Pivot - Trump's Town Hall, Santos Charged, and STFU with Dan Lyons

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

Tucker Carlson says he's moving to Twitter, Google cuts a deal with the New York Times, and the Biden administration might make airlines pay their customers. Kara and Scott unpack the Trump verdict and CNN town hall, and the charges against Representative George Santos. Friend of Pivot Dan Lyons talks about his book STFU, and why we talk too much. Find Dan Lyons on Twitter, and check out STFU here. Send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Pivot comes from Virgin Atlantic. Too many of us are so focused on getting to our destination that we forgot to embrace the journey. Well, when you fly Virgin Atlantic, that memorable trip begins right from the moment you check in. On board, you'll find everything you need to relax, recharge, or carry on working. Buy flat, private suites, fast Wi-Fi, hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. delicious dining and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Listeners of this show can get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash podcast.

Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Chat GPT. How do I be a better man? Yeah, how do you be a better work colleague?

Come on. I'm trying to find the fucking thing here so we can record. Okay. Kara, you ready? Oh, good God, I'm going to kill you. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm in Austin, Kara. Are you? What are you doing there? I'm speaking at an event. and as is often the case, I am no joke, opening, or I am either before or right after, iced tea. And I'll tell you, if I have to speak at another event where I'm paired with iced tea, Kara.

Iced tea? Yeah, me and iced tea. Did you go out? No, I got in late. I got in about 1 a.m. I'm staying at the Austin Proper. Oh, all right. From Seattle, where you were eating by yourself at a bar. I noticed you were asking for suggestions. My favorite thing. Where did you end up eating? I ended up, well, I'm fancy. I went, I walked down to a place called the Goldfinch, which is the restaurant and bar in the Four Seasons.

Yeah, I thought you'd go there. I was immediately like, he'll go to the Four Seasons. There's so many. Well, it's walking distance. I could take you to some places. I went out with somebody who lived in Seattle. I know you'd go there. I was immediately like, he'll go to the Four Seasons. There's so many. Well, it's walking distance. I could take you to some places. I went out with somebody who lived in Seattle. I know the city really well. Do you? Yeah.

Seattle was kind of hot for a hot minute. I think it kind of died with Kurt Cobain, didn't it? Wasn't he a big Seattle guy? No, it didn't die with Kurt Cobain. Anyway, so I was there, and a lot of people would be like, you know how the Mount Rainier is out? Oh, the mountain's out. That was a discussion a lot. The mountain's out, the mountain's in. And then they'd say, don't you, I love the lifestyle here. And I said, here's my problem. I just have a life,

not a style. There's a lot of about the lifestyle and the hiking. Oh, aren't you good? All right. We have a lot to talk about, by the way, speaking of which, today, Donald Trump's town hall, George Santos, faces charges and the Biden administration tries to clean up airlines. We'll also speak with author Dan Lyons about over-talking. But first, Scott, were we right or were we right? Tucker Carlson has announced that he is relaunching his show on Twitter, allegedly, because Fox may not let him. In his announcement video, Tucker called Twitter the last big platform in the world that allows for free speech. And he, of course, told viewers, you are being manipulated. It was a grievance grifter cascade of information from him.

Musk retweeted the video saying, we have not signed any deal of any kind whatsoever. Tucker is subject to the same rules and rewards of all content creators. Honestly, I don't believe him, but I'm sure there's some guaranteed whatever if he does it. We predicted this, of course. guaranteed whatever if he does it. We predicted this, of course. He'd have to give up $25 million to break his contract if Fox will let him out of it. His Fox show did $77.5 million in advertising revenue last year, which was declined because people fled his show. In December, Fox received $1.7 billion in carriage fees. Twitter won't get these, obviously. So let's just listen to him really quickly. And then I'd love to know if you think he could succeed here. Starting soon, we'll be bringing a new version of the show we've been doing for the last six

and a half years to Twitter. We bring some other things too, which we'll tell you about. But for now, we're just grateful to be here. Free speech is the main right that you have. Without it, you have no others. See you soon. That's like a threat. Anyway, what do you think? So I remember meeting with the people at Yahoo 10 or 15 years ago. If you think about it, Yahoo kind of owned search and they gave it away to focus on digital marketing. And it used to be one of the biggest players in the internet. And two years ago, in disclosure, I participated in this deal or co-invested.

It was purchased for $5 billion and basically sold for scrap. If you look at the cash on the balance sheet, if you look at how much they got for Yahoo Japan, Verizon, and there's a lesson in this, and I'll come back to what we're talking about with Tucker and Twitter. The best acquisitions from an acquirer standpoint in terms of price are corporate orphans because big companies just want to get rid of it. They don't want to think about it. Price is important, but it's not the number one criteria. And I said when I was asked to come in and talk to the folks at Yahoo around advice, and this was before Marissa Mayer became CEO. I said, look, Yahoo is not a digital porter. It should be the world's largest TV network. Because I was starting to watch video

on Yahoo and they had a big lead. And I thought finance, Yahoo Finance is still my homepage. I still love Yahoo, which kind of outs me as probably being, I don't know, a little bit older. But I think this is distinctive to politics. And Tucker claiming that Twitter has anything at all to do with free speech, I think it's a great idea. I think that Elon Musk needs to do something. He's gone red pill. If you look at the blue checks, I have gotten a lot of shit, but I'll stand by it. It's kind of the new MAGA hat. It says that I'm conservative and like Elon Musk, or I'm selling you insurance. And they need something. They need to establish a new revenue stream if they're ever going to try and, I don't know if he's going to try and IPO it, but to be

able to say we are. Yeah, something. Yeah. It sends a signal. We're red pill. We're full red pill. He's a global superstar. He has a huge fan base and their ability to start streaming things if it works. This was something Twitter was going to do. They were going to start to try to do. It was in there. He's pulling out of the grab bag of stuff Twitter has tried. He's talked about audio, more video, et cetera. This is not new ideas.

It just hasn't worked. And it didn't work at Yahoo in the end, by the way. She did try to do that. Remember with Katie Couric and a whole bunch of people. Oh, remember that? She brought in Katie. Yeah, I do remember it. I wrote that story.

I mean, she tried to do that a lot, and people did not, that's not what they used it for. And that's my worry here, is that you just can't create a TV network elsewhere. I think YouTube exists. That's what works, is a place where people are used to doing it.

And so I'm not so sure. I think he could make money in subscriptions here, merchandise, for sure. Newsletters, I think he could make money in subscriptions here, merchandise, for sure. Newsletters, I suppose he could sell off of this thing. That's what, it's sort of the basic toolbox of all these independent media organizations. And so it could work, it could not work, right? And the question is whether Fox

is gonna let him out of the contract. The reason he's being so noisy, and also his lawyer is too, is because I think Fox is like, we're not letting you out of this contract. No way are we going to compete with you. That's my feeling, is that $25 million is cheap. It's not that he, so he doesn't have the ability, I don't know the contract, the semantics of his contract. He doesn't have the ability to opt out and forego the capital. They can force him to stay on guard and leave for a couple years. I think they can force him. I think they can not take it. I think they could not take the deal,

I think. I think that's why he's being so nutty. Maybe they want something from him. They can or they can't. I don't think they do it out of pique. I think they do it out of a business. They do everything out of their business and nothing else. They don't love free speech. If it works, they'll do it. If letting him out have no, they have no, like, you know, they don't love free speech. They just, if it works, they'll do it. If letting them out will work, they'll do it. But, you know, I just, I don't know if he can. I'm not sure he can. I think it'll be really interesting to see what kind of audience it gets.

I mean, just the example you just used, Katie Couric was a global superstar. She was kind of, what did she call America's sweetheart at one point? Sweetheart. Yeah, she doesn't like that. Yeah, I find that sexist. I don't even like to say it. She, hey, said she, I was just with her the other night.

I'm sorry to tell you, I was doing dinner with her. I'd like to be America's sweetheart. By the way, the most interesting thing about this whole Tucker thing was how you were so cute that you got your first prediction right. You immediately took to Twitter.

I got it right. I predicted this. Oh, stop it. You know what? I've had others. And people were like, congratulations to Kara and Scott. And you would weigh in and say, just Kara, just Kara. I did not. No, I did not. I'm like, oh, it's so cute. She got her first prediction right.

Oh, you know what? You just literally, it doesn't matter. I know more famous people than you, and that's just the way it's going to be. But we mentioned Katie Couric, the history of quote unquote superstars moving to other platforms, it usually just is like, okay, just because they were great at some point doesn't mean they're going to be great at another platform. They're usually new people, right? They're usually like Joe Rogan on podcasts. He was okay as a comic, and he did okay, right?

And then he was a big superstar in this. And I don't know, he couldn't switch to broadcast, I think. I think it would be hard. He sort of does broadcast. Well, it's almost as arrogant for them to do that as a professor thinking he can be a TV star. But anyway. That's true. No, look, Joe is another guy.

Joe has such a following. I've always thought we should all, anyone with a podcast should pay Joe Rogan a royalty because he really, he kind of busted open the medium in my view. But like, I think it's going to be fascinating to watch, to see the metrics, to see the tone, to see the technology. I find Tucker Carlson just an unusual guy. It ends up that he has to live in some small town because he gets so much shit when he leaves his house. So, I don't, I think he's an unusual person, and I don't- Yeah, I feel bad for Tuck. He can't leave his house because he says terrible things, Scott. Well, that's- I'm sorry.

I'm not. That's why he can't leave his house. I feel shamed. I'm saying- You should be. That he literally can't leave his house because people are- Oh, he likes living up in his stupid preppy main world. Come on. There's no tears to shed for this man in terms of his bullshit that he goes on and on about free speech. You know, you should be more grateful that you got the prediction right and just let me run with this.

I'm trying to save you. Distinct, save me from myself. Thank God you're here. I think it's a great idea. I think it's going to be fascinating. That's kind of all I have to say about it. I don't think it'll work in any way. It's too small.

He's a broadcast personality. And listen, he'll make money on merch and maybe subscriptions. And he could make money. He could make money. That's for sure. I don't know if, I think it'll be lost in the sea of noise that is Twitter. And to create a real media environment that people stand out, there's not going to be a Joe Rogan of Twitter. I just don't see it. I don't see it. Well, it's already, the thing that's unusual about Twitter is Twitter is about 30 years younger average viewer than Fox. The average viewer on Twitter is like 80 and the average viewer on Fox is, let me think, dead. It's dead. They're dead, Takira. Literally. There's like a 10% mortality rate for anyone who watches more than an hour of Fox just because of actuarial tables. I mean, have you seen the advertising on Fox? Yes, I have. Okay, for the next hour, we're going to tell you every 11 minutes how much it sucks to be old, you know?

Yeah, yeah. He's not going to get good advertising on this platform. That's not really, it's got to be subscriptions. The average age of a Twitter user is 40. The average age, and I think this is a lie, they say if Tucker's show is 65, I bet it's more like 70. So there's not a lot of crossover. Well, he has young fans. He has young fans. I'd rather be Rogan on this one, but we'll see. I'm sure there'll be some guarantee. He'll make money. He'll make money, but we'll see if Fox will let him do it. Last thing, New York Times has inked a three-year deal with Google for around $100 million. The exchange will allow Google to feature New York Times content in some of its platforms, including Google News Showcase. The deal also includes subscriptions and use of Google tools for marketing experimentation.

A reminder, last year, Meta chose not to renew its contracts to feature content on its Facebook News tab. I just, I think the Journal has a deal, something like that with Google. I don't, these Google. I just don't get these also. Another thing I don't get. I think this is important, and I like this because I can bring this back to me. When I was on the board of the New York Times, I said, and I'm not exaggerating or revisionist history here, I said, we need to partner with every other, with the Murdochs, with the folks from Pearson, with the new houses from Condé Nast, and start the

equivalent of the association that represents all songwriters, and then go to Microsoft, who at that point Bing was bigger, and go to Google and say, you can't crawl any of our content, and we're going to license it to one player. And everything from Vogue to the New York Times to the FT can be yours, or you can have the crap that is, you know, the internet really was kind of, there just wasn't a lot of premium content yet. And they said, no, that would be antitrust. And these are innovators. We want to let them crawl our data, and we're going to build a big advertising business. And they were used to kind of an eyeballs business. And of course, that was probably one of the greatest self-inflicted

wounds in the history of media. And this is correct course correcting. They should absolutely, and then they put in a metered wall. The fact that they let the New York Times content be merchandised against BuzzFeed and Breitbart and all this other shit was like taking a Birkin bag and setting it next to a Brooklyn Messenger bag. It was a huge strategic error for these media companies to ever believe the quote-unquote partnering of these companies. So a nine-figure deal, I like this. I think it sets a good precedence. I think the New York Times has the kind of differentiated content that people do say, all right, I want to come here, or I differentiate this. Yeah. Again, I think the journal has one, too.

I think, you know, you mean higher-level content. Premium content. Regardless of what you think of the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, and they should ask these search engines and these digital companies to pay up or not get access to their content full stop. Yeah, and the subscription thing, it's a way to expand their – I think New York Times has a news monopoly, really, pretty much, between them and the Journal and maybe the Post. You think they have a news monopoly? They just sort of dominate. They've hired – like, they pull people off of the Washington Post now. They're pulling, like, Washington Post, big top.

The one who just won the Pulitzer Prize, Eli Zaslow, was working at the Post. That's where he won the Pulitzer Prize. Times hired him. They're just going in and just taking everybody. I mean that they really are dominating in terms of the cooking app and everything they're doing under Meredith Levian has been very smart. She's very good. She's really good. And I think it's really, I think this is a good deal for them. But they've tried these things before. We'll see how this one works out, if they get something from it.

But they're getting the cash, the guaranteed cash, I guess. I think it's great. And it always struck me, and people don't realize this, whether you're looking at any news program at 5.30, or you're even looking at some of the larger cable networks, if you look at their top lineup or their agenda for stories, how they roll out data, it is literally the front page of the New York Times. The New York Times is essentially the content producer for their media all over the world.

There's some crazy stats about the New York Times. It's the paper of record globally, or like you said, I don't want to say it as a monopoly because I don't think they abuse that power and it's actually a small business. Yeah. No, I'm using that in the broad sense. I think they're the top, the one that everyone has. They're way ahead of everybody else.

I'm a big fan. And even when I was there, it was like such a shitty, stressful time in terms of the business. And the Sulzbergers, you got to give them their due. They always protected and invested and doubled down on the newsroom. Yep. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. But also a lot of their money is now starting to come from other things like

cooking app and the Wordle and this and that. Well, a seminal moment was more than 50% of the revenue now comes from subscription as opposed to advertising. Yep. And then they have a lot of stuff that's sticky. Again, you know,

those different things they bought and should get credit, the wire cutter, the all kinds of stuff. It's been very smart. And I give credit to Meredith. I think the Post does a great job. They do. But I'm just saying they struggle more comparatively. Okay, let's get to our first big story. Donald Trump is back in his favorite place, The headlines. On Tuesday, a Manhattan jury unanimously agreed

that Trump assaulted writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s. They awarded her $2 million for a finding of sexual abuse and another $3 million for defamation. Trump attacked her character and called her a liar. Despite the trial verdict, Trump called Carroll a, quote, whack job, saying her story was, quote, fake and, quote, made up at a CNN town hall. The audience laughed when he said that, which is probably the worst

part of all. I thought just the most upsetting thing about all of this was the audience's reaction. And if you look at this case, she went on merits. She went on evidence and argument. And, you know, I think a lot about this notion of modern day masculinity. And at the end of the day, it's about acquiring the skills and strengths such that you can protect and advocate for others. And there's nothing that could be less masculine. There's nothing that could be less manly than having 28 different people accuse you. I mean, there's a difference between being incredibly profane and crude, the Access Hollywood stuff, and then a court of law finding that you physically attack somebody sexually.

No Fortune 500 company, or really any company, would hire an individual with this record who's been found liable in a civil case for sexual abuse. But he's the Republican frontrunner. I don't know about you, but I felt like I had PTSD watching it. Yeah, I think a lot of people felt that. I had a difficult time. I just had a difficult time stomaching the whole thing. I get that. But from your looking at it from a media perspective, obviously, Trump was Trump. He came as Trump and he acted like Trump.

How do you look at how it was handled by CNN in general and also the crowd, I guess, which was heavy on Trump people, obviously? It was a no-win for CNN and they lived up to that. I don't, you know, I was sitting at the bar, as I often do, at the proper hotel here in Austin, and my phone started blowing up with all, with Twitter going crazy over the way she was handling the interview. And I actually, I watched a replay of most of it. I just think she was given an impossible task. Yeah. I think we said that. Yeah. I thought it was bad for CNN. I think they had no choice. I think they needed to do it. The only thing I think that could have done better is I just don't understand how they managed to assemble a group of people who would applaud or laugh at the defamation or continued defamation of a woman who a jury of his peers have decided that he's liable for sexual

abuse. And then the crowd laughed at this continued defamation of her. I thought, wow, this just makes America look terrible. Yeah, it was interesting. It was sort of the polar opposite when that woman said terrible things about Barack Obama and John McCain came down from the audience and said, no, that's not true. Yeah, and took her mic. They're making excuses that the Republican Party picks it, but they certainly had control over this in a way that it was really a surprise. I was looking mostly at the interviewer because that's what I do. She missed a lot of exits, I'll tell you.

There were several times. What do you mean by that, missed a lot of exits? Well, here's the deal. Like, for example, like she was acting like it was a normal interview, right? And it's not. He's not normal. He's a performer. He's performative.

She wasn't taking any of that into account. And even if she didn't want to go full Kara Swisher, say, on this thing, she certainly, she did elicit news from him. She did about the defaulting on the debt ceiling. And so right there, for example, I watched that over and over again. When he said that, what she needed to do, and this is what I would have done, would be like, so let me make it clear, what you said here was that we should default on the deficit. Can you just answer me yes or no? Yes. Okay. Let me give you some statistics about people think will happen and the stock market, and you still think this should happen, right? Just get him, tie him to that, like a weight around his neck. And then he'd probably say yes.

You probably could get a yes out of him or something. And then when he said that, how do you compare this to when you said 15 people would die of COVID, because you did say that too, and that would unnerve him. Like, there was several, that would have stressed the news and also unnerved him. That was like one moment. Another time when he said, you know, called her a nasty woman, she should have had a comeback for that, and one that sort of, you know, de-pantsed him. I don't know. You don't think it was best just to ignore it? No, no, no, no, no, no. That's like, remember when Hillary ignored him chasing her on the stage? She regretted that.

No, you have to address the nasty woman thing to her. And you could have done it. Like, well, yesterday people called you a jury of your peers, unanimously called you a sexual predator. Let's not do this. Do we really need to do this? Like, I don't think this is the point. And just get it out of the way. So he removed a tool from his tool bag, which he uses as a performance art. And I don't think that would have made her seem any, like, please, let's not

call each other names. We could do this all night. Like, you just have to establish some, he would have responded, I think, to that, or he would have gotten crazier, which would have been good for him. She treated him normally, like he was, you know, Mitt Romney or someone. It's not good. Anyway, here's what he said regarding that Hollywood Access tape, which came up during the trial. I said, if you're famous and rich or whatever I said, but I said, if you're a star, you are, and I said, women let you. I didn't say you grip. I said women let, you know, you didn't use that word, but if you look, women let you. So you stand by those comments. Well, I don't want to lie. Mr. President, we have a lot of questions. Here's

what she wants me to say. Mr. President, let's get to the audience questions tonight. A rich and famous person has no advantage over anyone else. Well, you do have an advantage, and I say unfortunately, but that's the way it is. You said fortunately or unfortunately. Well, fortunately or unfortunately for her. So right there, he said, women let you. You make news. You go, so women are the problem here when men are grabbing their genitals, right? Not so you stand by those comments, right? That's like weird. and then she correctly said you said fortunately or unfortunately and then you say why fortunately for her sexual abuse is fortunate like there was just like to get him news her job was to make news and she made too much news about herself anyway should cnn have done the town hall do you think you said should. I just don't see how if you're, you know,

if you attempt to be America's news network and you have an opportunity to do a town hall or interview the Republican front runner and the former president, I don't see how you don't do it. I don't fault them for it. Should they have done it live or tape? Live to tape. I don't know. But the thing is, his people are not dumb. And he, I mean, he comes out of this as, he cemented himself is what I'll call the front runner. And he had, as much as I hate to admit it, he had command of the room. He had a lot of presence. I felt like he not only sort of ran over her, but he ran over the audience a bit or used them or leveraged them. The thing is, and I don't know if this is just me projecting, but I do think I think this is playing out as as as all kind of entities thought or the part the respective parties thought, and that is he's going to be the nominee most likely, and Biden is most likely going to beat him because these elections are won by kind of surface area or geography and the issues. And he did say some things that will come out, you know, the Lincoln Project will have a fun time with saying that- Right, field day. So will the Biden people, yeah. That Ukraine, that he'd solve it in a day. He comes across as very pro-Putin in Ukraine, that, Ukraine that he'd solve it in a day. He comes across as very pro-Putin in Ukraine, that,

you know, he would let the nation default. And that's going to come back to haunt him. And the people in the middle who, the reason why he won in 16 and lost in 20, the people in the middle in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia, must have saw that thing. And again, I'll look at the polling and just thought, Jesus, do we really want to go back here? Yeah, I think you felt that way. And I would say you were much more centrist than I am, right? I just think CNN as an entity could have just made it newsy, newsy, newsy, right? And they just didn't. That's what you do with someone like that. You tie these things to them strongly rather than let it get lost in calling her her name. You have to shut down all kinds of personal stuff immediately. I thought that it's interesting. The media is obsessed with themselves, and I've seen

more analysis of her than of him. Well, I analyze interviews, so I just see the opportunities that were there. She's just fine. She was solid. She's just fine. She was solid. She's just solid. She did try and she did, she did interrupt him and say, no, that's not true. Yeah, but that's not enough. Not with him. Look, I, you know, I think she was given, I think we poured honey on her and sent her hunting for bears. That's just a given impossible task. And I wonder, and I'll look at the polls, it just made me feel so terrible about America, because here you have a former president of the United States, a democratically

elected president of the United States, mocking a woman. Two women, her and E. Jean Carroll. Is there any way to platform this constructive? I think there is, but you don't, correct? You don't think there's... Well, I think, look, you know more about the interviewing game than I do, and you seem, you're confident that someone could figure this out and hold them accountable and hold them to task. Biden figured it out, by the way. Marco Rubio didn't. Neither did all those GOP people, but Biden actually figured it out. I don't know. I thought that that was another instance where I just felt terrible about

America. You're talking about the debate? I thought he put a lot of, like, if you look, it was like a close-in boxing match, but he put a lot of punches in his face. He did. It was, he made him seem crazy. He let him say crazy things, and then he appropriately reacted to the crazy. Yeah, I think you're going to buy into too much trade. If I were to buy into him, I would refuse to debate him, but... Maybe. Maybe. That's interesting. Yeah, I would just say like this guy, you can't, this format was built for people who have some integrity, who have some fidelity to the truth. And this guy has absolutely neither. But it was, I thought it was just, I thought it was literally like winning the worst ad for America. It just, I walked away from the thing feeling just very deflated. Deflated. Yeah. Well, let me talk again. I'm still going to stick with the opportunities, a line he said about abortion. But now for the first time, the people that are pro-life have negotiating capability because you didn't have it before. They could kill the baby in the ninth month or after the baby was born. Now they won't be able to do that. But I think this is a really important question for

you to answer. He said a version of that lie three times without getting called on it. That to me was, you know, and especially when abortion is such a big, big issue. And there was no that's not true kind of thing. And not certainly, that was an opportunity lost kind of thing. And again, not certainly, that was an opportunity lost kind of thing. And again, to tie him to this very clearly was important, I think. As he said, signaling he's open to the default. These are three big opportunities. Four, the abortion, defaulting on the debt. He claimed he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in a day, as you said. The one thing that I think also was feelings about Ukraine that could have definitely not had a follow up, but tie him to it where he says this. Well, how would you end it in a day?

Yes. How would you end it? There was just simple questions. Call Putin and say what? Do you think Putin's just going to give him land? Yeah, give him. He hates specifics. Then he loses the train of thought when he doesn't. And he's really good, let me just say. And it's really hard, but you can trip him up. I've seen it happen. Like, you've seen it when it works. And this one, he said, let's listen to this. Putin made a bad mistake, in my opinion.

What was his mistake? His mistake was going in. He would have never gone in if I was president. We used to talk about it, too. You know I was president. We used to talk about it. You know that he said he used to talk about invading Ukraine. She should have explicitly and again, very easy to say. So you specifically talk to Putin about invading Ukraine. Let's hear more about that. Let's hear.

And why didn't you tell anybody? Like, seems like that's your job. Like, again, slightly insulting him, but not quite, that kind of stuff, which is interesting. And that was another piece of news. There was news in here all over the place, right? That should have been brought out much more clearly. And that's why I'm looking at CNN, because they're a news organization. Yeah, I think the most damaging thing that's happened to Trump, all in all, I bet him and his team were happy about this. I thought the thing that, the most damaging thing that's happened to him recently was the comments that former Attorney General William Barr said about him and said that if you believe in the principles

that he was espousing and trying to affect. And then he's totally ineffective. He's an agent of chaos. He's incapable of thinking laterally. He's incapable of thinking strategically. It just, it was very, to have his former attorney general say that's about someone he worked with, they'll run that ad.

But look, I'm trying to find, look, I feel as if the chicken salad from the chicken shed here is I do believe our justice system is showing up and saying that a post-truth world does have downsides to the people who engage in this belief that they can say and do anything. suit that he was found liable for, what just, you know, George Santos being a ranger, even what's happening to some of these tech executives. I do think that the justice system is weighing in and saying, well, if social media and even the American public are down with people consistently lying, our law is not. I was hopeful about that. And I'm hopeful that Biden will beat him for a second time and they'll lose more Senate seats. Boy, third time's a charm in this one. He keeps losing them for him and they keep sticking with him. McConnell's going to be just like tearing off the legs on his Barbies and kicking his dog.

He's just got to be going crazy to think, how do I in any way, you know, how does this not turn out really poorly for us? Because if you look at the map, it does look like Biden wins. The map is actually quite ugly in terms of their race for Trump. Yeah, we'll see. I think let's just, I want to finish up just talking about this. And I know you said we talked about the media, but this was CNN's attempt to put it, it's lost its, lost numbers like crazy. It's lost money. Let me just say, let me clearly, there were opportunities here to make news that Caitlin Collins missed. That said, she did a very solid job as a reporter, but the newsmaking is what they needed to do here in a way that was explicit, like so hard tied to him. That would have been seen as a success, I think.

I suspect this is not going to be a success for them. I don't know. I don't think they're going to track any Fox people. They're going to go right to Newsmax or whatever. So, what do you, from a CNN point of view, and not Caitlin Collins, because I think she was ill-served by her bosses in this format and everything else. What is your thoughts on David Zasloff and et cetera and that? How did they come off? I mean, at the end of the day, and et cetera and that. How did they come off? I mean, at the end of the day, it's forgettable. CNN has bigger problems. Specifically, CNN is in the midst of just this massive structural decline where people are no longer interested in watching cable television. They're no longer interested in

watching ad-supported television. Let me be clear. I love CNN pitching life alert and reverse mortgages in the midst of 18 hours of news on days where there might be 18 minutes of news. It's just the model doesn't work. And the audience is aging and advertisers have more efficient ways of reaching people. And it's also very expensive to produce high quality content 16 or 18 hours a day. The bottom line is the model doesn't work. And I'll reverse engineer this to the writer's strike. And everyone wants to say, let's David Zaslav and these big,

ugly corporations. The reality is there's just fewer people watching this stuff, which means advertisers will pay less money, which means there isn't enough money to go around. Yeah. I still think they didn't do themselves any favor. It's like Elon with the Tesla stuff. Like, look, all the people who love Tesla and buy Teslas, he's kicking them in the teeth. I think CNN just kicked its audience in the teeth. How can they claim to be, you know, a news organization? I didn't say they shouldn't have them. I'm not saying that by any means. You're saying the way they handled it. They're a news organization. They needed to focus on news here rather than let him run an infomercial for himself. They did. They did. They did. The format, the people, everything else. Let me say, look, they were acting normal with an abnormal person,

and you cannot do that. You just cannot. There are 50 ways. And I'm not bragging. I think Gayle King could have done it, Savannah Guthrie. Chris Wallace most certainly would not have let, you know, he's just experienced and he could. Well, Chris did get, the same exact thing happened to Chris, Kara. I mean. No, Chris got some really good. Chris was run over. No, I don't agree with you on that one. I think Jonathan Swan was quite a good interviewer of him.

Several people were, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. He had the upper hand here. Trump had the upper hand in this particular interview. They didn't handle it well. And by the way, let's get to the real point. This audience, you're an appalling group of people, and you should go home and think about how you think sexual abuse is funny. And I'm not saying that from a humorless lesbian point of view.

If any of you have daughters or sisters, you should be ashamed of yourself that you think it's so, that's funny when someone touches a woman's genitals and laughs about it. Just fuck you. That's who I say is the biggest loser here. I don't think that's true. I think you're a lesbian with a good sense of humor. Okay. I would have walked right up to one of them and said, what are you laughing about? Tell me exactly. Do you have a sister?

You're just sort of like, okay, is this really America putting its best foot forward? That they laugh, that sort of this fraternity laugh of saying these types of vile things about, you know, a woman, an American woman. I just, I thought, God, this, it just makes us look terrible. A little shout out to Caitlin. I, nothing's ever as good or as bad as it seems. It wasn't how you did, it was the fact that you were asked to do it. It was, I actually, I don't wanna say I feel bad for her,

but I think she's, I think this is a, I don't know. I don't, do you know her? I felt like she probably needed someone to be supportive i think she needs some time by herself that's what i would do if i were her she's got the nine o'clock slot anyway she'll be just fine um anyway let's move on george santos is out of jail on a five hundred thousand dollar bond after pleading not guilty to 13 federal criminal charges including seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, two counts of making material false statements to the House of Representatives, and one count of theft of public funds, which, by the way, Scott, was Preet Bharara's favorite count,

as he told me last night. Yeah, it looked, you guys sent me that cute photo of you, Preet, and Jim Bancroft, and I'm like, this looks like a bad remake of Three's Company on Al Jazeera, like Al Jazeera 4. I was trying to come up with something snarky, like the 50-year reunion of the worst K-pop band in history. You are so jealous. We had such a good time. I know. I wasn't invited.

I don't get invited to the fancy stuff. Anyway, so look, I think this is good. I've always thought at first it tickled my tribal censors because he's a Republican, and I just think it further cements that Republicans will literally hold no one to any account. But it's bad for America to have an individual like this who is not only not honest, but appears to be, I would almost argue sort of like there's something wrong there for somebody to be this much of a psychotic liar. It's bad for America to see him rolling around. I remember seeing him at the State of the Union address. He had an interaction with

Mitt Romney, and I thought, it upsets me that America would in any way allow a guy like this to be in the presence of Senator Romney. I like Senator Romney. We'll see where it goes. So Santos go to jail. Trump probably bounce back again. We'll see which one gets him in the end.

He's got a lot. He's carrying a lot of karma around, Donald Trump is. Anyway, we'll go on a quick break. When we come back, the Biden administration aims for the sky, and we'll speak to a friend of Pivot, Dan Lyons, about shutting up. 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. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings.

And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness,

a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim. And we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk. And we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Indecision, overthinking, second-guessing every choice you make. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Beige on beige on beige. In.

Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back. The Biden administration wants to make airlines pay. The White House will soon propose new rules that could force airlines to pay cash when a flight is canceled or delayed. It can't be weather related. Currently, airlines have to pay refunds, but there's no cash for being inconvenient. Some airlines issue miles or vouchers, but that's up to them. These rules won't come down anytime soon. They take months and years to pass. Meanwhile, summer travel season is right around the corner. It could be a really difficult

one, many experts say. The U.S. bailed out airlines with a ton of cash. Airlines received more than $50 billion in grants during the pandemic, for example. No other industry received more government aid. So, this customer service issue that they have continues. It's not just inconveniencing of flights missed, but hotels, et cetera, et cetera. And that happens over and over again. Do you think they should be held liable? Look, as it goes to the airlines, I think it was ridiculous. The bailout of the airlines was a perfect example of CEOs who pay themselves $200 million or $150 million over five years and have taken 97% of their free cash flow up until the point of the pandemic to buy back stock, to artificially inflate the price of their stock and their options such that they could pay them a ton of money. And then they turn into Norwegian

socialists, apologies to Norway, which in many ways is more capitalist than we are right now, and say, we're all in this together, and they go hat in hand. We should have not bailed out airlines. There have been 63 bankruptcies in airlines in like the last 20 years. Airlines are very good at going out of business. The planes continue to operate. Somebody else comes in with a new vision and fresh capital. And we should not... And this is the flip side. I also don't think we should be levying fines against them. I think we should be making sure there's more airlines such the competition takes the bad

ones out. I find the whole airline industry is in its approach to the United States, or approach to government, or how they basically go hat in hand to governments, is a perfect example of us bailing out the wrong people at the wrong time. Yep, that haven't innovated at all and should go out of business, is your point. Do you know what takes longer? If you fly from New York to Dallas right now, it takes longer than it did in the 70s. I mean, it's just the competition, there's not the, and again, consumers are somewhat to blame because the consumers mostly say, the majority of consumers say, get me from point A to point B as cheaply as possible. So every airline, it's just a race to the bottom to cut out as many costs as possible. And the result is, you know, an industry that I would argue for the most part

hasn't innovated. Although, you know what? I had my first AI innovation moment. I went to LAX. I'm on my US tour right now. And I flew into LAX and I go straight for the global entry kiosk, right? And my blood pressure goes up because whenever I'm in customs or that baggage area, I'm like, okay, is it going to be a seven-hour line or something? And I go, and before I even put my passport in the global entry machine, someone yelled, Galloway. And I'm like, oh, must be a fan. Must be a fan. And it was the woman, a TSA woman saying, you're good and waving me through. They have facial recognition now at TSA.

I was totally blown away. And you know what? I'm here for it. Violate my privacy as long as I can get through customs faster. Interesting. Yeah, they're much more efficient. I would agree. It was absolutely efficient when I went through. Two places I've been subscribed where there's been upgrades is there and on Amtrak recently. I was like, service is better. I know, because again, I'm going to catch a train. I'm probably have to run for it today because you're so late. The service improved rather dramatically. I was sort of like surprised. I don't know why, but I've been riding it a lot lately. But I agree. I agree that the government has upped the ante, at least in coming back into the country. And you'll see a lot more of that.

I think they need to save money, right? I tried to sue Amtrak for losing my luggage, but I lost my case. I lost my case. All right, let's move on. We have to get to our friend of Pivot. Dan Lyons is a screenwriter, journalist, and author of this book. I think it was perfect for you, and I was thrilled that he and you would get to meet and talk about this topic. Welcome, Dan. How you doing? I haven't seen you in a while. It's been a long time. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's

great to see you, too. You've written your last book was about your job, which was hysterical, actually, that you had where you were too old for everyone else. But this one, Shut the Fuck Up, that's a provocative title. What was the problem you're trying to address in this book and what made you write it? I took stock of myself and realized that sort of my ability to talk had helped me in a lot of ways, but it had also landed me in trouble. And in the early days of the pandemic lockdown, it was sort of taking stock of a couple of bad things and realized it all kind of boiled down to this compulsive talking, this impulse. And I discovered there's a thing called talkaholism. I took this test and found out I am one. And then I set out

to figure out what causes it and how do you fix it. And so, but this interests you because you talk too much? That's correct? Yeah. Yeah. And I'm super annoying. And yeah. Okay. And you wanted to stop being that way. Yeah. Yeah, I did. Right. Right. Right. Right. And Scott, I wanted to have you in on this because I thought it was kind of an interesting question. We do learn to lean in, speak up, advocate for ourselves, talk a lot. Why should we shut up at all and what are the benefits of it? One is that you have more time to listen.

And the biggest thing I probably learned in this whole journey was that it wasn't just about me talking less. It was about me listening more. And that when you do that, it turns out there's, A, you can avoid calamities. B, you can become a lot better at your job, a lot better at negotiation, for example. There's a lot of, you know, talk less, get more. But the really big thing was you improve the lives of the people around you. So, for example, with my daughter, I had a sort of rocky relationship with her. And learning how to shut up and just be with her and listen to her really transformed our relationship. with her and listened to her really transformed our relationship. And how so? Meaning that she didn't think you were listening to her? You were always leaning in too much to talk to her?

I was always doing the thing where she says she's having a meltdown. She's 17 now. And so it was a couple of years ago. She's having a meltdown about school. And I jump in to sort of tell her, well, here's how to fix it. Sort of the classic thing. And I realized that just sitting with her and not talking, first of all, it drove her nuts. Like, why are you doing that? But eventually she would open up and we'd realize that the problem wasn't really the paper that she had to do. It was much deeper things, fear of growing up and

having to go off to college, things like that. It's nice to meet you. And I really, I think that's what you just said is really important and something dads don't come to is that a lot of times your kid comes to you not for you to be the disciplinarian or the father figure but just to kind of list just like you said listen just for lack of better term just just just love them i was interested in what you said about being a talkaholic and that is some people will use other people's comments not to learn but as a prompt for them to start talking. What did you find is the psychology of someone who's addicted to the sound of their own voice? Asking for a friend.

Asking for a friend. Well, I was going to say, you know, you guys, you sort of make a living talking, or that's what we would think. I would argue you make a living listening, and that you're both amazing listeners. This is why you're such good interviewers. Like, Cara, I seen you a million times on stage interviewing somebody. You're masterful, but it's because you're eliciting something and then letting that person talk and holding back. What I found, Scott, though, is that it can be psychological. It actually can be related to things like ADHD or bipolar II that creates a compulsion. But there's another guy who did a lot of work.

One of the original talkaholic scale guys went on and kept doing work and found that it has to do with your brain and the wiring in your brain without getting into detail. And you're sort of hardwired and you're stuck with it. Then all you can do is sort of deal with it. So my approach was, this is basically an addiction like alcoholism. And so an alcoholic can't become not an alcoholic, but you can develop the discipline to not drink. So that's what I set out to do. Doesn't also, just to follow up, doesn't silence, and this again, isn't something I learned until later in life. Silence also connotes a certain amount of confidence. I've always found a lot of times people feel the need

to fill empty space, like especially if you're on a first date or you're with your boss. And I think it's a sign of confidence to be comfortable saying, I don't feel the need to talk. It's totally. I don't feel the need to fill this void with my own gibberish. I've always felt that the most confident people

are comfortable with silence. Your thoughts? Totally. So the great example is Tim Cook at Apple. And I write a story in the book about him. He is the master, apparently, I've never met him, but the master of saying something and then sitting with that silence, which is, which is disturbing. And it's really uncomfortable. After about four seconds, your brain starts to freak out and want to fill the void. And it's a power move. Totally plain and simple. It's a power move.

And powerful people tend to talk less. Not all Barack Obama, incredible listener, incredibly able to sit in silence and listen. Richard Branson, who's this great showman in meetings, mostly listens, takes notes. So yeah, it's a total power move. Silence is an incredible power move.

In preparation for our interview, we ran some numbers of our episodes to see who talked more. Scott thinks I do. You do think that, right, Scott? Is that correct? Do you speak more? Yeah. Are we being honest now? Mm-hmm. Are we being honest now? I think that I've thought about this a lot. I would bet I am two-thirds, if not 70-plus percent of the actual words. And your superpower and your discipline is that when we're talking about issues that you're an advocate for, because I am perceived as a moderate and you're more concerned with being effective than being right, you will let me run because you think I'll have more credibility on a liberal issue than you because I'm seen as the frat boy, Joey bag of donuts. So I find you're exceptionally disciplined to Dan.

I don't like to compliment you, but I find you're exceptionally disciplined about listening. So I'm going to guess I'm 70 plus percent. Sorry, Dan, we're taking this over. We're no longer speaking. No, but it's true. It's interesting. You actually speak an average of 20% more than me, just so you know. So that's 60-40? Yeah. Just to do a little STEM? Because as the guy, I'm better at math. As the dude, I'm better at math. We also average 3.4 blowjob jokes per episode, all from you. I've got to have my hobbies, Dan. Dan gets me.

I'm curious, because I do this purposely. I do want Scott to talk more, although not all the time. But over-talking is sometimes thought as a gender problem, obviously. People are like, oh, Scott talks too much. I was like, no, it's actually planned that way. People say that to you? Yes, they do all the time. But I'm like, oh, no, it's part of my evil plan of the whole entire show. But you have a chapter on mansplaining, mantorruptions, analogs. Talk about that. Is it a gendered issue or just men are more comfortable talking? I know my daughter talks a lot, but my sons do talk more, a lot. I mean, yeah, there's just countless, countless studies that find men talk more in a whole range of situations. And ironically, though, for a thousand years, there's been this stereotype that women are the ones who do all the talking. Women are the

talkative ones who blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that men are the strong, silent type. But in fact, in situation after situation, men do way more of the talking and they do way more of the interrupting. And the people they interrupt are more likely to be women. And this applies at the Supreme Court. It applies in meetings at work. And one thing I tell people is the next time you're in a meeting at work, sit back with a little, you know, a notebook, count the interruptions, see who did

them and who was interrupted. And once you see it, you can never unsee it. But did you, I don't know, I don't know the study you're referring to, but was it adjusted for seniority? Because what I found is I don't see the over-talking more a function of gender as seniority. The people who get into positions of power are under the impression that they conflate leadership with dominating the conversation and commenting on everything. So was that adjusted for,

because there's just more men in senior level positions because of a bias in the workplace forever. Is it, did you adjust for seniority? Well, I didn't do the study, but I get that. There is this urge to say, I'm the leader. It's incumbent on me to fill the space to show you how smart I am and why I'm the leader. 100%. And to your point that the real leader is the one who's confident enough to sit back and be quiet. But no, here's some examples. Supreme Court justices. A study of who got interrupted the most was female justices, almost always by men who are making their pitch to the court. So there's

a power imbalance where it didn't matter that you're trying to win over a Supreme Court justice. There are other ones where at academic conferences, where apparently, you know, presumably everybody's equal, everybody are peers, men just do way more of the talking. So I agree with you. It can be a power dynamic, but it seems to apply even in levels where men and women are. Yeah, any woman could tell you this. Just so you know. Right, right. Look, Kara, this is not news to Kara Swisher.

No, this is not news. No, no. And there's a study. There was a woman in tech, Kara. There's a woman in tech who said, who did this thing. And then she said, I found all these numbers. And then I, she's now at Microsoft, I think. And then I went and she said, every woman friend I talked to, the only response they said was, duh. Like, they like, yeah, we all know this. My wife. Yeah, it was. My wife. Well, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Please interrupt me.

I went to a, yeah, yeah, right. Exactly. So I'm going to shut up. No, go ahead. No, your wife. I like hearing the word your wife. She's an academic. And we went to a conference once in University of Michigan. She read a paper. It was one of these rooms, a colloquium. And this guy just went after her in this like vicious way. Nobody knew that I was her husband. I was sitting in the peanut gallery, but I'm watching it and I'm watching her and she's very introverted and she started shaking and she got all upset. And it was awful. It was really awful to watch. It was painful. And then afterwards, as it broke up, I went out and he's in the hallway hitting on her and saying, hey, what are you doing for dinner tonight? And I walked up and she said, well,

this is my husband. And he sort of slunk away. And I said to her, oh my God, Sasha, that was just awful. That was so terrible. And she said, dude, don't you know, this happens to women all the time. All the time. This is my life. had a story from the very top echelons to every level. And all the men were like, all the good men, I would say good men, these were not men that did this, were like, I am shocked. Like, it was sort of like, how could you be shocked? It's a very famous, you know, trope. Rebecca Solnit had the book, Men Explain Things to Me, where she had a man, which was a great book. Read it if you like to laugh a lot. But in one case, she had written something and a man explained her story to her. And she's like, no, no,

that's not what I meant. I'm the author. And he's like, no, what you meant was this. And so, that's where it came from. Let me ask you, what makes listening so difficult? Why is that? Is it just not a trained thing? Or what happens where people don't learn to listen? Yeah, we're not taught ever to listen, right? Ever. We live in a culture that actually values and promotes the opposite, the ability to speak, to give presentations. One thing I like to point out- Free speech! Sorry, I just had to. I was just listening to Tucker Carlson, but go ahead. Oh, so for example, when you're a little kid, you're in kindergarten, you know, and you have show and tell. And you teach kids to come in and hold something up and say, this is my thing and this is what it is and give a little presentation.

So from the time you're five or six years old, we're teaching you how to be comfortable getting up. But you know what we don't do? We don't then say to the class, okay, what did you just hear? What did they say? What do you remember? We don't teach people to listen and retain. There are other studies that show that it's actually sort of biologically hard to listen, that our brains, for example, are hardwired to process, I think, 800 words a minute, but people only speak 125. So you're sitting there and that person is talking, but your brain has all these unused cycles that's going like, let me find something to do. And they start thinking about next weekend, what they're going to do or email, or they start thinking,

like Scott said, what am I going to say as soon as this person stops talking? Right. That's what it is. Does remote work impact them more on Zoom, for example? Because it makes it more difficult. Like, no, you go ahead. No, you go. It's a very different speaking environment. I think remote work makes it easier. It helped me. It was a great place to practice, especially on a group call, because it's actually very easy to hit mute and to sit back. And you have the thing where you can put your hand up. So if you do want to interrupt, you sort of put your hand up and then you wait your turn. But you still have crosstalk in Zoom calls. And it's just like in a physical meeting, watch who does most of the talking and most of the interrupting. But I think it was a great

place for me to practice. I love, Dan, what you said about how it's impacted positively the relationship with your daughter. Can you think of any other instances, either with your wife or with friends, where your kind of newfound skill set around listening has impacted the relationship? Yeah. I mean, sort of the through line of the book is my marriage. And just before the pandemic lockdown, my wife and I separated. It was very painful, and I was living away from lockdown, my wife and I separated. It was very painful. And I was living away from her and the kids, you know, pretty close, but in this rented house. And I really did not want to get divorced. I really, really wanted to put things back together. And this is part of me taking stock of, you know, God, I often say stuff that's, you know, I don't need to say. And I started working on it

in the way we would communicate. And I came up with this idea that I describe in the book as non-talk therapy, because we had tried a lot of talk therapy. And I have the sequence of, you know, we went to this guy and he said this, this guy said this, this guy said this. And we finally got to this woman who said, you know what? Just break up. Like, just give up. Like, I know I'm a marriage counselor.

Give up. And we started spending time as I was writing this book and discovering all this stuff and doing this research, I thought, you know, maybe we should spend time together and not say much, or at least I should not say much. And there's research that shows couples who spend time together in silence deepen their bond. So we would take the dog out into the woods to swim and just kind of sit. And I would make rules to myself before we had,

I would take her out to dinner and say, before we go in, I would tell myself, I'm not going to say anything except reflect back what she says and ask questions. And it really began to work. We really sort of began to click again. And we did get back together. We're back together now. And I give it a lot of credit. And here's the interesting thing. When you listen and let people talk, they shine. They actually become more interesting. I interviewed a professor about this. And I said, you know, I did this with a couple people, not my wife. And this person became so fascinating. Like, I swear, I don't think, maybe it was my perception. She said, no, people become more interesting when they're listened to. So, my wife just dazzled and just, you know, really just was fantastic. When I just,

I was paying attention. I was listening actively. That's the other thing. You know, I had a friend who said the exact same thing. She was married. They separated. She was very sad. And she was like, oh, I guess I start dating again. And I saw her recently and they are back together. And I said, what happened?

He said he started listening to me. I mean, Scott, that probably makes sense to you too, right? I'm just really, Dan, to be blunt, I'm moved. I think it's really wonderful and important when impressive men such as yourself speak know, as a parent, how do you train your, I'm raising two boys and I love the power of silence. I think there's a real power to it, both in terms of exhibiting confidence, being a good partner, being a good friend. And also quite frankly, I think you're more attractive

as a potential mate when you have the confidence to be silent. Any thoughts around helping younger people? Until my 40s, I thought it was my job as a leader to fill every empty space and that the way I would impress people is to show them how smart I am and just not shut the fuck up, as you put it. How do you teach kids and young managers to do this, other than just saying, listen more? Maybe you lead by example. I have twins.

They're 17 now, a boy and a girl. So I write more about my daughter in the book. But with my son, my son is very introverted. He keeps a lot close. There's a lot going on, but he's not saying much. And I've learned if I just sort of, you know, ride with him in the car, cars are a great place to do this, by the way, because you, first of all, they can't run away. And secondly, you know, you're sitting next to each other, but you're not looking at each other.

And you can sit in the car and sort of maybe say nothing for a while or say something open-ended. And if I, again, like with my, my son is very much like my wife. If I shut up long enough, he will start to talk and he will take me on this journey. And I will find out what it is that he wants to talk about. But I really have to hold back. So, yeah, I think it's being intentional and it's also being active. It's not, well, there's the silent treatment silence. My wife and I used to do a hell of a lot of that. But there's the open and active silence, but where you're engaged.

And it's intentional. The biggest thing about listening is that it just has to be intentional. And you have to keep telling yourself before every conversation to remember to listen. We're in a world of really, you know, we joke about Elon Musk, but he never shuts up. There's never a thought that doesn't come out of his mouth that's usually ignorant. But same thing with Trump or social media, Marjorie Taylor Greene, there's a volume of free speech that should not be spoken, like, you know what I mean? Whether they can do it or not, certainly. But it seems like everybody is,

there's a noise level that's so high right now. Yeah, I think the world is way too noisy, which is why the second half of the title is, you know, The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World. And it just keeps getting worse. And I think that information overload is doing bad things to our brains.

And one thing it is doing is encouraging us to sort of get in there and be even louder. So I think those people are terrible role models for the rest of us. Yeah, I would think so. Anyway, the book is Shut the F Up, The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World. Dan is a wonderful writer. It's a wonderful book, Dan, I read. I read everything you write because you're such a good writer.

I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. And you moved Scott, and now he's silent. You've rendered him silent. It's my power move, bitches. It's my power move. Anyway, thank you, Dan. Thank you, guys. Thanks, Dan. Nice meeting you. Bye. Thank you. I thought you'd like him, Scott. I knew you would. I do like him. He's a great guy. He's a wonderful writer, but also it's a great topic.

And I was very surprised that he got so personal in this book. It was really important. And he's right. He did talk too much. I know it sounds crazy. He's a very funny talker. That's why he talked so much, because he got a lot of attention for talking a lot. So it's great.

Anyway, we'll be back for predictions. Yeah. Anyway, we'll be back for predictions. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at F phys.ca.

Okay, Scott, I'll let you have a prediction since I was so right this week. And let me just say again, I'm right again. I love how you wade into Twitter to correct people that it wasn't a joint prediction. It wasn't Scott. It was me. It was me. Well, I never get credit for my,

it was a very good, it was point on. I never get it. They always are like, oh, that was me. It was me. Well, I never get credit for my, it was a very good, it was point on. I never get it. They always are like, oh, that was Scott. Even my wife was like, was it Kara or Scott? I literally was like, I wrote, called her. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like for the once I get it right and you think it's Scott. I think it's common sense to think, oh, it must have been the man.

It must have been the man. But seriously, my wife thought it might be you. I know. FYI. That's what set me off. That's have been the man. But seriously, my wife thought it might be you. I know. FYI. That's what set me off. That's what set me off. Anyways, my prediction, I was at Expedia yesterday. By the way, if you ever go to work for a company, go to work for a Barry Diller company. He is a fan of building the most beautiful offices in the world. This is one of the most extraordinary campuses I've ever been on. Anyway, and somebody asked in Q&A, what sector will register the greatest impact from AI? And I've been thinking a lot about disruption and where AI is going to go, and I'm trying to wrap my head around it.

my head around it. And if you look back and you think about, you know, people say, well, Google was the technology that changed the world. Disruption is, in my view, as much or more of a function than the actual disruptive technology than how ripe an incumbent industry is to be disrupted. And that is, if you look at the advertising industrial complex, every year it raised its prices to reach fewer viewers. It just stuck its chin out. If you look at cable television and how Netflix interrupted it every year, they just raised fees because of these regulated monopolies. When you woke up and you're like, okay, I'm paying $200 a month for food channels, food network three, four, and five. And so if you were to look at this, what is the most disruptible industry as a means of saying

that's the tail that's going to wag the dog around where AI is going to make the most inroads? My prediction is that 2024 is going to be the year of AI-driven healthcare startups. Because I don't think there's any industry that is more ripe to be disrupted than the industry that's grown faster than inflation. And again, we talked about this last week, only one in five consumers are happy with. So I think where we're going to see, just as we, at the beginning, it seems obvious now, but it's not entirely obvious that Google would have disrupted the advertising industry. That's, I think a lot of people wouldn't have said, well, that's the industry that's going to get hurt the most. Yeah.

Have you started, helped my brother start his company yet? I haven't spoken to Jeffrey, but I will. I'm sure I'll see him. You should. You should. Next time we all get together, it spoken to Jeffrey, but I will. I'm sure I'll see him. You should. Next time we all get together, it's always a Swisher family reunion. I'm sure I'm going to see him soon. Yes, it's true. But you should.

That was a good idea. I think he liked it. Your idea was an excellent idea. Yeah, I used to do this for a living. I know. So I'm not insulting you, sir. You have to listen to what I'm saying. To talk.

I used to get paid to talk to old white guys. I basically have made a living renting my brain to old white guys. That is correct. Anyways, but you're going to see, I think the space, just as Google disrupted advertising, just as Netflix disrupted cable, I think you're going to see AI's first kind of really fertile ground or real chaos that's going to start in terms of a reshuffling of stakeholder value is going to be in healthcare. And that's everything from helping you find or diagnose stuff, develop treatment plans. I mean, if you think about virologists or pathologists and what could do, or radiologists, I mean, you're going to see massive disruption. And I think consumers are going to start leaning on different generative

AI models, and they're going to start developing the interface and the trust. I think it's going to be fascinating. It's also a question everyone's asking. Again, this didn't part I was at was everyone was at only about AI. It's really interesting. Everyone can feel something's happening and not crypto. Crypto is more like, how can I make money? This is what's going to change. Anyway, we'll see. That's an excellent prediction, Scott.

We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Scott, that is the show. Another action-packed show, as usual, where we have a little tension and just a tiny bit of love. It's a healthy tension. It's a healthy tension. Just a tiny bit of love. Anyway, I commit myself to not listening to you more every week. Anyway-

60-40. 60-40. Let's try to get it 50-50. I don't care. I don't mind you talk more. I really don't. It's planned on my part, most of it. No, I noticed. I think it's very deliberate. Anyway, we'll be back next week for more. Scott, please read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Intertott engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Silverio. 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. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Pro tip to increase the intimacy of your relationships, just shut the fuck up. Listen.