Jensen Huang Is Out: Nvidia’s Spy Scandal Rocks Silicon Valley

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Let me just say, you useful idiot of the Russians and Chinese. You need to sit down. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, and I'm wearing a leather jacket. Yeah, no, it looks better on you. It's better on all lesbians. I think sales of leather jackets are going to plummet. Plummet. Just for the-- Can you believe this, Kara? Well, let's just get into it. Yes, I can. Yes, I can. Absolutely. We have to get right to breaking news. In video, CEO Jensen Wong has resigned, following revelations of two extramarital fairs, including one, with a woman US intelligence suspects of spying for China. The board has named in video CFO Colette Cress Interim CEO, and will consider both internal and external candidates for a permanent replacement. Wong's departure comes after reports of a second affair with direct report, Kimberly Powell, a senior Nvidia executive who runs its healthcare business. Nvidia shares are down 7% at the time of the taping, as the company faces leadership transition without a clear succession plan. I mean, Scott, like, last week when it happened, this was-- from the get, I thought he would get dumped. But, of course, Silicon Valley tried to put up a fight here. But, give your top line thoughts, and then I shall. This isn't about infidelity. This is about national security. And that's why this is going to get so much worse. And I bet that our security apparatus began interviewing the board members. And the questions got so serious, so fast that the board members probably loyered up for their own concerns, and their lawyers probably told them, "You need to fire this guy right away, because any director that is privy to this type of information and what has gone down here, you want to distance yourself and show that you take this somewhat seriously, and just-- let me give you just a quick sense of what these chips power, and what potentially was compromised here, from what seems like other than showing up and saying, "Hello, you know, I am a spy, and I am here to glean sensitive information." These are some of the things that Nvidia class computing enables. Nuclear weapons, simulating nuclear detonations, modeling weapons, aging, validating stockpile, reliably without physical testing, autonomous weapons, AI-driven drones, target recognition, autonomous navigation, simulating aerodynamics, extreme temperatures, flight behavior, and advanced guidance systems, intelligence and surveillance, satellite image analysis, facial recognition, tracking individuals and military movements at enormous scale, cyber warfare, missile defense, biological and chemical threats, military command, and control, combining satellite radar intelligence and battlefield data to accelerate military decision making. Is that all? Is that all? I mean, come on. I do want to get into Silicon Valley's reaction, because it's literally been soulless and without any interest in this country. I think when you use that word traitorous, I'm kind of there with a lot of these ideas. Well, okay, but reckless. I mean, what it looks like, is this guy had the mother of all bad judgment? Is that traitorous? I don't mean him. I don't mean him. I mean, the reaction. I'm talking about the reaction. No, I think he didn't know, and that's another issue. Trump knew about it. There was a big fight among in between cabinet officials, Rubio and Besson were on one side saying, this is fucking serious, and Howard Nutsack, also known as Lutnik and David Sacks, Trump's alleged AI guru, were on the Chinese side of this equation, and we're pushing Jensen's efforts to get more chips to sell to China. That's what he was doing, essentially, that was his push. A lot of people in the national security apparatus were very disturbed by his influence on President Trump, who, of course, knew about what was going on, and what they didn't do, as Hillary Clinton pointed out in our other podcast, is tell him. They needed to tell him completely. So first, take on this national security issue is very clear. Let's talk about a couple of things. The fight between and among Trump people and what Trump didn't do here, which was to warn Wang what was going on. Him saying he didn't know is a real problem. The government should have told him that this woman was under surveillance. They didn't know about the second woman, but they absolutely had a duty to warn this guy of what he was in and who knows how long and how many secrets went through. Who knows? Nobody's going to ever find out. I think. They sent officials down and they found unopened boxes of GPUs implying that they were just at a distribution center. We're not even going to be used there. The question is, where were they going to go? This was the company the woman was affiliated with. And you can bet in these hearings that the Democrats are not going to control. They're going to bring up the fact that, okay, did the Trump administration know purposely know they were throttling back defense systems for Ukraine? How early did they know we were potentially losing or had information compromised to the CCP? I mean, this is literally playing out, like the president is an asset of the CCP and the GRU. Yes, yes, indeed. And to not stop this, it wasn't telling Jensen, it was intervening and stopping. And for a moment, I thought, well, maybe this is so serious. And there's so many outstanding people in our security apparatus, distinctive Trump. I thought for a moment, maybe they said Jensen down and turned him and started feeding them false information to take them off one way or another. But it doesn't look like that happened. No, no, there was a real fight. Last week in the cabinet, there was an enormous fight. They kept trying Rubio and Bess and apparently kept trying to stop this and stop the campaign. They're all going to go on backgrounds saying I was freaked out by this. It seems like they were because Rubio wrote a memo, like had a memo distributed, just, I mean, obviously cover your ass, of course, was also astonishing is the kind of influence on Trump. You know, as much as you want to focus on Jensen Wong, he didn't know, or he should have known, he should have known. This is like, that's another issue. Okay. I don't know what's daylight, and yet I'm sitting outside getting getting burned. I mean, no, I guess was like, yeah, I know, it's because I'm so attractive in my leather jacket. But I know people are making light of it, but it was, he did it on purpose in that regard. One of the things that's really, I want to talk about two things. What's going to happen next with Invidia and the AI boom? But first, I will note, Wong does have job security somewhere. Elon Musk says he would hire him, responding to an idea on X with that would be an honor. And then our least favorite minion of Elon's, a minion, and I mean that as tiny and tiny and tinier said, released the summary to shareholders. This is Jason Calacanis. Let them vote their shares. The board is obviously going to be in CYA mode, not shareholder mode, in a case like this. They will make the wrong decision. I'll bet 90% of shareholders would want Jensen to stay. What an attitude about national security, that money trumps national security. It's really, and they're not in their CYA mode. They're in there. This is wrong mode. Just this reaction from Silicon Valley, which has been consistent except for very few people that who cares, he's making money for everybody, is really a sickness at the heart of why we should not trust these tech people trying to come back into the fall. This, the term we use over and over and it's in full force here is idolatry of innovators and idolatry of the dollar. So an unbelievable innovator is created $5,000 and shareholder value, but that exonerates him from confirmation. national security. We have, we have millions of active service members. We have millions of people who died for this country. We have an unbelievable security apparatus. We have IP that is unrivaled such that we can have peace prosperity and defense. This might go down as the, I mean, this is right up there. I forget the, the US Navy used to be able to literally tell you, okay, the Russian sub for trolling here is about to turn left in 17 seconds and then a spy within one of the agencies revealed that we were doing that to the Russians. And that was a huge blow to our Navy's ability to track Russian submarines. That, this makes that the, the, the, the potential. We don't know. Damage here. Yeah. Yeah. It's so extruded. This will go down is the greatest leak or breach by the spy caper, the greatest spy caper. Yeah. Nothing, nothing like this. Why do you think they have this attitude? Like, who cares? Like, oh, my, you know, from all of them, like, it's really disturbing Chama Goyer, Bill Akman, they literally have no soul, no American soul. Like, this is, like, so what? It's the so what? And just so people know, just this week, Alex Carr, from Palantir suddenly said he was progressive, do not believe these people. They, they, they do not care about anything, but their shareholder value and their own power. I have said this over and over and over again. And this is a glaring example of it. It's again, oh, five trillion dollars. You can commit one of the greatest breaches in history that puts our nation at risk. But, oh, baby, you've created five trillion dollars in wealth. No problem then. You're exonerated. And on the other side, we're also saying idolatry of innovators is this notion that we always fall into and it's a false notion that one of these figures is a Jesus-like figure that because they built an amazing company because they're smart, it's all about them. Apple was not going to survive without Steve Jobs. Oh my god. What is Microsoft going to do now that Bill Gates has gone? Oh, Eric Sergei and Larry, that is the secret source of the company. Oh my gosh. You know, what are we going to do? Leia Koka, it goes back. It's not, it's not a name. And here's the thing at Nvidia, there are 50 potential CEOs in that company. I bet. You can't build a five trillion dollar company without the deep, that's like having the best quarterback in the world. But if you don't have a good line and receivers, you're just going to have a guy get beat up and sacked all the time. There are to believe that he somehow is the linchpin to Nvidia and AI in general is again to this notion that one, these figures are Jesus-like and don't deserve the same scrutiny as normal humans. They behave like that. And also that they have some, you know all these guys, they're impressive people, but they put their pants on one leg at a time. I agree. And their key skill to get to this level and credit to Jensen is that they have dozens of extraordinary people around them. That's the one thing. You know, one, many years ago, before he died, Steve Jobs actually addressed this with me where he said, you know, he was talking about, you know, post him Apple when he was sick. And he said, what do you think? I'm Willy Wonka and they're the, they're the, they're the helpers here, um, um, Olympus. He said, this is a company full of talented people. He himself, the one man that everyone did worry about what would happen if you were called at the time when he died. People were like, now Apple is done, which was very typical of people there, but it wasn't. He knew it himself that he had this group of executives who was then 10xed that company's value. Whatever you think of Apple, it's bigger and better than ever before. What's happened to Alphabet? Alphabet or Microsoft? Exactly. And one of the things that they love to do is this like, they just think they just, they're, they're gonna die. Like, I don't know what else to say. There's a line in a moon struck that's my favorite when the guy's cheating on his wife. And, and let me to caucus plays us and she goes, no matter what you do, you're going to die Cosmo. Like, they literally don't think, they think they're irreplaceable. And, and they also take any opportunity like Elon, of course, is like, I'll hire him. Let me tell you, Johnson Wong, please do not do this. It would sully an already sully situation. This is a time to reflect don't do what? Oh, work for Elon, work with Elon. I know he is going to be in a bunker with lawyers. He should be. And, and, and Langley, Virginia answering very uncomfortable questions for a long time. I get that, but he also has to be with his family. Like, this is a huge betrayal of his family. If, even if they knew it, like, it don't, and his, and his employees, it's a huge portrayal that not just that because his, his boys, he owes, he owes a debt of gratitude to them. He should be thinking about what he's done and spending a lot of time doing. I think that's all small ball compared to one thing. If you were to, if you were to have Wonder Woman's golden last of truth, and wrapping around every fortune 1000 CEO who was stressed out, it's hugely successful. Falls into the trap of believing them were interesting than they are. Maybe didn't get a lot of, quote, unquote, play when they were younger. And all of a sudden, they're the sexiest man in every room they walk into. I bet a lot of them have had indiscretions. Oh, hello. I know, but I would argue. Pretty much all of them. And I would bet. I would argue that out of the 1000 fortune 1000 CEO's globally, nobody has compromised national security like, like this man right now. This, this, the other stuff makes her good tabloid headlines. It's embarrassing. This is about did in a matter of months, did we, did he close the Delta between our most advanced weapon systems and the CCP's? Yeah, that's true. That is what this is about, which is what many, and even in this administration, were concerned about one of the things that Hillary point out is that Trump probably didn't tell him because he doesn't believe the national security apparatus, right? He distrusts them if it doesn't go and everything is hanging on the AI economy booming. So talk about, you know, is Jensen Wang so important to the AI boom that his personal scanner could shake the broader market? It's going to shake it for a moment. But talk a little bit about that. What happens? Because he was at the center is we've talked about over and over and the danger of these interlocking deals. It feels Ponzi-like. It feels something, that Ponzi, it's more of a circle jerk. But talk about that because if he's the, if this is the lynch pin, then they were fucked in the first place as far as I can tell. It's not a real industry in some fashion. Well, I would push back on that. I do think it is a transformative technology. There's going to be a time to shareholder value, a lot ups and downs. NVIDIA is an unbelievable company. It arguably has the biggest modes of all of them. But is this guy a lynch pin? He's not the lynch pin right now. He just took a dump in the punch bowl, the AI punch bowl, you know, the size of the Titanic and all of a sudden, for example, probably our security apparatus is asking anthropic what kind, but you know, who is, by the way, in the midst of trying to create a book for their IPO, asking them, all right, we need to know every relationship, every single level person here has had. All of a sudden, I mean, again, we made this analogy last week. This is Department of Defense, Department of Energy, nuclear weapons like sensitivity, sensitive information with we work like security. When you become a case officer of the CIA, on day one, they say literally on day one, if you're on the road, you're stressed out, you go into the bar and someone attractive expresses interest in you, it's a spy. Yeah, or you didn't get any more attractive. That's like the first thing they tell you and for him, not to recognize this, but again, it goes back to the idolatry. I was asked to go on, do a package for Morning Joe this morning and I couldn't get the timing right because I'm on the West Coast. But the two very basic predictions I have are the following and they all fall under this notion, the idolatry of innovators. We're acting, they're trying to downplay this because everyone's like he's above the law or above scrutiny or above norms because he created someone's shareholder value. But also, I believe in video stock is probably going to be higher than it is now because this notion that all of AI and Nvidia rests on his expertise is just insane and and Ms. Wong Alice Wong, she, if you when the stock and in after I was trading last night and video was down 8%, that's approximately $350 billion. You could argue Ms. Wong, her affair costs Nvidia shareholders, the value of bank of America. That's what it was down and after our shares last night. And if you want to think about potential lawsuits, what if what if finance can connect the hack or the misdirection of Nvidia chips to bad actors connected to North Korea, that North Korean hack of finance that cost them $6 billion. What if that was executed using Nvidia chips that potentially were compromised? I mean, so many people are going to start connecting really bad things that may have happened not intentionally, not because of malice, because of Jensen, but because of negligence. Every and I'm convinced the board, so a couple of days ago the board announced an independent council, I can tell you what an independent council's findings are going to be based on one thing. Who's paying for it? Remember the independent council for Governor Christie on what happened with that whole traffic scandal? All right, the governor's office paid for it and what do you You know they came back and said when he found out he wasn't. wept a tear and he didn't do anything wrong. That independent council was going to come back and say mistakes were made, but Jensen can still be the CEO. Lawyer sat down with the board and said, Oh my gosh, girl friends, you're going to, if you get infected by this, this is national people, this is very, very serious shit. And they all freaked out and immediately said, you're out. But this notion again, that the world, that the entire sector, the anthropic IPO coming up is actually more important to the AI sector than one guy's resignation. Right. Let me, let me interject. Something Hillary pointed out is that one of the things she's predicted is that he will go to this thing. He'll ask, she, what, if this is true, she will say, no, no, no, and Trump will go see. He said, he wasn't, but he dropped himself like he did with Putin. Putin says he didn't do it. So I believe him that he's going to believe she over our national security apparatus. That's one. The second thing is that he, that everybody in Silicon Valley, who has Chinese national ties, is going to be, and there's a lot, by the way, are going to be scrutinized very, it may be unfair, but it's not just Chinese. They should be looking at all of them, but the kind of spine going on in Silicon Valley has got to be vast. I just, I, everyone's going to get scrutinized now. And there are several, I have already hearing chatter about various and sundry tech people who have links with this, with China in ways that are disturbing. They're going to have to be looked into, it's not fair. It's probably not fair in some ways to target, certainly to target Chinese Americans, but this is going to be one of those things where everybody's relationships across the world and not just China are going to be scrutinized with foreign nationals. And that's a, you know, and I think it's time for me to admit my wife is a Chinese spy. She told me to tell everybody that. And it was like, I'm a Chinese spy. Don't you know that? Why would I deceive you? Let's just go through some of the scenarios here. You just said, Jensen was constantly advocating for the sales at the sale of most sensitive chips. As much as possible in more and more. And we thought at the time, all right, that makes sense. He just wants to sell more and get a stock up. But what if the following happened? And we'll never know. But what if imagine this phone call to Jensen? Jensen? Oh, my love. It's Alice. I'm so upset. What's wrong, Alice? I just got contacted by the CCP and they have told me they're going to unmask our affair in the worst possible way, unless you continue to sell chips into China. And if they see you advocating for it, maybe this won't come out. How do we know he was an unmask and compromised six months ago? Yeah, we don't know. And the thing is, we'll never know. And that's what happens in honeypots. People think honeypot is like in the middle of sex ago. Give me the design for the latest GPU hopper. No, the honeypot is meant to gather information and then compromise the person and say, wouldn't it be better if this didn't come out? And it won't, as long as you do the following simple things for us. How do we know Jensen Huang wasn't compromised a year ago? No, we don't. We don't. We don't know. That's the whole thing. This thing has got to be undone. And let me say to everyone in Silicon Valley, you've got to stop. You people have got to stop. If you call for that before and it hasn't had any effect. I know, but this is showing their true colors. All they care about is shareholder value and even to even to the point of danger across the globe for Americans, Americans in the military, our allies, everybody else. It doesn't matter to these people. We can't trust these guys. We can't trust them. What other intelligence aid and the great thing about the West is the hole is greater than the sum of its parts. When France who has an excellent intelligence service, the most sod, which is arguably got the best, the best security apparatus in the world, they coordinate with each other and they share information. They send messages to our security apparatus, say, we see, we're seeing weird activity in this country. The signal traffic. That's how they figure this one out with signal traffic. But they we share information with our allies. What ally wants to share information with this security apparatus right now? The only good thing is I will say, I'm glad. I hate to pay a compliment to Mark Rubin and Scott Bezin, but they certainly understood the difficulty here. Oh, they're going to go on background about how long they will. Yes, but it's not an inter-mirror fight between David Sacks and this thing. That's how they put it. Every single tech person serving, I have to say, not well, all most of those tech people serving with Trump are in it for themselves. This is an Silicon Valley beef. They have no interest in national security. They have interest in feathering their own nests and it is so dead clear for this. I have to say, I do hope that one, his wife gets all this money and gets to do what she wants and she she has been dragged into this. Of course, his family, I feel terrible for his family. I hope he spends some time repairing those relationships because this is not just a betrayal. It is a betrayal of our country. Kids work at the company. I know that. It's just on every level. But let me tell you Silicon Valley, he cannot come back with any credibility at this moment. He's not going to care. Why would he wear the 180 billion dollars? Because these people are shameless. I don't know. I hope he isn't that change. He might be a VC. He might be a player. But he's not going to answer to anybody else. Who should take over from? They're going to have the CFO take over. That makes sense for the interim. Probably will not be the CEO, but obviously is probably very capable. This woman is taking over. Her name is Collette Kress. Who do you, they're looking at internal and external cannas? I just jokingly said Tim Cook. I don't know. Who could they bring in for an interim period that will calm this market? They could bring in almost anybody because while the stock was down, we're recording in the morning, while the stock was down 8% after hours last night, I wouldn't be surprised if it closed higher today. It was the PE ratio was low for recently as you pointed out. In video right now, the answer is almost anyone they want. So let's go to the organizational behavior. Boards have a tendency to find strangers more sexy. That is, someone can be perfect in a round a series of one-hour interviews saying, "Oh my god, the CEO, the number two who didn't get the top job in Apple. Wow, is she amazing?" She's pissed off that she didn't get the CEO job. Almost anybody would look at this because they can say to this person, "If you slip in and you're the person we want, you're going to make a billion dollars in the next four years." Give me a name, give me a name. The name is whoever, literally the best people at all of these companies that aren't currently the CEO. I don't think Sacha or Sundar would leave or the new guy at Apple. Other than that, everyone returns this call. There's a head of, I think, software, or a hardware at Apple. They're looking at, there's a couple of people. There's companies now trading in a PE that's lower than the S&P. You don't think in video's growth prospects are greater than caterpillar or a proctor than a damnable. I would agree. The bear case is that they're going to find that 20% of the chip sales were going to bad actors. It's probably not that. And this company has arguably the widest moat of any company in AI. It is the picks and shovels. It's growing like crazy. It's wildly profitable. The question here isn't who will be CEO but who won't be. And again, just going back to organizational behavior, if I were on the board, I'd be saying probably the best person is already in the building. They need a Gwen shot. They need someone you don't know as well. Okay, let me get the guy was clearly a bit quote unquote distracted. There's a bunch of people have been running this company. The person in charge of design, the CFO, they had a corporate development, the person in charge of supply chain. Can you imagine the channel person's the best choice here? Can you imagine how brilliant some of these people are? I agree. I agree. A lot of these companies are quite deep. They know the culture. All they have to do is move their office. Yeah, right. I mean, what you're going to find out is any guys this distracted right now? There's probably several people who are kind of acting as the CEO right now. Right. Right. So Trump has based his entire thing on this. Trump looks terrible here. Obviously not that he cares. And of course, he's on his ramps against the Democrats because he lost so badly and they beat him like a drum. But is there is what is a repercussion here, especially if this sort of has an infective kind of thing on the whole AI sector or will these CEOs, as you know, as I noted, Alex Carp suddenly is a progressive. I'm so happy to hear that. Alex is, Alex Farley, you could say, has been a moderate through most of his political career. And even until recently, he totally trashed the Democrats over the last year. Like badly, like, I'm sorry. I think they're all opportunistic in some way. Do they back off from Trump going to the White House and letting him make make the decisions around AI? I think they do. Oh, yeah. This is I personally, I, I think Ruby is going to resign. Maybe. And I think you're going to see a lot of Republicans and people close to Trump toward it for a lot of reasons. I'll start to distance. I, you know, but I've said this before and I've been wrong. But this is every, every, every layer the onion gets unfurled here is just going to get uglier and uglier around the implications here and the government knew the government absolutely knew and did nothing. And I think it's all tied into the same thing. And that is, okay, we have a president. It appears in people who are compromising our national defense. Because all they care about is the markets and money. And this is putting Americans at enormous risk. - Absolutely. - The supercomputer, Lawrence Livermore Labs, it's got a name, I figure it's called. It's powered by 1700 GPS. And by the way, if you have a board meeting at the Department of Energy, or Lawrence Livermore Labs, or North of Grumman, the board members usually go into a skiff, a secure facility. They can't even take in their phones. And on the way out, an individual asks him, says, "Did you take any notes? Did you scribble anything down?" And if they did, they said, "Please give them to me." And they destroy them. And we have the CEO of NVIDIA, spending the night. - I know, I know, I know, I know. All right, I just so you know, Trump just suggested Tim Cook to replace Jensen Wong. I'm not sure. He said, "Now that NVIDIA Jensen Wong "who has done a fantastic job has resigned, "there's only one man to take his place." Tim Cook of Apple, a legend replaces a legend. Shut up, Trump. Let me just say, you useful idiot of the Russians in Chinese. - But you know Tim Cook. Do you think he would consider this? - Oh, I don't know. I doubt it, I don't know. Why? What a mess. He just left. He might want to go to some Bat football games. I don't know. I don't know. He's not, I don't think he knows what's in here. And I don't think he's going to take a box when he doesn't know what's in. He's a very controlled person. You don't know what's going to happen here. - I think it's all downside for Tim Cook. - For Tim Cook. It's got to be this. - He's the first ballot hall of fame, Tom Brady, CEO. - He already embarrassed himself with the statute. - Do you think Bob Iger's glad he came back? - Yeah, no, exactly. I think he shouldn't. I think he already tarnished himself with the statute and the Melania thing. I think he's done a tremendous job at that company. This would only soil him. - Be the other thing just before we go. And I like the boring stuff. The other thing this is going to create a great deal of scrutiny around is corporate governance. This is a 10 member board. The average and video board member had been there almost 15 years, nearly twice as long as the, this was clearly a board. - I need a lot of money. - Bought and sold by the CEO. None of the current board members, our current or former S&P 500 CEOs, none have national security experience. The lead director is a 77 year old former law firm executive. And the board primarily as, as it was governance by requirement, not actual governance. - And they made money and they made a ton of money. Let me end by this, Stephanie Rule noted, when a CEO makes his board unspeakably rich, they provide gratitude, not governance. Let's send out 100%. - That's exactly right. - The example I used was the former Don Hudson, probably a nice woman. Her last job hasn't worked in eight years. Her last job was the CMO of the NFL. She probably made six or eight hundred thousand dollars. She's made $80 million on this board. - Yep, yeah, there's no way they can, well, they've done their job today at least. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, the countdown is on to Anthropics IPO. - Support for this show comes from Quince. I think it's pretty clear. I'm better than Scott at a lot of things. Pretty much everything. Gift gifting is no exception. With the holidays coming up, I'm determined to find high quality gifts for all my loved ones. And one place I can look? Quince, they have top not just essentials like Mongolian, Kashmir, and premium stretch denim. And Quince has more than clothing. Think leather bags, hotel quality bedding, chef grade cookware, and five star luggage. So with Quince, you can feel pretty good about your gifts. Scott, I hope you're taking notes for me. I've gotten a lot of Quince stuff, and I really love it. I have, when wearing out this Kashmir sweater, this lovely powder blue Kashmir sweater, and I love wearing it, I like everything about it, and I'm gonna give a few gifts. This Christmas, probably one of the sweaters, one of the cardigans, and I will gift it. Maybe the Hillary Clinton, she could use the cardigan. Give a quality gift this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com, get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was pivot. It's the best way to support the show. As soon as autumn rolls around and you swap your ice lattes for pumpkin spice, that's your signal to start thinking about the holidays. The decor, the gifts, the shopping lists, but more importantly, the holiday treats. Cheesecakes, cookies, is there anything better? And when the recipe calls for cream cheese, there's only one option. Philadelphia, the original cream cheese, made with fresh milk and real cream. This holiday season, whether you're going all out or keeping it simple, make it really, filly good. Find your favorite holiday recipe at creamcheese.com. (upbeat music) Scott, we're back. We've got new details about Anthropics upcoming IPO. The company has set its price range from $70 to $78 to share of vowing it around $1.3 trillion. That's below the $2 trillion that was floated a few months ago, and it's much lower actually. And adding to the pot, seven tech giants, including Google Microsoft in Nvidia, are investing a total of 26 billion in the offering, further cementing these circular deals andthropic expects to finalize its share price. Next Wednesday and start trading Thursday on NASDAQ. Talk about these numbers and what's the impact on the Nvidia drama. And I'll also note we're getting a peek at OpenAI's financials, the company shared its latest results with investors reporting that third quarter revenue jumped roughly 50% to $10 billion, but its adjusted operating losses also grew from $10.1 billion to $10.9 billion. We also earned a little while ago that OpenAI has raised $15 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation. So is it going to hurt or help Anthropics IPO is going to hurt or help OpenAI? Oh, it's absolutely going to hurt it because what they're doing here, it appears they're more focused on raising as much money as possible as opposed to the valuation, whereas SpaceX was a low float to try and get as high valuation as possible. I think what Anthropics is trying to do, and I think it's strategically really smart. I think they're trying to empty the punch ball of all capital available for AI for it, for Pioneer models, which will, I mean, the amount of capital available is going to go down by $120 billion. Well, first of all, these big tech giants are investing $26 billion, and there was also an investment of $15 billion in OpenAI. That means for everyone else but them or who? Well, so the IPO is going to raise about $65 billion and they're placing $26 billion with private placement with seven suppliers to bring the total ratio about 90 billion. Google and Nvidia are buying 10 billion each AMD 2.5 billion, Broadcom, Micron of Microsoft, 1 billion each, and TSMC at 500 million. The total would pass SpaceX 86 billion raised in June is the largest on record. So actually, that's not fair what I just said, SpaceX raised more money than I thought. About 20% of the shares are set aside for retail investors against a typical five or 10%. But you know, there's a risk right now. If a story comes out that anybody and any organization with any credibility is investigating something at Anthropic, that IPO gets shelved. I mean, can you imagine how every reporter and every member of our security apparatus is asking executives at all these companies? Okay, this person you've been hanging out with or all of a sudden, everyone's going to start asking the questions they should have been asking the last five years at these companies. Yeah, what I know, now Trump actually noted something in that kind of ridiculous 60 minutes interview in which he said, you know, we had someone in an orange jumpsuit and said goodbye to your wife. And I don't think he was talking about Johnson Wong. I think he was talking about Dario for some, that's what most people think. They don't know what he was talking about, but he mentioned an AI executive that was in big trouble. So like, I think investigations are going to happen around all these companies in New York. But just talking about, let's get back to just Anthropic on the boring stuff, Cheryl, the value, the valuation has gone from 2 trillion in September to 1.1. Now it's back to 1.3 after the sell off last week. And now it's being, it looks like it's being priced at about 1.40, 1.5. Let's say 1.5 at 1.5 trillion Anthropic would trade it roughly 18.5 times, it's 81 billion revenue run rate. That's if you annualize its October revenue, [BLANK_AUDIO] It's nine month revenue was $33 billion up from get this $2.5 billion a year earlier. The nine month net loss was $104 billion of which $94 billion was a non-catch charge of the valuation of its convertible notes. The Q3 operating loss was $567 million after a $974 million operating profit in Q2. Pricing starts November the 18th, so in what is that in six days, and trading starts November the 19th. So I actually think this is going to get a pretty healthy pop. So now you would buy it, you said you would buy it and then sell it, that's what you said. Look, this might be, I can make the bear or the bull case for anthropic over the medium in the long term. The honest answer that I don't know, I can, any company growing this fast that is executed this well in a sector that's growing this fast, you can make an argument it's a good long term hold. In a way, it's going to be trading at, what is that? It's going to be trading at 1.3, if it's at 1.3, I'm just trying to say, there's a multiple. So that's, it would trade it roughly 19 times its revenue rate, SpaceX would add 120 times. And this company is growing much, much faster. You can make a bull case here. This is actually more important to the sector, but you asked me what I would do. What I'm trying to do is the following, I work with one of the investment banks as a book runner, and I won't get much because I'm a retail investor, but I said, get me as much as you can because here's what I'm certain of. I don't know where the stock's going to be in a year, I'm fairly certain the first trade is 15 to 40% higher than the pricing because what, what JP Morgan and Goldman do is they use NVIDIA-driven AI to manufacture a pop, anthropic can't have a broken IPO. That would be the headline around everything. Anthropic would rather raise less money, take more delusion, and have every newspaper in the world go anthropic IPO of Barnburner, up 30% day one. So and they, they can perfectly calculate, most likely using AI powered by the good ships from NVIDIA to say based on the book, they'll upload every order, and they'll say based on all these orders from previous institutional investors, what does it look like the demand is going to be on the first millisecond this opens trading, and they will convince anthropic executives to take the pricing that gives them a pop. Right. So that's why the lower pricing, correct? So on a risk adjusted basis, the best investment in the world or not a best, but a great investment is just to get allocation the night before a price is and then sell it on the first trade. First trade, right away. Right away. Right away. Make 20, make 20% in one day. Right. Make 20%. So, so an open AI, what does this do to them? They raise this 15 billion, that's a nice tidy sum. It still is revenue jumped 50% to 10 billion, it's still losing lots of money. What does it do to them? Because they have a one, if, if, if it goes at a 1.3, this is at a 1.25 valuation it raised this money at. Well, again, trillion, excuse me, the really interesting thing here is I've never seen Coke become Pepsi this fast. If you look at the news, it's 12, 18 months ago, no Pepsi become Coke. Oh, excuse me. Yeah. No, no. Well, both. I'm talking about open AI was Coke. Right. And now it's Pepsi. Oh, I see. Yeah. Got it. Okay. All right. Or even, even two years ago, Anthropic was this really good company, but a distant number two to the pioneer leader, Coke, you know, the Hertz. All of a sudden Hertz has become Avis, you know, we try harder. But they lost 21 billion last year. Open AI's operating loss was was 21 billion and 2025 and 13 billion on 13 billion of revenue. Q3 revenue was about 10 billion up nearly 50% from Q2 and the adjusted operating loss was 11 billion. That excludes about three billion in stock based compensation. Operating loss is including compensation where 9.3 billion and Q1 and 12.3 billion and Q2. That puts the operating loss so far and I'm not that 35 billion and around 49 billion for the quarter. There's a lot of people saying this just isn't their losses, just aren't sustainable. But these growth rates are unbelievable. The question is, is Anthropic going to soak all of the oxygen or capital out of the error? And it's going to be harder for open AI. I probably think if Anthropics IPO goes well, the most important thing for the sector right now is what Jensen Huang does or does not do unless it involves more and more national security and we find that these companies have their own leaky sives. It's it's the reception of the Anthropic IPO because they're the demand side. If all of a sudden it appears that every front end user of these chips is getting the types of valuations we expect, they'll have the capital to go more buy more and video chips regardless of who's in charge. Well, the tech industry is also making sure by investing themselves. They want this to keep going. They want to keep this to absolutely keep. It's in everyone interests for this to work out well, which is where it's going to go. Both of them actually speaking of everyone's interests, California's proposition of rich people, Prop. 40, the billionaire wealth tax has officially been defeated with roughly 53% voting against it. The measure would have imposed a one time 5% tax on about 250 billionaires with most of the money going towards healthcare. It was an expensive fight. Billionaires poured 425 million dollars into the opposition, including more than a hundred million dollars from Google co-founder, Sergey Brand, but the fight over taxing billionaires is not over. Senator Bernie Sanders called this a fleeting victory and says he'll pass a federal billionaire wealth tax. I think why we have talked about this. We felt this was the wrong way to do it, but there is going to be much more of a focus on taxing the rich. They're just will. We'll eventually see some sort of wealth tax pass probably on the federal level or tax reform in some way, correct? I don't think so. So first off, when both governors Newsom and governor-elect Javier Bacerra come out against it and a leading teachers union came in against it, here's the bottom line of wealth taxes. They don't work. And 13 of the 16 nations that pass wealth taxes in Europe have repealed them because their treasury receipts actually went down. So this feels good. Again, this is the problem with many, I think, progressive policies. And that is they're more focused on tickling the censors of middle-class democratic voters than actually enacting policies that increase the treasuries such that we can fund the programs that we claim to be fond of for lower income people. This would have chased this legitimately would have chased some billionaires out of California. So what happens next? I think the solution here is the following. We need a progressive tax structure and we need an alternative minimum tax that says, okay, bezosurge, musk, big corporations that Uber wealthy. If you have figured out a way to lower your tax rate to 6%, we need you to pay an alternative minimum tax of 40%. And by the way, it's not going to make any less happy. So that happens on a federal level. Federal tax reform, but have it be progressive tax. And then the other big switch we need, Cara, is it borrowing money against your stock? Is a capital gains event? Yeah. Which is what they do. That's their trick. It triggers taxation. Also, that when you leave California for taxes or you leave Seattle for Washington, all the wealth, all the increase in shareholder value you aggregated by leveraging the infrastructure of that state should be tax, that tax rate should go back to the state. You shouldn't be able to build 120 billion and wealth using the incredible infrastructure of Seattle and Washington and then piece out to Florida and not have to pay any state income tax. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. It's a trick. It's got to trigger. But well taxes. Yeah. I get it, folks. I get why they make sense. I get why we should do them. They don't work. Yeah. I think yours is the progressive taxes the way to go. And they have to do real tax reform where these people don't get to do every trick. I mean, Peter Teele is like a Olympic level at doing this and getting out of taxes. Again, I don't, I don't, I think it's gross, but I don't fault him because this is the way it's done. Well, just as they say to POWs, you have an obligation to your country to try and escape. It's going to sound terrible, but you know, people who hear me talking about progressive tax rates will like, Scott, you're welcome to write a check to the government. I try to pay as little taxes as possible. Yeah. Everybody does. I mean, I'm not going to disarm you in a latter league. Let's just be honest, folks. And then what you can do is, you know, what you're trying now, I'm defensive. You give, give some money away because I think hoarding wealth is a virus that infects America. But everybody is going to try and optimize their taxes. But again, my favorite stat is the tax code has gone from 400 pages to 4,000. And that 3600 pages was inserted by lobbyists. And essentially, it's a transfer of wealth from everyone to corporations in the Uber wealthy. Yeah. And by the way, let's hope Lori Huang is giving is going to be a lot of philanthropy. There's a lot of very funny things in the first wife's club have her Melinda Gates and McKenzie Scott. Well, the female brain, you pointed to me and they have a lot of money to put out there. And they are McKenzie and Melinda too. There is something about the female billionaire brain that is just more philanthropic. Well, I'm hoping that Lori turns a sauseer into a silk purse. You can't run a nation based on the kindness of recently divorced billionaire women. No, we can't. There has to be a better way. All right. Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back at chaotic week in Congress. Delta, official airline of the National Women's Soccer League. Traveling is basically magic. It creates opportunities, it fosters understanding, expands horizons, it connects people and communities to each other and to their own potential. Those are the values that drive Delta. With up to 5,500 daily Delta and Delta connection flights to more than 300 destinations on six continents, Delta is committed to helping you explore your world. Whatever gives you the travel bug, Delta is here to help you get there. Visit Delta.com for more info. Delta, wherever the journey takes you. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales and somehow, none of them talk to each other. That's where O2 comes in, and I'll in one business management software that brings every part of your business together. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all in one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try for free today at O2.com/vox. That's O-D-O-O.com/vox. Support for the show comes from Gling. Opening of an AI tool is easy, but getting results that you want from that AI is a different story. Sure, it might be able to respond to a prompt, but without the context of your business, it won't actually get you that far. That's where Gling comes in. Gling is the AI platform to connect the context of your company to the AI system that best suits the task. Gling uses everything from company emails to slack conversations to give you the most informed answers, and your data stays protected. Gling builds permission, security, and governance into the platform from the start. So your AI agents can get worked on without stepping outside the rules. In addition to better results with secure guard rails, Gling helps your bottom line. Since you're not locked into a single AI model, you get the AI capabilities you need without paying for the most expensive model every time, and the time and money saved using Gling isn't just theoretical. Duolingo is saving an estimated one million dollars a year and employee time with Gling. Gling, the context platform for Enterprise AI, is a Gling.com/pivot to unlock an exclusive offer just for listeners of Pivot. That's G-L-E-A-N dot com slash pivot, terms and conditions apply. Scott, we're back in the aftermath of the midterms. There is all manner of things happening in Congress this week. First, historic upset in Mississippi, Flippissippi, or one W-O-N Mississippi, Scott Cologne just got elected to the state's first Democratic Senator in more than 40 years, and its first black Senator since reconstruction. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dodged impeachment after a House Republicans were able to block the effort. Eleven Democrats missed the Hegseth vote with some blaming a traffic jam. And by the way, what a heinous behavior at the tune with the unknown soldier and kudos to the soldier who chastised he and his party. Hegseth's group was laughing and chitty chatting away at a place that you do not chitty chat away or laugh at. Republican Congressman Thomas Matthew, who led the Hegseth impeachment, by the way, is forcing a new vote over the Epstein files he introduced a bill for survivors and lawmakers to sue the DOJ over records they believe have been unlawfully withheld. And leading the House Republicans come January, Ohio Congressman and vocal Trump defender Jim Jordan, who was elected minority leader in a 106 to 73 vote. So they're really doubling down these people on nasty people to take on the Democrats. Talk about the strategies that you might see from Democrats from Republicans in January. And meanwhile, the Trump administration is already threatening congressional Democrats saying aggressive oversight could be a crime. It's not, but they're saying so. Dots on all these things. You know who who sent the first Democrat from Mississippi since reconstruction to, to the Senate. Who? Black women. Get this. Get this. I talk a lot about how young men play a vital role in this election as there was a 38 point swing in Mississippi. About 20% of the electorate is black women. 20% 20% by the way, black men only 10%. So black women made up 20% black women turned up. 20% of the electorate. And do you know what percentage went blue? 99. Ding ding ding ding. 19.8% of that 20% went blue. I mean, you want to talk about people who showed up. I want to know those tiny little groups. I mean, it was like four black women who wear like mega t-shirts. Who are they? Well, it reminds me. I ran a proxy fight to kick out the board. It read envelope after I was kicked off the board. And I was I know I know there's a spy situation happening there. Well, it's not quite as romantic with my mom was very sick. And so I moved in with my mom and had a little bit of money. And I'd just been kicked out of the band. I'd started in that a man with a little bit of money whose board and angry is a very dangerous thing. So I ran a full scale proxy fight to clear out the board. And I own 12% of the company. And it's it's basically they vote is like a voting day. And the share show up in vote. And my proxies lists are called and said, you got 13% of the vote. And I own 12. And I'm like, so let me get this of the 88% that could I got 1% and they said, no, but my best thing is the funniest thing is he goes, honestly, Scott is like that 1% was probably a mistake. These forms are complicated. So I would bet the one for the point, the 1% who did vote for Republicans probably just filled out the bubble. Okay, so what do we think about that? That's amazing. He's he's his commercials speaking of marketing, his centers commercial and his his protein. She yeah, we're brilliant. And this guy didn't get enough money. In this case, Chuck Schumer did recruit him. So let's give him credit. I know he's certain credit here for this one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he does. Let me just say this candidate is superb. Like a superb candidate. He ran rural hospitals, Medicaid cuts, gas prices. So clever. So genuine. One of his big issues was releasing the Epstein files. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he's he's he's going to be a fascinating senator, I think. What about Hegseth? That's, you know, it's like the good, the good news had to stop at some point. Yeah. And that is we kind of blew this because the House voted to 11 to 204 two days ago to send Massey's Hegseth impeachment articles to the judiciary committee, which kind of kills them. So, and here's the shame. 11 Democrats missed the vote. Now granted seven Republicans did too. So if everyone had showed up, it still wouldn't have made it. But there was a shot at getting this vote done had seven of the 11 Democrats showed up or even five of them, including Nancy Pelosi, wasn't there? They talked about traffic, a motorcade, medical procedure. People criticize Johnson for not keeping the vote open. That's bullshit. He kept it open. And for a while, the vote was at the end of the day at five. You know, this, you know, Nancy Pelosi was at a veterans event in San Francisco. Everyone, it, this should have been all hands on deck. Maybe this was planned or it was just incompetence by Hakeem Jeffers. I can't tell, maybe they didn't, so they can go back when the Democrats take control and do it. I don't know. Like someone was like, there's got to have been a smarter, this can't be as dumb as it seems. I do, I do think it's, I think it's, I think it's people just not planning well sick. And also when you're dealing with the golden girls in the land of the dead, a lot of them are legitimately sick. There was one guy who showed up a day after back surgery. Yeah. Like barely could walk. But there were, there were people who, who got caught in traffic. There were people who were at veterans day celebrations. What, tell me what you think of the headset thing? It's the tune of the unknown soldier. What a, I love that soldier. I want to buy him a drink. I got to tell you. It's great, it's great catnip for us. It was, I saw the video and I just have some, it's just like, you see that video and you want to stand up and put your hand over your heart and sing the Pledge of Allegiance. I just love they have that rule. They clearly told this young man that any chatter, you scream out loud, it's silence, respect this, you know, this place. And I mean to Secretary Hexess defense, it's, I watched it. It sounded like someone he was with was laughing. I don't know. This is catnip for us. This is not meaningful. I think it's meaningful. I think it has a bit. It's another symbol that these people don't take their jobs. That's right. I think it's meaningful to people don't equip themselves in the military. I think it is. I get that. So, but this, this, we blew this. We had a lot of momentum and this will come up again. This is not the last we've heard of this. When the Democrats take control in January, I got to think this is going to be. He's got it. He should get out of there and fast. That's what I say. What about the Epstein one? I love the Thomas Massey keeps going. He's like, he's just not giving up. I think all of this. I think they can delay it, but I think come January. All of this. All of this. You know, people are going to find out what it means to have an actual third branch of government. Now, what about picking Jordan, very strappers person? I think Representative Jordan, I'll give him this. When you see in these hearings, I think at least he handles his committee well. I don't, I think I don't like his politics. I think he is a competent representative. I have utter disdain for him. And there's a lot of baggage there around some of this. There's some, you know, quote unquote, alleged scandal. in this past, but I think Representative Jordan is an intelligent, competent person. I don't, I mean, some of these people, a fighter, they picked a fighter. Well, but, but my point is some of these people are, you don't like their politics and they seem incompetent. I don't like it. Like Johnson. Johnson seems incompetent. You mean, mean to say? Yeah. I wouldn't describe Representative and, or Speaker Johnson is incompetent. I would describe him as someone who is, who is not the Speaker of the House. He's the Speaker of the White House. Yeah. Very good point. He did not even represent his own Republican Republicans and Congress. Jordan, Jordan is always apologizing for Trump all the time, never, never breaks with him. That's a fair point. I, this isn't, let me put it this way. There's been a lot worse. Anyway, so, like the first Epstein-Files Transparency Act passed the House 427 to 1 in November. That feels like one that it's going to come up. Yeah. And Massie's Epstein movement, his new discharge petition hit 218 signatures yesterday. So the bill, just what is the bill that would let Epstein survivors, state prosecutors and lawmakers sue the Justice Department over records, I think it's illegally withholding. It could get a floor vote as early as December. So for those of us who actually tune in to see span, this season is going to be off the hook. Off the hook. It will be. It will be interesting. Off the hook. It should be interesting. We've got to eat his weedies, I suspect. But every piece of news, it was like, oh, it's close to Mississippi. It's like down to a couple hundred votes. I'm like, we've had too much momentum. It's, we're not going to get it. It literally, we're winning every game here. The vote on Hexess yesterday was the first time things didn't go our way. Yeah. We got a little one. I will take it. We'll take the L. But there's still Alaska looks like, and from keep saying you have to add the Dan Sullivan's together in order to win, which is like, I'm like, you need to go take a nap, sir. Anyway, it looks like Democrats really did a sweep, so take a bow at least. All right. Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Support for the show comes from plot. If your day is filled with meetings, calls, and important conversations, keeping track of what was said, what was decided, and what happens next can quickly become a job of its own. Whether you're meeting a person or online, taking conference calls or conducting interviews, plot can help you make the most of your time. Plot is the AI-powered note-taking device built for real-world conversations, unlike relying on your phone or opening another app every time you want to take notes. Plot is designed to be simple and always ready when you need it. With just one tap, you can start capturing a conversation. 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Scott, let's hear a prediction. You've worked with a lot of these people, I've worked with a lot of these people. There is no Jesus Christ, there is no one person that can build a $5 trillion company. Greatness is in the agency of others. You can get to 10 million in revenues, much less a company worth $5 trillion without having an unbelievable team, expertise, commitment. There are 40 CEOs in a video. Once this, once Jensen is swung and some of this drama dies down, most likely, unless it involves just a security threats everywhere. The prediction is the following, Nvidia stock is higher at the end of the year. This company now, it's lost so much, it's so much errors come out of this thing. It's lost the value since its peak of like Oracle, Cisco, Bank of America, and Costco combined. It's trading at a PE that is about the same or lower than the S&P. I don't care what you think of AI. I don't care what you think of how bad it is in Nvidia. This is a more interesting company than Caterpillar or Ford Motor, and it's growing exponentially more. Once there's some sense of a new CEO and they even discount all the chips they've been sending to people they weren't supposed to send to, people are going to go, "Okay, this company is still much better than your average S&P company and the stock is up." All right. Well, there you have it. My only prediction is I think Ruby will actually stay because I do, and here's why. I think he's going to continue to show that he was on the other side of this Genshin short trade. He's going to keep leaking, leaking is coming from Besson, people close to Besson and Rubio. I think if he looks like a here, if he can manage to look like a hero here, he doesn't have to go. I think Hillary actually made a point. He kind of wants Trump to go into Cuba, and if he gets that, and it's on the first boat to Havana, he looks great. Do you really think the Americans have an appetite for another of these things? I don't know. I'm just telling you, that's what she said. That's the only thing that's going to keep in there, but I do think that he looks good here and fencing out unless they really make it worse by pardoning Genshin or whatever happens. Genshin hasn't been accused of anything, but, yeah, I mean, he's in a world of hurt. And, you know, I think he's done a great job in managing his reputation here, as has Scott Besson. It's very clear. They want you to know they thought that David Sacks and Howard Lutnik were badly advising the president, and the president is at fault here. So I just have a feeling he's going to stay. My other prediction is that fucking White House ballroom is an eye sore. What a white elephant that kind of, it really looks bad now that it's up. I went by it the other day, I'm like, what in the actual fuck is this? It dwarfs the White House. I suspect the next president's going to have to take it down quite a bit. I know you're not supposed to, but they're going to, it looks really weird. It looks like a big car buncle on the side of the White House, but we'll see. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever is on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot. Just a minute question for the show, or call 85551Pivot. We also want to welcome the newest member of the Vox Media Podcast Network family, the Bullwork. What do you think? Those guys, they're cool. We love those guys. They're a long one. Sarah's fantastic. Tens fantastic. I think they're cool. We're going to do a crossover. You know, I also announced my book, Scott, to do know that. Oh, really? Same more. I didn't know that. Dot. Common Sense. It's based on Thomas Payne's famous, famous Common Sense, his pamphlet that sort of set off the American Revolution. It was the spark. And so we are putting together a digital bill of rights. I'm writing it with Imran Aman from the Center for Countering Digital Harm. And we're going to have new surveys. We're going to have new tests we did on all the social media companies so far they're failing. And it'll have a digital bill of rights. I'm going to write it for Congress. That's what I'm doing. So it's coming out. I don't know. I just keep asking myself, where the fuck is my hot Chinese spy? I deserve a hot Chinese spy carol. Amanda Katz is a Chinese. She told me to say it many times, Amanda Katz is a genius. - I am sort of important and I have incredibly poor judgment. - You're not getting it now. - Where is my hot time? - You have, you don't have one. You're never getting one, sadly. But just remember, Scott, if someone sidles up to you at a bar, you didn't get any better looking. - I tell you how I think I spot a sex worker. - Yeah, yeah. - They return my eye contact. - Exactly. - That's literally how I'm learning. - A sex worker or a Chinese spy when people are nice to you. Okay, that's the show. - Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. - Today's show was produced by Laranaman Zoe Marcus Taylor-Griffin, Todd Weisman and Madeline Laplante de Bay. Arnie, you're Todd Andrew, you're this episode. Thanks to all of you for joining me as a Vario. And to Enchalon, the shark croissed box media is executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite 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. Kara, have a great rest of the week. (upbeat music) - I'm a voice agent powered by DeepGram. 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