Pivot - Twitter subscription service, Tesla invests in Bitcoin, and Friend of Pivot Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel

Episode Date: February 9, 2021

Kara and Scott talk about Tesla investing $1.5billion in Bitcoin and what that means for the future of cryptocurrencies. They also discuss Twitter mulling a new subscription product. Meanwhile, Apple's talks with Hyundai/KIA to build an autonomous vehicle broke down. Then in Friend of Pivot, Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel talks about the importance of expanding broadband during the pandemic. 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 and beyond and see for yourself how traveling for takes forever to build a campaign. Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you,

tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I am The Weeknd.

In my next life, Cara. I wish you had that much hair. Oh, my gosh. Is that young man talented? Yeah. yeah you see a lot of the ladies thought that j-lo and shakira shook it much better last year than a lot of the ladies is that where we are already yeah that's that's where we are i'm just saying a lot of people know that the weekend is talented and we immediately go to okay he is i just was okay mr man you know amanda thought it sad. It was like all the bodies and the masks, and it was just sad.

And then I liked that the thing became a meme, him in the confusing, like, I don't know, fun house, mirrors kind of thing with the lights. That was kind of cool. That was really cool. And everybody put a different thing of what it was, and it was one of them was Sheryl Sandberg looking for the exit. I saw. There was a lot of them was Sheryl Sandberg looking for the exit. I saw. There was a lot of them that were funny. I saw The Weeknd at Coachella five years ago. And you know why I remind you of that?

Old Chella, you mean. Go ahead. Is it makes me feel younger. If I say that a hundred times, I feel as if. It's called Old Chella. I feel 54 again. All right. Okay.

He's incredible. He was good. He was good. I like to know. What did you think? I don't know. He was good. He was good. He's incredible. I like J-Lo. Otherwise, what did you think? I don't know. It was so boring. So boring. Tom, I looked the entire time at Tom Brady's skin, and I was wondering how many avocados

he had eaten that day. That guy, it's like he's freakishly good looking, isn't he? Freakishly. It doesn't look like he's had any work done. He's just eating. It's just through eating. It's avocado and bands. Seriously.

I mean, working out with bands. You know, he's such a handsome man. I share a publisher with him. My publisher published his book and published my book. And I'm like, dude, what's going on here? Look at him. I need some personal, like, whatever he's got going on in his life.

Do you realize he's been in one out of two Super Bowls for the last 20 years he's been in? Yeah, it's amazing. And if you look at, what's also fascinating is the ads that ran. Oh, yeah. The ads that ran. Give me a quick ad thing. Give me a quick ad thing, and then we'll get to a prediction that you were making that's coming true.

But go ahead. Give me the ad that you like best. Well, no, no, no. The thing that was interesting is if you look at the ads that ran during the Super Bowl that he first played in. Oh, yeah. I saw this. AOL, Blockbuster, Radio Shack,

Circuit City, CompUSA, Sears, Hot Jobs, Yahoo, VoiceStream Wireless, and Gateway Computers, a company I was on the board of. Gateway.

Were you? That is how incredible Tom Brady is. What was the CEO's name? Ted Waite. Ted Waite. Yeah, Ted. God, I used to interview him

a long time ago. Yeah. That was a brick ago, as they say. Michael Dell won, and then Steve Jobs won all of it. It's a continuing series of things. Which one is your favorite ads? Which was your favorite ad? You know what? This is going to sound...

I have a difficult time. I spent my entire the first 20 years of my career in brand strategy, so I used to be obsessed with ads. And I'm just so jaded. I find these ads are basically, we have 30 seconds and we need to spend $10 million. So let's put John Travolta in. It just, it feels like an orgy of money

and they're not very creative. The Reddit one, the Reddit one for five seconds. For five seconds, yeah. That was great. And then you went to social media. I thought that was the best money spent. It was a very nice little note. And I thought Steve Huffman made a nice move there. Steve, I just interviewed him. I thought that was the best one. I agree with you.

The only one that was mildly amusing was the one of Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani meeting with Adam Levine with the bad phone. That was cute. And by the way, how good does she look? She looks good. She looks good. He doesn't look as good, I'll have to say. A little too much hard living seems like. I don't know. That's worth it. She looks fantastic. They're the most unlikely couple. He seems like such an oaf, but he's not. I think he's actually a very talented musician. In any case,

a little shout out to the Red States from the Jungle Cats. He repels everything about that band. I'm repelled by him, but I'm sure he's very talented. Hello, Kansas. Who are from the red States than you do.

And I have a lot more red state type of relatives. My brother's a chumper. From the mean streets of Calorama. No, I'm not, I don't live in Calorama. That's where my ex-wife lives, my friend.

I live in, I do not live in Calorama. I live in Shaw. That's right. In any case, I do find. She got her knocks at Georgetown and this, and her masters of Fine Arts

posse. Yeah, right. Let me just say, all I'm saying is I am acquainted with people of the red states. I don't doubt that you have met someone from a red state. No, my relatives! Are you kidding? I've got all these born-again relatives. I forgot about that.

I have relatives. My brother is a Trump voter. My cousin. I lived in a double Y. Mic drop. No. All of them are doing rather well. But in any case, they are of the Trump persuasion. Anyway, let me just say, I have to give a shout out to you.

Twitter is mulling a subscription product, a concept that Scott has long advocated for. Yes. Really? You don't say. Some ideas are poorly being mulled over. You don't say. Some ideas are charging for the tweet deck and tipping Twitter users. I would like some tips for my fantastic tweets.

And then Twitter stocks instantly jumped on the news. So tell me. Tell me of this. One of the most damaging things to our society is these algorithms of amplification. Social media is addictive. It's nicotine. Right. But the shit that gives you cancer, the tobacco, is these algorithms that want to get your intention.

And they figured out that as a tribal species, they want to enrage you. So the platforms that unite us, Netflix, LinkedIn, you know, I would even argue the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal unite us. But the ad-supported model around algorithms of hate and rage are literally tearing at the fabric of our society. So, A, it's good for the good for the Commonwealth and be the most accretive move in business history in business history has been Amazon Adobe restoration hardware Apple one moving to a subscription model and so there are only three things and three things only the Twitter needs to do to be a hundred dollars doc all right one is subscription got? One is subscription. Got it.

Two is going vertical into content. They should acquire CNN, which they could get for $7 to $8 billion, take about a 10% or 15% dilution, and they would overnight be the trusted news source everywhere. And then third, they need a full-time CEO. I'm not going to make personal attacks. I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that that company deserves a full-time CEO. Those three things, triple digits, Twitter. That was very well said, Scott. That was reasonable. You weren't screaming at Jack's beard. It's unusual for you not to drag the beard into a situation. Just jealous. You are. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a lot of hair too. Jack does also, like the weekend and

unlike you. But tell me more about this because do you think they'll actually do it or are they just floating the idea? It seems like they take forever to do well that's the problem here is the execution not the biggest idea okay so they they so what does this subscription product look like the first of all how long will it take and what does it look like will be partially free some free what what do you think well first off i've been fooled before they they did this head fake a few months ago they said they were exploring a subscription model, I think in response to my letter, but I'm a narcissist, and the stock jumped 7%. And then on the next earnings call, they said, hey, Jack, which by the way, he speaks 6% of the words. On the Twitter earnings calls, 25%

of the words of the Square call. Where is his mind? Where is it? And most CEOs speak 50% of the words. Anyways, they asked, well, what about the subscription model? And the CFO gave this bullshit, well, you can expect us to be working on a number of things. In other words, we haven't done a fucking thing because Jack's off at some archipelago with Sean Penn thinking about payments. Anyways, anyways, so this might be a head fake, but this is what something, it looks something like this.

Less than 10,000 followers free. So you maintain some of that heft and that viscosity and maybe hold onto to those ad dollars while you're making the transition. 10 to 100,000, 10 bucks a month. But once you get to 100,000, 500,000, a million, the reality is there's so much surplus value that Clubhouse, Substack, all these things

were stolen out of the Twitter garage. Yeah, I agree. And Clubhouse is about to go subscription because they're like, okay, why don't we just steal all this shit? There's a brand new LG washing machine in the Twitter garage. We'll take that. Right, yeah.

So you and I would probably, you have a million and a half. I don't know. You pay $100 a month to do everything. And here's the thing. Why would I pay? I wouldn't pay at all. Oh, yes, you would. No, I wouldn't.

I don't get anything for it. Oh, my God, you'd pay in a heartbeat. I don't make any money from Twitter. You have 1.5 million followers. Who do you virtue signal to once Twitter is gone? Anyways, you would pay. No one. I'm thinking of not virtue signaling anymore, but go ahead.

I struggle with that. You would absolutely pay a little bit of money. And guess what? Their revenues could go down 20%. If they get to 10% of subscription, their stock doubles. Their stock doubles because the markets don't like living with a manic depressive company that's based on the ad model, which creates rage. They like predictable subscription-based revenue.

And once you go to a subscription-based platform, i.e. Netflix, you start focusing on the customer, the person using the shit, as opposed to trying to enrage the customer so you can sell their data or use them like a data tree. I'm not sure they try to enrage the customers so you can sell their data or use them like a data tree. I'm not sure they try to enrage the customers. It just happens by virtue. Well, their algorithms are indifferent and figure it out. But even look at Robinhood, right?

That is not a subscription model. It's a ad model. Specifically, they're selling order flow. And where is that headed? Yeah. Anyway, I think this is very exciting. I think it's good for the Commonwealth and it's good for the company. Good, good.

Maybe sometime we'll talk about Clubhouse. Although I don't, I'm not on that much, I don't want to give away all my stuff. I'm not on there either. I keep getting invites because I know you. Yeah, no thanks. No. I mean, I think it's fine if there's lots, I think it's whatever. In any case, it's interesting. Well, there's lots of famous people going on it now. I think they drop

off, you know, eventually. And it should be won or lost based on interesting rooms, not famous. I hear a lot of, I got to get them there too. Well, that's because Mark Zuckerberg drop-ins, Elon Musk. I think the real value is in the, they like, they're making splashy things. Those people don't, having run events, they're very hard to keep booking, as they say. So, I think what's really important, and to be interesting, have the, because right now they're pretty like, lick them up and down kind of interviews, or just be boring, is what I've heard.

But it will rise and fall based on the other stuff that's interesting. Like there was a whole sex Kama Sutra room the other day, like stuff like that. Like, well, not that one in particular, but any of them, like a history one, or that's where they might end up doing well. And I'll wonder what happens after the pandemic when people don't have time to sit around and chit-chat on a thing. So we'll see. It's an interesting idea in any case.

Okay, on to big stories. Tesla has invested, speaking of Elon Musk, has invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. This comes just as Musk has been promoting cryptocurrencies over Twitter over the past several weeks. He's been promoting just today or yesterday Dogecoin, which is sort of a beanie babies for cryptocurrency. Tesla said in its annual report that the company had made the move to, quote, provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash. The company is also starting, could, well, they said they were thinking of accepting Bitcoin as payment as well. They didn't say they will start.

They just, it was rather vague about that. So, in any case, they signaled their intent. So, Scott, what do you think of all this? Well, Bitcoin is just a phenomenon. And the notion that I believe, and I still can't wrap my head. You know how there's some names you just can't remember? There's just some people you just can't remember the name. Bitcoin is one of those concepts. I just can't wrap my head around. Or at least I acknowledge I can't. There's probably a lot of

shit I can't wrap my head around, but I've convinced myself I can. And in this instance, I know what I don't know. I don't understand Bitcoin. What I do believe though, and I made this prediction in my annual predictions when it was at 18 grand, that it's going to hit 50 grand. I think it may hit 100 grand because it has developed a reputation as a hedge to inflation. It's a reverse proxy on our trust for central governments who just keep printing money. It's an interesting way to transport money. Try and transport $10 million worth of gold to London. I mean, it's more divisible. They have created a great deal of security that there will, in fact, be scarcity around supply, that there's only going to be 21 million coins. And I had Michael Saylor on my Prop G podcast, and he talked about

social energy built into money. And I heard him talk about it. And I'm like, I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, but it sounds really exciting. And I just think of it as almost like an entity that's got now a $600 billion market cap. And I think it will have, based on its awareness and its positioning, probably a bigger market cap than that. And I apologize because I'm running on, but I do think there's a bad sign. The thing that bothers me about all this- Yeah, it feels very speculative. We're going to get attacked by the Bitcoin boys, And I apologize because I'm running on, but I do think there's a bad sign. The thing that bothers me about all this. It feels very speculative. We're going to get attacked by the Bitcoin boys, which, by the way, shut the fuck up, boys.

Honestly, I was literally saying positive things about it on the air, and they came out. And they can shut the fuck up, boys. Like, really, seriously. All I said is it is what it is. What is an asset worth? Why is gold or money or anything worth? It's an interesting hedge if you're making lots of investments. I said all the right things and they're still not happy. I don't know why. Whatever.

But here's what I find troubling. Suck it, boys. Sorry. What I find troubling. But I like that Blake Shelton. What I find troubling is that the key to robust markets, whether it's the Everglades and there's competition, and then you introduce an apex predator, an African python that has no predators, and it starts wreaking havoc with the deer and the alligator population. When seven companies in the S&P 500 are 51% of the market capitalization, when the top two or three companies in every industry control more power,

consolidation of power is ultimately bad for an ecosystem and power corrupts. And it bothers me that one individual, even if he's the most brilliant individual on the planet, is moving entire asset classes 10 and 20% one day. When one individual has that kind of power, it usually doesn't end up in good places. Markets are meant to be such that if somebody tries to corner the silver market as the Hunt brothers did, if Bill Ackman tries to create a narrative around Herbalife and a short squeeze, it's good to have what I'll call a collective ecosystem where no one person has too much power. And he's basically, he says buy signal and a company called Signal Technologies, which has nothing to do with the messaging app, goes up 1500%. Yeah, there was something. Dogecoin.

It was a 34-year-old who's basically said, I don't get what's going on here. And it says on the homepage, this is the best kind of dog. This is, I find this, and again, I'm ready for the OK Boomer from the Tesla and the Bitcoin guys, but I think healthy markets and ecosystems, no one individual has too much influence. Yeah, I think here's what I do. Look, they always act like Elon's the first one to make this. Lots of companies have invested in Bitcoin as a hedge. Lots of investment companies, lots of banks, all kinds of people. I've heard people saying, I'm playing in Bitcoin now just for a hedge, just for an extra asset.

I'm going to go up and then I'll get in and out. Speculative. All of them are speculative, essentially. And then Elon does it and everyone goes nuts, right? I do think he does lean into things that are really interesting and in the future. I had a pretty interesting discussion with Mark Cuban about this same thing. He doesn't know if it's going to be Bitcoin or cryptocurrency as a useful mechanism. And that's really what I think is what people are waiting for.

But nonetheless, it's like an asset class, like anything else. Like, what is gold? What is this? And so, I mean, you can have jewelry. I guess you can't make Bitcoin. Oh, there is jewelry. Yeah, but an asset class typically is connected to cash flows or can be repurposed for fillings like gold or rare earth materials.

I get it. I'm just saying. This thing is more like, I think of it, and again, it's hard to pin it down. It's more like a currency where just two parties agree it's a store of value and that it's worth something. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's all right.

That's what it is, right? But I'm thinking, I've been saying, and this is one of my flaws as an investor, and I have many flaws as an investor. I don't want to buy something unless I can wrap my head around buying it or owning it for 10 years. Yeah. You're like Warren Buffett said that. Look, it's not timing the market. It's timing the market.

Anyways. So by the way, just real quick, a real quick stat, because I think a lot of people are being seduced into day trading. 80% of day traders lose money. You know how many people in the history of the markets who buy more than five stocks and hold those five stocks over 20 years, you know what percentage make money? 100%. Yeah. 100%. And I can tell you as someone who was literally 22 yesterday, play to our species flaw,

and that is time will go much faster than you think. Play for the long game. Look at Jeff Bezos. We keep saying that stock. We seem so dull. Play for the long. Yeah, there's no DOPA hit. If you want DOPA hits, I'm all for DOPA,

but just recognize DOPA costs money. It's not a way to make money. DOPA usually involves. Scott, you don't want young people to invest. Don't you understand that? No, I'm kidding. Oh, yeah. No, I'm trying to protect my hedge fund friends, and I'm crying over my losses, which I have not registered.

Scott, on that one, suck it, boys. Like, suck it. That's not what he's saying. If you actually listen to him, he's talking about responsible investing. He also says, go ahead and speculate if you want. Go ahead. Nobody cares. That's what it is. Nobody cares, but they need to say it all the time. Look, I think gambling and strip clubs are a ton of fun. You lose money. You'll lose money there. By the way, I haven't been to a strip club in 10 years, just such that people don't come after me. Anyways, don't know how I got there, don't know how I got there.

Don't know how I got there. In any case, we are for people investing. The way you get rich, it's like I'm that guy with the Lamborghinis. I know how you can get rich. That's the good news. The bad news is I know how to get you rich slowly. Yep. And it's about discipline.

It's about investing every day. And you know what? There's a personal analogy here. The people with the most rewarding, enormous portfolios of satisfaction and happiness make small investments in relationships every day their entire lives. And they wake up and they have wonderful economic and emotional security. Yep, yep, yep. I agree. I don't know how we got here. We're just mad.

Where am I? You know what? But here's the thing. It'll be interesting because the mayor of Miami is looking at ways to incorporate cryptocurrencies into the municipality. He's all up in everyone in Tex Grill. The mayor of Miami, Francisco Suarez. So he'd of course be there. But it's interesting.

It's interesting. Good for you, Elon. I think, again, 80% of it is forward-looking. 20% of it is stick it to the man. Yeah, I read that. And everybody else, you shouldn't. The only reason you should do% of it is stick it to the man. And everybody else, you shouldn't, the only reason you should do what Elon says

is because the money goes up. And so if you're a speculator, do what Elon says and then get the fuck out if it looks like it's going south. That's what I would say. But, you know, and he is forward,

it is forward-looking, but he's not the only one. There's lots of people that have been doing this. And especially as a hedge as to other investments. You know what you're going to see? Look at the four companies that have converted their treasury into Bitcoin. It's Square, Tesla, Twitter, and MicroStrategy. You're going to see 40 companies in the next 90 days.

Agreed. A portion of their treasury. They have to. They can't feel like they left out. It's a great branding move. The old guys can't feel like they left out. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about Apple getting into cars briefly,

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Through the words and experiences of investment professionals, you'll discover what differentiates their investment approach, what learnings have shifted their career trajectories? And how do they find their next great idea? Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Okay, Scott, we're back. Let's talk about Apple cars briefly.

Apple talks with Hyundai and Kia to manufacture autonomous vehicles fell apart over the weekend. Apple started looking for potential partners late last year as the company considered plans to launch driverless electric cars in the next five years. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was in talks with Hyundai to develop the vehicles and Kia to manufacture them in Georgia.

Then over the weekend, the company filed, the Kia did, officially saying they're not in partnership with Apple. They were not in the partnership talks with Apple to make those vehicles. This has been going on for a long time. And this is this Project Titan, I think it's called. So any insights into it? I haven't been focused on it because I think they're not that interested in it. But maybe I'm wrong.

I was going to ask you because you just have more feelers. I can give you a sense from a shareholder. Give me a sense from a shareholder perspective. Well, okay. So if you were to add up, the world has something like, I don't know, $120 trillion in assets or something. And then if you collectively added up everybody's time and then you multiplied it by their income, and then you multiply it by their income, you would end up with a correlation between attention times the capital you control divided by that total asset class.

In other words, the amount of money that streaming video platforms have invested in TV is because at five hours a day of consumption from the wealthiest people in the world, Americans, it wasn't getting the type of capital it garnered. So now the streaming video platforms are investing more in original scripted television than the defense budgets of many G7 nations, because even if they don't get money back right away in the form of box office,

they can monetize your attention other ways, whether it's getting you to sign up for Prime or buy a $1,200 phone that costs $599 to produce. So there's an arbitrage here around trying to find things that command a lot of our attention graph, especially among rich people that have a low market cap. One of them is we spend, a lot of people, especially a lot of wealthy people,

spend an hour, two hours a day in their car. That is a point of attention because you are interfacing with an operating system. And the auto industry, because it hasn't been very forward-looking, whether it's internal combustion engines, commands about the entire market cap of Twitter if you're not Tesla. So I think they see an opportunity there the same way they see an opportunity in streaming video. And if they can get an operating system into... I think they're smart to probably get a manufacturing partner.

Yeah. But if Apple... For every incremental minute that Apple gets from the wealthiest people in the world, which is the billion iOS users, in front of their iOS, they get another $10 billion in market capitalization. So they're going to go after, where do we spend our time? Media, all right, they're all over that. The other place they're going to really look to is, I think they're going to buy, one of the operating systems guys is going to buy Peloton. If they can get another 30 minutes a day from Oprah and President Biden, that's worth it.

So, and this is just now they're going after the car. And also what they also see is at $800 billion, the moment Apple displays and they have Tim Cook or some of his very compelling people on stage displaying an Apple car, I will buy an Apple car. It's the strongest brand in the world. It could look like the Pontiac Aztec from Breaking Bad, and I will buy it. The moment they get real about a car, I believe Tesla loses about a quarter of a trillion dollars to Apple because Apple will be seen as a credible, one of the few. Nobody's worried about Tesla when General Motors announces a new Pontiac Leaf. If Apple gets into cars in a serious way, I don't think if Tesla was at $800 billion,

they would have reignited Titan. My feeling is they have said, you know what, this is just too big for us to ignore in terms of the attention of market capitalization. But ultimately, it's a play for a greater portion of the wealthiest people in the world there of the attention and market capitalization. But ultimately, it's a play for a greater portion of the wealthiest people in the world of their attention graph. I agree. I think that's a very smart analysis, Scott Galloway. I don't know what else to say.

I think you're right. I think it's a lot harder to make these things. And Elon certainly does have this, as you can see by anything he talks about. You know, he said everybody eat pretzels. Everybody of his fans would eat pretzels. I think he has that sort of swaggering Iron Man kind of thing going on. Yeah, 100%.

But I agree with you. I think if Apple got into it with all its money, it's just a question of who they have that's truly committed to doing this in a great way. Because it has to be a perfect product. I think Peloton's a whole lot lighter lift for them. And in areas they're quite good at. But, and it's much more complex. So they'd really have to hire up and really get people that are compelling and I think

focused almost entirely on the product itself. But you're right. I would, I would, I would buy an Apple. I don't own a car and I would buy an Apple car. I would. I don't, I wouldn't. First in line. First in line.

I would. I would. And I don't know why I don't buy a Tesla. They're too expensive. I'm worried about the service. By the way, Tesla's a great car. It's a great car. You have one. My brother has one. I know they are, but I think I would, I still haven't bought one. Right. So I would buy a, I don't know why it is. I'm just like, I don't need it. I don't, I don't think it's that as, as great as I need to pay for it and maintain it and stuff like that. But certainly an Apple car, I would think about.

You drive a pink Hummer, right? No. Pink Hummer? What was your car when you were a kid? When you were in T. We had a Pacer. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

My dad had a Grand Torino. Oh, wow. Then a Plymouth Fury. We had muscle cars. Oh, wow. Yeah. We had a Pacer. My mom had-

That Pacer was a fucking hell of a car. I love that car. It was like a gum car. That was literally, the AMC Pacer, that was literally such a bader. We had some great, my mom had. That Pacer was a fucking hell of a car. I love that car. It was like a gum job. That was literally, the AMC Pacer, that was literally such a bad car. It's iconic. It was such a good car. Oh, my God. A Pacer?

The whole back of it was like, the windows. I love the Pacer. I love the Pacer. Oh, God. I love that car. I love that car. I've been getting into Twitter wars with people who accuse me of being this rich hedge funder, like protecting my friends.

I'm like, I was driving a 1984 Honda Accord until I was 35. Where do you get this shit? By the way, Honda Accord, amazing car. What was your first car? What was your first car? A Honda Civic with a stick shift. I have always had stick shifts

and I didn't really know how to drive a stick shift. My boyfriend from high school taught me once and I bought the car in Pennsylvania where my grandmother lived and I drove it all by myself back to Washington, D.C. learning how to drive a stick shift along the way. That was it. I only had stick shift.

Sticks are awesome cars. I only have stick shift. The little one that looks like a boot? Yeah, yeah, it was tiny. Oh, those are great cars. It was tiny. Then I had a Volkswagen and then I had a, I don't know,

I had a bunch of cars. And I don't have any more. No cars no more. But I would buy an Apple car. So you think they're going to get into it. You think that is really the way it's going to go? I think any $850 billion industry that involves technology and a brand,

Apple looks at it and goes, okay, okay. Their greed glances get going. But you're right. It's a big area. So I don't know. Maybe they're just screwing with Elon and stuff like that. Who knows? But these talks are very complex and they have to have someone else make it. They're not going to be able to make it themselves. I always thought they were going to buy Tesla.

Too late. I know. And also, Tim Cook was probably like, ugh, that guy. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? They're all sort of older there, and they'd be like, oh. I don't think he'd sell it either. Although, at one point, he was thinking of selling it to a range of people, I think, in the dark.

Funding secured. Funding secured. Yes, a long time ago. In any case, it'll be interesting to see if you had to, do you think it would face antitrust scrutiny if it did this? You know, that's a really interesting one. I don't think so because I think the auto market is pretty competitive. And I guess the question would be, are they, do they have an unfair advantage? You know, the honest answer is I don't know.

I think Apple is less prone to antitrust than the rest right now. Okay. Less susceptible, I should say. In any case, it's very interesting to see if they get in this and how they make it and who else will be in it. Is there any other player you think will enter the picture? Google's sort of always around the edges and was one of the first. But Google's basically said, kind of Whitney Tilson, this great investor, is talking about transportation as a service. And he said, there's Google, there's a bunch of them.

Google, I think, is committed to being the software. And basically what Apple has said is Google is the technology. And that's largely the play that Apple's going to do. But Apple's going to take their brand and put it on the hood, probably, of a product that has 37 parts that come from different parts of the world that only Volkswagen has the supply chain to figure out or Toyota. Yeah. But I think they're smart to partner with someone around the very difficult and low-margin business of coordinating that kind of supply chain.

It also signifies something, a transition here, and that is automobiles used to be about product, atoms, and upgrades to the physical product. Now it's really about software. That is, my brakes and my transmission and my tune-up can happen with software over the airwaves. And they realize it's increasingly more about software and zeros and ones than about atoms. Yeah. I hope they make my pacer when it comes back. In any case, moving on, we have a friend of Pivot.

when it comes back. In any case, moving on, we have a friend of Pivot. We have with us this acting FCC chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel. Jessica, welcome to the show, or chairwoman, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me.

Wow, so I saw your tweet. We've known each other as like a brick, right? We've known each other a long, long time. So you tweeted, I caught my attention, your first 10 days as acting chairwoman, or chairperson, whatever you like,

of the FCC, which is the Federal Communications Commission. Talk a little bit about those accomplishments and what made them your priority. Ah, well, here I am taking over this agency that has all sorts of responsibility for making the digital age reach everyone. So right out of the gate, I thought, let's make it our priority and, you know, hit the ground running. No apologies. So we came right out and said we're going to work on something called the Emergency Broadband Benefit, which Congress passed late last year and can help low-income households get online,

which during this pandemic, being able to go online is a lifeline. And then I also have made it a priority to do some work to map where broadband is and is not in this country because you can't manage the problems you don't measure. So we've got to figure that out. So we reach 100% of us with high speed service. And then I also started a proceeding to do more with telehealth, because that's also been a lifeline in this pandemic. And then I made it a priority to try to address what I call the homework gap. Because, you know, when I was in school, we didn't need the internet, we needed paper, a pencil, and my brother leaving me alone if I had schoolwork. Right.

But between the pandemic and just the realities of the digital age, every child needs internet access to succeed in school. And we got too many kids who are sitting outside of fast food restaurants right now just trying to go to class. I mean, they're locked out of virtual school if they don't have internet access. So I want to focus on those things right out of the gate. It's an incredible shame. I mean, my kids have a difficult time and they're lucky. You know what I mean? It's already very

problematic to do resume school and keep people excited, et cetera. But talk about why is this taken so long? Tell me, explain to people, I know who used to run it, Ajit Pai. So talk to us about how the FCC works. We had FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter on. It's a similar thing. Explain the agencies so people on for every aspect of our life. It's broadband. It's broadcasting. It's satellite. It's radio. It's telephone service.

I mean, try to go a day without using one of those things, and I think it would be pretty hard. And internet. And internet, yeah. But the communications aspect of it, not the platforms, but the sort of engineering that resides below it that makes sure we can make connections. And that's some of the most important infrastructure in the digital age. And so over time, the Federal Communications Commission, I think, has become more important in civic and commercial life. And right now it has four commissioners. Right.

And more political. We have five. Right. Right. And more political. We have five. Right. So now, is it a 2-2 thing, or is it Republicans and then a Democrat will be chairperson, correct? It is a 2-2 thing at the moment. So that's got to forge some compromise to get things done. But I hope in the not-too-distant future, there'll be a majority that reflects the administration. So I'm going to ask one more question, then Scott will have a question.

But Ajit Pai just stepped down and left, correct? He's gone. That's right. And so what was taking them so long? Here's your chance to take a shot. But what happens where this has been sitting around since we've been in this pandemic for quite a bit of time now? No kidding. I just think you got to choose your priorities. You know, we can make incremental progress when it comes to getting every kid online

or we can decide to make it a national priority. So that's why right out of the gate, we started with the homework gap and also getting low-income households online because too many of them are just locked out of opportunity, especially now in this pandemic. So my question is, Chairwoman, by the way, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. What's the friction? Is it money? Is it that mom isn't home in many of these low-income households?

So it's difficult. The dispersion of responsibility is not being picked up in the home. Is it, you know, it just, that feels obvious. I think most reasonable people would go, yes, low-income kids should have access to water, i.e. bandwidth. What's the friction here? Why is this not happening? Yeah, the answer is really all of the above. Yeah. Look, if it was easy to solve our nation's digital divide, we would have done it already. Right. But I think in the end, it's really two problems. And the last administration focused on one, which was how do we get it to rural America?

You know, those places where infrastructure could pass them by without some stimulus from federal or state programs. And that's important. We got to reach every community in this country because people don't have a fair shot living there without it. But we also have to recognize there's this second problem and it involves affordability. And a lot of households right now are under serious economic strain. You know, just making sure that you can keep paying that bill and keep groceries on the table is important, but it's really vital right now because it means can your kid continue to go to school?

So I think we got to focus on that second piece in addition to the first, deployment and adoption. So subsidizing or forcing regulated monopolies that control the access to bandwidth, some sort of either forcing a certain amount of access to low income or just subsidizing it, just saying, okay, we're going to like a housing plan. You know, this isn't really a new idea, right? Back in 1985, when Ronald Reagan was president and most phones had a jack in the wall and a curly cord. Policymakers in Washington came up with this idea called Lifeline. And Lifeline was a program to make sure that every household had basic telephone service. You know, so if they had an emergency, they could use the phone.

If they wanted to seek out a job, they had a phone number for someone to call them back. And I think that if you advance to the here and now, what you have to recognize is dial tone in the digital age is Internet access. And we need programs to get us all connected 100 percent. So you have emergency powers to do that right now. Is that correct? Well, we're working on figuring out how to use the law as it exists to see what progress we can make as soon as possible. Well, you can't do it. You could just do it without any legislation or any permission. Is that correct or not? Yeah, but we're going to have to go look at the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the Communications Act of 1934 and find a legal way forward. So we are working hard to do that because, look, this crisis

has put so much strain. What's in our way? I've got to make sure that there's a pathway that makes it legal under the law and that I convince a majority of my colleagues. But I just don't think this should be hard because if we entered this pandemic thinking broadband access was nice to have, I think we've proven conclusively it's need to have for every household. But you can't just convince these telcos and others and the cable companies to just do this. Well, we're putting a lot of pressure on them, too. Some of them have some programs and good for them. But we got to make sure that those programs reach everyone everywhere.

And right now they do not. They do not. All right, Scott. You mentioned something about telemedicine and telehealth. And my sense is, or my belief is, that's going to be probably one of the most interesting sectors in the world. Largest business, arguably, in the world, 17% of the U.S. economy, ripe for disruption. And telehealth remote medicine is super exciting. What is the FCC's role in that? And what are any initial thoughts around why and how that needs to be regulated or what you can do to foment increased

primary healthcare over remote means? Yeah. Well, first of all, I totally agree with you. I think one of the most exciting things that's going on in our economy is the expansion of telemedicine. I spent some time during this pandemic even visiting with practitioners here in Washington, finding out what new things they're doing. of healthcare issues that can be managed more easily over internet access and by keeping connected, you know, and they can get people in their households who are not likely to show up at successive appointments more easily using a device. They can set them up with, you know, to read their pulse, to read the oxygen in their blood and do all that stuff from home. I mean, I was just talking to some folks here in Washington at Children's Hospital, and they were describing how it turns out that behavioral therapy done at home makes people so much more comfortable that their practitioners were finding it was easier and better than

bringing folks into this generic setting at the hospital. So, Chairwoman, I'm going to interrupt you, and I apologize. Let's assume we buy into that and buy into the promise. How does the FCC catalyze and expedite that? So, in the very near term, we were just given $250 million to give out to telehealth projects all around the country, and that's on top of another 200 million that was given out by the agency last year. What I think we're going to have to do in the future is study all of that funding because we're in that crisis mode now where we're just pushing it out and try to find out where we get the greatest improvements in healthcare at the greatest reductions in cost. So there's going to have to be some study down the road, but that's going to be a mix of getting bandwidth

to these facilities and to these patients and also studying reimbursement and licensing, which are probably impediments in ways that technology is not. Meaning that you're able to do this telehealth, save, skip a compliant way, which has really held back healthcare in a lot of ways online, in lots of ways.

So what about the net neutrality debate? Is that going to be picked up by the, that's been going on since I was a young girl. I feel the same way. And you too. Yeah, so where is that now? So back in 2017, the last administration rolled back net neutrality.

Yes, they did. Over the objection of myself and the vast majority of American public. The year before last, I think the House passed a bill to try to bring it back. It got stalled in the Senate. And so while the FCC stepped out of the fray, some states stepped in, like California decided to build their own net neutrality laws. And then the last administration started to sue them. So we've got this sort of mess in the courts. We've got state activity, and we have an FCC that vacated the space. It's my hope in time that we can again make net neutrality the law of the land. But we're going to have to figure out a pathway to do that.

So let me ask you, because this is a perfect example of what happens with a lot of like the FEC or the FTC, like things switch. Now the FTC has actually stayed relatively bipartisan in a weird way, but the FCC has always been sort of the flashpoint of partisan politics for a long time. How do you stop it shifting from administration to administration? Every administration, they just shifted completely and nothing stays in place, or is that just not possible? Well, let me be optimistic for a second and say that I think we got to work on making that possible. And I think when you look at things like telemedicine, telehealth, or spectrum policy, there's a lot of opportunity for bipartisanship. I mean, and I don't think we've seen that in

recent years, but I want to see if we can do some things to bring it back. I think that's good for the agency and good for the country. But how do you get to a situation where you don't go back and forth? Net neutrality is going to be debated until the end of time, until we are communicating by our brains, essentially, by psychic. Well, we'll see. I do know that it's an issue where people have really strongly held opinions, and it's one that I think is— What's yours? Well, mine, I definitely support net neutrality.

I think non-discrimination matters. I asked this generally not as a comment, but trying to get—and I'd care—I'm curious to hear your view on this. to get, and I'd care, I'm curious to hear your view on this. I immediately went to net neutrality is really important. And I was outraged because I think I immediately kind of adopted the narrative of people I trust and media I trust. Since net neutrality was done away with or whatever it was, the sky has not fallen. Is there anything that maybe that we overestimated the fears around net neutrality? Sure, that's a good point. I would say that the providers of our nation's broadband service have been on their best behavior because there's been these looming lawsuits and this looming legislation.

And it's a good fact that they've been on their best behavior. We've all benefited from it. But at the end of the day, you know, if you're a provider and you've got the technical capability to, you know, block or throttle services, you've got the engineering in place and you got the business incentive to do so, and the FCC gave you the green light, I think those are things you'll experiment with. And I'm not sure that that redounds to the benefit of the American public who would like to see an open internet. Well, how do you see innovation in the sector then?

Their argument has always been we can't innovate if we have these strictures. You know, I think that innovation in this sector comes from competition for that broadband pipe. You know, let's go ahead and see what we can do with fixed wireless service, with low Earth orbiting satellites, and all these new technologies that can bring bandwidth into our home, I think competition is where you find innovation. And that's something that we should promote first and foremost. And then what do you think is going to be the big, this was a longtime fight, the whole net neutrality fight and some others. What are you looking towards that you think the next, the FCC's role in internet regulations

is going to be more broadly? Will you play any role in any of these other legislative, you know, efforts going on by regulatory efforts? Or what do you think the big issues, if you had to pick them, are going forward? Big issues going forward. I think we're going to spend a lot of time talking about Section 230. But I can't be the first person to have pointed that out. The next thing I think we're going to spend a lot of time thinking about. I'm going to keep you on that. You were charged by that executive order by President Trump, correct? Are you still under that? Well, they filed a petition with us that's still pending.

But, you know, the substance of that petition seems to make, try to make the FCC into the president's speech police. And I don't think we should take that bait. So I think Congress is going to spend a lot of time thinking about Section 230. It already is. But I think the other big issue is when you start talking about next generation wireless and 5G. It is, right now there's so much hype. The hype machine is in overdrive. But when you get past the point that you're just talking about mobile phones and you start thinking about sensors on all sorts of equipment and in the world around us, we're going to have this constant stream of intelligence explaining to us where we're efficient and where we're effective. And then we're going to use that data to inform machine learning and eventually artificial intelligence. And to me, that's where 5G is most powerful. And the challenge associated with it is getting it everywhere, but also recognizing that it expands the surface

for cyber vulnerabilities and privacy issues. And I don't think we fully grappled with that next. It's not here yet because most of our discussion is about the phone. And I don't think we've fully grappled with that next. It's not here yet, because most of our discussion is about the phone. And when we talk about mobile, that's like the sun in the center of the universe. But I think the real power in 5G is when it moves into the landscape and the world around us. So just returning to 230 for a second, do you think there should be carve-outs just as there's carve-outs for sex trafficking from the protections of 230 for things like health or national defense? Do you think there should be carve-outs?

I think that these are subjects that are above my pay grade right now. As chairperson of the FCC? Yeah, Section 230 is in the law, largely self-effectuating, but the agency has not really been asked to make those kind of decisions. But I think that's a dialogue we need to have because look, you know, online platforms and social media are frustrating. They're sources of misinformation. We need to make sure that their incentives are right for keeping us civil and safe.

So you essentially, you seem to be saying, and this is my last question, that the FC's role here is not one, that you all shouldn't have one. Who should if that's the case? Well, right now, let's see, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act amended Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. So that's that for the law nerds out there, which means that it falls within the FCC's general purview. But it's always been perceived as a section of the law that largely is self-enacting. And so major changes come from Congress. They don't come from the regulatory agency. But won't they ask you for an opinion? Won't you be meeting with senators and

Congress people saying, you're very knowledgeable on these issues? Well, in this area, we don't have a history of rules or precedent. So while that's normally the case, I would say this might be different. But, you know, we will study and be responsive if asked. Yeah, I don't think you want to get near it, right? I don't think you want to be the speech police, correct? Yeah, I think that making the FCC into the speech police has problems, and it's why I opposed what the last

administration tried to do. Okay. Commissioner, Chairperson Rosenworcel, thank you so much for coming on today. Nice meeting you, Chairperson. We really appreciate it. When is the next person going to be selected, the fifth wheel? Oh, we'll see what happens. That is not yet clear, but I'm going to do the best I can. What does that mean? what happens. That is not yet clear, but I'm going to do the best I can. What does that mean? What does that mean, not yet clear? Well, I think that the administration has taken some time to get up and running, and I will do my best to make sure that this agency is in good stead no matter what, if I am there for the short term or the long term. Okay. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. All right. Thanks. All right,

Scott. We're going to take one more quick break and I'm going to prepare my speech police outfit and we'll be back for Wednesday. I didn't find that meal very satisfying. I think the chairperson should run for office. I think she is very deft at avoiding. She can't say anything. I don't agree with you. They're in a position where there's four people and she's got to make some deals. She's got to make deals. I'm hearing commissioners take a stand and have a view. position where there's four people, and she's got to make some deals. She's got to make deals. I'm hearing commissioners take a stand and have a viewpoint. Not when there's two, too, and they've got to figure out who's going to be it. They need a tiebreaker.

Just like I know. So until then, they have to be cooperative and unified, like Bruce Springsteen said in his G-pad. We all are at fault for what's going on, even though we're not all at fault for what's going on. Anyway, we'll be back for wins and fails. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. You already know that AI is transforming the world around us, but lost in all the enthusiasm and excitement is a really important question. How can AI actually work for you? And where should you even start? Claude from Anthropic may be the answer.

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All right, Scott, wins and fails. What do you got? There is some exciting news. There's actually been more new businesses started in 2020, or there were more new businesses started in 2020. People are being very resourceful because the wealth of wealthy people has exploded. And oftentimes they're angel investors or the capital source.

And people are being very innovative. Now, the flip side of that is, and people don't like to talk to us because we've romanticized small businesses. The best thing that could happen for new businesses is to let existing small businesses go out of business if they're not prepared for a post-COVID world. And I think propping them up,

if you don't let the gale cyclone of creative destruction blow, all that is is protecting old people's wealth so young people can't come in and start their own businesses with that real estate that's now vacant. But anyways, there is something exciting happening around new businesses.

I think that's encouraging. My fail. Can I just note on that? I have to say, I was walking the other day, and I was thinking all these restaurants, for example, so many of them are trying so hard to do new and interesting things. It was quite touching on some level. You know what I mean? I was like, good for them. Someone did something in a restaurant setting, and I was like, oh, wow, that is a great idea.

I kept thinking, what a great idea when I was walking down the street. And I kind of liked that idea of them. You know, you're still facing incredible odds right now, especially in the dead of winter on the East Coast. But I still felt a little bit of hope. I know it sounds crazy, but I thought, how creative, especially in New York, for example. That was one place I saw a lot of that.

Do you have a loss? I want you to finish yours. Yes, I do. So, fantastic. And I'm totally shilling the New York Times. Gosh, I forgot her name. Woman wrote this fantastic article, Working Moms 3. Jessica Bennett.

Jessica Bennett. It was a whole series of articles, too, by the way. It just brought up. We have lost, and this was your guest last week. We have taken almost every labor participation for women has gone back to the 80s. Yeah, that was great. And I'm really into this. And I think that what I'll say is the loss, the silver lining here, one of them is, what do we leave behind?

Isn't this an opportunity to really rethink things? So, for example, I love this plan, Marshall Plans for Mom, that your colleague came on the show and talked about. But why do we transfer a trillion dollars from mostly young people to the wealthiest cohort in America in the form of Social Security? Social Security has taken, and it was very successful, it's taken seniors, 38% of whom were in poverty, down to 11%. Why wouldn't we continue to give money to those 11%? Why wouldn't we have social security for young people who've incurred the greatest shit kicking for the first time in our society

that do not make as much money at 30 as their parents? All of this stuff, I believe Black Lives Matter, GameStop, I think it all comes back to one thing, the central compact in America that if you play by the rules, you're a good kid, that by the time you're 30, you should be making more money than your parents. For the first time, that is not happening. But we continue to tax them such that

pop-up can take a cruise on fucking silver seas. Why wouldn't we think about social security for young people to give them a start? That's interesting. You know, if you were running the vaccine program, you would vaccinate no old people, wouldn't you? That's not true. Are you kidding? I'm like you spending hours on the floor, on the sites trying to get my in-laws vaccinated. Where did that come from? I don't know. I don't understand. I think there's an

opportunity here to rethink. I agree. I agree on that. The wealth of people under the age of 40 control has gone from 19% to 9%. The wealth of billionaires has gone from 1.9 trillion. Why do these retail investors think you're in with the hedge fund guys? I agree with you.

Well, my buddies that I hang out with in a steam room and smoke cigars with. Who are these people that I'm hanging out with and protecting? You do look like you could be in a steam room. Let's be clear. You fit the bill. Sure, I could see you wrapped in a towel, like smoking a stoke. I do think some of this is ages. I think I look like such an old fucking douchebag that I'm an easy target.

But anyways, if we're truly going to redistribute income to where it has a greater return, why wouldn't we be investing more in our young people? I just don't get it. Why wouldn't we have social security for young people versus old people? Old people, wealthiest cohort in America, in history, globally. I like this. I had a great discussion with my oldest son about what he wants to do with his life. I'm not going to relate it, but it was really great. I thought it was a really interesting, innovative ideas that he was having, and I was very appreciative that he was doing that. Yes, they have a lot of energy. They have a lot of energy and ideas, and they should be. We should be investing in them. Here's what's happening. I am investing. Again, I bring everything back to GameStop. They think there was a conspiracy against them between

hedge funds. No, that's not true. That just didn't happen. It's worse than that. There's a conspiracy against them at the federal level. At every level, there's a conspiracy to make them less wealthy and the existing rich old people more wealthy. Well, speaking of rich old people, I would say it's a win. Yes, go ahead. Fox canceling the highest rated show, Lou Dobbs Tonight,

after its host was sued as part of a $2.7 billion defamation law. How much did you love that? How much did you love that? That made me happier than I could believe it. I don't know why. It was so schadenfreude. I'm like, don't feel bad for people who lose their jobs. And I thought, that asshole.

Like, he's been spewing so much election bullshit, him and Janine Judge, whatever the hell. Piro. Like, he's been spewing so much election bullshit. Him and Janine Judge, whatever the hell. Piro. Yeah, her. Do you think Maria Bartiromo's sleeping a little less well right now? I don't know, but they're moving her to the main show, which is interesting. She's another one. Like, all of them.

But Lou Dobbs, chef's kiss. I'm sorry. My mom had him on once, and I literally wanted to take the television and throw it out the window. It was just so infuriatingly inaccurate and it was spewed at my mother and I was sort of like furious. I was, I saw a woman last night. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. This wonderful woman I know, she's in her, I think her mid-60s, late 60s. And I was speaking to her last night and she said,

no, I'm not taking the vaccine and just kind of went on and I'm not going to New York because it's crime-rid. And she watches Lou Dobbs. And I think this goes to a larger narrative. And that is, I don't think you can unify as a country until there's some accountability and we decide that the truth is a thing again. And when you constantly knowingly spread misinformation that results in in smart people or not or maybe not smart but people

that 14 of black americans don't trust vaccines and there's a history behind that yeah but when you when you knowingly spread that kind of stuff i think there has to be accountability this is a win anti he started with his anti-immigration trap. It's awful. Nonsense. And he's the one that got... You know, this was in the stories, and this is my last thing. Trump called him during Council of Economic Advisors meetings and dialed him in. That old coot. Are you kidding me?

That is just like, goodbye. Goodbye, sir. Or he's going to fire up again the space.com website. Remember that? Remember that? He left CNN to go to space.com. That's right. He left CNN because he was a birther.

That's why. Just an appalling human being in terms of how he's conducted his career. And couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. We're appalled. We are appalled. We're officially appalled. Someday someone's going to say, I'm so glad that Scott and Kara show got dumped. What did we get dumped for?

Something bad. We got to go down hard, Scott. I have to say. That's how it's going to go for us. It happens to everybody. They're trying to pull down Winston Churchill's statue now. Oh, stop it. Are you going to do the woke culture portion to me?

It happens to everybody. Oh, God. It's called sometimes people reevaluate. I'm telling you, algorithm for happiness, Kara. Algorithm for happiness. Be rich and anonymous. Whatever. Yeah, whatever. Be rich and anonymous. In any case. Take it from me. Some things, let me just tell you. And I'm telling you, algorithm for happiness, Cara. Algorithm for happiness. Be rich and anonymous. Whatever. Yeah, whatever.

Be rich and anonymous. In any case. Take it from me. And I'm neither. Some things are overuse of attacking people. Some things are just accountability. We can differentiate between the two. Thank you very much.

Don't woke cancel culture stuff on me. I'm not going to have it. I'm not having it. Anyway, I'm a little bit testy today, aren't I? It's interesting. Yeah, but it's a nice testy. It's a nice testy. All right, Scott.

You're all salsa, no chip today. I like that. I like that. I like that. Ah, Scott. We have a lot of plans. Scott and I have a lot of plans, but they aren't come to fruition yet.

But they include cocktails, correct? That's right. There'll be a lot of fun. Scott and I are making fun plans for the next few years. Can we tease one event? What? Tech event, Miami. Well, correct. That's right. There'll be cocktails. There'll be a lot of fun. Scott and I are making fun plans for the next few years. Can we tease one event? What? Tech event, Miami. Well, maybe.

Can we tease one event? We're talking to that mayor who talks to everybody. Let's just say he's a little bit loose. Do you think he's flirting with other people or just us? He flirts with everybody. That guy, Francisco, come on. I don't care, though. It's Miami.

There's flirts. There's flirts. No, listen. I like him. We're thinking of doing an event in Miami. I like him. What does he look like? Is he handsome?

Most importantly, is he going to be president? Is he handsome? He is very political, but he does tweet with everybody. I'm sure he has other friends on the Twitter. Smart, nice, action-oriented. I like him. We'll see. We'll see.

We'll see. We'll see if we'll see. We're going to put him to the test. Instead of just tweeting at us, we'll put him to the test. Anyway, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your

question for the Pivot podcast. The link is in our show notes. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Ernie Enjotad engineered this episode. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you like the show, please recommend it to a friend. 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. Tech event in Miami. Come hang out with the jungle cat and the dog. That's right. That's right. That's right.

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