Pivot - Bob Iger’s Rough Ride, Record-Breaking Heat Waves and Guest Ashlee Vance

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Kara and Scott discuss Tesla’s Cybertruck, Tucker Carlson’s new media company, and a drop in Threads engagement. Also, Bob One’s contract has been extended after a rough first year, and SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher has him in her crosshairs. Plus, Earth is experiencing its hottest days on record. What does that mean for politics and infrastructure? Then we’re joined by Friend of Pivot Ashlee Vance to talk all things space and Elon Musk. You can find Ashlee on Twitter at @ashleevance and can buy his book here. We’ve got some more listener mail episodes coming your way soon, so send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to 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. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hey, Drew, can you bring me my hat? I think I'd look really like a baller in that hat. You're just jealous of my hat.

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, and I'm wearing pink tonight because I'm going to the Barbie premiere. Yeah, and I'm Scott Galloway. Are you excited about that? Well, you know, it's interesting because I'm about to interview Fran Drescher, who is the head of SEG. But I kind of feel, should we be watching this stuff? But there'll be no celebrities there, which is fine. It's just a question of, should we be supporting anybody not watching content? Do they want us to watch content? So I will ask her that question.

Obviously, there won't be any of the Barbie stars at this Washington premiere, but it'll be fun. You know why there isn't a pregnant Barbie doll? Why? Because Ken came in another box. Oh, God, that's terrible. Oh, my God. That's terrible. I've never heard that joke.

Where did you get that from? What does Barbie do on Halloween? Oh, God, dirty Barbie jokes. My daughter better not listen to this show. Thank God she's just three. What, what, what? Pump Ken. Pump Ken.

Where did you get these? I'mkin. Where did you get these? I'm sorry. Where did you get filthy Barbie jokes? Why do you have them in your head? Now you've ruined it for me. The correct question is, where did you get those edibles? And did I mention I'm an Aspen? Oh, that's right.

How's Aspen? How is Aspen? On your latest, The Vacations of Scott Galloway. First, we started, where did we start? Edisa. That's right. How's Aspen? How is Aspen? On your latest, The Vacations of Scott Galloway. First, we started, where did we start? Ibiza. That's right. And Greece. Yeah, I'm here in Aspen.

Okay, are you hiking? I'm still freaked out about how profane my Barbie joke was. We must leave them in. Let me just say, do you go hiking? Why Aspen? Do you go hiking? Why Aspen? We love it here. The thing we like most about it is the boys can just barrel into town and meet a bunch of other teens, and they're happy. You know, when you get to this point where you have 12 and 15-year-old boys, it's really all about are they having a good time?

Because if they're not, no one's going to have a good time. Yeah, that's true. And also, it's spectacularly beautiful here. It is in the summer. I love the state of Colorado. I love ski resorts in the summer. And, yeah, it's just wonderful. And then Drew, our tech genius, and MJ, my chief of staff, have set up a studio and an apartment here, which I'm sure isn't costing more than $17,000 a day. Right.

Okay. We're all set. A bargain. Good. Well, this is great. This is great. Right. Okay. We're all set.

A bargain. Good. Well, this is great. This is great. I'm glad we have you just for the next half of July before you go off on your next vacation, wherever that happens to be. Probably there, right? Are you staying there through the summer? Are you somewhere else? You know, they do make a divorce Barbie now. Do they? She comes with all of Ken's stuff. That's good. That's not good. What should I dress? Seriously, what should I dress as? I do not wear pink. Should I wear like a Ken shirt?

Oh, you should. Oh, my God. You should so go as Ken. I'm going to go as Ken. You should so go as Ken. I'm going to go as Ken. Don't you think? Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda has this dress that's like, I don't know what to say about it. It's like a flower basket. It's like a fruit basket. It's crazy. It's got a lot of ruffles. There's a lot of ruffles happening. I didn't know what to do. I was like, you know, she put it on and I was like, okay, like that. I literally-

She's going to hear this, of course. I have so many good jokes for you. Why did Barbie break up with Ken, Carol? Why? Why? Because he kept toying with her emotions. Oh my God. There are apparently some sex jokes between them in this movie. So I'll report back. I would hope so. Those two on screen together? I know. They're very sexy.

Apparently it's very innocent, but also a lot of like, why do you want to stay over? What are we going to do? I'm also going to see Oppenheimer on Wednesday. I can't wait to see that. I'm going to be really curious what you think about it.

Well, I'm going to see Barbenheimer this week. That's the whole thing. The two together. That's the joke. It's a big meme. It's a meme. Barbie and Oppenheimer together. And we'll see how they do. Mission Impossible did okay. It made $80 million, which they were hoping for $90 and even more. But I mean, it's not embarrassing by any stretch of the imagination, but the people were a little disappointed. So we'll see how these two do in terms of Hollywood. And it's, of course, in a lot of trouble. We'll talk about a lot of things like this, including Bob Iger's rough year. He said some things the actors did not like. The actors

strike, of course. And we are in uncharted territory with the hottest weather on record. What does that mean for society, politics, and infrastructure? Plus, our friend of Pivot today is Ashley Vance. He's written a bestselling biography of Elon Musk and has a new book out about space, which again, will probably be a lot about Elon Musk. Anyway, speaking of which, Tesla's first Cybertruck is rolling off the assembly line today, four years after the promise. It revealed the prototype in 2019, pre-pandemic. They thought it was going to start working in 2021. Now it's 2023. Ford, of course, at the same time is cutting prices of the electric Ford 150 by roughly $10,000. It's a $90,000 car, so that's quite a bit.

We'll see what happens. It looks different from all the others. Rivian and Ford all look like what a truck looks like. That thing looks like a battle stations kind of thing. I don't know. Do you have any thoughts? I think this is really important, and I hope that the Cybertruck and Rivian and the F-150 are all really successful, and there's huge competition. I think it's called the Lightning, but go ahead, yeah.

I hope there's huge competition, huge scale, because if you think about, and it relates to our climate change discussion, the two big puffs of carbon into the atmosphere were, one, the suburbanization of America and basically our opting for cars or integrating cars into our lives. And then two, the industrialization of China and their choice to fuel that industrialization with coal. And America's fascination or obsession with car has morphed into a fascination or obsession with trucks. So if you're really going to try and electrify the auto industry and reduce carbon emissions from automobiles, you got to have electric trucks. So I hope, I think the Cybertruck is really, I got to give it to them. It's really differentiated, but to me it doesn't look, it looks so unusual. Would you have one? It's kind of in that Hummer territory. I mean,

Hummer did that and everyone like. I have a deposit on a Rivian and I thought you and I should auction it off and agree to take someone to lunch or something like that. You know what? I think the Rivian's a handsome car. I have seen it on the road. I think it looks great. I have seen it on the road. I have to say, I'm like, hmm. I saw one at Stanford the other day, and I was like, that is a handsome looking car.

I agree. The Cybertruck looks frigging ridiculous. It's only for men. I mean, honestly. It looks a little bit like an assault vehicle, no? Yeah, it's for men of a certain type, small penises, et cetera. I just don't like it. It looks very total recall. Yeah, I don't like it.

I get why he's doing it. I like, sure, sure. I would just, you know, I think probably most people will buy their Fords if they buy them at all. And it's going to be a real death match

for these things. I mean, obviously, everyone had supply chain issues. Elon was as far ahead with batteries, etc. But this is going to be one competitive area for sure. Speaking of new things, Tucker Carlson is creating a new media company has already

scored significant funding. He's doing with former White House advisor Neil Patel, they're looking at using Twitter as the backbone of the company. Good luck with that. They'd use a subscription based model, which would allow subscribers to view longer form videos from Carlson, eventually other hosts, you know, these two started the Daily Caller together, I think. The pair is aiming to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, already agreed to seven-figure ad deal with Public Square, a conservative-friendly shopping app. I mean, the MyPillow guy is probably not reliable anymore because he's doing so badly. He had to sell off parts of his pillow factory recently. Of course, Fox News has already argued that Tucker is breaking his contract by posting content on Twitter.

This is what we said. He's going to go into essentially podcasting is what he's doing. Yeah, I think they have real challenges. And I'm trying to put my bias aside here. But it is very difficult to raise money under the auspices of what looks to be a fairly legitimate lawsuit from a giant organization that is known for being deep resourced and mean. The upside has to be so enormous here. Capital doesn't like to go into an organization where they show up and there's already a huge threat that the whole thing may be shut down. Because my understanding of the lawsuit and the non-compete is that there's real teeth to this thing. And so when you raise money, you make a series of claims such that you're saying,

okay, the following things are true. Representations, excuse me. And one of those representations is, to the best of my knowledge, we're not under the threat of any litigation that would impair your investment. And if you, in fact, are under threat of a lawsuit and you didn't disclose it, you're in big trouble.

Now, they obviously have to disclose it because it's public, but anyone who invests in this is going to be making a quote-unquote political or social investment. And that is, the upside here just doesn't warrant the risk, in my view, because if you look at stars that have started companies, even like Oprah, I mean, Oprah's arguably the most powerful or was the most significant personality in media. If anyone could build a billion-dollar media enterprise that could create stakeholder value, it was Oprah, and she was unable to do it. And so, these things that are very personality-driven, and also, the other thing that

he's facing or that his investors should be thoughtful of is that guys like Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro, to a lesser extent, Jordan Peterson, because Jordan kind of started as an author and speaker. There's risk when they transfer mediums. And that is, Tucker Carlson is a great, he's a great host for cable news. Yeah. It's not entirely clear that he's going to be able to transfer to online podcasts and subscription video. Look, he's been on cable, right? He has shifted. I think he

did a podcast a long time ago, a radio show maybe. He's got a name. I just think Ben Shapiro, if I had to bet in a cage match, if I had, that's a cage match I would actually pay for. Ben Shapiro is a much more clever and entrepreneurial personality. I can't believe I'm complimenting him. But anyway, we'll see. We'll see. I think Fox is going to like strafe this guy and he's hindered and he's got to make interesting stuff

and attract interesting people. That's the thing. And if he's not quite the star, these people are so venal, they'll go wherever the money is and they'll go wherever the attention is. And that's the issue is if he can attract or create new stars,

I suppose that's interesting. And also relying on Twitter. Good luck, Tucker. I don't know what else you would do in this day and age. I might wander over to one of the other smaller networks,

but I don't know. I don't know. What would you do if you were him? Would you start it on Twitter? Tucker? Yeah. I would go kiss some makeup with Rupert Murdoch.

I mean, I don't know. It's really interesting. Right now, you're Tucker Carlson. Where would you go? I think he's- You're wearing a bow tie. Right.

I would probably- You're emanating a weird sexual energy we don't quite get. Go ahead. That's not fair. Go. That's a really good question. You know what? I wouldn't have picked Twitter.

I think a subscription model, I would have gone to, I guess it's the Daily Wire or to even Sam Harris's company and said, build me a subscription platform and I'll do the content. He has such a huge audience. It's not unusual to think he could get one or two million people to pay $100 a year for his content. Yeah, Substack or something. Yeah, I wouldn't do Twitter. I think so. He's a huge talent. He's still young. Yeah, I wouldn't do Twitter. I think so. He's a huge talent. He's still young.

Yeah. And he has a huge following. By the way, a Cuban, a Canadian, and a white supremacist walk into a bar. What does the bartender say? What?

Senator Cruz, what would you like? That's good. That's good. That makes up for my Cruz Barbie jokes. Maybe he could be a star on the Tucker Twitter network. TT.

I'm sure he'll be there. TT and TT. I'm sure he'll be there. TT and TT. I'm sure he'll be there. I would also. I would bear hug the shit. I would cut a deal. You know who I would cut a deal with? I'd cut a deal with TikTok.

Yeah, I would agree with you on that. Also, how's Instagram Threads doing? Daily actor users were down 20% from the peak. This is not abnormal. Usage has dropped more than half from 20 minutes. These are some different reports. They got to put in more features, which they say they're doing. I still think it's great. I like it. I'm using less social media in general, but I'm not using Twitter almost at all, except to

promote our crap. I'm not returning to Twitter, for sure. I love threads, first and foremost, because I have more followers than Kara Swisher right now. You do. You actually do. Let me look. I love that you know. I love that you know. I do know. I was like, fuck. I'm ahead of you. I said that to a man last night. I'm ahead of you.

Fuck. Or maybe I said it to Alex. By the way, speaking of beefs in our partnership, Face the Nation is supposed to have both of us on. Yeah. And the producer basically elegantly like elbowed me off the stage so just you could be on. She's like- Really? Yeah. She said, well- I didn't know that. I was like like where's scott when i got there i was like no no they basically margaret uh random was like they they politely said we're here we're here i mean you're you're

staying and i'm andy summers and they're like well if we if we can just but she like the nicest way possible she said well if you can can't be in the office. And I know you're in Aspen and you're vacationing. And I'm like, you don't want me on this show. I'll be fine. Carol will be great. Oh, my God. I was looking for you.

I was like, where's my Scott? Where's my Scott? Well, you can be sure. You have 83K, 84K almost. And I have 71K. You're right. Everybody sign up for Kara immediately. So this does not stand.

Yeah, but the interesting thing about threads is, first off, the honeymoon's over or the kind of the burst is over. They're going to have to continue to innovate. But the issue is with 3 billion people to A-B test on and do test innovation, they can just – every cool thing they do, they'll get another five or 10 million people. Yeah, I agree. And so I have a lot of hope for this thing. And the other thing I've noticed, a few things I have noticed about it, one, some observations. You discover more about Twitter when you have something to contrast it with. And the real shift in Twitter is that all of the top comments or the comments at the top of your feed, which are the ones you read and you turned off comments, which I'm about to do, is all these 70 and 80 follower blue check people who may be people or not. And just quite frankly, the quality of their content and the responses, even their

negative responses, just isn't that compelling. So this whole blue check thing has basically been an enormous degradation in the quality of the content. The other thing I've noticed about threads is relative to my follower count, I have 38 times the engagement. So even with just- Great engagement. Interesting. It's the old Twitter engagement is what it is. That's right. Even with just 80,000 followers, which is substantially more than Kara Swisher, but still with 80,000- Just 10,000. Everybody get in there. I will regularly get 1,000 or 2,000 likes and regularly get a couple hundred comments. And quite frankly, 90% of the comments are value-add, whereas I would say it's kind of 20% to 30%.

Twitter still has some great people on it. There's still something very raw and authentic about Twitter. But the ratio of what you'd call more thoughtful comments where someone isn't trying to be a jerk or just whatever it is. The engagement is just much more positive right now. 100%. I mean, like I've just posted, all my kids were home this weekend. We did a lot of dinners and stuff like 1,622 likes, 52 replies, all great comments, interesting questions, things like that. It's so pleasurable in that regard. There's a lot of weird little ads now and then, a lot of bots, but

not that bad, not worse than Instagram. And I like what you're doing on it. I have to say, I'm tweeting at everything because you're funny. I think you're real clever on this. Not clever enough for Face the Nation. Apparently not. I literally asked where was he? And I said, did he fucking ghost

me, that asshole? I was going to write you. I was like, did he fucking ghost me, that asshole? I was going to write you. I was like, are you ghosting me? No, the producers decided you're much hotter than me. I was like, Diller was on. Barry Diller was on before me, but I didn't talk to him. And then I was on by myself with Margaret. You're right.

But seriously. Yeah, and your segment, you know, I love metrics. Your segment's got more views on YouTube than like the Secretary of State and that super smart guy who's the talking. She's a smarty. Margaret is a smarty. Oh, I love Margaret. I love that show. By the way, I watch Sunday. CBS Sunday Morning is really good too. Anyway, we got to go. We got to go. I'm sorry you weren't there. I totally thought you ghosted me. Okay, let's get to our first big story. It's very multifaceted, this first big story, everybody. Bob Iger's on a rough ride. Well, Disney CEO has just extended his contract

until December 2026. No surprise to us. His first year back in the corner office hasn't been fun-filled. He came out of retirement last year to retake his CEO job after the replacement he selected himself, Bob II. Bob Chapik got the company into trouble

with his response for Florida's Don't Say Gay bill and problems with talent and executive. Since Bob I came back, Disney stock is down 4%, not that bad, but Pixar's Elemental flopped, adjusted for inflation and had the animation studio's worst domestic opening ever with $29 million, although it's doing very well globally. Disney's direct consumer streaming services have lost $10 billion since 2019. Now, Bob One did start this and quite correctly started it, but it's expensive like everybody else's. He did sit down with an interview with CNBC just before the Screen Actors Guild joined the writers on Strike. There's a level of expectation that they have that is just

not realistic. And they are adding to a set of challenges that this business is already facing that is quite frankly, very disruptive. So they're not being realistic? No, they're not. Okay. That's very pugnacious. Didn't you think, Scott? That was pugnacious.

Anyway, SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher called his comments repugnant and criticized Hollywood executive compensation during her viral speech announcing the strike. Let's listen to that clip. We're not going to keep doing incremental changes on a contract that no longer honors what is happening right now with this business model that was foisted upon us. What are we doing? Moving around furniture on the Titanic?

Ah, she's something else. That was some press conference she had. I'm interviewing her tomorrow on with Kara Swisher, and I'm very excited to talk to her, although I'm going to limit her to three. The jig is up, which is her tagline for this. What do we think, Scott? Let's have some commentary from you. I think Fran Drescher's great. I think she struck this really great sort of indignant. I mean, her talk was really powerful.

It was. I think Bob is absolutely right, but he should have kept his thoughts to himself. A guy wearing cashmere sweaters and vacationing in Saint-Tropez who's making that kind of money should say nothing other than we value our writers and hope we can figure this out. There's two realities here. These companies are dramatically less powerful, but when you have people as talented as Bob Iger and David Zaslav, who vacation and golf with their board members, they figure out a way to pay themselves a lot of money. And by the way, that is true in every industry. The CEO of Monsanto just got paid $400 million. So the income inequality, and I think this is a key point. I think the real

issue here is not actors and writers versus studios. It's income inequality within these sectors. And I believe that there should be a right to organize, a right to free assembly. I appreciate what the writers are trying to do. The timing here is just awful for them. It's just awful. And I think the real issue they should be focused on is partnering with the studios to put IP protection around your digital twin, or what I'm calling your digital twin, your likeness, your voice, your IP, and start filing suits everywhere against these LLMs until you come up with a licensing model and some sort of split.

Which is actually what Barry Diller mentioned on the show. Is that right? Yeah, he owns Meredith. And yeah, one of the things, the concern that Drescher had, as you pointed out quite a bit, is AI. There's an idea being floated by, I think, the studios that background actors could be paid for one day of work and replaced with digital doubles then. Not sure they're going to be able to fight this one.

That's been happening with models. In the modeling industry, it's now they own your stills and they can use them again. And they can create a new catalog and pay you once. And the reason why, and this is what they don't talk about. The reason why upfront payments have actually grown for actors and writers is because they no longer get residuals. And so their agents have been able to, if my understanding is, get more money upfront, but you don't get these stories of Seinfeld making $200 million on the back end. And I did just a tiny bit of analysis yesterday, and that is everyone is talking about how much money these guys make, right?

Zaslav, Iger. I looked at the 10 most highest paid actors from last year. And what's fascinating is if you add up the 10 highest paid CEOs in media, it comes up to about $400 million last year. If you add up the 10 highest paid actors, it comes up to about $400 million last year. If you add up to 10 highest paid actors, it comes up to about $370 million. The top earners in front of the camera make almost exactly the same amount as the top earners behind the camera. So, look, at the end of the day, they have a right to organize. They have a right to make demands. But it's a very emotional argument

that, quite frankly, doesn't advance the argument. It may not. I think the core economic issue is that their demand of, let me read this, 2% of the revenue guaranteed generated by streamers with an outside audit to ensure transparency. This was in an article about it. So, they want some of the piece of the streaming pie, and they feel like, you know, for example, there was a good story about Orange is the New Black. It made a ton of money and a ton of stock growth for Netflix, one of their most important shows, hundreds of millions of looks. And they got paid, like most of the smaller actors on it got paid nothing and they don't get residuals. And there was one that went viral where this woman made $27 versus what she used to make

with residuals where it would appear everywhere else. But residuals don't count here in the streaming world. I mean, there's a couple of things here. Netflix paid more in residuals last year than they've ever paid, first off. So some of that's true, some of it isn't. What's interesting here is that this entire strike

is an enormous gift to two organizations. First and foremost, Netflix, who the majority of their production is still humming along because of international and because of production that doesn't involve union workers. And they're going to come out of this stronger. And dox in reality. Find a subscriber who can point to the damage that Strike has done as a reason for them canceling their Netflix subscription. And what's interesting is, you know, and then the other big winner here, oh my God, TikTok. TikTok doesn't have any of these problems. And the younger generation who the advertisers love, who no longer have original scripted TV series coming out in fall, you can bet that instead of watching Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen

Colbert, people before they go to sleep at night are finding new habits and they're not going to return. In addition, the guys like Disney with ad-supported cable programming that's been shut down and have no upfronts are never going to recover. And who is going to just run away? So his argument that they're not being realistic, we're in a pinch. He's saying Bob Iger said that exactly. And what people don't talk about is the stakeholder here that is driving all of this is, at the end of the day, consumers have moved to streaming. But basically, shareholders have decided that a Netflix model of growth over profits is preferable and has given Netflix a level of capital that no one else can match. So if you had to pick of the things that Van Drescher should be concerned about? Would it be AI or the residuals?

I would say the residuals, you know, the streaming profits, getting part, there is, there are no streaming profits, but the piece of the streaming pie. The actors joining with the writers, that solidarity is really important. That just, that just made their hand much stronger. To the extent that they can get, wreak out whatever economics sort of tactically, I don't understand the dynamics and the leverage there. So obviously that's important. But the more important thing

is they should be sitting down with the studios and saying, we're going to present a unified joint force across the entire industry. And we are immediately going to file suit against Microsoft, against OpenAI, against anyone with an LLM that has clearly crawling our content. And we're going to come, the important deal-

So it's not their content, it's studios, you mean studios content, right? Yeah, but that's my point. My point is I should say to the studios, we need to present a united front here. And where the real money might be is that if the world doesn't, if the world moved to streaming and we miss that, now it's going to move to AI. Anytime my work informs an LLM, you, the studio, need to be compensated and so do I. That's the negotiation that needs to happen here. Interesting. Speaking of old things, Iger suggested that he was going to be

open to selling off TV assets, including ABC and FX. He essentially put it up for sale. Of course, he's overseen thousands of layoffs, 7,000 layoffs, cutting costs. He was a big buyer. He used to be a big—he bought Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, selling off ABC. It makes sense to me. For as much as we like Bob, one of the biggest fuck-ups in business and media over the last several years was massively overpaying for Fox, taking on all that debt. Yep. Having to play, and he doesn't have any choice here, but keep up with the Joneses and chase Netflix down this interminable spend.

And also, quite frankly, no succession plan. And just as in my view, Biden shouldn't run again. I don't think Bob Iger should have come back. I think that was crazy for him to come back. And they have the same problem. There's no obvious successor. But he absolutely, the only thing these guys can say when you make this kind of money is I hope the strike comes to an end and we want people to have dignity. Yeah, I was surprised he said that.

That was really tone deaf. That was not. Really tone deaf. It was not like him. I was like, what are you, David Zasloff? What would you, you're saying, what you're saying right now is we love our talent. We want to come to an agreement. This is a complicated time.

Let's figure it out together. 100%. That's the exact narrative. And then quite frankly, they'd probably go into the negotiation room and just say, no. Fuck, yeah. And eventually, both the writers and the actors and the studios. But what's really interesting here is on one side of the table, you have people with different agendas. Netflix wants this to go on, Disney and NBCUniversal

don't. So, how do they even agree amongst the studio side? Yeah, they haven't, apparently, according to Fran, they haven't, she went in in earnest and they did not, they were not cooperative. They have all kinds of zany things. They're either not talking to them or they're just saying stupid things like, we get your, you know, we greater the structural shift downward for ad-supported television. Late-night TV is not coming back. It's been long enough now that people are going to find other habits to replace that 60 or 90 minutes late night before they went to sleep. They're going to lose. This industry is going to be smaller. It's going to be smaller.

Let me ask you a question. That's a really interesting thing. Because one of the things that I was reading this thing called Laney Goss up this site, and I thought this was interesting. They want to turn screenwriting into Uber and acting into DoorDash. The end goal is for Hollywood to become a strict gig economy where labor is reduced to on-demand services for pennies, yet corporations and the men who run them get even richer as everyone else starves around them. Well, and we made the same argument when Darius Kastrashahi makes tens of millions of dollars to implement software that skirts minimum wage laws. And I've been, I think, fairly consistent on this.

I think minimum wage should be $25 an hour. I think anyone who works should have dignity and be able to live above the poverty line. Above that, quite frankly, I believe in the right to organize, but I think most labor should be supply and demand. And, I mean, the emotional arguments they're making, I get it. Good luck to you. Try and find leverage. I appreciate what they're doing. Yeah, leverage emotional arguments they're making, I get it. Good luck to you. Try and find leverage. I appreciate what they're doing. Yeah, leverage is what we're talking about.

Listen, Scott and I are on the side of creators, obviously, but you got to have leverage. That's our whole worry here. I bet 90% plus of America is subject to supply and demand. They are. The way the majority of America works in terms of labor. Yes, but these are people that can write and act, so they can articulate better than a hot dog maker. And a teacher can teach and a nurse can take care of a senior. I get it.

I'm just saying they're more articulate. I get that they believe that they're very special in terms of their role in the universe. Okay. I'm just saying they just happen to be more articulate. That's all. But as Dave Letterman said back in 2008 when there was the last strike, cowards cut throats and weasels since 1982. You should go watch that clip. He does it very funny. I want Fran Drescher to represent the teachers union.

She's certainly very, speaking of articulate, she's good. She's very good. She's very good. She must be driving them crazy. She's very good. Scott, and I love the nanny. Who didn't love the nanny? I thought, a great program. Yeah. She's very good. She must be driving them crazy. She's very good. Scott, let's, and I love the nanny. Who didn't love the nanny? I thought, a great program. Yeah.

She's great. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the latest scorching temperatures and what they mean for infrastructure. And we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Ashley Vance, about how the new Wild West is in space. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter.

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we're in the middle of a historic heat wave. Same thing in China. Cities across the country also experienced record high temperatures. Heavy rains. Meanwhile, pummeled the Northeast this weekend. Near Philadelphia, five people died in a flash flood. Obviously, what happened in Vermont last week, similar thing. Climate change has even increased plane turbulence. Last year, the U.S. directed $369 billion toward addressing climate change. It's clearly not enough. Meanwhile, we have to learn to live with the effects of climate change. In 2022, disasters forced 3.3 million Americans to leave their homes.

Architects are working on building disaster-proof houses. What thinks you? Well, I think a reverse engineer says some very big issues. And that is, okay, we can attack the tumor, which is short-term, you know, try to figure out, all right out more electric vehicles, moving away from coal. But the cancer here is a couple of things. And that is one, we have just too many

really fucking old men running the world. And I do believe that if you're in your 80s or your 70s, you're an autocrat, it's just very tempting to figure out a way to keep the populace happy in the short run. And the long-term investments that aren't going to be registered, the gains, because you're going to be dead, creates a leadership globally that gives a lot of face time or illusory concern around these long-term issues. But if you want to prevent a tragedy of the commons over the medium and the long-term, you need more younger people in office who actually want to spend time with their kids and grandkids. Because when you have all these old men running the world, do they really? I mean, quite frankly, I just don't,

I don't think they feel the same sense of urgency. They don't. I know my kids certainly do. And also, I reverse engineer this to a lack of opportunity for young men, because one of the first indicators of when a young man comes off the rails through a lack of opportunity for young men, because one of the first indicators of when a young man comes off the rails through a lack of a male role model or lack of economic opportunity or a lack of mating opportunities, they become really shitty citizens. And specifically, they become less, much less likely to believe in climate change. So, I mean, really old men who don't, quite frankly, the long term has no meaning for them. They don't even buy green bananas anymore.

And two, the average age of the U.S. leadership is 63 years old. That's the average age. And two, we're creating a younger generation of angry men who, for some reason, have decided that the Republican Party have created a wedge where they say, these people trying to take away your jobs and build renewables are your enemy. And it happens to young men who have no economic opportunity. Yeah. And then there is opportunity here. Let's be clear. There's a lot of economic opportunity in fixing the problem. Of course, there's challenges to infrastructure, which take months or years to repair. Although something breaks, government can fix it quickly. Last month, Pennsylvania fixed the I-95 overpass in 12 days after a gasoline truck crash caused, of course it's a gasoline truck, caused it to collapse.

You know, there's going to be enormous opportunities and challenges at the same time, but it's very clearly it's going to economically affect. Look at Vermont. I mean, I happen to have been there the week before and in the places that were flooded. And I mean, think about the entire summer is gone for them. The tourism is gone for them. Every time one of cheaper. Obviously, China's suffering the same problems. So is Europe. So is all over the globe. John Kerry's in Beijing for three days of climate change talks. I think he's our czar, I guess. They've been off and on again for years. Kerry has repeatedly cautioned China against using climate change as a geostrategic weapon.

But they're in the same boat we are. We're all in the same boat, hot and sweaty boat and rained upon waterlogged boat. You know, there's, of course, you have all kinds of activists like Greta Thunberg and others have been pushing on this topic. We have scientists screaming with very few of our leaders talking about it. That to me is really, the scientists are screaming. I literally feel like I'm in that movie, The Day After Tomorrow, where it's like, uh-oh, we better get our snowshoes out and you can't trust them, that they were wrong about X, Y, and Z, and they want to take your jobs. And it's becoming a very effective talking point for the far right. And there's very few things when you think about global cooperation. I mean, you can talk about nuclear weapons or bioweapons, trade agreements, but it does

strike me that everybody has a pretty strong vested interest in this. The problem is, we have all of a sudden decided to be very concerned about the environment after registering the greatest economic gains in history through the greatest economic arbitrage in history, and that is fossil fuels. And now that other countries are growing their population and learning how to leverage fossil fuels, we've decided that we don't want to do it anymore. Right, right.

So they have to suffer from that and the effects of climate change more than others. They don't get the cocaine and champagne that we experience. The greatest economic arbitrage in history was fossil fuels. You can't build a hospital without massive amounts of fossil fuels. You can't build a hospital without massive amounts of fossil fuels. And we've registered just enormous prosperity from that conversion. And now, all of a sudden, we're getting very purist about it. So, I don't like this notion that technology

is going to change everything and renewables will create more jobs. I think we have to come to grips with the fact this is going to be really expensive. And also, I'd like to think that the G7, that their biggest, you know, the arms treaty to end all arms treaty should be we're all going to, you know, 2% a year reduce carbon emissions. IMF to support or ensure that developing nations have some economic incentive to try and go a different route, recognizing that they have a very legitimate argument that, okay, boss, you have decided to pull up your pants, but I want to have a good time. This is the existential crisis that should catalyze cross-border cooperation. Because as individuals, what happens is more atomized. Every nation just goes, why am I going to pay this much when I'm 1% of it? Right.

So, we're going to see these global disasters over and over again. And the problem with human beings is they get used to these things. They're like, oh, yeah, flood. Oh, yeah, this. And the cost is going to be enormous. And people are rebuilding again in some of these Florida cities that got decimated and are going to get decimated again. By the way, nature is going to settle all of this for us. So as long as we keep abusing Mother Nature.

Anyway, we got to move on. This is really, this is going to be the biggest economic story of the next decade. This is it. This is the big, I mean, you think streaming is expensive? Guess what? Climate change is a much higher bill and the one that we're going to have to pay whether we like it or not, or live with fewer people on the planet. Anyway, let's move on to our friend of Pivot. Ashley Vance is a reporter for Bloomberg who has also written five number one New York Times bestsellers, including a biography of Elon Musk. His latest book is called When the Heavens Went on Sail, The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach.

Welcome, Ashley. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I thought we've been to space, but let's talk about it. We usually talk about the current space race in terms of Elon, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson. You say in this book is about the wild west of space. Can you tell us what you mean by that? Yeah. I mean, out of all the billionaires that got into space, Elon and SpaceX have done the best. Branson's companies are kind of fading away. And Blue Origin's been a little bit stuck. But if you look a little further out, there are hundreds of rocket startups, satellite startups

all over the world. My main argument in the book is that we spent a lot of time talking about Mars and the moon and these things that are kind of far away. But the real action, all the money so far has been poured into building this, I call it a computing shell in low Earth orbit full of thousands and thousands of satellites. All the satellites, yeah. Right. There's been false starts on some of this stuff, but now it's happening for real. And so I spent the last five years going all around the world, trying to find the most interesting characters, some of them successful, some less successful, but just the ones trying to make all this happen. So talk about who they are, because people, we will ask you about space tourism and Mars,

because it dominates the headlines, but they also try to dominate the headlines. I don't want to just blame it on media. These are loudmouth people. Talk about some of the other characters that are working on commercial space that we don't hear from. Yeah, the two biggest, most successful ones would be a company called Planet Labs. Its CEO is Will Marshall. You know, just like SpaceX really did help pull the price of rockets down, Planet Labs made this huge revolution in satellites. Instead of making billion-dollar satellites that take years and years to build and are supposed to sit up there for 20 years, they made more or less

disposable shoebox-sized satellites. And theirs are imaging satellites, and they've put up hundreds of them already. They surround the Earth. They take a photo of every spot on the Earth's landmass every day, usually 12 to 16 photos. The interesting thing about them is that, you know, not even a government can do this today. The US, China, Russia, they have like a handful of spy satellites that have to look at specific places. And so, and the other argument I would make is that planet, this is the first time we got like Moore's law into space. So instead of using all this old, what they call space grade electronics, they used consumer electronics. So big revolution. And the second one I would call

out, even though there's more in the book, is Rocket Lab and the CEO of that company, Peter Beck. They're from New Zealand. And after SpaceX, they are the only commercial rocket player that flies to space all the time. They're sort of like not a household name, but they've flown about 40 times. And New Zealand was not a space-faring nation before. Peter Beck didn't even go to college. He's like a self-taught rocket engineer. So, you know, I just think they're representative of this huge change that's taking place. And then there's something like you write about Firefly.

Is that right? Yeah, there's another company in the book called Astra, which is trying to make the cheapest rocket ever. And they're still on this quest and have had some ups and downs. And then there's Firefly, which Kara, I thought this might be near and dear to your heart. This is the story we've all heard before of a Ukrainian OBGYN turnedware magnate who buys a bankrupt rocket maker in Texas, gets his rocket on the pad, and then the U.S. government throws him out of the country after he's put $250 million into the company. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And where is he now? Where is he operating at? Well, they forced him to sell Firefly. This is before the Ukraine war broke out on the supposition that he might one day become a Russian asset. And having his paws on this aerospace technology was dangerous. He subsequently funded a large part of the Ukraine offensive against the Russians. And

he's in Scotland now. So he used to live in Silicon Valley. Now he's moved his whole family to Scotland. All right, Scott. Ashley he used to live in Silicon Valley. Now he's moved his whole family to Scotland. All right, Scott. Ashley, nice to meet you. Likewise. So if you think of space, I think of space as trifurcating into three separate industries,

space tourism, space exploration, and space hauling. And that might not be the right way to look at it, but I think of those, we have a tendency to call stuff space, which would be like calling something manufacturing. So of those three businesses, tourism, exploration, and hauling, can you give us a bit of a rundown on what you think the prospects are for each of those three? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, hauling, I might not use that word, but I think I get where you're going. I mean, I think that's where the business is right now. So we are putting satellites into space. Exactly. So, you know, we, from 1960 to

2020, we'd put about 2,500 satellites into low earth orbit. That number in just the last three years has gone up to 10,000. So we had been on this very gradual curve. It's now exponential. And it's going to keep growing, right? It's supposed to go to a hundred thousand by the end of the decade. So that, you know, this again is where the money is And it's going to keep growing, right? It's supposed to go to 100,000 by the end of the decade. So that, you know, this again is where the money is. And it's not just satellites now. So this year, just a couple months ago, we saw the first factory, you might call it, go into space. This company, Varda, a startup in L.A., is making pharmaceuticals, really, in low Earth orbit. So gravity tends to sort of have some effects on the molecules you can make here on

Earth that can be cleaner and arranged different in space. All this stuff like asteroid moiting that I thought was a total joke and would never ever happen, same thing. There's a startup called Astroforge. They set up their first test system to try and burn some metals up in space and see what it looks like. And so this industry, satellites industry, this is all happening in low Earth orbit. The space tourism stuff, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have had these like fits and starts with their kind of six minute ride to space, which is still expensive. You're only in space for a couple minutes. SpaceX is coming in with these private astronauts. It's many, many, many millions of couple minutes. SpaceX is coming in with these private astronauts.

It's many, many, many millions of dollars. But SpaceX is much better at actually flying people. You get to spend days up in space. Tom Cruise is going to go up there to film a movie on the ISS. You know, I still don't think. So it's happening, but I don't think this is accessible to mortals. It's a limited clientele. Exactly.

And I don't see that really changing that much. You know, Virgin is having serious problems. Blue Origin will make it because of Jeff Bezos. But how many people get to do that is a real question. Will that ever come down in price? It'll eventually, presumably, come down. Maybe not. It's supposed to be the idea.

I mean, Virgin was supposed to do it for about $250,000 a pop. They've just been at it for a really long time. Their whole business model is shot because they've raised so much money over all these years it would take them,

you know. Well, Ash, let me double click on that. I'll put forward a piece. I think Virgin Galactic is at zero within a year. I think space tourism makes absolutely

fucking no sense. It's both supply constrained and demand constrained. It is the most ridiculous business ever. Your thoughts? Well, no, I mean, it's like the Virgin's business, they've raised so much money, they're in a horrible position at the moment. And I agree, like for that six minutes, it's a six minute journey, but you're kind of weightless for two. I mean, how many people want to risk their life and all this money for that? I don't know. It seems small to me. And so, you know, if you're

going to get on the longer rides, I mean, a SpaceX launch is still $60 million for those big rockets. So we've got a long way to go before this is- Long way to go. And then the space exploration part that you talked about. Yeah. I mean, all that part is getting really exciting because the price of rocket launches has come down and there's a lot more rockets now. And so if you're a scientist or you're a researcher, you used to have to pony up $300 million just to get a flight before missions to Venus with probes. And so we're going to see way more science. And yeah, it's an incredible time. So obviously, the James Webb telescope is out there. That's a government thing. What does it mean for the US government space? I wrote about this a couple of years ago as a private industry rather than a national one. Or do you not think that? I mean,

all the governments have pulled back because of costs and what they get out of it, essentially, except for China. Talk about that. What does it mean? I had said, well, this is what it is, and good or bad, we have essentially given up, essentially, and made it into a private industry. That could be a good thing, of course. I sort of think it's inevitable. I argue in the book, if you go back to the 1920s, if you'll indulge me for a second, you know, we had rocket pioneers in the US, Russia and Germany, they were funded by individuals, the same people that used to pay money for huge telescopes and stuff as like a sign of your wealth. You wealth. It was really the World War II that turned this into this nation state thing where it was the pride of your country and it was part of the Cold

War. And so I kind of think we're going back to the way this might have been if that had not happened. I think that is probably good because man, space had gotten kind of boring and slow and was not changing at all for like 50 years. We're not talking about sort of a recent development. And if you were like a young kid, you had to go work at Lockheed or Boeing, and it just wasn't the most exciting idea. And now we're sort of at this time where the business cases on some of this stuff are highly questionable, but we are going to try a lot of things out to see what works. I think if you're a patriotic American, I'm not like a huge nationalist, but if you are, you know, the U.S. went from almost being falling way behind and China was going to run away with

this thing to now the U.S. is unquestionably the most exciting commercial space player in the world. And then China's really a government-backed exercise. And after that, it drops off. New Zealand is actually like the third major player because Rocket Lab has had so much success that there's now about 12 or 15 space startups in New Zealand. There are. Scott? So I know you wrote a book on Elon Musk. I've always thought that his iPhone was a Falcon Heavy rocket. I saw this incredible chart.

You had mentioned that it cost $70 million to launch a Falcon Heavy rocket. But the last vehicle that reliably put satellites into space was the space shuttle, and it cost $1.1 billion per launch. And I saw this amazing graph showing that as it relates to, at the end of the day, getting a kilogram of stuff into space, the Falcon Heavy rocket just beats everything. Isn't the Falcon Heavy rocket essentially the iPhone? rocket, essentially the iPhone. I think my thesis is that SpaceX is going to be worth more than Tesla and that the Falcon Heavy rocket is this generation's iPhone that's just going to create hundreds of billions in value. So the Falcon Heavy is the big one. The Falcon 9, which is a little bit smaller, is kind of their workhorse. But I agree with you. So for all of Elon's many, many,

many faults, SpaceX is just an unquestioned, incredible success. Before SpaceX came along, every large country that did this, you were lucky to launch once a month. SpaceX is now going almost every two days with a rocket. They have the longest streak of successful launches ever. It's pretty much like SpaceX against the world in terms of number of launches and the price to get stuff there. Yes, you can pay $60, $70 million for the rocket, but in a lot of cases, they're taking up 12, 15 companies' satellites on that single rocket. And we've never seen anything like this. I mean, it's crazy. They're reusing, they have rockets that have been reused 20 times,

which everyone thought was impossible. And so they are, and they're also, I should note, they are the world's largest satellite maker of that, when we talked about that 2,500 to 10,000 satellite increase. They are. Almost all of those are SpaceX. This is through Starlink? Yeah, through Starlink.

Starlink. The space internet system. Those are almost all SpaceX's satellites. They are not like the dominant player in space as well. So talk about, I'm going to get to Elon at the end, but the war in Ukraine is the first space war. Obviously, Starlink's been an important part of that. Do you see them spinning off Starlink? Obviously, there's a controversy about it, but although I do think, you know, they were there with the right technology to be used. So it's the government's fault if they didn't do it themselves or someone else didn't. Yeah. I mean, so I write about this at the end of the book. I mean, this was an

incredible moment of all the stuff I'd been tracking. So leading into the war, we had the usual politics going on. Russia said, we're not going to attack. Everyone else said, we're going to attack. You have no idea who to trust. Well, it turns out Planet Labs had images of everything that was going on. All the Russian troops in Belarus amassed on the border. We knew exactly what was going to happen when they first moved in. Which the Biden administration did say, they're coming. Correct. But the interesting moment is like, we can turn to planets and you can see the images yourself.

You don't have to be fed this from the CIA or whoever. And as the troops moved in, Russia, we saw all these embarrassing images of the Russian troops stuck on this road, you know, and these are on front pages everywhere. And then of course, you know, when the are on front pages everywhere. And then, of course, you know, when the Russians went to try and take out the communication systems, yeah, Starlink was there. It's still there, helping the military and the government operate. And so you

had this traditional space superpower. I mean, Russia is about as good as it got, have commercial space turned totally against it. To your point, Kara, when Elon was like threatening to turn Starlink off, the US government had nothing they could do to replace it, even if they wanted to. I mean, he was a nation state, you know, and kind of crazy. I was like texting with him. I think they're in better shape now. I think they're speaking now. That's my understanding. I mean, it's still going. I was texting him on that weekend when he turned, I was like, dude, don't do this. Turn this thing off.

He should have been paid. He should have been paid. But it's also crazy that we're at this point where somebody's whims can affect things. Actually, I had a Ukrainian official come and ask me if I could talk to him. And I said, no, he's not speaking to me. But this is how bad it's gotten. Yeah. I mean, it's a crazy time.

But this is how bad it's gotten. Yeah. I mean, it's a crazy time, but this is how powerful this technology is. Well, it means that we have to get more of it from someone else, not just one kooky dude. And there are rivals coming now. There are. And it's going to be really fascinating. I just think it's going to be an interesting time when you do have these commercial players, and then you are going to have still like China's space internet will be owned by China. And it'll be interesting how these forces clash. It strikes me that just from an investment standpoint, a great place to invest here. What do we know? We know that there's going to be a lot

more of this. There's going to be a lot more vehicles going to a space, a lot more infrastructure. It strikes me that if I were to invest here, I'd want to find out who's selling the parts into these players. Who are the big infrastructure plays here? Well, and like on your previous question around Starlink, you know, SpaceX, I think, just got valued at $150 billion. Almost all of that is tied up in what you believe about Starlink, because rocket launching is a horrible business, even if you're good at it. Well, people think it should be spun off, too, correct? And I think it will be, you know, to get as much money possible out of that. But, and Scott, to your other point, so this whole industry,

it reminds me so much of, like, the computing industry going from mainframes on. You know, it used to be you just made rockets and somebody else made satellites. And now a company like, like obviously SpaceX is doing both. Rocket Lab is doing both now. So they make 90% of a satellite and you just kind of plug your interesting telescope or whatever you want onto their rocket. And so this is where it's going. The industry is maturing so that these guys can be not just the vehicle, but also sort of the toolmakers along. I would tend to bet on any company that's doing data as opposed to rockets and some of the meat and potatoes part of this. I would get whoever has the interesting information are

going to be the ones that make the most money. Yeah. What's your most pessimistic about what's going on? Well, I think humans don't have a great track record of handling things well when they move into some new territory at record speed. So, you know, we're already at this point where it's kind of whoever gets... Space trash. Well, there's space trash. It's kind of like whoever gets there first really wins. There's hardly any laws. There's laws about getting your rocket to space. There's not many laws about once your satellite's up there, like what you do with it, how it comes back to Earth. We've seen illegal satellite launches for the first time ever. And with the cost of, if a guy in New Zealand who didn't go to college can build a rocket, then a lot of other people can build a rocket, and they're essentially ICBMs.

So Wild West, hence Wild West. There's gonna be all these new space-faring nations. We've seen total recall, Ashley. We've seen total recall. You did say this thing about Elon, the legacy. Someone asked me this question. I thought, let me just say, you wrote the book, Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest

for the Fantastic Future. It came out in 2015. You told the Washington Post you didn't think Twitter was ruining his legacy, saying SpaceX is running laps around the entire industry and nation-states. Tesla always seems to have its ups and downs. Overall, it's healthy as it's ever been. Neuralink is barreling forward. So I think I don't buy in. I saw some of that, but I would disagree.

It seemed a little glib to me, given some of the stuff he's been saying. I think over the long term, certainly people, well, actually, although people do think Henry Ford was an anti-Semite now, that's sort of the caveat, or Thomas Edison and all his many faults, even Ben Franklin gets a once over, right? I get it. What were you, it seemed a little glib given some of the really mendacious, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic remarks. And that's just on a Tuesday. It is.

I guess, you know, it depends on what sort of timeframe any of us are talking about when we look at this. I imagine in my head, if you go out like 100 years, you know, SpaceX, like I said, I think SpaceX will probably be way up there. I think Neuralink, I've been going there a lot the last three years and have a story coming. I think it's going to surprise people. I think they're going to cure paralysis and help people with strokes and things like that in dramatic ways. I think those will probably be the two most- This is his brain implant for people who don't know. Correct. Yeah. Which I've talked to him about quite a bit. Yeah, well, I think these will be traumatic companies that are remembered for a long time. Yeah, you know, he's on this,

it was like four or five years ago, he just sort of let bad Elon out for reasons that I don't fully understand. He seems to have like really, he reminds me a lot of his father in a lot of ways. Howard Hughes comes to my mind. It's funny. When I was doing the book on him, I told him I was reading a biography on Howard Hughes, and he was so fascinated by that. But yeah, something's changed. And so I get your

point. I mean, there's things now... How would you write the Twitter chapter if you were writing in addition to this? Besides all these fantastic, and I think we can all, you're of the school of, I just interviewed Mark Benioff, and he's of the school of, well, he can land a rocket on a surfboard. The misogyny is not nice. But, you know, that's sort of, that's the Silicon Valley tone. It's funny because I think maybe you and I have a different, like when I'm at Neuralink with him, he is actually more pleasant and rational to talk to than he was when I did the book. So I find this whole Twitter thing very strange. Like it almost strikes me as like an act or

something seeking attention, trying to be in the news. He's obviously both from a business standpoint and personality gotten sort of addicted to being in the limelight. And it gets hard to one-up yourself when you're at this extreme end. Yeah, I would agree. And I say that to people, that he can be really reasonable. But this public performance is really toxic and horrible. He's totally different in private than he is on Twitter. And I do not understand it. And he has people around him who tell him, you know, ask why don't do this. It's yeah. So I don't know. I mean, now it's impossible to like separate these parts of his personality, the business

and the man. So, you know, but what in a hundred years? I don't know. Was he just a troll? And how much time do we spend on that? I don't know. Well, if he ends up in a hotel room with long nails and tissues, that's what people will remember.

And Howard Hughes was a great entrepreneur and innovator. Scott, any last questions? It strikes me that, and one of the tragedies here is that this is a lot of potential that may not be realized because he's created such a sideshow and such a circus that he is just going to lose support. At some point, senators who he's been disparaging of are just going to get in the way of his projects, that he's potentially taking his legacy down. What advice, other than get off of Twitter, would you have? It sounds like you're there.

It sounds like he respects you. And if he said to you, Ashley, what one or two pieces of advice would you have for me? What would those be? That was my prime advice to him. I was like, don't buy this thing. This is a waste of time and your energy. But that obviously didn't work. Yeah, I just think, I think a lot of ways, this is sad for me.

When I wrote the book, my central thesis was like, here was this interesting person who was not doing consumer internet stuff. He was kind of taking us back to machines. He was showing you could manufacture in the United States. He was actually trying to push things forward and seemed to have a knack for it. I find this all quite frivolous to me. And, you know, his ultimate goal, he's always said deep in his heart, I believe this was like to do this thing on Mars. And that seems, I did this Twitter space with him that went really awry a couple of weeks ago. And part of it was because I think I was saying, look, I think you're distracted from what used to be your life calling. And I think he probably feels that somewhere inside of him. Oh, did he lose his mind? Yeah. He got quite upset with my line of questioning and shut everything down. So, you know, I mean, anyway, this has all been sad to me because it's like gone in this direction.

Yeah. You're watching a brilliant person disintegrate in ways that are untoward. We'll see what happens. Let's hope that he gets himself together. Probably not. Probably going for Howard Hughes here. Anyway, we'll see. Ashley, really interesting book. I find this stuff really interesting. And I'm glad you're putting a focus away from just Bezos, Musk, and Branson. It's really important to think about all the things that are going on. And space is where we need to be. We just talked about climate change. We've got to have, as Elon says, and many people do, we need to be a We just talked about climate change. We've gotta, as Elon says, and many people do, we need to be a multi-planet species if we are to survive.

Anyway, thank you so much. Again, the book is called, "'When the Heavens Went on Sail, "'The Misfits and Geniuses Racing "'to Put Space Within Reach.'" Ashley Vance, thank you very much. Thanks, Ashley, nice to meet you. Yeah, thank you guys.

One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. 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. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I'm going to go first because I want to focus on this article by Tim Carman in the Washington Post about a fight between, I would say, a conservative couple. I wouldn't call them Christian, although they claim they are, in Virginia and a gay couple who's owned a restaurant in the same town.

This couple has come in. This restaurant's been there forever, a mainstay of the town, and many people suspect them trying to run people out so they can develop more in this town of Plains, Virginia. It's called The Plains in Virginia. Very charming little town. And it's just terrorized the community, this couple. They threw a rat onto this restaurant and then took pictures trying to get the health department to come in. They've taken this restaurant to court. They've sort of bothered the employees. They have a whole rigmarole around parking. It's some story. It's something else. And this couple is very sketchy. They, of course, were at January 6th, just sightseeing, I guess, at the Capitol. And it's just this, it's really

fair. This guy gave these people an opportunity to talk. They talked themselves right into a, what a bunch of assholes kind of thing. But really, it's worth reading. It's something else because all this whole town is like trying to do the right thing all the time. But really, it's worth reading. It's something else because all this whole town is trying to do the right thing all the time. And it reminds me of when these conservatives come in and do CRT or book banning. They just make a mess and they cause lawsuits and a mess and this and that. And then all the good people give up. They're going to sell the restaurant. I mean, ultimately, these people have been successful. But it's worth reading, I would say. I don't know if you read it. I haven't. It's interesting. We had something, I live or have a home in a wonderful little town

in Florida called Gulfstream. And there was this guy or a couple who used to put profane things on the outside of his house and say it was free speech. And he was constantly suing the town of Gulfstream and just bullying everybody, suing his neighbors all the time. And this is what you need. We took a bunch of our tax revenue and we're blessed. It's one of the wealthiest little hamlets in the world. And we got like a mayor who's basically a litigator and said, here's money, go chase this motherfucker out of town. I mean, it was just like, well, not even chase him out of town, but start hitting back. It's like, we're just sick of being bullied by this guy. But I remember this happening about 10 years ago.

And bullies back down. The bullies typically, when you land a solid counterpunch, that usually shocks the shit out of them. Because I think some of this is true. I mean, we're just talking about Elon. Look, I think he's a bully, and I think he's used to people not hitting him back because he has so much money. And I think when you do land a blow against – I know I don't have the specifics around this couple, but I do think – The mashers. Yeah, and the problem is no one has the time or the energy to organize.

They're relentless. They're relentless. They're relentless is what they are. Well, shamelessness is a core competence. These people are terrible people. They're not Christian. They are just terrible. And they want to, you know, they're trying to pretend they're political victims when they're the terrorists the whole time. This is a very conservative town, but they're lovely.

You know, they love this restaurant. These people have been operating their business for years. It's, you know, it was interesting. Why are they angry at the restaurant? They're next door to the restaurant. So they say there's smells from it, which they're, you know, the health inspector came in and said, no, there's not this. They're no, they just keep making complaints. And then the parking and, but they got there after the restaurant, like long after. And some people think they're trying to take over because their son is running for a local office that they want to develop this area, which has been very quaint.

They didn't like the pride flag. You know, it just goes on. It's just, they're mixing up their conservatism with, I think, a venal nature of wanting to have more development go on. Yeah, but this is the power of journalism. You know why this is going to end? Because that article.

This article will get a bunch of awareness. in a really fair way, like talking about conflict. There was a conservative sheriff down in the South who was fighting the white supremacists. It was so moving, this poor guy who is very conservative, is just like, what is fucking wrong with these? Anyway, I think the Post is doing a great job. The emblem of conservatism is Abraham Lincoln. I mean, so real genuine conservative values are about liberty and equality.

And anyways, do you have a win? A win? My kids are home all weekend. They're great. Of course. They were so good. We had dinner. They brought Old Forge pizza.

We cooked pasta. We had such a good time. And packing up my boys, my older boys. One is going to Argentina for the year, for his junior year abroad. And the other is going to University of Michigan. And we spent yesterday going through their things and packing.

And it was, I'm going to take a little trip with each of them before they leave. And just all four of them together was just a joy this weekend. That's nice. That's great.

Enjoy it. Relish in it. We had a great time. I did a lot of dishes though. Scott, I'll be honest. A lot of fucking dishes. Oh, by the way, you looked really good on Face the Nation.

Whatever that look was, that amount of makeup and that dress. Yeah, makeup. Thank you. You look good. That was nice. Thank you. It's makeup triggering. Anyways.

No, it's not. She's a wonderful makeup person there. You look good. Again, I think I ghosted you. Can you believe that? I thought you ghosted me. We just want you to relax and ask, but I'm like, first off, you are not concerned with my vacation. Let's just call this what it is.

Oh, my God. I love it. It's so good. I am Mika. She is Joe. I get it. All right? I get it.

I get it. All right. We're getting you on. I'll refuse to go on without you. I'm so sad. I'm pissed off. I was super excited. I was like, oh, I'm excited to go on with Scott.

Louie was like, who are you going on? I'm like, Scott and I. He goes, you too. And I said, I'm pissed off. I'm so sad. I'm pissed off. I was super excited. I was like, oh, I'm excited to go on with Scott. Louie was like, who are you going on? I'm like, Scott and I. He goes, you too. And I said, I know. Just the I. All right, my wins and fails. So my fail is I shoot from the hip a lot. I think I have good instincts.

But I think I got it wrong last week saying that Lena Kahn was a big disappointment. Lena Kahn was a big disappointment. My editor-in-chief, Jason Stavers, who went to UVA Law School and is just an incredibly talented legal mind and blue flame thinker and saves me from myself a lot. He really came after me in this email or corrected me. And I think there's a lesson here. I think it's important to surround yourself with people who are not afraid to disagree with you. He said that I got it all wrong.

And that basically that he reached out to one of his former antitrust partners. And he said that all of the challenges that she has put forward in the strict scrutiny on an antitrust environment in Washington are having a deterrent effect on transactions. Corporate development teams, CEOs, and boards are viewing antitrust as a key element that must be factored into their acquisition strategies rather than treating antitrust as an afterthought. And then he went on to say, looking across industries that is not focused on tech, they identified 24 merger challenges by the FTC and the DOJ and scores the agencies at 16 wins and eight losses. And 14 of the wins and

two losses, however, were in straight-up competitor merges. So, basically, he said, you're wrong. Her more aggressive stance is having the desired effect. And also, some of this was inspired by I saw her testimony when Jim Jordan, you know, tried to go after her. And I thought she was very, very good. So, anyways. Sharp, crisp. My loss.

And then my win is I met with the management team of this company called Oddity. And this is a win and a prediction. And Oddity is essentially, they're positioning themselves as a truly tech. Oh, Oddity? It's called Oddity. It's a beauty company. They have two brands, Il Makiage. O-D-D-I-T-Y? O-D-D-O-D-I-T-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-O-D-D-O-D-O-D-D-O-D-O-D-D-O-D-O-D-D-O-D-O-D-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O-D-O- and it matches the perfect foundation based on your skin type using millions of other images. And that obviously creates barriers of entry. They came out with a hair brand. It's called Spoiled Child.

It's huge. And essentially 100 of their 240 employees are technologists. And they are really trying to lean into AI, figuring out a way to move people further down the funnel when they come to the site, and also figure out kind of what we called mass customization in the 90s and 80s. It's IPO-ing. This company's IPO-ing. Well, that's why I'm bringing it up, and it's part of a prediction. And I want to be clear, I am not a shareholder, although I will disclose I'm going to try and become a shareholder. This is going to be a monster, Cara. It's going to be a monster because

so many moons are lining up here. The secondary market indicates that there's a ton of appetite for new shares. The biggest shareholder- Lots of IPOs coming, I see. Oh, it's the back half of the year, it's going to be IPO. You said that earlier. Yeah, but I think the big winners, the biggest creators of shareholder value and stakeholder value on AI will be a small number of tech companies and then a bunch of consumer companies that leverage AI. And this is the first one. And if you look at its numbers, it's EBITDA margin. It's growth.

I mean, it's just staggering. Can I just point out, I just went to their website, which looks like the entity on Mission Impossible when you click on it. It doesn't say anything about beauty. It says category shifting technology. You don't know what they're selling. Well, and you know what they're coming out with? Oh, they do eel maquillage. That's right, and you know what they're coming out with? Oh, they do eel maquillage. That's right.

And you know what they're coming out with in 2025? I don't think I'm speaking out of school here. They're coming out with an acne brand. It literally looks at millions of images of people's blemishes, you know, and acne, and then comes up with the right treatment plan. And I think that's going to have such enormous applications. And I think that's going to have such enormous applications. But I love the idea of using AI as a means of improving the consumer experience and translating it into consumer margins and loyalty. And these guys, their office is literally down the block from me.

And one of the wonderful things about having a podcast with Kara Swisher, I can email any CEO and they'll meet with me that day. And so I walked around the corner and I met with this management team. Oh, my God, this company is killing it. So my win is consumer companies leveraging AI. I think that's where the real money is going to be. And two, it's a prediction, but because it's pricing next week, I will look like an asshole or a genius. This IPO-

Oh, okay, we'll watch it. Let's watch, let's follow it. It is going to rock the house. Yeah, it's good. It's interesting. I love Il M. It is going to rock the house. Yeah, it's interesting. I love Il Makiage, by the way. So do a lot of makeup people, since I'm on television so much compared to you. Oddly enough, the name Oddity is a stranger, peculiar person, eccentric, crank, misfit. It's such an interesting name to use for a beauty company.

But it has two beauty brands. Again, Il Makiage is fantastic. Fantastic. fantastic. Not as well known, but anyway, interesting. All right, we'll follow it. We'll follow both Lena Kahn and Antitrust and Mergers, and we'll follow this next week. We'll do that, or later this week, perhaps. Can you believe they didn't have me on Face the Nation? I thought Margaret Brennan liked me. I'm going to speak to Margaret Brennan. I'm going to speak to Carol. You'll see. Carol Joy. Carol, you're the producer. Is that who wrote you?

Carol? Yeah, Carol. Yeah. I think you should just spend time with your family in Aspen. Well, thank you, Carol. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, man, Carol.

Yeah, Carol. Sorry, Carol, I named you, but here you are. Anyway, Scott, we are destined for great things together. You understand that. And we will wear beautiful makeup while we're doing this. I think we're doing it, baby. I think X plus Y, but we are peanut butter and chocolate. Hello.

We are peanut butter and chocolate. Hello. I may come visit you in Aspen. I don't know. I've been invited to an event there, the security dingity dong, but I don't know. It's really nice here. Yeah, I know it is. Well, enjoy yourself.

But anyway, also, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVID. Scott, that is the show. What's a good series of shows we've been having. I've gotten many compliments recently for some reason. I'm glad. I think we're hitting on all cylinders. Anyway, we'll be back on Friday with more. There's going to be a lot more news. Scott, please read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Taylor Griffin, and Travis Larchuk. Bernie Andretot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Neil Severio, and Gaddy McBain. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Who doesn't face the nation? Who is treated like a Kong ball, like ridden hard like some tired old prostitute that's no longer worth the spend or the effort? That's right, Face the Nation. I have dignity. I am going to stick Fran Drescher on you.