Pivot - Psychedelics in Silicon Valley, and Restrictions on AI Chip Exports

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

Donald Trump may soon return to Twitter, new F1 team owners, and Wheel of Fortune’s Vanna White wants a raise. Then, psychedelics have a hold on tech industry culture, and the US is considering restrictions on exports of AI chip to China. Plus, a listener question on how local governments can retain talent. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or via Yappa, at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. What is he doing? Scott! Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Well, hello, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Well, hello, Scott. Thank you for coming to this show today. It was really nice for you to get here. I appreciate it. I sense some passive-aggressive behavior. It's not aggressive-aggressive. Aggressive-aggressive. I was just a few minutes late. I was a couple minutes late. Whenever I'm late, it's a crime against humanity. Whenever you're late, it's because you're rubbing the feet of Boutros Boutros Ghali.

Listen to me. I'm late once every 10 times. Oh, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is a typical couple problem, let me just say. Everyone has their version of the truth, but the fact is God's a man. Let me do what I do in every relationship with a woman I have when we start to argue. I diffuse it with humor. What's the best drug to have sex on? Okay. Speaking of drugs, listen, we have a lot to talk about today.

What's the best drug to have sex on? I don't know. I don't take drugs. Birth control. Oh my God. That is the worst. See? Where do you come up with these terrible, terrible drugs? By the way, I'm going to be semi-serious. I've given a lot of wedding toasts. I would say that the best thing to do in a relationship, if you really start to argue, one, the way to avoid arguments with a woman, and this is highly sexist, never let them be cold or hungry, ever. Always carry a pashmina and power bars wherever you go, wherever you go.

And two, when things get really heated, diffuse everything with humor. I see. You know, when- Always diffuse with humor. In your epic and ugly divorce from your wife, I will be testifying for your wife, just so you know. Just so you know. I'll be sitting there. I had-

I'm like, what was the most- The Pashmina joke. Yes, it was taste. I had the most civil divorce in history, and I know you had a very civil divorce, too. I did. My divorce could best be described as tragically amicable. Yeah. I'm asking,

why are we doing this? Did you want to fight? No, we didn't. We didn't. She's a lovely woman. She still takes me out for lunch on my mother's birthday every year. That's nice.

We have a, yeah, good relationship. I was at Kamala Harris' house last night. She had a pride party, which was lovely. First name drop

two minutes into the episode. I'm just saying. That's a good one. It was like 200 people. It was not a, it was lovely. First name drop two minutes into the episode. I'm just saying. That's a good one. It was like 200 people. It was not a, it was pride. I'm sorry. Only 200. Anyways, vice president.

That's the vice president, right? Her house is near my house. It was very close to my house. She lives at the Naval Observatory. But someone in the crowd that I know from San Francisco, I didn't know had gotten divorced. And I said, oh, how are you getting along? And she goes, oh, it was such a boring conventional divorce because she wanted a really good divorce. Like a really exciting.

Wanted an angry divorce? Yeah. But it was fine. Anyway, most people find divorces. You just read about the bad ones. But let's not talk about divorce anymore. Let's talk about drug culture in Silicon Valley. We're going to talk about that.

And tech leaders who believe that psychedelics are essential to unlocking their business genius. And will AI darling NVIDIA become a casualty of our chip war with China? Their stock has had a massive run up because of all the investments in AI, obviously. And they're right in the forefront of that. Plus, we'll hear from a listener who wants to know how local governments can compete for top talent in a tech driven market. But first, our long national nightmare is back on the horizon. Donald Trump might start tweeting again. The former president is reportedly considering a return to Twitter sometime soon. If he does, he could be the subject

of an agreement requiring him to post to True Social first with a six-hour window before he can post elsewhere. Of course, now Twitter is under new management with someone who is more amenable to him. With an even more permissive platform, what will be the impact here? And how might the return to Twitter serve his presidential bid? In my opinion, it's over. His, you know, being hot, hot, hot, hot on Twitter is pretty much over. But I don? Yeah. Oh, I think it helps him. I think he's got these sort of reptilian-like instincts for how to rally a populace that we keep thinking is going to come around. And communications from our candidates had been filtered through, had become so starched of anything politically incorrect that there was just an enormous unstated demand and appetite for someone who just being outrageous and then doubling down on their weak and weird statements, that it's created a culture of it, and then the algorithms took over, et cetera. But I don't see how this is bad for him, going back on Twitter. Who it's bad for is Truth Social. I think it'll probably be the final nail in the coffin of the D-WAC stock, which is off 15% this year, off 50% in the last 12 months, off 90% from its high. I mean, without Trump, what do they really have?

Yeah. What are your thoughts, Gary? I just don't think it's – I think this whole, like, it was very flashy in the last couple of years before. You know, it was like a story. He used it in 2016 to get well-known. You're right about how he was raw and it was interesting. But everyone else is doing it, one. So you've got the Marjorie Taylor Greene's, you've got those on the left that do it.

And it's lost its ability to shock, I think. And so maybe he could be even more shocking. But I don't know. I feel like it's sort of a sad, limp platform now, comparatively, to when he really did, I think, innovate. And I'd written about this a lot. He was the troller-in-chief. I think he used it the way Kennedy used TV, but then everyone used TV. I don't think it has the same importance for him at all. I would imagine Facebook is more important, especially around fundraising. But this is sort of just performative hand-waving at this point. And again, everyone else does it. So to be

shocking, you have to be even more shocking. And even then, the platform's not as powerful as it was. I just don't think it's as necessary and important. And so it's fine. It's fine. But I don't know why that gives him any advantage necessarily, because everything that he truce goes on Twitter. So who cares? I did a speaking gig with Mars, the global snacks and confectionery company, which is this enormous company. I never realized how big it is. It's amazing. It's private. Yeah. And I think it's one of the most valuable private companies in the world. Anyways, every time I speak somewhere, one question I know I'm going to get is how do we develop, inspire growth and create competitive advantage, something along those lines.

And if you look at political candidates or brands or businesses, typically, if they have sort of an above-market acceleration, especially a consumer brand relative to their competitive set, oftentimes, I mean, sometimes they catch lightning in a bottle and they capture a trend or for whatever reason, their product becomes hot. But more often than not, it's they go all in and make a big bet at exactly the right time on an emerging medium or platform. And the same is true of political candidates. You referenced Kennedy and TV. It was Google and Obama or Obama and Google, Trump and Twitter.

And where I'm headed with this is I actually think 2024 will be remembered as the political season of TikTok. TikTok. That's what I was just saying. If he was going there, I would be like, uh-huh, that will be interesting. Yeah, whoever gets really good. I mean, Tory Burch was a fairly mediocre luxury brand, but she had this feel for Instagram. Bur margin or unearned margin, I would say. If I were advising the Democratic National Committee, which I am not, I'd be like, Jesus Christ, like just, we got to get very, very good at TikTok.

TikTok, 100. And of course, there's all those problems with it. Now he wouldn't, well, although he's, you know, he hates China, even getting good at Instagram for Trump. And actually, I just don't, I think his day has passed. His social media day has passed. And I don't, I just think. You know, it's also speaking of platforms that a candidate would want to leverage that I think will be really important is podcasts. Yes.

I can bring someone on my podcast and you will, within 24 hours of the drop, you'll see a massive spike in their book sales. And so for some reason, book buyers over index as podcast listeners. I also think voters do. I think you find 80 or 90 percent of podcast listeners vote. And part of the reason I think that Robert Kennedy Jr. has accelerated in the polls is, one, because there's no one else, because we're all falling in line. And the majority of Democrats want an option to Biden. But two, he is all over podcasts.

He is. And he was on just so I can alienate Spotify again. I listened to Joe Rogan's podcast with RFK Jr. in terms of his spread of misinformation around vaccine, but he cleared it again with what was just an insane series of lies and misinformation as he egged him on and nodded his head and agreed with what is the level of misinformation and what doesn't get talked about a lot

is that, I mean, Joe Rogan is a phenomena. I actually like Joe Rogan. I think he's a good role model for young men. He's strong. He's good at what he does. I think he's an empathetic person. I think he goes out of his way, actually, at many times to push back on people, trying to protect others. I think he demonstrates some really admirable, wonderful qualities. And everyone in podcasting should probably send him a licensing fee. But to bring this fucking whack job on and give him credibility. Which he's done with other people many times. And listen to him repeat lies and create a sense of fear. It has so much impact because there's so many young people and so many people who decided, you know, I'm going to give into my fears around vaccines and not get vaccinated. Scott, I'm going to push on you here.

He did it with Alex Jones. He's done it before. This is his thing. He's done it. Agreed. Agreed. But I find this, you know, just as I was starting to like Joe again, and he has this guy on, and this gives you just a sense, and I apologize, I'm all over the place here. This gives you a sense for just how open the market. If Governor Newsom announced his candidacy tomorrow, he might poll even with Biden within a week. Oh, interesting. There is such a vacuum here that this guy can show up, this Joey Bagadonitz idiot. It works out a lot. I'm sure you admire that. Have you seen all those viral things? I got to be honest, I do admire it. The guy looks great at 69 and he takes physical fitness very seriously. I think it's a wonderful thing. Well, he's a Kennedy.

at 69 and he takes physical fitness very seriously. I think it's a wonderful time. Well, he's a Kennedy. Anyways, but the level of misinformation that, and you do have, I want to be clear, the dissenter's voice is important. I'm not questioning the right to do it. But when you have that kind of influence. He's a terrible person. His father would be ashamed.

Everyone who worked for his father is like your father would be ashamed. Speaking of Twitter, that's like every single person who's worked for his- I don't know what I got here. Anyways, podcast, TikTok and podcast are going to be the mediums to crown the next president. Yep, yep. I would agree. I would agree.

All right, let's move on. Deadpool is buying a stake in a Formula One team. This is all stuff you like, Scott. See, this week, this today- It's my show. It's your show. This is my show.

Happy birthday to me. Yeah. Let's go for pithy a little bit more though. Okay. Actor Ryan Reynolds and business partner Rob McElhenney have teamed up with Creed star Michael P. Jordan, whom I love, and a large group of investors to purchase a 24% ownership stake in F1 Alpine team. This is something I know nothing about, but the stake is worth $218 million in total. The new deal values the F1 team had reported $900 million. Reynolds and McElhenney

also bought the Welsh soccer team, Wrexham AFC, for $2.5 million in 2020. That doesn't seem very much. I don't know why you don't own a soccer team, Scott. Not yet. Not yet.

Hello, Glasgow Rangers. Hello, Rangers. That's not very much money. In any case, Reynolds is an entrepreneur, a real entrepreneur. He's built an empire. He has stakes in Mint Mobile. He also does ads for them.

Same thing with Aviation Gin. Is sports team a good thing to do or not a good thing? So first off, I just want to acknowledge I've been approached by three different groups about buying a European football team or being part of the consortium, which probably means that's the canary in the coal mine. That probably means these things have peaked. But I wrote a post on this a few weeks ago. I think it's the perfect storm of a variety of factors that's going to send these asset or this asset class absolutely soaring. And first and foremost- Formula One or soccer. All of them. Yes. Sports franchises, leagues, teams, because the ultimate thing that drives these things, the valuation, there's two things that are exploding. The first is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf has recognized that this is the ultimate PR and branding strategy. kingdom on ads on CNN and Bloomberg, or they can get Ronaldo, or they can buy Newcastle,

and then they get the same goodwill, the same attention, the same fondness for the region vis-a-vis what people call sports washing. And then they get to sell the asset 10 years later. It's like running a commercial, and then it goes up in value. So this is the kingdom, the deepest pocket in the world has recognized the value of sports, and they just executed a creeping takeover in entire sports with the PGA. Now they're getting into tennis. Trying to. That may not have worked. Oh, money talks. They're going to win. Anyways, and then the other thing that's really driving the value of these things is something we're producing a massive number of, and that is the number of billionaires. And they're all the same dude. They're all guys in their 50s and 60s. And guys in their 50s and 60s have a huge fear of death and are like, what am I going to do with my money? I

know I'm going to buy a sports team because all of a sudden I go from this- Or go to space. Space is in. Not even close. I go from the slightly overweight guy who brightens up a room by leaving it to the most interesting guy in town when I own the Denver Nuggets or whatever. And so the demand for these finite assets and the majority of the leagues are basically regulated, unregulated monopolies. The leagues do a good job of saying there's going to be a finite number of teams. You can't just start a team. You need our approval. And they only have one team per city.

So you have massive, massive demand. Got it. Okay, rich guys with flaccid penises. Okay, but why Formula One? Ryan Reynolds doesn't strike me as that fella. Oh, my gosh. And then another feature, they can bring in media and their star power to increase value. So Ryan Reynolds, whatever it is, 50 million followers.

Yeah. That immediately adds value to anything, attention to a sport or to a team. He can cut a Netflix deal. He can get his agent to say, okay, go do a Netflix deal and boom, Formula One. I mean, Greg Mathais at Liberty really was a visionary here. He bought Formula One. Yeah. It's probably quintupled in value.

And as someone who used to go to Formula One in Montreal eight years in a row, and I'd say half those weekends, I didn't even go to the race. Formula One is about the vibe and exploring a new city and being around fabulous people and good-looking, interesting people and fun environments. And the whole city comes alive for it. So it's really, it's embracing also the fact that people want to get out. There's huge income inequality. People have a lot of money. They want experiences.

And then at the top of that pyramid is the kingdom and wealthy people. So good purchase by Ryan Reynolds. Good for Ryan Reynolds. Good for the sport. Interestingly, Greg Maffei, I know him very well from when he was a Microsoft executive a long time ago. But yes, you're right. This formula is really interesting.

Oddly enough, the other day, yesterday, in fact, Saul loves trucks. He's such a dude. It's crazy how dude this kid is. And so we were reading a truck. You mean gender matters? I'm triggered. Oh, stop.

I'm triggered. It's so funny. Sorry, go ahead. I literally am growing all the straight people for America right now. Boys and cars? Had you forgotten about that? Is it unbelievable? It's unbelievable.

I got to say, Saul more than my older sons, much more so. He loves trucks, trucks and cars. Had you forgotten about that? Is it unbelievable? It's unbelievable. I got to say, Saul more than my older sons, much more so. He loves trucks, trucks and cars. So, I put on monster trucks on video, and now all we do is watch monster trucks together. And I feel like we're going to have to go to a monster truck thing. Not Formula One, monster trucks. Hello, who has been to monster truck extravagant a half a dozen times when my kids were four, six, and eight. But then you're taking Saul because I actually kind of like it. I would enjoy that. It's hilarious. I kind of like it.

I have to say. Just make sure you have big-ass earphones. All right. Okay. But we're going to go. We're going to go. That's the thing we're going to do. Earmuffs.

Okay. We got to move on. We got a lot of stuff to go on. We're going to talk about Vanna White. She hasn't had a raise in 18 years. Scott, I want you to wait before you make a rude comment. After the news broke of Pat Sajak's retirement from the Wheel of Fortune and Ryan Seacrest replacing him, the media picked up on the fact that Vanna is renegotiating her contract to stay on the 48-year-old show.

She makes one-fifth of what Sajak does. She makes $3 million a year to his $15 million. How do you work somewhere for 18 years and never get a raise? Come on. She's part of the show. She's an important part of the show. She's not easily replaceable, but maybe she is. So is Sajak in a weird way.

So let me hear what terrible sexist thing you're going to say here. Go ahead. She's overpaid, Cara. No, no. Okay, okay. They make a fortune on this show. Do you know who Stephen Boss is? No, who's that?

Stephen Boss was DJ Twitch, who was the DJ for the Ellen Show. Okay. She made $50 million, he made $1 million. Is that racism and sexism? No, no, I knew you were going to say. Why not? But Vanna White is different. Why?

The pair of them were together. She should get a raise. They've made so much money off of this show. You're making a moral argument in a capitalist society. She makes $3 million for turning around letters when they light up. What he does is much, much more difficult. And here's the bottom line. If she can get $3.1 million turning gold letters or lighted letters somewhere else, she should do that.

If she has the currency, here's what I think happens. I think Vanna White is lovely and super likable. And she has been part of the show for a long time. If she has the currency that viewers will stop watching the show because someone else comes in and turns the letters, then fine, good for her. But at the end of the day, the only case around sexism would be if they could show a pattern of other people turning over letters or playing a secondary role in shows that said that on average, on a controlled basis, the women were making less. And there's no evidence of that here. I'm not using the woman argument here, Scott. I'm using it. She hasn't gotten a raise in 18 years. That's the number for turning letters, 3 million. No, it should be a lot less than that. If someone had said, Carol, let me ask you this. She's a personality. You don't even watch the show, so I don't know why I'm speaking to you. I think hosting a game show, though, is probably five times more difficult than what she does.

All right. Okay. And let me put it this way. If someone had said, Scott and Kara, there's a controversy over Vanna White's pay. Yeah. I would have probably said, oh, it's the writers saying, well, you can afford to pay Vanna White three million bucks, but you can't afford to pay us. Yeah. So I love Vanna White.

I think she's great. Mm-hmm. I just don't think this reeks of anything resembling sexism or injustice. I don't think it reeks of sexism. I think they should throw her a fucking bone because she's been an important asset to the show. She's done a great job. They throw her three million bones a year. Yeah, but they should give her another million bones.

Okay. Okay. Fair enough. I think it's just a visually thing. They make so much money. She's obviously been additive to the show. Give her a little sweetener. But that's not where the story's gone. The story's gone to accusations

of sexism in Hollywood. Well, that's because she hired a big old lawyer to get. That's what she's got to do. That's right. To embarrass the network. And I don't I'll ask you, I don't see any evidence of sexism here. Well, I think they're going to give her more money because they want it to shut up. That's fine. I think if you're in the negotiating room and working for the network, I would say that's a reasonable viewpoint.

You know what? She's been a plus. She's been lovely. She's been a plus. She's never been trouble. Let's give her more. We're making baskets of money here. On that level, I'm on Team Vanna.

Okay. She's been with the company, whatever, for 20 years. On that, we can't agree. We can't agree. Scott and I make the same amount of money, or it better be the case, or I'll have to kill someone. Anyway. They haven't told you. I know.

I always ask Scott, what are you making from this? He's very – You literally do. I do because I want to know because I always know that men get more. I'm sorry to tell you in honest. We get invited to a lot of the same stuff together. I do because I want to know because I always know that men get more. I'm sorry to tell you. We get invited to a lot of the same stuff together. I get constant text messages. Nordic Business Forum in Helsinki in October.

What are they paying you? Yeah. You are constantly checking. Well, I'm not because they lie, Scott. Like, I'm sorry. The men try to get more money. I just want to make sure. I just want to make sure.

Because you are a good man. You tell me. So that's unless you're not telling me the truth, but I'm assuming you are. Anyway. Transparent with that stuff. I think it's good to ask. Women never ask. I always ask.

And let me also be clear, as someone who was raised by a single mother, people used to say, oh, that must have been hard and hard not to have, you know, a lot of stuff. And I'm like, you know, you need a desk. It's hard for your mother. I'm like, no, it's hard for my mother for one reason. We needed more money. Yeah. And I've always thought the best thing you can do as a boss is figure out a way to put more money in the pockets. I mean, with money comes power in a capitalist society.

And I've always thought that if you want to insure, and that's the place the law should really kick in, is around compensation. Well, therefore, Vanna White deserves more money. Thank you, Scott. Okay, we're going to end on that. All right, let's get to our first big story. The Wall Street Journal had a big piece this week about the use of psychedelic drugs in the tech industry, something I've written about for about 10 years now, according to the report, but they name names. According to the report, drugs like ketamine, psilocybin, which is magic mushrooms, and LSD have been increasingly taking hold of Silicon Valley's corporate culture.

The scene is an important springboard to reaching next-level innovation. The story says a VC from Founders Fund, which is invested in SpaceX and Facebook, has thrown parties with psychedelic drugs. Founders Fund also invested in psychedelic drug research. The report also says Google co-founder Sergey Brin has been known to use magic mushrooms.

The report says Elon Musk has told people he microdoses ketamine for depression. He hasn't confirmed it publicly, but Muck tweeted this week that SSRI is a common form of antidepressants, zombify people, and that ketamine is a better option. Ketamine has been found to be highly effective in patients with treatment-resistant depression and other issues. There's all kinds of fascinating

research going on. And I am going to start, because I've written about this for years, this use of psychedelics and mushrooms as far back as 2016, because I was being offered it a lot by these people. And they were all using it and they were also investing in it, which I found, that's the part I found really interesting, is a lot of these drugs, ketamine, psilocybin, LSD, had been demonized. And Michael Pollan was a very early writer about this. And I think SSRI, that's correct, it does zombify people. And so it was really interesting to me, the investments that tech people were making in a way that I think would be good for people that have PTSD. It's a very good thing. There's depression, self-actualization in a lot of ways, but a lot of really good in a clinical setting. And so I love that they were doing this founding. Tim Ferriss was one of the early people. Joe Green. I've interviewed all of them about this topic and written about it quite a bit.

I've interviewed all of them about this topic and written about it quite a bit that said, some of this has gotten out of hand, these parties I don't care if they use them, but it is still drug abuse and there have been a lot of stories about excessive use of ketamine, excessive use of any of these things creates

problems like anything else and so I didn't find the journal story particularly scolding. It just was naming the names that people use it. And from what I know, it was a highly accurate story. Again, I was urged to use mushrooms, ecstasy, LSD, but way back in the 2010s, they thought I'd be a better reporter, a nicer person. Someone told you to do drugs because you'd be a nicer person? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. One guy, he bought lunch with me in a, you know, like one of those auction things.

And he was really into ayahuasca, this particular brand. Every lunch I would have, I'd get offered drugs. And he's like, would you like to do that with me? And I was like, there's nothing less I would like to do. And he goes, you'd be a nicer person. But why would I want to be nicer? Why did you just pay $50,000 to have lunch with me? But okay, fine. So I think drug use is not a new thing in Silicon Valley or anywhere else.

Steve Jobs was a well-known user of LSD. And when I spoke to Michael Pollan, who's written extensively, as I said, about the psychedelic moves he talked about, they've taken a moment of inspiration and adapted it to capitalism. And I think that is correct. So what do you think? What do you think about this? Just to kick it off, I've received, and I don't know if you've received the same emails, I've received several emails from women, mothers, it goes something like this. It says, Scott, me and my son listen to you and Kara, we love your show, but it bothers me and it's damaging when you romanticize drug use. Yeah. And I think that's fair. And I just want to be very transparent. I've had a lot of alcohol in

my life. I haven't had as much marijuana as I claim, but I do THC, I do edibles sometimes. I've never done cocaine. I've done X a handful of times and decided it was so good I should never do it again. I did mushroom chocolates a couple times, specifically a few weeks ago on Summit at Sea. Other than that, I've never done drugs. Yeah. And I always joked that in high school— Like ketamine or LSD or— Never done any of that.

Never tried it. But I always joke in high school I experimented with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Specifically, I was the control group. I didn't smoke pot, have sex, or drink until I was 19. And if I could go back in time, I wish I could have had sex earlier, specifically a relationship, but I wasn't in control of that. And two, I'm glad I didn't drink those influences until you're really comfortable with yourself or have some sense of self. I think you're better off being into sports, being into school, and quite frankly, being into the opposite sex. But I just want to, my public service announcement is, I don't regret not doing any of that in high school. Anyways. I get it. I think jokes about drugs are fine. It's fine. I think what's interesting about this is abuse. Is abuse in like, I think there's such amazing research being done about a lot of these things to help a lot of people.

And there's all these initiatives in Oregon. Joe Green's behind a bunch of them. There's these groups that are trying very hard to find new ways of dealing with depression that are not addictive and not zombifying, which I think is correct again. That said, a lot of what really turned me off, and let me just say, I don't use any drugs. I haven't used any drugs. I tried pot once, and that's the extent of my- But you didn't inhale. I don't even know if I did. It was gross. I don't like smoke. I smoked a cigarette once in sixth grade. That's really it. I have gotten drunk,

but it's not something I do a lot at all. You know that. So I don't have a lot of context, but I was very much attracted to the research that was being done around depression and everything else. And I'm encouraging of it. There's John Hopkins doing it. I think LSD has been demonized.

There's all these things. And again, I would push everyone to Michael Pollan's reporting, which I think is quite even-handed and good. That said, the recreational use and the pushing it on people and it being like, you're smarter if you use it, it just strikes me as the typical abuse that happens with liquor or anything else. Everyone likes a drink, but everyone doesn't like 20 drinks, right? Then that's, you know, a lot of people like 20 drinks, but they act like it's something different than drinking too much.

And there is a noticeable difference in the people I know to use a lot of it in terms of their personalities. Excessive use of especially ketamine. You can see it, they're changing personalities. And I don't blame it on the drugs, I blame it on them. But I think they have pain that they never want to actually do the work to figure out. And so this is the version of it, right? And it does affect them. And so I think that's what this depicted well. And they're very self-righteous about it. And

they're very, if you don't take this, you're not as smart as I am, et cetera, et cetera. And that's what's distasteful to me about it. So there's, I am, et cetera, et cetera. And that's what's distasteful to me about it. So there's, I mean, there's a lot here. So first off, what the research shows and Michael Pollan, who is, I think, and you've had him on your podcast, I've had him on mine. He's really taken this kind of out of the closet, if you will. He got rid of some of the stigma that was cemented in the 60s of, you know, tune in, drop out or drop whatever it was. But the research shows this might have really wonderful tangible benefits for people suffering from depression and also people with terminal illness at end of life where they can envision their own death and their afterlife and actually get comfort. So this is really exciting that people are looking at it.

actually get comfort. So this is really exciting that people are looking at it. I mean, for some reason, we'll experiment and do all sorts of research and spend billions of dollars on pharmaceuticals, but around, they call it LSD or psilocybin or massive hit of ketamine. It really does sound like it can be a real unlock in terms of depression, in terms of people with terminal illness or PTSD for more all kinds of stuff. That's super exciting. There is no evidence as far as I can tell or what I've read that there's anything that shows that you unlock more creativity

or productivity with the use of psychedelics. And this falls into the same category as a submersible with rich people or going into space or buying an F1 team. And that is when people are this rich and get exposed to so many amazing opportunities, they keep looking for the next OPA hit. And whether it's buying a sports team instead of just going to a football game or it's doing the latest hottest drug with some shaman that your friend has flown in from New Mexico. No, no.

They're flown in from Nepal, just so you know, on their planes. It's a luxury item in an experience. And you know what? More power to them. If you're rich, you want to do these things. Where I do think that there's what I'll call business operatives. So I have found with THC, I might think I'm more creative. I'm not.

I have found with alcohol that when I'm writing about relationships, I write more fearlessly and more emotionally. And because alcohol, for me, brings down a lot of barriers and I'm more emotionally brave. So I have found that in terms of creativity, but there's no evidence really. There's a lot of evidence that a lot of creatives are addicts. So there must be some correlation in terms of whether they're susceptible to it or I don't know what it is. But there's no evidence that flow or whatever unlocks anything. Flow, yeah, they talk about that. I can't tell you how many lunches I've had like this. There might be, but the thing I do think you're going to see more of and why it's probably a

pretty good place to invest, it's not this bullshit that it's going to help you invent the next SaaS platform. But what I have noticed is that when I was offered mushroom chocolates, I did some and I usually, when I was offered mushroom chocolates, I did some. And I usually, when I'm in a, quote, unquote, parting mood, unfortunately, I have a high tolerance for alcohol. So I can drink five, seven, eight drinks before I finally get to the point where I think I have rhythm and I'm a good person. Do you know what Kara's limit is? Zero? Half a drink. Sip of wine.

And I'm like, whoo! I'm out. sip of wine. I'm out. But what I have found, what I do think you're going to see is I think the drinks industry is going to come under pressure because I think people are going to go to a hybrid model. And that is they're going to take something like a mushroom chocolate or an edible and they're going to have one or two drinks instead of seven. And what I have found, and the reason I have toggled away from alcohol and more into edibles, is on the one night a week or the two nights a week where I want to relax or party, whatever the right term is, the cost my body pays the next day from THC is substantially less than the cost incurred when I get drunk. Now at my age, if I have a lot of drinks, the next day I feel like I've had a battery of chemotherapy. Whereas when I have an edible, the next day, half the time I wouldn't even known I had taken anything.

And so the downside, the cost, if you will, there's no free lunch, but I would argue that edibles are a freer lunch than alcohol. Yeah, no, I get it. I'm more talking about abuse and the sort of arrogance that comes with it. I just get, it's like they're showing me their new shoes or their new 20-wheeled bicycle or their new whatever, their boat. It's an attitude. And here's the thing, it doesn't create your new startup. It doesn't. Like, that's about something else. But I'd love to see the research. I'd love to see them really clinically apply these things, especially around depression. Have you ever thought of trying a ketamine in a clinical setting? Because you have depression issues. Yeah. So, I have thought about it a lot. There's a guy, I won't use his name because I don't know if he's out about it, but the head of a tech company that I know pretty well, he feels it's his mission in life to tell people about guided, I think it's a massive ketamine hit. Yeah. And so Fieldtrip is this retail startup where basically— We had them at Code, remember. Yeah, and Ronan's a really compelling guy.

But you come in, you do a pre-session with a therapist. What are you trying to solve here, solve for? What are you looking for? You go and you take the massive hit in a controlled environment, and then you do a follow-up session. And a lot of people say that it's really helpful. And the idea of having an extraordinary unlock around depression or PTSD, I think it's just so incredible. Which is how they're selling it when they're trying to get these legalized. I'm going to interview Joe Green again soon because there's all these initiatives in Oregon and other places. That's the idea is veterans. That's who they're

aiming at instead of rich, stupid people. And that is where it should be. That's wonderful. My fear around it, and Ronan has been very generous with me and said, come in, we'll do it. And my other friend that's head of this tech company literally calls me every month. The thing that scares me is that my friend who runs this tech company did it. And the way he described it, it was very poetic the way he described it. He said, think of your life as an ocean. There's just so much going on underneath the surface that you can sort of see but not really. He goes, this drains the ocean

and you're walking along the sea floor and can see everything 2020 in your life. And I thought, wow, that sounds really good. And then I'm a huge fan of Sam Harris. Sam Harris says that the way he would try and distill his experience with mushrooms is that he just felt extraordinarily grateful. And I thought, well, those are both really nice things.

The thing that scares the shit out of me is that my buddy at the tech company said that after doing this and seeing the world for what it was, he came home and told his wife of 17 years that they needed to get divorced. What? That he was with the wrong person. Yeah, that he came to that realization.

And he sees that as an unlock. And here's the thing, Kara, other than struggling with some anger and occasionally having a panic attack on stage when I speak or something like that. I like my life and my relationships a lot. And whatever shit is there, I've managed to suppress it in a nice, clean box. And I don't want to open the box because I'm good.

Like whatever trauma that I have faced, I don't need to see it because I have managed to suppress it. Yeah, someone said that to me once, one who was in therapy five times a week. I'm like, how much can you fucking find out about yourself? I was teasing them. I'm good. They go, Kara, you're blocking. I said, it's working. As long as it's working.

Yeah. I don't need to be in touch with my emotions. Yeah, a little bit. I'm feeling okay. We should do it together. Let's working. Yeah. I don't need to be in touch with my emotions. Yeah, a little bit. I'm feeling okay. We should do it together. Let's do it together and find out what's on the bottom of our ocean floor, Scott. I don't know. I don't know.

We need to move on. I think I'd love to see Veteran Affairs involved in this. I think it has enormous opportunity and potential in palliative care. People abusing drugs is not a new and fresh story. It used to be whatever. It used to be cocaine, or it still is cocaine. Have at it. Have fun, but don't pretend you're going to do anything with it.

The people I know to be what I consider abusing it have changed in bad ways. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, chip makers are worried about possible clampdown on selling to China. And we'll take a listener question about the challenge of attracting young talent to local government. What do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists.

And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple.

We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim. And we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk. And we all need to work together to protect each other.

Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Procrastination, putting it off, kicking the can down the road. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Carpet in the bathroom. Like, why? In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today.

Okay, Scott, we're back with our second big story. The Biden administration is reportedly considering new restrictions on exporting chips used in AI computing specifically to China. They're citing national security concerns. This has happened before, but now it's focused on AI. NVIDIA and AMD are the two big manufacturers of these type of chips. Their stocks have really taken off

since the real boom in AI. NVIDIA's CFO said over the long-term, restrictions like these would, quote, result in a permanent loss of opportunities for the U.S. industry to compete and lead one of the world's largest markets. Whoa, that's a big deal. So she was essentially saying

that these restrictions are going to set the U.S. back permanently. This is NVIDIA's CFO Colette Kress. National security arguments are compelling. These chips could be used to develop AI-powered weapons, sophisticated cyber attacks. What think you about this?

I want to be clear. I would like to see someone run against Biden. I think Biden has been an outstanding president and got this right. The chips are the new, they're the brains behind every new toaster oven and every new missile guidance system. And we want the most sophisticated brains and it needs to be a competitive advantage. And the CHIPS Act was fantastic legislation. And in my view, we should be very thoughtful about which chips. And if they needed to go to this- China's behind here in the development of these chips.

Yeah. Which is a good, and we want to keep them behind. And the notion that we should take it all seriously, what the CFO of NVIDIA thinks about this issue, whose options are based on the market share. I mean, it's like, yeah, and Sheryl Sandberg thinks is proud of their progress. And Mark Zuckerberg says that social media is actually good for teens, what he's read. What do you know? The CFO of NVIDIA isn't worried about American security and thinks we should be thoughtful about what advanced technology we sell to China. These are, this is the next battlefront. This is the next. And we should be very thoughtful, not only about ensuring that we make the requisite investments on a massive scale,

which is still needs to be done by the US government, but we have the best and brightest and the best chips. And quite frankly, we give them to the West. We give them to the front lines in Ukraine. But Russia, North Korea, Iran, and China for now. No, thank you. They'll steal them. Steal them like you usually do. Sorry, sister. Yeah, I would agree. But the thing is, they can't even, this is the wonderful thing about this technology, they can't even steal it because it's hard to make. You need crazy PhDs, you need crazy materials, you need crazy factories. This shit is complicated.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, sorry, NVIDIA. You're going to have to be an American. Also, speaking of global, OpenAI, the San Francisco-based company behind ChatGPT, is opening its first international office in London. They also considered France and Poland. You know, DeepMind was in London. Obviously, a lot of the AI is based in San Francisco right now. So they're going global. I thought it was interesting that they picked London.

And I've always thought that there really needs to be a way to try and spawn the arts or inspire the arts. I think about— Well, it's Cambridge and Oxford, Scott, obviously. I mean, that's where DeepMind was developed and everything else. So that would be my guess. I mean, that's where DeepMind was developed and everything else. So that would be my guess. Well, it's not only the education infrastructure here, which is the second best in the world in terms of higher education next to the U.S.

But it's that I think the primary reason these companies, whether it's Andreessen Horowitz, which just announced they're opening their office here. I think the reason people pick London is because it's a palatable option to not only the people coming here, but their spouse. They can stream their kids into school. If you have money, and most of the companies announcing this have very well-compensated employees, I'm this person. I could have lived anywhere in Europe. And I kind of toyed for the idea. We toyed with the idea, well, let's go to Germany. We love Munich. Or wouldn't it be great to be in Paris? And then when you really do the analysis, you're like, we're coming to London. Of course we are. The quality of life here, if you can lubricate it with money, the quality of life here is outstanding. And so the education system and all that, but London might be the opportunity. London needs something desperately because they have managed to snatch defeat from

the jaws of victory. Yeah, they had tried to do tech a long time, a long time desperately because they have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Yeah, they had tried to do tech a long time, a long time. And they have certain companies. DeepMinds was there. And obviously, Oxford and Cambridge have been the center of so much technological innovation over hundreds of years. But the three greatest self-inflicted injuries of the last, call it 20 years, the invasion of Iraq by the US, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and Brexit. They figured out a way to craft and pass legislation that makes their products and services more expensive,

but reduces their export market. I mean, it's like find an economist and say, hey, how could we really fuck ourselves? They found it and they wrote this legislation and it continues to kick a great society with a great culture over and over. They need something. They need this. Yeah. Years ago, this was 10, 12 years ago, I did an Oxford debate, or I think it was an Oxford debate, yeah. And the British people were on one side, and I was with Reid Hoffman, me, a bunch of Silicon Valley people.

And the premise was, will Silicon Valley or London be the center of technology over the last 10 years? And they were convinced they were going to be. And Reid and I, all Reid and I did is get up and say, Google fuckers. Like, are you kidding? And then since then, obviously, there's been dozens and dozens of successes in the U.S. and very few in London. But they won the debate. They won the debate. To be fair, London has made huge strides in fintech.

It does have the greatest concentration of market cap of unicorns. There is no reason why they shouldn't have a robust. Quite frankly, Germany, the largest economy in Europe, is half the size in terms of its tech company valuations. I think that's a function of there's less downside. Why not go to work for Porsche or Volkswagen and make 90,000 euros? The schools are great. The social services are great. The parks have beer and trampolines, something for everybody. Yeah. But London should be, you know, there's no reason why it shouldn't be Singapore,

Seoul, and maybe someday even like the Valley. Yep. Yep. Let's move on. AI, speaking of which, I think the U.S. is going to dominate here, period. This year, AI-focused companies made up 35% of startups selected by Accelerator Y Combinator, which is obviously the most popular accelerator. 35% is a lot.

It'll be interesting to see how many of them do well. But it's obviously putting AI has been the new crypto or meta or whatever. Dot com. Yeah, 100%. In this case, it's real. And I do think even though the U.S. tends to run into everything like a lunatic, just like they did crypto or whatever, it works. It tends to work. And so there's going to be more AI-focused companies in the U.S. than anywhere else.

I think there'll be a lot of not AI companies that are pretended to be AI companies. But I do think the U.S. will stay ahead on this thing. Yeah, agreed. I've been pitched on investing in three different AI companies in the last two weeks, and I still can't wrap my head around this stuff. And it was crypto before, right? Would it be crypto before or what? Yeah, but this, if you look at the arc of academic research around AI, it looks much more similar to mobile and GPS, which means it's probably an enduring technology. This does feel real to me, but I still- How are you deciding what to invest in?

My decision so far is to not invest and invest in the infrastructure guys. I think the Googles, the NVIDIAs of the world are going to be the big winners here. I hear the CFO's pissed off. It's Biden, but go ahead. Sorry. There you go. But I think it's really difficult to figure out. It's like going back to the 90s.

I started an e-commerce company. There were thousands of e-commerce companies. And the place to invest, obviously, it was Amazon, but you didn't know. The place I think you invest, where I'm investing, is big established companies that can leverage AI to become more efficient. I think that, for example, a lot of really beaten down media companies. We were with iHeartRadio. I'm going to get to that. Can I get to that in a second? Go ahead. Because human-made media

companies are concerned about AI. The Wall Street Journal reports that executives at places like the New York Times, News Corp, Condé Nast, and our fear on Vox Media have discussed forming some sort of coalition to deal with issues involving generative AI. I think they should. Barry Diller bent my ear on this issue. He owns Meredith, that they have to start suing and copyright and that they should join together, not getting played like they did the last time. They have a lot of regrets, publishers, of how late they were to standing up to big tech platforms that ultimately gutted much of legacy media. What do you think they should be joining and fighting right now or yesterday? So there's several dimensions to this. The first is what you're talking about, and that is creating a coalition such that, and then building their own generative AI that spots that, okay, you are using our content to inform your LLM and you're not compensating us, and we're gonna sue you. And that's the vision around Adobe's Firefly

is they have secured all the IP for every input into their generative AI. I think this is gonna be a big unlock and a new source of revenue streams for people like the FT and the New York Times and News Corp that have a ton of content that will be fed into and inform these LLMs. At the same time, I think there's a real upside here, and that is the thing that always kept us back at the New York Times was the newsroom in the sense that the investment you need to make in your newsroom to have that sort of quality journalism has never gotten any scale. It's totally unscalable until now. And what do I mean by that? What I mean is that a great, I think Nicholas Kristof is going to be able to punch out

three articles every two weeks, not two, using generative AI to draft stuff, to improve it, to tighten it. He'll never do it. Oh, I disagree. AI is not going to take your job. I think a lot of reporters will never do it. Well, then they're going to make less money. They're going to make less money. Because the great reporter who embraces it, if Maureen Dowd gets good at AI, Jesus, watch out. I've been encouraging them all and they're all, I can't even tell you how recalcitrant. What's interesting is- They're going to shed their skin and a new generation of writers are going to come along. Well, not just writers, but the publishers,

what I've been saying to them is like, listen, you better understand this and you better start suing. And you also have to, because if they took your business before, they're going to take your IP this time, right? This is what's going to happen. They sort of took your IP by linking to you and controlling the links. Now they're really going to take everything, like the whole enchilada in that regard. But they're going to be able to punch a, I mean, when I've spent a lot of time with this, it spits back plain vanilla stuff. But what it can do is, the mistake was calling it artificial intelligence. They should have called it enhanced intelligence. And that is it adds-

EI, EI. EI, EIO. It adds five or 10 IQ points to everything you do. But the thing is, if you're the New York Times newsroom, you start at 1.30. You're just well ahead of where everyone else is. There's nothing that can replace the magic of what those folks bring together, the original thought, the original

twist of phrase, the fact-checking. But instead of having 1,200 people in their newsroom, I think in five to 10 years, they will have 800 or 900 because they'll be more productive and they're going to be much more profitable. I think that this is going to be, I think Vox will have 20% fewer employees and more podcasts in about 24 months. Well, I would agree. I would agree. Well, we'll see where it goes. It'll be interesting.

This whole, it's going to be the story we're going to be talking about a lot in the next year, I suspect. Okay, Scott, let's listen to a listener question. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. The question comes in via email.

I'll read it. Hi, Kara and Scott. I'm 28 years old and live and work for a medium-sized Midwestern city's local government. I'm a city planner. I'm the youngest in my office by at least six or seven years. My city is home to a state flagship university. It should not be difficult to attract and retain young talent, but it has been. How do small and medium-sized local governments attract and

retain talented, passionate employees instead of losing out to larger cities in the private sector? Cara, you've flirted with political office in the past. What say you? Keep up the good work, both of you. I look forward to Tuesday and Friday mornings when pivot drops. Thanks. Lucas. Oh, Lucas, I think this is a problem for all governments, not just city governments. The national government, you know, is keeping and attracting talent, one, because the pay is so bad, and two, because the larger cities will beat out the smaller cities, typically, unless people have different reasons for wanting to be in a smaller city. I think the issue is that a lot of people do have a mission-driven feeling in tech, and that's how you need to bring in and make them feel like they're actually impacting people. We talked about that recently on the show. So I think the idea is getting them to feel like, okay, you're not going to make as much money, maybe you're living in a smaller city, but you're going to really affect people. And it is a strong attractiveness to a lot more people than you

think if you can sell it that way, the way you might sell a military service or things like that. But you do have to market it in that way. Scott? Look, this all started, what, 40 years ago now when Thatcher and Reagan went on the street against government. And in Israel, the people who command the most respect in the military in the UK used to be government officials. In the US, it's entrepreneurs. And we used to have a lot more respect for our government officials. I think that at a local level, we need to come up with federal programs that maybe do student debt relief if you go into local government and offer just more opportunity and make it more attractive for the best and brightest to go into

those fields. Because what happens is when you cut the funding, when you underpay these individuals, it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that is you go into the DMV and you think, this is not a great experience. I feel worse about paying taxes. And I want a politician who's going to cut government services. And it's really too bad because I think there's a thirst out there amongst young people who want purpose and meaning in their work. And when you work in social services, I remember in New York state,

and you pay really high taxes in Manhattan, you pay 13% state and city taxes. And my son was speech delayed and the story ends well, he's now, you know, heads list doing great And my son was speech delayed. And the story ends well. He's now, you know, headless, doing great. But he was speech delayed because it was our first child. We were freaked out. And New York State has this incredible service that you sign up for. And a speech therapist and an occupational therapist come to your house twice.

And it's this incredibly well-educated, lovely young person who can immediately establish rapport with your child, demonstrate incredible skills, and makes the whole house feel better about government, about your child, about the situation you're in. I remember she was kind of there more for us than for the kid, like, oh, this happens everywhere. Your son's going to be. I mean, she was just, I thought to myself, you know what? I don't mind paying the 13%. Government's job isn't to lower taxes. It's to make it worth it. And there are really a lot of great programs that do make it worth it.

So the question is, how do we make that a really attractive job? Because all of these individuals I met, these occupational and speech therapists, they had a lot of options. But they wanted to do something in the agency of something bigger and more meaningful. So, it's up to us, I think, as voters to say, we want our government officials to make good money. We want them to have good pensions. Now, should cops be making two and a half times their last year of salary, and they are in cahoots with each other, and we have MTA conductors making $280,000 a year? I mean, granted, there's some places that are just out of control, but on the whole, the people at the ground level and state government,

we need to move it back to being an aspirational position that tells the young people what they want to do. That's exactly right. Well, Lucas, thank you for your excellent question. That is the way to do it, aspirational. There are a lot of mission-driven people in tech, and they do not necessarily want to make as much money if they can really impact people. And you have to show that impact. Anyway, if you've got a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. As a FIS member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month.

Every month at FIS, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at FIS.ca. Okay, Scott, we're going to do predictions. But just as we record this, the Supreme Court has struck down, essentially has struck down affirmative action, ruling colleges can, these two colleges in the case, this is UNC and Harvard, can no longer use race as a factor in their college admissions.

Very testy Supreme Court on this one. They've been sort of doing a lot of more liberal things. And now here it is, which is what we were waiting for. They are ending racial preferences in college admissions, essentially. Justice Roberts wrote for the conservative members, one obviously conservative. And he's been a longtime opponent, Judge Thomas, of affirmative action. And he read his concurring opinion immediately. He spent his time engaging with Judge Jackson, the only other Black justice besides Clarence Thomas. He said, in Jackson's view, quote, almost all of my life's outcomes may be unhesitatingly ascribed to race. I don't think

she said that. And then Judge Jackson wrote back, because she's a much better thinker and writer and justice, essentially, with let them eat cake obliviousness. Today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces that colorblindness for all by legal fiat, but deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life. That's a drop the mic kind of line. Yeah, that was powerful. Anyway, this is what's happened. And so I suspect there's going to be a really interesting prediction is this is not over.

And it'll be interesting to see the repercussions going forward. I'm not an expert in this area by any means, but certainly a big decision in a term of very big decisions around voting rights, etc. So go ahead, Scott. Go ahead. Make your prediction. So my prediction is the IPO market is going to come roaring back in Q3 and Q4. The VIX, which is sort of a fear gauge, is at a multi-year low below 20. There's a ton of money on the sidelines.

A lot of companies that were sort of pre-IPO have used the last two years to kind of get in fighting shape and cut some costs. The Kava, the recent quick-serve restaurant Kava, doubled on its opening. I think Q3 and Q4, we're going to see. I think I can just feel, Cara, the animal spirits coming back into the market, inspired by AI. In Q3 and Q4, we're going to see some of the champagne and cocaine. Not that you should do any of those things. No, not abuse them.

Anyways, the IPO market's ripping, absolutely ripping back. And I just can't help it on the affirmative action thing. I'm a huge believer in affirmative action, but I think it should be economically based, not race or gender based. Yeah. All right. Which, by the way, would have almost the exact same impact that race-based affirmative action happens, but it wouldn't create. Anyway, it's a longer conversation. Yeah.

Well, maybe we'll talk about it next week. Really, it's a big decision. It's a big decision. We'll see. it's a big decision. It's a big decision. We'll see. Just so you know,

the Post has some charts showing that in every state that has banned affirmative action, white people are overrepresented, black people are underrepresented, most other people are in parity. But we know the effects. We understand the effects of what happens.

Anyway, we'll see. We'll talk about it. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Please read us out. Today's show was produced by Larry Naiman, Nishat Kerouac, Travis Larchuk, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Silverio, and Gaddy McBain. Make sure you're following the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for

listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara Swisher, your intellect, your bravery, your humor, that's my drug of choice, baby. If I'm addicted to you, so be it.