Bluesky's Moment, Crony Capitalism, and Guest Julie Scelfo
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Solidigm is ready for everything the AI era demands. Learn more at storageforai.com. I see you. Get the fuck on. I'm going to hand you a new one today. Oh, fuck. We're still talking about Wicked? Jesus Christ. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. And what were you doing ahead of this, and where in the living fuck are you?

I'm in Sao Paulo. Okay. And they have all these wonderful accoutrements. No, still, I got here at 6 a.m. from Vegas. You didn't ask me how F1 was. I shall in a second. Anyways, I'm in what is my favorite hotel in the world, the Sao Paulo Rosewood, and they have all these cool Brazilian cultural items. And I've been walking around. I always try and entertain our producers who are

increasingly nonplussed by my humor. Yeah. And I was rubbing my belly and I had this big Brazilian thing and then a guy I travel with came walking out and he wasn't even fazed when he saw me rubbing my belly and shaking some sort of Brazilian music item. He basically looked and just kept on moving. Yeah. So your lover, your side piece, whatever. It's so nice. One of the nice things about, let's be honest, there's a lot of nice things about being wealthy. Yeah. One of the things I love is

Yeah. If I find a friend that's not doing anything, I'll be like, come with me to Brazil. And most people will go, sure. Sure. Do they have to carry your bags? And he's Brazilian, so he knows people here, so he can set up hookers. I mean, really cool restaurants for us. Okay. All right. Okay. And I love it down here. I love Sao Paulo. And now you're audibly eating fruit. What is that fruit? It's Brazilian. Everything tastes better here. Everyone's hotter and all the food tastes better in Brazil.

What is that, a watermelon? It's watermelon. Whatever it is, it's lovely. Is it? I'm trying to eat more fruit. For the first time in my life, I had. So you can be more regular, right? More regular with the fiber. I'm good. I'm good. Every seven days, I take a dump. I'm like one of those Elliot Eskimos. That's probably a hate crime. I just had a friend ask me, just got surgery, how to get a dump. You know what you do?

I eat an apple a day and hot coffee in the morning. It works every time. Boom, right? Thank you. Yeah, just a little bit of constipation advice for you. How was F1? It was really... You kind of stuck it to them a little bit in your piece, but go ahead. You thought so? A little bit. Nope.

A little bit. A little bit? Like, a little too much, much. A little too ahead of their skis. That's what I got out of it, but go ahead. Oh, really? Speaking of which, I actually had breakfast Saturday morning with Greg Maffei, who's the departing CEO. And by the way, let me just say, John Malone has decided to take back the CEO spot at Liberty. The guy's 83. When will these people learn to move on? Seriously. He's the... Can I give you some... I know Greg pretty well from Microsoft. He's in my first book. And I...

I like him now. I didn't like him back then. I have to tell you, John Malone is the single smartest person we've ever had on our stages of our events, period. Oh, I don't doubt it. Period. Like, by far. Yeah. But at 83, he's decided to retake the helm as an operator? Yeah.

I don't know. He had some health issues, I thought. That's what I heard. I know, but that's my point. And by the way, Greg Maffei purchased F1 for $4.5 million in 2017, and it's worth over $20. F1 has been an enormous success. Anyways, I'm biased because I like Greg, but...

I think he's an exceptionally talented executive. I think John Malone, I don't know what happened here, if Greg is really retiring or if he was fired, but I would offer that John Malone, despite being, I agreeably, or I agree with you, the smartest person in the world, he fired the wrong guy. Zaslav has cut shareholder value at Warner Brothers Discovery by 70% and managed to take a third of a billion dollars out of the company. They fired the wrong guy. One guy has built value.

One guy is destroying it. Shouldn't Malone be taking the helms of Warner Brothers' Discovery? Interesting. Interesting. He owns a big bit of it, and he has a lot of control over it, that's for sure. You know, this guy makes bets all over the place. He sort of reminds me of a Rupert Murdoch character, and Rupert was quite lively. Oh, he's much.

Much more impressive than Rupert. I would agree. That's what I mean. I'm saying Rupert was fine now and is like whatever, wherever the hell he is. He basically invented cable TV. Yeah, exactly. I mean, he made these enormous investments in stealing the ground that everyone thought was crazy. And he understands how to like maneuver the chess pieces. I agree with you. He is really the, he's probably the smartest guy we don't talk about. He was also early AOL. I've run into him a zillion times, interviewed him many times. And I have to tell you, and this is,

This is someone who's interviewed, you know, Steve Jobs was close in a different way. No, we're name dropping. No, I'm just saying. Speaking of F1, oh my God. Who am I going to compare him with? 240 miles an hour of name dropping. Okay, listen to me. I interviewed Steve Jobs. I don't know what to tell you. And the Swisher team is seven laps ahead on the name dropping F1. Just because you never actually did these things, it's fine. And you're jealous.

But nonetheless, he is really quite something. I would not count him out at 83. I had heard that he had health issues, so that was the issue. I think you can count everyone out at 83. I'm an ageist. I'm sticking with my whole ageism thing. Okay, you keep doing that. I can't wait till you're 83 and we throw you onto the ice floe. You'll be pushing me around.

Oh, really? Okay. Well, I'll make sure you have plenty of fruit so you can be regular. Tell me about F1. Was it good? What happened? Yeah, it was last year was the first one in Vegas. I met a bunch of buddies of mine from LA and another buddy of mine from New York. And we went to this great party. My friend, Scott Sartiano, who's this great entrepreneur who started Zero Bond, had a big party Saturday night, which was incredible. You know, you probably never feel this way, but I was so tired, but it was such a great party.

And the conflict of like, I'm never at great parties like this, but I'm so tired. And anyway, so I opted to go to sleep early, but the race was great. These other guys, Jason Strauss and Noah Tuberberg have this amazing nightlife company.

Yeah. Did this incredible viewership deck from the Bellagio. And it's just I had a great time. Good. I'm going to go to one. I'm going to go to one. Yeah. No, I want you. I want you there to witness my debauchery and judge me. Can't wait to have you.

Oh, I totally don't want to go with you. No, I'll go with you. It's not your scene. It's not your scene. I know, but I want to see it. Like a lot, there's a lot of ladies going to it. Like I've friends of mine go in packs of ladies. 40% female fans. Yeah. Packs of ladies. I'm not a pack lady person, but you know, whatever. I thought I'd try it out.

I'm not incurring. I see you more at like the Miami Book Fair. That's where I was. Or like the Subaru Convocation or whatever. I had a great time there. I had a wonderful time. Oh, you did go to that. How was that? Yes, it was wonderful. I was interviewed by Ben Masryk, who did the book that ultimately led to The Social Network. He did a bunch of books that always get made into movies, good movies, actually, Dumb Money, stuff like that. And we had a good time. It was packed, let me just tell you.

packed with young and old people and really vibrant and fun. It was at a university, Miami Dade or something. Yeah, it was lovely. And really, I was sort of like, oh, I can't believe I'm getting on this fucking plane. I was in New York. And I was like, oh, I should cancel it. And then I didn't. And I'm glad I didn't. It was really lovely. I was pleased to see so many

people in person and I was surprised how many. It was fun. It was kind of funky and fun and packed. And the guy who owns Books and Books, Mitch something or other, he was terrific. So you and I had much different weekends. Oh, yeah. But I'm just saying, it was great. Yeah, and I got back from New York and I posted about, I did my pilot for CNN. I'm not supposed to say anything, but here I am. It was good. What are you piloting? What's the show? What's the premise? A show called...

I already posted on social media. I'm sure the CNN people are losing their minds, but it's called Offscript and it's with Audie Cornish and Van Latham, who is so cool. He's my new Scott, essentially. Oh, that's good to know. But he's handsomer and taller. He has as much hair as you do. Your new Scott, but he's more handsome and taller. Well, thank you for that, Kara.

He wears a cowboy hat. So he's great. And so it's interesting. I'm going to put some of the interviews in the feed, in my on feed. What's the premise of the show? A little, like a dinner party, a conversation, like a...

Like us talking in kind of a cool setting, a little less than that. And I'm telling you, it's good. No, you're wrong. You're just jelly. You're jelly when it's a big hit. You're going to be stuffed. You're so jelly. Well, the good news is launching it on CNN, right out of the gates, you're going to have dozens and dozens of viewers. Let me tell you. Dozens and dozens of viewers. No, I've tried basically one thing at CNN and you tried six.

There's seven different TV things. Five. I'm 0 for five. I'm just saying, if I have a hit here... You still want to do TV. You're trying to beg me to come on TV. I'm not begging you. The world has said I have a face for podcasting. I am zero begging you. I think it's an interesting thing. And I think...

I think here's the thing. I read one of these dumb media reporters. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. I read one. It's like, it's all over. I'm like, well, why? Can you make good stuff? Yes, you can. If it switches over to digital, they cut the costs, right? I think there's some still juice in this lemon to squeeze. That's my, not in the current configuration, but I do. And I think calling anything like it's over is really dumb. That's my feeling.

Let me just break it down and tell you what's actually going on here. This is called, this isn't a midlife crisis. This is midlife crises. And I check the box with beef and prostitutes. You check the box with TV. Same thing. You'll see. Same thing. Look, you know what? Everyone like- You're trying to impress somebody by making TV. I am not. I enjoy it. I'm interested in the challenge of it. And everyone like yelled at me when I did podcasting. Let me tell you, guess what everyone yelled at me when I picked Scott Galloway. And you know what I said? I said,

Fuck it. I think this guy has some sunk in it. Me and cable TV. I'm just telling you. Every time people tell me I can't do something, I'm like, go fuck yourself. I'm sticking with beef and prose. All right, listen, we've got a lot to get to today, including Trump finishes filling out his cabinet and Threads rolls out some changes as blue sky grows to the sky.

Plus, our friend of Pivot is Julie Scelfo, the founder of Mothers Against Media Addiction, or MAMA, which is what all my four kids call me. But first, let's get to something that also annoys you. Glicked Weekend was a huge success. Wicked opened at $114 million domestically, making it the biggest box office launch of a Broadway adaptation, which is incredible. And the third biggest domestic debut of this year, I think Wolverine was one of them, Deadpool and Wolverine, and I forget the other one.

Internationally, Wicked hit about $164 million. Gladiator is in its second weekend. It placed second place domestically with $55 million and $220 million worldwide. Overseas, it had debuted before. Wicked is now all over the world. They're both all over the world. You didn't go to either, so you're going to tell us all about it. Please do. I am going to go see Gladiator this weekend.

Yeah, movies are, you know, making a big comeback. They're only down 10% this year. They are going to do $10 billion in box office revenue, whereas video games are going to do $180 billion. And we still talk about movies. Right, okay. Yeah, I'll see. I'll probably...

I'll probably see them both. I'll see Gladiator because I like the franchise. I'll see Wicked because you said it was great and I trust your judgment. It was. It was interesting. There's a guy who was forced to go by his girlfriend. He's like, oh, why am I going to the stupid thing? And then she taped him at the end. He's like, that was beautiful. So I'm hoping you're going to leave in the middle of it. I know you, like you did with Barbie, you're going to leave.

I miss the Defying Gravity song. But I'm excited to see both. I really am. I like both. Interestingly, Wicked was 72% women tickets and Gladiator was 62%. I thought that was pretty low of men buying tickets, not in groups. We don't hang out. Yeah. Let me just remind you, one in seven men can't name a single friend and one in four men doesn't have a best friend. Yeah. Anyway, I'm excited to see both and I think they've done a beautiful... Let me just say once again, May...

John Chu, who I just interviewed, did a great job. But Donna Langley, who's running Universal, she's in line for something big. Like I say Disney, but something like else. It was really well done. Gladiator costs about $100 million more than Wicked. So it's going to have to make that up. It's $250 for Wicked. For both, for two movies, each movie. There's another one coming out next year because it's a two-parter.

But Gladiator costs a lot more as an individual movie to make. But Donna Langley, who runs Universal in this area, has really made a big bet here. And it looks like she's paid off, including tons and tons of money

which I think you would have found interesting. It was all over the Olympics. It's been all over everything. They've been just everywhere. This movie's been all, and so has Gladiator. It put stuff on TVs. It did a ton of marketing, and it seems to have paid off. Well, you know how witches write. Right.

How? In cursive. I'm going to curse you. That's kind of cute. It is cute. That's kind of cute. Where'd you get that? Where'd you get that? That's a good one. That's actually somewhat clever. Right? That was well done. Anyway, it is much smaller than videos, 100%, but I don't think it's comparable. It's a very nice... It brings back...

movie going a little bit, you're right, it's down quite a bit. Box office is down by this year 10 percent, something like that, some number. I've said this morning, I always like trying to draw to something resembling a learning here. So many young people want to be in media and it's a wonderful business in terms of creative outlet.

It's pretty simple. When you're picking media, the first litmus test should be what size screen does this media end up on? And there's an inverse correlation between the return on your invested capital and the size of the screen. If you're producing content or you're in the ecosystem producing media for a giant screen, a movie theater,

You could be an eight on a scale of one to 10 and you will get a return of five. If you're going into a smaller screen that's on the wall in your living room, you could be an eight and you'll get a six or seven or maybe an eight. Still a big business, still a real business. But the majority of capital, human and financial in the entire TV industry has been sequestered, sucked up.

by the shareholders of Netflix for a variety of dynamics. And then if you're creating content or media that goes on a small string on a phone, you can be a six and you're probably going to get an eight in terms of return. So kids don't let, you know, mama, don't let your kids grow up to be in film,

Or TV, have them figure out a way to develop compelling content that can be consumed on a mobile device. Yeah. Or that you could take this stuff and move it up. You have to be thinking of it all the time. You have to be thinking of it constantly. Yeah, but think about our medium. Our medium is basically a phone and then AirPods. And the smallest screen in the world. Oh, my God, I just saw something brilliant. What? The smallest screen in the world are AirPods that go in your ears.

Oh, that's good.

Anthropic has been discussing raising funding at $40 billion valuation, as is Elon Musk's XAI. OpenAI raised $6.6 billion in October, bringing its valuation to $157 billion. I think Musk's is higher than that now. But they're up and to the right. So this is Amazon's play here, Anthropic. Claude? Yeah, it's the same people. Microsoft is having kind of weird tension. They don't want to be too reliant on the shitshow of corporate governance that is OpenAI.

Amazon is Anthropic. I mean, they're all sort of intertwined. It's intertwined. It's all going to the same players. But just the capital appetites of these companies, they're sort of reliant on the biggest players that can offer compute. But just the voracious appetite of these companies to build bigger and bigger LLMs. I mean, if you read that, it's kind of these white papers from Amazon.

And his name, Dario, the kid or the guy, the guy from Anthropic and then Sam Altman, they basically put out these long thought pieces saying, I'm really fucking smart. Please invest 10 more billion dollars in my company. We have never seen an industry that is this capital hungry. And I wonder, as excited as the market is, I wonder, there's going to be a player here where the capital is going to run out. Yeah. Because the amount of... Who do you think? Anybody? Yeah.

Well, it's kind of already happened. You know who the first victim was that couldn't raise the amount of capital they needed? It was inflection. Yeah, that got sold to Microsoft. Yeah. So it was kind of a weird acqui-hire, courtesy of Reid Hoffman. But there's these things. They're talking about the next big model that these things go on. It could cost $10, $50, $100 billion. I mean, Altman's using, throwing around the T word, trillion dollars.

I just wonder at what point one of these folks hits a wall. The investment I would like to make right now, and if you know the CEO, please introduce me. I want to make an investment as perplexity. I think their positioning around AI-driven search is a really elegant thing.

Brand positioning. And the guy is also a total attention whore, which I think is smart. The whole like, hey, New York Times, use me. I'll replace all your journalists. That's a total play for PR. It's totally craven and it's totally smart.

Yeah, yeah. He's an interesting character. He really irritates a lot of people. I don't know him. I don't even know the, I met the Anthropocene, I think. I don't know. I got to get, I got to do some meetings. I got to do some meetings. Do some original reporting. I shall. That's what I do all the time, all day long, my friend. Speaking of which, I was, you know, there was this report that TikTok CEO Cho Chu is consulting Elon Musk about,

the incoming administration. I talked to TikTok people. They said this is overblown beyond belief. You know, everyone's relating everything to Elon Musk, talking to them, including the Chinese leaders, which have leverage over Musk, hoping to be beneficial in the Trump administration. I think this is all being overexploited, except for the people they're bringing in to their Doge thing again. And I don't want to call it Doge, Department of Government Efficiency. People involved,

in the early stages, investor Mark Andreessen, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, former CEO, Uber CEO who was disgraced and fired, Travis Kalanick and Boring Company, President Steve Davis. Davis is a longtime back totem of Musk's. And Mark, well, we know Mark and Ackman, he's a loud mouth. They're all the loud mouths, essentially. And Travis, that was a

That was a fascinating choice. Can you say more about what you put out a text? What does Travis have to do? What's going on here? They're all part of the same mob scene there. It's Shervin Peshavar, if you remember him. He's a Miami guy. Emile Michael. Yeah, they're all part of the same crew. And it's just the crew. It's literally like watching like

You know, Lucchese's are coming in, essentially, allegedly. You know, it's like, it feels like that. And they bring with them some people who have talent and some people who,

are really dumb or terrible, mostly terrible. Or just hangers-on. And some people, hangers-on, and some people, and there's a lot of those, and all of whom are beholden to Musk and suck up to him. That's their thing in common, all of them. Or they're really thirsty, like Bill Ackman. I know you like him, but he's so thirsty for being not who he is. Mark Andreessen, I think, is probably the most malevolent of this group.

Smart, obviously successful, but really an unpleasant character overall. Who amongst them do you like? Not this group. I don't know Steve Davis. I've heard he's smart. Mm-hmm.

I mean, they're all, I mean. I like Travis Kalanick because he throws a great party and invited me like three years ago for Halloween. Oh, did he? Okay. Well, we did a lot of reporting on him and he ended up being fired. So, and justifiably so, he presided over a really toxic case.

You can go watch all the movies and read the books. He's just a toxic person. Do you think that's fair? I do. I think he created a toxic work environment. I mean, Goetz is toxic. Do you really think Travis was toxic? Yes. You've not read any. You've clearly not read any of it. You clearly have not read anything.

Yeah, I've not read anything. As I said at the Miami Book Fair. Yes, I said. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I think he, I think, compare him to Dara Khosrowshahi. That's all I would say. Dara, the D-man. He's great. He's great. And, you know, the stuff that Travis was up to was all kind of- I like the guy who runs Lyft, too. David, the CEO of Lyft. He's a good guy. Yeah. Fine. They're all great. They're all fine. Like, this guy had to make it a hand-waving- Travis? Grow-fest. Decent guy? Like, his, no, he's not. Oh.

I'm sorry, not Travis. Oh, shit. Oh, no, Brian. Brian Chesky. We like Brian.

Lovely. Lovely. Everybody has their faults, but this guy just went out of his way to be a douchebag, like really, in a way that was really icky. You know, the whole thing with women, the anti-women stuff was heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy. And that may not bother you, but it bothered me. Was there an air hockey table involved? There's different... No. There's something... No. Okay, hold on. I do think...

I've been thinking a lot about the Department of Education recently because there's some ridiculous bullshit that we want to eliminate what is probably the best forward-leaning investment in history. And that's the Department of Education, in my view. I think it's paid more dividends than NASA or whatever. There are different levels of mendacious. And I think one of the things we need in the senior year of high school for kids is, one, a class on—and I love the word you use—adulting, right? My kid can do integers but doesn't understand the interest rate on his Greenlight credit card. Right.

We need to tell young people to train them about sexuality in a more thoughtful real-world place, specifically how to express romantic interest while making someone feel safe. And three, I think we need to bring back civics and teach kids just how incredibly fortunate they are that the best decision they ever made was to be born in America. And finally, I really do think we need much more thoughtful and concerted training and education around critical thinking.

Because, all right, people are conflating people who've had scandals, who've been unfaithful outside of their marriage or whatever, or New York Magazine hit pieces on podcasters, which made no fucking sense to me, or taking advantage of a White House intern. That is worse. But it's not in the same goddamn league as having sex with a minor. And we tend to group all of these things into the same thing. They're not. Right.

Some activities are right. You know, people are human. People fuck up. Fine. And then people should be disqualified. Matt Gaetz couldn't get a job at a law firm, much less be attorney general. And neither could some of these people. And now they're running government stuff. Neither could some of these people.

Right, right. But I'm just like, yeah, if Matt Gaetz is your bar, everything else, it's like saying don't be evil. Everything else to the left of it is like whatever, right? Pam Bondi looks like fucking Thurgood Marshall because she's following Matt Gaetz. I know, I know. Exactly. That's exactly. And she certainly is not. She's, you know, there's all kinds of reporting on her behavior, but.

You know, these are all, they seem all very shifty and crony. One of the ones that is really, it's just now, Brandon Carr, who's going to be the head of the FCC, thank God they don't have that much power, tells Maria Bartiromo he's going to make sure the government no longer treats Elon Musk unfairly. I'm not sure when that happened. What? And says he's going to take a look at blocking George Soros from buying radio stations. If this isn't crony capitalism, all these, like, come on, like seriously. But Elon Musk can buy MSNBC and Twitter. Yeah.

No, he's not going to buy them. You know what I mean? It's like, who's the, these people. That should be the new name for your, you know, number seven millionth rated TV show. It should be called These People. That would be good. These People. These People. These People. And I just got it. You're welcome. I want to credit. Executive producer. From executive producer, Scott Galloway. I welcome, I welcome your doubt because...

happened before when I started a blog, happened before when I started podcasting, happened before when I picked Scott Calloway. I'm good with your doubt. I love your doubt. Don't conflate me with cable television. I'm just saying I see something. I see something. Something I see. I don't know. After working my ass off for 30 years, I'm an overnight success because of Kara Swisher. There's some truth in that. No, no, there is some truth in that. I'm sorry. That's what I'm saying is that like, I don't like, I have

to listen to my own instincts here. So I'm going to do that. It's part of an entire ecosystem. I've got to be honest. I was rolling with some pretty hot ladies in F1 and a bunch of times the casino people yell out, hey, Prop G. And I felt like I should text you and say, thanks for this.

Thanks for this. Yeah, it's nice. So anyway, they're not, they're just like, I'm sorry, all I say to Charles Kalanick is our co-host Rashahi has managed to turn that company thing and he spent a lot of time doing all kinds of stuff. At one point he was like,

He wrote memos that was like, you all should only fuck each other if you're not in the direct line of thinking. I can't fucking. He was so, he had so much like toxic growth. He was a kid. He was immature. I would describe it as immaturity. I wouldn't describe him. Look, you know better than me. I don't think he was malicious. I would describe him as very immature and shouldn't have been the CEO of a company of that importance. Perhaps.

Perhaps. Speaking of MSNBC, people are in a panic that Elon's going to buy it because he tweeted it about buying it. It's ridiculous. I've talked to the Comcast people. They're going to spin it off and then it'll be a shareholder thing. They're not going to turn around and sell it to Elon Musk. It's just not going to happen. I'm just...

And he could buy shares in it once it's a public company in about a year, something like that. But from what I kind of – I had some discussions with Comcast people. It kind of makes sense to put it off in one thing. And they'll either rise or fail based on what they make it as much as they digitize it. That's my feeling, right? I don't know what else to say. We talked about this. Good bank, bad banks makes all the sense in the world. These are –

These are good assets. They still make a ton of money. There's still a lot of seven-year-olds that buy a lot of insurance and reverse mortgages and Buicks and still invest in mutual funds thinking that some guy who looks old like them knows how to pick stocks, which they don't. So there's a lot of money to be made there.

The thing is, they're declining assets. And what they need to do—

forward to do with it or continue to milk it. Either way, it's not the worst thing to do. They'll acquire other failing cable assets. It's still spin-off cash flow. They'll consolidate the back end and they'll move to a stock that offers a dividend like a mature company. And they'll come up with new stuff just as long as it's not crazy, stupid, expensive. They can't afford to be in the streaming market. That's why they're getting out. That's a race to the bottom being led by

which has 38 gallons of gasoline for everyone everyone else has. But there'll be, this is a smart, we've talked about this, this is a smart move. It'll be good. You know, the whole industry is going to be smaller. It's not going to be as high paying. It is leaking market share to other formats. We're about to have a much more competition. Basically, what do you call an anchor that used to make $3 million and left in a huff because they only offered her $1 million? A podcaster. Yeah.

You're going to see essentially every news anchor in America is about to have a podcast. Oh, don't I know it. Don't I know it. I get called by all of them. Let me just give you some numbers here, though. You want to talk about income inequality. There are 3 million podcasts. 600,000 put out a podcast every week, right? I would venture that maybe generously 600 or 1 in 1,000, 0.1%.

0.1% make money. When I was on, and I like this story because it makes me look good. When I was on crew at UCLA, we had 10 oarsmen go to the Olympics. I have a total of 2,800 since it became a varsity sport, meaning that approximately 0.3%. I was three times more likely at the age of 19 to end up in the Olympics than having a top podcast.

So, this is how difficult it is to get to a sustainable podcast right now. It is more difficult. If you end up being a varsity athlete at a university, there's a greater likelihood you'll end up in the Olympics than have a successful self-sustaining podcast. I did that on my own. Isn't that good? We should go to the Olympics. You and I, we compete in shot put.

That thing with the ice where you could do the sweeping thing. Curling? No, here's the thing. This is what I tell kids that are athletes. My kids have the perfect amount of athletic ability. And that is they're good enough to play on their teams, but they're nowhere near good enough to have any delusions of grandeur that they're going to get a college scholarship or play professional sports. That is just the right amount of athletic skill. Because

because I was an athlete, but I had absolutely no chance of doing anything. I didn't have those delusions. I got on with my life and I went and got a job. My friends who were world-class athletes, a couple of them went to the Olympics in Seoul. A couple of them ended up playing triple b-ball. Now two went on to be huge. Troy Ackman and Reggie Miller were also my class, but those guys were freakish.

But the majority of them by the age of 28 or 29 were just starting their lives. It's not – it is a really, really difficult way to make a living. And what I tell young people in sports is unless you're getting bright flashing green lights that you're going to be in the .001%. I mean, some of the – Ed O'Bannon was like a – the guy was a god on the basketball court. And he didn't – you know, he lasted one year in the pros. It's a very – it's a very difficult way to –

to make a living. But here's the good news. What I tell young people is the same skills you bring to sports, teamwork, knowing how to lose, grit, real discipline, competitive, like just an incredible drive. All of these things apply, all of them, to a profession that you get better at as you get older, business, medicine. Because here's the wonderful thing. I go to the US Open every year and I was thinking about this. I would rather be Rafael Nadal

or Roger Federer. If I could switch spots to be the number one or the number two in the world, I would do that. But the number five guy, I'd rather be me because I get to buy my way into the U.S. Open and I'm not nervous. I get to enjoy it more than him. And this guy is the number five player in the world. Do you know who the number five player in the world is? No. Neither does anybody else unless you're super into tennis. No.

So here's the thing. Find an industry that you get better at as you get older. Don't go into modeling. Don't go into sports. I would even say most of the creative industries, most people, that hormone leaves you when you're 30 and you start learning about the world and you stop being a genius. Find a profession you get better at as you get older. Good piece of advice by Scott Galloway.

Very nice. That's why you took a chance on me like cable news. I did. You'll see. You're going to see. Cable news. You're going to see. I like your show with Chris Wallace. I like it. Why wouldn't they just reinvent you and have you be Chris Wallace?

I actually like this one better. I'll tell you why I like this one. It feels like a podcast video, you know, on video. That's what it has that vibe. And so I kind of find it. It was really fun to make. And some I was also will play some later on. Have I got news for you, which is showing very strong ratings, actually up 61 percent from 10 people to 16. I'm sorry. No, it was. It's doing rather well, Scott. And if you get a sponsor attached, you can do really. I will just tell you.

Oh, and for example, I just got all the numbers. We're way up in terms of revenues and people listening in, but the revenues have gone up quite a bit in this year than last year. But you're making my point. And I did this chart, which I'm especially proud of. Do you realize we need somewhere between a third and a seventh of the people to reach 100,000 people as any cable news program?

Yep. And so on a on somewhere between a third and the seventh of the audience, we can make as much money. And if you get the same audience, which we do as a decent cable show, and you can do it with five people. Do you know how many people it takes? I mean, you see you go into CNN, DC, every studio, how many that show you're producing or you're going to do for CNN? How many people do you think touch people?

We spent a lot of time on that show to produce what is either 21 or 42 minutes of good content. I don't actually know, but it was a lot smaller than before. And that was good because everyone was really lively. So a dozen people in the control room, editing, sound, all that shit? You're right. At least. You're right.

Yeah, you're right. But we have more than just a few. And it was really interesting. I mean, he's absolutely right on his voice for next year to grow like enormously and stuff like that. So you're absolutely right. And we're in a good spot. I like my podcast most of all. Which one? Which one do you enjoy the most? I'm curious. This one. Yeah, me too. Thanks for saying that. I enjoy this one the most. This one. I agree. I like all the others. So I really enjoy the others though. Anyway, let's get to our first big story. ♪

President-elect Donald Trump will be picking a new SEC chair. I don't love focusing everything on this Trump picks because some of them are so asinine. Some are okay. But Gary Gensler announced last week he'll be stepping down and leaving the SEC on January 20th. The delight of crypto bros everywhere. Trump has yet to reveal Gensler's replacement. This will be a really important replacement, but the pick will likely be someone friendlier to both Wall Street and crypto. Gensler's departure is no surprise to anyone. Bitcoin surged past $98,000. I forget what it is today, but

Mark Cuban posted, Gary Gensler is leaving the SEC about two years too late. I believe his stance on crypto was the reason so many young crypto-owning men voted Republican, which is interesting. You know, Mark said, say we're crypto, not agnostic positive, but not like douche-nozzle people positive. Mark Ross. So...

No, I think we're all in the same place, Marcus. I think Gensler really did try. I see why he was doing it, but at the same time, he was unusually obstructive. You talked to him at one of our events about this. So what do you think they should do? I mean, Kamala Harris was much more embracing of it, but not as much as Trump was.

So anybody you think, and let me just, I'll get to Scott Besant or however you pronounce it in a second, but who should be the head of the SEC? Because you don't want like this crony capitalism that you might be seeing. You know, Mark Cuban and Elon Musk had cross purposes with the SEC for many years, obviously. But thoughts? I don't know. I would go, I mean, it'd be nice if you could find someone who's a little bit younger and a little bit more in touch with some of the new technologies. Keep in mind,

You know, no one likes the regulator in both times and everyone blames the regulation or under regulation when shit gets real and people lose their money. Yeah. And so I don't, you know, I'd love to see a guy like David Solomon. I think he understands the markets. I think it's forward looking, but at the same time.

This is a long-winded way, Cara, of saying, I don't know. The crypto thing has garnered a disproportionate, other than Musk, you would argue that as an asset class, no asset class dominated this election in terms of swing voters like crypto. Crypto, there's some wonderful things about it. It has established itself as a tangible asset class, specifically Bitcoin. And visionaries like Michael Saylor, who have

done, defied all odds in terms of corporate governance. Miami. Miami. Also issued billions of dollars in debt on the backs of the creditworthiness of a company in business intelligence and then went out and bought Bitcoin, which is just fucking crazy. And meanwhile, the stock's up nine and a half fold. I mean, this guy really is a visionary. You know, I'd like to see someone who understands these technologies, but at the same time,

The SEC, the problem with the SEC is the SEC is mostly there. It's supposed to be there to protect investors. Now, part of protection is not only regulation, but it's also ensuring that the markets are robust and people can make money and embracing risk. And generally speaking, America errs on the side of a lack of regulation such that we can let

our horses run. But the problem with the SEC over the last 20 or 30 years, I would argue, and I've had a lot of involvement with the SEC because I was an activist investor, is they're supposed to be there to protect investors? They're not. They're there to protect management. And that is they implement all these rules where if you buy more than 5% of shares, you have to disclose your intentions. They give management the benefit of the doubt. They basically have been weaponized by management to transfer money from shareholders and the general public to management.

And so that needs to change. But you probably, I would think with the SEC, want someone who understands the law, understands innovation. Because, I mean, just slow your roll around the crypto thing, guys. Because if all of a sudden these shit coins come back...

and you convince a bunch of retail investors to invest in this thing, you could see a lot of good people lose everything. Everything. Right. Exactly. That's correct. So the notion that we just want to embrace somebody who's just going to try and... I mean, basically what crypto has said is just put a guy in there that's going to figure out a way to irrationally, artificially explode the value of my Bitcoin. And that's, again, there's a common thing among cronyism and kleptocracy, and that is do what is ever is required to...

to transfer money from the entrance of the people who don't have money yet to the incumbents that already own this shit.

And that's not the way you operate America. The way you operate America is create an employing environment such that young people can move up the ladder, they can save more than they can spend, and they can start investing in assets at a reasonable price instead of just pumping up the value of every market, housing, crypto, and stocks, such the incumbents like me get richer and richer. Now, speaking of which, in this, it will be interesting to see who they pick. I think he'll end up picking someone. He seems to be very calm on the Wall Street pick.

like, you know, very normal people. They're credible. They're credible. Donald Trump made a flurry of these nominations when we spoke last week. He nominated, the most important was Scott Besant for Treasury Secretary, claiming that Besant will make America rich again. America is rich, you dumb fuck. Oh, God.

Just not the right people, right? Just not everybody. It's not evenly distributed. It's what William Gibson said about the future. Prosperity is here. It's just not evenly distributed. That's correct. This election follows an internal battle in Trump world that advised their leg into a knife fight with, that would have been fun, with Besant versus Howard Lutnick. Besant,

was once a protege of George Soros, as we said, was not a negative thing, major Democratic donor, which is a concern for some Trump allies. But like Trump, Bessette favors tariffs and deregulation. I'm not sure how much he favors the tariff part. I suspect deregulation, certainly. He's also been an advocate for blockchain and digital assets, probably very...

in probably a very normal way. Trump seems to be pleasing Wall Street with his choice, but not Elon Musk, who is pushing for a Latinx problem because it can control him more. By the way, Bessette would be the first openly gay Treasury Secretary. I think that's kind of interesting. We should also point out, to be fair, I think the LGBTQ community on...

A number of levels actually did pretty well in this election. Meaning? Well, the first transgender woman elected to Congress. Yes, Democrat. There was a decent amount of victory and progress around the LGBT community in this election. Well, not the laws that are coming, Scott. I mean, again, I'll be living with you in London at some point. It's worrisome for people with children. Come on over. The weather's fine. That's a lie. That's a lie. That's a lie.

But talk about Besant. I think you're wrong about gays and lesbians. I think Sarah McBride seems to be like a class, class act compared to Nancy Mace. Well, it's double-edged because she was elected, right? Right. That's right. I have nothing but regard for her. And I like how she's rolling. We'll see how she does. Besant. Talk about Besant. A hedge fund manager. And the thing that shocked everybody is that, of course, they think that Soros somehow is the enemy. He's very qualified.

I like you need someone. The thing that gives me hope or the respite, the consolation, the silver, not even lying, the silver dotted silver line in all of this is that Trump does appear to think, OK, when it comes to laws, it doesn't matter. When it comes to the Department of Education. Oh, it doesn't matter. But at least he's smart enough to know none of this shit matters.

if the economy isn't well run. The economy is the mothership. And I would argue their picks and the people they're vetting, including Scott Besant, he's an adult. He understands the markets. He's a very bright guy. So,

Absolutely. I'm heartened by this pick. And not only that, this is, you could argue, this is the only pick. You know how typically in a nod to the other party, they would give someone from the other party, you know, Department of Transportation, just to try and pretend to be bipartisan? That shit's gone out the window. And they're not only not bipartisan, they'll pick the fucking craziest person as long as you supported me, regardless of how ridiculous your lack of qualifications are. Yeah.

When it comes to running the economy, I think Trump says, at least he believes, okay, this shit's for real. And regardless of the fact this guy worked for Soros-

And I want to be clear. I know a lot of people who've worked at Soros Fund Management. Yeah. It's not about their political views. It's about their ability to make money. Right. And that's what he's decided here. He's gone for a brain over politics. So I think this is a great pick. I'm excited about it. Yeah, I was much calmed down by this one. And, you know, Stephanie Ruhl was telling me this was the guy that was good. There was another one, I forget who it was.

Pam Bondi, as you noted, is Trump's new choice for attorney general, again, following the lowest bar of all, Matt Gaetz, stepping aside last week should have been no surprise. Bondi is a former Florida attorney general who later served as Trump's defense team during his first impeachment trial. She works as a lobbyist with clients including General Motors, Amazon, and Uber. She currently leads the legal arm of a right-wing think tank with ties to the Trump transition team.

There was some kerfuffle about her dropping a case against Trump University and getting a $25,000 donation by Trump. She's certainly the more conventional choice, although she seems to be an election denier. That's what it looks like. And by the way, her brother is an attorney who represented Tesla in the SEC fraud case against Elon. These people's interconnectedness is just something to see. Like, it's really something.

Again, as you said, she's not as bad as him. So, oh, well, here we are. She'll fly right through. But just back to the thing I noticed about the Sun was this morning the stock market opened up four or five hundred. You know what you're hearing in the markets right now? A gigantic fucking exhale. They're like, when they said, okay, if they put, I mean, what are they going to do? But, you know, the head of his paper route in charge of treasury. Nobody liked Lutnick, I'll tell you that.

No. I heard terrible things about Luttony from Republicans, Democrats. They thought he was just a thirsty, a thirst trap for attention and was not qualified. I think they think this guy is certainly qualified. Anyway, a few. That's right, a few. Anyway, Bonnie, we'll see. She'll pass through. We'll see what she can get done. Before we say goodbye to Matt Gaetz, I do want to share a clip from CNN's Have I Got News For You, which is a very popular program, up 61%, where I was a panelist this weekend. The subject of Gaetz came up.

who, by the way, is on Cameo now, so we can buy one if you want. We got to do something.

No, we got it. What should we have him say? The dog and the jungle cat are my favorite. I would love to see, I would see, I'd like him to give my 17-year-old boy dating advice and just see what he comes back with. Oh, no. Is that wrong? All right, go for it. Is that wrong? Yeah, it is wrong, but it's right. His favorite air hockey table? If that's wrong, I don't want to do it. We got to do something and see if he does it and play it. We got to sync it up. He'll not do it. He's not stupid like George Santos. You wanted the attorney general? We wanted, these guys wanted someone to be attorney general who for 500 bucks-

Yeah, we'll say whatever you... Anyway. He's so grotesque. He's going to be on Dan Things with the Stars next. Or maybe he was already. Anyway, I think you'll enjoy the question I asked my fellow panelists and all lesbians, comedians, Amber Ruffin, Jenny Hagel, and then there were Roy Wood Jr. I don't see sexual orientation. It doesn't matter to me. In any case, let's listen very quickly. Ladies, isn't Matt Gaetz the kind of guy you dated just before you became gay? Yes. Yes.

He was the last exit ramp. He was the one where you're like, let me try. Nope, can't do it. Anyway, it was fun. Actually, it was a very fun show. It goes on just before Bill Maher. I mean, they're trying to build something fun on Saturday night and they rebroadcast Bill Maher, which is kind of a good idea. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick

break. When we come back, another big week for Blue Sky as threads make some changes. And we'll speak with friend of Pivot, Julie Skelfo, about kids' online safety legislation. Quite a controversial issue.

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all day, every day. So if you want cutting edge cybersecurity backed by experts who monitor, investigate and respond to threats with unmatched precision, you can visit Huntress.com to learn more and start your free trial. Scott, we're back. Blue Sky's growth doesn't appear to be stopping with the platform crossing more than 21 million users, keeps adding a million users a day, while the Threads has five times more daily active users than Blue Sky ahead of the election. That lead has now been reduced to 1.5 times, according to SimilarWeb.

So people are really using it. Meta now seems to be feeling the heat, introducing new features suddenly. Oh, competition brings innovation. And copying, including custom feeds around topics or people, mimicking BlueSky's capabilities. That's an old Meta trick. Let me just tell you, that's a Facebook original. So BlueSky is still small compared to Threads. Quite small, but it's growing fast. Yeah.

Adam Aseri, the head of Instagram, seemed to downplay Blue Sky numbers sharing that Threads has more than 15 million signups in November alone. Agreed. Threads have been seeing a million new users a day for the last three months. Agreed. But it's very exciting that a small little thing is doing really well. I'm going to just give briefly...

Blue Sky's financials. Blue Sky was initially launched as a spinoff of Twitter under Jack Dorsey. The company has since cut ties with him. That was interesting. Kicked his ass out. Now majority owned by its employees. On the latest episode of On With Kara Swisher, I assembled a panel of experts to talk Blue Sky threads and ex-Exodus decoders, Nilay Patel, shared what he learned about Blue Sky's financial prospects from CEO Jay Graber. Let's listen very quickly and then I'd love your thoughts on this surge.

So I interviewed Jay on Decoder earlier this year and I asked her, "How do you make money?" This is before the explosion. Maybe she has new ideas now, but a lot of their ideas are really interesting. She said, "We're going to sell people algorithms."

We're going to allow people to compose lists and sell lists. There's some amount of like, how should we do paid tweets that everybody has in the back of their mind? Like, this should be a native subscription platform. So I think their idea is to sell user experience and then to build an ecosystem of basically like B2B SaaS products where other people want to start blue sky servers. We'll see how it goes. They've got a long way to go. I've been contacted by so many very wealthy people about investing in this thing and very big names that...

people I like, actually, who are meeting with them and talking to them. So thoughts, first on the surge, and then I'll get to the investment soon. You know more about this than I do. I just got on. It's the hottest new product introduction, and I know it didn't happen in 2024, but this is the hottest new product in tech right now, no doubt. Its user base has gone from 30

13 million to 23 million in just two weeks. Its usage, its daily active usage is now greater than threads. Yeah, yeah, it's getting there. It's close. This is the hottest product in tech right now. And what I would ask you, I'd flip it back to you, and it's one simple question. Why? What about it?

is working. Well, you know, I think it's fun. It's actually fun. And look, I don't think you have to necessarily choose. I like both. I really do like threads. I said when Amanda was joking about it, she said, um, blue skies, like the coolest bar you've ever been to. And why are you over at the cheesecake factory? And I'm like, the cheesecake is delicious. Like, I, you know, I think that's probably right. A good metaphor. Um,

I like, it's better for, Threads is better for marketing my stuff, honestly, and actually has a nice vibe too. And it's a little more like Instagram with text, you know, like I can see, like I don't find the really funny videos that I like. I find them on Threads much more. Like, I know it sounds dumb, chopping up food in creative ways or doing kind of cool karate moves or...

It's a guy who, mastering the art of camouflage to disappear in any setting, he's an artist who camouflages and then stands in front of things. I wouldn't have found that on Blue Sky. I would be uncool. So I'm fine with that. But I do like it. They're much funnier people.

They are assembling a news-forward group of people. A lot of journalists, a lot of Pauls are coming over. They're replicating that part of Twitter, the news feeling, and that's something that Threads had pushed away from, which is they're now moving back, letting people choose politics if they want.

like politics and news, they were very much against it. And so days later, you'd see things that happened days before. So I think blue skies grab that. And I think that's why they're doing well, because some people like news out of these things. Some people like entertainment out of them. And so I think, and it feels like,

Old Twitter, but not in a toxic way. I don't think it's an echo chamber. By the way, guess who's building the echo chamber? Elon Musk is building an echo chamber over on his service. And to pretend otherwise is ridiculous. I mean, one of the stories that just came out is that how he's minimizing links to stories so that people don't get to see them. He's creating an echo chamber too. And that's what some of these things are. But I like them both. I like them both.

So let me ask you about the money part, though. They've raised $15 million in Series A funding back in October, and then there's already interest in a new investment round. Again, I've heard from lots of people. The CEO has said the platform is billionaire-proof because it's not one centralized feed of content. And again, this echo chamber, I don't know, I think it's a nothing burger. But talk about why you would or would not invest in this.

Oh, I mean, you're talking to a guy who invested in Post. Post, yeah. Look, there's social media. Why would you do it? To make money. And there is an enormous, the rivers are reversing.

All the money that's gone into traditional media. The weird thing about media spend is it is arguably the most resilient business in the world. For about 100 years, advertising or media spend or ad-supported media has been approximately 1.5% of GDP worldwide.

In a recession, it goes to 1.4 because what a lot of people, I'll go back here, a guy named Tyler Johnston, the CMO of Dryers. He was my first client out of business school for my brand strategy firm, Profit. We went into a recession. It was 92. And he said, we're increasing our ad spending because this is just as all the bigger players are pulling back. This is a unique opportunity for us to grab share at a lower price because ad rates have come down.

So generally speaking, media spending is incredibly resilient, but it never goes that much greater or that much lower. What's different is where the money goes. Grabs. Oh, my gosh. And the amount of capital still up for grab. You know, we talk about CNN. CNN still does grab.

A billion dollars. I mean, there's a lot of money still up for grabs here. And now there's going to be money up for grabs among the bigger players. And when you have an entity like that, if they raise money at a valuation of $15 million, that probably means...

It was sub a billion. You don't raise 15 million on a billion. You don't issue one and a half percent increase in shares. That probably means it was at somewhere between 50 and 200 million. Oh, my gosh. I mean, I'm immediately thinking, does Kara Swisher know this guy? Because I want him to open up the round so I can get in. It's run by women, but go ahead. This is a company. They will do.

I wish this was Predictions Day. They will raise a round. They will announce a round in the next 90 days, if not sooner, at a billion dollars plus. This is the hottest product and the hottest category in the world. And that is a media company that can scale. It has network-like scaling ability. And everybody is talking about it.

So, yeah, why would you invest? So you could make a shit ton of money. Yeah, I would think so. I think they're trying very hard to make sure that people know people can take their things with them. The CEO was a woman, Jay Graber, has been an advocate of decentralization empowerment. So you're going to get what...

that kind of attitude towards it. It's not here for, you know, very heavy privacy rules. They love moderation. They toss people off. They feel it's a whole, they're creating a whole different thing. Censorship. Oh, stop it. It's what they want to do. Let me say, let me spread misinformation. And if anyone holds me accountable, it's censorship. Elon Musk. There's story after story today. I will throttle content that I don't like. That's not censorship. That's correct. Thank you. So, yeah,

So that's really interesting. And then the COO is a woman. It's a woman run. It's a woman run. But it's not like precious in any way. Who got us in there? King of the woman Amazonia slash Subaru loving slash isn't that good for the right man wasn't around at the right time? Well, that was wrong. Okay. In any case, you get over there. There's all...

put you in touch. I don't know them. I don't know Jay Graber. I just think I like what I hear. It's like, we'll make what we feel like making, you fuckers. And if you don't like it, get out of here kind of thing. I like it.

You know what I like the best? They were going to make it as a sub-brand of Twitter, and Jay refused. And then it was spun out, and then they jumped Jack Dorsey. That's my favorite part of the whole equation. I love it. Jack, who speaks in those hushed tones, could easily build the biggest beard oil product in the world. I'm going to give you the sense that I give a flying fuck about the world like Sam Altman because I speak in hushed, measured tones.

In any case, we love Blue Sky. It's great. And Amanda, you're right at the same time. I do like threads. I'm sorry. I'm not going to have... I don't have to... Things I like, I like. If I feel good after using a product, I like it. And I know it's Mark Zuckerberg, but I like what they've done there. And I like Reddit. I like... There's all these really good products. Have you seen Reddit's stock price? Yes. Jesus Christ. I know. Isn't that crazy? Jesus Christ. By the way, who said... Whose prediction...

was that the third most trafficked site in America was vastly undervalued at a $5 billion IPO value. Who said that? Scott Galloway. That's right. What's it at now? Fits tripled. That bitch is tripled. Get us into blue sky. Get us into beast sky. All right. Okay. We will do that. I will not do that at all. But let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

Julie Scelfo is the founder of Mothers Against Media Addiction, or MAMA. That's my name with my kids. MAMA is a grassroots initiative working to protect kids from smartphone and social media addiction as well as to keep them safe online. Welcome, Julie. Good morning. Hi. Hello. How you doing? All right. So talk a little bit about the organization. There's certainly been a lot of legislation lately and everything else, and this is one of Scott's big stuff.

So we've talked a lot on Pivot about COSA, the Kids Online Safety Act. It was passed in the Senate in the summer. It's now stalled in the House. Social media companies have been waging expensive campaigns to gum up the works. At the same time, there are some issues with it. So let's talk about how you started the organization. You modeled against Mothers Against Drunk Driving, I guess, which was formed in the 80s. Yeah, well, I'm a longtime journalist. I've been a practicing journalist for 20 years. I used to be a staff writer at The New York Times. Before that, I was at Newsweek.

And I basically was what you would call a bad news beat reporter. And I covered youth mental health and unfortunately suicide. And I was watching suicide rates go up and up and up in adolescence. And then these same problems were trickling down to kids at younger and younger ages. And when suicide became the number two cause of death for 10-year-olds in the United States,

You know, I've covered some pretty tough stories in my life, but that really shook me. I'm also a mom and I'm like, what the heck are we doing? So I realized there was a lot of groups out there doing great work, but that in order to organize parents at scale, we needed sort of a model where millions of us could join together and get our voices heard. So that's

And we're a grassroots movement of parents fighting back against media addiction and creating a world where real life experiences and interactions remain at the heart of healthy childhood. And we're focused on building chapters. How many people? Now, Mothers Against Drowning Driving had huge wins, right? They had huge wins all over the world.

They had huge wins legislatively, and they also had huge wins in terms of changing the culture, right? So that's really what we're about is helping develop new norms, empowering parents to stand up and fight back against all the BS tech hype that we hear from, you know, the finance industry all the time and give people the power to say, you know what, kids like deserve to be kids.

and grow up and acquire the basic building blocks of mental health, of social experience, and also the tools they need to be academically successful. You are speaking to the choir here, but talk about COSA, the good and the bad of it, because there was some issues around it. Are you optimistic that it will eventually pass and become law? And what if not? What's the most important legislation right now happening? So COSA has to pass by the end of this year. And the reason it has to pass by the end of this year is because it took basically five years of work

by hundreds of people. And remember, it's not really controversial at this point. We had 91 senators, tripartisan support, pass it. And in the House, it has bipartisan support. It has 64 co-sponsors, 32 Republican, 32 Democrat. The only two people in the country who seem not to want to pass it come from the state where just last week it was announced that Meta's building a $5

billion-dollar data processing center. So we're talking about the House majority leader, Mike Johnson, and we're talking about Steve Scalise, both from Louisiana. So Mama actually launched a chapter in Louisiana just last week. There's a lot of ticked-off parents there. I mean, it's like the one thing can't we all agree on is that we shouldn't exploit children for profit, and most people do agree with that. So I am optimistic that the most critical parts of COSA can get a

attached to the budget bill, but it's going to take work. And I know Mama's working on it. You know, members of Mama, other groups, we all are expressing to our leaders that we expect this to get done. It's been too long. Scott? So thanks for your good and important work, Julie.

So there's a direct, most recent, all the studies basically show the same thing, including the most recent one from Oxford, and that is there is a linear relationship between self-harm, anxiety, depression, and use of social media amongst adolescents. And finally, the data has been so overwhelming, it's hard for almost everyone to ignore, anyone to ignore.

So, if we have bipartisan support, it's not that Mike Johnson and Stephen Scalise are against it. It's that there's an entity behind them telling them to be against it and hiding behind something. Are those entities Apple, Google, Meta, all of the above? Who are the mendacious fucks actually getting support?

representatives to delay and obfuscate this bipartisan, or as you said, tripartisan bill. So we mamas try and use polite language. But to talk about the tech lobby, you can see all of the groups you just mentioned are part of it. And even groups like LinkedIn, Pinterest, you know, don't forget that when the Age-Appropriate Design Code passed in California, that the tech lobby sued to prevent its

implementation. I was at a roundtable with the first partner of California a couple weeks ago, and a representative of META was there. And during the discussion, it was a closed-door discussion, she said, oh, we absolutely know that age-appropriate design is critical to keep kids safe online. And then I said, oh, so excuse me,

excuse me, does that mean you're going to drop your lawsuit? So, you know, we know issue one does incredible research in this space. We know that the tech lobby has spent $90 million in the last three years to block this. We know that the tech lobby has put out these crazy talking points. They say to everybody on the left, oh, if you pass the Kids Online Safety Act or other legislation, it's going to put LGBTQ lives at risk, which isn't true. They tell the people on the far right, oh, if you pass this legislation, you're going to block...

Pro-life content, and you're going to censor conservative voices. So we now have... And just to press pause, there's nothing about this that would imply any level of content moderation, correct? Not only is there nothing about it, but you have far-right conservative politicians saying those are tech lobby talking points. Don't listen to them, right? So we know it's a bunch of garbage. It's the duty of care thing, correct? Explain the duty of care, right?

So a duty of care is like something really simple that says if you're making a product that's going to be used by children, we should have a duty of care to make sure kids will be safe on it. Really simple things like privacy settings by default at the most private.

It still gives parents choice, right? You're Kim Kardashian. You want anybody in the world to be able to contact your child, be famous. Fine, go in and change the settings. But for the millions of the rest of us, the default settings are the most private so that you don't have strangers soliciting your 10-year-old daughter for nude photos or like we saw on TikTok where...

kids, teenagers are being offered money in order to strip. They're being encouraged to create child sexual abuse material. I mean, Scott, you referred to those studies, but it's not even just the studies, the outside studies. We have Meta's own data. They put out a press release on September 12th, you know, bragging about all this great stuff they were doing to decrease the amount of suicide and self-harm content. And in the bottom paragraph of that

press release, they acknowledged taking action on 12 million separate pieces of suicide and self-harm content this year, just between April and June. Okay? That's 48 million pieces of suicide and self-harm content just on those platforms. Like, what the heck are we talking about here? Right. And let me, in that...

In that vein, Meta announced Instagram teen accounts back in September, also built in privacy features. They also announced a new feature last week that will allow users, including teens, to reset their recommendation algorithm. Do you see any movement by them? They're trying. It can feel just a way to cover their ass when it comes to protecting kids, but...

And is it meta that's the problem? They have Instagram, obviously, which is where more of the younger people are. But then there's TikTok and everything else. What do you think about these teen accounts? Is that them just...

So I... Covering their butt. Again, I think it's like smoke and mirrors because all of these things that they're introducing are a way of putting the responsibility back onto parents and back onto kids. It's absurd. We don't ask parents and kids to make sure that cars are safe and install their own seatbelts. We don't ask parents and kids to make sure that the food supply is safe and that there's no ground glass in the baby formula. Like, this is a systems-level problem. We need a systems-level solution.

And it's not really controversial what needs to happen. It's just that a few people who are very rich and control these companies and have unlimited

source, you know, unlimited amounts of money and now controlled information sources by which most people get their news, they're able to really control the conversation. So that's why we started Mama, and that's why so many parents have been, you know, we don't have to convince anybody to join, right? We started this year hoping to be in six states by the end of the year. We're already in 17 states. I think our waiting list is for 34 or more. We're moving as quickly as we can. But parents have had enough. Yeah, Scott? Let's be, it's, I mean, let's

The reason for this, the thing feeling this, is these companies registered about $11 billion a year advertising to people under the age of 18. So this is about money, nothing else. And what I would ask you is, we were talking earlier, Julie, about the importance of critical thinking. One of these things is not like the other. There's several entities here. There's meta, which gets a disproportionate amount of

blame either deservedly or not deservedly. I've also thought that, quite frankly, Tim Cook gets too much of a hall pass because, quite frankly, he's more likable. And then there's obviously Alphabet, which also controls. I mean, the operating systems here could age-gate. Obviously, Meta could do a better job of not trying to hide or wallpaper over the research, which indicates that they are, in fact, depressing teens. StackRank for us who you think

from best to worst among the big platforms and operating systems have been most and least cooperative trying to figure out a way to keep our children safe. You know, I can't create a hierarchy of who I think is problematic in this space. What I can tell you is that I think we need changes at every single level from all of these platforms.

You know, we started MAMA with a three-part mission: parent education, getting smartphones out of schools, and demanding safeguards. And those safeguards need to happen both at the federal policy level and if,

Congress is going to continue to be dysfunctional. We are optimistic that our state lawmakers are going to move forward and create policies that keep kids safe. We've already seen that in a number of states. And we also know the devices themselves need to be made safer. I mean, my kids have iPhones. I use the parent controls. I've told Apple how old my kids are. And yet they have an app store that promotes apps that their rating are only for 17-plus.

and they're promoting those apps to my 14-year-old. Why are they doing that? We take kids to see a G-rated movie. You don't expect them to show R-rated promos. So the changes can happen at every single level, and they need to happen at every single level. Well, why not just age-gate? Wouldn't a simpler solution just be to age-gate, to pass a law that says we age-gate pornography, the military, alcohol, marijuana? Why wouldn't we just say no one under the age of 16 ever needs to be on a social media platform? And if you aren't putting in place...

The platforms and technology to ensure no one under the age of 16 is in a social media

platform, you've broken the law. Wouldn't age gating just be a simpler solve here? I think that is a great solution. I think there needs to be multiple solutions, right? So we're open to a variety of ways of tackling this. But you brought up this question of whether, you know, who's more to blame than someone else? I mean, we want to see products that are safer. We want to see apps that are safer. We want to see transparency so that when these apps get rated, I mean, who's doing these ratings, right? Are they pediatricians? Are they educators?

Or are they people who work for the companies? There needs to be transparency so parents know what's going on. And there need to be policies in place to ensure that you can't exploit kids for money. Enough is enough. One of the things, speaking of protecting kids online, Scott and I always say kids are overprotected offline and underprotected online. But protecting them is, in an offline way, you're also trying to get phones out of schools, something that a lot of parents push back against. Some do, not a lot.

So talk about your argument to parents who say phones are necessary for safety. Sometimes when kids are sick, and there's always workarounds in these cases, both Scott and I are big proponents of this. As someone who has a lot of kids, I like want no phones in schools whatsoever. It creates all kinds of distraction. Nobody's looking at each other. This is the place they have community. There's so many, like, honestly, I don't even know why they're allowed in schools. Talk about that a little bit.

Well, you know, I came to this work not only as a journalist but as someone who studied this weird thing called media ecology. And that was a name that Neil Postman thought of many years ago to look at how different media environments shape human experiences. And when you add a new technology to the environment, the effect isn't just additive, it's ecological. Everything about the world and the way we understand things really changes.

And so as a society right now, I think we're all just completely addicted to the idea that more media and more technology is always better, even though digital technology has advanced to the point that the scale and volume of exposure is literally making us sick. And so Scott brought this up earlier. Like what's happening in schools, it's not just the smartphones, right? We hear from parents all the time that their kindergartners are being forced to use tablets, that their first graders are being issued Chromebooks.

These kids can't even carry an electronic. That's been on for a while. That's been going on. Right, but the volume and the scale of it is displacing other experiences that are critical for kids to grow up in a healthy way. So if the kids are doing math on the screen, they're not getting the building blocks they need to actually understand how math works.

If the kids are interfacing with their teacher, you know, through Google Classroom, I mean, you have the most elite schools in this country all insisting their kids use Google Classroom despite all the problems that exist on Google Classroom and the fact that kids have been able to access porn or information about how to hang themselves through that portal. So, you know, there's real problems here. And the culture change piece of this, the society piece of this, is that all of us need to start thinking differently about this tech.

Yes, tech is good for some things. It's helpful. It can be fun. It can solve certain problems. But it also can take things away. So that's really what we want to see is parents thinking about it differently, educators thinking about it differently, and lawmakers thinking about it differently. What do you say to parents who themselves are addicted to phones? Because that's what I always say. The problem in this room is not the kids. It's all of you. It's like anyone 30 to 55 or something, whatever, or beyond. Yeah.

but those don't have little kids. I mean, 100%. I mean, look, we know that we're addicted too, but part of why I felt there was a need for Mama, and part it's sort of a branding thing, right? Like there's lots of nonprofit groups, but what's the, you can have two white t-shirts roll off the same factory with different branding and one you'll pay $5 for in a package at Kmart and another one you'll lay out 50 bucks for because it's got a certain brand identity.

So, you know, putting these products aside and thinking about them differently so that we're not all just beholden to whatever the tech company says, oh, you have to upgrade this year, this product, or you're going to somehow be left behind. Is it really going to make your life better? Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. So you have to think critically about that.

Scott, last question. Just a two-part question. The first is, how are you funded? Yeah, good question, Scott. If somebody says, okay, I agree with this and I want to do something right now, other than crying into TikTok or screaming on Twitter, what could they do right now that would help get COSA back?

Okay, so parents should not cry. They should not scream. They should get pissed. And then they should go to joinmama.org, sign up to be part of our group. We have a form there that they can send with just one click. They can send letters to their elected leaders in the Senate and in the House to explain how urgently they want COSA. That's the first thing that they should do. The second thing they should do is either join an existing Mama chapter or start their own chapter.

And the reason that we're organizing this way is because there can't just be one leader of the movement. So the people who are leading Mama chapters are these incredible array of men and women who are already therapists, they're educators, they're teachers, they're knowledgeable. I mean, we have a

speech pathologist who joined us because she's so tired of the increase in students who need help because they're not acquiring the early building blocks of language the way they need. So don't cry, be pissed, go to joinmama.org and become part of the movement. And the second thing you can do is support us financially. I mean, we were funded with a seed grant from the Center for Humane Technology. We've had other foundations write us checks. Tristan Harris. Yep, Tristan Harris. So we're still waiting for some of the really biggest

philanthropies out there to recognize the urgent need to get tech under control. You know, they haven't connected all the dots. I love me some white papers, but people don't, you know, the average person doesn't want to keep reading white papers. We started with Rand and Truth

decay. Then there was the Stanford Historian Education Group that warned what would happen if we didn't give people the knowledge to differentiate different types of information quality online. So now we're coming together as Mama, and we are giving parents the tools they need to equip their children with the skills that they have to have to be able to function in a society that's so permeated by media. Can I make a suggestion real quick? I'm on your site. Sure.

I want to give money and I have ADD and you're about to lose me. There's no easy way to give money here. Okay, well, we'll fix it. We're a tiny team, Scott. We were hoping to, like I said. Big button, give now. It's not here. Okay, we'll get on that. That's what Scott says. All right. By the way, by the way, mama.org is the Medical Alert Monitoring Association. Do you think I haven't tried to buy that website? Oh, I know. They're not giving it to you. Maybe one of it's all white. I was like, board of directors, all white men. I'm like, what is happening?

Yeah. Well, maybe some of your listeners can cough up some cash. By the way, I haven't paid myself in two and a half years, and I've donated the money to get this started. I just needed to see the change here. And thankfully, a lot of donors are understanding the value, but that's not something we spent money on. I think...

I don't know how much they want for that URL, but hopefully we'll have enough to buy it soon. Good luck. Good luck, because I tried to get one and I never got it. So just you have to work with what you got. Do.net or whatever. Joinmama.org. But you will not take money from tech companies, correct?

I will not take money from social media companies. There are just too many parents whose kids have died because of social media, and it would break their hearts, and I don't want their money. I am not anti-tech, and Mama is not anti-tech. So when you refer to tech, that's a very broad thing to say, and I wouldn't say that we'll never take money from any tech company. We are open to working with certain corporate partners that share our values. There's a few out there who remarkably, you know, recognize

I shouldn't say remarkably. You know, the erosion of our information environment by all of this social media and so much garbage online is really making it hard for companies to do business. I mean, talk to people in marketing. Talk to people in advertising. You have blue chip companies that are paying for advertising on social media and then their ads are showing up next to ads for fentanyl. They're showing up next to ads for, you know, naked children. Who wants that? So we really have to clean up

the media environment, and I think mom is a big part of that. Well, obviously, Met is one of them, but don't leave Google and Facebook out of the...

Consideration for problematic companies. Or Apple. Or Apple. I was saying Apple. Oh, we're not. I meant Apple. We're not. And, you know, Karen, Scott, when you're ready to wear your mama hats, I mail them out to you. I have them. I wear them. My kids were, like, thrilled with it, mostly because that's what they call me. Anyway, it's a very great organization. Julie, thank you so much. Thanks for your good and important work, Julie. Yeah, appreciate you guys. Take care. Scott, I thought you would like that. I do. Give them a big, big donation. Give them a big, big donation.

Big old connection. I like that stuff. Our kids, I'm really confident. Unfortunately, my kids had to endure this bullshit. The biggest source of tension and anxiety. Is this true? Yeah, probably. The biggest source of tension and anxiety in my household is the fucking phone. And I'm blessed with like incredibly healthy, wonderful young men. But occasionally something's up and our first thing is, did something happen online? And you don't know. You just don't know. Yes.

I agree. I am thrilled both my kids really did get off all the social media sites. They literally YouTube and Reddit just for watching. But I'll never forget when Louis came to me and I said, oh, are you on that? And he's like, that makes me feel bad. And I was like, I love you so much. Like, he just understood that that was the cause of his unhappiness. So it just amplified normal teen problems for sure. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. You go first today. I'm just doing two wins. I'm feeling good. I'm in Brazil. I have nothing to feel failure about. We talked about the one win blue sky. Competition is great. One of the things that will help our guests implement better safety rules is competition. At some point, people will have the ability to say to their kids, no, you can only be on blue sky.

I'm not sure we're going to be able to keep our kids off of social media. I would like to see age gating. But the second best thing will be competition because someone will raise their hand and go, "Here's a competitive positioning. Let's not be awful and have content that results in a greater propensity to self-harm." Somebody will produce a child seat that actually protects their kid from a head-on collision as it's supposed to. So I think competition is great. Blue Sky, we mentioned this, has grown from 13 million to 23 million users in just two weeks. Usage is up five-fold in the past two weeks.

So that's the biggest win in tech right now. Week on week or month on month, it's blue sky. My other win, and I talk about this a lot, I have really embraced the notion of making a huge effort to spend time with guys. I'm generally a yes to everything right now with the right to cancel. I did it this weekend. My good friend Orlando Machant is literally meeting in Brazil. He's coming from Portugal.

So every chance I get now on the back nine as I'm spending time with friends, my kids, my sons, you know, 14 and 17, and this is a good thing. It's heartbreaking, but it's a good thing. They have that hormone coming over them going, dad is just not that cool. And I want to spend more time with my friends, not him or his friends. And that's great. That's what they should be doing. But I'm reinvesting all of that human capital into this.

brotherhood and camaraderie. And I'm just having the most rewarding time with friends. And it's nice. You're at this age, too. We can kind of count our blessings and talk about our kids and be more open and more vulnerable with each other. It's a different dimension. It's a different stage of friendship. And with men, when you're in your 20s and 30s, we tend to be much more competitive with each other and trying to outdo each other and signal our success. And

You know, we're just sort of like boys. And then it's just nice to get together after our kids or we can celebrate our kids' victories. We can celebrate how blessed we are. We have, quite frankly, we have a little bit of money to do the shit we couldn't do when we were younger. And I'm just leaning in so much to male friendship. And my advice is the following. Your friends you think are busy and important.

They may be both of those things, but they love hanging out with other guys, especially ones they have a history with and they can mock and be mocked and just sort of be kids again with. I'm just having such a good time with my friends. And it's so rewarding that we're finally at a stage in our lives where we can really lean into that kind of

And what I would say to men is if you wake up and you find out you're one of those guys that's a good person, has some success or not, but you just aren't making much of an effort with your friends, it's not going to happen for you unless you make the effort. And the effort is worth it. May I tell you, you can also be friends with women. Oh, thanks for that. Like you and I. Jesus Christ, Kara, really? Thank you.

Just let this hang. Just let this be what it is. All right. Okay. You love your man friends, your man posse. I always support your posse. Wait, wait a minute. What are you talking about? I'm constantly trying to add to your posse. You can be friends with women. Oh, News 11. Really? I'm just saying. Do you know what the most popular TV show ever was? Friends, where they were a whole group of them. And they all started fucking. I just want to hang out with Ross and whatever his name is.

I'm friends with gay men. That's the same thing. My son is going only with guys to go do something after Christmas, going skiing. I highly support it, obviously, and I'm particularly paying for that one. So is Alex. Can I just tell you one thing, speaking of that? Alex is going with six male friends to Cancun.

At spring break. How did you think that's going to end? That's awesome. Fraternity trip? I know. Yeah. Well, no, it's just, yeah, it's friends from the fraternity. Yeah. I'm thrilled he's in a fraternity. F-way. Is he going to hang out with my favorite, favorite friend? First name Tuh, second Kila. I think so. It's important that everyone gets sick and throw up on tequila and not be able to smell it for 10 years. Because then, you know, it was like really bad tequila. And I literally just said, just don't lose your liver. Like, don't like lose. Yeah, that's awesome. I know. I

I know. So don't say I don't support male things. I hate my sons go on male trips all the time. I'm just saying it all sense. All right. Um,

Oh, positive. I'm sorry. I'm thrilled that both these, Gladiator, that Glickett is doing well. Certain movies do hold a mood among people. And I think these do. I think they're about, they're also, they're political in their own way, even though these are old, old, Wicked was 20 years ago. So was Gladiator, the first one, 25 maybe, 20.

I think they talk about fighting back against autocracy and unfairness. And there's a lot of political messages in them that are, including a lot of Broadway shows that I think are important and I like how they're delivered. Both of them have a lot, there's a really good Slate article talking about how much they have in common. There's also things in common in these movies that I think are good to be reminded of, which is sort of,

individually fighting for your freedom. I just think, and I don't want, they're just fun too, but there are those elements in them that I think are beautifully delivered, especially, um,

Paul Mescal and Cynthia Erivo, I think they deliver them in a really strong and both entertaining and also important. So I like those. And I'm going to stick by Glickett no matter what Scott says to me. And then negatively, just this is just in special counsel Jack Smith has asked the judge to dismiss the federal election interference charges against Donald Trump, largely because

He wants to dismiss it, though, without prejudice, acknowledging the Justice Department policy prohibits prosecuting a sitting president.

If she does that, then they can later bring charges against him after his second White House term. And then the thing is, he could pardon himself, which nobody's ever done, but he does a lot of things nobody's ever done. And so it's sort of like, oh, he just bought himself a get-out-of-jail-free card. And that's kind of gross to me. I hate to say this, Cara, but the American public bought him that card. That's correct. That's correct. That's right. He got himself one. But we'll have to, American public. Okay.

again, story after story about non-landslide, but I'm not going to go into it with you anymore. I'm not arguing the point. But yes, he did. I'll talk about it on my next guy's trip. Okay, shut up. In any case... And you can talk about it on your new CNN show. Nobody's watching. I have gals and guys on my show. Nobody's watching. Because I have transcended you. Anyway, I find this... It feels so crony. It feels so Russia. This stuff feels so Russia. The broligarchs, the...

you know, getting off. Prologarx. That's a... Bohemian Rhapsody. Bohemian Rhapsody. Prologarx is in the Atlantic. There's a very good story about, called the Prologarx. I find them, I think this crony capitalism is giving me the shakes, I have to say. And that's what this is. It's crony capitalism that you advance, like whatever, Brennan Karsing, I'll help Elon and hurt George Soros. Maybe they did this before in the quiet, but it's grotesque in the public. I'll tell you that. It's grotesque. And they

They're all such thirsty fucks that I don't know what else to say. Anyway, that's my feeling on that. I feel bad for law. Anyway, okay, Scott, you've got to go. So we want to hear from you. Send us your question about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show.

or call 855-51-PIVOT. I'd also like to invite our listeners to join me for a special live recording of On with Kara Swisher presented by ELF, E-L-F Cosmetics on December 3rd in New York City. I'll be chatting with 2B CEO Anjali Sood at the Whitney Museum. It's going to be a great conversation. I'm really interested in 2B. Wow, fancy. I know, I like

Tubi's interesting. For tickets, visit voxmediaevents.com slash elf, E-L-F. That's voxmediaevents.com slash elf. Hope to see you there. Okay, Scott, that's the show. Have a happy Thanksgiving. We're going to be off for Thanksgiving. What are you doing? Oh, that's right. Yeah, what are you doing? I'm thankful for you, Cara, and the opportunities you presented. Thanks very much. I feel the same way about you and your little brologarcs. I do. For more, please read us out and have a great time in Brazil.

Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Christine Driscoll. Ernie Dertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Severio, and Dan Shulon. Nishat Kharoua is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Support for this episode comes from AWS. AWS Generative AI gives you the tools to power your business forward with the security and speed of the world's most experienced cloud.

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