Pivot - Zuck's Second Chance, Lina Khan's Losing Streak, and More

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

Kara and Scott discuss actors joining writers on the picket line, and Ticketmaster vs. Taylor Swift fans, again.* Also, Threads hit 100 million users in just five days, does its success give Mark Zuckerberg a chance to atone for the sins of his other products? Or will Elon Musk just drag him down into a *checks notes* “literal dick measuring contest.” Plus, the FTC is on an antitrust losing streak, and a listener disagrees with Kara on nuclear energy. You can listen to Kara’s interview with Jake Tapper here. We’ve got some more listener mail episodes coming your way soon, so send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot. *Ticketmaster's statement re: Taylor Swift ticketing in France: The onsale date and time for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour in France is being rescheduled and tickets are still available. This sale was disrupted by an issue with a third-party provider and they are working to resolve this matter as soon as possible.   As soon as we saw fans experiencing issues, queues were paused. All codes that were not used to purchase tickets today will remain valid. Fans previously selected to participate in the onsale will be notified directly of the new onsale date and time.  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 Cara Swisher broadcasting from Scott's dining room. And I'm Scott Galloway. Welcome, Cara. Thank you for having me. I came

in on a red eye, and I arrived rather early. And I got Scott as he was emerging from bed, which was a really nice moment for us, I thought. It was nice, right? Yeah, yeah. You're in really good shape. I got to see your stomach already. You have abs. You've got some abs going on and everything. Well, the secret is I've been on testosterone for about five years, but now I'm injecting it in my eyes, and it's really paying off. Good. Well, it looks great, let me just say. And I was thrilled that you weren't naked when I arrived, which would have been a lot for us at this point. Well, Big Ed and the twins will welcome you the next time you walk through the door, Kara. No, thank you. No, thank you. How do you turn a lesbian more lesbian?

Yes, that's true. That's true. That's fair, too. But you're kind of a lesbian in your own right. I am. Thank you for saying that. Anyway, what are you doing? How are you doing here in New York?

You're liking it. You love New York. I love it here. I literally just take walks around Soho, catching up with a bunch of old friends, doing lunches. I really do think every city in the world is competing for number two. I mean, you got to like cities and every city comes with its own set of baggage, but all you need to do is do a tour through all of the big cities on the West Coast. I mean, and I have noticed, to be fair, that New York has more

homeless. And for the first time, I started with how much I love New York and how much I love being back, but I did really have noticed this trip. I mean, the problem is when you're living in a city, the burn is slow and you don't register it. But I come back here infrequently enough, there's enough space between when I come back. For the first time, I am like when I'm on the subway, I'm aware. And I usually am totally oblivious to anything around me because I feel safe. Sure. Well, London is a little different. Europe is a little different, too.

Oh, London, you're oblivious. I just don't even look around, don't think. Well, it's not as big a problem. And in New York, I've noticed there's been a real uptick in, I don't want to demonize the homeless, an uptick in the number of homeless and then separately because I don't want to equate homeless people necessarily with crime. But I just feel less, I don't know what the term is. You just feel more uneasy. Yeah, it's interesting. It's, you know, everyone sort of dumps on San Francisco and then everyone's getting this.

Every city is having these issues. San Francisco just was first, right, as they are in many things. And so, and they're working out their problems and trying to figure things out. Just go to Seattle or Portland. Yeah, I know. So, it's really, it's a big, it's a city problem. It's something we talked about quite a lot, like how to solve it. Because it's all interconnected with drug use and homelessness and, you know, remote work.

What's the connection with the remote work? Well, people aren't downtown. Oh, I see. There was one or two very bad areas of San Francisco, maybe Tenderloin particularly, sometimes SOMO, although it was full of tech companies. And so there was a lot of traffic and businesses that are related to it. And downtown, obviously, was full of companies. And people are struggling to get people to come back to work still, even if, even with demands. But in San Francisco, AI is really starting to give the city some pep, some more pep, companies starting there and things. So we'll see. Anyway, but it's true. It's true. Cities

face big challenges going forward on lots of issues, but I still love cities as you do. Yeah. It was happy to, I absolutely love being back here. I can't get over how many dispensaries have opened. It's like marijuana in every corner. It's crazy. Yeah, we just need more ice cream shops and more bakeries. But I go to Balthazar Boulangerie, and I spend like $90 on almond croissants and donuts and come back. And by the way, I bought granola for you.

Oh. You would like granola? I don't eat granola. I don't eat granola. I hate granola. See, you don't know me. You don't eat granola? I do.

I do. Amanda loves granola. Maybe I'll bring it to her. How about that? How about I do that? I don't, I'm not a granola lesbian. I don't know what else to say. You're not a granola lesbian? Yeah. Yeah know what else to say. You're not a granola lesbian.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But thank you. It's very thoughtful. I probably should have said I love it, but I can't do that. Anyway, today we'll talk about whether Meta can make the most of Thread's impressive launch. And by the way, Scott Galloway wins on that prediction, although way earlier. And whether the new social media network will just go the way of Google+. It is not.

I know there was an article in the New York Times and written by someone who worked for many years, but it's wrong. We'll also talk about Lena Kahn's losing streak in her antitrust war on big tech and what that might mean. And we have a listener question about nuclear energy. But first, the actors could be joining writers on the picket line very soon after their union in Hollywood Studios failed to reach an agreement over contracts. A lot of their negotiating committee are tweeting that the contract is expired. That means 160,000 actors. This is a lot of people compared to writers. Game show hosts, stunt performers, and announcers are headed for the strike. The writer's strike has shut down most productions here in the U.S., but not all of them. It would also keep actors from participating

in promotional activities so that all Barbie press you've been seeing with Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling will stop. I had an interview with Greta Gerwig that had been canceled because of the writer's strike. And the Emmys would have to be delayed from September to January. This would be the first time since 1960. 1960, that is, what, 40, a long time ago. 63 years. Let me just help you there. Thank you so much. That would be the first time. Wait, no, it's more what, 40, a long time ago. 63 years. Let me just help you there. Thank you so much.

That would be the first time. Wait, no, it's more than, yeah, 63, you're right. It's a long fucking time. I'm pretty sure it's exactly 63 years. As Barbie says, math is hard for Kara Swisher. Actors and writers went on strike at the same time. This has not happened since 1960. Is this the leverage that they've been trying to get?

It certainly does create problems economically. Politicians will start to pay attention, et cetera. What do you think? Oh, there's no doubt about it. It gives more leverage to the WGAs at the Writers Guild. I actually had a podcast out of a buddy, a fraternity friend named Billy Ray, who went on to be a really successful writer and is also very politically active and aware and a thoughtful guy. And I think at one point the WGA asked him to be involved in the group that handles negotiations in The Last Rider Strike.

And, you know, Billy has a really strong soul and a sense of, he's been exceptionally successful, but a sense of comity of man or, you know, brotherhood and sisterhood. And it was one of the, I don't know, 10,900 of the 11,000 writers who reached out to me to tell me I was a fucking idiot. Yeah, I know. He's been put in place to deal with Scott Galloway. I got so much stuff in L.A., let me just tell you.

Oh, my God. A lot. These people take themselves very seriously. I got to admit, though. No, they just think you're a jerk. Their insults are very creative. That's their creative outlet. Their insults are very creative. That's their creative outlet.

It's coming after me now. L.A., all it was was, how's Scott? Tell him he's an idiot. I was like, on it. There you go. Yeah. Sounds like my girlfriend's getting together. Anyways, but he's basically said, come on my podcast.

He did a podcast about it. Yeah, this gives them leverage. What I don't, the interesting thing here is that there's an enormous dynamic or shift in the leverage or the dynamic. That's what I worry, the power dynamic. And that is, and they don't talk about this. There's just this enormous substitute for all of this called TikTok. And I don't think at the end of the day, the consumer is the tail that wags the dog here. And then beyond the consumer, it's shareholders. And if you think about what's happened over the last 10 or 15 years since the last time there was a strike, basically Amazon was the first company where investors decided to replace profits with growth. They said, as long as you keep growing, we'll take your stock up. And all of corporate America is basically run

on decisions based on what happens to the stock price. And then Netflix adopted the Amazon model and spent at what is an unprecedented historic level. And everyone had to follow them. And what it created was over the last 10 years, a series of unsustainable spend cadence that just every peacock doesn't work at its current spend. You know, Hulu does not work. Amazon Prime Video doesn't work, Apple TV, but none of these things work at their current spend levels because they don't have Netflix shareholders who will continue to take the stock up on growth. By the way, prices have just gone up

for Disney and some others, but go ahead. But essentially they've had 10 years where they've increased the spend levels to just unsustainable levels. And now that the market or the studios are saying, okay, go on strike, girlfriend. It's an excuse for us to lower our costs. And what they've kind of done

is said, we're the sparklets water delivery guy and we're going on strike. But here's the thing, I live on a houseboat on Lake Mead and I have water everywhere. Our queues are so deep. And also, I think they don't recognize that they have this, consumers now have this substitute called TikTok. I would bet that a large portion of who used to be the core movie-going market, basically young men and boys, they were the ones that went and saw movies five times. They are now watching more TikTok than they are movies and TV. So I think what happens here, I do think this gets settled not as soon as they think but in three or six months because I think the studios and the actors, and I said this on the podcast, I think they see each other as their, the enemies, they're not, they should, they should bind together. All right, but what is the, I want you to give the case why, why they might win. I want you to think in a different way. One of the things that Deadline reported, which a lot of

people think was too dramatic, it seemed like a lot, that the end game is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses. Some thought it was far too dramatic, this report. Others, it sounds to me like something a studio person might say. It was one quoted source. So, you know, just trying to starve them out, I suppose that's the way you're thinking of it. But say something that would be a problem for these studios. Is it the pressure from politicians in Los Angeles and California or nationally? Is it the continued, you know, post-pandemic they're trying to recover and they still are in that zone that they're like, oh, we better not keep doing this or what? It's much different for Disney than it is for Netflix. I think Netflix actually benefits the

longer the strike goes on. Netflix has a subscription model. No one is canceling their subscription because of the writer's strike. However, the upfronts are crickets right now because no one can announce their false slate and convince Kraft or P&G to commit to 50 or 100 million in advertising. So what I think is strange here is that the guys who are more focused on broadcast advertising are negotiating with and pretending or under the delusion that they have the same interests as Netflix. Yeah, or their own streaming businesses, right? Netflix has an international production capability to continue to produce content that these other guys don't have. And there'll be more documentaries.

There'll be more. That's right. Well, there'll be more reality. There'll be more news. And the bank of content is so deep. One interesting thing, I did an interview about, I did an interview with three people talking about Fox News and where it's going. One of the interesting is Greg Gutfeld continues to operate and the late night shows are dark because of what's happening with the writers' strike.

And he's now bigger than, he's been beating Colbert even. And he's definitely beaten Fallon and Kimmel, the Jimmys. And so there's benefits here for a lot of types of shows, for sure, that don't require WGA writers, for example, or actors. Well, just as you bring up an interesting point, just as COVID, most things, whether it's e-commerce, whether it's retail, whatever you want to look at, teen depression, it's reverted to the same curve as if COVID hadn't happened. The structural enduring change is remote work. Office occupancy is just never going to recover to the same levels it was. And that is even firms that even people go back to work are going to go back three or four days. They're not going back five days. The thing that never recovers coming out of the writer's strike is late night TV. People are just going to find other habits and other things to substitute the 60 minutes before they go to sleep. And what, you know, Netflix, I would doubt Netflix can even register a perceptible change in the number of subscribers due to the writer's strike. But if you're NBC Universal, if you're Disney and you just had your upfronts and you're like,

our fall lineup is this thing we filmed two years ago that we weren't going to release, but now we're releasing it. And all of a sudden their CFO is like, Jesus Christ, we're fucked. We're used to getting three, five, $800 million in upfront commitments. They're getting really hurt. What's a shame here is the

biggest winner coming out of this, the biggest losers will be the writers because they're going to figure out they don't have as much leverage as they thought. And then two, the biggest winner is going to be Netflix. Interesting. And they've got a lot of hits going on now. They're doing very well with recent bunch of shows compared to a lot of the other streamers. I just want to clarify the big asks from the writers are for better pay in the streaming era and assurances that AI won't replace them, among other things.

But let's pause there. I asked Billy Ray, my friend, I said, name an industry, no matter how much leverage the unions have, which you have almost none here, agreed to hamstring or pause a technology. I couldn't think of a single instance. What has GM, you know, the factory, the UAW can literally shut down GM or Ford. Have they ever agreed to stop automation? I mean, they just wouldn't. I mean, that's a ridiculous ask. You're

delusional if you think, because here's the bottom line. I bet a third of writers, if not half, are using AI themselves. But you want the studios not to use it? You know, it comes on the heels. HBO cleaned up at the Emmy nominations, not Netflix. Well, one show. It's mostly because of that show's podcast. Well, three, actually. Yes, it's true.

It's the Kara Swisher podcast pushed it over the top. Succession got 27. Last of Us got 24. And White Lotus got 23. So all of them did very well. Obviously, Succession. You could, and White Lotus got 23. So all of them did very well. Obviously, succession. You could build a career as an academic. I was, I don't want to say a coach academics, but I get calls from academics all the time and it goes something like this.

My shit's so much better than yours and you're richer than me. How do we close the gap? And I would say, you got to find the right industry. And I found e-commerce and disruption. industry, and I found e-commerce and disruption. You could, in organizational behavior or management, just study how HBO consistently does more with less. HBO has a fraction of the budget of Netflix, and who do we, they clean up. What is it about the culture at HBO that creates- Set by Richard Plopler, who left. Where they can create content that becomes the water cooler content.

It is. The quality hits keep coming. They're not so good on the fun stuff like Netflix's, like Extraction and Extraction 2, which I love. But they definitely, the substantive show. Now, these shows, Succession, even though it's a huge mental hit, was not a big ratings hit, right? It wasn't as many people. But it still captured the zeitgeist as did The Last of Us and White Lotus. So they may be smaller shows, but they sort of punch over their ratings weight, at least.

Yeah, I agree. I think it would be a great study. Does it say anything about the bad press around the Max rebrand or has nothing to do with it and the drama at the parent company, which is under pressure with the debt and things like that? It says to me that the people at HBO have kept their heads down and are ignoring the shit show that is Time Warner and Zaslav and all that. It doesn't, it appears to me they have not lost their stride. They have not lost. I mean, think about HBO has basically been this Kong ball. First, it was owned by AT&T. I mean, there's been all sorts of distraction there, and they have just kept,

they have just kept their head down. I think it's super impressive. They're good. He'll, of course, peacock at the Sun Valley Conference going on now. He might have to sell HBO. Yeah, maybe so. Maybe he's doing it right now. And you know who would buy it? You'd get a huge number for it, and the Gulf would buy it, and they'd pay an outrageous number for it. Yeah, that'll be it. They're going to own everything. One more very quick note, Ticketmaster, again, had a website list of thousands of Taylor Swift fans fuming when they were unable to get tickets for her upcoming European shows.

Something similar happened in November. They got hauled in front of Congress. They blamed an unnamed third-party provider. You know, it's not, well, Taylor Swift just moves everybody, like in terms of money, in terms of it being the biggest concert tour in history, I think it might be, it's going to surpass Elton John. A lot of attention here. Ticketmaster really has to get its act in order. There can't be any glitches. Yeah, I can't understand why the CTO at Ticketmaster, who should have been

fired about seven times by now, hasn't just outsourced the whole thing to Oracle or Amazon and said, look, just make sure when Taylor Swift tickets go on sale that the site doesn't crash. I mean, if Netflix can figure out a way to pump billions of terabytes or whatever it is into our house, if Amazon can figure out a way to handle all the traffic in the holidays, how the hell can Tickermaster not figure out a way? She's very popular. Guess who's going to her show soon? I could not name a Taylor Swift song. I could not name one.

Guess who's going. Kara Swisher's going. She's very excited. I'm going to get in shape for it and sing. You're very pop. That's one of the things I really like about you, is that despite being, you know, the mayor of Wokistan, you don't go for like, you're not like going to the Angelica Theater to see some, you know, documentary on. I don't see any of the, I don't see old movies. That's not Kara's jam. That's not Kara's. I don't like that stuff.

Amanda, that's Amanda. That's Amanda. That's my wife. You like The Rock and all that stuff. But can I tell you something? She's flying across the country to come to see Sailor Swift. This is a very non-Amanda thing to do, but she even is excited, so.

Well, more importantly, let's bring Amanda back to me. You know, she edited a story in the Washington Post by M. Peetard on masculinity. I thought it was a tour de force. And the thing I loved about the article was I love articles about these types of hot topics where you can't figure out the political leanings of the writer. Oh, yes. It was great reporting. She did exactly what she was supposed to do. And I thought she captured, I just thought she captured the issue. And I like the fact it was long form.

I like the fact that clearly the editor, Amanda, let her run. Yes, yes. And I remember it was one of those interviews I did. I like the fact that clearly the editor, Amanda, let her run. Yes, yes. And I remember it was one of those interviews I did. I did it over Zoom. And I remember thinking, I have no idea where she's taking this. And I got a little bit nervous because you always wonder when the hit piece is coming, when they're going to make you sound like an asshole or take words out of your mouth or put words in your mouth.

And I was featured next to my kind of my new role model, Richard Reeves. Yeah. I think he's fantastic. Unfortunately, I was right after Jordan Peterson, which just freaks me out. Well, you can't not do it without Jordan Peterson. Yeah. You can't. You got to include him.

But, you know, it's interesting. This topic is a big one. I think you're going to have a big hit on your hands with your book on this issue. All right. Let's get to our first big story. It's been a little over a week since Threads launched, and it's definitely time for us to unpack the Internet's hottest new social media service. First off, Scott made a prediction on day one that Threads would get to 100 million users in five weeks. Oh, it was five days, Scott, but you did a good job.

I mean, it was amazing that they did. This is according to Facebook. I mean, Meta, by the way. I'd love to know that you've had some time to, what do you think of it? How are you liking it? You're posting on both places. So, I mostly just insult Elon and his minions on Twitter. But I'm much more expressive on threads and Instagram.

But what do you think? Overnight, I'm sort of 80-20. And that is, of the 100 units of time I spent on a micro-blogging network called Twitter, 80% of it has leaked to threads. Yeah, and tell me why. Because the primary reason, the singular reason for this firm's for thread success is simple. It's not Twitter. Ah, okay. That's why it's successful.

Disruption is not only a function of the disruptor, it's a function of the disruptee. And everyone was looking for a reason to get off. I mean, this is literally, Twitter is the most, the biggest self-inflicted wound in the history of business. It has taken, it said, okay, let's take the idea of verification and subscription, which is the right strategy, but let's do it in such a way that we elevate shitty content and diminish good content and piss people off for almost no revenue. Let's attract trolls and vile content that has taken years to mostly screen out. Let's just say, come one, come all. to mostly screen out, let's just say, come one, come all. All the things that made Twitter terrible that they have spent billions of dollars and years trying to clean up. And anyone who keeps droning on about free speech has decided that they want their misinformation

spread faster. That's essentially anyone crying about free speech is like, I want my lies to run unfettered. And then they have, I mean, I was trying to think about, he brought in a group of advisors who shall go nameless. I'm like praying that they start advising Putin. I mean, what advice exactly have they given the guy that has worked here? And then they stopped paying their bills. If you have been laid off, the severance you were contractually obligated to, he's decided the richest man in the world is not paying his bills. And I mean, it's just everything's about, okay, this is what you want when you're a wealthy person.

One of the key algorithms to happiness is to be rich, but anonymous. But some people, and I can kind of relate to this, are narcissistic and like public press. But the problem is with something like Twitter, the greatest self-inflicted wound in history in terms of public perception is Elon Musk, had he never downloaded the Twitter app, would be the most admired person universally globally, hands down. But because of Twitter's ability to take your id and remove all filters and screens, like every journalist prays to get a guy like Elon Musk to get raw moments. They get it 30 times a day with Twitter. He just says what's on his mind. And in the process,

he has revealed himself and people don't like it. Yes, that's true. 100%. So let's talk about Threads because Threads has a great start. What do you like about it? Interestingly, Casey Newton said something I thought was smart. Today on Threads, so far, I've seen a marked shift towards people. I actually follow in the feed, plus lots of sharp discussions of news and less focus on whatever might be going on at Twitter. Good signs for this app. People, of course, had to talk about the app itself for the first few days and put their thoughts on it. I do want to hear your thoughts because it still has a lot of work to capitalize on the momentum. Obviously, they haven't rolled out search and trending topics. I don't think they're going to do trending topics, chronological feed, although Masari, who runs it at Meta, says they're coming very soon. I think they probably are working overtime to get especially chronological feed and search. I think they're wary about trending topics because of all the political issues around those.

But they're working on a lot of the basics, probably not a desktop app at this point. So what do you think of it so far in terms of keeping you engaged? I think Casey's right. You're seeing relevant things. I've had some great relevant things now. I like read it for news. I do. I found lots of news by following read it for news. I do. I found lots of

news by following a bunch of news organizations I like. And now I get a lot of my news from there. Well, you started, so you finish. You go first. I've been sucking all the oxygen out of the room. No, no, not at all. I like it. I like it. It's very pleasant. I like the comments, the engagements off the frigging charts. And it's not people calling me names and saying nasty. Like, I go over to Twitter, in a second, I got six or seven really unpleasant. I got some good things, but I turned off comments. I turn off comments. That's the way I do it.

Interestingly, over Twitter, I have it default set to only people can comment that I follow, and it keeps going back to everyone can comment without my permission. follow and it keeps going back to everyone can comment without my permission. So I find that irritating because then I get a range of vomit and some good things, not many. And then over at Threads, I get really interesting, even criticisms I think are valid. And then I have good conversations. Kara, I don't like that you said this and here's why. And it actually is a good, you know, there's some lecturing. You shouldn't platform Elon, that kind of stuff, which I don't welcome. But in general, I find it really pleasant, easy to use. I would like some more features and tools. But in general, it's working rather well, I think.

And I sort of, I did a little screed against the Times piece by Mike Isaac, who I like, who worked for me and I like very much, comparing it possibly to Google+. And I was like, it's nothing like Google+. Google people did not have any social media expertise. They were antisocial, I would say, as people. It was bad. It had stuff like circles that made no sense. It was badly done. It just, it had nothing. no sense. It was badly done. It just had nothing.

Mark Zuckerberg was bad at crypto. He was bad at dating services. He's not bad at social media. He's just not. He's quite good at it. Of course, there's problems with him around misinformation and sloppiness of addiction and not being responsible enough. But boy, does he know how to build a social app. Yeah, look, let's be honest. It's a total ripoff. It feels the same. It looks the same. The UI is a

little cleaner. The designers are really talented. Which they did at Instagram versus Snapchat. That's right. It looks really, really clean and nice. But here's the difference. The culture so far is different. And that is earlier in the pod, we were talking about, I was saying for the first time in a while when I'm in New York, in certain instances, I feel uneasy. That describes how I feel when I pull up the bird. I just feel uneasy. Someone's going to, you're going to find really vile things in your comment section. And I absolutely don't mind pushback. I learn from it. I get it wrong all the time. mind pushback. I learn from it. I get it wrong all the time. And I appreciate when people say, this is where you got it wrong and this is why. And I learned from it. And I think people, I think it's a gift. And when people provide civil pushback, it's a gift. And a lot of times they're doing it out of really wanting to advance the quality of the conversation and also inform you. When you go onto Twitter, your blood pressure goes up and it's like, is this a bot sponsored by someone who's trying to take crypto to the moon and wants to

undermine your credibility because you have been questioning crypto? Is this someone who just hates you and has several hundred fake accounts? Or is this just an adversary of the United States who has decided to have bots create dissension and agita? If you created a replica of a city, which is what they have kind of done, exactly the same, but you populated it with people who decided we're just going to be a little kinder to each other, we're going to be a little bit more civil to each other.

And by the way, all of your friends are here. All the people I want to get content from are all of a sudden you wake up and boom, they are there in their city. And they're also, I have to say on the function where you can pick people, including brands and things like that, I find it very easy to decide who to pick from it. It's a very well done, like, I was like, yeah, sure. Linda, you know, whoever it happens to be like Reuters. Yes. I'll take, you know, I'll take Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'll take, it's, it's offering me things I like, like who I would like to follow, which I think was interesting.

But Twitter never does. You have to sort of like, you have to search around and find people and this and that. But what it got me thinking from a public policy standpoint is it made me realize how powerful it would be and something that I think should be a focus for, I don't know, Senators Blumenthal or Warner or Klobuchar. Well, not only on antitrust, as it show, and this is the real problem here, that this is the only company that's been able to be a viable threat because they can bundle in and aim there. Again, they're a three-billion-person strong cannon. But a more nuanced legislation of what this has really highlighted the importance to me of and how powerful it would be is that if you pass legislation that said any social media network, if I go through the energy and time of building a follower base, that it's interoperable and it's transferable. But this one is.

This one will be, apparently. That could be huge. Because what that says is, okay, Emeta, if you maintain this culture of being mendacious fucks where you decide to ignore the externalities here in exchange for money, I can take my, whatever it is, 65,000 followers now and port them over to Post or Mastodon. And that will keep you honest. Because what Twitter has, the moat around leaving, was simple. Everybody you knew was on it. So it was hard to leave town. Your parents were there.

It's hard to move. It's hard to get up and move because everybody you know was there. And trying to move people one at a time to wherever you were moving was near impossible. So to me, if in fact that's the case, I don't believe it. I think meta at its core, and I want to come back to this, are a group of people who are amoral. I don't think they're amoral. I think they're amoral and will ignore the damage they're doing because they're removed from it. But if you had legislation that said every person who follows you on a social media network is your asset and you have to have the

technology such that they can port it to another platform. I think this is a second chance for them. A hundred percent. A second chance for them to get it right. And I hope they don't go to their normal tendencies, which is fucking people. You know what I mean? Like, just fucking the user. And that'll be an – you know, look, Gates got a second chance with his philanthropy. Exactly right. A little bit. Anyway, let me ask you, though, let me shift it.

We have to talk about the reaction over Twitter. Elon Musk has responded to the new Twitter competition in a characteristically classy manner. On the day Threads was unveiled, he threatened to sue Metta over it, which most people think is nonsense. A few days later, he tweeted, Zuck is a cuck, and challenged Zuckerberg to, quote, a literal dick measuring contest ruler emoji. What a funny, he's 52, people. Let me just start again. He's 52 years old. He's an old man. Also, on Monday, Linda Iaccarino tweeted, quote, didn't want to leave you hanging by

a thread, which I thought was funny. But Twitter, you really outdid yourselves. Last week, we had our largest usage day since February. There's only one Twitter, you know it, I know it, dropping a mic emoji. That was after a Sunday tweet from Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince showing that Twitter's traffic has taken a significant dive since the launch of threads. Some Twitter users also reported that Twitter seems to be selectively blocking links to Threads.net's website, which is not a surprise. Thoughts? I think it's hilarious. I mean, I think this whole, I mean, the whole cage match and dick measuring thing, it's like,

it's funny and it's sort of a spectacle. And then you think, okay, whether it's warranted or not, both Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, young men really look up to them. And it's like, you have two of the most blessed people in the world, two of the most impressive people in the world on a lot of dimensions, living in the most blessed environment in the world, the United States, who have extraordinary

lives. And they decide that the way they're going to solve their problems is to be vile, profane, and threaten violence against each other. That's just the whole point of becoming a man, is you protect people, and you don't threaten violence against other blessed people. Well, may I read something? And they may have been kidding at the Sun Valley Conference. This is from Dylan Byers at Puck. Mark Andreessen, the investor and entrepreneur and Meta board member, was on a panel with Peter Thiel, of course, this morning

and issued a full-throated endorsement of the possible cage fight between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. It was, he said, a return to how humans have historically defended themselves, and he called for all parents to train their children in martial arts in anticipation of increasingly violent and uncertain world. That guy, both Andreessen and Thiel, also strongly advocated for all the attending moguls to homeschool their kids. I did tweet, sad, flaccid, paunchy men in their 50s, both of whom could never defend themselves if their lives depended on a dream of glory that will never be theirs.

I minced my words. And I did point out that I could kick both of their asses if I needed to. And that the dissent, Peter Thiel's always been just an awful character, but Marc Andreessen's dissent into this toxic puddle of yuck is

repulsive. But I got my kids involved in karate. Martial arts are wonderful, but one of the first tenets- Not to kill other kids. That's where I was headed. One of the first tenets in martial arts and karate is it's only for defensive measures. Only. It's never offensive. It's defensive.

And what all of these comments say is the following, that these are a group of men, despite their age, their testicles are still descending. They just don't understand what it means to be a real man. And I believe there is a time and place for violence. And I want to go totally off script here. I believe America was right to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. There is a time for violence. to Ukraine. There is a time for violence. And the reason you have a time for violence and the reason why you win wars and you turn good young people into murderers, quite frankly, is such that you can have an absence from it for a long time. The extraordinary violence in the middle of the last century created an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity. We are a competitive species. People want more than their fair share of the world's resources. We are always going to have violence. But the point of leadership is you implement massive delivered violence such that you can have peace and prosperity in an absence of violence. And when men have achieved the spoils of wars and of democracy and of the huge sacrifices people made such that they can get into these whose dick is smaller contest. It's, and you said this,

can you ever imagine two women threatening violence against each other? No, and the idea that they're, that I literally am like, our kids should do Hunger Games? Is this the plan here? I'm sure they'd love it. And they, of course, sit around

and do nothing themselves. I mean, literally, I couldn't think of two less people who would lose so badly. But that's not really the point. It's just this sort of chess meeting manliness is so grotesque for these. It's grotesque. And I kept thinking, what terrible parents that would advocate this? What terrible, terrible parents would say, sons, you know, and I got some big ones, by the way. If my kids did that, I would be, both my kids were in jujitsu when they were younger. I encouraged it. It was great. It was interesting.

It was full of, like, a lot of honor and good exercise. These guys don't do the math in terms of the second and third order effects. good exercise. These guys don't do the math in terms of the second and third order effects. And that is we're in a period right now, because we didn't want to have an open, honest conversation around, for a variety of biological society and economic reasons, a lot of young men are really struggling. Three times more likely to be addicted, four times more likely to kill themselves. It ends up that boys are physically stronger, but mentally and emotionally much weaker than girls. And they are not graduating from high school, not going to college, fewer men now, single men now own homes than women.

They are just falling behind. And what we do is we assign this to, all right, are we going to talk about it in the same context that we talked about trying to address the very tangible things that have held women back, that have held non-whites back. No. Why? Because, because these idiots conflate masculinity with toxicity. So instead of having an open conversation and having compassion for men and the unique problems that men like women face, we immediately associate anything to do with masculinity or men with this toxic bullshit. And it gets in the way of having an open and honest conversation around why men also, especially young men, have unique problems that warrant a thoughtful, compassionate response. It immediately just turns everyone into like, oh, fuck, men.

I feel terrible for their children. I have to say that was my first response. It cements this dangerous philosophy that toxicity and masculinity are synonyms. No, this is not masculinity. This is depravity. This is arrogance. This is rich people with little dicks. But you brought up something.

I just want to go back. You brought up something really powerful. And that is, you know, everything can be learned from science fiction and Star Wars you know at the end of the first trilogy or the second trilogy

Darth Vader reverts to Anakin Skywalker he comes back to the bright side of the force this is the profound

opportunity for meta this and you said this this is an opportunity for Mark Zuckerberg and the people around him to go, you know what? The mendacious fuck part of our lives in this company's history is over. And we're going to use this as a chance to shake the etch-a-sketch. We're going to have

age-gating. We're going to err on the side of overly moderating content around election misinformation or vaccine information. And we are going to show the world that we're Anakin Skywalker. We're not Darth Vader. That is the profound opportunity. I wonder, you know, Mark's been posting a lot of his surfing and workout stuff. And look, I encourage this. Good for him. And I feel like it's a good, like, I don't mind people showing off their, like, their

gun show and everything else. It's fine. It's great. I hope, I literally for the first time thought, I'm going to call him and say, please don't do this. Please don't do this. Of all the people, you have a lovely family.

Your wife is a class act who you've been married to and known since college. Can you please not do this? I don't care if you even raise billions for charity. That's the way I assume they'll, if they ever do this, like, please don't indulge in this. Just don't. Work out, put up all your videos. I'll retweet them. I don't care. This is the first time I've thought about writing or calling him and saying, as a parent, can you not do this? And I can't believe I'm saying that. I like when I see that picture of him with his shirt off, which, by the way, two of the great real legends in MMA history.

But here's the thing. When he's doing these fights, it's demonstrating excellence and strength and a wonderful component of masculinity. And that is discipline. But this is what you do in jiu-jitsu. You shake the hand of the person. He's doing this for fitness. He's doing this for excellence. He's doing this for excellence. He's not trying to embarrass anybody.

He's not doing it as a means of violence. So he doesn't seem out of anger. It doesn't seem out of anger, right? It seems out of joy. No, he's enjoying himself. And by the way, if you're under the age of 40, which he still is, and you're a male, you should be able to walk in any room

and know if shit gets real, you can kill and eat everybody or outrun them. You're going to look back on your physical marvel and you're going to wish you got an amazing fucking crazy shape. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's joyous. And guess what? It makes me less depressed. Everyone should pursue that, especially men and women as well. It's a wonderful feeling. You know, if I was Mark Zuckerberg, I'd get rid of Teal and Andreessen off the, I think Teal's off the board. I'd get rid of Mark off the board. He's a bad influence. And start again, like seriously starting. And let, do not fall prey to those people. I get why it's attractive, but it's not, it is such an opportunity. You know, his mentor, in many ways, who has his issues, Bill Gates, did get better. Like he stopped being Darth Vader and started being... That's the perfect example. And that was his original mentor.

And I hope Gates intervenes because Musk has been vile to Gates on lots of issues including COVID stuff. And I know Gates has wound up in the Epstein stuff, but a stupid judgment on his part hanging out with him at all.

But I hope he avails himself to that direction versus the other. We'll see. Let me ask you a question. You tweeted about Elon Musk also apparently launching this new AI company called XAI, I guess. He calls everything X because his original company was that. It's not his first company, his second company. The goal of his new venture is to, quote, understand the nature of the universe, which is highly specific. He has been talking about creating a non, he thinks OpenAI, which he was an early investor in and funder, is too woke. I don't even know how. They said they're going to share more information on Twitter spaces. He's got a bunch of people have joined the team from DeepMind, OpenAI,

Google Research, Microsoft Research, Tesla. Of course, this is the person saying we needed to pause, but I guess he's not pausing and he's starting a new thing. That's the only thing I admire about him is his peripatetic entrepreneurship at this point. But what do you think about this? I don't know enough about it. I think anything that Elon Musk launches has a non-zero probability of real success because he can bring so much attention to it. And he's obviously a brilliant man. But the statement that the mission is to understand the true nature of the universe, and then to say, and I believe existing platforms are too woke, is an oxymoron. That's a contradiction in statements. Because as far as we know, the true nature of the universe is woke. We don't know.

I mean, it's just, to pretend you're pursuing the truth, which is the basis of pursuing the truth is that you're a neutral arbiter. And then to say that the content so far is too woke, that's a contradiction in thinking. Well, you don't understand. Maybe the universe is supposed to be more woke than it is now. To say it's going to pursue the true nature that what he's saying is, I'm going to build something that pursues my version of the truth when he follows it up with, these guys are too woke. And these LLMs are totally, they're not sentient, or at least I don't have the brain to wrap myself around the notion that they are sentient. I couldn't figure

out why anyone would think they're sentient. And their political viewpoint or their tone or their complexion is solely a function of what is fed into them. So, is his pursuit of the true nature of the universe mean that the data set is going to be from Fox and the Daily Wire? What does that mean? But you can never count Elon Musk out. I don't know, in AI and technology, I don't know if this lends itself to his strengths, unlike media. But I know nothing about this thing so far. Do you have any insight into what it's actually doing? No, I don't.

It's a lot of men. It's still women, a lot of men. We'll see. I don't know. We'll see. I just think it's just a hypocrisy that he talked about stopping and then it starts. Just like get into it. He should get into it.

He was early to it. He was much earlier. Vinod was another person quite or very early to it, more than anybody of the venture community. So go for it. I don't mind. I love competition. But please don't lecture us on anything. Just shut your trap and make your thing.

He was late to this, though he was early. Now he's late. So now he has to dump on them. That's my only perception. That's right. This to me, XAI, whatever it's called, is to chat GPT what threads is to Twitter. This feels like a spy app. I think he's angry that he's not in charge. And now he's like really angry that a big thing in tech doesn't

have his name all over it. That he was right about, that he was early too, and very, very prescient in a lot of ways in terms of dangers. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about big tech's antitrust winning streak and take a listener mail question about nuclear energy. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter.

These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed

to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim. And we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk.

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Scott, we're back with our second big story. This has been a big year for bringing antitrust cases against big tech companies, many more than before, but it hasn't been a big year for winning them. This week, FTC chair Lena Kahn failed to block Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard, the latest in a string of high-profile losses for antitrust cases. In February, the FTC dropped a bid to block Meta's acquisition of a virtual reality startup.

In April, the federal peers' court ruled that Apple does not have a monopoly in mobile games marketing, ending an appeal of a lawsuit brought by Epic Games. You know, in this particular case, Microsoft had Beth Wilkinson doing it. Did a very good job here, who both of us know. Let's start what it means for antitrust enforcement in general.

They're going to appeal. Earlier this year, Khan said, quote, if you never bring these hard cases, I think there is a severe cost to that that can lead to stagnation and stasis. She's in an interview with me not long ago. She said the same thing. Even if we lose, we have to do it. Most many people think she should have better cases than this one that she doesn't keep getting overruled. They're investigating Amazon right now over tricking customers into enrolling in Prime. I don't know. What's your thoughts on

this? So I'm one of the people that's rooting for Lena Kahn. I think she's an inspiration. I just don't think there's anything getting around it. I think she's screwed up. I think she's picked the wrong cases and she's probably emboldened more firms to conduct more mergers because quite frankly, she's just racking up too many L's here, Kara. Yeah. And I think that the downside of not having a more practiced attorney from the government or from private practice who is better at assessing, she needs a win. She needs a win. And unfortunately, going after these guys and then having the courts smack it down only emboldens. Yeah. Microsoft had a good argument and again hiring beth that's

like oh she's a howitzer of an attorney you you called this you said back you back when the fdc announced their case against microsoft you said the majority of the biggest players have run out of japan that's correct i was sort of perplexed by this case i was like oh gosh you know i don't usually go microsoft is right here uh but i thought, oh, this is not the one I would take. Because here's the thing. It's the threat of jail that results in the right plea agreements and a conservation of resources. It's when the DA says, when I take you to court, if you force me to take you to court and you force me to put this case in front of a jury and you waste my time, I'm going to win. And if I win, you are going to jail for a long time. And so what happens is a lot of government resources are conserved because they say, I'm giving you this deal

because if I take this to court, you're going to lose. And so it relies on judges too. Obviously, there needs to be antitrust legislation updates since it hasn't happened in a long time, but that's struggling at the federal and state level. But her job is to assess the law as it is. That's right. And pick winning cases. This is the law. This is what we have to do. She is correct. And so is John Cantor, both of whom we've talked to about the problem is the laws itself. But this is where she lives. And she needs to understand where she lives. And let me tell you, nothing's going to happen in Congress. Legal efforts let news publishers bargain collectively have lost steam. Bills targeting Meta, Amazon, Apple fail to get floor votes unless Congress. David Cicilline, who I know very well and I like very much, he's moving back to Rhode Island. He's from the House this summer. No one else is chomping at the bit to fill his role on the subcommittee on antitrust commercial administrative law. But there is a lot of bipartisan support for this, but it's just not moving. So she's not going to get saved anytime soon by Congress. In fact, she's appearing in front of a house,

now a Republican-dominated house, who's going to try to attack her. But I can tell you firsthand what is happening in boardrooms, because I was on the board of a company that was in a highly regulated industry and we're constantly worried about regulatory oversight. And that is everyone feels more emboldened now because it's, well, even, I mean, these guys talk to each other. And what you want is an organization and its representatives in D.C. to communicate with each other and go, no, you shouldn't acquire that company. Or if you did it, you'd want to do the following things. And now, quite frankly, a lot of companies are like, we don't give a shit what they think.

Because if they try and sue us, we're going to win. I am rooting for Lena. I think she's an inspiration. Quite frankly, her appointment is turning out to be a disappointment. Because the net effect of racking up all these Ls and not having good judgment around which cases to select, it makes the FTC and the DOJ look flaccid. Yeah. Well, they're junkies doing separate things. They do things separately. But interestingly, Microsoft still has a challenge in the UK, which has said no to the merger,

and it never really goes back. So it'll be interesting to see what happens there, you know. And I think one of the things that, I read the whole thing from the judge, and the judge was like, listen, you don't have the stuff here. She's like, they are promising to share it. They are doing this. They are doing that. And, you know, I was like, is the judge doing your homework for you? Like, that was, and I'm not a lawyer, but I certainly was quite, I would, you know, as you know, I expressed discomfort over this lawsuit very early because I know a thing or two about the video game industry. And so anyway, it's, we'll see. Lena, do better, do better, do better. We know you're working hard. We know you're smart and we know you need congressional legislation, but you don't got it. So work with the jujitsu you have.

And also just breaking now, by the way, FTC opens an expansive investigation into OpenAI probing whether chat GPT puts consumers' personal reputations and data at risk. Good. Good for them. That's a good investigation. I'm okay with that. What about you? Yeah, I think his name is, is it Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA? Yeah, NVIDIA. I saw him at CAN. I thought he said something really interesting. He said that

everyone should own their digital twin. And I thought that was a really interesting way of encapsulating it. And that was your voice, your likeness, your, you know, when you can tell chat GPT in the voice of Kara Swisher. And if it comes back with something that is in your voice, that means it has crawled your content. And then the question becomes, okay, at least Google, when they crawled your content at the New York Times, was claiming to send you traffic and give you pennies on the dollar. Yeah. No, Sarah Silverman is suing. I think it's OpenAI. I think she's suing her over copyright infringement. But FTC, this is something

that you should be investigating, just like they should. This is not something that's not important. And going full circle back to the writers and the saxophonist, so I consulted to both Adidas, Nike, and Under Armour. And I used to say to them, you guys think you're each other's

enemy. You're not. You're competitors. Your enemy is Amazon. And you should be talking to each other and binding together because all Amazon is doing is what we did to the Native American community when we came in, and that is we atomized them, got them fighting each other, and then we came in for cleanup. And I said, that's what Amazon is doing to you. And the writers and SAG and the studios should bind together and very early have a united front against these LLMs and say, if you are crawling Modern Family or Mission Impossible or the Smart List podcast, we need to figure out a way that these creators and the studios are compensated. And we're going to get very smart about this early. And quite frankly, girlfriend, Microsoft and Bard and ChatGPT and

everything with the term AI in it is going to go nowhere fast unless we come to an agreement. That's correct. And they have an opportunity here. Let me just say, Mission Impossible's big plot, is it the villain? Guess who the villain is? Janitor of AI. Is it the villain? Guess who the villain is? Jenner of AI. Is it really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's called The Entity. But it has a person who represents it, but it's the, you can't, Ethan Hunt can't punch a computer. So it's a person that he, in his history that is- Is The Entity 62 but looks 24 because of fillers?

No, he looks great. I have to tell you. It's such a good movie. Scott, it's such a good fucking movie. Is it really? I'm glad to say that. You know what George Hahn told me, and I agree with him? He understood the assignment. He did. He put in a, it's a fantastic. At one point, he does so many of his own stunts.

At one point, someone in the audience was like, you're fucking kidding me. You're just like, this is the 20th one. And it was in, like, you're fucking kidding me. You're just like, this is the 20th one. And it was in like, good for you, man. Slow clap. It was full of fun stuff. And it made fun of itself. All the women, there's very series of very strong women, people like a lot of women, more women than men. And it was just great, just three or four really strong women in it. I'm trying to lean into yes more with my boys. And well, I said to them, we're going to be in Colorado for the next five weeks. And I said, we need to go see my dad. My dad's turning 93 next month. And so I'm taking the boys to see my dad. And I said, but we'll go to LA for a couple days. And my youngest is just so wonderful.

He's so curious. And he immediately hits YouTube. And he'll type in 12 funnest things to do in Dubai. And I said, you got 24 hours. This is yours. You'll do whatever you want. And so he's figured out our 24 hours in LA. And the two things they include are we're doing the Universal.

We're doing Super Mario Land, which will be the seventh ring of hell for me. But anyways. And then the night before, when we get there, we're going to go see Mission Impossible at the theater I worked at in high school. I think it's the Bruin Theater in Westwood. See it in IMAX. Oh, that's a great idea. You've got to see it in IMAX. I've got to tell you.

I'm telling you, this guy delivers and more. It's worth every cent of the ticket. He really is the last movie star. He really is the last movie star. All right. Let's get to a listener question. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. We've got a lot of pushback on nuclear power from listeners this week. I'm sorry, we were right. Mostly around the idea of cost, although I have a point to make in a second. I'm going to read an excerpt from one of them from a listener named Zigerd who says, when Kara says nuclear power is necessary, she misses the fact that it is necessary to demonstrate

the capital spent on nuclear delivers more power faster than spending the same capital on renewables. Maybe new tech like thorium or fusion can do that, but uranium fission has always been too expensive even before you get to decommissioning cost overruns. I'm all for exploring new power generating technologies, but uranium fission has been a failure everywhere, even France, where they're discovering they weigh underfunded end of life costs. I agree with that. Ziggard, I know this, I understand this, but I'm talking about renewals that just aren't going to get us there. And every, I've read study after study after study, they just don't. New tech is absolutely true.

And it's something I talked at length with Vinod Khosla, which will be appearing next week on On with Kara Swisher. He thinks that fusion will get there, innovation of fusion will get there faster than the permitting for new nuclear power stations that are safer and better. That said, some of the things that, like Sam Altman this week, OpenAI, Sam Altman is taking a nuclear energy startup public via SPAC. It's called Okla.

It's valued at $850 million. It's called a small modular nuclear reactor that would sell energy using the same kind of agreements wind and solar developers used to make. It's some of the innovation in nuclear, I'm very interested in, but I see, I get your point. But it was interesting that Vinod, even though he is also a proponent of nuclear energy and innovating in it, he felt like the permitting and the costs, the beginning cost down would be slower than the new stuff that he's been investing in,

in lots of ways. He also agreed with it that renewables, as they are right now, aren't going to get us there, but should be done. He's doing all kinds of renewable stuff too. He has lots of investments there. Scott? It feels like all of the above. Nuclear power, renewables, more government-sponsored research around fission and fusion, a change in lifestyle among individuals. If you look at climate change,

the two big puffs of carbon into the atmosphere were one, the suburbanization of America and our choice around cars, and two, the industrialization of China and their choice around coal. So our energy and our lifestyle choices are a big component. So education around paying more and lowering your own carbon footprint, coordinated global policy. But for God's sakes, we should be pursuing all of it. I'm a huge fan of nuclear. I think the really interesting thing about Sam Altman's SPAC around his nuclear investment, it's going to be a really interesting case study on whether the animal spirits are back, because you have two opposing forces here, and it's going to be really interesting to see who wins. And the first is Sam Altman is probably the best brand in

technology right now. I think he's likely going to be Time's Person of the Year in the next two or three years, because whoever is the wealthiest or whoever increases their wealth the most in technology has a one in three chance of being Time's Person of the Year because we are fascinated and fetishized technology and they're innovators. His brand is really strong. The nuclear brand is really strong. So those are the things in favor of this. What's really negative is this company has no revenues or little revenues and it's a SPAC. And it's just going to be fascinating. It's very early. And nuclear has a bad PR. I mean, not just bad PR, but... I think it's flipping. I think there's a SPAC. And it's just going to be fascinating. It's very early. And nuclear has a bad PR. I mean,

not just bad PR, but- I think it's flipping. I think there's a- I would agree. It's interesting. Someone was arguing with me and I said, do you think the damage done by fossil fuels is so vast? More people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than in nuclear power plants in the United States. I mean- That is a dad joke. I don't even know where that came from. We could take all nuclear waste ever produced and put it in a six-foot-high drum

that was like two soccer fields. So, like, pick your poison. And people talk about Fukushima. There is no free lunch here, or there's a very expensive lunch with renewables. And everyone has their favorite strategy. My attitude is, let's go hard at all of them, and let's raise a generation of people that get all sorts of interesting tax credits around innovation, and let's figure this shit out,

and let's continue to try and recreate the sun, whatever it might be. But I mean, it's scary to say, and I haven't done it, but one of the best investments you could have made over the last three or four years was to invest in fossil fuel companies, specifically oil companies, because the rumors of their death have been greatly exaggerated. Look around our climate this past week. We have to get rid of fossil fuels. And we're arguing, it's literally like, you know how, as you were saying, getting people to fight each other versus the real enemy, which is global warming with fossil fuels. I'm sorry. It just is not.

There's not a – we're not – we got to get off of it. And we have to try every single innovation and change the way we – Vinod has some interesting thoughts on EVs and too many cars. He doesn't like them. He wants more small devices that move people around, changing the way public transit is done. We've got to rethink everything and how we live in cities that we should probably live in. More people living in cities is better for the environment

if we can figure out a way to get them around cities and things like that. Anyway, thank you for your thing. I get your point, but we're not talking about Homer Simpson nuclear reactors at this point. We're talking about something more innovative. And again, obviously, all of the above, as Scott said. Anyway, if you've got a question of your own, and you'd like it answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question

for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Scott, one more quick break, and we'll be back for predictions. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply.

Details at fizz.ca. Okay, Scott, let's hear your prediction. I think President Trump is not going to run for president under the auspices of a plea deal. Where is that coming from? No one says that stuff. Actually, Governor Christie said it, or at least a component of it. He's going to be on the stage if Trump shows up. He qualified thanks to my donation to him. I can't believe I gave him money. I actually think Governor Christie is going to surpass DeSantis and be the number two, but I don't think it'll matter. I think Trump, I don't understand and can't empathize with President Trump, but I know how old rich men think. He has a very nice life, and his life can be going back to golf and sycophants and having sex with porn stars, which I think is a good thing. I'm not being cynical. I would like to do more of that at some point in my life. Okay. And, or.

I'm going to hit you when this is over, just so you know. Go ahead. Or he can live under the threat of prison. And I think that, I think once the third indictment, I think the laws specifically around these state secrets, I think that he has, him running for president and the momentum he has is real leverage and power. And I think he's going to cash that leverage and power in for a plea deal that includes no jail time. For all of them, because it's not just that. I think it'll be an omnibus deal. I think the DOJ or whoever it is is going to realize America's nightmare needs to end. Yeah. Well, there's Georgia, which is not federal.

I don't even know if it's possible to wrap them all together. But I think that the DOJ or whoever's in charge here is going to go, this is just bad for America. It's bad for us on the international stage. It weakens our power overseas. It's creating huge controversy and dissent across our citizenship. And I think there's going to be a deal that's going to say to him, look, you're an old man. there's going to be a deal that's going to say to him, look, you're an old man. You're going to be dead soon. He's just three years younger than Joe Biden, FYI. Just three years. And he's obese. Does he really want to die of diabetes in a cell? I mean, if he goes to jail for one year, it's probably a death sentence. I don't think someone at this age

ever recovers from being incarcerated. And even if there's a one in 10 chance, it used to be one in 100, now I think it's legitimately a one in 10 chance this guy could go to jail. This is a big prediction, Scott Galloway. No one's saying this, just so you know. It's interesting that Christie is fascinating, I think. There's so many loathsome things about him,

but he is really so, I told you my friend worked for him, who said some of his stuff is just terrible that he did as a governor, especially that Fort Lee thing. But she said he's the single best lawyer she's ever seen. She's a lawyer. And I have to say, I'm like, this guy is so articulate and on point. And I think one of the points that he made the other day when he was talking about Trump is he's like, all he has now is all these weird sycophants around him. Nobody who's worked for him says he should be president. Like, all the people. And it's just piling on.

They're piling one after the other. But try and cut out the noise and just say, okay, here's a very wealthy man who's 76 or 77. And here's a political map that shows even if he's the nominee, even if he runs for president, he's most likely going to lose. gathered everybody and has the rights to negotiate on behalf of the states and the federal government and says, look, we're going to do a plea deal. You're going to do this, this, X, Y, and Z, but it doesn't involve jail time. And you're going to leave the public stage. That to me feels like a pretty good deal for everybody. Because if he runs and he loses, and these cases keep going, and the DOJ has no reason to let up, and the guy, And the DOJ has no reason to let up. And the guys, some, you know, several hundred very angry people funded to the gills and media going after him constantly are like, we would really like to see you in jail. We would really like to. If there's a one in 10 chance of that, that is a very big motivator. I don't know if he can be convinced. He's sort of so red pilled at this point of himself. I don't know. Interesting.

I think he is more sane than people think. Maybe so. Maybe so. He did take the bankruptcy deal. He did take the, you know, he does ultimately. You get to that point in life, the bottom line is, Kara, if the threat of jail is removed from his life, he's got a really nice life ahead of him. He can surround himself with sycophants. He can just live at his golf clubs. He can just surround himself with people who think he's the shit. He can say stupid things. He can have an amazing life. Or he can walk around wondering, okay, there's a small chance I might have to like turn in my wig, the orange wig for an orange jumpsuit. When? I'm going to make you say when.

I don't know. He runs out of currency when he loses the election. He no longer has anything to bargain with. And I think a lawyer, I think somebody at some point, somebody sane is going to sit down and say, let's just go through the math. My job is to represent you. His only hope is something happens to Joe Biden. That is really his only hope. And interestingly, AOC backed Biden. So despite all these screaming about him, people seem to be like, we're doing it. We're going for it. I'm really, I am, that's another talk show, but I am really worried about, if I were the Republicans, I wouldn't even run against Biden. I'd run against,

I'd run against Vice President Harris. I would say, this is your president. And I would just run against her. I think Trump is sucking up too much of the oxygen to be able to do that well. Anyways, plea bargain. Plea bargain. All right. Okay.

And when is Meta getting to $200 million? In the next 30 days, Meta is going to have a greater revenue run rate than Twitter. Well, they don't have business yet, but they will. They turn on ads. That's right. People think $8 billion a year. I would bet Twitter right now is somewhere between $100 and $150 million a month. They last it was said was $2 billion. I don't even think it's that any longer. I think with Meta's relationships with advertisers and their ad stack and their technology.

And they announced that they are at 200 million and people are like, it's cleaner, it's nicer. They get people to test. Give us 10% of your budget from Facebook for this. You're going to love it. Bigger than Twitter, bigger business than Twitter in the next 30 days. All right, Scott. All right, that's the show.

This is a really good show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. And I'm naked in the next room, Cara. And just so you don't miss out on anything in the Swisher Galloway multiverse, I've got a great conversation on my other podcast. I talked with Jake Tapper about his new book, a thriller called All the Demons Are Here.

By the way, his hair is fantastic, Scott. I also got to ask him about what CNN is like in the post-Chris Licht era. Here's what he told me. Let's listen. I will say that things are really good right now. And this leadership team, and I will say right now, I am highly biased. Those four individuals are people whom I legitimately love and respect and admire and have been out for meals with just for fun, not just for work. So, you know, take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.

But I think they're doing a great job. And the focus is back on our journalism, not on palace intrigue and not on media criticism. And morale hasn't been better in years. By the way, I am such sloppy seconds. You know, it's coming on my show about two weeks after yours. Who's? Jake Tapper. Well,

he's everywhere. Let me just say, this guy knows how to sell a fucking book. He's pimping a book. I appreciate that. He's really good at it. He got all these famous people

to do it. I'm taking notes for my book and we should take notes for yours. Anyway, please read us out, Scott Galloway. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman

and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andretat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Neil Sa Severio, and Gaddy McBain. Make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great weekend.