SpaceX IPO: Markets, Morals, and What It Means for You

By the way, she's sliding to my DMs faster than she's sliding to your DMs. That is correct. That is 100% correct. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott the Nick. Stevie Nicks. Taylor Swift brought back balance to the universe. What? What are you talking about? Were you out like late drinking? You didn't know what happened last night? Yeah, exactly. Were you there? And it doesn't feel late. I'm out of four in the morning, and it's still light here. I'm in Stockholm. Oh, the Nick. I'm talking about the New York Knicks. Oh, yeah, yeah. I heard about that. It's something about a comeback. It's something about the greatest comeback in history. It was like 20s. I'm not even interested in sports. And I watched the fuck out of that. Larger Castell Swift was in the front row with Mariska Harder. Yeah, you know, the-- Harder to tell you. Yeah, Harder to tell you. Yeah, Harder to tell you, the Benson, and they were hugging all the time. I'm wearing adorable t-shirts, like Stevie Nicks and Nickel, and Nickelback. And so let me just say that was quite a game. And it was quite a shift. What they were down quite a bit. Yeah. And at the last minutes, I was like, oh, they can't win. I looked away. I was folding laundry and stuff. And then they came back. And then they got ahead. And then they got behind. And then the last like 30 seconds, this guy tipped a ball into the thing. And it was crazy. Tipped a ball into the thing. Into the past. It was crazy. And then Taylor Swift was there. The whole thing. There were a lot of celebrities. But let me just say-- That's great for you. --Sport Center, starting Kara Swisher. There you go. There you go. It was so good. And then the parties people watching on the street. Amazing. Just amazing. I love New York. I love New York. So I was-- I was going to stay-- go to the next game, go to Tribeca Film Festival. I had the greatest-- a bunch of meetings. I had the greatest three days planned in New York. And then I freaked out about not seeing my boys fly home. I walk in the door expecting a hero's reception. And I got, do you ever go into these? They saw me. I walked in and they went like this. They went, like, just a little bit of a nod, a little bit of a head tilt. Like, hey, bro. Not even a hey bro, just like a non-verbal hey bro. And I thought, no. And at that moment I thought, I should be at the next game. What did I do? What did I do coming home? I don't need to be rude, but I never get that. My set, in fact, I didn't even mark Mary at the film festival. Yeah, everyone says their kids are great. I'm like, my kids are great. No, I get a big-- I came in from a week away. I was in New York doing all manner of nonsense. I came home and they ran up and we had big hugs and they lay all over me and they laughed and laughed. And Alex is like, come see me. I'm going to Australia with Louie. No, we're tight as ticks. Yeah, that's not happening at the Jell-O else. Hold on. I even got a letter. So Clara wrote me a letter. She's starting to write. That's nice. About missing me. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Did you know Sweden has not been a war for 200 years? Oh. I think that's why the city-- Who would war with Sweden? That's why the city is so beautiful. It really helps. You don't have the largest wealth destruction in history. I mean, get this in Sweden, the GDP. In World War II, the GDP of Sweden grew. Oh, wow. But they switched her lending in? Yeah, they were basically they were basically trading and making money while everyone else was killing each other. Lovely. What about War One? They weren't involved in that. They have not been in a war for 200 years. So what time is it there? Because it's really bright. Is it like a million o'clock? No, it's it's almost midday. It's 5, 10 p.m. I'm not exaggerating. It's light out until 4 a.m. Yeah, it's 3 a.m. And then it gets like kind of dark-ish, right? Yeah, it never really gets dark. It feels like it's dusk or dawn from like 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. I think I did not like that when I was there. So how is it going? How's it going with the Swedes? It's good. I'm at this thing called Brilliant Minds. Yeah, I told you I'd been there. And yeah, I've never been. It's my first one. For me, it's about Stockholm. I've been walking around a lot. It's really nice. There's a lot of reindeer. I had not known that. Although I had that literally the toughest meat in the world I had last night. I needed a chainsaw. Maybe it was reindeer. Could have been reindeer. Yeah. Yeah. No. And Sweden, they were the first country in the world to have a negative central bank interest rate where you had to pay money for them to hold on to your money. Well, I'm glad you're there. But let me just like to back to tell us very quickly. Here we go. She brought balance to the universe along with these ladies. They were dancing. They were being fans. They were and and what was my favorite part of many of the parts of it. Like there's so many was that the guy that Scooter Braun was sitting with his girlfriend, Sydney Swini, way back behind her, who stole all her song. Well, she he bought them and he he fucked with her. And she was sitting down front and having the time of her fucking life. But it was kind of an interesting karma thing, right? That he was there. He falls asleep. He looks totally uninterested in the game. They lose. She's their court side scream in her ass off, like a normal fan. And she's gone to Nick's games for years and years and and they went and they went in a clutch and they come back. It just felt right. Yeah. If karma is a real thing, it means that Scooter Braun is has been the nicest person in the world up until now. I don't care about any of this except who's sleeping with Sydney Swini. Well, he is. I think they're good. Yeah. That's what anyway. We have a lot to get to today. As we tape on Thursday, SpaceX is less than 24 hours out from its stock market debut. And we've got a special guest here to help us break it down. Let's bring in Stephanie rule anchor of the new MS now show money. Power politics at nine AM. She's moving from nighttime, the dark of nighttime on MS now to morning. Welcome, Stephanie. Thank you so much for having me. The company is set its price at $135 a share of valuing the company at 1.77 trillion. SpaceX IPO will likely make Elon Musk the first trillionaire in the world ever and make over 4,000 current and former SpaceX employees millionaires. But if all of the IPO isn't enough to keep Elon Musk busy is taking X to involve himself in a very terrible anti immigration riots in Northern Ireland saying only by protesting repeatedly. And now they would be any change. He's supporting a lot of really whore heinous people there in response to criticism about his support must posted. Murderous migrants beheading innocent people in their hometown is what's making people angry not social media. So he's making like terrible trouble. And the British government has responded quite a bit to his involvement. He's been meddling over there for quite a while now. So first let's talk about the IPO. Scott has had really great analysis of it. And a lot of people like Oswath and why you and others are like this is his price is ridiculous. And at the same time, it'll probably jump up and then jump down essentially. So let give us your headline of the SpaceX IPO. People who are in who are buying who are investing. People who are participating in the IPO. They're not buying SpaceX. You're betting on Elon Musk. You are buying Elon Musk. The amount of control he has over this company is unprecedented. And I'm not saying people showed or they shouldn't. But that's who they're betting on. And it's extraordinary to me because even think about what you just mentioned with where he's taken to X and with regard to the protests in Ireland. We haven't heard one word from the underwriters of like, are we okay with this? Do you remember it was five or six years ago when it sort of like at the height of me too when Goldman had the big proclamation of like, we're only going to be doing deals with companies that have a commitment to diversity. And I'm like, do we not have one shred of a moral compass here? And the answer is that we don't. No one is mentioning this. And when you think about how wealthy he's about to become. And I'm not insulting it or compliment. I'm just saying, I just want people to realize this is a person who directly impacts what's happening in a war by pulling Starlink. This is a person who wants to control information. So he buys a social media platform. This is a person who realized through Donald Trump, he can invest in candidates. And by investing in candidates, get whatever he wants. Like the reason I think we're now going, we are seeing an unprecedented amount of money going into these elections is because Elon Musk and Donald Trump prove that it works, right? You're not just getting a little bit of influence. One fifth of SpaceX's revenue. It says it right in the perspective comes from government contracts. And so we could all say, this is hanky. This isn't how capitalism works. This isn't how democracy should work or free markets. But for the investment community is saying, in my opinion, if you can't beat him, join him. I'm here for the, I'm here for the money. Here for the Joe Scott. I like Stephanie's say that it's the boring stuff that moves in me. Sorry, what'd you say? I can hear you. I like stuff. I like my good friend, Stephanie's take. And by the way, slipping in my DMs, if you ever decide that, you know, you've had it, you just, you've just had it. You know how to reach me. Anyway, sorry. Where are we going? Slide into my DMs. Slide into my DMs. By the way, she's sliding to my DMs faster than she's like. That is correct. That's true. That's true of most of our guests. Yes. Yes. Yes. Anyway. Move along and take her serious thoughts and her deep thoughts on the situation with Musk. The thing that's not getting enough reporting is that essentially must ability to lean on Trump who then called Pollack. and said make the wave all previous rules and include this company in the NASDAQ 100 is gonna create 30 to $50 billion in additional demand for a company with a float of 100 billion. So to use an analogy, imagine on any given week, there's 100,000 people looking for homes in San Francisco and that creates a certain price discovery and certain pricing browsing. Imagine if all of a sudden, same number of houses were sailed, there's 150,000 buyers. So when you look at the incremental demand of 30 to $50 billion is what I've calculated from things like QQQ and MSCI indices that are now forced to buy a company that might be 4% to 6% of the index, meaning that 4% to 6% of their capital and management has to be used to buy SpaceX stock, despite the fact, again, in a violation of preexisting rules that has been waived, only has 5% of its float out. You have what is, in my opinion, the greatest degree of manufactured scarcity ever in an IPO and this is about to be the greatest transfer of wealth from retail investors since crypto. - 100% and Cara, just add into that, what you originally said about who Elon Musk is, like go back to Ireland, like we're not just making a person, a company, this extraordinarily powerful, it's this person, this who he is, what he's done, what he stands for, that's sort of the thing that I want to sort of underline and highlight. - Doge, he just skated around Doge, he skated around, and this will give him an ability to skate around everything, right? - Yeah, let's go up and down, right? 'Cause he's not always been, he wasn't successful in Wisconsin, for example. His brand has gone to hell, nobody's buying Teslas. There are implications, but this gives him another life, sort of a Lex Luthor, just got another, the cat got another life, essentially. - Yes, there's implications, but when you think about the stronghold that they have over the government, think about the amount of government contracts, when you say even if things go down, like once you are embedded in the government with these government contracts, it's like a tick biting you, right? Like you don't just get a tick bite and pull it out, the tick bites, all the tentacles pop out, and it doesn't come back out. So when people even say listen, when we have a different administration and they see things differently, a lot of these things are gonna pull back out. Once you're this entangled in the government, it doesn't work that way, he's in. - Well, what if the Democrats get in, is he in? There certainly, you know, Elizabeth Warren is, of course, as always, speaking up. She's like, look, this is not a good thing to, she's gonna hurt retirees, that's one of her things. She has a number of them. You have Bernie Sanders wanting a chunk of companies like his, another, like an open AI or whatever. - Do I think things are gonna change? How many years have we talked about closing the Carried Interest Loophole? How many years have we talked about banning, or limiting, or adjusting congressional stock trading? For a zillion years, how many years have we talked about social media regulation and when Democrats had control? Sure, but I just think once you're embedded in the government, look at the case of Michael Dell, okay? Michael Dell, glad he did donate $6 billion to the Trump baby accounts, super duper. Trump then says, everybody should go out there and buy a Dell, the stock goes on, Trump buys the stock, and then Michael Dell gets a nine and a half billion dollar of government contract. I'll bet my bottom dollar that come December if Democrats take control, I don't think that government contract's getting canceled, do you? - No, no, no, but is there any price to pay for this kind of stuff? - Well, there should be a price to pay because Democrats should be focused on two things as it relates to the midterms, affordability and accountability. If those are the two things that they can nail a message and a plan for, then they actually have a chance to take control here. - So what is gonna happen with this IPO? - How does it go? You've been, you worked in this sector. Scott's talked, he thinks it's gonna be a pop, then down and then a trough, you've seen all these charts, then a trough for a while, and then it'll start to go up. So that people say, buy at the trough. - Listen, there's so much excitement, there's so much enthusiasm. I mean, I just saw something the other day with Jamie Dimon talking this up and they're not even the lead under-rate around this, like there's just, and listen, there's just so many people who are like, Elon Musk, the guy who controls the world, I don't know, let's bet on him, like people just want in. And especially as you can take, remember, when at the height of COVID, when the control Elon Musk had the time, like how he basically created meme stocks, right? Elon Musk, we're taking it to the moon and people were all in. And I think nerds like us are reading all 22,000 words of a prospectus, but there's scores of people out there who are just like, I just want in, even if it's for a minute. - Now Scott, can you know, you had noticed a vibe ship though, right? It feels, and then another friend of mine said, they got a call from their broker to get into it now, which is, they thought was a bad sign. It's like, it wasn't an email, and they were way down on the list. Scott was talking, Scott explained your feeling that the vibe is off. - I think there's just been a tangible shift in vibe against AI. AI has gone from 75% approval to 25%. And I do think that there's some wobbliness in the markets about maybe the economics that the technology will survive, but the valuations may not. Having said that, SpaceX is, I mean, Stephanie's right. There's just a lot of people, this is a cult, not a company that will invest in anything that Musk puts forward. And to be fair, even companies that made no sense from the bottoms of valuation standpoint, he's still figured out a way to show return to those investors who were willing to hold on to a mediocre automobile company that was trading like a software stock. So a lot of people think that the decline in Bitcoin price is because people that same kind of person is selling their Bitcoin to be in this company. But basically what you have, just to remind everybody, you have a great company with great mulch that's a rocket company. The company that makes all the money is basically Comcast and Space, it's Starlink. And then you have this ridiculous money furnace attached to it called X AI, and it's going out at 100 times revenues. But right now, just back to the prediction care, I'm not convinced it's not only going to pop out of the gates, it'll close first day up, because I think some of the brightest minds in the history of finance with government control and the SEC on board have created a way to just pull off so much manufactured scarcity. You're not allowed to go public unless you issue at least 10% of the firm shares. They got a waiver to say only 5%. So just look at it this way. Demand is the velocity of the water coming out of the hose. Supply, if you can constrict supply, you constrict the circumference of the nozzle. They are constricting the nozzle such that the velocity of the price here is going to be extreme to the upside. Because they're creating, they're creating false market. And Cara, professional investors know this. So while Scott can be telling all of this as a warning or a problem and we should be concerned about it, even if professional investors fundamentally agree with Scott and I'm sure they do, they're also saying, yeah, but guess what? It means the stock is going to go up, right? - So open to my order. - Yeah. - Buying a stock doesn't mean you're buying a house and you're locked into it for the next four years. And remember when Trump won and Doge was created, all three of us and scores of other people called Elon Musk a shadow president. And while he might not be sleeping on Stephen Miller's couch anymore and going into government agencies with a chainsaw, he still has an enormous, maybe even more influence over the government. We just don't see him walking into the oval office with his son on his shoulders and people know that. And when he's got that much influence over the government or I'm not gonna go as far as to say Trump in his pocket, but Trump at least on his shoulder, that for many people, while it might not be the right thing morally is going to be the right thing financially and that's what the markets are about. - Okay, let's listen to one more spacex question we got from a listener, Holly. - What do you think about collective divestment of funds that automatically include spacex stock? Would that sufficiently communicate that a lot of people are not okay with the changes that allowed this to happen? - Hershey Stephanie in the new Scott. - Yes, it would make a difference. Listen, any sort of economic boycott, and we've all talked about that for a minute, the only place you hit 'em where it hurts is an economic boycott, like you can have the worst stories, you can have the worst headlines, you can drag all these guys to DC and have a hearing or Katie Porter pulls out a whiteboard and says you're naughty, naughty, naughty. They don't care. They got on their plane and they go home. But if they're, when and if there are significant economic boycotts, then they have no choice but to respond. I just don't know if we're ever going to see something like that, right? When we talk so much about, you know, Bezos and Amazon, and as people are saying, like, I hate it or I hate those social media companies, they're saying it while they're scrolling through Instagram and then ordering Amazon packages. - Scott. - People will opt for their economic security. And if they think they can get 10 or 20%, you know, one or two hour trade, they know this is overvalued. They know that the game is being rigged here and they will take the allocation to get their 10 or 20%. No one says it a funeral. You know, this guy didn't participate in the SpaceX IPO 'cause he had real integrity. - Right, that's true. Well, they'll say that at mine. OpenA is filed for an IPO. The company has not yet decided on timing, saying in a statement, maybe a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier for a private company. I don't know what that is. Like, what, orgies? I don't know. OpenA has last. - No, no. Even in their defense, there's a lot you have to do. Explain account for when you go public. It's not easy. [BLANK_AUDIO] And it was last valued at $852 billion if I think comes shortly after rival anthropics. Which of the three are you betting on and how worried you about the concentration of so much market value in just a few companies does the does it make the entire Scott has been talking about how the entire market is fragile. The entire market is fragile and I think the name of the game for all of them honestly is to be you don't want to be the last one to IPO right there is this huge appetite for AI every so excited but there's so much and there's potentially so much over development I think you just don't want to of all of them you just don't want to be the last one you when you've exhausted the market and it's already exhausted. No one is rooting for this IPO more than Elon Musk other than Sam Altman. This sets the tone for the next couple IPOs if this comes out really strong these guys are going to be able to come out and say look at our numbers versus SpaceX and you were willing to buy in at a hundred times open a high and anthropic are going to look like value stocks compared to SpaceX of SpaceX holds up. Yeah. Yeah. If it holds up if there's enough money. And in the case of open AI and anthropic especially as it relates to a retail investor those are companies that people actually could say they know and they see more than they do SpaceX. That's a good point. All right. One last thing inflation was up 4.2% annually in May the highest in three years much of the surge came from the increase in oil prices obviously which are within 35% in the month since us and Israel attacked Iran but fear not President Trump is feeling optimistic about the situation. He likes it. Let's listen to a clip. Well you can serve as your president about the latest inflation number which came out this morning. Could that be it? No. I love it. I love the inflation. Okay. How? How much does he love inflation? Both of you first you Stephanie how much would it rise before he started to not love it so much? Well two things like as somebody who spent his life deeply in debt I guess he could say yes the inflation works for me if you put it in full context or when he tried to do a cleanup later he's basically saying inflation is not bad think about where it could have been right people thought oil was going to be $200 a barrel. Oh okay. But the fact of the matter is and he said just this week like listen gas prices were really high when Biden was in office which was the case when Russia first invaded Ukraine but guess what those high prices and inflation I would say were the fundamental reasons why Joe Biden and subsequently Kamala Harris didn't win the election. Donald Trump promised to lower prices day one he obviously hasn't done that. I think when he talks about affordability being nonsense or an old fashioned term I think he's selling the truth because he is in a gilded cage surrounded by people who have made who are already super wealthy and they've made more money in the last two years than is even conceivable but where it's politically devastating and not necessarily for him because he doesn't need to be president again but for every Republican running that sound bite of the president saying inflation is great that hurts you and I both have mothers that voted for Donald Trump and I assure you she my mother does not think inflation is great and she could tell you the price of London broil and the price of gas today this will hurt Republicans. They let a broil because like that's that's an old country box would you like some London broil Scott well people don't 4.2 percent doesn't sound like a lot what you need to do is quick math for people in terms of compounding and that is at 4.2 percent if that holds that means the tuition to go to NYU at $62,000 if you have a baby today when the baby's when the kid is ready for college tuition is now $125,000 or bring it back just five years it's easier for people to wrap their heads around that means a car that costs $50,000 is going to cost $61,000 it's not 4.2 it's 4.2 compounding and the other thing about this inflation print that's so bad is for the first time in several years inflation is now greater than wages meaning the quality of everyone's life their prosperity is diminished. But not for Trump and the people who are around Trump and he's happy as a clam in that bubble I think if it wasn't for the war in Iran he would be on cloud nine. And also it just bears mentioning that for the three of us it really doesn't matter because we own stocks we own assets we're we're hedged against inflation because our house goes up 4.2 percent our stock square 4.2 percent because Apple will raise its prices who this hurts our earners that don't have assets yet so and and let's be clear revolutions don't start because people are unemployed they start because people are working to jobs and are still hungry and this is yet again it's another it's another there's still Argentina's had 120 percent of inflation there's a class of people there that have always stayed wealthy because they own land so the land owners and the stock owners traditionally older people in the United States are just fine inflation is yet again another transfer of wealth from non asset owners who are earners to the asset owners. Let me just say when people say when wealthy people say they're panicked stricken over Zora Mamdani coming for capitalism and and and and and leading the eat the rich sentiment. He's not leading the eat the rich sentiment Donald Trump saying I like inflation is fueling the eat the rich sentiment not the mayor of New York correct and and the and the tech bros saying all manner of nonsense every day of the week and twice on Sunday is the same thing it's anger it's anger inducing and that's where you feel it I think prediction on which of the IPOs coming or is the stock market about to take a deep fall as many people think so which of the of all the IPOs which one would you buy into and are you worried about the stock market. Listen I've been saying I've been worried about the stock market for quite some time and if you talk to CEOs that are not the magnificent seven or that run companies that are impacted by tariffs or mass deportation those companies are not booming they are struggling they can't walk into the White House and offer Donald Trump a plane or not only knows what there it's not so easy for them so I think under the hood things aren't great for lots of companies but honestly I can I'm not betting against the stock market because the only way it's been going is up and a current appetite for AI to me it might be fragile but it's big it's big all right in which one would you buy it's on a plate in front of if I was hanging my morals out the window I'd buy all of them no all right then there you go all right thank you Stephanie and everyone be sure to watch her new MS now show I'm going to yell at money power politics weekdays at nine a.m. she's going to be getting up early to give us the the lowdown on everything tell us what with this move is about what is the situation with MPP I think we need a great big morning show I think that especially obviously we cover politics we cover current events but the economy is the number one thing that people vote on tomorrow as we talk about the SpaceX IPO we're going to have a newly minted trillionaire we are 16 years out from citizens united and have more money going into politics than ever and not just politics because hey I'd like this candidate politics because it's directly impacting policy not to mention the gargantuan grift and corruption under our nose right now I couldn't cover all that in one hour I thought it was important that we covered it in and we covered it in the morning four two hours in a way that we're sort of setting the tone for what we cover here because it's not just about following Trump and the crazy thing he's saying today we're fundamentally changing potentially the way our economy works the way capitalism works and I think we need to cover it in a comprehensive way and you guys know this as well as I do the way that business news has traditionally been covered it's business news covered for an audience that invests in the markets and when CEOs go on TV they're not necessarily giving their world view they're talking about specific information about their companies that's going to impact their earnings report and their stock performance that day we need to have much bigger and broader conversations than that and that's what we're hoping to do at nine in the morning two so you're on after morning Joe so morning Joe 30 years on for a long time about politics mostly so you're going to come in with a real hard hard nose show in the morning essential yes but also I mean yes at nine in the morning but I also think and you guys know this I actually just talked about this in an interview the other day I think that when people watch TV yes people watch live TV but it's more you watch the show that you want to watch and if you make an important show that matters it doesn't actually if you say if landman is your favorite show or friends and neighbors and I said to you what time is it on what day you might say like oh I think it comes out on Fridays yeah yeah yeah for me the most important thing isn't who's necessarily watching me at nine it's how do we make the best show that counts because that's what people are going to want need to say think about the way pivot think about the way people consume pivot yeah yeah usually when they're drunk but no no no morning running not just Scott not just Scott by the way Stephanie you I don't know if you this is very much related what you're talking about we're talking about Taylor Swift and I don't know if you guys heard but all of her X's are getting together and collaborating on an album and it's going to be called maybe she's the problem oh my god she saved the next don't don't don't listen to Stephanie appreciates don't answer the question Stephanie appreciates that by the way just I let's divert from the news when Stephanie calls me yeah I'm both excited and scared because typically her call star with typically here's the not exactly her call star with I think you're really fucking up or I'm worried about you when ever she calls I'm like uh-oh this is going to be very good a very good okay you know what that's called a person who doesn't wait's time who's an actual friend I call Scott no you're Scott on a personal issue the other day and when I started the call, I said, let me get to somewhere private and he immediately said, oh, no, are you getting a divorce? Oh my God. All right. No, I didn't. That's why I said wait till the kids are gone, wait till the kids are out of the house. I was calling Scott for some parenting. I was calling for actual parenting advice from Scott, which he is fantastic at when it comes to boys. And his immediate response before I just said, let me get to somewhere where no one else in the family could hear me, wait till the kids are out of the house with his response. Thanks Scott. Oh, okay. And then he proceeded to give me incredible advice. No, I just say, I have two fine sons. You might. Yes, we've heard over and over and over. Yes, one of them is quite good at cooking if you didn't. Yes, he's working for a restaurant now. Here we go. San Francisco, he's very excited. He has a little outfit. The other is at Michigan. He's wonderful. He's got a fantastic girlfriend. No, he's got, no, he's got a fantastic, he loves his job. He's manufacturing things in an advanced way. All right. Thank you, Stephanie. Thanks, Stephanie. Good to see you. Thank you all so, so much. I love you both. Scott, I'll slide into your DMs later. Anyway, let's go on a quick break when we come back. The Trump Administration's freak out over Jeffrey Epstein. Support for the show comes from Upwork in a world where AI is changing every role in every industry, knowing who actually has deep expertise matters more than ever. That's why Upwork connects you with highly skilled freelance professionals with proven track records so you can hire it with confidence. Upwork is a one-stop platform to find higher and pay expert freelancers across more than 125 categories. Find talent and start filling those skills gaps, launch projects faster, and scale support up or down without committing to full-time headcount. You can browse profiles, review people's past work, and get help, scoping the role. They are confidently while sticking to your timeline. 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Even though summer is your license to chill, AG1 helps you keep one thing consistent. High-quality nutritional support every single day, no matter where you start in the morning. I actually use AG1 a lot. I have smoothies every morning with kefir or yogurt, or then I mix it in with fruit and different things like that and make a nice smoothie. I really enjoy using it. I think it tastes good. I also sometimes add in kale and all kinds of things. It actually reminds me if I don't have enough in there to have those things in there. So, if you're looking to make some changes with the fall approaching, AG1 can help you make and stick to them. Visit drinkag1.com/pivot and get a free AG1 flavor sampler and a free bottle of vitamin D3 and T2, which I also use this morning in your welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription order. That's drinkag1.com/pivot. You feel about Gen Z. It's undeniable that they're changing national politics. Generations 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 socialists. That is just not the case. 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 Jamfaza 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 podcast. Scott we're back. The Trump administration cannot escape the assassin files nor should they be able to no matter how hard they try and we're now getting more details about the internal panic about Epstein over the last year. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan shared an excerpt from their upcoming book Regime Change with the New York Times. Both are New York Times writers by the way. Here are some highlights. The situation room became an Epstein war room where strategy meetings took place. JD Vance suggested having Tucker Carlson and Julaine Maxwell in prison. There was talk of then deputy AG Todd Blanche going on Joe Rogan but Vance wanted to go on instead of Blanche. Dan Bungino warned. There would be a president. This would be president Trump's Iran Contra. There was talk of nipples and president Trump's disrespect for nipples in the room and it's funny as that sounds. It was pretty grotesque on his abuse of a young woman. But this is what this is what this entire leadership is talking about is whether and whether he'll be able to handle the nipple stuff getting out. It's not just the White House and has nothing to do with nipples here. Bill Gates was on Capitol Hill this week testifying behind closed doors about his connection Epstein Gates said Epstein tried to use information about his extramarital affairs as leverage after the two had cut ties. Well, obviously he did. He's an evil villain. He also acknowledged that meeting with Epstein was a grave air in judgment which he said before and put his philanthropy work at risk and it certainly did including his own reputation. Talk a little bit about what didn't even surprise you about how the White House dealt with the Epstein stuff. They sound like fucking amateurs every time he's reading and I was like, what a bunch of amateurs. Big fights between Bungino and Patel and Bondy and Susie Wiles just sitting over like a demented mother who doesn't know how to control idiot children. Will this be a major issue in terms and I will say as you know, I was very much an early on saying this is a real problem. Reuters is out with a new poll 75% of people think the government is hiding information on Epstein's clients and a lot of it is falling as much as Trump just tried to push it off on other people on the president himself. So I think we agree that it should be an issue. I don't think it will be. There's recent data showing there's these March focus groups ranked Epstein six amongst voter concerns ahead. You know, so it's well in the back of the bus here. I think it is, again, unfortunately I just don't think it's that big issue. I think I think the American public is so numb to this kind of stuff, especially in the Trump administration. What I would actually found more interesting was the whole Gates testimony. So when you call someone to come testifying from a special committee or whoever testified, you have some saying it. They made, they got it behind closed doors and they got it during the NBA finals, during Iran, during the SpaceX IPO. This is the bit, this is what you do. You know this business better than I do. When you have shitty news, you bury it on a big news day, right? During a very, very heavy business news week, this story is going to come and go. Well, I still think it's a, I'm going to disagree with you because I think I was actually completely accurate at the beginning of the Epstein thing that it's a big deal. I think among the base of people, it remains an illuminating and a thing that gets them going. I don't think it goes away. And what was interesting was Dan Bungino during this whole thing kept seeing that to the Trump people, but this is not a, they kept minimizing it saying it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It was a big fucking deal. And this is something I knew from reading all these QAnon boards. This is at the center. I think it's still at center. I think it creates an atmosphere among people like Rogan and others of these fucking liars. And I think Iran's a bigger deal for them than absolutely. It is now, but I'm saying it does, this is like one more, you know, another brick in the wall, like that kind of thing. And so I think Epstein remains a bearing wall of this presidency. And he cannot get away from it. I get the nipple thing and everything else. And it's much so I think he's kind of like an oath. Dan Bungino had it right. And so by the way, did Vance, although Wiles was sort of accusing of being a conspiracy theorist, but I think Vance had his finger on the pulse of bringing it out, like as much as possible, even if it hurt the president slightly, because the transparency was more important than what's in it. Unless, of course, there's very clear and incovertible evidence that he slept with it with an underage girl, which it's still not proven. There's been a lot of allegations of it, certainly. So I think it's still there. I think it sits there like mold. It just sits there and it sits in the minds of a lot of people like Masi. And even though he's zeroed them, he has not zeroed them. I don't think by any means. And I think Vance knows it. And Bungino certainly knows it with Gates. Look, you're right. This was a good time to do his, and he kept going, I'm here voluntarily. Did you see that? Which was kind of interesting. I think this has hurt his reputation. Oh, yeah. No doubt for a long, long, long time. I think he is, this is, he is going to suffer. This is going to, he has done some amazing works. I think his wife is looking, his ex wife is looking fantastic with all this different financial things. She's putting out and handling her image quite well throughout this whole thing. But I think he is permanently harnished. And I'm not sure how any conversation he has going forward does not include this topic. So I think he has done enormous damage to himself by affiliate himself with Epstein and it was a graveyard in judgments and it did put his philanthropy at work. So I think it's there. I think it's still there. All right. Let's go on a quick break. We come back. Paramount lashes out against Netflix. Support for the show comes from hymns. If weight loss has felt like a losing battle now could be your chance to change it. Skip the guesswork and try weight loss by hymns, an affordable range of FDA-approved GLP1 medications including the wogovi pill and the wogovi pen. With wogovi at hymns, they say you can lose up to 20% of your body weight when combined with diet and exercise. It helps you regulate your appetite, eat less and keep weight off. Plus wogovi is the first ever GLP1 pill for weight loss so there are no needles involved. Through hymns, everything happens online. You'll connect with a licensed provider who will determine if treatment is right for you. If prescribed, your medication is delivered right to your door. No insurance necessary. Ready to reach your goals? Visit hymns.com/pivot to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you. Spelt hymns.com/pivot, hymns.com/pivot. Weight loss by hymns is not available in all 50 states. Wogovi is a registered trademark of NOVO Nordisk AS. To get started and learn more including important safety information, wogovi clinical study information and restrictions, visit hymns.com. Sean Rahmus from today explained from Vox like many of you I lived through 9/11. My memories of that day are of horror and shock and devastation, which is why I think 25 years later it's so surprising that my feeds are filled with 9/11 memes that are ironic, irreverent and surely insensitive. Think pasta stacked up to look like the twin towers with M&M in the background and a caption that reads never forgety mom spaghetti. Some of you surely know what I'm talking about and some of you surely don't. So on the show we're going to try and get everyone on the same page. Please consider this a trigger warning. Bear with us as we try to understand how jokes about the worst attacks in our country's history have helped a lot of young people deal with it and avoid it. How 9/11 became a meme? Maybe the most popular meme online. Support for the show comes from Quince. Is there something your closet you can't wait to bring back into rotation every year? Maybe it's the jacket you throw on for just about anything, the boots that fit perfectly, or the scarf that instantly makes an outfit feel put together. Those are the reliable pieces you come back to season after season. They're exactly what Quince does best. Quince makes premium essentials for any season using high quality materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and washable silk. The designs are timeless, expertly craft and made to be worn again and again. And all of their items are priced 50-80% less than similar brands. Plus they work directly with top factories cutting out the middlemen. That way, you're only paying for exceptional quality and not brand markup. I just got Quince sheets of all things and I was surprised I love them. They're incredibly well priced. They're so soft, they're well done. I didn't have to wash them. They didn't feel scratchy in any way and they were quite beautiful. I also have this cardigan that I'm ready to wear for the fall when it stops being 90 degrees here in Washington, DC. And I'm looking forward to buying other things from Quince for the fall. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com/piddit. Get free shipping with your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash pivot. Scott, we're back with more news in this endless fucking merger. Paramount is accusing Netflix of waging a scorched earth campaign to kill its 110 billion dollar deal with Warner Brothers and a letter to the DOJ Paramount's chief legal officer, Macindale Raheem, says Netflix is trying to quote poison regulators and other stakeholders against the merger. Oh, come on, Macind. I know Macind. Of course they are. Netflix is calling the claims absurd. It's not the only thing Paramount is doing to get the deal across the finish line. The company reportedly submitted a list of concessions to head off antitrust lawsuit by Californians several of their states. That'll include New York and possibly Massachusetts. I'm hearing recently actually. I've gotten notes from people in Hollywood saying this thing is a little shaker than it looks. I'm not so sure about that, but I'm surprised I'm getting them. The EU is also currently reviewing the merger in light of the backing of those Middle Eastern wealth funds, thoughts, anywhere? Of all the media CEOs, the one I know best, which isn't very well, is Ted surround us and any campaign to try and undermine to undermine this would have to have Ted's blessing. And this just isn't Ted's style. He's not- He's just going to wait and buy it when they fuck it up. They're 80 billion dollars. I don't see any exterior lobbying of people who are clearly in Netflix's back pocket. I don't see a bunch of Democratic senators getting all Jonesed up about this. It doesn't ring true for me. What does ring true is that some blue-state AGs are starting to look into it and may file. I don't have them. Yeah, and may file suit, but I don't see it just when I read that, it doesn't what I do, what I know about Ted. He's, Ted is kind of, you know, a Ted retires. He'll probably be like a diplomat because he's just not the kind of person to shit post or go on the offensive against people. I think they're trash talking it behind the scenes because of the obvious situation. This has enormous amounts of debt on it. It's a lot. But I interviewed him on stage in LA and I gave him, you know, an opening. I said, isn't a creative community going to scream out and horror when this acquisition closes and because of the AI and, you know, trying to find efficiencies for overpaying? I gave him- I set him up to- and he just- he immediately pivoted to something else and said, "He hopes they do well." I just don't- he's just not that- he's not of that ilk. No, I think they're shooting themselves in their own feet and they want to blame other people. That sounds more accurate. Clotish. Every step of the way this acquisition feels clotish. And the dead is the dead. That's what it is. And one of the things I want people to focus on is there's a huge amount of debt. They're going to- the ugliness is not now, even though there's a lot of ugly right now. It's going to happen once the deal is struck because these people cannot keep the promises they've made. They're not very good promise keepers. Some might call them endacious at times, but they will not be able to keep up their- what they are saying they're going to do. And that's when the ugliness will truly start. When they have to make these cuts, which have to be significant, no matter what they say, unless Larry Wilson decides to just take his money and bankroll the whole thing, which I don't think he will. This is going to be tough for Hollywood and they know it. And I think they're going to have real troubles. And then net that's when Netflix comes in and sucks up all the pretty parts would be my guess. I do actually think it probably closes so because I talked to an economist as we get in. He said, it doesn't really fit the whole way from monopoly in terms of streaming. If you factor in linear content from their flagship channels, CBSHV&HGTV, the hypothetical combined platform gets roughly 20% of total US hour streamed and Netflix is at 60. In terms of total TV viewing time, that combined Warner Brothers Paramount, streaming and TV all-in would represent about 12.2% of total US viewing TV watch time. And that's less than YouTube currently has at about 13%. In terms of box office sales, Paramount and Warner Brothers represent roughly 25% of the domestic box office. And they're just so well connected with Trump. They'll end up selling off like SpongeBob SquarePants, so some regulator can feel like they've got a win or something or divesting of some stupid children's program. But I think this goes through. Kyle, she has it at 75%. I think it's actually higher than that. Yeah, I just noticed a lot of Hollywood people. At the smart ones, I'm not talking about the dumb ones, have been like, this feels bad. Something feels bad. But I think it's largely up to all the noise around CBS and the disaster. They're perpetrating there. But I think it's more. I just think the pain is going to come once the deal is done. That is where it's going to happen. And you're going to see how are they going to get out of this box? And none of them are Houdini in that gang. So that's the problem. We'll see where it's going, but definitely the state attorney generals are involved. They're going to try to. They will get them to sell something up there. I am still very concerned about the backing of these Middle Eastern wealth fence owning this much of our media. But no one else seems to care. But I find that really. And they'll have to do a lot of favors for people going forward. And later, Ted Zhrandas and YouTube will take it all over. That's my feeling. It's really. These people are not don't count compared to those two. And where you should watch is YouTube. Netflix, that's pretty much how I feel. And Disney, to a lesser extent. Anyway, last thing. Canada is the latest country to crack down on social media for teens. The government proposed a bill this week to ban kids under 16 from using social media. Though most companies can get exempt. since they've proved their platforms adequately protect young users, it's not just Canada. As we said, across the pond, UK Prime Minister Starmer is weighing a similar ban. It's pumping. It's across the world, but don't expect this to happen in the U.S., our embassy in London posted about the potential UK ban, writing the United States favors, parental empowerment, over government mandates, whatever, also worth noting, though Australia's social media ban is struggling. 70% of teens are still using social media apps, according to a recent report, because they can get around this stuff. So I think it's more – teens continue to smoke after we put stuff on packs and made it harder by them. I don't really think that's should be the goal there, but I think a society has to say this stuff sucks and is dangerous. So I don't mind just the saying of it. So how do you think about UK and Canada doing this? I think it's great, and I think it's overdue. I don't think there's any reason why anyone under the age of 16 should be on a social media platform. I think one of the greatest threats to our society is that we're evolving a new species of a social asexual males, and the 40% of the S&P has now tied to trying to convince these people to sequester from their relationships and be online. And part of the problem is just as their brain is getting wired through puberty, you're teaching them to have constant visual stimulation and be staring at us. I mean, there's even evidence now that their posture is changing. Eline over? Yeah, unless you have a… Back to your nae and or tall, right? Unless you have collective action, and I do think these bands, you know, schools aren't going to allow you to have a phone. If you're preschool or middle school, you're not allowed to have a phone, or I mean, anyways, I think this is… It took us 30 years to figure out to back go or regulate it. It took us 20 years with opiates. It looks like social one on mobile in 2013, it looks like it's going to take us exactly about 20 years. But I think this is a great thing. Europe is leading on this. It's weird to describe Europe as an innovator on regulation. But as somebody who has grown up with kids in the kill zone, exactly the wrong age and exactly the wrong time, you know, a lot of people will say to me, "I'm really worried, I have a 5 and 8 year old." I'm like, "No, no, no, you're fine. We'll have this figured out by the time they're 13 and 14." But if you went through COVID as a teenager and grew up with social media, I really think you faced some significant headwinds in terms of emotional regulation. I do. Can I make another answer? First of all, as I said, it's a sign that society thinks it's important. Just like we did with cigarettes or seatbelts. Not everyone wears seatbelts, not lots of teen smokes. Guess what? Lots of teens drink, even though we have rules. It's a society saying to its citizens, "We think this is bad. You can cheat," and they will. No question. I think that argument is so false. Like, "Oh, teens will get it anyway." I'm like, "Okay, they'll get liquor anyway, they'll get everything." So I think that's number one. It says something about your society that you care enough, and it isn't mandating. It's just saying, "As with cigarettes, as with drinking, our teens shall not do this." And I think that's perfectly fine, and the people that say it's not paying attention to everything else. The second thing is I do think social media is on the decline among young people. Not among our people who are fatally addicted to these things. But I do think I watch a lot of young people, and I know a lot of them are on there, but I think the age is a little higher. I would put an asterisk on that. I think it's declining among wealthy and formed people who have strong parental influences and the money and the resources to get engaged in other things. I think if you're the child of a single mother, home alone a lot, I don't know. Even among young men, do you know, supposedly, men ages 20 to 30 are spending more time in less time outdoors than prison inmates? They're on a fucking screen, and just to go to somewhere. Do you mean? No, I think I'm talking about social media. Some of this game, I agree. But just the big tax excuse has always been, we can't find. It would be impossible for us to detect underage users. Guess what? When Australia passed an act, the platforms deactivated nearly five million teen accounts in just one month. They were able to figure it out. And meanwhile, that very same detection is being withheld from Americans because our federal government has no interest in protecting children from the harms of social media. The Kids Online Safety Act passed the Senate 91-3 and then died when House GOP leadership refused a floor vote. The bill's been reintroduced and is stalled again. A March House markup was pulled amid partisan fights over preemption. And 40 bipartisan state attorney generals are begging Congress to act, warning the House version would gut state child safety laws. So this is. You bring in the data, Scott. Well, the last federal law protecting Kids Online was COPPA and it was in 1998. So wait, let me. You don't think the world has changed in 28 years regarding technology and the potential harm for children. Come on. I would not ask you. I don't. I think Australia is not working. It's not the question. It is. Teens will find a way. But I do think a society stepping out and saying it. And let me just note, I don't know if you saw this. The trailer just came out for the social reckoning, which is the follow-up to the social network. Jeremy Strong is from succession, is playing Mark Zuckerberg. He's got the voice on down pat, although he looks too old. I have to say, he's oddly looking old. But it's all about this. It's all about. And it's. You know, it's about the story of Francis Hogan, really, pretty much, and this Facebook files and how they knew what they were doing. And they did it anyway. And this was the first. To me, this was the moment that Zuckerberg went villainous, right? That he. Mm-hmm. Something that I've written about in the Times of 2018, this came out in 2019, 2021, to the period. But this was the moment. And I think this movie will be really interesting, by Aaron Sorkin. Once again, revisiting this issue is that this guy is living a large. On the backs of teens, on the backs of kids, on the backs of everybody. And I don't think it's going to be great for the image. And I think it's. To say it again and again has to happen, including these. Laws, these movies and everything else. And Jeremy Strung will literally sound so much like him. It's disturbing. Well, the. The ability of Big Tech to wash over Washington and separate them from the best interests of our children with money. You know what's gotten the way of the kids' online safety act, better known as Kosa? It forces platforms to exercise, open, quote, "reasonable care" in designing features so they prevent and mitigate specific harm to minors. These including content promoting suicide, eating disorders, sexual exploitation, and compulsive use patterns. Big Tech is fighting those things. You know, that's because they go, "Oh, it could be used for this." They go behind their first amendment nonsense that they tend to try to push out there. You are, David. You can't anticipate every. I just want the society to say no to this. Just like kids with phones and schools, no, no, no. And that's what a civil society does to these companies, whether they're cigarette companies, liquor companies, by the way, liquors on the decline. This, I think, social media is going to decline more than you think. I think that's my prediction. Anyway, all right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. You might have noticed that when you go to the supermarket these days, you can get all kinds of milk and many of them have no relationship to a cow. Joy, almond and oat are the usual suspects, but you can get rice, and hemp, and pea, and cashew, and macadamia, and pistachio, and coconut. The list just goes on and on. Take oat milk. About a decade ago, I'd never even heard of it, but then suddenly oat milk was everywhere. And some people were even willing to pony up around a hundred bucks for a carton. Why? What happened? The whole plant milk vibe seems to be that they're healthy and good for the planet. But is that true? Are they better for us and for the environment than cow's milk? All that plus the weird story of how we even came to drink cow's milk in the first place in this brand new episode of Gastropod. Find Gastropod and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. When it comes to politics, should we just stop trying to change each other's minds? I do think that we would all be a lot happier and more effective if we focused on the opening of the mind versus the changing, and that's not to say that opening of minds over the course of time can lend itself to change. I'm Prit Bharara. In this week, Jessica Tarlov, the lone liberal co-host of Fox News is The Five, and co-host of the Vox Media Podcast Raging Moderates, joined me to discuss her new book, "I Disagree." The episode is out now. Search and follow, stay tuned with Prit wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Scott, let's hear up prediction. Well, one is a simple, funny one, and the other one is more serious, but the simple one is sure about to see revenues at the 100 biggest podcast go up 20 to 30 percent. Oh, yay. That's awesome. Additional, just from like everybody, everybody make their wages. Pivot is about to get a great deal of money, and so is every other big podcast to be the quote unquote, to be the, to have the exclusive, the exclusive, they've already come knocking. I don't care if it's Yahoo, Scout, or Gemini. These guys are all gonna, we're about to, some of that cheap, remember all that cheap, cheap money that was thrown around a 99. That was mattresses. That was mattresses. I mean, you're about to see the podcast universe have the tsunami of money just to say, "Hey, Joe, we'll give you 10 million bucks if you decide that you only use open AI." Right. Anyways, that's my stupid simple one, but the more specific one is that, I mean, look, the fix is in. And I just think it's so fucking obvious. Musk called Trump after doing a lot of analysis as his bankers and said, you know, I spent $250 million to get you a lactating problem. He said, no, you didn't get me lactating. He said, well, can you acknowledge it? I helped. And so yeah, I was like, I'm considering putting two and a half billion into the midterms. I would you like that, President Trump? Well, I'd like it a lot. Well, if you can get Paul Arkins over at the SEC to wave that stupid rule that it doesn't allow retail investors from participating in great companies like SpaceX, I just have this hankering to put in two, three, maybe five billion dollars into the midterms. Hankering, hankering, yes. And again, what does that do? It sends $30 to $50 billion in incremental dollars hunting for 100 billion in available shares of SpaceX. This is all of a sudden there's 50% more people looking for homes in San Francisco than there was, there was with any other previous IPO and let's just do the math. Say that takes the price of SpaceX up just, let's be conservative, 10% at two trillion. That's 200 billion. He owns 40%. So he gets $80 billion. Why wouldn't you promise the President 10 billion in the midterms? Since United, he can do whatever the fuck he wants. So if he called the President and said, hey, call Paul and tell them to do away with this stupid rule such that retail good Americans can invest in the best companies. And I got a hankering to put $10 billion to work in the midterms. I mean, quite frankly, wouldn't he be stupid not to do that? Yes, absolutely. That's how it works. That's how it works. You know, as my prediction is, the fix is in, what people aren't focused on is the wave, the waving of the NASDAQ 100 rules that you got a way to year and let price settles. It's going to create the ultimate false flag signal of pricing on the day of this IPO. That's what they're doing. Oh, they're all talking it up and you're like, oh, you people. And Stephanie's right. Morality has nothing to do with it. I could never be an investment bank or I couldn't be a lawyer either. I wouldn't. I'd be like, you're guilty. You should go to jail. I'm going to turn you in. I just couldn't do it. Same the investment. You suck. I'm not going to take you public. Yeah. Whatever. Someone has to. Anyway, that was a great prediction. I think you're absolutely right. And about the podcast thing. Yay. Yeah. Yay for us. I like. But we'll cash those checks though. But you investment bankers are people too. You know what I mean. Let me say, how fucked am I that he's going to be a trillionaire? I've kind of fucked. Don't I? Well, I'm all on board now. I love this kind of populist economist out of the UK, Gary Stevenson and he totally changed my frame of mind. And that is taxes are a kevlar against corruption. Because when people aggregate too much money, they become corrupt. You know, power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts. And our taxes are what stands between us and having one person who can decide when to turn off and on battlefield technology in the invasion of Europe. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think you'll like hire an army just for me? I don't know. Or I just like, oh no, it was irritating before. But now I'm fucked. Anyway, elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe, this week on Profty Conversations, Scott spoke with Anne Applebaum, what are my favorites too? And Fiona Hill. Wow. What a pair about how Ukraine is rewriting the rules of warfare, the hidden weaknesses of authoritarian regimes and the future of global power. I think actually what Ukraine could show is that the beneficiaries of all of this ought to be society, the private sector, the innovators, and that we need to find some kind of model after this. Refresh after all of the justice settled here while the justice settling to basically get ourselves back into gear again. So a trillion plus defense budget that's going to be top down is not the way to go at all, you're absolutely right. That is not the model. A lesson from this is that soft power is underrated and hard power is overrated. Correct. And we've just gotten it all wrong. Scott, I'm glad you did those two ladies. They're badass. That was our 400th episode and they asked me who I'd want on the show. And I said either Ann Apple, Bomber, Fiona Hill, and they said, "We'll get both." So I was really excited. I got them on. The women shall save us. Yeah. Impressive women. Anyway. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business. Check it. Whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the shore call 85551Pivot. Okay. That's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Today's show is produced by Larry Naaman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Weisman. Aliyah Jackson, engineer of this episode. Thanks also to Drew Bros. me, Sabar and Dan Shalan. And Shaq Korah's Vox Media is executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.