Kirk Suspect Motives, TikTok "Framework" Deal, and Tucker Carlson Plays Detective

25:09It truly is about every single one of us. And I can't emphasize enough the damage that social media and the internet is doing to all of us. those dopamine hits, these companies, trillion dollar market caps, the most powerful companies in the history of the world have figured out how to hack our brains, get us addicted to outrage, which is the same type of dopamine, the same chemical that you get from taking fentanyl, get us addicted to outrage and get us to hate each other. I'm seeing it in real time since the tragic death of Charlie Kirk. I'm seeing it in every corner of our society. The conflict entrepreneurs are taking advantage of us and we are losing our agency and we have to take that back.

25:53We have to turn it off. We have to get back to community, caring about our neighbors, the things that make American great, serving each other, bettering ourselves, exercising, sleeping, all of those things that this takes away from us. Conflict entrepreneurs. I love that. You should feel that. Conflict. That's exactly what they are. 100. And the same conflict entrepreneurs, may I point out, people like Elon and Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, are shutting down actual free speech, which people should be able to do. Thoughts? At what point do we get serious about this problem? It's the media has a vested interest in pretending the referee and getting more clicks and more views.

26:36And notice how quiet big tech has been on this. They know what's going on. They know. I mean, it's really... Don't try to shut down Cox. You know that. Anytime you arbitrage one substance into another, you have externalities. The greatest arbitrage in history has been fossil fuels to energy. You can't build a hospital without massive fossil fuels. The externalities there, carbon, are obvious. The externalities of turning attention into shareholder value, the externality there is rage. These guys know it. They know what's going on. They know that they profit off of this divisiveness and this rage.

27:15They're not bad people by commission. They didn't set out to do this. They are bad, irresponsible Americans by efforts of omission. They are ignoring and obfuscating what is going on here. They know what's going on. And also the illusion of complexity has been weaponized here. There are common sense. People are bereft and throw up their arms and say, it's only going to get worse. Bullshit. There are absolutely common sense solutions here. No social media under the age of 16, no smartphones in schools. They have banned phones in, I think, about 19 states. And that's what a lot of teachers tell me, that kids can't wait to get to their phones even when they ban them, right?

27:55That's even a problem. That's okay, but at least they're not. Agreed. I don't think my kids are capable of any longer sitting through a two-hour movie because of the way their brains have been rewired. And again, it's political. I don't care. In the next six hours, there's going to be more gun deaths in America than there will be in the UK over the next 12 months. If we want to get serious, there are a variety of programs, more after-school programs, national service, more men in primary education, more money for young people such that they're more economically secure and they start mating. 8 million houses in 10 years such that people have something to look forward to and a way to save money and don't feel as hopeless.

28:39Also, let me just take a page out of the right. We have orientation at universities for a week. We have increasingly spent more time at orientation talking about mental health and saying, look, if you're feeling bad because you get your first D, if you're feeling bad because you haven't had a lot of experience with relationships and someone breaks up with you, that is a normal part of life. And what has happened over the last 20 or 30 years is because kids are so sheltered with concierge parenting and with social media, you might feel hopeless. It's not hopeless. Trust me, we've all been there.

29:12You need to reach out to someone. There is something to the notion that these kids have turned to this oppressed or oppressor ideology and are going on the hunt for people that say certain things. I do think that's changing stuff. Well, I hope so. And now it's the right that's doing it. Just let's be clear. I actually don't agree, Kara. One out of three people on campus now believe that political speech and certain words are violence and can warrant actual violence. And it is mostly from kids who are strongly on the left. I think that's changing. Hold on. Let me finish. College should be a safe place physically.

29:49It should be a dangerous place intellectually. Yes, agreed. And we have to tell these kids, and I've seen this firsthand, I've seen them turn on each other. There's like two or three kids who are brave enough to support Trump in my class, and everyone turns on them. We are supposed to say provocative, offensive things. Can I make a point there? Yes. If they want to do that, then they should be strong enough to defend it. Like, that's actually a good thing to be turned on. Agreed. Right. Critical thinking. Let's debate it. Let's debate it. Let them have it. But I have to say, one of the things you accused the left of, not you, one accused, is like, oh, they're shutting things down.

30:22The people that are actually banning, getting people fired. Agreed. Are the free speech warriors. And it wouldn't be so irritating that they were such free speech warriors lecturing us. You know, someone like Chris Rufo, the rest of them are now using cancel culture oppositely. Agreed. And it's just, it's typical. We have to move on. But conflict entrepreneurs, Governor Cox has that right. That's what they're trying to do. And unfortunately, because this is a dopamine hit, we are drug addicts. We are addicts. But you've already seen his narrative changing. And quite frankly, Governor Cox, stick to being a leader.

30:54You can see, you know what happened over the weekend. He tried to go back again. Over the weekend, Trump called him and said, sign up, motherfucker. And all of a sudden he's saying that there was certain leftist ideology. No, there isn't. Certain leftist tendencies. He may have had a roommate that was going through transition. Who cares? Why would you even bring that up? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter unless they're there. No, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all. This is a young man. He was dating someone that went to a gun range. As clearly as the right's fault, said no Democratic governor ever in the midst of this type of violence.

31:27Nothing about his grandmother. Great. His grandmother is MAGA. We're not blaming her. Who cares? Right? Exactly. He likes Sidney Sweeney and her family is MAGA. It must be a conspiracy from the right. Yes, exactly. It's exhausting, people. Just pull yourselves out of it. OK, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Fromp teases a TikTok deal. We'll see.

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34:43Scott, we're back. President Trump says the big U.S.-China trade deal in Europe is going, quote, quite very well. Who knows? He posted on True Social that the two countries have reached a deal on TikTok that will make the young people very happy. I don't think he named TikTok, but whatever. That's what he was talking about. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, meanwhile, is calling the, quote, framework of a deal, which always makes me, like, wonder what the hell is going on. parent company ByteDance is supposed to sell U.S. assets or face a nationwide ban by Wednesday the 17th, which is just a few days.

35:13Trump is saying he'll talk to Xi Jinping on Friday. All this comes as China accuses NVIDIA of violating antitrust law. I don't know. Everyone who's near this deal tells me it's such a fake deal. It's such a like, they're really not separating them. It's really not going to be anything but a lot of fakery on top of what it is. And then they'll give some pretty stuff to Larry Ellison, who seems to be winning all day long. Your thoughts? I just think it's bullshit. I think this is a fake story. Let me use the term. Fake news. I just don't. You don't do it with conviction. I don't buy it. I don't buy it.

35:54It's fake news. It's from. Yeah, sure. Okay. Sure. They're just trying to stave off that deadline. Yeah. And it's an excuse to not ban TikTok because Trump has decided that TikTok, the CCP, when they're about to be banned, said dial up the algorithm to be positive Trump. And then somebody on his team came back and said, oh, no, TikTok's good for us. And all of a sudden he now likes it. And one of his biggest donors who gave him nine figures is one of the biggest shareholders in TikTok. This is pay for play. And he thinks it's good for him. So he didn't like it until he liked it. And also, this represents a breakdown in government because this was a law passed by both houses, signed into law, and we've decided just not to do it.

36:42Yeah, it's ridiculous. By the way, Scott Bessent is starting to really irritate me on so many levels. He's like such a suck up and such a like he's punching people. I don't like that much either. I don't care if it's Elon he's punching. I don't like him punching anybody. Well, I thought violence was never the answer, Cara. That's correct. I know. I just find it so like, ugh, ugh. Anyway, yes, Scott and I will believe it when we see it, and we think it's probably a lot of nonsense and that you aren't going to be protected from the CCP with this gang. That's for sure. OpenAI is also making some big moves on the way to becoming a for-profit company.

37:14This is something they've been trying to do. Musk has been trying to stop that they're finalizing terms for a new agreement with Microsoft. Microsoft is expected to take roughly a 30 % take in the reorganized company. OpenAI's nonprofit parent will also hold an equity stake valued over$100 billion. dollars. But attorneys general in California and Delaware say they still have serious concerns about user safety, good for them, and want to see improvements before signing off on restructuring. What do you think about this? I assume there'll be an IPO, correct? That's the way it looks like it's heading.

37:42Once they get this through, this idea of essentially a for-profit company with a vague non-profit hanging over it. And again, Musk still has legal challenges to a lot of this, and he has a lot of allies still. I think it would be so interesting to see what OpenAI's legal bills are. Yeah. And what's happened to the cadence of those legal bills, because there is so much money on the line. And this thing is so, just as there's technical debt, you know, you come into an organization and they've invested so much in old mainframe technology that was on the board of Yellow Pages Company. And they said when we actually fired the CIO was when he came in and basically said, you know, it's going to take us 18 months to reconfigure the technology.

38:22And it's like, it's a fucking Yellow Pages company. This isn't a cloud company. And he kept going on about technical debt. So the term technical debt means pre-existing investments make it just really difficult to sort of untangle everything inexpensive. I would love to know what the legal debt is at OpenAI. And that is this company has such an unusual corporate structure that they are trying to unwind. And how much they've invested in legal work. I would love to know how much they're using AI. they must be spending 10 or$20 million a month on lawyers right now. I would love to know as a case study, if and how they're deploying their own AI to reduce their own legal costs.

39:03That's a funny question. But what about an IPO? I assume if this gets through and the restructuring gets through, which probably it will, given the money at stake here, because they're spending money all over the damn place. They got to get cooking on the making of the money. It's a really interesting question, because there are 3 ,700 publicly traded companies right now. that is down by 50 % since 1997. It's down 17 % just since COVID because every time there's an acquisition or a bankruptcy or a take private, it's like in China now, there are more people dying than there are being people born.

39:38So the same thing, there are more companies coming off of the NASDAQ and the S &P than are going on. And we'll talk more about this. Some of it say it's regulation, but more than anything, a company like OpenAI, I think OpenAI just did a secondary where they gave every employee like a$1.6 million bonus. They can raise capital, they can acquire companies, and they don't have the regulatory burden of being public. So unfortunately, unlike in 2003 when Google goes public, it effectively was$2 a share and gives retail investors the chance to 100x their money. There's so much money in the private markets that effectively, as long as the company is still jamming its current investors and private market investors and institutions, which tend to be wealthier Americans, say, no, no, no, no.

40:22We want to hold on to all that juice ourselves. So increasingly, you would have never had a company like OpenAI worth a half a trillion dollars having not gone public. So what does that mean? It means the retail investor no longer has access to these great growth companies. And these guys have less incentive to go public. And typically when they do go public, it's the following. All right, Right. The smart guys who really know our company have decided there's not much upside left here. We got to find a group of people who will turn this into a meme stock. Oh, I know. Public market investors. Right.

41:00Just like what's happening with Tesla. So all of the juice, you know, the juice has been squeezed by the time these guys go public. Now, does that mean there's still not opportunity in the public markets? No, there probably still is. But you would have never. It used to be it took a company seven years to go public. Now it's 14. The really good companies are staying private because they can get everything they need in the private markets now. So we'll see. This is the seventh most valuable company in the world, I think, right now. I know. It's not public. It's crazy. The only one that I was thinking that was really valuable that never went public was Mars.

41:33Remember? The Mars people never went. The Mars family. Also, it used to be a company called Bechtel. And then before that, my biggest client in the 90s was Levi-Strauss & Company. Yeah. And these were not like big companies because the only way you could attract employees, make acquisitions, all of that good stuff was to be a public company. All of those things are now available in the private markets. So, I mean, we'll see what happens, but they definitely probably will go public, presumably, correct? That's my – I'm assuming they will at some point when that moment passes. I want to mention a bizarre moment from Tucker Carlson's interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last week.

42:12Carlson brought up a conspiracy theory about the death of an open AI whistleblower, which is being pushed by Elon Musk, by the way, suggesting it was murder, not suicide, as authorities had ruled. Let's listen. I don't think we should say, well, he killed himself when there's no evidence that the guy was depressed at all. I think, and if he was your friend, I would think he would want to speak to his mom. I did offer. She didn't want to.

42:37So, do you feel that, you know, when people look at that and they're like, you know, it's possible that happened. Do you feel that that reflects the worries they have about what's happening here? Like people are afraid that this is like... I haven't done too many interviews where I've been accused of like... Oh, I'm not accusing you at all. I'm just saying his mother says that. I don't think a fair read of the evidence suggests suicide at all. Well, now, thank you, Inspector fucking Clouseau. What are you talking about? This is like, this was the craziest thing. Like, don't you think we should entertain conspiracy theories that there is a cult in, you know, there's a murderous cult inside of open AI?

43:19I mean, I don't know why he sat down. I couldn't understand why he would talk to this guy given. I get why he would, but ew, ew. The whole thing was really strange. Tucker Carlson's gotten really strange. Like everything else, first off, Tucker Carlson now appears to be a fully credentialed psychiatrist around self-harm. Yeah. Yeah. Also a detective. Because he's decided that this guy does not qualify as one of the 25 ,000 people who every year decide, I'm really down, I'm really depressed, and oh, by the way, there's a gun upstairs. I know what to do. Okay, first off, this is just all about money, and that is Tucker Carlson, who I think is a bright guy, decided, oh, I know how to get this to be a Ted Cruz-like viral moment and be number one instead of number four in podcasting and make more money.

44:08I'll create a rumor in front of one of the most powerful people in the world that he's a murderer That's what he's saying right here. Yes, he is. That's what sam was like. I've never been accused of murder He's saying I think you murdered this guy in some sort of thriller and let's go back Aside from the fact that while I think Sam altman Might be a sociopath and that is ignoring the harm of ai because there is so much pressure on him to live up to the incredible expectations. And that is not a nice thing to say, but I have a lot of fact patterns around all these guys who in their hushed tones pretend to give a flying fuck and then go on to build character AIs with no guardrails that result in real harm.

44:51I think, I believe that there is no, that economically, it would be really stupid for Sam Altman to put out a hit on one of his employees. Yeah, I would agree. For a lot less money, he can give money to Charles Schumer and to Senator Cotton and make sure that there's no legislation that gets in the way or slows down AI or show up to a dinner and say, gee, President Trump, your big orange cock is like nothing I've ever seen. And it's so huge. Apparently it's little and mushroom shape. But go ahead. And you're such a great kisser. It is so much easier and low risk for Sam Altman to pursue legal means of economic success than to order a hit on one of his employees.

45:37Sam Altman is already a billionaire. He would never risk spending the rest of his life in prison. He would never risk the economic implosion of putting a hit out on his own employees. and Tucker Carlson, in my opinion, no one should go on that show if they're going to be falsely accused of being a murderer for clicks. Agreed. I agree. I think it's crazy that he sat there. I actually texted him. I'm like, oh, so you're a murderer. Good to know. It's just ridiculous. Like this guy did this. Anyway, we don't believe he's a murderer. Just officially. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Paramount Skydance tries to shake up Hollywood with a new deal.

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49:35Scott, we're back in the small ball area. As I predicted last week, Paramount Skydance is preparing for a mostly cash bid for Warner Brothers Discovery, backed by the Ellison family, who's richer than ever. For those trying to keep score at home, Paramount itself was just acquired by Skydance last month, and Warner Brothers Discovery has plans to split into two separate companies, one with the big studio and streaming properties, the other gets the live cable networks. Currently, Warner Discovery has doubled the market cap of Skydance. It's a lot of money. It's 30-some billion dollars. This would be for all of it, so not to split it up.

50:06Obviously, they want the Warner Brothers studio and streaming properties. I'm not sure why they're not waiting for the split. The bid hasn't been submitted. We'll see what the FCC thinks, although that guy's a toady to the Trump administration. And if Alison wants it, Alison will get it. And, you know, we'll see. There'll be other bidders, presumably Comcast and some others, if there are bidders. In fact, thoughts? This is huge. Um, and the last, I mean, because there's so much news, this would have been huge news. It's been drowned out. Warner Brothers Discovery, who has the highest paid investment banker in history, their CEO convinced a bunch of investors to buy Warner Brothers from AT &T.

50:47And in exchange for destroying a massive amount of shareholder value has taken out about a third of a billion dollars. He's the most, maybe with the exception of Chamath Palihapitiya, he's the most well-compensated investment banker in history. Now, what you have here is in the last five days, the stock is up 55%. It's had its best week in history. Why? Because Larry Ellison figured out there should be a number two to NVIDIA, stopped doing stock buybacks, made a massive bet on being the number two infrastructure provider in AI, and announced an agreement where OpenAI was going to commit to $60 billion a year and compute from Oracle, despite the fact it's only running at$10 billion a year.

51:31And in one day, Larry Ellison increased his net worth$130 billion. So he can afford this easily. Larry Ellison could buy three Warner Brothers with the gain in wealth he registered in one day. And this is where it all heads. And I think it's fucking fascinating. And I wish I had the time to do more about this. But instead, I'm spending a ton of time trying to talk about young men and its relationship to online speech and everything. Anyways, I went to go see The Fantastic Four. I hope there is never a sequel or a superhero movie ever again. I just I hate these superhero films. Yeah, this one didn't get good reviews.

52:08Superman did, but go ahead. Anyways, I love Vanessa Kirby. I think Pedro Pascal is a movie star and my son loves superhero movies. So we went. And like all 15-year-olds, or not all, my son makes me stay through to the very end because these goddamn movie makers always have an Easter egg at the very end. Do you realize how long the credits went on for? A long time. I've done it. I've done it, my friend, with my sons. Okay. So I typed into AI approximately how many people worked on Fantastic Four. Somewhere between 12 and 1 ,500 people worked on that film. And I got screenshots online. It had things like costume design, Sweden, and it had 20 people.

52:52This is what's going to happen. They're going to roll up these companies. And then at some point, Larry's going to go say to his son, all right, I gave you a bunch of money to plan traffic. Now it's time to get serious. Are they going to do that through innovation or new types of movies? No, this is what they're going to do. That movie probably cost$200 million to make before even marketing. He's going to go, we're very good at AI. We have the best AI infrastructure, cloud, relationships with LLMs. I need you, David Ellison, to come here, and we're going to figure out how to take a$200 million film and produce it for$20 million by going through each line item.

53:28Let's say costume design. 50 or 60 people. We're going to use AI, the agentic layer that speaks to AI-enabled fabricators in China. And we're going to need three highly skilled costume designers to basically put in long prompts that use 3D imaging and all sorts of shit to basically get the costumes made with three people, not 20. And they're going to go through each of these things that have 30, 40 people. And then we're going to reduce it to three or four. And it's going to happen at Ellison's company with the help and the urging of dad at Oracle. And then with TikTok involved with it, too, the whole thing.

54:08I know you thought this was like a nothing burger, small ball. You always was like, Paramount, who cares? But you think this is a big deal? Or you just said it's - In the world of media, it is. But when I say small ball, if Larry Ellison had 15 kids, he could give each of them a Paramount. Yeah. With the economic gain he had in one day. Yeah. Yeah. So there's the economy, and then there's the economy, which is AI. I mean, everything is being driven. And who would have thought you're about to see costume designers, 70 percent of them get their real estate licenses in Hollywood because Oracle announced its best earnings in history.

54:44This is impacting everything. Well, see, others will try to get this. Comcast will try to go for this. Maybe Amazon. I don't think they can afford it. That's the thing. He's so fucking rich. This is the thing, Cara. These are shitty businesses. Yeah. And they're declining. And I put together I was approached by a group. Here's two examples of companies that are going to get the shit kicked out of them with AI. Gartner has this amazing business where if you're a small regional bank trying to figure out, should we use Azure or AWS, you call a stay-at-home mom who's learned everything about cloud companies, who lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

55:22She makes$200 ,000 a year. She works from 7 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon answering questions from clients. And Gartner charges First National of Oklahoma$120 ,000. Now that person, the CTO, and they do a good job. It's an amazing business. Stock has tripled since 2017. They do an amazing job. Now the CTO at First National of Oklahoma has figured out if they type in a thoughtful prompt, they can get pretty much the exact same answer back for their$20 a month GPT-5 Pro subscription. And since the beginning of the year, Gartner's stock has been cut in half. And I think it's – AI is going to come after that business.

56:00OnlyFans. I was approached by a group of people that said, we're putting together an investor group to buy OnlyFans. Why are they selling? Because to do 60 minutes of video account with a live creator costs anywhere from$300 to$1 ,200, depending on the popularity of that creator. AI is going to start to create AI girlfriends that get closer and closer to the thrill of watching a live person talk dirty to you or whatever. Not illegal either. And the guys, the folks that own OnlyFans are like, we're out. We have seen the future. I mean, you're going to see so many. So much of this stuff. So many interesting places.

56:38And here's the issue, moving to solutions. This is going to create so much economic value. Here's an idea. any company that does over a billion in profits, we have a progressive tax structure of say 40%. And we figure out really thoughtful retraining and apprentice programs that people can sign up for and say, I see the writing on the wall. You know, I've always wanted to be, you know, I've always wanted to be, who knows? I've always wanted to be - Plumber. Christ, a therapist. I've always wanted to be in nursing. I've always wanted to be, do something with my hand, whatever it is, retraining, right?

57:14But instead, we're like, let the thoroughbreds run and let the shit shake out where it is. That's right. That is correct. Guess where we are. Eleanor Allison is now Train Daddy from Gilded Age. That is what's happened here. And we'll see how that goes. It's not going so well for Train Daddy right now. That was almost as good as your, what was that? You were making a reference to that 50s musical, The Sharks and the, what was that? The Sharks and the Jets, West Side Story. I'm very culturally. Oh, my God. Could you be any older? Oh, stop. Jesus. Train Daddy. Gilded Age is very popular. I'm sorry to tell you that.

57:45Is it? It's owned by Warner Brothers, by the way, speaking, which he will now own, trained at. Oh, is that the one with Cynthia Nixon? Yeah, Cynthia Nixon. Yeah. Cynthia Nixon, excuse me. Nixon, yeah. Miranda. Well, anyway, we'll see if they get it. I can tell you one thing, Karis Wisher will not be working for the Ellisons. Let me just make that statement right now. Anyway, one more corporate shakeup. Very quickly, Trump is now suggesting that U.S. public companies should no longer report earnings quarterly, but every six months. I think you might like this idea. I didn't hate it. I don't, but maybe not.

58:12Now, shareholders should know what's happening at companies, although then people focus on the short term. Your thoughts very quickly. I do like it. It's a response. And the reality is that there's a fine line here. One, there's too much administrative and very costly burden on public companies. It costs two or three million dollars at least a year just to be public. More than that, CEOs, CFOs, IR professionals spend two weeks of their life every 12 weeks managing the earnings call and trying to figure out the right. words and legal liability and the fallout from the markets. So it makes sense that the administrative burden should lessen.

58:49Having said that, one of the reasons our market trades at 26 or 27 times PE and every other market trades from 22 to 12 is because of the regulatory burden, orphans and widows are less likely to find out they own stock in Enron when they buy a company in the S &P versus a company. I was pitched by a hedge fund 10 years ago that said, all we do is find fraudulent companies in China, and they're everywhere. Because the regulatory standards, and they have gone up the last 10 years, weren't as high. So the whole idea of these regulatory standards is when you buy a company in the S &P 500, it may go down, it may not have a good future, but there's much less likelihood of outright fraud because of these regulatory constraints.

59:31Now, good private companies, every company I've run or been an investor in that's a good company, we do effectively what is an earnings call every three months. However, it's not the same level of regulatory burden. What I think is going to fill the void of the delta, quite frankly, and this is an opportunity, is some sort of AI good seal of approval. And that is, okay, company X, if you send us your financials and let us tap into your APIs, we're every three months going to put out a rating on the financial health. Basically, these companies every three months are to signal growth and also to make sure there's not fraud.

1:00:07I can see an AI good housekeeping seal of approval, better business viewer, rotten tomatoes, which has become an arbiter of whether you want to waste your time that says, it doesn't look as if this company, similar to a Fitch or a Moody's or an S &P, it doesn't look as if there is fraud here. It's got a 2 % rating of fraud, not 99. Well, that calls for more scrutiny then, not less. You like six months or do you not like six months? Oh, I like it because the reality is the administrative burden, it goes back to what we said previously. There's too few companies that are public and there's too few companies for retail investors to pick from.

1:00:43Part of the reason companies are not going public is because of what has probably become burdensome regulatory oversight. Now, it's a fine needle to thread. You do want some disclosure requirements. I believe that AI will create a level of disclosure and fraud protection, should you decide to engage them with it, they could give you a good housekeeping seal of approval that it's unlikely fraud is taking place here. And there will be hopefully more public companies because the reality is if you can bet on whether there's civil war, which you can right now on poly market, should we really be infantilizing investors and not letting certain companies go public for risk or a belief that we need to protect them?

1:01:25Jesus Christ, people can bet on the Super Bowl on their phone right now. So if, you know, it's gone overboard, we need more public companies, we need retail investors to have access to more companies. I do like it. I thought you would like it. I thought you would. I actually do too, because the short-term thinking of all our companies is really problematic, I think, in a lot of ways. That's a bigger problem in the United States, in America, but still. All right. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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1:02:39And you'll probably only know Ellis if you worked in Silicon Valley yourself. He's the former tech reporter turned tech industry insider working closely with today's hottest startups. Their first episode features an interview with Mark Zuckerberg about Meta's latest smart glasses, the AI race, and what's next for the social media giant. You can find the Access podcast with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.

1:03:05What makes for a happy life? In 1938, scientists at Harvard started tracking the well-being of over 250 young people to figure that out. Now, almost 90 years later, the results are in. There was learning. People who learned and read and read and read and liked to learn. They were much happier as they got older. People who are really good at managing their feelings. But there was one thing that stood above all the rest. I'm Henry Blodgett, and this week on Solutions, I talk to best-selling author Arthur Brooks about the science of happiness. Follow Solutions with Henry Blodgett for more wherever you get your podcasts.

1:03:54Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like me to go first? Please. Guess what's coming back? Hunting Wives. And they did the funniest. I thought you were going to say the L word or something. I know. That is maybe coming back. The Hunting Wives is coming back for season two. And they did, I have to say, Mal and Ackerman. What is it? What is the Hunting Wives? You need to watch it. Just watch it and then call me. I don't watch TV anymore. Wait, is that the one with Charlize Theron and someone else make out? No, that's another one. There's plenty of lesbian material going on these days.

1:04:22But no, it's MAGA Christian gun-toting lesbians. So there you go. MAGA Christian gun-toting lesbians. In Texas. Just what you said there, I'll see it twice. Exactly. So it's coming back to you. And they did the best. Malin Ackerman and Brittany Stowe did the funniest announcement using a cell phone conversation. It was very hysterical. And congratulations, ladies. And I'm hoping to interview the creator of it because it's just such so funny. It's exactly what we need at this moment. I have to tell you, it brings together MAGA and lesbians in a way that's really satisfying. I don't know how they did it, but they did it.

1:04:55That is my win. My fail is Donald Trump and his incessant lies and especially Pulte, Bill Pulte, who is just a nepo baby imbecile. The accused this woman, Lisa Cook, of mortgage fraud, it turns out, is bullshit. Oh, it's bullshit. Fuck you, Bill Pulte. Oh, my God. Stop it. If you registered it as a vacation home. You liars. They just, they raise, this is what they do. They raise a lie and then they, and then it's not true, but they've caused damage along the way. They do not care about the truth. And that is, Bill Pulte, in any other place, so would Kash Patel, so would Pete Hesed says, so would Christine Homes be fired for their incompetence, their like rank incompetence.

1:05:35But as long as they salute at the, at the, at the leader, dear leader, they're going to stay in their jobs. But that guy is really a heinous piece of shit. And let me tell you, Bill Pulde, call me up. Come and visit Kara Swisher because what you did to this woman is reprehensible. And I know why you're doing it, but it's grotesque. And at some point, this has to stop. Maybe it doesn't, but it should stop. Anyway, that's my fail. So funny. I don't know. One of my favorite movies is a movie called Hannah and Her Sisters. Yes, yes. And there's a scene, Max von Sydow is having an affair with a much younger woman, who I thought was one of the most beautiful women, and I'm dating myself, but Barbara Hershey.

1:06:17And I always remember that movie. Oh, God, what was it with Bette Midler? Beaches. Beaches, thank you. Barbara Hershey. And I just thought it was hilarious. I was joked that, of course, one of them gets cancer and dies. And everyone's crying at the end. And I thought, if Bette Midler was dying, there wouldn't be a tear in my eyes. Not so! I love that Bette Midler. Oh, no, no. When it's the hot, sublime, beautiful one that dies of cancer, everyone's crying. No, Bette Midler is a national fucking treasure. I'm not making a statement on Bette Midler. I'm making a statement on how luxurious we are.

1:06:47Okay. Anyways, but in the movie Hannah and Her Sisters, Barbara Hershey wises up and decides that she's going to leave Max von Sydow. And he's like, he's panicked and he's upset and he's like, you're my link to the outside world. I feel like you have become my cultural link to the outside world. I watch Premier League football. Other than that, I don't turn the TV on anymore. Trust me on The Hunting Wives. Go ahead. No, I take your recommendations. I just wrote down The Hunting Wives. Anyways, okay, so my fail is along the lines of government incompetence. One of the most storied, best brands in government, institutions, one of the best institutional brands in the world is the FBI.

1:07:25I've known some people who worked at the FBI, And universally, they're these low-key people who literally reek of competence and humility. Competence, that's correct. They are the last people to go on social media and start saying, I have a suspect in custody, and then have to go back and say, oops. What an idiot. The FBI typically doesn't speak. They speak with arrests, indictments, and prosecutions. That is how they communicate. And with a workforce of incredibly talented people who could make a lot more money elsewhere, but decide they want to serve their country. And what is the elite of the elite of our law enforcement until fucking Kash Patel, who is there are so many reports inside of the FBI about what a bumbling idiot this guy is announcing they have a suspect before it's confirmed and having to walk that back.

1:08:20Firing competent people because they're a woman or a person of color. Go ahead. And then the ultimate contradiction of the speak softly but carry a big fucking stick that is the FBI is he goes on national TV and says on a press release and says, and my friend Charlie. Oh, Valhalla. He said, rest now. We have the watch. I will see you in Valhalla. Dude. Dude, if this, first off, if this is your friend, you should recuse yourself from the investigation as every FBI director would have done. Yep. And this is not, I don't, people have the right to own their grief and miss their friend. I get that, brother.

1:09:04They're so performative. Good for you. And I think it's important that men, that men say how much they're going to miss their friends. That's not what the head of the FBI does. That, that is the last thing. He's a podcaster. That is so opposite. He's a children's book author. That is so opposite of the FBI brand. Have you no sense of the history of the FBI? No. This guy makes J. Edgar Hoover look like great. They are just quietly very good at what they do, tracking down bad guys. They don't go on social media. No, they don't. Anyway, the continued incompetence and erosion of some of the best institutional brands in history run by people who are more there for personal satisfaction than operational excellence, as evidenced by RFK Jr.

1:09:55and now Kash Patel, who has no business running one of the finest institutions, one of the best brands in the world. That's my fail. My win is New Mexico announced that they're going to basically have universal child care. And distinct of the morality of it, I'm not going to go to like, you know, mothering is the hardest job in the world. I've never bought that. Fine. Okay. It's a difficult job. Most people are pretty decent at it. I've never bought this notion it's the toughest job in the world. Let's just look at the economics of it. When you give people universal child care, it stimulates labor force participation, particularly among mothers who, by the way, are increasingly more educated and in higher demand for information economy.

1:10:41like jobs. It reduces poverty and income inequality, right? Because child care costs can push working families into poverty or force them to no longer work. It boosts disposable income and consumer spending because typically the person going to work, when you have the scale of universal child care such that it costs less for good care, then they have this positive arbitrage where they have more money. Because when you send a highly qualified woman into the workplace, she makes more money than the cost of good child care at scale when you get universal child care. It strengthens the child care sector as employers pay better, facilities improve, it creates jobs, it improves future economic outcomes via better early childhood development, which means less remedial education, higher earnings, et cetera.

1:11:35The return on investment studies show distinct to the morality and all the stuff about the toughest job in the world. It is the toughest job. I'm going to keep my mouth shut. It's one of them. Go ahead. Well, OK, but the majority of. Literally, both my kids were six separate weeks. And Amanda and I are about to like fall over dead. But go ahead. I get it. But 90 percent of parents manage, in my opinion, to do a pretty good job. This is a different conversation for a different day. Yes. But if you look just – there was a study at the Wharton School at Penn, and it found that child care expansion and universal child care increases GDP by 0.1 % relative to even if you were to deficit finance it.

1:12:16Even if you were to borrow money to pay for universal child care, you get a positive return on that investment. We are the only G7 nation that doesn't offer. So I'm not going to make I don't want to make a far left argument around how difficult it is and mothering and mothers need help. All I'm saying is, OK, let's go for the money. More money. I like your argument. Let's create economic growth, more shareholder value, more household income, more Netflix, more trips to Disneyland, more money to take care of our parents. What is a way to get there? How do we get a positive return on investment from the government?

1:12:50Universal child care. I like it. High standards, high standards, ensure that you're getting your money's worth. Every other democratic nation does it too, by the way. And it pays off. So my, anyways, my fail is Kash Patel undermining one of the great brands in institutional history, the FBI. And my win is this new universal child care program being implemented in New Mexico, which creates economic benefits and economic growth. Let me say, a woman governor there. Men can do this too, by the way. It doesn't matter. Do you hear the stress in my voice? I sound like I'm ranting. I know. You are ranting.

1:13:24That's okay. You know what? It's been a hard week. It's been a hard week. 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. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, I recently spoke with Cristobal Valenzuela, the co-founder and CEO of Runway AI. We talked about how Hollywood is using AI and why it's not necessarily a job killer. I didn't agree with this, but let's listen to him. Technology will change jobs all the time. Look at the history of film. It's a history of technology.

1:13:56It has changed many times before through many of the decades we've seen. And it wasn't really about the jobs as much as the people doing the jobs. And so if you're hiring people, if you're a guild member, if you're in a union, help your people understand how to use these tools. Train them. Get them on board with the latest. Understand how they can upskill what they already know. So I think it changes a little bit the perspective. And I think that's been my position so far. I think it's allowed us to work alongside them in much more productive ways. He's making a good case, but we'll see. Did he bring his crack pipe with him?

1:14:32Okay, okay. That's the show. Well, he's selling anyway. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Corinne Roth. Ernie Inertod engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Misa Vareal, Dan Shalon, and Kate Gallagher. Nishak Karouaz, Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

1:15:06You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. How do we grow our economy? Simple, universal childcare.

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