Pivot - Trump's AI Stake, SpaceX's IPO Froth, and Apple's Siri Overhaul

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

Kara and Scott unpack the ongoing "60 Minutes" fallout, and discuss whether the real story is less about journalism and more about business. Then, as SpaceX's blockbuster IPO approaches, the company makes a massive new deal with Google. Plus, Apple overhauls Siri, Trump floats a government stake in AI companies, and Hunter Biden finds a second act on X. Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You talking about sports is like Greta Thumburg reviewing steakhouses. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. I'm Scott Galloway. How you doing, Scott?

We're both in New York not seeing each other. Actually, I got, I saw one of those TikToks Friday night. I went home and I was, you know, I don't like to do this, but I had a few drinks. And I get very sentimental when I'm a little bit drunk. And I saw all of a sudden all these reels about how basically 90% of your time spent with your kids is before the age of 18. And I'm an 18-year-old leaving for college in the fall. And I freaked out and booked a flight home Saturday morning and canceled all my meetings Monday. Oh, my God.

So you're back. Wow. Yeah, back in London. Well, good for you. Immediately walked in the house and neither of my boys wanted. anything to do with me. They're like in their room playing video games talking to friends. They're like, oh, my dad.

They're like, well, that's good. Oh, how nice. That's nice. I heard you were out. You know, I was tracking you. I texted you several times. Do you have the Stasi out? I have Stasi.

I am Stasi. You were out with some famous people. Apparently walked into something with Sean Pan and walked out with Martin Scorsese. I don't understand what's happening. I don't understand. The scariest thing is I get a text message from you saying, Why are you at the Greenwich Hotel with Sean Penn? And I'm looking around like, Jesus Christ, I'm being watched.

My friends write me whenever they see you out about in the thing. Oh, my God. Yeah. Let me put it this way. That could get so much worse. I know, exactly. No, I'm watching you at all times. I'm monitoring you.

I have to. I have to for my own career. New York is really kicking it. I got to tell you, it's so weak. The kids did come into Brooklyn. Everywhere you go. There's not a point. part of the city that's not on fire because of the Knicks, you know, the NICS things.

But it's not that. It's something else. It's really interesting. Well, it's a lot of things, you know, the, I mean, okay, crime is at historic lows. Bankers' bonuses are at all-time highs. New stores, the city has shed its skin since COVID. People are excited about the new mayor. People are excited. World Cup is coming. World Cup is coming. And the thing I noticed that was really exciting is we used to love. to go to different European cities during the World Cup. Like, if Paris was in a World Cup match, you can go in Paris, and it's just fun. Everyone's just on fire.

I was in Morocco when Morocco made it at the quarterfinals. It felt that way in New York for the Knicks. You go out by any bar, and there's just a ton of young people watching the Knicks game. Yeah, you know this skunk that's coming to the garden party, the Madison Square Garden. Trump, he's fucking enough. They have all these outdoor watch things all around Madison Square Garden, which is really. really fun. And now they can't do it because stupid Trump is coming to the game, the Dolan, James Dolan, who's kind of a toad, is invited him, which ruins it for all the fans. That's how much he cares about, you know, blue-collar people who can't afford the ridiculously priced tickets. It's really fun and stuff, and now they can't do it because you need a perimeter around the garden, which is in the dead center of Manhattan, which is, like, creates all manner of nonsense from traffic. Anyway, I think that sucks. surprised you would want to be there. I would think that crowd would not be there. They're going to

the shit out of that. I would think so too. They're absolutely, it's going to be bad. I think it's going to be, and he's wrecking it for everyone on the traffic issues already aren't bad enough. Anyway, you know what I did this weekend? What did you do, Sarah? The kids came up to Brooklyn, and we did a little kite flying in Prospect Park. But I went to the loveliest wedding in Connecticut. It was a guy who was a producer, his John Adler got married to his longtime partner. And so it was a gay wedding at a country club in West Point. And it was so fun. It was really fun. It was the straightest gay wedding I'd been to, but it was lovely.

The family was there. They were so supportive. And I felt good about humanity after this wedding because there was, and a lot of the, like, this guy, jeweler, it was like uncles and cousins, they were all pivot fans, which was nice, and asked me about you. so the jeweler asked me. It was nice. It made me feel good about humanity.

That's what weddings are generally supposed to do, right? Not always. Not always. Yeah, sometimes I go to a wedding. I'm like, this is not going to last. But this was just one of these wonderful family weddings. It was really enjoyable. We've got a lot to get to.

I'm glad you're back in London with your boy, so that's a good thing. Hunter Biden, he's into his act, too, and I'm loving it. He has fame on X. Former President's son now has. 700,000 followers on the platform after he re-emerged last month, saying I'm Hunter Biden, you never actually heard from me. Since then, he's taken this incredibly candid approach. He's quite canny at social media joking about his previous controversies, including drug use. In one post, he addressed the bag of cocaine found at the White House in 2023, saying it definitely

wasn't his because he would never forgotten his drugs. In another, he replied to an accusation that he was part of an elite oligarch class with a selfie himself at a Super 8 motel off I-95. It's really interesting because he's actually engaging with MAGA people a lot, and they're kind of liking it. They're kind of liking him. Really interesting. I know it's kind of silly and sort of Mimi, but I got to say, I find it very interesting how he's doing it. It's authenticity. I think, yeah, he's funny.

I think people like... Self-deprecated. Yeah, and I think people love that kind of vulnerability and honesty. And also, I think, among those anti-operative. optimization kick or I think that I think the optimization trend has just gotten way too fucking far. It has. And you see that if you're truly about optimizing, you go to 80%. 80% of good sleep, good health, good nutrition, and then you indulge the other 20%.

You don't want your metrics to consume the joy in your life. And I also, I think people are just sort of ready for a funny guy who smokes crack. I don't. Well, he doesn't anymore. Uh-huh. Anyways, from what I've heard, it's pretty addictive. But anyways, I hope for him that he's no longer smoking crack. Yeah.

But I think Hunter, he's just a unique personality. He's got that kind of, I don't know, for lack of a better to him, that Twitter is. But the thing that kicked it off, and I hate to admit this, was this interview with Candace Owens. Yeah, that was interesting. That was part of his comeback tour. And I refuse to watch it because my understanding is he kind of indulged her conspiracy theories. on Israel, Charlie Kirk and Trump's assassination attempts. I didn't push back.

But the Google, the Google search on Hunter Biden is skyrocketed. He is, you know, he's an interesting guy. And there's, get this, there's now a 26% chance on Kalshi that he runs for president in 2020. Oh, no, he's not going to hear of president. One in four chance. But I think he's defending the Bidens. They've been so clottish about defending themselves. I don't think Joe Biden's so great or Joe certainly isn't.

But he's sort of like, yeah, we're broken people. So what? And like the stuff, the shit you're throwing around about me isn't true. Some of it is. So I think that's why it works is that he's defending his family in a way that deals real. People want to like a Biden right now. Well, but the, I don't think the Bidens have done a great job. That's my point. They're looking for someone to like. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. I thought Dr. Biden. I thought she did a bad job. I thought, I don't think she's, she hasn't served the Biden family well, in my view. They seem, you know, she's mad and righteous. Yeah, I don't. Anyway, I'm really enjoying Hunter. I'm really enjoying what you're doing. And it's interesting.

See where it goes. I'll be interested because you can't just live on Twitter and social media alone. As Spencer Pratt just found out, there was a lot more heat around him than there were votes. And so he's just been surpassed in Los Angeles. And, of course, the right is saying, including President Trump, that the election was stolen. It wasn't. There was a very big movement around. It's Nithya Rahman, who is a very well-qualified person.

And she's pulled ahead of him in the L.A. mayoral primary and is probably going to stay there. And, of course, the right is calling it rig. But it's not. That's how they do votes in California slowly because a lot of mail in. So that was a lot. It was sort of snakes. He was like snakes on a plane of politicians. That's my feeling.

Although we did okay. He got a lot of votes still. Yeah. I actually think it's, I actually think the California, elections are somewhat heartening, you know. Yeah, yeah. Steyer was money, Hilton was attention, Bissar appears to be experiencing competence, and he appears to be doing well. And the mayoral race, I mean, at some point we're going to talk about Canada equality because it struck me as incompetence versus a conspiracy theorist, but I like the fact that he came in third. It's actually bad for

Bass. It is, because this other woman's impressive in many ways. She's a democratic socialist, I think, But she's got, you know, she's an MIT person. She worked on homelessness. She worked in India. She's a really interesting character. Well, I don't know enough about her, but I certainly am going to learn. She's got a race on her hands here now. She is interesting.

But more than that, it's D versus D now versus D versus R. And D versus R in L.A, it's vastly skewed towards D. And especially when the D is their primary qualification to run from mayor is that their house burned down. Yeah. So, you know, California politics have been kind of, it's blurred the line between entertainment and public service, but, you know, at least Netflix cancel shows when they're underperforming. They don't seem to do that in California. And I think a lot of this bullshit has started with not only Trump, but the fact that it appears that the primary qualification for a cabinet post now is that you're a, you know, a news host or a celebrity. But it didn't work, right?

You know, it didn't work. He had a lot more heat on social media than real actual voters, which is, you know, it's interesting because we talked about this last week, but, you know, we said that Daniel Lurie is doing a great job in San Francisco, but he's also online. And I said, it's not like he's compelling, like Spencer Pratt, who's a douche nozzle. And I got a call from, and all this, I pick up the phone. I wasn't looking who called, and he goes, not compelling. And it was Daniel.

And I said, yes, that is how you, that is why you're doing so well. And that in the best way. Yeah, I said that. I said, no, you're not compelling at all, and he is a douche-nauzla, and you are not a douche-naz. Anyway, it just shows you that social media may not be what we think it is, right? Exactly. In terms of politics, voters want what voters want. And I really feel good about voters right now.

I think they know what they want. Anyway, let's move on to the big story. Again, FCC chairman Brendan Carr, the moron, has inserted himself in the 60-minute drama. I don't know why, because he's supposed to be deciding on this. Car posted on an ex about fired correspondent Scott Pelley after Pelley spoke to the New York Times, responding to a comment about how Pelley was surprised he got fired. Carr, the moron, wrote, one of the reasons why trust in media is low, so many legacy journalists are completely out of touch. You do not get away with that behavior in any run-of-the-mill job. Well, yes, Brendan, you moron,

he was asking a basic question of why were people who had no reason to be fired, got fired. Anyway, he should not be weighing in, neither should any of those people. Although Pelley says CBS manager, the ones out of touch. Let's listen to a clip from an extraordinary interview he did with a friend of mine, Lou Luke Garcia Navarro at the New York Times. It was full of stuff. So let's listen to it. Of course, we have to reach out to a younger and younger audience. But their argument about joining the Internet age is just disingenuous. It's almost as if Barry Weiss and Nick Bilton were sealed in a time capsule in 1990.

And it just cracked open. They've just discovered the Internet. and they're running around telling everybody how important it is. At CBS News, yeah, join the fight. Anyway, I love his voice. It was such a good burn. We've been saying that. It's not everyone knows this.

It's not new, fresh things. So I want to talk about this in a different way. I mean, I thought the interview was extraordinary and extremely damaging. That said, I don't know if something's going to happen about it. But we had a great talk last night. Scott called me, and there's a business asking. to this. I really want to talk about, obviously, the interview was really a lot, including this idea that he put his hands on Nick, Nick Bilton, who was put in place to run 60 minutes,

a lot of controversy around him, which didn't turn out to be true, but this one executive, Tom, and I don't know how, I can't pronounce something. Anyway, he was saying that he tried to manhandle Nick Bilton, which wasn't true, and then said, oh, okay, you didn't. Like, the lack of reporting on the behalf of CBS management is really quite a striking. And Scott called them out, Scott Pelley, whose voice is phantom, malifulous. But you had this really great take about business, and I'd love you to reel it out a little bit, because I thought it was different than the typical those fuckers kind of thing, which, in fact, they are fuckers, but go ahead. Yeah, I think if you just look at the industrial logic or lack thereof, you get to what's going on here. And that is, this is a rare instance

of broadcast media performing well. And so from an industrial logic standpoint, you just wouldn't fuck with it. And we use the analogy of performing open art surgery and your best performing player. I love that. I thought that was so smart. Makes no sense, right?

So why does this make sense? Because regardless of whether you like the Ellison's or not, David Ellison is a smart guy, his father is a brilliant business person. He just is. And they understand, they may not understand media or journalism, but they understand culture, incentives, and they vastly understand shareholder value.

I would say Larry does, but go ahead. Fair enough. Although I would argue his son at least seems competent. He's competent. He's competent. Not around media, but he's good at making Maver Top Gun. But go ahead. So the question is, why would they fuck with something that's working?

I mean, that's the question. So it becomes, all right, first off, and this is where I go to, while journalists and media are obsessed with themselves and think this is like an attack on democracy and journalism. I understand that the chill on journalism and the journalism is a key component of democracy, I'm of the camp that, quite frankly, if the Washington Post and 60 minutes go away, journalism is going to be just fine. That's not to say we shouldn't be concerned.

That's not to say this isn't another example of Trump trying to put a chill on journalism. I get it. I'm, you know, when you try and encourage taking vaccines off the market, I think that is a real existential threat to the health. and well-being of Americans. I think if 60 minutes were to go away, those people are going to find amazing jobs and create reasonable facsimiles of incredible journalism

as they've continued to produce at 60 minutes. May I just push back a tiny minute? Go ahead. That's not true. They are important of the many fixtures, and it's working. I do think it's more than that. And what Scott Pellier was asking, why are you firing competent people

who are doing a great job? And I do think they're important. I think it's important to have a top of the food chain and a lower part, too. And it's sort of, so I do think fucking with the Washington Post is very damaging because of this, some of the stuff they do. And fucking with 60 minutes, same thing. So go ahead. And I believe that those journalists and their outstanding work and their willingness to take truth to power will find a ton of different vessels if the Washington Post in 60 minutes as a construct go away.

I don't think it's a threat to journalism. Okay. as evidenced by what you're doing and hundreds of other interesting new companies are doing. Having said that, what's interesting here is just looking at it through a business lens. It doesn't make any sense to go up to Derek Jeter and say, we don't like you. We want to bench you. It's like benching Lionel Messi in the World Cup. It just doesn't make any industrial logic.

And so if you go up the food chain, it's one of two things here. either the Ellison's are so passionate about having a viewpoint that puts forward a more conservative viewpoint that they're willing to take these risks and potentially kill messy, right, before the World Cup or whatever. And I don't think that's it. I think that the math is pretty straightforward here. I think the Ellison's, the owners of WarnerMedia, the new owners, have decided there's more economic upside if they do Trump's bidding and potentially,

lose value at 60 minutes. It's not economically an important business to CBS. It might have a halo effect on the whole thing. But even CBS, the network itself, I think the Ellison's have done the math and decided that we would rather, there is more, and this is a problem with an autocracy, and this is a bigger indictment in our society, I think the Ellison's have done the math and say we would rather risk killing a healthy player that's a small business and curring favor with a guy who can give us TikTok on a platter at 80% off. Right, but he already did that. And I think he'll continue to do it as long as we curry favor with it.

And this is the problem. This isn't about the death of journalism. This is about an autocracy where oligarchs are made if you support the current administration. The Ellicents have done the math. Yeah, we'd like to hold on to 60 minutes, but what's more important... Or we don't care. I think don't care is more. Yeah.

A nice to have, we don't really care because the numbers here are so small. Where the numbers turn into tens of billions of dollars is if the president is on our side because he perceives us as being on his side. And if we have to throw 60 minutes on the funeral pyre to show loyalty, so be it. Yeah, it's really interesting when you said that. First time I was like, oh, God, it's important. And then I thought, you know, actually, when Tim Cook brought that golden statue, why did he do it? Like, because the reputational hit was bad, and then he appeared at the Melania thing, right?

It's such a reputational hit. I was like, oh, he invested $100 million here and got, like, Elon giving money to the PACs. Invested $50 million here. He got $500 billion here or $5 billion here. And it was like, oh, it's a trade. And they don't mind taking the reputational hit. Same thing with Bezos. Why would he go yammer on so idiotically, right?

Because he wants something. Right? I mean, that whole he's gotten more mature. Like, come on. Like, stop it. Like, you just saw that Kristen Welker. And her view looks like a giant baby, giant baby Huey. And I was like, you're right. They get more money out the other side. The issue is they don't mind throwing out the really beautiful thing, right? Like, sometimes when you junk something that's just fine, but that's what it is. And so it feels much more, it is political. It is political because I do think they're much more pro-Israel, et cetera, et cetera. But, and much more like anti-woke, which sort of feeds into their selections, editorial selections. But it is about, like, they'll get more out of it. Now, what, two things, I'd love you to tell him, look, Trump's at the very end of the, this is, we're at the end of the, you know, the king is falling down, right, on a daily basis. He looks quite sick. Let's, let's not pretend he doesn't look like he had a stroke or something.

Something happened to him. And so it's at the tail end. you see the Republicans pushing back, you see the polling, which is really significant, even among female conservatives, male conservatives, farmers, like all his thing breaking down, why would you double down on him right now? Because it seems like you'll get the reputational hit. Because afterwards, when the Democrats come in, they're not going to forget. And by the way, probably the attorney generals will file a sue while we're taping this against, to slow down the merger. And it will slow down the merger. So why would you do it now? Like if you're,

As smart as Larry Elson is, and trust us when we tell you he's very smart, why would you do it? It seems like the dumb bet right now. Yeah, I don't think it is, Kara. Keep in mind. Okay. Tell me why. The deal hasn't closed yet. Right.

It has to close. Right. The deal hasn't closed. If Brendan Carr gets a call from Trump and saying, I'm having second thoughts about media consolidation, a deal hasn't closed. And Trump has been, has shown a willingness to. violate all norms, not afraid of court battles. Maybe it gets overturned in court in a year or two years, at which point CBS continues to hemorrhage viewership.

Trump can absolutely kill this deal. Trump can call Ellison and basically say, I want you to cancel Big Bang Theory and he would do it right now. And I'm trying to come up with a CBS show, like the new Matlock, whatever it is. And I think Larry calls his son and goes, kill this show. Because if this deal doesn't go through and it doesn't close,

I mean, so one, he has very strong short-term incentive to be supportive of Trump. And two, they still have two and a half, you know, you still have two and a half years left. And nothing proves. I mean, think about all the guys that showed up that we mocked, all the tech executives from Satcha Nadella to all men. Did tariffs affect any of them? No. Any of them? They got contracts with government.

They got this. They got that. They got everything they wanted. And Jensen Huang. I'm going to take you to China and try and get you to sell chips. And now the Chinese are saying, fuck you, we're not going to buy your chips. It's there has never been a return. Not capax, not AI, not plant property equipment, like investing in Trump right now.

That is what a good autocrat does. Right now. Okay. What happens come November when the, if the Democrats win the way they think, if they even win half of what they're going to win, there's, there's going to be hell to pay. Or maybe they don't think there is. Here's the problem. Graham Plattener. Graham Plattener has had a series of really disturbing accusations against him by various women and the talking.

Okay. The problem is we apply a purity test to ourselves and to our candidates that the Republicans don't apply. And as a result, they feel safer. We threat, lock her up. Have you heard, we don't have chance of lock him up at Democratic. We're better than that. And I get it. I like that.

But the reality is the incentives are the following right now. Get on, get him with Trump. Get your money. The Democrats are fucking pussies. And that was the wrong word to use. That's all right. The Democrats, they'll feel bad for us and they'll try and understand us. And they'll haul us in front of Congress, fine.

But the upside here is so much greater than the downside. We're dealing with an autocrat. Right. It's a risk assessment. I do, let me make a little prediction here. We probably move on in the thing, but I think the Democrats are much more less a pussy than you think. I hope so.

I have talked to a lot of them and they're like sharpening. Well, let me ask you this. Do you think they should replace Blatner right now? So we have our high ground? No, no, no. You know I don't. And I have an argument with my wife about it. No, I don't.

I think the voters of Maine should decide. That's my feeling. I always feel like the voters should decide. And if they make bad decisions, they have to live with it, right? If they pick Pratt, they have to fucking live with it in Los Angeles. And I know the rest, everyone who didn't vote for them, have to live with it. But I'm a firm believer in voters. I just am always.

I always feel like they always get it ultimately. And I think pundits and everyone else doesn't often get it. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they're very canny. But I just feel like, to me, you're betting on. someone who's about to collapse. We've been saying that for a while, Kara. Look at him.

Look at him. It's going down. Do you really think he looks that bad? I'm not talking about him. Yes, I think he looks that bad. He looks really bad. But that's not what I was talking about. I'm not talking about death.

I'm not like, whatever. He's old. He's going to die within 10 years. So whatever, it's going to, somewhere in there, somewhere in there. And but the numbers, I'm looking at the polls. And I, a year ago, I said, I think his polling is going to collapse, and it has collapsed. And so that's what I'm looking at, is voters. Voters don't like this shit. And I think they are sticking their chin out so far with all their nonsense. Why would you fire competent people? It looks, and also it creates, listen, CBS's other executives are furious because it's ruining the CBS brand, which is a very successful, it's done okay in the network with all their old people shows. They're doing okay. And so, I think you're starting to see leaks from, you know, there was one from this woman who was running

CBS Entertainment. You sort of started seeing it from other news. You're just starting to see it. And if she could, this could mess up the deal itself because of the heat on this on the other side, right? It'll, it'll embolden more people from 60 minutes to speak out. It'll embolden more stories. And let me tell you, folks, there's more shoes about to drop. I hear about everything. And so it's going to be a continuing leak, leak, leak. And if you remember the Chris Lick thing, and I just think David Zazlo's just quicker to fold, right? But it took Jeff Bezos two years to fold on Will Lewis. But eventually it messes up the brand and they happen to have other things. Now, Jeff just has the Washington Post so he could hold out for two years. But Zazloff was starting

to feel the pain elsewhere. And so that, to me, is the problem. So, and then David looks dumb. and David looking dumb to daddy is not a good thing for him. You know what I mean? And so that's why I think there's a lot more play here. And I do think the Democrats will extract something from them in a way. I don't think they're as weak as you think they are. And from hearing from them, bygones is not in their vocabulary right now. It is we will now be coming around and remembering what you did.

So maybe they won't do it, but that's the tone I get from them. So we'll see. Anyway, I really enjoyed your idea of what they're doing, and you're absolutely right. The business way to look at this. Just to talk more about 60s. So four of the seven, I think four of the seven anchors have left. And the key executives, the editors, the key editors who you don't know their names, but critical. That's really the heart and longs.

But the 75 what you call staff, editors, junior producers, statisticians, data, none of them have left. They can't leave. Let's be clear. They have jobs. It's not a big market. Right. And they have mortgages. And I know exactly what the Ellison's did here. They called them and said, they called Leslie Stalin and said, Leslie, you're an icon. Things are tumultuous. We promise we'll let you do whatever you want. And by the way, if you just stick around another 12 months and don't think settled down, there's another $5 million bonus for you. That's what I would have done. And I'm sure that call took place. And then they called the 12 critical people at the rank and file and said, look, tell everyone that when there's, There's this kind of tumult and the top of the pyramid gets chopped off.

There's a tremendous sucking sound upward, and they would be stupid not to hang around to see what additional opportunities emerge. And people will always think about themselves before they think about the brave new world of the attack on journalism. They have mortgages to pay. They have college funds to fund. And this is what will happen. Just as we thought all the noise in social media was going to dictate the mayoral race, all the noise around 60 is going to come down to the following.

If the first six or dozen episodes in the fall are good, 60 will be fine. And if they're not, that thing will collapse under the weight of all this controversy. So it's going to be about the product, full stop. If you can make the product, because you do need those correspondence. And maybe they can't. You know about this than I do. Well, I know the people they're calling, because I'm hearing from everyone they're calling, and none of them want to go there.

They don't want to, they're calling some interesting people who are good, But all of them are like, I'm not selling my fucking reputation with these clouds. Well, how do they get guess? And also, I never miss an opportunity to make myself feel important. I was approached about a role at 60 minutes. And what did I say? I'd break your arm, correct? Well, and I said no fucking way.

I don't want to be. That's like the last thing. If you're, I mean, quite frankly, why the fuck is Leslie Stalstang? Well, can I take a word on that? And then we'll move on. I know Leslie really well. She used to come to all my conferences. She's really terrific.

She was trying an internet thing a couple years ago, and I helped her with it. She's not texting me back, let's just say, Leslie. I've helped you a lot. I really feel irritated by the fact that you want to be texting back, but that's another issue. I predicted she would do this, and everyone said I was wrong. But listen, this is the end of her career. She wants that retrospective of her career next year or the year after. She wants the party.

She does have a loyalty to the place. She's been there so long. And so she feels by staying, she's protecting it. Like, at least someone's here to hold it back and watch them. My issue, and I think that's genuine. I do. I think it's genuine with her. She's, she like, you cut her up and she blades 60 minutes, right?

So I think that's in her thing, and she wants that. Like, if she left now, there'd be no retrospective. There'd be no end of her career. And I think she wants that. And from, that's from a sort of selfish point of view. From the other point of view, she thinks she can save it. She could at least protect it for the time being until it. she'll wait them out. My problem is they're going to go just around her. They're just going to go

around her. And I don't think she realizes that, how much they're, as, as canny and smart and tough as she is, she doesn't have as much leverage by staying. And that is, I think she made a mistake, but I thought she would stay. So that's my take on it. So I don't know because I haven't talked to. I'm glad you didn't go. Thank you. I would have not been happy about that. Under the auspices of the latest episode of, Don't These People Have Friends? Leslie Stahl is an icon. Leslie Stahl is 84. Between 1 and 2% of 84-year-olds work full-time.

By the time you're 87, it's less than 1%. You know, Leslie Stahl may live another 20 years. She's going to be working full-time for a matter of, you know, years, if not months. I mean, that's just, and I know that sounds agist. I am an agist, and so is biology. She shouldn't be buying green bananas at this point. Now, as a friend, a friend should say to her, Leslie, you put out the following memo. I have loved and appreciated and feel blessed to have been a part of this organization.

I am proud and did my best regarding my work here. It is time for me to leave. And everyone else would have filled in the blanks in every fucking room she would have walked into for the rest of her life. she would have got a standing ovation. Instead, now, under some narcissistic notion that she's going to be able to control what happens in every production meeting, oh, my God, how naive are you?

She had a chance to put the world's greatest dot on top of an exclamation point at the end of a career, and she's missed it. This was the perfect, perfect exit to a storied career. I'm not angry. I'm not shit posting her for staying. I'm shit posting her for not. shit posting her for not taking an unbelievable opportunity to put a Tiffany ribbon, to put a

Tiffany ribbon on the aquamarine blue box that was her Tiffany career. What a missed opportunity. Goodbye, sir. Like that kind of thing. Good day. Good day, sir. Good day, sir. Can I, can I ask you, I want you to say in what they wanted you to do in 60 minutes, which it cracks me the fuck up, because it's not to do the big interviews with Trump or do the investigative pieces where you dress up. of beer just for people to know. What did they want from Professor Galloway? To do one or more of those Andy Rooney segments. Yeah, so you're Andy Rooney. You know what really bothers me about soda pop is? And by the way, let me, let me be clear. I grew up watching 60 Minutes with my mother. Had someone called me 12 or 24 months ago and offered me that role, I would have just, I would have said,

I'll pay you. What do you want? What do you want? What do you want me to do? I would have, that would have been Literally, other than hosting a podcast with you, that would have been my crowning achievement professionally. And now I'm not, I'm not going to add to this chorus of unqualified people, this cosplaying journal. I'm like, the last fucking thing I wanted to is wake up to social media after they hear that I'm joining, I'm having anything to do with this shit show right now.

Yeah, and you were scared of me, right? Were you scared to me? Not really. Ish. Ish. I just would have yelled at you. No, no, no. You know what?

Can I just say, you're better than that. That's how I feel. And quite frankly, I think I like the people there more than you do. I don't have a, you know, I actually. I like some. Yeah. I like, this is the last fucking thing I want to be associated with right now. Yeah.

Anyways. Anyway, you're stuck with me, Kara. I know. I love it. I love it. You can do 60 minutes things here. And you can do about penises. So you couldn't do it there.

I'm just saying. Anyway, we're going to move on. Really interesting story, but I appreciate your business thing. It was so struck by it last night when you call me. Anyway, we're going to go on a quick break when we come back. The SpaceX IPO approaches. Support for the show comes from Vanta. What's growing across businesses even faster than AI?

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But the company is expected to begin trading on the NASDAVAC this Friday and what could be the largest IPO in history. be a lot of moving parts. A couple things we've learned in the last few days. SpaceX has set its share price at $135, giving the company evaluation of roughly $1.77 trillion. You said it would be under $2 trillion. It won't be fast-tracked onto the S&P 500. This is a new development after the index decided

not to change its rules for these mega-cap IPOs. Thank you. They probably got a lot of pushback from people. And there's more. SpaceFex also made a major deal with Google selling off at SeedCorp. Google will pay SpaceX $920 million a month over the next three years for computing power. That includes access to at least 110,000 invidia chips. Elon was smart to grab those. This is similar to a deal that SpaceX recently made with Anthropics,

so it's becoming an infrastructure provider, essentially. Google, which is already investor in SpaceX. Everybody is, by the way, is calling this a short-term timely agreement to ensure they can keep up with surging AI demand. They will go get their own stuff later and they're not going to rent it. Talk about what's happening now and what you see happening in the next, because it's the next week and the deal. And we're going to to talk a lot about the IPO on Friday, obviously, but right now going into it, how are you looking at it? It's just so interesting. And my judgment is clouded because I've been so wrong about Elon Musk's adventures in the market. And I haven't fully appreciated what a meme stock he is

and everything he touches. So, look, Alphabet agreed to pay SpaceX almost a billion dollars a month for compute capacity from XAI data centers. What's interesting is that they overbuilt and it ends up, that's fine because they can just rent the capacity out to someone else at probably a higher price than it originally anticipated. Like, SpaceX's current multiple, it's going out at 94 times revenues. The deal would value a deal that would total at least, you know, one trillion an additional market cap from if you just valued this what it should trade out versus its competitors, even being generous. What does it matter for Alphabet? It owns a 6% stake in SpaceX, which are purchased in 2015. So,

And they did this when the company was valued at just $12 billion. So 6% of a $1 trillion in market cap is about $60 billion or more than $5x. Yeah. And remember when Yahoo had the Google stake that it was one of the big things they got out of it? Anyway, they had a big stake in Google. By them agreeing to buy, purchase this compute, when you look at the multiple, for every dollar they spend on compute, they're technically getting five back in the increase in the value of their stake in SpaceX. Right, yeah.

So we talk about these circular deals, but this one, looks like a no-brainer for Google. So, look, I think SpaceX's multiple will deflate dramatically as revenues grow, but the point stands, you know, Alphabet has a vested interest in SpaceX's revenues going up. And then, look, I think in the last just seven days, maybe 14, there has been a dramatic vibe shift. Oh, interesting. And that is the study that came out at MIT that said,

25% of CFOs are stating that they're not getting the return they'd initially anticipated. I was on AI. In AI. Yep. I was on a webinar hosted by section talking about AI. And the comments I would describe is whenever people come in and talk about the brave new world of AI, it's like a giant fucking eye roll. People are really in the business world are starting to sour on the brave new world of AI. and this won't be the same litmus test directly as anthropic or open AI.

And I'm curious if you sense this, but I sense a little bit of like, you know what, this is beginning to feel like bullshit. The job apocalypse everyone's been predicting is not here. The notion that this is going to change absolutely everything, the idea that we're going to have one-person companies that could be billion, million dollar unicorns. Right, remember that one. You know, I had the CEO of Lillian. He said AI's ability to accelerate drug discovery is vastly overhyped. I just wonder if people are beginning to say, okay, this is beginning to feel a little 99. It feels like there's been a tangible vibe shift

around AI in the last few weeks. And then what, how does it affect the SpaceX IPO? Because there's there's other businesses in here. Is it just because this is an AI IPO? Well, the AI that's got attached to it, as I refer to affectionately as a money furnace, is, I mean, there's no doubt he's saddled. He's turned a great space business into a company hemorrhaging money because he's going to try and fund and play catch-up and AI. What's interesting is he's, it looks like he's got a rib cord here in the form that he's now running out his infrastructure. But nothing feels or says froth in a market like a 94-time. revenue valuation. Right. But is that Elon or AI? Is it just the Elonness of it? I think the answer is yes. I think Elon plus AI plus rockets. Yeah. In the rocket business or the Starlink business is a great business. Right. But my God, 94 times revenues. So what happens? Give me like the day up, the week after and the six months after. Everyone is predicting trough after, like pretty quickly after, relatively quickly after, not immediately.

You know, I've gotten this so wrong, Kara, but people have called me and asked me to participate in the IPOs. They've got allocation. I said I wouldn't get near SpaceX. And if you do, I would sell on the first trade. I think SpaceX is about to hit a 10-year high on the minute it goes public, meaning it'll be all downhill from there. I just don't see how it just, even with, even with Elon and AI and rockets, I don't see how it just about. And he's going to put robots everywhere, cars that, you know, all the promises are still that. And they're tough ones. They're tough promises. He's got... 100%. The one I'm most, or least sanguine about or at least pessimistic on is anthropic

because the momentum is so dramatic there. So you'd buy into that. I would buy into the IPO. I'm not sure it'd be a long-term hold based on the valuations going at eye. Right. And open AI? I think that's... I think if one of them struggles and could be a broken IPO, I think it could be open AI. I think the momentum is so negative. Yeah, SpaceX is a conglomerate, so it's harder to tease apart. And you, like, It's Elon. Investors, I mean, one of the reasons you might be seeing a decline in the crypto market right now is all of those people are selling to buy into the SpaceX IPO.

I mean, you're also probably going to see a decline in the larger market for tech stocks because I think so much capital is going to be sucked up by these guys. But Elon has, look, it's a cult. And it's the same, I wonder what's going to happen to Bitcoin because that has a culty feel to it. And I think a lot of Elon stands are Bitcoin holders and are going to fund their SpaceX purchases with sales of Bitcoin. Right, right. So that's another thing. Yeah.

So anyway, so we'll see what happens. We'll be talking about it on Friday. But so you say goes out at 135 and it drops? Because they're having some punitive stuff if you sell it too quickly, too. Well, there's all sorts of lockups that people are being asked to commit to. I think Elon and his banks will probably create enough artificial scarcity to manufacture a pop. But I think six, 12, five years down the road, five years is tough. I wouldn't get near this thing.

And if you do get allocation, look at the first trade, consider getting out on the first trade. And the index hurts it, right, the lack of being in the index funds now. Well, that would have been additional demand out front. But, you know, every IPO up until now has not been in the S&P. So technically that shouldn't hurt. And there was complaints about it. You know, you were being forced to buy it if it went into the S&P because of the people old index funds. It'll be super interesting, but 94 times.

I know. Okay, Amazon, incredible company, a lot of people think it's overvalued. What's a trade at four and a half times? I like that you like math still after all these years. Anyway, interestingly, speaking of what you were just saying, Donald Trump is looking into the government stake in AI companies. Oh, buy at the top. So American people can, quote, benefit from the success of AI. He says, leaders of all the big AI companies are coming to the White House.

as early this week to discuss the idea. I mean, it's such a socialist thing. Open AI in the White House are in ongoing talks about government stake, according to CNBC. This is something that Sam Altman has been floating for a while. He needs the help, as you were just noting. Altman was in D.C. last week and met with Senator Bernie Sanders, who's been pitching a similar plan because he's, you know, a socialist. Sanders is proposing a sovereign wealth fund creating a one-time 50% tax on all on the stock of AI companies, giving the public a direct ownership sake. Talk to me about, this because I don't love it. I feel like, what? Like, I get, I get that, for example, the government gave a loan to Tesla when it was in trouble and didn't get anything back for it and Elon got all the

juices, but that's what the government is there for. And they got it, they got their loan paid back, but they didn't get a stake. And I think that was okay. But I don't know. What do you think? It is very easy once you get elected and everyone thinks you're great and you have power to start thinking you can control industrial policy and start picking winners and losers. It is very tempting. that's socialism. You control the means of production. When you do that and you start believing you're better than the private market and the full body contact violence of capitalist private markets, you end up with warehouses in Ireland full of unsold, Delorians, and Air France. It does not work. If you want to support an industry like the Chips Act, everyone gets the same opportunity and the same

subsidies. If you want to support the EV market and you give tax credits and subsidies, everyone's available to it. When you put a golden share, into U.S. Steel or invest in Intel, you have decided you're smarter than the market. You are always, always wrong. This is socialism. This is cronyism. It never works for the economy.

At the same time, Bernie Sanders is equally wrong. Taxes that are industry-specific don't work. They came up with the same nonsense idea around oil and gas when they were printing money in the 70s and 80s. Because then what happens is Microsoft an AI company? if we start producing podcasts, where they are, we an AI company, is Apple an AI company? We need a more progressive tax structure that taxes our most successful companies,

whether it's anthropic or whether it's Apple or whether it's Novo Nordisk or whether it's Eli Lilly. We need a more. Yeah, but when you go industry-specific taxation doesn't work because then capital starts picking industries based on taxes, not where the greatest return or innovation is. It is bullshit populism going after a specific industry. It creates a ton of bureaucratic unnatural acts across capital allocation. Why AI? Why don't we own like the hot dog franchise?

What about cigarette companies? Yeah, I know. What else can we have? McDonald's. Americans like McDonald's. Let's have a more progressive tax rate for McDonald's and anthropic and open AI. Yeah, why not others? That's it.

Industry-specific taxation doesn't work. And if you want to invest in native industries or orphan industries or industries that have strategic importance, fine. But when Donald Trump, a failed business person gets into the business. Like MRNA technology, which they took away stuff. Like that's already getting a lot of private funding, but it needs government funding. The Chips Act made sense. It makes sense. But everybody gets access to it, right? Every company, you're not picking winners and losers. And so just as just as Trump is trying to pick winners, that is no better nor any worse than Sanders trying to pick losers and decisions. Why is Altman going to the White House to do? Because he needs the support, right? It gives him support. It gives him a little bit of stable support, stable support. The biggest bailout since the banking industry bailout will be the following. But it'll be positioned as growth.

There will be some sort of government-backed debt offering or backstop for AI companies who can't afford the infrastructure spent they have committed to. When it's clear, these valuations are not going to hold up. And also Trump realizes the entire economy he has bet on AI. The biggest bailout that will be positioned as a, quote, unquote, growth opportunity for the U.S. government. The taxpayer will hold the back. Right. Trump will position is, I'm a smart businessman.

We have an opportunity to invest in this. It is going to be a bailout. It will be holding the back. 100%. We'll be holding the fucking bag. They want to. I swear to God. We'll privatize the gains and socialize the losses because Trump thinks he's smart and thinks he's a good business person.

He always makes such bad deals. Oh, I'm like, no, no, no. Let them die. As you said, remember years ago, we're talking about plane. We were talking about airmen. You're like, just let them die. And something new will happen. Just like you're thinking about four 16 minutes.

New dumb money will show up and say, I want to start an airline called, you know, Hooters. I mean, there's no shortage of people who desire to start airlines. Hooters Airline would be good. There was a Hooters airline. Was there? Yeah, you didn't know that? Did you fly? There was a Hooters airline.

What? No, I've never, I've never been in a Hooters, actually. I'd like to go. I have been in a Hooters because the wings are very good, let me say. They are excellent, excellent wings. Actually, the ladies are really nice in the Hooters. They do a great job. From what I understand, they do a great job.

They are very nice. The ladies of the Hooters are nice. There's a wonderful story about a gay guy, a comic, going into Hooters when his father brought him there to try to man him up. And the ladies immediately understood what the kid was going through and were sweet to him. He said, I love Hooters people the rest of my life because my dad was trying to man me up. And they understood that I was gay and made me feel wonderful and gave me delicious wings. Anyway, here's to the Hooters, ladies. All right, let's go on a quick break.

We come back. Siri gets a makeover. Support for this show comes from Teleport. Here's a finding that should stop every tech leader cold. Organizations most confident in their AI deployments have more than twice the security incident rate of those that aren't. 72% versus 33%. That's from Teleport's 2026 infrastructure identity survey of more than 200 infrastructure security leaders. A data breach isn't just a costly endeavor.

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Scott, we're back with more news. As we tape, Apple's planning to announce a Siri overhaul at its annual developers conference. Oh my God, you think? The new Siri features a chatbot style app and uses Google Gemini technology AI-powered web search. Siri will be able to understand personal data and analyze on-screen content and users will be able to return to their prior conversation as a conference. It is the last of Tim Cook's tenure before he hands the reins to John Ternis. There was a good story about how behind they were, you know, Tim saying they were behind on AI and not doing enough. I think, Siri has been one of their worst things they've ever done.

It's so useless. I was walking here from the subway. I was in Manhattan this morning doing some meetings. And I got to tell you, Scott, like, it couldn't call Amanda. Like, it can't do things. It sucks. Siri sucks. So, you know, and I'm not going to be happy that it just is workable at this point.

I'm just, I find it useless. And I think Apple has really missed a boat here for many years, for decades even. Your thoughts? Yeah, we've talked about this. I mean, it's right up there with the cyber truck for, like, the biggest product fails, and that's unusual for Apple. The rebuild theory runs on a custom 1.2 trillion parameter Gemini model under a deal worth approximately a billionaire to Google.

And it's a three-tier rooting system that handles queries on-device for simple tasks. Apple's private cloud for moderate requests and Google's Nvidia B200 GPS are used for heavy reasoning. and they're claiming that new capabilities are multi-step commands, persistent conversation history synced via iCloud, and an on-screen awareness. It's being launched as a standalone app for the first time, and they've delayed the overall twice. The original AI boss left the company before it shipped, and critics warn that Apple is surrendering AI to Google the same way it's surrendered search

and deepening the reliance on a competitor, I would argue it was a smart move because of the licensing deal. and John Turnus, you know, he might switch direction and want to put his mark on this thing. It's a big, it's a maker, I don't know if it's a maker break bet for Apple, but it's important because as of earlier this year, they were the only big tech company

whose CAPEX decreased from last year. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. But if you think about a market, I mean, I accidentally turn on Siri by hitting the wrong button on my phone, 10 times a day, which means it is the most accessible AI in the world. If I'm constantly bringing up AI accidentally on my iPhone, that means it's the most accessible AI in history.

And for them not to be figuring out a way to get some of that AI juju, you know, it feels like a missed opportunity, even if it means outsourcing all of it to someone else, they should be the front end. And Siri is arguably, at this point, I wonder if Siri needs a rebrand because it's come to be emblematic of something that just doesn't work. It doesn't work. And I do put a lot of trust in Apple in terms of privacy.

I'm not worried about interacting with it as much as I am. Like, you load up everything into AI and I don't. But I feel I trust Apple, but it's incompetent. It's like having, it's a bad assistant. I can't believe it took this long for Tim to have this assessment. But, you know, one would imagine it's critical going forward, especially if they're going into glasses and things like that, you know, that you have this thing that just does what you ask it to do on a basic level. You know, there's AI in everything now, and so much of it is so bad. I do think, and it's a missed opportunity because they're so good at everything else.

Well, the best experience I've had with Apple AI happened this morning. I was working out. And as always, I was listening to my mix of ELO and REM and NXS. I love EO. And Capcut, for some reason that I have the app Capcut on my phone. And Amelia said, learn more about CapCott's editing features. And I'm like, and I just instinctively went, oh, God, fuck off. And Siri responded, I won't respond to that.

Oh, yeah, it does that. When you curse at it, it totally has a pull. It was chastised, you know. It does that when you call them stupid. When I called it seriously stupid. I won't respond to that. Which I do on a daily basis. It was like, I'm sorry you feel that way.

So I've been saying to everyone that I won't respond to that. Anyways, that's the best experience of Apple I have had. Anyway, good luck, Apple. Make it better. We have very low expectations that you will. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. AI is transforming customer service. It's real and it works.

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it's a thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing. Okay, Scott, some wins and fails. You go first. Okay. The win, I was just struck by this.

There's all these movies that people are going to the movies for obsessions and backrooms, which is started on YouTube-y kind of things, but they're wonderful. I think people really like them. I don't think just because they start on YouTube, they have to be bad. But domestic box office crossed a billion dollars last month, the number not seen since before COVID, which is interesting, and that's without a Marvel movie, which I think is nice. There's a lot of really interesting things out there that are doing well,

lots of different interesting movies. The big winners right now are the Michael Jackson Biopic Monies, Michael, which I have not seen, because it doesn't include some other stuff about them, I think needs to be there. And The Devil Wars Prodig 2, starring Kara Swisher, of course. But it's just nice. You're seeing a lot of that, and I do, I've noticed I've gone to the movies recently. I know you don't, but I hadn't, and now I am, because I want to see them in the movie theaters. And there's a couple of movies. I do want to see in the movies theaters, including the next Top Gun, David Allison. I think you do, and let me pay you a compliment because I never do. You make a marvelous

top gun movie and I like your Star Trek work and Mission Impossible. My fail is the 60-minute thing because it's so unnecessary and stupid and I know reporters I agree with you can be like a little bit, you know, self-serious and, you know, pompous and something. In this case, they really are right and it's not, they really are right. This is so dumb and they can't answer the question, why did you fire competent people? If you can't actually even answer it internally, there's something wrong with you. And at the same time, my one favorite phrase that I I'm using a lot now. And poor Nick had, when he was leaving with that fraught meeting with Scott Pelly, he was, he said as he was leaving, he sort of flounced out because he was getting fried by Scott,

and Scott is a tough guy. He said, enjoy the bagels. Some people from 60 minutes said they're going to make secret t-shirts called Enjoy the bagels, exclamation point. And I just enjoy that. But I don't enjoy any of the rest of it. I don't. I think it's sad. And it's unnecessary. And stupid. So anyway. I like it. Enjoy the bagels. There you go. Enjoy the bagels. So look, my win is the death of higher education has been greatly exaggerated. Applications are up, but that's how my win. My win is our great public universities. One of the most underreported stories in America right now, I think is that the market is finally disciplining higher education, and that is families are waking up and realizing that paying a half a million dollars for a bachelor's degree is a luxury good masquerading as an investment.

And applications to our flagship public universities, which are a much better value, are exploding. The University of Texas at Austin received more than 90,000 applications up 25% year on year, why applications at places like the University of Virginia, University of Michigan have surged director labels. My son's there. Alex is there. The university, my alma mater, UCLA, gets 160,000 applications. They get the number of a small city. And why are they doing this?

Because we're coming to an uncomfortable truth. And that is after your first job, you know, people care that you got into a good school, but they don't care if it's a good school or, quote, unquote, an elite school. They just want to know that you went to a good school. And they also care whether you can just do the work. They're also great schools. Let me just say for Michigan, it's substantively less expensive than Louis school. UC San Diego.

And NYU, I'm sorry to tell you, substantively. University of North Carolina. Yeah. I mean, these are outstanding schools. The guess what folks? Can we just point out? It wasn't cheap, but it was substantively more,

less expensive. It was less expensive. I'm not saying it's a good value. I'm saying it's a much better value. It is. And the ROI gap that you're referring to is staggering at many flagship state schools and in-state student can graduate

with tens or even hundreds of thousands less debt than access. and access comparable employers, alumni networks, and graduate school opportunities. You know, the elite schools have spent 30 years turning themselves into luxury brands, and the public flagship spent 30 years building capacity, research, and outcomes. Did you see what I sent you, the numbers for those elite schools? I've gone up like over 100,000 each for each year. It's crazy.

Yeah, it is crazy. Yeah, so look, the new American dream isn't getting into Harvard. it's getting rejected by Harvard, and then going to Michigan or Texas, landing the same job and using the quarter of a million dollars you saved as a down payment on a house. And I should post-hire ed all the time because I think me and my colleagues have been drunk on scarcity and reflect this dangerous trend towards rejectionism, where we feel good when we turn away 90% of our applicants, similar to a head of a homeless shelter writing that he or she turned away nine and ten people last night. We are public servants, not Hermes bags.

but I do think our great public universities are doing their level back. You go to the University of Wisconsin and Madison and you see exactly what you should see. It's not the Ritz-Carlton-Madison. The buildings are a little tired and haggard, and there's thousands of students floating in and out of their classes, and it's a bunch of middle-class kids from Wisconsin and Minneapolis

who are not freakishly fucking remarkable. Some of them were captain of the little class team. Most were not. Most are socially conscious. Most have not figured out a freshwater startup to bring potable water to Rwanda. They're just good kids looking for great futures. A lot of our public universities

are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing. And folks, when you hear someone saying, oh, our daughter, we're thinking that she doesn't need education because of AI or higher ed, that means she just got a 22 on the ACT. Higher ed has never been more important. Critical thinking, social responsibility, getting along with others, relationships,

getting your heartbroken, breaking other hearts. If you are one of the one-third of American public that has access to higher education, trust me on this, it is a really solid plan B, especially if you can go to one of our great public universities who continue to follow their mission. Can I put in a little plug for public schools in general? My kids are both in public.

little kids, and I have to say I feel so good about them, and they're great, and they're doing really well. I went to public school kindergarten through graduate school, and the generosity of California taxpayers and the vision of the Regents of the University of California are literally why I'm here with you now. And my total tuition, first off, acceptance rate of UCLA, 74%, was one of the 26% that didn't get in, but I reapplied and they let me in because they had that kind of capacity and bandwidth. my total tuition, five years undergrad, two years graduate school, $7,000.

I showed up to UCLA with like a 1982 Volkswagen Rabbit and $300. And I got through all five years and all two years of graduate school with no money with student jobs and $15,000 total in debt. Amazing. Amazing. And now they want you to be Andy Rooney, which you're not doing. Anyway, I really appreciate you. That's a great one, Scott. Is that your fail? That's your win. What's your fail? Thanks. My fail is Ferrari's electric car. This is a rare misstep from one of the world's great brands. I feel like Ferrari announcing an EV is like Maker's Mark, my favorite whiskey brand announcing it's launching bottled water. It might make sense. It might even be profitable, but something important just died at the Ferrari factory. People are mad at that Ferrari. People are mad.

Well, for God's sakes, nobody spends a half a... There's Johnny I for people to not know, right? It's like text ruins fucking something else. Nobody spends a half a million dollars on a Ferrari because it's efficient. They buy it because it makes irrational noises that trigger a primal, masculine, wonderful instinct in the male brain. The engine isn't a feature. It's the product. And luxury is about scarcity, emotion, and theater.

And an electric Ferrari is becoming a very expensive appliance. Nobody puts a poster of an appliance on their bedroom wall. Nobody wants to give you a random oral sex because you have a hot appliance. Maybe a sub-zero, but only if you all in the home around it. Anyways, don't know how I got here. The challenge isn't engineering. Every competent automaker can build a fast EV. The challenge is replacing 80 years of Italian heritage built around noise, vibration,

and mechanical drama with software. Them going electric is like... say it looks like a Honda. Well, it's like Rolex launching a smartwatch. It might sell, but you've confused the source of your value proposition. This is one of the great brand mistakes of 2026. You're right.

Even I looked at it and I was like, that's not a pretty car and Ferrari'd be pretty. Like, you know what I mean? It was like so simple. Yeah, I think it was a Johnny Eye misstep in that regard. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind.

Go to nymag.com slash pivot. a question for the show. We're called 85551 Pivot. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, I did a show about sports, and in this case, the World Cup. This week, on On with Kara Swisher, I'm talking about the World Cup,

which kicks off later this week with the U.S. as one of the co-hosts. I talked to a panel of experts, including New York Times sports correspondent, Terrick Ponja. We talked about the crazy ticket prices and also the fears that ICE will ramp up enforcement, among other things.

Let's listen. A lot of those people will be soccer fans, We'll be football fans, as we call them here. They'll be coming from all over the world or be in the United States, hoping to go to games. I remember last summer, the US hosted the Club World Cup, and there were Brazilian teams there, for example. And I talked to some fans of Flamengo, which is Brazil's most popular team, we were living in Boston. Now, they were going to go in convoy to watch the games last summer. And at the last minute, they thought, hang on, this might not be a good idea.

we don't want to be so visible driving in this big convoy of Brazilians to this soccer match. It was really good. And guess who asked the question? Scott Calloway. They love your question. You don't like the answer, Scott. I appreciate it. Yeah, but you're talking about sports is like Greta Thumburg reviewing steakhouses.

I get it. I mean. It's a good, you know, I let them talk. I just ask questions. I'm sorry. It's like a cat breaking down the Westminster dog show. It just. I try.

It's like RFK talking about vaccines. It's literally the world came off its axis. I try. I think I did a good job. I did. I can't do it again. I think it would be easier for a nun to review only fans. I just.

Anyway, you helped me a great deal and they gave a good answer. I really appreciate it. You called me and you said, you said, you have to do me a solid. And I thought it was going to be something big and you're like, I'm interviewing the head of FIFA or someone you have to ask a question. reporters on the World Cup. I can do that easily. By the way, ticket prices, I'm obsessed with the World Cup. I went to Russia.

I went to L.A. in 94. I went to Russia. I went to Qatar. I'm going to this one. Granted, it's the final. But category one final seats, which are good seats. But to go to the final, the ticket price, the face value, is $38,000. I know, but then it's like $100.

And so. Go England. It's coming home, Kara. It's coming home. They said. They say Spain is the one. Spain's amazing. No, they said Spain's going to win. They got the kid. They said Spain. All of them agreed Spain was going to win. And I had no. I was like, okay. No, they said Spain. Anyway, and I don't even know what that means. Oh, and I know there's some new player there, a young player. And this is the last thing for Messi and some other person. Who is the second? Ronaldo. And also, Harry Kane. This is their last, this is their last show, right? Correct. Well, they said the last time, but it looks, it looks. It looks. It looks. It looks. It looks.

like this does look like you have some changeover. Changeover. But you also have Mbapé. I don't know. Now we're talking about. The gentleman, you referred to as Laminia Mall, who was scoring goals at the age of 17. I took my son to a game and I looked at him and I felt bad. I'm like in a disparaging way and I'm like, that kid's younger than you.

I'm like, you better like get something going on. That kid's younger than you. That's enough sports talk. Oh, my God. for Kara, okay? Oh, wait, I'm sorry. He joined FC Barcelona at 16. Okay, go find another friend for this.

No, Kara doesn't care. The lesbian doesn't care. Oh, my God. Okay, that's the show. He's literally the only unicorn to come out of Europe. He is the European unicorn. Okay, I don't know what you're saying. He's carrying a nation of 48 million people on his left foot.

Oh, my God, you're not, you're literally, you keep talking. Okay. That's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Enjoy yourself this week, Scott. You have the SpaceX IPO and the World Cup. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday.

Today's show was produced by Larry Newman and Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Wiseman. Alia Jackson engineered the episode. Thanks also to Dubros, Ms. Severan, Dan Shalon, the Chouroaz, Box Media, as executive producer, podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box Media. We'll be back later this week for a breakdown of all things tech and business. Support for the show comes for. From Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps

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