Pivot - Writers Strike Deal, Betting Against the FTC, and Guest Mathias Döpfner

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Kara and Scott discuss the tentative deal between Hollywood writers and studios, and what it means for the future of the industry. They also talk about GOP attacks on misinformation researchers, as well as the hedge fund making billions betting against FTC Chair Lina Khan. Friend of Pivot Mathias Döpfner stops by to talk about the future of media and his new book The Trade Trap: How to Stop Doing Business with Dictators. And be sure to check out Scott's recent conversation with Mathias on The Prof G Pod. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Oh, God, you're such a tasteless fuck, Scott. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher, and I'm here to tell you Scott's already in an insufferable fuck mood. Go ahead, Scott. Say more? That's called Scott. No, you just insulted our producer. I did not insult her. You did. How was that an insult?

Guys, you don't tell ladies to take off their glasses. You don't. I said she looked like Farrah ladies to take off their glasses. You don't. I said she looked like Farrah Fawcett without glasses. I get it. We are not in an Anne Hathaway, Princess Bride movie. Anybody who wants to tell me I'm better looking based on anything I do, bring it on. Well, we're not going to. See, that's never going to happen to you.

You do. You do. Except when we talk about my looks, it's okay. Let me tell you how a man acts. My son, I was at a CNBC thing or taping, and Alex was sitting out in the lobby. And the guy going on right after me said to him, your mom could smile more. That's what he said when I was talking about something super fucking serious. And he said to Alex, you could smile more. And my son turned to him and he said, you don't tell women not to smile more, but you could get a better face.

And I loved him from that moment on. I'm just telling you, don't tell women. Well, okay. So, first off, I think your son was right. And I like the fact, I think what a man does is he moves to protection, especially around his mother. The two, people tell me all the time to smile more. Now, granted, women have had a history of being told to smile more and have too much emphasis placed on their appearance. So I can understand that there should be an additional gag reflex. But I would bet for every time you're told to smile more,

I'm told, I get told to smile all the time. Really? Interesting. Interesting. Well. Anyways, point taken. Point taken. I don't think you should smile more. You should do whatever you want. But you go ahead. You go ahead and be in an Anne Hathaway movie. Listen, it's perpetrated by everything we do. Like, you know, these movies where they do that scene where they make the girl beautiful and she was ugly before, but then she's beautiful, that kind of stuff. Yeah. She has value. She has more value than we thought when she takes her glasses off.

Yes, that's exactly right. Anyway, Clark Kent does it too, but he's handsome both times. Anyway, let's not waste any more time about our feminist issues right now. Let's get right straight to the big story of the people who wrote these terrible tropes. The Hollywood writers and studios have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. That's after a marathon five days of talks. The deal still needs approval from the union board and members for the strike to end. But first, let's talk about us because we predicted this pretty closely. We initially thought it might

go on and on. We never thought it would be short. But let's hear what I said back in August 17th when Don Lemon was co-hosting. My prediction, I'm going to go separately, not on Donald Trump, but on the writer's strike. I feel like it may settle by October 15th. I think there's some pain starting to feel by the studios who are in a better position from a leverage point of view. I think there's a lot of pain from writers and actors. And I don't think they're calling them rich people or is really working particularly well with the public.

And I think they have to settle on some level and maybe push certain things down the road. I don't know. I just feel like maybe by October, they'll have to be settled. Here's what you said a little over a week ago. Drew and Bill were shamed. They said, look, this is really awful. You're being an awful person. But they effectively ended the strike. And I believe the writer's strike is going to end in the next 30 days, if not the next two weeks. Here's the thing. The writer's strike gets done within the next 30 days because the big guys that aren't Netflix, the big guys that are on Netflix are like, okay, we've been played. Netflix, this was a feature, not a bug for Netflix. The writers, the most important people, the most talented and probably smartest

and biggest voices that I can tell, my pulse marketing talk to them are like, I am fed up with this shit. We have handled this poorly. So we got it right. Let's talk what's in the deal first. As the taping, we don't have the full details, but the New York Times reports the writers got some concessions on most of their demands from the studios, including bigger royalty payments for streaming content and guarantees that AI won't chip away at their credits and compensation.

So what do you think? What do you think? Besides we're geniuses. I think this is another signal at the beginning of the end of unions. Interesting. People think they're stronger. Tell me why. And that's perfect for corporations.

such that corporations can slice and dice and either avoid unions or move to the 27 states in the union that basically have outlawed unions. But look at it this way, and we won't know until we get the results. First off, no matter what the terms were, the WGA has to pretend it's a monumental victory. Otherwise, why exactly did I lose six months of income? But look at it this way. It's a three-year deal. Effectively, they took everyone's wages as a means of negotiating. It took a lot of their members or all of their members down to compensation of zero for six months. So over a three-year deal, that means that unless they got an increase of total compensation of 16%, they've lost money because people are out of work for six months. So, I'll be very curious to see the language, but this hot girl union summer is nothing but a

head fake in jazz hands. The number of people who are actually in unions declined last year. And again, the stat that just kind of purposely embodies the dissonance here, the head fake around labor and its effectiveness, is that 330 Starbucks unionized. Yes, you noted this last week. Okay. Not one of them got a collective bargaining agreement. And that is for all the jazz hands and excitement and headlines around 330 Starbucks stores unionizing, it hasn't translated to a single cent in increased compensation for those workers. Well, not yet, right? Presumably not yet.

They're just getting started, that particular group, right? We're just getting started with the end of this. Okay. All right, now tell me, I want you to make, I know this is hard for you, I want you to make not a pro-union argument, but what was good about what they did? You think nothing. About what the writers did? Yeah, about what the writers and the actors and the UAW, et cetera, et cetera.

They're bringing attention to the fact that in a nation where work is central to our economy and productivity and gives people purpose, and in a nation where we've had unprecedented prosperity, it needs to translate to progress. And a small nod towards progress is that anyone that works 40 hours should have some dignity and not live below the poverty line. Their aim is true. Their intentions are valid. They are the wrong construct. And instead of going to join a picket line that represents 4% of America, Joe Biden should do his job and raise minimum wage for the first time in 15 years across 100% of workers. So I think it raises attention to the fact that unions have very little leverage. This made no sense. Why did this show go uninterrupted? Why did 11th Hour Stephanie Ruhl go uninterrupted? Why did CNN go interrupted, but Colbert was off the air? I mean, without total participation, you don't have a union. You have something that is going to be atomized and weakened and divided, which is what has happened slowly but surely over the last 30 years in unions. Now, AI was a big sticking point, especially over old studio-owned scripts that they could shove it in there and make new, I don't know, bridesmaids' dresses, movies, or whatever. These are very formulaic, by the way, to start with, by regular people.

What do you think about that? I think my understanding is, you talk about positives. I think the WGA did raise an important point that will benefit all workers. an important point that will benefit all workers. And that is, everybody, and we should be thoughtful about this, should have the rights and ownership of what I'll call their digital twin. I don't know if you've seen, there's a site that you can go to and you can ask a question of Kara Swisher or Scott Galloway, and it will attempt to answer the question in the voice of Kara Swisher or Scott Galloway. I think the two of us should own the rights of that. I think everyone should have the rights over the IP of their digital twin. And the WGA has made some

progress raising that issue. But let's be clear, for all the talk about how precious and creative the community is here, seven or eight of the 10 of the best performing films in 2021 and 2022 were basically reheated IP. They were either Toy Story 8 or, you know, Thor 11 Rangoon, or taking something to, you know, a movie production of a play or something. Fast and Furious. There was a Fast and Furious. Yeah, though original, it's the original scripts that did best, like Barbie and Oppenheimer and some others. Would you call Barbie an original IP?

Well, it is. Well, it's never been a movie. Like, sure, yes, I would. Most people do consider it, that it's original IP. It's using other IP that was in another area, but original scripts did rather well. The whole idea was people were tired of the Marvel movies and this and that. They're tired of the constantly retreading. And I think that's an interesting thing. There's always trends that happen. If they get a good one, people will love it, right? But you're right, you're right.

They certainly, creativity needs, human creativity needs to improve around a lot of this entertainment because there's so much creativity elsewhere online, places like TikTok, on Reddit, all over the place. There's really interesting content being created from, you know, with a nod to older things. Nothing is new under the sun, but there is some level of creativity.

But one thing is clear, I think what Barry Diller and many others are saying is let's sue the bastards, the tech companies, if they steal our stuff, right? That's really what I think is most important. And if they can all get it together to realize they're on the same side, as you and I have said a lot, they're really fighting against the tech companies eventually. That's really the fight. That's the actual fight. But let's talk about next steps. WGA picketing is suspended, but writers can join the actors' picket lines. I don't think that's going to go on for too long. WGA leadership votes on the contract today,

Tuesday. If it passes, the 11,000-plus guild members vote whether to ratify it. Writers can return to work pretty quickly, but not until the contract is formalized. I know a lot of my writer friends are writing now. They're just going for it. Talk shows will be the first ones back. Where does it leave this business, Scott, from your perspective? Substantially weakened. I mean, there's a few things when calculating the game theory around a strike. The first is, what kind of leverage do you have? And unless you have 100% participation, you don't have any leverage. So when the Teamsters struck against UPS, UPS represented 23% of all package volume. And overnight, tens of millions of consumers would start getting messages when they ordered

Calphalon from Williams-Sonoma that, I'm sorry, your shipment has been delayed indefinitely because of the UPS strike. And in addition, that company, UPS, UPS, get really, really hammered really quickly with this strike. So, they had leverage. Then look at what's happened here. Three of the four biggest players or four of the five biggest players, they were trying to suck blood from a rock. And that is these companies were deeply impaired already. And if you didn't know, and we keep saying this, if you didn't know, and we keep saying this, if you didn't know there was a writer's strike,

you wouldn't know. There's so many substitutes. I think that was one of your best points. I agree. So the consumer didn't care that the writers were on strike. And not only that, the most profitable company in their sector, Netflix, the strike was a feature, not a bug,

because they got a lot of content from outside the U.S. Their subscriptions went up. I mean, essentially, every content company but Netflix, their stock went down dramatically since the beginning of the strike. It's interesting. I got a note. Someone was in a text train with some writer to Hollywood people, and they go, someone said, looks like the long national nightmare is finally ending. And someone else wrote back, a writer, a well-known writer, said, praise the Lord. Now we comb through the rubble to see what's left of our business. And I thought that said it perfectly.

Well, the writers I've been talking to said that the thing that has really changed the gestalt or the zeitgeist or the mood is the writer's strike was upsetting. But they said the thing that has really impacted them was the way they had to see is just the unexpected decline of their hero, Disney. That if Disney's going down, we're all going down. And let's look, since the writer's strike, since the beginning of the writer's strike, Disney's stock is off 19%, Warner Brothers down 13%, and Paramount stock has been cut in half. It's off 45 percent, and Netflix is up 20 percent. It's come back a little bit, but it's still up 20 percent. So, you had, and this is what you should be doing. One, they don't have the leverage because they don't have unanimity of, it's like, why is this show on and not this show? No one could figure

it out. Well, the union got in there and it didn't get in here, whatever it might be. But they're striking against the wrong people. Again, the stat I love is that in one day, when Microsoft announced it was incorporating AI into its office suite, the market capitalization of Microsoft went up $174 billion. That's more than the value of Disney. And Disney's operating margins have gone down 75%. So who should you be striking against? And they do have leverage. These LLMs and AI, what do you think they're crawling? I mean- Yeah, 100%. This is going to be a big legal fight. This is going to be big. They're striking against the wrong people. They're going after people. They're trying to squeeze blood from the wrong rock.

Right. So, this is a three-year contract, as you noted. Is there any issues you see coming up? That's good that it's three years. They don't have to yell at each other for three years. But do you think they've learned anything here? Do you think this is sinking in? here? Do you think this is sinking in? I know after that, when Diller was noting the tech people being the real problem, I got dozens of calls from Hollywood people that like their, like their, oh, you're right. Like, you know what I mean? But do you think they've learned on all sides, I think? Do you think they've learned anything? You know what? I don't feel close to it. What I would say is, do you notice how quiet Tim Cook, and you notice how they're like, let's just stay out of this shit. Yes, of course, I notice. They're like, we don't even want, we want to pretend we have nothing to do with this. We want to pretend that when Apple or Lama, when Meta launches, we're going to pretend that it

has nothing to do with us, when in fact, it has everything to do with them. Because when I write in, please write an outline for a chapter on testosterone, I'm writing this book on masculinity, and it comes back with stuff. I'm like, well, whose content is this thing crawling? And should they get a portion of my book proceeds? Or should Microsoft be paying them for the right to call their data? Who owes you money? Who is the end user that gets value for your work? And they think that what they don't realize is the person they used to extract value from, someone ordering cable television because they're like, dad, we have to have cable TV, so pay $140 for the Joey Bag of Donuts special star ESPN Jets plus Big Bang Theory for the last 40 seasons, and then we're going to bundle in Bravo 7, 8, and 9 because it's a regulated monopoly

called cable. That 17-year-old no longer cares. Like, yeah, dad, cut the cord. Mom, I don't need it. Cut the cord. Can I ask you a question? Where did you steal Joey Bag of Donuts from? I love that term, Joey Bag of Donuts. I know you do. You use it a lot. I just was thinking, where did Scott steal that from, this little LLM named Scott Galloway? I think I don't know where I got Joey Bag of Donuts. I don't know whose data I've crawled there.

Where have you gotten that from? I've not heard that from anyone else but you, and I just thought of it because you said it again. JBD? JBD. No, but your question around what has everyone learned here, look, if you look at it, it's simple. I think that the real learning should be the following. The NASDAQ had its best first half in 40 years. And 70% of its gains were from seven companies.

And at the heart of all of those companies' acceleration in the four, I did the math here, it's somewhere between three and $4 trillion accretion in stock market value, three and $4 trillion, Kara, was companies where AI is at the center of it. Nvidia, AI is at the center of meta because of reels and their use of AI. AI is at the center, actually, I think,

of Netflix and its recommendation engine. AI is at the center of Microsoft. So the question is, if AI is literally sucking the oxygen out of the room and all the market cap, it's like, well, what is driving that value? And AI, it's incredible technology through LLMs, but if it doesn't have the coal, if it doesn't have the unstructured data sense and content, it's not worth anything. So my question is, are those coal miners, i.e. the creatives at the very beginning, pulling ideas out of the earth that didn't exist before and refining them into actual creative, then that's who they need to be consolidating against.

All of these people should regroup next week and go, okay, our next meeting, we're all on the same side of the table. Our next meeting, we're all on the same side of the table. The WGA, SAG, AFTRA, Iger, Sherry Redstone. And on the other side needs to be Altman, Sondra Pichai, Nadella. They're the people you should be negotiating against. Yeah, surrender. Let me just say, we have warned you.

We have warned you, Hollywood, who your true enemy is. This is like a plot of a movie that you think it's one person, and then it's really another person. I think there's a Star Trek plot. Let me just tell you, we're telling you who your enemy is. Start to pay attention. Do you think this will have any effect on the UAW strike or not? I think it'll be faster. That one will be faster.

Yeah, I think they'll, they have more leverage. I mean, here's the tough part, though. Here's just the, here's the hard part. Again, it's the Elons and the Chinese and the tech forward. Anyways, have you noticed that he has the ability when you realize, like, that's a no-win situation for me? And he's kept awfully mum. He's kept awfully mum. Hush.

Right? Just like Apple. Tim Cook. Do you think he's keeping mum because he wants to? He knows. Like, I do not want to get into this fight. Yeah, because I'm good. But here's the

bottom line. The domestic automobile manufacturers produce cars. They have to pay $65 per labor hour. Do you know the stock prices of Ford, GM, and Stellantis are where they were literally before the financial crisis? Capital hasn't made a dollar off of these companies in 15 years, because capital, fairly or unfairly, will just flow to the lowest, to the person with the largest margins, which in this case is the foreign automobile manufacturers in Tesla and Rivian. So all this starts, quite frankly, unfairly, unless you have unanimity around a union, which has the right aims, it's a race to the bottom. All the capital flows to the non-union guys. We do need to move on, but let me just say

there's a reason Elon's quiet. Elon's never quiet. People were warning you again, automakers and autoworkers. Guess who's going to win here? This is not a big secret. We said it earlier and now there's been 900 articles about it. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break and we come back.

We'll talk about how fighting misinformation online has become a losing battle and betting against FTC chair Lena Kahn has become a winning strategy. Our friend of Pivot is Axel Springer, CEO, Matthias Döpfner. He joins us to talk about the state of media and his new book on trade. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night.

And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize?

What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim. And we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home.

Out. Uncertainty. Self-doubt. Stressing about not knowing where to start. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Word art. Sorry, live laugh lovers. In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back in the war on misinformation. Misinformation is what? Shockingly winning. The Washington Post reports that many universities, government agencies, and think tanks working

to combat the online spread of misinformation are now shutting down or overhauling their programs and research entirely. Why? It's a result of a campaign led by Congressman Jim Jordan and other Republicans in Congress accusing these groups of colluding with tech companies to censor right-wing views. It's a lot of lawsuits happening, going on. This is scary stuff. These groups were doing a service for the rest of us, studying political falsehoods, sharing important health information. How bad could it get without misinformation being kept in check and actually being sued to not speak? The only people

who can't speak in a free speech environment, apparently, is scientists and researchers. The article notes that NIH officials sent a memo in July to some employees warning them not to flag misleading social media posts to tech companies and to limit their communication with the public in answering medical questions. These are doctors. One scientist quoted as saying,

in the name of protecting free speech, the scientific community is not allowed to speak. Science is being halted in its tracks. It seems particularly dangerous ahead of the 2024 election facing litigation. Let me give you an example. Stanford University officials are discussing how they can continue tracking election-related misinformation.

A coalition of researchers may shrink and also stop communicating with X and Facebook about findings. We've been relying on social media companies to be the watchdogs of misinformation, but thanks to Elon and others, it's not really happening anymore. So technology is getting more powerful. The guardrails are disappearing. It's not clear that anyone can stop it. Maybe the courts. And the White House, lastly, has its own issues. A recent ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal said the White House and other health officials likely violated the First Amendment by getting tech companies to take down posts about COVID and election, COVID misinformation, election fraud. I don't know, Scott, do you see any way forward? This is what they did on Roe, legal, legal, legal, legal, legal, and scaring the crap out of people. I think it sends a chill down my spine, the notion that whenever you have, I mean, there's some really scary data, and I've been doing a bunch of research around AI.

The percentage of people who have a patent, they used to predominantly aggregate to universities. Now they predominantly aggregate to private companies. Or patent collectors like Nathan Muehlverholt and others. But I'm not talking about ownership of them. I'm talking about people who actually have their own patent. If you technically defined an inventor as someone who has their own patent, they used to go to universities

and now they still go to universities. And then sooner rather than later, they go to the private sector. And so anytime, and also I think something wonderful about academia is you're told from day one, we'll give you tenure, we'll protect you as long as you pursue the truth and you check your data really thoroughly and we'll protect you. And there's something wonderful about that. And the first universities were placed outside of the city of Athens so they could say what

they wanted to. That's a wonderful part of our society. So anything that chills them is really frightening. Now, the other side of the issue, the judge said something I thought very powerful that kind of stopped me. Basically, the judge ruled that the administration is, open quote, improperly influencing tech companies' decisions to remove or suppress posts on the coronavirus and elections, and went on to say that the government has assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ministry of truth. And I thought, wow, that is powerful. But what I see is, or what I view this as, is nothing but an externality

of giving a sector a hall pass such that they're no longer subject to the same laws and standards as the rest of the people in their industry. I think you're 100%. That's a very good point. Specifically, when we implemented 230 to give nascent technologies protection from the liability most media companies face when they slander or they defame or they spread misinformation and people start dying. When we gave them that liability shield, they started behaving recklessly. And we haven't adapted our laws in the last 26 years to recognize that these guys are now responsible for the majority of the information we consume. So into that void stepped the government that said, hey, when it goes viral that there is an outbreak among teenagers of the enlargement of hearts

and there really isn't any data to support that it's above where it was before, we would like you to stop to check that data and to make sure it doesn't spread to everybody such that nobody wants to get their kids or their teens vaccinated. And correctly, correctly, legally, you could say the government shouldn't be telling us what to say. It's a really powerful argument. The government should not be telling media companies what to say. I get it. Except that this is what they've done, these right-wingers, all the time, is put lawsuits in front of these people that are doing research. Every single person I talk to that I have talked to in the past at the Stanford Internet Observatory, everywhere else, they have clammed up. Even off the record, they've clammed up. And it's crazy. And it's because they're threatening them. They're going to threaten them. And they're using this First Amendment as a cudgel when it's all cynical. It is not a first free speech issue for these people. It is a, we don't want you to say this because our constituency is a bunch of

dumbasses and we want them to stay stupid. And, you know, perhaps the government shouldn't be involved, but these researchers, are you kidding me? Like they're going to sue them out of existence. This is a patented technique, these people. I wish the Democrats would use these, Democratic or liberals use these lawsuits more as a cudgel. But this is a perfected methodology of these groups. And people like Jim Jordan are the most cynical people on earth. They're not interested in the truth. They're interested in shutting down, you know, shutting down researchers who are telling the truth. They just don't want, because they believe, some of them do, and you've seen the huge rise in anti-vax

power. There's been so many powers of anti-vax people, people not wanting to get their kids vaccinated. You know, just like what happened with COVID, this is natural selection happening again, right? Because a lot of these kids are going to get diseases that don't get vaccinated that have been out of, that have not happened for decades and decades. And then the ones who do get vaccinated won't. And it's, I just, it's so irresponsible on so many levels. I just don't, I don't know what to say. When we talk about this stuff, we naturally kind of throw up our arms and tech companies will throw up arms, and their go-to is the delusion of complexity, that these are intractable, unsolvable problems. And for me, it all goes back to the same place and the same potential solution, and that is the dissenter's voice is really important. The first people online who said, well, I think the virus originated in a lab in China were called jingoists and dangerous.

And it ends up, there's probably more veracity to that statement than we'd originally thought. They don't know. Let me just, Scott, I'm going to press you there. Nobody knows. Well, it's not, it's no longer, I would argue it's no longer a conspiracy theory. Fine. Fine. And that is, the only reason that happened was because Trump kept saying Jaina or whatever he was saying. That's what, it was linked, it was next to something else. I think you're going to agree with my end destination here. I think that the dissenter's voice is important. And if somebody wants to say, I believe mRNA vaccines alter your DNA,

they should have the right to say that. The question is, when a social media platform's algorithms who are not benign, they're not malicious, they're just totally indifferent, they're all about optimizing to get to sell more Nissan ads. So, you know what? Certain types of content enrage people, specifically novel content, which oftentimes can be false or incendiary. And what we're going to do is we're going to take that content

and we're going to elevate it inorganically, unnaturally. We're going to elevate it such that it gets more and more sunlight than it would get on its own merits. And when people start seeing this thing over and over and over, there is a psychological effect. When you see something over and over and over, you tend to believe it's less crazy than it might be when it only got the natural sunlight based on the merit of the science behind it. So when a media company, and these are media companies, the science behind it. So when a media company, and these are media companies, algorithmically elevates content for their economic benefit, why on earth would they not be subject to the same scrutiny laws and obligations as every other media company that decides to elevate content

and put it on their primetime and say that Hugo Chavez was weaponizing voting machines? Well, you know that's a lie, but you elevated it to prime time and you continue to lie about it, so you have to pay $800 million. But when there's 3 million times that amount of content on Meta, they're not liable. It's-

Yep, I agree. I agree. Let's sue the bastards. Let people sue the fucking bastards. That's what I say. Well, we gotta have carve-outs to 230. They do. Anyway. Okay, let's move have carve-outs to 230. They do. Anyway.

Okay, let's move on to our next big story. We've talked a lot about Lena Kahn's record as the FTC chair, and whether she's taking on Meta, Microsoft, or Activision Blizzard, she's lost more than she's won. Well, one hedge fund is making the most of that losing track record and finding a winning strategy in betting against Kahn, according to the Wall Street Journal. By anticipating the failure of Kahn's FTC cases and investing in trading accordingly, Florida-based Pentwater Capital is reaping the benefits in a big way. The CEO of the

fund telling the journal after a recent FTC loss, we have had the ability to take something that would have made tens of millions of dollars and instead make many, many times that amount. They've clearly hired lawyers to go over this because they thought the strategy she had was wrong and weak, and they bet against it. In the case of the Pentwater CEO, he spoke about a recent FTC action against pharmaceutical giant Amgen, saying it was just clear from the reading of the complaint the government wouldn't be able to prove its case. I was very surprised the FTC would bring such a weak case. Not just Pentwater, there's others finding success with the strategy.

This guy doesn't think it's going to last too long because she's going to win at some point. But what do you think of this? What would you think about this? This is interesting. I thought it was interesting. I thought it was interesting, too, but I think it was unfair to paint this guy as the villain.

You know, hedge funds are— I don't think they did, did they? It made it feel like he was doing something wrong, is the way I read it. Look, this is a good bet. And that is that over time, over the last 30 years, betting on the side of mergers going through and the government's inability to block mergers

has been a good bet. And when a stock declines 20% on the threat of a lawsuit from the DOJ or the FTC, it's just a good bet to say, no, I think this merger, I think the, whatever you want to call it, the power of capitalism or judges to err on the side of deals getting done, whatever it is. I mean, the most ridiculous one, literally the most ridiculous one was when the DOJ under Trump filed suit against AT&T taking over Time Warner. And that, I mean, that was just ridiculous. But anyways, this guy is basically betting on lobbyists and betting on these organizations' power to get these deals through.

And he's been more right than wrong. And how hard it is to do this. Yeah, to block a deal. Last year, Khan said, I'm certainly not someone who thinks success is marked by 100% court record. If you never bring these hard cases, I think there's a severe cost to that

that can lead to stagnation and stasis. Now, the CEO noted that, is that she'll win at some point, or they will win at some point on some of these things. And the long-awaited Amazon antitrust case is expected to be filed in federal court this week. They'll probably be looking at this, another harder one. I think they just—there's no such thing as an ironclad case, but on the weak ones, it's good to bet against Lena Kahn in that regard.

Yeah, there's two—a more active FTC is probably a good thing. I mean, you can say both ways. If she keeps racking up, a lot of people would argue that the scrutiny here is what causes a change in behavior. Even if it ultimately ends up going through, they usually have to provide some concessions. And all of that, you got to respect someone in their, you know, an academic coming up and saying, I'm not, regardless of whether there's, and also fighting the good fight, you could argue you're supposed to fight the good fight regardless if you think this is the wrong deal. Regardless of the likelihood of victory here, you're supposed to fight the fight. Having said that, and we've talked about this over and over, she needs a big win desperately. She does. She does. We'll see. It's very hard to do what she's doing.

But this is just, I didn't think he came off as anything. I thought it was interesting. Smart guy. That's what I thought. I don't know. I just thought, oh, okay. These smart guys, these hedge fund guys, stock market against the last 10 years, they've been crowded into these big names that you don't need a hedge fund to buy Apple for you. So they've had to find other means of trying to outperform the S&P, and the majority of them have not.

All they have done is underperform the S&P and then charge you 2 in 20. So this is an industry- Same with 2 in 20. 2% of the fee and then 20% of the carry, right? Rich people in institutions like to think that they're rich because they're smarter, and smarter people should have access to a luxury brand and something better. So instead of just investing in SPY or index or ETF funds, which is exactly what they should be doing, they hire expensive groups of people with big degrees, and they say, we're going to find alpha and different types of underappreciated investments, and you're going to

give us $100, and every year we get $2 of that. So if you have a hedge fund that has $10 billion under management, on January 1, you get $200 million. It's a really good business when it gets to scale. And then if we double that money and we turn $10 billion into $20 billion, we get another $2 billion. We get 2% of the assets under management, and we get 20% of the upside. And the reality is the majority of alternative investment vehicles that charge you outrageous fees, Vanguard, I think, charges you 10 basis points or 0.1 every year and none of the upside. And most Vanguard ETFs have outperformed the majority of these really expensive alternative investment vehicles.

That's a very good point, people. I always say the only people that always get paid are government officials and tax officials and venture capitalists. They always get paid no matter how. Low-cost ETF and index funds. It's the way to go. It's the way to go. Anyway, that's really interesting.

But this guy managed to find a little in. They managed to find a little in. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Matthias Döpfner is the chairman and CEO of Axel Springer, the German media company that owns Politico and Insider, among many others. They also own some German papers, I understand. His latest book is The Trade Trap, How to Stop Doing Business with Dictators. I've interviewed him many times, know him pretty well, a really interesting media figure. Welcome,

Matthias. Hi, Cara. Hi, Scott. Anyway, we're going to get to the book, but first, I just would love to get your thoughts on the Rupert Murdoch news. And I'm going to put retirement in quotes because I don't think that old crone is going anywhere. But go ahead. Tell me what you think. Well, I have no particular insights. I think it is a complicated succession story, it seems. I think it is an interesting retirement age at 92. The question is whether that is really kind of the mark of a new era of media ownership. Because I think really this kind of type of media owner, media mogul is probably over. And that's why it may be the end of an era.

And as we are always open for change and new things, the new era may be even better. Let's see. It could be. Has Murdoch influenced the way you do business? You were described as a press baron for the digital age, part Murdoch and also part Musk in a New York magazine profile. But has he influenced you or who influences you? Well, the figures that really had an impact on my kind of thinking are more

journalists, publishers, in the sense of active writers, authors. But of course, if it is about doing business and creating an incredibly powerful and global media property, of course, Rupert Murdoch is definitely a towering figure. And as always with these towering figures, it's white and black and some gray nuances in between. I'm just curious, when you think about that, the idea of what is a modern press digital person, how would you describe it? Well, there is first this old kind of saying, if you want to have influence on a newspaper, you should not own it.

And I think that defines very well a fine line that I think modern media owners should respect. Of course, we have values, and hopefully we are transparent with the values, and the values define a corporate culture. And there's no such thing as a neutral media asset or neutral journalists. They're always human beings, but it should be not the reflection of the owner's views. And I think a modern factor would be that you should clearly distinguish between your own views and preferences and the views of your publications. They should and may not and cannot be in sharp contrast. That would be also to a certain degree by Goddard. But keep a distance, keep a healthy distance and don't try to make the media brand an amplification of your own views.

I think that is a very important thing. Then the second aspect would be that technology plays a completely different role today. And at least the role of technology should be deeply understood. You don't need to be a techie in order to do that. But that is definitely a different priority. And we may also have to rethink the whole role that the media brand or a publication plays it used to be the media brand that attracted the readers i think today it is way more the authors the creatives the creators and so perhaps a modern publisher

digital publisher is more a bit like a music company where you create an environment and you create an infrastructure and a technology and a marketing that helps great talent to excel and to reach its audience. But they definitely play a bigger role than that used to be the case. So those would be three criteria, but there are many more, perhaps, that define a new form of media ownership. All right, Scott's got a question, but let's talk about the trade trap, which you write in this book about the future of our freedom, which you are expressing your opinions, by the way, and we need to decouple from countries like Russia and China. How would that happen exactly? Well, the most important point is that we have to define that really as an international project and not as a form of

unilateral decoupling. That is the way that the United States have chosen so far. I think that is not going to solve the problem, and it is only weakening the United States. And if Europe thinks that in dealing with China, with Russia, with other autocracies or dictatorships, they can do it alone, I think they're making a big mistake. That's why I truly think that isolationism is the absolute counter recipe for what we got to do. We need to form, and that is the concrete proposal that I'm making, we need to form a free alliance of democracies that do business together based on three criteria, acceptance of the rule of law, acceptance of human rights, and acceptance of certain CO2 targets. And everybody who accepts these criteria can become a member in a very informal way and

can do tariff-free trade. Everybody who doesn't accept that can still do trade, but has to pay high tariffs. And I think that will strengthen democracies. It's a bit like a tax reform. In the short term, it may have some costs and perhaps some downsides. In the mid and long term, it is by far overcompensating these costs and downsides.

And with that, strengthening and defending democracy. That is, in a nutshell, the proposal that I'm making. But again, it is only going to work if we reach critical mass. America can do it alone. Europe can do it alone. This transatlantic alliance is the basis. But then as many democracies as possible should join, from Japan to Canada and Australia to democratic parts of Asia, Latin America, and very importantly,

India. India is a pretty decisive country here. A more global and woker NATO. Matthias, good to see you. We've been having a lot of conversations about the writer's strike and unions more broadly. And the term we use is there's a difference between being right and being effective. And loosely speaking, I've been saying the unions in the U. difference between being right and being effective. And loosely speaking, I've been saying the unions in the U.S. are right but not effective. I would argue in

Germany, they're both right and effective. I'm curious, coming from a nation that is highly unionized, any observations you might have around the writer's strike? And what is the difference between unions' role in the U.S. and their effectiveness and in Germany? between unions' role in the US, in their effectiveness, and in Germany? I think a good balance between labor representatives, unions, and shareholders, and executives is healthy and has, in a way, over the long term paid off for a more stable, more predictable,

and fairer system of economy. All exaggerations are wrong and are worrying. And I think it is very important that good units, good labor representatives really see themselves as the representatives of the workforce of the labor. And you could always say in that sense, the interest of the well-being of a company and the well-being of the workers are very much aligned. Only if the company does well, only if the company is successful, it is in the long run healthy and good for the employee. So, concretely in that context, without interfering at all and having a judgment on the strike in America, I'm a European, so it's hard for me to judge. But I think in general, whether it's Europe or America, I'm a European, so it's hard for me to judge. But I think in general, whether it's Europe or America, you can never fight progress. And the most important thing is you have to embrace

progress. You have to embrace progress. You can discuss and can have a controversial discussion about what is appropriate in order to fairly compensate creatives, for example, in that concrete context, but don't try to fight artificial intelligence. That is a lost case. We've got to embrace it. We've got to benefit from that. And I see for the whole industry, for the creative industry, for journalists, for script writers, for actors, for musicians,

I see a lot more opportunity if we really use artificial intelligence in order to get empowered and be more creative and be even better with regard to the quality of our creative products. But to just say we have to fight that kind of progress, it's not going to work. So when you're talking about progress, you know, it's interesting because Biden, when he was President Biden, was talking about China in his speech at the UN General Assembly last week, was shifting it a little bit. And he's saying we're for de-risking, not decoupling with China, which means acknowledging where they're headed. And we seek to responsibly manage the competition between our countries so it does not tip into conflict. Do you, and he also, of course, did the prisoner swap last week, five Americans freed in Iran in exchange for five Iranians who'd been in U.S. custody, plus Iran getting access to $6 billion in previously flown assets. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about, the idea of a more flexible democratic initiatives or not? So, first of all, I think these terms, whether it's decoupling or de-risking, don't matter too much. I mean, it's just a packaging. The question is really, what is the essence?

What is the substance? And it is very clear that on the one hand, we cannot stop doing business with a country like China tomorrow. And on the other hand, I think for me, it is crystal clear that we can't continue on the old path. And the old path was the more you do business, you as a democracy, you do business with a non-democracy, the more the non-democracy will turn to a freedom and human rights oriented model. And that has not been the case. This old paradigm change through trade didn't simply happen, or it happened

the other way around, because the more we dealt with Russia, particularly we, the Europeans, the Germans, the more we strengthened Putin and created basically the Putin that we have to deal with today in this terrible war. The EU is on a daily basis transferring more than a billion euro to this dictatorship, because we have created an unnecessary energy dependency from Russia. If trade relationships turn into dependency, it's always bad. That was the case with Russia and it is also the case with China. More than 90 percent of US antibiotics are based on components that are exclusively produced in China. So you could say our health system is already to a certain degree dependent from China. That is unhealthy, and we need to come up with an alternative. And this alternative,

I think, cannot be we stop business tomorrow. It cannot be unilateral decoupling. It cannot be a third way for Europe that we try to be best friends with both. That's not going to work. We need to step by step reduce dependency, But I think we need to do it based on a self-confident and bold proposal and behavior. And that is the one that I'm making in my book, The Trade Trap, because we have been led in a trap. Now, how to escape? By saying we join forces, we basically re-establish a transatlantic alliance that is not only a security alliance, like the NATO, it is also a trade alliance, perhaps a bit in the spirit of the old GATT agreements that work pretty well and way better than WTO, which is a dysfunctional

bureaucracy and should cease operation sooner or later. So you've made big investments into growth media companies, Politico and Business Insiders. You made big investments, which naturally connotes that you're bullish on American media and bullish on the American economy. Why is it that you're bullish on America and specifically American media? Well, first of all, experience. Because if we look to the developments over the last couple of hundred years and decades, America did pretty well. Despite some bad-mouthing, some adversarial trends, America has a very, very vital ability

to, in a way, reinvent itself. And also its institutions, its democratic institutions have a very strong ability to prevail. Even if there are crises, we have seen some also in the very recent past. The American institutions are strong and the American people are very strong. This free will of the American people is the most important thing that I count on. In America, the value of freedom is deeply rooted in the individual. And Americans will never allow to be in a kind of dependent relationship, neither to their own government, which they always want to keep under control in a very healthy manner, but even more with regards to other nations and particularly with regard to non-democratic nations so in that sense america remains for me despite all the crises and the grass on the neighbor's

green may be always greener maybe that insiders and americans may see some things in darker tones but i still think that the likelihood that america going to remain a healthy democracy is, despite current events, is very high. And that this kind of aspiration that is very kind of strong in the American society is also an important factor that you can count on. And that combined with the absolute size of the market, it is still the biggest democratic economy in the world. I mean, simply makes it a very attractive market. Scale is way different. Look at the European markets.

They are all limited also by languages and geographies that are way smaller. So the potential in America is simply in a different dimension. So you're very bullish. You know, we're a year away from the presidential election. We've got a government shutdown looming. There's a concern about disinformation, particularly with AI in the mix. We got some crazy going on. We have bad theater goers among our elected officials. When you think about that, you were making a very bullish case, but is there things that you and your publications are doing to combat that or not? It's just you're not worried about it.

Well, yes, I can give you a very concrete answer. The thing that worries me perhaps most, and that is a global trend, but it is also very strong in America, is polarization. I think polarization is super dangerous. I think polarization is super dangerous. And polarization based on the idea of alternative facts, where each bubble has its own facts, is even more dangerous, because that destroys the fundament of democracy. Also, it destroys the fundament of free decisions during an election, for example, because if you have no mutual factual base, what do you decide upon? Because if you have no mutual factual base, what do you decide upon?

So it is basically opening a door towards manipulation and propaganda that is then closer to non-democracy. So that worries me. And that is, you could say, on the one hand, a political phenomenon on all sides and bubbles in various areas of society. But it is also something that, unfortunately, some media or an important amount of media brands are amplifying, but also taking predictable sides. As I said, there is no neutral media outlet, but I think a media brand should always keep a certain degree of unpredictability, being unbiased, being nonpartisan, and being critical towards all sides. Our role is not to advocate a good idea. Our role is to ask critical

questions, to do perhaps unwelcome investigation, come up with investigative news and scoops, create news in that sense, and be a critical reflection of what the powerful in our society are doing. I think that is the role of media. And now you could say basically in America, a lot of media brands are doing pretty much the opposite of what I've just described. Maybe now we take the contrarian bet. If almost everybody does this to do the opposite, maybe a good contrarian case. That's our bet. You're also investing a lot in AI. You did some cost-cutting measures across Axel Springer, laying off some

people. And it was tied to AI, with staffers told that the paper would be, quote, parting ways with colleagues who have tasks that in a digital world are performed by AI and or automated processes. And when we talked last year at Code, you stressed the importance of, as you were noting right now, editorial quality in journalism and digital journals in particular. Are you concerned at all that AI has some issues which could also create more polarization and problems? Honestly, I'm always concerned because wouldn't I be concerned, I would be naive and stupid. They are always dangerous. And with every progress, with every new technology, there is a danger, of course. I see that and I see also the need for immediate and strict regulation that protects the IP of the content creator,

because otherwise there is no incentive to ever invest into a film, invest into music, invest into journalism, invest into science. So that is absolutely vital. But, and this is my important but, I see a lot more opportunities than threats. more opportunities than threats. And very concretely in the media industry, we have now the historic opportunity to basically delegate all the boring stuff of our business that we had to do. And I give you some examples. That is the technological part of production. That is, to a certain degree, error correction. That is translation. That is layout. That is photo selection. That is kind of aggregating information that is out there and rewrite it. All that can be delegated to bots step by step, and they will do a good job. They will do a better job than humans. And then journalists, human journalists can focus on what always has been the core, and that is go

out and observe reality, describe reality, be a good reporter. Go somewhere and investigate something that was not supposed to get published and create investigative scoops. Have a correspondent at a place on earth where nobody is and nobody sees what is happening there and come up with very individual and unconventional analysis and opinion pieces, editorials that stimulate discussion. Those are the things that have always been the interesting part of journalism. They have distinguished great brands from not-so-great brands. That was the fun part of our business, and that we can do now. And we can allocate money and investments from the boring part

to the exciting part. So, Matthias, we caught up a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't know this about you. You have four sons, so obviously that forces you to think about the future. You're sort of at the helm of the bobsled of politics, business, both in Europe and in the U.S. What do you think the biggest threat, when you think about your sons and their lives after we're gone, what do you think is the biggest threat facing democracies? Yeah, Scott, I dedicate it, my book, to my kids

because I think the biggest threat is that we lose democracy. That is what I'm most worried about, that we lose this fundament of a free and open society, of individual freedom, of human rights. It is driven by economic success and the dependency that step-by-step is created from countries that have very different values.

And I'm also worried by this by-got-it approach that we have more and more companies who excel with regard to ESG standards and focus on every little detail, if it is about gender pronouns, whatever. And the same company, the same CEO is delegating large parts of the business to non-democratic countries where people are killed because they are gay or women get stoned because of adultery. That is double standards. And that shows me that democracy is under attack. Also, if I look to the numbers of Freedom House, and that also the consensus that it

is something that we need to protect is going to disappear, because people think democracy and freedom is granted. It's there. It's going to remain forever. It's not. If I'm looking to my four kids, that they may live up in a different world, authoritarian system, surveillance by the state, everything is monitored, and they are just acting like slaves serving to an authoritarian force. That is my dystopia, and this I want to avoid, and that's

why I'm getting up in the morning trying to be a good journalist and run a media company appropriately, and that's also why I wrote that book, to stimulate a discussion. And getting back to the end, what is the biggest threat to free trade from your perspective right now? The biggest threat to free trade is unilateral decoupling, which is going to foster nationalism. And that is very unhealthy because we live in a global world and we can only solve the challenges from climate change to the kind of big economic challenges. We can only solve that together and we cannot solve it in a kind of isolated, isolationist, nationalistic manner. And the other big worry is that if we don't do anything

and if we just continue as we do, that we then get undermined by non-democracies. And we have seen the writings at the wall. I mean, just to illustrate that the German car industry is pretty dependent on China already, that the CEO of Daimler had to publicly apologize for an advertisement that was quoting the Dalai Lama in a very, very harmless manner. And then when I asked the Chinese ambassador, did he really have to apologize? The answer was, not really. Only if Daimler wanted to continue to sell cars in China,

then that gives me a flavor of what may happen if we don't do something. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, Matthias, it's a really interesting book, and it's true, they're all linked together in that way. Anyway, his book is called The Trade Trap, How to Stop Doing Business with Dictators, which I think we should all do immediately. And it's out now. Thank you, Matthias. Thank you, Cara. Thank you, Scott. Thanks, Matthias. Good to see you. He is an impressive man. I don't always agree with him, but I got to say. What did you think,

Scott? I think Matthias is a great role model for young people and especially young men. He's been married for a long time. He has four sons. He's a baller professionally, and he takes seriously protecting democracy, protecting people who are less fortunate than him. You know, I think he's a great role model for young men and young professionals. I will note that they're the one company, media company in Germany, that really stresses issues around anti-Semitism and signing things and pledging and making people sign it who work there and work with them. Anyway, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data big savings on plans and having your unused

data roll over to the following month every month at fizz you always get more for your money terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply details at fizz.ca okay scott let's hear some wins and fails. Do you have any? Wins is my brother's birthday. Happy birthday, David Swisher. That's my win. No.

That's your brother? Yes, it is. He's a great brother. He's the one you don't hear about. I don't know. The quiet one. And he prefers to remain quiet. And so, happy birthday.

That's so unswisher-like. I know. He's so unswisher. We don't know where they dropped him. They dropped him from like down the chimney or something. He's like quiet and considerate and much more conservative than me and Jeff. But he just works hard. He's a hard worker.

And yeah, he's quiet. It's not a Swisher trait. Though he has a lot to say. You like him quite a bit when he talks. He's very analytical and everything. Anyway, I love him. He's a great brother. The new Apple, speaking of Power of Apple, they have a documentary coming out on supermodels that looks fantastic. You're looking forward to that? I am. It looks great. I love those ladies because I think they really are really interesting and

powerful. And I'm interested in the business of it. Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, and Cindy Crawford. And I just think they were such a force and just, I don't know, I just think they're interesting all individually. I'm particularly impressed with Christy Turlington, I have to say, in lots of ways. So, I'm excited for it. That's going to be a win for me. I'm going to watch that. And that's just because I don't particularly think two models are prettier than other women, actually, as a lesbian. But it just looks interesting. Looks super interesting. And all of these thoughts running through my head, don't say anything.

Don't say anything. Don't say anything. Don't say anything. My fail is obviously Kevin McCarthy getting pulled around by the nose by Matt Gaetz. Honestly, what a failure of leadership on his part. And I'm not sure there's anything he can do. But man, if you have like such a ridiculous forehead like Matt Gaetz in charge of our country, I'm moving to Germany and living with Matthias.

That's what I'm doing. I'm calling him the forehead. He's a Joey fucking bag of donuts. No, he's not. He's something else. I'm going to think'm calling him the forehead. He's a Joey fucking bag of donuts. No, he's not. He's something else. I'm going to think of a name for him. Okay, I have two wins. My first win is the FBI.

Their mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States. And they investigate everything from terrorism and counterintelligence to cybercrime, to organized crime, to violent crime, to weapons of mass destruction. And their action or their investigation against Senator Bob Menendez, where they found $450,000 in cash and gold bars. And also on his computer, he had Googled how much is a gold bar worth. And he's claiming that it's persecution against Latinos and that he, as a function of his Cuban heritage, would take money out. But distinctive of the alleged corruption here, the only people who are more disappointed to hear about the FBI going after Senator Bob Menendez, where the far right, who would like to deposition the FBI, is anything but what they are. And what the FBI is a group of thousands of men and women who take

an oath to the Constitution and who do an outstanding job and just go, just try to protect the Constitution. This guy is a walking corruption. Oh, God. And then you know who supported him? George Santos was supporting him. Gosh. I mean, it's almost sort of hilarious.

The money and the clothes with his name on it. With his name on it. The gold bars. Gold bars. Do you have any gold bars, Scott? I don't own, no, I don't own any gold bars. I thought you might. Someone asked me, does Scott have gold bars? I go, I bet he does.

Gold bars? Yeah, somewhere. I don't know. Remember on Billions where they went to the safe, him and the wife? Oh, their go bag? Their go bag. But they don't have a go bag. Gold bars fucking everywhere.

I don't think anyone should have a go bag. I think when you build a go bag, you've decided to elevate yourself from the comity of man. And I think we're all in this together. Yeah. As I say that from Marlowe Bone. You know, to be honest, Scott, if I needed to, I'd trade you for a gold bar if I had to. In the end times, I'd go take him. A gold bar.

Not bad. Not bad. I take that as a compliment. Not bad. It's $62,000 for a key ring. Just so you know. Yeah bad. It's $62,000 for a key link. Just so you know. Yeah. You're worth $62,000.

Oh, speaking of supermodels, by the way, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the state ban on driverless trucks. I have called AB 316 stupid. California has to lean into innovation like this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, guys. He was right to do it. And we can't like be the state, then they wander over to wherever the fuck they wander over to Texas, where they're doing it too. But California has to be innovating in car. You know how much I love

these. The lawmakers were speaking of were egged on by unions. And they wanted a human on board for these things. And I just over fears of safety, which I think are misspent job losses, there's not enough truckers. Gavin Newsom said no. And I got to say, I'm with that supermodel of a governor on that one. By the way, I think it's looking like he's running for president. But anyways, different talk show. Well, that's why he did this. But he's right, too.

I don't care. He's right. He's correct. My other win is on your recommendation, I watched Painkiller. Oh. And that's not my win. That series was a fraction as good as Dope Sick, and it was still great. The beginning of every episode is really, really very moving.

But my win is there's a leading man in it who is so outstanding. And Matthew Broderick's always good, but that's not who I'm going to talk about. Do you know who Taylor Kitsch is? Oh, yeah, he was great. Yes, of course. He was in Friday Night Lights. And then he was in Lone Survivor. He was great in True Detective.

Oh, yeah, he was in that. I forgot. Anyways, this guy, I'll tell you, you can't watch this guy and watch his digression and his fall into addiction and how he tries to get out of it and not feel empathy for addicts. You do. I agree with you. I agree with you.

First off, he is such a leading man. He is so likable. He is so handsome. But in addition, you just want to wrap your arms around addicts and sort of say, I don't know, at least for me, I've always looked at addicts as like it's a personal failing and get your shit together. And you just see this guy who just has everything and is a really good man and strong and just has fallen to addiction. and just has fallen to addiction. And I just thought, I thought, I spoke to a person who's considered, I guess, technically a whistleblower now about a project I'm working on. I thought, why would this person do this and speak to us? And this person said that art is so important in terms of storytelling and empathy and progress. And that really struck me. And this embodied that for me, that this guy's portrayal

made me so much more empathetic for addicts. And anyways, my win is leading man Taylor Kitsch. I think this guy's going to be an enormous, I think he could be kind of like a Marlon Brando-like figure. I think he was fantastic. Oddly enough, this weekend, Amanda met one of the screenwriter for it and the showrunner, Micah Fitzerman-Blue, I think that's who she met. And he was wanting to get back to work. But I think, worth seeing, and you're right, Taylor Kitsch was amazing. Yeah, really, really fantastic. And wow, do you walk, I mean, as always, at the end of this thing, you walk away just so upset. Don't you want to just get a Sackler, find a Sackler anywhere? That's how I felt after

Dope Stick. I know they're not the only problem in the world, but I wanted to find a Sackler and just be very angry at him in a very angry way. Anyway, there's a lot of Sacklers out there wandering, still wandering around. They didn't pay anything near what they did to this country. They didn't, not at all. Because of Rudy Giuliani, as you noticed, popped up in that one. Could you believe that? Of course I could. But Mary Jo White, too, by the way.

Someone who had a much better reputation than Rudy Giuliani. A whole bunch of people just totally took a digger for those terrible people for the money. What do you got planned this week, Kara? This week, I'm going to California. I'm going to be at Code. Oh, that's right.

In Orange County. Yes, Orange County. So I'll be there for a short, in LA, for a short time. And then I'm going up to San Francisco for several days. And for the weekend, doing some things around my house, some interviews. I'm going to look at some of these efforts downtown to try to reinvigorate downtown

for possible doing a podcast on it. What are you doing? What am I doing? I'm going to Helsinki on Wednesday, and then I come back, and then I'm going to the south of France for the weekend, and then I'm going to Barcelona for another work event on Monday. Barcelona. Barcelona. Well, that's good. Yeah, it's a great city.

You're such an international man of mystery. Anyway, I think we got a lot of listeners in Hollywood after all our smart talk. And I've heard from most of them, and it hasn't been pretty. What do you mean? It hasn't been pretty. Oh, they're mad at you? Oh, the union people are mad at you. But you continue to slap the union silly for, I don't know why you keep doing it, but there you are. That's why, right?

They're mad at you for that. And I've heard from a lot of writers. I quietly, I get emails from people saying, you're right, da-da-da, and then I get very public. Yeah, angry. Yeah, people are very upset. Oh, can I just say, though, I sent you a picture of a woman with a dog like yours. A great day. Yeah, they loved it.

I took a lot of selfies. And every single person at the two weddings I was at in the past two weeks, every single person, house got. Everybody. It's literally like we're married. That makes me feel good. It's all of them. They love the show. It makes them happy.

They hug. It was nice. It was very lovely. Well, any person who owns a Great Dane is someone who's affectionate and has strong character. Did you see that New York Times article about owning a big dog in the city, though? Actually, big dogs, there was some misinformation in that article. Great Danes are fantastic apartment dogs because they're actually quite sedentary. It's the young gun dogs.

You don't want like a Vichla or a German Shorter Pointer. That is what you do not want in a city because they will take off. Yeah. They will take off. In a small apartment in New York. Okay. That sounds great. Anyway, how is your great dude?

Oh, she's adorable. Although last night I was on the computer and I'm like, get away from me. You know, she comes over and great Danes will rear up their hindquarters as a means of affection. And I'm like, get away from me. And I'm not exaggerating. She went over to her dog bed outside of the TV room, which she never does. And then I was going to bed. She just comes down to bed with me.

She wouldn't even look at me. She wouldn't. She like, wouldn't even, I'm like, I'm like, come on, sweetheart. And she like, wouldn't even look up at me. And then she didn't come down to like three in the morning. It's literally, I am in a passive aggressive relationship with my great dad.

Oh, I can see that. That gives you that look, that side eye. Very emotional, very emotional. I'm not happy with you, Scott. Now you want me. I am not an affectionate spigot. You can turn off and on. Because your wife is, I'm assuming, head on.

Like when she's pissed, you know it, right? Oh, no. You don't want to piss off the Panzer Tank Division known as. No. You best stay out of that. Yeah, this one's just plain. Do not poke the German bear. Yeah.

Whatever I said, I'm sorry. Anyway. I like the dog doing that. Oh, my God. You're so controlled by everybody in your life. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

Scott, that's the show, and an enjoyable one it were. We'll be back on Friday for more. Will you read us out? Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andertat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Neil Saverio, and Gaddy McBain. 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 later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Cara, have a great rest of the week.

You too.