Pivot - Wheels Come Off at Tesla, Tucker's Texts, and Hannah Dreier on Immigrant Child Labor

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

More layoffs are coming to Meta, and President Biden's pick for the FCC, Gigi Sohn, drops out of the running. As the FTC investigates his company and the wheels literally come off at Tesla, Elon Musk publicly picks (and loses) a fight with an employee. Also, newly-revealed texts from Fox News hosts could be a legal headache. Friend of Pivot Hannah Dreier helps Kara and Scott unpack her latest investigation on the widespread use of immigrant child labor in America's most dangerous jobs. Plus, a prediction from Scott about Adam Neumann's latest venture. You can follow Hannah Dreier at @hannahdreier and read her work at the New York Times. 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.

And I'm Scott Galloway. How you doing, Scott? How am I doing? How you doing? It's an easy question. Pretty good. Yeah? How's London? I'm trying to think. I'm trying to say this politically correct. London fucking sucks right now. It is so damp and cold. I'm not even going to football games. Tottenham-

It's too cold? Chelsea was playing Dortmund, which is a huge game. I couldn't even, and my kid wanted to go and it's like 36 degrees and I'm just, has anyone heard from spring? Has anyone heard from spring? No, no, they keep having fake springs here. The flowers are out and everything. Now it's cold here, but it was warm the other day.

No one warned, why didn't you warn me about the London winter? The winter here is worse than the winter in Stalingrad. I did warn you about this. It's not really your jam. You know, I went to, speaking of Stalingrad, but speaking of Ukraine, I went to the French embassy last night for a party for Puck. It was full of D.C. luminaries. The Puck magazine, you know, the online thing is becoming big in D.C. They're going to hire.

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Let's unpack this. All right. You went to the French embassy in D.C. Which has a big Ukrainian thing in front of it. For a party. Yeah, I'm sure they did that to pretend it was nothing more than a bunch of douchebags drinking Pim's cups. No, there was no Pim's cups.

The French embassy in D.C. for a party celebrating. But just when you thought, you have literally become so white, you're translucent. I know, it's true. It was really fun, though. I ran into lots of people. George Conway was there. Ooh, recently single. Hey, he was single and ready to mingle.

One thing that very quickly, there was a story in the New York Times called, Would You Date a Podcast Bro? And apparently, and given you are a podcast bro, there was one woman saying, for Mrs. Robertson, it wasn't just the content of the man's podcast that he had one at all, but that he had one at all. Like many other women, she associates the form of a certain kind of man, one who is endlessly fascinated with his own opinions, loves the sound of his own voice, and isn't the least bit shy about offering unsolicited opinions on masculinity, sexuality, and women. So, Kara, you know what you call three average white guys?

What? A podcast. Get it? I got it. I think all that is true, but I think that those same attributes apply to both genders. I don't think there's—do men over-index in podcasts? I haven't looked at the demographics. Why, they do.

Yes, they do. Yeah, I don't. I mean, we're talking about podcasts and sexuality. And would you want to date a podcast guy? Does it give you more, make you more attractive? I'm just curious. To other people?

You're a podcast daddy, really. That's what you are. You're not a bro. Yeah, but here's the thing. I've got a face. I mean, the answer is yes, because I have a face for podcasting. I have a handsome voice, and that's where it kind of ends. So I was built for podcasting, if that's the question. So as evidenced by the fact, let me put it this way. Every podcast I've started has been successful. Every television show I have started has not been successful. So what conclusions can we draw from that? That is a fair point, but you are not a podcast bro in any way.

You are a zaddy. You are a podcast zaddy. Go on. I want you to say that. I want to say that to you. What are your thoughts? You brought this up. What are your thoughts on this?

I think it makes me more attractive doing podcasts, honestly. Well, it's not, I don't even think of it as, intimacy is a function of contact and a means of establishing attraction is you get to know someone and they feel safe around you and therefore, you know, see positive attributes of you and feel more, quote unquote, intimate and attracted to you. And there's something unique about this medium, when you're in people's ears, and we've always said this, I can tell you how someone knows me. If a stranger comes up to me, if I have an interaction with a stranger, I can tell you the medium which they were introduced. And if they high-five me, it's a video. And if they come up and just start talking to you like you've known each other for a decade. Yep, podcast. It's a podcast. Yeah, podcasting. So there's something very intimate about having someone in your ears. I can't imagine how many people come up to you

and feel as if they know you. They do. Last night was crazy. Like, I had a line of people. And they all, again, want to know, what's Scott really like? I think people are shocked. I don't think people are shocked.

I think people genuinely like, have affection for our affection. I think they like it. Yeah, that's true. That's true. But I think a fistfight is what I'm looking for. Anyway, speaking of stupid boneheaded fights, Elon Musk picked one with a Twitter employee while the FTC investigates. We'll talk about Tucker Carlson's another winner, text messages and what's next for Fox News, and also speak with Hannah Dreyer. We got her from the New York Times about immigration, child labor, and the impact of her damning investigation, which we talked about and both of us found very moving. You know, her husband works for Vox, and I begged him to get through to her, and she's coming on, which is very good.

But first, the year of efficiency continues. Meta is reportedly planning thousands more layoffs, likely starting this week. The company already laid off 13% of its staff in November. In February, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts that the company would be, quote, cutting projects that may no longer be crucial and, quote, removing layers of middle management. Channeling that inner Elon, what do you think about this? Well, we said this three or four months ago, just when it was starting, that it was just starting. And I would say, I would call us sort of in the fourth

or fifth inning. Okay. Because I think they did these- Oh, that's early. Oh yeah, they did these initial- I believe that's early. I don't really follow baseball, but go ahead, tell me. There's nine.

Anyways, there's- Thank you. There, I think what's happened is a lot of these companies laid off a small percentage of the workforce or two, three, 10,000 people, and they looked around and nothing happened. And history, it really is wild how history goes through very similar cycles. And I couch this in the professional biography of my father. and the professional biography of my father, my dad moved to the U.S., talented Scotsman, hardworking, very, very charismatic, and could sell anything and rose up the ranks through management and became like an SVP of O.M. Scots, a division of ITT,

and had a bunch of people reporting to him and did all these management things. And then this thing called reengineering became the craze. Do you remember that in the 80s and 90s? There was a book. Yeah, reengineering, sure. And essentially, let me save you reading the book. It said anyone, if you're a shareholder or you're the CEO of a company, come into a company.

And anyone with the title VP in the title, SVP, junior VP, just fire them. And the next day, you won't realize that they're gone because what had happened in America from 1945 on, two of the most productive economies in the world, specifically Germany and Japan, had been just taken out. Their infrastructure had been totally leveled. And it took them 20 or 30 years to come back, which by the way, in itself is a miracle and speaks to the unbelievable culture of those two nations. But we had a monopoly on pretty much everything from fertilizer to cars to tractors. And we took advantage of that, and we just overstaffed and overhired. And then all of a sudden, the world caught up to us, and we thought, wow, the easiest thing to do here is not to innovate out of this.

It's to cut our way out of it. And we cut like crazy. And a reasonable facsimile of that is going on in the tech sector. And that is the hiring. And I've used this analogy a bunch. We have stuffed so many or shoved so many calories down the esophagus of the growth economy that there's just fat everywhere. Yeah, yeah. And stuff, all the stuff they have.

It was always laughable, all their kombuchas and their stands, and they'd show it off and all these little huts that people could sit in. I used to always make fun of it. I thought it was over, because I had worked for newspapers where it's like, here's a cracker, good luck, and a bottle of water, good luck. But it's, yeah, definitely. I think the rest of, a lot of the economy is used to cutting, right?

This group is not. But they will continue to cut when they realize the productivity goes up. They're starting to get good at it. They're getting warmed up. They're getting warmed up, yeah. And when you look at the actual hiring they did through the pandemic,

you could argue they haven't really started. Just all you have to do is look at their revenue growth, look at their employee growth, right? And look at their share price, what's happened to their share price. And it's like, okay, if you've been hiring as if you were going to continue to grow your revenues high teens, and this year, you know, you grew 3%, and your share price off 40%, okay, get ready, because all roads lead to the same place. The thing is, they'll start hiring again once things are better. They'll do that. That's their proclivity to overhire and just fight with each other for people and then

use ridiculous come-ons to get people to stay there. That's their little, it's in their DNA. But there was even, I mean, when you talk about weird activity, some firms would hire people that were good just to keep them off the market. That's right. That's right. That's what I mean. They can't help themselves with that. Yeah. And so I think, again, we said everyone was hair on fire when they started, when these companies actually had layoffs about six months ago. We said it's just getting started. I think we're in the middle innings. I think we're going to see more of it. Speaking of not being hired, Gigi Son has withdrawn her nomination for the FCC,

leaving the commission deadlocked still. President Biden nominated Sohn for the tie-breaking seat in October of 2021. That's how long this has been going on. But her confirmation has remained at a standstill due to Republican opposition. Sohn's confirmation battle accusations of anti-conservative bias and criticism for a tweet calling Fox News dangerous to Republican opposition. Sohn's confirmation battle accusations of anti-conservative bias and criticism for a tweet calling Fox News dangerous to our democracy. Actually, it's turned out she may be right. In a statement, Sohn cast the blame on, quote, dark money political groups

with bottomless pockets, making her into a, quote, absurd caricature of blatant lies. Well, okay, she's a tough one, Gigi Sohn, as I recall. So this is this two-two split. Nothing can happen, really, on the way out. I don't think you say that. I don't think you call it dark money political groups with bottomless pockets. That might be true. You go on background there and you say, it was my honor to be nominated and I'll be supportive. I look forward to working with the FCC in a productive manner moving forward. It's a cheap thrill to say this shit on the way out.

Didn't work out. But they certainly were mounting a campaign. I mean, she's obviously liberal, right? And she's obviously, I don't know if it's the most crazy thing to say Fox News has a problem. We'll talk about that in a minute. But it's, you know, you're right. You're right. These committees, whether it's the FCC, the FTC, or the FEC, the federal election, they seem endlessly deadlocked in these partisan battles, no matter who the president is who appoints these people, like in terms of getting anything done. It seems so absolutely dysfunctional at this point, all of these committees, and they're always fighting about putting someone on the board to get anything started. They never even get to first base in terms of doing, did I make the correct reference there, sports-wise? But they never get anywhere with this stuff because of this absurd

fighting that goes on between them and the blockage. And no one is going to qualify, right? No one's going to qualify from either side. But these go to some very structural issues that need to change here. And there's a lot of them. The first is we need rank choice voting and we need to stop gerrymandering such that the only people we send to government hate each other because they're not representative government, they're extreme right or extreme left. We have to figure out a way to revisit Citizens United. We have to figure out a way in a much longer term, but more structural important issues to have national service such. The reason why we didn't have this shit in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and even a little bit in the 90s was the majority of people, elected representatives, at some point had served in the same uniform and saw each other

as Americans, not as each other's enemies. And just the level of antagonism, extremism, money, it just leads to a totally intransigent government where what was meant to be checks and balances has just resulted in an inability to get anything done. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, Manchin pulled his support. You know, this is two years. They should have probably given up a long time ago, right? She's a public internet advocate and very well known, and she's a tough one. She definitely is. But I think one of the issues is they've got to just, you know, everyone they have to nominate has to be so inoffensive and anodyne that it's like milk

toast. And then you're sort of like, there's no real debate over things. And it's a question of who they're going to then nominate, who can get, It's just, it sits in deadlock. That's what happens here. And the White House can't shove them through. They can't unify Democrats behind the nomination mansion, who might in fact go Republican, by the way, and mansion accuser holding partisan alliances with far left groups. This is just like, these words woke, far left. It's just so, it's exhausting. And of course, these tweets, and I don't think this is a particularly inoffensive piece. So do you want me to believe that social media is more dangerous to our democracy than Fox News? I don't think that's so far, like kind of things. And so we'll see if they can get someone in there. I don't know what names they're going to put in, but it was, they

were pretty stubborn in keeping her in there for a long, long time. And they did get confirmation for most of them. And it's interesting that they just kept going on this thing when they should be getting things done. Now they waste all this time. Biden administration has, at least. I would have pulled her a lot sooner. I know they're supposed to stick with people, but that's happened several times. It's always, in fact, with women, fascinatingly, mostly in these high profile ones.

But anyway, we'll see where it goes. We'll see. The FCC certainly has some decisions to make. So let's get to our first big story. Regulators on both, speaking of regulators, on both sides of the Atlantic are taking aim at Elon Musk again. So Musk is doing what any responsible CEO would do in a situation. He's accused Iceland's person of the year of faking disability.

Musk landed in hot water last week when he tweeted at Twitter, had a Twitter employee named, I'm going to say this slowly, Haraldir Thorlifson. Thorlifson. Thorlifson. Thank you. You will say it. I've been to Iceland several times on bachelor parties, so I'm an expert here. Thank you.

Who wanted to know if he'd been laid off because the HR function at Twitter is really not working. His company had been bought. Very good company. He's incredibly well regarded. I remember when it was bought. But then Musk accused him of laziness, faking a medical condition kind of thing. Like, how can you type if you're so unable to type and this and that? And when it turned off the wildly off the mark and probably illegal, he apologized and tweeted about the whole incident. It's better to talk to people than

communicate via tweet. Good, good idea. You know, it was a low. And I think he was, I think he probably realized he was in legal jeopardy here. And Dave Karp, who I really think is funny, said soon there'll be only two types of employees left of the company, Elon's bodyguards and Elon's lawyers. But, you know, it was, it was not, there's no HR function, there's no PR function. And, you know, we all complain about both those things, but you need to have them in a working company, even if it's a private one. But it seems not. He just tweeted off the top of his fucking head. You know, this guy has muscular dystrophy. My brother has muscular dystrophy, as you know. This guy has an amazing reputation. Just really weird. Just weird. I don't know what to say.

Yeah. Again, and I don't know, this might be sometimes your reaction is more a function of what's going on with you than the actual situation. But this, again, was something people accuse me of saying, that guy lives rent-free in your head. And they're absolutely right. I spent too much time being really upset about this. If my kid, if my 15-year-old son mocked a disabled person, the reaction would be swift and crisp around that. You wouldn't tolerate that from a 15-year-old boy. And there are just the whole point of being human, the whole point of being an American, the whole point of being an adult is that you recognize that there are people who have to put up with such challenges every day that they just afford a certain amount of decency and respect. And it doesn't even go to legal because here's the thing. He didn't reflect on this and decide, you know what,

in a moment of low blood sugar, and we all say stupid things we wish we could take back, but it's clear what happened. A labor attorney called him and said, you realize that you're just objecting yourself. You've just created a labor attorney's dream here. So, essentially what happened here is you had a child mock someone who's disabled, and then the child found out that his father's rich and then decided to apologize. This isn't an apology of sincerity. There's no evidence. There's no evidence that he really feels bad about mocking a disabled person.

Now, what do we have? When you go meta, it's like, I started thinking, okay, what's wrong with him? And I started thinking, okay, well, what's wrong with us? The last president and now the richest man in the world, both share this. They have both mocked disabled people. Something that you had never

heard or had, I hadn't heard, an elected representative. Or someone of prominence, yeah. I'd never heard it. And now the former president and the wealthiest man in the world. And the question is, well, maybe what is it about our incentives? Maybe it's because we're talking about it now and it's just a function of just be famous for whatever reason, always be on the front page. But it struck me like, okay, this is more than just a stupid person continuing to do stupid things. Have we created a society and an incentive system that rewards mocking the disabled? Well, I don't know, but it was a bad move on his part for a number of reasons. And of course, that's why he did his fake apology. And also, this guy is so well-regarded too.

The whole thing was ridiculous. They need a CEO so he stops his unhinged tweeting. That's all. Like he's getting themselves into hot water that's unneeded when they're trying to turn the thing around, right? There's a long time rumor that Steve Davis, who runs Boring, which is the whole digging thing,

will be the next Twitter CEO. He's been working there. They need an HR function. They need a PR function. Even if he doesn't like it, he's going to wander into these areas that are going to get him into financial and legal trouble over and over and over again, not just not paying the rent and stuff like that. Some people may admire that. And it attracts other scrutiny. The FTC, Lena Kahn, is reportedly investigating Twitter over concerns the company's mass layoffs have brought it out of compliance with a settlement they made around user privacy. In a series of so-called demand letters, the FTC has requested internal communications

related to him, information about layoffs, Twitter Blue subscripts, and the names of journalists who received access to the company records at Elon's behest. They want to also interview Elon. He was supposed to do it, but he was involved in another court case, the one that he won. He tweeted, of course, the FTC's probe because he's a victim, a shameful case of weaponization of government agencies for political purposes. This is very typical of the FTC, frankly. And the Republicans, of course, on the Judiciary Committee are backing him because that's what they do. He was mocking a lot of Republicans the other day over their displeasure over Tucker Carlson. We'll get to that in a second.

But this is just going to go on and on, and it gets in the way of fixing the company, which he talked about at the Morgan Stanley Conference, all of which he used ideas that Twitter already had. So he's pulling them out of the class. It's not like it's fresh new ideas, but he's got to get it to cash flow positive, right? I mean, what would you do in this situation? Make all these messes or really focus in on getting it stable as a system and making a little money, maybe? I don't. I can't for the life of me figure it over to someone else and get involved in things that are not only more economically, you know, represent much more economic opportunity, but much more broader societal opportunity.

And quite frankly, just are probably a fraction of the headaches of this thing. You're running these amazing businesses that are just killing it. And then you decide to start, you know, get a taco truck that's giving everyone salmonella. And, I mean, it's just, what is he doing? It makes no sense to me. So, he should bring in a CEO. With a professional HR function, especially around all these layoffs. You cannot do those wrong in California. You just can't. It's just going to be lawsuit after lawsuit.

I don't think advertisers are coming back. I haven't seen anything resembling any sort of innovation or technology. I just got one of those messages that unless you pay up, you can no longer use two-factor authentication. Yeah. No, I didn't get that yet. Well, it's kind of like getting a note from your landlord saying— We're not going to do water. Unless you pay more rent, we're taking the locks off your doors. I mean, it's kind of like getting a note from your landlord saying- We're not going to do water. Unless you pay more rent, we're taking the locks off your doors.

I mean, it's security, right? It's just sort of- We talked about this, yeah. Yeah, it's just very odd. I don't understand the upside for it. I think this has cost his brand hugely. And it probably in the next 12 to 24 months results in some sort of structuring because he has the money personally to make these interest payments,

but the company does it. And I wonder at some point, the prediction here, the guy's looking increasingly like Donald Trump, and this is Donald Trump's Atlantic casino. And eventually it's gonna go into restructuring. Although he may be able to slide out of it. It is this inability to control, like, first of all, not having PR and HR functions.

Again, you can trash them all you want, but they have to comply with certain things. FTC has the legal authority to issue fines. We'll see if it does. But it's already fined Twitter before, before Musk took over, when they did other violations. I forget what it was about, but they were fined $150 million for violating the consent decree. They have a right to ask for compliance. Twitter did sign this. And of course, he will try to just ignore it. And his problems aren't confined to Twitter. Tesla is under investigation by a federal safety regulator after at least two Model Y drivers reported their steering wheels falling off. That is a problem.

I hope self-driving works. In both cases, investigators found the cars were missing a key bolt in the steering column. Systemic problems. Cars are hard to make. Every carmaker has these issues. But he could have a recall. And they've already recalled 3,000 Model Ys last month over a problem with bolts in the back seats. Recalled 300,000 cars last month over an problem with bolts in the back seats. I recalled 300,000 cars last

month over an issue with full self-driving, which they addressed with a software update. I think steering wheels falling off is not a good look. There's lots of cars, again, that recalled. Ford was the most recalled brand in 2022, but they delivered 1.3 million vehicles and recalled over 3 million. Lots of competitors. It's autopilot fell in Consumer Reports software rankings here from number two to the middle of the pack. This is where it should be focusing, because this is where the real competition is. And this is a public company, obviously, has to behave a little better. If I were Tesla's shareholders, I'd be like, get the fuck back to home, daddy.

It's not the recalls themselves that are the problem or the issue. It's that any recall will get an outsized level of attention because people are now rooting against them. And I don't even think that the recalls is a function, as you just referenced, of the total installed base of cars. No, it's small. That's why I said all car companies have this problem. That's right.

But it's difficult to win when everyone's rooting against you. Everybody kind of used to be rooting for Elon. He had his super fans, and then he had people who were just super impressed by him. But everyone was either benign or for him. And now there's super fans and super detractors. And people are just looking for reasons to be critical of him and his company. I wouldn't, you know, it's easy to be generous with other people's time. If he was just economically focused and focused on changing the world, I think his attention should be on SpaceX. I think that company is just remarkable. And Tesla. Yeah, but you'd think at this point, Tesla would be not on autopilot, so to speak.

But if you look at a company, Tesla's going to be an important company for the next five or 10 years. It just is. But the company that could either be an exceptionally important company or not, potentially, and could really change things, I think. Yeah, financially.

It's being run well by Gwynne Shotwell. And Starlink. It's just the technology there. It's just amazing. 100%. If I were him, I'd go into AI. I'm like, what are you doing over here on Twitter? Not Neuralink, but just in general. He was early to that. It's really, this tweet, I understand the rent-free stuff in your head, but literally, I was on Twitter for a second the other day. I did the trans stuff, but Savannah Guthrie got attacked by Megyn Kelly, who's lost her fucking mind for some reason, over having COVID. It was crazy. Nonetheless, Savannah's sick at home.

She attacked her, and I almost tweeted at it like, what is wrong with you? And then I just didn't. I was like, you know what? It's not my business. What's the point? I wrote a nice note to Savannah saying, I'm sorry, this came up when you're feeling bad. That was it. And I was like, I am not, I am simply not going to do this. And it took a second. I had to literally put the phone down and say, I don't need to weigh in on this. This inability to do this when you're this important a CEO is really problematic. You know, we keep talking about it, but boy, like what's next week? What, is he going to drown a

ship of puppies? What's going to happen? Like that kind of stuff. So we'll see. We'll see. Yeah, I just don't get it, but here we are talking about him again. Here we are. But you know, it was significant because there is a significant problem here, and this guy's fantastic and doesn't deserve this bullshit. This guy got an award for building more, for more handicap accessible ramps. I mean. Go over there and go over there and yell at Malala. That's what I was like, what?

Like this guy, I know, even I knew who this guy was. This guy's something out of a movie. It's like, I thought, can this guy like mentor my children? And also the idea that disabled people cannot work. I mean, literally, Jeff Swisher has muscular dystrophy. He's the hardest working man in show business. You've just never met someone who has issues like muscular dystrophy, etc. Because if you did, you'd realize how hard they work.

It's just insane. I just find it. That is offensive to me as a person in general. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Tucker's text and speaking with a friend of Pivot. We're so excited, Hannah Dreyer, about child labor in America. Fox Creative.

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In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back with our second big story. You made a prediction last week about the Dominion Fox News case, and things are heating up. Some of the network's texts and emails are made public this week. I think there's a masterstroke by Dominion in putting these things out as part of the suit and they are damaging. He used the word passionately, which was a little odd choice of words, and said the president was a disaster. Fox owner Rupert Murdoch said that his host, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, went too far in promoting election conspiracies. And Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo plotted with Steve Bannon to discredit Biden after the election. She told him she instructed her team to avoid the term president-elect.

We all remember how much they love Trump. Well, behind the scenes, it was different. For example, in a text on November 10th, Tucker Carlson said that he found Trump's post-election behavior, quote, disgusting. I'm trying to look away. He sounds like a liberal. But here's Tucker on his show the very next day. Let's listen. It's been more than a week since the final votes were cast and still many of Donald Trump's 72 million voters believe this election was fundamentally unfair. And they're right about that. The tech monopolies of Silicon Valley use their unprecedented control over news and information to silence Donald Trump's voters and at the same time to protect Joe Biden. And then there is the question of the votes themselves,

the actual ballots. Democrats completely changed the way we voted in this election. Our system has never been more disorganized and has never been more vulnerable to manipulation. So was there voter fraud last week? Wow, that's Tucker Carlson trying to look away from something he called disgusting. I'd hate to see him paying attention. I don't even know what to say. I don't know if this is going to work, but it's certainly, and I don't think they care because they're shameless people. But what do you think about this? Is it a legal problem? I mean, we're not legal experts, but it seems bad. Seems bad. Well, the bar is really high for defamation. You have to prove a variety of things, including that you knew what you were saying was wrong. They did. And that that falsehood caused economic damage. And then there's two other that are kind of different shades of the first two. But I don't think that there's, and again,

I'm not a lawyer, but I think most legal opinions I've seen said there's going to be something here because it's sort of the perfect case for meeting all of these hurdles. I mean, they have basically under oath admitted that they knew these were lies and decided to go ahead with these lies. I think the more interesting thing will be what the number ends up being.

And it sounds to me that Dominion is now, I don't wanna say not economically focused, but trying to make a point here. Because you've got to believe the lawyers at News Corp early and often said, oh, let's let cooler heads prevail. Let's settle this. They should settle it. They should have settled it. Well, News Corp, yes. But I think Dominion wants to make a point here. I think those of us who feel that News Corp needs to either start calling itself Fox Propaganda or Fox Communications and no longer call it Fox News, that we want to see this go to a judgment. It's not going to play well in front of a jury. The issue is, you know, it's sort of interesting. The entire valuation put on Dominion was $80 million.

So, they're seeking 20 times. So, what's interesting is in arguments, I guess there's a component of the fine that's supposed to discourage other people or damages bad actors, but you're claiming that you're suing them for 20 times the value of your firm, which seems, I think justifiably seems a little bit extreme, but it's going to be, I mean, it's fascinating to watch. And I just wish this happened more often. The trial is set to begin in April. It's a $1.6 billion lawsuit. But boy, I think a jury will be like, uh, like that when they see this stuff. It's interesting that this strategy is to put it all out there. It's certainly an embarrassment, but again, not that they care. And what's interesting is how much effect, because they're

not reporting on it, but how much effect will it have on going to other outlets? Because the people were mad about that they even, they called that Arizona call that they did, or that they were questioning it on the news side. There's a real fight between the news side and the night side. The Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and the other two dodo birds who do whatever they do, Waters and Gregg, whatever.

There's a real problem. And they hate the news side for doing the news. Now, Brett Baer was like, there was this Tucker Carlson thing that acted like the insurrection was a tourist visit. And Republican senators, a lot of them, and ones that surprised me, went on the record and said, this is nonsense and this is crap. And it's a really strange, I don't even know if you could call it a journalistic outfit at all. I never did, but. It goes back to incentives. And that is, is the incentive in our society just be in the news for whatever reason and more people tune in or double down and people say, oh, you're principled. This was just locker room talk, whatever excuses they come up for to justify the activity here. And it's in the news every day.

It's seen as more relevant, more important. You think, oh, Laura, I haven't watched her show in a while. I should check in. And if there's more people, if there's more eyeballs, a few advertisers will take a quote-unquote principled stand, but the majority just want to build their businesses. So here's an article real quick. I just typed in Fox News ratings. According to TV Newser, for the March 7th scoreboard around ratings, Fox News gains

viewers during turbulent week. Tucker Carlson, who's very much in the news right now, drew 4.14 million viewers, a massive delivery for a regular schedule. I mean, again, it just goes to incentives. There's a reason this abhorrent behavior is developing a pattern. And that is, there's something about our incentive system that is screwed up. I don't know, but Fox has competitors. So still, there's sort of like Limp Along, One America,

and then Newsmax, which both those networks were sued by Dominion. Newsmax settled and apologized. That guy is, Ruddy, is not a dum-dum. He stands to benefit, but Fox still remains. It'll be interesting. If Trump becomes a nominee, they'll pivot right back to Trump, even if they find, as Tucker finds him, disgusting. And he's trying to look away. They won't. They'll back him and do the same bullshit and they just won't write texts next time saying they passionately hate him. I don't even passionately hate him. That's the thing. I was like, Tucker, take it down a few steps.

What I, you know, I don't like to do how can you sleep at night to people because I'm like, whatever, you can make all your choices. But it really is amazing how when you see these texts and I don't want his hand on a high horse. There's a lot of high horse-ism, but it's like, what's wrong with you? Anyway, there's a lot better people working on real journalism, and that is this person. So let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

Hannah Dreyer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist with The New York Times. Her latest investigation exposed the shocking state of migrant child labor in America and has prompted promises of change from the Biden administration. Welcome, Hannah. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you for having me. I'm a big fan of the show. Yeah, so we discussed this story on the show after it came out. It was so impactful and such a great piece of journalism. It wasn't hand-wavy. It was almost like a camera. And for any listeners who missed us, tell us, just give us sort of the top level of what you found in your extremely excellent reporting.

Thank you. I mean, it's really a migrant child labor scandal in this country. We're seeing unprecedented numbers of kids coming across the border on their own. There have been 300,000 kids who've come over just in the last two and a half years. And what I found is that the majority of these kids are ending up in punishing, dangerous, illegal jobs. So factories, overnight shifts, slaughterhouses for some of the biggest brands, like Cheerios. Yeah, that scene of her putting a thing in a Cheerio box was so visually arresting to me, just in words. So they get these jobs for context. Why are so many children arriving

at the border without their parents in the first place? And they also get sponsors and then are supposed to go to school and then they work at night, correct? And that's in these punishing hours for young people. Yeah, that's right. I think a lot of what's going on here is that the pandemic hit parts of Central America really hard. So I talked to more than 100 of these kids. And a lot of them told me they didn't have enough to eat back home in the last couple of years. And a lot of them told me they didn't have enough to eat back home in the last couple of years.

And at the same time, people, even in these remote villages where like volcanic mountains block cell phone reception, have realized that a child can come into this country and be allowed to stay. But if an adult tries to come in, they're going to get turned around at the border. So a lot of what we're seeing is parents who would rather come themselves and work instead sending their children to come to the U.S. and send back money. And so we've seen just a huge influx. And what happened early in the Biden administration is kids were getting backed up in basically jails. There wasn't enough capacity to deal with them in the shelters where they're supposed to go. What's supposed to happen is a government worker at a shelter figures out where a child can go in this country, releases them to somebody, maybe a distant relative who's going to take care of them and send them to school. But what's actually happened is there's been all this pressure to release these kids more quickly

in the past couple years. And they're going to people who are basically putting them to work. And are sponsors, they're so-called sponsors. Exactly. So these are sponsors. It used to be they were mostly parents. Now they're mostly relatives or strangers. I talked to many kids who were with people they had met for the first time after they were released by the government. And these sponsors signed a paper saying that they're going to send the kids to school, they're going to provide for them and take care of them. But there's no enforcement of that piece of paper. And so what we're finding is the sponsors are just turning right around and sending the kids to a factory. Yeah, it's so nice to meet you, Hannah, and thanks for your good work. Isn't the problem here, we're not going to address the problem until we have punitive action or really steep fines for the companies that provide the demand for this type of labor? I mean, this is something I really wonder what you guys think about, because you're real business reporters and professors, like I'm an immigration investigative reporter.

But I mean, part of the problem here is that the maximum child labor fine for a company is $15,000 per child, no matter what that child's been doing. And for a lot of the companies that we found were employing children are profiting from children's labor. That's like less than nothing. Some of these kids were working for JBS or at a JBS plant. That's the largest meatpacker in the world. Fifteen thousand dollars is not going to really be a deterrent. And since the story ran, the Biden administration has said it's going to try to change that. And there is legislation that's now been introduced that would also raise those fines.

But, yeah, I mean, I think that goes right to the heart of it. Like there isn't really a penalty, shockingly, for child labor right now. Yeah, and we'll get to what happened in Arkansas recently, but in the initial story, I bet in Jerry's executive, I cannot believe they said this quote to you. I was sort of like, my mouth was open.

If migrant children needed to work full time, it was preferable to have jobs at well-monitored workplace. I was like, oh, the ice cream place is at least nice to them and feeds them sandwiches or something like that. Is that still their position? Because now there's a talk of a class action suit in Ben and Jerry's. And obviously, you sort of expect it from the meatpackers and maybe not from a Ben and Jerry's. But talk about that, like the responses of the

companies. Because during the pandemic, they need workers. Like there was a lot, you know, there was a real problem with work, getting enough workers in any place, whether it's retail, construction, manufacturing. Yeah. I mean, what most of these companies said to me when I went to them for comment was we didn't know that this was going on. We won't hire children as a matter of policy. I was not hard. It was not hard to find that. You know, everybody can sort of recognize a 13-year-old face as opposed to an 18-year-old face. But what they told me was, like you say, it was hard to find workers, especially during the pandemic. And so a lot of these companies turned to staffing agencies. And the staffing agencies then told me, yeah, the companies kind of knew we were sending them children, but it was very much like, look the other way. Except for Ben and Jerry's.

I called Ben and Jerry's. I expected them to say what every other company said. And instead, they gave me this really different line, which is if children have to work full time, it's good for them to learn what a safe workplace is. I could not believe they said that. You know, it's really interesting because when I read that, I was like, I don't know how you kept a straight face during all this. Again, that's why I can't be a reporter anymore because I'd be like, what? Like, what did you just say to me? But what were the challenges in reporting the story and what surprised you? Because it seemed like it was right. Some of the greatest stories are right in front of your face, right? It didn't, I don't say it's not a difficult reporting challenge, but it was right

there. It's not even hidden in many ways. Oh, absolutely. And I'd say probably everybody in immigration world sort of knew this was happening. I had been thinking about this story for maybe five years. I had done some reporting around kids on Long Island who were caught up in a Trump crackdown. And a lot of those kids were working overnight in factories making cookies. And so over the years, I sort of would notice, you know, a young face maybe delivering food through like Seamless, or I would see a young face on a construction site and sort of think about this. But I had no idea what the scope was going to be. I mean, I did not expect to find children working these industrial

jobs or working in roofing. And part of the challenge was choosing who to put in the story and who to leave out. I mean, we do not name every corporation where we found kids working. And the kids who we name are sort of the milder cases. I also talked to kids who were in real, I think, trafficking situations. But we made a decision in the end, we didn't want to name any kid unless we could talk to their sponsor and talk to their parent and sort of get everyone to consent for this story. So the issues of, I mean, consent and protecting sources and protecting these children were just incredibly tricky and nuanced. You can, just as you think this through, you can see some of the gray area, right?

I mean, I don't know about the two of you. I had jobs from the age of 13 on, and I would say it was a net positive. But at what point does it become exploitive? And who's the arbiter of those decisions? And my guess is there's probably some good families trying to do the right thing. And then there's others bad actors. And I guess the question is, you know,

where, who do we look to or what agencies do we look to? Is it nonprofits? Is it churches? Is it, I mean, it's kind of like, my parents went to work at the age of 13. They were in the UK. They were pulled out of school and both poor households. And it reminded me of that.

And they always used to say to me when I was in eighth grade, you'd be working if we grew up in the UK, you know? And you think, well, America's better. And what your article shows is, well, in fact, America's not better. America's not better. But trying to go to solutions as someone who was on the ground, what have you thought about what would be the most effective means of trying to address this, recognizing there is some gray area? I'd like my son to work at CVS this summer. He's 15. But very different.

They know his age, right? Yeah. But go ahead. Scott, can I ask what jobs you did when you were 13, 14? I was a box boy. I packaged shrink-wrapped software. I just did anything I could do. I was a delivery boy. I worked at Baskin-Robbins scooping ice cream.

You know, a bunch of stuff. Yeah, I mean, I worked when I was that age, too. And studies actually sort of suggest that it's good for kids to do some work after school, like they have better outcomes. I think the difference here is these are kids who are working outside of the formal economy. They can't work at Baskin Robbins because you need real papers to get that job. And so instead they end up working at basically the most dangerous, undesirable jobs, because that's who will hire them.

And also the hours, the hours after school. So they're exhausted in school. And their sponsors, I thought the most striking thing was that sponsor who said, I work too. There was a quote from someone in that piece. Of course, they're going to work. I worked and they need to send money back to their grandmother or whoever. That was a very striking and very true thing, I think, that you expressed, which I really thought it was important to see that in there. Yeah, that's right. I mean, a lot of these sponsors, I think, they technically would qualify as at least somebody who has a child in debt bondage, if not traffickers. But they don't see themselves that way. They work themselves. Child labor is very common in rural Guatemala, where a lot of these kids are from. But what advocates are calling for now is for there to

be some kind of legal services for these children so that they can get work permits, which is what you need to work a job like Baskin Robbins. And right now, most of them would actually qualify if they applied, but they don't know how to apply because they're children. They don't speak English. Some of them barely speak Spanish. But I think most people want to see these kids working if they want to work, but just in the kind of jobs that children can legally do. And there's a bunch that they can do, like, you know, that children can legally do. And there's a bunch that they can do.

Like, you know, fast food, CVS, all of that is totally legal. And basically the government has decided it's not going to put children in harm's way to work that kind of job and work those sort of afterschool hours. Right, exactly. And it's also the number of hours. So the Biden administration announced a task force

to address this issue. Meanwhile, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders is taking the opposite tack. She signed a law this week loosening child labor regulations in the state. The state no longer has to verify that an employee is 16 years or older. Other states like Iowa are considering similar bills. So what's happening here? There's one group going another way. And how do you solve that problem? I suspect there's a lot of migrant children laborers in Arkansas, given how many meatpackers and things like that are there. Absolutely. It's wild. I think it goes back to what we were talking about, about this pressure with the labor shortage.

These are jobs that are like overnight in meat processing plants. A lot of the jobs that these kids are doing and that would would be affected by this new legislation, is cleaning a slaughterhouse overnight. It's like even more dangerous than just working in a slaughterhouse during normal hours. And it's not just Arkansas. We're seeing this in Ohio and Iowa. There are a lot of states that are pushing to sort of chip away at the existing child labor laws. In safe areas, and whether it's specifically unsafe work environments for children. Right, right. I mean, child labor laws, I didn't totally understand this myself when I started this reporting. They're about safety. It's not really about like, we don't like the idea of

a child slaving away. It's just there for the most part to protect children's physical safety. So working eight hours from midnight to 6am.m., if that's not safe for a child, they need to be sleeping. Working in a slaughterhouse is not safe for a child. And that's sort of exactly what these laws are targeting. I think a lot of people were shocked when the Sarah Huckabee Sanders law got signed into effect. Well, I don't think she should be shocked by anything she does. But I was struck by the role, and you and I talked about this, of Javier Becerra, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who seemed to be rushing these kids out the door. I did tweet that. I was like, this is the story. Like, what is this guy doing?

And he should be on the hook. So talk a little bit about that and then the Biden administration reaction to it. Yeah, I saw that tweet and I appreciated it. I think we put so much in this story. A lot of people were reacting to all of the brand name corporations, but this Becerra element really gets to the policy of why a lot of these children are ending up in this situation. People who work at Health and Human Services, which is the agency responsible for these kids and protecting them and releasing them to sponsors tell me that they have felt under huge pressure from the SARA to release these kids more quickly. Workers there say that they wake up crying, that they dread these meetings, that they call each other afterwards to

sort of talk each other down. And somebody leaked us some audio from one of these meetings where you can see Becerra really berating staff for not getting these kids discharged faster. And he's saying Henry Ford would never have gotten rich if this is how he was running his assembly lines. Oh, dear. If Henry Ford had seen this in his plans, he would have never become famous and rich. This is not the way you do an assembly line. And kids aren't widgets, I get it, but we could do far better than this. Get rid of them is what I heard. And then the Biden administration is also under fire after reporting, he's considering bringing back migrant family detentions too at the same time. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people who work with these kids and work directly for these agencies,

lot of people who work with these kids and work directly for these agencies were expecting a real shift under Biden. And a lot of them are telling me they're really disappointed and worried that some of these sort of Trump era attitudes seem to have continued. Hannah, if a board of directors invited you in and said, look, the reality is kids under the age of 18 working in many instances is a positive, but we want to make sure that we're never engaged in some of the things you found in your reporting. Do you think it's – I just immediately go to the demand side of this problem. Is it number of hours? Is it only certain jobs should qualify for child labor? What would you advise the board of directors of a company to what policies to put in place to make sure this never happens at any of their workplaces? I mean, it's really just following the letter

of child labor law. We didn't include in our reporting any kids who were just sort of working normal jobs because like we talked about, that's fine. But all of these jobs, having kids working after 11 p.m., having kids work on a roof, it's just illegal. So it's an enforcement issue is what you're saying. The laws are there. The regulation is there. They're just not being enforced. Yeah.

And I mean, the places where we found these kids, child labor wasn't the only issue. They were also the places that have a huge number of OSHA violations of like federal workplace safety violations. They were also places where people were experiencing wage theft. Like they're bad workplaces in a lot of different ways. And we focused on the child labor element here. But if I were talking to a boardroom, I mean, it's sort of a larger issue of the way workers are treated. Yeah, slaughterhouses are already under fire for all kinds of things during COVID, for safety, for all kinds of stuff, right? So and then you stick children into these situations.

The workers themselves there who are adults are also under siege in many ways and have very little power. So what else would you say, answering Scott's question, what would you advise them not to not, to do it talking to these kids, like they would have chemical burns on their hands. I talked to a kid who almost lost an arm, a kid who did lose a leg. They shouldn't be there. And the corporations are saying, well, we don't know what to do because we thought we had these policies that children couldn't work in these places. But I just go back to how easy it was to find them. Yeah. I mean, if anybody had gone to some of these factories and just sort of stood at seven in the morning and watched who was coming off shift, in some of these places, it was just obvious. Half of the people were children.

And I don't know what to say to a corporate boardroom night. Stand in front of your factory and watch. The last question I have is about these sponsors too, because the Becerra thing just stuck with me. It's like pumping them out to people that might not have their best interest at heart. That to me, who are letting them do this, who are not monitoring them correctly, who are essentially charging them rent to be there, and then having to send, I felt so badly

for the families back in these countries too, because they do need the money, right? And these kids have enormous pressure on them to support their parents and other relatives back in these countries, which are, they don't have things. So how do you solve the sponsor issue? You can't keep them in detention or in foster care, like, because that system works so very well for. or in foster care, like, because that system works so very well for... Totally. I mean, it's a real tension. Nobody wants kids in jail. And, you know, in fairness to Becerra, this is a system that really is under pressure because the kind of kids coming has changed. It used to be that a couple thousand kids would come every year. They would almost always go to their parents. It didn't make sense to be that careful about where the kids were going because it's just their parents. But I mean, I talked to a 13 year old who met his sponsor on Facebook and came up and was immediately on the hook for $4,000 living with a stranger. I mean, that is something that we are seeing in recent years that just didn't really used to happen. And so it, I mean, it seems clear that

something needs to change. And the government, I think, is maybe trying to sort of catch up with this new phenomenon, the new demographic of kids and the new things that are happening to them. I mean, the question on my mind, Hannah, is more about you. It's so inspiring when you see someone who's this good at something this early in their career. How did you end up in journalism? And how did this happen? I think it's just so impressive that you found what clearly sounds like a real calling for you at such a young age and are having such an impact. Oh, that's really kind of you to say. I mean, I think I've gotten really lucky. I've had a lot of support. I mean, it's a sort of unforgiving industry. And I think a lot of journalists, a lot of journalists told me not

to become a journalist. People told me they'd walked across a burning bridge and now it was burned and I would never make it and I shouldn't even try. So I try not to say that to young journalists. But I do think it's the kind of work that you really need some sort of personal passion for. And personally, I mean, I grew up with a single mother, like sort of working class. And I have a lot of thoughts about how people who aren't super wealthy are covered in media. And part of what I wanted to do was report around people who are sort of at the margins in a way that felt true to me. And I mean, you know, I can't relate to the experience of a migrant child being put to work overnight. That was never anything close to my experience.

But I get a lot of sort of satisfaction from trying to report on these kids in a way that feels like true and not pitying and not saccharine. Not a bit. That was remarkable. There needs to be more reporters like you, especially young reporters. So last, I do have a last question. What's going to happen with these kids now? What's going to, you know, some of these things they get written, what is going to occur as a result of this? And has anything changed for these kids? Have you been in touch with them since it came out? You know, a lot has changed policy-wise just in the past week. I've never really seen anything like this in response to something that I put out in the world. Like you say, the Biden

administration held a press conference the next day and made actual changes at the Department of Labor. Health and Human Services is making some changes. They don't seem as sweeping as what we're seeing at the Department of Labor. And then there's some congressional action that seems like it has a lot of sort of bipartisan support and might actually bear fruit. But with these kids, I mean, I've talked to some of them. They've been fired from their jobs. They've already gotten new jobs and they really seem sort of just as alone and hard up as they were two weeks ago. Some of them, the ones that were named in the story, have gotten help. They've been offered more services by the government. They've gotten lawyers. But as I said, we named the kids who are sort of in the most mild situations.

These other kids are still working and I think we're probably going to see a lot more kids coming over this summer. And unless something really changes, they are probably going to find themselves in slaughterhouses and in roofing and in these same jobs. Yeah, yeah. And the beat goes on, unfortunately. Anyway, what an amazing accomplishment. Thank you so much. And we're looking for all the follow-ups. What are you working on next besides follow-ups? I've been really surprised by the reaction that people in government and people at corporations didn't know about this. And I think I'm going to do some more looking into that. sure. Anyway, we really appreciate it. You're a wonderful reporter. Keep her name in mind,

everybody. You are one of the finest reporters around, I think I would have to say. And we really appreciate all the work you do. It was heartbreaking and also important, important, which I don't say about a lot of things. Thank you so much. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Well, you just inspired my, piqued my curiosity about- I inspired you? Okay. About Adam Neumann's startup, Flow,

the Andreessen Horowitz guys. Oh, I can't wait. Go ahead. I went and I watched the interview they did at Andreessen Horowitz. And I read, I finally found the deck and I went through it. So essentially, Adam has purchased some apartments. He's done diversification with the money. And he's a smart guy.

He's diversified. He's bought apartment buildings. And he said, well, that's not enough. How do I put the veneer of technology on top and turn an asset class worth of X worth into a lot more? Veneer is the key word, and they're kind of masters of, I think they get a lot of attention on the stuff they do, and they obviously are considered a tier one VC, and they're smart people, have done big, bold things.

I think by the end of the year, I just think this thing, you start to never hear about it. A lot of money. It is a lot of money, but I'm not sure, but I'm not sure it's committed capital, or I'm not sure. That's true, you're right. I forget about that. And the more you look at this thing, there's no there there. And the kind of two premises that I could figure out that he's trying to claim that this is some unique approach to solving the housing

crisis is that one, turn renters into owners. And he uses the toilet. If someone's an owner, they don't call the landlord and they end up, they're less expensive tenants because they take pride in ownership because we make them owners. I'm like, well, okay. He doesn't actually talk about how they become owners. And the only way you can make a renter an owner is to charge them more rent and then to take that incremental revenue and use it to pay down the mortgage. And then they become, I guess, a non-voting owner. And then he talks about financial services. We already have a paying relationship with them, so why wouldn't we offer them financial services?

And none of these make any fucking sense. No. Why would you do banking with the person I pay here for the studio? I don't want to bank with them. Well, it's just, what is it, other than we know their bank account number, and we might do direct deposit, what is it about what we do that in any way gives us a leg up over J.P. Morgan or Beaverwood? Absolutely. And then they don't, it's a lot of jazz hands around how you convert someone from a renter to an owner. And I could just tell when they were talking about this, and the guys at Andreessen can't be this stupid, that if they're going to, if they let this thing run it could be it could just blow up in their face if it doesn't work so I think this is gonna be

I'm predicting what I'll call a really quiet death here they'll just go it'll just don't not mention it he's got the apartments Adam we're taking our money back you're fine you own apartments I mean this is just a REIT with a very a very strong charismatic founder on top of it. And the other thing I was thinking about that Andreessen really hasn't acknowledged or thought through, when venture capital touches real estate, the real estate immolates the money. Compass, WeWork, Opendoor. When Zillow got into iBuying, because it's what I call mismatched durations. And that is the investment horizon in the risk portfolio of venture is they say it's 10 years,

it's three to seven years. We make a lot of big, crazy bets. We hope a third of them get our money back. We know a third are going to zero and we hope that a third do really well, and there's one or two that go parabolic and get 30 or 50x. Real estate is built slowly and meticulously and carefully over decades. I don't care if you're Sam Zell or the LaFrac family that owns all these apartments in Long Island. This is generational wealth building because real estate really is a local business. It's buying right. It's managing well. It's being really thoughtful about rents and where you fix up, where you don't fix up, what you invest in. And this is lions and zebras. These are two different asset classes. And venture, every time venture gets drunk enough to think they can come into real estate, the real estate wins and then literally ends up immolating the capital.

Yeah, but sort of like rich guys who go into Hollywood sometimes. It's not, the gestalt, if you will, of venture is totally anathema to how you build value and wealth in real estate. That is a really great insight, Scott. One person who said to me when they saw the thing, they just texted me and said, oh, look, Adam Newman's invented apartment renting. It's a REIT. It's called the Real Estate Investment Trust. They were sort of like, wow, people rent apartments. And the whole thing is just, he can't give up on this We Live idea. If you recall, We Live, where he was doing dormy kind of where you get an apartment and then you all have a group

kitchen. Do you remember We Live? Yeah, it was an adjective. We work, right? Yes, it was. And they had one in San Francisco. We sent one of our reporters there. And, you know, lots of people wrote about it.

And it was adults want to live like college students, and they don't. I mean, maybe some lonely ones do. But, you know, it looked good on paper, and a lot of reporters certainly fell for it, the idea, but then it went nowhere. But this is, again, this is what I think, and this is pure conjecture, but as someone who sits in these meetings, and it was a self-important statement, but this is what I think is likely going on. A really important limited investor, CalPERS or the endowment at the University of Chicago calls them and goes, how is this not anything but all downside for you? By the way, do you realize WeWork's about to be in the news for either restructuring its debt or finally declaring bankruptcy?

And everyone's going to bring up, what is Adam doing now? And our brand name, Andries & Horowitz, which gets unbelievable deal flow. And in the venture business, at the end of the day, deal flow is kind of 51% of the shooting match. You get the access to the best deals and the brightest entrepreneurs. This is nothing on a risk-adjusted basis, but downside for Andreessen Horowitz. And I got to believe at some point, someone on the operating committee, one of their investors is going to go, guys, what are you doing? We have so much opportunity on so many other dimensions, what are you doing? We have so much opportunity on so many other dimensions,

but you're taking risk with the core asset, the brand, to back Adam Neumann? If it's a huge hit, we get no credit. I don't think many people question Mark Andreessen like that. I don't think they do. And then he, speaking of jazz hands, he's got the jazziest hands going. He's always like this, and it's... But even, he's a bright guy. Even he went back and looked at this thing and goes, this is nothing but downside for me and the company. Anyways, my prediction, the thing, sanity at some point creeps in and they go, the thing just dies a very quiet death. I think you're 100% right. What a very insightful thing. And may I again compliment you on your interview style has improved rather dramatically. You've been very complimentary lately.

Are you worried I'm going to leave you? No, I don't care if you leave me. I don't care. You want to go, you go. There's the door. Don't let it hit you on the way out. That's how I feel about everybody. But that hurts my feelings.

That hurts my feelings. I like you being here. I don't know why you would leave. It benefits you to no end. So I'm trying to understand the source of all the compliments. Where is this coming from? I just have noticed. Just take the compliment. Say thank you. That's how you take it. It benefits you to no end. Well, I'm trying to understand the source of all the compliments. Where is this coming from? I just have noticed, just take the compliments, say thank you. That's how you take it. You cannot take it. I am not comfortable with compliments. I see that. In any case, I have to say, keep at it, my friend. You're getting better and better.

You're still wrong about trans and it was full of misinformation, but that's okay. There it is. There's the care we know it. You cannot get most of these things without parental consent, Scott. And it's such a fake. Speaking of hand-waving jazz hands, it's such bullshit, some of the things the right says about this stuff. That was an interesting segue. Yeah, I'm just saying. I'm just saying. That, I did not know. Your brother reached out to me, by the way.

Would he give you the actual facts? That would be great. Well, he talked a lot about it. I learned a lot about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the lies that are being perpetrated are really quite extensive. Anyway, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot.

Can you read us out? Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and Jatat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Saverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot

from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Cara, have a great weekend. Thanks.