Pivot - The Tesla and Hertz Mystery, a Tough Election for Democrats, and the Squid Crash

Episode Date: November 5, 2021

Kara and Scott unpack Tuesday’s election results, dive into the confusion around the Tesla and Hertz deal, and examine Zillow quitting the home-buying business. Also, cryptocurrency Squid crashes and the Facebook app is ditching facial recognition. Plus, Scott gives us a prediction for Build Back Better. Send us your Listener Mail questions, via Yappa, at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Hey, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher.

And I have a great Dane that is going through heat and having stomach issues. This is literally season one, episode two of Chernobyl, not episode one where we set up the characters and find out that Russian firemen are humans too before they get radiated. Literally, the reactor has blown up at the Galloway household. I am ordering hazmat suits. Do not get anywhere near my vicinity right now. It is ugly, doesn't even begin to describe what is going on. You have dog problems. You have dog problems. Oh my gosh. I thought kids were awful. I mean,

this is, they're not awful. This is rough. Why do you have these pets if you don't understand the burdens that come with that? Because they unconditionally

love me. They're literally, they don't complain. They're never disappointed. They never say I'm quiet and I don't share my emotions and that I don't do anything around the house. I'm sorry about your dog. I hope your dog recovers.

Anyways, how are you? Good. How are you, Kara? I'd like to discuss some photographs, if you don't mind. Can we do that or are we not allowed to? Is this the part of the episode where we discuss my off-mic behavior? Yes. Is this that part of the episode?

Do you approve or not approve? It's either you're horrified and you're okay with it. You know what? Scott, you be you. That's what I say. You know, people ask me all the time. Do I have any choice?

No, exactly. People ask me like, do you believe you? I'm like, whatever. What do you care? I'm always like, what do you care to people when people ask me about you

and these kind of things? Scott posted some terrific pictures of himself. He looks great. I have to say, I think you looked fit. And I like that you're celebrating your fitness. And you were very fit. My son, Alex, was like, ooh, nice abs, essentially.

Or maybe it was Louie. It was probably Louie. You looked good. I think I'm going to just support you in your continuing efforts to show off your body. Go on. I'm glad to see you're finally investing in our relationship. I think if it was total nudity, I might have a different issue, but I think probably— Big Ed and the twins want a little love.

Oh, I don't think I want to see that. Let's bring them out. I don't think anyone wants to see that, really. Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's fine. I think Stephanie Ruhle's comments were very funny. She is funny. Twitter knows Stephanie loves the dog.

Yeah, I know, but they gave it to her. They were like, let him be proud of himself. Did you notice that? There was like a little shift towards Scott Galloway. I thought that was interesting. So let's be clear. 90% of it is narcissism. The 10% or the way I rationalize the irrational is, you know, everyone asks what my fitness secret is on the thing.

And I'm like, it's very simple. I've worked out four times a week for 40 years. It's been my antidepressant. It's been a ballast in my life. You are not your body. And I lecture young men on this all the time. You are not renting your body. It is not a loner. If you want to be less depressed, make more money, find a means of controlling your emotions and making better decisions, work out three to five times a week. It is a gift from God. As a species. Yep, I do.

It helps my sons for sure. As a species, we are happiest when we are in motion, surrounded by others. Sweat. Yeah. Sweat. Yeah, that's why I like it. That's why I encourage it. Sweat.

Yeah. Sweat. Yeah, that's why I like it. That's why I encourage it. I'm going to keep doing it, and I'm going to keep showing it off and feeling not better about myself, but less bad about myself. I think you should do a book. I think you should do the Scott Galloway workout book. I think that would be interesting. What do you think?

Yeah, the problem is it all falls down around alcohol and my diet. Well, you can talk about that. It could be that kind of book. You know what I mean? It could be really interesting. I think that's a genius idea. I had a big thing on fitness in my algebra of Happiness book, which you clearly did not read. No, but I mean a whole book about you working out and lots of pictures of you.

That's what I'm saying. I like that. You know what I mean? I think it would be very interesting. I think people would like to hear how a regular Joe, like yourself, you're not a regular Joe. A regular Joe. An aging athlete. Whatever.

I think it would be interesting. You work out. You do Peloton. Are you still doing the Peloton? I'm back to it. I was off for a little while and got my pandemic 10 that I need to take off.

So I've just started again. I'm doing the Power Zones program on it. So I've gone four days now and I'm going to do seven weeks. I'm going to do it and then I'm going to move on to another one.

It's better if I have a program and people tell me what to do or else I don't. I agree. I'm so busy all day. I find that's really. there's so many great apps. Even Dreamy Chris Hemsworth has an app. The other thing is I think there's a connection.

There are really good apps. There's a connection. Nike has a great app. There's a connection between physical strength and grit and mental. And on the days I work out – I'm sorry, the off days, I try and test myself mentally, especially on writing. I try and sit down. And this isn't easy. I open my laptop and I try and write straight for two hours with absolutely no distractions.

Wow. Good for you. And that is, I find that more difficult than doing CrossFit to just say, I'm going to do nothing but write and edit for 120 minutes straight. I'm not going to look at my phone. I'm not going to look up. I'm not going to eat. I did it in the back of the car. You are really.

I'm very productive that way. What is your, actually, this is a really, I think a. I'm not going to eat. I did it in the back of a car. You are really. I'm very productive that way. What is your, actually, this is a really, I think a lot of people would like to know. You're extraordinarily productive or prolific. What is your kind of your method? When do you write? What is your process? It's interesting. Last night, I was sitting in a car in a parking lot in Lorton, Virginia, because my son is taking this glass art class.

And it's three hours. And it's a pain to drive there. So I literally sat in the car in a parking lot in lorton virginia because my son is taking this glass art class and it's three hours and it's a pain to drive there so i literally sat in the car and did i did my column that's where i do it i can write anywhere yeah i can sleep anywhere i was one of i'm one of those people i really just do it i don't like over i don't agonize over it i just start writing and i don't like i just and i'm. I spend, the thing that relaxes me, honestly, is cleaning. I clean and organize and stuff. I'm a little anal retentive and I'm a lot anal. But hold on a second. Just going back to your writing, because I think there's so many people who follow you and admire you and admire your work.

What is your laptop? What is the software you use? Oh, it's a Macintosh. It's just a Mac. Just not a very. And Google Doc? Word? What do you use?

Everything. I use Word. I use Word to write. But I use this thing called Scrivener for my book. I use Evernote. I do use Evernote. I use Notes. I use Simple Note. I do a lot of notes.

Again, I'm very list-oriented, and then I just tick down the list. And I think that's really how I do it. And then when I get ideas, I put them in a document, and I work on it all week. You know what I mean? Something strikes me, you say something I like. And then I have little pieces of paper, you can see them right here, just little post-it notes. When Oswald said, too odious, that word odious really struck me. And then he called Bitcoin, I think either you or he called Bitcoin a version of gold. I thought that was just smart. And I just put version of gold.

And I'm going to figure out a way to attribute it to him. And then I was on something else. I was talking to Evan Spiegel from Snapchat yesterday. And he was talking about diversity. And he said he prefers to look at it now as a talent agenda. And I just like that two words together. So I write it down. And then I start, and then I spin out from that and stuff like that.

So I don't agonize over everything. In your process, do you do a lot of research? Do you go online and try and find interesting stories? Or do you just have a few themes and kind of use those? I have themes that I stick with. I have themes that I stick with almost constantly. And they change. Like right now, climate change tech is really interesting to me. So anytime I see something, I keep educating myself throughout the week.

But what I don't do is agonize. I just type. I literally am like this. It's like I'm a plumber. Like I'm fixing the toilet. That's what I'm doing. Like I don't think about it. I think a lot of writers agonize, and I just don't.

I just get it done. And is there a time of the day you find you're more productive? Late at night, after I clean something. I have to clean first, because it settles my mind. Except for the cleaning part. I drink. You clean, I drink. It settles my mind. I settle my mind by cleaning. Someone's always like, why are you cleaning? I'm like, I like it. I like it, and it makes me calm. So that's what I do. I clean before I write. It sounds really crazy.

There's a great book on mental illness called The Unquiet Mind, and it's an interesting book just to understand not only everyone talks about flow, but mental illness or this book is an interesting means of understanding what I'd call a lack of flow and how you can get to flow. Yeah. It's interesting how you do it. My son was telling me, doing this glass class where he does a lot of, it's not glass blowing, it's glass whatever, you make art out of glass. And he said it calms him just to look at the, you know, he's so in his head with work. Is this Louis or Alex? Alex, he's so in his head with work.

And this makes him, it's like, he's like, it's like meditation for me. And I, working with his hands. And so, whatever you find, as you said, working out, cleaning, whatever it is, whatever calms you down is what you should be doing. And in my case, it has to do with paper towels and cleaning cabinets. Anyway, this is too much information. Let's talk about the other things. I agree. Thank you for asking me that stuff. And I really did like your pictures. I thought you look great. So a couple things. The cryptocurrency Squid cratered this week after its founders seemingly cashed out tokens worth millions of dollars. Squid launched in October and skyrocketed to over $2,000 per token before disappearing from social media.

The project was named for Netflix's Squid Game. There's going to be a lot of these, correct? These kind of little startups that come and go. Well, this isn't even a startup. I mean, there will be a lot of startups that have legitimate founders and don't, I've started a couple of them that are, you know, kind of running on a hope and a prayer. And then when the chief capital runs out, they crash.

This was a fraud. I mean, what's so strange about this time is it's become so frothy that the haze or the froth is literally dying every red flag white. And that is, there are red flags everywhere on this. If you went to the site, there were misspellings everywhere. You could buy the coin, but you couldn't sell it. I mean, and then they had what's called a rug pull. And then when people try to redeem and there's no liquidity, the thing went from what, 2,100 bucks a share to zero. And I mean, so this will be further fodder for why the SEC should issue another thought piece,

which will say absolutely nothing. But they really do need to step in here because the squid coin threatens every legitimate coin. And there's a ton of interesting innovation. But this is- It's happened in the early internet. It did. Remember? It just did. There was a lot of this stuff going on, and it did hurt the rest of them, the ones that were legitimately trying to do things. Yeah, we're just going to look back on this. There's going to be so many articles going,

how on earth did we not see this coming? Yeah, yeah. Well, they didn't actually ever regulate the internet, but in this case, it has to be because it has to do with money and things like that. Very significant. Other thing that was, I think, a little bit disturbing to the market, and I tweeted about it and everyone sort of responded, was Zillow is quitting the home buying business. This is sort of a trend thing started by Opendoor, which is still doing fine, it looks like. I think it has results this week, or maybe they just did. The CEO said the housing market is too unpredictable.

What they would do is buy houses, renovate them, and then sell them, essentially become flippers. Flippers, I guess. It needs the companies to offload 7,000 houses worth over $2 billion, which could impact the housing market. market? We just determined that being an iBuyer was too risky, too volatile, and ultimately addressed too few customers, too narrow. They're also cutting 2,000 jobs, but they were trying to sort of mimic some of the interesting startups, which is not the worst idea. But obviously, the job market is tighter. Getting people to work on these houses, I think, was one of the issues. They misjudged the cost, which is incredible because they have all the data on these houses. What are your thoughts?

This is a disaster. First off, Zillow, which is an incredible company. If you think about Google, you know, it's an unbelievable search engine and social, you know, on Facebook, an unbelievable, you know, social. Zillow is both of those things for what is one of the largest asset classes in the world, and that's U.S. residential real estate. I mean, they own, I think they also own StreetEasy. They have so much data and they have managed to exit the stranglehold of Facebook and Google and people go directly to Zillow. They have incredible data. They have incredible ad tech that if you're a broker

in Short Hills, New Jersey, you have to be on Zillow. That's just the go-to for this enormous asset class. It's an incredible company. Stock's gone from $200 to $75 based on the excitement over iBuying and then the disaster of it. And what's also interesting is that there appears to be no contagion here in that it appears to be an operational issue specific to Zillow. And that is Open Door. It's a surprise from Rich Barton, who I've known for many years. His brand took a huge hit here. Rich Barton was seen as one of these kind of iconic Reed Hastings-like executives.

Yeah, 100%. I would argue he would probably be fired if there weren't two classes of stock. This is the kind of thing that CEOs do and should get fired for. This is a fucking disaster. Right. I personally think that, I mean, they'll be fine. They have over $3 billion on the balance sheet. They have a lot of debt, but it's not coming.

It's at low cost, not coming due for a while. And the core business is just an unbelievable business. But when you announce like one day, I mean, think about this, his statement that the real estate market was unpredictable. Actually, the real estate market has been one of the most predictable asset classes in the world the last since March or April. And that is, it keeps going up at record rates. So the fact that they're losing this much money, I mean, it was almost, I don't want to say it's hard to lose money in real estate right now, but what they achieved is pretty incredible because supposedly the real estate market is going to go up another double digits this year in a low interest rate

environment that you just never see that. So the fact that they were able to figure out a way to lose this much money, it speaks to the notion, and people have always said this, that real estate is a local business. You need to walk the property. You need to see the way it's angled versus the sun, whatever it might be, right? You need to understand, is there mildew? Are there termites? What's the school district? All that stuff. And algorithms couldn't figure it out, or at least they couldn't figure it out for Zillow.

But this was, if you look at what happened here, it's breathtaking. You look at what happened here, it's breathtaking. And the dynamic it sort of reflects, again, coming back to froth, is that they chose growth over everything, even when it meant – it reminded me of Cybershop, this e-commerce company that started in the late 90s and went public. And it used to go buy this hot toy called Furbies for $29 and then sell them for $19 so it could show incredible top-line growth. Yeah. And they were going and buying houses for X that had a resale value of 0.8X just to incredible top-line growth. And they were going and buying houses for X that had a resale value of 0.8X just to show top-line growth. And you know what, Kara? For a while, it worked. The market said, oh my gosh. Here's something interesting. Barbara Corcoran, who's a very famous, obviously, real estate person, she's also on Shark Tank. She said,

like many others, the company was likely tempted to control the entire house hunting market since Zillow had access to sellers. Probably saw Keith Raboy and others over at Opendoor and we're like, we can do, that's our business, right? That's one thing. The other thing is the idea, first of all, they're unloading 7,000 houses, like that they didn't understand the cost structure. You know, Barton was obviously founded the travel site Expedia also, he's clearly a talented entrepreneur.

But, you know, using algorithms to buy homes, repair them, and sell them is really not. They just didn't approach it. And what was interesting is at the time, Keith Reboy, who was, as I said, an investor, he's an venture capitalist in Opendoor, said this was going to be a problem. And, of course, everyone was like, oh, it's just, you know, sour grapes, et cetera, from a competitor. But what's interesting is that it seems like lots of people saw this. You know, lots of real estate people, at least, were sort of not surprised by what happened here. But the real estate industry poo-pooing, eye-buying,

is sort of similar to Jamie Dimon poo-pooing crypto. Everyone was like, okay, boomer, you just don't get it. And also, it is an incredibly inefficient market. Anyone who sold a house and sees a nice guy or a nice lady roll up in their Jaguar every Sunday and put out balloons and then get 5% to 6% of the transaction, you're kind of like, okay, this is very inefficient. And it's a market that is ripe for disruption. But this was, it's striking how dramatic the fall was. I buying is less than 1% of transactions, but institutional buying of rentals is up to 20%. Yeah.

This could have easily been a chill that could have really rattled the market. If all of a sudden the next day, Opendoor also made a similar announcement, you could have seen a real chill in the market. But it looks like this was endemic or specific to Zillow. It's just very interesting, but the housing market has been just on such a tear. And iBuying and institutional buyers coming in, typically when institutional buyers come in,

it reflects a top and everyone complains that it's going to drive housing up. It does in the short run, but oftentimes they screw up and then there's a fire sale and there's an opportunity to go in and buy stuff cheap because no asset,

whether it's a company or a house, there's no better deal than trying to buy an asset that's been orphaned by a large company because they just want out. Yeah, and one of the things, they tried to blame it on the labor market. And then everyone was like, everyone else is doing fine, like in that same market.

And so they did say they couldn't just predict the prices accurately, which I can't believe that they had all this data. The other thing is, as you said, it's interesting because you have a company like Carvana, which is kind of doing this, which is also intriguing because the way buying cars is broken, right? It's been a broken thing. And buying a house has sort of been a broken thing, but you can't make it necessarily any easier just by algorithms. Well, the auto industry, I spoke to the management team of what was previously the most valuable automobile company in the world until Tesla came along. And pre-pandemic, less than 2% of cars were sold online. Now it's 30%.

Yeah. And the automobile industry is suffering from the same challenge that the banking industry is. It's even more extreme in that the banking industry sees their operating system as a ready teller and a bank branch. And they've been letting the tail wag the dog, and that is they build their business around a bank branch that needs 50 million in deposits to be profitable, and they try and drive people into the bank branch. And young people in the emerging wealth does not want to deal with a bank. And the same is true of cars, and that is young people don't want to deal with an auto dealership. They don't want to go to the outskirts of town and walk into a dealership and look at Tesla. They've dispersed the sales of automobiles to their website.

And then when my Tesla breaks down, I don't even take it. There isn't a Tesla dealership. They come out and they repair it in my garage. And the problem with the traditional automobile supply chain infrastructure is that their quote-unquote partners are the wealthiest guy. When I was in Africa, I stayed at this ridiculous place. And it was owned by a billionaire. I'm like, how did this guy make his money? He's like, he's the largest Toyota dealer in Texas. And so you have this infrastructure of independently owned dealerships that have been amazing partners for these automobile manufacturing companies. But the reality is they're turning into

a little bit of a legacy liability, similar to bank branches. But you're going to have a much harder time closing things for the long-term health of the business because these are entrepreneurs that have partnered with- It's the worst experience. It's the worst experience.

We're going to get into cars in a second, which I think is- Terrible retail. Terrible retail. But we're going to get that in one of our big stories. But I agree with you. There's more to come on this story. It's really, and the implications for Barton too. Just very briefly,

Facebook is getting out of the face business, maybe, shutting down facial recognition platforms, citing growing concerns about the use of the technology. There's lawsuits. There's been lawsuits aplenty that cost Facebook a big chunk of change. Facebook told Gizmodo it's limited to Facebook app only, not other apps like Instagram. So there's a lot of like fine print. And also, they're going to continue to reserve the right to use it. It obviously was used as a growth hack many years ago for people, you know, you post a photo and then you can see yours so that you can say your photos on Facebook and this and that. So good move. But you know, I'm sure there's a lot of hooks to it. I mean, because it's Facebook. I don't understand this. And I but, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of hooks to it.

I mean, because it's Facebook. I don't understand this, and I mean, I don't know what the story is behind this story, because to unlock my Apple phone, they're using facial recognition. But the difference is people trust Tim Cook and they don't trust Mark Zuckerberg. Also, there's been a lot of scraping by companies like Clearview AI of Facebook on these photos. And just, you know, it wasn't giving them enough bang for the buck kind of thing and causing all kinds of headaches. And good, good on them, good. But they're doing it for probably very selfish reasons.

Anyway, we'll see where it goes. I think they're not nearly out of this business because it's only on the Facebook app. But again, they want a little credit, and I'll give them a slight amount of credit. But I think probably they're doing it for not the reasons we'd imagine them doing it. Anyway, time for the big story. The big Hertz Tesla announcement is getting odd.

Tesla shares soared last week after Hertz said it would purchase 100,000 vehicles. Then Elon Musk tweeted, no contract has been signed yet. Hertz disagrees, said that deliveries of Tesla had already started. And now Hertz said it will buy back $500 million of its stock. The biggest seller is an investment fund associated with its chairman, Greg O'Hara. I don't know what to say. Explain this to me, Scott. I'm confused.

Well, we're just in uncharted territory. You have a company that was bankrupt, purchasing $4 billion worth of cars, and it increases the value of the automobile company in 30 days by the equivalent of five General Motors. It goes up $130 billion in value. So a bankrupt company buys $4 billion worth of cars, and the automobile manufacturer that sold those cars increases $120 billion in value. I mean, there's just no doubt about it. We're in crazy town right now. What also just struck me as strange here, and Aswath said it. He said, you can't find intrinsic rationale to value Tesla is now worth more than the entire automobile manufacturing globally industry and throw in Boeing and Airbus and maybe every specialty retailer.

And then what was interesting or what I find interesting is the brand implications. And that is Tesla recognizes they're a luxury brand and they look at all the cars and the fleet sales coming out of Hertz. And someone reminded them that it is not great for your brand to have a bunch of champagne-colored Ford Tauruses being sold to consumers after Hertz has driven the shit out of them for 24 months. And I wonder, like, who sat Elon Musk down and said, having a disproportionate number of cars in the Hertz fleet may not be great for our brand? Because all of a sudden,

he's backpedaling. And I don't understand why. I don't even know if it's a brand issue, a deal issue. I don't know what's going on here. But when you have two CEOs, you never see this. The CEO who just made the largest purchase in the history of the company, the CEO of the automobile company is saying that, no, the deal isn't official. And then Terz is saying, yes, it is. Yeah, and also they had hired Tom Brady to promote the pact, which was another sort of football player. You know, it's completely—I'm not sure who's in the wrong here, right? Correct?

We don't know. But I'll tell you who's in the wrong, though. In my opinion, that they're buying back $500 million of stock. Yeah, there you go. I mean, what did they... Give me a fucking... Okay, I think the moment you buy back stock, you become ineligible for the next decade of any sort of government assistance, loan, bailout. So let me get this straight. The chairman is going to buy back stock. There's something that stock buybacks are an efficient way to return capital to shareholders, but it just strikes me as really, I just, you'd

hate to see the same thing happen again, where all of a sudden Hertz hits a tough patch of the economy and they go, we're in this together and we're great employers and we need a government handout. I would love to know, and I don't know what Hertz took during the pandemic in terms of economic relief. But I think rental cars, I don't know about you, but I just never need to. I find renting cars or the traditional thing where you fly into an airport and then go to a strange parking lot. I find the whole thing just and then you get in and it smells like cigarettes. I find the whole thing just not an interesting experience. That's true. But many people, I use the whole thing just, and then you get in and it smells like cigarettes. I find the whole thing just not an interesting experience. Yeah, that's true.

But many people, I use it a lot. I use it when I used to travel. You rent cars in strange cities. Yes, and I have the cigarettes the whole time. Yeah, that's right. And I get in fights with Hertz. I use Hertz, actually. Anyway, it's an odd story, and you should continue to unfold.

Obviously, people think these contracts tend to be negotiated even after they're agreed to and this and that. It's a good thing for Hertz because a lot of the customers are demanding electric cars. And, of course, Tesla doesn't want to be seen as selling at a discount, which they say they aren't, which Elon said they weren't. Some of the rules are you can't use them for an Uber kind of thing. Anyway, it's a really complicated story. There's a good Wall Street Journal story that I read, and I still don't understand what's happening, like what's going on here. Presumably it'll be sorted out. But Tesla has more demand than supply at this point still. Sounds like you should head to a parking lot in Virginia and get things

sorted for us. I will. I shall. I shall not. Do some reporting. But I shall do some reporting because I think I don't know enough here. But they're not supposed to use the cars for ride shares, rentals, that, and this and that. But I think it's a very complex story. But the Hertz coming out of this bankruptcy is going to be a much more interesting story, I think, than any of them, because whether business travel is back, whether people use these things, and as you said, this might be a broken system as it is, but what is the solution, right? What is the actual solution when you want to rent a car when you travel? It goes back to a key thing we've been talking about, and that's dispersion. And that is simply

put that the rental car counter and the place where the rental cars are stored in a garage, those things not only don't add any value, they add negative value. And we are moving to a point in enterprise kind of pioneered this 30 years ago. They used to drop off the car at your house. They did. And just as I never need to go to an auto dealership again, I never need to go to a rental car place again. And if I'm renting a car, and I think they can do this, and I think people who rent cars probably have the money to do this, they should meet you at the curb. You get in, and then he or she takes that fucking stupid bus back to the rental car place. Right. No, I agree.

There's been a lot of startups in this area, and they've all kind of flamed out. A ton. There's been a ton. Yeah, a ton. There's been a ton. It's a very logistically complex thing, and you have to have the right employees. Speaking of labor shortage, you really do. Enterprise is probably the best experience of all of them.

Great company. And I keep going down these rabbit holes, but Enterprise employed the same thing that Chick-fil-A employed, and it doesn't get enough attention. And that is they push equity and ownership down to the desk. And that is the guy or gal running every Chick-fil-A owns a big piece of that Chick-fil-A. The guy or gal running every Chick-fil-A owns a big piece of that Chick-fil-A. And also at Enterprise, they had created incredible career paths for people starting at the locations and made them owners. And so when you're in an enterprise, you just can feel it. The owner is there.

There is a difference. There's a big difference. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the election results in Virginia, big news, and elsewhere, including New Jersey. And also take a listener mail question about your kid's cell phone. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see?

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All backed by Constant Contact's expert live customer support. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca. Scott, we're back for our second big story. I mean, the politics, the Democrats, canary in a coal mine has died officially. Election results around the country are in and Democrats lost races big and small. Republicans took the governor's mansion in Virginia. Len Youngkin.

We're going to introduce choice within our public school system. New Jersey governor, current governor, incumbent Phil Murray defeated the Republican opponent by the slimmest of margins. I am humbled to be the first Democratic governor reelected in the great state of New Jersey since my dear friend, the late Governor Brendan Byrne, did this in 1977. Seattle might elect a Republican to citywide office for the first time in 30 years. Obviously, there's all these defund the police things failed in many cities. That said, Michelle Wu became the first woman and person of color, she's quite a progressive, to win in Boston. There's a lot going on here.

There's a lot of fascinating things. And let me just begin by saying, I just wrote a piece where I said that Glenn Youngkin should send a basket of flowers to Jack Dorsey because he managed to distance himself from Trump and yet be Trumpy at the same time, be Trump-lite essentially, or more Romney-heavy, I don't know what you'd call him. And he used critical race theory, et cetera, all this stuff that was swirling around on social media, but managed to keep Trump away from himself. And Trump not being on Twitter and on social media probably helped because he would have been dealing with it every day had that been the case. So, people seem to think this guy wasn't like Trump. And it helped because these were the voters that rejected Trump in the 2020 election.

Scott? Yeah. So, I also think that Governor-elect Youngkin should send flowers to the squad and Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Because what could Governor McAuliffe, what could he say that he has done for the people of Virginia? I brought you hearing aids for seniors. I brought you pre-K. I brought you family leave. No, he couldn't say any of those things. And so the Democrats literally have, the Democratic Party has given people running for office the weakest hand in the world right now. And in addition, I think the Republicans have been very smart around messaging.

And that is critical race theory is not being practiced anywhere in New Jersey or Virginia. But they have managed to basically position us as critical race theorists by virtue of the fact that, okay, you're saying standardized tests and gifted classes are racist. You have safe places at schools. True or not, they have figured out a way to position us as out of touch and a bunch of privileged people lecturing each other. And they've done a great job absolutely cementing this notion that we are out of touch. And it is really the fact that we have splintered into three different parties, the Democratic Party, the squad, and then the narcissists posing as moderates. They have just played us like a fiddle. And I'll tell you, we almost lost New Jersey.

New Jersey, where there are a million more registered Democrats because here's the thing. People would – the notion that we are going to shame the other side or moderates through being very persistent, very loud on Twitter is going to work. It's not. It reflects nothing. It's absolutely not. And we come across as being so out of touch. We control all three houses of government and we can't get anything done. I think people would rather vote for people who they don't necessarily agree with or that they find distasteful, but get shit done.

Yeah. If we can't get shit done with all three houses. But Trump is a step too distasteful. That's the thing. Trump really does engender like not him back with these moderates. And I think Young had did an excellent – Trump sort of immediately was like, like, not him back with these moderates. And I think Young did an excellent, Trump sort of immediately was like, well, because of me. And I'm like, no, actually, he, it's not good news for Trump, because I think they found a way through the Trump,

you know, the alley where you get beat up, essentially, when you go with Trump. And so there's either been these, what they call rhinos, the Republicans in name only, sort of Liz Cheney gang, or the group that is just so obsequious, like Nikki Haley or even Ron DeSantis, et cetera, who are obsequious and it works where they are, but it doesn't work nationwide

and it doesn't work with independents. They don't like Trump and they don't like you kissing up to him. And this guy managed to keep close with Trump without him staining him, right? That was what was really interesting. He looked like a banker. He was a banker. He's from the Carlyle group, you know, with the fleece and the khakis and everything else. And he managed- The Allbirds. Yeah, the Allbirds. He was just like, it was perfect. And then he used, he's sort of like

the old timey Republican, which you dog whistle racism then he used, he's sort of like the old-timey Republican, which you dog whistle racism, you know, just the way the Bushes did around Willie Horton. That was a Lee Atwater special. They sort of do that, and they're good at that part, or scare people about gay people, or whatever things they want to scare white people with, essentially. And then they remove themselves from it. And Trump is so explicit, and they prefer to be implicit. And that's what Youngkin did. He was implicit rather than explicit,

and therefore got the benefit of both doing these things, attacking critical race theory, et cetera, and then also distancing himself from it. It was really, it was quite a thing to watch. It was quite a thing to watch. The most successful or the best-selling soft drink in the world is the Republican Party's new strategy, and that is Diet Coke. And everybody here is going to be, the new strategy for the next two years is going to

be Trump-lite, And that is embracing his policies, embracing his political incorrectness, embracing his lack of fear around saying, you know, quote-unquote, inappropriate things, calling things out, positioning us as out of touch, all those things, but just don't embrace the man. Just don't let him on stage with you. And this is, he is literally,

they are going to adopt this playbook. He's a prop. They're going to be Trump-like. He knows it, by the way. That's why he was so like, you could see him like, where do I fit in this power structure? I'm like,

you're the prop. You're now the prop, just so you know. His endorsement is still hugely powerful, though. Yeah, with that group. So you got to keep that little group

that you need. You need the Trumpies. You need the diehard Trumpies. but the independents don't want that. One of the things I thought, I thought when the race was lost, when McAuliffe said, was talking about, you know, parents are sick and tired of keeping their kids home. They don't, you know, they're tired of masking, even if they did, like a lot of these people were vaccinated, followed masking rules, you know, but got exasperated by schools, right? Got exasperated. And then started to see things they didn't love their kids being taught. Although everybody disagrees on that if you're a parent. You're like, oh, really? You know, I always do that when I see them. I'm like, that book? Okay. You know, why? And when McAuliffe said parents should stay out of school, you know, curriculum, I was like, what? No, like, it doesn't mean we run it, but then you allow the crazies to take over these school boards all over the place, which is happening, of course, some of which are disturbing, like trying to censor certain books that are wonderful books, like Toni Morrison's Beloved, and important books.

But when he said that, I was even like, what? What did you just say? Like, I have no say in my child's education? Are you kidding me? Like, don't say that. Don't say that. And especially to women who shifted over to Youngkin rather significantly. I actually, I think it was a tone-deaf statement. women who shifted over to Youngkin rather significantly. Anyway.

I actually, I think it was a tone-deaf statement. They grabbed it and ran with it. Yeah, that's what I mean. As someone, I've been on the board of my kid's school. I know what you meant. I do think that, I do think at the end of the day, schools, I think it's, we haven't, it's sort of like advertising. Anybody who watches TV immediately believes they're a mild expert on advertising. And anybody who knows someone who had COVID thinks all of a sudden they're a junior epidemiologist. And anyone with kids thinks they have insight into learning.

What I have found is that it is similar to being on the board of a company. You are there to support the person. You are there to provide advice. They get to make decisions because ultimately they need to be held accountable. And if you don't like the way the school is run, you fire the headmaster or the CEO. But I don't. I had a real problem with a lot of parents, and I know this is not what you're saying, a lot of parents showing up and deciding that they had PhDs in education. And it was just like, okay, we understand you have kids. We understand you have a choice here. We understand you have a huge vested interest in what we do here.

But your job is to put pressure on the board to fire and hire the right guy or gal and then let them make the decisions, quite frankly, because this is not easy. I think this was under a backdrop of people being cooped up at home. They're being told what to do, told what to do with their kids. And that their kid has to stay at home if they leave for Thanksgiving. Do you know? Yes. I'm just saying people were tired of being told, even like among, especially among the liberal groups of people, the parents I know, they're like, what are they telling us now?

Like, nobody's liking this. And I think this guy hit at the exact guy hit at that frustration when most people are reasonable. And most people are reasonable, by the way. These groups of crazies are just noisy and loud, just the way any group like this is. But I think it did hit at this, like, now what are they telling me what to do? And then he was there with, like, don't let them tell you what to do. And you're like, yeah, I don't want to, you know, I don't know. It was interesting.

Just case in point, I have a family member. I do not have a big family. We really wanted to get all the cousins together for Thanksgiving. And one of the schools that one of the cousins is in has explicitly said, if you leave for Thanksgiving, your kids need to isolate when they get back. Isolate, not just test? I think it's both. And you think, okay, so now the school is dictating my ability to have family gatherings over the holidays. And the school is trying to just be responsible and their heart's in the right place. But I mean, here's what it comes right down to, Cara.

People, wrongly or rightly, have decided whether or not the pandemic is actually over or burning out. The pandemic is over. They're like, okay, I've played by the rules. I've done my best. People are going to die. But I think people have sort of mentally decided I'm kind of done. Let the chips fall where they're going to fall. And I'm vaccinated, right? And so I'll take the risk kind of thing. Yeah. chips fall where they're going to fall. And I'm vaccinated, right?

And so I'll take the risk kind of thing. Yeah. The numbers on this are really interesting, the shifting numbers back and forth. And the power of these independents, I guess you'd call them, that shift back and forth, whether it's New Jersey or Virginia. And they are very affected by online stuff, too, like this suggestion. And so a lot of this stuff really worked. And then when you, I think what the Democrats said that was a mistake is they're like,

you know, if you're for him, you're racist. And it's like, no, don't do that because they're not, not all of them are. They are. Well, and all of that, they counter that with, well, when you look at everything, and this isn't true, but when they position far left Democrats as looking through the lens of everything, through the lens of race, then, boss, you're the racist. And that's how they've positioned us. They've positioned us as fighting

racism with segregation at a young age. And moderates go, no, the first thing we should teach our kids is about shared experience and victories and hopes before we start telling, saying to people, and I don't think most schools are doing this. Which they do. Let me just, they take individual little dumb things. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. I'm talking about messaging. They've positioned us as saying, okay, and this isn't true, but there's enough data points they can pull, they can make a character of.

They love the anecdote. At the age of 8 or 19, oppressors on this side of the classroom, oppressed on this side. And the Republicans have been masterful in positioning us as privileged people that want to lecture each other. And the Democratic Party has been a disaster around positioning. I also think there's some remnants. I think that, and again, there's no elegant way to lose a war, but I think our exit from Afghanistan was just bungled so badly. We can't get anything passed. I'm hoping this is a low point. I do think that the House and the Senate Democrats are going to get the message here. I got to think this is a

really fucking ugly call this morning talking about what get the message here. I got to think this is a really fucking ugly call this morning talking about what happened last night. And I got to think Nancy Pelosi is calling the squad and calling Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and say, get your shit together. Get your shit together. Did you see what happened last night? Yeah.

So I'm hoping that this is a burning platform, which the Democrats needed to say, okay, this is going to get really ugly in two years if we don't get our act together. Yeah, I thought Jonathan Shade, who I don't always agree with, did quite a good short story about this. Which I think, if you ask most progressive analysts why Republicans usually try to change a subject away from publication, have seized on schools as their message. They'll answer, you'll hear something like, because they're racist. There's a lot of truth to this. The Republican Party has a huge number of racists in it, and those who aren't still, by definition, tolerate racism by the party's leaders.

A non-trivial part of the backlash to education comes from parents who are offended by accurate teaching about slavery, reconstruction, structural racism, or don't want their kids to be exposed to Toni Morrison. The actual policies Republicans are pushing on schools are illiberal to make the mockery of their professed belief in free speech. And yet this kind of response has made it difficult for liberals to acknowledge

that maybe Republicans are focusing on schools, at least in part, because they detect genuine policy failures that have alienated part of the Democratic constituency. I think that's, and this last thing, let me just read it because I thought it was so good. The overlapping debates over school closing and racial equity have both characterized by heavily moralistic language compressing the issue into a false binary. It's possible to favor some measures to contain the pandemic while wanting to keep schools open or to support unvarnished history without the Robin D'Angelo jargon. That's the white fragility book. Anyway, I thought that was great. I think this is a really interesting one.

Agreed. I was forwarded the same article. They've got to get on the phone and stop, you know, don't let them, because Republicans are deeply cynical. That's what it is. And, you know, they're going to keep doing it. And then, one of the things that I was at a party, and one of them you know, is quite liberal

with people, and they're like, can you believe he's saying this? I'm like, yeah, I believe it. Like, of course he wants to win. Like, what are you talking, like, yeah. Like, you have to stop pretending they're not going to be this cynical and do this and just move in there with some elbows some sharp sharp elbows sharp elbows but you know i advocate that the militia as a sharp elbows no no i i'm playing as tough a game as they do and and instead of agonizing and attacking each other yeah our, our messaging has just been abysmal. Anyway, I feel bad for Governor McAuliffe.

I thought he was a good governor. I think he's a very decent man. And we sent him- He was a good governor. We poured honey on him and sent him hunting for bears in that election. We just did not help him at all. That's a visual. The edibles are kicking in.

I'm assuming he's not posing like you do. That's it. I'm taking off my shirt. No, please don't. I'm taking off my shirt. I'm assuming he's not posing like you do. That's it. I'm taking off my shirt. No, please don't. I'm taking off my shirt. Please, for the love of God, don't. Gun shows in town. I feel triggered.

I feel unsafe. Okay, Scott, I really don't. I don't ever feel unsafe around you. Let's pivot to a listener question. You've got, you've got. I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. This one came in an email from Sarah Smith.

I'll read it. I'm curious why tech isn't developing exciting mobile devices suitable for the tween age group. I don't know any parents who are thrilled about getting a smartphone for their kid, yet we'd all like to have a way to contact them that isn't a flip phone. A friend of mine is considering an Apple Watch for his almost 10-year-old. Is this the best option if you want to be able to contact your kiddo but don't want to have full access to the web?

Any advice for the 9 to 12 crowd? There are phones. There are phones that are, there's a product called, our producers are putting a relay. It's a screenless push-to-talk phone marketed to kids. There's not a more featured phone. I don't believe there's too many featured phones like that

beyond flip phones, which of course, at one point I gave to one of my kids because they were driving me crazy with all their apps. And they didn't know what to do because it only makes phone calls essentially. So I don't know. Scott, what do you think? Should there be different phones for kids or versions that are kid? I don't imagine any of these. What? Go back to a beeper.

A beeper. I don't imagine any of these. Like a beeper? What? Go back to a beeper. A beeper. I don't know. For me, the phone plays a critical role in the father-son relationship as it's the only thing I can threaten to take away that has any impact. Oh, wow. Go to your room.

Okay, fine. They love going to their room. I literally have no leverage over my kids whatsoever other than taking away their phone. That is the only thing they respond to. Yeah, I did that too. I did that too. You know, that's it.

Other than that, we have absolutely no leverage. I'm sure there's also, I would imagine, I don't know this, I would imagine even on iOS, there's like a kid version. Yeah, you can do all kinds. There's things you can, Sarah, you can do things on Apple phones that really make them. And there's Verizon apps that allow you to know what they're doing and to restrict times. And I did one thing where I turned off the phone after, I don't know, nine o'clock at night. And the first, I didn't tell them. We take their phone when they go to sleep.

Oh, do you? Yeah. I just turned it off just, and then they were like, why are my phones broken? I'm like, no, it's not. I have complete control of your phone. You can do all kinds of things like that, but you should have, here's what you should do. Talk to your kids about the uses of phones. I gave my kids phones pretty early compared to most parents. And we had a long talk about the uses of it, when they could use it, what they could have on it. I don't like to monitor my kids. Would you check the content on here? I don't. We've had arguments over that in our household. I don't think we should.

You know what? My ex-wife and I argue about it quite a bit. She's much more monitor-oriented, I would say, and I am over the years. Not now, but I do not think you should track your children. I just don't. I just, I have a thing about that. Something you said really resonated with me, and it was something along the lines of, we all have the right to have secrets. resonated with me, and it was something along the lines of, we all have the right to have secrets. And it's one thing when I find very objectionable content in the history of my kids' YouTube viewership at the age of 11, I think that you have an obligation

to kind of check in and see what they're doing on YouTube. But I don't think, I think people have the right to have secrets, and even, I'm not sure if that's true in an 11-year-old, and my son, my oldest now is 14, and we have some pretty heated arguments in the house. I'm like, you know what? I was doing stuff at 14 that I didn't want my parents to know about, and that was okay. Or that would have been embarrassing. And I don't know if we need to be the East German Stasi just because we can. Just because we can monitor their entire lives doesn't mean we should. German Stasi just because we can.

Just because we can monitor their entire lives doesn't mean we should. Yeah. I did it once on Snapchat with one of my sons. He was off meeting a girl. And you pretended to be the girl. I found him. You went online. Hey, handsome, heard you're a butcher.

No, he just was, he was gone. He was gone from the house at an hour I did not like. My other son had been playing, turning on the Sonos and waking him up a lot, you know, doing that game that they do. Like, I don't know, you'll see what happens. You can turn on loud, irritating music. And he came in, my younger son, and said, no, he's not here. I couldn't annoy him. Like, he didn't get annoyed because he wasn't here. And it was in the middle of the night. And then I did track him that time because I was both irritated and also worried.

And so, but in general, I tend to think either you talk to your kids about it. And I do check in, like this morning, one of them was listening to YouTube. I'm like, what are they listening to? And it turned out it was about the Continental Congress. I was like, oh, okay, good. But I try not to spy. I don't like it. I just don't like it. I don't like it. I just don't like it.

I don't know. So the advice is for the younger, younger people, there are a lot of things you can put on the phones that are – Apple Watch is not a bad idea. What else? I don't know. Flip phones tend to work. I don't know. Isn't that asking a kid to be bullied when he shows up with an Oyster phone?

Isn't that? Isn't that saying, hey, wear this members-only jacket. The kids will love it. Those are cool now, Scott. But it is amazing, it is amazing how fast all these technologies, my, I have the boys this week, so I let my youngest son sleep with me, and we had the dogs in the bed, and this morning, the first thing he said, set an alarm for, you know, 720. The alarm goes off, like, literally, I can't get this kid out of bed. He pops up and he goes, Alexa, announce. Nobody likes you, Alec. That's his younger brother. That's the first thing that runs through his mind is we need to announce the entire household. The first thing we need to hear at sunrise is nobody likes you, Alec. Can I tell you, it does not stop.

That's his first, his first sin house fire when he wakes up. Yeah, yeah. Is he wants to terrorize his brother. Yeah, that happened this morning in my house too. And it was like, okay. And then what we did, and then, you know, we did for the first 10 minutes with my youngest is we searched for like 20 minutes for the almond joy that I had eaten the night before from his Halloween take. Oh, and you just did a minute? But I was very earnest in the search. Wait a minute. Like, I don't know where it went.

I can't believe you eat almond joys. Oh, they're the best. Oh, mounds and almond joysys. Candy's from heaven. Oh, no. I'm going to send you a box. Oh, gross. I'm going to send you your own box so you stop taking your kids' candy. You got to stop doing that. Sometimes you feel like a nut, Kara. Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you live like a nut, like Scott Galloway. Anyway, that was a good question. Send us more. If you've got a question you're curious about, go to nymag.com slash pivot and submit it for the show. A lot of people on Twitter this week had lots of questions from our guests. They loved Oswalt. Oh, my gosh. Twitter loved Professor DeMotoran.

Yep, they did. They did. They did. And we'll have him back again. So lots of questions. Ask questions. We'll ask him and see if he'll answer them and different things like that. So Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. I just don't get it. Just wish someone could do the research on it. Can we figure this out? Hey, y'all. I'm John Blenhill, and I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox called Explain It To Me. Here's how it works. You call our hotline with questions you can't quite answer on your own. We'll investigate and call you back to tell you what we found. We'll bring you the answers you need every Wednesday starting September 18th.

So follow Explain It To Me, presented by Klaviyo. The Capital Ideas Podcast now features a series hosted by Capital Group CEO, Mike Gitlin. Through the words and experiences of investment professionals, you'll discover what differentiates their investment approach, what learnings have shifted their career trajectories, and how do they find their next great idea. Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Okay, Scott, give us this week's predictions.

Make it snappy. Make it snappy. In the next five days, we're going to see more progress around the Build Back America bill or the infrastructure, on both bills. We're going to see more progress in the next 72 hours than we've seen in the last 72 days. I think this was— Explain yourself. Well, nothing brings people together like being bombed from overhead. I mean, it's pretty clear that the Republicans have literally taken us behind the woodshed and kicked the shit out of us last night.

And this is going to give – create the burning platform to unite all this ridiculous infighting. The best way to defeat an enemy is to atomize them. And we've not only – they've not only split the Democratic Party in two, they split it in three. And I can't imagine that Schumer and every party leader and Pelosi are sitting down with their caucuses and saying, okay, okay. Any questions? We need to figure this shit out pronto. So I think we're going to see a lot of progress. Although, you know, I think the Republican Party is going to see a bit of a fight with Trump.

I think Trump's not going down like this. Like, he's going to, like, assert. He has no ability not to assert himself. So I don't think it's over. Some of the emails, like, were so not chill. Like, because he's got a lizard sense of what's happening, which is they're trying to, like, put him on a shelf and preserve him in amber to get rid of his grosser characteristics, of which are very gross. And so they want to keep him from volcanically erupting. But unfortunately for Trump, as I said last year, his tools get less and less.

The rallies don't work with the independents. The fans are the fans, no matter, like, it's sort of like, that's what it is. And so I think it's, I think there'll be

fractures over on the other side too. I have a media recommendation for the weekend. Okay, go ahead. Go for it. A really important

original scripted miniseries from Hulu, Dopesick. Oh, I've heard that was good. I've seen ads for it. It's fantastic. And just give me a minute here.

Michael Keaton, who's similar to John Travolta. Everybody talks about his comeback. But the reality is he never went anywhere. This is an incredible actor and an underrated actor, in my view. Nominated for Birdman, started with Night Shift, and Mr. Mom was fantastic. In my opinion, was the best Batman. I think he played a- Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. He was wonderful as an addict in a movie in the 90s. And in this, he plays a

small-town doctor. And I won't spoil it, but the show is about the opioid crisis, which is claiming more Americans every year than the entire Vietnam conflict. And for two of the last three years, for the first time in our history, we've actually seen a decline in life expectancy. But more than that, the show is really about, in my view, the show is about love. There's a young lesbian couple in it trying to just live their lives. Michael Keaton is a widower that misses his wife and can't get past the death of his wife. And it got me thinking about public policy, and I realize this is going to sound very, I don't know, existential, but we have unfettered access to

guns. We have unfettered access to capitalism. We encourage and clear all obstacles out of making money. We have pretty much unfettered access to free speech. To get in the way of people being able to decide where their heart wants to go, and I think that's what this program is about, is incredibly unproductive and incredibly un-American. And I come back to this legislation that we're not going to have maternity leave. We're going to tell people who should and shouldn't be in emergency rooms when people are sick. We're going to have tax policy that gets in the way of people loving who they want to love. I think that this show, it really struck me that the key to America, if you really want to talk about central freedoms, it really is about caring for who you want to

care about. And I think it is such a lovely series that really touches on a lot of things. Anyways, Dope Sick with the incredible Michael Keaton. And it's on a very important issue that we should really – has literally ripped apart the heartland of America for the last decade. I shall watch it. It's a fantastic show. Not until I go see The Eternals, which is coming out the next Marvel movie. I love every show. Really?

I don't even know what that is. It's the next Marvel movie. Angelina Jolie is. Really? I don't even know what that is. It's the next Marvel movie. Angelina Jolie is in Eternal. Guys in Tights? Gemma Chan. I think it's Gemma Chan. And Camille Nanjiani. It's like this incredible cast.

It's very long, and I don't care. I'm going to be very excited. Wait, is it a superhero film? Yes, it's the next Marvel movie. Oh, God. Make it stop. Jesus Christ, make it stop. No, I shall not make it stop. Make it stop. No, it's the next Marvel movie. It's like, you know, these side Marvel movies. Jesus Christ, make it stop. No, I shall not make it stop.

Make it stop. No, it was wonderful. They're wonderful, all of them. You may not insult my Marvel movies. And then, of course, you and I are going to go see Top Gun Maverick together. Oh, I'd like that. Yeah, that'll be fun. We're going to fly into the danger zone.

And you can be somewhat shirtless if you want. Not underrated. He as an artist is not underrated. No, no, no, no, no. Kenny Loggins is not underrated. I wait. Oh, my God. I love that movie so much.

Everybody footloose. I mean, that guy is living on the beach somewhere, and he should be really grateful. He could have very easily not hit it big. Kenny Loggins. Yeah, well, that's just a song. We're talking about the movie. Because you know what? Maverick's going to be in trouble again, in case you're interested, because he's brash and he does what he wants.

That's what's going to happen in the movie, just so you know. I think they should bring back Val Kilmer. They might have. Is he in this one? He might be. I don't think so. I don't think Val's ready for the screen anymore. I think his agent's like, look at Tom Cruise.

He looks like he's 22. And Val Kilmer. When he's chewing the gum. Remember that chewing gum thing with that fantastic chiseled jaw? I am dangerous. Yes. He has the chiseled jaw chewing gum. And Kelly McGillis.

Yeah. Kelly McGillis. Remember her? Yes. She was a tall drink of lemonade. Witness? Hello, hottie. She later moved into being a lesbian.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We know that. We know that. What? I don't see sexual orientation.

I just see her and Harrison Ford making sweet, sweet Amish love. Oh my God, was that hot. Was that hot. And then Alexander Gudnoff, the Amish man in the waiting in the wings. A lot of sexual tension. Anyway, I'm excited for the channels.

I will watch Dope Sick though. Anyway, this has been a great show. We'll be back on Tuesday for more. We're having so much fun, Scott. Are you excited for the journals. I will watch Dope Sick, though. Anyway, this has been a great show. We'll be back on Tuesday for more. We're having so much fun, Scott. Are you excited for PivotCon? Many people have asked me about it. I'm excited. I'm super excited.

It's going to be awesome. Miami, we're going to have, Aswath is going to be there. We're going to have, hopefully, super, super deep thinkers around crypto. It's going to be, I think it's going to be a lot of fun. And Senator Rubio,

it'll be like Sofia Coppola at the Oscars. Can I come? Can I think it's going to be a lot of fun. And Senator Rubio, it'll be like Sofia Coppola at the Oscars. Can I come? Can I come? We should have Rubio. Anyway, we'll be in Florida. All we need to do

is send him an invitation. He'll be there. We're going to Florida. Does anyone there have a cousin in Iowa? Okay, I'm in. I'm in. All right.

I'm in. Okay, Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Thanks also to Drew Burrows,

Ernie Indertod, engineer of this episode. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or be an Android user. Check us out on Spotify or frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next Tuesday for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

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