Pivot - Taylor Swift, AI Alliance, University Presidents, and Guest Lou Paskalis

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Kara and Scott discuss TIME's Person of the Year, Taylor Swift, George Santos' Cameo stardom, and yet another Republican debate. Then, they critique the testimony of three university presidents who spoke to Congress about anti-semitism on their campuses. And it’s a big week in AI news: Meta is teaming up with IBM to form an “AI Alliance,” Google launched a new model, “Gemini,” and Elon Musk’s AI startup has filed with the SEC to raise up to $1 billion. Then we’re joined by Friend of Pivot and Chief Strategy Officer for Ad Fontes Media, Lou Paskalis to discuss Linda Yaccarino’s decision to stick it out at X. You can find Lou on X at @LouPas. 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.

Oh, God. Let's just get it over with. Let's just get it over with. Let's just get it over with. All right, I shall. I just want to say, got the glasses I got at the concert. I got my bracelets. I'm very excited to get this prediction 100% right. Taylor Swift has been named Time's Person of the Year for her singular influence, according to Time.

I'm in hell. We gotcha. I win. I win it all. Swiss ERA's tours projected to generate over $5 billion in consumer spending in the U.S. alone, and she's headed abroad now. Scott, we talked about this in our not-yet-aired predictions episode, and it already came true. Shall we listen? Yes, Les, please, please.

Les, please. And then we'll sing and hold hands and sing Taylor Swift songs and braid our hair. It's going to be Taylor Swift. Hello. Taylor Swift? Completely is going to be Time's Person of the Year. Okay, that's it. Put a dollar in the Taylor Swift jar.

Every time you mention Taylor Swift, a dollar goes in the jar. No, that's who's going to be Person of the Year. Okay, that's it. Put a dollar in the Taylor Swift jar. Every time you mention Taylor Swift, a dollar goes in the jar. No, that's who's going to be Person of the Year. Just when it happens, can you apologize to me? Because that's what's going to, it's not going to be Sam Altman. Oh, come on. You really think it's going to be Taylor Swift? I absolutely think it's going to be Taylor Swift. Person of the Year? Yeah. Biggest business impact, biggest entertainment impact, football impact. Come on, who's had more impact over the years on the economy? Okay. And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to Beyonce. I mean, what are you smoking? I'm the one that does drugs. What are you thinking, Taylor Swift? What do you have to say for yourself? It's just so unusual for you and the editors of this program

to revisit a part of Pivot where you're the hero and I'm the idiot. It just... No, you are like really hostile about this. You have a problem with Taylor Swift. That's not hostile, girlfriend. Shake it off, Kara. Shake it off. Oh, see, you know this song. Stephen Miller and you agree about Taylor Swift. So we do all the incels on... They had a bad day yesterday because Cat Lady won the time person of the year. The incels don't like Taylor Swift? Oh, no. Oh, my God.

They lost their fucking minds. Well, top incel, Steve Miller, even though he's married and has children, he said that her popularity is not organic, which I'm like, you're made in a lab, you strange little man. How is it inorganic? I don't get it. He just doesn't think, he thinks it's made up by the media, which is not. It's a real phenomenon. She's a real phenomenon. It's made up by money. A lot of people pin a lot of money to see her. That's correct. That's correct. So I want you to reflect on Sam Altman got CEO of the year. Probably good that he didn't get Time Person of the Year because of all the recent controversy. Probably that's kind of something. It's probably good for him not to get more attention at this moment um but what do you think of this choice i mean economically important

culturally important business uh people's excitement there's a joy to it because there's so many so much bad news someone who has an impact on young voters a woman who has a cat obviously which i think is critically important cat lady lady. She posed with her cat, Benjamin Button, on the cover. Cat looked good. Thoughts? Just any thoughts or not at all? Like, it's Times Person of the Year. And I would argue that Mark Benioff, you know, it was recently announced that Mark Benioff is clickbait whore of the year. No, stop it. Can't you just give this woman her due economically? I want to get to the heart of it. Go ahead. Go ahead. Who do you think has had more consequence, more impact on the world this year? Chairman Jerome

Powell or Taylor Swift? Taylor Swift. Yeah, I don't agree. Well, you know, there's been a lot of people like him. I think it's a nice pick. I think it means a lot to a lot of people. I do think she's a phenomena. I think she's a nice role model for young people, especially young women. I think it's a nice pick. I think it means a lot to a lot of people. I do think she's a phenomena. I think she's a nice role model for young people, especially young women. I think it's a really feel-good, nice pick that makes absolutely no sense if you really look at what's happening in the world. I would agree, but it doesn't always have to be gloom and fucking doom. When Elon got it, everyone was like, of course he got it. That's it. What are the criteria? What are the criteria? Well, I'm saying Elon got it.

And everyone's like, of course, the greatest thinker of all time. And here's someone who, by the way, the Fed noted helped us stave off recession. The Fed itself said it. But, you know, I don't want to have to prove this woman, but I think it's fine to pick someone who we've, it's happened many times before. Certain entertainers really reach beyond. They do. There's not that many of them. You know, whatever you think of Michael Jackson,

he certainly did. Oprah. There's several, and there's other international celebrities that have a bigger impact, both economically and culturally. And I do think she does have political power. I think she does.

It's a nice pick. I'm glad that you're happy. I like your glasses. I like your bracelets. It felt more like people's person of the year than Time. I don't know. Anyways. What does she have to do? What does she have precisely, like, run for office, solve cancer? To be Time's Person of the Year? Yeah, because Time's Person of the Year has changed many times over the years., one year it was Jeff Bezos' head in a box. Actually, you know what? That's a fair point. If it can be Bezos,

why couldn't it be Taylor Swift? They're both, you know, they're both sort of business people, for lack of a better term, that have had a big economic impact. I'm happy you're happy. Congratulations, Taylor. I'm sorry for you and Stephen Miller. You really shouldn't group me in with Stephen Miller. I know, I'm not. But I'm fascinated that, you know, it's not just you. There's a lot of men that are like, uh, it's like, you like football stars. No, I don't. Everybody has their likes. You're making a stereotype about me. Not you, not you, one. Because supposedly I do have a penis and testicles, you immediately conflate my behavior with all toxic male behavior, which is a stereotype. Who is someone that excites you? I'm going to

finish this off on a positive note. Who is someone that inspires you who is not necessarily a business leader? Messi, an athlete? Lots of athletes inspire you, correct? I'm inspired by dorks. I like Sam Harris and Jonathan Hyde. If you were looking for an athlete, yeah, I think Serena Williams is really inspiring. I think Messi is really inspiring. He was athlete of the year. Yeah, he was athlete of the year. He's kind of single-handedly brought attention to the MSL. But I would argue that Taylor Swift or Messi, they made the right choice. I think Taylor Swift is more, I mean, Taylor Swift, to a certain extent, versus Messi kind of represents the economic power of women and girls.

And also, one of the nice things about it is it reflects that people are getting out of their homes and getting together again. I think that's a nice part of it. Fair. That is a really nice point. But I like Taylor Swift. I'm a little straight girl for Taylor Swift. I'm like, whee! The least surprising, surprising news you're ever going to hear.

Speaking of stars, speaking of gay, George Santos is a cameo star. The booted congressman reportedly made more on the platform in 48 hours than his annual salary in Congress. Santos originally listed videos for $75, but his price quickly rose to $400. I think he'll probably be over pretty quick. But what do you think of this? He's quite appealing on Cameo. I hate to say it because he's a thief and a liar. Yeah, I mean, it's sort of another piece of evidence of the decline of Western civilization where there's money in being famous regardless of what you're famous for.

And this guy is famous because he's not only a liar and a thief, a broke liar and a thief, he seems to lean into it. He's being rewarded, economically rewarded, for being shameless, full stop. He's not, you know, most of the times when these Congress people were accused of something they knew they were guilty of, they tried to slither away under the cover of dark. He's like, no, I'll go on Cameo. So, I think it's cute. I can see why people think it's funny. People have done that. They go on Dancing with the Stars if someone has, you know,

that's not a new, new phenomenon, right? There's some people who've done that. Yeah, but this is a guy who was elected to the people's house and was lying and stealing campaign money. And I don't know. This is not. It's actually saved Cameo a little bit. You know, that's been a bumpy company. Yeah, they're still around. Good for them.

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. They've got to get these phenomena. This will be over rather. This is like a pet rock. A lot of people reach out to me and ask me to record videos for their dad or something like that. Do you get those? Oh, no.

You get a lot of those. I mean, I guess if we went on there, we should test it. We should test Cameo. Do you want to do that? And then we'll give money away to charity? I do them for free. By the way, this is not an invitation to reach out to me, but I do quite a few of them, actually. Yeah, but maybe we should do that and raise some money for something good.

Yes. Sending George Santos to a Taylor Swift concert. Oh, he loves Tay-Tay. He quotes her all the time. And I'm sure she's horrified. I look forward to never thinking about George Santos again. That is unfortunately not going to happen in your life. Anyway, speaking of something that was somewhat of a weird, strange, angry circus, another Republican debate happened without the frontrunner. And they didn't really talk about him except for, thank goodness, for

Chris Christie. Following a recent momentum, Nikki Haley received the most attacks on stage, topics ranging from China, Ukraine, her former role at Boeing. There was a whole lot of discussion of children's genitals and what, it was a lot of the woke stuff going back between her and Ron DeSantis was a little disturbing. DeSantis said he was sick of hearing about polling numbers, so well, he should be. And of course, Chris Christie actually acquitted himself well that he did his job, which is to bring the focus on to the person who wasn't there, Donald Trump. But he also called Vivek Ramaswamy the most obnoxious blowhard in America. He's probably right.

He's at least in the top 1%, I guess. Let's listen. You say this. Tell them about how you want to send our kids to die. You do this at every debate. You go out on the stump and you say something. All of us see it on video. We confront you on the debate stage. You say you didn't say it, and then you back away.

And I want to say what? I'll tell you exactly what I said, Chris. I'm not done yet. Well, this is, hold on. This is not a steal. This is not a steal of nonsense. Well, there you go. What did you think?

I think these are just another example of a lack of decorum that is eroding brand America. And I would like to move to, and they're fun, it's titillating to see people you don't like or, you know, people you do like embarrass other people. But it's just not, these are supposed to be, the president, whoever becomes president is supposed to be the ultimate role model for young Americans, or at least one of them. And this isn't how you get there. And it's the wrong – these are the wrong people to model. I would like to see debate reform where everyone else's mic is shut off and they do real-time fact-checking when one person is speaking. I think these things have become such food fights, and you get reward and incentive for interrupting the other person or dunking on them.

And I just, I think we need a new model here. Let me just say, though, Chris Christie's job was to focus on Trump, right? Because they aren't. They need to talk about the frontrunner. And none of these people were willing to do that. Well, that's fine. And he did quite well, I thought. That was probably the best one. That's not what bothers me. It's them making personal jabs at people who have no chance of getting the nomination. It's interrupting each other. It's yelling at each other.

It's not in any way addressing real policy. It's, okay, Nikki Haley's up in the polls and Vivek has seven points I need to go after, so I'm going to personally attack them. And there's just – I didn't even watch the thing. One of the things that struck me about it was I couldn't find it. It was on News Nation? Yes. And then Megyn Kelly was back being Megyn Kelly. She didn't do a bad job. I think Megyn's very good at that. She tried to hold it together. I don't agree with her political views. I know you absolutely don't agree with her political

views. I think she's a pro though. It's not the political views. She screams a lot. Go watch. Would you accuse a man of screaming? I would. I would. I don't like screaming anything. I don't like screaming, as you were just saying. I think she's great. I think she's a total pro. Go watch a few screamies, and then you'll see what I'm talking about.

She's better than that. That's what, I don't think, she has a lot of problematic thoughts, but she's quite a professional broadcaster, and I think she's throwing red meat to her. She knows her market. Yeah, I think she's better than that. I want to go back to the old style debates where people show a certain amount of respect for each other and there's some decorum. I would like to see the moderators just cut people off or cut their mics. Everybody gets, you have rules, a question, you answer the question.

Maybe there's a part where the mics are turned off and people can go. But these things just feel like more like food fights. I don't think the news organizations have control of these things. I think the people who the candidates do now. I mean, that's the thing is it's not run by the news organizations. And one of the things that's, you know, I wonder if you go back to who said the Jack Kennedy thing? Lloyd Benson. Lloyd Benson.

That was a bit of a, for that it was a dunk. And, you know, Reagan was different. He did funny things like, I'm not going to take advantage of your youth and experience. And that was witty, actually. Although it would be considered a dunk. Not today, it wouldn't. But I do think they, I was disappointed in the topics they went into, besides the personal attacks and the trying to dunk on each other. I did like when Haley said, when they said, do you want to address what he just said to you?

And she goes, I don't want to talk about him. I don't want to deal with him. He's an idiot, essentially. I thought that was a really good way of her to respond. It's like, I'm not going to engage with this most obnoxious blowhard in America, essentially. But you're right. I mean, but they, you know, all the topics I kept thinking, is that what people really care about right now is weird debates about transgender kids. And, you know, they just keep on the same old hits and nothing fresh about what we're going to do about

a lot of stuff. But even just, I didn't watch the debate, but I already know the questions. Did they ask, with respect to economic policy over the last three years, what would you have done differently than President Biden? Please be specific. There just needs to be more pointed. Having said that, I didn't see that. I don't even know where to watch News Nation. That's where Elizabeth Vargas and Chris Cuomo are, right? Yeah, I like Elizabeth. She was there too. She was on stage. I think she's quite a pro. But yeah, you're right. They think they've lost control of it.

It's just, it's like Twitter live, essentially. It wasn't as good as things, and I don't think it's going to move the needle. And Trump is the point. And the three of them don't want to talk about it. And unfortunately, the incentives now, the incentives are all, the frontrunner, from this point forward, most likely, the frontrunner is not going to show up to debates. Yeah, might not. Well, look what's happened to Trump's numbers. Every time he doesn't participate in a debate, his approval goes up because it's like, okay, would you want to show up?

It's like they're showing up to a KKK rally. Anyone who shows up, it just hurts your brand. Yeah, yeah. So your best bet is just to not show up. I wonder if he'll show up if he's against Biden, if he'll show up to those debates. Yeah, he will because I think he'll think he's pulling behind. But if I were Biden, I wouldn't do it. Oh, shit, I don't know.

I'm already nervous about the Biden-Trump debates. I think he'll be fine. He did a wonderful interview with— Anderson Cooper, yeah, on Grease. Anderson Cooper, by the way. It was really, it was quite lovely. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. No more Taylor Swift, Scott, for the rest of the show. I don't believe you. When we come back, university presidents in hot water, the new AI alliance and more. Plus, our friend of Pivot is veteran ad exec Lou Pascalis, who will weigh in on Linda Iaccarino's future at X. He was a very close associate of hers and now has other things to say.

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The presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT are facing criticism, more than criticism, after testifying before Congress about the handling of anti-Semitism on their campuses. Representative Elise Stefanik asked whether calling for genocide of Jews violated the school's code of conduct and whether students should be disciplined. It's a very easy question, and I don't much like her, but she handled it pretty well, and it was a good question. The three presidents, of course, it was for show, too, but it was was a good question. The three presidents, of course, it was for show too, but it was still a good question. The three presidents mostly avoided giving direct and definitive answers, which a lot of people are taking issue with. Let's listen to University of Pennsylvania's President Liz McGill's response to Stefanik on the question of whether calls for

genocide constituted harassment. If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment. Yes. I am asking, specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment? If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment. So the answer is yes. It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman. Penn's president later released a video statement. It was almost worse. To clarify her comments, the White House weighed in, noting that it's unbelievable that this needs to be said. Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country. I'm going to get you in a second. One of the things I was thinking about, and this is why I

have an issue with, you know, I think this was atrocious, this behavior. And they're not on college campuses where you can stay late at night debating these issues. It was a congressional hearing. They should have understood the context of that and what they were saying to the general public. gays and lesbians, why they wouldn't defend this easily. At the same time, those who thought that it was wrong to defend gays and lesbians, free speech, free speech, are now like, it's no such thing as free speech on this speech. This is obviously hate speech. And should, you know, should there should be, especially if it's genocide, if you're saying ceasefire or other things, or Palestinians have been abused. That's a very different thing than Stefanik's very clever question, which seemed to be clear to any normal person. What did you think? Oh, I thought it was embarrassing for them. They came across as weak and over-lawyered.

They were clearly coached to try and seem empathetic, but say nothing. They were smirky. to try and seem empathetic but say nothing. They were smirky. And I just want to read a statement that President Gay put out. She said, Like many of you, I've watched in pain and horror the events unfolding, triggered by callous and depraved actions. We have been here before too many times,

and that familiarity is part of the heartbreak and outrage of this moment. Even as a global fight against the pandemic has forged new bonds and inspired new acts of profound generosity, we are confronted again by old hatreds and the enduring legacies of racism and inequality. So, that's a powerful statement. It's accurate. But she was writing about George Floyd, or the murder of George Floyd. And that is, these presidents have been unequivocal and strong and resolute about other outrageous things that have happened. And here's the problem. of whether, it's not around whether this is hate speech or free speech. That's not the issue here, in my view, or what's causing the controversy. Because I would argue that, you know, that if you're a group of students are walking in a march and they start saying from the river to the sea, I'm not sure that doesn't qualify as free speech. Now, we can have an argument over that.

But the problem here is the inconsistency. And that is, over the last 10 years, I have been getting emails that have been very powerful and resolute, showing leadership around, we will not tolerate microaggressions. And when there are certain horrible, horrible occurrences in our society, the president's office comes out with an emotional, declarative, definitive statement. And then the events of October the 7th happen, and we start hearing words like contextualize or nuance. Which nobody understands. And if they were to follow what the University of Chicago has done, which I think, quite frankly, is the way to go to say that university leadership should be the sponsors and hosts of critics, but not critics themselves, and just not weigh in on any of these issues, I think that's a very defensible position. I think that's probably, I mean, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld would argue with me, but I think that's probably the

best decision. But what they're doing here, what is so disturbing to some alumni and people, and especially Jews, is that they seem to have very, very big balls when it comes to attacks, when there are attacks and when there is aggression or there is hate speech against other vulnerable communities. But when there is literally the definition of hate speech calling for violence and genocide against a group that constitutes 2% of our population, for violence and genocide against a group that constitutes 2% of our population, they want to take a breath, they want to take a moment and talk about the nuance and the context. And that is the problem here, because I think it's a defensible position to say that directly calling, other than saying, let's head to the room where there's a meeting of Jewish kids and harass them, which has happened on campuses.

Other than that, we're going to defer to free speech. I think that is a defensible position. What is not defensible is when you start firing professors for saying stupid things or when you let students blockade events where they're having a conservative speaker. And you give in. I mean, the inconsistency here is stifling. It is a moment where I kept thinking, I'm going to give students a little bit of a pass here, the way I like to do comedians or something like that, because they don't understand complexity and compromise and that life is full of, good God, we have to talk to the fucking Saudis,

even though, you know, they're terrible, that kind of thing, right? Because of other reasons, there's all kinds of choices in life. And they'll get that over the course of life, and it sucks. It just doesn't, no one ever feels good about it. But in this case, you're right, they didn't, they're going to support gays and lesbians, which I appreciate if someone said gays and lesbians should be killed, or black people or anybody, right? They should, it should, the rules should apply the same. I think they should, I think you're probably right, waiting in is a real problem. But genocide, the word genocide, and I don't know about from the river to the sea, because it is as terrifying, you know,

it's a terrifying word for many Jewish people, I think. And so, I don't know. They just have to start making lines, that's all. And on the other side, I appreciate a lot of people pushing back at these university heads. And at the same time, they won't push back at Elon Musk. They won't push back when it counts either. So I'd like consistency from the so-called free speech warriors too. I'd like a little consistency on their behalf too. But everyone, none of us are there either. That's the thing. And everyone is losing their minds here in a really strange and unfortunate way. But this was just atrocious. Do you think they should be fired? Two of the three, if not three of the three, they will wait for this to calm down such that the university is not seen as kowtowing to one side or the other. But within the next 12

months, two of the three, if not three of the three of these folks will decide to move on, and they'll move on. Which ones? I'm curious. I don't know which ones, but here's the bottom line, Cara, is that at universities, we become total fucking whores. We're all about money. Full stop. That's what I was going to ask, why they're doing this. What's happened slowly but surely over the last 30 or 40 years at universities is we have built up every morning the leadership and administrators at universities wake up and look in the mirror and ask themselves one question. How do we increase our compensation while reducing our accountability? And they found the ultimate cloud cover to achieve that with all of these ridiculous departments and ethics and leadership and sustainability and ESG and diversity, equity, and inclusion that no one could measure.

They all make sense. They all sound great. They have absolutely no measurable outcomes. The administrative bloat has grown between 50 and 100% just in the last 20 years on campuses. The result is skyrocketing tuition. And what we've also had is the Rolexification of these campuses. UCLA looks more like the Mandarin Oriental Bel Air now than a public campus. And in order to feed the beast of waste and administrative arrogance and self-aggrandizement and Rolexification, we have to raise a shit ton of money from alumni. And a lot of alumni, a lot of alumni, especially Jews, but a lot of non-Jews have said, you know what? I have no desire to fund this bullshit.

And that is what is going to get them fired. Because at the end of the day, here's what we are. We're like a really high-end whorehouse at this point. And it's like, okay, brag about it. It's like that Club 11 in Miami. It's a strip club, but it's kind of cool. I hear people. Never been there. I haven't either, okay, brag about it. It's like that Club 11 in Miami. It's a strip club, but it's kind of cool. I hear people- Never been there.

I haven't either, but we should go together. That's what we should do. If I go to Taylor Swift, we're going to 11. Anyways, people brag about going to 11. And effectively, these have become the most prestigious, highest-end certification whorehouses. It's all about money. And that's why these- Okay, I'm going to ask-

That's why these folks will leave. Can I get to some solutions here? Yes, please. Okay. So, Steven Pinker put out a tweet that someone forwarded me that I thought made a lot of sense. He said, the wrong way for the elite universities to dig themselves out of their reputational hole restricts speech even more. Instead, one, clear and coherent free speech policy. Two, institutional neutrality. Universities are forums, not protagonists. Three, force prohibited. No more hecklers, vetoes, building takeovers, classroom invasions, intimidations, blockades, assaults.

Four, disempowered DEI bureaucrats responsible to no one who have turned campuses into laughing stocks. Five, viewpoint diversity. Discourage political and intellectual monocultures, including hard left and intersectional speech. I can't tell you how we have the term I would use for universities over the last 20 years in terms of the zeitgeist and sort of the feel of the vibe is we are all barking up the same tree. And if you don't bark up the same tree, you are shamed and potentially fired. And that has resulted in, it's just so interesting. We were all waiting for the disruption in higher ed to be a function of money or of not good outcomes in terms of economics or student loan debt failure or bad student loan debt. And it's not. This is what's disrupting

higher education. Do you realize that Republicans now view higher ed in the same light in terms of approval as Congress? And moderates, now less than half of American adults feel that going to college is a good idea for their kids. Yeah, I see that. It's expensive, and you don't get in, and you feel bad. I get it. I get it. It's just crazy. I'm going to interject. What was to me interesting was Lawrence Tribe, who is a famous Harvard person, said, I'm no fan of Rep. Stefanik, but I'm with her here. Claudine Gay's hesitant, formulaic, and bizarrely evasive answers were deeply troubling to me and many of my colleagues, students, and friends. And then he also noted even the attempted

clarifications by these university presidents opting for what they mistook for legal nuance over what should have been a simple moral clarity showed how easily a search for political correctness can triumph over wisdom and courage alike. This is a very liberal person saying this, like someone who's, you know, very committed. But it goes to a bigger issue, just so we can get, or I can get in trouble. very committed. But it goes to a bigger issue, just so we can get, or I can get in trouble. I think that we've raised an entire generation of kids through college that have basically said, we need to be in touch with some of the wrongs of our history. And that's a good thing.

And unfortunately, I think a lot of it is led down to this road of oppressors versus the oppressed. And sometimes, unfortunately, that ends up being shorthand for the oppressed are people, the richer and whiter they are, the more likely they are to be oppressors. And so, you just see this in my view, this is what essentially amounts to anti-Semitism amongst a younger generation, where they just are inclined to have a bias against Israel and Jews. When have you seen anything like this against a vulnerable group on campuses? Gays. I'm sorry. Back in the day. Way back in the day. But let me- Were they calling for the death of gays, though? No, no, no. Well, it was a different thing. Look, this is sort of stack-wrenching tragedy.

Gays, it was pushed under- Yes, it was. But there was arrests. There was all kinds of, I don't want to compare it. It's not even comparable. What's happened to Jewish people is so far and above. This is so heinous

what's happened here. Gaze were put in concentration camps too. And that's what. Yes, agreed. I'm not even going to, we're not going to stack rank this. I, this,

what these presidents did was heinous. It really was. And I was sort of like shocked that they just couldn't be people and understand that question. And I, again, Stefanik always tries all kinds of tricks, but in this case, it was the right question. it was really not good for the brand higher education in any way. And we'll make it worse. Because I think people who supported higher education, they lost a lot of credibility.

Someone who's trying to gain credibility is actually doing a great job is Sheryl Sandberg. She condemned Hamas for using sexual violence as a weapon of war at a UN summit. She had written a very widely read piece before and did a video that was quite graphic. She said silence is complicity. Sandberg said in the face of terror, we cannot be quiet. Several people shared harrowing firsthand accounts of what they had witnessed. After the October 7th attack, Sandberg has been raising awareness of the issue for about a month, especially since the UN, for UN women to condemn sexual violence. So she sort of forced

them into it. This is the good use of Sheryl Sandberg when she wants to take a topic. And I was surprised this was the topic. She's been rather quiet. And I would have to give, it's not about her, but I give kudos to her for putting it front and center and sort of forcing these groups to say something about what was, you know, now that a lot of the proof is coming in, these were directed rape as a weapon of terror and war, and also repulsive in every way. So... Yeah, I agree. I don't know if you've picked up on this,

but I'm not a huge fan of Sheryl Sandberg. Yes, I got that. But I think she should be commended. And I personally am moved and really commend her for using her platform and her voice to speak out about this. I find it just strange, not only that feminists haven't spoken out against Hamas more forcefully, Not only that feminists haven't spoken out against Hamas more forcefully, but the definition of stupid, according to Carlos Chapo at Berkeley, is something that hurts others and you hurt yourself. And I just don't understand endorsing, protecting, being an apologist for a philosophy and ideology in a terrorist group. I think it was more silence. I think in this case, I think nobody talked about which was clearly one of the more horrific elements. It was not just rape. It was rape and then murder falling.

And it's just hugely disappointing that special interest groups... Look, I think Jews were totally there for civil rights, for non-rights. I think Jews were there for the LGBTQ community. And I think a lot of Jews right now feel like they're not there for us. And the other thing that's really disappointing to me, I don't think enough Jews are speaking out. And the reason why, and I'm experiencing this firsthand, our downloads are up here at Pivot. My downloads of Prop G are down. And I speak a lot about Israel, and it's turning off a lot of young listeners. And so there's real incentive. Yeah, we're getting a lot about Israel, and it's turning off a lot of young listeners. And so, there's real incentive. Yeah, we're getting a lot of letters. Oh, you should see the shit I'm getting.

There's a lot of incentive to just keep quiet on this issue. And what I would say to other Jews, and I'm just really disappointed. I mean, it's like Jessica Seinfeld, Deborah Messing. I mean, it's like a small number of Jews actually speaking out. And I'm like, where the fuck is everybody? And because I think it's word is out that young people are not anti-Israel. I won't even say anti-Semitic, but have real empathy for Hamas. So, everyone's just saying, let's just keep it on the low down. Let's just keep quiet. Well, they have empathy for Palestinians.

Most of them have empathy for Palestinians. Let's be clear. It's not. It's a very small group. But I'm just shocked there aren't more people using their platform, as Sheryl Sandberg is, to say, this isn't cool. It's disappointing. She's really effective. This is the Sheryl Sandberg I like.

I have not talked to her for a while because of our disagreements over Facebook. And we've known each other very her for a while because of our disagreements over Facebook. And we've known each other very well for a very long time. And she reached out to me to ask me to put it out there and help amplify it. And I gladly did it. I was thrilled she did this. But I'm glad to be back in touch with her. And I really like that she's using her platform for serious issues like this. And it's, she's good. She's good at it. This was, had she definitely gathered people to talk about it and force the issue, which is her great strength. But this is the last point here. What I would say to other Jews who, for what feels like good reasons in the short term, just to keep quiet on this, because you may alienate parts of your audience, is that we were way too quiet 90 years ago. parts of your audience, is that we were way too quiet 90 years ago. And this is, I'm just,

I'm not only disappointed in feminists, the non-white community, the LGBT community, in my view, or special interest groups or other vulnerable groups who haven't come to, in my opinion, our side the way we came to theirs. I'm also really disappointed in a lot of Jews who have platforms who haven't spoken up. We can't be quiet on this. Yeah, it's true. I think the problem is nobody likes Netanyahu. I think that's where they start. You know what I mean?

Diabolical, 100%. Diabolical. I agree. Let's move on to the last thing. This is a big week for AI, and there's three things that we're importing. I'm going to go through them very quickly. Meta is teaming up with IBM to form the, quote, AI Alliance. This is about compute, bringing together more than 50 organizations dedicated to open source AI work. This is something Meta has worked on. They're moving, they're sort of the open source side. The Alliance is focused on six areas, including

regulation and safety. They're eventually a governing board and a technical oversight committee. We'll see how that works. Open AI is not a current part of this, nor is Google, because they are the big players. Those are the two big players. Google is also making AI news with the launch of its new model, Gemini, which is quite impressive. They've finally sort of gotten up to speed here. It's with their deep minds and their Google brain divisions combined. They're saying it's the largest, most capable model. Gemini is described as natively multimodal because it was trained on images, video, and audio. It will power Google's

generative AI chatbot, BARD. Google scientists posted a very impressive video of all the things it could do, interpreting pictures, creating games, being a little funny. It's definitely a rival to chat GPT. I was at OpenAI headquarters two days ago, and I think they really feel like the race is with Google, for sure, talking to their executives. And then lastly, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup, XAI, has filed with the SEC to raise a billion dollars. It seems like he's already raised it, if you read it correctly, they say they've raised 135 million, but it looks like they've raised. Otherwise, he said he wasn't raising money on X, but then he had an SEC filing. So I don't know what's going on. I posted on threads that this is basically a valuation Hail Mary for X since current X shareholders apparently get 25%. This is how he's going to get out of this mess because they're using compute and data from Twitter. He's combining a lot of his companies in order to do this. Thoughts on all of this? This is a big week. This is a big, important week as you start to see the players coalesce on the field. Google is where a lot of this technology

was initially invented and formed. And they all of a sudden, overnight, look like one of the most innovative companies transitions. They go to sleep on a Thursday night and they wake up Friday morning with open AI and they look flat footed. So I can't imagine the call to arms that Sundar and the team there and shareholders feel. And my guess is they have, I mean, they have everything they need. They have the massive amount of capital, they have compute, they have a ton of original IP, they have interface to guide people or shove them into this to get them to trial it. I saw the video on it. It was really compelling on Gemini talking about how it was describing what someone was drawing. So this is, yeah, absolutely. I thought the more interesting story was XAI. First off, I couldn't figure out why Elon Musk needed to raise a billion dollars, why he wouldn't do it himself.

It's also not enough. He needs much more considering what's going on at Google and OpenAI and Anthropic. Four billion from Amazon. A hundred percent. I would say at this point, I would say at this point, you probably realistically to play catch up with open AI. I mean, they've spent 10 or 15 to play catch up. It's usually more expensive. I mean, you need a minimum of 10 billion, I would think. And two, I think it's another lesson in corporate governance because Twitter doesn't have a board and Tesla effectively doesn't have a board. the board of X. And he was going to do a distinct company called XAI. Some people would call it AI washing, where he's trying to just have a distinct company and get the valuation of an AI company, but this will be actual AI. But if I were on the board of Twitter, and you'd have to have a board to have a board member, I would say, if we're giving you the brand, we're going to give you

the input, and that is all the data that streams through the Twitter platform. Why are we only going to own 25% of it? I'll tell you what. Let's raise a billion dollars into the large organization Twitter. Even with a beaten down valuation, we won't have to give up more than 10% to raise that billion. And Twitter shareholders will own 90%, not 25%. But here's the problem, Kara. There's no one there to raise these questions. So he can just do whatever he wants. This is simple that Elon Musk, who is a visionary and has this great kind of generative, I don't know, whatever you would call it, this great data to crawl on Twitter, at least it sounds like it'd be great data. He has the ability to raise a ton of awareness. He has a platform he can roll it out on Twitter, but he only wants to give them 25% of it.

That is an excellent, I hadn't thought of that stuff. Well, that's why I'm here, Cara. I know, but it is a valuation Hail Mary for Twitter, right? He's trying to get the valuation of an AI company using- That Twitter won't recognize. Twitter only recognized 25% of it. He's trying to cart off with 75% of the value for himself personally. No board would allow this bullshit.

Well, they're going to get nothing with just Twitter by itself, right? So that's probably what he could say. He's sucking the life out of this company in so many different ways. He's like a vampire. Make it a distinct company, distinct legal entity, you know, X.AI.

Twitter raises a billion dollars. They could still do that for this thing. They put in a billion into this wholly owned subsidiary called X.AI. And then whatever the value registered there, 100% of it goes to Twitter shareholders because they're the ones that should get it. Instead, he's like, well, okay, I'll give you 25% because I'm going to use all the data in the platform, but guess who owns 75%? Elon Musk. Well, he has controlled Twitter. I guess he's saying, this is what you're going to get. I'm

not going to make you lose money, shareholders, because you stupidly invested in. And it's going to make him look like Twitter is successful by even just if he's successful with XAI, which he'll probably be moderately successful, even if he's a laggard, which he is, by the way. Although he has a good team there for sure. It's a good idea. It's a really good idea. You brought up the notion he's going to need a lot more than

a billion dollars to do anything he could. He brings something the other guys don't have, and that is he'll get massive awareness. He'll tweet about it every day, and he'll let it spread conspiracy theories such that people just talk about it all day long. He'll go red pill on it. It'll be the conservative one, and people will be drawn to it. And Tucker Carlson will say, I only use XAI or whatever. But the issue here I find is this feels like just another example of really strange governance and self-dealing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he's going to do it anyway. It doesn't matter. But, you know, I think he's way behind. He's way, way behind. He was out front with Tesla. He was out front with SpaceX. Google will lap him, and OpenAI has lapped him, and Microsoft has lapped him. And from what I've

been talking to a lot of AI people this past week in San Francisco, it's Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, and then everybody else way down. Anthropic, I guess, would be up higher, way down. Anthropic, I guess, would be up higher, and Amazon, and now this meta IBM thing, but pretty much that's it. I think he's a laggard here, no matter what, and he's going to need a bigger boat. He has certainly hired a lot of people, but there's such a competition for talent, and he's hired a lot of great people that want to all be called founders, I guess. That's what someone told me, the reason why a lot of those people went there. They're founders. But he certainly will take advantage for himself before everybody else.

He's the guy who, when you, at Thanksgiving, the mashed potatoes go around, takes two big spoonfuls, and then leaves the rest for everybody else to, you know. Anyway. All right, Scott. We're going to talk more about Elon X and Linda Yaccarino specifically, because I think he doesn't care about this ad business. He wouldn't have, even if he's crazy, he wouldn't have done that on stage. I don't think it was calculated necessarily, but he doesn't care because it doesn't matter. He's just sucking the carcass of Twitter dry for its data.

Let's go to our friend of Pivot. Lou Pascalis is the chief strategy officer for AdFontes Media. He knows ex-CEO Linda Raccorino quite well and in recent weeks was one of the number of ad executives encouraging to resign, advising her to do so before her reputation is damaged, she said. He also wrote a really interesting piece about it. I've known him for a long time. He's been a big mover and shaker in the ad industry. We've recently talked quite a lot about how advertisers are not buying into news, which I want to get to at the end. But first, welcome, Lou. Thank you, Cara. It's a thrill to be here with you and Scott. Bucket list event for me. So nice to be working with you. You're a nice fan. You've always been really nice about Pivot. So let's talk first about Linda.

You've known her for a long time. You were close to her. You even were very, at the time she went to Twitter when I said, oh, no, no, this isn't going to end well. You said, oh, come on, Kara, I'll give her a chance. She'll do a good job. When you texted her about resigning, that was before Elon's deal book interview. Have you been in touch since? And obviously you wrote that piece. What's the state of play right now? She's sort of all in, it seems. She is all in. And I've texted her a number of times without reply, which is, you know, unfortunate because normally we, you know, had a great, you know great exchange very quickly. But I think she's bunkered in. I think she's really focused on staying on the mechanical bull as long as possible.

And I think that this is very consistent with her DNA where quitting equals failing. And unfortunately, that's a sort of short-term outcome in this context. Whereas the long-term outcome is she probably has, or maybe had, the best reputation of any sell-side senior executive in the advertising industry. It was built over a quarter century, always doing the right thing, high integrity. You could rely on her, you know, her word was her bond. And I think she's now cashing those chips in for Elon in a way that I don't think he's capable of reciprocating. Yeah. So after the interview, as you said, she sent a memo to ex-employees saying Musk, quote, shared an unmatched and completely unvarnished perspective and vision for the future. This is after he cursed out advertisers.

She also, which was shocking to me, she also said in the post about X standing at the unique and amazing intersection of free speech and Main Street, which was possibly one of the worst metaphors I've ever heard. Do you actually think she believes this stuff or is she just determined? What is causing this? I think she believes it now. I think she actually believes it. Maybe not. I don't find her to be a particularly cynical person over the time I knew her. I think she wants to believe it. Maybe not. I don't find her to be a particularly cynical person over the time I knew her. I think she wants to believe it. And I think she's searching for arguments to make it believable. And I think it's resonating with a certain audience on X that has really

consumed the Kool-Aid. Every time I get interviewed, I get harangued by these people who are accusing me of hating free speech, which I find laughable given my side hustle to save news. So I think she's slowly building what Walter Isaacson would have described as a reality distortion field in the book Jobs. have described as a reality distortion field when, you know, in the book jobs. And I think she probably sees the counter argument, but she's making the case as best she can, because she's tenacious as hell, and she's going to make her argument. When I wrote that Linda was going to be the CEO, you responded to me on Twitter saying she would be my first choice and my only choice to save the platform from the hands of its owner. You also noted, I still cannot understand why she'd subject herself to Elon Musk, however. You did think it could work, correct? At the beginning, I did, because I thought it was rather self-effacing of Elon to recognize that he

was never going to be able to change his behavior in such a way as to appeal to advertisers. And there were all these incidents that happened before the last influence council, which was a legacy of Twitter, which was a shocking meeting where he basically said advertisers were going to have to create a distance between how he himself acted and buying the platform, which is not a possibility when you work in corporate America, how the CEO speaks is, you know, is representative of the platform's values. But I thought she could influence him. I thought it was a moment where Elon said, okay, for me to be successful, I'm going to have to learn from others and I'm going to go and buy the best person I can. But he didn't empower her. It was very evident when the name change was affected that she was not part of the comms plan,

which I found shocking having grown up in corporate America. She was basically behind a beret cleaning up the elephant poop and saying, rah, rah, this is great. But it didn't feel like she had a meaningful role in it. And it seems like she's not being allowed to exert the kind of influence that he paid to get and that would have helped him. And now that's affecting her ability to help him, even if he were to change his behavior. Scott? Good to see you, Lou. It's not that they've registered a 50% or 60% decline in advertising revenue that's surprising.

It's that they still have 40% or 50%. So make the bull case for advertising on Twitter. What do you think her pitch is? You're in this business. Give us the pitch. NBCUniversal, her old employer that's actually stopped advertising. What's the pitch to come back on the platform right now? Scott, I really struggle with that because, you know, I think, as you know, in its heyday, I was an enormous supporter of Twitter, and I was a huge advertiser on Twitter. News broke on Twitter. Culture broke on Twitter. Sports is better with Twitter. The only use case I personally have anymore is during Formula One races, which is a

very international community, and I'm a huge Formula One fan as I connect with the people that I'll never meet all over the world, and we watch in real time and we snark in real time. I think it's different if you're activating in sports, if you've got a league sponsorship, there are immediate plays to extend that, you know, keep your eye on the NFL deal. Will the NFL continue to endure being associated with Twitter in coming years? I think that's one. They don't have a good

performance product. They never did. It's always been their weakness, their Achilles heel. So that limits their ability to appeal to DTC. And they're pivoting now to small and medium-sized businesses. You're going to need an awful lot of those to make up for the companies that walked away. you're going to need an awful lot of those to make up for the companies that walked away. And so as she walks into corporate America, I don't really know what argument that she has other than to say, activate your sponsorship. And I just read an article this morning that people are moving their Super Bowl sponsorships, which was always the biggest week on Twitter from a revenue standpoint. And they're moving them to TikTok. They're moving them elsewhere where it's much harder to activate,

but they just don't want to take that risk. And that's where the margins are. It's those big brandy plays, not those direct-to-consumer, small direct-response plays. I wouldn't know how to begin to sell that platform to any well-governed company. Wow. Not anything? You're an ad guy. And you've heard every ad guy trying to get you to spend money and woman ad person. Absolutely. And it's really hard for me to say this. I loved the

platform before Elon bought it. I'm a huge fan of Lindy Accorino. I don't see a path forward with advertisers. And I think that's why Elon made the statement he did at Dealbook. I think he went there wanting to deliver a message like he did. I think he knew that after his post-October 7th unfortunate retweet, that the path forward with advertising was dead to him because anti-Semitism is the third rail. And I don't think there was recovery. And so I think his approach was very much like Cortez when he landed in the new world in 1519. The first thing he did was burn the boats. So nobody was going back. I think he burned the boats to advertising. Linda's going to keep trying, but he's moved on to another revenue model

that he has in his head that I am not smart enough to understand, but the man's a genius. And, you know, we'll wait and see if he's got something up his sleeve that the rest of us aren't seeing. But just to follow up on that, if you think he's moving to a non-advertising based revenue model, what does she bring? Does she survive as CEO? She doesn't have any background in AI, doesn't have any background in payments. She's an ad salesperson. I think it's a fair question. I think that maybe what he's learning, although I would say in a not so productive way, is that before you jump to the new thing, you need to still continue to nurture the old thing, right? He doesn't have a good track record of doing that. What I do know is that there's few people that are better than Linda at figuring it

out, at being able to pivot, to adapt, whatever. And she does have relationships above the CMO level where some of these new revenue models that he's thinking about, some of these new businesses that he's bolting on. She's kind she's kind of hinting at sponsorship, which, you know, again, it's got the same set of issues, I think. But, you know, I think she'll be around for a while. I think in the relative scheme of things, she's not that expensive, considering what he's trying to do. And she can still knock on doors and get in rooms, even if she's not getting ad money as a result. When the advertising community, are they going to come back? It never worked before. It never worked for us. Are they going to come back or is it a pause or it's like, that's enough of this? Because there's better places to put their money, correct?

This one is really clear to me. And I put myself in the context of having run ad buying operations for major brands for three and a half decades, there is no scenario that's going to cause me to go to the management team and say, you know what? We've looked at what X has to offer from an advertising perspective, and we're going to go back up on the platform, and you're just going to have to ignore the risks of Elon Musk, his current and future antics. I don't know if the management team would laugh me out of the room or have me escorted out of the room, but I know I'd be out of a job in 24 hours because part of the job is risk mitigation. A big part of the job when you're

a Fortune 500 company is saying, do the risks offset the rewards? And the risks are usually, well, we reached the right audience. Does the platform have enough scale? Does our creative resonate against this audience? This is, will our customers boycott us if we go up on Twitter? Will the board call the CEO's judgment into question? Could I get my CEO fired? These are risks that have no offset whatsoever from an advertising value. And so I would never make that recommendation. I can't imagine people wanting to come back from that. And my bigger concern isn't the GFY comment that he said to Andrew Ross Sorkin.

You can say it on this. I don't want to. Listen, I leave that to you guys. It was go fuck yourself, but go ahead. Several times. Okay. When he said go fuck yourself twice to advertisers, there, he got me to do it. I'm actually less concerned about that than what

he did immediately afterward. Hi, Bob. This is what corporate communication functions fear most of all. And I have to tell you guys, and it's a topic for another day, marketing has been suborned in most major companies to corporate communications. These are risk-averse people who are really there to promote the CEO and his talk track, right? And the minute that he singled out Bob Iger, every one of them said, that's it. I'm not going near that because God forbid we go on the platform and then choose to come off again on a later date, we might get singled out.

And I'm not getting my CEO singled out, and neither is the media guy. So I think he's slammed the watertight door. He's dogged it down, and he has moved on. And advertisers on the other side of it are not pushing on that door at all. I think it's a parting of the ways. And I really doubt you're going to see major well-governed companies come back. Wow. Well, there it is.

And you think she's staying no matter what. Is she ruined her career or can she recover if she leaves? No, you know, I still look at this as the biggest virtual intervention in history, the entire ad community, people who do what I do, all of whom, you know, we know each other. It's a Yenta fest. We all, yeah, we go to the same events. We have the same conversations. We're trying to run an intervention for her to get her out.

There's a million things she could go do. She could run Amazon's ad platform. She could, you know, she can recover from this. The only thing that, you know, you have to give her a mulligan on is the Vox interview, which was a whole nother thing that you guys have talked about before, which was just on her best day. But she's so well-respected in the industry. Everybody was like, well, she tried. We kind of thought it wasn't going to work because of him. It didn't. It's not her fault. And now she's going to end up somewhere else. So I think she's got runway. But she's now doubled down. Like she's really doubled down, Lou. down. She's really doubled down, Lou. Yeah, I know. I know. She's doubled down,

but she's doubled down against climbing Mount Everest, where a lot of people fail. I said in an interview last week, that hill went from steep to vertical now because of his behavior. But she's not going to let go of it. But the advertising community will give her a break. The question is, will people who don't know her, but who seem to have formed opinions of her in the last couple of months also give her that break? And that is, you know, unknown. So, Lou, you sit at sort of the helm of the bobsled looking at flows of advertising revenue, just more broadly speaking. And by the way, just a quick comment. As someone who didn't know anything about Linda before, I think this has been a total disaster for her. To me, she just looks—not knowing how impressive a person she is, and I trust your judgment, and Karis has said very complimentary things of her. Coming into this with a clean slate, she strikes me as the worst CEO of the year, hands down. If time had said worst CEO of the year, it would have

been this individual is just being mocked and made a fool of and every day just looks worse and worse. But anyway, you have a bird's eye view into capital and advertising flows across the major platforms and major mediums. I just love your sort of cliff notes on which platforms are doing better than people think, not as well as people think. What are you seeing out there in the ecosystem? You know, I think there's really a search for quality engagement and the places that you get the kind of quality engagement have bifurcated based on the audience that you're going after. You're seeing certainly one social platform emerge as the sort of killer app, and that's TikTok. Marketers have to work really hard to get quality engagement

there, but when they get it right, they really get it right. So there's a lot more effort being put in there. There's this symbiotic ecosystem between what are called retail media networks. These are the Walmart, the Walgreens, the Albertsons, the Kroger's of the world that are now in the ad business who have great first party data, Scott, but they don't have the kind of scale that they really need. And so they're forging alliances with CTV. CTV is also login. That's the Netflix of the world, the ad supported sides of Hulu, et cetera, et cetera. And they're trying to build an ecosystem where there's rich first-party data, there's quality

engagement, there's up and down funnel. And I do think in a broader context, we're seeing some really interesting green shoots. We just did some research at Ad Fontes Media with Civic Science, which showed that young people are now turning back to quality news platforms for their news and away from social media because they feel like they were duped in 2020. So Gen Z, yeah, Gen Z and millennials, they're now saying we're not going to get duped. And I mean, it's a sign of hopefulness. It's a sign that people

are kind of taking the reins back in. So I think accountability, transparency, and trust are kind of coming back in and that quality publishing in general will do well. But, you know, there are not, it's not without headwinds, as you know. But a more pointed question, what's the easiest platform to sell for you right now to an advertiser? Look, if I'm an advertiser, I'm going to start where I get the best targetability, the best addressability, the best scale of addressability. And that is pretty much any ad-supported CTV platform. And then I would augment it with linear. And then I would go into addressable digital. So what's old is new again. There's so much headwinds gone on programmatic right now that ANA just dropped their full study the other day,

which full disclosure I worked on, which just said that one in every $5 that's being spent in the $88 billion programmatic industry globally is going to bad actors, either made for advertising sites that deliver a terrible experience, or these really low quality publishers that say, you know, if you have these three symptoms, you might be dying of fungus, which have no basis in reality. And so I think we're seeing a flight to quality. A lot of that quality is from established companies. I think you're

going to actually see a little bit of a bump in really old school stuff. Like, I'm not kidding, terrestrial radio, linear TV, things that have measurability to them that give you scale, and then addressable that's accountable. And I think that's what you're going to see. And I think there's going to be a whole lot of skepticism about programmatic moving forward, which is a huge part of the digital ecosystem now. I have a last question, Lou. You have been pushing for this, for people to buy into news advertisers, which they don't want to do, even though they willingly go into more controversial platforms like X. Can you, very briefly, because we only have a little bit of time, why is this important?

You and I had a great talk about this in France at Con Lion. So we're living through an era where there's a war on truth. And I mentioned this to you when we talked, you know, it was eight years ago when Kellyanne Conway was standing on the lawn of the White House and answering a reporter's question by saying that the reporter, that the president was using alternative facts. And I naively Googled that. I thought that was a thing. Well, now it is a thing. And the only people who are defending the truth and the war on truth are journalists. We've seen about one third of newspapers in the United States fail,

and most of them are now going to a weekly publication. That's allowing for gerrymandering in the local markets. It's allowing for all sorts of zoning and school board issues that lead to the burning of books, which sounds like Germany in the mid-1930s to me, because you don't have local reporters there calling it out. And marketers are uniquely called out in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights in their role to support journalism, to keep politicians on track. And we've got to do more there. And Cara, it's not just an eat your vegetables message about, it's your civic responsibility to support journalism. It delivers enormous return on

advertising spend. It delivers enormous unduplicated reach. These are the things that advertisers crave. And they're ignoring that because of unfounded fears about getting caught up in the cultural wars, which again, are being driven by corporate communications and have no basis in fact. Yep. So people should advertise. It's so much more dangerous elsewhere. It's so funny that they just, they probably want to keep up with the young people. I was just saying, I know we're at time, but what they're doing is ironically, they're moving their money unbebeknownst, into MFAs, these bad made-for-advertising sites, which are engineered to appeal to that money and appear to be brand safe, when in fact they're not, and they're actually taking the money away from

journalism. And that $10 billion slice of pie that's going to MFAs, if that went back into journalism in the United States, you would see robust newsrooms and robust local reporting. We're the real deal, Lou. That's right. So are you. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. So insightful and fair. I have to say, I know you like Linda and I know you were very close to her in this. I hope she listens to you because you're a better friend than she realizes, I think. Agreed. I appreciate you saying that. It's an honor to be on with both of you. Thanks, Lou. Isn't he smart? I'm glad.

I learned a lot there. I learned a lot there. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for your predictions. 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.

I got mine right, obviously. I won't say about what. I have two and one I already made. One or two of the three university presidents of TestFight will be gone within 12 months. They'll wait till this is, they'll return to a faculty position, but you're going to see donations to these universities plummet. And they have created these gargantuan dragons that require feeding of capital every day. I say it's the Pennsylvania one. Probably, because I think Mark Rowan carries a really big stick.

But so does Bill Ackman at Harvard. And I- Rowan's played it better. He's been a little bit quieter. He's not legislating it through Twitter. I have a, I wouldn't call him a friend, but somebody I know here is a billionaire Israeli. And he was so, just so negative on Netanyahu and really just so disappointed in the far-right policies and extremist policies of Israel.

And then when this happened, he basically pulled out of a huge commitment, dollar commitment to Harvard, like right away, like, I'm out. And I think I would bet, I would bet a place like Harvard that raises so much money, I would bet that they've seen $1 to $5 billion in commitments just go away. Just people say, you know. Yeah, it's a lot. They've got a lot, but that is a lot. Yeah, but you know what? Money is an addictive substance, Cara.

And they're not going to say, the trustees won't go, well, we have enough, we can survive this. They'll say, sorry, guys, we have built the beast, and the beast needs feeding. And we can't tell the beast. Yeah, the students don't get to run this place. Yeah. Yeah. And the beast doesn't, you know, we're not going to put the beast on a diet. It's going to be a hard thing because you should let people say terrible things on campuses, but not heinous things. There is a line. So that's the hard part, is that campuses should be a place for people, you know, say offensive things to each other.

Offensive is different than some things, right? Yeah, but this is the problem. It's not about where the line is. It's about having a line that you're consistent around. And that is not publicly shaming and finding, you know, finding your testicles when an English professor says something stupid. And then really requiring thoughtful nuance and context again around when people call for genocide. Yeah, I know. It's interesting.

I wonder what's going to happen because, you know, I don't – everyone's offended. You know what I mean? Everyone's pre-offended. How do you get back to a place where campuses encourage all kinds of debate, even offensive debate, and at the same time, respect and are empathetic? It's very difficult. Ultimately, it's a nuanced call, but look, to say that, I think along the lines of what Steven Pinker said, to say that university leadership is there to be the sponsor and the host of critics but not critics themselves, that's probably a smart way to go.

You just don't weigh in on the shit. But at the same time, I think on a regular basis, you pull people in front of a student committee and say, why were you banging on the doors of a Hillel group that was meeting? You were on campus, and we have tape of you saying, calling for genocide, and we're going to let a peer group, including administrators, faculty, and students decide whether you should return to this campus. campus. I mean, for God's sakes, I was almost kicked out of UCLA for much less. And then my other prediction is more kind of in our wheelhouse, if you will, and that is, I think one of the biggest business stories in tech in 2024 will be the entrance into AI of Apple. Apple's, you know, most valuable company in the world, most trusted brand in the world. I just don't think they're going to let everyone else run away with the AI pie. And if you look at- I have a different point of view, but go ahead.

Go ahead. The phone, if you look at MP3 players, if you look at streaming media, if you look at wearables, they kind of watch, listen, wait, and then they strike. They're the ultimate example of the second mouse gets the cheese. And the only place they didn't was in search where they were basically bought off, where Google said, here's an idea. We'll give you $28 or $36 billion a year, whatever it is. $10 billion.

I thought it was more than that. Or was it 28%? A little bit, maybe. Yeah. Well, anyways, we'll give you this amount of money, which will all flow to the bottom line. And in a P of 20, that's a quarter of a trillion dollars market cap, to not go into this space. But I don't see that happening. I don't think anyone's going to risk the antitrust scrutiny.

Yeah, the comparative is search, that they didn't. And mapping. Remember, they didn't and then they didn't, right, essentially. Well, they are still there, but they're not committed in the same way. But there's a huge opening here because, to use your word, and I love this word, all the generative AIs feel very, and all the chatbots feel very anodyne right now in terms of design. They don't feel very consumer-friendly. They don't feel very aspirational. So why do it themselves?

Like, they took them a while to get to their own chip. It took them a while. They didn't do their own search. I think they must be. The people I talked to, I talked to a lot of AI people about, and Apple came up. I was like, why isn't Apple? I kept making everyone make the list of where everybody ranked and no one said Apple, which was interesting. And I finally said at the end of these conversations, what about Apple? And they're like, well, they don't have

as much compute compared to Google and Microsoft. Absolutely not. And Amazon's third. So that they don't, and that's not their area of expertise. Secondly, they tend to take advantage of technologies like this, like search, rather than make it themselves. And so they can integrate it into all their products. It's a question of whether it's core to what they're doing, right? It will help the phone no matter who makes it, right? And if they offer the right thing. So that they thought it might be a similar situation as search. So it was interesting. I literally just had this conversation for a long time yesterday. But nobody said Apple

in this group because of these reasons. And that also makes a lot of sense of why they wouldn't necessarily. But the other side is they could say this is core, like the chips that they decided to make or whatever's core to them. And they do have a lot of data. They certainly do around music, but they also make a brand out of not using data, right? It just feels like it's too big a barbecue not to show up to the table. Yeah, but they make a deal of not keeping your data or not owning your data or not. But isn't that, okay, but couldn't they, for example, pull an Adobe and say, we're the first generative AI that has all fully licensed data and doesn't, I mean, they could put a

privacy spin on it. Yeah, they could. They could. It'll be interesting to see. I think they must be thinking about it, but someone, every single person I talked about and who knows and who's, some people had been at Apple. They're trying to figure out if it's core, right? If they or they can just get it from others and still benefit and integrate it. I think it will be core because it's all about, hey, iPhone, do this for me, get me this. And

they want it to be high quality. That's the thing is there. I think quality is the thing everybody talks about. Everything Apple does has to have high quality and privacy protection and content respect. These are the three things that they stand for and they have to keep standing for. As the most valuable company in the world and the strongest brand in the world and probably the biggest player in tech, can they miss out on something that is the greatest wealth creator in recent history? in recent history, and that is in 2023, the stocks that drove the market were mostly AI-inspired, whether it was NVIDIA or Microsoft's really deft integration of AI. Does Tim Cook want to be the guy that didn't participate in that? And also, Apple just has the luxury of, and by the way, they might outsource the technology. There was initial talks with the Apple car that there's supposedly still a rumor on they were going to partner with Hyundai. They weren't going to do the manufacturing. They were

going to do the software and the design. They could do the same thing here. But any, I just got to think, like Apple is the ultimate signal that your kids are less likely to have infection and be taller and be faster, smarter. It's the ultimate soft signal of mating attractiveness. And I just see a lot of people, if given the opportunity, would say, oh, I use Apple AI. Because pretty soon, people are going to have self-expressive benefit. They're going to say, I use Anthropic, or I use... Right. They have to put it in their products. It has to be part of their products. Absolutely. And it's not. It's absolutely not. It's in Google products. Righton right now, it's everywhere. So it has to start to talk to you. For me, it's not whether they get into this business, it's the extent to they vertically

integrate. Yeah. Interesting. Great prediction. It's really so interesting. It's so funny. I literally just had discussion after discussion about, and Apple was my last question for everybody because they're just not anywhere here. Many people did point out they don't have the compute and technical capabilities that the other two have. That was a really great prediction, that last one, especially Scott. 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 this show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, Scott, that's the show. What a good show that was, even though it started off rockerly. But, you know, I'm your man, Scott. I'm the man. In so many ways, Kara. In so many ways.

We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot. We just have a few before the holidays, but so much to talk about. This has been such a newsy year. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Saverio on Gaddy 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 next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Cara, have a great rest of the week and weekend.