Pivot - Social Media & Child Safety, Elon's Paycheck, and Guest Conor Dougherty

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

Kara and Scott talk Apple Vision Pro, Disney’s failed lawsuit against Ron DeSantis, and a $100 million deal for the Smartless podcast. Also, will Elon Musk move Tesla to Texas after a Delaware judge voided his $55 billion compensation package? Plus, the upshot of the social media companies' CEOs' testimonies on child safety. Our Friend of Pivot is New York Times reporter Conor Dougherty, who stops by to talk about his piece on the Silicon Valley bigwigs trying to build a city in California. You can find Conor at @ConorDougherty. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Pivot comes from Virgin Atlantic. Too many of us are so focused on getting to our destination that we forgot to embrace the journey. Well, when you fly Virgin Atlantic, that memorable trip begins right from the moment you check in. On board, you'll find everything you need to relax, recharge, or carry on working. Buy flat, private suites, fast Wi-Fi, hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. delicious dining and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Listeners of this show can get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash podcast.

Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. You know who I had dinner with last night? I don't know. Two people, two politics. I'm doing this thing at AU, American University. I'm a fellow. I don't know if you know that. I'm a fellow. And one of them- What does that mean? I don't know. I just go and blabber to students about my book. That's pretty much what I'm doing. Well, I think you're a dandy little fellow, little lady.

Anyway, Larry Hogan is one of the fellows besides me the former governor mellon who's thinking of running for president and the other one was bill de blasio uh whom i haven't seen in a while he's looking good he's uh he's single yeah he's single and ready to mingle he looks really really good yeah yeah the de blasio jillibrand uh ticket the ticket that nobody asked for in the presidential ticket yeah no i know that but i'm just telling you he looks good he's having a good time. He's glad to, I think, not be mayor. He didn't say that, but nonetheless, it was interesting.

He's a big, handsome man. He is a big, handsome man. You like him. You think he's charming. I do. I think he's a lot better than people thought, but he definitely didn't do many favors at the end, I would say. It's tough to run New York City. I don't know. Yeah. I think Bloomberg did a pretty good job. He's looking better than Eric Adams, I It's tough to run New York City. I don't know. Yeah.

I think Bloomberg did a pretty good job. He's looking better than Eric Adams, I think, probably. I like Mayor Adams. I don't know why, but I like him. Yeah, because he wears nice clothes. Well, you'd like to build a buzz. He had a great suit on. Great head of hair. Anyway, today we'll talk about Elon Musk's voided $55 billion pay package from Tesla.

And after tech CEOs testified on Capitol Hill about child safety, will Congress actually do anything? Plus, our friend to pivot is New York Times reporter Connor Doherty, who's been investigating the mysterious company bankrolled by Silicon Valley elite that wants to build a city from scratch. Scott, just briefly, we have to talk about the Apple Vision Pro because reviews are out and Tim Cook is posing with it on Vanity Fair's in Vanity Fair, a big old picture of him in wearing the Apple Vision Pro. I went out and Tim Cook is posing with it on Vanity Fair's, in Vanity Fair, a big old picture of him in wearing the Apple Vision Pro. I went and saw it again, etc. But I also did a panel for On with Kara Swisher with the Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern, The Verge's Nilay Patel, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. And Scott Galloway asked a question, which they really

liked, that you'll hear it. It'll go up Monday. So thank you so much for doing that. You're welcome. So I asked, let's listen to a really quick clip, because I think you'll think it was a very substantive panel. Give me your five-word story of the Vision Pro. Here's mine. It's the future of computing. I know that sounds crazy for me. Joanna, let's start with you. Five words. Yeah. First generation, but really cool. Okay. Neil, I?

The best VR headset ever made is still a VR headset. Oh, and Mark? I think mine is six words. It's going to take a while. So it was mixed and it was critical and also interesting. Can I play this? Yeah, go ahead. It's not lame. I don't want more sex. Boom from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Anyway, it's interesting that the reviews are mixed, but we'll see. It's not going to be an enormous product, but they had a lot to say. And it was all very smart about where this is going and how Apple had to participate here in case this is the new computing platform. They didn't really have a choice in many ways, especially cars are hard for growth and things like that. They've got to be on what's coming next. Yeah. I've decided that if I continue to not reciprocate the type of love and affection people give me, and I'm cast into the depths of hell, that I'll be forced to wear a mixed reality

headset and watch the Barbie movie starring Taylor Swift for the rest of my life. Oh, yeah. That would be good. We could watch it together. We'll both be in hell. I am so sick of all three of these things. I'm going to have one, and you are going to actually try it. And you are at your apartment. You and I are going to sit there. I'm going to give you some weed. Oh, by the way, I'm at your apartment, specifically my apartment in Soho.

I'm at your favorite place. I think you should leave it to me in your well. What do you think? You think? Yeah, I think. Because clearly you're going to die before me. I'll say some nice words at your funeral. I appreciate that.

Anyway, we'll see what happens. A federal judge has dismissed the Disney lawsuit against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The suit alleges DeSantis executed a targeted campaign against the company. The company filed a lawsuit last year alleging DeSantis retaliated against it for criticizing Florida's 2022 parental rights in education law, often called the Don't Say Gay law. After the criticism, DeSantis revoked the special self-governing status of Reedy Creek, a municipal district then operated by Disney. Disney said it will appeal the ruling. I feel like this thing has passed, this little fight. Let's move on. Let's move on. Yeah, it's because it was, he did it obviously for performative reasons

more than anything else. You don't attack one of the biggest employers in your state for anything except to get points in Iowa, which you didn't get any or very few. It backfired on him. And I don't like it when, I mean, I forget there's a law that essentially makes it pretty difficult to sue governments. I mean, you can, but I don't like companies suing governments and they didn't present a good case. And this is just a distraction.

They might not have had standing. I think standing was an issue. This is a distraction from what Disney is supposed to do. And that is offer a great service and create shareholder value. And it's a distraction from what our elected officials in Florida should be doing. That is focusing on issues that affect everyday Floridians. So I just, DeSantis screwed up here. I think he paid a price for it. I think his punishment was people are just sort of cocking their head and going, what? And I think Disney should just move on. I don't see any reason to pursue it. Yeah, I think they probably will. I think it was good for them to file a lawsuit to make a point. I think that's really more than, it was a PR fight there.

You were just in Florida relatively recently. Is his standing gone down? Because when I was there with you, everyone was like totally into DeSantis. I do. I mean, I'm biased. I like to think I'm an honest broker because I recognize, I actually think that on the whole, DeSantis got COVID right. And I think he showed, and I know a lot of data has come out saying he didn't get it as right as people are saying, but I think he did show leadership around that issue, even though I disagreed with him on it. I think he's actually comes back to Florida wounded. And that is, I mean, when you mentioned Bill de Blasio, I don't think de Blasio did himself any favors running for president. And I think the same is true of DeSantis. I think he comes back to Florida as someone who epitomizes how not to run a campaign.

He came across as incompetent yet mean. And also, the only kind of anecdotal evidence I had is I had dinner with some friends, including some friends of mine that are pretty deep red. And even they were really disappointed in his attempt to put in place a six-week ban on abortion. They just thought that was... These are hardcore Republicans. They're like, that's just ridiculous. So I think he comes out... I'd like to see the data, but I'm pretty sure he comes out of this less popular than when he left Florida. In Florida, he could have some challenges, although, you know, incumbency is helpful. But apparently Matt Gaetz is thinking of running. There's a whole bunch of people thinking.

I know. Right. So hug DeSantis in that regard. So it'll be interesting to see. But that's probably in the past. But I thought Ivanka was going to run for Florida governor. That's the one be interesting to see, but that's probably in the past. I thought Ivanka was going to run for Florida governor. That's the one I want to see. Oh. I'd like to see Ivanka, Matt Gaetz. I would enjoy that. I would, yeah. She would win, correct?

Oh, gosh. Maybe not. She's kind of silly. It's very hard to predict what Florida's going to do. Yeah, that's true. You never know. I think the Rock should run and that should be that. Anyway. Is he a Florida resident? I don't know. I just think he should go down there and run. I think he should be a Florida resident. I think Tony Robbins should run. He's a Florida resident. Yeah. I mean, wouldn't that be very Florida? Yeah. You know, Brett Baer is moving. A lot of people are moving down there because of the taxes. Well, I want to be clear. It's not just tax. It's a nice quality of life.

It is. No, no question. But it's going to be overtaken by the ocean. So in any case, the SmartList podcast with Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and my friend Sean Hayes is leaving Amazon for SiriusXM in a three-year, $100 million deal. Crazy podcast deals are back, although I'm not sure how crazy this is. Sirius made a deal with SmartList Media. We'll hold advertising, distribution rights, content, and events for SmartList and some other shows they're making. SmartList will remain widely available, but perks will be given to SiriusXM subscribers. I don't know what those perks will be. Reminder, in 2021, Amazon acquired exclusive SmartList rights for between $60 and $80 million. Is Sirius digging itself into a Spotify-sized hole?

That didn't work out. You know, there was a pretty good Wall Street Journal article about those deals recently, which we didn't talk about. But thoughts as a podcast personage? Well, you know, this really just means one thing. More money for us. We're rich! We're rich!

I mean, this was the most exciting article I read in a while. Yeah. So thoughts, though. Thoughts as if you were not have self-interest. First off, those guys are really talented. And the show is wonderful. It's both informative and it's light. And they just do a great job.

They do. And if you think more broadly, I mean, U.S. podcast spending hit $2.2 billion in 2023. They do. or 300 podcasts out of the 1.7 million out there do 98% of the revenue and 150% of the profits, because anything outside of the three or 500 most popular podcasts are probably lose money and are either marketing or just hobbies. But you have a medium that's growing 25%. And even more than that, the intimacy and the connection you have with the listeners, results and CPMs, I think we get, I don't think, maybe I'm speaking out of school, I don't care. We're gonna sign a deal for 101 million.

The CPMs are about 45 bucks. More, higher. Oh, they're higher? Very much higher. Oh yeah. So that is, that because- We're a business audience, we get different ones, but go ahead.

Yeah, so the CPMs are really strong and it's growing 25% a year. And I think a lot of big players want to be here. The difference here, why Sirius will do better or less bad, it's hard to tell if this is a good deal, but it's not going to be a disaster. The reason that it was a disaster for Spotify was they decided that Harry and Meghan should have a podcast. They decided that, quite frankly, the Obamas should have a podcast. And it's just like being really famous does not mean you can put out a podcast or A, that you even want to make a podcast. It ends up that all of these people weren't interested in working, just they're interested in cashing checks. And kind of famous people on pods doesn't, they just made, quite frankly, they just made a bunch of bad decisions.

SmartList probably does, I would guess, 15 to 30 million a year in ad revenue. And I would bet it clears its operating margins or 60 or 70 points. So this is, you know, they might not get 100 million back, but they get an iconic, I mean, they've gotten a ton of PR out of this. It makes Sirius look relevant. Sirius has the infrastructure to, quote, unquote, grow this thing. And so, you know, I'm a fan. I haven't talked to Sean about the deal. It was interesting.

Amazon, you know, made a lot of aggressive moves through its, I think it's the Wondery unit. And they had signed that. That was also a big deal. You know, some of these are going to be non-economic and obviously Sirius is a subscription service. And so it adds to the thing. It's just a question of, you know, the decision I would assume they made, if they came to us, we'd have the same one is, are we widely available, right? Are we popularly available? So they're obviously going for a larger distribution, but then what's the plus for Sirius, right?

What are these perks they're getting? And what's the extra work to do those? We think about that idea of subscription all the time and we always end up going, oh, advertising business is pretty good. So if we had to, we'd do subscriptions. But there will be just a few. But I think there's more that do pretty well than you think.

It's just if they're non-economic deals that people do with them, that's really where the – it's like publishing, right? Like most books don't make it. That's what it reminds me of a great deal. There'll be a ton of them, and then a couple of them will do really well. And some of the smaller ones can do rather well by themselves if their economics are in line. That's my feeling. Yeah. Look, I'm happy for those guys.

The medium continues to be the little engine that could. Yeah. And we like it. We enjoy it. We actually enjoy it. One of the things, just for celebrities who think they're going to jump on that gravy train that Sean and Jason and Will are on, is that you just can't make a good, if you don't make a good one, you don't make a good one. You just can't do it by yourself. And some, I think you're going to see a lot of

celebrities trying to do this, like the Megan and Harry, and the people who make these shows and pay for these shows, these big platforms, have got to be very canny about what's popular, because you never know what's going to be popular. You know, whether it's, there's lots of shows that are surprised in popularity. Anyway, it's interesting. They shouldn't do kooky deals of stupidity. And I would agree with you, the Meghan and Harry one, even the Obama one, they did, you know, one of them did, what was it? Because it was Spotify. They've got to turn in good products that people like. That's the key part. And if you're famous, you're famous, whatever. I mean, there's some crazy stat about high school, how many high school basketball players, even world-class basketball players make it to the NBA. Last year,

the number of net new podcasts has actually either flatlined or gone down because a lot of people are saying the juice isn't worth the squeeze. But unless you're marketing something else or unless you're getting a lot of psychic income, you're right. You have to produce something exceptional. And it takes a lot of time and effort. It's just very difficult. It does. Like anything else. And this show happens to be quite good. Oh, it's great. It's lovely. It's a lovely show. And they're good together. They've got chemistry like we do. I think we have chemistry.

Anyway, we'll see. Congratulations, guys. They're a really fun group. They're a good group of guys. Anyway, let's get to our first big story. Elon Musk suffered a major loss in a Delaware court this week when a judge voided his $55 billion compensation package from Tesla. Judge Kathleen McCormick called the compensation, quote, an unfathomable sum that was unfair to shareholders and the process leading to its 2018 approval, quote, deeply flawed. When you read through the documents, it really, it was such a backscratchy situation among the board members who are all friends of his. Apparently, one of them cried how much he loved Elon on it, which was kind of disturbing. Elon responded to the ruling on X posting, never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware. Too late, Elon. And also, you should have had stock that put you in control of the dual class shareholders, which you didn't do either.

So too bad if you had a time machine. Were you surprised by the ruling? First of all, the judge, let me give you more facts. The judge ordered Tesla to cancel the stock options awarded to Elon valued at about 51 billion, which is where most of his compensation is. Tesla's directors now have to figure out a new compensation plan that passes legal muster and keeps Elon happy and does it at an arm's length, which is good luck with that because this board has shown itself to be a giant rubber stamp for Elon Musk. We haven't heard if he's going to appeal, but after a poll on X, he's now saying Tesla will hold a shareholder vote to incorporate in Texas. You know, whatever, whatever thoughts. I've never heard of this happening or seen it happen. The fact that I've been on compensation committees of boards to have your, to have it, I've never had a

shareholder lawsuit against the compensation, the schematic you put in place, but to have a shareholder lawsuit, I've heard of them. Like Martin Sorrell had a shareholder lawsuits constantly around his compensation, but to have it rejected, I mean, effectively, the shareholders decide who the board is. And so if the shareholders decide who the board is, who decides the compensation, then technically the owners of the company have decided what he or she gets. I don't believe you should limit compensation. I think we live in a capitalist society and I don't like the idea. I do believe that we should have a more progressive tax structure, but anyways, that's another talk show. But this effectively says that this board is so incompetent and so

conflicted that any decisions they make might not hold up in court because of the conflicts there. Even if you read the ruling, they talk about the size of it, but what they talk about is the conflicts and just how poor the rationalization was for giving him this. Because as much as the compensation was, I mean, just to be fair and try and call balls and strikes, him getting an incremental 50 billion, if he increases the value of the company 500 billion, that's not, I've seen compensation plans that on, you know, I mean, it's exceptional, but on a proportionate size or percentage of value increase, it wasn't outrageous. What this says is, you know what's going to end up happening here? It's not going to be able to reincorporate all this, all these threats, all these jazz hands, all this fake.

Can you do that? When I was reading that, I was like. I don't know. It's just so ridiculous. He says, he said, I want to meet with shareholders and convince them to divest from Tesla or any of his companies ever. They are not welcome.

Well, Elon, I don't know if you've heard or you understand corporate structure, but CEOs serve at the luxury of shareholders, not vice versa. You don't get to decide who your shareholders are. The shareholders get to decide what CEO they want. And did you see the movie, did you see Pulp Fiction? A long time ago, yeah.

Well, there's a scene in it where I think his name is, he's a great actor, Vin Rains, Vin Rains, isn't he? Yeah, Vin Rains. Yeah, he was in all the Mission Impossibles, yeah. I think he is knocked unconscious. They put a gag ball on him and they rape him. He had much more domain and dignity than this board has right now. Well, the visual. This board has been just molested.

They should show up to the next annual meeting with a gag ball because that's, they are, the fact that a court has said, you are so incompetent and so conflicted, and you are such terrible fiduciaries for shareholders that we're going to just reject his compensation somewhat because of the size of it, but just because this- It wasn't the size. I have to sell, you know, because you could make an argument that he deserves it. See, it wasn't how the number they got to. You certainly could make a cogent argument he deserves it. It's a lot of money, but still. That's right.

But the details, like the going on vacation, one of them, I think Antonio Garcia's, their best friends, the brother is on there. One of them was a CFO and he cried because he loved Elon so much. I mean, you cannot do, there's no independence among any of these people, cannot do, there's no independence among any of these people, you know, on this board. And so, it just was a hands, you know, you're supposed to have, I mean, boards are cozy, let's be honest, come on, like, you know that, like, they're very cozy with the CEOs and tend to give the CEOs what they want. But at least they have, they pretend that they're not doing quite this. And so, it's so bad. And which is, this is something we've just talked about without any particular knowledge. It's so obvious, it's a rubber stamp of a board, they don't stop him from

doing damage via his tweets, they didn't control his behavior. They may worry about his drug use, but they don't do anything about it or don't think they can do anything about it. So this is just another, this is the least surprising thing that their pay package was done, you know, by Elon, essentially. Elon wrote's recommendation. But I mean, this comes on the heels of him deciding that, threatening the board that if they didn't give him $75 billion, didn't give him $75 billion in additional compensation. He's still doing that, yeah. He was going to steal the IP from the company and start his own. I mean, the board, the Delaware court has said, your board is incompetent. What ultimately ends up happening here, though, I mean, all the threats and the jazz hands around moving to Texas, he if it was seen as a move to secure his pay package rather than obtain some benefits for Tesla. For their shareholders, yeah. It's so in plain sight.

Elon Musk's plan to change Tesla's state of incorporation to Delaware, Texas is typical behavior for an entrepreneur who always looks for an alternative. He can't get what he wants. Shareholders need to take a hard look at how transitioning out of Delaware might impact their rights in the company's governments. So, you know, he's going to, they're not going, these shareholders aren't going away.

You know, and this is the same judge who oversaw the lawsuit with the Twitter. He had to buy it. This judge is showing him, he's looking for a nicer judge, right? In Texas. Maybe his brother could get on the chance to record a Delaware. I mean, at the end of the day, I love the term fiduciary. And fiduciary is very simple. When you get to a

point in your life where you're worried about, once I'm sick, once I die, I need someone to represent my interests. And so you appoint a fiduciary for your state. And it's a wonderful term. And one of our abilities as humans, as a species, is we can trust other people to serve our interests, maybe when it doesn't serve their own, because they agree to be fiduciaries. they agree to be fiduciaries. And boards are supposed to be fiduciaries for all stakeholders. And I think he owns about, I don't know, 12 or 15% of the company, which means that they are supposed to represent the other 85%. They're supposed to represent the community. They're supposed to represent national security. And this board is, I mean, they're just horrible fiduciaries. They have absolutely, they represent or have tried to represent one stakeholder and one stakeholder only. And Delaware has just said, when you're a public company and you sell shares to retail investors, you have certain obligations.

And this board isn't living up to it. All roads lead to the same place. He is going to have to thread a needle by finding someone credible who also he thinks will do anything he wants. And those two are a direct contradiction with each other. Well, it's not clear that Texas judges will be rollover, not necessarily. It's a big risk, but whatever. He likes to do this. I don't think that's going to happen. He's not going to incorporate in Texas. All roads lead to the same place.

65% of companies are incorporated in Delaware because of their law, you know, their friendly, business friendly laws. He's going to have to get, he's going to have to appoint new people to the board who serve on, and one of them is going to have to serve on the compensation committee and such that. Can you imagine? I'd be like, no, thank you. Well, I actually think you'll be able to... I think there's a lot of people. It's like no one ever said that anyone would be in Trump's cabinet. I think the seduction to be near the seat of power is too huge for people. I wouldn't be a director of that company. Saved my life. I mean, it's just... Yeah, but here's the bad news, Kara. Someone who served on a lot of boards, you get DNO insurance. There's only... Do you realize the people who served on Enron's board,

Do you realize the people who served on Enron's board, they had to give some of their compensation? You basically have to murder people to get in trouble as a board member. They're so protected. That's why this ruling's amazing, don't you think? That's why, because it's usually so cozy. I have never seen this before. I have never seen a compensation package rejected, and it's retroactive. He's not going to lose money because he hasn't exercised the options, but not only is he not getting the additional $75 billion he's been trying to blackmail the board from, I mean, there's no way they can give him that money now. I mean, they look so stupid. He's going to have to appoint something resembling an independent director to the compensation committee. Otherwise, the next comp package is going to be rejected.

This Chancellor, Chancellor McCormick, I think that's how you refer to her. She's just not impressed by Elon. He was attacking her, of course, because she's a woman who's pushing back on him. She's like, no, I'm going to look at the law and I'm going to interpret the law. And I need to send a signal to every board, even the board of hot companies with a guy who tweets all day that they have an obligation to be fiduciaries. for corporate governance and for other corporations, because CEO pay has accelerated from 27 times an average worker's salary to over 350 in the last 40 years. And some of it is the coziness you talk about. Some of it is just people are more comfortable with people making billions of dollars, whatever it might be. But this is, yeah, I love this ruling, and I think she's

fantastic. Yeah, she is. She's great. She just has a sense of like, I'm over you. I never was under you, but I'm way over you kind of thing. Anyway, we'll see what goes on. He's going to do his antics, his loud mouth. He's like, how many rules can you just keep breaking and pretend you're, you know, you know what drives me crazy? This idea that he's some bold speaker of truth, as my wife, that's her expression. He's not a wouldn't want to press a button where he just, you know, never immigrated to America. He's going to be, you know, you got to give the guy his due, but he's just totally, he's a cautionary tale about how power corrupts and how people, when they don't surround themselves with guardrails and they don't listen to anybody. If there was only a book that was coming out in three weeks that talked about this in detail. Burn book from Carol Swisher. Is there an index? Because I just want to see what you say about me. I'm not really interested in the book. No, I don't have an index.

I don't have an index. And in fact, at the index part, I go- And I said this, and I ended up, I was right. I was right. You are in it, but it says in the index- You refer to me as your landlord? Yes, my landlord. There's a whole, you get more than most people, I'll tell you that.

Not anybody gets much. Well, lucky me. Yes, it's true., you get more than most people, I'll tell you that. Not anybody gets one. Well, lucky me. Yes, it's true. It's all very kind to you, I would say. Anyway, I should just send you one, shouldn't I? Okay, I should have brought you one last time. Anyway. Will you sign it for me?

That would be such an honor. Oh, my God. You're not even coming to the book party you're throwing for me. Well, it's because I want to hang out with my mixed reality headset. Well, you could wear it there. You could wear it there. In any case, I can't believe you're having a book party for me

and not showing up. I didn't agree to have it. You put my name on the thing. No, I asked you. You said yes. Yeah, right. When you say yes, God, Galloway, that usually means yes.

You have become my wife, and that is when you ask me for something, I just nod. I don't even listen to what you're asking. Uh-huh, sure. Yeah, that's good. Nonetheless. Nonetheless.

They're putting me up at a hotel for my book stuff, so I don't even have to stay you're asking. Nonetheless, nonetheless, they're putting me up at a hotel for my book stuff, so I don't even have to stay at your place. Anyway, I want to, though. Maybe I'll just go down there. Where are you staying? I know New York hotels really well. I don't know. Simon and Tuesday's doing it. Anyway, they need me at Midtown because I got to go on The View, in case you're interested. Oh, that's exciting. You're going

on The View? I know. I'm so excited. I'm weirdly excited. I like the conservative one. What's her name? Alyssa. Yeah. Yeah. I think she's smart. She's her name? Alyssa, yeah, yeah. I think she's smart. She's great. She's great. She's terrific. I want Meghan McCain back. Oh, no, thank you.

Anyway, I want to sit next to Whoopi or hit me or something. Whoopi. Whoopi. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about tech CEOs getting grilled on Capitol Hill. This was quite a spectacle. And there's a lot of spectacles on Capitol Hill. Hill. This was quite a spectacle. And there's a lot of spectacles on Capitol Hill. And we'll chat with New York Times reporter Connor Doherty about a face-off between billionaires and local

landowners to build a brand new city in California. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter.

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

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

So we are all at risk. And we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Procrastination, putting it off, kicking the can down the road. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Carpet in the bathroom. Like, why? In. Knowing what to do, when

to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. 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. Scott, we're back with our second big story. Quite remarkable, the CEOs of Meta, X, TikTok, Snap, and Discord faced the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. They were all there for a hearing on child safety that got pretty heated. Senators called out the CEOs for failing to protect children from being subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation on the social platforms. What a shock. Well, the CEOs defended their safety measures. Let's listen to Lindsey Graham's opening statement, which was a message directly

from Mark Zuckerberg, who got a lion's share of the attacks. Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know you don't mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands. You have a product. You have a product that's killing people. When we had cigarettes killing people, we did some about it, maybe not enough. You're going to talk about guns. We have the ATF. Nothing here. There's not a damn thing anybody can do about it. You can't be sued. You can't be sued. It's just the penny just dropped for Senator Graham on this. I've been talking about it for years or decades, really. What did you think of the hearing? And how do you think the CEOs came across the moment that's getting most attention? Zuckerberg was asked by Senator Josh Hawley to apologize to parents in the audience whose children died of causes related to social media.

They had their photographs up. It was quite dramatic from a visual point of view. Zuckerberg turned around and said, quote, I'm sorry for everything you have all been through. No one should have to go through the things your families have suffered. He didn't say, I'm sorry for what I did at all. That said, Congress, of course, as usual, likes to be performative and do nothing. They haven't done anything. They've done privacy bills, the safety bills are without teeth. repeal of Section 230. Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin ended the hearing by calling for patches of a series of bills to place more liability on these platforms, which you and I have called for. Both Linda Iaccarino from X and Snaps Evan Spiegel committed to supporting the kids' online safety acts, which is called COSA. Scott, thoughts as you watch this unfold? I have a lot of thoughts. All right, let's go. Go for it. First up, just in terms of the structure here,

having Linda Iaccarino and not Alphabet on this, does her and make no sense. I mean, Linda Iaccarino, to her credit, has instituted the ultimate policy to protect teens, and that is they have become totally irrelevant to teens. She's like in favor of this stuff. I mean, it was like if we were going to do a panel on teen trends and you invited the head of Buick. I mean, she's totally irrelevant when it comes to teens. What made for great theater was him standing up and saying,

I apologize. But what would have been more effective and more the truth is if the parents had said, now turn around and ask the people why they haven't fucking done anything. Because while Mark Zuckerberg is culpable, the culprits are the people sitting up there with their mics who are elected representatives who are charged with preventing a tragedy of the commons. And their public flogging, which we see every three months, so they can get a viral clip on one of the platforms they supposedly are so upset with and raise more money. If they aren't protecting our children, then what exactly are they supposed to be doing? And let's be clear, if you get angry enough and

Mark Zuckerberg leaves, there are other people. There are a million Mark Zuckerbergs and Sheryl Sandbergs who are smart and will elegantly figure out a way to create delay and obfuscation as they harm our children. Yeah, this is not a new story. People in the cigarette industry, there is no shortage of people who will come up with rationalizations. Their job is to make money. Quite frankly, they are doing their jobs. It's the senators who are not doing their jobs. So, okay, enough already, Lindsay, what the fuck are you going to do? The refereeing out there was so horrible that it has totally destroyed the game. And the person shitposting the officiating is wearing a black and white jersey. They're the referee.

All right. It's like when Senator Warren complains about income inequality. It's like, Senator, you've been a senator when we controlled all three houses and you haven't figured out a way to create, restore a progressive tax structure. Like, whose fault is this? One of the bills did pass in the Senate and then it goes to the House and dies. You know, I mean, one of the people that actually, the only person I would give credit for

is Amy Klobuchar, who's tried to pass bills. She's trying. She's tried. She got kind of weepy. She's like, I'm getting frigging sick and tired of this bullshit. She gets her knees cut off from her by all the other politicians up there.

They just don't let it go. And at this point, I think I'm excited to hear what she says, because I think she's making the effort and it doesn't happen, whether it's in the House or the Senate. But you're right. This should be at the feet of these legislators. And they love to do these, you know, it was dramatic when Mark did that. It was, but it was their, it's still their fault. Yeah. In 10 years, looking back on this era, I'm fairly certain we'll think, okay, the weaponization of our elections, the concentration of power, making our discourse

more coarse, we'll regret all these things. But the things we will really be ashamed of is we'll think, how did we let this happen to our children? And when you think about, and I've brought this up several times, 14-year-old girl in UK goes to her room with her phone, she's bullied, starts having thoughts of suicidal ideation. The algorithms pick up on this and send her an email that says, quote, here are some images on suicide we thought you might be interested in, and it's pictures of razors, nooses, and pills, and the parents walk in the next morning in that room and she's gone.

When that happens, you have to have laws where someone will go to jail. None of this ends. None of this, there are more CEOs who will find reasons to delay and obfuscate and hire more lobbyists than there are standing US senators and overwhelm Senator Klobuchar's office. None of this stops until these weak, incredibly ineffectual, feckless elected officials pass laws, and that's not even enough.

One of these individuals needs to do a perp walk. None of this ends. The fines can't be big enough. Their lobbyists are too rather than do your job, which is a sophisticated legislative solution here, of which there have been dozens and dozens of bills proposed. And none of them passed, right? None of them ever passed. And it's because of money. And Senator Klobuchar had called me actually and said, this year, Cara, it's getting done. And then when it didn't, we talked and she said, the money just went right to, you know, and they didn't resist. They didn't resist whatever area they were in. They were too terrified of the lobbying and the money to stand up and do the right thing. You know, it didn't do her any favors, by the way. She's up for re-election, by the way. I'm sure they're coming at her.

So, you know, she's very popular in that state, so probably won't be an issue. But she was like, they just didn't resist the money. And then the leadership didn't put it on, you know, put it in the place where it could be successful, either in the House or the Senate. Yeah, this is, I mean, all the stuff we talk about, if you have kids, none of the shit we talk about means anything if your kid's not doing well. And I mean, I started getting upset on threats and talking about it. And a lot of my comments were, someone said something very coaching that said, and now do guns. And it's what, what are these, if these folks aren't there to protect our children, why exactly are they collecting a paycheck? I thought Zuckerberg looked more upset and not just for himself.

I mean, I think for some reason, I know it sounds crazy. He looked older, right? Didn't he suddenly look older or his age or something? Maybe it was the hair or I know he's been recovering from his fighting knee problem. his fighting knee problem. But it felt like, you know, when I did that interview where I sort of demanded that he stop helping Holocaust deniers get so much purchase on the platform, and he went on and on about free speech. And then two years later, after, you know, you know, vats and vats of anti-Semitism spilled everywhere, then changed his mind and did exactly what I had recommended, which was to take them off the platform. He kind of had that look in his eye,

like, what have I done? Right? He didn't say it, but I- I think you're giving him way too much credit. I'm not. I'm not. I don't think I am. He looked like, this is my legacy. You know what I mean? He's not cynical like you think, but- Well, and his legacy is being the most- I'm not giving him a purchase. I've been hugely hard on him. I don't care if it's his youth. He's going to go down in history along with Sheryl Sandberg as having done more damage to our youth than any two individuals in the history of America.

Who's done more damage? Maybe the people who, I don't know, who invented sugary salty snack. I don't know, who invented sugary salty snack. I mean, I don't know what it is. The point I was making is he might do more than they will. That's dangerous to think that way, Kara. I don't think he's going to, but he's the only one that can because they won't do anything. We keep waiting for their better angels to show up. They don't. I agree.

They don't. And by the way, if they did, he might get so upset and tired, he would get fired and we'll find another mendacious fuck who pretends to be an empathetic, caring person. This requires laws, full stop. Yeah. Those pictures were haunting of the kids. And we will do whatever is required to be loved within the confines of the law. So the only thing, the thing that needs to change here are the laws. And you could, and it just wouldn't be that goddamn hard. Remove section 230 protection for content algorithmically elevated that has to do with elections, healthcare, and anything involving kids. Age-gate social media, for God's sakes.

We age-gate pornography. You can't get a driver's license under the age of 16. Instagram begins from a place of perversion, and that perversion ends up hurting our boys and girls, specifically our girls. Do you realize? And he lied to Congress. My colleague, Jonathan Haidt, reviewed a hundred behavioral and longitudinal studies, and he found, among other things, that people who are heavy users of social media are twice as likely to try and commit suicide than those that are light users. This shit is so dangerous and so brutal, and these individuals can't figure out a way to pass laws to protect them. And then they make a passing reference to cigarettes. He had killed a lot of people, Lindsay, just so you know. And it did take you too long. And you were in their pockets for too long.

And some of them, I think, are genuine. Senator Durbin, Senators Klobuchar. I even think Senator Blackburn is genuine. But some of these people, including Senator Graham and Senator Cruz, they give their speech to try and get on TikTok, and then they go play golf with these folks. Look at who's giving them money. Ted Cruz is one that shut down a bunch of stuff because it lacked innovation. Anyway, like Amy Klobuchar, we are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Anyway, we'll see what goes on, probably nothing. And we'll have to deal with

attorney generals and others who will probably do more of the work of this in the end, as they did with opiates. Same thing. Okay, Scott, let's go to our friend of Pivot. into the fascinating story of a company backed by Silicon Valley bigwigs trying to build a city from scratch in Solano County, California, and facing off against local landowners. I love this story so much. And it's up in Vacaville, which is Cowville. For anyone who knows California,

this is a very windswept, dusty part of the above it, but quite beautiful in a lot of ways. Connor, welcome. Thank you for having me. Yes, it is a bonkers story. I remember when I first got the scoop, I was like, I probably never had something more nailed down when I published it. And I still was like, is this all wrong? Because it just sounds too weird to be real. Yeah, you wrote the story last summer of this mystery of this company that

they created, this land grab that was going on. For people who don't know, for a long time, nobody knew who was buying this land. There were theories someone was trying to spy on a nearby Air Force Base or build a new Disneyland. That's always a good guess, Disneyland. That happened in Washington. I know some of the financial backers here include venture capitalists Michael Moritz, Mark Andreessen, and Lorraine Powell Jobs. So explain what's happening exactly. Okay, cool. So I'll just give you a quick rewind, which is that there's, as you said, this windswept area where people have sheep and cattle farms and they grow kind of alfalfa and things like

that. And it's a lot of kind of generational families. People have been there since the 18-whatevers, 70s, 80s. And not a lot of land trades hands out there, right? All of a sudden, this mysterious company not only starts buying land, starts buying a lot of it in amounts no one has ever seen. So typical amount that someone would buy in that area is like 300, 400 acres might trade hands a year. Suddenly,'s buying 10,000 a year and almost within three years is the largest landowner in the entire county and has like 50, 60,000 acres, which is about twice the size of San Francisco. But nobody could figure out who this company was, not a single person who worked for it,

not a single person who owned it. And it was, as you said, this big mystery. And as the land started to surround the Air Force Base, Congress and, sorry, Travis Air Force Base out there, Congress and other people got really freaked out. Eventually, I was able to break the story that it was these Silicon Valley people and that they had this plan to build the city. Okay, now, where- Well, let me ask you, what made you start digging into this?

Was who alerted you? I mean, now, where... Let me ask you, what made you start digging into this? Who alerted you? I mean, obviously, this mystery of who this company was, was out there. I was by no means the first person to be alarmed by that. Essentially, I got a tip that it might be not Chinese spies, which is what members of Congress were insinuating, or at least implying. And that led me down a path, I guess is the way I would say. In the article, you mentioned a 2017 letter to potential investors, your latest article on this, saying if done right, the project could help relieve congestion in housing prices in the Bay Area, which you've been writing about forever. Yes. And the letter

also mentions a potential to experiment with new types of governance, even though it's in a place that already has government. I think I don't want to make too much of that. I mean, I think if you create your own city, you can choose whether or not to incorporate it. Obviously, there are cities like Irvine and other places where they've had different kinds of covenants and things. I mean, you know, there are ways in which you can sort of, I mean, you can't live outside the state of California rules. But anyway, the point is this, after we broke the story, they go from, I should say, me and my colleague, Aaron Griffith, broke it together. After we broke this story, they have now gone from total secrecy to like charm offensive. They've

opened up multiple offices across the county. If you drive through Solano now, up 80 on the way to Sacramento, you will pass multiple California Forever billboards. Oh, they're now going by this name, California Forever. And I could, as you know, from our past conversations, I could bore you for many, many, many hours about all the things that stand between their intention to try to build on a piece of land and the reality of that.

But the really high stakes kind of grabby thing is that they are going to have to do an initiative, which is that they're going to have to ask all of the Solano County voters, will you give us permission to do this? It's like a little bit more complicated than that, but like in effect, they're going to try to qualify a ballot initiative, which means they, as you are, but as you well know, anytime anyone goes to a supermarket or church or any kind of busy area, they will be assaulted by people with clipboards who will say, would you like to sign this thing? They will probably, I mean, I don't see how they wouldn't qualify. You can pay these signature collectors to do it. And then there will be in November, at the same time that there's another notable election happening, there will be a vote and the vote will, I mean, technically speaking, the vote will sort of say,

will you amend certain Solano County laws to allow people to build out there? And that will just be the first step. But if they get that vote, even though that's not like administratively the hugest hurdle that they, or it's just one little hurdle, it would change the kind of vibe. It would sort of say, well, you got a majority of the county to say, yes, we want this. That would inevitably put a lot of pressure on the local government. I don't see how they could do this without also state government. But anyway, so the point is there's a lot ahead of them, but this vote would totally change the narrative and give them huge ammunition.

Yep. And they have money and means. They've got to be means. Scott? Yeah, Connor, nice to meet you. I loved your, you wrote an article on The Last of Us, and I remember reading it and thinking, this is a great article. Thank you so much. Which one, the movie or the video game? About how you were saying this might be a new model for a new business model, I believe you're talking about if The Last of Us could become, if that's a new model for how content gets repurposed. I have low key as a fan boy of The Last of Us, I've written, that's like my secondary beat. So anyway, thank you for saying that. I love that show and the game. Yeah, I love it too. Anyways, it's nice to meet you. So I'll put forward a thesis and I want you to respond to

it. I think this is a great thing. And I understand that people have a healthy gag reflex when they hear about powerful people doing stuff under the cover of DART. We can understand why they were trying to do that. They didn't want to raise the prices when people knew billionaires were buying up the land. But we have a crisis in the United States where housing's gone from 290,000 on average to 420, just from pre to post-pandemic. Young people aren't forming houses or households because they can't afford housing. And I don't mind that this is a way to build profits. I'm not even sure that's their real intention. I think they see this nimbiest rejectionist culture that has arrived to every local review board where they can't get

housing permits approved. And we need a massive increase in the surplus of the supply of housing stock. So I love this. Where am I wrong? So you're not necessarily, I mean, let me put it this way. That is not a fringe opinion. That's not an invalid analysis. Let's just step back a second. California, as you said, has been having this huge housing crisis. And the state legislature and various people have done a lot of work to try to fix it, but it's extremely slow. And even if they changed every law right away and whatever, it's just very difficult to build within a city. Even beyond all the political stuff, it's just hard to drive a construction truck

up hills and around narrow corners and whatever. When you want to build massive amounts of housing, as we did after the baby boom, you go to the middle of nowhere, not just because the land is cheap and stuff, but because for real true efficiency reasons, it's just much easier to build on what they call greenfield, which means an empty plot, basically, which is different from infill, which means building in the middle of a neighborhood that is there. So their premise, I interviewed this guy, Jan Schremeck, who's running this whole thing. He basically said, I think infill is a great idea.

He's European. He's like denser cities. I'm all for it. I just don't believe any of this can move fast enough to make any real dent in our, uh, in California's problem. That is not in any way, shape, or form an invalid view. The people who would disagree with that view would even agree, as the world currently stands, that's a completely... What he is saying is completely true. Now, there are people who would

say, I want that to be not true, and thus I am concentrating all my efforts on making it easier to build in a place like San Francisco. But his read of the current situation is essentially unassailable in terms of how would you actually build large amounts of housing units in a short amount of time, right? So I think, Scott, you're totally right. I mean, obviously my job as a journalist is to cover sort of how this happens, the process. But what's the wrong thing there? Because what it has on it is rich people know better.

Rich, really rich people can make the cities they want. I think that's the vibe, especially with Elon down in Texas doing a similar thing with his strange little town, running roughshod over people, et cetera, et cetera. So no, so that was just what I was about to sort of try to get into, which is like, as a matter of policy, it's hard to argue that some amount of quote unquote greenfield or building in the middle of nowhere, building new cities, whatever, would probably have to be part of the solution in California. And the God's honest truth is we already do tons of that. I mean, if you drive to LA, which of course I now do more of because

my dad still lives in San Francisco, you pass through Tracy, lay through up these massive subdivisions that look like your classic kind of cul-de-sac windy, whatever, they build their own schools, all that sort of thing. So they'reac, windy, whatever, you know, they build their own schools, all that sort of thing. So they're just trying to do that, but in a more urban, dense kind of way. Anyway, so I, but the flip side, as Kara said, is you start to get into questions of, well, at what cost kind of politically, meaning if it becomes that, you know, the way to get new building done is to have billions of dollars to buy land in the middle of nowhere, to pay signature collectors to get whatever you want on the ballot and then run, you know, probably one of the more expensive

campaigns in the history of the entire county, then you're eventually going to need a bunch of state, you know, help, which they have plenty of money to hire lobbyists and whatever for. If that's the only way we can build, right, is that the world we want to live in? You know, that's a world. So I think people who are very alarmed by how this happened and the sort of implications of how they're going to kind of try to, you know, flood the political system with money to get over all these things that are hard. I totally understand people who think that worries me. Also, some ideas about how, you know, giving up on cities, I think, a lot of these, some of

them, not all of them, have sort of been not, well, actually not Mike Moritz, he hasn't been, but it's this bashing the city that exists now. I don't think this one is that though. I just don't. I don't either. I don't either with these particular people, but the one in Texas with Elon seems weird. Although then there's celebration with Disney, which wasn't as good.

You know, they had a lot of more problems. You know, the idea of creating cities from nowhere is not a new fresh thing. That one in Brazil, you know, it's been going on. It's this idea, the way it's been presented, I think, is from a PR perspective, problematic. It's this problematic, it's this sort of beautiful city that we can do better and everyone will have delicious organic grapes. You know what I mean? It has that vibe to it. But this isn't, I mean, I think like a lot of this is

around communications and the fact that these individuals have established such terrible reputations for themselves. What Dan Gilbert is doing in Detroit, a billionaire comes in and starts buying up all of downtown Detroit. Eli Broad, basically another billionaire, kind of built Irvine by going in and buying up real estate. That was Donald Bren, actually. Oh, excuse me, Donald I found is, I mean, it swung so far to the incentives are for the incumbents, the current homeowners, to show up to review boards and come up with all sorts of reasons around concern for development. The development gets put off and the incumbents' housing prices go up because they artificially constrain supply. So the incentives are for the incumbents, the homeowners, to basically, quite frankly,

drive up the prices for renters and young people. I just see it as another transfer of wealth from young to old. And if we wait on our lawmakers to maybe for subsidized housing, but don't you, this feels to me like it's just so, we need a thousand of these types of initiatives. So I'm totally, and I hope I've made this clear, I'm of two minds about this. Scott, I agree with you in a lot of ways, and I could even go further. I mean, I think it's not bad for us to be constantly experimenting with where and how we live. You could imagine that they might do things like electrified streets, which would allow you to do self-driving cars in a way that would be basically like a track, meaning you could do it in a way that would be infinitely safer.

And you could imagine a scenario in which a place like this becomes really hot. People love how they live, you know, and then it puts tons of pressure on other cities to reform how they do things because, you know, they need to make their streets safer or whatever. I mean, San Francisco has been trying to make its, has been talking about making its streets more bike-friendly for God knows how long, forever. They cannot move a single inch on it. And then you look at a city like Paris, which in three or four years basically completely changed the entire thing. Not a new city, Paris, right? Completely changed the entire thing for bike.

So there is a sort of question of will, and something like competition from different kinds of models might change. So I think that's all great. The only hesitation I have, Scott, is when people say, it worries me that this is how the process is. It worries me that the only way you can get this done is kind of through this kind of imperious process. I think that's a fair critique.

Now, what you seem to be saying is, well, but that's the situation. What are you going to do? Sit there and do nothing? I get that view too, but I just think my job is to kind of document how it happened. This guy who's doing it, how did he get these rich people to do this? I mean, I can see why it appeals to them because all these people are like, yeah, we can build a better city. You know cool electrified streets i can see i can see the dinner party right now um but who is this guy i don't know this like fully nailed down but i have a feeling that i think uh it actually is maybe the opposite of what you're thinking um which is this so his name is jan sremek he's a guy from the czech republic he had wrote this little biography of himself you know typical silicon Valley guy in the sense that he was very precocious, good at math, other things. Went to London School of Economics and was like a star trader at Goldman Sachs.

He left Goldman Sachs to start a couple of startups, didn't go very well, eventually finds himself in Silicon Valley and is part of a kind of milieu of youngish, smart, wealthiest people who are interested in big ideas. He's in a book club with people from Sequoia. He's good friends with Patrick and John Collison, who are the billionaire brother founders of Stripe. So he's like in this world of people. Who I may say loves to talk, but go ahead. Yeah, he's in that world, right? So he somehow goes out to Solano County. He's into fishing and he is sort of interested in this land, which if you've ever

been out there, it is sort of weird and it's relatively flat. If you drive around and you're not a farmer, it looks like there's nothing out there. I mean, there are some sheep and some cattle, but it's not like packed or anything like that. Okay. So how did he get these people to do this? When you talk to him or when I interviewed him, his answers, and this might be part of a strategy, but I also think it was real. His answer was like very spreadsheety. He's like, well, this land could be bought for this price. It's not super high value agricultural land. So if you think about it, a Napa Valley vineyard might be like as much as $500,000 an acre. This land is like 4,000 an acre. Now that it was much higher by the time it was about 4,000 when they started buying. So that's like the agricultural value of that land. He talks about how, oh, well,

you know, it's pretty easy to protect this area from wildfires because it's just grass. So you could mow it, right? You know, there's not a lot of trees and all that. So he was doing the geek approach. And he's like, it's not a huge earthquake area. On top of that, there are some long range plans from like the 50s in the Bay Area that earmarked that area as like, oh, this would be a good place to build. like the 50s in the Bay Area that earmarked that area as like, oh, this would be a good place to build. So I think his answer is sort of like, this is actually a very good place to do this if

we could get the land and if we could bend the politics. I think his pitch to them is probably like, this is an undiscovered gem. The only thing is we have to wage a political gambit, basically. Yeah. Okay. Scott, last question. Well, so housing and the travails of really wealthy, powerful people is important, but what's profound, and I want you to talk about, is Nick Offerman's Emmy Award for episode three of season one of The Last of Us. And a follow-up question, is Pedro Pascal, in fact, the best leading man alive today? Your thoughts. You know, I think it's great.

Well, Kara's going to be unhappy, but... That's okay. Answer very quickly, and then I will ask the last question very quickly, because we got to go. This is important, Kara. Do not shame me. Do not shame me and Mr. Doherty here. By the way, I don't know if you figured this out yet. It is a factual opinion that The Last of Us is the best video game adaptation in the history of the world. A hundred percent. All right, Connor, answer his question briefly. You know, anyway, I'm excited for season two.

When does it come out? When does it come out? I mean, they're supposedly filming right now. Oh my God, you have no idea. That last episode rattled my world. It was so violent and so upsetting. Well, you know what's great? Again, Kara wants us to stop talking about this.

I bought that game the day it came out because I was so into Naughty Dog games. They have other games. And I, like, that weekend tried to make my wife watch the, like, little cinemas. You know, like, as you play the game, it has, like, little movies in it. Because I was like, this, like, changed me. Like, when, because the last scene in the game is not terribly different than the one in the movie. But anyway.

All right, you two. Looks like you can have a... I think you guys should move up to Vacaville together and play video games. Well, it's actually Rio Vista, but it's in the Vacaville area. I love the word Vacaville. I know, I do too.

I wanted to name one of my children Vacaville. Okay, is this going to happen just very quickly? Yes or no? 20 years it'll take, right? I think it'll take 10, 20 years. Here's the years. The only way I can imagine this happening quickly is this. As you know, there are these big environmental laws in California. One way you can get out of them is the state can basically say you get out of them, which they do for big baseball and football stadiums all the time. That's conceivable. But man, would that be that be well it'd have to be like a whole legislative i

don't i maybe news i don't actually don't know how it works but the point is stadiums do it all the time so you could do this does happen and it happens in very special moments uh i don't see how they could even put a shovel on the ground within three four or five years uh without something like that. But that's why this vote is so important, because we could enumerate hundreds of steps that will take to get them to get there. The question is, does anybody want, where's the pressure points? And if they have this vote, I think they start to have the pressure points. That's true. They'll find some rare prairie dog. I'm sure of it. That's what's going to happen here. We'll see what happens. It's not, this ain't Texas. It's California.

In any case, fascinating stories. I'm really following it. I hope you're writing a book on this. We'll see. I'm hoping. Well, that would be great. I'd love to hear. It's really, when people do this and away from the billionaire part of it, which also makes

it interesting too. It's a really cool, you know, if it was just any developer, it would be boring. But this is fascinating. Anyway, Connor, I recommend everyone reading them and obviously watching The Last of Us. Thank you. We look forward to seeing what happens. Thank you so much. Nice to meet you, Connor.

You too, Scott. Bye. All right, Scott, that was interesting. I'm glad you guys had a man moment there, a little man bonding. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Okay, Scott, let posing as a prediction, but every manager's job and every leader's job is to allocate capital to a greater return than another manager or another leader. And the ultimate managers, if you will, is the US government and the president. We have to decide

whether they allocate our resources and our revenues and our military to a greater return than other leadership around the world. That's the whole shooting match. And my prediction is that in 10 or 20 years, we're going to look back, and the greatest return on investment in this era wasn't an investment in NVIDIA, it wasn't even an investment in infrastructure. The greatest return on investment will be the $75 billion and the $92 billion that America and the EU respectively have invested in helping Ukraine push back on Russia. And in exchange for that investment, this is what we have received. We have received one that the EU has become a union for the first time and has in a

very purposeful way said that we are an ally of the United States and that we can work together in pushing back autocracy and when individuals decide to try and invade and expand their borders. Two, this has effectively been people are under the false impression that this is sending money over to Ukraine that is then immolated. It's not. This is an effective stimulus plan for the United States because of that, if you will, $160 billion, approximately two-thirds, if not more of it, ends up in one of 38 states in the United States that builds military equipment. This has been effectively a stimulus plan for the United States. And we have given every autocrat, every autocrat, whether it's Xi or Kim Jong-un, we have given them all pause that if they want to invade an island off the coast, Taiwan, that a well-armed, technically sophisticated

sovereign nation with the support of a unified West should not be fucked with. This is the greatest return on investment of capital. This is about 10% of our military budget that we have recognized in decades. And I hope, and also this bullshit that the EU isn't paying their fair share. The EU has paid a greater- They pay more. They have invested a greater percentage of their GDP, much of it coming back to Western suppliers and weapons producers. We have battle-tested weapons technology. We have developed an entirely new technology around effective drones.

This, I hope we continue to make one of the greatest investments on an ROI basis. And by the way, folks, we have not put a single boot on the ground here. So to not continue to make what will be seen as the greatest investment by the West in the last 30 or 40 years, just selfishly, just selfishly, we are investing in a stock that keeps going up and returning enormous dividends to the United States. And I hope, I hope that Congress begins to frame this as the greatest return on investment, or the greatest investment we have made in a long, long time. That canard about them not paying their fair share, they pay more than their fair.

They pay more than us. It's so ridiculous. They just keep repeating it. Not pay, invest. I want to use different, they've invested more than us. It's so ridiculous. They just keep repeating it. I want to pay. Invest. I want to use different. They've invested more than us. They've invested more than us. It's an investment. You're right. If we do not do this and Putin prevails, it'll be so costly later. We'll be spending this much money. It'll be trillions later when we're going to have to push them out of all kinds of places. And then it'll be U.S. troops going there. Anyway, the Ukrainians are doing our work for us. And of course, there's corruption. Of course, there's other issues.

But Scott, spot on. I agree with you. 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.

Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. What are you doing for the weekend, Scott? Well, I'm going to Tulum. What am I doing? I'm doing a lot of MDMA, but I'm going to Tulum. Oh, cool. We're going to, soon the FDA might be approving MDMA for treatment, so that'll be a nice little

time thing to talk about. Anyway, read us out then. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertott engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Severio. Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Cara, have a great weekend.