Pivot - Tucker & Don Out, Elon's Blue Check Wreck, and Guest Baratunde Thurston

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

Kara and Scott react to news that Tucker Carlson is out at Fox, and Don Lemon at CNN. Plus, Kara's got a blue check and Scott doesn't after a messy week at Twitter. Layoffs and closures are hitting left and right with Disney and Lyft layoffs, Bed, Bath & Beyond bankruptcy, and BuzzFeed News shutting down. Also, President Biden is expected to announce his reelection campaign this week. Then we’re joined by Friend of Pivot, Baratunde Thurston. You can find Baratunde's at Puck, on How to Citizen, and on America Outdoors on PBS. Send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Block the blue. Block the blue. Are you going to block me? Really? I don't want my blue check. I'm actually, I'm curious what you think. I'm actually thinking. We're going to talk about it at length, but go ahead.

What do you think about the idea of blocking people with a blue check? It's not their fault. I didn't ask for mine. I got taken off and put back on. As people that may or may not know, there's a lot of blue check shenanigans going on over the weekend. Mine got taken off and then put back on. Scott's got taken off and then not put back on. Correct? Is that correct? Yeah, my understanding is it's people over a million that Elon likes. I guess he likes you. I don't know. No, I don't. I think, I don't know. All these celebrities who didn't have over a million. I don't know. Who knows? I don't I think I don't know all these celebrities who didn't have over a million.

I don't know. Who knows? My sense of the people who have blue checks are either kind of red pill or selling me something. Right. And so I actually think my feed would be a little cleaner. And also, generally speaking, don't like the man and want Twitter to be bankrupt and have a more responsible owner. Yeah. OK. So there's that.

Yeah. Yeah, okay, all right. So there's that. Yeah. But at the same time, I feel as this is, in general, like a series of unwelcome sequels. Every time we're talking about this guy, I think it's like Paul Blart, Mall Cop 11. It's like, do I really need to be thinking

about a fucking blue check? Yeah, I agree. And how strange this individual is. It is. And last night I got all hopped up on my own, you know, thought opium. I'm like, I'm going to block blue checks. And I thought, what would I do about Kara? And then I thought, why am I even thinking about this?

Right, that's true. I don't even know how you do it. How was your weekend? I was in San Francisco, you know, in Los Angeles. So my weekend, I'm glad you asked. My weekend was the best and worst of times. And usually both those things involve family. So I'll start with the best.

My 12-year-old Kara is at the most lovely age. And right now he's just fascinated by malls. Oh. And so in London, there's the Battersea Power Station, which was this old, just incredible infrastructure that's been converted for $9 billion in 20 years into this incredible mall. And he was so excited about it. And we went and we got ice cream and went to the Nike store to look at football cleats and then do what we do when we go anywhere. We had to go to the top of it because when you go to the top of something, it's going to be cool, I guess. Right. Yeah, apparently.

So I just had a wonderful week on my 12-year-old. On a more serious side, my dad's at that age where his cognitive ability is declining. And he called me last night and said, can you come pick me up? There's people here with guns, and he's imagining things that aren't there. And he's scared. And there's not a lot you can do from eight time zones away. So that was upsetting. Oh, dear. It's terrible. I'm sorry. What are you going to do for your dad? Well, all I can do, and that's the problem, there's not a lot you can do, is I call the facility, and then I call his his health aide and I say, can you reassure him that, A, can you tell him I'm in London and unfortunately I can't get there, and B,

that there aren't people with guns in the Wesley Palms Assisted Living Facility and he doesn't need to worry. But there's not a lot you can do. All you can do is provide comfort. And the reality is I have the resources to deal with this. I can't imagine what it's like for people who don't have resources. Even with resources, it's hard. As you know, my mom, when I've been talking about this, my mom's as sharp as a tack. So she can call you if you'd like. If you want a tough parent calling you. Yeah.

Yeah. It's hard. A little too sharp. It's hard. It's hard to figure it out. You know, it's really, I think about that all the time. One of the things I do think about, I flew back and I made waffles on Sunday morning. I got back on an overnight flight and I made waffles.

And Claire's like, this is so nice, Mom. And I looked at her, I said, you'll be taking care of me when I'm old. I made you these nice waffles. Now you're going to, there will be payback at some point. Anyway, we have so much time. We are going to talk about Elon's very bad weekend because I want to understand it from a business perspective and stuff because it's in real time Harvard Business School stuff.

Also, layoffs and closures hit some iconic brands. And we'll speak with Puck's Baratunde Thurston, one of Pivot's very best friends about AI climate and hope for the future. But first, Fox News announced that it agreed to part ways with its most watched primetime host, Tucker Carlson. His last show was Friday. And if you watch it, details are still coming at the time of this recording. It could be the Washington Post is reporting it was Carlson's comments about Fox management, as revealed in the Dominion case, that played a role in his departure. You know, he may be running for president. I don't really know. I don't really know. Nobody knows. And the text revealed as part of Dominion Child, Carlson said he A few days earlier, Fox parted ways with Dan Bongino. Interesting, neither Bongino or Carlson were huge players in the Dominion case, as far as we know, mostly focused on Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo. She better back slowly from the room,

probably. She's probably being eyed by Fox if this has happened. It's really getting rid of your big star is a big move. The platforms, though, like Chris Cuomo was the biggest star on CNN. And typically speaking, personalities will overestimate their power and underestimate how much power the platform brought. Agreed. And there's just no shortage of McLean Stevens who are like, I'm bigger than MASH. I should be in movies or Shelley Long. And that is true. I have a lot of friends who are partners at iconic investment banks and thought they were going to have these big careers in private equity and have boards calling them.

And they find out when they no longer have the Goldman Sachs or Bridgewater card that they don't get their calls returned quite as quickly. And my first thought was the fact that he was doing a show on Friday and he's no longer there means it probably wasn't his idea. Right. He also didn't get a final show as many people. Even Brian Stelzer was commenting he got a final show even though he was fired. So the term that, you know, Logan Roy used was a blood offering. Yeah.

And I bet Rupert Murdoch at this point is like, look, boss, I'm a billionaire. I got a few years left. I don't need to suffer anyone regardless of how important they think they are. This is pure speculation. The other thing is, I think by Wednesday, there's going to be a poll showing he's at 15% for Republican nomination for presidency. He thought he was coming back on Monday, and apparently he didn't know this until after the show. Someone who saw him on the weekend said he knew him by the weekend, but he didn't know until then. And the sex, so it wasn't his idea. That said, with DeSantis flaming out, there's got to be a move for someone, right? There's a move.

And the ones currently there don't seem to be lighting the fires. And Pompeo dropped out. So there's room. There's certainly room for him. Yeah, I agree. There's no question. And there's no reason why he wouldn't run. That would be a move for him, essentially. But I think he was fired here.

That's what it looks like. It looks like. Oh, it does not sound like it was his idea. He's had a long story career there with a lot of fans. Yeah. I'm shocked they didn't give him the opportunity to do a victory lap. The fact that. There's something. This was lawyers and them saying, or on a Friday after the show, the head of legal called and said, this is happening.

Yeah. Or they planned it. That's how they plan these things. They really do plan these TV departures. And, you know, it'd be interesting. I was thinking, oh, maybe Elon's giving him money or we'll give him money or he'll do something on his own. But, you know, it hasn't really worked out for Bill O'Reilly. You're right.

They just go. And, like, they're not that big. What's his name? Glenn, whatever the fuck his name is. Anyway, no one's as big as they were when they were on the network. That's for sure. These platforms are powerful. They can be, yeah.

Especially in TV. For TV, 100%. Not for everybody. Not for everybody. I think we've done rather well without necessarily being attached to anything. We've done well with them or without. But the TV is a whole different animal, I think. Sorry, Tucker.

We'll miss you. We will miss you. Tucky. Are you really curious to see what his next thing is? What do you think he's going to do? He's really rich. He also comes from a rich, elite family. Oh, really? Yeah. Swanson. The Swanson frozen food. Anyway, he's a fancy San Francisco. In fact, actually, we were talking about him because I was actually at dinner with Paul Pelosi over the weekend, who looks great, by the way, who looks amazing, and with Nancy Pelosi.

And it was at a Georgetown University dinner. And we, weirdly enough, were talking about Tucker Carlson's family for four seconds. So, Paul Pelosi is doing great. I know you are. Good, that's good to know. He looks fantastic. He's so good. You know, I got to say one thing, this point is, he's one of these dudes, like, of course, he gets attacked with a hammer. He gets attacked with conspiracy theories, like including by Musk and others, you know, about this being a gay trope or whatever the heck, they had all these things about his attack, which was just an attack by a crazy person who himself was radicalized online with crazy conspiracy theories. And instead of being traumatized, he's like,

yeah, I'm good. Yeah. And I know he could hide trauma, but he's one of those, you know, the old time guys are like, yeah, I got hit. I do believe though, just back to Tucker Carlson, if I were in charge of his business career, I would have him start a TV show called I'm Not Racist, But. That was good, no? I'm Not a Transphobe, But with Tucker Carlson. Yeah, sure. We could change it every day. So just as we're talking about this, what Tucker's going to do, Don Lemon is out at CNN. Lemon wrote in a tweet, I am stunned after 17 years at CNN, I could have thought someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly.

But in a tweet, CNN's communications department said Don Lemon's statement about this morning's events is inaccurate. He was offered an opportunity to meet with management, but instead released a statement on Twitter. Oh, this is not going to go well. Oh, you know what happened there. What? They're going to do a show together? Oh, no, I don't think they're going to do a show together. I mean, unless it's pay-per-view, like wrestling, unless it's like one of these boxing matches. Wow, Don. Don is gone. Wow. This is like the TV guys must have been like, and then, of course, the guy at NBC, the guy who was Jeff Schell, who was running NBC, was out because of a relationship that he'd had for 11 years with

someone within the company, a reporter at CNBC. So it's, wow, these companies aren't kidding around. They're like knocking these people down and out. That's a surprise, too. I mean, Don had been a subject of a lot of criticism because of a bunch of things he said, including women in their prime. There was an article in Variety that seemed a little thin, but it was about he was mean to a bunch of women a couple of years ago. Though that doesn't seem to be a crushing blow, that one. It's an interesting move, I'll tell you that. TV's very sensitive. You know, I had a program canceled before it even aired. Oh, that's true. That's right. You've had several.

Yeah. So, Scott, what are Don and Tucker feeling right now? What are they feeling right now? You know, just take a long walk on the beach, have an edible, pull up to Mandalorian, let your dogs and your kids lay on you and realize it's just not that important. Okay. All right. Well, here we are. Hey, Scott, I think they can hire us.

What do you think? One of us should go to Fox, one of us to CNN. They're running out of options. I know. I'm like the hottest girl at 2 a.m. at a fraternity party. I know. Let's go. We could totally do that.

You know, then mom would really like that. She watches Fox News. Like, we could go on Fox News. We could go. Yeah, we got Lucky. Lucky. Viewer number one. We bring a viewership. Yeah, we got Lucky. Lucky. Viewer number one. We bring a viewership.

Yeah, we bring Lucky. Alex would come. Alex would come. That's true. Okay, we just doubled our audience. We just doubled our audience. Well, okay, we're going to update it some more. You have this itch.

See, it's funny. I've been totally burned by TV. I scratched that itch and it turned into an infection. You keep saying we need to do a TV show. I'm like, I'm not doing a TV show. I am telling you, I have this feeling we could be like super fucking famous. I think we have faces for podcasting. I just don't work on TV.

Let me just tell you, I was inundated by people in San Francisco talking about you and us and our show and they hugged me. From like, I had a firefighter who scared me a little bit. I had a lovely trans man who just hugged me and hugged me and said, our show changes his life. I'm just telling you, we should be on TV. And then we should have a disastrous end in firing like this, I think. That's my feeling. You'll see.

I think I have faces for podcasting. I've been right so far in our career. So anyway, enough talking about us. I think I faced this for podcasting. I've been right so far in our career. So anyway, enough talking about us. The other person who's trying to keep his career going is President Biden. He's expected to announce his reelection as early as today, Tuesday. That's when this will appear.

We're taping on Monday. The president's team is reportedly planning to release a video announcement. That is true. I know that is true, though the timing is not yet solidified, but that's how they're doing it. They're not going to a place. They're just doing a video announcement. Not yet solidified, but that's how they're doing it. They're not going to a place.

They're just doing a video announcement. Along with the announcement, Biden is expected to tap White House official Julia Chavez Rodriguez to manage his campaign, which is she's I think she's the granddaughter of Cesar Chavez, I believe, but also a very well-known political organizer. Rodriguez was deputy manager of the president's 2020 campaign. What do you think? You know, you're the one that says he's too old, but he's going for it. He's going. He's moving in. I think Joe Biden, I think President Biden is going to go down. Come Joe Biden. Joe Biden. I think he could go down as one of the great presidents. I think especially if he helps convince America to stay the course around, again, pushing back on a fascist, a murderous autocrat in Europe. I think this is a great moment for him in the West. And I think he could cement that legacy by saying,

I was here for a reason. I pulled us back from COVID. I've tried to be a responsible steward. And my defining moment is to ensure that the West is secure for another 40 or 50 years and say to autocrats all over the world that our reach is far and our memory is long. And then say, it's time to bring in new blood. I think he would cement himself as one of the great presidents in history if he did that. Well, he didn't take your advice. He's going

to be announcing he's running again. It was interesting because I interviewed Ron Klain, and one of the things I asked him was the age thing, which he acknowledged it's an issue and he's got to address it. He essentially said he was running again and that this announcement was happening this week. But I did press him on the age thing in which he said he thinks he's perfectly capable of doing it. And but then when I did press him to to come up with Democratic contenders who would be promising, he did quickly mention Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer. Those are the two people he mentioned, which was really interesting, I thought. He's been a big supporter of Kamala Harris. He was sort of the biggest internal supporter of her when he was running, being

chief of staff and was a very good chief of staff, by the way. Not a lot of stuff happened during, that's a critical role in an administration. And if it's done well, you don't see any problems, right? You don't see them sweating. But he mentioned those two people, which I thought was interesting. So anyway, he's running. You think it's a mistake? I think, I don't know.

Especially with Trump as the front runner. One thing Ron said is he's the only person to beat Donald Trump, not the other Republicans. That's why everyone's lined up around him. And here's the thing, if you really look at it, well, if you look at one of the things, he's had fewer press conferences than any president since Reagan. And they're now, unfortunately, going into Reagan mode where they're surrounding him

with people. I think they're hoping Trump is the nominee because you know what they'll do? I believe if Trump is the nominee, I think they'll refuse to debate him. Oh. I think they'll say, this guy doesn't honor the decorum of the debate. It's a waste of time. He's an insurrectionist, yeah. And they won't want to

subject President Biden to that type of risk. Wow. That's interesting. I think we are so, I don't know what the term is. It's a combination of wanting to beat Trump,

the fact that he's done a good job, not wanting to put in play the riskiness of an unknown who hasn't beaten Trump before, but also the sensitivity around ageism that doesn't acknowledge that biology is politically incorrect. And it just strikes me as just borderline insane that we don't acknowledge how ridiculous this is. Well, Dianne Feinstein's still the senator. And she shouldn't be. I mean, we keep having this conversation. I know, I know.

There is a bit of politeness around it too, though, that people feel like you shouldn't. But I agree. When it comes to the presidency or fighter pilots or surgeons, polite doesn't cut it. You're right, you're right. I don't disagree with you.

What do you think? What do you think you should do? I think he's in very much better shape than you think. And I don't think that being that old, that means that much. I know lots of very sharp people. What about in six years? How do you think. And I don't think that being that old, that means that much. I know lots of very sharp people. What about in six years? How do you think he'll be doing in six years?

My mom's as sharp as a fucking tack at 88. Let me just say, she's not moving around as well. But trust me, she knows. Again, I back out of rooms with my mom. And so. Would you want her running the country? Well, never. Not when she was 40.

Like, so no, that's not. But I'm saying. Okay, but imagine, imagine she has. I don't think she's had a cognitive decline. A little bit, 40. So, no, that's not. But I'm saying if you were- Okay, but imagine she had- I don't think she's had a cognitive decline. A little bit, maybe. So have I. So, I think it's- I'm just saying there's a lot of very- and he's in excellent shape. He's in physical shape. And so, I don't worry about that. I don't think he's a creaky. And I don't think he's Reagan-y. I don't think he's- I always thought Reagan had cognitive problems from a very early time. I think the country is really at a point where it needs someone like a Kennedy or an Obama.

Agreed. When I think of the presidents who really were able to capture imagination and get things done, it's ages. They brought a youthful perspective. Yeah. And the average age of Americans is 38. Can an 82-year-old represent 30? There's a lot. I just really don't like this.

And in general. But you know who's gotten the most done? Joe Biden. Of all the presidents. Come on. Fair point. You know, Joe Biden has really done a really good job. But let's get to our first big story.

Blue checks are back for some users anyway. On Thursday, Twitter removed verification checks for users who hadn't subscribed to Twitter Blue. More than 300,000 verified accounts lost their check marks, including mine and Scott Galloway's. But over the weekend, check marks reappeared as many celebrity accounts, including LeBron James, Stephen King, and Lil Nas X. reappeared as many celebrity accounts, including LeBron James, Stephen King, and Lil Nas X. Also, on many previously verified accounts with more than 1 million followers, like MIT and Kara Swisher. The only problem, we never paid. Most of us never paid. And MIT put out things saying, I didn't pay. So did King, so did James, so did Ian McKellen. Now Chief Twit Elon Musk says he's personally covering the bill for a few celebs,

but I guess he's covering my bill. I didn't ask him for. He's also sporting blue checks. Some deceased celebrities, including Anthony Bourdain, Kobe Bryant, even Jamal Khashoggi, the murdered Washington Post columnist. Someone was calling it Twitter mortis, which is a pretty good joke for that joke. This is just the same thing. This was back in November, Musk called Twitter verification a lords and peasants system. And March, he wrote, there shouldn't be a different standard for celebrities, in my opinion. But now he's giving them back. Because I don't know why. No one knows why. And people inside have told me it's just pure chaos. They didn't sell any Twitter blue, or a very small amount of Twitter blue. And they and they were surprised they didn't sell more. And as you say, Scott, it's now a signification of dumbassery. So what do you

think? Talk about the branding issue here. Is it just another put it on the pile, the log pile of shitty management? Well, I don't know if you saw, but my blue check experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation and spun out of control and burned. He's making a rocket reference audience, the blown up starship. Look, a move to subscription was the right move. It all comes down again. It's not what you do, it's how you do it. A move to subscription is the right move.

And given that the advertising business has imploded, it's the right strategy. But as always, it's how you do it. And that is, this is no longer verification. It's just who is willing to pay eight bucks a month, taking away verification. And he has diminished a value add, the entire value of the blue check. And that is, you've seen these things. The city of New York's Twitter is now got a fake one saying we're the real city of New York. Yeah.

And then to go back and then offer some people, including people who have passed a blue check, the whole thing just makes no fucking sense. But by the way, there's no crisp communication about it. Like it says that we pay for it if you click on it. And I'm like, I didn't pay for it. But I mean, besides that, you know, and then they had. So anyone who said that, oh, I didn't pay for it. All these Elon stans started attacking like lots of people and saying, you should say thank you. And I'm like, why should we say thank you to have some shitty things shoved down our throat? Like, you know what I mean? Like, so the stans then attack you.

And then there's the legal risk giving checkmarks to users who don't want them, didn't want to pay for them. Some people think they could open them up to lawsuits under the Lanham Act. Twitter offered a checkmark to LeBron James, for example. He declined, but they gave him one anyway after he declined. So it could look like a false endorsement, I guess. I don't know who would sue, but I'm sure the FTC is scrutinizing this. They're also issuing gold checks to organizations, including the New York Times, which previously said it wouldn't pay. and they took the blue check off of the New York Times. And they also gave a gold check to the far-right Britain First Party, whose leaders were previously banned. And now they're removing the government-funded and state-affiliated labels from media accounts,

including Russia's RT News and China's Global News. It also lifted its visibility filtering rules or shadow bans on government accounts from Russia, China, Iran, according to NPR. So they're moving in with the autocracies and communists. Yeah, look, I don't. I think it'd be a great sequel to Matt Damon's movie, We Bought a Zoo, We Bought a Checkmark. Yeah. Just the thing that hurts the brand here. So I was actively considering this block the blue thing because the people I've seen with blue check so far are kind of red pill or they're trying to sell me, get me to, you know, schedule a call for their new scheduling SaaS software.

And I'm like, do I really need any of these people in my life? And then I thought, okay, but at the same time blocking people because they decided to pay bucks a month, am I part of the problem? But let me contrast this. And we try to call balls and strikes. When that Atlas rocket took off- Starship, excuse me. Starship, but is it the new Atlas rocket? Whatever it is, it's the rocket with the most, whatever the term is, thrust in history. It had 10 million pounds of accelerant or propellant. There was so much thrust taking off. There's lots of rockets. There's 30, I think. But anyway, go ahead. It's amazing. It's an amazing achievement. But it was so much fire and thrust to get the thing off the ground that the reinforced

concrete cement launch pad was ruined, set off car alarms for miles. When I was watching that thing, and granted, it blew up, but I thought, it's amazing. That is putting America back in the space race, putting them back ahead. It's incredibly hard, incredibly expensive, incredibly visionary. And the people at SpaceX and Lon Muck, as I'm now changing his name, it's inspiring. And then there's this shit. And it's like, who is coaching this guy to say, boss, focus on what is just incredible and what is awesome. But you taking away and giving back people's blue check. I know, on the weekend.

And then he was insulting them for refusing. It's George Lucas deciding to make Howard the duck. It's like, what are you doing? What are you doing? Yeah. He also spent time insulting people like Stephen King and others online. And Paul Krugman, he had a crying baby. It just was like, really? Like,

I have time to troll him, but he has better things to do. You know, I'm on a plane, so it's very easy to do so. But yeah, I agree. I think that's the contrast I was trying to draw in that Time 100 thing. I said, all these amazing things, and this is what we have? It's like, what are you doing? I think that's where I've come to at this point. Like, and especially, cause now it's, I think what it's happened is everyone realizes maybe he's not so smart and that's like, he's becoming a laughingstock of, and I don't care if he says,

oh, it's all the elites. It's not, everyone's like, what the hell? People are confused and the brand has taken such a hit. And of course it leaks over into the rest of his brands. It's just so stupid. We're talking, it's so stupid's so stupid. You're right. It's so, so stupid. Amanda, in text to friends, he called Russian news quite entertaining, had some good points, but I don't think he understands the depth of their, especially Russia, their thuggery. Maybe he does and doesn't care. Anyway, speaking of China, for example, one of the other stories that was kind of interesting, it was by Emily Baker White, who we had on the show, TikTok's Virginia

data center suffers from weak security, according to a report that she did. We were so impressed with her reporting before. Boxes of hard drives were left unattended in the hallways and visitors were free to roam. There were also reports of employees using servers to mine cryptocurrency. Feels a little negligent, although Bruce Schneier, a famous security researcher, has quoted in the article warning against reading too much into it about poor data security. It might be just one thing, but it's not a good look for TikTok, for sure. Everyone's piling on TikTok now,

and I'm not sure that anything that TikTok's guilty of, all the other platforms either are guilty of as well or have been guilty. I think it's a separate issue. I don't think it's a data thing. I don't think it's a privacy thing. It's no greater a data or a privacy thing than it is for the other platforms.

It's about national security. And I feel like something needs to happen here because it's becoming a distraction. I do believe the firm could build a ton of shareholder value, be a viable competitor to what has been a largely uncompetitive sector. But I think they need to pass this or move for this act to be put in place, force their hand, have it spun, and then hopefully TikTok can thrive again. Yeah, it can start building. It is thriving.

It's still thriving. But this is like a bird in midair flapping its wings. It can only do it for so long in place. So let's get on with it. Let's figure out what, let's either ban it or spin it. Let's get on with it. Let's figure out what, you know, let's either ban it or spin it. Let's get on with it. Because I would like to see a TikTok that spun to Western interests. The people who built that company deserve, including the Chinese, by dance, deserve to be very wealthy. And it should be a great competitor. But it has to be, we have to

address the national security concerns. And you've always said that we need to separate the ownership from the product. Well, we'll see. But it's something they should be very careful right now because people are scrutinizing them. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back, more layoffs and closures across the board. We'll speak with friend of Baratunde Thurston about AI. Fox Creative. about AI. That's Ian Mitchell, 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. confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back. Disney began its second round of layoffs this week. Those were previously announced, but it's a capstone to a turbulent week for many companies. Layoffs and bankruptcies across different sectors paint a rough picture for the economy. Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy on Sunday. I'm surprised it took so long. Its stores will remain open for now, but the company plans to wind down operations. There are 360 locations. It's going to really hit a lot of malls. Speaking of malls, Scott, as well as 120 Bye Bye Babies. I've spent so much money

about me on a Bye Bye Baby. Also last week, new Lyft CEO told employees that significant number will lose their jobs. He didn't specify how many, but the Wall Street Journal reports it could be 1,200. Lyft currently employs over 4,000. And BuzzFeed News shut down last week. The company laid off 180 staffers, moved some others to its other news brands, the Huffington Post, Insider, home of Business Insider, also announced layoffs. Three sectors, different sectors, goods, services, media. What do you think? Do they have anything in common? A coincidence? I interviewed Ben Smith today on On. He has written a book called Traffic,

but the news, BuzzFeed News' shutting down came. He was the founding editor-in-chief. We talked quite a lot about it. Do you have any thoughts on all these? Because they're different sectors, retail services and media. Well, look, we're just saying the economy is doing what it's supposed to be doing. And

companies that aren't working, bankruptcy is traditionally a great, bankruptcy laws were sort of invented for retail or retail was invented for bankruptcy because traditionally what you can do is you can go through and cherry pick the stores that are working. And the most dangerous thing about brick and mortar retail is you have to enter into these 10-year agreements called leases. And if the store doesn't work, it's a weeping wound for the next nine years. And so when you declare bankruptcy, you can go through and cherry-pick which stores you want to hold on to and then get rid of the leases. And you have your inventory.

What's interesting here or surprising is they're planning on closing all stores, but I was shocked that they wouldn't have certain stores that they would decide to recapitalize and reemerge. I mean, they had competition from Amazon, although I went to them a lot. They weren't great online. Target and Walmart are doing a really good job online. There can only be a few. But yeah, I was surprised they closed them all. It's going to really have repercussions from a commercial real estate point of view. Well, it impacts me personally because people have said that they're uncomfortable with me masturbating in front of a mirror. And I say, well, then you

can find a different Bed Bath & Beyond to shop at. How do we get it? Can you please give me an insight? I'm going to move on to Lyft. Okay. No penis jokes. The most disturbing part of that joke was Bed Bath & Beyond. Yes, probably. But they're just clothing. It's a big name. It's interesting. I guess retail names just come and go, I suppose. Look, Sears at one point was one of the most trusted brands in the world. Yeah, that's true. Retail brands are usually not that enduring. Yeah.

And one of the most valuable brands in the world right now, Lululemon, especially retail segment. And also luxury. If you look at this stat blew my mind, Hermes now has a larger market cap than Nike. So, it's retails being reshaped. I would argue that through COVID, there wasn't a ton of innovation on the front end. Like if you really think about like a Sephora or something that does something inspiring or different, there hasn't been a ton of innovation at the store level. Because I think a lot of retailers were like saying, we need to wait and see what the world looks like post-COVID. We're not going to make these big bets until, I mean, they probably weren't even sure how many people were going to come back to stores, right? Yeah. And also they had issues of employees.

They hadn't been looking so well. I was a pretty avid Bed Bath & Beyond shopper. I'm so glad I never ran into you there. Lyft services, obviously, shortage of drivers. They started covering the cost of rental cars and throwing bonuses to drivers to get more on the platform. And could be a lot of things. That could be inflation. It could be competition. The business just hasn't never been good. That's my feeling. And the one that's the weakest animal in that particular sector of a business that's never been good has to get cut out. This has been a business that has never – the sector's never made money. And so if you're the number two in a business that's never made money – And now it's expensive.

Now it's expensive. Well, it should be. The reality is, you know, a 28-year-old who, you know, designs websites and makes $110,000 a year probably shouldn't be taking an Escalade to JFK. It probably should be too expensive. Yeah. And for a long time, they priced it below its cost. And unfortunately, you know, they use software to circumvent minimum wage laws. But Uber has the scale. And you have to give Dara Khasashahi his props. He went into food. He made a very bold acquisition there. He's raised prices. He has scale.

He got out of things. Yeah. Lyft either needs to sell. Lyft is on a slow march to zero right now. Yeah. And so they either need. He got in scooters. They both got in scooters.

They've actually got a decent bank of IP around autonomous driving. So you could see an automobile company maybe buy them. But every day they don't sell, they're going to sell for less. I agree. I thought they should have sold a long time ago. And my guess is, so let's play, let's turn this back to history of Scott's failed business enterprises. About 15 years ago, I raised $60 or $70 million, and I bought 17% of Gateway Computer. Remember them? And I went on the board, and I went in guns blazing and said,

this is a great brand. The computer hardware industry, other than Apple, is in structural decline. We need to sell. We have great shelf space at Best Buy. We have a good brand. Now is the time to sell. The stock had gone from $60, I bought it at an average price of a buck 80, presented to the board, sat down feeling good about myself. And the chairman of the board who went on to be the governor of Michigan said, Scott, we've engaged Goldman Sachs two years ago and have been trying to sell the company for 24 months. So my guess is that, and it's a good lesson and the lesson here for all our young viewers, is that whenever you go into a strange situation, you should assume that you're not as smart as you think and they're not as dumb as you'd hoped. And I would bet, I mean, as I lecture Lyft to sell,

I would bet Lyft engaged bankers a year ago and is trying to figure out a way to sell. They had offers before that. I always thought they should be the reservation system to one of the car makers, you know, a reservation system. That's in place, and that's something that's hard to do. And good engineers, I don't know. I just feel like they've never been. They've always sort of been flagging compared to Uber. They're the number two. They're the distant number two in the sector. Doesn't make money. It's the worst of all worlds. And even still, this is how crazy it is. Even still, it's got a $4 billion market cap. So the founders who are of that generation that feel like they're still ho.

Lovely guys, by the way. Yeah. They want $5 billion. They want a takeover premium. And no one wants to pay that. No. No one wants to pay $5 billion for a company that's losing money. Right.

So even if you had, you know, call it, say GM, right? Their market cap's $5 billion for a company that's losing money. So even if you had, say, GM, their market cap's $48 billion. They don't want to be diluted by 10% on a flyer with Lyft. So the unfortunate thing here is until it gets down to probably a billion, which it will do, it's too expensive to be acquired. Yeah, by the players that would acquire them, 100%. Now, BuzzFeed News, lastly. It's expensive to be acquired. Yeah, by the players that would acquire them, 100%. Now, BuzzFeed News, lastly. Again, I interviewed Ben Smith today. He noted a number of things, but fewer ads, of course.

Social media users, they had bet hard on that compared to other publications. Going public was a big problem. Doing an IPO was a big problem. Spending, I've always thought they were very spendy. I would watch them from my tiny little company and think, wow, they're spending a lot of money. That's a lot of money they spent during the salad days. They had announced they're using AI tools to help generate quizzes and personalized content. But any thoughts on this? BuzzFeed should have never been a public company. BuzzFeed has, I sold my analytics company or my business intelligence firm for $160 million.

BuzzFeed has an $81 million market cap here today. Our company, Vox, sold or raised money recently at a $500 million market cap. And what's the difference? And unfortunately, BuzzFeed doubled down on journalism and also kind of digital marketing and these lists and everything. And Vox doubled down on podcasts, and it has an iconic property with New York Magazine. And didn't go public. And didn't go public. And so he can still weather these storms. But podcasts, although a small medium, are growing and is profitable. Whereas if you're trying to create lists and get traffic to a site to sell, God, banner ads?

Jesus Christ, that's an awful business. So BuzzFeed. Never made money, the news part. Sometimes it's an elite thing so that you bring in advertisers. I think that was the argument is that you had this. And they won Pulitzer Prizes. This was not a shitty, it wasn't just quizzes. Yeah, go woke, go broke, go Pulitzer, go broke. I mean, that's just not, I hate to say it. But I'm saying that was the argument, I remember.

You know, the elite, it'll create a thing that then they'll buy the rest of it, essentially. This thing, this is another thing. It probably goes to 30 or $40 million. Some Democrat with a lot of money who's excited about owning a media company says to them, fire half your staff, and the next day I'm going to announce I'm taking a private and buying it. There's value there. I think they actually have a decent culture. They have some really talented people. But it's going to need to get cleaned up. They're going to have to do the dirty work, and there'll be an acquirer in the wings that'll say, okay, if you lay off all the people, I don't want to do the dirty work. You do it. If at all, why would you? Look, Puck is doing,

it's very small and tight, right? All the ones that are doing well are small and tight, like Punchbowl News, like 3P, I forget, it's real small. You know, whatever of these new groups, information, they're very, they're either subscription or if they're advertising, it's not big, it's very digital. And digital. And it can be made bigger or smaller very quickly compared to these other things. Both BuzzFeed and BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed has 1,400 employees. Yeah, I know. Let me think about it this way.

Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. I remember. BuzzFeed is now close to the number of employees Twitter has. Yep. Yep. And Twitter has, even after 60% or 70% decline in revenues, right? And it's really shitty revenue.

It's very low margin revenue. Lyft and BuzzFeed both go away. They will both. Well, they are. It's going away. It's going away. Yeah, they're going away. Their stocks are going to go down another 50% or 70% until they're affordable.

And someone's going to come in and take them take them out. Although they were saying they could probably do pretty good business with HuffPo front page. It attracts a lot of traffic. It doesn't mean like. Oh, BuzzFeed owns that, doesn't it? Yeah. So HuffPo is the one staying around. That's that's the brand they're putting all the news under. So that makes sense. That makes sense. It turns out they bought it for like almost nothing. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Baratunde Thurston is an author, founding partner, and writer at Puck, as well as the host of the How to Citizen podcast and the host of America Outdoors on PBS.

He is multimedia. Welcome to Pivot, Baratunde. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Baratunde, I see you do not have a blue check on Twitter. Can you prove to us you'reivot, Baratunde. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Baratunde, I see you do not have a blue check on Twitter. Can you prove to us you're the real Baratunde? I can give a blood sample. I can rewind the clock with access to my actual long-form birth certificate. I have lots of photos of me as a baby. My validation does not come from the man

who needs extreme amounts of validation. Yes, that's true. And there's not enough hugs in the universe. So we were talking earlier about Tucker Carlson, all this media stuff going on, Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon, et cetera. But you've spent a lot of time writing about AI for Puck. I'd love you to sort of give us where you fall on the optimist-pessimist spectrum. I'm looking at it from every angle

and I don't have a fixed position on the spectrum. I'm like an example of quantum physics where I can occupy multiple positions at the same time as particles tend to do when we really understand the nature of the universe. So that's a cop out, but it's really true. I am nervous and worried about the flood of bullshit coming our way when we sort of industrialize content production. I'm worried about the rapid pace of change. We've not proven adept at adapting to technological revolutions once in a generation, much less three, four, five times within a single generation. That's for social cohesion.

That's really, really risky. I'm also excited. I think there's something kind of intrinsically beautiful about the idea that how you prompt the system, you know, mid-journey chat, GPT, DALI to whatever, we're becoming wizards or magicians. We're like casting spells. And so the power of your magic depends on the quality of your spell casting. So we all got to go to Hogwarts and kind of up our magic game. And I think if we could use these tools, not just to maximize profit and efficiency of productivity, that just makes us automated worker bees.

I'm not interested in being automated as a human being. But if we could use sort of the pattern matching, the corruption spotting, the way radiologists find cancer, right? If we could find corrupt policing, if we could find abuse of political or executive power of some kind, then that's more interesting to me than merely speeding everything up. And then, and most devastatingly, I think most concerning, we're creating more layers between us and an embodied existence of the world. We used to spend a lot of time with life, with dirt, with animals, with people. And all that's running through a screen and it's being heavily mediated.

So we're kind of trusting the GPS over our own eyes. And some people will follow that GPS off an unfinished bridge because the screen told them to. And some people will follow that GPS off an unfinished bridge because the screen told them to. And so not trusting our own knowing is a really deep question and concern of mine. I'm not really to say it's going to be the end of humanity, but Ind, and they had been removed from streaming services after Universal Music Group said it violated copyright law. But the song went crazy viral. It sounded like a Drake Weeknd song. It sounded pretty good. It sounded good. Yeah.

And in the statement, UMG said, AI begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on, the side of artist fans and human creative expression or the side of deepfakes fraud and denying their artists due compensation at the same time you couldn't help but be um excited by it it was what i was like wow that's pretty cool how should these writers who any whose data is used to train i really be compensated or is it too late i i don't think it's too late i think this all brings a lot of intellectual property considerations about consent, about control, and about compensation. Look, I'm talking to you now with a lot of augmented technologies, right? We're using a cloud-based service. My voice is being compressed. When I write emails, they're auto-completed already. So none of us is like a fully grounded analog human anymore. Most of us would probably be dead, you know, and certainly the jobs we do are heavily assisted.

However, we have a sense of agency and control in that. And so I think, you know, we're going to need some new systems of almost literal accounting and accountability. If you are an artist like Drake or anyone, it won't just be the output that matters. It'll be certification of the process. Dare I say, maybe blockchain has a use here. In terms of proving that that was Drake in the recording studio, that his lips were moving. And so that metadata gets attached to the streaming file

and a service like Spotify only accepts validated creative output or at least documented. So they use Auto-Tune. Cool. But they announce it. And so a third party can't just rip a voice and upload it without the proof of provenance and sort of creative process. But they can't. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm just curious your thoughts on the difference between you work at POC, but you also, you got your fingers in a lot of pies. You do stuff with traditional media still. I'm just curious how you feel about working for a kind of a startup, one of these kind of startup cool, buzzy, written word media companies versus traditional media. Any observations around what it's been like for you personally and how you, you know, any broader implications around the state of media? Oh, man. Thank you for that. I do have my hands in a lot of pies. And so yeah, Puck has been, I'm thinking out loud here, because I really haven't been asked that before. With Puck, I get to stretch my brain on a screen or on a page, like writing is the medium. And I

have a set of colleagues that are pretty inspiring in terms of how they approach when I read Julia Ioffe or Bill Cohan. I'm like, yo, they're smart. I got to step up my shit. And my editors, I can actually feel them enhancing in the way that some people feel enhanced by a mech suit or chat GPT. The humans are enhancing in that kind of colleague environment. I think the other end of the spectrum is, you know, I work with PBS. My America Outdoor shows is it's not government funded, but it's backed by viewers like you. And so the idea of making something almost the opposite in some ways, Puck is privately funded and subscription-based. PBS

is somewhat publicly funded and open to all. And so I get a different hit of satisfaction and a different sense of belonging from both of those. I'm in this kind of VIP velvet rope club at Puck, which is all about power explicitly as the mandate. And then I'm kind of like rolling with the people on PBS. And I just spent a week in Arkansas talking with folks about their relationship with nature, kind of the opposite of an AI conversation. But a lot of them said, I would only do this because PBS is coming. I wouldn't talk to any other media outlet. I still trust PBS.

And so I get the benefit of kind of learning from all this. I don't have a concluding thesis on the overall future of media from this, but I like diversification as with investment in stocks, also with my attention and with my voice. I won't speak for Kara, but we're all in different mediums and I have favorites and things I like more and things that I think are less rewarding or harder. Do you have one specific medium where you enjoy more or you think it's more rewarding? Yeah, my gut answer is the stage. So I did stand-up comedy for a decade. I've done a number of TED Talks.

The past weeks, I've been on a kind of a tour, heavily of the South, it turns out. But public events, companies bringing me in to talk, speaking at various TED-like conferences. And I appreciate the high wire act of the real-time nature of crafting something in the room. It will never be the same, even if I said it again, there'll be different people. The barometric pressure would be different. My mood would be different. My diet would be different. And so I love the realness, the real timeness of being on a stage in a room with other human beings. That is the toughest by far. But when it works,

it blows the magic of all these other media out the water for me. Interesting. Yeah, I find speaking magical too, but the magic for me is mostly about the money. Some of these people have budgets. It's nice. Okay.

I'm going to ask you about the actual things you make. So your new season of how- Did you hear about me at Bed Bath & Beyond? Okay, no, don't. Don't, don't, don't. I'm sorry, go ahead and take care. Don't, don't, don't. Are you the reason they're declaring? No, no, no. Say nothing. Say nothing. Let me just say nothing. Oh, I shouldn't encourage him. You're right. No, do not. You have not seen care of this. Look at her. She's turning red. Do not. Do not. Anyway, the newest season of How to Citizen is about democracy. I want to get to

both things because you're talking about nature and democracy, too, of Scott's favorite things getting out into nature. But, you know, you talk to a lot of people on that. How do you feel right now? I know everyone decries like the end of democracy. It seems to hold on pretty well, although declensions everywhere. This has been a particularly bleak few weeks with shooting, people shooting their neighbors when they show up at the wrong door. few weeks with people shooting their neighbors when they show up at the wrong door. A bunch of laws passed all over the country that are pretty horrible. How do you feel about it now when you're talking about how to citizen? So how do you citizen right now? I feel impressed that you threw the word declension into the conversation, Kara. You get points for that from the vocab gods. I got 700 on my SATs, but go ahead. No idea what that means. Go ahead.

I've inferred it from the context, Scott. We can check it out. We can huddle later on our study group with Kara. Citizen is more than this kind of legal status. That's the premise of our podcast. It's a verb and we all are invited to shape our communities together. It's a hard time.

And I don't want to understate the negative impacts for women and what happens if they become pregnant and don't want to be by so many means for LGBTQIA people, for all kinds of folks. I will also say that democracy has never been fully realized in the United States. We have a great marketing department, but if you inspect the product, there's got a lot of faults in it. And so this thing that feels like it's dying was never fully alive. And death is also an opportunity to give birth to something and maybe try to realize the whole liberty and justice for all thing, the whole self-governance thing and people power thing. So I tend to, I try, and I don't always succeed. I try to put my attention and give my power and the process

to things that are indicators of that new life. So give me an example of your latest show. Yeah. So we've had a back-to-back conversation with people about polarization and division. A back-to-back conversation see people as opponents and not enemies? How do we hear each other without agreeing? Right? Acknowledgement doesn't have to be endorsement. How do we acknowledge things historically that created the devastating situation we're in without receiving that as a personal attack on us as individuals? And we can do all that.

I think the good news from Tim with his scientific studies is that we're not as divided as we think we are. That's correct. So as a left-leaning person, I think a right-leaning person hates me 100%. Turns out they only hate me like 40%. That's a huge delta. That's a huge gap. That's a huge gap. And in that gap, there's an opportunity to find some ground. I think the way we ask questions of each other,

we have a kind of a binary like for, against that we're forced into playing because of the way media amplifies discord. Most of us are somewhere in some nuanced path in between or what I care deeply about, Cara, you don't care so deeply about. So even though we disagree, you don't care as much. So you're willing to give on that little piece of the puzzle. Our politicians don't talk that way. They're incentivized to behave like

algorithmically driven influencers rather than facilitators of the will of the people. So there are other methods, citizen assemblies, deliberative democracy, sometimes it's called. These experiments, which go back to the way the Greeks initially intended it, are happening all over the world. And when people come together with great facilitation, not just like, I'm in a room with someone I disagree with, hope for the best. That's not a process. So we need someone there to expose folks to all ideas to expertly facilitate bring humanity into the room and then people end up on their own behalf it's almost like jury duty for electoral politics it's democracy without politicians yeah it's the people we need

those outcomes last longer and they're much more representative of what our actual will is. So when I see that stuff happening in the US, in Belgium, in Paris, in Australia, then I'm like, all right, we got some possibility here. Even the AI thing, there's a company, Disclosure, my wife and I invested in this company called Future. They incentivize us to reduce our carbon through purchasing. It's basically a credit card rewards. But when you lower your carbon footprint, you get paid. They've made green GPT. So they've built on this interesting, sometimes problematic, undoubtedly impressive technology to optimize the use for helping me find incentives for solar power, for finding personal and collective ways to green. That's great. And that's so much faster than I would do manually Googling things. Yeah. I keep trying to figure out how to recycle by using Google. But anyway, Scott. Last question. Do you have any predictions? Do you think, I'm just curious what you think about

the AI pause movement and if you think it's a good idea, a bad idea, and generally, are you optimistic or pessimistic about generative AI? You know how I feel about binary questions, Scott. But the pause movement, I respect the intention. I suspect it is just not a well-thought-out concept. And rather than a pause, I would nominate engagement. I would encourage everyone who thinks this has nothing to do with you to get engaged, to play with these things, to ask questions of it, to build things yourselves, to challenge them when they create errors and problems and flag that in whatever systems of democracy we have, whether it's in your company, in your county, in your country. But I don't think we have an ability to literally pause it. And I suspect some of those who are requesting it are doing so in bad faith because

they missed out. Hello, Elon. As far as optimism versus pessimism. I think we have the ability to unlock something really beautiful with this. We can have conversations with sets of data. We can talk to our younger selves if we ingest our journals. You know, that's, and we can create time, you know, for ourselves as technology always promises, but never really delivers. And so we

get another shot. We get another bite at the apple here to say, okay, if like a spreadsheet can analyze itself and a meeting can attend itself and a photo can take itself, then what are we supposed to do, you know, with all that time? And I hope we choose it to invest in relationships, you know, to spend time in the ocean, to spend time with each other. That's not our default setting right now, especially because all this comes out of a return-driven capitalist environment. But I just think it's part of my deep desire to remind us that we always have that choice. And so I want us to exercise it as much as we possibly can and wield this magic for our collective benefit,

not just to work more. Magic. You sound like a techie, Baratunde. No, no. It's the hope. I think the other side of this is that this obsession with intelligence that's artificial in nature separates us from our deeper, most compassionate human nature. And that we just become, we work for machines. Could go either way. It could be.

But deeply, Cara, it's not decided yet. No. And that's, no matter where you lean, we can't give up and be like, it's all over. Then it really is all over.

I'm only concerned with who's deciding. That's all. So we'll see who's in charge right now. Just pay attention to that. Absolutely. Speaking of which, your other show is about outdoors, right? And you talk about, and one phrase that keeps getting thrown around is touch grass, meaning go offline and go outside. Would it be better if people like Elon touch grass or the outdoors?

You mentioned it several times, people getting out and away from things. Obviously, you talk about climate change on the show and other things, but it's one of the things that I think people, I think about getting outdoors a lot more than I do. And Scott certainly talks about dating and getting outdoors and being in real time. I mean, your question connects with a lot. I hear Scott talking about relationships, right? That's the quality of life. And in our How to Citizen work, we have this pillar of citizen as a verb, invest in relationships with yourself, with others, and with the planet around you. So it's not just a prescription for Elon. We are as human as he is and vice versa. Sometimes it doesn't seem that way, but we all have our stuff. And so I worry,

but I also see the benefits of, we need to spend more time with living things. We need to spend more time with living human beings, with animals, with plants, with soil. I think it's Australia, they're starting to prescribe it for depression, especially in men. for depression, especially in men. Talk therapy has benefits. Also, walking through a forest. And if we repeatedly do that, it does stuff for our blood pressure, our heart rate, our sense of belonging, our humility, our sense of joy, and peace. I hear birds behind you. Is that on purpose? You do literally hear birds. That is not a sound machine. I am trying to walk the talk here. It's medicine, you know, and it's where we come from.

So even as we invent so many ways to escape, you know, the planet, to escape each other, we've got to prescribe a set of homecomings for ourselves. And then the whole idea of saving the planet becomes less randomly ideological to some. It's not a partisan thing. It's literally the most self-interested thing we can do. It's not a partisan thing. It's literally the most self-interested thing we can do. It becomes saving ourselves. Just to reinforce what you were saying about nature, and I consider myself the great endorsement, but my youngest really struggled during COVID and not being at school. It was really tough for a 10-year-old. And at one point, it got kind of scary for all of us. And I called a friend of

mine who was at one point one of the top child psychologists in the world. And he said, where do you live? And I told him, it's like, you're blessed. He's like, every day, take him into the ocean. And nine days later, I'm not exaggerating, he just slowly started getting better. Something about being outdoors. And I would invite all his friends over because it was outdoors. It was COVID friendly.

And I realize this is a story of privilege, but the ability to get him outdoors and reset him and water and the exercise, it was really wonderful. Anyways, I ran into you in Austin. That's right. I think about a year and a half ago, and you were with your wife. And just let me make some reductive generalizations. You guys had a really nice vibe about you and you seem generally like having a nice time with each other. And do you have any thoughts on being a good partner

and being a good husband? You usually keep coming with these zingers. Thank you for noticing that, first of all. I am about 10 years into this relationship. And humility, humility, humility, humility. I grew up, Scott, I like to joke in my live presentations, I wasn't a ladies' man, I was a ladies' friend. And the moms loved me and the girls didn't.

And so that created a version of me where I was just starved for romantic attention. And anything that came over, I'm like, this is it, we're in love. And then I was just trying to cling to that and hope nothing ever changed. And that doesn't work because I change and the other person changed and I have a first marriage to show that. And I learned a lot from that relationship. In this one, I have learned to be a lot more vulnerable, despite the discomfort of that. I've learned that real love involves really knowing the other person and being willing to be known, warts and all. And to trust that when my partner says she really wants to know how I'm feeling, if it's not a good feeling, the type of feeling I'm used to hiding, she really means it. feeling, if it's not a good feeling, the type of feeling I'm used to hiding, she really means it.

And that whatever temporary awkwardness, nervousness, sweats, pain is totally outweighed by the longer term depth of trust relationship and connection that comes through that. Wow. It's been the greatest journey. And I feel like we're both, you know, learning analog meat machines in this generative, sometimes adversarial process, you know? That was great. Anyway,

you can read Baratunde, Thurston, and Puck, listen to them on How to Citizen, and watch them in the next season of America Outdoors on PBS this summer.

And Baratunde, do not go to Bed, Bath, and Beyond with Scott. That's all I'm going to tell you. Declension! Declension! Yeah, there's declension that would happen. That's your episode title right there, declension. All right. Thank you so much.

Truly, it's always a pleasure, you two. Keep it up. Thanks, Baratunde. All right, Scott, I think you should spend more time in the woods with Baratunde. That's what I think you should be doing. You think? Yeah, yeah. Take for long walks. I think I need more time in the woods alone. Yeah, that's probably true.

One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's do some wins and fails. I think I shall go first. I really was irritated by Anheuser-Busch for putting the two executives on leave after a conservative backlash to a Bud Light marketing campaign that featured trans influencer and activist Dylan Mulvaney. The beverage giant suspended Bud Light's VP of marketing and her boss.

Just to be clear, conservatives never accused Dylan Mulvaney of doing anything wrong. She's just trans and delightful. And that's enough. I watched the ads. They were fine. They were so non-controversial. Bud Light, you know, Anhe I watched the ads. They were fine. They were so non-controversial. Bud Light, you know, Anheuser-Busch is actually a very conservative company, if people don't realize that. And then the right now is coming for Jules Hoffman,

a non-binary musician who makes children's music on a popular YouTube channel called Songs for Littles. The show's creator has gone on a break after seeing tons of negative comments from users who oppose Hoffman's presence on the show. I mean, people have got to stop. It's just like the kind of, I don't understand. I find it so disheartening, the attacks on trans people. And I don't know what to say about it. It's just a real fail.

It's a fail of all of us. So unkind. It's a fail of all of us. So unkind. And so even if you put into, you don't understand people like this, there's a point where you have to stop what you're doing to attack them so viciously. And in particular, a guy named Matt Walsh is really possibly the most heinous person around on this topic. And no one's going to stop him. But please, please don't follow such a heinous troll like him. Anyway,

that's my fail. What's my win? Paul Pelosi. So glad to see him healthy. Really a delight. And he's really bounced back from something that I think would hurt and traumatize other people. And it was really nice to see him. Look, I know the people at AB InBev really well. And it's a good company. And it's full of good people. And I'm not going to call them progressive or conservatives, but the people I've dealt with, and I've dealt with people there at every level, I don't know their politics. And I like that. They're just good people doing good work. And I think they screwed up here, though. I think that Yep. people. And this thing just would have burnt out on its own. Boycotts and some wackos burning Nikes or shooting cans of bud, that says more about them than it does about AB InBev. So I just don't think they handled it well. I think they responded and got scared and putting these people on leave. They just should have said, look, this is about a person who we think is interesting, we think means a great deal to other young people, and we're happy to have her as a spokesperson.

Did you watch the ads? They're totally delightful. They're benign. They're innocent. They're benign. They're not even like, they're sweet. Isn't she pretending to be Audrey Hepburn? Yeah, they're sweet.

Literally, it's the most ridiculous version of anything controversial. And all I got, a major GOP principle is be who you want to be without government telling you who to be. I don't get, there's nothing less. People left Europe and came to America because a bunch of religious institutions were telling them who they needed to be. And the whole point of America is the pursuit of liberty and happiness. And these individuals aren't, I mean, they're not bothering anybody. Like, if they're making a political statement, like, oh, and you know, the trans community and the gay community and every community can make political statements, then fine. Maybe you have a civil conversation to push back and say, no, I've gone, I think you've gone too far. I don't agree.

But when someone's just, when someone's just making a video, it's just like, this is nothing but, this is nothing but trying to feed into really ugly instincts saying, this person's trans. And if you don't like trans people like me. I can't imagine watching it and being offended in any way. It's, it's, you know what I loved? I'll tell you though, Lizzo,

here's my win actually. My win is Lizzo in Tennessee who brought drag performers on stage, which may violate state law, but I would love to see them try and arrest her. She's the queen. Yeah. I just don't. This was a rare misstep from, like I said, these are good people and it's a great organization.

It's not going to impact them. Their stock is fine. These things burn out. These incredibly loud, angry people who burn their Nikes or whatever it is they do, They're the ones that are not buying the beer to begin with, but they should have. Sometimes it's like in a marriage, occasionally you should just be deaf and realize it's not about you.

They should have just issued, they should have not listened to these people. They should issue a statement. We have hundreds of influencers. This is an inspiring woman. We support her fully. End of press release. And it would have died down. It just wouldn't have been that big a deal.

You should tell them that. What's your positive? What's your positive? What's my win? Yeah, what's your win? My win is in a very virtue signaling kind of way, the mall. And that is my message to dads is I had kids yesterday and now one is gone. One is like a hormonal teenager that answers everything in monosyllabic tones. Everything's either a yes or a fine.

And I have a 12 year old who is at that wonderful stage where he wants to plan and suggest and do stuff. And I'm just all about the yes. Do you wanna go hang out at a mall that's been, that used to be a power station? Yeah, that sounds great. You know, do you want to, dad, there's this great dim sum place in a mall. Should we go?

Wouldn't that be fun? Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. Let's go. I just can't tell you, Kara, I literally went to sleep yesterday. I had two little boys, and now one's a young man, and I can you know, I can tell in a blink, the other one's going to be gone. So my win is Maul's. This is a song called Cats in the Cradle. Oh, Jesus. I am so emotional around this shit. What I would say is let your kid go on a generative AI and type in fun things to do with dad and they will come back with like 15 ideas.

Oh, good. That's good. That's a good thing. And most of them are awful and you just got to say yes. Ignore all the crafting. I got to tell you, I'm going to give you one little thing. They don't go away, just so you know. I talk to Louie every single day, and they don't go away. They don't. They stay there. If you did a good job,

they stay there, and they don't. They call you. They ask for advice and chit-chat and stuff like that. Louie and I are getting our hair cut this week in New York together. That's what we're doing. That's strange on a number of dimensions, but anyways. We're going to look good. He has beautiful hair.

Why not? Yeah, he does have nice hair. We do sit like that all the time. Good for you. Yeah, you will. You're like that mom pretending to be cool that goes and gets ink, goes and gets a tattoo. We did. I did that with him.

Oh, God. Make it stop. He loved my tattoos when he was a kid. That's the clencher. No, let me just say, he loved my tattoos when we were kids. And then he got tattoos. And then he's like, Mom, let's go get a tattoo. He wanted me to come.

Although I would not go to a mall with any child of mine. I feel good for you for doing that. Anyway, we got to go. You've got things to do. 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's the show.

We'll be back on Friday from where there's so much going on. Maybe we'll be able to update Don Lemon at that point. He's trading barbs on Twitter with the CNN people now. Let's hang out with Don Lemon. Let's do a TV show. Don will be the third. I'll call him, I'll call him. But-

Don, you and your sad sack, you call a scrotum. You're past your prime, D-Lemon. Oh, stop. All right, read us out, Scott. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertott engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mia 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. Jesus Christ, are you eating a snack while I'm doing the credits? I'm so hungry. Just stop.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Lean into the mall. Lean into the mall. We are thoughtful people. Now I shall have a bite of my macro bar. I'm hungry.