Pivot - Trump's Interview Disaster, The Kids Online Safety Act, and Governor Jared Polis

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

Kara and Scott discuss Donald Trump's disastrous interview at the National Association of Black Journalists’ conference, the hundreds of VCs pledging their support to Kamala Harris, and the narrowing VP race. Plus, the latest earnings from Meta and Microsoft, and the Senate finally takes action with online regulation for kids. Then we’re joined by Friend of Pivot, Democratic Governor of Colorado, Jared Polis. You can find Governor Polis on Threads at @govofco. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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. you were with the dudes, the white dudes. White dudes, yeah. Where are you right now? I'm still in Aspen. I'll be here for... There's a lot of white dudes. Yeah.

Speaking of white dudes, my friends Eddie Blau and David Frey, my roommates, my sophomore year at UCLA are coming to town. That's nice. That's really nice. Yeah, it is nice. I'm waiting for my invitation. But in any case... There's no reason to issue an invitation to you.

I will sometimes walk into my home and you'll be there. That's true. I can just show up. I am staying at your apartment this weekend when I take my son to school. He's getting, Louie's going back to NYU for his final year. So thank you in advance. You're welcome. So lots going on.

Tell me really quickly, there's a lot of news happening as we speak. First of all, tell me about the dude call. And you made Mark Hamill do something for money. I loved it. I loved that whole thing. Explain to me how that went. You know, it was really nice. I think the first thing is I was initially like, oh, we're going to be accused of identity politics. And what I realized was the vibe was we were sort of poking fun at ourselves and some of the identity politics on the left. And there was no like, no one ever even dreamt of saying, well, as white dudes, we need the following.

It wasn't, it was tongue in cheek. It was really nice. It was a super nice vibe. Right. The politicians on the call, the governors of Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina, Secretary Buttigieg, a bunch of really impressive representatives.

You know, they were very, I thought they stole the show. I thought they were outstanding. And you can see why that they run, you know, they run for office. And it was just, everyone kept their comments brief. I think we raised four and a half million dollars. It was a really nice vibe. I was just so- You like having a group of guys just guying it up, but in a nice way.

Not like the bad group of guys the other day. And the guy who stole the show was the dude, Jeff Bridges. Yeah. I mean, he is the dude. He is the white dude. He's like the patron saint of white dudes. But they had all these actors. They had Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

One of my favorite movies, a weird movie called Looper that he was in. I got to know him because he was doing the Travis Kalanick role in Super whatever. Oh, in Super Pumped. He's very talented. He's actually a great dancer. Okay. And the kid who plays the Hobbit, Sean Astin. Oh, he was there, Sean Astin.

Oh, wow. He seemed very thoughtful. And explain to people what you did, make a paper. Hamill did. I can't believe he did it. Explain what you did. Dance for my money, sir. Go ahead. I went through my whole rant, and then I said, you know, I'll donate some money, but I'm a selfish person. I need something in return. And I said, I have a hero on the line. I need this hero to unmute and say the following. I'm Luke Skywalker, and I'm here to rescue you. And so he did it. And I thought it was a nice moment. Anyways. I love that. I was like,

oh, he didn't. And then I'm like, oh, he did. Well, it was enjoyable to watch. It's interesting. I was saying in the last pivot, trying to be insightful that every medium has its day in an election, and this is a medium of video. What's interesting is so far, you know what the technology of this or the medium of this election is, is Zoom. Zoom, Zoom. Sort of a pandemic bad feeling, but now, you know, because you have to be on Zooms. But I have to say, I think it's very, you know, someone was asking me, oh, these, I think it was you, but it actually is fun identity politics. Like it's- Yeah, this is us making fun of ourselves. We weren't saying that, you know, we're white dudes and we need the following and we're representing ourselves. It wasn't that.

It was a really nice vibe. They thread the needle. The kid who inspired the whole thing, he should be so proud of himself because he pulled us together in like 72 hours and raised $4.5 million and created a lot of good vibes. Yeah, all these groups are fascinating. Now there's going to be a seniors one. There's going to be a cat ladies. It's just fun. It's a fun way to raise money and talk about politics and feel community. I know it sounds crazy, but online,

you can have a feeling of community. It's not fake community. It's actually real. Anyway, I was very amused by your performance. It was very funny. And I heard a lot about it. Thanks. Yeah. You did your whole man has to protect woman thing. Yeah. I got a lot of pushback for that. We're men, we protect and we provide. Someone was like, do you believe he said that? I'm like, he says that every week. Yeah, I got pushback there and I got pushback. I mean, online get you a pushback. I got pushback on my dress, which I understand. Yeah.

And I got pushback from bringing up Israel. But, you know, player gonna play, daddy's gonna daddy, the dog's gonna howl. the dog's gonna howl. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including the latest earnings from Meta and Microsoft. And the Senate is finally passing regulation to protect kids online, as well as other things, fakes and things like that. Plus our friend at Pivot, I'm bringing you a good person, Colorado's Democratic Governor, Jared Polis.

We're gonna talk politics and tech. He's a tech guy, that's how I met him. And he also started Proflowers. He did. That Proflowers, there was a candy company attached, all those things. He's a really interesting fella. So I have a little bit of a story there. When I was in the 90s, I was the co-founder of Red Envelope, and ProFlowers was kind of our competition.

And I'd heard, because my company was about to go public, I thought, well, white guy about to be rich, I should run for office. And my company went chapter 11. He sold his company early and made a shit ton of money. And now he's the governor of Colorado. It's his mom. His parents started that company, by the way. Oh, that's right. That's right.

You know that story. His mom called me. It's San Diego. Wasn't he living in San Diego? Yeah, it was in San Diego. But they were all in Colorado. They were all consequences. She, La Jolla, essentially, she called me when they offered her that money.

And I was the reporter, and I was like, you know, you're telling me news. Like, it was funny, but she's one of these sort of innocent kind of, not, she wasn't, I wouldn't say not sophisticated, but she, you know, she was like, Carol, what do you think? And I was like, thank you for the tip, Susan. And I told her to sell it and get all cash. Oh, my God. Because I thought Excited Home was real. It was the first crazy acquisition that made no sense. Yeah.

Well, you're welcome, Jared Palms. Anyway, but first, as we tape, Wall Street Journal, Evan Gersovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan are being released from Russian prison in a prisoner swap. This is great news. Just I'm so glad. What a terrible situation for both of them. But it seems good news, and I'm glad they didn't wait until, you know, Trump got to do it or got to say it was his or something like that. These people needed to come home. This was a ridiculous whatever mock trial. I don't even know what to say. It's kangaroo court. But, you know, I'm sure there'll be criticism

of who they swapped with, but I think this is a good thing. So... I think it's great. I don't know the details of it. I immediately thought, what are they swapping? And unfortunately,

you know, the really sad thing about this is that you create an incentive to take more people, incarcerate more people illegitimately. So, but I, look, it is wonderful that they're going home, coming home. I was worried, you know, Evan, and one of the things I love about Jake Tapper's, every day Jake Tapper has been reminding the U.S. that Evan has been, you know, falsely incarcerated in a Russian prison.

Paul Whelan didn't get nearly as much attention. And anyway, just as it was wonderful that Brittany Griner came on, I think this is wonderful too. So that's great for them and their families. This whole thing is like, there's such a kangaroo state over there. I'm not sure this is how they operate. Anyway, but the big story, speaking of strange things, is Trump is making news because he needs to be in the news for his appearance at a conference of black journalists. In his 30-minute interview, Trump insulted moderators, vowed to pardon January 6th defendants, and questioned Kamala Harris's race. Let's listen to a clip. I've known her a long time indirectly, not directly very much.

And she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black. And now she wants to be known as black. So I don't know. Is she Indian or is she black? She is always identified as a black. I respect either one. I respect either one. But she obviously doesn't. Oh, good heavens. I don't even know what to say. She's always been black. I don't know how I've always thought of her as black and Indian. What is happening here, Scott? I'm very eager to hear your comments because it seems like he just wants attention to himself or maybe he's got a cognitive problem or maybe he's just a racist. The way he says black was so strange.

Yeah, but what's more disappointing is that there's a certain, and it's unfortunately a significant portion of the population that responds to that bullshit. They do. And so, you know, at some point you got to blame voters. I agree. It's like, unless he's, you know, you send a swift react. I mean, keep in mind the Republican Party used to be the party of equal rights. I mean, they've played a very big role in civil rights. You know, he's better than Lincoln for black people. That's another thing he said, again, as he likes to say. And just laughing. And I think so many people feel so abused or lied to

with sort of this starched politically correct, or what they perceive is a bunch of elites telling them that they're for them and then things getting worse for them that and they're so angry about certain things or perceived loss of what America is, whatever it is, that they just want someone who's so they they conflate change and leadership with how offensive you are because they're sick of people telling them one thing and being so kind of politically correct and not really... Let's move away from... Let's put what he said. I love your... From what you're... It's not their fault for this guy saying these things. This is really strange. Yeah, but they keep responding to it, Kara. It works, unfortunately. Well, some people do. Well, okay, so a progressive podcast is outraged.

And you know what? His audience claps at this shit. They think he's a leader. Oh, well, it's just Trump going to Trump. And they don't. Until voters, people respond, products respond to the marketplace. Until voters start saying on Fox or interviewing, his comments on race are unacceptable. I used to follow him. I'm not going to follow him anymore. I'm not going to vote for Harris. He's not going

to stop. All right. So what would you do here? How would you push back besides being, I'm not outraged. He's just, he's a racist and this is what he says, but this is kind of nutty. It seems nutty, but it's obviously a messaging attempt. Although they did pull him off the stage. His staff pulled him off the stage. That's quite frankly, that's what I would focus on. I would focus on, I'd go after him and say, I would go after, Donald Trump is too old, and we've all had this person in senile and is making ridiculous statements, and even his own campaign, full of his own acolytes and their own set of weirdos, are now pulling him off stage because he is so old and crazy. I wouldn't go after the indignant speech. I would go after another. This is another piece of evidence that

he is way too old and doesn't understand what he's saying. And even his own campaign now, similar to what Biden's staff has been correctly accused of, of hiding what is going on here. And they had to pull him off the stage. I would focus on that aspect of it. Let's assume this isn't a tactic by him, though, not just that he's a crazy old man, racist man, which he is. What is the tactic here? I don't even understand. I mean, I know it appeals to some people. Those people are already in his camp. Who else does this appeal to? Well, I guess it activates them, but also the attacks against Senator Warren were similar, that they're pretending to be something they aren't for their own advantage and to try and seize the moral high ground.

I don't know. I don't think she's ever hidden it. Well, yeah, it's a ridiculous accusation, but they've already started kind of the sexist and racist attacks. Yeah. So, you know. This is unhinged. And I think you're right. You focus on the unhinged and weirdness of it.

I think this word weird is an excellent one, I have to say. I think so, too. That was smart of them. It's much better than the plural. What would you do, Kara? You know, I was like, oh, for fuck's sake. Like, you know, I have to say, he's crazy. He's a crazy old man.

He's a crazy old man. Racist man. Like, ooh, what a crazy old racist man. That's so strange. And then I'd make fun of him. I think making fun of him. I think making fun and mocking him is better than being righteous about it. I thought the reporter did a good job. Like, what? Like, huh? That kind of thing. And interestingly, Harris seemed to have taken your word for it and has not reacted with righteousness. She's just

like, this is just more of the same crap. Like, let's move forward. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's interesting that she controlled herself. I thought that was a smart move on her part not to be, like, she didn't dine out on it, for sure. And she could have, because she had a speech right after to a huge group of black sorority women, which she's a member of, by the way, because she's black. Yeah, I don't think she should.

I mean, this kind of comes to the VP. This is a perfect job for the VP. The VP typically is the attack, kind of the attack dog. And I think she wants to come across as a little bit more statesmanlike. And I don't know. She did a good job. I was expecting like a remark, but she didn't make any. She's like, oh, like that guy.

Oh, the racist over there. Let's just ignore him kind of thing. ugh, like, that guy, ugh, the racist over there, let's just ignore him kind of thing. Interestingly, on the Kamala side, more than 100 VCs have pledged their support for Kamala Harris. The group includes many notable names like Mark Cuban, Reid Hoffman, Aileen Lee, Vinod Khosla, bunches, bunches. Very good entrepreneurs. Reid Hastings already gave a ton of money. The group's pledge says that it believes in a strong institutions are a feature, not a bug. It's sort of, you know, it's sort of the blue team, essentially. And they're very high level

people who are really, you know, more of the remarkable people. The group on the red team is Elon, who's absolutely talented, Peter Thiel, who's absolutely talented, and then a bunch of like idiots, you know, and sort of failed entrepreneurs or crypto bros and stuff like that. So, you know, this is sort of, it's become an interesting split. I never thought the tech people were liberal myself. So I'm not surprised by this split. Well, the region they're in is Silicon Valley is actually quite 53% of residents, Silicon Valley residents are registered Democrats versus only 16% of Republican. But I get, you know, to your point, they're not running for office there. They're just wealthy tech guys. Secretary Buttigieg had a good answer for it. He said,

look, these are essentially a group of very rich people and the Republican party tends to be very good for very rich people. And these aren't people focused on maybe some of the bigger issues. I got some pushback, actually really civil pushback about my comments about Commissioner Gensler not being agnostic around crypto. And this really articulate gentleman, I forget from a university, maybe overseas, said actually Gensler's been terrible on Bitcoin and crypto. He's been very hostile towards it. And what he said, what he brought up that was really fascinating, he said, you know, approximately, actually my co-host Ed Elson on Prophecy said this, but 17% of Americans own some sort of crypto. And this notion, and also a lot of them are

single issue voters because they're so passionate about it. There's definitely kind of a weird feel, kind of a culty feel around the crypto space. But I started thinking about the difference between a vote and the intensity of the vote. And that is there is a certain percentage of the population that your vote makes it more powerful because the issues that have, quote unquote, an intensity following, you use the right word, modulate. And actually, crypto, since the last election, has more intensity around it, more people on it, and more people really look hard at the viewpoint around crypto or the complexion or the perception of that person being amenable or not amenable to crypto. Yeah, they're a little culty. I don't know what else to say. They're single-issue voters. That's certainly true. Yeah, but things like crypto, things like there's, you know, a lot of Jews are single

voter issues now. We're hoping, to date, campaigns have always made the mistake of believing that a lot of people are single-issue voters around choice. And to date, they haven't been. And people are hoping this election might change that. But it'd be interesting to know how many people are single-issue voters around choice. And to date, they haven't been, and people are hoping this election might change that. But it'd be interesting to know how many people are single-issue voters around the border. But it struck me that crypto is going to play a much bigger role in terms of intensity. They're definitely intense, and they all want jobs. And they're mad about the whole Sam Bank and Freed thing. And they're really

in it for themselves, Scott. I don't think it's much more complex than that. And they decide that crypto is a religion to them. And so if you question them, and look, I think Kamala Harris is going to come down in a much more central place with some regulation, safety, things like that. What was it called? A triangulation in the Clinton administration? Yeah, she's going to come in the center. And then they're going to be like, oh, we love her. You know, these people have no political values except for more money for themselves, honestly. I think a lot of people vote that way. I think a lot of people see it as government is ineffective. I'm just going to vote for whoever keeps the most money in my pocket. I think a lot of people vote that way. That's

correct. I agree. These guys are just, but these guys have to tell you what they think about everything though. I'm like, just say, I want money. Just like, go away. You, you know, you political value free people and stop lecturing me. Is this before or after they moved to Texas to spend more time with their family because they're outraged at California politics? You know what? It was so funny. I was, I was in San Francisco and one of the VCs who's most against California was sitting right there in Tartine Manufactory having lunch, like that he goes on and on. I'm like, what the fuck are you doing here?

I thought you hated California. He spends a lot of time in California. It's such bullshit. It's such endless fucking bullshit with these people. I'm sorry. They're so, they're just liars. I don't know what else to say. Anyway.

Are you still in California? I'm not. I'm back in DC, but it was- Are you back in DC? Okay, good. As Harris nears making a VP pick, by the way, speaking of that, I'll make a difference. It'll be an interesting person. One of her top options is cementing a strategy for Democrats.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has decided the line of attack against Republicans, calling them weird. He's a very folksy fella. Let's listen to a clip. The fascists depend on fear. The fascists depend on us going back. But we're not afraid of weird people. We're a little bit creeped out, but we're not afraid. He's pretty funny. I have to say he's a very, I like him. I'm like, national host of America. I should be Tim Walz. There's also

Josh Shapiro, who is a very fine legislator, governor of Pennsylvania. There's Andy Beshear from Kentucky. There's Mark Kelly, senator from Arizona. Any thoughts? Do you have any thoughts? It's going to be announced within days. I have a lot of thoughts. I've been thinking about this a lot.

I think it's really fascinating, and I'd love to get your view, but I look at the criteria. The bottom line is, as much as it's really fascinating, and I'd love to get your view, but I look at the criteria. The bottom line is, as much as it's important to get along and this is a qualified person that could be president, I think the reality is the vast majority of the wood behind the arrow in terms of decision-making is simply who can help us get elected. I think that is the number one criteria, because your ability to govern and how you govern, it takes a distant second seat to, well, we've got to get elected first. So I think that's just the first consideration. And that comes down to, in my view, are they in a swing state? And that immediately puts Kelly and Shapiro in the lead. To a certain extent, Waltz, while he isn't in a swing state, he's in a swing region. that is that kind of that kind

of if i just looked at him and heard him for a few seconds i think he'd be a republican which gives him a little bit more credibility among that crowd he's got kind of a gretchen whitmer vibe like friendly but funny that's right just a folksy midwestern no bullshit yeah you can trust me vibe just my tone my no nonsense kind of potchy-skinned white guy rap gives me more credibility, unfortunately. Coach. Yeah, coach, teacher. He's just out of central casting. And he's in a region.

He borders, I believe, Wisconsin and Michigan. So he's potential. The second is, do they immunize the top of the ticket on an issue they're weak on? Do they bring diversity around that? And the two issues that I think, and the reason why I think the final two, if you will, are Shapiro and Kelly, is that it technically, they would immunize presidential candidate Harris from, R1, Israel, which is already being used as a cudgel into the border. Senator Kelly has a fantastic line on this. He basically says, the Democrats don't understand the border and Republicans aren't sincere about fixing it. And he just comes across

as very good on the border. And that's become obviously a very big issue and technically a weakness of hers. I'm talking about perception now, what is or isn't legitimately a weakness. Shapiro obviously strengthens her bona fides around concerns around the Jewish community, around the views on Israel. The reason, I mean, and then you look at their profiles, Kelly's out of central casting, an astronaut, victim of gun violence. I mean, he's just really, he just, he's- Yeah, he's a nice fella too. Yeah. And he comes across as nice. Shapiro is outstanding in terms of his presence and he's more forceful. The reason why I think, and then I want you to guess, that my bet is Shapiro is the following. He is an outstanding attack dog because he has been taking on the Trump administration with lawsuits as an AG on the Islamophobia, around election denial.

He's like ready to go to go after the Trump administration. And he's very forceful and very articulate. Kelly, that suit just doesn't really fit him. He's not an attack person. He's very credible. He's very- I think it's going to be Shapiro too. I do. I think they're going to open themselves up because he's very pro-Israel in a way that young people might find distasteful. So she's trying to sort of, as you see, she's trying to modulate between, she's the ultimate modulator. Like, it's terrible what we're seeing. At the same time. Let's defend Israel. That's really where she's going. He's got, you know, the issues I think around school vouchers. He's a very unusual politician. I have to tell you, my conservative

relatives in Pennsylvania love him, which is interesting, you know. He's very good. And then the reason why I think, I have a more boring reason, and Michael Smirconish highlighted this to me, the reason why I think it's Shapiro is she has a campaign stop planned in Philadelphia. I don't think that's an accident. Yeah, we'll see. Anyway, we'll see. It'll be someone, a white guy, and they're all quite qualified. Honestly, I wouldn't feel bad about any of them.

And, you know, interestingly, Trump went out of his way to say the vice president doesn't matter at this ridiculous BJ thing, which was funny. He sort of was like, who cares about the vice president? To a certain extent, I was thinking about this. The vice president is kind of so far nothing but downside. And that is no one remembers them unless they were kind of a fucking disaster. Unless you're Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin. Unless you run for office and then become president. Joe Biden, George Bush, stuff like that. Yeah, but I'm not sure George Bush... Has anyone been elected president in any of the top five

reasons ever, the VP? The VP is basically invisible. It just gets you well-known. It puts you at the top of the ticket. It puts you at the top of the list. I'm not talking about the VP. I'm talking about, it's a great role for the Veep because they're naturally, they're the number one contender for the next election. But I'm just saying in terms of their ability to help the ticket, it feels to me like Veepies are just all downside. You just hope they're okay. I think in Shapiro's case, I think he's, how old is he? I'm going to look it up.

I mean, it's 40s. It looks young. We're about the same age, I think. 51. Yeah. I mean, it's 40s. It looks young. We're about the same age, I think. 51. Yeah, he's a little bit older than me. Wait a second. How old are you? I'm going to look it up. You're coming to my 50th birthday party. I'm not coming to your 50th birthday. I believe I'm coming to your 60th.

Call me Nancy Reagan and stop it. It's my birthday. 59, November 3rd, 1964. Okay, whatever. Wikipedia is wrong. All right, Z November 3rd, 1964. Okay, whatever. Wikipedia is wrong. All right, Zsa Zsa Gabor. Okay. Anyway. Zsa Zsa. Okay, let's get to our first big story.

We've got more tech earnings to discuss. So much going on. Let's start with Meta, whose shares jumped in extended trading Wednesday after the company beat estimates for revenue and profit in the second quarter. Advertising revenue rose 22% from a year earlier. And the strength of that business seems to be offsetting concerns about heavy spending on AI, which I think is necessary for them. The AI spending will be increasing with Meta upping its expected 2024 capital expenditures to at least $37 billion. We're done with the Metaverse. Now we're spending the money on AI. Meta shares did sink on AI spending news last quarter. The market seems more optimistic because they've got a really good business to get them there, I guess. There's still not a lot to show for these AI investments.

And a lot of investors are worried about where the payoffs are. How long will investors wait to get a return from Meta? And I'll just go through Microsoft earnings really quickly. Microsoft, they're less enthusiastic about those, which were a bit of a mixed bag. Overall sales and profit growth beat expectations in the latest quarter, but revenue for the company's cloud business rose slightly below the prior quarter. And analyst expectation shares were down about 3% on Tuesday after the earnings report, but rebounded for the most part the next day. So talk a little bit about that, about the two companies. Thoughts?

part the next day. So talk a little bit about the two companies. Thoughts? There's just no denying it. Meta, I mean, Meta, their earnings were up. Their earnings per share were up 73% year on year. Their ad impressions and average price per ad both increased 10% year on year. I mean, that's incredible. The average price and the number of impressions of 10%, three and a quarter billion daily active users. So 40% of the planet is on a meta platform every day. The only thing that's giving anyone any pause, and it depends how well they're positioned, is they said they warned that CapEx growth for AI will grow significantly. growth for AI will grow significantly. And they've said that the amount of compute needed to train Lama 4 will likely be almost 10 times more than what was used to train Lama 3. And people are sort of, when they get a little insecure about this, they immediately go to, similar to what they did in 99 when they went to Cisco, they go to the infrastructure place. Because if you look

at the CapEx for the software layer, Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon, their CapEx is up 31%, but their revenue is only up 19%. Whereas the hardware layer, where you go first, NVIDIA, AMD, ARM, their CapEx is actually flat, even maybe down 8%, depending on how you calculate it, but their revenue is up 146%. So it feels like a safer play right now, because since reporting their earnings, Microsoft and Google, the software stack or part of the stack, have declined 2% and 6% respectively. software layer, although, is that true? Meta was up, but Microsoft was down. But the thing that freaked everybody out on the Microsoft call was just their, I think it was like they announced something like a 78% year-on-year increase in CapEx to 19 billion, which is a staggering increase. And get this, the entire tech industry is in such a spending streak. The capital expenditures of Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Google this year will be about $200 billion.

That's double what the U.S. government spends on homeland security. I mean, these numbers are just staggering. They are. They're staggering. Whether they're going to get the money back is a real question. I think pretty much open AI is making money, but who else is? You know, this irritating VC, I'm not even going to name him, was asking, I was having lunch with Sam Altman, was asking, like, is anyone going to make money here, essentially? And I think everyone's worried about that. Is this spending going to result in, you know, growth that meets the amount of money they're spending? I don't see they have another choice but to spend, correct? This is not the metaverse. This is a really critical shift in computing.

I don't know how they can't. This is, I mean, all systems are go here. This is, I mean, as much excitement as there was about the web, even though the revenue is scant relative to the investment, it's dramatically greater than the revenue anyone was getting from the web in the 90s.

So everybody is going all in. And also it plays to their strength in the sense that they already have a captive audience to roll out AI applications to. And also they've learned from the father that if you have the advantage of cheap capital, you leverage that advantage and you go hard at CapEx to try and pull away from everybody else. So they're doing that. They're like, look, our advantage is we have access to cheaper capital because of our market cap and our PE. So we are going to turn on the spending jets. Here's a fun stat. 40% of S&P 500 companies discussed AI in their earnings calls. I mean, what is it? Only like 20% are tech companies. So even

non-tech companies are talking about AI and their earnings calls. That's up from 1% of them five years ago. So this is a tidal wave that is just sort of, this is the tail wagging all dogs. So money well spent or we don't know yet, or impossible not to spend? I think it's money very well spent for some players. Unfortunately, existing players who are running away with it, I do think there's a jump on the bandwagon. I think a lot of analysts are going to say, and I don't know if Nestle is doing this, but I think a lot of analysts are going to say to some of these second tier or consumer companies, okay, rent AI, spend money on it, but you shouldn't be spending CapEx on it. Because I've heard about some companies are trying to develop their own

LLMs and going very hard at this. But the stat I've seen that just absolutely blew me away, we tried to pull together some data on this, is that if you look at the actual amount of revenue that AI applications are generating right now, you know, OpenAI or ChatGPT, the subscription, things like that, it's about $20 billion, and it's inspired a market capitalization increase. And this includes the amount of money that companies are spending on GPUs, but it's inspired a $3 trillion increase in market capitalization. So right now the industry notionally is trading at 150 times revenues, and that just does not feel sustainable. That means the revenues these applications are garnering has to, you know, double every year for the foreseeable future, which is a, you know,

that's a big ask. Yeah, which we've talked about. Yep. Yeah, it's an arms race. They have to do it. It's an arms race. Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll discuss the Senate finally passing social media safety regulation, and we'll talk to a friend of Pivot, Colorado Governor Jared Polis. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists.

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Scott, we're back with our second big story. The Senate is finally taking action with online regulation for kids, passing a pair of bills to expand privacy and safety protections by an overwhelming margin this week. The Kids Online Safety Act, or COSA, requires platforms to take reasonable measures to prevent harm, including online bullying and sexual exploitation. The Children's Teen Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPA2, would ban targeted advertising to minors and strengthen privacy protections. The bills now head to the House, where they face an uncertain future, probably will not be passing this year. There's also some others. I think it's called the Defiance Act around fakes. And then they introduced one about fakes too,

the idea that no fakes allowed or whatever, something like that. That was Marshall Blackburn and Chris Coons, I think. So they're making some activity. It's just they're not passing them. And people are a little worried about COSAs being able to stand up to congressional scrutiny. The ACLU and tech industry groups have criticized the bill, saying important conversations around gender equality and abortion rights could be censored. You know the companies will be more careful than not careful. That said, it's thinking about child safety. But there's a lot of controversy around this legislation, and most people think it won't hold up to scrutiny. That's too bad.

a lot of controversy around this legislation, and most people think we're all told up to scrutiny. That's too bad. You know, I'm wondering how much of this is, like, written by the companies themselves, and they insert shit that it won't, such that they insert kind of booby traps, such that it'll never get past muster. But we've been saying for a long time that elegant legislation, or one thing that should happen, is that 230 protections are removed for AI-elevated content. And to me, this seems like a really clean, smart thing to do. So I'm a fan of this. The problem with, I've said that I thought that the first real externality of AI

would be deep fake and shallow fake videos as we lead up to the election. And the number of deep fake videos available online has surged by 900%. It's up 10X annually, according to KPMG. And then you would think that the kid stuff would, you know, that's kind of bipartisan. The other part that's interesting about it is the Keep Entertainment Safe to No Fakes Act, granting individuals a federal property right to approve the use of their voice, appearance, or likeness, exposing

unauthorized creators to legal liability. And also, it feels like we've got to move in pretty swiftly to punish platforms or anyone who doesn't have the technology to somewhat police deepfake, not deepfake video, but deepfake audio. I mean, some of the things that people can do with deepfake audio is really frightening. Meanwhile, lawmakers in both houses of Congress are introducing bills this week to address some of the AI times, which you just talked about, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled legislation that would permit the creation of AI replicas

without the consent of a person being replicated. This is the no-fakes bill. In the House, there's a proposed bill to carve out Section 230 immunity for tech companies that fail to remove intimate deepfakes from their platforms. This is largely around porn intimate deep fakes from their platforms. This is largely around porn, porn fakes. You know, Chris Coons said that legislation for AI replicas would correct celebrities like Scarlett Johansson as well as non-celebrities. You know, the 230 one is a little more complicated.

It's Chamber for Progress, a center-left group, just put out an open letter to Trump asking him to clarify his stance on Section 230. He's repeatedly tried to roll that back, which is a problem. I mean, they're moving on a lot of this stuff, but it doesn't mean they passed anything. The only thing they've managed to pass is a TikTok bill, essentially. Yeah, but sometimes activity and motion don't translate to progress. That's correct, yeah. And there's a lot of arm-waving here. I just want to see something's actually passed. And the digital, everyone should have the rights to their digital twin, their likeness, video likeness, deepfakes of them, their voice. But also, I generally believe

that if they don't pass something that really gives downside incentive to the platforms to ensure that AI deepfake videos. We've seen this before. They're going to feel really bad after the election about all the videos showing violence of polling stations that were clearly deepfake videos, and they'll figure out a way to take it down after they've cashed everyone's check. So this needs, I mean, this really, and also I won't even go there because I don't want to give people ideas. Deepfake audio and video has so much extortion capability online. It does. There's been story after story about people calling, saying that your husband, they sound like you.

Here's your kid's voice. of, but it was someone, the Porsche guy, the Porsche or the Ferrari guy, they were pretending it was the CEO and he figured it out, but they were using a voice about a deal. It was really complicated. And he of course caught them because he was smart, but they were using really deep, deep fake voices of the CEO as if the CEO was calling him. And so he asked him something he knew only the CEO would know, which was a book he was reading. And they weren't able to answer. And then they ran off. There's been a ton of stories recently about people deep faking people out of money, out of all kinds of stuff. And it's going to just get worse and worse. Super, super important, but we'll see where

Congress gets. I don't think they're going to pass any of this. And I doubt Coase is going to hold up to congressional, I mean, to constitutional scrutiny. That's what most people feel. Because it does, these companies will be more, will be more censorious than ever if they have, if they feel like they're even slight. So if kids are talking about being gay or things like that, they'll take that down because it'll vary state by state what is bad and what is not bad, right? So I don't know. It's going to be really hard. And this is all to the benefit of tech companies. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot so we can talk about it, a tech guy and a legislator. Jared Polis is a Democratic governor of Colorado. He's also the chair of the National Governors Association.

Governor Polis, welcome. It's great to see you again. Good to see you. So how's it going? How's it there? You just mentioned there are wildfires in Colorado. They're across the West. You know, yeah, one of the impacts of climate change is the West is hotter and drier,

and we're experiencing a lot more. So Oregon's been in the news the last few weeks. We now have nine fires in Colorado. We have four that have elevated the state responsibility. We called out the National Guard. You know, unfortunately, for better or worse, we're getting pretty good at this drill. So we've evacuated everybody, and tragically, there's only one confirmed death. But we're doing everything we can and bringing it.

We should do another show sometime on all the technology around fighting fires, by the way. It is really interesting to see some of the work around satellite imagery, and it's really evolved quite a bit over the last decade. That's amazing. So, you know, Scott's in Colorado right now, just so you know. He's an Aspen. Oh, are you, Scott? Where are you? I'm an Aspen governor.

Yeah, so you're probably, you know, both the Front Range and the western slope are getting bad air quality as a result of this, too. So, I mean, you can quite literally smell it in the air. Yeah, that's why I have you here. It's really tough here in Aspen, and I need government to really step in and protect me. Well, from fires, that might be the appropriate role of government, honestly. That's, I think, something we can agree on. Can I segue to an actual question? First off, I just want to say, Governor, I'm an enormous fan. I think you're one of the few of a dying breed of raging moderates, practical, reasonable. I'm just an enormous fan. I think Colorado, with you and our senior senator, Michael Bennett, are just great examples of what good government can do. Anyways, enough of that. Let's bring this back to me. I'm in Aspen, and I bought a home here.

And one of the things that struck me is it's nearly impossible to build. It's nearly impossible to renovate. The local review boards and the government have clearly decided to employ a strategy, which I think infects the entire nation. And that is wealthy incumbents who already own homes weaponize their local governments to ensure no new housing can be built. And the result is houses across America have gone from 290 to 410,000 from pre to post-pandemic, and young people just can't afford homes. It used to be two-thirds of America could afford a home, now it's one-third. I realize this is a broader national issue, but as governor of a state that's

growing and is prosperous, what are your views on how we increase housing stock and what are you doing specifically to ensure that more housing gets built so a younger generation has the same access to buying a home as we had? Preach, preach. I couldn't agree more. That's exactly the nexus of a lot of the issues we're working on housing. So housing prices are a function of supply and demand, basic economics. Demand is high. Isn't Aspen wonderful? Isn't Boulder and Denver wonderful? There's lots of wonderful places in our country people want to live. Supply has been artificially constrained, artificially low supply because of local government regulations to prevent

the construction of new housing. And so we are taking that head on and we've made some progress in Colorado. You'll be happy to know we added accessory dwelling units by right, as an example. So if you have a single family lot, you can build an accessory dwelling unit. We did multifamily zoning near transit within half a mile of bus or rail. We're for all of it, Scott. I agree we need to do more. And when people look at what is preventing housing from being built, it is effectively the zoning and local regulations that make it difficult or impossible, right? Sometimes you can fight city hall if you have the tenacity and you need $50,000 in lawyers, and Sometimes you can fight city hall if you have the tenacity

and you need $50,000 in lawyers, and eventually you can build it two years later. But all too often, they don't even let you, or you come in saying, hey, we're doing this 80-unit multifamily complex. By the time you're done, they get it down to 20 units, the exact opposite of what we need. So absolutely, I'm for intervention at any level, you know, local, federal, federal, state. We absolutely need to remove some of these artificial constraints to prevent housing that we need from being built where we need it. So I'm going to move you to politics, if you don't mind, because that's one of the things that Scott was just talking about was the idea of moderation. Democrats like you or

Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania having that imagery of more moderation, Democrats like you or Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, having that imagery of more moderation, more helping consumers, not being the same old Democratic Party. I'd love you to talk a little bit about where you think the Democratic Party is right now, especially with the candidacy of the vice president about to be, he's about to get the, become the candidate. And the, and the DNC is meeting very soon in Chicago. Talk a little bit about how you look at it across the landscape right now. Yeah. You know, I don't, I'm not always sure that moderate is the right word. There's a problem with the word moderate. The connotation of the word moderate is you somehow don't want to do anything or support the status quo or support the midpoint between what both

parties want to do. I don't think that's the case. I think solutions oriented, meaning good solutions that work, whether they come from the left or the right, wherever they come from ideologically, you want to see deployed. You know, and take this housing issue that we just talked about, right? I mean, you can find people on the left and the right that might oppose this. It doesn't mean it's a moderate solution. It's just a solution that works. There might also be allies on the left and right. It doesn't really align necessarily on an ideological map. In our state, we've got more support on the Democratic side for some of these land use reforms. But in Montana, the Republicans were supported some of these same land use reforms. So sometimes that's for political reasons. Look, I think both parties, and especially the Democratic Party, which I'm a

member of, are very broad tense, very broad tense. It's different than a multi-party European system where each ideology has its own. The Democrats might be composed of, you know, three or four different parties. Republicans are composed of at least two or three, kind of the nationalist party, the traditional conservative party, the religious party. Democrats have constituents, but we're all here in one party. And, you know, that makes things a little bit different, a little bit tougher. We have to work out our differences beforehand. But I'm excited.

Kamala Harris is a much more forward-looking, future-looking face for our party. And I think the coalition is moving in a direction that's more pro-business, pro-tech. And that's something that excites me. So, Governor, Colorado punches above its weight class. It's 21st among states in terms of population, 15th when it comes to the size of its economy, and an even more impressive eighth in terms of how much personal income that it generates. Now, I don't know if that's education. I don't know if it's a business friendly environment. I don't know if there's a kind of person you attract, but as sort of the CEO here, what is it you think are kind of the levers or the pillars of punching above your

weight class economically? So look, one of them is the great quality of life in the outdoors here. That's a competitive advantage we have, right? But it doesn't mean it's a given. We say, how do we enjoy the outdoors in a sustainable way? How do we do? We added some state parks. We reduced the cost of access. We're doing a lot around wildlife conservation. So that's one key attribute that we have. Beyond that, we've reduced the income tax three times in Colorado since I've been governor. When I came in, our income tax was 4.63%. We reduced it at the ballot box to 4.5 and then 4.4. And now with the legislature, and it was near unanimous, by the way, we got almost every

vote of every Democrat and Republican. We reduced it to 4.25%. So we reduced property tax percentages as well. And we're the 48th lowest property tax state. Again, many Coloradans who might hear complain because their properties went way up in value and the rates floated down, but they might still be paying more in absolute terms. But we, as a percentage of our property value, we're 48th lowest. And we're favorable towards innovation. And know, and while we, you know, education is so important,

I can't say, and no governor can, that we have a terrific education every school across the board because it's locally controlled and there's a lot of differences, but we have a system that allows for innovation. We are second in percentage of charter schools, as an example, to Washington, D.C.

Within districts and outside of districts, we have choice that allow parents to choose the option and the school that work best for their kid. We just implemented universal preschool. One of the things that I ran on, Colorado didn't have preschool before. Parents had to pay for it. Now we have universal preschool for every four-year-old. And it's the preschool of that parent's choice, right? Obviously subject to a lottery and, you know, and wait lists and so forth. But you get everybody has equal access and that's exciting. So talk a little bit about the impact of tech. Now, you're a tech guy going way back. We met back in Blue Mountain Art days, but you also founded an internet access company

from your college dorm room. Your parents and you ran Blue Mountain Arts, which the best trade of the internet age back then. You managed to sell it at the peak and get out. And you had a lot of theses about politics and the information age that I remember we used to discuss. Now the tech people are really involved in it. And sometimes for the negative, there's sort of a blue team and a red team right now, it seems like. Can you talk about the role of tech? And especially at this point, a lot of them are over there because of all kinds of reasons. But crypto is one of the one of the issues. And you've been a big proponent of that. So can you talk a little bit? in public office, it doesn't mean I necessarily would invest in crypto. I want to be clear, I'm not bullish on crypto per se, but I'm bullish on technology per se and removing barriers for disruptive technologies like crypto. Absolutely. And so we were right. But your Colorado became

the first state to let residents pay state income tax with crypto. Absolutely. Crypto forward. You can you can use it to buy your driver's license, different state fees you can pay in crypto. And very few people do. But we're excited that some do. And we also want to create some regulatory safe harbors to the extent we can for new developing technologies like crypto. Much of that is federal. So there's only limited ability of states to do that. And I can just say as a member of the Democratic Party and, you know, having won primaries for Congress, for governor, I'd never had any issues with my fellow Democrats about being pro-technology, pro-crypto. And, you know, is that what you run on? No, because that's not the top issue on people's minds.

I mean, you run on preschool and environmental protections and the things you're doing. But whenever it comes up, that's always been my position. And why? And by the way, Colorado's well positioned now on the quantum technology sector, too. And that's another exciting. So people don't know Colorado's designated tech hub for quantum computing by the Biden-Harris administration last year. You won a $40 million grant from the government this month to jumpstart that growth. Go ahead.

Sorry. That's right. In many ways, that was a recognition of where we are. It wasn't like they were giving that to us to become the leader in quantum. It was the recognition by the feds that we are the national play on quantum tech is here. Over 3,000 jobs in quantum tech already, which is far more than any other region of the country. We have five Nobel Prize winners. So, I mean, we want to bet on the future in Colorado. We're a very forward-looking, innovative state. And America is a very forward-looking, innovative nation. I mean, you look at most major innovations, both in the online world and the offline world, the disproportionate share come from America. So you talked about Colorado punching above our weight. I'm proud that our country very much punches above our weight. And with the had any politics, but many of them become Trump supporters. So how do you look at that? And then of course, there's the ones that are not obviously

like Reid Hoffman, Reid Hastings, Binod Khosla, et cetera. So, I mean, look, I grew up in this culture and I'm part of it. Right. So, I mean, I think, and you do too, Cara. I mean, so you get Elon Musk, right? I mean, look, I, you know, 4chan, Reddit, I mean, these are, you know, I get this stuff. You know, it's like people are, you know, trolls and trash talk and all the fun stuff along with it. The wonder is just a great, you know, beauty of the Internet and what it brings out. But look, there's an ideological diversity there. And you just saw there were a bunch of venture capitalists, you know, VCs for Kamala Harris.

I think most people that are professionally involved with tech value the stability that Kamala Harris would bring. I mean, Donald Trump is about chaos, right? And there's a beautiful side to chaos on the internet, but there's not as much of a beautiful side to chaos as the chief executive of the largest, most important country in the world, both on the international stage and the domestic stage. It's hard to figure out what the core beliefs are with regard to tech and Donald Trump. I mean, he tends to like it if it talks about how great he is, and he doesn't like tech if it denigrates him. He shifts really dramatically. I don't think he has any opinions, honestly. Well, he's narcissistic. I mean, that's a personality he has. And that's his lens that he

views tech through. So let me ask you, to follow up to that, how would you make the case for people to support Vice President Harris in tech? What is, if you had to, you were in front of some of these guys that are like, she's against crypto, or I'm not getting, you know, woke mind virus, whatever the nonsense they're spewing at any one moment. Yeah. I mean, you know, first of all, she's not Joe Biden and she's a different person. And Joe Biden is who he is. I happen to like Joe Biden, but you'll like him for who he is. He's, you know, an old time Irish pole. I mean, you know, he's, I think, what the country needed at the time. I certainly supported him last time around. I don't think we were making the case. This is the guy for the tech and the future, right? This is the guy to save democracy, hopefully to bring us together. He's

the elder statesman we needed, you know, a safe hand when we need it through difficult times. I think Kamala Harris can be more indifferent in a lot of different ways. She hails from California, strong ties to Silicon Valley. She has a lot of friends and associates that are themselves entrepreneurs. I think she understands the value of disruption, the entrepreneurial economy. And you'll see that manifest itself in policy. She's already done outreach to the crypto world. She's already doing extensive outreach to the venture capital world. I think she gets value and capital formation. And is she going to be perfect on every issue? Of course not. Nobody is. And by the way,

many Republican states are taking a hard turn, anti-internet, anti-free expression, restricting the access and so forth. So look, it's not a partisan thing, but I think Kamala Harris will be a great leader for innovation and for the future. Scott? Governor, you were on a bunch of people's short list for a potential VP pick, which connotes the notion that you're at some point a viable candidate to be president. When you look out across either foreign policy or tax policy or social policy,

are there any one or two issues that you're especially passionate about that if for whatever reason you were to end up in federal office, you would want to pursue that you think are especially important in America right now? Well, you know, one that I highlight that I'm hopeful that Kamala Harris will be better on because we had kind of two mediocre, we had a bad choice with Donald Trump, mediocre with

Joe Biden was trade and expanding markets overseas, bringing down tariffs and trade barriers. Trump is absolutely the worst, right? 10% universal tariff on everything that's inflationary, increased costs, not to mention the retaliatory tariffs other countries would launch that would, you know, destroy American manufacturing and hurt American agriculture. I think we have huge potential to grow stronger trade ties with our allies, right? I'm not even talking about the geopolitics of China now, and I have opinions about that, but I'm just saying with Europe, with the Americas, our Senator Bennett, who you mentioned earlier,

has the Americas Act in Congress, which would expand the Mexico-Canada-US trade agreement to other countries in Central and South America. So this is something we should embrace. It's something that Donald trump is the worst in and joe biden was mediocre and i'm hopeful kamala harris will be more like president obama and leading the way in trade we used to have the way i used to we used to have one and a half good parties on trade the republican party could be counted on and half the democratic party now you're down to half a party who's pro-trade. The Democrats, the half of us that are pro-trade are still here. Republicans took a hard turn towards nationalism,

towards isolationism and against trade. And that is the detriment of innovation and the detriment of our economy. So you perfectly deflected Scott's question, but go ahead, Scott. Yeah, I was going to say, let's talk specifics. Well, that's an issue that I specifically would want to help bring to the national stage, for sure. Let's talk specifically about China. There's real tension. There's been sort of a – there's like a cold peace right now. The Trump administration and the Biden administration are becoming kind of tariff crazy as it relates to China, the second largest economy. And before you answer that question, just a fun fact, Colorado has the same size economy as Thailand with a twelfth of the population.

So anyways, back to China-U.S. trade. Would you lower tariffs? Would you try to reembrace China? What would be your trade policy as it relates to China? Well, I have spoken out against the recent tariffs that President Biden imposed on solar and electric vehicles to a lesser extent. I'm not as concerned about that, but certainly on solar panels. Now, is there a legitimate national security nexus around sensitive technology when you're talking about CHIPS Act and on-shoring or friend-shoring of key technologies that include applications in the defense sector, I would put

that in a different category. And I would make sure that we consult with national security experts on our sufficiency in those areas to prepare for all contingencies. But when it comes to things like the clothing on our back, 98% of it is imported, much of it from China. A 10% tariff would be a tax on the middle class. It's back to school time. Everybody's shopping for their kids' clothes, paying 10% more. On solar panels, we want to power the low-cost clean energy revolution. If China is producing them at a level where they're losing money, I mean, that's their problem. It's our opportunity. Let's buy as many solar panels as we can to create low-cost energy for the American people. You know, electric vehicles, too, not part of critical defense infrastructure.

I don't think we should be levying tariffs on them. And then, again, you get to the sensitive national security things, and I'm much more sympathetic towards on-shoring and friend-shoring of technology. Yeah, a lot of it is hand-waving. A lot of it is hand-waving about everything. You just deflect his idea of running for office, and you and I have talked about this. And you had a very funny rejoinder when anyone asked if you were a vice presidential candidate,

which was, if they're looking for a Jewish gay guy, fantastic, here I am, like, sitting in Colorado. But why wouldn't they pick you? Like, I was sort of like, he's wrong. Why wouldn't you be acceptable to a vast majority of people? Well, you know, I was making more of a commentary on like how they do the crosstabs and the polling is down to a T. Obviously, you know, somebody from a swing state would be at a premium. And somebody who wants to let Kamala Harris, I do like people like Mark Kelly and Josh Shapiro, because they do

bring people along in their state. And, you know, it's been modeled mathematically, it might be half a percent, it might be ever, but we don't want to be sitting there after election day, saying we lost Pennsylvania by 0.2%. If only we had Josh Shapiro on the ticket, we would have won if that was a tipping point. But no, I mean, that being said, you know, I focus on kind of bringing an audience, you know, to younger people, to tech savvy people. It's a forward looking face of the party. I have kind of fun social media. I try to stay positive with it as opposed to negative.

But we kind of do quirky stuff on there. But no, I really love the job I have, Cara, to be brief. You know, I don't think there's a better job than Governor of Colorado. How often, how much more can you be governor of Colorado? You're sort of like Whitmer. I have two and a half more years. Two and a half, same thing with Governor Whitmer, right? And very popular governors. We have a lot of great governors across the Democratic Party. It's really quite amazing. The states are at this point, in any assessment, they're just more functional than the federal government. I mean, they're just, we're able to get stuff done,

you know, whether it's preschool, whether it's innovation policy, you know, we made first two years of college free for everybody earning under 90,000. So just boom, boom, boom. And federal government is very frustrating at this point. Frustrating. Okay. Last question for me, do you have a pick for vice president? Do you have any? Who would you pick if you were her? Yeah, present company not included, of course. Yes, you can pick yourself. Right, you know, in terms of winning, right, I ascribe to the data that shows that there's a small but noticeable effect for the hometown, home state person. So, I mean, Arizona, Mark Kelly's great, right? I mean, astronauts, science, tech, I mean, he's great. Josh Shapiro, I've gotten to know over the last

two years, haven't known him as long as I know Mark Kelly, but great. Very popular in Pennsylvania, very forward-looking. I think those are your top two, right? I mean, if you go away from the competitive states, you're losing that advantage. There's plenty of wonderful people with different appeal. But, you know, somebody who wants to win it, I just don't want to wake up after election day and say, my God, we could have had it with one more state. Yeah. Scott, last question. So, Governor, you're the father of two. What advice would you have for fathers with, or mothers for that matter, with very high-pressure jobs, important jobs, in terms of what you've learned about, you know, or what surprised you? What are you better at in terms of being a dad than maybe you were a few years ago? What advice do you have for young fathers?

You know, our kids are very different, like most people with multiple kids. So our daughter is very athletic, going to go to her baseball games. And our son is more cerebral and, you know, computery and all that sort of stuff. But, you know, embrace each kid. Look at him smiling as he describes his kids.

Look at him smile. You got to love this guy. Anyway, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Well, they're great. You know, everybody's, you just sort of, you know, you love them where they're at and you enjoy the time with them. Our kids are 10 and 12.

So, you know, we just try to enjoy every moment where we can with them. And they're a lot of fun. I'm home for dinner pretty much every day. You know, sometimes we have dinner a little late side, 730 if I'm late, fun. I'm home for dinner pretty much every day. Sometimes we have dinner a little late side, 7.30 if I'm late, early if I'm back by 6.30, but we have dinner every day and have good discussions. Just one quick follow-up. What about being a good partner? Well, Marlon is a great guy himself. He's the first gentleman in Colorado, his focus is animal welfare issues, so adopting cats and dogs and protecting wildlife. And he's very involved with that,

and I support him in that. And we have a great home life. We do gaming at home. We play League of Legends most nights and sometimes watch TV, but we love computer games and hanging out. Interesting. So he's a cat lady. Interesting. No, I'm teasing. That's my last question. What do you make of the efforts by the Republican Party to weaponize parenting? I have four kids. I don't talk about anyone lesser or more than. I don't judge people for having kids or not. Does this backfire from your perspective? Well, absolutely. It's just strange, first of all.

It's very, and again, we talked about Donald Trump not having any core beliefs, but Republicans saying we want the government to parent your kids is very opposite of where they traditionally been. Also very off-putting, I think, to many in the tech community. But that's basically what they're saying. I mean, what the mainstream message is that many Democrats, myself included, embrace is, yeah, look, there's different value sets among different parents. You raise your kids different ways. That's great. You know, we're not saying I'm not for or against how you raise your kids. Like even the relationship with

tech is a very personal one. Some parents don't want their kids using any tech till they're 16. Others introduce it at age six. I mean, this is not for the government to decide. This is for parents to decide in their families and in their homes. And do I think that's a winning message? Absolutely. But is it the right thing? Of course. And so that's a contrast that I'm willing to raise every day of the week. And I think the Republicans keep burying themselves deeper with trying to take over parenting when most parents just want to raise their kids and be left alone. Right. 100%. Anyway, we really appreciate it, Governor Jared Polis from Colorado. And you're a real star. Your journey has been so fascinating to me, where you've been and where

you're going. So I'll really be eager to see what's next. Thank you. Always a pleasure. Thanks, Governor. All right, Scott. Isn't he a good guy? He's a really good guy. Could I have been more sycophantic?

I was literally like Kara interviewing a lesbian journalist from The Atlantic. My questions were like, how can you be this awesome? He is awesome. He was very funny back in the day. He had like a little briefcase. He was like, I used to call him Michael J. Fox because his parents were hippies and he was like wearing a suit all the time. He's a funny guy. He's really, I'm glad he's really come into his own. I really enjoy him quite a bit. Anyway, it shows you how good government officials can be,

right? He has a lot of choices and he took this one. It's a really well-governed state. They have great elected officials. He does have the benefit of money to be able to do that. Like, so he doesn't, you know, it's he this is he's doing it for himself and for the people of Colorado. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Okay, Scott, before we get to predictions, Don Lemon just texted me. He's suing Elon Musk for refusing to pay him after the canceled X deal. X executives used Don to prop up their advertising sales pitch, then canceled their partnership and dragged Don's name through the mud. Lemon's lawyer said in a statement, just so you know, good for you, Don. I wrote him back, yay, because I don't think he's getting his money back. But nonetheless, it's yet another lawsuit for Elon and Linda Yac think we've hit sort of peak tweeting of or peak the founder tweeting of funds. So the dream of every fund manager is captive capital because the way you go out of business as an alternative investment manager is mismatched durations. And that is you invest long and you raise money short.

And that is you aggregate a series of positions that are not that liquid. And then your investors put in a redemption and you either have to sell so desperately that it takes the value of the fund down or you can't even sell. Right, so you can't keep going with your investments. Yeah. So you have to put up gates saying your investors can't withdraw their money, which is effectively the end of your fund. Because once you put your gates down, everyone redeems. Anyway, so captive capital is the dream of every hedge fund manager. And Berkshire Hathaway and Apollo have both been very smart, and that is they have insurance companies, so they have captive capital.

Another way you get captive capital is you do an IPO, and you raise capital from shareholders who own a stake and the returns on your investments. And Bill Ackman's Pershing Square planned to do a $25 billion IPO. And just this week, they announced that they're pulling the IPO. And it's pretty obvious that the reasoning is that he took a calculated risk that awareness is everything. And there's some evidence of that when guys like Chamath or Cathie Wood basically offer just terrible returns. Or Warren Buffett. Or Warren Buffett. It's folksy. But go ahead. Yeah, but Warren has performance on his side. Warren is both a good brand and has underlying performance. So far, Chamath and Cathie Wood have one of those things. They have awareness.

And their performance has been abysmal to worse. And Ackman, to his credit, is, a lot of people would argue, a brilliant investor. But when he's out there with these tweets circulating conspiracy theory, weighing in on higher ed and DEI, it appears that institutional investors have said, you know what, we're just not, we see that as a bug, not a feature, and he had to pull his IPO. And I think it's going to give pause to a lot of these fund managers who've decided that they're celebrities or internet celebrities and that the world needs to know what they're thinking about stuff. And the most ridiculous tweet of the year from a person that manages billions of dollars was from Kathy Wood of ARK, and the tweet read as follows. This is from Kathy Wood of ARK, and the tweet read as follows. This is from Kathy.

As a result, our trading-related capital tax losses should offset trading-related capital tax gains for years and underappreciated asset associated with our strategies. What she's saying is, our returns have been so shitty, we have lost so much of your money, Our returns have been so shitty. We have lost so much of your money that those losses we've aggregated are going to be so valuable to offset future gains that this is an underappreciated asset. Oh, we suck, but let me turn it to something else. Yeah, so my incompetence as a fiduciary for your capital, I've lost so much of your capital that these losses are an underappreciated asset. Yeah mean, it is good. What a surprise. These people are such grifters,

honestly. The PR person saying, wait, how do we turn a negative into a positive? And your sycophants on Twitter might even buy this. And by the way, she deleted the tweet because I'm sure about a million people weighed in and said, let me get this. Okay. My incompetence is your advantage. Anyways, I think that these very iconic investors, the day of them being bored at night and tweeting out shit, I think a lot of their institutional investors are going to go, put the fucking phone down. Yeah. And do your job. Do your fucking job. Focus on returns. Bill Affman's become such a horse's patoot. And he was before, by the way, but he had results and

he kept his mouth shut, right? There's all the stories of him being a jerk to people, but whatever. He did a good job. He had some wins, he had some losses, but a very good investor, right? Good at his job. This era of him is got to be, it's just been so depressing to watch in a lot of ways, because he's an interesting fella, right? Like he really is. And what's happened here is that he thinks he mistakes who his audience is, and he thinks his investors are all these dumbasses who are going to just be a meme stock, when actually they're institutional investors who just don't want this nonsense and sloppiness. He apparently released a letter he shouldn't have released. He told people who his investors were. He's just like, you know what? You live in the investing world, and that's your audience.

And if you think you're going to sort of trick someone into buying into your IPO, it's not happening for you. It's just not. And that's what I thought. They sort of misjudged his audience completely or the power of his audience. And they're just a bunch of people that like to troll. They're not real investors. They're just, you know, they could be dumb money, but they're not even that for you. So, you know, whatever. Good luck with that. But it's, you know, it's, I find it just him going on and on about DEI. I feel like I should do a whole thing about hedge fund investing, about which I know nothing. And I would like to tweet about it endlessly. That's what I kind of compare it to.

You're correct. So it's over. Yeah, he spoke before me at TED. And I'm mixed on Bill because I think he's actually an interesting guy. And I think in some ways, I do think his heart's in the right place. He's philanthropic. Anyway, but he said something on stage, which really struck me that this is what happens when you become powerful and you surround yourself with yes people. The person interviewing him said, you know, you throw your weight around

around DEI essentially because you're a billionaire. And he said, no, my fame around DEI is because of my ideas. It has nothing to do. And it's like, are you really that tone deaf? You really think that your ideas around DEI not being a great idea are so- And Ukraine. Let's hear what you think about Ukraine. Like, whatever. These people have so many hairs up their ass. They just can't stop itching. It was like, wow, you really don't get it. Anyways, but he is a big, handsome man. I'll give him that. I sat next to him. I sat next to him or stand next to him at the urinal. And he looked over and he said,

he said, circumcise. I'm like, no, that's just the wear and tear, Bill. Thank you for talking about Bill Ackman's penis. Boom! I was closing the show with a dick joke. You were sitting at the, I didn't want to go into this. We did sit next to each other at the urinal, though. Or stand. I'm sorry, stand next to each other. Oh, right. Okay. We're a little weird.

It was that kind of convention. Anyway, Bill, just get back to your job and stop yammering away. Honestly, you know, I'm sure your wife loves that you dragged her through the mud, by the way. That was a nice job for doing that. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVID. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Please read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her tight engineer in this episode,

thanks also to Jabros and Neil Severio. Nishad Karua is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine

at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, have a great weekend