Pivot - Reddit Goes Public, Microsoft’s Big AI Move, and the DOJ Sues Apple

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

Kara and Scott discuss the latest Neuralink news, Trump’s $464 million problem, and the DOJ’s Apple lawsuit. Then, Microsoft makes a big move in the AI race, hiring former Google Executive and Dee...p Mind Co-Founder, Mustafa Suleyman. And Reddit is officially public. Plus, stay tuned for the listener question if you want to hear what movies make Kara and Scott cry. Well…Scott anyway. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:00 Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. I'm Kara Swisher. I'm Scott Galloway. Guess where I am today, Scott? You're on the West Coast, no? No. I'm in the city of Big Shoulders. I'm in Chicago. Really? Okay.
Starting point is 00:01:34 What are you doing in Chi-Town? Well, from Ann Arbor, after seeing Giant Alex, speaking of Big Shoulders, and doing an event there with the CEO of GM, I went to Minneapolis, where I had the loveliest time. They are truly nicer people in Minneapolis than anywhere else. Yeah, it's a great city, a great music city. Anyways, what were you doing in Minneapolis? It was another event, another sold-out event there for the book. We had a lot of discussions about George Floyd, which was interesting, sort of the repercussions and everything. That was kind of interesting.
Starting point is 00:02:03 Now I'm in Chicago for two events today, two events, one with Brene Brown, our friend from Vox Media, and one with Mark Leibovich, who is an old friend of mine, who works for The Atlantic now. That sounds good. Sounds very white, but it sounds good. It does. It's very white. I had a hot dog, a Chicago dog. You're practically one of them now. I love Chicago. dog, a Chicago dog. You're practically one of them now. I love Chicago. Do you like Chicago? I think Chicago is the old navy of cities.
Starting point is 00:02:30 It's 80% of New York for 50% of the price, which I say that positively. It's a great trade. I love this city. It's freezing, but I love this city, I have to say. I would live here. My best friend Adam was there. Yeah. And it's close to everything.
Starting point is 00:02:45 I think its geography is really powerful. I went on a bit of a bender and started to watch Chicago movies, like About Last Night and the one with Kevin, you know, where he plays the FBI agent catching Al Capone. Oh, The Untouchables with Kevin Costner. Yes, The Untouchables. I watched Blues Brothers, a little bit of the Tom Cruise movie, Risky Business. Anyway,
Starting point is 00:03:08 a lot of movies set here. It has a lot of visuals. Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And all the John Hughes movies. Anyway, I'm headed to L.A. tomorrow to be on Bill Maher, which you are also
Starting point is 00:03:17 going to be on, they tell me. So that was nice. Do you know who your co-panelist is? I'm not a panelist. I'm the interview. Oh, you got the big chair.
Starting point is 00:03:24 You're right up front. That's very exciting. I think I do know who you are, but you're not supposed to talk about it. You're going to have some fun. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including Reddit's IPO finally happening and Microsoft making a big AI hire. But first, Elon Musk's Neuralink has released a video showing the first human patient playing chess using nothing but his thoughts. The patient, a quadriplegic, moves a cursor on a laptop to play a game and turn off music. Neuralink is the third company to release video evidence of brain implants after Neurotech and Synchron. So you can multitask and also it's closer. So some of them are on the outside, I guess. And this one is implanted. But this whole area is really, really interesting.
Starting point is 00:04:18 Are you ready to let Elon have access to your thoughts, Scott? Oh, God, I'm trying to come up with something snarky. It's cool. There's no getting around it. It's really hopeful and exciting. I have someone very close to me in my life who suffers from multiple sclerosis. There's all sorts of, I mean, this could be very exciting on a number of dimensions. So I'm distinct of how I feel about his personal behavior off mic. I'm rooting for him and the company. Yeah. And there's other companies too. It's a really interesting area. I think we know so little about our brains. We really do about
Starting point is 00:04:50 how they work and everything else. And so all these, you know, these neural issues and what you can do with them are interesting. And we'll see where this guy goes. I think he was in a diving accident, this guy. I'd like to, you know, it just got me interested in more of the whole area, all these companies, and how we're going to do this. And I remember seeing Dean Kamen, if you remember, he did the Segway. But he also did this chair, this special wheelchair that you got up in. We had it once at a code. Someday they're going to print your liver, Scott, so you'll be okay. Oh, you're not going to want to see that movie.
Starting point is 00:05:23 liver, Scott, so you'll be okay. Oh, you're not going to want to see that movie. That's basically the Hollywood stars of bars in downtown is my liver. Oh, I see. Well, it's going to be able to be printed and made from synthetics. I think all this stuff is really cool. And these are the Elon we like. And again, not just Elon, but lots of companies like this. I love this part of tech. Do you remember the Segway? Yeah, I do. I remember Jeff Bezos on a Segway at Ted. I didn't put that in the book, but yeah, I remember it. They were always around.
Starting point is 00:05:50 They rode him around a lot. It goes to the idolatry of innovators and this kind of marks the time, but coming into my professional years, the Jesus Christ of my world was a guy named John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins. Yeah, I know him well.
Starting point is 00:06:03 You know John. Okay, anyways. Yes. And he announced, he announced that one, the Segway was going to change the world. So we're all waiting for the Segway. It literally was the headset of before headsets. But everyone, these folks spent a ton of money on it and it was supposedly going to change mobility and do away with cars. And also, I remember my biggest moment, I was just so excited as an entrepreneur, we were doing work for Kleiner Perkins, my firm profit, we were doing branch strategy. And so they let us invest in this online wedding registry. I forgot the name. So I convinced my partner, I'm like, John Doerr is letting us into a deal. And we literally gathered every cent we
Starting point is 00:06:40 had and it was a quarter of a million bucks. And we put it into this thing and we're waiting. I was literally thought, okay, that's it. I'm done. I'm going to be a billionaire. I got to co-invest with Kleiner Perkins. And like in six months, the business was out of business. He was he's been a lot of good things. You know, Google, Amazon, you know.
Starting point is 00:06:57 Well, yeah, he had a very, very strong career. But actually a lovely fellow, I have to say. Really nice man. Smart. I mean, obviously the stuff around Ellen Powe was problematic at the Kleiner, but that was the largest. It's good we got that in. It's good we got that in. I was going to say that everyone has a mixed record, just like you just insulted him for the Segway. But all the digital people rode around on them.
Starting point is 00:07:19 And I just remember Jeff Bezos riding around like a lunatic on it, into restaurants and things like that. But it's being used all over cities across America for tourists. You've seen them, little Segway tours, haven't you? Yeah, they have them in Paris, but I mean, it's literally, it's like, how can I look like the worst cliche of a tourist? Yeah. Mall cop. Mall cop. If I could take a Segway into a marine park and start harassing and petting dolphins while, you know, while eating fried snickers it's just it's it is the cliche of cliche let me just say having written it it's a cool
Starting point is 00:07:51 secondly if it brought us paul blart mall cop i think it's worth every cent worth it that's the best movie ever have you ever seen it just because it's a nobody has any goddamn idea i mean who would have thought oh but you know a handheld phone i, who would have thought, oh, but, you know, a handheld phone, I guess we would have thought that, or this little blank page with a query box was going to be. I mean, it's just so interesting what works and what doesn't. Yeah. Bob Lerner. He lives down the street from me in Delray Beach. No, he's made a lot of money doing what I would call fairly unimportant work, but good for him.
Starting point is 00:08:23 King of Queens. King of Queens is pretty, pretty cute, isn't it? Good for him. I like him. I don't care. He's great. That movie is... Go watch that movie if you want to be happy.
Starting point is 00:08:31 I like any movie where a mediocre, overweight guy with a minimum wage job gets to date hot women. Gets the girl and rides a Segway. That's right. Yeah, it's very realistic. Anybody, watch it if you want to be happy. Anyway, former President Trump won't be able to secure the $464 million bond to appeal his fraud case in New York, according to his lawyers right now.
Starting point is 00:08:51 We'll see. Trump's legal team has called the amount impossible. He's making a big deal of that and said they had contacted around 30 companies that provide appeal bonds with no success. The bond is due to be posted next week. But Trump's lawyers have asked the court to either pause the judgment or accept only $100 million. Try to do a deal, deal or no deal. I'd love you to talk about this because that lunatic from Shark Tank, Kevin O'Leary, who I think is such a pompous ass, was screaming at the very lovely Laura Coates the other day on shows. But everyone feels like, look, this guy did the crime.
Starting point is 00:09:21 Don't do the crime if you don't want to pay the bill or do the time, essentially. He shouldn't get in now because he's rich, et cetera, et cetera. Thoughts? Well, the whole bond thing is pretty interesting, right? Because there's probably some people that just shouldn't be allowed bond. And then on the other hand, if people are granted bond and not seen as immediate threat to society, kind of nonviolent crime, I think bond prices should come down because this is yet another example of how the justice system right away is just entirely not blind based on how much money you have. The issue here is whether or not, and I don't know the answer to this, I'd love to ask Preet if this is kind of what I'd call an extraordinary demand, that to ask for a half a billion dollar bond,
Starting point is 00:10:07 my understanding is this is a fairly unprecedented size and that this is- It's not, I've searched it, but go ahead. Well, half a billion dollars. Are there a lot of half a billion dollar bonds? It is, it's a lot of money. Yes, it is. But it's not unprecedented.
Starting point is 00:10:22 There've been other ones. Is that right? Okay. Yes, from what I understand, this is the way they're handling this It is. But it's not unprecedented. There have been other ones. Is that right? Okay. Yes. From what I understand, this is the way they're handling this is the way they handle everyone's bonds. This was the judgment. It doesn't really, you can't make changes. Maybe you should.
Starting point is 00:10:40 Maybe it should be, you know, as the price goes up, the bond goes down. I don't know. But it seems like that favors rich people, right? So I don't know. It'll be interesting. So she could seize. It'll take forever from what I've been reading a lot about this. It'll take forever for her to seize something. And a lot of his properties have other obligations on them, loans or whatever. So the worry is that he has to go to like Saudi Arabia or some single rich guy or- A donor. And all the Republican, all the MAGA people, not the Republicans, another person, who was it, was screaming about why doesn't a rich person, maybe that was Kevin O'Leary again, about giving, why doesn't a rich
Starting point is 00:11:19 person pony up? Why doesn't Sean Hannity pony up and everybody else? No one wants to give this guy money, but he may get some money with True Social, which may go public and give him several billion dollars because he owns a whole bunch of it. So that could happen. It's now maybe if they decide to, the shareholders decide it'll go public, he'll get the money, but he can't sell it for six months. Maybe that he could borrow against it. I wouldn't take that bet. But there's that. He doesn't have a half a billion dollars in cash. So he needs to get a bond and he's having trouble finding someone to secure the assets. In my opinion, it's fairly likely to speculate that
Starting point is 00:11:56 his reason with Elon Musk was, hey, Elon, would you like a cabinet position? Can you give me half a billion dollars? And the scary thing here, as everything becomes financialized and we've normalized how, what just a whorehouse Washington is, I would imagine we're about to find the second VP pick is based on how much money this person has and how much they're willing to give to the campaign. I would imagine that Donald Trump's running around and saying, hey, hey, how'd you like to potentially be president? No, I'm old and I'm obese. Do you want to be VP? How committed are you to the campaign? Wink, wink, hey, how'd you like to potentially be president? No, I'm old and I'm obese. Do you want to be VP? You know, how committed are you to the campaign? Wink, wink, are you $500 million committed to the campaign? Because this just happened. And I think the media isn't- You don't think he can shove money over there. He shoves his legal money. He uses the campaign.
Starting point is 00:12:40 That's why he's so far down. He's really not. Now, everyone says he'll get money once it gets going. But there's a lot of worry about how much money Biden has versus Trump in this campaign, because these campaigns are made of money and that's how things work. or at least takes a beat before they... I'm trying to be polite around saying, RFK Jr.'s supposed VP pick... Nicole Shanahan. Yeah, who seems like a nice young woman. If she was a he, the media's hair would be on fire because the only reason she's, in my opinion, has been vetted and potentially is
Starting point is 00:13:25 supposedly now his VP pick to be announced in Oakland is because he needs 15 million bucks to get on different state ballots, and she has it. And if it was a young tech bro with absolutely no experience in elected office who had gotten a settlement from someone he was married to for two years, the media would have their hair on fire. But the VIP stakes have entered a new level of just how inane they are. And that is this individual, who, by the way, I don't doubt she's a lovely person and even an impressive person. They should do some reporting on her. Like you and I, like I said, mixed bag, mixed bag. Well, there is. No, no, it's not a mixed bag. There is no bag. She has no business near the, near the White House. That's correct. That's correct. Neither does he. But my point is the Veep stakes are now about who's willing to give me
Starting point is 00:14:13 money to either bail me out of jail or get me on ballots in different states. I mean, we really have, is this a fucking simulation? It is. Elon's right. Elon and all these people are right. It's a simulation. What's going to happen next? You're going to be asked to be, would you take the job? Do you have $444 million? Yeah. No, we're going to need a lot more downloads. We're going to need Elon. Elon said he was not asked for money when asked in that interview with Don Lemon, but who knows if that's true. But he may have been asked by someone else, which is you have to ask a question very carefully around Elon Musk. But I think he probably in some fashion was asked for the money. Who could do that then? Who could he pick as VP, Trump, to get $500 million?
Starting point is 00:15:02 Oh, there are a lot of billionaires. I think Vivek doesn't have that money. There are a lot of billionaires that would figure out a way, and I don't think he'd care. I think he'd violate campaign financials. I'm like, once I'm president, it doesn't matter what laws I've broken. That's why I'm running, quite frankly. But if you think about it, the vice president is the least important job in the world until it's the most important, potentially. And they all say the right thing. They all say, well, obviously the qualification or the only consideration is who would be a good president. But that is just such bullshit. The only reason VEAPs are picked is who will increase the likelihood that I will be president. In other words, they bring a state, they bring money, they check some boxes, whatever it might be. That's why they're picked. And
Starting point is 00:15:42 unfortunately, what I think happens is people forget these two really should have a good relationship. And supposedly Biden and Harris don't like each other. And quite frankly, I think Vice President Harris is a very impressive woman. I think he wanted to pick a woman of color and she was the most qualified. She checks a lot of boxes. She's a very impressive woman. She would have had a greater chance of being president had she never been vice president. For whatever reason, she has lost her voice. And a lot of it, people say, is that the West Wing does not like her. I have interviewed people in the West Wing, including, on the record, lots of people saying this is just not true. I don't think vice presidents have a very good job.
Starting point is 00:16:20 She's been especially bad at that not good job. I mean, she just hasn't. Well, I don't know about that. Dan Quayle, come on. We could list lots of vice, but come on. I'm going to, no. Okay. Okay.
Starting point is 00:16:30 She's right up there with Dan Quayle. No, she's not. Are you kidding me? Oh, she's awful, Kara. No, you're wrong. She's awful. Again, speaking without knowing, I actually do know a thing or two about this, and it's not true. I think she has problems politically, and I think it has a little to do
Starting point is 00:16:45 with being a woman, a little, not an insignificant amount being a woman of color. I think she has, she can feel like a prosecutor. There's all kinds of things like that. And I think she suffers from being a vice president. I don't know. I don't think you're correct. I think that she had a ton of opportunities around Roe, around Black Lives Matter to be a powerful voice. She is doing that right now. Well, she hasn't been effective. I don't know Matter to be a powerful voice. She is doing that right now. Well, she hasn't been effective. I don't know. It's a long road.
Starting point is 00:17:07 We'll see where she comes out. We'll see where she comes out in the end. In any case, she's certainly qualified. How about that? Oh, out of central casting. And by the way, was an outstanding senator. Yeah, very much so. Very good at Attorney General of California.
Starting point is 00:17:21 So we'll see where she zeroes out in the end. But you're incorrect about some of those things. Good to know. You are. You are. You're just saying off the top of your head. Yeah, it's called a podcast. I understand. Vivek Ramaswamy is worth apparently $950 million, although he says he's a billionaire. Well, he's right in there. He's right at the edge of that. Maybe he could give... What people don't realize is when you're worth $900 million, you can't find $450 million in cash.
Starting point is 00:17:47 Right. That's what I mean. Yeah. Supposedly he's a billionaire, but I'm seeing numbers of $900 million. But he says he is, but others do not. In general, the more dudes talk about their wealth, i.e. like Trump, the less they have relative to what they're saying. I found the wealthiest people in the world do not talk about their money. He's right at the edge of a billion, supposedly. Go ahead. Is that right?
Starting point is 00:18:10 But Trump used to call Forbes and complain that they weren't saying he was wealthy enough. I think we're going to find out that actually Donald Trump's net worth is a lot less than we thought or he claimed. Yeah, that's what this is going to show us. We'll see where it comes up with the money. Regardless, he has to pay like everybody else. Bonds are hard for poor people, too.
Starting point is 00:18:29 In any case, the Justice Department is suing Apple, accusing the company of violating antitrust laws by blocking rivals from accessing hardware and software features on its phone. The suit escalates the Biden administration's antitrust fights against the biggest U.S. tech companies, including Alphabet, Meta and Amazon. This is happening as Apple is coming under increasing scrutiny in Europe over alleged anti-competitive behavior. As you know, Margrethe Vestager, her group in Europe and the EU, fined them over $2 billion. So, Scott, what do you think of this? Finally, the penny is dropping for Apple. We've been waiting for this one.
Starting point is 00:19:06 Look, I think that it is shocking how much likability plays into this because, and I'm guilty of this, and I think a little bit you sometimes, Tim Cook and Apple are just so likable that we don't apply the same unbiased scrutiny of their role in addiction to devices, their role in privacy, even though they claim privacy is... They use the virtue signaling of privacy, quite frankly, around certain... To let themselves to not, in my opinion, not live up to the standards of what would be best for America or the consumer. And Marguerite Bestier, there seems to be a group of regulators who are not impressed or not really concerned with how likable Apple is. And so I'm here for it. I think it's a good thing.
Starting point is 00:19:57 Yeah, we'll see where it goes. They definitely are facing a lot of things, again, in the EU under, and so are tech companies, especially in the EU. But this is the US finally stepping up. The thing is, outmatched by all these companies, every one of them. And this Apple case was a long time coming. And as are the others, the Google ones coming, Alphabet ones coming. That's further advanced. So we'll see what happens with all of these. But there's a wide ranging group of cases. And by the way, there were also cases that began in the Trump administration. So this is a little bit of a bipartisan thing. I don't know if it's anti-tech, but it's anti-power.
Starting point is 00:20:36 And it's something I've been talking about all the time, that there is no governor. And I happen to like Apple, but I don't care. They shouldn't be controlling the app store the way they are. And it's just, this is about bigness. And whether you like the company or not, it doesn't matter. Bigness begets anti-competition. That's it. I'm one of those people. Power corrupts. No, I don't know about that. I don't necessarily- Oh, we all know about that. Power corrupts, Kara.
Starting point is 00:21:02 Look, the bigger they are, the less innovation there is, Scott. That's it. I'm sorry. You think about, you know, Standard Oil or AT&T, et cetera, et cetera. I just think, and by the way, there's going to be lawsuits in the AI area too, and there should be. I think lawsuits are the only way to handle this stuff, given that we have no federal legislation protecting us from tech companies, that it's with any kind of teeth, no privacy bill, no new updated antitrust bills,
Starting point is 00:21:35 no algorithmic transparency. And I will stand on this. I've been screaming this on this book tour. This has to happen because there are no other options. And as great as these companies are, and as much money as they make, and how valuable they are, that's all great. And it says a lot about America. You can't have all these big companies if you want to be what we are in 10 years from now. That's my feeling. Anyway, let's get to our first big story. Microsoft just made a big move in the AI race, hiring former Google exec and DeepMind founder Mustafa Suleiman to oversee its consumer AI unit. Suleiman had, until recently, been running his own AI startup, Inflection, which he co-founded with Reid Hoffman, among others. Inflection has raised over $1.5 billion from a number of investors, including Microsoft, and Reid Hoffman's on the board of Microsoft. There's a lot. I really want to see the big story about this. I chatted with Suleiman last year, actually, and he asked him about his startup and his place in the AI world. 10, 15 years. And I think we have slightly different, you know, a different flavor. I mean, we're still fundamentally working in big tech. I'm not, you know, going to sort of, you know,
Starting point is 00:22:49 that's important to say. But, you know, I think there's a different flavor to the kind of approach that we're trying to take now. And it represents the next step forward in the evolution of companies and how we run big tech. So this is interesting, because there's so many interactions here. In addition to Suleiman, Microsoft hired a number of Inflection employees, including its chief scientist, who is another co-founder. Inflection recused himself, by the way, of this thing, but he doesn't seem angry about it. I pinged him. because essentially from what's been reported, Microsoft has taken the heart and lungs of this company. It's taken Mustafa, and my understanding is every important person at this company that all the company is left with is its IP.
Starting point is 00:23:53 And if you're an individual like Mustafa, and I also had him on a podcast, you can't raise a billion and a half dollars and look at people and ask them for money and then take your entire team over to another company. So they've clearly, someone at a high level between two companies has come to some sort of accommodation.
Starting point is 00:24:15 Otherwise, lawsuits would have been announced yesterday. This is very strange. Basically, the whole firm is getting their mousepad or whatever, and they're walking across. They're going to Microsoft. It's just very strange what's going on here. Yeah, a little like when they tried to hire Sam Altman, when that whole thing was happening, if you remember. When Sam was going to go over there and run the AI division after Microsoft had a big stake in OpenAI. It's really interesting.
Starting point is 00:24:47 He's going to lead Copilot, which is their consumer. He's running the consumer unit. I have not, I have searched for a very good, I probably should do the reporting myself, but I haven't. I don't, who's going to pay back the people? And one of its co-founders, I think it's Karan Simonyan, he was also a leading researcher at DeepMind. I don't get it. Do you have any idea? of inflection, we're going to make you whole or we're going to, there's just no way inflection and inflection's investors would just get an email saying, oh, hi, it's Mustafa and me and 60 of the 75 employees or whatever it is are going to Microsoft.
Starting point is 00:25:38 Well, it's moving out of the consumer space with this pie, which was kind of cool. I liked it. It will work with commercial customers to create test and tune AI systems. This is from the New York Times. Microsoft is also licensing Inflection AI's latest underlying technology to make it available to business customers of its cloud computing products. And this guy's working on the consumer stuff. But the reason why I moved stuff in addition to obviously being very, very talented, I believe that he was hired and that they are probably paying inflection or figuring out something to make inflection whole and spending this much money is Satya said, we are not going through that bullshit again that we went through three months ago. And what's strange about AI,
Starting point is 00:26:15 true or not, they've decided that there are three or four kind of key athletes. There's Messi, there's Ronaldo in this world. And I would bet that Satya said, I don't like how the most important AI company in the world, and he doesn't want it too dependent from a reality or a perception standpoint on one person. No matter how lovely or how smart Sam Altman is, he needs... I mean, the 49ers, this is the limit of my sports knowledge, and whenever Bill Walsh, the coach, slept really well at night because he had the best quarterback in the world and the second best quarterback on the bench in case one guy got injured. There just appeared to be too much shareholder value riding on one person. And this is diversification from that. Yeah, I see why he's doing it. But interestingly, Suleiman, and you probably know this from
Starting point is 00:27:17 interviewing him, he was the one that has been much more out front with this technology is very dangerous, could be very dangerous. It could be great. But I mean, he's sort of more in the middle, but he's, in his book, especially, I think that you talked to him about too, he talked about the transformative nature, but he also talked about the destruction of humanity part. The other part, they didn't do open sourcing, although he's said, Suleiman has said that these technologies shouldn't be controlled by one company. There's all kinds of really shifting sands here in a really interesting way because they're not open the way Meta and XAI are open sourcing to make it safe. But he's sort of a proponent for that a little bit too. It's really lots is going on here and nobody's actually making money from a business yet. That's the other thing we need to underscore. Well, this Game of Thrones here is the ultimate Game of Thrones. I don't know if you saw, I mean, just speaking of which, we're waiting to see what the first trade is on Reddit, but a company yesterday, Astera Labs,
Starting point is 00:28:28 But a company yesterday, Astera Labs, went public and it had a 72% pop on its first trade. I mean, we may be off to the races again because this company, Astera Labs, they sell hardware and software products that improve the efficiency and reliability of enterprise AI systems. So it's legitimately an AI company. Right. But do they make money yet? Oh, none of these things make money yet. None of these. Let's just underscore that for people. They have revenue. They went from 85 million to, I think, 120.
Starting point is 00:28:52 So they had about 40% revenue growth. The company, as of yesterday, Post the Pop, has a $9 billion market cap. It's trading at 70 times revenues. I know. I know. It's crazy. Revenues. Revenues, not earnings.
Starting point is 00:29:06 Revenues. Revenues, not earnings. Revenues. Revenues. If Reddit comes out and gets a pop, the markets, baby, are back and we are off to the races. Well, Reddit is just an ad business and it loses money just like the rest of media in the old fashion way. Just for a couple of things, you're talking about things going on right now. Google and Apple's potential partnership is a big blockbuster. Microsoft also invested $60 million in Mistral AI. It's a French rival to OpenAI. It's all over the place. It'll be interesting to see what it does to its relationship with OpenAI because he was
Starting point is 00:29:38 going to bring Sam and if Sam didn't, Dan Altman, if he didn't get that job back at OpenAI. Nadella apparently told, according to Bloomberg, Altman about the new role on Monday, just a day before everyone else. I'm sure he was like, swallowed his tongue a little bit. But he also said they're very committed to its partnership with OpenAI. I mean, Satya looks like the head of Westeros right now. And of course, they're also facing copyright lawsuits all over the globe. Google was just fined $270 million
Starting point is 00:30:12 by French regulators for training its model on news articles without notifying publishers. New York Times is obviously in a lawsuit with OpenAI. There's all kinds of things happening here, all kinds of things. It's really interesting. From an economic standpoint, this is arguably the most important or intense chess game ever played. The amount of money on the line here for whoever outwits the other, finds the human capital, the positioning, the marketing, staves off government regulation, pretends to
Starting point is 00:30:42 give a flying fuck about the Commonwealth so that they have AI operating committees, but never do anything. That firm will probably mint their first trillionaire. I mean, you talked about Reddit. Reddit's pricing at eight times revenues. I mean, there's all the companies in the world, and then there is the companies in the center of AI, and they are treated by an entirely different standard in terms of the market. I am excited to see this story on what happened here because especially around Reed and they're all in everybody's grill. So it's really interesting.
Starting point is 00:31:13 Actually, you know what? I'm gonna start making calls this afternoon. I'll find out for us. This is a really weird story. There's definitely some reporting that needs to be done here because we're missing something. You can't cash someone's check for a billion and a
Starting point is 00:31:25 half dollars, which Mustafa did, then walk across the street. Yeah, there's no shareholder lawsuits, something. Yeah, exactly. Somebody has come to an agreement here that is the controlling shareholders at Inflection and with Microsoft. Yeah. And again, just to be clear, Reid Hoffman is on the board of Microsoft. There's OpenAI. He used to be on the board of OpenAI. I mean, they're all the connections are so interesting. Reid used to be on the board of OpenAI. Sam is close with Satya. I mean, and Suleiman was at Google. I mean, it is. It's Game of Friggin' Thrones, Game of AI Thrones. And we'll see where it goes. Anyway, let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk reddit's big ipo now and take a listen to mail question about pop culture tear jerkers
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Starting point is 00:34:47 Details at Fizz.ca. Scott, we're back for our second big story. Reddit has officially gone public. The social media company made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday with a share price of $34, the high end of the targeted range. Its share price puts Reddit's value at around $6.4 billion, which seems teeny tiny these days, which is what they were aiming for, but below the $10 billion valuation from a private fundraising round in 2021. I chatted with Reddit CEO Steve Hoffman yesterday prior to the IPO and asked him
Starting point is 00:35:23 about how he was feeling about all of this. When somebody asked me what keeps me up at night, my answer has been the same for a long time, which is one, just practically, I actually sleep very well at night. And then two, you know, I think for Reddit, you know, we've been around 20 years. So we've seen the rise of social media. We've seen the internet totally evolve. And by and large, these things haven't affected Reddit. What affects Reddit is how we work, right? Are we executing effectively? Are we shipping the right stuff? And so it's always kind of felt like we're in control of our destiny, for better or for worse. Well, I mean, for better, though I think sometimes we've been better or worse at being in control of our destiny, if that makes sense.
Starting point is 00:36:17 He also told me he thought that two years of not IPO-ing was one of the best things that ever happened to the company. It gave it discipline. We're recording this as trading is getting underway. How do you think it'll go? Well, I voted with my wallet. I'm trying to get shares here. So if JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley could do this, this is what they would do.
Starting point is 00:36:39 They themselves would find $100 million each and buy into this, buy into the first trades and try and send the stock soaring. Because the IPO market has been in a deep thaw for two years. It's been some of the slowest two-year period, 24-month period in several decades. Yesterday, the landing lights got lit by this company, this company, Astera. Is that what it's called? Astera? If I got the name right. Yeah, Astera Labs. If a popular, not a popular, but a well-known consumer internet brand, Reddit, gets a big pop, we're back in business, baby. And the amount of money that flows from the IPO market in terms of downstream, secondary, green shoe, follow-on, wealth management, all this shit, they create so much fees. Let me push back here. This is an advertising company.
Starting point is 00:37:29 This is not an AI company, first of all, which is a little different. Just for people to be aware, Reddit sold, I mean, it's almost fully an advertising company, completely. $800 million in advertising. It's very small. It's like a Snapchat kind of situation. I think Snapchat's a lot bigger, actually. I think double, for sure. Reddit sold, just for people to be aware, just above 15 million shares in the offering, and existing shareholders sold another close to 7 million shares, taking some money off the table, I think, right away. And you were talking about Astera, A-S-T-E-R-A, for people who don't know. A-S-T-E-R-A for people who don't know. But it's a dry spell. Just so people are aware,
Starting point is 00:38:17 Reddit's revenue was $804 million last year. It rose from $667 million, but it lost $90 million in almost $91 million. And the year before, it lost $159 million. It's trying to get into other businesses like data licensing. It got just around $66 million from Google in data licensing deals to train these AI models. It got a query from the Federal Trade Commission for this. It's also, Steve told me he was, they're looking at commerce and other businesses besides advertising. And they think they have a good advertising story because it's safer because of contextual advertising and also because you can reach individuals.
Starting point is 00:38:59 This is decentralized content moderation, decentralized groups. I don't know. I think it's an advertising business. And also, the last thing is they're famous for Wall Street bets. And in Wall Street bets, they were going to short the stock. So there's a meme possibility here, too, that the people that are on the site will try to work against it. And then last thing, in moderators, some of the mods are getting shares. And not all of them liked it necessarily, because this is a very noisy company among the people who run it. It's run by people who are volunteers and stuff. Anyway, it's a lot happening here. I mean, you still think because it's an ad business, I mean, and you know the ad business, that it'll mean as much. So there's Reddit, the specific company, its performance, and how it performs in the market. And then there's a larger question about what it means, the IPO this morning of Reddit, to the larger market.
Starting point is 00:39:57 So let's talk about Reddit. You're right. It's an ad business. They basically have a series of boards and Redditors that manage those boards. They have unbelievable traffic, but they haven't really figured out. They don't have the ad stack and the business model to really monetize it the way other companies have run it. It's an $800 million business, not a big business. It grew 20% last year. It's still losing money. It's going out or it's priced at about eight times revenues, which draws sharp relief between, as you pointed out, an ad-based business and an AI business.
Starting point is 00:40:25 The question surrounding Reddit is the following. They have the worst monetization of any platform that gets this kind of traffic. I think Meta gets something like 30 to 50 times the monetization per person on the platform as Reddit. Now, it's like my dad told me, I remember my dad telling me this when he was trying to test whether I'd be a good salesman. He's like, a salesman goes over to Africa, and this marks the time, this was the 70s, and he comes back and one salesman goes, he's a shoe salesman. One salesman comes back and says, terrible market force, nobody wears shoes here. Another salesman goes over and comes back and says, this is amazing, nobody has shoes. So the question is, is Reddit,
Starting point is 00:41:06 is the fact that they have the worst monetization given the traffic an incredible opportunity if they figure that out? Or is it a company that's never been able to figure it out and is going to go nowhere? That's the question. But at $6.5 billion, a lot of people are about to take, I believe, that bet. Now, the bigger issue here is what it means for the market. Would you buy Reddit? I don't buy into these things. So would you buy Reddit? I'm trying to.
Starting point is 00:41:30 So because you think that it's undervalued in that regard. Yeah. Because I don't think people think that the data stuff is going to be the big moneymaker at all. The data stuff. And the commerce stuff is absolutely nascent. Like, I sell more t-shirts than they do, that kind of thing. I'm buying for two reasons. The first is, this could be, I think there is a ton of pent-up demand. In 2021, there were 397 IPOs. And of those 397 IPOs,
Starting point is 00:42:03 because a ton of them were SPACs and shit and caught up in the mania, eight out of 10 of them, 82% of them are trading below their IPO price and the market feels burned and jilted. So as a result, in 2023, there were only 108 IPOs. The reason I'm investing in this is two reasons. One, I think that essentially it's a global brand. And two, it's the most trafficked site in America that isn't owned by Alphabet. And it's trading all of this set against a valuation of $6.5 billion. There are real issues, as you pointed out with this company. They have not yet figured out a way to monetize anything resembling the firehose of traffic they have. It's not that big.
Starting point is 00:42:47 500 million users, 76. He was focused in on the daily users, 76 million. And it's not ugly. They've really cleaned it up quite a bit compared to a Twitter where everyone's in the same pile of crap. You know, everybody's in the same feed or whatever. There's a lot to not like about this company. They haven't figured out monetization. When I go on the site, it feels like, you know, Lycos or AltaVista called and wants their UI back.
Starting point is 00:43:11 I don't think it's very elegantly done. But for $6.5 billion, a company that is, if you type in most traffic sites in the U.S., it goes Google, it goes YouTube, and then it's Reddit. It goes Google, it goes YouTube, and then it's Reddit. And also, I think there's so much money on the sidelines hoping to get back into the IPO market. But if Reddit comes out at a healthy pop, we're off to the races again, Kara. You're going to see a ton of companies file in the greed glanzer and the animal spirits
Starting point is 00:43:40 are going to get going again. So Reddit is actually, Reddit is more important to investment banks and the IPO banks and the IPO ecosystem and the broader market, I would argue, than almost any company in a while. This IPO has much bigger meaning and ramifications than just what shareholders of Reddit are going to garner. In the midst of this, of all these things that are happening, two things interesting. One of the big winners could be Condé Nast's parent company, Advance, whose stake in Reddit will be worth around $1.4 billion.
Starting point is 00:44:07 I don't think they can sell, though. Maybe they're selling a little bit of shares in the hype. They might be among those sellers. They made a $10 million investment for Condé Nast to buy Reddit in 2006, and then they spun it out again. So this company got bought in and then spun out. It's been through a lot in the many years. Second thing, Reddit had to reveal the FTC is conducting an inquiry tied to the company's deals to license data, as we said. And then also, Reddit, along with YouTube and Meta, also has been ordered by New York State judge to face a
Starting point is 00:44:41 lawsuit tied to that 2022 racially motivated shooting in Buffalo. The lawsuit claims the platforms helped radicalize the shooter and prepare him for an attack. Of course, the Supreme Court found differently when it was a Google case, so I'm not sure this will go anywhere. So there's all those things hanging around. Will this set it off or will something else set off the IPO market? Because Instacart didn't do very well. Others didn't do very well. Like I said, the table's been set with Astera Labs up 72%. If a big consumer internet brand, Reddit, comes out at a healthy pop, the IPO market is back in business. All right. Okay. We'll see, Scott. We'll see what it is. Scott Galloway here, coming in with an update. Since we've taped, Reddit has begun trading.
Starting point is 00:45:24 The stock opened at $47, and at its peak, the company had a market cap of, get this 11 billion and also ended up closing up, I think around 45 or 50%. I would argue that essentially this is enormous for the markets, that this has turned the IPO market from sort of like blinking yellow to a luminant green. The IPO market, the animal spirits, I think are back. In some, Astera Labs kind of illuminated the runway yesterday, and this big consumer internet brand, Reddit, landed the plane with a huge pop today. This is big for the markets. It's actually, the bigger part of the news here isn't a consumer media company up whatever it was, 45 or 50%.
Starting point is 00:46:05 The bigger story here is the IPO market, I believe, is back. The animal spirits are back. John Travolta is on the dance floor. Okay, now back to the show. Let's pivot to a listener question. The question comes from Justin. Let's listen. Hey, Scott and Kara. Justin here, calling in from New York's ugly older cousin, Philadelphia.
Starting point is 00:46:31 I took your advice and watched the show one day. My wife and I just finished the finale last night, and I gotta say, I haven't cried that hard since I re-watched Titanic, stoned in my parents' basement back in high school. Great recommendation, Scott. My question for both of you, what show or movie has made you cry the hardest in your life? Thanks. Actually, we got a lot of messages about Scott's TV recommendation,
Starting point is 00:46:54 including one from Lou in Brooklyn. Please tell Prof G to fuck off about his win, that one day show on Netflix. I cried like a little bitch, but that's neither here nor there. Fuck that guy. I met this really impressive woman, Miriam Vogel, who is doing this great startup or a nonprofit around AI and trying to manage responsible AI. And it's just like, out of central casting for the person who you would want to lead this organization. And as I was walking in,
Starting point is 00:47:24 like immediately someone yelled at me and they're like, one day, and they gave me a thumbs up sign. I mean, people are literally, because we tell people that we like hearing from people, which we do, people just feel totally emboldened to like yell across a restaurant at me,
Starting point is 00:47:37 a reference from the pod or something. But- I told you, ketamine trip was the big topic on my book tour right now, Scott's ketamine trip. Oh, wait, I gotta, before we come back to what made you, and I want you to answer what made you cry, but before we come back to that, just a couple of things. I've heard from a lot of psychiatrists and a lot of people very involved in ketamine saying that I didn't spend enough time
Starting point is 00:47:56 talking about the very important benefits here. And there's a lot of studies, and I just want to highlight a lot of studies showing that it has real that is really effective in a wonderful drug for for people veterans and others who have suffered trauma really struggle with depression so I want to put that out there the other thing just as a follow-up that I think is kind of interesting I'm now two weeks in and for the first time in 35 years over a two-week period I haven't had a drink and And that is very unusual for me. And it's not because I had some sort of revelation that I was drinking too much. Something has happened where the taste, I've lost the taste of alcohol. You know how they say when-
Starting point is 00:48:34 Interesting. And you're not taking Ozempic? Because that does it too. That's exactly the right question. Because my feeling is whatever, it's supposedly Ozempic just sort of tells your brain to be kind of a little turned off and nauseated by food. I feel like the same thing. I walked in. I went last night. I had dinner downtown, and then I went to Zero Bond. And just the smell of alcohol.
Starting point is 00:48:57 I had grapefruit spritzers the whole night, and I didn't drink, which was so unusual for me. By the way, I'm not nearly as charming or nice to be around. You're literally becoming Kara Swisher. Let me say I had dinner the other night with the third Emanuel brother. I know Rahm and Ari very well, but I didn't know Zeke Emanuel. He's a doctor. He's a very well-known doctor and scientist. And he was telling me about the effects he's studying of mushrooms on cancer patients and all these psychedelics. And he was telling me about the effects he's studying of mushrooms on cancer patients and all these psychedelics. And he was very much like, this is important. This is important stuff. So, yes, good.
Starting point is 00:49:31 The good thing for saying that. One thing that I'd like to know is what's your movie? What's your movie that made you? Well, you said one day, but is there another one? And then I'll tell you mine. Oh, but I'm an easy cry. Remains of the Day with Anthony Hopkins. The Black Stallion. Oh, wow I'm an easy cry. Remains of the Day with Anthony Hopkins. Oh. The Black Stallion.
Starting point is 00:49:46 Oh, wow. With Terry Garr and Mickey Rooney. You cry at everything, though. Like, right? Literally. Yeah. Pretty much any episode of Modern Family. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:55 How about you? What have you cried in? I don't cry at movies. It's a very big joke between Amanda and I. She cries at literally everything. It's fascinating. Like, I look over and she's tearing up over something like True Detective or something. Like, it wasn't True Detective, but it was something like that.
Starting point is 00:50:09 And I was like, are you kidding me? So she cries at everything. I cry at nothing. I'm trying to think what movie got me. I cried in Barbie. Like, what the fuck am I doing here? How did I end up here? No, stop it.
Starting point is 00:50:23 Stop attacking Barbie. You're not allowed. You've used up all your anti-Barbie remarks for your life. I do love what you said, that Margot Robbie, had she not been in Pink, would have been nominated. I thought that was a super interesting frame. She's an astonishing actress. I'm sorry. Her whole face is so expressive. What did I cry in? Let me think. Oh, my God. Roadhouse with Patrick Swayze. Roadhouse with Patrick Swayze because it was so beautiful.
Starting point is 00:50:51 That's what it is. Another one, The Champ with Ricky Schroeder and John Boyd. Oh, God. You didn't cry in that? No. I don't cry in movies. I really don't. Really? Roadhouse, Gladiator, when he died.
Starting point is 00:51:04 I didn't cry, but I was sad. The English Patient, my favorite movie. The English Patient, you didn't cry in that? That didn't. Really? Roadhouse, Gladiator, when he died. I didn't cry, but I was sad. The English Patient, my favorite movie. The English Patient, you didn't cry? No, you didn't? That didn't grab you and really move you? No. Old Yeller? Nope.
Starting point is 00:51:13 Nope. Oh, my God. I'm dead inside. Roadhouse, Patrick Swayze, his beauty. Oh. Yeah, my favorite line in Roadhouse is this guy when he's fighting me and he says. Not the new one. No, no, no.
Starting point is 00:51:29 The old Roadhouse. My favorite scene is when they're fighting and the guy goes, I used to fuck guys like you in prison. And I'm like, well then. Oh, yeah. Well then. Okay. Every Patrick Swayze movie is spectacular.
Starting point is 00:51:42 Maybe I turn up a tiny bit in Dirty Dancing when she goes, nobody puts baby in the corner. But that wasn't really sad. That was the happy part. I'm like, yes, yes, Patrick Swayze pulled baby out of the corner. But that was, I still didn't cry. Didn't cry. I'm sorry. Dead Poets Society, that dead movie, Dead Poets Society? No. Oh, God. Oh, my God, no. Oh, God. It was so saccharine. Maybe Ghost? The End of Ghost a little bit?
Starting point is 00:52:09 Brokeback Mountain. That did make you cry? No. You're not going to get one. No. Beaches? No. Hold on. Hold on.
Starting point is 00:52:14 Hold on. Hold on. Terms of Endearment? Really? Sophie's Choice? I like them. Philadelphia? No.
Starting point is 00:52:22 Schindler's List? Oh, don't do that to me. Keep going. I know I'm going do that to me. Keep going. I know I'm going to find one here. Hold on. I would cry more at a Bugs Bunny. I mean, there's some very moving Scooby-Doos that really get to my heart. Because, you know, if it wasn't for those kids, I would have gotten away with it.
Starting point is 00:52:39 Oh, my God. So many movies I've cried in. Hold on. The Elephant Man? No. The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? No. I mean, I like them. You're naming movies I've cried in. Hold on. The Elephant Man? No. The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? No. I mean, I like them.
Starting point is 00:52:47 You're naming movies I like very much. Little Miss Sunshine? On Golden Pond When Henry and Jane Embrace? I'm literally getting welled up right now just thinking about these movies. You cry at everything. You and Amanda are like waterworks as far as I'm concerned. The Shawshank Redemption? When he's talking about his wife?
Starting point is 00:53:05 No. Oh my God. You are dead inside. These are incredible movies. Notting Hill, when she made that little speech about like, I'm just a girl, you know, looking for a guy, that speech that made everybody cry? No. I do like Julia Roberts, so I'm a big admirer of hers. I'm going to try and reverse engineer this to a lesson here for young men. I didn't cry from the age of 29 to 44. For 15 years, I didn't cry. I lost the capability. I just didn't know how to cry any longer.
Starting point is 00:53:36 I didn't cry when my mom died. I didn't cry when I got divorced. What I would say to anyone, especially men, if you discover the ability to cry, it's a gift because it helps inform what's meaningful to you. And it makes you, I think, a much more, I think it makes a much more meaningful life. Because the problem is when you shove down your emotions, and that's including learning how to laugh really hard when something inspires you, take time to try and understand why it inspires you, but lean into the crying because it really helps inform what's important to you,
Starting point is 00:54:08 what really moves you. And that's a wonderful thing as opposed to just kind of sleepwalking a little bit through life. So I'd say lean into it. I agree. Louie and Alex cry. All my kids cry.
Starting point is 00:54:19 Amanda is like, I guess I said, like you, waterworks. I just, I can't explain it. I laugh a lot. I can't explain it. I will a lot. I can't explain it. I will say in Steel Magnolias, I was kind of glad when Julia Roberts died. Is that wrong?
Starting point is 00:54:30 Is that wrong? The way we were? The way we were? God, look at you. You're not going to find a movie. Let's move on. Thank you, Justin. Justin, we're having a big moment in our relationship here.
Starting point is 00:54:44 We just, you know, I don't know what to say. Anyway, if you've got a question of your own you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. My prediction is I think someone who's going to go down in history as just an incredibly powerful role model for young people and a really fantastic American is the co-founder of Amazon, Mackenzie Scott. I agree.
Starting point is 00:55:26 Explain what she just did. She just announced she's giving another $650 million away. She's doubling the amount of money she's allocating to charities. And I have some personal experience with Mackenzie Scott. I'm a huge fan and a big supporter of something called the Jed Foundation that leverages the infrastructure of high schools to help give them the tools to identify or discern between kind of normal but strange teen behavior and actual teen behavior you need to be cautious of and intervene around depression and suicidal ideation. And it is an amazing organization run by a man who ran a pharmaceutical company whose son Jed killed himself. And it has this amazing staff, this guy,
Starting point is 00:56:01 John McPhee. They do an amazing job, amazing job. And out of the blue, somebody called them and said, we need your wiring information. We want to make a donation. They get that all the time, a thousand bucks, 5,000 bucks, 50 bucks. And they got a wire for 15 million bucks. And it was Mackenzie Scott saying, I've been following you. You're wonderful. I don't want anything. I don't need anything. It's yours. I've been following you. Don't call me. Don't put my name in the papers. And it was so, A, it was so moving, but B, it really is a great lesson around giving because I give a lot of money away, but here's the thing. For me, it's a transaction and it feeds my ego and I want recognition for it. And it really taught me that that's not giving,
Starting point is 00:56:45 that's consumption. What she's doing is giving. She's just giving. I love it. They're all like, what's the ROI on the investment of the charity? She's just like, here's the fucking money, go for it. She's not starting a rocket company or going to Cannes or having- Or naming things after herself or- Or having three kids by two different people in one week. She's just like, I'm blessed. And I hate anyone framing her as solely like a rich wife.
Starting point is 00:57:15 She was very involved in Amazon in the beginning. She was, I was there. Whereas quite frankly, the Veep candidate that I brought up before, you could accuse her of being a wealthy housewife if that's an accusation or a wealthy spouse. This is an individual who deserves the billions she has, and she's not trying to figure out a way to have a midlife crisis explode. She's trying to figure out a way to be helpful and lean into her blessings, and she does not want or even desire recognition. I mean, there's some problems.
Starting point is 00:57:45 Anand Giridhar correctly points out that rich people shouldn't be dictating our social priorities, but distinct. She is all over the map. That's why she's not dictating. She's the wide ranging. It's just social justice. You know, Elon Musk attacked her, of course, as usual, an ungenerous person, by the way. And if you read the New York Times piece about him giving money to
Starting point is 00:58:05 things that help him, that's exactly what he's like. And she doubled the donations. Such an impressive person. It was going to be $250 million, and she upped it to $640. And Musk called her a super rich ex-wife who's destroying Western civilization. Let me just say, in this regard, fuck you, Elon. You're an ungenerous person of charity. This woman's giving away, I think, $16 billion at this point. So fuck you. Get back off of Mackenzie Scott. He's not going to. But in total, I think she's given $16 billion. I don't know if it's $16 billion. She's given an enormous one. But she announced $2.15 billion in donations over the last year. I mean, geez, Louisa, think about that. Think about, and all over the place. I told my kids about her. I think she's incredibly impressive. And unlike these
Starting point is 00:58:59 individuals who are like, how do I fly a dildo into space? Yeah. My burrito bar needs money. That's kind of giving Elon Musk in my town that I'm building because I'm an egomaniac. You know, I just, I can't even with these people. The contrast I kept thinking of was like Oprah sort of marks the age in the sense that, you know, you get a car, you get shit, you get more shit. She's giving away a lot of money. You get a toaster oven and she's just, her shit. You get- She's giving away a lot of money. You get a toaster oven. And she's just, her attitude is, you need money and I'm giving you money.
Starting point is 00:59:30 You need money and I'm giving you money. You're doing good work and you need money. I'm giving you money. And anyways, I just love- They have a woman bent. They have a social justice bent. It doesn't matter. It's her business, you fuckers. I'm sorry.
Starting point is 00:59:41 Just like, go read the New York Times story. But let's frame this in a positive way. No, I'm not going to, because read the David Fahrenthold story. That is about greed and giving. She is about generosity and giving. And it couldn't be a starker contrast between two people. Couldn't be. Anyway, go ahead. Sorry. But she's a great American. And the key word here is American, because for all the shitposting of America and the fact that we're raising a generation of young people that don't like America, Americans at their core, at their core. And this is different than Europe or other nations.
Starting point is 01:00:14 When it comes to philanthropy, we are the most generous people in the world. And she embodies that. She's a great American. She embodies our values. And it's something, she is an example of a reason to love America. Americans are very generous. I agree. McKenzie, fantastic work. Anyway, we love McKenzie Scott. Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Read us out. Today's show was produced by Larry Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.
Starting point is 01:00:42 Ernie and her Todd Enchin did a sub.. Thanks also to Drew Barrows and Neil Saverio. Nishat Kerouan is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. At the iHeart Podcast Awards, where we won Best News Podcast. I forgot to mention two people. One was a huge oversight, and that is Zoe Marcus,
Starting point is 01:01:12 who is a fantastic producer. I apologize, Zoe. Also, I forgot to mention Kara Swisher, not as big a deal. I just wanted to say thank you to both of those people. I was just off of ketamine. I was not at my best. So I apologize for forgetting both of you. Thank you, Scott.

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