Elon’s Politics Detox, the “Big, Beautiful” Bill's Next Phase, and Open AI's Big Bet

24:58Let's listen to the clip when he talks about what it means for Democrats. All of Democrats right now are being blamed for the Biden fiasco. And by that, I mean his decision to run for reelection and his decision to hide his deterioration. As our reporting suggests, this was the fault of President Biden, his wife and his son and like a number, a few top aides. But this isn't necessarily something that could be laid on the feet of every single elected Democrat in the country. My personal view is that until the Democratic Party reckons with that, people are going to have a very difficult time trusting them on anything.

25:41So what do you think about the screening? And then tell me a little bit about your thoughts here. Look, so I've tried to be, I think like a lot of people during COVID, I decided I was a junior epidemiologist. And what I realized is I had no fucking idea what I was talking about. So when it comes to medical advice, I try to be more measured. And what I'll say is a citizen who gets regular prostate exams and even has a regular MRI that looks and images my prostate. And the PSA test is a blood test. That's it. It costs 100 bucks. It just seems weird to me that this guy wasn't getting the most robust scans in history and PSA tests all the time.

26:20As president. As president. it. Your brother immediately reached out to me and said, it's not unusual for a man of this age to find out in a screening that it is this advanced. And I believe Dr. Jeffrey Swisher, who spent a decade of his life studying these issues over my instincts. Having said that, I still think this is just incredibly odd. And there's so much understandable and deserve it affection and goodwill towards Joe Biden right now. But this is the reality. He has ruined his legacy. This is what he'll be remembered for. He'll be remembered for the guy who fucked up and got an insurrectionist elected.

27:02This is the fine point on his career that will be the thing that he was known for, years of public service. Plus, he stopped him and then he got him elected, right? And he would have gone out a hero. This was such incredibly poor judgment, and it brings up two issues around how we move forward. The first is, and we talked about this last week, if we're going to have age limits on the lower end, we need them on the upper end. And two, the Democratic Party needs to recognize that one of the greatest tools we have in history in terms of our democracy is the primary process. The primary process is such full body contact violence and incredible competition that it matures not only the right person, but the right person for the moment.

27:44No one had heard of Barack Obama. No one had heard of Bill Clinton. No party, the Democratic Party wasn't going to pick either of those people. But you know what? They just rose every week and did the work and America fell in love with them. So when the Democratic Party tries to clear Bernie Sanders out of the way for Secretary Clinton or Barack, you have to let our primary process run. And the fact, in my opinion, another mistake they made, in addition to this consensual hallucination we all entered in with each other, is that I think they should have had a super Shark Tank-like mini primary rather than just anointing Vice President Harris.

28:22I think they could have made it weak. And I want to be clear, I don't think we're guilty of Monday morning quarterbacking. I was Saturday afternoon quarterbacking. I said, have a mini Shark Tank-like primary with the best eight candidates go from two debates with eight, then to four, then to two, it would have dominated the media cycle. And by the way, Trump was dominating it because they were afraid to let Joe out of the basement. Democrats would have dominated it. And who knows, maybe it would have been Vice President Harris that would have matured. I don't think she would have. The woman who - Yeah, she needed more time.

28:56Well, the bottom line is, we don't want to acknowledge this, she's not a great candidate. I think she did a good job given the hand she was dealt with, but this is a candidate who didn't make it to Iowa four years earlier, which says to me, America didn't think of her as a great candidate. I thought she did a lot better. The first 60 days, I thought, were terrific, I thought, for her. Look, I think given the hand she was dealt, Vice President Harris, first off, I think one of the great performances in political history was her debate. I think the amount of pressure that she must have felt and for her to show up and be that composed, that articulate, that deft, practicing with two screens.

29:35I thought that was one of the great performances in political history. The reality is she was not a strong candidate and President Biden and his family's narcissism have severely fucked this country, severely. And that is his legacy. And we want to have, and we'll get shit for this because people are correctly feeling empathy for him, but his legacy, in my view, has been ruined by this. It continues. We were pretty outspoken. You first, and then you convinced me of his need to step down at the time. And we got so much endless shit. You remember how much endless shit we got. I have blocked so many people and all the social networks because they just can't, they do have a derangement syndrome.

30:16I was like, you can't say to yourself what a fuck up this was because, you know, because it's not the point. I think we should move on, by the way. I think we've got to move on quickly and there's lots of ways to do that. We made a mistake. We needed to do this. We're going to do things differently. we're so sorry. Please trust us again. And here's how you can trust us by doing, as you said, a robust primary. Correct. We're good. Here's some answers from us. Here's what we're going to do. And also saying out loud, Joe Biden betrayed us. Right. Right. Just say it. Sorry. He's sick. But betrayal is a strong word.

30:50He screwed up and we went along with it. He screwed up. OK, he screwed up and we went, OK, betrayed is not the right word. Right. OK. But that said, like, stop it, you people. Like you yelled at us when we said, which would have been a much better outcome, especially you, Scott. You were really out on that limb. And I'm not giving you credit, it's just you were right. And it's the same problem we had. We can't say anything because Trump, yes, we can say things. Look at the shit Tapper's getting right now. People are so angry at him. Yeah, he is getting. People are so angry. By the way, just we should point out or try and is for some good about the importance of a prostate exam.

31:25And you know how you can tell or how I can tell it's going to be a really great prostate exam? How? I feel two hands on my shoulders. Oh, my God. By the way, if Patrick comes over and gives me an in-home prostate exam, I think I should be reimbursed by my insurance. Okay. Okay. Getting back to Tapper, the other thing is I've just gotten several of these books on the presidential race and stuff like that. And I do have to say, there's a lot of news in a lot of these. They're all under embargo and stuff. But sometimes you feel like maybe you should have said it at the time. Like, you know, when reporters have to do, and here's where I do think the media is culpable.

32:06I think a lot more reporters knew about this and several did some great pieces talking about this, but they got relentlessly pummeled when they did. You were called an ist. The moment you said it, you were called, No one wants to be called anist. No one wants to be called a sexist or aegist, but immediately you were called an aegist right away. Oh, you're an aegist. You don't think you can do it. But reporters got the pressure. And in that way, they really have to just push back and keep going. And they're not a creature of Trump if they – the guy was the president, and they should have done a good job covering him despite the fears of Trump.

32:43And that's just the way it's got to be. I'm sorry. There's no, by all means necessary is not the way the Democrats could consult themselves. Anyway. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, the bond market gets a little yippee again.

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34:33Scott, we're back. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives passed President Trump's big, beautiful tax bill on Thursday morning with a 215 to 214 vote. I mean, it was one person. The stock slid this week with the Dow dropping over 800 points on Wednesday as bond yields spiked following a weak auction of the 20-year Treasury bonds and concerns about the budget bill. I mean, this is just what you're talking about, selling out the poor to feed the rich. The 10-year and 30-year bond yields also jumped sharply, a very disturbing indicator, and 30-year rising above 5 % to its highest levels since October 2023.

35:07The sell-off isn't just a U.S. story. Bond yields are rising globally, too, with Japan and the U.K. seeking similar moves. The bond market got yippee back in April, as Trump put it, which led him to pause the tariffs. I'd like you to explain what's going on without a penis joke and as pithy as you can be for the people who don't understand it. Well, look, this is, and several nonpartisan economic think tanks have said that this tax bill is the greatest transfer of capital and money from poor to rich in history. and adding$5 trillion to the debt, which will increase interest rates for everybody and young people is basically a deferred tax on young people such that it's very simple to understand this tax cut.

35:58The top 5 % are getting a tax cut. The bottom 95 % are getting a tax increase. And I was hopeful that this thing was going to be rejected. I thought the arguments were just so insane and cruel that they weren't going deep enough in the cuts. But effectively, I was with Anthony Scaramucci last night, who I just continue to be so impressed with. I think he's so thoughtful. And he brought up something so interesting, and that is - Is he in London? Yeah, he's in London. And he brought up something so interesting. He said, look, you had, effectively, you had Republicans. We're fiscal budget hawks. They were very concerned about the deficit.

36:37And Clinton, who was a moderate, figured out a way to have a surplus. And Al Gore said, with my economic plan, over the next eight to 10 years, we're going to have $4 to$5 trillion in surpluses. Bush won. And that was really the pivot point, because what Bush did was the following. He convinced, he decided, and the American public has gotten used to this, he decided we can have our cake and eat it too. And what he did was he decided to go to war and lower taxes at the same time. And nothing really happened in the short term to the markets because we have built up so much borrowing capacity because of the responsible fiscal approach of our predecessors.

37:17And the result is when we decided during W's administration that we could cut taxes and spend more, we began essentially a downward spiral of fiscal irresponsibility that Democrats and Republicans have both taken a play from, that the haunting or the negative impact of deficits don't come to fruition during my administration. So whatever, I'm just going to keep everybody happy. I'm going to the far left and the far right meet around. I know let's cut taxes and I know let's increase social spending. By the way, government expenditures are up$200 billion since Trump took office compared to last And also, Biden, despite railing against the billionaire class, not paying enough taxes, during the Biden administration, taxes went down.

38:05So this is a continuation of the same irresponsible fiscal behavior. But this is a focus, and this kind of embodies what America has become about. And that is the bottom 95 % are here to optimize the lifestyle and economics of the top 5%. And one of the reasons we do this is because the Republicans are very good at representing the top 5 % and convincing the top 50 that they'll be there, that Americans are so optimistic they believe at some point they might be in the top 5%. And because Democrats, quite frankly, just don't want to be serious about – neither side want to be serious about either raising taxes or cutting spending.

38:43And neither is willing to have a serious conversation. The best the Democrats will do will say, at some point when I interviewed Leader Jeffries with Jess, he said, well, at some point we should probably have that conversation. But no Democrat will stand up and say we probably need to means test Social Security. The only person I've found who's being kind of responsible is Senator Chris Murphy. He's actually naming programs we need to take a hard look at. But this is a transfer of wealth. Explain what the bond market's saying very quickly. Oh, the bond market is saying that this irresponsible fiscal behavior means that lending money to U.S.

39:21companies and to the U.S. government is now riskier, meaning that you need to get paid more to take that risk. and effectively what you have is the bond, the 30-year treasury is at 5.09 % and that's the greatest or the highest it's been since October 23. And this impacts, this means you're paying more for your student loans, your credit cards, your mortgages and companies are less inclined to borrow money to grow because it's more expensive. In other words, everything everywhere gets a little bit more expensive. Now that's okay if you're the 5 % getting a huge tax credit because I don't have student loans.

39:57My mortgage, if it goes up 25 bips, that still will be overcompensated by the tax cut that I will get. But the bottom 95 % see their taxes go up and see an increase in costs across their debt instruments. And their kids are really going to have a tough time because the fastest growing expense line in the government budget right now is the interest on our debt. It's not investing in infrastructure. It's not social services to keep seniors out of poverty. And this is how nations fail. Nations don't fail because they get invaded. They fail because they go broke. That's what we're doing. And we're not creating the economic opportunity because we have paying interest rates.

40:37It's usury against ourselves, which is really astonishing. Anyway, we'll see what goes on. They're going to pass it. But that was a tight vote. Again, I have to insult all the congressional Republicans who pretend they're hawks. Fuck you for voting for this. Like, if you really cared, you would do something not like this, but you did it anyway. I don't know what deal you got or whatever promise, but it's all nonsense if you don't stick to your guns on this stuff. iPhone designer Johnny Ive and his design firm are taking over creative design at OpenAI. This is an interesting story, speaking of expansion, to develop consumer devices and other products.

41:14Ive's design firm and OpenAI CEO Sam Malton have reportedly been working on a device that moves beyond screens, including headphones and other devices with cameras. Ive will also work on future versions of ChatGPT, audio features, and it's OpenAI's app. Ive also leads IO, a company founded to design and develop a new family of AI products. OpenAI will acquire IO in an all-equity deal valued at$6.5 billion. So here we are. We have Johnny Ive coming back, the obviously famous iPhone guy, aluminum. I just want to note, I spoke to Ive at Code in 2022. He was on a panel about Steve Jobs with Lorraine Powell Jobs and Tim Cook.

41:55It was the last Code session ever because Jobs was the first one. I asked him about intentionality and responsibility when designing tech products. Let's take a listen. I think if you're innovating, there will always be unintended consequences. Some of them wonderful and some of them not wonderful. And I think the issue is just how, you know, your decision in terms of what responsibility you need to shoulder. I think the more powerful, I mean, there's wonderful historic precedent for powerful tools having that, you know, that ability to be used in both ways. But I think it's, you know, the consequences, in the end of the day, I think it comes down to how you view your responsibility.

42:47Yeah, he's a very articulate person about design. He also insulted the current, there was a humane pin, a couple of pins. He thought they sucked. But is it too early in the process here at OpenA? They're clearly, as you noted, going consumer if they're bringing in Johnny Ive. And I will note Ive and Altman are very close friends. And again, the picture they took together was really kind of odd. and interesting, looked like they were, it was like an engagement photo in the New York Times. What do you think about this? Well, it is a big moment in business history because this is now the most expensive acquihire of all time.

43:18Yeah. At six and a half billion dollars and at just 55 employees, that's 120 million per employee. Actually, no, the biggest, number three was Instagram. I think it was 20 people, billions of 50 million. This is now, I was wrong. This is now number two,$120 million per employee. Number one was Meta's acquisition of WhatsApp, which was purchased for over$300 million per employee. But this was an acquihire. They're getting stock. I don't think they're getting cash. But even if it gets cut in half or by 75%, I think OpenAI is dramatically overvalued right now. But this is an acquihire. And I can see why the justification is they got a lot of press, a lot of awareness today.

44:05Quite frankly, this isn't as big a story as Google's announcement of some of their AI products yesterday. Yeah, we're going to do that next, but go ahead. I know, but my point is OpenAI stepped on it. Ah, yes. Basically, it took the oxygen out of the room. I don't know if they planned it, but it was quite brilliant. As soon as Google came out with this, they came out with this love picture of them. And Johnny Ive is a very compelling, charismatic guy. And they stepped all over Alphabet's big announcement, which, by the way, is a lot more meaningful in terms of tech news. That was a jobs move. Yeah, they stepped on it.

44:37They basically said, no, back of the bus in terms of your story. Look, good for Johnny Ive. He's a visionary. This is them saying that if we can come up with a better user interface or some sort of hardware product, it signals to the market that they're more leadership. is it worth$6.5 billion? That's a 2 % dilution at a$340 billion. I mean, that's real freaking dilution. But if it gets them awareness and they can end up having a cleaner user interface on their search or whatever product, you know, good for them. So look, I think it was a risk worth taking. Talk about the consumer, because they're obviously leaning, and Johnny Ive is probably the greatest designer in consumer technology history, right?

45:25one of them. I mean, possibly the one. And so this is the idea of how do you make AI useful, right? And so a lot of it is very kludgy, how you use AI. And those pins were just ridiculous. We made fun of them. But there has to be some way, because I have to say, I've been noticing, I mean, you use AI all the time. I'm really using it. I don't use Google search anymore. I use chat GPT. And they're better answers. They really are. And I'd like a little more information about the provenance of the information I'm getting sometimes. But I feel pretty good about it. It's getting better and better, that's for sure.

46:02But interestingly, my Apple things are getting useful. In my messages, suddenly it said, your Amazon package is at your doorstep. And it never did that before. AI is definitely inserting itself, trying to coordinate all my apps. at this point in a way that's much more actually useful. But do you think that they're going full consumer here and they're hitting at phone makers, they're hitting at search, they're hitting at, you know, travel agencies, they're hitting at libraries. I mean, how do you look at this? I mean, you could see an AI phone and Johnny Ive is one of probably the three or five, one of the three or five greatest consumer designers.

46:44I mean, I'll list off some others. There's Charles and Ray Eames, the furniture guys. Dieter Rams, who was kind of the original consumer design company, I think was Braun. They said that this stuff can be more interesting and not just functional and ugly and look like Soviets designed it. James Dyson, I think, would have to be up there. A guy named Achille Castiglione, who was known for furniture and lighting. I love furniture, and I think some of the more interesting design and consumer has actually been in furniture of all places. But anyways, he's right up there. I can see an AI phone. There's something about when you get a physical product that creates.

47:26I was having lunch with Jordan Harbinger. He's a great podcaster. I just like him. I think he's a really decent young man. And I said, my advice was, you need to write a book because something you can hold in your hands, it takes the podcaster and makes it gives you a level of heft and gravitas. I kind of feel the same about a physical product for these digital only companies. that if Google can put out an interesting laptop or a good phone, and the Pixel phone, while it hasn't really gotten any traction, is a great phone, it gives you a certain level of, I don't know, heft, gravitas that it takes you.

48:04I mean, for God's sakes, Meta's been trying to figure it out. They might have it with their AR Ray-Ban glasses, but there's just a certain affinity or affection or gravitas you get when you have something people can hold in their hands or marvel at its beauty. Because you are limited in terms of what you can do in a digital interface. You know what I was thinking? My iPhone suddenly feels older, too old. Like, something else has to come. And for the first time when I read this, even though Ive has sort of been through many cycles and he's sort of at the end of a very long and illustrious career, I think he's got one more in him.

48:38And like, someone could supplant Apple. Someone could. That's what I thought of when I heard this. Will. You know it'll happen at some point, just when. Yes, I know. But I thought someone, of course, will. But now I'm like, oh, I can see it. I can see them making something I would buy. Anyway, we'll see. We'll see. So I'm an investor and was on the board for a couple of years in a company called Ledger, which is kind of the premier hardware wallet for crypto. Yeah, they're in a little trouble because of some security issues. A lot of their stuff got it. Actually, well, it's still known as a secure story.

49:12The company is doing really well. I see the numbers. But anyways, I left the board mostly because I hate crypto and I shitpost it everywhere. So I wasn't a good fit for that board. But you know who took my spot is Tony Fidel. Oh, another great design. Yeah, because the company realized he's been very involved in the design. And one of the things that Ledger Nanos do have on the competition is they just kind of feel better in your hand. They look cooler. Yeah, they're beautiful. And so they realized that the guy who, you know, the guy who was involved in the iPod and I think he was involved in Nest, that it makes sense.

49:48These people, top end designers are rock stars and they can have a material impact on the perception. And when you have a tech company with people who brighten up a room by leaving it, having some of that sex appeal in beautiful things, as I just talk process this, it probably is worth the 2 % dilution when this company is trading at 3%. You know, OpenAI needs to maintain a lot of momentum and constantly be in the news to justify a third of a trillion dollar valuation right now. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful. I have one. It's gorgeous. And Tony is really great. The other one would be Yves Bahar.

50:26There's a couple. Oh, that's a good one. But, and then Susan Kerr, who designed all the original stuff for Apple, all the iconic stuff for Apple. She did all that. Anyway, there's a couple of really well-known tech designers. And Ive is at the very top of that pile in any case. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Google introduces AI mode.

51:13We'll see you next time.

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52:40Scott, we're back. Google has announced it will roll out its AI mode. Sounds so scary. A new search feature which will function like a chatbot to all users in the U.S. The feature will include personalized and automated email replies, can automatically purchase items when they're on sale, and with a new addition can click around the web for you, like to book travel. This is the idea behind all this stuff. For now, AI mode will just appear as an option inside of Google search. However, the group of the biggest news published in the U.S. expressed disapproval in a statement on Wednesday saying the new feature deprives publishers of traffic and revenue.

53:16No shit. An internal document disclosing Google's antitrust trial this week revealed that the company decided against making publishers, asking publishers for permission to have their work featured in AI search features. Talk a little bit AI mode. I mean, again, they've got to fight back because they sort of have the pole position being the leader in search. They should be dominating this, and they're certainly not, although they've certainly got a lot of power. So talk about, would you use AI mode to replace your other apps? I find myself using Google a lot less than a lot more in my experience, and I'm shifting over to ChatGPT and whatever's on Apple.

53:54And I guess I'm just about to shift from Google Maps to Apple Maps because they've gotten as good, for example. So thoughts? Well, the metaphor I use is that Google is big box, everything at the lowest price. But there's some decision calorie expenditure. You have to decide which of the 45 brands of peanut butter you want. Whereas AI is specialty retail and says, we're not going to give you every answer. We're just going to give you the three best toasters or the one best. And that's specialty retail. I think there's room for both. But specialty retail took market capitalization away from big box.

54:30And I think that's going to happen here. Having said that, I actually like the chat-like interface with Google Search. I use it. I find it's now at the top. They're integrating into the search and they're saying, look, if you want to go down the aisle and pick out which of the 100 toasters is fine, but we're doing like similar to what AI does, we're trying to at least start with what we think is the best toaster or the best answer. I also, one of my predictions in October for 2025 was I called it the empire strikes back. I think Alphabet is about to strike back. And I think still the largest concentration of IQ and even IQ related to AI is in fact at Alphabet.

55:10And also the scale they have is the scale they have. So just one piece of data here. There are 373 times more queries on Google than on OpenAI right now. Now, granted, their search has declined, but I still think that Alphabet with their IP, their IQ, their capital, and the interface they have is still, I think it would be very dangerous to count Alphabet out. And I believe that Alphabet's market cap will go up, and I think OpenAI is going to go down. And when I saw that product release yesterday of the different things, their AI mode, the chat-like interface, I was blown away by those product releases yesterday.

56:01I think it's really incredible what they're doing. So did they not get stepped on? How do you look at that? Oh, from a PR standpoint, they lost. I mean, one guy, Johnny Ive, in a$6.5 billion acquisition is the bigger news today. they released so much stuff that I think a lot of the stuff kind of stepped on each other. I would have pasted out and had a series of product releases, but some of the things like basically putting a movie studio on your phone, some of the stuff that feels like mid journey, but better. Some of the stuff they announced yesterday, I felt like I needed a few hours to really digest and understand, but I just got the sense they have all of a sudden that they got the memo that They're behind and they need to catch up.

56:45And I think the distance between that they're lagging open AI substantially narrowed yesterday. Did you see it and what did you think about it? I think open AI's principal competitor is Google. That's it. That's it. I don't meta from the outside with the open stuff. And there's certainly a player. But if I had the top three of those three, absolutely. I did see it. And I do use, I think what I like about Google search, and I still use it. I'm just using it less, just slightly less. I feel my patterns, right? Because Google was the go-to period and now it's not the go-to period. But I do like when you search for something, the questions they add, like it anticipates your next question of why this is this and why this is this.

57:31And so I like that. I think search is a lot more use searchable and useful. And I never go down below the first six inches, right, of the whole thing. They usually get my answer to me pretty quickly. And so that's great, except for everyone else below the line, right? they are deploying it well. They still, still have a problem with design. You know, I always thought this was Apple's to lose in terms of delivering. Apple, I don't think is doing anything that's really fantastic in terms of AI deployed to help me through my day. I think ChappieGPT is much more helpful. And I think they're kludgy too.

58:11I think they're all kludgy. So we'll see. I think obviously Google's, I think you're absolutely right. It's the empire strikes back and they have to. And so they have to get more dynamic, I suspect. Anyway, let's move on to the last thing. Democrats still wanted Joe Rogan, Scott. Since their loss in November, donor retreats and pitch documents have been full of asks for rich backers to contribute to the party's efforts to develop an army of influencers. efforts include American Bridge, one of the largest democratic donor networks, which has launched a plan for a nonprofit called Achieve Narrative Dominance and aims to have a budget of over$70 million.

58:45Project Echo, a new four-year$52 million influencer program from the progressive nonprofit American Way, and several other smaller projects looking to amplify left-leaning influencers. I'm just looking at the top charts. I'm just using podcasts because there's lots of ways to influence on all the different platforms. But actually, Joe Rogan's dropped rather considerably. He's now down at six. I think left wing ones or left or softer ones are near the top. Good hang with Amy Poehler's really burning the charts these days. The Daily is still up there. Obviously, Megyn Kelly's still up there. But I got to say a lot, it's not so much a right dominated thing.

59:24Tucker Carlson's up near the top, but so is Michelle Obama right next to him. Midas Touch which is right there, along with things like Diary of a CEO, you know, or the crime ones that are up to the top. So, you know, I feel like it's a mixed bag these days on a lot of these shows. I don't know. What do you think? Should they try to do this? It seems kind of silly. It's sort of like making Fetch happen. I do think they dominate. There's been some... Pivot is 76, just so you know, in the world. What is? Pivot? We're 76 in the world. Yeah. Yeah, top 100. We're in the top 100. Watch out, 75. We're higher than Charlie Kirk.

1:00:00Well, here's the thing. When you're Democratic, we're, you know, we're seeing a center left, a crazy left. You. I won't say who's who. You've become much more liberal. We have. I like that you said. I'm a San Francisco lesbian. Anyways. Prof G is 87. I'm just sorry. Go ahead. And Prof G is 87. I love that you threw that in. Just saying. Oh, my God. That's such a Kara Swisher thing. Oh, by the way. We're higher than all in. Too bad, boys. You BFFs or whatever you call yourselves. But we get, I mean, in terms of, I'm focused on money versus rankings. The Democratic podcasts get a much higher CPM.

1:00:33They do. Because the bottom line is Democrats listening to podcasts have more money than some of the Republicans listening to these podcasts. I do still think they dominate. Occasionally stuff is breaking through, like the Midas Touch came out of nowhere into the top five. But a lot of the top podcasts, like Stephen Bartlett is pretty much middle of the road. He tries to be apolitical. I think he's going to replace Joe Rogan. And Joe Rogan, I kind of feel like we should all send Joe a royalty because he kind of busted open the medium. I still think he's number one on most accounts, if you really are honest, in the medium and long term.

1:01:08Mel Robbins, who's broken through, but she's not political.

1:01:17Megan does a great job in podcasts in terms of her viewership. Tucker's right at the top. It still really is very right. Now, what the Republican Party does really well is the synchronicity between the think tanks, their media, their podcasters, and their candidates. The Democrats war within each other. I mean, if you think about even, there were four parties just a few years ago. There was the kind of George Bush, Mitt Romney Republicans, and MAGA. And then there's the Bernie AOC side of the Democratic Party and kind of the more moderate side. The right has consolidated around MAGA. The Romney, McCain, Bush Republicans are gone.

1:01:57They've been cast into the wilderness. And to a certain extent, that's an advantage because they're all on the same page from a messaging standpoint. And I'll speak to the same talking points. I don't think it's good for America. Whereas the Democrats, we're still roaring with each other. We're still saying, oh, you're my ally, but I don't like the way you're holding the gun. And we're spending a lot of time, you know, getting angry at Jake Tapper as opposed to saying, okay, let's focus on the fact that the biggest gripped in history is taking place. So what I've thought about doing, and I've talked to some podcasters about, is as we go into 26, I want to be more coordinated around organizing with other kind of what I'll call like-minded podcasts.

1:02:35Because I do think podcasts are increasing their influence. And I've said that I think our revenues in podcasting are going to grow dramatically because I think political candidates are going to start transferring money from local news stations to podcasts based on Trump's genius move to go right into podcasting. But I think the left needs to be much more organized. Yes, this is what I talked to you about, this idea of creating a consolidated, about six months ago, this idea of bringing us all together, where we trade podcasts. The right does this beautifully. Promote each other, highlight great candidates, maybe even circulate certain data that's super interesting that people aren't focused on.

1:03:12But everyone, I'd like to see everyone from kind of the smart list guys to crooked media. You know, these guys are so smart. Let's just be a little bit more. I don't think we were. The problem is I don't think the left moves in lockstep in the same way. Exactly. They aren't house organs, right? And so when I was talking to some rich people into doing this about six months ago, this idea, but it's really hard. What you have to do is more push each other. You know, I've had Julie Louise Dreyfuss and I are saying we're going to do some things with Crooked, I hope, where we trade and push each other.

1:03:47The problem is we don't coordinate with the Trump administration or whoever the Democrat, in our case, whoever the Democratic administration. We're not going to go, all right, Pete, what do you want us to do today the way the Trump people do with Fox News? An autocracy is very efficient. Right. And I think that there's a certain elegance to once you get – I think our messaging has to be more on point and more coordinated. And we have to do a better job of building each other up and highlighting Richie Torres or Wes Moore or Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer, whoever it is. And start and also highlighting the fact that, OK, while you were sleeping, you know, there was a million and a half dollar per day.

1:04:33I mean, just some of the grift that we're constantly seeing. You did very one of our most popular social things was Scott listing all the grift like in lists. It was really just to bring it together. Well, but there's there's all sorts of great talking points. He did a trip to the Middle East. But the two biggest economies in the Middle East, or the three biggest, are Turkey, Israel, or Turkey, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Israel. And he avoided Turkey and Israel because they're democracies, and they couldn't give him grift. Even Turkey couldn't give him a 747. There's no fucking way Israel would bribe him or his sons.

1:05:10So he skipped those countries. He went to the countries where the supreme ruler was willing to give them a billion dollar golf course, a multi-hundred million dollar Trump Tower or a 747. He seems to have accepted it. That's what he picked up in those three countries. You know what he would have picked up in Israel? He would have picked up a trip to the border of the Gaza border, which he's not interested in. He's actually not interested in actual defense. Right. Or saving anybody there or settling anything there. One of the things that was pretty heinous yesterday, it was a joke, as you're noting this, the head of South Africa made a joke, I don't have a plane to give you.

1:05:50And then Trump goes, well, I'd take it if you did. Oh, my God. And by the way, he was spewing right-wing conspiracy stuff. There's a genocide against white people? For the wrong country. It was for Congo. And even his conspiracy theories were inaccurate. Like, it was just full of nonsense. That was a white – and by the way, guess who I blame for that? a famous South African who was one of his advisors. Oh, there you go. But anyway, you're right. You're absolutely right. I don't think we have to create a Joe Rogan. That's not what we want. I mean, you could say Jon Stewart sometimes or Jon Oliver.

1:06:22They're all over the place. We have to create, to me, a 360 on every single social platform where we're not necessarily coordinating. I think you can't make Fetch happen with the left. You can't. But we're really giving messages and drilling in, as Scott said, on grift, on give messages of hope and give messages of these guys are crooks over and over and over again. But coordination is not really a left thing to do. The way I presented it to the people I'm speaking to is that bad CMOs get a directive from the CEO and take budget from the brands and then impose a series of guidelines around, I want this type of advertising for this brand.

1:07:03And ultimately they get fired because all the powers with the people making the money at the individual brands, they start to resent the CMO and he or she gets gets fired. Good CMOs become a center of excellence in basically shared services where they say, I've done a bunch of work on media effectiveness, and if any of the brands want to come to me, I will provide you with this data. That's right. I think we need a group of people that says, we have some amazing candidates that are available for interviews. Up to you. Here they are. And we can make it seamless and easy for you. Every day, we're going to send out a series of talking points and data that you may choose or may not choose to highlight in your stories.

1:07:38By the way, SmartList, Pivot would like to promote you and promote certain episodes. Would you be interested in a reciprocal deal to promote them? And we're also going to promote the Midas Touch. Would you like to be part, all opt-in, would you like to be part of a consortium that helps build each other's audience? So almost like just a shared services where it becomes a pull as opposed to a push. But us lecturing at them saying, oh, you need to highlight this or talk this way. These people are going to stick up the middle finger. These people have their own businesses to run. Yep, exactly. like that's the problem.

1:08:06That's the problem. All right. One more quick break and we'll be back for predictions.

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1:10:38Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Okay, so my prediction is that, it goes back to a prediction I made in October of last year, and my prediction is the empire strikes back. And I just want to be clear, my financial advice to anyone, especially a young person, is hope you go double platinum or sell your company. But just in case you don't, save three to 5 % of your salary in a tax-advantaged vehicle in low-cost, diversified index funds, not only in the US, but across the world. And by the time you're my age, even if you haven't gone double platinum or sold your business, you're going to be fine.

1:11:14And try to resist the temptation of believing you're smarter than everyone else and do stock picking and limit that to 20 or 30%. And I do think it's worthwhile to take some of your money and do stuff because it forces you to learn about the market. And also, quite frankly, it's fun. Anyways, that's my big asterisk there. Having said that, my prediction is that Alphabet is going to outperform the market. And if you look at Alphabet right now, they have so many incredible businesses. So the Google Cloud is basically a$43 billion business going to 50. And if you put the same multiple on that business that Oracle gets, you get about a$400 billion, a company worth about$400 billion.

1:11:49YouTube, which is essentially the biggest streamer in the world, it does$54 billion in business. If you apply that Netflix multiple, you get a$650 billion. So at$1.1 trillion. Waymo, in my opinion, let's not even count that, but I think that's worth a lot of money. I think the autonomous war is about to break out and the leader is going to be Waymo. And if they spin that out, I think that'll get a huge valuation. So essentially what you have is At the most conservative level, Google is being valued at about$800 billion to a trillion or four to five times revenues. And Chipotle and Coca-Cola trade at six times sales.

1:12:26So, you know, Cava trades at 10 times sales. Cava is delicious. A$200 billion tech business that grew at 13 % last year does not deserve a lower multiple than Coca-Cola, a mature food and beverage firm with less than$50 billion in revenue that grew 3%. So if you do a sum of the parts analysis, it's undervalued. So the question is, well, why is it undervalued? And the two reasons I think are, one, the existential threat posed by OpenAI, which is a threat, but I think it's been overestimated. And two, the likelihood of antitrust in a breakup, which I believe would actually be accretive to shareholders if they were forced to spend some of these companies because they would be unlocked from this conglomerate tax that the company is paying right now.

1:13:08And my final point here is that right now, Google trades at a PE of 19. The S &P 500, with its drawdowns, trades at 24. So take an average company in the S &P, a P &G or a Dow. I don't know what company sort of embodies the S &P, but those are both great companies. But any average, quote unquote, average company in the S &P is not nearly as impressive, isn't growing nearly as fast, doesn't have nearly the margins of an alphabet. All right. Sundar Pichai thanks you. Go ahead. Well, I really think this company of all of the big tech right now is the most undervalued, and it's being overly punished because of this existential threat of open AI and the notion of antitrust.

1:13:50One, I think is overstated. I think they are absolutely striking back in terms of AI. And two, I think antitrust - Will be a good thing. If the law was passed and they had to spend something, would actually be accretive to shareholders. There is no reason. Alphabet, at the end of the day, is a much more impressive company than your average S &P company. And yet it's trading at 18 or 19 versus 25. And it's traded at an average of 26 over the last five years. And even this year, even with its bump up yesterday, it's down 12 % year to date. This is an impressive company that in some, I think, is undervalued.

1:14:26So interestingly, because Sudha Pichai is sort of never mentioned, you know, you give Satcho lots of props. He's kind of a plotter. I know him very well. I've known him since he was a young product manager on a bunch of stuff at Google. He's kind of a plotter. He's always thought of as doesn't make decisions fast enough. He certainly isn't a hand waver about himself. You know, he's quite, he's just a nice guy. He's just a really nice guy. So he doesn't get the kind of props. And you're right. It's a difficult company to tell the story of because there's so many parts of it. So that's an interesting prediction.

1:14:54I think that's interesting. But I will note, I use Google a lot less than I did. I don't know why. But you're right. They really, it's theirs to lose in many ways. But it's good they have competitors. Let me bring in a totally unrelated topic. Okay. So Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella, two guys who've created unbelievable market cap, hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs, incredible ecosystem, incredible shareable value. Sundar's from Madurai, India, and Satya is from Hyderabad, India. The fact that we are not saying to every Indian, golden visa for anyone, I can tell you, and I'm being a racist here.

1:15:35I think the Indian population that immigrates to America is some of the most accretive, positive human capital flow in history. walk around the halls of Stern, these Indian Americans, these people who decided to get, who are literally the 0.01 % and got to IIT and then decided of all their options to come to America, they are a gift to America. At one point, the head of Microsoft, Sundar was a name that was floated as the head of Microsoft also because he hadn't gotten the CEO of Google job. But yes, they're both really remarkable citizens of the United States and also immigrants. You know, I've had lots of really interesting discussions with Sundar about the anti-immigration Trump stuff, but he's a quiet leader.

1:16:19Well, I think he'll probably, you're right. It's there. So it's a really interesting prediction. My prediction is that at 10 o 'clock tonight, Kara Swisher will be so happy because she's watching. Oh, you're going to, I'm curious. You got to text me and tell me what you think. I'll text you at two in the morning because it's a movie anyway, because it'll be like a half an hour of previews, I'm sure. Anyway, I'm so excited. I've got the, I bought the popcorn Advance and the drink, and I'm very excited to watch Mission Impossible Final Reckoning. Anyway, I feel like an ad for them, but I don't care.

1:16:46I love that movie. Anyway, I love the series. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send 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. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel, which is growing handily. Scott, we're actually dark next Tuesday from Memorial Day, but we'll have a great episode of Stay Tuned with Preet in our feed. We'll be back next Friday. Today's show is produced by Lauren Amon, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, Kevin Oliver, and Corinne Roth.

1:17:18Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Averio, Dan Chalon, and Kate Gallagher. Nishat Karua is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Cara, enjoy the movies.

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