Pivot - Shutdown Deja Vu, AI and Actors, and Guest Meredith Levien

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

Kara and Scott discuss the new (and bizarre) AI pin, and Trump's desire for a televised trial. Also, the threat of a government shutdown is back, but will Speaker Mike Johnson be able to make a deal in time? Plus, what we're learning about the AI provisions in the new SAG-AFTRA agreement, and why not everyone is happy. Finally, our Friend of Pivot is New York Times President and CEO, Meredith Levien, who talks about the current state of journalism, subscription strategies, and yes, Wordle. 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. Scott, let me just tell you, I was working out this morning early. I don't usually do it this early, but I did. And we had two fans working out at the same time. Jessica was one of them. And she said she loves the podcast, but then her 13-year-old daughter was listening

and said, what is with that guy and penis jokes? Just so you know, this is what happens to me continually. I hate it when I hear the kids are listening. I know, but you know what? I said it's a good experience for her to understand what a ridiculous penis-joking man is like and how to deal with him. And they learned a lot from how I respond to you.

That's so interesting. It's so unusual that we have a story where you're the hero. Well, in any case, nonetheless, I'm just saying I'm getting feedback. They love the show, though. You didn't say anything on my tie. That's the first time I've had a tie on since a Bob Mitzvah. Oh, how's your tie?

How's your tie? It looks like a penis. Anyway, sorry. So this is my story. I was invited. I got a call or an email last week saying, so-and-so, I'm special advisor to the prime minister. We'd like to have you down to 10 Downing to talk about putting on some sort of like advisory committee on tech or AI or something. And I'm like, I was so excited. So I told my kids, you know, I'm going to 10 Downing, you know,

da, da, da. Put on the tie. You keep saying 10 Downing a lot. Oh, I'm sorry. I can't see you on Monday. I need to get home and get my rest. I'm going to 10 Downing. Anyways, so I bombed there this morning thinking like, what are they going to offer me? I roll up. There's a big crowd. I roll right past. I'm like, I'm sorry, I down. Anyways, so I bomb there this morning thinking like, what are they going to offer me? I roll up. There's a big crowd. I roll right past. I'm like, I'm sorry, I have an appointment. And this guy, you know, it's like the White House, a bunch of machine guns everywhere.

And they're like, sorry, sir, we don't have you on the list. And so I called and the woman picked up the phone who I was supposed to meet. Oh, I'm so sorry. We forgot to call you. There's been some news. We need to reschedule. Click. Yeah, they put Cameron in place.

Yeah. They fired the home secretary. And I literally almost reflexively turned, hoping you would be next to me and like, get us in. And I'm like, you show up to 10 Downing without Kara Swisher of the White House, you aren't getting past security. I do know some people. I had to go home. Oh, no. I'm expendable.

My meeting was canceled today. Wow. So I put on a tie for no reason. Rishi Sunak could use a little Scott Galloway. I'll tell you, what a mess. Oh, yeah. That's what he needs on a tie for no reason. Rishi Sunak could use a little Scott Galloway. I'll tell you, what a mess. Oh, yeah, that's what he needs. He's not doing well, I'll tell you that. That idiotic interview.

I like him a lot. I had dinner with someone from the British Embassy here the other night, and I was like, that Elon interview was ridiculous. It was a suck-up, looking for a job kind of interview. And then he had to get rid of Suella Braverman. I don't believe I know so much about. Yeah, because she's like a crazy, she said homelessness was a choice.

I don't know. She said so many delightful things. She's a terrible, horrible person. But here's the thing. Even when they're unreasonable here, they seem quite reasonable. She's not. She could sit right in in the right wing GOP.

Yeah, but what do they do? She's out. Would we kick that person out? No. We'd make her Speaker. Yeah, exactly. No, she would do well in the United States of America.

Yeah, that's right. They brought in David Cameron, who was the previous Prime Minister. He's Foreign Secretary now. That's right. Wow. He's back. Not everybody likes him.

They think he's a little too squishy. Well, what politicians does everyone like? The thing that David Cameron, David Cameron will go down in history, arguably, as making one of the greatest tactical blunders in history, and that is he called for a vote thinking he had Brexit or non-Brexit in the bag. And it is probably the most serious self-inflicted geopolitical move since our invasion of Iraq. The UK has not grown.

It's the only nation in Europe that hasn't grown its economy in five years. They figured out a way to elegantly raise prices and lower productivity. I mean, it's just... So you're going to get invited back, I guess, to 10 Downing. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. I'm clearly not top of the list here. I mean, they didn't even give me a heads up that my meeting had been canceled. I'm coming to London. Can I go with you? I'm going to come and... You're welcome to go wherever I go.

Let's go. Let's go. Come on over. I'll take you to an Arsenal game. I want to meet the cat mic you. You're welcome to go wherever I go. Let's go. Let's go. Come on over. I'll take you to an Arsenal game. I want to meet the cat, honestly. I want to meet the cat at 10 Downing Street. You've seen that cat. We'll take you to an Arsenal game. We'll go to Miz on Estelle. I'll take you to 5 Hertford with all the finance bros and the pros hang out.

We'll have a good time. All right. But I want to see the cat at 10 Downing Street. I didn't know there was a cat. You know about the cat. I didn't know. There's a whole account for the cat at 10 Downing Street. And the cat is very smart.

Yeah. There's a whole cat thing. That makes sense. I didn't know there was a cat. It's a meme. Yeah. He's a really good cat. There's a whole account for the cat at 10 Downing Street, and the cat is very smart. Yeah, there's a whole cat thing. That makes sense. I didn't know there was a cat. It's a meme. Yeah, he's a really good cat. But I'm sorry that Rishi Sunak blew you off. I take it you didn't see the Chelsea Man City game last night? I did not. I don't care. Oh, my God. What a game. 4-4. My son couldn't relax. Anyways. No, I watched the season finale of Morning Show. Oh, how is that? It was good.

That's good? Last shot, Jennifer Aniston. Yeah, good. And does Jon Hamm start a love affair? I'd like to see Jon Hamm in some sort of steamy affair with somebody.

With her, yeah. Don't tell me who. What do you want? Come on, it's obvious. Jennifer gets Jon Hamm. She's the top dog, even over Reese Witherspoon. Jennifer and Jon Hamm?

Hmm. I'm not sure I'd buy that. Yeah, a lot of making out. A lot of making out. A lot of making out. Really? Yeah. Good for them. You can watch it.

Watch the end of it. You'll see. They're a handsome couple. I watched the Arnold documentary. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, I love him. We should have him on. He's very lovable.

I mean, it's basically just kind of how awesome Arnold is. He doesn't mention it. Sexual harassment stuff. Ignoring his own blood. But anyways, he's a very impressive guy. He seems to have aged into a fine wine and people have forgotten the sexual harassment and all the other stuff.

But anyway, I like him. I'll be honest, I like him. We have a lot to talk about. Today, we'll talk about a government shutdown looming yet again. We'll also get a closer look at the AI provisions of the new SAG-AFTRA deal, which not everybody is happy about. And we'll speak with New York Times President and CEO and

uber fan of Pivot, Meredith Levian. But first, you can now wear your AI device called AI Pin. Have you seen this thing? $6.99, $24 a month subscription. The device comes from Humane Inc., which is founded by two former Apple Design and engineering employees in what was the weirdest video I've ever seen. It was so strange. The company is partnering with T-Mobile for phone service and Microsoft and OpenAI for AI technology. The pin is primarily voice-based use and meant to eventually replace the smartphone. It projects onto your hand. You do hand gestures. Humane has raised $230 million in funding so far, including from notable backers like Sam Altman and Microsoft. I have to say, I was so wildly unimpressed with this. I don't know what to say. So were many.

What do you think? I don't know much about it, except I have, I just don't think wearables work. I think we have one wearable and it's our phone. And also, the AirPod Max is, I don't think of it as a wearable. I think of it as jewelry. It's incredibly utile. The AirPod, not the AirPod Max, because of your ears. Yeah, I'm sorry. The AirPod. It's just the AirPod. Pro, yeah. But there's very few companies that could have the capital and the staying power to promote that watch. And now, the Apple Watch sells more watches than the entire Swiss watch industry

combined. But we're talking about humane. Have you seen this thing? It's like a pin that goes on your jacket. It like clips to you. It seems ridiculous. It's a tiny phone is what it is. My guess is this is Google Glass. It'll get a ton of media hype, a ton of media attention, and it will die. Media doesn't seem to like it. It's slower than a fast death, but I don't know. I haven't tried it. They haven't sent me one. They probably sent you one. They haven't sent me one. They haven't. It's endlessly complex. It feels endlessly complex. And to learn it, it didn't seem intuitive. It just didn't serve any need that I had right now. And I get the voice-based use, and I wish my phone, I'd have more of a voice-basing, but this ain't it. It's more going to be in my ears, voice-based. It seems like that.

But this thing that projects onto your hand, and then you do this. I don't feel like that's a good one. It's a lot of money, $230 million. You're going to see some sort of AI device that you carry or wear, right, that just answers your questions all day. I think it's going to be your iPhone? No, I think it's going to be your AirPods. I think it's going to be AirPods.

Oh, voice, maybe, yeah. I don't know. This thing doesn't need any, this thing doesn't have any visual except when it projects onto your hand time, which I don't need, I don't, it just, go watch the video. It's the strangest video you've ever seen. Another thing's going on.

Former President Donald Trump wants you to see his federal election fraud trial. This is interesting. I want to hear a thought of this because a lot of people think he's playing a head fake, that he doesn't really want to televise, but he's saying he will. Anyway, the Trump lawyers told the judge trial that she should permit his trial to be televised and not continued, quote, in darkness. There's no darkness, you dumbass.

Anyway, similar requests have been made by several media organizations. TV cameras are forbidden in federal courtrooms. I don't know if you know that. They have all those lovely drawings. A trial set to begin in March is one of four criminal trials approaching for Trump during 2024. What do you think about the camera? Talk about this. He saw a boost in polling numbers when he just got indicted.

Would this help? He's a good TV show, for sure. Well, it's a moot point because they don't care. As you just referenced, there's protocols, federal protocols, and they don't care what his counsel. This is just purely performative. He's trying to position these cases as being – and it's been hugely effective for him that this is just an example of deep state and Trump derangement syndrome gone apeshit and seeping into our deep state federal government and that these prosecutions are, malicious, whatever the term is, false, hollow. Which hunt is this? Yeah, politically motivated.

And also we have, not we, I think they've done all of us a disservice and given them food or fodder when this case, the case right now, quite frankly, Kara, if they're going to take to court with the same vigor, people who attempt to inflate their assets or deflate their assets based on insurance or loans, there's going to be a lot of people in court. And I worry that we've kind of, I think the nuclear secrets one, the election one in Georgia, that's what we go for. The other ones are just tactical missteps. I get it. But Martha Stewart was brought to jail and, you know, was put in jail for stuff other people do. I think people make an example of people.

I don't think that's unusual. Yeah, but Martha didn't go to jail for insider trading. She went to jail for lying to prosecutors, to federal agents, which is a crime. They could have let her off. I don't know. I feel like it's one of these. I don't know. I just think they're one of these. I don't know. I just think they're like, ooh, juicy, juicy person to convict, costs attention to ourselves. Let's

pick her. Like, I don't think they're particularly fair in any game. Well, that's, okay. So that, that goes to a whole other thing. And that has to do, that has to cross over with Sam Bankman Freed. And that one of the stated considerations when you're thinking about a penalty is that when it's a famous person, it's an opportunity for the federal government to send a very strong signal to people saying, no one's above the law and you should be really thoughtful about this stuff. If Martha Stewart had said, it's actually part of my brand strategy class, Americans love to forgive. Where most people get into trouble is not for the actual infraction, it's denying it and never coming clean. So, for example, I think the biggest

problem a lot of these politicians face, although I must admit, lately it seems like you just double down, people love to forgive. If Martha Stewart said, you know what, quite frankly, I'm just not that familiar with the rules here. I screwed up. I'm sorry. You're right. They would have taken the gains away and it wouldn't have been a big deal. But she kept, this is the problem, and I'll try and take this to a broader lesson. She has since recovered her brand rather handily. Oh, she's incredible. And made it a thing, made the prison thing a thing, made it a joke. for younger people. And that is what I've tried to do as I've gotten older. When I was a younger person, I would listen for about half a second and then stake out a position. And then what became

most important to me was not getting to the best decision, but convincing everyone else in the room that I was right. I thought that was leadership. And the reality is when you stake a position and you say something offhanded, and I've seen this happen a lot, you corner yourself into a position, and then you have to go further, deeper, and deeper, and deeper instead of listening, and you find yourself advocating vigorously for a position that, quite frankly, you're not even entirely sure you believe yourself. And this is what happens with these folks, is they stake out a position, and they feel like, and unfortunately, social media rewards this. You double down. I got dragged on the internet for saying that when I was in my kid's school in Florida, initially we thought, oh, we need to shut down the school.

And I said, yeah, we should do a lockdown. You overthought it. And then it ended up that was wrong. The damage to kids was worse from them being out of school. The internet went crazy saying, oh, you're begging for forgiveness. Where were you then? I'm like, I'm not begging anyone for forgiveness, but people have to be open to the notion that maybe I got it wrong. Oh, that's an interesting point. Maybe I'm wrong.

Yeah, it's true. In any case, Trump does not think he's wrong. And this is, he's not going to happen. They're not going to open federal for him. He's so ridiculous. He's just doing it so then he can say it's in darkness. That you don't know what's happening, except hundreds of people are covering it. Anyway, it's a ridiculous ploy by him to make a point. That was a huge mistake for Letitia James. What? Going after him for these.

A huge mistake. I don't know. Comes across as very politically motivated. In any case, the proposed contract for the UAW is running into some hurdles. UAW members at GM Flint narrowly voted against the proposed agreement. Of the total votes cast at GM's various facilities so far, around 58% have voted in favor. The remainder are expected to vote in the coming weeks. That was interesting.

They don't all like it. The union does have full approval from President Joe Biden, and Biden told reporters that he absolutely supported the UAW unionizing employees at Tesla and Toyota. Toyota gave, following, I think, Honda gave its employees, I think, 11% raise, something like that. So, what do you think? I think this deal will be approved. What do you think? I think it'll be approved too. I was shocked. My sense is they got, that there's about 200,000 writers and actors that would kill for this deal. And not only that, this is the best pro-union movement commercial that we've had in 30 or 40 years, because not only did they get substantial gains, but they've inspired gains at non-union shops. So, I was shocked that this

wasn't overwhelmingly approved. But beyond that, I don't know what their concerns are. Well, I think it'll be interesting to see the repercussions on it. Toyota's obviously raised its rates, but they're going to have unionization issues. Same thing. Tesla has not, I don't think, but they feel like they pay them enough. Honda went up. I think this will have repercussions well beyond the actual strike, but we'll see. Elon's been very deft at keeping the unions out of Tesla.

We'll see. It's another cost he certainly can't afford. Or a headache. He will be hostile to them almost completely, which will take up far too much of his time, because he likes being hostile. Anyway, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens when they approve it. But it was interesting that people are pushing back. But that's the way it goes. Let's get to our first big story. It feels like deja vu all over again and the possibility of a government shutdown approaches. The November 17th deadline is just days away.

I've been trying to keep sorting about this. But this time we have a new speaker, inexperienced Mike Johnson, who says Republicans are going to get the job done. OK, Mike, sure. Over the weekend, he unveiled his game plan, a two-tiered laddered resolution that would extend funding for some federal agencies until January and others into February. It seems like it's pushing it down the road. That's what seems to be his thing. Others want a clean, continuing resolution, but not him. He's going to do a two-tiered one. It is kicking the can down the road. If Democrats, he could get Democrats to join him. If Democrats oppose the plan, Johnson can't afford to lose more than four Republican House votes, as we know by

now. A few Republicans are already voicing opposition. The Senate doesn't seem thrilled either. But Democratic Senator Chris Murphy appeared to keeping an open mind on Meet the Press. Let's listen to what he said. I don't like this laddered CR approach. It looks gimmicky to me, but I'm open to what the House is talking about. The priority has to be keeping the government open. And I think this is a moment where reasonable people in the Senate, and that's where most of the reasonable people are

these days, have to make sure that we are not making the perfect the enemy of the good. I don't like what the House is talking about, but I'm willing to listen. Oh, wow, was that a pretzel situation, Mr. Murphy, Senator Murphy? What do you think? He know, he's trying, he has been going around talking to everyone. He's trying to come up with some compromise.

It seems uncompromisable with these different groups. The Republicans in Democratic-leaning districts are worried. And then, of course, you've got the hard right, which has been sort of the temper tantrum throwing side of it. He's got a lot of groups to please. And I don't know. What do you think? The Perot's bill also excludes financing for Israel and Ukraine. So I don't know. What do you think? It seems confusing to me. Yeah, look, I'm not a fan of Speaker Johnson. I'm frightened that we're two heartbeats away from Jesus, if you will, or someone whose worldview is the Bible. I have real issues with the speaker.

Having said that, what I've seen of how he's trying to get this done, I think you have to give him some credit. He strikes me as someone who's, he is trying to get this done. The hopeful, the hopeful side of this is that as the far right becomes so extremist that they might in fact create what we used to have, and that is we used to have these moderate coalitions that went across the aisle. And that is might, the exciting outcome here might be that they come to a deal that gets enough Republicans and Democrats

where they say, here's an idea. I need, yeah, I need some Democrats. You need some of us. I can wrangle or whatever the term is, 150 Republicans. All you need to do is give me 80 Democrats. And the Democrats extract their pound of flesh for what they want. And for the first time in a long time, someone might be able to stick up the middle finger to the far left or the far right and go, you know what? When you're this unreasonable, we do find reason to do what we're supposed to do.

Except that's what got McCarthy kicked out, right? Doing deals. Well, I think – On the bills, on the budget. Yeah, but I think what got – no, I think a lot of Democrats felt that McCarthy had really wronged them and was really duplicitous and had flip-flopped on key issues. He just had absolutely no goodwill amongst any Democrat. I think this is an opportunity for the speaker, and you know Washington better than I do, but I think this is an opportunity for him to sit down with Hakeem and his key constituents and say, Republicans are going to lose here. If we can't get this done,

it's going to reflect poorly for us in the ballot box. So the opportunity here from a naive person who doesn't understand D.C. as well as you is that the far right might be so batshit crazy and so bad for Republicans at the ballot box that the speaker, they might force moderate Republicans into the arms of moderate Democrats, and they might do what they're actually supposed to do and come up with something that they can all live with. And a kickoff, maybe an era of six, 12 months, maybe longer where they think, oh, this is an option for us

and temper and quiet the extremist voice and stop giving them so much leverage. When you have, when Matt Gaetz, when Representative Gaetz can bring down the Speaker of the House, you've got a problem. He still can. He can do it over and over again. They've got to change that rule where one person can do the motion to vacate. Right. But if he did that right now, if he did a motion to vacate against the Speaker,

he would not win because some Democrats would say, well, let's see if we can get something done here. At some point, you know, we're not going to burn the House to save it or burn the village to save it. He should almost welcome a motion to vacate to just shut down the power of it, right? Unless it worked. But wouldn't it be great if, say, I don't know, 60% of one party and 40% of another voted for this? I mean- That would be great, Scott, but that's not the world we live in, unfortunately. Well, the world is what we make of it, Kara. I get that, sir. Kara Swisher, we'll go have a selection. Thank you, Mr. Carville.

I do think he's, you know, maybe his inexperience will help in this way because he's not sort of stuck in the old ways. If he didn't know he was a white Christian nationalist, whatever the fuck he is. He'd seem reasonable. He'd seem reasonable right now. So let's give him the benefit of the doubt and see if he can get it done. We'll see. I don't know. I don't know he was a white Christian nationalist, whatever the fuck he is. He'd seem reasonable right now. So let's give him the benefit of the doubt and see if he can get it done. We'll see. I don't know. I'd like to get him to move along. I wouldn't mind him being vacated out of there.

Anyway, we'll see. But you're right. It's interesting. Chris Murray's comments were interesting to me. I guess they feel like they found something they can work with. Do you? I love Senator Murphy. Okay, good. Well, he was very equivocal. He was? I love Senator Murphy. Okay, good. Okay. All right, good. Well, he was very equivocal.

He was very equivocal. On one hand, on the other hand, that was a very good political statement that he made there. He's very good. Almost nothing. And I will accept. Maybe. We'll see. We'll be open to it. I'd like to see him run for president.

Yeah, I don't think he's going to. But maybe someday. Are you sad that Tim Scott is gone? I don't mind Tim Scott. I thought it was kind of weird that he, like, the whole girlfriend reveal, he reveals his girlfriend and then he drops? I'm like, that doesn't feel good for her. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I mean, he announced it, and I think even the person who did it for one Trey Gowdy show or whatever, that guy, and he was surprised. I think everybody was surprised. Larry Ellison has given him an enormous amount of money, or did quite a bit.

He was supposed to give him more, but then didn't come through with some. But we'll see where Larry's money goes. Guess where? Trump. That's where Larry's money is going. Yeah, he's going to go to Trump. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Or maybe Nikki Haley. I don't know. We'll see. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we're learning about the AI provisions in the SAG-AFTRA deal. Everyone is not happy. And we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, New York Times CEO Meredith Levian, who we've wanted to come on for a while to talk turkey about the news biz. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see?

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but he fell victim. And we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk, and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. remember to only send money to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back. As the new SAG-AFTRA contract moves toward ratification, we're learning more about the deal, specifically the AI components.

The agreements include consent and compensation for digital replicas of SAG-AFTRA members living and dead, and protection when AI uses actors' specific features, I guess their nose or whatever. In other words, SAG-AFTRA's chief negotiator put it, if you're using Brad Pitt's smile and Jennifer Aniston's eyes, both would have a right to consent. SAG is touting these new AI protections as negotiation for the future.

Actors will be notified how and when an AI model is using their image. They will also be paid equivalent to how a replica is used. SAG, after President Fran Drescher said under the new agreement, the union and studios will meet twice a year. The argument she made was in the world of AI, three months is the equivalent of a year. Actually, it's three days. It's good to keep talking as the technology evolves. We'll see if they do anything about it. Not everyone's happy about the contract. I do want to talk about this for a second so you can react to all of the actor and filmmaker. Justine Bateman has encouraging fellow actors not to ratify it because of the AI provisions. Bateman had a whole Twitter thread about ratify it because of the AI provisions.

Bateman had a whole Twitter thread about it, which was quite extensive. And here's what she said on MSNBC on Friday. That that is the unions has given them permission to replace actors with synthetic performers, which is an amalgamation of 100 years of performances. And that means fewer to no sets, fewer to no crew, fewer to no drivers, the list goes on. And that's very bad for the business, you can imagine. Yeah, I think she's actually has a point about how more well-known actors can really sell themselves, but others not so much. What do you think about this? What's happening? There's a lot here.

So first and foremost, and I think we probably need some sort of federal legislation, I think everyone should have the rights to their digital twin. And that is, you should own, if someone is using your voice, and clearly they want it to sound like Al Pacino's voice, such that it fools people, or they use your image or your likeness, I think you have rights to that. And I think that needs to be broader legislation, because here's the problem. It's the same problem the industry or the union SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild are facing, and that is they have no leverage. And this agreement reflects that, because all this language was, was the union saying, can you just put in language so we can pretend we got something

around AI? There are payments. There are payments involved in it, but go ahead. It seems pretty tenuous. The language felt very sort of, we agree to discuss or we will notify you. And here, again, it comes back to the same thing. We're talking about the UAW before. David Bow. David Bow was the most handsome, most popular, most likely to succeed kid at university high school. And he was in drama and he was the star of every play. Everyone loved him.

And he went on, you know, moved to LA or wherever, got an agent, became an actor, fairly successful actor. That kid exists in every high school. Every high school in America produces great human capital who load up, say goodbye to their parents, move to New York or LA to try and be stars. No one does that to go install the wiring on heated seats in Detroit. install the wiring on heated seats in Detroit. So the absence of human capital, if you will, the absence of supply of human capital that's willing to be trained and live in Michigan and work on the union floor, work on an auto floor, standing on their feet, be constantly worried about quality control, managing people, you know, they work hard. There's not a mismatch of supply of demand. There's a massive mismatch of supply of demand. There's a massive mismatch of supply

of demand of human capital in the creative industry versus the actual demand. And the result is agreements that look like this one, where 90%—we should feed the agreement into an LLM and say, what percentage of this is meaningless and will have no tangible difference on compensation or working conditions? And I bet it would come back and say the majority of it is all jazz hands. Because AI, I agree that they need protections. I think it needs to be federal, though, because if they give it to them on this, then isn't Netflix using AI in their Madrid studio have the opportunity to produce content at a much lower cost? I think it has to be mandated across all content. So what would you do when you look at it?

Because I do think we'll talk about it later. I think keep talking about it is important, but there's no need to talk about it, right? There's no demand to talk about it constantly. What kind of pressure can these actors bring to bear as the developments get, what essentially is going to be better and better in terms of replacing? They don't need sets at some point. They don't need, it does, I think Bateman is right. It does become, what do we need drivers for? What do we need? We can just, we don't have to have sets. Just the famous actors. We'll just take the famous actors. Okay. We used to need carriage drivers. I mean, this is the question.

When technology obviates, we used to need 10 times as many farmers. And then technology took the agrarian society from one in two or one in three Americans making their land and farming to one in 25. And the question is, I just don't think you get in the way of technology. If CGI has replaced a lot of puppeteers and people who used to put on, you know, put on outfits, the backgrounds, whatever it might be, Zoom has kicked the shit out of janitors and offices. The question is, can you get in the way of it? And I don't think you can. The issue is, should there be some sort of federally mandated law that says you own your digital twin because we want to respect IP and IP is good for the economy? But if you can create a digital set, I'm not sure how that's different than a green screen. A green screen has obviated the need to fly to the desert to film Dune 2.

They can film a lot of scenes now in front of a green screen. So I don't see how you get in the way of this. I think what you have to do is create tax policy that reinvests some of those productivity gains in retraining, right? That says, okay, there's going to be some people left behind here. They should qualify for training or whatever it is to get them the kind of jobs they need. Have you been on sets? I'm just curious. Have you been on sets?

I have. I've been on a lot. Just TV sets for one or two episodes and then it's over. Go ahead. Right. But yeah, and then it's over. Go ahead. Right. But, yeah, that's right. That's your shows. But I'm talking about movies and stuff like that.

I really haven't. I've been on the Universal Studios tour, so that counts. Two observations. Everyone was great. You know, everyone was super professional. But I kept thinking, what a lot of people. Oh, my gosh. What a lot.

Like, we had one guy. I'll never forget this, and it was because of the union. I was picked up. It was for a Silicon of people. Oh, my gosh. What a lot. Like, we had one guy. I'll never forget this. And it was because of the union. I was picked up. It was for a Silicon Valley episode. And I was picked up in a van. And a person who was in the scene with me was picked up in a separate van at the same time to drive five feet. Like, it was not very far. It was around the corner.

I was like, I'll walk. They're like, no, you can't do that. You have to be picked up in the van. I said, well, why don't we share the van? And it was, they wouldn't let that happen, one, which was, I didn't even, I couldn't get them not to do it. And then secondly, it took so long and seemed so inefficient. That's all I kept thinking is, I kept thinking of my, and I know actors are going to lose

their minds when I say this, but I was like, could this be made more efficient? Because it doesn't seem very efficient in terms of costs, right? I don't know. Maybe, again, I'm not educated on this, but what I did feel was, boy, is technology going to change this. I kept thinking it. And then some of the rules seemed ridiculous about like the van pickup was weird. They filmed an episode of Westworld on my street in Soho. And I looked out one day and I mean, they redid the entire street.

They must've spent millions of dollars on this at Westworld. This is so beautifully done and high budget. And there must've been 200 people and kind of modern, I don't even know what the term is, kind of- Futuristic clothing.

Yeah, I was gonna say Calvin Klein, but that's not that futuristic. And they were so hot. So I immediately went down and started talkingistic clothing. Yeah, I was going to say Calvin Klein, but that's not that futuristic. And they were so hot. So I immediately went down and started talking to people. Like, hey, what are you doing? Hey, hey, can I get in your movie? They must have did this for 30 seconds of background. And then they started filming and some porn went off and it was 4 p.m.

And the actor goes, nice. And he goes, that means they have to bring us back tomorrow. Oh, yeah. So instead of filming till 4.30, they're like, no, they got to bring us back for a full day. And look, when TikTok wasn't around, when YouTube wasn't around, when everybody was watching American content and Hollywood, you know, a 10-mile radius of LAX or Burbank Airport had, you know, 40, 60% share of all global media, they could afford that. They can no longer afford that. Yeah, that's what I kept, I swear, you're going to get killed by union-y people from Hollywood because they hate us already.

But I got to say, all I kept thinking was they could do this for a lot cheaper and not, is this so much better? That's what I kept thinking. Is this so much better that they do it this way? And I kept thinking, no, a hundred, you know, I don't know. I just, I sound like a cruel, horrible person, but it seemed wildly inefficient. And everything that they did seemed like you could, like they had to redo scenes and blocking over again. And I understood that they have to get different shots. And, and I, I just kept thinking this could be solved by technology.

This will be solved by technology. This will be solved by technology. And the creators will probably like it better because they'll have more choices. You know, it's kind of like using AI for headlines. And same thing with newspapers. Let me just attack newspapers. Newspapers not using AI for headline writing. I got in a big argument about that. All kinds of stuff that would be more efficient, more efficient. I think it's going to bifurcate just as retail went to kind of LVMH or Walmart or Tiffany or Walmart. I think content is going to go to love and death or just incredible, you know, Game of Thrones, just artisanal, just incredible content that brings together some of that magnum's and

talent. That's what they're up against right now. Anyway, we have lots to talk about. Speaking of changes in news, as someone who is tangled with unions and who also has a lot, has done a really good job at the New York Times, someone we both admire, Meredith Levian, CEO of the New York Times. Let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

Meredith Levian is the president and CEO of of the new york times welcome meredith there's a lot to talk about hi karen scott i'm so happy to be here i just i had you not just because you're a fantastic ceo and someone i admire a lot but you're also a pivot fan i'm a huge fan i think you guys are my running partners because i listen to pivot when i. I usually listen on like 1.5 speed, but if it's really important, I slow it down and I slowed it down last, a couple of days ago, maybe over the weekend for Maddie Kahn, whose book I bought this morning because I loved her interview so much. Yeah, she was really great too. You know, this is about young women and women executives and women as leaders, things like that. So actually, let's talk about you as a leader. We have lots of questions. Obviously, I used to work with the New York Times on Sway, which I really enjoyed doing a column.

And my favorite person at the New York Times is Meredith Levy. And just so you know. We loved having you there. Yeah, yeah, we had a great time. And I really have a lot of admiration for what you're doing, because you also love journalism, which is really helpful. Maybe you'll have some advice to the new CEO of the Washington Post, but we'll do that at the end. But the Times announced its third quarter earnings last week. The company now has close to 10 million subscribers

with revenue up 9.3% from last year. Nice performance. We've seen a lot of your competitors struggling right now. Talk a little bit about how you look at the bigger landscape and the times in particular. Your News Corp had layoffs. The Washington Post is cutting jobs and offering buyouts. Gannett is struggling. Last week, Vice Media laid off dozens of staffers and the website Jezebel shut down. Vox also had previous layoffs and just across the media landscape. And of course,

on the morning show, there's a lot of trouble for UBA. I think they merged, not to scoop it for anyone. I think they merged. Well, anyway, they had a billionaire trying to buy them for also. So talk to me a little bit about where the Times is. I'd love you to talk first from a bigger perspective and then the Times and specifically.

Yeah, I'm happy to answer that. And let me first say the reason the Times has gotten to where it's gotten, and by the way, we still have a lot more road to travel. goes to independent journalism and making sure that the quality of the product is there. And I would say, I feel like that's the thing that doesn't get talked about enough in the story of The Times. I would say it's been a pretty good year so far against a backdrop of really tough headwinds for the industry broadly. I think journalism is under pressure in a lot of ways in terms of public trust and safety of journalists and legal protections and obviously business model pressure.

So it's been like it's a hard environment to operate in. But we have a really clear strategy that we have been at now for, you know, seven, eight years, like a long time. And, you know, clear idea of where we're going. We want to be the essential subscription for every curious person who wants to understand and engage with the world. And we've got a lot of ways to bring people into our ecosystem and get them ultimately to engage with news. And I think it's working. Let me just interject because lots of people do great quality, right? You know, I talk to a lot of journalists, but everyone seems to be suffering but the Times. Is there, there can be only one? Is this like Highlander or what is it?

I so don't agree with that, that there can be only one. Okay, explain me why. I know, but it feels like that. It feels like everybody else. It doesn't feel like that to me. So let me say a couple things about that. The first thing to say is I think the biggest sort of enemies of quality independent journalism are not within journalism itself. It's not, you know, one journalism company competing with another. It is the things that are going on in society. It's, you know, disinformation. It's degradation of public trust. It's, you know, the fact that it has gotten physically harder and legally harder for journalists to do their work. And it's all the business model pressure that you're poking at.

So I want to acknowledge that. I think what is working at The Times, and I'm always careful to say it is working now, but every bit of growth or success that comes to The Times is exceedingly hard fought as it is at The Journal or The Post or anywhere else. It is working now because of a very long-term commitment to the first dollar of the place, going to the journalism, going to the, you know, what everybody else would call content, the quality and the value of that content to very, very large numbers of people. So that's the first thing. Second thing I want to say is, you know, we all saw, you know, a very big uptick in news engagement after the election of 2016, because the political news cycle was so dramatic and so interesting. And then after that, we saw an even bigger uptake

of news engagement with COVID and the, you know, tragedy of a global pandemic and all of its implications. And we sort of deeply understood that the business model shouldn't be reliant on any single story or storyline or news cycle to be the sort of, you know, propellant to growth in the future. So we did a lot of work in 2021 and early 22 to say, how do we ensure that we're able to harness demand for news and really high quality content in other big spaces that people care a lot about so that we always can grow subscribers. But let me follow up on that. But you made investments elsewhere. You all were super, whether it was Wordle, whether it was The Athletic, other things, and others didn't. Was that the secret sauce in that you saw other, or cooking, the cooking app, some things

worked, some things didn't work, but a lot of them did work. The secret sauce of the place today, tomorrow, yesterday, forevermore, I think will be the quality of the journalism. In addition to this really high quality news report relevant to a lot of people, have other products in really big spaces that people spend a lot of time on. Tens of millions of people play Wordle every week. It is almost two years since we bought Wordle. And one of the most exciting things to see is how many people still play all the time. And we actually announced on earnings last week, we have a homegrown game, Connections, that's like a few

months into the wild. and 10 million people are playing Connections a week, which is awesome, and lots of other great games. And we've got a huge sports journalism site now that we have big ambitions to build into a world-class sports journalism destination. It's already great. We want to make it even greater, even more widely known. And all of that, the idea behind all of that is so that we have a product set that is so compelling that whatever the news cycle, we can bring people into the Times ecosystem. And ultimately- You said casual. So use the term casual. Yes. And let me just say, why am I using that term, Cara? We said on our earnings call, casual. Yes. And let me just say, why am I using that term, Cara? We said on our earnings call,

subscriber engagement is really, really strong. We keep growing subscribers and subscriber engagement. We now have 10 million subscribers is as high as it's been in three years. So subscriber engagement with news and all the other stuff we're doing is really, really strong. The challenge is how do you keep a casual audience growing? Because that's where the next 5 million and the 5 million after that subscribers will come from. And all of, you know, playing in these other spaces, very big spaces that people care a lot about with really high quality products is the way to do that. Good to see you, Meredith. So innovation around digital, innovation around infographics, I would argue that the most visible innovation, at least from a consumer standpoint,

is the daily and podcasts, consistently like a number one podcast. What's next? If you were to try and own something or really strike out and have a signal or a flag of innovation, would it be around short-form video? Would it be more podcasts? When you think about how you kind of pulse that innovation, where are you looking to make forward-leaning investments? Thanks for the question and thanks for the love of The Daily. I want to say, by the way, everybody talks about podcasts under a lot of pressure. That's pressure because the ad ecosystem, we still have huge listenership for The Daily. And we have other podcasts that have launched like Hard Fork. We have existing ones like The Ezra Klein Show that, as Kara knows,

have great big audiences and are doing very, very well. So first thing to say, we're going to keep making audio products, Scott. So we're going to keep innovating around audio. We've got all kinds of experimentation going on in our audio destination right now. So that really matters. But you're asking, what is the, what's, I think you're asking what's changing and how consumers want to engage with journalism. And I do think TikTok, you know, how many people use TikTok now for news and other information would suggest there is a real desire for people to be able to see things, to see them in short form. And I think one of the best innovations of the times right now that you can see is on the homepage last night. It's probably still there today, but further down.

We did a story, I think it came out yesterday, on an ammunition manufacturing plant, which is mostly made ammunition for the Army. And now you can trace from a number of the most horrific shootings we've seen, Las Vegas, Uvalde, I think Parkland, back to ammunition that was made in that plant. And a year ago, we would have launched that investigation and we would have hoped people, it would have been on the homepage. We would have hoped people would have read it and maybe we would have done takeaways.

Yesterday, you had the journalist who actually did the investigation with a two minute sort of multimedia video, might've been even shorter than that, on the homepage saying, this is what the story is about. This is how it came to be.

Megan Toohey of the Harvey Weinstein story fame did an incredible investigation into Adidas and Kanye West and their relationships. Scott, I'm sure you have lots to say about that whole thing. But we did that a few weeks ago, and we launched it on the homepage with Megan Toohey in a short form video telling you this, you know, this is what this story is about. And by the way, if all you do is watch that video, you've gotten some of the Times journalism, but hopefully it's going to entice you to do more. I'm going to say two more things. The amount we've produced something like 600 pieces of journalism from Israel-Gaza since the Hamas attack on October 7th, a huge portion of those have been video

or multimedia. So even the way we are covering a war on the front lines now has evolved to be more visual. Roger Cohen, who's now the Paris Bureau chief, worked for us for like four decades, lands in Tel Aviv a few days after it happens. And the first thing he does is make a TikTok. To me, that is showing you where our ability to engage people at scale is going. So let me ask you about the Israel-Hamas war. You're not the editorial side of things. You obviously pay a lot of attention. But what is your approach as CEO of a major news organization? Times ran a piece last week saying, does the boss need to weigh in on the war in the Middle East? Protesters occupied the lobby of the New York Times headquarters last week, demanding a ceasefire,

criticizing the media. The Times also faced criticism a few weeks ago over a headline of who was responsible for a hospital explosion in Gaza. Again, not your area. The editor's note was later released, giving some of the backstory and acknowledging some mistakes. But when you think about running a news organization, you know, if you're the Disney CEO, if you're any CEO, how do you look at your role? Because you have a particular sensitive thing because your organization is actually covering things. particular sensitive thing because your organization is actually covering things. Yeah. Listen, the job of any CEO of any company is to see that the company is sufficiently economically stable, that it can keep doing what it does best to create value in the world,

and that that is a growth business. So that is my job, you know, first and last every day. In the case of The Times, what that means is that our business model is sufficiently secure and growing so that we can keep doing more journalism. And I'll just go right to what you're poking at, Cara. You know, this story of the, you know, Israel-Gaza war, you know, it's a story of vast geopolitical consequence, and it is evocative of enormous feeling and opinion. And our job, even, you know, against that backdrop, is to pursue the truth wherever it may lead. And what I tell people is we are often judged for a single headline or even a single story. And people ask, was this fair? And by the way, we should be judged for that.

But I would say, zoom the camera back and say, look at the package of stories and how we strive to be fair in every bit of it and to show the nuance of a story in every bit of it. But sometimes it takes the package of stories to get that, you know, sort of sense of fairness and nuance. And sometimes it takes more than one news cycle or a few news cycles. We are five weeks into this war. And I would say, look at the body of work over those five weeks. So how do you as a manager deal with it? Obviously, Bob Iger

got dragged into the Rhonda Sanders campaign. You must get dragged in all the time. And I think every CEO does, I would say broadly, you know, our take and my take as CEO is you, you know, the sort of wish to curry favor or get the win, win the room with either your audience for your product or your own employee base, which are often almost like the same thing now. That is just a losing game. You have to know what your principles are. You have to know what your values are. And the only thing to do in those situations is to say, what are my values? Do I have something to express about my values as a company in this moment?

And if I do, then express it. And if not, don't. And in our case, you know, in the Times case, we express our values. But, you know, the most sacrosanct value at the place is the independence of the journalism, the pursuit of truth wherever it may lead. And let me tell you, you cannot work at The New York Times happily and not understand that on any given day, some part of the journalism may piss you off. You may disagree with it, but the work is to pursue the truth wherever it may lead.

And all we can do as a company is to express that value through more journalism. I was going to ask a question about metrics and role models, but when you're in a time like this and you get accused, there's sort of no winning. It's very hard to thread the needle between, by virtue of the fact you're in the business of journalism, people are going to perceive you as having a bias. What's the decision model? Like, at the end of the day, who gets to make these calls? Is it just the editor-in-chief? Is it a group of people? Is it we respect the journalism in such that the journalist and the editor get to decide? When you're facing, I mean, I remember when I was involved in the New York Times, I read that 60% of world leaders read the New York Times every morning, including in autocracies. So, you do play an out, you command almost a larger role than you occupy,

so to speak. What's the decision model when you're faced with accusations of a bias, and you think this is really serious and we want to get it right? Who gets in what room, and how do they make those decisions? Yeah, great question. And the shortest answer, I'm going to repeat something I said before, is the work always is pursue the truth wherever it may lead. And I'll finish the sentence and say, even when that truth is uncomfortable or people don't like it.

And there are so many examples in our journalism of reporting on something that people wish not to be the case, but is. The actual, let me say a couple of things about the actual process. One, there is no business person at the New York Times, and this includes me as CEO, it includes Scott, you know this because you were on our board for a stretch, no director, not the CEO, nobody in executive management on the business side of New York Times plays any role in the journalism other than ensuring we have a growing business that can keep funding it and keep protecting it. Now, how do we do that and what role does that

play? Well, we have a giant standards department, that's some of what you're asking, relative to what other publishers might have. So a group of people, long experts in journalism and reporting and editing whose job is to say, is this the most sensitive way to get the truth out? Something horrible happens. Do you show, you know, a treacherous image of someone being killed? What is the best way to get the truth to someone in a way that is fair and nuanced and so people will understand it? So we've got a big standards department. We have a journalistic leadership team, a masthead, an executive editor, and his set of direct reports that is as expert as they come. And what I want to say is they have an unbelievable process for pouring over every decision in a way that the chain of command works as it should. And in the instances, in the rare instances where we don't get something right in a story, an ongoing or developing story, we name that. And what I would say there,

because Scott, you started this as a leadership question, is that the, I'm ripping off somebody's quote, but it's like the difference between greatness and arrogance is humility. Like you need every organization, including the New York Times, needs the humility to say, if we don't do something, if we would have gone back and done something differently, knowing later a different fact set, then you have to tell people that. And the headline you both referred to, that was the case. It's not that we shouldn't have run the headline. We should have given more context to it. We might, you know, we shouldn't have used the sort of giant treatment it got. It was a developing story. We shouldn't have used the sort of giant treatment it got. It was a developing story.

Yeah. So let's talk about things that you do have an impact on. You do not meddle, in other words. I do not meddle. Other CEOs do, as you know, in media organizations. But one of the things that's gotten a lot of attention is your deal to buy The Athletic, which was a very big swing for you. It was $550 million. I think it was your first big deal. I'm not going to count50 million. I think it's, was it your first big deal? I'm not going to count Wirtle.

I mean, I was in his, or Wirtle. It was a little more expensive than Wirtle. Wirtle was, Wirtle was what? How much was Wirtle? A little less than $550 million. So he got some, the sports department was disbanded this past July. The coverage was handed over to the athletic. Very controversial, especially around union issues that you've also had to deal with. That is your job. Let's talk a little bit about what

you're going through here, because there was a lot of complaints by the unions. I know you've had, you know, the tribes have had struggles with this union, as many companies have. Can you talk a little bit about that? I'll talk about the unions. Let me first say what we're trying to do with The Athletic. We, youic. We're almost two years into our ownership of The Athletic. And I would say what we're trying to do here is as the preeminent brand in global news journalism, we want to build category leading brand in global sports journalism. We acquired The Athletic because we thought it was already awesome at what it did. It is a giant newsroom. It's 450, I think, growing now. So even more journalists, one of the largest sports journalism newsrooms on the planet.

And we are throwing gas on that fire. And we have huge ambitions to be, you know, a sports journalism destination befitting the New York Times and befitting what we are as a global news destination. So that's what we're trying to do. We did disband our sports desk just a month or so ago, Cara, and we did it because it was the right thing to do for our readers. I want to say, and this has been out there, I feel like it doesn't get covered enough. Not a single person lost their job. So sports desk was about 40, somewhere between 40 and 50 people. A group of them went to the athletic. A group of them will continue to cover sports in a general interest way at the New York

Times, how sports tie up with business and culture and politics and so forth. And a third of them went into other jobs in the newsroom. So no one lost their job. And what we did for our readers, which I very much believe is the right thing for our readers, was give them access to the output of 450 and counting sports journalists who are covering, you know, the biggest teams and leagues in the United States. And Scott, you cover European football very aggressively. I understand you care a lot about that. And that is now a much more prominent thing on The New York

Times, both in the newspaper and on the website. And as I said, we intend to make that bigger. We feel like it was well within our rights to do that from a labor perspective. And we think doing it actually helps the New York Times, helps grow the business of the New York Times. Ultimately, right, we're playing a long game here to be a growing company such that we can keep investing in the newsroom, keep hiring journalists, keep investing in journalism. The last thing I'll say, Karen Scott, is that I've been here 10 years. And the thing I am proudest of is that the New York Times newsroom before the acquisition of The Athletic,

not counting puzzle makers and recipe makers, not counting Wirecutter, is hundreds of journalists larger today than it was when I got there. But the unions are not happy. They want it unionized. Listen, we had a much longer, we believe, much longer than it should have been period. It took us two years and I think five months to get

to a contract with the New York Times News Guild. The contract we ultimately got to is one that was ratified in the high, I think by 99% of the people. it's a contract. I think the newsroom feels very good about it. We feel very good about it. You know, we ended up exactly where we wanted to. And so I'm confident that this remains a place where the best journalists can come and do the most fulfilling, exciting work of their careers to a huge audience. All right. Well played, Meredith Levine. of their careers to a huge audience. All right. Well played, Meredith Levine. Yeah. So, Meredith, I've found that CEOs have their favorite metrics and kind of role models,

whether it's NPS or gross margins or engagement. They tend to get fond of one or two metrics. And then they're constantly citing a competitor or someone else to their team of what they're doing. Why aren't we doing this? What are your favorite metrics and role models? I think the most important business metric at The New York Times by far is the number of engaged users we have every day and every week at The New York Times, and particularly subscribers. And my own view is if the people who are already paying for you aren't, you know, growing in their engagement, even as you grow them in number, you've got a growth problem.

So time on site or? So percent of subscribers, so we have 10 million plus paying subscribers now. The percent of them who come to us every week or multiple times a week is what we pay sort of obsessive attention to at the New York Times. And that's the number I said earlier. We are seeing now to be, even as we grow, the number of subscribers is as high as it's been in, I think, about three years. So we are obsessed with growing that. We're also obviously very interested in growing engagement from the casual audience. That's harder for any number of reasons, including some of the platforms have essentially done what feels like turned off news or had a radical reduction in directing audience to news.

But we are in what I would describe to you as a race against time to build products that are so valuable and so good and so worthy and essential in your lives that, you know, huge numbers of people are going to come to us directly or find us, however the ecosystem evolves. So that's the metric I'm obsessed with. And who do you look up to in media? Lots of people. I mean, I'm going to say I remain deeply interested in Disney. I think, like the times, although at a much greater scale, Disney has a very clear strategy, at least as I understand as a, you know, another business person who watches them from the outside and also as the mom of a 12-year-old, you can't not have Disney. It's essential for so many reasons. And I think they are able to be essential, you know, first to a media consumer, but also in lots of other ways. You could be CEO of Disney. You'd be on the list.

You know, Carol, I love my job. You know what CEO job I want? I want to be the CEO of the New York Times, Carol. Yeah, but if Disney came a-knocking. That wasn't a no. Oh, that wasn't a no. I want to be the CEO of the New York Times. I have the best job in media. I would drag you to Burbank. I would say, come on.

Let's go to the big one. Let me ask you two more quick questions. One is, you said business metrics you use. Your predecessor, Mark Thompson, gave an interview in 2020 before you took the reins predicting the print version of the New York Times would be gone in 20 years. He did not do that. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. What did he do? Our running joke was anytime he would say it will be here at least 10 years or at least 20 years, someone would write, it's over in 10 years. He was not high on it. He was not

high on it. And was not high on it. And you mentioned that in a recent earnings call that you expect continued head liquids and print advertising. What is your feeling about print? I think we still have this magical product that, you know, lands on hundreds of thousands of people's doorsteps every day and even more on Sunday. And I would say, for the money, show me something else that valuable to every member of your family and that much a sort of central part of your day, especially on Sundays. And that is the thing we are trying to do, but at digital scale. We want to do that for tens of millions of people, maybe hundreds of millions

of people one day. So I think the print is still inspiring and magical, still makes a lot of money. But headwinds. Of course, of course. And what I want to say is one of the best things about the Times business model is, you know, from the time I got there 10 years ago, it was like, we're not trying to protect print, which is the highest margin thing by miles that we do. We are trying to take the thing that we did of value to consumers, do it at a digital scale, recognizing we are now competing with the largest and most powerful companies on earth to do it. But it's like print is almost like the emblem of the value. That Sunday paper is emblematic of the value we can create. But instead of doing it for a million people, let's do it for 10 million people or 100.

May I just say, I want to give the quote for Thompson just to say we actually are accurate. I believe the Times will definitely be printed for another 10 years and quite possibly for another 15 years, maybe even slightly more than that. I would be very surprised if it's printed in 20 years. Can I get my real beef with Mark Thompson and also Will Lewis so you don't forget to ask me about both of them? Yes. Yes. What's your real beef? They both got knighted, I think, in the same class. And I feel so unworthy to be completed. Well, you aren't British. Right? They both got knighted. But the truth is, I feel like this is kind of insufficiently talked about in media. The New York Times

wants and believes the world desperately needs a very healthy ecosystem of other publishers and purely other serious news publishers. All right. So what was your advice? That's your last question to Will Lewis. What is, he's British charming, Mark Thompson's British charming, he's overrunning CNN. I think he'll be fine. I don't think you have any advice to him necessarily, but what advice? Mark Thompson and I have given each other a decade of advice. Right, exactly. Will Lewis, what's, what is his, what would you say to him? The most important challenges in journalism to ensure that the New York Times and the Washington Post and CNN and the Wall Street Journal can do what we do for another be and do independent journalism, the public actually placing a value on that. I think that is the number one thing we are all facing that we need to be working on and working on together.

I think journalist safety and legal protection feels as fragile as I have known it in all the time I've worked on the business side of serious journalism. And I think we all need, all need sustainable business models and the information ecosystem, not entirely, you know, not in most ways, not controlled by us, needs to honor the value we produce. And I think those are the most important things we should all be focused on. So you know what I tell them? Get Jeff Bezos to open up your damn checkbook. That's what I'd say. Time to be buying. There is no substitute for investing in the product. That is the only answer. It's why the Times Square it is. Stop investing in yachts, Jeff. Start

putting money into the pension. All right. Yeah. And my last question, what are you going to buy next? Is it a time to buy? Well, I don't need to buy your house, Kara, because in DC, we're down the street from each other. I want to say the times, you know, I certainly don't rule out that there's more, you know, to come at some point in the portfolio. But at the present moment, we are intensely focused on the awesome portfolio products we have in, you know, our news report, making our news report even more widely read, even more accessible. Our, you know, I've told you sports and games are giant spaces, and we want to have the leading sports journalism product. And we want to have the leading puzzles product in both of those spaces. So we are intensely focused on executing on that

vision. We've got an incredible recipe app. I hope everybody is going to get off this listening to this podcast, go download it and get ready for Thanksgiving next week. That's when we're at our finest, but it's useful all year. And we have an incredible shopping advice site. So we already have a portfolio right now. Our focus is on executing, on being excellent there and becoming essential to more people. All right. Meredith Levy, as you can see, an impressive executive who's someday going to be CEO of Disney.

Really fun to be here. Thanks, Meredith. Keep running with me. We need to speed up. Thank you for having me. This was a treat. We appreciate it. Thanks so much. See you soon. Anyway, interesting times. Meredith is very impressive. She's one of my favorite people. We'll take one more quick break. We'll be back for Scott, your prediction. 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, let's hear a prediction. You're so good at them i by the way i got i can i say got one right i got one right which was my prediction that marvels wasn't going to do well uh which it didn't it was a disappointment for disney i think they're not surprised did you have you seen it i didn't go i was busy this weekend i now said a toothache so i didn't i didn't i sort of lay around and moaned quite a bit for the weekend. But it didn't do well.

$40 million, which is very not good for a Marvel movie. But I think they were expecting it in any case. I will see it. I will see it. By the way, if you were Russian and knighted, do you know what you'd be called? What? Sergei. Do you know what I'd be called if I was knighted?

Okay, that's good. You know what I'd be called? That one wasi. Do you know what I'd be called if I was knighted? Okay, that's good. You know what I'd be called? That one was good. Thank you. Go ahead. What would you be called? Cirrhosis. Oh, that's good. You know, because you're gay and I drink a lot. I get that. Because you're gay and I drink too much. I get it. I felt like you had it and then you lost it. Sergei, cirrhosis. Like it was interesting. It just took a second for you to lose it. You had it and then you lost it. Let's keep working on that. Keep workshopping the cirrhosis. I thought you were going to say sir dog or something like that. No.

So I think that the Democratic and the Republican Party going into 2024 will pick kind of one key issue to lead with to try and create this umbrella brand around why you should vote all red or all blue. I think that the issue for the Democrats is going to be women's rights or specifically reproductive rights. I just think it's a winner. It resonates with a lot of moderates. It has turned out people. It's a winner for them. And the Republicans have kind of backed themselves into a corner, especially if the nominee is anyone but Haley. It's going to be difficult. I think that's their lead. And I think the Republicans were – it wasn't obvious what their lead was going to be.

I think their lead is going to be rooted in education, but they're going to show videos of people interrupting math classes at MIT. They're going to show these protests at elite universities, and they're going to juxtapose that with kind of 30s protests of, you know, pro-Hitler protests. I think they're going to basically try and attach the elite, the far left universities with being just out of control in terms of what they will say is an inability to push back on terrorism or fascism. I think that's where they'll go. You know what I think the Democrats should do? I was just talking to a bunch of- I'm saying Republicans. No, I know. But you know what Democrats should do? Freedom. We're for freedom.

Book banning. I think they should wrap the whole thing in a, we're for freedom. We're for your freedom of speech. We're for your freedom of medical choices, freedom of books you want to read. Why are the Republicans so censorious? I would turn it on them. Why are they so woke? I think they should turn the whole thing and use the word freedom, freedom, freedom is such a good thing for them. We're for your freedom. We believe that you

should be free. I don't think it works. I need to ruminate on that. Think about ruminate. It's a great word. Take back everyone and take it back patriotic. We're for defending Israel. We're for freedom. We're for democracy. We're for, use the big words, pull out the big ones, patriotism. I've been shocked at how many conservative families I have met who have decided that they're not going to send their kids to college. What? Yeah, that they literally think college has become this weird and, no, these are people who can afford it. That they would rather the kids take a gap year and start working, that they are so turned off by what they see happening on campuses. Yeah, there are certainly a lot of mad people, that's for sure.

Did you know that just 10 years ago, two-thirds of American parents hoped their kids go to college? It just dipped below 50% for the first time in like 50 years. Largely because of the fucking cost and how bad it makes you feel to get in. Honestly, that whole experience was ridiculous. I think that's a big part of it, but that's been, I just don't think there's any getting around it. I think some of the imagery coming out

of campuses right now really turns off a lot of households. Really interesting. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I've had really good debates with my kids about this. And I feel like,

I don't know. I don't think it's going to work. I don't think people I've had really good debates with my kids about this. And I feel like, I don't know. I don't think it's going to work. I don't think people think about it that much. I think a very small slice of people do. But I think suburban moms are like, stop telling me what books to read. And stop, get your hands off my uterus right now, like immediately. Get your hands off my uterus is, there are a lot of families who, and maybe, especially young women of color, and anyone who's had any sort of scare around this stuff, it kind of comes to that, what I would argue, that correct position. I think in terms of the book stuff, while I agree with you,

I think it's reprehensible. I don't think that motivates people to vote. No, but I think it's a package. It's the same thing. It's like, leave the gays alone. Why are you so mean to the gays? I have a gay cousin. Like, that kind of stuff. It's all like, what do you do? Get off of my lawn. Get off of my fucking lawn.

That's what I would use. I think a lot more people don't like being lectured to by Glenn Youngkin, Mr. Star of the Republican Party. Stop talking 15 weeks. We don't want to hear anything from you. We want you to get off our lawn. He got whacked. He got whacked. Yeah. He got double whacked. He's lost control. He was going to win the entire

legislature. He lost the entire legislature and made it worse. He's not going to do anything for his next couple of years. He's washed up. But we've been thinking, in higher ed, we thought that disruption was going to come at the hands of technology and costs and that there would be some sort of old Navy AI-driven certification that you could get for a fraction of the cost and technology was going to come in and hand us our lunch. I invested behind this. I started an ed tech company. I've been waiting for the disruption in higher ed for a decade. Quite frankly, it hasn't happened. The elite universities until recently have never been stronger. The thing that's disrupting higher ed right now is what's happening on campuses.

Distinct of what side you're on, campuses are in a state of turmoil right now. And some of them are losing. I mean, they might wake up next year and see their fundraising down by 60%. And they have built cost infrastructures that demand that type of fundraising. And all of a sudden, they're going to wake up and think, okay, last year we raised 700 million. This year we raised 210. Oh, and by the way, we have fixed costs with tenure and these ridiculous relaxification of the campuses that we've capital plans we've approved.

It's really interesting. Disruption is coming from a place they weren't expecting. Although at some point, that's also going to, I mean, ultimately it'll be interesting to see where these rich people spend their money then if they're not, because they love doing the campus thing and they love being on the boards and this and that. I've heard from so many wealthy people, mostly people who are upset by the anti-Semitic nature of so much of it, complain to me. And I was like, you know what, just stop, just stop giving money. I don't know what to tell you. Stop calling me. I don't want to hear from you. Don't give money. That's all you get for

your money is an ability to lord it over people. So just don't give it. I like what you said. You don't like Chick-fil-A. Don't eat a Chick-fil-A. Don't eat it. Don't eat it. I've hung up on so many rich people. I'm like, I don't care. Just don't give the money. Stop talking. I think they do. Ultimately, that's all you can get for your money is an ability to speak. And if you don't want to speak, walk with your wallet. Take your wallet and go. And speaking of which, Jeff Bezos, give more money to the Washington Post. You have to. If you want to be successful like Meredith Levy and Mr. Lewis, you need to milk that guy for some money. He should give it. It's a good spending of Jeff Bezos' money, I think, personally.

I think there should be more than one major or at least three or four really important news organizations like the New York Times. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions 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's the show. Well, you's the show. Well, you look lovely today. Your tie is very,

I hope you get to see 10 Downing. At some point. Yeah, or I'll take you next time I come in. Anyway, that's the show. That's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. Please read us out. Today's show was produced by Larry Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Intert Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Neil Saverio, and Gadda McBain. 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 later this week

for another breakdown of all things tech and business. I put a tie on. I refer to me as cirrhosis.