Pivot - China's EV Power Play, AI Career Choices, and Time Travel

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Kara and Scott are opening up the listener mailbag, and taking questions from Pivot fans! They discuss why China's BYD electric vehicles are so innovative, and what would happen if the cars ever came to the U.S. Then, some parenting advice on navigating career choices in the age of AI, and how to have "The Talk" with your kids. Plus, why tech launches don't thrill us like they used to, and a question on time travel! Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠. Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠. 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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licenses, and strong institutional trust, Ripple provides financial institutions with blockchain and crypto-powered solutions across payment and digital custody applications. This means secure 24-7 transactions, moving value across the world faster. Find out more at Ripple.com. Hi, it's Cara Swisher. New York Magazine is dropping a special Hamptons issue on June 23, spotlighting the personality, social scenes, and shifting power dynamics that define the summer enclave alongside the season's most exciting new openings. While New York has covered the Hamptons for years, this dedicated issue signals something

more. The enduring fascination with a world that, in summer, becomes utterly unlike anywhere else. It's out June 23rd and on newsstands for a month. Don't miss it. Subscribe now to get access to it all. Hi everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway. So get excited Scott, because it's a special show with Pivot listeners calling in and asking us their questions and all sorts of topics. We love talking to the people, Scott. I think it's really fun, largely because our pivot listeners are really smart,

two, because it gives us questions we didn't think of, and three, because it forces us to be social. Let's jump right in and get to our first listener call. Hello, caller, we hear you have a fun stat about your pivot listening. Who are we talking to? Where are you calling from? And what's your question? Hey there, Karen Scott. How are you doing? Good. How are you doing?

I'm well. Yes, my name is Felipe. And my stat is that since I am a nomadic designer, have been for about three and a half years, meaning that I work pretty much everywhere in the world, I have listened to you guys while exploring 27 different countries. Whoa, okay. All right, so where are you now? Where are you calling from? Yes, yes, I am now currently in Bangkok. It is just past midnight, so.

Oh my God, I love Thailand so much. It's one of my favorite places. Oh, it's super fun, super fun. Yeah, all right, what is your question? So my question is, is this so, well, a little bit of a, it could get a little philosophical, but That's okay, we can handle it. it seems like the general excitement around new technologies and product launches have kind of faded in the last two decades.

I mean, I remember being on the literal edge of my seat when watching the keynotes for the first iPhone, the MacBook Air, when Steve took it out of the Manila envelope, the Model 3 launch, and so on. the Manila envelope, the Model 3 launch, and so on. So nowadays it seems like we watch these new product announcements with either skepticism or just straight up indifference, almost like we've seen so much new tech so frequently for so long that we're a little desensitized to it. So my question is, do you think that it's possible, either at an individual level or collectively, for us to get back to that childlike wonderment and enthusiasm for new technology that seems to have deflated over time? That's a great question.

I'll start because I was at all those events physically, which was all it was also exciting to go to them. Let me say it was like a party, especially the Apple ones. Microsoft's were less fun, I'll be honest with you, and Bill Gates wasn't as good on stage. But Steve Jobs presenting was just it was magical. It really was. And it was magical. It really was. And it was really fun. It was a sense of theater, a sense of show. The products

were always cool and you hadn't thought of them. They managed to keep everything under wraps, too. That was part of it, is you didn't know what was he was gonna pull out of his pocket or pull out of a manila envelope. And so the sense of theatricality and the slowness of development. I think in the social media age, when everybody knows everything that's going to happen before it happens, you don't get excited about it. And so I think it's really hard, even if you're like unveiling an invisibility cloak or something like crazy,

that people don't feel that same sense of wonder about this stuff, and they're less magicians than they are, just they want to make a lot of money kind of stuff. And so I can't think of a recent product launch that I've been like, oh my God, I can't believe it. I don't know, Scott, what about you? I'm just waiting for the product release of AirPods that cost $300 and lose themselves automatically.

That's the product I'm waiting for. Yeah. Every day's new product introduction for me based on what my kid tries to convince me to buy him. But I've never really. The thing that always struck me, I was a consultant for a long time and I stole, basically, it struck me that Apple basically decided

they were a luxury brand and took a page out of the book of fashion shows for high-end couture brands. And basically I saw Apple product launches, not as product launches, but as fashion shows. And they had hot people, highly choreographed, in a beautiful environment. And fashion shows are basically eight to 12 minutes and exceptionally choreographed. And that's how I thought of that Apple basically

decided they were going high end with vertical distribution and fashion shows for marketing. What's been magical for you, Scott? What's been magical? Well, something that was released and you were like, wow. The new AI products, the video products, production products from Google I thought were pretty interesting. The Gemini stuff, that to me seemed pretty, the AI stuff is pretty dramatic.

It's funny, the one place I think that there could be more magic and he hasn't done it, actually it's a missing piece from OpenAI. The only thing I've seen is him and Johnny Ive about to blow each other. I mean, talking about their new acquisition, their new partnership. It strikes me that Sam Altman should be throwing a crazy event to just highlight all the unbelievable things that you can do with AI.

I bet that's the next arms race in terms of events. Interesting. I don't know if any of them has the style of Steve Jobs. I mean, what do you think, Philippe? You've been really excited when you see, I think you just know about it before everything comes out. So there's no wonder. There's no wow. Like, literally when Steve Jobs was out, you didn't know what the fuck they were going to pull out of their pockets, right? What have you been excited about?

Yeah, no, that's true. I mean, when Steve took out the iPod Nano from his coin pocket, that was just like, I remember gasping audibly at my university when I watched that. And people did there. Absolutely. But I mean, you are right with social media and leaks and we always have so many like Photoshop renders, et cetera, before it comes out. So when it finally does, it's like, oh, okay, okay. But it could also be a plateau of technology. Like the last many iPhones have just been, you know, slightly faster, slightly better cameras and whatnot. But I think that Scott is right in that Johnny might actually bring some of that magic to open AI, at least I hope. You know, one of the things that was hard for Tim Cook after Steve Jobs, when he did

those shows, he was just the one and he'd bring out like Coldplay or, you know, whoever the heck he hired, whatever celebrity he hired along with it. And there'd always be a celebrity around with him. But then they sort of, with Tim, because he's not nearly as charming, they brought out all of them, right? And it sort of loses its, yeah, the ensemble thing. And none of them are particularly interesting, right?

And so I went to one recently, and I have to say, I was like checking my phone. It wasn't as like a wow kind of thing. They still are very good on the movies and the way it looks. I can't think of any product that, maybe movies today, maybe? I don't know. Yeah, it's funny.

I think movie premieres and like I think of the auto show was the kind of original big product release, right? Right, on there. And then I have been to a product with it. Back in the 90s when I was running Red Envelope and the only place you could sell products, you're too young for this, Felipe. Kara can tell you about this because she's much, much older than you and me. But the AOL had these big events back in DC. I remember Steve Case and Bob Pittman announcing their new browser or whatever. Then they announced chat rooms where much middle-aged accounts could

pretend their name was chat and they were surfers or something. But that was the last product thing I went to. It was fun. it was nice. I don't know. We'll have to see if there's something. I think a lot of the theatrics have gone to politics now, and even that's getting tired, but I don't know. Anyway, we really appreciate your call, but it's a great question when you think about it.

It takes me down memory road. It used to be more fun. Life used to be more fun. Let's hope we can get back to it at some point. Thank you guys so much. It was great meeting you. Thank you. Thank you for the,

keep listening to us across the world. We appreciate it. Of course we'll do. Yeah, thanks Felipe. Bye guys. Okay, Scott, let's move on to our next caller. This is a question about parenting and how to navigate conversations around porn.

Scott, I'm sick of talking to you about your porn use. Hello, Carrie from Maine. Let's hear your question and welcome. Hi, thanks so much for taking my question. Yeah, I was just curious how you both navigated conversations in your family with your kids about pornography. I've got two young boys who are kind of in the pre-adolescent phase and my husband and I are trying to figure out how to talk with them about it. Porn is just so much more ubiquitous than it was when we were younger. And yeah, I'm just really curious how you guys navigate those conversations. I can start.

Again, as I said, I say Scott, put down the phone. But I think it's difficult. I have two boys, older boys. The three-year-old is not at that point yet. But I did talk to them about it. I was like, it's everywhere. I'd rather not go through your phones, you know, and figure out what you're doing. That's one way of doing it, is monitoring it and putting different strictures on it so they can, you

know, you can do that through all kinds of, Verizon has a thing. I was mostly with time was the thing I was monitoring more and actually stopping them from using it as much time. And of course, porn takes time apparently. But one of the things I did is I just flat out talked about it. I was like, look, there's a ton of porn on here. I get, and not just from just porn sites, kids sending each other stuff. That was one of the things I was much more concerned. I was, a girl sent Louie something and I was sort of shocked.

I was, you know, I was like, I can like, he showed it to me and I was like, oh dear, that's not, and it wasn't porny, it just was not what I would want my daughter sending, that's for sure. And so I had long talks with him about it and about the usage of it and I was trying not to be sex negative, but I definitely was like, this is more addictive, it takes your time,

it's desensitizing, it's not good for your relationships over a long time, so I just faced it head on. I don't know, Scott, you're in the right age area now for that issue. Yeah, so Carrie, I navigated the conversation around the important topic of pouring the way the Hindenburg navigated its way into landing in New Jersey. So the truth is when I was trying to do it,

my partner demanded that I have the sex talk with my then 14 or 15 year old son. So I took him to the beach and thought I was gonna have this very like hallmark moment. And I said, it's time to have the sex talk and I wanna talk about porn. And before I even got the words out, he screamed louder than I've ever heard him scream,

no. Like, he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I'm like, it's okay, we can talk about this stuff. And he's like, do we have to? I really don't want, he seemed traumatized by the idea of the conversation. So my entire approach to talking to my sons about sex is I make them watch all eight seasons

of Game of Thrones with me. Oh, like. It's got everything. It's literally got everything. It's got gay people, it's got three sons, it's got sex, it's got good relationships, bad relationships, bondage. Oh my God. Really aspirational gay characters, Prince of Dorne,

Pedro Pascal, and then around porn. I've tried to couch it in other things. I talk about the notion that you have only a certain amount of mojo. I say you have only a certain amount of energy and you don't wanna waste it on bad calories. You have only a certain amount of focus, time, and attention. You wanna spend it on the two or three things that a certain amount of focus, time and attention. You want to spend it

on the two or three things that are most important in terms of your studying. And then I also try and slip in and also you want to be able to, I said this, I said, the reason I met your mom, who is much more attractive and much more higher character than me was I really wanted to meet a woman. And I was willing to take risks. And I tell them, I told my oldest son, if I'd had porn, I'm not sure I would have had that same mojo and fire to want to meet women. And that anything that reduces your mojo and your fire is a courage killer. And what I've said to my boys a bunch of times is that porn is a courage killer, because it's on demand. And what Kara says about it being, you know, a terrible facsimile of, or of what you're supposed to expect in relationships.

And I've said to my boys and this sort of embarrassed Sam saying, it's good to be horny channeling your sexual desire to making you a better man, wanting to make you stronger, dress better, smell good, shower, develop a rap, endure rejection. I'm worried that men are looking for low-risk way to engage in what they see as a relationship with porn and AI. So I try to position it to my boys.

You only have a limited amount of time with your boys. You gotta keep it consistent and crisp, I find, because they just, they tuned me out at least. Yeah, one of the things that's important to think about, look, it's been around since time in Memorial, whether it was magazines and then it was Skinimax, which is Scott's and my favorite station, or whatever, videotapes. Everyone has had, has tried to get,

or going to places, right, with it, because there were physical places people went. It's not something you can stop. It's sort of the same thing, don't try, don't drink at all. Like, it's just not going to happen. And you yourself, if you've done it, you can't say, don't do it. It's very, you know, it's everybody experiments and does stuff like that. I think the very difference is, one, it's much more addictive,

it's much more accessible, and it's much more specific, right? You can get anything, right? And so it moves people down a highway of something basic, you know, choc van straw porn versus something really sick, right? And that's really the problem is that it can start to get very dark very quickly and very accessible. And I think that's the way I more did it was I restricted their time, right? Like you could only be on the phone this much time.

And one of the things my, and it was the time suck is that I thought about more than anything else. And of course, porn is like that, whether, you know, and we make jokes there, you know, I watch it on threads or Instagram, I watched something called food porn, which is like, ha ha ha, like we do porn, everything. And they just show different restaurant settings and doing cool things. And I watch it, it's like quite addictive.

It's not the same thing. But the other thing is encouraging them to do things outside of the phone. Like again, put down the phone. One of my sons himself, he bought one of those timer boxes that he put the phone in and locked it. And it wouldn't open for five hours or whatever it was, which I thought was really, this is something Alex did. I thought that was great because he wasn't getting his work done because

it was so easy to follow. So time is the way I did it versus everyone's going to look at porn. But it is much darker. And I would not, I don't know what I'm going to do with Saul when, you know, I honestly don't. It's going gonna be a much different world than my older kids. Carrie, are you gonna talk to them soon or is there an age that you or do you split it between you and your husband? Um, I mean, my 10 year old and I have been very open. We've had lots of talks about, you know, I've tried to just be really open with him about lots of different things, including sex. At 10.

Well, I mean, yeah. They're way out now. Even, they're getting exposed to things so early, on the bus, on kids who have phones. So I'm trying just to be really preemptive about it and just having those conversations be really open and flexible. Yeah, it's tough.

True story, the other day my son stole his phone. I knew what he was doing. He steals his phone to go into the bathroom to be on TikTok because I don't like them on TikTok. So I started banging on the door and screaming, start masturbating. Anyways. I'm sure that worked really well.

Anyway, Kerry, we really appreciate it. Good luck. But both you and your husband should be involved. It shouldn't just be the guy. All right, Kerry, thank you so much, as always. Thank you. Thanks, Kerry. Bye.

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Not thinking about being an athlete at all. Jan told WHYY in Philadelphia there were no other women at that gym. It wasn't considered appropriate for ladies to lift weights. Some gyms even banned it. The idea of a woman having muscles was seen as somehow being somewhat transgressive. There must be something wrong with you if you want to have muscles. Anyway, feeling spicy that day, Jan squatted down and deadlifted 225 pounds, which is a lot of pounds. She went on to lift more weights, set a bunch of records, model in magazines, and inspire

other women to lift weights. More recently, millions of women have started. But why now? Answers on Today Explained every weekday in your feet. Scott, we're back with our special call-in show, taking questions from our listeners. Let's go to our next caller. This question is about AI and career choices. Hi, Jessica. Tell us about yourself and what your question is. Hi, I live in Houston, Texas. I am a veterinarian and small business owner, and my husband is an engineer for NASA. We have two teenage sons, ages 15 and 13, so they're just starting to think about college

and career paths. And we keep hearing how AI and increasing automation is just gonna eliminate whole sectors of work and broad swaths of especially entry level positions. And so I was just curious what advice you guys have for young people who want engaging and fulfilling careers but careers that are not going to disappear as they move into them. Yes, it's definitely a fear, including current careers.

Scott, why don't you start? Yeah, I don't, I think you want your kids to have a decent grounding in communications and the sciences and history and the same old stuff. Now, do you unnaturally push them towards computer science as a lot of people were doing, knowing that a lot of those jobs are probably going to go away unless they're naturally drawn to it? Sure. But I don't think we can, I think it's unhealthy to try and predict the future and push your kids one way or the other. I remember in private schools in New York when everyone was trying to, when everyone was forcing their kids to take

Mandarin thinking that China was taking over. And I think removing one of the biggest mistakes we did in public schools was removing civics and wood shop and auto shop and metal shop and replacing it with computer science. And you end up with Mark Zuckerberg and less patriotism and also less young people, specifically young men who have the skills to go get vocational work. But I think what you do is you just encourage your kids to find stuff they're interested in, make sure they have a good grounding or some grounding in reading, writing, arithmetic, all that stuff.

But I think trying to predict the future around what jobs will be there and which ones won't, I think it's a fool's errand. I think you're just as likely to be wrong. And also, you know, we can, we like to think of ourselves as parents, as engineers, that we engineer the sheep and we're not, we're, we're shepherds. We can decide where they graze. We can point them in one direction. We kind of get some influence on what they eat, but they come to you.

Out of nowhere, my son's interested in biology, and my other son's interested in technology, and I had nothing to do with either of those things. So I think you're just super supportive, introduce them to a bunch of stuff, but for God's sake, who knows? I would agree. One of the things that's interesting is, you know, I have two very different older sons. The younger ones are not going to have a job for a while, but one of the things was encouraging them to get a wide range of study.

The one that was more interested in technology, I kind of insisted, we both did, that he take, you know, focus on English, focus on language, whatever, sports, other things that weren't necessarily, like, when he was applying for colleges, he applied to a lot of technology oriented ones. And we were like, well, think larger, that you have other offers. Because he liked to do glass art, for example, and he does amazing, like, other things. Like he's taking a linguistics course, he's at Michigan, which I was very happy for him to go there because he had a lot of choice.

He was doing a thing where he built these really cool floats, but it was a lot of technology, but it was artistic, because he had an artistic bent. And so one of the things was sort of not shoving them into anything. Now in his case, interestingly, he was very aware of the AI issues well before I was. He's like, AI is going to replace all of computer programming. And therefore, and he's much more job focused in a great way. But he's like, I'm going to do mechanical engineering because that's something that can't replace.

So that was him doing it on his own energy, essentially. But one of the things we tried is to get them a wide range of things, even if he tended towards technology, and my other son tended towards English and history. We wanted him to do more math, like to experience a lot of things. And again, you're right, Scott's right, you don't know what's going to be. Like I was one of those parents that were like, he should learn Mandarin. I'm like, why? Like, he's not like, it was, but it was a big pressure.

Like they're in Mandarin, they're in whatever. I just think if he likes languages, if he likes Chinese, learn Chinese, but otherwise not for a job because you don't know what people will do. I do think, we don't know what jobs are going to be affected, but I did tend to push them more into jobs that I did know weren't going to be affected. Like if you like cooking, that's really not going to be subsumed or vocational. If they happen to like that, that would be interesting. And so I just think the more you give them a broad base of learning, the better you are,

and then they'll sort of self-sort into things. But I would say I wouldn't be a radiologist if they're like, I desperately want to be a radiologist. No, just from veterinary medicine, if that field's going to be. Right, right. Oh, veterinary medicine, sure. But that said, it means there's going to be vets using that who do better and fewer vets, I guess, if that makes sense.

And so I do encourage them to use AI and try it and employ it. Be familiar with it, yeah. Absolutely, and figure out what it means for you. Because one thing Scott always says, which I think is important, is there's going to be fewer lawyers, but the lawyers that are there are going to do better because they use this technology.

It's sort of like not using the Internet. The one skill if I could give my kids any one skill and want to push them towards at every chance I get, is I do think the skill that if I had to pick one thing that will persevere and always be important in terms of your ability to advance professionally, it's communications, or specifically the ability to tell stories, create an arc.

And I think it starts with a written word. And that is the ability to express yourself and organize your thoughts. And so I make my kids take English and advanced English. And also one of the things I loved about the school they're in, they make them stand up and speak in front of other people. Uh, cause when I look at, I think for the last 50 years, and I think probably for the next 50 years, the difference between someone who does well and someone

who does exceptionally well is their ability to capture people's attention and take data and create an arc and tell stories and compel people to action through either the written word. And there's so many different mediums now for storytelling, whether it's sub stack or the written word or writing books or in person, but great communicators. I mean, there isn't, it's very difficult if you want to have an outsized disproportionate amount of influence or disproportionate amount of economic opportunity, or quite frankly, a disproportionate amount of unearned mating opportunities.

It's quite frankly, how good your rap is, your ability to engage people. So developing those skills early, I used to make my sons, I used to have this thing and I stopped it because it got too painful with one of my sons. But I used to say when we'd go out, you can't come back in the house

until you speak to a stranger. And one had no problem with it, another did have problems with it. And it would be like, just go pet their dog. Ask them what type of dog it is. But your ability to engage people, look them in the eye, establish conversation, I think that's kind of, you know, sort of the building blocks of all of it. Yeah. One of the other things I would say, he's absolutely right about communication, but creativity too, try like creative stuff really does help you whatever it happens to be,

whether it's cooking or glass art, whatever, just something that's not, that's physical. One of the things, with sports too, because that's teamwork, that's physical stuff, it's out of your head, because there's something, these kids are so much in their head and so much on the screen. And so, just not like insistent, but like put down the phone, go kick a ball, go kick a,

like that was the thing. Now, I was lucky because both my kids liked sports, but like to, whatever it happens to be with my daughter, she likes dancing, like she's going to go to like dance, do whatever. My other son, I have a feeling, is headed towards martial arts at this point, because he likes to kick things. So I'm like, okay, then we're going to do something with it. Physicality, I think, is something that is undersung,

that is critically important. The other thing Scott does a lot, which I think is, I do a lot in a different way, is taking them to things like theater or sporting events, like where lots of people are. And that's another thing that I think you learn a lot by that. And the last thing I would say is a job. I think kids should work.

I just do. I think my son did so well working at a, she worked at a store, a grocery store essentially. It was a sort of specialty foods. And I think he learned how to get, show up on time, show up for a job, finish things, clean up things, and give them that responsibility. I think-

And it's more engagement, like Scott was saying, more engagement with just the general public and- Right, or figuring out a job, figuring out a workplace. Yeah, yeah, my son has an internship this summer and he's always calling me, he's like, well, this happened, I'm like, oh, that's an interesting, you know what I mean? Like you just, you have to like, and they have to fail, I think in a lot of ways.

I think kids should work at a relatively early age, I did, but I don't know, they'll be fine. You'll be surprised. Everything as Scott says, you just don't know. You can't second guess it. Anyway, we really appreciate it. Jessica, thank you so much. Thank you guys so much.

I enjoy the show. Thanks Jessica. Bye. What's up, y'all? It's Kenny Beecham. The 2024-2025 NBA season is over, but all that means for us is that the 2025-2026 season is already beginning. On Small Ball, we'll be talking about breaking news, major trades, and all the exciting developments the offseason has in store.

Which teams are tearing it down? Who is retooling to make a championship push? And what teams are leaving me dumbfounded by their lack of direction? Don't miss Small Ball with Kenny Beach. New episodes drop every Friday, available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Scott, we're back. Up next, we're back. Up next, we have someone with a question about BYD and China.

Tell us your name, where you're from, and your question. Hi, my name is Kelvin. I live in the Bronx. My question. So, I've been thinking a lot about US-China dynamics, especially with tech and automobiles. And you guys have praised BYDs, EVs, and said that how it will be great if they could enter the US market. But also over the years, you guys have expressed concerns

about the CCP's influence, especially with TikTok. What was it about a year ago? We had the balloon over the Midwest. So my question is, if we are worried about China's social media apps vying on Americans, why would we welcome a tech-filled Chinese vehicle onto U.S. streets? Could this possibly be a way of being like a Trojan horse for data collection and surveillance in America? That is an excellent question.

You know what? I hadn't even thought about that in terms of data collection. The reason why we talk about BYD is because they're really good cars. And what's really depressing, I think, to me at least, and I don't know about Scott, is how incredibly innovative these cars are and how cool and adorable. And we wish there was more innovation with US carmakers around. Now, there have been. There's been like the Volkswagen.

They're not a US carmaker, but Volkswagen ID, some of the GM cars are great, some of the Ford cars are great. But it feels like the whole area needs innovation. And so rather than just copying, BYD is innovating with cars. And so that's, I think, what we're in admiration of. But you're right, these things collect a lot of data,

they'll have a lot of questions about our movement. We always will have, China's always in a surveillance mode, as far as I can tell. That said, so is Facebook, so is Tesla, so are the rest of them. But you're right, I think it's a little different experience. Knowing where people are going in their cars is that as much, with TikTok, you're more worried

about propaganda, about messaging, and things like that over where people physically are. But I suppose you're right. That is something that they could track. I just don't think it's, TikTok, I worry more about it as a propaganda more than a surveillance vehicle. I was thinking like, you know, by a car,

you could tell the size of a family, what podcasts they're listening to. vehicle. I was thinking like, you know, by a car, you could tell the size of a family, what podcast they're listening to. Could there even be technology to record conversations? So yes, yeah, I agree with you. I hadn't even thought about that as a surveillance vehicle. It certainly is that Scott, what do you think? Maybe I should be more worried, but I'm not. I think that we should have the technology to figure out if there's some sort of remote transmission or data storage technology that gets somehow ends up in the wrong hands. And also, the surveillance horse is already out of the barn. I think most people or most organizations, if they're really committed to understanding where you are, the relationships you have, your travel patterns.

You know, I just can't imagine they couldn't get most of that information probably from hacking Uber or going onto the dark web or hacking, or not even hacking, but just looking at movements on meta. And I think there's a bigger difference between, take worst case scenario, understanding a family size and movements, as opposed to training an entire emerging generation of Americans to

have sympathy for Hamas. And that's where I see the threat of TikTok. I think the propaganda threat of raising a generation of civic business and nonprofit leaders that are anti-American, which is what I think TikTok, if I were controlling TikTok's algorithm or had influence over it, that's the scale I would be putting my thumb on. I just think cars are less of a security risk. And also I like the idea of young people having access to great cars for 18 or 20 grand. I want to see, yeah, they're incredible. I would love to see, I think tariffs are terrible.

I'd love to see a global trade agreement. Our trade complexion with China is asymmetric. There's a lot to be done there, but I think ultimately we want to put pressure on all global auto manufacturers to give our households the best cars for the lowest price possible. That's right. I think BYD is that. Now, should they be providing more access to our grade manufactured goods? Yes, should they have paid some sort of tax for the IP theft from Tesla and Auto Autom?

I mean, it gets complicated fast, but maybe I'm being naive. I'm not worried. I'm much more worried about by dance than I am about BYD. Yeah, so one of the things also is that, what BYD is doing is they're invading other countries, Europe. You see them, I saw them all over Europe on my last trip.

I had not seen BYD cars until recently. One they're delightful, they absolutely won. I asked to look at one. They're cars I wish I could own. I know it sounds crazy, like I don't think about China as a car manufacturer. But they're making enormous inroads into other countries across the world, as China is in lots of things. And the idea that China is just a stealer of information

is they absolutely are. They absolutely do steal IP. But they also are innovators at this point. They're started to switch, flip the script, and they're very innovative. And you can see that by, they couldn't accomplish what they're doing at BYD by just stealing things because there's nothing to steal.

Like the Tesla hasn't changed its look in quite a while. I don't know, it looks like the same car as five years ago, 10 years ago, the price hasn't come down, they haven't offered. Tesla's missed the vote on offering a cheap car, right? They were supposed to, and then they didn't. Same thing with all of them is, as Scott said, young people don't have a chance to buy these things and they would proliferate if our car manufacturers didn't just stick up to the

top, you know, wealthy people and bring it down. So you know, obviously, it seems like you should compete on quality and everything else, but it demands that our own manufacturers do the same thing, which I think they have a difficulty doing, and especially with the Trump administration openly hostile to EVs now. I think this new bill is going to remove all the subsidies are encouraging, and they're going to be very fossil fuel oriented. And so that's, again, our country sort of shooting itself in the foot on the emerging technology that is critical,

which is EVs. But you're right, it's an interesting question. But I'm also not that as worried as Scott. I'm more worried about a propaganda vehicle than anything else. So any other thoughts, Kelvin? No, no, I just was really interested in you guys' conversation about that. Yeah, it's a really interesting question.

But it doesn't matter. They're winning all over the world, I have to say. They're everywhere. And so that's the real opportunity for our manufacturers to get all over the world and be innovative, but we're not taking it. And now our government doesn't want to help that happen. Anyway, thank you so much. And we hear you're getting married this month.

Congratulations. Congratulations. Actually, Saturday. Oh my God. But my husband and I, we are getting married this Saturday. We're excited. It's going to be at our home. So I want to send a shout out to him, Ori.

And then also our family in Israel. They were planning to be here, but unfortunately they cannot make it for obvious reasons. So our hearts are with them and we'll just maybe find time to celebrate in Tel Aviv whenever all of this is over. Next year in Jerusalem. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Well, congratulations. We really appreciate you calling in. Thank you. Thank you. A pleasure speaking with you both. Right. Yeah. Well, congratulations. We really appreciate you calling in. Thank you. Thank you. A pleasure speaking with you both. Bye. OK, Scott, we're back. Next up, we have a caller with a question about time travel.

Hello, caller. Tell us who you are and what your question is. Hey, thank you so much for having me. Check one off the bucket list. Time travel. Hello, caller, tell us who you are and what your question is. Hey, thank you so much for having me. Check one off the bucket list. I'm on with the big dog and the jungle cat. I'm Eric. I live near Philadelphia with my family.

I work in the energy industry. And my question for the two of you is if you had to pick one timeline to go back to in history, what would you choose as that timeline and why? Wow. I think about time travel a lot, actually. I'm an H.G. Wells fan. I love that book, The Time Machine. Of course, A Time and Again was one of my favorite books as a kid.

I love Jean-Claude Van Damme and Timecop. I love time, all the time things. I just find Ray Bradbury, obviously with the butterfly on his foot and stuff like that. I love time, all the time things. And I just find Ray Bradbury, obviously, with the butterfly on his foot and stuff like that. So I'm a big, I think about time travel a lot. And I think it would be pretty cool to go back and the question is what do you do anything

and change anything? You know, God, so many different choices. I got to, I would like to meet Cleopatra. I got to say, I'm kind of have a lot of questions. And so if I had to pick a historic figure, that time period, although I'd probably be killed immediately as a witch or something like that. But if I could be invisible or not,

you know, know what I know now and go back then, I think that would be kind of cool. I think probably, I just, I feel like there's, she was greatest ruler for a long, long time for, in the richest person in the world. And since I know so many richest people in the world, it would be kind of interesting to see that era. I think that would be pretty cool.

I probably would go back to see my dad when he was living. That would be the other one. But then would I be my age I was or the age I am now? So if I could know what I'm like now, then that would be cool. What about you, Scott? Yeah, it's an interesting question. I have no desire to go back very far because I've gotten fond of this whole Novocaine and Netflix age we're in.

And I think people wax nostalgic for no reason. I think we're literally, this is the best day ever in the history of the planet on a risk adjusted basis until tomorrow. I do think things just get better and people don't. Because we live in a society where algorithms want to convince you that your life is terrible and people aren't happy, it's not true. On almost every major metric, things get better every day. So I don't feel like I need to go back. Where I go to is I'm not interested in going to a different time. I'm interested in going back to certain scenarios in my life.

I would love to go back and spend some time when I had little kids in the house. That was really magical. And I kind of knew it at the time, but I was working so hard that I didn't get to spend as much time with them as I would have liked. So I would love to go back and be with, you know, four and seven-year-old boys instead of 14 and 17.

So that's how I think of time travel. I don't think of going back to, based on an era, I think of going back to different points in my life because I want to, you know, I want to remember what that, I want to feel that, I want to feel those moments again, but I don't have any desire. You can do what I did. You could have more kids.

Yeah, I think I'm close to business, Gara. Yeah. I would need to get divorced and go younger, which could happen. I'm just saying. You can experience it all over again. Now, I'm going to rent Saul and Clara. Okay. Good luck with that. Let's see. There's a great film about that also,

speaking of time travel films called it's called About Time. With Christopher Reeve? No. There's Time. And James Seymour? That's Somewhere in Time. Then he goes back and he sees The Penny. That's an amazing movie. But there's another one called About Time,

and it's with Bill Nighy. They can go back and redo things over and over again, and Rachel McAdams is in it. And they can go back and like, they meet for the first time, he fucks it up and he goes back and redoes it and redoes it until he gets it right. Which is kind of cool to be able to do that.

There was a similar movie called Sliding Doors with the best, in my opinion, the best modern day movie about time travel was Looper with Bruce Willis. And I forget the kid's name. Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Thank you very much. How about you?

What time? Where would you go? Yeah, where would you go? So, watching Stranger Things on Netflix has made me a little nostalgic for the 1980s. Oh, best era ever. Oh, so you picked one. You just gave me an answer. I agree.

No, if I could be, were you and I, I don't know if you're the same age as me. If I could be, if I just wanted to have fun, I would go back to UCLA in the eighties. I mean, that was hard to beat. Yeah, I bet. And you know, I could, you know, oh my gosh, I could have a good time.

I'd finally hang up the condom I never used. Anyways, yeah, the eighties, Tom Petty, Tom Petty, and Tom Pet used. Anyways, yeah, the eighties, Tom Petty, Tom Petty, and Tom Petty. And hair, you had hair. A ponytail, I didn't just have hair, I had a ponytail. You had a ponytail. Why the eighties for you, Eric?

Why the eighties? Why the eighties? Like I said, I was been watching Stranger Things all the seasons and it's like, it's almost like that ET vibe a little bit. I was a kid on a dirt bike, roaming around neighborhoods. There was a sense of freedom and fun. It wasn't just being a kid,

but there's a lot different than being a kid now. Yeah. Where'd you grow up, Eric? In Washington, DC, in Northwest. Yeah, it's a different time, although maybe it isn't for the kids, right? They may think this is the best time of their lives. They probably do. My kids are carefree in a different way.

So we don't know. It'd be interesting to go back with your current personality and knowledge to when you were a kid. That would be kind of cool. Exactly. You know shit. You know what I mean? That to me would be cool. I don't know. Still, I'm sticking with Cleopatra. I'd start a search engine in Mary Lauren Sanchez.

That's what I'd do. Oh my God, anyway. Thank you, Eric, what a great question. What a thoughtful question. Again, we didn't even say we'd go back and kill Hitler, did we? That's the old go-to. Hey, you're welcome. Thanks for having me on both of you. I love the show. It keeps getting better.

Just listen every week. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thanks, Eric. Okay, Scott, that's the show. As always, our listeners are so much smarter than we are. They really are, don't you think? Is that all you have to say? Yeah, I love it. I love our fans. But I love our advertisers more because they pay for that big back fucking boat that I'm going to

crash that Beza Sanchez wedding at. They're not having you there. I'm rolling in. I'm rolling large. We'll be back on Friday with more Pivot. Read us out, Scott. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie and her tight engineer this episode.

Thanks also to Dubrow's, Miss Vero, and Dan Chalon. The Shock Corroa's Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.