Pivot - Personal Investment Strategies, Effective Public Policies and Should We Tax AI?

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

Kara and Scott take questions from listeners about how they manage their money, how to fix the American tax system, and which public policy would help the greatest number of people.  Plus…all the audience suggestions for Kara’s next tattoo. Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm spending money like a 50s gangster just diagnosed with ass cancer. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Sky Galloway. And, Scott, this is our end-of-the-year listener mail episode. We're probably both elsewhere doing fun things. But are you ready to hear some emails and voicemails from our lovely listeners, who, by the way, we have a full new appreciation for after meeting so many of them on our pivot live tour.

I really enjoyed that. Are you ready? Yeah. Yeah, ready. Okay. Okay, Scott, let's kick off with a question about taxing AI. Let's listen. Hi, this is Lynn.

I've been wondering, as artificial intelligence continues to replace human jobs, do you think we'll ever see attacks on AI itself or on the companies that use it as a way to offset its impact on displaced workers? And would that, in a sense, become a new way of taxing the rich. Of course, this would affect 401Ks on a larger scale. Thank you. Bye. Gosh, Lynn, what a great question. Actually, I'm going to start.

You know, many years ago, Bill Gates, It was set off a kerfuffle when he talked about taxing robots if they become workers the same way, because you aren't going to get those money that you get from human workers, and so they should be taxed in the same way. I hadn't really thought about it about AI, Scott. I think you're more qualified to answer this. I don't know if that's true. My view around taxation is that the moment you start taxing specific industries,

you weaponize special interest groups to come to their defense, and you also create some confusion around, like, is Oracle AI? You know, if McKin, I mean, at what point, what qualifies as an AI company and not an AI company, is Microsoft an AI company? What I'm a big fan of, and I think that the caller is alluding to, I want to go back to Reagan era taxation, and that is there's no difference between, I think the capital gains tax deduction has nothing but a transfer of wealth from young to old, because somehow we've decided that sweat is less noble than money, and that is the money I make on money gets taxed at a lower

rate than the money that young people make on sweat. So I would like to see an elimination of the capital gains tax deduction and raise those rates to current income and restore a progressive tax structure. In my view, you do it across all income and all firms, because I think the moment you start getting into this notion of, let's put a super tax on this type of firm, I think that's, I think you regulate them. I think you have an EPA, you have a an AI Act, you have privacy, you have laws. But in terms of taxation, I just think you say, look, above a certain level of profitability when you sell a stock, you pay this much in tax. I think taxes need to go up. I think we need to do a way. We need to raise long-term capital

games from 21 to 37 percent. It makes no sense. And I'm paying lower taxes than people actually working for a living. But I think you apply it to every company. Because a lot of, for example, the AI boom is going to make a lot of people in the construction industry very, very rich. It is. That's one people, a group of people that are benefiting. Yeah. Would you tax them, right? Would you text? Oh, my audit. There's so many loopholes right now. The only way we get there is with an AMT. There should be an AMT. Anything above $10 million? And anything above $3 million, you pay a federal AMT of 40%. Yep. Because what happens is guys like me weaponize the tax code and do 1202 and buy assets, and we end up paying high teens and tax rates. Yeah. So the stated, we focus too much on tax rates, not on the tax code, and enough already. There is no reason why someone working for money should be taxed at a higher rate than someone

who is making money from investments. Although I don't see any wrong with taxing robots if they're workers. It's an interesting one. Yeah, yeah, I just, when he said it and I thought, oh, Bill Gates. And I thought, oh, actually, he's really smart. I forgot. Anyway, it's an interesting question. We have to deal with all these things and what happens with displaced workers and how we're going to pay for that or get them different jobs.

So there's going to be a lot of rethinking of all the, the way the workplace is taxed, through how it's conducted, what people get paid, and obviously the damage that some of this AI is going to do. There's going to have to be some mitigation. Okay, Scott, next question. This one is a tough one. Let's listen. Hey, Scott and Kara. I'm Liam, high school senior from New York, and I want to ask the following. America certainly has its fair share of economic and social problems, but a lot of the time, these problems stem from the same causes. Too often, though, our politicians create costly band-aid solutions rather than trying to address the underlying issues. So my question to you

guys is, if you could implement one single policy to try and solve the most problems at once, what would it be? Thanks for taking the time to answer. Wow, that's a great question. I hate that with just one thing. If I'd pick, $25 minimum wage. I like that. Let me explain very quickly, because I think it lists all votes. If people get paid more, they'll spend more, it creates, a better economy. I know there's initial costs for businesses that have these things, but it creates people that can do a living wage. They spend money. They want to do things. They lean into the future. It would be great. The second one would be eight million houses, more housing. But go ahead.

Once a program, one is structural or legislative, I do think a lot of this reverse engineers to, in terms of inability to get things done to Citizens United, if I could overturn Citizens United. I would, I think a lot of our problems stem from the weaponization of Washington by corporate interest and corporate money. Oh, wow. And then. Wow, Bernie Sanders. I like that answer. Well, I mean, it's just true. There's more, there's more full-time lobbyists living in D.C. working for Amazon than there are sitting U.S. senators. But, you know, a close second, mandatory national service, universal child care, lower Medicare eligibility by two years a year for 10 years until three quarters of America as essentially socialized medicine. I could go on and on. Yeah, I love it.

I love that answer. It was not expecting it. Boy, that came out left field there, Scott. All right, Scott, let's take a quick break, and we'll be back with more listener questions. Support for the show comes from Vanta. Startups new fast, and with AI, they're shipping even faster and attracting enterprise buyers sooner. But big deals bring even bigger security and compliance requirements. A sock isn't always enough. The right kind of security can make a deal or break it. But most founders and engineers can't afford to take time away from building their company to focus on that. That's where Vanta comes in. Vanta's AI and automation make it easy for your company to get big deal ready in days. And Vanta says they continuously monitor your compliance so future deals are never

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slash audio. All investing is subject to risk, Vanguard Marketing Corporation distributor. Support for the show comes from Zbiotics. So I drink a little bit less these days. I'm trying to tone down my consumption of alcohol, as I think is a good idea when you get to my age, 50. But when I do pour myself a cocktail, I want to make sure my next day also feels great, or let me say, just to be honest, less bad. And if you want to feel your best in the morning or better in the morning, you could start the night before with Zibiotics. Zbiotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. And according to Zibiotics, here's how it works.

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The next listener wants to know what we're doing with our money. Let's listen. Hi, Scott and Kira. It's Eric from Brooklyn. Scott, you talk a lot about how you spend, how you invest, and I imagine how you save. Eric, you don't, and you come off as maybe a bit more frugal. Can you share a little bit about your investment, spending and saving philosophy and the context in your chair of success? Thank you so much, and I hope we'll see you soon.

Gosh, thanks, Eric, a little personal. I am not, I don't think about money a lot, and that's my problem. I'm not interested in it, and I make a lot of money. I do, especially for a journalist. I'm like Daddy Warbox, a journalist in that regard. But I would say I save a lot. I have a lot of savings and I diversify. I'm sort of your basic person, basic bitch of investing.

I have bonds. I've got quite a bit of real estate that I hold on to. It's forced savings, Scott calls it. I don't spend a lot of money. I really don't. It has nothing to do with me being frugal. I just don't, I don't like buying a lot of stuff. I'm wearing the same, all my clothes I've had for 20 years.

I don't buy a lot of clothes. buy drugs. I don't go out a lot. You don't buy drugs? Where do that come from? Well, no one here buys drugs. Maybe you. I don't buy, like, I don't drink. I don't party. I'm trying to think, like, what costs money. I have a Chevy Bolt, like, and a Kia, so I don't really care about cars. You're the primary breadwinner in a family of four or six people. Yeah. I mean, that in itself is, mommy's got to make real money. Mommy's got to make real money. And so that's spent on the kids. I definitely get them through college. But I did those savings plans. for college, for my boys, and I'm doing them for my little kids. That worked out really well,

actually. I didn't have to think about it. And I did that 20 years ago for my older kids. Anyway, I have a basket of stocks. I've got real estate. I'm very diverse. I have a lot of cash right now. I really do. And I thought for a second of going into Bitcoin, and when Scott said it, and then I thought I don't have the tolerance for it. It's because I need cash around. I have way too much cash compared to what I need, but I like to have it. I'm one of those sort of people. I do spend money on a couple of things. I mean, I always get first class. I fly, well, you know, I don't have a private plane, but I would love to have one, but I'm sorry to say that, people who love to save energy, but I think they're wonderful. And I will upgrade all the time, like upgrade hotels and things like that. So I got old very early, and then I'm like, I didn't want to be in bad food. I didn't want to stay in bad places. I suppose if I spent on anything a lot, it's very, vacations. I really, I do, but I'm still more frugal than Scott. Scott is, I really admire Scott's vacation spending. I don't know. Scott, what do you think? Well, you know, I think a lot about

this. One of my addictions is money, and that is I continue to be too focused on it to the detriment of my mental health, and it takes time away from my family. I grew up with a scarcity of money until, you know, I got through my senior college on top ramen and bananas. That's not an exaggeration. I was in student debt, you know, even at the age of 27, I was not traumatized, but I had a difficult time paying for my mother's health care. So I've been very focused on money and got very lucky and that's not a humble brag. I think I'm a monster. I think I'm talented and hardworking, but I did get lucky and now I am, by most people's standards, wealthy. My approach to spending money is that we don't own money, we rent it. And I also, you collide that with my atheism,

I believe that this is all coming to an end pretty quickly for me. So I spend a great deal of money. I spend between $300,000 and $400,000 a month. I own homes all over the world. I have a plane, and I spend most of my money on homes and experiences. Not gifts for Kara. But along those lines, the way I try and keep in check is I think hoarding money is a virus. When I hit my number eight years ago, I decided anything above that number I would give away.

What I do each year is I look at my total spending and I match it and I give that amount of money away. And it keeps my net worth has not increased in eight years. And because I think hoarding wealth is a virus, there's no reason anybody needs to be a billionaire. But I can't stand it when wealthy people can't, aren't good at spending money. I have an amazing time. Yeah. I do things for my friends and family to get us all together in the same place. I never let money get in the way of a good time.

I'm spending money like a 50s gangster just diagnosed with ass cancer. I think it's a nicer way of putting that. Scott is very generous, let's just say, to employees. Scott's a very generous person. But we don't own money, we rent it. And I'll give my kids some money, but there's no reason why my kids need to inherit tens of millions of dollars.

So I'm going to spend it all on people I love and experiences and take advantage of capitalist society, and I'm also going to give a shit ton of money away to make sure that the things that made me rich are still available for younger people. So I love making money. I love spending it. I stopped making it eight years ago,

and anything above a certain level, I give away in terms of my investments. I'm pretty well diversified. My quote-unquote investment strategy is the following. I think income inequality, unfortunately, is only going to get worse. And what I find is that people worth over $100 million are the most homogenous boring people in the world,

and that is they want to party in St. Bart, say, I want to buy Hermes, they want to send their kids to elite colleges, and they want to live in one of five areas. They want to live in Dubai, London, Palm Beach, New York, or Aspen, and I bought homes in all of those places except for Dubai. Big homes and the way I refurbished them and what I tell my contractor and my decorator is pretend Jeff Bezos is going to buy this home because the world is going to produce thousands of billionaires

over the next 20 years. And by the way, I think it's a terrible thing about our society. I will vote for people to try and reverse that. But the free gift with purchase is that these homes, I want to make it impossible for my boys to avoid me. in the conversation when they're, say, at UC San Diego or something, we can go to Tijuana with our friends and eat lobsters, or we can go to Aspen, but we have to have dinner with my dad. I'm hoping that they'll say, yeah, let's go hang out with dad.

Oh, that's a bribe. I spend a shit ton of money. I love it. I give it away. It's not virtue. It's not ethics. It makes me feel strong. It makes me feel masculine.

It makes me feel American. But I'm planning to not increase my net worth. There is no reason anybody needs to be a billionaire. It's not going to make any happier. What's going to make you happy? is doing amazing things with people you love and doing nice things for other people. And I spend to that. And I very much enjoy it. And money is something I think a lot about because I didn't have a lot of it growing up. Yeah. Yeah. It's still a very big issue in my life.

Yeah. It's interesting because I grew up with a lot of money. And so I guess I don't care. I've always had money. You think about money less than almost anybody I know. I know. You get mad at me because I don't. I don't. I have enough. I like, I don't. Also, So let me put it. My mom was a spendthrift and it upset me and made me both my brothers and I are very hard workers and we don't spend a lot of money. All of us are very, like my brother built a beautiful house in Pennsylvania where he lives and it's beautiful and he didn't, it's gorgeous and he loves it. And so that's what he spends money on. And I love that because I feel like it was money well spent because he enjoys it and it's quite beautiful. It's a beautiful setting. So we always spend money on homes, but not extremely, like not like ridiculously. Same thing with Jeff. has a beautiful home. I have a beautiful home. You live well, not opulently, as the way I would describe it well. No, not at all. No, people are always surprised. I also, I had the luxury of not having to worry about money early in my life, but there was a lot

of my mom being such a spender. She was always out of cash, and she always had to scrounge for it from, and trick people, get her dad to write her a check. And I found that grotesque. I did. I was like, I'm always going to have enough money. And I had money from a very early age because my dad died. It was an insurance thing. And I got a hold of it when I was 18 and I have not. I didn't want my mom near it because she was, she would, she spent a lot of our money that we got from my dad. And so I've had control of my money for years. So I, I just don't care about it enough. I just, I wish I did. Like, I, I want my boys to work hard, my older boys to work hard hard and I think they do. Both of them are really hard workers. And again, just like Scott,

they're going to get the houses is what they're going to get, which I love the house. So, it's something like that. All right. Scott, let's get to a question about parenting. Let's listen. My name's Lisa. I'm the mother of a 17-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl. Two years ago, their father, their father is someone who lost their father and also as someone who's raised children without a male partner. And Scott, as someone who's largely raised by a single mother, I'm looking for advice. Tara, what do you wish your mom did to keep your dad's memory alive? What did she do right or wrong? Scott, what did your mom do right to make you feel like one parent was enough. What do you wish you would have done if, for example, she had had

more financial resources? Thank you both. Man, these are good questions. They're highly emotional. Jesus. I don't think my mom did a very good job. I hate to trash my mom this episode, but it's true. You know, she lost contact with my dad's parents, and I reestablish it when I was in college, myself. We were a kid, you were a little bit at cross purposes of loyalty, and I thought that was not good. She threw away a lot of pictures, which I recovered, some of which I spent a lot of time finding stuff about my dad. And I right now have a big box of letters of his that I just read one that was wonderful. I think she should have spent a lot more time talking about him. And I don't, I don't think she remembers herself, but I don't think she was kind to his parents. So that was one

thing is if your grandparents are good people, make sure your kids know them and know their relatives on your dad's side and therefore his friends. I wish I knew more about my dad's friends. And I found out later when I wrote a piece in The Washington Post, I got inundated with friends of his that my mother never told me about that I then went and met and all these stories. I think I've said this for there was a gay couple who my dad was lovely to and I didn't know that. It was a wonderful thing to find out. A young African-American woman, he tutored, wrote me for now she was a doctor and said she wanted to thank him. ex-girlfriend of his wrote me saying it should have been me that married him, which was funny.

Like, there's a picture of him behind me. I have a lot of pictures of him around. One thing I'm sad is my kids won't know him. I name my son, and I also named my son after my dad. So that's what I would say. It's nice. Yeah. I mean, just thinking about it, stirs emotions. So when I was 15 and in California, you were what you drove. or just having a car was everything. You had no social life in high school in L.A. There was no public transportation unless I had a car. We didn't have a lot of money.

My mom used to come home when I was 15 and a half and honk the horn and we go into a garage of this giant apartment complex and she would teach me how to drive stick on her 177 opal green, you know, lime green opal manta. And then on my 16th birthday, when I passed my driver's test, she came home and she had bought this shitty acura and she put her arms on my shoulders and put keys in my hand

and said, you're a handsome young man and you have a car. Oh, Scott, you're breaking my heart. You okay? Yeah, I'm good. The best thing, literally, I think of any parent or any mother. If you tell your kids every day,

they have value, they start to believe you. Yeah, 100%. Scott, I bought you an accurate for your Christmas. That's what I needed. I get you out of this. That is a beautiful story. I didn't know that. Why didn't I know that? Just after the question where I'm bragging about my wealth, as you get older, the good news you get more thoughtful, when I reverse engineer all my blessings to two core things, it's big government, assisted launch Pell Grants, University of California, DARPA, the Internet, and also just hands down, I think I've always had a base of confidence that my mother gave me.

The more pragmatic piece of advice is that, unfortunately, if you were to reverse engineer a young man's problems to a single point of failure, it's when he loses a male role model. And you've had, your husband has passed. I think it's especially important that you get men involved in your son's life. 100%. Kara, you do a great job with this with your brothers. I do. I didn't mention that. I have my brothers, both my brothers and friends that have been critically critical.

part of my boy's upbringing, my older boy's upbringing, and it'll be the same for Saul because he needs a lot of man around him. So anyways, get, yeah, get men involved in your son's life, which weird is it's not as important for the girl. Girls have similar outcomes of college attendance and self-harm in single-parent homes. It ends up that while boys are physically stronger, they're emotionally and neurologically much weaker than girls. So the involvement of a male role model in your son's life now is actually very important. Yeah. Although I got to say, say I miss heaven my dad. I'm sure. I have to say every day. One of the last things I would say is there's a great book

called The Loss That Is Forever. I forget the author. I would recommend reading it. It's forever loss. So don't like pretend it's not. Like don't underscore what the loss is. And I think about my dad every day, every single day. And you should let them do that and you should think and talk about him every day to them. I mean, I think that's critically important. All right, Scott, are you okay? Can we move on? Yeah, I'm good. All right, it gets worse from here, I think. Yeah.

When Scott dies, he'll be like, you know, you remember like at the end of the Orson Wells movie, Rosebud? Rosbud. Accura. Acura. Acura. Opal. Opal.

I'm green opal man. We had an opal. I love an opal. Oh, God. It was literally the lamest car in the world. Yeah. No, there's a reason I lost my virginity at 19. We also had a pacer with Navajo print.

It was so embarrassing. Pacer's kind of cool in a weird way, though. I know, but not then. Okay, Scott, one more, quick break. We'll be back and we'll answer another listener question. Right now is the AI Gold Rush. And that means everybody who builds an app, a platform, a piece of software, a gizmo, that's somebody, anything. Everybody is trying to put AI everywhere.

And for two weeks in a series on the Vergecast, we are talking through what that looks like. We're talking to developers about what they're building and how they're building it. And whether AI actually does make sense everywhere or is just going to ruin everything in the process. That's the AI miniseries on the Vergecast wherever you get podcasts. This series is presented by MongoDB. Support for this show comes from Rubrik. A lot of companies are deploying AI agents now. They're automating tasks, handling workflows, and making decisions.

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you get podcasts. This series is presented by Gira by Atlassian. Okay, Scott, moving on. This question comes from Paul via email. I'll read it. If you had all the money in the world, these are such good questions. Let me read this.

If you had all the money in the world, what would you be doing with your precious time at this moment with that money? And why aren't you doing that? Oh, my God, Paul. Wow, Paul. That's a lot. Scott, you go first on this one.

And I got to think for a second. I'm doing it. Money plays, and I realize how privileged I am, and I realize this is, you know, a function of my being born a white male heterosexual. You know, I do exactly what money plays. Money as a construct puts no constraints on my life.

I am doing exactly what I want to be doing every day. Every day. I'm blessed, and I realize that there's only 0.1% of the pop posts can do that. If I had billions of dollars and I'd started a private equity firm, like... All the money in the world. Well, what I would be focused on right now, if I had, say, hundreds of millions to waste, I'm going to spend millions, but I don't have tens or hundreds of millions. I'm very, very focused on restoring some of the traditional American values and getting Democrats elected in 26 and the 28.

Yeah, that's what I do. Yeah, I would take a bunch of money, and solidify a progressive, not like hateful to conservatives, but like American values, they're about fairness and equity and things like that. So I'd spend money on that. I would spend money on, I'd do the McKenzie Scott. That's what I would be.

That's what I, I just suddenly show up with money and not be heard from seen from again. Yeah. I would do what she's doing, exactly what she's doing. And suddenly give Howard a whole bunch. She's did two gifts to Howard, and all of a sudden she's over a plan, parent, and then she's here. She's so diverse in her giving that I love it. And that's how I would

behave. I would also create universal daycare. I mean, that's what I would do for people, better childcare for all kinds of parents. I would somehow figure out a way to fund. Like right now, New Mexico has it because they have all this oil and gas or shale money. They can do it. Every state we should have nationally, we should have universal daycare, universal daycare. That's what I would do. I would spend less on health stuff, but I couldn't see why. And, again, money is, I don't spend a lot of money, so I wouldn't buy anything. I wouldn't, I'm trying, would I buy anything? Maybe like my own Taylor Swift concert, perhaps.

That's what I would do. Anything crazy you would buy? I might buy a Gulfstream G-800. I'd invite Scott just to hurt him. I hurt his ears. You'd be so nice to Taylor Swift. Anyway, something like that. Okay, Scott, let's hear another question.

This one comes from Brian. Let's listen. Hey, Kara. I'm Scott. This is Brian living in Orange County, California. I just recently saw you guys in L.A. when you were on tour and had an absolute blast. My question is, what happens behind the scene when you guys are on tour? Before the show, are you guys partying? Is Scott Rip and Jackton Cokes while Kara's taking a nap on the couch? Or what's going on? And afterwards, is Carrie reading the New Yorker magazine while Scott. Scott disassociates. I would love to hear a little bit more about the inside drama of pivot behind the seats. I'll let you take this. Oh, well, I'm ripping Jack and Cokes

and Scott's taking a nap. No, we actually talk to each other. I mean, we talk about the show. We all have visitors. I have a lot of family members came during the thing, and so we chit-chatted with them. Often the guests we have, we chit-chat with them. We had a nice party in L.A. before the show

with a whole gang of people. There are tons of people backstage, and it's not very, like, wild by any stretch. It's really quite civil. And then afterwards, we just go. We leave, and we typically went on to the next place we went. It's really, it's not tiring doing the shows, but we just move on.

We read our mail. We talk to our family, stuff like that, check in. I think it's so dull comparatively backstage, correct, Scott? Yeah, I was saying it was seven cities and seven nights. So it was basically get up, get to the airport, get to where we're going, check into the hotel. I would try and grab a workout just to center myself, you know, FaceTime my kids and then start prepping, because they're five hours out,

and then start prepping for the show. And then I found the show's very rewarding, but emotionally very draining. We had a lot, as you said, we had a lot of friends and a lot of people, and people show up and they're excited and they come backstage. And it's nice to see them, but it's also, I find it very exhausting. It was, but I think I drank less that seven days than I haven't a long time. There was just no room for parting or alcohol. I didn't go out or drink once.

I just didn't. Is that true? I think that's true. Yeah, we just, and usually we took off after the shows to go straight to the next show. We'd be taking our luggage to the theater, and then we'd bomb straight to the airport. Yeah, and then we'd have the morning free to do stuff or tape. We had other podcasts during that time. God had Prof. G., I had on, and so I was taping those.

Yeah, that was a whirlwind. Yeah, it was fun. It was really fun. We had a great time, and we had a nice bonding experience ourselves, and Scott cried, several times, which is par for the course. We had some fun at his expense. Well, it was a week. I know, but we had some great fun.

We had really a lot, a lot of fun. It really was very... I think D.C. was the most fun. Really? Actually, backstage. Oh, yeah, that was fun. That was a good one. Your family was there?

Yeah, L.A. and my mother insulting everyone, that was great. Your mom and Don Lemon. And Wonder Woman? Actually, L.A. was pretty good. Ed Helms was hilarious. Yeah, and Chelsea Hanler was backstage. Oh, she was great. Yeah, we had a good time.

We had a good time. And then Scott and I went to Bill Maher. he was on it and I accompanied him because I can't ever leave it. That's right. You did come with me. I thought it was so great. You literally, like, bombed into my dressing room,

took off your shoes and started drinking. Like, you're the expectant mother or wife. Like, you could not have been more obnoxious. You're like, I'm here. I'm here. I'm with Scott. Where's this dressing room? That's right.

I would have been happy for you to do the same thing. I was a nervous. I know. You were great. You were like chatting all the producers up. I was chatting. I like to chat people up. It's fun.

Chat up, Bill, afterwards. We had a good time. Come on. We had a good time. Anyway, we appreciate your question. We had a great time. We'll probably be doing another in 2026. Okay, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back with more from our listeners. Race the runners. Raise the sails. Raise the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait.

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Evolve Bank and Trust members FDIC. Okay, Scott, we're back and we're ending on something very special. A few weeks ago, I asked what tattoo I should get for Scott, ideally on my ass. Let me read some of the answers we got, a roll of toilet paper with an S on one of the sheets. The Professor Galloway Memorial tattoo should feature an angry but dignified daisy duck with a lot of pink shading. Interesting. A penis that cleverly embeds his name on it.

S.C. on one cheek and T.T. Get the O is the asshole. Get it? Get it? Okay. Groucho nose and glasses with Scott's nose and glasses. I don't like any of these. I do like the S.C. TT, I'd say. I need more. Scott, do you have any suggestions?

I would get some, I would just, in case of emergency, call Scott. Oh, my God, break glass. Or maybe a tiny raccoon holding a beer. Oh, you know what? I think that's good is what I should get. Just the words, that's good. A barcode that if you scan it, it said the problem with Scott is. See, you're better.

Let me see. How about a cat and a dog sort of fighting but hugging at the same time? You know, tattoo of a receipt, total zero-zero-zero, zero, item putting up with Kara. Ha, ha, ha, ha. A broken halo with the caption, Scott Tried. A fortune cookie, and the fortune reads, you will tolerate someone named Scott today. How about one that just says, at least he's not Scott Jennings? That's right.

That's right. No, I think there's a lot we could do here. I could go on. There's a lot we could do. I may get a Scott tattoo. I may just do it as a surprise. I think I might. Maybe I'll make fake ones made

and then trick Scott in some fashion. A tombstone that says rest in peace, Scott's sanity taken by Kara. These are your tattoos. We have tattoos that we made when we did that conference, the one we didn't make money at this one we did. Oh, yeah.

In the middle of COVID. Yeah, we have tattoos. I'm going to find those. There are Scott and Kara tattoos. They were good, actually. Huh. All right, everybody. You got to try harder. Come on. Come on. Send more. Okay. Scott, that's the show. It's time to say goodbye. Thank you, listeners. And again, I truly, and so do Scott, appreciate you. And we were very touched by all your questions on the tour. And we're touched by these questions, too. And we truly appreciate it because we love our fans. So, Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Laran Amin-Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Christine Driscoll. Ernie Todd engineered this episode, Manila Moreno, edited the video.

also to Dubros, Ms. Severe and Dan Shalon, Nishakuroas, Vox Media's executive register podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers, a network of 130 million of them, in fact. You can even target buyers by job title, industry, company, seniority, skills, and did I say job

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