Pivot - Crypto-crash, Streaming wars and tax plans with MSNBC Host Stephanie Ruhle

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

Kara and Scott are joined by MSNBC Host and NBC News Senior Business Correspondent Stephanie Ruhle for a lightning round about the week's news. They talk about the tough week for the crypto-market, more on the AT&T spin-off of Time Warner (and who could swoop in to challenge the deal). They also take a listener mail question on mental health and big tech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Scott, more news this week. There's so much going on, but one of the things that happened was the European Union is reopening its borders to tourists who have vaccinated against COVID-19. A lot of stores are doing the same thing. It's kind of an interesting situation where the vaxxed and the unvaxxed, although you don't need, going to Europe, you need proof, but going into, say, a Target or a Walmart, you do not. So it's just based on your character. Yeah. And I mean, a couple of things that are interesting about this. If you think about the American brand or America as a brand, a brand is a function of the quality of its services, its products, and how deft it is around communication and increasingly how its leaders behave. This is probably, probably one of the

greatest brand accretive moves for the American brand in the last few years because you know what the key component of Europe letting people in is? Vaccines. Not just vaccines, but what vaccines? The Pfizer. U.S. vaccines. And specifically not China and Russia. That's exactly right. So the bottom line is, similar to the way we put a man on the moon versus the Russians, you know, our Nazis were smarter than their Nazis. That's a little secret we don't like to. That's a nice way of putting it. Okay. The bottom line is our science is better than the Chinese and the Russian science. And I think if you really look at the medical community or if you look at the winners and losers coming out of COVID-19, the skill, our pharma and our medical complex comes out of this really the big winners.

our medical complex comes out of this really the big winners. But the fact that Europe is saying, look, you can come in if you only have the best vaccines and who makes the best vaccines, the most important product in the world right now, America does. And the second thing is, Europe is showing the kind of leadership and sack that American companies and states and schools need to demonstrate. And that is, we require vaccines for school. We require you go to a metal detector at the airport because you could be a threat to other people. Companies and municipalities need to step up. So what do companies do, though? Like I just was talking to Vox and they're not going to, they're going to have people back in the office. People who go sooner do have to show proof of COVID vaccines. But those who are later, they're not going to do that.

I had a really interesting talk. Same thing like for other businesses, airlines. Airbnb has not required vaccines. I used an Airbnb in the middle of the pandemic and they did not require a vaccine. So it'll be an interesting choice for businesses and how they receive it, whether you want it digitally or a piece of paper that's easily copied or whatever. It'll be interesting to see who does what. I think most people will not require proof, I guess. Correct, don't you think?

I hope not. And I hope that companies show more backbone than our firm is right now and say, we care about our employees, we care about America, and it's time to take a leadership stand and not give in to this crazy bullshit conspiracy, conflating freedom with selfishness. And some companies have. I think they're worried about legal. I don't agree with you. I think there's some real problems here in terms of letting people go back with it, whether or not there's probably some issues around it, but we'll see airlines for sure. We're having Stephanie rule. Come on. And she's making faces at me. We're going to bring her. Stephanie, just come on. Come on.

What are we doing? This is Stephanie rule. Here we go. Stephanie rule from MSNBC. Let me introduce you. Our loudmouth neighbor, like, you know, on Bewitched, that's who she is. Our wacky neighbor. It's Don Rickles.

So here's Stephanie Rule. Go ahead, Stephanie. You're just like dying. You're making noise. Go ahead. I would rather be Lana from Three's Company if I were to be a neighbor. Come and knock on our door. Come and knock on our door. Fine. Whatever. company if I were to be a neighbor. So first of all, I can't believe you didn't call Scott out

for this. Scott using the term, they should have a sack. Screw you with your should have a sack. Like, great. They should have a vagina. I'm sorry. I'm just saying, let's try to use new words. Sack doesn't work. But number two, a business is allowed to require its employees to be vaccinated. Now there are caveats because of the American Disabilities Act. You don't necessarily have to get one if you have a medical reason, if you have a religious reason, and then the company can create, you know, different accommodations for you. That absolutely can be done. Just like a business can say, no shirt, no shoes, no service. They can also, if you run Target, you have to wear clothes to work, right?

Because think about how hard this has been on frontline workers. When we did have the CDC guidance that said you have to wear a mask, think about how hard it's been for those frontline workers and the fights they've gotten in. They all just need to make this more clear. And one other thing, for every business, an individual who's saying, don't tread on me, I'm not going to get involved. The U.S. government gave trillions of dollars away to support the American people and to support American business in the last year. The one thing they're asking of us is get vaccinated so we can be safe and reopen. And it's just not too

much to ask that we comply. Yeah, I agree with that. But I think, let me just say, I think businesses are going to have a hard time doing this nonetheless in practice. The kind of headaches they're going to get from employees. I think airlines can do it a lot easier. We're used to that. I think like cruise lines can do it. Airbnb, I doubt, can do it. That kind of stuff. But I don't know. Scott, go ahead. Gotta be honest, I'm a little bit scared right now. I'm a little bit scared.

It's literally like a double shot of Nespresso in the morning with a little bit of meth called, ladies and gentlemen, Stephanie Rule. First off, motherfucker, don't you stack. Jesus. It's the morning here. I should press back on the word stack. Stephanie Rule. First off, motherfucker, don't you sack. Jesus. It's the morning here.

Let's ease into it. Let's boil the frog slowly. It's just like the phrase man up. Last I checked, man up. Man up. Let's go with another. Let me just say, Stephanie, word, my sister. You're right. Six trillion dollars.

He's still going to say sack up. The government's saying. When you leave. No, you're right. They need to grow backbone. Estrogen supported bone strength backbone. Okay. None of that made any sense.

All right. Nonetheless, it's going to be difficult. I'm with Stephanie. We're not asking anyone to storm the beaches of New England. I get it. It's still going to be difficult. They wouldn't put on masks. They coughed at people.

This is just not going to be an easy thing for businesses, and I'm sure they're exhausted and are going to try their best to be accommodating. I'm not saying it's not difficult for businesses. And I think about restaurants specifically. They've had a hard year. However, restaurants had access to the PPP loan program twice. And they just got, just got in the last week, $28 billion from the government specifically for restaurants. They can work this out. They can find a way. They're not gonna, I'm sorry. I live in the

real world where, where people cough on people. Oh yeah. You're from the mean streets of Calorama. I don't live in Calorama. I don't like that word. OK, that's my ex-wife lives there. Anyway, we're going to move on. Speaking of which, speaking of things that are appalling, a mob of Israeli extremists to use WhatsApp to attack Palestinians. This this WhatsApp thing was a problem in Myanmar and other countries. Again, tech affecting people to be able to organize. I don't know quite if I want to blame Facebook,

but they've been through this a zillion times and they never fail to fail humanity to put something in place during an extreme time to where people will use these tools to do things like this. Thoughts? I want Stephanie to win. Stephanie? I tools to do things like this. Thoughts? I want Stephanie to win. Stephanie?

I feel the way I always do. I wish Instagram, which is a daily injection of joy in my life, would finally break up with Facebook. Instagram is like my girlfriend who has the worst husband ever, and I desperately wish she would dump him. So I could go over to her house with an Edgman's crumb cake and hang out all day. Okay, this is WhatsApp.

Yes, Facebook and WhatsApp, time and again, they do not do the critically responsible thing in their time of need. And why don't they? Because they don't have to, because they are largely unregulated. Do I blame Facebook? Nope, I blame the government.

Yeah, all right. Now, speaking of which, Apple had to compromise some of its privacy values in order to gain access to the chinese market this is a long time and thorny issue for apple not just now but before despite their strong stance here in the united states on user privacy it stores all of its chinese user data on servers that belong to a state-owned firm there's all kinds of uh relationships there that are problematic and definitely compromised. Thoughts, Scott? Just as privacy is Facebook's Achilles heel, China and Tim Cook and Apple kind of going all

in on China, which comes at a real price, is really Apple's Achilles heel. They get two-thirds of their income outside of the U.S. They're the only big tech firm that has really managed to develop a large sustainable business in China, and it's come at a big cost. And that cost is they have to really turn a blind eye or just bottom line is ignore what is a level of control and civil rights violations and ignoring really terrible things. And some of their vendor supply chain relationships. And when you're a handset company, it's impossible not to be a platform or an apparatus in all these terrible things. So this is their Achilles heel. Stephanie? Listen, for almost all public companies, how do you advance? How do you make shareholders happy? Growth. And so we look, how do you grow?

The answer is most often China. And Apple is living in the vortex of it. When you decide it's China, you are compromising so, so much. And the question is, is it worth it? Apple has decided it is, and now they're living through that pain. Yep, absolutely. I think they've got several things. Obviously, the lawsuit around the App Store, but this one is their absolute most problematic situation, especially because no matter where you go, including their supply chain, there's something bad happening, whether it's Uyghurs or something like that. And so their reliance on their Chinese market is something I don't think they have any good answers to. And it tarnishes what they're saying here, which I think we all agree is laudable on user privacy, also a brand attribute at the same time. They have more employees in China than they have

in the U.S. The number one job for a CEO is to risk manage. You cannot risk manage China. What would you do if you were Tim Cook, Stephanie? I don't know. I don't know. That's a good answer. Good answer. Good answer. All right. Last thing, Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist and MacArthur fellow Nicole Hannah-Jones was denied tenured position at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill this week after a backlash from the services for her teaching the 1619 Project. She was offered a night chair position, a tenured position teaching race and investigative journalism, a generally tenured seat. The faculty agreed to it. It went all the way up the chain. Someone said it's as if the Queen

of England decided not to let a law pass. What do you think? Both of you, both of you. So of course, the anti-cancel culture people were silent, which is interesting in that regard. So what do you think about this, Stephanie? I think I only know what I've read. And so at the surface and the way you frame it, yeah, it sounds wrong in every possible way. But it's also when these situations are super complicated. And I think lots of us who are sitting in the cheap seats opine definitively on what should or shouldn't happen. And from my perspective, I don't know enough about it to say something. Right. OK, that's a good that's a very good way of saying.

But Scott doesn't know enough about it, but he'll say something, Scott. Like you're speaking to someone who's been denied tenure over and over um that's because you're not that good at your job yeah you're not you're not that's really hey i have backbone that's fair but you don't have sack and that's why you didn't get tenure i'm triggered what do you think about this scott this is designed for you usually the professors decide this right and then it's just rubber stamped. Okay. So the reason things are so political and vicious at universities is there's so little to fight over. And having been around the people who make these decisions, I can tell you here that there's more than meets the eye and none of it makes any sense. Tenure is strange. Faculty make

decisions based on their relationships with people, who's written citations for other people. There's so many people trying to make it fair. It's anything but fair. And keep in mind, the way you get tenure at a university now, it's not how good a teacher you are. It has nothing to do with teaching. It's not even the quality of your research in terms of its impact on the world.

It's the number of citations you get in academic journals that we buy from each other for some ridiculous inflated price that nobody reads. It's literally the biggest giant circle jerk, including men and women. I want to be gender equal in my profanity here. And it's total, it makes absolutely no sense. How about no tenure? 100%, I'm down. How about be awesome at your job and get a raise next year? So if you have a tenure, 100 percent, I'm down forever and ever. How about be awesome at your job and get a raise next year? Tenure tenure is nothing but dead on young people. We have to make that connection.

Just as somebody enters their most unproductive years, we have to literally put three million dollars in an escrow account to award tenure because we acknowledge how unproductive they are about to become. And they leave feet first. They can show up to faculty meetings when they're 80 and cause trouble and give their viewpoint, which gets increasingly obstructionist because they recognize they're losing relevance. So tenure is nothing but, in my view, the most expensive corrupt guild. There are some departments that need lifetime employment around protection, the humanities law school. We haven't said anything controversial at a business school in 30 years. It is a ridiculous guild. It's a club between people who went to, got their doctorate together at Carnegie Mellon and are looking out for each other. All right. But in this case, this has never happened. I mean, it is the system that's in place. It's an interesting problem

because I think this is going to go on and on and on as each side sort of whacks at each other and then denies they're doing this ridiculous word that I'd like to cancel culture. I would like to retire that because it's become like fake news

at this point. It's nauseating. It's nauseating. It's nauseating. We'll see what happens. She's certainly a hyper-avoid person and it feels rather obviously political, but we'll see what occurs here. There's nauseating. We'll see what happens. She's certainly a hyper-volve person, and it feels rather obviously political, but we'll see what occurs here.

There's going to definitely be, they'll be yelling at each other at UNC for a good long time, I suspect, on this issue. UNC, great school. My son has some shoes related to it, but otherwise. Okay, now we're going to do something a little different. We're going to do a story grab bag, a big story grab bag with our favorite friend of Pivot, Stephanie Ruhl.

A lot of stuff. But before we start, Stephanie, I want to see what was the reaction to your interview with, which I thought was superb, with the governor of West Virginia. My family is from West Virginia. The Swishers are from West Virginia. I thought you did a great job.

What was the reaction to it? This was on the trans issue where you tried to actually ask him a real question of what one instance that this law will help. And then you cited what a shitty state it is on every other metric. Well, that's the thing. And listen, I've done a number of interviews with him. I have a good relationship with Jim Justice. He's done a lot for the state. But the infuriating thing about this transgender ban on youth sports is that none of it is rooted in fact, not one ounce of it. So we were doing a general interview, but the day before he had signed a bill banning transgender, you know, girls from playing on sports teams. That's one side. The other is medical stuff. There's two things going on. The devastating part about it

was how ill-equipped he was to discuss it. And this is a bill he had signed the day before. Well, it's not my bill. Stephanie, it's not my bill. I don't know. I just signed it. Just keep saying to me, well, as a coach,

I'm a coach of girls' basketball. Do you know how hard those girls work? But this whole argument is rooted in fallacy that, that, that, you know, we're supposed to think that, you know, somewhere in America, some boys baseball team at the last minute switched uniforms, decided to become a girls softball team and won the state champs. That is a lie. Like that's always a great movie. I like that movie, but go ahead. That's a movie from the eighties that should have existed, but didn't. Um, the sad thing is that he would make that bill enough of a priority to sign it when that is a state that is literally dead last in terms of infrastructure, probably like 48th in

terms of education. So instead of hypothetically saving that girls basketball team from a, from a potential boy switching over, forgetting. What, what, what, what was the reaction to it? Um, so I, he and I called a few days later. Um, yeah. And we had a really productive call and sort of the sad thing is he had no choice, right? Kind of. Right. So. Right. Basically, and this we don't necessarily appreciate in order for the governor to get something done. He's got to work with the legislature of that state. And it is really hardcore, really far to the right. And so what I deduced from my conversation with him was this bill was something he just had to play ball with, no pun intended, in order to get to other things that were a bigger priority. But in doing so, he doesn't realize the impact of it.

Right. So when I called him, he was sort of like, well, I get it. This is a core issue for you. He almost was thinking like she must have a transgender child. And you don't have to have any horse in the race of transgender. This is just about logic. And if a governor signs a bill, he should absolutely be able to back it. You know, there are 100 bills in 38. I just did an interview with Chase Strangio, who's the ACLU lawyer fighting a lot of these.

And Chase was doing the bathroom bills. If you recall those, it sort of came and went, which was the last attack. And before that, it was attacks on gays and lesbians around marriage. It's a continuing thing. And they've moved on to a topic focused on kids that people, even reasonable people, are like, well, boys shouldn't play on girls' softball teams. That's how they think in their head. It's one of these base issues. But that's it.

think in their head. It's one of these base issues. Okay, but that's it. So it's like when I eat dinner with my mom and she's like, well, Stephanie, I mean, you shouldn't have boys on the girls' team. Great, let's have that argument if there's ever a scenario where that's happening in any threatening way, but there isn't. Yeah, it was interesting. I'm more worried about what's happening on the abortion front in Texas. Yes, that is happening now, which we can get into in a second. But first, we're going to talk about things we talk about here. I agree. These states are moving in a very right way, in a way that people need to be paying attention to who care about issues like abortion and trans rights. So here's the categories we're going to talk about. The crypto crumble, Wednesday Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies crumbled after China widened crackdowns on the digital coin, where a lot of it has been mined.

Bitcoin plunged as low as $30,000. It was up at $62,000 or something like that. Obviously, more on the AT&T-Time Warner-Discovery Plus merger. We talked about this on Tuesday, but to recap, AT&T reversed a previous mega deal with Time Warner and spun off to merge with Discovery Plus to create a new streaming giant. If it goes through, I have a feeling someone might throw a bid in. And a look at Biden's tax plan, which would seek to raise $1.5 trillion via higher taxes on top 1%. Stephanie, you get to pick this grab bag. Which one you want to talk about first? Why don't we start with crypto? Crypto. All right. Thoughts? What is happening here? You had a lot of thoughts. I sent you all a lot of texts last night about when Elon says something, things go up and down. But now China's entered the picture

and the crypto people are losing their ever loving mind. Well, everyone is, you know, jumping out the window saying, why is it losing? You know, why is it going down? Why is it going down? I actually think the more important question has been for months. Why is it going up so much? And rather than just focus on crypto, to me, the amazing story in the last year is the power of momentum, whether it's crypto or meme stocks. We have watched individual names soar far, far, far away from fundamentals in a way that we haven't seen from individual investors. And this is why so many people are saying, we need more regulation. This shouldn't happen. But why shouldn't it happen?

Right? Like, Kara, you could say to me, walking down the street, Stephanie, why do your shoes cost $800? That's a million miles away from fundamentals. You could buy a pair for 20 bucks. That's true. But the value of something is what someone would pay for it. And so can you argue that these stocks shouldn't soar to the heavens? I think you can't argue against it. And so can you argue that these stocks shouldn't soar to the heavens? I think you can't

argue against it. And I think something that's funny when we say this should be illegal. I don't know. Why should it be illegal? Haven't hedge funds always done this? Five years ago, you had guys like Bill Ackman who were shorting Herbalife, saying things on television like arrests are coming. Right. There were no arrests. And then on the other side, what actually happened in Herbalife? Well, Carl Icahn got five friends to go bury Bill Ackman. We've seen this happen on the professional investor stage for years. And now we're seeing, we're now just paralyzed because we can't believe that because of the use of technology, you know, the speed of technology and all these other platforms that you've got individuals who

can now do it. Okay. Scott? Individuals. She's speaking of Elon Musk has been, the speed of technology and all these other platforms that you've got individuals who can now do it. Okay, Scott, individuals, he's speaking of Elon Musk has been at the center of that, but also the Chinese other other things. What do you what do you think about that? Barry Ritholtz texted me this morning, and he had a really interesting point. And that is, well, crypto, one of the main features of crypto or the narrative is how decentralized it is, that it's outside the control of the reach of any central bank regulators. You can put your crypto on a cold storage wallet. It may even be out of the reach of federal agencies or the IRS. But that's one of the core attributes is its decentralized nature. We don't even know who started Bitcoin. Actually, I do. The CIA started it and it was a brilliant move. But anyways, what this shows is that narrative is bullshit. This asset class is the most centralized asset class in history. It's centralized so much, it all centralizes to one individual, Elon Musk, who can move it up or down $200 billion. We've never had an asset class this big that is more centralized.

We've never had an asset class this big that is more centralized. Interesting point. So what does it mean, Stephanie, for the future of digital coins and companies like Coinbase? Is it just a shakeup? Is this going to go back up? What do you foresee? I mean, there is no way to predict this, but how does it change? Because eventually it will move to something more stable, presumably. To me, the most interesting player here is going to be Gary Gensler, the new SEC chair.

Yeah. He is as smart. I mean, he's as smart and capable as they come. And I don't know what he's going to do. However, I don't think there's any victims here. Right. Anybody who wants to play in the crypto space, buyer beware, you're in the deepest end of the pool. So if this thing doesn't work out for you and you're crying and you're trying to sue, don't cry for me, Argentina. I got no

time for you. You're choosing to gamble in the riskiest place. And so if you lose money, tough nuts. But what do you see? Thank you for the Eva Perón reference, Evita reference. That was a Madonna film, wasn't it?

Patti LuPone, don't even speak of the Madonna version. Don't even speak to me as a gay man um what here we go um okay what happens though how does it stay does it stabilize or just stays the deep end of the pool i don't know listen if i knew i'd be talking to you guys wearing a cape and a sword and a darth vader mask as a crypto game who's made a zillion dollars but instead I'm sweating inside a 30 rock. I don't know. That's an image. That's an image. I want to get to 30 rock in a second.

What happens to Coinbase? Either of you. Scott? It's the AOL of crypto. Its margins get compressed and it slowly but surely becomes less and less relevant. To what? It went out. The reference price was $370. It popped to $420. It's already down to $ what? It went out, the reference price was 370. It popped to 420. It's already down to 230.

I think this company has got no sustainable advantage. To be replaced by banks or? Oh, no, things like Uniswap. There's other more efficient. The whole idea of the blockchain is it's supposed to be more efficient and the gas or the friction or the cost that just the commissions put another way

are exorbitant here. You're about to see the mother of all margin compression. So the bottom line is I think it's a great company. It's not worth $45 billion. Yeah, and then just like AOL, its founders and executives will cash out and make a zillion dollars. They're selling like crazy. They're selling like crazy. Yeah, make a zillion dollars.

And people who got to the party late are going to get screwed. Right. Well, speaking of that, Jeff Bugis and Tim Armstrong look like a genius this week with both the Verizon deal and AT&T. I actually talked to Tim this week. This new one that's discovering mergers. So, Stephanie, as a host of a new streaming, what does the future of streaming look like with this mega company? What do you think? And also, is Comcast a possible spoiler here in this deal?

Why can't another bid be thrown? Listen, all eyes are on other big, big companies, because if this thing goes through, you're going to have two companies. You're going to have Warner Discovery and you're going to have Disney. And that's it. And everyone else is going to be in the background. So now the pressure is on for another company to do something. The other issue here, when you look at AT&T and people are saying, I can't believe this, look how much money they've lost. That's one argument to be made. Or you could say, listen, AT&T could have sat in the position that they were in and continued to

play defense and go in the wrong direction or rip the bandaid off, take a different direction, and now possibly do something. We could possibly see something very good. Now we're hearing some shareholders don't like it. You know, they're having their dividend cut. But here's the thing. If you're a shareholder who's dependent on having a dividend, I don't think you're a very strong shareholder. That's basically saying I need to get paid by a company in order to own its stock. This might actually wean out the most hardcore shareholders who believe in this. And the truth is, there's more synergies. When you think about the most successful companies in the world, they're really good at one thing. What's Google really, really good at?

Advertising, right? Other things that they did, they were great at. I don't know. I can't think of it, right? Maybe AT&T has realized we don't necessarily need to diversify. As an investor, I don't need the companies I invest in to be involved in all different verticals. I'm really good at what they do. Let me just say, the CEO was the one that pushed this and DirecTV, though, that went down this thing. And I get you say good try. I think you're saying good try. But

let me read you a quote I have from Tim Armstrong. The big reason, he was talking about Verizon, but he could be talking about AT&T. The big reason is that the investor sign outside Verizon says dividend here, an investor sign outside an internet company says growth here. You need top buy-in to get to that level. So the acquisition was only the first step in what should have been a much longer investment cycle. Scott, that's Tim. Yeah, look, I think you're right.

We don't talk enough about the importance of your shareholder base, and that is the shareholder base of AT&T was never going to give John Stankey the firepower he needed and the license to lose money. Shareholders at AT&T do invest for the dividend, and they want a predictable, great business called 5G that goes up, increases its revenue 3% or 4% a year, increases its EBITDA 5% to 6%, and they can count on that dividend. And there is a marketplace for those stocks, but they mismatch investor bases. And so this goes to my prediction, Stephanie, I think your boss,

Brian Roberts, is either called or is going to call in the next 24 hours. John Stankian say, John, you ready to put your big boy pants on? I don't think Discovery and Warner is kind of a meh deal. I think it's interesting. It's a great thing for Zasloff. All of a sudden, he's the dog that caught the car. But I think if you look at, I think NBC, CNN, and MSNBC overnight become the dominant player in news. If you look at a cooperation deal with AT&T and Comcast, you're talking about direct distribution of ATTU versus even, I think it's Sky or Canal. Yeah, Comcast has got to come in here, right? So I think Comcast, and not only that, look at Peacock right now.

Peacock right now is when I tried to play sports at UCLA. All of a sudden, I found out I was irrelevant and no one was impressed with me. Look at Peacock right now. Peacock is literally. They have some good shows. They have one or two. Peacock is all of a sudden looking like the small is looking like a 90 pound weakling going to 80 pounds. They have to do something. Quarter of a trillion market cap.

Brian Roberts is aggressive. Stephanie, you're you watch. This story has not been written. No, there's an. And also, it's not just Comcast. Because Comcast needs to do this. Because if not, they're going to be left on the floor without enough. They need the bulk. And if not, these tech companies who are just sitting... The tech companies, which was really interesting, one executive pointed out to me that they just have to... The tech companies, because their growing power is unregulated monopolistic, they now just have to sit and wait to, this is a quote, and have to sit

and wait to bleed out largely unprotected media companies by applying more investment into content and talent that the new discovery entity will have to match. We're still with even larger multi-billion dollar war chests to make media than discovery has. Tech giants do not have to make a profit doing so. They have other ways to make money in an investor base, highly tolerant of investing in growth. So what, Stephanie, what do you think? Are you going to be part of a mega company that Jeff Zucker will run all of? I have no idea where a lot can happen in the next week. I mean, what do you think of it?

What do you think of our scheme? We'll soon find out. I mean, honestly, Oh, she's got a lot of lip. I'm characteristically scared. She's got a lot of lip. Hey, I just said my boss had to grow a vagina. You can say something here. I look forward to watching this play out.

Here we go. Here we go. This is, at least in the short term, a giant win for David Zasloff. But it's not. Remember, though, when just scripts and I realized this is teeny tiny compared to where we are in the beginning, people like, I don't know, is that going to work? And then it did, because that was complimentary content. Right now, this is going to be what content can work together and who can control it the most. I'm sorry. I'm going to push back. David Zaslow is an excellent media executive from the 2000s, maybe 1990s. He is not the one I would run to go against Ted Sarandos and everybody else that's coming down the pike for them. He throws a great dinner party. He's well-liked.

But I mean, whatever you think of Jason Kyler, he does understand digital. I think David Zalzo sort of does. So I think Scott's right. He's the dog that caught the car here. And I don't think he's going to be able to hold on to it. Ben Johnson at the Montreal Olympics on the stage. I don't know what that means. Getting the gold medal.

Enjoy it while you have it, boss. Enjoy it while you have it. But what do the tech companies do, Stephanie, since you refuse to comment on your own company, which is obviously going to make a bid here and has to, has to. Any thoughts about Amazon possibly acquiring MetroGoldenMare? Or do the tech companies just sit and wait, just quietly wait? The tech companies don't have to do something this second. The tech companies can buy up other assets the pressure is is on much more for for companies that are already in the content space as their core business because as i said if this went through you'd only have two businesses you'd have disney and you would have warner discovery and

anybody else who's in the content business is going to have to get really creative really quickly but that wasn't their real enemy that wasn't their real enemy. Their real enemy, it is like they don't watch Game of Thrones. Their real enemy was the people on the other side of the wall. They were fighting each other, but the real enemy was the ice people. People who watch Game of Thrones, they really just like

violence and nudity. Okay. What's wrong with that? Seriously, what do the tech companies do? Like, does Amazon, do they need to do anything? Just sit and wait and spend, spend, spend with their extra money that they have in their drawer? They're smart in their discipline. I do think they'll buy MGM.

And slowly but surely, they're going to acquire more and more content. I think they want to acquire it slowly and quietly because I don't think they want to raise too many antitrust flags. Yeah, they can't come in here. Comcast, AT&T, you know, all of these guys, they're competitors. They're not adversaries. Their enemies are Facebook and Amazon and Google. And they're smart. Even if AT&T spins this thing with Comcast, I mean, quite frankly, it should be AT&T.

It should be Discovery. And it should be Comcast all joining hands and saying, you're the British, we're the Russians, they're the Americans. We hate each other, but we hate the Third Reich more. We have to figure out a way. Oh, wow. Bringing in a Nazi metaphor. Okay, go ahead. Well, speaking of History Channel, as I affectionately call the Hitler Channel, essentially, they have to recognize their strength. They got to bulk up and put their differences aside because the enemy is not only taken Poland,

it's now bombing. It's bombing the advertising industrial complex from the air. They have got to bind together. And then once this is such an existential threat for them and comment, yep. Fucking discovery. Discovery is literally a pimple on the content elephant. It's a cute little company.

That's not going to push back against Amazon. Or, I mean, literally, Jeff Bezos goes, isn't that cute? It needs to be Comcast. It needs to be AT&T. And it needs to be Discovery all coming together. Agreed. And figuring out fantastic technology. And also saying to their shareholders, get ready.

Buckle up. EBITDA's going down. We're going to have to make staggering investments. Comcast has got to get in here. Got to. Got to. Got to. They don't have a choice. They're going to have to make staggering investments. Tom and Kevin, got to get in here. Got to. Got to. Got to. They don't have a chance.

They're going to get killed later. Later. They're going to get killed later. Anyway, Stephanie has no comments. They have some really talented employees with some really great shows. There you go. You'll be bigger than ever. And then you don't have to work for Facebook.

These are the pluses. Unless if they don't do something, you'll be working for Facebook someday. One of these brands is going to figure it out. And instead of having Stephanie ask questions, they're going to figure out a show where people ask Stephanie questions. Yes, that's true.

All right. Speaking of which, Stephanie, can you explain, top line, explain the tax plan? This is your favorite area besides beating up on governors. Talk about the infrastructure bill. OK, so here we are, right?

So Joe Biden is trying to get another $4 trillion through. And every day we're hearing that Republicans are meeting with Democrats and Democrats are meeting with Republicans. But do I actually believe that they're going to get something done? Well, seeing that you're now seeing Republicans block having a commission on the insurrection, I feel very little confidence that they're going to get much done on infrastructure. However, I know Democrats' position right now is we have to go big. If we don't go

big, we're going to go home. And I want to be clear, I am in no way saying anything against the plan. What I'm doing is trying to be overly pragmatic. Democrats have to realize if they go too big, they could end up going home. If all of Joe Biden's plans go through, the U.S. government, and that includes what happened in the last year, will have spent $10 trillion. And I really do think that the American people, no matter what they say at parties or to their neighbors, when they go and vote, they vote based on what affects them, not offends them. And what affects them is their wallet. And people are getting more and more concerned about the amount of spending. And really the fact that, and there's no ill will,

we have very little oversight for all that we've already spent. Remember the CARES Act from a year ago? You talked about that. You talked about that. We don't even have a chairperson for the oversight committee. So yes, could you look at the American Jobs Plan

and the American Families Plan and say, absolutely, there are so many really good things in there. But are people going to say, yes, I want to pay for that? I don't know. And you have to look at important blue-ish swing states that are high tax states, New York, New Jersey, California. Are you going to get the suburbs in those places to say, yes, I agree. I want to spend $400 billion on elder care. I want to spend $250 billion on child care. When, you know, in American Rescue, we just spent $39 billion. And so people get so fired up. And then talk about the political elements here, because one of the things that

the Republicans are doing, this socialism thing they're doing that nobody wants to work because they got all this money, you know, there are two of them sort of converging at the same time. And you're seeing signs that everywhere I go, people are like, I can't find workers. Okay, yes. But let's be clear. This whole thing that nobody wants to work because they're sitting home smoking cigarettes, not so much there's a labor shortage. What we actually had in the last year, guys, was a labor shift. When every restaurant, when everything in the hospitality industry shut down, well over a million people who had those jobs went to work at Amazon warehouses and Walmart warehouses. And those jobs, while we could say those jobs stink, not compared to a restaurant job. I spent a day working at an Amazon center. And yes,

it was just a day, but you start at 16 bucks an hour. You work four days a week. You know, your exact schedule and you get healthcare from day one. I met a bunch of employees, women who said, I've never had a job with this regular, a schedule. They want to keep that. And, and, you know, then what's your other option? Go work in a restaurant and make two bucks an hour and roll the dice for tips, right? They keep saying, we can't find line cooks anywhere. Maybe that's because being a line cook is a brutal job. And we also saw a record number of people during COVID who were laid off, do lots of tech retraining skills programs, you know, the free Salesforce program, Google has a program and they're getting other jobs. Or Uber driving. They're getting other

jobs. So yes, in some element, there are people who are getting paid on this expanded unemployment and they're going to wait another few months. There are also people who, we do not have child care sorted yet. People are like, oh, schools are reopened. No, they're not. When a school reopens for three days a week, a mother still cannot go back to work. She's still got to deal with it the other days and she has to pick her kid up at three. So Republicans are totally overplaying this argument that everyone's just staying home. And then when all of us go out to our local restaurants, the owner of the restaurant is like, man, I can't hire anybody. And so this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And at the same time, prices are going up.

This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And at the same time, prices are going up. So my concern for Democrats is that the majority of Americans are not political, but they're going to look at prices going up across the board. They hear more and more about people not going back to work. And then they start to feel like, man, why are we paying for this? And there's a good chance they could say, I'm not going to vote for Democrats in 2022. And then they are going to elect people on the right that really are doing crazy, dangerous things.

So as productive as Democrats want to be about doing some really good long-term things, they have to be aware of the risks. And I think when you try to rate, when I try to raise these issues, I get punched in the face and called, you know, you are an elitist jerk who doesn't want to help people. I absolutely do. But I want to help people in a productive, long-term, practical way where you're going to actually keep power. I think your point about the tech jobs being, you know, even if you can complain all you want at Amazon warehouses compared to when you put them up against a restaurant or some of these other jobs, they're better, like all bad, better kind of thing on this scale of

shitty jobs. And so one of the things that's important to see is a lot of people have shifted over to tech related jobs, whether it's delivering for Uber, whether, you know, whether it's Amazon, whether it's all kinds of stuff that tech needs around the delivery space or the commerce space. And I don't think those are going back. I think everyone's gotten used to this. Amazon just announced last week they want to hire another 75,000 people. And by the way, they're going to give you 100 bucks if you're vaccinated. How's a restaurant or a hotel going to hire somebody, you know, when that's your other option? Yeah, look, if you look at the most recent jobs report, 250,000 jobs, which was way off the estimated 950,000.

But the nuances in the data and that is there are about 275,000 jobs, which was way off the estimated 950,000, but the nuances in the data, and that is there were about 275,000 jobs added for men. It was actually net job loss for women. And what Stephanie pointed out is really the key piece of information here, and that is when 50% of the schools are still closed, remote learning is Latin for mom's got to stay home and be the teacher now. Yep. And we've seen female labor participation regress 30 years. And it's not that people don't want to work. It's that work doesn't work for a lot of people any longer. And it shocks me that small business owners and CEOs are so shocked that at some point they're used to getting people at that level of jobs who are willing to work 50 hours a

week so they can live in their car. And it's just sort of overdue. And for all the posing for the cameras and all the posturing from Democrats on the left, the reality is since the Great Recession, the NASDAQ has quintupled, inflation's up 24%. We've seen an explosion in CEO pay from 50 times earnings to 300. And the minimum wage has exploded from $7.25 to, wait for it, $7.25. We are the wealthiest nation in the world. Let's start acting like it. We absolutely need an increase in the minimum wage. Bank of America announced this week raising their lowest workers to $25 an hour in 2025 and their vendors to pay $15 an hour.

A, we should applaud it. but B, you're damn right. They should. And so should everyone else. Think about the last year those businesses had corporate travel. They spent $0 on entertaining $0 on these businesses spend hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars on, on, on corporate travel and on entertainment. They didn't have to spend anything and they still made a ton of dough. They have them. What Bank of America probably realized was, holy shit, people are going to

realize how much money we're making. And if we don't do something on the bottom, we're going to get filleted. And the fact that we're not hearing other businesses follow suit is shocking to me. And the problem there is then small businesses really won't be able to hire. But then the argument is, if you cannot afford to pay your workers a living wage, then you do not have a viable business model. And it's okay for that business to go out of business. That's right. Oh, there's the two out of business people. Anyway, any predictions about whether Congress approves the plan? Stephanie? I mean, I do think, listen, the pay-fors are a really big issue, but I think that you even heard it last week when Joe Biden did a town hall with my colleague Lawrence O'Donnell. Joe Biden said, yeah, I want to see that Republican bill.

If on the Senate side, we've seen on the House side what they've put forth on the infrastructure side. Even if we just passed that, it would still be the biggest transportation bill we've ever passed. If something reasonable comes out of the Senate and we should get it any day now, I bet Joe Biden takes it and runs. Because if he does, Cara, he will have had in his first two years, he will have beaten COVID and he will have gotten an infrastructure deal done. Those are two. And yes, it's not the infrastructure deal he wanted to get done, but those are two massive wins. And that'll carry him to 20 through 2022. I think it'll annoy the, it'll upset the more

progressive side of the democratic party. And everyone keeps saying Joe's getting so progressive. If Republicans offer him something even remotely reasonable, I think he'll take it. I agree with Stephanie. There'll be a watered down version of the tax hikes and a watered down version of the infrastructure bill. But bridges collapsing in in Republican and Democratic districts, it's just a bad look for our government. I mean, infrastructure investment really is overdue. Something's going to happen. Although, you know, they like to stick with their guns, the Republicans.

And I mean guns. Just look what happened with the January 6th. Yes, but then Joe Biden can hold their feet to the fire and say, show me your bill. Show me your bill. I'd love to sign it. And the commission was approved. 35 Republicans in the House. Yes, they did.

But not. You know what's going to be interesting, Cara? Mitch McConnell is going to be the interesting player because behind the scenes, Kevin McCarthy was twisting arms trying to get people to vote against it, and still 35 people voted for it. Mitch McConnell

is not an arm twister, specifically on this issue. Yeah, you'll see. We'll see what happens, or else Joe Manchin will just say 50 votes in this particular case. We'll see. Or else they else Joe Manchin will just say 50 votes, you know, in this particular case. We'll see. Or else they'll just do like a Benghazi-like commission. It's coming. It's coming. Kevin McCarthy,

you will be deposed. If they go Benghazi style, that's worse for Republicans. Then Nancy Pelosi has complete control. Yes. Well, no matter what, Kevin McCarthy, you're being deposed on this issue and what you said and what happened, and you have to tell the truth, allegedly. All right. Scott, Stephanie, time for a quick break. We'll be right back to answer a listener mail. This is a good one for 72. When we get back.

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You've got mail. Hey, Kara and Scott. Greetings from Belgium. I love the show. I read some very worrying statistics about the health epidemic in the US. 90% of the US healthcare spending goes to treating chronic, mental health, and stress-related conditions. If it keeps going this way, it is predicted that the healthcare system, or sick care system

really, could bankrupt the US within 10 years. The American diet leads to chronic illness as well as cognitive and brain dysfunction, which are in fact preventable with the right diet and lifestyle choices. Chronic illness creates unhealthy and unhappy citizens, leads to the dumbing down of the population and will further drive inequality and civil unrest. How can the US remain a powerhouse and globally relevant, influential and competitive if its citizens are quite literally destroying themselves? I'm not sure if big tech has an answer for this, but I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you. Oh, wow.

Belgian's lecturing us now. Okay. We talk a lot on the show about platforms like Facebook destroying mental health, and obviously the pandemic has caused a mental health crisis and everyone eats too much and bad food. So what do you think about this question? Listen, I think it's an important question.

I think it's a real issue. Do I think on the list of priorities in America, that's anything that we're going to address in the near term? Absolutely not. Yeah. So fatter and dumber than ever is really what you're saying.

No, sadly, the wealthier people are, the more focused they're going to be on optimizing their health and longevity. And the lower people are on the socioeconomic scale, the more they're going to be on optimizing their health and longevity. And the lower people are on the socioeconomic scale, the more they're going to suffer. Look, 60% of people don't know what they're going to have for lunch until five minutes before they have them. We have a food industrial complex that taps into this instinct that hasn't caught up to industrial food production. And just as we've politicized masks on the far right, we've politicized obesity on the far left.

And we don't want to have an open and honest conversation around how overweight America is and how it's been. You know, 80 percent of the people admitted to the ICU had some sort of comorbidity related to body mass index. And I think that we've got to look at, you know, how some communities can't afford to eat healthy. We've also got to inspire people from a young age. There's a real fear here, and that is you don't want a 15-year-old who's already insecure to be shamed about their body. All right? That is a real fear, and we need to be thoughtful about that. But at the same time, I remember, I don't know if they still have it.

Do you guys remember the Presidential Fitness Awards? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But I remember like. Going up the rope. Yeah. of course. Arnold Schwarzenegger. And I remember like literally training for a year when I was 12 years old to try and figure out a way to do eight pull-ups because that was the only thing that stood in between me and the Presidential Fitness Award.

I think we've got to figure out a way to get America very focused on its health and get strong. And I think, you know, what it comes right out, coming out of college and high schools in America, I think we've got to put more emphasis on our goal is not to make our youth woke. Our goal is to make them warriors, both mentally, the ability to hold two contrary thoughts in their mind at the same time, but also to make them physically fucking monsters, to make them strong and fast and to think about their food intake and to think about exercise every day, regardless if they're an athlete or not. But I think Stephanie's right. The elites certainly do this.

I'm, for example, I'm wearing a glucose monitor right now. I put that thing on you. You did. I have a new one. It's almost done. But it's really interesting. I'm getting a lot of information about what affects me and stuff like that. But let's talk about how tech can help.

Now, if you had one of these on a lot of people, you could do a lot, especially if they were just patches, understand what's going on. But grocery delivery platforms could possibly bridge food desert neighborhoods or maybe it would further the gap, but possibly it could be good.

These kinds of monitors where people can know and have advice and stuff and make them very inexpensive. Mental health services that get delivered to more people because you don't have to pay a lot of money to go to a doctor inexpensive psychologist or psychiatrist stephanie can tech help here or does it just make it bad no it can because even think about um the impact of telehealth in the last year we have seen um mental health services uh broaden out who they're helping in an enormous way over the last

year, especially for children in underserved communities, because they can. If you are a mental health professional and you're working in one school, you can only help a certain amount of kids. But if you are doing telehealth, you can see a mass multiple of that. And if we sort of adopt more of those ideas and help underserved communities, whether it's economically underserved or generationally, we need to help senior citizens in terms of understanding this technology. It could make a huge difference. But I can tell you in my own mega privileged household, right in the last year with everybody home, people weren't moving. Kids didn't have sports. They didn't have afterschool activities. So for my seven-year-old, she wears a Fitbit, but like I can

do that because I went, oh my gosh, my kids aren't moving. All we're doing is baking. We need across the board to do this in a bigger way because when kids do make their way back to school, all they did, right? When, when Will Smith, a few weeks ago, you know, came out with those photographs of himself saying he's in the worst shape of his life and he just spent the last year in his pantry, everyone did. Eating processed packaged foods. And this is an opportunity especially to help our youth. Yeah, especially reaching out. I think tech could actually make a big difference here, even as they mentally fuck with people in other areas, whether it's Instagram.

It's usually Facebook doing that. But there are ways that this stuff can really help, as has been always the case with the internet. Scott, last word. There's some huge silver linings here, and that is we might be able to push primary health care. There were less than 1% of doctor's visits were virtual. Now they're 30%. And can we push out a dispersed, great, not only great, take healthcare and put it, take it off its heels and onto its toes. And instead of being disease driven, be health and maybe even fitness driven, but also to disperse the sweat industrial complex and give people cheap ways to just use their body weight in their home and maybe a few weights and just get people

into being strong. I think from all levels, from an early age, we're a strong nation, we're a stronger character, and we need to be strong physically. Yeah. Well, you know, the lesbians are already doing that. Lesbians all have really fit in with strong children.

It's huge in terms of CrossFit. We're creating an army of children, just so you know. That's our secret thing. Anyway, that's absolutely true. I think it's 100% true. I spent a lot more time doing telehealth,

and it was, reminders helped, all kinds of stuff. It was a really interesting thing and it did just fine. I've seen more doctors because of telehealth. I'm the queen of canceling every doctor's

appointment because telehealth changes everything. Then I just went in for the tests that they needed, the blood tests, and they were very convenient in my neighborhood because they were already doing... There are all these testing facilities that are popped up and so then now they've in for the tests that they needed, the blood tests. And they were very convenient in my neighborhood because they were already doing, there are all these testing facilities that are popped up. And so then now they've shifted to blood tests and things like that rather than COVID related. And people gotten used to it.

All right, Scott, Stephanie, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Stephanie, you have to have a prediction. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere and you're making content that no one sees and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing and makes writing blogs, creating videos and posting on social a breeze. So now it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers.

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They're very aggressive. They have a quarter of a trillion dollar market cap and they have distribution versus discovery at, I think, what was it, 16 billion? This story is not over. So anyways, you're about to hear the Comcast. My column says that. It was about to appear. Really? There has to be a Comcast in here.

They have to come in here. The tech companies can't. The Comcast has to. It's the only company that can. Disney can't step up. They already did their thing. And this is ridiculous that it's going to disappear. It's just like too small.

It's ridiculous. And it's not enough, by the way. It's not enough. And so it needs a much bigger thing. And this eventually will be an existential crisis for Comcast, 100. And Stephanie has no comment. Stephanie, what's your prediction? My prediction is that America has decided COVID is over and you're going to quickly see more and more states that haven't yet dropped their mask mandates. Just look at the American people. Look at New York City. Even several months ago, this city was left for dead. It was anemic. Walk around New York City right now. This city was left for dead.

It was anemic. Walk around New York City right now. Looking good. It is en fuego. I walked into an H&M yesterday to buy my daughter a pair of socks. I'm not exaggerating. There were 35 people online, right? People are packing in restaurants. You're going to, people are coming back to the city.

You know, this idea that, oh, people are going to come back to work by the end of the year. More and more companies are going to have their employees back ASAP. The banks wanted to bring employees back months ago. And I really think the only thing that held them back from demanding more in-person work is that they were worried about media pushback. People are done with COVID. They're going to move on. Yeah, I'd agree. New York is- But I'm saying that's where we're at emotionally. And the real estate market too. I've had a lot of friends who have said

it's insane suddenly, suddenly, you know, offers. I've had a lot of offers on houses I've had. It's really kind of, the cities are back. I would agree with you on that, Stephanie. And I kind of feel like for all of you that rushed out of the city that said, oh my God, the city's dead. I'm moving to some big house in the suburbs.

Yeah, great. Enjoy your commute. And enjoy the suburbs, which is not enjoyable in any way. And my prediction is that Jeff Zucker is going to be Stephanie's boss and good luck, Jeff, on that one. That's all I have to say. Coming in hot. Coming in hot. Oh, Jeff, call me Jeff. Call me Stanky, who is the worst media strategist in modern history. You know what though, Cara? It doesn't matter. As long as you're a big giant executive, whether you have a job or get carried out, you leave with a big bag of dough. You know, Tim Armstrong, although he looks like a genius now, left with $60 million when he didn't look like a genius. So there you have it. And then in fact, he deserves it now.

Who cares what the likes of media critics have to say about you? You leave with all the money. They do. They care. Stephanie, they care. Trust me. They do. They do. Anyway, this has been a fantastic show.

Except for Stephanie, no commenting. Otherwise, she was brilliant. They're crying on 1,000 thread pound sheets. Anyway, that's the show. Please send us your listener mail questions. That was just a great one from Belgium. We love them. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to have a chance to be's the show. Please send us your listener mail questions. That was just a great one from Belgium. We love them.

Go to nymag.com slash pivot to have a chance to be on the podcast. Scott, please read us out. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis, Ernie Andretat, engineer of this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. If you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend.

Shark Week, hosted by Stephanie Ruhl. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. It's not always easy to harness the power and potential of AI. For all the talk around its revolutionary potential, a lot of AI systems feel like they're designed for specific tasks, performed by a select few. Well, Claude, by Anthropic, is AI for everyone. The latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet,

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Stripe has helped countless startups and established companies alike reach their growth targets, make progress on their missions, and reach more customers globally. The platform offers a suite of specialized features and tools to fast-track growth, like Stripe Billing, which makes it easy to handle subscription-based charges, invoicing, and all recurring revenue management needs. You can learn how Stripe helps companies of all sizes make progress at Stripe.com. That's Stripe.com to learn more. Stripe. Make progress.