Pivot - Oscars Reactions, Apple Subscriptions, and The Team Behind Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

Kara and Scott discuss new regulations for tech in Europe and Apple planning a subscription service. And of course, all the Oscars news. Then, they’re joined by Friends of Pivot, Executive Producers of Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, Brian Koppelman, David Levine, and Beth Schacter. You can watch Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber here. Send us your Listener Mail questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or via Yappa, at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Carol Swisher, and my voice is slowly returning.

And today, my show on Cinemax drops. Oh, so exciting. No, it's not Cinemax. Oh, wait, no. You have to stop. You have to stop. You need to support your friends. First of all, you're calling it Cinemax,

and you really want to say Skinemax. And then your sprockets thing, when you were trying to sell it, that's not nice. By the way, have you seen the promos for CNN Plus? Yes, you all look ridiculous in the clothes. All the anchors got trapped in their nephew's closet and said, we're going for an aging skateboarder look, or we want you to get dressed at the Brooklyn department at JCPenney's. What do they have us wearing exactly? Anyways, I'm very excited.

Still a chance for me to be canceled before it drops. Let me just say, going through it, you look like you always look. You have the clothes you wear. I look like me. Chris Wallace was like, I'm wearing my fucking suit and that's the way it's going to go. So fuck you. Anderson looked dreamy. He looked really good. Anderson looked dreamy.

I thought Don Lemon looked okay in casual clothes. Wolf Blitzer, put back on your suit. That's all I have to say. And then the others just need, they just don't dress like that. Maybe they do. I don't know. No, they don't. They don't. It was like, I was like, too much cash. But it's dropping, Kara. Is it? Dropping in a good way?

No, no. CNN Plus, dropping today. Original programming. And we're going to see if news and politics, if people pull out their credit card for it. It's a big deal. Yeah, my brother asked if he should spend $3 on watching you. By the way, I invited you to the launch party as my plus one, and you turned me down. I thought that would have been good. I turned you down. I'm going to be, when is it, tonight?

Yeah, it's tonight. I'm in San Francisco, Scott. Send the plane. Scramble the jets. If you were invested in this relationship, you would have made the effort. That would have been fun, you and me at the CNN Plus last Friday. Yeah, we would have. That would have been fun. We could have made out and really fucked with it. There you go. I'm really excited, but I'm serious. I'm excited about my show,

Kara. I want you to watch it and tell everyone how much you enjoyed it. I shall. I'm going to subscribe to it today. I shall watch it. Can you pull a Melania Trump and create 10,000 fake wallets and subscribe several thousand times? No. That's what I need. But here's the deal. I'm going to give you the honest opinion when I think of it. I hope you don't mind.

That's fine as long as you like it. If you don't, keep it to yourself. I'm very fragile right now. I'm very fragile. I thought I was on Cinemax. I'm on CNN Plus with Wolf Blitzer. That is a huge letdown. I can't.

You know what? The world is not enough for Scott Galloway. Remember that Bond movie? You can't. You know what? The world is not enough for Scott Galloway. Remember that Bond movie? You know it. You know it. Speaking of Bond movies, I'm glad that Billie Eilish and her brother won the Academy Award for Song, but I was going for the Encantos song that did not win, which is beautiful, but it did win Best Animation Feature, which was great. Tell us, let's talk about Will Smith and Chris Rock. This was appalling. Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see it.

All right? Uh-oh. Richard. Oh, wow. Wow. Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me. He's my wife's name out your fucking mouth. Wow, dude.

Yes. It was a G.I. Jane joke. Keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth. I'm going to, okay? Well, you know, people were laughing until they weren't. Obviously, everyone got silent. Yeah, I was thinking about it. I had a really visceral reaction to this.

And I was thinking, I think it's important that we stop when we have really emotional reactions to things. Because I think it puts us in touch with our emotions and what's important to us, what we care about, what offends us. And the last image I saw that I had such an emotional reaction to was that reaction of the woman being taken out of a maternity ward in Ukraine. And I thought, why was I so upset by this? I think this is totally unacceptable and outrageous. And I think it kind of marks the age where we have a man normalizing violence and then getting an award and then parting afterwards to the Vanity Fair Awards. I think there is absolutely no excuse for this. If I was offended by every joke about hair, I'd be in a supermax prison. This type of joking isn't even, everyone's saying, well, it was an inappropriate joke. We joke with each other as a means of affection. When Ricky

Gervais calls Martin Scorsese too short to be on Disney rides, maybe it crosses the line, maybe it doesn't. But what happens at open mic at the comedy store? You know, Kathy Griffin tweeted about it. I thought very intelligent about this. It's a very bad practice to walk up on a stage and physically assault a comedian. Now we all have to worry about who wants to be the next Will Smith in comedy clubs and theaters. comedian now we all have to worry about who wants to be the next will smith in comedy clubs and theaters uh i think she's 100 right absolutely it was crazy it was crazy that they were laughing about it and applauding him you know everyone's saying well what if a white man hit a black man or black man hit a white man i think the more interesting comparison we can draw is what if

someone not famous had rushed the stage and hit chris rock that person and i thought at first i was so angry i said he should be arrested and i thought well this is a private event two people Yeah. escorted from the theater. And you know who, in my view, is the real man here? Chris Rock. What if Chris Rock had jumped back into the audience and started a melee? So this is, and by the way, and all this bullshit coming out this morning that don't insult women, men protecting women, you know what increases violence against women? Violence. When we normalize violence, and it's like, well, you know, there was a great. Several people tweeted that sentiment. There was a great E. Jean Carroll, who's the Elle magazine and vice columnist author who was assaulted by Trump said, you know, open quote, love will make you do crazy things, close quote. And she wrote, every woman who's ever been hit has heard that one. So this is a terrible reflection on our society.

It is normalizing violence. The academy needs to step in here. I think Chris Rock deserves tremendous kudos for deescalating the situation. That's what a real man does. And I am just incredibly shocked. And I think, unfortunately, it marks the age in a negative way. And I think the people who decided to party with someone who had just assaulted someone else and give him a standing ovation, it just makes – I was really rattled by it. How did you feel about it when you saw it? I was rattled by it. I thought it made, I think it makes Hollywood look ridiculous. I think the

Academy should have removed him from the auditorium, even if they probably knew he won, right? They probably had it all ready. And so what could they do? But I don't believe he won, honestly, he didn't deserve it compared to Benedict Cumberbatch. I saw that movie, it was good. But, you know, Benedict Cumberbatch probably deserved, many people in that group probably deserved it over him in that performance. But nonetheless, they should have removed, and again, I like that movie quite a bit. I like the Williams sisters. They should have removed him from the auditorium and not given him the Oscar. You know, and there was a lot of like, only, in this case, I think it's ridiculous.

Only white people are complaining. Like, no, nobody likes, this is violence. I got a lot of that. White people should keep them to themselves. This is the issue. No, no, violence is, no, no, sorry. Whatever, I've never bought this notion. Words aren't violence. Violence is violence.

That's correct. That's correct. That is correct. And this was battery. It makes so many different cohorts look awful. And we got to ask ourselves, do we want to be that nation? Do we want to be the nation that when our leaders assemble, as they do in some nations, they on a regular basis break out into a fistfight? assemble as they do in some nations, they on a regular basis break out into a fistfight. Do we want to be the nation where we can't have gatherings without this type of violence? Do we want to be a nation? And the thing that just upsets me is this is part of a trend now.

We have people saying, oh, no, it was a justified protest to describe a Capitol officer being bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher or a protester shot in the gut by a security guard. We can't normalize violence. And by the way, these are the people who decried those people. So if you don't decry this, total hypocrites, total hypocrites. Well, I thought of you last night because I thought, quite frankly, when I saw the Twitter, I'm like, where's cancel culture when you need it? Yeah. I think Will Smith deserves to be canceled here. I think this was, and people say, well, he's got a lot going on. Well, that's not an excuse.

Yeah, it's not. It was ridiculous. It was that's not an excuse. Yeah, it's not. It was ridiculous. It was such – And then they went to the protecting women thing. Part of me thinks they should take the Academy Award away from him. That's what they should do. I found this really rattling and what it says about our society. And this is where I end up.

Okay. Action star, arguably the most successful action star of the last decade, commits battery and is given an award. That's where we are. Well, I don't know if that, you know, it was just a weird confluence of events. It would have, you know, but anyway. People partied with the guy. He got a standing ovation from all these people who claim to decry violence in all forms. I agree. I think it's probably reason to not have these fucking award shows anymore. I found the whole thing gross. Distasteful.

And a terrible mark on the age. But I was thrilled that Ariana DeBose won. I'm going to say an Encanto won. I liked Liza Minnelli. I thought she was. Liza Minnelli was. And Lady Gaga, as usual. You know, women should run

frigging everything. Here we go. It's true. Lady Gaga was a class act. Liza Minnelli. I thought the ladies were fine, the three hosts. Amy Toomer really wanted

to say something bad and she went pretty close to saying there's a different vibe in the room. She should have turned to him and said, you piece of shit. I'm telling you, this is going to age really, really poorly for Will Smith. And I'm telling you, think about what happened to Chris Rock.

He was assaulted. He tried to de-escalate. He took it. And he tried to move on. He's not filing charges. His attitude is the police shouldn't be involved here. I bet Chris Rock suffers more. I think Chris Rock deserves tremendous. That's what men do. They de-escalate.

I'll remind you that next time you yell at me. Anyway, we'll talk about Europe. I will agree with you that this is an abusive relationship. We agree on that. I never pretend what I am. Anyway, we'll talk about Europe's game-changing. We're going to have other things to talk about. Game-changing tech legislation. Also, Apple may be going the subscription route. And so Scott gets to take a lap. We'll speak about part of the team behind Super Pump,

the Showtime series about Travis Kalanick of Uber. But first, in non-Will Smith Oscar news, Coda just very quickly became the first streaming platform to win Best Picture. I have not seen it yet, but I really want to. My brother loved it. For example, Apple reportedly spent around $25 million on awards marketing for Coda. It beat out two Netflix nominees, and they got a Best Picture award in very short time for Apple TV+. $25 million isn't even that unusual. According to Matt Bellany, he thinks Amazon and Netflix spent more. Netflix must be mad. Apple's only been in movies and TV for less than three years.

Netflix has been making original content for more than a decade. Jane Campion won, obviously, Best Director for Power of the Dog. It's unclear whether it will bring in subscribers, but they've got Ted Lasso. Netflix's most famous work is TV shows, Stranger Things, Bridgerton, Squid Game. So it's just, it's the power of the stream, these tech platforms and their money to be able to do this. But I think most people had a good feeling about CODA and Power of the Dog, so probably deserved it where they were in the awards thing. So any thoughts on that briefly? There's a lot here. These are both,

I'm sure these are both great films. No one's seen them and a few people will see them. I actually think that part of the problem is that regardless of the quality of the filmmaking and the purists will come after me for this, if popular movies, one idea for the Academy Awards

would be to show clips of popular movies coming out. Because the bottom line is, I can't wait to see CODA, but I'm at that age where I like well-done independent films. But this had nothing to do with film production on the part of Apple TV+. Apple TV+, founded at Sundance and paid $25 million for it because Apple wants to develop, cement their brand as being iOS, and that is higher quality, higher prestige.

And good feel-good. He also said, I mean, Tim Cook wants feel-good stuff. Well, it sounds like a wonderful film. I mean, it's about, my understanding is- They were talking about they're leaning into feel good. Yeah, so, but the Academy Awards, I wonder, like last night,

everybody said, oh, you know, this will get viewership back. I'm like, I actually think the Academy Awards, unless they reconfigure their business model, has jumped a shark. But this was a savvy move by Apple for 25 million bucks to be in the news the next day that Apple TV Best Picture is worth a lot more than $25 million.

Yep, agreed. Okay, let's get to our first big story. Huge changes to be coming for big tech thanks to new regulations from Europe. Last week, the European government's reached a deal on the Digital Markets Act, a very important thing, pushed by Margaret Vestager, aimed at so-called gatekeepers in tech. If passed, the act will drastically change how tech companies operate. Giants can no longer favor their own software and services. This will affect Apple, obviously. Messaging apps like WhatsApp and iMessage would have to work with smaller messaging services and interoperate, which is a big issue around encryption,

from what I've heard a lot from my encryption friends. Companies would need to obtain, quote, explicit consent to target ads based on personal data. That is a big move. Violators could be charged with 10% of their global annual revenue, and repeat offenders would pay even huge higher fines and could have acquisitions blocked by the European Commission. The act is expected to pass this summer.

The rules could be in place. Marguerite Vestager, who's the competition chief in Europe, said it could be in place as early as October. As with GDPR, Europe is running the show in terms of regulation and as U.S. regulators sit on their ass, I would say. Well, we've been saying this for a long time, and that is Europe gets most of the downside of big tech. They get the webization of their elections, the polarization, the tax avoidance, the destruction of other kind of mid-tier media companies, but they don't get any

of the great taste. They don't get the job growth. They don't get the massive... I mean, big tech on a net basis, and I've always said this, is a positive for America. That doesn't mean we shouldn't look at it. That doesn't mean we shouldn't look at it. That doesn't mean we shouldn't hold them accountable. It doesn't mean we shouldn't regulate. But the real losers here are Europe, and the really big losers are some of these developing nations where they have absolutely no seat at the table. So when you register all of the downside but a fraction of the upside, there aren't that many hospitals or universities with the names of Google billionaires etched along the side of their hospital in Cologne or in Milan.

So when you have that dynamic, it stiffens the backbones of regulators. And Europe has been more aggressive. Now, here's the thing, and I don't know if you've really looked at it, but I actually believe GDPR has done nothing but cement their dominance. Yeah, many people think that.

And so much of this is in the details. And these companies are very savvy. They will hire the best law firms and lobbyists in the world in Europe. Europe is not immune to that. It'll all be in the details. Well, although I think Europe has learned about that, about how they – I mean, a couple of them that I do think they've got to look very careful on is these interoperability of these messaging apps. There's some legitimate problems around encryption, but some of them are pretty clear. I think they've sort of decided the bigs versus the smalls.

They've been a little more sophisticated in this act. The law would hit Meta, Google, Amazon, Apple. It might hit Alibaba and Booking. Smaller players like Snapchat, Pinterest, and eBay, not so much if they don't cross the threshold. I think they've gotten a lot more savvy. Also, you know, I think that it depends on what American regulators do in terms of dealing with this because they haven't done anything. of dealing with this because they haven't done anything. They might have been nicer to tech companies, by the way. So tech companies lobbying them to slow down in some fashion, although they say they want regulation, could have been an issue. But it's certainly not been in the hands of the country where these businesses are located. I just don't understand. I would have hoped coming out of COVID, and this is my dream, that on certain things,

we would decide to join forces and maybe have the equivalent of their, Marguerite Vestiaire and Lena Kahn. She's talked about that. We get together and say, all right, rather than having something awkward that is expensive for the companies to comply with, doesn't make any sense, creates additional friction and regulation, why wouldn't we coordinate around this? And you can understand our concerns, we can understand yours, and we can do something similar to what Biden did. And Biden does not get enough credit. Their messaging has been so shitty. Biden doesn't get enough credit for

a cross-border tax program that stops this race to the bottom and all these inversion mergers. Yeah, we should be working together. We should be. Marjorie and Lena should should be hand in hand trying to say, okay. They have met, but you're right, 100%. One of the interesting things, there's two things that I thought she was, she talked about this at Code, but there's very little argument

about content and free speech. She stayed away from that. She understands what a third rail that is. It's about privacy. It's about power. It's about things, competition. You know, we are so focused because the right wing is so insane over this issue and so is the left to some extent but not as much as the right on section 230 and then we get sucked up into the first amendment stuff and it's really just about

privacy power um just so you know a gatekeeper is defined by tech companies with market capitalizations of at least 75 billion euros which is 83 billion or annual revenues within the EU of at least 7.5 billion euros in the past three years. And they must also have at least 45 million monthly users and 10,000 business users in the EU. So they've been very canny in terms of what they're focused in on. They're not getting it. Now, they don't have the First Amendment in Europe. They don't. And so they have a little bit more leeway, but I'm glad we have it here. But they haven't gotten sucked up into the Vestager, she's a hero of mine. She strikes me as a great regulator.

She acknowledges the importance of capitalism. She doesn't, I don't think she thinks of big tech as the enemy, but she's been one of the few people that's been able to establish consensus across border. And Europeans, like I said, they've led the way on this because we have been totally overrun. We have this idolatry of innovators. We know, you know, everybody kind of knows somebody who worked at Google and got rich or bought Google stock. And I don't think the same is true in Europe. I think they say, OK. I also think, I just think the partisanship is what the problem is over First Amendment stuff.

And it's been devolved into free speech and has nothing to do with free speech. Free speech. I did hear. I heard the martian talking about that last week and i'm like free speech what do you talk what does twitter not allow you to say that you want to say i just don't understand any of this nonsense about the martian what martian uh the guy who has that car company i forget his name he's not in the news a lot. He's very humble. It works for his base. Nice guy. It works for his base.

It works for his base. Yeah, but now he's threatening to start another social network. And I'm like, what does Twitter not allow you to do that you want to do? I don't,

you can call innocent people pedophiles. You can create, you know, securities violations. What exactly are you hoping another social network is going to let you do? Well, you know, I've heard a lot of noise. A lot of tech guys want to fund cancel culture people who like to push the cancel culture. They're all everywhere.

Quite a lot. Who's been silenced? I know. Thank you, Scott. That was my whole point. Yeah, but there's a difference between a career being over and them being silenced. Anyways, let's not even, let's agree to disagree here. By the way, have you seen Truth Social? That's making a lot of progress. That's what we said. We were correct on that one. All right, Scott, let's go. That wasn't hard.

That was a tough one. We'll go on a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk about Apple's new subscription plan. And we'll talk with friends of Pivot, the executive producers of Super Pumped. 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

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And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Procrastination, putting it off, kicking the can down the road. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out, carpet in the bathroom. Like, why? In, knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. All right, Scott, we're back. Apple is planning a new test of a customer loyalty program, a subscription service for iPhones and other hardware. Finally, users would receive Apple's newest devices for a yet-to-be-determined fee, though it's said to be higher than the cost of

the device. The program is still in development, isn't expected to roll out for the end of the year, if at all. Now, some people have the program I do where you get a new iPhone every year. So let's talk. You called this one, Scott. Here's a clip from our show last June. Look, the whole world is digressing to two business constructs, and it's either iOS, Look, the whole world is digressing to two business constructs, and it's either iOS, where you pay a premium, and you get more privacy, a more elegant solution, kind of the premium, or it's going to Android, where you get essentially the product for free, and they figure out a way to monetize you as a user. I think we're going to see increased market share across the iOS subscription part of the world. Subscription, whether it's the move to Netflix, whether it's the move to LinkedIn, more and more people like the idea of saying, I don't want my data molested. I want more privacy. I want a business model that focuses on the relationship with me. Okay. I don't want my data molested either, Scott. But talk a little

bit about this because it's really interesting. We do have a relationship with Apple with lots of subscriptions. I have about six. I feel like I have a bunch. So talk about how you look at this. Most people replace their phone every three years. I actually get a new one every year, pretty much, because I like the newest version of it because I write about tech. But talk about what more this is than what they do now. Well, so we predicted in our 2021 predictions that Apple would hit 200 bucks a share on a move to subscription. And we were mostly right. We were just a little bit early. But the biggest mistake we make in marketing, and I said this over and over, is that we believe that choice is a good thing.

It's not. Consumers don't want more choice. They want to be more confident in the choices presented. And Apple's brand is so strong that it creates a ton of confidence that the product you're going to get is going to be elegant, that it connects with other like-minded, artisanal, wealthy people that are great storytellers and aspirational, and that it'll work. And so rather than going to the Apple store in the Boca Mall or in Soho and meatpacking, excuse me, in the meatpacking district or so, come to think of it. Send me the latest and greatest. You know I love it. I trust you. Send it preloaded. I want AirPods. I want the iPhone, occasionally an iPad for my

kids, Apple TV Plus, Arcade, Apple Music, and give me a good price and give me exclusives and invite me to cool events and make me feel as if I'm part of an aspirational group within an aspirational group. And that is part of what is the most accretive action in business history. And that is a move from transactional to subscription. And the reason why Apple's stock has tripled in the last two to three years, it's not because of their earnings or their top-line revenue growth. It's because they have gone from zero to 24% of revenue based on subscription and recurring revenue. Subscriptions, whether it's music or gaming or whatever, the different things, the insurance that they have on it. You know, it's interesting because

one of the things, you know, I always complain to you is that when I walk into an apple store still even though i buy all this stuff they don't know who i am like they don't treat me better there isn't champagne coming out and i remember being an apple store you know in san francisco where i am right now and you know it was full it's a really fun place to go um but i feel like when i walk in my phone should tell them it's kara swisher who spent 200 whatever how much hundreds i've spent so much money at apple. You shouldn't walk into a store, a nice, attractive, high EQ person. No, but my point is a nice high EQ person should show up in a nice Apple t-shirt and say, hey, Kara, I'm here to replace, to upgrade this, replace this, and to show you this cool new. This morning, the CNN tech folks were over helping me figure out how to do a lab connected to my iPhone and how to, I should have an Apple person figuring it out. And it might

be a hundred, 200, 300, 500 bucks a month. I'm not exaggerating across my companies. And I'm bragging now. I have spent millions of dollars on Apple products. On Apple products, yeah. And they should invite me to the screening of We Crash, and they should say, we're going to come to your house and install the new Apple TV on your TV. There are businesses built off of this. There was a business that does this. They came in and put my arrows in. You know what I mean?

They did a better job. But go ahead. Sorry. I believe that business world is ultimately going to digress to 10, 20, 40% of our expenditures are going to be across a few mega brands that figure out artificial intelligence and go to zero-click ordering, meaning they're going to send you stuff before you ask for it. It wouldn't take much research for them to go, okay, this guy's super into Ted Lasso, always wants the newest iPhone, and has a kid who uses an iPad. So we're going to do that, send the latest 90 days before anybody else, and we're going to invite him and his sons to the screening of Ted Lasso. And they could charge me.

And they're also going to see that I'm not price insensitive, but I'm pretty much price inelastic, if you will. And they're going to say, okay, instead of him putting off the iPhone purchase, we're going to be able to say to the markets, this guy is spending $5,000 a year with us. And there's 40,000 other people like him that we're going to sign up in the next 90 days. And the stock is going to go from $3 trillion to $4 trillion. What's interesting, let me finish that story. I get that with the Apple store, but I still, if I want to go from $3 trillion to $4 trillion. What's interesting, let me finish that story. I get that with the Apple Store, but I still, if I want to go in, because I happen to like it, I like to look at things. This kid was sexting on the new iPhone near me,

and I was like, I couldn't, and I could not get a person to come up to me. And did you respond on your phone? No, I did not. Because he was sexting you, you little saucy mix. He was not. I know what was going on. Are Apple stores the new gay bars? Be honest.

No, no, not at all. I know. I never go to bars. But I was like, that kid is sexting, and I want to buy a new iPhone. Why am I waiting? Like, what is the deal? They're in my way. You know what I mean?

There should be an area. And it wasn't like I spend more money, but I'm a better customer and they should know me. The other thing is I went on to one of the Apple sites and they have devices I no longer use that are still attached to it. And I'm like, don't you know I don't use them because I've turned them in or whatever? I was sort of mad at them, like that they didn't know me the way they should know me, you know, that I deserve more because I'm a better customer. They could do, I would buy, I would like to go to, you know, I don't watch Ted Lasso, but the We Crash premiere, you're right. I would like to get special new things early. I would like to, you know,

I have to discover things a lot. Store openings, tutorials in their theaters and their stores. I discovered this little brick that you put on the back of my iPhone, a battery. I didn't know until I was in the store. Why didn't I know about that? Why didn't they tell me? For a marketing company that's so good, they're not good at individual marketing. This is all a big ad, not only for the power of the subscription model, but also, and their

PE has grown from 15 to 34 or something, but it's a big ad, and I hate to say this because we're conflicted. It's a big ad for Salesforce. Because the ability to take all these data points in a B2B manner and create better service, it's all CRM. And what's amazing is when you think about the potential, you want to talk about potential for CRM? Disney should be able to know that I am obsessed with The Mandalorian and Boba Fett. They should know that I have two sons. They should know that I live in California. And guess what? If they'd sent me a special invitation to the opening of that Starship Cruiser Hotel, I would have paid anything. And I would have been first in line. And nothing though. Absolutely

nothing. Same thing. They should know I love Enc encanto and i don't love it i think everybody knows you love encanto kira no no but my kid listens to me can't do a moana on full like i you're right they do need to pay attention their individual consumers more it's very easy now because of digital now one thing that's interesting another thing i was i think of them all the time i I have all these old Macs, and I'm like, do I have to take them back to the store? Do I not? Come to your house, pick them up. We'll dispose of them. Pick up my phone.

Do not throw them out. I want to know where they went. Agreed. You know, that kind of stuff. I have all kinds of issues. I'm going to call Tim Cook for lunch and start complaining. You call Tim. You call Tim.

But one of the things that's interesting is the buy now, pay later, this idea of renting. I'd like to rent these things. I'd like to feel like I'm renting them a little bit more. They're perishable. It would cost you more to rent than to buy them. I guess. In any case. The half-life on those things, they kind of depreciate 30% a year.

Within three years, they basically were zero. So essentially, Apple, we like this. Other companies, you should do this. Disney is one. Amazon is someone I would have a much deeper relationship with if I felt I had more value. I have a pretty good one. I'm trying to think of who else. What if Nike did it?

Your gym, travel on the road, all your shoes, all your workout. Well, if Nike owned Peloton, they just said, we're going to take over your fitness life. Peloton. Well, if Nike owned Peloton, they just said, we're going to take over your fitness life. Peloton. You know, when I did that Peloton, that was so eye-opening how much more consumers wanted from them than they were giving them. Consumers wanted a bigger, they wanted health stuff, they wanted exercise stuff, they wanted diet stuff, they want some clothing stuff, not buying it, but access to things. Anyway, it was- I want Whole Foods to molest my privacy. I want Whole Foods to know where I am,

and then when they see I'm in New York for four days, I want them to have my refrigerator stock when I get there with all the stuff I like. Why would they do that? Let me tell you what he's got in his refrigerator, a weird combination of liquor and very woke food. He has the most, I have like non-woke food in my house. And Scott, he always talks to me about being woke, but if you looked at his cabinet versus mine, you'd say I'm a conservative Midwestern lady, and his is like, you have the most woke food of anyone I've ever seen. A lot of liquor. Daddy loves the sauce. A lot of liquor.

A lot of liquor. Daddy loves the sauce. Anyway, Apple, we like it. More of, please. All right. Now let's bring in our friends of Pivot. of, please. All right. Now let's bring in our friends of Pivot. Brian Koppelman, David Levine, and Beth Schachter are the executive producers of Super Pumped,

Showtime's series about the rise of Uber. Brian and David are the show's creators as well. We don't usually have this many guests, but we're very excited to have team Super Pump. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Thanks. Psyched to be here, Cara. So I think we'll start with Brian, who I know pretty well. Travis Kalanick makes for great television since he was a unique player. Or was Uber part of, were you trying to do a story of a larger problem of Silicon Valley? Well, it started, Cara. It's so great to be here, Scott. Uh, Scott, I don't know if you saw,

but Cara and I grew up in the same house we found out. Uh, so I, it's, it's wild. Actually, we got to trade those stories. Um, this started with, um, with the book, you know, you're very close with Mike Isaac. Yeah. He worked for me. So, you know, with the book. You know, you're very close with Mike Isaac. Yeah, he worked for me. So you know the kind of storyteller he is. And when he sent me the book over Twitter, that's what he did. He wrote, he's like, will you look at my manuscript? We didn't start with a desire to tell this kind of story. It was like, we read Mike's book,

and then that book seemed to us to ask a lot of questions we wanted to ask about the cost of disruption and the rewards of disruption, right? And this seemed a great arena in which to examine it. That's the, you know, and then these characters were like Shakespearean characters in real life. So those things together made it really exciting to us. Did you think it was a larger problem in Silicon Valley? Or they were unique as evil people of Silicon Valley, villains, essentially? Like, if you're defining the problem as the win-at-all-costs mentality that Mike depicts in the book

and the justification of many decisions under the guise of sort of fomenting a legitimate rebellion, but in fact doing something else, maybe. Maybe it's a broader problem. It's something that you guys understand better than we understand. You've studied it for far longer. But the specifics of this were compelling enough that it seemed to us to, even at the beginning, to suggest a broader problem. And then as we did our research and as Mike brought people to us who were experts, yeah, it seemed like it very well might be. But the specific of this unicorn were enough to fire us up. unicorn were enough to fire us up. And let me ask, Beth, why do you think these stories of founders and unicorns are in vogue right now? There's Super Pump, The Dropout, We Crashed. You could sort of say Inventing Anna is in that genre, but it's not a tech one. Why do you think tech was so celebrated or else it was sort of made fun of on Silicon Valley, the actual TV show on HBO? Why do you think now this is getting the treatment?

It's funny. I mean, I think we think of, first we think sort of the show is a little bit distinct in the fact that we don't have Theranos in our house and we don't have WeWork anymore and Anna Delvey's in prison. And I think those are more stories of grifters who got caught grifting,

whereas Travis is really the story of someone who truly saw something that could be upset and disrupted, disrupted it, and along the way became the kind of malevolent force that he was trying to disrupt. I'm not sure why it all happens at the same time. I think those are questions that we may need a little bit of more distance to understand, but I do think there's some distinctions there. I mean, I think also the shows that have been, are being made with WeWork and with the Theranos story are just extraordinary and really about culture in interesting ways. So, and are filled with amazing acting. And lastly, David, what did you learn about Silicon Valley doing the show? I mean, not everybody's like Travis, you know that you're aware. I mean, very few. Well, we've been told, you know, he comes off as such a unique individual in the pages of Mike's book. And we had to sort of double check and make sure this was for real. And we did interview a lot of people who interacted with him and they basically confirmed what Mike said in more blunt terms often.

We learned that somebody with a force of personality and will who was able to enlist people in his vision could onboard huge amounts of money and get more powerful than in almost any field very quickly. And that was fascinating to us. Yeah. So I just want to start. I'm not a huge fan of Uber. I think they use software to circumvent minimum wage laws. But I worry that we conflate the three. We have a woman who lied to investors, lost a billion dollars in money, is going to prison. We have a guy who exaggerated, was trying to shovel his unicorn shit onto retail investors at a $60 billion valuation that's now at four. A lot of people could have lost a lot of money. And then there's Uber and kind of distinct of the frat bro complexion, which I, you know, is at a minimum not in vogue and at a maximum just not the way to run a business or create a positive work environment. But it's a $70 billion company. A lot of people made a lot of money. It's provided economic security for a lot of people. It's a great service. New York City has just announced a strike a deal with them. Isn't it quite frankly,

aren't you giving Travis a bad rap? Does he deserve to be grouped in with these other folks? We only made the one show. Very different. Not a grifter. Yeah. Not only are we not grouping him in, but in every interview we've ever given, we've said he's not grouped in. Okay. Let me ask the question another way. Beth, you described Travis Kalanick as a malevolent force. Say more. Well, no, because I think the show describes him as a malevolent force. And I think that the show shows him as a malevolent force.

And I think the show is asking the audience to grapple with the fact. And you've said it very well, Scott, just now. We have Uber in our pocket. It is a company that exists and is real. It wasn't a grift. We're asking the audience to say, okay, now that you know the cost of this disruption, how do you feel about it in your pocket? So hopefully the show says more. I know it's right now because I think you guys may have only gotten the first five episodes. You don't see the full, the totality of what we're actually trying to say. But truly, we want the audience to say, ask exactly the question you're just asking, which is, is it fair?

Brian, you wanted to say something? So yes, Travis won and the company won. And I agree with you about basically a lot of what you said. But let's just examine the safe rides fee, the thing we started with. And I think you have to actually just for a moment, really take it in. There was an outcry about how unsafe Ubers were documented evidentiary, right? And the solution that they propagated was we're adding a fee to every ride, every single ride, a $1 fee that is going to go toward making Uber safer. They took that money and put it to the bottom line, spent $200,000 out of whatever, $300 million, and took the rest of it and just put it to their bottom line and never made anyone safer and did nothing with it. That alone vitiates the question. That alone, I think, speaks to, if that's all they did at the beginning, it's enough to say, to not in any way group the company in with the other things, but it's enough to raise the question of what price are we willing to pay for the advancement in transportation tech? Yeah, I recall when it was happening, when they were charging so little

for rides. I think it was like $3 across San Francisco, or some small, less than the Muni, for sure. And someone's like, this is great. I'm like, do you think this is what it costs? Do you think this is the actual? I said, let's figure out who's paying here. And it's certainly not you. It's either the VCs or it's the drivers, but it's coming out of someone's hide. I'm hoping it's the VCs, but I'm guessing it's the drivers at some point.

And so, which I kept mentioning and everyone was like, this is great. You're a bummer. And I'm like, this has a cost that we don't even understand. It also gets rid of healthcare, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because I'm an irritating person. But when you talk about that, what do you think people will walk away with? Any one of you can answer this, this idea that, well, it was worth it because we have this great service that is now being run by someone with some level of ethics, you know, in terms of rolling it out. And every, you know,

every great fortune starts with a crime, obviously, is the old saying. So how do you think, how do you come away with it? When we have this great service, it's created all kinds of wealth, it is a business. So I still question whether it's an actual business still, which I do to Dara all the time, because it doesn't seem to be able to make money, it's an actual business still, which I do to Dara all the time because it doesn't seem to be able to make money, even when they charge higher prices. What did each of you walk away from it? Was it worth it? There's a lot built into that question. A couple of things. One, our show focuses on the first chapter of the emergence of the company really in Travis's regime. It is a very different place now that Dara took over. And there is a chunk of the book devoted to that.

That's very fascinating, but we only had so much runway to make our show. The other thing, is it worth it? What do we expect an audience to take away? I mean, the general public has limited ability to, you know,

make a direct change on a big industry or a particular business other than not using it, which happened for a while when Lyft came to the fore. And I would say, you know, the one thing that we found out about that we put in the show is how corrupt and insidious the taxi and livery business was, the way that the medallion systems were strangling cities and drivers. So there was that moment of hope that it was going to change things for the drivers. But then, as so often happens, the new power became just as corrupt. Yes. More so.

I'd be curious, across the three of you, what was the biggest surprise? You obviously got to know the company and the story and the characters really well. What was the biggest surprise or what might be, in your view, the biggest kind of misconception we as a public have about the story or the characters? What shocked you about this as you got to know the story better? For me, it was the brazenness with which they just went at it.

They would use the software in invasive ways to further their aims, to combat regulators. And they acted as if there wasn't going to be any price to pay for it, which was amazing. And as a company, there was very little price to pay for it. In the end, Travis had to leave at some point. But that was pretty shocking to me. What about you, Brian? I would say two things. One, that Garrett Camp actually had the idea. Like reading the book, Travis Kalanick is so well known for this. And obviously, Garrett's a genius and had, you know, many ideas that were incredibly great ideas and that he picked an

operator and then that he empowered this operator to act as though he were a founder, I think was an amazing sort of move. And obviously, and everyone I know who knows Garrett, they love him. So I find that fascinating too, that he's a completely different cat in a way. And we try to show that in the show. And then, you know, back to Scott's sort of like question about the nature of Uber. Like if I look at the geofencing they did over Apple, that notion is so outrageous to me that if it's, as Mike reported, again, I don't have any special knowledge, but what Mike reports in the book is that Travis made a promise to Eddie Q and Tim Cook. And that promise was, I will, this tracking software will not be in the app anymore. We won't track people. We understand you'll kick us out of the app store. And that then the engineer's solution, instead of doing what was committed to their biggest, right, vendor or

client, the Apple App Store relationship with Uber was the most important. Instead, they use skullduggery and build, attack skullduggery and build a geofence so that the software acted the way he promised only within 200 miles of Cupertino. And everywhere else, it was still invading. Every one of us, as we used it, as David said, the brazenness of that. And I mean, who would ever think that you could pull that off over the most technologically sophisticated company in the world, Apple, and that he did. And then that Tim Cook sat with him and warned him and let him continue, let the company continue.

So the mutuality of benefit- They wouldn't kick him off. You know, he is the only person I've seen. Tim Cook doesn't react to much. He's very adult. And only time I've ever seen Tim Cook, I had lunch with him and I asked him about it. And I've never seen him roll his eyes. And he did a massive eye roll. And then he goes, that guy. And that's all he said. And I was like,

whoa, it was like, it was like the biggest insult I've ever seen. I was like, oh my God, you're gonna have him killed now or something. So what do you think, Beth? Sort of a broader, for me, was the women that were involved in Uber and the range of reactions to Travis. I think we tend to want and hope that women are a monolith, especially within tech. And women are not obviously a monolith. And we know that. But we hope for it like as we just like, can't we all just link arms and march together against misogyny? And to see the breadth of experience and the different kinds of women that were surrounding Travis, including and especially Austin Gite, who was a, I'm really fascinated by.

So her story, just for me, was a real surprise and a wonderful surprise. And then, you know, just on a practical level, being able to have Carrie Bechet play her, also a wonderful thing. Yeah, she was a conflicted person. I have to tell you, you got Jill and Rachel wrong completely. They just don't behave like that. They just, sorry. It's just, we were laughing and I got on text with them. They're the two PR people. That's why they call it original scripted drama, Kara. I know that. But I was like, this is hysterical with the legs and the, oh, my God. Anyway, let me ask you. Wait, they don't have legs in real life?

They do have legs, but not like, you know what I'm talking about. It's the metaverse. No legs allowed. The Ariana character, I loved it. It was fantastic. She did a great job. But Ariana was even more than she portrayed, let me just say. One of the funniest things was Ariana was trying very hard to bridge the gap between Travis's just mendacious fuckiness and

what was going on, especially during those more difficult times as they started to remove him from power. And she stuck with him for a long time, and at the same time wanted to appeal to people who knew that he was a mendacious fuck, essentially. And so she one time called me up and she goes, Cara, I'm working with him to become a better person. And, you know, I'm doing all kinds of things, but I really don't, I haven't seen him at all, not at person. And I'm doing all kinds of things, but I really don't, I haven't seen him at all, not at all. And I'm really mad at him. And someone texted me right at that moment and said, do you know, I'm in Ariana's living room and I see she's talking to you and Travis is sitting right here, just so you know, he came over for dinner. And so I was like,

so I go, oh, really? You're not seeing him at all? And she goes, oh, over for dinner. And so I was like, so I go, oh, really? You're not seeing him at all? And she goes, oh, no, Cara. And I go, not like right now on your couch. And she's like, oh, he was hungry. He needed dinner. He was wandering around Soho. And you know, I'd bring anyone into my house.

And I was like, okay, thank you, Ariana, for that great moment in Ariananess. And I like the portrayal. So there's my Ariana. We are definitely talking to you before we do the Facebook thing, because you have the best stories. No, I'm writing my book. You got to buy my book, and you'll see what happens in that one.

So Mark Cuban plays himself on the show. How come Kara Swisher didn't get a phone call? Are you in the show? No. No. I only hired and facilitated. Someone's jealous of the dog. I don't know if you guys have heard, but I'm in WeWork. He's in the WeWork show. Fascinating story. And good luck telling the Zuckerberg story without a Swisher cameo. I don't know how you're going to do it. Come do the cameo in that story. Come on. We thought that we would be saying you're welcome to the thank you, but I guess we have to say we apologize and we'll make sure it happens the next time.

You cannot tell the Zuckerberg story without sweaty Swisher. That's what I have to say. Well, now that's what they're going to call you in the show. I mean, they're going to refer to you that way now in the Facebook story. I believe they refer to me as a much stronger word. And it starts, oh, I don't know. It could be a lot of them. But speaking of which, Super Pump 2 has been announced this season. We'll look at Facebook with a focus on Mark and Cheryl.

What can you tell us about that? Because I have to tell you, being up close and personal in that relationship, it's one of the dullest relationships I've ever seen. But go ahead, tell us about it. It's based on Mike's book on the Facebook. Yeah, Mike's got to write the book. We can't give you much info yet, but we will closer to the time. Okay, nothing? Can we use that as a pull quote? Kara says it's the dullest relationship.

I don't know where there's drama at all. I mean, there is a little bit, but no, they're really dull people. It might be more about when the two of them, the effect they've had on the world, which I don't think is dull. All right. What do you think, Scott? What do you think they should focus in on the Mark and Cheryl? Scott has a tougher view of Cheryl than I do. I don't know.

The mendacious fuck and his $2 billion beard ruining the world. I don't know. That's a pretty good basis for drama. That's the name of it. The mendacious fuck. Two pull quotes now. Now we have two pull quotes. And then next, the year after will be what?

The Netflix drama of which there isn't any. I mean, obviously the pivot story is season three. Yes, it's brilliant. I think that's clear. Karen's got it. Now that's a saucy relationship. That is a saucy relationship. That relationship makes a room sexier by leaving it, Brian.

Yes, exactly. In my opinion, the Facebook drama, what's unfolded there is the elephant and Uber's a pimple. I think the, I don't know, I really hope that you bring, and Mike always brings it, but if you can bring that to life, that'll be an important piece of work. It will, yeah. But just not focus on their very dull relationship. Anyway, you're part of the team behind Billions, since you can't tell us anything about the Facebook thing, but call us if you'd like some information. Another show about a high-powered businessman and politicians trying to outwit each other. How does the world of tech differ from finance, or does money create drama wherever it lands? I mean, that actually is a

great pull quote. Money does create drama wherever it lands. One thing that we were aware of when we were focusing on the hedge fund space is these people, especially the characters we started the series with, didn't really create anything or even purport to change the world. They just wanted to take their piece out of making these trades. And then the landscape started to shift with the introduction of this Michael Prince character, who is a guy who comes from startup backgrounds and then was a VC. It's an interesting thing that the tech people are trying to create things that change your life and change the world in a positive way. At the very beginning, they all do say that and mean

it, we think. And some of the Wall Street guys just want to make a return. Yeah, I would agree with that. Although I think I prefer the Wall Street people because it's very clear. I think the tech people are performative in their changing the world stuff. Most of the time, they just like money and power, the same difference. Well, that was, it's funny, you know, when we had that Mike Birbiglia character on Billions who played Oscar Langstroth, who's a VC, he was more like that, like someone, you know,

who's read the Tibetan Book of the Dead or the Book of Living and Dying, but only so that they can use it to charm a founder. Yeah. And, but when, I will say like, we've had through Billions the opportunity to spend time with people like Mark Andreessen and Chris Saka and Bill Gurley. And when you're around some of these VCs, and Mark, who's, to me, incredibly fascinating because almost as a unicorn unto himself, somebody who was able to, as a programmer, change the world,

and then as a VC, change the world. And they do, it seems to me that someone, if we look at someone like Andreessen, he just thinks differently than anybody else I've ever met. And I do believe that many people in the industry you've covered so closely read books that are different than the hedge fund people read, think about, have to context, whether they have to do it as a way to curry favor with the business they want to do or not, they do have a catholicity of interest and they do have a breadth of knowledge. And then they use that

in some way to affect the world. And I don't know, I'm fascinated by that interlocking thing where they could all be professors. Very few of the hedge fund people could be professors. I've worked, I advise a lot of hedge funds. And I heard that Axe was actually a mashup of four different hedge fund guys and it named them. And I've worked with a couple of them. Is that true, that it was meant to be a composite of four different famous hedge fund guys? I was going to say, he's sort of a composite, but not four specific people just quartered up like that. We just, as a hedge fund operator in our show, we wanted him to be able to do basically every style of investing so that we had more options in a way that no one person in real life would. But the fun thing is one of those people who you definitely know who the person is, went

up to Damien at the US Open one year and was like, I'm Bobby Axelrod. And this was not Steve Cohen. Let me be really clear. Is it Axman or Lowe? The only one I'll say it's not is Steve Cohen. But this guy goes up to him at the open and goes, I'm Bobby Axelrod. And Damien texts us, is this guy Bobby Axelrod? And we were like, no, man, that guy's not Bobby Axelrod. Well, everybody started saying it when the show was a hit.

A hundred percent. We just interviewed Kelly, who plays Jeff Bezos in your show, and plays Scott Galloway, which is, of course, his greatest role of all time. Done dollar bill on billions. Dollar bill on billions. He's really great. One of the interviews I did with Travis was when he told the truth about what he was up to. It was a shocking interview because I asked him, you know, when are you ever going to make money? I do math and this doesn't make sense to me. None of this does. It just doesn't add up. And he said, he turned to me in this interview, it was a public interview, and he said, you know, Kara, when we can get rid of the

guys in the front seats, that'll be great. That'll be fantastic. Essentially, that's what he said. I don't have the exact words, but it was that lines is that once we get automated cars, it all works out. So we're just using these people as fodder to get where we want to get. And a lot of people were horrified. And I said, thank you. Thank you for finally telling the truth of what a malignant fuck you are, you know, and what you're thinking about this. And I thought it was actually quite refreshing because he was being clear about, one of the things I did appreciate with Travis, he didn't hide his face the way a lot of them do. Did you have that feeling?

I talked to Joseph Gordon-Levitt about it, about this idea of a brutal honesty that I appreciated, even though I was repulsed by it at the same time. Did you come away with an admiration for him at all? Any of you? It's hard to call it admiration though. I'll say the show in the later episodes does get into that question of automated cars

and getting rid of the drivers and that the human beings being the impediment to the whole thing working. You know, I would say we're fascinated by the way that he's a brutalist in that way. We don't admire it, but it is quite fascinating to us. What about Beth? Yeah, I would just say that we don't really, we try not to put a moral judgment on it,

but instead try to create the most complex version of the character based on the book that Mike delivered to us and the conversations we had. And I think that's something, again, that the audience has to grapple with, which is he said it to your face. He was not hiding Otto. No, he couldn't. No. So what does that mean whenever you get in a car that's run by that company? Have you heard from any of the characters or the financiers and what has been their response to the program? Well, the answer is I do know Gurley, but we mostly talk about Jason Isbell, not the show. Okay.

Because he comes off good. He comes off good. So why wouldn't he like it? There was a big outreach from various people before and during making the show. And we spoke to some people. We didn't speak to others. We never spoke to Travis. He reached out.

I understand he reached out, correct? I'm sure he did. When the show started to air, the sort of conversational outreach definitely went quiet. Oh. Because, you know, they weren't going to be able to affect anything, I suppose. Right, right. So they just wanted to move away from the thing. Well, I suppose that's the best outcome, right? So the final question I have is, does it make you use Uber more or less since you did this? I find Lyft is an amazing platform. Yeah. Okay. I use Lyft exclusively now, though,

like as Beth likes to point out, none of us are perfect. We're all deeply flawed. I mean, if I were stuck somewhere and I couldn't get a Lyft, just to go back to Scott's original point, Uber is ubiquitous and it's a really good service in lots of ways. But I use Lyft. I haven't used Uber since the show started, but I can't take a purity test. I would if I had to. Yeah. What about you, Beth? I don't use Uber unless I am in a position where it's stand in the cold or not stand in the cold.

But I think as we say in the show itself, we are all constantly making these decisions based on the information we have available. And our brains are incredibly good at shutting out the information we have about many, many corporations that do really terrible things because we like the taste of the French fries or the taste of the chicken sandwich. So, you know, I'm imperfect. because we like the taste of the French fries or the taste of the chicken sandwich. So, you know, I'm imperfect. Thank you very much, Beth Schachter, Brian Koppelman, and David Levine. You can find Super Pumped on Showtime.

New episodes are out every Sunday and there are just two more left. I wonder how it ends. Thank you so much. Congrats. Well done. Thank you. Thank you both so much. Congrats. Well done. Thank you. Thank you both so much. Thanks. All right, Scott, one more quick break. That was really interesting. We'll be back for predictions. big savings on plans and having your unused data roll over to the following month every month at fizz you always get more for your money terms and conditions for our different

programs and policies apply details at fizz.ca okay scott time for predictions obviously you did a good job on apple so what is your next prediction you can talk about whether your show is going to be a hit how well cnn plus if you want to go out on that limb, you can do it. I'll be happy to saw it off after you. Look, I am really rattled by what happened last night. And I'm getting mocked on Twitter for clutching his pearls. Why is he so triggered by this? But I think what Janai Nelson, who's at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said, and that is, the way casual violence was normalized tonight by a collective national audience will have

consequences we can't even fathom in the moment. And so my prediction is, and I always try to look at this through the lens of young men, there were two men involved last night, and one demonstrated tremendous masculinity, and the other is Will Smith. So my prediction is that as we come to grips with what these little instances of normalizing violence are and the repercussions, we're going to realize that our society needs to absolutely reject this and redefine masculinity is that strength and power and advocating for others is one thing. And I want to be honest, I think there is a time for violence. And I think that's being demonstrated by brave men and women in Ukraine. I do think that

occasionally you do need that big dick toxic masculinity to pick up arms and protect others. Yeah. Well, okay. You don't need to be toxic. It could be for a good cause. What people describe as toxic. But anyways, point taken. There's nothing toxic about protecting your home. Go ahead. My other prediction is,

and I'm trying to use my platforms to bring attention to Ukraine, but I think we're going to, there's just so many stories, but almost 4 million Ukrainian refugees so far, expect 10 million, you know, heroic efforts to survive and save others. And, you know, the trauma they will process for years is unfathomable. I also loved that actor dressed up as a bunny to comfort children in subway shelters in Kharkiv. Did you see this on TikTok? Oh, no, I did not. But basically, there's been this great footage of this guy roaming the streets under threat of shelling to rescue stray dogs. I just think there are just millions of points of light. So I'm trying to reposition a win as a prediction. I think we're going to look back on this period and find just moments, millions of moments of heroism taking place in Ukraine. War brings out absolutely the worst in society, but it does oftentimes get people to demonstrate

the best. I agree. I predict it's going to be a long haul for Russia to do this to these people. I interviewed two people this morning quite early in California time. One was a journalist and disinformation expert from Ukraine. She called me from her basement where she had to move to Western Ukraine with her child and will not leave the country. She refuses. It's safer in Western Ukraine, obviously, right now. And her determination was quite adamant. And then I interviewed the head of TV Rain, who had to close down his independent media company in Russia. He left the country because he was endangered over that law, making it illegal. He refused to broadcast lies of the government. And he just interviewed President Zelensky and the Russians. That's illegal. He's

a Russian citizen. He still did it anyway. I have great hope for these people. I really do. I was really moved by their determination and not in a sentimental way. They're like, we're not, this is our home. We're doing our job. And I was, and democracy really seems to have, they both talked about the tech groups and how it had become more entrepreneurial and democratic. And it gave me great hope talking to these people.

I have great hope for that country. Hopefully that we, and we should step up helping them keep a democracy that was growing really nicely in a country that deserves it. So that's what I would say. There you go. Thank you. There you go.

Okay, Scott, that's the show. I'm missing the launch party, Kara. I'm sorry. Just drink without me. Just think, the show got live. The show didn't get canceled before it launched. That's a victory. That's a win.

That's a victory. But let me just tell you what you need to do with this party. What do I need to do? Do not drink and try to kiss anybody. I'm a win. That's a victory. But let me just tell you what you need to do at this party. What do I need to do? Do not drink and try to kiss anybody. I'm a better version of me drunk. Don't drink and do something bad. I'm funny. I'm affectionate.

Show your stomach to people. Don't super pump me. Don't conflate me. I'm great at parties. I'm going to just tell you I don't want you to be canceled. I'm excited to pay $3 to watch you. I'm great at parties. It's when a camera goes on me that I lose it.

I'm excited to pay $3 to hear what you say to me all the goes on me that I lose it. I'm excited to pay $3 to hear what you say to me all the time. There you go. There you go. All right. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman,

Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Indertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Emile Saverio. Make sure you're subscribed to the show

wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot and New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for a breakdown of all things tech and business. What do real men do? They de-escalate the situation. And watch Scott's show also. Thanks, Cara.