Billionaire Campaign Spending, Apple's Budget Gamble, and Hegseth vs. CNN

22:12And unfortunately, they're up against this indomitable foe of an AI driven platforms that at the exact right moment will convince you, hey, don't go to class, bet on the Jets game. Or hey, you know, you can get rich in screenshots of people trading crypto. and why go through the effort, perseverance, cost, showering, resilience, developing a rap. You know what movement, I'm going to go off script here. You know what movement I fucking hate? I think the worst movement in America right now, besides some of the far right crazy shit, is the incel movement and involuntarily celibate. And I speak to a lot of young men and some of them identify as being incels and they say it as a point of pride.

22:53Like they have found their community and that it's not their fault and they just come out and say, I'm an incel and they give up. 62 % of men under the age of 30 aren't even trying to date. 42 % of men 18 to 22 have never asked a woman out in person. And this movement infuriates me because just a heads up, a spoiler alert, for 99 % of history, 99 % of men have been involuntarily celibate. I was involuntarily celibate the first 19 years of my life. I absolutely wanted to be incelibate, but I couldn't find anyone to participate in my program.

23:30Kara Swisher:I'm so surprised by that. I know, shockers. 6 '2", 140 with bad acne. Not a great rap. I totally got a lot. But this is the basis. Scott, I got a lot. You've told me that over and over. the basis of evolution and the basis of mating and civilization is the following women if we were at the Alanis Morissette conference concert last night and there was alcohol involved the majority of the men in this hall would have sex with the majority of the women the majority of the women in this room would have sex with none of the men that is the basis of evolutionary progress. Men are exceptionally promiscuous and feel their job is to spread their seed to the four corners of the earth.

24:17Women feel their job is to put up a much finer screen and select the smartest, fastest, and strongest seed. So what do you know? The majority of us are incelibate. And this is what we do. We level up. We get certification. We get a plan. We get a sense of humor. We start making girl friends that teach us how to behave around girls and maybe We find we're a decent guy. We start thinking about dress. We develop a sense of humor, a plan, a kindness practice, such that over time we can be voluntarily incelibate. And the notion that somehow this is a movement, well, welcome to the fucking work week.

24:49Level up, bitch. It's been hard for all of us.

24:54Kara Swisher:You know what?

24:58Kara Swisher:I feel like there's a book in there. Anyway, speaking of someone I wish was incelibate, in case anyone's wondering where the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth,

25:13Kara Swisher:stood, oh my God, stood on the Paramount Warner deal we know now. At a briefing on Friday, Hegseth, who's a moron, called, that's just, I mean, it's factual, called a CNN report on the war in Iran fake news and said the sooner David Ellison takes over the network, the better. Also, Brandon Carr, more in number two, oddly enough, not even as smart as Pete Hegthus, which is an awfully low bar, is threatening networks because he doesn't like their coverage of the war and is calling it fake news. It's astonishing that the head of the FCC says these things. It's actually illegal, what he's saying. And he's threatening the broadcast licenses of networks who do not comply with the correct news.

26:01Kara Swisher:Teamsters are also, by the way, urging the DOJ to block the deal unless Paramount agrees to protect jobs and increase U.S. production. Talk about this because you'd think they'd be on their back foot at this point, but they're doubling down on lack of, well, just everything terrible. But this was sort of astonishing to hear from him and then followed by the FCC chairman around a deal where obviously the Ellison's licked Trump up and down. Like it wasn't even, I mean, they did. They didn't even pretend this is not what they were doing. They made promise. They're making, they apparently made promises well reported about CNN and what they're going to do there.

26:41What talk a little bit about this and where you him saying the loud part out loud, I guess. Well, it's not only wrong, but it's stupid because it creates but it creates legal. It's exhibit A in a case trying to block this to say it's an unfair merger and that it's not based on market dynamics. It's based on government interference, which it's not supposed to. I'm not as worried. And I mean, you're the journalist here. But I am not as worried about suppression of speech because what I see is alternative media, niche media thriving despite these threats. And it only brings oxygen, you know, Bulwark and, you know, Puck.

27:26They'll have their biggest days today being outraged about this on YouTube. So I don't think I don't think that as much as these folks would like, I still think the courts will hold around First Amendment. but what it indicates in my opinion is something more dangerous and that is we generally decide we have regulated competition and if we have regulation it applies to everybody and that everybody gets to play by the same rules and when the president starts deciding i know how to run a steel company which microchip companies we should invest in and who's saying the right speech and who isn't it reflects i just think i think we're just going to get and i've said this before we're going to get poorer our earnings trade at the highest price earning multiple because of systemic laws where you don't get on the wrong list and get the wrong call.

28:10I'm not as worried about, I mean, it's just so nakedly anti-First Amendment, but I think it'll be slapped down in court.

28:15Kara Swisher:Yeah, but the tactics they use is they create a problem and they get slapped down in court like they just did with Jerome Powell with Box of, you know, Prosecutor Box of Wine, Janine, whatever, Box of Wine Lady. Watch Cecily Strong on her. Perfect. you know they do the thing create the damage cause a chilling effect and then move on when they lose in court right or they get pushed back and then they're outraged about losing in court and then attack the courts I mean it just goes it does cause actual damage to people and not just outrage it's not just I can't believe they said that I totally believe they said it I I don't I I don't find it outrageous.

28:59Kara Swisher:I just find it astonishing that they do it in order to create the kind of crisis that will occupy people until they're slapped back. And by the time they're slapped back, it's too late. The tension, the fear is that it creates a chill and people think twice before writing an article about the Trump administration and are more promiscuous writing articles, truth telling about Democrats and Republicans. We start having a chill around speaking openly about Republicans. My sense is that if you look at Kimmel, Colbert, is that quite frankly, it's only emboldened journalists and institutions to write.

29:46And also, I don't know if the chill is working. And I think it's giving rise to a new set of media players who can honestly say we're about truth to power and we're unafraid and that there's a market for it.

29:57Kara Swisher:Well, why not just remove the broadcast networks from those rules? Why are they? I'm saying they shouldn't be bound by that moron, Brandon Carr, who's clearly looking for his next job, which will be dancing with the Nazis. But anyway, it's wrong. I guess the question is, we always talk about the difference between being right and being effective. They're wrong. In my sense is so far, they've been ineffective. I think the best thing to happen to Colbert and Kimmel, the ratings exploded when the FCC threatened them. So my sense is the autoimmune response of Americans who value free speech is kicking in here and it's working really well.

30:37Kara Swisher:Perhaps. But at the end of the day, the Ellison's own will own this and then we'll have say over it and we'll quietly do smother people possibly. I don't even know if they will. Honestly, I don't. I don't care to stick around and find out. But one of the things is that you create a situation where where you don't trust your your owners. right you don't i mean when i worked at the washington post i mean it was there's it was a different environment for media and everything else but i completely trusted the grams i got you know i didn't feel like they would toss me over under a bezos thing apps and i know he was just there this week talking to some of the reporters and was answering questions which he should um i i can't i have no idea what they do and in fact probably opt to go to mar-a-lago over protecting something he bought?

31:29Look, you're going to forget more about journalism than I'm going to know. So I'm going to defer to you. But what I see happening is the following. They make these ridiculous, onerous, fascist, autocratic statements trying to control the press and trying to put a chill around free speech. I feel like that attempt to chill free speech is backfiring. I also don't have any nostalgia or think that we've talked about this. I don't think the CNN, I think CNN and the Washington Post can go away and it's not going to mean anything. I just don't. I think that these folks, quite frankly, many of them, I think Fareed Zakaria starts a podcast and a newsletter and has the same reach with a lower cost of production.

32:09I think these incredible journalists go to different places, start alternative media that quite frankly is maybe more effective. So I think that you're going to see a dispersion of truth to power in journalism. The key is as long as the courts at the end of the day support those people and fall in the light of First Amendment. But I think what happens a lot of times when we talk about this is that journalists and these organizations see themselves as iconic and very precious. What's precious is First Amendment protection to speak truth to power. And what I see is that every person who's laid off from the Washington Post or CNN who has any talent now finds incredible platforms and outlets and subscribers.

32:51I just launched on Substack. And it's so much fun. You see subscribers and you can make good money. You know a lot of people who've left big institutions and are doing well now. So I feel like the attempt to chill is like when they hit CNN, it breaks into a hundred different alternative niche media companies.

33:12Kara Swisher:The only issue with that is covering a war costs money. You have to have a larger thing. And so one of the things, instead of reforming the costs of something like a CNN or whoever, fill in the blank, NBC, instead of reforming that economy, they're doing damage to it so it can't revive itself in a way that's cost. Those things cost, like that kind of thing. Fair point. So you're not going to have a logger go over to Iran and do the correct coverage. Anyway, we'll see what happens. Okay, we need to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll get to more of the latest headlines.

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35:53Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back recording live from South by Southwest.

36:04Kara Swisher:So Apple is entering its affordable era. Affordability counts. The company just introduced the MacBook Neo, a laptop priced at$599, roughly half the price of a MacBook Air and powered by an iPhone chip. While some analysts are saying this is a smart way of getting new market share, others online are wondering if the budget Apple laptop is a, quote, recession indicator. Talk about this, about Apple, what's happening. over there and where it goes as they start to figure out their next leadership group, which has been in there forever, actually, since its revival back 25, 30 years ago. It's the same executives.

36:46So I think the strongest luxury brand in the world is not Chanel or Vuitton. I think it's Apple. and essentially Apple says, Apple is the most, the perfect luxury brand is one that says you're wealthy, you're part of the creative class, but you're not trying to exhibit your wealth. When you roll around with a Birkin bag, you're saying, I'm rich and I want you to know it. And I, or I have such an incredible sense and passion for this type of design. I'm willing to sacrifice a great deal of resources for it. The iPhone, basically, the iPhone has become so dominant in identifying the billion wealthiest people in the world.

37:31There are billion iPhone, iOS contracts. And the other six billion, when you pull out an Android, it's like sending a date, a request for a Venmo. You're not getting laid. It's sort of...

37:48When you have an Android, you're essentially saying to the world, life hasn't really panned out the way I'd hoped.

38:01And I should be starch from the gene pool. And the pricing, people don't recognize. I'll go back to my sub stack. I'm waiting. Most sub-stacks are$8 a month or$12 a month,$100 a year. We purposely did$20 a month and$200 a year because pricing is a signal. And one of the case studies I love that we talk about in my brand strategy course, the most successful or fastest zero to billion alcohol brand in history was Grey Goose. And I do a taste test in class, and everyone thinks, oh, yeah, you know, all these young douchebags. I can tell the difference. And none of them can tell the difference between Smirnoff, Sky, Absolute, and Grey Goose.

38:41None of them. Like nine out of 10, not even that can tell the difference. But the owners of Grey Goose said, all right, the fifth of vodka or whatever costs about 35 bucks, charge 55. Because think about it. When you walk into a store and you're looking at anything, you're immediately sort of want to check out the most expensive thing. Pricing is a really strong signal. And I think that Apple's genius is its self-expressive benefit. The strongest self-expressive benefits in the world are the country you come from. I'm proud to say I'm from the US. As much as head up our ass as we are right now, I still like telling people when I'm overseas that I'm American.

39:17It makes me feel good. The second strongest self-expressive benefit is where you went to college. If you have two people in a mating environment and the dude went to a good school and doesn't have much else going on, he's like, well, at Cornell. That's the second strongest self-expressive benefit. The third strongest self-expressive benefit is your phone because it's immediately apparent. And Apple has really become.

39:40Kara Swisher:So you think this NIO is a mistake? I would always be premium priced if I were Apple. I'd always be unattainable for 78, 85 % of the world's population. Really? What do you think is an indicator of that? I don't know. More market share. They see a market for the near luxury or they want to expand their market. And by the way, these are some of the smartest marketers in the world. Second most valuable company in the world. So if it's like the strategy team at Apple or Scott Galloway, you go with the strategy team at Apple. But I think this is this is a luxury brand. I mean, keep in mind what Apple's been able to pull off.

40:19Margin is is Latin for irrational. When you pay a lot of margin for something, it's either because you think it'll make you feel closer to God. It's a monopoly or it thinks you make makes you more attractive to potential mates. Margin means irrational. and the irrational margins that Apple has been able to garner. I was on the board of Gateway Computer, remember then, which I realized is the weakest flex in the world. But our margins were 8%. If we sold a computer for$1 ,000, it cost us$9.20 to assemble the thing. Meanwhile, Apple was getting 30 and 40 points of margin because people wanted to...

40:59I remember when the seatbelt light goes off. Do you grab a Dell computer that says you work for a corporation? Do you grab an Asus, which means you work for a bad corporation? Or do you pull out your Apple and say, well, I'm in the creative community. I'm interesting. I think different, right? And so what you have with Apple, they have pulled off the impossible. The impossible. And that is they have -

41:23Kara Swisher:I want you to say why they're doing it then. Okay. You're in that meeting. We're going to sell a$575,$95 computer. Just let me finish my last sentence here. Apple has the margins of Ferrari with the production volumes of Toyota. No company has ever pulled that off before. They think they're going to expand share and clear out a bunch of their competition is why they're doing this. And good, bad, you think it's a brand ton? I think it works in the short run. I think in the long run, if Chanel came out with a$400 bag, they would sell a shit ton of them. And then over time, it erodes their margins and the truly aspirational people start buying, you know more Hermes or what have you so I think it's a I think it's a trade-off of market share in the short run for what is the core asset and that is a rational margin as the premier luxury brand and consumer products and very briefly how are you feeling about their stock right now as they transition away from Tim Cook well I've been selling down my Apple stock because I think Tim Cook is a duplicative motherfucker who's benefited from the American society and is not but is not giving back.

42:30Kara Swisher:Okay. But that's why you did? I would hold on. I would hold on to Apple stock. I think Apple is, I think these are incredible companies. It hurts to sell the stock. I'm just trying to walk, you know, trying to walk the walk and virtue signal. So. Resist and unsubscribe. You know it. Anyway, we need to take a quick break and we come back. We'll get to wins and fails.

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45:30Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back recording live from South by Southwest. All right, we're going to do one win and one fail each. I think I am going to start. I think the win this week for me was the impression, I don't know the guy's name, of Tucker Carlson on SNL last night. If you watched it, it was fucking superb. And oddly enough, in some cases, in some of the things he's, Tucker Carlson's a terrible person. I'm not going to agree with him. But I thought it was a beautiful rendition of a lot of these sort of noisy right wing people who are parodies of themselves. And I thought it was it just got to the heart of the problem with him that I thought was just beautiful.

46:15Kara Swisher:And it was highly entertaining. It made me laugh. And by the way, Harry Styles was terrific. And I love Harry Styles so much. I don't know why, but I do. I find him incredibly appealing. The negative this week was Elon Musk saying Grok didn't quite work as planned. At the same time, and everybody leaving Grok, even though it has these incredible valuations, nine of the 11 original founders have left. Obviously, you have Mecca Hitler. You have all manner of things that it's doing. You have non-consensual sexual images, child pornography. It's not doing great as an AI product and, again, a low bar.

46:53Kara Swisher:But I thought it was interesting that he admitted what a mess it was. It still will not have any effect on the valuation because anything Elon does, they will invest in no matter what. But I thought it was a moment where he sort of admitted what a disaster Grok is. And I think you're going to see more of that going forward. And at the same time, in continuing disasters wrought by Elon Musk, the two, do yourself a favor and watch the testimonies, the interviews on video of two of the doge bros, they're worse than you thought. Like it's, I couldn't believe they were worse than you thought. But these were, speaking of incels, like an incel mode.

47:33Kara Swisher:I don't know if they're incels or not, but they should be. Any women thinking of dating them should watch these. I thought they were just sort of this banality of evil kind of thing where you just watch these ignorant, stupid young men telling you why they They were cutting and essentially, in many cases, murdering people across the globe by using chat GPT and search to decide and make decisions. And someone, I couldn't believe this kid asked, I mean, maybe I could. I kept thinking, I want to find this parent and go have a discussion with them. But one of the things they said is, why did you cut it?

48:11Kara Swisher:And he's like, do you think you're qualified to make the decision on something that was very complex around expertise and everything else? and he said, yeah, I'm qualified. And he goes, why? And he goes, well, you don't have to read all the books to know things. I was like, actually, you need to read all the books to know things. And if you do yourself any favor, it was such a failure of these obviously probably very good coders in technology and that had talents in a certain area being unleashed upon things that took a lot more. And I don't think you can't cut government programs. I'm not one of those people.

48:45Kara Swisher:But the fact that they made these decisions in such a haphazard, ridiculous, stupid way is something, it's a real sight to see. And one of the things, many years ago, I found a column I did that I wrote about the need for ethics, history, and philosophy courses with technology people. And vice versa, by the way, liberal studies people should understand AI and everything else. And one of the things that I thought, one of the better things I think I did as a parent, and Megan, my ex-wife, is here too, is our son, Alex, for example, is in technology, but he takes design. He's really interested in history.

49:23Kara Swisher:He's got like a wider range of interests around politics and everything else. And that's not our fault, but I think we encouraged him to have a wider range of, Louis could learn more about AI. Our older son could probably learn more about AI than he does. But it was really a moment where I thought, what are we making? What kind of children are we making here that they think this is right? And so I thought it was a real, it's an eye opener to watch these testimonies. And they sit there with these very fresh, young faces. And it was so disturbing to me on every level. So I encourage you to watch it and be disturbed yourself.

50:01Kara Swisher:Go ahead. Win and fail. I like that. My fail, is it the SAVE Act? The one that's trying to, it looks like it's going to be dead on arrival, but the act would force people to show up with either a passport or a birth certificate. Only 50 % of Americans have a passport. They cost$160 to get. A lot of people have to change their birth certificate because they get married or they hyphenate their name. This is just such a naked attempt to suppress voter turnout. It's just it's it's difficult. And I do. It does feel like it's dead on arrival, but it's difficult to imagine anything more anti-American.

50:34Kara Swisher:Yeah. You're doing everything to pass it. Yeah, I'm hoping getting your senator, John Cornyn, who is just literally the worst. the worst. I mean, Ken Paxton's already sort of criminalicious, criminal adjacent, but this guy used to have values and now has anything to be in office. And to the other side, my win is we interviewed State Representative James Tallarico yesterday,

51:06And he had the most moving description of, and he wasn't framing it this way, of masculinity. And he said that his father, every weekend, would mow his lawn and then without asking, without talking about it, would go next door and mow their lawn. And he said that was masculinity. I thought that was just so perfect. You know, I struggle with trying to identify it through a series of adjectives. And it's just without asking, mowing your neighbor's lawn. I just love that. You can mow my lawn.

51:40Kara Swisher:I have several lawns. I'm not going to go there.

51:48Kara Swisher:I did walk into it. That is just too easy and too wrong. I'm just season two Swedish U.S. women's hockey team. All right. I got to meet him. The baby Jesus is very attractive. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I really am. I was planning to ask all these singers, like, dude, we follow the same people on Instagram. You'll get it. He supposedly follows all these hot women on Instagram. I wanted to ask him if he dates, and I just couldn't do anything. He's so earnest. That's right. He's so real and so earnest, and you just look, and I'm like, literally, like, take my money. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it's going to be an interesting race.

52:35Kara Swisher:Anyway. Okay, we need to take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll take some questions from the audience.

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54:19Kara Swisher:All right, Scott, we're back recording live from South by Southwest. All right, we're ready to take some questions from the audience. We only have time for just a few. So keep them short that we can answer quickly and easy for Scott, please. Hey, guys, Melissa Richards-Person, and I'm from Louisville, Kentucky. Wow. My dad is turning 103 months. And the reason I offer that, thank you, is that he was a civil engineer and he was engineering things built to last. Got it. And I think about us, have we lost the ability to think long term as opposed to short term? That's a great question. That's a great question.

55:02Kara Swisher:Scott? Well, technically, we're focused on shareholder value and the markets reverse engineer earnings way out in the future. So technically, these big CapEx investments that are driving the economy, you would argue, are actually long-term investments. So I think the financial markets would say no. We are actually still the second largest manufacturer in the world. I think people have a fondness and a nostalgia for quote-unquote building stuff. But the reality is 80 % of Americans think we should have more manufacturing, but only 20 % of Americans want to work in manufacturing. You can't bring your dog to the factory floor.

55:39So I would argue that Americans still do have more risk capital to invest long term. But quite frankly, just like we were talking about CNN and Washington Post, we have this romanticism for manufacturing. But very few young people other than Carason, when you ask them what they want to do, say, I want to go into manufacturing. So I still think we're thinking long term and make great things. I think our products are still some of the best in the world.

56:05Kara Swisher:I do think we go through cycles of that. And I think we're probably headed into a more long, I think, especially if anyone who's a young person, they're moving away from a lot of this quick, fast. I've noticed just a little more community. There's a lot more of a need and a desperation for community connection, long termness. I picked it up and that's just anecdotal. Next one. Hey, Cara and Scott. Thanks for taking questions, Eve Grant. Scott, you talked about the attempt to chill free speech is backfiring. Alternative media will fill the gap as long as courts protect them. I like your optimism.

56:38What about the Gawker media lawsuit that demonstrated the courts didn't protect them and money wins? It's a fair point. I'll turn to my journalist. I think you're right.

56:48Kara Swisher:I am much more concerned. I think they can chill people. I worry myself. I like you think about it. You know, I don't do it. I, of course, immediately run right into the breach. But I do think it does create a situation when I always like to see the enemy. Right. Like back in the day when everyone's like, how dare these anti-gay people? I'm like, I can see them. It's the ones I can't see I'm worried about. And so I like to I see what their move is. And so it's an easier person to fight when you see who they are and what they're up to. And what they're up to is very typical of autocracies, is try to slowly bring it down.

57:23Kara Swisher:I do think there's a lashback because we do have so many tools available to us. And power has shifted from the typical broadcast networks to people like us to others. And so it does tend to unintended consequences of being such incredible morons is what's going to happen. And again, I think Brendan Carr is an embarrassment, and it will end badly for him eventually. Just because you don't know the end of the story doesn't mean that's how it's going to end. That's how I look at things. All right. Thank you. All right. That's all the time we have for today. We really appreciate South by Southwest, and we do appreciate all our fans.

58:07Kara Swisher:Thanks for listening to Pivot, and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel because we have a face for radio. We'll be back later this week. Thank you so much, South by Southwest. Today's show was produced by Lara Nehman, Zoe Marcus-Taylor-Griven, with ground support from Trish Harnett, so on the Vox Media Experiential Team, Renier Todd, engineering this episode, Rich Chibbley edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Brosby, Mr. Varian, Dan Chalon, Nishak Kaur as 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.

58:41You can subscribe to the magazine at OMAC.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Thank you to the great state of Texas. Thank you.

58:54Kara Swisher:Thank you.

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