Pivot - Apple’s ChatGPT Deal, Uber Earnings, and Guest Adam Moss

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

Kara and Scott discuss Sony and Apollo Global wanting to break up Paramount, Apple apologizing after everyone hated the new iPad Pro ad, Melinda Gates resigning from the Gates Foundation, and new reporting that casts doubt on RFK Jr.’s VP pick. Then, earnings, earnings, earnings. What do Kara and Scott think of the latest numbers from Uber, Warner Bros and The New York Times? Plus, Apple has closed in on an agreement with OpenAI to use ChatGPT in iPhone operating systems. And, our Friend of Pivot Adam Moss joins us to discuss his new book, “The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing.” You can find Adam’s book, “The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing,” here. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Term'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. You know where I am, Scott? I'm in New York. Where are you? Where am I? I'm in London. I'm tired. I had to take my, we had to take Leah to the vet last night. She wasn't feeling well.

And then this morning, my son, it's really cute, my son is going on a full week trip to Ireland and he was so excited he got up at four in the morning. So I fed him Lucky Charms in the spirit of Ireland. Oh, they're magically delicious. They are. I like Lucky Charms. I have to say. And I was trying to come up with Irish stuff. I'm like, and I like it too, you know, Irish spring or whatever. So where are you in New York? Are you at my place? Where are you? I am not. I'm staying at the Standard Hotel. I am getting a Webby. They had a party for me last

night. I didn't see you there. I heard, but I did a video for you. You did? Oh, good. I'm excited to see that. I'm a little nervous, honestly. Oh, you haven't seen it yet? No, they haven't showed it to me. No. You know who showed up for me last night at the party at the top of the Standard Hotel in the Boom Boom room? Everyone on this podcast shows up for you every day, but who showed up for you last night? All these people. And Don Lemon was very nice and said lovely, sweet, and loving things about me. D. Lamont. D. Lamont showed up for me. Yeah. Recently married Don Lemon. He was. His husband also came.

I'm just saying, a lot of people came to the party. And they made little, they had little sunglass pins that everyone wore on their lapel. I have one for you. I know you'll wear it. I'm sorry, it was I Heart?

Who was it again? It's Webby's? Webby's. Webby's. And we're getting, besides my Lifetime Achievement Award, which means I'm 30 years out in death, because I'm getting a lot. Three years. Three years. I'm getting a lot my Lifetime Achievement Award, which means I'm 30 years out in death, because I'm getting a lot. 30 years, three years.

Three years. I'm getting a lot of Lifetime Achievement. No, no. Life expectancy on Lifetime Achievement winners is not 30 years. Just so you know. They think I'm dying. What do you think? They're not giving Lifetime Achievement Awards to Ryan Gosling.

No, it goes to like Clint Eastwood. He's the next one up. Oh, so let me test my thing out of you, because by the time it ends, I got, I got, you know, you have a five word speech. My thing is lifetime achievement. Not dead yet. What do you think about that? Yes. Not that good at all.

That's five, five words. Not that good at all. No, no, I'm good. No, no. I was saying that your five word. Okay. Give me a five word speech because it'll be done. I'll come up with something, but I need some time.

I need some time. We also are. Oh, wait, I got a five-word speech because it'll be done. I'll come up with something, but I need some time. I need some time. We also are... Oh, wait, I got it. I got it. Owe it all to him. And they'll figure it out. They'll know what's going on. No, no, that's not happening. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including the latest earnings from Uber and Warner Brothers and Apple finally making some AI moves. Plus, our friend of Pivot is former New York Magazine editor-in-chief Adam Moss, who has a new book, The Work of Art, How Something Comes From Nothing. But first, Sony and Apollo Global want to break up Paramount. This is interesting.

This story just keeps on going. If the two companies win the battle to buy Paramount, they plan to keep the studio business and sell everything else that includes CBS. Paramount Pictures would become part of the joint venture venture with Sony in control and Apollo taking a minority stake. Everything else, as I said, CBS, the cable channels. There's a lot of stations across the local stations across the country. And Paramount Plus, a streaming service, would be up for sale. The proposed plan hasn't been presented to Paramount yet. Many people don't want it to be broken up, including the person in control, Sherry Redstone of the Redstone family, which owns National Amusements. Obviously, there's been a sky dance, which they let that last. That's David Ellison,

and he's trying to keep it together in some fashion, with Jeff Zucker involved and Jeff Schell, all these people. And Bill Cohen very smartly wrote where Warner could come in and grab like CBS and parts of the and the studio. The issue with Sony is, of course, it is not an American company. But that and that's going to be a regulatory issue. The Skydance one is all kinds of thorny issues around shareholder lawsuits. So what do you think about this? shareholder lawsuits. So what do you think about this? So when a company is trading at this lower price, essentially, we talked about the conglomerate tax. These things have no synergy anymore, don't appear to have any synergy. So when you break them up, it's accretive to shareholders because the paramount, even though the paramount asset would be sold or paramount plus, it would get, it'll get a good number because overnight, because overnight, the cost to acquire this many consumers for a streaming service is very expensive now. So somebody would say, well, rather than spending another five years and X billions of dollars, let's just pay that to these folks and take

Paramount+, and boom, overnight, we have another, I don't know how many subscribers they have. them overnight. We have another, I don't know how many subscribers they have. And then CBS and MTV, the assets that are in decline but have huge cash flows, would get a decent number by a financial buyer or somebody rolling these things up. And then the film studio has a lot of value but would do better attached to another big film library. And so what this says is that this asset is now trading for less than the sum of its parts. And Apollo's coming in and said, okay, I'll give you an example. Apollo's just did this.

Apollo did this in a similar way to Yahoo. Apollo got Yahoo for $5 billion. It had a billion in cash. It sold off Yahoo Japan for 1.6 billion. So essentially, off Yahoo Japan for $1.6 billion. So essentially, Apollo bought Yahoo for $2.4 billion and then was able to finance the entire transaction just by recapitalizing their debt. So they never even had to invest. They just took it. And it's making money now.

That's right. This has been such a, the agita, the dysfunction, the poor fiduciary responsibility of Sherry that this has been handled so poorly that the financial buyers now see an opportunity to just come in and break this thing up. Right. So that's what's going to happen now. Now, this idea of Warner coming in, because there is a lane for David Zasloff here. He's got the money to do it. It would combine the Paramount assets with Max, would work really well. The streaming service could go right over to Max. They've already been consolidating in lots of ways. The way Disney has been doing with Hulu, for example. They get a bigger studio. Warner's been doing rather well. They do have debt and other issues, but bringing that down, their cash flow is quite good.

I thought Bill's idea was fantastic. Which idea is that, Kara? With Warner coming in. Oh, I see. I think what Apollo is betting is that the Skydance, my understanding is the Apollo-Sony deal is basically, all right, we're paying you one price, we're paying all the shareholders the same price. Skydance said, okay, it's Sherry who's in charge. She owns the super voting shares. And so we're going to come up with this Frankenstein-like deal structure that gives her a better price than the rest of the shareholders. We buy it and then sell it or sell

ourselves to it. It's very complex. Right. And I think what Apollo has said is that when the adults put on their big boy pants and big girl pants and realize that all of the lawsuits here are going to make this deal nearly impossible to close, that they will reluctantly agree to do the cleaner deal. And that we're going to just sit here. But why with them? Because Sony, there's going to be all kinds of regulatory issues around Sony buying and then consolidating the media landscape down to fewer studios. There's all, I don't think they're ever going to get out of Washington. I think they'll get, well, I think they'll get past that one because. I don't.

So you don't think the Apollo deal works? I think if Warner Brothers came in right now and said, we'll do that deal, they will get over Sony. Yeah. I mean, keep in mind, I think the argument they will make, and it was the argument that Time Warner made when they acquired, or when AT&T acquired Time Warner that like, all right, the reason you try and ensure there's not a concentration here is that there's a, ensure that there's not such a lack of competition, that it takes prices down. And the reality is these guys are now distressed assets competing

against much deeper pocketed players. And also there's different accommodations you can make, such as when Rupert Murdoch wanted to acquire, they basically, he became a citizen. I mean, there's ways, I don't think, I think actually the FTC and the DOJ are probably going to look at this and say, all right, the big tech guys are soaking up everything now, including in media. And a consolidation in this category probably makes sense. And Sony isn't a threat to American companies. At least economically, I think the economists they bring as expert witnesses are going to make a pretty compelling case that to block this would be bad for the consumer. Yeah, but except it's Sony.

Sony is a foreign company. Sorry, if you have both competition and foreign company, says no to me. Like, it's not just one thing, it's the other. And right now, the mood in Washington is, let's ban TikTok. Like, let's not have foreign. They have to be consistent. And then CBS could easily fold into CNN. They could sell off the locals to like a Tegna, right? Sell off the locals. The Paramount streaming services fits dovetails into Max. It just seems to, I don't know, if I was David Zasloff, I'd be calling my bankers and getting my version of Apollo. I think you're thinking

logically, because the nuance I would add is the sentiment in Washington isn't anti-foreign, it's anti-China. And Japan is an ally. They're not going to, no. Why wouldn't Warner come in here? They'd be the better buyer. They might if they offer a better price. Yeah. But I don't think, I think there'll be less resistance to Sony as a potential. I don't think senators of the DOJ or the FTC are going to find Sony to be a threat. I don't know.

I'd make a lot of noise about foreign ownership. Anyway, we'll see. We'll see where it goes. Sherry, you're not getting the better price is what's really going to happen here. We'll see. But that deal was far too complex. I was like, what? They're buying it back? It seemed ridiculous and open to so many fantastic lawsuits that it was too much. controversy that got settled rather quickly. Apple is apologizing after everyone hated its new iPad Pro ad. The ad showed an industrial press crushing symbols of creativity, like a trumpet, a cans of paint, cameras suggesting it could all fit to an iPad, which I'm calling the Ozempic iPad. You may borrow that freely. The internet, it's a very thin iPad, and that was the point. It's all down in here, kind of thing. The internet didn't like it. Many people suggesting it was a dystopian view of technology taking over human creativity.

Everybody weighed in. Ad Age responded on Apple's behalf, saying the ad missed the mark and that Apple said it will not run the ad on TV. What do you think, Scott? I kind of thought it was cool. It also is, for people who don't know, it's an internet trend on TikTok, actually. There's a lot of this crushing of things and breaking of things. Years ago on the internet, there used to be put everything into a mixer and see what happens. Remember that? They put shit in a mixer and then we got to look at what occurred by the end. Will it mix?

I think it was called Will It Mix? So this is a long tradition of destroying things, but not good from a company that's well known for backing creators, or at least having that image. Yeah, but the trend, I know what you're talking about. Me and my sons used to watch it on YouTube, just as they take a Snickers bar and put it in a 10-ton compressor and see what happens to Snickers when it's under 10 tons of pressure. But I watched the ad. I thought it was really rattling. I thought this was a rare misstep from, I think I put on threads, this was the worst ad from the best advertiser or the best brand in the world. What rattled you about it?

You see all these beautiful objects and you imagine art and you imagine artisanship and you imagine creativity and then they crush it all to give you a piece of technology. I just, to me, it was might as well saying like, we don't-

Well, Scott, it all fits in there. That's the point. In their skinny Ozempic iPad, but go ahead. Yeah, but I thought it was like, let's get rid of Juilliard and just have computer science classes. I just thought it was awful. I really-

Yeah. I didn't, I usually don't mind shit like that. By the way, it'll have no impact on Apple stock because every time there's a controversy, no one cares, or at least investors don't care. Yeah, they acted quickly too. But it was very,

whoever approved this ad, I'm like, you didn't think this would offend artists? I thought it was really. Yeah, a lot of people spoke out. That's because they think Apple's better, right? They think Apple's better. And then it looked like they were giant tech man attacking. Like, they already hate the rest of them.

And it's like, ugh, these people are now, you know, suddenly, you know, tweeting nasty things on Twitter. You know what I mean? It was like, oh, no, are now, you know, suddenly, you know, tweeting nasty things on Twitter. You know what I mean? It was like, oh, no, did they get that person too? That kind of thing. This is something we're not going to remember. We'll remember it as the one misstep. But if you watch the ad, I had a much more visceral negative reaction than I thought I was going to have. Because I don't think of myself as someone who is, you know, one of these, you know, protect artists at all costs.

But I thought, Jesus, they didn't, they didn't find that offensive that they're saying all art can be distilled down to technology. Yeah. Yeah.

Which art, which object upset you the most? The trumpet. I didn't like the trumpet. The trumpet. Yeah. I thought that was really upsetting. The trumpet being crushed.

Some of it was cool. I hate, I like the paint. I'm sorry. I like the paint going. I love when they do that. I love when they squash paint and it splatters. It's cool. I like the paint. I don't care if paint gets splattered. Anyway, let's move on. Speaking of someone else who was disappointed, RFK Jr.'s VP pick Nicole Shanahan is hurt. Oh, my God. I love this. This made my night. After the Daily Beast published a story detailing her rise to the spotlight, the article titled, Is Nicole Shanahan the Most Dangerous Woman in America?

recounts Shanahan's path to VP pick, including her relationship with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, alleged affair with Elon Musk. They had everything in here. They had her lawyer, her startup, her shitty startup, her failures at being a lawyer, et cetera, et cetera. She responded to the article by saying she had been slandered and had to take a walk to shake it off. She didn't, of course, say what was wrong with the article.

So she'll probably try to sue because she's got apparently $800 million from Sergey. What a boy. I wish I had married Sergey for $800 million. I would have had sex with him for $800 million, I guess. Maybe not. I'll do it for $700. You will do it for $70. So what did you

think? I saw Joanna and I was like, you know, everyone that was sort of slagging you for making your dumb Lauren Sanchez joke, which I thought was funny myself, you know, she was going to have a correspondent, which was obviously a joke from her. I thought, there you go. You did it. They hit all the high points because I know a lot of national reporters were scrambling and calling me right after it because I was like, I told you there was a great story there. I mean, a few things. It's a great coming out party for the Daily Beast and Joanna's stewardship there, too. The best media or best kind of investigative journalism, whatever you want to call it, is they state the obvious that no one's talking about. is they state the obvious that no one's talking about.

Nicole is the most unimpressive person to ever be taken unseriously as a president or VP. She has absolutely no business. I mean, the whole- Yeah, she makes Dan Quayle look qualified. I mean, Dan Quayle got all that shit, if you recall, but he was a legislator. Well, Dan Quayle was qualified. He was a senator.

I mean, she has no business. She has, it's ridiculous that she would have entertained this option. And even her response to it was, she went, she has no business. It's ridiculous that she would have entertained this option. And even her response to it was she stopped at a farm stand to say hi to the farmers and talk to this young man who made her feel better. And it's like, well, okay, when the Sixth Fleet is under attack from a hypersonic missile from China, are you going to go to Tulum and do an ayahuasca trip? I know. I don't believe she did that. I believe her not.

They said out loud what everyone was thinking, that her only skill is having sex with really rich men. I thought they just had the goods. They were showing exactly what happened to her startup. You know, everyone's like, she's a startup. She's not. I was like, she's not. I'm sorry. It's just, I have met all the startup entrepreneurs and her company made zero impact anywhere. It was just, you know, certain people like her socially, that's for sure. I've heard about that. But that's part of like the crowd that goes down to, like you said, Tulum and does the like, the Watusi down there, whatever they're doing. It's a very social reaction to her. And she's utterly unqualified, utterly. I'm sorry, it's a woman I have to say this about, but I would say the same if, I don't know, David Sachs decided to be vice president. She planted it. Like, come on. Are you kidding me? Although he's more qualified. I can't believe I'm saying that. David, much more qualified. Anyway, Joanna, good job. They also did a very good story about the founder, two really actually significant founders, Katerina Fake and Stuart Butterfield, two both excellent entrepreneurs.

Both started, they started a bunch of companies together and then apart. And they had gotten divorced. They have a child who had a real terrible situation with their kid and a predator. And I thought they did a great job on that story. I didn't think it was prurient. I thought it was a great, interesting story. And I think they're doing some good stuff there, Joanna. Good job. Can I ask you a professional question? Sure. So, you know, Bobby Kennedy was on Bill Maher when I was on, right? Yeah.

And I got to know him. By the way, incredibly likable guy. Obviously. And impressive in person. He has charisma, for sure. And all that. To be fair, he's been great on the environment. He's been a leader around the environment and some issues. He's been great on the environment. He's been a leader around the environment and some issues. Anyways, I got to know him.

And his head of comm said we'd really like to come on the Prof G pod. Oh, no. Okay. So I met with the team and I said, Bobby Kennedy wants to come on the Prof G pod. What do you think? What would you do? Me? Not have him on.

Not have him on. Why? Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, see? It's not a slam dunk, is it? It took me a while to think about it. I have to say, not because of like, listen, I've interviewed lots of, you know, I had the parlor guy, if you remember right after the thing. I didn't agree with most everything he said, and he, of course, ended up getting fired from that interview.

I don't mean to say you're not qualified to take this guy on, but I think you will give him the benefit. That wasn't the answer I was looking for, Kara. Well, I think I wouldn't be qualified, I don't think. I think he's a tough customer. Oh, yeah, right. I don't think I would be. You're not qualified to bring this guy on. You need a lot of prep on this one, a lot of prep. And you need to counter him because he lies almost constantly and misrepresents things

he's said. And so even getting him spewing stuff is a problem. Like, you're just catching his many, many misconceptions of everything and countering back is a very- But unless you're an epidemiologist, you're not going to be able to do that. Right, exactly. Which is essentially why we decided not to. Well, some reporters are more qualified than others to do that and stuff. That's just on certain things. He, like, spouts off all kinds of conspiracy theories, you know, and doing the some people said.

So I think it's a very difficult interview. And he's charismatic, which is hard to deal with when someone seems reasonable and then throws in a lie here and there and think that's difficult. This is why I would, I've had a very difficult time with this fella. Yeah. Took me a couple of days to figure it out. The other thing is, this is not an insult to you, but you give people a lot of, you, you, you try to come to comedy with people and you're uncomfortable in discomfort. Comedy or comity? Comity.

Yeah, that's right. Don't start joking around with RFK. That's like a death knell for your career. No, I didn't know what you were saying. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, comedy. I think you try to see the best side of people. And I think this is a very cynical, disturbed person. So I think you are too nice.

You're too wanting to come to some, can't we all get along? And in some cases, no, we just can't. No, my interviewing style, I believe in what Sam Harris said, that you want to present people in their best light. And that just might not be the right approach to this. Right. I don't know. What is your staff thing? Oh, it was universal no. The general view was, realistically, it doesn't have a path to presidency. So if Donald Trump called and said, we want to be on your podcast, I'd have him on, and I would do my best to be prepared. Right. In that case, I'd say yes.

But they'd said, he really doesn't have a path. All he's going to do is potentially be a spoiler. And the general sense was that he has been, while he's been very good on certain topics, that he's been so reckless. What I told him, I texted him back, and I don't think he'd mind this one. Maybe he would, but I'm going to say it anyways. so reckless. What I told him, I texted him back, and I don't think he'd mind this one, maybe he would, but I'm going to say it anyways. I said, the general view is that you've been so reckless on the issue of vaccines that we don't want to platform those ideas for fear that they'll get the resonance they really legitimately don't deserve.

He gets one in. Liars always, persistent liars always get one in. And you have to really counter them. I think I did a good job in that Parler interview where he started saying, many people say, and I said, nobody says that. And here's the nobody who says it. You show them, you know,

you have to be real tough and vicious almost. And I think you're not, I think it's a quality I like about you. You're not capable of it. I don't think you're a killer. You just feel bad

because you said I wasn't worthy, I wasn't up to it. Now you're trying to backtrack. I don't think many people are up to it. I don't think many interviews do a good job with him. Honestly, real people. I'm marrying Nicole Shanahan. Yeah, okay.

You too. She should be heard about that. Anyway. She is hot. I'll give her that. Let me just say, Nicole, you're hurt. Get back on the porch and get out of the yard with the big dogs if you're hurt in politics. She didn't even respond. She just said she's going to a farmer's stand to like... Big dogs, big dogs. If you want to play in the big league, get used to it. The same thing, you know, when Linda Yaccarino was upset about us having you all rocked. Get off, get back on the porch.

This is pure sexism. If she had been a man, they would have torn her to pieces. What? Who? This is sexism. This is a form of sexism. There's a lot of sexism that hurts women. This was sexism. Nobody wanted to say the truth and that is she has absolutely no business being vice president. Oh, the opposite. This is reverse sexism. They treated her with kid gloves because they're like, oh, no one wants to go after a nice, attractive young woman because

they're going to feel like they're being misogynist. Not us, though. I'll tell you that. We don't have that problem. Let me say, girls or boys, you want to play in the big leagues, you have to deal with the big leagues. That's right. That's feminism. Same opportunities, same accountability. Everybody. I don't even like whiny tech people. Oh, you're being mean to me. Too bad. Give back the billions and get away. Go away. Go away with your billions. Anyway, very quickly, breaking news as we tape, Melinda French Gates is resigning from the Gates Foundation, something I just recently said publicly I thought she would do. She just announced her next or last day will be June 7th as part of her separation from Bill Gates. She received an additional $12.5 billion for her charitable work. She said she'll focus on contributions in the future on groups to help women and families. She started doing that through

her Pivotal and some other things she does or investments. I wish her well. She's a very smart and savvy philanthropist and investor. So there you have it. Yeah, but there's gossipy, I guess it is. She's a very smart and savvy philanthropist and investor. So there you have it. Yeah, but there's gossipy, I guess it is. Go ahead. The moment when I realized the statement that Mackenzie and Jeff put about each other, we look forward to new opportunities. I mean, it was just so fucking ridiculous, right?

I feel like Melinda and Bill are having a more honest divorce. Yeah. She is having trouble hiding her disgust with him. When she went on national TV and said, I warned him about Jeffrey Epstein. I told him I was uncomfortable with him. That is literally throwing him under the bus. I feel like she probably did. Some of these stories, I was like, hmm, I wonder where these came from. Oh, no, no, no. It might be true, but typically when there's this much money on the line or people are thinking about their kids, they will come and they're this high profile,

they swallow their feelings and they pretend that this is like an enhancement that they're consciously uncoupling, even despite the fact they fucking hate each other. She is not hiding this. When she threw him under the bus and intimated that he was closer with Jeffrey Epstein than she was comfortable and warned him. What was the truth?

That is ugly. And my guess is she wants nothing to do with this guy, including showing up at annual meetings at whatever this philanthropy is. She wants to do her own thing. She wants to do her own thing. She's a very, you know, she was a very competent product executive there. I dealt with her long ago. And she's been one of the driving forces of the Gates Foundation. It's not just him. He talks more than she does. But she's been critical to that foundation. And she just wants to do her own thing. Give me the money. See you later. Goodbye. Good for her. Good for her. Good for her. Good for her. Good for him. He's got a new girlfriend, right? He's dating Bobby Kennedy.

No, he's going out with another tech executive who died's wife. That's what I understand. I don't know this for sure, but I'm pretty sure. I don't think he's getting married again. That's what I believe. I hope they're both happy. I like both of them. Yeah.

Yeah, whatever. Good. Good for them. She'll do a lot. I have this dream of reuniting her, Lorraine Powell Jobs, and Mackenzie Bezos and the Wojcicki sisters into a massive political force. I have this dream. I have a dream. Anyway.

That's a good idea. You should do that. I know that. I've said it publicly many times. Okay, let's get to our first big story. We've got a lot of earnings news to dig into. Let's start with Uber, whose first quarter earnings are somewhat a disappointment. With an unexpected loss of $654 million, it was attributed to a legal issue, these legal bills and some key investments losing

value. I think it was a one-time kind of thing. Operating profit was $172 million up from the same period of year, but less than half of what analysts expected. Uber is citing softer-than-expected demand. It's also dealing with mounting these legal bills and key investments losing value. The shares fell 6% on the earnings news, while its competitor Lyft reported higher-than-expected Q1 earnings. Very quick thoughts? Well, look, it's Uber over the last year is up 73%. So I just think this might be the stock got a bit over its skis. I think the most impressive

thing about ride hailing is Lyft. I didn't think Lyft was going to exist. And Lyft has proven that there's an opportunity for a second player here. Uber has performed really well over the last two or three years. And what's interesting here is that a lot of this loss was a function of them marking down their investments in other companies, their corporate investments. I actually think corporate investments are about to enter a golden age because of what Microsoft has recognized by investing in AI. So I think you're going to see more and more corporate investment. Microsoft has invested more in AI than the rest of all other VCs combined.

So I thought it was interesting that that's what hurt them this quarter. But this is just a blip. Uber is doing really well. The whole space is doing really well. It consolidated the market into two players. They're raising their prices. They offer great services, great use of technology. They have locked-in user bases.

And the companies are performing really well. I didn't read much deeper into it than that. Yeah, I think so too. He's a very competent CEO, by the way. Yeah, he's done a great job. He does a phenomenal credit. Moving on to Warner Brothers Discovery, where the latest earnings were a mixed bag. The company reported a 7% year-over-year drop in revenue to $9.96 billion. But the streaming side of the business had good news with two million subscribers added since the end of 2023 that was impressive and a 72 percent jump in adjusted

core profit of 80 86 million i think it looks like he was saying that it's going to make some dough it's some like real dough he didn't say adjusted at all warner brothers is also teaming up with disney to offer a bundle with this is surprise. We've talked about this. Disney plus Hulu and Max in the U.S. starting this summer. Smart, smart idea. I think I will probably do that. I think the streaming is moving in the right direction. Bindle plan seems good. Thoughts?

Good thoughts? I thought it was strangely, well, first off, it's very similar. What Apollo has envisioned is what is going to happen here. And that is Max, their streaming company, I think it might be worth more if it was just trading on its own, because this always has the overhang of a big business that used to be great that's in decline. And eventually when they shed their cable assets to a kind of a bad bank strategy, and they can just focus on Max and maybe have the movies at Warner as part of it for vertical. Well, if they shed or consolidate, but go ahead.

Warner as part of it for Vertical. Well, if they shed or consolidate, but go ahead. Right, or both. And this is one of my stock picks. This, Disney, and Alphabet were my stock picks for 24. I think Warner's now trading at a distressed price and ultimately will probably attract an activist if it goes much lower than this. Also, strangely, Kara, I think this is somewhat correlated in an adjacent way. Did you see Reddit's earnings? Yeah, very strong. Reddit's revenue was up 48%. So if they grow their business from a half a million to a billion, that's an incremental 500 million in revenues.

And what people don't realize is that the ad business is remarkably consistent. It's been about 1.5% of global GDP. It never goes much less than that, but it never grows much more than that. So when Google, Meta, Alphabet, I'm sorry, when Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, and now new players, Snap, Snap, Pinterest, and now Reddit, if Reddit adds an incremental $500 million in online advertising, it's not the economy growing. It's $500 million either coming out of Alphabet and Meta. Nope. Who's it coming out of? It's coming out of CNN. It's coming out of ABC. It's coming out of Condé Nast and Hearst. Yeah, because that's where you get the results. And people just look at Warner Brothers. I think if Warner Brothers sheds its ad-supported business,

it's never going to trade at the multiple it deserves. Oh, interesting. And then you have the overhang of the debt. The debt's gone down a lot. They've taken a lot out of that debt. It's actually getting to- Yeah, Zasloff has been a disciplined operator. But every time you see these companies add more than the growth of the economy, it's coming out of traditional media players, including cable. And the thing is, these companies are actually decent assets.

But when you mix them with growth assets, you have to decide, are you a teenager or are you a baby boomer? And if you just have assets that spend huge cash flow, ad-supported cable, but are in decline, that's actually a business that can be a very good business because you can focus on that business, cut costs faster than the decline of the business, and print cash and actually do okay. But that money, but the other business, the streaming business, is growing faster, but it needs capital. And the mix of the two business models, the market hates it. Yeah, they do. It doesn't like it. So it values the whole thing at the shittiest business.

But when you see these digital platforms continue to grow their revenues by tens of billions, that's just coming out of traditional. That said, their studio business is very strong. They've had a good year. But that's always up and down. And I think Max is going to continue to do really well. It's a good business, and it is now trading. You are going to see, I think the stock is at $8 or something. This stock gets a seven, definitely a six handle.

Not an Apollo. Would Apollo go hostile? I don't know. But like an Elliott's going to show up and say, we have an idea. Sell these assets, keep these. Yeah. Interesting. Are you part of that?

I think you're signaling some calls you've been having recently. Well, the best way to predict a future care is to make it. Oh, I see. You're involved with something. You're involved with something. I feel it. I know when you're dissembling.

I'm marrying Nicole Shanahan. You are, you're going to marry Nicole Shanahan and buy Shanahan and fire me. That's your whole plan. Because she'll be mad at me for pointing reporters in the correct direction.

I love, I thought it was you that dropped a dime on her. I thought, I love it. I love it when like information age women have a pillow fight.

It's like a prison film for the modern ages. I really enjoyed it. It got me kind of hot. Let me just say, this is all I did. Reporters called me. I said, there's a story there. Why don't you do your fucking job? That's what I said. When I said, you really signaled this about when he announced her as his pick about four or six weeks ago. You're like, what do you think of her, Scott? And I'm like, go on. And I do my thing. And he's like, yeah, someone should really look into her background. You knew this all along. You said.

Yes. Someone should do some work here really look into her background. You knew this all along. You said, someone should do some work here and look into her background. Not me, because I'm lazy. If I had been a beat reporter, I've had it out weeks ago, weeks ago. Now I'm contacted by all the reporters. I'm like, do your fucking job. It's not even that hard, by the way. This is not heavy lifting reporting here. This is right out and on the floor kind of stuff. So just do your job. Find the facts and report them. Don't do like I try to do a job.

It's all there and you can find it. And every single person who has the audacity and arrogance to run for something should expect scrutiny. Sorry. That's the way it goes. That's my feeling. Or become a CEO. Expect the scrutiny. It is ridiculous.

She even accepted that position. It is ridiculous. That's my feeling. Or become a CEO. Expect the scrutiny. It is ridiculous she even accepted that position. It is ridiculous. Let's not go back. I can't figure out who's- Let's focus on the next thing. Someone- Who's dumber, him for picking her or her for accepting it? I don't know. He needed the money.

Whatever she has. I didn't know she got 800 million. I had heard numbers like that and I couldn't believe it. But I think I do believe it now from what I've checked. That's a lot of fucking money. Man. Again, both of us would do it for half, Sergey. We would totally diddle do for half.

Anyway, or less than half, even a hundred. What's our lowest price? What's our lowest price? Oh, let's not even go there, Carol. Let's not even go there. Right? I don't know. I mean, take me to a play and if they're good seats, you got me.

I mean, I'm just so much cheaper than that. A hundred were drunk, Sergei. Come on, we'll marry you, both of us. All right, let's discuss the New York Times finding the Times gained 210,000 digital subscribers last quarter, largely users who sign up for the bundle of news games and sports. They love that wordle. Adjusted operating profit was $76.1 million, an increase of nearly 41% from last year. Go Meredith Levy. And let me say,

Joe Kahn gave the stupidest interview ever with Ben Smith from Semaphore. But Meredith Levy, you're killing it. Like, Wordle all day the fuck long, cooking, sports, whatever. It shared that it spent a million dollars in its first quarter on the lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI. That's an investment, I suppose, in seeing where that goes. So what do you think? Let's give Meredith some kudos. So not only is it about revenue, but it's about revenue mix. So not all revenues are created equally, and the market values different revenues differently. The revenue increased 6%, which is better than inflation. Ad revenue declined 2%, but digital subscription revenues increased 13%.

And that's what the market was focused on. So if you can not only supplant or cauterize the declines with other parts of the ad decline, with other parts of the business that are going faster, then your margins go up. So this is exactly the kind of revenue mix change that the market wanted. She's talked about it. Daily use is the word she always uses. Yeah. And she keeps under-promising

and over-delivering, so she's developing a good reputation on the street. Operating margins were up 300 basis points. That's fantastic. You know, Warner Brothers is down 28%. Jesus Christ, I didn't know that. Year-to-date, NYT is flat,

and the S&P is up. I mean, I hate to say it, they're like the best of a sorry lot. I mean, New York Times, as well as its performing, is up 1%. The S&P is up 11% because there's seven companies that are up 30%. Just crazy. Software's really hitting the world. It's true. They're not getting the credit. It's because it's small. I keep saying that. And it's like, the New York Times, the juggernaut. I'm like, it's a small business, and it's a good one. It's a good small business. Should it's like, the New York Times, the juggernaut. I'm like, it's a small business. And it's a good one.

It's a good small business. Should it continue its current strategy? I wouldn't say do anything differently. What else can they do? What could they add? In my sense, they're doing exactly what they should be doing. Give me one thing they could add, like a wordle. What could they add?

The New York Times? Yeah. I would take Dealbook and I would try and turn it in. I would spin Dealbook and try and turn it into a subscription competitor to Bloomberg. I have said that for a decade to the Canadian. I've said that for a decade. That would be my idea. That was my idea when I was on the board.

I'm like, let's spend Dealbook and charge $3,000 a year for it. And hand him a pile of fucking money. That's what I said. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Apple and OpenAI's latest moves. We'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Adam Moss. I'm looking forward to it about creating art. Fox Creative.

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As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca. Scott, we're back and we're learning more about Apple's AI plans.

The company has closed in on an agreement with OpenAI to use chat GPT features in the next iPhone operating system. Makes sense, according to Bloomberg. Apple has also reported still ongoing talks with Google about licensing the Gemini chatbot. No deal has been reached. We're expected to hear more about Apple's future, the annual developer conference in June. They got to do stuff on their own too, although they're stymied by their privacy, love of privacy.

I think they've got to integrate all this stuff into the phone to make it a better assistant for you, getting rid of the Siri stuff, which sucks. Is it better to do the outside companies? They have relied on Google for Maps over the years and search and things like that. Remember, they tried their own map thing. Although I hear their maps have gotten a ton better. What do they have to do here? I think it's smart. I think they look at how much capital is going into this. I mean,

what do they have? Apple has distribution. Apple is the premier distributor of zeros and ones in the world. And if you distribute your zeros and ones through their device, your zeros and ones get greater monetization because it's a wealthier consumer. The billion wealthiest people come through the iOS store. So they're going to leverage that by saying, you know what, we could spend 10, 20, $80 billion to develop a competent search, but instead we'll just cash Alphabet's $28 billion a year check. There's going to be certain categories where they're better off buying Levi's instead of going private label, right? Because in this instance to go to make their own denim would cost tens of billions of dollars. to go to make their own denim would cost tens of billions of dollars. And they're going to be able, what the chief economist at Apple and consultants have all said is that there is so much capital

going into the development of AI, and you are going to be the great white rhino. Everyone is going to want to have exclusive or semi-exclusive deals to be powered by open AI, that the amount of money they're going to be willing to pay you and the margins you're going to get on that money are so extraordinary that we should really, probably doesn't make sense for you to develop it in-house. It makes sense for you to do what you did with search. To me, one of the things I've been talking to a lot of people about is where's the monetization around these companies?

And some of them don't have any, right? And some of them are thieving things. And where are the clients and where do they do well? And you can see all of the monetary benefits accrue to the big players. Like in terms of Facebook and Google, they'll be able to really make advertising really easy and interesting.

Like they're going to use AI to improve their existing businesses and make them more efficient and make them more targeted, everything. They'll be giving masses of tools to deploy. Same thing with Microsoft, deploying masses of tools around just things like email or automate different things. And Apple is in the perfect pole position to do this for its users, to draw them further into the ecosystem. If you had an Apple with Siri that fucking worked, Siri sucks. Like, I can't tell you, but if you had an AI assistant, you would have trusted from Apple in a way that

was better, that you had a relationship with. You could see that developing. And then you would stay in the Apple ecosystem, and they'll do it well, right? They'll deploy it really well. So it'll be interesting because they really can't use all the data they collect that they've collected over the years because it's supposed to stay inside the phone, but it could be used to make the phone better. They cannot be cute with privacy. Even if it's just a marketing employee, they cannot be. They'll be caught every time they do something compared to other people. Because we all know Google's a rapacious information thief. We don't think Apple is. In any case, and that's the promise of using them.

Anyway, we'll see. You brought up something really interesting, though. And you just inspired a thought, and that is- I inspired you. Apple is arguably the strongest consumer brand in the world. I don't think it's the strongest brand in the world. I think MIT, Stanford, the United States are probably the strongest brands in the world. Nobody gives Apple $300 million to put their name on the side of a building.

I was thinking Lucky Charms, but go ahead. There we go. They're magically delicious. You know what is probably one of the most disappointing brands in tech over the last decade? What? Siri. When I hear Siri, when I accidentally say the wrong thing on my iPhone and Siri comes up, I have a rush of disappointment. I don't want anything to do with Siri. I just think it's a total... I say, fuck you, Siri, all the time. All the time.

It's this open AI or whatever. It's kind of a chance to rebrand their... It's time to turf Siri. It really is. It's time to bury Siri. It just hasn't worked. No, it sucks. All the assistants do. I like Hello Google and they just suck. They don't help. Even Alexa. Alexa's lost a lot of brand equity over the last two years. They just don't work. They just like, everything else works pretty well. And it doesn't, I have quibbles here and there with mapping and this and that, but they're quibbles. I hate Siri. I hate Siri. Yeah. It's just, it's like, it's like that YouTube song that's been embedded in my iPhone for 20 years that I can't, I can't unload for some reason.

I can get that off for you. It's Siri. It's Siri just pops up when I don't need it. Siri's going to be, quote, hurt by our feelings about Siri. Get on the porch, Siri. Get on the porch with all the people who complain. OpenAI has a big event, by the way, happening just a few hours after record. There's some reports the company will be announcing Google Search competitor or a new voice assistant. Sam Altman posted not a search engine, but I think he's calling it something else.

I think it is. The other day, he did say there would be new stuff that, quote, feels like magic. He's trying to channel Steve Jobs, I guess. What do you think they're going to announce, Jim? Any thoughts? I don't know. This stuff is super impressive. But my sense is they're all converging on the same company.

My view is that all of these companies, essentially seven of the 10 most valuable companies in 1980 were energy firms, and then seven of the 10 most valuable companies in 2024 are big tech firms. Then I started thinking about this, and this is what I wrote in last week's No Mercy, No Malice, but at the end of the day, I think these companies are all becoming energy companies. And that is, what's driving value is their compute, their cloud services. And effectively, just as the most valuable companies in the world refined fossil fuels into petroleum to power factories and trucks, now the most valuable companies in the world create the petroleum, essentially compute, to power iPhones and our LLMs. And they're all becoming the same company. Yeah, I would agree. We'll see what he posts. He's got a lot of good jazz hands from Sam Altman. I got to say, I think the driving force of him is not becoming Netscape.

That's really what he's doing. He's like, I'm not becoming Netscape. We'll see where it goes. But we're looking forward to talking about it on Thursday. Let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Well, we're looking forward to talking about it on Thursday. Let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Adam Moss is the former editor-in-chief of New York Magazine and author of the new book, The Work of Art, How Something Comes from Nothing. Welcome, Adam. Thank you very much. Really happy to be here.

I am a quiet super fan of yours. I've always admired everything you've done in magazines and everywhere you've been. So just let me acknowledge that. That's nice. Thank you. Likewise, I should say. Well, I'm a louder person, but you're quieter in the contributions you've made. And I see it, but many people don't. But let's do it.

After you left the magazine, this is a different kind of book. And I like the idea of making something from nothing. That's how I think of things as a maker. After you left the magazine world several years ago, you started painting. I'd love to, you write about painting. It was like a bad affair. I loved it even as it tortured me. I'd love to ask you why you did that because I'm always trying to do different things.

Talk to me a little bit. I want to, it's going to dovetail in a second around where this goes, but talk a little bit about that. Sure. Yeah, well, in magazines, you know, I've always been the sort of unusually visual editor. Very interested in the way that images and text kind of play with each other. And, you know, very involved with photography and graphics of all kinds. So that's just been a consuming interest of mine forever as part of my old career. And then I have a house in Provincetown that used to be an art school. So in the art school, you can see kind of ghosts of the painters who've been painting there for

100 years. Eventually, it just got into me and I just decided, well, I'm here, I'm interested in images, so let me just throw a canvas on an easel and see what happens. One summer, I painted a painting a day for about 20 days, and I made some paintings, all of them awful, but really loved it. And yeah, that's what got me hooked into painting. But I was still doing it

kind of, you know, not even really a hobby until I left the magazine. Then I got serious about it. Wow, that's amazing. You know, for people who don't know Provincetown, I have many works of art from Provincetown on my walls in my home. It's a wonderful artist colony. And the artists, the visual artists are really astonishing. I have so many things I just stare at all the time in my home that I love so much from there. And the light is so beautiful there, obviously.

But the book is actually a combination of your conversations with painters, musicians, filmmakers, even sandcastle builders who i love creating art um talk about how you decided to who you wanted to talk to you call some of these people your art crushes and i'd love to say how'd you come up with this idea of writing about this because everyone expected you to write a magazine here's how i made a magazine like because you worked for the the New York times magazine, New York magazine, they're artistic in their own way. They're creations. Who would read that? Um, I, well, basically I was, you know, so I, I left the magazine. I started to paint, uh, felt extremely frustrated, um, by my own failures as a painter and, um, felt that there was something I didn't understand

about the way that artists talk to themselves. And so I decided to, eventually decided to talk to a bunch of them and try to understand how they think. So I started with friends who are artists who I've always kind of revered and been mystified by how the hell do they do that and um and then built from there you know um with a little bit of a

magazine head I you know wanted I I I make portraits as a painter so I want to talk to a portrait painter but then I was sort of interested in how an abstract painter works. So I did that. I have this huge fan crush on Stephen Sondheim or Moses Sumney, various musicians, or Louise Glick, the poet. And I just tried them out and see if they were interested in the project. And you had to be a particular kind of person to be interested in the project because you had to be essentially ready to kind of sit on a shrink's couch. Because what I was trying to do was not just trace the practical steps. The book is a series, I should say, a series of narrative case studies and the evolution of a single poem or a single song or a single play. I wasn't just interested in the, I did this, then I did this, then I did

this, although I was interested in that. But I was also interested in their state of mind as they were going through it. And for them to kind of ask a question that they don't often ask themselves, which is, how did I do this? Most people are scared to ask that question because they think they'll break some covenant with wherever their juju is coming from. And these people were actually interested. Yeah, and many of them, Stephen Sondheim died soon after, right? And so did Louise, right? Yeah. Yeah, well, that's good. No, I mean, I have to so did Louise, right? Yeah. So far, only two.

Well, that's good. No, I mean, I have to tell you, you may or may not know this, but she is my inspirational poet, period. I didn't know that. That's fantastic. Yes, 100%. And actually, the quote that starts the book is from Circe's Power, which is, I never turn anyone into a pig.

Some people are pigs. I make them look like pigs. I was like, that is my motto for my career. I, you know, that was the book and everything I do, which is really, and then, I just love her. She's just everything to me. Yeah, she was sort of terrifying. And then, and then, you know, and then I just fell madly in love with her, so. Yeah, she's astonishing. She's an astonishing poet. People don't really understand how astonishing she is. So, I mean, it's kind of a question, but were there certain traits or behaviors these people have in common?

Because terrifying is possibly one of them. I suspect Sondheim is sweeter than he seems. That was not a universal trait. That was true certainly for some of them. I would say that the, you know, obsession was probably the most important one. There's a great James Baldwin quote that making art isn't about talent. It's about a whole lot of different things, but it's mainly about endurance. And that endurance proved to be, I think, very important, particularly for the kind of artists I was talking to who were very accomplished. Art is really hard.

Things fly in your face to subvert you all the time, constantly. And you need a certain kind of stamina to get through it. So that stamina is born of a kind of obsession. So I would say that that was the most important. They're disciplined. They have focus. So I would say that that was the most important. They're disciplined, they have focus, they can live somewhere in this very difficult equilibrium space between child and adult, where they can play, and they also have the rigor, the discipline to bring in adults' control to whatever they're trying to make. Or their own adulthood.

Very not, it's unsimilar to tech people who have failed miserably, mostly. Yeah, I think that's true. Scott, go ahead. Nice to meet you, Adam. Congratulations on the book. Nice to meet you too, Scott. Thanks a lot. Have you noticed any patterns of how the evolution or the makeup of artists is changing? evolution or the makeup of artists is changing? Is it the same DNA, the same characteristics,

the same attributes are steadfast and enduring? Or do you see younger artists present a different set of a different mix of characteristics and skills? I wouldn't say characteristics and skills are changing. I think they endure. They're the same skills you make when you're having conversation or you're cracking a joke. They're just basic to what storytelling is. I heard you, Scott, in an episode not too long ago, talk about storytelling as the most pivotal skill that you wish people understood. And I agree with you. And that storytelling skill is universal and I think applies whatever. Obviously, the tools and the mediums of storytelling have changed. I mean, this is, you know, creating a meme is a creative act that didn't exist X number of years ago. You know, all of these so-called content creators are actually making something. That's a creative act as well. So, I mean, I think that tools morph all the time, mediums morph all the time, but the basic structure of the way you make something is,

basic structure of the way you make something is, I think, has been true forever. To me, it's very basic. You have that kind of imagining stage. Then you have a judging stage, something that kind of nobody talks about, where you bring an intellect to bear on what it is you've created, your imagination has created. And then there is the, you know, sometimes very tedious and very difficult shaping stage, which is, you know, essentially where technique comes in. All of those are important in the making of anything. And they're true, whether they take 10 years or whether it happens in an instant. So when you think about this, one of the things that you use a lot is you've been using a lot in this conversation is maker. And I think about maker a lot. And for a while, the tech industry grabbed the idea. We're makers. Remember the whole thing? But I actually think it's a great word. And

often when people ask me if they want to change their career, a lot of people in journalism come to me and say, how did you do this? And all I say to them is, what do you want to make? Like, it's like a cook. What do you want to make kind of thing? Can you talk a little bit about that? Because a lot of what you're talking about is not just, it's not unlike chefs, tech people use it a lot, but it really does sort of encompass a lot of different acts of creativity. And then how do you want to make it, right? Yeah. I mean, in fact, I have two chefs in the book. One, Samin Nosrat, who did the salt, fat, acid, heat. I think I got them in the right order. And the two chefs who make a whole bunch of restaurants near my house, Jody Williams and Rita Sodi.

And so, I want to explore that. As you mentioned before, they're sandcastle makers. I wanted to see what would happen with making something that was meant to perish at the end of the day. There's a chapter that's about the making of jokes. Um, the writers of Veep, um, making two jokes, uh, through a progression of alts. I could have done the book. Uh, you know, I thought at one point of doing a picture, creating a pitch. Um, you know, I thought of bringing engineers into it.

I actually thought of bringing tech into it. Um, but at some certain, at certain points, the book became too unwieldy if I was going to do that, and I had to draw a line somewhere. But I was not, in general, my own definition of art was pretty elastic. And so I'm with you in that the making is really what interested me. And, you know, I wasn't too kind of rigid about what it was that they were making. Scott? If somebody showed some talent for what you thought this person could be a great storyteller, potentially a great artist, what are the skills you would want that person to learn?

I know a lot of artists who, I don't know, never reach their potential because they lack certain skills to bring their art to the world and never get the recognition, I think, that their talent deserves. If you spotted that type of talent in a young person and you thought, having spent a ton of time with artists, what are the skills that round out that core DNA that can help them bring their art and their, quote-unquote, their talent to the world?

Well, I mean, I think the first thing I would say is that they, if they have interest in anything in particular, um, if you are a parent who, uh, hopes, uh, that your child will be able to do something like this at some point, it's a good idea to get them skills trained early training. Training is like, um, you know, it's a little bit like an athlete. Uh, you have to, you have to achieve a certain amount of body memory in order to make something later. But, you know, in general, it kind of doesn't matter what you're doing as long as you learn. I would say mostly, Scott, it would be learn how to fail and then persevere through failure.

Failure is just a giant part of all this. And failing is what made me want to give up painting and why I kind of wanted to do this book. I did not have the push. I did not have it in me to keep going. And I think eventually I got that back, but I think that learning to, you know, it's like learning, it's like walking, learning to fall down is important and learning to get up is important. It's very much like, I mean, it's like all of, it's like all of these functions. It's also like acquiring language. You experiment, you get validation for what you're doing when you experiment, you get faith and confidence to move forward.

All of these things are the same, no matter what you were doing, it seems to me. Let me ask you one question. Is there one person who surprised you with their process, their outlook? Some people are very matter-of-fact. I think I'm a matter-of-fact maker. I don't sit around. I remember the woman who wrote You Pray Love. She was like, the wind go through me. And I was like, this is bullshit.

Yeah, Elizabeth Gilbert, yeah. Yeah, she did. I remember listening. I was there and I was like, oh, give me a break. But whatever. That's her. The wind rushes through her brain and then something sticks. I'm like, I'm just going to set out to make it.

I'm much more practical. Is there anyone that surprised you that you were like, you thought they'd be? Well, I mean, surprises come in all sorts of ways. So, like, Sheila Hetty came to my house. Explain who she is. Sheila Hetty is the writer of a, considered one of the pioneering books of autofiction called How Should a Person Be? She's a novelist and a writer of all sorts of things. She's got an amazing mind. It's kind of an amazing book. And she came to my house with this pile of, I mean,

I should say also that the book is full of artifacts, process artifacts of the making of things. It's kind of like a book of archaeology. You can trace the beginnings of things through these documents. And she brought over, I explained what I was after, and she brought over this pile of papers, which she had invented an entire cosmology, almost like a tarot-like code, which the reader never saw. She just did it in order to understand for herself what is the world that she wanted to create for the book. So that's one kind of surprise. Andrew Jarecki, who's a documentary filmmaker, did this amazing movie called Capturing the Freedmen. It started as a

clown movie. He wanted to teach him. He was a tech guy. He invented a movie phone. And then he wanted to be a movie maker. So he decided he would teach himself how to be a movie maker by making a movie about party clowns. And then he learned that one of the party clown's father was in jail for allegedly abusing a whole bunch of kids. And his brother, the clown's brother, was in jail with him for aiding and abetting. And Andrew just threw away his party clown movie and made a child abuse movie instead. just threw away his Party Clown movie and made a child abuse movie instead. That's, you know, a masterpiece. And he had no, you know, he had no experience really as a movie maker,

a little bit of experience, but not much. So that's a surprise. Then, you know, just to your friend, Louise Glick. She's not my friend, but I love her. You know, she, we talked about this poem called Song. And, you know, Song started as a dream. And she just got this, you know, rather prosaic line in her head that when she woke up from the dream, there was. It was, Leo Cruz makes the most beautiful white balls. And as she was describing it to me, she said,

it's really, it's a nothing sentence, don't you think? I said, yeah. She said, well, to me, it was the most beautiful sentence I'd ever written in my life and the most beautiful phrase I'd ever written in my life. And she constructed this entire poem around it. So in some ways, the mundanity of that or the different ways we each experience that set of words was as much of a surprise as anything else. So a surprise is coming all the way. Although the next line is critical. The next line, which is, I think I must get some to you, but how is the question in these times?

What a great poem that is. That's the great, that is the great line after it. Yes, it is. But it's all a step in one step, it's a stepping stone situation. So you do one, then the other, then the other, yeah.

And this last line of the poem, the fire is alive, the fire is still alive. Yes, yes, it's a great, everybody must read Louise. She's amazing. The last line is, and he says, you're dreaming again. And I say, I'm glad I dream the fire is still alive. What a great line. Yes. A line she just workshops and workshops and workshops. And you can see it in the papers. It's the fire was still alive. The fire is alive. The fire, you know, which I mean, to me, that's, I get so excited by that, to see the entrails of a mind in action, a creative mind in action. It's kind of what the book's about. So having spent a lot of time with some of the great artists of our age, would you validate or

nullify the thesis that artists are tortured and more prone to depression than the general populace? artists are tortured and more prone to depression than the general populace? I think I would nullify it. But I do think that, but I would sort of, I do think the process of making art is full of torture. But I don't think they're temperamentally more tortured. I didn't see evidence of that. I mean, it was a kind of data set of 43. It's an interesting take. To be successful at anything just requires a lot of frustration and torture. Yeah, absolutely. And putting up with despair. Despair just comes with the process. It's tedious. I mean, just getting back to what I said before about you need endurance, you need to have something that obsesses you, otherwise it's not going to work. I mean, good ideas are kind of cheap, but you need the idea that attaches itself to you and won't let go.

But aren't you sort of identifying the key attributes of success in any field? And I say that as liberating an insight. To be truly great at anything requires a certain amount of endurance and resilience. I would share. I mean, I agree with that. Yeah, I mean, I often think of them. Just today, web publishers brace for carnage. It's Google ads, AI answers. Big tech giant is rolling out AI generated answers to displace links to human written websites, just sucking in everyone else's creativity and spitting it back out at us. Thoughts? Well, I mean, I think that they are thieves of creativity, and I think they're also creative themselves. It's a dynamic. Also, a lot of their creativity works.

They're creative at stealing. Yeah, they steal. All artists steal. Picasso said that, and it's universally true. Not quite the same. So your next book will be on a work of tact. Yeah, absolutely. Something comes from nothing.

All right. Anyway, Adam Moss, I am a huge fan. I know I remain even more so. It's a terrific book. It's really good for anybody who's thinking of making anything. And it's worth reading all these things. And you have been working on more newspaper stuff, right? Yeah. Post or different places. Yeah, you know, I kick around. Yeah.

Are you going to go back to that at all ever for full time? You know, I never want to be a manager or boss again, but I, so I'm not going to go back to a job job. But I, you know, the questions of journalism and also just per the book, the questions of the way journalism is morphing interests me an enormous amount. Anyway, we appreciate it.

Really worth the read again. The book is The Work of Art, How Something Comes From Nothing by Adam Moss. Thank you very much. Thank you guys. Nice to meet you, Adam. Nice to meet you too, Scott.

All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like to go first or would you like me to? You go first, Cara. I mean, the win is this Aurora Borealis. I thought the world was ending and I thought how beautiful.

You know, it sounds crazy. I love the ones that say, this is it outside my 7-Eleven. I know, but I like them all. I like some of them. I just thought San Francisco ones were particularly beautiful with the Golden Gate Bridge. But people in planes, I think it was Teddy Schlieffer had one from Spirit Airlines. It was beautiful. The universe is beautiful. It just was so beautiful. It made you feel like you were a speck in a good way, right? Like you understood that there are greater

things out there. And even though it's just a storm, it was beautiful. I don't know why it was very, just what I needed was looking at all those pictures. And then again, one of the great things about social media and the internet is it delivers those pictures that you never would have seen by just regular people. And I thought that was a beautiful, creative, and gorgeous thing to watch that made me feel better all week long, given all the bad news. And it's hard to pick between bad news. One is Louisiana is moving to make abortion pills control dangerous substances. And book banning and all this stuff is just continuing in the South, especially. It's heinous.

That's just resistance because all of these solar storms were nothing but wokeness as people trying to turn the sky gay. I mean, it went very pink. Yeah, gay. It was a gay sky. Good. Gays are going to take over from you, you people. But this stuff they're doing in the Southwest, I've just been reading a book. We're going to interview the author about book banning and teachers scared to teach, having to teach the other side to the Holocaust.

scared to teach, having to teach the other side to the Holocaust. Just like, it's repulsive what they're doing in these states to take away people's ability. You know, the free speech people are becoming anti-speech and anti-knowledge, and it's really repulsive. And at the same time, which I just referenced with Adam, these Google answers, AI-generated answers that are now at the top of search. I don't know if you've used search lately, but they're right there. And I have to say they're really good. And this is the beginning. Obviously, Google has not innovated in search because they're the only one over many years. And that's what happens when you're a monopoly. You don't innovate. But these are really good. And it makes me worry for human written websites very much so is that we're going to get all our knowledge through the Google strain of whatever they decide to do in AI, which is a depressing situation.

So that's my fail. Your turn. So my fail is the Biden administration. The whole one? All of it? Well, not all of it, but it's been a really, I think, a terrible couple weeks. And I'm going to be clear, I'm on Team Biden. I'm going to take my sons to some swing states and try and register help with voter turnout. But they're playing defense, not offense. And now Trump is leading

in almost every swing state. And oftentimes the polls underrepresent Trump. I think he was late on what's happening on college campuses. I think it is incredible that they have not been, or disappointing, they have not had really powerful surrogates, including Secretary Buttigieg or Newsom out there talking about the economy more forcefully. wonder of the year geopolitically, was threatening to cut off weapons two days before the Israelis went into Rafah. We look feckless. We look impotent. To try and shore up his support on the far left, I thought it was strategically just made him look so weak. They are on their heels, not on their toes. They need to get on their toes. And the last couple of weeks have been a terrible couple of weeks. You know, I just interviewed David Ignatius and he said the exact same thing. He's not exactly because he's been there a lot.

It's a very complex situation with Netanyahu and trying to get him to heal a little bit, but he's not going to, obviously. And the behavior is there. But he was saying surrogate. He goes, I don't understand why there's not more strong surrogates. It'll make it feel like Biden is vibrant, even if Trump has cognitive issues, he seems vibrant. And that you need more surrogates because Trump is a good surrogate for Trump, for his base. Biden needs all the surrogates he can get, young, vibrant, forceful. There's a bunch of them, too. And they should be out every night with talking points on every program. You know who's literally the strongest surrogate for Biden right now? It's Jessica Tarlow. Yeah. She was at the party last night also where you weren't.

Go ahead. I love Jessica. But they need 100 of those out every day, countering everything. Wait, excuse me? Who sent two carrier strike forces over to Israel? No, we're standing down against the far... He could be so forceful on these issues. Yeah, abortion.

And he feels like he's apologizing all the time. He's had someone said, stop talking about fucking bridges, because bridges can't eat a bridge. And then he draws a red line for Netanyahu that Netanyahu crosses 48 hours later, which, by the way, I'm sure they knew about, and they knew it was going to happen. I just, the comms here is terrible. It's terrible. Anyways, that's my, stop playing defense, get off your heels, onto your toes. We need Saki back, Jen Saki, Saki bomb.

There you go. My win is, in my opinion, my best piece of media to date was One Day, and it's been bested by Baby Reindeer. Have you seen this? Yeah, I'm not going to, but I'll tell you why, but go ahead. Oh, my gosh, it's powerful. Is it? I don't want to. It seems disturbing.

You know, sometimes it's the first program in a long time I had to turn off because I couldn't handle it. And I went back to it. It is powerful. It's about a comedian. It's starring the guy who was a comedian, a guy named Richard Gabb. And it's adapted from his autobiographical one-man show. And it stars Jessica Gunning. It's about stalking.

Stalker. And first off, she is amazing. He plays a bartender who has some empathy for someone. This woman ends up stalking him. It brings up issues of stalking, male rape, all kinds of abuse, insecurity, the things you'll do to try and get ahead professionally. Oh, Scott, why are you watching this? Oh, it is really powerful. And here's the thing.

This piece of media- It's a big hit. This piece of media is gonna do a lot of good because all the things it brings up, subjecting your own morals for professional advancement, letting people take advantage of you sexually under the auspices of professional advancement, letting people take advantage of you sexually under the auspices of professional advancement, rape. All of these things are usually talked about openly and honestly through the lens of the

woman as a victim. Men still aren't comfortable talking about it as them as the victims. Oh, okay. And this guy, this piece of work is going to make it much easier for men who have been subjects of sexual violence and are subject... It's a huge hit. People love it. People are talking about it. It is so well done. And the thing I love about it, there's no fucking CGI, there's no dragons, there's no men in tights with capes. It is a very raw and authentic story about a young man. And even though it's also about love.

This has impacted you. This guy's ex-girlfriend, he lives with his ex-girlfriend's mother who gets a lot of comfort from him. And a woman is played by Nina Sanyana. I think I'm saying it right. Sazania. Yeah, it's not well-known people.

It's all these not well-known people. And then this woman, Shalom Broome Franklin, who must be the most beautiful woman in the world, plays his ex-girlfriend, and they both rally around. This is such a powerful piece of media. I think it's going to be very meaningful for a lot of young men. Okay. I may try to. I don't know, Scott. I don't know. And not only that. I'll tell you. Hold on. Hold on. Go ahead. The healthiest relationship in the whole thing and the most impressive person in it is a trans woman played by this actress, Neva Mao. And I love the fact that the focus wasn't on the fact that she was trans. The focus was on just how impressive she is. It's a very important piece of media. I think you should watch it. I love. And third season is getting kudos all over the place, and it's worth it with Jean Smart. And I think it's one of my favorite shows

about recovering your career and controlling yourself, and I just love that. And third season is getting, like, crazy kudos. It's really into its own. But the one I watched is The Idea of You with Anne Hathaway, having sex with a younger man. I'll watch it. The 24-year-old boy band.

You had me at Anne Hathaway having sex. I didn't hear the last part. Yeah, she plays a 40-year-old woman who has an affair with a younger man. I'll watch it. The 24-year-old boy band. You had me at Anne Hathaway having sex. I didn't hear the last part. Yeah. She plays a 40-year-old woman who has an affair with a boy band, famous boy band person. And it is entirely satisfying

on every level. Good for her. And it's not cringey satisfying. It's actually, you're like, I am happy I watched that. It's like Lucky Charms

in many ways. Oh, good. I don't care if it's bad for you. It's good. What's it called? I haven't even heard of it. The Idea of You, Anne Hathaway. Anyway, watch it.

Anne Hathaway, and her clothes are spectacular. And she's really adorable. And it's great. And there's a lot of sex happening. So there you have it. I like it. I like all those things. Okay, good.

And he's a beautiful, this guy, Nicholas Gazeltine, Gazeltine or whatever. He's adorable. He's just adorable. I bet. Again. I bet. Yeah. So anyway, well.

Maybe he'll be a VP candidate someday. That's true. Baby Reindeer really is a huge hit. Everyone's Netflix, once again, shows what creativity those people are. They talk about creative. They're not just using tech to figure it out. They've got a good instinct. Anyway, good recommendations.

Also filmed in Edinburgh. Finally, the Scottish media industry is alive and well. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Just FYI, coming up on our other podcast this week on On with Kara Swisher, I've got Walt Mossberg and Marques Brownlee. Yes, together. Also known as MKBHD, the two most influential tech reviewers of the past 30 plus years.

Brownlee is like Walt. Like, it's great. And they never met each other. So I made them meet and talk about products and reviewing and things like that. And Scott's Prof G's Market Pod has expanded to its own feed. Starting next Monday on May 20th, you'll get two new episodes a week, all focused on what's moving the financial markets, which is great. Any thoughts on that you want to add? No, very excited. My co-host Ed Elson is this 25-year-old nice kid, and we just talk about the markets.

It's meant to educate. Yeah. It's great. It's a great show. So we're very excited about that. Okay, we'll be back on Friday with more. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Enchitad engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Emil Severio, and Nishat Krua, who's Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nrmag.com slash pod.

We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Baby reindeer. Trust me.