The Bulwark Podcast - Kara Swisher: The Tech Bros Should Just Shut Up

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

Bezos, Elon, Andreessen and the whole lot are such terrible, tiny, greedy people. They blow off the public’s concerns about AI while living apart from us in their cashmere prisons; they keep talking about things they know nothing about; and they figured out how cheap it is to buy and manipulate a president. The pitchforks are coming. Plus, the SpaceX IPO is all about Elon’s self-dealing, Ellison doesn’t care about CBS News or its journalists—and only bought the network to influence Trump—injectable peptides may not be worth the risks, and some longevity tips from Kara.Kara Swisher joins Tim Miller.show notes Kara's and Scott Galloway's “Pivot” podcast Kara's "On with Kara Swisher" pod CNN's "Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever" Make laundry day the best day of the week! Get 20% off your entire order @LaundrySauce with code THEBULWARK at https://laundrysauce.com/THEBULWARK #laundrysaucepod

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show. Co-host of Pivot, host of On with Kara Swisher, creator of the CNN original series. Kara Swisher wants to live forever. The only person producing more than me. It's Kara Swisher. What's up? We are. We are funny that way, aren't we? We are. We love content. We should do less probably. No, no. More. More. Yes, I don't feel like there's enough of us out there. I agree with that. Yeah, JVL is suggesting we do a spinoff podcast about coaching our children's sports teams. And I was like, do people, do people? want to hear my opinion about everything? Really? That's a good one. I was a terrible coach, Jim. You were a terrible coach?

You're probably good. It's probably the flip on the gay thing, right? I thought, well, the outcome wasn't that great this year. So talk to me next year. I felt good. I felt like we were improving throughout the year, but the end outcome wasn't great. So we'll see how it goes.

I felt like it was hurting cats and I just didn't like the entire experience. It just wasn't. I'm surprised because I would have thought the opposite with the lesbian thing, the coach that was running circles around me in the youth basketball league. I thought she was a lesbian. My husband just thought she was a sporty straight. Oh, that happens. It's very confusing these days.

I went to the Liberty game over the weekend, and you can't tell. You can't tell anymore. It's just really hard. Hard to know. All right. We've got much to get into. Obviously, it's all the tech, AI stuff, Elon, Bezos. I wanted to just ask a big picture question to start, though, because Scott said on your pod the other

today, we are in 1999, and you agreed with that. I thought that was provocative and I wanted more. And so give us a state of play. We were talking specifically about the SpaceX documents, the SEC documents, which are so bad, mathematically speaking, that it calls to mind a lot of stuff that we had previously seen, you know, at the height of the dot-com bubble, where just everybody was like, yeah, yeah, right, yeah, uh-huh. And most of it was nonsense. Now that said, out of it came Google, out of it came Amazon. You know what I mean? Amazon had been troubled at the time. So it doesn't mean that there's not going to be big, big winners here. It's that there are a lot of stuff that isn't going to exist. And everything, I think 10% of the stock market, some number is predicated on a small number of

companies. And so if one of the struts falls out, say just this week, Uber, the CFO said, we're spending too much money on AI tokens and we don't know the efficacy of it. Like that's a statement. Like if there's more of those statements where people are like doing all this AI spending and then not finding any good use for it, it just feels like that. The cheerleader, of course we need MySpace. Of course we need six search services. Of course we need whatever it happened to be at the time. You know, I'm trying to remember Mary Meeker was back in Toys. Toys.com or E Toys. Remember, there was a bunch of them. And it has that feel. And it doesn't mean it has to happen that way. And I doesn't mean I don't think there's not going to be big companies.

It's everything is very fragile in. And when you read that SpaceX thing, you're sort of like, you've got to be kidding me that people are going to invest in this. And then now index funds have to invest in it are forced to. I want to come back to the AI stuff. So let's just sit on Elon for a second. Let's try not to do that. That's gross. I mean, you can do it if that's your preference. Not my type. I'm not really in kind of like the, you know, looks like you're wearing a pillow underneath your shirt. type vibe, but whatever. Yeah, those are the guy for minions. Kind of like the bad guy for minions isn't really my look.

But. Grogrook. Yeah, each their own. On the IPO, I guess it's about a $2 trillion valuation. Well, maybe. Well, that's what they're going for? Sure. What is this?

And like Starlink seems like a legit business. It is. Sure is. What would be a more rational valuation? Like how outlandish is it? Like in terms of the Starlinked? Link business is really promising. Now, it doesn't mean to say that they're not going to have competitors, and they are, right? But right now, they're far and above the best product. They're just about to be incorporated into American Airlines, so they're doing a lot of cool commercial stuff.

They just got a giant Pentagon thing, what deserved or not. They're doing a lot around drones. You know, Starlink is really is interesting, and that's a part of the business. It's the, it's the communications part of the business. And it's attached to SpaceX, which is a rocket company, which is a money furnace, right? And it doesn't, it's, it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't mean they're not far ahead, and they really, really are. But it doesn't mean people are going to catch up, and it doesn't mean it's ever going to make a lot of money. So that's another problematic thing. Now, that's still a promising company, but it's just not making money. And they're way ahead and their products, you know, they keep blowing up rockets, not necessarily a bad thing, but they're far ahead

of most other competitors, except for state-run enterprises, right? NASA or whatever China's cooking up. And then you have, they stuck Twitter in there, right? And that's supposed to be, it was supposed to be... How's that doing? Not well. But it doesn't matter because what it is is a data play, right? It's a data and infrastructure play. First, they merged Twitter into GROC. I think I'm doing this right because it was losing money and then they just hit it. And then everyone let him off the hook and all the other stuff because they wanted into this IPO. Then the GROC wasn't working out so well. So he sold his compute to Anthropic, which is doing well. So now he's renting out his seed corn because his own business in AI is not working and calling it data infrastructure.

structure. Sure, why not? Okay. You're essentially, you couldn't make it work and so you're selling off your compute to someone who's making it work. So that's, they're getting a billion dollars a month, I think, through 2029 for that. It's sort of like renting out, if you rent it too big an office for your startup and you start renting out pieces of it, that's what Scott was comparing it to. So that's another shitty business. And now they're thinking of shoving Tesla in here, which is a business on the decline, even though the stock stays elevated, it has the Elon part of it in there. And so even though Tesla's business is declining pretty precipitously without a new product, which their last product was the cyber truck, and we all know how that worked out, not well at

all, largely because it's a shitty product and ugly and just nobody bought them except for SpaceX bought cyber trucks. So now there's all this self-dealing happening, which is very typical of Elon. He does a lot of these things. What does SpaceX doing with the cyber trucks? Is it just like sending them up into space or are they using the outside for the rockets? them for things. Who knows? It doesn't matter because this is a board that lets Elon do whatever he wants, right? It doesn't matter. It's a self-dealing thing. They're not doing anything with them.

They were just sitting on lots. There were pictures of lots full of cyber trucks nobody wanted to buy except for straight men with a middle-aged crisis, like a midlife crisis, who are not going to get dates because of this, FYI men. Who could get into the front seat of that car with any dignity on a date? Well, there are ladies who might like that. Sure, why not, right? Let me just find this one thing. Years ago, I said, you know what he's going to do? He's going to shove that in here. He's going to shove that piece of shit in here because that's what he does. And I got attacked on Twitter. Like, oh, how dare you? He's a genius. And I was like, I don't care. He shoves shit in places so he can hide it for other things. And that's precisely what he's doing because it makes sense. It also

gives them a lot of data, you know, all manner of things. Let me read this. SpaceX is like a 2008 mortgage-backed security. But instead of an assortment of bad debt from people who aren't going to pay it back, It's an assortment of Elon's shitty companies, bad debt from people who aren't going to pay it back. Give it an Elon premium because everything gets, no matter what, people meme stock this thing. And so double it, $1.2 trillion. How do you get to $2? And the reason he's merging Tesla and the other is because some of his payoffs, if he can get the market cap up to $8, I think, this gets him up to $3.5 trillion. So merging it helps him get to his payoff, his giant payoff.

So it's all self-dealing. It's all self-dealing for Elon must to get richer. In the middle of it, some great products in the middle of it. Yeah. And the spokomeres and the self-doing kind of works, though, right? Because he's able to get capital to go out and do other cockamamie stuff. And, you know, who knows? Like something hits like Starlink does and you just perpetuates.

It's not that much of a hit. It's a stock hit that the people seem to buy Tesla even if it's declining. Right. And so people are going to buy this. And now that they've had this new SEC trick where it has to immediately, pretty immediately, within 15 days, goes into the NASDAQ index. That means all index funds have to buy it. Therefore, transfer.

Can you explain that to the trick of the new changes? Well, it used to be they'd include large IPOs into the NASDAQ index, and then index funds are forced to buy them because they have to buy a market basket of stocks. This will go in much faster and with lesser rules, right? There used to be profitability rules. this is not making money, et cetera, et cetera. And so every pension fund, every index fund, you must be an index fund, I'm an index fund, they're going to have to buy it.

And therefore, our money is being transferred to Elon and his friends, right? And then they'll cash out, and we have to stay in it because we're in the index funds. And so Open AI is going to take advantage of this, so we'll anthropic. They're big giant IPOs, and so they'll land in here. And the question is, shouldn't there be better standards for what lands into the market basket stocks that index funds are forced to buy because they're index funds. And so again, it's another gimmie and that just happened for Elon. So good for him. I think it's obviously working for Elon, maybe not to the degree that he thought in 2024, given how Doge flamed out, etc. But just

on balance is working for him. The last time you're on, the thing I always asked folks who are in tech world and who associate at various degrees with the big tech guys that kind of went from being, you know, basically capitalist Democrats to being all in with Trump is like how they feel their deal with the devil is working. And it's like, it seems a lot worse than it did six months ago. Yeah, because it's working. I don't think they were ever Democrats. I never agreed. I never, I thought the people below them certainly were very liberal, like the people who work for these companies. But these people, I would say I didn't know their colleagues. I don't know Zuckerberg, you know, Andresen. These guys work for. He was, he helps whoever helps him.

They went for Trump in 16. Yeah. Right, but he helps him, who helps him. Whoever can help them, they go towards. I never really knew their politics very much. Liberal or Republican, you never heard it. Like, it was never an important part of their thing. You know, even Zuckerberg, he complained about regulation, but not Democrats in particular. I think Elizabeth Warren sent him around the bend. That's my impression is he was really irritated by her or scared of her, whatever. But I think this is a coin operated president. and they have coins and they figured it out used to be disdainful of politics and now they're like oh it's cheap it's cheap to buy it's cheap to manipulate it's cheap to hide things um we can use all manner of our power to do so and buy our way in and i think they just from a logical point of view it makes sense if you have money and you'll you give them money and they'll do what you want you'll get the contract back it's a very cheap thing to start a pack of a hundred million dollars because you'll get what you want from these from these politicians and so to me it's kind of

like we're in the Jimmy Stewart days. Like that's who's going to win is the influence peddlers. You don't see any of them looking at it and think, God, look what happened to Anthropic and like, geez, he seems pretty erratic. And look what's going on with the broader economy and Iran. And maybe this isn't, this was a risky bet. No, I don't think they care. I think they actually have become true believers.

Like you have a David Sachs with all me. You know, the only person who stands out is the Anthropic CEO and the founder, who is just with the Pope. And they have a very different point of you. But they left Open A.L. over safety issues. So this is at the heart of their feelings, right? And so there are quieter people, the Reed Hastings, you know, Reid Hoffman's been a lot quieter lately because of the Epstein stuff, obviously. They really tried to drag him in a way that I think is probably unfair. And there's

quieter ones that are just sort of sitting by the sidelines, but there's no plus. If you want a thing, look at Tim Cook. He showed up with the gold statue and went to the Melania Brewerp Rose next to Brett Ratner at the Melania premiere. Did he have to have to? to do that? You don't see Satchanadella doing that, do you? Like, they're quiet, the ones that are objecting to it, just like the Republicans. Suddenly, Tom Tillis is a critic. Like, give me a break. He was before. He was before off the record. But he wasn't, now he's all right. How cowardly, though. It's like, oh, and he even says it. It's like, I don't know, how do you have any dignity as a man by saying that, which is like, I have the freedom to do that, to say that what I think now. I call him,

I called him too late Tom and he got real mad about it. But I, listen, I'll take it. I'm fine. Go ahead. Be brave. Here's another one of your old Silicon Valley friends that feels like the deal with the devil isn't pretty good for him. Jeff Bezos was on Squawk Box the other day. And I just want to play a little clip for you. When I last interviewed you, it was about two years ago. President Trump had just won. He was not the president yet. And I'd asked you what you thought of me at the time. And you said that you thought that he had mellowed, that he was

calmer. Yeah. And I'm curious now, here we are. Yeah, I still think that. Two years later, we've had lots of wars and tariffs and all sorts of things that have happened since then. What do you think? I think he has, I mean, I'm comparing him to his first term. And I think he is a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term. Trump has lots of good ideas, and he's done a lot of, he's been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due.

What's happening there? Oh, the whole interview was disingenuous from the get-go. That's how these people are. They're so equivocal about everything, right? They're just like, well, on one hand, I'm getting my tax breaks. The very first line of my book was so it was capitalism after all when they were giving in on immigration. And everyone was like, how can you say that? I was like, because it's money to these people.

Like that's where every decision is made in that way. If you think humanity figures into any of their decision-making, you're really naive. Right? It's really about, well, it's not so bad. And probably Bezos is hurting because Press criticizes him. That's, you know, he's probably mad at Press who criticizes him, which is why he's taking his, you know, his feelings out on the Washington Post so, so badly. But I think, you know, it's not true. It's just not true. You know, he has some good ideas. Well, sure, yeah, he does. You're right. One or two. But to dismiss the rest of it is just beyond belief. More disciplined. You have to hand it to him. And the whole thing is for

He turns the Washington Post into like a purported we're going to be for free markets, you know, kind of a B-list, a Wall Street Journal editorial board situation. But it's like, that doesn't Trump. I mean, the types of stuff that Trump is doing, you know, if a Democratic president was doing, you know, if he was shaking. Yeah, if he was shaking down CEOs and saying, you've got to settle with me on these cockamamie lawsuits or taking positions in companies, you know, or the tariffs or on and on and on, like they would be, their hair would be on fire about that.

That's correct. That is correct. Listen, you assume just because they're rich, they're intelligent in these kind of things. They're intelligent about certain things. By the way, I give it to him. What amazing things he did at Amazon, but I don't really want to listen to him talk about the media. He doesn't know what he's talking about. And when he opens his mouth, it's sort of, hello, he lied. Like the issues of the Washington Post were definitely secular.

And media companies definitely have to make money. Thanks for that tip, Jeff. Gosh, I had no idea until that this moment. seems to be making money. We're making money at the bulwark. You're making money. Right. Exactly. One of the things, you know, he was like, well, the Postists make money. Well, over at the Atlantic, Lorraine Jobs seems to be doing a pretty good job or the New York Times seems to be doing a pretty, all our independent stuff. They could do a pretty good job. What he's done is the problems of the Washington Post were entirely created by him. Not the reporters. He kept management in place that didn't react after the first Trump administration and tried to change. He kept that management in place. He did it. Then he managed to hire an even worse person who drove it even faster into a wall. And then he, like, repelled reporters and he repelled subscribers. And then he's like, well, you got to make money.

Well, it's not, well, this idiot media owner is kneecapping everybody every five minutes and then won't take accountability for what he's done. I really don't like doing the laundry. So I'm a fan of anything that makes it just a little bit easier. Recently, I've been enjoying laundry sauce. They have pre-measure detergent pods that are super easy to just pop. in the machine and go. And they make your clothes smell great. Laundry sauce is a premium-scented laundry pods that don't just clean your clothes. They elevate them with scents like Australian sandalwood,

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the bulwark at laundry sauce.com. That's 20% off your order at laundry sauce.com with promo code The Bullwark. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. It's time to make Laundry Day the best day of the week. I'm sorry to ask you this question because I'm sure you hate it because I get sick of getting this question every time I go places which is like, why are the Republican senators doing what they do? But I just, it is mind-boggling to me. Like I look at Bezos and it's like he can do whatever he wants. He has the Barbie dream wedding in Venice. He can own islands. He has a rocket ship. we can go to the moon if he wants.

He can live the manner no one else in history has ever lived. He can achieve any dream he ever wants. And yet he feels like he needs to go into NBC and talk about why Donald Trump has gotten more disciplined and how we have to hand it to him. It's like why? Why does he feel like he has to do that? I don't understand.

I think all of them need to stop talking. Like that's the issue. You know, whoever it happens to be, every five minutes, they need to say something about things they know nothing about. And it's really interesting. I almost wrote a piece recently called Why Won't they just shut up? Like, you know, girl, keep it to yourself kind of thing

or sit down. And they're constantly victims, by the way, because the press is so mean to them. Like, what a bunch of babies. And secondly, you know, they have to tell you what they think about everything. And then they are disingenuous when they're doing it. It's really, I do appreciate the Sachinadellas.

I have no idea what he's thinking. You know what I mean? Like, I'm sure he's not loving having to, like, bow and scrape. You know, there was a controversy over Mark Cuban last week, which I took Cuban side because he wants to get lower prices for drugs. You can hate on me all you want, but there's no other way except through Trump. And so if you want to be part of Trump RX, even though it shouldn't be called Trump RX, we all know that, and so does Mark Cuban. Like he said, I'm not going to be a fucking idiot if you think I'm going to trade politics for cheaper drug prices. And he's not.

But everyone is forced into unnatural positions. In the case of most of these people, They like those positions. And that's what they're like. Yeah. What's the Bezos trade? He'd be fine. He was like that before. Yeah, maybe the rocket ships.

Maybe he was like that before, Tim. Some of these people don't change. Let me just say he was not the happy laughing fool. He wasn't that guy before. He was always, if you look at the history of Amazon, a son of a bitch. So like, you remember, like there was all those stories about treating. This thing didn't just come out of nowhere, the culture of that company. Some people change, I have to say, Steve Bomber couldn't be more delightful now.

And he's, he scream at me. Like, people change both directions. He's yelling about the clippers. I understand that. I just think maybe we're built different. Maybe this is why I'm not going to be a trillionaire ever. Yeah, you're not. But like the idea that I would, that there would ever be a situation where in order to get an extra

hundred billion, I would have to call a moron big up, like this really smart guy. Yeah. He's so, I'd have to flatter somebody to get money when I already have the most. fuck you money in history. I just, I can't wrap my brain about it. It's not in my makeup. It's the expression. It's the expression is, why do you fuck you money if you don't say fuck you, right? But I think he likes him. Like, I think he admire. They like him each other. I think you might be thinking they're quietly going home and going what an asshole. I don't think they do that. I think they don't think they're an asshole. I think they like it. Yeah. Boy, that's tough to sit on.

On their concerns about backlash and their victim culture, there's this interesting parallel right now between what APEC is doing. And the two biggest groups throwing all these money into these primaries is APEC and their allies. Right. Right. So, you know, pro-Israel Americans. Sure. And then tech broadly, AI, crypto, et cetera.

And they're both playing huge in primaries. They are. Tens of millions of dollars are going in to get their preferred candidates in Congress. And then flopping around on the ground and crying when you pointed out. Yes. You know, and people criticize them. But for me, it's like it's a free country. If you want to go and talk.

how to put stooges into Congress by using your tens of millions of dollars you're allowed to do that, but like we're also allowed to notice. And I think that that's interesting. I saw you kind of posted with our growth to Andresen the other day. But like we are. Can't believe money. Gambling is going on in this casino. Like what?

Yeah. He did the same thing. He's like what he was pushing was Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful. Is that his name? Whatever. I don't think he's so wonderful. That's real name. Sure.

Whatever. He, one time he came up to me, he goes, call me Mr. Wonderful. I go, I think I will not. I was like, no, I refuse to call you, Mr. Wonderful. It was my little moment in a green room, a green room victory, I say, which are always sweet victories. I cherish all my green room victories as well. I love green room victories.

I have a bunch of them that I'm very pleased with. And, you know, he's building this data center that is clearly people of the area don't like. So instead of just acknowledging that maybe people don't like it, real people, he's got to blame what, George Soros or a group of secret money people that are funding all. all this, or it's the damn media who concocting a story. People love it here. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. To me, every accusation is a confession with these people. They do that. So they assume everyone else does. And so what if there's a confabulation of organizations that are trying to stop? A big deal. There's

also real people who care about these things in these areas. When they use the money, it's fine. when others use the money, it's conspiracy, it's up to something, left-wing craziness, they're so violent. And when in fact it's them, they're talking about themselves and doing a lot of tell on themselves. And so, Andreessen was like, concerning. Like, if you're so fucking concerned, why did you put together a $100 million AI fund? Yeah. You're not concerned.

You're concerned that they might fight back is what you're concerned about. Where do you think the balance of power is on that, I guess, as far as, like, their money versus the blowback. And the blowback that's coming up for them is pretty real. I've never seen people turn into movie villains faster, right? They're literally a different bond villain. Each of them is a different version. Or if you happen to watch Paw Patrol, all the various villains or the Spider-Man villains, right? I'm like, oh, look, it's the green, whatever, whatever.

I don't watch it closely enough my kids do. I'm a now on Paw Patrol. Yeah, I agree. I call it copaganda, but my kids love it. I don't know what to say. I have no ability to fight Paw Patrol at this moment. It's stupid and you go up again. You know what they do on Paw Patrol?

They make their own messes and then they clean them up and then they celebrate themselves for it. And I'm like, you made the mess. You cleaned it up. It's better than nothing. Watch it. Right. So I think one of the things that they want to do is ruin their reputations. And you see it in polling, AI polling, is really devastating.

And you see kids yelling at speakers at graduations. And that's not a small trend is kids really. are rejecting this stuff. And so are regular people. They don't like this. And they have an uncomfortable feeling about what's coming. And instead of acknowledging that uncomfortable feeling, they tell you you're stupid or that it's cooked up by sorrows or that you don't know. The media is convincing you of something that isn't true.

And the more they do that, the more I know they know that we don't like them, right? That most not we, but a lot of people, broadly speaking, define Elon to be now having been a really interesting innovator and someone to look up to, someone who is laughable, no matter how rich he gets. It's a big shift, though. I'm back in my prior life when I briefly did some Facebook consulting when I was out in the wilderness, you know, that era of Facebook mid-2010s, if people were booing them at graduations, it would have been an internal panic, right? Like they thought about everything that we can do.

How do we improve our image? You know, we want people to see us as a positive force in the world. That was a Cheryl era, right? Yeah, right. Now, fast forward to now, they're getting booed. All these guys are getting booed at commencement addresses. And it seems like they're kind of mad at people for booing them, but they're not even really trying to appeal.

No, they aren't. Because I think in, say, Zuckerberg's case, it's like, I tried to be nice, they didn't like me. I was, myself, they didn't like me. And I'm like, well, maybe you're dislikable. I think that's really where we are on that one. But I think that's what it is. It's like, why should I bother when no matter what I do,

I'm disliked. And that's a personal problem. I think that there's some fables about that mindset, but I don't know how that ends well. So other stuff in the AI thing, just on the OpenAI Anthropic IPOs, just want to kind of how you look at that compared to what we're seeing from Elon

and there's a lot of fallout coming from that. Well, it depends on who you're talking about. I mean, I think Open AI has a lot more troubles. They just finished that trial with Elon. That is still going to be ongoing because he continues to press his, hurt feelings using his money on them for getting out of it. He wants a piece of it. You know, they're going to have a harder time because their numbers are a little bit more shaky

than they used to be. They focus on consumers. Sam Altman has said a number of things. Again, should not speak. Hush, hush, shh. Like, you want to put your finger like, say nothing. You don't think during the Tucker Carlson podcast was a net positive for the company? I think they should all stop talking. I just do. And I hate to say that as a journalist, but enough I don't care every thought that's in their head. That's going to be a more troubled IPO, I think, especially because the specter of Elon hanging over at all. He's always trying to make trouble for them.

Their business has also been, you know, they've had a lot of churn of people. Businesses are less trustworthy. Now, Anthropic has come up the middle from all of them and is built what looks like a pretty significant business, very enterprise heavy, which is smart, because enterprises don't churn as much. But I do think they do know that if enterprises

don't find Claude to be useful, or version or whatever product they're selling, they're going to be in trouble, obviously, when people start to make AI spending cuts because now everybody's into spending on AI. So if there's any cutbacks, they'll suffer first, especially with companies. Right now it doesn't seem to be the trend.

But they're the ones that are building, what I consider, a more solid business. And they did so quietly, I think, as the rest of them were kind of hand-waving. They just came right up the middle. Their revenues are growing pretty significantly in on a solid basis. But it doesn't mean that,

it couldn't go poof. And Dario Modi has said this, by the way. There's this interesting other element to the fallout from their IPOs. And I've been starting to read some interesting stories on, which is like, we're going to have this new batch of really rich people that are coming. You're looking particularly at San Francisco where we once lived. I have a house there still.

People are trying to buy it again. Oh, yeah. Suddenly, I have people knocking at my door again. Hi, can we buy your house? Well, I guess that's my question. And will anybody who is not a multimillionaire ever be able to live in San Francisco again? I think that ship has sailed in many ways. Although it spent, it was a nice respite when they all left.

It was really lovely for five seconds. But I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I just having, being a homeowner in San Francisco, I suddenly, my house suddenly is very, it was never went unvalial by the way. It did just fine. I bought it very, I bought it 25, 30 years ago. So it's a very different thing.

But there was a moment during the first dot-com bubble that was insane. When you bought a house, you had to write a letter to the house on why you would be a good owner. and which was crazy. Like that's how many people were bidding for these houses because of the amount of money. And at one point someone made me write a letter, so I wrote, Dear House, here's the fucking money.

That's what it's for. Thank you. Like I didn't get the house. You know, I think, yeah, I think it's a real problem. It's something that Daniel Lurie is trying to deal with in terms of where can you do affordable housing and how do you make a,

you don't want to build the same problem that happened the first time because it's going to happen the second time, right? is if numbers are gone up in terms of prices and you don't have a city that's diversified and it's in its population, you're going to end up every time there's a boom and a bust, you're going to get screwed, you know, on tax base.

And right now it's, right now California's up, right? Suddenly, and it was down before. And everyone moved back, as you knew they would because living in Austin or Miami isn't the dream everybody decided. It was very nice places, by the way, but not the same thing as San Francisco. So I don't know. It's always been an issue there. And it's, it's been sad that they can't figure out a way to build affordable housing and at the same time have the rich people there.

You figure there'll be some other kind of effective altruism fad that comes out of this. Not among the rich people. They're all going to keep all their money. They love their money. They like their houses. You know, one of the things that I think about a lot is to remember in succession where as they got more and more isolated, they got more and more in these cashmere prisons where they went from their cars to their, to their planes, to their houses. And it was so antiseptic but beautiful. You kind of see a lot of these people, and Scott makes this point a lot. And I think he's correct is they live with a different housing world.

They live with a different help world. They have their own health care. They have their own travel. They have their own blank, blank, goes on and on and on. And so increasing numbers of people live like this and therefore aren't living with everybody else. And so no, if not if they have the money to live in this. highly comfortable Kashmir prison, I think they'll continue to do so. It's not a way to live. Including vacation spots, by the way. It's not a way to live.

No. You have to be with other humans. You do. And the pitchforks are coming. They are. They are. They're already out. And it's going to get worse and worse. They feel. You can feel they feel it, which is why they're saying worse things. I'm like, you need to stop talking because you really seem terrible. You seem like terrible, tiny, greedy people. And it happened in the Gilded Age. Look at the history. of what happened there. The government eventually shifts around and we get out of the real corrupt period.

And then, unfortunately, it comes too harsh a retribution. And that's, of course, my worry is that they're going to, that's going to happen, which is not good for this. Yeah, same. And the Bezos nursing in that same interview where he's talking about how you could tax me more, but it's not going to help the Queen's nurse at all. It's just like, bro, literally you could double the salary of every Queen's nurse. you could just decide that you wanted to create the Queen's, you know, nurses organization and give the money directly, just do a cash transfer.

And you wouldn't even notice. You know who it occurs to his ex-wife, who just gives money, drops $10 million and leaves the room. Do you hear from McKenzie Scott ever? You do not. Does she do a press release? She very much does not. She just gives the money to Meals on Wheels, $70 million. That's going to help a lot of people.

Do you think Bezos would do that without requiring a parade? or whatever, putting on one of his cowboy hats and dancing around and boots that look uncomfortable on him? I don't know. I don't get it to him. I think it's really short-minded. I think they're angry in a lot of ways. And I think they do feel no matter what they do, nobody likes them. Did none of them have Catholic mothers, I guess? Because my mother would be so ashamed of me. But you know, Mark Zuckerberg's parents are lovely. I've met them. They're lovely. I've never met Jeff Mazos' his mom. Did they not guilt on him enough? You know, I don't know. I have met Elon's parents. I feel bad for him. But so, you know, in that case, I mean, he's close to his mother,

but I think she's a terrible person. That's just me. Some of them are also buying media properties with their fun money. CNN you dropped out of. I haven't yet. I haven't. I haven't. You planned to. Well, I'm on their contract until the end of the year. And I've said, I don't see given their choices so far. and today they sort of let go of Sharon Alfancy, who I like in regard with great, she's an amazing journalist. She's a 60 Minutes reporter. 60 Minutes reporter, right.

She's on CBS. 60 Minutes is on CBS. I don't know if she's staying there or whatever, but the fact that someone like this who just had a beef over a story gets jacked for this, it seems ridiculous, because she's insubordinate.

Guess what the role of a journalist is to be is insubordinate in case you're interested. You know, I just don't see them making editorial decisions I think are of any, I think they're incompetent. And so I don't really want to work for people that seem to me to be incompetent. Politics aside, although the politics is never a side, but in this case, incompetence, trumps everything. Do you have any sense, any buzz?

Sometimes you get buzzed. Yeah. You know, you show up in all kinds of random places. I do. I do. You know, what's your sense for what their plans are for CNN? I think they're sticking with the plans they've had for CBS. I don't see any.

You know, if you're hoping for their better angels, you're absolutely wrong. No, I'm hurting from practicality. I do think that it felt a little bit like the barry bubble, you know, is, I don't know if it's popped, but it's weakening, both just like the just basic incompetence like Tony D. You know, couldn't get a visa to go to China, you know, embarrassing things like that. But then also just kind of going all in on the pro-war propaganda when it's been like the most embarrassing and incompetent war imaginable. Sure is. And so, you know, that's a little bit of egg on her face, you would think. No.

One would think. But, you know, I think it all, she's hardly the. point, right? People focus on her a lot, but I think she's just the vehicle. I think you have to focus on Larry Ellison. David aside, very nice guy, but the game is with him with Larry Ellison, okay? He's the one who made the money. He's the brilliant entrepreneur. He's the technologist. Let's be clear who's running the show here. And if he likes her, she's staying. That's the way it goes. And I suspect he likes her. And he probably doesn't see the war as that bad. He was, he doesn't care. He doesn't care. And of course, he's very pro-Israel, more than most people.

That's one of his biggest most important issues. I think it is his most important issue. And so there you have it. That's why we have. And so does he care about Sharon Alfonci? No. Does he care about 60 minutes? Probably not.

Does he care about journalism? Doubtful. Do you think will there even be a CBS evening news at the end of this? There shouldn't be. That's another issue, right? You know, everyone's like the media like to write about these kind of things. But I had a show of hands when I was on my pivot tour and you do tours too. get a real sense of people, they're great.

Someone asked the inevitable CBS, what was going to happen here? I'm like, show of hands of who watched CBS News last night. We had a pretty young crowd. You do two, I think. Nobody. Like, one person. Who watched, in the past month, who watched CBS News? One hand maybe goes up, even if that, by the way.

Who cares? Who cares? Because Donald Trump cares because Donald Trump lives in the 1980s. So that's why it matters right now. Just like Elon bought Twitter for influence, for influence, not for making money, for influence. They're buying it to influence Donald Trump, but they don't care about the product.

They don't care about the reporters. They don't care about journalism. I think David Ellison wants to make nice movies. I do think he cares about that. I do, but that's about it. You know, Rich kid wants to make movies. He loves the movies. They're so happy for him.

Like good. The Oscars, be backstage. The news business doesn't matter at all to these people. Yeah, I'm more with you on that. I was listening to your interview with Nicole, where you were kind of offering that, too, just because, look, the independent media is rising. I'm concerned about the algorithms. I'm concerned about their influence over TikTok. Elon's algorithm, a little less so, though it does dominate a lot of the kind of the conversation and elite media spaces.

You know, YouTube algorithm seems to be fine, but you never know. Like that, to me, the algorithm owners, whatever AI thing comes next, I'm a little more concerned about that than I am, like the media properties themselves. You should be concerned. It's just what I want to get through to people is get away from the politics, get away from the nefarious plottery of whatever billionaire you have or you want to hate on billionaires. It's really very simple. They don't care. Like I keep saying that. I'm like, they think about you never.

They don't think journalism is important. They think it's silly. They're annoyed by certain journals. Unless somebody says something mean about them. Correct. That's right. Why can I buy this? Yes.

Why can I buy this and shut them up? And so I know we'd like to think it's part of a big plot, but it's true. just not. It is, you know, rid me of this irritating priest, right? Rid me. I do not like this person who's telling me things. And I think down deep, like you said about the pitchforks, they know it. That's the worry is they know it. And they're trying to do anything possible when the thing they should be doing is being very generous with their money, building great works. Like that's what happened with the old Gilded Age people. Suddenly, Andrew Carnegie built libraries. Suddenly, you know, and maybe that's the outcome of this, maybe that's where they'll go, but those were hated people for quite a bit of time

there. And then they shifted because of the misery they brought on people got to be too much. The other thing you talked about, Nicole, is that you felt, and you mentioned this just briefly was that you can feel the sense of the shift among like your kids. Oh, 100%. From these products away from, you know, maybe how things would have been 10 years ago. Right. I'm wondering how you think about that. I know, you know, we really have kind of gone through this period where it did feel like there was all this possibility. And now, you know, Now, neither of us are Luddites. I'm not anti the products.

I think AI will do some great things. But there's just this, there's a range from like skepticism to cynicism to hostility just because of how things shook out with the big social media platforms. And I'm just wondering, like, where do you think that's going? Because in some ways, the next generation being more hostile to the products gives me a little bit of optimism. Because the worst case scenario is they just like rely on them so much that their brains don't develop because they just become, you know, an extension of the AI brain. I think the problem we have is 30 to 50-year-olds, right?

That's what I think has. Sorry. You know, and older people, too, because they've got sucked. But they got sucked in by the Fox News of it all, right? So if you want to look for a propaganda vehicle, or even the people that are two MS-Now people, they're a little crazy, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

Sometimes I think that somebody says, I watch nine hours of MS now a week or a day. I'm like, you know, maybe cut that in half. Yeah, right. It's a different version. I said that. But, you know, healthy four hours is fine. Right. But it's a, it's a, it's a, playing into whatever you're happening to be, the Fox people are much, my mother is one of them, for example, she was super concerned with trans fencers recently. And I was like, what? They're taking over. I'm like, what, fencing? Like, do I care? I feel like, I'm good with that. Like, I feel, okay, sure,

you can't see their faces. What do we care? Anyway, in any case, uh, uh, uh, I think women vendors are quite almost equal with men fencers too. Anyway, regardless. I don't know anything. I don't know anything and I don't feel like it's a national crisis. That's how I feel. But nonetheless, she was very concerned because it was on Fox. But I do sense among my kid, I have a 21 year old and a 24 year old, just turned 24. They use, it's really interesting because they use social media very little. And it's not, I don't think they're outliers. Neither do their friends. They're very much more into hiking and group activities and stuff like that. They use it for information.

I watch how they use it. A friend of mine, my son, he's a sports nut. So he gets lots of stats. And I see why you would use digital. It's great. It's really great. Another one's a cooking nut. You know, they like all the cooking.

I find that's fine. That's just like I used to buy cooking. I used to read Gourmet magazine all the time, like a lunatic. They don't use social media. And they're moving away from it. They use it for YouTube as television. They watch TV shows for sure on. there and that's where they get stuff. Netflix, they certainly use quite heavily, but they don't

use social media and they don't like it because at one point I asked my son why he didn't use it. He says, it makes me feel bad about myself. And I was like, good reason not to use it. And I feel like there's a fatigue to it. I feel it myself. I don't know about you. But unless I'm marketing something or I'm watching, you know, I'm very into this one guy who makes, who cuts up vegetables and makes plants. That's perfectly enjoyable for me. I don't, I find I don't dwell on the dunking as much as I used to because it feels bad. You're good at it. Yeah, I don't know. It's a, it's probably something I need to spend some time with the therapist on because on the one hand, I feel, doesn't everybody that has a problem feel this way? I feel like I recognize like the limits and I

see issues and other people. It is so intertwined to what I feel like I'm doing. I don't know how you're consuming information. Well, you're in politics. They're all on there. Yeah, I'm just like, consuming so much either other people's pods. And so sometimes it's long from, so I was listening, sometimes it's scrolling. But like, I need to get, I can do this every fucking day. So I need material. News consumption. But you used to have magazines and newsletters and stuff.

So I don't, I think it's just replaced like the cook report. Like I'm sure you're one of those people that got the cook report or, you know, New Republic or whatever. And so you're replacing something. And that to me is fine. Like I don't see that being as a problem. And you're a news hound, right? presumably. So am I. And so that's perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned. I think the question is,

how much do you get sucked up into the performative aspects of it? And I think that's where you feel kind of sick. I'm going to give you my thoughts on Ken Paxton. Well, he's a fucking criminal, right? Is that we need to know there? He's a criminal. Or getting the consuming of other people's fights and stuff, right? Like in drama and, you know, and feedback. Anyway, we should have a longer talk about that. I want to focus on the most important thing to end. being hot. Okay. You were on with Bill Maher.

And he said something interesting. He said that he would tell you after the show who it was, but some CEO was complaining that GLP-1s are making staff less ambitious. Oh, that's ridiculous. What was that? I think he just made that up. I'm sorry. He may have heard that from someone.

I just, you know, it's the idea that addictive personalities get less addictive on GLP-1s, whether it's food, the food noise or alcohol noise, or he was taking. it to ambition. You don't want to win quite so much. You're not so hungry. I guess it's around the same idea of hungriness and you're not hungry anymore. I've not seen any statistics to prove. I think he just made it. Honestly, I don't, no insult, but I'm sure someone said it to him. I just don't think it's true. I think GLP-1s are miraculous and are proving to be somewhat miraculous in other areas, strokes and heart and cognitive issues. We'll see as it's tested, right?

All these things require gold-standard testing and a real population. and GLP-1s are really deep in the population now in a way that's significant. What about the GLP-3s? What are these are peptides? Retritude? Retritrude? Seems like that's how you get really hot. It's among the gays.

Yeah, the gays have gone on to peptides. They're very big. What do you know about that? Here's my problem with these. There's very little proven. I know I had 17 gay guys come up. It's like, you're wrong about peptides. I feel better.

I'm like, good for you. I said, let me just to give you something. Hello, sepsis. Like, I don't know what to tell you, but you're injecting yourself with unproving. unclear if they're, oh, it's subcutaneous. I'm like, no, no, no. It's dangerous.

One bad shot and you're fucked. As you all know, because gay guys tend to like try everything. Like my experience in San Francisco, that was like, let's try it, whatever. That's why we were crushing in the monkey pox space. Right, whatever. Yeah, exactly. And so, look, that doesn't mean there shouldn't be tests and there should be and there's some promise, but there's no scientific proof.

There's just not of any significance over a time frame. I'm a gal who loves to like prove something before we just decide to use it. The other thing is a lot of these peptides are being mixed in China that they're getting them from. You don't know where their provenance is from. It could be full of impurities. You just don't know where you're getting it from. And so if you're fine with that and if you're interested in possibly of getting sepsis, go for it. I just don't, I feel like I don't inject myself with things that are the provenance of is questionable.

We'll see if some of these things work. And by the way, one of the takeaways from my show was there's amazing science. This morning I interviewed the guy who did all the pancreatic cancer stuff around MRNA technology. Amazing stuff happening using both AI and technology and MRNA and GLP ones. The question is what stuff is sort of nonsense? One stuff is unproven as yet and doesn't mean it won't be. And what stuff really works.

And much of the stuff, as you know over time, being a gay, most of it doesn't work. Yeah. Like some of it does. So GLP ones seem like they're working good. Yeah. Yeah. Wet market GLP3 peptides TBD.

We're a TBD in that. If you're feeling lucky, I suppose. And I know some people think they feel better. Great. I don't know. What other things have we learned the show again, Kara Swisher wants to live? The show again, Kara Swisher wants to live forever. I like the.

So I tell them to fix it in votes. No, don't. fix it. Don't fix it. Keep it in. Yeah. Okay. That's the show. That's what it's called. Don't want to watch it. I just want you to tell me the answer to my key question, which is, how do I stay handsome for longer without spending as much money as Scott Galloway has? Okay. Well, and you know, not everything works when Scott Galloway tries it, but he's our little guinea pig. I would say, I hate to tell you, it's a pretty basic thing. Tim, have friends and family, spend a lot more time with your kids, spend a lot more time outside, spend a lot more time outside, spend a lot of, lot more time doing things that it's challenging to you that isn't scrolling.

Scientifically proven over and over again, obviously sleep diet, exercise critical. V-O-2-max is a really interesting indicator of health. I'd have a test if you have the money to do it and try to improve your V-O-2-Max score. V-O-2-Mex? You put the mask on your face and then you try to raise the way your muscles interact with your heart. It's a real sign of longevity and health. You know, try to do the Mediterranean diet.

It's such basic stuff that doesn't cost anything. And then ultimately, the rest of the facial stuff, I'm going to leave you and Scott to it. Because I just, I can't. If you want to do facial planing, go for it. I just, you know, John Lovett was at his wedding this weekend, Basel Toff? He's looking handsomer than he ever did. I mean, I hung out with John Lovett 20 years ago when he first met. He's way handsomer than he was then.

I don't think that's natural. He's using JLP once. I think he talks about it. He's talked about it before, which is great. But he's getting fitter. but he also gets you in the mode of taking care of yourself. But it's not, he isn't doing all interventions. He's doing like diet stuff.

And I think, you know, instead of a supplement, have a piece of salmon or an avocado. There's no like red light or, you know, nothing. No cheating. You did all this. You got all these like extra limbs and stuff and you came back. You've nothing. No, and there's not doing anything interesting in Singapore. It's basic.

Good sleep, not as much as you think. It's more between 6.4 and 7.8 hour. hours, try really hard to be with friends and family, do things that are cognitive, because the cognitive decline is the real, as we know from the current president, is the real problematic thing for most people. And so try to do things that are challenging for you. Kids, have kids. Yeah, I'm good on that.

Yeah, I'm challenging. I'm having to do this, you know? Someday, you know what? Actually, let me give you something. Someday they're going to be able to place every single organ. Someday your teeth will grow back. someday they'll be able to replenish your skin pretty naturally. Some of the stuff in Korea was pretty cool what they're doing.

But largely it's because of their diet and their attitudes is one of the reasons they're so healthy. Well, TikTok on that because I'm not coming as close to the end as the president, but we're doing our best. You look good. You look good. Kara Swisher, thank you. We'll end there. Co-host of Pivot, host of On with Caras Swisher and the CNN original series. Kara Swisher wants a little forever. Appreciate you very much. We'll see you soon, all right? Thanks, Tim.

Everybody else will be back tomorrow for another edition of the podcast. Peace. Come on, baby. Don't listen. Don't you give me no switch. Come on, baby. And eat the rain. The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper,

Associate producer Anzley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown. I'm Elizabeth Dorico from Chicago, Illinois. I'm a bulwark subscriber. because I believe in truth, I believe in honesty, and I believe in integrity. The bulwark has been a beacon for me in very troubled times to uphold the values of liberal democracy that I hold dear. And it helps me fight, and it helps me understand the present

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