Pivot - Elon’s Taxes, Infrastructure Week at Last, and Friend of Pivot, Mark Mahaney

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

Kara and Scott discuss the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill, Pfizer’s new COVID-19 pill, and Scott’s Twitter feud with Elon Musk. Big Bird and Aaron Rogers take heat for their vaccination statuses. Plus, Friend of Pivot Mark Mahaney on his new book, Nothing But Net. You can find Mark on Twitter at @markmahaney. Send us your Listener Mail questions, via Yappa, at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Pivot comes from Virgin Atlantic. Too many of us are so focused on getting to our destination that we forgot to embrace the journey. Well, when you fly Virgin Atlantic, that memorable trip begins right from the moment you check in. On board, you'll find everything you need to relax, recharge, or carry on working. Buy flat, private suites, fast Wi-Fi, hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. delicious dining and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London and beyond and see for yourself how traveling for takes forever to build a campaign. Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you,

tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. insufferable? What was it? Let's break this down. So FYI, my Twitter started blowing up last night and I said, oh, Elon's called you out. And our producer's the one that gave me the heads up, Lara. Yeah. And so I went on and he called me an insufferable numbskull. And I looked up numbskull because I wasn't entirely sure what it meant. Yeah. It means foolish and stupid. And I think, I want your opinion here. I think I'm more foolish than stupid. What do you think? Well,

oh, that's a hard one. That's a tough one? I think it's an easy one. No, foolish. Foolish, for sure. A hundred percent. Why are you foolish? Well, you have said you were stupid about Tesla stock, and I pointed it out several times. Like, you were wrong. Not stupid, but wrong. Yeah, but I didn't understand, quite frankly, what was going on. I didn't understand why he and his army of flying monkeys were coming after me. He gets it into his head sometimes. Well, I had put out what I thought

was a fairly innocuous tweet saying that kind of a page out of the CEO big tech playbook is they never want to take responsibility for their actions, including selling stock. Oh, yeah. And I think what's happening here is that, so Elon Musk now has, I think, about $200 billion of the Tesla stock. He was given so many options as part of his comp package that when they expire, he'll exercise them because they're hugely in the money. Right. But that triggers a taxable event, the delta between the strike price and what the stock is trading at, which means he will probably have somewhere between a $5 and $10 billion tax liability. Yeah. billion tax liability. And what he could do, what he could do easily is borrow against his holdings $10 billion at probably 0.5% to pay his tax bill. So he could basically borrow money for free

to pay his tax bill. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. What's the thing? Some very smart people who manage his money have said to him, look, if your stock got cut by 90%, Tesla would be worth more than General Motors and Ford still. So we have to model out the possibility that just as your stock has gone up 10x in the last 24 months, it could get cut by 90%. And if you had all of this money, and he's probably been borrowing against his money, I'm sorry, borrowing against his stock for a while. If you have $20 billion in debt and your holdings go from being worth $200 billion to $20 billion, this could be a really, really ugly scenario for us.

So they've modeled it out. And he's obviously decided, and by the way, it's the smart thing to do. And it's his stock. He's entitled to sell it. But instead of taking responsibility for saying, I want to diversify, I need to pay some taxes. And he has said this, the stock is fully valued. Yeah, he said he's going to pay taxes. He says, Twitter, you tell me what to do. Yeah, I know. Over the weekend, he put out a Twitter poll asking me, you should sell 10% of his Tesla stock. Scott, you tweeted, he's using the Twitter results as a cloud cover to monetize Tesla prices that he knows aren't sustainable without outright telling the market he's lost faith in its valuation. Although he has said that somewhat. He has said it. And then he has said, then he did you. This has happened before. I've

seen it happen before, many times. So, Lara pointed out, and let's just call out the elephant in the room, the sexual tension between the two of us is palpable. It's palpable. And I got to be honest, last night I did have a sex dream about Elon. We were in a—I was running my hands through his chest hair. We were in a hermetically sealed container 30 feet below the Martian surface, recognizing that we were about to die a horrific death, either from asteroids or increased radiation or gravitational pull that was melting our bones and neurons. But you know what? We had each other, Kara. We had each other. So this is what I'm going to do.

No, no, no. I'm going to take over. Wait a sec. I'm going to get us away from the weird sex thing we had about Elon. Here's what Elon told me last month. He's talking to me. Probably not now. Here's what Elon told me last month at Code regarding his... By the way, Elon, I'm not his mama. He does whatever he wants, so don't to me. Probably not now. Here's what Elon told me last month at Code regarding his...

By the way, Elon, I'm not his mama. He does whatever he wants. So don't blame me. Here's what Elon told me at Code regarding his Tesla stock. I have a bunch of options that are expiring early next year. So a huge block of options will sell in Q4 because I have to or they'll expire. And my top marginal tax rate is 53%. So there you go. Well, OK, but here's the problem. And again, another another page out of

the playbook. He just in time to monetize the wealth of the wealthiest man in the world, he's decided to peace out to Texas. He's no longer a California resident. He became a resident of Texas in October just in time to start selling some of that $200 billion. But you know what happened? I thought my Twitter was going to absolutely go crazy and the trolls are going to come for me. But he decided to take another 10 milligrams of CBD. And did you see the tweet he put out to Ron Wyden last night, Senator Wyden? Yes, I did. That was something else.

Okay, so Senator Wyden basically said, well, something along the lines of, well, maybe you should just pay your taxes and this is justification. Yeah, which is common among the politicians. They do that all the time. For the wealth tax. And you know what he wrote back? Yeah. How come your pee-pee look like it just come? So here's a little bit of color on Senator Ron Wyden.

Yeah. His father fled Nazis. Senator Wyden was a scholar athlete, which means he was very disciplined and in amazing shape. And he has been reelected four times to the greatest deliberative body on this planet or any other planet. So, Elon, shut the fuck up. Oh, goodness. Okay. All right.

Yes, that was not in good taste, I would say. But Twitter is not in good taste. That is true. So, you don't want to be a lot of white. He's in bad taste. This is not Twitter's fault. No, taste, I would say. But Twitter is not in good taste. That is true. So you don't want to be yellow. He's in bad taste. This is not Twitter's fault. No, no, no, no. That was a bad.

What do young people think of our connective tissue, our government, when the wealthiest man in the world starts tweeting at the head of the Senate Finance Committee, which I would argue on a risk-adjusted basis isn't great for shareholders, saying, how come your pee-pee looked like it just come? America, everybody, that's our role model. That's a lot of our leaders were tweeting at Big Bird for COVID, supportive COVID vaccines. Ted Cruz called it propaganda. An Arizona state senator called it flat out Big Bird is a communist. This has happened before with Big Bird, by the way. That was an interesting segue. Are you trying to protect Elon for fear he's not going to come on stage with you again? No, I am not. You may, no, no, no. Are. That was an interesting segue. Are you trying to protect Elon for fear he's not going to come on stage with you again? No, I am not. You may, no, no, no.

Are you practicing access journalism? No, I'm not. Are you trying to put a chain on the dog? No, no. You can, have I stopped you from saying anything you wanted about Elon Musk? No. You've tried to save me from myself,

actually, a few times. Aswath, actually, when he was, who was on that last week, previously weighed in on Tesla. Here's what he said. Here, let me give you some cover here. Go ahead, Aswath, actually, when he was on that last week, previously weighed in on Tesla. Here's what he said here. Let me give you some cover here. Go ahead, Aswath. I've described Tesla as the ultimate story stock, a stock you buy because you like the story and you like the person telling the story. And fundamentally, this is what it boils down to. If you believe in Elon Musk, you're buying Tesla. And this is where the moment of reckoning is going to come, because I think Tesla has some real strength. I mean, what other car company in the world would announce a car

that's not going to come out for two years and 400,000 people put a thousand, a thousand, five hundred dollars down to get that car? They've got this rabid customer base. The key for them is can they actually deliver? Because that's always been the weakness. I mean, they can, they have great vision, but nuts and bolts stuff, they seem to have trouble. All right. There's Aswath supporting you. And then Elon. It's a great car.

I own one. Yep. You noted that in your tweet back to him, which he has not responded to. Elon has tweeted before, by the way, speaking of support for Scott, Tesla's stock price is too high. So, so anyway, he has done that. I think he just, I think he might get on Twitter and be It feels like someone else is rubbing their fingers through Elon's chest hair. Well, in any case, I think he just does this. He said this on stage to me. He does it just

to bug people. He just does it. I'm thinking of tweeting at him a picture of me shirtless with hair. In exchange, he needs to send a picture of me shirtless with hair. I'm thinking 2000, With hair. In exchange, he needs to send a picture of me shirtless with hair. I'm thinking 2000, 2001. What do you think? I know it's in his camera roll. No.

I know it's in his camera roll. You need to be as restrained as Big Bird is. That's how I would say it. I need to show more grace? Yes. I agree. You know what? That's a fair point. He's just piling on to those idiots who always attack you and say they have stock things that are opposite.

Hey, you know what? Whatever. You know what? You get out there and say your piece and people, you get out on the field and the rest of them sit around and yell at you from the edge. You know what? It's okay. I'm being very serious now. It's okay to have enemies as long as they're more powerful than you.

Otherwise, it's just bullying. I thought it was good. I thought that was good. I thought it was fine. Whatever. It's fine to be called a numbskull by Elon Musk. Did you see my challenge as I'm virtue signaling now? No.

What was your challenge? No. I told him that I would give $10 million to the University of California, which he has benefited from, if he matched me. So, Elon, there's the challenge. You give $10 million to the University of California, I will do the same. And we can both continue to support the infrastructure for great companies of which you have benefited massively, known as the Cal State System and the University of California. I like that. You're a ball boss.

That's a useful thing. But that's not going to happen. Why not? You might surprise us. Some of his friends who don't like you, and there's several of his friends that don't like you. And he was just- Well, what about if I prove that every woman-

I'm just saying that's what was happening. What about if I could prove to him for $7 billion that every woman of color in the South would have access to safe family planning, would he fund it? Would he fund it? I don't know. He'd like the data, please. Just like World Hunger, didn't he say he would fund that? Yeah, he said he wants the data.

He said if he got the plan. I think I can give him the data on that. All right. Well, let's see if he responds to you. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to tell you. You had a throwdown with him. But that's good.

Like you said, if people are attacking you from the top, you're in good shape. It's fine. That's right. That's right. That's right. By the way, Telsa's clock is slipping as we record this, just so you know. Well, what a shocker. Ford, General Motors, Daimler Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, Kia, Tata Motors, Boeing, Airbus, JetBlue, Delta, American delta american airlines and throw in i don't know

every special retail in america tesla is worth more than all those companies combined yeah all right you keep going you keep you keep don peyote you insufferable at some point i will be right at some point you insufferable numbskull. I'm not insufferable. People like the dog. No, you're a sufferable numbskull. I'm totally sufferable. That was unfair. Elon, take off the in. I suffered with the dog. I didn't know what was going on. Anyway, it was very funny that you didn't even know it was happening. I looked at it. I'm like, oh, Jesus. I went to see the Washington Spirit, which is the women's soccer team. I took little, the golden child. It was very nice. And I looked at it and I was like, oh no. And the golden child went, oh no. And I said, oh God.

And she went, oh God. And so it was good. Okay. Let's talk about the show. I feel much better now. So just very briefly, Senators Klobuchar and Cotton, two people you do not imagine ever sitting, going to a bar and suffering each other, introduced a bill to fight tech monopolies and only tech monopolies. I find this problematic, but the bill would make it harder for giant companies to buy up smaller competitors. It would also apply to companies with a valuation over $600 billion. That's only tech giants. Walmart, Visa, and J.P. Morgan are below the line. I don't know.

Everybody's a tech giant, in my opinion. Visa and JP Morgan are below the line. I don't know. Everybody's a tech giant, in my opinion. So first off, I just want to highlight an actual incredible role model for men, Amy Klobuchar, who does the work and has grace and is unafraid. She's a fantastic role model for young men. Yeah, she is. I love this, except it's bad legislation, because here's the thing. Any trust should be a function of you diminishing market power and competitiveness. It shouldn't be based on size. There are some companies that are $2 trillion companies that should be allowed to acquire other companies. And there are companies that are $30 billion

that should have their acquisitions blocked because they are locking up and creating a less competitive environment in their smaller sector. Yeah, this dog won't hunt. This isn't... An economist for the other side is going to rip this apart. Yeah, agreed. I think it's problematic in any way.

You know, it's these are the moves at the beginning of changing antitrust. Who knows all the strategery going on here? There's a lot going on. Yeah, there's a lot going on. So, anyway, it's interesting the two of them are together and they're going to push for something. And we'll see where it comes out. But there is antitrust legislation coming, I suspect. I don't think they're doing this because they're idiots.

But in any case, it's rather interesting. It's a rather interesting bill. There's a lot of these bills. Now we'll see where any of them go. And now, of course, we'll be talking in a minute about the infrastructure bill, etc. But first, let's do the big story, the latest in COVID treatment. The new antiviral pill from Pfizer could be a pandemic game changer, a pill. Pfizer's pill treats COVID symptoms, is said to cut the risk of hospitalization or death by 89%,

which I think is the point of these things, not that it's going away. It's becoming endemic and we have to deal with it. A clinical trial was stopped early because results were so convincing. Now Pfizer says it will submit its pill to the FDA for approval in the U.S. Merck also has a pill, though it's less effective. And the U.S. lifted travel restrictions has a pill, though it's less effective. And the U.S. lifted travel restrictions for vaccinated people from a long list of countries, including Mexico, Canada, and most of

Europe. Seems like things are going rather well, even though everyone thinks Biden's an idiot. It seems to be moving forward. I was just, this morning, I was noticing everybody was out and about last night, too. Everybody feels good. People were masking inappropriate, but at the same time, everybody, like my local coffee place was full of people hanging, talking, chatting. It's a beautiful day. So, what do you think? Will it embolden anti-vaxxers? They just say, if I get COVID, I'll take the pill? And then lastly, I'm sorry, Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers, oh, admitted he's unvaccinated. And Terry Bradshaw got mad at him, calling him a liar.

vaccinated and Terry Bradshaw got mad at him, calling him a liar. Well, not only that, but I'm thinking about getting a procedure done. So, of course, I called Joe Rogan. That's where he really stepped in it was he said, in his defense, he goes, wait, I called Joe Rogan to get advice. Okay. Well, look, let me back up. Several people are lying about their vaccinations, which is interesting. There's some doubt. We immediately, and I understand this, go to the downside of this thing. Like, could it create more vaccine hesitancy? The bottom line is, this is a wonderful thing.

And some of the most wonderful periods of prosperity have come directly out of crisis, whether it was the great fires of London spawning an era of beautiful architecture, World War II kept the peace, some investments we made. I think the progress around vaccinations and pharmaceutical research is going to be a real silver lining here. And the thought that we might have a pill that can reduce death by 90%, there's also, you know what got glossed over this week is a company announced they're in late stage clinical trials of what is effectively, effectively, Kara, a cure for HIV, not a prophylactic, not something to suppress it, but something that could actually eliminate it. And I have two close friends, including the godfather of my children, who was open about his HIV status.

And this is just a wonderful, joyous thing that science and what's disappointing, and people have the right to not get vaccinated. But what is disappointing is that we have lost so much faith in the closest thing we have to a truth, and that is the iterative peer review practice called science. And it just, I think that I've been thinking a lot about role models and male role models and the fact that once you get a certain following, people listen to you. And I think we've just created so much mistrust and doubt around our institutions, whether it's the Senate, whether it's doctors and medicine, And that is just terrible, terrible for America. So while people continue this bullshit pseudoscience, I'm a junior epidemiologist because I used to call WWE fights. And I have a huge following, which gives me expertise around shit. I mean, I love this guy, Joel Stein,

who I think is a genius. I asked him what he thought of the political situation. He said, I have no fucking idea and you shouldn't ask me. I don't know anything about politics. And I love that he said that. He said, I just don't know anything about this. And because I have a little bit of a following doesn't mean I'm qualified. And it's a good lesson to me. Yeah, people do seem to. But what are we doing when we're attacking our institutions? And meanwhile, our institutions continue to march on and do really good work. The pharmaceutical industry and doctors are doing great work. Well, it's interesting because, you know, the Terry Bradshaw thing was interesting. And of

course, people were dragging Terry Bradshaw. I didn't see that. Can you say more about it? He said, you lied to everybody. I give Aaron Rodgers some advice. It would have been nice if he just come to the Naval Academy and learned how to be honest, learn not to lie, because that's what you did, Aaron. You lied to everyone. I'm extremely disappointed in the actions of Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers, who tested positive for coronavirus, ruled he had not been vaccinated after saying earlier in the season he was immunized. Well, you know what? The coaches and the staff have to get vaccinated. But people are giving Terry Bradshaw a hard time. I don't think he's just saying. Terry Bradshaw, that was a real fucking football team. The Pittsburgh Steelers, Zan Curtin.

Bring back Lynn Swan. And I thought those guys were amazing. Anyways, I love, I'm obviously biased here. But this, again, is double standard for rich people and influential people. All the staff, you have to be vaccinated. Do you realize there's going to be another mixed MMA, is that what it's called, fight at Madison Square Garden? It's totally sold out. You have to be vaccinated per New York State law, except Joe Rogan has managed to get an

exemption. He gets to go to that fight without a vaccine. Whatever. But here's the deal. He should have said he was vaccinated and he wasn't. And NFL, this is the story, has different protocols for vaccinated, unvaccinated players. Rogers had reportedly been participating in protocols for the vaccinated players and was, you know, so that's, that's really, that's, that's right. Like, come on, just say you're not because they have these protocols. calls. And so then Brad just said, we're a nation divided politically, we're a divided nation on the COVID-19 or whether or not to take the vaccine. And unfortunately, we've got players that pretty much think only about themselves. Look, you don't have to take the frigging vaccine if you want to,

whatever. You just stay at home and isolate. Just whatever, just fall. But he doesn't like the rules and he doesn't like the things, so he's lying. That does cross some sort of weird line that is just weird. It's just weird. He's got a zillion celebrity girlfriends by the way this guy anyway that's that's some compensation i'm gonna call my friend who loves the green bay packers and see what she thinks she'll probably defend him because she's an amazing athlete jesus christ have you seen the arm on that guy yes absolutely so i don't know just whatever we're getting a

pill everybody calm the fuck down that's what i say we're getting a nice nice pill you'll be able to take it and we don't have to listen to your bullshit. That's great. That is a really good. I have a new theory of commonality versus community. I'm thinking about writing something about this idea that, you know what, we have commonality. We don't all have to get along, but we do have some commonality and we need to focus on that. Well, there's more that unites us and divides us, Kara. Well, we don't even have to have that many things. It's just like, don't lie about your frigging COVID vaccine, if you don't mind. And everyone can make their own decision. You know, I had someone say something about a mask.

I was in Virginia. And someone said, you know, why are you wearing a mask? I said, you know what? I think you go on and on about not wearing a mask. So, fuck you. I can wear my mask if I want. I'm just, how do you like it on the other side? So, it was interesting.

I'm taking my 11-year-old to get his vaccine next week. I'm very excited about it. Louie got his thing. He's getting his first one, right? His first one. Yeah, it was approved literally like last Monday. And I've already tried to get an appointment. And CVS, I don't think is doing it.

I don't want to give misinformation, but it hasn't been easy to get an appointment. You know what? We're in the high 70s now. Everyone's sort of like, get over it or just take the pill eventually. Fine. Shut up. That's what I would like them all to do. Shut up all these people who have to like do their little speeches, et cetera, et cetera. Just either don't take it, just tell us the truth so we can make our decision. Aaron Rodgers, people have a right not to take it. Then they should implement

certain protocols around themselves because you're more likely to spread it when you're not vaccinated. And so you're not being a good citizen when you pretend everything that you're vaccinated and you aren't. I think that's the issue here. We're at 50% vaccinated. You think we're higher than that? I heard we're at 58% of eligible adults. Okay. So, one dose, 67.7% and fully vaccinated, 60%. So, that's higher than it was. Yeah. One dose is... You have 50 to 100, call it 50 to 100 million people have chosen not to get the vaccine who could. And you're talking probably about somewhere between 500,000 and 5 million people who either die or have long COVID because of vaccine hesitation. Move authority.

We have transferred authority and trust from our CDC and doctors and epidemiologists to celebrities who have all of a sudden decided to listen to the axis of misinformation, Trump, News Corp, and Facebook, and have decided that, oh, I don't need, I don't want to take a vaccine. And it's just incredibly disappointing around that, what I'd call transfer of influence. It just says something strange about our nation right now. In any case, Rupert Murdoch requires people to have had a nose swab at his party. You have to have a nose swab to go to Rupert Murdoch's party. Just the parallels. Yeah. Let me take to the airwaves and tell you it's your liberty. I'm not having that. You know what I would do? I'd go to that party and knock it. I'd say, no. What are you going to do about it? Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!

All right, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll discuss the latest news in Congress and we'll talk to a friend of Pivot about tech stocks. I'm sufferable. I'm sufferable, Carol. Sufferable. You're still a numbskull. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle.

When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion.

It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses

is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim. And we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a

breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Scott, we're back with our second big story. Congress actually did something Friday. The House passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Now it goes to President Biden to be signed into law. Let's listen. Finally, infrastructure week. As he said, it is finally infrastructure week. After all our waiting, the House hasn't approved the Build Back Better bill yet.

A handful of senators say they'll vote for the bill. It gets okayed by Congress's accounting arm. Progressives accuse centrists of moving the goalposts, whatever. The bill has some in the crypto world worried. It could open the industry up to more regulation. It's not clear what will happen when the Treasury uses to clamp down on crypto. Big issue. Of course, another big issue for tech is the $65 billion for broadband access.

If COVID is over by this time next year, will broadband still matter? Yes, it will. Or will it be back to a mobile first life? Broadband will matter. The bill has lots of funding for cybersecurity. There's lots of bipartisan support there. And now the infrastructure bill is passed.

Do Biden and his allies have any leverage to get billed back better through? I think they will. I think they will. What do you think, Scott? Well, you know, and we, so by the way, we predicted this last week, but you know who's most responsible for this bill passing yesterday or Friday? Governor McAuliffe. Oh, all right.

Specifically, him losing an election he should have won all of a sudden was the mother of all wake-up calls for Democrats. And it's no accident that 48 hours over the weekend after they find out that Democrats who should have won have lost, they got their shit together and passed this thing. So I hope it gives Governor McAuliffe some comfort knowing that his loss was a wake-up call and the Democrats are finally pulling together. But we said this last week. We said in the next 48 hours, there's going to be more progress on these bills than in the last 48 days. And you know you're getting old.

I actually got emotional when I heard this passed. This is going to be – it's going to provide $550 billion in new funding for infrastructure projects, including bridges, broadband, and electric vehicle charging stations. Oh, what do you know? We're subsidizing the wealthiest man in the world. Anyways, different point. And represents the biggest federal investments in infrastructure in more than a decade. It'll be paid mostly with COVID relief funds that haven't been spent and a crackdown on taxes on, get this, for crypto trading.

It'll still add a quarter of a trillion dollars in projected deficits over the next 10 years. Quite frankly, I think this is the kind of thing that deficits should be used for, and that is investing, making investments in the future. But infrastructure is literally like, what operating system do you want to program on top of? Do you want to program on top of, I don't know what the latest thing is,

PPP, I'm not a computer, or DOS? Yeah, our country's been woefully behind in this. Yeah, and it's an investment in the middle class in America, helping people get to work, helping them spend more time with their families, helping them be more productive in their startups. And what we've decided is, okay, rich people can create their own mini infrastructures,

but you have to have roads, ridges, and tunnels, and infrastructure and clean water such that ordinary families can get to the good work of making money and cementing relationships. So, I think this is, I think it's wonderful. Congratulations to them. I hope it's inspiration for the other bill to get through. I'm excited about it. What do you think? I don't know if it's such, it's really interesting. Someone was tweeting to me, I thought it was pretty smart yesterday, where they were like, Biden's got everybody vaccinated, pretty much, I mean, a lot of people vaccinated,

passed this infrastructure bill. We're out of Afghanistan, a mess though it was, we're out. You know what I mean? Like that there's a lot that they can use for the midterms, still probably in trouble for the midterms because they'll pull on some cultural whatever the hell they want to pull on. But it's really, I think it was a good thing. Now, we'll see what happens with Build Back Better. What do you think about that one? I don't know enough about the politics of it. I think we're going to get something there. I think the most exciting thing about that is that, and I didn't even know this was possible, but if the child tax credits stay in there, you could have a reduction in child poverty of 62%. Like, I didn't even think that was possible to figure out a bill that could do that.

So, I think that Senators Bennett and Klobuchar don't get enough credit, and Senator Warren had a lot to do with it. And also, the person that doesn't get the credit, in my view, that he deserves for this is Andrew Yang, because let's be honest, this is a form of UBI light. And because he kind of pushed, he set the goalposts of like, let's just give money to everybody, giving money to selectively, so it's not universal, it's targeted basic income for people under a certain, to make under a certain income. It just, no one would have dared try this. They would have called it European or socialist.

But America's becoming comfortable with the fact that in an economy where digitization and innovation and education and certification are so important, and certain people just naturally have more access to that to others, and then you couple that with a conscious decision to transfer wealth from poor people to rich people and from young to old, we're going to end up with homeless encampments off the 405 freeway in Los Angeles, and people are recognizing, okay, we're probably going to have to use the R word, redistribution here. So, there's been a change in mindset. There's been a change in mindset. I think there has been. At the same time, there's still some things outstanding. I was just noticing the stores aren't stocked very well. It's really interesting. It's the first time I've noticed it.

I mean, of course, my son is on sort of a consumer bent, like we're such gross consumers. But there are some terms of employment and whether people are going to work and this and that, and whether the stock market's too frothy, etc. So I think we should just tread these things. We have to look like we have a stable government with that can function. That's really, I think, one of the parts that'll make us all feel a little calmer and get out of this endless cycle of fear and rage, which we are in right now. Anyway, speaking of which, the stock market, let's bring in our friend of Pivot, Mark Mahaney. Mark is an analyst and author who covered internet stocks since 1998. He's been called, quote, one of the top investment analysts on Wall Street. He revealed some of his tips on investing

rather than trading in his new book, Nothing But Net. Hey, Scott, I think I'll let you start since, Scott, you are the stock man, apparently. The inseparable stock man. Mark. Yes, yes. Mark. Mark is a friend.

I can call you that, right? Mark, I don't say that about many people. Yes, you can. And he is the top internet analyst. Slowly through attrition, there used to be dozens of you. Now it's like Mark and some 14-year-old on Reddit that are the premier stock analysts in the world. But Mark really is the gangster here. So, Mark, let's talk about the big guys. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.

And let's throw in Microsoft and Netflix just for shits and giggles. Who do you think is overvalued and undervalued in the space? Okay. For long-term investors, I think most of these tech platforms are enduring. So I just try to find which one at any one point in time is most dislocated because I think their fundamentals don't generally change that much. They've only gotten stronger over the last two, five, and 10 years. So the top pick would be the one that's most dislocated in my mind today. That's Facebook and then Amazon. I think Netflix is relatively close to being fully valued. I don't cover Microsoft and Apple. That leaves Google. And Google is reasonably valued, but it's not a screaming buy here.

And the Facebook issues don't concern you, that you think it's the PE, the headline news here, or the headline risk is reflected in the PE and that it's a decent buy and that Amazon, even at a PE, I think a forward PE of 60 is actually a decent buy. You like those two the most? Yeah, I do. And so Facebook, from an investor perspective, Facebook trades at something like a 25% discount to Google, even though they have a similar growth profile. So the market's already pricing in a lot of regulatory reputational risk into Facebook shares. And the market may well be right, but as an investor looking at it, you've got a fair amount of downside protection. Amazon as a stock is traded sideways. It's flatlined for almost 18 months now. And the business has continued to grow.

And it's deep in investment mode now. So I think that that valuation can be a little bit misleading. I think when you get a good core asset, if you were to pick one of these companies and hold it for the next five years, the one with the best market opportunities, the best management team, best track record, you'd pick Amazon. And when you see an Amazon that's traded sideways for 18 months, that's the stock to buy, the most compelling long in that group. So when he talks about Facebook being priced in, can you explain to people who are furious at Facebook why Wall Street doesn't care, doesn't matter. Obviously, it's just there to make money, but explain that sort of just clearly is why that happens. Yeah. So, Kara, you're saying why Wall Street doesn't care about the reputational issues, the ESG complications around Facebook.

And my answer to you is, well, if you look at the numbers, Wall Street actually does care. So, if you look at the valuation of Facebook versus Google again these two stocks have I think very similar growth profiles are probably going to grow their earnings 20 to 30 percent I know that's a broad range but I think that's true and the market is willing to pay 25 percent less for Facebook than they are for Google because the market fears that there's going to be some sort of event out there that's going to dramatically reduce the earnings growth outlet for Facebook. Either it's going to be regulatory actions, some sort of breakup, some sort of business practice change. So I think the market is

anticipating much greater risk for Facebook than it is for Google. So Mark and I talk a decent amount. I asked him, I think a year ago, I said, what's your favorite pick? And you doubled down on something that I can't stand, and that was Uber. And you were right. And I look at Uber and I think, here's a company that's never figured out a way to be profitable, has all sorts of headline risk, and yet you like it. You think it's a good buy. Your turn.

Yeah, yeah. Good buy. Not a good buy, but a good buy, like a good buy stock. Yeah, I. Goodbye, not a goodbye, but a goodbye, like a goodbye stock. Yeah, I like Uber. Look, when I say dug into the history of the internet companies, and I've covered them for 25 years, I tried to put together a couple of characteristics that I thought helped explain the successes and the failures along the way. Companies that face really large total addressable markets are TAMs. It's pretty high up in my list. I prefer founder-led companies. That's obviously not Uber,

but I think Dharakash Rishai, he's generally a very good manager. I've tracked him for a long period of time. Companies with compelling value propositions, i.e. people would pay more for them, like Netflix, people were willing to tolerate price increases. And I think people, we've learned over the last year and a half, people are willing to pay more for Uber because the value proposition of ride-sh sharing is so high. I put these characteristics together and Uber looks to me to be very interesting. And the stock is dislocated. I mean, the stock is well off its highs.

And that's one of the things I tried to in this book. What I tried to do is do I go to investors and I say, look, you want to minimize two risks when you're investing in public markets, valuation risk and fundamentals risk. Fundamentals risk is companies that blow up on earnings, have dramatically decelerating revenue growth, margins plunge, et cetera. And then you want to try to hedge out or minimize valuation risk. And the way you do that is you identify high quality assets that are facing large market opportunities. That's Uber. I mean, there's two trillion dollar plus markets that they're facing. opportunities. That's Uber. I mean, there's $2 trillion plus markets that they're facing, delivery and ride sharing into the global leader in most markets in those segments.

That's a pretty good combination. The stock's dislocated a lot of issues around it, but they're going to come out of COVID stronger. They just hit profitability. And I think you'll have a sea change in the number of investors that'll come in and buy it. Right. But the profitability has got all these things hanging off of it. You all don't mind those, right? The earnings before everything, essentially. Yeah, that's true, Kara. But you first have to get the earnings before everything, before you get to the earnings. It's the leading indicator. So yes, we all, at the end of the day, want to see big chunks of free cash flow. A lot of companies go public in the tech space that aren't profitable. It doesn't mean they can't be profitable long-term. So you have to figure out what's wrong with the business model that doesn't allow them to be profitable, or maybe there isn't. And my view on-

You see their opportunities as bigger than their problems. That's behind them, essentially. Right. So what about the smaller player, like a Lyft behind them? How do you look at the whole market in general? I always prefer the leader in the segment, but I like Lyft as a play. But Cara, this is one of the big lessons I had. Like scale solves most problems in the internet space. You and I have looked at Amazon forever. There were investors who for the first 10 years of that company said there was no way

that company will ever be profitable. The first year I worked on Wall Street at Morgan Stanley, the head of the bank, Morgan Stanley, where I was, stopped me in the hallway and said, you know, Amazon will never be profitable. And he was the wisest investor on Wall Street. So he was probably right, but he wasn't because scale solves almost everything. And it's going to do the same thing with Uber over time. Okay. So, so Bitcoin has better 10 year returns than Amazon and Facebook. Are you, how do you look at that? How do you figure that into what's happening? It is an internet stock, really, aren't they? In a weird way or internet investment type of thing.

Yeah. I'm not smart enough to figure out Bitcoin. That's what Scott says. Rick, your thoughts on Airbnb, and I'd love to get your thoughts on two or three companies, sort of the new guys that you're excited about that you should be on our radar screen that look like they could bust into that tier one. Airbnb is one of those. Spotify would be another one. Those are two kind of out there a little bit on the edge of names that could be long-term, could be multiples higher than where they are today. Airbnb is a wonderful example of a founder-led company, great product innovation. I mean, they've revolutionized the way that people can list their homes, residences for rent, and then people can find places to stay.

They practically single-handed created a new category of travel that's extremely broadly adopted by millennials. There's a lot of growth in Airbnb, very profitable business model, almost too profitable, frankly. I think they should be investing in a lot of new long-term growth opportunities. They should be investing in business. They should be investing in experiences and in China. But I understand why they're not doing that near term. But I think long term, they should definitely be taking down those margins, investing for growth. I like Airbnb. It's a huge TAM, trillion dollar plus TAM. I love T-TAM companies, companies that are addressing, attacking trillion dollar plus market opportunities. Airbnb is one of them. Spotify is a great case too. Here's a founder-led

company. I mean, music is going to be on, is on everybody's phone worldwide. Three billion smartphones. I think Spotify has the ability to be on a half of those. That's a billion and a half. And they've shown how they can make money through both subscriptions and through advertising revenue. It's not that profitable, but let scale do its trick. Over time, this will be a nicely, very profitable business. What about companies we've never heard of? What are some of the ones that you are looking? What areas are you looking?

Because one of the things is young people are doing their own thing, whether it's run up meme stocks like AMC or GameStop. How do you look at that trend with these younger investors don't trust traditional investing? How do you imagine that's going to shake out? is there's something like 15 million new investors that came into the market over the last two years during the COVID crisis. People were looking for things to do at home. And so there's a lot of this day trading that came up. There's nothing wrong with day trading and meme trading. I just think you can make just as much money investing in the market and not taking these pot shots at what are oftentimes just expectations games. Are you going to have more people buying the stock a week from now?

The lesson I've picked from 25 years of looking at tech stocks, fundamentals matter. Companies that generate more revenue over time, more profits, those stocks go up. I know they can be very volatile at times, but that's the lesson. Amazon's gone up 166,000% since its IPO. A lot of volatility, but fundamentals got better, the stock got better. So that's what I try to get people to focus on. Focus on long-term investing because fundamentals do drive stocks. Mark, I'm curious where you think of the whole iBuying phenomena. I mean, Zillow, I thought that was really interesting news.

But it feels like the core business has never been healthier. Is this an opportunity to stock off from 200 to 65? I know you follow Zillow. And then also, do you think that that throw up or miss, does that seem like it was specific to Zillow? Or do you think it could infect the entire space, including Opendoor and others? Give us your thoughts on what happened in the iBuying space in the last couple of weeks. I listened to the pivot last week when you talked about when you dissected what happened at Zillow. I think you largely got it right. I think this is specific idiosyncratic to the company itself. This was a company with a great competency in generating marketing leads for real estate agents and helping consumers find

the home of their dreams. And then they went into a different business, one that involved buying and selling homes and renovating homes. It's a very different set of competencies. That was always the risk behind Zillow. I made a mistake on this. I gave them the opportunity. I upgraded the stock a couple of months after they went into the iBuying opportunity. I knew there was execution risk, but I thought there was a big TAM expansion, total adjustable market expansion.

And they just shot themselves in the foot. I haven't seen this kind of misexecution, this kind of blow up in such a short period of time. Shocking, right? I mean, it really was shocking. I'm a big fan of Rich Barton. He's been a great entrepreneur. Born of envy. That's why

he did it. It was not. It was because he thought he was missing something. I don't know. It seems like it. I think the core business is attractive, but I don't think you can buy the stock now. I think this is going to be in the woodshed for probably a year or something like that. Probably need management change. What should come out of the woodshed? Which won't happen.

It's dual-class shareholder, right? Yeah. That won't happen, right? It could happen. No, it won't happen. You're right. Okay. This is a dangerous one.

Mark, give me the bull case on Tesla. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I don't cover Tesla, Scott. We'll try. Come on. There's no way you don't read about it. You have to have a view on Tesla. Today you do. The insufferable numbskull wants a view. Come on. Let's go. Let's step back a little bit. If you just think, you know, is Tesla addressing, you know, Step back a little bit. Is Tesla addressing trillion-dollar-plus TAMs? Yes. Do you have a founder-led company? Yes. Is it one of the most innovative product companies that we've seen over the last decade? Yes. Is it overvalued? Probably. I'm almost certain that it is near-term, but again, I don't cover the stock. Oh, Scott, I think that was it.

Come on, my brother. Come on. He's left you. He's left you. Seriously, listen cover the stock. Oh, Scott, I think you're in trouble. Come on, my brother. Come on. He's left you. He's left you. Seriously, listen to the author. When you look at a lot of this legislation, now the billionaire's tax didn't pass, but there's lots of proposals. There's this Amy Klobuchar, Tom Cotton thing.

There's all kinds of regulatory issues. How do you price those in? How do you think about where that's going? Because it's got to be part of your calculation. And do you think it's for the better? Scott makes the argument that this breaking things up is for the better, or some of this regulation is for the better. How do you look at it? Well, Kara, I absolutely think this regulatory focus is for the better. You know, we've seen, these are extremely powerful companies. You know, we have to go back a long time before we've seen companies this relatively powerful. So absolutely, they should be scrutinized. And some of them have developed into monopolies. Now, whether they've

actually caused consumer harm, I think that's very unlikely. I know we can debate Facebook on that, but I think some of that debate has just gone way too one-sided. That's a personal view. But these companies should absolutely be regulated. They're extremely powerful companies. I don't think they should be broken up unless there's something you'd have to find really good smoking guns on these names. The two that are, I think, most in the wheelhouse for regulators, probably for good reasons, are Google and Facebook. But for very different reasons. Google for antitrust reasons, Facebook for more for regulatory privacy reasons. So I have a final question. Mark and I are friends. And whenever we get together, we spend about 10% of our time talking about stocks. And we spend the other 90% talking about

being a dad to boys and kids. I'd really like to know, I think of you as a very soulful, wonderful father, Mark. I'd love to know what advice you have and what you've learned coming through COVID as a dad, like what advice would you give to men raising kids? You can't spend enough time with your kids. I guess that's my my takeaway. And I've got three teenage boys and one 21-year-old. And it's just precious. You won't get the time back. So spend as much time with them as you can. That's it. And lead by example. They watch what you do rather than what you say.

And increasingly, sometimes it's hard to get them to listen to what you say, but they watch what you do. So do the right thing, and they'll do the right thing too. Very nice. Very nice. Can I ask you one last question?

You didn't answer my question. One company we should be paying attention to, smaller, that you're like, hmm, I'm entranced with that company. I thought you would sort of like my Spotify idea. I know it's a little on the… Spotify. Yeah. Okay. Do you think it's an acquisition target? No, I don't think so. I think it's got one-fourth. Here's the quick example I'd ask you to think about. It's got one-fourth of the market cap of Netflix. I love Netflix, and I've covered it forever. And Spotify's got one-fourth. And just think about it. How many people around the world are going to want to have video on their phones? And how many are going to want to have music on their phones? It's about the same number. The rough monthly subscription

is about the same price. So that market cap delta, long-term, strikes me as being really different. And it's too wide. And they both have, one of the things I love to see is companies, consumer companies with pricing power. Netflix has raised price and they've done it successfully. Amazon Prime raised price. They did it successfully because they have pricing power. They've got wonderful value propositions. Spotify has just begun to do this.

All right. Okay. Well, that's fantastic. The book is called Nothing But Net, of course. It launches today. Thank you, Mark Mahaney. Thank you, Kara. Thank you, Scott. How much do we love Mark Mahaney? We do. He's a lovely guy.

He's a very decent man. All right, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for Wins and Fails. I just don't get it. Just wish someone could do the research on it. Can we figure this out? Hey, y'all. I'm John Blenhill, and I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox called Explain It To Me. Here's how it works.

You call our hotline with questions you can't quite answer on your own. We'll investigate and call you back to tell you what we found. We'll bring you the answers you need every Wednesday starting September 18th. So follow Explain It To Me, presented by Klaviyo. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. You already know that AI is transforming the world around us, but lost in all the enthusiasm and excitement is a really important question. How can AI actually work for you? And where should you even start?

Claude from Anthropic may be the answer. Claude is a next-generation AI assistant, built to help you work more efficiently without sacrificing safety or reliability. Anthropic's latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, can help you organize thoughts, solve tricky problems, analyze data, and more.

Whether you're brainstorming alone or working on a team with thousands of people, all at a price that works for just about any use case. If you're trying to crack a problem involving advanced reasoning, need to distill the essence of complex images or graphs, or generate heaps of secure code, Clawed is a great way to save time and money. Plus, you can rest assured knowing that Anthropic built Clawed with an emphasis on safety. The leadership team founded the company with a commitment to an ethical approach that puts humanity first. To learn more, visit anthropic.com slash Claude. That's anthropic.com slash Claude.

Okay, Scott wins and fails. I'm going to go first. I think the win, which a movie I have not seen, is The Eternals, which really killed it at the box office. 71 million in North America and 162 million globally. Even though it got bad scores, all these Marvel-demented fans were trying to knock down the number. It was called a review bomb. It did great. For them, it was too long, too thoughtful, and too gay, I guess. That was one of the issues.

Too gay? The Eternals was too gay? Yeah, because there's a gay character in it, a superhero. First one, I think. Anyway, all these demented Marvel fans. And I'm a Marvel fan, and I do not like demented Marvel fans. And it did really great. It's a very different Marvel movie, but nonetheless,

the Marvel brand pushes through. And since they were worried about word of mouth on social media, et cetera, did hugely well. And I'm excited to see it because I like when they... This is a cast. It's an incredibly diverse cast. That's not why I like it. I just would like more different kinds of Marvel movies, which is great. So very pleased with that. I'm very pleased. Nice. And my fail is this Big Bird thing. How ridiculous. They were always attacking Big Bird.

My kid loves Big Bird, so stop it. Thank you. Yeah, I didn't get that. I thought that was sort of weird. I know, it's strange. Do you think PBS seeing it was an overreach to kind of politicize Big Bird? No, they did it before when he got another vaccine like years ago. Oh my God,

stop it. Well, there's all kinds of people and they're all in a line and they don't look like they're buying candy. And there's a sign that says, don't wait, vaccinate. Sesame Street is not, it is actually like I'm talking about communal, not even just community, commonality. What do we have in common? Like, these people have to stop. They need to shut the fuck up. Thank you. Stay away from Big Bird. Spoken as a real bridging communities there.

Shut the fuck up. We all need to come together. Take the pill and stop yammering on to me. I don't want any more yammering. My win is, I think there's a ton of win. I think the infrastructure bill is really exciting. You know, if you think of America's transportation and infrastructure as our house, we're the wealthiest person in the world. And they come to our house and I see, you know, the roofs leaking.

So I think it's just, I think that's a big victory for us. I think the Pfizer COVID pill is really exciting. So, I think there's a ton of silver linings here. My fail is, and I'm trying to hold this up as a name of mine. I feel like there's an absence of male role models. And, you know, the wealthiest man in the world and the president used to be Barack Obama and Bill Gates. And I recognize all the controversy around Bill Gates, but I think Bill Gates has demonstrated a lot of concern for the world. And I think Barack Obama is the role model I would want my kids to look at in terms of his excellence, his commitment to the country, his fidelity to his wife and his daughters. I think he's an outstanding role model. And

Tremendous Grace really, really goes out of his way never to be critical of anyone individually. I think he's an outstanding role model. And now our role models are an individual who mocks the disabled, our former president, and somebody who goes on, you know, on Twitter high to say about a U.S. senator that you're, you, I just, where are the role, you know, there are some great role models out there. I, you know, I think Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang is a great role model. Steph Curry is a great role model. The former dean of my school, Peter Henry, this huge athletic, decent, broad scholar is a great.

There's a ton of them out there. I just wish more people with more following would follow Mark Mahaney's lead. And that is young men are watching. Young men are listening. And I'm trying to show more grace because I reckon if I say something, young men start emailing me and asking questions. And when you have tens of millions of people, mostly young men following you, these guys will do as you act. My loss is I do think that a lot of men are not taking the same responsibility or commitment that past men have and serve as role models.

Yeah, I think this is absolutely true. I think you're absolutely right. I think about that a lot because I have two sons who I, you know, raised by lesbians. I think a lot about people like my brother, who has been great. My older brother has spent more time. My younger brother has not spent as much time with the kids, but he's a terrific guy. But my older brother especially has been,

just recently, both of my sons were like, we want to spend more time with him because he's such a good role model to them. And it's really important. It's just the little amount of time, like, because we live across the country and stuff like that,

and especially with the pandemic. So it's been really important. I think about that a lot. And then I think about my own sons being good role models. They both took care of Clara this weekend, and they were really gentle and kind. And I thought, well, I've done something right somewhere in this entire part. And so it's a really interesting thing to think about. And obviously, men can have female role models, just like you said, and should.

Yeah, agreed. Angela Merkel. Do the work. Show fidelity to your country. Angela Merkel shall be the one. Fantastic role model. Yeah, absolutely. So I think that's really, really, really important.

And I agree with you. And I think we have to think, as I said, commonality, not community. It's my new thing. I'm thinking about it. I love that. The healer. Shut the fuck up. No, no community. Commonality. It's my new thing. I'm thinking about that. I love that. The healer. Shut the fuck up. No, no.

Bringing people together. You don't have to get along all the time. You know what? You can have civil arguments like you and I do. I think that's what. We aren't a community, but we have commonality. That's where we come to. We're more than civil.

We have affection for one another. I was thinking of this discussion I had. I'm going to finish with this. I was thinking of a discussion I had with Mark Zuckerberg very late one night here in DC a long time ago when he was talking to me. With Mark Zuckerberg? Yes. And he was talking about community all the time. He was obsessing on it. And it's really important to find commonality, not community, one of the things Amanda pointed out to me last night, we were talking about this, is that he was looking for community, but he didn't

care what kind of community got created, right? That's the issue, is he didn't care about the kind of community. And so some communities are great, like people, as Amanda pointed out, people who have kids who have a certain cancer or something like that. These are groups of usefulness, right? Where you come together in something in common. But the only ones that work as a community, again, I'm going to attribute this to Amanda, is there is not a them. You're not against a them, right? That's what's wrong with some of these communities, connecting for the sake of connecting, but not what for, right? And that's what's wrong with some of these communities connecting for the sake of connecting but not what for right and that's the problem is like there's no they're not they're connecting for the sake of connecting and then there's a them and then that becomes really toxic i want

to give mark zuckerberg the credit where credits do he has built a community of people who don't give a flying fuck about society and are committed to doing anything to enrich themselves. I think he has done a good job of bringing those people together. So- The community's got to go. There's always going to be, you know, differences of opinion and this and that, but we have lost our sense of commonality. I'm not talking about just, you know, grab hands and everybody loved Betty White. That's not what I'm talking about. But what is, the next follow-up question is, and I've been thinking about those, what is the connective tissue that restores that sense of community is it government is it church is it science what is it is i'm not

sure but it's not it's not this idea of creating these communities that have nothing that always has a them a them we have to get them this is what we're aggrieved at there's a lot like here's it it's a grift it's a grift happening right now in this idea. It's like, look what they did to you. Look what this, look what you can't say. Look what you, look at that group. Look at this, the whole language around the Glenn Youngkin thing is just like, not right. There's something off and everyone's trying to grift into it. And it's driving me crazy. Anyway, that's my situation. I mean, something very upsetting has happened, and that is typically Americans rallied together and formed that connective tissue due to a crisis.

We did come together in 9-11. We've come together with past. Even you could argue the AIDS crisis. Eventually, we did sort of come together, sort of, after a while. We were waiting a long time for that, but not really. Yeah, but I do think that ultimately, I think over the long term, I think people started developing more empathy. Anyways, we can agree to disagree. But what's happened here that's different is we had a crisis, and it's actually frayed our connective tissue.

We didn't come together at all around this. And so I think this is a really important conversation. What is the new connective tissue? Is it public service for young people to realize that we're Americans first? What is the new connective tissue? Is it public service for young people to realize that we're Americans first? What is it? What is it? It doesn't have to be much, actually. It doesn't have to be much. It doesn't. It's just, I think what happens is you get this, like, everybody kumbaya, and we don't have to kumbaya. Anyway, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie and Jotad engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. Or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or, frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Mark Mahaney, the premier internet analyst in the world. So goddamn nice.

So goddamn handsome. He appears Canadian, but that is all meaningful. But what is profound? Mark Mahaney is a wonderful role model and a fantastic father. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. It's not always easy to harness the power and potential of AI. For all the talk around its revolutionary potential, a lot of AI systems feel like they're designed for specific tasks performed by a select few. Well, Clawed by Anthropic is AI for everyone.

The latest model, Clawed 3.5 Sonnet, offers groundbreaking intelligence at an everyday price. Clawed Sonnet can generate code, help with writing, and reason through hard problems better than any model before. You can discover how Clawed can transform your business at anthropic.com slash Claude. companies alike reach their growth targets, make progress on their missions, and reach more customers globally. The platform offers a suite of specialized features and tools to fast-track growth, like Stripe Billing, which makes it easy to handle subscription-based charges, invoicing, and all recurring revenue management needs. You can learn how Stripe helps companies

of all sizes make progress at Stripe.com. That's Stripe.com to learn more. Stripe. Make progress.