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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. Cause he kind of, in a weird way, makes sweet, sweet love to me. No one touches me, okay. The way this guy does, okay. 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 gonna do today. And I went and I bought the materials. When he walks in today, I'll start with small talk. And when he turns around, I'm gonna put on gloves. Oh, I love that. What's his reaction gonna be when I, when he turns around and I put on gloves and, like, snap them? And then the other thing I do. So now that I'm famous because of Kayla Swisher.

Yeah, that's true.

I walk around my block. I walk around Jack's wife, Frida. I totally. 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, stop, and then I look at them and I go. You can see me. That's good.

And New York, New York.

So good to be here.

Isn't it nice? Yeah, thanks. 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. Is that your woke? Bullshit. It's the best city in the world.

I was there. Very buffy to see this play by Susan Lori Parks. Who is. You did not know who she was, but she's a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright. She has a new play at the public theater about Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. That's fantastic. I interviewed her about it today. Miss Grant, you'll never go to it, but this.

Right. I'll go see Dune two for the third time on edible. Is that the same thing?

So good. You would love this. I'm not even gonna buy. You went to see Mike Birbiglia. You could do yourself with. 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 a simple formula, 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 of people who end up wealthy.

One question from Alex Fisher. Why isn't the calculus of wealth just curious. Oh, my God.

I was just not with prepare, and he just asked that I just like the term algebra more.

Alex wanted. 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. 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 it? Algebra? You just don't even know the difference, do you?

Not really. I failed algebra, too.

Who 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 six year.

Wow.

And I had an offer from Morgan Stanley. 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, an 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 mission this summer to finish up advanced calculus courses so he can be ahead.

He's already at advanced calculus?

I think so. I don't really know. He says things to me and I don't know a lot of them.

So clearly. So clearly. Let me guess. He was Megan's egg. Am I getting this right?

Yeah.

Am I getting this right?

Yeah. It's cactus 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's not right. The geometry of wealth. That's weird.

Yeah.

So anyways, so give one or two. That's give one or two tips. Tiparoos for people, or what do they have in common? Is there a commonality or not?

Well, okay, so look at 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, or people who supposedly know more about the markets than you, they've underperformed the s and P by the amount of their fees. Low cost index funds. Diversify. Start early. Live below your means. Understand time is 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 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 tend to be high character, because the key to wealth, a lot of 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 jobs of financial security is divorce. And not only personal divorce, but professional divorce. I lost 60% 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 forced 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 bringing a sense of forgiveness and a sense of generosity to your personal and your professional relationships.

Yeah, I'm gonna take the under on that, because I know a lot of people who've made their money who are jack offs. Like quite a few, I would say they're equal. Equal.

There's some cover tech that's extreme wealth at a young age.

Well, I'm thinking of some Wall street people also. 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 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 want, you want people rooting for you.

Yeah, I guess there's, the one 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, the 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, you know, and they're not all tech people. It's just, you know, I guess they're ultra wealthy. But it's a bit, it's a really, 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.

But there's a level when what is too rich? I don't 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. That is, if you look at Daniel Kahneman's workaround, you said this.

Yeah.

The correlation between money and happiness. There's a correlation, unfortunately. And I'm not talking about 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 progressive tax rates above, say, 10 million in income? Because that additional money isn't going to make any happier, and it could make a lot of other people much happier. And here's the reality, Kira, is that wealthy people have weaponized the tax code. It's gone from 400 pages to 4000. And guys like me who make their money buying and selling assets and businesses. My average tax rate the last ten 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 that 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 lightspeed and 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 pay anything.

Because they know better than government, Scott. Don't they tell you that anyway?

They're saving the world.

Scott's book, the Algebra Wealth, a simple form for financial security, is out by the time this episode drops. And Miss Stephanie rule is going to do a thing with you tomorrow night. Correct. I cannot come. Stephanie.

Yeah, she's Stephanie, who's always my go to and is very generous with me, is hosting a book. A book event for me. I'm going a morning Joe with Mika and Joe.

Good.

And I'm going.

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?

I should 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.

You could go for it.

I give you permission.

And then for the fifth time, I'm on Bill Maher this Friday, where Kara set an incredibly high bar.

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

With Don Lemo. I'm on with Don Lem.

Oh, fantastic. How great. Well, I will keep promoting you the whole time. I appreciate that. And hopefully I'll get to some event of yours 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 on China's crackdown on popular meshing apps, which is the reaction. 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. 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 keeps slashing prices. That's what 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. $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 4000 cybertrucks are impacted, which is the entirety of cybertrucks delivered since it's launched.

Tesla share. That's very small, by the way. Tesla shares are down 10% in the last five days of this taping. 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. 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 EBITDA because the bottom line is manufacturing steel around an engine and all the liability. 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 Cybertruck said, oh, lemo. Speaking of Lemo, it's so weird looking.

Do you like it? I think it looks ridiculous.

Well, it's just 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 4000. It'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 melt 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 Sherri 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 taping. Looks like there might be a little thing happening here. Will Sony joining the 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 Sherri Redstone, a way that will invite litigation.

I think they're, 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, 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 board's at work.

Not everybody, because Chuck Phillips is a former Oracle executive. He's apparently for the.

But my sense is when boards lawyer up and start going on background, that means, 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.

We can come up with the money.

I think that was, yeah, we're Apollo.

It's like, well, there was that worry that 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 these offers like $10 million for James Bond to be in the next round of poker and he's like, can you afford that? 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. 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 q one. But the streamer will no longer provide quarterly membership numbers or average revenue per user starting next year. The company has focused on revenue and operating margins. They're shifting. Netflix exceeded expectations in Q one revenue as well, posting $9.4 billion from 8.2. I think it's because of people 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.

This company is a phenomenon. 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 USP's. They started mailing out DVD's, and then they pivoted to streaming once broadband started really getting traction. And then they pivoted to original content, and then they adopted the Amazon strategy and said, we're just going to outspend everybody. I mean, 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. Almost every war can be determined by who brings the most brute force, whoever has the most tanks and the most shells. And quite frankly, Netflix just has more tanks and shells than anybody. It's like there's always a reason not to cancel Netflix.

It's well run. It's operating margins. They went up from 21% to 28%. They made the jump to light speed, and that is more and more of their subscriber revenue. It's 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. So it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

What doesn't matter?

That they put these numbers out. That they do. 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. 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?

Yeah, 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, you know, three and four people on 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 they 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, like a very dangerous, like, 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 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.

Thief of hearts.

Yeah, right. Whatever. You stole cable. Okay, 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 clear, very clever. Mike Johnson. If the bill, they already passed one, but it was stuck in the Senate. But this is a slightly different bill. If the bill makes it through the Senate, President Biden has said he will sign into law tick tock. 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. Marie Cantwell wasn't against it. Now she's for it. Bytedance indicated a good amount of leaks. Legal challenge, that's where it's going next during 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 tick tock across the state.

Specifically, Donald Trump attempted to ban tick tock in 2020, 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. That's in it. 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, okay. 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, Kara. On Saturday, I was obsessed with C SPAN. I mean, I might as well been 120 fucking years old this Saturday.

I'm just thinking of you in a catheter. But go ahead.

My dad says the guy who invented the catheter should literally get the Nobel prize. Well, we can see that. I'm sorry I got thrown.

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. Anyways, Kara, I just want to be clear. 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. And then this is fantastic legislation. It'll end up being divested. Everyone's gonna get their money. We're gonna 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 sixties when we were in a cold war with Russia, we let the Kremlin own NBC, ABC and CB's. I am thrilled at this. And, oh, wait, it got wrapped up and 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 close.

This literally. You gotta give it to Speaker Johnson. You gotta give it to. And by the way, this thing is over overwhelmingly passed. We talk about how partisan the congress has become and this Marjorie Taylor Greene saying we shouldn't do any of it until we talk about the border bill that Trump pulled her.

No, Marjorie, did you see that cover of the New York Post?

I mean, this was. I called. This is how Lameh called my friends on Saturday. I'm like, the bill's gonna pass the bill. And they're like, dude, what are you talking about? And I'm like, it is literally. It's like if I showed up and it was, you said to me, you know, Emily Ratakowski and whom you will never meet. And does she ask about me, by the way? And.

Not yet.

And who are the other two women? Oh, Senator Cantwell and Patty Stone Cipher 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 gram.

It's going to go to courts and you know it's going to get blocked, right?

No, it's not 100%, no.

Ok.

They're going at. 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 US, but we're going to let TikTok own the frame through which young it.

Is a broadcast network. We agree on that. Yeah. I think it's going to be tough going. Okay. All right. Well, all right then. Okay.

So 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 they had a log jam in the Senate and it was going to sit there. 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, 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. JD Vance, who is hangs out with Marjorie in the russian section of the department store, tried to stop it but couldn't. Obviously, Trump's been. 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 or the drawings?

Sleeping.

No, Trump.

Yeah, sleeping. 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?

No, but it's the.

And were those the right decisions?

He's a prisoner. He's a political prisoner.

Consequences rarely present themselves lubed. They usually show up pretty rough.

Yeah.

And when I see this guy, it's like I just get the sense he is smart enough to know, okay, this shit is getting real and it is not good for me.

And 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. Speaking of down prices, you know, we'll see. Did you. He's, of course, just a sidebar. You understand the farting thing when he sleeps. That was all over the friggin.

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 sort of a Giuliani situation. That's something I know, right?

That's brutal.

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 and up as a pup now compared to sleepy as don't early on. Don Farley, 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 they are sitting nearby who are there. Anyway, let's go on a quick drink because when we come back, how China might retaliate for the tick tock 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. Support for the show comes from LinkedIn. As a business to business marketer, your needs are one of a kind. B two B buying cycles can be long, and your customers face incredibly complex decisions. Maybe it's time you had a marketing platform built specifically for you. Well, guess what? You're in luck. LinkedIn ads empower marketers with solutions for you and your customers. With LinkedIn ads, you can build the right relationships, drive results, and reach your customers in a respectful environment.

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Scott, we're back. The TikTok ban might be the latest battle in the tech war between China and United States, but China's 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 chinese 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. 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. Tesla, of course, has a lot of exposure there. A couple of us companies, not that many, because China doesn't have reciprocity with most of our tech companies, but still a big issue. And last week, I had a really interesting conversation, by the way, with Dmitry Alperovich and Chris Krabs about US China relations 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 Kerri 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, they think they'll refuse to let happen. So thoughts? They're obviously trying to pull out all their weaponry.

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. 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 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. So they employ. Do you realize that, 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 not only that, 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 little, 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, Kara. It's going to be divested. They'll hum in 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.

Yeah, they thought they had us on that one, I'll tell you that. That's for sure.

But you have the following. When people look at the. They chose the wrong word, 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 theyll say, all right, theres 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 didnt believe it before with Joey baggage, Yahoo. Flatulation was trying to carve it up and give it to his political friends. We knew that wasnt going to work. We didnt think your Congress could get their act together. We didnt think thats going to work. But now that it looks like its going to happen, hey, Joe, is there any way we can come to some sort of, 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, this is 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 some of the people he's picking are really, let's start fighting with China. Let's shift all our focus, which these guys actually thought as much as important as both Dmitry and Chris thought Ukraine and Israel, was that our real, 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 we are, 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 start and aging, he's starting to get 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 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 because actually a lot of the company is owned by us citizens, which is interesting.

Most general out of partners.

Sequoia, a bunch. Sequoia, I think is in there a.

Lot going on there.

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. I think 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'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 to disappoint 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 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 Philip head of Philippines, and they've been in Japan, who've been saying some pretty tough things about China, unusually so. We have to really stress our, 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 to 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, Bradstone's written two books on them. Amazon did not give you any access, special assets for the book. But you've talked to more than 600 people, including current and former employees. Talk to me a little bit about it, because my impression from members from the start was that 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 when it started. The retailers were obviously nervous about Amazon. But over the course of those six years, everyone became nervous. It went to the consumer CEO's 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 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, quite significantly. But companies change, too. Microsoft, I'm thinking under Sachnadella, versus bomber 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 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 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, at least in the stock market, not on paper. They start getting all these mbas to come in. And the company has 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 of 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 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 were. This pressure cooker environment causes people to do things that are either unethical or anti competitive, but it also causes 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, writes a suicide letter at his desk, sends it to the whole company, including Jeff Bezos, and walks to the roof, jumps off. He luckily survives. 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. Look, anti competitive behavior. I think Amazon as a monopoly and should be broken up. I think we probably, the amount they charge third party retailers has gone from 20% to 50%. They're exploiting their monopoly power in terms of going to work and having it be hard. The people who go to work at Amazon 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. 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. 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? These are some of the smartest people in the workforce. So, yes, and they do churn through the company pretty quickly because 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. 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 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 answers and 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 with the FTC lawsuit in September, they're saying this is an illegal monopoly. To Scott's point, they've ratcheted up these fees on sellers from, I think it was 17% a decade ago to 45% today. And I have examples in the story of these sellers who, one of them, he makes $10 million a year in Amazon in revenues at the end of the year, after all the fees he pays and overhead, that goes down to $30,000 in profits. So what does he have to do? He's had to raise his prices for customers. 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, you know, higher prices for consumers, they said, because Amazon is a monopoly on e commerce and 40% of all retail e commerce in the US 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 Khan is taking a different direction. She has rail rebelled against the consumer welfare standard of antitrust and they've lost some challenges to acquisitions like 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 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 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 Khan and Jon 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 Gabriel, 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, Hanbach and David Sicilyn.

Exactly. Who now are both gone.

Exactly. So TBD if they were to bring something like that back. But you know, the legislation really got stalled and big tech, you really saw their lobbying power on display during that whole scenario.

Yeah, but they got tick tock. 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 the 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, please get naked on the stage here. Just. 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 seen. 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 delivery, all kinds of things. They do tend to belong together. And many years ago, Jeff talked about moats. He was building moat after moat after moat. That was what he said, you know, at the time. And I really did get it, what he was doing. It was price, convenience, etcetera, etcetera. 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. He was like an assistant, just a very low level person there. And a lot of the people there 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 does it feel to work with poor performing people? The guys 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 in government relations and PR. Jassy is different. He, to me, seems much more diplomatic, wants to mend bridges, is involved in their, you know, in their lobbying in some ways in DC 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 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 in the way. Reminds me a great deal of Sachin, Adela and Gates and Bomber. I'm putting them in one big, big nasty bro as managers compared to. He's a very similar profile to Satchin Adela in that regard.

Meaning, do you think? I think he'd come back.

No, I don't think he'd come back. I think Sachin, Adela and Andy are more similar than in the same way. I think that's right. Gates 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 and has long been. And he made one of the, 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, 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 health care, 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 still the mandate is much smarter than Google. Yeah. And they're seeing a lot of white.

Space, it seems, because you cover M and 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 no mercy, no malice take on the paramount situation and who you think will be the ultimate victor.

They're giving your beat on Prime Video. It's funny, Andy just recently said that it could be a standalone company. And people there talk about it feeding the flywheel 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 Paramount. Actually, I'm not an M and a reporter anymore. I just focus on Amazon. So those would be more for my colleagues.

But you can't get out.

Oh, don't be measured. It doesn't stop us. It doesn't stop us from talking about things we have no demands for today.

Extraordinarily aggressive M and 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, 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 graduate except for this, like, state dinner. 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, you know, 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. You know, it's a little bit after the affair and everything else, how have you done it? And they, like, sort of cozy up and, you know, Kellyanne says, you know, you live in the neighborhood now. Let's go on a jog together. 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 closing up.

Yeah, I love Lauren. 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, I got to say, people who know her say that she's lovely and very, very smart, generous and nice.

And, you know, she's very smart. Probably one of the smartest.

I'd do them for that money I'm in Jeff Coleman.

Anyway, she may have a bigger role, I think, in the future as you move forward. She has a very, 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 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 the show comes from the Harvard Business Review. You know, there's this idea in business that some people are born to be leaders. You either have it or you don't. But leadership, like any skill, can and should be learned over time. Whether you've climbed the top of the corporate ladder or just starting out, you'll find valuable insights at Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Review is a leading destination for smart management thinking. And on their website, hbr.org dot subscriptions are just $10 a month, which gives you unlimited access to the same level of expertise, things like case studies, newsletters, podcasts, articles written by some of the world's top minds. I use HBR in my research when I do articles or when I'm thinking about what to talk about on pivot. I find them really interesting. I find them complete. I find them different. And you can find all kinds of industries covered. While much of Harvard Business Reviews content is available for free after signing up at their site. Subscriptions to unlimited content start at only $10 a month. What a bargain.

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Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. You go first.

Well, just first off, regarding about Jeb Bezos, I actually. I think there's a lot of evidence that he's going to come back. I think pretty much every night he comes on or 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 gonna disagree with you. Oh, my.

Is that wrong?

God, will that make the cut? That was a good one. This one stays in. Okay, that penis joke is a good one.

Just for the readers at some point, maybe 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. Just tweet, tweet. Kara, if you want to hear the b sides of everything, that'll get this show canceled.

Okay, I'm sorry. Anyways, that was a good one. That one stays in. Well, win is we're both gonna be watching Shogun on tonight, right?

You totally love that show. Good for you.

I love that show. It's the final show. I think it's two tomorrow night.

No, that's it. 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, wins.

I'll be talking about financial security.

Yeah.

Okay. It's simple. My win is Speaker Johnson. The United States Senate, the United States Congress, President Biden, bipartisan effort that, in one fell swoop, has decided that we should not have the frame through which our youth view the world be influenced by an adversary that's decided 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. And when the west binds together our resources, our technology, our human capital are unparalleled and insurmountable for us. 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.

You're talking about Speaker Johnson.

Yeah, I think he got briefings. I thought 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 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 one, has, hes realized the speaker we need to govern. Its 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 dont give a good goddamn about the well being of the commonwealth. I think its just a wonderful moment for the west. Legislation, packaging them all together politically. Deftis just this season of C SPAN is off the fucking hook. Its better than Shogun right now.

Let me say hes calling himself a Reagan Republican. Republican now. I mean, you know, thank God you listened to the briefings. Speaker one good idea to get yourself fucking educated.

You're being cynical. He's done his job. He's done his job, that is, to.

Listen to the briefings.

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. Their culture, chaos, more weak. I'm sorry, our weaker today, their culture of chaos, of violence, their 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, you know, 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, and 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 aids 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 US government. I think it's 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 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, makes fun of people as suckers and losers, veterans and everything else. He has to listen to what the actual people think of him, good and bad. Some of them liked him, by the way, in those. 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. Doing. They're now, right now. Right now. First witness is up. 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 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 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're like. They literally spent the time on her upward thing, doing way too much coverage of all the stuff, and now they're saying too much. You know, is it fatigued? The review was incredibly, weirdly sexist, as were several of them.

I wouldn't even know what you're talking about.

I think. Oh, it's overstuffed. Not her best, honestly.

Oh, Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift on the tortured poets department. I think she's gonna end up selling a zillion of them. And same thing as they've. 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 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 as a billion. But I was really quite. The coverage in the Times is literally like, it was too much before. Now they're. 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, 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 why I said, you may now speak if you'd like. Speak now, as Taylor would say.

Well, I mean, you're going to agree with this. I think there is something to, I'm reading Farid 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 phenomenon, 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 if you look at the United States, the group that has fallen furthest fast, 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 sex of any religion. And also generally speaking, media, they just have a different approach. Sometimes for women who ascend that kind of 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, that what is it about now? When female CEO's are aggressive, they're a bitch. When males are CEO's 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. I'm like, they don't even realize. 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 say between Greta Gerwig, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and, by the way, Anne Lamott. Guess where she is on the New York Times bestsellers, number one. You're welcome for the money, everybody. You're welcome for selling things. Beyonce. Taylor. Ann Lamotte. You fucking rock.

So where are you going to see Beyonce, Scott? Well, let me tell you, Karen.

Where are you going to see Beyonce?

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. It's stagecoach, which is the new Coachella, but it's country, and supposedly Beyonce is going to make a surprise visit.

Oh, man. What are you wearing?

Something fabulous.

Assless chaps, right? I hope.

Yeah, no, that's. That's Monday through Friday. This is a 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 gotta get.

I gotta dress up like Beyonce with ashes from Mar.

I need to look credible yet young, I think.

Assless chapstamar. But nonetheless, you need to dress up for that. And you need to have an outfit. Yes.

Call Joanna Cole. She's my fashion guyota on the win.

I would recommend, by the way, Walt Mossberg, whose job now is Taylor Whisper. 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 beyond. 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.

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 it. And Lamont. Congratulations, Ann Lamar. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever is on your mind. Go to nymag.com pivot. Submit a question for the show or call 8551 Pivot. 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 interview you. I'm excited for your Bill Maher thing. Everybody focus on Scott and his book week. I would get it as 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 about 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, Kara.

We'll be back on Friday for more.

All right, today's show was produced by Laura Naman, Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Barrows, Emile Silverio. Nishak Kurwa 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@nymag.com 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 weekend. Congratulations. It's a wonderful moment for youth in America, for Israel and for the ukrainian people and democracy loving people around the globe. The US u to the s to the a.