Pivot - Kimmel & ABC, Nvidia’s OpenAI Investment, and Tylenol’s Trump Problem

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Kara and Scott discuss the aftermath of Jimmy Kimmel's highly-rated return, Nvidia’s $100 billion investment in OpenAI, and what Tylenol's parent company should do about the attacks from the Trump administration. Plus, YouTube will reinstate accounts banned for posting misinformation, and a Charlie Kirk poster at Office Depot reignites a fight over whether businesses can refuse service. We’re nominated for a Signal Award! Vote for us here! Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠. Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠ Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Rinse. It's time to be great. You know, I almost ran over one of our fans the other day. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher and Scott. We're 23 in the world. What do you think about that?

I'm Scott Gallowin. I'd like to be 23. Would I like to be 23 again? I'm not sure. No. Anyways, I don't understand. What's 23? We're the 20.

In the top shows, we're 23. We've risen to 23. Isn't that amazing? I mean across all podcasts? Across all podcasts, not just in our category of news. We're very quite high. Watch out Collar Daddy and Mel Robbins. We're coming for you.

We can talk about penises. The guys that's smartless. We should talk more about vaginas if we want to get to the top, I think. Yeah, I was just thinking that. That's what's missing from the show. Yeah. Yeah. We're 23.

Yeah, 100%. You know, I almost. ran over one of our fans the other day. I was driving and I was taking a right on red and I didn't, they sort of popped out from behind a car crossing and it was my fault. I shouldn't, it was a no right on red, but I didn't do it. I was stopped, but I was sort of, you know, when you sort of wander into the lane essentially and the person was like, hey, and then they're like, camera switches.

They were both horrified at me and then yelled love pivot. That's, anyway, he almost killed me. I pulled a total power move. Yesterday, Bankoff was in town, and he said, do you want to have coffee? I said, sure. So I had to meet me at Jack's wife, Frida. And I purposely faced the street because I know four or five people will be like, Prof.Gee, just to say, brother, you may be my boss, but who's really in charge here?

Oh, did you? Did you do to work? I don't think it works with Jim. He's too nice. He's too nice. He doesn't care. Why do that to Jim? He's so nice.

And then this morning, get this, you'll like this. I want to share this. this question. I was trying to help my son study for the ACT, and you realize how much your brain is atrophied. And they have this critical thinking section. And so I'll see if you can answer this question. Okay. Adam gave Sally three flowers and one stuffed animal. Kristen gave Sally five flowers and two stuffed animals. Okay. What does Sally have? What? She has cancer. That's good. That's good. Oh, my God. I said vagina. Lying of jokes, not cancer jokes.

That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Okay. All right, that's why we're 23 on that quality. Here we, 22, watch out. We're harassing business people and making stupid cancer jokes. Anyway, how are you doing? I'm wearing my Uber shirt.

I went to breakfast with the Uber folk here in D.C. Someone I've known a long time, Jill Hazel Baker. I'm doing great. I've been in New York for a better part of the last week. I'm headed to Aspen today for one of those. Oh, your secret thing. My secret, yeah. My not-so-secret thing.

I'm sure what will be my first and last appearance. Here, this is what I want you to tell Ari Manuel. Fuck you, Ari. Okay? Can you do that? Yeah, I'll get right on that. Just like that. Say, fuck you, Ari from Kara.

Okay. Yeah. I love the guys that W.M.A. They're nice people. Yeah. They're your people, right? That's your agency. I have UTA.

I like them, too. Well, you can clear that up with cranberry juice. Oh, wait, UTA. I'm sorry. You know, in truth, I have issues around that, just so do many women. I think most women do. Yeah, I got to say, I got to say, you know. One time I had, I'm going to tell, here's a vagina story, I was in Las Vegas and a friend.

I'm not going to say who it is, but it was a pretty well-in-person. Yeah, that's a good idea. I don't even know what the story is. And I had a UTI, and I was killing. We were supposed to go out in Vegas, and I was like, I'm going to have to sit in my hotel room moaning on the floor. And this woman said, oh, I've got a whole kid up. upstairs. And I was like, oh, and she had all the, like, the pills and then cram, whatever, everything to go, like, all the stuff that solves it right away. And as her riding up in the

elevator to go get the stuff, because I was in a lot of pain, I said, oh, you have a kit? Why do you have a kit? And she goes, in the elevator people in Las Vegas goes, well, me and my husband have a lot of rough sex. And so I really need, and I was like, okay, like something I didn't know about this. Anyway. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, among other things, one of the things I don't think people want to know that. It's bad about getting a UTI. It means that you're in trouble. Get it, you're in trouble?

No. Oh. You're in trouble? Okay, we're moving on. We've got to move on from this. We must move on. Anyway, we have to ramp up the rage if we want to get to the top. Or get very calm like Michael Barbaron.

I love how you doing. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. Is he still angry at me for making fun of him after being co-host? I have no idea. I haven't heard from him since.

Anyway. Sorry, Michael. I love you. Big kiss. Maybe he just has a terrible UTI. Oh, my God. Don't start. Okay, we're going to move on. We've got a lot to get to you today. There's serious things happening, including a business impact of Trump's Tylenol claims, and is NVIDIA's big open AI investment, really just a shell game? Many people feel that way. But first, Jimmy Kimmel returned to late night, racked up 6.2 million viewers on TV and tens of millions of views on YouTube. Very, did very well. That's around four times as usual live audience, despite the fact that Next Star and Sinclair and Local ABC

affiliates boycott of the show, including here in Washington, D.C., but it was about 25% of the country, not the biggest mark except for, I think, D.C. and Seattle. But let's listen to a clip from his opening monologue. I've been hearing a lot about what I need to say and do tonight. And the truth is, I don't think what I have to say is going to make much of a difference. If you like me, you like me, if you don't, you don't. I have no illusions about changing anyone's mind. But I do want to make something clear because it's important to me as a human. And that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I thought that was terrific.

Jimmy gave what could be described as an incredible individual performance. And essentially, I really appreciate it. I've never, I don't watch late-night TV, I haven't watched it since Letterman. And essentially, I thought, I thought, I think Jimmy did a nice, not only did a great job, but I think him reflecting that emotion, it seemed genuine, is really important for young men to see. With all this kind of performative masculinity and conflating masculinity with coarseness and cruelty, I think that's really terrible for young men. So to see a guy that talented, that successful in what it feels very genuinely, genuine emotion. Yeah, he's like that.

And he's done that before. I think that's really... He's like you in that regard, I have to say. You do that too. But I think it's, I think young men need to see that, that, that, you know, you need to feel your emotions. It's okay to be. be vulnerable. It's important that you inform yourself in terms of what moves you and other people around you. So that to me was absolutely the most powerful moment. But market dynamics, Trump individual performance. The Jimmy Kimmel Show, as it is now, is already over. It's just a question of timing. And it'll reinvent itself in a podcast format or streaming. But the means of production and the infrastructure they've set up just can't justify the business that is declining,

as is all late-night TV. There's nothing any of them can do. The structural change here is so significant. The biggest, he comes out of this a big winner. He looks really good. The biggest loser hands down is Bob Eiger as people, what's interesting historically, people are angry at the strong man, right? But people either love the strong man or hate him, who people really hate and who history is really unkind to, is the cowards that enabled him. And if you look back, I wouldn't even go there. I was watching this thing on World War II and what they did. Oh, Vichy France? That's what you're going to.

Well, there's a strong men are usually very charismatic and have our ideologues. And some people would argue that the president is an ideologue. But basically what Jimmy Kimmel said, you either like me or don't, is kind of true of Trump right now. I just, what I hear from people who've decided that, oh, it's okay. that his head of ICE took $50,000 in cash in a brown bag. I mean, it's, okay, there's literally nothing you can say. Oh, he's really close friends and was bombing around town and hanging out with a convicted pedophile.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. He was an undercover FBI agent helping, I mean, so, yeah, there's just no red line. Meanwhile, President Trump took to true social to say Kimmel's audience is gone and also to threaten ABC saying, I think we're going to test ABC out on this. Let's see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 million.

This one sounds even more lucrative. Supposedly they're going to fight now. They've hired all kinds of law firms, which is what they should have done in the first place, if they keep coming after them. And Pete Buttigieg should have been my vice president. So this is just a really bad look for them. There's no saving late-night TV at this point.

It'll have to reinvent itself with the lower, as I said, means of production. And at the end of the day, Kara, I think this is all, I think Trump loves this because I think it's five comms people in a room with AI are saying, push the Kimmel thing, push the Kimmel thing, threaten it. Boom, boom, it's working. Keep Epstein out of the news. Keep Epstein out of the news. All right. Tomorrow, if it dies down, oh, Tylenol, say Tylenol's bad for both. I mean, just, I think their entire strategy right now is not what's good for America, not reflects any cohesion around foreign policy, not trying to help the markets or boost the economy.

I think their entire focus is, what can I say? And they test it a million times in one second with AI that will keep Epstein out in the news cycle. We don't care how stupid it is. We don't care how trivial it is. Yeah, no, no question. I agree with you. I mean, we've been talking about the finances

of all these broadcast networks for a long, long time and where they go. There is a lot to innovate here, if you wanted, because obviously his performance was excellent. He's very talented. Most important, he was funny. He was really funny. He had some great jokes. And De Niro was hysterical. I didn't see that. Oh, my God. It's so good. You know, he's playing a mobster. Like, it just is, it was perfectly timed. And De Niro did a great job. You know, he has so much goodwill, Jimmy Kimmel. He really does have a lot of goodwill. And the numbers, you know, show it. People wanted to see what he. said. And I thought he handled it with a lot of class. And most importantly, it was funny. Like, if he wasn't funny, it was too lecturing, he was too whiny, it would have been a problem.

But, you know, interestingly, before we move on, let's listen to a clip. Someone who is also doubling and tripling down is South Park, which was quiet for a little while. And now this week was not quiet where Brendan Carr, who they beat up throughout the entire episode, is in the hospital. Let's listen to it. The head of the FCCBOK, doctor? His bones are healing, so he may regain full range of motion. But if the toxoplasmosis parasite gets to his brain, I'm afraid he may lose his freedom of speech.

It was so funny. It shows him with poop in his pants and so mean. I was even like, wow, is that mean to Brandon Carr? But free speech, Brandon, right? Hey, the Ellison's paying for that one. Those guys are geniuses. I think they should get the Nobel Priest Prize. Honestly, they're so

just, it's so bad that it's so good. Anyway, you know, that's the thing. You can't stop this speech. You really can't, unless you're an incredible hypocrite. You either have to go all in with it or not. And I think this is sort of an abject. This is what moved everyone. And I will make a quick note.

There were a lot of this, Jimmy Kimmelka did get all the attention. I see why he's a comic and everything else, but there's lots of other people, like, as I said, Karen Atiyah, a whole bunch of people who have been sort of quieted down. And Kimmel referred to a lot of people, journalists at the Pentagon elsewhere. So this is a very serious thing, as joking as it is, what they're trying to do here. And it's a very classic playbook of an autocrat. Okay, moving on, NVIDIA will invest $100 billion in Open AI.

The deal will allow Open AI to use NVIDIA's AI semiconductors inside its data centers. The buildout will require 10 gigawatts of power, which is around the amount consumed by about 8 million homes. Invidias stock is up 2% the last five days at the time of the taping. This feels like a round trip. I had like feelings of AOL back in the day with Purchase Pro and everything else where they're giving them money, which they're using to buy chips, which they're using, you know what I mean?

This is so intertwined and I find it a little strange. Several people wrote me about this. I'd love to know what you think about it, given it. like round-tripping. That's what it feels like to me, but your thoughts. Oh, it's eerily reminiscent of, I've been through this. It's a signal, a huge flashing green or red light of that we're in late stage bubble. And that is, okay, we can't justify evaluation. So let's take two and a half percent dilution, issue stock, take $100 billion, which is only two and a half percent of a four trillion dollar market company, invest in another

company with the agreement they're going to use all of that money to buy our chips. So we juiced our top line and our multiple on revenues is much greater. I mean, I'll use another example. In 99, I was trying to sell, or early 2000, I was trying to sell my brand strategy from profit. And I was leaving to start an e-commerce incubator. And in New York, backed by Goldman, Maveron, J.P. Morgan, you know, e-commerce, and New York. And I spent, I don't know, a half a million or a million dollars of the 15 million I raised on profit. And my board approved it to do the strategy, the brand positioning, and help me fill some positions in the short term I didn't have. And then when we sold profit, we were selling profit to Densu. Densu originally offered me, I think, like $38 million to the company. And then they came back and said, we're lowering it to 30 or 33, I forget. Because those you get from brand farm that Scott controls are related party revenues. You guys did not go out

and actually show that you can get that revenue without someone who's going to get it on the back end. AOL was investing in all these small or and medium-sized e-commerce companies getting shares in exchange. So it's it's a neutral balance sheet item because they now have the shares on their balance sheet. In exchange for them using all of that capital to invest on AOL, which would juice their top lines such that they could go sell a company worth $10 billion for $150 to Time Warner. This is late stage bubble.

Yeah, I had big Meyer Berlow, David Colburn, vibes. Oh, my God. It's so funny you say that, right? All this shell game to try and figure out how to juice. I mean, we were all selling, like, software and stuff to each other. Right, right. And then when the music stopped, everything just collapsed. So there, this is.

Elon kind of did that with his investment. in his own company, right? So he invested a billion in his own company, which then grew by $20 billion. So he made the money back, like instantly. I mean, just got it. Well, this in the short term, yeah. If you can show another $100 billion in top line revenue

if you're in Vidia, that's worth more than a 2.5% dilution. That'll take the stock up more than 2.5% or at least support it more than 2.5%. But the bottom line is it's kind of a pyramid scheme. So there's the financial engineering aspect, the related party transaction era that is really really unsettling, but even more bothersome than this, is that if you look at any

assessment, sophisticated technical assessment of the LLMs, there's something very interesting going on, and that is they are all converging. They are all becoming, they're all becoming the same LLM. No one's been able to, yeah, none of them have been able to develop a sustainable technical advantage. They're all kind of the same thing. They all, All the tests run against these LLMs across the biggest ones. It's like a bunch of lines with big deltas and they're all converging into the same line because AI can reverse engineer another AI really quickly.

So I think Sam Altman's vision is like, look, the entire economy is gonna run through AI. When you walk into, where we walk into our studios, AI lights will sense that we're there, sense that we're not here, it's not the cleaning lady, it's us, turn on the lights, look at the color on our skin, adjust the lights,

and then the agenic layer is going to go into our calendar and order an Uber, seeing that I'm flying out. I mean, it's just every transaction in the economy could arguably run through an LLM. It's likely, at least Alman's vision, it's going to run through one. And so the idea that you're taking the most powerful processing company

and they are going to own a big, component of OpenAI, the largest front-end LLM with 77% share, I think Nvidia has 90 plus percent share of compute. It's just creating an unfair advantage for both of them because essentially they will coordinate. How does an other LLM compete when the when the best processing company is designing their chips around the nuance of open AI's business and open AI has insight into what's coming next, maybe before anybody else? and can start designing around it.

So this is Wintel times 10. And if you had Tim Wu, Lena Kahn, or Jonathan Cantor in charge here, you would have already seen a letter saying, we are very troubled by this. But in this administration, they're like, oh, as long as you come to the White House and tell me I'm awesome, do whatever you want.

And give us a Vig in some fashion. Who knows where the Vigs are here, right? I mean, there's Vigs everywhere. NVIDIA gave, is giving that deal to give 15% of its, it's really, it's really something. I mean, I'm sorry, you just got to, like, it should be a business, but of course, they're going to be doing this in order to build,

and they're going to make the excuses that it's going to cost a lot. And so this is how we do. This is how we do it. But I had such vibes back from Purchase Pro. Yeah, I remember that. What was that? I don't remember. What did they do?

One person went to jail, I think, during that dinner. But it's vibes from 98 to 99. Yeah, I was like, oh, God, I didn't like it then. and I really don't like it now. But do you remember David Colburn's boots? His, he wore a cowboy boots. Yeah, I didn't. I knew, um.

Burlowe. No, who was the guy, I knew Meyer Burlow. Who was the guy who ended up buying the Wizards at AOL? Ted Leonsis. Ted Leigh, he said, was a nice man. Yeah, he is still. He remains. A tiny bit.

Now I know him a little bit at eye heart. One of my closest friends, Greg Scho, ran the marketplace for AOL. I had a lot of friends there. But those were the two deal-mokers, Meyer and David. But just to, uh, But just to continue the lockdown memory lane, when I started red envelope and I had another coming called Ardvar, the only place where there was any actual e-commerce was on AOL's marketplace because people, like my father-in-law was like, I'm not putting my credit card on the internet.

Everyone thought Ukrainian gangs and the mob ran the internet, but AOL was this walled garden. You've got mail. It was friendly. So if you had an e-commerce company, you had to go there. You used to go to Virginia and be turned upside down and shaken for everything. thing because the only place anybody was buying shit was on the web. And then Amazon came in and said, no, it's safe to buy stuff on the web. Yeah, that was a time. I really had a memory when that happened. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about

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No strings attached. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash Scott. That's LinkedIn.com slash Scott. Terms and conditions apply. Scott, we're back. Stock for Tylenol maker Kenview is down 7% in the last five days after President Trump's announcement that the medicine may be linked to autism. Tylenol loan generates an estimated $1 billion in annual sales for the company.

The company has added information to its frequently asked question section, staying there's no scientific edits to back up the link citing public health organizations that agree, including lots of doctors or Republicans, everyone else. The FDA still has initiated a process for a label change to products containing the drugs, ingredients are associated with a higher risk of autism. Actually, the highest risk of autism is genetics, especially among older men. There's all kinds of actual science around autism, and it's a very complex issue. What would you do here if you were the head of Kenview? And by the way, Thailand, I used to be owned famously by J&J and sold it to this company.

What would you do here? Like, this is crazy. Like, would you sue the president? Or what? Oh, yeah, I'd absolutely go on the offensive. I think this is kind of a textbook definition of defamation. that there's no real science. I mean, there have been some observational studies that have shown that prolonged acetaminophen use during pregnancy is associated with higher rates of neural developmental disorders and children, but these studies aren't controlled,

meaning that they aren't really legitimate studies that qualify a science yet. And also, the reality is on my other pod raging moderates, Jess Tarlow, I've actually got, you know, emotional. She's like, this is the only, it's just the only safe alternative It is. For pregnant women.

Yes, I was pregnant also, and it was the only safe alternative. The only one they'll be. It's ridiculous what he was saying. And it's actually, the science is so bad on it. And actually some of those studies don't even have a study.

They're not complete studies. They didn't, I forget what the expression is, but it's not, they're not actually. The ones that are showing show very complex things and often genetics, like twins who have it, have it, have it, all kinds. There's a lot of genetic issues.

But should they take legal action, should they, and who do they sue the president, right? Correct? I don't know what the rules are around. There is a certain blanket protection that when it's hard to sue public officials if they can show there's no malice and that they can get it wrong. But generally speaking, the government has fair, my understanding is fairly broad protections. But I would absolutely go on offense and say, there's no science to support this. and I would have run commercials of women saying, I mean, there are women who,

their pregnancies would just be tangibly more miserable. Yes. Without Tylenol. You're looking at one. Right. So for them, with RFK Jr. in the background and his junk, weird voodoo science, for them to say something like this

and for it to have an impact on this, what do you have? You're saying something, not true without proper diligence about your statements that has serious economic harm. They lost 10% of their market cap here. And I think they need to say, I mean, the temptation will be just go underground, just stay out of his way, people will look at the science, doctors will tell pregnant women know you can take Tylenol.

I would absolutely play offense and say, this is outrageous, it is not true, and you owe us 10% of our market cap. I don't know the legal protection the president has. But even, I don't think it results in a settlement where the president or the White House or the government has to pay them. But I think for optics, they need to say, we are so confident in Tylenol's use that when someone says this, we want the science exposed, examined, and scrutinized by a judge, a jury, and the experts that both sides bring in. Yeah, that worked when J&J had that crisis around member of the Tampuror. and everything else. They were very aggressive. They were super aggressive. So I do an entire session in brand strategy on crisis management, and the premier case study across all crisis management is

Tylenol. And that is, I forget when it was, some madman tampered with Tylenol and put cyanide in it. A couple people take it, they drop dead. And then tragedy on tragedy, the people who took their loved ones to the morgue or to the hospital, then returned home and had terrible headaches, and what did they do? They took Tylenol and died. And the temptation and the response that most companies would probably have taken up is the following. This is an isolated incident. You have nothing to worry about. Tylenol said, and Johnson & Johnson said, clear every shelf of every box of Tylenol until we know exactly what happened. And we can and put more tamper-proof packaging back on the shelves.

It cost them tens of millions of dollars. I mean, basically the next day where Tylenol was, or within 48 hours, it was empty. And it ended up really restoring and creating a ton of trust in Johnson & Johnson and sort of served as the model for crisis management. There are only three things you have to remember in crisis management, but they're really difficult to do.

One, you acknowledge the problem, right? This happened. This was terrible. happened with our product, too. The top guy or gal has to be out in front. And one of the reasons Exxon got in so much trouble, the Valdez, was the CEO couldn't be found. And then the third thing, and the hardest thing to do is to overcorrect. And that is you don't, the temptation is to undercorrect and not get in the way your business. No, no, no, no. You clear all shelves. And so actually, Johnson & Johnson is considered like the, literally the prototype for crisis management.

Right. But in this case, they didn't do anything wrong. It's just the Trump making things up. There's no tampering, there's no, there's no science, there's no nothing, so it's a little harder. 100%. I think, but you're right. They should be aggressive, 100%. One of the things that also happened during that president for people who have not been pregnant is the information around vaccines was so wrong by Trump. I mean, it literally said to me, you've never taken your children for vaccines, any of them. You have a lot of kids.

You've never gone once. He's probably never changed a diaper, if I had a guess. But it was so full of people who did not know what they were talking about and do not have, and have children, but seemingly has never done any of the normal things you do for your kids. It was really quite something. God, I'm triggered. I remember taking my oldest Alec to get vaccines and he hated needles and him screaming and me having to, like, hold him down. Oh, God. Louis punched a nurse once.

I don't know. It was like the measles vaccine. He literally, like, he didn't mean to. She's stuck in his arm and his hand. They're afraid. Like, like, whacked her in the face. I was like, oh, my God, it was really something. Anyway, they are afraid.

And vaccines are a lot better now. There's a lot of nasal ones and everything else. But really, really, go for it, Ken, view. Speaking of saying they made a mistake, YouTube says it will reinstate accounts previously banned for posting misinformation about COVID-19 and the 2020 election. The decision comes in response to House Republican investigation into whether the Biden administration pressured tech companies

to remove certain content. Previously banned accounts includes children's health defense fund affiliated with RFK Jr. and Republican Senator Ron Johnson. It's a move to appease the administration, you know, essentially. And it's what they never wanted to do it in the first place. And there's not much clear evidence. There was the kind of pressure these people are making up.

But that said, this is a counter move to appease the current administration, and then they'll do a counter move if there's another administration doing something like this. The most popular platforms in the world moderate. And so the amount of moderation or lack thereof

has become a bit of a political football or litmus test. So, yeah, fine. I don't, I don't, on YouTube, on all of these platforms, you can get to pretty dark, ugly content, pretty fast. So I don't, you know,

the free speech, the free speeches, if you will, aren't true free speech or is what they are is they want speech that they feel helps them and they want to censor speech that they don't. The people fighting for free speech are generally the loudest ones are the ones that actually are the censors. So this is the same administration that wants to tell late-night talk shows what to do. So fine habit, have out it. And what's so disappointing again is that.

just as Iger should have said, okay, I'm going to sacrifice maybe some shareholder value here and do the right thing, I think at some point these platforms have to say, this is our approach to moderations. We're happy to listen to you, but you're not going to dictate it because... They don't want to moderate, Scott. They don't want to moderate. It costs the money. It gets nothing but headaches. I agree with you. But the question is everyone moderates. It's where the line is. And at some point, you'd like to think one of these guys is going to say, this is our policy. And we're sticking with it, because free speech is not only about letting people say shit, it's about your right to not say shit on your platform. Or take, you know, and the Supreme Court has backed these companies on this stuff, too. So the lack of courage here to do what they want to do, and they just don't care. They're private companies.

I get it, but they don't care. They don't care the damage they caused, and it's led by Mark Zuckerberg in that regard. I was so tired of arguing this point with him, and he pretended he was a free speech. person. He certainly wasn't. He doesn't really care. He doesn't care. He doesn't care to run a classy joint. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about re-igniting of the fight over whether businesses can't refuse service. This is a fascinating story. Hey, pivot listeners. I want to tell you about a new podcast from the box media podcast network called Access with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger. It's a show about the inside conversation happening

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

the Solzburgers, the Roy's, the Hursts, and the new kids on the block. Ellison's, meet the Ellison's, the newest right-wing billionaire family. From the Silicon Valley, there he made his money with technology. The Ellison family. Potter, Larry, Eho David, and their money just bought CBS Paramount, will soon take a big stake in TikTok and are reportedly going to bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN. It's been said that nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen.

Nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen. But is yet another Trump-aligned family having control of your grandpa's TV shows and your TikTok Algo something to worry about? Answers on Today Explained every weekday. Larry! How does everyone know what everyone knows? It's a state sometimes called pluralistic ignorance

or a spiral of silence, where everyone mistakenly thinks that everyone else believes something and no one actually believes it. I'm Preet Bharara, and this week, cognitive psychologist Stephen Pinker joins me on my podcast, stay tuned with Preet, to discuss his latest book. It's called when everyone knows that everyone knows.

We discuss what common knowledge can teach us about collective behavior. The episode is out now. Search and follow. Stay tuned with Preet, wherever you get your podcasts. Scott, we're back with more news. Attorney General Pam Bondi is investigating Office Depot after employees refused to print a memorial poster for conservative activist Charlie Kirk. She's threatening prosecution for political discrimination.

The company fired the workers, but legal experts say government action would violate the First Amendment. The case echoes the Colorado Baker, who won the Supreme Court right to refuse same-sex wedding services. You didn't want to bake a cake for the gays. This is amazing. Again, these people, they were for that, but against this. And these people can get fired from Office Depot's business if they don't, they can do whatever they want. But these people don't have to make those signs if they don't want to. And if you believe in the cake thing, at the time of the cake thing, I was like, it did run into some state rules. Look, if a baker doesn't want to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, we don't want your shitty cake. I don't know what to say like in this. And it's the same, it's the same every accusation as a confession of these people. They just literally shift and we're never really believing in it when they first did it or they don't believe in it now. Or I don't know. What would you do if you were the CEO of a with this problem, Scott?

I probably would have fired them. I think, look, it sucks to be a grown-up, and it's your right not to do it, but that means you're probably not going to get a paycheck, because every day a lot of people show up, and when you cash someone else's check, you agree to do occasionally things you don't want to do. I think there is a difference, though, with the bakery,

and I don't know the semantics of the law, but I think that was refusing service, effectively refusing service based on someone's sexual orientation. And I think that is against the law. law. I think it was in a state, but the Supreme Court sided with the cake people. With the cake people? Sure enough. Thank you for that. Whereas this is, the moment you say to employees as big and is varied in Office Depot, you don't have to participate in certain things that offend your politics. Watch out. Well, these people, I'm not going to help this company buy the lumber

for the office building down the street for the government because I think the government is committing, you know, war crimes. What happened to Google? Microsoft? People can, listen, everybody, you can't object.

You may have a consequence to your objection, this is what you're saying. You know, I like what you say. You don't want to eat a Chick-fil-A? Don't eat a Chick-fil-A. You want to walk out during lunch at Google to protest Google

working with the Defense Department. Good for you. That says fucking nothing. It's you totally virtue signaling, but if you start creating, making it harder for Google to do their business, the leaders of the company get to decide who they work with, and you get to decide if you want to work there or not. Yeah, exactly. And if you don't want to work on certain accounts, you can say that. I mean, most people are reasonable, and they'll say, okay, fine, whatever, get someone else to print the things. But generally speaking, they're at-will employees, and printing up a Charlie Kirk poster, there's nothing a lot.

legal about it. There's, I don't think there's anything wrong about it. If it offends your sensibilities, okay, I get it, but folks, it sucks to be a grown-up. Yeah, I just think people should also be able to say no and then reap the consequences. That's all. I think they should be able to say no, there's just, you can't, Pam Bonnie's saying she's going to prosecute them for political discrimination. Shut the fuck up, Pam. Stop. Didn't they fire the employees? Yeah, they fired them. So what is, what is she suing them for? No idea. She has no right to do so. She has no right to do so. It's called the First Amendment, Pam. As usual, you don't know what it says for some reason. It's just ridiculous. It's just ridiculous. Again, yeah, go for it. Just keep Epstein

out of the news. Keep Epstein, right. Exactly. You know, again, I probably wouldn't want to do it. I don't know about those signs. But, you know, if someone came, I was working in an office depot and it was like gay people should be hung or whatever. I wouldn't print them. I think that's different Yeah, I guess. You're right, I guess. But they can still decide. You still get to do what you want. You still get to do what you want.

And then you re-thinking, what would you do the CEO? You fire them, right? You fire them. I respect your political beliefs. When you sign up to work at Office Depot, we all have to occasionally do shit we don't want to do. I appreciate your values. But if we immediately start letting people decide what work they're going to do or not do based on what offends their sense of political sensibilities, I'm sorry, we can't

operate a company that way. Yeah. Or you're a company that says, sure, you can do that, right? Look, if somebody comes in wearing a swastika or buys a Halloween costume with a swastika or whatever, or comes in, the bottom line is, you know, that's hate speech, but is it free speech? I don't know. You serve them, you thank them, and they leave your store. You don't, and it sucks, but these things are tested. The whole point of these protections is they're protected when they're really fucking offensive. And I don't think a Charlie Kirk poster even rises to the level very offensive. Yeah, I don't think we should even decide. If they want to not do it,

they should not do it, but they still have to read the consequences. Fine. You might get fired. Yeah, you may not want to work in a target that sells beef because you think it's genocide against cows. Fine. They have the right to say, well, no, we're in the business is selling meat. You can't work here. Right. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Sometimes it feels like people don't know how to act anymore. Post-pandemic, I feel like people are still like, oh, human contact? How do we do this?

People openly scrolling on their phones in movie theaters, like not even trying to hide it anymore. I've seen someone like smoking a cigarette on the subway. Like, get away from me is the energy right now. I'm not even getting the pleasantries no more and it hurts. If people seem less polite now, it all goes back to, yes, you guessed it, the pandemic. Nearly half of the country believes that people's behavior is more rude than it was before the pandemic. This week on Explain It to Me, why we've become a nation of jerks.

New episodes on Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, I'm David Pierce, and I'm going to tell you about our new show. It's called Version History, and on it every week, we get together to remember the best, the worst, the worst, the weirdest and the most important technology in history. So if you were the person in your friend group who had a Zoom instead of an iPod, or if you've ever fallen off of a hoverboard, or if you just still have a bunch of vines on repeat in your brain, you're going to love this show.

We're launching in video on YouTube and in audio wherever you get podcasts. That's version history. Check it out starting Sunday, October 5th, and every Sunday after that, see you there. What is up, people of the internet? My name is Marquez Brownlee, aka MKBHD, and some of the biggest smartphones of the year are about to launch, including the brand-new iPhone 17s around the corner, with a model you've never seen before.

So on the Wayform podcast, myself and co-hosts, Andrew Manganelli, and David Amel, gather the biggest tech news of each week and then discuss at length everything we're excited about, and sometimes things we're not so excited about. So this time of year, we like to call Smart Phone Season. So if you're interested in hearing all the latest releases from Apple and Samsung and Google and others, be sure to check out the Wayform podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. See you there.

Okay, Scott. Let's hear a prediction. Well, this is where we are. We're going to see a Time Warner-like acquisition that's going to be unprecedented in scale and also a disaster. Because what you have is you have companies, basically 55% of the gains in the S&P since 2021

have been driven by 10 companies. And these companies are now so far out over their skis in terms of valuation that it's the equivalent of, say you have a preloaded credit card. My kids have the greenlight credit card where we load it for them. If you're trading at three or four trillion dollars in value and you're really smart and you look at, okay, traditionally a company like this would be worth one to one and a half, it's like having two and a half trillion dollars on your credit card that likely will go away if you don't spend it. And so I think these companies, I think we're going to see, and I said this last week, series of not only the biggest M&A deals in history, but I think we're going to see a company that in three to five years will be seen as the most disastrous MNA deal in history. These guys are absolutely about to go shopping, and they're just going to get so promiscuous and do so many,

so many weird things, so many related party transactions, this Nvidia thing, this OpenAI thing is so strange. But I just wanted to take a moment on a tangential issue. That's nothing to do with a prediction. But for those of you, I keep getting served all of these Instagrams of all these adorable dogs that are at shelters. So people surrendering their pets. The NASDAQ and the Dow Jones are the worst indices, in my opinion, in history because they give people the illusory notion that the economy is fine. The top 10% are now responsible for 50% of consumer spending. Sales of hamburger helper are up, which is a negative looking forward indicator on the health of the middle and lower income.

The pawn shops are booming. There's just a lot of signals that the economy is not good on the Main Street economy. And one of those signals is that people surrendering their pets has gone way up. And just a quick add. In terms of mental health, joy, things that are great for your kids, just generally, if you're worried about crime, literally the best security system you could ever have is a dog. It teaches your kids about loss, responsibility. Dogs have been arguably the most accretive thing,

maybe next to exercise, the most of a creative thing for my mental health. And these shelters are literally overwhelmed. In addition, my plug for a rescue dog, I've had purebreds and rescues. Rescues and muts are hands down. The best breed of dog. They are healthier.

They are happier. It's as if they know they owe you. So there is, if you just type in how to adopt a dog into Google, there are so many shelters that are so desperate. And not only that, have so many fantastic dogs right now. So if you're thinking to yourself, I'd love something that reduces my stress. I'd love something that provides me with a great deal of additional security. I want to take responsibility for something and have something that loves me unconditionally. I want to get my kids something that will teach them responsibility and care and love.

And you want to feel more mammal and you want to feel more connected. And just every day you want a consistent tiny burst of joy in your life. Think about adopting a dog. There has never been a better time to adopt a dog because there are a ton of wonderful dogs out there right now. I will add all of the dogs I've ever had have been rescue dogs. And I'm thinking of getting another dog soon. It's the most wonderful thing you do. And there's so amazing rescue operations going on.

And it is an indicator of people giving up dogs means they can't afford them or the difficulty level, etc., etc. And so it is an indicator. But if you can adopt a dog, it's a really, it will pay off over your life. And you can go on Instagram. And if you type in the name, if you just say shelters in Brooklyn, you type it into Instagram, you will literally see videos of the dogs that are available. You don't even have to go down. I'm going to get a dog, Scott.

What's that? I'm going to get a dog now. Oh, you should. They're just... I've had a dog my whole life. This is the only time. But my cat's been peeing on the rug, so it's been a little much. So you're bringing in a dog to get the cat in shape?

No, I just, it's just like, when that starts, my cat is older. When it starts to happen, it's sort of like, oh, pets. But you're right, we should get a dog. You should get a dog no matter. Good one. Good prediction, Scott. One thing I do want to note, here's a prediction. We talked about, I talked about K-pop demon hunters on the last show.

and I got contacted by the creators of the two directors, and they're going to come on on, I think. So I predict that will be off the charts. Wow. Take down. That's very exciting. I know. They listen to us.

That's because we're 23, Scott, just so you know. Number 23. I have one prediction, actually, that I think is important. I think you're going to see a lot of ridiculous deals by the Trump administration. Here they are taking Vigs from NVIDIA or AMD or whoever they're taking VIGs from or Intel buying the pieces of all, but they'll turn around right now they want to give farmers aid. I think Mark Cuban raised something that I thought was absolutely true. If taxpayers funds this, should the president ask for equity in farms? I say no, but if they're

going to be consistent, same with money going to rural hospitals. We took equity from Intel and MP, why shouldn't we do it for all profit companies that get funding? And so I agree with him. This is ridiculous. Same thing with Argentina. Mr. Free Markets going to get a bail out. Like, give me a fucking break because he's a friend of Trump's. This is Malay in Argentina. This is crap. If they're going to be doing this to some companies, they have to treat all companies, and they're only doing it for their friends.

So you're going to see more cronyism, 100%. So anyway, just there's going to be more of this ridiculous hypocrisy, helping your friends and acting like it's not exactly what it is, which is a handout. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to some. a question for the show. We're called 85551 Pivot. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott Universe this week, this week on Profi Conversations, Scott spoke with Dr. Fiona Hill, a senior

fellow at Brookings, really well known for those trials around the one perfect call. Let's listen to a clip. Look, the federal government's being dismantled. The states are pretty much on their own right now as well. And, you know, I think the sinking realization is coming in for a lot of people. You know, this isn't quite what they expected that they were voting for. They didn't think that all of the safety nets, the insurance policies were going to be removed, and it's the same in Europe. You know, Europeans absolutely made a huge fundamental error for decades, just relying on the United States and basically outsourcing their security. It was always a mistake, and now they've realized it, and they're going to have to do something different.

She's amazing. She's amazing person. She's absolutely right. Yeah, there's very few people, well, there's very few people that intimidate me. She intimidates me, and by the way, I met another woman who I think is really outstanding, Anne Applebaum. And she is, I didn't know this. I've had her on the podcast many times, yeah. Ironically, I saw this great speech, and I met her husband. She's married to Poland's foreign minister who gave a really powerful speech the other day, essentially saying that if Russian planes are, in fact, shot down, he hopes that they don't come crying and whining to the UN body.

He was very powerful. He was great. That was a great speech. Yeah, I love Anne Applebaum. She's amazing. Yes, very good. But that was a great interview that you do with Fiona Hill. Before we go, Pivot is nominated for a Signal Award for Best Thought Leadership Show.

Scott, we're Thought Leaders. Yes, that's right. Yes, that's right. We think with our heads with Thought Leaders. That's right. Malcolm Gladwell and Simon Sinek had sex and gave birth to twins, Karen the dog. Yeah, I just saw Malcolm Gladwell. Oddly enough, he said, hey, yeah.

You can help us win by voting at the link in the description. The deadline to vote is October. 9th, we would like you to stuff the ballot boxes and make us win because we are 23. Yeah. Let's deploy the National Guard to cities. Right. Thank you for listening to pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week.

Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Namens doing Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kate Gallagher. Ernie Intert engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Dubros, Miss Averio, and Dan Ceylon. Nishat Kuroaz Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things, tech, and business care. Have a great weekend.