Pivot - Disney's OpenAI Investment, Nvidia Chip Deal, and Australia’s New Social Media Ban

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

It’s Kara’s birthday! She and Scott discuss Disney’s $1 billion investment in OpenAI, the U.S. allowing Nvidia to sell chips to China, and President Trump’s continued involvement in the Warner Bros. deal. Then, the U.S. wants to review foreign visitors’ social media, Trump calls "affordability" a hoax, and Australia bans kids under 16 from social media. Plus, who do Kara and Scott think should have been Time's Person of the Year? Psssst! Stay tuned to the end of the episode for an easter egg. Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠. Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠ Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I mean, what they're actually watching is irrelevant. I mean, I guess, again, in this case, they are masturbating a lot of the time. So it would look somewhat different. But that aside, it's the same. That's this week on the gray area. New episodes every Monday, available everywhere. Support for the show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps

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That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-for-free at O-D-O-O-D-com. just say you're late to the podcast. No happy birthday. I see no present. Several moguls sent me presents, not you. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher and Scott was late for my birthday. So, look, this is a big one, 73. It's not 73. That's you, my friend. I'm much younger than you. I'm much younger than you. I'm much Yeah, by like two months.

I'm much younger than you. I'm much younger than you. Uh-huh. And plus for men, 60 is the new 40, and for women, 30 is the new 80. Mm-hmm. Why does that make me happy? All right. Let's talk.

Happy birthday, Kara. Let's talk about you. But who bought you? I think I gave you one of the best gifts I've ever given anybody. Do you even know what it was? I don't because I got caviar from my mom. My kids threw the most beautiful drawings. My son's called, what?

What? What? What? What? Did you buy? I gave you that adorable photo of us. Oh, you did. Was that a birthday present? That was just... No, I don't, I don't, I like giving... It's back there. I actually think I'm a decent gift giver. I don't give gifts when people are expecting them, because then I think it's just like currency. I see. Okay, currency. I don't know. I don't know. I find it. Anyways, but, look, in her eighth decade, you've really got a lot to be proud of. And you're wearing... Why are you wearing an NYU sweatshers? Because it's the clean one, actually. No, I don't know. I was thinking of Louie today, and not you, but Louie, you went there. And I like it. He gave it to me, and I just, I like purple. It felt like a day for purple since my birthday. It's a purple day.

I like it. Yesterday, I had one of those, you know, head-to-to-toe body scan. I had the body scan a couple months ago, and they gave me the results, and I'm going to be here for a while, Scott Galloway. That's all I have to tell you. Yeah. They just saw, they just saw anger. No.

And they're, okay. No. Actually, interestingly, shocking amounts of ability to, I have like calm genes all over the fucking, whatever they are. And I was sort of shocked. They're like, you don't seem to be ever stressed. I'm like, yes, I'm always stressed, but it works for me. It was really interesting, actually, to hear all the different things. I have to take creatine. What do you think about that? I try to take creatine every day. I'm having a lot of trouble keeping muscle mass on. Yeah, me too. That was the one thing. I've struggled with it my whole life. What's called an ectomorph, I think. I'm also, do you have body dysmorphia? Do you feel good about your body? I don't.

I feel great about myself. Oh, God, here we go. I do. I'm adorable. That's good. That's a blessing. Yeah. Yeah.

I like to be taller, but that's whatever. You what, you'd like to be 5'1? Uh-huh. Well, at your age, your spine begins to curve. I have to take cockyton, things like that. There's a few supplements I need to take. Why does that make me so happy? Yeah, I'm going to take testosterone soon.

That's what I'm taking. Yeah, do you take it in a powder form or in the chewable? I have never, they said powder. They said it's better. There's like different, if you take different things, you should take them. Like, they were like, I have to have more fiber. I was like, can I just take like metamucil or whatever? They're like, no, you have to eat vegetables.

They're like, no, that's not a great way to get it. Creatine? No, creatine's like eating 10 states. No, creatine. Like, if I also have to take more fiber, I also have to do a little more fiber. But in that, they said don't take the fiber supplements, take fiber. actual food. Yeah, creatine. So there's, I had, oh, God, that brilliant guy from Stanford, who's the psychedelics guy, talking about drugs. And I said, what is, Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan, thank you. No, no, he's not from Stanford, but go ahead. I should have him on. He's not from Stanford? What's your friend? Is he from Berkeley? He's sort of. He's a journalist, but go ahead. Sort of. Yeah. I said, I love to be high. I love substances, but I want the maximum free lunch in terms of feeling good to not feeling bad. And he said that the freest lunch was caffeine, which I thought was really interesting. It was in his book. That was in his book talking about it. And then the freest lunch among, I think, endocrinologists are people actually not the supplements people, which are a pipeline to Redfield, just as these ringlight therapists are a pipeline to an excusing economic precarity and just telling everyone they need to work on themselves.

Anyways, but the, supposedly the freest lunch in supplements, if you will, is, in fact, creatine. And I did creatine for the first time when I was, I think, in my 30s or 40s, and it put on 5 to 7 pounds of lean muscle mass, which it would literally take me two years of working out with heavy weights. Wow. Okay. Wow, so I'm going to get like muscle. A lot of people now are on creatine. It's really. Yeah, I do need more muscle.

I have not enough muscle, which is. interesting. I was thinking this morning, I have like another 30, 20 good years, 10, maybe good years, like the last 10. But at the same time as I was sitting in the show, I was like, okay, I'm this many years, this many to do this. And I thought, oh, that's long enough. That's all I thought. That's the first thing that popped in my head. That's long enough. When do you think you were your happiest? Oh, now? Oh, good. Yeah. I have something Amanda and I talked about. This thing around the stress is like that you don't seem to collect stress.

And I was like, you know, I do things and then I move on and I don't forget about them. I don't mull before and I don't mull after. I just move along as very easily, which is, I think, a good thing. That is a good thing. I feel happy now. I feel very happy. I mean, I was happy then. I was happy now.

I've never really sensed a lot of stress when you're very good of managing stress. But, I mean, you literally are the longest serving tech journalist. I remember the first interview you did about. about technology, was talking to the guy who invented fire. That was a good technology. That's good. That was a hell of a good technology. Any, we've got a lot to get to DGEDA.

When you interviewed that company, the hottest startup, it had started this thing called electricity. Right. I got that. What else? What else? Dirt? When I talked to the guy who invented dirt.

No, you're so old. You interviewed Zuckerberg back when he had human emotions. He never did. He never did. He never did. So that's not true. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. There is a lot to get to, including Trump calling affordability a hoax, which is not a good idea.

Australia's new social media ban so much. There's so much going on. But first, Disney just announced a $1 billion equity investment in Open A& will allow users to make videos with its characters on SORA. Characters available through the deal will include Mickey Mouse and Cinderella as well as Frozen. The agreements do not include any talent likeness or voice. I mean, the people, like the John Cena's, as whoever, the different people are in their movies. Scott, I don't want to know what you want to make Mickey Mouse do,

but what do you think of this? This is interesting. And I actually texted, I go, look at you, Mr. Tech. And, but it was interesting, sort of, especially since Open Air really needs a win right now, which we'll go into it a minute, but any thoughts on this? I think it's smart of both of them. I probably would have, well, Disney gets to do what it wants,

but I probably would have gone with Google, but in Gemini, but I think it's smart. Disney needs some AI tech pixie dust over a company that is, I mean, literally, Iger is the guy that decided to volunteer to go back to Vietnam, and he's getting, you know, he's getting shot up everywhere. Yeah, his ass fragged is the expression you know. Yeah, instead he could just be sitting on a beach somewhere heckling from the cheap seats about the new CEO facing all this bullshit. But anyways, he's back, but to do, to announce,

this is a great press release for Disney. The IP and the characters are really interesting. It'll be interesting to see what they do. I don't know if it amounts to anything. Yeah, I think all these people will be doing these deals, right? Like, there's not a media company. I thought Joanna Stern was funny. She goes, look at this hype.

Isn't it neat? Wouldn't you think my bubble's complete, which was cute. There's so many good jokes. What's weird is they did sort of their, what I'll call, their tired characters. I mean, Mickey Mouse and Cinderella, I sort of get, maybe it's because I've aged out of that shit, but... No, they're old ones.

My kids know Mickey Mouse, and they do like Cinderella. Clara likes Cinderella. But the main characters are the new ones, like the Frozen characters or Moana. Moana. Yeah, Moana's one. They're coming out with live versions. I think there's a new Frozen coming out,

and I think the live version of Moana is coming out. There's a trailer for it. But yeah, and I, yes, yes, I would agree with you. I don't think they're picking the most recent characters that kids today like. But they're classics, right? This is, this is a, this is smart for both of them. I don't know if it's going to mount anything, but it's a good press release. No lawsuits.

Yeah, it's smart. And it, the question is, or what I would want to know, is does it end up being some sort of supporting evidence for why open AI should not using other characters and identities when they're willing to pay for these ones but not others. So I don't... So it just depends on what I would use all. Like, what's the difference? You're in for a dime, you're in for a dollar. People are stealing it anyway. We're not have

it licensed and get money from it. I don't know. It just seems like, look, this is inevitable that they're either going to steal it. And one thing that happened with YouTube is it, you know, as it took too long, right, to do what is now very lucrative for everybody. Right? And the question is, who is it more

lucrative for, but it's inevitable? And so I think, you know, YouTube could have done it sooner. And the companies, instead of, remember Philippe, Philippe Dowman did the lawsuit, they were going to steal it anyway, guys. So figure out a way you can do a deal with them. And I think a lot of them, including TikTok, is open to doing deals with, is wanting and open to doing deals with these companies. And they should as long as they're, it protects their eye.

It puts you in partnership with them to get rid of cheaters, I guess, presumably. Yeah, I don't know. The whole Disney, I'm not sure it's just so unrealistic and bias against men. Like, Snow White lived in the woods with seven men, and somehow none of them were, somehow none of them were emotionally available. I just think that's unrealistic. I think that's unfair to man. And by the way, the big moral lesson from Aladdin is that theft is wrong unless you're hot

and have a pet monkey with main character energy. Do you know, when you watch that, they still have the, this is a really tasteless movie warning on it when you watch it. which is interesting, like, you know, depictions of Arab figures and stuff like that. Yeah. Same thing on, there's a couple of movies like that when I was just watching. I have to say, though, one that you put the older ones up, Clara loves a mermaid, she loves Cinderella, she loves Snow White. She likes the new Snow White, the old Snow White. You know, Winnie Pooh is the original influencer.

He's naked, addicted to honey, and lives with a bunch of deeply dysfunctional woodland friends. Okay. All right. And the fracking of poor Bob Iger. But speaking of AI, speaking of fracking, President Trump will allow NVIDIA to sell H-200 ships to China. Reactions and move are muted, actually negative, with NVIDIA stock slightly down. Critics warning it could advance Chinese AI capabilities.

Gosh, the Wall Street Journal really took them to town on this thing. Essentially, you know, and everybody did. And Bremmer did a whole bunch of people. And the idea is like, look, they're getting all the stuff and NVIDIA is getting what it wants. that's it. The American public doesn't benefit in any way from this. So it seems like Justin Wong's, you know, full court press of wearing his leather jacket and hanging around Donald Trump and praising him has worked here. This is what he wanted. Yeah, I'm mixed on this

because when we didn't sell them our chips, it feels to me like they got to work on workarounds. I think the policy, it's like this is why we need Gia Riemundo back in charge of this shit, because this stuff is not black and white. And I like the idea, I like the idea of slow-balling it, and that is giving them enough access to our chips such that they didn't make a statewide, massive investment in innovation of their own. In other words, like cable companies

would pay content companies just enough such that they could, it didn't make sense for them to go to other means of distribution, but not enough, but, you know, not enough such that they were more powerful than the distribution players. I would have thought, I would have just tried to get every economist in the room and say, okay, how can we give the Chinese just enough chip technology that it grows our economy and our champions, but we still

maintain a lead because when we did embark, there was a very solid argument that all you do when you embargo China from doing this is they come up with workarounds that are really innovative. So the problems I have are autonomous weapons, supercomputing, military simulations, and And the problem is with high-end GPUs, it can dramatically reduce the training time per combat algorithms and missile targeting and cyber warfare and drone storms. And the reality is I just don't trust Hegsteth to get in a room with our Commerce Secretary and kind of figure this shit out on a thoughtful level. I think essentially Jensen Huang has likely said, we're very surprised. of you, you're handsome, and Nvidia should get involved in your next renovation.

Right, exactly. So I don't, unfortunately, I dislike this almost as much. It's probably more impactful, but no less or more egregious than Wiccoff's kids and the Trump kids getting money for their shit coin investment in exchange for us agreeing to sell chips to the UAE, who has not proven that They don't have a leaky boat in terms of sending chip technology to Russia or China itself. We just don't have thoughtful people figuring this shit out. I have to say the journal was very explicit. President Trump said this week he will let NVIDIA sell H-200 chips to China, return for U.S. Treasury, getting 25% cut of the sales.

The Indians struck a better deal when they sold Manhattan to the Dutch. Why would the president give away one of America's chief technological advantage to an adversary and his chief economic competitor? And they do say they're going to do it anyway. But he said, yet now Mr. Trump wants to sell the advanced H-200 without strings. The question is why NVIDIA CEO, Jensen Wong, is lobbied for loosening the restrictions. The company's friends in the White House argued it doing so could retard trying to drive to develop competing chips and make its AI developers dependent on U.S. chips. That's their best argument. And it went on to say, no, this is really bad on every.

And what we get is Bupkes, essentially. That's a great point. We should have, at a minimum, we should have gotten more. If you look at, in the last five years, it's gone from 17% of exports to the U.S. to 10%. They have vastly reduced their dependence on us. I get that. What is asymmetric in the trading relationship with everybody is that China since 2019 has increased its exports 40%. Correct. That's what they were saying. We got more. Yeah. Meanwhile, has only increased their imports, buying other people's products, by one. percent. So they've decided, we'll sell you everything. We, at a minimum, should have extracted a pound of flesh here that said, okay, you need to open your markets for the following things for us. But this is, it's, and not only that, the waterfall effect, Huawei will be a much more competitive product. And they make great products. And this is the last line. We sure hope Mr. Trump isn't doing this for the NVIDIA's 25 percent tax payments to Treasury. The Constitution vests taxing

power in Congress, yet Mr. Trump is essentially trading national security for pennies on the dollar. So I would agree. He's gotten nothing for this. Even with the H-20 chips, we got some rare earth minerals, I think at the time. He said the administration agreed, but they put more restrictions in October. So it just, this is stupid. He's the worst dealmaker in America. We gave a strategic competitor, AI progress, stronger military capability, likely a more kind of self-sufficient or innovative tech ecosystem while exposing all of our own firms to regulatory, geopolitical, and long-term competitive risks. And in exchange, you know, what we got was NVIDIA stock's going to go up.

Right. And 25, whatever. You know, it's just, it's true. Jensen Wong is the most, and I mean this, as a compliment, manipulative CEO there is. And he gets what he wants. And it's all good for NVIDIA, but. I hate to say this. but Jensen and Ted Sarandos and all these guys who,

when they go to meet with the president, the only thing they repeat over in their heads over and over is don't forget to swallow. These guys are the most obsequious. But they get what they want. But that's their, I hate to say, that's their job. They were there yesterday. It's our job to elect people who will push back on this bullshit.

By the way, they were there yesterday. That Fed head, dead, head, fed, whatever. He's losing his mind. All right. Speaking of losing your mind, Trump says it's imperative that CNN be sold in Warner Brothers deal. The president is not supposed to say things like this, but of course, whatever, it's this one. Conveniently, David Ellison has reportedly told Trump officials the Paramount wins out. He'll make sweeping changes at CNN. What a cuck he is. Although Trump got a little testy with the Ellison's this week, lashing out on true social after 60 minutes ran an interview with Marjorie Taylor Green. Meanwhile, Ellison has been pitching Warner shareholders directly. Apparently Mario Gabelli interested trying and tender their shares. I have, I feel like I've talked to a lot of people here all this week. And, you know, money is going to win out here. But the kind, like, people would have lost their minds if they're, and this was in the Wall Street Journal also, that he has told them he will, you know, he will change CNN as part of the deal. When one of the, Oliver Darcy told me when he tried, and he wrote when he tried to get a comment, they didn't. They didn't, they're like, what are you talking about? Like, they didn't even deny it that they were doing that, making this paper, you know.

We'll stop CNN for being so mean to you, Mr. President, if you give us a thing. That would have been a four-alarm journalistic fire at any other time, not with these. Well, imagine if Obama had said that when Fox was trying to emerge with Disney or whatever it was. Exactly. Like, just, I'm not even going to imagine it. It's bad. It's bad now. It's bad then.

It's bad all the time. I mean, again, it sort of absolutely puts solid. advice. I'm walking right out of there the day they get there. Like, I'm walking, and there's no way I'm working for these terrible people. But, um, and I've said, I said that on an interview with Rachel Mattow, because she was asking me. Um, but, but money, let's go to the deal. Regardless of what they do with CNN and what they're doing is heinous, what they're considering doing is heinous. The money wins out here. It's the, it's if they go up to 34, I understand, they will get this. They will get this. Yeah, we had, I thought we had a really productive conversation around this.

And the way this is supposed to work is that the one with the most money wins, at least initially, at least initially. It's meant to be a competent. It doesn't fucking matter with the president thinks, or it shouldn't matter. No, it doesn't. It doesn't matter what podcasters think would be, quote-unquote, better owners. The person that shows up with the biggest check in capitalism in a single-class shareholder company, which this is, gets the prize. And then, subject to the following, regulators bring in a, economists and econometrics experts and consumer behavior experts. And they try and discern whether

or not the very valid argument you made that this is in fact one big market for eyeballs or if it's a distinct market because it's original content creation and a subscriber model. And they make a call around whether or not this will reduce competition and leak value and leverage from consumers and labor to the shareholders of the consolidated ecosystem. or not. And then, and then it goes through an additional, I think it's called, I used to do this for a living. And then it goes through something called a, I think it's called a syphias review that says, all right. Right, which they're just under. They just made it so they're just under, just so you know, we'll go ahead. They're just under. All the mid-east countries in this deal,

what they did is they manipulated it so that these numbers are, that doesn't have to go through a civil. Well, the bottom line is there should be a national security review that says. But there's not going to be because of the way they designed it. Well, I know, but I'm talking about what should happen. Correct. What will happen is totally like upper grabs in a corrupt kleptocracy that is a mix between, is a mix between 60s, East Germany, 30s Germany, a kleptocracy and a cacostocracy, pickerocracy that's just fucking stupid or evil.

But the way it should work is biggest check wins initially. Then it goes under antitrust review by thoughtful people to figure out if it's going to reduce competition and harm consumers and labor. and then it should go under National Security Review. And let me be clear. I actually don't think raising money out of the Gulf for an acquisition like this, I don't perceive that as a threat. Oh, come on.

It's media. We lost our minds when. Hold on. I was the largest shareholder on the board of the New York Times. I got to meet with the editorial board once and couldn't say anything and had absolutely no influence over the editorial product there. And I had two seats on the board. And also, we have to keep in mind that all the money right now is in the Gulf.

And if we want access to our capital for our companies to create more competition and more tax revenue, at some point, we need to access that capital. Having said that, I would like a review by people much smarter than me to go, this is why it's a risk to our free speech and they will have undue influence. Or someone go, you know, if you put these safeguards in place, it's just a cheap source of capital. My point is, there are people who do this for a living and are really good at this and should be part of a review. Instead, it's based on the plug sugar level and the opinion, unfortunately, of the president who gives them money and what TV anchor or a podcast he listened to most recently. We have institutions and experts, and let me use the word, which has become a dirty word. We have experts for a reason. All right.

Let me interject here. First of all, they're designing it. So they also had 10 cent in here until they were replaced, but 10 cent was, he had to come out. They knew that would. I'm sorry, go ahead. First of all, they hid the idea of the, they didn't hide it, but they put it on one of the last pages of the Saudis and the others were involved. Secondly, they added Jared Kushner just to put it icing on this shitty cake. Thirdly, they had 10 cent in there and then they didn't.

I mean, this is how they're thinking, right? And honestly, I want to know, Larry, if you're so fucking rich, why don't you just pay for it? If you believe in this so much, you're an American. it's an American media company. Why do you need their money? I get why you would get it. I'm not unsophisticated. But here's what it does. There's a woman, Gail Slater in antitrust. She's well regarded. He has now put her in such a fucking jam. Like she can't do her job because now she's sucked up into politics versus doing a real antitrust look at this, right? As we talked about, which is streaming prices, where's the market, et cetera? That's an issue. It has also put the Sipfias people in

in a jam because they can't look at this, which is their job. And by the way, I don't even trust them anymore, given all the yutzes in Yahoo's. They put a person in charge of FEMA that was an election denialist, like a really severe one, as opposed to just a sort of casual garden variety election denier. It's just they're putting incompetence and loyalists in place. And nobody's going to be able to do their job here because of what Trump is doing and how he has been staffing his administration and how he's, the only thing that I find amusing is that he's not sort of just giving into the Ellisons, he's making them beg for it, essentially, by kissing up to Ted Sarandos. Now, the question is, will Netflix raise its price? Will it say, do an all-cash

deal, go to 30, and then have that stub of a company? But Bill Cohen that talked to me about, and he's written about, is they go to 30, and then the question is, what's the value of that Stub, Ellison's are valuing it at a dollar, or a little more than a dollar, and others, like, pretty well-known analysts, are valuing it at anywhere from $3 to $5. And so that makes their deal higher than the Ellison's, but what if the Ells would just go to $34 cash? There's, you know, that's the whole situation. I think most of the ARBs just want the money and move along, right? Oh, yeah. They're, this is like the venture capital community.

Whoever comes up with two cents more, I'll make out with my cousin. You didn't make out with your cousin, did you? I did. And you know what? He's a very good kisser. Snow White asked her an AI for relationship advice. Yeah. And it responded, maybe don't move in with seven dudes from Craigslist next time.

Right. I like that one. Yeah. Look, I don't, this is why two-thirds of mergers don't work, and it's playing out here. We'll ring our hands about antitrust, about, about, you know. someone in the Gulf having undue influence over CNN around. The Ellison's getting their nose so far up Trump's ass that they'll guarantee that they'll just start filling CNN with Tucker Carlson on 24-hour loop or something.

But this is why this acquisition will most likely fail from a shareholder perspective. And that is, one, we have a tendency as an acquirer to overestimate synergies, underestimate cultural impact, and three, more than anything. testosterone gets involved. And that is, I can guarantee you that when all of these companies were looking at this, this is a company that was trading at $9 a share recently. Seven. I thought it was it down at seven?

That all of these guys said, okay, scarce assets, one-of-a-kind properties. We don't want this in the hands of competitors. Wow, this is an opportunity to consolidate the streaming market. Netflix. Wow, we really need this to bulk up, paramount. We could do great things with the cable and the streaming. and we need something to reignite growth. They all came up with really strong strategic reasons to stretch to, all right, if we could get

this for 19, maybe 20, we can't go any higher than 24. Which is the initial offer from David Ellison. Right. We can't go any higher than 24. And this is what happens. Testosterone takes over, do you think? It is. It's like, you're like, oh, we're only a couple bucks away from being king and taking

the ultimate victory lap and pulling. If Ellison, if he massively overpays for this thing, every business cover will be the winner. Yeah, the winner. Yeah, yeah. And we're not going to realize. Remember a A.L. Time Warner with Ted Turner and Steve Case. Yeah, B.K. Yeah, the winner. What a deal of the century. And Steve Case is not like, oh, my God, I just sold this guy a bag of shit.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what David Zazzoloff is. But these guys have already, I can promise you, they have already blown way beyond a price. they would have never, ever considered. They can't make it work. They cannot. It's just a rich, it's a yacht. Like, it's a yacht that's leaking, and that's what he's bought. I mean, the problem is, but if you're just on the face of it, in terms of Synergy's Comcast or Netflix

are the better buyers, they have all, like Netflix could blow out Game of Thrones. They could blow out. They have the worldwide distribution network. They could do a lot with this. And they own. And they're shopping with, with expensive stock. Their credit card is fully loaded. Exactly.

Well, not as expensive it was, but they were the best owner. Between these two, by every single metric, they're the better owner. When you say better, do you mean in terms of synergy? What do you mean? Synergy, how it works, what they're going to do, they're not going to do as many layoffs. And the only thing CBS, this whole gang can do is put together like problematic assets, and they don't have a plan for doing anything else. I mean, the only thing that's happening is, as I've said before, David Ellison is a very

nice guy, but he's monumentally unqualified to do this. That hasn't stopped him, but he is the oldest boy with daddy's backing. And that's a prescription for a bad merger. Also, I don't think his movies made so much money. Well, okay, and Sazlov's going to walk away with a billion dollars for destroying value. Winner. I mean, we can make a big, and speaking of winner. And Netflix is, in my view, who I love is going to basically end game streaming. and prices are going to go. I think you can make an – but here's the thing. We don't get to decide who would be qualitatively the best owner or the worst.

The guy who runs AT&T is a really smart, nice man. I like him a lot. He was probably the wrong owner for CNN. Yeah, I agree. But he showed up with the biggest check. So Jeff Bucas said, congrats, it's yours. That guy, smart. Another smart guy.

He got out when the getting's good. Okay, hold on. Just to pause there. But he did call Netflix the Albanians. Let's not let him forget that one. He made a one sentence stupid remark that's haunted him the rest of his life. It's a really bad one. But okay, but that is dwarfed by, guess who decided to sell magazines at their peak? He did. Jeff Bukas. Guess who decided to sell the cable part of his company at the peak? And by the way, guess who decided to sell the assets of Time Warner at their peak?

Jeff fucking Bukas, the best Albanian there is. This is where CEOs, this is where CEOs, where they're and I'm going to differentiate between men and women. I don't think Ruth Parat, I think women are different than men, and it's okay as long as you sanctify women and call all men predators and idiots. But I think on a certain level, you would have to acknowledge if Ruth Parat was running these companies, there's no fucking way she'd be at $34 a share.

She'd be like, okay, I don't need to have the biggest dick and win this thing. I'm here for shareholders. And the thing that CEOs are really not good at, but they get all jonesed up about getting bigger and bigger and bigger. The guy who ran B of A just kept acquiring everything and destroyed a ton of shareholder value.

What CEOs are not good at, going back to my, I'm going to pat myself on the back. I remember saying to Arthur Solsberger and then I'm like, why the fuck aren't we selling about.com? This is shit. This is shit business. We could sell it for a billion dollars right now, but they wanted to accessorize an analog outfit

with digital earrings. CEOs are terrible at selling assets at the right time. So, question, why don't you give then David Zassel of the same hand job you're giving Jeff Bucas here. Just curious. Oh, David, David's doing his job. But Jeff Bucas, you know, who probably made $100 or $200 million, made billions for shareholders. Yes. Zazlov has basically said, you fucked up investing in my company. You should invest in the S&P. I'm barely going to get your money back. But by the way, I'm going to walk off with a billion dollars. Yeah, you're right. That's fair. He's barely

getting their money back. It must create seven. trillion dollars in incremental shareholder value at Tesla. I've said this on the record. I know. I know. I'm okay with him getting a trillion dollars. If Bucca, Mickey Drex, I remember when Mickey Drexler made a billion dollars at the gap and there was all, this was in the 90s, and there was all this like hullabaloo. And I'm like, he's added 14 billion in shareholder value. I agree. The problem with Zazlo or Marissa or Marissa Mayer or Adam Newman is they walk off with hundreds of millions or billions for destroying shareholder value. Didn't 10 exit. Yeah, you're right. You know, I don't. I don't. Okay, we'll see where this goes, but I'll tell you, Geras Wisher goes out the door.

Somehow, I don't think that's entered the discussion. You know what, I'm just going to loudly insult them the whole time until they fire me. I don't think they're going to fire you. I know. I'm actually the person they want to keep, which is the worst part, but I'm not going to. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back. The Trump administration's plan to use social media to gatekeep foreign visitors.

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The Trump administration wants to review foreign visitors' social media history. This is ahead of the World Cup coming here. The plan would apply to citizens of 42 countries that are allowed visa-free travel to the U.S. The list of countries includes the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and Germany. The proposal is not yet final in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it will accept 60 days of comments. I mean, are you fucking kidding me? in the free speech nation, and as you said, the numbers on visitors have declined so precipitously

and has sort of hollowed out. I can't believe they're even considering looking at people's social media. Like, what do you fucking care if you think Marco Rubio is dickless, which I do, and I will say on social media? This is insane from a business point of view, correct? Like, this obsession with manufacturing where 80% of Americans think we need more manufacturing,

but only 20% of Americans have any interest in being in manufacturing. You can't take your dog to the factory floor. People don't want the, for the most part, people don't want to be in manufacturing. And we do need a certain level of a manufacturing base, but it needs to be advanced manufacturing, high margin. But the obsession is coming at the cost of an even better higher margin industry, and that is the tourism business. It's insane.

And so, and just so people can fill up our comments with calling me a fascist or a weirdo or whatever. Well, that's every Tuesday, but go ahead. There you go. I do believe if you are applying to come here and be a citizen or get a visa or a green card, I think everything is open game because what, and young people, let's be clear, when you get a job at Goldman Sachs, before you get the offer or you apply for a job, you know what they do? They look at your social media. and if they think you're an idiot that is going to embarrass them and you're saying misogynistic things or you're out just rubbing your wealth in people's face

or doing shots or acting like a total asshole, guess what? They will not give you a job. They also run credit checks on you. So there's a difference between on cut a call tourism where we benefit. Vegas is dying. And there are two reasons Vegas is dying

or a lot of reasons, but one of them is we've now moved We've put Vegas in everyone's pocket, but also- Online betting. Canadians were a huge source of revenue for Vegas. They're out. They're like, fuck you. You're going to treat us like assholes and take 70% of our exports, which go to you and start playing, being reckless with our economic well-being. Yeah, we're done.

So this is yet another reason. But who would even think of this? This is like, by the way, the First Amendment. The Stasi, which is what we're becoming. Literally, the first fucking amendment, it says you can say whatever you think. Like, you know, he also tweeted that if you, he's apparently incandescent over the New York Times. They should be able to say anything they want about the United States of America on social media, period. Period.

Period. Full stop. Okay. But do we have an obligation to let them in? Yes. Yes, we do. It's just words. That's just words. They're not like. I'm asking this to learn, not to make a comment. Does the First Amendment apply to people coming in? in temporarily for... I don't care. It replies to our whole ethos. Like, if you want to keep people out because of... I'm coming to New York and then I'm going to commit a terrorist attack against major infrastructure. I'm not talking about committing a terrorist attack saying Donald Trump is an

orange Nazi is fine. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I'm high. I'm coming into the U.S. Why are you here? Well, it says on social media that you are back to activate a terrorist cell and commit acts of terror while you were here on U.S. soil. You think that's First Amendment free speech? No, because that's not what it's about. It's they're going to review their foreign visitors. So the only reason I'm pairing this together is because he was incandescent over a New York Times piece. He is, according to White House people that I talk to, he's like lost his mind, where the New York Times basically said he's old and probably, you know, essentially has frontal lobe dementia, which I think we all can all, after the performance of the last two days.

You're going a bit off script here, but this is what he said. Anyone who says I'm sick is a traitor and could be tried for sedition, essentially, is what he said. Agreed. Words, words don't count. And I just, look, if you could. That's different, Kara. No, no. If they come in and they have threatened this on social media, then we stop them. We look through their bags. We say we're going to follow them. We still let them in. I'm sorry, it's just words. It's like, what if it's a teenager doing? What if it's some angry grandma, we can make those, we can make those judgment calls. But I don't think, I don't think everyone, I don't think, I don't think Americans have a birthright to live in New York. If it's too expensive, you leave. I don't

think people have a birthright to just throw up their arm, unfortunately, and say asylum and gain entry into the U.S. And I don't think it's people's birthright, let me continue, to come in for whatever reason if they have a history and statements that appear to be a threat and are going to cost us more energy and money to track these people because we perceive they're a real threat. Having said that, I think the bar has to be pretty fucking low to gain entry to come in and spend money. And if you've said some anti-American things on your social media, okay, we should be able to assess how serious a threat it is. And the bar needs to be, I don't know, really high or really low. But if you've said some anti-American things, that's probably 70% of anyone who has a social

media account. And the economic benefit and the brand America, when people come to America, guess what? They have a really good time. And they like us. And they find out, on the whole, people who are Republicans and Democrats are pretty decent people. And then they go back and say, hey, maybe someday, let's go back to Disney, or if our kid wants to go to college in the U.S. Or if a U.S. company comes here, maybe I'll do business with them. We have a vested economic and strategic and military interest, vested interest, in letting people come and see how wonderful America is. Yes, but I think what you were doing was a very edge case of a thing. They already were aware of those people.

Someone who calls Warren Chittler, come on in. Like, who cares? Like, who the fuck cares? And they don't need to investigate that person. And if they don't have a history or record of crime, which they already know before, by the way, they know the bad people that come in for the most part. It's not a secret. It's not some grandma from Germany. Like, give me a break.

I mean, it's only one step to what he was saying very explicitly. If you say I'm old and sick, you're a traitor. You're a traitor. You're a guilty of tradition. You're old and you're sick. And I think you have frontal low dementia. Come and get me. I don't know what else to say.

Anyway, speaking of which, President Trump kicked off a series of really unusual speeches, for him even, because he seemed rather low energy and meandering, intended to ease the cost of living concerns by mocking affordability. Let's listen to a clip of the speech in Pennsylvania this week. But they have a new word, you know, they always have a hoax. The new word is affordability. So they look at the camera and they say, this election is all about affordability. Now, they'd ever talk about it. Yeah, they're talking about it now, sir. He got distracted by some of the crowd telling him to run for four more years during the speech.

Also suggested marriage-management should buy less pencils and dolls from overseas. That's an old trope he was doing. He was quite, I mean, I don't think he has Alzheimer's. I think he has this frontal look because you get more aggressive and more fanciful with that one. Alzheimer's is a forgetting disease, really. But this idea of you can get your dolls elsewhere. buy less pencils, nobody cares about affordability. They must be beside themselves in the White House that he's doing this.

He ran on affordability. And 57% of voters. Affordability. Sorry. 57% of voters agree that Trump was losing the battle against inflation. 68% believe that the economy is poor or very poor. And according to a recent political poll, get this, 27% percent, of respondents have skipped a medical checkup

because of the costs, because of costs accelerating in the last two years. A quarter have skipped a prescription. A third said they could not afford to attend a professional sports event with their family or friends, and almost half said they can't pay for a vacation that involves air travel.

I mean, this is the problem. Neither Democrats or Republicans want to have a serious fucking conversation around affordability. Republicans want a tariff. Democrats want to throw money of people to say, we'll short-term solve your problem. The structural, the structural answers to inflation and affordability are really boring. And the American public doesn't seem to want to elect people who are willing to have these

conversations. The things that drive inflation, you start with the shit that drives the CPI. 40% unfortunately of middle income homes now is going towards housing. We need, and you've said this, we need a massive increase in housing. The next biggest cost in terms of acceleration, the two and three are education and health care. We need national medicine or socialized medicine. And We need tuition caps based on income of the household. But no one wants to talk about, and we need massive antitrust. Well, it's also food, though, Scott. I mean, I was noticing, and I have plenty of money to buy food,

but I was in a store the other day, and the chicken sandwich was $8. And Amanda saw one, two, $8, $9, like, for just a basic chicken. And I was like, that's like less, more than minimum wage. Like, everything, like, even the most basic stuff is more than minimum wage. And I don't know, I don't pay attention to prices as much as I should. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. But boy, do you notice them now because you're like, what?

Okay, but the question is, you're saying what everyone will agree with. And that is the rent is too damn high. You know, remember that mayoral candidate? We all agree. The question is, what do we do about it? And the answer is, in my view, if you're talking about a chicken sandwich, there are three companies controlling the majority of the poultry market. There are too few grocers and too much regular.

in too much red tape that increases the cost of grocery prices. You need more competition. There are literally seven food companies responsible for the vast majority of our food products right now. We need dramatically more competition. But from a marketing point of view, him making fun of it, I don't even understand what the theory is here, except that he is frontal low dementia. I don't know what else he could do. I don't think it's fair to say as dementia or Alzheimer's, what I think it's fair to say is he suffers from an ailment that is very obvious and is true. He suffers from 79. And we just should not have a person with their finger on the button trying to figure out tariff policy, trying to figure out, you know, our relationship with the CCP and what ship should go

and the threat they present long term. What do you think of him doing this trying to make it not a thing? It's totally ineffective. Biden was pilloried for much less by saying it. Totally, totally ineffective. And I'm glad he's doing it because I think it plays into our hands. But at some point, the counter to that can't be just what a fucking idiot is. Okay, agreed. Right, got it. It's, all right, affordability requires an adult conversation and long-term structural solutions. Are we ready for an adult conversation around housing, medical care, tuition costs, and antitrust? Although I don't think mocking's about idea. Where the Democrats having this conversation? Outside of Senator Klobuchar, who's actually having this conversation, the Democrats who I have on raging

moderates, all say the same thing. This is an important conversation. that we need to have at the right moment. But right now, let's make sure we get the ACA subsidies. All right, I get it. Well, that's a cost. Like, you don't buy insurance, but mine is going to go up quite a bit. Like, and it was, it was, like, what could it go up to? And it wasn't.

Oh, I agree. It's insane. 40% of American households have medical or dental debt. But, okay, so we have a series of Band-Aid ideas, but no one wants to talk about a structural reform in healthcare, because the healthcare industrial complex is the biggest donor to Pax. I just gave a bunch of money to a young woman who just announced her campaign for Senate and her, well, pretty easy to figure out. Jasmine Crockett.

Okay, yeah. I saw you online. You would, like, call me, Jasmine. Yeah. I am literally, like, watching my parents argue. I love Tala RICO, and I love Jasmine Crockett. Anyways. Should we invite both of them to South by Southwest to be on stage with us for our...

Oh, I would love that. Let's try that. I would love that. I think they're... James, we'd like to have you both on stage. I think they're both outstanding. It breaks my heart because his parents are fighting. Anyways, but I heard from someone on her staff saying,

we'll try and find time for you to meet with the representative. I'm like, no. People with my demographic have way too much fucking influence already. I am sending this money with one directive. Keep an on girl. Just keep doing what you're doing. Although, I'd like to see her slap you back to last Sunday, as my own. entertainment.

That's what you're here for at 73. He would totally take it. Her announcement video was great. I like him too. I love her announcement video too. She's getting, she's getting worried about them fighting each other. I think that's fine.

Everyone's like, oh, we've blown this and I'm like, no, we haven't. We need more hot young people like Tala Rica, who, by the way, follows Instagram models, which I love, which I love. I love a guy who talks about Jesus and then is following Elman's models.

You know, Emily Radikowski did ask about him. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. You know, I expose myself and you jazz. When we come back, we'll talk. I got so much dope, but when you said, you know, Emily Radikowsky, and I was waiting for the end to say that she DM'd you. So when we come back, we'll talk about Australia's new social media ban for teens. President Trump was busy last weekend. Kennedy Center honors.

It's like sometimes you could say, like people, either have it or you don't. Great sound in this building. Crash the staff holiday party at the White House. Many of you have been with me from the beginning, including the first term, and we love you all, and I just want to wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, Happy Hanukkah, and all of all of all kids. But all Trump wants for Christmas is for Indiana Republicans to pass a new Congressional Mass. Truth Social. If they stupidly say no, vote them out of office.

They are not worthy, and I will be there to help. Thank you, Indiana. Trump thinks he can gerrymander his way. to victory in the 26 midterm elections. But some Indiana Republicans aren't buying it. Trump and this MAGA movement have taken over the GOP, but in Indiana and beyond, there are some signs of cracks in the coalition.

That's coming up on Today Explain from Vox. Support for today's show comes from Bit Defender. You might not think of it, but the holidays are a perfect time for you to face cyber threats. From ransomware to ID theft, holiday scams, to AI impersonations, cybercriminals are busier than elves this season targeting your family, business, and your digital safety. That's where Bit Defender comes in. Bit Defender was voted one of America's best cybersecurity companies by Newsweek and a PC mag pick for its best tech products of 2025 list.

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One way to protect our rights to live and have a family and protect our children from violence would be to outlaw alcohol. It's not a crazy idea given there's nothing else they can do. They can't vote. They can't charge their husbands with crimes. I'm Prit Bharara. And this week, Harvard historian Jill Lippoor joins me to discuss her new book on the U.S. Constitution and the movements that shaped it in ways we've forgotten.

The episode is out now. Search and follow. Stay tuned with Prit wherever you get your podcast. Scott, we're back. It might be time for us to move down under. Australia's become the first country in the world to ban kids under 16 from using social media. Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, and several other platforms face fines of up to $33 million if they don't take reasonable steps to remove underage users. Of course, Aussie teens are already finding workruns. Of course, they are creating accounts with fake ages using less popular apps and even taking the government to court.

Fine, well, and good. That's what teens are there for. And here in the U.S. of Florida law banning social media accounts for kids under 14 is going to effect after surviving a court challenge. I got to say, I agree with that idiot. Remember him down in Florida, DeSantis on this? This works. Will the rest of the world follow? Now, just for, let me just say, we have Facebook and met a hard time. And by the way, they are not keeping young people safe, no matter what they say. Tim Cook was on Capitol Hill this week, lobbying against legislation that requires platforms to authenticate. the user's age, pushing instead to put the burden on parents, you know, that both met it and they are arguing who's irresponsible. I think they're both responsible, whether the phones are or the social media sites, but putting it on parents when they make these products is just not, is just, I find really shameful for Tim Cook to do. But I know why he's doing it. I just find it shameful. We just gave back in one move, or I should say the Australian government and their leadership just gave back this is the most generous a creative gift to kids likely in Australian history their time with their friends their self-esteem their time outside their time playing

sports their time with their parents their ability to navigate relationship in person their ability to focus on their schoolwork their test scores the Australian government just gave back more childhood to children than any single legislation, I think, passed in the West in the last decade. And I just want to call out, I think the most influential scholar in the world right now is my colleague Jonathan Haidt. I just don't think this would have happened without his book, The Ancientist Generation. It might have happened, but it wouldn't have happened as soon. And I hope that it ignites an absolute firestorm. And they say, well, it's about parenting. Oh, fuck you, Tim Cook. Do you think it's parenting?

that bars should be able to serve my kid alcohol and that it's up to me to make sure that he never gets access to alcohol? And it is some of your responsibility. By the way, Tim Cook doesn't have children, so they don't have the difficulty of... Okay, and here's the problem, parenting. Okay, you don't have children when you say that.

Yeah, you don't. That's what I thought. Because unless it's a collective action, unless every 15-year-old is off-snap, you move in with parenting and you manage to figure out a way to use custodio or custodio and get them off-snap, And guess what? They're more depressed, as my other colleague, Adam Alter did research around this,

because they're ostracized because they're the only ones not on SNAP. So unless this is collective action through legislation, and this is my favorite argument from META that they're violating their First Amendment rights. You know what, a 14-year-old doesn't need to know. We don't need to know what a 14-year-old thinks about MRNA vaccines. I'm sorry. This is such an insane argument that they're worried about the free speech. And they say, this is nothing but the following.

This is Joe Camel. It was shown that the tobacco industry had a series of cartoon-like characters to try and incorporate new people into their addiction, which would continue to kill our sisters and our brothers and our mothers. And they said, sorry, you don't get to feed the pipeline with cartoon-like characters. Nor should social media, at a minimum, be allowed to spread this depression, this disassociation, and the sequestration from life and family. My fear, I would love to think this ignites similar bands around the world. I'm hopeful it does, but the problem is, in America, we are fall into this delusion that we are a democracy.

We're not. We have a passive majority that is weaponized and influenced by a very activated, sophisticated, well-funded, special interest groups. And the special interest group around tech... Say it, sister. Well, the special interest group around tech is only second to the health industrial. complex in terms of money and maybe number one right now because the entire economy and the Trump administration is making a big bet on AI. So these people have so much fucking we have minority rules. The two areas that are the worst for Americans, health care and social media

among the worst, biggest, biggest lobbyists that it's in there. Let me just say, I agree, parents should get off their phones when they're in front of their kids. They should be more present with kids. Absolutely. They should be more interested in what they're doing online, but it is incredible, it is, it's too hard to use and it's not your fault parents. This is made, I have a hard time monitoring, I had a hard time monitoring these things, but I did it, but it was very, it was very difficult and the tools suck. So this is their responsibility to make it so, put warning labels on these things, explain this to kids. And, and again, I agree. Parents should not be on their phone.

Like, you have to sort of, you know, pattern map for kids on stuff like that. Ignoring them and looking at your phones is one of those things. And so there is a parental obligation here, but for the most part, this is on them, all of them. And it's really repulsive that all these companies have constantly abrogated their responsibilities of their shoddy products, no matter how you do it. And they are able to do it. And I know they put in all this. finding people, privacy. I don't care. Figure it out. You're smart people. And you're making a ton of money. So I'm sure you could spend some of your money. Well, just let's talk about some data in the U.S.

So Instagram earned $4 billion this year from teens age 13 to 17. They make, platforms are going to earn about $13 billion from kids under 18 and 2022, which translates to about, I don't know, somewhere between $100 billion and a quarter of a trillion dollars. So what do you know? They're worried about their First Amendment rights. Fifty-three percent of children now own a smartphone by age 11. That has doubled since 2015. Three-quarters of children, age two to five, engage with YouTube regularly. And teens spend five hours a day on social media. Where do you think that five hours has come from? About 35 percent of their waking hours outside of school. And age-gating, guess what, folks? We age-gate bars and restaurants serving alcohol, convenience stores,

gas stations, smoke shops, tobacco, cannabis dispensaries. Can't drive until you're 16. Casinos, sports books, the DMV, online gambling sites, pornography, firearm retailers. Can Australia run the U.S.? Yes, I would like to ban firearms? They have a super return fund for to invest. They go out into the, they go out. By the way, I'm going there.

I'm going there for the holidays. Oh, nice. You love it. You love it. I was just there. It was just there this year. I'm going for my nephews. My nephew lives.

I'm going for his wedding next year. All right. You always have to one up me. I'm just going to Sydney for a great New Year's party. You're going to have a great time. It's a wonderful place. They've got myriad of problems, but I've got to say this was a winner for these people. All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be right back. President Trump said many wild things this year. But one of the wildest was on Pod Force One. We talked about this multi-day aptitude test. He took at the age of like 11 or 12. They said, your son is brilliant at music. He would be an incredible musician. Alas.

This is not what my father wanted to hear. Right out of college, Trump tried producing Broadway shows. And he has taste. You can argue about whether it's good taste. But Trump loves music and movies and architecture, L.O.L. And he's been using his time in office to shape popular culture. The culture was already moving right. It was embracing the trads and the chimps.

And so in the waning days of 2025, we're looking at how the counterculture, long the province of lefties and hippies, moved swiftly and sharply right. And we're going to ask if it'll ever move back. Today, Explain drops every weekday. In 2012, Google gave the world two things. The first was Glass, a new idea about head-mounted eyewear computing devices. that promised to change the way we used computers forever. The second was the concept of the glass hole. And glass holes may be the reason that we're not all wearing glass today.

This week on version history, a new chat show about old technology, we're digging into the whole story of glass and all the things that Google got right and all the ways it went horribly wrong. That's version history wherever you get podcasts. This week on Net Worth and Chill, I'm tackling the topic that stresses everyone out this time of year. How to survive the holidays without destroying your bank account. From gift-giving guilt to those limited edition holiday temptations, I'm breaking down practical strategies to save your wallet while still showing up for the people you love. I'll share real numbers on how much

the average person overspends during the season, smart swaps that don't feel cheap, and how to set boundaries without being the Grinch. Plus, I'm exposing the marketing tactics designed to make you panic by and revealing the framework for creating a holiday budget that actually works. Get ready for an honest conversation about staying financially sane during the most expensive time of the year, listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com slash your rich BFF. Okay, Scott, we're going to do something a little different today. Time just announced its Person of the Year, which everyone thought it would be the Architects of AI for 2025. The cover shows Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Jensen Wong, Fayeley, and a few

others. Let me ask you, who would you have picked as the time, person thing slash thing of the year? Who I would have picked? Who's my person of the year? And I actually wrote this up was McKenzie Scott. Excellent choice. There you go. Seven billion dollars she's given away this year. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely a different approach to what I'll call feminine giving versus masculine giving. I think the woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize is going to play a seminal role. I think Maduro is going to be I think we're going to have regime change in Venezuela. Let them do with themselves, that's my feeling. 100%.

I would pick, I'm going to go pop culture, actually. I would pick K-pop demon hunters because... No. I would. Here's why. Because I think, you know, I know you didn't, you don't pay attention to cultural things as much as I do, but... I don't like culture, Kara.

I love it. And so... Watching what happened at the Macy's Parade, which everybody loved and made everybody feel good, was a moment. And in the center of that was a moment of let's all like stop this hatefulness. Let's be interesting. Let's have all different. There was country people. There was all kinds of people there. Like it wasn't like it wasn't woke. It was just America. I felt really good about it. Right. I think they represent a lot of things that I think we have to get back to, which is, which is the idea that the difference is okay. You shouldn't hide yourself. The good feeling about this. country in this world, like feeling good about that we are, we can be, and I'm not a religious person, that we can be saved. There's a grace. There's amazing grace. And that's what that,

the music there, and it's played on any parent on their Spotify playlist or whatever the year, whatever music, it's K-pop demon hunters, which is amazing because kids are really responding to it. And so it's not just, it's not just the song golden. It's not just, you know, take down and everything else. It's a complex look at how difficult it is to deal with differences. And I just, I find it to be one of the most moving cultural moments this year is, and you know I want to pick Taylor Swift and Fate of Affili, which I loved. But I think it's a really, you can see people as they listen to it. And I know it sounds dumb, but you remember Ted and Bill and Ted's excellent adventure when they become the band that brings the, their whole thing is in the future they become this band.

what was it called the horse or whatever, which was funny, but that's what I felt like with this movie. It's like this unites people in a way I find very lovely, and so I would pick K-pop team. Did you know my big in YEO? I want to bring this back to me. I know I don't like to talk about it.

You know I don't like to talk about myself, Cara, but there was something called YEO, and I joined one of like 30 years old in San Francisco, which is supposed to be a feeder into YPO, and you get a mentor, the best part of it is you get a mentor who's a YPOer, and my mentor was a runner-up for, or one of the runner-ups for a person of the year, a Times person of the year. And it was Bob Swanson. Do you remember him?

No, no. He was the founder of Genentech. Oh, okay. All right. And he met me. I thought that was Craig, whatever you call it. We met. And the loveliest guy. I mean, this is a guy very busy, right? And he said, we met, we had lunch, and he said, and I said, I had just started profit, this brand, this strategy firm. And he said, Would you, he goes, how can I be the most helpful? I'm like, you know, I sort of know what I'm doing, but I really don't. He said, well, I have an idea.

I'll just, I'll just shout to you for a day. Yeah, he met me in my office. Actually, met me at the gym. I worked out every day from 7 to 8. He met me at the gym, picked me up, took me to my office, and he just shadowed me for a full day. Meetings, client meetings. And he's a fairly, like, kind of quiet, like not.

He was sort of like, you know, shorter guy, carried a few extra pounds, just sort of kind of, I don't want to say blended in, obviously a genius. And he just shouted me the whole day. And at the end of the day, he sat me down and he'd taken a bunch of notes. And he said, okay, great leaders listen more than they talk. You are not a great leader yet. You want to impress everybody.

You're talking too much. Oh, of course. That's pretty obvious. He said, he had all these things that have stuck with me my whole life. He said, you don't understand the difference between being right and being effective. He's like, you're right a lot. but you're too aggressive and you're turning off people, you've got to think about how am I effective here.

And he just gave me a series of things. Wow. Anyways, that was my mentor story. Oh, my God. That's a wonderful story. Oh, you know who I would pick? Oh, okay. To stick my finger in Putin's eyes, I'd pick Navalny.

Ah, that's a great idea. Yeah, there's all kinds of people. You know, this is sort of an antiquated thing, the person of the year, but it's still kind of works because it makes you think about things. So anyway, we do not think the architects of AI deserve it. I don't at least. I think there's a much more uplifting story about to happen over the next year. Such a snooze.

I'm telling you it is. I know architects of AI, you're kidding. You know what though? Realistically, who it should be? What? It should probably be Jensen Huang. No. I hate it when they have multiple people or they don't pick a person.

No, he's just able to wear his coat and act like a lesbian and kiss up to Trump. No. He's felt a pretty important company. I understand, but I'm not, like, I'm like, Time will tell, as they say. Anyway, you've got to get going because you arrive late and you've got to leave early. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show. We'll call 85551 pivot. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe this week, and Scott spoke with Tristan

Harris, former Google Design Ethicist and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. I know him well. He's fantastic. Let's listen to a clip. The U.S. beat China to the technology of social media. Did that make us stronger or do that make us weaker? If you beat an adversary to a technology but that you then don't govern in a wise way and instead like you build this gun, you flip it around, you blow your own brain off, which is what we did with social media, we have the worst critical thinking test scores, you know, mental health, anxious, depressed generation in history. And it's a confusing picture because GDP is going up, that sort of cancer is going up too. So it's like we have the

magnificent seven. We're profiting from, you know, all the wealth of these companies. but it's actually not being distributed to everybody, except those who are invested in the stock market. And that profit is based on the degradation of our social fabric. I love that guy. He's been going out of this for a long time. Yeah, he's been doing it. He's kind of the original gangster of all things that are not right in Mudville. You are absolutely right, and they can't stand it.

But he's been right then and he's right now, and that was great. That's a terrific thing he said. The nicest part of the interview was I asked him who's been most influential in his life, and he said that his mother and that she was nothing but pure love. your love, which I really like. Oh, lovely. He's a nice man. Yeah, that would appeal to you, I'm sure.

And before we go, I'm interviewing Dara Costa Shahi, the CEO of Uber and Chris Ermson, the CEO of Aurora, live on stage at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C. on Monday, December 15th, next Monday. These are going to be two really sharp conversations about applied AI and autonomous vehicles. I'm very excited. They're both, Chris was the original Google car of autonomous car projects at Google. I think he's great, too, and both of them.

I've known Dara for a long time. Really smart thinkers. To register for free tickets, Google Hopkins and Kara Swisher. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie and Ernie and Retight engineered this episode. Rich Shibli edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Bros. Miss Rivera and Dan Shalon. The Shock Coroz Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast. platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box Media. You can

subscribe to the magazine, nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things, tech, and business. This is Comedy Gold. We've got to record this. We are recording this. Let me just say you're late to the podcast. No, happy birthday. I'm late. Well, it's because you didn't use a condom.

You always think it's a good idea to start with a condom. And then, and then you get me all out and bothered and say, just let me put the tip in. You set me three-year-old. I see no present. Several moguls sent me presents, not you. I like it.

I like unexpected gifts. Louis sent me birthday song, birthday by two chains. Here, I'll just play it myself. All I want for my birthday is a big booty house. All I want for my birthday is a big board and house. Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough.

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