Pivot - Judd Apatow, Texas, and Snap Inc.

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

Kara and Scott discuss the shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Also, Snap Inc.’s stock spiral, and Paypal and Klarna layoffs. Then, they’re joined by Friend of Pivot Judd Apatow to discuss the state of comedy, harnessing creativity, and his new documentary, George Carlin’s American Dream. Send us your Listener Mail questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or via Yappa, at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. So, Scott, today we'll get into everything from Snap's stock crash to layoffs at PayPal and

Klarna, and we'll speak with filmmaker Judd Apatow about his new documentary book and feature film. But first, we have to talk about the terrible news out of Texas. Another mass shooting has claimed the lives of more than 20 people at an elementary school, 19 of them children. This is the deadliest school shooting in 10 years since Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut. It comes on the heels of a mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo. We barely had time to unpack that event before this happened. The responses to this shooting has seemed more impassioned. President Biden said the country should show backbone in the face of lobbyists, though he didn't name names. In Texas, Beto O'Rourke

interrupted a press conference that accused Governor Greg Abbott of inaction. And one of those powerful responses came from Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, who spoke on the floor of the Senate. Let's take a quick listen. Our kids are living in fear every single time they set foot in the classroom because they think they're going to be next.

What are we doing? Why do you spend all this time running for the United States Senate? Why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job, of putting yourself in a position of authority, if your answer is that as this slaughter increases, as our kids run for their lives, we do nothing?

So, also Steve Kerr from the Golden State Warriors also had a very viral speech he gave, which was incredibly moving. He had a family member killed in a shooting. God, what are we doing? I mean, it's hard to pile on or say anything new or add to the outrage, the justified outrage. I just, and you don't want to in any way validate or just be bereft or resign. But I feel as if we've been here before. And I have the same fears you have every time. And that is you get, not hopeful, but you think that maybe the silver

lining here might be, well, this is the one where that motivates us or catalyzes us to action. And to date, they haven't been. We move on to the next thing. I would describe the politicization of this as a cocktail or a war between the wrong Republicans who are focused on money and catering to the far right, and the ineffective, Democrats who make moving emotional speeches and they can't get anything done. And in this war between the wrong and the ineffective, the bullets are winning. And the school shootings are the tip of the iceberg of horror. But as an actual number of people that are killed in school shootings, while it's horrific, it's literally a tip of the iceberg where 99% of the death is below the surface. We've had a mass shooting every day.

1.4 million people in the last 50 years have died at the hands of guns in the United States. There will be more preschoolers shot and killed this year than police officers. So this gets, obviously for justifiable reasons, tremendous media coverage. But it's barely even a tip of the iceberg of the despair and death and disability that gun deaths cause. Yeah. Bill Frist noted this, that gun deaths are the leading cause of young people now over traffic accidents. Yeah.

Used to be cars. Now it's guns. And, you know, you like to think, all right, well, how do we move to some sort of solution? And there are solutions. There are no, quote, unquote, you know, no magic wand here. But, you know, there really is. I think a lot about – I immediately think about young men. And let me ask you this, Kara.

When you heard about this, it's weird. You tell you're getting older. I saw the headlines here, and for the first time I didn't read them. I'm like, I just can't handle this right now. When you heard about this, it's weird. You tell you're getting older. I saw the headlines here, and for the first time, I didn't read them. I'm like, I just can't handle this right now. And then I went back to it. But here's the thing, and I don't know if you felt the same way. In terms of the shooter, I knew who the shooter was before I knew who it was. Well, it's either a very racist young man or an isolated young man.

Well, they're usually one and the same. I mean, let me put it this way. You knew who it wasn't. I knew with 100% certainty it wasn't a soccer mom. I knew with 100% certainty it wasn't a grandparent. And I knew with 98% certainty it wasn't even a fundamentalist whack job from, you know, some religious extremist. I knew it wasn't that. You knew it was. And this is who it always is, or almost always is, a young man, maybe even call him a boy, that is totally detached, isn't attaching to anything, hasn't attached to anything. And I do think this speaks to a larger crisis that affects incarceration, social services, addiction, inability to form families.

And that is, I believe, and let me asterisk all of this, none of this gets much better without sensible gun control. I don't want to be a distraction here, but I do go to- No, no. I think it goes hand in hand. It's allowing people to become more isolated, especially post-pandemic, or not dealing with mental health issues, but then providing guns, you know, providing this many guns. And one of the things, I interviewed Nick Kristof today and Frank Smyth, who wrote the NRA book. And one of the things, Frank, Nick talked about all these baby steps that need to happen, including federal registration of gun ownership, red flag laws,

all kinds of small things that will make a big difference just the way we regulated driving with seatbelts and guardrail all kinds of things we did

they were very small things that added many many saved many many lives education mothers against

drunk driving things like that beyond just all kinds of things they did in the auto industry it's never

going to stop a lot of the people who want to stop this it like, guns aren't the problem. I'm like, yes, they are. They always push the Second Amendment. And I'm like, you know, it says a well-regulated militia. Well-regulated is right in there, along with right to bear arms. And that seems to escape them.

Frank Smythe was really interesting, who's written a history of the NRA. You know, the NRA is collapsing even as gun ownership is surging. And the idea of being able to own a weapon has gotten traction. And that's what he talked about, is that you don't need the NRA anymore. It's like deeply embedded in a much different way than it was before. People having to feel like they don't trust the government. Many people believe there's a war coming and they need to be armed. And then there's the complex problem of people feeling isolated

and having accessibility to these semi-automatic and automatic weapons that are just, you know, it's interesting because my son, I talked a lot about it with Alex, and one of the things, and my brother who's visiting me, and we were talking about gun issues. And I was like, nobody gets to have a tank or any, some of the weapons they're using in Ukraine right now in an actual war. Nobody would say, yes, you have a right to a tank. There are regulations. But for some reason, people have become so unable to compromise on these things that it's disturbing. There seems to be no

solution, even though most people want sensible gun regulation. But it does call on a number of things at ALR Society. One, we have full minority rule now. Our government and our gun laws are not in step with NRA members. The majority of NRA members support some form of background checks. The NRA no longer represents gun owners. We have minority rule. Our government and our laws around this do not represent the will of the people. I also think it calls on 98% of mass shooters are men. The average age of a school shooter is 18. The number of kids being raised

in single-parent households has doubled. And I'm in no way disparaging single mothers. What I'm saying here is that you look at this kid, he had a mother who had struggled with drugs. He was no longer living in a household with his biological parents. He had been bullied. None of these shooters are on the yearbook committee or the lacrosse team. And I think it starts at a very early age. And, you know, these kids suffer from very deep psychological trauma. And then they want to

get their status back. And they see this as a means of getting their status back. They're inspired a lot of times by things they see on social media. And then they have access to a weapon of war. So, you know, it's gun control. But I also think, I do think, and I'm going on Smirconish on Saturday, and I've been trying to do a lot of research around this. My initial thing was, okay, specifically households with a kid with no male role models, no attachment between the ages of like 16 and 20, we should identify those households. And I started thinking, okay, how can you profile? And then I thought that's going to do more harm than it is good. Well, actually studies show that don't show any relation between fatherless. Mike Lee talked about this of Utah. The shootings were driven by fatherlessness. Studies don't show

that relationship. But they do show, one study by the University of Washington found a correlation between feelings of entitlement among white males and homicidal revenge. They found that straight white men struggled with issues of downward mobility and loss of status. But there is a relationship between a lack of attachment. I mean, as little as being on a sports team, being involved in after-school activities, Boy Scout membership has been cut in half. These kids usually come from households where there isn't what I'd call a lot of, or there's a lack of parental involvement, there's economic strain, and there's usually along the way some really traumatic psychological event or shaming. So I was seen as having an economic deficit when I was a 17-year-old boy.

And the government stepped in and said, we're going to give you a Pell Grant. We're going to help close the delta of your economic disadvantage. I think that we need something that says we need to close the gap for young people, specifically boys, who are not attaching to anything. And I think we should use, like the Jed Foundation does, use the infrastructure in place of high schools and schools to help. I'm not saying profile people. The last thing you want to do is profile someone as a possible shooter. Because the majority, you could go down the checklist and 99% are not going to run into this sort of a problem. But I do think it's time, just as we said, it doesn't make sense to not give women the same opportunities men have in college. Just as we said, people of color who have suffered injustice and need some affirmative

action, I think it is time to provide resources through schools that say young people, specifically boys who are not attaching to anything, need more resources, more counseling, and more opportunities to attach. Because the way I think you could absolutely, the commonality across all of these individuals is a lack of attachment and a lack of, I mean, they all cry for help. This kid posted to Facebook three times. Yeah, yeah. And often schools know this. Although, you know, there's so many of those, how do you know which one is which? Interestingly, mass shootings aren't even the biggest gun problem in the U.S. A majority of U.S. gun deaths are suicides.

Individual guns, murder. One-on-one. Numbers of mass shootings. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, this is common. It touched, in fact, our own team this week. So, you know, this is common.

It touched, in fact, our own team this week. Over the weekend in New York, a gunman in the subway shot and killed another passenger at random. The brother of our producer, Evan, happened to be in the car where it happened, and he spent the rest of the ride preparing to die along with other passengers. Thankfully, they all made it off the train unharmed. But here, you know, this is rage playing out in a, such a dangerous way for everybody else. And what would be nice is some compromise and acknowledgement. It immediately moved to politics, you know, everywhere it went. And it really shouldn't, because most Americans want a solution here. I thought Biden articulated it best, you know, in that regard, although he's got to take some, a lot of stuff.

When I was interviewing these guys, there's nothing he can do, like, from an executive order point of view. It has, you know, and you have Texas just putting less and less restrictions on guns, you know, like, bring a gun to your kid's birthday party is kind of the way I look at it, that they're doing there. And so, one of the hard parts, you know, of course, social media was brought into it. Governor Abbott tried to shift the blame, the narrative over to social media. In this case, this guy just put photos of guns on Instagram, which is not, they can do that. Lots of people do that. You can't take those down.

You can't. But he did a Facebook private messaging, which Abbott tried to pretend was public, which was heinous on his part. I've never defended Facebook before. I was like, screw you, Governor Abbott. I don't defended Facebook before. I was like, screw you. I don't think Facebook is liable here. I don't. No, not at all. There is AI here that is being utilized,

including by the school district, to look for potential violence in advance using AI. And that's also controversial. So is these private messages were encrypted, probably if he was doing them on WhatsApp. And obviously they're moving towards encryption. So it's very, in this case, it's not the fault of social media. And sometimes it is.

It's one of the many things that also makes people isolated, right? Of course, that's another thing is the isolation. Also, there's rumors like this guy was, there was a ridiculous rumor he was trans and sort of tried to attack trans people. That was really depraved. Heinous depraved. Yeah, it was really depraved. I, you know, it just was. It was Congress, it was representative of Paul Gosser who spread the false claim that the Texas shooter was a transgender woman. Oh, it's just ridiculous. It was like, just the worst of humanity, honestly. So anyway, so this

is, you know, there's a lot of blame to go around and there's a lot of solutions that need to happen here. It's just as disheartening on every level, on every single level with the spate of news that is so hard for kids, you know, from, no joking about it, monkeypox, which is quite dangerous from what I understand looking into it, to the war in Ukraine, to the COVID. Our kids are under a lot of stress. They're under a lot of stress. And they live in these isolated digital environments so much more than they used to. Yeah, we're, I mean, again, though, it's like a lot of countries are dealing with that stress. A lot of countries, we don't have monopoly on mental illness. We don't have monopoly on kids, you know, single-parent households, although we are number one.

We do have a monopoly on that cocktail, and we pour kerosene on it with access to weapons of war. And it's just, I mean, it's just so ridiculous. If you're an 18-year-old woman that wants an abortion, you have to notify your parents. You have to have a 48-hour waiting period. You have to watch a bunch of educational videos. You can buy an AR-15 easier than a pack of cigarettes in some states. Which this young man did. Which this young man did.

And the numbers, the ammunition numbers, they're out of ammunition. Everyone is buying. I have to tell you, when I went, I went, Louie and I went into a store. We were visiting Dollywood, of all places. It was a big, giant gun store, but it also sold knives, and he wanted knives for a trip, a camping knife. And I have never seen such manic vying of ammunition in my life. I was terrified. It was terrifying.

They were just loading up their carts with ammunition, I think. I was like, got enough there? Well, you never know. I'm like, yeah, you kind of do. You kind of know. And it was as if it was a? Well, you never know. I'm like, yeah, you kind of do. You kind of know. And it was as if, you know, it was a myth. That's an image. Kara Swisher in a gun shop telling people they have too much ammunition.

I didn't know what to say. It was crazy. But they were born of true fear. And that's the problem, which is also amplified on social media, of course. Anyway, just a terrible week all around. And I think one of the things that we had a school event and they were saying a moment of silence. And just like Steve Kersh just said, I almost got up and said, no, let's not have any moments of fucking silence. Let's have moments of noise, like constant noise.

Thoughts and prayers. No, I'm going to scream all the time. I mean, I think everyone, and I do, I urge everyone to listen to Steve Care's speech. I know speeches are a dime a dozen, but he's 100% right. All right, let's get to some tech news. The value of Snap Inc. stock is disappearing. On Tuesday, Snap warned that the, quote, the macro environment has deteriorated further and faster than we anticipated. That spooked investors, which sent the stock spiraling more than 40%. Other digital advertising giants were hit too.

Twitter, Meta, Google all got moderate dings, below 10%. Pinterest plunged more than 20%, but rebounded slightly. And Wednesday, there's a rebound going on today, I think, a little bit. Snap revenue is pretty small compared to Google or Facebook. And it had been doing very well, actually. It sort of survived a lot of the problems. The macro trends they're referring to, inflation and decreased ad spending, Ukraine's. What is your thoughts on this? Losing ground to TikTok? I don't think they are. I think they were doing quite well, actually. Apple's app tracking transparency. Well, it's sort of a perfect storm. What's

wild about this is how fast things have reverted, in that it's just a couple months ago we were talking about how snap was defying gravity and just killing it. insecure about war in Ukraine, consumer sentiment plummeting, that all of a sudden they're reading the tea leaves and going, ad spending is about to drop substantially. In addition, growth companies, interest rates kill growth companies because their cash flows that are supposed to be huge in the future get discounted back and are worth less, but the money they need to grow is more expensive. So it just hits them especially hard. But you mentioned it. I think the thing the media is missing here, and I spent a lot of time looking at this company, and I don't think people really understand what an impact it's having, is in fact TikTok. And that is TikTok, just to give you some examples, we spend 9.6 billion minutes a year watching Netflix. You think about just Netflix so dominant, how much time?

We're at 22 billion with TikTok. And I'm not sure, I'm not sure, but I think that represents, is it 22 billion or is it 22 trillion? I might have my numbers wrong. I think that represents, and I'm trying to do the math, 1% of all attention globally of all humans. And I think just every day, more and more people spend more time on TikTok and less time doing anything else. And it represents, again, I always go to these kind of knock on second order effects. The magic and the mystery and the danger of TikTok is if you pull up Spotify, you start making decisions. Do I want to listen to Tom Petty or 80s music?

When you pull up Netflix, supposedly people, households in America spend between 10 and 20 minutes a day deciding what to watch on Netflix. I do that. I watch all their shows. Here's the thing about TikTok that's so unique about it. The only decision you make is to tap the app, and then there's no decisions. It's being in an opium den. The only decision you make is to inject the heroin, and then boom, no more decisions, and it's wonderful, and you just lay on your side, and all decisions are made for you, and you look up two hours later, and you're still going. Right. It's entertainment. It's not communication. Snapchat is still primarily just watching my teens use it for communications.

But you have to make decisions. And you have to be actively involved. Or I'm going to use a filter. Or I'm going to snap my friend Santi. TikTok, no decisions. And the content keeps getting better and better. So I think all of this, whether it's meta, Netflix, Snap. Meta. You just aren't seeing it because it's so big, right?

I think what we're going to find here, and also, it's just crazy, to their advantage, they don't have a public stock. They don't have to report publicly numbers. I think they're sandbagging their metrics. I think they're actually talking them down. I think that all the obvious things, a real slowing of consumer spending, an anticipation of slowing advertising revenue, higher interest rates. But I think that the atmospherics here are just as Amazon has been taking the oxygen out of the room for the last 20 years from all retailers. Everything everywhere has gotten harder for every retailer because of Amazon. I think the same thing is happening to the entire media landscape

because of TikTok. Interesting. You know, I get complaints. I was on the receiving end of several different companies about TikTok, you know, about them, about that they don't have to reveal things, that they're not subject to regulation, that they can buy things that they can't do. You know, I think Snapchat still has a great product and people like it. I think it's just they missed the TikTok moment. They kind of discovered it was kind of that idea. But no one really, Facebook has tried, nobody, everyone was able to copy Instagram, right? Or Snapchat was able to copy Instagram, right? Or Snapchat was able to copy Instagram,

but no one anticipated this entertainment. It's entertainment is what it is. And they had pieces of it. Snapchat definitely had pieces of it, but just didn't become something that you had to stare at so much for hours a day. You're right. We'll see what happens there. He's a very good product person, but, and he's been down a difficult road before with a redo that didn't work out a couple of years ago. So we'll see. We'll see what happens here. But look at Pinterest, Snap, and Twitter, Kara. Just one more moment.

We talk about, I've always said that I think Google and Facebook, and now TikTok quite frankly, let Pinterest, Snap, and Twitter purposely stay in business because they want to pretend they have competition. Do you realize? That's right. You've said that. Do you realize Pinterest, Twitter, and Snap, I believe they get in a room and go, no, no, leave them alone or let them have their little thing here. Fine. And they say, I think they come, I think Google or YouTube or whoever it is or Meta could come up with a Pinterest killer in about three months. And they've tried to do it.

I will give this Facebook, I'll try to do it with Snap. The Pinterest, Twitter, and Snap are all trading at or below their IPO price. So, essentially, we're kind of moving to, I mean, and then you have the big gorilla in the room, which was Meta. And now we have the disruptor. But these other companies, think about it. If you had invested in the IPOs of these companies, you'd think that, oh, my, I did really well. No, you didn't. You're flat. You would have been better off investing in Ford. Yeah, that is true. That is true. It's going to be interesting to see if they get bought. Some people think the Smash is going to get bought by Microsoft or Apple, if Apple could. There's a lot

of talk out there about buying all these companies. So, and including Twitter, still on the Elon train. We'll see where it goes. I think there's a lot more going on there. We'll see. We'll see. All of them are on the purchase train, unfortunately for them because they're, by the way, Snap is a very good product. And so is Pinterest, by the way. They have a lot of internal problems, management and stuff like that, but certainly a good product. Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break and we come back. Pay payment companies could use a little cash too. We'll talk to Jed Apatow, one of my favorite filmmakers, about George Carlin and free speech. He's done a terrific documentary on it.

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The company said the cuts aren't related to any specific economic conditions, but we do not believe maybe it's the opportunity. Meanwhile, buy now, pay later. Company Klarna has laid off 10% of its global workforce, around 700 people. Klarna's CEO informed employees of layoffs via pre-recorded video message in which he cited inflation, the war in Ukraine, and likely recession. Among other things, Klarna's trotting out the usual suspects. PayPal says no reason,

nothing to see here. What's going on? Even as people go out more, shouldn't online payments still be a good business? No one's expecting retail to come soaring back, but there is a lot of demand. Dining is up. PayPal has a little bit of coverage in retail anyway, though Venmo and its PayPal service, I use it four times a week at least. So what do you think? What do you think? So I wrote an article for New York Magazine about buy it, I'll pay later. And so let me step back. I do think there's something unhealthy going on amongst the younger generation. You have said this. And I call it loosely the pornification of everything.

And that is. Oh, OK. Well. I haven't heard that one, but go ahead. Keep going. So when I talk to young men, you got to reduce your consumption of porn because not only does it create unreasonable expectations around relationships and sex, but it takes away your motivation to actually log in the effort to go out and meet people and have actual sex. And people also want to trade on Robinhood,

thinking that, oh, it's hard to invest over the long term and spend less than you save and invest over the long term. That's hard. That's not fun. But I see screenshots of people buying meme stocks, who, by the way, all the gains from the meme trade are now gone. All of those people have given back all of the money. But I want to pretend I'm investing and's responsible. I'm exiting the credit card irresponsible generation and I'm moving into something more responsible called the debit generation. That is fucking bullshit. This is debt.

And my other personal experience with this is I was on the board of a specialty retailer and two and a half years ago, we tried this and we were blown away by the numbers because we found a certain demographic, specifically young people, when they come up to the cash register, increased their basket size when they were offered immediate credit through Buy Now Pay Later of 30 to 50 percent. Now, what causes basket size? It's not finding the shit you like. That's not the limiting factor.

They were finding a lot of stuff they liked. The limiting factor was they felt like they didn't have the money. And guess what? They don't. We've had a record increase in credit. Now, let's talk about Klarna. They lost $740 million, and two-thirds of that loss was a function of credit defaults. Now a third, in some cases a half of the kids who have taken out BNPL loans are missing payments. This is, again, the point of, I don't need to delay gratification.

I can buy it now. I can have that sweater. And I'm going to, and this entire bullshit marketing veneer that somehow I'm being responsible. I'm investing, Kara. I'm not gambling. I'm investing. Oh, I'm not borrowing. I'm not going into credit card debt. I'm doing debit, which is more responsible. Buy now, pay later is a fucking train wreck for a younger generation. And here's the thing, when people mortgage their house to invest in DojaCoin or Solana, that has knock-on effects. When a kid does not develop the discipline to save and invest, and he starts losing money day trading, and has emotional and mental stress, there is collateral damage. And to think there isn't going to be shrapnel and collateral damage from buy now, pay later is naive. Let me ask you, what's happening with these companies cutting?

Is it that they're just using it as an opportunity to cut or that there's defaults going on here? What do you imagine? By the way, Apple has started rolling out iPhone to iPhone payments in the stores this week. That's interesting. Well, payments is a different thing. I think payments offer utility. I don't think this is utility. I think this is creating a veneer that makes it easier.

I mean, we have the porneneer that makes it easier. I mean, we have the pornification of student debt. Yeah. So why is PayPal cutting? What is going on? Oh, I think in the case of someone like PayPal, it's an amazing company, but they just grew their SG&A faster than their revenues, and they're going to need to cut. But great companies from Microsoft and Google have gone through eras of layoffs where the market slows down. Amazon is going to have to start laying off people. Amazon overhired.

My company overhired. That's not what I'd call, that's a cyclical but not a structural issue. I think the structural issue here is that we've decided, I know, you can borrow $28,000 to go to the Joey Bag of Donuts beauty school because guess what? The debt might be forgiven. So why delay the gratification of feeling like I'm doing something for myself and I'll take out student debt

and the universities love it because they cash your check and they're not on the hook for paying it back. You are. But it's this notion where we live in a society where we're training our youth that they don't need to delay gratification. They can get that dope ahead.

Oh, and they're not trading, they're investing. They're not getting into debt. They're bettering themselves through education. Oh, they're not issuing credit card debt. They're going to debit generation. One of the things that's interesting is that there have been declines, like in crypto, where a lot of people were playing, a lot of young people were playing that game, where they've gotten hit. Although, interestingly, Martin Shkreli got out of prison on an early release, and he's all in on crypto. He's planning to move into NFT, drop to. Adam Neumann is back with a new startup that sells blockchain-based carbon credits.

I thought you might have a point of view here. And Jack Dorsey stepped down from the board of Twitter on Wednesday. Perhaps he'll spend more time in his payments company block and also, of course, crypto. stepped down from the board of Twitter on Wednesday, perhaps he'll spend more time at his payments company block and also, of course, crypto. So, you know, even as those went down, and this was part of the decline of people's, you know, playing not just meme stocks, but in crypto, these guys are doubling down. I mean, do you have any advice for Martin or Adam, given the decimation? All I can think about is who's going to play me in the next mini-series around whatever happens here with Adam and Amanda. Blockchain-based carbon credits. I thought about this and I'm like, do we even want to bring this up? I'm not even sure I

want to give this guy any more oxygen. But the thing that shocked me about it is the investors. I'm really shocked that Andreessen Horowitz wanted to get involved with Adam Newman. I would have thought, I was shocked that tier one investors are in this thing with him. Honestly, if they thought they could make money, these people would hug Genghis Khan. Sorry, I just don't, I'm not surprised at all. Really? And there's some, you know, Newman, some of his ideas have been good. It just was, I don't know.

I just, I think they would, if they think they could make money, they would do, they would run over their mothers. Hugging gangers. I think that's a little unfair. I prefer they would fuck their sister for a nickel. I think that's more accurate. Okay. On that note. Sorry.

Oh, good God. Okay. All right. Is that too much? That was too much. That is your comment on that. Adam, good luck. Adam, good luck.

We'll see how this works out for you. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. We're very thrilled to have writer, director, and producer Judd Apatow. Judd is the producer behind some of the biggest comedies of the last 20 years, including Knocked Up, Superbad, and this year's The Bubble, as well as beloved shows like Girls and Freaks and Geeks. His new documentary, George Carlin's American Dream, traces the life and career of that legendary comic. I'm a huge fan of his. And this new book, Judd's new book, Sicker in the Head, features interviews with some of the most exciting names in comedy. Welcome, Judd. Great to be here. Finally here. Finally.

Finally. Ben Stiller got in before you. Oh, brutal. What a thrill. You're welcome, John. You're welcome. So one of the things I want to ask you is, I want to go right into George Carlin in a second. But one of the things you wrote in the bubble, I'd like to get a comment on, you depict the difficulties of filmmaking during the pandemic.

So talk a little bit about coming out of the pandemic has changed the way you do your business. I think people are very interested in that. Well, in the world of comedy, I think people are wondering, will you leave the house? Will they leave the house to go to the movies? What does it take to get you off of your couch?

And hold on, there's a cat. This was your worst fear. I must release this cat. Hold on. There's a cat. This was your worst fear. I must release this cat. Hold on. We love a cat. Please. You're ruining everything. A big break.

Pumpkin? Pumpkin? His cat is named Pumpkin. There's a cat named Pumpkin? I have four cats. Dude, it's a good thing you're married. I have a cat named Pumpkin. Pumpkin.

Cat lady. Cat lady. Judd Apatow something but um i think before uh the pandemic people were trying to figure out if people would go to the movies if there you know weren't special effects and you know superheroes you know what human stories will make you leave your house and not watch it uh streaming. And then the pandemic set this habit, which is everything comes to my house. But that being said, you know, we were testing this movie

we made with Billy Eichner called Bros, which comes out in September. And it's a- Looks fantastic. It really came out great. It's a gay romantic comedy. We tested it with 300 people in New York and LA and Chicago. People loved being in the theater together.

And it got a giant reaction, no different than, you know, knocked up or train wreck or anything we've done. So I'm hopeful that if you have something great, people will go. If it's mediocre, they won't go. And I think in the old days, if it was mediocre, maybe sometimes they would go. And that's probably what's dropped out. You know, Ted Sarandos, the CEO of Netflix, said he thought the middle movies would just not,

would go right to streaming right away. And the blockbusters like Top Gun 2, for example, is coming out today, would have a better chance to make the money. And that's where all the money's going, whether they're IMAX. But you think if it's a good movie, especially a comedy,

it still has that chance of sustaining in the theater longer than, I mean, 45 days is the most that exclusive theatrical runs are getting right now. I don't know if anyone has proven that if you make a great comedy, it will bomb in the theater these days. It just hasn't happened yet. So that's going to be the real test because every movie I know that's, let's say it's something about Mary level quality, they always do well. And maybe in the old days, you might have went to the best one available. And if there was something that was okay, you might go and maybe those are going to have a problem. But I think the killers should probably still do great. Okay, so I'm going to go into the, and Scott will ask the question in a second,

but your new documentary looks at the career of George Carlin, who is getting a real renaissance, at least online. On Twitter, people are replaying a lot of his amazing bits. In your new book, you talked a lot of younger comics like Pete Davidson. So what was the reason you did this? And was it to show younger comics, which they take from George Carlin? Or why do you think he's undergoing such a real renaissance in a lot of ways? Well, I was interested just because I like organizing people's histories in their lives, and especially the important people that meant a lot to me. I think he made a lot of people go into comedy because we all listened to him when we were

10 years old, when we weren't allowed to curse, when we didn't know how to challenge authority or be critical thinkers. And just by listening to him, it made you discover how to be funny and how to look at the world. And he's having this resurgence because he was a big picture comedian. He didn't do a lot of material on what happened that day. He would talk about the idea of the abortion issue, the idea of gun control or money in politics. And so all of those bits, they don't age because they are philosophical. And when things come up, he has the best bit. There's not another comedian that has bits that go around. We're not saying George Carlin's bits are going viral, and so are blank, blank, blank. There's no other person that has material that's that strong.

And remains pertinent to the day. I mean, I know one was about not punching down around the Dave Chappelle controversy. A lot of it was very kind, even though he was also very tough as a comic. Well, he was suspicious of power. And a free speech advocate. Yeah, he was suspicious of power. He was suspicious of the government. He was certainly suspicious of financial interests controlling the government and the media. And I think at the time when he talked about it, a lot of people were like, wow, he's really getting dark.

And I'm sure there were people who weren't into it at all. And he was saying, like, you know, the game is rigged. And they want us fighting each other so they could run off with the money. You know, they're against street crime so that people can get away with white collar crime. And I don't know if people took him seriously enough. And now what seemed really dark, you look at it and you go, maybe it wasn't dark enough. Jed, good to see you. So the thing that a lot of the, you know, whether it was Lenny Bruce or George Carlin

or Richard Pryor, some of the legends have in common was that they offended people at the time. They were fearless. And quite frankly, at that moment, they were offensive. And now my favorite comedian is Michelle Wolfe. She was offensive at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and it's really hurt her career. Is there still room for people to be provocative and not run the risk of being sanctioned and basically being driven out of

the business and having their career kind of taken from them? You know, I think that this is part of the art of comedy. Can you make your point while understanding the culture of the moment, the sensitivities of the moment? I mean, our friend Colin Quinn always says, you can say whatever you want, you just have to mean it and you have to stand behind it. You know, Michelle Wolf was very upset because she saw what was happening in the country and she was trying to sound the alarm so at times like this moment when we see what's happening uh with you know gun safety issues right now the comedians who are furious sometimes there's a big blowback i mean i've noticed there's a lot of people who when they start saying they're for a woman's right to choose, you feel certain right-wing forces come and get them. This isn't organic. There's an organized attack on

people who speak out on certain issues. It does take a lot of courage to put yourself out there. Well, speaking of that, let's play a clip of George Carlin talking about abortion. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No, nothing. No neonatal care, no daycare, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing.

If you're pre-born, you're fine. If you're preschool, you're fucked. Wonderful clip. Welfare, no, nothing. If you're pre-born, you're fine. If you're preschool, you're fucked. You're fucked. Wonderful clip. I mean, and by the way, today, the same thing. Someone was tweeting, what comic was, they care more about the Second Amendment than second graders and the safety.

And I think a reporter asked this of the governor. Same thing. This was, at the time, quite, he got blowback, but not in the same organized way. Is there any way to... What would happen to him today, do you imagine? I think it was brilliant, and he found a way to say what he needed to say. And I think that you can do it. And we see, you know, whatever, South Park or certain people that, you know, are very outspoken, they find a way to do it.

And that's, you know, that's also the job of the comedian is to slip through. You know, in every era, there were rules, there were limitations, and you were trying to find a way to get through. And I doubt he would hold back at all. He certainly didn't hold back then. He had 14 specials talking about these things. Can I ask you a particular question? One of the things you talk about hold back, that was the theme of the first show, your first show in this documentary.

When he was with the suits and the haircut, it was so shocking to see that, including Richard Pryor, right, in those little turtlenecks. That was, I was like, oh, my God. And they had essentially denuded them. I don't know what else to say. But when they were on with John Davidson, it was painful. They were sort of on this happy, smiley show. Talk about that shift of him. It was, you could see it by the long hair, but it was something else that happened to him where he shifted and broke free in a lot of ways.

Well, early in his career, he was in a comedy team with Jack Burns, who was later in Burns and Schreiber. And they were doing some political things. And he was doing some political things early in his career. And then I think he got a lot of jobs. And if you get a contract with Merv Griffin or the Dean Martin Show or whoever the variety outlet is, they want you to do a lot of sets. and they don't want you to make people upset, and they don't want you to make the advertisers upset. And you find yourself watering it down. And you're doing that also to get live jobs, trying to sell tickets. And then at some point, he started speaking out against Vietnam. He started using a language that you're not allowed to use. He got fired from the Playboy Club in Wisconsin. I mean, you would think that Hugh Hefner would be a free speech person, but he wasn't.

He fired him. And he got sick of it. And he got fired from a job at the Frontier Hotel in Vegas. He was making $12,000 a week as an opening act. So imagine what he gave up. He was really finally doing well. And then he went back to do like the gaslight in the village. What are they paying him for a spot?

$25, $50? He started at square one because he wanted to be authentically himself and to say whatever the hell he wanted to say. Scott? So we had a similar conversation when you came on the Prop G podcast, but just to push back or challenge you a bit, we talked about the king of Staten Island.

So 120-minute movie. I wonder if people such as yourself and myself to a certain extent were nostalgic for the old channels of distribution. Do we use terms like collective and community to talk about going into movie theaters. And you just said, any good comedy is still successful. My sense is the King of Staten Island would have been much more successful had you taken 240 minutes and chopped it up into six things and put it on a streaming video platform. That we're nostalgic for the old channel distribution,

but the way to create more value and more impact and more reach and more economic value is through this new format. And that is streaming that's more episodic, lets the characters marinate, lets people talk about it. Have you given any thought, one, do you agree with that? And two, have you given any thought to taking more of your creative efforts to streaming or episodic as opposed to the 100-minute movie? Start from the long-winded question here. Well, I mean, I think every project is different, and that's what we're all trying to figure out. Some of it also is do you care?

Do you care to max that out? The most important thing you're trying to do as an artist is just get it made. You know, can I get The King of Staten Island made? So Universal says, let's do it in the theater. Fantastic. That's how we do it. There's a pandemic. And then they say, do you want to sell it as a digital download?

Let's try that as an experiment. And Pete Davidson was like, hey, everybody's suffering. I just want them to see the movie. He didn't care at all about, you know, back end or profits. He was like, we have something that makes people happy that we're proud of. Let's get that to them. But when I meet with somebody and they have an idea, like Billy Eichner, we have that conversation. Do we want to be a streamer?

Do we want to be in a theater? Do we think we could succeed in a theater in this environment? Do we want to take that risk? And each time we have that moment, like, okay, let's go for the theater. Let's see if we can show people that a great comedy like this, that's groundbreaking, can work. But other times people come to me, you know, if Pete Holmes says, I want to do a show about my life as a comedian in New York, then that becomes an HBO series. So I'm not thinking too much about the max out.

I'm just thinking I'd like a lot of people to see it and enjoy it. I'd like it to survive. And it changes every day. We did the bubble for Netflix. They needed content during the pandemic. We found a safe way to shoot and do something satirical about this strange, horrifying moment. And that was really fun to get it on there.

But yes, we didn't get to see it in the theater, but it was kind of built for the house. It was built for you to be sitting home, eating ice cream in bed, giggling the way you giggle at a Simpsons episode. You have to know what you're trying to do it for, who you're trying to do it for at the start, I think. Well, speaking of that, you know, you have Apple computers sort of picking the very feel-good kind

of tone movies, whether it's Coder or others. Do you feel that's shifted with the tech companies coming in? Is there's not an ability? You know, one of the big themes of this Carlin documentary and this, your book, is about free speech, like what you can say and what you can't say. Is that shifting in Hollywood? Or do you feel that, you know, there was a lot of controversy about Dave Chappelle, there's a lot of controversy, Ricky Gervais, the same thing around trans issues. People think they're punching down.

Has that changed? Do you feel the need to be more safe to be successful? Because this is the opposite of what Carlin did in a lot of ways. Where does that stand with this idea of free speech? Because you've got Elon Musk is the one pushing for free speech, maybe. Who knows what he's actually saying? How do you look at that? Because that's sort of the province of comedy is free speech.

Well, I don't think that he's interested in free speech. I think he's interested in a place that allows him to retain a tax break and a world that supports that. He's very quick to say, I'm a Republican and throw the LGBTQ community under the bus. And what else is he throwing under the bus? The idea of gun safety, you know, the idea of civil rights, the idea of like voting rights. What is it for? Is it just for a tax break?

And so that's the sad part about that. And that's what George Carlin was talking about, that a lot of people, it's just about them. They're not looking out for you. They're not looking out for other people. And when you talk about streamers and their decisions, what a lot of people predicted and you feel it happening is that they would become network television. Because at the end of the day, the things that do the best are often the simplest things, the most base things. And so what was cool about streaming in the beginning was these huge artistic swings, and that you would get something that you wouldn't get anywhere else. But then when you have to get

more and more subscribers, you are going to dumb yourself down to a certain extent, not completely, because everyone wants awards and they want to look like they care about that. But ultimately, they want CSI and they want, you know, you know, all those shows that people love. But, you know, it's very easy for all the streamers to just become the network. I'm just really curious, Judd, something we talk a lot about, and I'm just curious to get your synaptic response to TikTok. I am not on TikTok. I may be of the age where I go, that's the next technology where I leap off of it. But I have to say, when I talk to friends in the comedy world and comedians, their philosophy is, you have to be on it. No one is anywhere else but TikTok. So a lot of it with comedians is, can I sell tickets? Can I enlarge my visibility?

And they're all saying, get over being like the older person and get on there, because that's where everybody is. Do you think it's entertainment? I mean, I do. We do. Both of us do. And it's weird kind of entertainment. In my case, it's air fryers videos. And in Scott's case, what is it, Scott? People getting adjusted and hot people lecturing me on social justice issues. Yeah, I haven't gotten that deep into it my family is very specific they want to see like someone cuddling a cow they want to see cats that sound like they're singing you know they have a very gentle uh tiktok feed they're not going into those other areas. But they're on it a lot and they love it. I'm weird. I like Twitter. I go on Twitter and I like to read articles. I read articles. I'm interested

in everyone's point of view. I stopped tweeting. I mainly retweet because the amount of blowback you get is crazy. The amount of weird hate. Yeah, you did. You had recently. And I just decided. You had a bunch recently. Yeah, I just decided it's not worth it. Who are these people?

And if I respond, like if someone says something ridiculous to me and they have 80 followers and I have a few million, if I respond, I'm really amplifying a cruel person or, you know, a nasty person. So then why would I respond? So almost that's the dynamic of Twitter that doesn't work. When they say, where are all the people who had a lot of followers in any business? They all left because of that, that the engagement becomes so toxic that it's no fun. And in the beginning, there were tons of comedians on there and they were being funny and it was way lighter. But now pretty much anything I could say

on any subject could get me a tweet storm in response that is so vile. And I don't think that it is a fixable aspect to it. So now I just go, oh, well, this is where all the great articles are

from different places I like to read from. And I'm mainly looking at it for that. For consumption, for news consumption. So when you think, I have just one more question. When you think about comedy, comics today, who is the closest to George Carlin from your perspective working today? And where is comedy going? Because it does feel like TikTok, these little tiny little snackable things, and some of them are quite clever. Let me be clear. Some of them are fantastic.

What happens to comedy at large? I know that's a big question, but you've been in the business for a long time. You've been in both the stand-up stuff, you do movies. Who represents what Carlin represented today, and where is it going from your perspective? Well, I mean, this is a lot of what the book Sicker in the Head is about because I tried to interview the new people. Like Rami Youssef and Hasan Minhaj and Amber Ruffin, you know, Bowen Yang.

You know, what is comedy to a new generation of people? And I think that there's a lot of people doing things in the spirit of George Carlin out there. But it's different because you can have a podcast. And if you have a podcast, it doesn't even matter if you get a network TV. That's what people are realizing. They need to create their own little space. They get their own fans. Those fans buy tickets to their shows space. They get their own fans. Those fans buy

tickets to their shows. They'll watch their streaming things. Or a lot of people are just making their own specials with their own money and they put them on YouTube and they get paid for the ads and they can have a completely different path to have all of the creative freedom that they want to have, that they want to have. And there's a lot of amazing people doing a lot of personal work, but it's not like the old days. George Carlin would never talk about his personal life. Modern comedy is all about opening up personally and having this very deep relationship with

the audience and then going on tour every year. Oh, we know. Yeah. And that's... That's what we do. We vomit up personal information. I understand. I know of the dog's travels.

I'm tracking it pretty closely. But that I think is what comedy is right now. And then you have people like Stephen Colbert and John Oliver and Samantha Bee doing that George Carlin spirited comedy. And I think it's a great time. As much as people are so scared of political correctness or cancel culture, Comedy is pretty amazing and people are selling out hockey arenas. It seems to be working out for most people. Yeah. How would he do today, would you imagine? What would he be taking on?

What would he be taking on? I mean, sadly, it's all the same stuff. I mean, that's what's weird about the documentary. Every bit feels like you could have written it today. Still relevant. And that's what's sad. But he also blamed the people of the country. And he always said, garbage in, garbage out.

If you have uneducated citizens, they're going to vote in people that are against their interests. That was his main point, that it's also really our responsibility to vote out people who don't want gun rights or, you know, all the rights that we're talking about. Because his main point was, we don't really have rights, we have privileges. We only, you know, we only have the rights that they want us to think we have, and the

list is getting smaller. Yeah. And he never punched down. So, too much of comedy is punching down, I think. Yeah. It feels like that, at least. which is the worst kind of comedy. I can't stand it. But, Scott, last question?

I thought of you the other night, Judd, because I'm watching Euphoria. And I recognized one of the actresses, and I thought, oh, wait, that's Judd's daughter. You talk about your family. I know your wife's an actress. I know at least one of your daughters is an actress. I don't know if the other is, but. Yes, Iris is. She's in the bubble.

My question for you is, if you could have a family that's just as happy doing something else, do you enjoy being a show business family? Is it an industry? Do you enjoy it? Well, I. Is it fraught with peril?

It just seemed, I thought, my, maybe it's because, I mean, granted, I'm not nearly as talented. My observation of the entertainment industry is it's a dysfunctional, insecure place. And if one person is talented and can make a living, more power to them. But to have your wife and your kids in that business, if you could press reset

and be as equally successful in something else, would you do that? Well, not me, because I like it. I just think you have to do it for the right reasons. I mean, I always say to my kids, you have to be passionate about what you're doing. You have to be proud of what you're putting into the world. And then it's fun. And then you can always feel good because you're trying to do good things that say good things. And hopefully you could work. Obviously, a lot of people don't work. So it is scary. There are periods when it doesn't go well. But if you're in it to be

successful or make money, it is a nightmare. If you're in it to express yourself and be passionate and be an artist, then you can be very satisfied with your life and career, no matter what level of success you attain. So what are you working on next? More, Judd. You don't produce enough. I'm actually going to interview Bob Newhart this afternoon for another documentary project that we're working on. On Bob Newhart? Yes. And we're working on something with a comedian named Maria Bamford, who we love. And I'm writing and hopefully I'll direct a movie sometime in the next year. I'm writing This Is 50. Hopefully I'll get to do that. I got to ask

one more question. We talked about, we had someone on last week talking about creativity and this whole notion of flow. Yes, I know him. Is there a time of day, a context, muses, inspirations that puts you in flow? Is there a method to your madness? You know, it's so funny. Many years ago, I met the director, Robert Rodriguez, and he said, I used to write at night. The kids would fall asleep and I would write at night. He goes, then I realized when I woke up in the morning, that's when I was most creative, when everyone was asleep. And so this idea of like, when does your mind relax?

When does your critical voice shut up and allow you to do your thing? It's something I'm obsessed with. And I have found that the second I wake up, I put a computer on my lap. I will have my funniest, most interesting ideas before the day has intruded, before I know what's on the news.

That's my best open space. In the car, if I just turn on a voice note in the car, just drive around thinking about jokes or ideas. And what I try to do is just to talk without stopping. If you just say, I'm going to talk for 20 minutes without stopping about what movies I might want to make, it'll mainly be garbage. But at some point, your unconscious will offer something up that you didn't know was there.

So I'm obsessed with flow states. I go on and watch all those TED Talks. And I think it works. It does work, because the critical voice is the demon. You do have to get bored and comfortable with yourself and allow yourself to fail and just babble. Well, on that note, Judd, you're such a, we're such big fans. Babylon, Judd, Babylon. Babylon. Babylon. Babylon. Babylon. Alright. The book is called Sicker in the Head. It's out this Sunday. Also, George Carlin's

American Dream. I really highly recommend it. It's now streaming on HBO and The Bubble is out on Netflix. Judd Apatow is everywhere. And by the way, I'm so excited for anything with Bob Newhart. I love Bob Newhart. Undersung in so many ways. Fantastic. Amazing. The best. Thank you, Judd Apatow. Thank you.

Thanks, Judd. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money.

Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. What are you, our country, to me, right now, is failing so miserably. And this shooting is just another example of it. Yeah, I like it. It's not, I think we all know what the fail is. We have a war between the wrong and the ineffective and the bullets are winning.

This doesn't happen anywhere else. I mean, I just don't I don't think there's anything new here. I think what I hope I hope we don't fall in the same trap we always do. And that is we become somewhat bereft or resigned to thinking we can't do something about this. I do think we can do something about this. I also, I'm going to have a weird fail here. I'm a huge fan of Beto O'Rourke. I don't think what he did was appropriate.

I don't think, I feel as if we're coming apart and we have to demonstrate a certain level of decorum and civility. And even when there's a group of elected officials and law enforcement officials on stage, I don't agree with almost anything any of them say. But I don't think approaching the stage is the right thing to do and interrupting it. Well, he was trying to get attention. And I think it was wrong. I just don't. I think you're adding to the problem.

That was the circular loop on Fox News. I only know this because my mother had no reaction to the shooting except for Beto O'Rourke, which I'm not even going to go into that. But she was all over the Beto O'Rourke thing. It seemed performative. It did. But at the same time, sometimes, like, I don't know. I don't know. I know he's running for governor. The speech he did later with reporters was very raw, very authentic, very outraged. I thought it

was fantastic. I don't like it when Marjorie Taylor Greene runs down the halls of Congress and starts banging on AOC's door and yelling profanities. I think we have to, I think everybody has an obligation to take the temperature down. And I don't like it when people go on stage and strike hosts. And I think Beto got it wrong here because all that's going to happen is when the Democrats get together for a press conference, we're going to have people on the right start approaching the stage. So, anyways, I don't have a ton to say here, Kara. I wish I had something more thoughtful or insightful. I think they're elected officials and they can take it. I'm sorry. It was not violent. It was not. It was just, you're repulsive. It doesn't help.

It doesn't hurt. I'm against. I don't think it's fine. I can see that it probably didn't come off well for O'Rourke, for the people he was trying to reach. It was for the cameras. But my feel is the following. American exceptionalism is a few things. We're the most innovative nation in the world. I still believe we're a generous nation that takes our role as global citizens seriously. But also what's exceptional about our country is this is the only place that this happens.

It's the only place this happens. There are other places with a lot of guns. There are other places that have mentally ill youth. And this is the only place where we've now had more gun deaths. 1.4 million people have died in gun deaths. That's more than every combat fatality. That's more than COVID from gun deaths. That is when you start talking about American exceptionalism, this is what is really exceptional

about our nation right now. Yep. Yep. I would agree. Any, anything else? Anything positive? You know, I don't. I'm-

Because that's not a good exceptional. That's not a good exceptional. No, it's not. It's, that's my fail, American exceptionalism. And I don't, I don't see, I'd like, I'm hoping next week we have a win where we start to see something actually resembling legislation.

You know who we need here? You know who the number one recipient of NRA funds is? Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney. And you know what? I think Senator Romney is a good man.

And I think he has a conscience. What we really need. That's a lot of money. He was so high compared to, I saw that list. Almost more than anyone else combined. Whoa. And it's... Why? It's because the NRA is like,

this guy's perfect for us. Burr was number two. He's seen as reasonable. He's seen as having a conscience. He's seen as a family man. And he's pro-gun. What we need, the real win we need here is for Senator Romney to come out and go, enough already. I've had a change of heart and regardless of the amount of money and the favors I owe these folks, I am going to support legislation.

The key to progress around really big issues is class traitors. You have to have people who say— A lot of money. I was shocked by that amount of money. He's key here. He is key here. Anyways, what about you, Kara? Any wins or fails?

You know, it's interesting. Just news just came over that Apple is raising hourly pay for U.S. workers to $22, up 45% from 2018. Obviously, there's inflation issues and the unionization push. And apparently there's a video

of its head of retail telling employees that a union would make it harder for Apple to improve working conditions. That's just, I don't, people shouldn't be outraged by that. They're going to make their case, right? But that's both a win and a fail. I just feel like we need our legislators to do it. And then we don't have to have these, you know, and then unionization should either happen or not.

It should happen at these stores. But it's good that they raised the thing. It's bad that they're – I would not be pushing against unionization. I understand why they're doing it. And then I think – so it's sort of a win and a fail. But I think Twitter right now paying this $150 million to the FTC, settling allegations about security and privacy of user data for six years between 2013 and 2019 is a real black eye for them, especially amid the Elon Musk situation. It'll probably give him a lot more power. It's another example he can push towards to say, look, that's a fail on their part.

I don't have really a win. My win, I guess, was Apple. Yeah, I guess, doing that. But still, they're doing it for their own, you know, capitalist reasons. I think, I'm trying to think of a positive thing. Oh, the new season of Hacks with Jean Smart. How about that? Oh, you enjoyed that. I've heard

it's good. Oh, I love her. Love her. New season. She's so, she just eats up the screen in the best of possible ways. And so I really, that makes me happy. That makes me happy. Yeah. I've been watching Euphoria.

I feel like kind of a pervert. I feel like I'm watching like. Watch Heartstoppers. Don't watch Euphoria. It's going to make you feel bad. Watch Heartstoppers. I don't know. It's the same thing.

It's like watching a music video with young, hot people. And the music's great. And the visual stimulation. It's like, gosh, this is awesome. No, don't do that to yourself. You know, you need to watch my video of my brother putting Saul to sleep. He did. Is this D Swish?

Dr. Swisher? Dr. Swish, yes. Nice. D Swish is David, my other brother. But Jeffrey, yes. That's nice. He put him to sleep with Vivaldi, actually, and Senegalese music. He's an anesthesiologist.

He's good at people to put to bed. It's a very pleasurable video. Does that have a cultural elite, rear children? Here's Vivaldi. I mean, come on. I'm going to read. It was on YouTube. Anybody can have it.

I'm going to read you my favorite article from The Atlantic. Hush, little woke child. Oh, God. Yeah, you live in the real world. You guys live in the real world. You know, we cost us nothing, and he put the kid to bed, and there was no propofol involved, and he certainly has access to propofol. Don't ask him for it, by the way, Scott Galloway. Do not ask my brother for drugs. He's holding. I'm actually looking forward to my colonoscopy because of that amazing propanol or whatever it's called.

All right. Jeff will do that for you. Okay, Scott, that is the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with a special episode. Enjoy the holiday weekend, everybody. I don't know what you're doing. Scott, I'm going to visit with my brother my dad's grave and also my aunt who is still living. We're going to see her in West Virginia. So get ready, West Virginia, for the Vivaldi crew.

There you go. Nice. What are you doing? What are you doing? I'm headed to New York, and I'm going to take the boys to a play. Moulin Rouge, I think. Is that what we're doing? Moulin Rouge?

I don't know. Is that appropriate? Okay. I think it's really— It's about a prostitute, but okay. Sex worker. The sex workers. They're not prostitutes. We're the prostitutes. I believe that's. It's about a prostitute, but okay. Sex worker. The sex workers. They're not prostitutes.

We're the prostitutes. I believe that's what it's about. Have you seen some of my readovers? I'm the prostitute. Okay, fair. Fair point. Okay, everybody. There's a lot more dignity in what they do than what I do.

By the way, I will touch anyone's rocket for a horse. Or a sheep. I'll do it for a sheep. Again. I'll do it for a sheep. Speaking of sex workers, please read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertot engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mia Silverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.