Pivot - Rupert, Russell, and a Looming Shutdown

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

As Rupert Murdoch announces his retirement, Kara and Scott discuss the future of the media mogul's empire and his legacy. They also react to the Russell Brand controversy, and Elon's plan for a Twitter paywall. Then, there's chaos in Congress as a shutdown approaches, so why is everyone talking about the Senate dress code? 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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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway. I just want to note we're taping this part of our episode guerrilla style. So in case you're wondering, Scott is in his car in London going through traffic. And we're coming in fresh because we taped yesterday and something big happened. Goodbye, Rupert Murdoch. The 92-year-old is stepping down from the Fox and News Corporation boards, moving to a chairman emeritus role. His son Lachlan becomes the sole executive in charge of News Corp and will continue as executive and CEO of Fox Corp. Murdoch will officially hand over the reins to the company's annual meeting in November.

He tried to say he's in robust health. He might be. Maybe he has a new girlfriend. Who knows? Or else he's sick, one or the other. It's a surprise. He told people for many years that he would go feet first out of News Corp. Let me just start. I think it's going to be, it depends on whether he's sick or he just wants to hang around with his latest, you know,

Carrie, essentially, speaking of Logan Roy's girlfriend. Maybe he just wants to live it up. Maybe he thinks life is short at 92. It is indeed. Maybe he's sick. He's been sick a number of times, but he always comes back, largely because he's otherworldly. And so I think it's one of those two things. It's a surprise for him to do it ahead of the election. I thought he might have one big final election. He said he's going to be paying attention, meaning he'll be there on Friday till the end of the day, as a friend of mine said. So I don't know. I think it depends. But once he dies, I think it's going to, it's not going to be the news corp, you think? I think it'll sell. There's lots of potential buyers. I raised one. It just was a guess. There's no reporting here. But someone like Elon Musk

could buy it and then use it for, make Twitter, you know, give him more strength there. Bring back Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, I don't know. And that's how I think it's going to go. I think this company, like a lot of linear cable stations, is going to be sold within the next couple of years, probably. Scott? Yeah, I thought you had a really interesting insight. I think I read it on threads. And you said that, I mean, you got to not only follow the money, but follow the governance. And the governance here, I understand, is that each of the siblings has, so I think they have about 40% or control 40% of the voting shares, whatever it is. But effectively, the other two siblings...

There's four children total that have control. Oh, there's three others? But talk about art imitating life or vice versa. It feels like this is playing out as the last episode of Succession, and that is siblings are going to sell the company out from under the eldest son's desires. Yeah, probably, because he wants to run the place, and he's gotten quite conservative. But I don't think he's going to have—I think this is going to sell. I think the other kids aren't going to want it. It's not going to— you know, and it's not going to be a Tom Wamsgans thing.

There's not another husband of Shiv or anything else in here. What do you think Murdoch's legacy will be? I think he's been one of the single most destructive forces in media for a long time, although brilliant at the same time. at the same time. Rupert Murdoch had the marketing gut call of the last 50 years in media. And that is, he said, he recognized, and it was basically, you know, in marketing, you do a lot of qualitative research

to try and understand human behavior and where there's a white space. And he found the biggest white space in media in the last 50 years. And that is, he recognized that people running and delivering media in the United States were largely overeducated and from and lived in urban areas, which means they skewed dramatically left or dramatically progressive. percent of America is just not being served the media they want. And he came in and served them up red meat, sometimes without the benefit of fact-checking, without the benefit. I mean, a lot of people would say that CNN is the same thing just on the other side. That's just not true. The coordinated attacks against progressive voices, of which, quite frankly, Kara, I think you have been a target, where they decide that The Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Fox are going to engage in character assassination, which has nothing to do with journalism.

I think the undermining of some of the elections. I think vaccine misinformation. I think you're right. You know, I'm torn here because we need balance in media. We need capitalism. We need capitalism. We need jobs. We need shareholder growth. I have been on Fox probably 100 times, and my experience there has been wonderful.

And I think they do have some great journalists, Neil Cavuto. But there's just no getting around it. This individual, I would argue, has not shown a great deal of concern for the commonwealth that is America. Yeah. And I think his last words in the statement about the elites and they don't want to let you in, it's still the angry man who just couldn't get into the parties, right? It's still the, only the very elite and rich people can claim victimhood as an outsider. But he has been an outsider in many ways, and he's made everybody pay for that, essentially. You know,

brilliant guy. I have spent time with him. I've interviewed him. You worked there. Didn't you acquire your company? Yeah, I worked there. He acquired Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, when I was there, not my company. And then we left, largely because we couldn't stand working for Rupert Murdoch. Honestly, after the stuff with that, when they taped the cell phone of that dead girl, we'd had enough. Walt and I had enough of these people. And so, you know, you can make choices in life. We just didn't want to do business with them anymore. That's just my choice. You can say that's wrong or right. We just didn't want to, and we all get to make that choice. But one of

the things that's really interesting is he's still a great businessman. It's sort of a little in a weird way, like Elon is like great business person, really interesting businesses, very innovative. You know, he sold off the stuff to Disney, 21st Century Fox, for a lot of money looking back now, you know what I mean? Like he always gets the deal. And so I will give him that. Otherwise, I think he's been just a bad influence on our country in so many ways and the world. And I'll say, just you mentioned me personally, I don't really care. Although he did say in the New York Post, his New York Post claimed that Jeff Bezos was a father of my son, which was hysterical.

I was on page six. That's an image. Yeah, I know, right? As if. As if. That's an image. As if. Oh, my God. It's you on the boat in the thong all along. I knew it. I knew I recognized you.

A couple points. One, he has been, similar to Jeff Bezos, I think he has been a surprisingly good steward of the Wall Street Journal. Everyone said the Wall Street Journal was going to turn into the Post, or it hasn't. It's still, in my opinion, one of the iconic, better business journalists. They do a fantastic job. But yeah, I don't know what his legacy will be, though. And the thing you said that just sent shivers down my spine, the idea of Musk buying Fox, Jesus Christ. I just thought of that off the top of my head. I just, I literally thought of that off the top. So just for people to know, I didn't do any reporting here. But yeah, it makes sense. Like I would do it if I were him. You'd really, you could really,

and then put it all on Twitter. And you know, he's been doing that a lot. He's been begging people to get on there. I don't know. I just, I've always thought he's making a media company over there, however bad it will be, but it's not the stupidest thing in the world. Let me just say, we'll see what happens. We don't know.

We just, we've been pretty good on our predictions in this way. You know, he's 92 years old. There's no getting around it, but I hope he is enjoying himself on his various yachts. He has several yachts, and I'm sure he has more paramours. What I was laughing at was on Fox, how they were like doing this sort of Soviet, you know, Soviet Union kind of goodbye to him. Like, he's been the best thing ever. We're here because of

him. It was really amazing. It was a very enjoyable suck up to watch. But he has created a legacy, no doubt, and very innovative, entrepreneurial. He was way ahead on digital more than anyone else. He made a lot of digital errors, by the way, a lot of them. I was there for most of them. Anyway, he's going to, he definitely, good or whether you like him or don't, he's had an impact. And just, you know, it's a busy time very quickly for future planning. Mike Bloomberg was talking about it today. Disney is, of course, everyone's wondering what Iger's going to do about that. Bernard Arnault, they just moved the retirement age there up five years. So he can from 75 to 80.

He's, I think, 74. So, you know, there's a lot of succession going on, so to speak. Anyway, at end of an era, we'll see where we go. And I think Lachlan is just not his father. I'm sorry. It just can't be. It's not Kendall Roy exactly, but it's down that avenue. You say that like it's a bad thing. But I think he's actually more conservative. Murdoch was very practical. Remember, he met with Obama when he needed to. He abandoned Trump. He clearly didn't like Tucker. You know, I think Loughlin is a little more, you know, red-pilled than his father was. His father was practical, always about power. Anyway, we still have a lot to get to, including Elon Musk's new Twitter paywall idea, Congress getting closer to a shutdown, and allegations against Russell Brand, the comic that have companies dropping

him left and right. Let's get on to the rest of the show. Instacart shares rose 12% on their first day of trading after the company's long-awaited IPO. The offering values Instacart at over $11 billion. It was down from the pandemic high private market valuation of $39 billion. That's quite a haircut. The company's current valuation is about 3.9 times annual revenue, not that much. Instacart's IPO marks the first notable venture-backed U.S. company to go public since the end of 2021. I will note certain early investors did rather well, especially Sequoia and Y Combinator, and less well but well, Andreessen Horowitz. The others, if you look at the numbers, really got a haircut. Any predictions on this stock, Scott? I think this one goes down. I mean, most of the companies that have gone public have had a big

pop out of the gates, including Oddity, which was up 50 plus percent and is now a broken IPO, is below its offering price. But I like, if you look at that business, it's kind of AI and beauty, which are both growth businesses. If you look at Instacart, and by the way, the same thing happened to Arm, the chipmaker from SoftBank, it popped and it's back down. And you're seeing the same thing here with Instacart. It popped and now it's back to pretty much where it went public. But the two businesses it's in, it's basically a grocer, and it's a media company, about a third. If you think about, I think it's more of a media company, actually, than a grocery company. Tell me why. Well, two-thirds of its revenues are from grocery delivery, but a third are actually from media, and that is different brands advertising on the platform. Ah, so that's what you consider media, okay.

And if you think about what a media company does, it comes up with content that inspires people to advertise. And the content here is grocery delivery. And I would bet of that third of the revenue that comes from advertising, nearly most or all or more than 100% of its gross margin or profits come from that component. And the two businesses of grocery and media advertising are not good businesses. And if you look at its value- Do you use it? No, I don't. I don't. I have used it, and then I just didn't anymore because Giant does it. There's Amazon delivers.

There's so many choices every now and then. I think I'm like, oh, yeah, but Uber does. Anyway. No, just grocery shows up in my refrigerator. Oh, my God. What a privilege statement that was. But if you look at its valuation, I mean, you look at its competitors, its valuation connotes that it's an Amazon. And the growth expectations to go into this valuation, and granted, it had an enormous pop. Even 11 million or the 39 billion, excuse me, 11 billion or 39 billion. Even 11 billion is too much. Oh, yeah. And also it has no, companies like this, you like to see that they have an acquisition floor. I don't know who would buy this. And also it's a bit of a kind of what's it called, monopsony. And that 40% of its gross transaction volume is dependent upon three grocers with the, whatever you call them, the Instacart shop. Yeah, yeah.

And I think when these companies get into that business, I don't know how friendly they're going to be to Instacart or get more into this business. I just think this company is challenged and overvalued. Feels Coinbase-y, you know? I think that's unfair. I think Coinbase is really challenged. I mean, in that regard, in that you can see, one, there's a lot of competitors, two, they can be disrupted easily, three, who'd buy them, that kind of stuff. There's some things to like. It has scaled well. They've moved into profitability. I think it's a well-managed business. Smart people, yes, smart people.

Well-managed business. It's profitable. It's just set against its valuation of $11 billion. It's difficult to look at the multiple on revenues versus- 39. Can you believe that? I would have liked to have gotten in at 39 and sold right then or gotten in at much lower. Well, hopefully some of the employees got to sell to some of the good people, the VCs who were drinking their Ayahuasca Vente Grandes.

Still a good service, I would say. It's a very good, but I just am like, I don't remember it sometimes. That's how I feel about it. You know, I liked it, but it wasn't, there was no differentiation. I'm like, ah, Instacart, I must have that. That's exactly right. You know, and actually, interestingly enough, I go to the store more. I'm kind of a little European in that regard.

I get things as I need them more, not the big stuff, which I take a car to. Post-COVID? Yes, I do. I do. And, you know, I have to keep my children in bananas. All they eat every morning is bananas and peanut butter. And so I'm constantly buying bananas. That's really what I do all day. You know, I go a lot. I find it, that's one thing I did like about

when I lived in Europe is buying things, just not a ton of food, but what I needed. I mean, just to give you an idea, Kroger had annual revenue, had revenue in 2023 of 150 billion and only trades at basically three times the valuation of Instacart. I just... Yeah, it's one times. Those grocery stores are tight on the margins. They're always tight on the margins. Instacart is a good business.

It's well-managed and it's overvalued. All right, then. Okay. What's strange, though, is with all these IPOs is you're seeing a pop. So it looks like there's a lot of... It seems like people are much more fond and excited about IPOs than they are the underlying companies. Yeah. Speaking of which, maybe a buy, Disney plans to double investments in theme parks and cruise lines to $60 billion in the next decade, an area

that's doing very well for them. Bob Iger said earlier this year the company is considering selling off its linear TV assets, and lots of people are lining up, as we discussed. Revenue from theme parks has helped the company offset streaming losses. It has lost over 500 million on streaming last quarter alone, although it's less than it was. Disney shares initially dropped 3% at the news and are up 1% at the time of recording.

You know, their theme parks are the best. They really are. They are, they are, they are. They really do differentiate no matter what Ron DeSantis says and whatever white supremacists do little sad little protests in front of it. Does this help them? And of course, they are going to have to sell off ABC, I think.

Yeah, this is about narrative and numbers. And that is the story really matters. And as soon as they clean up and no longer have to apologize about their cable assets declining every year, that'll make the story cleaner. And they've already put basically, you know, FX and ABC in the front lawn and said, but no offer refused or no reasonable offer refused.

But you mentioned, I think last week, that the operating profits, the cable companies and its affiliates was down to like four or five billion off. Yeah, it's declined. Well, let's talk about the parks. In the last 10 years, the operating profits of the parks has gone from two billion to 10 billion. The profits in the last 10 years are up fivefold. And probably includes cruises would probably be correct, I would imagine.

Probably, I'm guessing. I think they used to be singular. I would argue it's now, there's some competition. I think Universal does a really good job. It shocked me. My kids, I gave them the choice of going to Disney or Universal, and they chose Universal. Well, they're older. Little kids love Disney, bigger kids love Universal. That was my experience with my... Yeah, but when I was a kid, it was Disney, or you could go to some weird, rickety Six Flags where you'd get to throw up and wonder if you were going to be thrown off a roller coaster. I think that the parks are singular. It's a rite of passage.

They print money. It is so expensive. Good for them. And on a, I don't know how you would even categorize it, something that really rattled me the last time I went to Universal and Disney is that every family has to take their kids to Disney and Universal now. You just have to. It's like, if you don't take them by the time they're 10, someone's going to call child services,

right? We're going. We're going. We just discussed it. And all strategy comes down to one thing. What can you do that's really hard? And the reality is Amazon and Apple can't open parks because they don't have enough IP to fill the things with interesting rides. Who would have known it'd be a three-hour wait for the Super Mario Kart ride? Or, you know- Harry Potter? Harry Potter. That thing is amazing what they've done there. The train ride?

I waited in line for that Butterbeer for half my life for the kids. They had to have the Butterbeer and the Butter- I still have the Butterbeer mug. But when Disney goes into Disney+, they're competing against Netflix. When they invest in their parks, none of the big guys or the deepest irrational investors in cheap capital are in that space.

They're sort of up against Comcast, but they both, you know, people are thinking more about experiences. They're traveling more. They realize life is finite. I can tell you firsthand. I don't care who you are, how awful your kids are. They grow up a lot faster than you're expecting. And I think people are just going to continue to spend a ton of money. They have huge moats around these businesses. There's a flywheel. There's a mother of all flywheel. They put out a movie or a Marvel film or Star Wars. They can take the

characters. They can make Star Wars land or whatever it's called, Rogue One. So as Peter Drucker said, my kind of role model, invest in your opportunities, not your problems. This is an enormous opportunity for them. It is. It is. And especially like as they, you know, I just bought, I literally just bought soup with frozen characters on the front of it, chicken noodle soup from Campbell. And I, you know, Clara discussing whether to be Anna or Elsa. It's just really an interesting thing for now. I agree. Universal, you move to because it's got Spider-Man and some other ones. Harry Potter, I think, is in that park. Anyway, we'll see. Good investment, Bob Iger.

You got a lot facing you, but that's a good move. Comedian Russell Brand is facing repercussions from allegations of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse, including one accuser who was just 16 at the time. Brand has been demonetized on YouTube and dropped by his book publisher, the BBC, and his agency, which admitted he had been aware of previous allegations. On the YouTube channel alone, Brand had 6.6 million subscribers. His channel featured interviews with Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan and misinformation surrounding COVID-19 and vaccines. He's taken a real sharp rightward turn. The actor has denied the accusation saying he's very, very promiscuous, which we know, Russell, from listening to you all these years when your brand is really promiscuous and almost aggressively so. I think people aren't surprised by this.

But he said that all relationships were consensual. What do you think about that? What do you think about this? I don't know what you're going to think. You know, Kara, I have never meant this more. You go. Look, I'm going to say this in a kind way. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. That story was, I thought, pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good. They did a very good job with it. I'll, we'll see what happens if there's actual, you know, it had a Harvey Weinstein feel to it. And remember how much he said it was consensual and it certainly wasn't. He's in jail for that.

I, you know, and now he's using the, I've been victimized because I'm right wing and he has Elon Musk supporting him saying it's because they can't stand the competition from Russell Brand as an influencer now. Most people who are good journalists don't like sexual abuse, is what I would say. I don't know. I would like the authorities to get in here. I thought the story was solid. I don't know what YouTube and the others know. I don't, they seem to move very fast in all of them. So it seemed a lot. Actually, I was like, wow, everyone's like abandoning him and he had to cancel some concerts. So I feel like maybe he's in a bit of a trouble here, probably.

And proving their consensual is going to be the way he's going to get out of it. And he certainly built his brand around aggressive sexual behavior. And, you know, the victimization thing is exhausting, and he should stop it, completely stop it. All right, next story. Okay, any comments? No, seriously. Look, first off, he's not innocent until proven guilty. He's already guilty.

He's already having things taken away from him. He's already being punished. The reason we have boards and editors and people at YouTube trying to, you know, he's been demonetized on YouTube, which I'm sure people will start on the far right saying is a form of censorship. Yep, that's what they're doing. He's on Rumble, though. He's on rumble. I agree with you that there should be a presumption of innocence. The hard part is that when you have multiple allegations, and the thing that kind of rattled me was that the fact that one of the accusers was a minor at the time. Although maybe not in Britain. That's the way Ben Shapiro was defending him. I think the age of consent there is 16. Is that right? Jesus.

Anyways, when there's kind of enough of this, I think that it's also free speech for a company to say, we get to choose who we work with, and we've decided we're going to put a pause on this and not work with this individual until we find out what's gone on here. I think that's their right as well. The only observation I have, other than the civil and criminal courts to do their job and let this work through and see what happens. The only observation I had is that if you're a sexual predator or you abuse people, or just in general, you're a cruel, bad person, a pretty decent prophylactic would be to go entirely red pill QAnon. Because when you're far right and you're accused of a crime, people come to your defense and conflate it with masculinity, and they conflate it,

which is terrible for masculinity, and they conflate it. And Elon Musk comes out and supports you, and all of a sudden, the far right has taken up Russell Brand as someone they need to rally behind. Whereas on the far left, we also get it wrong, and that is you play grab ass at a county fair, and Nancy Pelosi and Kristen Gillibrand trying to pass some sort of woke purity test kick you out of the Senate. I just find that the whole thing is, you know, the core of Twitter— I think he's moved to other platforms, so it doesn't really matter. He's on Rumble, and he makes plenty of money there now. He's moved to his—Russell Brand has moved over to another media ecosystem that I think he probably does rather well in, and he's made his choice. So, I'm not sure how much this affects him, but we'll see. We'll see. has been accused 28 times of sexual assault, and in one of those instances was found liable. A jury of his peers said, no, we believe this happened. And when you say it didn't happen and insult the person, you have to pay them millions of dollars, because we believe that you sexually

assaulted this person, and that you should not try and deny it. And when you do, you're disparaging her, and you are legally and financially liable. And that is the head of the Republican Party right now. Right, exactly. Just in the tech world, Kiwi Kamara, the CEO of CS Disco, a supplier of software for lawyers, a company I wasn't aware of, resigned abruptly last week after the company's board began investigation of groping allegations. The incident occurred at a dinner with the staff earlier this month, but another complaint about his behavior has been filed a year prior, and there were more before that.

The Journal has quite a really damning story. By resigning, he gave up stock options that had made him one of the highest-paid CEOs last year of $110 million. You know, every time I read these things, I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, how can, like, are you kidding me when you read the details in this story,

like, that they can't, that they, they just haven't figured it out yet. Anyway, we'll see what goes on there. We'll see. We deal with this a lot on boards and it's a nuanced issue because I think if you have a big company where you're asking people to work intensely,

I think relationships are going to happen. Sometimes those relationships blow up and there's a lot of emotion involved. But what my general view is, once you get above a certain level, either in terms of seniority or in terms of compensation, your fly is up and locked. You take that shit off campus with non-employees. In this case, I have to say this guy went over and above, in what the journal's reporting at least, in terms of behaviors. Like, it wasn't

a relationship that happened at work. What was his role there? He's a CEO. I'm just saying, just read the story because I think it's even more so. It's not just, you know, I had a relationship at work, and it didn't work out. It's- Yeah, but this is the thing. It was unwelcome, what he was doing. So, I worked at several companies where the CEOs had affairs with their assistants. Bernard Louis just had a step down from VP. There's a lot of companies, including ones we talk about all the time.

Anyways, the bottom line is, above an executive level, it's awesome to be an executive. People think you're interesting. People laugh at your jokes. You get paid a shit ton of money. It's awesome to be an executive. Once you are an executive,

call it VP, SVP, depending on the company, in my opinion, there are no consensual relationships. Boss, you get so much, you get so many good things, but you put yourself in the company and the power dynamic here is so fucking out of skew that you're gonna, generally speaking, anthropologically evolutionary, men will mistake kindness for sexual interest

and women will mistake sexual interest for kindness. And everybody is kind to the senior level managers who predominantly end up being men, oftentimes at an age where they're going through a midlife crisis. So it just sets it up for abuse where the individual, the guy, sometimes doesn't even know he's leveraging the power dynamic. In this case, I think he did. Well, yeah, this guy just sounds like a creep. But even my view is above a certain point,

when you're making a certain amount of money or a certain level, the power dynamic is you have a lot of power. Let's make it really clear. From day one, you're fucking guilty if you have a relationship here. Well, they've been taking people off. Bernard Louis, definitely.

That's right. But you got to have standards. Let me also go back so I don't come across a Puritan. All right. I just want to say you had nothing to say, but go ahead. Keep going. There you go.

That's impossible, right? That's an oxymoron. Exactly. The dog's got to bark. I knew you would have things to say. The moon is out and you're telling him not to bark. I also think that work is a great place to meet and form relationships, including romantic relationships for young people. And one out of three people have had a relationship that started professionally.

I go to weddings all the time of young people in my firms. And while you don't want Bucknellian, like, people having sex in the closet, I think you've got to be careful about the party atmosphere you film at. That was a little like this, this story. There's a lot of tequila going on in this story. Anyway. But I think young people, I think it's a, what I tell people, especially men who tend to have an ability to, again, mistake kindness for sexual interest, is you got to tread very lightly.

And also, also, the likelihood you might get, quote unquote, fired in what you feel is an unjust decision goes up exponentially if you start a relationship with someone who is junior to you and has less power than you. I mean, there's a lot of nuance here, but above a certain level, take it off campus or you are guilty from day one.

All right then, but creepy people are still have got to stop. The creepiest people have to stop. There you go, agreed. Okay, let's get into our first big story. But creepy people still have got to stop. The creepiest people have to stop. There you go. Agreed. Okay. Let's get into our first big story. The Justice Department's investigation into Elon Musk's personal benefits from Tesla is bigger in scope than originally thought. That's according to a new Wall Street Journal report. Investigators are asking whether Elon was using Tesla funds to build himself a glass house.

They're also looking – I can't believe that. They're looking into dealings between Tesla and other Musk-connected entities. There's a lot of interactions between all these companies. According to the journal, the new information shows that there's even more interest in what Elon and Tesla have been up to, and criminal charges might be in the mix. The glass house thing has been out there for a bit. They had these orders for glass that Tesla was paying for, and they didn't know what it was for. And then he may have since paid it back. But he does a lot of those. He borrows money from one place and puts it back after a while. Anyway, that's what the DOJ and also the SEC is sniffing around. The news here is they've been investigating Elon for quite a while, going back to 2017, with talk of potential criminal charges. Could this be a major problem? A few weeks ago, he tweeted, there's no glass house, metaphors don't count, LOL, built under construction or planned. I'm not building any house of any kind anywhere, period. But then Walter Isaacson book actually mentions a glass house and then says, Elon, put off building

it. So it's not that there is no glass house. It's not being built. So there was something being built. So he's sharing his plan. We'll get to his next plan. But what do you think of that? I mean, this is normal to look at these things. And they have such an intertwined, he has so many intertwined companies.

Tesla workers worked at Twitter for a little while. He said they were voluntary, but then there was a charge. He's borrowed money from one of them to pay somewhere else, stuff like that. And, you know, the board is a rubber stamp, essentially, of Tesla, which is the only public company here. So he can do whatever he wants in his other ones. Based on everything I've seen, I don't think he's done anything wrong. And my sense is, look, to borrow money from one of your companies just to get a loan to go buy a media company, which he did at SpaceX, that's highly unusual. I think the board is not doing its job when they do that. But if the board knew about it.

I think in this case, the CFO flagged it to the board and the board didn't like the glasshouse thing. That's what I understand. And the CFO has recently left, by the way. Well, okay. If the board did know about it, then the board should fire him, which they won't do. But if the board has set up a relationship where they're like, you've made so much money for all of us around the table and we're either related to you or in your back pocket. around the table and were either related to you or in your back pocket, unless they are making fraudulent disclosures to the SEC or lying on earnings calls or misleading investors, when you have a board that effectively, you use the term rubber stamp, which means he has a rubber

stamp to do anything he wants, folks. So, in my opinion, this is a shareholder issue. It's a governance issue. But I haven't read anything shareholder issue. It's a governance issue. But I haven't read anything that is illegal. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I think it was interesting the CFO left, and he's in this story. He's the one that alerted the board. The board wanted him to pay the money back.

And I think it would be nice to sort it out. And again, I'm not surprised that he intermixes his companies. I think that's what he does. And they let him do it. And he seems to pay back loans once he borrows it. But it is highly unusual. I think that's where we are right now. This is highly new, but it's Elon Musk. And so, therefore, we'll see.

And I think they just have to, if they have charges, they should bring them. It's more and more evidence that this is a shitty board with boards with no governance. Okay, we knew that. that this is a shitty board with boards with no governance. Okay, we knew that. But for example, I think Apple's board decided to give, as a gift, Steve Jobs a Gulfstream. Yeah, that he was always wrapped up in all kinds of sketchy stuff around that.

This is what I think is going on here. I think Elon Musk has stuck up the middle finger and been so disrespectful to so many government officials across so many agencies that, quite frankly, they're like, what am I going to do this weekend? I'm going to go on a fishing expedition. I think anywhere they see the potential, people are human. the potential to potential. People are human. And when he laughs and mocks the SEC and then someone, a whistleblower or someone says, this is an SEC violation, I would bet they are apt to run it down and see if there's a there there. Yeah, that's true. It struck me as political. I just want, I want to see the linkage.

I want to see linkage. It came very quickly after this CFO stepped down. So it just was interesting. Interesting. We'll see. You're right. I agree with you. It's probably a nothing burger. And he's very loose with the way he conducts his companies.

And until the board does something about it, okay. Okay. Well, and, you know, shareholders. You're right. The board and shareholders are the interested parties here. And, of course, the SEC certainly has a role if they want to look into it, but we'll see. Well, but this is an example. We talked about all the agita last week about how people are getting fired left and right for anything at time, you know, discovery time Warner.

When you're making a lot of money and making shareholders rich, you know, oh, there's a dead prostitute. Oh, that was just a misunderstanding. I mean, it's just an entirely different game on the way up than on the way down. It is. So for today, Elon, we are going to give you a pass until it's proven otherwise, which I think is fair. I think it's fair. The board, you're still a terrible board.

You're just a terrible board. It's a board of advisors. It's not a board of directors. Whatever. It's fine. Whatever. Whatever. It's interesting that I think got a lot more backlash was sharing his plan to charge all ex-users a monthly fee for access to the platform in order to combat, quote, armies of bots. He certainly does have armies of bots. He revealed this in a live stream conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where the two also spoke about anti-Semitism. Is he stirring the pot or do you think he'll actually go through this?

He is adding a subscription would make it difficult for bots to create accounts because each bot would need to register a new credit card. He shared the plan would have a lower price tiering than the $8 a month for the X premium subscribers. During the live stream, Elon also revealed some new metrics saying X now has 550 monthly users who generate 100 to 200 million posts per day. Who knows? No word from ex-CEO Lindy Raccurino on any of this, but she is tweeting about London Fashion Week.

She does like shoes. She's going to be at the Code Conference next week. I'm going to ask. I'm going to see what shoes she's wearing. She's coming to Code. Oh, yeah. Wow. Yeah, Julia Boorstein is going to interview her.

Really? I like Julia. Let's see if she cancels. I don't know. If this goes in effect, what do you think? Charging? I'm not giving him my credit card, but then he let me have blue free, whatever, let me. Look, I've always thought this was the right idea, but it's about the execution. And that is, I would charge people based on their followers and their nonprofit status or their corporate, because you need a certain scale and base to give it its heartbeat. So anyone below, you know, you could, I think there's better ways to do it with bots, specifically age verification or identification. There's supposedly, there's all sorts of ways you could verify even using AI AI if this is likely a bot or not.

Traditionally, they haven't wanted to do that because the bots inflate the numbers for advertisers. Now, advertising is a shrinking business here. It's off 60%. But it's a much better business if you can move to subscription. So, I'm a fan of this. I've been saying this forever. It's all about the execution. but it does feel like they're sort of, I mean, to be blunt, it feels like they're flailing. It just feels as if they're grasping between the different business strategies and Twitter blew, which was supposed to be subscription, but it ended up not being subscription and didn't get any pickup. I think it makes sense. I think Twitter is a niche that's

deeply relevant to a small, actually a relatively small group of very influential people. That all screams subscription to me. Yeah, yeah, they'll pay. I don't think I will. I don't want them to have my credit card. I know it sounds dumb, but it makes me nervous. It sounds dumb, but it does. A lot of people said they're not going to pay. A lot of heavy users. If you really think about it, let's take your, you have 1.5 million followers? I think there are a lot of bots, but it does. A lot of people said they're not going to pay. A lot of heavy users. If you really think about it, let's take your, you have 1.5 million followers? I think there are a lot of bots, but go ahead. I would bet somewhere between a third and two thirds are bots. Say it's a million.

Your ability to put out clips from Pivot or excerpts from your book. I don't think it helps that much. I've seen the data. It doesn't, I get more uptake. It's worth 10 bucks a month. I would argue it's probably worth 100 bucks a month. Maybe. I don't know. I'd have to think. I just don't want to do business with them. That's all. No, that's a different talk show. I'm with you. You're talking to a guy who's addicted to Twitter, and I haven't been on in three months. So, you know, because I'm just,

I love the term use. I'm not going to paint this guy's fucking fence. That's kind of how I feel right now. I think they should probably charge, but I think a lot of people are going to. It's going to drop the numbers rather significantly. If he actually can, if he could actually do it. Oh, dramatically. He could have a nice little business doing it, but certainly not a $44 billion valued business. Yeah, that's over. Whatever.

Or even $10 billion. It's a little business then. Then it's a little business. And if he does well and gives good stuff, maybe so. But it seems to me it's sort of turning into a text-based rumble, essentially. And he should buy you Rumble and then he can have all of them. And that's a business, whatever. They need media too. The meeting with Netanyahu, you know, they start off by sharing how he once told his wife that Elon was the Edison of our time and only got worse from there, wrote an NBC reporter.

The meeting was ostensibly about AI, but Netanyahu did ask Musk to take a stand on anti-Semitism. Let's listen to Elon's response. I mean, I'm sort of against attacking any group, you know. It doesn't matter who it is. who it is. I'm in favor of that which furthers civilization and which ultimately leads us to become a space-bearing civilization and where we understand the nature of the universe. So we can't do that if there's a lot of infighting and hatred and

negativity. So, you know, obviously I'm against anti-Semitism. I'm against anti-really anything that is, you know, that promotes hate and conflict. Okay. So, in this week's episode of double standards for people based on their wealth or their background, let's play what if Elon Musk was a woman. Imagine a woman who, let's put her in a different industry that let's make some gender stereotypes. Let's say that Alana Musk was this incredible merchant

who started a luxury conglomerate and became the wealthiest person in the world, which, and now the wealthiest person in the world is the head of a luxury conglomerate, Bernard Arnault. So imagine a woman who is the wealthiest person in the world, starts making anti-Semitic comments, starts accusing her coworkers of sex crimes, stops paying COBRA and insurance. Oh, and has 11 kids by three different women. So she's a lesbian. Go ahead.

Keep going. I'm interested. Has settled out-of-court payments based on accusations of sexual misconduct and spreads conspiracy theories. They'd be calling this person Lady Hitler right now. They wouldn't be flying in Netanyahu to speak to her. I mean, seriously, just imagine for a moment a female CEO doing any of this shit. Yeah, Alana would be fucked. Oh, my God. She'd be, the government would be all over.

And then she says, I'm sort of against it. I'm sort of against, not completely. I think that's his verbal tics, but nonetheless. Yeah, I agree. Let me tell you, another person not learning any lessons is the new CEO of Adidas, who recently said on a podcast he doesn't think Kanye West meant what he said in those anti-Semitic comments last year. This guy became CEO shortly after the Kanye incident, so he's dealing more with the fallout. out. Another line from the interview, I think Kanye West is one of the most creative people in the world, both in music and what I call street culture. And we lost that business, one of the most successful collaborate collabs in history. Very sad. Honestly, it's like excusing a grown man. Oh, I don't think he meant what he said. I think he meant

exactly what he said. I just don't know who's advising. I mean, this is an easy one. If anyone uses the word Kanye, you say the following. His comments were unacceptable. We immediately canceled the business. It cost us billions to cancel this business, and it was worth it. And we'll do the same thing again. And never say anything else. Never say anything else.

Well, you know, you're so woke, Scott. That's so woke. I want to say what I want. I'm reasonable. I'm the CEO of Adidas. I make sneakers. You know, it's called Adidas. I know. The founder, Adidasler. Okay. Track star. Adidas has, I love Adidas. I know you do. If you think about Nike, and I love Nike. I love the people at Nike. I think they do an incredible job, and they're super smart. Anyways, but Nike is about, and they both have amazing positions.

Nike is about you didn't win silver, you lost gold. It's about individual achievement. It's about grit. It's about pushing yourself harder and throwing up and the monster jam from Michael Jordan. And that's a wonderful feel, sensation, and company. And it's very capitalist. It's very American. It's very kind of individual sport. Whereas Adidas is about track

and team sports and the joy of sport and the French team that wins the World Cup. It's all about, it's more socialist, it's more feminine, and it's more about the team. And they're both just, I think these brands do such an amazing job in their merchandising. All right, let's get to this thing, though. I think this is stupid. Look, he fucked, it was just stupid. Someone, he needs media coaching. Also, protecting 50, men in their 50s from their stupidity and covering up for them is really one of the most fascinating trends that I did not see coming.

Oh, he didn't mean it. They said what they said. They said what they said. Live with what they said. That they just, anyway, anyway. Toddler, adult toddlers. They are not toddlers. They are adults. Anyway, let's go on a quick break.

We come back. Chaos in Congress as a shutdown approaches. And we'll take a listener question about college rankings. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore.

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In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back. It looks like we're headed for a government shutdown unless Congress can get its act together by the end of the month. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is facing division with his own party, Shockaroo, as he tries and fails to get the votes to pass annual spending bills or even stop gap funding plans. Right-wing GOP members are pushing back against McCarthy, arguing for lower spending and cuts to some federal agencies. Republicans have been meeting to try to get on the same page. As one congressman puts it, it feels like Festivus, the airing of grievances.

It seems like we go through this every year and the shutdown gets averted. It does seem like it could happen this time. The last government shutdown, longest in U.S. history, went on for 35 days from December 2018 to January 2019. One compromise here would be for McCarthy to say, screw you to the far right and work with the Democrats, which will, of course, end his speakership. But he can keep, the question of can keep it, even McCarthy goes, gives in to the far right. Those demands aren't going to be past the Senate. And then the center Republicans will have a problem and start working with Democrats. Everyone's frustrated on both sides of the aisle. Listen to the floor speech from Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern. The Republican leadership of this House is incompetent. I mean, they're so incompetent,

it takes my breath away. They're letting the clowns run the circus. It is time the Speaker of the House develop a spine and stand up to the most extreme elements on the Republican side and actually sit down and negotiate an agreement that deals with the reality of our government. Well, yes, that's true. That was Jim McGovern. He's a Democrat. How do you think this plays out, Scott? What do you think?

You're in D.C. You talk about this. Oh, well, I don't know. It's going to be terrible. I'm in the heartland of Marlowe, London. Yeah, you're the heartland. Yeah. It's going to be bad.

There's some real burning insight. You know, the White House obviously said that the shutdown would undermine our economy and security. It's a bad idea. Air traffic controllers and TSA officers would have work without pay, travel delays. The Pentagon says that if the shutdown happens, U.S. military aid and training for Ukrainian forces would be disrupted. You know, it's stupid. It's so stupid. And their only job is to come to deals like this. That is their job, ultimately. So what the fuck? And Kevin McCarthy's in charge. So Kevin, what the fuck? Secondly, you're being held hostage by this group of people that now can take your job out. And at one point, he'd said, go ahead, make my day, I think, you know, that was a little bit ballsy of him. I think they might make his day and vacate him. And then we'll get some lunatic in there. But I think the center Republicans may just turn around and do a deal

with the Democrats. The Democrats are in a relatively good situation here, except it's ridiculous and appalling that they have to do this. I don't know. What do you think? It just feels like there's a faction of the Republican Party that shows up with a suicide vest. They're like, I'm willing to blow us all up. Yeah, they don't like government. They just don't like government. Yeah, their job is, they want to see it shut down. And I do think there is a looming debt crisis. I do think my advice to the Democratic Party would be to not totally pivot,

but be the party of cost-cutting to start talking about how we need to spend less and we need to raise revenues. Because the debt, you know, the debt, we become way too comfortable with the skyrocketing debt in our nation. And there's this crazy notion that the deficits don't matter. Well, they matter a lot when they start mattering. We have to get our spending under control. I don't, it's just, but to do this, to do it this way, to, and the problem is the public, the public isn't scared of it anymore. We'll have people come on and say the Navy will

stop and no one believes them anymore because we keep having these near shutdowns and no one, no one feels it. So, I, you know. It shows government is incompetent once again. He's right. He's incompetent. It's incompetent to the task. And, you know, it's like Tommy Tuberville shutting down motions. Perfect analogy. It's just redonkulous. It's redonkulous. You can't, like, take this guy out in the back and tell him to cut it out.

They just don't have control over these people. They just, they're all these individual freelancers who are in it for their own fame and social media or whatever the heck they're doing. And they're all individual players and not a team. This is a team sport. And they have to come to – this is their job. This is their job. And for a portion of the Republican Party, they think their job is to self-aggrandize themselves at the expense of everyone. It's stupid.

It's just – they look stupid. I think the White House should just sit there and let them do it, although they have a responsibility to fix it too. But in this case, they don't have the tools because they're not running the House. But, you know, I think the Senate will stop them and we'll see. And meanwhile, while this is playing out, guess what everyone's talking about over on Fox News and everyone else is the uproar over the Senate dress code. This is what they can discuss, which is ridiculous. This week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer loosened the Senate's dress code, saying Senators will be able to choose what they wear on the Senate floor. I will continue to wear a suit.

Schumer did not mention Senator John Fetterman directly, but the rule change will allow the Pennsylvania politician to wear his trademark hoodie and shorts on the Senate floor. Fetterman said on Twitter, quote, if these jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week. He's having a good time with this thing, actually. He said to DeSantis, you campaign like I dress, stuff like that. I don't know. This seems stupid. He can wear shorts if he wants. It wasn't until the early 90s that the Senate stopped enforcing the rule that women should wear only dresses and skirts while on the chamber's floor.

Recent years, both the Senate and House have relaxed rules on sleeveless dresses. Honestly, everyone's in soft pants now, Senate. So I don't know why this is decorum. You know, someone made a joke of Joe Manchin, who was upset about it, saying, well, I'm so glad you wore a suit when you voted against the child tax credit. It's just, I don't know, Scott, this seems stupid. Am I wrong? But I wear soft pants all day long for a decade, two decades now. Look, the chamber and the Capitol are one of the most photographed areas. That is one of the most iconic images of America. And I think it's really important to think a lot and invest in our imagery. I like,

I love the way AOC dresses. I think she makes our government seem classy. I like the way, you know, there are, you know, I was, I interviewed Senator Chris Murphy yesterday on my podcast, and it was late at night, and he was in a suit and a tie, and he looked great. I think it's, I think it's important. You know, George Hahn doesn't agree with you. You thought he might, but he's like, he thinks Vetterman looks good. I think most people dress in Carhartt shorts and hoodies, so I don't see why you have to get one. Yeah, but that's not, I think the most important deliberative body in the history of mankind

that is constantly being photographed, I think if you are representing our nation, I think you should make a real effort. And part of that effort is to look good. We disagree. We disagree. I think he looks just fine. I think that's his look. That's his look, and he looks fine. I don't know. Go to restaurants, people aren't dressing. This is a trend that's happened, especially since the pandemic, is people have lost the dress up, right? Everywhere else, in the office, in restaurants, in movies, used to dress up a lot more, and people just don't. You want to represent 700,000 people and vote on the most important things in our democracy, put on a suit.

Let's see. I would wear my juicy couture. I'd be fine with it. Marjorie Taylor Greene is probably like, yay, I can finally dress the way I want. Same thing with Lauren Boebert. I sound so old, don't I? You do, honestly. I think with regular people,

they're like, are you kidding me? This is what is occupying your time? This is what you get incensed about? Imagery is important. I think most people do not care. I think they're fine with Carhartt's and the hoodie. I think he's playing it well, I'll have to say. They sound like old ladies like yourself. I don't care about his shorts. Scott does. Scott is incorrect. Sartorial Scott Galloway

looks really good most of the time when I see him. He dresses beautifully. Even his casual clothes are lovely. Thank you for saying that. That means a lot to me. That's because I'm representing you. I, on the other hand, am a slow, unmade bed, and I like it that way. My mother is always like, how do you ever get successful? Your mother looks great. She does, but she's always like... She has a tendency towards Poochie. Poochie, Gucci, Poochie. It's weird I even know that. It's weird I even know that. Fiorucci. Yeah, all the Oochies. No, I think it's Poochie. Fiorucci's a designer from the 80s and 90s. No, it is Poochie. She had a Poochie dress. She had several Poochie dresses. Anyway, I am a great from the 80s and 90s. No, it is Pucci. She had a Pucci dress. She had several Pucci dresses.

Anyway, I am a great disappointment to her in the clothing department, and it will continue. Oh, Cara, that's not fair. You're a great disappointment on several levels. No, I think it's just clothing. I think if I wore a dress, she'd be 100% nicer about those things. By the way, in all seriousness, every time I speak to Lucky, she's in a bad mood. And she'll, like, occasionally at some point slip in, and she'll be like, you know, I am very proud of her. She always tells me how proud of you she is.

Not my clothes. Begrudgingly. Yeah. Literally begrudgingly. I know. Well, you know, here we have it. I'm telling you, if I wore ribbons in my hair, everything would change. Anyway, and she has a point.

She has a point just like you do, old man. Anyway, let's go to Listener Mail. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. The U.S. News & World Report shared its annual college rankings this week following a major overhaul. After the adjustment to the criteria, more than a dozen public universities climbed up 50 spots on the list. Though not everyone was happy about how things shook out. And we have a Listener Mail question about one school's response. I'll read it. Hi, Kara and Scott. Once again, I'm first. I just want to note that. I'm a graduate at Vanderbilt University and used to work in higher

education. Today, the Vanderbilt community received an email from the chancellor about the new U.S. News & World Report rankings that, frankly, could best be described as a childish meltdown. Scott, I'd be curious to get your take on the broader criticisms from elite universities who are now finding themselves struggling to manipulate the rankings by cutting admissions and hoarding endowment money. USNWR rankings have always justifiably been controversial, but it strikes me that paying closer attention to evidence of social mobility is a step in the right direction. Thanks and love everything you guys do. Connor. Oh, just, you know, Vanderbilt went from 13th to 18th, and the U.S. News is saying the rankings are more equitable with greater

emphasis placed on social mobility and other outcomes for graduating college seniors. Go for it. Rankings have been really damaging to America, and I'm not suggesting the U.S. News and World Report or Businessweek had any intention of damaging America, but still, the broadest on-ramp to not even the middle class, but a higher-income lifestyle is college. And it does matter if you get into an elite college, as much as we'd like to think it doesn't matter because we're so angry and upset about how corrupt U.S. higher education has become, it's still a degree certification from an elite American university is the best golden ticket to the chocolate factory ever invented, other than having rich parents, which, by the way, is

inextricably linked to your ability to get into an elite college. And unfortunately, the rankings are essentially the litmus test for what defines as an elite college. And the worst thing that happened was the folks who came up with the methodology of the ranking decided that a low admissions rate or a high rejection rate moved you up in the rankings. So we all started studying to the test and raising prices to get the same, raising tuition, which we could do because we kept constricting supply. And guess what? and rejected more people.

We went up in the rankings, which created this vicious upward cycle of margins and profitability in this vicious downward cycle in terms of the impact on middle-class America. And it's created this gestalt in higher education where we now think of ourselves as a fucking Birkenbag instead of public servants trying to reject as many people as possible.

These rankings have done tremendous damage to America and they are trying to their credit to course correct. And I think the most recent ranking from Forbes incorporated how many kids had Pell Grants, as yours truly did, to say that economic mobility is important. And it brings up an interesting question. Who are the most elite universities? Who are the best colleges in New York City? People would say NYU and Columbia. But at the same time, the university, the college that takes more kids from the lowest quintile and puts them in the top quintile is actually Pace University. So, these rankings really matter. Where I think they need to go

is, one, incorporate more around social mobility. I think that is the whole point of college. Maybe look up who makes the greatest gains in social mobility, I think that is the whole point of college. Maybe look up who makes the greatest gains in social mobility, who has the most diverse student body economically, not racially, not gender, because all we've done is reshuffle the elites and let in non-white kids who are from rich households, and also start just grouping the rankings. Have, quote unquote, an elite basket and have 30 schools listed in alphabetical order, have near elite, and then have others. But when you start going, I can tell you firsthand, we have entire committees of people spending hundreds of hours trying to figure out how to get NYU from, you know, the Stern School of Business from 11 to 8. the Stern School of Business from 11 to 8. And it involves generally, well, how do we keep our admissions rate low? Well, they don't look at part-time. Well, let's let them more part-timers and fewer full-timers. And you start doing all these unnatural acts that are bad for kids and bad for households such that we can increase our prestige and answer the question we in higher

education ask ourselves every day when we wake up and look in the mirror. And that is, how do I increase my compensation while lowering my accountability? And that is one way to turn ourselves into a luxury brand. And these rankings have helped us do that. And it's been so bad for America. Anyway, speech over. That's what I wanted from you. That's exactly right. I agree. I agree. And I'm glad these public universities came up and there were other criteria. What is valuable? What we say is valuable and what we don't say is valuable is very important. And social mobility and ability to get more kids into schools. What are the two highest rated public universities in the nation? UCLA and Berkeley.

Yeah, they're fantastic universities. Anyway, hard to get into both of them, by the way. Anyway, that was an excellent answer, Scott. I'm just gonna leave it at that because you know more than I do. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. As a Fizz 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 Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca.

Okay, Scott, wins and fails. Win, I really, really, really love The Morning Show. This is in its third season. Very excited. Yes, I love that show. I love Jennifer Aniston mean. I like mean Jennifer Aniston. I think it's a really good show on Apple TV.

And I know Ted Lasso gets all the attention, but I love The Morning Show. And Reese Witherspoon's in it. It's just a great cast. And Jennifer Aniston is the center of it. And I think she's really interesting. I think since she's been Rachel, which I think sort of it. And I think she's really interesting. I think since she's been Rachel, which I think sort of pegged her, she's a really interesting, interesting actress. And it's about media and all kinds of, you know, it's a bit of a potboiler and a drama

and like a soap opera, but it's also really, I'm always surprised by it. And it's got an astonishing cast of people and people I didn't know. And just, I really like it. Having a great time. I love it. I've loved it for two seasons. And I've only been just started watching the next season. I really like it. It deserves more attention. My fail is that so far only Will Heard has released a policy plan on AI. He's the first Republican presidential candidate to do so. I wish we would hear more about AI from all the presidential candidates in detail. I know Biden's been doing a lot of stuff around AI, he has, they love talking about John Fetterman's shorts is what they're doing, and some of them. That's what DeSantis spent some time on recently, which is not what's important. But I think they should all have policy plans on, I'd like to hear what they have to say. And Will Hurd, former representative, is a tech guy, is a tech-oriented

guy. Glad he did it. Don't know if he's going to make the the thing he's doing okay in new hampshire a couple percent uh but uh no one's going to get this but donald trump but it's i think it's a good thing and i think they all should i'd love to hear what they have to say and what their ideas are but they aren't because they need to talk about john federman's pants they want to get in his pants so um okay um my i can't think of a fail, so I'll do two wins because I'm in such a good mood. You know me. Sepp Kuss, an American bike racer on the Dutch team Jumbo Visma. He and two of his teammates won the Vuelta a España on Saturday after three weeks of racing in the Pyrenees, the first Grand Tour win for an American in 10 years.

And he's been a kind of a backup singer. He's been one of the pips to other Gladys Knights for a long time. Unlike other riders in the sport who kind of pride themselves on being a little bit intense and combative, Cuss is laid back. He's very self-deprecating, really optimistic. He's 5'11", 134 pounds.

You got to think about 70 pounds of that as lungs. And the win is, as other competitors lagged behind, his only two rivals were his teammates, Rogac and Vingegaard. And the trio, I love this. The trio stayed together during the final two mountain stages and finished together arm and arm at stage 20. And arguably, the other two are stronger players, but bike racing is a team sport, and they let Cuss win after six seasons of important but unrewarded work. So he finally got his moment in the sun. And unbelievable support from the other two. Open quote, definitely the best man won, close quote. Open quote, I'm very, very happy Cuss won. I'm super

happy for Cuss, and he deserves it so much it was really i thought it was really touching my other win is um 23 year old kelsey russell has is trying to address gen z's media literacy literacy problem by literally well you know what she does on tiktok tell me she does tiktoks just reading the new york times out loud and people love love it. And she's this cool young woman, and she's just doing TikToks reading the New York Times. I love the Youngs. Do you love the Youngs? I got to say, I'm feeling good about the Youngs. I know everyone likes the shit on the Youngs, but I think there's some really interesting. 100%. We need less olds. We need to make room for more Youngs. There's some good olds, Scott, and we're going to be olds, but I got to say. Ice flow. Hello. I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here, but I've been pretty quiet.

Yeah. I think it's really powerful to envision your death and I'll come back to this at some other point. I think it makes you less fearful and less anxious to really think through what it's going to be like. I think it's empowering. But anyways, I'm coaching this CEO and he's just working so hard. And I mean, his family is a mess. He's a mess. And he's just decided this is everything, this company. And investors love it because they love the fact that this poor young man is working 19 hours a day and has signed personal guarantees. And I'm like, you've got to sit down and envision the death of this company. You have to envision what happens if this doesn't happen. You're a fucking bummer.

Okay, but this is where you are. It doesn't work. You have a wife that loves you. You have beautiful children. You have a little bit of money and by most people's standards, a lot of money in the bank. You're going to come out of this thing with an ability to raise money from other people because you've been a good man. You need to envision the death of this company and realize you're going to be just fine and stop putting yourself through this. And what I'm trying to

get with this, imagine your worst fear. Imagine like the thing you're so anxious about and really try and envision it. And I can almost promise you, you're going to realize you could handle it and the sun would come up the next day. And it makes you better at handling whatever it is that's stressing you out. So envision your death. Wow. You know, I think a lot about that because of my dad's death. And I have to say, when someone dies at a young age, a parent does, you do realize things

can, you can get through a lot of stuff, you know, especially when you're young. Anyways, I think it helps to envision, I don't know where I'm going with this. Help me out. Reel me back in. No, I'm reeling you back in. Please envision your death, but don't die today. How about that? I'm just sitting around waiting for the ask answer. Just waiting for the ask answer. I will nurse you through that, Scott, till the very end. I appreciate that. I like that image. I like the idea of you pushing me around in a wheelchair. I know, it would be really funny. Or Lucky pushing me. That would be such a good reality show. Lucky will push me around. It's true. She's going to talk about

someone who's going to make it well past us. She's a survivor, as they say. Oh, no. I'm telling you, we need to figure this shit out because we really need to be thoughtful about the world we leave to lucky. I agree. That went a total philosophical way. I wasn't expecting. We want to hear from you. Send us your question about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, Scott, that is the show. I'm so excited you're back again. We'll be back next week for more. Read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andretat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Silverio and Gaddy McBain. 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. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. What is the biggest source of stress in your life?

What is the event? What is the occurrence that is so terrifying to you that is stressing you, stressing your relationships? Well, imagine and lean into that event. Imagine it happening. Imagine every detail of it. And guess what? You realize you're going to be fine.

You're going to be fine. You're going to be fine.