Pivot - Trump Heads to Court (Again), Tesla's Autopilot Danger, and Guest Jennifer Pahlka

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Trump Heads to Court (Again), Tesla's Autopilot Danger, and Guest Jennifer Pahlka Kara and Scott talk about George Soros' succession plan, Twitter’s new “odd couple,” and Trump's latest legal battle over classified documents. Then Friend of Pivot Jennifer Pahlka stops by to talk about her critically-acclaimed new book, Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better. Send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot. You can follow Jennifer at @pahlkadot and Recoding America is available here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

And I'm Scott Galloway. How was your weekend, Scott? I saw pictures. I had a wonderful weekend. I spoke at Expedia a few weeks ago, and I mentioned on stage that we're big football fans, me and my sons. And they had a last-minute cancellation, and they invited me to the Champions League final in Istanbul, where we saw the Champions League final in Istanbul, where we saw Inter Milan versus Man City. And my 12-year-old was just in heaven. It was just in Istanbul. It's a wonderful city. The folks from Expedia are super nice. It was just one of those amazing weekends where you bond with your son. I had an absolutely wonderful weekend. Although, anytime I put on a jersey or now talk to an executive,

that team will lose. So I'm now infecting football. I thought so. Yeah. But anyways, it was an amazing weekend. How was your weekend? It was a big weekend for you. Yeah, it was. Alex graduated high school, which was great. So there was a lot going on. There was a lot of Swisher activity. The whole family was here. And we had a great time. And the graduation was really nice. And it was nice.

He was thrilled. And then he made us go to that meat place, Fogo de Chão. So we had a good time. And we also had lunch together. He and I had lunch. And also Amanda and I went on a date where we learned how to salsa dance. That's right. Trying to keep it alive.

Let's just stick with high school. I don't know if you know just stick with high school. I was, I don't know about if you know much about my high school experience, but I experimented with sex and drugs when I was in high school, but I was part of the control group. That's good humor. That's good market research humor. Get it? I was part of the control group because I wasn't having sex or doing drugs. Yeah, I see that. And look how well it's worked out for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. So you went on a date. Tell me about your date. Sorry. Oh, well, we went to salsa. I got her for her birthday three. She loves to dance. I hate to dance. And you dance together? We're learning how to do salsa. We had a lesson. I think that should be banned in Florida. I know

it will be. You are threatening high schools. I know. I know. Somehow. Gay dancing. So it was good. It was interesting. I really don't like dancing. And so. It's because you don't drink. Is that it? Is that it?

Alcohol, your affinity for alcohol and dancing are tightly. The R is almost one there. Yeah. I actually had a good time. When I start drinking, I get rhythm and I believe it would be unfair not to share a little Scott. Then I start moving. And then I sober up and realize that was a bad idea. Wow. Share a little Scott.

Share a little Scott. Share a little Scott. Anyway, it's a nice thing to do as a couple. It was a nice family weekend. There is a lot going on, though. Something that wasn't so nice is today we'll talk about Donald Trump's latest legal battle, as well as a new report about the dangers of Tesla's autopilot system. And why is the U.S. government so backwards about using technology? Our friend of Pivot has written a whole book about it and joins us with answers. So first of all, philanthropist investor George Soros is handing control of his $25 billion empire to his 37-year-old son, Alex. I think he's been ailing. In an interview with the Wall Street

Journal, George Soros said he and his son think alike. Alex Soros made the distinction that he sees himself as more political than his father. Uh-oh, because the Soroses get attacked rather frequently by the right. The younger Soros expressed concern at another presidential run from Donald Trump and said that while money shouldn't be in politics as long as the other side is doing it, we will have to do it too. So now we have a younger Soros. I don't know. These people are really subject to so much, so many attacks. Much of the stuff he does is around democracy, preservation of democracy.

I'm sorry. I like George Soros. I like Bill Gates. It seems to me that the far right finds people who are hugely successful in trying to make the world a better place and finds conspiracy in it. And I know some people who work for George Soros, who worked at his private equity fund, exceptionally generous, exceptionally smart, you know, balls the size of fucking bowling balls and basically broke.

He made these huge bets in the 80s and 90s that could have against the pound. He made just these enormous bets that paid off. And then he took his billions and he is very committed to free elections and democracy. And of course, they're like these crazies decide that somehow. And then let's not forget how Meta financed a group or did business with a group that was circulating anti-Semitic tropes about him. a group or did business with a group that was circulating anti-Semitic tropes about him. But I don't know anything about his son. But if they're going to be billionaires, I hope that they're like George Soros. Yeah, well, we'll see how well he taught him. We'll see how it goes. I think we're going to need all that money, Alex Soros. So speaking of small balls,

as Linda Iaccarino, not her, I think she has larger ones, enters her second week as CEO of Elon Musk's Twitter. The Wall Street Journal is asking, can Twitter's odd couple make it work? It's a question Scott and I have definite opinions on, but I love this article because it came out over the weekend calling them the Mad Men meets Mad Max. Iaccarino is still limited what she can do with advertisers through July because of her contract with NBC Universal. Of course, this weekend, Elon Musk made her job so much easier by tweeting a picture of a woman's boobs, large boobs, with the quote, augmented reality is amazing. Let's remember, everyone, this man is 51 years old. Let's just keep that in mind. But go ahead. I don't mind that. If Elon Musk wants to make stupid eight-year-old things, and

this, on the scale of things he has done, this does not bother me. It's not great for Yaccarino. Come on, it's not. Oh, it's going to get a lot worse for Cara. Yes, okay, all right. This will be literally a speeding ticket. She won't even call him about this.

When he starts mocking the disabled or insulting advertisers or when massive misinformation hits this platform, this is nothing. This is literally a light rain before the tornado of shitstorms she is about to enter, being in business with this guy. It's been a shitstorm tornado for quite a while, just this week also, which will make her life more difficult. Twitter's refusing to pay its Google Cloud bill. It's been trying to renegotiate the contract since March. It's a problem because it helps with the bots and the cease, Sam, that the child pornography

stuff, that's what they're using the Google Cloud for. So that'll be an issue, I think. He's sort of attacking the things that she needs to make it a safe place for advertisers. Yeah, I don't. It's going to be really fascinating to see this play out. So what is the time frame you give her before leaving? I always get stuff wrong on timing. I would say it'd be six months. It'll probably be 18. Time goes faster than you think. I think she's not the CEO. She's been brought in as a heat shield. My guess is they said, look, what is her background? Her background is she's an incredibly talented, basically, chief revenue officer who established a strong relationship with advertisers

and rings the register, right? What Tim Armstrong did at Google. These people are super important because they're the ones that are bringing the money. And she did a great job, my understanding is, at NBCUniversal. People like her. But he said he's in charge of product and strategy, which basically means he's still the CEO. She has been given an impossible task because he's going to continue to say stupid things and alienate people. And Twitter is the fastest way for a CMO to get fired. CMOs are like second lieutenant in Vietnam. They last about 18 months. Oh, 18 months. Wow.

It's a terrible job because it's never been fully defined. It's usually brought into second guess and take money out of the businesses. And the best CMOs serve as an internal consulting group, get a lot of credibility such that it's a pull. But usually what they do is they show up and they start heckling from the cheap seats about the different business units, how they should be treating the brand. And the people who actually run the businesses and make the money have the power and at some point get fed up with the CMO and start complaining to the CEO and the CMO is out. It is a very difficult job. I'm not even sure the CMO position will exist in 10 to 20 years.

Right. They like to throw parties, though. Well, they're fun. And that's, again, relationships, right? My guess is she's been tasked with re-strengthening or re-establishing relationships with key advertisers and then getting them to spend. My guess is she'll get some people who will just write a check out of loyalty to her. On a risk-adjusted basis, this is the worst media spend in the world. Yeah, 100%.

Anyway, we'll see, because their other businesses aren't doing great. They're reportedly under 500,000 Twitter blue users, if that's the correct number. So I think one of the things that they're trying to do is pay users for ads in their replies. By the way, ads have been noticeably terrible on Twitter of late. But Elon noted the creator must be verified and only ads served to verified users count. And so they're going to try to do that.

More tricks, more tiny little tricks. So Apple gets an unbelievable price premium because the brands that get the biggest price premium or have the biggest margins have usually self-expressive benefit. It says something about you when you graduated from Dartmouth. And so as a result,

they're able to charge 90% gross margins. They cost, the class costs $700 to deliver. We charge $7,000 for it at an elite university. Apple is 550 bucks of chipsets and sensors. They charge 1100 bucks for it because it says you're one of the 1 billion wealthiest people on the planet and the best storytellers. The Panerai says you're Italian and masculine.

These things, whenever there's huge margin, it has self-expressive benefit. The blue check had self-expressive benefit. It said that you had achieved a certain level of influence and credibility. Now what it says, it's the equivalent of a MAGA hat. When I look at my comments, the ones that are most aggressive around shitposting Biden or push back on me whenever I say anything about, it's all blue checks.

And he has aggregated, like the Elon stans tend to be more conservative. And it's now the opposite of self-expressive benefit. It is literally like that Larry David show, putting on a MAGA hat. It says you're very conservative. Quite frankly, the comments I get from people with blue checks tend not to be that thoughtful. I put out a post on No Mercy, No Malice about the mixed reality headset. Christina Malice, about the mixed reality headset. And the comments on profgalloway.com underneath the newsletter were really thoughtful and interesting, and a lot of very thoughtful and civil pushback. The CEO of Cloudflare said, you're not thinking about this right. There's

opportunities here, here, and here. My old business partner said, Scott, wouldn't you pay this money to have a 4K screen with you wherever you are, a 4K monitor? People talked about all kinds of B2B applications. And I started thinking, wow, there's real merit here. I should be open to this stuff. You go on Twitter and people are just, it's totally irresponsible to assess something without having even tried it. And yet their feed is talking it up. And I'm like, have you tried it? Show me an emotional reaction where you're not able to separate a business issue and a political issue from the person. And instead of talking about the issue, you start attacking the

person. And I'm going to show you a blue check. Yeah. Yeah. I still can't get rid of my blue check. I keep trying, but it doesn't go off. So they can give it to you and you can't opt out of it? I can't. I can't get off of it. I can't take it off because I'm, you know, I just can't take it off. I've tried all the little ways. I'll keep trying the different things people suggest to me, but I can't get rid of it. But I'm certainly not paying for it. Anyway, we'll see where it goes. Another piece of news that Elon actually weighed in on, the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski has died

in prison of apparent suicide. And Elon tweeted that the domestic terrorist, quote, might not have been wrong about technology being detrimental to society. I think Elon Musk is detrimental to society at this point. But he was found unresponsive at a medical facility in prison where he was serving life sentence. This is someone, just so people are aware of who he's thinking is right, spent 20 years terrorizing victims with a homemade bomb sent through the mail. By the time he was caught, three people had died and 24 were injured,

some rather severely. So, great guy to back. I don't know, seems like he was a math prodigy, obviously lost his way rather significantly. You know, if you remember the Unabomber stuff, God, that was seared into my memory at the time. It's kind of a fascinating character. You know, he went to Harvard when he was 16. He did. And I don't like to talk or reference his manifesto or what he believed because I don't want to bring any attention to it. And I believe a decent proxy for your success as a person in your life is if you die under bright lights surrounded by strangers, you have failed. If you figure out a way to die at home or with people who love you surrounding strangers, you have failed. If you figure out a way to die at

home or with people who love you surrounding you, you've won. And I like the fact that this man died alone. And he maimed 24 people. 24, yeah. Caused terror. Killed three people. And killed three people. I mean, the amount of misery that he caused. So my feeling is it's unimportant what he stood for. I have no desire to examine it or bring any attention to it. This was someone who was a terrorist who died alone and whose life was so awful, he spent all of his time and energy trying to figure out how to kill himself. And so, you know, I hope, my guess is I don't believe there is a hell, but my guess is he's sharing a cell with Epstein and other people in hell.

So good riddance. And I don't expect nor want to ever speak about him again. Anyway, it's a tragedy for the people who are killed, for Ted Kaczynski. Burn in hell, I think, is basically what we're saying. Okay, let's get to our first big story. Donald Trump makes history as the first former president to be federally indicted. The former president is accused of violating seven federal laws and faces 37 separate charges related to the classified documents he took from the White House and kept at Mar-a-Lago.

Law enforcement is preparing for unrest ahead of Trump's federal court appearance in Miami today. For those keeping track, it's Trump's second indictment so far this year. The first was in April on New York state charges related to the Stormy Daniels hush money payments. He was also the first president to be impeached twice by the House of Representatives. So here we are. He's, of course, crowing and acting like he's winning. He could face two more indictments this year in cases related to his effort to overturn the 2020 election. There's a Georgia investigation into election interference and then a federal investigation to Trump's role in January 6th.

So Biden's not saying much. And obviously the Justice Department is doing this. So he's hands off of this. All the presidential candidates, including, I didn't want to mention him, Vivek Ramaswamy. He's such a little toad.

He said if he gets elected, he'll pardon Trump. Whatever, Vivek, you're never going to get elected. Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, both who near the bottom of the polls, are denouncing Trump's actions, along with Bill Barr, Trump's attorney general. Hutchinson went so far as to say Trump should drop out. Of course, he won't. DeSantis, Haley, and Pence all made statements essentially criticizing the Justice Department moves, but saying it's time to move past the Trump era, which nobody is.

I don't know what to say. moves, but saying it's time to move past the Trump era, which nobody is. I don't know what to say. He says he's at no chance he'll drop out, and he would take a plea only if they paid him, which, of course, he's always looking for a cheap buck, that guy. So, and most Republicans are with him, are with him. This was, so I read the indictment. I look at the internment of the Japanese. I look at the slaughter of Native Americans. I look at the war on drugs as a thinly veiled attempt to keep people of color down. I look at, I mean, we have so many, I look at the invasion of Iraq. We have so many stains on the American story. Nothing matches Trump. Trump has diminished our standing globally for decades. He is corrupt and he is visibly stupid.

Nixon was corrupt. He was not stupid. You know, I think W made the stupidest decision in recent history, but I don't think he's corrupt. I actually think he's a good man. Donald Trump is both corrupt and stupid and has brought tremendous damage to our standing around the world that will take us decades to repair. And after reading this indictment, and I didn't even see this coming,

I was focused. I thought the case in New York was stupid. I don't think America cares about paying off pornographers or prostitutes. Not for this guy. Not for this guy. I don't think, I thought Georgia might stick, but I wasn't sure after reading this indictment and then talking to a couple of legal scholars. I remember I remember thinking, you know what, we got him. Because if you look at crimes, it's the severity of the crime. He was literally sharing documents with people. He was sharing confidential information on security assets, including agents. information on security assets, including agents. In this data was information on a plan to invade Iran. And then it goes to state of mind. And this is the difference, really the big difference between Hillary's emails and this. Hillary didn't know she was violating the law. As soon as she found out about it, she was cooperated and the Justice Department decided and the DOJ decided not to move forward. He had confidential information, and he's on tape bragging that it's confidential information and then sharing information about a classified potential invasion of Iran with non-security

clearance individuals. And then his lawyers violate client attorney privilege, and the judge grants it to them because he has enlisted them in their corruption. I mean, the legal scholars, the two legal scholars I talked to took me through everything here. And after listening to them, I'm like, oh, my God, we got him. And the laws are very severe here. Correct. There's a couple of things. Obviously, the judge is back at that kooky judge from Florida, Eileen Cannon, which is worrisome to people that she'll drag it out.

That's one. Two, he's trying to argue it's the Presidential Records Act, which should have been applied here. And it's like he should get a hand slap for doing what he did. Now, again, Bill Barr, of all people, put a very cogent argument. He's like, had he had them and then he gave them back, the Presidential Record Act would apply. He just gets to return them. But he kept lying to return them. He wouldn't tell the amount of stuff he took, the level of security that he didn't honor, and that he lied to, he constantly lied in face of subpoenas.

Bill Barr was like, he's toast. He was like, he's toast. There's a cover up. Yeah. But still, still, all these Republicans are going for it with him, like saying it's no big deal. Hillary, Hillary, Hillary, Joe Biden, Mike Pence apparently should have gone to jail. They all should have gone to jail if Trump is going to.

Granted, I have a bias. I feel like the worm is turning even the Republicans. I think their language is changing. You have Republican candidates now for the first time saying he should withdraw from the race. Look, at the end of the day, it's important what those folks say in terms of political opinion. But every legal scholar I've talked to is like, oh, God, he's fucked. Do you remember that scene where Carl says to Tom, well, let's just break it down. You're seen as a blundering interloper. And he's like, you are fair and squarely fucked. After spending some time looking at this thing, and by the way,

the Daily from the New York Times defines incredible news and journalism done in this format. I listened to their podcast on this. They do an outstanding job. I felt so much better educated, and I thought they were balanced and thoughtful. But on several dimensions here, he not only broke the law, he did it so blatantly and was so stupid and tried to cover it up and left irrefutable evidence every step of the way. People are still nerve-wracked about it because he's going to continue to fight. He's pushing back. He's being as obtuse and difficult as ever. It's also a major test for social media with lots of Trump backers escalating the rhetoric.

Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs tweeted, we now have reached a war phase. Eye for an eye. Carrie Lake, that show-dish harpy, put up a video on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram saying, essentially, if we want to get Trump, you're going to have to go through me and my 75 million other Americans, many of whom are NRA members. I guess she was making a gun reference, Carrie. Ooh, you scare me. You scare me, Carrie. We're going to have to go through a Fox host from the local station in Arizona. Well, that's literally the shortest curb in history.

You know, I could take her down in one punch. In any case, Senator Mark Warner is calling on platforms to enforce their terms of service here, saying it's, quote, deeply concerning to see calls for political violence in response. You know Twitter's not going to do anything, so let's just take that off. But, you know, there's escalating violence. And so, that's how these people work. If they don't have an argument, they start to punch or shoot, really. It'll be interesting to see if he goes on, he starts using Twitter or the others more. He has truth social, I guess, and that gets out enough. I have close friends, Ricardo Segura, Fernando Llamas, Orlando Mochant from El Salvador, Venezuela. And they're in alternative investments, came to America, went to business

school here, stayed here. And all of them said something that was really illuminating for me. They said, you don't appreciate as a citizen how powerful the rule of law is here, that everyone is subject to it and everyone gets a fair shake in terms of defense. He said, in the countries we come to, the wrong call is made and people show up and take all your shit away or worse. And you don't have defense, you don't have rights, private property is not respected. He said, Americans just don't. And the reason why any stock that goes public in America trades in a much higher multiple is because there is rule of law and respect for private property and one set of laws that apply to everybody. I think the law is going to take over here. I really do. I think the violations here, the legal, the criminality here, and the

statutes of violates are so clear. And also, America takes very seriously, as it should, its nuclear secrets. I don't think he can get out of this one. I don't know. He's very lithe in that regard. He's overweight and stumbling, but he tends to get out of things because he's so greasy. Because he's not taking those tango classes, you sexy minx. Salsa! We almost took bachata, but we took salsa.

You don't know the difference? Bachata. It's a slower salsa kind of something, I think. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. You and I should take salsa lessons together. We would look like Ichabod Crane and Herve Villachez taking dance class. It would look so fucking ridiculous. It'd be good on TikTok.

Yeah. But it would be in the Muff Report, which is my favorite follow. I say that. We have to come up with a TikTok scheme. So that might be one of the ways we go. Anyway, President Trump, we hope all bad things happen to you in this regard. We hope you go to jail and they throw away the key. They're not going to do that. But nonetheless. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back. Tesla's autopilot has been involved in more crashes than previously reported. And why doesn't the government do a better job of using technology

to provide basic services? Our friend of Pivot, Jennifer Polka, joins us to explain. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we'd have these images of somebody sitting, crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter.

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

We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim and we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Uncertainty. Self-doubt., stressing about not knowing where to start.

In, plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out, word art. Sorry, live laugh lovers. In, knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. country. Tesla has the largest charger network in the country with 17,000 plugs. They tend to be faster, more reliable, and more conveniently located than their competitors. The new deals give GM and Ford EVs access to 12,000 Tesla plugs. That means Tesla's North American charging standard will control nearly three quarters of the EV market in the U.S. This is a win. They were very prescient about putting these in. Obviously, you have to if you want people not to have

distance. It's distance fear, whatever you want people not to have distance. It's distance fear, whatever. There's a word for it. It will qualify for some $5 billion in federal funding marked for public charging infrastructure, plus more revenue as Ford and GM customers pay to charge up, although it's a very low margin business eventually. GM and Ford could win because they get double the charger access. And then what happens to these non-Tesla charging systems? There's lots of competitors, EVgo, there's a whole bunch. I would assume everyone will have to adopt the Tesla

standard, at least in the United States, but I'm not sure. What do you think about that part? And then we'll get to the second part. Look, I don't think there's any getting around it. I think it's a huge victory, a huge win for Tesla because effectively, they're now the iOS, the operating system, or kind of the equivalent analog, I think, would be the App Store, where everybody who shows up to their charger, and after a staggering investment by them, I'm not saying they haven't earned it, but it's going to have to comply to their format. And at some point, I would imagine Tesla's going to figure out a way to impose economic or non-economic taxes on everybody that wants to operate on, instead of iOS, Tesla OS, which is their charging infrastructure. There's no getting around it.

I think it's a huge victory for Tesla. Yeah. It's like someone was comparing it to Sony versus Betamax, like ultimately, video cassettes. And it is. It is. It's a really good thing. I always thought they were very prescient about this. This is an important part of they identified the issue of people being scared of being between

charges. You get now around 300 miles. Sometimes they go a little less or more, depending on how you use the car, the weather and this and that. But some of them are getting up to 500. The Lucid, I think, is up to 500, though it probably comes in below that. And so this is a good thing. This is a very good thing. And everyone will have to dance to his tune in this area. Probably we do need one standard, like gas stations and everything else. This is the way it goes everywhere. Eventually, it is a low margin business. Eventually. It's not like the App Store precisely, because I think ultimately there'll be copycats, et cetera, et cetera. So we'll see. We'll see. It's a good thing. We like this. We like this, Elon, for sure. Let's move to the bad Tesla news, though. A new Washington Post report

revealed that Tesla's autopilot has been involved in far more crashes than previously reported. Autopilot has been involved in 736 accidents and 17 fatalities since 2019. That's according to an analysis of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data. 11 of the 17 fatal accidents have happened since last May. One expert says Elon Musk's decision to expand the rollout of full-service driving may be to blame for the increase in the accident numbers. NHTSA has been an active investigation into Tesla autopilot, including full self-driving.

Another detail in the report, the global computer ship shortage led Elon Musk to push for cost-saving measures in 2021, which led Tesla to get rid of radar sensors. This is a big deal among having just interviewed a lot of autopilot people. They find it worrisome that he doesn't have more points of view along these cars. Most cars have LiDAR, radar, cameras, etc. He only has one or two, one, I think. The Post says former Tesla employees' leadership played a role in pushing technology out to the public before it was ready.

Back in February, Tesla shareholders filed a lawsuit accusing Elon and Tesla of overstating the safety of autopilot and self-driving. He argues the long-term benefits of rolling out the technology to drivers means technology learns faster. He does have a point. Waymo and Apple, on the other hand, reportedly set strict rules around how their technology learns. That is absolutely true. I just spent some time with them.

So thoughts? Again, sloppy and doesn't care about people dying. There's two things here. The sort of big tech mentality of move fast and break things, even if it hurts the country or hurts people. You know, there's definitely something there it's uncomfortable and should be looked at. The question I would have is that driving is dangerous. I went to a big high school, university high school in West Los Angeles.

And we used to on a regular basis show up and you walk through the front of the school where all the trophies are. And on a regular basis, when I was in high school, there'd be a memorial, there'd be a thing with a picture of a kid and flowers. And you're like, oh, fuck. Because you knew what it was.

And it was someone who had been killed. And almost always, it was the same thing. It was a drunk driving accident. We didn't have airbags. We didn't have collapsible steering wheel shafts, non-shatterproof. And we didn't have public transportation in LA. And we also didn't have the education from Mothers Against Drunk Driving. And we used to get, I'm not proud of this,

we used to get ridiculously fucked up and take to the roads of Los Angeles. And kids were getting killed all the time. Car deaths have gone way down, way down because of education around alcohol and driving and because of airbags. They're much safer, but still, it's a long-winded way of getting to, I would just want to see it adjusted for number of trips relative to number of trips in non-autonomous driving fatalities. Yeah, absolutely. I was going to make that point. Yeah. I mean, obviously humans are more fatal. It's just, this is one of the complaints I heard, especially off the record from the other competitors is like, he's messing it up for all of us because we do are aware of these problems and they're going to happen.

But sloppiness makes it worse, right? Sloppiness and not caring and pushing it through. You've got to have some semblance of caring about safety, at least, if not actually caring about safety. And I think one of the problems is the rushing it out too quickly on something that gets tons of it. Now, look, it's 17 accidents versus probably hundreds of accidents, maybe thousands of accidents at the same time and crashes. At the same time, this is under scrutiny and therefore is going to be under regulatory

regimes and things like that. And the sloppier they are in rolling these things out, the worse it's going to be. Even if these accidents are not, I mean, I feel terrible for the 17 people who died, but it's going to be under much more scrutiny. And so being sloppy about it seems not the way to go. And I know that most of the others are sort of like, oh, this guy, like this guy, this guy that keeps fucking it up for the rest of us, even though he's obviously the pioneer here. What I don't understand is why they didn't start. It strikes me that autonomous driving goes hand in glove for trucking, long haul trucking late at night when there are just no other people or cars to hit. I'm befuddled as to why they wouldn't start there and then move

into consumer. They are. I literally just did an interview with Aurora. That's where they're starting. Because in my Tesla, you could do autonomous driving mode or whatever it was, and I found it very uncomfortable. But anyways, it just needs to be adjusted for, I do think innovation comes at a cost, and I would just like to see the numbers adjusted relative to people who are just, you know, non-autonomous. Yeah, I think the thing is that they don't reveal it, right? They're not, you're just playing a little fast and loose. And the other makers think it's a problem because it's going to have downstream effects for them because they'll be lumped in with sort of more sloppy behavior or yelling at the government. They don't particularly want to yell at the government.

Not to defend Elon, but it was because of Elon that the market exists. That's correct. That's correct. I get it. But you still don't want someone like running around screaming at the government. It's a very Travis Kalanick way of behaving. And so you're going to have these issues as you move forward. They're certainly a lot less dangerous than people, but you're still going to get a scrutiny.

you move forward, they're certainly a lot less dangerous than people, but you're still going to get a scrutiny. And so I think it's incumbent on the people doing it to be extra safe and extra respectful of the problems they have, even as they're learning them. And everybody knows that once you get them out there, the longer term benefits are greater because the technology learns. And that is 100% true. But we'll see. But we like the chargers. Maybe be a little more careful, Elon, on the accidents. Let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Jennifer Palka served as Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the Obama White House and is the founder of Code for America, a nonprofit that works to improve government digital services. She's written a new book called Recoding America, Why Government is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do

Better. Welcome, Jennifer. Thanks for having me. It's good to see you. So talk a little bit about this problem. This has been a problem we've talked about for years. If you're signing up for anything, the public digital infrastructure has long been far behind the private sector. Talk to me about why that is. Because as technology moves forward and people are used to using these things, it's unusual the government is now it's gotten better, but it's certainly not caught up to the way we behave in our private lives. Yeah. And I think a lot of people look at that and they say, oh, wow, we've really got to get these platforms onto the cloud, or we just need the better programmers to come from the private sector. But I wrote the book because I think it's kind of a deeper problem than that. And I wanted people to understand it. You know, a good example would be the clearing the criminal records. This is a

project that we did at Code for America. It's still going on where, you know, if we had all these like, gathering data and information from the government and filling out really complicated forms, and then sending something into, like, various different government offices and waiting for your court date. And then, you know, if you get that, then you have to go back to all these offices. So, like, nobody got their expungement. And I think a lot of people look at something like that and they say, okay, and I think a lot of people look at something like that and they say, okay, this process has been designed to be hard for people. We must not want them to get those records expunged, but I think the deeper problem is that it hasn't really been designed at all. These are processes that sort of accumulated or accreted over time, and it's been no one's job

to go back and look at them and say, wait a minute, these are just records in a database. There's a database somewhere that says this is a felony. We can find all the ones that are eligible and we can change them. And, you know, it's really got to be someone's job to actively design these services that work for people. One of the hard things is besides money, and we'll get to that in a second, you described the outdated technology that's in use. Some systems are using COBOL, which is a 60-year-old program language. The IRS has been planning to update one of its core systems for the past 23 years. Talk about why it's difficult for government to make pace. There's so much great

software out there to make updates. Well, because we don't just go update stuff in government. We have these really complex processes. And the processes have to do with going and finding all the possible requirements that anybody could think of. I mean, really, everyone can think of. They all get to pile them all on. That takes several years. It can take a decade, and it has in many cases. Then they bid that out to a vendor, and that can take a decade and it has in many cases, then they bid that out to a vendor.

And that can take a couple of years. And then they have often, you know, a couple to 10 to 15 years to build it all. And by the time they do all that, the software that they're going to get back is, you know, by definition, wildly outdated. So that it's not just that we, you know, it's not just that we don't do it right. It's that we have these processes that often force us to do it wrong. Now, of course, there are great public servants who are getting the right outcomes there. But, you know, I think about this guy who I met when I was working in the White House, who was at the Department of Veterans Affairs, who had some software that just really didn't work for processing veterans' claims. And I was asking him about, you know,

hey, why does it do this? Or why'd you make this choice? And he kept saying, that's not my call. I don't have an opinion on the business requirements. And in fact, I teach my staff not to have an opinion on the business requirements. If they ask me to build a concrete boat, I'm gonna build a concrete boat.

And you know, that's how we get there is that we have these processes that build concrete boats and they don't float. Nice to meet you. When you look at the landscape of where government intersects with technology, whether it's figuring out better record storage for healthcare or access to broadband for long-term neighborhoods or figuring out maybe some sort of a digital currency backed by the U.S. government, where would you say the lowest hanging fruit is for the government to get behind a certain technology? I think that it is not about a certain technology that we should get behind. I think it's about,

really, in the end of the day, empowering public servants to use their judgment. We actually have great people in government, and they're sometimes blocked from updating our technology because they're told to do a very, very specific thing instead of to make it work. So we have this whole infrastructure that's about fidelity to process instead of getting the outcomes that we need. And I just think that there's not a particular technology that's going to save us until we have a different approach and we're supporting smart public servants to do the right thing. I think most people would agree that that's

a cultural issue and the U.S. government with its resources and its mandate and its talent could use an improvement in culture to kind of get things done. But if that were to happen, where do you think the biggest opportunity is where we would realize a better commonwealth? Oh, that's a good question. I mean, in general, I think it's hard to answer because everything feels like an existential threat these days. But ultimately, you know, when people have bad experiences with government

services, particularly means-tested benefits, where this whole apparatus of let everybody pile everything on. So you get, for instance, in supplemental nutrition assistance, it's like the form that we were looking at in California had 212 questions. And a bunch of them were like, not only confusing, but kind of insulting, like assumed that you were a drug dealer, assumed that you had traded your SNAP benefits for ammunition or guns. People have these bad experiences and then they vote at lower rates. This has been shown through research. I think that alienation that we see when people are frustrated, I mean, it doesn't have to be means-tested benefits. It can be like filing your taxes. I did this with my

20-year-old daughter last year, trying to actually file her taxes that should have been really simple. And I just wanted to tear my hair out. So you get this frustration with government that carries over to your feelings about voting and civic engagement and democracy. And that is such a threat to the country that we need to have right now. We need people who believe in government, want to get involved, you know, that are actually voting in elections, especially those who are the people who need these government services the most. Does the quality of service have to do with the user base? You've given examples of gumming up certain veterans benefits. So far, you mentioned

this California's SNAP program. These are food benefits. Is that one of the problems? Is it the people they don't care much about? So why not just make it more difficult for them? Is it the people they don't care much about, so why not just make it more difficult for them? I think that there's simply more neglect in these areas where there's sort of not a constituency with a powerful voice. There's a lot of cases where it really isn't, in my mind, primarily intentional. It is, in some cases, absolutely intentional. You look at Social Security. I actually probably shouldn't admit this. I manage my grandmother's social security for her online. I use login.gov and I go

check her stuff and make sure she's getting her checks and manage her finances. It's really easy. Social security is great because they have a really powerful constituency. People are going to stand up for them. But it's also because we've had really good people at Social Security making this good for like, you know, 15 years they've been working on their digital. It's been great. So it just depends on the agency and nothing's directed from the center, correct? Like it just depends on where they're from, but which agency it comes from. It's both. I think having a powerful constituency saying this has to be good helps a lot. But yes, it can also just be, you know, the agencies that have had the power to figure it out a little bit better. Or they get a lot of negative attention, like with Obamacare, signing up for that.

That was a big deal when that didn't roll out, which is probably during your time, correct? Yeah, I happened to be there. It was sort of the reason in the end of the day that we were able to stand up the United States Digital Service was that we'd been trying and there wasn't a clear enough reason to have it happen until healthcare.gov fell over. But that's another really good example of how that dynamic can happen in agencies. So I tell in the book the story of a career public servant who was at Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, which is CMS. That's the agency that had to implement the ACA in the form of healthcare.gov. She was really well-respected, and so she was pulled into helping fix healthcare.gov.

But then after that, she really wanted to show that the agency could do better. And she gets thrown, you know, the next big law that comes down from Congress. It was called MACRA. It doesn't really matter what it stands for. And she really decides she's going to do this right. And I think the story of what she has to fight against to get the rollout of MACRA to be the exact opposite of the rollout of MACRA to be the exact opposite of the rollout of healthcare.gov. Like in the end, when they launched this, doctors are delighted. Like

they have braced the call center for, you know, all the complaints that doctors are going to call in with because they always do whenever there's a change to one of these things. And instead people are calling it and going, oh my God, this is so easy. There must be something wrong. Am I on the wrong website? But how she got there was not like, okay, it's now in the cloud or like I got better programmers. Though, of course, those two things were true. It's that she got handed regulations that were going to make it impossible to be good and said, wait a minute, that's not going to work.

You're going to have to talk to me about this. We're going to have to change it. So, you know, early example, actually, this is one of her colleagues from the United States Digital Service. They say, okay, well, the first thing that doctors have to do is choose, are you a sole practitioner or are you in a group practice? And they're like, well, by the way, there are nine different definitions of a group practice. Right, right. Well, you know, and most digital teams in government will just say, oh, okay, I guess I have to code all that in.

And these guys said, no, that's not going to work. Like, we can't make something that makes sense to people unless we can consolidate some of these definitions. And she had a whole bunch of other things like that where she really stood up for a service that would work. It's often a single person, right? It's often a single person who does these things. Well, she will tell you it absolutely wasn't a single person.

I like to call her out because I think she's an incredible leader that a lot of people talk about, but she will tell you it's a team of people who support each other. She's a really great leader, though, and let's give her credit for that. Let's talk about long and short-term solutions. Are there any short-term solutions whatsoever? I mean, in the short term, I think the biggest thing we could do is like force government

to be able to hire people more quickly. We've got so many amazing technologists who want to go work in government and it takes nine months to get them hired. And there's some stuff that the agencies could do. There's stuff that Congress could do. And there's stuff that the average American could do to ask their representatives to fix this.

So are there a lot that want to get into it? Or has that always been the push is that they could go into companies and make more money? Although there's been layoffs at those places, there might be more opportunity for good staffers. Well, even before the layoffs, we were starting to see a lot of people sort of disillusioned with tech who were saying, you know, is this really how I want to spend my life? Like, I could be helping, yeah, people get their food benefits. I could be helping refugees come into this country. Like, the mission is actually super, super compelling. We did have trouble getting people in in the beginning.

But once they see it and they see what they can do, they kind of really want to help. And now we have more people than, not more people than we can use, but more people than we can get through the system right now. And they're really good people. A lot of what we've been talking about is kind of cultural issues. And some of that comes down to, we've talked about the end user and technology, but a lot of it is the people that go to work in government. And as someone who teaches kids at an elite university, I see a lot of very impressive kids go into the armed services. A lot of kids decide that they want to go make a shit ton of money and then run for elected office.

But you don't see a lot of impressive kids thinking, I want to go to work in government, just at kind of a field level. What do we need to do to create better pathways or make working for the U.S. government more attractive to younger, talented people? Well, I do think that's changing. I have a stat from Stanford in the book, actually. I don't remember the exact stat. But yes, if you look overall, there's not as many kids coming out of Stanford who want to go to government. But if you slice it by what they say is most important to them, if it's making money, no, they're not going to go. But if you look at those who said mission as their number one thing they want to do

they're disproportionately wanting to go into government so i think we may be getting some of the right kids do we need more yes and to make it more attractive i think they have to understand the impact they can have and then i mean it's not just that they don't think they're going to make as much money i mean i think a lot of people who do this will tell you they're happy people, even though it's really frustrating because they feel like it's really meaningful work. But the basic stuff of like, even if you want to do it and you get stuck in a nine-month hiring process and along comes like BCG or McKinsey gives you an offer, you may just take it because you can't wait nine months.

So there's some really basic stuff that we can do to fix the hiring pipeline, to fix how civil service works that I think would just, I know it sounds really basic, but would go a long way to getting these folks in. Let me ask you, so what's the longer term solution? like a political constituency behind what I'd call state capacity. You know, can government do what it's supposed to do, what we decide to do together? Like, can we actually execute on it? So I think mostly when we think about like our civic roles in life, it's like we're gunning for a particular policy that we want passed. And that's great. We should be. But if we're not also, or at least equally obsessed with can the government deliver on that policy once it's passed, we're just going to stay stuck in this place. It's just like the wheels just spin. And so I think people have to think differently.

We have to push our elected leaders to think differently and really focus on, and also I'd say philanthropy. Like philanthropy is constantly pushing for policy change, but not funding the state capacity to have that policy change mean anything. Right. And then people have disrespect for the government because it's not working. So are there any opportunities for AI? Are you thinking about this? Are you optimistic about how the government could use it or concerned? Or both? Yeah. I mean, I think like everybody, I'm both. So I'll tell you, I was hanging out the other day, as one does at the New Jersey Department of Labor. And there's a fantastic team there that's really

making unemployment insurance work a lot better. And we know how hard that was for all the states. But like one little thing I saw was this designer who's done a lot of work on different benefits over the years. And she had been in the process of helping New Jersey redesign all the notices that people get. So like you apply, you get an email, you get letters, all these things are really confusing. And if you've ever gotten one of these things, you read them and you're like, what does this say? I just got one from the IRS. I don't understand it. Yeah. So you don't know what it means. So she is like a genius at rewriting these things so that you know what you're supposed to do when you get the damn letter. And she'd been going

through them at a certain pace. And then ChatGPT came out and she just started feeding the letters into ChatGPT with the prompt, can you rewrite this so I can understand it better? Now, she didn't then go publish that. She took it to the policy team, like she always does, and said, how much of this is right? How much of this is wrong? But they were getting through these rewrites and redesigns at a way faster rate. Stuff that's very easy to explain that they can't get wrong does tend to work really well in these environments. That makes total sense. So I call that like under the banner of, this is like a line from the book.

It has to make sense to a person. This is what the teams that are fighting their sort of overly complex policy and procedure requirements say. Like, I get that it's complicated. It has to make sense to a person. So this is a way in which AI can help government services make sense to a person. Now, the flip side of it is, yes, AI can take super complex stuff and make sense of it. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse not to simplify the stuff. So can I give you one story

about how complicated this stuff is? So when I was working in California on clearing this backlog of 1.2 million unpaid unemployment insurance claims in like July, August, September 2020, sort of the height of the pandemic craziness, at a colleague who was working with these claims processors sort of day by day, side by side, asking them questions so she could figure out like where we were stuck. And one of these people kept saying to her, I'm not quite sure about the answer to that question. I'm the new guy. And finally, she was like, okay, you've told me you're the new guy like 10 times. How long have you been here? And he said, I've been here 17 years. And he said, the people who really know how this stuff works have been here 25 years or longer.

So that's why we couldn't clear it is you only had this many claims processors. So like 40% of the claims had to go through and experience claims processors, and you could not manufacture new ones for 25 years. So every staff member that they hired, supposedly the health, the claims processors, were just distracting the claims processors. So their solution had been hire 5,000 staff. We were able to show that every staff they hired slowed claims processing. And the core problem is that it takes 25 years to learn this stuff. So if we then say, okay, great. I mean, in the short term, could we have used some really great

AI to clear it? Yes, sure. In the short term, absolutely, I'll take it. Let's get those 1.2 million claims cleared. In the long term, though, if we say, oh, we don't have to resolve this problem of this policy complexity that is just staggering. We're just going to let that, you can't just leave that there. Like that has to be addressed. And I am afraid people are going to say, oh, it's okay. We don't have to deal with that now. Now we have AI. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Jennifer's new book is called Recoding America, Why Government is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better. Reviews are saying it should be, quote, required reading for politicians and policymakers. And I'm not sure they read anymore, Jennifer, but we can do better. Reviews are saying it should be, quote, required reading for politicians and policymakers.

And I'm not sure they read anymore, Jennifer, but we really appreciate that. No, but their staffs read and they can tell them what it said. All right, okay, all right. You're so positive. You're always so positive. Anyway, thank you so much.

Thank you. This is great. Appreciate it. Thanks, Jennifer. Nice to meet you. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, we're back for wins and fails.

I am going to go first, Scott. Do you mind? Of course not. Okay. Fred Ryan, the publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post, just announced he's departing in August. He's been under a lot of pressure. He's been in the position for most of the decade since Jeff Bezos bought The Post. Stepping into the interim CEO role immediately is Patti Stonecipher, a founding chief executive of the Gates Foundation and more recently director on the Amazon board.

She'll lead the search for Ryan's replacement. Patti is fantastic. She's married to Michael Kinsley, by the way, for people that don't know. Great journalist. Very good news for the people at The Post. I think there was a lot of frustration with Fred. I like Fred personally, but he was in the way of a lot of change, I think, that needed to happen. And Patty is really top level, top shelf. I've known her from the very beginning of Microsoft. And so that'll be great. That'll be an interesting transition. I doubt she would stay in the full role.

So that's not really her area of expertise, but she certainly knows how to run things. Again, she was a big Microsoft executive too at Microsoft. So a really good news for the Washington Post, I think, over time that Jeff has done something. He obviously knew, he'd heard from a lot of reporters who I've talked to too,

who said that change had to come and it had to come at the publishing level. I guess my fail, my fail, what is my fail? This Trump noise, it's the idea of violence is so repulsive. So I guess my fail is really terrible, terrible people like Carrie Lake, who are doing that and think it's cute and for political means. They're paper tigers, and I wish someone would throw water upon them so they would melt away, which is people like Carrie Lake should melt. Anyway, that's my fail. So, 25 years ago when I moved to New York, I kept getting set up on dates, which is a great thing. And I was set up with this really impressive, intelligent woman for lunch at,

what was it called? Oh God, it was that next to the Morgan Library. It had a moment. Anyways, and had a really lovely lunch with this woman. And I don't think either of us could figure out if we'd been set up or it was a date. We had a really nice lunch, but I was traveling all the time. She was traveling all the time.

We never saw each other again. You know who that was? No, who? Patti Stone Seifer. Whoa, you're kidding. Yeah, like a quarter century ago. Wow. And then she married a really high quality man.

But go ahead. That's not nice. I love Michael Kinsley so much. I could be hosting all these highbrow cocktail parties in D.C. I could be the total lady of DC. Oh my God. Anyways, she seemed like a really lovely person. Super impressive.

She is indeed. Okay, wins and fails. It's not a fail, but both of them have to do with football. I've been thinking a lot about when I was a younger dad, I was really excited to get my kids into CrossFit and World War II history and aviation and all the shit that I'm interested in. And what you realize is that if you want to go from being an okay dad to a good dad and maybe someday aspire to be a great dad, your job is not to get your kids interested in what you do. Your job is to develop their interests and then you get into their interests. And that's what I have found has been a real unlock for me.

Nice. Well, I have absolutely no interest in professional sports, none whatsoever. You sound like you do. You go on and on about it. That's interesting. Go ahead. And the reason why is because my sons are into it. And I'm into my sons, and I'm into shared experiences with my sons that will remember the rest of our lives.

I would never go to a football match had I not had kids. It's just not my thing. But here's the thing. The fun and the joy of being a dad is you go to this stuff and you, you know, I don't even watch a football game. I watch for something to happen and then I watch their reaction. That's the moment, right? I don't even watch a football game. I watch for something to happen, and then I watch their reaction.

That's the moment, right? And my advice to fathers under the auspices of my virtue signaling moment is the real joy in fatherhood is finding shit that they're really into and then bringing it out in them and then sharing it with them. And I can't tell you just, I mean, we we went to this game and I said to my son, this is your day, we'll do whatever you want. The game started at 10 p.m. because they want to broadcast it for U.S. and Western European cities. So they start the game at 10 p.m. You know what time we left for the stadium? We left for the stadium at 4.30. We were there four hours walking around the village, finding different things to do, buying jerseys, trying different desserts and different... I mean, he's just so into it. And then, do you know what time we left the stadium? Two in the morning.

1.30. He wanted to stay for an hour and a half. And the thing that's just so amazing about Premier League and European football, Inter Milan lost the game. You know how many of their fans were there 90 minutes after the game had ended? Every damn one of them. I mean, these fans are just so graceful and into their team. I mean, the whole, the stadium holds like 80,000 people. I bet 90 minutes after the whistle had been called, 70,000 were still there. But anyways, my fail or win or whatever you want to call it is an unlock. Take it from me, dads. Find the shit your kid is interested in.

And it's your job to get into that, not vice versa. That is really nice, Scott. And also, by the way, the win really is Patty Stonecipher didn't marry you, but Patty. Good for her. She dodged a bullet. Talk about dodging the mother of all bullets. When we were at the restaurant, people were around for Pride this weekend. It was a Pride weekend in Washington.

And this dad, who I thought looked like a Trumper. I don't know why. He just did. You know what I mean? Like, he looked like that. And he walked in, he was wearing pride stuff on his shirt. And his son was with him,

who was younger, but seemed gay to me. You know what I mean? Like, and was all excited, was holding all this pride stuff. And it was really nice. They had just been to Pride. He took his son,

and I thought, oh, I should not assume anything. And I felt very good about that. And I'm sure the guy didn't want to go to Pride. I don't want to go to Pride, and I'm always – and I'm gay. But I thought that was really nice that the parents – two parents were with the son, who I'm suspecting that's who they were supporting during this. And it was really nice. It was nice to see. Anyway, that's very good, Scott.

Do you have a fail? Do you have a fail? So, my next win is Antonella Rucuzzo. I hope I'm getting that name right. But essentially, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been just buying amazing athletes. They just basically took over the PGA. They got Benzema and Ronaldo, two of the great figures in the history of football. They paid Ronaldo at the age of 38, $400 million to come play in the kingdom. And recently, the biggest news in sport was that Lionel Messi, who's probably the best active football player in the world, he's probably the best. Mbappe is probably going to be the next

best. But anyways, this guy is fantastic, a class act, won the World Cup, greatest game in history. fantastic, a class act, won the World Cup, greatest game in history. And he could have got probably $600 million to $800 million, and he chose enter Miami. He's going to the Miami team. I mean, Miami is such an amazing city. And I can tell you, the reason when Ronaldo, who took $400 million and has to spend half his year in the kingdom, which I enjoy going, but it's no Miami. When he comes and visits his buddy, Messi, in South Beach, he's going to think, I fucked up. Because these guys have enough money. That's not it. They're not going to want more money. They're going to want five years back in terms of where they live. I'm going to bet that Lionel Messi came home and said, we got to do this. He's offered us $600 million.

And she said, Lionel, we're moving to Miami. Yeah, perfect. Because to raise our kids, our three boys who are school-age boys, we're still young. To live in Miami for the next five years is going to be an amazing experience. That is true, except for the rest of Florida. I just so you know, there were two dozen white supremacists protesting outside of Disney this weekend, but whatever. That state is so fucked up. You just had to do that, didn't you? I did. I did. Anyways, enter Miami. Miami and Antonella Rucuzzo, they made an amazing decision here. This is a huge one. Miami wins. Culture,

decision here. This is a huge one. Miami wins. Culture, really robust, amazing beaches, ridiculously fucking hot people, a Latin vibe, a thriving LGBT community, amazing weather. Except for the book banning, it's a fantastic state to live in. I'm talking about Miami. I know, I know. Miami is the winner here. And I'm going to bet, I'm going to bet that they have the same relationship that a lot of couples have and that on the really important stuff, mom has a better instinct around this stuff. I'm going to bet that Antonella made this decision. And you know what? She's my win. She

made the right decision. All right. Now you're going, now you got to go back to Florida, don't you? Welcome to inter-Miami, Antonella and Lionel. This is going to be the one of the best decisions you have ever made. You are going to have a wonderful life. So when are you moving back to the Florida coast? Oh, gosh. I don't know. Is that a serious question? Yeah.

My son's in high school and thriving. So we're here until he's out of high school. All right. Okay. You love that Florida. That's all. You just love that Florida. Love it.

Absolutely love the lifestyle. Love it. Okay, Scott, that's enough. We want to hear from you, our listeners. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. Read us out. Today's show was produced by Laren Naiman and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mia Silverio.

Make sure you subscribe to the new show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Hello, Messis. Hello, Miami. Hello, Life is Finite.

Hello, You Made the Right Decision. Welcome to the great state of Florida. Welcome to the coolest city in Latin America, Miami.