Pivot - SBF’s Publicity Tour, Elon vs. Apple, and The Respect for Marriage Act

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

Elon Musk calls a truce with Tim Cook after picking a series of fights with Apple. Kara and Scott review Sam Bankman-Fried's publicity tour, and discuss the Senate's passage of the Respect for Marriage Act. Finally, this episode's listener question comes in via carrier pigeon. Send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. How are you doing?

How did you celebrate that thrilling England-U.S. tie game? That is very exciting, both the U.S. and England through, also Poland through. Very emotional. Yeah. I don't know if you watched the— I watched none of it, but go ahead. Oh, it's really wonderful. I know a lot of friends of mine are watching.

But the Iran game was really interesting to see all the Iranian players. You really felt for them. And I thought, you know, they were so emotional. All these guys, like, getting very emotional at the end of the game. And I went online and I said, I can't help it. I was actually in some ways rooting for the Iranian team. What? Well, you just got the sense it meant more to them. And I also thought,

and I said this, and this is my story, I said, I wonder if it means more to the Iranian people also. And then someone came on, someone said, here's video of people all over Iran erupting in celebration when the U.S. won. Oh, wow. And I thought, you know what? I didn't even contemplate that. Yep. They don't want this regime to get away. They don't want anything representing this current national, this leadership. And I just thought that was such an interesting moment of insight for me.

It just goes to teach you, when you think you know a situation, you don't. That's correct. That is correct. International affairs with Scott Galloway. You think you know a situation? Mm-hmm. You don't. That's correct. That is correct. Yeah. International Affairs with Scott Galloway. There you go. But the players were hugging each other afterwards and consoling each other, and that was a really nice moment. Very exciting. You know, there's a state dinner here, an actual diplomatic thing.

Macron is here for a big stage. The French are all over D.C. I ran into a bunch of French people last night. It was very fun. It was really fun. They love Pivot, by the way, which is great, which is nice. Pivot, Pivot. We love Pivot. Anyway, there's a lot going on. You know, I'm getting my electric car and the charger's getting installed at my house today. I'm sorry, your charger? Yeah, the charger for the electric car. You have a charger. I'm not getting a gas pump. It's an electric car. Welcome to 2010. I've had a charger for a while. Anyways's an electric car. Welcome to 2010.

I've had a charger for a while. Anyways, good for you. Are you getting one of those crazy new VCRs? I live in like a 1901 house. They do not have chargers easily installed. Like fancy houses. This is not a fancy house. You've got the Pontiac Leaf?

Wait, what kind of boner kill did you get? What did you get? Chevy Bolt. It's beautiful. Oh, that's right, the Chevy Bolt. I pick it up Saturday. I like you, but I want to make sure that we don't have sex. I drive a Chevy Bolt.

No, you know what? It's got amazing reviews, one. And two, I wanted an inexpensive car. I think Teslas are very good, but it's like riding on the inside of an egg. And it's too expensive. And I want my son to drive it to school. I wish he would get his license at some point in this millennia. Kids don't get driver's licenses anyway. They don't.

And so I want an inexpensive one. It's one of the more inexpensive ones. And it's got amazing reviews. And I love my Chevy Bolt. And it goes well with my Kia hybrid. I'll give you that. It makes sense. It's consistent with the Kia.

Why pay triple? You open that garage door and you're like, if I opened, if I came to your garage and I opened and I saw a Kia and a Bolt, I'd be like, we will not be friends. These are not my people. These are not my people. Also, the French love my Kia. I was offering one a ride back to Blair House. I said, you can take a car in my Kia. And he was like, I love the Kia. We had two French cars. My mom had a Peugeot and I had a Renault Le Car, which was basically a lawnmower with doors. I had an elbow popping out each window.

How did you get in the Le Car? It wasn't easy. The car was small. It wasn't easy. Guess what I had when I was young. Just guess. Just guess. Besides my moped.

Some sort of Toyota or Japanese. No, keep going. Keep going. A Korean car. No, keep going. Keep going. A Korean car. No. I don't know. A Pacer Navajo. You had a Pacer Navajo?

I don't even know what that is. It was terrible. It was like sand color and then had like Navajo seats or whatever. It was terrible. But you had a Pacer? A Pacer. Oh, my God. Pacer.

That is a hilarious car. Remember those huge doors? Pacer. Yes, I remember. It looked. That is a hilarious car. Remember those huge doors? Pacer. Yes, I remember. It looked like an egg. Speaking of, it looks like a Tesla, actually. You and a Pacer. That's literally scenes from another planet.

I know. I have a Pacer. I've always had a sexy car, Kara Swisher. Oh, God. Then I had a Honda Civic. And then I had, of course, the minivan for many years when I was single. Oh, that helped. You know what the key is when you're driving a minivan is just to repeat over and over, I like myself.

I like myself. I had a Ford Fiesta GT. That was terrible. It was good. You're literally just. Manual. It was manual. And then I had a Subaru.

The species would die out. No one would procreate if these cars were the only things manufactured. I love my cars. I'm so excited for my Chevy Bolt. I'm so excited. It's going to my cars. I'm so excited for my Chevy Bolt. I'm so excited. It's going to be great. I'm picking up Saturday. I'm going to take pictures and put them up and people are going to be excited for me.

Anyway, today, the chief twit picks a fight with Apple and then says, just kidding. Also, Sam Bankman-Fried speaks about the collapse of FTX and we'll hear from a listener with a question about Netflix's future and its past. But first, the Senate is moving to protect same-sex and interracial marriage with votes from all Democrats and 12 GOP members. Good for them. Oh my God, I couldn't believe it. The bill would safeguard federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriage just because they're worried about a possibility of the Supreme Court overturning Obergefell, which gave us all gay marriage. The bill still lets individual states

refuse to issue same-sex marriage licenses in the event of a Supreme Court reversal, meaning couples could go to other states to get married if it becomes illegal on their own, and all states have to recognize marriages in every other state. There's also a religious exemption, which is fine, whatever. If you don't want to marry people in your church, knock yourself out. The bill now returns to the House for a final vote before it reaches Biden's desk, but it's very exciting. And I feel like you and I need to get gay married immediately. What do you think? That's my asking. Gay married? Yeah. Yeah, look, I wanted you to talk more about this because, you know, you're gay.

Well, you know, it's interesting. I'm remembering this because I had to turn the comments off on Twitter because I was getting so much anti-gay stuff. And all these really irritating people on Twitter, it's like, Cara thinks she's elite and won't converse with me. And then I write them. I'm like, you know why? Let me show you some of the things. One of my kids pointed out to me, actually, all these anti-gay stuff. And even in this day, it really brought me back to when they passed Proposition 8 in California. First, Gavin Newsom let gay people get married, I did. And then the marriage was annulled. Not annulled. It was just, I don't even know what

the word is. It's just gotten rid of. And we got a note saying your marriage, I can't say it's a marriage anymore. Yeah, void, void. That's what it was. They returned my fee. You should just send those out to 50% of all marriages and save us all a lot of time. Void, void. And so that happened. And my kids were, the day Proposition 8 passed, I've written about this, Louis said, can we not be a family anymore? He was like very upset by it. It was the time Obama won. And then they, you know, went all through the courts and everything else and ultimately to the Supreme Court case. And it was great. It was amazing. It's an amazing thing to be able to have your family recognized by the

state, not by a religious institution, by the state. And other countries were doing this well before Canada and many others. And now it needs to be protected. It's sad that the Supreme Court could overturn what was an amazing moment in my life. And I'm thrilled that they're doing this. And of course, all the Republicans say you don't need it. But there's all kinds of anti-gay stuff all around the country and all these states. And so you definitely need it. And so just as just the same with the abortion rights and everything else. So I am thrilled. And I think it's great that I think it's gonna be a great moment when Biden signs it. It's gonna be very hard for the GOP to overturn it, which is the best part. And I

don't think they really want to. It's not a winning thing anymore to attack gay people. It's easier to attack trans people. That's what they do in a really appalling way. But these protections are really important, I think, including for interracial marriages, by the way. Yeah, I was thinking a lot about it. I knew you'd be happy about this for good reason. And when you get to our age, it's interesting because you can actually see the arc of societal change or regression. And I was thinking about where the two moments or the two trends really stand out to me. And one's very good and one's very bad. And I'll start with the very bad. And one's very good and one's very bad. And I'll start with the very bad. For the first time, the arc of justice turned downward in the last five years around societal issues. I had never seen that. I had come to expect, and I think a lot of us developed this cold comfort that every year we would become more freer, more empathetic, extend rights to people.

And typically, the arc of America was up under the right around that stuff. And typically, the arc of America was up and to the right around that stuff. And for the last five years, whether it was Roe being overturned, whether it was a president who would tickle the censors of people who were angry with racist tropes or misogynist, whatever it was, you thought, wow, these aren't anomalies. There's a trend and the arc has turned downward. And I had never seen that. I'd seen instances of it, but I'd never seen an extended period where we started losing rights. And then the other thing is, and this is the good news, when I went to college at UCLA in the 80s, it's funny, we didn't think we were bigoted. We thought of ourselves as progressive, enlightened people, we were wildly homophobic. Yes, including gay people. I would agree. Anytime any man demonstrated any sort of feminine or weak behavior, oh, that's so gay.

Don't be gay. Don't be gay. Lesbian friends. Remember lesbian friends? Oh, Jesus. Oh, I remember being in seventh grade and someone was like, oh, when someone touched your shoulder, they're the lesbian friends. And I was like, oh, no, don't say that to me. That's not really.

I remember the sting of it. We didn't have that. That sounds very Northeastern Ivy League. But anyways, the other thing was one of the reasons that it was easy to be homophobic or made it easier is we didn't know a single gay person or so we thought. or made it easier, is we didn't know a single gay person, or so we thought. And just through the course of four and two-thirds years, which it took me to get my undergraduate BA, I found out my freshman roommate in the fraternity was gay, closeted, ended up dying of AIDS at the age of 33. My best friend, literally three of my five best friends, gay, who went on to be my best man at my wedding, different guy, godfather of my children. And I have witnessed through the AIDS crisis, through gay marriage.

I mean, if you really look at the arc over the last 30 years, it's been exceptional progress. I mean, keep in mind, it wasn't that long ago that Obama said that marriage was between a man and a woman. Oh, I remember. Clinton, I remember. I don't think the Democrats. Clinton. Oh, thank you, don't ask, don't fucking tell. I remember.

I'm sorry. I went to the Democratic Convention, I think it was in Chicago, in 1996. And I remember going with my buddy who's gay. And he really got pissed off. And I didn't even notice it. gay. And he really got pissed off. And I didn't even notice it. And then I realized Clinton said something to the effect of in his speech that everyone should be extended rights, whether they're straight, gay, whatever. And I'm like, why did he have to say whatever? And it was just, we really have come a long way around this.

Yes. I'm enjoying your gay journey, Scott. There you go. Bill Clinton and that donut. You know, as you know, I wanted to go into the military and I couldn't because I didn't want to do the Don't Ask, Don't Tell. But it's a great thing. It's a really great thing. And it's great for kids now today accept it as part of, you know, and I think a lot of people do. I don't know, I hear a lot of I don't have a problem with gay people. And I'm like, why would you? You know, I'm even more hostile when people say things like that. And it's people who are pretty much ignorant about people's lives, as if your family is

different. My family's not different than your family or anyone else's family. It's like, you know, you get words like, so nice that you can have a family. It's like, why shouldn't I? Like, it's the assumption that this is a gift to us. This bill is not a gift to gay people. We have to do it because you're a bunch of assholes and we're discriminatory. And we're doing it to protect ourselves, not because it is within our rights under the 14th Amendment and everything else. And so many years ago, my mom didn't buy equal presents. My brother had a series of girlfriends and I had one for much longer. And she didn't treat equal presents. My brother had a series of girlfriends and I had one for much longer and she didn't treat the same. And one year she bought a present and she's like, you know, aren't I great?

This is great that I did this. I said, you don't get any points for being decent. Like you don't get, sorry. Well, she was hoping it was a phase, right? Well, no, not just that. No, she didn't think it was a phase. I think it was just like, I get points for being nice to the gay people. And I think everyone in different groups get it. And I just am like, I've been very adamant that we don't thank anybody for things that were our rights anyway. Like, you know, thank you so much for passing this. Well, I'm sad we have to pass it, but we do. So, therefore, I'm going to celebrate.

Well, just speaking of marriage, there's some interesting data on marriage. For the first time, I mean, marriage is in structural decline. And you've always said this, except across the gay community. More households now don't have a marriage than do. And also, marriage has become a luxury item, especially for men. If you're in the lowest quintile of income-earning households, I mean, marriage really is, correctly or incorrectly, a lot of it is that women don't feel the need to get married as much. There's not as much societal pressure.

They're more economically viable on their own. There's also, they don't have a lot of choices. They have a lot of amazing single women who'd like to be in a partnership. Anyway, so the layoffs continue, Scott. CNN began layoffs that will impact hundreds. I had talked to Chris Licht, who's running it, about what was happening. He called the cuts a gut punch and said they will mostly impact paid contributors. By the way, all those people would go on for free in general. I've been that, and I actually got rid of my paid contributor contract. I actually

left it because it was pointless and not that much money, and it stuck you with one network. Yeah, you couldn't go anywhere. DoorDash laid off 1,200 employees, which is 6% of total staff. Shares of the company are down about 60% for the year and currently up over 9% over the news. So there's more of these. When's it going to stop, I think? You would predict this, and it's really cutting into things. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the decreases in interest rate hikes could start in December. That said, when China – I was at this dinner party.

I was at someone who knew a lot about China, said once they come out of the lockdown, there's going to be inflation there. There is already food inflation. And as the demand spikes for energy and food, because China has now become an importer of food, that there could be more. It could be another inflation thing because nobody's – China's being on the lockdown has kept things under wrap. But I don't know. Interesting. I hadn't thought of that. What do you think now? So you asked, when does it end? I think it's just getting started. Yeah, I would agree.

We always say we call balls and strikes. I think one thing that Musk is proving is that, and we'll find out over the medium and the long term, but the minimum acceptable standards for Twitter might be met with not 7,000 employees, but 1,700. And to think that Google and Meta and every other tech company and Salesforce aren't noticing this and aren't thinking, because here's the thing, my colleague also at the Motoren is writing a book on life cycles of companies. When you're told you're a teenager your whole life, it's difficult to recognize, oh, wait, I'm actually a baby boomer and I need to behave differently. And I think these companies are going to come to the real. And then you have the double whammy for the first time in their history.

They're not growing, but they continue to grow. Their SG&A or hiring. They're just getting started, Cara. That's big tech. Yeah, I think, do we really need these people? I think, look, you and I agree that Twitter, we've talked about it for years, needed cuts, but it's how we did it is our issue. 100%. 100%. It wasn't that he did it. He did it carelessly and is taking people out in places that may be problematic. It was thoughtless. And you know what's also actually accelerated faster than the employee layoffs, which have been more dramatic than any company I can remember, is revenue declines.

I mean, he's basically creating a business with 15 or 1,700 people that's going to be a $2 billion business instead of a $5 billion. I mean, welcome to a company worth $5 billion that you paid $45 billion for. Anyway, you're going to see massive layoffs across tech and also across media. I was in this panel yesterday at the Dealbook conference talking about media, and they're all in such- Who was on your panel? I don't believe you didn't invite me since I left the New York Times. They don't invite me to that thing anymore. No, actually, Meredith- I'm kind of a big deal. Macron was not there. Anyways, what I basically said is,

this has been the golden age for creative, and it's been driven by shareholders who are willing to pump up Netflix's stock so they will spend more money on original content and greenlight stuff that would have never gotten greenlit 10 years ago because we have a company worth $250 billion. And the ad-supported ecosystem, I mean, CNN's layoffs, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Because here's the thing. Advertising as a percentage of GDP has stayed really consistent. But it's a zero-sum game. And look at all the new carnivores in the ecosystem all of a sudden.

TikTok. TikTok. Yeah. Apple, Netflix. They're all going to be calling on P&G and Unilever. So you want to talk about a sector that's going to go from bad to worse, anything that's dependent upon advertising. If Google and Meta's ad revenue is slowing down, what do you think is going to happen to Time Warner or Viacom? Yep. So more to come. And in tech, I agree. I think they've

looked at, I don't know if they're looking at Twitter as a case example, because I think they think it's sloppy. But I've heard them say that, although not Reed Hastings, who apparently thinks Elon walks on water. That was weird. That was weird. He always comes out with weird stuff. People are surprised. I'm like, no, he always does this. He's much more conservative than you realize, by the way, I think, in a lot of ways. He's a big supporter of Newsom. He is. He's all over the place. He never surprises me a lot of ways. And not in traditional ways. He's a big supporter of Newsom. He is. He's all over the place. He's always, he never surprises me when he says that. You mean he's a moderate?

No, no, not even. You mean he's reasonable and a moderate? No, I just think he's, I think, first of all, I think they all circle the wagons. That's just, that's the way they are. And they always take the entrepreneur's word for it versus anybody else's. That's all.

Besides that, I think you're right. I think it versus anybody else's. That's all. Besides that, I think you're right. I think it's just getting started. These companies are going to be leaner and meaner, and they can do it. They just had the ability. It was a nothing burger to hire all those people, and now they need to equalize the productivity to the hiring. And I think that's normal. I think it's normal. I mean, an interesting anecdote is, we're talking about CNN. AMC, who's produced some of the best original content in history, whether it's Mad Men or my favorite show of all time, Breaking Bad, it's subscale. They laid off 20% of their workforce.

They fired the CEO after three months, but gave her a parting gift of $10 million. I mean, AMC Plus, it just doesn't make any sense. It doesn't have the scale. No one's going to pay five bucks for a kind of a subscale network just because they love Breaking Bad. But all of these kind of, you know, name your acronym plus, a lot of them are going to get soaked up. They're going to have to start selling that content to the bigger people. It's going to go right back to Netflix, et cetera. That made a lot of money for those companies. The interesting thing is Disney was making a lot of stuff for Netflix, for example. Or just sell

full stop. Yeah, Disney's going to stay in Disney+, let's be clear. Although there was rumors of purchase by Apple, etc. Anyway, we'll see where it goes. I think you'll probably see a lot of creation of new companies with these layoffs. Most companies were built during things

like this, so little companies will start getting built, which is cool. At the same time, they're going to shed a lot of people. But there's plenty of jobs in certain parts, which will be interesting. Anyway, we got to get on to our first big story. The world's richest man said he's made peace with the world's most valuable corporation. This week, Elon picked a fake fight. I'm sorry to say that's what it was, which I called it. And of course, it was with Apple on three fronts before abruptly reversing course because he really, really meant it.

First, he lashed out at Apple for allegedly pulling most of its advertising from Twitter. Then he claimed that Apple threatened to remove Twitter from the App Store. I think they probably asked some questions, which is their job. They review, I interviewed you all, Roth. That's what they do. They ping Twitter all the time about issues. And that's what they were doing. And of course, he saw it as a threat, which was, he just made it up and then had his flying monkeys go on Tucker Carlson and pretend it was something happening. And then, of course, it wasn't. He also complained about the fees that Apple charges. This is a thing you should complain about, calling it a secret 30% tax. Of course, everyone has known about this.

It's been the subject of lawsuits. We've talked about it endlessly for years. So it wasn't secret to anybody but someone who the penny just dropped for. But by Wednesday, he walked back all those attacks after claiming to have met with Tim Cook at Apple headquarters. He, in fact, did. Tim Cook is a genius. He just invited him and let him walk around the circle there

at Apple HQ in Silicon Valley. I think he was just making a fuss in order to make sure that Apple wouldn't do anything to Twitter. I tell you they will if Twitter becomes a dangerous place. I don't think he understands that part. And he just was trying to make a big mess. I mean, just make a lot of trouble and get all the right enraged. Interestingly, you can pull these things apart.

Apple was Twitter's largest advertising in Q1. Musk said, good conversation. Among other things, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so. Let's focus on the last part. There was no misunderstanding. It was a lie that Elon and his minions told's focus on the last part. There was no misunderstanding. It was a lie that

Elon and his minions told. So there you have it. And Tim Cook wasn't in the video, obviously. He probably was like, oh, for fuck's sake, I got to do the meeting and be nice to this guy, who I'm sure he regards as a very important entrepreneur, but still is probably, oh, yeah, yeah, my job. Anyway, your thoughts. Well, you know, there was one adult in that room. You know, Tim Cook could easily take a bait here and just said, these are lies. And Elon, you don't acquit yourself. I mean, he could have easily clapped back at Elon. Instead, he was, you know, Tim Cook just reeks of confidence and grace. And he said, no, come on down. I'm sure he was very nice to them, had a tour of them.

And then when he left, I just can't imagine Tim Cook, and I don't know the man, but I just think I have a decent sense of who he is, that's similar. He's only less disgusted than having to sit in a room with Donald Trump. Which he does. And he's meeting with Republicans this week. Right, because he's a grown-up and he's focused on his shareholders. All of this is another point in a line that is, Musk and Trump both have this psychopathic, desperate addiction to be the news every 48 hours.

Period. There's nothing here. There was no veracity to these claims, but he thought, oh, I'll be the headline today. I'll say it. And Tim Cook is more interested in just saying, okay, this is a distraction. I need to get back to work. Bring him down. I'll smile. I'll tell him what he wants to hear. I'll show him all the Teslas in the parking lot. I'll smile. I'll tell him what he wants to hear. I'll show him all the Teslas in the parking lot. I remember when Carl Icahn started rattling Apple's cage. And the first thing, and Tim Cook's too smart. Most CEOs get clapped back at activists and they create this ego thing, this war. Tim Cook said, no, Carl, come on in. And immediately said, Carl's got great ideas. The fastest way to solve an argument is to

take a blow and then deescalate and not hit back. Just take the blow. It wasn't even a blow. It wasn't true. Why even say you're a liar? Like, why get into the thing? He doesn't want to fight with him. Again, he did the same thing with Trump. I remember he went to that factory and Trump made a whole bunch of ridiculous statements about how he created it. And I remember calling them and like, he didn't do this. He didn't make these things. And they're like, you know, just let it go. I was like, I don't want to let it go. They're like, let it go. Like it was just, it doesn't matter if they want it, if they feel they need to, and then take a picture there and do a video. You didn't, again, Tim was not in the video. Tim did not post anything. Tim did not say

anything. And it was untrue. It was actually untrue. And again, it was part of a performative. At the time when they did it, I was like, oh, this is all fake. You know that this is performative. And none of it is true. They're doing normal things. Again, I had a very interesting interview with Yoel Roth, who quit Twitter. And, you know, he's annoyed by App Store. Lots of people are.

And that's something to think about. It's a really important. What's really irritating is that this is an important issue and these clowns are just, it's an important issue, which is interesting as Mark Zuckerberg then said something

and then Daniel X said something, people who have been long time having issues with this. But when the Facebook people, you know, they thought they had, oh good, we have another ally in this thing, right, with Apple. I think I texted one of them. Elon will throw you right under the bus if he needs to.

Just FYI. Don't hook up with him so fast, right? And that's precisely what he did. He kissed and made up. And then you can't focus on this 30% issue, which is lower fees for people under a million dollars. It's not 30% all the time. It's not secret. And it does enforce its moderation policies. And it's not censorship, which is

the words that David Sachs was using. It's not censorship to have rules and enforce them. The fee thing is important, though. Let me just say the fee thing remains something that's going to be a thorn in Apple's side. And he's not going to get out of it by petting Elon and handing him an organic chicken breast and a dusting of quinoa. That's not going to work here overall. That's what he served at lunch with me. It was a dusting. The 30% tax is, in my opinion, I do think it's monopoly abuse. I believe Apple has a monopoly on a cohort in America, and they exercise that monopoly by charging a 30% tax. And a lot of companies that offer better products, such as Spotify, can't compete with Apple Music

because they have to pay a 30% tax. And 30% does feel onerous to me. There should be more competition. I do think that pricing, they should take a hard look at it and it should be regulated. Having said that, it's not going to happen. If it can be regulated, right, yeah. It's not going to happen because when the critics, the public figures for doing something about that 30% usurious tax are Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, they play into his hands. There's no way

Democrats are going to decide that the first company they should go after is Apple because the majority of consumers are now worried about Facebook. They know someone whose teen daughter is depressed. They look at the elections and go, what? They're fucking with our elections? Nobody is mad at Apple. Nobody's mad at Apple. Well, I think they're still under investigation for this, and they're in lawsuits, Epic lawsuits. Yeah, but by companies, Cara, not by consumers.

Yes. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney joined in, and then Spotify did. And then, of course, the idiot Republicans J.D. Vance and Ron DeSantis did. And Vance tweeted, again, proving that he continues to be as ignorant as he's not. It's all performative. That if Apple removes Twitter from the App Store, this would be the most raw exercise of monopoly power in the century. Oh my God, stop it. And no civilized country should allow it. It's all empty words. Oh no. That's what civilization comes down to, the App Store.

Come on. My issue is these self-interested rich people need to focus on the fact that we need to get to a place where there's not just the app store and there should be things into place, but they don't want to actually do anything. They just want to yammer on and do pretend pressure and they never actually do anything. And this is a big issue. We should not have Apple controlling, you know, well, they do, but they just do. What do you do? Let's come up with a really sensible thing that protects the idea that safety and privacy is at odds with innovation and ability to do what you want on your app. It's not true.

It's a false fight. And so safety and privacy that Apple uses that money for is important. And someone's got to do it, and they should be allowed to do it. It's a question of how they do it, how much transparency there is, how much they should be able to charge, et cetera. And that's really what it should be. But they always set it up as this ridiculous, you don't have to choose between them. Yeah, but everyone talks about the financialization of everything. I think it's the politicization of everything. And that is companies used to be seen as apolitical.

Now they've decided, okay, every piece of science, whether it's a vaccine, every issue, and now every company has to choose sides or will choose them for you. And they've basically decided, okay, Twitter is now GOP. So anything Twitter and Musk does, if you're a Republican, is genius. And they're basically saying kind of Apple is now being depositioned as left. So everything they, there's no nuance, there's no examination of the data, there's no concern for the Commonwealth or examining what is actually going on here. Wait, what is this? Is this red or blue?

And if it's red, it doesn't matter what happens. I'm supportive of the company of the person. Yes, and the Republicans, oddly enough, Lucky called me last night and he's like, Tim Cook is stopping people from sending stuff. And I was like, what? What are you talking about? Well, what she was talking about is they limited the functionality of AirDrop in China and protesters there have been using AirDrop to circumvent Chinese internet surveillance. AirDrop works phone to phone, doesn't require the internet. It's more difficult for protesters to spread their message. But other signs point to Apple breaking with China. Announcements by Reuters

shows Apple moving more production to Vietnam and India and more procurement to Taiwan. And again, the two issues for Apple, this 30% tax on things over a million dollars, and the ability to be more transparent in the App Store, which is a function of the way phones have gone over the years, and China are their two main problems that are very critical for them, for Tim to solve. And he's handling it rather well on the 30% thing, I think, but he's got to move, there's got to be more pressure on him the 30% thing, I think, but he's got to move. There's got to be more pressure on him, but not this kind of pressure, because it's useless pressure. I think the Republicans are going to try to go after Apple. I think it's dumb.

It didn't work with Disney. And to be enemies of companies as a group without thinking about the problems and solving them is just stupidity. It's just rage. It's just rage tweeting, essentially. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, SBF goes on a media blitz, and we'll take a listener mail question about Netflix best kept secret. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. 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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payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Procrastination, putting it off, kicking the can down the road. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Carpet in the bathroom. Like, why? In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back with our second big story. I want you to talk about this because you saw this interview. I've seen pieces of it. Sam Bankman-Fried had a tough week that mostly his lawyers did. Their client has been on a publicity tour speaking openly about his role in the collapse of FTX.

I didn't do fraud, I think, in an interview with Dealbook's Andrew Ross Sorkin, our favorite Canadian. SBF dinsest himself from his hedge fund, Alameda Research, and said that he never knowingly mixed funds from FTX with Alameda's. and said that he never knowingly mixed funds from FTX with Alameda's. He's just gotten in earlier this week. He told Crypto Influencer that he matched his donations to Democrats with dark money donations to Republicans. He also gave interviews to Axios and ABC's George Stephanopoulos. I tried to get one with him. He's not talking to Kara Swisher, probably because I'd be like,

I think you are doing fraud. And he told Andrew Ross Sorkin that I have a duty to talk. I have a duty to explain. I have a duty to explain. I think he has a duty to try to stay out of jail is what he's doing. He should be talking to the courts and Congress if he's talking to anybody. But what do you think? What did you think of the interview? So first off, Andrew Ross Sorkin gets grief for being soft in these types of interviews, and he wasn't. He asked very, these guys and you do this well, have to really thread a fine needle around.

Well, if I just do what people want and I go foxy on people and I'm angry and upset and try and call them out and some people on CNN do this, you don't get other interviews. Well, you do. That's not true, but go ahead. I think SPF is picking the people he wants to go on with. Anyways, I thought Andrew did a great job. I thought he was forcefully- I did too. Yet dignified.

What I saw was great. And look, I actually don't think, I was thinking, this guy looks so young. I thought, and he talked about his parents. I thought if I was this guy's father, I would immediately fly to the Bahamas and I would physically prohibit him and prevent him from doing anything like this. There will be clips

from this interview that the district attorney will play before sentencing. Because there's just no doubt about it. They were co-mingling funds. People say it's made off. People say it's there. No, it's not. It, remember MF Global? It was John Corzine. Oh, yeah. They were doing the same thing. They got margin calls. So they started borrowing money or borrowing against funds and customer deposits, which, bottom line, is fraud. And that's what happened here.

In addition, it's just not going to play well that they were all living together in a penthouse apartment in the Bahamas with drugs and Adderall. It's just not going to play well to a jury. I think sloppy is not an excuse for what he's doing. That's what he's doing. I didn't know. Like, oh, I didn't like. I take responsibility. He's the CEO, sir.

Sir, I would have been much harder on this guy. Not only that, they're going to find emails that indicate that he knew what was going on. They're going to find evidence that he either knew enough to know that this was likely going on. A bunch of people came up to me and said, what did you think? Do you believe him? That was the big question everyone said, do you believe him? And my answer is, one, yes, I believe him. And two, he's going to jail. I don't believe him. I don't believe him. I think it's all, I think no one gets to this level and does this amount of trickery without knowing what he was

doing. You were to see the George Stephanopoulos interview, who said it was really wild. I think his whole unmade bed act, like, I'm an unmade bed. I don't know what happened. I didn't write down when they gave me money. It's just crap. I's just- I mean, I don't empathize with them, but I can understand what happens here. When you're in a Bahamas apartment hanging out with your friends, only occasionally taking breaks to go up to New York with the financial titans, literally the titans of the world, take a break from their day to fillate you, what do you know? You start believing that, no, you're not commingling funds. You're cross-collateralizing assets that will make everybody rich,

and you'll make the world a better place through your long-termism. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He made investments in media, with politicians. This is a very canny guy. Nobody else did this. And he knew he was trying to be—I ran into him once, and he was trying to do his

charming sloppy thing with me. And it was ridiculous. I would rather deal with Carl Icahn any day of the week or someone who's just like a shark, as you sort of know it. This pretend sloppy bed, tousled hair, oh, I'm just wearing shorts bullshit. It hides what is someone who was very clear he was giving a lot of money to people. He was investing in media. He was doing his oh shucks thing. No, I don't believe any of this for a minute. I'm not saying this wasn't strategic.

I'm not saying this isn't part of a larger brand, which most CEOs think about. Yes, of course. It's their perception and their larger brand. What I'm saying is I genuinely believe he thought, oh, I'm not committing a crime. I think Bernie Madoff knew he was committing a crime and then called his kids together and said, kids, you turn me in because I'm going to go to jail and I want to keep you out of jail. I think he knew he was committing a crime. I think this guy got to the point because of his youth and because of what everyone was telling him that he was a genius. He's almost 30. Come on.

I was telling him that he was a genius. He's almost 30. What is – come on. Well, that's a kid. A 30-year-old man is a kid. No, no, no. That's a kid. No. Yeah, that's a kid.

Anyways, he absolutely – This is what we do to these little tech men. In my view? Okay. I think Bernie Madoff knew there was a good chance if he got caught he was going to go to jail. I don't think Sam – I don't think SBF thought he was going to get – I generally don't think he thought he was doing anything wrong. I think in his own mind – I genuinely can't imagine if you didn't write down when you took money from people. He, he, he cheated people. That's what he did. This whole,

this juvenileization of tech men, I didn't know. Oh my God, I can't believe that men made rude remarks to women at Uber. Oh, we were only partying. Like, give me a fucking break. They're old enough to know what to, how to behave. He knew what he was doing. He took partying. Like, give me a fucking break. They're old enough to know how to behave. He knew what he was doing. He took their money just by the act of not writing it down or commingling them. Come on. Come on. I'm sorry.

I think he knew exactly what he was doing, even if he didn't think he was going to jail. I think these people get endless amounts. And because he does the hair thing and the clothes, like if one more person goes, oh, he showed up in shorts and sneakers. But if you're unregulated, if you're unregulated, you have no legal requirements to disclose this stuff. You're all of a sudden gone from zero to whatever, 30 billion in wealth. You've made a ton of other people a lot of money, and everyone in the world is telling you you're a genius. I mean, this all unraveled pretty fast. And I think he's going to go to jail. I think he deserves to go to jail. But I think we, I don't want to say it's society. Society gets this. Society kind of fostered, they didn't put in place regulation. We all want to believe in false idols. We all want to convince them they're above the law.

You know who didn't do this? Patrick Collison didn't do this. Brian Chesky didn't do this. Like, come on. Lots of people didn't do this. And lots of people play by the rules. This guy was, I'm sorry, I think he's a con man. I think he's a con man. Okay. But there's a preponderance of people that are tech billionaires that the world creates this idolatry around them that are more subject to doing this. And it's not only they should, and in this instance, will pay a price, but there should be a real examination of why we idolize these people and the externality and damage it causes. Right. That's a different thing. It's not just an evil guy figuring out. I don't think he's evil.

Well, I'm just saying he's not. This, in my opinion, is a manifestation and an externality of a society that's decided that young men who understand code are somehow super beings and shouldn't be subject to the same scrutiny as everybody else. Okay, that is fair. He's still a cheater. He's just a cheater. And let's just break it down. In my view, again, he's probably going to jail. Do you believe him?

Oh, God, no. I don't believe him. Anyway, the weird one, which I think is too bad, CoinDesk, the publication that put this collapse in motion with very good reporting, and I've given them kudos for it, may go up for sale as the parent company deals with the fallout from the crypto crash, of course. It's business, the people who really were on top of this, and it's a really good – I read it now and again. I'm not that into crypto, but it's – there's all these second-order effects of this asshole. I'm sorry he's an asshole. But I see what you mean. I know we should hug him and give him some cocoa and put his feet up

and ask him how he managed to not take responsibility for himself. See, I'm much more of a mom than you are. That's passive-aggressive. Did you hear about that ABC thing? The two anchors making out? Andrew Hsu's wife and Good Morning America, the two anchors, the Daily Mail. And apparently there's a whole controversy around it. You know, well, let me just say for the listeners of Pivot, Scott and I will never have a secret getaway to upstate New York and run in a marathon together and follow them.

Wait, so there's two anchors on ABC? There's these two anchors, Amy Robach and then this other guy, TJ something or Holmes. And they are apparently – Daily Mail caught them having – like was doing its Daily Mail thing. And now it's all controversial. And she was married to Andrew Hsu from Melrose Place. And in a very unusual coincidence, I interviewed Darren Starr yesterday who created Melrose Place. And actually I met him during Melrose Place. So anyway, so there's this big controversy over at ABC right now, speaking of which.

But yeah, so just, we will never have that happen here at Pivot. Anything for ratings. That's literally, I got to say, that's incredibly uninteresting, and yet it's the most interesting thing to happen at ABC in a long time. Yes, that's fair. That's fair. But this will never happen at our place. Anyway, because we're adults, because that's why we're adults.

Yeah, that's us. Anyway, don't say that. Never. That's us. Never happen. Never happen. Yeah. Anyway, Amy Robach is the name. It's the're adults. Yeah, that's us. Never. That's us. Never happen. Never happen. Anyway, Amy Robach. It's the car choice.

And TJ Holmes. Okay, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. Here's a question that should have been sent on a cassette tape. Speaking of you making the cassette tape remarks, go for it. Hi, Karen, Scott. My name is Octave remarks, go for it. Hi, Karen Scott. My name is Meg, and I live in Idaho.

Every time I go back to visit my parents in Pennsylvania, I am reminded that they still get DVDs in the mail from Netflix. My question for you is, why does Netflix still offer that service? My parents have and use multiple streaming services, and honestly, I'm not even sure why they still get DVDs in the mail to begin with. Big fan of the show. And thanks for taking my question. DVDs. I still have a Netflix DVD. I haven't returned, by the way. I found one in San Francisco in that red sleeve they had. You know, it might be profitable. AOL.com still has dial-up for people who don't.

I was thinking the exact same thing. It's a good business. It's a good business. They have 1.5 million DVD subscribers. There's some facts our producer brought us who pay more for the plan. DVDs are estimated to bring about $200 million in revenue. There you go. There you go, Meg.

It spends zero marketing on the DVDs. It just costs to have them, but they have them. Many Americans don't have broadband internet and so there's some that are exclusively on DVD from competitors like Handmaid's Tale, Yellowstone, Top Gun Maverick Marvel movies, Game of Thrones, Dunes they can offer those you can't get them on Netflix over the top service

Reed Hastings has talked about shutting it down but why if you're making money from it? It's de minimis and it makes money. And same thing with AOL dial-up. That's still a business. I think it's a declining one, but certainly still there. It's money. Money in the bank.

What do you think, Scott? I think you're exactly right. The AOL dial-up is the perfect analogy. I was talking to Tom Rogers yesterday at the conference, the founder of CNBC. perfect analogy. I was talking to Tom Rogers yesterday at the conference, the founder of CNBC. And anyways, but he said, we were talking about CNBC and he said, there's just a lot of people who watch CNBC and are just so used to it and they'll watch it for the next 10 or 20 years. And once you get to a certain age, you do become sort of a creature of habits. I'm fascinated by this notion of a pause or a change in your life where you reevaluate things.

Moving to London, you know what it's done? I no longer watch any cable TV. I can't figure out how to operate TV. I don't understand Sky. I don't understand the indoor interface. I'm too old to figure out which of our remotes works. I now just watch media on my computer. I think I've given up on TV. It's weird. But I used to, at least I would watch original scripted dramas and occasionally turn on CNN. Like, I stopped watching CNN. Not because I don't love CNN. Even abroad? Because it's pretty good abroad. Yeah, I just don't.

I don't watch any cable TV. I don't watch, and I'm watching almost now, all my original scripted drama on my computer. It's just a change. And the reality is, old people, they get set, right? They just get totally set. It'll eventually peter out. These are all peter out eventually. What's interesting is I was, Claire is sort of in the age where you can put, I used to put on CDs for the kids at night and they'd listen to a story, you know, some of these like Jim Dale did Harry Potter stuff and everything. And so I'm just starting to do that.

And the only thing, I can do it on the phone, but I actually did it on a little DVD, CD player, and it was fine, you know? I wouldn't do it on a cassette anymore, but although I have my cassettes. Would you like my mixtape? Would you like a mixtape for me? That's what you used to do for your girlfriend or your boyfriend.

You'd make a little mixtape. Oh, yeah, mixtape, mixtape, mixtape. That's right. I'm going to come up with a mixtape I would make for me. That's what you used to do for your girlfriend or your boyfriend. You'd make a little mixtape. Oh yeah, mixtape. Mixtape. That's right. I'm going to come up with a mixtape I would make for you. I'm not sure what the first song would be. Little Cisco. Little Cisco. Little Cheap Trick. Cheap Trick!

Oh my god, that would be so... Little Milli Vanilli. Milli Vanilli. Oh my god. Vanilla Ice, of course. I would throw that in. You, my God. Vanilla Ice, of course. You know, throw that in. Anyway, you look a little like Vanilla Ice got older. Anyway, thank you, Meg, for your question, but it's a good business, and I don't know what to tell you about the DVDs.

Just let them watch them. It's fine. And you can watch some things you can't get. 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 from you.

A few things. I think you're going to see AMC Plus probably be sold in the next six months, and you're going to see AMC Plus probably be sold in the next six months. And you're going to start to see some of these cats and dogs, anyone outside of Netflix, Disney, Amazon, Apple. You're going to see some interesting transactions. What about CNN? You've talked about that. You've wanted it sold for a long time now. Well, here's the thing about Warner Brothers Discovery, and that is it has $50 billion in debt, but that debt is long-term maturities at a low interest rate. So it doesn't have a ticking time

bomb. And the price that Zaslav would get for spinning it off would be bad. So he would probably do a good bank, bad bank. The bottom line is, and I'm parroting Tom, who kind of set me straight yesterday because I thought there'd be an activist play there with Good Bank, Bad Bank. Zaslav doesn't have a lot of pressure. And basically the guy in charge there is John Malone. People think kind of John Malone is the brightest person in the room around financial engineering. So I don't know what John has up his sleeve. You're also going to see probably in the next—

So what did Tom say he would be? What? They're really not under pressure because that $50 billion in debt is fixed-rate, long-term maturity debt. I know. That's their argument. That's their argument. I've heard it from them. It's long-term.

It's still debt. We'll see. You're going to see a lot more layoffs in media. You're going to see consolidation among all these streaming companies. You're going to see some big sales there. companies. You're going to see some big sales there. And I also, and this is a stranger prediction, but I think you're going to see Tesla stock. And of course, I was in deservedly trouble that they're absolute Tesla stock. Absolutely. In my view, it's going to get cut in half in the next six to 12 months. Oh, you're going for it. I love that you keep going. You keep going. You're

like Don Quixote. I can't have a broken clock right twice a day, but right after the fire. But this is what's going on here. People are so focused on Twitter. What they don't realize is that Elon Musk's Twitter adventures are going to result in Tesla losing the value of seven Twitters. And that is Tesla has a $600 billion market cap right now. It's dramatically overvalued, worth more than almost every other automobile company combined. And what you have is, I don't know if you've seen this, but essentially they just did a brand equity audit. They looked at Twitter and they looked at Tesla and basically said, do you think these brands are more favorable, less favorable than they were six months ago?

And across both Twitter and Tesla, with Democrats, the brands have taken just an enormous hit. And they're actually slightly up among Republicans, see above politicization. But on the whole, these brands have eroded dramatically. And Tesla is so inextricably linked to one person. It's more linked to Musk than Air Jordans are to Michael Jordan. Jordan, you have an erosion in brand equity coupled with a slowing economy, coupled with an explosion in competitors. You're just going to see this company start to regress or the reversion to the mean. And everyone's focused on the economic destruction of Twitter because it's already the second worst acquisition in history. His follies and what it's doing to the brand of Tesla is going to result in the destruction of a quarter of a trillion dollars in the next six to 12 months. Yeah, it's interesting. It's still probably considered the best of those cars in terms of quality and stuff. But I would agree,

I've had at least six people who've stopped their purchase of a Tesla or they returned it or sold it, which is interesting that I'd never heard before. No one ever did that. And they went and looked at the BMW or the Lyric, the Cadillac Lyric, or a whole bunch of them. And of course, Cara with her Chevy Bolt, which is the way I go. I was never considering a Tesla, by the way.

They're too expensive for what I want. But I wouldn't buy it. I wouldn't buy it because I don't, I don – it's just the looks of it away from Elon Musk. But I think you're right. The competition is really going to be – they're going to get better and better. And people like more choice, by the way. It's a good thing. But you're right.

I think the brand equity is really problematic for a lot of stuff. But that's what happens. That said, someone could buy Tesla. Someone could buy Tesla. Someone could buy Tesla. No, they couldn't. Well, not right now. It's way too expensive.

Yeah. It's overvalued. Yeah. Okay. We'll see. We'll see. It's less valued than it was. So anyhow, that's a very good prediction.

Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. We're also bringing our act to Europe, just so you know. We're going to be going into Germany. That's right. We're going to be going to London. We're also bringing our act to Europe, just so you know. We're going to be going into Germany and possibly London. That's right.

We're working on a London thing, so everybody in Europe, get excited. A little Lend-Lease. We're lending the dog and jungle cat to the Allies. And you know, as you know, the French love us. Pivot! Pivot! We'll try to go to France at some point, too. Scott, please read us out. Today's show is

produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertott engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mule Silverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Cara, have a great rest of the week.