Cable Wars, FTC vs. Amazon, and Elon vs. the ADL

24:23Well, now they will argue that Amazon search, Google search, there's lots of alternatives. Of course, it's all the big players. And they should all be broken up. Yeah, yeah. One of the things that's, I'm going to quote Diller again, he was talking about Apple's VIG that they get for the App Store. And he said, why are they different than a credit card company that charges two to three percent? Like, why do they have to charge that much percent? Yeah. And he's like, they're just like credit card companies that help you. And I was like, well, the banks are part of the safety of that. And he goes, yeah, they do safety.

24:52I was like, they are arguing they do safety, they do vetting. And he goes, what do you think credit card companies do? No competition. He goes, so, I don't know, 5%. But he was like 30, 15 to 30. Are you kidding me? And he goes, what was really interesting, and because he did no jobs also, he's like, he made that number up. Like, he just made it up off the top of his head. It wasn't like this. He just decided it. And I think he's 100 % correct. And I think once there's arguments like that and people start to see that the VIG is happening, I just wonder when the moment is it actually happens, where they actually lose in some fashion.

25:28Because they don't lose. They don't lose. I've been saying it's coming, but I've been saying that for a decade. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, not only prices come down, but also one of the many negative externalities of competition are things you don't see. And that is a lot of companies you don't miss because they can never get out of the crib because it kills innovation. Spotify had hands down the most innovative platform around music, in my view. I think it's remarkable what they've done, that they've taken an entire medium and distilled it down to a searchable single app, single icon in your phone.

26:02You know, we played the theme to Superman, which I think is very appropriate at the beginning of the show. Do you know how easy it was versus trying to find Peaky Blinders, which takes me about 30 minutes? It calls to my 13-year-old and then I give up. I found the theme to Superman from John Williams in about two seconds. And here's the thing. Its stock is flat the last five or seven years. Well, it's also made some real stupid errors around podcasting, etc. Okay, it's spent too much. But I mean, come on. When Spotify has to pay a 30 % VIG to the monopoly around the App Store, they just can't compete with Apple Music, which in my view is an inferior product and is now for the last two years has been growing faster.

26:42than what I think is the superior original gangster, and that is Spotify. And that is, if Spotify can't compete, how on earth can any of these new companies compete? And in fact, it's why they wandered into podcasts, because they need something else, right? Well, they tried to go house of cards. They tried to go vertical. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is interesting. Anyway, we'll see what happens. One would hope. We keep thinking this should happen, and lots of people do. We'll see if it does. Okay, let's get to our first big story.

27:15The WGA strike has been going on for nearly 130 days. SAG-AFTRA, which is the actors, a little over 50 days. What do you think, Scott? You've been away sort of this whole time. And when you left, it was happening. When you came back, it's happening. One estimate, the impact on the Hollywood strikes on California's economy is almost $5 billion. Warner Brothers Discovery announced this week that earnings likely take actually a hit, But even though they're saving money and they're doing better in that way, though, Barbie has generated one point four billion dollars in global box office receipts for what it's worth.

27:46Talk about what's happening here. Again, we talked earlier about what Dillard told me he feels like this is going to if things continue, it's going to collapse the industry even further than it was collapsing. This is I think this is I don't know if it's the air traffic controller strike. There are the coal miners. I think this is going to break the backs of these unions. I think that they're going to have to come up with some sort of accommodation. They're going to pretend there's a victory here. They'll accept a fraction of what they've asked for because it's the same coin, but just a different side of the same coin, what's going on with Charter and Disney.

28:22And also, to a certain extent, I don't think they have the kind of public support they were hoping for. It makes for great TikToks to have an outraged Bryan Cranston saying mean things about Bob Iger. But I personally don't under, I think they've overestimated just how precious they are. That 90 % of America has to deal with the supply demand economics of getting, you know, less money than they need. And the reality is there are too many studio execs. There are too many writers. There are too many actors for an industry that is not going to be able to pass on fees. Look at your cable bill that are greater than inflation.

28:59The consumer has had a gag reflex. They're like, you know what? I am not paying 80 bucks for marginal cable television. Especially younger ones. And what's interesting, when you look at the share prices this summer, Apple and Amazon are doing better than Paramount and Warner Brothers and Disney. Disney's down. I want to play a clip from that interview with Diller where he mentioned a strategy for the studios. I'd love your reaction. Well, I think one fundamental thing, they should certainly get out of the room with their deepest, fiercest, and almost conclusive enemy, Netflix, and probably with Apple and Amazon.

29:38Because they're in, you know, Netflix is in one business, and they are the rulers of the business they're in. The other two, Apple and Amazon Prime, are completely different businesses that have no business model relative to production of movies and television. It's just something they do to support their prime or something they do to support their walled system in Apple. The net effect, the biggest effect of the strike, what the WGA and SAG have done is they have decided to transfer tens of billions of dollars in market capitalization from the broadcast guys, from the Disneys, the Time Warners, the Viacoms, to Netflix, Amazon, and Apple.

30:21And he's right. If I were Netflix, I'd be in the room nodding my head and acting very concerned. And their model and their content queue is so deep that despite the strike and the actors think, oh, consumers are just going to freak out when you can't see season eight of The Witcher. Guess what? Netflix has grown their subscriptions during the strike. And their cash pile has grown so fast because what essentially the unions have done is created a multilateral pause on spending that they just announced an additional stock buyback. So, first off, he's absolutely right. I mean, Viacom, Disney, and Time Warner are not on the same side as Netflix.

31:05The strategy to get more money here, I mean, a decent strategy for making money is to find the biggest pile of money and stand as close to it as possible. The biggest pile of money is in tech. And tech is crawling their data to inform their AI models. And in one day, in one day, when Microsoft announced it was going to integrate AI into its Office Suite platform, the market capitalization of Microsoft went up$175 billion, which is more than the value of every media company except for Disney. So they're fighting the wrong enemy. They should be saying, look, they should be hiring the most aggressive lawyers, triple their lobbying budget and say, OK, Apple, OK, Amazon, OK, Meta, OK, Microsoft.

31:52If you're we have found using our own AI that your AI is crawling the shit out of our IP. He did talk a lot about that. He's doing lawsuits. You know, he's the one leading all that. That's who they got to go after because they're they're basically, you know, they're trying. I don't know what the term is. They're trying to get child support from, you know, a woman who's been fired. They just don't have the money. Right. Should they negotiate differently with the tech companies versus these? Should these companies go around and say, we're just going to negotiate ourselves? Because they have all different interests.

32:28You know, I don't know. See, they've chased the streaming thing so far. They're sort of, and they have to go that way. They can't turn around in their quest to keep users. But the economics collapsed the previous bridge before they got across it, really. Yeah, I think this is, I mean, this really is a moment. They're not only going to get a deal they don't want, but they're weakening the industry they're dependent upon to extract more money from. It's like, OK, I need you to pay me more, but I'm going to kick you so hard on the balls, you're not going to be able to survive. And by the way, the company that doesn't need unions because it's got more and more production coming outside of the U.S., I mean, this is just – I just can't get over what a gift this is to Netflix, Apple, and Amazon.

33:14You know, it's interesting because I did talk to a lot of writers. They feel like they have solidarity. I keep saying you're fighting the wrong people. You know, you're fighting – Who feels they have solidarity? The writers. They feel like one of the things they are making, the new point they're making is we're without work a lot of the time, so we're used to not working, which I was like, is that really a good thing? Is that – you know? I was like, wow, what an industry where you're used to not working or you're out of work for months and months of the year. I think you are going to see so many U-Hauls leaving and heading back to Kansas because I was really moved.

33:45The Washington Post had this article on this young man who I think was a baseball player. And he'd finally started. He just, you know, a great story. I really want to be an actor. And he got in a car and moved out with his dog to L.A. and it was a story showing that now he's washing windows and there's nothing wrong with that kind of work and just trying to get by. And he was literally on the cusp. He was starting to get good paying roles. And I think you're just gonna see tens of thousands of people leave LA because the industry is about to take a structural step down. And the innovation, the innovation around content, quite frankly, isn't gonna be more content and more Emmys and more successions and more euphoria.

34:27It's going to be minimum viable content at a fraction of the cost built from the ground up using AI. Yeah, we'll talk about that AI because that's another, obviously, area, how it's used. Some people are talking about residuals from AI training data should be made mandatory. Obviously, Dillard talked a lot about copyright and intellectual property laws currently in place. He would like more from Congress, but he said, we can use the ones we have and sue. Like, he goes, I'm not waiting for Congress. I'm just going to use what we've got. and then hopefully Congress will update them, update these copyright laws, which they haven't done in forever.

35:04And a few weeks ago, a federal judge rejected an attempt to copyright a piece of art generated by AI. The decision Judge Beryl Howell wrote, human authorship is a bedrock of requirement of copyright, but acknowledged that we are approaching new frontiers. I think the Drake's, the fake Drake song is trying to get a Grammy.

35:25So what do they do in that regard? Like, how do they, I think, I think Diller's probably right. You just sue them. You just sue them until Congress acts and maybe it will get them going in some, but waiting around for laws or updates. They should have done what we should have done at the New York Times 15 years ago. And that is shut off Google and say, unless you're going to pay to crawl our content, we're not going to let you crawl it. And we should have bound together with Condé Nast and Pearson and News Corp. And let me, you know, as this - You know, the New York Times pulled out of his coalition and he goes, because they think they're going to make some deal that they're not going to get.

35:57Well, that was our problem was arrogance. We always thought we were singular and that, oh, and the publisher and the senior executives of New York Times just got so excited to have drinks with Steve Jobs as he literally pulled up a dump truck and took billions of dollars from us. But we got to have drinks with Steve Jobs. Yeah, he's a good person to have a drink with. But let me just, as is a proxy for me being back here, let's turn this back to me. I'll give you an example. So in the Prof. G-Pod, we're experimenting using AI. I've always thought, okay, I'm interested in having a Spanish-language version of our market show.

36:35I'm interested in Latin America, and I want to have a Spanish-language version. We talked to interpreters about 24 months ago, and it was going to cost us about$2 ,000 to$3 ,000 a show to put out something reasonable in Spanish. This is an interpreter. Yeah, not my voice. An actor. An actor who could get the nuance using AI. And we keep trying this, and it's almost there. We now can launch a Spanish version of Provji. and the dick jokes, the humor, the sarcasm, the emotion all come through. And we have native Spanish speakers listening to this nearly perfect. And if it works, guess what I'm going to do?

37:15I'm going to launch it in Portuguese, Japanese. Now, what does that mean? It means that there's probably over the short term, a lot of money is going to flow to AI technology because this is a different type of AI. There's a lot of money there. But the content producer or the interpreter or the voiceover actor in Korea and in Portugal is going to lose money. And so AI is just going to start creating minimum viable products for a fraction of the costs, and it's going to wreak havoc on the creative community. So let me ask you, what did you think about this? You know, this is something Dillard said.

37:54He goes, I get why they're doing it. I get why they're doing it, But we have to know that they're not going to give us anything, that we've been through this battle with these people before. They just want to take. And that's what they do. And we should just be honest about it and not be angry at them. That's what they do. How do you feel about de-employing people? My attitude is that creative destruction is a key component of capitalism. I think everyone has an obligation. I mean, you're talking about the morality here. I feel absolutely no guilt innovating, trying to make more money. And I want to put my competitors out of business, Cara.

38:33Should we do a Spanish version? I want us to be bigger than Joe Rogan. And I want to make more money than Joe Rogan. And I think that capitalist self-interest at the center of it is key. But I think where the morality comes in and how I have changed substantially is I used to see everyone I worked with as a cost center. And that is when someone got off the elevator at one of my companies, I knew exactly how much money they made and I knew how much value they added. And there were two bubbles. And if one bubble, the compensation got well ahead of how much I was paying them or how much value they were adding, I fired them.

39:09And what I have decided to do as I've gotten older is I've said, okay, a signal of victory and an investment in the company is to compensate people really well. And that's where I like to think that I've evolved. And that is, if you put money in your employees' pockets, especially young people, you're investing in the economy, you're investing in society, you're investing in relationships, you're investing in child growth and population growth. And you have to make sure your company is economically viable because there's no pay cut is worse than when the company goes out of business. But I used to see how I have tried to evolve from a standpoint is to realize that paying people really well is a great investment and good for the economy.

39:54But in terms of our competitors, I want to fucking kill all of them. I want them to go out of business. I want to beat the shit out of them. That was a little aggressive. This is a good continuing thing. I think as this goes on, I would agree with you and Diller and others. This is not good. And he was like, we have to separate from these tech people and maybe create a new system that we're good at. And he was making the point, there's a distribution. There's already, TV's already everywhere. Why did we run away from it so quickly? And I get consumer changes and habits and things like that. He goes, but there's got to be a way we can do this without chasing things that we're never going to be able to catch, which I thought was a very salient point.

40:36But they're not listening to him. Neither side is. And it was sort of super interesting. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, the Anti-Depamation League's National Director, Jonathan Greenblatt.

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42:35Scott, we're back. Let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

42:43While many of you out there were kicking back and enjoying the Labor Day weekend, Elon Musk was tweeting about anti-Semitism and the Anti-Defamation League. In a series of tweets, Elon said he was pro-free speech, but against anti-Semitism. Then he posted about a 60 % drop in advertising revenue, blaming pressure on advertisers by the ADL. His next move to threaten a defamation suit against the Anti-Defamation League. It's unclear at this time whether legal action has been taken. Joining us now to discuss this all is the CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, who's been on the show before, Jonathan Greenblatt.

43:17Hi, Jonathan. How are you doing? Kara, it's good to see you, and always nice to be on the show. So how are you doing? I know you can't get into the specifics of legal activity or what you've called the threat of a frivolous lawsuit, which billionaires tend to like to do. But give us your overall thoughts on what's happening here. Well, look, I think we need to just understand the context as we consider what this action means. I mean, we're living in a moment right now where anti-Semitism has reached literally record levels since ADL started tracking anti-Semitic acts of harassment, vandalism, and violence 40-some-odd years ago.

43:49Literally, the number has reached a level we've never seen. It's actually about 500 % greater today than it was just a decade back. And over the last month, we've seen a wave of swatting attacks against synagogues, bomb threats against Jewish institutions, you know, propaganda distributions all over the country. We literally had neo-Nazis marching out in the open last weekend in Florida in a scene that was reminiscent of Charlottesville. So in all of this, this hashtag that was launched on Twitter last week, ban the ADL, that was literally created by white supremacists, okay, when I see the management of Twitter engaging with it, elevating it, amplifying it, like, I'm not just disturbed and disappointed.

44:38It's dangerous for the Jewish community. That's what I'm really focused on. You met with its ex-CEO, Linda Iaccarino, we can call Twitter, last week, tweeting afterwards you'd had a frank and productive conversation. What can you tell us about the meeting? Because here you have a meeting with her. I don't know what's happened since she got there, but she can be a reasonable person. And then he keeps tweeting white supremacists. He keeps tweeting, basically blaming the Jews. That's what most people think he's doing. I mean, they think that for a reason, because that's what's happening online right now.

45:12But if you step back to last week, Linda and I finally connected. It was a Zoom meeting like this. It was the first time we've met, but we have a number of mutual friends in common. She has a very good reputation, as you're sort of alluding to. And it was a positive, constructive discussion. I mean, to be clear, I am not going to stop clawing out anti-Semitism. I will ferociously fight this until my last breath. But like a better, healthier, safer Twitter, that's good for the Jewish community. That's good for their advertisers, good for the world. And she seems to share that sentiment. So we talked about that.

45:49And what did she, was she angry about your studies? Because that's what they're thinking of suing you over. We did not talk about any of those. She did not have an issue or beef with you all. She did not blame you for advertising fault. Linda did not blame us for advertising fall off. The issue of our studies did not come up in the conversation. And these are studies. Explain. You've done studies showing. Yeah. So let's be, let me, as you know, and as Scott knows, like none of these social media companies are great on any of this stuff. Let's be clear about that, right? And Twitter was really bad before, let alone now.

46:21So let's also be clear about that. However, what we do at ADL is we work with the data that we have, and we do these fact-based analyses. Now, Elon and others may say, well, you don't have all the data. Well, then share it with us. I'd like nothing more than transparency so we fully understand the numerator and the denominator. But what we've seen over the past, not just nine months, really nine years, has been white supremacists, QAnon enthusiasts, conspiracy theorists running amok. And he's let them back on. He's brought them back on. A number of people are back on the platform who had been removed for violations of the terms of service.

46:59They continue to say things, post things, publish things that are not like questionable. They are absolutely unambiguously hostile. And they're feeding the fire of this environment where, again, Jews and other minorities, not just Jews, but the Jewish community feels a degree of vulnerability. And, you know, I am flying out tomorrow or today to attend the funerals tomorrow in Jacksonville of the people who were killed, you know, in that hate crime that happened last weekend. I mean, the fact of the matter is, is radicalizing people online has real world implications and normalizing anti-Semitism and, you know, weaponizing hate is bad for the world.

47:42And when it's the leader of the company doing it, it's problematic. Scott? Good to see you, Jonathan. Hi, Scott. So I think a more difficult problem, and I think you guys do your best to establish the nuance and thread the needle here, is the line between free speech and when something becomes hate speech, right? Right. When it's a discourse that's uncomfortable, but it's true discourse, and then when it turns into hate. What is, in my opinion, less opaque is that the go-to, the playbook in the emergence of Nazi Germany was, I know, let's blame the Jews. I mean, that's what it came down to. Let's blame the Jews for society's problems.

48:16And what we have here is the wealthiest man in the world, arguably the most powerful man in the world, who is blaming the Jews. Full stop. It strikes me as very strategic that he chose your organization to blame for their decline in revenue. But isn't this how it all starts? Generally speaking, the most powerful, wealthiest American should not start with blaming the Jews? Short answer is yes. The longer answer is like demagoguery isn't anything new. blaming the Jews is as old as the hills. Last November, after the trusted safety team was fired, after a bunch of these extremists were re-platformed, ADL was one of about 60 organizations, this coalition that called for a pause in advertising until these issues were kind of clarified and cleaned up.

49:04But the only group that Elon is talking about right now is the Jewish one. Now, look, I have spoke to Elon Musk, you know, like I didn't think he was an anti-Semite. And I still, you know, I will take him at his word. The problem is when he elevates, when he engages with, when he casts blame, like it creates the conditions in which anti-Semitism is raging right now on the platform. What does he say to you? What is he, when you spoke to him? Well, I haven't spoken to him in the last week, but look, I think he understands, Elon appreciates that dialing back extremism and hate is better for the world.

49:44And he wants to do that. He has many Jewish friends, as he's told me. Oh, that's an old one. Well, I know. Some of my best friends are, you know, fill in the blank. Jonathan, I just want to press pause there. I think you're being generous and incorrect. I see no evidence he wants to dial it back. I see a ton of evidence he wants to dial it up to enrage. Well, that was what he told me before. Now, flash forward to today, Scott, what I'm grappling with, struggling with, is again, this is a person who I've engaged with who's told me that. And yet right now, we see anti-Semites and extremists, yes, being riled up and they feel emboldened.

50:22And Scott, we know, and Kara, we know they feel emboldened because at ADL, we follow them and this is what they're saying. We feel emboldened. There's a Christian nationalist who runs Gab, and I think we've talked about him, Kara. His name is Andrew Torba. He's a real piece of work. He's a raging anti-Semite. And he has basically said, we, the white supremacists, have the richest man in the world on our side. We're winning. And that sentiment is out there. And so let me be crystal clear about this. We're two weeks away from the Jewish holidays of Rosh Shana, Yom Kippur, et cetera. Jews will all be convening in synagogue.

50:58And the reason why my community, I've heard from people all over the country, is so, by the way, all over the world in the past week, they were already on edge. And this has just pushed people to the point of no return. Two things. Earlier this summer, Twitter sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate. I know a lot, a nonprofit group that criticized the company's handling of hate speech. I know a lot of my academic friends will not talk to me publicly now when they were very willing to do so. So it is this two things. One, does it chill you to this to this to this threat of a lawsuit? Is there a lawsuit?

51:33And then secondly, have you actually spoken with any Twitter slash ex advertisers to stop? They're blaming you for doing that. He's did you do I actually don't care if you did, but did you? Well, look to the question of has ADL spoken to advertisers run some campaign? The answer is unequivocal. No. So that's why this is a frivolous claim. Like, we literally haven't called him an anti-Semite. We haven't called Twitter anti-Semitic. We're not running some active campaign of any sort. So like on the facts, Elon and these other people are flat out wrong. Well, John, watch his hands, not the mouth.

52:12That's what I was saying. Well, I hear that. But these claims that he's making are just not true. But to your other question, like, am I deterred? Am I intimidated? not for a second. I mean, look, I would prefer to deescalate here because I think the world would be better off if ABL wasn't fighting a$22 billion lawsuit. The whole idea of that is so preposterous. Is it happening? Has it been filed? I don't know. I mean, I only know, like you, what Elon is tweeting. Well, he was going to do a cage match with Mark Zuckerberg, and he did have the Coliseum. But I will say, I will say, like if Elon wanted to have a public conversations slash debate about this, I would say bring it on because I am not deterred.

52:57I am not daunted for a second. And I'm not going to relent in calling out antisemitism, whether it's on Twitter X or it's on Meta's products or it's in the political arena. I could care less. My job description is protect the Jewish people. And that's what I'm trying to do. So have you talked to Linda this week post that? We have not had a verbal conversation. And what does your text conversation say? I reached out afterward. I was so bewildered by last weekend's lunacy. I reached out and was like, look, I - What the fuck? What the fuck would be - I probably wouldn't characterize it like that, but I basically said, I don't know what just happened, but I thought we were going to try to work together to make Twitter, I think, a better Twitter, or healthier Twitter, better for the world.

53:47And, you know, we'll see where it goes. You've dealt with anti-Semitism and anti-Semites. When you try and diagnose this, do you have any sort of ability when you see a company behaving this way? Is it generally they're trying to embolden and cement relationship with a part of their customer base that likes this provocative or likes this type of content? Is it someone who themselves has suffered trauma and is acting out in hateful ways? When you come across anti-Semitism in corporations and with individuals, are you able to see patterns around? I mean, just I can't figure this one out. It's bad for business.

54:36It's bad for him. It's bad for the country. I mean, there's just, there's, I don't see any, I see very little upside here other than inflaming a small group of people that don't have a hell of a lot of money or influence, or maybe they do. Like what, do your best. What's going on here? Well, I think so. I can talk to you about patterns, Scott. So when I see antisemitism and corporations get caught up in this brands, sometimes number one, it's a kind of negligence, right? They don't realize they have a problem. They're not paying close enough attention. Exhibit A, Adidas, right? Where they were having a CEO transition.

55:10They're off in Germany. They really did not appreciate the lunacy of Kanye West's derangement. So you have that. Well, let me just press pause there because I would argue that Adidas actually handled that. I would argue that they responded swiftly and correctly. Well, I would definitely say not swiftly enough because I was talking to the chairman of the board and said, if you don't deal with this, you know, we're going to have some things to do publicly. But in the end, they did, Scott, entirely. And now we have, like, by the way, I don't believe, as I've said publicly to you, Kara, like, I don't believe in cancel culture.

55:45I believe in cancel culture. So with Adidas, we called them out when they were slow, and then we embraced them when they moved quickly. And we're finding ways to work together. Like, that's better for the world. So number one, sometimes the companies don't get it. Secondly, sometimes there are weird ideologies at work, like Gab is a good example of some twisted, demented platform. And I'm hard-pressed to think of another one of those. There aren't too many, but the real issue, Scott and Kara, the real issue is that sometimes these people get caught up in the moment. And that's what I think is happening here with Elon.

56:20He gets caught up in a lot of moments, that may be the case. With trans people, with women. Look, it's hard for me to make sense of all of it. And I've watched him be very successful in other fields. But this Elon and this moment is one where, like, I'll give you a counterfactual. Imagine if after the meeting with Linda, when these white supremacists started getting riled up, Elon had tweeted out and said, you know what? I'm glad Jonathan and Linda are meeting. We're going to work to keep Twitter, or X, sorry, a zone where everyone could express their opinions, but we don't have to have hate on this platform.

56:56Like that would have been catnip to advertisers. He would have been lauded in the press. I mean, finding ways to work together constructively, like I think that works to everyone's benefit. So Scott, at the end of the day, I can't really give you a crisp answer to your question because I don't understand what Elon thinks he has to gain from this. And I know the accusations he's making against us just aren't true. Well, it doesn't stop him. Watch the hands, Jonathan, not the mouth. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, sometimes, sometimes let me be kidding. Running a big company like Tesla or SpaceX is complicated and hard.

57:34Running five or six at the same time, God bless him. But this is a good example where I think we would all be well-served if he could figure out how to dial it down, how to pull back, how to hit the pause button himself and work with an organization like mine at the end of the day. That's all we want. Yeah, sure, John, sure. Don't agree to a cage match. Good luck with that. You can't do this work if you're not hopeful and optimistic. I got to tell you that. Well, it's your fault that the value of the company is declined by half, obviously. It's ridiculous. It's so ridiculous. Anyway, Jonathan, thank you so much.

58:07I really appreciate it. People can go to the ADL website to read your full statement. And thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Jonathan. Thanks, Cara. Thanks, Scott. All right, Scott, we're going to have a quick break in a second. But yes, you have a question? Well, you know him better than Jonathan and much better than I do. I like to think that when I see a corporate decision, I can reverse engineer it to some, like, what's going on or what they're thinking. I feel like I relate to these people. I can't for the life of me figure out what the fuck is going on here. I think he needs to, these people, not just Elon, to find blame elsewhere.

58:40It couldn't possibly be how aggressive he's been with advertisers, how sloppy he's been. And he's very good at his other companies and not perfect by any stretch, but good at what he does executionally and hiring people. And in this case, he gets all jazzed up in the middle of the night. You can look at the timestamps on these things. Something's happening to him at 4 a.m. And I'm eager to read Walter Isaacs' book that comes out next week. I'm interviewing Walter about it, and I interviewed Walter before about what he was doing. you know I don't know what happens at 4am that causes him to do these things or whatever time or he's in some state or someone he's very similar to Trump in the way that the last person who talked to him is what he reflects I guess sometimes that seems to be coming to play I just don't know why somebody's not saying what is wrong with you like including not just his Jewish friends but you know they all tread around him so carefully because they want to make money from him I mean He's in the worst position of all time is who can he actually trust?

59:44Because everybody's got their hand out, whether he can see it or not. And he's got to question every single person, every friend who say they're his friend. But they definitely don't want to be let out of the kingdom. You know, I think we're letting off too easy here is Linda. I agree. I think, Linda, I think you're supposed to be a fiduciary as a CEO for stakeholders. And the nation is a big stakeholder. Jews are a stakeholder, investors are a stakeholder, society is a stakeholder. For the CEO of a company, a media company, when any individual, founder, whoever says this, for her not to say these comments were just unacceptable.

1:00:24And I told Elon this, they are unacceptable. That's all she needs to say. You know what she tweeted about sports on the platform? And everyone would rally around her. And if she got fired, she'd get her full payment. and instead she's, quite frankly, she's being really cowardly around this. I would agree. She's coming to the Code Conference. Julia Borstein is going to interview her. So we'll see. I think she's just in the camp. I'm sorry. I am so disappointed in her in so many ways. I, you know, I think she probably is like, well, you know, woke culture, blah, blah, blah, blah, that kind of stuff, I'm guessing.

1:00:58She's somewhat of a conservative. But, you know, Linda, this is just basic human decency. It's not the fault of ADL that your advertising sucks. It always sucked, and now it sucks further because your leader is really a problem. I don't know. I agree with you. Anyway, we'll see. We'll see where it goes. All right. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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1:02:30Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I'm going to give you a wide berth here since you haven't been talking for a while. Go for it. Can I start, though? Yeah, of course you can. That berth just got more narrow. No, no. Actually, you know what? Go first. Go first. Just like a woman. Here, I'm giving you a wide berth, but I'm going first. Go first. No, I'm not going to go first. It's like my relationship with my wife is a series of like illusions that I have any input into a decision. Your wife, you should listen to your wife. She's so much better than you, but go ahead. I'll agree with you there.

1:02:58Anyways, yes, thank you very much. I'll start with my fail. You know, when you're traveling, I remember when I first got a Eurail pass at a college in the backpack, and I traveled around Europe with my friendly Lotus, who, by the way, visited me, him and his husband, Tim, who's the godfather of my child. We've been friends for 40 years, 42 years. Anyways, an amazing experience. But I remember the first thing, one of the first things you learn is there were all these travel advisories that as a U.S. citizen, stay away from, don't go to North Korea, don't go to certain nations in Africa, don't go to Iran.

1:03:33And immediately, brands are so important geopolitically because the majority of, you know, only like 30 % of Americans have passports or something like that. So your impression, your geopolitics, the products you buy, your immigration policies, who you decide to go to war with, not go to war with, are based on the brand perception of that country. And immediately when you see travel advisories that Americans aren't safe there, you think this is just a backward primitive country and I don't want to buy the products. I don't want to hire the people. It's about the worst thing that can happen from a brand standpoint to your country.

1:04:06And now it's us. Canada has just issued a travel advisory to their LGBTQ citizens that they are unsafe in America. And they are. That's us. And it's especially acute in my state where they've even called out my state of Florida. And let me just backward integrate this into a brand strategy story. I think Governor DeSantis had a real shot to be a viable contender. And people are saying, well, he's awkward. You know, there's a lot of reasons why. But I think the primary reason is a brand issue. And that is, if you look at the vision, you have to have one message. And consumers are super busy, so you've got to have kind of one consistent message.

1:04:45George Bush, Herbert Walker Bush wanted to be the education president. W talked about conservative or compassionate conservatism. Obama, keep hope alive. JFK, we're going to put a man on the moon. Lyndon Johnson, we're going to end poverty. These are big, wonderful visions. Reagan, it's mourning in America. Governor DeSantis' vision, when he's asked why he's running for president, he has said pretty much verbatim, we want to go into the wokest cities in America and do what we did in Florida, and that is rid them of this woke ideology. So imagine a Democratic candidate saying, my vision for America is to go into the most conservative parts of the country and rid them of these conservative ideology.

1:05:26And Republicans Americans themselves have said, boss, that's not what we need right now. We're divided. You're supposed to be the uniter in chief. And you're basically saying that you want to go divide us further. And this is just another. Scott, he's a petty little shit, but go ahead. Go ahead. He's petty. Like he wouldn't meet Biden at the storm and Rick Scott, who's no winner in that did like it's ridiculous. Go ahead. Well, I mean, what's interesting is actually Governor DeSantis and his wife met on an online dating site. It's called OKKK Cupid. That's good. That's good. Anyways, and now Jonathan Greenblatt.

1:06:08But look, this message, this brand message, this vision for America is you want to go into the 50 % of American towns and cities and try and rid them of their ideology. And be like, OK, good luck with that. And that's what America needs right now. We need more division. You need to further tear us apart. And the notion that we are now that country, that a wonderful country. I mean, who doesn't like Canada? That's the other thing I remember about backpacking. Do you know there were Americans that put Canadian leafs, Canadian leaf patches on their backpacks because they thought they would be less, that people would be more friendly towards them because they're from Canada.

1:06:46And Canada, which is not a reactionary, not an extremist place, a wonderful neighbor, basically a friendlier, nicer version of America, has decided in an attempt to protect our citizenry, we have to warn them about the dangers they face in America. We're now that nation. We are indeed. Anyways, that's my fail. All right. You go first before I do my win. I'll say I just spent some time in San Francisco and there's a new IKEA downtown. downtown, IKEA, the store. They've opened these new concept stores that are in cities, then they're trying it out in San Francisco. Market Street is suffering in San Francisco.

1:07:25It's really interesting. What's happened is a lot of the neighborhoods of San Francisco are thriving, a lot of new stores, but certain areas like downtown and Soma and obviously the financial district are suffering because trends that are happening all over the country around drugs, homelessness, and also people not going back to the office. And so they opened this amazing IKEA downtown right in the center of it where there was a lot of – Nordstrom just closed. There's issues around people shoplifting, again, another problem that's across the country, but most initially in San Francisco. These gangs of people that come steal things.

1:08:01I have to say, and they're handling it really well the way people go in. They're sort of designing it for maximum safety and everything else like that. Really nice to see them trying something out. It was packed and full of people, which was great. you know, Ikea's usually are. And I thought that was really, you know, it was a really, there's thinking of other ideas in San Francisco to deal with all these empty spaces. One is pickleball courts in a mall. That's a thing. There's something called pickle mall. That's a big trend to bring people downtown. They're thinking of a soccer stadium. I'm really liking some of these.

1:08:33And there's a really, there's going to be an interesting election there. Daniel Lurie might run this guy against Lennon Breed. I just was, I was struck by a lot of the interesting ideas around not just San Francisco, but cities around the country trying to deal with this deficit situation in downtowns, especially. Even as neighborhoods thrive, people are staying home, right? That's, which is an interesting, it's a really interesting situation that's happening. But I really was very heartened to see that. That's my win. And my fail is the Alabama, I think it's attorney general, is saying he's going to criminalize people leaving the state and chase people who help people leave the state for abortions.

1:09:14It's just, it's heinous what they're trying to do in terms of, if they want to do states' rights, that's where they are now. Now they're trying to extend into other states by criminalizing things. Meanwhile, Mexico decriminalized abortion and is about to have its first female president. Half of the Congress there is female. The cabinet is gender balanced. And now two women have won the primaries of the leading political. Again, another neighbor who's doing more. I mean, there's lots of problems in Mexico, but really kind of heartening that they're moving forward. Because I don't know if you know this, but you couldn't vote.

1:09:50Women couldn't vote in Mexico until 1953, which was amazing. Anyway, go ahead. So for me, going into Ikea is like going into my son's room. I come out with 10 plates, three cups, and a pair of socks. No retail humor. They're a really good retailer, but go ahead. Yeah. I don't think I've been into Ikea in 30 years. I've had a couch, the same couch for 20 years. And Louis is going to use it for his apartment in New York when he comes back from Argentina. Anyway, go ahead. That's a great story. Yeah. Anyway. I like Ikea. Okay. So my win, and I promise not to cry. I lost two friends. I lost two friends in August.

1:10:27My friend Scott Sabah died at the age of 54, survived by his parents. Leukemia just kept getting worse. Totally unexpected. And then my college roommate, there's this picture of eight of us in the fraternity who all lived together our freshman and sophomore years. Craig Marcus, this wonderful young man who was unusual in the fraternity in that he was the artist. And he went to the California School of Art and Design, I think. And he got out, his career, he got off to a faster start than any of us. And by the time he was in his early 30s, he was creative director of fairly well-known agencies back here in New York.

1:11:04Two sons, one is about to get his wings in the Navy. The other works at the Athletic for the New York Times. And Craig was diagnosed, again, survived by his parents by this rare nerve disorder and passed away. And my win is that Craig was not married, did not own a home, and had two sons and quite frankly just had a lot of, this unexpected death had a lot of, you know, loose ends, just the logistics around it. And three friends of mine, three guys in that photo, David Kingsdale, Jeff Browdy, and David, Jeff, and Gary Lushgold, twice when Craig was in the hospital, got on the plane immediately back to New York.

1:11:46These are guys who live in L.A. who have very busy jobs, big families. And it was just immediate. They were on planes. And then when Craig passed two weeks ago, they came out for the entire week and did things like go through his apartment, clean stuff up, find the life insurance, handle it for the boys. And it struck me how much men really need to invest in friendships, that these friendships endure even in death. And so it's sort of my win, if you will, is how enduring real friendship is. Um, so these guys were just wonderful to Craig, even, even after he was gone. Yeah. Oh, Scott, I'm so sorry.

1:12:28That's, uh, I know you were hard hit by that. Um, you're absolutely right. Uh, male friendships are critically important. There's even more statistics. And I know you're writing about this in your next book of around male friendships, um, declining so precipitously, but I think your group of friends is very heartening. I find it very heartening and lovely. I appreciate that. I have a guy staying with me right now, Mike Baruch, who I've known for 40 years. It's just been such an anchor in my life. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it was really kind of like, it was just so, I just saw it just come to just full bloom with Craig's passing, these guys.

1:13:04It was like, no questions asked, them on a plane. Yep, decades later, decades later. You know, Alex went to Michigan on your recommendation and he called me the other day. He goes, I'm making all these great friends. And I was like, and he's like, I'm not working in school as much. I'm like, don't. I said, focus in on your friends. I was thinking of you when I said that to him. And he's like, you shouldn't tell me to party all the time. I said, I didn't say that. I said, spend more time social than you think. And by the way, thank you for that. You've been a real, he talks about you a lot, actually.

1:13:36That's nice. Thanks for saying that. But anyway, that's very touching, Scott. And I'm so sorry for your loss. It really does remind you of how short a time we have on this planet. But not us, Scott. We're together still. We're still together. That's right. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or friends, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, Scott, that is the show. I'm so glad to have you back. It's really genuine. I genuinely miss you. I did see you once over the holidays in Nantucket, but over your holiday.

1:14:11And I really look forward. I think, again, I think the hosts were great, but people loved Scott. Scott and Karen. And I'm glad you're back. And I'm excited to go to the U.S. Open with you. We'll have stories from there. And I'm glad you're back. Good to be back. There's a lot of news happening, a lot of important news. And your insights today were spectacular, as always. And I'm sure all the fans are glad to have you back. That's nice of you. But I am, most of all. Thanks for saying that. Okay, well, I'm going to read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zillian Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

1:14:40Ernie Indertod engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mio Silverio, and Gaddy McBain. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you 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. Investing in friendships pays off even after death. Friendship endures.

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