Apple Scraps EVs, Google’s Problematic AI, and the SEC’s OpenAI Investigation

22:31It's a great area. And as to AI, I think it's very important that they incorporate AI into all their products so that you, like, assistance, all that kind of stuff. Like, they're going to have a harder time in the AI market because they don't collect as much data. But it's a better bet for them to focus on making these products seamless in a new AI environment. Like my Apple AI talks to your Apple AI kind of things. And I think that's where they're going to get the big push of keeping you in the Apple ecosystem. I'm not sure. You know what I think was likely the final nail in the coffin when they said, okay, it's time to officially announce this is over?

23:07Is Rivian. Why is that? Well, okay, Rivian's been around a decade and a half. It's executed really well. I have an order on it, Rivian. And real briefly, I'm going to get that ocean foam green Rivian. I've already outfitted it. And I bought a home in Aspen. And I'm going to drive into town, have lunch at Casa Tua, dinner at Cash Cash. I'm going to be a cliche of a douchebag. And everyone is going to love me. And I'm going to put my dogs in the back of the Rivian. Anyways, I love Rivians. I think they're beautiful. They're really popular. They have executed really well. They cost about$70 ,000.

23:39And every time they sell one, they lose$42 ,000. This is an incredibly difficult business. And they probably said, what's the analog here? And they're like, well, the analog's Tesla. And I was like, come on. Tesla caught, got in front of a tsunami when the entire industry didn't want to acknowledge what was happening. They had a spokesperson that brought massive attention to it, government subsidies. What has happened there is a unicorn on top of a unicorn that gives birth to unicorns, right? They said the analog to what we're trying to do here is Rivian. Rivian has executed well. It's a good-looking car, and they're losing$40 ,000 every time they sell one.

24:16Yeah. Well, interesting. One of the signs of this was, and I remember paying a lot of attention, this guy named DJ, I think it's Novotny. He was sort of one of the early car people at Apple. He left to go to Rivian. DJ Novotny? Yes. I think I saw him at the Miami Music Festival. I like Rufus DeSole and Calvin Harris more, but he's right up there. Uh-huh. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Anyway, he went to Rivian, and that was a big deal. Now, as to Rivian, it's interesting. One of the people who follows Apple, Gene Munster, said Apple should buy Rivian. Like, that's how to do it. Like, don't get out, but actually buy it, which I thought was interesting.

24:51That's actually a really interesting idea. Yeah. Do you like that? That's Gene Munster who said that. But they're just buying losses at this point. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Karen. Gets them in there. I don't know. That was the alternative. I guess it's a huge project, and they really are focused in on, they should be focused in properly on integrating AI into their systems and also on their spatial computing. They've got to be focused on that more than this. But buying Ribion could be something. So Gene Munster is my Jess Tarlov of a decade ago. I used to go on CNBC all the time. And whenever I was talking about Apple, or whenever they wanted to talk about Apple, they'd bring me and Gene Munster on.

25:30And I would just sit there and think, God, he's so much better than me. Yeah, so he said Apple's a tech company and tech companies by definition need to grow. And that's the$400 billion question that they have here. They've got all this money. So he feels like to grow the business, you got to get new. They shouldn't because he thinks Apple Vision Pro has potential, but the car, they would grow. He thinks it eventually would grow. Isn't it interesting? He thinks they need to be in a new market and that why abandon it and stay in this market by buying someone. That's not an Apple thing to do. They're not acquirers.

26:06It's an interesting idea, but Rivian would have to get their financial house in order. It's tough to buy a company that's losing that kind of money right now. But they'd get a great, great staff. That guy who's the CEO of Rivian is impressive. It has about an$11 billion markup, which they could do easily, but it's still hemorrhaging money. So it's a really interesting idea. If they could get sort of to or close to break even, then I think it'd be a great idea for Apple. But as you said, Apple doesn't like to make acquisitions. All right, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Google's AI mess and take a listener question about what AI will do for HR.

26:40Ooh, a lot of letters.

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28:17Scott, we're back with our second big story. Google CEO Sundar Pichai is calling the recent problematic responses from the company's AI tools completely unacceptable in an internal memo to employees. Google took its Gemini image creation tool offline last week after it generated racially inaccurate pictures of historical figures and in some cases refused to depict white people. I'm sorry, it made me laugh. There are other issues with Gemini's text-based responses. In one instance, the chatbot refused to say whether Elon Musk tweeting memes was worse than Hitler. Pichai says teams are working around the clock to address issues and are already seeing a substantial improvement.

28:52Google parent company Alphabet lost some$90 billion in market value earlier this week. Many right-wing critics and commentators have suggested the Gemini situation as evidence of anti-white bias among big tech, which is my favorite thing I've ever heard. I don't know, go visit these places. Thoughts? Thoughts? The whole DEI, you know, whatever, Ben Shapiro, whatever conservative commentator gets their hair on fire on this, that's not important. And what it is is another kind of what I'll call self-inflicted injury or what you call, what's the term? Unnecessary foul. I don't know what the term is.

29:35Against Google. These things tend to have a momentum. And it feels like Google is turning into the gang that can't shoot straight right now. You would think just in basic QA someone would have noticed this. that when you type in the term Nazi and it returns black people, something's not right with the AI? Yeah, it just isn't working. Yeah. So it's just weird that they didn't catch it. The whole woke versus non-woke thing, that's just a fucking sideshow. Who cares? Yeah, it is. But although even before, Ben Thompson wrote in Stricy Tree, I thought this was a miss by him, that Gemini incident speaks to the larger issue with Google's company culture.

30:10He suggests cutting, quote, employees attracted to Google's power and potential to help them execute their political program, which includes Sundar. Ben, obviously, you've never spent time with Sundar. He is literally the most down the line. I would press him at times to be, you know, during the Muslim ban, I told him he should speak out when we were having lunch, and he wouldn't do it. Like, he was very, he's very, like, not wanting to do that. That's nonsense, Ben. I'm sorry. This was a piece of nonsense he wrote. I know the people who go to work at these companies. I know the senior people not as well as you, but I know they don't go to lean left or to lean red or lean blue.

30:48They go to lean green. They're going to make money. They don't, they would, the notion that they're there to advance some political agenda, if political agenda is buying a Gulfstream 650 extended range and being able to be a billionaire such that the rest of their lives, they'll be under the impression that they're loved because that's what it means to be loved in America, then sure, that's their political agenda, but they avoid politics. They'd rather not - Really, truly. He is in particular. He in particular. We would laugh about it. I'd be like, are you going to say anything? He's like, I am not.

31:21He's just not like that. Yeah, but that's his superpower. He stays out of the crosshairs because he's very likable. He comes across as very gentle, but very smart at the same time. But there's just no getting around it. Google overnight, because of open AI, looks flat-footed and poorly managed. It's true. They were the first people who bought these companies with deep mind. That's what's incredible, right? I mean, they were, I wrote that story. They were first. I think they've, I think you could say this about Sundar, he's too cautious. I think people, and he's indecisive is what sometimes you hear from people in that he didn't, he probably wasn't moving forward because of regulatory issues quite as aggressively, right?

31:58Not, there's no, they're not worried about woke or not woke. They just, just, they had that incident a couple of years ago with that guy. But that guy was this one guy who was saying shitty things to other employees. And that was about shitty things to other employees, to me, in my mind. And of course, the right made it into some big thing. I have spent so much time there. Google is just not, there's no finger snapping happen at Google all the time. It's just not, they got rid of Timnit Gebru. They got rid of people who are trying to be more social justice-y, right? Or what they would consider social justice-y.

32:29I like what Timnit is doing. Just there's, it's laughable. Now, let's say these products aren't working, but you know what? Grok made fun of Elon Musk. They just don't work, these things, properly. There was one that OpenAI had the other day in their movie, In Sorrow, where they had a guy lighting a cigarette and it was all ass backwards. And it just doesn't work. Some of it's not ready for primetime. But I do think that Google's got to get more aggressive in this space very much. They have all the tools. They've got all the data, all the technology. They could come right in. Microsoft, of course, is the one that was smart about this, of all of them.

33:07But Google can come right in here and do very well. They can turn it around in seconds. Well, our prediction last week is that this is the year the empire strikes back, the empire being alphabet. but they just have so much access to proprietary data, specifically your email, your viewing preferences on YouTube, your calendar. I mean, think about - And it's theirs. And it's theirs. That's the thing. Think about you give them permission to access your calendar or your email, which I would do in exchange for utility. And the dirty secret that we all don't want to admit is we all give up tons of privacy in exchange for utility.

33:40And they could say, oh, Scott, you're going to South by Southwest. We see you stay at the Austin proper. Or should our AI reach out to the Gemini-enabled AI at this hotel, Jane, and find the right rate in the right room? We know what kind of room you want to stand. We know where we like to hang out. And we'll just send you alerts and set it all up. Yes, no, do you want to be here? I think it's going to be a great year for Alphabet. They need to get it together. That's all. And, you know, let me just finish up on this idea that this is a mistake they made. It was stupid. But let me just tell you, for years, Google Search had a problem was every time you search CEO, it was all white people, right?

34:12This went on and on and on. But it is all white people. It is, but yes, I get that. That's accurate. Yes, I get that. I get that. But I'm just saying, there were controversy after controversy about that. And now, for one brief shining moment, the right-wing fuckboys can say everyone's against them. You know, honestly, stop it. They just overcorrected. Exactly. That's exactly right. I'm going to call them fuckboys from now on because it'll bother them. Is that anti-woke? Is that anti-woke? Call them fuckboys? Yeah. It's a gay term. Fuckboys? I have those. They cost$400. I'm called a John. Anyways, but I'm speaking at TED, which is my flex.

34:52And I'm going to - Oh, you are. I saw that. Anyways, so I'm starting to put together my presentation. And I go to these places. I'm looking for images. I'm going to these places for clip art. I type in family or whatever. It's all ethnically ambiguous hot people. It's like the key party I want to be invited to. It's all these ridiculous. I don't care if you're bigoted or you think the future should be patriarchal white people. Mixed marriages or mixed race marriages are producing the most beautiful generation of people in history. And clip art, it's like I have no idea what their background is.

35:26I just know they're hot. Oh, my God. Clip art. It's my new porn, Cara. It's my new porn. Anyway, just so you know, a fuckboy, besides being a man who has many casual sexual partners, is a weak and contemptible man. So I think it's the perfect word. Anyway. Where did you get that? Where did that come from? I just was looking it up. I just looked it up. I said the word fuckboy. I wanted to see what it actually meant, and I just told you. Meanwhile, I like to use the dictionary. It's known as a derogatory term, by the way. Meanwhile, several digital news outlets, including The Intercept and Raw Story, are following in the footsteps of New York Times, filing copyright infringement lawsuits against OpenAI.

36:02The outlets say thousands of their stories were used by OpenAI to train chatbots to answer questions posed by their users. we're going to see more of these lawsuits until deals are made. There's also been some deals made with, I think, Reddit made a deal with Google, I believe. WordPress made a deal maybe with OpenAI, too. Everyone's doing deals or suing each other on this area, correct? This is what's going to happen. When I saw this story, it reminded me, last night I spoke to, I got a call from Andrew Morris, the guy who used to run CNN Plus, and now he runs the Atlanta Constitution or Atlanta Constitution Journal.

36:36He does, yeah. And he was a really thoughtful young man. And he called and said, I'm writing an op-ed about how we need to play offense in the traditional media business. And I said, I got to be honest, I think traditional newspapers are just fucked. And he said, well, why is that? And I said, well, imagine that you have these nascent platforms, quote unquote, or these technology platforms, alphabet, social meta, where consumers now get two thirds of their news. and imagine if you're not a quote unquote technology platform, i.e. the New York Times company or the Washington Post or Gannett, you have to pay a 40 % tax.

37:15There's no way you can compete. And he's like, well, what do you mean? We don't have to pay a 40 % tax. I'm like, absolutely you do. It's called not having section 230 protection because you are liable because, and I'll use News Corp, because News Corp does not have section 230 protection, they can run a fraction of the stories that disparage and slander Dominion voting machines, and they get fined$800 million. Whereas these technology platforms, who are protected by Section 230, can just let content run amok without the tax and extreme cost of moderation, editing, fact-checking, and insuring.

37:53Yep. They're not paying the costs. I've said this a dozen times this week. They don't pay the costs that everybody else does. So the frame through which we should be looking at this is, do we want traditional media and news coverage companies acknowledging that they do play an important role in society should they pay a 40 % tax that big tech does not have to pay? Because if they continue to, I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're backed by a billionaire. That's not changing, though. Well, it. Bible laws are going in the opposite direction. The Republicans are trying to make them even more heinous.

38:28Well, I do think at some point, I'm still hopeful that there'll be car routes around Section 230. But the bottom line is the place where most people are now getting their news complain that they're not getting fact check news. And it's like, well, OK, folks, but the guys you like or the guys you're rooting for pay a 40 percent tax. They do. Because they don't have it. They're not exonerated from liability, which is probably a good thing. Well, in this case, this case, it's copyright, which is very good laws. The laws and copyright are quite stringent. So this is what they have to do, but it's going to cost them.

38:59It's going to cost them. These people have less costs than you do, but you're right. They're fucked. This is something, interestingly, it's one of my themes this week. I was like, they're like, what can we do? I'm like, nothing until they have liability. When they have liability, plenty. There's plenty. Parents can sue Facebook, you know, all these kinds of things. I was like, until then, until they pay the costs of what they pay, the cost of the damage they do, nothing, because they can operate with impunity in a weird way. Well, that's the deterrent side. And I agree with you. I think you're 100 % right.

39:29I would go further than that until there's a perp walk, nothing changes. Ah, you love it. I mentioned you on several shows. I said Scott Galloway thinks there should be a perp walk. I mentioned you many times. Well, I want to be clear. I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not a judge. But what I will say is, I'm not going to try and convict anybody. But until someone shows up in an orange uniform, We can't find fines that are big enough. Well, let's just be able to sue them to start. There's no perp-ups from anybody anymore who's rich and can get out of it. Anyway, not very many. Not very many. There just aren't.

40:02Sorry. I don't know. Sam Bankman-Fried, Elizabeth Loms, they're both in prison. You got two. Agreed. That's fair point. Fair point. Anyway, let's pivot to a listener question now.

40:17This question comes from via email. I'll read it. Hi, Karen and Scott. My name is Jimena, and I'm a huge fan of you both and the pod. It is basically, quote, required reading for weekly Friday night dinner with my friends. How fun. I work at a startup and have found myself in the HR space and what is now called, quote, people operations. My question for you in this age of AI, how do you think the functions and roles that deal with humans will be impacted? Oh, what a good question. The use cases for AI and data analytics, creative work, and more become increasingly clear. But to what extent do you think AI can support, replace managers and HR teams?

40:52Thanks for all you do. Ximena, let me just say everything. HR is a perfect area for this. But Scott, you start. You start because you employ people more than I do. It's not going to. If you're a growth company, it's going to be, it'll be fantastic because if you're growing fast, the need for additional human capital will supplant and fill in the HR problem of having to lay off people. In other words, if you're growing 30 % a year, well, logically you need 30 % more people, right? Or 20 % more. But instead you're only going to need 10 or 15 % more each year. Because AI is not going to take anyone's job.

41:30It's not going to be Mary the copywriter is is replaced by AI, it's going to be, you're only going to need two Marys, not three or four, because Mary, if trained and armed well, will just get more productive. So it's a good thing. It's a great thing for the economy. Productivity is not everything, but it's almost everything. Where it becomes an HR fucking nightmare is for the 80 or 90 % of companies in our economy that are only slightly growing or not growing, because then they use AI, quite frankly, to lay off people. And in their earnings call, if they dare say, as Klarna said, and it wasn't an earnings call, Klarna's thinking about going public, if they say AI is doing the work of 600 people, you have an HR nightmare on your hands the next day.

42:17Because the HR manager has a line around her office going, oh, I'm thinking about taking another offer or am I at risk here? Our CEO is saying that we're using AI to replace people. So what's happening right now is CEOs and low growth or modest growth companies are lying or they're not being straight with their employee base because the problem is it is not an aspirational all hands to say, I've got great news. Our earnings are up because we've gotten more productive and I've got even better news. I'm going to need less of you moving forward. What could they use AI for in HR of all the different functions they have?

42:59Oh, I think every, oh my God, everything from churning out offer letters to saying, okay, this is the situation the person is leaving, have the AI figure the severance and come up and produce the agreement they need to sign so they don't shitpost us when they leave in exchange for six-month severance in their COBRA. I mean, onboarding and offboarding are incredibly time-intensive. And there's a lot of contracts and a lot of lawyers involved. I wouldn't be surprised at some point if AI gets a certain amount of input and starts making at least recommendations, if not the actual promotion and compensation decision.

43:36Recommendations for hiring, you mean, yeah. Because they'll have all the data, right? They'll have all the data. And now it's, they don't always know. That's one of the things I was always amazed by when I was working at, they don't, first of all, they keep salaries hidden, right? So people don't understand it. And even the managers don't quite know who's being paid what and how much and different things. It seems like it's all like, it seems, it always has seemed more than, you know, everyone was like, oh, they're actually trying to screw women and people of color more than men. They get paid more.

44:05They usually did. But more, it was more chaotic than anything else, was always my impression, is that's why that happened was because it wasn't, there was no analysis going on. I was like, isn't this organized somewhere? And then I was like, no, there's just a spreadsheet with no thinking about it, right? That was always my impression of HR is that it was less, you know, nefarious, although it could be nefarious at various points than people think in a workplace and more totally disorganized because the information was all over the place, but maybe it's just. So you said a lot there, a few things.

44:38One, that non-whites and women made less. That was true. It's not true any longer. If you look at the data, and companies are now very sensitive to this, where you do see discrepancies on a job-for-job basis is at one crucial point, and that's when a woman decides to leverage her ovaries and have children. Corporate America, we have closed the gap. We really have, if you look at the data, where there is still a problem is corporate America has not reconciled how to maintain the trajectory of a person's career, acknowledging that the species needs to continue. That's where we still have a whole, but on the whole, we have made huge progress.

45:19There's a lot going on there, but the most difficult thing I think in all of business, and this is from a board level, a CEO level, a manager level, is compensation. And here's the bullshit. David Lanhard was just on my Prop G podcast talking about the importance of labor units. And I'm like, you know what would be the biggest raise that labor could have? Is if there was a hack or a law that mandated that you published the compensation of every individual in your company. Because there's an asymmetry of information. And an asymmetry of information always benefits the person or the organization that has symmetry.

45:56Because your employer knows that you're making X and someone else is making 1.3X for doing the same job. And if you knew it, you might be pissed off and you might go in and say, hey, Bob is making 30 % more than me and it's bullshit. So you either true me up or I'm out of here. This gestalt, this whole thing that talking about your salary is like talking about sex is nothing but a transfer of capital from workers to shareholders. Because if you're not complaining or you're not doing a market check, you don't know that Joey Bagadon sitting down the aisle is making 40 % more than you. And by the way, he's worth 40 % more, and so are you.

46:38They're just paying you less because you don't know. Well, what it does is there's a lot of things it could do to try to make things clearer for the HR people. That's one thing in the answer to this question. The other thing is that it will be used, AI is going to be used by bosses for efficiencies, and that will be an HR nightmare in terms of, it will eventually, you know, shake itself out. But there are going to be a lot less people working at things, whether it's law associates, anything that AI can do more efficiently is simply going to happen. There's no way these bosses are not going to do this.

47:18It makes perfect sense to do so, even if it seems heartless. It's just that's the way it's going. If you look at the arc of technology, though, That's a glass, a little bit of glass half empty, or at least a short-term view. Because with every technology, whether it's a semiconductor, computers, or agricultural technology, one in three Americans just 100 or 120 years ago made their living in agriculture, now it's one in 25, is that in the short run, there's some destruction of jobs, but it creates so much productivity and so much additional capital to reinvest that it ultimately ends up creating more jobs, right?

47:49That's the hope. Well, it's happened with every technology. In this time, I think people are a little more nervous because that would hit people. When I was at a dinner party, they were all bemoaning this. And I'm like, you didn't mind it when you got cheaper strawberries. You didn't mind it. You know what I mean? I think it's just the class. Try build a house with automation. It's the agonized class that's now getting the ones that are various. Well, it's whoever's on the wrong end of it and doesn't want to learn new skills, right? I'm 45 or 50. I'm an SVP making a lot of money and I don't want to fucking learn AI.

48:20Well, guess what, boss? The 30-year-old is going to learn AI, and he or she is going to take your job. It's trite, but it's true. AI is not going to take your job. Someone who understands AI is going to take your job. The opportunities for new jobs and the opportunities to start storming the castle with a smaller, more better-trained army, I think a lot of these big companies are going to find upstart competitors with 10, 12, 100 people that are punching so far above their weight class because they built the mother's milk of where they started, their DNA, with AI skills. Scott Galloway, techno-optimist.

48:55There you go. So sorry you lost your job. Anyway, thank you, Ximena. We really appreciate it. That's a great question. Got us chit-chatting about something we think is important. Ximena. That's a wonderful name. Ximena. Ximena. By the way, in Austin, I'm hopping around a lot here. I'm caffeinated and have ADHD. But in Austin, I'm going to go do that ketamine therapy. At Koya or someplace like that? Oh, why there? Why are you doing it there? A friend of mine owns a clinic there. He pinged this guy. They heard the wonderful thing about a podcast is everyone knows where you're going to be. And so they invite you to cool stuff.

49:26And I've been invited to go do a massive hit of ketamine. So I'll talk about it. Doesn't it over a course of the several sessions? I think this is a singular session. I think you do a pre-session with a therapist, which for me should take no longer than seven or nine days. To make sure you're not crazy, right? To make sure you're not too unstable. Yes. Well, you got to be very careful. you can't suffer from schizophrenia. But anyways, you do a pre-session with a therapist, I believe. Then you go on, you do the session. You have a therapist asking you questions. It's with you. Right. And then you do kind of a post, whatever it is.

49:59And I've been offered to do it. There's nice chairs. There's nice chairs. I've been. Yeah. I'll probably chicken out. I've supposed to, it's like. I'll do it with you. I don't want to do it with you. So I've been doing Burning Man. I mean, you'll do it and we'll both talk about it, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to go do ketamine with Kara Swisher. I don't mean in the same room. I hear about your childhood promas every day of the week, twice a week. That's true. That's total. That's fair. I got an idea. Let's do it together and I'll be a therapist and just ask you questions. That'd be good.

50:26That'd be good. But it's like Burning Man. I think I'm going to do it and I plan to go and then I chicken out at the last minute. I'm supposed to know that. You went to Burning Man. No, I've never done it. I think my window's closed. What? No, you got to go. I've never been. I'm not going. I have a determination not to go. So, and I've kept it. Unless I can go to one of those camps with Russian hookers and a chef, I'm not gone. My window's closed. I'm going to Casa Tua and Cash Cash at Aspen instead. I remember the last time I went to Coachella, all I could think is, it's so hot. I'm too old for this shit.

50:56And it's already old Chella. That's what they call it. Do you know that? Old Chella. Yeah, everyone goes to Stagecoach now. Now it's country music. Kara doesn't go to any of these things. It's so funny. Oh, they're fun. I don't know. I'm not interested. Because you don't do drugs or drink. I don't. That's what it is. Someone is asking me, you know, even, you know, I like these book parties. I have one on Friday here in DC too. I'm not, I don't like parties. That's why you don't dance. I bet you don't dance, right? You don't like to dance? I don't. Yes, because you don't drink or do drugs. Dancing is awesome as long as you have no self-awareness.

51:22Amanda's always like, who are you? Is there, I don't like to swim. You know, they just, my family just marvels at me. They're like, you really don't like all the good things. I don't like to swim. I don't like water. I don't, I literally am very happy by myself just reading. Just not swimming and not dancing. Not dancing, not drinking. Staying dry and not moving. Not moving. I'm very happy. I like to walk. I don't know. I'm really dull in that regard. Anyway, if you've got a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way. That was a good question. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

51:57All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

52:04There is a lot to talk about when we talk about Donald Trump and Jimmy Kimmel. One big question I've got is why, in 2025, are late-night TV shows, like Jimmy Kimmel's show, still on TV? Even in our diminished times, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, they're just some of the biggest faces of their networks. If you start taking the biggest faces off your networks, You might save some nickels and dimes, but what are you even anymore? What even is your brand anymore? I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels. And that was James Ponowozik, the TV critic for The New York Times. This week, we're talking about Trump and Kimmel, free speech, and a TV format that's remained surprisingly durable for now.

52:53That's This Week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

53:02Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Okay, so my win is this billion-dollar gift that was given at Einstein University by a woman named Ruth Gottesman, I believe her name is. So Ruth, or Professor Gottesman, I should say, she's taught there for decades. And she could have had the school renamed after her for literally a quarter of that amount. And instead, she refused. And actually, the backstory is she wanted the gift to be anonymous, but was persuaded that if she reveals who she is, that it might inspire others. Anyways, no tuition. It's easy to be critical of this. There's some issues.

53:44One, it lets schools off the hook. As long as they continue to get these ridiculous donations, they have no reason to cut costs. And ultimately, everybody, there's some issues. But on the whole, the core of this is a woman who is giving a billion dollars such that people can pursue careers in medicine and not have debt hanging over them. And anyways, you just have to admire that sort of generosity and that sort of expression and that sort of legacy. My fail is a weird one. I'm being critical of a company I used to be on the board of. I don't know if you saw this, but Panera Bread, basically Gavin Newsom signed into law that minimum wage goes from 15 to 20 bucks for fast food workers.

54:28And I guess a buddy of his is somehow involved in Panera, although I never met him. And somehow Panera Bread got an exemption because there's an exemption in the bill for restaurants that serve bread. And this is just pure political bullshit. pure political bullshit. And so what I would urge to the board of Panera and to Governor Newsom is this is a moment of opportunity to say, we value our employees, especially our frontline workers. Our company is doing amazing. And it is, I know this firsthand. And of course, we are going to comply with the minimum wage laws across the rest of the industry and pay our frontline workers, 20 bucks.

55:11But this is nothing but naked political backroom bullshit. Yeah, yeah. That's a good point. That's a good fail. I would say my fail, since I'm going to just do it off the top of my head, was the Supreme Court not agreeing to hear the Trump immunity case, but taking so frigging long and bringing it so close to the election. This is just, they should act quickly on an issue like this. This is an important issue. I don't think it's wrong for them to bring it up. I think it's actually the right court has to hear this immunity question. It's a big question. But the feet dragging, I know people think it's fast.

55:46It needs to be faster. I don't care. This shouldn't be bumping up against an election, which I think now this case, this January 6th case is going to. They have to wait for April 22nd. Hey, I know you have other cases, but this seems to be the most important one. And it's going to get right. It's going to oh, it's going to be a nail biter right up to the top. And so, and then if he, and if it goes past the election, he wins, he can, he can pardon himself, right, off this thing or get rid of it. It's just this, the Supreme Court is abrogating its responsibility by not hearing it quicker. They've already taken weeks to decide to take it slower.

56:23I, you know, I've read all this stuff, but this, it's your responsibility not to make a mess. This is a, this creates a real problem. And I thought, I think it's, I don't know. I think they're just hoping one of the candidates dies and makes their lives easier. In any case, in any case. It could happen, folks. It could happen. And my win is Jess Tarloff with my mom. Thank you, Jess. Thank you. And by the way, people of Fox News, I'm coming to see The Five with my mom. We're coming there. I can't wait to see you, Jesse Waters, you giant idiot. it i'm so excited he always says dumb things so i'm excited to meet him oh wait it's a five that's not the view who's janine i've never seen the five oh that's my win i went to the view oh my god they're so fantastic oh my that's my win i'm sorry forget the five i love jess jess i love you um that was the most incredible experience that the most organized show i've been on by the way it's a phenomena but it was like so well done the producers were great that the the green room was the best green room I've ever been.

57:29And the food was amazing. They have the beautiful mug for me. I may send it to you because I think you'll love it. It was so great. And all of them, let me just say, the questions were great. The crowd was great. It just was a really lovely experience. They were all smart and sharp and they were having a really great discussion. And each of them has their own little personality, whether it's Joy or Sunny or Sarah. And Alyssa Farah, I think, is the one that got me there. She's the conservative one. I love her. You mean the future ex-Mrs. Galloway? She was amazing. She's amazing. We don't agree on lots of stuff, but I really thought, I just thought it was an intelligent conversation the whole time, and I was really pleased with it.

58:09And Whoopi Goldberg is the coolest person on the planet. She's so cool, and she just watches, and then she weighs in with like, but doom. I don't know. I love that. I want to be on the view now. I want to leave you for the view, ladies. They need a lesbian. And that should be a lesbian. They're not a lesbian? No, nobody's a lesbian. No, they don't have a lesbian. That's on the other one. They have a lesbian. Well, I don't see sexual orientation. Well, they need a lesbian. They need a lesbian. That's what they need. Anyway, great. That was great. That was my win. I was so excited. I shouldn't be so excited, but I was.

58:44I did a lot of great interviews and thank you. One of the things that was really, I liked a lot from this part of the book tour and it's continuing was everybody asks really substantive and great questions. And that was nice. And I think I was really heartened by that. Really prepared and, you know, really good journalism or whatever it is to discussions can be really wonderful. So I like that. So that's what I would say. The View. You know, the first thing I would say if I was invited on The View, I would say, ladies, the first thing a man looks at in a woman is her heart. The fact that her breasts block the view isn't our fault.

59:20Is that wrong? Is that wrong? You are not getting on The View. Anyway, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and Ritat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mille Silverio. Neshat Kurwa is Fox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Fox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

59:57Kara, have a great weekend.