Bob Iger’s Rough Ride, Record-Breaking Heat Waves and Guest Ashlee Vance

23:04So some of that's true, some of it isn't. What's interesting here is that this entire strike is an enormous gift to two organizations. first and foremost Netflix who the majority of their production is still humming along because of international and because of production that doesn't involve union workers and they're going to come out of this stronger find a subscriber who can point to the damage this strike has done as a reason for them canceling their Netflix subscription and what's interesting is you know and then the other big winner here oh my god TikTok TikTok doesn't have any of these problems and the younger generation who the advertisers love, who no longer have original scripted TV series coming out in fall, you can bet that instead of watching Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert, people before they go to sleep at night are finding new habits and they're not going to return.

23:57In addition, the guys like Disney with ad-supported cable programming that's been shut down and have no upfronts are never going to recover. And who is going to just run away? So his argument that they're not being realistic, we're in a pinch. He's saying Bob Iger said that exactly. And what people don't talk about is the stakeholder here that is driving all of this is at the end of the day, consumers have moved to streaming. But basically, shareholders have decided that a Netflix model of growth over profits is preferable and has given Netflix a level of capital that no one else can match. So if you had to pick of the things that Van Drescher should be concerned about, would it be AI or the residuals?

24:34I would say the residuals, you know, the streaming profits. There are no streaming profits, but the piece of the streaming pie. The actors joining with the writers, that solidarity is really important. That just made their hand much stronger. To the extent that they can get, wreak out whatever economics sort of tactically, I don't understand the dynamics and the leverage there. So obviously that's important. But the more important thing is they should be sitting down with the studios and saying, we're going to present a unified joint force across the entire industry, and we are immediately going to file suit against Microsoft, against OpenAI, against anyone with an LLM that has clearly crawling our content.

25:17And we're going to come – the important deal – So, it's not their content. It's studios content. You mean studios content, right? Yeah, but that's my point. My point is I should say to the studios, we need to present a united front here. And where the real money might be is that if the world doesn't – if the world moved to streaming and we miss that, now it's going to move to AI. Anytime my work informs an LLM, you, the studio, need to be compensated and so do I. That's the negotiation that needs to happen here. Interesting. Speaking of old things, though, Iger suggested that he was going to be open to selling off TV assets, including ABC and FX.

25:54He essentially put it up for sale. Of course, he's overseen thousands of layoffs, 7 ,000 layoffs, cutting costs. He was a big buyer. He used to be a big—he bought Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, selling off ABC. It makes sense to me. For as much as we like Bob, one of the biggest fuck-ups in business and media over the last several years was massively overpaying for Fox, taking on all that debt. Yep. Having to play, and he doesn't have any choice here, but keep up with the Joneses and chase Netflix down this interminable spend. And also, quite frankly, no succession plan. And just as in my view, Biden shouldn't run again.

26:32I don't think Bob Iger should have come back. I think that was crazy for him to come back. And they have the same problem. There's no obvious successor. But he absolutely, the only thing these guys can say when you make this kind of money is I hope the strike comes to an end and we want people to have dignity and make a good living. Yeah, I was surprised he said that. That was really toned up. That was not. Really toned up. It was not like him. I was like, what are you, David Zasloff? What would you, you're saying, what you're saying right now is we love our talent. We want to come to an agreement.

27:02This is a complicated time. Let's figure it out together. 100%. That's the exact narrative. And then quite frankly, they probably go into the negotiation room and just say, no. Yeah. And eventually, both the writers and the actors and the studios. But what's really interesting here is on one side of the table, you have people with different agendas. Netflix wants this to go on. Disney and NBCUniversal don't. Yeah. So how do they even agree amongst the studio side? Yeah. Apparently, according to Fran, she went in in earnest and they did not. They were not cooperative. They have all kinds of zany things.

27:37They're either not talking to them or they're just saying stupid things like, we get your face in perpetuity, that kind of stuff. And what I don't think the unions recognize, I don't think they've played out the game theory here in the economics. And that is, the longer this goes on, the greater the structural shift downward for ad-supported television. Late night TV is not coming back. It's been long enough now that people are going to find other habits to replace that 60 or 90 minutes late night before they went to sleep. They're going to lose. This industry is going to be smaller. Let me ask you a question.

28:09That's a really interesting thing because one of the things that I was reading this thing called Laney Goss at this site, and I thought this was interesting. They want to turn screenwriting into Uber and acting into DoorDash. The end goal is for Hollywood to become a strict gig economy where labor is reduced to on-demand services for pennies, yet corporations and the men who run them get even richer as everyone else starves around them. Well, and we made the same argument when Darvish Kastrashahi makes tens of millions of dollars to implement software that skirts minimum wage laws. And I've been, I think, fairly consistent on this.

28:38I think minimum wage should be$25 an hour. I think anyone who works should have dignity and be able to live above the poverty line. Above that, quite frankly, I believe in the right to organize, but I think most labor should be supply and demand. And, I mean, the emotional arguments they're making, I get it. Good luck to you. Try and find leverage. I appreciate what they're doing. Yeah, leverage is what we're talking about. Listen, Scott and I are on the side of creators, obviously, but you've got to have leverage. That's our whole worry here. I bet 90 % plus of America is subject to supply and demand.

29:09They are. The way the majority of America works in terms of labor. Yes, but these are people that can write and act. So they can articulate better than a hot dog maker. And a teacher can teach and a nurse can take care of a senior. I get it. I'm just saying they're more articulate. I get that they believe that they're very special in terms of their role in the universe. Okay. I'm just saying they just happen to be more articulate. That's all. But as Dave Letterman said back in 2008 when there was the last strike, cowards, cutthroats, and weasels since 1982. You should go watch that clip. He does it very funny.

29:42I want Fran Drescher to represent the teachers' union. She's certainly very – speaking of articulate. She's very good. She's very good. She must be driving them crazy. She's very good. Scott, let's – and I love the nanny. Who didn't love the nanny? I thought a great program. Yeah. She's great. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the latest scorching temperatures and what they mean for infrastructure. And we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Ashley Vance, about how the new Wild West is in space.

30:15Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload.

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31:19Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload.

31:47No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

32:25Scott, we're back. This month, the Earth is experiencing its hottest days on record. And of course, scientists have been warning for decades that climate change will intensify disasters like wirefires, floods and storms. In the U.S., we're in the middle of a historic heat wave. Same thing in China. Cities across the country have also experienced record high temperatures. Heavy rains, meanwhile, pummeled the Northeast this weekend. Near Philadelphia, five people died in a flash flood. Obviously, what happened in Vermont last week, similar thing. Climate change has even increased plane turbulence.

32:54Last year, the U.S. directed $369 billion toward addressing climate change. It's clearly not enough. Meanwhile, we have to learn to live with the effects of climate change. In 2022, disaster forced 3.3 million Americans to leave their homes. Architects are working on building disaster-proof houses. What thinks you? Well, I think it reverse engineers to some very big issues. And that is, okay, we can attack the tumor, which is short-term, you know, try to figure out, all right, more electric vehicles, moving away from coal. But the cancer here is a couple of things. And that is one, we have just too many really fucking old men running the world.

33:34And I do believe that if you're in your 80s or your 70s, you're an autocrat, it's just very tempting to figure out a way to keep the populace happy in the short run. And the long-term investments that aren't going to be registered the gains because you're going to be dead creates a leadership globally that gives a lot of face time or illusory concern around these long-term issues. But if you want to prevent a tragedy of the commons over the medium and the long-term, you need more younger people in office who actually want to spend time with their kids and grandkids. Because when you have all these old men running the world, do they really, I mean, quite frankly, I just don't, I don't think they feel the same sense of urgency.

34:14They don't. I know my kids certainly do. And also, I reverse engineer this to a lack of opportunity for young men, because one of the first indicators of when a young man comes off the rails through a lack of a male role model, or lack of economic opportunity, or a lack of mating opportunities, they become really shitty citizens. And specifically, they become less, much less likely to believe in climate change. So, I mean, really old men who don't, quite frankly, the long term does has no meaning for them. They don't even buy green bananas anymore. And two, the average age of the U.S. leadership is 63 years old.

34:51That's the average age. And two, we're creating a younger generation of angry men who for some reason have decided that the Republican Party have created a wedge where they say these people trying to take away your jobs and build renewables are your enemy. And it happens to young men who have no economic opportunity. Yeah. And then there is opportunity here. Let's be clear. There's a lot of economic opportunity in fixing the problem. Of course, there's challenges to infrastructure, which would take months or years to repair. Although something breaks, government can fix it quickly. Last month, Pennsylvania fixed the I-95 overpass in 12 days after a gasoline truck crash, of course, as a gasoline truck, cause it to collapse.

35:32You know, there's going to be enormous opportunities and challenges at the same time, but it's very clearly it's going to economically affect. Look at Vermont. I mean, I happen to have been there the week before and in the places that were flooded. And I mean, think about the entire summer is gone for them. The tourism is gone for them. Every time one of these things happen, there's an economic price to pay all over the place. And rather than fixing it, which would be expensive, but in the long run cheaper. Obviously, China is suffering the same problems. So is Europe. So is all over the globe.

36:07John Kerry is in Beijing for three days of climate change talks. I think he's our czar, I guess. They've been off and on again for years. Kerry has repeatedly cautioned China against using climate change as a geostrategic weapon. But they're in the same boat we are. We're all in the same boat, hot and sweaty boat and rained upon waterlogged boat. You know, there's, of course, you have all kinds of activists like Greta Thunberg and others have been pushing on this topic. We have scientists screaming with very few of our leaders talking about it. That, to me, is really – scientists are screaming.

36:38I literally feel like I'm in that movie The Day After Tomorrow where it's like, uh-oh, we better get our snowshoes out and move ourselves down to Mexico, that kind of thing. Yeah, but there's a lot of it comes back to a lack of respect for science and institutions that you can't trust the government and academics. You can't you can't trust them that they were, you know, they were wrong about X, Y and Z and they want to take your jobs. And it's becoming a very effective talking point for the far right. And I don't it's there's very few things when you think about global cooperation. I mean, you can talk about nuclear weapons or bioweapons, trade agreements.

37:22But it does strike me that everybody has a pretty strong vested interest in this. The problem is, you know, we have all of a sudden decided to be very concerned about the environment after registering the greatest economic gains in history through the greatest economic arbitrage in history, and that is fossil fuels. and now that other countries are growing their population and learning how to leverage fossil fuels, we've decided that we don't want to do it anymore. Right, right. So they have to suffer from that and the effects of climate change more than others. They don't get the cocaine and champagne that we experienced.

37:56The greatest economic arbitrage in history was fossil fuels. You can't build a hospital without massive amounts of fossil fuels. And we've registered just enormous prosperity from that conversion. And now all of a sudden we're getting very purist about it. So I don't like this notion that technology is going to change everything and renewables will create more jobs. I think we have to come to grips with the fact this is going to be really expensive. And also, I'd like to think that the G7, that their biggest, you know, the arms treaty to end all arms treaty should be, we're all going to, you know, 2 % a year reduce carbon emissions.

38:34And we're going to also come up with some money through the IMF to support or ensure that developing nations have some economic incentive to try and go a different route, recognizing that they have a very legitimate argument that, okay, boss, you have decided to pull up your pants, but I want to have a good time. This is the existential crisis that should catalyze cross-border cooperation. Because as individuals, what happens is more atomized. Every nation just goes, why am I going to pay this much when I'm 1 % of it? Right. So it's going to just, we're going to see these global disasters over and over again.

39:12And the problem with human beings is they get used to these things. They're like, oh yeah, flood. Oh yeah, this. And the cost is going to be enormous. I mean, people are rebuilding again in some of these Florida cities that got decimated and are going to get decimated again. By the way, nature is going to settle all of this for us. So as long as we keep abusing Mother Nature. Anyway, we got to move on. This is really, this is going to be the biggest economic story of the next decade. This is it. This is the big, I mean, you think streaming is expensive? Guess what? Climate change is a much higher bill and one that we're going to have to pay whether we like it or not or live with fewer people on the planet.

39:49Anyway, let's move on to our friend of pivot.

39:58Ashley Vance is a reporter for Bloomberg, who has also written five number one New York Times bestsellers, including a biography of Elon Musk. His latest book is called When the Heavens Went on Sail, The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach. Welcome, Ashley. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I thought we've been to space, but let's talk about it. We usually talk about the current space race in terms of Elon, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson. You say in this book it's about the wild west of space. Can you tell us what you mean by that? Yeah. I mean, out of all the billionaires that got into space, Elon and SpaceX have done the best.

40:38Branson's companies are kind of fading away, and Blue Origin's been a little bit stuck. But if you look a little further out, there are hundreds of rocket startups, satellite startups all over the world. My main argument in the book is that we spent a lot of time talking about Mars and the moon and these things that are kind of far away. But the real action, all the money so far has been poured into building this, I call it a computing shell in low Earth orbit full of thousands and thousands of satellites. All the satellites, yeah. Right. There's been false starts on some of this stuff, but now, you know, it's happening for real.

41:16And so I spent the last five years going all around the world trying to find the most interesting characters. some of them successful, some less successful, but just the ones trying to make all this happen. So talk about who they are, because people, we will ask you about space tourism and Mars, because it dominates the headlines, but they also try to dominate the headlines. I don't want to just blame it on media. These are loudmouth people. Talk about some of the other characters that are working on commercial space that we don't hear from. Yeah, the two biggest, most successful ones would be a company called Planet Labs.

41:48Its CEO is Will Marshall. Just like SpaceX really did help pull the price of rockets down, Planet Labs made this huge revolution in satellites. Instead of making billion-dollar satellites that take years and years to build and are supposed to sit up there for 20 years, they made more or less disposable shoebox-sized satellites. And theirs are imaging satellites. And they've put up hundreds of them already. They surround the Earth. They take a photo of every spot on the Earth's landmass every day, like usually 12 to 16 photos. The interesting thing about them is that, you know, not even a government can do this today.

42:27The US, China, Russia, they have like a handful of spy satellites that have to look at specific places. And so, and the other argument I would make is that planet, this is the first time we got like Moore's law into space. So instead of using all this old, what they call space grade electronics, they use consumer electronics. So big revolution. And the second one I would call out, even though there's more in the book, is Rocket Lab and the CEO of that company, Peter Beck. They're from New Zealand. And after SpaceX, they are the only commercial rocket player that flies to space all the time. They're sort of like not a household name, but they've flown about 40 times.

43:06And New Zealand was not a spacefaring nation before. Peter Beck didn't even go to college. He's like a self-taught rocket engineer. So, you know, I just think they're representative of this huge change that's taking place. And then there's something like you write about Firefly. Is that right? Yeah, there's another company in the book called Astra, which is trying to make the cheapest rocket ever. And they're still on this quest and have had some ups and downs. And then there's Firefly, which, Kara, I thought this might be near and dear to your heart. This is the story. We've all heard before of a Ukrainian OBGYN turned software magnate who buys a bankrupt rocket maker in Texas.

43:43He gets his rocket on the pad, and then the U.S. government throws him out of the country after he's put$250 million into the company. Where is he now? Where is he operating at? Well, they forced him to sell Firefly. This is before the Ukraine war broke out. On the supposition that he might one day become a Russian asset, and having his pause on this aerospace technology was dangerous. He subsequently funded a large part of the Ukraine offensive against the Russians, and he's in Scotland now. So he used to live in Silicon Valley. Now he's moved his whole family to Scotland. All right, Scott. Ashley, nice to meet you.

44:26Likewise. So if you think of space, I think of space as trifurcating into three separate industries, space tourism, space exploration, and space hauling. And that might not be the right way to look at it, but I think of those, we have a tendency to call stuff space, which would be like calling something manufacturing. So of those three businesses, tourism, exploration, and hauling, can you give us a bit of a rundown on what you think the prospects are for each of those three? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, hauling, I might not use that word, but I think I get where you're going. I mean, I think that's where the business is right now.

45:01So we are putting satellites into space. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, we, from 1960 to 2020, we'd put about 2 ,500 satellites into low earth orbit. That number in just the last three years has gone up to 10 ,000. So we had been on this very gradual curve. It's now exponential. And it's going to keep growing, right? It's supposed to go to a hundred thousand by the end of the decade. So that, you know, this again is where the money is and it's not just satellites now. So this year, just a couple of months ago, we saw the first factory, you might call it, going to space. This company, Varda, a startup in LA, is making pharmaceuticals, really, in low Earth orbit.

45:38So gravity tends to sort of have some effects on the molecules you can make here on Earth. They can be kind of cleaner and arranged different in space. All this stuff like asteroid moining that I thought was a total joke and would never, ever happen. Same thing. There's a startup called Astroforge. They set up their first sort of test system to try and burn some metals up in space and see what it looks like. And so this industry, satellites industry, this is all happening in low Earth orbit. The space tourism stuff, you know, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have had these like fits and starts with their kind of six minute ride to space, which is still expensive.

46:17You're only in space for a couple minutes. SpaceX is coming in with these private astronauts. It's many, many, many millions of dollars, but SpaceX is much better at actually flying people. You get to spend days up in space. Tom Cruise is going to go up there to film a movie on the ISS. I still don't think... So it's happening, but I don't think this is accessible to more than... It's a limited clientele. Exactly. And I don't see that really changing that much. Virgin is having serious problems. Blue Origin will make it because of Jeff Bezos, but how many people get to do that is a real question.

46:54Will it ever come down in price? It'll eventually, presumably, come down. Maybe not. It's supposed to be the idea. I mean, Virgin was supposed to do it for about$250 ,000 a pop. They've just been at it for a really long time. Their whole business model is shot because they've raised so much money over all these years. It would take them, you know. Well, Ash, let me double click on that. I'll put forward a piece. I think Virgin Galactic is at zero within a year. I think space tourism makes absolutely fucking no sense. It's both supply constrained and demand constrained. It is the most ridiculous business ever.

47:25Your thoughts? But, well, no, I mean, it's like Virgin's business. They've raised so much money. They're in a horrible position at the moment. And I agree. Like for that six minutes, it's a six-minute journey, but you're kind of weightless for two. I mean, how many people want to risk their life and all this money for that? I don't know. It seems small to me. And so, you know, if you're going to get on the longer rides, I mean, a SpaceX launch is still$60 million for those big rockets. So we've got a long way to go before this is affordable. Long way to go. And then the space exploration part.

47:58Yeah, I mean, all that part is getting really exciting because the price of rocket launches has come down and there's a lot more rockets now. And so if you're a scientist or you're a researcher, you used to have to pony up$300 million just to get a flight before you even start talking about your instruments or whatever you want to send out there. And now, you know, Rocket Lab charges about$10 million. They're going to fly missions to Venus with probes. And so we're going to see way more science. And yeah, like it's an incredible time. So obviously the James Webb telescope is out there. That's a government thing.

48:33What does it mean for the U.S. government space? I wrote about this a couple of years ago as a private industry rather than a national one. Or do you not think that? I mean, all the governments have pulled back because of costs and what they get out of it, essentially, except for China. Talk about that. What does it mean? I had said, well, this is what it is, and good or bad, we have essentially given up, essentially, and made it into a private industry. That could be a good thing, of course. I sort of think it's inevitable. I argue in the book, if you go back to the 1920s, if you'll indulge me for a second, we had rocket pioneers in the U.S., Russia, and Germany.

49:12They were funded by individuals, the same people that used to pay money for huge telescopes and stuff as like a sign of your wealth. You know, it was really the World War II that turned this into this like nation state thing where it was the pride of your country and it was part of the Cold War. And so I kind of think we're going back to the way this might have been if that had not happened. I think that is probably good because, man, space had gotten kind of boring and slow and was not changing at all for like 50 years. You know, we're not talking about sort of a recent development. And if you were like a young kid, you had to go work at Lockheed or Boeing, and it just wasn't the most exciting idea.

49:58And now we're sort of at this time when the business cases on some of this stuff are highly questionable. But we are going to try a lot of things out to see what works. I think if you're a patriotic American, I'm not like a huge nationalist, but if you are, you know, the U.S. went from almost being falling way behind and China was going to run away with this thing to now the U.S. is unquestionably the most exciting commercial space player in the world. And then China is really a government-backed exercise. And after that, it drops off. New Zealand is actually like the third major player because Rocket Lab has had so much success that there's now about 12 or 15 space startups in New Zealand.

50:41There are. Scott? So I know you wrote a book on Elon Musk. I've always thought that his iPhone was a Falcon Heavy rocket. I saw this incredible chart. You had mentioned that it cost$70 million to launch a Falcon Heavy rocket. But the last vehicle that reliably put satellites into space was the space shuttle, and it cost$1.1 billion per launch. And I saw this amazing graph showing that as it relates to at the end of the day, getting a kilogram of stuff into space, the Falcon Heavy rocket just beats everything. Isn't the Falcon Heavy rocket essentially the iPhone? I think my thesis is that SpaceX is going to be worth more than Tesla and that the Falcon Heavy rocket is this generation's iPhone that's just going to create hundreds of billions in value.

51:30So the Falcon Heavy is the big one. The Falcon 9, which is a little bit smaller, is kind of their workhorse. And so for – but I agree with you. So for all of Elon's many, many, many faults, you know, SpaceX is just an unquestioned incredible success. Yes, before SpaceX came along, every large country that did this, you were lucky to launch once a month. SpaceX is now going almost every two days with a rocket. They have the longest streak of successful launches ever. They're doing, it's pretty much like SpaceX against the world in terms of number of launches. And the price to get stuff there, yes, you can pay$60,$70 million for the rocket.

52:12But in a lot of cases, they're taking up 12, 15 companies' satellites on that single rocket. And we've never seen anything like this. I mean, it's crazy. They're reusing. They have rockets that have been reused 20 times, which everyone thought was impossible. And so they are, and they're also, I should note, they are the world's largest satellite maker of that. When we talked about that 2 ,500 to 10 ,000 satellite increase. They are. Almost all of those are SpaceX. Yeah, through Starlink. Starlink. The space internet system. Those are almost all SpaceX's satellites. They are now like the dominant player in space as well.

52:49So talk about, I'm going to get to Elon at the end, but the war in Ukraine is the first space war. Obviously, Starlink's been an important part of that. Do you see them spinning off Starlink? Obviously, there's a controversy about it. But although I do think, you know, they were there with the right technology to be used. So it's the government's fault if they didn't. do it themselves or someone else didn't. Yeah. I mean, so I write about this at the end of the book. I mean, this was an incredible moment of all the stuff I had been tracking. So leading into the war, we had the usual politics going on.

53:24Russia said, we're not going to attack. Everyone else said, we're going to attack. You have no idea who to trust. Well, it turns out Planet Labs had images of everything that was going on. All the Russian troops in Belarus amassed on the border. We knew exactly what was going to happen when they first moved in. The Biden administration did say they're coming. Correct. But the interesting moment is like, we can turn to planet and you can see the images yourself. You don't have to be fed this from the CIA or whoever. And as the troops moved in, Russia, we saw these embarrassing images of the Russian troops stuck on this road, you know, and these are on front pages everywhere.

54:01And then, of course, you know, when the Russians went to try and take out the communication systems, yeah, Starlink was there. It's still there. helping the military and the government operate. And so you had this traditional space superpower. I mean, Russia is about as good as it got, have commercial space turned totally against it. To your point, Karen, when Elon was like threatening to turn Starlink off, the U.S. government had nothing they could do to replace it, even if they wanted to. I mean, he was a nation state, you know, and kind of crazy. I was like texting with him. I think they're in better shape now.

54:36I think they're speaking now. That's my understanding. I mean, it's still going. I was texting him on that weekend when he turned around. I was like, dude, don't do this. Turn this thing on. He should have been paid. He should have been paid. But it's also crazy that we're at this point where somebody's whims can affect us. Actually, I had a Ukrainian official come and ask me if I could talk to him. And I said, no, he's not speaking to me. But this is how bad it's gotten. Yeah. I mean, it's a crazy time. But this is how powerful this technology is. Well, it means that we have to get more of it from someone else, not just one.

55:08kooky dude. And there are rivals coming now. There are. And it's going to be, yeah, it's going to be really fascinating. I just think, so you will have, it's going to be an interesting time when you do have these commercial players and then you are going to have still like, like China's space internet will be owned by China. And, and, you know, it's, it'll be interesting how these forces clash. It strikes me that just from an investment standpoint, a great place to invest here. What do we know? We know that there's going to be a lot more of this. There's going to be a A lot more vehicles going to a space, a lot more infrastructure.

55:38It strikes me that if I were to invest here, I'd want to find out who's selling the parts into these players. Who are the big infrastructure plays here? Well, and like on your previous question around Starlink, SpaceX, I think, just got valued at$150 billion. Almost all of that is tied up in what you believe about Starlink because rocket launching is a horrible business, even if you're good at it. Well, people think it should be spun off too, correct? And I think it will be, you know, to get as much money possible out of that. But, and Scott, to your other point, so this whole industry, it reminds me so much of, like, the computing industry going from mainframes on.

56:17You know, it used to be you just made rockets and somebody else made satellites. And now a company like, like, obviously SpaceX is doing both, Rocket Lab is doing both now. So they make 90 % of a satellite and you just kind of plug your interesting telescope or whatever you want onto their rocket. And so this is where it's going. The industry is maturing so that these guys can be not just the vehicle, but also sort of the toolmakers along. I would tend to bet on any company that's doing data as opposed to rockets and some of the meat and potatoes part of this. I would get, you know, whoever has the interesting information are going to be the ones that make the most money.

56:57Yeah. What's your most pessimistic about what's going on? Well, I think humans don't have a great track record of handling things well when they move into some new territory at record speed. So, you know, we're already at this point where it's kind of whoever gets. Space trash. Well, there's space trash. It's kind of like whoever gets there first really wins. There's hardly any laws. There's laws about getting your rocket to space. There's not many laws about once your satellite's up there, like what you do with it, how it comes back to Earth. We've seen illegal satellite launches for the first time ever.

57:35It's going to, you know, and with the cost of if a guy in New Zealand who didn't go to college can build a rocket, then a lot of other people can build a rocket. And they're essentially ICBMs. So Wild West. Yeah. There's going to be all these new space-faring nations. We've seen total recall, Ashley. We've seen total recall. You did say this thing about Elon, the legacy. Someone asked me this question. I thought, let me just say, you wrote the book, Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for the Fantastic Future. It came out in 2015. You told the Washington Post you didn't think Twitter was ruining his legacy, saying SpaceX is running laps around the entire industry and nation states.

58:11Tesla always seems to have its ups and downs. Overall, it's as healthy as it's ever been. Neuralink is barreling forward. So I think I don't buy in. I saw some of that, but I would disagree. seemed a little glib to me, given some of the stuff he's been saying. I think over the long term, certainly people, well, actually, although people do think Henry Ford was an anti-Semite now, that's sort of the caveat, or Thomas Edison and all his many faults, even Ben Franklin gets a once-over, right? I get it. What were you, it seemed a little glib given some of the really mendacious, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic remarks, and that's just on a Tuesday kind of It is.

58:52I guess, you know, it depends on what sort of time frame any of us are talking about when we look at this. I imagine in my head, if you go out like 100 years, you know, SpaceX, like I said, I think SpaceX will probably be way up there. I think Neuralink, I've been going there a lot the last three years and have a story coming. I think it's going to surprise people. I think they're going to cure paralysis and help people with strokes and things like that in dramatic ways. I think those will probably be the two. This is his brain implant for people who don't know. Correct. Which I've talked to him about quite a bit.

59:22Yeah. Well, I think these will be traumatic companies that are remembered for a long time. Yeah. You know, he's on this, it was like four or five years ago, he just sort of let bad Elon out for reasons that I don't fully understand. He seems to have like really, he reminds me a lot of his father in a lot of ways. It seems to. Howard Hughes comes to my mind. It's funny. Like the first, when I was doing the book on him, I told him I was reading a biography on Howard Hughes, and he was so fascinated by that. But yeah, something's changed, you know, and so I get your point. I mean, there's things now.

1:00:00How would you write the Twitter chapter if you were writing in addition to this? Besides all these fantastic, and I think we can all, you're of the school of, I just interviewed Mark Benioff, and he's of the school of, well, he can land a rocket on a surfboard. The misogyny is not nice. But, you know, that's sort of that's the Silicon Valley tone. It's funny because I think maybe you and I have a different like when I'm at Neuralink with him, he is actually more pleasant and rational to talk to than he was when I did the book. So I find this whole Twitter thing very strange. Like it almost strikes me as like an act or a performative.

1:00:36Yeah. Something seeking attention, trying to be in the news. He's obviously, both from a business standpoint and personality, gotten sort of addicted to being in the limelight. And it gets hard to one-up yourself when you're at this extreme end. Yeah, I would agree. When I say that to people, that he can be really reasonable. But this public performance is really toxic and horrible. He's totally different in private than he is on Twitter. And I do not understand it. And he has people around him who tell him, you know, ask why, don't do this. Yeah, so I don't know. I mean, now it's impossible to like separate these parts of his personality, the business and the man.

1:01:14So, you know, but what in a hundred years? I don't know. Was he just a troll? And how much time do we spend on that? I don't know. Well, if he ends up in a hotel room with long nails and tissues, that's what people will remember. And Howard Hughes was a great entrepreneur and innovator. Scott, any last questions? It strikes me that, and one of the tragedies here is that this is a lot of potential that may not be realized because he's created such a sideshow and such a circus that he is just going to lose support. at some point senators who he's been disparaging of are just going to get in the way of his projects, that he's potentially taking his legacy down.

1:01:57What advice, other than get off of Twitter, would you have? It sounds like you're there. It sounds like he respects you. And if he said to you, Ashley, what one or two pieces of advice would you have for me? What would those be? That was my prime advice to him. I was like, don't buy this thing. This is a waste of time. and your energy. But that obviously didn't work. Yeah, I just think, I think it'll always, this is sad for me. When I wrote the book, my central thesis was like, here was this interesting person who was not doing consumer internet stuff. He was kind of taking us back to machines.

1:02:31He was showing you could manufacture in the United States. He was actually trying to push things forward and seemed to have a knack for it. I find this all quite frivolous to me. And his ultimate goal. He's always said deep in his heart, I believe this was like to do this thing on Mars. And that seems, you know, I did this Twitter space with him that went really awry a couple weeks ago. And part of it was because I think I was saying, look, I think you're distracted from what used to be your life calling. And I think he probably feels that somewhere inside of him. Oh, did he lose his mind? Yeah, he got quite upset with my line of questioning and shut everything down.

1:03:10so you know I mean anyway this has all been sad to me because it's like gone in this direction you're watching a brilliant person disintegrate in ways that are untoward we'll see what happens let's hope that he gets himself together probably not probably going for Howard Hughes here anyway we'll see Ashley really interesting book I find this stuff really interesting I'm glad you're putting a focus away from just Bezos Musk and Branson it's really important to think about all the things that are going on And space is where we need to be. We just talked about climate change. We've got to, as Elon says, and many people do, we need to be a multi-planet species if we are to survive.

1:03:48Anyway, thank you so much. Again, the book is called When the Heavens Went on Sail, The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach. Ashley Vance, thank you very much. Thanks, Ashley. Nice to meet you. Yeah, thank you, guys. One more quick break. We'll be back for Wins and Fails.

1:04:09Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload.

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1:05:13Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload.

1:05:42No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

1:06:20Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I'm going to go first because I want to focus on this article by Tim Carman in The Washington Post about a fight between, I would say, a conservative couple, I wouldn't call them Christian, although they claim they are, in Virginia, and a gay couple who's owned a restaurant in the same town. This couple has come in. This restaurant's been there forever, a mainstay of the town. And many people suspect them trying to run people out so they can develop more in this town of Plains, Virginia. It's called The Plains in Virginia, a very charming little town.

1:06:55And it's just terrorized the community, this couple. They threw a rat onto this restaurant and then took pictures trying to get the health department to come in. They've taken this restaurant to court. They've sort of bothered the employees. They have a whole rigmarole around parking. It's some story. It's something else. And this couple is very sketchy. They, of course, were at January 6th, just sightseeing, I guess, at the Capitol. And it's just this, it's really fair. This guy gave these people an opportunity to talk. They talked themselves right into a, what, a bunch of assholes kind of thing.

1:07:31But really, it's worth reading. It's something else because all this whole town is like trying to do the right thing all the time. And just, it reminds me of when these conservatives come in and do CRT or book banning. They just make a mess and they cause lawsuits and a mess and this and that. And then all the good people give up. They're going to sell the restaurant. I mean, ultimately, these people have been successful. But it's worth reading, I would say. I don't know if you read it. I haven't. It's interesting. We had something. I live or have a home in a wonderful little town in Florida called Gulfstream.

1:08:06And there was this guy or a couple who used to put profane things on the outside of his house and say it was free speech. And he was constantly suing the town of Gulfstream and just bullying everybody, suing his neighbors all the time. And this is what you need. We took a bunch of our tax revenue and we're blessed. It's one of the wealthiest little hamlets in the world. And we got like a mayor who's basically a litigator and said, here's money. Go chase this motherfucker out of town. I mean, it was just like, well, not even chase him out of town, but start hitting back. It's like, we're just sick of being bullied by this guy.

1:08:41But I remember this happening about 10 years ago. And bullies back down. The bullies typically, when you land a solid counterpunch, that usually shocks the shit out of them. I think some of this is true. I mean, we're just talking about Elon. I think he's a bully, and I think he's used to people not hitting him back because he has so much money. And I think when you do land a blow against – I know I don't have the specifics around this couple, but I do think – The mashers. Yeah, and the problem is no one has the time or the energy to organize. They're relentless. They're relentless is what they are.

1:09:17Well, shamelessness is a core competence. These people are terrible people. They're not Christian. They are just terrible. And they want to, you know, they're trying to pretend they're political victims when they're the terrorists the whole time. This is a very conservative town, but they're lovely. You know, they love this restaurant. These people have been operating their business for years. It's, you know, it was interesting. Why are they angry at the restaurant? They're next door to the restaurant. So they say there's smells from it, which they're, you know, the health inspector came in and said, no, there's not this.

1:09:46Just keep making complaints. And then the parking. But they got there after the restaurant, like long after. And some people think they're trying to take over because their son is running for a local office that they want to develop this area, which has been very quaint. They didn't like the pride flag. You know, it just goes on. It's just they're mixing up their conservatism with, I think, a venal nature of wanting to have more development go on. Yeah, but this is the power of journalism. You know why this is going to end? Because that article. This article will get a bunch of awareness. It's really gotten a ton.

1:10:17It's just, they're just heinous. They're heinous people. Bad neighbors, as you said. Anyway, that is my fail, this thing. The story is really, the Post has put out a series of really wonderful stories about conflict in a really fair way, like talking about conflict. There was a conservative sheriff down in the South who was fighting the white supremacists. It was so moving. This poor guy who is very conservative is just like, what is fucking wrong with these? Anyway, I think the Post is doing a great job. The emblem of conservatism is Abraham Lincoln. I mean, so real genuine conservative values are about liberty and equality.

1:10:53And anyways, do you have a win? A win? My kids are home all weekend. They're great. Of course. They were so good. We had, they brought Old Forge pizza. We cooked pasta. We had such a good time. And packing up my boys, my older boys, one is going to Argentina for the year, on his junior year abroad and the other is going to University of Michigan and we spent yesterday going through their things and packing and it was, I'm going to take a little trip with each of them before they leave and just all four of them together was just a joy this weekend. That's nice. That's great. Enjoy it. Relish in it.

1:11:29We had a great time. I did a lot of dishes though. Scott, I'll be honest. A lot of fucking dishes. Oh, by the way, you looked really good on Face the Nation. Whatever that look was, that amount of makeup and that dress. Makeup, thank you. You look good. That was nice. Thank you. It's makeup triggering. Anyways. No, it's not. She's a wonderful makeup person there. You look good. Again, I... They ghosted you. Can you believe it? I thought you ghosted me. We just want you to relax and ask, but I'm like, first off, you are not concerned with my vacation. Let's just call this what it is. Oh, my God.

1:12:00I love it. It's so good. Like, I am Mika. She is Jo. I get it. All right? I get it. I get it. All right. We're getting you on. I'll refuse to go on without you. I'm pissed off. I'm so sad. I was super excited. I was like, oh, I'm excited to go on with Scott. Louie was like, who are you going on? I'm like, Scott and I. He goes, you too. And I said, I know. Just the eye. All right, my wins and fails. So my fail is I shoot from the hip a lot. I think I have good instincts. But I think I got it wrong last week saying that Lena Kahn was a big disappointment. My editor-in-chief, Jason Stavers, who went to UVA Law School and is just an incredibly talented legal mind and blue flame thinker and saves me from myself a lot, he really came after me in this email or corrected me.

1:12:46And I think there's a lesson here. I think it's important to surround yourself with people who are not afraid to disagree with you. He said that I got it all wrong and that basically that he reached out to one of his former antitrust partners. And he said that all of the challenges that she has put forward and the strict scrutiny on an antitrust environment in Washington are having a deterrent effect on transactions. Corporate development teams, CEOs, and boards are viewing antitrust as a key element that must be factored into their acquisition strategies rather than treating antitrust as an afterthought.

1:13:17And then he went on to say, looking across industries that is not focused on tech, they identified 24 merger challenges by the FTC and the DOJ and scores the agencies at 16 wins and eight losses and 14 of the wins and two losses, however, were in straight up competitor merges. So basically, he said, you're wrong. Her more aggressive stance is having the desired effect. And also, some of this was inspired by, I saw her testimony when Jim Jordan tried to go after her, and I thought she was very, very good. So anyways, my loss. And then my win is I met with the management team of this company called Oddity, and this is a win and a prediction.

1:14:00And Oddity is essentially, they're positioning themselves as a truly tech. Oddity? It's called Oddity. It's a beauty company. They have two brands, Il Makiage. O-D-D-I-T-Y? O-D-D-O-D-I-T-Y. It's this Israeli brother and sister who decided that the beauty industry needed to better leverage technology. And they will, as soon as they get someone in the funnel who comes onto their website, it's all direct to consumer. They use this thing called spectral, I think it's called spectral photography, such that you take a picture and it matches the perfect foundation based on your skin type using millions of other images.

1:14:34And that obviously creates barriers of entry. They came out with a hair brand called Spoiled Child. It's huge. And essentially 100 of their 240 employees are technologists. And they are really trying to lean into AI, figuring out a way to move people further down the funnel when they come to the site. And also figure out kind of what we call mass customization in the 90s and the 80s. It's IPO-ing. This company's IPO-ing. Well, that's why I'm bringing it up. And it's part of a prediction. And I want to be clear. I am not a shareholder, although I will disclose I'm going to try and become a shareholder.

1:15:05This is going to be a monster, Cara. It's going to be a monster because so many moons are lining up here. The secondary market indicates that there's a ton of appetite for new shares. The biggest shareholder - Lots of IPOs coming, I see. The back half of the year, it's going to be IPO. You said that earlier. But I think the big winners, the biggest creators of shareholder value and stakeholder value on AI will be a small number of tech companies and then a bunch of consumer companies that leverage AI. And this is the first one. And if you look at its numbers, its EBITDA margin, its growth. I mean, it's just staggering.

1:15:40Can I just point out, I just went to their website, which looks like the entity on Mission Impossible when you click on it. It says, it doesn't say anything about beauty. It says category shifting technology. Yeah. It doesn't, you don't know what they're selling. Well, and you know what they're coming out with? Oh, they do ill maquillage. That's right. And you know what they're coming out with in 2025? I don't think I'm speaking out of school here. They're coming out with an acne brand. it literally looks at millions of images of people's blemishes you know and acne and then comes up with the right treatment plan and i i think that's going to have such enormous applications but i love the idea of using ai as a means of improving the consumer experience and translating into consumer margins and loyalty and these guys their office is literally down the block for me so and one of the wonderful things about having a podcast with kara swisher I can email any CEO and they'll meet with me that day.

1:16:32And so I walked around the corner and I met with this management team. Oh, my God. This company is killing it. So my win is consumer companies leveraging AI. I think that's where the real money is going to be. And two, it's a prediction. But because it's pricing next week, I will look like an asshole or a genius. This IPO. Okay, well, watch it. Let's watch. Let's follow it. It is going to rock the house. Yeah, it's good. It's interesting. I love ill maquillage, by the way. So do a lot of makeup people. since I'm on television so much compared to you. Oddly enough, the name Oddity is a stranger, peculiar person, eccentric, crank, misfit.

1:17:08It's such an interesting name to use for a beauty company, but it has two beauty brands. Again, El Makiage is like fantastic, like fantastic. Not as well known, but anyway, interesting. All right, we'll follow it. We'll follow both Lena Kahn and Antitrust and Mergers, and we'll follow this next week. We'll do that, or later this week. perhaps. Can you believe they didn't have me on Face the Nation? I thought Margaret Brennan liked me. I'm going to speak to Margaret Bennett. I'm going to speak to Carol. You'll see. Carol Joint. Carol, you're the producer. Is that who wrote you? Carol? Yeah, Carol.

1:17:41I think you should just spend time with your family in Aspen. Well, thank you, Carol. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, man, Carol. Sorry, Carol. I named you, but here you are. Anyway, Scott, we are destined for great things together. You understand that. And we will wear beautiful makeup while we're doing it. I think We are peanut butter and chocolate. Hello. We are peanut butter and chocolate. I may come visit you in Aspen. I don't know. I've been invited to an event there, the security dingity dong, but I don't know. It's really nice here. Yeah, I know it is. Well, enjoy yourself. But anyway, also, we want to hear from you.

1:18:15Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Scott, that is the show. What's a good series of shows we've been having. I've gotten many compliments recently for some reason. I'm glad. I think we're hitting on all cylinders. Anyway, we'll be back on Friday with more. There's going to be a lot more news. Scott, please read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Neyman, Taylor Griffin, and Travis Larchuk. Ernie Entretot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miel Severio, and Gaddy McBain.

1:18:45Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Who doesn't face the nation? Who is not? Who is treated like a Kong ball? Like ridden hard like some tired old prostitute that's no longer worth the spend or the effort? That's right, face the nation. I have dignity. I am going to sick Fran Drescher on you.

1:19:19Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload.

1:19:48No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

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