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- [00:01]
A
Support for the show is brought to you by CVS Caremark. Making the show takes a lot of work behind the scenes, from booking interviews to recording to editing. All of this ensures we deliver the best possible show for our listeners. The same can be said for finding the best prescription drug prices. CVS Caremark works behind the scenes to help lower the cost for all of their members, providing the best possible prices without ever compromising on member experience. Interested in more affordable care for your members? Go to CMK Co Stories to learn how we can help you provide the affordability, support and access your members need.
- [00:37]
B
Support for the show comes from Apple. Before it was Pivot, it was just an idea. And the place where my ideas could take flight was always on my Mac. I've been using a Mac for everything since I started using computers and of course, an iPhone. I got one of the first ones. You know, I use my Mac all the time when I'm doing podcasts, especially when I was traveling. But I used it in the very beginning of doing podcasts when I did remote stuff. No matter what you have an idea for, whether it's an innovative piece of tech, a groundbreaking policy, or short story concept you can't get out of your head, go for it. You just need to get started. Great ideas. Start on Mac. Find yours@apple.com Mac.
- [01:16]
A
Support for the show comes from AT&T, the network that helps Americans make connections. When you compare, there's no comparison. AT&T.
- [01:29]
B
You're gonna be good. I'm gonna let you talk and talk and talk so you'll have a good time. Hi, everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher and I'm still in Korea.
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A
Are you enjoying yourself?
- [01:44]
B
Yeah, I am. I'm already at home. It's been. I don't. I'm not a big traveler. I'm not a big traveler. I like. I like home.
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A
Well, you're not a big traveler. You travel all the time.
- [01:52]
B
I know, but I like home. If I had to pick, if that makes sense. Does that make sense?
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A
Well, that's. I assume you're not. It would be somewhat distressing if Amanda was listening and said, yeah, I just. I like to be away from home.
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B
Well, she's been great.
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A
Whether that's true or not, that's the right thing to say.
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B
I miss home. I miss home wherever it happens to me.
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A
I can't stand my kids. And then about an hour into the drive to the airport, I start missing them.
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B
Oh, really? I can Stand my kids. I miss them a lot. I do.
- [02:20]
A
No. Well, you're a much better parent than me.
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B
I am.
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A
You get my point.
- [02:24]
B
Do you want me to parent your kids? If you'd like.
- [02:26]
A
No.
- [02:26]
B
Your wife is great.
- [02:27]
A
I could use the help. So what's the coolest thing you did in Korea?
- [02:32]
B
Well, today I was a robot. There are some new stuff around. Robotics and stuff that will help you walk and things like that. People wearing ectoskeletons. That was pretty cool. Trying to think, what else. I forget what I did five hours ago. This is where I am. It'll be interesting. The jet lag coming back. Explain to me, Mr. World Traveler, because I don't travel throughout the world like you do. What is the trick for jet lag?
- [02:58]
A
A Gulf stream.
- [02:59]
B
Okay. Okay. Barring that.
- [03:05]
A
Well, okay, so the basics are a ton of hydration. Try not to drink alcohol, which you don't. I try to. And I don't always do this, but I try. Once I'm on the ground somewhere, I try to get some exercise, which I go outside, get some natural sunlight or some fresh air. I try to sweat. I'll hit the gym, you know, right when I get there. From discipline. Yeah, I tried. I try to, try to avoid alcohol and really salty foods, but. And then also, it's not organic. I take sleep aids with me. I think it's really important that you get some sleep. So if I can't sleep, I'll take a, you know, a Lunesta or something. I think. I think the, the risk of quote unquote, pharmaceuticals outweighed by the risk of not getting sleep when you're on the road.
- [03:45]
B
Right? Yeah.
- [03:46]
A
I think if, if there's anything, you know, I'm pretty. I'm pretty focused on health and, you know, not, not lifespan, but healthspan travel has taken 10 years off my life. For about 20, 30 years, I was literally molesting the planet. And I remember with my partner at L2, on Wednesday, night of Thanksgiving, we'd take the overnight to Europe because we're like, Europe's open Thursday and Friday, and this is an opportunity for us to lap our competition. And I would hit the ground, shower at the airport, work a 12 or 14 hour day, get five or six hours sleep, start over the next day, and then bomb to the airport and come home. And that, that just takes a toll on you. So, you know, there's, there's, there's a few basics, but there's no, I don't think there's any. Silver bullet.
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B
Yeah. Thank God. My skin looks fantastic from Korea.
- [04:29]
A
It does looks like a baby's bottle.
- [04:31]
B
I had something called, oh, I can't remember, school Sonic or something. Anyway, I did the non invasive stuff which I thought was interesting.
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A
Oh really?
- [04:38]
B
Yeah. I'm not. They, they, they suggested Botox right here.
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A
But I'm not doing it for the 11s.
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B
The elevens? Yeah. I'm going to leave the 11s for now. It's my favorite thing.
- [04:46]
A
11S? Yeah. I'm about to go get. I'm looking a little bit like the Bride of Frankenstein. I'm about to go see. I'm going to New York on Wednesday And I'll see Dr. Analick who, you know, does a few things to me and then charges me $6.
- [04:58]
B
Is this for your upcoming book tour? May I just say.
- [05:01]
A
Well, I do need to sell a lot of books.
- [05:03]
B
I know. I know you do. I know. We're going to help you do that.
- [05:06]
A
I appreciate that. Yeah. I see him about once every two or three months. I get Botox and I get a laser.
- [05:11]
B
A laser. Well, you would have liked this. There was a laser type thing. It was like in my face, which was interesting. It didn't leave any. I'll tell you, it wasn't it or anything else, but they were lovely. They were. And the thing is, everyone actually so many people have beautiful skin here all over the place. So it's kind of interesting.
- [05:29]
A
Koreans have beautiful skin.
- [05:31]
B
Yeah, they really. I mean the skin care, is it.
- [05:34]
A
An absence of sun or just genetics or.
- [05:36]
B
I don't know, I just think it's just they put a priority on healthcare. They really do compared to here. You know, Trump's coming here and I'm leaving. That's one of my favorite parts of this trip.
- [05:44]
A
He's going to Korea.
- [05:45]
B
Yeah, I bet he'll run up to the dmz.
- [05:49]
A
I purposely decided to avoid the news because I find now that watching the news is like being awake during surgery. It's just not very pleasant.
- [05:56]
B
Yeah, it's tough as the news people fall one after the next in their kiss assery to the Trump people. But whatever. I'm gonna get back to timing here. The weird thing is I leave at 10 in the morning and then I get back at 10 in the morning or nearby.
- [06:15]
A
Oh, cause you're going to cross the dayline. So will you sleep tonight or just stay up and then get on the plane?
- [06:20]
B
I'll sleep on the plane. Let's see, I'll get up at 10, I'll want to sleep right away because I'm tired right now, but I don't know. I don't know. I guess I will. I sleep when I sleep. That's the person I like. If I'm tired, I'll sleep or else I'll just watch.
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A
And I'm fascinated with airline route. You go, is there a direct soul to D.C. yes, there is.
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B
There's one.
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A
Oh, that's awesome.
- [06:41]
B
I know. Yeah. So. And it's so it'll be. And I have a lie down thing, so I think it'll be fine. I think it'll be fine. And then I watch a lot of dumb movies and stuff, so.
- [06:49]
A
One of my first memories of you was we were doing. I think it was right after we'd started Pivot and I got invited to some conference to speak with you. I don't think we'd met in person or maybe we had once like a DLD or something. And this very friendly woman comes running up to me and she's like, hi, I'm Tammy Haddad. And I'm like, oh, hi, Tammy. I had no idea who she was. And we were backstage and there were makeup artists and sound people and all this stuff. And there was an eight year old boy asleep on the couch. And I thought that's kind of cute and kind of disturbing that someone brings their kid and then puts the kid to sleep in this couch. And it wasn't an eight year old boy, it was you. You had just decided to lay down on the couch and grab a couple Z's. In the middle of all this. You can sleep.
- [07:31]
B
I can sleep anywhere. I really can. It's a real talent. Anyway, I like it a lot. I like Korea a lot. I hope to come back and are you coming here on your. Let me just say for everybody, Scott's book comes out what day? November 3rd.
- [07:44]
A
Yeah, it comes out November. I think it's November 4th. Is that right?
- [07:48]
B
Notes on being a woman? Yes. No.
- [07:50]
A
There you go.
- [07:52]
B
That's your next book.
- [07:53]
A
That's what people are looking for for.
- [07:54]
B
Me, but it's coming out and you're coming on my podcast. We're going to talk this week.
- [08:00]
A
That's right. I just saw that on my counter. I'm going on on with Kara Swisher. I feel like that's like I have never stayed at your house. That's what this feels like. It feels very uncomfortable.
- [08:08]
B
I'm excited. It's pretty high up now. It's up in the top of the. Of the. The charts getting up there. So I'll hope they'll sell books But I'm excited to hear. I'm going to read the book. Oh, I have it on the plane. I'm going to read it on the plane. That's what I'll do. That's one of the things that'll put me to sleep. No, I just want to know what it's like to be a man. It'll be great.
- [08:29]
A
Someone asked me what my body count was so I started counting and I fell asleep. Get it? Like counting sheep. All right, you'll get there. You're a little jet lagged, but you'll get there.
- [08:41]
B
I know I'm a little jet lagged. No, I'm just tired. It just was a long day because I have to say the crews here and the people have been amazing. That's the one thing, they're really lovely people and hopefully it'll turn out okay. TV always makes me. There's a lot of waiting in television. I'm kind of glad to be done with the tapiness.
- [08:57]
A
I was thinking about going to Korea for a scrotum lift. I think of it as low hanging fruit.
- [09:02]
B
Oh my God. All right, we're going to stop. Speaking of plastic surgery, which you love, did you hear about this? The tech bros are all getting plastic surgery. They're following in your footsteps. Some surgeons have seen five fold increases in demand for men in tech in the last five years. Not a surprise, according to article in the Wall Street Journal. I don't think it's just men in tech, but apparently so. There's a lot of them. Procedures, mini facelifts, neck lifts, that deep plain thing, eyelid lifts to stay looking youthful in a competitive job market. I, I just, I didn't have any work done, but it's, you know, I'm not surprised. Do you think? Are you surprised?
- [09:36]
A
No. I mean I get, I've had, I get Botox and I'm sure at some point I'll go into the knife. I think that like we're in an ageist culture. I think some of that is good and people want to feel youthful. And I think the standards and the benchmark. There are so many people out there now. I don't know if you've noticed. Have you noticed this? It seems like every young person is hot.
- [10:01]
B
No.
- [10:02]
A
Between working out and skin treatments in New York, all the young people are hot. I think the tunnels have some sort of X ray or security posts where if you're not hot, you're not allowed into New York. But my sense is the aesthetic and the benchmark has gotten so.
- [10:18]
B
Especially for Men. Right. For men, which more common here or Brazil or different place or Brazil, I think. But I've noticed a lot younger and a lot just the way they are in some other countries, a lot younger and a lot more men.
- [10:36]
A
Well, that's the growth part, is that women have always been. Look, men are disproportionately, unfairly evaluated on their economic viability, women on their aesthetics. So there's always been an emphasis, and women have always been spent a disproportionate amount of time and money on aesthetics. The delta or the change or the uplift in surgery is mostly coming from men, because a lot of it used to be men had to retire at 65, and now they say, no, I want to come back and bend Anita Donald Trump and fuck up Disney. And I'm 74, but I want to look 73. So I got surgery. So guys everywhere are getting. If you have. The bottom line is the surgical techniques have gotten much better. And why look 65 if you can look 57? And if you have money and it's not that big a risk any longer, the question I have is, why wouldn't you? And some people say, well, I don't care. Do you really. Do you really not care what you look like?
- [11:31]
B
Yeah, yeah. Those neck things were. Men looked better with the neck. I hate to say it, but I'm not a big. I don't like a lot of surgery, although, you know, it's gotten better and better. I mean, that deep plane thing. But the thing around the neck with the guys I thought was really interesting is, you know, they look kind of jowly and then they don't.
- [11:51]
A
It's a lower facelift.
- [11:53]
B
Yeah. I have less jowls. I was told by the skin people I don't have so many jowls. Yeah, no, yeah, Jowls are coming, of course. Or the thing around your eyes. Sort of the eye sockets and the double folds and this and that. Or the triple folds and the heavy eyelid.
- [12:07]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [12:08]
B
Anyway, good. Well, I didn't have any while I was here, but maybe you could when you come.
- [12:13]
A
Anyway, I'm all. I'm. I'm for it. I'm a huge fan of it.
- [12:16]
B
So, speaking of Trump being here, he is actually coming Thursday. He's been in Asia striking all manner of deals, which we'll talk about in a second. He's pulling tariffs off, it looks like, or putting striking deals. But he said he's putting a 10% tariff on imports from Canada after already canceling trade talks, all because of a TV ad that had accurate audio of Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs. Trump called the ad, which was sponsored by the government of Ontario. That would be Doug Ford, a fraud and a hostile act. The spot features Excerpts from a 1987 Ronald Reagan radio address on foreign trade. The audio is authentic, though it is slightly different order from the original speech, but it's what he said. The Reagan Presidential foundation said the ad misrepresents Reagan in words, but is unexplained. Was misrepresented because I went back and listened. Listen to the original and it was the intent, but. So I guess they shouldn't have rearranged it. But let's listen to some of this ad.
- [13:14]
A
When someone says let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while, it works, but only for a short time. But over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs.
- [13:53]
B
I'll tell you, it was nice hearing a president who actually spoke in full sentences, a Republican one. Ontario's premier pulled the ad, but it did air in major US markets over the weekend, including during the World Series. Talk about this from a marketing. This is this Doug Ford, who's this conservative, who was somewhat pro Trump, as I recall, and now is sort of like, you know, smacking him around up there up north. Talk about from a marketing perspective, not so much the essence, because this is what Reagan thought, actually, but about doing this kind of things and why Trump is reacting like this.
- [14:28]
A
Well, look, I think Canada's never looked stronger. It's just strange to be rooting for the Blue Jays when they're playing my home team, the Dodgers. It's just Canada. The US's strategy looks performative. Faux masculinity, sclerotic. Either they're dictating trade policy off of commercials that antagonize the President. It's just. And Canada, I believe, is our biggest trading partner. Some people would say it depends on how you count it. It should be Mexico, but I mean, one of the biggest problems we have in the United States is housing. And unfortunately, because of NIMBYism and incumbents who control the government, we're fond of regulations that make it harder for the entrance to buy a home. And so we've let homes go from 290 to 410. And two of the largest inputs are gypsum drywall which comes from Mexico and lumber which comes from Canada. So we're going to make homes more expensive unnecessarily. And Canada just looks more consistent and unafraid. And I think this has been, I think this has bolstered the brand of Canada. I think they will end up, this will absolutely impact their economy negatively for three or four years. They will figure out different trade routes.
- [15:45]
B
Which are trying of course right now.
- [15:47]
A
Carney's headed to Asia as we speak and there's no shortage of other export nations that'll say, you know what, we have really good products here too and we're going to do it at zero tariff. And let's strengthen the relationship between Canada and Asia and Latin America. And then those relationships will be really hard to undo. And the next administration and I'm trying to manifest this is going to have to go on essentially a 48 month apology tour. And regardless of how effective that is, there's no way we're going to be able to compensate for the destruction to these 80 year trade alliances that has taken place over the last 10 months. This is just. No one likes to be insulted or have economic warfare. And why this is just so incredibly stupid is. I'll just use an example. The Kentucky bourbon industry is basically going to be wiped off the map if they're not careful. So they have stopped buying Jack Daniels. Do you know the margins, the margins on lumber are probably like 10 to 30%. The operating margins are probably high single digits. Those companies don't trade a big multiples. The public traded lumber companies, if there are any. Whereas alcohol trades at 90. Alcohol commands 90 points of margin. The majority of restaurants, kind of the ugly secret of restaurants is they try to break even on the food and they make all their money on the alcohol because they'll charge you 14 bucks for a maker's mark and ginger ale and it costs them about 60 cents. And so that's where they make all their margin. And we have some of the best alcohol brands in the world and when we import them into Canada and they say no, it's not tit for tat. If we reduce our exports by a dollar by declaring trade war and they reduce their exports, go down a dollar, it's not dollar for dollar because our margins on our products tend to be higher.
- [17:34]
B
Yeah. One of the things is interesting to me is from a marketing perspective, Reagan used to be the gold standard of Republicans. Right. And we're showing our age. We remember the age of Reagan, which wasn't as great as people are now making out to be. Although some of these speeches are terrific, especially the immigration one which is one of his last spe. The marketing strength of Ronald Reagan is over Mr. Morning in America, which is very different from Make America Great Again. Right. In terms of that was some marketing expertise the Reagan administration. But it doesn't work, I guess, except to irritate Donald Trump.
- [18:10]
A
I mean he was an actor and he was very handsome and regardless of some of his policies, I mean I like Ronald Reagan and it's easy to play Monday morning quarterback but he refused to use the word aids. And in a period where anyways we have a tendency to decide people in history are either very, very good or very, very bad. And because history is sort of a crude, blunt instrument. But I mean if you think about there are no more Republicans.
- [18:37]
B
Yeah, he was brand Republican forever, right?
- [18:41]
A
What is that? It's fiscal responsibility. Okay. That's gone out the window. $7 trillion in deficits from George Washington to George Bush. Since then it's been $30 trillion. And a Republican tried to convince us and him that we could go to war and cut taxes at the same time. That was w. And since then Democrats and Republican administrations since then have said to the children that are the United States voter right now, no, you can stay up till 2am and eat sugar and not have dinner and you don't have to go to school tomorrow and nothing bad will ever happen. So Americans have gotten used to spending $7 trillion on 5 trillion and believing that everything will be okay. So fiscal responsibility was a touchstone of Republican administrations that's gone low involvement or less involvement, not overarching government combined with personal liberty. And that was you get to make these decisions and government should not be in your life. And we now have a government which is essentially a cross between socialism and cronyism. And that is the government is very involved in corporate decisions, but it's based on who he likes or doesn't like, who curries favor with him or doesn't. That could not be more non Republican. So the notion, I mean it's the Democrats who on economic policy and individual rights appear to be more Republican. If I could go back. And the Canadians.
- [20:08]
B
The Canadians.
- [20:09]
A
Well look, Teddy Roosevelt was all about the environment. Everything is upside down right now. An embrace of foreign relationships, non protectionism was a. Yeah, yeah, Republican.
- [20:21]
B
Well speaking of which, on the other tariff front though, US and Chinese officials have reached yet another framework of a deal avoid 100% tariffs that Trump threatened to impose. Taco Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, who really is sort of lost, seems to be undignified now. Also said on Face the Nation that Trump and Xi are set to finalize a TikTok deal this week. Let's listen to how he talked about this.
- [20:48]
A
We reached a final deal on TikTok. We reached one in Madrid and I believe that as of today, all the details are ironed out. And that will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea.
- [21:08]
B
Mm. I'm getting the hell out of Korea before consummation. Let's hope not. So there's that happening, which I think something you talked about needing to happen. The Chinese to come to terms with China.
- [21:21]
A
Yeah, but I don't know what that means. What if they have a commercial that pisses them off on the way over and the 100% tariff? And I think that they, you know, China definitely has its own problems. But I mean, what you have to. When you're establishing or trying to understand a battle and doing our game theory, you've got to look at the strengths they have that you don't have. And China has the advantages of an authoritarian government where the autocrat has established power for the next 10, 20, 30 years. He's Consolidated Power, they have the CCP. I don't know if it's unpopular or popular, but I don't think it's very unpopular. The economy there has struggles, but the Chinese to a certain extent have the same advantage that the Russians have in Ukraine and that is their willingness to endure and inflict pain on their populace for their long term interests. Americans, if, you know, if AWS goes out and Netflix goes down, the whole nation freaks out. China is absolutely willing to put companies out of business. It's willing to decrease their prosperity, but is not going to be pushed around by America. And also we have a tendency to think this administration anyways, that it's the biggest customer rolling up to the bar. We're the third largest trading partner. They do more trading. They do. Association for South Asian nations is their largest trading partner, the second largest. They do more trade with the EU than they do with the US and they have already vastly decreased the percentage of trade going to the us. So he shows up and again, this is just such a common error in judgment and in strategy. He shows up thinking he has cards he doesn't have. And Americans, if inflation pops to 5 or 6% here, Americans are going to freak out. They could go to 15% in China. And the Chinese government has killed tens of millions of its own people or let them starve for what they perceive to be national interests. So to think that he can show up and muscle them around, he is totally misgiving, miscalculating and misappraising his adversary over there. So I don't trust him nor any of his team to get a deal done or, you know, quote, unquote, a framework.
- [23:44]
B
Right? A framework of a deal. Yet another.
- [23:46]
A
Well, wasn't it. What's happening with TikTok? I mean, I don't know.
- [23:49]
B
Well, they said it's consummated or gonna consummate it or whatever. They're gonna fuck each other. I don't know why he used that word, but. But presumably it's going to Larry Ellison, as is everything. It's apparently in media. This is the most important element of Ellison's burgeoning media empire. Of course, what's going to happen here. But I don't know what it means. I guess they just decided, give it to them. What's the difference? We don't need this. And if we can get everything else. I mean, there was an interesting. I've read a lot of the analysis of this, and basically what they've decided to do, as every other leader, including leader of Japan, is to flatter him, to compliment him, and then can get what you want. Right, essentially, which is kind of depressing. Like, they just figured them out pretty easily. And we'll see. The Chinese, you're absolutely right, are in it for the long haul. So we'll see what they have to say. It'll be the TikTok thing is what I'll be paying attention to, but we'll see if they do something. What I think Trump is trying to do, it's so interesting because presidents all start out locally and end up up in foreign places doing these trips. And I think Trump is very comfortable acting like he's big BMOC across the world, essentially. And so these leaders have figured out a way to please him. It's kind of sad. It's like pleasing an old man. Let's pet him and this and that. So we'll see. We'll see what happens here. Here's my prediction. He's gonna go up to the DMZ and go visit his friend in North Korea. So we'll see. He's so close. I can't imagine he would. You know, he keeps talking about him. He talks about him in a nicer way than he talks about other Americans, which is really kind of depressing, given he's a dictator and not just an autocrat.
- [25:36]
A
Even worse than that, those are his role models. He's very much about strength. And again, he conflates strength with coarseness and cruelty and authoritarianism. And that's not. It's just a terrible. It's a terrible. And the problem is he's been successful in the short term at it. He's won the presidency twice. Everybody's falling in line behind him, and it's out of the authoritarian playbook. Reward the people who are loyal to you, punish severely the people who aren't loyal to you. And the 53 Republican senators are all going along with it, as are the majority of the House of Representatives. There's been a few notable breaks. Senator Paul is questioning U.S. bombing boats. We spend a trillion dollars on our military that's supposed to be so lethal, and yet we're now pushing back on a murderous autocrat in Europe. We've decided to bomb fishing boats.
- [26:27]
B
Anyway, we're going to go on a quick break. When we come back, this is a story that I think is not getting nearly enough attention. We'll discuss the latest crypto pardon. Support for this show comes from Crucible Moments, a podcast from Sequoia Capital. We've all had pivotal decision points in our lives that, whether we know it or not at the time, changed everything. This is especially true in business. Like, did you know that autonomous drone delivery company Zipline originally produced a robotic toy? Or that Bolt went from an Estonian transportation company to one of the largest rideshare and food delivery platforms in the world? That's what Crucible Moments is all about. Deep diving into the make or break moments that set the course for some of the most important tech companies of our time. With interviews from some of the key players that made these companies a success. Hosted by Sequoia Capital's managing partner, Roelof Botha, Crucible Moments is back for a new season with stories of companies as they navigated the most consequential crossroads in their journeys. Hear conversations with leaders at Zipline, Stripe, Palo Alto Networks, Klarna Supercell, and more. Subscribe to season three of Crucible Moments and catch up on seasons one and two at cruciblemoments.com on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Crucible Moments today. Support for this show comes from Deleteme. Right now, the headlines are chock full of data breaches and regulatory rollbacks, making us all vulnerable. But you can do something about it. Deleteme is here to make it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. Deleteme does all the hard work of wiping you and your family's personal information from data brokers websites. You can sign up and provide Delete Me with with exactly what information you want deleted and their experts take it from there. And Delete Me is always working for you, constantly monitoring and removing the personal information you don't want on the Internet. I've used Delete Me many times and I have to say, as always, I'm shocked by how much stuff I found out about myself on the Internet. A lot of it inaccurate, but a lot of it accurate and brought together in ways that seem really disturbing. See why Wirecutter named Deleteme their top pick for data removal services. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com pivot and use the promo code Pivot at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com pivot and enter code pivot at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com pivot codepivot. Support for this show comes from Apple. Before it was Pivot, it was just an idea. And the place where my ideas could take flight was always on my Mac. I've been using a Mac for everything since I started using computers and of course an iPhone. I got one of the first ones. You know, I use my Mac all the time when I'm doing podcasts, especially when I was traveling. But I used it in the very beginning of doing podcasts when I did remote stuff. And no matter what you have an idea for, whether it's an innovative piece of tech, a groundbreaking policy, or a short story concept you can't get out of your head, go for it. You just need to get started. Great ideas. Start on Mac. Find yours@apple.com Mac back. Scott, we're back. President Trump has pardoned Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ, the founder of the crypto exchange Binance. CZ pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti money laundering laws and served four months in a federal prison while Binance paid $4.3 billion to settle with the Justice Department. CZ has been working on a pardon for months. There seems to be a playbook here with the Trump people hiring lobbyists with ties and making podcast appearances praising the president. Binance is also a key backer of the Trump families. This is the key1 crypto venture world Liberty Financial and helped launch its stablecoin earlier this year. In a post on X, CZ said he was grateful to Trump and pledged to help make America the capital of crypto. I assume Sam Bankman Fried is next. What do you think of this? Because we've been talking a lot about how this focus on crypto with his family sort of larding itself over in money and just money really.
- [30:39]
A
I think it's important to understand why CZ was incarcerated. And he was incarcerated because Binance was found guilty of laundering money. And that sounds somewhat innocuous, but according to the Department of Treasury, Binance failed to report the following transactions associated with terrorist groups including Al Qaeda, isis, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Millions of dollars in ransomware transactions. Binance is one of the largest receivers of ransomware proceeds, transactions associated with child sexual abuse material. So people hear about sextortation and think that is the most heinous crime ever. Well, folks, there's a technological infrastructure behind it and money laundering with funds that can't be tracked is part of it. And then transactions associated with drugs, fraud and other illegal contraband. His official charges were again around money laundering and he'd served four months. And Binance was barred from operating in the U.S. but here's what they did. Binance received a $2 billion investment from the Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX. And then Binance decided to accept the investment via World Liberty Financial USD 1 stablecoin, which by the way was controlled and still, and the majority stake is still connected in world Liberty Financial USD 1 is still connected to the financial wealth and buttressing the financial wealth of Trump and his family, which owns 38% of World Liberty Financial. So put another way, make me richer and I will let the person that a judge and jury and our institutions decided to incarcerate because he was facilitating transactions to terrorists and people engaged in child sex exploitation. I'm letting that person out. If you agreed to make me and my family richer and because this feels very circular and complicated and we're so busy watching stupid fucking videos of a construction project at Pennsylvania Avenue, we don't igno, we take our eye off the ball, there's going to be more kids who are going to be in scams, send naked pictures of themselves and then be extorted and then potentially engage in self harm because the people on the other end can find a means of transacting these payments and this exploitation.
- [33:10]
B
You know, if you're watching a Bond movie, CZ is the one he ends up goffing in the end like he's the money laundering mogul essentially. And so this was a criminal act, this guy.
- [33:22]
A
We're bombing fishing boats.
- [33:24]
B
Most people in crypto think this too, by the way, FYI. So it's sort of a, you know, they've just decided crypto good no matter what. And it's like saying banking good or whatever. There's all kinds of bankers that are culpable in these kind of things, by the way. It's not just limited to crypto, but this is just, this was such a straight line grift. It's just like absolutely out in the open. You know, everything's out in the open. Even if, you know, I agree with you with all the hand waving around the White House thing, which I'll talk about later, but it's really, this one really deserves more attention, especially for what, what, what this company did. You know, this company did. And I assume Sam Bankman Fried is next, who is comparatively minor compared to this guy. Right. That was just your basic. I made a mess. I didn't realize that that was his excuse. But there's a whole way to get a pardon from Trump.
- [34:22]
A
Yeah, but he doesn't have the power right now. FTX doesn't have the platform or the power to make the Trumps rich. This is to a certain extent there's sort of, I don't want to call it low calorie corruption, but when Eric goes over and says build a hotel and give me better financing terms and finance it, somebody still has to build the hotel. There is some risk it's corruption. But what they found is if we're going to be corrupt, let's just figure out a way to pump up a synthetic currency that has no value underlying utility. And then we don't even have to report when we sell it and nobody has to operate it. And we don't even have to pretend that we know how to be in the hospitality business. We don't have to build it, we just get people to basically funnel money into it, massively inflate the market. We sell, nobody even knows we've sold and boom. This is the most elegant, clean, frictionless form of corruption. So they're like, okay, Nancy Pelosi, that does insider trading, but you have to report those trades. Okay, Trump, who gets a 747. We actually see the 747. He's got to fly it around, he's got to justify it. No, this is easier. Nobody even really, there's no records of this as far as we know. We think they've made three to five billion dollars off these crypto scams. But it's even hard to tell how much money they've made. We don't know how to connect it to. We know when the Qatari government says give us NATO like protection after giving the president a $400 million plane, we can connect the dots. But when he launches a meme coin and someone calls him and says, FYI, tomorrow I'm going to buy a billion dollars or $100 million worth of Trump coin, which will take the price up. And if you want to sell some, that's your business, Mr. President. But in addition, would you mind not shipping Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for a while? We're not able to connect those dots. There's no public filing disclosure.
- [36:14]
B
Well, you know what? Actually, I've heard from a lot of people, a lot of people in crypto don't love all this stuff, because the hammer is going to come down on this industry again. I thought the Biden administration was too slow to embrace some of the good parts of it. I talked to a lot of crypto people and the reason was because it has such a proclivity towards what you were just talking about money laundering and sexual abuse and terrorism and payoffs and stuff like that in terms of the ability to disappear a lot of these transactions. But it was on its way. And Biden was unnecessarily. Biden administration was unnecessarily harsh on this group of people, but I think an abundance of caution. I don't think it was a particular hostility to it. It was just more of the worries about the downside versus the upside. And I just feel that the hammer will come down on this industry after this is all over. And the second part is I've been told by a lot of tech people that there are people monitoring what is happening here and there are ways to follow the money. There's always ways. And quietly they're doing that. And eventually some of these people are going to pay. We'll see. But all you have to do is pay this guy off to get out. And speaking of which, the one that also troubled me was tech and business leaders are getting credit for coordinated effort to stop Trump from sending troops to San Francisco. Mayor Daniel Lurie reportedly worked with Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, Marc Benioff and others to get the president to reconsider. Trump acknowledged the lobbying in a true social post, saying he got calls from friends of mine and decided not to surge San Francisco. As he put it, I find this repulsive, this strategy Is that, you know, I'm not. You know, I've been in touch with Benioff recently about this whole. The whole thing with the troops. And he knows what I think, which is that he should have never called for them. But none of you get a thank you for telling a bully not to do something that's stupid. Right. I don't want my democracy to be run because these guys can call him up or go to a dinner or give him money, but this was the wrong thing to do for all these cities, including San Francisco. And the fact that the only way it gets saved is these guys call him. What in the world. No one's making decisions based on the right thing to do. It's based on these incredibly powerful people who have access, and then the regular Americans don't have access to. To make their argument one way or the other. But this is a. I find this truly disturbing. And, you know, none of them has said, you should thank me, Kara, because I'd be like, go fuck yourself. Like, how dare you that this is the way things are done. I just. I find it something quite vague, just disturbing about this. This is how it's done, done, done. As they say in K pop, demon hunter.
- [39:14]
A
But Mayor Lurie trying to enlist local business people to lobby the president to not send in the National Guard and create disruption and terrorize local residents. Kudos to him. I think that's the right thing to do. The problem is they're operating in a context that's illegal and non American. And that is.
- [39:32]
B
That's right.
- [39:33]
A
Barry Goldwater said this. He said, we're placing too much power in the office of the presidency. The whole point of a democracy is you have a diffuse sense of power, such that there's checks and balances and that unfortunately, you don't go as fast, but it prevents the tragedy of the commons. And if you're going to send in the National Guard into cities, there needs to be some sort of oversight or there needs to be some sort of legal justification or systemic laws that say this is when the National Guard can be sent into a city and what its mission is not. Oh, I don't like the mayor here. I don't like the governor here, or Epstein starting to creep back into the news. I need to launch the National Guard or pulse the National Guard into a city. This is. I mean, it's just so. I can't imagine and I don't know how much of it. I'm convinced now that, you know, and I've said this before, we're Just going to be so angry at the mind control that these algorithms have over us. And we don't even realize how much. The most upsetting things I see, I think that's true is all of that footage of ICE agents. I just find it the idea that these guys are in masks. The idea. There's a basic principle that is so core to our democracy and what is wonderful about America. And that we target and reward people based on their behavior, not their identity. And that is we say, okay, if you're a gay woman and you're great at what you do and you take risks, you can make a lot of money and have a nice life here. And we aren't gonna start rounding up people or asking them, are you born here? Which the ICE agents are doing because they're brown when they're on their way inside to Kroger's.
- [41:19]
B
Yeah, yeah. Every one of these agents seems like a brute, right? I feel like I'm in some like Steven Seagal movie with bad people. Like, you know, the way they're talking to people and how the masks and the. They look like they've had way too many steroids. Every one of them. Like, it feels so villainous. And it either villainous or you gotta be a rich guy to get through. And it does feel un American. When I heard that, that Sam Altman had to call him to call him off. That's our line of defense. Not. Cause it's not. I just was like, this is ridiculous.
- [41:54]
A
Well, it kind of goes to the same thing now where because of the government shutdown, rather than saying, okay, there's a government shutdown, you need to negotiate with a co. Equal branch of government. It's like, no, I'll just get my rich friend to pay the. The military and the people I like in the government. This is not how you're supposed to run a government where individuals, where the president gets to decide who in the government gets paid and who doesn't, and he can call someone and say, hey, I look really bad here. Can you give me $100 million? And by the way, wink, wink, I'll make it up to you with a series of laws that transfer wealth from small and medium sized businesses and your competitors to you. That is. And it might even not impact the economy that much in the short run, because the economy turns on. But what it does over the long term is a lot of people don't want to invest here. A lot of people don't want to immigrate here. A lot of people don't want to start businesses because they're worried that they're not going to be protected by the rule of fair play and law. I don't think Americans realize how many really talented people come here and how much capital comes here because they feel that there is a rule of fair play here, that their business is. There isn't going to be a phone.
- [43:02]
B
Call, a fair play.
- [43:05]
A
I met a guy, I met this Russian kid who came over here and he'd started one of those home delivery companies and he made a bunch of money. He was a successful entrepreneur in Russia. He had a wonderful life. I said, why'd you move here? He said, you live in fear in Russia that someone you don't even know makes a call and your business is done the next day and you don't even know who made the call. And that's what's. Effectively, we're headed that way, right?
- [43:28]
B
I know. I just. For some reason, this just stuck in my craw. Thank God Benioff didn't text me, like you all to say thank you. I'd be like, go fuck yourself. I don't mean that, Mark. But honestly, seriously, this is not the way it should be done. Speaking of things that are another thing that. Speaking of robots, which I'm seeing a lot of robot companies here, by the way, Amazon executives believe the company can replace more than half a million warehouse jobs with robots. Because this is where it's heading. I'll go into in a second with robots over the next several years. According to internal documents obtained by the New York Times, documents show show Amazon's robotics team has an ultimate goal to automate 75% of its operations. I bet it's even higher. They reveal Amazon is planning to manage public backlash by promoting, quote, good corporate citizen image, participating in community events like parades and toy drives. Executives also discuss ditching words like automation and AI, instead using advanced technology and cobots, collaborative robots. Amazon says the documents viewed at the Times were incomplete and did not reflect its overall hiring strategy. Let me tell you years and years ago, and I was looking for the pictures, I was going to show it to some people here. After Amazon bought Kiva, which was, I thought, a critical purchase at the time, it was a logistics. It was a robotic. It moved things around the factory. And Amazon, for some reason, invited me in to see the factory and I went to see it and watched these Kiva, I think they were Kiva packages, powered robots moving stuff around and they had people in the factory, but a lot of it was automated, obviously, and it's pretty cool. When you see them put on labels and put on whatever, it was quite an automated factory. And I guess publicly I said, they're moving towards no people in these warehouses. This was about 10 years ago. You could see they're so smart, you could see what they were doing. Right. And I remember one of the Kennedys who was representing in Massachusetts, I can't remember which one it was, was saying, oh, they're going to put an Amazon warehouse in my district. I'm like, they're not going to have people in it. And I remember Amazon calling me and saying, don't be saying that. And I'm like, but it seems so obvious to me. And so this is where they're going with these. There will be no people in Amazon warehouses or very few people. And then pretending otherwise seems kind of ridiculous because they're really quite good at it. And they're a logistics company more than a commerce. And here in Korea, I was just in a thing called Robot Valley. I mean, robotics do not get enough attention compared to AI, But AI combined with robotics is really one of these amazing and also terrifying breakthroughs for humanity, it seems to me. But I don't know. What do you think?
- [46:18]
A
Yeah, I agree with you. It's a similar issue to all these data centers that Congress people are excited to get in their district. But the reality is you could turn the lights off during the day because there's nobody working there. There's some labor involved in building these things, but once they're up and running, they're just a huge draw on the local electric or power supply and they don't create a lot of jobs. I think robots and automation are in many ways, it's always the shit you're not expecting that impacts you. To the upside and the downside, I actually think the more important technology over the next 24 months that would be the best bet for America is not GPT5. I think it's GLP1. I think that would be a better bet for America if they put GLP1 in the hands of every obese person in a low income home. And I think robotics to your point are in some ways more important than AI because I think that Jeff Bezos and Dara Khasrowshahi dream of a lack of drivers and factory workers. I think they think, okay, think about the majority of the bad press that Amazon has probably received in the last 10 years. A lot of it is stories of these delivery men in vans who have pee bottles and aren't or in the warehouses and have to hit Quotas and have health insurance. And I gotta be honest, I'm here for it. I would love to see AI pilots and planes. If you look at the majority of. And it won't happen because of psychological reasons, but if you look at the majority of plane crashes and there's very few, they're almost always pilot error. And so there will be job creation though. There will be people that have to program and build these things and service them. It'll be a higher wage job. But the story of America is that the low wage, low value add production jobs slowly but surely get screened out. As we move from an agrarian to a manufacturing to a services to a quote unquote innovation economy. I think it's a good thing. The problem with America is that we're not very good at retraining and supporting the people on the wrong end of that trade. We're very much winners and losers. Sorry boss, it's the Hunger Games here. But I think it'll be be America. Actually, if you look at the economy right now, it's a giant bet on AI. But there has been some real investment in manufacturing of our industrial base. And I think the only way we compete with China is to have these types of factories.
- [48:37]
B
Oh, China's way ahead on this stuff. I mean all of Asia is in a lot of ways. And again, AI gets all the attention. But AI combined with robotics is really. There can be. Let me say there's sort of a thing called human centric robots where it's not replace not just getting our coffee and this and that.
- [48:54]
A
It's called a sex doll.
- [48:55]
B
Okay, that's right where you go to. But I'm talking the stuff I was the exoskeletons to help people walk better, to help the elderly. Like eventually there's all manner. And one of the things I had a really interesting discussion with Alex, who is a mechanic, is a mechanical engineering student and he's like, why do robotics have like Elon Musk is. They laugh at Elon Musk here in Korea. I have to tell you because he's like going, I'm going to make optimists. I'm going to make these humanoid robots. They don't have to look like humans. The real changes are in places like what Amazon has done, which is they're robots. They're just not the robots you think of from science fiction. Doing a hand Alice is like, why does a dog walking robot have to look like a person? In fact, that's hard. They fall over the hand. It's funny. It can look at automation is a very. And I think actually, actually automation is the right word, right? That's actually instead of calling it advanced technology, it's automation. But there's all kinds of ways robotics are going to affect us. And especially when it. Now, like this one thing I was wearing, it uses AI to collect data in real time about my body movements, which would then calculate how these robots should be adjusted per person in real time. And it used to be they'd have to be adjusted individually, but they don't have to anymore. Same thing with cars. Same thing. So the combination is really both deadly to Jobs and at the same time breathtaking in terms of savings, like what it's going to do.
- [50:31]
A
So each year, and this is a thinly veiled ad, I do my predictions deck and that is sometime in November, I put together a deck and I say these are my predictions for the oncoming year in society, stock market technology. And each year I pick one of the big tech companies, one of the magnificent 10 or one of the big four, actually. Amazon, Apple, Facebook or Alphabet. And I say this will be the best performing stock. And this is why last year I picked Alphabet. It's up 60% in the last year. This is. Thank you. Pat myself on the back. This year my pick is probably going to be Amazon. And that is, it actually hasn't performed very well the last couple of years. But traditionally their margin expansion has been powered by AWS and the unsung hero of the business, and that is Amazon Media Group running the ads on the platform and they force retailers to run ads and it's very high margin. Now the margin expansion is happening in retail for over a decade. The fulfillment and shipping costs balloon more quickly than sales, decreasing margins. And then that reversed two years ago and retail sales are now growing faster than shipping costs costs.
- [51:39]
B
That's because they got everyone to use prime, right? They got everybody in on it. They were losing money on Prime, I.
- [51:45]
A
Would assume, but also because robotics and the huge investment they've made in robotics is finally delivering operational leverage. Amazon expects to save about, I think about $13 billion from 2025 to 2027 as a result of automation. And assuming no change in Amazon's enterprise valued EBITDA multiple can. As you can tell, I'm doing a lot of work on this. That translates to roughly $200 billion extra in enterprise value. Plus it expects to sell twice as many products by 2033. I think all the investments they've made in automation, coupled with robotics and AI, they're about to get Huge leverage. So whereas ADS and AWS have added all the margin, I actually think retail is about to be where they expand their margins.
- [52:31]
B
That's interesting. Oh, I think it's going to go across the entire country actually. When I one time I was visiting Kentucky and they were talking about Silicon Holler and all this stuff and bringing back coal. Remember Trump was bringing back coal and I stood up and I said, they're going to bring it back by robots. What do they need you for? Like, you get sick, it's bad for you to be mining coal. And again, I was cut off. Like, don't say that. I. I'm like, well, of course they're going to use robots or whatever, automation, I don't care what word you use. But what's astonishing is how good Korea and China and all these countries are and they're really making investments in robotics. And you're absolutely right. Amazon has been far ahead of any other. There are lots of manufacturing, that's how we return with manufacturing. But it's not going to be with people, people at all.
- [53:24]
A
But I would describe the last few years in terms of robotics as it relates to the retail as the investment phase. And it hasn't delivered, it's been expensive and it hasn't delivered the leverage yet. But I think that's pivoting and switching. And the stock, even though it's up 20% in the last year, it's underperformed its competitors. Amazon typically trades at a 5 year average PE multiple of 60 and right now it's trading at 34. Anyways, I think that leverage, the fact that it's reasonably priced. Anyways, I'm excited about Amazon over the next 12 months.
- [53:58]
B
Oh, I'm glad you've been focused on this. This is interesting. Anyway, let's go on a quick break and when we come back we'll talk about Argentina's election results.
- [54:10]
A
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- [55:07]
B
Support for this show comes from AT and T. Wireless companies love to make bold claims, like how they have the best coverage or how you'll never lose a call on their their networks. And yet we've all had the experience of being stuck with spotty service or missing out because we couldn't connect well. One provider actually has the goods to back it all up. AT&T Based on third party metrics, AT&T has the rest beat While the other guys are busy making claims they can't keep, AT&T is making connections on America's fastest and most reliable wireless network. So no matter if you're out at a concert, a huge sporting event, or out enjoying nature, you can post when you want to post, call when you want to call, and rest easy knowing no matter where you go, AT&T has got you covered. When you compare, there's no comparison. AT&T based on RootMetrics United States Root Score Report 1H2025 tested with best commercially available smartphones on three national mobile networks across all available network types. Your experiences may vary. Route metrics rankings are not an endorsement of AT&T. Adobe Acrobat Studio so brand new. Show me all the things PDFs can do. Do your work with ease and speed. PDF Spaces is all you need. Do hours of research in an instant with key insights from an AI assistant to a template with a click now your Preo looks super slick. Close that deal. Yeah, you won. Do that, doing that, did that, done. Now you can do that, do that with Acrobat. Now you can do that, do that with the all new Acrobat. It's time to do your best work with the all new Adobe Acrobat Studio. Scott we're back with more news. The payoff of Donald Trump to help the Argentinian economy has helped Argentina's President Xavier Milei's party swept the country's midterm elections, winning 40% of the votes they had to get above 35, compared with around 24% for the main oppositions, which are the Peronists who had been running Argentina badly for many years. President Trump endorsed Milei earlier this month and said a $20 billion currency swap bailout from the US was contingent on his midterm success. Trump took Truth Social to congratulate Milei, saying, he's making us all look good. And don't worry about the cost of the bailout. Let's listen to the comforting words of Treasury. The thirstiest treasury secretary you've ever seen, Scott Besant on Meet the Press this weekend.
- [57:28]
A
It is America first, because we are, are supporting a US Ally. There will be no taxpayer losses. This is a swap line. This is not a bailout.
- [57:42]
B
Well, this is working. I mean, this helped me, I think, quite a bit in the thing. And there's been a lot of pain, what he's doing, some of which is it should have happened because Argentina has had, like, enormous inflation and things like that, but he's doing it in sort of this incredibly brutal way. So talk about this. Explain what Besant was saying here. This is a swap line. This is not a bailout.
- [58:10]
A
Well, I believe we're just exchanging dollars for pesos. But the peso has a habit of totally crashing and devaluing. It has been a fucking disaster. Despite an incredible blessing of natural resources, really good universities, an amazing culture, great natural resources, they have just been fucked over and over by kind of socialist, corrupt governments. The country has entered into IMF rescue programs 23 times since 1956, more than any other nation. This nation has been bailed out more times than any other nation by the imf. The most recent major IMF loan to Argentina was for 57 billion in 2018, and it failed to stabilize the economy and led to a default just two years later. Later, over the past 50 years, Argentina has defaulted nine times. So basically every five and a half years, this country defaults, which has resulted in constant hyperinflation and peso devaluation. In the past year alone, the peso has fallen more than 350% against the US dollar. I guess the way to say that is the US dollar has increased 350% against the peso. And this is. Let's call this, this for what it is. This is Trump bailing out one of his friends. And major, same thing.
- [59:26]
B
Like, same thing.
- [59:27]
A
But it's not even about Milei. It's about Rob Citrone, a longtime associate of Treasury Secretary Bessant, who runs a hedge fund and has significant exposure to Argentine bonds and stocks. And what does it do? Again, this is about fucking corruption. The bailout props up these prices, offering a crucial window or exit to mark up the investments of his buddy, who will make a huge donation to the Trump campaign. Stan Druckenmiller, Bessant's former mentor at Soros Fund Management, is also involved. His Duquesne family office was recently disclosed as the second largest investor in Argentina's main exchange traded fund. Citrone, meanwhile, has made Argentina his biggest bet in Latin America. This is just, this is literally an orgy of corruption.
- [60:13]
B
It really is. It's just.
- [60:16]
A
And we're the ones that get like a $5 tip and have been fucked so many ways and we just leave the party naked and abused. And that's basically anyone that doesn't get to hang out in the mansion who's not willing to fellate the big fat man. It's just to think that this isn't going to cost other hedge funds looking for true alpha and looking for investments. To think that somehow we're not going to end up bailing them out again. And to think about how just moronic this is. We put a tariff on China, which makes no sense. They're smart. They go, I know, I'm going for your heart and lungs. I'm going to go after the red states and the people who voted for you four to one, the farmers. And we're going to stop buying all of your soybeans. Those farmers go out of business. Right. And who do the Chinese get their soybeans from now? Argentina, where we're soybean farmer, we're getting.
- [61:10]
B
I mean, did you see that besant calling himself a soybean?
- [61:13]
A
Yeah. He's a soybean. He's worth a half a billion dollars. Yeah, he's literally, you are my wife. Goodbye, city life.
- [61:22]
B
Anyone who's not real old like us doesn't get that. Screen Acres.
- [61:25]
A
Yeah. Doesn't get that. By the way, that guy, that guy, what was his name? Eddie Albert. He was a very successful spy, a true patriot. That guy led a very impressive life.
- [61:36]
B
And yet he ended up on Green Acres is the place. Farm living is the life for me.
- [61:44]
A
That was right before the Beverly Hillbillies.
- [61:46]
B
Oh, my God, I had that whole song in my fucking head. Anyway, go ahead.
- [61:49]
A
Anyways, what we were talking about the orgy of corruption. We're bailing out, we're punishing farmers with sclerotic trade policy and then taking money and sending it to the new trades. The new supplier of soybeans, Argentina, that money. It's unlikely. Argentina needs structural reform to Malay's craft. He is implementing structural reform. I think he's kind of exactly what Argentina needed. He would have Won without Trump. But because of Trump, I think he got more seats, more total power. And I think you can pretty much write off a prediction. You can write off 30 of that $40 billion. It's gone. Nothing's going to get in the way of the peso devaluation over the short term. This is an economy with structural issues. I hope they come out of it. I was an investor in a company that used to hire these amazing engineers from the Cordoba University or University in Cordoba, Argentina. And the funniest thing was we had a down quarter and we were cutting the budget. It was coming called Olapic, which we ended up selling and was a big win. Great. Three. Three really super intelligent guys, two Spaniards, one Argentinian guy. And the Argentinian guy was in charge of the engineering team. And we could get great engineers for like 40 grand instead of 140 or 240 outside of Gordon. And the only line item that we could never cut was the asado budget. That was beef. Every Friday they had asado. They had beef for all of the engineers. And that was like the only thing you were never allowed to touch. This was the key to the entire culture.
- [63:21]
B
Wow, that's interesting.
- [63:22]
A
Was their beef.
- [63:23]
B
Well, you know, when I was looking at that before this happened, besides the Trump payoff, I think it did help him. I think absolutely the money that he was getting from Trump. But one of the things was everyone was like, oh, he's going to lose. I'm like, but the choice is the Peronists, who are terrible. Like 80 years of shitty management. I don't see that being the option. So he was the only option in a lot of ways, even though it's taking its toll. He's also crazy. Like, he's a little. Seems insane, but, you know, there you go. There you have it. We'll see what happens there. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fail.
- [64:01]
A
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B
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A
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- [65:40]
B
Okay Scott, let's hear some wins and flip.
- [65:44]
A
Well, my fail is it's a specific issue of a much larger trend that has become the zeitgeist in our economy and that is the NBA gambling scandal. Oh yeah, so Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, I believe his name is in Portland. Trailblazers head coach Chauncey billups were among 30 arrested in an FBI investigation that uncovered a poker rigging and illegal betting ring. Many politicians as well as the NBA Commissioner Adam Silver have increased calls to Congress to tighten regulations around sports gambling. Gambling. Since the 2018 Supreme Court decision overturning a federal law that prohibits sports betting Outside of Nevada, 38 states have legalized gambling on sports. By the way, the first thing that happens when you legalize when you legalize betting in a state is bankruptcies go up 20 to 30%. Wagers on sports hit 160 billion last year, making it larger than the lottery. One in four adults say they personally bet money on sports. And by the way, last year one in two men just bet on the super bowl and one in ten US adults have placed a bet using an online sports book. Despite the proliferation, Americans see betting as a bad thing. 43% of US adults agree that legal sports betting is a bad thing for society compared to just 34% agreed three years ago. And this it preys on and I don't want to infantilize young men but they're more risk aggressive and when you put dopa hit and betting in their pockets it is in godlike technology and basically every ad now when you turn on this TV to watch Premier League is £10 free when you sign up for £25. And folks they make it impossible to win over the long term if you're good at it, they basically don't let you bet anymore. And the newest trend in sports betting, which will probably have the greatest appreciation and market cap in private companies, is predictions markets. And currently a case is making its way through the court to decide the future of sports betting on prediction markets. And prediction market weekly volume is about $2 billion, with about a fifth of the coming from sports betting, the highest category volume anyways. But on a bigger level, meta level, it essentially is more indicative of our economy and that is we're the economy now resembles Vegas. And that the house, it's not a.
- [67:58]
B
Thing, it's just betting. It's like crypto. It's not a thing, it's not a making a thing, it's something else. What would you call it? It's an economic activity, it's just not productive.
- [68:08]
A
Well, the house is always win. And the machines are narrative platforms, hot tech, IPOs, meme coins, dudes in hoodies pitching the next big thing. Oh, this is your new and its value. Our value in the economy now is not derived from character or hard work. It's from attention and speculation rather than goods and services. And then the traditional levers of power, business, innovation, labor, productivity, real estate growth, they all recede. And young people no longer aspire.
- [68:32]
B
So empty calories is what you're saying?
- [68:35]
A
Yeah. And they don't develop the means, they don't develop the will, and they don't develop the patience for enduring value. Why scammy? Why actually figure out a way to get through all the regulations and build a building when you can go get it financed from Qatar by monetizing the White House? Or why even do that when you can just launch a. A mean coin. And then essentially it means the winners get the winners. A small group of people who can own or control or monetize healthcare, monetize the government win and the losers get stuck with the odds. So we have godlike technology and gambling. That's the dopa hit. For majority of our time on this planet, we haven't had access to free, free safe play and gaming. So when we have it, we go crazy with it. Also, there's people telling us we can be rich and we can be popular and we can get women and they hit you at exactly the wrong time when you're most vulnerable and you're just seeing more and more people have their lives ruined by this shit. And then the broader loss is that our economy is becoming about synthetic risk taking, not enduring value. You not the hard work, the labor to build A company to invest in relationships. You get a quick hit from this kind of gambling or casino, like economy, and I think it's just creating the wrong values and it's an erosion in the character of long term thinking.
- [70:05]
B
Yeah, no, we're a casino, but. Okay, so what's your win?
- [70:09]
A
What is my win? You go first. I got to think of one.
- [70:12]
B
You know, my. I have so many fails happening at this time, at this moment, but probably Jamaica and Haiti and Cuba with the hurricanes headed our way. We're gonna have a lot more hurricanes and it sounds like it's gonna. A category five is gonna hit this place. So my thoughts are with the people there. It seems very dire what's happening there. And of course we'd cut back on all kinds of. Kinds of. Really important. Speaking of important things we do monitor. I just feel a sense of unease for them and also our own country, which will get hit by all kinds of weather mishaps that are highly avoidable in terms of saving lives. We certainly have climate change issues that are making this worse. But at the same time, we should be able to protect and save people. So I just worry for those right now. It's happening right now. Actually, my other real fail, they're both real fails. But this is all this, what you're talking about, these empty calories, these pathways to corruption that are everywhere. You saw the media do it a bunch of times this week. Whether it was Comcast putting money into the ballroom. It must have really been difficult for Brian Roberts. But he did it because he's on the outs with Trump. So give him some money for the stupid ballroom. And when I think about that, the way it could have been done. Look, I'm not. Look, the White House is not that attractive a thing of our many things. I think the main part is, but the East Wing is not necessarily a winner, but the way to have redone. It could have been so fantastic and bipartisan and there could have been a contest. It could have been everyone involved. It could have been interesting the way we, you know what the people who are both pearl clutching and then attacking the pearl clutchers. I don't think they're pearl clutchers. I think they really are sorry that happened that way. It could have been done in such a great way. Like let's update the White House. Let's do something better contest. You could have kids involved. You could have done a whole thing that would have united us versus this bullshit, which is he just does what he wants and then the people get upset about him doing what he want. And it goes back and forth. It was such a missed opportunity. And it feels like that all over the place. Whoever gets to do what they want do is not American. It just feels very un American. A lot of these things and then a win. Speaking of Brian Roberts, Taylor Sheridan, who's a really important producer, there's always a producer of the moment. He happens to be that. He's behind Yellowstone and Landman. He has signed a deal to join NBCUniversal. It's not for a few years, but when his Paramount deal is up, it's not good for Ellison and Paramount, but it doesn't matter because Ellison is essentially a Nepo baby son of Larry Ellison. So he'll get his TikTok this week or he'll get his deal to buy Warner and everyone will fall into line. But I thought that was an interesting situation for Taylor. I thought it was a win for NBC, but who knows? Who knows how much more. Sheridan will keep having the hits. But still an interesting shift.
- [73:20]
A
But I think if we were. Or what I want to. What I'm gonna start doing is it's no longer. What are they calling it? I mean, I know it was called the East Wing. It's supposed to be called the ballroom now. Or the Grand Ballroom.
- [73:28]
B
I'm not calling it that, but go ahead. Whatever.
- [73:30]
A
Well, any ballroom from this point forward, we should call it what it is. And this is the Epstein bedroom. There's the Lincoln bedroom. This is the Epstein bedroom. Because all this is, is another attempt to distract us from Jeffrey Epstein and the release of the Epstein file. So.
- [73:45]
B
And also, Mike Johnson won't seat that representative.
- [73:50]
A
Yeah, but the bottom line is it really isn't that I, quite frankly, I don't think this is that big a deal. Obama had renovations, Okay. I don't like the way it's going about.
- [73:56]
B
This is a massive. This is different than anything.
- [74:01]
A
I do not think this is that meaningful. I really don't.
- [74:04]
B
I don't. But the way he did, I think it's more like this wasn't America. Like, this is what I'm saying. The guy's calling him to call off the San Francisco thing. Let's just tear it down without consultation. Not even like that is un American. It is just not. I guess maybe it is American. I don't know.
- [74:19]
A
Anyways, the win. So the win is. And just a reminder, there is for all this performative masculinity around taking a trillion dollar a year expenditure and having missile strikes, which may be, quite frankly, extradition murder at this Point which is just so performative in my opinion. Stupid. There is a real war taking place with real lethal force in Ukraine. And according to, I think it's Peteri Orpo, Finland's prime minister, Ukrainian forces do appear to have halted major Russian advances on some fronts with help by Europe. Yes, that's right. And Ukraine's capacity to striking its targets inside Russia has improved. I do hope we provide them with the long range missiles and the Tomahawk which is an incredible weapon to target the refining capabilities. An opinion piece. Naguardian reports that Ukrainians mood in Kyiv is more confident now than a year ago. Though the situation is still grave, there's much. It still feels like the mood is upbeat, there's greater resolve. Discussions are advancing around using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine's reconstruction and defense. Defense which is on its own a sign of growing international alignment. So anyways, my win and reminder is the real fight here, the real lethality that is proving is upholding our freedom and our democracy is taking place. It's not off the shores of Venezuela, it's in Ukraine right now where the Ukrainian army does continue to punch well above their weight class. So, so anyway, that's my win.
- [75:49]
B
That's a good one. Because you know, that's speaking of economic value, think about the windfalls that's going to happen there as we rebuild that very vibrant and innovative culture. Right? This is like an opportunity again, an opportunity for the United States to build real things versus this nonsense. Like, you know, all the different people that have to suck up to Trump. It's grotesque to watch them one after the next, you know, sucking up to them. But there's no economic value there. It's just a, it's just a grift. It's just one long grift. And that's not how you make things right. You get to get ahead because you fluff a billionaire. Like, stop it. Like, it's just, it has no, it has no economic value. And whether you like us being involved in other countries or not, the best thing would be to have a peaceful Ukraine that will then innovate and create a better. I don't know, it just seems like it's not, none of this is economic. Like it's just thrift. And so it's very disappointing, I'll tell you 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 or call 85551 pivot and elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe. This week on on with Kara Swisher, which Scott Galloway is gonna be on soon for his new book. I spoke with writer, director and producer Judd Apatow. Let's listen to a clip. Clip.
- [77:08]
A
There are definitely ways that technology can help people. If you, if you can go on.
- [77:13]
B
A computer and make it look like deep space and it doesn't cost $3 million, it costs 40 grand.
- [77:19]
A
Well, clearly in some ways that will help people.
- [77:22]
B
It will decimate the people that made space.
- [77:25]
A
But it seems like we're not going to be able to stop that when it gets cheaper. But the writing and the directing will always wind up generic because it's scraped and it's just copying other things.
- [77:36]
B
Oh, we'll see about that, Judd. But he's really, I mean, that guy has got a history of really amazing work and comedy anyway. Very. He actually, you know, he's just really sharp about what's happening. I thought it was a great talk.
- [77:49]
A
Yeah. Smart guy, impressive guy.
- [77:51]
B
He really is. But you're going to be even more impressive.
- [77:54]
A
Oh, yeah, go on.
- [77:55]
B
You're going to be good. I'm going to let you talk and talk and talk so you'll have a good time reminder, which I already do here. We're going to go on tour. We'll be going to Toronto, Boston, New York, D.C. chicago, San Francisco and LA. Scott and I are going to be together so much. We're sold out in Toronto and San Francisco and the other cities are very close. But visit pivottour.com, especially uChicago. We've got extra large venue there. Come and see us. We also got some surprises there, some good big names coming. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and make sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out.
- [78:31]
A
Today's show is produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Ronnie Polidoro edited the video. Additional support from Kate Gallagher and Brad Sylvester. Thanks also to Drew Bros, Mia Siberio and Dan Shalon. Nishat Kurwas, Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine nymag.com pod we'll be back later week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.