Apple Bows to Trump, Bond Market Sounds the Alarm, and Kalshi Bans George Santos
61m 29s
The podcast explores how modern business tools like Odoo and AI infrastructure providers such as CoreWeave are reshaping operations by unifying fragmented systems and enabling smarter workflows. It highlights the importance of choosing tools that support efficiency and transparency, rather than relying on outdated or disconnected software. A central focus is on political and economic instability, with deep analysis of how corporate behavior—such as tech companies renaming geographic features or promoting voter suppression—mirrors broader authoritarian tendencies. The show critiques the influence of financial markets, including rising bond yields and the potential for AI-driven betting markets to manipulate election outcomes. It underscores the lived reality of economic hardship, especially in high-cost areas like Los Angeles and California, where affordability and inequality are worsening. The discussion also honors the legacy of Gloria Steinem, emphasizing grassroots activism and civic engagement as vital forces in democratic resilience. Amid rising distrust in institutions, the podcast champions real-world human connection, arguing that genuine public sentiment emerges from on-the-ground interactions, not from algorithmic predictions or corporate narratives. Ultimately, the show calls for greater consumer agency, ethical corporate behavior, and a recommitment to transparent, people-centered journalism and democracy.
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We picked you precisely for your hair on the final day to remind people what hair looks like.
Scott will have a hair desert when Scott comes back.
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox News.
Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher and this is the final day of Scott Brie August.
Yes, it's September, but Scott is still gone.
We don't know where he is now.
He'll make his triumphant return next week after Labor Day.
In the meantime, I have my final guest co-host.
He's a senior national and political reporter for MSNOW and the anchor of Connect with Jacob Sobroff.
It is he, Jacob.
Hello, Jacob.
What a delight, Kara.
And I was confused if it was going to go to Scott Brie September, but I happen to know it's still Scott Brie August.
No, we can't do that.
That's not, there might be Scott Brie all the time at some point.
By the way, judging from just when you were getting ready, you were taking off your sweatshirt and we thought you were going to do a Scott thing,
which is show us his chest, which he likes to do.
Never, I would not.
And you very politely moved off the, we appreciated that.
We appreciated your entire.
Nobody wants to see this dad bod.
Well, in any case, we don't want to see Scott's either.
We are subject to it on a twice weekly basis sometimes.
Anyway, we appreciate it.
We appreciate it very much.
Thank you so much.
I'm, I'm seriously, I'm, I'm, I'm tickled to do this.
This is very, very cool and fun for me.
Thank you.
Well, it was kicked off with Hillary Clinton and you were the last one.
We've had some great co-hosts, Caitlin Collins.
The downward slide.
I was just watching Caitlin's.
Yeah, it was good.
She was great.
So where are you broadcasting?
Now from Los Angeles?
This is our, yeah, this is our LA Bureau.
Um, and this now, and, uh, this is, this is the newsroom.
I appreciate you being up at such an.
Oh, no.
So it's a newsroom and you, you live in LA now, right?
That's where you're broadcasting your shows from born and raised.
And I spent the summer in New York.
Um, exactly.
But the fires, um, but, uh, born and raised here, spent the summer in New York and our studio here in LA is just about ready.
So we're bringing connect my show back to LA.
Oh, great.
Is there a special LA thing for it?
Yeah.
Explain your show.
Sure.
Just sort of started, right?
Correct.
Yeah.
It started, um, on June 13th and, you know, I started at MS now, um, in the summer of 2015 and over these 11 years that I've been here, I have traveled the country and I've traveled the world and I've been a, you know, a guy in the field.
Um, I think I got the best job in TV.
I love people.
Um, I love hanging around people and from pulling place lines to the border, to Ukraine, to Haiti, to Greenland.
Um, getting to be around people, um, has been, I think like the greatest blessing, not just of my professional life, but I honestly really, really, it, it makes, it fills me up.
It makes me who I am.
And so we wanted to bring that essence, Rebecca Cutler, um, my boss back into the studio.
And so she asked me if I would do a show and, um, and that's what connect is all about.
It's a show about people.
Politics is it per me, it's everything we do.
Um, but I want it to center people.
We don't want it to center people.
Um, I got three hours a day.
I took over for Allie Velshi who moved to primetime and on Saturday and Sunday, uh, we just spend an enormous amount of time on, on, on basically the stuff that are the people that watch us, um, care about and worry about.
And we don't really do the sort of news of the week thing.
How is Los Angeles doing?
I was just, I just got back from San Francisco this morning.
I love it here.
And I'm ducking, anticipating the incoming, but I think it's the greatest city in the world.
And, um,
Why?
Why?
Who would, I love Los Angeles.
Yeah.
Um, I don't know why I'm self-conscious about being from LA.
I think I honestly, I grew up here.
Um, and I grew up, as you mentioned in the Palisades that burned down in the, in the costliest wildfire event in American history, but I've spent most of my adult life on the other side of town in Northeast LA.
And I, I think that you can get in LA, um, a slice of anything, um, and meet people from all over the world.
And I always call it New York.
If you flattened everything out, if you took all the.
Buildings, it went like that.
Like that's what it feels like.
Do you, do you, so you enjoy your spending time here?
I do.
I love, I don't insult Los Angeles.
Like I don't insult California the way other people do, you know, and they, they just, it's a magnificent state.
It's got a lot of issues.
We had, that's exactly right.
We had a, we had a, we had a really tough year, um, in 2025 with the fires and then the ice rates that kicked off here.
And I think it was really bruising to so many people, but the resilience of the city, we sort of modeled it here.
Um, and I think it was really bruising to so many people, but the resilience of the city, we sort of modeled it here.
During the ice raids, um, for, for everyone else.
And to see people spontaneously pour out into the streets, I was out there on June, whatever it was, 7th or 8th of 25.
Um, to me, that, that, it, it instantly gave hope to me and I think to so many people in the city and so many people watching around the country that like, there's a way to band together in the face of all of this bullshit that's going on.
I just interviewed Chris Larson yesterday.
He's a, a billionaire up in San Francisco.
He's given a lot of money and is very civically oriented, which is unusual.
And, and, uh, we had a really interesting discussion about what's going on there.
Obviously, it's continued homeless problems, very significant, um, you know, climate problems, tax problems.
Um, you know, the government has grown quite a bit, but it seems like, and even on its worst days, I would rather live there than many states across the country.
Amen.
And it contributes to so much for the, for, for that.
And I think people have sort of a warped vision.
A warped vision of it that, um, that doesn't, it doesn't comply with reality.
And of course, that's why it's done like that.
And anyway, I really like, well, thank you for getting up so early.
I really appreciate it.
You can, and I was in for Chris Hayes last night.
I, I don't have any makeup on other than a little powder under my eyeballs.
Oh, come on.
You look, oh, stop it.
Stop your Clark's headness of it all.
You know, people do call you that, right?
Correct?
With the hair.
Better than Al Franken's son or Stephen Colbert's brother, although I'm honored.
Oh, you get those too?
Oh, no, no, no, no.
We picked you precisely for your hair.
On the final day to remind people what hair looks like.
Scott will be, we'll have a hair desert when, when Scott comes back.
May I just say, uh, Propecia works and I've been taking it for a very long time.
Oh, okay.
Well, it's working for you.
Thank you.
Uh, so we have, uh, speaking, um, of men, let's not talk about them for a second.
Um, I want to mention Gloria Steinem has died at, uh, age 92.
She was a feminist and active as a journalist and so much more.
Uh, we talk a lot about business on the podcast and, uh, Gloria once described herself as an
entrepreneur of social change.
Um, she earned that title many times over.
Um, I met her on several occasions, really interesting, sometimes controversial, some
with, even within the feminist movement, uh, very good journalist.
If you go back and read her stuff, I remember loving her Playboy Bunny, uh, piece.
It was, if you go back and read it, it's actually quite good, uh, where she was a Playboy Bunny
or just to, I guess, sort of an investigative piece.
It was just interesting.
Um, uh, and just a very impactful.
Person.
And it's kind of interesting that, you know, two people I consider some of the leading
feminists, uh, Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem, uh, die within the same couple of, you know,
weeks or a week or so.
How do you look at this change?
How would you cover it on Saturday?
For example,
I just said to my team, I have about 25 people that work for me and I think three of them
are men.
Um, I almost want to hand the floor over to the team.
Um, the, I got never got to meet Gloria.
Um, I did get to meet Dolly.
Uh, which was one of the most extraordinary experiences I've ever had.
Um, but when I think about Gloria, two things, one, I was just reading the Ms.
Magazine 50th anniversary, which she founded, um, introduction that she wrote.
And I guess I didn't realize how much of what that magazine did was informed by the readers
and the letters that were written into Gloria and how much, um, almost in an open source
way, 50 years ago, she.
Let the second wave feminism movement, and particularly through the magazine, be guided
by the people who were her readers, her clientele, her customers.
Yeah.
And I'm so inspired by some of the stuff that I was reading.
The other thought that flashed through my head is I'm the father of a 10-year-old boy
and a six-year-old girl.
And when my son, I guess I'll never forget that she was the honorary co-chair of the
Women's March, which was the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump.
And I was in New York for, excuse me, I was in Washington, D.C. for the first inauguration.
And I was out on the lawn where Donald Trump said it was the, and Sean Spicer said it was
the greatest crowd of all time.
And I wrote in my first book about how I stood there on that big, white, empty plastic tarp
and no one was there.
Nope.
But then I came home that night and the following morning, I wasn't supposed to work, but my
wife, Nicole, and our son, Noah, and a bunch of her girlfriends and our, and other kids
went to the march.
And I called the bureau chief at NBC News at the time, Polly Powell, after dropping
them off and said, you know, I would like to report.
And I have never, ever, I'm getting the chills talking about this.
Seen a crowd of people like I saw that day.
And I remember watching her make a speech from Washington, D.C.
I remember standing on the roof of, man, what was that like?
Cool.
It was amazing.
You know, a lot of pussy hats.
I mean, a lot of people felt like it, you know, I'm here and there on marches because
I feel like sometimes what's the point?
Like, I think a lot of people felt very hopeful that there was a point.
And then you had, you know, especially this administration.
I just, I would say misogynist in many ways would, it was, it was great.
It was great.
I took my sons.
I took my two sons.
And I didn't force them into pussy hats, but they would have if I asked, especially my
older son, who I consider very much a feminist.
But, but it was more so than me in a lot of ways.
And he, we, they had a great time.
We had a great, we just had a, it was a joyous occasion.
That's how I felt too.
And, and so while I never got to meet Gloria, to me, in a way, in spirit, that was the closest
I've come to being around her.
I remember standing on the roof of the satellite truck because I wanted to get a vantage point
of how many, I've, you know, I've been to a lot of marches and I actually, I really
do believe in the power of all of that.
I've seen it kick Greg Bovino out of every one of those cities just in the last year.
And yes, you're right.
There's an extraordinary power in it.
And I, I'm looking back at the pictures today.
I still have the sign.
I still have the sign, actually, that my wife carried there in the back of our Volvo.
And I found it the other day.
And to me, I can't wait, actually, to talk to our kids about the fact that Noel was there
that day and that Gloria Steinem was one of the people behind it.
What did the sign say?
There were some good signs.
Love wins forever.
Love wins forever.
Oh, that's a nice one.
Yeah, that's a good one.
So you have a nice family.
I like all the mean ones.
No way.
I got to find it.
Where's my phone?
There were some other good ones.
Hang on.
Love rules forever.
Stop the war on women.
Another friend of ours, Zoe, held up.
Women, freedom.
It was a very special day.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm partial to the vagina ones.
I like the really funny ones, which are great.
I think today, it's kind of interesting.
I was, when I was speaking yesterday, I was talking about the series Furious on Hulu,
which is about, you know, ladies serial killer and anger towards men.
And it's about Epstein kind of like figures and getting what they deserve and everything else.
And it's really interesting because a lot of men have had a very bad reaction to it.
And I'm like, do you understand how angry lots of people, especially women, are?
And it's really powerful.
It's a very powerful.
There's incredible women actors in it.
And just the anger is there visceral.
And what's interesting about Laurie Steinem, and then we'll move on, is, of course, Ted Cruz yesterday, before she died, said, you know, Lord help us from white liberal women.
Which. What an idiot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I was, I said, you know, yeah, a regular Lincoln, that guy is, right?
Like, you think about, like, what in the world, how can you want to be president if that's how you feel about a large swath of people?
Like, it's really, and if he's going to continue on in the Trump way, and he's such an unappealing character.
Trump had appeal to people.
This guy is, you know, has zero charm and almost despised by his people he went to school with and things like that.
It just seemed like, I thought about it today.
After he did that yesterday before she died.
Or look at, look at what we talked about last night on Hayes' show, what Pete Hegseth posted about those two Canadian, one cadet and one, you know, instructor at the summer camp, military summer camp for, I think, kids and teenagers.
Yes, it is.
Basically body shaming them.
What I said on the show was, what a sad loser that this is the dude that's in charge of the most powerful military in human history.
And he is shitpost.
Well, this is what he does.
Exactly.
But that's, that is the world in which we live, which is why I'm so, I'm so, I think I felt so emotional today when I saw the news about Gloria Steinem.
And I saw the reaction of people, not just on my show, but in other, you know, signal chats that I'm in with other journalists.
And, you know, I was thinking actually about the Daisy Chain Fields Festival that Olivia Rodrigo put on here in L.A. last weekend as well.
All women.
So many of the same.
Of course.
Amazing.
All right, Peter, Gloria Steinem, she lived quite a life.
We've got a lot more to get to today, so let's dig in.
Apple just followed Google's lead in being a quizling, changing Lake Ontario to Lake America for U.S. users of Apple Maps.
Trump celebrated the update, writing on True Social that the renaming is now complete, ratified, and binding, none of which is true.
The name change came on John Ternes' first day as Apple CEO, taking the reins from Tim Cook.
Not a surprise.
Google had done it before, as I said.
And one company, a little company called MapQuest, which I covered 100 years ago, is back, baby.
The downloads at 1.5 million, the top of the charts.
Actually, I changed myself.
I forgot how good it is, actually, how uncreative Google Maps are, and changed everything.
And then I've spent the past couple of days sort of giving advice to people how to shift off of search off of Google.
That you can go to DuckDuckGo or some others, which I used to, DuckDuckGo.
And then this morning, I moved to the Vivaldi browser, which is a Norwegian browser.
I saw you post that.
How is it?
It's great.
It's a great browser.
It's a, you know, it's a much, you know, very privacy-focused, because it's from Europe, it's from Norway.
I like, so far, so good.
It's just getting off of things you're used to, right?
Like, you kind of do things.
Now, a lot of stuff only works on Chrome, for example, this software we use for this show, for example.
So I can't use it.
I can't use that.
So you have to use it in some ways.
But disentangling yourself a little bit or having some sensibility is hard, because you can't really pick.
There's things that you can avoid.
There's things that you can.
But I want people to have a sense that there is choices that you can make as consumers and messages you can send.
Let me hear what you think about this Lake America.
I mean, it followed in the wake of Gulf.
Gulf of America.
Yeah, exactly.
Gulf of America.
He talks about doing an ocean.
I think it's just bothering people, changing the Pacific Ocean.
Now.
Now he's saying he wants to change the name of the Strait of Hormuz to the Strait of Trump.
It is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
I want to call it the gay of Hormuz.
It's pathetic and really sad and obviously just a massive attempt to distract us from the war of choice that he has gotten us into.
And 18 U.S. service members are dead and the USS Lincoln is rolling in rusty to Thailand and there is no strategy in the war and people are.
Suffering in the United States and can barely afford to pay for anything.
Groceries, much less gasoline.
Exactly.
And what are these companies doing?
What are these companies doing?
What do you think they're doing?
I think it calls back to the moment at the inauguration when all of the tech titans were sitting right behind him.
And they're obviously, obviously in some attempt, my opinion, to curry favor with him.
And I just love the MapQuest thing because I used to.
Did you print them out?
I used to print them out.
No, no, I have printed them out.
You don't have to now.
They have an excellent app.
So I'm going to download the app to haven't done it yet.
But I used to.
I love that.
You can put it on your CarPlay, by the way.
You can go on to CarPlay.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Use it from there.
Absolutely.
OK, so I will do that.
But no, I actually there is some level of nostalgia.
I have recently talked to so many people about how my dad collected for a long time typewriters.
Analog lifestyle is coming back into vogue in a way.
And like it's it is a very.
Very nostalgic feeling to even hear the words MapQuest.
And I'd so much rather be messing around with that and playing with that than like, you know, giving Donald Trump the satisfaction.
I'm not sure they'll do anything about it.
But at the same time, it was an unusual choice for John Ternus to do on his first day and quite disappointing.
And they look and, you know, at the very end of what feels like the Nero regime, essentially, when things could turn really quickly to do something like this.
And obviously, the minute it's possible, this will be changed.
These are easy things to change, just as we'll, you know, we'll do whatever he did all around Washington will change back.
But, you know, on some level, Trump is Trump, right?
This is what he's going to do.
He's got an obsession with names and things like that.
And he's trying to cement his legacy.
I think that's what's happening here with these buildings, all of which can be taken down, by the way, or moved or changed or something like that.
And are relatively pathetic.
But it's the companies, these tech companies that continue.
to behave in ways that are really disturbing.
bow down. That's what they're doing. And for what? For what? And I love actually also what you posted
about how you can report on Apple. Was it on Apple Maps? Where you can click on it and basically say
report a problem with it. And I love that form of resistance. It's so easy to sit there and do it.
And I do agree. As soon as they'll have the opportunity or as soon as they feel like they
have the cover, they will undo this. They think the Democrats will not be vengeful the way Trump
is. That's their bet. I tell them not to be so sure. And also, I do think that you're right that
the consumer, we all have so few options. And particularly when it comes to a smartphone,
you know, it's not easy just to find something else or different or independent or certainly
not get in the Trump phone if that still exists. But what you what you can do is make how you
feel heard. And these these sort of suggestions that you have been putting forward, I've gotten
great.
joy out of them because I do think they're so easy to do so easy to do. Oh, good. I like to do I
like to bother him just to say about the rest of the stuff that he renamed. You know, I do worry
that it's not it may not be so easy to particularly the stuff in Washington. Well, we're going to
have the golden ass statue and he's torn down the swing and he may tear down the Kennedy Center if
he has the opportunity just because he feels sad that his name had to be taken off of at night.
There's a story that I would love to.
share with you, which is, and we put it on my show, I went there to take a look at some of the stuff
that he had done around the 250th anniversary. And I was standing outside the Kennedy Center as
that big, silly tarp was there covering up his name because he wouldn't take it down and it was
behind the tarp. And a woman approached and said, she had just walked from Arlington National
Cemetery, I think her name was Madeline, and laid her brother to rest, who she said in her words was
a war hero. And I said, why did you come here after to the Kennedy Center to see the tarp where
Donald Trump's name was under? And she said, because I'm ashamed of our country. And I want
to go from there, where she felt something so meaningful, to come and take a look at where
we had come. Interesting. You talk about that cemetery, the arch that's supposed to go there
when he's moving forward and it's going to block that view. People don't realize that it's actually
Robert E. Lee's plantation. Those were all plantations back in the day. And it's been
reconfigured to something quite beautiful. I happen to like cemeteries and I think it's
one of the. There's a beautiful one in San Francisco. There's a lot of them. And it's going to just deface that
monument to the fallen. And so, again, it's such a strange and weird thing. But more seriously,
it is distracting, but it is serious at the same time. But he's continuing his quest to find voter
fraud. It's something that you've all covered a lot. Whether it exists or not, hundreds of federal
agents from the Department of Homeland Security are working at finding non-citizens on voter
rolls. This is a very small problem. What's being internally. called the unlawful voter initiative. Meanwhile, a whistleblower is warning of potentially catastrophic
problems with the new U.S. Postal Service screening system for mail-in ballots, which
be used if Trump's executive order survives the courts, which probably will not. That said,
they still may go ahead with it. Like today in Missouri, they said they might go ahead with
stuff that's already been decided around gerrymandering. The whistleblower says that
the system is being rushed out without enough testing under a zero percent failure policy.
One barcode error could delay thousands of ballots from being sent out. Now, you spoke with Letitia
James, the New York attorney general, this past Sunday. Let's listen to what she said about Trump's
crackdown on mail-in voting. If you think affordability is a hoax, if you recognize that
tariffs are having an impact on groceries and on the economy, if you have nothing to offer,
then you have to cheat. And at the end of the day,
mail-in ballots have been secure and the Constitution basically gives the right of
elections, time, place and manner to the states, not to the president and not to the postal system.
And so it's important that individuals recognize that the election system is up to the state. And
we have not had a problem with regards to mail-in ballots. Now, North Carolina is mailing ballots
out this week and many other states are moving to protect these things and urging people to use those
drop boxes and everything else. So how chaotic could this get as more states start sending out
ballots? I think, I mean, that's the whole intention here is that he continually lose.
Let me back up and just say, you're exactly right. Voter fraud is a solution in search of a problem.
The idea that we have some kind of widespread voter fraud, the idea that there are non-citizens
voting in any way that would meaningfully affect the outcome of any election is just a pile of
bullshit. Sorry.
And for many, many years before I was a journalist, I was an election reform advocate with an
organization called WhyTuesday.org. And the whole idea was, let's move election day to the weekend.
Why do we vote on Tuesday? No good reason.
No idea. Or give people the day off, perhaps.
Make it a holiday, move to whatever. And, you know, all these years after the Voting Rights
Act was passed, our voter turnout was amongst the lowest of all so many countries in the world.
During COVID, it slightly went up because we were forced to vote by mail,
forced to make voting more accessible and convenient, but also secure. And the evidence
is indisputable that voting by mail is secure and safe. It's effective and it's a way for people to
exercise the franchise. What are they trying to do? They're trying to sow chaos. Donald Trump
said about his SAVE Act, his voter suppression bill, that it would guarantee Republican rule,
I think, for 100 years. Somebody will correct me if I got that wrong. But he couldn't pass
it. The Republicans wouldn't pass it. And so he went about all this other cockamamie ways of trying
to take the elections. And if he cannot get this mail-in, if the Supreme Court blocks him from doing
it, what he's going to do, so many experts that I talk to think, including election observers,
the secretaries of state, administrators, that he could very well use it as a pretext on the back end
to go do what he did in Fulton County, Georgia, which is to go in and seize ballots and say there's
fraud or this was a fraud. And he's going to do that. This was a fraudulent election. Think about like in Texas, if James Tallarico prevails there
over Ken Paxton. He will use it as a way to say, after the fact, these were rigged elections. I
didn't get to do what I wanted to do to make elections more secure. And so now I'm going to
go in there and send my Justice Department or my FBI. And he's already doing it. He's sending these
Department of Justice. I was in. Mark Wayne Mullen.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. I was in, where was I? In Detroit, where he sent observers during the
Michigan primary. He did it in Minnesota. He did it out here in L.A.
Although the Wyoming governor is complaining about it.
Republicans, the thing about election administrators is that, and the people who
work under them, they are some of the most civic-minded, nonpartisan, dedicated civil
servants that I have ever met. And I have met many civil servants across many different types
of government and municipal government and state government and federal government.
They're doing it because they want everyday ordinary people to have a say in,
in how we run our lives. And it is pathetic that the leader of the free world, of our country,
targets these folks who all they want to do is allow all of us to be able to speak our minds.
And it comes from this place, my opinion, of just being a small person, of being an insecure,
scared. It is. I've talked to a lot of mayors and governors. They said they're going to have
police forces there to counter, which is terrifying if there is. If there's some sort of clash at any of these places. Because they only need to do it in a
couple of places, right? It doesn't have to be. The whole idea is to intimidate. And I do think my biggest concern is that it will scare away
these dedicated civil servants from participating in our elections and upholding the democracy that
has worked so well for so many years. There's a reason that we're 50 un-United States of voting
when it comes to our election system. The whole point is that the Constitution calls for the time,
place, and manner of elections to be determined by the state legislatures so that there isn't a king
in Washington, D.C. that is putting his thumb on the scale of how we participate. And yeah,
the idea of sending ICE agents out to polling places to look for non-citizens, it's the same.
It's this exact same strategy that they carried out in all these places that I was, from L.A. to
Charlotte to the hallways of 26 Federal Plaza in New York to. Didn't work.
Yeah. But the point was, send these. Greg Bovino in his military costume out into the streets to
scare the shit out of people so that, in his mind, people would self-deport, or Stephen Miller's mind,
and people would leave the country.
Well, Greg says they're trying to kill him.
Give me a break. Give me a break. And by the way. How could you find him? How could you. Sorry.
No, it's okay.
I'm going to make a height joke.
You're hilarious.
I'm a short person. I can do so.
I'm a little height challenged also. I come in right about. I'll say I'm on the shorter side.
Maybe not. I don't know.
Yeah, all right. But you're taller than Greg Bovino. But anyway.
Rachel Meadows says that I'm the same size in real life that I am on television.
You know what? She is a giant.
People don't realize how tall she was.
She's tall. She is tall.
I'm always like, sit down before we talk because you're far too tall.
There's only two people I do that with. One was a supermodel and one is Rachel Meadows.
She is much taller in real life.
Absolutely.
So, all this to say, it's an effort to intimidate both the voters and the election workers and to
put forward a pretext to come in and mess with the elections after the fact, which is why it's so,
so, so important that everybody gets out to vote. We just did a story last night about Tarrant County,
Texas, where they've reduced. They've reduced by, I think, over 100 the amount of polling places there because they have a county
commission that's three to two Republican, even though the Democratic electorate is growing there.
This is, you know, one of the biggest. population centers in all of Texas at a time when the Democrats could take control of the Senate
there in that seat. And it's just a naked attempt at stealing the election and there'll be more and
more of this. Yes, absolutely. If you can't win, you have to cheat. Yep, that's what Tish James
said, exactly. And cheats at most things, cheats on his wife, cheats at golf, and that's his kind
of brand. It's interesting, again, how many people, these enablers, same thing going along
with him. That, to me, is a really interesting idea of who are these people who are doing this
and what will be not just their regrets, which I assume they will have them, is what do you do
about that? You know what, though? Yet they're all so afraid to show up at his silly midterm
convention in Texas. All these folks that are on board with his plans that have been. Right. This is this convention he's doing, whatever it happens.
He says it's a midterm convention.
In Dallas. I've covered many conventions for our network, never a midterm convention and never one
where the president of the United States wants to make himself the center of the story at a time
when. And they're not going.
No. When his own party, number one, doesn't want to go, number two, doesn't want anything to do
with him at the ballot box. But yeah, those are all his enablers. And that's the funniest part
about it is they don't want to be seen anywhere near him at this convention, ultimately.
No, not at all. It's interesting to see what'll happen there. I mean, I suspect it's going to be
a bust, presumably.
And there are some pushbacks. I mean, Tom Tillis just said Pete Hagseth should go.
He could have said it a little sooner, perhaps not voted for him when he
absolutely knew he was incompetent before.
Well, it's like Susan Collins. I was up in Maine a couple of weeks ago.
Oh, how's she doing?
You know, she's concerned about everything, quote unquote. But, you know, she confirmed Brett. Talk about the legacy of Gloria Steinem. She confirmed Brett Kavanaugh,
even though she was so worried about the fate of Roe versus Wade.
And now. And now she's up for election again up there. It'll be really interesting to see what plays out.
I think finally this guy's going to take her down.
I think it's going to be really interesting. But yeah, there's how many of them are now speaking
out because it's safe for them to do so. Cornyn, Tillis, who got defeated because Trump came after
them, you know?
You know, I called Tom Tillis too late, Tom, in an interview. He's like, I'm not too late. I'm
like, you're too late. He goes, I'm not too late. I'm like, too late.
Really? What are you doing after January? Exactly.
Yeah. Well, he wants to he wants to get on boards. He wants to he wants to like,
you know, Republican life outside. You can't push too far. But I have to say he did the stuff he did
on Hegseth, including a tweet that just made, you know, essentially called him a drunk,
was in ginning things up. You know, he needs to act soberly, blah, blah, blah. You know,
that's cute. But honestly, he did call for his that he should be fired.
I read that. Yeah, I read that last night.
There was a couple like that. Anyway, we'll see what happens. Do you have any predictions on
whether it would be successful?
Given you're you're an electoral advocate, whether whether which part of it will be
successful? Will will these efforts, any of them gain traction? I don't know.
What I think is that I really do think that we're going to I don't know if we're gonna see record
voter participation. But what I do feel as I travel the country is that people are keenly
aware that not only are the policies of this administration screwing over so many people,
Republicans and Democrats, look at this thing with the beef. Yeah, everybody, everybody understands
that Donald Trump, I think, is in it for Donald Trump. And I would be very surprised if I don't
know, I don't want to be in the market of I don't want to be in the business of making a prediction
about who's going to win. But I feel the energy on the streets that feels unlike any other time
other than maybe during family separation during the first term when hundreds of thousands, if not
millions of people came out in the streets, opposed to that policy. And I and I and I really
do believe in the power of people pushing back.
I do, too. I think it's really interesting. The data center thing is, you know, it's interesting
the attempts, again, with the neighbors like Brooke Wallins, the Secretary of Agriculture,
saying that Kamala Harris would put farmers in prison. And I was like, you nitwit, you sycophantic
nitwit. I mean, the nitwits, I don't know, I was trying to be more of a nitwit than Doug
Burgum, or perhaps Howard Lutnick saying there's no water in data centers, another area of great
anger. They've all sort of, you know, soiled themselves rather significantly.
That issue is a pretty, pretty incredible issue. And how salient it's become is really remarkable.
And I saw it in proxy. We talk about that. We've been talking about this for a long time. And when
I saw some tech companies recently, about eight months ago, I was like, this data center is going
to catch on. You understand people are mad, especially when Musk was doing this, this gas
powered one was hurting citizens in I think it was Tennessee and Memphis. And I they were just sort of
like, we were at a just a lunch kind of thing. And they're like, well, what do you think is going
on? I said, we all hate you. Like I said, all of us like, hey, you me, Marjorie Taylor Green,
like all these people, like you're just awful. And we've had it with you people. And it will
manifest itself around AI around everything else. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we get
back, we'll dig into the global bond sell off. Support for Pivot comes from Anthropic.
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Jacob, we're back with more news. If the global sell-off in government bonds is pushing borrowing
costs to multi-decade highs, the U.S. 10-year treasury yield briefly hit about 4.8%. It's
highest since early 2025. That is a big number. That means it costs more to borrow just for
everyone, including the U.S. government.
Let's listen to what our friend at POC, Bill Cohen, has to say about it. James Carville famously said
that he wanted to come back reincarnated as the bond market. And he says that because the bond
market is all-powerful, can topple despots, and can even get the current occupant of the
Oval Office to change his policy directions and change his mind, even though he's a stubborn guy
and loves to double down. And what we see now is that the bond market is basically
a fount of wisdom. And right now, it's sort of flashing bright yellow, nearly red. You know,
$40 trillion of debt, 6% budget deficits, war in Iran, Strait of Hormuz closed, rising gasoline
prices and oil prices, inflation generally being at 3 plus percent is not sustainable,
not good for the economy. And we need to start taking remedial action and quickly. So,
basically, the bond market is telegraphing economic distress, and we better get our mind around it
and fix it, or else we could be headed for another dreaded financial crisis.
By the way, Bill Cohen has a new book out called Money to Burn: The Unvarnished Truth
About Leon Black, Apollo, and the Rise of the New Wall Street.
This is a really big deal.
This is something Trump has sort of hung his hat on the stock market raging, which it has
been.
And Wall Street has said, oh, we're not going to do anything about them because the stock
market's doing so well and it really is the economy.
And of course, speaking of another sycophantic nitwit, Scott Besant, who has really soiled
his reputation entirely, was trying to fight the bond market, which means even I know you
don't fight the bond market.
It just doesn't.
You never win.
Wall Street, at its heart, is a greed machine, and so it will do what is best for itself.
And in that way, it's a good indication of where people are.
So talk a little bit about this, because I think this goes to affordability, it goes
to a lot of issues.
Yes.
That's the terrifying part of all of this for me, and I'm certainly no economist and
nobody should be.
Listen to me for financial advice.
But what I will say is I live in the most unaffordable city and the most unaffordable
state in the union.
It is not hard to see the dividing line between the rich and the poor getting greater and
greater, particularly here in my in my home city and in our home state.
And I it is becoming increasingly unaffordable to do just about anything in this country.
And the idea that any of the folks that when you get into a ride share.
And I'm sure you do all the time you talk to people, they've got almost always two jobs,
if not three jobs.
Nobody can afford to do anything today.
And so the idea that that we could have some kind of future where through borrowing money
and finding a way to build equity in homes or even to get a car or to do any of the things
that we need to live our daily lives is going to get harder and harder is to me is a terrifying
prospect.
But it's not one that I'm surprised by because it's a trajectory that we've been on for a
long time now.
What way would you cover?
I think a stock market route, because this is where it's going.
I mean, he's saying, Flushing, you know, a lot, a lot of really smart people I follow
a lot are quite worried about a stock market crash.
Now, I know you can't ever predict this and it happens suddenly.
And even though it's directionally the way things are going and a little terrifying in
that regard, this is this is all like primed for something really disastrous.
How would you cover that?
For so many people, whatever whatever a bubble pop would look like, they're already living
it in some respects.
I think the vast majority of people are are living in a life that is emblematic of this
of this incredible incoming inequality that we have in the country.
And so less for more.
Yeah.
What's the what is the real trickle down?
Sure.
If we have a bubble pop, it'll only get worse and worse for the people that have already
been already been experiencing it.
You know what I was just thinking about is the the coming back from the fires here in
Los Angeles.
The amount of people who have been able to rebuild is a fraction of the people who lost
their homes.
It's a fraction of the people who are still living in the city.
And it's a fraction of the people who have been able to live in the city.
And it's a fraction of the people who are still living in the city.
levers that would help people come back, it'll be exponentially more devastating. So that's one
on the ground story. But as I go across the country, you see people every day who live with
that. If you want to know what it would look like for the stock market to crash, all you got to do
is go out to small communities all around the country because they're already living it. You
go places and you go down main streets and every other building or every building is shuttered.
People are looking for work in ways that I've almost never seen in my 11 years doing this
here. The way of life that a stock market bubble crash portends is the way of life so many people
are already living, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, that's a very good point. That's
an excellent point. I mean, the cost of borrowing is the part that I think people don't realize is
that the debt gets bigger and then it gets bigger because of the cost of borrowing. Again, Wall
Street is a very emotionless. Yeah.
This is what it's going to cost you and whatever it happens to be. And when you see a lot of it,
of course, the stock market itself is predicated on AI companies so that you have, you know, some of
them will get public, some of them will do well, but the vast majority of them, as it did in every
other internet tech thing I've covered, most of them will be washed out and gone. And then we'll
be, again, we'll be subject to just a few powerful companies. And of course, they're shoveling money
into political, you know, political stuff that's in there.
It's in their interest, not in the public interest in any way. And, you know, even when they have kind
of like shitty AI efforts like Grok, he's putting hundreds, probably hundreds of millions of dollars
into the next elections, Elon Musk is, again, which sort of messes up the entire process of how
we vote.
It's only going to become more acute. The wealthiest among us being able to put their
finger on the scale of these elections in order to further exacerbate the divide.
Yeah.
I think it's going to be the defining issue of Gavin Newsom's presidential campaign if and when
he decides to run. I just think that he has, I do think it's one of, it's going to be one of
his greatest challenges that he has presided over this state, which is, as I said, the most
unaffordable, unequal state in the union where the rich have gotten richer, the poor have gotten
poorer. And while we can look at California as a leader on so many issues, it's also a place where
we can see what the future might look like if we don't contend with it now.
It's going to be tough. When we come back, we'll talk about
Kalshi issuing its first ever lifetime ban.
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Kalshi has issued its first-ever lifetime ban to none other than
former Congressman George Santos.
Of course.
Let's pour one out for George Santos.
What a surprise. A cheating cheater is cheating. Regulators say Santos made more than $17,000 by,
he's such a small ball too, by the way, by betting on his own attendance of Trump's
State of the Union while making misleading social media posts about his plans. Kalshi also hit
Santos with a $70,000 penalty. The company also temporarily suspended three political candidates
after they bet on the races. Of course, there's a lot of political anger towards these bets,
betting markets. In some states, declaring them illegal, they're betting, they're gambling.
Essentially, they need to be regulated like gambling companies. He'll probably be banned
from Polymarket, but I'm not sure if he will. I think they're less inclined that way. Kalshi's
trying desperately to look legit, you know, to sort of be the good cop kind of thing in this
market, which is incredibly popular. How do you look at these markets? And obviously, a lot of
companies, I don't know if I'm doing deals with these people. I'm not, I don't know. I'm not privy
to it. I look at it, I look at it with disdain. And I think that the reason I say that is that
there's new reporting now that it could very well affect the outcome of the election in November
because people will be betting on and then voting based on their bets, who could become, who could
control Congress or who could become the next president of the United States. I think it's
think it's a very, very serious concern that we should all have, that ultimately this will affect
the outcome of the elections, not because this is what people want for their lives, but because this
is how they think they're going to make a quick buck on these online betting markets. And yeah,
they're very easy to cheat. How about the story of Donald Trump's teleprompter operator betting on
on the words that I think he was hit with a fine. Yeah. Well, the words that Donald and I think they
let him go from the White House, the words that Donald Trump would say in any given speech. It is
I'm very I'm not a betting person. You don't want to see me in Las Vegas. It's pathetic. But
it's a very scary proposition to me. How would you do sentiment? I mean, you can't go to just
farmers markets to get that right. Like it's that's just sort of the caps captures the moment
right now with people and you can't. And polling has certainly been badly, you know, tarnished by
especially this year. We look at Michigan, Michigan, Wisconsin. Polls aren't people. Betting
markets are not people. And anecdotal interviews. Well, they are. They're people with financial
incentives. Yes. So often. Well said. More truthful. Well said. And talking to people
anecdotally at farmers markets is not the pulse of the people, but it's why I do it every week
and why I don't do it once. And I actually think I have so much admiration for the early late night
hosts like Letterman or even Leno who would go out onto the street and talk to people. Billy Eichner
who would do Billy on the Street. Like when you get people in that raw and most unfiltered moment,
that is actually what what they think and what's on people's minds. And they're not expecting it.
There's no calculation behind it. And that's and that's what I love about it. We can see it
reflected in the viewership of the show. Actually, we said a meeting yesterday. We were talking about
this. I think people want to see themselves reflected back on television. Cronkite had a
quote, and I'm going to butcher it, but it was something about holding a mirror up to society
so people can see themselves on broadcasts like these. And that's why I love that's why I love
doing it. It's not someone hiding.
Behind a computer screen, making a bet.
True. But that, you know, the watching trends are using Kalshi as entertainment, using Polly
Market as entertainment, especially for young men. You know, it is their television in some
fashion.
And I really do. I really, really, really do worry about that. The only thing I can do,
I think, in addition to covering it and the negative impacts of it is, as I tell my 10-year-old,
touch grass or touch dirt, like get out there and be around real people. Because being in a studio
is a is an air conditioning.
I call it airless.
Yeah, exactly.
You have a newsroom behind you. Newsrooms are not airless. I've been in plenty. I was at the
Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal.
I do love being in this type of environment and around people. And because it's earlier
in the morning here, it's quiet.
Although newsrooms are empty now compared to the way they used to be. They used to be just
pubs of activity.
Oh, if I can get on my high horse about that for one second. There is nothing that has made me feel
more confident and a bigger fan of actually local news and the definitional public service
that they provide than what we would.
You know, I think that's one of the things that has made me feel the most confident and a bigger
fan of local news and local news is the fact that I've been in the newsroom for a long time.
And I've been in the newsroom for a long time, and I've been in the newsroom for a long time.
For their work. Their work was amazing. You know, journalists do swing into action when there's a crisis. And I thought the fire coverage was. Incredible. And the coverage of the ice rakes.
Same thing with the ice rakes in Minnesota. There's been several stories where you have to be on the ground.
Block Club in Chicago. There are so many of these. And the more. If I was a billionaire and wanted to put my money behind something in philanthropy, I would fund the holy hell out of local newsrooms and independent journalism.
Oddly enough, I said that many, many years ago to several of them. They're like, "Where should we do this?"
I was like, "Local. Local. Local." Because the right wing was doing it.
Dump money into these local independent newsrooms. Exactly. And because they are. They literally were lifesaving in many instances during the fire.
This street's on fire, or that person's on his roof, or that we've just seen this person where, even though I was from here and on the national news, I can't get into that level of granularity about stuff.
Granularity. No, that was what my concept for owning the Washington Post. I was going to make it like a newsroom for the country.
There's still time, Kara.
Yeah, yeah. No, he's not selling. He's not selling.
Although I have to say, their news has gotten a lot better. He seems to be being much more. They seem to be more aggressive in the news sections on Trump.
They've broken a number of really important stories. That said, he's still a terrible owner of it and should sell it to me.
All right, Jacob, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.
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Now it's time for predictions.
Before we start, I do want to. Speaking of Los Angeles, I do want to give a shout out to Pablo Torre,
who was given enormous amounts of grief for reporting on Steve Ballmer.
He's been kicked off his team for a year.
He essentially can't participate, paying $30 million,
because essentially he tried to find a way to pay a player more
to get away from the salary constraints in basketball.
And so all these sweetheart deals.
This was with like a sign company.
I didn't even know. And he invested in, and it essentially is a way to pay someone under the table,
you know, and get away from these salary caps.
Pablo had reported a lot about this.
There was a story in ESPN, a really shitty story that said,
no, nothing was to see here.
Turned out there was a lot to see here, and the NBA just really smacked them hard.
I think the people, when they have a first-round draft pick going forward,
I think they're 10-year-olds right now.
They're going to be able to pick from people who are 10 years old right now.
My son has a chance.
No, your son has a chance.
So I would. Is that hitting L.A. in a big way?
I think so.
It was just on my family text thread.
My dad, my brother-in-law, my brother and I were all just texting about Pablo,
I think either this morning or late last night, before I came in here.
I was, embarrassingly, for a very long time, a Clipper fan,
because my parents didn't want to pay for the expensive seats to go to the Lakers,
so we would go to the Clippers.
We would go to the Clipper Games at the Sports Arena.
I've been to hundreds, I don't know, of L.A. Clipper Games.
The Lakers are also in flux because of the family fighting.
In the Steve Ballmer era, though, as it became. I've been into it once.
I did a story for the Today Show before it opened about the Olympics
and how we were going to have events there.
But I haven't been to the Clipper Games in this sort of tech Steve Ballmer era very much.
It's really disappointing.
It's really disappointing that the team feels increasingly inaccessible
when, historically, the team. was the team of the working class in Los Angeles.
Well, now it's going to be shitty, so it'll be free.
Yeah, it'll be back to free.
But, yeah, I think he's banned from even showing up at games now for a year.
Yeah.
Great.
Yeah, this whole thing was very, very disappointing.
And Pablo Torre, again, to echo you. Finds out.
Pablo Torre, unbelievable.
That dude is incredible, and I'm proud to call him a colleague at MS.
Yeah, you know what?
The sports reporters usually are in the can for the owners,
most of the time.
And a lot of sports reporters were attacking him.
It was really something to see.
And even Mark Cuban also said he didn't have a story here and scammers.
It was blamed on a company that did this deal.
And Mark said, congratulations, Pablo.
I mean, like, they all kind of called it wrong.
Maybe they couldn't conceive that Ballmer would do this,
but it looks like he's pushing. By the way, let me be fair, he's pushing back and calling it a witch hunt,
which, to me, like, don't use that word.
Which is. You know, he's trying to become a civic-minded-looking person.
He does have a big charity here in L.A.,
and I do know that he spent, put a lot of money through his charity
towards a lot of causes,
and they've renovated a lot of the parks here and stuff.
It's not a good. This is not good, Steve.
Yeah, no.
It's the old Steve.
Old Steve is back.
Anyway, prediction.
Go ahead.
We talked a little bit around it throughout our conversation,
but I predict that we're going to see just an extraordinary flood of people
come out to participate in the midterm elections,
more than we're anticipating.
The level of enthusiasm that I've seen,
the amount of people that I'm hearing from,
just the vibes.
Nobody's ever accused me of being a particularly vibey person.
But when I'm out and I'm around people these days, you can sense that something is going on and people feel uneasy and people feel like they want to take control of their lives back. And I'm very eager to see what how that actually manifests. But the prediction is not only are people very pissed off, but they're finding ways, I think, hopefully at the ballot box that they're going to actually that they're actually going to manifest all of that.
Yeah, that's the only thing I believe in is voters, honestly, that I have to say, if I had to pick anybody. Will Mitch McConnell be among them? He hasn't been seen in public for 80 days and it's nearly been a month since his team provided an update.
Why aren't we even talking about that anymore? I'm so glad that you brought that up. It's true. Where is he?
Where is he? Well, now Scott Jennings isn't sure he's coming back after. Honestly, Scott, speaking of soiling yourself over an issue, it's really astonishing. It's an astonishing thing that he's allowed to do this.
I'm sorry if he's sick.
But he should quit then if he's sick. That's, you know, I'm sorry if anyone is in capacity like that, even people I don't particularly like, but it's gross.
Another interesting, I have a prediction, a short one about the, speaking of Los Angeles, the Paramount merger. It was sort of dueling handsome men, stars. George Clooney, when asked about the Paramount merger, said, I don't know how this goes through.
There are so many issues involved, adding, I always worry whenever big companies are consolidating because it usually means a lot of people lose their jobs.
He also defends.
He defended Mark Ruffalo against charges of anti-Semitism at Paramount level against him, which I think they overstepped in that regard. And then they, Tom Cruise came out for it saying it'll help people. I mean, of course, he's tied, he's mobbed up with them in a really significant way. They pay for all his movies, including the Days of Thunder, which I'm looking forward to. I like Tom Cruise's movies. But yeah, I wouldn't, I would say he has more at stake here from a financial interest to say, to back them.
But it's really interesting that you have this kind of shift happening.
I can't say, unless there is a settlement, and I don't know why Rob Bonta would settle at this point.
He's accusing them of being liars and walked away from a meeting last week.
He did. But, you know, tomorrow they could settle in seconds. But he has the upper hand now with this meta-settlement, which makes him look good. And he's showing that people can settle. He's willing to settle in the right terms. So it'll be interesting to see if they will present anything that's acceptable now to these groups.
They're trying to peel off attorney generals. I don't think they're peeling anytime soon. If they get one, big deal. But they shouldn't. They have the upper hand here. And so it'll be interesting to see if Clooney or Cruz will prevail here. I suspect Clooney might at this point. He's a pretty powerful figure in Hollywood still.
Certainly everybody out here is watching that extremely closely. And in our line of work, too, you know, I think the biggest topic of conversation is the CBS-CNN.
Yes, I know. I live it every day.
Exactly. And what that pretends. I've been following your journey in that regard.
Yeah, my journey.
But Bonta told me when he was on my show, he's been on my show a bunch of times, it was one of the things that was front of mind for him.
But again, he didn't put it in the case, which is interesting. I think a lot of people are thinking about it. See, I can tell you they are. I just am articulating the mood inside, let me say. I don't think I'm way off. Some people, you know, see opportunity, as always.
People climbing greasy poles love to see if they can get up higher. But I think most people are pretty, like, I don't think so, especially after this recent terrible CBS story about Al-Sayed, which was entirely fictional. I don't know what else to say. That's what it was. So we'll see where it goes. But George Clooney is on the job. And I think he will top Tom Cruise in this regard.
And even though I'm very excited about the new Days of Thunder with Anne Hathaway, and I always love me a top gun.
Me a Mission Impossible. But Tom, come on. You are actually supportive of workers. I'm surprised that you, you know, that you're pro-power in this situation. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind and go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.
Okay, that is the show. Our last show of Scott Free August and couldn't have had a nicer guy with more magnificent hair to do that with. Scott is really so jealous of your hair. He really will.
Honestly, it'll be a large topic.
I'm telling you, Propecia. And as a longtime listener, first time caller, thank you so much for having me.
Of course. And thanks, everyone, to listen to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week with a return of Scott Galloway and watch a Jacobs show, Connect with Jacob Soboroff on MSNOW. Scott will be back next Friday, a week from today. So get ready, everybody.
Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Wiseman.
Engineered this episode, Nishat Kerwa is a Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business and the return of Scott Galloway.
We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business and the return of Scott Galloway.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Odoo offers an all-in-one business management platform that integrates sales, accounting, inventory, and marketing to eliminate fragmented software systems.
CoreWeave powers global AI innovation with scalable, purpose-built cloud technology, positioning itself as the essential infrastructure for AI development.
The podcast reflects on political and economic tensions, including concerns over election integrity, corporate complicity with authoritarian tactics, and rising inflation and debt burdens.
Summary:
The podcast explores how modern business tools like Odoo and AI infrastructure providers such as CoreWeave are reshaping operations by unifying fragmented systems and enabling smarter workflows. It highlights the importance of choosing tools that support efficiency and transparency, rather than relying on outdated or disconnected software. A central focus is on political and economic instability, with deep analysis of how corporate behavior—such as tech companies renaming geographic features or promoting voter suppression—mirrors broader authoritarian tendencies.
The show critiques the influence of financial markets, including rising bond yields and the potential for AI-driven betting markets to manipulate election outcomes. It underscores the lived reality of economic hardship, especially in high-cost areas like Los Angeles and California, where affordability and inequality are worsening. The discussion also honors the legacy of Gloria Steinem, emphasizing grassroots activism and civic engagement as vital forces in democratic resilience.
Amid rising distrust in institutions, the podcast champions real-world human connection, arguing that genuine public sentiment emerges from on-the-ground interactions, not from algorithmic predictions or corporate narratives. Ultimately, the show calls for greater consumer agency, ethical corporate behavior, and a recommitment to transparent, people-centered journalism and democracy.
FAQs
Odoo is an all-in-one business management software that integrates sales, accounting, inventory, and marketing into a single platform. It eliminates messy spreadsheets and siloed systems, helping businesses manage operations more efficiently and cohesively.
CoreWeave provides purpose-built cloud technology that powers AI innovation across healthcare, education, and science. It offers a reliable, scalable infrastructure for AI development, enabling breakthroughs in complex computing tasks.
Apple renamed Lake Ontario to Lake America for U.S. users, a move attributed to new CEO John Ternus. Critics see it as a politically motivated gesture, symbolizing a broader trend of tech companies aligning with political figures, despite lacking public support or factual basis.
There's growing concern that political betting markets could influence election outcomes by creating financial incentives for voters to base decisions on bets, potentially undermining democratic integrity and public trust in elections.
Claude AI helps professionals manage daily tasks by understanding their workflows and handling repetitive work. It enables users to focus on strategic decisions while automating routine activities like reporting and data pulls.
A rise in U.S. Treasury yields indicates rising borrowing costs and economic distress. Experts warn that this signals unsustainable debt levels, inflation, and potential financial crises, with the bond market acting as an early warning system.
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