Pivot - OpenAI Shake-Ups, Harris’s Economic Vision, and Meta's Big Show

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

Kara and Scott discuss the biggest announcements from Meta’s Connect conference, and...that shirt. Then, OpenAI executives are jumping ship while the company attempts to go for-profit. Plus, VP Harris has laid out her “pragmatic” economic plans, and former President Trump keeps talking tariffs. Then, a listener question on the role of private equity. 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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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. What have you been up to, Scott? I am in Munich. Why are you in Munich? This is what the staff wants to know. My friend Steve Saraceno has a fund called Activant, which is a venture capital firm.

And I like Steve a lot. And he asked me to come speak at his annual meeting. So I'm here and I'm on the, wait, the Hasenplatz? Something Platz. Everything is Platz. And I'm looking at, I looking outside, and this puts me in a good mood. There's both a Ukrainian and an Israeli flag, and I think the flag of a local football team. I just think they get it here. I just think they get it. Well, there is a vast right-wing movement happening there, though they didn't quite make it this year. They didn't quite make it into power. But people seriously, people don't realize, I love, I'm interested in German history. If you were to try and pick a country that had been

the most liberal, most welcoming of immigrants, appreciative of art, respect for the sciences, academia, free speech, a thriving gay community, the last 200 years,

if you were to rank all our societies, I think, distinctive, this 11-year descent into horror that was the Holocaust, Probably number one on the whole, it'd be Germany, other than this 11-year descent into darkness.

You know, it's interesting. This week, I went to an interesting screening from Russia with Lev. It's about Lev Parnas. And, you know, a lot of the stuff that Russia is trying to do is very similar to what Nazi Germany tried to do. And it's really interesting, the attempts to bring down liberal democracies, how enduring they are, as enduring as liberal democracies are. It had so many echoes of that to me. You know, the whole hijinks to overturn democracy by autocrats. But the best part was at the very end of the movie, this Lev Parnas, who was up with Donald Trump trying to sort of create chaos in Ukraine with Rudy Giuliani. You remember, he went to jail for a different thing. But he has shifted the way a lot of these Republicans have shifted

these sort of Trump people, like a George Conway or an Anthony Scaramucci or any number, Elissa Farah, any number of people. And the end of the movie, it was produced by Rachel Maddow and others. He ended up meeting with Hunter Biden apologizing to him. Oh, really? Yeah, it was very rude. Is that because he's trying to stay out of jail? No, he's gone to jail for something else. No, he just has, there's a lot of those people who have shifted now, like a Michael Cohen,

who are really up in the grill in a very slavish way to Donald Trump, who have shifted and are now sort of the opposite, very intense on stopping him. There's definitely a, I don't know if they study this, but I find there's a number of individuals, Trump, I think Musk has adopted this, and that is the first thing you do when you're guilty of something is accuse everyone else of it. And then the far right, who screams censorship all the time, basically dominates, in terms of news pieces, podcasting. I mean, if someone screams they're being censored, it means they won't shut the fuck up and they're literally everywhere. And then, you know, it is such the autocrat's playbook.

The moment people start to censor, you're up to bullshit, accuse everyone else of the same thing. They do. Yeah. Yeah. It's an expression I've used a lot lately. Every accusation is a confession. Anyway. Oh, I like that.

Yeah, I like that. You can use it. Borrow it. Say what you must attribute it to Kara Swisher. In any case, you won't, but that's okay. I give tribute all the time. I give tribute. I give tribute.

Co-host, Kara Swisher. I give tribute. Give me tribute. I'm going to New York tonight to interview Bill Gates about his documentary for Netflix. We're doing it at Paris Theater. How to pick up chicks at work? No, we're going to stay out of that topic. It's about the future. You're going to avoid that whole thing? I'm going to avoid it, if you don't mind. What floor are you going to? Have you heard about Bill Gates? What are you doing later? I'm going to interview him about his thing of the future.

It'll be interesting. I'm going to go up to New York and come right back. Ask him about nuclear. I think he's been a fantastic voice on nuclear. I'm going to. That is one of the topics on this show on Netflix. It's about things going forward. He's interviewed all kinds of people, including his own daughter, who like strafes him about

his email usage. Anyway. Look, I now feel bad because a lot of people do different things with their money. This guy's trying to figure out a way to, you know, cure malaria. I mean, we could do a lot. We have done a lot worse

with wealthy men than Bill Gates. Oh, we are doing a lot worse. He is a complex figure. He gets attacked online for his vaccine stuff. He's like the new George Soros in a lot of ways for the right wing. Oh, yeah. There's conspiracy theories everywhere.

But I think he's actually a fairly simple guy. He's really fucking smart. He got really fucking rich. And he's really fucking horny. And didn't, you know, probably all of a sudden woke up and it's like, I'm the sexiest man in the world. And I've never enjoyed or experienced this.

Anyways, also his wife, Melinda Gates, his ex-wife is also doing a lot of amazing things. Big backer of Kamala Harris. She's very impressive. Anyway, all right, now that we've covered that, I'll know what not to ask. I don't really care about his personal life. We've got a lot to get to today.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump laying out dueling visions of the economy, including a great interview by our friend Stephanie Ruhl. She was very touched that we mentioned her last episode. We're going to mention her this episode. She did. Rising star or star that's even rising more. Yeah, I thought he liked bimbos.

I love that line she had because Donald Trump called her a bimbo. I mean, some dumb, dumb, dumb as a rock bimbo, whatever, whatever. Anyway, she had a great rejoinder to him this week. And when she and then moved on to interviewing Kamala Harris in a very sharp interview. What did you think of that interview? I didn't see it. We're going to talk about it in a second. Oh, we are going to talk about it.

I did see it. Open AI is moving closer to a for-profit company following more high-profile departures. The biggest one, Mira Marotti, who I've interviewed several times. But first, Meta's annual Connect conference brought lots of wearable news, and it wasn't just the sweatshirt that Mark Zuckerberg chose to wear on stage, display the Latin phrase meaning all, I think it meant all zuck or nothing, a play, ought Caesar, ought Nahil. I mean, it was so strange. His style journey is really interesting to me. But that aside, we shouldn't talk about his clothes. But he really, you know what we should, because he decided to wear it because he knew it would get attention. Just like Melania wore the I don't care to you jacket, which was boneheaded.

This was just kind of silly. But he's got a new Lama model with the ability to process visuals, celebrity chatbots with AI voices of stars like Kristen Bell and John Cena, and a new feed feature called Imagine4U with AI-generated content based on your interests of current trends. They also made a new limited edition cool set of their Meta Ray-Bans, which are transparent. And I just bought a pair myself. It was a lot. People who were there said it was a very good event. I have to say it was very lively compared to the Apple event a week, two weeks ago. Meta is behind competitors in releasing AI models, as I said, that can process visuals. But he's here, he's doing that. What thinks you of what they announced? It was a lot of glasses. I was thinking of you the whole time. Well, I think the most important thing about this event was clearly his fashion. And that is, I think he told his stylist, I'm going to look like a cross between Brad Pitt

and Fight Club and Tom Jones when he hits 60. There's just like a 60s compelling yet creepy, mostly the latter vibe to the look. I can't tell whether I like it or not. Do you like it? You know what? I like, I like people who live out loud with their fashion and the physical appearance. I like, I think it's, that's why I like when high school kids dress really funky. I just, I think it's kind of cool to explore. I mean, let's be honest. He's a 17-year-old, right? He is, even though he's not.

But go ahead. So, anyways, I like the fashion. be subject to the whims or subject to Sundar Pichai or Tim Cook's power because they control the end distribution. And I think he just decided, I don't know, five or seven years ago, I have to establish controlled distribution. And this is typically when a brand gets above a certain market cap, it has to establish direct-to-consumer channels to control their brand or they're subject to the whims of their distributors. They have tried. Their phone was a disaster. Well, and the portal.

The portal. Oh, remember the portal? Oh my God, I forgot. I mean, but he is, Zuck's commitment to trying to, or his crusade to establish vertical distribution through hardware means he is willing and his access to cheap capital all adds up to, I am willing to go so hard at this that I can offer 80%. Let me back up. One of my first consulting assignments was I did a bunch of research for The Gap. And this is like in 1992, my second year in business school, I was trying to start a strategy firm. And I called Don Fisher, who was a Cal alum. And I said, I'm trying to start a strategy firm. And he said, okay. And I met with the head of strategy a Cal alum. And I said, I'm trying to start a strategy firm. And he said, okay.

And I met with the head of strategy, this guy named Mark Bucko, who's now a minister. Like, just a lovely guy. And I said, just give me any question, and I'm going to try and go answer it. And he said, what should we do with the Gap brand? Are there opportunities for brand extensions? Oh, that's a big question. And I came back and I said, all right, demographics are destiny. The underserved market in casual apparel is single mothers. And that is single mothers are especially cognizant of their daughter or their son's self-esteem at school

because they generally have less money. They're very worried about their kids post-divorce. But the thing is, they don't have very much money. So I said, what if we did essentially 80% of Gap for 50% of the price? And they said, great. And Mickey Drexler loved it, launched an entire sub-round called Gap's Old Navy. And then it became Old Navy. So you're responsible for Old Navy? I can't take credit for it. I just kind of confirmed the market as single mothers for it. I think it was Mickey Drexler's vision. And then it was Old Navy on its own. And Old Navy is now much bigger than Gap. And Old Navy was the biggest or the fastest zero to a billion retailer in history. And a really decent business strategy. While everyone tries to up each other

in terms of a better product and they incrementally go higher price based on power, 80% of the premier offering for 50% of the price is an amazing, those are the brands that grow fast as zero to a billion, whether it's Southwest Airlines doing that to American Delta and United. That is a fantastic business strategy. And what these guys have done, or the Zuck has done, is he's taken the mixed reality headset and said, I'll give you 80% of the product from Apple for 10% of the price. Right. These are the Ray-Ban metaglasses, correct? The Orion, it looks a lot like the Snapchat one. And he will. I do think there's a market here. But at some point, they will have the micro cameras and the processing technology to have a seamless experience on glasses. And I have to admit, my son uses those, I forget what they're called, metaglasses.

The Ray-Bans. He used them skiing. And I just kept looking at them. He was like, take photo. I'm like, what? And he was talking to his glasses, and he really liked it. Now, he doesn't use them a lot, but he did use them. Right. So I'm getting a pair of prescription ones.

They're Ray-Bans, which is, of course, my brand. And I think it's interesting, the easy ones are the ones, they're surprised by the popularity of them. And let's just be clear, Snapchat's the one that really pioneered this stuff. Well, Google had Google Glass, but that didn't really work out. Someone at some point, I know you're anti put on your face stuff, but at some point, this is the heads up display is the way it's going. I was really interested in what Snapchat, Meta, and Apple are just continuing through with it. They're just, they've decided this is the next computing paradigm.

And I just got the new iPhone yesterday. Not easy to set up, but Apple, you know, it's still a really great experience in the store. Shay, by the way, thank you for helping me. What's really interesting about it is as I was sitting there, as we were putting the new iPhone together and transferring everything, which is such a nightmare still, and Apple's the easiest version of it, I thought, there's got to be a new phone paradigm, finally. Everything they fixed on the new iPhone, and I like a lot of the features around the camera and some of the new stuff, they've sort of made marginal improvements in all the ways you do things on the phone. It made it easier, better looking, et cetera. There has to be, this paradigm is almost over.

I kept thinking as I was looking at it. The app paradigm is almost over. And where do you think it's going? Do you think the next paradigm is just voice or AI? Heads up display. Heads up display. Voice with a heads up display in some way. Is that spatial computing?

I guess. You know, I don't know. I just felt like this is the last few of these because I think they work really well, like a book does. A book still works well. But I just feel like they have not changed this paradigm well. There's nowhere else to go with this phone, right? And the Apple is the best one. Anyway, I don't know if you've gotten the new one, but try it out and let me know what you think.

one, but try it out and let me know what you think. But I think of the phone as essentially the most elegant supercomputer ever invented and that it'll ultimately power adjacent products. What do I mean by that? Your watch isn't a wearable, it's a second screen for your phone. And if you think about what you're talking about, spatial computing or real interesting applications of AI, what do you need? You need a supercomputer, you need a wearable, and you need really elegant software. And to me, this just all adds up to Apple. Yeah, it does.

It does. I just am like, it feels like there needs to be a breakthrough. I don't know what it is. I'm glad they're making investments here. Anyway, we've got to move on, but it's a cool time. It's cool.

I'm excited. I'll be wearing them and I'm going to show them to you because I think I'm going to see you soon. And speaking of Mark Zuckerberg, the meta CEO is done with politics, according to a story in the New York Times. But I'm sorry, Mark, politics is not done with you. For the past few years, Zuckerberg has reportedly expressed cynicism about politics, saying both parties loathe technology. Once again, he's over being overly dramatic.

He has pulled back from some of his philanthropic efforts to avoid blowback. However, Zuckerberg has spoken to former President Trump at least once or twice over the summer. I'm not sure if he's spoken to Kamala Harris. You know, it's interesting. He's just had it with politics. But, of course, he is one of the biggest lobbying organizations. And I happen to like the lobbyists here for Facebook, for Meta. I don't know if we're seeing him go down an Elon path, but it's the same victimization thing that he's always carried around.

Like nobody likes him and they loathe. It's so it's so reductive. They don't loathe technology, Mark. They they have problems with some of the stuff and he never takes responsibility for his stuff. So I was a little disappointed in this article. there's nothing wrong with Mark Zuckerberg that couldn't be fixed with him having any sort of empathy or any sort of realization about the incredible harm he's done to youth, the ability to weaponize his platforms and not only weaponize elections, but create conspiracy theory that often ends up in serious injury or death. And also really the fact that he has made our discourse

globally in terms of the competitive advantage of our species, which is communication and cooperation, he's made that much worse and turned arguably a feature into a bug. Other than sort of fucking our species, young people, and democracy, we've really got no reason to complain about Mark Zuckerberg. So, Zuck, buddy, you go Tom Jones. You deserve it, my man. You deserve it. I really don't like this victimization technology that technology people have. They really do have it.

There's a great essay, speaking of Facebook, by Chris Hughes, one of the co-founders. And he's trying to explain. He's quite progressive and stayed progressive. He talks about why they're doing this. And it does all center around victimization in a lot of ways. And feeling like they're the brilliant people and we don't appreciate them. And, you know, he, of course, he has a unique insight and is also sympathetic to his founders and everything else. But I think that I have to say, speaking of Bill Gates, he's changed rather drastically.

He used to have this problem. I think he has it a lot less. Maybe he's older. Maybe, you know, he has adult children. Tell him to stop it, Dad. But I got to say, Gates used to be like this much more than he was. Tim Cook is never like this. He never gets angry about government when they're, you know, he never like, he's an adult. And at some point, Mark, you have to stop feeling like a victim. You've done some astonishing things, but we can criticize you and express our own cynicism towards you. And it's just, it's a strange, it's a strange quality that he represents more than others. And Elon has taken to ridiculous extremes, this victimization, this we hate you. It's not, it's, I don't know. Anyway, I think you're correct

in a lot of ways. But I don't think Trump should threaten to jail him. That's like terrifying, these threats to jail Mark Zuckerberg and everything else. If he has a problem, he should pass laws and sue him in court. But that's very different than we'll put him in prison, which is really frightening. I think there's definitely room for more CEOs to say, we're a for-profit entity. We're here to try and leverage your skills and build a platform and create economic security for you and your family. We're going to be good citizens. We're going to be thoughtful. We're going to ensure based on laws and just what it means to be a good person, to not discriminate against people based on their

sexual orientation, their race, their ethnicity, their age. But for the most part, folks, I'm not here to tell you my politics. I'm not here to position the company as being left or right, tell you my politics. I'm not here to position the company as being left or right, because that comes with a certain amount of pressure for employees up and down the food chain to please the people that have impact over their well-being. And I just think there needs to be more companies who are forced to put out an Instagram post on what they feel about whatever it is, Israel or Gaza or Black Lives Matter, to say, you know what? We're good citizens. We comply with the law,

but we're here to make money. And we respect everyone's rights to do whatever they want, off hours, free speech, march for the dolphins, whatever it is. But we are in the business of shareholder value. And when the problem, though, is with a company like Meta.

They're involved in the social problems. Well, media is, you are where you spend your time. And when more people are spending more time on Meta than any organization, media company, Meta's platform is the most successful thing in history. Three billion people are on these things every day. There are a billion, there aren't that many. Communism isn't as big. The Kardashians isn't as big. Capitalism isn't. This is the biggest, most successful thing in history. And he has the ability to sway so much public opinion that the responsibility of trying to do it in a thoughtful way and err on the side of being less coarse and make sure that you're creating a safe place for kids. The thing that strikes me, and I've switched a little bit over the last six months based on some of the conversations I've had with people who run nonprofits, a woman named, I think her name's Sarah Gardner, trying to protect children online, is I do think Tim Cook does an especially good job of managing his brand. And the reality is, as I think about it, Tim Cook, and this is going to sound harsh, is just a very elegant

drug dealer outside of junior high school. Oh, wow. It's going to sound harsh. Okay. Too much? Yeah, I'd say so. And he and Mark Zuckerberg, and Mark is sort of his supplier or his front end, but basically during your most, where your brain is formed during puberty, these folks are getting kids addicted to massive DOPA hits. And I know we're going to talk about this later in the, but Apple has the power to just shut this shit down for people under the age of 16. And so does Meta for most of the applications that these kids use, and they choose not to. Yeah, they have a great responsibility. They really do.

And I think they just feel like they're making chickens, and it's not the same thing. Anyway, I'm going to push back on the drug-dealing thing, but I see your point. I get your point. Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. Cinder's also passing out this Mac.

Cinder as well. I shouldn't have left him out. Okay. All right. And the't have left him out. Okay. All right. And the people who make Doritos. Anyway, okay, let's get to our first big story on that note. Open AI is reportedly working on a plan to restructure the company into a for-profit benefit corporation.

What a surprise. I'm shocked, Kara. I'm shocked. Me too. Shocked. No longer controlled by the nonprofit board. The news broke shortly after CTO Mira Marotti announced she was leaving the company. OpenAI's chief research officer and vice president of research are also departing. One of them is very close to her. I know that. One interesting new detail about the restructuring plan, Sam Altman might be getting a 7% equity stake. He didn't

have one, which is interesting. It makes sense total. We talked a lot about this over the last few months. And even when I saw a mirror the last time, I said, you know, it's all about the money going. When I started to see these eye-popping valuations, the nonprofit was going to get run over like so much roadkill in so many ways. A for-benefit corporation is a different kind of thing, but it's pretty much a basic for-profit company. I'd love to know about the timing. The restructuring doesn't place within two years. New investors could ask for their money back, according to the Wall Street Journal. New investors in this current round of funding won't have face a cap on profits like previous investors. Sam obviously is getting at stake. The valuation is allegedly around $150 billion, and everyone's, you know, belling up to the bar for this one. But then there's the departures, or is it a cleaning of the house? Mira is a very high-profile woman in tech and someone who's really been running the company. He posted on X, I think he was trying to front

run this, leadership changes are a natural part of companies. I obviously won't pretend it's natural for this one to be so abrupt, but we are not a normal company, which is true. I think he's very clever at front ending things. You know, he's had a lot, he's, everyone's the original. I was trying to think last night if there was a company in tech that's had this many early people leave. And I was thinking AOL a little bit from the early days when Bob Pittman came in. Google, the same people were there. And same thing with Microsoft. Same thing, I mean, maybe one or two people. Same thing with Facebook. Maybe there were people there at the beginning, but a lot of people

stayed. A lot of key people stayed. So I can't think of a company except maybe, well, way back when, when they needed real, he's brought in Kevin Wheel and more professional executives. I got to tell you, I'm not sure what, I haven't done any reporting, so I don't know what's actually going on, but what do you think? What's your take? the nonsense. If you stabbed the prince, you better kill him. And all of these people, or at least some of them, were involved in the coup, fired him. And then he came back, and my guess is he said, okay, I'm going to stabilize everything and get everything. And the moment everything's stabilized and it looks like we're going to raise money at an enormous valuation, these people were on the green mile ever since he came back. You don't try and pull a coup. If you want to kill

Erdogan, if you want a coup against Erdogan, you better make sure he's dead. Because if he survives the coup, you're going to be executed. And the notion that these folks weren't dead the moment he was reinstated as CEO is just laughable. Well, a lot of the employees backed him and Mira did switch. Okay she she okay switched you mean after he came back no no no no she was part of him also coming back too she had they like several of them apparently she went and complained about him but then she thought they used her complaints to try to kill him which she didn't she was just complaining about some of his ways which he's very aggressive and. But he's been touting her. They've been making her the face of the company for the past year or so. I think it's natural when you go through something like this

that anyone that was involved, friendly or not, or thought they were doing the right thing for the company by creating this sort of chaos and not killing him, and he gets to come back, you're dead. You're dead. No matter how sorry you are and you changed your mind or you didn't have a role in, he's going to clean house. And he has the capital and the equity to go out and get incredibly talented people. I don't think this is a threat to the company. I think these are very smart people. I like it in the sense that my guess is these folks will go start competitors that will be subscale and get squashed. Yeah, they have.

Several of them have, as you know. You know, it's interesting because a lot of the people who were there at the beginning were indeed true believers in the safety thing, right? In the nonprofit version of it. And they really were. Like, when you talk to those people, they really have, it's a belief system with them. And I remember talking to Mira at one point, and I was like, you know, the money's going to run everyone over. You get that. And she's like, no, we're here for

this and good and, you know, very great, a good technologist. But I was like, I don't care. The money is too big. I was like, do you see how big that money is going to get bigger? There's no way these capitalists, these very greedy capitalists aren't going to run everybody down. The money will win over everything. And I think that's really what's happened here. I'm trying to pull up this data, but basically when you're talking about ChatGPT or OpenAI, I mean, they are literally running away with it. And I hope there's other folks, but basically the monthly site visits to ChatGPT now are about the same and will blow by Amazon.

They get 2.9 billion visits per month. Gemini, you know, Alphabet's offering and Alphabet- With all its advantages. That kind of probably arguably has more IP around this and sort of invented it, is at 342 million. I mean, it's an eighth of it. And then the LLM I use, Claude from Anthropic, has 65 million. It's one 40th of the side. And then Mistral. And if you really look at the valuation. Why do you use Claude over, I'm just curious.

I like it for writing. I find I generally, so people are in the illusion that, okay, so I like to write. And I think, oh, great. I'll write my next book on masculinity using chat GPT and Claude. And I will just get paid. No, that doesn't work. It spits back a chapter that is so anodyne and sterile and devoid of any, it's all chip no salsa, right? But it's a fantastic thought partner.

It's true. It's just like, well, I could really use something on this. You know, it's just like, I don't know. You got some good ones today, Scott. Go ahead. Or I don't know. It's like, I don't know, jerking off to primetime TV. It's just not really going to get you there. Oh, it's like, I don't know, jerking off to primetime TV. It's just not really gonna get you there. Oh, he's keeping going. Okay, yeah. I don't know where I got that one. Anyways, it's very anodyne.

That's, I stole that word from you, but it's an amazing thought partner. And I find also what I use it for every week, my problem with my newsletter, No Mercy, No Malice, is I know it needs to be 1,500 words. I don't pay attention for longer than 1,500 or 2,000 words. I always end up somewhere between 2,200 and 2,500. And what I found they're great at is editing and reducing. I say, all right, take this from 2,200 to 1,800 words, punch it up. And where there's key points, where would I insert data? And then

I'll go back and say, where did you cut and why? It's like, it's just having a great thought partner. And what I have found is around editing and looking at the written word, I like Claude's approach more. And when I say in the voice of Sky Galloway, it does more than just add in dick jokes. It adds in data, whereas ChatGPT just comes up with a dad joke. Oh, I see. Interesting. So for me, Claude, but most people say.

So your data and dad jokes. There you go. Most people say, though, most people on my team say they use both, but they tend to defer to ChatGPT. And the new one is supposed to be amazing. The new one. And it's such a, I love the marketing gimmick where it takes longer to pretend it's thinking. That is such a jazz hand. Yeah, it's like that. It's like the car on Uber. Like, there's no car. So, interesting. One of the

things that, you know, I just think people are going to use these as they... I just interviewed Mustafa Suleiman, who's running Microsoft AI, which is... They just announced a whole bunch of co-pilot things that sound... I'm really excited to try. Like, it'll be interesting to see which ones work and which ones don't. And when you use the idea, when you just said that, that it's basically, it's a good copy editor for you, for your use case. And one of the things I used to say, certain editors I had that weren't very good at different places I worked, I used to say, you have the soul of a copy editor. And I wasn't meaning it to be insulting, but I was like, you're just a copy. And I don't mean, I value copy editors, but it was a very valuable thing, but they thought they were more and they weren't, right? They just were good copy editors. And they didn't have that creativity.

It's very hard to not make it dull. It requires humans still. I have not seen any of these things that make it better creatively. There's better ideas. There's better tightening I hadn't thought of, but it's the soul of a copy. A hundred percent. My team is constantly coming. I'll say to them, okay, I need you to write up, is constantly coming. I'll say to them, okay, I need you to write up, do a page on, I think there's a great rotation coming out of flows of capital into mature markets, into emerging markets. And I want to look at the ratio between the MSCI for the world versus the US to make my point. And they come back with a paragraph, two paragraphs. I'm like, okay, this was clearly written by AI. I want you to write it.

And then I want you to use AI to edit it and come up with more examples. But AI can't be the source code. It can be- It can't be, yeah. It can be the seasoning. It can be the condiment. It can heat it up.

It can make it more spicy. But you've got to scramble the eggs here. And you've got to make your points. Otherwise, it sounds like a fucking computer wrote it. Let me shift back to OpenAI. What do you think of this governance for this type of company? The way they're doing it is this for-profit benefit corporation. But it's essentially a for-profit company.

Oh, stop it. The benefit corporation means they have to have certain goals. It's like all this bullshit invented by Union Square Ventures where they called it a for-benefit profit. You know, I'm going to give 1% of profits in 10 years to save the whales or girls who can code. God, give me a fucking break. You're in the business of for... This is what you do, and you're good at it. And what we need to do is start taxing you more than the lowest tax rate since 1939.

So that we can use the money to help girls and to help. Yeah. And then we'll have voters decide how to spend this money. I agree. I agree. I just want them to be a for-profit company. That's all. Just, yeah.

And I appreciate they're kind of headed that way. And then have the government watch the troubles, the safety issues have the government. And the companies and advocates all decide on safety together. That's what I would prefer. But talking about valuation here, I mean, I just think it's just hilarious. I'm actually interviewing Lena Kahn later today. The notion that this isn't more concentrated.

I mean, technology is- Ooh, a German sound. Sorry, go ahead. That was just a German- What are you doing here? See, they're coming for you, Scott. Go ahead. Sorry, lean it on.

That's my favorite brand of marijuana. It's called They're Coming, They're Coming. My second favorite edible- What? Gorilla Panic. That's the best. That is the best name of an edible. Anyways, or Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. So let's go back to open AI and valuations. I just think it's just so ridiculous. All of these technologies have faster adoption and a leader and a monopoly player emerges faster now. And that monopoly player is open AI slash Microsoft. And also, it's the best investment. If you look at a multiple on revenues of these companies,

right? Anthropic trades at 40 times. OpenAI, which has much more momentum and is the market leader based on this $150 billion valuation they're supposedly raising at, is trading at 44 times. So now let's turn to Hugging Face, Perplexity, and some other smaller players or emerging players in the space. They're raising money at 142, 150, and 157 times revenue. So my attitude is, if you can invest in the market leader that's running away with it at 44 times, that's where you want to put your money. And just to give you a sense of how expensive the entire space has become, publicly traded SaaS companies trade at six times revenues. And consumer companies- They're the old guard. Consumer companies companies- They're the old guard. Consumer companies trade-

They're the cola guard, as they say. And consumer companies, even great ones, trade at like 0.2 to two times. 0.2. Media companies, one and a half, right? Anyway, interesting. All right, well, we'll see what happens, Sam. I don't know who else is left to leave.

I think that's about it. I think he's started really cleared up. He's gonna have no trouble finding really smart people. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Kamala Harris's economic vision and take a listener mail question about the growing role of private equity in businesses. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle.

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Vice President Kamala Harris laid out her vision for what she calls a pragmatic approach to the economy in a speech this week. Harris promised another new way forward, that's her expression she uses, for the middle class, and outlined plans for tax incentives to spur next-generation industries. In a one-on-one interview with MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle, the boss, Harris explained... Supreme Ruler. Supreme Ruler, Stephanie Ruhle. Harris explained why she supports raising corporate taxes. Let's listen. But we're going to have to raise corporate taxes, and we're going to have to raise... We're going to have to make sure that the biggest corporations and

billionaires pay their fair share. That's just it. It's about paying their fair share. I am not mad at anyone for achieving success, but everyone should pay their fair share. And it is not right that the teachers and the firefighters that I meet every day across our country are paying a higher tax than the richest people in our country. Yeah, this is sort of Bernie Sanders-y, but, you know, I'm a capitalist, but. Talk a little bit about her plans and messaging here. I thought it was a very good interview.

I think it started off slow for her, not for Stephanie. And then she got going. And I was like, oh, she really does. It takes her like, it literally, minute 16 is when she turns on. And then it was super interesting, I thought. She finds her footing. Republican? How can you pay for these things? Talk to me about it, and then we'll move on to Donald Trump. But I'd love to know your thoughts on her announcements. I am a capitalist, but, I think, is what I would call this. Yeah, look, corporations are paying the lowest tax rate, as we referenced here on the show, since 1939. The wealthiest Americans are not paying their fair share. I get that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren ran. But what,

unfortunately, it just sounds like reheated Sanders and Warren populist rhetoric, even if it's right. Where I think she misses an opportunity here is to appeal. This is the problem. When someone starts saying we need to raise taxes on the rich, that's what people hear. People think, okay, I'm the head of M&A transactions for Skadden Arp. My husband is a very successful chiropractor with three clinics. We make two, three million bucks a year. We live in New York. We live in Manhattan.

In order to have these baller jobs, we're paying 52% taxes. Yeah, welcome to Kara Swisher. And while no one feels sorry for me, I get it. I mean, Kara, you're probably paying 45, 48% tax rates. And here's the thing. This is the nuance she should add that would make her argument so much more powerful. And by the way, she should say, the people who get most screwed are the people who play by the rules, work their asses off, and are super successful, but are not billionaires. They're paying 50 cents on the dollar. Well, I think she was saying that,

billionaires and corporations. I think she was not saying. Billionaire has become code for everybody. I think she needs to outline specifically. Who she's talking about. I mean, here's the bottom line. If we talk about tax rates, that's a misdirect. It's not tax rates. It's the tax code. Because while people are supposed to pay in a progressive tax rate, as soon as they make the jump to light speed and no longer become earners but owners, it's all coming. They're coming for you. It's all coming. Anyway, I mentioned edibles and they used AI.

Raid is hot. Raid is room. Raid his room. Anyways, the people who get most screwed on our tax code, and no one has really captured this, and it'll resonate with a lot of people, is our workhorses. The people who've done really well and live in blue states. What tax rate do you pay, Scott Galloway? I've been very open about my tax rate. I've paid over the last 10 years a tax rate of 19%. So I have a self-imposed tax rate now of I take all the money I spend in a given

year and I give that much or more away. Because I realize, I want to be clear, I take advantage of every loophole. 1202, when I sold my company, first $10 million were tax-free. Does that make any fucking sense? Does that make any sense? The answer is no. That makes no sense. The tax code has gone from 400 pages to 4,000. And trust me, folks, that incremental 3,600 are there to fuck the middle class. And the way that happens is wealthy people and corporations weaponize government and say, I got an idea. When someone sells real estate and it's a commercial property, let them roll that into another property without recognizing a capital gain. I got an idea. I got an idea. If you start a company, the first 10 times your principal or the first 10 million are tax-free. I got an idea. Opportunity zone. Let's help the poor. No, you're not helping the

poor. You're helping rich. You invest in these areas or you invest in small business and you get to defer your taxes. And if you hold on to the stock for 10 years, you pay no taxes. It's the only thing I thought that he said was sensible. Greedy, fuck, but nonetheless sensible. I just listened to Suzanne Craig, we're going to get her on to Pivot, and Ross Buettner wrote this book called Lucky Loser about Donald Trump's money. You know, they're the ones that broke all those tax stories and everything else. Really amazing reporters from the New York Times. And they essentially said that. He's like, he took advantage of every single possible thing. And instead of being mad at him, be mad at the tax code, right? 100%. Now, he veered into other things where he missed, you know, where he said things were worth more than they were. But the whole system is designed to let him do that, right? To let him then violate real laws and stuff like that. Anyway. right, to let him then violate real laws and stuff like, anyway. Once you make the jump to light speed and you can afford to have really

talented people navigate your taxes. And by the way, I think just as prisoners of war have an obligation to escape, I think you have an obligation to your family and to pay the minimum amount of legally owned taxes. No one's going to say at your funeral, and you know what, what a great woman she was, she paid more than her fair share of taxes. No one's going to say that. What you need to do, though, is if you believe in a progressive society where the middle class isn't a naturally occurring organism, you got to vote for people that are going to actually restore. We need an AMT. We need an alternative minimum tax that says above a million, two million, pick a high number, you pay at least 30%. Because here's the thing. No one loses anything. People above a certain

amount of money, it doesn't reduce their happiness, but you can take that money and make a lot of people much, much happier. Well, let's talk about Donald Trump. He's been touting his own economic plans, which include courting foreign companies to set up factories in the U.S. with low taxes and little regulation. That's not a new, fresh thing. He also keeps talking tariffs. He needs to stop talking about tariffs. The latest, he said he would impose a 200% tariff on John Deere if it moves production to Mexico. This is, you know, he had talked about an infrastructure week that never happened, and that did happen under Joe Biden. What's interesting is Harris seems to be blunting his dominance on the economy. Now,

voters favor him on the economy in most polls. And again, Suzanne Craig talked about this, this image of Trump versus the reality of Trump. He's not a very good business person. Away from the tax stuff, he fails at businesses and overspends, et cetera. And this book is riveting in that regard. But he's losing. He still has the economic thing because of The Apprentice, probably. His lead is decreasing. Trump now averages a six percentage edge on the economy over Harris. It was a 12 point lead over Biden. She's really bringing it close, like bringing it much closer, which is a good thing for her. Because the two areas he wins on are immigration and economy. She wins on almost everything else.

But she's going to the border again. She went to Republican voters in Pennsylvania this week who really appreciated meeting her. What do you think of his, Paul, I think if she can zero in on the tariff problem, which she did do in this interview with Stephanie, how dangerous this is and how they never did infrastructure week, it might really start to chip away even in the short amount of time left. The most profane word among citizens as it relates to an election and leadership is the I word, inflation. Inflation literally brings down societies and causes revolution because if the amount

of money I'm making doesn't keep up with the increasing price of goods, I have to go from meat to no meat to potatoes to I can't afford to pay the tuition for my kids after school. And people get really, really angry. And what I would do is I would just try and literally tattoo the guy with an inflation on his forehead and saying, OK, he's talking about tariffs that will double and triple the cost of items here. And at the same time, he wants to kick out people who are potentially here legally that are an unbelievable... You are going to see rampant inflation with this guy. I would be all inflation all the time. The other thing that I think is going to help her that we're not

talking about, Microsoft and I think a power authority are talking about restarting Three Mile Island. That's going to create billions of dollars in economic growth in Pennsylvania. It's going to create jobs. And it is happening in the right state at the right time. I would be literally, if I were Vice President Harris, I would be rappelling down one of those water coolers at Three Mile Island and say, here I am. I love nuclear. I love. Hello, Pennsylvania.

I mean. And then she goes to the fracking facility. Yeah. And then I'd get and then I'd go to an oil rig and say on weekends and evenings, what I'd like to do. I like to frack. I mean, I would be all over inflation, economic growth. I think she has a real powerful message here in contrast to him. I can't for the life of me understand what he's doing. But just going back to John Deere, I used to have the most amazing

John Deere lawnmower, and I had something really weird happen. A frog jumped under the lawnmower and it was terribly, he wanted to, he wanted to kermit suicide, kermit suicide, kermit. Oh my God. I actually drove a John Deere tech. I mowed lawns when I was a kid. I mean, when I was a teenager. Did you really? I did that. For money. I love my tractor, my little John Deere tractor. It was a great little tractor. I did it with like, I did it with the regular manual mower. I cut out a stroke. My dad was like, it builds character.

Jesus. Literally in the Ohio summer. That was my favorite job. It was so pleasurable to cut grass. You feel so good afterwards. I'm going to ignore every lesbian joke running through my head. I just don't say it, Scott. Don't say it.

Okay. In any case, Kamala, start embracing just regular millionaires. Repel down a nuclear device or a nuclear tower. Hello, White House. Hello, White House. Hello, White House. We have your answers. Call us, Kamala. Don't call just Stephanie. I'm going to bring you to the White House. She wins. We're going to the White House. We're going to visit. We did already. We did that already. I don't know how I feel about that. I'm intimidated by the White House. I was intimidated when I went with you. You missed her the last time we were there. She ran right into her. You ran out. I know. I heard you guys basically hung out. We hung out because I'll just tell you,

she's like, where's Scott? She did say, where's Scott? But nonetheless. I don't believe you. Did she really say that? She did. That was like he ran out because the White House isn't quite impressive in us. I don't believe. I think you're being generous. Although I did have that succession Veep moment when we're walking around this place. First off, the thing that struck me about that place is just how many bad-ass men and women are walking around with machine guns. I mean, I feel like they could fight off the Russian army if they needed to. So the thing that my moment, though, my one moment was you see this crowd of people following a guy, this handsome guy who just looks like he'd be Secretary of State line in and around Secretary Blinken as he's moving to his next very important meeting. All of a sudden, he stops. And he's like, Kara! I don't wait in line. I don't wait in line. And you come over. And then he came over to me and he said, I saw you on Bill Maher,

which was a nice moment for me. And then the line continued. But yeah, you're the definition of soft power. Anyway, let's pivot to a listener question. This question comes from Mark. Let's listen. Hello, Karen Scott. This is Mark Lowenstein. I am a longtime industry analyst in the telecom space.

I've enjoyed your show for years. And my question actually has to do with the role of private equity in our economy. It just seems lately that the headlines are all pointing to the negatives of private equity incursions into everything from doctor's practices to real estate to vet practices and so on. And it usually seems, as amplified, for example, by the giant collapse of the steward healthcare system recently, usually it seems that the consumer is not at the winning end of these deals, ultimately, since these PE deals are so focused on cutting costs. So I'd love you to actually take a balanced approach and talk about the role of private equity in our economy and maybe enlighten us with some examples where private equity is actually playing a positive role.

Maybe there's some examples or case studies you could discuss. Thanks so much. Oh, he wants work from us. Yes. Thanks, Mark. I'm not an expert here. I know Scott is much more. He's more involved with private equity companies. What is the area they've just moved into that people are a little nervous about?

Oh, they're really big in roll-ups and healthcare. So dental clinics, dermatology clinics. Right. I get that. But there was another area where there hasn't been private equity that they may be allowing them into. I don't think they're legally prohibited from anything that's for sale. I don't see why they would be. Oh, sports teams. Sports teams. I think it was. Oh, yeah. They're moving in from anything that's for sale. I don't see why they would be. Oh, sports teams, sports teams. Oh, yeah, they're moving in on sports teams. They're moving in on sports teams. That's what it is. To me, I'm not an expert in this.

They're like the Borg. They'll just come wherever they can make money and cut costs. That's what they do. And their idea of themselves is that they're cleaning up the economy and cleaning out the bad fish, essentially, the dead fish. And that's good. That's a good thing, even if it ends up collapsing certain industries. Of course, most people have the opposite, that they're rapacious vultures taking all the good bits for themselves and leaving us with hollowed out cities and

companies and et cetera, et cetera. I don't know, Scott, give a good example. Yeah, I don't buy the argument. I think it's populist bullshit. First off, let me acknowledge that any private equity partner, partner in a venture capital firm, partner in a hedge fund, there's absolutely no reason why they should get a lower tax rate on what is essentially a commission. The way it works in private equity and hedge funds is carried interest. The carried interest loophole, thanks to Kristen Sinema, where she wanted to support the private equity firms in her state. None. Again, I've always said this. It doesn't bother me that our elected representatives are whores. It bothers me what cheap whores they are. But effectively, what these guys have figured out a way to do in hedge funds

is if I buy a copier and I sell it for more, I get a commission. And that is, or if I sell, if I buy a copier and I sell it for more, you know, I get a commission. And that is, or, you know, if I sell something, I get a commission. I do a good job. In private equity or venture capital, if you make money for your investors, even though you didn't put your own capital in,

you get long-term capital gains treatment. It's called the carried interest loophole. It's the most insane, unfair part. The wealthiest, literally the wealthiest people in America pay lower taxes than people who get a commission or a tip or something on something else. So let me be clear, the compensation structure of these firms is totally fucked up. Having said that, coming in, I've worked with a lot of private equity firms. They come in and you're right, they will cut costs. And a lot of times it doesn't work. And a lot of times, and most times, it not only saves the company, it makes it stronger and it makes the employees and the community and the people who stuck with Apollo and Yahoo. They bought it from Verizon and they are proactively investing to try and give Yahoo a fighting chance of being one of the key players. And Yahoo has thrived under private equity ownership. So the notion that they're just these evil folks coming in,

it's just not accurate. You might say, all right, there's tax loopholes we got to close here. But if you didn't have private equity out there, this is what would happen. The most immediate, if you put real taxes or prohibitions on what industry's private equity could go into, the guy, Craig Spodak and Del Rey has the best dental practice. He will eventually get bought by private equity. His ability to retire, small business and medium-sized business owners will make a lot less money because they won't have these giant pools of capital coming to them saying, look, rather than opening, rather than operating one dental clinic in Delray, let's operate 50 of them. We can all have one marketing, one CFO. This place is going to make more money. You're going to sell me most, but not all of this company. And we're all going to make a lot of money because we have the capital,

the infrastructure, and the expertise to make this a more valuable, robust business. Are there examples of private equity bought purchase firms where they layer on too much debt, they take out their money, and then basically let the company die? Yeah. That's a lot of movies, starting with Gordon Gekko, Wall Street. But that is not... A private equity player that comes in, these people aren't stupid. They're not going to just sell you the company at a price where you could just layer on a shit ton of debt. I remember talking to Jeff Bukas, the former CEO of Time Warner, and an offer was made for his company by a rival that we talk about a lot.

And he said, no, I could go out and pay that just by borrowing debt. I'm not going to let you use my debt capacity to buy me out. So the notion that these companies get bought for a price where you could just go layer it with debt and then shut it down and the private equity players ride off into the sunset, that's just not economic reality here. So they play a valuable part of the ecosystem. They juice up the prices of asset owners and small and medium-sized businesses, they should just pay more taxes. I think we do get our visions from Hollywood, which finds the worst cases and portrays them that way. And obviously, there's been a lot of devastation individually,

and it matters to everyone who's been devastated, right? But a lot of the times, they do grab things that are on their way down, right? On their way down. But not everything does need consolidation. But I'll give you one more quick example. A close friend of mine is the best cosmetic dentist in Los Angeles, David Frey.

He did my veneers. And I don't know if you've noticed, I have a gorgeous smile here. Your teeth look fantastic. I have a gorgeous smile. Yeah, it's my best feature out of my sublime skin tone on the smile on my back

with the tramp stamp. Anyways, he will eventually, his retirement is, he's at the age where he's got another 10 years left on his tires, tread on his tires. He will eventually sell, I would bet, to a private equity firm that'll say, David, we want you to keep growing and we're going to do a better job of marketing. We understand technology. We can buy the best software around scheduling. We can buy- Which he doesn't want to do. Which he doesn't know how to do and doesn't have the capital to do. It'll give him a retirement. It'll make sure that his business brings in more cosmetic dentists, more hiring,

and the investors in the private equity firm, which largely consist of public pension funds, firemen, cops, widows, whatever. This is a key part of the economy. Yeah. Okay. All right. There we have it. Anyway, if you've got a question on 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. Okay, Scott, we're going to hear a prediction. I'm going to make one. Jean Smart is going to be brilliant,

as well as Maya Rudolph on Saturday Night Live, which is premiering this week. 50th. Wow. 50th year. Incredible. Incredible. Lorne Michaels, you got to give it to him.

You got to frigging give it to this guy. They have, you know, everyone's like, oh, it it's not funny anymore it's been very funny for 50 years i mean on the whole like some bad stuff but when you look at like the people that have gone through there even you know there was one they were showing sort of 50 years of it you just are astonished by the talent that's wandered through that place and left and come and gone and stuff like that so uh it's going to be it's going to be a great show. I love Gene Smart and Maya Rudolph is going to make a great Kamala Harris. So I'm very excited. So it's your prediction. So my prediction is that gaming and casino companies and rehab clinics, which by the way, are being rolled up by private equity and Nova Nordisk and GLP-1 drugs are all going to boom. And unfortunately, reverse engineers

are a pretty dark place. And that is, we are essentially, and I referenced this earlier in the program, we are using godlike technology to provide so much immediate DOPA to young people as their brains get wired, that we set them up for a massive craving for DOPA, which makes them more prone to addiction. And now 12% of boys and men over the age of 12 have a substance use disorder compared to 6.5% of women and girls. Boys are especially vulnerable to this DOPA craving. And about 1 in 10 children who play video games show signs of addiction, and 50% of American teenagers feel addicted to their mobile devices. Fast food triggers DOPA releases in the brain's reward system, and over a third of kids eat

fast food every day. And there's a new study that just came out that shows when a state legalizes gambling, there are 25% to 35% more bankruptcies. And so what you have essentially is the brightest people in the world, the deepest resource people in the world are spending a lot of their time trying to get kids addicted to fast dopa when they're young. And the downstream externalities are just going to be enormous. And what are we, I was thinking about this, what are we supposed to do as parents? Kind of our entire mission is to give them what I'll call slopa and that is slow dopa and that

is like okay i work out with my son i i'm one of the most i'm i'm i'm like i was sold a bag of shit about this boarding school nonsense that he'd be home on weekends my home my son is home 24 hours on the weekend and it is like one of the worst thing that's happened to me anyways it's i think said that it's one of the nice things that's happened to me. Anyways, I think it's one of the nice things that's happened to him. But every night or almost every night, I try and get on FaceTime with him for seven or nine minutes. And I do like this mini CrossFit workout with him. And I just like seeing him. And he likes it because he's at the stage I was.

And that is he keeps growing. And he's, you know, real thin. But he's starting to see muscles. And the whole idea is slow dopa. Like, okay, you work hard, you work out every day, and in six, eight, 10 weeks, you get some dopa. You study hard for your GCSEs in biology, you put it off, you get a nine on his GCSEs in biology,

which we're hugely proud of. Our entire fucking mission is to create slow dopa. Invest, be disciplined. You won't get the dopa right away, but over time, you're going to feel something even more exciting and more rewarding. And that is you're going to get a dopamine rush when you realize achievement and success from long-term investment. That's the basis, I think, or one of the basics of parenting in the most well-resourced companies in the world are fighting us. They're trying to give kids a sense that I need fucking immediate gratification right away. And I see it not as much now, but with my youngest, when he was on screens, action, reaction, action, reaction, TikTok, action, reaction,

don't like this video? No problem. I can get to something with DOPA. It's funny. It's titillating. And then he gets off the fucking screen and it's like, where's the DOPA? So you know what he starts doing? He starts wreaking havoc in the household to get a reaction. He has to have a reaction. And I think we are setting up an entire generation of young people, maybe even more so among boys who are totally into online gaming, gambling, drugs. And Richard Reeves just came out, the president of the American Institute of Boys and Men, just came out with this really frightening study showing that deaths of despair have skyrocketed since 2004. People who die by suicide, violence, gun deaths. But more than anything, it's been drugs, opiates and drug addiction. And I think we're going to continue to lose more and more and more

as long as the greatest shareholder value increase in history is putting fucking Tim Cook outside of junior high school with a bunch of smack. This is happening every day across America, and we're starting to see signals. Oh, you legalize online gambling? There's an entire generation that needs that dopa, and boom, bankruptcy skyrocket. My prediction, gaming, rehab clinics, Nova Nordisk that produces GLP-1, which has been shown to be effective against these types of addictions, are going to skyrocket. And it's going to be nothing but a transfer of wealth from government who has to cover those bankruptcies, cover those hospitals, and families are going to pay an extraordinary price. Yeah. Well, that's a big one. Wow. There you go. Wow. I'm going to go drink beer. I'm going to the fucking tent for October 1st. I'm going to go

drink beer. Okay. I think beer. Go to the beer garden. I'm going to the fucking tent for October 1st. I'm going to go drink beer. Okay, I think beer. Go to the beer garden. I forgot one thing, one more prediction for me. My brother, David, just turned 60. Oh, nice. And I want to wish him the next, I predict he's going to have a great next 20, 30 years of his life. And he's been a great brother.

And I don't talk about him that much, but he's fantastic. You've become increasingly fond of him just in the time I've known you. Well, I don't love the conservative stuff, but that's okay. Separate the person from the politics. Separate the person from the politics, Carol. I try. He's a great guy. He's a great guy.

He's a great dad. And he's a very good brother. And he's a great son to my mom. He's been great. But happy birthday, David. david happy birthday well can i ask you a question sure when you're both really fucking old which you are already and he's getting there when you're really old you're hanging out you're holding each other's hands and you're like reflecting on life as you get towards the end yeah are you gonna remember what a great guy was and a great daddy was or that he was a conservative? Of course.

Oh, thank you, Scott. Of course. I always remember what a great guy he is. Take that, Brene Brown. Take that. Oh, my God. Esther Perel. She has nothing on me.

We'll import another psychologist in here. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Please read us out, Scott. Today's show was produced by Larry Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Bowes and Mila Saverio. 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. Gorilla Panic. That is so my favorite brand of edibles.