.

Heg Seth, Patel, and RFK are out within the next 30 days. I think Trump has absolutely no loyalty. His administration is tanking. He's going to have to face potential, you know, allegations of war crimes, the economy sucks. tariffs aren't working.

So Patel, Heggseth, and no? I think he's going to do one fell swoop. I think he's going to, within like a week of each other, I think. And a lot of presidents have done this. Presidents usually kind of go a year to years and they say, okay, it's time to calibrate and they let some people go. I think Patel has got sort of an internal revolt on his hand, a ton of, ton of former and current FBI professionals are saying, this is dangerous.

We are focusing on the wrong things in this organization. which is one of the most competent professional and effective organizations in history has been essentially neutered. And then I think he's going to find, I think he's, why not do three at once? And Hegesath, Patel, RFK, I think are all out within the sex 69. RFK, not Nome.

Interesting. I'm going to go with Nome. I think he likes, yeah, maybe. Okay. I'll go three of the four. That's a good one. Well, RFK would be great because he's paid no price. All these other people have paid a price,

including Kara Swizzl Stick. Well, okay. And, I mean, it's hard to pick which one is your favorite. How about the guy who took $50,000 in cash in a paper and a lunch bag? Oh, Holman. He'll probably make them the head of Homeland Security. That's what I'll do.

That's a Doritos bag or whatever the fucking, anyway, okay, that's a great project. I like it. I like it. I like it. I think you're right. All right. We want to hear from you.

Send us your questions about business tech or whatever is on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot. Let's submit a question for the show. We'll call 85551 Pivot. But elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe this week on Profi Conversations, Scott's book with Ann Applebaum, one of my favorite staff writer at the Atlantic, about the business interests driving U.S. Russian negotiations, European power, and America's slide into kleptocracy. Let's listen to a clip. What's disturbing about this episode is that it shows something very ugly about this administration, namely, and it raises a question, in whose name are they conducting? American foreign policy? Is this for the security and prosperity of America and our allies? Or is this

something that's happening on behalf of companies, maybe even some involving the family of Trump or of Whitkoff, who are hoping to make money out of this negotiation? You think? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I like, I love me on. That was a great interview, by the way. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to like and subscribe. subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. By the way, happy birthday to Dr. Jeffrey Swisher.

He's 65, Scott. Jay Swish. Jay Swish. D-Swish. Medicare, Jeff. Go for it. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by

Larry Naman, Zoha, Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kate Gallagher. Learning and Todd Andrew this episode, Manola Moreno, edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Brows, Ms. Sivara, and Dan Shalana, the shot Kuroz, Vox Media's

executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York magazine and box media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.m.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great rest of the week and weekend. you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier,

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