Pivot - Parody Accounts on Twitter, Peak Layoff Season, and Tech Monopolies

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

Kara and Scott question Elon Musk's sense of humor after he bans comedian Kathy Griffin (and others who spoofed his account) over the weekend. They also talk about the layoff trend in the tech industry, as Meta reportedly prepares for a massive reduction in its workforce this week. Friend of Pivot Matt Stoller stops by with reasons to be optimistic about the fight against corporate monopolies. You can follow Matt Stoller at @matthewstoller, and subscribe to his substack, BIG, here. Send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to 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 a billionaire with an insatiable thirst for attention and approval. And I'm also Elon Musk. Kara made me say that.

No, I'm teasing. We don't think you're Elon Musk. We don't think. Nobody thinks anybody else is Elon Musk but Elon Musk. What was it the fuck he said? Independent-minded voters should vote Republican. And by the way, I take that to mean that if you live in Florida or Texas, you should vote for state senators that are Democratic, given that they're under primarily Republican control. Is that what he meant? Is that what he said? Is that what he was getting at? No, no, no. He often says things that are opposite to the things he says. I don't know if you've noticed that lately. Opposite to things he says. So he says things like comedy is now legal on Twitter, and apparently it's not. Yeah, I've heard. I don't know if you've heard, but he has said that your account will be suspended if you impersonate somebody without

saying it's a parody. Yeah, he suspended someone who said that, but go ahead. What if you parody an impersonator? What if you, so if he had spread disinformation or conspiracy theory, but he had a fake nose and glasses, would he be suspended? I don't know. And by the way, parody is one of the key components of quote unquote free speech. Yeah, it is. Yeah, we're aware. So I don't, I'm not entirely, I'm going to say this is a little inconsistent what's going on. Yes, yes, yes. We'll get into all that, Scott. But first, how was your birthday?

I hate my birthday, but it was kind of, I think it was symbolic of how old I'm getting. I was feeling sorry for myself. I was coming back from LA. I did an event in Denver and I was at the airport. It was about three or four and I hadn't heard from anybody. I did an event in Denver and I was at the airport. It was about three or four. And I hadn't heard from anybody. My sons hadn't called me. I usually hear from my dad and my sister. I was starting to feel sorry for myself. And I put out a tweet looking for cheap likes.

I saw that. Saying, you know, it's my birthday. There's my people. People who love me, that I love, you know, easy way to get three or four thousand likes. And then somebody on Twitter goes, your birthday is tomorrow, Scott. Oh, dear. I got my birthday wrong.

So I'm now so old that I don't remember when my actual birthday is. Anyway, so that was my birthday. So while you were away, we had Kai Rizdal, guest host. He has very nice hair. And a buttery voice. He's a buttery voice. I think he might rival George Hahn in terms of sexy voice. Yeah. He's so smart, too.

He's so smart, yeah. Yeah, it was one of my favorite. It was one of my favorite. He was excellent. He was very good. He's smart. Yeah, he was good. And he was a little bit of naughty guy. Usually he's much more straightforward, but he had some things to say, which was great. I thought that was great. No, he's a, that guy's a star. I mean, he's perfectly fitting. NPR continues to find incredibly talented people in the production values there. I just, I love Kai. I think he's

very impressive. He's a good guy. He was great. Well, thank you, Kai, for doing that. And now Scott is back because I have lots of things to talk to you about. We'll talk about layoffs across big tech. Also, we'll get into the shakeup on cable news, and we'll speak with Matt Stoller about antitrust and the Albertsons deal. But first, come on, what are we going to talk about? Let's get straight to our big story. Elon Musk has commanded, thou shalt have no funnier tweets before me. Over the weekend, Elon Musk issued a new rule via tweet. He said, going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying parody will be permanently suspended because everyone knows that the best comedy has clearly labeled

disclaimers. The move seems to be in clear response to some tongue-in-cheek Elon impersonators over the weekend, which are all very funny and obvious. Sarah Silverman, Kathy Griffin, and cartoonist Jeff Jock all had their Twitter accounts locked or suspended after changing their names to Elon Musk and tweeting out jokes, mostly voting jokes. Those are all verified accounts, by the way, which is why the joke works. One person who did label himself a parody also got suspended. So I don't know where we are. Valerie Bertinelli was one of the first celebs to do this. But Jeff Jock probably said it best. He tweeted, as Elon, I support free speech unless you're making fun of me, which is illegal. Peter Brannan said that Elon's announcement had strong substitute teacher vibe,

who's lost control of the class and all the kids smell blood in the water vibes. Dave Lee said so far every Musk comment policy has been directly related to his own personal experience on Twitter and little else. So he also, someone tweeted that he was like Joe Pesci in Home Alone because he kept getting hit by paint cans. How should he have handled this? Just laughed it off, Scott. And he, you know, you're the original insufferable numbskull. And he's using all your ideas right now at Twitter, by the way.

How should he have handled this? Well, my friend Dov Seidman says something that really struck me, and he's basically built a career around this kind of singular notion of that it's not what you do, it's how you do it. And if you were to step back and say, all right, I'm going to buy a media platform. I believe it hasn't been run well. I'm going to come up with a bunch of new ideas. I'm going to make difficult decisions right away. I think you could argue that a lot of these decisions in broad brush are justifiable and maybe even good decisions. But when you show up with an appliance or show up with a sink and you're about to lay off half the workforce, I don't think that's the time for humor. And one of the things I like about

Elon is he has a sense of humor. I think he's a funny guy. But you don't do that 72 hours before laying off half the staff. And then when you lay off half the staff, you don't realize that you've laid off some critical, mission critical people and then call them and ask them to come back. You don't try to fire people for cause when there is no cause. When you try to clean up the platform and you say, all right, I want to move to subscription, which is the right thing to do. Which you said for years. I'm just giving credit. But you don't move to shadow banning with blue check because the first thing you do when you look at subscription is you say, who's getting the most surplus value here?

Now, if Kylie Jenner is getting a bunch of money for a tweet, that's value. Move in on that. But the blue check is really value for the network and the other users. So that's not surplus value there. All that's doing is shadow banning. That's not surplus value there. All that's doing is shadow banning. In addition, economically, it's a dumb move because it would only generate about $40 million a year in exchange for all this controversy. In addition, Kara, these guys, I don't think this is just true of he's pivoting it around like a zodiac. This thing's a tanker. And you have to be more thoughtful about decisions.

Yeah. And he's not being thoughtful about decisions. And also bringing in outsiders is a really good idea for fresh ideas. But when you bring in people who are either right wing or kind of represent the worst of Twitter. Or your kiss up buddies, the people who suck up to you almost continually. Or your kiss-up buddies, the people who suck up to you almost continually. So I think actually new ideas, quite frankly, layoffs, a jolt, an adrenaline jolt to the heart, making decisions quickly, I think these are all the right things to do. It's how he's doing it. The Stripe CEO laid off a lot of people. They've been going for an IPO, been very successful, had to lay off a lot of people.

He had a lovely note. It wasn't particularly like, you know, woke or anything else. It just was classy. He just was, here's what I have to do. I don't like doing it. Here's why I'm doing it. Never kicked people on the way out, never insulted them, never said everything they do sucks, and then borrowed their ideas. You know, they left them in the cabinet. And he's using, the reason why they have to possibly go back to people is, as many people who work there said, is he's launching things we made after, and he laid us off and he's pretending it's his idea. Of course, now he's attacking Mastodon. It's all 12-year-old boy humor, but not a very nice 12-year-old boy,

you know, a particularly badly raised 12-year-old boy. Yeah. And taking over a company that you're going to get the wheel of this company, but they still have their hands on the wheel. Yeah. I mean, did you hear what happened at the new fronts? Yes, yes. Explain what they are. Well, they're like the upfronts, what they used to do for TV, where advertisers say and their media planners and their agencies say, we want some surety, some certainty of media planning.

We want the best spots. We want to be guaranteed placement. And we want our marketing spend to foot to our product launch strategies. So they say up front, all right, NBC, Vox, Twitter, we'll guarantee you. We're Unilever or P&G. We'll guarantee you. We'll buy $50 million. We're the media. You guarantee us the best placement, and we can all better plan stuff, and we're not just shooting from the hip every week trying to figure out where to place our ads.

And it's great for these businesses because they get to book revenue right up front, and they get to see what the year's going to look like. Twitter, on average, at the new fronts, garnered about 20% of its annual revenue from upfront commitments from advertisers ranging from P&G to GM to Unilever. At this year's new fronts, a group of advertisers got together and said, we need to ask Twitter executives what is going to be the deal with content moderation. And they asked these questions. And the people on stage, A, likely didn't know, but B, weren't in a hurry to carry Elon's water as Elon had been shitposting them. And they said, very honestly, we don't know.

And you know what happened? That $900 million shrunk to zero. And so he shows up 20% down. And these are self-inflicted injuries. These are unforced errors. And now he's at a company that's losing $4 million a day plus another- Allegedly. That's what he says.

Who knows? Honestly, who knows? But go ahead. How have the revenues not been cut in half right now? How have they not? Well, he's cut costs in half, right? I suppose. There's some costs.

And he has another billion billion billion three in interest payments he's got to come up with cut them in half yet he's got to pay severance etc but go ahead so it's not again it's not i think most of the you could make a strong argument for everything he's done it's how he's done it no i wouldn't make a strong one for everything he's done i think he's using other people's ideas and other things that Twitter staff made and pulling out of the cabinet the good things and not giving credit. Exactly how he's done it. Well, that's how. Yes, that's how.

Some of them I agree with. Let me get first to, well, let's raise the question, the blue check. I know you're still going to pay for it. You're still going to fork over $8. And let me just say. I'm paying for your blue check. I am Kara Swisher. Don't you dare.

Don't you dare. I am so Kara Swisher. Please don't. Please do not. And I'm going dirty. It's not, you know, interestingly, I sort of pushed back on another idiotic David Sachs, you know, thing where he was going. He's trying to act, the guy who had one of the most expensive 40th birthday parties in Silicon Valley history, where he dressed up like Louis XIV, you know, let them eat cake kind of party, is telling us about elites. And that's my favorite part,

private planes and multi-million dollar party person is telling us about elites. But it's not a status symbol to people. I've never thought it as a status symbol. I don't care. If they wanted to verify everyone, I always push that, that idea that everyone should be verified. That was the problem on Twitter. They can sell it to anyone, but that's what it is. It's a sale. And it's not verified. And I hate the word verified when it's not. It's just a credit card swipe, which is fine. Many people do that.

Amazon, you know, do they know who I am through my purchases? I guess. I suppose they know who I am. But I don't pay them for that. I don't pay them for the privilege. I just buy stuff. I don't have to pay them. I pay them for Prime because I'm getting something. I'm trying to think. I pay for what I get. And so what does it signify? Because one of the arguments is it ensures safety for the program and bots, et cetera.

But why should I have to pay for that? I don't want to pay for that. I think you're right on this one. And that is, I get more value from your blue check than you do. You get some. You do get- None. What? Well, hold on? Hold on. It does say something. That I want to pay for it. Not. But go ahead. It may not be enough for you to pay for it, but it does. There is a certain credibility when you have the blue check. It is a badge. It is a self-expressive benefit, prestigious badge. Having said that, the majority of the value is garnered by Twitter and others who get to say, if I want to know what Kara Swisher thinks about Meta's layoffs, and I do a search for her, when I see Kara Swisher blue check, I know this is her.

So it's value to the company. It's veracity around the network. It's the wrong place to start. got 10% of their 230 million users who get the most value, and they started extracting some of the additional surplus economic value, they could get a couple billion dollars. But instead, he's opened a can of shitstorm for an incremental $40 million. These decisions are not well thought out. You know, they literally spent all their communications time yelling at their most active users, you know, yelling, and maybe they want us off the platform, whatever. I'll use it as much as I want and when I feel like it. And by the way, let me just say very clearly,

I'm willing to pay for value. Absolutely. I had Twitter Blue. I stopped using Twitter Blue. It wasn't valuable. That's all. And if it had been, I signed right up, right away, because I said, I'll try it. You know, if they wanted me to pay for editing, I don't think I'd pay for editing at this time, because every other service lets you edit except for Twitter. So to me, that's, they should just give it to you, right? It's table stakes right now. And Facebook, Instagram, you can edit all those things for years now. So I'm not going to pay for that. I'm just trying to, what would I pay for? Longer videos? Not really.

Longer posts? No. I mean, I'll pay for what's valuable over time. Like if they wanted me to buy articles, I would do that. I don't want to give them my credit card at this time. Honestly, I don't trust them from a data point of view. The original sin of the internet, of the web, and Marc Andreessen,

to his credit, said this, was they didn't build in robust functionality around micropayments. So as a result, largely fashioned by business genius Sheryl Sandberg, I'll give her this, they went to an ad model. And the algorithm said, okay, the only way we can serve more Nissan ads is to addict people and enrage them. If they'd gone the micropayments route and said, okay, this is an interesting article from Matt Levine. I got a lot from this. I'm going to give him 5 cents, 10 cents, 50 cents. And then Twitter can keep 2 or whatever. And you create an ecosystem around payments similar to the App Store.

It would have created an entirely different feel and vibe. And creators could have made money. Simon Holland, who has, you know, I just love this guy. It's a never-ending stream of dad jokes. He said something to the extent of like, I'm at the age where daylight savings time is a traumatic experience. But he said it much more eloquently. I would give him five, 10 cents a buck all the time. Mike Birbiglia, I think his name is. Berbeglia, yeah.

Who's, I think, a genius comic who's starting. He's got a Broadway show coming out this week. I'd love every time he makes me smile or laugh to give him a buck. I would just like that. Do you want to know something? What's that? People send me money all the time on Venmo because of my tweets. They send George Hahn money too.

Dollar, $2. I got $20 the other day. I collect it all and I'm going to give it to charity. But money, too. They just send a dollar, $2. I got $20 the other day. I collect it all, and I'm going to give it to charity. But sure, yeah. If you want to tip me, go ahead. That's fine. I'm very funny. You know what they said to me? This is true.

You know what they said to me? Guess what I get? Cake. No, no, no. Liquor. I get a coppa. I get a coppa, and occasionally I get edibles. Yeah, yeah.

I get booze and drugs. I am very entertaining on Twitter. I'm a good performer. I'm good. My tweets are good. They're worth something for sure. But I'm not, you know, be in business with these clowns. Like, they're ridiculous.

It's like they didn't just drive a clown car into a gold mine. They drove it out of the gold mine now. Now they're running around and insulting rich people. They're insulting elites when they are literally the most elite people. The definition of elite. It's crazy. Definition of everything that goes wrong when you become elite. Let me tell you the most depressing thing I got today.

So I wrote this long thing about, it was about David Sachs. And I was like, don't lecture me, you elite show. Don't do it. And I got like, I don't need to be lectured about anything about you. I didn't even want this thing. And I said, everyone who knows him doesn't like him. And they never say it out loud, right? I've never met him. You know him. Oh, yeah. I've interviewed him. I've done lots of stories on him. He's on the podcast with Chamath. Jason is an obnoxious person and is terribly rude to you and picks fights with you all the time.

I don't know why. This guy is really a piece of work. He wants to have sex with me. I get it. Okay. All right. And someone wrote me, and I'm not going to say who it is. Every text friend group I'm in is cheering.

Finally, someone fucking brave enough, respect enough to say it. So thank you. You know what? You all should say it because you think it and you talk behind his back about people like him. Silicon Valley is rife with these second tier, third tier people who hang on to the powerful people, who sit around and lecture people. They're frequently wrong. They're never in doubt. They had one or two big hits, usually along for the ride or got lucky.

And they lorded over people and they're assholes. There's plenty of nice people. Patrick Collison, Mark Cuban is nice. Like there's dozens of really nice people who have done much more successfully. I wish you all would say what you think. I think Brian Chesky needs to be appointed rabbi for all these guys.

Well, you know what? They have to hang out with Brian for an hour every week. But isn't David Sachs the guy that wrote the book with Peter Thiel and in the book? And I want to be clear. I think they apologized for this. He apologized to me. I wrote that story. I wrote the story of the apology.

But go ahead. Hold on. Where they referred to rape as delayed regret. Belated. I'm sorry. Belated regret. That is a peek into the mind. An editor and a publisher both saw that term and said, are you sure?

This wasn't a tweet. And also, I can't stand these individuals. The moment people want to have a conversation with them and push back, they claim they're being censored or that somehow we're elites. Elites or whatever. They're so not smart. I'm sorry. In general, certain things they're smart on. He's a good operator, isn't he? Didn't he start a couple good companies?

He started Yammer and sold. It was not a very good service, but Microsoft was desperate at the time to get into the business and bought it for a lot of money. Then he went, he was at Zenefits and it crashed and he tried to revive it. I don't think it's, you know, the world on fire kind of thing. He made some good investments. He actually was an investor in Airbnb, I believe. And there's like a lot of people, all these people get carried along, hey, come into this deal, come into that deal. But he's not certainly not outstanding compared to so many outstanding entrepreneurs that I have met and who are lovely, outstanding and lovely. And so far above. They're just, these people are, there's so many people like him in Silicon Valley. It's crazy. Nonetheless, fine. He did well. Great.

It's not, I don't know. In Silicon Valley. This goes to Elon. Yeah. Are these the right people to bring in to advise you on how to make Twitter better? They're not different ideas. Go to their Twitter feeds and say, is this what we want more of? Yeah.

It's defensive. It's conspiracy minded. It is a total lack of self-awareness. It is the mother of all conflation of luck with talent. These individuals don't even nod their head to America or how fortunate they are or to the role other people have played in their success. And anyone who questions the value of their portfolio or their investments warrants incessant attack. Let's not waste time on these people. Well, sorry, we've wasted a lot of time.

Sorry, mommy's triggered. Anyway, I want to know, is there a case you made that impersonators with blue checks are actually breaking the rules? That was one of their, he broke the rule. Like, of course, they love breaking the rules until someone else does, and then they try to grab onto anything. That's happened. People have lost their blue checks. But, you know, I think you should rules until someone else does, and then they try to grab onto anything. That's happened. People have lost their blue checks. But, you know, I think you should suspend them and tell them to cut it out. So now Kathy Griffin is tweeting from the account of her late mother, which probably isn't ideal.

But, you know, whatever. She can do whatever she wants. I don't really care. That'll freak some people out who haven't heard from her mother in a while. Yeah, I like her mother. She was nice. I noticed they didn't come down on Valerie Bertinelli, who kind of started this, because she's adorable. And nobody wants to mess with Valerie Bertinelli. Like, it's easy to dunk on Kathy Griffin. But what do you think about that? This is a total, there's something about the universe I've been thinking about.

I'm going to write about it this week. On a very cosmic level, the universe has decided that diversity is the key. That any species, human ecosystem that gets too powerful organization, ultimately hits a ceiling. The ceiling has been lifted. People can now aggregate a quarter of a trillion dollars. People can now aggregate a quarter of a trillion dollars. But at some point, the universe, in the form of creating really bad instincts and judgment, says no one organism, company, or person should ever get too powerful. I think he's hit that point. I just can't imagine.

How is this helping Tesla when he starts giving political recommendations on Twitter after just taking control of it the day before the midterms. I mean, it's just and then surrounding himself with this right wing vile and being very aggressive and the shoot from the hip dumb decisions. By the way, I don't think you asked me about the blue check thing. I don't think it's going to happen. They're already walking it back. They're already saying. No, he keeps going $8 to people. Kathy Griffin, come on if she pays $8. Like this whole $8 thing. Have you received any? No, he keeps going $8 to people. Kathy Griffin, come on if she pays $8.

Like this whole $8 thing. Have you received any official word about the change? I haven't. I haven't. But I mean, again, I thought my birthday was the wrong day. I may have missed it. Yeah, that's true. So I don't think I've seen it. I don't.

It's fraught with all sorts of errors and with little upside. Let's introduce a ton of risk with very little upside. I would not give him your credit card or else you're going to see some charges at Zuni very soon in San Francisco. Like big charges. Oh, that restaurant? That's a name from the past. I went there for brunch in like 1997. It's still there, my friend.

It's the best. Oh, no. Trust me. My credit card has shown up on much worse places. Just so you know. Favorite restaurant. One of the favorite restaurants in San Francisco. It's really wonderful.

For a special night out with your loved one. I'll take you there, Scott. You always are promising this stuff. I'm going to use David Sachs' credit card that I stole. No, I didn't steal his credit card. That's a parody. That's a joke. That's a parody.

Just don't impersonate him. Yeah. No, that's not the guy I'd pick. Anyway, so where does this go? Let's be helpful. Where does this go from here? I mean, you're asking like what he should do? Yeah, give me like four things.

What he should do immediately is acknowledge. He's like, you know, I'm used to being in control. I have startups. I just want to apologize for my actions so far today and some of these antics, I've immediately appointed name like, I don't know, Meg Whitman or somebody who is seen as a talented, measured, thoughtful executive. Yeah, she's not right, but go ahead. Well, I don't know if it's Meg. You know what I'm saying, right? And I put together an advisory.

I've put together a board of directors. He's saying his tweet for independent minded voters. He's basically saying excess control is a bad thing. I agree with him. So, Boss put together a board of directors of people who can help you. It's hard to read the label from inside of the bottle. And he's got this bottle that all he sees is reflections of himself. Yeah.

And so, I think he could do that. Move to a subscription model based on surplus value. Immediately roll back the shadow banning and the blue check thing. There's a lot to be. The payments idea is a really good one. No, it's not fresh and new. The bringing back Vine is a good one. They got a lot of, the people who built it are like, this is real old code, but go ahead.

But the idea of short form video, I mean, I like their idea of experimenting and getting things going. Get rid of the right wing billionaire glory hole sycophant bullying weirdos that you've brought in. Those are not the people that they're going to make this worse. It's like, okay, I'm bringing in Jeffrey Dahmer for my leadership course on ethics. I mean, come on. There's a lot he could do here. Unfortunately, I'm not sure. Kara, I mean, it's, you know, you always overestimate the gravity of a situation when you're in it.

I'm beginning to think he's like totally jumped the shark here around this. Well, yes, he's Fonzie. Let's call him Fonzie from now on. But here's the thing. I think he'll get carried by bankers and other Silicon Valley bros, just like that note. No one's going to say nothing. I think that's what's happening here is they will not tell him. They will not. I don't live there anymore. He's not speaking to me now, although he did ask me for suggestions four weeks ago. Like, would you help? I was like, sure. I love Twitter. But here's the thing what people don't realize. I mean, he'll always be fine. Tesla could go down 80% from here. If Meta's down 80%, you don't think Tesla can go down 80%? Yeah. We don't know what he's levered it against.

He's just lost $30 billion. They'll still lift him up. They'll still. These people literally log roll in our time like you cannot believe. And part of it is good. Like, hey, failure is not the worst thing. I think they will stick with him. No, no, no with it. They are terrified. They'll stick with them. They'll stick with them. And these are fake friends, Kara. If I fucked up, I genuinely believe if I fucked up, you would come to my aid. And this

is a definition of a friend. A friend is... Well, what did you do? Okay. All right. Go ahead. Anyways. Okay. So we're not friends. Anyways- No, but you know what I mean. You know I put my son in jail, as you know, but go ahead. I believe when you're killing it and when you're doing well, you don't need friends. When you need friends is when you fuck up. Yeah.

And the moment this guy, his stock goes, Tesla goes to 30 bucks a share, which it could. The moment it comes out, he's in real financial trouble. He's overextended. The moment it comes out, the Twitter is basically being seized by its creditors. A lot of those people you think are holding him up, they are the definition of fair weather friends. Well, we'll see. And I just don't. They don't know.

Every person, there is nobody in this world that is not subject and vulnerable to an enormous fall. And unless you realize that, you become more and more vulnerable to a fall. The key to maintaining excellence and being a good citizen is to, one, realize how fortunate you are and also realize that you are not immune from bad decisions and bad luck. And this guy has decided that he got a vaccination against bad luck or anything bad happening to him. I have never seen someone more ripe for a fall. We always like to reverse engineer this to advise to young people. Yeah.

You are never more vulnerable to making a really bad decision or having something go really wrong as you are after a big win. When you pick a stock and it triples, don't fall into the trap of believing that it's your talent and investment genius. Because what happens is you increase your risk appetite.

And the thing about luck and good fortune across the universe is it's perfectly symmetrical. There is as much bad luck as there is good luck. And if you've killed it for whatever reason at work or in relationships or financially, it means you've had some good luck. Now, these people don't think luck has anything to do with it. It has a lot sometimes most of of it's a determining factor. I would agree. So when you've had some good luck as evidenced by your financial, your relationships, you dial in, you bring in your horns. And this is the hard part. This is the hard part. When you have a relationship that doesn't work out, when you have a business that fails, when you have investments that go bad, that is the time to do whatever is required to

look into the mirror and say, I have value. I am very good at what I do, and I'm stepping right back up to the fucking plate. I'm going to tell you, not going to happen here. Well, hold on. I'm ranting. All right, rant. Finish. I'm going to go.

I'm going to ask someone out on a date. I'm going to go and try and raise even more money for my next startup. I'm going to be more generous and more confident than I've ever been. You want to, if you can, just at the point where you think you're killing it and you're a genius,

that's when you pull in your horns and you move to safer investments and you become very grateful. And when you get beamed in the fucking face professionally, personally, financially, do whatever is required to dust off your pants and get up and think, OK, this means I'm due for a glance, a grand slam right now. And this guy, he has he's told my sense is he's totally blind to the reality of what's going on around him. I think that is being generous. I think he knows exactly what he's doing, and he knows he will be held aloft by all these people.

But what do you think his strategy is here? Why is he doing these things? I don't, because it pleases him, because he feels like it, because he's angry. I don't know. His dad didn't hug him enough. You know, he has a lot of people. He has people around him. He gets rid of people who say no or who disagree.

You know I think this guy's a visionary. You know it. I've said it over and over and over again. But anyone who disagrees with him, who is supportive of him, if you disagree with him, you're out. And that is the way it goes. And I think there's plenty of suck-ups in Silicon Valley. They're the worst of tech. I can't even tell you over the years.

suck-ups in Silicon Valley. They're the worst of tech. I can't even tell you over the years, so many suck-ups. And they make it so hard for any of these people to learn because they never pay a price. They never for a second pay any real price that matters that other people do. People pay that all the time. They don't live in the real world. They live in their cashmere planes, blah, blah, blah. And everyone says they're smart. I just don't think they'll ever pay a price. Their feet never touch the ground. So Sundar Pichai and Jeff Bezos for the last 10 years have been saying, thank God for that Mark Zuckerberg guy. And for the first time, Mark Zuckerberg's like, thank God for that Elon Musk guy. Who knew Mark Zuckerberg was so, relatively speaking, thoughtful and measured? Doesn't he look better than he's ever looked right now? He does, but, and he'd never, let me just say, you can, I have had lots of beefs with Mark over his business stuff, but he'd never behave like this. He's been well-raised by his parents. I'm sorry, he really has.

Oh, he'd never punch down like this. This is like, he'd never do it. I mean, there's like inconsistencies big and small here. He says he wants this to be a free speech platform and said that he wants it to be a place for everyone, including those who offend me. And then he blocks AOC. Yeah. I mean, none of this makes any sense. No, none of it makes sense. We'll see where you're going next, but Scott, we need to move on to the next story. Let's talk about the L word, layoffs. This week, speaking of layoffs, has been a bloodbath for tech. Lyft cut 700 employees,

Stripe cut 1,000, which is 14% of its workforce. And let me just say, Patrick Collison, well, it's hard, but you did a classy job of doing it. Opendoor, your favorite company, laid off 550 people. That was a joke. It's not your favorite company. And the list goes on. Meta is expecting to announce massive layoffs as soon as Wednesday. Numbers could be in the thousands, according to the Wall Street Journal. It's an opportunity for these people to do that. They did overhire when they could have. I see why they did. Is this an indicator that rate hikes are working to slow down inflation? How long will it last? You're the one that called this the Patagonia layoff. What do you think? What does it say? Yeah, who would have thunk it? We said six months ago this was going to be the Patagonia best recession. And it's at a very basic level.

A growth company, its stock price is a function of these future envisioned cash flows, right? Reverse engineered or discounted back. And when they're discounted back at 6% versus 2%, those future cash flows are worth much less. And in order to invest in growth, they got to raise money, which becomes more expensive. So, financing the company is more expensive to obtain future cash flows, which are worth less money. And the fulcrum of that increased expense and decrease in value is the share price. Now, having said that, I mean, everyone's obsessed over Elon and his antics around laying off 3,750 people or half of Twitter's workforce.

Right. That is going to be, you know, brunch a la con de verde. It's going to be so nice compared to what's about to happen at Meta. Yeah. Since the pandemic began, Meta has hired 40,000 people. That's a lot. And if you look at, very crudely speaking, what's happened in the economy around the growthy part, it's just regressed to where it was pre-pandemic. Yeah.

Viewership, stock prices, usage, spending has just kind of corrected back to where it was pre-pandemic, which means that Meta may, I'm even going to say likely, is not going to lay off 3,750 people. It's going to lay off 37,000. Oh, that would be a lot. The interesting thing will be if they lay them off, the stock's going to go up. But if they lay them off in reality labs, the stock's going to skyrocket. Yeah, people don't like that. Any indication that this guy is about to sober up from his grande venti ayahuasca big gulp trip around the metaverse, the market's going to go crazy.

the metaverse, the market's going to go crazy. Because if he cuts a dollar in different parts of the company, he probably loses 30, 50, 70 cents of revenue because those people were doing something. If he cuts a dollar out of reality labs, he gets 99 cents flows to the bottom line. So you're just seeing the beginning. It'll be interesting to see if he backs off. He probably shouldn't have spent, why didn't he spend a little amount? That was interesting to me. Say more? He bet the farm here. It's a bet the farm thing, which I sort of admire.

Like, I'm going for this because I can. Like, it's sort of, it's interesting. Yeah, but generally speaking, the way you do it is you test things. Yeah. And then you do, you constantly put into place metrics and then you pour billions of gallons of gasoline when you see what's going on.

Do you know how much testing of voice that Amazon is doing? Yeah, I'm just trying to think of who has done this bet the farm kind of thing. Jobs certainly didn't. There was never a bet the farm on anything. I don't think iPhone was a very slow roll. I'm trying to think of if there's been a bet the farm. I mean, keep in mind, Horizon World has about the same traffic right now as MySpace. Yeah.

Or half the traffic of MySpace. I mean, it's a total disaster. Yeah. It's a total disaster. So, but they are cutting. It's super easy. If you were to predict layoffs, it's super easy. And I've done this.

Just look at SG&A growth since the pandemic grew or since the pandemic hit and look at revenue growth. And what you generally find is a place like Opendoor. I mean, so I just want to say CNBC plays a role here. When Keith Rabau went on CNBC and just started lying, the stock's off about 40% since then. A company like Opendoor could end up playing off everybody. That company could go out of business in a hostile real estate market. Yeah, the market's really melting down. The market's really melting. Yeah, and the market smells. He'll blame Biden. That company could go out of business in a hostile real estate market. It's melting down. The market's really melting.

Yeah, and the market smells. He'll blame Biden. That's what he'll do. It's Biden. The market's beginning to smell a death rattle around Opendoor. Meta is an amazing company.

It's a cash volcano. It will endure for at least a decade. What they're looking for there is one word. They're looking for sanity. They're looking for an adult in the room.

Yeah, stop with the metaverse stuff. Okay, so layoffs, FYI. A site that tracks tech startup layoffs says that 88 tech companies cut 12,000 workers in October and at least another 3,500 have been let go this month. That doesn't include Twitter layoffs. I think it's also, again, a very good time to start a company. I think it's a really – This is when the Googles of the world came to be, Facebook, all these companies came to be in these times when people are just thrown out and had to

live by their own wits. Is there hope for these workers? I think there's new companies to be formed. I think you're going to have to take the risks that got you where you got to in the first place. Yeah, I do think all you Twitter people, I bet there's all kinds of great ideas bubbling up. I hope there are. Yeah, it's a function of expectations. And the problem with, it depends on who you are. And my friends who've had the most difficult time after layoffs or after retiring or whatever you want to call it, have what I call just the wrong amount of money. And that is they have enough money where they don't have to do anything, but they don't have enough money where they can do nothing.

And that is they have enough money and they've had such an outstanding career to that point where their bar is really high. And generally speaking, any opportunity you get is probably not gonna be perfect. And what happens is time goes fast and you're out of work six months, you're out of work 12 months you're out of work 12 months

and I'll tell you when you're not training every day in the workplace your muscles atrophy a recession if we're heading into one is a fantastic time to start a company there's clearly a new generation or a new wave of technology we don't even know what it is

but it's going to bubble up it's a great time to find two or three talented people from that company try and raise a little bit of money you know cut your costs a little bit rethink your life like do I is this a good time to find two or three talented people from that company, try and raise a little bit of money, you know, cut your costs a little bit, rethink your life. Like, is this a good time to move, to be closer to our parents, to have better quality of life? You know, these are great moments to sort of say, what do I want to do? But what you got to do is you got to do something.

Don't say, oh, I'm just going to wait for the perfect thing because it usually doesn't roll around. Yep. I agree. I agree. But you know who's not getting laid off? You and me because Elon Musk is helping us. Oh, my gosh. We're bigger than ever. Thanks, Daddy. You look good, Elon. Let me tell you, keep going. Keep at it. We're MSNBC in the midst of the Trump administration. We are. Sorry, Kathy Griffin, but we'll have you on. You can talk about it. That's even better. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll unpack some big changes to cable news and we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Matt Stoller, about breaking up big companies. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see?

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Matt Stoller is the Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project and the publisher of the Substack Big, which focuses on the politics of monopoly and market power. Welcome, Matt Stoller. Hey, thanks for having me. So you're a very good tweeter, by the way. I don't know how long you're going to last there, but we'll see. How would you describe this moment in antitrust regulation? Because we just talked about layoffs, these companies getting smaller, very big contraction in the tech space. Reigning in big tech has been one of the biggest topics, but the big tech is sort of littler tech. So they haven't passed anything. Lena Kahn hasn't racked up a big win. So give me the landscape right now, especially with the recent declines. Yeah, so it's going to sound counterintuitive, but we are in one of the most extraordinary pivots in U.S. economic history. It's certainly the biggest that we've ever seen in our lifetimes.

And I can go into some details, but the policy is kind of like the tectonic plates of business behavior. And it's not a coincidence that Facebook is falling apart at the same time as there has been regulatory scrutiny on the firm since 2018. And there are two antitrust suits against them. And there are reasons why Zuckerberg is having real trouble expanding. And that largely has to do with the fact that he can't engage in the same behavior that led him to build Facebook, which is monopolization. So for example, he was not able to implement Libra, right? His attempt to create his own currency and get into the payment system. And that was because regulators stopped him from doing that. And he hasn't been able to make any significant acquisitions. And that is,

again, because of regulatory scrutiny. The third thing is that in 2018, Apple decided that they wanted to sort of stay out of the regulatory crosshairs. So they kind of got rid of their tacit alliance with Facebook and said, we are going to implement a privacy protection frame. And they attacked Facebook. And so what we're seeing, and this is sort of writ broadly, the kind of tacit market allocation agreements among the big five fell apart. And now they're starting to compete with one another.

The mapping one's still there. The mapping one with Google is still there. Let me ask, because that was the whole people, when you say Microsoft, the Microsoft trial way back when didn't really work. Well, it slowed them down. I just was working on my book and I talked about, well, it didn't work, but it certainly slowed them down and opened the gates for Google, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That is absolutely true, is that they were much more careful about their behavior. But in terms of having to do anything now, is there really a need to do it given Facebook isn't worth that much anymore? They're not powerful in the same way. Now,

Apple certainly still is, even with the declines that they've had. How do you get the energy moving forward when these companies are about to lay off massive amounts of people at Meta, for example? Yeah. I mean, there's still significant monopolization problems there. And, you know, you can, you know, there's a lot of ways to look at that. But let's, let me just observe something that happened today, which is Airbnb CEO, Brian Chesky announced that they are going to let users search by total price to avoid hidden cleaning fees, right? Now, you would think, he said, we listen to customers, and that's what we decided to do. It wasn't just cleaning. No, it was hidden fees,

but he has to fix the cleaning fees, too. That's separate. I did a big interview with him recently on the cleaning fees. I was hitting him over the head with the cleaning fee problem. Go ahead. Well, so the scrutiny that you bring to bear is mirrored by the scrutiny that regulators are bringing to bear. So Biden gave a big speech on junk fees, and Lena Kahn at the FTC has started rulemaking around that. And so this is a response to policy. He frames it as a response to customers, but it's a response to scrutiny that you bring to bear and then policymakers bring to bear. And so what you're seeing, and like with Facebook and their change in behavior, you're seeing significant shifts in market, in how markets are functioning. Now, Facebook is still, you know, it's still a massive company, right?

I mean, it still has sucked up huge amounts of revenue and is starving the free press. So if you actually address the monopolization of online advertising, which is both a Google and Facebook problem, you will see a flourishing of local press. So Australia has done some of this. There is some pending legislation to actually make that happen. And so we have this extraordinary opportunity to start rebuilding the civic infrastructure of this country. And though, you know, Facebook is only, you know, quote, only a 200, $300 billion market cap company, it still is monopolizing, it still has immense power. And so we really do need to address the kind of toxic business model at the heart of what they're doing. That's what policymakers are doing.

And we're turning around a 40 year ship, it's happening, it's happening extraordinarily quickly. It's just that it's not the kind of thing that people necessarily see because neither party is able to kind of frame it correctly. No one's saying this is the center of our politics, but certainly the center of what you guys talk about. And I think if you look into the policy details, what you'll find is that what these firms are doing, and it's not just big tech, it's across the economy, like private equity and a whole bunch of other areas. They are responding to a changed regulatory environment. nor exonerate them from antitrust scrutiny. That there is antitrust scrutiny on companies that are worth tens of millions, much less 275 billion. There seems to be this false narrative that, oh, the market took care of it.

We don't need to worry about it any longer. Your thoughts? Yeah. And I think one of the things you've pointed out is that when you break up companies, their stock prices tend to go up, right? So you pointed out that if you spin off, say, YouTube from Google, you spin off Instagram from Facebook, that market cap would go up. It wouldn't necessarily mean that their market power would go up. It just would mean that Mark Zuckerberg could only ruin one company instead of three. So I think you're right. I think conflating market capitalization

with market power is wrong. Monopolies aren't necessarily good for market capitalization. They can be, but they can also be bad when you have a sort of an empire builder, which is, one of the points that you guys make a lot. So just to follow up on that, am I being unfair? I think Lena Khan's administration so far has been a thud. I keep waiting for what I'll call an iconic moment or a shot across the bow of these companies, and I haven't seen it. Is that unfair? because what you have is the antitrust division and the Federal Trade Commission, and they kind of share anti-monopoly responsibilities. And then you have a whole of government frame as well. And so the FTC looks at Facebook and Amazon. The DOJ looks at Google and Apple. That's John Cantor. Yeah, Jonathan Cantor. That's right. And they collaborate. And they are investigating

all of these companies where they have antitrust suits against them. So Google, for example, a couple of years ago had no antitrust cases against them. Today, at a state and federal level, they have five cases against them. And I think you see with Facebook, they have two antitrust cases against them. And then you're seeing investigations of Amazon, Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy just lost emotion. They didn't want to get deposed by the FTC. They will now be deposed FTC. Then you have the consumer protection side where the FTC is looking at Amazon Prime and dark patterns. And what you're seeing, as I mentioned with the Airbnb change, is that there has been changes in market behavior. Another example would be right to repair, which is a movement that's been going on for quite some time. This is an executive order. Biden put an executive order in. That's right. And the FCC did reports and they've started to do investigations and bring cases.

And Apple, you know, oh, you know, lo and behold, they redesigned their iPhone to make it more repairable, right? That's not like an iconic moment. And I think you're right that there hasn't been an iconic moment like the one that happened, I believe, last week, which is when Penguin Random House lost its bid to buy Simon & Schuster. But this stuff is coming, right? Like there's a lot of what I call torpedoes in the water. And they were kind of in that moment before they've exploded. All right. But mention the others, because you mentioned Penguin, the Simon & Schuster, but the judge temporarily halted the Albertson-Kroger deal. You know, it looks like it's happening in other places. Aren't they being heavy-handed with the wrong people, Matt?

Yeah. Just to tag on to Kara's question here. Well, I don't appreciate you interrupting my narrative with facts. People do that to me all the time. It's a pain in the ass. I agree. No, I mean, I don't think so. So they've gone after Walmart for facilitating fraud through wire transfers. They're addressing, you know, monopolization in the pesticide industry. You know, this is like they're going into interlocking directorates across, you know, private equity firms and cybersecurity portfolio companies of Tamar Bravo.

This is a whole economy of consolidated power. And so, you know, if you take like Penguin, Simon & Schuster, right, which is a significant way to block a merger. It's the first time anyone's blocked a merger on basically labor grounds, right? They're saying they're going to be screwing authors. Well, this has significant impacts in terms of a precedent for consolidation in Hollywood. So now if Apple may want to buy Netflix, they have to overcome the precedent of Penguin and Simon & Schuster saying, well, they couldn't get their merger through because they were trying to screw authors. We're going to have to overcome that hurdle as well. So it's going to put up one more hurdle. And then I'd also mentioned, I think, Microsoft Activision, which is, you know, which is under investigation. It's been under investigation for a while. You have a bunch of acquisitions like Amazon One Medical. They've been under investigation for all

these investigations take time. So it's like people see Amazon MGMGM too, correct? You know, that one went through, right? I mean, they looked at it. They looked at it. They gave it a look-see. But to Matt's point, it's typically not antitrust. It changes the marketplace. It's scrutiny of potential antitrust action. It's sort of what the algebra of deterrence is supposed to do.

And I recognize you don't get to make these decisions, but isn't it sort of, I mean, I'll call it just disappointing. All right, they decide that Penguin can't buy Simon & Schuster, Albertsons & Kroger's or whoever it is can't merge. But the two largest search engines, YouTube and Google, run unfettered. The company that has 50% e-commerce share also owns the largest cloud company. Any Commerce Share also owns the largest cloud company. I mean, it just feels like we're sort of, I mean, are we flipping people and working our way up to the CEO or to the don, if you will? Well, I mean, talk to anyone in any area of the economy and they will say the same thing. They'll be like, you know, talk to an independent pharmacist and they'll be like, you have no

idea how bad it is, right? And they'll say a pharmacy benefit manager is exactly like Amazon. Or you talk to, you know, a cattle rancher. That's what Mark Cuban talks about. it is, right? And they'll say, a pharmacy benefit manager is exactly like Amazon, or you talk to, you know, a cattle rancher. Big chicken, right? And what you're seeing is, you don't restructure the economy, and we shouldn't restructure the economy instantly, right? You have to work through the courts, you have to actually, you know, resurrect dormant areas of law. And I can get into the weeds with some of the things that they're doing, like they resurrected the interlocking directorates part of the Clayton Act. They also brought back, you know, I think last month, a provision of law, which bans exclusive

dealing arrangements when they're unfair. And that has to do with pesticides. But it can be used in lots of other areas. And it facilitates state-level action and private rights of action. So this is the kind of thing that citizens can actually start bringing cases once the agencies make this dormant law good again. And what we're going to see as they bring back the law and as they sort of toss enough at the courts and judges eventually start letting this stuff go through, that over the next 15 years, we are really going to clean up this economy and make it competitive and open and fair again. And I'm like extraordinarily excited about that, but it's just hard to explain because everything seems like such a bummer and the forces we're fighting, the companies we're fighting seem so overwhelmingly powerful. But we are actually

winning this fight. It's just that it takes a while, right? It takes a while for people to notice and develop new language. Let me ask my final question. The whole thing in tech is that, well, two things, actually. One is that regulation impedes innovation. We've heard that one a million times. I have heard that a million times. And the balance of powers might change in Washington today. What does it look like under a Republican Congress? Yeah, so first of all, I would say in terms of regulation, I mean, the idea of deregulation, it doesn't make sense, right? Someone is always imposing rules.

One of the reasons people are so mad about Elon Musk taking over Twitter is because he is effectively adopting a public rule-setting role. And that's inappropriate. It's the same thing with Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Like, why are we all begging him to set the rules for our elections? Like, that's crazy. We should, you know, 20, you know, maybe 40 years ago, we would have been doing this through public institutions. So the idea of deregulation is really a myth. It's just that we're choosing who regulates. Is it these private governments we call monopolies? Or is it, you know, democratic governments through regulatory bodies and antitrust enforcers? So that's how I put the first one on there. And the second one is, I think if the Republicans win, as it looks like they probably will, what you're going to see are two things. You're going to see a lot of investigations to try to torture the antitrust enforcers and regulatory enforcers. Like, you know, there are others like Rohit Chopra at the CFPB who's looking into big tech and payments. And, you know, there's going to be a lot of push

back there. But what you're also going to see is a fight within the Republican Party, because there are a bunch of Republicans that don't like monopolies. And that problem is kind of disguised. And so when is that debate going to look like that? I'm not totally sure. I don't think they're totally sure, but it's going to be like really weird. I have heard Kevin McCarthy's been visiting the tech companies and asking for money. So that's where I see it going. there was a really important vote that not that many people noticed, but it was a vote to strengthen antitrust law. And it passed with about 200 Democratic votes, which is not a majority, but they had 39 Republicans on board as well. And those 39 Republicans defied a full whip operation from the Republican leadership to vote with the Democrats to pass stronger antitrust action. And that's the like- Yeah, like the 10 bucks of the world, the 10 bucks of the world. And there were there were a bunch of others, but the Heritage

Foundation, which if you are like follow DC politics, like the Heritage Foundation came out for these bills. And that is just mind blowing to have the Heritage Foundation, which is like the center of Reagan republicanism saying, we need to deal with corporate power. So these changes are fundamentally weird and interesting and they're happening on both sides. And that's what makes me really excited about this moment. Right. In my area, obviously, there are other parts of politics. Matt, what is the most egregious example of monopoly abuse? Who would you break up if you could break up one company? You get one, Matt.

Who would you break up? If you could break up one company, who would it be? You get one, Matt. Well, OK, so what's on my mind is the story about how Amazon was sending suicide kits to teenagers. And what they would do is they would look for a specific chemical that would help them commit suicide. And it would say, you like this chemical. People who bought this chemical also bought this guide to killing themselves and this other bunch you know, bunch of other things. And like, they just wouldn't stop, they wouldn't take that down. And so I'm like, looking at that, I'm like, that's just horrific. So I would, I'd probably address Amazon, but you know, tomorrow, it might be Google, or Facebook or something like that. But that one is just that just sort of stuck with me.

Yeah, you can't touch Elon. It's a private company. Anyway, you can't touch that. Don't want to touch that. Anyway, you can find Matt on Twitter at Matthew Stoller and subscribe to his newsletter, Big on Substack. Thank you, Matt. Hey, thanks, guys. Keep fighting the good fight, my brother. We're rooting for you. You too. All right, Scott, that was great. Let's take a look through some of the other headlines in the news. Some of cable's TV talking heads got taken to the river this weekend. NBC abruptly cut ties with weekend anchor Tiffany Cross. Variety reports that NBC executives may not have been happy with some of her outspoken commentary. Cross has been the target of Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly,

who accused her of discrimination against white people. Also, Shepard Smith is leaving CNBC at the end of the month. The network canceled his show and will replace it with a markets coverage. There's also the stuff that's happening at Warner and the cuts that Chris licked at CNN is going to have to be making lots and lots of cuts. What do you think's happening here? I don't think this is about them. And I think they should realize that their partisanship or their opinions are likely where they got to where they were. The reason they got laid off is because everybody's looking for an excuse to cut costs now. Because, again, Chris Licht or whoever it was or whoever's in charge of MSNBC didn't fire them.

TikTok did. And that is every day the ecosystem loses more ad-supported revenue. And so everybody is looking for an excuse to cut costs. So this is, I mean, literally the anchors of cable-supported news, they make a good living. They get tables at restaurants. People recognize them on the street. But they're pilots of a 747 for Pan Am Airlines in the early 70s. And that is, you're the bomb now, but boss, your job's going away.

Think about what's going to happen to ad-supported cable when not only do you have TikTok, but Apple and Netflix and Hulu are about to start calling on your advertisers and saying, don't advertise on MSNBC or CNN. Advertise against Ted Lasso or Euphoria? I mean, you're going to see a lot of stories claiming that so-and-so was fired. They're going to say, oh, so-and-so was fired for his or her comments. No, the media is just trying to find something, an excuse for you to click on the story. They're getting fired because the ecosystem is losing its oxygen. Yeah. And also also if it was a Rachel Maddow-like character who brings in a lot of stuff, they'd support it. She'll be fine. She'll be fine.

I don't think it's a right word shift. I do think that you have to have listeners. You do. You do have to have audience. You have to attract audience. I don't think Shepard's show, even though he was a critic of Trump, was working very well. I don't think that, you know, I just, and it's very tolerated on the right. They like that. That's what that audience likes,

all that screamery. And that's why it's popular. But there's a learning here again, and it goes back to our earlier comments. Sure. It's so easy to believe when you're an anchor, when you're a star writer, it's me. No, you've got to acknowledge that the moons have lined up, the platform, the audience, the vibe, your producers, your hair and makeup, your time slot, everything has come together to create magic. And when you leave a platform, when you're McLean Stevenson and decide, you know, I've enjoyed MASH, but I'm meant to be a TV star. When you're Shelley Long that says, my star is bigger than Cheers, guess what? It usually isn't. And when the moon's- Wow, you're really going way back in time for that. Wow. Money Pit was an underrated film. True Beverly Hills, underrated film. Kids, MASH, and Cheers were shows we enjoyed as young people.

You don't watch those anymore. Woody Harrelson is the one that really came out of the gate strong there. Yes, he did. I love that Woody Harrelson. He's a fantastic actor. He really is. Anyways, you don't, again, realize that a lot of your success is not your fault. Yeah.

It's not your fault. Yeah. And look around you and look at all the amazing things that have come together for your success and appreciate them and be very thoughtful before you start believing that it's all about you. Yeah. I just don't think the audience wants to listen to that. I do. I do. And by the way, these companies will provide whatever audience wants. And again, if there was this Rachel Maddow too, say a lesbian with good hair like myself, and it worked,

they would give me a pile of money if it worked. That's the way it is. I don't know if this particular audience gets so rabid the way the Fox audience is rabid. And so that's one of the big problems. It's not a rabid audience. It's not. And you can't get them to.

You know what you can tell about Rachel Maddow, in addition to being really talented? If you just listen to her show, she clearly works her ass off. She works her ass off. She does so much homework. The lesbians do their homework. The lesbians do their homework. They try really hard. We're doing identity politics again? Yes, we are. The lesbians are very hard workers. I don't see sexual orientation, Kara, unless it's on Cinemax. Hello, or OnlyFans. All right, whatever. Lesbians make it happen. You got a plumbing problem or

a cable show, we are good at making it. I am not going to take the plumbing problem bait around these jokes here. I'm just not going to go there. In any case, we don't think it's a rightward shift. I think, you know what it is? It's, guess what? David Zasloff is now being called the butcher because he needs to cut costs. They fire Brian Stelter

and that's their big shift to the middle? Come on. Yeah, it's just big. If he was popular, they'd keep him. The only person in the middle on CNN is Michael Smirconish. No, no, that's not true. In any case, they'll do what works. That's what they'll do.

And they have a lot of costs to cut. David Zaslav is getting, he was all friend of Hollywood, now he's cutting all the content creators and the budgets and everything else, starting with a whole bunch of Batgirl or whatever. He's now not so pleasing to the Hollywood people. They just like money. And he'll give it back to them.

It's a capitalist society. That's what they're supposed to do. But nonetheless, we do not agree with this, although we're sorry to see you go. But come up with something people want to watch. Anyway. I like Shepard. Don't you like Shepard? We should have him on as a guest.

I like Shep. I like him very much. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, there's been a long show, but deservedly so. Wins and fails. Well, mine's going to be the same thing here. My fail is going to be something around Twitter or Elon.

I think we've killed that. My win, I just wanted to take a moment to recognize a guy named Mark Bingham. And Mark was born to a, raised by a single mother. He was captain of his high school rugby team in Los Gatos, played for the Cal Bears on the rugby team, and then started a PR firm. This story does not end well. He ended up on that ill-fated flight 93. Oh, dear. But he was one of the individuals.

He was 6'4", super impressive young man, 6'4", 220 pounds, president of the Kai Sai fraternity at Berkeley. I knew some Kai Sais, good guys. He came out as gay soon after graduating from college, which couldn't have been easy for a guy who had built his life around sports in 1996, I think. So was immediately seen as sort of a leader and sort of punctured some of those stereotypes around what it means to be gay and ended up on that ill-fated flight. And then when the terrorists commandeered the cockpit, there were only four people in business class and 27 in coach. They started making calls. Remember back when these planes had phones on them? And they found out what had happened, that the planes had already struck the Twin Towers. So they knew they were doomed. Anyways,

they ended up deciding to, they knew what was going to happen. They ended up deciding to ram the door to the cockpit. They retook the cockpit and then basically the plane crashed into a Pennsylvania field. But it was 20 minutes from its designated target, which is believed to be the Capitol. So these guys were legitimately the first, these guys and gals were the first heroes of 9-11. And I love the story about it, or the most inspiring part of the story, is these guys are faced with the most terrible decision imaginable, right? I mean, you can imagine how tempting it would have been for them to say, well, maybe they

have different plans and like previous hijackings, we could survive. Faced with just this impossible decision, knowing that if they tried to take the cockpit, that almost meant imminent death. And you know how they made that decision? How? They voted. Voted. Oh, I see where we're going. Voting is, voting says you are human.

It says you live in a democratic society. In my view, and I get shit for that because I think masculinity is a wonderful thing. And I think it's an attribute shared by both people born as women and born as men. When you vote, I think it demonstrates concern for others. And so it's not an obligation. It's something wonderful. It's a right. It's something. Yes. It's something that makes you feel strong and everyone can bask in that strength where they're helping others. So I like to remember Mark Bingham and I like to remember, I think it's just fascinating.

Oh, you're crying again. That's how they decided, and I'm not going to cry today. That's how they decided to make the most important decision of their life. They got all 31 people together and they voted. They voted. Vote. So vote, people. That's right. Vote. I was going to make my win 1883 again because I love it. And there's 1923 coming. I love this whole Taylor Sheridan, whatever. I got a text from Sherry Redstone. She's like, I hear you like our shows. And I'm like, I love your shows. Same, Maura. Is this a gay thing? Is this the L word? What is this? I got a text from Sherry Redstone. She's like, I hear you like our shows. And I'm like, I love your shows. Same aura. Is this a gay thing?

Is this the L word? What is this? It's a show called Yellowstone on Paramount. It's one of the big hits there. They're actually making some great shows over there. It's called 1883? No, first it's Yellowstone with Kevin Costner. It's fantastic.

But 1883 is another show that's a spinoff, which was how they got to wear Yellowstone. And it's all the prairie people. This is not a pretty view of settlers at the same time. is another show that's a spinoff, which was how they got to Yellowstone. And it's all the prairie people. This is not a pretty view of settlers at the same time, but it's a great show. And there's going to be 1923 with Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford? Yes, they've gotten the most amazing people.

And Helen Mirren are in 1923. I love this show, but I was going to make that that. I recommend it to everybody. I love that. I don't like going to make that that. I recommend it to everybody. I love that. I don't like Yellowstone as much as 1883, and I'm excited for 1923, which is the next show. And it was just great. Just watch it, Scott. You'll be so happy after watching it.

But I wanted to actually, the win is, I don't have a fail today. We know what the fail is, this ridiculous clown car that Elon's driving all around and being an asshole. The win, I have to say, are my kids. Again, I had a great discussion with my son Alex this morning about democracy, about he's worried about the failures, he's making arguments about it. We had a great, great discussion. I wouldn't say he's hopeless, but he's definitely concerned. But he's really trying really hard to understand historically where we are, etc. It's very, it's very, I feel very good about the kids today. I really do. And not just my kids, but lots of kids. And I just feel like he's, he and my kids are really, they're thinking hard about these things, about voting. They're all

going to vote. We're going to register and vote. He turns 18 for the next election. So I was very pleased with that. Like, even despite they are very disheartened about the way we've left the world, about everything else, they're still continuing to think about it. I really find that it's the same. It's a similar thing around voting. And then my littlest, Saul, now walks around almost close to walking and he makes it upstairs. And I just, it's such a great thing to see people continuing to push through despite all kinds of things. It's what it's such a great thing to see people continuing to push through uh despite all kinds of things it's it's what it's all about anyway vote that's what we said yesterday i printed out my absentee ballot i'm in yeah i'm in london by the way they don't make it easy just

you know and i thought it'd be fun with my boys and my boys are literally america i have the older one who's very sensitive and woke and just immediately goes to the woke so it's like well how would this help other people? And my younger one is going, he's literally like, how does that get us more money? Everything. Any bond issues. Like, do we get more money if we vote for yes or no for that? And I'm like, it's America.

I have raised Americans. You've raised America. Well, anyway, everybody vote, whatever your point of view. We like to hear different points of view. Scott and I are surprisingly open to listen to lots of different. We don't agree with each other a lot of the time. Anyway, we We like to hear different points of view. Scott and I are surprisingly open to listen to lots of different. We don't agree with each other a lot of the time. Anyway, we also want to hear from you.

Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Scott, that is our mega show here. We'll be back on Friday for more. I'm sure we'll get more content.

Again, thanks, Elon. You're keeping us from being laid off. Yeah, the gift that keeps on giving. Seriously. Thank you. Anyway, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertide engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mille Saverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. There is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with what's right with America. Vote.