Support for the show comes from Rippling. You've just found out your sales team is at risk of missing quota. Don't panic, just ask Rippling AI. Since it's built on your real-time people in business data, Rippling AI can pull metrics from rippling and sales force into a meeting ready dashboard. In seconds, see exactly what's behind your quota risk and fix it before it's missed. Question answered, action taken, crisis averted. Ready to rule your business? Head to rippling.ai/pivot to get the only AI built to give you full visibility and take complex actions across your entire organization. That's R-I-P-P-L-I-N-G.ai/pivot. Sign up for exclusive access today. I'm Anna Garden, and each week on Happy Hour, I invite new and old friends for a drink and a fun conversation at my kitchen table in New York City. On this week's episode I'm joined by Nathan Lane. We talk about his critically claimed run in death of a salesman, taking his dog to therapy and winning an Emmy for only murders in the building. New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Cheers. Hi, Sue Bird here. I've got another brand new episode of Birds Eye View for you this week. Join me on the pod is Washington Mystics Point Guard, Georgia Amor. We talk about the lessons she learned from the Mystics first playoff push since 2023, making the most of her skillset given her size and what it would mean to make the Australian national team. Check out Birds Eye View on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Cara Swisher, just in note about today's episode. For the first time ever I was late and really late, but co-host of Raging Moderates, Jess Tarloff jumped in to save the day until I arrived, so please enjoy. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Box Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. There you go. So a little different today. We cannot find Cara Swisher. And we've been making jokes for the last 15 minutes. Do you want to hear my favorite, Jess? Yeah. Lay it on me. We sent bloodhounds looking for her, but she found them first. Or we think she might be in a Patagonia store asking for something less douchey in Silicon Valley. Anyways, we don't know where she is. We think that she lost track of time, the time zone, and that she's with the barc stales in Mississippi. Isn't she, she's here though. No, I don't know. I ran into her in the Vox studio in New York City, which was a delightful run. And I guess I was two days ago. She could have hopped on a jet to the jungle with an ayahuasca shaman or something. It's fun. You say that because every time people run into Cara, the first word they think of is delightful. You lost them credibility, but despite that, we're going to move forward with the show. And Anna, with us, for those of you who don't know, is Jess Tarlov, co-host of Raging Moderates and some Sean Cable TV and the cable's dying. It doesn't even matter. There you go. I'm tied for first with Kate and Collins for the pervy obsession of the president. Anyways, and we're not even going to go to that. The first off, Donald Trump appears to be doubling down on his comments about Iran potentially striking California as he defends the war. Let's listen to what he said at a rally on Wednesday night. You want to see trauma? You want to see problems? And I said it the other day, let them hit a missile into San Diego or Los Angeles on the way. Let them hit. You want to see a horror show? Let them hit San Diego. Let them hit Los Angeles and you want to see some bad things happen. You want to see a country that would be in free fall. We're not going to let that happen. We protect our cities. We protect our country. We're not letting that happen. All right. So I'm going to pretend I'm care swisher. Can you believe this guy now provide insight? Your turn, Jess. I can believe this guy and the question is whether the American people can believe this guy anymore. If the polls are to be believed, we are in, you know, blue wave to potentially tsunami territory. And, you know, that I like to be nauseously optimistic. You always have to run like you're behind. And the good news is Democrats are actually doing that. But these kinds of comments are the things that really turn off independence and moderates. So like if his base is largely intact and there are parts of it that are fracturing for sure. But in general, you shot someone on Fifth Avenue. Let me buy you a beer crowd is still, you know, hook line and sinker in there. This is the stuff for people who are on the fence or who maybe took a flyer on him in 2024 because they thought that prices would go down. We wouldn't have wars in the Middle East and that the Democrats were too scattered and woke and crazy and weren't delivering. They look at this and just say, like what's wrong with you? The question is how did he put it or people who were trying to decode Trump in the first term where they said, you know, don't take him literally or seriously or whatever it is. Like where does New King Los Angeles and San Diego? I guess it getting the Iranians to do it. We're not going to do it ourselves. Where does that go on the scale of how seriously you're supposed to take him or what signal is it sending to Iran about what's going on here? It's interesting, though. It was the first time when I thought it was the first time where I thought the crowd really just was caught flat footed. They did not know how to respond and usually they kind of like, oh god, there goes Donald and an eye roll and a laugh and you know, take him seriously but don't take him literally. But this was the first time it felt, oh god, someone, we need to take grandpa's driver's license away. It's interesting. You say this especially turns off moderate. Is it worth it for sort of inflaming or exciting the base or it's just net net. This is a bad move politically is what you're saying? Oh, definitely. I mean, this is crunch time, right? Early voting has started. It is going well for Democrats, you know, seeing huge surges, especially in Latino voters and we know that his approval rating with Latinos has plummeted to levels that they certainly didn't expect based on a very good overperformance in 2024. But putting back together the more traditional democratic coalition. So folks are paying attention now. That's what happens after Labor Day and it's a month within a month, the election. So folks are perk it up and they're saying, oh, what's going on here? And he's talking about being cool with losing, you know, big, important American cities. And I should add, also, there are a lot of Republicans in San Diego. Like he didn't pick. I get California is right, you know, purple to conservative. So, you know, go after LA, we kind of been there before. He's told generals, you know, storm, storm blue cities. I don't really care what you do here. But adding San Diego to the mix, I assume, you know, it's a Gavin Newsome problem. And he's talking about the 25th amendment. We're not going to get there. But I do think it is a major turn off because people just want to hear about real stuff. Like what's the economic plan? What's the plan for getting out of the war in Iran? You know, what does immigration enforcement look like? Because we don't like Stephen Miller riding around on a pickup truck, you know, taking our neighbors out of our communities. Trump made similar comments on Monday night, leading California governor Gavin Newsome to call for the 25th amendment to be in vote. Newsome said the president's comments were deranged and dangerous. White House communications directors, Stephen Chung pushed back on X, saying Trump was describing the threat US cities would have faced if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped. He's the hero. Yeah, there you go. Donald Trump is the hero. This is how bad it could have been. But right now, everyone's just having to pay how much does it cost now to get an oil tanker through the straight-of-formers? Yeah, it's what is to be fair, though. My understanding is the passage of I'll put for the thesis here. Jess, I don't want to call it an October surprise. So essentially, we've seen this before. This nothing new for presidents to try and come up with a military involved October surprise, whether it's Carter, it goes all the way back to Vietnam to try and juice him in the polls because America has a tendency to rally around the flag and the current administration during military action. I don't say I worry, but I see a non-zero probability that something could go very right in Iran right now. It looks like the oil embargoes beginning to really have serious impact on Iran. And oil flowing through the straight-of-formers is actually almost a pre-war levels. If oil starts to dive, and also I believe, if you take off your partisan lens here and ask yourself what could go right, we didn't see a sod falling until he did. I actually think there's not a likelihood, but a chance that the IRGC could have a major disruption or fall. You just don't know. I wonder if something could go very right in the next 30 days in Iran. All right, everybody. We found Kara fucking ring cameras. Sorry, I don't know time differences. I don't know what to tell you. When did you become me. It's time to take mommy's driver's license away.
Let me tell you, I'm in Mississippi. I'm with the most wonderful person. I know from tech Jim Barkstale, who is raised money for literacy and Mississippi today, which is local journalism, this astonishing thing. It's in with Donna and Jim. But their house, we were having a delightful breakfast altogether. And I didn't realize the time difference. And I apologize. Central time is an hour behind our heads. I don't even know. I don't even know. We thought we were going to find you under a pile of Patagonia vets at the local Patagonia store. You were making ayahuasca jokes that you were like in the jungle somewhere with a shaman. And I could have been. So anyway, so I'm here in Mississippi. And that's where I am. I'm going to play Kara. Alright, Scott, we've got a lot to get to. Okay, we've got a lot to get to. So Kara, I was just speaking to Jess Tarlov about the fact that their Atlantic is saying there might be sort of an October surprise that there might be something kind of big going down. And that he's sort of, I don't know, teasing some military action or something in Iran. Any thoughts? Well, that's what he would do. He's got to do something dramatic, right? There's something that has to happen. It'll take people's focus away. And I guess approximate a victory of some sort or approximate something that sort of shock at all. Probably a little backfire on him because he's an incompetent leader. But, you know, the idea that most presidents do things like this when things are bad. They take it for an action, right? And they think this is what people want. But actually, they don't, right? They actually don't. Most people are very against the war. Well, that was the blinding insight. People come to pivot for it. Now we're going to switch identities. And Kara, you're going to take the show from here. Thank God. Said everyone listening to this dog's breakfast called pivot. Thank you. All yours. We're glad you're back. We're glad you're safe. Thank you. Are you okay? I'm going to be in the hospital. I'm going to be one of those cheap county hospitals. You were worried. He's going to be in a mood all day, thanks. I need. I need someone to hold my hand. You know, why don't you just, why don't you just say you miss me and you're worried if anything would happen to me. You could see we started to get worried. Like I said, we started to get worried. We almost called Brooke. And then I thought we're not that worried. I'm just telling you anyway. And now for the grift of the week, Trump wants to turn part of his West Palm Beach golf club into a presidential retreat. I can't David. Though when asked if you would call it camp Donald, oh my God. Trump said his name is already name is already Trump international. The plan would designate part of the property as a permanent official retreat for US presidents and foreign leaders, use for summits and presidential vacations future presidents would also be offered comp to memberships to Trump's club. Lucky them. The club lawyer says construction paid by Trump, maybe, would be finished until after president Trump leaves office. So really, it's just a gift to Trump's successors. What do you all think of this thoughtful gift? That man has not paid for anything himself. No. For all of time. I love now, you know, with the ads that they're putting during the NFL and like college game day and things like that that apparently they're going to start paying for it, but it won't be retroactive. Um, so I almost, I've gotten to the point now where I'm like, just bring it on because it is so clearly expressing to the rest of us that he doesn't give a shit about the actual business of governing. And I would rather go into election day with everyone being clear right about that, right? Like this is a man that cares about having camp Donald or Trump international, whatever redux version. Well, the externalities, right? All the externalities like a camp David or all the columns, the Corinthian columns, very versus iconic. Yeah. I mean, yes, it's a stylistic nightmare. Um, but this is also a way for him to stay in power because I'm sure he's having a meltdown about the fact that Steve Bannon is working very hard for the third term plan, but it's probably not going to come to fruition. And how does he keep a stranglehold on American politics for longer? This is a way to do that. However, he's going to be informing what goes on in the ballroom. Uh, maybe he'll be in the bunker underneath. Maybe we'll get him out. I'm not really sure. Um, but I do welcome it from a political strategist point of view on the other side because you can't just say he cares more about this stuff than he cares about the fact that, you know, your gas is over $4 and you can't afford school supplies this year for your kids. And this is what he's concerned with like bread and circuses essentially the bread and the circus. Yeah. Yeah. Scott. So members clubs in New York, uh, we were, I was having a conversation last night. They're not exaggerating. They've opened probably 12 or 15 in the last two years, two to three years. It was a, it's a great concept. So I was kind of came out with the Toyota membership clubs in London and then it came to New York. And then this visionary, a guy named Scott Sartiano said there's room at the high end because of people being so much money. And he came in with sort of the Mercedes version zero bond. And then I think about 14 different, very wealthy people were at different tables at zero bond and said, I can do this and none of them were talking to each other. And they've just opened everywhere. And there's one on the upper west, I think, which I, I love to go to once every 10 or 12 years, the up west side. I don't see why anyone lives up there. You don't go. The museums are incredible. I love to grind it Connecticut. I mean, I live in grass. It's like, well, okay, there's a pen and arrow there anyways. So if you have a dog, I got it because of the park. But anyways, there's something called, I think it's a friend of mine who's a player and private equity took me there. It's Maxines or Oswalds. Oh, I've been there. Maxines. Maxines on the upper east side. It's on the, yeah. I went with Plepler, the average age of the people there is dead. I have never seen so many old people who have descendants about to fight over their estate. Okay. Literally, it was the hall of fame of private equity. By the way, that's going to be Jess and I someday about yours. But go ahead. Anyway, this place, I was with a guy who's, I don't know if he's a billionaire, he's very wealthy. He was the least wealthy person in the room. It was, if you named a private equity person, they were in there. And the lights were so bright so people could read. And there was fabric everywhere. So the acoustics were really good. And the font on the menus was like seven million. Okay. And my favorite part was a guy walk by it, like a famous private equity guy. We'll just call him David. And my friend was like, hi, David. And the guy just kept kind of shuffling along and he's like, David, David started screaming. And the guy still couldn't hear him. And nobody flinched. Nobody there can hear a thing. Anyways, how do I get to Trump? Okay. This is going to be worse than that. This is going to be less cool than that. Oh, I see. I see what's going. Yeah. So it's like the elderly camp, David. We could put Chuck Grassley there. We could put Mitch McConnell. We could wheel him in those people, right? Correct. Yeah, it's not Schumer. You're going to be able to order a Ruth Bader Ginsburg club sandwich. Okay. All right. Okay. On that note, it's another grift. Okay. Scott and Jess, let's go on a quick break. We come back. The Paramount Warner Brothers merger is complete. Support for the show comes from at you. There are sales teams out there who never seem to stop moving. Always a step ahead, always on the number, working with a level of precision that doesn't seem normal. It's no secret. They're on Atio, the Atlantic CRM. Atio runs the work behind every win. It's built for humans and agents with the guardrails of human software and the scale of agentic infrastructure. Every customer's signal your team needs is captured in high resolution, always cart and always compounding. Then watch Atio's agents and workflow go to work, building pipeline, chasing every buying signal and moving deals forward 24/7. And whether in your browser, slack, clawed, or in your inbox, Atio meets you wherever you are. This is the frontier of go to market. Teams like parallel, turbo puffer, and wardsmith are already turning Atio to set the pace. Now it's your turn. Try Atio for free by going to atio.com/pivot. Today's show is brought to you by Vanguard. To all the financial advisors listening, let's talk about bonds for a minute. Capturing value and fixed income is not easy. On markets are massive, murky, and let's be real. Lots of firms start a couple of flashy bond funds your way and call it a day. But not Vanguard. Vanguard is committed to their clients with offering institutional quality bonds. That means you're only getting top grade products across the board. 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The Essential Cloud for AI, Korweve provides an AI platform that combines next-generation infrastructure, intelligent tools, and expert support. It's powering the world's most complex AI workloads faster and more efficiently. From medical research and diagnosis to education, from complex visual effects from movies, to breakthroughs in science and technology. If it's AI, Korweve is uniquely ready to power with purpose-built tech. The big ideas, the wild visions, and what ifs, and why not. Korweve is working to build what's never been built before. Korweve is the Essential Cloud for AI, ready for anything, ready for AI. To learn more about how Korweve powers the world's best AI, go to Korweve.com/readyforanything. We're back with more news. Paramount has officially completed its $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, creating a new media giant SkyDance, the combined company now controls Paramount Plus. HBO Max, CBS, CNN, and two major movie studios. SkyDance is taking on $82 billion in debt and plans to cut $6 billion in cost over three years. The company has added some notable names to its board, the Rain Powell Jobs, former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Codic, and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, and he will serve an advisor, the other two are on the board. At the time of this taping, shares are now up 4% for the day, even though it was the decline yesterday. Year from now, what would you say makes this merger a success? Someone else buys it, I said this over and over. If there's a book called The Worst Acquisitions in History, it's going to be called Time Warner. I mean, there's something about this company where the assets are so sexy that people, a billionaire keeps wandering in. It's like, who's the woman who keeps marrying billionaires? There's something about her that people, this company is the Lauren Sanchez of media. There is something about Lauren Sanchez that is clearly magnetic. I've met all of her husbands and they are really impressive. And I've met Lauren Sanchez, she is magnetic indeed. Yeah, there's something about Lauren Sanchez that she's clearly, everybody who meets Lauren Sanchez wants to marry her. And I say that as a compliment, that she clearly has some extraordinary magnetism. You're saying is a compliment, but let's, I think he is. Is he okay? Deep down, deep down. Well, but it's not, not the pervy side of it, but she is so fun. She is married to the most impressive men in America, in my view, anyways. Everyone can't help but marry Time Warner. AT&T. I mean, that didn't work, right? AOL, Steve Case said, I'm sitting on a bag of shit supposedly worth $150 billion. I know I'll talk Time Warner shareholders and employees into giving me half of their company. And then Randall Stevenson said, oh, wait, telco run by phone guys in Dallas, it makes sense to own HBO. And then they managed to offload it to the world's highest compensated banker, a brilliant investment banker, a guy named David Zazlow, who figured out a way to have a show that talked about sharks for a week in that merge. And that stock went way down because the business made no sense. And now they've talked other billionaires into buying this thing. The key number here is the following, $82 billion in new debt on a combined entity. That means massive cost cutting. It's a company betting that it's balance sheet that they'll be able to pull off with no one's pulled off so far. And that is streaming consolidation that works better than streaming competition math. It's very difficult. It's the same bet Warner media made with AT&T and loss. The other interesting thing that you mentioned was the board members, but when you put people on your board, it's as much as a signal as it is an attempt to get domain expertise. Putting Lorraine Powell jobs on the board is like, look, we're not the crazy politicos. We think you are. She's a very credible person who has a lot of respect and it's done a great job with the Atlantic. And it's them saying, see, we might be red, but we're light red, we're more purple than red. We spoke with her about it this week. And I think that's the case. I do. And I, she's done a really credible, the incredible job at the Atlantic. It'd been the right kind of media owner, very supportive and yet because they've been through a lot with Trump. And I think it is a signal to Democrats and people who are more anti-Trump to do so. And I hope it's not at her expense as I told her. But it is. And Bobby Cote, it's a very savvy operator also at the same time. These are sort of reasonable people. Those are great board picks. I thought the most interesting one was Tony Blair. Sort of. Ellison backs. Ellison gives him all the money for his fund. He's, he's an Ellison in the Ellison universe. Yeah, but what it signals, it's actually, it's a savvy move because it signals SkyNance wants geopolitical regulatory Sherpa through Europe. I mean, he's, he's the guy that's on speed dial to every regulator and power player in Europe. And that's what it says is that's where it tells you where they expect the next fight to be. And that it's likely to be regulatory and from abroad. And this, but just backing up, this merger, this merger is less creating a media giant and more to swimmers who are struggling, grabbing on to each other. The combined scale in this business, it's not going to fix the underlying problem. And that is linear decline, streaming thin margins, it just, it just changes what shareholders are going to be accountable for it. And news takes up all the attention, of course, news, now, can I see you just when putting people like this, is this a signal? What does Trump do? Because these are not Trump, you know, well, Bobby's been conservative. But what is, what is the, what are they doing here? They're obviously, one thing David, David Ellison said, which I thought was striking when someone asked him, John Pasatino at this press conference said, you know, you're, you've been very political. That's be clear, you've been sort of a suck up. And what are you doing now? And he said that was merger, that was a merger moment that we had to do at that time. Now we want to turn a page. I was sort of, it was both cynical and also accurate, I would say. And he wants to turn the page, is that going to be effective or is he, does he need to stick with Trump? Well, for a certain amount of time, but all of these tax titans are cozying up to Democrats as much as they can save for Elon Musk because they see at least some degree of divided government on the wall. And they don't want every single article that's published and every influencer creator, reporter, journalist, whatever we're supposed to be called to just be maligning them every time they get in front of a mic. I think, you know, it's selective leaking of who's going to be power players or board members in all of this. You want people, you want Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway to say these are good picks for the board, right? And, you know, Tony Blair is this incredible, right? But there is more to come. And I'm not saying it's all going to be bad, but I don't think the essence, you know, wake up the day after the merger and they suddenly revert back to a different place, you know, politically. And I think the issues that really animate them politically are still very salient, you know, looking at tax codes and regulatory frameworks, thinking about Israel, absolutely. And that was going to be my question for you. You know, what do you think is going through Barry Weiss's mind right now as, you know, she continues to helm CBS and it will be a new age to some degree there. And how are you seeing and feeling at this particular moment? You know, we really haven't talked about how Kara feels about those. All right. Well, I don't usually live here. So I'm asking her, I had a really long talk with Lorraine about it, and I'm not going to move you to it, but I also, and I talked to Bobby about it. I think I just don't fundamentally trust them as media owners. And I did trust, I would trust the Lorraine jobs, I trusted the grams, I trust the solsburgers, like there is an element. And I really like Mark Thompson, Mark Thompson, it's not the owner. So I pay attention to the owners. Now I think so far the record, when you inherit money or you are very wealthy and you buy something, I expect more of you, like the way Mrs. Graham sort of stepped up against her own interests to take on power, which is not easy, I have to say, and that was always my North Star. And I think what's really interesting here is I think it's whether Larry's going to be running the show or David's going to be running the show. And that's the question. And I think he is, they have a really complex, really father-son relationship. And I think that we'll see what happens here. I mean, the only thing to do is create a product people want to buy. That's, I mean, in terms of news or movies or streaming. And I think one of the problems is, I am a bit player, Scott's right, it doesn't really matter. But I do, I mean, I was joking, I'm the Lorax, and I speak for the trees. I think I was talking, I'm speaking for journalism. But the real game is streaming and cutting costs and layoffs, and that's, this story is about that. And it's going to, and CNN and the insane amount of attention that CBS gets because of Barry Weiss and is meaningless because those numbers are going down. Like it doesn't matter, nobody's like, show of hands who watch CBS news is going down and down and down. So I think it's about how do you create a modern media company? Scott is 100% right, there's not enough scale here, especially with the headwinds of technology with this debt on top of it to really be, it's a real problematic situation from, I keep saying math, math.
math is really problematic here. And so as much as hand waving around her or anybody else, it's hardly matters. It's irritating and upsetting as a journalist. So the only thing I would add to that is a father-son relationship that's complex is when your dad starts banging a flight attendant on continental airlines and then leaves and then moves to Ohio and you don't see him for a year and then he shows up and he takes you, he takes you and your best friend out of the seat grease and in the end of the movie he collects two bucks from your friend and then gets back in his Grand Torino and you don't see him for another eighteen months. That's complex. That's a complex relationship. Giving your son a hundred and twenty billion dollars to go play media, that's not that complex. Okay. Just welcome to pivot. Oh my God. Welcome to pivot. There's certain thematic things. I like to defend journalists. He likes to talk about his father and how they still play. It is amazing. I am as functional as I am. As functional as I am. As functional as you are. But don't worry, Jess and I will not be fighting over your estate. We'll just be enjoying ourselves on it. Yeah. Somewhere with David Ellison. Anyway. I'm leaving it to all to destiny at club 11 North of Miami. She loves me, Cara. She loves me. Oh my God. All right. Let's go on a quick break. We come back Jeff Bezos. Meet's out on AI. What if we told you there was one thing you could eat to reduce your risk of death by about a quarter? Interested? And what if we added that this magical substance can dramatically lower your cholesterol, improve your mood and keep your weight stable? No. It's not protein. It's actually fiber, the least sexy, most overlooked nutrient of all. But what is fiber? How could one nutrient do all those amazing things? And how can you get enough? Is a powder you stir into some water going to do it for you? All that plus the strange tale of the gorilla poop obsessed father of corn likes in the latest episode of Gastropod. Find Gastropod and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Support for the show comes from ship station. Remember those Black Friday videos of people crashing through mall doors at 5 a.m.? Well for businesses trying to ship orders during the holiday season, they're kind of doing that in reverse, cramming a million packages through a single, outdated fulfillment system and without much help doing it. Ship station can help. Ship station is an end to end order fulfillment platform built to handle the orders served of peak season and bring all your orders into one place to your team is scrambling when volume spikes. During Black Friday or whenever your business time of year is automated rate shopping with ship station compares rates across UPS, USPS and FedEx in real time with savings of up to 90% off. So you're not overpaying when the volume is highest. Over one million businesses have leaned on ship station to get through peak season, scaling fulfillment up to 40 times while cutting costs up to 30% right when they need the capacity most. Peak season doesn't wait and neither should you. Get ahead of it today with ship station and get 60 days free at shipstation.com with code Pivot. That's shipstation.com with code Pivot, taxes and fees apply. Support for the show comes from MOG. MOG prescribes it once or twice daily Medaphine L drink that can keep you energized, focused and alert throughout the day. And here's what sets it apart. Energy drinks with caffeine temporarily block, adenosine, the chemical that makes you tired. It builds up and when the caffeine wears off, it all crashes down on you all at once. Medaphine works differently and engages multiple pathways in your brain dopamine, norepinephrine, histamine and oraxine to achieve steady energy and alertness for 10 to 12 hours. Medaphine was invented in 1970s and since then it has been used by the highest performers on and off the planet. Soldiers pilots and even astronauts aboard the space station use Medaphine and high-stake situations where full concentration and alertness are paramount. And it's now available at mod.com to qualifying patients. Visit mod.com. That's m-o-d.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order plus free shipping with promo code Pivot. That's promo code
[email protected]. See their website for important safety information and we thank mod for sponsoring the pod. Jeff Bezos says that AI could transform the American workweek allowing people to support their families by working just three days a week or live comfortably on one income. In an interview with Fox News, Bezos predicted AI would boost productivity so much so that companies would actually struggle to find workers rather than replace them. Bezos also commented on regulation in the interview. Let's listen to a clip. We're sometimes regulation goes wrong, especially when people are scared, you know, reacting emotionally and so on, is they want to try to regulate the underlying thing instead of the applications of the thing. And so, you know, the simple example I could give you would be, you know, you don't want to regulate knives. You want to regulate murder. So, you know, you can use a knife to murder somebody, but you don't want to say the solution to that is to eliminate knives. You want to say, let's make murder illegal. Oh my god. It already is. It already is. Like, I just can't, this interview is ridiculous. The first of all, he's like, I love the idea of super intelligence versus AI. And he's just become such a ridiculous suck up. And in terms of what Bezos is saying here is duh. Like, I don't know what else to say. Yeah, let's regulate murder, including you make a product that's dangerous. You go to jail. Love it. Love the idea of that. But they're all trying to pretend that this is all going to be great because it's gone very wrong from them from a marketing point of view. And I think regular people get it. And so, here he is calling regular people emotional. We're emotional about things that might affect us. You're damn right. At least it wasn't only the women. Right. Because usually it's usually the most of us, but the estrogen. Yeah, exactly. And I just feel like these people continue to dismiss regular people's normal and legitimate concerns. And I think it's going to bounce back on them. And they look like they all look like the monopoly man on, you know, they look like the gilded age. And they're so out of touch with the regular people that it's become almost ridiculous. Yeah, I would just say that you can see as Bezos is talking to Brett Baer that he's running through all of the criticisms of Amazon. And, you know, how he treats his employees because the contrast between, you know, you'll be able to have a three day work week. And you spend more time with your family as versus the fact that there are people not getting paid enough or having a pee in bottles because they can't miss, you know, the next delivery because we've now been trained to think we can get something between four and eight a.m. when we push, you know, purchase by midnight is the sheen that he wants to give himself and doing it at Blue Origin. You know, it's very cool. Obviously what's going on. And it's the the focus he wants on the spectacular, oh my god, I can't believe we're doing this kinds of things, but to your point about the regular people, they're not thinking about Blue Origin as much as they're thinking about, will my job be here tomorrow or is it data center popping up in my backyard? And is our government actually refusing to participate in any sort of regulatory framework that might protect society, not that they want to be backwards and poor as Trump would put it, but that they want to know that folks and positions of leadership are hearing them and understanding their anxieties and would actually put people over profits for once. Every major technology that has increased productivity and I agree with him, AI will make us more productive, but it's, but everyone has been sold with the same promise, the internet, the PC, the washing machine, and that is this will free up your time. That's the promise. And in every case, instead of working less, we've absorbed the productivity gains into doing more, not resting more, and shareholders have benefited from those productivity gains. Keynes predicted a 15 hour work week back at the beginning of the 20th century and we're nowhere close. And the obvious follow up question of Mr. Bezos, who is spending either the most of the second most of any enterprise in the world on AI is okay, bitch, when and where exactly is your workforce going to reduce their hours from a man who has created a system where as Jess referenced, his drivers can't take bathroom breaks. So Jeff, memo from Jeff, memo to Amazon employees, according to Jeff Bezos, who spends more on AI than anyone in the world, your work week is about to go to what, four days, three days, Jeff, when's it going to happen? But he says people are going to be rewarded. And this is not the case. He has, you're right. He has taken advantage of people's work more than anyone in terms of efficiency. Years ago, one of these congressmen, they were putting an Amazon warehouse in these in a town. And he said, oh, they tell me it's good for jobs. They said, they're going to automate the thing as soon as they can. No, like they're not telling you that part. And I think this promised that Elon is made that will all be in abundance. And we won't have to work is just nonsense at this point. I don't know how we're going to pay for it with our deficit, speaking of deficits, how we're going to do it. But it's also not what people want. That's the thing. It's reminiscent to me of conversations that we were having, you know, 10 years ago about coal miners, right? And, you know, putting people out of it. And you'll learn to code or we're moving to all renewables. And
I'm not saying that we don't have to innovate and we don't have to progress, especially if it means taking care of our planet. But sometimes I feel like these tech guys are just speaking like cling on to regular people who are not mad about the fact that they need to work a full day. They want to do it. They're proud people and politicians and tech folks, sometimes really misunderstand the character of American people, which is strong. And work, the dignity of work underpins all of this. - Yeah, don't you want to sit on a yacht like we do? - Yeah, right. Wouldn't you love to be able to put on some Google Glasses and beam into your job for three out of five days? And they say, I'm not mad at a nine to five and nine to six. I don't mind working with my hands. I don't mind getting dirty. I want to put in the work so my kid can have a better, that's what the American dream is. And they're rewriting it in their own crazy brains in a way that does not fit with average people. - You know, one of the quotes I read this week from Neil DeGrasse Tyson, I thought was perfect. He goes, I've come to conclude that AI knows everything yet understands nothing. And I feel that way about these tech people. I'm like, they know everything. They understand nothing. And they're so out of touch. Someone like Bezos is so out of touch with people's real lives. People want dignity of work. They want to be paid well. They want healthcare. And that's why, you know, whatever you think of a lot of the DSA stuff, this stuff is resonating with young people, universal healthcare, decent wage, that I have something meaningful to do. And I think just the way they talk about it, as they suck up to the most grifty president in history, so explicitly is, and they all look, you know, they're all sort of, they all look like freak shows in a way that we don't want to be you, right? You know, I think of-- you're a longevity show. I feel like that was on display. And it reminds me of that last moment of the Devil Wars Prada where they're in the car, the first movie, where she goes, everyone wants to be us. Andy, everyone wants to be us, kind of thing. And she gets out of the car. And that's what I feel like. We want to get out of your car, you people. We don't want to be like you. Anyway, we have to move on. One more quick break, and we'll be back for predictions. Everyone's talking about the prospect of a democratic wave in the midterm elections. But here's something that matters just as much. The battle to control state legislatures. That's the most important thing we should be focusing on right now. The GOP has a trifecta in 23 states, which means if they control the governor's seat, plus the state house and the state senate. For Democrats, it's 16 states. Meaning that the opportunity to pass the policies that the majority of our state supports, things like increasing minimum wage, legalizing marijuana, codifying abortion. If Democrats flip just a handful of state legislatures, the majority of Americans will now live in the state under full democratic control, which could have big policy implications. That's all on the table with the Democratic trifecta. This week on America, actually, we're in Wisconsin. And we talked to Francesca Hong. We have an opportunity through Wisconsin to actually start improving the brand for Democrats. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. Let's hear a prediction. We have time for one short prediction because of my lack of knowledge about central time. This one's easy. Within five years, bankers will make more money. Time Warner, every CEO who buys time Warner gives it exact same speech. They use the term synergies every other line. And then in five years, the same CEO will be saying, we need to focus on our core business and start splitting this thing apart or selling it. Basically, time Warner has destroyed more shareholder value than a peloton at a wee work. This thing is a hot potato with the debt of Greece. Everyone buys it. Everyone thinks they have a vision for it. They can't sustain the debt. It starts fucking with their core business and they decide five years on that they're going to sell it. Dad has paid $120 billion. So his son could play media. It's not going to be worth it after three or four years of declining revenues. Somebody like a Zazloff is going to make a bunch of money selling it yet again. Within five years, whatever we're calling this time Warner, Skydance, HBO, Max, Joey Bagadonets, this thing will be sold again or split up for parts. The Nobel Peace Prize for 2026 will be announced on the day this episode airs. We're taping on Thursday. So let's make some predictions. - It's probably going to be the doctors without borders or Sudan's emergency response rooms. - Well, it's not Donald Trump. - It's not Donald Trump. - That's my prediction. - Who would you like it to be, Mark Carney? I feel Mark Carney. - Mark Carney is going to have a big year first. - He'll be man of the year. I don't think he'll get this. He'll be man of the year. - It's too early also in the cycle. I feel like once Canada's really like a EU satellite and maybe he and Zelensky do some more together. I like that. - The Pope. - And his AI thing was the most interesting. - That's right. - That's right. Magnificent humanity. - The Pope. - I'm going to go with the Pope. - Pope, we're going Pope. - I changed my mind on time Warner. It'll be successful if they can convince McCrawls, Zelensky, and Carney to do like a cinemax style soft porn drama. - I think it works. - Skinemax. - Skinemax. - I think it works. - That's why porn. - That's why porn. - With the air you died. Part of it. Anyway, I'm really sorry for being late. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions. I'm business tech. - We were so worried. - Oh my god. - Go to n1hag.com. - Your father so worried. - To submit a question for the show. We're called 85551 Pivot Elsewhere in the Karen Scott Universe. This week on "On with Care" is where I spoke with writer Justine Musk and filmmaker Alex Gimli ahead of the release of Musk, the 4-hour Elon documentary. - There's that joke that he used to make like safety third and when we're going into the era of AI, I have to wonder about that because of his sense that it has to be no matter the cost. - Right. Yeah, those 70 people don't matter. The animals in Neuralink don't matter and the pain and the trauma that other people go through because of the way reality gets wrenched around or the way that value gets determined who hasn't and who doesn't. That doesn't matter. That's just feelings. So we'll just, you know, press that aside, ruin the question civilization. - And the entire interview will be in the Pivot podcast feed on Sunday, so check it out here. Reminders Scott and I are hitting the road next month for a Pivot tour. Get tickets at pivottour.com Toronto is sold out, we're getting close in a lot of cities. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and just thank you for filling in and calming the waters for me. - Okay. - And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. - Today's show is produced by Larry Neiman, Zoe Marcus Taylor, Griffin and Todd Weisman. Earned in her Todd Engineer at this episode. Thanks also to Dr. Browse, Mr. Varian, Dan Chalan, the Shock Caros box manager, the second producer of podcast. Make sure to call Pivot on your Pivot podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from box media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Thanks to our great co-host, the Raging Moderates, just Tarlov for stepping in. Kara, thank God you're back and it's pretty clear that the dog is going to take Justine Musk and Lauren Sanchez to Club Med, Puerto Vallarta together. - It could happen. It could happen. - It could happen. - It could never happen.
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