Pivot - Elon's Tesla Board Drama, Microsoft and Meta Earnings, and Bezos Bends the Knee

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

Kara and Scott discuss a report that Tesla’s board considered replacing Musk as CEO, President Trump’s contentious ABC interview, and Apple’s violation of an order in the Epic Games antitrust case. Then, Microsoft and Meta earnings are in, and Trump is blaming former President Biden for the economy. Plus, Jeff Bezos bends the knee to the Trump administration. Send us your predictions! Calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or visit nymag.com/pivot. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on Bluesky at @pivotpod.bsky.social. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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of more than 30,000 licensed therapists. Plus, BetterHelp is completely online, helping people access affordable convenient therapy wherever they are. We're all better with help. Head to betterhelp.com slash pivot to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash pivot. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start?

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We Can Do Hard Things, Answers to Life's 20 Questions. Plus, we've got some fun and important updates from the W and the NWSL, and of course, we've got a new Are You a Megan or Are You a Sue? Check out the latest episode of A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. Cheech and shong, what is the likelihood someone's gonna spark up? I'm gonna get a whole bag of weed, that's what I'm gonna do.

Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, I flew all night and boy are my arms tired. I did a joke. Where did you come in from? DC to San Francisco. DC to San Francisco.

You're in your favorite place, San Francisco. Indeed. I'm so excited. You're collecting a bunch of awards and you're also, look what I'm wearing. I know, you're wearing the Bill Maher thing. It's very attractive. I'm wearing a Bill Maher shirt because I know you're going on Bill Maher.

I am. It's hugely jelly and I'm also wearing my Beverly Hills Hotel hat. I need you to going on Belmar. I'm hugely jelly, and I'm also wearing my Beverly Hills Hotel hat. And I need you to go down to the pool, go to the Polo lounge, have a few makers and gingers, say hello to Jorge, the concierge there. And any Russian woman that gives you eye contact, return her eye contact.

Go down to the counter for breakfast, go to the pool, put on a big pair of black sunglasses and any modestly attractive woman that walks by and put an unlit cigarette in your mouth and go, Jackie, marry me. I make you very happy. Well, I am doing none of this. I am in and out. I am in and out. I come back to San Francisco because I have to get a second award on

and also do a charity. I got a second award and also do a charity. I charity lunch. Stop it. I am. I'm doing charity. I do charity. So by the way, Cheech and Chong and Kara Swisher, that was not the crossover I was expecting.

Yes. Oh, they're the main guests. Yeah. And then Kevin McCarthy and I are on the panel. Kevin McCarthy. Oh, at least one of you has a dick and it's not the former speaker. What? I don't even know.

I don't get it. It's fine. Whatever. I'm saying that you bring more masculine energy in Kevin McCarthy and that he lacks a bad backbone and testicles that produce testosterone, which make you more risk aggressive and have certain leadership skills, which he brought none of. Yeah, I know. I don't know why.

I don't know why. And it really paid off for the guy. All that ass kissing really paid off. If he doesn't ass kiss the way the Trump cabinet did yesterday to him, the suck-uppery. It was like, you know, Ann Coulter even was like, it was like Kim Jong-il. Yeah, but she's getting paid. They all find their backbone when they're out of his orbit, which doesn't look fucking good.

You watch tomorrow, he'll be, or Friday, he'll be really reasonable. Because they all find sanity and all realize, I want to go on, I want to be a guest on MSNBC. I want a corporate board to hire me and realize I'm not as fucking crazy when it mattered than when it actually mattered when I'm supposed to be saying. I don't know.

I think these people sound like they believe it. They do. They were such suckups. And then crazy, R.F.K. Jr., you noted that, the whole thing about child trafficking. The guy who said that when he was a child, there were no kids with diabetes. My favorite one was that the Spanish flu

was a vaccine-induced pandemic. Then the whole child trafficking thing, what was he talking about? What on earth? They must sit there and be like, that's like one of the, it's so weird. It is like, it's like North Korea. It was crazy.

And then himself with the dolls. Nobody can have any dolls. You can't have two dolls. Well, yeah, but let me ask you this. Do you think there's any veracity to the notion that Trump says, all right, I want people to look away from the fact that I'm crashing the economy and deporting four-year-olds with stage four cancer.

So just be as fucking crazy as you want. If people wanna have their hair on fire about the stupid shit you say, have at it. Anything that distracts them from the fact that I am crashing the global economy. The US is literally gonna be like in a state sale where there's no will and people just show up and fight over like mom's sub- know, mom's sub-zero refrigerator.

Every country in the world is now saying, oh, we want that part of your trade. Oh, we want your PhD students. It was something. It was something. And we'll talk about it more, but seriously, it was so like, I've never seen, I mean, you're supposed to be sort of peppy at those cabinet meetings, but not like that. It was like, ew.

And the thing is, Donald Trump was the craziest of them. And I was like, this is like they were competing for crazy. And once again, he wins. He wins the prize in this case, like when he's always saying he wins at the golf club this time he won on that particular praising himself. He kept adding to their praise. Oh, don't forget the firemen. Don't forget that this.

I don't know. I'm excited to see you with Speaker McCarthy. He reminds me of my dog, and that is when I ask him to speak, he will, but it doesn't mean fucking anything. If he depends it and blames fighting. That was a joke. You didn't even give me a laugh on that.

No, I didn't. Sorry, go say it again. When, go ahead, go ahead. Speaker McCarthy is similar to my dog, and that is when I ask him to speak, he will, but it doesn't mean anything. I think that's really good. I anything. I think that's really good. I think that's really good.

I expected a laugh from you. I need your affirmation, Kara Swisher. By the way, I want to go to that Belmar after party. But Cheech and Chong, what is the likelihood someone's going to spark up? I'm going to get a whole bag of weed. That's what I'm going to do. Listen, they invited you, speaking of weed,

they invited you to club random. They want you in that little, you should go for your book tour. That intimidates me. No, it's like, speaking of weed, they invited you to club random. They want you in that little, we should go for your book tour. That intimidates me. No, it's like up in the hills at this beautiful house. No, no, no, but they get high. Bill gets smarter when he gets high. If I got high, he'd want to talk about transhumanism.

I'd be like, dude, you got any frozen snicker bars? I just don't, I get dumber. No, no, you need, it's comfortable. You'd like it. You can have drinking. You don't have to get high. You don't have to get high. Yeah, he intimidates me. I don't have to get high. You don't have to get high to get high.

He intimidates me. I don't really know the guy. He doesn't hang out. He hangs out with everyone after the show with me. Yeah. And I don't really know him. He kind of intimidates me. Just stay muted.

Yeah, yeah. Oh my God, Scott. And then on five times. Everything happened to you in high school and it continues to this day. Oh, you think? I think. What you think?

You think Amy Atkins not letting me French kiss her and then going to the prom with some other guy that was three years older, you think I still remember that? You think that still makes me insecure? Yeah, I do. You think the four women I asked to prom who said no, you think that doesn't have resonance?

The prom thing, I told you I went to four proms each year, but I'm not gonna go there. Yeah, here we fucking go. Here we fucking go. Here we go. In between collecting awards and having sex with straight men. And I'm not even gay, I'm straight, but go ahead, sorry. That was my problem. I'm way too straight.

How awesome a gay man would I make? Oh my God. I know. It's like my ex used to say, gay by day, straight by night. Okay. Okay. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. I'm a little slow because it's early here in California. Beautiful sunrise happening right now.

Lots going on. Microsoft and the Metta's latest earnings. Wow, those were pretty impressive. And Donald Trump getting pissed with Amazon and then when they kissed his ass, it was fine. But first, Tesla's board was really looking for a successor to Elon Musk last month according to Wall Street Journal. The Journal says the board got frustrated with falling sales and Musk's DC focus, you

think, and told Elon he needed to publicly announce he would spend more time on Tesla. Tesla's board chair, Robin Denholm, denies the reports. She has almost no credibility. She just backs up her back, her trunk, and they fill it with money, posting on X that they're absolutely false. Not just false, but absolutely false. Meanwhile, Musk said goodbye to the President Trump's cabinet on Wednesday, claiming Doge has so far saved $160 billion. It's pathetic, actually, and most people think that number is not even accurate. He did so wearing not one, but two Trump hats. It was so, so, so painful. Let's listen to the goodbye.

You know, they say I wear a lot of hats. And as you can see, it's true. Even my hat has a hat. You know, the American people voted for secure borders, safe cities, and sensible spending. And that's what they've gotten. Tremendous amount has been accomplished in the first 100 days.

As everyone has said, it's more than has been accomplished in any administration before ever, period. More lies, more lies, Mila, must have had things. I do agree that more has been accomplished. It's just how you would define accomplished. I think in 100 days, the entire world economy is being reshaped around. I mean, the kind of post-World War II order has absolutely been, is being reshaped. And you're going to see, I mean, first off, Prime Minister Carney was elected because of Trump. And you're about to see the same thing happen in

Australia, because the other party has become associated with, you know, the other party went on kind of this DEI. They were trying to take a page out of Trump's notebook and they realized, oh, this isn't working out well. Yeah, even though, you know, they would do well there. They were murdoch there and stuff like that. So the Tesla, the hat thing, I just, it's so painful. He's worn seven, remember he wore the big hat

and then he had the gothic. It's sad, he's 53 years old. We talk about him as if he's a teenager. He's about to start getting AARP mail. Honestly. Tell me about the lead that has the board thing. Now, they're denying it, but they have got to be open to lawsuits and everything else, even if Elon runs the place.

But the numbers don't lie. I mean, gravity is a thing. I believe they were looking for a CEO, or I believe they told him he needed to publicly say he's going to spend more time at Tesla. Yeah, I don't. So I don't know. Obviously, we don't know if this is true or not. And if it is true, it reflects a couple of things.

One, there's someone leaking it. Two, it probably means the stock is, and this isn't financial advice, is a really great short right now because it means that they're gonna cut this guy a lot of slack because he's built an incredible company and they've all made a shit ton of money because of Elon Musk. And so there's gotta be a ton of goodwill

just based on what they've put up with so far. They have put up with more aberrant, unacceptable behavior from a CEO than any board in history. And so for them to cross the line means that there's absolutely nothing in the product pipeline that is gonna stop this company from crashing. That it's about, it's gonna go, sometimes it's darkest before it's pitch black.

It feels like if they are in fact looking for, taking the bold step of looking for a CEO, it means that they look at this company like, wow, we are in really big trouble. And I mean, it just, but the thing I didn't agree with is that people said who would take that job? A lot of people would take that job.

Oh, okay. Look, before I get to that, tell me, you've been on boards. I have not. Give me the strategy of leaking something like this. I think it, the journal has been right about the drug use. It was right about, they did a lot of board stuff. So they know that board that has been very accurate,

has turned out to be accurate. They even did a lot of board stuff, so they know that board that has been very accurate, has turned out to be accurate. They even did a story about him sleeping with Sergey Brin's wife at the time, accurate. The vice presidential candidate? Yeah, right, her. Anyway, I just feel like they wouldn't write this if they didn't have it. I have a lot of regard for the journal.

And so someone on that board was telling them or more than one person, or there was some messaging happening here to Elon himself. So if you're on a board, how does this look? Leaks usually are, okay, our stock's getting, so on a meta level, it is amazing how much boards will put up with when the stock is going up. And it's amazing how much unfair blame they'll put on the CEO when the stock is going down. This notion that boards this bullshit virtue signaling narrative that they adopted and the odds

that it's about stakeholder value, it's not. It's about shareholder value. If the shares are going up in price, he can be banging his assistant and her dog and we'll find reasons to, you know, say you're going to rehab but it's better now and, you know, we'll figure out a reason to bring you back, maintain you're the CEO and call you chairman. When the stock's going down, you're in trouble. You're on the green mile all the time, at least for two or three years. A new CEO gets two to

three years and a lot of CEOs that are there for a long time will populate the board with their golf buddies. And the board becomes ineffective. In terms of actual leaks, sometimes it's a board level thing where they say, all right, there's a narrative out there that we're an irresponsible board and that we need to find a new CEO.

And so let's leak it that we're looking for a new CEO. I don't think he would have wanted this message to be leaked because it makes him look bad. When you have, I've been on boards where there's leaks, where there's a proxy fight and the board is at each other's throat and then one or more people start leaking shit. That's when boards start to really digress

and dissolve into chaos because nobody trusts each other. Everyone's like, okay, who the fuck here is leaking? And most of the boards I have been on, generally speaking, they don't leak. They don't, they just don't, they realize it's bad for the governance that creates tremendous distrust within and among board members. They don't wanna work with each other.

You know, there's two board meetings, one of the people on X side, one on Y side. So I don't, I'm confused a little bit by this because they don't want to announce this until they have a new CEO. So someone leaking this, I don't think it's on the board. I don't think it came from the board. But you don't, okay.

So when you, who would be the CEO? You said that, I mean, who would do this? And more to the point, if he's running it, what does he do? What does he do? Except go on and on and try to do this hypnotic thing. By the way, Henry Blodgett wrote a piece about my idea and likes it, the idea of merging Tesla with XAI, FYI. I said I rendered you speechless, which I did.

I did, which isn't easy to do. So who would be the CEO or what should Elon do as CEO? Should they replace him? And if they don't, and he is the CEO in these days, what should he do? Because he seems entirely uninterested in the business or pretending it's another business. We're going to have millions of Optimist primes. This is a data company or we're going to have robo-taxis.

None of which exist. No products exist. It feels like a cyber truck part two, essentially, which was a huge dud, by the way. Who should run it? So first off, he shouldn't have been CEO two or three years ago. When he started committing securities fraud and started getting really awful accusations and decided that he wanted to be CEO of three or four companies who shouldn't have been CEO.

They should have said, all right. He has many hats in case you're interested. If you want to do this, you can be chairman and have huge input, but we need to bring in a full time person who's CEO and has the license to make decisions and has accountability for these decisions. In terms of who should be CEO, I think it needs to be someone from the automobile sector.

And there are a lot of great leaders in the automobile sector. And there's a lot of great, there are a lot of great leaders in the automobile sector. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being someone from outside of the US. I think that person in their contract says, I have total support of the board. And if something goes wrong and you fire me because I'm not getting along with Elon,

I'm getting the most ridiculous fucking severance package because this guy's gonna need, or gal, is gonna need the mother of all kind of parachutes. They could go more design or more cool product or something around manufacturing, pick someone from the cloud or something. But I think the automobile sector is so much about, I think it's such a unique industry and so complicated

and so much about supply chain that I think they would want someone from the automobile sector. This is a long-winded way of saying I don't know. And what if he stays, very briefly, what if he stays, what should he do? supply chain that I think they would want someone from the automobile sector. This is a long-winded way of saying I don't know. And what if he stays, very briefly, what if he stays? What should he do? Because he's the only one who can do his flim-flammery around the robots and the...

He should do what you're suggesting. He should do a sleight of hand and merge it with XAI and pretend that it's not an automobile company to get people to look away from the fact that his automobile sale, his pipeline is weak and his sales are crashing. Yeah, okay. We'll see, we'll see what happens. He looks like unhappy to be back working on that. He seems entirely unexcited by it, which is hard to do.

I understand that feeling of you don't wanna keep doing the same thing. Oh, tell me about it. But he made a disaster doge, so he's gonna make another disaster here, because he's uninterested. Speaking of flim-flammery, President Trump sat down for a contentious interview marking 100 days in office with ABC News' Terry Moran, who he's never heard of apparently. It was so ridiculous.

Some highlights. I gave you this chance, Terry, and you fucked me. In regards to Pete Hegseth, the president remained optimistic, but when asked, he wouldn't say he had 100% confidence in him calling it a stupid question, which is his go-to. Trump dismissed backlash to terror, saying they were just what people voted for and everyone's going to be just fine. When discussing the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, this was a whopper. When the administration sent to El Salvador in error, Trump referred to a photoshopped

image of MS-13 on Garcia's knuckles. Let's listen. And you'll pick out one man, but even the man that you picked out, he said he wasn't a member of a gang. And then they looked and on his knuckles, he had MS-13. There's a dispute over that. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

He had MS-13 on his knuckles tattoo. We had some tattoos that are interpreted that way. But let's move on. Wait a minute. Terry a minute. He had MS-13 on his knuckles tattoo. He had some tattoos that are interpreted that way. But let's move on. Wait a minute. Hey Terry, Terry, Terry. He did not have the letter MS-13. It says MS-13. That was Photoshopped.

So let me just. That was Photoshopped, Terry. You can't do that. Hey, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you're doing the interview. I picked you because frankly, I never heard of you, but that's okay. Oh my God, he's such a nigger. It's so amazing.

Like, nag, nag, nag. But let me say, it was Photoshopped. He didn't, he doesn't know that that was trying to say the tattoos on there represented MS-13, and someone put those to give reference. And he's insisting that MS-13 was actually on there. It was total atonement, or just lying almost continually.

Everything he does, he breathes, he lies. Any thoughts on that interview? The thing that struck out for me was first off, Terry Moran is a world-class journalist. He's been covering the Supreme Court and I believe the White House for a while. He's in this, I thought he put on a master class, and I think the White House for a while. I thought he put on a master class and I think the big winner here was Terry because this

is an impossible position. You have to maintain some decorum and dignity and respect for the office. And so when the president says, no, you got to trust me on this, it's this, it's really hard to push back. And he was forcefully yet dignified and attempted to show grace and not just say, okay, Mr. President, stop fucking lying. Stop lying, please. See, that's what I would have done.

I would have had the picture. But that's why you'll never interview the president because- That's correct. So these people have to walk a very fine line. And that is they get criticized if they don't push back on obvious lies. At the same time, they have to maintain a certain decorum that respects the office.

Terry thread that needle perfectly. It reminded me of that interview on CNBC with Deidre Boulson and Keith Rabois where basically Keith committed securities fraud over and over and over about Opendoor claiming it was profitable. And she real-time fact-checked him in a very kind of dignified, non-combative way.

By the way, I think that stocks off like 70 or 90% since he went on. Journalists who want to give people the benefit of the doubt want to show some decorum and you have to show the president a certain amount of grace, otherwise you're- Well, except here, I'm gonna push back on the examiner interviewer. So I feel like in that case, the constant line, this is Biden's GDP drop, this is this.

You cannot let him continue to make things up. Although what I got the vibe was as an old person, it literally brought me to an argument I had with my mom. Like, no, it's this. No, it's absolutely this. And Like, no, it's this. No, it's absolutely this. And I was like, it's not. Yeah, but he got, don't you think Terry made it clear to anyone with an IQ over, I don't know, 40?

Did he, he is lying or uninformed? He did, he did. I was going back and forth on it. I think he should have pulled the picture out and said, Mr. President, these numbers were put on by Photoshop to indicate and been polite that way. This was not actually on his fingers. Here's the picture of his actual fingers.

Did you? But it's so interesting. It's interesting what the media focuses on. The media focuses on that. I thought by far the most interesting and damning part of the interview was when he asked him what the Declaration of Independence meant to him. Oh, yeah.

Desi Lydic made fun of it. And it was hilarious. And the look that Terry Moran gave was the same look., Desi Lydic made fun of it. And it was hilarious. And the look that Terry Moran gave was the same look and Desi Lydic said this, that when a school teacher decides a kid needs to see an adolescent psychotherapist, it was the look he was like, he's like, oh my God, we're in worse trouble than I thought. Like this person needs help.

You know, break glass. This is an emergency. I know. Yeah, cause he said the declaration of defense was about unity and desylatic. Like that is the only thing it wasn't about. What's interesting though, is that, I just said calls some of balls and strikes here. The people around Biden clearly knew

he was cognitively impaired and they hit him from the media. I think the people around Trump would probably, or anyone smart would like to say, let's pull back on the media appearances, but there's no way. He thinks he's doing great. He thinks he's doing great. With Biden, they said,

no, don't go on Jon Stewart, we're just going to reheat your soup and Nana's coming home. He listened. I told you the well-behaved guy in the old Folk's home and Trump's the one that's like, where's the soup? I ordered soup. No, he's the guy leading water aerobics. Yeah.

Trump's leading water aerobics today in regarding the stories of Korea. Yeah, and how he fought a tyrannosaurus rex. Yeah, Trump, he does think he's doing great. It's Trumping. He's doing, he does think he's doing great. It's really something. No, he thinks he's killing it. He thinks he's killing it. He feels old. He feels really old.

Everybody's... I don't get that. I think he feels crazy. I don't see the physical impairment you see. No, but it's like, well, you don't have an elderly parent you're dealing with who's absolutely certain they didn't block Amanda on the phone. I did not.

Like, she blocks my son, she pushes somebody. It's the longest running argument we ever have. I'm like, you did it. No, I did not, the phone did it. That's what it feels like. Anyway, I'm not gonna go into it, but that was a long argument. And I don't know why I have to be right.

I should be like Terry Moran, like, okay, let's move on, let's move on. Just again, shout out, Terry Moran was fantastic. He handled a very difficult situation very well, I thought. Yeah. Anyway, lastly, a federal judge dismantling Apple's control of the App Store and ruling said the Apple violated orders in a five-year antitrust case bought by Epic Games. In a previous ruling, the judge ordered Apple to allow apps to use external payments to

avoid 30% commission charges. The judge accused executives of lying, saying Apple created a new system forcing external sales to be charged 27% commission. Now the judge says Apple may no longer take commissions from sales outside the App Store. Let me just say, I do not understand this because Apple won almost everything except this one thing and they did not follow it along. Now the App Store is a large part of Apple's $100 billion annual services revenue. I don't imagine it's an enormous flow

because it's difficult to do those outside external sales, but it seemed like a real error on Apple's part here to do something like petulant like this, given how much they won. The biggest whole booths in the world are Google and arguably Apple's App Store. And to think, your buddy Barry Diller summarized it perfectly, this is like a credit card company, the App Store.

It provides infrastructure, payment technology, security, safety, a certain level of assurance that if something goes wrong, they vet the stores, they vet the consumers. Credit card companies charge between 1.8 and 3%. Apple charges 30 or 15, I think, if it's recurring revenue. But they have such a lock. Even though they have, I think, about 40 or 50 percent market share in the US, I think they have closer to 80 or 90 percent of actual revenue volume

because anyone with any money has an iOS, or people with most money have an iOS. So I've been saying this for a while, the best ways to oxygenate the economy would be to one, for China and the US to kiss and make up because everything would get 10% cheaper around the world. But two, to basically bust up these toll booths and have other toll roads or other players.

I mean, I don't know if you saw, in the wake of just monster earnings from Meta and Alphabet. We'll talk about that in a minute, but go ahead. Pinterest and Snap are just dying a slow death. I mean, no one can compete with their scale. So, in the app store is just another example. I mean, you could easily break, a great company in terms of a breakup would be Apple Services, which would probably be the App Store or their media. So why would they do this given

they really did sort of win in this case except for this one? I don't I don't understand what do you think I think you know them better than I do. I have no idea it seems like well they just don't want to do it I just don't want to do it like they're gonna just challenge it and now of course the judge is saying well they'll appeal it these people know know how to appeal, I guess. I assume that's what they're gonna do. Anyway, it seems to be a real unusual error on their part to do something petulant.

I can see petulance from Mark Zuckerberg or Bezos or any of them, but not Tim Cook, but here we are. But another real winner though, and a player in this is, and I have an investment in them, is Epic. I don't know if you, their movie Minecraft, it's one of the highest grossing-

That movie's killing it, FYI. It's one of the highest grossing movies in history. And who would have thought, the Minecraft movie? I would, my kids were obsessed with it. I could see that. Yeah, it's just, and they went up against Apple and sort of, I don't know if you'd say they won, but they didn't back down.

And it doesn't appear- They didn't really win. It was more in Apple's favor, but in this case, now they're able to do what they want. We'll see how much that sticks. I mean, I think Apple's playing the very long game with Trump and everything else in the quiet long game. Anyway, okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break,

going back, Microsoft and Met earnings, which we will discuss because they were pretty fantastic, and why Trump is getting compared to the Grinch who stole Christmas. Support for today's show comes from Chevrolet. Whether it's a quick jaunt or a long journey, no matter where you're going, the all electric Equinox EV allows you to travel with confidence, comfort, and connectivity. Equinox EV comes equipped with a standard 17.7-inch diagonal color display touchscreen, making it the largest center screen among EVs in its class. Its sleek lines and a commanding stance define the exterior of Equinox EV, while the no-compromises

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Dire Wolves! Not just a thing from Game of Thrones, not just Jon Snow's best friend. Dire Wolves walked the Americas for millennia, up until about 14,000 years ago, when maybe their primary food source dried up or humans hunted them to extinction. No one was taking notes, but we know they were a bit bigger than gray wolves, they ate a lot of meat,

and their bite could crush bones. And now we know that apparently dire wolves are back? A startup called Colossal says they've brought these pups back from extinction. They say they've got three of them, but are these dire wolves they brought back actually? Dire wolves? And whether they are or aren't, should we be trying to bring dire wolves back? Like why? Join us for answers over at Today Explained. The regular season's in the rearview, and now it's time for the games that matter the most.

This is Kenny Beacham, and playoff basketball is finally here. On Small Ball, we're diving deeper into every series, every crunch time finish, every coach and adjustment that can make or break a championship run. Who's building for a 16-win marathon? Which superstar would submit their legacy? And which role player is about to become a household name? With so many fascinating first-round matchups, will the West be the bloodbath we anticipate? Will the East be as predictable as we think? Can the Celtics defend their title? Can Steph Curry, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard push the young teams at the top?

I'll be bringing the expertise, the passion, and the genuine opinion you need for the most exciting time of the NBA calendar. Small Ball is your essential companion for the NBA postseason. Join me, Kenny Beecham, for new episodes of Small Ball throughout the playoffs. Don't miss Small Ball with Kenny Beech Beach and new episodes dropping through the playoffs, available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Scott, we're back. Microsoft and Metashares are up both

after companies reported quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street expectations on Wednesday and how. Microsoft sales surpassed $70 billion, up 13% from a year ago. The company's Azure Cloud unit posted a 33% revenue gain. Meta sales grew by 16% year over year to $42 billion. Net income was $16 billion. The company isn't slowing down on capex spending either, boosting its forecast as high as $72 billion. This is mostly around AI.

Of course, the weak spot continues to be that first shift that Mark made. Meta reported $4.2 billion in losses from its Reality Lab division. That's why they called themselves Meta. It also announced the launch of Meta AI this week. It's a standalone AI app, sort of to compete with Chatt GPG. It makes sense. So far, the company's avoided getting dragged down by tariff chaos, which is interesting. We'll see if it goes on.

Mark Zuckerberg addressed the concerns about tariff impact in his earnings call saying, I think we're well positioned to weather the economic uncertainty. I think advertising is an open question. Just for people to know, Amazon and Apple earnings coming after we record, so we'll dig into those next week. But talk a little bit about these earnings, each company.

Let's start with Microsoft. Staggering. Revenues on a big base up 13%, their cloud revenue is up 20%. And what you have here, and also Microsoft is probably, I don't wanna say it's a defensive stock, but it's least, it's kind of most recession proof.

And also it doesn't seem to be subject to real damage other than a slowdown in the economy from From these tariffs and keep in mind the majority of their biggest customers are global So even if the US gets hit, they're pretty well insulated, you know Apple is gonna take a hit if the tariffs continue, you know continue to Escalate Amazon will absolutely take a hit Microsoft meta and alphabet are more insulated because they're digital marketing,

but Microsoft has exposure to the cloud. It's a very diversified, robust business. It's really well managed. Can I just say with Microsoft, it's that Chachinadella, I think, even though he's the quietest of them. And by the way, if you've noticed, he hasn't sucked up to Trump.

He's just doing his job kind of thing. And of course, his job doesn't have that much. The interaction they have has to do around national security and everything else. And they do have, let me tell you, that's where their big weakness is, is around security issues, around their software, et cetera. But I have to say, he deserves much more credit than almost any CEO in terms of really making this company shine. I'm always impressed with him and especially how he handles things.

He manages not to lose his soul every five minutes. But go ahead, on Meta, which I think is hugely impressive. Mark Zuckerberg really knows how to run a company. He really does. Well, revenue increased 16 percent, and I think even more impressive, their price per ad was up 10%. If you're looking for how AI is impacting our economy, their ability to target, I mean, haven't, don't you increasingly have more of those moments where you're thinking, my shoulders have been bothering me,

and all of a sudden on reels I'm getting served ads for like, for bands to help with my shoulders. I'm like, how the fuck did they figure that out? The amount of time in terms of serving you up incredible ads, their recommendation engine is contributed to a 35% increase in time spent on threads, a 7% increase in time spent on Facebook, 6% on Instagram. He predicted, or Zuck predicted AI would be able to handle half of Meta's developer work. So he's able to maintain, you know, other than CapEx

around data storage and AI, their human capital costs have decelerated and aren't growing nearly as fast as their top line revenues, meaning that quote unquote, earnings are gonna explode. And just to give you a sense, I do this deck on AI. I think the AI company at 2025 is meta because, first off, if you look at it, 80% of people in the world

outside of China. But can I just know something? It's the best data. Like think about Twitter data. It's not good data. Like, you know, it's kind of all noisy, but this is all people moving and using and relatively behaving. I mean, there's all kinds of problems on this platform,

obviously, but go ahead. Well, the peanut butter and chocolate or chocolate and peanut butter of AI is loosely speaking the chips of processing power. They're the second biggest purchaser of chips. They're in line with the second biggest purchase order of NVIDIA chips. Then the chocolate is the actual data, the input, the coal in the furnace, whatever you want to call it, right? Grist of the mill.

And just to give you a sense of just how much data is produced on meta platforms, Reddit, which is unbelievably, uh, accelerated, has the fifth most traffic of anyone in the U S any side in the U S Reddit is the source of roughly 1.3 trillion tokens of text, right roughly 1.3 trillion tokens of text. 1.3 trillion tokens of text. Meta, 180 trillion tokens. So Meta has more coal to throw into the furnace to process and learn from,

and they're gonna have the second most Nvidia chips. In addition, they not only get the benefit of saying, all right, we're going to use that to have a consumer facing product. Instead, or in addition to, we're going to use AI to give advertisers such extraordinary targeting at the right time for the right person in the right place that advertisers are going to be helpless not to just reallocate more and more of their budgets to Metta. Yeah. He's too... Look, we all have our issues with Mark Zuckerberg,

and he's deserved, but man, can he write... He's like a Gatesian figure. Remember how well Bill Gates ran during those many years? He is, yeah. Brilliant businessman. Brilliant businessperson. He wore those glasses everywhere, the Metta glasses, which are probably... I don't think they're an enormous business for them,

but he does the walk. I mean, he looked, he wore them everywhere this week, which was smart. It was smart that he did it. He didn't look as dumb as Elon looks in a hat. But I would agree. I think it's really astonishing what's happening. Like you were noting, and I was thinking about it the rest of the week, was Google has so many good businesses within this company. So does Facebook, right? And I like

threads. I do, I do. I like it for it feels like Instagram a little bit easier, like essentially. And I'm on Blue Sky. I like Blue Sky too, by the way. But there's so many good products in this in this term. I think the two dings on them obviously will be their deleterious effect on the entire world. And this trial will see a lot of people do, you know, I've been talking to a lot of people, most people, and I agree, think it's a relatively weak case that they have competition now and they're just doing very well with the competition. But a lot of other people think they're going to lose and it's going to be like Microsoft, right?

It's not going to really matter. And they won't spin stuff off, but we'll see if they have to spin things off, like an Instagram or a WhatsApp. It would certainly be interesting if they did, as you and I have talked about. Anyway, good job, Mark Zuckerberg. We have to give it to you.

And again, we'll talk about Amazon and Apple earnings. We both think they're gonna get hit. There's only just one thing in the Microsoft earnings that I thought were interesting in the earnings call, and that is their data storage expenditures coming down. And I wonder if some of them are thinking the deep seek, maybe there's an opportunity, or maybe the data storage and the power consumption

won't be as great as initially forecast. I think a lot of them are looking at the deep seek innovation and thinking, how does this impact our capex moving forward? But you're probably going to see in the back half of the year even more staggering earnings because it feels like they have so much momentum on the top line, and yet on the expense side, I think they're going to maintain... I think their capex is going to go flat or maybe even down, which is just going to be like nitro and glycerin for their earnings. Yeah, we'll see about that. It'll be interesting.

And it'll be interesting to compare Amazon and Apple with them. But speaking of economic uncertainty, President Trump is blaming former President Biden for the U.S. economy contracting Apple with them. But speaking of economic uncertainty, President Trump is blaming former President Biden for the US economy contracting in the first quarter of 2025, suggesting in this cabinet, this ridiculous cabinet, meaning that Q2 will also be tied to Biden. He's going to blame Biden, like he mentioned Biden, like 912 times or not that many, but a lot. He's taking the same stance on markets, writing on True Social on Wednesday, this is Biden's stock market, not Trump's, even though he claimed it was Trump's stock

market back in 2024 when he wasn't president, the market was doing well. He was calling it Trump's stock market. He's also telling Americans to be patient, but acknowledged there will be some consequences from his his tariffs. Let's get to the doll situation. You know, somebody said, oh, the shelves are going to be open. Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.

Oh, my God. It's true. Whoever said that? Well, this idea that I mean, look, that may be true. I agree. I have too many fucking toys in my house and I wish I had like a many less, but it's none of this business of people want $30. Americans are used to products on the shelves and open, whatever open means empty is the word he's

looking for. Toy manufacturers are already warning about a Christmas toy shortage. Factories in China produce nearly 80% of all toys and 90% of Christmas goods sold in the US. It's, I don't like, he's making a point, yes, we shouldn't consume as much. The man who consumes more than anybody who's just like a giant maw of consumption is lecturing people. His whole administration is doing this. They're very on message. Well, you don't need that stuff.

You don't need it. And that may be, but how do you think it's going to hit with people, especially if there are empty shelves, not open shelves, but empty shelves? From a guy that golfs every third day and bangs porn stars? He's talking to us about consumption. I know, and then shows off his gold in that Terry Morian interview, by the way. He showed off gold. Americans, we are the most conspicuous consumers in history.

America is sort of, you'd argue, an insurance company with a military, but really what it is, it's a platform for prosperity where people get material and hopefully emotional gains from an incredible operating system. You could argue that Biden was kicked out of office because the price of eggs went too high, but he doesn't think people are going to notice. 90% of America is on a fixed budget. And if toys go up in price, 30%, 40, 50%, that means a third to a half fewer toys. You don't think that's going to hit home emotionally. When the kids start noticing, wait, you know, that, that just really hits you hard. It hits on an emotion where you, when you feel like you're not providing for your kids on key moments, it really rips at your soul.

And people are gonna get angry. Just the notion that, oh, Americans, that these people, that him with his tacky retrofitted 757, that somehow Americans don't need all this stuff. Well, okay, folks, Americans love their stuff. America is the land of stuff. We love our shit. There's nothing wrong with it.

Our Nespresso, our Netflix, we love stuff. And loosely speaking, actually, if you were to pick one thing that impacts the majority of elections in America for the last 50 years, it's kind of your safety and security around your ability to buy more stuff. It's the economy. And so that's just a ridiculous statement. So why did he make it?

I mean, he just, and then it was echoed by all his people and then blaming Biden, obviously he's gonna use Biden as, you know, for 10 years from now, he's gonna say Biden was the reason. What is, I mean, I don't think people are thinking of Biden anymore, you know, or mentioning it. Although his voters have a very astonishing – they are now echoing this. There was a lot of interviews I saw where they're like, yeah, we got to buck up. Like we're in the middle of the war too and the Nazis are headed

our way, like that kind of mood of something like that. There is some truth to the notion that this GDP, so GDP was off first negative quarter since I think 2022, first in three years, we had a contraction. I don't think it's fair to lay that at the feet of the Trump administration. GDP is a lagging indicator. The surge in imports because of these ridiculous tariffs took a large portion of the GDP down.

Consumption is down too, both things together, but go ahead. Next quarter, there's just no excuses he owns it. And you're going to see a contraction. I don't like GDP, I don't think it's a good measure, but you're going to see the economy contract and it's on its way. I'm doing a lot or a decent amount of,

I have a lot of friends who are impacted by the tariffs. And essentially like business has come to a standstill and they're sitting around trying to guess, do we try to move, do we go to our bank, borrow a shit ton of money, cut 20, 30% of our workforce and spend the next three years trying to reroute our supply chain through Vietnam or Indonesia, or do we hope this guy pops up, wakes up tomorrow morning

and goes, just kidding. But in the meantime, they're in a state of paralysis. They have stopped all shipments from most of my friends from China. Shipping volume is off anywhere, depending on how you account for it, between 35 and 65%. The port of Los Angeles is less crowded than it's been in recent memory.

And it's the largest port in the Western hemisphere. And there's a lag effect, but when the ships coming into the port are empty or they're not coming in, that means in about four to 12 weeks, the stores are going to be empty. And also, you're going to start to see layoffs. Yeah, because I just interviewed Wes Moore, he's the governor of Maryland, and a very handsome man, as you would say.

Wes Moore, he's going to be a presidential candidate. And he was talking about the knock-on effects in Baltimore in terms of truckers, unloaders, people around it, restaurants around it. It's just going to reverberate all over these economies in California, in Maryland, New York. Of course, these are all blue states, but still it will have so much reverberations around the country and then it just keeps having knock-on and knock-on effects. Anyway, I don't think he can keep blaming, I agree with you, he can blame them for a short time, but this is just nonsense lecturing people on how many dolls they should have.

I agree that we shouldn't have so many choices, but that's my personal opinion and he's the president of the United States, it's none of his business to tell people what to buy. It's like that Borat film, you know, 33 different types of cheeses. That's just who we are. The weird thing is just going back to the earnings for a moment, you're probably gonna see an increased bifurcation between the Magnum's

and seven and the rest of the economy, because these firms, so Amazon is the most subject to this trade war than anyone because two thirds of their business comes within the US and a lot of their products are subject to tariffs. A company like Meta gets only one third of its business from the US and the majority of its products are not subject to tariffs.

Apple, two thirds from outside the US, a company like Microsoft, half their business comes from outside the US. So these companies are, I don't wanna say they're insulated, but the big guys and the big tech companies are much more insulated. A, most of the vast majority of the products are not subject to tariffs.

And B, the majority of their business comes from outside of the US. So who's gonna get really hard here are kind of the mainline traditional. The mainline firms. Yeah. Absolutely. The Main Street economy is really going to get hit hard.

You're absolutely right. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. Speaking of Amazon, we'll talk about Jeff Bezos bending the knee once again. It's not the first time to Trump. Looking for a political show that doesn't scream from the extremes? Raging Moderates is now twice a week. What a thrill! Oh my god!

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Tune in, we're not always right, but our hearts are in the right place. We're more raging than moderate. Scott, we're back. President Trump is calling Jeff Bezos very nice and a good guy after phoning Bezos to complain about a report that Amazon was going to show how much of an item's cost comes from tariffs. The White House initial reaction was a press secretary, Carolyn Levitt, also known as Tracy

Flake, calling Amazon's plan for a hostile and political act. And while Amazon first said the pricing plan was only being considered for its budget site, Amazon Hall, and a subsequent statement, the company know the plan was never approved and it was not going to happen. They kept changing their story. Trump later told reporters that Bezos solved the problem very quickly, so it clearly was on deck to happen. Who knows where and which part of Amazon they have Their credibility is declined rather significantly with this incident.

Bezos has of course been making nice with Trump for a while now and back in December at the Times Deal Summit, he said he was optimistic about Trump's behavior in his second term and completely wrong. Let's listen. What I've seen so far is that he is calmer than he was the first time and more confident, more settled. I guess he wants him to go to his fancy wedding in Venice in June, I guess. What do you think of this?

Obviously, he's going to do it. You predicted the Fortune 500 CEOs and businessmen were going to start standing up to Trump. This is not what happened here. And it looks like Paramount is going to do the same thing, Sherry Redstone, to settle a ridiculous baseless lawsuit in order to make nice to get that merger through. Was the initial Amazon plan a good idea? Should companies be transparent about these prices and put them on? Some companies are doing this.

And there's an antitrust trial coming up, obviously, for Amazon. It didn't work so well for Mark to kiss up because it's still going forward. Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Bezos on Wednesday asking whether he received any promises or favors from Trump in exchange for scrapping Amazon's plan. Thoughts? Well, when the White House press secretary, she immediately said this was a hostile and political act, and why didn't they put what the prices were because of the Biden inflation? I mean, that's just such a ridiculous statement. One, in terms of Biden and inflation, that's so intellectually dishonest because of all the G7 countries, our inflation was the lowest.

There was tremendous supply chain shocks from the invasion of Ukraine and COVID. And two, these guys all claim they're such free speech warriors. Putting what the terrible, Airbnb and Amazon have all come under criticism for not putting on, when I order from Caviar, which I love in New York, it used to piss me off that I wouldn't see upfront how much delivery charge and service fee and all that. Airbnb came under fire, so Airbnb said, okay, we're gonna put the true cost, and they started breaking it out.

That's transparency, and it's also free speech. It is entirely reasonable for Amazon to say, all right, this is how much the tariffs are costing. It is a bit of a political statement. It's also called free speech. And two, when you start having, Biden came under fire for having one-off conversations with Metta about misinformation around COVID.

And he got huge criticism. And there's some veracity to the notion that the president should not be having one-off conversations and putting pressure on individual companies. It's supposed to have systemic solutions and laws that impact the whole industry. Otherwise it just ends up being corruption as it is now, where I don't know if you saw the latest,

auto companies are now gonna be exempt from a lot of these tariffs. So if you're a big company that's on his lunch calendar, or you have a popular brand, or you're gigantic, or you get to have lunch with them, you get exemption from this ridiculous behavior. And the problem is, is that small and medium sized business which account for 98% of the companies

that depend upon export and import are shit out of luck because they can't afford lobbyists and they're never gonna go to Mar-a-Lago. So these individual one-off conversations are corrupt. You're not supposed to have them. And also I gotta be, I mean, you saw me, I was so excited about Bezos. I went out with all these threads saying, good for him, good on him.

Yeah, you did. And I was so excited. And then you texted me and you're like, he caved. He caved. And I'm like, oh fuck. And I had to go back and it's like, well, false alarm. You know. No way, he's such a caver.

He's a caver. He wants all the Trumps to be at his wedding. Are you kidding? He's gone. Jeff Bezos never was there, but he's gone now. He's down the Mar-a-Lago Highway and he's living down there. Much more so even than Elon, I think. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I'm actually excited and we'll talk about it maybe next week, but I'm excited about,

he's about to put a competitor into space. Yeah, I'm good with this blank slate. I'm good with the rocket stuff that he's competing with, but whatever. They never fail to disappoint these people. They really don't, they just don't. I just expect disappointment. You're like that, this time,

you're like this time my boyfriend's gonna behave and show up and pick me up. He's changed. He sent an Uber for me. He sent an Uber. He sent an Uber for me. The stripper loves me, I swear. I swear she loves me. You can go to a strip club, Scott, but she doesn't. I've been to a strip club in 20 years. I don't like strip clubs. We should go.

No, we shouldn't. We should do a tour. We should do Pivot. I've pivoted since strip club. 20 years. I don't like strip clubs. We should go. No, we shouldn't. We should do a tour. We should do Pivot. I pivoted to strip club. No, I'm not into strip clubs. All right. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions, Scott. So have a good one. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction and listen up. Time for something new. We want to hear your predictions. Send us your predictions 30 seconds or less, and we'll play them on the show if they're good. Well, if they're dirty, we'll probably play them too.

Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a prediction for the show. We'll call 855-51-PIVOT. I wanted to create some competition for Scott. So Scott, up your game today. Let's go. I don't know if mine's very good, but basically one of the wonderful things about I wanted to create some competition for Scott. So Scott, up your game today. Let's go. I don't know if mine's very good, but basically one of the wonderful things about our economy is once a company establishes

something resembling or supposedly monopoly power and can start implementing those rents on consumers, there's so much profits that that's like chum in the water and other sharks show up. That's the basis of competition. And hopefully if a company gets too far ahead of another, the FTC and the DOJ move in, break it up such that it can inspire more competition, lower prices, more innovation, et cetera. Competition really is one of the secrets to America's success.

And my internet went out in London. I have to have crazy fast broadband. And I spent, I'm not exaggerating, I think I spent 50 or $60,000 to have Fiber run across Regent's Park to get the kind of broadband I need. And it went out. Yeah, that guy. Yeah, I'm that guy.

I went out, I don't have satellites. It went out this weekend. And so everyone's scrambling, including Drew, to try and figure out a solve. And they went out and they bought one of those portable Starlinks. And they set it up in about four hours. It's an incredible service. I've used Starlink on a plane before. You can do FaceTime. It really is an amazing product.

I think now close to two-thirds of the lower satellites are owned by Starlink, or SpaceX. I guess it's Starlink. And it really is an incredible product. And I'm just thrilled to see, and I think another reason why I think Amazon's gonna continue probably to outperform is that they launched their first, I don't even know how you pronounce it.

Is it Cuper? K-U-I-P-E-R? Cooper, I think it's Cooper. Yeah, I've met with the CEOs. They've been at it the same way they've been at the rocket stuff, but Cooper. Yeah, Cooper. I think it's Cooper. Yeah, I've met with the CEOs. They've been at it the same way they've been at the rocket stuff, but Cooper. Yeah, Cooper. So the first batch of a planned 3,300 Cooper satellites launched from Florida. The mission kicks off a race to rival SpaceX's massive Starlink network, and Amazon can launch

five more Cooper missions this year. I think the promise of that is going to take their stock up because Starlink is just such an incredible company that essentially has monopoly power right now. Yeah, that was run. I forget who used to run that company. I met with them several times. They've been trying it.

Like everyone's trying to catch Starlink, obviously. And it's a great opportunity to do so. Anyways, the brand, we talk a lot about in brand strategy. The first kind of kiosk in brand strategy is awareness. About 98% of our purchases, at least until, it's actually recently, I'd like to redo this data, but up until the social graph,

98% of your purchases are from brands you've heard of before. Just think about, you're just less inclined to return the email of someone you don't know. Just having heard of somebody or having heard of a brand makes you much more, your purchase inclination or your purchase consideration goes up exponentially. And so I would often say the first step in any brand is just to be known. And unfortunately, we live in a

society is the philosopher, Italian philosopher, Umberto Eco said that being famous and having awareness is more important than what you're famous or have awareness for. So awareness is enormous. And it's a decent proxy for future value to be monetized. And I think the brand that's about to go from zero to a hundred in the next six months is Cooper because it's a $10 billion project that was unveiled in 2019. It's had a lot of delays and it's finally starting to get its kind of mojo. And I think you're gonna see, they're gonna start doing a good job of showing real-time footage of every launch.

And then when you think about if Amazon can offer a Starlink like service with their interface, I mean, at some point, you know what they're gonna do? They're gonna roll it into Prime. Anyways, Cooper from Prime is about to become one of the biggest brands and also be the most formidable competitor to the most valuable private company in the world,

I think right now, which is SpaceX. So anyways, my prediction is the- Interesting. The brand you haven't heard of as of May 1, 2025 is gonna be ubiquitous in the investment and consumer landscape by the end of the year. And that is Project Cooper, which is a $10 billion satellite effort from the good folks at Amazon. You know what? I've touched a Cooper. They brought one to show it to me.

That was in high school, right? I touched it. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And then he decided, no, not for me. Interesting, but not for me. As usual with Tesla, same thing. People are coming in and they're gonna give him a run. And if he's not on his game, Elon Musk, he's got a lot of competitors headed his way

because he's shown the way. And just cause you're showing the way, Elon, the planes are covered with the bodies of pioneers as everybody well knows. Oh, Starlink, to be fair, Starlink's an amazing product. It's an amazing product. It is, but I'm just saying. So was Tesla three years ago, right? Sure enough. And then now there's lots of-link's an amazing product. It's an amazing product. It is, but I'm just saying, so was Tesla three years ago, right? Sure enough.

And then now there's lots of- That's the beauty of competition. That's why folks, we need an FTC and a DOJ to break companies up. You need these small, scrappy star, anyway. Project Cooper. That's correct. You can't take your eye off the ball.

He's lucky in that company, he has a good CEO, Gwen Chottwell, who is also much too obsequious to him, but nonetheless, she really runs that show and that shows the good idea to have a good CEO in place. Oh, I think you're going to be outstanding on Bill Maher. Thank you. I think you're going to be outstanding. I think that'll be-

I could crash and burn, but I hope not. I think I will. He likes me slapping him around a little bit, just like you do. Anyway, as I said, people give your predictions. We want to hear your predictions. Send in the predictions 30 seconds or less. We'll play them on the show. As I said, go to nymag.com.com.pivot

to submit this prediction for the show and beat Professor Galloway or call 855-51-Pivot. And elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, this week on Prof G Conversations, Scott spoke with David Brooks. Okay, okay for you. I love, how can you, don't, don't. I do, I just.

He's wonderful. I can't, okay. You know, how can you not love David Brooks? So many people don't. Are you not paying attention on the internet? Spiritual, smart, big talk, community. I'm glad you, he's very smart. You're right, that's fantastic.

I'm just a fan, I'm sorry. I can be not a fan of David Brooks. I think he's just a lot. He's fantastic. I'm just not a fan. I'm sorry, I can be not a fan of David Brooks. I think he's just a lot. He's a writer also at the Atlantic too. Let's listen to a clip. And when I look at the Trump administration, I see a massive attempt to return us

to the life of dog eat dog, the life of nasty, brutish and short, the life where gangsters have maximum freedom to do what they wanna do. And that is the evisceration of all the values of civilization that conservatism is supposed to transmit and preserve. And I think the raw lust for power that Donald Trump embodies has not only eviscerated conservatism, it's inviscerated Christianity. That's a very thoughtful thought. He's right. He's right. He's right. I'm excited. I'll listen to it. I promise.

I really, I really enjoyed my conversation with him. I found him to be very spiritual. By the way, we are out there with Bill Maher. Say hello to my favorites. Bill doesn't hang out with me, but the executive producers do. Sheila Griffiths. Oh wait, Sheila Griffiths, I think, and Mark Gurvitz and Dean Johnson. They're literally Friday Night Lights parents. They're like handsome people. They're a great team. They're handsome people, like good looking people

in their 40s who feel like, if I ever have a big problem, I'm just calling them and saying, can you just pretend to be my parent right now? And they are so nice. I'll say that. And they come in into that little green room and they're like, we're so happy to have them.

They're so nice and I get nice emails from them. Good swag too, good food, good swag. And beer, I shotgunned a beer before the last one because I got so fucking nervous. Oh, you're kidding, I'm not gonna do that. I think that's called alcoholism. And also my Sherpa there is a woman named Susan Bennett, she was wonderful.

Yeah, Susan's amazing. She's so lovely. I have to say, Bill Maher has a staff that stayed with him for a very long time and it's a good reflection on him, even if you don't like Omar. Greatness is in the agency of others. He has a team. Same thing with Scott. 100 percent.

Scott has a team that's been with him. The key to success is the ability to attract and retain people more talented than yourself. That is it. Full stop. Full stop. And having a big Cooper. And having a really big Cooper. My code team, the All Things C team was with me for 20 years, the conference team, they were all for the most part. The pivot team is nodding right now, they feel nice.

Nodding, they're hoping. We'll see. We've changed. There we go. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Read us out. Today's show is produced by Larry Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie and Todd entered into this episode. Jim Mackle edited this video. Read us out. at n1mag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Tune in to see Jicheng Chong, Speaker McCarthy, and and and Kara Swisher.