Pivot - OpenAI Claps Back at Elon, Biden v. Trump Rematch, and Disney’s Proxy Fight

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

Kara and Scott discuss Disney’s proxy fight with Nelson Peltz nearing an end, a new cap on credit card late fees, and employers dialing back on coverage of weight loss drugs. Also, the Biden-Trump rematch is getting closer after Super Tuesday. Plus, OpenAI intends to dismiss all of Elon Musk’s legal claims and an open letter for “AI for a Better Future.” Then, a listener question about why Siri is so bad. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Term'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, I don't even know what day this is. I'm in Seattle now. You're in Seattle? Yeah. I was in LA the other day. And how was LA? Fantastic. I did an event with Ted Sarandos, who was very funny, and it was a packed house. Ted? Ted, yeah. Your friend, Ted. Last night, I had Alex Stamos in Seattle. It was another packed house.

Wow. Alex Stamos lives in Seattle? No, he came up to do it. He came up. We flew him up. Did you notice how hot the Uber drivers are in LA? I mean, it's reason just to go to LA. No, I had music. I had limousine drivers. Was Mill you? Limo drivers. What is it, prom? I had Roberto. He was lovely. He was very nice. He seemed like an older man. And then I'm going to San Francisco to do three events. One with...

Your home. Yes. I'm doing one with Sam Altman, who seems ready to fight. I think he's going to say a lot. One tonight with Gavin Newsom, the handsome Gavin Newsom. Governor Newsom, or as I like to call him, President Newsom. President Handsome. And then Reid Hoffman.

It's going to be good. Did I tell you my story about the first time I met Governor Newsom? No. When was it? I'm going to just take a moment before you finish. About half the people were signing books. Everyone mentions you to me. Everyone.

Like, you're my husband. Oh, good. Not necessarily in a good way, though, right? I was surprised. They liked the apology tour, the last show. They like you. They really like you. sally field not everybody does the lesbians are still on the fence about you i'll be honest they're like scott really you gotta smack them some more yeah a lot of lesbians well i just they should know that's my favorite porn see now you're

doing it at one point i owned a subaru and i'm thinking about a german shepherd boom boom stereotypes is that gonna help me there was a, a lot of parents let kids listen to Pivot. And they were like, Scott's got to pull that back. And I said, okay. Pull what back? Just the profanity? The dirty joke. But they let their kids watch. And I told them their kids should learn early, I guess. I don't know what to say. Well, okay. Something tells me if their kid's old enough to listen to and tolerate Pivot, they have other means and channels of getting profanity.

No, these are like four. Some people were four and six. Yeah, I got a lot of stuff from kids. But anyways, enough. All right, tell me about this Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom. Oh, sorry. Being the narcissist I am, and I got out of business school, and I had a decent amount of early momentum and success with my first company.

And I thought, well, of course, I should go on to elected office. And I thought the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to run for a supervisor in San Francisco. And so I started going to supervisor meetings or, you know, board of supervisors meetings. And the first. I don't know this. Have you told me this story? Yeah, but our viewership has grown so much because of my lesbian and dick jokes that most of the people have not heard it. All right, go ahead. I haven't heard this.

So then Supervisor Newsom came down, and my friend knew him, and we met him. And first off, you just sit there talking to the guy and you can't, you can barely hear what he's saying. He's so handsome. You're sort of like, I see him moving his mouth and I know he's saying something, but Jesus, what moisturizer does he use? But anyway, so I was thinking about running for supervisor and I took my friend who was going to, you know, help me with the campaign, who's super politically savvy, understood everything about.

And we sat there and we met and talked to Supervisor Newsom for like, you know, 10, 20 minutes. And then he walked away. My friend goes, you have no chance. He's like, look at that guy. Look at you. You have no chance. So that was the beginning and the end of my run for elected office was meeting Gavin Newsom and realizing if that's what it takes to be a supervisor in San Francisco, you have no chance. It is. It's sort of natural selection, isn't it? A hundred percent. It makes sense.

Wow. Yeah. It makes sense. He should have 300 kids. I should get a vasectomy. That's a really interesting little story about you. I was thinking about running for supervisor. And you were thinking about running for mayor.

I was. And then I spoke to a bunch of people. And I actually had more kids. That really is what I might have done it had I not met Amanda and had more kids. I still might have done it. Right now, I got to think. I think I'm thinking a lot about public office, not for me, but how we're doing things. There's a lot to talk about because it's Super Tuesday.

A lot of news to get to an AI and OpenAI sharing more of its past with Elon, which is a very troubled past and a competition, which we knew about. And the competition is heating up with new contenders in the AI race. But first, Disney's proxy fight is nearing an end. Nelson Peltz's Tryon Partners has unveiled its case for changes to the company. The 133-page report detailed Tryon's plans, including bundling its streaming service with other media companies, which he's kind of doing with this sports thing, focused more on ESPN Plus than full ESPN direct-to-consumer service, another thing he's doing. Merge Hulu and Disney Plus and evaluate long-term viability of Hulu's live TV service. Okay. I mean, that's not, it's occurred to many. Right-size the studio business and linear TV networks again, what he's doing.

Disney's next shareholder meeting is on April 3rd. You know, I know you love this, Nelson Peltz, but this is kind of weak sauce, I thought. Any thoughts? Any thoughts? Oh, okay. I'm getting offensive. I don't love Nelson Peltz. I love governance.

And I love data. And the data is the following, Cara. Disney has underperformed and the executives have overpaid themselves. And while I realize that Bob Iger is going to win any type of popularity contest against Nelson Peltz, he's just infinitely more likable, infinitely more handsome. The reality is Bob totally fucked up his succession planning. He's beginning to look like someone who, anyone who gets near the Iron Throne, he shoots in the head. You know, he had his handpicked advisor. He, his hand-picked successor, he then turned on.

Well, justifiably. Justifiably. No, I'm going to push back. What was the justification? The guy wasn't right. If you talk to anyone, he was doing all kinds of mistakes. But go ahead, go ahead. He shot him in the head. Okay, but let's just ignore the personalities and look at the data. The S&P is up 84% in the last five years. Netflix, you know, up 69%. Disney's down 1%. And yet, they continue to pay themselves too much money. And the board right now owns almost no stock. So for an activist, it's not a popularity contest. Someone who shows up and accurately looks at this company and says, you have underperformed on every metric, not on how handsome you are, not on how likable you are, but on every single metric, you have underperformed. Meanwhile, you figured out a way to pay yourself a lot of money. So I acknowledge, we can agree,

that this stock has underperformed, and there is value to be unlocked and realized here. And in exchange for buying $800 million worth of stock, I deserve a seat at the table. That is a reasonable argument. Okay. I'm asking you about this. Do you think he'll get it? The problem is these guys all have enormous egos. And you can bet that Bob Iger is now spending between minimum two and maybe 10 to 20 hours a week. He now sees this as a proxy for his, it's win-lose now. And rather than these guys sitting down and saying, okay, you want two seats, I'll give you one. Let's stop spending shareholder money.

Let's stop the sword fighting with our dicks. You own $800 million worth of stock. And the notion that somehow Nelson is going to get on the board and force the company into a new direction is just ridiculous. I've been on boards where one or two people disagree with the rest, and you just put them in a corner and ignore them. He wouldn't be able to control that much. The only thing that happens when you put him on the board is he has to shut the fuck up because now he's on the board. And he's going to realize that they are probably trying their best. He will have some influence.

Nelson has a track record of adding shareholder value. He has done well. So instead of wasting shareholder money, instead of acknowledging that your report card here, as likable as you are, as popular as you are, has not been great, stop wasting energy, stop the ego, settle with him, offer him one seat, and move on. I don't know if he's going to do that, I'll be honest. And now, oddly, from one side, on. I don't know if he's going to do that. I'll be honest. And now, oddly, from one side, Musk is there trying to poke at him, too, you know, with lawsuits, backing lawsuits like Virginia Carano, I think. Of course he is. He's met with Peltz, which would make sense for Peltz

to do. What do you imagine is going to happen here? And this is interesting. He was at a Morgan Stanley conference yesterday, and he said, this campaign is in a way designed to distract us, to take our eye off the ball that we talked about. Because he had done a bunch of things. He announced the investment in Epic Games, Moana sequel, the deal to bring Taylor Swift's Eras. They talked about Wolverine, the new Deadpool movie, which he thinks is going to be big. But he says, it's that simple and I'm working really hard, not let us distract me. Because when I get distracted, everyone who works for me gets distracted, and that's not a good thing. By the way, they have some movies coming out. They have the upcoming King to the Planet of the Apes.

Inside Out, they've got Moana, Deadpool, and Wolverine. This is just in the movie department. But they've been, you know, the Marvel universe is getting a little tired, of course, which he acknowledged. You just let them on. Just give it up and let them on the board. That's it. Well, okay. First off, they talk about movies.

This isn't really a movie business. This is a parks business. Strategically, in terms of EBITDA, it's a parks business. In terms of its multiple on that EBITDA, it's about what happens with their IP and specifically what happens or doesn't happen with streaming. So they can talk about Moana. That's just a sideshow to try and get media on their side. What he should do is very simple. He should take Nelson out to dinner, fly down, show him some respect or kiss his ass. These guys appeal to their ego. Don't get your ego fired up. Tim Cook handled the Icahn perfectly. He went to Carl and said, okay, Carl, what are you thinking?

You're a genius, Carl, da-da-da. And Carl said, there should be a buy-buy. And you know what Tim Cook did? He did a big dividend as a nod to Carl Icahn. And then all of a sudden, Carl Icahn thought, I'm important. He did what I wanted to, and he went away. Instead, you want to talk about his defense or his correct accusation that the Iger's making is this will be a distraction. Well, guess what, Bob? You're

now making it a distraction in all caps because you're refusing to settle with this guy and just move on. You know, I think that the experience of GE, what happened to GE, I think they look at this guy and they think, curtains, right? This guy is not, they do call him the smile crocodile. They absolutely do. So. You and I presented the board together and the dynamic is the following. No one person can shape the strategy. I mean, a powerful board member can absolutely start a movement to unseat the CEO. And at the end of the day, I think this is what this is about is Iger is worried that Peltz is going to be effective lobbying the other board members kind of off camera and start playing golf with them and start a movement against Iger. But the notion that Peltz is just going to show up and start

dictating strategy from the board level, you can't do that. It's just not that easy. And if you look at some of the other people, including the directors, the very solid directors that Iger has appointed to the board recently, they're not scared of Nelson Peltz. They're not going to say, oh, Nelson thinks we should cut costs. They're like, James Gorman isn't scared of fucking Nelson Peltz. So fine. Come on in. The water's fine. We're absolutely open to your ideas. And by the way, once we put you on the board, you have to stop shitposting us in the public.

And we get to stop spending tens of millions of dollars and all of Bob's time talking to reporters about non-business operating issues. It's time for them both to put on their fucking big boy pants and just get together because it's men worth a ton of money. And this has become about win-lose and ego. Anyway, I'm sorry. I don't know if I'm ranting right now. What do you think? I would agree. I would agree.

Pelts should not have appeared with Musk, shouldn't have done stuff like that. I mean, it's just everybody's doing things. That's stupid. That was stupid at the thing. And that antagonizes. And that does. Why on earth would Pelts do that? That was especially after the fuck you Bob thing.

Anyway, we'll see what happens. Boys, let's get it together for the love of Moana. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will now cap credit card fees at $8, down from an average of $32. The Bureau estimates a new rule will save families more than $10 billion. The move has part of a push by the Biden administration to eliminate junk fees. This is something they've been doing for a while, and also it's good for election year as U.S. credit card debt reaches a record $1.1 trillion. The financial industry has warned the rule will hurt consumers by encouraging late payments. And the Chamber of Commerce says it will file a lawsuit against the Bureau for misguided regulation.

You know, Biden's going after food manufacturers for continued high costs despite inflation coming down. And this is another thing. They've been working on this, to be fair. This is something he's talked about. A lot of people have talked about before. And they can be onerous, these fees, usurious even. What do you think about this? I'm of two minds.

On the whole, I like it because I think, you know, I'm writing a book on how to establish financial security. Credit cards are mendacious. And the problem is these hidden fees. And because our nation lacks, because the nation or the part of the nation that unfortunately becomes most addicted to credit cards and revolving credit, oftentimes it's not the most financially literate. They just don't realize how mendacious and damaging slowly. The wonderful thing about investing slowly over time or even investing in relationships is it compounds. If you can manage to save $100 a week in your 20s and then $1,000 a week if you start making real

money in your 30s and 40s, you're going to wake up someday and you're just going to be just overwhelmingly shocked in a good way about how much your money has compounded and what great financial security you're going to have. At the same time, if you think, oh, wait, 18% and a late fee, well, it's only 18% and I'll pay it off. You don't realize you're putting yourself on an inexorable spiral into just financial disaster, a hole that you will never be able to dig out of.

Yeah, thank you, Susie Orman, but go ahead. The government does act paternalistic. At the same time, if it's a competitive market and there's a lot of different players, they should have the right to price their products, including late fees. On this stuff, though, it's like payday loans. I do think that at the end of the day, it does tend to prey most on lower income households or people with revolving debt. And I do think there should probably be caps. So, in sum, I'm in favor of this. Yeah, I think it's a good political move, too. I mean, including on the food manufacturers, you know, keeping prices high. Anyway, I agree. This is a good thing with consumers. And I don't need the financial companies to say that it will encourage late payments. None of their business. financial companies to say that it will encourage late payments.

None of their business. They like that anyway. Employers are also dialing back coverage of, speaking of saving money, employers are dialing back coverage of weight loss drugs because of high costs. A recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted the restrictions and requirements companies are beginning to place on drugs like Wagovi, such as high BMA requirement, requirement to lose 5% of body weight in three months, or a $20,000 cap on coverage, all kinds of things. It was an interesting article. Weight loss drugs caused an 8.4% jump in employer pharmacy benefit costs last year.

Some of the employers acknowledged that it also saved on other things, including, you know, treatments and weight issues that, you know, it's kind of interesting where they have to figure out where the costs are. Costs of Ozempic are over five times more expensive than the U.S. and other countries, of course, because this is the U.S. of A. So, I think this is a thing that should be made widely available. Of course, it's five times more expensive here because they can charge it. No negotiations with these pharmaceutical companies in this country to make it cheaper. Probably a lot of employers are like, this might be a good thing for us,

for people to lose weight. Thoughts? I mean, there's a lot here because I was actually at a museum thing last night or an event, and this kid I know, super impressive young man, last night at an event. And this kid I know, super impressive young man, said, I have an idea for a business. I'm going to just bring in Ozempic. I can buy it for 140 bucks in Europe, bring it into the US. And I like the idea of a Dallas Buyers Club where you just have tons of people bringing GLP-1 drugs. Because I do believe, this is the issue. In the short run, GLP-1 drugs, because I do believe, like, this is the issue. In the short run, GLP-1 drugs are reaching absolutely the wrong people. This is because of their pricing and a lack of information about them. This is who they're reaching. Is ladies at lunch looking to lose 10 or 15 pounds? Or it's not a health issue. Oh, it's also men. Like, so many tech, all the tech bros are on it.

You can tell. It's really funny. Oh, I don't doubt that. But I'd be curious to know what the gender ratio is. Anyways, but I would draw the comment, rich people. I think that's probably more fair, more accurate. investment and government subsidies we made in Operation Warp Speed, which to be fair, I think President Trump got right in basically saying we are not going to let costs get in the way of anyone taking a vaccine, a COVID vaccine. This is a slow moving, but much more deadly pandemic. Obesity kills a lot more people. Cardiac issues. Obesity kills a lot more people. Cardiac issues.

Cardiac, diabetes. I mean, depression. This is a vaccine, in my opinion, which has the same urgency as COVID. So I believe the government should get involved after having the ability to negotiate these things down to the same price that everyone else pays. And I believe this is something that over the long term, given that there are $1.7 trillion per year, per year, about 7% of our GDP is spent on obesity-related illnesses and costs. This is a wonderful investment for the government to make, to say, anybody with a BMI above, pick a number, we're going to pay for this, or we're going to

give you a 90% rebate on it after we negotiate with these people to get the same prices that France and Israel is getting. Yeah, it is amazing. Five times the cost of Europe. That's nuts. That's just nuts. It's so ridiculous. Mark Cuban, get in here. Let me not be an ad for Ozempic right now, although they do nice ads all over cable, is that they do need to do more studies here because, you know, doesn't work for everybody. But it certainly, I was just struck by the price differential. It's kind of ridiculous on some level. And then that lets companies dial back on it. And then they dial forward on all the diabetes industrial complex, which

exists 100%. Just one last comment on the Ozempic. What if GLP-1 drugs had been available five years earlier, and the government had a program to get them to people whose health was dramatically diminished by their obesity? How many tens or hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved during the pandemic? So GLP-1 drugs, I believe, had they come on the scene five years earlier and had more penetration, we probably would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. We'll see. And I do think there should be many more studies of how it works. And

the government should think really hard about weight, which should be one of the biggest issues. When people made fun of Michelle Obama, I remember when she was doing, you know, exercise, I was like, this is exactly what we should be, the government should be paternalistic about, speaking of paternalistic. Anyway, let's get to our first big story. The Biden-Trump rematch is getting closer. In fact, it's here. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both dominated their respective Super Tuesday primaries, not a surprise. And caucuses, a lot of their response is, oh, well, I guess this is the story we have. Few surprises, Nikki Haley winning Vermont primary and businessman named Jason Palmer beating Biden in American Samoa. Okay. But after hanging, I'm sure that's the lead of The New York Times story. But after hanging on longer than any GOP candidate, Nikki Haley finally threw in the towel and suspended her campaign on Wednesday. Let's listen to a little of her speech. I said I wanted Americans to have their voices heard.

I have done that. I have no regrets. I have done that. I have no regrets. And although I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in. She got a substantive amount of voters on her side in numbers, but not enough, obviously. But there weren't a lot of Nikki Haley voters, but there weren't nothing. So where do you think those voters go? She's not endorsed Trump and encouraged him to earn the support of the Republicans and independents who backed her. He has said he doesn't want them in the party very explicitly. He did sort of a Carrie Lake, we don't need no John McCain people here. And she's trying to wildly pull that back. And of

course, the McCains are having nothing to do with it. What do you think about what was happening? It sort of happened exactly. And they did a lot of exit polling. Nobody likes this choice, although Trump supporters don't care that he's a criminal or he's criminal indictments. Biden supporters are concerned or they're not happy about it. The Trump supporters are happy, but there's a lot of Republicans who aren't happy. Any takeaways? Any takeaways whatsoever? happy. Any takeaways? Any takeaways whatsoever? You sort of alluded to this last week that, you know, the race and the nominees aren't who any of us are, you know, perfect's not on the

menu here. Now we just have to get to the good work of getting President Biden reelected. You know, the Governor Haley, I think she's raised her national profile. I thought she fought a good fight. She's alienated probably an element of the Republican Party that probably she was never going to appeal to. And I do think there's something about the Democrats and everyone needing to get focused on not the lawsuits, not what ballots he's on, not the insurrection, and let that play out in the courts. But we need to get focused on just getting President Biden more votes. But look, I like Governor Haley. I think she fought a good fight. And quite frankly,

I just wish her the best. That's all I have. What do you think? I just think it was interesting because a lot, several people have come in talking about all this. A lot of it was, I can't believe these people still support Trump after all the things he says. And I said, you know what, I got to tell you, we got to stop being shocked by this. They just do. So we're not going to change them. They're in the cult. And I think it is a cult. It's a cult of personality, for sure. I was like, that's enough. Stop not believing it. They're doing it. They're going to, they don't care. This guy could do whatever he wants. They don't care that he says crazy things. They don't care that he says racist things. They are going to vote them. And I think the best example, you know, and they are these particular

people, not everyone. And there's a whole bunch of disgruntled Republicans not knowing what to do now. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. This is this is the fight we have. You know, when I read a lot of, you know, liberals on social media, they're just like indignant. And I was like, it's what it is. What do you want? I don't know what to tell you. My mother is my mother. I can't get mad about it anymore. What the Republicans are doing on the other side is being far too confident for people who lose all the time, far too confident. And they lose constantly on all kinds of measures over the past couple of years. And that's something that I think is a real Achilles heel for these people. Donald Trump projects victory and he loses all the time on key issues in terms of abortion

stuff, all kinds of places. I think the making North Carolina's Republican gubernatorial primary that he backed this guy who makes Hitler quoting candidate basically is what he is. He's facing a Democrat in North Carolina who often elect Democratic governors. This guy, Mark Robinson, who's just a terrible person. This is the kind of thing they're doing that is so astonishingly stupid. This is a great time for Trump to pivot to the center. And instead, they're putting up things. It's going to be Westmore all over again in what happened in Maryland. I just feel like they're far too confident for people who lose quite a bit. And that's, I think, a mistake.

Yeah. The thing I'm taking about through all of this is I found sort of funny and it was on the daily show is that when someone's not a fascist, they're now called a moderate and it's, and, and it's, oh, oh, I don't, I don't, I don't support an insurrectionist. All of a sudden they're like, our bars become so low. It's like, and the comedian reference, Liz Cheney, who never met a war her father didn't like or or people and i and just to be fair on governor haley you know all of a sudden i really like governor haley i really like senator romney governor haley claims that the you know claim that the reason the reason that so many young girls are so depressed is because of their, they don't

know which bathroom to go into or the transgender, you know, boys going through transition. Nonsense. Come on, really? I agree. I was saying, someone was asking me about tech people and I was like, well, I kind of, here in Seattle and I was like, Steve Ballmer and I had a lot of wrangling. And I said, but I kind of like him now. He's going to do things. I said, he's like my Liz Cheney.

I don't know what to say. I just... Well, the bar's lowered. The bar's lowered for all of us. The bar's so... Yeah, because of Musk's over there. So I'm like, sure, I like Ballmer. Sure, I like Gates, you know, more.

But it was interesting. Speaking of which, there was a joke that it was Super Tuesday Taylor's version. Taylor Swift took to Instagram this week, encouraging her 282 million followers to vote. She's done this before and it had a lot of impact. But it was a nonpartisan thing. She didn't include endorsements. She's registered to vote in Tennessee. And before, she's been very anti-Marsha Blackburn there, et cetera.

So she has come out on sides of things. She also endorsed Biden in 2020, for those who don't know. I don't know what she'll do. Encouraging to vote is a great thing, and she has impact. I'm not sure she will do anything yet. We'll see, or she'll wait. Someone who is making an endorsement in the presidential race, Mark Cuban, he told Bloomberg that he'll be voting for Biden in November. Cuban also made it clear that Biden's age is not a concern, saying if they were having his last wake and it was him versus Trump and he was being given last rights, I would still vote for Joe Biden. I think he likes some of the stuff he's done, thought he was effective. I'm going to be talking to Mark in a few days in Austin. What do you think about these

two things, both influential people among a certain group of people, not just the elite, very popular, both very popular people. Yeah, look, we both like Mark a lot. I think it makes sense for Mark to come out with a specific endorsement. I think there's a difference, and it's something I didn't learn until later in my career, there's a huge difference between being right and being effective. And if I were coaching Taylor Swift, and I said, what's your objective here? And she might say, quite frankly, and I believe this is true, my objective is for President Biden to win or more specifically for President Trump to lose.

I would say, OK, everyone surrounding you, every one of your friends is going to say you're right. But now the question is, how can you be effective? And I think the way that Taylor Swift becomes most effective is if she never uses the words Trump or Biden and just focuses on turning out the youth vote. Because the younger you go, generally speaking, the more blue you go. And if she comes across as someone just endorsing get out the vote, she appeals to everybody. It's just a hard, that's a hard thing to criticize. I'm going to, I think she should endorse policies and it's clear who has them, like abortion, right? I think she should, she said it a little bit. She

said, vote on the topics that are important to you. I think she should tell people what the topics that are important to her are. And it's, it points to Biden, right? Signs point to Biden kind of thing. So I think she should be more specific about, we believe in law, we believe in women's rights. She's talked about it in Mr. Americana, he attacked people, he's sexual harasser. I think she should talk about, draw a very bright line of who she's actually voting for without necessarily saying it. Because I think when she says policies, we need abortion rights, we need, she believes in it. And I don't think, I don't think that's polarizing it. People know she's, she said it before dozens of times. So just to underscore it, vote. And by the way, I'm voting for people who

do this. People who, I like people who do this, and not say it specifically. In Mark's case, I think he's correct. He's also positioning himself in a way. He's political. It's political, but he believes it too. I don't think it's not sincere. I see your point as a young woman, as a young woman to advocate for and to educate young women that a right your parents and you probably thought you had, it's being chipped away at. And this is real. This is real. I can understand. And I see the point. I want to acknowledge the point. However, and I'm processing this real time. I think the moment she goes political,

a certain percentage of people just turn on her or write her off or put up a screen. people just turn on her or write her off or put up a screen, I think she could probably get another three, five, or 10 million young people to turn out just by being someone that's like pro-America, pro-vote, pro-democracy, get out, register to vote, and never even venture into political water, so to speak. And I think that would end up having a more positive impact on Biden's prospects for being reelected. especially women's rights. And that's her brand, and she should stick to it. People expected of her. If she's too milquetoasty, people will be like, Taylor, what do you have to lose? And I think it'll hurt her more. And I think she should go on.

It's not much of a limb for her to go out. She's gone on it, and she talks about it on the skin, she writes about it. So we'll see what she does, but she's going to be effective and important, I think. And she's coming to the U.S., by the way. She's announced more dates in the U.S. So she'll continue to have a cultural effect.

You know what I'm doing August 31st? Back to me. Back to me. I met this totally cool guy. He and I have become friendly. And his partner is somehow dialed into the Adele universe. And we're going to go see Adele in Munich on August 31st. Boom! That's how the dog rolls. Isn't that nice?

That's really nice. That's just before your birthday. By the way, I bought my plane tickets to come to your birthday. Oh, really? I'm coming. I'm coming. Going right to Edinburgh. I want you to send a card. You're flying straight into Edinburgh? I am from D.C. That's a gangster move. We got to go fast because we got to get back to the kids, but we are coming. And Amanda's parents, thank you so much. You're not going to spend any time before or after in Scotland? I might, but Amanda can't. Amanda can't because we have little small children. I've pulled that trick before. I know, but you...

Did you invent a business reason why I have to stay? I'm on to you. Trust me to manhood welcome to being a husband no no for the book for the book Amanda is let me just say my wonderful wife

you're learning I'm going to add for my wonderful wife you're learning she's taking care of the kids while I'm on this book tour she's been wonderful you're learning

she's kudos I'm just no she's great she's really amazing and she's a big job like she's she's a big editor at The Washington Post. She is fantastic. Thank you, Amanda.

She said, this is important. I get it. I'm just, no, it's not a man move. She's amazing. It's called a partnership, Scott. I know it's hard for you to understand as we struggle. I'll tell you, one thing people said is, Scott struggles to be a partner. I said, I know we're working on it.

Anyway, let's go on a quick break. You cynical fuck. We got to keep going. We've got things to do. We come back. Open air is saying about Elon, not nice things and take a listener mail question about Siri. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night.

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every month at fizz you always get more for your money terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply details at fizz.ca scott we're back with our second big story open says it intends to move to dismiss all of elon's most recent legal claims uh companies shared more about their mission and their relationship with elon in a blog post on Tuesday, which included a number of old emails. I love that they use them. I use some in my book of his so you could understand what happened. According to OpenAI, they decided with Elon in late 2017 that the next step for the company was to create a for-profit entity. And it seems like he did agree, but he wanted majority equity, initial board control, and to be CEO. What a fucking narcissist this guy is. He also withheld, he wanted majority equity, initial board control, and to be CEO.

What a fucking narcissist this guy is. He also withheld, he did give money to them, but he wanted everything for that. He also withheld funding money during these discussions. Of course, they turned to, guess what, Reid Hoffman, there's other rich people, Elon. There's other rich people who think AI is cool. OpenAI is coming out swinging with this post. The Wall Street Journal has a piece on how Elon's Sam bromance turned toxic, which we've talked about. I've known about this for a long time. I don't know if he's going to move forward with the suit, but these letters are kind of

interesting. Also, OpenAI is also on the PR move. OpenAI, Google, Meta, and ThruNanothers signed an open letter this week pledging to build AI for a better future. This letter mentions a collective responsibility to maximize AI's benefit and limit the risks. It has Hamilton posted about it on X. He seems excited for the spirit of this letter. You know, it's a PR thing, of course. So first, we'll get to that. But what do you think about their thing?

Did you read their blog post? The call for a more. No, not that. No, no, no, no. Putting up the emails and saying this is bullshit, calling him on his bullshit. I love it. I think that they're... I mean, for all the criticism, warranted criticism that Jack Dorsey got, I actually thought his board, led by Brett Taylor, literally just dissected, picked apart, and just absolutely

drawed and quartered all of Elon's arguments in thoughtful measured ways when he was trying to back out of an agreement that he contractually signed up left, right, when he realized he'd overpaid for the thing in a fit of mania. So I think it's, I loved it. I mean, it's great reading. It's just like, okay, let's be clear. You gave us some money. You then wanted to be the CEO. You wanted to be the majority shareholder. And it's clear you weren't doing this for humanity. You were doing it for control and wealth. And we said no and found better options.

Oh, and by the way, it worked out really well for us and our shareholders. Just FYI, it looks as if this company, without the benefit of your genius, has done really well. And I mean, it's just, it's so obvious what's going on here. And I find it, I'm shocked he's not more embarrassed, but we live in an economy now and in a society where it's like, just get attention. Oh, wait, should I weigh in on the Disney proxy battle? No, I shouldn't. I have no domain expertise here. Immigrants.

His immigration stuff is so heinous this week, but go ahead. And it's unfortunate because it's our fault. It doesn't even matter how heinous or stupid or irrational my take is, as long as I'm in the news, as long as I'm in the news. And that's where we are. We're in an attention economy. It doesn't matter why you're in the news news just as long as you're in the news. And this guy is literally massively addicted to attention. And a lot of these guys have some of the same addiction. Bill Ackman is a really smart guy. He can't help himself. He's like, oh, I got to weigh in on this issue now. I got to weigh in on Harvard's hedge fund. Anyway, I read it. I thought they did a great job. I think they're going to clinically take them limb from limb. Yeah, I agree. I think what you miss about

someone like Altman and the people around him, and I think they're going to announce a spectacular board. I'm hearing all kinds of different names they're talking to. I think they're going to announce a spectacular, even-handed board that's full of stars. I think this has been a huge mistake on Elon's part. And interestingly, on Threads, Dustin Moskowitz, who was one of the early Facebook people, is essentially saying, tech people, let's get together and start selling people Elon's a fuck, essentially. This is bullshit, what he's doing. And he's ruining the brand tech by doing this. And these guys, let me just tell you, they're just like him in the ways they fight back. They don't roll over. And so this was a not rollover thing. And I agree. Brett Taylor did it effectively, more quietly. Sam is more

aggressive. He's more, and the group he's around, they're like, they know him, right? And they're going to come at him. And showing his greed, which is what this was, essentially, is perfect, because he tries to virtue signal about how he cares about humanity. And, you know, and then they sign the letter, which, look, it's just, whatever. I just, the pledge doesn't have them to anything, but it gives them another, like, yes, we do. Look, we're signing with everybody. I think it's just fine to do that. It's just a good move. The two things together are obviously linked. Well done. On AI development, Anthropic just released CLAWD3, its latest group of AI models. The company says its most advanced model exhibits near human levels of comprehensive fluency. This is this Anthropic has a investment from

Amazon, obviously. We're also hearing about this interesting company, Perplexity. Several people have asked me to meet the CEO looking to challenge Google's dominance in web search, kind of interesting. It just finalized new funding deal around a billion dollar valuation. Really interesting company. I'm going to meet with the CEO. You know, it's an interesting time because even though these are all big players and you'd like to see not perplexity, but these are well-funded players, it is really interesting to see this level of competition in the area. Again, I still think that the government needs to be part of this and that we shouldn't not have, they can virtually signal all they want about this kind of thing, but we definitely need the government involved too. Basically, an extra $45 million is supposed to go to the antitrust DOJ. This was adding to merger fees that actually passed, and they're trying to claw it back from the Justice Department, and they're in the midst of all these antitrust cases.

But I find that offensive, that this was money to be used to help the government in certain areas, which they dearly needed. And so the only piece missing here is government involvement too in a smart way. So that's what I would say. Thoughts? So a lot there. So someone called me and offered me in the secondary market shares in Anthropic at a valuation of, I think, 18 billion, which is their raising money. And it's just so crazy, I think $18 billion, which is their raising money. And it's just so crazy, that valuation based on their metrics. But it's, I don't know, I'm kind of tempted. And actually, the reason, I think I told you this, I've been buying or started buying about six, nine months ago,

claims against a bankrupt FTX. So you buy them from the creditors. And my total motivation for buying them was I read in the bankruptcy filing that they owned 8% of Anthropic. They're eight or nine billion in claims against a bankrupt FTX. And I think their stake, the way I did the math, was their stake in Anthropic is worth two to to $3 billion, or you're going to get $0.30 on the dollar just from their Anthropic stake. And anything else they recover is gravy, because when I started buying, I was buying at $0.23 on the dollar. Anyways, my motivation for buying bankrupt planes against FTX was Anthropic, or specifically FTX's stake in Anthropic. FTX was anthropic, or specifically FTX is staking anthropic. Anyway, because I'm hanging out with you and you and Tammy Haddad took me to the White House, I've gotten some calls from the White House

who are working on AI, and they've been asking for advice around individuals and their approach to it. And what I said is, look, the thing you got to keep in mind is whenever you're speaking to a Jensen Huang or a Sam Altman, they're very thoughtful guys. Absolutely speak to them, but keep in mind their objective and their frame around everything. Jensen Huang is going to find really rational, compelling reasons why he should be allowed to sell sophisticated AI chips to China. sophisticated AI chips to China. Sam is going to argue for, you know, in very thoughtful, hushed tones, talk about, well, we have to be considerate, but he's going to, yeah, you have to get people on this board and advising you that are totally charged with protecting the commonwealth, not shareholders. And the thing I don't like about a lot of these boards is we're so fascinated with people

and the people that get the most airtime are these very compelling people who were the Rush chairman in their fraternity or sorority who will talk their own book. And they asked me to outline the two biggest risks. And I'm like, in the short term, hands down, the biggest risk of AI is disinformation around the campaign. And this

is how I think it'll play out. I think Putin using brilliant AI and porous amoral management, platforms and management respectively at social media firms will produce deepfake AI-driven videos of Biden, and it'll be imperceptible. It won't be totally blatant. It'll be something along the lines of the following. It won't make Biden look 81. It'll make him look 84. A little bit more pause, a little bit more shuffling of the feet. It'll be imperceptible, but it'll play into kind of our worst fears around the president. And then the second thing, and this was, they're all over that. They know that. The thing they didn't know is I think actually the biggest risk of AI is that if you look at a lot of the nationalists and the people who are real deep conspiracy theorists, it's not only young men, it's a lot of men working in our armed services. services. And I think young men, because they are lonely and they don't have the economic opportunities they used to have, and because they become much more prone to algorithms who see an opportunity to exploit their more risk-aggressive behavior, their loneliness, their gambling

addiction. I mean, if AI girlfriends pop up and these men continue to be more and more sequestered from society and AI starts getting a hold of them, you could find some very scary individuals weaponized at our ports and our Navy. Yeah. Oh, wow, Scott. This feels like a movie. Well, it's funny you say that. That's another talk show. I think the biggest security threat to America in terms of really the homeland is a group of young men who are susceptible to AI algorithms that will weaponize them and radicalize them. Well, interestingly, you're a sick fuck, but I agree with you, I have to say.

We'll see what happens with this all, but that is a scary, sick fuck. And it's a great movie. You should sell it to Hollywood. Maybe Bob Iger's buying. Who knows? I'm going to be in L.A. next week. All right, you sell that motherfucker. Anyway, let's pivot to a listener question. This question comes in via email. I'll read it. Hi, Kara and Scott, long time listener. Why is Siri so bad? I can't believe that with the strength and pride of product that Apple has,

that such a key user experience is just so poor. Is it because they're hopelessly behind in AI? Is it because they hobble their AI capabilities with their privacy ideology? Beyond Siri, send a message to my wife that I'm running late. It's useless. And given their headstart, that just seems stupid. We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Best wishes to you both, Sam. Sam, you're talking to a fellow traveler on this one. I cannot believe how bad Siri is. I talk about it all the time. I get mad at Siri. They need, one of the things I just talked to someone about around near Apple was the absolute necessity to use, this is how they should use AI.

I think we talked about it this week, is to make these products better and to make these assistants. I think they could shine in this area. There are issues that they are more, they have more of a privacy ideology, no question. But if it's within your ecosystem and you give it the permissions, it should be your helper. And they could be the best at it. Right now, they are the worst. No one's really good, but this is where AI will be great for a company like Apple is your music. What do you want?

When do you want to play it? In your car, the seamlessness. You're absolutely right. And they can do it in a way that protects privacy and at the same time gives you the kind of service you come to expect from Apple products, which you do. And so when it's kind of shitty, you get really more mad at Apple if things don't work. Scott? I agree with you. And I have absolutely no good reason.

And just hearing you articulate that, it's arguably the biggest missed opportunity for Apple. controlled by iOS, controlled by Apple, with the most popular, expensive, successful, greatest margin-producing piece of jewelry in history, AirPods. So they have something in my ear that could subtly say, turn right, or look for someone, the person you're meeting, look for a tall person. I mean, you got seven minutes to get to your dentist appointment. Have you considered ordering an Uber now? It could just, they have everything. Give them their credit card. Start figuring out prompts. They're already at letter L with this stuff. They got a communication vehicle in your ear and a supercomputer they control in your pocket. So I don't get it. The weird thing about voice assistants was last year was for the first time, the use of voice assistants actually went down.

And I don't know about in your household. Yep, I agree. We're using Alexa less, which is interesting. It's bad. It's bad. It doesn't help you. And Apple is completely with it. They should be able to do this.

Like, I sit there and I, like, wonder. You know, it's sort of like what I feel when I go into an Apple store, you know, when I'm going to buy something. Why they don't know me if I give them my permission and then they come and show me things. Like, they should know Kara Swisher spends a lot of fucking money there. And, like, stop focusing on that person. focus on me, like that kind of thing. Anyway, yes, Sam, you're 100% right, is Apple's greatest possibility. And they are, they are at L. Everybody else, a lot of people I've talked to this on this tour, everyone's like, no one's really talking about how they, everybody makes money from chat GPT, etc. And that's true. Like, how do we actually monetize this?

That question has, besides jacking up the valuations, that has not gotten answered in any way. And Apple is way ahead on this. Could be way ahead. But the monetization of all this stuff is still, we're in the no stages of this thing. And it's except for just stock appreciation, but we'll see. If you've got a question of your own 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. Thanks, Sam. That

was a great question. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Your predictions. Okay, Scott. I have a couple. My first is just sort of an easy one, or it's more of a statement disguised as a prediction. I think a lot of these local civic groups and essentially organizations, whether it's city councils, are going to be asked to tone down the politics. I'm in a union, believe it or not. Actually, do I know that? I don't even know that. I've had so many different classifications of my status at NYU. I've been associate clinical, then clinical, then faculty, then adjunct. And when you're an adjunct, you're automatically enrolled in the UAW

union, United Auto Workers. For some reason, they are the union representing adjuncts. And the UAW division representing adjuncts at NYU passed a resolution condemning the IDF. And we immediately got notices, all the adjuncts at Stern saying, the union is condemning the IDF. And regardless of what side you're on, I'm just not sure why I'm looking to the union representing adjunct professors to make any statement on the Middle East. And it's fucking everywhere, everywhere. Every union, Everywhere, everywhere, every union, city, council meeting, school board has decided that they're Elon Musk and need to weigh in on every issue. And it's sort of the mother of all. Look, I get it. There's nothing wrong with having an opinion. But why are people paying you? What are they really looking for from you? thing is not nearly as bad as book banning. I'm sorry, it's not even close. But there's a lot of dissatisfaction with local groups pushing whatever political agenda they have. Okay, but I think book banning is more dangerous, but at least I would argue book banning is not nearly as adjacent for a school board to be discussing than policy in the Middle East. Yes, but it's book banning. Scott, you should listen to some of these people. They're like,

they're doing all kinds of... I have listened to them, Cara. They're crazy and wrong on an issue related to the school. I don't think the school board should even be addressing or giving time to people to discuss issues that really have no direct impact on the local school board in Ocala. It's more than that. These are local officials, not just school boards, but all kinds of city councils that have turned far right, and they're getting a flashback because all they do is woke stuff all day. So people are tired of that. They want these local councils to do their jobs, roads, fixing things, dealing with homelessness, whatever it happens to be. We're saying the same thing. Yeah, I know. I'm just saying. We're saying the same thing.

Just putting the left side on. Mine wasn't left or right. It was common sense. Well, you did. You mentioned Gaza, but you didn't mention the other side, which is much more prevalent. But how is that left or right? Who am I defending? Okay. All right. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah. It's like the more people did it, but go ahead. Okay. So my prediction is that the new junior senator from Arizona will be Ruben Gallego. I love this guy. Raised by a single mother in Chicago, managed to get to Harvard, and then decided to go serve in the Marines, where he did a tour of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Was also in a fraternity, which I like, which I know is really out of vogue. But I just love this guy. And I love this because he's running against the literally the least likable person in American politics, Carrie Lake.

This is an easy one. There's, I understand where- Kristen Sinema, point out Kristen Sinema just decided not to run and they were worried about her taking votes from him. First off, okay, I hate people who are nothing but malignant narcissists posing as moderates. And if you had a fire extinguisher and Kristen Sinema and Joe Manchin were on fire, the only question is where do you hide the fire extinguisher? Oh my God, that's terrible.

These people, well, it's a joke. It's a joke. Okay. These people positioning themselves as moderates and thoughtful were nothing but narcissists. So on any point of leverage, when they saw a close vote, even on really important stuff, whether it was doing away or new filibuster rules to codify

Roe v. Wade. Oh, wait, I have opportunity to get a ton of news. I'm going to be a holdout and couch it in being a moderate. Oh, I know. I see an opportunity to raise a million dollars from private equity special interest groups if I demand that the tax loophole for private equity is going to be, that's going to be closed, is restored to pass an act. Good luck, Kristen, going over to your private equity friends. That's what she's going to end up doing. Again, The Daily Show called it right. It's like me, her announcing that, you know, she shouldn't run and that politics just isn't right for her. That's like me announcing I'm not

running to be, you know, to be quarterback of the Jets. She was going to get destroyed. Yeah, but it might have hurt. Oh, yeah. She might have been a spoiler. She might have been a spoiler. My favorite part of the whole Carrie Lake thing, besides she's a loathsome piece of shit, is, you know, she attacked John McCain mercilessly and at the cruelest way, like not just she could say, I don't agree with his politics, but she went after him in the nastiest way you could do to someone who's dead, by the way. And so she's been trying to reach out to the McCain family, which has great and there's the McCain Republicans in Arizona, which have great influence still people really love John McCain. And Meghan McCain, who I'm not a fan of, has been eviscerating her publicly like no fucking way. And she goes, no fucking way, bitch. You're not coming back. You don't get forgiven.

It is the funniest thing to watch. Like every time she tries to be like, no, we just had some differences. Meghan McCain was like, oh, no, girl, we hate you. We hate you. And by the way, don't vote for her. I'm a Republican. Don't vote for her. It's really something to see. That's a really interesting race. You're right. Rubin's terrific. I think Carrie Lake is Donald Trump minus the charisma.

I think Donald Trump has actually got a lot of charisma to a small group of people. She's just awful. All the conspiracy theory with none of the humor or charm. I mean, I just, she's just, I can't think of a worse candidate right now for the Republicans to put up. So anyways, my prediction, this guy is solid. He's right out of central casting.

I've met him in person. He's also very funny. He's really like a very affable fella. I think people, I think voters, once they really spend a lot of time with him, will really enjoy it. It'll be interesting to have

Astronaut and him, two Democrats, if he wins in Arizona, which is interesting because it's a conservative state. Fox anchor for the regional station. He was in Lima Company, a battalion with the 25th Marines that lost 46 Marines and one Navy corpsman between January 2005 and January 2006. This guy, this guy showed up, you know, I mean, so I think it's going to be, I think Arizona, there's a lot of veterans in Arizona. So I'm not just talking, you know, I have a bias here, but I think if you just game theory this out, she's going to have a very tough road ahead of her because this guy, this guy looks rock solid. Anyways, I'm a big

fan of this guy. And good riddance, Kristen Sinema. I agree. Good riddance. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Will you read us out? Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zillie Markets, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Ruttat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Emile Severio. Nishat Kerouac is Vox Media's executive producer of audio.

Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Texas, here we come.