Pivot - Joe and Mika's Mar-a-Lago Visit, Big Tech Derails KOSA, and Guest Kristy Caylor

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

Kara and Scott discuss Morning Joe anchors Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski revealing they paid a visit to Donald Trump to "restart communications," and the sheer brilliance of The Onion buying Alex Jones's Infowars. Then, the news of RFK, Jr.'s HHS Secretary nomination rattles the markets, and Trump says he wants someone "big" for Treasury Secretary. Plus, the Kids Online Safety Act stalls in Congress, thanks in part to Big Tech's $90 million lobbying efforts. Our Friend of Pivot is Kristy Caylor, founder and CEO of Trashie, a clothing and tech recycling platform. Kristy explains how her company is tackling the monumental textile waste from fast fashion. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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via phone, video, or message chat. Let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp. You can visit betterhelp.com slash pivot today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash pivot. Support for this show comes from Arm. There's only one company at the heart of all the technology that makes podcasts like this one possible.

It's the same company that powered the smartphone revolution and is helping define the AI revolution. The company is called ARM. ARM designs compute platforms for the biggest companies in the world so they can create silicon and solutions to power global technology. ARM became a NASDAQ 100 company in less than a year of its IPO and is proudly NASDAQ listed. AI-enabled ARM CPUs are able to provide the compute platform for the global AI revolution in the years to come.

Visit arm.com slash discover to learn more. Support for Pivot comes from SolidIME, creating highly advanced AI's complicated, especially if you don't have the right storage or critical but often overlooked catalyst for AI infrastructures. SolidIME is storage optimized for the AI era, offering bigger, faster, and more energy efficient solid state storage. I the AI era demands. Learn more at storageforai.com. I brought politics, sex, wicked. I am literally the Dave Chappelle of the cultural zeitgeist. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, the end of my cold. I'm Scott Galloway.

Yeah. How do I sound, Scott? You sound better. Better. Although it was an exhausting weekend. I had Saul's birthday, so we had a million three-year-olds running around. I had plenty of time to rest. That's a lot. That's a lot.

I know. It was a lot. Where are you now? Yo estoy en Mexico, in Cabo San Lucas, at the Baja Summit, yeah, where I'm meeting people who will say things like, yeah, after selling my company, I decided to take a year and really focus on my sleep. I'm not exaggerating. Wait, what is a Baja Summit? What in the world?

That's a good question. It's a community, you know, God, everything's a community now, but these young, interesting people got together and bought a mountain somewhere and then started inviting people. The way I would describe it is Learning Man, and that is during the day, it's a bunch of TED Talks, and at night everybody does acts and listens to DJs. And, you know, you meet people in vertical farming who are trying to explain why they're poly or not poly. Polycule.

A lot of guys in their 50s who either, my sense is they're mostly rich kids who have pretend jobs, who wear beads, and are like, I don't know, one twist of psychotic fate away from being Jim Jones. It feels very culty, but it's also very interesting, and they get good speakers, and it's also, it's a lot of fun.

Everybody's really friendly. That's not, they've done a, it's an interesting thing. It's quite unique. I don't know how. Wait, how did you get invited to this young person's Young person's thing? Academy festival. So I don't know if you've heard, but I speak quite a bit.

Yeah. Yeah. They invited me at Summit at Sea two years ago and I did that and I really- Oh, it's these people. I really enjoyed it. And they said, do you want to do the Cabo thing? And I have speaking gigs out on the West Coast. And rather than giving me a speaking fee, which they don't do, they let me bring a bunch of people.

So I brought a bunch of my friends who like me are in their Arrested Adolescents Midlife Crisis and so we're all partying down here. It's a ton of fun. I'm really enjoying myself. So man-children, in other words, you're not listening to any of the speeches, are you? I don't go to other people's content, let's be clear. I'm not interested in what anyone else has to say.

Is there anything you learned from it? I had a really illuminating conversation. I had like a two-hour lunch, Arnold Palmer sojourn meet up with Jessica Yellen, and she always kind of helps me understand what's going on in the world and the media and I find her very thoughtful and very interesting. Oh, that's good.

I listened to, you know, Peter Diamandis talked about, you know, that we're gonna be growing ears in our refrigerators and all that other crazy shit that's not going to happen. Oh, Jesus. And what else? The woman who runs OnlyFans spoke. That was sort of interesting. Create creator economy, if you will.

That has nothing to do with life extension, but okay. Sure. A lot of biohacking. I'm pretty sure you would hate it. I would hate it. Yeah, you would hate it. But yeah, I think it's fun. Very. I'm open-minded these days.

You have to be, don't you? We've got a lot to get to today, including how Trump's cabinet picks are moving markets. Plus our friend at Pivot is Christy Kailer, the founder and CEO of Trashy. That's kind of your name, my name for you, and clothing recycling and rewards platform. We've got, you know, there's a lot going on.

You saw Joe and you over here in the real world. Joe and Mika shared on Morning Joe that they went down to Mar-a-Lago, speaking of trips and sojourns. I don't think unless they were hanging out with Elon, I'm not sure there were any psychedelics happening. But to meet Trump face-to-face for the first time in seven years to quote, restart communications. Even though I think he called her dumb as fuck or something like that,

and he was passing around information about Joe killing one of his aides. But let me have Mika try to explain what they thought was important to meet with Trump. Let's listen. And for those asking why we would go speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back, why wouldn't we? Five years of political warfare has deeply divided Washington and the country. We have been as clear as we know how

in expressing our deep concerns about President Trump's actions and words in the coarsening of public debate. But for nearly 80 million Americans, election denialism, public trials, January 6th were not as important as the issues that moved them to send Donald Trump back to the White House with their vote. Joe and I realize it's time to do something different. And that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump but also

talking with him. What do you think of this move? I mean a lot you're getting a lot of clap back largely because they were like really at some points I'm like calm down Joe and me about Donald Trump but it's a it's a pretty big shift for them given how loud they were and so you know essentially calling them a fascist every morning on morning television. I think they're doing exactly what they should be doing. He's the president. They command the highest rated show

on MSNBC for four hours each morning. They talk a lot about politics. To engage with the freely elected president, I'm surprised at the pushback. I think that's exactly what they should be doing. Maybe, and what am I missing here? I think they were particularly vehement. It's interesting.

A lot of people who are like, he's such a fascist, he's a dictator are now going the opposite way. So which, who do you believe? Did they ever believe that? Or, and he had, he did say some pretty salty things about him, beyond belief salty, including, I think she called her dumb as a prick. I forget what he called her, something about her facelift with this and that. It was pretty ugly. And then, but they didn't say what happened at this meeting. If they're going to be real reporters, I get it. Otherwise I'm not

really clear. They didn't say what happened at the meeting. It was on background. But what's the, They didn't say what happened at the meeting. It was on background. But what's the, I don't know. It just seemed they were super vehement and now they're shifting rather quickly. But I guess so. Well, the far right, when people who are the fans in the media, they get criticism.

They, in my opinion, they were, I like Joe and Mika because I think it's great TV. I think they just do a fantastic job. To, I think they haven't pulled any punches. They call it as they see it. And I think it reflects well, both on the president and on them, he's the president. If they're gonna have a four hour show every morning

and talk about politics, to have a direct dialogue with him, I think is important. They're putting their egos aside. He said some insulting things, fine. He's the president. We'll go down there and talk to him. And also think it reflects well on him to a certain extent that he's engaging with people that,

in the media who've been critical of him. So I don't, I see this as a feature, not a bug. I don't understand why people were seemed so triggered by it. I just think when someone's, it's interesting because I know you talk to Charlemagne the god, but he was talking about this. He, he, he called Donald Trump fascist and then he was sort of perplexed why Biden would be so friendly given he went on and on about, I think it was, it was

about credibility and believability. If you really think this, what are you doing? I think it's a good thing to discuss. They felt like a branch of the Democratic Party to me. That's what they felt like when they were going on and on. I don't think they're journalists at all. I think they're discussioners or commentators. But then actually, she spent a lot of time with people who had been dying of abortions because of Roe.

I don't know. I felt like they were a branch of the Democratic Party. That's just me. I guess I heard them differently than you might have. Yeah. But I think if the president's people called Kara Swisher and said, we'd like you to come down and talk to the president. I think they called him, but go ahead. Whatever it might be. I think you do a service to the country and to people to go down, be

Karis Wisher or be Joe and Mika, ask hard questions and try and engage in a. We need more if I don't want to call it forgiveness or grace or generosity, but we need more reasons to interact with one another as opposed to just writing each other off. Yeah, that's true. It's just these two, these, you know, they were super in Trump's tank and then they were super anti and now they're like,

I want to know what happened at the fucking meeting. That's all. Like I don't believe why they're keeping it from us. And so I don't know. It feels like a little bit like a comcast wants to play nice cause he's threatened to take away the full of broadcast licenses of NBC and CBS, I believe. It feels a little, I don't, that's why I think people are doing that is he's made all kinds

of, you know, I have to say, I do think Charlemagne has it right. It's like, let's hope he's not a fascist. And if he is, call it out. But what he said was fascist, the things he's been saying are. And so I don't know, I don't know. It's just weird. It's just, it's been saying are. And so, I don't know, I don't know, it's just weird. Anyway, they have a very liberal following and have been particularly vehement. So the shift was rather dramatic. Fair enough. Okay. This is interesting. I love this. See, I like humor in dealing with

these people. The onions acquisition of Alex Jones's Infowars has been paused while a federal bankruptcy judge reviews the auction process The parody site was named as the winner of the bankruptcy auction last week But lawyers for Jones complained how the auction was handled a group of Sandy Hook families who filed the defamation lawsuit against Joan agreed to accept Smaller payouts to increase the value of onions bid a hearing to review the auction process will be held this week The CEO of the Onion parent company has said the sale is still underway as part of the standard process. I love this. I thought this was very perfect.

It's a great way to use satire to buy up Alex Jones' stuff. I know I like this one. I mean, this was the first time I thought, if there is a God, he has a sense of humor. Yeah, exactly. I love this. I actually thought about, I wish I'd God, he has a sense of humor. Yeah, exactly. I love this. And I actually thought about, I wish I'd known or been more on top of this.

I'm really curious what it went for, because it gets a lot of traffic. I think to turn it into a nonprofit talking about gun control or for a podcast that's on the left, to take it and just absorb the traffic. Supposedly also with the purchase, you get a lot of supplements. I guess that's how they made their money.

Seriously, you get supplements. Onion was saying we don't know what to do with it. I don't know if the, it sounds to me like the auction is probably going to go through. The fact that it was filed by Jones's people just seems like, I don't know, grievance or whatever it is. Yeah. I just love it. This is how you show.

I think the onion has gotten really good since Ben took over. I think it's really fun. I think he's having a lot of fun with it. I think it's humor. You know, the Wright spent a lot of time, did a lot of humor stuff, and it might as well be funny, right? And biting and cutting in a really clever and witty way. I think it's a really nice way to, to like, especially this son of a bitch, he deserves all the embarrassment and shit, but just being angry at him is not enough to mock him,

I think is always the best way. I love mockery. I love mockery, Scott. What can you do about it? This is a vile person who has brought more despair to people who are already grieving tremendously. I mean, this really is a vile human being. And the question is- You know I think you should die, but go ahead.

Well, then, and this is something I've struggled with my entire life, the difference between being right and being effective. And I like to virtue signal in crying to TikTok or scream on Twitter about Alex Jones, you know what's more effective? Making a shit ton of money and then go buying his assets out of bankruptcy. That's more effective. If you really want to push back on this stuff, then don't go on Twitter, send some money to Planned Parenthood. Don't cry into TikTok, identify some candidates who you think

you could get behind and start bringing some presence to. Yeah, like it's, you know, to a certain extent, the Peter Thiels and the Bill Gates of the world, they get the fucking assignment. They're not on social media screaming. Although lately they are. Did you hear they're all victims? I didn't see that.

They're the resistance. No, they're the counter elite is the term I like. The counter elite. The counter elite. They're the counter elite. I'm worth $13 million but I I'm the counter-elite. And I'm the counter-elite. I am the resistance.

They're such a rebel. They are the Death Star, the rebels. Such a rolling stone, isn't it? Oh my God, they're so fucking, see, that's what they're doing now. They're becoming like the way they annoy, liberals annoy them, right? They're counter-elites, they're the resistance, they're the fighters. Give me a fucking break, you rich fucks. I love this. I love what The Onion's doing.

It's time for us to start being mocking bros. That's what I say. I've been listening to a lot of bros because I've had to listen to Charlemagne's podcast with Andrew Schultz, who I do not think is funny. I think he's a horse's petoute. Really? I think he's great. I don't know. He's loud. I don't think he would like him.

I see the appeal. Let me just say, I see the appeal. I do, but I think we can do better. Anyway, here's another thing, speaking of mockery, unfortunately, Mark Zuckerberg has given his wife another gift. Let's just listen, and we will decide if we like it or not. Oh my, it was an acoustic cover of Get Low by Mark Zuckerberg and T-Pain, which Zucker recorded as an anniversary gift to his wife. Part of me loves it. The other part is, can't you just get her like, I don't know.

On Instagram, he said the song was playing when he first met his wife at a college party. I kind of like it and yet it hurts my ears. How do you feel? I love it. I think it should be private. I don't. He loves to perform it with that, remember the statue of her in the backyard. But when you do that, it's not a gift for her, it's a gift for you.

Yeah. Because you want people to look at you giving someone a gift. And so I love this. I think it's hilarious. I think it's great. I think it's important to, with relationships, like women, women love gifts more than men,

and women have a special relationship with cocaine, jewelry, and gifts. If you're a guy and you don't recognize those things, you don't understand women. Maybe you don't get jewelry, but trust me on this, you need to buy a woman in your life that's important, your mother, your spouse, your girlfriend, jewelry.

And that's part of the assignment is things you don't get, you don't need to get, you just need to get that they really like these things. But you like the song, you just like, would like, he does perform everything, he has to be like. It's fucking adorable. And if it's for him and some of their friends and he does it at a party, but putting it out, I think it just cheapens a little bit.

But let me, on the whole, more power to you, brother. You got the money, you got someone, you're in a relationship, you love that person, you've done something creative and unique. I think we need more of that, not less of it. What would you make for me? I knew, I swear, I knew you were gonna ask that. I think- What would you sing for me? I think, I knew you were going to ask that. What would you think for me?

I think I would do some bad character, give rock lobster or dances, mess around. Has anyone seen- Would you be naked? No, I wouldn't want to upset you. I've been working on a lot lately though in the testosterone. Naked, I look 59 and 7 8. It's all coming together.

Since the scrotum left, it's gone from sad elephant to really healthy anteater. I feel like there needs to be a performative performance by you at me to show your love. I feel unloved. Oh, no. This is do as I say, not as I do. Whenever I do anything nice for other people,

I want everyone else to know about it. Yeah, right. You know, whenever I give money, I want to make sure that, like, they put out a press it. Yeah, right. Whenever I give money, I want to make sure that they put out a press release. Yeah, I definitely have the same promise and but I can recognize it because I suffer from the same thing. Mark, keep being awkward.

Yeah. Keep being awkward. You be you, my man. You be you, my man. That's all I got to say. You showed those people in high school. When they wrote in your yearbook, stay cool, you aren't but you got really fucking rich.

That's even better. You leaning into uncool. You keep doing that, by the way, you can't sing. Okay, but that's okay. It's okay, it's the thought that counts. Anyway, let's get right to our first big story. The post-election Trump bump has come to an end with the markets closing lower last Friday

and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq seeing their biggest one-day losses in two weeks. The downturn is being attributed in part to President-elect Donald Trump announcing RFK Jr. as his Health and Human Services Secretary. Shares of major vaccine and drug makers, including Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, tumbled in the wake of the news. What do you think shares of Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk fell, he's against Hozempic by the way, as processed food stocks including PepsiCo, Coke and General Mills, though markets were also reacting to Jerome Powell saying the Fed is in no hurry to make further interest

rate cuts. What's your take on this? And the pick in general, he says he wants to make America healthy again. They have to stop with this make America healthy again. They have to stop with this, make America whatever again. America was never healthy. Let's start with that R.M.K. Jr., which I loved eating a McDonald's on the private plane with Trump and Elon Musk. It was someone likened it to making the cop take the drugs just to make sure he's not a cop.

He's not a cop. Yeah, that was it. Making the new guy do drugs to make sure he's not a cop. Yeah. He looked such in pain. What a fucking asshole. He talks about McDonald's drugs to make sure he's not a cop. Yeah. He looked such in pain. What a fucking asshole. He talks about McDonald's being poisoned and then he's sitting there with one. What a dumb ass that guy is. Anyway, what do you think of this? It's like when you're in Vegas and a pro asks you to show your genitals to make sure you're not a

cop. I just heard about this. I wouldn't know firsthand, but I've heard that happens. Big Ed and the Twinster. Anyone wants to see Big Ed and the Twins? That's fine with me. I'm waiting for that Rock Lobster video with that. I want that for my birthday. It's December is my birthday. But go ahead. Look, the market has been remarkably right. And I see that as a negative four looking indicator

because Moderna on Word that Kennedy would be head of HHS was down 21%. Pfizer down seven, Eli Lilly. I mean, this is tens of billions, if not even maybe over 100 billion in market value drawdown because this guy has a reputation. He can't fool anybody. He is crazy anti-vax with the operative term there being crazy. It's very disappointing because what I would argue is that whenever you have the far left

on the far right come together on something, it's a really bad fucking idea. Whether it's reckless spending, anti-Semitism. Yeah, you're right. He's left. He's so far left, he's right. Well, that's what happens. They meet it. They meet it.

They come together at crazy. And actually, the anti-vax movement originated on the far left. You know, don't let corporations put- Oh, it did. Yeah, don't let corporations put crazy shit into your body and then the far right picked it up because for some reason science and experts became associated with the left. And I would argue, and I think this is, there's real evidence here, that everyone is so fucking fascinated by innovation and metal chopsticks grabbing a rocket

and photo sharing apps and GPS, and rightfully so, it creates a lot of economic value. But if you were gonna talk about how we come together as a species and use communication and education and cooperation to accomplish something really incredible, the most positive innovation of the last couple hundred years I would put forward is vaccines. And there is nothing that has come out of our great academic institutions that's been

privatized, that has capitalist, that has capitalist fuel, that also government weighs in and says, we can distribute these things in low-income areas that have saved more lives than vaccines. Is it maybe is it food distribution? I don't know what it would be or pesticides maybe. In my view, vaccines, arguably some of the best things ever. I am so pro-vax.

If anyone's holding edibles or vaccines, meet me in the bathroom and I'm going to show you that the only thing better than feeling high is not feeling unwell. He tries to be cute about it and says, I have questions and I don't think that's the case. I think he's done more damage. I call him best friend of measles and polio. I think Zeke Emanuel, who's the brother of Ari and Ram,

appointing RFK Jr. to the HHS is a big mistake. Well, I'll admit he has a few important ideas on chronic disease and processed food. I mean, yeah, everybody, we all think processed food sucks. These are overshadowed by his problematic views on vaccines that threaten to walk back major progress we've made. Above all, pointing people like RFK Jr.,

who will bend to Trump's every whim, is guaranteed to be truly dangerous. I think he's right, I think that's 100% right. We can agree with some of the things, but this guy is anti-vax. I'm sorry, all you people, He's not questioning it. He's truly anti-vax and try to stop pretending it's otherwise. What do you think of the GLP drugs, the impact on US economies and global economies? I mentioned drug maker Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly

saw shares drop. Are people going to listen to him here enough to do lasting damage to the industry? Kennedy has been critical of things like Ozempic in the past, calling it a drug that will, quote, gladden the wallets of big farm execs and think everyone should rely on eating better produce, I guess. That's his thing, which I think everyone should eat more produce, Robert. But seriously, seriously. The really upsetting thing about R.F.K.

Jr. is that in my view, he is so good on a number of issues. He talks about the unholy alliance between the food industrial complex, PepsiCo, General Foods, you know, McDonald's, they want to get you addicted. Let's go meta on this. So when our species left the savanna, there was an absence, there was a dearth of sugary, salty or fatty foods. It was really hard to come across these things. And so when you found them, you gorged.

There was an absence of safe free play because there was always threats everywhere around. There was an absence of mating opportunities. 80% of women on this planet have reproduced only 40% of men. So when you get industrial production of all of these things, people develop addictions to food, addictions to gambling, addictions to porn. And what GLP-1 has done as far as I can tell, is it's like scaffolding on our instincts and it says, look, even though you can find more calories than you can

consume based on industrial production, almost anyone can eat as much as they want, they can gorge, we're gonna turn off that signal. And people on these drugs report that they're drinking less alcohol, they're biting their nails less. What's even more amazing about these things is not only are they eating less shitty food, the people on these drugs are eating more fruits

and vegetables and grains. It's as if this thing is actually calibrating what's good for you and what is bad for you. And when you look at the one thing Americans share, other than a Netflix subscription and Amazon Prime, it's that we are 70% of us are either obese or overweight. And obesity is the COVID, or it is the epidemic that kills more people every year

than COVID ever did. But because there's so much money involved from large corporations and hospital clinics and knee replacement and kidney dialysis and statins and pharmaceutical and McDonald's, we pretend that you're finding your truth. No, you're not, you're finding fucking diabetes. And he is very good on this issue.

And then all of a sudden it's like, huh? What you wanna, this bullshit that he said repeatedly that the best thing you can do when you see a woman with a newborn is go up to her and say, don't get her vaccinated. Jesus Christ, really? Do you know his cousin, Carolyn Kennedy, who's US ambassador to Australia, I didn't know that.

It doesn't tend to speak up, said a lot of negative things about him this week. There's a whole story on it. He, she goes, others are just getting to know him, but she said everything he says. I don't think most Americans share them. He's denied, he's against vaccination. Just so you know, styling himself as a vaccine safety activist who questions corporate influence on science.

His critics say he has promoted conspiratorial ideas about public health intervention widely viewed as one of the most important advances. He's embraced a debunked theory on vaccines can cause autism, his question COVID-19 vaccinations. He's also been linked to a measles outbreak in Samoa. Carolyn Kennedy, the daughter of JFK and Jackie Onassis, said her family was united in terms of our support for public health sector and infrastructure,

the greatest admiration for the medical profession. And Bobby Kennedy has a different set of views. It's very unusual for her to speak out. His whole family says he's as crazy as can be, but. I just hope he comes clean and I'm being serious here about steroid use. I've seen him without a shirt on. He's 70. Yeah, looks good.

That guy's on HGH or some sort of or deca. He's on some sort. And by the way, I'm not sure. I'd love to hear him defend it and talk about it. But he doesn't want a needle around a vaccine to stave off polio or rubella or measles. But it'll inject human growth hormone to look jacked at 70. So I would, and by the way,

he might have, I take creatine and I it's brain protective and heart protective. I'm not, hormone replacement therapy, I think is, they're finding it's a very positive thing for both men and women. A lot of people say that the biggest instance of malpractice was discouraging women from hormone replacement therapy.

So I'd love to know his views on it, but just be clear, as someone who works out a lot and is meaning to look like Monty Burns despite every fucking thing I'm trying to know his views on it, but just be clear, as someone who works out a lot and is being to look like Monty Burns despite every fucking thing I'm trying to do, that guy is on some form of steroids. Can you just say allegedly? Just say allegedly right there. That guy, I mean, I would argue, I would speculate

that he might be in fact taking some sort of human growth. And I would just like him to speak openly about it and get his views on it, because they seem to me somewhat contrary to this notion, but don't put- I do think that picture did a lot of damage, honestly. Which one? He cares so much why,

with him at the McDonald's box, the Big Mac, how the fuck could he do that after he called it poison? Like, what a dumb ass. He's just such a dumb ass. Anyway, should investors be worried about these Trump cabinet picks impacting markets? The stocks of major defense contractors also dropped last week following Peg Seth announcement. God, the Washington Post wrote a story about him and he looks very dangerous as a person.

Why do you say that? I'm curious. I'm asking for an answer, not as a comment. Why do you think he seems dangerous? I was reading the story. He looks like, look, this guy, whatever happened in that encounter with this woman, I think he attacked her. This is my feeling, Pete.

This is what it looks like. He was already downstairs bothering women when this woman came and got him, right? That he doesn't even question. He sounds like, he reminds me of a sexual harasser. He reminds me of, I've had that happen to me in college. He looks like the guy in college. He has the tone and ability of, every woman looks at him and goes, cover your drink when you're around this fella. That's, you know what I mean, that kind of thing. And between him and Matt Gaetz, I mean, they feel like weird sexual aggressors.

But, you know, whatever, whatever Pete had said, the fact that he paid off a woman, you know, it's just like Bill O'Reilly, you know, oh, you know, I just paid her off because he did. And then there were tapes where he did say the things she said he said, right? So they're just all such weird. This whole gang of this GOP are all fucking each other down there at Mar-a-Lago.

It's weird. It's a weird group of people. I'm sorry. There's the rumors of Korylun Dowsky and Kristi Noem. There's the rumors of, they all seem like Caligula down there. I don't know. It just like yikes. I find they talk about liberals being loose. I feel like they're like creepy and I don't know. And then the guy who actually grabs someone's, some man's nuts, you know, it's always something.

Yeah. The only thing is I would push back a little bit. I think it's unfair to conflate Peter Hegseth. Is that his name with Bill O'Reilly where Fox paid someone 20 or 30 million dollars after supposedly he was forcing her to watch gay porn and then describe it to him. You don't pay someone 20 or $30 million just to make a nuisance lawsuit go away. Matt Gaetz supposedly has a witness, a credible witness that says she

witnessed him having sex with a minor. That's pretty serious shit. In the case of Pete, first off, he served very honorably. He 20 years, I think two bronze stars. I mean, he really is a decorated service person. Got it. He's absolutely unqualified for this job.

Let me finish up. I think he does not have kind of the executive management experience or the gravitas around that would qualify him to oversee three million people. I agree with you there. He did pay somebody off to drop a suit. I don't see, I gotta think that's gonna go away because it doesn't accomplish what it's supposed to.

You can see a scenario where someone accuses you of something and to make it go away, you just pay them. Let me be clear, I don't think he's qualified for the position, but I do think it's unfair to compare him to what Matt Gaetz is undergoing. Yeah, okay. I mean, the whole gang of them. It's just something's happening down there, something in the water.

I don't know. But what do you, I'm curious, I don't understand, well, I think I understand incentives. What is the Machiavellian weird 5D or 0D chess that's going on with putting gates forward is AG. I don't, or do they think if they- Create havoc. If they go, if they go this guy's, if they offer a blood offering and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski convince some people,

and supposedly there's 20 or 30 Republicans who've said, no fucking way, then does it make some of their less crazy, but still grade A crazy picks more likely to get through? What's the strategy here? I think so, unless there isn't one. He just feels like it. He was on the plane at the last minute and he had another person for AG and then suddenly it was Matt Gaetz. I think sometimes it's just like his whim at the moment. He just wants to do what he wants to do. Here's another one.

Trump has yet to name his Treasury Secretary, though he's reported meeting several contenders at Mar-a-Lago. This is a critical job, right? A critical frigging job. He said he wants someone big for the role. Apollo's Mark Rowan is in the mix now. You and I have regard for him as his former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, another very qualified person. Elon Musk threw his support behind Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick

over hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, who many, many people on Wall Street, I have been checking, think is highly qualified in an ex post over the weekend. So I'm not just because Elon threw his, but Lutnick has a terrible reputation compared to Scott Bessent and is obviously a look at me kind of fella, right? This is lunacy the way they're deciding this important job and the same thing with the AG. That one, I think he was on the plane with Matt Gaetz and just decided let's fuck with the liberals or I don't, I honestly don't know. Loyalty? I don't know.

But I would argue that the nominees for Treasury Secretary are incredibly impressive and competent and normal compared to the nominees across all the other sub. They're all, I mean, Howard Lutnick, I know people have some issues with, but generally speaking, these are talented, smart, accomplished people who you can imagine in the role. I'm a big fan of Mark Rowan. I like that I've spoken at Apollo conferences

where he's spoken. This guy is a blue flame thinker. He really- He is, that's why I'm like, okay, great, yeah, sure. And also the reality is, now granted, Kennedy could do a lot of damage at HHS, but you're gonna have pretty serious checks and balances.

The reason why this position is so important is regardless of policy, if the economy doesn't grow, everything just gets harder to do. And the adult in the room needs to be the person around economic policies. In my view, this is everyone says, you know, Taylor Swift was person of the year last year. No, it wasn't.

It was Jerome Powell. These people have more impact day to day on people. I think America is a platform for two things primarily. And this is where I think Democrats have fucked up because they've lost this. One, defending our shores and our citizens and two, creating the atmospherics of prosperity so you can develop economic security for you and your family. If you want more rights given to people, help them get more money. That's the easiest way for them to gain rights. So I like this.

And the thing I also really like about Mark Rowan, although I have no influence over these picks, is I thought in contrast to some other famous billionaires, he handled the anti-Semitism on campus really well. He was forceful yet dignified. He had a problem with the president of Penn. He got his big game trophy on the head, and then he went quiet. He didn't start talking about reforming education.

He wasn't Bill Ackman. Yeah, he wasn't, look at me, look at me. He's like, this is my objective. I'm upset. They fixed it or they took action. And now he's gone back to his day job. So this guy strikes me as having a decent amount of humility, forceful yet dignified.

And I'm telling you, we want some, we want a high IQ person in this role. Yeah, he really is. If anyone's spending time with him, he's really a sharp cookie. He really is. He's well regarded. I mean, that would be a good serious pick. Like I wouldn't, I would like him in a democratic or a Republican administration, someone like that. Latinx seems like a horse's petude. I'm sorry. he just does. He just does. He's always on, he loves being on camera and he strikes me as an unserious person in that regard.

I get his reputation, but having checked, I've called like a dozen people, nobody likes him. They like Scott Besant and I think the issue around Scott Besant is that he worked for Soros, which I think you either work for Soros or a bunch of different people as a great investor. That's what you're holding against him, so he's a little independent. I think that's their issue. I think that's why Elon wants someone like Howard Lutnick he can push

around. I know a lot of people work for George Soros. When it comes to money, George Soros just not suffer fools. That's correct. The Soros funds are very serious, very competent, and they aggregate outstanding professionals. Having worked for George Soros, and it's not a political position. He was there to just make George richer. I mean, that's what he's there for. I know, but I'm just telling you, that's what's going down over there. But I do think one of the things, it's critically important this is a serious person. I think they're trying to get someone like Mark Rowan

or Scott Bessent, who to me are very serious selections, to say yes on tariffs. They may not be able to quite as easily. I think this has to be a person who makes the calls in a way that's not, it has to be political, but not, you know what I mean, in the interest of the economy, according to them and their theories.

How do I make long-term adult non-political decisions that are gonna help? I mean, here's the issue. Prosperity is here, similar to the future. It's just not distributed equally. How does this person make really good decisions that ensure we can argue over a bigger pie? We're always going to argue, but the pie grows.

And this person has to absorb a massive amount of data and also make hard decisions. Chairman Powell raising interest rates 500 points angered almost everybody. Elizabeth Warren was pissed off about it. People on the far right with it. And he's like, no, this is what we got to do folks. And as a result, inflation came down faster in the United States and I think any G7 country and it was already back to its target level. And that, that kind of leadership, intellect, and quite frankly, folks, even

though America seems to be against it, expertise and people who have PhDs who actually studied this shit. Anyways, this is like the only, it feels like this is the only substantive conversation around his nominees other than, wait, let me get this, someone saw him having sex with a minor, let me get this, he's against vaccines. I mean, it's all dancing with the stars and then we go to PBS for a few minutes I'm like, what are you doing?

Frittering away your chance here. I mean, it's just he's just you know what? He's trolling and pranking and he's got to cut it out. He's got to cut it out on this serious topics that he really wants to be Historically, you know, he's still sick. He's just a terrible person Donald Trump, but he could help a lot of people Anyway, let's go on a quick break when we come back. Big Tech leads the charge to derail the Kids' Online Safety Act, and we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Kristi Kahler, about how her company is reducing clothing waste. You know I'm a big recycler in the era of fast fashion. Support for Pivot comes from Mint Mobile. Most people don't love jumping through hoops to get a great deal.

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You get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com slash pivot. That's vanta.com slash pivot for $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com slash pivot. That's vanta.com slash pivot for $1,000 off. Support for this show comes from Arm. Have you ever thought about the technology that makes this podcast possible? Whether you're listening on your phone, in your car, or via a laptop, there's also the data centers that make it all work. One company is at the heart of it all. It's the same company that powered the smartphone revolution and is helping define the AI revolution.

That company is called Arm. Arm designs compute platforms for the biggest companies in the world so they can create silicon solutions to power global technology. Arm became a NASDAQ 100 company in less than a year of its IPO and is proudly NASDAQ listed. ARM touches nearly 100% of the globally connected population. 99% of smartphones are built on ARM. Major clouds run on ARM, as well as all major mobile and PC apps. Now their engineers are tackling the insatiable demand for compute and power efficiency that

AI is creating. AI-enabled ARM CPUs are able to provide the compute platform for the global AI revolution in the years to come. But for now, relax and enjoy this podcast. It's very likely running on your very own ARM-powered device. Visit arm.com slash discover to learn more. Scott, we're back. A campaign against Kids' Online Safety Act is in full swing as the bill has been stalled in the House for months.

A new report from the Wall Street Journal details Big Tech's willingness to dump cash into lobbying efforts and lean into culture war issues with liberal lawmakers' lobbying efforts focused on concerns the bill could censor LGBTQ youth, although I think they fixed that part of it. And with conservative lawmakers, the focus is on potential for censorship of anti-abortion positions. Metta and Alphabet have spent nearly $90 million in the last three years lobbying about a range of issues, including COSA.

COSA would assign platforms to duty of care, which would hold them accountable for addressing issues like mental health disorders, bullying and sexual exploitation. You know, also at the same time, Brandon Carr has been over at the FDCC. He wrote part of Project 2025. He's also very anti-tech. So interesting times. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the Trump administration because it has a very strong anti-tech band, especially JD Vance.

So do you think they'll hold firm? Are they going to be more empowered once Trump takes office? I'm not so sure. I think they may be wishing for the Biden administration again. So what do you think? $90 million they're spending. AC Yeah, I just look, I thought we were going to get this one. Now I'm not as sure. There's been 40 congressional hearings on child safety and social media and there's been zero laws. And this is not perfect, but perfect is not on the menu. And I thought we were going to get this. And now it looks as if the delay in obfuscation and the weaponization of our government and the

fact that there are the bite dance has one lobbyist for every 11 members of Congress, Metta has one for every eight, Amazon has more full-time paid lobbyists living in DC than there are sitting US senators. And money has always played a role here, but essentially big tech has really mastered the art. I think there's a lot of backroom deals that involve our security apparatus, but 5% of kids under the age of 18 qualify as being addicted to drugs or alcohol. 5%, and that's a lot.

If you know 10 households with two kids, that means somewhere there's a kid who's an addict to drugs or alcohol. With social media, 27% qualify as addicted. There's never been, I don't think there's ever been an entity, a sector or a private company that has ever been this guilty of addicting our children than Big Tech. And yet there's absolutely no laws. And so I got excited that this seemed like it was going to go through, and now it feels like Big Tech is winning again. Every day they have their lobbyists out there giving money, playing golf, coming up with

thoughtful reasons around why you should be, express your concerns, and now it feels like it's at risk. I find this all very discouraging, but I don't feel like I have the insight to handicap it. What do you think is going to be happening? I think they just don't want any regulation whatsoever. I think they want no laws whatsoever, and so they're nitpicking every single one of

these laws. There's been lots of problems with COSA. There's no question about that, but they've managed to do different things to it. There's not going to be any rule that's going to be good. And that's the point. They don't want any law. They don't want anything at all. They don't want a privacy law. They don't want antitrust renewed.

They will hold this stuff up as much as they can. And it's going to take serious bipartisan work together away from all the censorship versus hurting LGBTQ youth, both of which, I'm concerned with both of them, right? By the way, more the young gay people. But they don't want anything passed. They don't want a duty of care. They don't want a duty of care. And every other industry has a duty of care in some way, whether it's an airplane or a pharmacy, big pharma. Maybe they manipulate things, but can we get one on the frigging books

and then figure it out from there? They just don't want any slight bit of edge to get them to stop, and they will do anything it takes. This has been a historical thing for these people, and they'll do it as long as our regular. I'd even be like, go, Brendan Carr, even though I think some of his things are lo regular. I'd even be like, go Brendan Carr, even though I think some of his things are loony. I'd go, go Lena Kahn, go just to,

just to muck up their works for five seconds. But you know, you saw Amy Klobuchar get mowed down. You saw Ken Buck get mowed down. Like it doesn't really matter. They mow everybody down. And Congress hasn't passed a major bill to protect children online since 1998. Amazing.

COSA does put in place protections for kids online, like regulating addictive features and harmful content. I mean, this is tech lobbyists continue to maliciously stirred down on Capitol Hill using one unfounded narrative with Democrats and another with Republicans. I mean, with Republicans, they've been stating that COSA censors speech. What the fuck? We're worried about a 12-year-old's speech?

Yeah, Johnson has said it's a, I love the principle but the details that are very problematic. Let me tell you what's behind all of this. The six most popular social media platforms earned roughly, get this, $11 billion in just one year from advertising that targets, wait for it, children. Social media companies have existed with very little regulation for 30 years and want to keep it that way.

I mean, okay, so what's going on here? $11 billion is at stake. COSA would not censor, limit, or remove any content from the internet, and it does not give the FTC or state's attorneys general the power to bring lawsuits over content or speech, no matter who it is from. The bill passes First Amendment scrutiny because it is content neutral.

We're talking about kids here. Yeah, they don't want to do anything. They just, they play them, they play these sides perfectly. And this is light touch, good regulation. It's important to note that there's no new role-making power for the FTC in COSA, nor any ability to create rules about content. So this whole free speech bullshit doesn't hold water.

It's $11 billion they're making and we have seen evidence everywhere that social, the more time kids spend on social, the more likely they are to be depressed, anxious, and engage in self-harm. You know what we need to do, Scott? What's that, Kara? Can I just tell you? You and I need to go down to Mar-a-Lago and discuss this with the president. What do you think?

I would do it. I'd just like to see the two of you in the same room. Oh, share a McDonald's. I like McDonald's. Can I just say, I love fucking McDonald's. You like McDonald's? I do, I do. I do, I eat it not infrequently.

I don't eat it very much. I know it's bad for me, but I gotta tell you, I love it. I take the kids. Amanda's always horrified. You go to Mar-a-Lago. I want to go to Tulum with Don Jr. I'd like to roll with him. No, we have to go together. Me and Don Jr.

You can go hang out. We should go together. We have to make sure Elon's not there, the guest who wouldn't leave, because he'll come at us. But we need to go and talk about this with him, because that's the kind of people we are. We're looking for common ground. Honestly, I would go down there if we could talk to him

about something like this, right? For this, it's worth it for me. And I would eat the McDonald's, President Trump. I would go down there if we could talk to him about something like this, right? For this, it's worth it for me. And I would eat the McDonald's, President Trump, I would eat it. Anyway, all right, let's get to our friend of pivot. Christy Kahler is the founder and CEO of Trashy, a clothing recycling and rewards platform. They also just recently started doing tech stuff, getting rid of all your tech crap that you have.

I'm really intrigued by this company, although I find it, I'm sort of confused about how it could possibly work out, because everyone has their sad recycling stories, Christy. You know what I mean? Like, you find out, you recycle, and it doesn't work. So explain what it is and how it works exactly, because there's a lot of

clothing that ends up in a landfill, right? Yeah, 85% of our clothing ends up in landfill. It's actually 17 tons, million tons per year. So it's about 112 pounds per person in the US every year. So I think that the universal truth is just everyone has too much stuff. And typically, recycling is actually kind of either inconvenient, we don't know where the clothes go. Even Only Goodwill sells about 27% of what they collect. And we're like, what happens next? So with Trashy, we created a product called the Take Back Bag, which is really fun and exciting.

And people do it from the convenience of their own home. They fill it up with anything from any brand in any condition. So it's quite convenient on that sense too. And they mail it back to us. So this is soft clothing, shoes, shirts, things like that. Yeah, so your shirts, your shoes, your bags, your accessories, it can be towels and sheets.

You send it back to us and then we have a big recycling center where we meticulously sort and grade all of the product. It actually goes into one of 253 grades. So it's a very detailed process and then we find the next best use for it. So that can be reused, that can be recycling, that can be downcycling, fiber recycling, but we control the whole process so we have complete visibility into it. We know where it goes. And so where most programs are opaque, we provide a lot of transparency. Fash, fashion for people who don't know, is coming huge industry particularly in the last

two years with the rise of companies like Shein and Tmoo. Scott's a big proponent, I'm going to get him, pull him in in a second. But just so you know, Amazon, interestingly, just launched your competitor in that field last week with a storefront called Hall. Because they got in trouble because they were just throwing everything out. If people returned stuff, they just threw it back out when they didn't ever return it. Just curious, what's your take on these companies? And I'll note a couple of stats.

The average consumer buys 60% more pieces of clothes than they did 17 years ago. Not Kara Swisher, but others. The number of times a garment is worn and declined is around 36% in the last 15 years or so. So talk a little bit about, people are moving into this, but you wonder if you have the disappointment you've had in the recycling business, which has shown that most things you recycle don't get recycled. Yeah, I think there's a lack of transparency in the recycling process. It's a very kind of antique network of people

recycling clothes, so you don't get a lot of transparency and visibility into what's happening. But to your point, we're consuming more. I mean, do you guys know how many products Xi-Anne puts out per day? 7,000? Yes, between 2,000 and 10,000 per day. So on the macro scale, we've moved.

I mean, it makes Zara look like luxury. I should get a free chip from Mar-a-Lago. I thought that was outstanding. Yeah. Seriously. That was outstanding. Look how impressed Chris is. Seriously. That's great.

Anyways, go ahead. Sorry. No, so we've moved from fast fashion to instant fashion, which I think is why everybody's taking note. Like we have to do something about this. We can't keep putting that much product out into the world. It's estimated that we lose about $600 billion in value every single year. It's remarkable, obviously, the Xi'an effect, the Temu effect. You talked to the increased consumption numbers.

I think it's time that we all took notes that we need to do something about it. It's estimated that we lose about $600 billion into landfill every year in value from fashion, textiles, technology, toys. But most business models really are not that effective. So either people don't do it because it's not fun or it's not convenient, or it's not rewarding. There's not like a what's in it for me

kind of component to it. And so, those are the pieces we really play with, all embedded with like, how do we build a really good business model that works? We need to get the flow of economics working. We can't just say we need to do it because it's the right thing. Nice to meet you, Christy.

One of the things I like about what you're doing, I find it sort of ineffective, unrealistic to believe that you're gonna talk young people into consuming less. I also, and I'm an investor in the space, I think young people need more access to products for a lower price. But at the same time, trying to figure out a way to deal with one of the externalities here, I think it's really important. The fear I have is that people worry that recycling was nothing but an attempt by people to make them feel that they were actually addressing the problem. And there's been a lot of information that recycling, quite frankly, is just more emotional

benefit than actual benefit. What happens to these products if organizations like yours don't get a hold of them and repurpose or recycle them effectively? Yes. I think the term recycling is often applied in a very broad way. Sometimes people take products in, they skim the cream off the top, try and resell them for profit and the rest unfortunately ends up in landfill. That's not discussed. I think that's pretty typical,

even with the modern resale platforms. I think, unfortunately, that's often done at lowest cost. So they're bundled up, they're shipped offshore. We have a whole concept called waste colonialism that we talk a lot about. But it's really the infrastructure to properly process materials hasn't been modernized in order to handle the volume and handle it with precision so that we can actually keep 95% of what we collect out of landfill, which is what our process is able to do. It doesn't mean that it's perfect. Some things are downcycled.

Some things are reused. You have to have kind of a broad approach to where these products can go. But taking them in in the first place is really critical. We have a gap in the collection cycle and we have a gap in sorting and really the transparency around sorting and where things are being recycled after that.

So explain the business model then to us. What is the business model? Cause that's where the, you know, you have these colorful bags, I've done it a couple of times, and then you get stuff, right? Correct. You get rewards. Yeah, you unlock deals. You can, so basically business model works that we've created this,

as I said, kind of recycling service. It comes in the form of this package that's fun and bright and convenient. Customers are willing to pay for that. So that really creates the relationship. And then after recycling, you unlock deals and rewards at places you like to shop. And that can be anything from like Uber and DoorDash to Nike and Adidas.

So it's a broad range of rewards, which we found really important because I think you don't always want to recycle your jeans and buy new jeans. You might want to recycle your jeans and buy dinner. It's just a much broader, universal kind of incentive platform that gets kind of the consumer into their next step of their journey in a way where they're also extracting value. So you're not like chastising them saying, you know, oh, you shouldn't buy things. It's that you want to, you don't want them to go to better places, presumably.

We want to collect them all. I think I totally agree. It's unrealistic to think that consumption is going to slow down. There's nothing we can do to do that, frankly. You know, that train's kind of left the station. If we can engage on the post-consumer moment, if we can say, hey, we know you've got that pile, we know you've got cords and chargers hiding in a door,

let us help you. Most of the time people are like, how did you know? I'd like because we do this. From what I understand, T-Mu and Shien are going to be responsible for 20 percent of all holiday purchases, which is just-

And now Hall, which Amazon is trying to copy them, but go ahead. That's right. What, I mean, other than just the consumption culture more for less, what do you think is going on here? Because we had typical fashion, then we had fast fashion. I would describe this as on-demand fashion. Can you talk about why this category has just become, I mean, it really is, the explosion here is staggering.

Any thoughts as to why these companies have become so dominant so fast? I mean, I think you have a few different forces at play at the same time, which is the Shians and Temus of the world have kind of hacked cost of goods and speed to market. So they can really drive that frequency of launch in a way that nobody's been able to ever before. So that 10,000 styles a day, I mean, they often pride themselves on 98% sell through.

They're not making these decisions nine months in advance, they're making them two weeks in advance. And so they've really figured the market out. So like that kind of demand cycle is really fast for them. I think obviously social media and our access to kind of trend information product is really important in driving this forward, particularly with the Gen Z kind of trend information, product is really important in driving this forward, particularly with the Gen Z kind of community. That's where everything exists.

And so it's a rush. It's pretty human nature to kind of have that consumption cycle. And I think there's a really interesting conflict in values because it's often the same, people were like, we need to save the planet, which is an interesting tension that we're facing. Right. Which Patagonia has done, right?

If you think about it, a bunch of other Patagonia makes a big deal or you return them and they fix them. I did that for Louis. He happens to like this one Patagonia jacket and they fixed it, you know, and he preferred that which was instead of a new one, which was interesting. But you're now moving into tech recycling. I know Apple does that to an extent. What is tech recycling?

Because I've got cords from the 60s essentially or whatever. Where do those go? Why are you doing this and where do those go? Obviously, you want to do as much stuff that you can actually make money from. Presumably, you can from this stuff. Yeah, I think it's getting the consumer engaged as one piece. And so what we found is like we've helped, we've distributed over 600,000 take back bags just for textiles in the last 12 months. And when we speak to consumers, they're just like, please do more, like, help me more. So we know the demand is

there on the consumer side. To your point, like Apple and other platforms have kind of their buyback programs, but they're not handling old chargers, cords, the actual drawer stuff that you don't know what to do. And so in a similar format, you know, we see there's just such a huge opportunity, and we build the supply chain to support that so we can take those products back and recycle them into materials into componentry

Alternatively that typically ends up in landfill. So it's pretty similar stats to to textiles But you can make money from presumably that's a lot of money. It's like it's copper often It's I wouldn't call it a lot of money, but there's a revenue stream to it, which helps the business model work So that you know that value that I mentioned that goes into landfill typically, we're extracting some of that. You're extracting, right, rather than garbage pickers. Rather than garbage, you're getting the metals, the plastics, the componentry where possible. And then all of that's, when we take back electronics, it's incredibly important too,

the data sanitation. So the supply chain piece of what we do, the integrity of that is really essential to making this work well and delivering it on promise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would be bad if that started killing people by doing that. So people have zeroed in,

I would argue unfairly on fast fashion. Do you think that Apple and Nike, because of their incredibly positive brands, get a bit of an undeserved hall pass? Or is fast fashion really that much worse than some of the other kind of more aspirational brands that have supply chains in China? That's a great question.

I mean, I think on a unit by unit basis, fast fashion is a key player in those statistics that we just quoted and the growth of that consumption cycle. I don't think that gives these brands a pass that are kind of the incumbents with large supply chains and large businesses. Patagonia, I mean, I think they've done amazing work, but their business is a billion dollars a year.

I think it's grown four. It's a pimple on the elephant. Yeah, I get it, I get it. But it's, I mean, they're still producing product. So I think that, you know, overall, if you're making product and you're selling it to a consumer, 85% of the time it's ending up in landfill, everybody should be engaged in this conversation.

Let me ask you, just a quick follow-up. Who in your mind is the worst and the best of a large iconic brand or retailer, or everyone from Walmart to Amazon, if you were to pick the people doing their level best and the people doing the worst, which brands would be at the top and the bottom of your list?

Oh gosh, that's a really tough question to copy. But I mean, I think actually Nike has done good work, particularly on upstream supply chain historically, and materials innovation, and they continue to do that. I do another best, I do think Patagonia has led the way, not as large in kind of changing consumer mindset. Worst, I would say right now, knowing the Shien team's kind of working

on things a little bit, I don't know if the Temu team's working on things in the same way. I would say that's bad. I would say Amazon's, you know, pretty responsible as well. You would say Amazon is responsible. Yeah. Not like they're not being responsible.

They're responsible for the problem as well. Oh, I see. Excuse me. That sounds right. Yeah. They throw everything in the trash when you return it. FYI, if you send something back, it never goes anywhere. It's like crazy.

I almost don't want to return things to him. Anyway, perfect. This is great. Christy Kahler is really interesting business as a CEO and founder of Trashy. Thank you very much. Thanks, Christy. Thank you, guys. All right, Scott, we are so solutions-based, aren't we? Oh, yeah. That's right. Fixing it. We're solutions-based. Let's mail a box of Trashy down to Mar-a-Lago on our visit. Okay, one more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and fails. Support for the show comes from HubSpot. Picture this, you're at a party and someone asks you what you do as a marketer. How do you even begin to describe it? You have to generate leads, score them, contact them, create content, gather data, and, tomorrow, do it all again.

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I literally feel like a rich person suddenly. And I love wearing it. The things I love to do outside is nothing. I do not like to be cold. And so being warm is my goal about the cold times and this jacket really does it. Get ready for your new adventure with Ether Apparel. And for a limited time, our listeners can get 25% off orders over $400. Just go to etherapparel.com and use the promo code pivot25 at checkout. That's A-E-T-H-E-R, apparel.com,

and use the promo code pivot25 for 25% orders over. $400, don't wait. That's etherapparel.com. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Go first. My win is't going to shock you. I met a guy down here who just sold his company and he reached out to a friend of mine who knows First Lady Alania and said, I'd really like to get my, and this is a serious story, true story, my resume in front of DOJA or Department of Government Efficiency because

I'm interested in going to work for a group in the government that is very focused on solutions. And they have said Vivek and Elon to their credit, in my view, that if you're looking to bring a private sector innovation, work your ass off vibe to this group, we wanna hear from you. And I do think there's value in trying to restore some of the aspirational, more merit versus tenure based culture to government work.

I think that it's lost a lot of prestige. People still have a lot of prestige for our folks that serve at the highest levels or serve in uniform, but I worry that some of our best and brightest young people, unlike Israel, even unlike the UK, don't think I'm really good at what I do, which logically means one of my options should be to go to work in a government role. So I do like that they're trying to

create this aspirational feel around it. I think that's a positive and I wanted to call that a win. My fail is, I just want to just again, the fact that we're normalizing the notion that somehow vaccines are bad. Just some stats here. US childhood immunization from 1994 to 2013 prevented 732,000 deaths and 21 million hospitalizations from vaccine preventable diseases.

COVID-19 in the US prevented 139,000 deaths in just the first five months, reducing projected fatalities by 20%. And then overall, vaccines save millions annually by preventing infectious diseases and their complications, highlighting the need for robust immunization programs worldwide. I mean, these things really are, if you were to hold up something that is like, okay, our species kind of gets it and there's real hope here, the measles vaccination prevented millions of deaths, but in 2023 saw a 20% rise in global cases,

preventable cases due to poor coverage, leading to get this 10.3 million cases and 107,000 deaths. So the World Health Organization says over 22 million children missed their first vaccine dose contributing to outbreaks in 57 countries. So anything that normalizes the notion that these things are 99.9, there are just so few things that create so much positive that prevents so much death, disease, and disability across communities quite frankly, that really need it.

These things are inexpensive. They're easily distributed. So I really hope that we check back on what is a, you know, get the easy stuff right, you know? And this is the easy stuff. These things work. They're a gift. Yeah. And also by the way,

let me just say Operation Warp Speed, which was one of the better things of his administration. He really is moving away from it. I'm like, you fucking idiot. That was something really amazing that you did. Take fucking credit for that thing. That was impressive. And I know people do like to trash Trump all the time, trashy Trump. But that was something that was great. That was intuitively good, right? Like so it's possible. I don't believe he's walking away from it. That drives me nuts.

Okay. I agree with you on the government thing. The only thing I would say about that is they also trash government workers incessantly in a way that's cruel. By the way, there's so many amazing government workers. So stop insulting them that way. They all have to be cut. Especially, Egon's just irritating, but Vivek Ramaswamy always has to trash people.

No one's ever good, everyone sucks. It's the same part of we're the counter elites. They're not, you're a bunch of elites. Stop insulting really good government workers. Some things work, some things don't. We can make it better. That's my feeling on that one. All right. My win is I'm going to be seeing Gladiator soon, which is very exciting.

Gladiator 2, you mean? Gladiator 2. It looks really good. I love that Paul Muskell. I hear Denzel Washington's amazing. I know I've talked a lot about Wicked. I'll get to that in a second. But I'm so excited to see that movie. I'm going to go by myself. I'm going to go by myself.

I'm going to go by myself to see. That's how much I love the movie. It's frustrating good. My, my. Yes, yes. But there's another movie and I, this that I have heard is fantastic. Aubrey Plaza, who I think is wonderful,

is a movie called My Old Ass. And it's about this young girl takes, I forget who the other lead is, but she takes mushrooms and meets her older self and they have this relationship. And I've heard it's wonderful. I'd love to meet my younger self. It would be just interesting.

I don't know. I don't think it'd be that interesting. Anyways, go ahead. By the way, I saw Aubrey Plaza when I went to that WNBA game. Yeah, yeah. Which as you know, I'm totally down with the WNBA. You're a famous lesbian Scott

Cowell. New unofficial spokesperson for the lesbian community. I knew you would like it. I'm so glad that worked out. My fail is, I think, like I said, with like them insulting everybody and doing everything, I think they're overstepping really quickly and becoming sore winners. It's not, the numbers are really moving. And so now it's 49.3 versus 48.4. Oh, God. Here we go again. No, let me just say they're now doing things like act like calm the fuck down. This was not as close. You think that besides that, but NFL players are doing the Trump dance. Did you see this? Like they're doing that stupid weird, you know,

jack off dance he does where he looks like he's jacking off two horses. You know, the dance he does where he looks like he's jacking off two horses. Do you know the dance he does? They're doing that. This isn't going to endear you to anybody being sore winners. Just stop it. Whatever. Do your stupid dance. But so did this guy, this UFC fight. They're all doing the dance.

Let me just tell you, you think liberals are irritating? You're fucking irritating too. I agree some liberals are irritating? You're fucking irritating too. And I agree, some liberals are irritating, but you know, there's no, this is not, we need to, we do need to get along and you're just being douche nozzles about it. So whatever. It's not going to make me think you're better. It was close Scott. I don't care what you say.

We need to pivot to the center. We got, we absolutely got destroyed. We need to rethink America as a platform for two things, defending its citizens and its shores and creating atmospheres to get more money. In any case, don't be a sore winner. Don't be a sore loser. Don't be a sore winner. I'm just sore.

Anyway, you're just sore. Yeah, anyway, we wanna 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. We'll be doing another call-in show soon. Submit your voicemails with questions you'd like to

ask us live on the air and let us know where to reach you. Also, Scott, I'm sure you remember Barbenheimer last year, but you're familiar with Glickit? Glickit, get it? Wicked and Gladier, too, are coming out this Friday and people are planning to see both movies back to back. Yeah. I have seen Wicked. I'm going to take Clara to see it tomorrow night here in DC.

We can talk about how movies are making a comeback. Anyways, I'm sorry, go ahead. This you need to see in the theater. Wicked, you absolutely need. I'm glad that you do. You love that. You love Wicked. I love Wicked. It's really good. You'll see. They're trying to recreate that Barbenheimer magic which I thought was cool.

I love that. That did bring a lot of people back to the theater. They did great. Are you going to go to either? No, you won't. I might go to, I'll definitely go to Gladiator. I'm not sure. In the theater, you want to see it though, right? Yeah, I think so. I'll probably go see it. Yeah. I like when these movies do well in the theater. You don't have to discount that experience. But speaking of Wicked, I just spoke with the director of that movie,

John Chu, for the latest episode of On with Kara Swisher. He explained to me how he used your favorite device, Scott, the Apple Vision Pro, to edit the movie. It turns out he's a closet geek. Steve Jobs is his god. He grew up in Silicon Valley, by the way. Let's listen. Once I got the Vision Pro, I found it. It changed the game for me because I put it on and I wasn't on a computer with my editor over somewhere else, which feels very limiting. I don't get interactive with it.

My blood's not pumping. But with the Vision Pro, I could make the screen as big as the room. And I could walk around and pace the way I do in the edit room. I could lay on the couch the way I do in the edit room. And then I could bring it closer. We were doing visual effects on it.

And so I could give notes and use my finger to like mark things. And this is people in the Bay Area. This is people in London. this is people in Canada and 40 people are on this and I'm on my couch and I can look at it what it looks like 20 feet wide and what it would look like on an iPad. Anyway it's a great it's a really interesting interview he's super geeky and in a really interesting way and also very creative and his movie comes out

obviously the first part of it comes out. He's also working on all kinds of cool. He's the director for Wicked? Wicked, mm-hmm. He did Crazy Rich Asians. You know, supposedly, I mean, they're so excited about it. They've already given a green light for a sequel, but it's about Mitch McConnell's sex life.

It's called Something Wicked This Way Comes. Oh, that's good. That's a really bad joke. I brought politics, sex, wicked. I don't know what to say. I am literally the Dave Chappelle of the cultural zeitgeist. Mish McConnell. He shall be in our rear view mirror, and that's good enough for me.

Okay, Scott, that's the show. Where are you going next? I told you I'm going to Vegas for a speaking gig, then I go to LA, I'll be at the Beverly Hills Hotel again, trying to find famous people to stare at, and then I go to Vegas for F1, and then I go to Brazil. Oh my God, your life. I'm going to be in New York this week.

All right, I'm sure I'll hear about it. I'm sure, say hi to my doorman. Yeah, no, I'm not staying at your house. They're putting me up, I'm doing a secret thing, a secret show. A secret thing. Yeah. Okay. I'm doing a secret. I'm doing a pilot.

I'm doing a pilot for a show. Nice. Good. Yeah. All right. I'm not supposed to talk about it, but I'm completely indiscreet. But you will. Yes, that's correct.

But you will. I don't understand secretiveness. I don't understand secretiveness. It's not a brag. Transparent. Transparent. That's weird. Weparent, that's what we are. We broke, as we said, we broke the fourth wall. I got a call from Stephanie Ruhl, by the way, who was complaining about us insulting Cable

while we go on it. We can do both. I was like, are you going to bitch me out? Are you going to bitch me out in the morning? She called this morning. I was like, no, we said it's a terrible economics and it is, and your numbers are declining overall and we love your show and it is.

Our issue was it could be good. There's ways to make it good. There's ways to make everything good and we do it because we like it, correct Scott? And it helps our podcast. Scottie She's like you, although she'll call me. She won't even say hi to Stephanie. She'll be like, you really disappoint me. And I'm like, oh no.

And I'm like, oh no. And I get scared and also I got to be honest, Lil turned on, Lil turned on. I don't know what's coming next. Now she's gonna call me. Now she's gonna call me. I kinda like it. Stephanie, we love you. Call and yell at us, call and yell at us.

Anyway, I'm excited for this song you're gonna make for my birthday. You have a month, you have a month, less than a month. So get on it. Okay, Scott. Okay. That's the show. Well, 75 is a big one.

We'll be back on Friday with more. Today's show was produced by Leran Eamon. Read us out. I'm reading us out. Okay. Today's show is produced by Leran Eamon, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and Todd engineering this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Severio, and Dan Shulan.

Nishak Kherwad, Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at n1mag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great rest of the week. Support for this episode comes from AWS. AWS Generative AI gives you the tools to power your business forward

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