Pivot - Debate Prep, Apple and Meta's Potential AI Partnership, and Guest Brené Brown

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Kara and Scott roll their eyes over the latest Elon stories, including the news of his 12th child, and his criticism of Melinda French Gates’ political donations. Then, are longtime adversaries Apple and Meta putting their differences aside for a new AI partnership? Plus, with the presidential debate just a few days away, Kara and Scott share their advice for the candidates. Finally, our Friend of Pivot is Brené Brown, host of the Vox Media podcasts, "Unlocking Us" and "Dare to Lead." Brené explains why she stepped away from podcasting (and why she returned), what worries her about social media, and how people can deal with election anxiety. Follow Brené at @brenebrown Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Just so you know, I left my makeup in France, so this is what you're getting today. The raw face, Kara Swisher. I know it's hard to take because I have so done up most of the time.

I've told you this before. I personally think women are much more beautiful or much younger. I think makeup ages women. Some of it. And I think you look, I don't like it when you put on makeup when you go on TV. I think you look best. You have nice skin and nice features, and I think you want that to come through. Thank you. Although I have to say, the CNN ladies who do Chris Wallace makes it look rather natural.

They're really good. But I agree with you. I don't like too much makeup myself. Anyway, a lot to get to today. But how are you doing? You're back in London. Is that correct? Yeah, back in London where it's a sweltering

70 degrees. It's actually really pretty here. Yeah, it's really lovely. It almost hit 100 here in D.C. Crazy heat. Really? Oh, that's awful. Crazy heat. It's not that bad, but it's still like, it's calmed down today a little bit. But it's a wet heat. It's a wet heat. Wet, sopping,

terrible heat. Let me say, this heat wave across the United States is really debilitating across everywhere. Yeah, it's really. I'm sure. Remember when Europe got it last year or the year before? Yeah, I remember. These heat numbers are just like, I was talking to someone in Arizona and it's like nuts. The numbers are crazy.

Like, I don't know how humanity survives these kind of temperatures. And then the load on the energy system especially with ai making all sorts of generative images of us anyway did you have a good time in france oh i i loved it i i i'm i had a fantastic time um i really enjoyed i enjoyed seeing you i enjoyed i went to see the chain smok, who it ends up are DJs, not actual, not actual fans. All my pals were there with you. They said they ran into you

at the, both concerts, the Arcade Fire, I guess. Yeah, and, but the Chainsmokers are really lovely guys

and they have really hot girlfriends and, so what's not to like? Okay. And then I met the Kelsey or the Casey brothers. Oh, you did?

You met Travis Kelsey. Cool. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, I think I met his brother. They're both huge guys with beards. I can't tell the difference. There's a lot of beard. You met Travis Kelsey. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Oh no, I think I met his brother.

Brother. They're both huge guys with beards. I can't tell the difference. There's a lot of beard. But they're really nice guys. That is what it seems like. And I hung out with the CEO of Yahoo, whoever you like. Yeah. Jim is amazing. Lancell, yeah. Nice guy. Yeah. He, you know, I did a podcast with him because I want to, they're doing so well under him. And then he got a beachfront. He did a beachfront. He he did and i think it was smart he was showing some leg he was showing did you know he and i felt like i love that do you know that he and i are fraternity brothers we're both alpha rose adebetta tal ucla wow so we slip each other the secret handshake hello brother hello can you believe that we have a secret chance oh i can believe it alex is like he goes we did some things I can't tell you. Yeah, I can't tell you. I can't tell you.

It's very, very secret. But oh my God, like he does that all the time. But I respect it. I think is it his, I'm not going to get it wrong, alpha delta psi. I think that's what he is. He might be, he's an alpha, what? That's not right. I don't know.

Theta, he's going to kill me now because he listens to the podcast. Beta something? Beta theta pi? No, alpha delta psi. Alpha delta psi. Phi. Anyway. I don't think that's right.

Well, anyway, Alex, I apologize once again for being a bad parent. But more importantly, it's the ultimate in caste system and stereotyping, and that is everyone gravitates towards, they find their tribe. Like Sigma Chi UCLA were the God Squ, who were also good-looking guys. You know, Phi Caps were these small-town alcoholics that were fun to party with. Sammies were the hardcore Jews. ZBT, we were sort of the, like, more social, I don't know, more, I don't know, ready for prime time, some athletes Jews. And occasionally we'd bring in a non-white just to show how progressive we were.

The betas were total fucking animals. Okay. That always threw the most ridiculous, like, over-the-top offensive parties. Yeah, essentially. The theta guys were like the new wave guys that, like, all had David Bowie haircuts. Okay. Wow. Good to know.

Wait a minute. This was literally the best part of your life, wasn't it? Oh, 100%. I mean, seriously. The way you all talk about this. Hold on. I was the Delta Gamma Anchorman. An entire sorority chose me as their guy in 1986.

Yeah, Scott. Because I was funny. Because I was funny. Memories. Oh, my God. Take me back. Like the shadow of my mind. Take me back.

The way we were, Scott. I actually am doing a lot better today than I was then. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. I'm very glad for this moment of fraternity between us. So good. Apple and Meta considering an AI partnership. Apple's, you know, going around, as you said, as we said, the thing. And Biden and Trump are getting ready to go head-to-head in this week's debate.

I don't know if you've heard about it. Plus, our friend of Pivot, the newest member of the Vox Media family, Brene Brown, is coming on. She hosts the podcast Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead. And we're going to talk to her about social media, election anxiety, and more. And about vulnerability, Scott, which you are very vulnerable. I am less so. Speaking of people who are vulnerable in a way that is really unattractive. So Melinda French Gates gave her first presidential endorsement to President Biden. And it was great. She had a really nice announcement. Why she did it was a lot around women's rights. Musk replied to a tweet about her likely donations to Biden saying, quote, might be the downfall of Western civilization.

Oh, Elon, you endless drama queen. He also made similar comments about Mackenzie Scott's charitable givings. He doesn't like, I don't know why he cares if he gives money and everything else in time that he cares to comment on other people's opinions. I think it comes down to incentives. I've been thinking a lot about incentives and the incentives, really the problem with social media and probably the epicenter of what has really fucked up our society over the last 10 years is the incentives are, you know, for teen girls to sexualize themselves. And it's for powerful people with a huge following to say controversial, incendiary, coarse things, because you're seen as a leader. And unfortunately, you're seen as,

you know, someone who is puncturing and tells it like it is when you say really, of course, just inappropriate things. The incentives are, I'm sure he got tens of millions of likes for that. And people are like, oh, he's a leader. You can't keep that guy down. Rather than saying, why? You know, she's trying to do good things. She wants to give money if she wants to. Like Mr. Free Speech.

It's ridiculous. It's interesting, though. There's sort of a lineup happening. Like you have Melinda Gates. I've heard that Cheryl on the sly has been giving money

to Biden a big check. Sheryl Sandberg. Sheryl Sandberg. Yeah, and obviously Reid Hoffman's been giving. This is on the Democratic side. He did a very thoughtful editorial on Biden.

He did. That was great. Bloomberg did one. I'm sure Cuban's been sort of a surrogate for Biden quite heavily on Twitter. You know who's been the most effective? Robert De Niro. Robert De Niro's been really good, yeah. But these are the tech guys. It's interesting because there's a real lineup happening here of teams. And then there's the sort of right-wingers, all in people just did a Trump, licking him up and down in their whatever, wouldn't call it an interview. It It was more widely a suck up thing. It's gotten a lot of commentary on that nonetheless. And then, you know, obviously Musk is lined up for Biden. I mean, excuse me, is for Trump.

So it's interesting. And of course, they're all meeting with people like Javier Malai of Argentina. They just did a picture. Marc Andreessen was there. A whole bunch of tech pros were with him. And of course, they call him, you know, one of our great intellectual philosopher kings. And they're not really reading the parts about abortion being murder and saying women need to go back in their place. They don't seem to. They seem to. He's like a libertarian, like, wet dream. Libertarian tech pro-debt wet dream. Yeah, but just to go back to the supporting of Canada, I also don't think it's fair. I saw Dennis Quaid was saying he's probably going to vote for Trump, and the comments were just so aggressive.

And I'm like, okay, if you believe people should be allowed to support Biden and, you know, disagree but don't go after them, people should be able to support Trump and you should be able to disagree and not. They should. I just think their interview was a suck up, but go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry. Well, yeah, I didn't, I didn't listen to the interview, but I'm curious. So you listened to it. You didn't think it was a very good interview? Oh, no, they didn't follow up on anything. They forgot to ask him about the felony. They, you know, yeah. I mean, it just was just like, and your big brain, it just was, it wasn't an interview they're not journalists they're a bunch of

investors cosplaying it being whatever thought leaders I don't care we're going to try to get Biden just everybody knows

for this interview yeah I wasn't I didn't want to say that I didn't want to spoil it we're going to try to get him we're going to get him we're going to try to get him yeah it's not we

that's you if we get him it's because of you yeah you got to be ready to go you need to ask good tough questions that's what we'll do's you. If we get them, it's because of you. Yeah, you got to be ready to go. You need to ask good, tough questions.

That's what we'll do, because we'll ask good, tough questions of him. We do the same with Trump, by the way. Maybe we should ask Trump. Should we ask Trump? I don't see why we wouldn't. I think we should. He won't do it, because he likes to get licked up and down all day. If we're going to ask Biden, we should ask Trump.

Yeah, absolutely. I will do that. I'll put in a thing that will be thrown into the circular file. His kids, Don Jr. retweeted my Morning Joe segment and said, this is the America we're trying to create. I'm like, wow. You're a well-known Trump. Don Jr. Yeah, you're a well-known Trump.

Don Jr. You're with those guys. Junior. Yeah. That's how I think of Scott Maga. I think you're open-minded is what you're, but not particularly. Well, no,

but I think he did that because I think that's clearly evidence his cocaine dealer was back from Tulum. You probably share one. Anyway. I don't do cocaine.

I'm very open about my drug use. I've never done blow. I know. I know you haven't. I forget the drugs you've done. I forgot. I'm sorry. I'm going to keep my list.

I think I would have lost my virginity at 17. Lena, my prom date, wanted to do blow and I didn't bring any. I forgot. I'm sorry. I'm going to keep my list. I think I would have lost my virginity at 17. Lena, my prom date, wanted to do Blow, and I didn't bring any. I think that was my shot. I think that was my shot. I think you've done just fine. All right, we got to move on. Just so you know, just for everyone, congratulations. Musk had another child, by the way, with Neuralink director Siobhan Zillis. She had twins with Musk, and then she had another child earlier. Congratulations. Not living with your children, that's a real sign of masculinity. You're definitely being a protector there. Well, when you have 12, it's a little hard. You have to have a big house. He is

rich, though. Anyway, congratulations on your child. Big thing we've been talking about, you and I texted about, I think AI's power grid needs are exceeding capacity. Goldman Sachs analysis found that data centers will account for 8% of total electricity use in the US. That's, I mean, crypto and Bitcoin mining was, yeah. Tech giants are confident they can solve the problem, though. Microsoft's saying it will harness atomic fusion power by 2028. Both Bill Gates and Sam Altman are investing in nuclear energy. Meanwhile, coal plants near data center operations that were supposed to be shut down have been extended to fuel demand. Well, great. Good. More global warming. Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon have all said they plan to erase their emissions as soon as 2030. They've talked about that. You know, the amount of power,

you know, you need two things. You need, obviously, the chips and you need the data, but power is the one people don't pay attention to as much. Yeah, they say it's 10 to 17 times the power for a query on AI versus a query on search. And even the water to cool these data centers, they say that you're going to need essentially the amount of water, the daily water supply for 17 million households just to cool the data centers. That's one of the ways they do it, yeah. the daily water supply for 17 million households just to cool the data centers. That's one of the ways they do it, yeah. Well, and the thing I like about this is that people are re-embracing nuclear power and trying to be very creative. You know, these guys are very smart. They're very forward and future-looking, and they're not afraid to make big. They've got to save money.

And they're not afraid to make big CapEx investments. But I think someone told me that crypto has now added the incremental power demand of Argentina. And it's not unthinkable to think in 10 years if AI keeps growing, it'll be the incremental power demand of Latin America. So it's really interesting. Power is energy. No matter how much energy we produce, it's like bandwidth. We can find uses for it much faster than we can find energy sources. 100%. They've tried innovative ways. My ex-wife worked on, I can say this now because she left a long time ago, but they were thinking of doing, she went to Hawaii.

And I was like, why are you going there? She said, I can't say. And at the time, they were going to do a wind farm on Hawaii for power. And they were going to try to power Honolulu. Google was doing this. on Hawaii for power, and they're going to try to power Honolulu. Google was doing this. And obviously, Google's been really out forward this stuff like thermal energy, all kinds of ways to these data centers are just such a pull. And, you know, I always hear of some plot, either there's thermal or nuclear or wind, to, you know, at one point, remember,

they had that sail they were going to put up in the atmosphere that was going to turn a turbine and then was going to create power? Remember the big sail? That was another thing. Google has been at the forefront. But they do have to solve this. They should be the one focusing on alternative energy sources. I hope they do more wind farms so it drives Donald Trump crazy because it kills birds, apparently. But anyway, it's a really interesting thing we should keep in mind.

We focused a lot about it around Bitcoin mining, but AI really is a pull on the energy sector. It's an area we probably should look at and get a little experts in here. Anyway, let's get to our first big story. Apple just became the first company to be charged under the EU's new competition law, the Digital Markets Act. EU regulators say the App Store stifles competition for developers and limits options for consumers. Apple has defended its practices, saying the restrictions fees are fair trade for providing a large platform. Same arguments they've made here. Obviously, they've been sucked up into litigation here in this country. Do you think Apple's in trouble here? These are new European rules. It's said it's not going to release Apple intelligence to the EU in 2024 due to regulatory uncertainties. Meta's

paused its AI launch in Europe after regulators raised privacy concerns. So what do you think about that? I think that's the problem. There's sort of a collective action problem. And that is, for example, if you don't get every kid under the age of 16 off the social media, the kids that you do take off of social media actually end up becoming more depressed because they feel isolated. And there's a bit of a collective action problem around regulation. And that is, does Europe end up with sort of a hamstrung version of these products? does Europe end up with sort of a hamstrung version of these products? And then the companies kind of bind together and start slow-balling rollouts and not hiring. It's sort of the race to the bottom. And to Secretary Yellen and Biden's credit, they did an AMT, basically an alternative minimum tax on corporations, of 15% across EU and kind of G20 countries.

Because if they didn't do that, everybody just keeps doing their double-dutch sandwich and issuing their IP to the lowest tax state. And so I think that the EU is feeling a little bit, I don't know what the term is, punished. I think they're collectively, the big tech firms, when I saw this, they started winking at each other and saying, we're bigger than Europe, and we'll just start slow rolling stuff and have two sets of products.

Now, whether that creates an opening for competitive products, we'll see. I think Mistral, the AI company in France, is actually going to succeed because I think- You've talked about this company, yeah. But I'm blathering on here. What are your thoughts on it? I haven't really thought it through. You know, it's more, it's this idea that we do have to have laws in this country, right? This is still that Europe is sort of leading the way. You know, I talked about it to a number of people there in Cannes. You know, Europe shouldn't be leading the way on these things.

And obviously, there's lawsuits here in this country having to do with Apple. And at some point, this App Store issue will come to a head in this country. It'll take 109 years, and it has in court with a bunch of different cases. But I think the question is, at some point, they can't keep making the idea that they're providing safety on a large platform, and it's fair trade and everything else else because they really do have a stranglehold on the market. And so there must be some, I've always thought Apple would negotiate an end to this, right, rather than do anything. But I suspect they're just not going to release it in Europe just because they won't, you know, they just won't. And I don't know whether our

government has the heft to really keep pushing through all these lawsuits, whether it's Meta or Apple or any of these companies. But eventually, there'll be discovery. It takes so long to stop the juggernaut from happening. And speaking of which, Apple and Meta, longtime adversaries, might be teaming up in a new partnership. You remember there's a lot of testiness between Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook a couple of years ago about advertising. But the two companies reported talking about integrating Meta's generative AI model into Apple intelligence. According to the Wall Street Journal, AI startups Anthropic and Perplexity are also in talks with Apple. Perplexity is in a lot of hot water for scraping, like Forbes' articles, and we talked about that previously.

You know, as we talked about, these companies, Apple will be the, was it the gatekeeper is the right word? Or what would you, how would you characterize it? And, you know, does it bring more antitrust scrutiny by doing all these? They haven't done one with, probably Google, they'll probably do a deal with its Gemini model. I think Metas is an open source model.

They're going to be like the everything store, I guess, for these things. I see it as passing out free crack to kind of the rich kids. And that is they're saying, okay, if you want, we are the gatekeeper. And we have custody of the billion wealthiest and most influential customers in the world, and that's iOS users. It's so disproportionately influential, iOS versus Android. And I think what they're doing, as I said, we're going to work with multiple players, and we'll give them a little taste of crack on what it's like, and they'll try out their LLMs with the most sophisticated, most influential, biggest spending group, right?

And then I think where this is headed is all to the same place it was headed with search. And then they're going to say, all right, we're going to flip the model and say, who wants sole access? Or maybe they'll go, you know. Put them all there and hide them. Yeah, or do like, you know, these sponsorships thing where, you know, the Olympic Games is brought to you by our diamond sponsor, Exxon, and our platinum sponsor, you know, these sponsorships thing, you know, the Olympic Games is brought to you by our diamond sponsor, Exxon, and our platinum sponsor, you know, but I think Apple, someone, I don't know

who it is, but someone who's in charge of strategy at Apple comes to Tim Cook with really thoughtful scenario planning. And I think what they're doing here is saying, okay, give everyone a taste of what it's like to hang with the cool kids. And we're basically the end game here. And what works best for us, right? What works best for Apple? Oh, 100%. Yeah, because they have to have a safer environment, for sure. But I think where this is all headed is in 12 or 24 months, they're going to have a Google-like licensing agreement where they're going to just create billions, if not tens of billions,

of high-margin licensing revenues to these LLMs that are all looking to stand out. Because if you're, say you're Anthropic, right, and you're kind of losing that, you're falling behind to chat GPT, I mean, how much would it be worth to you? If your company goes public at, say, a $150 billion market cap, would you be willing to take a 5% dilution that would be $7.5 billion and give it to Apple for doing it. But it usually is Google. Google was the default one. On there right now, I'm just looking at it as Yahoo, Bing, and Ecosia, which I don't even know what that is. But it's sitting there. I'm going to go try it, I guess. So, you know, Apple's not paying. The first deal, which was widely touted, Apple with OpenAI, Apple's not paying OpenAI, obviously, to feature ChatGPT.

It's like a big marketing event for OpenAI in Apple intelligence, nor is OpenAI paying Apple, but at some point, you know who's getting paid. Apple. Apple is. So I suspect that's going to be the same financial relationships. Apple is the kingmaker here in a lot of ways. It's a smart, you know, it's interesting because all these media companies are negotiating with these people for using LLMs. And then they'll get a small amount of money. This is where the big money is going.

This is where the big fucking money is going. I just interviewed Craig Peters from Getty today. We had a great discussion about this because he's suing some people. He's cooperating with some people. But it's really hard because, you know, he's a media company. So his shares are way off. You know, his customers are in a free fall, his form, you know, all the media companies. And so it's hard. It's hard to compete as a media company. So this is who's going to make the

money is the Apple. Apple's going to get richer. Well, and I think analysts immediately went to the white meat here and they saw the same thing that we're seeing. And they said, OK, Apple's positioning themselves for another enormous licensing deal, similar to Google. And the stock's up 10%

since they announced Apple Intelligence. It has, let's see. And I don't think it's... Whoa, it really is. Yeah, it's hit an all-time high. And I don't think it's on the back of, wow, this is a great product. I think they said, oh, we see what you're doing.

You're not going to spend tens of billions of dollars trying to build your own LLM. You're just going to go to the highest bidder. Yeah, so cost, savings costs, and then everything else. And you're going to reap all this money. You're going to say, all right, you guys jump on your price swords, and we're going to start a bidding war, and all of this is going to hit the bottom line. And their stock was up. And you'll think of Apple Intelligence, not all these individual people. Because I guess I do think of Google Maps when I get to another.

Although I've heard that Apple Maps are gotten a lot better. So I may go see how that experience is. They've added $300 million in market capitalization since the Apple Intelligence. And it's not because people think Apple Intelligence is so cool. I think it's because they sense they're about to become the new gatekeepers to the deepest pockets in the world. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we get back, look ahead to this week's presidential debate, and we'll speak to a friend of Pivot, Brene Brown. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer

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October of 2020. I don't think they like each other. A Marist poll from last week shows a dead heat between the candidates. And actually, Biden was up a little bit. He's been going up a little bit, including in a Fox News poll, which is making former President Trump lose his mind, which is not very far to go. So let's talk about strategery, Scott. Now, here you are going into this debate. I talked about it a little bit on the Chris Wall show this week, but what is the strategery? Just for some more background, RFK Jr. did not make the cut for the debate, falling short in ballot qualification and polling. He's making a lot of noise. The debate rules, just for people to know, and then I love your thoughts on this, no live audience, no props allowed on stage. Microphones will be muted when it's not a candidate's turn to speak. I believe they have two minutes. Biden won the coin toss and selected his podium position on the right side of the screen. Trump

then chose to have the last word in closing statements. So what do we think? Give me a what Biden should, this is the question from Chris Wallace, I thought it was a good one. Does this setup help which one for me, if you were the marketing guy here figuring out sort of the optics of it which one do you think this set helps oh it's total team biden in terms of advantage uh trump is so quick and outrageous on his feet and so plays to the crowd and tickles people's sensors and all that him constantly interrupting people it just throws the other person off you know off kilter. So them shutting off the mic is totally advantageous to Biden.

Is it? There would be some crazy. I think Democrats tend to be a little bit more civil than maybe MAGA people. He's not going to show up with a bunch of people who have. I mean, do you remember the bullshit? Yes. Remember Bill Clinton? Yeah.

So he creates a sideshow and a carnival, which throws the other person off their feet. And the strategy here is really simple. Okay, let's talk about the economy. I wouldn't go to... Let me get, what is the one thing Biden should avoid and one thing he should lean into? And what is the one thing Trump should avoid and lean into? If I were Biden, I would stay away from the Trump court cases. I think that people will go there on their own. And I think he wants to talk about the economy

and bodily autonomy and how he is actually taking action against immigration. I would go very, very almost conservative and hard right on immigration and say, now, if the Republicans would only help me solve the crisis at the border. And I would talk about the economy. I would talk about numbers. I would be very kind of adult, almost like an economist. And I would end the debate with the following. Awkward pause. My last question to our viewers tonight after thanking CNN is, do you have daughters? And I would just leave the air empty for a few seconds. Very good. I like that.

Many people think he should not. You know how Reagan did that fantastic rejoinder, right? I'm not going to let my age take advantage. He's not witty like that. And so should he have a joke in his pocket, though, about his age if Trump goes? Because Trump's got some cognitive ding-a cognitive dingity-dongs happening constantly now. Yeah, I mean, he should have a couple, he should have pre-packaged two or three. And when someone brings up age, he should come up with, you know, say, look, we're both probably consumers of catheters.

I would make jokes to remind everybody that the guy across the stage from me is also really fucking old, folks. So, yeah, you hate us both, whatever you want to talk about. But him not having a hot mic, and if I were Trump, I would talk a lot about what's happened on universities when Democrats take over institutions and what's happened in democratically controlled cities. That's where I would focus if I were Trump. Chaos, crime and chaos, sort of the Nixon-y

kind of thing. Well, the most, I mean, the arguments they should make, and this is what media they should roll every day is, this is what happens when democratically controlled leadership takes over an institution. Look, it's what's happened to our elite universities. This is what happens when Democrats get control of a city. Even if it has a ton of money, this is what happens. Is it, is it, you go downtown San Francisco. Is this what you want the country to be? I realize that's not fair. I realize you love San Francisco. That is just from a perception standpoint.

You're coming with me there. Okay, yeah, go ahead. It's changed. But go ahead. I agree with you. I live there. It might be wonderful. I'm just talking pure perception.

Yeah, I got it. People who've never been there for some reason think it's a hellscape right now, unfairly or fairly. And also, to be fair, Portland and Seattle are really, I have been to those cities recently. They've changed a lot. They have. They have. I agree with you. So, one of the things that, what should Trump not do?

Because some people think he will be calmer when he can't be jacked up. That's the thing. If you recall, the first debate with Biden, and this is a long time ago, he was, you know, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Really, you know, stand back and stand by, interruptive, crazy. And all Biden had to say is, come on, man. You know, he kept doing, and Biden sort of won that debate. The second one, it looked like he was drugged and calmer. So what some people think, no live audience, no props, microphones muted will make him into reasonable Trump. okay, it works for him. I don't know how to advise Trump because every piece of advice I would have would be try and act more sane because that's people's fear around you. And try not to be all over the place. Try and focus on, try and come across as people. You want to look at points of distinction and then press on those points of distinction. The reason Biden will, if Biden loses this election, it'll be because of the following. The people see him as too feeble to be commander in chief. That is the only reason he will lose. And so you want to press on that. And so Trump wants to come across as distinctly

more robust and young. And part of that is cognitive capability. So if I was preparing Trump, I would say you need to have command of the issues. You need to come across as somewhat sane. You need to come across as youthful and vigorous, laugh, poke fun at yourself, and have real command of the data. You need to draw sharp relief between you and the old man. That's my advice. Yeah, the problem is, everywhere he goes, he's missing words now. He's doing a lot of stuff, and obviously, his family history of dementia. But one of the things that I think is problematic, and I spoke to a lot of people in that CEO summit. Now, look, they're going to back Trump because it's good for them in tax cuts, let me just say.

And someone who was there saying they thought he was crazy, they're still going to back him, right? He was losing words. He was going off on tangents. This was a crowd that was welcoming to him, the CEO group, the business roundtable, and was willing to overlook the insurrection kind of stuff for a tax cut. And I talked to a number of people who were like,

whoa, like, whoa, like that kind of thing. So I think that's where he, I don't know how much he has control over that or is willing to do that i think one of the things he cannot do is talk about losing the election that's whether that's a great point he cannot he cannot look backwards but he can't get off of that i you stole the election you stole the election if he does that it's a huge opportunity for biden biden needs to be ready to go and go, okay, 43 cases, zero credibility. Just X, Y, Z. What's the difference between us and every other nation? We have people who can see the light. Biden has to be ready to really drive a train through that. I think Trump can't help that. I think it animates everything he does.

And then the other thing he's saying, the last thing I'd say is he's all saying that Biden's getting a shot in the ass, which means Trump is getting a shot in the ass, right? Like everything he says, I'm like, oh, that's what you're doing. I mean, Trump looks like he's taken every drug in town. Like it feels like a Zempik. It looks like he's juicing. Biden needs to practice the age old adage about being interviewed. Don't answer the question they ask. Answer the question you want to ask. At some point, he needs to say the following. Trump threatened to try to ban TikTok and carve it up. We have actually banned it or are investing it with a plan that will pass muster that makes sense. Biden constantly, you know, Trump talks about safety in the Middle East. We sent two aircraft carriers over there and we have so far sequestered this from becoming a more regional conflict.

He needs to say, okay, Trump talks a big game, but we actually, you know, we have some overlap here. You agreed. You thought TikTok was a national threat. I want to give you credibility for it. We've actually done something about it. You talk a big game about being an ally to Israel. We're actually the real ally here. One of us has

deployed an aircraft carrier there. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's true. I think one of the interesting things going into this, the money raising. Now, Trump is, they thought this would happen, but he's raised $141 million in May. Biden raised $85 million. He was way ahead, Biden. $53 million came in for Trump 24 hours after the hush money verdict, of course. He's really done very well by being a felon. There's also, I think that'll ultimately even out and depends on where they spend it. I don't know what else to say. I don't think there's going to be a big deficit between them.

Trump VP speculation, he's making a circus of it. He revealed this weekend he knows whose pick will be, although he hasn't told the person yet. Future VP candidate will most likely be at the debate, according to Trump. Current top contenders include Senators J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, and Tim Scott, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. I think I've settled on Burgum at this point. He's managing to carry the water for him and seems not as nuts as the others. I think he doesn't like Marco Rubio.

I think he thinks J.D. Vance will take attention from him. Tim Scott looks like a toady, so much so. So I suspect it's Bergham. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem appears to be out of the running. She indicated on Meet the Press over the weekend she has not been formally vetted. It's because Trump has a dog. Yeah. No, he doesn't have a dog.

He doesn't. That makes sense. He doesn't have any pets. That makes sense. So just make a guess, and then I'll ask you the last question about the Supreme Court's decision. I don't know. I think it's probably going to be Bergen. But just one last thing.

If I were on the Trump team, I would hammer over and over. Just to be snarky, I would go 100%. I'd be like, well, President Harris. And he's like, you better get used to that. This guy's going to be dead. If he really wants to go gangster, he'd say the following. You're not voting for Joe Biden. You're voting for President Harris. Shrap your head around that because she's deeply unpopular. Meanwhile, we're still waiting for the Supreme Court's decision on the Trump immunity case. What in the world are they doing over there at the Supreme Court? The next batch of opinions will be released on Wednesday.

They've got a lot to go, and they've got a very short term to do it in. The day before the debates, we get a decision then. The immunity decision, I think they're probably, like, wrangling over it, right? I think Alito's been hurt, probably, with the flag situation. But in terms of power, but i suspect they're trying to come i have this feeling that amy coney barrett's just not going along with the boys at this point on this kind of thing but who knows she seems to have formed relationships with the other women on the court which is interesting what do you think of this not an abortion obviously but what do you think is this affected i don't know the the thing you said that was sort of interesting is that what you

just made an argument for was lifetime appointments. I think they should do what they do in Brazil. In the Supreme Court, there has mandatory retirement age of 75. Oh my God, think about it. You have to leave when you're 75. What generally happens is,

or what you hope happens, is that people just become apolitical and show a fidelity to the Constitution or the beliefs or what have you, and they're not going to be intimidated by anyone. I haven't seen that. I've always thought Justice Barrett, I don't know. I think that's wishful thinking that she's siding with. I know, I know. But lately she has been, I don't know, it's just interesting. I think she's gotten hanging around other people, and she's so smart, like, let's be honest, I mean, godly or not, she's as smart, sharp as a tack. Yeah, she's a great little scholar. Oh, Jesus, what a brain. I suspect that's the thing that appeals to her. Even religious gals who are brainy love the brainy part more than anything, ultimately. I don't know.

That's my wishful thinking is that they're all having, like, they're, like, hanging and squatting up or something. I don't know. We'll see. By the way, you said something that struck me. So try and clear your mind in this first answer. So try and clear your mind in this first answer. Biden-Harris, Trump-Bergen, or Tapper-Bash? Who would you rather be president and vice president?

Seriously. Dana-Bash. Are you kidding? I love Dana-Bash. I think Dana's fantastic. I think Jake is fantastic. I'm not exaggerating. Who would you think would do a better job? Younger, probably.

If, if, if, and maybe I'm being sexist because I immediately thought of Jake Tapper as the president and Dana as the number two. But quite frankly,

I think they're both super impressive, thoughtful people who know how to... Jake Tapper for president! If they were on the ticket, if they were on the ticket, Yeah. that they got my vote, that those are the two... I'd vote for president. If they were on the ticket, if they were on the ticket, they got my vote. I'd vote for Cuban.

I told you I'd vote for Cuban. Those two should be on stage. I want cubes. Not asking the questions. I want cubes to run. That's what I want. Mark? Just because I want to go.

Yeah, because I just want to. You and I will be staying together in Lincoln Bedroom. It'll be nice. We'll cuddle. He'll be in the race for 2028. I think so. When he starts bragging about paying his taxes, he's clearly positioning himself for a run. And I hope he runs. He's very articulate about all kinds of issues.

Super smart. Super impressive guy. Yeah, probably. There'll be a 2028, unless Trump wins and ruins democracy, will be really interesting on both parties. It'll be really, it'll change here. And maybe we'll all be a little better. Who knows? All right, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Brené Brown is the host of two Vox Media podcasts, Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead. Brené, welcome to Pivot and the Vox Media podcast family. I'm so glad to be with y'all. I've been listening and y'all have recently been in the south of France. I wish I glad to be with y'all. I've been listening and y'all have recently been in the south of France. I wish I'd been there with you.

Well, next year. Next year, we'll all go together and we'll get on Scott's Zodiac and ride around and everything. Oh my God, I'm so in. You know, Scott had said he was going to take me on it and also attack Meta Beach

and he ended up sort of just wandering up to the Pinterest beach there. So it was a lesson. It was an accident. Yeah. Anyway, so let's start. So you took a break from podcasting for over a year and recently returned.

So you said you returned in part because you missed the conversation. So talk about that, because many people don't walk away from talking. Okay. Wow. We're just going right there. Yeah. I, you know, my mom died on Christmas morning, I guess six or seven months ago after a very shitty battle with dementia. and during that period of time i noticed how susceptible and vulnerable i was to the um influencer industrial complex online like you know you can't when you have a parent with dementia it's very and you're you know you're my age you're you forget a song lyric and you're like, fuck, it's here. I'm next. And so I would be scrolling on Instagram and of course it knows exactly what I'm thinking about and what

I'm doing. And it would say, you know, do you have a family member with dementia? Are you worried about it for yourself? One tablespoon of castor oil prevents dementia. And I just realized, even as a social scientist, how vulnerable I was to that. And then inevitably I'd be scrolling and I'd see myself. And it would be this nuanced conversation that was clipped down in a way that made me seem so certain and so sure about something that I almost couldn't stand seeing myself as a part of that. Because I mean, I think there is something on social media around advice giving that is so predatory. And I just, I needed a break. I just needed to step away from it. And I needed to step away from talking. And it's interesting because I get asked to do podcasts all the time, but now we don't do them if they include video, if we don't have clip approval.

Oh, smart. That's interesting. Well, this is like perfect. Scott, I got to bring you in right now. This is sort of Scott's area of discussion where he talks about this all the time, the vulnerability of this experience online. Scott? Well, I was actually going to go, I'll get to that, but I always describe the two most seminal events in my life were birth and death, the birth of my sons and the death of my mother. I'm just curious, having lost your mother recently, and it sounds like that was not a, I don't want to call it a bad death, you know, what has changed in terms of the way you see the world on a day-to-day basis, how you allocate your time and your approach to life since the death of your mother? Yeah, I mean, it was a shit death. It was a jagged edge death. It was a death by a million pieces, you know.

I think even when she died, I was shocked that she was never going to come back and be okay again. Yeah, it's so final. Yeah, it's weird. And then it creeps up on me in really different ways. Like my son just graduated from high school and I was like, oh my God, my mom's going to love this picture. And I'm like, oh God. I think, I don't know. I don't think it's a coincidence that that happened.

And the first book I bought, besides some spiritual contemplations on grief, was the book 4,000 Weeks. Do you all know that book? I don't. Tell us about it. Oh, it's really interesting. He was a productivity writer, I think, for The Guardian or one of the UK newspapers. And he was the one saying, you know, box things up, do this, the Pomodoro method. He did all that. And then at some point, he said, shit, we only have 4,000 weeks if we're lucky. And the more productive you are, the more bullshit you have to do. And this productivity thing is such, and this is where I loved his work, the productivity piece is such armor around protecting vulnerability and the fact that our time is finite.

And we really have best case scenario, 4,000 weeks. And so I think I started doing a lot of work with a coach and my therapist around what's important to me and what's not and and my discernment button was broken and so now i'm really trying to become very discerning about and that's hard for me first born code name yeah so you're being pleasing right you're oldest of four yeah yeah it's interesting i'm gonna drink i actually do that with some people when it whenever i decided to their waist i have a very big sense of death as you know um constantly and when i was i tell a story one person i was working with i was like i just don't

you i don't want to talk to you anymore because you're taking up minutes of my life like i'm very aware of the minutes that you know negative things take on me or things I don't like. And I stop them because I am very aware of the moments, which I think social media and online is one of them, like 100%, some of which I like, some of which I enjoy. And in like videos, for example, I like a lot of funny videos. But most of the time, it's very difficult for people to, because so much rushes to fill. And one of the things you were talking about was the negative effects of social media. You do talk about that for years, and particularly loneliness. And, you know, we've been hearing a lot of ideas lately on how to reduce those harms. The Surgeon General proposed warning labels. New York Governor Kathy Hochul just signed a bill regulating social media algorithms for kids. New York Governor Kathy Hochul just signed a bill regulating social media algorithms for kids. I'm just curious, for yourself, do you think any of these solutions, because a lot of the time suck is social media and advice giving, and I agree with you on the predatory aspects of it. This is how you should live. Here's five areas that will make your life happier, et cetera.

that would make your life happier, et cetera? I mean, I think, I mean, it's a multi-pronged predator because it's not just the time suck of scrolling. It's what we're ingesting knowingly and unknowingly while we're scrolling. And it's about talking about the biggest discernment button that we're up against, talking about breaking every sense of our connection to self in desperate pursuit of a counterfeit connection with others, that's social media. I mean, you want to lose yourself. It reminds me of like when I was really young and I was, you know, you'd be dating guys in college.

They're like, what music do you, I'm going to date myself here, but like, who's your favorite band? They're like, Boston. Oh, mine too. What's your favorite book? Dune. More than a feeling. Yeah, more than a feeling. Oh my God.

Yeah, well, Boston is actually one of my favorite bands. But, you know, and then somewhere down the line, you're dating this guy for like three months and you're like, shit, man, I don't like any of this shit we're doing. I don't like your music. I don't like where you like to eat. But talking about losing the connection to who you are and your capacity for discernment. Discernment. I like that. Scott?

Do you – I'm just curious. You talk a lot about vulnerability. You have a huge social media following. Have you found that social media and your presence on social media has been accretive to your mental health or damaging to your mental health? And how have you responded

in terms of your own approach to social media? Sounds like damaging. Oh, devastating. Yeah. Just devastating. I'm not built for this at all i am okay but you have five million followers on instagram so you have embraced it so how do you modulate it and cope with it um asking for a friend but yeah no i um let me just tell you for sure. So I have 5 million followers on Instagram. If I pulled up my phone

right now and went to my followers and scroll down to the bottom, I would get a note from Instagram that said somewhere between 100 and 300 of those are suspicious and should be deleted in mass. I don't know who these people are. And if I had to do it over again, I would have done things so differently. I don't post on the feed anymore. I only post in stories because there's no comments. I paid a lot of money for a moderation team external, and I'll tell you why. I had to do that because I could not protect the mental health of the internal moderation team in our organization. I couldn't do it. I couldn't protect them. I mean, these were things like... So you're damaging the mental health of a bunch

of people in the Philippines? Sorry, I couldn't resist. No, no. In fact, we were actually really careful about that. This was a U.S. company. Very nuanced. But it only lasted, I think we were out of the contract now. It's not real. I mean, I'll tell you this. When I got into, I got into a desktop.

I have to be careful legally here because I'm still under, I got into a desktop with Spotify publicly. You did. I did. And during that period of time, I probably received a hundred death threats. A hundred death threats?

This is the desktop you had, Scott. Scott has similar desktop. Yeah, no. I mean, and things like, I'm going to kill your children in front of you. And a lot of, it was mostly like bald eagle avatar things. And we have, because of the size of the followings that we have on the different platforms, we have liaisons that we work with. And, you know, when we called, they were just like, you are in the crosshairs of some very serious bots, probably Russian, and we can't stop it. And so I went off Twitter three or four years ago. Yeah, I did a year ago. Yeah. I went way before the Elon Musk bullshit.

I was just like, you know why? As part of the Spotify desktop, I did an interview with a First Amendment specialist from the ACLU. And in that interview, he called Twitter a dopamine casino, which I thought was like... We call it a Nazi porn bar, but go ahead. Or the sewage system of a sewer. Yeah, yeah. I bar, but go ahead. Or the sewage system of a sewer. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's it. Are you comfortable talking? I had a dust-up with Spotify. I'm curious if you're comfortable, and you don't have to bring it up again, but what the content or the crux of the dust-up was. I was caught in the—everyone thought it was actually some kind of weird beef with me and Joe Rogan.

like some kind of weird beef with me and Joe Rogan, but I was caught up in what is the responsibility of a platform around mis- and disinformation? We're the same person. I pulled Prof G off of, I had a close, just so you know, I'm very good at turning everything back to me, but I lost someone dear to me to COVID and I just couldn't handle their lack of fact-checking around bringing on total quacks to say mRNA vaccines altered your DNA. And I thought, okay, I don't deny their rights to First Amendment, but I don't have to paint their fucking fence. And I pulled my podcast off. Anyways, your turn. No, that's what was happening. And my husband's a physician.

And we buried friends during the pandemic. And I, look, sometimes today's conspiracy theory is the science of a decade later. And sometimes it's just dangerous bullshit. That's right. And I wanted to understand, and I think it actually came down to, because there was no beef between me and any other podcast host. It just happened to be, you know, that happened to be happening a lot on certain podcasts where they'd have guests on.

And then it just actually came down to a question of what is the responsibility of a podcast host to vet and let audience know this information has not been confirmed. This is, you know, I don't know what the, I don't know what it is, but I am a huge First Amendment person. But- And you have First Amendment rights. And I have them too Not to support economically a platform That is allowing misinformation to go viral That's true

So interestingly, Renee, you just did a whole podcast series On AI, social media, and tech Very much in Pivot Wheelhouse I'd love to know what surprised you You talked to me about this You said, I'm about to do this And I think it was just before you were doing it So tell me what you learned from it as someone who is not an expert by any means, but certainly understands the social society part of it. the learnings would be the same as this eight this was an eight episode heady deep dive yeah and the learnings would be the same one technology got there before policy and it's dangerous

two the biggest concern is the alignment issue who's at the table when you're developing ai it's just gonna scale and equity at mass it's not a machine that controls for disparity or it's not that. And so I think S. Craig Watkins, who has a joint appointment at UT Austin and MIT, has been studying AI for 20 years. And his question was probably one of the ones that really stuck in my mind, which is, who's at the table sitting with the computational mathematicians and the coders? Are the ethicists there? Are the people with lived experiences that you're going to impact there? Are the liberal arts people there? And so to me, I mean, I'm a big policy person. I'm a said at some point we're going to go, oh my God, did we really let this happen? And I'm with y'all. I'm bullish on a lot of it. I love a

lot of it. We have an AI internship program this summer to see where we can deploy generative learning and large language models. I love, and it's going to help, but it's going to hurt in the process if we don't get the right people at the table when it's being developed. As did original technologies of every sort. It's a really interesting thing. You know, all of them. Electricity always hurts the more vulnerable and then doesn't. I just have one other question, Renee. I love talking to you, by the way. And I know you and Scott have so much in common. Early in this episode, we discussed the upcoming presidential debate. This election has been called the anxiety elections.

In a recent Yahoo! YouGov poll, 60% of respondents described themselves as very or somewhat anxious about the upcoming presidential election. It's the same people. What do you tell people about that? Like, how do you, what is the the coping mechanism given we have no choice? It's the same show again that we don't like in general. It's disturbing for one candidate, for many of us, which seems insane to me. So people are using such strong terms and, you know, end of democracy, et cetera, et cetera. Your thoughts? I mean, I listen to y'all's podcast all the time. I don't think I've ever, I don't know that I've ever actually missed an episode. I listen to it when I work. Yeah. That's how we met. You called me. Yeah. I really love it.

And I learn a lot and I disagree with a shit ton. And I have a question for Scott before I get off. Okay, good. Fantastic. I was going to say, I know who you disagree with.

No, I don't disagree. I have more nuanced questions. All right. You'll get to ask that. But anxiety, general anxiety about this particularly, which is coming at us so hard right now this week. This is the same thing about AI. And AI has been around for a long time. But I think the democratization of AI is what we're really talking about. We're talking about this election. We're building on a very cracked foundation so by and large i mean i spend 90

percent of my time in organizations working with leaders about what's happening people are not okay we are still not okay from the pandemic we're still not okay from the long overdue i don't even want to call it a racial reckoning this is this is still. We're not okay. And so if any crisis like the pandemic is going to expose fault lines in systems and in countries, our fault lines are exposed right now. We're holding on as tight as we can, and this thing is coming barreling toward us. I think people that are into the geopolitical scene look at Europe right now as a very scary tale of what's happening, especially just the right-wing reaction to immigration, primarily. We've got two candidates that have very low trust factors on both sides. And here's what I think is happening everywhere. If I just take one second.

We are experiencing at the greatest level in my lifetime, an amazing sense of lack of agency. And so people think that hope, I mean, I'm thinking about what you talk about, Scott, about the data you reference a lot about young men. So we think hope is an emotion. I'm hopeful. It's like a sense of possibility and potential, but hope is actually not an emotion. Hope is a cognitive behavioral process. And this is all C.R. Schneider's work. And hope is three pieces. It's goal, pathway, and agency. A person who scores very high on levels of hopefulness, A, has the capacity to set a goal. B has a capacity to develop a pathway. The best way to understand the nuance of pathway research is a person with high levels of hope is not afraid of plan B, C, D, Q, or Z if plan A goes to shit. A pathway is someone who can really

say, here's my goal. If this doesn't work out, I'm going to keep going. I'm going to try this next. And then the last part of hope, so you've got goal pathway, is agency. I believe in my capacity to create change, to do something for myself. I've never seen the levels of hopelessness that I see right now in people. And I don't know if it's goal, like if people are just shrugging and saying, what difference does it make? I can't even contemplate a goal. I don't know if it's pathway, if people just don't see the plan B when the A goes to hell, or if it's agency. I don't know that I am capable of making change in my own life, much less the world. And so when we talk about the anxiety election,

I think we're a collective group of folks with high levels of hopelessness, diminished agency. And I think that's what's scary for us. Does it matter? Like when people say, it doesn't matter. People are pissed off about a certain Biden policy. And there's plenty to be pissed off about. The bear hug thing, I'm over.

And I mean, it's just there's so many things to be upset about. But man, what a privileged position in my mind to say I'm not going to vote. You must have some money tucked away. Yeah. You must not be fighting oppression every single day. What a privileged position to pick a moral superiority position and not vote. I can't even tell you. I actually threatened my sons.

It was my son's first election. And my other one, I was like, you must vote or we will not be going to college. This is a guy, this is guy coming after, this is guy weirdly taking credit for, you know, ending reproductive rights and women's autonomy of their bodies. Correct. Looking to go again and go harder. He's doubling down. Okay. I have a question and I really want an answer that is, that can get my head

and heart around. Y'all were talking about the Texas stock market and I think you just completely nailed the marketing that's going to go with that. I mean,

it's got like succeed from the union written on it a little bit. Like we're just going to, we just going to become so independent of everything. Where can I find, Scott, an index that shows what a state does for business? Because you've been complimentary of how Texas has handled some business stuff around shareholder value and things like that. But we also rank 50th out of 50 in uninsured women. It's a hard state to live in. We have a grid where people froze to death here a couple of years ago. I mean, I unfortunately have a lot of firsthand knowledge because my husband's a pediatrician. Where's the index that doesn't

separate what you do for shareholder value with how you actually treat the citizens of your state? I love this question. Scott? First of all, that's a really generous question because there's an assumption there that I would have some insight. I'm curious. I think you would. Okay, so I would argue, and I hate to defend Texas, that the best index is net migration. And Texas continues to draw more people despite all its problems. People with options can choose any one of 50 states, and more and more people are choosing Texas.

can choose any one of 50 states, and more and more people are choosing Texas. Now, would I choose Texas to send my daughter to college if it wasn't a UT school? I don't know. But to your point, these indices are really dangerous because when you see the S&P and the NASDAQ at all-time highs, you're under the illusion that America's doing well. No, the NASDAQ and the NYC are just wealth indices for the top 1%. We need an index around obesity. We need an indices around self-harm. And those indices should be on CNBC every day. Nobody knows how many people have died of opioid overdoses or deaths of despair in the last week, but everyone knows what the NASDAQ does every day.

As a person who's not familiar with Texas, whose only impression of Texas is data I get, Texas has almost as many Fortune 500 companies as New York. A lot of the exterior metrics are very flashing green light for Texas. But I want to acknowledge, I don't know Texas. I don't feel like I'm in a position to really evaluate some of the more thoughtful things that you're discussing. I would never live in a state where if my daughter, my wife, my girlfriend had to leave the state to seek terminated pregnancy. That for me is a deal killer in terms of moving to a state. But having said that, there's more U-Hauls going into Texas than leaving right now. But who's in them? But who's in them? Well, that's a fair question, but you're seeing the bottom line is the city. Houston's about to overtake Chicago, is the third most populous city in the world.

And real estate, I just think it's hard to ignore that on a lot of metrics, Texas is doing really well. But is there, have we not come to the place in our human development collectively where we can combine instruments of measurement that are, you know what I mean? The suicide rate and the self-esteem rate with the shareholder growth rate at the same time. Yeah, because I'm wondering, I mean, I'm wondering if the correlation is inverse. Brene, you live in Texas? Yeah, I do. Yes, she does. Fifth generation Texan.

Okay, so the retort would be, Brene, you're a wealthy woman. You have a lot of influence. You have a lot of options. And every day you exercise the option to stay in Texas. So answer the question, why do you stay? Okay. day you exercise the option to stay in Texas. So answer the question, why do you stay? I mean, proximity to family, number one. Fifth generation. Yeah, fifth generation, my people are here. Number two,

and if I'm not with my people, it doesn't matter what's going on. Sure. But I think number two is Greg Abbott, Patrick, the folks running Texas right now are part of the,

it's part of the Trump thing too for me. And I wrote about this in 2015. It's part of the Trump thing too for me. And I wrote about this in 2015. It's part of the white male power over the last stand of that. Not white male power. I'm raising a son. He's an amazing person. But it's a type of power specifically of power over, not power with and power to, but power over. And I think one of the reasons I stay is I don't believe... It's the same reason why you don't get to own America. You don't get to own patriotism. You don't get to own God. And these folks don't get to own Texas.. You don't get to own God. You know, and these folks don't get to own Texas. That's not who we are. We're as much Molly Ivins and Ann Richards as we are these jack wagons.

You know, and so well, I mean, Texas back. Yeah. Yeah, but I think part of it is that I mean, it's very difficult because Governor Richards enormous leader, huge great, but great Texas, but I will tell you if very difficult because- Governor Richards, enormous leader, huge. Great. Great Texas. But I will tell you,

I think the progressives and the left terribly underestimate the level of organization and control of the right. I mean, we are gerrymandered to the hilt. All right. I 100% agree with you that people need more agency. And I love what you said about, I generally believe we're siblings from another mother. I'm actually older than you. What, if there was one thing you could do, and I love what you said that government matters and you like programs. If there was one program you could implement, magic wand to give agency back to young people. And I don't want to say especially young men, but all young people

that would lift up boats, including young men, what would that one program be? Oh my God. Am I really ready for the shit that's going to come my way when I say this? Let me think about it for a second. Yeah, I'll do it. Yeah, you know what? Mandatory national service for 18 to 20-year-olds. 100%. I love this woman. I love this woman.

I mean, I'm not talking about military service. I'm talking about old school. Anything, healthcare, senior care. Yeah, all of it. Invest in our country. And part of the mandatory service would be, I mean, you have to understand, like, you know, I have a really hard time. I, for 20 something years, I taught just PhD and master's students. I just taught my first undergrad class a couple of years ago. I did not realize the level of uncertainty avoidance in especially young men. The inability to neurobiologically and nervous system handle the just awkward looking people in the eye.

I mean, we did one. Reading the room. Reading the room. Just like, you know, can I break up with my kids? Can we break up over text? Absolutely not. We're going to this funeral. Oh my God, but my friend is like crying. It's awkward. Yeah, you're going to look him in the eye and you're going to cry with him. And you're going to build the neural pathways to handle the discomfort of what it means to be in deep connection with other people. And that's what's missing. People, we really are biologically changing our capacity for connection because of our intolerance for

discomfort. And love is hard. And friendship is hard. And roommates are hard. And job interviews are hard. And the anxiety people feel that keep them so avoidant, that they stay at home, that's also real. There's a reason romantic comedies are two hours, not 15 minutes, right? This shit is hard. There's a reason romantic comedies are two hours, not 15 minutes, right? This shit is hard.

This shit is just the ability to look someone in the eye who's in pain and not diminish it and not try to make it better, but just be with people. And I don't, you know, people blame the kids. We're talking about a generation that we raised. That's correct. That is correct. This shit is real. Brene, I love you. I'm so glad to introduce you too for a lifelong love affair.

Yeah. My next podcast with Brene Brown. I can see it. Let's do it. Yeah, you can change him, Brene. You can take him. All right, Brene, be sure to check out her other VoxMe.

We're thrilled you're back, and we're thrilled you're back for the conversation. Ignore everything else, but your conversations are always amazing. I appreciate them myself. She did a great job for me when it was in Chicago. We had a wonderful conversation. You're just a national treasure. Unlocking us and Dare to Lead, Brene Brown and Scott Galloway. I'm so glad to introduce you.

Thanks, Brene. Bye, y'all. Thanks. Scott, is she great or what? Yeah, I mean, well, one, I agree with absolutely everything she said, but also I respect and I think there's a lesson here on communication. I'm a huge fan of the pregnant verging on awkward pause. She does that. I love that.

It's saying, I take you seriously. I take the question seriously. And the response you're about to get is thoughtful. And I didn't learn that until I was in my 40s around public speaking and just regular discourse. That when someone asks you a question, it's not a prompt to just start making noise. That you should think about the question. And if you don't have an answer, if it's not an easy one, it's okay to take some time. And she does it to a dramatic effect. She's smart. She's doing it. I don't want to say it's performative, but I do the same. She does it to create a little bit of

drama. Excellent person. Excellent person. Knock, knock. Who's there? Impatient cow. Impatient cow who? Where did that come from? It's a perfect joke. Impatience to jump in, et cetera. Can I tell you a Claire joke?

What did the cookie say to the doctor? I know the answer. I like that joke. But go ahead. What? I know the answer. I like dad jokes, but go ahead. What? I feel crummy. When I asked my wife to say something that would make me feel bad and good at the same time, what did she say? What did she say? Your penis is bigger than your brother's. Oh, I took a nice cookie joke. I asked for it. I asked for it. I tell you a nice joke. You stuck your chin out. You stuck your chin out. Oh, damn it. All right. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I'll go first. The Ten Commandments thing in Louisiana, I mean, what is, we spent years getting this shit out of classrooms, out of, like, they're fucking back, these people. They're like mold. I don't know what else to say. Look, you can be religious, God love you.

You know what I mean? But keep it out of schools. That's the whole, like, I just can't believe they're doing this. It's going to lose as it did before. And then we're going to spend all our energy on something that has already been litigated, but they just refuse, which makes me know that they're coming back for gay marriage and everything else. Like, just let people be their own thing. If you're not Christian, it's offensive to you. You should respect other people's religions. That's the, I mean, honestly, I just, I don't know what to say. And a win, I think, getting Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird onto the Vox Media Podcast Network. I think that was great. They were at lunch with us in France, and also they threatened to overtake us. Megan was right there saying she was going to kick our ass, which was nice, typical. You left before the picture taking, but we took a lovely picture together. And so we're thrilled to have all these badass ladies at the box. And also, Andrew Iguodala was there, and Pri, as usual, our best friend Pri.

So just really nice to add. I'm glad Brene's back and I'm thrilled Megan and Sue are also there because great, great thinkers. Also very different. They're not immediately going to go to left or right. They're just very thoughtful people. And world-class athletes. World-class, yeah. These are incredible, incredible athletes. Incredible. Anyway, those are my wins and fails. Nice. Okay, so I have a couple wins and one fail. The U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan bill, 88 to 2, that never happens, to accelerate the deployment of nuclear energy capacity by speeding permitting and creating new incentives for advanced nuclear reactor technologies. speeding permitting and creating new incentives for advanced nuclear reactor technologies.

It will now go to Biden for his signature. He's expected to sign it. I don't understand. Nuclear was the worst managed brand in the world, and it's really hurt us. We started closing nuclear facilities in California. Germany decided with the Green Movement that for some reason, I mean, you got to pick your poison. There's no perfect energy, but this is an outstanding, fairly clean source of energy. And that's from the 70s, if you remember that, or the 80s. Anyways, I'm a huge fan of nuclear. I just think it's... Yeah, me too. Get on it. Another one, this is just, I just read this and I was just so blown away by how smart the guys are at Netflix. They've announced earlier this week two permanent Netflix house experience venues. Houses, yeah, we talked about this. And they're creating 50 live experiences across the globe.

They're going to try and emulate competitors a little bit. They've done Stranger Things pop-ups. Yeah, pop-ups, yeah. I think it's a great idea. It's a great idea. So if you think of strategy, you want scenario planning and, okay, this works or this doesn't work. Well, if it doesn't work, it's great marketing. And that's how they're positioning it. They're not saying we're trying to compete with Disney, we're opening parks. They're saying we're going to do some temporary experiences. Two, you want to look at pain points. And the existing pain points around Disney, a $10 billion EBITDA franchise is that one, it's probably five or 10 grand for a family of four. And two, it's even more time expensive. You really need two or three days. You go to a giant suburb of

Orlando or Tokyo or Paris, and it's the seventh ring of hell and you're trapped there for two days spending five to 10 grand for a family of four. And they've said, okay, we can open in urban locations. We can buy now abandoned malls for pennies on the dollar, or lease them, I should say. We can have Stranger Things. We can have Bridgerton. I mean, they're just going to do. And if it doesn't work, it was good marketing, and then they let it fade to black. Sign one and two-year leases at great terms.

And if it does work, they could end up with the same sort of flywheel that everyone talks about Disney. And if you think about Disney parks, when you think about the amount of EBIT that they spent off, and I would argue when you go to Disneyland, it's really not a ton different than if you went 20 years ago. No, it's not. It's kind of the same rides. The same lines are too long. The food, that's my big beef with Disney is the food. And they've been able to, in my opinion, capture unearned margin because of the modes. I just think this is so smart on behalf of Netflix. Anyways, Netflix House is strategically just a great win. And then my loss is, I think Democrats, if we're going to win this election, we need to have sober conversations with ourselves. And I think that essentially, the jury that found Hunter Biden guilty was right. He was guilty. The jury that found Donald Trump guilty was right. He was guilty. But it was a misallocation. Neither of those cases should have been brought. The reason they were brought was one was an unpopular former president and one is an unpopular president's son.

And I think that Democrats don't want to admit and they need to acknowledge that the case in New York was a disaster for us, both in terms of the polls, both in terms of fundraising. And I feel as if there's a lack of sober know, hands over their ears and over their eyes and don't have honest conversation around what is really going to be required to win here. As opposed, you know, we're constantly looking for excuses for Biden and rationalizations as opposed to really being in a war room and saying, OK, this is what is actually going down and what has happened. This is what is actually going down and what has happened. So it's more or less, I feel as if when I talk to Democrats, both in the White House and in the campaign, that they're not honest with themselves empathize with them and be very honest about what the data says. And I think what happens with generals and what's happened with Putin and every general that loses a war is the incentives are to tell the general and the president what they want to hear. And I think that's going on here. I don't think Democrats have realized just what a terrible 90 days this has been for us. We have gone from outracing, leading in all the swing spates to now they are outr for us. We have gone from out-raising, leading in all the swing states, to now they are out-raising us and they have pulled ahead. We were not leading. We were not leading, but go ahead. In the swing states we were. No, by a lot, but go ahead. 90 days ago?

Yeah. Okay. So anyways, my fail is that I don't think the, whatever you call it, the village elders of the Democratic Party, I think we're in denial about what's going on here. Tough love is what you're saying. Tough love. Tough love, I agree with you. Data-driven love. We got to kill. We got to kill. We got to kill or be killed.

That's a great one. That's a great one. I agree with all of them. And you and I are going to have Bridgerton moment experience, and we're going to dress up and do the minuet. It's going to be great. I got to think they have ethnically ambiguous people in corsets who just rip off their clothes and start fucking. I'd pay for that. I would pay for that.

All right. On that note, we want to hear from you. Watch this season. It's so good. We want to hear from you. Send us your question. Penelope Featherington, send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVID. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. What a good show. And I'm so

glad to introduce you and Brene Brown. Read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andretod, Andrew knew this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Emil Severio. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at

nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. What is a key attribute of someone who is successful? They feel as if they have a sense of agency.