Pivot - Elon Pushback, Trump's Distraction Trap, and Disney Earnings

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Kara and Scott discuss Elon Musk's continued coup, and how Democrats are starting to push back. Then, President Trump shares his bizarre idea for the U.S. to take over Gaza, but is it just part of a larger plan to flood the zone, and distract from Elon's power grab? Plus, the latest earnings from Disney, Alphabet, and Spotify. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on Bluesky at @pivotpod.bsky.social Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, business leaders, are you here to play or are you playing to win? If you're in it to win, meet your next MVP. NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is your full business management system in one convenient suite. With NetSuite, you're running your accounting, your finance, your HR, your e-commerce, and more, all from your online dashboard. Upgrade your playbook and make the switch to NetSuite, the number one cloud ERP. Get the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com slash Vox.

netsuite.com slash Vox. This isn't your grandpa's finance podcast. It's Vivian Tiu, Your Rich BFF and host of the Net Worth and Chill podcast. This is money talk that's actually fun, actually relatable, and will actually make you money. I'm breaking down investments, side hustles, and wealth strategies. No boring spreadsheets, just real talk that'll have you leveling up your financial game. With amazing guests like Glenda Baker.

There's never been any house that I've sold in the last 32 years that's not worth more today than it was the day that I sold it. This is a money podcast that you'll actually want to listen to. Follow Net Worth and Chill wherever you listen to podcasts. Your bank account will thank you later. Support for Pivot comes from Attio. Attio is an AI native CRM built for the next era of companies.

Its powerful data structure adapts to your business model, syncs in all your contacts and minutes, and enriches everything with actionable data. Attio's AI research agents tackle complex work like finding key decision makers and triaging incoming leads. You can also create email sequences, real-time reports, and powerful automations, all to help you build what matters, your company. You can join industry leaders including Flatfile, Replicate, Modal, and more.

You can go to attio.com slash pivot and you'll get 15% off your first year. That's attio.com slash pivot. You're my junkyard dog. I like that. Thanks for saying that. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm thinking of doing ketamine recreationally tonight.

I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm thinking of doing ketamine recreationally tonight. Why? Well, I used to have this incredible ability as a young man to disassociate. I was basically sleepwalking through life. I didn't care much about anything. I'm having trouble disassociating from all this bullshit. Oh, yeah. And so I think I'm going to a fashion week party tonight.

I don't have my kids. I push my meetings back until 10 a.m. tomorrow. So that all spells ketamine for the dog tonight. Really? So I'm going to a fashion week party tonight. I don't have my kids. I push my meetings back till 10 AM tomorrow. So that all spells ketamine for the dog tonight. So I'm going to try it. Yeah. I don't even know how you take it though. Do you know how you take it? No, that was a medically supervised ketamine trip. There's a big difference. Tonight,

I'm going to do it to like me more, have a few moves. Why don't you just go down to Washington with the gang that's taking apart the government, that I think they probably have some information on how to do that. That is not tomato-tomato. Me at a fashion week party, hitting the moves, thinking I like me a little bit more than usual, doing ketamine with some strange person. By the way, as opposed to going to Washington, that is not tomato-tomato.

That is huge. I want to have a good time tonight. I want to forget everything. I want to disassociate. You can't. You got to be awake, sweetie. You got to be awake. You got to be woke, as they say.

Do you snort it? Do you inject it? Or what I'm hoping, do you shove it up your ass? Hello, ladies. Ah. Who's got a glove? Who's got a glove? All right.

Listen to me. You can't disassociate. There's no disassociation allowed. Oh, daddy can disassoci right. Listen to me. You can't disassociate. There's no disassociation allowed. Oh, daddy can disassociate. You can't. You have to be in this. You gotta, like, everybody's writing me, like, I can't keep up, da-da-da. I'm like, you know what? It's the long fucking run with these people.

You gotta stick in there. They rely on your exhaustion. They rely on you being overwhelmed. And you need to not. You need to just keep going. Why do you want to disassociate? You have to associate. That's how we win, we associate. They're disassociated people, these people. Yeah, that's right. Thank you.

Why don't you do a happy drug? Not one that's so ruminative. What's a happy drug? I don't know. I never take any drugs, so I have no idea. I don't know. I don't take any. Let me answer that. That's called MDMA or X. I took it a couple of times in college and I remember thinking to myself, I don't have an addictive personality,

but I remember thinking, this is so good, I cannot do this again. Well, then do that. Do that. Yeah, I don't know. You'll try to hug me. You'll call me and say loving things which would be disturbing to me, but that's okay. No, it makes me happy.

It doesn't make me fucking crazy. I know, but there's a lot of hugs happening from what I, I never took it. I never took it. There's hugs, right? There's a lot of hugging and dancing. Do you know the initial, it's initial use case,

how it was psychiatrists in couples therapy wanted them to open up to each other. Oh, interesting. I don't know, never tried it, never will. I'm high on life, Scott Galloway. I hate it when people say that. I know I do too. It's the least express. I don't need drugs.ay. I hate it when people say that. I know I do too. It's the least express.

I don't need drugs. Well, I do because of people like you. Although let me say, I'm looking out the window right now. I just got back on a red eye from Los Angeles. I was in San Francisco, Los Angeles. You look nice. Thank you. I'm wearing the same clothes I was out to dinner

at a very fancy, the Mother Wolf in Los Angeles if you've been there, it was really good. Mother Wolf. I have a secret project going on there, another secret project which will soon be revealed. But it has to do with lesbians in Washington, that's all. I heard about this, I won't spoil it for you, but it's good for you.

I'm convinced you're pulling a Scott when his kids were little, and that is you're coming up with a lot of reasons to leave the house right now. No, I'm not. I got to go to San Francisco. Oh my God, it's terrible. I'll miss you guys so much. Unlike you, I do very short trips and I come back on Red Eyes.

So I'm here, I took the kids. I took Claire to school this morning and made her lunch, made the kids lunch. I get back so I can do that. One of the, I went out, you know, I went out with two people, one my brother and friends of mine to Zuni, which was amazing. Café Zuni?

Yes. It was great. San Francisco was great. Well, I'm glad you're back and you need to stop taking red eyes. When you turn 70, such as yourself, you as a gift to yourself, you need to stop doing red eyes. I don't do red eyes anymore. Oh, really? I don't mind. It was a lay down bed. I slept. It was fine.

Your sleep, your nutrition, your sleep, your nutrition, your sleep, your nutrition, and your exercise are the three pillars, and you need to prioritize sleep. You don't sleep well on a plane. No more red eyes for you. I wear my aura ring and it tells me that I'm quite ready for the day.

It's weird. I don't sleep well. You're rested and ready? Yeah. I don't know why. I think it's lying to me. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to because I need to be rested and ready. By the way, I have an aura ring and I just downloaded my data and it says one thing, try ketamine tonight.

Uh-uh, don't do it. Don't do it by yourself. I can't wait. I just think I'm going to like me more than I do. You're not going to like it. Please don't. I'm going to feel better about everything. It's not an insurrection, it's a dance party.

That's funny. That's a good joke. That's a good one. Okay, we've got a lot to get to today, including Democrats finally showing some backbone and Trump's plan to create a sovereign wealth fund. This lunacy is every single day. I forget what, yes, well anyway, plus earnings from Disney, Alphabet, and Spotify. But first, I think we know, both know why Google searches for the word coup are up this week. Elon Musk, who is now a special government employee, whatever the fuck that is, has had a very busy couple days, essentially shut down USAID, offered buyouts

to every member of the CIA. And his Doge team got access to the IT systems of Medicare and Medicaid, and NOAA, which is weather agencies and other agencies. We're going to talk about Trump and Gaza and the craziness in a bit, but I want to focus, start by focusing on Elon. Overall thoughts, what we've been seeing, Trump still thinks he's in control, saying this week, Elon can't do and won't do anything without our approval. You'll be shocked to learn that Senator Susan Collins is very concerned about Elon and Doge's actions. People at the Trump White House, they're leaking all over the place that he's too big for his

britches. I'm like, when did you start to notice his pants were tight, my friends? He's totally too big for his britches all the time. You've been saying, where are the Democrats? They're starting to show signs of light protesting Elon's power grab at a rally outside the Treasury Department. Some House Democrats are trying to subpoena Elon to testify for the Oversight Committee. They're making a lot of trouble. The motion didn't pass. It probably will pass at some point. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy was on Morning Joe talking about the game plan for his party. Let's listen. People understand that we are the minority party.

We don't run the White House, we are the minority in the House and in the Senate, but we need to act like a real opposition party in the middle of a constitutional and democracy crisis. That means we should not be moving forward nominees or legislation in the United States Senate. Democrats should not be giving votes to nominees or to legislation in the United States Senate until Republicans get serious about this crisis. I think he's been pretty good. Jamie Raskin has, obviously, AOC is terrific.

So talk a little bit about the Elon situation and making, you know, they're making him the villain so that it sort of offloads it from Trump in a weird way. He's sort of the, I'm calling him a heat-seeking shield for what they're doing, but there's protests that have popped up around the country. It doesn't mean anything's gonna happen, criticizing particularly Musk.

So talk a little bit about this and what the Democrats should do. You said something that really resonated with me and that is I've been, I've fallen prey to what is a really smart strategy on their part and that is the invasion of Greenland or somehow some fucked up weird strategy for clearing out or the ultimate, I don't know,

apartheid or whatever they're planning to do in Gaza or invading the Panama Canal or accusing a helicopter or saying that the people responsible are helicopter crash or some somehow a function of DEI. You're exactly right. And it struck me what an idiot I was being. That's nothing but weapons of mass distraction from what effectively a second insurrection by the same president. And instruction is probably the wrong term. It's probably more of a coup. But you change the entire

negotiation between someone, two people when one person holds a gun to the other person's head. And what they have done, they're very smart and elegant here. Instead of a bunch of Duck Dynasty mobs with trucker hats and goatees getting out of their RAV4s, it's the wealthiest man in the world who, in my opinion, is trespassing in federal property and has enlisted a bunch of acolytes and has stopped making payments for things like Head Start

or the funding of AIDS programs or malaria treatment. There are people being carried out in stretchers that are in hospitals because they don't have funding. And it's not, these programs and this funding, whether you agree with them or not or think they should be subject to review, are a function of laws that were passed by three branches of government. And you have, they figured out a way to say, look over here at this helicopter crash or it's DEI, or we have a plan to clear out Gaza

to distract you from the fact that we now have insurrectionists or a coup being led by the world's wealthiest man. I think the Republicans are thinking, I can't believe they're letting us do this. And as long as we're kind of in favor of this, and now they're in a position, when you as long as we're kind of in favor of this, and now they're in a position,

when you hold a gun to someone's head, it changes the complexion of the negotiation. It's no longer, oh, you need laws to do this. It's like, well, we might turn the payments back on for head start, but let's talk about it. Well, no, we're not gonna discuss it. I don't think they're going gangster enough. They probably just unmasked,

because of their recklessness, the names and identities of CIA officers, which is an incredible act of treason and stupidity. I think they did that on purpose, from what I understand. They wanted it. They were sending, what Scott's referring to is, they sending emails, not in a way that's safe, to the White House. They wanted things like that.

So I wanna know who are these young, highly intelligent, highly motivated zealots following them into these buildings and shutting off payments to schools and head starts. I wanna know their names. Well, you know, they're trying to, the local officials are trying to make that official. The newly installed Trump are threatening people for naming their names, just so you know, but go ahead.

Oh yeah, but they can unmask CIA officers who've put their lives in harm's way to try and keep our Americans safe. I wanna know who their names are, and I wanna see Democratic governors saying, I'm gonna do everything I can in my power to use the full faith and to the letter of the law to put you folks in prison.

I think what you're doing is trespassing. I think this is a coup. And be clear, just because the new insurrectionist who was elected, I don't believe this is legal. And I'm gonna hold the people accountable who are trespassing and part of a coup accountable. To just sit back and say, this is horrible and this is unlawful, we need to go gangster

here and say, look, we are not negotiating around this stuff. This is illegal. This is a coup. This is the unlawful seizure of power. We are not going to engage in these bullshit, ridiculous arguments over, you know, Gaza and Greenland. We are going to hold the people accountable. Here are their names, here are their faces, and we have contacted the local authorities in where these kids live, these young adults, and we are going to hold them accountable. We need to start hitting back in a way that

disrupts what is the unlawful seizure of resources that have been leaked. You might disagree with them. Fine. That is not anyone's right. Our elected representatives pass these laws. No, we get that. I think repeating it doesn't matter because they are blowing through stop sign after stop

sign. It doesn't see this is a very typical. I've talked to, I would say, a half a dozen governors, senators, congresspeople this week, and they were like, well, we're going to say something. And I was like, he's going to break the rules. I said, you don't understand. He's not going to stop because you tell him he's bad. There's no way he's stopping. Look at everything he does. He blows past the SEC. He keeps going. He does lawsuits against the press, he does lawsuits against competitors, he blows up rockets until he gets it right. I was like, this is a person with a high risk tolerance who has noticed that when you break

things or break rules or open your company when the government of California says not to, they don't stop you or it's very hard to stop you. And in the very act of doing it, even if he gets stopped later by a judge or whatever, because legal is slow moving as you know, even if he gets stopped later, he's already broken it, right? Instead of reforming things,

which is what they should be doing if they don't agree with this stuff, they're destroying them. And if you read any Peter Thiel, any of their stuff, this is what they talk about, the destruction of a liberal democracy and then starting from scratch with a unified CEO theory, which is essentially a dictatorship. This is, and the question is, a lot of them are like, what do we do? They're literally asking me, what do we do to stop him? I was like, I just don't, I was like, you don't, you actually don't have the means to do so. Because these poor people are in these agencies. And when these idiots come in, these children, these arrogant little pricks come

in and say, we're going to call the federal marshals, or the president has ordered you to step aside. They kind of have to, you have to be resistant and be walked out by security. And then security doesn't know which one to listen to, right, essentially. I've had, we've been critical Democrats, I've heard from about six Democrats, one Senator, five representatives. And he says, what would you do?

And we talk a little bit about messaging. He's like, but that's not enough. And he said, well, what do you want me to do? Walk down there and stop them? I'm like, yeah, I'd like to see all, whatever it is, 48 or 49 US senators and any Republicans that wanna join, I'd like to see a couple hundred members of Congress

go to the fucking building where this is and demand to go in and physically stop this and let them arrest you. I'm like, Fine, let America see that there are still people who believe in government, in the US, in democracy. Let them arrest you. Go down there. This guy I'm talking to is a former,

this representative, a newly elected guy, former service member. I'm like, dude, if someone attacked our shores, you put yourself in harm's way. I mean, march down to wherever this fucking building is where all these acolytes and the high sparrow are and walk in there and demand they stop and let them arrest you.

For Democrats, this isn't the time to come together. This is the time to come to the rescue. Get together, all of you, wherever the building is, wherever they're actually shutting off payments to veterans. Well, they of you, wherever the building is, wherever they're actually shutting off payments to veterans. Well, they move very quickly is the problem. They don't quite know where they're going. They have the advantage here in that regard, is they can show up at various places and you don't know where they're showing up.

Well, we have very talented smart people too with smartphones. I would create a group of people, elected representatives, that go to these places where they are and say, you are doing, I believe you are breaking the law. You are not an elected official. You need to leave this federal government building. And if the Capitol, respect the law, if the Capitol police show up at the order of the president

and say, you need to vacate, I would not vacate. And if you get arrested, fine. I think I'm not a fan of breaking the law. I think the law is on our side here. I think these guys are breaking the law. And just because you have permission from the president, let's fight it out in court and find out, well, can the president break the law?

Because as we have seen, the president has been stopped. Anytime this shit gets in front of a judge, it usually gets stopped. So do you have the right as a citizen and an elected representative, or do you have the obligation to get in the way, legislative, verbally, legally, and quite frankly at this point, physically? I'm not suggesting violence.

I'm not suggesting these elected representatives have license to walk into any federal building. Millions of people have elected them. Find out where this shit is going on suggesting these were elected representatives have license to walk into any federal building. Millions of people have elected them. Find out where this shit is going on and go down there and say to these people what you are doing is illegal. I get it. The issue is, even when the judges stop them though, they say, oh, we have security clearance, but no proof of it.

They're persistent. Leon Musk has said to me- Move fast and break things. It's Mark Zuckerberg. Exactly. That's correct. This is what they're doing. And, you know, like Elon Musk has said to me, we have self-driving in a year. We have self-driving in a year.

We have security clearance. Anything, like one of them was like, how do you know they don't have it? I go, because their mouths are moving. They're lying. They lie as a practice in order to get to the next thing. They're high risk takers. They're willing to, they know you're not going to stop them, you know, ultimately, because it takes effort.

They don't want to govern. They want to break. And even though they're in charge of the government, they want to, they don't want to reform it. They want to break it. They want to destroy it. They want to take it down to its studs so that they can then rebuild in the way they see fit. And the arrogance of these people, I cannot tell you, you could like fuel a rocket to Mars with the arrogance of these people.

And what's interesting is there's a bunch of lawsuits filed, as you said, as part of the counteroffensive unions, federal employees, and others are challenging the legality of Elon and Doge to get access to federal systems, destroy agencies, or push people out of jobs. I'm telling you, Elon also loves a legal fight, right? He doesn't care. He doesn't care. He waits people out. This is perfectly designed for someone like him, like to behave. And every one of his actions is very much the way he's behaved.

That's one thing. I said, he's not going to listen to that, he's going to go to the next one. And someone was like, how did you know? And then he did it. And I'm like, because this is his little act, right? This is the same thing every time. He's not particularly creative in new methods of this kind of stuff.

But one of the things that's important to keep in mind is that he does have a pattern that he does all the time and so do all these people, by the way. They all have the same pattern of making a mistake, whether it's for your teen girls and making them feel bad and going, we're so sorry, we're so sorry, we're so sorry, you know? And I think that's the one thing is not fully appreciated, that they don't, they're not sorry, nor will they pay attention to the law. Even if a court orders, you know, right now, court orders must

out of the Treasury computer payment system so it can sort out whether the Doge is a legal government entity. You know, are they out? They were in there before. You know, that's the whole thing. I don't know if they're actually, nobody knows that they're out. And then let me say the last thing, what they're going to do is find little cherry pick costs that look bad, right, and make things up because they just lie. They just lie. Money laundering or something.

Money laundering or they're criminals. This thing about subscriptions and Politico, it was $24,000 at USAID. They were using their Politico Pro, just like you'd buy a subscription. May I point out that the government pays Elon $15 billion for his wares. It's petty and unbelievable nonsense and they'll cherry pick stupid little things, a lot of them inaccurate,

like the condoms to Gaza, for example, a lot of them deeply inaccurate or based on stories that are specious. So they'll keep doing that constantly so that we're like cats chasing a laser pointer. But this is, but just moving to what we can do, the Democrats at this point, I mean, I remember talking to Ray Dalio about our elected officials and he's like, and by the way, this is,

he was like, this is war, take the gloves off. I mean, this is like, this isn't try to understand or empathize with the people who elected this guy. In my opinion, this is war. And they essentially, they're challenging the constitution and democracy. I don't think it's time for us to try and figure out, like understand them. What I would say is, and I've heard from a lot of Canadians who appreciate our thoughts around the tariffs. And one person called me who,

Canada's actually strangely, like there's like 12 families who kind of, I don't want to run anything, everything, but kind of own the majority of stuff. I mean, I'd like to think that America came to the aid of a lot of nations in real times of crisis over the last hundred years. And we want to keep doing that.

I mean, at this point, I believe that nations need to come to the aid of America at this point. And to the extent that people feel frustrated or worried about America no longer being the shining beacon leading democracies all over the world, we're setting the tone. What Canada did was it, I think you need to be very Machiavellian strategic.

Province in Canada has canceled the $ million dollar contract for Starlink. They've said, we're just not going to continue to fund the lead of a coup. I'd hit them where they're in their soft issue. And that is if you think America plays and should continue to play a vital role in our democracy and be that shiny beacon on a hill, and you are using Starlink or your government

is in negotiations around subsidies, whatever it might be for EVs or Tesla, I would make it clear that you are not going to support an individual who's leading a coup in a nation that has for the most part been a really staunch ally. I'm now at the point where I can't call them Republicans. I think they are both kind of surprised and giddy that they're getting away with this and also scared of crossing Elon for fear they'll be primaried by Twitter

and his hundreds of millions of dollars, which he can do now given the fact that we let one man amass $400 billion in power. And two, they're surprised. And also quite frankly, Kara, I think Senator Murphy's fantastic. We come across as neutered and feckless at this point. We are like, look over here.

Oh, I can't believe you would say it was DEI on a helicopter. You are exactly right. That is a sideshow. And may I say the media is doing the same things. These headlines in some of these papers, it's like innovative way to deal with government. I'm like, it's a coup, stop saying this.

And one thing I did have as a theme in my book was the juvenileization of men and the coddling of them and persistent sidelining of women in Silicon Valley, like, and people of color or anybody that was different. And that is, that is, this is a 30 years going of this idea that these people have the right idea. And I found some stories that I wrote. One was called the men and no women of Facebook and the men and no women of boards.

And one of the things that was interesting is I was able to put those headlines because I controlled my own media that you can't believe what a bunch of it is. They have such disdain for people and the press is treating it like it's like an equalized thing. And it's just not. I'm finding it so frustrating. You know, I'm on CNN and on Friday I was like, this is a hostile takeover. You need to treat it. Stop talking about DEI and the plane crash.

You can talk, right? Stop. You need this is what this is. It's a hostile takeover. Government, probably illegal. And you can't look at it like, well, stop. You need, this is what this, it's a hostile takeover, government, probably illegal. And you can't look at it like, well, look at that kind of things. I just, I'm perplexed as to why it isn't a five alarm fire

everywhere, all day long, every minute in the media. Now your house is on fire, you shouldn't be arguing over the pattern of the couch. It's just, and all of these things are important, but this really is, again, I think our elected representatives who have contacts overseas should be calling him and saying, you need to put pressure on Elon.

You need, and Trump is doing the same thing that Zuckerberg did to Sandberg. He's using him as this very powerful and effective heat shield such that, if he does go too far, and in fact they do find this is illegal, and they start, Trump can back away and say, oh, I didn't know they had done that.

Yeah, they went a little too far. Let the courts. He's done that. Yeah, he's done that. So he's basically, I mean, to a weird extent, Elon Musk is a $400 billion media platform weaponized Sandberg. He's a heat shield. And he's like, you understand this technology

and how to go in there and shut off payments. And what they're hoping is it resets or recalibrates the playing field for negotiation. Let's start from you're getting zero, despite the fact that our elected representatives passed this law that says head start is a good thing. And this is, they went right to the mechanism for the payment.

I mean, it, and it's, I don't understand. This is illegal. I would just, very simple. This is illegal. And I believe the people involved in this will be prosecuted. That is, that is what I am planning to do. They won't be prosecuted by this justice department

because all they're doing is getting rid of the threatening companies that have DEI. That's the first thing Pam Bondi did. Again, another weapon of mass distraction. That's not gonna go anywhere. What could go somewhere in my view legally is to say these are the laws and I believe you and these 25 year olds have broken

and I plan to do everything within my power to enforce these laws. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break when we come back. Trump continues to flood the zone with crap. Support for FIVOT comes from 1-800-FLOWERS. Roses are the classic way to say, I love you, and with Valentine's Day coming up, you can start planning the best way to say it. I'm sending roses right now to Scott Galloway.

You can gift a beautiful bouquet to a special person this year with the help of 1800flowers.com. They offer stunning, high-quality bouquets, and each one is crafted with roses picked at their peak and cared for every step of the way. They're shipped fresh to ensure lasting beauty, and right now, 1800flowers has a special offer. When you buy one dozen, they'll double your bouquet to two dozen roses, so you can get double the roses for free. I just got my roses here, and I'm looking at them right now. And I have to say, they're very beautiful. I like cut roses.

I don't like cut flowers that much, but I happen to love cut roses. They smell delicious. They look fantastic. And it's a great Valentine's Day. It's a classic. It's a classic, as they say. The bouquets are selling fast.

You can lock in your order today. Win their heart this Valentine's Day at 1800flowers.com. To claim your double roses offer, go to 1800flowers.com slash pivot. That's 1800flowers.pivot. Scott, get ready for dozens of roses. I like calla lilies, and you don't touch me anymore. My calla lily said, don't touch me anymore. Hey, this is Peter Kafka. I'm the host of Channels, a podcast about technology and media. And maybe you've noticed that a lot of people are investing a lot of money trying to encourage

you to bet on sports right now, right from your phone. That is a huge change. And it's happened so fast that most of us haven't spent much time thinking about what it means and if it's a good thing. But Michael Lewis, that's the guy who wrote Moneyball and the Big Short and Liar's Poker, has been thinking a lot about it. And he tells me that he's pretty worried. I mean, there was never a delivery mechanism for cigarettes as efficient as the phone is for delivering the gambling apps. It's like the world has created less and less friction for the behavior when what it needs

is more and more. You can hear my chat with Michael Lewis right now on channels, wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so here's the deal. Take a former world number one. That's me, Andy Roddick. Add in the journalist who knows everything about tennis and a producer who's still figuring out how to spell tennis, you get served with Andy Roddick,

a weekly podcast where we break down the game we all love. We cover the biggest stories, talk to the sport's biggest stars, and highlight the people changing tennis in ways you might not even realize. Whether it's grand slam predictions, coaching changes, off court drama, or the moves shaping

the future of the sport, we've got it all. This podcast is about having fun, sharing insights, and giving fans a real look at what makes tennis so great. Catch Serve with Andy Roddick on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen. Or watch us on YouTube. Like, subscribe, follow, all that good stuff. Let's get started. Scott, we're back and president Trump is making all sorts of headlines this week. Trump surprised pretty much everyone with a plan for the U S to take over Gaza and

turn it into a middle East Riviera Mar Mara Gaza, that's the joke, which is not funny actually. Though some administration officials are walking that back a bit. His cabinet nominees, RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard appear to be on their way to confirmation. He's reportedly getting closer to an executive order abolishing the Department of Education. He's doing everything by executive order because he doesn't want to bother with legislators. Questionable executive orders, I'd say. We talked a few weeks ago about the strategy of flooding the zone with shit. Let's talk a little bit about this and how people can avoid falling to trap of distraction, Trump throwing up these crazy ideas and orders

while Elon is making this power grab. It's quite coordinated from what I can tell, although I don't think Trump knows what he's doing. Courts have done a few things to keep them in check. They're stopping him from, he already was in the Treasury, now they're saying get out of the Treasury, who knows if he will, because again, liars, all of them. A federal judge did block the birthright citizenship order this week, but then Trump was busy signing executive orders, outlining plans for a government-run sovereign wealth fund, which we potentially use to buy TikTok. That's called state-run media. The fund would also support other national

endeavors like infrastructure projects. I don't know what to say. Talk a little bit about this strategy as a marketing thing. I hate to say that, but this is he's... And then we have a story in the New York Times say that, but this is, he's, and then we have a story in the New York Times, it's like, well, it's good that he's shaking up the difficult problem in the mid-East. Maybe it will create fresh ideas. Now, I was sort of like, what? Like moving people against their, 2 million people against their will to where they've lived their whole lives is a fresh new idea. I mean, and as if no one, especially because Gaza is absolutely destroyed.

Like again, they destroyed it and now they've destroyed it. They can't go back, that kind of thing. Well, okay. But before we even get to the notion that Egypt, I mean, look at the borders. Look at the Gaza border with its neighboring nations. No one wants to take these refugees, whatever you wanna call it.

That is such a, I understand the argument. It is an interesting argument. The notion that we're setting up a situation where nothing's really gonna be different and eventually we're gonna face the same problems in two, five, 10 years again. That's a powerful argument. So the notion that we need to be creative and thoughtful, fine. This is not the time, if you go into the emergency room, okay, the term stop the bleeding originates from a very logical place, and that is if you go into

the emergency room with a gunshot, or you've fallen and hit your head and you're hemorrhaging blood, they don't take your PSA. They don't talk about, they don't say check his or her cholesterol. They stop the bleeding. Everything else at this point is a worthy conversation that should be had by our elected representatives. But if we let a coup be successful and change the complexion of the negotiation, whereas opposed to arguing over who is prosecuted here and under what laws and how do we immediately arrest this coup such that we're not negotiating,

well, will you give us 50% of the funding back for Head Start, dear person who wasn't elected to make these decisions. Focus on stop the bleeding. And the bleeding here, America is bleeding out in a small building somewhere that has access, that is being remotely accessed by different locations, by a group of people under the cover of dark to stop payments based on programs that were passed by laws by our elected representatives. This is a coup and it's not a slow moving coup,

it's a fast moving coup. And everything else is an ER doctor saying, okay, they lost their leg and they're gonna be dead in three minutes if they continue to bleed out. Let's find out what their good and bad, let's figure out what their blood pressure. I mean, no, none of that's important at this point. Stop the bleeding.

This is our focus. Well, here's the problem. Oh, ketamine. I know, ketamine, exactly. But this plan, literally, Israeli Defense Minister said, he's instructed the military to draft a plan to allow voluntary departure of Gaza from residence. The only way they're leaving is if you ethnically cleanse them. None of it makes any sense.

You know, it's funny, like one of the right... Most of the conservative think tanks are sort of like, oh dear, like right now, if you look at some of it, they were like, no, this government thing isn't good, this Gaza thing isn't good. And they're like, don't be hysterical and use the term ethnic cleansing, but I'm like, only the comedy shows are getting it right. Like the Daily Show, they have different euphemisms for what it is, like voluntary departure or refugee, moving them as refugees. And the word was, password of the day is ethnic cleansing.

And they keep doing different words and they go, baa, when they have the wrong word. Only the comedy shows are actually calling out this stuff for exactly what it is. Only the comedy shows are calling it a Nazi salute, Elon did, are saying this is illegal, are just explicitly doing it. I guess it's under the cover of comedy

because some of it's very funny, but it's actually quite strong, I guess. I don't know what else to say because that's where I'm seeing the best coverage of this stuff or the best commentary, I guess. Yeah, I just, look, again, I'm just remiss to engage in a conversation about how ridiculous it is because I don't think it's gonna happen.. I think this is, again, an attempt to say, look over here. Let me talk

about gender in the workplace as I figure out a way to create algorithms for profit to make it more likely that your 15-year-old girl is going to engage in self-harm. Look over here. I have a book signing. Yeah, the wealth fund thing. You know, someone, they wanted me to go and talk about the wealth fund. I said, that's fucking ridiculous. State-run media, it's not allowed. And they're like, well, what do you think it would be? I'm like, I don't. I don't.

What do I think of the Loch Ness monster? You're like asking me. It's not doesn't exist. Or maybe that does. But the wealth fund, I'm sort of like state-run media. Does everyone have a problem with state-run media in a country with a First Amendment? Like, yeah, I do. Like other countries do have sovereign wealth funds that invest surplus income.

US, by the way, runs a budget deficit, so we don't even have money to put into the sovereign wealth fund. I mean, I don't... You understand sovereign wealth funds better than I do, but this is nutty. It's not to buy TikTok. What? Look, sovereign wealth, yeah. In the case, they play different roles.

In the case of the kingdom, it's like we need to figure out a way to transition away from fossil fuels. We have a ton of money, we want to be strategic. Surplus. Yeah, we want to turn it into more, a greater return. We want to be thoughtful about We want to turn it into more, a greater return. We want to be thoughtful about it, such that we can then make the investments we need to pivot away from an economy that's dependent upon

a sea of oil, which is going to dry up in 30, 57 years. Such that, you know, we enter the quote unquote, modern world. In Norway, it's a means of saying, okay, Norway owns one and a half percent of the world's stocks, and they create an incredible standard of living for their folks because they have thoughtful people trying to figure out how to invest their excess capital to greater ROI than their competition.

America doesn't need a sovereign wealth fund. We have so much capital being invested privately. That's a financial argument. But the other thing is when you buy one firm, a sovereign wealth fund invests and tries to find alpha dislocation for the benefit of its citizens. We don't need that here. In addition, the sovereign wealth fund again is a distraction

for what he's really suggesting and that is the government owning a business, which is socialism. And a media business. It's not like it's potatoes or something. But the UK made a very compelling argument in Simon. I see why they probably thought that we need manufacturing to come back. And we have this really compelling guy who built the Pontiac GTO, and we're going to bring manufacturing.

We have an opportunity here to be one of the largest shareholders in this amazing new technology and manufacturing brand called DeLorean. And so they made him bet. I believe that the critics of Republicans were right to criticize Obama for some of his subsidies around solar firms. The whole Republican argument is that the public sector shouldn't be in the business of picking winners and losers. I kind of get that.

Now, if you're going to do it systemically and say we want to support companies who are building our chips for defense reasons, fine. But this is the state controlling the means of production. And even saying this, I'm taking the debate. This is never going to happen. But again, I go back to where we're bleeding. And so this again is another distraction. It's a stupid idea.

It will never happen. They know it, in my opinion. Maybe he just thought about it and thought, I'm a deal guy. I can make money here for the government. Now we don't want to own TikTok. We want to regulate it or ban it. We want to promote the rule of fair play

and even playing fields such as startups have a shot and everyone is playing under the same rules. And meanwhile, if you in fact have an algorithm that can be reverse engineered to polarization, radicalization or self-harm among teens, maybe you should be subject to the same liability as traditional media. Okay, that's the government's role.

The government's role isn't to start cosplaying business. Trump has been cosplaying business his whole life. This is the reality of Trump. If he had invested his father's massive fortune, which he inherited, and any index fund, he'd have more money than he has now, but he's been cosplaying business, he was hugely insecure. I ran across Trump businesses all the time doing business and the general reputation of Trump and his family was they were a bunch of rich kids who

didn't know what they were doing. That they just weren't very good at what they did. He's been cosplaying business his entire life. And this is again him thinking, I've got an idea, we'll own TikTok and we'll make money. That is not a government role. It's not, and again, here I am taking the bait. Look over here.

Yeah, no, but it is just not happening. It's just such, it's fucking nonsense. Like nonsense. Every time they ask me to comment on things, I'm like, it's just not happening. It's just such fucking nonsense, like nonsense. Every time they ask me a comment on things, I'm like, it's nonsense. What else can I say? This is bullshit. This is such... There's no interest... Sometimes I think it is good.

Let's think of some fresh ideas, right? Let's, huh, what should we do here with this? How do we protect our national security and yet protect the First Amendment? How do we do that? There's always a room, and that's the good part of Silicon Valley. Let's think of new ways to do things. By the way, they don't have, let me just say, this attack, I'm going to just have one slight rant here.

I got contacted by Bijan Sabat. Do you know him? He's a great investor. He was in Twitter early and stuff like that. He's written a piece called, there are people in Silicon Valley that are not like this, just so you know. And he wrote a great piece called Public Service, the Backbone of American Democracy.

And he really didn't like this one line in these Doge press releases where he says, the way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector reveals a staggering ignorance of the essential work performed by those in government. It is not only offensive, but also demonstrably false." I was so happy to read that.

He simply put, the narrative that the private sector is inherently superior to the public sector does disservice the millions of Americans who serve their country every day, it risks demoralizing a workforce, already under strain, and undermines the very institutions that protect and advance our shared values. These people who have had so many frigging failures of their startups, they fuck up so much and Donald Trump is the top fuck up, the top fuck up of business. They're allowed to say they're innovative and they then insult government officials who have done a pretty fucking good job keeping us safe every day. And it's so offensive and so easy to insult the government and its workers.

They have fucked up so many times that we should start making lists of all the different stupidities they have perpetrated. I find it, the whole thing, just, it's nonsense. There's also, there's parsing kind of mendacious to just stupid and dangerous. The CIA, I've had the pleasure of working with several officers. These are incredibly bright people, incredibly skilled. And instead of going to work for Google or Procter & Gamble, they decide to serve their country

and they take enormous risks. And the fact that they have so little regard for our national security apparatus that they might be unmasking these folks, either recklessly, negligently. It is, that is a hundred percent the right word. It's traitorous and it's stupid because what is the likelihood?

The Central Intelligence Agency recruits out of every top business school, every top college, they try and find the best and brightest from a very early age. Do you think you're more or less inclined to go to work for the Central Intelligence Agency right now, knowing that your own government might out you? Do you think you're more or less inclined to go to work for the Central Intelligence Agency right now, knowing that your own government might out you?

What if you're overseas on assignment right now? Oh, sleep well tonight. They might know who I am and what I'm doing here. And by the way, it's not like these guys lose their pension if they're found out. It's not like they get fired their pension if they're found out. It's not like they get fired. They are tortured and then murdered trying to protect our shores. And you have people who have so little regard for their sacrifice and their patriotism.

Let me just take one thing we've got to move on is someone who is very interesting. Some of his comments is Bill Gates. He's on a book tour for a book called Source Code. He has met with Trump because he's trying to stop him from defunding AIDS things. And I, he has to do that. He's the president. He's got to go in there and make his argument. Why not? And he has been defending USAID. He's someone who was very arrogant about government. When I met him, he was super arrogant. He now is like, I was arrogant. And let me tell you, there's some amazing people working for the government. I've had government, there's dedicated, important people

doing important work. If you partner with the government, he's very quietly doing the right messaging around why this is wrong. And every now and then he's like, what Elon's doing is nonsense and irresponsible, and here's why. I don't think, I'd like him to yell more, but I have to say, I was pretty surprised And he's like, what Elon's doing is nonsense and irresponsible. And here's why.

I'd like him to yell more. But I have to say, I was pretty surprised how explicit he is being. There's very few other leaders that are doing that. None of them. Like, none of them. He was the only one that you see. Because he knows he doesn't have a price to pay because he's Bill Gates, right? So he can do that.

So all you other rich fuckers who don't think this is right not saying anything is heinous on your behalf. Anyway, all right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about this week's earnings. Scott, we're back. There's lots of earnings news. We still have to talk about earnings. Disney beat expectations reporting a 4.8% increase in revenue. The company's experienced business, which includes parks, cruises, and resorts, rose 3%. Its entertainment division saw a 9% jump in revenue. Disney Plus saw a 1% decline in subscribers following an increase in prices last year. They're doing pretty well. Their streaming business is quite stabilized and it's moving forward.

At some point you run out of subscribers essentially, like, and there's a lot of churn, et cetera. Alphabet, I'm gonna go through them and then you can comment on. Shares at company are down almost 6% in the last five days at the time of the taping. Alphabet's overall revenue grew 12% compared with 13% in the same quarter last year.

Advertising revenue grew 10.6 percent compared to 11 percent last year. The company announced plans to invest above expectations $75 billion in capital expenditures as it continues to build AI offerings. One of the things they did note is they're going to stop all their efforts in DEI, because unlike Costco and Apple, they've decided to, unlike Costco and Apple, they decided to cave. And there are threats from Pam Bondi and state attorney generals and they've just decided to cave in all their different programs. Non-Spotify

shares are up 12% in the last five days at the time of the taping after the company reported its first profitable year. The company reported 40% gross profit growth year over year and operating income of 477 million euros. Monthly active users grew by 35 million, up 12% for the year. Lastly, Uber reported a lower than expected operating income of 770 million. 3.1 billion trips were completed on the platform, up 18% year over year. Uber also announced its ramping up for a public launch of Rob robo taxis in Austin through its partnership with Waymo.

Waymo is killing it in San Francisco, I can tell you that. Well, then the company is optimistic about the autonomous vehicle market. Admit it, there are many, many years to scale. They're absolutely right. So which one of these would you like to take? Well, I'll touch on each of them and then try and extract what I think is an interesting theme.

So Disney, essentially the streaming wars, everyone's fighting to be lift. What do I mean by that? Netflix is running away with it. So everyone's fighting for number two. And I don't wanna say they've given up, but Netflix, I mean, just to give you a sense, in 2015, Disney price to sales was four,

Netflix was five. So they saw them in kind of spitting distance of each other from a shareholder standpoint. As we sit here today, Disney trades at two times revenue and Netflix trades at 11 times revenue. Disney, they lost 700,000 subscribers, but that was in the face of a price increase. Now it wasn't a huge price increase,

but it does show kind of the strength of Disney's positioning around family. Whereas Netflix added 19 million subscribers, Disney's added, Disney Plus has added 13 million. The big thing comes down to churn, and that is there's this really uncomfortable dynamic where everyone but Netflix has to reinvent their entire customer base every 10 years or two years,

because they go on and they download the entire season of Ted Lasso and then they cancel Apple TV Plus. And Netflix has so much, so much gross tonnage that their churn is only 2%. Disney is number two, but it's at 4.8%. And then the other guys have even higher churn rates. Can I just make a note here?

Real competitor, and this is me talking to Hollywood people yesterday, is YouTube. Oh, 100%. YouTube is the competitor of Netflix. The real- That no one talks about. They are killing it. But to your point, total share of video viewership is like eight or 9% for Netflix.

YouTube is 11. YouTube, you could argue YouTube is the number one streamer, but it's still categorized as a different sector. I think they're going to do a lot more originals, FYI, but go ahead. Disney's Parks, Cruises and Resorts continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. Revenue up 3%, but the operating income was up 6% to 8%. Disney's done a good job incorporating ESPN into a pretty compelling bundle with Hulu. Moving on to Google, their full year revenue grew 14%, but people are freaked out about slower than expected

cloud growth because they see that as a proxy for their AI offering. So they took the stock down a little bit. They're also worried about the amount of CapEx. Their capital expenditure is supposed to increase to 75 billion. The thing about Google though is that they have five separate businesses that do more than 30 billion in annual revenue. If their stock were to go down, I mean, look at it this way. That's like saying they have the revenue power of five different Starbucks or five different visas with with different businesses.

They are just a they are just a cash, a series of cash volcanoes, seven products and platforms with over 2 billion users, search maps, Gmail, Android, you know, they're just doing incredibly. Spotify is probably the most impressive performer from where it was say 12 or 24 months ago. And that is they essentially set quarterly record highs for revenue, gross margin margin operating income. The stock has tripled in the last year. Their platform growth is accelerating. Their total monthly active users hit 675 million. Their premium subscribers up 11%. Their average revenue per user or ARPU is up 5%.

That, and now kind of what I'll say, and I'll come back to them in a second, but the big theme here, or something hopefully resembling insight is the following. If you look at the acceleration in Spotify stock and in Netflix, I believe that that's more than just growth in the category. It's effectively, so Netflix now has more than 50%

of its production overseas. And if you look at Spotify, less than 1% of its artists garner more than 92% of its streaming revenues. Effectively with the scale that these companies have, and by not sharing analytics or information, what Netflix has done is it has transferred a massive amount of capital earnings power money

from the means of production, specifically artists to Netflix shareholders. And that is when you put something on Netflix, they don't tell you how successful it is. They might produce it in Spain or in Seoul, but they basically extracted a shit ton of capital from California-based employees, from actors, from producers, and said, we're kind of the big dog here,

and you have to operate under this new religion or this new operating model, because by the way, if you don't wanna be in our Netflix drama, there's 179,000 other SAG-AFTRA people that are looking for work. And can I just make a point? They also put out so much content that's pretty good, right? None of it's really, one of the way, someone was telling me a story who was with last night, who used to work at Google with Susan Wojcicki, the late Susan Wojcicki, and they were thinking

about getting into originals. And they walked her through the economics of Hollywood, because she wasn't familiar, you know, she had been very successful at Google and she had just taken over YouTube. And they walked her through it and she got up and she goes, this isn't a business. Like what, only one hit carries all the losses? Like she was like, she immediately clocked the problem, right? Like she goes, this isn't a really sustainable business if you don't have this one hit. And she goes, why are they operating like this? And she was, I think she had insight into the idea that if you had a lot of little hits or spread it out with stuff that people like, you would do a lot

better. And that's what Netflix has kind of done here. They have nothing, every now and then they have a big one, but all the others are fine and they help sustain the fact that it's a good product. You find efficacy in the product, you find pleasure in the product. Same thing with Spotify. At its heart, it's a good product. I don't know what else to say. It's like enjoyable to use. You find what you want. Maybe it's not It's enjoyable to use. You find what you want. Maybe it's not like soaring like an HBO can be sometime, but every now and then it is.

And it's, so that's, you know, it's a good, I don't know what else to say, it's a good product. Like that's how I feel about both those companies. There's two ingredients to the secret sauce here. And it's an asymmetry, they both have to do with an asymmetry of information. If Deadpool does $1.3 billion, the agent for Ryan Reynolds and for Hugh Jackman know that.

And the next time they wanna do Deadpool meets Fast and Furious 18 or whatever, the agent from WME goes to the studio and says, I know how important Hugh Jackman is. And they extract a shit ton of pound of flesh. In streaming, the only evidence that Ben Stiller has that Severance got more than one viewer is they order seasons three and four. So the asymmetry of information always benefits

the person that has symmetrical information. When Jennifer Aniston's agent knew that the Thursday night lineup counted, depended, was resting on the pillar of friends. The people producing and acting in Friends could extract a lot of revenue. No one in streaming has any fucking idea. And then the second big number out of the Disney earnings

that fascinated me and explains why Netflix trades at 11 times revenue and Disney at two times, is that now more than half of Netflix's content budget is spent overseas. And some of it's done to be more multinational, but the majority of the reason they do it and the reason why they're building big studios in New Jersey is because New Jersey

just supersized their tax subsidy. They realized if we can produce two eights in Spain or Seoul instead of producing one possible eight or nine in LA, go with the eights overseas. Over 50% of their content budget is now spent overseas. Do you know what percentage of Disney's content budget is spent overseas? I bet none.

4%. Right, none, like none. So, essentially what Japan did to Detroit, Netflix is doing to Los Angeles. And I don't care, you wanna talk about nuclear code secrets? When we launch our series on Netflix, and I say, if I call them and say, I am not working with you again,

unless you tell me how many people downloaded this relative to your other dramas, they're gonna say, well, it was nice working with you again, unless you tell me how many people downloaded this relative to your other dramas. They're going to say, well, it's nice working with you, Scott. Yeah. Because they don't want anyone to have that leverage. So asymmetry of information and the globalization of content production are the reason. And a decent product, a decent, pleasurable product. Oh, it's a fantastic product.

Right. But all of those benefits, all of, I mean, this is a straight line. There's a lot of innovation, a fantastic product, but you wanna talk about a massive flow to the bottom line and who it's coming from beyond the natural growth, organic growth of the sector. It's coming from the gaffer, the lighting guy, and the woman who ran, who wrote season four

of SpongeBob SquarePants and used to make 200 grand a year. And Netflix has said, you know what? I figured out a way to pay you 40 grand. And all of that capital coming out of high production states and people has moved to Netflix shareholders. And it represents a much broader trend in our society. And that is the notion that we give a shit

about stakeholders and not shareholders is just not true. Everything is run for shareholders. And by the way, there's some upside to that. I'm not arguing that it's the wrong way, but be clear folks, everything is now optimized to transfer as much capital as possible from states, from workers.

The workers here are not being prioritized. Production in Los Angeles was off 40% year on year, not because they're not talented, but because they're too goddamn expensive. And Netflix has found a way to keep them in the dark and then hire 80% is talented a person overseas for 30 to 40% of the price. It's a transfer of wealth from artists at Spotify

and from the creatives in Hollywood to Netflix and Spotify shareholders. And Spotify has made the jump, so they have so much leverage. They are now extracting revenue from the bottom 99.9 of artists. They're going to make less and less money. All right, very quickly on Uber. Incredibly well managed. I just think you got to give it to Dara.

He and Apple were the ones that said, no, I'm not gonna jump into the shallow end, head first here and make huge capital allocations to autonomous. He pulled back. He pulled back on it. I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna Brent other, just as,

I mean, they're good at this. Uber's innovation is Airbnb's innovation and that is I'll build a thick layer of software I'm gonna wait, I'm gonna rent other, just as, I mean, they're good at this. Uber's innovation is Airbnb's innovation, and that is I'll build a thick layer of software on top of other people's capital expenditure, on top of their apartments, their houses, and their cars, right? So it's in their DNA to say, well, why don't we just ride?

Why don't we just be the remora fish off of Google's multi-decade, multi-tens of billions of dollars investments and autonomous. That's where we should be riding. That's where we should be playing the game. He is doing a great job of managing that company. You're right. It's on top of it. I gotta say, Waymo's so integrated into San Francisco now

and you're gonna see it all over the country. It's so convenient. And they live together with Uber, by the way, that's in a very comfortable way. I took both in San Francisco this week and both were great. Prices are still too high for all of them and I know they need to make money and stuff, but it's a really interesting time.

You're right, Jarrah's done a nice job here and there are no competitors really. I mean, Lyft is sort of a competitor, I guess. Anyway, one more quick break and we'll be back for predictions. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Well, if you think about the three layers in AI, there's the infrastructure layer, the invidious of the world, there's the LLM layer, the anthropics, the chat GBTs, and then there's the application layer. The entire infrastructure and LLM world was thrown into disarray when shocker China came up with something cheaper, right?

But I think what you're about to see is a kind of a golden age or dozens of new unicorns in what I call the application layer. And I met with this incredibly impressive young man yesterday who founded a company called Rogo, which is essentially they take all of these financial data streams, whether it's CapIQ or Bloomberg, and then they put a layer of AI weaponized intelligence on top of it.

And they turn an investment banking analyst into someone fighting on horseback, to someone in a Panzer tank. So you can type into this AI that's customized for financial services or institutions, put together an IPO roadshow deck for, a fast fashion company that does this revenues. And these are the concerns.

And it'll put together a 60 slide deck of which 48 are pretty good. So you can basically do the job of three analysts and they'll say that it's making people more productive but it's gonna result in massive layoffs. Anyways, I think you're about to see dozens of unicorns in the application layer. I do think that the infrastructure in the LLM layer

is about to shed tens of billions of dollars as people realize the moats aren't as big as they thought. That if Sam Altman can copy everything out there, someone's gonna be able to figure out a way to copy Sam Altman's shit. But the additional customization or artisanal AI application layer in healthcare and in financial services and fitness and all sorts of things

Is it going to create a much a branded consumer AI? Applications. I mean, that's what Airbnb is right? That's what uber are they they took existing infrastructure and breakthroughs and they branded it and they created interesting vertical niche applications I think that you're about to see a bunch of companies I mean this guy I had breakfast with this kid 25 Jesus Christ, I'm like, can I come back as you? By the way, I'm gonna be him tonight under the influence of Katamine. No, you're not.

I'm gonna get a call from the police and I'll have to come get you or something. No, by the way, you're not my call. Preet Bharara is my call. That's true. I call him. I literally, I have him. I'm about to make him and his phone number tonight

my screensaver. Would you speak to my voice? Oh, that's a good idea. You can call Preet. Tonight it's like, this is the guy, here's his number. I've told Preet this. I know, he thought he was very touched. I'm like, I just need you to do one thing.

You can ask me for anything, but if you see my name come up, I need you to answer. And I'm not calling to say hi. I'm not calling to say hi. Oh, wow. Okay, all right. Anyways, I've told him I'll send millions of dollars of money to this law firm he's now like the rainmaker for.

Anyways, but you know, I'm not calling you, I'm calling Preet. All I'm gonna do is a scold from you. I would scold you, I would. I'm gonna make a very brief prediction. You know, there's a lot of new polls out. The economists have poll that back in November, 47% of those surveyed Republicans as they wanted Elon Musk to have a lot of influence.

The Trump administration, well, 29% wanted a little and 12% wanted to have none at all. Today, the number of Republicans say they want them to have a lot of influence has fallen substantially to 26%, according to this story in The Hill. Meanwhile, 43% of Republican respondents said they wanted us to have a little influence and 17% they wanted to have none at all. I see that, but I have to tell you, I had thought they would have a falling out. I think he is, as I have said, he is little pussy for Trump Trump the mob boss, essentially. He is the heat shield, he is the junkyard dog.

And I think Trump understands this intuitively. There's one thing about Donald Trump, he has an intuitive sense of things. Musk is good for him because he gets the shit done, even if it's illegal and he's willing to. And nobody else is. And as much as these insiders are gonna complain about him being bigger than his britches or overstepping, I think maybe he might be around a little longer.

I think I was wrong about that falling out. I wish I wasn't, but I do think even if people are indignant, this guy has a stand. Everything has shown when everyone thinks Musk is going to lose on the pedophile case or with the SEC, he's got an ability to not just to take risks, but also take ridiculous heinous risks, but to also stick it out. So I don't know. I think Trump recognizes that it's good to have a junkyard dog. You're my junkyard dog.

I like that. Thanks for saying that. Get away from her. Yeah, that's right. You're my junkyard dog. I like that. Thanks for saying that. Mm-hmm. Get away from her. Yeah, that's right. Anyways, this is insanity or crazy, but I would describe it more apt as like late stage, syphilis crazy.

Yeah, that's what they were saying on the line. Syphilis crazy. But the thing is, that can go on for years. Mm-hmm. You can have syphilis for a long time. Please don't get it. No, no, no, unfortunately. The good news is I'm so unattractive and unappealing now that you have to have someone else to engage

in giving you syphilis and that's just not gonna happen. That's not a word we use enough, syphilitic. It's a great word, isn't it? Let's use it like several times. I used to like the word encephalitic, but that's not syphilis, that's a brain disease, cloudiness, but syphilis. I do like syphilis. Can I tell you, Amanda's always like,

Scott used that word wrong. She's like such a word person. Several times you've used words that are- She means I used it incorrectly. Incorrectly, that's correct. Yeah, anyway, she's often doing that to me. I'm like, did he? I don't know.

She's like, you need to tell them. I'm not telling him. I forget. I completely forget the minute she tells me. I wouldn't mind her. Your texts are mean. If she calls me and says, you meant this, I'm open to that. All right. I'll tell her. I'll tell her. She can figure a spelling lady. Anyway, elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe, which is growing by the second.

It's expanding. This week on ProfG Conversations, Scott spoke with Moghadad, the former Chief Business Officer of Google X, bestselling author and founder of One Billion Happy. Let's listen. The truth is, the world is not ready for what is about to hit us. Whether you take the simple things like the economics of the world and how they will change as a result of AI, all the way to the change of the dynamics of power and the resulting deprivation of freedom, all the way to how the economics of the world are going to change

and how the jobs are going to change and how the human connection is going to change and how our understanding of reality is going to change. These are decisions that are not made by us anymore. Think about it this way. Spider-Man's with great power comes great responsibility. We've disconnected power from responsibility. There is massive, massive power concentrated in hands that do not answer to anyone.

Well, Ketamine, I say. He's a very thoughtful guy. I really enjoyed the conversation with him. Basically, you should listen to the conversation, but basically summarize like Sam Altman is reshaping the way we think about things, the way we approach problems, potentially what types of weapons are developed.

He was like, who the fuck is Sam Altman to get to do this? Right. That's correct. Who the fuck is Elon Musk? Who the fuck are any of these people? But that's where we're going. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie and Todd, the interviewer of this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Severo, and Dan Shulon. Nishat Kherwa is Vox Media's Executive Producer of Audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to Pivot New Yorkwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to Pivot New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod.

We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Who is that guy in the corner at that Fashion Week party? I get the sense he likes him a lot. That's the dog.