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Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit. Get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash VoxBusiness. Just go to Indeed.com slash VoxBusiness right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash VoxBusiness. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. So I'm in New York.
And whenever I'm in New York, I go and get a full physical. And I like this guy because he kind of in a weird way makes sweet, sweet love to me. No one touches me the way this guy does. And I am so excited about this. This is the absolute truth. He's like this cool young man who's very kind of quiet and stoic, doesn't really know how to deal with me. And so this is what I'm going to do today. And I went and I bought the materials. When he walks in today, we'll start with small talk. And when he turns around, I'm going to put on gloves. Oh, I love that.
What's his reaction going to be when he turns out and I put on gloves and like snap them? And then the other thing I do, so now that I'm famous because of Kara Swisher, I walk around my block. I walk around Jack's wife, Frida. I totally peacock. Oh, hey, it's Scott. He's walking around. And if I walk around long enough, someone recognizes me and I do the following. I look around, I stop, and then I look at them and I go, you can see me?
That's good. And New York, New York. So glad you're back. So good to be here. Isn't it nice? Yeah, thanks to you. Beautiful. Nice neighborhood. It's beautiful weather. Best city in the world. Best city in the world. It is one of them, for sure. It's really... It's one of them. It's not your woke bullshit. It's the best city in the world. I was there very briefly to see this play by Susan Laurie Parks, who is... You did not know who she was, but she's a Pulitzer Prize-winning actress.
She has a new play at the Public Theater about Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson that's fantastic. I interviewed her about it today. It's great. You'll never go to it, but it's right up the street from you. I'll go see Dune 2 for the third time on Edibles. Is that the same thing? Yeah.
So good. You would love this. I'm not even going to buy it. You went to see Miper Bigley. You could do yourself with it. He's fucking hilarious and he likes us. Well, this is hilarious in a weird way. You need to watch. It's really good. It's really good. Anyway, let's get to the real point. By the time this episode drops, Scott's book, The Algebra of Wealth, A Simple Formula for Financial Security, will be out in the bookstores. Tell me about it, Scott. Let's do a little promotion of your book. And I do want to know about it. Tell me about it. I have it, but go ahead. Okay. So you know that study that
Five people who hang out together become each other. They become the same body mass, same political party, same income. That's true. Where there's greater variance, though, is that even if those five make approximately the same money throughout their life, one will end up very wealthy. And I'm trying to suss out what are the behaviors
and attributes and strategies for the difference between making a good living and being wealthy. This isn't a book about getting out of debt or cutting up your credit cards. It's a book around how do I ensure that regardless of whether I'm the baller I hope I'm going to be or have the big financial hit we're all hoping for, how can I ensure through some fairly straightforward steps that I have financial security by the time you're my age, Kara, because I do think that
America becomes more like itself every day, and that is it's a loving, generous place for people who are wealthy, and it's a rapacious place for people who are poor.
And so I spent a lot of time trying to understand the behaviors, assets, and strategies that people end up wealthy. One question from Alex Fisher. Why isn't it the calculus of wealth? Just curious. Oh, my God. I was just talking with Preet Bharara, and he just asked that. I just like the term algebra more. Well, Alex wanted it. He's taking advanced calculus right now, so he had that question. Yeah, it's basically an equation. It probably should be called the math or the geometry. Geometry is a cool word. I don't know. Yeah.
I've just signed, as you know, I'm doing a three-book deal. I'm doing the algebra of masculinity next, then the algebra of work, then the algebra of mating. So algebra of wealth, Alex. I don't know. Get over it. That's not the point. Why did you pick algebra? You just don't even know the difference, do you? Not really. I failed algebra, too. He feels the calculus is a better term. True story. True story. I took calculus three times.
at UCLA and if I didn't pass it my third time, I was going to have to change my major to psychology and go a sixth year. Wow. This is a true story. I had an offer from Morgan Stanley. I went to my calculus teacher. I got an F on the first midterm and F on the second and I said, "If you give me a D in calculus,
I can graduate. I have a job at Morgan Stanley and you can give this seat to someone more deserving. And he looked at me and he's like, okay. And he gave me a D. So you were saved by the bell, so to speak. Wow. I was saved by the generosity of this calculus teacher. And I tried hard. That part of my brain died anyway. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Alex is staying at University of Michigan this summer to finish up
advanced calculus courses so he could be ahead. He's already at advanced calculus? I think so. I don't really know. He says things to me and I know a lot of them. So clearly, let me guess, he was Megan's egg. Am I getting this right? Yeah. Am I getting this right? Yeah. It's calculus three. I don't know. I don't know. I never took any of them. I got to algebra and that was the limit of Kara Swisher's math. I didn't move forward after algebra. Geometry, I sort of liked.
Geometry is not right. The geometry of wealth, that's weird. Yeah. So anyways. So give one or two tip-a-roos for people. What do they have in common? Is there a commonality or not? Well, okay. So look, the most...
People think it's going to be, but you know the basics, right? Start early. Low-cost fees. If any hedge fund or mutual fund has an ad on CNBC, it means it's a grift. If you added up all alternative investments for people who supposedly know more about the markets than you, they've underperformed the S&P by the amount of their fees. Low-cost index funds diversify. Start early. Live below your means.
Understand time's going to go faster than you think. Diversify. You don't need to be a hero. Don't find the needle in the haystack. Pull the whole haystack. But what I think is unusual or that I found is that there's a bit of a trope or a mythology that, you know, kind of the Bernie Sanders billionaires shouldn't exist and they had to crawl over people. What I have found is that generally speaking, other than people who have inherited wealth, really wealthy people are
tend to be high character because the key to wealth, real wealth, is to build allies along the way. So wealth is a full person project and that is people of high character who are good to people and have people rooting for them, have a much greater likelihood of being wealthy. And also on the flip side, and I've gone through this, the fastest way to snatch financial insecurity from the jaws of financial security
is divorce and not only personal divorce, but professional divorce. I lost 60 percent of my net worth at exactly the wrong time.
You have to split your wealth, then you actually lose more than that because all of a sudden you're supporting two households and you're a for-seller, but also professional divorce. And that has shown me a very talented person or a small or medium-sized business that is doing well and then it does really poorly. And I'm going to show you professional divorce, and that is people who aren't getting along with each other. So the key to the difference between making an okay living of what I found and being really wealthy is
Is bringing a sense of forgiveness and a sense of generosity to your personal and your professional relationships. Yeah, I'm going to take the under on that because I know a lot of people who've made their money who are jackoffs, like quite a few. I would say they're equal, equal. That's because you cover tech. That's extreme wealth at a young age. Well, I'm thinking of some Wall Street people I also know.
It splits. It always surprises me who's nice and who isn't. It's really interesting. The people... Okay, so you're talking about billionaires. And when you're a billionaire... Oh, you're talking about different... When you're talking about billionaires, you're talking about people who are just fascinated by them and nod their head at anything they say. Oh, you're...
You're circulating conspiracy theory about homophobia or white replacement, but you're Elon Musk. That was smart. You're so amazing. Can I hang out with you? Can I suck your cock? I mean, these guys start thinking that anything they do is Jesus-like. But the majority of people who aggregate $3 million, $5 million, $10 million, like real money, you generally find a couple things. One,
They're really good to their business partners. They're generous people. People like working for them. They're good neighbors. They vote. They're generally speaking, people want, people think of them when there's opportunities. People give them the benefit of the doubt. So this isn't high, high, high net worth individuals? I think there's a class of people who got extreme wealth at a young age from the tech community and because of our idolatry of technology and because of their youth, they start believing their own press and start believing that they're immune from the scrutiny
and the demands of anyone who's been as blessed as them. They start crediting their character for their success, not recognizing that they're just really fucking lucky. And I think that can go bad places, especially with a young man who experiences that type of extreme wealth. But the majority of wealthy people, I think there's a lot of evidence, generally speaking, good spouses, good citizens,
Good for good parents. You know, you want you want people rooting for you. Yeah, I guess there's one when I've sort of been fixated on lately is a lot of the really wealthy people who are now giving to Trump, for example. And I don't mean ultra wealthy necessarily, because there's those that John Paulson, whatever his name is.
But there's a lot of them that are doing it in their self-interest. And they may be very nice people, but I find it really interesting. They're doing it in their self-interest. And some of them are quite extremely right-wing. I read up on a lot of them. And they're not all tech people. It's just, I guess they're ultra-wealthy, but they don't seem to care about
everybody. They care about their own interests. And they have points of view, but they become more conservative as they get richer, I've found. But maybe that's... Actually, wealthy people are skewing more and more democratic. There's a level. What is too rich? I don't know. I have just two more questions. When is... Like, I know there's all those studies. You don't have to be that rich. You just have to be a certain rich. Well, we talked about this. I've changed my mind on this, and that is
If you look at Daniel Kahneman's work around the correlation between money and happiness, there's a correlation, unfortunately. And I'm not talking about what is, you know, what should be. I'm talking about what is. If you're rich, you're going to be happier than if you're middle income. And if you're middle income, you're going to be happier than if you're poor. At a certain point, it tops out. So my question, and I can't believe I'm saying this, why wouldn't we restore really, really happiness?
progressive tax rates above, say, $10 million in income because that additional money isn't going to make you any happier. And it can make a lot of other people much happier. And here's the reality, Cara, is that wealthy people have weaponized the tax code. It's gone from 400 pages to 4,000. And guys like me who make their money buying and selling assets and businesses, my average tax rate the last 10 years has been 17%.
And that's just wrong. We basically have the people who get most screwed by our tax code are the workhorses, and that is people who make a lot of money with current income, a chiropractor and the wife is maybe a partner in a law firm. They're ballers. They make a million dollars. But in order to make that kind of money, it's all reportable. It's not investments. It's current income. They have to live in a high-tax blue state. They pay 50-plus percent.
But once you make the jump to light speed and can start investing in real estate and stocks, your stock rates, your tax rates plummet. So my question is, why would the richest, why would the most blessed people in the world pay a lower tax rate? It just doesn't make any sense. Because they know better than government, Scott. Don't they tell you that? Anyway. They're saving the world. Scott's book, The Algebra of Wealth, A Simple Formula for Financial Security, is absolutely
out by the time this episode drops and Ms. Stephanie Rule is going to do a thing with you tomorrow night, correct? I cannot come Saturday. Yeah, Stephanie, who's always my go-to and is very generous with me, is hosting a book called
a book he meant for me. I'm going on Morning Joe with Mika and Joe. Good, good. Keep your hands to yourself. There you go. I am very attracted to Joe. He's got lovely hair. What if I just started rubbing my, taking my fingers to his hair in the middle of the episode? He'd kill you. That would go viral. I wonder if I could sell more books. Is it worth it? It'd be my last book, but I'd sell a lot. You'd be dead on the ground if she had her way. She would get you.
Me can go for it. I give you permission. And then for the fifth time, I'm on Bill Maher this Friday, where Kara's at an incredibly high bar. Yep, yep, yep. With Don Lemao. I'm on with Don. Oh, fantastic. How great. Well, I will keep promoting you the whole time. I appreciate that. And hopefully I'll get to some of the interviews that you're doing. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including the TikTok bill, one step closer to becoming law. Very close. And China's crackdown on popular messaging apps, which is the reaction. Right.
Plus, we'll talk to friend of Pivot, Dana Mattioli. She's the Wall Street Journal's Amazon reporter and has a new book about the company called The Everything War, Amazon's Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power. Speaking of rich people, but first, the price of Tesla is $2,000 cheaper today after a price slash following a rough week at the company. They keep slashing prices.
That makes people who own them feel great right now who bought them at a higher price. The automaker is recalling Cybertrucks because of a faulty accelerator pedal pad. I cannot, $80,000 to $100,000 for this thing and the pedal pad doesn't work. The pedal can get trapped and cause accidental acceleration, which is always a problem when you have a giant metal truck.
Almost 4,000 Cybertrucks are impacted, which is the entirety of Cybertrucks delivered since its launch. Tesla shares, that's very small, by the way. Tesla shares are down 10% in the last five days of this taping. You know, most Tesla recalls are software updates, but this one can't. He needs to pay attention to Tesla, Elon. Stop tweeting. Look, we've said this. I don't.
We have a tendency, people love to really magnify the problems of Tesla. Probably in my opinion, unfair, because I don't think there is an automobile company that hasn't had a recall. Sure. But here's the bottom line.
Tesla's not a software company. It's not an energy company. It's an automobile company. And automobile companies trade between five and nine times EVTA because the bottom line is manufacturing steel around an engine and all the liability, it's a really shitty business. It's really difficult. It's capital intensive. It's labor intensive.
And Tesla is basically rationalizing, and as the whole world wakes up and says, this company, assume they make a great car. And I do think they make a great car. That means it should trade somewhere in line with a great automobile company like Toyota, which means the stock still has another 80% to drop. And we're starting to see it finally. Yeah, that's how we're talking. So, oh, Lemo, speaking of Lemo. It's so weird looking. Do you like it? I think it looks ridiculous. Well, it's just, it's like,
All the problems of it. It doesn't get out of mud. All kinds of weird problems with it. And now a pedal? Like, it's badly made. I don't know what else to say. I don't know why. He did say it was going to be their graveyard, and I think he's right about that. It's really... And they only sold 4,000? That's just like, really? That's not very much money, and...
It's a big headache and whatever. Anyway, go back and fix your cars and make a new one that everyone wants to buy rather than this piece of shit. You're capable of it. You're capable of it. You obviously built cars people like, so go build another one. Sony is considering teaming up with Apollo and it's offered to buy Paramount Global. The deal would reportedly be an all-cash offer and would take the company private. We discussed, it looks like Rowan and...
David Ellison, who is the other one at Skydance, are not dancing. No official offers have been made yet because Paramount is a 30-day exclusive negotiating window with Skydance, a deal Paramount reportedly prefers. By that, I mean Sherry Redstone. As a reminder, Apollo first offered $11 billion for just Paramount's film and TV studio, then upped the offer to $26 billion for the whole company. Paramount shares are finally up in the last five days at the time of the tapings. It looks like there might be a little thing happening here.
Will Sony joining a deal make it harder to pass on? This seems like the deal to take, right? I mean, not this other one, which is so needlessly complex and also favors Sherry Redstone in a way that will invite litigation. I think Apollo is definitely—I think they're panning Sherry into a corner. I think that—
Basically, Skydance came up with sort of this unnatural gymnastics deal to get Sherry, who's sitting in a corner and kind of controls the voting shares, to figure out a way to give her more money than the rest of shareholders. The rest of the board has correctly said, this is bullshit. And now the boards at work— Not everybody, because Chuck Phillips is a former Oracle executive. He's apparently for the Oracle. But my sense is some—
When boards lawyer up and start going on background, that means it has gotten really ugly at the board level. Boards generally don't do that. But Sony coming in, I think they're basically putting her in a corner and saying, "This is a better deal for all shareholders."
We've got a strategic partner. Yeah, we can come up with the money. I think that was one worry. Yeah, we're Apollo. Well, there was that worry, whether they can come up with the money. There was indeed. It's like that latest James Bond film where that great actor, I forget his name, he's in the CIA and he offers like 10 million bucks for James Bond to be in the next round of poker. And he's like, can you afford that? And he's like, we're America. Does it look like we need money? I mean, Apollo, if they want to do this.
When Byron Allen, who's a very successful entrepreneur, said, "I'm willing to pay $14 billion," the whole world yawned and didn't take it seriously. But when Apollo says that they will pay $26 billion, they will find the money. I think they're the largest private equity firm in the world, and these guys have a great reputation. I think Skydance understandably said, "It's about Sherry.
I don't, I think they miscalculated here. I think, I now believe that Apollo walks away with this. We'll see. Yeah. Also, Netflix memberships beat expectations and rose 16% in Q1, but the streamer will no longer provide quarterly membership numbers or average revenue per user starting next year. The company has said focus on revenue and operating margins. They're shifting. Netflix exceeded expectations in Q1 revenue as well, posting $9.4 billion from 8.2. I think it's because of
They got rid of all the free rides. That also helped, apparently, all the free riders. Will we still get a full picture without subscriber numbers or is something shifting? I don't know. This company is a phenomena. It's arguably, I mean, if you look at the risks they take pivoting from, I mean, they basically decided that the best pipe to distribute content was the USPS. They started mailing out DVDs. I mean, and then they pivoted
to streaming once broadband started really getting traction and then they pivoted to original content. Then they adopted the Amazon strategy and said, we're just going to outspend everybody. What you said was accurate and that is the problem in streaming, and I was with the guy who runs Fubo last night, super smart guy.
He said the problem with streaming is that people cancel. People download the entire season of TED and then they cancel. The churn is unbelievable in these things, except for one player, and that is Netflix, because they have so much content that you keep deciding not to cancel because, oh, wait, I want to see this. I want to see this. It's crazy.
Almost every war can be determined by who brings the most brute force, whoever has the most tanks and the most shells. Quite frankly, Netflix just has more tanks and shells than anybody. There's always a reason not to cancel Netflix. It's well-run, it's operating margins. They went up from 21 percent to 28 percent. They've made the jump to light speed and that is more and more of their subscriber revenue is falling to the bottom line.
I mean, these guys are so fucking brilliant. They basically have globalized media. They said, look at the ROI on our productions. And we're finding that the ROI is not only a function of how many people download it, but the cost to produce it. Who else had the vision to say, we're going to start producing content in South Korea and Spain?
I mean, these guys are so good. Anyways, Netflix. Netflix, they're really good. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. What doesn't matter? That they put these numbers out, that they're just shifting the numbers. Why would they do this? Because it'll keep their stock higher. These guys all do this. They decide when to break out numbers that make them look good and when to keep them quiet if they don't want their competitors to know.
I mean, at some point, Alphabet will start breaking out, probably YouTube, but they all do the same thing. It's all one question. What makes them look pretty?
Yeah, just as academics wake up in the morning and ask themselves every day, how do I reduce my accountability while increasing my compensation? The CEO of every company wakes up and says, how do I get my stock price higher? What information do I put out? What information do I not put out? Because they don't want people to look at the subscribers. At some point, they hit a ceiling, but they did get a lot from apparently the free riders that are three and four people on it. The password sharing. It was a marketing. They knew exactly what they're doing. The password stealing was a marketing strategy for them. Everybody was watching Netflix. Some pay...
Most paying, some not. And then it said, now that you're all watching it, we want you all to pay. And they made it much harder. It's like cable thieves. You know that. I used to do that in my mom's condo. I used to pay the cable guy. My family used to catch you people.
They were always the mayor and the sheriff was always the stealer. You'd have to climb up into a very dangerous telephone pole to do that. So it was always fascinating to watch. The video box was very apparent. You go in and they have these inhibitors and you just unscrew them and you pay the guy with the key from the cable company 10 bucks, a 15-year-old Scott Galloway, such that I could watch Cinemax late at night. Hello, ladies. You're a thief. You're just a thief. That's all it is.
I'm a thief of hearts. Yeah, right. Whatever. You stole cable. OK, let's get to our first big story. The bill to ban or divest TikTok is now in the hands of the Senate following the passage in the House this weekend. The legislation, which passed by a 360 to 58 vote, was bundled into an aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan by Speaker Mike Johnson. Very clever.
Very clever, Mike Johnson. They already passed one, but it was stuck in the Senate. But this is a slightly different bill. The bill makes it through the Senate. President Biden has said he will sign into law TikTok parent company ByteDance, then has 270 days to sell the app, closer to a year or face a ban.
Let's talk about how it went down, because they passed one that was getting trouble in the Senate. Maria Cantwell wasn't against it. Now she's for it. ByteDance indicated it could mount a legal challenge. That's where it's going next. Starting the ban would trample free speech rights. It'll definitely go in the courts. It's lost. It's won before in courts. In November, a federal judge blocked a Montana law to ban TikTok across the state. Specifically, Donald Trump attempted to ban TikTok in 2020. It was also rejected by a federal judge. It'll definitely go to the Supreme Court.
And then they'll have to at least look for a buyer in case they law. But if this does become law, future bans of foreign companies and products. We've done that before. Thoughts. Very clever way to get it through. Then they have to deal with the law itself. I mean, there's so many ways you can tell you're getting older, right? The idea of a cruise does not sound horrific to me anymore. I'm like, oh, okay. Yeah.
You know, I actually listened the other day. Someone was talking about catheters, and I'm like, say more, because I know it's coming. And the other, I'm not exaggerating, Cara. On Saturday, I was obsessed with C-SPAN. I mean, I might as well have been 120 fucking years old. This Saturday... I'm just thinking of you and a catheter, but go ahead. My dad says the guy who invented the catheter should literally get the Nobel Prize. Well, I can see that. Anyways.
I'm sorry I got thrown off there. Men have an easier time. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, there we go. There we go. So, God, just talking about catheters makes me want to pee. Yeah, okay. Anyways.
I'm, Cara, I just want to be clear. Yeah. My new favorite person or near favorite person is Speaker Johnson. Oh, good heavens. He took so fucking long, but go ahead. Well, okay. He's done more than anyone else. Okay. Okay. TikTok. He delayed it and then saved the day. This is fantastic legislation. It'll end up being divested. Everyone's going to get their money.
We're going to ensure that our young kid, that we don't raise a generation of civic, military, and nonprofit and business leaders in America that hate America. It creates more trade symmetry. It is ridiculous that this is no different than if in the 60s when we were in a Cold War with Russia, we let the Kremlin own NBC, ABC, and CBS. I am thrilled at this. And oh, wait, it got wrapped up in pushing back on a murderous autocrat. Oh, wait, and it got wrapped up.
in a bill to support our supreme ally in the Middle East. I just like Saturday, literally. - It is rather clever. - You gotta give it to Speaker Johnson. You gotta give it to, and by the way, this thing is overwhelmingly passed. We talk about how bipartisan the Congress has become and this,
You know, Marjorie Taylor Greene saying we shouldn't do any of it until we talk about the border bill that Trump told her not to pass. Moscow Marjorie. Did you see that cover of the New York Post? I mean, just this is this was I called I called. This is how lame I'm called my friends on Saturday. I'm like, the bill's going to pass the bill. And they're like, what do you do? What are you talking about? And I'm like, it's it's it is literally it's like if I showed up and it was you said to me, you know, Emily Ratajkowski.
Whom you will never meet. And did she ask about me, by the way? No, not yet. And who are the other two women? Oh, Senator Cantwell and Patty Stonecipher all want to hang out with the dog. I mean, this was three...
I hate my life. I hate my life less and less every day. And Saturday, I hated my life less than I have in a go America. Oh, let's push back on an autocrat. Oh, let's push back on a murderous terrorist. It's going to go to courts and, you know, it's going to get blocked. Right. No, it's not. 100 percent. No.
Okay. They're going at this from trade symmetry, executive action, divestment, not free speech. Go on, talk about your free speech bullshit. Fine. Rupert Murdoch had to become a citizen.
You're not allowed to own more than 20% of a broadcast station in the U.S., but we're going to let TikTok own the frame through which Young... It is a broadcast network. We and I agree on that. Yeah. I think it's going to be a little more tough going. Okay. All right. Well, all right then. Okay. So Scott is thrilled. What do you think? I'm going on here. I like that you're all excited watching C-SPAN. It's kind of weird with a catheter, but...
Yes, I think it was a very clever way to do it. I thought, you know, they had a logjam in the Senate and it was going to sit there. There are issues around Rand Paul might block it, et cetera, and the whole thing, but they're going to shove it past him, I think.
But it may be delayed because there's just a vote on it like in the next two days. But, you know, Rand Paul or someone else might be in the way. Nonetheless, he may try to block it. J.D. Vance, who hangs out with Marjorie in the Russian section of the department store, tried to stop it but couldn't. Obviously, Trump's been silent, but he's in court. He's busy in court. He doesn't have his phone all day. Did you see? What?
Did you see the photos of the drawings? Sleepin'? No, Trump. Yeah, Sleepin'? Which one? Oh, my God. He looks like he literally, this is more bad taste. He looks like a suicide bomber that's having second thoughts. Like...
He's like, you know about the farting. What series of decisions led me to this moment? And were those the right decisions? He's been wronged. He's a prisoner. He's a political prisoner. Consequences rarely present themselves lubed. They usually show up pretty rough. And when I see this guy, it's like, I just get the sense he is smart enough to know that
"Okay, this shit is getting real and it is not good for me." There's a piece in the Washington Post about how he's getting more unhinged on true social, which is going down more in price, being of down prices. We'll see. He's, of course, just a sidebar. You understand the farting thing when he sleeps? That was all over the freaking internet. I heard that, but I don't understand it. He's farting when he's sleeping as many people do, but the poor lawyers in court have a Giuliani situation.
Jesus. That's brutal. I know, right? I know, it's not good. He cannot now say Sleepy Joe ever. He literally can't use Sleepy Joe anymore. That was a good one, too. He can't do it. Joe seems up and up as a pup now compared to Sleepy Don Fartleon. No, this is a big week for President Biden. He's actually done really well. Don Fartleon, whatever. The farting is just, it's like old guy farting and sleeping in court. It's bad.
Anyway, allegedly farting, but I'm sure it's true because a lot of people tell me that you're sitting nearby who are there. Anyway, let's go on a quick break because when we come back, how China might retaliate for the TikTok ban, which is the second part of this question. And we'll speak with friend of Pivot, Dana Mattioli, about what she calls Amazon's ruthless quest.
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Scott, we're back. The TikTok ban might be the latest battle in the tech war between China and the United States, but China is also making some moves of its own. Not unexpected. The Chinese government ordered Apple to remove several popular messaging apps, including WhatsApp threads and Telegram from the App Store in China late last week. Apple said it was told by Chinese officials to remove the apps due to national security concerns. Of course, we aren't there at all. So they're taking all of them out.
A lot of these apps are already blocked in China, but taking them off the app store prevents them from being downloaded outside the China's firewall.
They're obviously retaliating. It's kind of a dopey way. Apple is sort of getting in the middle of this whole thing because they're going to have to take off. If TikTok doesn't sell, they're going to have to take it off. Apple's in a bad situation, unfortunately, for it. Its relation with China also is complicated. It's been trying to manufacture things in Vietnam and India and elsewhere, but it's still the main manufacturing hub for the iPhone, and they generated $68 billion in sales there in 2023. That's a lot. Yeah.
He just visited Tim Cook, the CEO visited China to shore up relationships. They're trying to get out at the same time. They're stuck there. You know, Tesla, of course, has a lot of exposure there. A couple of U.S. companies, not that many because China doesn't have reciprocity with most of our tech companies. But still a big issue. Last week, I had a really interesting conversation, by the way, with Dmitry Alperovitch and Chris Krabs about U.S.-China relations issues.
going into this next election cycle and the threat China may pose. And they did talk about this retaliation. It'll run as an episode of On With Kara Swisher this Thursday. But they thought this is exactly what they do, this kind of stuff. And we're really in a, you know, they talked a lot about Taiwan and everything else, but this is something that they think they'll refuse to let happen. So thoughts, they're obviously trying to pull out all their
This was a shot across the bow. This was an attempt to say the most valuable company in the world and a key component of your stock market is heavily reliant both on the demand and the supply side on China. And if you're going to fuck with the ultimate propaganda tool that we have managed to foment and support in the US, we are going to pretend it's about trade symmetry and we're going to start fucking with Apple. And I do not agree with your colleagues. Like Apple needs China.
But China needs Apple. China is actually fairly weak right now economically. And the thing about China is when young people or any nation, when people are economically doing poorly, they try to vote in the other party. And the way you vote in the other party in China is you hang the leadership.
So they have to, in many ways, they have to be very responsive to economic growth. And it would absolutely hurt. They could turn Apple off. Apple produces so much of their, you know, Apple right now, anything with the word China in it right now does not get a green light. They are trying to diversify like crazy. They're investing in India. But here's the thing. I actually think China needs Apple more than Apple needs China, strange as that sounds, right?
So they employ, do you realize that Apple employs more people in China than they do in the US? Those are good jobs, they're high paying jobs. And not only that, all of those components and assembly that flow through the Chinese supply chain, you're probably talking about several million jobs. And young people love their iPhones. So I think this is a game of chicken and I think China's going to blink.
And, and not only that, China, the Chinese investors are going to make so much money when this thing is divested and the cloud of political insecurity is lifted. And they just have very few legs to stand on. Let me again, just for fun, list all of the American media companies in China.
Okay, I'm done. I mean, we're going to win this one, Cara. It's going to be divested, the hum and the ha, and what people don't appreciate- Then they'll invade Taiwan.
Actually, I don't think they're going to. See above, we're funding Ukraine. Anyway, which I think is an incredible deterrent. Also, if you look at military history, it would be very difficult to take that out of the land. Yeah, they thought they had us on that one, I'll tell you that. That's for sure. But you have the following. You have – when people look at the – they chose the wrong word, sentinel.
saying ban. It's forced divestment. And what people don't appreciate is that there's a lot of light between a ban, divestment, and coming to some sort of accommodation with the White House. They will come back and they'll say, all right, there's so much money here. Can we figure this out? White House, can we do something? Now that we actually believe you are going to ban us, we didn't believe it before with, you know,
Joey Bag of Yahoo! Flatulation was trying to carve it up and give it to his political friends. We knew that wasn't going to work. We didn't think your Congress could get their act together. We didn't think that's going to work. But now that it looks like it's going to happen,
Hey, Joe, is there any way we can come to some sort of accommodation where you're happy and we're happy? There's a lot of things they can do to figure this out. Okay. All right. Well, that's a very positive way. I think I'd love you to, if you ever get a chance to listen to their thing, I think they are very much interested in Taiwan right now and that there's a lot of things they can do. I think we are going to, we are going to.
the danger of being in a shooting war with them is high, especially if Trump wins. No reason not to push back on them, but you know, some of the people he's picking are really like, let's start fighting with China. Let's shift all our focus
Which these guys actually thought, like, as much as important as both Dmitry and Chris thought Ukraine and Israel was, that our real resource, the ability to have even just weaponry and get that to Taiwan, et cetera, is going to be, we have a limited amount of weaponry and manufacturing capacity and everything else. I don't know. I think they, we are, they, yeah.
I think they are our adversary over the next 30 years, like in a really significant and frightening way in many ways. But we'll see. I know especially since Xi Jinping is holding onto power and aging, he's starting to get, you know, moved into crazy Mao zone kind of thing. But we'll see. I think this is the natural move they would have. We'll see once it passes what they say. There's going to be a lot of, you know, chest thumping for sure.
I'm not sure they can do anything about it. And maybe they'll just take the money, although I think that's not really the interest because actually a lot of the company is owned by U.S. citizens, which is interesting. Most general audit partners, Sequoia. Yeah, a bunch. Sequoia, I think, is in there. There's a lot going on there. Yeah, there's a lot going on. I mean, these guys should just take their money and figure it out. The issue is who's going to get the algorithm. All the parts of it will be...
chewed over for a while. No one's getting the algorithm. What's it worth? Are you overpaying for it? It's a great brand. Will it be the same product? And my guess is already TikTok's numbers are sort of flattening a little bit compared, you know, it's not in that explosive growth period that it was in. And so they have, it's a real problem for them because these people tend to move on from things very easily, as you know.
So we'll see, we'll see. - But just a point on Taiwan, I think the first battle, the most important battle around who, if China succeeds in invading Taiwan is happening and we're winning, and that is continuing to fund Ukraine. There's no way Xi and the analysts of China don't look at Ukraine and go, "That could be us only worse." Taiwan is incredibly sophisticated and wealthy. You don't think they've been planning for an invasion? Also their good friend, the United States,
has a cadre of nuclear submarines off, you know, all around the strait there. It's certainly a
a conflict we don't want to be happening. We'd like to avoid it. 100%. That's why, you know, Biden just met with the head of the Philippines and Japan who've been saying some pretty tough things about China unusually. So we have to really stress our commitment to that area. And the best way to defer an invasion of Taiwan is to continue to fund Ukraine. Yeah. Anyway, it does put everybody in a real, it's real geopolitics. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot.
Dana Mattioli is The Wall Street Journal's Amazon reporter. I used to be The Wall Street Journal's Amazon reporter, but also all of the rest of them. Now they have different ones for each company. She's written a new book about the company called The Everything War, Amazon's Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power. Dana, welcome. Thanks for having me.
So you've been on the Amazon beat for a while now. And I really was. I covered Google, Amazon, Netscape. They just had one of me at the time because they were small companies.
Talk about what you were hoping to find by digging into the larger story of the company. Obviously, Brad Stone has written two books on them. Amazon did not give you any access, special assets for the book, but you talked to more than 600 people, including current and former employees. Talk to me a little bit about it, because my impression from Amazon from the start was that they, I think I used it in my book, they're feral. He was feral. Jeff Bezos was aggressive and feral from the get-go.
especially compared to the soft, squishy people of Silicon Valley in comparison. Super aggressive hedge fund guy or investment guy, math guy, adult. So talk a little bit about that, what you were trying to get to. So I covered mergers and acquisitions for six years at the Wall Street Journal, where my whole job was to break which company was buying another company.
And when I started, the retailers were obviously nervous about Amazon. But over the course of those six years, everyone became nervous. It went to the consumer CEOs and then the logistics people and then healthcare. It just seemed like their tentacles were spreading everywhere. And they all became so nervous and I wanted to figure out why.
And, you know, it's one of the most powerful companies in the world, but also the most secretive. And it was this black box that I really wanted to get inside and understand how it always seemed to win, how it was wreaking this havoc across industries. And that's what this book does. It gets inside the company and lays forth their competitive or anti-competitive business practices. So talk a little about that. Let's start with Bezos, because it does come from Bezos. He's having now the greatest midlife crisis of
all time, seems to be enjoying himself and putting the same aggression into being whatever he's doing right now. But we're good. We're down with it. But talk about him, because I've always thought the DNA of companies is the DNA of founders. And the company reflects him quite well.
significantly. But companies change, too. Microsoft, I'm thinking, under Satya Nadella versus Ballmer and Gates, who were also aggressive and feral. Talk a little bit about him and where they are now. Yeah, I do think that the culture really does stem from him. There's a scene in the book early on, it's 1994-ish, companies just launching. And, you
You know, the early employees were kind of missionaries. They wanted to democratize reading. They weren't there to make a lot of money. And he gets frustrated with them. He says, you know, you guys just lack a killer instinct. And that was a little bit surprising to these people. And what you see is after the IPO, they start making money a
at least in the stock market, not on paper, they start getting all these MBAs to come in. And the company is built more in Jeff's image. And that's what we see today. Even though he's not the CEO anymore, the culture is largely built around Jeff. It's, you know, after 18 years of covering companies in some form at the Journal, including investment banks, it's one of the most aggressive cultures I've ever come across.
It's fear-based. And I think when you get into some of the shocking behaviors in my book, it's largely driven by that culture. Give me an example. Yeah. So, I mean, there's examples of Amazon employees doing whatever it takes to keep their jobs and stay ahead and not get cut by the bottom 6% at the end of the year. And they do things like spy on their third-party sellers to reverse engineer their best-selling hits.
There's a scene in the book that's resonated with a lot of people from the excerpt where they hire this woman from Trader Joe's. She's not really told what she's going to do when she comes into the company. And her first week there, she walks into this conference room in Seattle that has craft paper over the windows and the doors. And it's all blacked out for a reason. She walks inside and it's filled with Trader Joe's products. And she starts piecing together, oh, they want me to figure out
what to source from, you know, to compete with Trader Joe's. And from there, her manager just pressures her for all of her internal documents from Trader Joe's to copy all of their best-selling products. So behaviors like that, where this pressure cooker of an environment causes people to do things that are either unethical or anti-competitive, but it also causes, you know, mental health issues. There's another scene in the book where an employee who is put on a performance improvement plan, which people fear there, you know, writes a suicide letter at his desk and
sends it to the whole company, including Jeff Bezos, and walks to the roof. Jumps off, right? He luckily survives. But I don't see...
that sort of behavior elsewhere when I've covered corporate America. Okay. I feel like Scott's going to jump in and say that's the price of doing business in some companies, but go ahead, Scott. I don't know what you're going to say. Nice to meet you, Dana. You too. Look, anti-competitive behavior, I think Amazon is a monopoly and should be broken up. I think we probably, the amount they charge third-party retailers has gone from 20 percent to 50 percent. They're exploiting the monopoly power.
You know, in terms of going to work and having it be hard, the people who go to work at Amazon have most for the most have a lot of options and they choose to trade off that stress in that environment for what is an opportunity to get economic security. Isn't doesn't Amazon everything you're doing, you're talking about isn't the problem, not that they're doing it, because I would argue that
I can point to any company that does something similar. It's just that they're so good at it. And aren't these people grownups? And if it's really that tough on them, they can get a job somewhere else. Isn't this capitalism? To your point, like these are some of the smartest people in the workforce. So yes, and they do churn through the company pretty quickly because, you know, some of them want to have Amazon on their resume because it opens other doors. But I would pick a little bit around other companies doing this. Like I just had an article last week about Amazon setting up a secret shell company
and this covert operation to get onto their competitors' platforms and take information from them. And, you know, well beyond what normal companies do for like benchmarking per se, right? They're misrepresenting themselves to- Is it illegal? FedEx.
It could be depending on what they found and how they used it. It would depend exactly how they use it. If it's illegal, then someone should go after them. But if it's not illegal, then quite frankly, aren't they doing their job for their shareholders? I think the answer is in the nuances to what they found and what they might have used. But it's a willingness to be aggressive. This is what you're
The point being is that they're more aggressive than other people. And then where's the line, correct? That's right. And I think, you know, with the FTC lawsuit in September, they're saying, like, this is an illegal monopoly. To Scott's point, they've ratcheted up these fees on sellers from, I think it was 17 percent a decade ago to 45 percent today. And, you know, I have examples in the story of these sellers who—one of them, he makes $10 million a year on Amazon in revenues, okay? Right.
At the end of the year, after all the fees he pays and overhead, that goes down to $30,000 in profits. So what has he had to do? He's had to raise his prices for customers in order to start offsetting that. So talk about these antitrust charges. They were brought by the FTC last September, as you note. What do you think about the FTC's case here? And I'd love you to also identify what the weaknesses are if you were Amazon pushing back.
Yeah. So the FTC sued Amazon in September, and they made their case around higher prices for consumers. They said because Amazon is a monopoly on e-commerce and 40% of all retail e-commerce in the U.S. happens there,
Sellers have to be there and Amazon knows that and they've ratcheted up the fees and that's translated into higher prices for consumers. But what they say that's really interesting is that because Amazon had this contractual obligation that you have to have the lowest price on Amazon.
That Amazon's power in e-commerce has caused higher prices throughout all of e-commerce, including like Walmart and Target and other e-commerce places. Now, what's interesting is, you know, the FTC under Lena Kahn is taking a different direction. She has railed against the consumer welfare standard of antitrust and consumerism.
And they've lost some challenges to acquisitions like, you know, Microsoft and Activision or Meta within Unlimited. What's interesting here is it is kind of a traditional consumer welfare sort of antitrust case.
So it might have a better footing in that regard. But, you know, from Amazon's perspective, they will say, we do things for the customer. That will be their argument here, that everything they do is to benefit the customer, that there's other places for people to shop, there's other places for people to sell. Yeah. And what is the chances here from your perspective?
It's really tough to say. It's not slated to begin until October 2026. There's a long time between then and now. That's right. And I would say there's some momentum behind what Lena Kahn and John Cantor at the DOJ are doing. There's even some Republicans, like they call themselves the conservatives, who are behind this mission. People like Matt Gaetz, weirdly, that believe in this.
But I will say it takes a longer time for these ideas to be accepted by the courts where they're ultimately decided. And it hasn't been like a resounding success when you look at the track record. Well, is there a role in Congress for that? You know, Congress took a shot at this. There was a bipartisan investigation just a few years back where they came out with this really expansive report calling all four of the companies, of the big tech companies,
you know, monopolies. Ken Buck and David Cisnellini. Exactly, who now are both gone. Who then have gone. Exactly. So TBD, if they would bring something like that back,
that back, but the legislation really got stalled and big tech, you really saw their lobbying power on display during that whole scenario. Yeah. But they got TikTok. Anyway, Scott, next question. The thing I don't understand, I'm curious to get your viewpoint. I'm a shareholder at Amazon and I think a breakup would be good for shareholders. I think AWS on its own would trade at a higher multiple and then shareholders would win.
Is this their desire not to break up the company? Do you think it's an ego thing? Do you think that they get a ton of synergy from these things? What do you think gets in the way of them not prophylactically or proactively spin a couple of these units and avoid antitrust scrutiny? And let me add, I've interviewed Andy Jassy and asked this very question, and it seems like I'm asking him this.
you know, please get naked on the stage here. It's an anathema to him to think about something like this. And it's a dead no, for sure. And now he's CEO. This is before he was CEO. I think maybe he just became CEO. First of all, Andy has been telling his deputies that the current company could be a $10 trillion company in the next decade. So he sees a lot of room to grow.
Obviously, that'd be the biggest in the world. But second, I think even though most companies have failed at this conglomerate model, then activist investors have made them break it up saying, "This does not work. There's a conglomerate discount."
For the most part, it works for Amazon. In some ways, it's its secret sauce. If you look at all the competitors that have to work with one tentacle of the Amazon octopus, a lot of them actually work with several, and it gives them a lot of leverage in negotiations. If you want this, then you must do that, right? And that's on display in some of the anecdotes, like with HBO, Time Warner in the book, and others where they're sort of tying their businesses together. Right, right. It does. It does. They're adjacent. They're certainly adjacent, whether it's, you know, music or...
Hollywood or healthcare or delivered all kinds of things. They do tend to belong together. And at many years ago, Jeff talked about moats. He was building moat after moat after moat. That was what he said that, you know, at the time. And I really did get it when he was doing it was price convenience, et cetera, et cetera. Talk a little bit about the difference between Jeff and Andy Jassy, who has been there. I met him when he was very young man out of college. Yeah.
He was like an assistant to Cyborg, just a very low-level person there. And a lot of the people there are, have been there a long time. Fun fact, I turned down a job there very early on. Talk about the difference between Andy and Jeff. And is Jeff involved again? And then as a follow-up, Andy's talked a lot about, you know, the stock's gone up after his shareholder letter, especially because he talked about AI and stuff like that. So,
Would love to hear about that. Andy and Jeff are very different personality-wise. It's funny. There's some scenes in the book where you see, like, a Machiavellian, sometimes, like, almost a cruel streak to Jeff. Like, you know, the first week of the new CEO of Toys R Us' tenure, he calls him up unannounced and just says, hey, how's it feel to work with poor performing people? And the guy's sort of taken aback.
I can tell you Jeff's a jerk. He was always a jerk, but go ahead. And he wasn't good at, you know, making relationships on the Hill or glad-handing. He had like a disinterest in that in some ways. He backfired in some ways. He was like more scorched earth, which is this pugnaciousness, which actually filters down with the company and government relations and PR. Jesse's different. He, to me, seems much more diplomatic and
wants to mend bridges, is involved in their
you know, in their lobbying in some ways in D.C. on these antitrust issues. So I think it's much different leadership and tone coming from him than it was under Jeff. And I don't get the sense that Jeff is back day to day. He's spending more of his time or most of his time from what I hear on Space Endeavors and Blue Origin. I think he's spending most of his time on something else. And I mean the term on. By the way, does Andy Jassy realize that he's going to die and there's nothing he can do about it? Is he different that way?
I'm sorry. Go ahead. Two questions, Lauren and Sanchez. Sorry, your turn. No, no, no. But you don't feel like Jeff's going to – he doesn't have to. Andy's sort of gotten a hold of it. And the way – it reminds me a great deal of Satya Nadella and Gates and Bomber. I'm putting them in one big nasty brook as managers compared to –
He's a very similar profile to Satya Nadella in that regard. Meaning, do you think he'd come back? No, I don't think he'd come back. I think Satya Nadella and Andy are more similar than in the same way Gates and Gates slash Bomber is similar to Jeff, you know, kind of thing. I think that's right. People sort of view Jeff as the visionary and like...
The big personality and people describe Andy as more of the operator. Yeah, it has long been. And he made one of the, he ran the most important, the thing that saved Amazon's ass was AWS, of course, for a long time or kept it going in that regard. So I have one final question. Where does, do they get to be a $10 trillion company? What stops them?
It's a good question. I mean, if you think about how bullish Andy is on AI, you know, they're just starting to get into healthcare, which is one of the biggest sources of GDP in the country. If they're successful there, that opens a lot of doors. They're getting into satellites with Kuiper.
So, you know, first of all, they don't seem to be deterred by the antitrust lawsuit. They're still forging ahead. That's still the mandate is to get to 10 trillion. Much more aggressive than Google. Yeah. And they're seeing a lot of white space, it seems. Because you cover M&A, I'm just really interested to know, well, two questions, and one's unrelated to Amazon. But do you think if they had to do it again, they would have made the type of investment they needed to make and have the distraction of Amazon Prime Video? And two, I would just love to get your thoughts.
No mercy, no malice take on the Paramount situation and who you think will be the ultimate victor there, given your beat. On Prime Video, it's funny. Andy just recently said that it could be a standalone company. And, you know, people there talk about it feeding the flywheel. Like, that gets people trapped into the moat that Kara's talking about of Amazon Prime. So even if you're not shopping as much as you used to, you might keep the membership for the benefits of the video. On...
On Paramount, actually, I'm not an M&A reporter anymore. I just focus on Amazon. So those would be more for my colleagues. But you can't get out of it. Oh, don't be measured. It doesn't stop us. It doesn't stop us from talking about things we have no demand. Scott, who's an extraordinarily aggressive M&A reporter. So go ahead. I honestly haven't been paying that much attention. If I'm being totally honest. Let's talk about Lauren Sanchez. I'm sorry. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on Lauren Sanchez?
Well, there's a scene in the book which weirdly has gotten a lot of traction where, you know, there's a lot of animosity between the Trump White House and Bezos and Amazon, but also the Biden White House, too. He's been like persona non grata except for this, like, state dinner. He's a jerk. But, you know, he had this big coming out party in 2020 after the alfalfa ball and, you know,
Trump did not go, but all of his – like his daughter went. Jared went. And Kellyanne Conway goes and Kellyanne is approached by Lauren and she says, you know, you've done such a good job like deflecting all of this hate in the media. It's a little bit after the affair and everything else. How have you done it? And they like sort of cozy up and Kellyanne says, you know, you live in the neighborhood now. Let's go on a jog together. And you could just see that even though Trump is really just –
royally pissed about Bezos and his wealth and the Washington Post. The people in his cabinet were cozying up to Bezos and Lauren. Yep, of course. I love money. What are you talking about? They would throw their mothers in the street if they needed to. She's coming out with a children's book, Lauren. I don't know if you know that.
People who know her say that she's lovely and very generous and nice. She's very smart. Probably one of the smarter people. I'd do them for that money. I'm in. Jeff, call me. Anyway, she may have a bigger role, I think, in the future as you move forward. She has a lot of points of view of a lot of things. But we'll see. We'll see where it goes. That's your next book, Dana. And again, the book is The Everything War, Amazon's Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake America.
Corporate Power. You should read it. It's a really good book. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks, Dana. All right. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Support for this podcast comes from Huntress. If you're a small business owner, then the threat of hackers isn't just a threat. It can affect your livelihood. Small businesses are easy targets for hackers. And Huntress wants to give businesses the tools to help.
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Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. You go first. Well, just first off regarding about Jeff Bezos, I actually think there's a lot of evidence that he's going to come back. I think pretty much every night he comes on our back. Is that wrong? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I walked into that.
There was a pause. You didn't even know what I was saying. I was going to disagree with you. Is that wrong? Oh, my God. Will that make the cut? That was a good one. This one stays in. That penis joke is a good one. Just for the readers, at some point, maybe, you know. Readers. They're listeners. They're listeners. Oh, that's right. Where am I? Daddy? Where's my catheter? Okay. Anyways, there are two or three comments in every episode that get edited out. So just tweet Tara. Not that one.
Tweet care if you want to hear the B-sides of everything that'll get this show canceled. Okay. I'm sorry. Anyways, wins and fails. That was a good one. That one stays in. You fail... Well...
Win is we're both going to be watching Shogun tonight, right? You totally love that show. Good for you. I love that show. It's the final show. I think it's tomorrow night. No, it's really well done. Yeah, but you'll be doing your book thing, but I'll be paying attention to Shogun. You'll be watching Shogun? Yeah, yeah. All right, you go ahead. I'll be talking about financial security. Yeah. Okay. It's simple. My win is...
Thank you.
that a murderous autocrat that's trying to invade Europe should be pushed back, that we absolutely have the will, we absolutely have the resources, which will also help defend Taiwan and send a clear message to every autocrat that when the West binds together, our resources, our technology, our human capital are unparalleled, an insurmountable force, and also that our ally, a country that has bodily autonomy, civil rights, jury trials, academic research,
When it's attacked, that we come to their aid, that we provide unconditional support, although it's somewhat conditional, but we provide steadfast support to try and push back a cult of terror and chaos. I just think this is such a wonderful moment for America. I'm really, really happy about it. He looks like he got a briefing or two, like a real security briefing from intelligence. Apparently Burns was quite influential on him. He just suddenly realized his responsibility and realized maybe the Russians don't like us.
Or maybe for fucking with us. Yeah, but I also love that. I think he got, he learned. He learned what the actual world is like instead of, you know, cosplaying. You're talking about Speaker Johnson? Yeah, I think he got briefings. He's going to be on the right side of history. But he was because he got educated rather than falling for this. Most of these people don't listen to anybody. They double down. When you're second in line for the presidency, maybe you pay attention just a tad.
teeny bit more. Okay. You're talking about what should happen, and it did. It oftentimes doesn't. And this guy, who I was not a big fan of when he was made speaker, he's realized as speaker, we need to govern. It's an administrative role, not a political role. And he has taken personal risk, professional risk, and stood up to these far-right fucking crazies who just want attention on TikTok, who don't give a good goddamn about the well-being of the Commonwealth.
I think it's just a wonderful moment for the West, legislation, packaging them all together, politically deft. This is just—this season of C-SPAN is off the fucking hook. It's better than Shogun right now. Let me say, he's calling himself a Reagan Republican now. I mean, you know, thank God you listened to the briefings, Speaker.
Good idea to get yourself fucking educated. You're being cynical. He's done his job. He's done his job. That is his job. He deserves some credit. To listen to the briefings. Okay. And most of them don't do their job. Jesus Christ, give the guy the W. Give the guy the W. And then my loss is simple. It's on the same side of that. The CCP, Putin, and Hamas are less weak today. They are cultured. Less weak. More weak. I'm sorry, are weaker today. They're a culture of chaos, of violence. They're a culture of autocracy, dictatorship,
of whatever you want to call it, anti-Americanism. This is a bad day for them. And it took us too long, but this is, we are that shiny beacon on a hill. We have more resources. If we can add the economic value of a small GDP or GDP of a small nation in five minutes post an earnings call, if we have the biggest military in the world, what's the fucking point if we don't come to the aides of our allies and push back on autocrats?
So the losers, hands down, Putin, Xi, and Hamas today. And this is a huge win for what is the most positive force in the history of humanity, and that is the American middle class and the U.S. government.
A wonderful weekend for us, Cara. I think my win is a similar thing for democracy. This Trump trial, he goes on trial. You may think it's a bad trial or a good trial, but he goes on trial and he has to listen to what people think of him. He's got a, I don't know how much damage, really. He's a bounce back kind of fella. But this is a guy who made fun of war dead. He makes fun of people as suckers and losers, veterans and everything else. He has to listen to what
actual people think of him good and bad. Some of them liked him, by the way, in those among the things. But he had to listen to the American people truthfully. He got briefed, I think, in that jury selection, which, by the way, went very quickly for it was a win for that judge. It was supposed to be two weeks. He did it in a week. Now they're doing they're now right now they're right now first witness is up. It's
I love our jury system. I love the whole thing. And you can insult all that you want about cases and this and that, but boy, does, does it work? It really does. Of all the things that don't work, this works in a great way. And he'll either get off or he won't get off, but he has to fucking sit there and take it just like everybody else. And,
You can decide. I thought some of the Martha Stewart thing was unfair, but she had to take it. You have to. This is what happens. And David Pecker is the first witness, which is the strongest witness. We'll see. We'll see who who who does better here. And if they make their case, then he should be convicted. If they don't make their case, he shouldn't be convicted. And that's the way it goes.
Speaking of making cases, and you will be silent throughout this, but the fucking New York Times spends its time literally like trying to say there's too much Taylor. They literally spent the time on her upward thing doing way too much coverage of all this stuff. And now they're saying too much.
You know, is it fatigue? The review was incredibly weirdly sexist, as were several of them. I don't even know what you're talking about. Oh, it's overstuffed, not her best. Oh, Taylor Swift? Taylor Swift, the tortured poets department. I think she's going to end up selling a zillion of them. And the same thing is they're trying to find the way to bring her down after riding her all the way up, you know, riding her popularity all the way up.
And so, you know, you can decide whether you like it or not. Some people love it. Some people don't. I think she's going to sell us a billion. But I was really quite—the coverage in The Times is literally like it was too much before. Now they're too—I'm fatigued of their—that they have to shift and doing so much about that. And they also did what I thought was an egregious interview—I mean, review of Anne Lamott's
calling her a throw pillow. I'm sorry. That was, you know, you don't have to like a book, but seriously, the way they talk about certain women just drives me crazy in the reviews. Anyway, that's what I said. You may now speak if you'd like. Speak now, as Taylor would say. Well, actually, I mean, you're going to agree with this, I think. There is something to, I'm reading Fareed Zakaria's, what's it called? Age of Revolutions. Yeah, it's a good book.
And he has this, I did read the article you're talking about, and I thought to myself, if a male superstar was just a phenomena, would they be trying to constantly saying, "Yeah, but?" There's something, just as I believe that no one believes they're anti-Semitic, it's a series of incremental rationalizations for holding Jews to a different standard than the rest of special interest groups. I think the same thing is happening unwittingly to the West.
in a variety of subtle ways, and I think this article articulates that, that if you look at the United States, the group that has fallen furthest fastest is young men.
But if you look at globally, the group that hands down has ascended the fastest over the last several decades is women. Women are now pursuing tertiary educational attainment at a greater level globally than men. The number of women elected to some sort of parliament globally has doubled in the last 30 years. And the bottom line is the most conservative sects of any religion, and also generally speaking media, they just have a different approach sometimes
for women who ascend that height and success this fast. There's a certain amount of, I don't know what it is. I just wonder, would the New York Times or anyone else be looking for soft tissue in a guy that had ascended this fast? There's something, and I think we need to be cognizant of it. I'm trying to be aware of it. What is it about when female CEOs are aggressive, they're a bitch. When males are CEOs like Jeff Bezos, they're leaders.
There is something weird about the additional, and also, quite frankly, it plays to their benefit sometimes because people like the phenomena and they run to her music because it represents other things. But I saw that article and I'm like, they don't even realize, like, would they write this about Jay-Z? I don't think they would. No, not at all. And by the way, let me just say, the other one they're attacking, Beyonce and Cowboy Carter. Same thing. I'm going to see her this weekend, by the way. Oh, come on. You know what? Let me just
between Greta Gerwig, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and by the way, Anne Lamott, guess where she is on the New York Times bestseller list? Number one. You're welcome for the money, everybody. You're welcome for selling things. Beyonce, Taylor, Anne Lamott, you fucking rock. So where are you going to see Beyonce, Scott? Well, let me tell you, Cara. Where are you going to see Beyonce, Scott? I'm going to Bill Maher on Friday, and then I'm going to go with all my college friends and have an Arrested Adolescence weekend at Stagecoach, which is the new Coachella, but it's country. Oh, yeah, I've heard of it.
I heard about that. And supposedly Beyonce is going to make a surprise visit. Oh, man. What are you wearing? Something fabulous. Chaps. Assless chaps, right? I hope. Yeah. No, that's Monday through Friday. This is the weekend. I haven't thought about my outfit. But you need to wear something. Like, in this case, can you please fucking dress up? I got to get... Can you dress up like Beyonce with assless chaps? I got to get dressed for Mar. I need to look credible yet young. I think you should wear assless chaps to Mar. But nonetheless, you need to dress up for...
for that. And you need to have an outfit in that case. Yes. Call Joanna Cole. She's my fashion guillota. On the win, I would recommend, by the way, Walt Mossberg, whose job now is Taylor Whisperer. Walt Mossberg is in retirement, but all he writes about is Taylor Swift.
He did a playlist of the 15 songs of the 31 he likes, and I kind of agree with him on the ones he likes. And every single song on the Beyonce, you have to listen to it on autoplay, Beyonce album. It's fantastic once you start to really listen to it, especially there's popular songs on that album. But the one I love is Bodyguard. Please listen to Bodyguard. It's really good. I listened to my first country music last night. I listened to this guy named Blaze something. It's really lovely. Here's a quick stat you'll like.
Did you know Taylor Swift, more people listen to more, spend more time listening to Taylor Swift than all of jazz or all of classical music combined? Yeah. I'm just saying. Isn't that wild? Anyway, New York Times, you're welcome for Taylor Swift so you can like trash her and ride her up.
Anyway, and also Beyonce and the rest of them and Anne Lamott. Congratulations, Anne Lamott. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever is on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot. Submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVID. Okay, Scott, that's the show. And have
a wonderful launch week for your book. I'm excited for your book. I'm excited for Stephanie to interview you. I'm excited for your Bill Maher thing. Everybody focus on Scott and his book this week. I would get it. It's a really great gift, especially for young people. And I don't mean just young men, but young people to think about money. I have been talking a lot to my sons about money and them taking control of their finances now that they're older. And it's the book I shall give to both of them.
I appreciate that, Cara. We'll be back on Friday for more. All right. Today's show was produced by Larry Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Silverio. Nishat Karua 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 later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. There is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with what is right with America. We are the most steadfast, well-resourced, technically literate, brave, courageous people in the history of the planet, and we showed that this week. And congratulations. It's a wonderful moment for youth in America, for Israel,
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