DOJ's Google Breakup Plan, Nvidia's Earnings, and Comcast's Cable Spin-off
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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Where are you? Where are you, Scott? I am at my favorite second home. I'm at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Yeah, yeah. And I was showing before you showed up, so a few minutes late, I might have. Thank you. I know, I know.

I was showing Taylor, our 14-year-old producer, something called, see this thing? We used to print news on dead trees in the old news. You're reading a newspaper. I just want to read everything on the front page from what is arguably...

the champion of the reflection or the ultimate reflection of Western values. The lead story. Yeah. Wildfire risk only growing for Northeast. The next one, debating role of trans rights in Harris's loss. Then we go on to Republicans eye Medicaid slashes and work rules. Oh, better yet, grieving Israeli parents weigh freezing dead soldiers sperm. And finally, just to lighten things up, wicked fans beg seatmates to

Shush, please. So we're freezing dead sperm, we're cutting Medicaid, and we can't even enjoy Wicked. No wonder. You asked me why I eat Xanax like they're fucking Skittles. Look at this. How am I supposed to respond after reading this every morning? This is the world, literally? Yeah, it's called the news. What do you want, a good newspaper? What do you have, a plane landed in Chicago today and everybody got their suitcases packed?

The fish tacos at the pool are awesome. F1 is this weekend. Somewhere in the world. It's beautiful out. Yeah. I'm in the Equinox right now here in New York, and I have to say, I don't dislike it. The Equinox Hotel? Yeah, at Hudson. That means you're top shelf CNN guest. That's correct. I found out that you get put up at like the fucking Westin or some Joey Diagonal. No, no, the Sheraton.

Yeah, but if you're top shelf, you get to stay at the Equinox. That's correct. I'm sure the ego's at CNN. Don't even register little things like that. Well, no, because I am doing something with CNN. I'm doing several things here, one secret project and the other. I'm going to be on the news show with Roy Wood Jr. and Amber Ruffin. Don't know any of them. Don't know any of them. I just know they're about to get an 80% pay cut. No, no, no. This show is doing okay. They put me here, and I mentioned it to a CNN person, and they're like, the Equinox?

They like knew. They knew. It was so funny. They're like, oh, you got to the Equinox. Interesting. I don't know what the one is like in Hudson Yards, but generally speaking, the most beautiful gay man in the world hang out at Equinox. It's beautiful. I'm very loving it. And I slept the whole night. Yeah, it's interesting. I like that you like going to F1 and everything else. You're going to have a good time. You'll have a great time. Well, I like that you like it because I'm going to continue to do it. I'm going to Miami on Saturday, my jammy.

I'm going to Miami to do the Miami Book Fair. You're the one that somehow got me hooked up. Oh, yeah. I was going to go, but I don't like that smart stuff. I know, I know, I know, but I'm selling some books. I'm selling some books. I'm going to Miami for a minute. Do you know where you're staying? I'm going down and coming back the same night because Amanda's going to divorce me if I travel anymore. Yeah, so I'm coming back. I'm coming back. Number three. How old will number three be and how new will the Subaru be? That's what I want to know.

I do not have a Subaru anymore. I had one. I loved my Subaru. Yeah. Yeah. You have like a Nissan, which is like a mini Subaru. No, I have a Kia. Try to keep it straight. I have a Kia hybrid and I have a Chevy Bolt. There's so nothing hybrid about you. I know. You're just, there's,

Hybrid is sort of in the middle, a little of this, a little of that. That just isn't you. You really shouldn't own a hybrid. And yet I do. What cars are you going to see at F1? Really fast ones. You really love this F1 thing almost more than the soccer stuff. Yeah, it's not about the race. I only go for an hour. It's about being in Vegas with friends, and it's fabulous, and it's fun. We go to the race just, you know, just an excuse. But the thing that's unique about—I'm actually in my newsletter, No Mercy, No Mouse. I'm writing about F1. Mm-hmm.

They take over a city, and it's an interesting thing. It's typically a franchise model where they license F1 to a city, the city pays a lot of money to bring in tourism, and then the teams pay a license. It's a great business model. Right. And for the first time, they decided to go vertical and own a race, and they decided to pick Vegas. And I think Vegas F1, it would be just an enormous win. I can see why they've decided to own it themselves. Right.

So it's like McDonald's? They like have franchises in the cities? They have to be, or Ted's or what? No, what it's like is the majority of the hotel companies are no longer hotel owners. They have a flag, a reservation system, standards, branding. That way a guy like Michael Dell who wants to have, you know, a Four Seasons Hotel in Hawaii underwrites all the capital costs. And then they just take 8% to 12% and they have standards.

So the hotel flags now got out of the business of taking capital risk because one bad hotel can sink everything. And they're just in the business of the flag and the reservations and the standards and the HR and the marketing. And F1 was effectively the same way. They made the money no matter what, whether the thing was successful in a city. And last year was the first...

F1 in Vegas. And a couple of things happened. One, they vastly overestimated demand. The F1 customer in the US is not the same kind of fabulous wealthy F1 customer in Europe and all over the world. And they overestimated, they were able to sell about 40% of the tickets they initially planned. So you had entire grandstands empty because supposedly they just priced it too high. And

And they just underestimated how difficult it is to fill Las Vegas. Las Vegas has just so many hotel rooms. And if you aren't coming for F1, you're not going to come that weekend. Because one of the cool things about the race is the race is done at night and it's on... On the streets, yeah. It's on the strip. And so there's great parties and it's fun to watch the race. But in terms of an actual economic model, it's been a bit of a disaster. So, therefore...

I just thought I'd provide a little insight. I understand, but it's growing, correct? I can't tell. I don't know. I wouldn't ever go to an F1 thing. F1 has hit, I don't want to say it's hit a wall, but it had a huge surge because of the, what's it called, Drive to Survive, the Netflix show. Right, yeah, the shows, yeah.

But there's a lot of competition and it's sort of, it's hit a bit of a speed bump this year. It's not growing the way it used to. And it's the one driver, it's kind of always like a race for second now because the one driver wins every time. It's like when Pete Sampras was dominating tennis and we tried to pretend it wasn't really fucking boring and that he wasn't boring. Yeah.

So, but yeah, I'm excited. It's Vegas. It'll be a ton of fun. I have friends coming in from New York. So you're just going to parties with cars? Oh, 100%. Okay. They start too late, though. That's the problem. Yeah, yeah. They start too late. I need to get home and get my colonic and take my edible, watch Murder, She Wrote, and go to sleep. I love that scene. That's a beautiful scene to think about.

We're going to move to something else. Good segue. Outstanding segue. I have to think about it. That's why. That's why they put you up at the Equinox. I'm at the Equinox. Segues like that, you saucy little news anchor. I think I'll go down to SoulCycle and take a spin. You know, the same owner owns all those things. The guy, that developer who developed Hudson Yards. Hudson Yards, by the way, is like lively. It was lively last night. It's doing well. It seemed like everyone thought it was sort of a wasteland, but I got to say...

I don't know. It seems very lively over here. Lots of restaurants and everything. I kind of like it. That place freaks me out. It is so modern. It feels like one of those places where if a supercomputer gets something wrong, you end up in the wrong elevator. That's right. You wake up without your liver. Yes, exactly. And...

Yeah. They get sold to some wealthy Indian businessman and they're like, but wait, I'm a podcaster. It feels like a mall in Hong Kong or Dubai. That's what it feels like. That's my favorite. The two anchor tenants over there when they opened were Neiman Marcus and Brooks Brothers, which both went chapter 11 within a year. But they seem to have. I can't figure out if it works over there. I can't either, but I have to say there's a lot more people.

Because I think a lot more people are coming back to work, and there's a lot of law firms here. It felt very lively when I got here. It felt very lively when I went out last night. CNN's there. KKR is there. Tapestry, the owners of Coach and Suit. Yeah, there's a lot going on here. There's quite a few companies over there. And they have Milos, that kind of cool Greek fabulous restaurant. Yes, I like Milos. You know who I went to that with many years ago? Arianna Huffington. Are you in love? Yes.

Yes. When you go to Milaj with Ariana, it's really fun because they Greek out on you. Joanna Coles had a party, invited me over, and they introduced me to Ariana. She's like, Scott, are you in love? And I'm like, what? What? She immediately went there. Are you in love? Oh, no. I'm like, come on. Yeah. That would be an awkward question for Scott Calloway.

Yeah. It's a little too warm. It's a little too hot-blooded. Yeah, it's a little too... I'm sorry, who are you, Greek lady? Who are you? Greek lady with a website? Hey, I have a new person to join your posse. I have a new famous guy to join your posse. I meant I'm always looking for new friends. I know. First off, do they drink? Um...

I think so. Never mind. It's like when I'm looking, when I'm talking, when I'm hitting on a girl at a bar, I just one question. What's your relationship like with your father? Anything remotely positive? Move along. Well, I went to dinner. Do they drink? Yes, I think so. Yes, I believe so. Are they better looking than me?

Much, much, both of them. Are they famous? Yes, yes. Check, check, check. Check, check, check. They're in. Come death one. Wheels up 440 on Friday. He's going to kill me for mentioning it, but I went to dinner last night with Tim Daly and Taya Leone, who I love from Madam Secretary. Ooh, I like both of them. I know. And they're both pivot fans and wonderful. They're so lovely as people. And he was like, can I meet

Scott, when we were leaving the restaurant. I was going to say they're using you to get to me. I get it. That's correct. Well, I don't know. I doubt that. But he's like, can I meet Scott sometime? And so I volunteered your apartment for a dinner party at some point. So just. You mean what you do every week when I'm not there? That's correct. That's correct. But he wants. I think he wants to be part of your posse. I get the sense. I get the sense. He's a great guy.

Tim is great. Tim, F1, we're rolling. Okay, Tim, you're in. And Tay is amazing. They're just lovely people and I feel like... Very good looking. Yes. You're going to be very intimidated. Very good looking, very talented. But again, it's a low bar when it comes... Oh, did I just say that out loud? And what

you to have a posse of friends that you roam the urban landscape with. We've got a lot to get to, Jay, including Comcast's spinoff plans and Trump's reality show administration gets some new cast members. First, NVIDIA's domination continues with another blockbuster earnings report. The company reported on Wednesday that revenue jumped 94% from a year ago, a profit increased by 106%.

This is still going, but people have a little bit of, hmm.

And then there's the tariff issue with Trump, which is going to, I think, hang over everything because the stock market is off, is starting to really see worries about that. The continued focus of Trump on picking a tariff loving Treasury Secretary or head of commerce like he just picked. Thoughts on NVIDIA?

Well, I mean, similar to a media that says people are freezing dead soldiers' sperm and there's wildfires, this is not a glass half empty kind of story. It's actually, the stock is basically flat today. It was down a little bit. But here you have a company, I mean, the stock, its profit doubled in the last quarter, quarter on quarter. Its stock is up. I mean, it's just, it's insane how much the stock is up.

Right.

But this company, you know, and it says it's sold out of Blackwell for the next several quarters. Yeah, you know, this thing is nothing short of remarkable. And NVIDIA itself is worth more than the entire German, French, UK stock markets. Right. And you assume it will keep up.

So that's a request for stock advice. And what I would tell anyone is the following. And one of the most frequent emails I get is asking me, is it too late to buy NVIDIA? Right. And what I say is, I don't know. I can see it doubling. I can see it getting cut by 50, 60, 70 percent. So what you do is you don't try and buy the needle in the haystack. You buy the whole haystack. Go buy everything. Go buy an index fund. Right.

These companies, I mean, the difference here versus people often equate it to Cisco in 1999 is that the company's earnings and revenues are exploding. And so while its P.E. has gone up, its valuation has gone up relative to its earnings, it hasn't gone up nearly as much as, say, Cisco did. Cisco's stock price tripled, but its earnings didn't triple. Whereas this company's quintupled and its earnings have only tripled, but its earnings have tripled. Right.

I believe and unfortunately, I think it warrants scrutiny because effectively what you have is

Just as we had the Wintel duopoly, you definitely have the formation of a new duopoly, OpenVIDIA. About 88% of all traffic to AI goes through OpenAI and is queried on a processor that has been sold into them by NVIDIA. So I don't even think Microsoft or Intel had this dominance. Yeah, for now.

For now. For now. I think that's what people are worried about, and that's probably what they're... I think don't know is a really disturbing thing for a lot of people. I think you're sort of hitting the nail on the head on that. Speaking of things people we do know about, the DOJ is asking a judge in the Google search monopoly case to force the company to sell its Chrome browser as part of the remedy. Chrome has about 67% of the global market and could go for as much as $20 billion, according to some estimates. The government also wants to stop Google from getting into paid agreements with Apple and others to be the default search engine.

on phones and browsers. The DOJ stopped short of requesting a full divestiture of Android. Google called the DOJ proposal extreme and is set to file its own suggestions. By December 20th, remedy hearings will be held in April, and the judge is expected to rule over the summer. I know, you know, all these agencies are sort of waiting for what happens with Trump, although you just never know because he's had some anti-Google attacks.

statements and everything else. And there'll be a new head of antitrust at the Justice Department. It's not clear who that's going to be. What do you think of this remedy? It seems like an unusual thing. Tech writer John Gruber noted Chrome and Android are not standalone businesses. They're appendages to Google. It's like saying, I have to sell my left foot. It's very valuable to me, but of no value to anyone else.

And if a buyer of Chrome is a company like OpenAI or Microsoft, could they be accused of creating, as you just, you know, another monopoly with this purchase? So I like this. The potential remedies were a fine. You can't come up with fines big enough. Some sort of administrator from the government, bureaucrat, that got to go into any meeting and tell them why they shouldn't do something, which they basically can ignore, stick the fat, ugly, weird kid in the corner. Yeah.

And then finally, a breakup. So I was happy to see this. Now, whether it holds or not, but I'm not sure I agree with the writer because Chrome has about two-thirds global share, I think, of the browser market. That's so much attention that a lot of different people could monetize that. So it would have no shortage of bidders. It would...

immediately stop this default, you know, steering everyone towards their search engine. It'd be more of a competition. So I like this. I think, I generally find that the FTC and the DOJ, and this is because they bring in a lot of my colleagues from business schools, are pretty smart about trying to come up with

solutions that grow the total market. So I like this. I hope it goes through. I don't know if it'll hold. Yeah, you know, there's so much uncertainty because, as I said, Cantor will be leaving, John Cantor, and Lena Kahn's tenure may be over or maybe not. It's very unclear. You might get someone like Brandon Carr who's making a grab for power at the FCC, of which it didn't have, but may be trying to do so. There's all kinds of

and certainty on who's going to be able to run this and then who is going to be the antitrust head. And it is all in the hands of a single judge, which then can be appealed, et cetera, and the government can stop trying, right? The government can go a different direction depending. You know, it'll be interesting because Sundar Pichai, the head of Google, met a

Alphabet was on the phone with Trump. And of course, guess who was on the phone with him? There's the whole Elon element. Elon was on a phone call with the CEO of Alphabet with Trump. I mean, there's all these different competing power centers happening here. So,

I agree with you. I think something should be cleaved off of these companies. That's, to me, the only— The key question is, where was Omarosa? I want her back. I know. She actually seems quite credible now. Now she does. I can't believe it, but she is. You're right. I mean, it'll be interesting to see what the remedy is, but I think the only remedy is the start to breaking up parts of their businesses and then creating whole new vibrant businesses from them, right? 100%. It just seems healthier. Yeah.

in so many ways. The fine's not going to work. Threatening the prison's not going to work. You know, it's just, they should just cut them up and create new businesses and see what could be made. I mean, having 67% of the global market, and it does help their other businesses. I can't tell you how many times I open Chrome and it says, don't you want to make this your default

browser, right? I unsign out from Google because it's constantly trying to get me sucked into their system for no good reason. So it seems that I would rather it be owned by more people. That's my feeling. But search is arguably...

I bet on a gross dollar volume basis, it's maybe the biggest business in the world. I think it's like a quarter of a trillion dollar business, but I bet it's got gross margins of 80 or 90 points. And that makes even the iPhone look like a distant, not a great business. And essentially all of this...

accretes to one player. And if you didn't have this incredible data advantage of looking what everyone is doing on the internet two-thirds of the time and then be able to steer them towards your search engine and then extract

all sorts of payments to be the default, you would just have a lot more. All of a sudden, the biggest market in the world wouldn't be a monopoly, which would ultimately lower rents on everyone that has to pay the toll booths. And search would be better as a product. 100%. And they'd be forced to innovate. They might, who knows, someone might pop up and say,

This is search that is not going to give this information more reach. We're not going to let computers create content. I had Eric Schmidt on and he said something I thought was really insightful. This is the former, just for people who don't know, the former Google head. Former CEO of Alphabet. Yeah. Yeah. I think he never was Alphabet but Google, but go ahead. Oh, you're right. Excuse me. Yeah.

But he said something really interesting. He said humans should have absolutely very strong First Amendment free speech rights. But he said computers should not. And that really struck me as insightful because I think a lot of the misinformation, a lot of the incendiary content that polarizes us is not generated by a human. And I thought that was really an interesting place to start around all of this. But back to breakups and antitrust, ask any economist or ask any lawyer trying to

fight against this. What breakup in U.S. history did not end up being a good idea? Every time we have broken up companies, you end up with more powerful, more valuable companies. You end up with more choice. You end up with lower rents. You end up with more innovation. The only person that loses is

is the person who has the controlling shareholders or the super voting majority shares who wants to sit on the iron throne of not just Westeros, but all seven realms. But everybody else, every other stakeholder, the community, the tax base, employees, they then have more companies vying to rent their labor. It's always better. It's always better. Look at what's happening even over in social media. Blue sky, that's that choice. That's, you know, whether you like threads or not, that's that choice. It feels so much... People keep texting me blue...

People kept texting me blue sky stuff. Yeah, everyone's moving over there, but it's different. They have a different, like, this is how our place is going to be. It's not going to be mean. And it's not, like, that's the whole point of different things is you get to choose what you want. And that's the true free speech. That's my feeling, is you get to, you know, everyone's like, you have to be, you know,

Elon and his gang are pushing, like, you have to be on Twitter. Like, no, we don't. I can do whatever I fucking want. And if I want to be in a bubble, great. If I don't, great. Like, the ability to make and choose your own adventure, to me, is freedom. That's my feeling. Anyway, speaking of shifts going on, Comcast is spinning off its cable networks. We've discussed this before, including MSNBC and CNBC into a separate company.

Comcast said the new company, dubbed SpinCo, how original, for now will be better positioned to achieve long-term growth and create value for stakeholders. The transaction will be structured as a tax-free spin to shareholders and will take a year to complete. Mark Lazarus, I know him a little bit. He's very smart. The current chairman of NBCUniversal's media group will be SpinCo's CEO. The NBC Broadcast Network, NBC News, Sports, Bravo, Peacock, and the Universal Theme Parks remain part of Comcast.

That means the entertainment stuff, all the entertainment and the main news. NBC News staying there is interesting because they share MSNBC and NBC. They share a lot of people. I get all the others and Peacock and everything else.

And then they might have to rename MSNBC, by the way, for people that don't know, it's Microsoft NBC. No one remembers that. So anyway, thoughts. You would call this good bank, bad bank, but what do you imagine is going to happen here? And what's the plus for the bad bank, which is the cable assets?

So we've been predicting this for a long time. That is, when you have businesses that have a different business model or different life stages of maturity. So you could argue that still that Peacock, for example, and the theme parks are still growing businesses and they get a certain valuation because they're seen as more strategic and they're growing and they're about the future. USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC are not the future, they're the past.

And that is they're flat to declining and mostly declining. And so these companies get an entirely different multiple, a much lower multiple. They're still very profitable. They're good businesses, but they're shrinking. So they might get a multiple on EBITDA of five to seven, whereas the

The Bravo or the Peacock or the theme park is getting much higher multiple because there's a lot more potential for growth there. The problem is when you shove companies and businesses of different points in the lifecycle together, investors go, generally speaking, the market goes crazy.

I'm confused. I don't like this. So I'm going to find the shittiest business in your portfolio, C&BC, and I'm going to assign the same multiple to the entire business. So what you do, and this makes sense, is you go good bank, bad bank. Simon Properties did this. Simon Properties has a ton of malls.

The best malls probably in America are probably Simon, but they also have a lot of B-class malls that are dying. So they took all the shit that was still profitable and stuck it into a different company, a spin co. And that way you get to decide if you want the growth high-end stuff or if you want spin co is we'll trade at a much lower valuation, but it'll still attract investors. And in addition, the cultural shift happens.

is dramatic because what you have with the spin co is the following. They're going to go to ABC or Disney and say, hey, ABC or hey, ESPN or hey, even maybe CNN, you're like us, you're these shitty assets, but there's a good business model in distressed assets and that is the following.

We take on ABC, we take on CNN, and your business is declining 10% to 12% a year, but through consolidation, we're going to cut costs 14% a year because we only need one CFO. And we're going to clear out all the salespeople except for the top 10%. We're going to clear out all the back office, and we're going to consolidate and cut costs.

And as long as we recognize that this is no longer a teenager, but an aging senior, and we can cut costs faster than revenues decline, you make more money. And these are good businesses. They're just in different points of the life cycle. And the market likes that. The market wants companies of similar growth. You could also come up with good things, too. Separate in a way, you could figure new things out for your business.

business, presumably. They don't just have to be AOL. You're describing AOL dial-up here, right? It's still a good business, even if it's... I've said this before. The second best investment I ever made was in a Yellow Pages company. And the guy, a guy named Joe Walsh, really outstanding operator, and it was Paulson in there, and my buddy Jason Mudrick from Mudrick Capital put me on the board. And basically, the strategy was very simple. I

businesses, we all know yellow pages are going out of business, except these businesses typically go out of business more slowly than you think. And so we projected the company was going to decline. There are still a ton of rural households that want that big, big fat fucking book on their porch every year.

to call a lawyer or someone to put up their fence or something like that. There's still a lot of people. You referenced a decent analogy, AOL dial-up. And there are a lot of different Yellow Pages companies. So what you do, quite frankly, is you go buy them at two to three times profits because everybody knows it's a declining business. And then you consolidate the back end. And operate efficiently. And you print money. And every year our EBITDA went up because we went to the biggest Yellow Pages company in the Southeast and said, hey,

We know it sucks, but we can make this easier for everybody and consolidate the back end and save a lot of money and increase profits. Bad bank. Of all the different asset classes, whether it's angel, which is the worst part of the asset class, venture, which is very difficult, small number of VCs and a small number of partners at those small number of VCs get all the deal flow, IPOs.

Growth companies, mature companies, distressed. In my view, the best asset class is distressed because it's like the best small business in the world with a 90 plus percent success rate. I'm going to give you another challenge, though. How could they grow? You just assume they're old and going to die someday and we're going to keep Grampy, who has the wallet, good or make it more efficient or feed him less or whatever, right?

Could they grow? Could this bad bank become not a bad bank kind of thing? Well, okay, a couple things. One, the way they grow, they will. The way they grow the top line is by going and finding the other cable orphans that are also fucking up the valuation for the larger enterprise. Right.

Disney Plus would trade at an enormous valuation, multiple on revenues. ABC does not. So at some point, Bob's going to give up and just throw his assets into this company who can pay stock for these other declining cable assets. Warner Discovery, Warner Brothers Discovery, excuse me, they'll do the same thing. They'll put their shitty cable assets into this new company. So they'll grow the top line, but they will dramatically cut costs. And what's dangerous in the gestalt in these companies that kind of fucks them up

is they always bring in someone with fresh legs who has visions of growth and rejuvenation. And the reality is what they should do

is do a good job operating, present a good product, but quite frankly, their job is to cut costs and manage the company efficiently through acquisition and consolidation and cutting costs on the back end. And what they usually do, private equity will usually bring in a player that knows how to do that. And that's okay, they make money. But to believe that they can pump this thing up with Botox and they start looking freakish again, believing that, oh no,

Right. Right.

Right, right. Interesting. And so they could all be one. They could all be one bunch of cable assets together. Would there be any pushback from the government if, say, you combined, because there's all the talk of what Paramount's going to throw in here, what Warner's going to throw in here, that it could be a problem if you decide to merge. There's all these talks, you're going to merge this with Warner Brothers, or David Zaslav's going to do this, or Paramount's going to do this. Can they all be in one? Can all the networks be in one company? Right.

So I would be shocked if it didn't fall under DOJ review. But here's the data the lawyers trying to get through the acquisitions would argue. And that is in 2017, 73% or three in four households had cable television. Okay, just to scan...

Seven years later, it's down to 42%. They could rightfully get in front and say, this isn't about dominance. This is about survival. Right. And everyone's watching. None of these assets get nearly the viewership of Netflix or YouTube or name your digital growth property or Instagram, and you want to block us? Folks, we're just trying to survive. Now, you could argue some sort of a security risk because-

It's so important what people see or news, but I don't even think they'll be able to. I don't think the government would be able to make that risk. And also with the Trump administration, the general view is that they're going to let these guys start acquiring and cutting costs. And you want to talk about a Department of Government Efficiency policy.

You know, let the guys who are getting the shit kicked out of them by TikTok and Meta and Alphabet consolidate and bulk up. These guys, CNN, Yellow Pages, all of these companies are great businesses. They just need to be smaller. Maybe. With lower costs. New York Times should buy the Washington Post, for example.

I don't think they want to buy another newspaper. Based on what you've told me, that culture is, what's the term? A clusterfuck? Yeah. I don't think the New York Times should get near it. I'm just trying to think of different things you could put together. You could roll up. Well, Gannett, for example, Gannett rolled up every local newspaper. Yeah.

But there's a lot of instances where you can make really good money doing this. And sometimes it doesn't work, and then it's just bad bank all the way down, essentially. But yeah, you're right. It's efficiencies. Roll-ups are very interesting things. So I find I'm studying them lately. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the latest TV personality added to the Trump administration and more.

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Scott, we're back with more news. Well, Trump has named some more people, including someone you know well, Dr. Oz, to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Oz is a former heart surgeon, but has no experience running a government bureaucracy and has repeatedly drawn criticism from some medical professionals. That said, he looks good compared to some of the choices. As a reminder, Oz lost to John Fetterman in the 2022 Pennsylvania Senate race.

In a statement, Trump said Oz would cut waste and fraud within our country's most expensive government agency. There is a lot of waste and fraud in those areas, for sure. Confirmed by the Senate, RFK Jr., both were confirmed, would be Oz's boss, which seems should be flipped, honestly, if I had to pick.

In other Trump picks, former professional wrestling executive Linda McMahon has been chosen to serve as the Secretary of Education. McMahon is a longtime Trump ally and ran the Small Business Administration for much of his first term. In fact, I think I interviewed her when she was that. That seemed more appropriate for her as a job. Trump has said he wants to dismantle the Department of Education, which would require congressional approval. So I'm not...

I'm really not clear what's going on there. And last but not least, Cantor Fitzgerald's CEO, Howard Lutnick, is Trump's pick for Commerce Secretary. He wanted to be Treasury Secretary and he instead got Commerce. Trump said Lutnick, who was the co-chair of his transition team, will lead on tariffs and trade. That seems more appropriate, I guess, for him. But, you know, he engendered a lot of dislike in that, you know, in that climb up the greasy pole of Trump

world. People thought he was a little too thirsty for that job. What do you think about that?

So I think Linda, Dr. Oz, and Howard Lutnick are fucking Henry Kissinger compared to Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz. It's a low bar. I think all three of these people, like the winner gets to pick their friends or gets to pick who they want. Sometimes people surprise you. I think all three of these folks, you could argue, are credible, reasonable picks. And then you have an apologist for Assad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What issues is Gabbard good on? Literally, what issue do you think they get right? Being an apologist for a guy who killed 400,000 of his own citizens? Yeah. Being an apologist for Putin? Mm-hmm. Anyway, I am totally down with these three picks. Well done. They got my vote. I thought the most interesting thing was Nikki Haley, who's now decided again to...

get back to her, what I think is her real personality, honestly. She went after Gabbard, saying she opposed ending the Iran nuclear deal. She opposed sanctions on Iran. She opposed designating the Iran military as terrorists who say death to America every single day. She said that Donald Trump turned the U.S.,

into a Saudi Arabia's prostitute. This is going to be a future head of national intelligence. She added that it was disgusting that Gabbard went for a photo op with Bashar al-Assad. Now, here is what she said about Kennedy, which I would agree with. She says he's not a health guy despite having years of stuff. She should face hard questions. He's a liberal Democrat environmental attorney lawyer who's now overseeing 25% of our federal budget and has no background in health care.

Now, some of you, and this is you, Scott, may think RFK is cool with some of the things you may like that he questions what's in our food and what's in our vaccines. But we don't know when he's given Reince the agency what decisions he's going to make behind the scenes. I think she's right. If you like a couple, like we can all agree we need healthier food. That doesn't mean his crazy conspiracy theories exist.

should qualify. You should get someone who says that and doesn't have crazy conspiracy theories on a bunch of other things. Like, who doesn't, who can, like, I'm for oxygen. Like, okay. Like that kind of thing. So it's interesting. There's a lot of inter-fighting going on in the right in many ways.

Karl Rove wrote quite a piece about saying this is a fucking clown show. He had all this opportunity. The first week was all these very qualified and reasonable enough people, depending on whether you liked them.

Republicans are not, right? And he said, and then it degenerated into a clown show and that Trump is frittering away all his political advantage by doing it and that he's actually a lame duck president, as you have noted, and that he will, that he's, when you're in your second term, you don't have as much political power. So he doesn't know why he's using up this political power.

capital that he has built up. And he also noted, again, that the win wasn't so big that it gives him the right to behave like this. So anyway, it's interesting.

Yeah. In fighting. In fighting. I like when they fight with each other over there. It leaves us not to fight with them. Anyway, we'll see what happens. Maybe they should freeze their semen or go to the Wicked Show. Jesus Christ. No wonder everyone's so depressed. You seem to be upset by reading a paper newspaper. A paper newspaper has triggered you. By the way, go to the Wicked Show. It's great. I took Clara this week. She loved it. Oh, you did? That's nice. Yeah. She loved it. I saw it the second time. It's wonderful. It's very long. Everybody, let me be clear. It's a super long episode.

movie, but it is wonderful the second time is the first time. Yeah, I won't see it. I know you won't, but you should. It's better than Barbie. How about that? Better than Barbie. There's a lot I don't do that I should care about. That's a long list. You know what? I think you would tear up at the end.

Yeah.

The pair detailed their plans to cut spending in the Wall Street Journal op-ed, which really focused on three types of reform, regulatory cuts, administration reductions, and cost savings. They also plan to recommend a return to office and early retirement policies, and will take aim at funding things like public media and Planned Parenthood. Should we have them to promote the new show?

Have them on? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's what we need to do. Yeah. I got to be honest with you, Kara, there's a part of me that likes this. What? The return to work? Or what? No, just the whole...

They'll try and shake things up. I don't think they're going to get anywhere. I mean, it's just hilarious to have a Department of Government Efficiency that has absolutely no power. Most of the cuts they want to make would require congressional approval. And the thing that kind of says it all is that there are two heads of the Department of Government Efficiency. Right.

But I do like the idea of a little bit of shock therapy. I mean, the problem with the government is that they're not subject to market dynamics the same way the private sector is. So you can imagine there's a lot of fatty deposits to build up. Sure. I get it. So are the companies they run had those things. Fine. I get it. Here's the thing. There's a lot more scrutiny on the companies they run. I would agree. I would agree. But the way they're doing it is cruel. And it's not in good faith. It's not in good faith. Fair enough.

And that's what it is. They don't care. They want to just, they want to have a podcast. They want to make their stupid jokes. They want to say, look at me. This is not, this is,

They're offended, especially Ramaswamy. He's like, "This whole thing has to go." I'm like, "Are you fucking kidding me? Like, really? Like, do you, it's just, it's all-" Head start and school lunches, how does that shit have to go? It's all hat and no fucking cattle. And it's on another, it's on a serious topic. And the same thing with RFK. Yes, we need healthier foods, but what the fuck are you doing over here? Like, it's just, this is all, this is a look at me administration.

by people who didn't get hugged enough as children. And that's my issue with them. And they don't, they're not in good faith doing things that matter to people. And they're not like, they just, let's cut, and that's Elon's way, let's fire everyone and sort out the rest. And I just don't think, I get the shock to the system, but this is not a, you know, this is not a frat. This is not a,

I don't know. It has this feel. Oh, I think it is, Cara. It is. You're right. It is a frat. I think it is. It's a very rapey frat. I'm sorry. Dropping dead bears in the park. Wrestling. Yeah. It's a very rapey. It's a very rapey group of people. You're right. It's like, you know, grabby. You know, brush the boob. Make obnoxious things. Brush the boob. Brush the boob. There's levels of.

Just so you know, my trainer was mad at you about your comments about Pete. I got several of that. About who? About what? Pete Hegseth, that you were saying he was on a different scale than Matt Gaetz. You know, I'm just saying. I got a lot of pushbacks. Let me guess. No, this is a man. This is a manly man who pushed back. Next thing I know, you're going to be telling me I shouldn't refer to my assistant as Jiggles. Oh, okay. Come on. Come on. He was right. Shall I read you the text I got?

Yeah, that's what we need. That's what I, that's, usually you don't read them to me. You send them to me at night and say, Cheryl says you're being unfair. No, these were straight men that came to me. I'm just telling you, I would, yeah, yeah, I'm just saying. That's what I, I'm dying to know, Cara, I like to dictate, I like to dictate my thoughts around what your trainer and your DJ think. I'm just telling you, I'm just, he's a very smart guy. I'm just, why do you have to pull him down? He's just as smart

Hold him down. I'm just saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes, I feel like Scott would compliment Dahmer on his fashion choices. He treats everyone like they're completely genuine in their statements. Dahmer on his fashion choices. That's good. I just think he's funny. He says, the glorious middle we need to reach. Kinda rapey. Ha, ha, ha.

He's funny. He is funny. He is funny. You're going to learn to take feedback, Scott. This was not from a lesbian. Oh, I'm sorry. Hold on. Hold on. I need to learn to take feedback. It's good feedback. Yeah. We should call this show Estrogen and Scott and Scott and Feedback. It's true. Learn. Come on. Take that back. I need to learn to take feedback. It's true.

We could call this podcast Feedback for Scott. Feedback for Scott. But that's why it's brilliant. That's why it's brilliant. It's Scott's journey. It's Scott's journey. It should be called Scott's journey. Maybe we'll change it to that. It's pivot. It's called pivot. You're pivoting, Scott.

We're getting you to pivot. And then you unpivot. Courtesy of your trainer. And then he's really smart. I'm going to meet him. He gave you some recommendations in London for your show. So you can do pull-ups also. I'll send you that. Yeah, yeah. Isn't that called a pull-up bar? Crazy. You said you wanted to do pull-ups. He gave me a recommendation in London of really good. And she's a very comely woman.

woman trainer there. I think you would like it. I'm in. You had me at comely. There are pluses and minuses of insults from trainers. Anyway, let's, Jay, you're wonderful, by the way, Jay. I appreciate your text to me. Anyway, let's pivot, speaking of which, to a listener mail.

This one comes from BJ. Oh, I love that name. Let's listen. Hi, Scott and Kara. Whenever the topic of huge CEO salaries comes up, we're told that CEOs deserve their pay because of the huge time commitment and tremendous responsibility of the position. Elon is the CEO of two companies and CEO and all but title of a third. Yet he has time to shitpost on Twitter, appear at political rallies, father, but admittedly not parent, kids, and

show up at raves, do drugs, and so on. Doesn't this give lie to the concept that CEOs earn their pay? And do other CEOs ever think or tell you that they wished Elon would cut this shit out because he makes them all look bad? Thanks for all the content.

BJ Wittgen. Hmm, BJ. Well, Elon has created value in the companies. I think he's a sort of a different unicorn situation. I think he has created value at SpaceX and Tesla and et cetera. Some of it's meme-y, and it's certainly not in line with the economics of some of the companies, like Tesla, for example. But he has created, he's a different kind of CEO. He's a founder-CEO in that regard. So he may be worth the money he's paid. I think it's a mixed bag.

on that. I think CEOs actually are split that I talk to. They wish they could behave like that, actually. They prefer, they would like to be assholes. They just can't pull it off. It's sort of like a lot of politicians sort of want to behave like Trump and they can't. They fall on hard times when they behave like Trump and only Trump can behave like Trump. And they're very comparable in that regard. Other CEOs really don't like it. They are like, this is making us all look bad and eventually it will

karma will fall into place here with this particular person. I do think CEOs get paid too much. I just think other people should be paid more and value should be more evenly distributed across companies. But we have the CEO, love the CEO culture. And as Scott says, the obsession with innovators. So I don't think that's going to change. Scott? Yeah.

So I'll talk a little bit about CEO compensation and not specific to Musk. We live and we've decided in terms of wages, it's supply and demand. And at some point we realized supply and demand isn't healthy. So we have federal minimum wage. And if it had only kept up with productivity and inflation would be 23 bucks an hour, not 725. So that's a problem.

At the other end, you're talking about CEO compensation, where it's gone from about 40 years, 40 times the average compensation of the worker at that company to 300 or 400 times. And this is how it's happened.

The person or the group that decides CEO compensation is the compensation committee of the board. And it's three or four people. Generally speaking, the CEO will figure out a way to get his golfing buddies on that committee because they get to decide how much he or she makes. And this is what happens. We don't like to do actual work on boards. We want to get paid a quarter to a half million dollars a year to show up for free lunch or free dinner every three months and think big thoughts and then go back to our formerly important person life.

And what we decide on the compensation committee is that we hire Towers Perrin. We pay them $100,000 or $300,000 to come back with a CEO compensation survey. And it's the following. It looks at the size of the company and the performance of the company. And it says the lowest paid at zero made this and the highest paid at 100 made this. And generally speaking, what you do is you say, well, Bob and Lisa, who are always the former sorority or fraternity rush chairman and are exceptionally likable, are

They're doing their level best. They're good people. Maybe the company's not doing great, but it's doing okay, all things considered. So we're not going to pay them at a five, the average. We're going to pay them just above at a six. So slightly above average for a company in that sector of that size and that performance. You might think, well, that's innocuous. The problem is,

When you are raising someone's compensation, the CEO, at 10% a year, which sounds reasonable. That's not bad. Give Bob 10% more this year. That means every 21 years, the compensation of the CEO goes up eightfold relative to other employees. And so what we have is CEO compensation that has gotten just totally fucking out of control. And the CEO says, okay,

Whether it's out of control or not, if you don't pay me market, which is out of control, I'm going to go next door and get more out of control compensation. So we agree to do it. Now, the next question is, what can you do about it? And I don't think there's anything you can do about it on the compensation side. What you need to do is have an alternative minimum tax, such that if a CEO is making 60 million bucks a year, they don't pay a lower tax rate than their assistant.

Because there are all sorts of goodies and loopholes, how folks that exercise options get long-term capital gains, how they can defer their compensation.

All sorts of shit. They can go beg for a bailout after paying themselves $120 million over five years, the CEOs of biggest airlines. There's all sorts of ways that the top guy or gal can avoid paying their fair share. So my feeling is there is nothing you can do or should do. I don't like the idea of a socialist contract around limiting compensation. What you can do is say, all right, if you make over...

a million bucks a year, we have an alternative minimum tax, and that is take advantage of every loophole. But if you go below 20%, we're rounding up to 20%. All right. And? And get to the other part of his question. What was the other part? It's that, you know, do people want to be like this, from your perspective? Be like Elon? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Some of them do. Not all of them, I would say. Oh, I don't know. I think the majority of people in business who are on this hamster wheel and see the kind of love that

And generosity America affords you if you have a lot of money. If they finally get to that point of CO compensation, they all want to be the overpaid guy or gal. No one at your funeral says, you know. No, no, not that, that they want to behave. I'm talking about like doing whatever you feel like.

Oh, Elon has channeled and actualized his inner eight-year-old. And there's a healthy market that seems to appreciate it because CEOs have been told the decorum is to act like an adult and a grown man or a grown woman. And then he comes in and just scratches everybody's it. And no one can look away in an attention economy as long as you're famous. That's a success story in itself. Right.

Not only do most CEOs not want to be this guy, they couldn't be this guy. They just, their decorum, the way they were raised, they could never, they could never do it. They just, they would refuse to. They can't equip themselves. Yeah, some of them do. So what I get is either, well, it's kind of cool he gets to say what he wants. This is what I get. And then the others give a face. You can see a face before they say anything. They're like, ugh, like...

But at the same time, they can't believe it's happening. I think he's a very Trump-like figure. He's unusual. There won't be another one like him for a long time. I guess the equivalent before was Steve Jobs, but Steve Jobs looks like the best-behaved boy in America. Yeah, see above Henry Kissinger. Right, yeah, exactly. And he actually...

He would have hated this. This is not, he did everything to sell phones. This was not about personal, like putting his personal life in front of everybody. It was to sell more iPhones. There are 500 CEOs in the S&P 500, 499 of them. If they put out a tweet saying that I'm taking the company private at a massive premium, the funding is secured, they would have been fired within a week. The board would have said, I either need to see direct evidence of this right now, or we're doing an emergency board call and we're firing you.

Yeah.

He's putting, I mean, he's just accomplishing shit no other individual seems to be accomplishing. And we're all making a shit ton of money. Do you know how much money the people on the board have tested? There's a great Wall Street Journal story about this. It makes perfect. Everything's, let me just explain to you. Everything comes down to the money. If you make a lot of money, you can act like a douche nozzle. That's pretty much the situation. What do you think we could do to get fired? What would we do? How far could we push it?

I wonder. Oh, I don't... Geez, I don't... I feel like I'm well on the way. That's... I mean, that's... You... Honestly, no, I don't think so. I think you have a great latitude. Oh, thanks for saying that. I'm just saying. You're a protected class. I am? Hi. And I think people...

You don't think you're a protected class? Because why? Because you're a lesbian journalist, Kara. No, that's not at all. I've never trotted that thing out, ever. I've never used it. You don't need to trot it out. Everyone knows you. You're powerful. You're a leader, an advocate in your community. I don't think it's because of lesbian. People think you've got to think twice about...

canceling you. You're also very good at what you do, which helps. I think that's really it. Thank you for saying that. But I think the gay card is a lot less strong than you think. I just, I think it's not that. I think it's, I think we have an, I think both of us have an attitude of we'll go somewhere else. We don't care, right? I think that's more, and we're good at what we do. And that's what, it's very hard to attack us because we don't care as much. I had dinner with,

Well, you care more.

To sign up for the narrative, which a lot of people need to do because they want to put food on the table. When we all start barking up the same tree, as my colleague Jonathan Haidt said, we get stupid. And so that's something I try to remember. And also, we say, or I say, I should say, a lot of borderline inappropriate things that some people, a lot of people might find offensive. And I just want you to know, and I've said this before, there's a strategy here.

And that is, I want to see progressives take back power of our government. I refuse to normalize the notion that sexual abuse inciting an insurrection or a convicted felon should be present. I don't care if you got 49 or 99% of the vote. And one of the ways progressives take back power

is we prove to the world that we are not fucking humorless. Right, yeah. And if you look back in history, the people, the comedians who really made social change, they were progressives and they were incredibly profane. Carlin, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce. So when I go out there and we go out there and I make off-color jokes about your sexuality or I say inappropriate things or things that might trigger people,

You know, A, it's me. I think it's funny. I think a lot of people think this way. But also, I think part of progress will be when we get to a post, I don't know, bigoted era where we appreciate and rib and a little bit of mockery of each other's differences. But it's okay. We recognize we're different. That's okay. That's fine.

That's what makes this beautiful, and we can have a sense of humor about these things. I would utterly agree with you. Actually, Jon Stewart had a good riff on this this week on The Daily Show in his Monday appearance. It was along these lines. The only place I'm going to draw the line is...

The attacks on trans people right now are getting really ugly, and it's not funny. And there's no, like, Nancy Mace, and let me tell you, Nancy Mace, you're a heinous, heinous person. That's really vile. It's vile. You can have a debate about bathrooms. You mean the legislation that's targeted at one person? One person. One person.

And this woman, can I just tell you, Sarah McBride is handling herself with such class and grace. She goes, I'm here to work for the constituents of my district in Delaware. And I'm about prices and the economy and helping them have a better life. Where I go to the bathroom doesn't matter. She doesn't... 100%. She had so much class. And Nancy Mace...

honestly, what is wrong with you? You are an attention... And by the way, her staff talks about this. She wanted apparently to get punched in the face during the insurrection so she could get attention. You are an attention-seeking, heinous, cruel person. And it's working. Look at what we're talking about. I get it. I know we're talking about her, but not in a good way. And

Sarah McBride, good for you for rising above it. But that's the one place where it's gotten, it's turned in a very ugly direction. And it's not funny, but I agree with you. I would recommend watching Jon Stewart have the same exact idea of like, let's start playing the loophole game like they do and the rule breaking. And you shouldn't behave like, you know, the class monitor so much. And maybe we can make some gains. So I was at a urinal yesterday and this guy came up to the urinal next to me. Oh, no, no.

And he looked over and he said, circumcised? I'm like, nope, that's just the wear and tear. I don't even understand that. I don't understand why it's funny. I don't understand it. So just so you know, anytime if someone asks if you know a guy, do the following. Go, wait, 5'10", dark hair, circumcised? That's a great conversation starter. I think I won't. I feel like I'm not going to do that. And two, my favorite is that Republican senator who was...

was soliciting blowjobs in the men's room at Minneapolis airport. And he was a total homophobe in the Senate. Wide stance. I'm starting a boy's band called, and he just said, I just have a wide stance. Wide stance. I'm starting a boy band called Wide Stance. Anyone who is so anti-gay, you know what's happening. Let me just give you that piece of information. I think there's a lot of truth to that. Oh my God. A lot of truth to that. It's like, calm the fuck down. What do you care? I was at an

This is my last story. I was at a dinner party with all these VCs a couple of years ago, and this guy, and he's a well-known venture capitalist, starts going, he goes, he goes, first he made the typical lesbian jokes. There was a law about gay marriage, and he said...

I don't like gay sex. I like lesbian sex. Ha ha ha. Did that one, which is like, oh, good God. And I knew it was coming next. And he goes, but I don't like this gay sex thing. And so the room didn't know what to do. And I said, you know what? If you don't like gay sex, you have to stop having it.

And he goes, what? And I said, well, if you don't like gay sex, you just said you don't like it. Don't have it. I don't like this zucchini. And I put it over to the side of the plate here because I don't like it and I'm not going to eat it. And he's like, I'm not having gay sex. I said, why did you say you don't like it? Because you just said you don't like it. Are you lying about having gay sex? That's weird. It was the most wonderful moment of my life. I have to say this guy doesn't like me anymore. Well, you know how many LGBTQ supporters it takes to change a light bulb. Oh, no.

The light bulb is fine, Cara, the way it is. It's society that needs to change the way it looks at the light bulb. You know what? We're not all woke, by the way. We contain multitudes. We have plenty of conservatives. I agree. I don't get that, though. I don't understand the weird. I'm just saying there's plenty of different gays of all kinds now. Same thing with everybody. Anyway, I agree. Addended politics can get a little tiresome, but we're not all the same in any group.

Agreed. Anyway, if you've got a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. By the way, Pivot is now on Blue Sky because everybody else is and we seek, we're a thirsty group of people. So send us a message there. We're going to be on all the platforms. We're not really engaged on Twitter that much because it's, again, a Nazi porn bar and it doesn't really help us. That's really the point. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for Predictions. Predictions.

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Okay, Scott, we're going to do a prediction. I'm going to give one very quickly. I predict the Christmas rom-com Hot Frosty, which is already number one movie on Netflix, will continue to dominate this weekend. The movie stars Lacey Chabert as a widow who falls in love with a snowman she brought to life who's really hot. He's hot, frosty. It's so sick. It is so sick for those who've seen Frosty the Snowman. The

thing to think about a fuckable Frosty. But that's what it's about. It's about a fuckable Frosty. And she falls in love with him. And he has a really nice set of abs. I think you'll appreciate them, Scott. So that's my prediction. Well, what does your trainer think? He's going to beat you up. That's what's going to happen. Anyway, let's hear your prediction now. I think that, so with the antitrust scrutiny probably being dialed down and

The election over, I think private equity is getting its jets kind of fired up again. And we're going to see in 2025 a lot of M&A and take private activity. There's like a quarter of a trillion dollars in dry powder on the line or the private equity is a master race and needs to deploy. And I think a decent target, if you will, right now is now Target.

Walmart reported great earnings, Target terrible earnings. Walmart's now trading at, I think, 33 or 34 times earnings, and Target is trading at like 12. It's not doing really well. No, it had a bad quarter, right? 60% of Walmart's U.S. sales were...

Wearing grocery, and it was less than 25% for Target, and that kind of essential business is more, if you will, more consistent. Target's business model relies on consumers who are willing to spend on non-essentials, such as clothing and beauty, and it's lost a little bit of that differentiation in panache. Even if Target could match or beat Walmart's prices, experts believe that Target would still be perceived as more expensive. And generally what happens in these kinds of business is,

Everyone is compensated or focused on share. And I think Target is an example of a business that needs to shrink to become much more profitable. And that's just so counter to the DNA of every manager there. But I think Target is now at a price level and would benefit from making difficult, hard, cost-cutting changes outside of the public eye. This strikes me that there's probably quite a few PE folks sharpening their pencils and looking at Target because it still has a great brand. It still has...

I think really outstanding real estate. I love the Super Target in Boca Raton. I think it's a wonderful experience.

Brian Cornell is the CEO. I know him pretty well. Really? Yeah, he's had a tough—the stock fell, what, 21%? Yeah. Well, Target operates 1,900 stores and generates sales of $107 billion. And their current debt is $19 billion on a market cap of $56 billion. So it's got about a $75 billion market cap.

I think you're going to see some of the biggest LBOs in history. And I think Target is probably getting eyed right now because this is a company that probably at 1,500 stores versus 1,900, get rid of the 400 least profitable, bring in a new, you know, freshen up the merchandise, if you will. I think this is the kind of deal that PE loves. And these guys have so much capital they've got to put to work. This would be a club deal, right?

But it's a great brand. It's ubiquitous. Yeah. You hope it doesn't go the way of, I'm trying to think of another. Kmart, Sears, JCPenney's. Yeah. It was not trendy, and then it got really trendy. Target got really kind of fun to shop at. And now it's really struggling. The issue is inflation-weary shoppers. And the CEO said that shoppers are waiting, are stretched and waiting to the last minute to buy items. So I think it's gotten a little complicated.

not fresh, I would say. Well, exactly. But this would be, so what I'm predicting, and these deals are hard to pull off, but I believe this would be the biggest LBO in history, TXU,

Now, Energy Future Holdings was $45 billion in 2007. HCA Healthcare was $33 billion in 2006. RJR Nabisco was $31 billion all the way back in 1989. So maybe a better prediction, because it's more likely to happen, is we're going to have the biggest LBO in history in 2025. And I think a decent idea. Interesting. Two decent ideas we've mentioned over the last three weeks. One is Intel, and one now I'm adding to the list target. Are you involved? May I ask? I'm not.

I'm choosing my words carefully here. I figured. I talk to a lot of PE guys all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, that's actually a great idea. It's a great idea. An excellent one. But I feel my frost hot frosty prediction was better.

Hostie. Hostie. Hostie. What are they going to do next? They're going to take a cartoon and make them fuckable. I don't like this. I just don't like this term. But I did watch it and I liked it. Anyway, by the way, watch The Diplomat also, second season. Amazing. People love it. Love it. Fantastic. So smart. It's like West Wing-y kind of, but it's really smart. And the two main stars are fantastic. Yeah.

Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, as you mentioned, you spoke with Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt on the Prof G podcast, by the way, running up the charts, Mr. Podcast. Maybe the Doge Cash will catch you, but probably not, and discuss the threats and opportunities of artificial intelligence. Let's listen to what Eric Schmidt is most worried about if we don't get a grip on this technology.

Remember that it was the horror of nuclear war that got people to the table and it still took 15 years. I don't want us to go through an analogous bad incident involving an evil actor, North Korea, again, I'm just using them as bad examples, or even Russia today. We obviously don't trust. I don't want to run that experiment and have all that harm and then say, hey, we should have foreseen this.

Oh, Eric is being very careful. That's interesting. He's an interesting guy. Very smart. I covered when he got that job. I think I broke that story when he got that job at Google many moons ago. He was way out in Utah. Yeah, he was running Oracle or something? No, no, he was running... Oh, God, blanking. What was it called? Novell.

Yeah, he was at Novell. So Eric was at, before that, he was at Sun, where he got famous, and he went to Novell, and then, of course, got that Google job where he did pretty well. But he's a very thoughtful person. I'm glad you talked to him. PhD from Berkeley, no? Yeah, I don't know. He's just really smart.

Great, great moment of talk about getting the best job in history. That was when he went to Google and he kind of cleaned it up. But please listen to Prof G and listen to Scott's discussion with Eric Schmidt. It's quite good. All right, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Why don't you read us out? ♪

Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Christine Driscoll. Ernie and her time engineer this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Severio, and Dan Shulan. Nishat Kirwa 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. Have a great rest of the week and weekend, Kara. Support for Pivot comes from Lingo by Abbott.

Lingo is a new science-backed system that powers healthy habit change. It's bio-wearable and has an app that tracks your glucose in real time. And you don't just get data, you get a plan too. It gives personal insights and science-backed recommendations so you can learn how your body responds to your habits and learn to eat what works for you. The Lingo glucose system is for users 18 years of age and older, not on insulin. It is not intended for diagnosis of diseases, including diabetes, diabetes,

For more information, please visit hellolingo.com. 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.