Pivot - Meta Ends Fact Checking, Trump Tries to Redraw the Map, and the Los Angeles Fires

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

Kara and Scott discuss the devastating fires in Los Angeles. They also have thoughts about the decision to end Meta’s fact-checking program. Plus, President-elect Donald Trump has spent the week talking about annexing Greenland, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, and making Canada the 51st state. Finally, a listener mail question about responsible podcasting. 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 at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC optimum points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Cold and flu season are upon us, which means it's especially important to keep those hands clean. And when soap is involved, the conversation can slip out of control pretty quickly. I hope you can't hear me rubbing my hands together

in front of a mic. No, we love ASMR, ASMR episode. Shhh. Hahaha. Gross. Hahaha. This week on Explain It To Me, the dirty truth about clean hands.

You can find new episodes every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. Tell me about breath work. How did that go? How did your blow job go? I mean breath work. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Calloway. Scott, I am so glad I'm not at CES right now. Do you know what's happening?

What's happening at CES? Nothing. Nothing. That's the whole point. You used to go all the time, so did I. No, I've only been once. Oh, really? Yeah. The highlight was I saw Casey and the Sunshine Band at one of their parties. I found CES just remarkably uninspiring.

I just didn't do anything for me. It is. I used to go year after year after year, and I'm so glad I didn't go. Yeah. It used to be relevant, like a lot of those gatherings that were relevant and then don't become relevant. It served its purpose for many years. I spent so many years there and stuff. We've got a lot to get to today. There's a lot going on.

You're in New York still, correct? I am in New York. I'm on my PRP shots this morning, and then I went to my dermatologist. Wait, I got to get to breath work. I'm sorry, how did I forget? Wait, what's a PRP? PRP is they take your blood, they spin it, and then they take, I think the platelets and inject it back and whatever joints are hurting, which is-

What? Yeah, no, it's actually quite effective. So my shoulders have been hurting. I've been injury-free for most of my life, and my shoulders have been hurting, and I've been doing these PRP injections, and they work. Interesting. I had that frozen shoulder.

Women get it at like 50. And I had a steroid injection, and it worked. I have to tell you, it didn't work. I just had steroids. That's why I'm so macho. But you did this. Wow. And what's your second thing you did? I have to tell you it didn't work. I just had steroids. That's why I'm so macho. But you did this. Wow. What's your second thing you did?

I went to my dermatologist where they literally, all he does is look at everything on my body and go, yep, that's got to come off. Then occasionally he goes, well, we should just in case we should probably take this off. I come out of my dermatologist seven, eight pounds lighter. Wow. Oh my God.

All your little skin things, whatever they're called. Do you have a lot of them? I've never seen you naked, you know. You don't have to cover it up. Never. I've seen you somewhat naked, like in a pool and stuff. I don't remember a lot of skin problems, but I didn't look hard. No, but as I'm getting older, everything's growing. The weird thing is you start thinking,

what's going on the inside? But yeah, and I got Botox. I'm actually crying right now. everything's growing. The weird thing is you start thinking, what's going on on the inside? But yeah, and I got Botox. I don't know if you, I'm actually crying right now. You just can't tell. You have Botox? Yeah, I get Botox. Why? Because I'm a narcissist.

Where do you get it done? Let me look, let me look at the situation. No, I don't. I'm laughing. Listen to Nicole Kidman. I'm laughing right now. I'm horrified. The fact that you do so many of these things is like, I'm laughing. Listen to Nicole Kidman. I'm laughing right now. Listen. I'm horrified.

The fact that you do so many of these things is like, you're like the Kim Kardashian of our relationship here. I don't do any of these things. I don't do Botox, fillers, all your, whatever the hell you're doing. Tell me about Breathwork. How did that go? How did your blow job go? I mean, Breathwork.

It was actually pretty interesting, the kind of music, the sound drums, I found really interesting. I found a- What? You did a sound bath? No, they do these, I don't even know, the person's gonna,

the guy's gonna call him and get all pissed off that I didn't describe it correctly, but they have these kind of sound drums or buckets and then he kind of sings with it. And I thought it was quite nice. I don't know. Shit, I don't know. Anyone who will hang out with me and I pay them, I'm down with. Wait, what did you learn?

Give the people who can't afford sound drums and breathwork a little tip. What did I learn? I learned that I have too much money and I'm affected and that I'm spending money on sound drums. Okay. But give me something. Come on, I got to know. I told you about my ketamine trip. I guess it's supposed to be therapeutic. What I will say is at one moment,

they put, he does something with the sound drum to create some vibration, and then he put it on my chest. I did go into, have you ever done acupuncture? Yes, of course. The thing I love about acupuncture is, you know that when they leave after the needles are in, that conscious subconscious sleep or relaxation?

I don't think there's anything like that. I think it's really restorative. I love acupuncture, also acupressure, but I did acupuncture for a while. I had a lot of stuff in my sinuses that worked really well. Yeah. I had that sleep or relaxation for five or 10 minutes, but I was just open to it and this guy seemed lovely and really into it and really wanted to do it. And so I was, you know, why not?

Should I try anything at this point? So what's our next move? Tomorrow I'm doing my, I get my teeth cleaned every three months because I have terrible dental hygiene. So I try and compensate by, I literally walk in and I'm like, don't give me floss. Don't give me a new toothbrush. I brush my teeth once a day. I have shitty teeth. I see you every three months.

I don't want a lecture. And I also tell them, and by the way, I love nitrous. And I just sit back, I play 80s music and I let them go at it. I do it every three months. Anyways, when I'm in New York, I do all of my acupuncture car practice. All of your ablutions, they're called ablutions. Your ablutions.

Is that what it is? Yeah, it's a word. It's a big word. You can look it up if you need to. That's amazing. I, of course, I interviewed Amy Klobuchar. This morning I interviewed the- Senator Kay. The CEO of Yonder who makes those pouches for kids. So, you know, kids in concerts really,

they're doing a great business, you know, hiding away your phone, essentially keeping kids away from their phone. It's a very easy and physical way to do so. How's Senator Kate? What did she say? She's good. She's lively as ever.

Let me tell you, she's like, I'm here to win. Like, I'm like, okay. All right. She's just, she's like, you know, She pops to the top like a rubber ducky. She's right up to the top. No, she's like the biggest balls in Minnesota. She does. She's like, we're going to pass that legislation this year,

Kara, and I'm like, okay, you're not, but okay. Don't hold your breath. No, but I mean, more power to her. She's in charge of the inauguration essentially, and also she did an overhaul of the security at the Capitol. We talked a little bit about that, and she was in charge of that and got shit done. Yeah. She's a fairly young senator at 81 or 82. She's one of the younger Democrats.

Yeah. She gets shit done. She's a get shit done kind of lady. Yeah, agreed. That she's in charge of the inauguration, that must be like, oh, God. She goes, and we're gonna show up unlike when Trump didn't show up. We're gonna show up.

Biden's gonna show up. We're gonna transition power. No, she's got, she's can-do spirit. Yeah, we play by the rules. And we're like, we take the moral high ground and then get our asses kicked. Yay for us. Maybe if she was being moral, she just was being,

this is the constitution and this is what we shall do. She's not a moral lecture person. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. By the way, I don't think I've been as angry as I've been in a while until that fucking asshole decided not to shake the vice president's hand. Did you see that bullshit? Yeah, there's all these excuses.

He had a cane, he had a Bible, whatever dude. Jesus dude, really? He's such a douche nozzle. What a douche, I think the wife was embarrassed. I felt like the wife was like, eh. Yeah, I got that sense too. I mean, not that that- Have to ruin her minute by the way.

Well, I mean- Let's ruin her minute. Wife being embarrassed is somewhat redundant. So let's just focus on him. Like why you're in the rotunda, your wife's being sworn in. Why? I saw that and I thought,

am I missing something here? Anyway. Just angry old man shaking his fist. She was dignified and- She handled it perfectly. The two women handled it perfectly, let me just say. I don't know what the wife could have done except hit him with a cane. Identity politics, the two women.

I don't even see gender, Kara. I know you don't, but still, they handled it well. But we've got a lot to get to today, including Metta's decision to end its fact-checking program and Trump's efforts to redraw the Western hemisphere, which I call risk for dummies. But first we need to talk about the devastating fires in Los Angeles. As we tape this, four separate fires are burning in Los Angeles. None of them contained, very difficult.

Of course, Donald Trump knocked off its rude as fuck note. It's a really difficult situation. The winds are incredibly strong, hurricane-like winds, fires, dry, tinder-like situation there, a lot of brush. They cannot contain it, Donald Trump, you fucking dumbass. I'm sorry, but seriously, shut the fuck up until you're president. So they're in several places, including parts of, the beautiful parts that probably Scott knows well, I certainly do, Pacific Palisades,

which is a beautiful part of Los Angeles. Pasadena now, another area of the valley that's moving up towards Brentwood, all these areas. We're supposed to actually tape this episode with Bill Maher. We're going to talk about his new special, Bill Maher is Anyone Else Seeing This, which is a wonderful show, I have to say. I saw a preview of it. You enjoyed it.

I loved it. He goes a little bit on the anti-woke stuff, but his anti-woke stuff is fucking funny. I'm there for it. Does a lot of great Trump stuff. It's funny. That's all I ask from my comics is be funny. Even offensive is fine, but make it funny and not mean and mean-spirited. You know what, my three favorite comedians who I think, and I think comedians play a huge role

in our society, Ricky Gervais, Michelle Wolf, and Bill Maher. I think all three of them are just incredible thinkers that really make you think about much, they're not only funny, but super intelligent. Actually, you put up, what's his name, the guy who's on The Daily Show, Ronnie Chang is so good. And they're all good, they're all good, everybody is.

Fantastic, yeah. I just think comics are so, Michelle Bateau has a new one out, they're so funny, they're all different, but they're funny, and they're on target. Anyway, he had to reschedule to the situation out there in California. I've been to where he does his podcasts and it's in the danger zone.

It absolutely is. It is in the danger zone? Absolutely. We should come back to this, but I never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity to talk about something totally unrelated. Okay. The top three reasons why women are attracted to men.

Oh, no. Do you know what they are? No. Is this a joke that you stole from me? I'm asking you guys. No, this isn't a joke. Okay. This isn't.

Okay. Breathwork. Good breathwork. Go ahead. So, he gives mean breathwork. Number three is kindness. Actually, being nice to your parents, women want someone who is kind and reflects goodwill towards strangers without any reciprocal expectation

because they think this person will, if things don't go well, treat me well. Number one is that they need to signal resources, either having a lot of resources now or have their act together. That's your favorite, but go ahead. It's not my favorite, it's science. Okay, it's my favorite fact.

And then they have to have a plan and their act together such that they show that they at some point might be able to provide for them and their families and protect their young. The number two though, the second most important is intellect because if you make good decisions for the tribe, everyone's more likely to survive including the offspring.

And you know the easiest way to communicate or the crispest, most efficient way to communicate intelligence? Humor. Hundred percent. People who are funny are either, you know, some about 20 or 30 percent of them are just so outrageous and crazy, but that doesn't last very long. 70, 80 percent of people are really funny are high IQ. Oh, interesting. Clever.

That's true. Yeah, that's why I like you. You're funny. Anyway, sorry. Back to the fires. Back to the fire. But tens of thousands of people are evacuating. Obviously, you've seen the photos, you've seen the videos. This is the most, this is when social media is useful, right? You can see what's happening. The government is doing a great job of communicating information

of where everything is, how people should get out. There's all these really interesting, like Steve Gutenberg helping out. The federal government says it's sending assistance, but the fire department is struggling with resources, water. A lot of this stuff is up hills. And someone sent me an email explaining these water tanks don't fill up fast without electricity. This is very, you know, whenever you drive in California, when you're driving down the five to Los Angeles from San Francisco, the one thing that always occurs to me, especially as I'm going through the grapevine there,

which is an area of the road, is California is a desert right down to the sea. It really is, you know, and it's just been populated and water's been brought in and made it a lush environment, but it's a very dry desert-like environment. Especially the Santa Annas ripping through. The Santa Annas come in and I recommend everyone read Joan Didion's classic essay

about the Santa Annas and what they do to people. The famous quote from that, it shows us just how close to the edge we are. Boy, are they on edge in Los Angeles. Of course, we're thinking about everyone out there and hoping for the best. But I've never seen so many stark and, but you know, almost, they're not beautiful,

but they're just arresting photographs of everything and that you're getting there. I don't know if you had any feelings watching this. It's, you feel like you're there in a weird way. I went to UCLA and there's a thread or a chat group and WhatsApp of kind of the nine of us who are roommates and who have stayed really close since college. And one of my friends, Jeff Browdy, has lost his home. He lives in the Pacific Palisades.

And all of them have been sending out photos of like, I mean, just stuff burning down that we used to go to. You know, the Palisades Village is gone. Maestra, I think it's a restaurant called Maestra, they just keep sending these pictures out of things that have been destroyed and even some videos. It's just, it really feels kind of apocalyptic. Yeah, there's a fish inn right there on your way out to Malibu that I took the kids to a hundred times when they were kids and it's gone.

All these places, all these places I've been to, all these beautiful homes, the whole Runyon Canyon area is so beautiful if you've been there and hiked or walked around. It is devastation everywhere. And what it is, is creeping closer and closer into Santa Monica, north Santa Monica, it's moving south, which is scary. Pasadena, a historic synagogue has gone up in flames, gone. Fire is, you and I are both in the frozen tundra here, Washington got hit by a big snowstorm, freezing. Fire terrifies me in a different way, I find it.

You know? Really? Yeah, it has this, these pictures you're seeing are so apocalyptic of the sunrise in Los Angeles and what the smoke does to the light. It feels like the end of the world, it really does. And it is for many people there, by the way. Yeah, it's, the only fire I've ever really experienced was when I was living in Berkeley in the 90s,

the Oakland fire. That was a big one. Yeah, and that was devastating. But the thing that's just bringing back a little bit to technology and the state of our world, the thing I find kind of disappointing is that there's always a move to reckoning and accountability and who's at fault. And the moves keep starting earlier and earlier.

And I can't help but go on threads now or Instagram Reels. And one side is blaming the Democrats there. And other people are saying, oh, it's climate change. It's like, let's just take a beat and see what we can do to help these people out before we decide who's at fault and what's at fault. There will be plenty of time for that, but right now, let's just try to figure out how to get people out of harm's way and figure out a way if you can be helpful. The politicization, it happens right away.

It does, but these fires have been going on for a long, long time, by the way. And it's still almost intractable. If you live in California, you understand the massive issues around this. There's no, in many ways, because of the population growth and people liking to live there, it's beautiful. It's a wonderful, you know, Pacific Palisades is just beautiful. I don't know how else to put it. It's a beautiful- It is. Created beautiful homes, beautiful vistas.

There's too many people there for the environment over decades and decades and decades, a 100 years. Same thing with Florida. Too many people. It's a very dangerous area with hurricanes and everything else. It's hard because it's an incredibly difficult situation. I completely agree with you.

I thought Donald Trump's tweet, I wanted to reach, I was so angry about it. I completely agree with you. I thought Donald Trump's tweet, I wanted to reach, I was so angry about it. I was like, how dare you? I think Newsom is there trying to do a good job, trying to bring new firefighters in. This is a terrible problem. Anyway, one of the buildings that's at risk is the Getty Villa,

which is also a beautiful place. There's amazing antiques there from the Roman era, I believe, and Greek eras. There's of course the other Getty Museum, which is also possibly at risk, less at risk than the first one. That's at risk too, which is another really wonderful place out there. And you cannot get it back essentially. I'm hoping they're getting all those antiquities out of there, but it's probably hard to do. This came on very quickly. It sounds like a dumb shift, but speaking of Getty, in another news, in tech news, and we'll talk about it only briefly because photographs are such an important part of this.

I'm seeing these names on all the photos as I'm watching this stuff, but Getty and Shutterstock are planning to merge in a $3.7 billion deal. They provide these licensed images and videos you're seeing. And there's a lot of user-generated stuff, by the way, in Los Angeles. I interviewed Craig Peters, I think is a very smart CEO of Getty. Recently, I thought we had a terrific interview about sort of the challenges. They're suing OpenAI, they're in lawsuits and stuff like that, because they're trying to adjust their business models for the AI era. Both stocks went up.

They have to merge. You know, they absolutely have got to 100% merge at this point in terms of to fight off, you know, the inevitable coming from AI, which I thought was, you know, no, I'm not surprised by this, but it's probably a good move on Craig's part. When I was running L2 and we would put out research reports on, you know, we were a business intelligence firm and we started out with luxury brands. Sure. And we used to collect just 1,200 data points across social, mobile,

digital marketing, and we'd put out these reports saying, you know, our digital IQ report on European luxury brands. social, mobile, digital marketing. We'd put out these reports saying, our digital IQ report on European luxury brands. And we would look for, I loved picking out this great imagery and I'd find a great image of Sophia Loren or Gina Lola Brigida or something really interesting. And I would have to pay Getty 1200 bucks to license this image.

I mean, this stuff, it was a very lucrative business. And similar, the analog here is Netflix has essentially come in and been so disruptive that everyone else is having to bulk up and consolidate and cut costs. And the equivalent here of Netflix is OpenAI and Sora, in my view. My son convinced me to upgrade to the, you know, the kind of premier, whatever it is, open AI subscription plan that includes Sora.

And I was playing with Sora yesterday, and I thought if I was still running L2, I would be prompting the shit out of things to get interesting coverage using Sora, and also mid-journey. And so the means of production, the protection, the barriers of entry around IP, these walls are falling and these guys absolutely need to consolidate

and you're gonna see fairly significant layoffs. You're gonna see they're gonna continue to aggressively sue but I wouldn't be surprised also for the next 12 to 24 months. One of the 100%, one of the bigger, I wouldn't be surprised also for the next 12 to 24 months. Deals. One of the, 100%, one of the bigger, my bet is anthropic, somebody comes in and takes them out

in exchange for using that data. I mean, like Adobe has Firefly, and one of the things about Firefly, this image repository, is they've said, everything here has been paid for. And a means of having, a means of trying to get any sort of advantage in what is the category that is,

if Anthropic can develop any sort of edge, it's probably worth the eight or $12 billion they'd have to pay for this thing. So I think this is step one to this combined company. They will let them do the dirty work of cutting costs and laying off 30, 40, 70% of their employees, right sizing it, getting it much more profitable again. And then I think you're gonna see an AI company in 26

come in and purchase it. Coming by, it's a great property actually. And also, I agree with the payments. One time one of my staffers used a picture without permission and that cost me a fortune because they by accident did it and we had some rules around it and they just put it up. I paid an enormous amount of money to settle that one and I was like, oh my God. And so we always, you know, were very strict either using it in the Commons, the Wikipedia Commons photos. But it was a very expensive situation. Even pictures of myself,

I don't own anymore. I have to be very careful when I'm sending out pictures because if Getty took them, for example, they own my image, which is weird if you think about it. But in the future, I won't take pictures for them. I'm like, you have to give me

the rights or something like that. But it's a really interesting business. I do think there is, just from this fire, and I know AI pictures are getting better and better, but they still have a weird look to them, I guess. They look computer generated, but they'll get better. They will, but these pictures from Los Angeles that are the real thing are heartbreaking

in a way that I have yet to see any picture done by AI yet. We'll see. Same thing with text hasn't been heartbreaking yet. Again, I recommend everybody to read that Joan Didion essay if you want to have your heart broken again. One of our greatest writers. Let's get to our first big story. As one headline put it this week, Mark Zuckerberg and Metta are finding new ways to kiss Trump's ass. I would move around to the front actually in that one. That followed Zuckerberg announcing on Tuesday that Metta is ending its fact checking program

essentially. Metta's platforms will instead use community note systems similar to X that will apparently quote reduce censorship. Rules on hate speech are being loosened. If you look at what they've done, it's an astonishing thing, the things they've taken out. And Metta's content moderation team will be moved from California to Texas where there's less concern about bias because Texas people have no bias.

I've never seen it ever. Zuckerberg shared a video, explained his decision. So let's listen. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech. So we're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms. I'm going to let you start, Scott,

because you went on Morning Joe and had quite a moment. I did the same thing over on The Beeb in London. But go ahead, tell me your thoughts. Well, the keys to a thriving democracy are threefold. You have to have strong institutions that people respect. You have to have shared stories that we're the good guys and we won World War II for the right reasons

and American's hearts are in the right place and believe in the founding fathers and the rights of people. And you also have to have kind of a lot of social capital within smaller networks, whether it's your church or your neighbors, or maybe you served, you know, how you feel about people who also served in the Marines

or whatever it might be. And slowly but surely, social media is eroding all of those things. And this is just another example of how those three things will continue to come down and be eroded. You have somewhere between a half and two-thirds of Americans, depending on their age, now get their news from social media. And today, when I was on Morning Joe, I called Trump an insurrectionist and a rapist. And Mika had to stop the show and say that Trump was found liable for sexual abuse.

Now imagine in contrast what you're going to be able to say about anything, health, elections, what you should do when a fire breaks out in the Pacific Palisades on Meta. I mean, we are all going into, we are all separating further and further. And to think that this doesn't have not only implications around candidates or politics, but violence. Look what happened in 2017.

There was violence against the Rohingya. Myanmar. And a year later, there were rumors circulated on WhatsApp, on Federt, and people were being pulled out of cars in small towns in India and hanged because of rumors around kidnappings. I mean, this, remember Pizzagate?

That started on social media. So four years ago, he called it moderation. Now they call it censorship. And I got to give it to the guy. I do think he's a brilliant businessman. He said, okay, this guy has threatened to put me in jail. I'm going to turn chicken shit and turn it into chicken salad and come up with a way to please him and potentially reduce up to $5 billion of costs in the safety and security

team. The move to Texas is actually not political. It's a means of quiet firing 30 to 60% of the staff because they won't move. And if you take, say he saves three or four of that $5 billion, it trades at a P of 30, 30 times 4, 120 billion on 50. He just made another $18 billion

while managing to kiss Mark Zuckerberg's ass. No, Donald Trump's ass. I'm sorry, excuse me, while managing to kiss Mark Zuckerberg's ass. No, Donald Trump's ass. I'm sorry, excuse me, while managing to kiss even more. No one wants to kiss Mark Zuckerberg's ass, but go ahead. And just a larger point here, and the point I made on Joe Scarborough's I've broken my indignant self, preachy self, my question is the following. Where are the fucking men? Where are the men that recognize, okay, I've made tens of billions of dollars here.

I lead a remarkable life. My kids have incredible opportunity. I have a broader selection set of mates than I deserve. People laugh at my jokes. I get to dress like this, but go ahead. I'm going to live five or 10 years longer than most people. I get to do remarkable things because of this operating system called America and the blessings of America.

And yet I have absolutely no fidelity to those values. None of them. What is the point of having this much money and this much power if you have to bend the knee to a kleptocrat? But it's more than that. Let me just say, let me do my little rant now because it's more than just bending the knee.

Of course he's doing it in his self-interest and his business interest, which is always... Mark, someone was like, I think it was on Piers Morgan, he's like, are you surprised? I'm like, no, no, this is what he's like. This is what I've told you he's like. For different, you know, I wrote a piece in the New York Times where I was like, this guy is the most dangerous person on the planet. Like he is, he has amplified and weaponized everything, and then he doesn't want to take responsibility. Let me tell you, I've talked to a lot of people inside Facebook and Meta,

they are sick to their stomach mark, just so you know. I know Joel Kaplan is kissing your ass to get the job that he got. But let me just be clear, so many people called me to this past week. The first person who was this first PR person was like, we got to get off threads now. I've had so many calls. Sick to their stomach seems to do it. They should be sick to their stomach because you are a sad and shameless weathervane.

In four more years, if the Democrats take over, you're going to shift again because that's what you do. You have no values whatsoever. And I thought Will Ramis did a great piece in the Washington Post, well, Places, where he goes, Mark Zuckerberg cited a cultural tipping point to justify dumping fact checks and relaxing hate speech rules. Meta-ending fact checks in the US made headlines, but the real ballgame here is a broader repudiation of the idea that a company is responsible for

bad stuff on its platform. As Zuckerberg puts it, bad stuff. Mark, you don't, bad stuff. Thinks he's going to like stub a toe? These people, you put people in danger. The company never really wanted that responsibility and Trump's election allows them to shrug it off. And, and, and they never wanted to.

That's the thing is, first of all, these fact-checking systems do make mistakes. So does Community Notes, so does AI, but you have to employ, if you wanna build your fucking social media network, you need to have all of them at work. And to impugn these fact-checkers, by the way, they have conservative fact-checkers. They're not all libtards, Mark, sorry,

they're from conservative publications. If you wanna do that, you need fact-checkers that make mistakes and then you correct them. You need AI. You need community notes. To wholly embrace what they're doing at Twitter on top of it with X is repulsive. Mark, he hates you. Just so you know, they laugh at you behind your back. In front of your back, they laugh at you. And the fact that he cannot, he hates you. Just so you know, they laugh at you behind your back. In front of your back, they laugh at you.

And the fact that he cannot, he switches his tune. I've had conversations where he says, Kara, AI was going to do this someday. Kara, community is going to do this. Kara, moderation is going to do this. I don't believe a word coming out of your mouth anymore. Honestly, you say, mendacious fuck all the time, Scott. And I got to tell you, it's exactly what's happening here.

Now, secondly, when he put UFC CEO and Trump crony Dana White on the board, that also upset people inside the company. And they tamped down the criticism on internal Facebook boards among employees because this guy was caught on a video type hitting his wife. His wife hit him, but I spent years talking to my sons about never hitting a woman. No matter what, if she hits you, I don't care. These are the people he's bringing onto the board of META right now because he happens to like doing MMA.

By the way, Mark, the reason all those MMA fighters hang with you is because you're rich. They don't think you're that good. It's great to hang out with a rich person. I'm glad you're doing it. I'm hoping you're having fun. The whole thing couldn't get worse except for what Amazon did about giving Melania $40 million. No, that wasn't even as bad.

When these guardrails are removed, it is going to be disastrous for people. Scott, take over on your indignity, please. Well, I feel a need to just fact check myself and disclose that on the international markets around meta, I do believe they're going to maintain some fact checking and safety and security, because I do recognize that there's real danger

overseas for people. I mean, this has so many negative ramifications, one of which being that News Corp, when they say Smartmatic and Dominion have been weaponized in an election, and they knew that was not true and decided to put it out anyways, or promote it because they knew it would tickle the censors of their viewers.

And then Dominion says, you have defamed us because this has hurt our business and you knew you were lying. And the courts say, yes, this qualifies as defamation. You have to pay them $774 million. And then Eiger's worried about a suit from the president, a retribution from the president, and ABC has to pay the companies that are now having to spend a ton of money on moderation and are chilled and scared and have to stop an interview with me

because I call someone a rapist instead of a sexual abuser. Folks, be careful, slow your roll. Everyone from News Corp, from the Wall Street Journal, to the BBC, to Wikipedia, to the Washington Post, they're all shrinking and going away. And there's been all these articles recently about some anchors, including anchors we know and love, having to take pay cuts. So congratulations, your lame stream media is going extinct.

And you're going to have to get all of your news from social media, which is a fucking food fight around whichever algorithm grabs the most novel, i.e. conspiracy, i.e. false narrative to punch out there. I mean, these traditional media outlets do play an important role and they are having their windpipes are being crushed right now.

They can't compete with companies that are, have no liability. Have no regulations, that have no rules, that have no liability. They cannot. It's a great business model folks. And the fact that I could go on Metta and say incredibly

defamatory things about people with fake accounts and say ridiculous things about health claims or whatever it might be. And the more ridiculous it is, the more inorganic reach it gets because the algorithms love it. I mean, we are literally moving to an idiocracy and the companies that we're serving at, they played a key role, whether you think it's News Corp, whether you think it's Comcast,

they are having the oxygen sucked out of the room. There's two things I'd say. The video, you must go watch it, because it's full of things that are not true about a lot of things. He was just, he took a swipe at the media because he's a mad little man. He's mad because they're mean to him.

You know, he actually said, if you want to leave because I've done this, you're virtue signaling. No, Mark, they just think you're an asshole. Let's just like, I'm sounding like Bill Maher. They just think you're an asshole. They're not virtue signaling. They think you're an asshole. That's why they're leaving. And you make shitty products compared to say a Steve Jobs, by the way. And let me just tell you, Steve Jobs would have been horrified with all of these behaviors, absolutely. He believed in the free press. From a shareholder standpoint, I hate to say this, Kara,

it's absolutely the right move. And did you see the words on his video? I get it. He said the words were, it was like, oh my God, these guys are so good and so mendacious. It was more speech and fewer mistakes. Oh, right. Is the way they and fewer mistakes. Oh, right. Is the way they framed this video. No, it's not. It's less moderation, more misinformation.

That would have been the title of this video. And then they wrapped themselves in the First Amendment stuff. I don't think they've read it. I think it's too long for them. I mean, it's first, so they should be able to find it, but they haven't read it. I mean, it's ridiculous. And then what they do is they get, I was on an interesting panel with Piers Mori, I was with some right-wing people and so they get, and I was like, don't you see what they're doing? They're trying to get us all fighting with each other. And then they're sitting up at Mar-a-Lago with President Trump, getting all the goodies, because they're going to make us argue over invermectin or this or that or the other thing.

And they're all reaping the benefits of that. Let me just tell you, right wing, they're not your friends. And by the way, a lot of those right wing people get that. If you notice Bannon, Loomer, Charlie Kirk, they're suddenly on an anti-tech guy thing because they know a thief when they see them. And Walt Mossberg many years ago called a lot, especially he called Zuckerberg an information thief and the Google people, that's what they are. They're information thieves stealing our souls, they're stealing our information, they're stealing everything,

and without anyone in place to stop them in any way whatsoever, including great senators like Senator Klobuchar, and Trump will hand it all to them for a payment or to get close to him. And maybe, you know, there was a lot of conservatives who were quite worried about the power of big tech and I hope they continue to be. And I don't really care the reason if they think it's censorship or whatever. I would like some laws to go into place to stop this nonsense. The last thing is, of course, after not putting political content before the election, now

Instagram head Anna Masuri, who also runs Threads, said they'll be adding political content recommendations on Instagram and Threads after the election. Interesting. That's an interesting development, of course, because these people are opportunistic at every single turn, whether it was Beacon way back in the day, whether it was anything they do is always in their self-interest. Just keep that in mind. Should Blue Sky seize the moment here? That's my last question and we'll move on.

Well, it's interesting. Blue Sky is supposedly raising money at a valuation of $600 million. They are. And I immediately thought, Jesus Christ, now I got off of Twitter. Now am I going to have to get off of threads and Instagram? I mean, at some point, do we have to get off those platforms? Blue Sky is raising money, it's growing,

it's user-based by a million people a day. I thought, wow, that seemed pretty inexpensive, but this is, I don't know, I'm kind of befuddled as to what's gonna happen. It feels like any real source of information that doesn't, I mean, there's so many layers here. Quite frankly, I'm so pissed off that because we have a guy who looks like

he's about to go into hospice as president, Trump and Musk are president. We can't even maintain any semblance of a media presence because the people around Biden aren't confident enough to put them on stage in front of a place where we might actually have to answer questions. So president-elect Trump is basically President Trump and they're already making public policy speeches.

Elon Musk has more power than President Biden right now. And all President Biden can do is have a highly scripted moment where he wraps a medal around Bono. I mean, this is, it is, I have never- That was a nice moment though. That was a nice moment. Go ahead. Yay. Yay. And meanwhile, everybody, and then we talk,

and then Trump gets on and starts talking about invading Greenland, and we all look over there. It is just insane that we don't have the leadership, and we don't have the balls or the charisma to get out there and push back on the narrative here. Where are the fucking Democrats here? Elon and President-elect Trump are dominating the media landscape right now.

They are. You just see a few in the text, you see a few in the Cuban speaking out. You see a bunch of them. They are trying. They are trying. I think they're going to get... I've gotten lots of emails from some tech people. They're like, I'm fucking sick of this shit. You know what I mean? And I think they're getting ready to get up again. We certainly have gotten up, I think, don't you think? I have to say, I gotta say, speaking of getting up, the very best insults were Jimmy Kimmel this week. Mark Zuckerberg showed up to debase himself at Mar-a-Lago

shortly after the election. Today, he released a suspiciously Trump-friendly announcement. Hey, everyone. I wanna talk about something important today. What, the fact that you're dressed like a Mali dealer from Chechnya? No? Oh, okay, go on. First, we're going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X starting in the US.

Oh, good. Facebook's gonna be similar to X now. No fact checkers. This is like Del Taco announcing they're done with health inspections. I thought it was great. I thought some of our comics, getting back to comics, are doing a fantastic job tearing these people down. I think Daily Show did a great job. They're doing some really good, you know, social commentary.

And I know we don't have the power. We just don't have the power to actually change things. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Donald Trump's plans for world domination and take a listener mail question about responsible podcasting. It's January 6th, and Congress met today at 1pm to certify Donald Trump as the winner of the 2024 election. Four years ago, you may recall Congress was meant to do the same, but the certification

was delayed when thousands of Trump supporters marched on the Capitol. The president-elect has said repeatedly, and he told NBC again last month, that he's going to pardon at least some of the insurrectionists. Those people have suffered long and hard, and there may be some exceptions to it. I have to look. But you know, if somebody was radical, crazy, there might be some people from Antifa there. I don't know, you know, because those people seem to be in good shape. Whatever happened to scaffold man? You had to be there. Antifa was actually not there four years ago, but members of several extremist groups were at the Capitol on Jan 6th. And today on Explained, we're going

to ask, wither American extremism on the eve of a second Trump administration? Today Explained, every weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. Support for Pivot comes from Vanta. Proving trust is more important than ever, especially when it comes to your security program. Vanta helps centralize program requirements and automates evidence collection for frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and more, so you can save time and money and build customer trust. And with Vanta, you get continuous visibility

into the state of your controls. You can join more than 8,000 global companies like Atlassian, Flow Health, and Quora who trust Vanta to manage risk and provide security in real time. Now that's the new way to GRC. Get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com slash pivot. That's vanta.com slash pivot for $1,000 off. Scott, we're back with our second big story. Speaking of which, you just referenced it.

President-elect Donald Trump seems fixated on geography this week. He's talking about annexing Greenland, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America, reclaiming the Panama Canal, making Canada 51st state. A lot of this is just nonsense and he knows it. He's also considering declaring a national economic emergency to provide legal justification for his tariffs on allies and adversaries, according to CNN. Greenland has a lot of minerals. There's a reason to possibly do a deal with them. That's certainly true, and it's a big military, important military spot. The Gulf of Mexico thing is just inane. The Panama Canal, we could do a deal down there if we wanted to work better. And Canada,

Canadians have got to be fucking pissed as hell, and they never get pissed. A lot of this is, you know, chest thumping, I think, on some things, but we look idiotic. I did love the new head of Mexico who got in front of a map and was like, I think we'll call America Nuevo Mexico. She sort of slapped back at him, making fun of him, but we're a laughing stock. Well, Panama, the Panama Canal, it's a small business. It's strategically and militarily quite benign. You know, it's been kept open.

It hasn't been politicized. And the total business of the Panama Canal, it made about $5 billion. It's just not, quite frankly, unless it was threatened, it's not that strategically important. It serves its purpose, but it's not a big business. It doesn't have a lot of economic value. Greenland is an entirely different matter

because of global warming and the fact that so much but it's not a big business. It doesn't have a lot of economic value. Greenland is an entirely different matter because of global warming and the fact that so much of the ice in the polar cap has melted. Did you ever see those shows? There was an amazing show, I think it was called The Terror by Ridley Scott about some British explorers who tried to find the passage across,

I forget what it's called, but that- The Northwest Passage, right? Well, Russia's lost access to a warm water port with Syria, but if all of a sudden the polar cap melts, a bunch of different countries are gonna have access to everybody else for their Navy. To the Arctic, yeah. And so that is strategic, Greenland is strategic.

Everyone talks about, in terms of scenario planning around World War III, that Greenland would play an incredibly important about in terms of scenario planning around World War III, that Greenland would play an incredibly important role in terms of refueling bombers and submarines. So that is strategic. But what I don't get is when you start on a more meta level, what you don't realize or what we don't realize or what I would say Trump doesn't realize,

as powerful as we are, we're about a third of the world's economy. And without allies, we haven't accomplished anything on our own. Greatness is in the agency of others. If you wanna expel Hussein from Kuwait, if you wanna take on Nazi Germany, if you wanna implement sanctions,

you have to have the cooperation of your allies. And every president has understood that until this one. So when he starts saying dumb shit, like we're gonna rename it the Gulf of America or starts threatening places like Greenland, all he's doing is saying, you know what? We're gonna have fewer and fewer allies around the world. And at some point, he's going to need allies when, you know, if China goes into Taiwan

and we want to expel them and we want to do it crisply, he's going to need Japanese intelligence. He's going to need South Korean reconnaissance. And these people are going to go, we don't trust this guy. They're going to start coming up with contingency plans to form alliances against him. Now, having said that, there is an unintended consequential benefit here and that is most Western nations now

are massively increasing their military budgets because they don't feel they can count on the military umbrella. Defense stocks are rising. That's right, because everyone from Germany, you know, these places are all saying, we've got to take our military budgets up. Having said that, that is probably a good thing

because they were too reliant on Big Brother, who was benign Big Brother, and now they're like, Big Brother's fucking crazy and is addicted to meth. We don't know what is going on with this guy. So there are so many different ideas, and Bremer on the pod yesterday, there there are so many different ideas in Bremer on the pod yesterday. There are just so many different layers to this. We are in uncharted territory with a guy who pops up and says,

we want Greenland. I mean, that's where you're focused. Right. You know, again, you know, and of course, Musk backed them. I mean, they want the minerals there. There's all these rare earth minerals there. And China's been sucking up all the rare earth minerals around the world. Get it. Why don't you just say that?

Why don't you just say, we think- But we just buy them right now. It'd be a lot less expensive to continue to buy them than trying to take over green. Exactly. I mean, why not just say that though? Why not just have a code, like here, this is an important thing.

I mean, I know Advil, I don't invade the 7-Eleven. You did. I saw you do it. I saw you do it. You went in with the whole team. There you go. Of course you failed because you couldn't open the top. With my breathwork guy. With your breathwork, you and me.

We're the least scary duo. I'm like, let me put this drum on your chest. Lie back. I'm going to get a slurpee. I'm going to get a slurpee and a four-day-old hot dog, and we're going to do some sound work here. And these right-wing people are all like, well, actually, it's when people are all like, well, actually it's genius.

I'm like, oh my God, he's like the crazy guy in the corner. It's not genius, he's just crazy. My worst part was that Don Jr. he went with Charlie Kirk and some other guy who's like head of office personnel in the White House. Three idiots, I called them Five Head and the Morons, as they're the new Eurovision band.

They went to Greenland and they're taking selfies there. Literally, you people, you're morons. You're absolute morons and you're making the US like morons. They're like someone on one of the commentaries. They're like those guys in high school or in middle school that used to sit back and write boobs on a calculator and laugh hysterically. Yeah, but it's just such, it's such a lack of respect for people.

It's, all right, you're an unelected rich kid's son who's, all right, and you show up in some sort of like mil-foe, foe government. You make us look like such assholes. Moron, you're such a, you're so, you have no game whatsoever. Millet, faux, faux government. You make us look like such assholes. Moron. You're such a, you're so, you have no game whatsoever. Speaking of no game, Trump's BFF Elon Musk

is focusing his attention on Europe, once again, obsessed with pedophiles. His new nemesis is UK Prime Minister, I think it's Claire Stammer. Claire Stammer, yeah. Claire Stammer. He's also endorsed Germany's far-right party. He's pushing out all sorts of conspiracy theories and misinformation, particularly about these

grooming gangs. I sent Scott a bunch of information. Even the person who took over the thing said that Starmer did a very good job and moved it forward, rather. There was a slowness at the beginning of it. There's no question of that. But there's no proof of the things Elon's alleging, at least. They were definitely slow, but he is bullying the world.

He's worked in the US and now he's moved on. And these European leaders all released statements seemingly and together, they pretended it was a part, but they were all the same statement. What's it like there in England? Obviously people are always concerned about issues around children being abused, but he's taking, he could give five bucks about these women at all. He's using it for something else, probably to attack

their online safety bill that he doesn't like, et cetera, et cetera. What is your take from living there? The honest answer is I don't know. I'm in a bubble here, but occasionally my bubble at least is somewhat translucent. I can see out of it every once in a while. In London, I'm in a bubble that's totally opaque and I just don't feel qualified to ... The only thing I would say is just looking at it from a game theory standpoint, at some point these Western nations are going to get together and say, we need contingency plans where we don't necessarily rely on America.

And it's dangerous for us because what people don't realize and they take for granted is the North American treaty that was in NATO has probably been the most important alliance. It has kept the peace since the end of World War II, the fact you attack one, you attack all of us. And together, you've seen this happen in repelling what was supposed to be this ferocious force

in Ukraine, because NATO and Europe and the US rallied around it. I think the reason that she has decided not to come into Taiwan is probably saying, okay, if the West binds together under the auspices of the West in cooperation. You know, we're like siblings. We fight, but when shit gets real,

we have each other's back in the West. And I worry that's no longer gonna be the case. I worry that we're gonna be divided because the biggest brother with the best job, who has the most money and is quite frankly the strongest, is just unreliable. Has just gone off, is just kind of, we don't know how to deal with this person.

And this is not, this is a huge security risk for us because I think a lot of nations will notice and think this is the time to strike. They're divided, they'll argue over it. We have conservative commentators who seem to be more fond of Russia. I mean, at some point, I can see certain conservative commentators, if she were to go into Taiwan thinking, yeah, that's what a real man does. What I'm hoping for is, and I think there's a little bit of this across Europe, or when I speak a lot in Europe, what I

sense is they're thinking, okay, we just got to get through the next couple of years, he's getting older, and things will calm down again. I think people, what's interesting, and I was talking to people in Brazil, they give America the benefit of the doubt. They seem in some ways less freaked out than we are because they think American institutions are so strong. I think the, I find the Europeans freaked out.

Everyone I talked to today is just over there. They're like, what is he doing, Elon Musk? Well, Elon is just a different, I don't know. It's so hard. There's so many moving parts here. It's just so unpredictable. And it's not, I don't, I find myself almost sort of like resigned to like, okay, I'll just see what happens tomorrow

because I don't know how to process this. Let me tell you, someone from Facebook who Amanda ran into said something about, doesn't like what's happening there and said something like, just let it happen. Just let them do it. Let them see how it turns out when they do it. I think a lot of people are in that zone, like, okay, let's watch this play out. Yeah, catch the car.

Catch the car. Go for it. It's all yours. That's a little dangerous for some people, but a lot of people seem resigned that way. Okay, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question. it to a listener question. This question comes from Stacy in Los Angeles. Stacy, I hope you're safe and you're doing well. Let's listen. Hi, Karen Scott. Question for you with all of the talk about podcasts recently. As traditional media consumption continues to wane and people are increasingly turning to media like podcasts for their news,

what measures can we take, you take, everyone takes to stem the tide of myths and disinformation in this space? There's obviously been lots of discussion about regulating social media, but what about podcasts? What are the potential checks and balances when it comes to things like fact checking? And I think my biggest question is really, how can we collectively encourage responsible podcasts listening and producing? Wanted to hear your thoughts on this, love the show and never miss it.

Keep up the good work. Oh, and this is Stacy in Los Angeles. Thanks. Oh, Stacy, that's a great question. Actually we do have regulations, libel def defamation, you know, even Joe Rogan can be sued, FYI. And he says a lot of nutty stuff when he gets on there. You know, it just depends on the listenership. Some people just like, for example, those bro, I use Joe Rogan as the example, some of his stuff is good, some of it's nutty, some of it's absolutely

inaccurate and he does not pay, seem to pay a price for that. He does get pilloried. At some point, probably someone will sue him and he gets to be sued, just like we do or anybody else. There is a check and balance on most media, just not Mark Zuckerberg. You have to pick and choose your podcasts as you feel like, especially in areas you know, that seems right, that doesn't seem right. We have

pack checkers on all our podcasts. As Scott and I know, things get changed on our podcasts when we make mistakes. And so we think that's important. I have them over on On. I think you have them over on Prof. Scott, checking, make sure you're accurate. Because accuracy in the end, away from opinions and our thoughts on things, accuracy is really important because then we look like horses' ass if they're not correct. Scott? Yeah, look, I do think in podcasting, there is, it's become sort of the, I don't know,

it's the new, it's the new lame stream media in the sense that it reflects some of the same dynamics of media. It's ad supported, stream media in the sense that it reflects some of the same dynamics of media. It's ad supported. There's fact checking. There is, as you said, we're liable. We're legally liable if we say something false,

we know it's false and it defames or slanders someone or something and it's malicious. We can incur economic harm and we have to pay for insurance. So it is similar to media that way. Also, the most popular podcasts over the last several years in news has been The Daily from The New York Times. And there is a lot of conservative, I think it bifurcates and that is I think a lot of podcasts are not news, they're commentators. And people have to decide whether they find it entertaining or interesting. I think the key to trust is checking several outlets from kind of different angles.

Go to the FT, go to the BBC, and then check it against something more conservative, The Wall Street Journal, whatever it might be. But there is no, it used to be, I didn't get nearly as many questions around, who can I trust? It's become a big issue. And there are now, I think the podcasts that are sort of rising to the top are one of two things.

They're either incredibly entertaining or people think if I'm going to listen to The Daily, it has a bias. It's the New York Times. I hated the New York, I hated, absolutely hated the interview with Anthony Blinken. I thought the reporter that did that brought so much bias in her the way she framed her questions.

That's Lula Garcia. Having said that, they do fact check. They take it very seriously. And it's a word salad for saying I don't know? Yeah. Well, it's just like regular media. That's what it feels like. That's what it is.

That's what we have to do. And we use fact checking. Every podcast is different. Most of them do use fact checkers. I'll tell you that. Many of them, because they're worried about the things that you worry about and getting it wrong and especially ours. We think it's really important and we take things out when things are wrong and fix them

all the time. Anyway, if you've got a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Predictions. Okay, Scott, let's hear prediction. Well, okay, so collectively we're disappointed in the lack of leadership, spine, testicles, manhood that is being represented by our tech leaders not standing up for the American values they've benefited so greatly from.

Having said that, just looking at it very unemotionally, the AI company of 2025 is going to be Meta. And if you look at the kind of grist or the fossil fuel for AI, it's raw training data. And Meta has more unique human language data than Google, Reddit, Wikipedia, and X combined because of the amount of time and content on it. In terms of attention, nine out of 10 internet users, it stands China, are active on Meta platforms monthly.

And in terms of compute, get this, Meta has purchased more NVIDIA Hopper GPUs, the latest and most advanced AI hardware, than any US company other than Microsoft, giving it unmatched AI training and deployment capacity. And you're also gonna love this one. And I just want to acknowledge this, while we were early and I think right around,

mixed around VR headsets, you know what the tech product of 2025 is? No, what is it? Meta's Ray-Ban Smart Glasses. They're sold out in the majority of stores in Europe. They have greater margins. They retail for 300 bucks. They look good.

The Financial Times reported that Meta plans to add a small display to the RayBans in 2025. The display would likely be used to show notifications or responses for Meta's virtual assistant. The tens of billions of dollars of investing and the steadfast commitment he's had to technology, micro cameras and VR, when you match their data, when you match their consumer interface, when you match their data, when you match their consumer

interface, when you match their GPUs that they're purchasing, and you match their progress in smart glasses or hardware, I think that the AI company of 2025 is going to be meta. I think this guy is really fucking smart. All right, you know what he is, but he's an asshole. The thing that I think is going to might happen, and I know you like to insult Apple, is they too have a lot of great stuff. I think, as you say, the second bird gets the whatever, what's your expression?

Second mouse gets the cheese. Mouse gets the cheese. They'll come in with a glasses that's better looking, better done, possibly, and hopefully do that. They've done that a number of times and used all the experience they've had with their stuff and created glasses that you that are. And by the way, I like the meta ones there.

They have limited use, but I like the use that they have, if that makes sense. And I like that it has limited use, but I feel like Apple could possibly come in here and grab it from them if they want it. Well, that's what they do. But I just look at the data, I look at the investment he's making.

It's a lot of money to spend on glasses though. The data they have, the money he's spending on GPUs and the access, the consumer access they have. And I just thought, oh my gosh, this guy is playing chess. Anyways, that's my prediction. Do you have any?

No, I don't. I don't have a prediction right now. By the way, people really enjoyed our debate about the post, so we'll do some more of it as it moves forward. As it moves forward. I wanna run the style section. Can I run the fashion section or the style section? Yes, 100 fucking percent, Scott.

No, I'll do the movie reviews. Yes. I'll do the TV reviews. Yes, anything Scott wants. That's how I'll say it. That's Scott. Scott's part of the package. Oh, thanks. I like it. I'm on board then. I hope it works out for you. Other than the TV reviews. Yes, anything Scott wants. That's how I'll say it. Scott's part of the package.

Oh, thanks. I like it. I'm on board then. I hope it works out for you. It's a great idea. I'm on my seventh billionaire and they all kind of like it. I'm just telling you. I'm in for 30,000.

Okay. If I don't get through to Jeff, I'm getting through to Lauren. That's what I'm going to somehow finagle a lunch with Lauren because I think she's the brains of the operation. Lauren, you're the brains of the operation. We all know it. Anyway, that's the brains of the operation. Lauren, you're the brains of the operation. We all know it. Anyway, that's the show. Elsewhere in the Scott and Kara universe this week,

as he mentioned, Scott kicked off the year with Ian Bremmer to discuss the geopolitical state of play and the top risks for 2025. Let's listen. The US in particular has just fundamentally rejected the idea that we're gonna be global leaders supporting rule of law and multilateral institutions. It's America first, baby.

It's our way or the highway. And we're gonna tell other countries that you're gonna work with us and do the things we want our way, or there's gonna be hell to pay. And so yeah, that sounds a lot like a reversion to the law of the jungle, that the powerful and strongest countries and people get to do what they want.

Scott, that sounds like a great interview. Sounds really nice, really well done. I love Ian. Yeah, and his and my back and forth actually got quite salty over Israel, but we're friends. And he and I have a similar relationship to you in that is we can disagree and still like each other. But I'm a big fan. He's my Alec Baldwin. Alec Baldwin has hosted SNL 17 times

and Ian has now been on Prop G eight times. Yeah, he's a good perian thruster with you, so to speak. And that's not sexual in any way. I know, perian thruster. Jesus, it's a little hot. I don't know what that means. Little hot, little hot. Is there a valve of strap on?

Where's the battery going, the perianthrusting? No, I'm talking about sword fighting. You keep your mind out of the gutter. I hope your breath work went well with him. Anyway, you can find the rest of that interview over at the Prof G Pod. We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivoting again to the people of Los Angeles.

I love Los Angeles and so does Scott. And I just want to note that California, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, everything else contributes so much to this country. It's a giver state. You should worry about wither California and stop ducking on it because it's a giver state. Lots of red states are not. And so you should hope that everything goes well in Los Angeles and everyone else who contributes so much to this economy.

Such an important thing. You should get in there and help and do whatever you can to help the citizens there. We're really sorry for what's happening there. So God, read us out. Today's show is produced by Laranay, Manzoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andretotte engineered this episode. Thanks also to Jouberos, Mia Severio and Dan Shulan. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's Executive

Producer of Audio. 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. 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.