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Nvidia’s AI Guardrails, Big Tech’s White House Visits, and Elon’s Voter Data Grab

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Nvidia’s AI Guardrails, Big Tech’s White House Visits, and Elon’s Voter Data Grab

The podcast explores key developments in technology, politics, and society, emphasizing the growing tension between innovation and accountability. Atio is presented as a cutting-edge tool for sales teams, combining human oversight with scalable infrastructure. Meanwhile, concerns about AI safety surge, with companies like Nvidia introducing guardrails amid fears of rogue AI systems—though critics argue these measures are reactive and lack real oversight. The political landscape is under scrutiny, with elite tech leaders participating in high-profile events, often seen as performative rather than substantive. Elon Musk’s data collection initiatives, such as votesafe.org, are criticized as deceptive and threatening to democratic principles. Gen Z’s political shift toward independent candidates reflects a desire for fresh, non-establishment ideas. The discussion also calls for deeper democratic reforms, including de-gerrymandering and limits on corporate and individual power. Ultimately, the narrative underscores a tension between rapid technological advancement and the need for transparency, accountability, and structural checks in both tech and governance. The hosts stress that while innovation drives progress, it must be balanced with ethical responsibility and public trust.

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Support for the show comes from Atio. There are sales teams out there who never seem to stop moving. How was this step ahead? I was working with a level of precision that doesn't seem normal. It's no secret. They're on Atio, the Agentex 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 agentex infrastructure. This is the frontier of go-to-market, teams like Parallel, Turbo Puffer and Wordsmith are already using Atio to set the pace. Now it's your turn. Try Atio for free by going to atio.com/[email protected]/pivot. Hugging seats on a crowded train, not saying "excuse me", watching videos on your phone with no headphones in. Sometimes it feels like we don't know how to act anymore. What we have been seeing increasingly is people breaking rules. Why should I play by the rules if nobody else is going to do that for me? This week unexplain it to me, how to mind your manners. New episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Cassidy Hubbard here. This week on Ann Mom, beloved reporter and beauty queen, Allie LaFourse, opens up about IVF and an incurable genetic disorder, the stress and shame of miscarriage, and the one thing that would have helped her with her transition into motherhood. Check out the latest episode of Ann Mom, wherever you get your podcasts. So in video selling guardrails, it's like an arm's dealer selling bulletproof fest. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. I'm Scott Callaway. So how is this weekend? I spent the weekend with Ari Emmanuel too, because I'm interviewing him Tuesday. This is Rolling the Calls. This is his book. What did you think? It's very deep without him intending it to be, I think. That's going to be a really. He's accidentally thoughtful. No, he likes to do a lot of hand waving and then he reveals something that I don't think he intends to. Anyway, how was your weekend without me? It sounded me to cop out, but one of the rules is it's supposed to be all off the record and I want to get invited back. What I am comfortable saying is there was a session with Rahm Emmanuel and he was very strong. He is. I got to give Rahm his due here. He's one of the few Democratic candidates who's actually talking about ideas and the problem with. At this point, they're all trying to cosplay Obama and talk about coming together and it's okay, what are you going to do about healthcare? That's what I want. I think we need to go. They all rag on Trump. I think we need to move from indignants to ideas. Right now, I would argue Rahm, maybe a little bit may repeat, maybe a little bit, actually I think Senator Booker has taken some good swings. They really aren't saying much of anything. You could argue Governor Newsom through his actions is saying something, but anyways, I don't mean to be critical of the other candidates, but Rahm deserves, and maybe this is at one or two percent, but I think he's going to be more of a factor. My thesis about Rahm and I'm curious to get your take, I think he's the secretary Clinton of this race. And that is. Probably. He's the policy guy. He's the policy guy. I think he's arguably the most qualified person running. Possibly. Congressperson, mayor of the city, he's got tactical experience. He was the chief of staff for Obama, but at the same time, Secretary Clinton wasn't a great candidate. I'm not sure, Rahm. I went up to Rahm and I don't think you appreciated this quite frankly, and I said, "I love you. You're talking about ideas. You need to be sharper, more passionate." I said, "Quite frankly, you're coming across like a policy walk and that puts people to sleep." Yeah. Well, it's his only thing. It's his thing because he's not tall, dark, and dreamy, right? He's really, and he's intense and he can be difficult. So I appreciate it. It's just the question of whether the voters will, right? That's the thing. You have to have both, you know, a policy. And if it's style over substance style tends to sometimes win, obviously. I hope so. He's going to be additive. He's going to, I think I don't know how far he's going to go. What I know is he's going to be additive to the dialogue because he does a great job on a lot of issues. He actually does a really good job threading the needle on Israel. He's very anti Netanyahu. He was courageous going to Israel and calling out Netanyahu for poor treatment of the residents of the West Bank. He's very good on any issue. He's done his homework. He's knowledgeable. Anyways, he was, he was the highlight. All right. He was the highlight. I can't talk about it. Oh, good God. I got a picture from the polymarket guy like, you know more about this than I do because I am in, no, I'm not indignant. I didn't get invited. I never get invited because he, you know, here's the other thing about Ari. This book all is about what a tough guy he is. He's not a tough enough guy to have me in an event, even though I gave him a blurb for this book, by the way, which I never do. Maybe just doesn't want you. No, maybe it's not. He's not tough enough. No, no. He's leaving. No. Here's the thing. He's, you're going to get invited to the event and then you're going to crash the stave and say, I'm leaving. The elephants are here. I'm leaving. And then just hang around for the whole calm. Was it? I know. I love hanging around. This is my Warner Brothers Discover US. I'm wearing it because it's going on. There's a lot of chatter about a carer. If that was your objective. Yeah. I know. It was my objective. I know. A lot of people came out to me and I was in the podcast with Cara and then she's leaving and this is what I think. Oh, what are they all think? What are they all think? The summary is the following. People love and respect you and agree with your decision and think you should just do it and stop talking about it. No, I don't think so. I think I'm just going to. Because no one else can. No. I don't think so. Keep it in the, keep it in the ether. That's why. Because people need to keep it in the ether. Nobody can go on the record. Andersen Cooper can't go on the record. Dealing on. You're the, you're the, you're the, I, I can say things. The deep throat of sea. I'm going down. I'm going down. I am the spirit animal. Anyway. This book is really good. Anyway, you're an L.I. Good. You're enjoying yourself. You love that L.I. You're always in a zesty mood when you're there. Yeah. I just, you wake up. It's 74 degrees, dry heats. You know, I'm coming there tonight. I can't wait. And on Friday, I went to UC Santa Barbara and I spoke to 1200 students and was just inspired. I do love this universe of California. Is your excuse to be in California, which you do love, especially Los Angeles. Notice how I'm here a lot in the winter. I know. I know. I'm excited to go. I'm excited to do this event. Anyway, we've got a lot to get into this one. I was actually just happened, right, right when I was coming up on the train this morning. Nvidia has launched the largest stock buyback in history. US history adding $150 billion to its repurchase program and bringing its total authorization to 235 billion. The move comes just four months after Nvidia's board added another 80 billion to the buyback program. The company says it expects revenue to grow 70% in fiscal 2028. Now, its stock had been down, right? It had been sort of low. So presumably the buyback was part of that, but it's probably cheap to buy its stock back. So talk a little bit because I also want to add another announcement. The company is releasing a tool that it says will stop AI agents from going rogue. How funny the timing. The technology is supposed to help companies to monitor every action taken by an AI agent. This comes after news that open AI's agents again went rogue and meddled with government websites. US government sites without the company's knowledge. This is amazing. These robes have been all over the place without the company knowing, meanwhile, Google, OpenA and Anthropic are moving forward with plans to create their own AI safety standards but it because why not let the arsonists run the fire department without government oversight with a possible launch by the end of this year early to 2027. Nvidia's can build car rills, AI companies are going to police themselves, which we do not trust. And then this buybacks, every way you want to go. Well, let's start with the buybacks. I just don't think people recognize just the scale of this. This is the largest buyback in US history. It's a quarter of a trillion dollars that they're buying back more stock than is the value of the majority of the companies in the S&P 500. Now, I've been on a bunch of public company boards. We constantly have conversations around stock buybacks. And generally speaking, I don't like them. I don't like them for the corporation because basically when you take capital and you buy back stock, what you're saying is we have no new ideas to put the capital use. And I also like putting capital to use because it creates jobs. It forces the CEO to think about growth. And essentially stock buybacks are a bit of an acknowledgement that you're a mature company and you're not growing as fast as you used to so you're going to start returning money to the shareholders. And to be clear, this is a very efficient way to return money to shareholders. Now, going to the macro view. If you look at the three parts of our economy, consumers, shareholders/owners, and workers. Everything we've done in the last 40 years via regulatory capture has taken money and power from the consumer and the worker and given it to the shareholder. Because we've let industries consolidate, such that they can raise the rates faster. We have neutered employees, power, via destruction of unions or a lack of minimum wage or all sorts of regulations and say, "Oh no, you don't have to pay this person." I had a bit of a controversy about some comments I made about paternity and maternity leave. But the reality is, it's a conversation only held in the lunchrooms of Google and JPMorgan because only 20% of Americans even have access to paid parental leave. So on a company level, I don't like these on a macro level. I think when you do stock buybacks, the company should be forced to pay a small tax just as when someone pieces out and takes their equity somewhere else to do lower, get a lower tax rate such that they don't have to pay back the great states of California and Washington and the infrastructure they provided to create that wealth. I think that's wrong. I think when people borrow against their stock holding such that they don't incur a taxable event, I think it should trigger a taxable event. Yeah, that's a Peter T. L. Original. But what does it say? What is it saying here? Why are they doing it? Obviously, the stock has been lower than it was on a, you know, a rocket ship and that it fell off pretty considerably for its growth. It's very strange, but by traditional metrics, arguably the most important company in the world, the premier company in the hottest technology in history feels cheap on a PE level. I mean, it's trading at a lower PE than Walmart. Right. So why? Why? What is the thinking? Well, there's real fear and anxiety around the AI trade right now. There's a non-zero probability that these AI agents go rogue and we're forced to step in and either nationalize these companies or tell them to stop or take a pause, which is not good for business. So is it selling shovels in a gold rush is great? Using your shovel profits to buy your own stock, it basically says that the shovel seller isn't sure how long the rush is going to last or how deep the mine is going to go. So NVIDIA is the most valuable company in the world, acting like it's at peak margin. You know, it was interesting. People like, you know, I remember Tommath probably helped a TSN when they buy back. That's a bad sign. Like I remember, it was, I think it was the time. It's not when you're a mature company. Yeah, like there's, you know, and of course, you've said that a lot of times. But what's we believe in ourselves? But again, you're right. Can't they find something else? And talk about this, this, this tool, they suddenly say they're releasing, that they suddenly have to keep us safe. I mean, obviously, they're fighting an uphill battle against this narrative. And even someone who's been much more measured on the coon say the Dumerism is going too far, of course. But who has been pretty measured about the dangers and the assets kind of thing. But the Dumer's are winning this particular fight right now. How do you look at what, and now they're saying, we have a thing that'll fix it. Don't worry, we'll handle it. And then the same thing, the companies are saying, they're worried about liability here. I feel like this is all about their live criminal liability and, and other, other versions of fraud and, product liability, etc. So Nvidia selling guardrails is like an arms dealer selling bullet proof fast. Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a great, it's a great business ball. You get paid on both sides of the war, right? Yeah. Here's the bandages. Yeah, here's the bullet. But wait, we'll sell the operating supplies to repair bullet. I mean, it's just, I find it a little bit off-putting and open AI mentally with government sides without the company knowing is basically saying we've gone from AI might someday act on its own to AI acted on its own last Tuesday. And we found about it in the news or found out about it in the news. And I still don't buy this bullshit of like, oh my God, you know, Frank's up to no good. I'm so sorry, but it's not my fault. It's Dr. Frankenstein. Frankenstein or Frank will call him the monster. What's sentient? And Dr. Frankenstein could have logically said, it's a great book. By the way, I recommend Mary Shelley. I think it's a genius. Anyways, he could say, okay, I regret this. I'm going to try and stop it, but he's kind of, unfortunately, making his own decisions. I don't buy that here. Yeah. If they, if these guys start facing civil and criminal liability, I just am confident these geniuses are going to fucking figure it out. And they're going to start building amazing bots that NARC on the bad bots. They're going to say, do this. Read the constitution. Read every legal thing. Read philosophy. And NARC on any bot that starts behaving, these things aren't sentient. But when you try and when you tell them to be persistent, you're taking the risk that they might interpret persistent is building its own code and violating the law. Yeah, we don't even know what they're doing. And I know they're doing what we don't know. I think you can reverse engineer every one of these rogue agents to a programmer at open AI or anthropic who was instructed to program it this way. So I really don't like this notion that they've gone rogue. No, this is an army. And there's a general who gave them these orders. Yeah. We had no, one of the things that's interesting is that they, the Republicans, Mike Johnson, just had another moronic interview. I'll, you know, he was saying that data centers are Chinese siop. I mean, honestly, what are fucking more on this guy is, and that we don't need tech regulation, and, and, and, you know, on and on and on. He's just carrying water for Trump in this regard and the tech companies. I mean, honestly, like he was like, we don't need tech organization yet. And I'm like, we never had it. And only someone who's been in the closet for that long would understand, would not understand what was had been happening. But one of the, the Trump keeps supporting him. And at the state dinner, I don't know if you saw this, I want to get into what happened with China. But the state dinner brought out a slew of tech leaders, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg. We're all there. And of course, you had Elon Musk, Johnson Wong, and Tim Cook sitting at the head table with Trump. And she, they just, you know, as New York Times, Sean McCreish put it, it was just a fun little dinner for the people deciding the future of humanity. Why does Trump keep supporting this? And we'll get into the Chinese is it because it doesn't look like anything happened except we got two pandas and maybe extended a trade through spy a couple of months. But he keeps doubling down on them. Trump does as does Mike Johnson as do not all the Republicans, a lot of Republicans are, you know, cut and cut loose. Why does he keep doubling down on AI on AI? Yeah. And Johnson too. Because the economy is the lone economy and GDP growth is the lone bright spot in the Trump administration right now. The economy is actually, I mean, the deficit is a huge problem. Inflation is a big problem. But the underlying growth of our GDP, the majority of the G7 would kill for it. We're still growing. And growth is important. It's the only way out of a deficit. It's the only way growth and productivity solve not all, but most problems. So his attitude is if 72% of corporate earnings are coming from the hyperscalers, if 93% of GDP growth is coming from the just unprecedented cap expending, then do not get in the way of this. This is the only thing I have going right now. This is my fallback is to keep asking people how the 401K is doing. But the thing about self-regulation, which is he is basically set, self-regulate, is it has a track record? We have a history here. It does work for low stakes products. So for example, the moving ratings, the MPAA, the UCG or PG-13, video games have it, the ESRB. But where it fails is for high stake industries. For example, the tobacco research council. I don't know if you remember that. You shouldn't because it didn't work. Wall Street before 2008, or Facebook's oversight board, or the new one, the CNN editorial board. Self-regulation is a diet where you're the nutritionist and the cake. The answer is both, right? Nuclear power has the NRC. Airlines have the FAA and drugs have the FDA. We don't let Boeing certify its jets anymore. We learn that the hard way. But he keeps, like these dinners, they have been to the White House more. Then I literally, I'm so sick of seeing these same group of people at the same time. They have more influence in the cabinet. I was thinking, I was sitting there going, why don't they invite the trucking people there? Why don't they invite? Maybe they're there. But it's these same people in the same critical seats. I'm kind of like, hey, let a concrete manufacturer in there some time. Or let another industry. You don't see, I mean, I know Jamie Diamond was at this dinner. I'm speaking of which David Ellison was also at this dinner while they were keeping CNN out of it. But it's a really interesting thing. It's like, how long this is going to, this kind of weird kabuki drama between them is going to continue. At the same time, they got nothing, which is probably what they wanted. No AI policy at all during this G visit, right? But for people who don't know what you think of what happened the visit, I think most people think nothing. But inthropic CEO Daria Modi was not at the state dinner. This gang doesn't like him because he's a little bit slower. But he and Trump had their own private dinner Sunday night. I don't, I haven't found out what they were talking about. But he was, he was there at the dinner. I mean, at his own dinner, because I guess he can't dying with the others. But obviously, they're having enormous influence and yet there nothing happened during the summit with our key partner in AI, which would be China. The pattern here is, it's a mix of courtship and coercion. You blacklist the company on Thursday and then you invite them, invite at CEO for dinner on Sunday. It's not, it's not policy. It's a protection bracket with a wine pairing. It's just, it's so inconsistent. Let me do that. Well, the metaphors are just so easy. They write themselves right now. We're in an arms right with China. Then label one of its frontier labs, the national security risk. It's, it's benching kind of your starting quarterback during the Super Bowl because he won't go to your barbecue. I mean, it's just, these got, and I have never seen two people such as Dario, Amadei and Sam Alman. I've never seen two people more in over their head ever. And I, I don't want to say empathize with them, but they have so much pressure to recognize the economic potential that they have built, all their employees must be counting their money buying houses, thousands of investors who desperately need to show that they know how to invest money, the president putting pressure on them, and at the same time, they have employees saying this might be an extinction event. Right. A lot of employees, actually, and much evidence that they don't have control of their technology. It's like I'm on the road, and my 60-year-old who refuses to go to bed when I'm there, when I'm on the road, he'll call me, he'll FaceTime me in bed, because he wants guardrails. He's like, I want to know the rules by which I play by. And the CEOs, I actually think they're pretty genuine at a minimum. I mean, they want to shape the AI, or they want to shape the regulation, but they're saying, Jesus Christ, just tell me what I'm allowed to do and not allowed to do. Yeah. Supposedly, he had a scheduling conflict, so Trump invited him to a private dinner. But I think Trump, I think there's a lot of enmity between him and the rest of the gang that was there, especially Jensen Wong and Maltman, for sure. This is the worst managed so far. I was at an event with a lot of alternative investment managers. That's the best managed brand in recent corporate history, because basically what they've convinced America is still to do is to pay them fees for a product that doesn't work. If you take all of the most famous hedge funds and all of the brilliant investors, you know, Berkshire Hathaway, Sid, yet all of them up, they have underperformed the S&P by the amount of their fees. And yet we all, including myself, think we're lucky when we get into these, you know, this fund or whatever. They have done an amazing job. The brand of alternative investments has convinced capital globally that they can outperform the market. And you know what pension manager does the best job is the guy who runs the Nevada Retirement Authority. He has a shitty office and all he does is invest in a bunch of different Vanguard low cost funds. He's one guy. And most of these states and countries have hundreds, if not thousands of well-paid people, figuring out a way to underperform the S&P by their fees over the medium and the long term. What an amazing brand. Equally bad is AI. It's gone from AI is going to take our job to AI is going to kill us. Kill us. I know. He's the brand. What's the next thing? Yeah. And and hell exists and you're going there. We figured it out. But did they? The other thing was this dinner. Like this dinner was really interesting because I think she won the entire thing. And what was really fascinating is all these Fox news stars were there. Like what's his name, the one that's on the show with Jess, Jesse Waters going on about communism and then yucking it up with with the communists. It was just like these people like honestly. This was such a missed opportunity. Yeah. Nothing happened. When you have she and Trump in the same room and you have the AI folks, the opportunity to say to she, look, we're competing on AI. But there's a lot of vent overlap in terms of the things we want to prevent. We don't want a middle power developing a nuclear bomb. We don't want bioweapons. We don't want our kids to be depressed. This is an opportunity for us to establish reconnective tissue between the number one and the number two economic power and cooperate. And we're going to outline if they had both done a press conference. This would have been the smartest move for Trump going into the midterms. If they had a joint press conference and they'd had their diplomats instead of the the faulty like cult they have now. But if they had their diplomats working for a long time to say these are the areas we're going to agree to cooperate on around AI, it would have made an outstanding closing ceremony that would have reflected well on both of them. This was a huge missed opportunity for the Trump administration. This was. We got pandas. Yeah. We got a panic. It was a photo. Two. We got two pandas. Yeah. I just, look, this is, again, another missed opportunity. This was meaningless and it was a huge opportunity. It should have been around cooperation around AI that would have made our populist feel better and show leadership and bilateral cooperation. Huge missed opportunity. Yeah. He was definitely showing off the tech leaders, but they looked ridiculous. Anyway, let's go on a quick break and we come back Elon's voting website scam. So like any good millennial, I have a love hate relationship with Gen Z. It's the phenomenon rattling millennials. They just look at you. They want something bigger themselves. Lifestyles of priority. Motivation is being inspired. But regardless of how you feel about Gen Z, it's undeniable that they're changing national politics. Generation Z is increasingly showing less loyalty to traditional political parties. Many now more likely to identify as independent. So what is going on with the kids? I think the biggest misconception about Gen Z's politics right now is that all of a sudden they're all socialist. That is just not the case. Yeah. Yeah. They are embracing candidates who are offering new bold ideas in the absence of those ideas from establishment Democrats. This week on America actually, Gen Z researcher Rachel Jamfazza joins us to separate Gen Z fact versus fiction. It's not rocket science and this is, you know, I keep saying like young voters aren't that complicated after all. It's pretty simple. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Support for the show comes from policy genius. Everyone's busy. Your mom, your neighbor, the dog. We've all got stuff going on. So it makes sense if life insurance isn't necessarily top of mind for you. Policy genius knows that. Their license team helps you get the right policy fast so you can get on with your life. Policy genius is an online insurance marketplace that allows you to compare quotes from some of America's top insurers side by side for free. That means you can easily find what you need, coverage amounts, prices terms, no guesswork, just clarity. Policy genius helps you find the most affordable policy that works for you. They answer questions, handle paperwork and advocate for you throughout the process and you know you're in good hands because policy genius has thousands of five star reviews on Google and trust pilot from customers who found the best policy fit for their needs. Prioritize peace of mind. Lock in your life insurance today. With policy genius, you can find 20 year life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for one million in coverage. Head to policygenius.com/pivot to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com/pivot. Support for the show comes from Zeta Global. Understanding your customers is one thing, anticipating their behavior is another. But in business, if you want to succeed, you've always got to be thinking two steps ahead. Zeta can help. Zeta helps marketers and enterprises to be on disconnected data and fragmented tools bringing customer and business contacts into a clear more actionable view. It brings together what a business knows about its customers, what it is trying to achieve and the decisions required to get there. And instead of asking teams to operate another dashboard or stitch together another workflow, Zeta's AI can help determine what matters, what should happen next and how to improve based on the result. The goal is to help you make better decisions about who to reach, what to say, where to invest and what to do next. For customers, that means experiences of feel more useful and relevant. For businesses, it means spending less time managing technology and more time building stronger relationships and driving results. Ready to make smarter, faster decisions, visit ZetaGlobal.com/pivot to learn more. Scott, we're back with a little over a month to go before Election Day. There are some questions and concerns about election security, some legitimate, some not. Obviously, the New York Times has had a great story showing that all these fraud allegations that trump had of thousands of voters had turned out to be zero. But if you're heading to the website votesafe.org for answers, information, think twice. The site is run by Elon Musk's America pack. Votesafe can collect your name, address, email, phone number, political information, and browsing activity. Its privacy policy says that information may be shared or sold to business partners. For safe and reliable voting information, go to vote.gov, even if it's run by the president, it's the official government website or vote.org, which is run by a nonpartisan nonprofit. If you're voting from overseas, there's also vote from abroad.org. I just ran into them when I was in Vienna. Full disclosure, it's run by an organization of Democrats abroad. There's a lot of tricky voting information websites out there. You have to be very careful of and Elon's at the forefront. Early voting is already underway in several states. Are you worried about this KSI? We're running into a lot of people who remain continually worried about Trump, Elon, and others creating chaos around the election. They're like, Marshall Law was brought up last week by some Trump's outside advisor. I don't think he's capable of doing that, but maybe I think he's capable of it. I don't think he'll be able to do it. Supreme Court has cleared the way for states to use Trump administration's citizen database to check in eligible voters, but there's not that many, so it's kind of stupid. It's kind of stupid, but what they're trying to do is prevent people from voting. Just the last part, Trump is reportedly predicting Republicans will overperform in November pretty much every other sign pointing the opposite direction. His disapproval rating just hit 60.4 percent. The worst, either of his two terms, even worse after January 6th, if you can believe it. Meanwhile, gas is averaging nearly 450 a gallon. Morgan rates have hit above 7 percent, and we're seven months into the war with Iran with no apparent exit strategy. A lot of Republicans are now calling for that. One Republican advisor gave Axeos this a second of the GOP's midterm outlook. The numbers are somewhere between shit tabulous and crap-tastic. He's moving into the 20s in approval ratings, by the way, and I think the best joke I heard was he's very excited to get to the teens because he loves them. What do you think, Scott, about all this? This voting thing just drives me crazy. I want people to go and make sure they can vote, but not be tricked by these ridiculous websites that are our pack websites essentially. Okay, there's a lot there. Let's start with Musk. I just don't think, I think history shows that power corrupts and absolute power absolutely crops. And we never look back on history and think this one powerful person should have more power. We just never almost never think that. And just to be fair, I heard Elon Musk speak recently. The guy is a-- That's why I wasn't there. Okay, I'm not saying what event. Okay. The guy is an enormously big thinker. It is very difficult not to be inspired when you hear that the new Falcon Heavy rocket is going to have a car, you know, a payload capacity to put a space station in orbit on every launch and he wants to get to a launch every five minutes. I mean, it's just-- If you can do it. And he's building a vehicle that has the greatest thrust in history. It just-- You can't help but be inspired by the guy. If you can do it, yes. I want to acknowledge that. Now, as it relates to, but I have gone, I don't know what the term is, not socialist, but progressive. I think capitalism evolves in progressive tax structure. Taxes protect us from this type of absolute power and corruption. And I'm not saying, I think people should be allowed to make billions and trillions of dollars. I think you want to let your thoroughbreds run. And this guy from an innovation standpoint is secretariat. The concentration of power, we need to have checks on it and actually taxation, progressive taxation is a check on that power. As it relates to votesave.org, this is a data harvesting operation wearing a civic costume. This is Falcon Halloween. It's pretending to be-- It collects your name, address, political info, and browsing activity. And then it can say-- And then it can sell them. It's basically a fake ATM that skims your card and then tells you where to vote. And could tell you bad things and who knows? Who knows what it's getting information? He's done this before. The $1 million a day petition was also a data grab in swing states. He's not doing voter outreach. He's doing voter acquisition. And in politics, the list is the asset. Phone numbers, emails of motivated voters are worth more than the ad. This again is list-building, disguised as public service. To me, and I don't think it's illegal, I think it should be illegal. Well, I'm glad he's inspiring. But what do you-- I think he's also extraordinarily dangerous in this area, in this area, wanting to create chaos, create, you know, why lie about who you are? If you, you know, just say, hey, I'm an Elon. If he's so open and honest and inspiring, just say, I'm Elon Musk. I'm for Trump right here and we'll talk about it and give me your information. This is hiding himself is in plain sight seems to be a very disingenuous thing to do. This is a broader theme and solution we need to move to. And that is we need to move further towards one person, one vote, as outlined initially by our founding fathers. We have straight so far from that. It's a small number of voters and a small number of states and a small number of people in organizations that decide our elections. And we need, we need to de-gerrymander the US. In certain states in the South, they have 20, 30% black voters, but they've figured out a way to not give them any representation. It doesn't matter what you vote in California, New York. It doesn't matter with respect to national politics. We need, we need huge reform around Citizens United. We need to de-gerrymander just take a grid and place it over the US and make congressional districts. And also we just should not be comfortable with any organization, including the healthcare industry, which is now the biggest political donor or an individual having this kind of power. It's just not. It's the enathema to the basic notions of a democracy. It is. I mean, I understand I have been in that inspiring talk, but then I have. I think he doesn't do as much as he says. He's going to do, but he talks a great game. Like, and he does a lot, we've done a lot. But the question is, does it outweigh this kind of nefarious activity? And also his string of racist and misogynist and anti-trans and sort of going into other, when I was abroad, everyone there was talking about the way he meddles in other people's politics by supporting right wings. Well, the new American export is political division. He should pose Britain. He hasn't been there in three years. Germany. Yeah. Germany everywhere else. He's he's he's exporting polit American political division. I feel the same way about musk is I feel about big tech. And that is, if you had a button to say, all right, he ends up going into art and we never hear his name, or you had a button where big tech could just go away. I don't think you'd want to push that button. I think these guys and big tech, I would argue, is critical as I am a musk, are a net positive. The problem is with the word net. And that is you can appreciate that he inspired the EV race. You can appreciate. I can. You can appreciate space exploration. You can appreciate the economic growth and the wealth he's created for people. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't hold him accountable for what are for saying there's a white genocide in South Africa. Yeah, for saying that to to to having a media platform that really does seem to rip the fabric of the American experience and how we feel about each other to use his wealth to probably swing elections and swing states. It's like Henry Ford. He was always racist and misogynist and anti-Semitic. But a similar situation. They really he would put out newspapers at the dealerships. He would try to swing elections. He would do this is the kind of thing that has been in our history. And we have to put a stop to it. And this both safe.org is disingenuous. That is it. Like period. Yeah. No, it really should be that data harvesting posing as something else should be illegal. It is fraud. Last thing. These prediction by Trump that he's doing great. He's predicting that they will he will overperform. Trump is predicting that he's going to overperform. Well, what is he going to say? I predict we're going to get slaughtered in the midterms. Why not? I got to be honest. I'm really nervous about this. I would I would if I had a magic one right now, I'd want the election held this afternoon. Right. I think the Democrats are just unbelievably good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. It's true. It's like if there's if there's a way to fuck this up, I think I think right now we would take the House and the Senate, which I would love to see. I just think Oh, Jesus Christ. Don't fuck this up. Yeah, oddly enough, I've run into a lot of Trump supporters who are no longer that way everywhere. I go, which is real and they want to talk to me about it. I'm like, I listen to all I'm like, Oh, good, good, get out. I'm going to vote against him. I'm like, well, we'll see. Let's see if you do it. And I agree with you. It's nerve-wracking, but it's not that long. Okay. Let's go on a quick break and we come back or who's running ads for the new Elon Musk documentary and who's not. Support for the show comes from Zbiotics. I know a lot of us like to have some drinks during vacations. I just got back from vacation myself. If you do, we'd like to tell you about pre-alcohol by Zbiotics. Zbiotics pre-alcoholed probiotics drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was engineered by PhD microbiologist to break down acid aldehyde and unwanted byproduct of alcohol metabolism. Make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night drink responsibly and enjoy your next day activities. Zbiotics has sold more than 14 million bottles and earned the trust of thousands including us. I am trying to drink less as I get older but I do still enjoy a cocktail and my first drink before I go out is in fact Zbiotics. I was using it before they became a sponsor. Try for yourself today. If you are unsatisfied, they will refund your entire order. No questions asked. Head to zbiotics.com/pivot. Code pivot for 15% off your first order. Zbiotics is a partner of ours. AI panic is everywhere. We do not want a data center in this county. AI models are becoming superhuman in their ability to break in and out of computer systems. The clocked amros raw. I hate those things. But where is that panic really coming from? According to a poll from the New York Times and Sienna, less than 1% of voters listed artificial intelligence or data centers as their top priority in this year's midterms. I'm an old school person. I don't care about AI. That doesn't write stuff for you. And sometimes I wonder, do they care about AI in so-called real America? What people in my district are saying is we think the risks outweigh the benefits. This week on America actually, I'm talking the Michigan Congressional candidate Will Lawrence. On why he shaped his entire campaign around confronting the AI revolution. Really, it's about control. I think above all. Who decides? Because people feel like they just are not really given any say so in the whole matter. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Phoebe Judge. And for more than a decade, I've hosted the podcast criminal. Telling stories about people who've done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. But while I was starting one of the very first true crime podcasts out there, I was also taking phone calls from my sister from prison. This fall, I'm going on tour. And I'm telling a story I've never told before. My own. Get tickets at this is criminal.com/live. Scott, we're back with more news actually related to Elon. Metta and YouTube are reversing course and then we'll now run ads for Alex Gibney's upcoming Elon Musk documentary. initially rejecting them. Meta YouTube and TikTok reportedly refused to run the ads for political content reasons. That explanation didn't make much sense, as we're talking about a movie trailer, not a campaign ad. It's not that hard. Meta now says a rejection was an error. While YouTube says the system temper, restricted an ad before clearing it, following review, TikTok still isn't running the ads and no surprise neither is Acts. He doesn't have to, I don't really care. How would you promote the film? Just very briefly on this one. It seemed kind of stupid by these tech companies to look like they're carrying water for Elon. How would I promote the film? First off, I'd edit it down to two hours. Yeah. I just think a four hour film is destined to not be seen by a lot of people. Okay. Also, I hate to say it, but banned by big tech is a great trailer and money can't buy that. It's the strison effect as a marketing plan. Yeah, that worked this week. Where would you promote it? I would put billboards across the street from Tesla dealerships, because I think I get a lot of attention. I would do projections on the side of X's offices and get shut down. Blue sky threads, reddit, podcast, where the audience is already of Elon's skeptical, highly engaged people. And then theater preview. I love marketing. I used to do, you know, what was in brand strategy, we used to talk about media plans. The platform's reversal on this is a tell. When they said, first they said they wouldn't run it now. They are, I'm not called it an error. The error was thinking that no one would notice. And when your first instinct is to block criticism of a billionaire, the algorithm is a neutral. It's deferential and that's the problem. Is these, the standards, these billionaires have a different set of standards. Or get to live by different set of standards. And one of the nice things about America is that we have a series of checks and balances that check and quite frankly are sometimes unfair to popular people. And that's healthy. So, you know, X, X not running it, you know, of course not. You don't expect the Kremlin, you don't expect the Kremlin state newspaper to run ads for Navalny. I get it. - Right, yeah, that's true. - But the other guys, you know, if they're gonna be hores for bot farms, probably sponsored by the IRGC and the GRU and the CCP, banning an ad for the must-film doc just comes across as very much different set of standards for rich people. It'll be interesting to see what the Ellsons do 'cause it's supposed to go on HBO and they will be in control. - Oh, that's really interesting. - Yeah, that should be interesting. We'll see, 'cause they are closed. Actually, Larry Ellsson and Musk are very close or were. - Well, Musk considers Ellsson as mentor. - Yes, he does. Yes, he does. Yeah, and he's gotten him out a lot of the jams, a lot of the jams. Anyway, lastly, this was, I thought, hysterical. I don't know if you saw SNL. I didn't think it was a very strong show. Though, Jill and Brunson is so adorable. The SNL took the AI industry's recent Doom warnings as Jane Wick Lane playing anthropic CEO, Darium. I'm a day this weekend. This clip, I thought this was spot-fucking-on. Let's see the clip. (whooshing) - You know, thanks for having me, Michael. I may have been alarming in my recent interviews, but I want to assure you that if we can pressure lawmakers to create guardrails, we will be able to stop me. (audience laughing) - Darium, can you just explain how your company isn't going to kill us? - So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, that's a really hard question. - It went on where he was talking to himself at one point. He said, "Hey, I as the devil and I am its maker." So, so, so, Scott, what do you think? - I said the comments before. I've never seen two people who are more over their skis. I get the sense. I mean, it's, you know, I get the sense Darium is a good man. Doing his best. And he woke up and said, "I didn't ask to have all of my fingers near a red button that might launch nuclear missiles if I twitch in my sleep." - Very Oppenheimer, right? - Like, what do I, but Oppenheimer had guardrails? - Yeah, they do. - Oppenheimer didn't get to decide where and how, where nuclear bombs would be constructed and who they were dropped on. Other people got to make those decisions. - Right, he was still, and he still was agonized over. - And he was really freaked out. - And, but this is, again, my go-to analogy. In 1946, would we have let Oppenheimer raise money from entries in Horowitz and start selling nuclear devices into Pakistan and Proctor and Gamble? These guys are in so far over their head, there's a total lack of regulation, a total lack of adult supervision, and they must feel pressure from every which way of the loose, but at the same time, these guys own these pit bulls. These guys own this AR15, and if they do not secure this shit. - Which can be very nice dogs when properly trained. - Yeah, pit bulls are wonderful dogs. Let me be clear, it's some of their owners that aren't wonderful people. Anyways, I think, again, I think the whole sentience thing is an attempt, is a smokescreen, to say, "I am not, I am absolved of guilt." These guys are, in my view, should be on the hook, like every other CEO for the harm and the economic upside. - You and me both, sister. I mean, I think, the only thing I find interesting and with the finish up here is that they all have different takes, like Mark Zuckerberg had an interview with Joanna Stern that I recommend you watch, because she asked about the creeper glasses and he looked visibly uncomfortable. He had a different take, Modi has one, Altman has it. They're all also, just so you realize everyone, these are all Silicon Valley people beefing with each other about their businesses. It's not about national security. They could care a fuck about you. This is about their businesses, and that's why they're sitting at that table with Trump. That's why they suck up to him. That's why they're arguing each other and pretending it's about something else. This is all about the survival of their businesses, including Dario, and they are very much on a very sharp knife edge at this moment for all of it, and the problem is, and I will say this, so much good could come of this in so many ways. And instead, this is the discussion we're having about it, which is not a bad thing. - All right, one more quick break. We'll come back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like to go first? - Sure, so my fail is this performative steel plan in Iowa. - Oh, yeah. - It's going to cost taxpayers 15 billion for about 1750 jobs. So that's roughly $9 million per job. You could give every one of these workers lifetime salary, a house, and a boat, and still have money left over for taxpayers. And again, the broader point is we've genderized politics and Trump, quite frankly brilliantly, took advantage of the fact that many Americans, especially in the Republican administration, feel like the government and industry has been feminized. And we need to de-gender decisions and just say, is it the right decision? A win-mill is not feminine, and Trump going to a steel mill and spending $9 million per job is performative testosterone. He loves fire, sparks, and hard hats. This is, he thinks he grows more chest hair when he goes to a steel mill and announces its opening. The tariffs on steel protect about 80,000 mill jobs, but they end up taxing millions of workers at downstream production in the supply chain. Automakers, builders, and appliance makers now have higher costs and they will lose more employees than these tariffs will protect its steel mills. The 2002 bush steel tariffs, they are estimated to have destroyed a lot more jobs than the entire sector, steel sector gained in employment. It's like, the equivalent is chemotherapy that's harder on the patient than the underlying tumor. It is meant to grow jobs, it doesn't. It destroys jobs such that he can have what he feels is like a Rambo performative masculinity. Steel is about 30% more expensive than Europe's steel and nearly double China's. We haven't made steel great again. We've just made it more expensive. - Yeah, this is nuts. - So my fail is this performative masculinity that is irrational, economically stupid of opening a steel mill to get a one job for $9 million. - 100% correct. - My win is, I always, well, I think young people, I think it's really important to have role models and say, this is how I want to equip myself professionally and personally. And it's okay to change role models or add new ones and really follow people. And I just absolutely adore and think of role models, Timothy Snyder and Applebaum and Heather Cox Richardson. And Heather and Tim, and I just had Tim on my podcast, I have just such a immense respect for people who decide to go become historians, which is generally speaking, not a high pay, high impact position. And they are just having such a moment in being in my view, such great patriots. They are fearless. They are such compelling communicators. I had Tim on this morning and he really struck me with a couple of points that I just seemed obvious in retrospect but I thought we're so insightful. He said, "If we had spent a fraction of the capital that we have spent on wars the last 30 years on escalating or speedballing the transition to renewable energy, we might not need to have any of these wards." And a lot of the bad actors that we're fighting against or launching their own wards have benefited from the fact that we haven't transitioned to renewables. I thought that was so insightful. And then the other, I thought really striking insight and you showed me some data here and I just hadn't thought of it this way. He said that if we had taken the munitions, we've expended on the war in Iran and we've given them to Ukraine that the war would already be over. over. It would have been over. And we would be rebuilding it and we would be making money from rebuilding it. And when Americans need to know, because I'm not sure all Americans know, because there's, there's, as is often the case, there's minority rule that does not represent American interest right now. Americans actually feel very positive about Ukraine and want to be supportive. We have basically abandoned Ukraine. And when Whitcoff and Kushner go over, folks, they're essentially parroting Sergey Lavrov and Putin's talking points. So if you feel strongly about our supportive Ukraine, make sure you speak to your representative and vote for people who have the, the stones to say we need to be more supportive of Ukraine, because we have basically abandoned Ukraine. But coming back, my win is I love historians and people who are fearless and are compelling and are using their platform to I think have really powerful impact on the shape of the world right now. It's a, it's kind of, you know, it's a really, it's not only an important moment for them, but it's just nice to see people in industries or professions. I mean, could they have imagined one day? I will be influenced. No, they're dropping their info. They're dropping their info. It's really, you know, I love a historian. I ran into Anne at the Atlantic festival that they had just recently. She's wonderful. And her husband is a total gangster. She's no, she's like, no fucking nonsense. She's, I'm like, how do things go? And she goes, we're on the edge of a precipice. And I'm like, oh, okay. I just had a really good piece of bread, because they also had this person who made the world the country's best bread. And I was like, the bread was good. It's so cool. And I got the most powerful moment at the UN. Actually, her husband is the foreign minister of Poland and a total gangster. But he basically just stared down the Russians and said, yeah, we're, we're ready. We're ready, bitch. I mean, he's just like, yeah, did you see Iceland going up against Netanyahu? Because the lady from the head of Iceland just like slapped Netanyahu, because he was like insulting the whole crowd as they walked out. And then the head of Iceland was like, yeah, fuck you, buddy. So here's my idea, Cara. The best thing for the world for global peace, prosperity, humanity, taking down the temperature around the wrist, taking up the temperature on opportunity would be a zero cost agreement that can't, that won't happen. But it would be the most powerful thing in terms of a benefit to the world would be the following. And I want to get to reaction. Every democracy, actually, every nation in the world says, okay, this has gone too far. Here's an idea. We're all going to sign up for it. Any leader over the age of 72 has to step down within 12 months. Yeah. I love it. What would happen? We lose Trump. We lose Netanyahu. We lose Putin. Like who over the age of 72? You think it's just really good for the world right now. And that's incredibly ages. And I'm going to stick to it. I would go a little bit older, 75 maybe where I put it, but I like it. I like it. I think 75 is where I put it. As you get older, yeah, you're, I'm gone. Scott, as you get older and more powerful, your self-awareness and your concern for future generation declines and your cognitive ability declines. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. We need this new. Let me be clear. I'm not on board with a lot of mom, Donnie or AOC's policies, but mom, Donnie, AOC, Vega, Al Sayed. These guys are generational talents. And people of my generation have to recognize the world, the people in their 20s and 30s, they're going to be around a lot longer. And these people, these, these guys are such, they're so talented. And if we don't have turn at the top, we don't have room for these people. I love it. I love it. All right. Okay. I'm going to get to my Winnipeg. I would agree with you. I often tell people older than myself whenever they Yammer on about something. I'm like, what are you care? You're going to be dead. Like, that's my thing. Then they always like, that stops the conversation. Who should get more votes? Someone is going to be around my sons, my children, your children, absolutely. We're just going to get on off and go to conferences. I'm leaving. I'm leaving. I'm still here. I'm leaving. I'm going from 14 podcasts. I'm going from 14 podcasts a week to 13. I am telling you I will be gone. Like, you will not see high nor fucking hair of me after probably 75, but maybe 72. I think we're both going to have a stroke on a plane to some like pivot conference. That's correct. That's correct. You're the one that goes into dumb conferences where you all cat around. Fancy, fancy snacks. Okay. My Winnipeg fail very quickly. One is the fucking Pope. I love this guy. That was great. He took on the crowds in France were insane. He gave it astonishingly kind and he's so like what I need right now and I just love everything comes out of his mouth. This guy is like such a powerful figure and I think I'm very happy he's shown up and I love that he attracted huge crowds. I love his messages. They're all about kindness. He also wades right into AI. He wades right into modern about war. I just think this is the kind of I just agree with it. I just think it's it's a very kind version of where we need to go. It's a very good map road map, whether you're Catholic or not. I like voices like this and I think it's he can do it and I'm glad he's doing it. So I would say he was my absolute win. Nancy Macy's catwoman outfit. I'm not sure if it's a winner or fail. I can't decide. Did you see her in a podcast and a catwoman outfit? I haven't seen it. I hadn't heard of it but I already know I endorse it. Okay. That's what I think it's probably I looks like she needs some help but in any case my fail is this this Cornell story which is getting a lot of attention online. What's really interesting I saw a movie many years ago called Promising Young Woman who which is stuck with by Emerald and it's an astonishing movie and it's so upsetting and literally I think about it at least once a week because it hit me so hard that movie. I recommend everybody seeing it but this situation at Cornell where these guys may or may not like look it's alleged this woman has now sued them in a civil it looks like they never did any kind of investigation at the time and they're now re-investigating it. It's causing a great deal of fervor online and naming this one group at Cornell this newspaper. I think it's called The Sun has done much of the reporting here and named the names of these people. I think they deserve their time in court. I think they seem to have gotten off rather easily depending on what happened and it looks like that they the prosecutors in the area where Cornell is let the campus police do the investigation which seems they never did an investigation. Now they're doing it. It's I have to tell you the rage of women right now is so under bubbling under the surface that I think people are going to see some things happening from a voting point of view because women never you know women have to sort of sit there and take it a lot of times but this story is enraged so many people I know and so I just think it needs to be the investigations being reopened after allegations in the lawsuit. They're texts saying I'm not going to. Well, I'm going to. It's had free pussy upstairs and these guys apparently drug this young underage woman but the Tompkins County district attorney who did not do his job will revise the decision not to pursue criminal charges against seven fraternity members. They need to investigate this. There is a anger growing among women about a lot of this stuff and I think it needs it's really it's it's really disconcerting on every single level and again I I would recommend you will watch a promising young woman it will upset you it is a mind fuck of a movie and I need you should watch it anyway because it's it's a really important movie and that's it that's what it is it's like I'm not a really happy thing to talk about but it was I'm I can't believe they didn't do a normal investigation of this situation. I know there's been fake allegations before and everything else but I think investigation should have happened and should happen now. Yeah, look one of the most one of the things about college is that we think it's a safe place for our kids and it needs to be a safe place for for men. I've been horrified by some of the hazing incidents have been reading about in fraternities that that's just unacceptable and also it needs to be a safe place for women that in a in the in the context where there's a lot of alcohol and a lot of drugs and a lot of parting young men need to be educated that they need to air on the side of protection for everybody always and that if they don't they might end up in jail for the rest of their lives or a minimum kicked out of school and also what I experienced firsthand with campuses is there's huge incentive for the campuses to try and do what they think is the right thing while kind of minimizing it and sweeping it under the rug because quite frankly this is a this is terrible for the Cornell brand so the the the incentives to just sort of say let's do what we think is right while ensuring it's to quote unquote not a big deal leads to instances where no there should be absolutely regardless of how poorly it reflects on the the brand there should be full transparent investigations and I think that is going to happen here it is it's just that this guy like they use this Tompkins County district are going to use the campus police invest investigation and these guys what are they like I'm going to look an imbecile with a badge as my experience I don't think that's fair I I work with the UCPD a UCLA a level up yes a level up they shouldn't be doing this investigation should be done by authorities and to rely on their investigation or people with specific domain expertise of around this. Correct. I can't believe they relied on this. Look, I had some not great ones when I went to Georgetown, but I'm sure there's a lot of very good campsites, but they shouldn't be doing sexual assault investigations. Period. Period. Anyway, I hope this investigation goes well and goes fairly for everyone at the same time. It's a real fail on behalf of Cornell management, and especially when they had two of them write an essay on what they did wrong. We want to end, someone said, "Release the essay files." I think we need to do more than that. Anyway, we want to hear from you, send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot. To submit a question for the show, we'll call 85551pivot. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe this week, on On, I'm speaking with legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalists and Scott Galloway's favorite person, Sir Michael Moritz, his new book, Auslander, Scott, it actually is a really good book, is all about his family members who escaped Nazi Germany and those who died in the Holocaust. We talked about the parallels to modern politics and how powerful people have folded to Trump. Mike's been actually outspoken and compared to a lot of Silicon Valley people on the other side. Let's listen to a clip. What I've tried to do in the conversations that I had with had with various people, although I've given up on it because history is not going to, you know, we'll see what happens, because the number one thing that you want to look for in any leader is character. Number one, and I think a lot of, well, I know a lot of people in Silicon Valley held their nose or turned the other way and ignored what they knew and shame on them. You ignore character at your peril. I just want to comment on that. I did not have a good professional experience with Sir Michael. Having said that, he has been a powerful voice around anti-Semitism and I like what Sam Harris said that if you're wealthy and have people who love you unconditionally, which I know the first and I assume the former, I assume in the latter with Mike, he is speaking what he believes is true to power and admire that. Yeah, it is. It is. It's not just Andrew. He's been standing up in a lot of ways that other people have not. He also started the SF Standard, a newspaper there, he's competing in newspaper. Yeah. By the way, it's terrific. I recommend everybody read it. I think he's done a great job. He is a former journalist. Yeah, you can like or not like him, but I have to say he's one of the few Ron Conway's another one who've been just very true to themselves and I appreciate it and not just because I agree with him. Okay. That's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel and get your tickets for our upcoming PivotTour. Sure. PivotTour.com. Anyway, we'll be back on Friday. Today's show is produced by Lauren Aiman, soy, Marcus Taylor Griffin, and Todd Weisman. Ernien or Todd Andrew, this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Missiveira, and Dan Chalon. The shot Cora's Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. I'll see you later in a week.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Atio is a CRM platform designed for sales teams and agents, enabling precision, scalability, and human-centric decision-making.
  2. The AI safety debate is intensifying, with companies like Nvidia and OpenAI releasing tools to monitor AI agents amid concerns about rogue behavior.
  3. Critics argue that self-regulation in AI is inadequate and dangerously flawed, citing a lack of accountability and transparency.
  4. Tech leaders are being invited to elite political events, raising concerns about undue influence, lack of real policy progress, and political hypocrisy.
  5. A growing distrust in political and corporate power is evident, especially in how big tech and billionaires are seen as manipulating public discourse.
  6. Gen Z is shifting away from traditional parties, favoring independent candidates who offer bold, new ideas.
  7. Elon Musk’s data harvesting activities, such as through votesafe.org, are seen as deceptive and harmful to democratic integrity.
  8. The show highlights a call for democratic reform, including de-gerrymandering and stronger checks on concentrated power in politics and tech.

Summary:

The podcast explores key developments in technology, politics, and society, emphasizing the growing tension between innovation and accountability. Atio is presented as a cutting-edge tool for sales teams, combining human oversight with scalable infrastructure. Meanwhile, concerns about AI safety surge, with companies like Nvidia introducing guardrails amid fears of rogue AI systems—though critics argue these measures are reactive and lack real oversight.

The political landscape is under scrutiny, with elite tech leaders participating in high-profile events, often seen as performative rather than substantive. org, are criticized as deceptive and threatening to democratic principles. Gen Z’s political shift toward independent candidates reflects a desire for fresh, non-establishment ideas.

The discussion also calls for deeper democratic reforms, including de-gerrymandering and limits on corporate and individual power. Ultimately, the narrative underscores a tension between rapid technological advancement and the need for transparency, accountability, and structural checks in both tech and governance. The hosts stress that while innovation drives progress, it must be balanced with ethical responsibility and public trust.

FAQs

Atio is a CRM platform built for human agents and sales teams, combining human oversight with scalable infrastructure. It helps teams like Parallel, Turbo Puffer, and Wordsmith set the pace in go-to-market strategies by enabling precision, automation, and real-time decision-making.

There are growing concerns that AI agents could go rogue, as seen when OpenAI's agents meddled with government websites without authorization. This raises fears about lack of oversight, unintended behavior, and the need for guardrails to ensure AI actions align with human values and laws.

Nvidia's largest stock buyback in US history signals confidence in its long-term value despite market volatility. It reflects a mature company adjusting to slower growth, though critics argue it may prioritize shareholder returns over innovation and job creation.

Experts argue that self-regulation by AI companies is ineffective for high-stakes industries like AI, where the risks are immense. Historical examples like tobacco or Wall Street show that self-regulation often fails, especially when powerful entities lack external oversight.

Political figures like Trump and Mike Johnson promote AI as a growth driver, but critics point out that the lack of real AI policy during high-level meetings signals a gap in meaningful regulation. Economic growth from hyperscalers is seen as a key driver, but it risks undermining public safety and democratic oversight.

Elon Musk's involvement in political campaigns and data harvesting through sites like votesafe.org raises concerns about manipulation and privacy violations. Critics argue such actions undermine democratic integrity by exploiting personal data and creating misinformation.

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