Pivot - Immigration Crackdown, OpenAI Backtracks, and Elon's Netflix Boycott

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Kara and Scott discuss Trump's escalating immigration crackdowns in Chicago and Portland, and Apple and Google's decision to pull ICE-tracking apps. Then, OpenAI does an about-face on its copyright opt-out policy, and says it will give creators more control in Sora. Plus, Elon leads a Netflix boycott, and a new report says Instagram's safety features for kids are "woefully ineffective." We're going on tour! Get your tickets at pivottour.com Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠. Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠ Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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version of you like tea time you or this tea time you or even this tea time you said you hear about Dave or even tea time tea time tea time you so update on Dave it's up to you we'll take the laundry rinse it's time to be great we're not nearly as good looking we don't have nearly as good of makeup the sets aren't as good fine we are as good looking This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. How you doing today, Scott?

I'm good. I got a little bit of the X-Barr hangover. Did it Zanny last night, 4 a.m., couldn't sleep. What? Are you having trouble sleeping when you're old? I'm getting... I am. I wake up at 4.18 every night.

I'm turning into those people that's just like a ghost walking around the house. Oh, I don't walk. Yeah, you're supposed to do that. You're supposed to get up and walk around just so, you know, not... to try to go to sleep lying there. I've been watching, you know what, I'll watch anything with my favorite actor, Hitler. I just type in World War II,

and I watch The Battle of the Bulge in color. You know what I mean? I'm obsessed with World War II. I'm officially 100 years old. Not Rome. I usually men are Rome, but Rome or Hitler usually seems to be the things. Men of your age like to watch.

No, no, no, I don't. Not Rome? No, no. Why don't she asked me what I did this weekend. Oh, I'm sorry. What did she do this weekend? I had a mermaid party. Oh. Yeah.

So that obviously was for Lucky, not for one of your kids. No, it was for Clara. It was like so, it was so interesting because all the girls showed up in mermaid outfits, every single one of them. And they were fantastic, let me just say, versions of mermaids, all kinds of spangles and this and that. All the guy, all the boys, many, showed up in superhero costumes. Interesting. Yeah. If anyone wants to believe gender's not a thing, just have a party and invite boys and girls over and see what they

do. Put a room full of dolls and cars and see what happens. Yeah, it was interesting. It was interesting. They looked fantastic. Clara had a great time. We had a treasure hunt. Amanda baked the cake. It was beautiful and delicious. And it was fun. It was good. I cleaned the yard with my power washer. That was fun for me. That's a flex. We really have gender. Speaking of gender. That's a flex. She made the cake and you did the power wash. So if it's a really difficult parking spot, you handle it. Is that what you're saying? Yes, that's correct. That's what's going on? Yeah.

Okay. And in fact, I get handed, like this morning, Saul handed me one. Every time he has something broken or needs a battery, he hands it to me. Mama will fix it. Yeah, we are in a gender role. I hate to say it, but it's true. The best alliance in history is the alliance between masculine and feminine energy. I guess.

So is there a specific mermaid piece of IP? What is it? Oh, yeah, a little mermaid. A little mermaid. They love a little. Well, they love, listen, everyone likes K-pop demon hunters still. This is like a crazy trend happening, but among boys and girls, by the way. But Mermaid, Little Mermaid, that's the Disney Mermaid.

My favorite kind of Mermaid IP is Bill Belichick's Instagram of his 22-year-old Mermaid. I love the thought. I love that they plan that. They thought, this will be a big hit. This is a really good idea. Have you seen that Instagram of them? Yes. Oh, my God.

I know. I'm so here for it. Are you? Is that going to be you someday? Do not have the best wife. Let's hope so. I need to get much richer. Why do you think I'm doing this shit? You can value that lady of yours. She is same. I should do the same. But let me just say, your lady is fantastic. My lady? As Robert Rufford said when he was accepting a lifetime. And my lady friend. I'm like, oh, that must make it feel good. I like that. I like lady friend. Yeah. I often call men ladies. Like I go, hey ladies, let's go. and it enerves them

and yet they never object, which is interesting. Speaking of which, what are you dressing up for Halloween? I'm so excited. I knew this. I'm so excited. I am again,

my assistant, who is usually in charge, wanted me to go as Larry David. I'm like, no one's going to invite me into the bathroom to do ketamine when I'm dressed like Larry David.

Okay, you're right. You know, like hot women are going to come up to me and say, oh, you know, hey, can I get you? Can I follow you on Instagram? But that would work. Larry David would work. Oh, 100%.

I'm bringing out the one that works. I'm going as Deadpool again. Oh, you love that outfit. I'm going as Deadpool after the fire, so I have to get a makeup artist to put all these scars all over my head. Oh, wow. But I don't know which private members club to go to. There's a lot of competition this year because they're all, they're all competing. It's crazy. If you think the competition between AI is intense, it's nothing compared to the private membership bloodbath that is taking place in New York. They're not all going to make it, right? Oh, no. There's, what happened was, I'm fascinated with the economics of this.

Okay. Basically, there's been SOAO-O-O-House. Which one's public? So-Hou House? So-O-House is public. It just got taken private. It's a fantastic deal. It's a great idea.

It doesn't make money. It spends too much money. Shouldn't have been a public company. It's been taken private. But that's sort of like a Toyota, like good value for the money, young. And then this really talented entrepreneur in this guy named Scott Sartiana, is a lovely guy, started zero bond. He came in with a Mercedes offering, and everything's demographically driven. There's just so much money now at the top 1%.

And it was a huge shit. And about 36 months or 24 months later, these things just started popping up everywhere, literally, everywhere. And the bummer is, I mean, if you have money, great. The bummer is that where do young people go who don't have the money to get into a private members club? Right. That's an opening. That's an opening in that area is cheaper. But then again, if it's too cheap, then it's everyone can go.

You know, it's interesting. There's the same phenomena here in D.C. There's the Ned. And then there's this one that Trump people opened up with Chamath, Polly Hopatia, and the whole gang. But that one, a Trumper just told me they're all dropping in price, especially the Trump one. Like, it was started at like $500,000 now instead of $100. No, no one wants to go hang out with those guys. And also, you're ignoring.

I know, but I'm just saying it drops. You're ignoring a basic truth, and that is, or we're not talking about this. The reality is all these things are driven off of two things. They're driven off of rich men and the hot women that like rich men. There's some fun, cool stuff that's creative on the Lower East side. But the reality is these private members clubs, they price discriminate, which they should, for younger people. But basically, it's a bunch of 40-something-year-old dudes and a bunch of hot 20-something-year-old women. When I moved to, I remember going, there's such a weird power dynamic in terms of the mating market.

When I first moved to New York, I just came out of UCLA where I was not a big deal, but I was young and good looking and finally coming in my own and dating a lot of very high caliber women. I got to New York at the age of 22 and was a Morgan Stanley analyst. I couldn't get arrested because any of the women who used to date me at UCLA were dating 35-year-old hedge fund managers that could take them to the Hamptons. So if you're a guy in your 20s in New York, you might as well be invisible. At the same time, if you're a woman going into her 30,

who's nice and attractive but not crazy hot, you might as well be invisible. New York is America. It's optimized for two people, wealthy men and hot women. And for everybody else, it's a soul-crushing experience. And these clubs are that on steroids.

I would agree. You know I don't drink. But I've started going to bars with Amanda. We went to a great one in D.C. In Georgetown, too. The idea of going to bars now is more appealing than a club to me. Are they lounges or bars?

Well, this one was this little thing called The Fountain Inn. And it was just, it's just an old George John townhouse that they redid. It was very warm and lovely with really creative drinks and everything. But did you have a Pim's Cup with Chuck Todd? No, no, there was no Chuck Todd. Jesus Christ. The other one is more like a bar, and it was full of young people, but older people, because they had games, they had ping pong.

They had, it just was lovely food, but not too fancy. Just, it was full of young people playing games, which I loved. Like, and not just young people, but it was like a mix. It was really. I didn't imagine anything lamar. I just did, I just ordered Nogronies with George Stephanopoulos. It wasn't those people. It was not fancy. I'm just saying, I'm like, you should encourage that I go to bars. I know I don't. I avoid D.C. because there's like, I've never found, the only late-night drinking spots are like interns and you feel like a purve. There's like no cool lounges or places for. Well, I'll take you, I don't belong to the NED, but we'll go to the NED. Net is actually kind of nice.

Oh, it's a membership club? Yeah, it's a membership club. It's right across from the White House is on top of rings. Bank. It's actually my neighbor belongs, so we'll have her drag us. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that sounds great. You're never coming here. Oh, no, the night we have our show. That's where we're going to go. Okay. All right, we have a show here in D.C. by the way. Anyway, we got to get to stuff. The tour is going great. It's selling great. So buy it's sold out. Are we? Are we? We're sold out? No, we're sold out in the city we're sold out in. Toronto and San Francisco for sure. We're sold out in Toronto. And San Francisco? And San Francisco? Yeah. Now, just don't tell anyone, the venue is 12 people. We're doing it in Lucky's old basement apartment.

On my house in the Castro. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including open AI backtracking on copyrights. What a shock. And Elon Musk pushing for a Netflix boycott. Oh, good God. But first, President Trump's immigration crackdown is escalating. Actually, this is quite troubling. Over the weekend, he authorized a deployment of 300 Illinois National Guard troops to Chicago. Governor J.B. Prisker is warning that federal agents and raids are turning the city into a war zone. He's creating problems. Trump also keeps trying to send National Guard troops into Portland. He first attempt to send Oregon national troops in and was blocked by a federal judge whom he appointed. He then tried to deploy troops from California. It was blocked by the same judge

who was really pissed off. So he keeps trying to find National Guard. This judge is going to block it completely. National, Texas National Guard troops are also in the mix for Oregon and Illinois with Governor Abbott's blessing. By the way, he is saying some things that are incredibly inflammatory, maybe Portland should be gone. All this, none of your fucking business, Greg Abbott. Like, sit down. I shouldn't say that. But all this as protests intensify in Chicago and Portland over these ice raids.

I don't know what you thought, what you've seen, but it seems like a really truly demented escalation. And Homeland Secretary, Christyneum, is also saying ice agents will be all over the Super Bowl where Bad Bunny is the halftime headliner. I don't know who can afford that, as you noted. going to the Super Bowl, but it's very expensive for people to know. So any thoughts on all this? Because it's truly troubling what's happening here.

It's all led by Stephen Miller, obviously. Well, there's two things here. The first is, I just think this whole thing is such manufactured division. And that is, if you think about socialism is supposed to be, is about equality, right? That we should have, everyone should have. The economy, the spoils should be, you know, William Gibson said, the futures here, it's just not evenly distributed. You could say the same thing about capitalism, if it's left unchecked.

The prosperity happens. It's just not evenly distributed. Socialism is a means of correcting that by the government owning the means of production. By the way, this is hands down economically, the most socialist government in America has ever had. Correct. Liberalism. Nearly communist. Liberalism is the idea that everyone should be free to pursue liberty, even if it means

no search, you know, very strict private property and search and seizure laws where you may know that that, house there's crime in it but if you don't have a warrant a search warrant approved by a judge you're not allowed to go in we believe in gun rights is a form of liberalism to a certain extent because we believe it's worth a certain amount I don't want to protect gun rights but the whole idea of a liberal democracy is the pursuit of liberty fascism the juice of fascism is trying to convince people that the enemy is within attacking attacking and threatening the chosen way of life and

That's what this is. This is fascism. On any metric, the idea that crime is out of control. If that were true, then it was way more out of control several years ago. And also, if you were really serious about reducing crime, you wouldn't be sending in federal troops who don't know how to conduct crime investigations, don't know how to collect evidence, don't know how to arrest people. They're just there to intimidate people. I believe, I am a believer that if you're going to spend now over a trillion, in the military, you should be proactive around the use of the military. I would rather see these guys and gals in Ukraine supporting long-range missile launches to destroy oil infrastructure. I would rather see them as a peacekeeping force in Gaza. They are ineffective, and all they do is tear at the fabric of society and make us hate each other. And here's the bottom line. We're not that divided. What we have is an administration and God-like technology dividing us. Yeah, creating tension.

I mean, it was interesting because there was still a few troops around D.C., and I went by one last night, and I was trying to be nice, and I was like, you guys should go home. Like, I was very nice about it, and they're like, don't you think we want to go home? This is ridiculous. Yeah, they're not. They were like not, they were like not wanting to be there either. It's so, they were standing on the corner. And then do you see the picture from Portland?

They were at voodoo donuts. There were all these troops at voodoo donuts, which you're like delicious donuts, may I add. I mean, what do you think about the, everything's performative, whether it's Christy Noem or Stephen Miller, who I think is a committed fascist, actually. The others, I think, are very performative looking at, you know, Pete Higgs says wants to run. I bet Christy Noem wants to be president. But it's really, it creates, if you create enough problem with. with these people there. You will have a clash, which is, I think, what they want. That's what they're looking for a fight. Now, one of the things that's been, and this is in our wheelhouse, Big Tech is getting involved in all this. Apple and Google have pulled several apps that let users flag sightings at ICE agents, including a widely used app called ICE Block. The move comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi, pressed Apple to remove Ice Block, claiming it puts federal officers at risk for doing their jobs. The apps creator slammed the decision accusing Apple of bending to what he called an authoritarian regime. Meanwhile, ICE is high. contractors to scan Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube to find leads for enforcement rates and also monitor people's social feeds. Again, communist. This is what the authoritarian do. What do you think of, and we have given so much of our information over to these companies and they don't deserve the trust we have given them in lots of ways. I'm of mixed mind on the ice block and at the same time, I'm kind of like, well, this is what happens when you do things like this. Like people get creative. There's one in San Francisco.

Francisco is showing where parking meter people are, which the city got mad about. So you could move your car in time. I mean, it seems like when you do one thing and people take an action against the other, guess what's going to happen? What do you think about the tech companies? I'm on the tech company side of this. If you get a letter from the Attorney General telling you to take an app down, I just think you have to comply with the law. I don't fault them for doing that. What I think this shows, though, is that we need more diversity of platforms. I also, I do like the idea of encryption, but at the same time, I like the government's ability. We're better at spying than anyone else in the world.

And America and the Israelis have basically developed technology where they can essentially hack almost any phone. I quite frankly like that because I do think of us at the end of the day as the good guys. At the same time, you said something that's really stuck with me, and that is people should have the right to have secrets. I really like that. I like the idea. I never used to think about it before, but now I think literally anything I write down somewhere, the government might have.

Yeah. You also shove everything into chat GPT. I don't do it at all. Oh, I love it. Yeah, I'm definitely in a... You're very promiscuous with the information. I've got to be promiscuous somewhere. Anyway, so, but I find that fascinating.

I just, I'm curious how it comes back with stuff. So I don't think you can fault tech for taking, down these platforms, the images of American cities and ICE agents and masks, I think it, I think that will go down as a pretty, I mean, not on the same level as the internment of Japanese families, but kind of the same flavor. Yeah. Absolutely. Did you see that one where the guy was just standing there on the sidewalk?

He was close to him. There was a kid who was zip tie? off and he like he wasn't close enough to have what they did to him. He was near him, right? He was a tall guy near an ace agent and he goes back off and he was like, I'm standing on the sidewalk and then the guy took him to the ground and beat the living fucking shit out of him. It was crazy. Well, there's there's tests. A lot of police forces have tests and I say, okay, we understand that people who might like the idea of having a gun in a badge sometimes might have a background where they want to be in a position of authority and we got to be

clear that they're going into that position for the right reasons. And it strikes me that if you are signing up for ICE right now, and I realize people have an obligation to make a living, you're not doing this to protect and serve. You're doing that, I think there's a decent chance that you have some underlying hostility towards immigrants that is not befitting and the fact that you can wear a mask. Judges make really dangerous decisions every day. They put very dangerous people behind prisons. They don't wear masks. So the fact that we have decided to normalize the idea that certain people of the government on the street can wear a mask, what that means is we want to give them license and we want to give them the confidence to engage in depraved vile behavior.

If we trust our society enough that someone can put a model. a murderous mobster in prison and the jurists and the judge don't get to wear masks, then why on earth would we let people who supposedly are legally deporting people who are legally wear masks? Why? Because the way they are engaging in it is a form of violence, of a violation of people's rights, of an activity that makes you feel really bad about America and humanity and does nothing. I was with someone who's a fairly famous anchor, and their partner has left the country. Their partner is legal, but because they're non-white, they can't relax. They're worried about, they know that they don't want to be incarcerated incorrectly for 72 hours. For their

social media feeds or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Let me say, speaking of judges, not wearing masks, the people are now under attack, are the judges. Stephen Miller started to call judges, insurrectionists now for doing their job. And one of the judges who pushed back on one of Trump's many violations of the law had her house burned down. They don't know what happened, but the house was burned down. Stephen Miller right now, if this man doesn't go to jail someday for what he's in, what he is creating here, creating all kinds of anger or down in shame, if you notice another one of his relatives said he's a heinous piece of shit, used to be normal. And now we don't know what's happen to him the whole family. But the judges are the ones under siege. You're right. They don't

get to wear a mask. They write long rulings. And if these thugs, that's what they are. If they're wearing masks, you're a thug if you want to do it. You don't need to have your identity protected. What are you? Like a delicate flower of judges don't, who don't have guns. If other juries don't, they don't have guns to protect them. You should not have a mask on your face. That to me. is, it says everything. Let me just say the one thing that was really heartening to hear is the Pope, who has been talking about this during a mass this past Sunday. Pope Leo urged Catholics to open their hearts and arms to migrants. This came after he referenced the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States while speaking to reporters last week. Press Secretary Carolyn

Levitt, as usual, because she's a mouthpiece, pushback on those comments. And MAG Influors also voiced their unhappiness with the Pope. I thought what he said was really strong, was very strong. spoke out on immigration. He spoke on a lot of things. This guy is just as sharp as attack. And I like that he's sort of entering the picture for decency, I guess. That's what I would say. He's, I don't think it's left or right. It's like, don't be indecent. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. The term undocumented worker is a misnomer. Because here's the thing, these people have documents. They have phone contracts. They have driver's licenses. They have Social Security cards. They have W-2s. They have all sorts of documents to ensure that U.S.

corporations can bill them. They have bank accounts so they can wire money home so banks can get the float. They have all sorts of documentation such that we can make money from them. And the notion that they're, okay, I get it. If you're here illegally, you should be asked to leave. I understand that. Now, at the same thing, same time, and it all comes back to the same thing, if we were serious about this problem, we would find the employers. They're not here because they like the weather. They're here because there's jobs, because a lot of domestic workers will not take these jobs. They will not wipe your grandmother's ass or build your house for 15 bucks an hour. And if we want to have

cheaper houses, cheaper health care, better services, better restaurants, we have for the last 40 or 50 years turned a blind eye to this. We have done it intentionally on both sides of the administration. We didn't wake up with tens of millions undocumented workers. Did Democrats in the Biden administration probably let it go too far? Yes. But this notion of like turning into a police state and demonizing these people and taking our eye off the ball off of real security threats, also I am somewhat empathetic to the notion that Democratic governors invited an over a overcorrection by virtue signaling all the fucking time instead of actually cleaning up their own cities that they're governing. True. But Scott, that's like taking a sledgehammer to a fly. I 100% agree. It's a total overreaction. And the thing that's most depressing is I shared a clip, I believe it was from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie with the ship blowing up around the sky. And it had this caption, this is how it feels to be a centrist in the U.S. and I wrote, no, it's worse. And the comments were like,

centrist or fascists, centrists are enablers. We are just so divided and angry right now. Thomas Friedman had something. I thought he had something very cogent on Marr. He said, we're not that divided. We're just being divided. And everyone says, come together and everything. We need to turn the heat down.

I'm telling you, folks, it's not about a politician trying to cosplay Obama and turn down the political heat. these we have connected 40% of the S&P to rage and sequestering us from one another and what have I am I don't know about you I go on social media now and I see these videos of these kids and these women being separated from their husbands on social media and I fucking hate America for about 30 seconds and I'm not saying it's not important that we don't see that but when you have an administration and algorithms to say oh, we're going to, this is going to make us so much money. We're going to have so many Nissan ads from this. So we have this one-two punch of an administration that conflates masculinity and leadership with coarseness and cruelty and algorithms that make a shit ton of money from it.

And the result is, if you were to go out today, ice trades and all, and I'm not in any way accepting or diminishing the ugliness of these ice trades, But if you go out in Portland, if you go out in Parsipany, New Jersey, or you go out in Provincetown, you're generally going to find Americans from all political spectrums are generally speaking really lovely people. No, no, you're right. I would agree. I would agree with you. I just think one of the issues is this is an attempt to divide and create anger. And it works. And I think what's really nice is to see everyone coming around to something you and I have been going on about forever. You saw McCrone talk about social media. You see everyone is now on this bandwagon. And these people should not be trusted with our information or decision making about our society.

It's enough with them deciding what we should do. Look, we're willing addicts to these people, but is heroin. And it will not end well if we don't take some control of this. And what the Trump administration has done to take control is to get bribes from them. And that's what they are, these payouts. and let them do whatever they want. They need to be drastically regulated in many, many ways or taxed. Either way, you know, they need to be pulled back.

Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Open AII does an about face on its copyright policy for SORA. Support for the show comes from Coda, powered by Grammarly. With Karen I, I was on the move. It's nice to have a great team working with us and keeping us on track to keep this podcast to float. But the difficult part isn't just the recording. It's trying to keep track

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of time protecting my information and it still gets out there. See why wirecutter named Delete Me, their top pick for data removal services. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners, get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to join deleteme.com slash pivot and use the promo code Pivot at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to Join Delete Me. me.com slash pivot and enter the code pivot at checkout. That's join delete me.com slash pivot code pivot. Scott, we're back with more news. OpenAIA has backtracked and will give copyright holders more control over how their characters are used in SORA, its new AI video generation app. Gosh,

thanks a lot, Sam. As a reminder leading up to the launch, the company has said copyright holders, would have to opt out of having their material appear in the videos. Scott, that made excellent points last week. CEO Sam Altman said the company would have to, quote, somehow make money from the app to offset costs. Well, don't make it if you can't make money, Sam, and would try to share some of the revenue with rights holders who opt in. Try to share, thanks.

SORA is a top of free app in Apple's App Store at the time of the taping. It's an interesting app. By the way, OpenA and Chip Designer AMD have announced a multi- billion-dollar partnership to collaborate on AI data centers. This is Lisa Sue. I just recently interviewed her actually. But the fact of getting away with anything they want is just they still think that. And by the way, OpenAI's Dev Day will be happening after we tape today. We'll talk about that more on Friday. But thoughts on this turnabout? I mean, they must have heard holy hell from everybody. That's my assumption. Well, I've hired hackers and AI engineers to reverse engineer

everything that Open AI spent money on. I'm calling it closed AI because they have not opted out. They have not opted out. I mean, what? I like that. And by the way, I've disassembled my iPhone. I found Foxcon in China and I found assemblers because Tim Cook has not opted out. He hasn't opted out. I can, I mean, that is just so fucking ridiculous.

Fucking shoplifters. And the notion that, I mean, if they were really, Adobe did this the right way. Adobe basically started a generative AI, a design AI, whatever they're called, and said everything on here, we've had, we've developed agreements with the initial IP creators. And it's probably not as complete as a Wild West, but you know everything here, the people have agreed

to license it to us. And this is, this is a moment in time where absolutely they should hit back hard, but unfortunately, the smart economic decision is just to just to steal from people. But I think this is absolutely a moment to push back. The other thing I got

additional hate from, I've been getting a lot of hate this week, or I'm very sensitive. I don't know. Maybe it's Zazanax speaking. Not sure. Anyway, I put out a thing showing a graph. L.A. is basically turning into the next Detroit with better weather. Yeah, I sent you

that story, yeah, in the Times. What the Japanese did to Detroit, essentially Netflix and now AI and Allison. Well, and the strike, which you had been very vocal about the strike, FYI, saying this is going to cause untold damage. So it was the strike, Netflix, and AI. Yeah, I won't even go there. Literally, the stupidest people in corporate America ever elected a position as the WGA, who decided, I know, let's transfer wealth from actors and workers to Netflix and make things

worse for us and keep people out of work for five months such they can come back with with no negotiating leverage. Anyways, if you've seen the numbers, L.A. has had a vibrant creative middle class driven by Hollywood, and it's not, people think it's Brian Cranston or Tom Cruz. It's not. It's caterers. It's makeup artists. It's lighter. It's gaffers. It's sound people. People making 80 to 250 grand a year as animators, as costume designers. and it's all being cleaned out. First by Netflix who moved the majority of the production overseas or to the places with the biggest tax credits,

that's economic arbitrage based on geography. That would be Atlanta, New Jersey. Vancouver, Budapest. The Marvel films, can you think of anything more American than the Marvel films? Do you know where they're being filmed? Budapest. Pinewood Studios outside of England.

Oh, London, too. Yep. So, okay, you can't get in the way of that. It's important geographies. wait to see what AI does to these guys, right? Because all of a sudden, I mean... Costumers. All these guys.

So this is L.A., San Francisco, the transfer of wealth, there's literally a sucking sign of capital and opportunity from L.A. to San Francisco right now. And that is those 3,400 people that worked on, just as Bezos said, Your Margin is My Opportunity, the credits in movies, our AI's opportunity right now. They're looking at that and thinking, oh my gosh, it's going to be fun. Having said that,

I went and saw last night one battle after the other with Leonardo DiCaprio and... I was really mixed on it. These guys, Benicio del Toro and Leonardo DiCaprio and his daughter, the woman who plays his daughter, who's just so beautiful and such a good actress, there's so much talent in it. You can't kind of turn your eyes away from the,

screen. But it felt to me like an independent movie that if it didn't have three superstars and it could have done a half a million dollars after premiering its Sundance to applause. It didn't feel like, quite frankly, I thought it's, I think it's hugely overrated. Yeah. You were looking forward to that. I was really excited about it. I told you I didn't want to go. Yeah. But it's just so strange. I don't know if it's I'm aging out. I think literally the big screen is just going to go away. I think it's going to be kind of an event thing like going ice skating a roller. You know who did well this weekend? We didn't talk about her album just because I was being respectful, but guess who killed it at the box office?

Please don't. Guess who killed it? Taylor Swift is the number one box office hit with her on, she did a deal with AMC. They are raking in the fucking dough. Thank you. I'm happy for her. Showgirl. She's so good.

Come on. Just say she's good. She's an inspiring young woman. I'm happy for it. But I'm just saying that's who killed it at the box office this weekend. Can't believe you haven't listened to her. If I've had a knuckle for every time I've heard that. I'm just saying there's a piece.

a song in this album, but go ahead. Anyways, name one thing Taylor Swift doesn't have in her purse. Her boyfriend's phone number. Oh, you're funny. She's getting married in case she's happy ending from Taylor Swift. By the way, the album is excellent. And it's killing it. She's killing it.

I'm just saying, go back to the box office. Go ahead. So DiCaprio fails, but Taylor kills it. Go ahead. I just think movies are becoming something like ice skating a Rockefeller Center. You'll do it every couple years with your kids. Events. Events is right. It's just not. And I remember thinking, or if I become so extremely online,

I can't sit still for 150 minutes. But there's definitely something very, Governor Newsom either needs, a couple things need to happen. I do think Governor Newsom needs to supersize the film tax credit or the motion picture tax credit for California. He just did to 750. It was sort of a mini size. Yeah, mixed. It wasn't, it's 750 million bucks. For an economy that big, I don't know. For me, I, If I were him, and I don't know if you could do this, some sort of tax above a certain amount, i.e. AI, that funds the creative community in California, because I do think the creative community in L.A. is a really valuable part of that fabric. And so the L.A., which hasn't been competitive with other regions for 10 or 15 years, is really suffering. And I'm telling you, they got to call

Barry Diller. They got to get lawyers. They have got to go after these guys early and often. because the fact that the head of Open AI would even suggest people need to opt out. So let me get this. There's a house next to me. They look rich. Do they need to purposely opt out of me breaking in and stealing their shit?

Do they need to say to me, no, do not come over and take our shit? I mean, that is such, that gives you insight into the mentality of these folks. The president basically says they can molest the other 490, companies of the S&P 500 of anything they want and they are protected because what they've decided is what he's decided is the people who come meet with me who I adore who might be

trillionaires and who can turn up or down the algorithms to get me reelected and I think they will want to get me reelected if they see I let them run unfettered and become worth 400 billion instead of 300 he's this and everybody else I was at this one of you know this quote unquote big conference that shall go named ahead of a huge athletic brand stood up and said I'm fucked I can't figure out we've been diversifying out of China we we take our products to Vietnam and Malaysia and then we find out after rerouting our supply chain that Vietnam's getting hit hard with these new tariffs and someone stood up and said I can coach you around how to communicate with the White House and a very very intelligent

journalists said, this is where America is, really rich people have to coach less rich people on how to get favors from the White House? That's right. That's exactly where we are. Yep, that's exactly where we are. Let me just say one more. The numbers are really interesting. So Dwayne Johnson also opened a movie called Smashing Machine.

It's $6 million is all he made. And Showgirl, which was a cinematic experience, it was not a concert film. It wasn't a dock. It was just a promotional stunt took in $46 million across the globe. And she gets a whole chunk of that. So, I mean, things are at. You have to have events. There are ways to supersede these people who are stealing your stuff

or the White House that is trying to fuck you by doing favors is a really bad economic environment unless you have an event or something so good or a fan base so big that it's going to make you money. It's really something. It really is. I have, listen, I had a friend who's like, I want to get it on the TikTok deal, and after telling me how dirty it was, it's like I still want to get in on it. I would invest. I said the same thing at this conference. I raised my hand and said, can you give me advice on how Democratic professors can invest in this TikTok deal? How do I get in on TikTok at 60% off? I'm in. Yeah, exactly. This guy was like, it's dirty, dirty, dirty. I won in.

Oh, 100%. Which is gross. I don't want to disarm unilaterally. But what's happening, there's, I mean, Hollywood is being so reshaped. And I was thinking about, I was adding up our numbers because I love to talk about how awesome we are. We get 400,000 downloads after a month. We have 70% of the core demographic, the people are still in their mating ears and spending money on stupid shit. So that's 280,000 people in the core demographic. Do you know what CNN Primetime gets in the core demographic on average? Like 126,000.

87,000. Yes. We're getting triple the number of people in the core demographic. Granted, it's only for an hour and 10 minutes, and they're on for four hours. But what do you think the cost of the means of production is for four hours of primetime CNN? We're not nearly as good looking.

We don't have nearly as good of makeup. The sets aren't as good as good. Fine. But this is, you are going to see cable news. Cable news in the big screen, quote unquote, TV, are going to be companies owned by billionaires. And I keep meeting documentary filmmakers. And I'm like, oh, that means your husband's rich, which does not go over well.

It means you're married to someone very wealthy. But the big screen going away. And I do think that there is something, there is a social, there is a social need. The middle class creative community in Southern California is a really valuable, important part. They are. They've made so much. magic. Just as we bailed out the automobile companies, I think we should be thinking about a thoughtful means of transferring some capital back from Northern California to Southern California.

You know, they're not going to do that. They're not going to do that. Well, they're not going to be political power. David Zaslov and Bob Iger aren't having, aren't giving the rub and tug to President Trump. Not enough. They're not invited. All he does is get angry at him and they bend over and give him 14 million bucks. Well, we'll see. All right. Let's go on a quick break. And when we come back, Elon's Netflix boycott. Hey, Pivot listeners. I want to tell you about a new podcast from the box media podcast network called Access with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger.

It's a show about the inside conversation happening across the tech industry. You may know Alex Heath from shows like Decoder and The Vergecast, and he's a founder of sources, a new publication about the tech industry, and a contributing writer for The Verge. And you'll probably only know Ellis if you worked in Silicon Valley yourself. He's the former tech reporter turned tech industry insider working closely with today's hottest startups. Their first episode features an interview with Mark Zuckerberg about Meta's latest smart glasses, the AI race, and what's next for the social media giant. You can find the Access podcast with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Scott, we're back with more news. Let's talk about what Elon has been up to lately. First off, Netflix stock is down 4% in the last five days at time of taping after Elon urged followers to cancel subscriptions over an animated show that features a trans character. The show Dead End Paranormal Park was canceled in 2023 after two seasons. You know, again, it was also over the threat by Trump to tax to tariff movies. But, you know, he's carrying on his little boycotts all over the point.

Secondly, meanwhile, newly unveiled testimony revealed that SpaceX took money from Chinese investors, despite having close ties to the U.S. military, a major. SpaceX investors said in a deposition that some of the Chinese investors are listed as shareholders. In March, ProPublica reported that SpaceX allows Chinese investors to buy a stake in the company as long as the funds are rooted through offshore hubs. They also, one of the things that I want to add, and these are three different things, SpaceX acquisition of telecom, Echo Stars, Spectrum rights, A recent Washington Post opinion piece highlights how the deal could change between state and citizen.

The buy allows for direct satellite to smartphone connectivity without terrestrial infrastructure. The acquisition SpaceX now controls enough spectrum to supply commercial mobile services globally. They're very good at that, as you have pointed out. So start with the first one, the trans thing. I just think he's a terrible person, and he should call and apologize to his daughter. He's just a terrible person and a terrible parent, and he's obsessed with that. trans issues in a way that makes J.K. Rowling look reasonable. The second one, of course, he's taking money from Chinese investors because, well, and the last one, I think, is a really

important story. But go ahead. Well, I just, I don't remember the last one, but I take money from Dr. You know how I feel about this? I think he, I think that I opt for the material and psychological well-being of Americans above almost everything else. And I like taking capital from almost anybody. And as long as you put in place that they can't control stuff, I think the Americans don't realize the connection between their prosperity and the fact that our cost of cap. You can't get a mortgage in Argentina. There's no such thing as a mortgage market in Argentina. You can't buy a house. So how many people can buy a house when you can't borrow to buy a house? Because there's no capital flowing into Argentina. So I'm kind of like cash their check,

put in safeguards such that they can't control the media. But I like the fact that we have huge capital inflows, and I find that a lot of times people on the left are not focused enough on our economic well-being and want a virtue signal. Having said that, let's go to the one of the greatest exports, unfortunately now, not the greatest, the biggest exports of the United States is American citizens like Elon Musk exporting political division. Yeah. There was a rally here in the UK, and Elon Musk shows out, I want Britain to be great again. It's like, Jesus Christ, We're exporting this bullshit. I think the commercial opportunity, the best-selling, the Chevrolet Equinox, EV, is the third best-selling.

If I were Chevrolet, I would be making light of this and say, buy any Chevrolet EV, free lifetime subscription to Netflix. I would just, I would, I like targeted economic strikes. I'm a fan of it. Now over political issues. I just think that's, I'm true. Well, that's what he says he's doing. I assume, right? Yeah. More power, you know, fine. I don't believe in why he's doing it. But I think that Chevrolet and Netflix should strike back. I think Ted Surmountos should say we're offering free Netflix for anyone who buys these, the other seven bestselling EVs. He's smarter than that. He's not going to weigh into this. He's just going to ignore it. Because I'll tell you one thing. People may love their Tesla. They love their Netflix more. I mean, it's like, I do love my Netflix.

Oh, it's fantastic. I do. It's fantastic. Unfortunately, I've been subject to Wednesday. God, that's a lot. A lot of talent in that. Yeah. A lot of talent in Wednesday.

Anyways, I don't, I think that, also, I think for the most part, Elon Musk has only been in the news like every 48 hours, and I think he hates that. So I think this goes nowhere. I think there's a bit of a non-event. Yeah. And what about the, what about the Echo Star thing? That, to me, was really interesting, the ability to offer cell phones. It strikes me that I would hate to be Verizon or AT&T right now.

So I'm an investor in Andrew Yang's MB&O, Noble, but basically essentially since the cost to build out, and this is good, I think this is good regulation, the cost to build out a cellular network and broadband is so expensive that these companies convinced regulators to say there's going to be a small number of them. And they said, fine. But they said if there's only going to be two or three national networks, you have to be able to lease them out at competitive rates to MB&O. So Mint Mobile is basically renting the same network that Andrew is at Noble Mobile, and they come up with different features, different, like Andrew's company is saying, we'll give you money back if you're not on your phone. Like, get off your phone.

And I think that's the way to do regulation. I would hate to be AT&T in Verizon right now because whether it's WhatsApp, which is now, I think, the largest teleco in the world and the ability in new technology is to communicate kind of seamlessly using ubiquitous technology and not, I mean, my AT&T bill,

I'm not exaggerating here, my AT&T bill each month, and I'm switching to Noble next week, of course I've got to find someone young to help me actually figure out how to switch my phone servers. It's four to six. I know.

Well, here I am. I'll do it. Here I am. Call me. I don't. I'm scared of my microwave. Anyways, it's four to six hundred dollars a month. I'm spending four to six hundred dollars a month on AT&T.

Yeah. And Andrew called me and said, I think we can get you down. I have to get the international plan on all that. He thinks, I think I can get it down to $70 or $80. And by the way, it's going to rest on the same network. Well, actually, it'll rest on the T-Mobile network, not the AT&T network. So AT&D and Verizon have been terrible performing stocks because they have a cost infrastructure and overhead

that just doesn't recognize what's happened in that. I'm looking at it too because I have all my kids on mine and it's a lot of money. It's a lot of fucking money. Like it really is, I'm like, what am I paying for exactly? There's a huge, speaking of opportunity. There's a huge opportunity. I think this is a really smart thing. The thing is it's attached to Elon again.

But then Starlink does really well, even though it's attached to Elon because it's a superior product. And Tesla is no longer a superior product is the issue. And when you have a choice, you go with the one who doesn't irritate you hugely. But you're right. You're right. This is interesting. One quick thing, I think we have to talk about Instagram safety measures for kids are woefully

not according to a new report from former META whistleblower along with nonprofit groups. The report evaluated 47 of META's 53 safety features for teens and found a majority were no longer available or in effect or they were ineffective. Matt has called a report misleading and dangerously speculative. You know, I'm going to hear from them after we talk about this, but I think it goes to the heart of what Scott and I talk about is they're going to make things safe for kids. It's almost impossible to make them safe for kids, but from a cost perspective, they cannot.

There's so many holes in all these things that it's, I think it's an impossible thing, and as Scott and I have talked about, they should not be serving young people. They have no responsibility. they've shown themselves not to have responsibility and even when they're trying, it's hard to do. So it creates a really bad situation

for young people on these social media networks, which are pound for pound negative for our kids. They're not very positive for us either. In some cases, they are, to be fair. Your thoughts about their ability to make things safe for young people? To me, this is pretty simple. No one under the age of 16 should be allowed

on the social media platform. and if we find out that your age-gating isn't, I can be talking about our pivot tour and I get served an ad for our pivot tour, but they claim they can't age-gate. No one under the age of 16 on a social media platform, no one under the age of 18 can engage in a synthetic relationship. Full stop.

No more safety protocols, no more technology, no more parental controls. These things are, we age-gate alcohol, pornography, the military, cycles, R-rated content, the damage these things are done, and the unfortunate thing is that you say, well, they come up with the argument around parenting. Well, this is about good parenting. You don't want your kids on screens, don't let them on it.

Here's the problem. If you take your kid off a snap and every other kid is still on snap, that kid actually ends up more depressed because he's isolated. Unless this is collective action from the government or from schools, it's not going to work. and there's just evidence everywhere showing that when social went on mobile, things got worse for teens. So this is an easy one. If we outlawed, if we made it such that kids, I mean, the reality is kids smoking, if you quit smoking by the time you're 30, your rates of cancer are the same as someone who never smoked. But the problem is you can get addicted. A 15-year-old smoking

cigarettes, that is less dangerous than a 15-year-old in my view on Instagram. And so, all right, look what we did to cigarettes. Why is it taking us so long with social? And typically, I think it's about to happen, and it is happening, I think largely because of Jonathan Hyde's book, The Anxious Generation, but generally speaking, society takes 20 years. It took us 20 years with cigarettes. It took us 20 years with opiates. And it feels like the iPhone is taking us about 20 years. But I think it's happening. But all this nonsense around parental controls and parenting, no, no, no, easy. Under the age of 16, no social media. Under the age of 18, no synthetic relationships. Yeah, they're always going to get caught out on these things. And parental controls,

I am really good at it, and they're not good. And let me say, there was a great piece, actually, on CBS this morning on schools without phones. They are happier. They are happier. Everyone's happier without them. Actually, one of my sons, I'm not going to say which one, wrote me and was being a little crazy on the phone about some topics. And he was, and he wrote me a little bit later. He texted me. He goes, you know, I'm on this phone too much. It's making me crazy. Like, and I was like, yes, thank you. Like he, he's self-diagnosed himself and he's older, but he was, it got him all going, right? It got them all like, ugh, like that kind of thing. And so you can't help but doom scroll and be angry. And it happens to all of us, including me. I actually

have interesting enough, my threads is so full of like cooking and ASMR that I hardly ever see news on it, which is interesting, which I like, right? It's actually very calming and I don't ever see angry stuff. But Scott and I are pretty clear on this. And by the way, Jonathan Hates' book is, I think is critically important to this, but your book will be talking about a lot on the tour, so we'll be talking about these topics. Notes on being a man, is that correct? Notes on being a man. Thanks for that. Yeah.

Not something. Yeah. We'll be talking. It's during Scott's debut week, and we hope to get it to the number one on the New York Times bestseller list with our tour and everything else. I don't give in to the commercial metrics of a modern day. I still want to. It's my personal goal.

I just hope that people find some reward in it. Well, I'm going to get you on to the New York Times bestseller list. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Thank you. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I just wanted to try and wrap a win and fail into discussing a little bit about Trump's, quote-unquote, compact that offers preferential treatment to compliant colleges. First off, that's a bit of a misnomer.

What they're threatening to do is take away federal funding from universities that don't sort of sign up for certain. sign up to certain protocols, and I'll go through each of them just sort of quickly and provide a viewpoint. The first is I think I depart a little bit from some of the responses from the last, and that is, I do think generally speaking that if the federal government is going to give you billions of dollars, they should have input. However, that input needs to be discussed in Congress and passed as laws that apply to all colleges, because at a minimum, in three years and two months, a lot of this shit just might be reversed. So this is just darting back and forth

trying to figure out what to do. Also, there's a lot of evidence showing that the funding that these universities get for research has been arguably the best investment in the history of the planet around pharmaceuticals and technology. But anyways, having said that, some of the things they want to do,

they want to make admissions, basically gender, ethnicity, race, and political view blind. And I don't have a problem with that because basically the Supreme Court has already said, that's, that's what, that's what it has to be. I do believe in affirmative action, but I believe it should be based on income, not based on any observable characteristic or sexual orientation. To marketplace of ideas and civil discourse, they're forcing them to commit to fostering a vibrant marketplace of ideas on campus

requiring an intellectually open campus environment with a broad spectrum of ideological viewpoints president, no single ideology dominant, both along political and other relevant lines. I want to acknowledge that universities have done a really poor job of fomenting and supporting ideological diversity. Having said that, I don't see how you legislate. Any attempt to legislate it really is thought control. And just as the cops, police forces, and the military probably lean conservative, universities are always going to lean progressive. That's just the way it is. Now, should 90 plus percent of your faculty be Democrats, that probably says you need to broaden the spectrum a little bit. I've also seen some bullying on campus where anything outside

a certain narrative is really frowned upon. But I don't see how you implement this sort of thought control. Non-discrimination in hiring, institutions will not be allowed to consider factors such as sex, ethnicity, race, national origin, disability or religion. I'm quite frankly, I'm comfortable with that. I think that universities, what I've seen in terms of promotions and faculty is that it is not, it is not strict, it's mostly merit, but a lot of times it's not merit. And, but again, there's a better solution here and the solution, quite frankly, would be getting rid of tenure because the biggest problem is we don't have enough room for young faculty to come up through the ranks because old inefficient faculty will not leave. student learning, universities must commit to combating grade inflation. I don't even know what that means. Student equality, institutions must commit to defining and otherwise interpreting male, female, women, and men.

You know, people ask me all the time if I'm Jewish because they say you're an atheist, and I say, I'm Jewish. And I'm like, well, you're bar mitzvah, no. And they said, well, are you really Jewish? I'm like, well, I get to present as whatever the fuck I want. And my view is anyone, if you want to present, people should be able to just present as they want. So I don't understand why, what the big deal is

around not letting people, I've always said with respect to pronouns, I do think it's a little bit stupid, but if you want me to call you they, I have no problem with that. It's not a big give. I'll be just fine. You're not infringing on my rights. Then the big one, the one that bothers me the most is that foreign entanglements, one of the conditions is that the compact requires no more than 15% of the university's undergraduate student population, basically she'll be foreigners. Okay, that actually won't have that much effect at the undergraduate level because most universities are not above 15%. It will have a huge impact at the graduate schools where we get a lot. And this is so contrary to everything they're trying to do because the ultimate luxury

item in the world is not a Rolex watch. It's not a Ferrari. It's sending your kids to an elite university. Well, you will pay no joke between housing and tuition, a half a million dollars into the American economy to send your kid to a foreign university, an American university, where he or she will love America and go back and create connective tissue between us and foreign nations. And at 90 points plus of gross margin, this is the ultimate high margin export. And our ability, just as I was saying, I love the idea of foreign capital coming into the U.S., I love the idea of human capital coming into the U.S. And then the final one is they've said they can't raise their prices for five years. I hate price controls from Omdami. I hate price controls from Trump.

A lot of this, in my opinion, gets it the right idea, but as always, it is the wrong execution with the Secretary of Education who ran a fucking wrestling league. If you want to bring prices down, you break the cartel. For example, early decision should not be allowed, because if someone goes ED in hopes of getting a higher chance of being admitted, once they're admitted, they have no ability to shop around and shop for prices. Universities should not be raising their tuitions in lockstep. Universities should not be sharing information on financial aid because all they're doing is transferring leverage from the consumer, the parents and the kids, such that they can't shop around and

get the best price. If you are not growing your freshman class faster than a population growth, you lose your taxary status because you're no longer a public servant, you're a hedge fund with class. are easier ways, better ways, more competitive ways to get it bringing the prices down than price caps. We want as many as full freight paying foreign students as possible. This is one of the highest margin exports we have. And the idea of thought control, I just, it just goes to weird places. And by the way, if this isn't done through Congress, guess what? President Moore, President Newsom, President Bashir,

they're just going to dial all this shit back. Right, exactly. It's useless. It's useless. And it's such, this is their shot, I think. What is, what is your, is that your win and feel? Yeah, I just, I wrapped them, I wrapped them all into one. Okay, all right, okay.

I have, I have two. Obviously, speaking of thought control, I think my fail is watching, watching what Open AI did here with this back and forth on copyright. What a mess. What a ridiculous thievery. I'm sorry, I accused Facebook of it. used Google of it, same thing. This is just ridiculous. You respect copyright. You do not try to

build a business up of other people's things and then act like it's no big deal. It is a big deal. You're stealing other people's things and the things that are most attractive on your site are copyrighted material that you didn't make. If you want to make new things, good for you. That's great. But otherwise, you're thieves. As Walt Mossberg says, again and again, they were rapacious information thieves. You don't own this. Get your dirty mitts off of it or pay the people who made it in the first place. You're killing people's jobs. You're also not going to take their seed corn at the same time. And I hope there's all kinds of lawsuits to do so. Unfortunately, people have to sue, and that puts them on their back feet, especially when

their industries are dying. For my win, obviously, Taylor Swift, I would recommend watching the fate of Ophelia official music video. It's fantastic. It's a really great album. I know a lot of white guys are like, okay, it's really great, but, like, all the reviews are like, all the guys do. Oh, you and your identity politics. All the white guys. It's ridiculous. They write the same review. They're like, this woman is spectacular. And yet, and yet, they can't possibly just give her a win. And by the way, $46 million at the box office. That's all I have to say. In that reign of winning, I also love this guy. There's two things. One is the Pope, fantastic winner, is this YouTube greeter guy named Troy Hawk who goes around

and compliments people, and he's built a huge following. I would recommend you watching him. If I had ankles like that, they would also be on full display. You know what I'm talking about? I love your shades. You're like a benign motorcycle cop. And I like the way that you're embracing unlikely concepts and conversations seamlessly, just jumping on board my train.

It is so enjoyable. This is where social media shines, where people like this are there, like whether it's Taylor Swift providing great content, whether it's the YouTube festival reader guy, whether it's the Pope. Let me tell you, there's a quote. I'm going to read to you, Scott Galloway. That is probably a little over your head.

Probably. But I'm going to read it anyway. There is not any advantage to be won from grim lamentation. That's from Homer. Let's not be grim lamentators here, guys. I don't think that's a word. Make things win at the box office.

Is that something you talk about it, your favorite bar in D.C.? No. No, I'm just saying, don't be fucking grim about it. This ice people fight back. Don't sit around in June school. How do we go from Taylor Swift to ice?

What are we doing here? I am just saying, Lamentate, make things that matter, that people buy, that do well economically, say things that are lovely to people, make them feel better. Win by hope. That's all I'm saying. Win by being great. That's what I would say.

Win by being great. Word, sister, word. Word. Word, sister. No lamentation. We are not going to do that. These ice people, fuck them. Let's figure out a way to win.

reminds me my favorite poem. There once was a girl from Nantucket. Oh, wait, never mind. Never mind. Brim lamentation, we shall not have it. I noticed you didn't mention your former firm getting dumped by CrackerBee. Oh, yeah. That was your firm. I forgot about that. Profit, right? Yeah. Well, I can't resist. Very quickly. Tell the story rather quickly. I went to Oregon Stanley, hated it, and they hated me. I did okay there. So I went back to business school. Business school is for the elite in the aimless. And my second year, I took this course called. brand strategy with David Ocker, changed my life. And I decided in my second year of business

school to start a business called Profit Brand Strategy. And was there for 10 years, sold my stake, very proud of it. It's now, I think, six or 700 people. And it ends up, they were the brand strategy firm that recommended the logo change. And now they're the sacrificial lamb. They just got fired by a cracker barrel. Because how does a logo become politicized? I'm not entirely, I don't know what happened there, but everyone was emailing. So that guy was like, basically, on you, the Cracker Barrel guy, I guess. Yeah, it was clearly a nod to me. I'm like, at that firm, I'm like Trotsky.

The CEO was a difficult person and basically, like, my name shall not be mentioned at Profit anymore. They had a 30-year, get this, they had a 20-year reunion and then they didn't invite me. Oh, that's so good. Well, I blame it all on you. Yeah. Anyway. 26.

I started it when I was 20-year. And now it's a Cracker Barrel. Crackerel. Now it's been fired by Cracker Barrel, which is a unique designation for her company. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your question about business tech or whatever is on your mind. Go to NYMag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551 Pivot.1 Pivot. And a reminder, we're going on tour. We're going to be in Toronto. Sold out. Toronto.

Toronto. Toronto. Toronto. Boston, New York, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, and L.A., visit PivotTour.com for tickets. Our tickets are being scalped. They went for 65. bucks. Now they're going for $2.50. Scout, let's stay away from scalpers and third-party sellers. We should have added more nights in certain cities. It's Canadian, so it's like $8. We're not fans of scalpers. But we're going to sell out. We are going to sell it. So buy soon. And elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, this week on on with Kara Swisher, I spoke with makeup mogul, Bobby Brown. Let's listen to a clip where she talks about the running of her company.

I used to interview every single person. You know, not every person, but most of the people. I would interview. And when all of a sudden these people started showing up and like, hi, I'm your new head of international, hi, I'm this. And I'm like, excuse me? I didn't meet them. Well, we think they're going to be the best for the brand. We think this. We think this. So I wasn't included in what to me was important, which, you know, was running and growing the brand. And when I left, it was a billion dollars. It was a growing, growing brand. She sold her company to Estee Lauder and then eventually, after decades, lost control of it and then started Jones Road. She's a really interesting entrepreneur. It's a great discussion.

Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Namens, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd interviewed this episode. Jim McHle edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, I'm Ms. Severeo and Dan Shalon. The Shakuraz, VoxMedia's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things, tech and business care. I'll see you later in the week.