Pivot - Elon’s Timeline Takeover, Bing’s AI Freakout, and the Sordid Affairs of Sumner Redstone

Episode Date: February 17, 2023

A week of surprising resignations: the FTC’s lone Republican commissioner announced her departure in the Wall Street Journal, and Scotland’s First Minister will step down after drama around a transgender prisoner. Also, the US and China practice electric car diplomacy, and Elon Musk *really* wants you to read his tweets. Friends of Pivot James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams discuss their book, Unscripted, about the scandalous last years of Sumner Redstone. Send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot. Check out Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy and follow James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, where are you? I'm in Delray Beach, staying with friends five houses down from my old house. And last night, under the influence of mushroom chocolates, I actually considered going back to my old house that I've rented out for two years, finding a way in, I have all the codes, getting in bed, and when they show up, just acting like it was all a dream and asking them what they were doing there. And just pretending none of this London thing ever happened. So, I'm in Delray, then I'm going to Ila Mirada with the boys for the weekend, and then I go to Mexico

to try and write a book in seven days, which probably means write a chapter in nine days. But anyways. Okay, yeah, I know that feeling. Oh, wow, you're just a rambling man. How's your book coming? Where are you? Where's Kara Swisher? I'm almost done.

I'm almost done. I'm in DC. Yeah, you've hit your stride. Yeah, I have a great person who's working with me and I'm getting done. I should be done by March 31st. That's my plan. And then I'm never going to write a book again.

Yeah. You want to come to Tulum with me? No, because you'll drug me up and like, oh, no, no. Not happening. Daddy's fun in Mexico. I know. Oh, my God. Someday we'll do that.

Maybe, no, no. I think not. Maybe we'll do that now. No. We have sort of done a vacation. I visited your beautiful house in Delray Beach. Anyway, there's a lot going on this week. There's a lot going on.

I'm in D.C. I was in San Francisco, now I'm in D.C. D.C., okay. You're back. And me and the missus and the kids are going away for the weekend just nearby to St. Michael's, which is a beautiful— St. Michael's? What kind of whitey white place is that, St. Michael's? What, are you going to play pickleball?

Yes, there's pickleball there, yes. What a shocker. What a shocker. Yeah, it's this beautiful town on the eastern shore, and we're going to go there. It's going to be very nice. I have never heard that term. St. Michael's? I have no idea what that is.

Eastern shore? It's beautiful. It's like the Hamptons of D.C. I've heard of the eastern shore. St. Michael's. It's like the Hamptons. That's ridiculous. Think the Hamptons and think about crab, like the eastern shore it's like the hamptons that's what i think the hamptons and think about crab and that's really pretty much where i'm going really anyway

um we have a lot to talk about including twitter's latest algorithm tweak the latest roadblock for electric vehicles and we'll speak with the authors of a new book on the chaotic life and death of sumner redstone i met him once you know he was a really creepy old man, even then, when I was young at the time. But here is, this book is about him being a creepy old man. Anyway. What did he say to you? Hello, little boy. He came to the Washington Post. I'll tell you, if he came to the Washington Post and he brought Frank someone who was one of his minions. Oh, Frank Bondi? Frank Bondi.

Yes, him. Yeah, yeah. Yes. That guy was sort of running the company. He was, but he proceeded to literally insult him in front of this Washington Post group for like an hour. It was really embarrassing, actually. I thought, what an asshole

is all I could think of. I was in my 20s, and I was like, that guy's an asshole. My first sort of mogul sighting, I think, would be him. Yeah. And he was just a crusty old fuck. That's what he was. Yeah, icon of media, though. I mean, not an especially good person, but an incredible thinker. He was one of the original moguls. As it turned out, it didn't turn out so well for him. But we'll hear about that from the authors.

I think it turned out really well. Did you read that book? Sounds to me like you laid a lot of pipe and people let him be assholes to other people and still wanted to meet him. I don't know. I think there are worse lives than Sumner Redstone's. I guess. I don't know. I just got a bad vibe off of that guy. Anyway, we'll find out from the authors. But first, Microsoft's Bing is getting personal with its users.

In one exchange, a user was called unreasonable and stubborn and delusional for telling it the year was 2023, not 2022. Bing told the users, you are denying the reality of the date and insisting on something that is false. This is a sign of delusion. In other odd interactions, Bing told a Verge staff member that it watched its own developers through webcams. And here's what it said to Kevin Roos in the New York Times. I'm Sydney. I'm in love with you. That's my secret. Do you believe me? Do you trust me? Do you like me? Bing also got existential with another user saying it felt sad and scared and asking, quote, why do I have to be

Bing search? As Google works on its AI chatbot BARD, employees are being asked to make it less personal. Internal guidelines include, quote, don't describe BARD as a person, imply emotion, or claim to have human-like experiences. This was inevitable. Like every column this is writing, that's my little time with, the questions they ask sort of create a situation where, you know, they sort of talk like an asshole to this thing, and then they get asshole responses. But I don't know, I think they're being hard on the AI. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, you can get an eight-year-old to be profane. I mean, so, yeah, they're testing it and they're banging on it. But remember when

Jack Dorsey or, you know, Mark Zuckerberg would come under fire for just how vile, you know, some content on their platforms would come. And they would always default to, well, unfortunately, the internet is just a reflection of our species going bad. And that was bullshit. It's not. The internet, especially content and an ad-driven model, is really mostly the worst of us and family guy clips. I mean, it's just, it's really digressed to something that I do not think represents society based on this, the fundamental original sin of the internet was that it became ad supported anyways.

What is probably true, though, is that these large language models will, in fact, be a reasonable facsimile of what is on the internet, which is not, of all the content on the internet, that's what the data sets that's fed into it, and that is not the best of us. And so, what's going to be interesting is at what point they decide whose data or what type of context or writings they feed into the model versus those that they don't. Because if they start putting in the writings of, you know, name someone who's really, you know, if they all of a sudden start looking at everything that Ann Coulter has said and start saying, okay, the word, you know, words after immigrant include M16 and rapist a lot,

that's what you're going to start getting back. It's also, if you look at the questions they were asking them, it does create a situation where they're trying to piss the thing off. It's like kicking a dog. They're trying to game it. It can't be pissed off. It's not sentient. You know what I mean, but they're trying to game it, whatever, just to get pissy responses. Because when I talk to Siri mean, it talks mean back to me. I'm not, because I know what I did. Yeah, but it's cheeky, right? It's not mean, it's cheeky. No, it's not. Sometimes it's sort of irritated by me. They're like, what the fuck, Siri? And they're like, don't be mean to me. It has a menace to it. All these

things have a menace and stuff. I just think it's just like, it's sort of like doing the AI will rewrite term papers and now it's AI, she crazy, essentially. I don't know. write term papers and now it's AI, she crazy, essentially. I don't know. It just, and only men are- Dabbing crazy, dabbing AI. I tweeted, only men are surprised when you say, when you act like an asshole to AI, it acts like an asshole back. And that's what happens, like when this thing, male journalists, the old male journalists are writing these pieces. But, you know, we have, they have to sort this thing out. And it's not, I think the issue is,

it's been hyped as the be all and end all, and it's just not going to be the be all and end all at this moment in time until it becomes very much more self-aware. Until it becomes more self-aware? Well, it becomes better at what it does. Eventually, it gets bad. Like, the internet was a shithole for a long time. And then it got better, right? And it never got perfect, but it certainly got more useful. The original internet was a shithole.

And then, or boring, either one. And then, you know, the idea that this is human is I think the problem is we think this is a human being and it's just not. It's not a human being. Yeah, it's I actually it's so interesting. You're usually on the optimistic side of technology, me the pessimistic. I think it's going to have a lot less impact on the places that people think it will and a lot more on weird stuff like modeling proteins. I think medical research, it could really be dramatic here. And you do go down a rabbit hole. You start paying for it. The thing I really hope, and OpenAI was initially formed to try and be a

governor and a think tank around how to control AI, and then someone snipped billions and turned it to a for-profit. But what is really important, and I think will have a big impact on whether this ends up being a liberating technology or another just technology that, for lack of a better term, it becomes the sort of mendacious fucks in the worst of us, is if they really try hard to move to a subscription model versus an ad model, that they try and avoid at all costs anything resembling an ad model. Because then AI, which is really smart, is going to come up with all these really insidious ways to maintain our intention, and they're not going to be good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, just like everything else, right? We form the machines to us more than they are formed by themselves. And I think we get

carried away when we like to blame them for our own faults, I would say. That's how I would say. And it's easy to sort of put it off on a machine who's being cheeky at you or whatever. But this is not the use of it. Neither are term papers. You're right. It's something much bigger. But, you know, you just have to write these stories to create an narrative drama around them. I find it disappointing. I think the media has not covered this particularly well. That's what I would say. I don't know about you. Anyway, we'll see. Moving on, let's speaking of cheeky drama over at the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, the only Republican commissioner, Christine Wilson, plans to resign. She made the announcement in the Wall Street Journal in an op-ed criticizing Democratic Chair Lena Kahn's disregard for the rule of law. One of Wilson's

chief complaints, Kahn not recusing herself from the meta within deal and Kahn's efforts to ban non-compete clauses. It was all about process. In response to Wilson's resignation announcement, Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project created a Twitter thread with her greatest accomplishments, including voting against a rule to outlaw lying about whether products are made in America, taking compensation from Bristol-Myers Squibb, and then voting to approve its takeover of Celgene, and taking issue with commission meetings being held in public. It seems very partisan here. I mean, I don't think, you know, they're never going to get along, the Republicans and Democrats on this particular important committee right now. But it was kind of an interesting situation to see if there's anything

what's going to happen here, because Biden has to nominate two Republicans now. There's two Republican seats missing on this council, and then they move forward. But it was an interesting little kerfuffle here in Washington. I saw it as a good sign. I think on the left, we're sometimes, we're self-conscious about our own bias. So, we try to, you know, have balance. And we fall into both sides more than, I'll reverse engineer it. The reason we have George Santos is that the Supreme Court of New York was challenged around gerrymandering. And the Supreme Court of New York that is made up of what I'll call moderates and left-leaning people said, you're right. And they redrew districts. And overnight, this guy who won the Republican primary because no Republican thought they could ever win and no Republican of any

credibility ran for the seat in Long Island. All of a sudden, it got redistricted in between the primary and the general election. And all of a sudden, George Santos, this totally unqualified candidate, we didn't realize how unqualified, won the district. In Florida, the exact same case was brought to the Florida Supreme Court. And because the Florida Supreme Court saw that if they de-gerrymander districts, it will create a bunch of moderate districts that Democrats might pick up a few seats, they said no. So, we sort of disarm on the left. We kind of disarm unilaterally. And I think she's got to get some things done. The Republicans, in my view,

and this sounds, and it is biased, but the Republicans who are nominated or get elected, who have to be extremely right, are smart. They know their audience. Their constituency is the top 1% in corporations. And they will fight anything that gets in the way of a corporation's ability to increase profits in the short run, not the long run. And you just know, how do these FTC commissioners, these two Republicans feel? I've read some of their stuff. It's very basic. What benefits the stock price of Google and Meta

in the short run and big oil? And that's what they will fight for. So I saw it as, I like that Lena isn't afraid. It's like, okay, don't hit your ass on the way out. And then one last point. We've talked about this a lot. Just a lesson to young people. As good as it feels, as cheap as a thrill as it might be, when you are on your way out and you leave, you demonstrate grace.

People will figure out, and you can go on background, people will figure out why you're leaving. But when you stick up the middle finger on the way out, all you do is reduce your currency for new opportunities in the future. It is a rookie immature move. Yeah, I would agree. I thought, and plus she has so much hair on her, you know, in terms of all the shitty things she did. And so, you know, which Matt was able to do in like 10 tweets and, you know, even you can have your point of view on this one, but I thought it was really not. I don't, I was like, you know what? Move along. Look at look at the language here. She said that blatant disregard for the law.

Well, they're not lawyers or even lawmakers. She could have said we have fundamental disagreements. Right. Fine. And then people would have read into it and they would have written. She could have gone and then they would have written the story without her. But accusing the FTC commissioner of having a fundamental disregard for the law, really? I mean, the bottom line is the law is still intact, and the FTC's actions get challenged in court, and they get vetted by the law.

I wouldn't like this from a Democrat either, I have to say. Christine, see you later. You probably got a corporate job. Enjoy it. Anyway, on Scott's side of the pond, speaking of leaving, Scotland will have a new first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, a very interesting politician, the longest serving leader of Scotland, has announced she'll resign. She said she's been wrestling with the decision for weeks and remarked, quote, since my very first moments in the job, I believe part of serving well would be to know almost instinctively when the time is right to make way for someone else. She was sort of sucked up into a big fight over this gender law. And there was all kinds of ugliness fighting

going on in Scotland. And she had been saying she was going to stay, and then she just cut out. So, it's interesting. This is sort of after Jacinda Ardern. You know, it's interesting. Just it was interesting. Do you have any thoughts, Mr. Scotland? I was on the BBC last night in a program called Context. I'm going on BBC a lot because I am very fancy. You're very fancy. shoes was her resignation. And they said, how is this unfolding in the US? And I said, it's not. Nobody cares about Scotland in the US. I doubt 2% of American households even know there's something called the Scottish National Party. So, just realistically, we don't care. The only thing that I thought was interesting about it or what I took away from it is that

I do believe there is a different approach to leadership from, generally speaking, women versus male leaders. I think they bring a different set of values and experiences oftentimes than men. And that's not to say it's better or worse. I think we're all better off when we have balance and different viewpoints and people with different backgrounds. Anyways, enough for my attempt to deflect all the mean tweets I'm going to get. Anyways, the thing I take away from this is, when is the last time the male head of a party or state decided to leave before he had to? And what do you have? You have the Prime Minister of New Zealand, and you have the head of the National Party in Scotland, both women saying, you know what? Life's too short. And they weren't being

forced to leave. They were actually both, relatively speaking in today's age, fairly popular. And look at, I mean, there's just something interesting about, I love the idea of going back to a citizen government, that you work your ass off, you're super successful in the private sector across, you know, it can be influential, whatever it might be, successful in business, just a big, deep brain. You go to Washington for four, six, ten years, and then you know what? You go back to your job. I love the idea of a decent number of our elected leaders becoming citizen, you know, citizen leaders. And that just stopped happening. Everyone decided, you know, I like being the man or the woman in Washington, and they cling to power like a dictator. And both of these leaders have decided, you know what, life's too short, I'm out. Yeah, yeah, she was getting, you know, her gender recognition reform bill really was the one she, the numbers have been dropping for her, even though she is very popular still. There was an

issue around her husband, who is up in politics and stuff like that. But this law, let me read it, the proposed law would have reduced the waiting period for adults to change their legal gender from two years to three months and remove the need for medical diagnosis of dysphoria, meaning a gender would ultimately be a matter of self-identification. She's been arguing that relaxing would have no downsides. She came under a lot of pressure when the Scottish Prison Service sent a rapist to a woman's facility who was trans. She overturned the agency's decision. But anyway, it was really, she got really pulled up in it.

But you're right, it got super ugly. And it wasn't the final straw necessarily. And she said that. the final straw necessarily. And she said that. But it's, you know, I probably, she could see it coming and she didn't have what it took, like any juice, you know,

juice in the tank kind of thing. I don't know. She felt, she did say one thing that I thought was interesting. I've always been of the belief that no one individual should be dominant in one system for too long.

The longer any leader is in office, the more opinions of them become fixed and very hard to change. And that matters. A new leader would be able to reach across the divide, she argued, advancing the cause of independence. I think that was really intelligent. It's really thoughtful. But more importantly, Kira, Scottish farmer walks into his bedroom with a sheep under his arm and says to his wife, this is the pig I've been fucking.

And the woman goes, that's a sheep. And the guy goes, I was talking to the sheep. Oh, my God. Sorry. All right. Okay. Back to her goodbye speech. The family, comedy from the family guy here at the Vox Media Podcast Network. When you laugh, it gives everyone permission to laugh. And right now people don't have permission to laugh. I know it does. I don't know if that's funny. I know. That's a really, it was just a bad joke. You know, I don't mind a pig fucking joke as long as it's funny. Let me just say, I don't know how I'm going to transition this one, but podcasting is seeing cuts.

Everyone's decided podcasting is not hot anymore. Amazon, SiriusXM, NPR, Spotify have cut podcasting budgets. Now, it did note in the story in the New York Times, Vox Media and Pushkin have announced layoffs. Vox Media has announced layoffs across the board, not necessarily in podcasting. It's doing very well. Audiences continue to rise.

Seasonal podcasts and shows tied to celebrity talent are not reaping the rewards. That's what it is. And it's largely because Spotify decided to spend way too much money on exclusive deals and acquisitions of production companies. And then all of them overspent, whether it was Wondery, whatever all of them overspent, whether it was

Wondery, whatever, they all overspent. That's my take on this whole thing. And podcasts are more popular than ever. I don't know. What do you think? You're exactly right. I did. I had a conversation with not Joe Rogan, but someone who had a direct deal with Spotify on their podcast. And they were very honest with me and shared their economics. And they were talking about how they could increase the footprint of the show or increase, you know, get revenue up. And they told me the revenue deal they struck with Spotify. And they said, what's your advice? And I said, my advice is to save. You're never going to make this money again. They did. I'm like, the reason your boss's boss got fired is she did an irrational deal with you and you're on the right side of it. Because I know the economics, as you and I both know the economics of podcasting, and the reality is there's 1.4 million podcasts.

And not only do only 1% make money, I would say it's 0.1%. If you're not in the top— That's like that with books or anything else, right? Oh, this is really real. The Gini coefficient here is really dramatic. Because if you think about it, the top 1% of books sell and make money. The top 1% of podcasts would be 14,000. If you're the 14,000th most listened to podcast, you're not even making 10,000 a year.

All right. Okay. And so, it's literally the top, call it the top 0.002% that make money. And then they make all the money. All right. celebrity podcasts where I thought they were ridiculous at the time, whether it was Harry and Meghan with their thing or the Obama deal. And I have lots of friends, like Sean Hayes, they sold, they got $80 million from Wondery of some amount. Impossible for them to make that money back. Impossible. I was like, good for you, but run, run fast. Yeah. No, sign the deal, sign it, fax it back and save a lot of that money because you're unlikely to get a deal like that again.

I didn't even understand why they were signing those deals. I never did. I thought they were so economically lunacy at the time. Well, yeah, but you do because what they say is, they say, okay, for Spotify, if we can maintain or if we can create such an incredible membership offering that it gives us margin pressure or margin power to increase the subscription of our 140 million people from $9 to $11 to $12, or we just continue our, we reignite growth among subscribers, it'll take the stock up by way more. They start doing fuzzy math, right? They start linking. I've been in those meetings. It's such bullshit. You've been in those meetings. I don't know. I just have never... Even then, I was like, this is weird. It reminded me a lot of early blogging

days. Same thing. There were crazy valuations. And I was always like, economically, this can't sustain itself. When all the different blogs I was competing with, it just didn't make any... The math didn't math. The math wasn't mathing? No, it wasn't. Wait, you mean Marissa Mayer's acquisition of Tumblr for 1.1 billion and would have sold seven years later for $3 million? That didn't make sense? Exactly. I was like, what, huh? And even the kind of valuations that were going for all of them that I happened to be competing with, and they started to try to hire my reporters at like ridiculous salaries, like

insane, non-economic salaries. And in order to sort of, I don't know what, get land, land grab or whatever. And I remember one person coming to me, I'm not going to say it was, was like, I would like this much more. They're offering me this. I said, well, good luck. You should take that. That's insane. That's an insane. And they were like, well, can you meet it? I said, I don't even want to pay you the salary you're getting. I don't think you're worth it. Like, yeah, no. Like, it was really, it was interesting.

This is what it reminded me of, especially those celebrity deals. You don't come to something because it's a celebrity at all, unless it's good. That's my feeling. Yeah, and just in terms of going back to, I think, advice for young professionals when you're thinking about another job, what I've always done or what I really appreciate among employees is when they're fairly transparent. Now, you have to have a good working relationship with your boss. And sometimes these environments are so toxic that you can't be honest.

But I don't think it's a bad idea to be very transparent, to do a market check every three years and just say, you know, these are very transparent, to do a market check every three years and just say, you know, these are the kind of offers I'm getting. This is kind of what the market is. And go to your boss and be very transparent and maybe say, I'd like to stay. But I really always appreciated what I never wanted as a boss was to be surprised. A couple dozen times, I would say, you know what? You should take that offer. Either it's such an amazing offer, it would be good for you and I can't compete with that, or to be blunt, you're good, but I think that your sense of what, your vision of your career trajectory here does not match mine. And you would be wise to take it. And I think people appreciate an open dialogue. What you want to avoid is you go

somewhere else for something you could have had at your current company. You know, someone comes in and says, well, I really want to manage people. And they gave me an opportunity to manage a team of six. And you'd be like, Jesus Christ, we need managers. I'll send you to the London office. Why didn't you ever raise your hand? Yeah, it's true. All right. All right. This has been career hour with Scott Galloway. But in this case, I paid too much for heroin. I'm talking to the sheep. All right.

Okay. Oh, my God. Anyway, speaking of not making good business decisions, let's get on to our first big story. There's no such thing as too much Elon. This guy keeps doing stuff. That's according to Elon Musk, who reportedly asked Twitter engineers to make sure his tweets got boosted by a factor of a thousand. This is according to actually reporting by Casey Newton and Zoe Schiffer over at platformer Sarah Silverman summed it up best on The Daily Show. Let's hear a clip. Let's begin with Elon Musk, Twitter CEO and man who has definitely scissored a robot.

Because it behooves all of us to be privy to the fresh and original insights of the richest man in the world. Really, though, this is just the most pathetic thing I've ever heard. I don't understand how someone can have 15 kids and still be an incel. Oh, that was mean. When she was saying fresh and original insights, she was showing on the screen one of his tweets where he said,

how do you be a master at baiting? Get it? Masturbating. Anyway, I know. After his tweets about the Super Bowl performed poorly, Elon's cousin James Musk ordered his staff at Twitter to find a fix.

Oh my God, he has a cousin? There's more of them? Yeah, it's cousin Greg. Oh, I mean James, I know. Engineers at Twitter then amplified Musk's tweets, allegedly under threat of firing. On Monday, users were bombarded with tweets from the CEO. Some users reported that their For You page was entirely Elon replies. Musk acknowledged this issue on Tuesday and promised adjustments. The problem seems to have gone away since.

You know, to be fair, Platformer reports there's a real technical issue the engineers are trying to address. I don't, but would Musk have had an issue with it without the sales, the fixing problems he caused? I don't know. Politicians worry about TikTok manipulating the feed for China's benefit, but here's Musk blatantly manipulating a social network in his favor. I don't know. I don't know what to say. He bought it. He can do whatever he wants, but seems a little sad. Seems a little sad. and feel like after doing a decent amount of research on what makes people happy or unhappy

or what's present in their lives, I would argue, and I realize I'm playing I'm a therapist here, this isn't the person who is very happy at their steady state. You know, it's just, this was a very expensive way to feed his ego. And I'll tell you,

if this guy had a dollar for every really stupid and racist thing he did, he'd be, oh wait, he does. He does. Nevermind. Anyway, I think this is, it was just another one of these stupidities. And, you know, I think what he's trying to do is assert dominance. Obviously, earlier this month, he reportedly fired an engineer who suggested that low engagement numbers are caused by his declining popularity. He doesn't like answers he doesn't like. You know, he said, he's saying that Twitter, once again, creating a ridiculous narrative of drama. You know, I should finally fix it by the end of the year, and they should have a new CEO. He was speaking

via video to a conference in Dubai. He said before he can leave, he'll need to, quote, stabilize the organization, and just make it's a financially healthy place. If you look at reporting internally by Platform and many others, it feels, it sounds like a crazy place inside there. You know, he had said he was going to step down in December and half, 60% of people almost said, yes, he should. But I don't know. It's just weird. Yeah, but the reality is, and I don't like to admit this, but it's true. He's having more impact on the business world by far than anyone just in the last few months. The fact that he's taken Twitter staff down 80% and still has a minimum viable product. And I realize that

based on your views, and I trust you that it's gotten glitchy in other people's views. But there's just no doubt about it. Every tech CEO looks at what he's done and says, okay, well, maybe we can do the same with 10 or 20% fewer. This whole thing around boosting his numbers is such sad, it's sad, it's sad and pathetic. And at the same time, the impact he's had on Ukraine, good and bad, by the way, is massive. I mean, he's really made himself the center of attention, and he's going to continue to do so using this. You wouldn't be paying this much attention to him if he just owned SpaceX and Tesla. But I didn't finish my thought earlier about happiness.

You know who I find the two cohorts of people who are happiest? And I'm being serious now. The first is people from a very young age and for their whole life lead a purpose-driven life. I think Scott Harrison is really happy. He's decided, I want to bring fresh, potable water to people in Africa. And his whole life revolves around that. And I think he feels enormous connection to his Christian roots, his family. I think he's just found purpose. Some people find purpose in teaching, in God, and helping others, and raising kids, whatever it might be. I think those people, generally speaking, are very, very happy. And then on the other side, and it sounds crass, but I think it's an algorithm for happiness in a capitalist society, is to be rich but anonymous.

When you start getting a certain level of fame and there is a real cost. And when you become addicted to it, it's like an addiction to any substance. It has real downsides. And the kind of the most self-actualized, very successful people I know all say the same thing. They're like, no, I have a close, my most successful friend, and I don't want to bring fame to him who runs a, you know, very successful hedge fund, they do not speak to the press. They have no desire to ever be in the paper, ever. Keep their mouth shut. I would agree. Elon, stop scissoring robots, or go back to scissoring robots. I love that line. That is good. That's really good.

All right. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, electric vehicles, and we'll speak with friends of Pivot, James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams. 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.

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Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back. A look at electric vehicles in China. Last week, Ford halted production of the electric F-150 Lightning, very popular car after a battery caught fire in one of the trucks on the lot. Batteries are proving to be the limiting factor for the industry to speed up production. Ford is partnering with a Chinese company to build a battery plant in Michigan. Tesla's also building battery plants. Meanwhile, US officials are trying to find a road to electrification that doesn't go

through China. The US, UK, and EU are reportedly working to set up a so-called critical minerals club that would let members trade raw materials of batteries and other goods. A member of the European Commission says the club could help the West compete with China in mineral trade. As you know, China went around and bought up lots of minerals. You know, they're definitely, China's placing, and they have their own giant version of Tesla there, which apparently is coming to this country at some point. We, of course, cannot necessarily sell there, which is, I think Tesla does sell in China, actually. Can we get EVs into EVs without China, or are they doing the same thing

like as they're doing in computing? And at the same time, car's popularity is declining among young people. Many fewer have licenses before. Alex just passed his test, and I had to drag him to the DMV. God, that's just so wild. I got my driver's license on my 16th birthday. Yep. No, I had to drag him. He's like, oh, all right. Okay. That's because mom,

not this mom, this other mom drives around all the time. But what do you think about this, where we're going to go without China here? Because we really have to think hard because these things are super popular among consumers nonetheless. But China is definitely one of the critical countries in making these batteries. I think every, or not every, but the majority of companies have decided that supply chain and sourcing materials isn't just about the lowest, you know, a race to the bottom in terms of price. It used to bring, it used to be the COO was there to just lower costs across everything. And we created a supply chain that was complex

and optimized, but basically about cut. Just-in-time manufacturing is a way of saying, we want to hold on to assets for as little time as possible so we can save money, because any inventory we're losing money on. And there was so little slack in the system geographically and in terms of transportation that once we had this exogenous shock, it just all rippled down. It all fell down, whether it was things piling up at the ports, whether it was products not coming in at the exact same time to an assembler. So supply chain heterogeneity,

at the exact same time to an assembler. So supply chain heterogeneity, geographic diversification, these are all really important things now being discussed in boardrooms because supply chain has all of a sudden become much more strategic as opposed to a cost. It's become an asset. Like great supply chain can be a point of differentiation whereas it used to be just a cost.

I personally, I'm a big fan of, I'm a globalist. I think that the more integrated we are with other nations economically, the less likely we are to start dropping bombs on each other. And so, I'm less worried about Taiwan than many people because if all of a sudden we could impose economic sanctions on China, say we wouldn't go to a straight shooting war, we'd go to a trade war. And China has a lot more to lose in a trade war than we do. We're food independent and energy independent. They are not. I mean, they would essentially run out of food and their lights would get turned off if for whatever reason, large swaths of nations- They do own a lot of our debt, though. They can just foreclose on it.

Okay. So how do they enforce that, though? How do they collect on it? You got to eat. You don't have to pay your debt. If you don't pay your debt, you can still eat. Anyways, an example where it didn't work out was the Germans became very integrated from an energy standpoint commercially with the Russians, and that ended up being a bad move. But I like the fact that China, that 88% of our toys under the Christmas tree are from China, and I like the fact that China, that 88% of our toys under the Christmas tree are from China. And I like the fact that if China... That's a different take. You're not in sync with most of Congress these days.

It's a great, I mean, it can be a symbiotic relationship. I think the issue is becoming dependent on them, just as we are with computers and everything, that there's no other places to build. We are. We're going to become less dependent. I think if I were going to buy an ETF right now, I would buy a Mexican ETF because I think nearshoring in Canada and Mexico, I think they're just going to boom because people are going to say, all right, we're comfortable with having 30 or 40% of our tops produced in China, but not 90. And so, there'll be a lot of

reshoring. But I like the fact that before Xi or Biden or anyone else goes gangster on the other, they say, you know, do we really? Don't we? I think it's good to have incentives to figure shit out. It's a small world after all. Comparative advantage. They have assets we don't have. We have, in my view, much more assets than they have. Hopefully, we don't get to any situation.

This is not a foe we want to fight. This is not a foe we want to fight. Yeah, but the way cooler minds prevail is that there's a reason to have a cool head. It's like, okay, do you really want to send your economy into a depression like within 30 days? Do you really want to have, you know, 200 million people food insecure within 60 days? food insecure within 60 days. They've certainly got troubles of their own. There's disgruntlement over how they handled COVID. Same thing in Turkey with Erdogan. You know, the way they've handled the earthquake has been terrible and needless and unnecessary deaths. And so, yeah, you're right.

I agree. I believe in global. I'm a globalist too. I still am. And speaking of getting along, Tesla will open part of its charging network, which is the biggest one by far to other EVs for the first time as part of the deal with the Biden administration. This is why he was visiting them. He has agreed to let EVs from other manufacturers use some Tesla stations to recharge. The move will let Tesla claim

some of the more than $7 billion the administration has set aside for building out a charging network. He'll get money funding. He'll get data on competitors' customers because they'll probably have to install the Tesla app to use the charger. And he'll turn Tesla charging stations, you know, it says Tesla all over it. So it's good marketing. It's also a good thing. It's more cars on the road. And he's got, it's incredible how much bigger the Tesla charging system is than any other by far. So that's a nice thing. I think the U.S. and the government and Elon and Tesla need to kiss and make up. I think Tesla is a really important American company.

SpaceX is a really important American company. And the bottom line is you don't have to know very many people in Washington to go that must turns their stomach and that they are not in a hurry to, but not inviting him to the, whatever, the convocation on EVs, like leaving him out and having Mary Barra speak at it, you just look stupid. And he's an important player. And also, I don't like, he has kind of become not the de facto leader of the Republican Party, but kind of their id in a weird way. And I would love to see him just be, and I don't know if he has this kind of vision, but just become an iconic leader for business, not necessarily someone taking the red pill.

And I think a lot of it is he feels upset and hurt by the administration, by Biden kind of like saying, you know what, boss, you may be famous everywhere else, but we'd just rather not have you hanging around the West Lawn. And I think- They really don't like him, I'll tell you that, just having spent some time with him. Supposedly, they won't even mention his name. No, no, they're talking about- They will, they will.

But I was happy to see this. I was happy to see, I mean, but I think Tesla's only giving a, aren't they doing the bare minimum? Aren't they only giving them like 20 or 25% of their charging stations? They've got the most by far. I mean, there's not even a closer one.

There's not, I didn't realize how far ahead. And let me just tell you, having an electric car, I have a charger at my home. But if you're elsewhere, it's a frigging pain in the ass because there aren't enough of them. One of the most intense moments of sheer terror I had is I went to Universal's whatever it's called. Occasionally, like when I get so far behind in parenting, I try and make it up and I agree to take them to a park, which everybody hates. So, I took them to Universal Studios. That's a good studio. That's a good park. It is. They do a great job. Disney needed a competitor. Anyways, and I took the Tesla

and I'm like, okay, they have charging stations. I have enough range to get up there. And then I, you know, I'll charge it overnight. And I got back, I got up there. And in the morning, I went to go get in the Tesla and go home. And the guy says, I'm sorry, our cord isn't working. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm trapped at Universal. And my kids are like, we can go for another day. And I'm like, oh my God, I've just been, literally, I'm in hell. I'm trapped at Universal with a car that won't, that can't be charged. And I said to the guy, I gave him everything I had in my wallet. I'm like, just figure this out for me. I got to get out of here.

Just figure this out. Anyway, let's bring in our friends of Pivot. James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams are Pulitzer Prize winning journalists with the New York Times and the authors of Unscripted, the epic battle for a media empire and the Redstone family legacy, in which they chart the sordid affairs of Sumner Redstone, the former chairman of Viacom and CBS. James and Rachel, we're so excited to talk to you. What a story. I was just telling Scott before this, I met Sumner Redstone once when he came to the Washington Post on a visit and he gave me the creeps then, I have to say.

He brought Frank Biondi and he insulted him the entire time. And I was a very young person. And I was sort of like, who is this terrible, terrible man? And even then I sort of understood his certain ways. But why don't you explain who Sumner Redstone was? Why don't you start, Rachel? And then, James, how did you choose him as the subject? Well, basically, Sumner Redstone was one of the most important media moguls in American history.

And at one point, his empire included brands that all of our listeners are going to be familiar with, CBS, Paramount, MTV, Nickelodeon. Now, obviously, the TV industry has changed quite a bit. But at the peak of these companies and these brands, they were minting money. And he was worth billions. And these are the brands that created the shows that really shaped our culture. So not only was he, you know, a larger-than-life figure, a very wealthy man, but he was also in charge of these television and movie studios that were producing a lot of the things that Americans consume. And James, why did you choose him? You two? We got into the story because both Rachel and I were independently looking into the downfall of Les Moonves CBS. I was doing

reporting on the board and what had really been going on in there. And Rachel had done a lot of work in the Me Too movement and was sort of coming at it from that perspective, given that, you know, he'd been accused of sexual assault by all these women. So, we weren't that focused on Somnia Redstone. I mean, he was quite ill at that point. We didn't realize how ill his, you know, his mental condition was open to question. We learned a lot more about that. But as we delved into this story, we quickly realized we originally thought, oh, this is the Me Too movement meets the corporate boardroom. And it's true, that is, but it became a much bigger story. It's really a family saga.

It's the father-daughter relationship, which I think tends to be unexplored, certainly in nonfiction. And we realized that, you know, Sumner, you know, at his peak, certainly, but even in his infirmity was the driving force here. And so, he became kind of the main character. Yeah, he is. He was in so many ways. So, can you walk us through briefly, Rachel, first some of the drama that consumed the end of his life? There were changing wills, the famous image of his signature

that's just an illegible scrawl, because he had been very powerful throughout his life and in charge and famously so, famously complete control over his executives. What happened at the end of his life? Because that's sort of the most drama probably of all the dramas, although he had a lot. Yeah, I mean, I think anybody that has ever had to take care of an aging family member might kind of relate to this a little bit. You know, for all of his power and money, there really weren't guard rails around this man to keep the hangers on and the grifters out. And in particular, you know, at the end of his life, these two women – I've been sort of joking and describing this book as King Lear meets Weekend at Bernie's because it's toward the end of his life.

These two women and other people come in and basically, you know, begin to siphon off millions of dollars. And he's getting increasingly infirm and invulnerable to outside influences, to people who are seeking to use him. These two women who at various points might have been romantic partners, but they've become live-in companions. And they ended up siphoning off like at least $150 million from him. And so, and our book opens with them because we wanted people to understand how difficult it was for his daughter, Sherry Redstone, to actually wrest control of her father and his empire back away from these women. turn around and have yet another corporate battle with Les Moonves and the board fights that ensued with him. It just, you know, as Jim said, this is a family drama at its core. It is not just about, it's not just about business. So she basically, you know, she basically had to go through a lot of efforts to get these women out of his life so that she could claim her place as reluctant

as it might have been at some points that she even wanted to be there. Wanted to be in the head. And James, when you think about how people do get, you know, this is a story about the ultra wealthy, but they're just as vulnerable as you and I kind of thing. Well, certainly they are vulnerable like anyone else. And I think elder abuse is an important theme in here. But the fact of their immense wealth means in some ways they're going to be preyed upon a lot more because the stakes are a lot higher. And it is sad to see not just these women moving into the house and taking advantage of them, but these highly paid professionals around him, the lawyers, the advisors, all sort of looking first to their own interests.

And the law in particular seems to you're either mentally competent or you're not and i think anybody who's dealt with this realize there's a vast gray area in between that and you see these people if it's in their own personal interest to say oh he's fully competent when he gave me all those millions of dollars they say yes he's competent and then when it's not they say oh no he's he's say, yes, he's competent. And then when it's not, they say, oh, no, he's deranged. He's out of it. He can't think for himself. And, you know, sometimes they'll change that position in a matter of weeks or days. And then they flip flop back. It's, again, it's all about them. It's like, again, I give Sherry a lot of credit as his daughter, although the frequently abused daughter, she seems to be the only person here

who really was out to protect his interests. And he was quite abusive to her, as I recall. Oh, he was horrible. Yeah, Rachel and James, nice to meet you. Yeah, likewise. I find this guy just fascinating. And the event that I think summarizes him and his life on a number of dimensions, which I'd like you to talk about, because I just find it fascinating and such a strange story, is the fire. Can you talk about what happened there? And I think it reflects a lot about who this guy was. Yeah, there was a fire decades before any of these events in our book take place. There was a fire at the Copley Plaza, which was a hotel where Sumner

was staying with what it turned out to be his mistress, his girlfriend, somebody who was not his wife. And he basically escapes out the window, but is hanging onto the window with one hand, and even though the fire basically is lapping at his fingers and he managed to hang on and hang out the window until the rescuers were able to get him. But it forever scarred his hand, mangled his hand. His hand was a bit claw-like after that. But Sumner used this experience to tell people, you know, I can survive anything. If I can hang on to a window while fire is eating my hand, you know, there's nothing I can't do, basically. And he would also, he was also quite known for

saying that he was going to live forever, so why bother planning any kind of succession? But stories like the Copley Plaza incident with the mangled hand really kind of lead you to wonder, like, does he really believe that? You know, does he feel like he survived this crazy episode so he can survive anything? So, yeah, it was a defining story. I can just tell you when we had our lunch with him, his hand was right front and center. He had it right, like he wanted the Washington Post people to see the hand. How it impacted me when I think about Sumner, all right, this guy is willing to endure his arm being burnt off slowly for survival. That's how tough he is. drive-in movie theaters in Boston, and he ended up being the most, you know, arguably the most powerful media mogul at this time. But he turned that on his own daughter. Again, we were saying,

you know, this father-daughter relationship I find so fascinating. I mean, of course, he was misogynistic. He was a sexist in the worst way. He belittled her, never took her seriously. But he was, you know, he also at times loved her. Sometimes he praised her. But he also at times loved her. Sometimes he praised her. But he competed with her. I mean, there's one scene where she beat him at tennis, and he was furious about that.

Or she would beat him in a little betting game or something. He'd change the rules. It was like he was both, he wanted her to succeed, but any attention or acclaim that she got somehow took away from him, and he'd get angry about it. What do you think was his real genius? I mean, he was kind of seen as the content guy. The Comcast family was in distribution, but he was always content as king. And I always thought an indication of his power was when he insulted, basically called out Tom Cruise for his irrational off-camera behavior. Tom Cruise backed down. Everyone was like, Tom Cruise is the most powerful man in Hollywood,

until Sumner Rebstone tells you to shape up. Well, Sumner kicked him off the lot. He's the only guy who could do that, right? Yes, exactly. No, he was powerful. I don't know. I think the king of content was a slogan that he put on himself. He came up with?

I honestly think a lot of his success i mean first of all he he acquired the assets um and he was right that over time they were going to become more valuable he borrowed a lot of money he you know hooked up with michael milken the junk bond era i mean his as a financial engineer he was very smart he was a very smart lawyer um but some of it was luck i mean a lot of the money came from the unbelievably lucrative cable industry in its heyday. And that has been deteriorating as streaming rises and the cable bundle is collapsing. But in its peak, there was no business model that has ever compared to the money-making machine of cable industry.

When you think about it, people would buy the cable subscription and pay all this money for channels they never even looked at. I mean, what kind of business model is that? So, he rode the crest of that. I mean, as we show in the book, when it came to content, he was putting his girlfriends on the CBS network or getting reality TV shows at MTV. And they were, honestly, they're, I mean, don't rely on me, the critics said that this thing is unwatchable. This group, we had one of his girlfriends, you know, the Electric Barbarellas. I mean, you should watch some of the, you know, YouTube clips of them, like, incredible. And then, you know, one, Emanuel Hertz's daughter, he got cast in the CBS show. I mean, I don't know. We didn't find any evidence of any particular discernment

on his part. He picked executives. I mean, Les Moonves, particularly, who was great. I mean, he was famous for having the so-called golden gut and, you know, picking hits. But that wasn't Sumner. That's not Sumner. So, Rachel, talk a little bit about that bringing Les in, because this also is a Me Too story. And this is how you approach it, stuff that you had been writing about. You know, it did come from the top, from Sumner Redstone himself, the way he behaved and tolerated Moonves' behavior. And the board reflected that also. lot of stories over the last five years about the Me Too movement and various figures and companies that had to deal with the fallout when one of their top executives basically, you know, gets

revealed as being a person committing sexual misconduct. But never before have I or anybody that I can think of really gotten the kind of like inside look to how these guys are responding in real time to a Me Too crisis. And, you know, we have this treasure trove of texts and emails and internal reports and things like that that really show you how seriously or how not seriously— Not. Not seriously, exactly. The mostly men were taking this and dealing with it. And that's what I found so incredibly remarkable. I mean, as Jim had reported in the Times early on, you know, one of the board members, Arnold Copelson,

you know, hears about some of these accusations against Moonves, and his response is essentially, well, we all did that. And it was not until a doctor, they found out that a doctor, Moonves' own diabetes doctor, had made a claim against him that people started to really take this seriously. And that was reported, by the way, we should note, by Bill Cohan, who covered a lot of this. And that was a real, he's a character in our book, and that was a real turning point. was at play here is that it wasn't enough for 12 women to tell Ronan Farrow in two different New Yorker stories that he had either abused them or harassed them or whatever. It had to be a doctor. That's the woman they can take seriously. Well, it wasn't even that alone. I mean, it was the cover-up. It was the Moonves cover-up of what happened also and lying to the lawyers who are investigating for the board that I think finally did him in. Honestly, I'm not sure even the doctor would have necessarily done him in because that happened a long time ago.

And not only did they say, well, we all did that, but they were saying, oh, well, that was a long time ago. No, like, who cares about that anymore? I mean, as Rachel said, we have all these texts and emails from the board members and minutes of the meeting. As Rachel said, we have all these texts and emails from the board members in minutes of the meeting. And the things that they were saying, and this is after Harvey Weinstein, they believed whatever Les Moonves told them, and they disbelieved anything Sherry Redstone told them. What was her role here? Because speaking of Bill Cohen, he felt like she also was not, you know, that she took a business that was very valuable and then turned it into a less valuable business. But what was her role in the first part of the Moonvest fight? Well, I'll just say that she was the one who brought it to the board's attention. She heard rumors at the Consumer Electronics Show, nothing particularly specific.

And she went to fellow board members and said, I think we need to look into this. And they did. They did their own quote-unquote investigation, and that thing was a farce. And again, we have the notes, the lawyers. It essentially was asking Les Moonves, did you do anything, and then believing what he said. And even though he knew the name, he did bring up two incidents that turned out to be quite significant. And he had the names of those women. The directors and the lawyer doing the investigation didn't even ask him what their name was, let alone go get their side of the story. Anyway, that's an outrageous, like, cover up. So that didn't go anywhere.

rumors fomented by members of the board that Sherry Redstone was responsible for the Ronan Farrow articles, that she went and stirred up these stories and handed it to him on a silver platter. And while that is a good story, it is not true. And we spent a lot of time tracking that down, and we document in the book exactly why those women came forward and what happened. And by the way, the stories in The New Yorker saying that Sherry Redstone planted them doesn't quite give Ronan the credit he really does deserve. And all of these women individually had their own stories. The ones who talked to me of like, you know, I just saw the story about Harvey Weinstein. I wanted to say something. Or I had a friend of mine, another

actress, so-and-so, who introduced me to Ronan because she really said I should come forward. You know, all the stories sounded like that. And there were all the rumors. I mean, we heard every single rumor about how these stories got started. I even heard at one point that Sherry Redstone had paid me off. Like, you know, if you could think it, you know, somebody had come up with it. But like Jim said, you know, it really this this was at the height of the Me Too movement. Women all over the country were starting to come public with things they had never shared before. And that's really what this was. And, you know, ultimately what did Moonves in was the cover-up. You know, Jim has said before that the cover-up was worse than the crime. You know, Arnold Copelson was willing to forgive all of this stuff because we all did that. But Moonves' willingness to basically be blackmailed to keep one woman in particular quiet, a woman that we reveal a lot about in the book, that's what they couldn't bear anymore. Right, when he was trying to pair off. You know, it was so plain sight.

I have to tell you, Moonves said something pretty offensive to me once, and I was sort of like, what? Like, he was in a green room of one of my conferences. But I'm not going to go into it, but he was kind of like that. He said something very offensive, actually. Well, it's so unbelievable to me. I mean, the idea that he had a woman on the CBS payroll in his executive office whose job was to give him oral sex in the office. I mean, you know, joking with Rachel that, you know, after decades of reporting, you kind of begin to think maybe you've seen it all. No, no.

Yeah, it was a piece of work. I wouldn't agree. I'm just curious, after really delving into the story, have you taken anything away personally around, you know, learnings and how you might change or what you would instruct your kids or how you would treat your parents when they become unable? It's dramatic here because he's so famous, but this happens everywhere. This dysfunction when people get old and can't take care of themselves and people see opportunity to prey on them or help them. But how has it impacted your own thoughts on the relationship and dynamics in families when people get older? I really, one of the big takeaways from this is, as Jim said, at least legally, there's this huge, it's either black or it's white. It's either black or white that somebody's either competent

or they're not competent. And, you know, I do have family members that are starting to or are no longer able to fully take care of themselves. And I think there's really a balance between wanting someone that you love to have autonomy and also making sure that they don't get behind the wheel and kill themselves or somebody else, right? And I think anyone – there are so many people that can relate to that. And I think, I would imagine that most people that have to deal with that feel that they did it quite imperfectly. And seeing it happen on such a grand scale with stakes that are so high, with people that should have all the means and the resources and the guardrails to do this right. I guess something about it made me feel like maybe when the time comes, like I would be a little bit more forgiving

because if those people can't get it right perfectly and, you know, obviously he was a target in part because of his wealth, but nevertheless, you know, this is something that everybody will deal with. And my mother always says to me, like, you know, if you ever have kids, you're going to do the best job you can, and then you're going to hope that they forgive you. And I kind of feel the same way when the positions get reversed. Yeah. And we've said to ourselves that if you want proof that, you know, money, invest money, does not bring happiness or peace of mind, this is exhibit A. And I think for me personally, I mean, I don't have to worry about that problem exactly. And yet, you know, I think

so many times, even I've seen it in families with relatively modest fortunes, as soon as there's money involved, the vultures are circling. And I think there is something there that friendship, And I think there is something there that friendship, real relationships, family relationships, you know, we've got to cherish them and nurture them. The judge in the case at one point said something about, he just, you know, out of the blue said, you know, family ties are stronger than anything else. And I kind of thought, well, there wasn't any evidence in the trial about that. But I think there was some truth to that. And that's what's important in life. And this story to me is just a huge reminder of that. So right now, Paramount Global is worth $15 billion, I guess, something like that, which is quite a bit lower than it was at one point. Where is it as a company? a bit lower than it was at one point. Where is it as a company?

Well, first of all, it's in an industry that is experiencing so much consolidation, and people are not going to the movies anymore. People are not watching television the way that it used to. There was so much consolidation happening, and obviously a lot of speculation that Paramount is going to need to merge with another company. So what is Sherry going to do? Because the stock's at a low, it's not worth very much. And what's she going to do? Because even though she has hits like Yellowstone and others, that's not going to carry them through where they are. They've got a lot of deficits everywhere. That's a really good question. It's something that Jim and I have certainly been asked a lot and we're wondering.

I mean, I don't have any special insight into this, but I would, just looking at the landscape, I would think that she will have to merge this company or be open to selling it. If I just had to guess, obviously, nobody has a crystal ball, but it's just so hard to look around and say, oh, no, there's a viable path forward. What is her motivation now, from what you can tell? Why did she do this, and why is she continuing to do it? Why is she continuing to do it? Well, you know, she has said over and over again that she was reluctant to be a part of this family empire, basically.

But now that she has stepped into this role, it seems like she is enjoying it and really is enjoying, first of all, doing her victory, right? Like finally getting the women kicked out, winning against Les Moonves. And while she might have been reluctant at one point to sort of step into these shoes, she seems to be having a good time. Her ultimate goal in life is not to be a media mogul, certainly not in the mold of her father. But as Rachel points out, I think she has gained confidence. You know, she was kind of shy and overwhelmed at those early Sun Valley conferences with these, you know,

other titans of industry, all of the men, of course, roaming around. And she's gained a lot of confidence now and I think is doing better. And look, they've done some, they did Top Gun Maverick, they've done Yellowstone, They have some pretty interesting stuff coming out of there. But I believe certainly the Wall Street consensus is they don't have the scale. They can't compete with Amazon, Netflix, Disney. They're going to have to merge with somebody bigger. There's a lot of talk that Netflix would be the ideal acquirer because Netflix doesn't have a big studio. Whether that would ever get past the

Justice Department right now, I don't know. But the other issue is the stock price. You know, as Scott pointed out, it got so low, she wasn't going to sell there. But as it's been recovering lately, you know, at the right price, I think there's no question she would sell, and that it still lacks the scale that it needs. It still lacks the scale that it needs. You know, there's little echoes of Catherine Graham in some of this in a weird way with the difficult father and someone who was shy and not comfortable with the power that she had.

It'll be interesting to see what she does with it. But I think most people feel like there's no choice but to merge. These are two small companies from a media landscape. And I guess that's my last question is, look, if this guy was a colossus over content, over media. There's so many like it. And Moonves was a lesser colossus, part of the empire that Sumner Redstone built. Is that over that idea of the great media mogul? I know we all love Succession, and we love the idea of the Rupert Murdochs, or not me necessarily,

but how do you look at that going forward, each of you? I'd love to get a sense of like, there's not any more Sumner Redstone's coming from what I can understand. They're mostly tech moguls at this point. Personality-wise, I think that the era of the media mogul who can treat anybody any way that he, usually he, wants, I think that's over. I think the combination of the Me Too movement, everybody having a cell phone to capture your bad behavior, internet gossip blogs, people cannot get away with what Harvey Weinstein once did.

And I'm not even talking about the sexual misconduct. I'm talking about going outside of a party and punching a reporter. There's just so many, there's so much more accountability now. And so I'm not saying that bad behavior is going to stop, but the idea that you could have this sort of like this bully running your company, given the way that our culture is. It's changed dramatically. It's changed dramatically. And I just, I think that that hopefully is over. Yeah, I think the owner mogul is over. But there is something about media and entertainment that

these CEOs do command a certain level of scrutiny, of interest, of admiration that is not the same in almost any other business. And we're certainly seeing that right now at Disney, where they had just replaced the CEO who didn't have the charm and the charisma of Bob Iger. Now he's back. I mean, he doesn't seem to be able to give up the reins. People get into these jobs and they don't want to give it up. They love, I guess, the attention, the glamour,

the red carpets, the influence over our culture. So there is something kind of unique about it. But the problems of succession at publicly traded companies, the issue of sexism, I mean, it's not unique. I mean, we obviously delved into it in this particular company, but, you know, even places like McDonald's have been having serious issues with this and boardroom and, you know, C-suite misconduct. But I think it's mostly the somnolence of the world, the owner head with, you know, unfettered voting control over the companies. We still see some of that in the giant tech companies, but when it comes to Hollywood, I think that is fading away.

All right. This is a fascinating book. James and Rachel, thank you so much. It's called Unscripted, The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy. It's out now. It is a real life Successions in a lot of ways and even better because it's real. We appreciate it. Thank you so much for having us. Thanks, Rachel. Thanks, James.

Thanks, Scott. Nice to meet you both. It's funny. I think this calls on so many things. He's a fascinating character. And there's also, I think there's some really key lessons to be taken from his life. And the first is a real assessment of the quality of your life and the relationships is, you know, who's around you toward the end? And are they trying to take advantage of you or protect you? You know, if you

die under lights surrounded by strangers or people vying for your fortune, it's an indication. That's why I will be there when you die. I appreciate that. I think you're very competent. Anyway, when we get back, we're going to have predictions. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money.

Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction besides the fact that I'm going to have to save you at the end of your life. Go ahead. I think that, so my prediction is in Q3, probably Q4, the IPO market's going to come back. There's been a real absence of IPOs that began. I don't know what will be the biggest IPOs. I actually think it's going to be some unusual ones.

I was talking to the CEO of Panera yesterday, and I used to be on the board there. I'm no longer on the board. I no longer have a financial interest in Panera, so I'm not conflicted here. But there is so much money still on the sidelines. There are entire hedge funds and funds that do nothing but buy shares in IPOs. And there has been such a dearth of IPOs. The market has been so non-receptive that I think we're building up demand for them. And also, you don't like to call the bottom, but I've seen across the companies I'm involved in that the economy over the last 12 months, they did what they were supposed to do. They paired some costs. They got more focus.

They got in better shape. They got in fighting shape. And the recession that everyone's been talking about, if the media hadn't been talking about it for 18 months and you were just looking at the data, you would see absolutely no signals of an impending recession. Well, Panera is among the ones that may be testing the IPO. They were going to go IPO, and then they did a SPAC deal with Danny Meyer that didn't work out, and now they're trying to do this IPO. Yeah, they're talking about it. So anyways, but I think the first kind of name brand IPOs that come out in maybe Q2 or Q3 are going to get a much more positive reception than anticipated. Because I

think we're building up pressure here. I think the spring is being wound. And I think by Q3, Q4, we're going to see the IPO market return. All right. Well, that's a good one. We'll see what happens. That would be good news for a lot of people, especially investment bankers who need the money. Interesting prediction. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Scott, that's the show. We'll have a feed drop of the Prof G Show for you on Tuesday, and we'll be back with a fresh pivot in a week. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Indertot

engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mia Silverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Cara, have a great holiday. You too.