Flight Cancellation Chaos, SNAP Ruling, and U.S.-Canada Trade War

22:16He's looking to double exports with countries other than the U.S. within the next 10 years. His government's new budget proposes spending 280 billion Canadian, that's 200 billion U.S., over the next five years to help offset the effects of the U.S.'s trade war, attract investment, increase defense spending. By the way, Carney is two seats away from a majority government, a conservative MP defected to the liberals. He's doing rather well. And of course, there was the Doug Ford ad, which angered President Trump, which I wasn't seeing it coming from Doug Ford, I'll be honest with you. But I'm also down for that.

22:56So talk about what's going on here because that, of course, incents Trump. And we're sorry about the World Series, by the way. Not really. No. I'm from California. Too bad. Sorry. But I grew up in L.A. and I was rooting for a wait for the Blue Jays.

23:19You are such a suck up to Canada. True. I tweeted about it. That's because you were conceived here. So talk a little bit about the tariffs, because it's a really difficult situation. And of course, he continues to say, you do not want to be the 51st state, I assume. Thank you. But he keeps talking about it. It's demented, obviously. That's a waste of time. But talk a little bit about where the tariffs are. By the way, we'd like it. We're progressives. We'd win every Democratic House. can you imagine what would happen if Canada became the first 51st state? We'd be so fucking liberal, it'd be out of control.

23:57Yeah, it's true. Anyways, so just a little bit of context. We have the strongest alliance in the world. Churchill said the only thing worse than fighting with your allies or fighting with your allies is fighting without your allies. And I think America right now is taking for granted a lot of things. We're taking for granted the FAA, We're taking for granted veterans affairs. We're taking granted competence in the administration and across all of our great public sector employees. But we're also, quite frankly, taking for granted our friends. Canada has the largest undefended border in the world with the U.S.

24:36That says something. It would cost us somewhere between$20 and$50 billion a year if either side decided to militarize their border. But we don't because we trust and we like each other. Canada went to World War I, a colony, came back a nation on a per capita basis. They lost eight times as many people as America won. They actually went to World War II or entered World War II before we did. They were in Afghanistan with us. So this has been this unbelievably prosperous relationship where, in the words of Animal House, quite frankly, you fucked up, you trusted us. and that is about somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of exports from Canada go into the U.S.

25:17It's about 17 percent of ours. That's a bit misleading because of the exports that come into the U.S. from Canada, they're generally low margin products. They're oil, petroleum, lumber, and they're in companies that trade at a P multiple about 20. Whereas the products that we import or export into Canada are more like automobiles, electronics, iPhones, pharmaceuticals that have double or triple the operating margins and usually our revenues in a company that trade at about a multiple of 20 to 30. So for every dollar of exports that we push into Canada, we recognize about three times the shareholder value.

25:57So trade, if you will, between the U.S. and Canada is asymmetric. And that is for every dollar we push into you, that you buy, versus every dollar you push into us, we get triple the amount of shareholder value. So if anyone's getting, has been taken advantage of over the last 20 or 30 years, it's been Canadians. We benefit more from this trade than you do, but we've decided, we've decided, and this is what is just so sclerotic and stupid, economically stupid about what we're doing. We've decided because we're, it's like going through an angry divorce and one partner is much wealthier than the other and has said, well, I'm going to damage myself more, but because I have so much more money, it's going to hurt you more.

26:44So it's not only irrational, the bottom line is it's just, for lack of a better term, it's just unkind. And what you're seeing is Carney, by the way, I don't know if you know this, I have another podcast called Prof G. No, I haven't heard of it. My most viewed podcast with this guy who reached out to me, his office and said, we want to come on your podcast. And It was Mark Carney. And I had no idea who the guy was. This was. You had no idea who the guy was. I didn't. I'd never heard of the guy. He's the prime minister of Canada. No, no, no. This was during the election. That's why I called. And he came on.

27:18And by, it was like 70 minutes later, I'm like, old me. That guy. I'm like, dad? Dad? Seriously, that's the dad I want. Wait, wait. You didn't have those feelings for Justin Trudeau? Justin's more like I'd like to roll and pick up chicks with Justin. Justin's like... That seems to be his job right now, I think. I met him in person like three days ago. I'm like, Jesus Christ, look at this guy's skin. He's beautiful. He looks like he's in a fucking boy band. He doesn't look like... Anyway.

27:55Where were we? Bring me back. Mark Carney, what do you think of him? Anyways, so what are these leaders doing? Trump and the trade wars have absolutely accomplished what he was hoping to accomplish. They've inspired a massive flurry of deal-making. That's the good news. The bad news is it has nothing to do with us. So essentially every world leader is on a global tour trying to figure out new supply chain and new alliances that don't include America. And the unfortunate thing about this is that if and when Trump is out of office in 28, it's gonna take us a decade and at a minimum to repair these trade alliances Because once you establish alliances with other nations for your lumber and for your parts and for your whatever it might be, your petroleum, your oil, whatever it might be, you're not going to say, I'm sorry, girlfriend, we can't trust you.

28:47The next time some weirdo comes into office, when COVID hit, I was on the board of a company called Urban Outfitters, an apparel company. And we recognized that 70 or 80 % of our tops were coming from a 10-mile radius of Shenzhen that basically got shut down. And we said, okay, never again. We can't be this. Supply chains were maximized for no slack and just pure efficiency, which made us vulnerable to a supply chain shock. What Canada is going through is sort of a self-imposed own goal COVID from America, where they're going to diversify their supply chain and never put themselves in a position again where they need to trust this meth lab that they have an apartment on top of.

29:26So one of the things that, actually, your point about it being a good thing for Canada, I think absolutely, because it creates a situation where you have to be, one of the issues around Canada, I'm sorry to insult BlackBerry because when I had my baby, I was holding a BlackBerry in the delivery room in my hand because I was texting with someone at the time. Wait, so you actually birthed the child? Yes, I did. You know that? Okay. Louis. Oh, my God. Don't say anything. You need to invest. Don't say anything. You need to invest in our relationship. He's coming tomorrow to the Boston. Louis. Louis.

30:07Oh, great. Okay. I actually had him. I had a cesarean scar. Do you want to see it right now? Oh, God, no. Okay, good. All right. But now I'm getting back. Anyway, I love BlackBerry, but a lot of the innovations in technology didn't happen here as much as it should have because of the dependencies on the United States. And it's a good thing to get out from under a dependency because with the U.S., BlackBerry was absolutely out front in terms of innovation, in terms of usage. But as you know, it got run over. It got run over by Apple and Google and everything else. And that to me was, and again, Waterloo's an astonishing technology school.

30:51Did you know about Waterloo? A little bit. Yeah, okay. You didn't. So one of the things that I think is interesting is how can you revive innovation in places like Canada and not rely? Because the reliance on America, I was looking at a list of American, the most valued companies in the world, and they're all U.S. companies, whether it's NVIDIA or Apple or Meta or Alphabet. that. And it's really important to establish and not just to support them, to really think about innovation within each of your countries and to get off the relationship with the U.S. may not be the worst thing for most countries in the world, given how repugnant we are at this moment, but also because it's important.

31:33Because I think of BlackBerry, I just, they dominated. They dominated the early technology era of mobile computing and then absolutely didn't. Yeah, look, this is the question I get most. I live in London right now, and it's like, why can't we, you know, one company? So I think NVIDIA right now is worth more than the Canadian GDP. Is that right? Yeah, it's worth$5 trillion. Anyways, the bottom line is, you don't command the space you occupy in terms of technology. There's just no getting around it. And we can talk about BlackBerry and root for a company that's been irrelevant for 10 years. But you got great universities, you got a great culture.

32:21I think there's something to the, I mean, I hate to admit this, but the ready fire aim regulatory environment in the U.S. does create a lot of fast movers. In addition, we, I would describe the benefit of the U.S. as being kind of comes down to one word and that is risk. So the people, you know, when I describe, I don't know if this is true of Canada because 50 % of the people living in Toronto were born in other countries. But when you describe, when people, when I'm in the UK say, why are you guys doing so much better than us? And I say, well, you're the ones that decided to stay. And so for example, what you need is quite frankly, you need 10 or 20 Shopify's Because what happens is a company starts, it gets huge.

33:07They have huge liquidity events. The people who started these companies decide to stay there because they collect mates and dogs. And then they start a VC firm and start salting the environment with more and more venture. In addition, and this is unfortunate, but the environment in the U.S. where there's more upside because of lower tax rates on the wealthy, we have a very strange tax system. It's progressive, right? until you get to about the 99th percentile. And then once you get to the 99th percentile, it plummets. So the tax rate on someone in the 99th percentile, if you're living in a blue state, might be 52 points.

33:43The tax rate on the 25 wealthiest families in America is 6%. And the superpower of Americans is their optimism, but it's also the Achilles heel, because all of us in America think our kid is in the top 1%, and I can prove to every one of us, 99 % of our children are not in the top 1%. And then we have a very low safety net. So what it creates is an incentive system where people are encouraged to take more risk because there's just so much more upside. But there's got to be something else, and I'm not entirely sure what it is, why when you get to the Canadian border, quite frankly, those unicorns somewhat stop.

34:22In the honest sense, I don't have an answer for you. opportunity. But we're going to move on. But it's really it's just an interesting time. I think ultimately Trump taco, you know, he will taco the thing out. Trump always chickens out. And so at some point he'll repair those relationships, although he has to wake up first. Anyway, we're going to he's been sleeping a lot lately in meetings. He just did yesterday when that guy fainted. The Ozempic guy fainted. Anyway, we're going to go on a quick break and we come back. We're going to talk about something New York City has in common with Toronto, a progressive mayor.

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36:38Scott, we're back recording live from Toronto.

36:43How much do we love it here? What? How much do we love it here? I do. I know. We're moving here. Another 20 years of global warming, this is going to be the greatest city in the world. Yeah, it's going to be great. Seriously. So back in the U.S., we had one local election that transfixed the whole country, the New York City mayoral election. Toronto's mayor, Olivia Chow, is a progressive who campaigned on affordability issues when she ran in 2023, like a certain newly elected mayor. Her advice to him in a recent interview, she was talking about the issue that defines affordability as housing, not so much free buses.

37:16I just want to ask you a question. You've got a thing from, how do we pronounce it? Mom Donnie. I have no thing for him. You have a thing for him so you can pander to your Lokistan liberals. No, no. Here's what I think. I want to ask you this question. You're on his incredible book tour, and Scott's book is number one on Amazon right now. Notes on being a man. I'm going to throw you a bone there because it's worthwhile to be that way. But here is a man who is the description of the men you're talking about, right? who is respectful, who's community-oriented, who has gone around the city and met people, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

37:51I'm just curious. A rich kid living in a rent-controlled apartment? No, it's not right. No, listen, Cuomo. Cuomo was in a rent-stabilized apartment, too, before. I find it interesting, but these are the kind of people you want men to be like or look up to or not. You don't think so? Oh, honestly, I hadn't run the macho test on, Mondavi. I think he's a super impressive young man. I think he's an incredible candidate. I think the Democrats can learn a lot from him. I thought he ran a great campaign. He's bold. He takes risks. He's smart. And I want to be clear. We talk about this a lot. I think once someone is elected, you have an obligation as a citizen to rally behind them and hope for their success and support them and let them prove you wrong.

38:39When you go to a voting booth, we're not in a suicide pact. You know, one of the things I keep saying about, I've been thinking a lot about, quote unquote, the mating crisis because I wrote this book on young men. And yet another reason why young people aren't hooking up is because women are becoming slightly more progressive and men are becoming much more conservative. And women don't want it. The moment a dude starts talking about his conservative values, he's like, OK, I'm out. and I literally try to think, can you think of anyone when you were dating when you were single? Well, maybe you did.

39:17I've never been single. You've never been single? No. I've been single most of my life. Anyways. I literally, a month. I was single for a month. Single for a month? Well, you know, I'm beachfront property in Malibu. Among lesbians, at least. Go ahead. Yeah, I'm the part of the beach that washed away and it's gone forever. Anyways, but I can't remember. You're the inland empire, I guess. I can't remember what the political leanings were. And it's yet another reason why people are writing each other off. But to your point, as I think about it, I think of masculinity as being three things. Provider.

39:54I think every man at the outset of his career should assume that at some point he needs to take economic responsibility for his household. And sometimes that means getting out of the way and being more supportive of your partner who's better at that money thing. But I don't think it's a bad idea to start out saying I'm going to have to be economically viable in a capitalist society that disproportionately evaluates men and my self-esteem is largely based on my economic viability. I'm not saying that's the way the world should be, but it's the way the world is, too. Once you have that prosperity, you move to protector.

40:24I think this is the part of the program that the men were supposed to look up to for masculinity, specifically the richest man in the world and the president have totally missed the whole protector part of masculinity. and then three, procreation. I think sex and being horny and wanting to have sex makes you a better man, makes you wanna dress better, smell better, have a kindness practice, be resilient, make an approach while expressing romantic interest and making someone feel safe. Stop demonizing sexual desire. It's an amazing thing. It makes men better men. Mom Dommy? Mom Donnie, you got it.

41:01Yeah, you got it. Stop it. Stop shaming me. I get him right. I think he's a great role model for, as I think about it, I think he's a great role model for young men. He takes risks. I think he's happily married. He seems to be talking about protecting other people. So as I'm thinking about this real time, yeah, I think he's a great. What? In other words. Best of luck to him. In any case. What do you want? In any case, I think he's a great role model. And, you know, I'd even fuck him. So would you. Um, so, but you would. That hair. Come on. A few beers, you never know. I'm down. I mean. And I know you hate, very quickly, we have two more things, and then we'll get to questions from the audience.

41:47I know you hate the idea of a state-run grocery stores, but here in Canada, most provinces have government-run liquor stores. Some states in the United States have them. That's, that's okay though, right? No, it was a bad idea here and it was a bad idea there. When Alberta got rid of their government-owned liquor stores, the number of liquor stores tripled, the number of employment tripled, and the number of products available to consumers was up eightfold. That's nothing but a transfer of wealth from consumers to the government for shitty service. There are certain things the government does really well.

42:17They're really good at taking care of our national parks. They're really good at collecting taxes. They're really good at the Navy. They're really good at the DMV. Someone from the DMV should not be picking out your produce or your alcohol. The private sector does some things really well. One of them is grocery. We do not need food-sponsored food lines called government-owned grocery stores. Grocery is the last thing that should be nationalized. It's the idea of getting better nutrition to poorer people who now can't buy them. And give them money. Give them money. Well, we are not giving them money because of SNAP benefits being cut.

42:47Okay, but the problem when government gets involved on a lot of this stuff is it creates an infrastructure where the majority of the money does not end up in the pockets that you're supposedly helping. If you want to get more food or make food more affordable for people, what you do is you give them money, more money in their pockets,$25 an hour minimum wage, which he is proposing, which I'm a huge fan of, and then let them force Trader Joe's, Kroger's, Loblaws, or whatever you call it up here, to compete against each other and battle it out in this full-body contact violence called the private sector.

43:19All right. We will talk to him. I see your point, but I appreciate you acknowledging he's a good role model for men. I think he is a good role model. I'm glad you pointed that out. Last thing. Tourism is down between the U.S. and Canada. Last year, Canada was the top source of international tourists to the U.S., generating over$20 billion in spending and supporting 140 ,000 American jobs. In the first half of this year, U.S. saw a 25 % drop in Canadian—we miss you, Canadian visitors. This summer, for the second time in nearly 20 years, more U.S. residents traveled to Canada, largely escaping, than Canadians traveling to the U.S.

43:58Why don't you think they want to come see us, Scott? It's so funny. We're supposed to be with these tariffs that are going to reinvigorate the manufacturing sector. But here's the problem. Nobody wants to work in the manufacturing sector. You don't get to take your dog to work on the shop floor. And 11 % of the American public works in manufacturing, yet 80 % of Americans think we need more manufacturing. We have this fetish of around manufacturing. And the reality is over time, America has been very good at arbitraging out of low wage jobs into more service, more information, more innovation industry.

44:3812 % of American public is employed in the tourist industry. So our obsession with trying to falsely, sclerotically, idiotically prop up the manufacturing sector with quote unquote tariffs is taking down faster an industry which is higher margin and employs more people called the tourist sector when you come to Disneyland we get much more money much more margin support much more jobs than if we tariff your shit such that our lumber is more competitive this again if you were look it's as if the Trump administration said to chat GPT how can I elegantly reduce the prosperity of Americans inch by inch and make it almost irreversible for four or five decades.

45:18Actually, it's not that elegant. It's not elegant at all. But what could bring Canadians back to us? What could bring Canadians back? Yeah. What could we do? Fuck, a new president. I mean.

45:35So let me get a prediction from you because, you know. The World Cup? The World Cup. Are you coming for the World Cup? No, they're not coming for the World Cup. Are you coming for the World Cup? I'm coming to Vancouver. There's two cities, two cities or three cities in Canada. Toronto, Vancouver, and then... Montreal. There's lots of cities. I used to come every year in June to Canada for tourist reasons. Anyone want to guess? F1 Montreal. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Hello, European food and hot women. Did I just say that? Yeah. So what could we do? say Trump leaves. Right. His tiny minion doesn't win, J.D.

46:19Vance. The most uncharming person in politics that exists. Talk about pandering. Yeah. South Park has him exactly right. Yeah. What could the, what would you, the first thing the U.S. should do to get tourists back to the U.S.? Canadian tourists.

46:45I just don't, I think all we need to do is make America America again. I just don't, I don't think we need advertising. I don't think we need Disneyland at Niagara on the American board. Well, they have Niagara too, but go ahead. I just, this, I mean, let's be honest. We're pretty much the same goddamn people. We're fraternal or maternal twins, right? And the fact that we don't, we just, we love each other so much, we take each other for granted. It's like you wake up in the morning and you're spooning your wife and you just, you forget how wonderful it is. It's just, this is not a Canada and America.

47:29Like, we're you and you're us. And the thought that we even have this kind of. No. No, they don't think so. They don't want to be spooned by you, Scott. And neither do I, but that's another issue. This is really interesting, though, because we Americans are so narcissistic. That's correct. That.

47:57Scott was shocked by that. I was not. Americans feel much better about Canadians right now than Canadians feel about Americans. Yep. So. Scott, they hate us. They really hate us. So I don't think there's anything we can do Other than what I would call Just going back to a sense of normalcy And someone who doesn't declare war on his friends Yes, I would say The one thing we could say is we're so sorry We are so sorry That's what I see That's how you do it Thank you, thank you Thank you Okay Did I tell you I was conceived here? Look at you were surprised by that They don't like us I'm just telling you Anyway, we're going to finish up And then we're going to get to questions from the audience

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50:36too rude. And Scott made it through the entire show without a dick joke. So you should be happy. Thank you so much. We've been watching and we're kind of terrified as to what's happening in America. And we've been watching the dismantling of democracy with the legal systems and the military. And I could go on with 250 things. Yeah, there's a lot to say. There's a lot going on. these days. So my question to you is, what is your suggestion? Because it seems to be there's a mobilization around Donald Trump and all of his followers. Who are we supposed to follow on the opposite side? What is your suggestion?

51:21There needs to be a leader. Well, the recent election said something, didn't it? Didn't the recent election? Absolutely. And it's not just at the top levels. It was down in the city councils. And we're very hopeful that, and I think that says to us that the American people have a voice, right? They do. But who's leading that voice? Who's going to take it to the next level? And that's my question to you. We don't know right now. You know, we don't know. We don't know who the Democrat, there's a lot of Democratic Party officials. There's other people maybe you've not heard of yet. There's leaders.

51:53My whole take on whether you like Mamdani or not is we contain multitudes is how the Democratic Party should be. Not that we have to agree on socialism or Abby Spanberger in Virginia is much more conservative. Or if you're Jared Polis in Colorado, the Democratic Party has to say, here's the three things we care about, affordability, dignity and democracy or something like that. And I think it's really going to be interesting to see who emerges. But there's some great candidates. It's just a question of the fever of Trump is a fever that the United States has all the time, whether from the Salem witch trials to the, you know, to the McCarthy era, to the Civil War.

52:35We have fevers that are really ugly and grotesque. And I feel like we're going to come out of this. And this I agree, this sad, decrepit, cruel man will be gone. But we'll see. He's got a lot of that. He's got a lot of people who love him. You know, absolutely. Any quick things? Yeah, but to build on Kara's point, America has been in very dark places before and has actually, it's tested our democracy and the democracy has been damaged in like a muscle that's damaged. It's grown back stronger. At one point, slave owners controlled our quote unquote democracy. Right after the Great Depression, there was veterans.

53:15Henry fucking Ford. Fuck that guy. I mean, he's dead, but he should be deader. Veterans were marching on the Capitol, and this young general named Douglas MacArthur opened fire on them. We were essentially putting, we were interning people because of their Japanese background in camps. We have been through very dark times, and each time we have come back, learned from it, and come back stronger. So that's not an excuse to be complacent, but our democracy is being tested. I think a lot of Americans are recognizing that a lot of our blessings we've taken for granted. So I'm hopeful that our democracy like a muscle is being tested and it's going to grow back stronger.

53:56We've been through worse before. I also believe in young people. Again, New York, Mayoral, you can have all the feelings you want about it. Young people voted and they said what they wanted. And they said we don't want an ass grabbing terrible Trump-loving Democrat. So we'll see. I believe in young people. That's who I believe in. Hello, Scott Guerra. My name is Daniel. I'm here with my wife. It's our first anniversary tomorrow. Congratulations. And we both love you. Thank you. We both love you. And I wanted to ask, both of us have worked in advertising. I had an agency that I exited last year, and I'm still working as a strategist and consultant.

54:35She works in advertising. My question is, and I also teach in post-secondary. So my question for you mostly, Scott, is are we screwed to continue to work in these industries? Should we pivot now? Yeah, that's a good question. What are your thoughts on that? It's situational because I'd say if you're over the age of 40 and you have senior level sponsorship and you're doing well and you own relationships, which is always the key in a services industry, I would say ride it out and keep going. If you're younger and thinking, okay, I have some options in other industries, I think you want to get out of the ad-supported ecosystem.

55:09I think it's going to be a difficult industry. It's better to be good in a growing industry than great in an industry that's flat or declining. Within your industry, if you decide to stay in it, I would say try and get as close to the relationships with the clients as possible. And also try to get good at buying media and creating content for a small screen. The return on investment of your human and your financial capital will be inversely correlated to the screen you're creating content for. If you're in the business of big screens, movies, that's a shitty business that's only going to get worse.

55:41If you're in the business of a medium-sized screen TV, that's a huge business that's gone flat. But if you're in the business of design and creative for the small screens, it's champagne and cocaine, my brother. Okay, there you go. There you go. I think Google and Met are going to dominate AI advertising, and they're going to hold. And our country just recently, there's one case in Virginia right now with Google. They might break it up, but it doesn't matter. They dominate everything in advertising. And he's right, small screen.

56:13All right, last question, really quick. Make it a good one. Hi, I'm Kelly. I'm here with the bummer question. Oh, okay. So AI has been the fuel on the fire that is disinformation. Yes. How do we curb that? Or is the horse too far out of the barn, as my mom would say? It's not AI. It was here before. By the way, propaganda has been around since the beginning of time, let's be clear. It's just been amplified and weaponized in a way. And social media has certainly done its job. So it's not a new thing. I think the question is, now that we have AI here and it's not as protected legally, at least in the United States, as social media is, it's time for our regulators to get very clear about guardrails, beginning with young people in terms of the usage and safety.

57:02Let me tell you, my whole book was about how they do not give a fuck how safe you are. They are people who have never felt unsafe a day in their lives don't care about safety. They don't care about your safety. And so we have to engage as citizens to get our legislators to get a fucking backbone and start to really legislate reasonable guardrails. I'm not talking about innovation-killing guardrails. But the fact of the matter is, as Scott's pointed out, the AI boom right now is allowing Trump to, it's kept the stock market up, which is allowing Trump to do all manner of heinous things. Like, that's an after effect.

57:39But we have to absolutely get control of the technology industry and pass, we don't have any laws in our country regulating them. We have to start understanding how easy it's going to be to destroy all our democracies, not just the U.S. because we're so vulnerable, but everywhere without understanding there should be reasonable and important legislation around transparency, privacy, usage, safety, all kinds of things. And it's not that hard. We do it with every other industry and it should be done here. This is all I talk about now. And I want to start with young kids because everybody agrees on that.

58:16Like everybody agrees on the safety of children. And so that would be my beginning. Scott, why don't you end it? So you're zeroing in on what I think is the most important topic that has the least amount of coverage. And that is we're all like, what's going on with our kids? What's happening to our society? And it's because people don't want to acknowledge and the incumbents want to make sure we're focused on other weapons of mass distraction. But the thing that really ails the West right now is the following. Our economy in the United States is a giant bet on AI. the economy would be flat, the stock market would not be up 16%, it'd be up 0 % if it wasn't for the massive run-up in these 10 companies related to AI based on incredible expectations.

59:04So we've effectively connected the entire global economy, 40 % of the S &P is these 10 companies, that represents 20 % of global market value, right? If these companies sneeze, the whole world gets pneumonia. And these companies are in the business of a lot of things, but mostly they're in the business of dividing, polarizing, and sequestering people from one another. There is now, unfortunately, the deepest pocketed godlike technology has connected trillions of dollars in shareholder value to separating our children from their parents and each other and making them feel shitty about the flag, each other, and democracy.

59:42There is now, unfortunately, a profit incentive of attached to evolving a new species of asocial, asexual youth. And it is terrible for the species. It's terrible for the economy. It's as if we have connected a profit motive into planning our own extinction. So what do we need to do? No synthetic relationships for anyone under the age of 18, no phones in schools, no social media under the age of 16. And quite frankly, holding these companies to the same account as every other company. We need antitrust. We need fines. And quite frankly, someone needs to do a fucking perp walk.

1:00:21Other than that, but you need to get involved. And on that note, we want to thank you. Scott's book is really amazing. It's called Notes on Being a Man. Thank you. Number one on Amazon right now. Is that correct? I think it's going to be he does, of course, because he's so insecure. He's like, it's going to be two or three on the New York Times bestseller list. It's going to be one. And so I urge everyone to buy it in bulk so that he gets that little moment in the sun that he would adore. But it's a great book. And one of the things we'd like to end on, we want to thank obviously Canada, but one of the things we always talk about in this era of AI and separation and anxiety and partisanship is you got to get along with people you don't agree with.

1:01:01And obviously Scott and I don't agree on a lot of things. But it's been a real journey. You saw it here right now. I'm correct about Zoran. But it's really important that you have personal relationships in the real world. We talk about tech a lot. We talk about online a lot. But the most significant relationships are with each other and unlikely ones where you have disagreement and challenge each other. And that's the most critical thing to do. We make our money with tech and media, but we really make our money because of the relationship or personal, don't you think? I... Yeah. Anyway, he can't stand it.

1:01:39I think we need to embrace our imperfect allies. Canada, hang with us. We're your allies. Yes, please do. Thank you so much. We love... And Americans love Canada. We really do. Most Americans do. Thank you, Toronto. I hope you believe that. Thank you. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Corinne Ruff. Ernita Todd entered into this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Jabros, Ms. Averio, and Ancelon. Amazing ground support provided by Trish Harnato, Kelly Schwatner, Caitlin Lynch, and Nico Alvarez. And a big shout-out to the Vox Experiential team, Tara Riley, Courtney Given, Abby Aronofsky, and Caitlin Berla.

1:02:21Nishakar was Vox Media 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 nrmag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

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