AI Spending Spree, Crypto Winter, and Kara's Message to Jeff Bezos

22:50And B, you don't want to be, you never want to go all in on one thing because the markets trump individual dynamics. And if you bought$10 ,000 worth of Amazon in 1999, it was worth$400 by the end of 2000. And that takes a huge emotional toll on you. So what you want to do is you want to be diversified and you want to be in good ETFs, good indexes, and then put them away and not look at them and think of them as things you want to hone for five or 10 years. Look at them once a quarter if you can. I don't look at all. You know that. Yeah. I think your approach to investing is actually the right approach to investing.

23:26I'm hoping when I'm – it doesn't really matter. My kids – I was thinking I was doing, again, the math again that I keep forgetting to do. And I'm like, well, when Saul is going to be able to drink, he'll be 21. Alex will be 37. I'll be 100 and fucking 12. So it doesn't really matter to save for retirement. It doesn't matter. You don't even buy green bananas anymore? You know what? All I need is money to put me in a home and have nice nurses. That's all. And I can swing that with what I've got, even if I lost a lot. Anyway. I'll be pushing you around. Oh, no. Wrong. I'll be pushing you around. Other way.

24:00Other way. And I'll hire really hot nurses. I'll manage that. I'll manage that side of your life. I'll manage them for you. What are you talking about? I'm like, yes, he's a little handsy, but just like put up with it. I'll give you an extra 10. A little handsy. A little handsy. Handsy-ish. Just slap him. Just slap him. Handsy-ish. Handsy. I told you. Yeah. I already have my nearest picked out, a guy named Manuelo, very big, with very well moisturized hands. I'll have some men there that manhandle you. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Amazon's spending spree and what Jeff Bezos is saying about the Washington Post's future.

24:31All stupid things, just FYI.

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28:12Scott, we're back. Amazon's spending plans are making waves on Wall Street after the company signal massive cashbacks ramp up. Amazon said it expects to spend about$200 billion in 2026, nearly a 60 % increase from last year. CEO Andy Jassy justified the spending by sending strong demand for AI, robotics, chips, and satellite. Makes sense for their business in a lot of ways. The announcement appears to spook investors, though, sending stock down 10 % and wiping$133 billion off of Amazon's market cap. What a massive amount. Let's talk about this. They are, at the same time, the suck-upper-y that Jeff Bezos has been doing, and Andy Jassy, too, for Trump is reaping benefits under Trump's new tax.

28:55Other company's corporate tax bill fell to about$1.2 billion last year, down from$9 billion the year before, even though profits jumped roughly 45%. So what Scott says is corporate taxes, just like this has been a boon for, Trump has been a boon for these people. So talk a little bit about these spending, because, you know, they need to spend in robotics. They obviously need AI to go with the robotics and chips and, of course, satellites, delivery. They have such an unusual business that it's both analog and advertising and where they market things. It seems like a company that should be spending here, but your thoughts?

29:31Well, the problem with, or one of the things that makes our economy so fragile is there's just a small number of companies that can allocate this sort of capital. And this week and last, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft unveiled plans to spend a combined$660 billion on AI build-out this year. That's a 60 % increase from last year. Apple is the only big tech company whose CapEx decreased from last year. And the sheer magnitude is just shocking. That's three times the global R &D of the pharmaceutical industry. So we're now spending more on data centers and chips. We're spending treble what we're spending on trying to research treatments for cancer and diabetes.

30:14They're spending more than it costs to build the U.S. interstate highway system. We're spending more. Those four companies are going to spend more than we spent on the Apollo Moon program and the International Space Station combined. And it's the equivalent of spending about$2 billion a day on AI. But what I think you're looking for, if I look at the stocks that are responding to the market positively versus negatively, it's okay. A big I is really impressive because it separates you from the rest. Snap can't spend billions of dollars to increase the AI targeting of its ad stack. Most companies just can't spend that kind of money.

30:50But the company that's really done well here is a company that not only has the huge I, huge CapEx, but also is right away showing that they can garner the return that justifies that I. And that company is Meta. Meta is showing increased click-through, increased advertising, increased ARPU. And it's saying, this is working for us, so we're going to outspend every other media company in the world, maybe with the exception of Alphabet. But these types of investments, there's just no getting around them, they're absolutely staggering. I can't figure out if it's good or bad. I guess it's, I'm hoping it results in a lot of vocational jobs.

31:29Wouldn't you imagine lots of their business does need this kind of stuff? Like you're thinking, speaking of advertising, they do a lot of it in marketing, right? So they have to understand what's effective to bring up for people when they search on Amazon. Their logistics of their their various centers, the fulfillment centers, the robotics. It seems like a lot of this stuff does lend itself to AI being more efficient or giving them efficient instructions. I would imagine their business lends itself to this. And you're right, they're the only ones that can spend this much. And then once it's spent, nobody can catch them ever, ever, ever, ever.

32:09It's just going to have very weird second order effects because if you look at where the money is being spent, if you look at data centers, most of them could have their lights up during the day. A huge data center that costs hundreds of millions to build employs what a Chili's employs. And so obviously a huge burst in vocational skills, but then what happens? There's no really ongoing employment here. And what I look at is, all right, if you think about, I mean, people say, is AI going to affect me? And my standard line has been, AI's not going to take your job. someone who understands AI is going to take your job.

32:45And what you need to think about is, is AI complimentary to what I'm doing or is it a substitute? And Justin Wilfers, the economist from Michigan, pointed this out. If you think about, my mother was a secretary. She would be out of work right now because AI came along and word processors. At the same time, everyone thought ATMs was going to put bank tellers out of business. There are now more bank tellers than there were pre-ATM because what they said is, let's use technology to upskill you so you can give people mortgages, figure out their financial planning. So, just at a ground level, it's like, okay, how do I use AI as a weapon as opposed to being on the wrong end of the weapon?

33:21But the economic reshaping here is just staggering. But I do think we're at that point now with all great technologies that end up going on to be hugely important that this is, I think we're overdue for a correction. And the technology I keep coming at, and I'm about to buy stock, is Nova Nordisk just hit a five-year load. Nova Nordisk actually rebounded yesterday, but Nova Nordisk, the maker of, I think it's, I forget which one it is, it was Emperger Rigove. And I always tell people the most important technology is not AI, it's GLP-1. And talk to somebody who loves AI and uses it. Speaking of, there was an ad for it.

33:59Serena Williams did at the Super Bowl, by the way. Well, talk to someone who uses a lot of AI at their work, really enjoys it, gets a lot of use out of it. But that person is also on GLP-1. Ask them what's having a more profound impact on their life. Can you do a short rant about corporate taxes and the benefits of being in the Trump administration for these companies by sucking up? Well, look, as a percentage of GDP, corporate taxes have never been lower. And as a percentage of GDP, wages have never been lower. And as a percentage of profits, corporate profits have never been a higher percentage of GDP.

34:39In sum, there's always a healthy tension between capital and labor. But basically what you have with AI, shareholders love AI. Because what you're seeing across all of these companies is margin expansion, but no incremental increase in employment. And then lower taxes. That's great for shareholders. And then the lower tax argument is basically the strategy for the last 40 years in the Republicans. If we just lower taxes, it'll trickle down. All it's doing is just pushing back debt on young people. But if you just look at the balance, if you just assume at some point we have to pay for our Navy and our parks and for food stamps, the question is, well, who pays?

35:12Yeah. I can't believe they went from$9 billion to$1.2 billion. That is a savings. That is a, oh, God, I wish my taxes Yes, repeat that, Kara. Amazon's, under Trump's new tax law, the companies, this is Amazon's corporate tax bill fell to$1.2 billion. Automatic expensing. Yeah. Profits jump 45%. It's really, the tax code has gone from 400 pages to 4 ,000, and the 3 ,600 pages, one by one, kind of fucked the middle class. And it wasn't, these aren't malicious people who say, let's fuck the middle class. What they are is really talented people on behalf of lobbies like Amazon that says, let's figure out a way to expense all capital expenditure in year one.

35:50But it's Trump's new tax law. It's even more advantageous to them. This was always the game, folks, is them getting more for themselves. It really was with Trump. Some of them don't like him. Some of them do. This has been happening across Democratic and Republican administrations. Agreed, but this new tax law is 1.2 from 9 billion. That's quite a lovely. Okay, I agree with you. And two things can be true at once. Biden, for all the talk about progressive policies and the need to reduce the deficit, taxes on corporations went down during the Biden administration. So here's the bottom line. The only way you get reelected, which must include reservations and blowjobs, because these people cling to power like an African dictator.

36:33So that was both offensive and a hate crime and racist. But these people have decided that they will do anything to stay in office. And the way they stay in office is with a thoughtful lobbyist who says, oh, just implement this one little tax change called 1202 where entrepreneurs and VCs get their first$10 million out. And incrementally, what we have done is lower taxes on the 0.1 % of corporations. And we haven't raised taxes on the middle or low income. That's a myth. What we've done is we've raised taxes on future generations with$7 trillion in spending on$5 trillion in receipts. So the people who've had their taxes increased the most are a 55-year-old who is now 25.

37:11Because we have the full faith and credit to borrow that money, that full faith and credit and that borrowing power will go away. And at some point, someone's going to have to pay the piper either through massive inflation or revolution or much higher taxes. Yep, absolutely. Yes, kissing up works. But speaking of kissing up, Jeff Bezos is finally speaking about the future of The Washington Post following last week's layoffs. He said in a statement, the Post had an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity. Bezos added that readers provided a roadmap to success and that data tells us what his value were to focus.

37:41Well, data, they all left after he did any number of things. The Bezos statement came shortly after Post CEO and publisher Will Lewis announced his exit from the paper. I think it was exited from the paper, allegedly. Post CFO Jeff Donofrio. I met him when he was at one of the tech companies that was CFO at his stepping in as acting CEO. I'm going to comment on this. Data tells us what his value is. You're kidding. No shit, Sherlock. At the same time, you have to create products that doesn't necessarily follow data. You have to use both data and creativity to create a journalistic product. I mean, anyone would tell you, don't get together with Scott Galloway, data speaking.

38:20And of course, it worked out beautifully. You have to have lots and lots of things that go into media. Jeff Bezos has made a number of errors recently over the past two years, and that's the reason people have fled in droves from the Post, as other places are doing much better in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the numbers are up. Lots of really interesting independent media companies. It's not true that he couldn't do something better here. And, of course, he's never blamed himself for this fuck-up. Will Lewis, good riddance, has been terrible. Bezos, again, did not step in and deal with this guy when he was very clearly fucking up.

38:56So that's my thoughts. You don't have to have any, but you can. What I don't get is, and maybe you've done some reporting here, we have these ideas about putting together a new group. The bottom line is it's subscale. Why wouldn't the New York Times or even the Wall Street Journal take this on and start out some of the overhead costs, but take that traffic and a great brand and try and do something with it? They could, they could, they could. I would think Bloomberg is always sort of the one. Oh, Bloomberg, that's a great one. Bloomberg, to me, would be the most, but he's, you know, he's getting on.

39:25I mean, I hate to say it. A younger Bloomberg, certainly. That's always, that was one of the possible buyers way back when, when they were trying to keep it out of Rupert Murdoch's hands. But you're right. The Wall Street Journal would be interesting. But why, I mean, I could, I'll call Meredith Levy and ask her and she'd probably just go, oh, what do I need that for? Yeah, why do I need that headache? What do I need that headache? Yeah, but they take. They've got a great, they've got a great Washington firm. What do they get? What are they getting? Nothing. Well, I'm just going to be very, I'll tell you how this would work.

39:57They would go in, they'd buy the brand, they'd buy the subscription. They'd pick their 40 or 60 % most talented journalists. Most of whom they've hired, but go ahead. They'd clear out the admin, the sales teams. I mean, the bottom line is print journalism or whatever you want to call this type of journalism is in structural decline. And it requires, and everyone wants to talk about reinvention. Sure, you have to invest in innovation, but more than anything, it requires consolidation and cost cutting. And the Washington Post, but I mean, why wouldn't, I would just think that the Washington Post would be an outstanding Washington Bureau.

40:34And they built a lot of credibility. They have a decent subscriber base. It's not a decent, it's not a decent, it was until this past year. It's cratered because of decisions Jeff Bezos has made. Direct decisions by Jeff Bezos. I've heard their traffic, their website traffic is off by nearly a half in the last three years. Anyway, it's... But you're buying... You're buying a great brand, a vehicle is how I look at it. But what you have to do is, I mean, to a certain... I hate to say this. It's almost... It's a perfect candidate for a prepackaged bankruptcy. Oh, interesting. And that is, you declare bankruptcy, you clear out all the obligations, including probably We have an overpriced headquarters, all the obligations they have.

41:16And you say, OK, 30 percent of you are keeping your job and that's it. I mean, this is no solution here is elegant. That's going to paint a brave new everyone's hoping. If there's some guy who comes in and thinks, you know what, I got five or six billion dollars. I'll waste a billion over the next 10 or 20 years. Fine. I don't know if that person it's like they say in therapy, no one's coming to save you. It's a great it is a great brand. And it's a great brand, and there's a lot you could do with it that's different if you had some of the breathing room. But you've got this meddlesome owner who every time he meddles does something stupid.

41:50Do you think he's meddlesome? I do. I think he is. I think he meddled in the Kamala thing. It was him. He meddled in all manner of things here. He's meddled in a lot of stuff. And you know what? Let me just tell you, Jeff Bezos, let me speak to you directly. You are an astonishing entrepreneur. You did amazing things with Amazon. You went left when everyone went right. Everyone didn't believe you. You really know how to run an e-commerce company. And you're okay at space. I think it's a little bit more of a luxury for you. But whatever. Go for it. I don't care if you spend your money there. But you don't know squat about media at all.

42:25And to act like you're an expert in this is really exhausting. And you're not. You suck at it. You should get out of it. And you're just not good at it. I don't know why we listened to you for five seconds on this topic. There's lots of smart people who know about this. You should put it in their hands or just sell it. Just sell it. You don't care. Buy Vogue, Jeff. Yeah, go bye-bye. The problem is whoever buys this is inheriting an unsustainable cost structure. Yes. And so it's either a prepackaged bankruptcy or you say to the current owner, like, you're going to have to do the hard work and clear out a lot of the costs here.

43:00Which you may be doing. And you probably have to bolt it on to another infrastructure, whether it's Bloomberg or the NYT. by the Wall Street Journal. But if a bunch of people get jonesed up into raising money and finding people and try and reinvigorate the thing, you're basically going to create, you know, it's trying to bring Frankenstein back for a second time. Well, I would agree. There's a lot of people who contact me and they get disappointed because I go, well, that's not economic. Like, we need this. One of the things that the reporters do is they're like, we need this for democracy. I agree with that, but you still have to run a business.

43:30Like, I say that. I'm like, don't make that the argument. It's, of course, the argument. It's the understood. The press is very important for the future. It's always been. And it's part of the many things that help our democracy thrive. And that's not the argument. You have to create. I always say, I said it to someone, I think they were disappointed because they wanted me to be like, let us grab Joan of Arc. I was like, it's called a news business. You've got to make a business out of it. And you've got to figure it out and get the costs in line. And what I think has happened here is, you know, it's been so distant and meddlesome at the same time.

44:08Will Lewis was incompetent and meddlesome at the same time and kind of cruel not to say anything while you did it. I mean, as you say, how you leave is critically important. and him showing up all ragged look at the NFL parties while he was laying off people. Just not a good look. It's just not a good, it's not respectful. And these people have worked hard, a lot of them. And so most of them actually. And that's, I don't know. I don't know, you're right. It has to, something fresh has happened. But to me, it's a great vehicle for somebody, including, I have some ideas, but you know, it's a great vehicle and it's still not a dead brand.

44:48That's my feeling. It's not, but it certainly could. People will say that this is another example of how democracy dies, that the Washington Post dies. And this is the bottom line. There's a ton, and a lot of these people will end up at places. There's a ton of sharp, critical, anti-establishment new media brands. The Intercept, Democracy Now!, Jacobin, Chapo Trap House, Citations Needed, Navarro Media, The Bulwark, Truannon. Well, a lot of them are doing original reporting, but go ahead. Yes, go ahead. Well, that's the correct point. And that is there is no or little economic viability in hard-hitting investigative journalism, especially at the local level.

45:34The amount of grift and corruption and like name your local state, you know, capital, because there aren't any reporters covering any of this shit. But the notion somehow that we're not going to have any really thoughtful, interesting, you know, progressive media if The Washington Post goes away. No, all of those people go to smaller, cool little media firms that are doing a great job. And quite frankly, have figured out a way to be more economically viable. Total capital positive, apparently. Does The Atlantic do well? Yes. Very smart. Nick Thompson, Lorraine is a great owner. Jeff Goldberg and great stuff.

46:11They're making products people want. Like, it's not, this is the thing. Well, let's stop talking about this. I'm saying, Jeff, you're bad at this. Just at least have a talk with me. Just meet me. I don't like you. You don't like me. So what? Big deal. I'd love to have a talk. I know you're a smart person. But you really need to do something else and not sell it to a hedge fund or the wrong owners. Just do the right thing. Just for the last, for the last time, do the right thing. I don't know. I can't handle The Atlantic. Every headline feels like it was written by someone who's disappointed in you but still wants to be invited to your wedding.

46:46They've done some amazing reporting. It's not true. You don't read it enough. You just read headlines. The Atlantic doesn't do hot takes. It does foreplay for a conclusion I already disagree with. Oh, God, it does not. It's the only one that also has concern. Sometimes I call it bad Atlantic and good Atlantic. Sometimes they do the most irritating things. You would like it. They're contrarian. I think The Atlantic is what happens when someone at the bar who's like a woke person that's not that attractive makes eye contact. with you. No, no, it's doing great. It's doing great. Anyway, let's go on a quick break and we come back.

47:15The latest media merger gets Trump's seal of approval.

47:22Hi, everyone. This is Kara Swisher. And this week on my podcast on with Kara Swisher, I'm interviewing defense attorney Abby Lowell. Last year, he left one of the country's premier law firms and went independent so he could defend clients targeted by the Trump administration. People like Don Lemon, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Here's a snippet from our conversation. It's not random. It's not ad hoc. And it's not an outlier that their first attack after they had already neutered the Congress and they had politicized the courts was to go after the lawyers and to go after the journalists.

47:56The full interview is out now and you can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts and, of course, on YouTube. Be sure to follow on with Kara Swisher for great conversations like this.

48:14Scott, we're back with more news. This is interesting speaking of media stuff. President Trump is now endorsing Nextar Media's takeover, a$6 billion acquisition of Tegna, saying it will help knock out the fake news because there'll be more competition. These are two giant local firms. Back in November, Trump seemed to be opposed to the deal, writing on true social, no expansion of the fake news networks. Now, I guess they sucked up to him because of Jimmy Kimmel, Everything else, Nextar owns or partners with over 200 stations, with the addition of Tegnet would cover roughly 80 % of the company country.

48:45Excuse me, I would call that a monopoly. The FCC currently prohibits companies from owning broadcast stations that reach over 39 % of U.S. households, so that's double. So Trump obviously shifted because, I don't know, is there a donation somewhere or something else? I don't know, but it's a massive. They're allowing this merger and then opposing the Netflix one. And it's so ridiculously hypocritical every time they turn around. They like one thing but not the other. Any thoughts on this Tegna, Nexstar thing? Yeah, but The Atlantic is like the person that ruins brunch by asking about the long-term implication of eggs.

49:23Okay. Move along. They're doing great without your insults. Tell me about this one. Every Atlantic journalist thinks that sex is a phase you'll outgrow. Okay. Let's move along. Nexstar, Tegna, much more significant. You and I are both talking to Democratic candidates for president. And one of the platforms I think they should adopt is trust busting. We need to go the other way. If you want to bring prices down, you can't have three chicken companies. You can't have three pharmaceutical companies. You can't have four streaming media platforms. You can't have one search engine. You need to break all of these guys up.

50:01We need to go the other way. And we need to separate the whole point. I mean, can we talk about Ted Saranda's congressional testimony? Because I think it's related. Sure. You had some coin-operated Republicans who are being funded by the Ellisons. Tim Scott, particularly recently, has been on a tear. Try to say, I'm worried about Netflix claiming that 50 % of Netflix children's programming is LGBTQ content? Yeah. And just so you know. They never cared about antitrust. Media companies are allowed to have a viewpoint. Yes, they are. Fox has a viewpoint. It has a bias. CNN has a viewpoint. It has a bias.

50:39Netflix, as far as I can tell, is the most apolitical of all of them. They've agreed. They really don't. And the way it works in a capitalist society is the person with the biggest check shows up, and then it goes under regulatory review around whether the concentration of power will ultimately be bad for consumers. It has nothing to fucking do with how much LGBTQ content you think incorrectly has been incorporated into kids' content. And to see all of a sudden these Republican lawmakers start talking about media bias and free speech, it's just insane. It's like, OK, how much money are you getting from the Ellisons who don't want to do what you do in a capitalist society and just pay more for the prize you want?

51:18So this politicization or weaponization, Trump should have nothing to do with any of this. He should be, oh, well, as far as I understand, highest bidder wins. And I appointed the FTC and the DOJ to do a review. That's it. He shifted. He shifts on everything depending on who gives him money. But that's, you know. Yeah. So I don't. I hope that. And by the way, I've said, and I talked to Ted Sarandos over the weekend, I've said I hope neither of them get it. I think there's too much concentration of power here. I don't think one man should control TikTok, CBS News, and CNN. And I also don't think Ted should control what is kind of, I don't want to call it the Walmart of content with Netflix and the LVMH, HBO.

51:59I'm like, ultimately, that'll give you too much pricing power. It'll be good for shareholders. If I were on your board, I would tell you to do exactly what you're doing. But we don't need one man owning TikTok, CBS, and CNN. And we don't need one person owning HBO. I mean, Ted is not the Ellisons. The Ellisons are owners. Well, one company. But they'll all be focused on—you get my meaning here. I get it, except that the Ellisons have promised to change. Of all the people that are actually trying to change it, the Ellisons have promised Trump they'll make CNN. Netflix is the least political. Correct.

52:33Their bias is more subscribers than shareholder value. That's what their bias is. Right, right. The Ellisons seem to have more of a, quote unquote, political. Thumb on a scale. Yeah, yeah. More of a political bias. Although at some point, they're going to have to be. What I don't get, you know what they've really missed? And I told Ted this on Saturday. And he's just not like this because he's too much of kind of like a gentleman farmer. If Netflix wanted to go gangster, they'd do the following. They'd get every single labor union in Hollywood to recognize one fact. If Netflix takes over, let's assume one of them gets it.

53:09If Netflix takes over Time Warner, I think employment will be flat, maybe to a little bit down. If the Ellisons get this thing at the price they're going to have to pay for it, and they're kind of ground zero for AI, do you know what's going to happen to the employees at these companies? Yes, I do. Dad is going to say, all right, we've got to figure out a way to justify this cost. By the way, I am huge into compute and inference, and I'm buddies with Sam Allman. I have no love for Bryan Cranston or these directors or these precious screenwriters or scriptwriters at SpongeBob SquarePants. How can we use AI to take out 80%, 80 %?

53:50That is their big calling card, even though I don't think they have any specifics. Hey, Riders Guild, AFTRA and SAG, do you realize literally the ass-fucking and not the good kind you are about to get if the Ellisons and AI have to justify the price that Zaslav has been able to get? By the way, Larry's numbers are off rather significantly, too. He's lost billions and billions. He's way down. I mean, he doesn't have the extra money to spend, so they're really going to cut. They're really going to cut, because this is a ridiculous extravagance for them. This is an extravagance. This is a yacht that they're buying.

54:26I would agree. But on that topic, the FCC under, you know, village idiot Brendan Carr has launched a probe into The View. The FCC is investigating whether the show broke equal time rules for interviewing political candidates after the show interviewed Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Tallarico. So I think what the view should do is invite Brendan Carr on and have them eat him, all those ladies, because they would take him apart bit by bit. Another thing that's stupid, like just stupid, like what are you doing? This is not making the airwaves safer for anybody or better or more fair. This is just you playing politics for your next job, you dumbass.

55:03All right. That's all I have to say about Brendan Carr. Your thoughts? We need an FTC and a DOJ that do their job. This is FCC, but go ahead. Yeah. Well, OK. Okay. Yes. All of the above. These aren't supposed to be weapons of enriching the president and his allies. This is all the same. This is all cut from the same cloth here. These are supposed to be independent agencies that think about the consumer, also think about shareholder value, also think about the health of US markets. But again, it's the boring shit nobody wants to talk about. Our markets have become way too consolidated and the result is they have way too much.

55:37We, You know what we have? We have two good schools in every major city. We need five. They need to be competing. I just went through this early admissions bullshit. They, quote unquote, take the admissions rate from 9 % to 14%. So we all go early decisions. Do you know what that means? It means if you get in, you have to go. What do you think happens if you, the deal is the following. And this happened with my son. You pick one school, they tempt you with a higher admissions rate. If you get in, you have to immediately withdraw all applications from every other university. What does that do? It gives you no pricing power.

56:11You can't ask for financial aid. You can't ask for a scholarship. So what do they get to do? They get to increase their prices faster than inflation, which education has done. And by the way, the agency that provides accreditation such that you can get debt from the government, low interest debt, to pay for your student loans, has not admitted almost any new university. So in every major city, there are two great schools, and that's it. That's it. Did the Galloways just get the bill for school? Jesus Christ. I know, I know. I'm almost done. Kara, it's lucky I'm a rich man. I know. I sat my son down yesterday.

56:46I'm on my last couple of months. I want to give you a lesson in tuition and what it means to pay for tuition and post-tax dollars and how much this meal plan is going to cost you and just how ridiculously blessed you are. And by the way, be fucking nicer to your mother after I go through these numbers with you. It is, do you realize - The Galloway just got the bill. When you think about the means of getting ahead and the means of establishing a family and saving, you think about education, you think about housing. And what has my generation done? They have purposely created scarcity such that the houses and the degrees we already own skyrocket in value, which is absolutely fucking young people.

57:26How on earth does any middle-class family send a good but not freakishly remarkable kid to college these days? How does that happen? You know one of the reasons why these gambling sites are booming and gaming is booming? Because if you're not saving for a house, you're more inclined to buy crypto or do stupid shit with your money. And you're less inclined to stay in a relationship or taking a risk on a relationship because you're not saving for a house or building anything. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. I did do a 529 many years ago for the boys, and I was very aggressive, and I was glad I was. the stock market did well and was able to pay for their college using that.

57:59But I have to say, it's not. I know sometimes those 529s aren't the way to go, but that's what I did, and it worked out for me. But God, it was - I got the tuition. Like I said to my son, I'm like, this is a state school? Yes, exactly. Wait, hold on. What's going on here? This is a state school? I know. You haven't even gotten food and living. Oh, my God. I know. I know. Welcome. You know what? I'm going to go down there with you when you go visit him. Oh, we're going to have so much fun. We're going to have so much fun. We're going to the UVA. Cal game. It's going to be amazing. I'm coming down there.

58:27I love UVA. Oh, it's going to be a ton of fun. He's already told me. I told him last night I'm coming down for the UVA Cal game. You know what he said? And I'm like, oh, that's going to be funny. He's like, I don't know if I can get your tickets to the football game. I don't know how it works. Doesn't matter. We just want to come down. We're going to ride horses. Something tells me I'm going to figure out a way to get my own ticket. He's already making excuses. He's already envisioning me embarrassing him in front of his friends. He's already trying to discourage me from coming to a football game next semester in fall.

58:53Anyways, we're going down. All right, we're going. Scott and I are riding our horses down there. All right, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

59:08Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I think I'll go first. Go for it. My fail, as always, Elon seems to be abandoning his plans to go to Mars. He posted over the weekend that SpaceX has shifted its priorities to build a self-growing city on the moon in order to get to Mars so that we can save the human race. This guy changes his tune so much. It's just like, oh, my God, when are you going to stop believing this nonsense? He's done an amazing job with the things he's had here on Earth, but not compared to the lies he tells about what he's going to be doing in the future. But he's going to the moon, folks.

59:43So that's what he's doing. Again, sounds good. He should go. I think it's a great idea. More Elon off the planet, the better. Sounds great. My win is I got Scott Galloway to watch Heated Rivalry. How'd you like it, Scott? I did it on Edibles when I was jet lagged and I am rethinking everything, Kara. I'm absolutely rethinking everything. I thought it was, I thought it was wonderful. I really, it's just really well done. And I think it's important I think young people need to have more sex. There's a lot of sex in it. Oh, my God. Crazy sex. Well, sex is their way to get to intimacy. You do see that, right?

1:00:29That's how they move. Well, dudes use sex for intimacy. Women use intimacy for sex. No, wait. Women use sex for intimacy. Men use intimacy for sex. I think this stuff is important. You know, did some of it kind of shock me? And, like, I immediately had to go to that lesbian series just to get my mojo back. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. I'll tell you what's interesting. I interviewed the creators. You should go listen to it. I saw that. They're Canadian, right? The Canadians, yeah. Yeah. I want to do an erotic drama about the behind-the-scenes going on of the world's best badminton team. That's what everyone's saying.

1:01:02They're like, what about rugby? What about this? Can I make one other observation? I think one of the things about it, and then you can get your win and fails, is that there was one of the things they said in the interview. There was this whole incredible market of people who liked this particular book series. It's a romance novel for women, right? This is a women, straight women-oriented romance novel that was hugely popular. And one thing, they're like, how could it miss when it had such a massive market of fans? And people ignore these markets. And that's one of the reasons. It's already caught on with everybody else.

1:01:34But the initial strength of it was for this romance novel market that all these sort of guys that are like green lighting things did not understand. And I thought that was a real win for smart creators who understood, who understand where their fan base is a market. So I thought that was, I talk a lot about the business of heated rivalry with these guys. And so I thought that was, it's just a real win on a business point of view too. Yeah, and I come back to when I was thinking about a heated rivalry because everyone's asking me, what do you think about your rivalry? I think a decent place to start an entire political platform or guidance for the political system and economic system, it sounds corny.

1:02:20It's love. And that is, all right, if people can't make enough money in a low-employment economy such that they're so stressed out they can't raise their kids well, that economic policy is getting in the way of love and we need to revisit it. If the divorce rates are skyrocketing because of economic anxiety and because 40 % of households have medical debt, that's getting in the way of love. We need to stop it. If any sort of discrimination is stopping people from loving each other, committing to each other, and I think marriage is a good thing because it stops you from exiting relationships just because they both have outdoor plumbing, that's getting in the way of love.

1:03:01I think you could reduce, I think the whole nation, the whole idea of a prosperous nation, we tend to think it's the S &P. It's not. It's someone's ability to find someone else and to share their life with them and notice each other's life. And that's why I think the sex recession among young people is absolutely terrible. And I also think about all the men I grew up with who basically imposed, society imposed on them a set of rules and standards that said, you're not supposed to be in love because your inclinations towards love are perverted according to our laws. But I think you could literally start from the notion of love or connecting with someone economically, spiritually, psychologically, financially, and reverse engineer into what makes good public policy.

1:03:48Yeah. Anyway. There you go. Love, sweet love. That's what Bad Bunny said. That's my platform. That was what he said. Love. Okay. So wins and loss. Okay. Wins and veils. Okay. So my win, I'm trying to bring attention to some younger creators who I just think are outstanding. And I consistently find myself on this one creators. I brought up Kyla Scanlon, this young, got to be 26 female economist, so I keep bringing on Prof G. But recently I find myself just absolutely obsessed with this guy on TikTok named Gio Hussar. And he talks about economics and geopolitics, and he'll go deep into the weapon systems of Ukraine versus Russia.

1:04:29And while the oil infrastructure for Russia's collapsing, he'll talk about the Fed and interest rates. And this guy is just so, it's like the eighth grade kid who was kind of introverted and good at math. And he's found TikTok and he's just fucking fascinating. And he does, you can tell he just does the work. And so much of my thought leadership or my views on economics and geopolitics are informed by this guy's amazing work. So people are consistently asking me, what are my sources of information? I get a lot, I got to be honest, I get a lot from social media. And this one guy on TikTok, Geo Hussar, for geopolitics and economics is a gift.

1:05:12And it's also, to be clear, a real endorsement of these platforms. He's not, he's not, you know, he's not Dan Rather, or he doesn't have, you know, he's not Brian Williams. He doesn't have that polish. He just does the math. And he's sort of unafraid. Anyway, my win is Gio Hussar. He's fantastic. Check out his content. My loss is the following. I fairly get criticism for too easily comparing the Nazis to the Trump administration. And what I do think is fair, though, is looking at kind of late-stage Weimar Republic and what was going on then in the Trump administration. And some of the things we share were a secret police loyal to one man, not to an institution, a collapse in the cultural and economic standing of middle-class men.

1:06:07Back then, it was about industrialization and automation. Now, I would say it's about AI. This notion that the enemy wasn't abroad, but it was the enemy within. the fact that we started shipping people to different sites outside of the country where they had some sort of legal protection. What we also had in the 30s was a lot of the people in power very purposely started comparing undesirables or their enemies, whether it was gypsies or socialists or trade unionists or Jews, they started comparing them purposely to animals. and when i saw the president this week compare the obamas president obama and first lady obama to animals to apes you know we have seen this before when you normalize the dehumanization of people based on their ethnicity or on their beliefs or on their religion you have to shut that shit down right away.

1:07:09And the notion that, oh, he didn't see it, or you can't take him literally. Well, okay, what would, you know, the 60 million people who died in World War II would like a word. When the president of the United States is referring to past presidents and people who have been an absolute blessing to this society, when he starts comparing them to animals, we are 1930s Germany. It has never been accepted before in our society. We have never normalized it. We have never allowed it. And this individual is talking about, he's referred to as political enemies as vermin, as animals. And so the notion that more Republicans have not stepped up and said, we just can't have this.

1:07:59We cannot go back. We cannot be like Weimar Germany. We can't have democratically elected leaders referring to their political enemies as animals. And so my fail is that so many people seem to be making excuses for it and not checking back on it. This is a different level of danger when we start convincing people. And we need Republicans here. Democrats will always find reasons for why everything Trump does is wrong. If at some point Republicans, you know, John Thune, who I think is a good man, if he doesn't stand up and say, you can't equate our political enemies with animals. Well, they only do that like Tom Tillis when they're not running again.

1:08:42Then they get, then they go. Well, then they find their balls. Yep. Yep. Anyways, my win is the Geo Hussar. My loss is the normalization of referring to people as animals, it leads to very dark places. Yeah, I think your comparison is just fine. But anyway, before we go, listen up. If you have a juicy situation you'd like our advice on, call us at 855-51-PIVOT. Think work, dating, family, finance. Make it juicy, people. This is not career advice ask. This is, I want to date my coworker or I made a huge financial decision I regret type ask. We want something a little more personal. We can't wait to hear from you on that.

1:09:20And elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, for the latest episode of On, I spoke with longtime defense attorney Abby Lowell, who is representing some of the most high profile targets of the Trump administration right now. People like New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and independent journalist Don Lemon. And this is very much to Scott's last point. Let's listen to a clip. I don't know that I thought that them going after Don Lemon was their highest priority. Right. I should have known better because what we know about this administration is they're very good at basically saying, if this is my right hand, pay attention to it while I do something with my left.

1:09:56They are the administration of distraction. OK, that's absolutely true. OK, that's the show. Thanks for listening. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Unertod engineered this episode. Rich Chibley edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ms. Severo, and Dan Chalon. Nishak Haro is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

1:10:24You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.