MAGA's Epstein Civil War, SpaceX's xAI investment, and Trump's Rosie Threat

24:13Do your work with ease and speed. PDF spaces is all you need. Do hours of research in an instant. With key insights from an AI assistant. Take a template with a click. Now your Prezo looks super slick. Close that deal. Yeah, you won. Do that, doing that, did that, done. Now you can do that, do that with Acrobat. Now you can do that, do that with the all new Acrobat. It's time to do your best work with the all new Adobe Acrobat Studio. These days, every business leader is under pressure to save money, but you can't crush the competition just by cutting costs. To win, you need to spend smarter and move faster.

24:50You need Brex. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that breaks the tradeoff between control and speed with smart corporate cards, high-yield banking, and AI-powered expense management. Join the 30 ,000 companies that spend smarter and move faster with Brex. Learn more at brex.com slash grow.

25:38Visit sierra.ai to learn more.

25:47Scott, we're back. The AI talent war is escalating still. Google just hired the CEO and co-founder of Windsurf, an AI coding startup along with several of the company's employees. Under the$2.4 billion deal, Google also gets some non-exclusive licenses, some of Windsurf's technology. The startup will still operate independently without those key employees. The move comes after a$3 billion deal between Winsurf and OpenAI fell apart. Winsurf's founders were reportedly wary of sharing Intel with Microsoft. It's the latest setback for OpenAI, which has been losing talent to rivals like Meta in recent weeks.

26:21First of all, this seems getting to be a little insane. The second thing is it feels like everyone's running, you know, trying to get to the borders. Like pick someone, get all the people they can and pick up the land grab in terms of people. And they're also doing non-deal deals where they're trying to be cute with the government. We're not buying this company. We're just buying everything that matters and gutting them. Related, SpaceX reportedly invests$2 billion in XAI, and that's not all. Elon Musk says that Tesla shareholders revolt on whether to invest in XAI. Let's listen to what I said about this back in April.

26:56It looks like he's not interested in making cars anymore or he's making other things. He wants to shift Tesla. And I think you're going to merge XAI, X, and this together in a big, unholded months. Yeah. So now SpaceX, too. Like, this is, he's making a turduck in here. He said in a post on X that he does not support a merger of Tesla and XAI. But who knows what he's saying. By the way, he also said that Grok will be available in Tesla vehicles. After the launch of Grok, four users have discovered the model seems to refer to Musk's opinion. also through news articles and ex-posts when answering questions.

27:34So it's mostly Musk stuff that they're borrowing from the LLM. Anyway, talk a little bit about this. Well, the more interesting one, I think, is these aqua hires. And that is some VCs have become, it's become so difficult to find alpha or the outsized returns because so many VC firms have raised a ton of money. There's just more capital now chasing fewer good deals. that some of them have gone really downstream and are actually incubating and starting companies themselves and then spinning them out. That was kind of what essentially Sam Altman's Y Combinator was doing. And I think what you're going to see is a lot of, if I were a venture capital, a young venture capital partner, I'd be calling, I would try and find 12 really bright AI researchers and a couple managers at various companies and say, get together.

28:29I'm your first 50 million in. Find, determine a very small slice of the AI world to focus on. And if we can build 12, 20, 50, 100 really talented AI people, and the focus on your research is important, but it's not profound. But essentially what's happening here is that if you're an HR manager or recruiter and you can pull together a couple dozen really well-respected AI executives who can show an ability to work together and build shit, the marketplace is so frothy and there's so much cheap stock that within 12 to 36 months, someone might show up and pay a billion dollars for those 24 professionals.

29:11Or 2.4 to rent you, to rent you. Yeah, or figure out a way not to raise the antennae of the DOJ or FTC and do some sort of crazy license that gives you money. But it's got to be a great time to be an AI researcher with any credibility anywhere. If you are a really talented young partner to VC, you identify 300 talented AI engineers, researchers, executives, product managers. You call them and say, come start a company. You got 50 million. Within 24 months, we're going to be acquihired at one to three billion. because these companies, I'm not even sure that the technology, no one talks about the technology or the company or the brand or the customers they have.

29:51They're just the war on talent here. And the cheap capital chasing this talent has created alpha, if you will. So do you think it's going to get past the government? Not for too long. I don't know. Under this administration, yeah. Although inflection certainly did. Remember, Microsoft got that one. But the FTC and the DOJ are mostly now about what— Bothering media companies. Who and what is giving money to or bothering Trump. Or woke media companies. That seems to be their focus. I think these things, these guys have been so savvy at weaponizing government and giving money to the right people that I would imagine an acqua hire.

30:32I was part of an acqua kill. Really? They bought you and killed you? Yeah, I always feel like I have a pretty good instinct for business. And when my company, L2, was acquired, I couldn't figure out what they were doing. I gave them a list of the most valuable people at the company. Pretty much all of them left. Every decision they made, it was like that episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza decides to do everything entirely the opposite. Everything they did was entirely the opposite. I'm not exaggerating. I did a call weekly with my quote-unquote boss, which was hilarious, a group of people dramatically less talented than me that just showed up and talked big thoughts.

31:08Wouldn't you like to get that time back? And they literally told me, don't do anything. Don't do anything. We don't want you doing anything. And I left. I hated it so much, I left several million dollars on the table. And my partner used to say to me, I used to say, I can't handle this. I got to get out of it. And she'd say, how much money do you get if you just go in for five more mornings? And I would do the math and she'd go, so you don't want to just go in for five more mornings? Oh, right. Yeah. And she would do that to me every week. Anyways, finally, I said, I'm out of here. There's a point where you can't anymore.

31:37I have had that job. I've like, no, I can't. I would say things like, I think there's an interesting opportunity to go after Latin American CPG companies. And I want to hire two people and start doing research there. And they're like, well, hold off on that. I mean, and I now have to come to the conclusion that we were threatening them. And they thought, we'll take a competitor off the market. We'll milk them for their cash flow. We won't make any new investments in the company. And this guy doesn't have a good idea in his head. And then a potential competitor is gone. And this company, as I look back on it, has acquired a bunch of companies in verticals that were threatening their mothership.

32:16That's no way to create a company, by the way. That's not. This company's done. This company, to their credit, this company's done really well from a shareholder standpoint. Oh, really? Okay. All right. Well, I still think it's non-creative and awful. Not using Scott Galloway's God-given talent. That's right. That's right. That's right. Sell more shit. The internet. Sell more shit on the internet. Facebook's evil. Sell more shit. What do you think of my correct prediction, once again, about this doing more of the integrating with this company with all this stuff? Even if he says they're not merging, they're kind of, it's kind of the same thing, right?

32:47It doesn't really matter if they merge or not because they're interwoven in such a way that they're impossible to pull apart. Well, first off, so everyone says Twitter's now worth$33 billion. Not really. He got his other company to invest at a mark on that company to give it a$33 billion cap. He's essentially figuring out that, okay, I've got some really amazing assets and I've got some shitty assets and I'm going to conglomerate to prop up my shitty assets, which are overvalued, specifically Tesla and a little bit Twitter. And he is a visionary. He wants to bring all these things together with AI at the heart, with Twitter providing all of the data set, with, I don't know, SpaceX and satellites giving better guidance and autonomous driving capability and his Tesla cars gathering more information and turn it into just kind of one big AI driven company with distribution around cars, rockets, satellites, media.

33:46I mean, you can see this becoming kind of like Starnet, right? And he is a visionary. Having said this, and this is unrelated, but I think important. Skynet. Skynet. If I were the FTC or the DOJ, in my view, the most dangerous monopoly in the world right now is SpaceX. 60 % of low-Earth orbit satellites are owned by one company. That is not acceptable. This is one private company who is run by someone who is reportedly a drug addict and can turn off and on battlefield technology that might shape the future of Europe and democracy. Okay, it's bad that Meta has too much control over the ad market.

34:27But SpaceX is the most dangerous monopoly in the world right now. And they have, do you realize 87 % of space launches weren't from America? They weren't from NASA. They were from one company, SpaceX. That is an enormous security risk. Well, speaking of that, of course, he's getting protected by people. Texas Governor Greg Abbott doesn't want to reveal his and his staff's communication with Elon Musk and his representatives from these companies. ProPublica's Texas newsroom requested the emails and Abbott's public information coordinator argued they should not be released, in part because they include, quote, intimate and embarrassing information.

35:02I want to, I mean, how much more embarrassing can this guy be in public? I don't know. He's sort of speaking of showing your ass all the time. This is what he does. Interestingly, you know, he constantly is making a mess. So it'll be interesting to see who steps forward. It's certainly not going to be Greg Abbott, who's such a chode, but who could make that happen? Like make that, obviously other companies or - When you say make that happen, you mean a breakup of SpaceX? Not the breakup of SpaceX, but like the government has more leverage on them. I mean, obviously more competitors would be one way, but certainly not.

35:36People like Greg Abbott will protect him. Well, no, the DOJ and FTC and an attorney general, they'll do their fucking jobs. They'll focus on the long-term - She's busy with Epstein-Benz. The long-term well-being, material and economic well-being of American citizens. But what I took from the Epstein thing and what you just said about Governor Greg Abbott's reticence to let go, I believe that pretty much almost every piece of information, unless it's just scurrilous, intimate information on someone's private life that's for nothing but clicks. Why were they talking about that? What this all comes down to is I believe that the basic, this fidelity, this passion, this irreverence for anonymity, I think has become dangerous.

36:16and what are you and you brought this up what do stormtroopers the kkk and ice have in common or people on campus not allowing jews into certain parts of ucla public spaces they're all wearing fucking masks and what i see online is this ridiculous fidelity to anonymity has resulted in troll farms that are tearing society apart or letting people behave in a way they would never behave in person but now they're doing it in person i mean those ice people should not to I'm sorry if their jobs are hard. They picked a job. This is the life they've chosen. What has been the most accretive, positive thing among law enforcement in America?

36:54I would argue that it is the following. Body cams. If you're a cop and you run up against somebody who's mentally ill and treating you like shit, I can't imagine how tempting it is to just punch them in the fucking face and put cuffs on them. I can empathize with that. But because they have a body cam on them and their badge number and their identification on their vest, they behave in a manner that is incredibly honorable and shows fidelity to the law. And some of them still don't, despite the body cams. I think our men and women in blue are, given the situations they are thrust into every day, remarkable and show a lot more patience than your average citizen.

37:38That was a reversal in anonymity. They not only don't have masks, it's like if you're a cop and you're going to use the full weight of the federal government and laws where you can deploy lethal power and incarceration against citizens, then we need to know exactly who the fuck you are and record it in 4D color. And when you let people put on masks, you're going the opposite way. There's going to be a decline in civility and fidelity to the law because you just get this rah-rah speech that the president said it's OK. Go in there. And if there's a 13-year-old screaming, no, my mother is a citizen.

38:17Or you might not put your head, you might not put your knee on the head of a woman working at Home Depot because people can actually see her face. That's a good thing And I have argued for this I don't believe I believe social media And these platforms Should force identification You could still have accounts That are anonymous If there's a person Who needs an account To talk about women's rights And wherever the gulf You could figure out pretty easily Is this person using An anonymous account Because they're in real danger Are they doing it Just to tear At the fabric of society Or let people engage In depraved behavior But anonymity, in my opinion, is one of the most in our fidelity and our miss our miss are conflating.

39:02The First Amendment with anonymity is one of the most damaging things in our society. It goes back to the Epstein list. Let it out. Let it out. Scott and Carol, release the Epstein list. We are with Roseanne Barr on this one. At the same time, Democrats have to put away this bullshit purity test on everything. People are human. And if someone ended up on a plane going to an island, a party, and there's no evidence that they engaged in anything, then it's like, OK, forgive them. Yeah, they had poor judgment. They didn't. But release, for God's sakes, release the list and governor grab back. Everything that happens at a level of governor or Senate.

39:37What do you think is embarrassing? What do you think is in there? What's intimate embarrassing? They're probably saying, give me money and I'll make sure. That's more than embarrassing. They're saying intimate. It was a weird choice of words, right? Intimate and embarrassing. The Nixon tapes eventually got released. Yeah, everything should get released. I agree. People should be able, you said something I always thought was really powerful. People should be able to have secrets. And that is, if it's just people's private lives, okay, I don't think people have a right to publish everything. I do believe in privacy.

40:12I do believe that people should be able to have secrets. But when it comes to national security, government regulation, conversations among our elected representatives, I believe that for defense reasons, you can say it needs to be sealed for a certain amount of time. But eventually, be clear, folks, it's all going to come out. And what's going to happen to their behavior? It's going to improve. Well, you know, it's interesting. I'm seeing online a lot of people when these ICE people go in now, sort of normal people, they were bothering a janitor. And all these doctors and nurses were like, get the fuck out of here or show your face.

40:43Like, this guy was, and they're like, and the cop, which was not getting beaten up in any way because the video showed it, was like, you're assaulting an officer. And she's like, I am not doing that. Take off your mask. Like, you're seeing a lot of people personally offended by it. And it's not the American way to hide your face. I think that's been really inspiring. You know what? In the Superman movie, the bad guys are hiding their fucking faces all the time. And not Superman because he's a very handsome man. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. And we come back. Elon Musk and Don Lemon go to court.

41:13Don Limon.

41:40Reddit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash Vox Business. Just go to indeed.com slash Vox Business right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Vox Business. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring? Indeed is all you need.

42:05What do walking 10 ,000 steps every day, eating five servings of fruits and veggies, and getting eight hours of sleep have in common? They're all healthy choices. But do all healthier choices really pay off? With prescription plans from CVS Caremark, they do. Their plan designs give your members more choice, which gives your members more ways to get on, stay on, and manage their meds. And that helps your business control your costs. Because healthier members are better for business. Go to cmk.co.access to learn more about helping your members stay adherent. That's cmk.co.access.

42:47Not all journalism is the same. Take The Guardian. Our coverage has something unique. Fierce independence. Nobody owns us or tells us what we can and can't say. So we're free to report the whole picture. We connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe, expose corruption wherever we find it, and give fresh perspective on everything from wellness and soccer to culture, the climate and more. Read, watch and listen to The Guardian for free at TheGuardian.com.

43:24Scott, we're back with more news. This is just a quick thing. Don Lemon's lawsuit against Elon Musk and X over the cancellation of their partnership will go to trial. Musk's team had tried to convince a judge to strike the complaint. San Francisco judge ruled that Lemon credibly alleged Musk had committed fraud by false promise. He'll probably win. Elon still won't pay him. As a reminder, Lemon filed the suit after X canceled his partnership a few hours after he taped a contentious interview with Musk. I don't know if Don will win this one, but it's good that he gets to go forward. We'll see some interesting emails with Linda Iaccarino and stuff.

43:54I hope he gets his money. I hope they all at X, there's a whole bunch of people from Twitter who haven't gotten their money. They all should get their fucking money, Elon, give them their money. You know, even if you don't like them, give them their money. So we'll see. He probably won't. I love Don Lemon. I like the fact that he, I think, got fired from CNN and got fired from Twitter. And I think he's one of these people that's doing really good work. If you follow him on his Lemon Drops podcast, what I appreciate about Don, I also appreciate about Megan, even though I don't agree with her politics.

44:23it's clear they work really fucking hard. And I really appreciate people who've achieved a certain level of celebrity status and probably economic security and just show up and work really hard. And I think he's fearless. I'm a huge fan of these new niche media companies. I like them. I'm rooting for them. And so I hope this is what happened. He's going to take them to court. My guess is that Musk's attorneys are going to go, we'll fight and intimidate and try to embarrass him. But legally, we don't have a leg to stand on. And when they realize he's not backing down, they'll settle with him. And I hope he gets a big check because it was embarrassing for him to accept a job, ask real questions, and then be fired unceremoniously.

45:07And he's entitled to whatever severance he's legally entitled to. Yes, yes. He should have never signed it, but that's another issue. I agree with you about the niche media companies, but there's a very big difference in what Don Lemon's doing and Megan Kelly. I get that she works hard, but she works hard insulting women, screaming about things. I just, if that's the way you want to make your business, it's fine, but it's grotesque. I'm sorry. And a lot of these companies, some of them are amazing and some of them are just a bunch of hacks and they both will benefit. Okay. I'll use others, whether it's Puck or the information or what they're trying to do with the Daily Beast or Axios or even if you don't even if you don't agree with them the way they acquit themselves I I'm here for these little niche media companies running the Daily Wire I hate their shit but I totally respect what they've built see I have a I have a thinner I have a much bigger it's got to be well done even I I don't I like the bulwark I don't agree with a lot of stuff they do but they actually do journalism the ones that don't are heinous I'm sorry they're just they're just hacks and I don't like hacks doing well, even if they're exciting and innovative in some way.

46:12Well, okay, now do traditional media. I would agree. Same thing. Same thing. I have the same filter for those. I agree. I agree. Anyway, I had this interesting argument with Alex because he was insulting CNN or something like that. And I said, you know, the reporters of CNN are great and you don't have to like the night stuff and you need to distinguish between them. And he said, I can't. And we had a great discussion about it. And I would agree with him. If it tends too much towards the screamy and not the amazing reporters, I have a problem with it, too. All the stations. The problem is it's the screamy stuff that makes all the money, Kara.

46:45I get it. That's why I don't like the small ones that do it or the big ones are their shitty reporters or they have, you know, disingenuous work. I just don't like it no matter what. Anyway, speaking of someone who's disingenuous, tech investor and Trump advisor Mark Andreessen, said universities will pay the price for promoting diversity and alleged discrimination against Trump supporters. Andreessen made statements and messages sent to a group chat with White House officials and tech leaders. He's always doing this. He's such a, if you've ever gotten a text from Mark Andreessen, he's so high-handed, it's kind of ridiculous.

47:17The investor said he views Stanford and MIT as mainly political lobbying operations fighting American innovation. He's got to fucking be kidding me. The messages discussed the counterattack against universities and called for National Science Foundation to receive the bureaucratic death penalty. They never keep these group chats confidential, and I suspect Andreessen doesn't care. I like them out because you see what an arrogant asshole he is. But, you know, again, as usual, they say things very firmly as if things don't have nuance. Parts of MIT and Stanford and lots of universities, including conservative ones, can have a lot of problems, and parts of them are great.

47:55And again, the same thing. He can't distinguish between that and has decided to say things like they will pay the price, they will die a death, all this. There's so much drama with these men. I actually agree a lot with what Mark said. I don't. But go ahead. That's clear. And our occasional disagreements for white people show up. That and how sexy I am. Can I, before you begin explaining why. Before I rant. No. When you have a point, I think you do it from a place of real thinking about it. I think he does it because he's an unpleasant piece of shit. And so they backfill into an ultra conservative point where they just want to tech.

48:34Correct. They want to cash subsidies and then not pay taxes is where it all comes from. He gets break after break after break. And then he pretends everybody else. Yes, exactly. So look, 60 years ago, 12 black people at Harvard, Princeton and Yale combined. That was a problem. We needed race based affirmative action. The DEI apparatus has become so large and so, in my opinion, unuseful and it creates more problems now than it solves. 52 % of gay men go to college, 34 % of straight men. Harvard's freshman class is 60 % non-white, but 70 % of those non-whites come from upper income homes. The academic gap between black and white was double what it was from rich and poor 60 years ago.

49:15It is now flipped. So what we need is affirmative action based on the primary arbiter of your success moving forward, and that is how wealthy or not wealthy your household is. Because we still have an economic apartheid because of our checkered history in this nation where Black and Latino households only have 20 ,000 in wealth and whites 150 ,000. But quite frankly, there has been too much privilege crammed into the small number of non-whites who are rich. Tyler Perry's kids shouldn't have a better chance of getting into college. Having said that, my industry is guilty of artificially constraining supply such that we can raise prices faster than inflation, which is total bullshit.

49:57We should be letting in more kids. And we have let in a preponderance of international kids relative to domestic kids. He was right on that. Not for diversity. That's lying. But because they pay full freight. And we love kids from Honduras or from Italy who pay the full tuition, the full sticker. So we're not inviting them for diversity or for DEI. And it has come at the cost. The cartel, the artificial scarcity, the LVMH-ing, the rejectionist, exclusionary culture trying to be a hedge fund for LVMH as opposed to a public servant has crowded out a lot of unremarkable good American kids who might have remarkable futures.

50:37He has a point. But the culprit, he positions it as if it's non-whites who are the problem or advancing the rights of non-whites or women. That's not the problem. The problem is a system that has basically said we're going to reject too many kids. We're going to sit on the GDP of Costa Rica and only have 1 ,500 kids. But what do you know, Harvard, and create some Vaseline over the lens that letting in the Taiwanese daughter of a private equity billionaire somehow diversity. It isn't. International students are outstanding. We love having them. Giving kids with adversity in their background, maybe it's a kid from the inner city.

51:23Maybe it's a kid who struggled with his sexual identity. Maybe it's a kid going through transition. Fine. But how we solve the problem and how we come together is the following. Every university in this nation that has over a billion dollars in endowment should grow its freshman class faster than population growth or lose its tax-free status. Here's what we need. We need to let in more international students, more trans kids, more gay kids, more white kids from red states. We need more kids. You know where you don't have this argument is community colleges because if you just show up and pay the fucking tuition, you're in.

51:55So we don't have all this agita and all this problem. So instead of arguing about who gets in and who doesn't and creating unnecessary agita in between special interest groups, which is totally unnecessary, we just need to let in more kids. UCLA, 74 % admissions rate. When I applied, I was unremarkable. Now it's 9%. We need to just let in more kids such that people like Marc Andreessen can't cloud a very real issue or use that as cloud cover for what is this thinly veiled ultra conservative viewpoints that, quite frankly, come across as a little bit bigoted and hateful against special interest groups who needed a leg up for a long time.

52:35I'm going to insert myself. He's a grievance person. Everything is a grievance, and it all relates to his unhappiness at growing up or whatever happened with his family or whatever. Everything always is a grievance with this guy. And let me tell you, it was from the start when I started covering him. He was always aggrieved by someone or something, and it was always someone else's fault. Always. This has been, literally, when he was selling Netscape stock, it was Netscape's fault when he was doing this. It was Microsoft's fault. It was this guy can never find fault with himself. One. But if he wants to solve the problem, it's pretty easy.

53:09He went to an amazing university, the University of Illinois, the Illinois. By the way, public universities will educate two thirds of our kids. And a lot of them, including the University of Illinois, are doing their level best to live up to their mission. And that is to let in not only just amazing, freakishly remarkable kids, but just good kids that might end up being freakishly remarkable. If he wanted to change things, and I walk the walk here, I do this, he should be giving a shit ton of money to the University of Illinois under the condition of the following, let in more kids. And guess what will happen, Mark?

53:38More Republican white kids from Kentucky will get admissions. Yes, he will not do this. So one of the things when he goes, the tell is mainly political lobbying operations for fighting American innovation. Shut the fuck up. It's the same thing that he does all the time with all his arguments. He's He's frequently wrong, but never in doubt. And it's exhausting with this guy. All right. I'm just saying, I think you make a good faith argument about the DEI bureaucracy. But the solution of these guys is to kill rather than try to figure out what the best way of getting the most kids in. They do not care about what you care about.

54:15They would never give the money to create that vocational thing. They would never go for, they are not solutions based ever. They are tear-down based, and they really don't like people. I mean, ultimately, they don't like people. And by the way, if you saw Margaret Dries with a poor person, I'd be shocked. Like, he just doesn't. Like, they don't care, and I think you do. So that's why I allow it from you and not from them, even if you agree. Thanks for your grace. But you are. You have good faith. There's a difference between disagreement under good faith and disagreement because you're a giant fucking asshole who needs therapy about his parents.

54:49I got a little of that. Yeah, I know that. I know that. I did Molly or Calvin Harris. Mark, come with me. I can't believe you can wait to do Molly with Kara Swisher. I would never do it with you anyway, because we'd hug and then weird things would happen. Okay, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

55:09Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin? or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today. From Pushkin Industries, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and Heavyweight is back. The new season is bigger than ever. Bigger hopes? I keep waiting for this moment. When he says, Mom, I get it. I'm sorry.

55:50Bigger dreams. Tom Hanks wants to meet with you. This is a real chance. And bigger heartbreaks. I thought it would be my movie moment. And maybe he would even whisper in my ear, I've always been in love with you. Check out new episodes of Heavyweight on Apple Podcasts.

56:18and real pumpkin sauce, then topped with whipped cream, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The PSL. Get it while it's hot or iced. Only at Starbucks.

56:32Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I shall go first. You go first. I saw two movies, one with Mr. Louis Swisher. We saw F1. I thought it was a solidly good movie. Brad Pitt looks fantastic. There's a young guy in it, I'm blanking on his name, who plays the young driver. He's amazing. The whole thing is delightful. And you know exactly how it's going to end. You don't, there's not a stitch of... I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume he wins a race. He wins a race. Right. But he does. You know, he tries to let the kid win, but he wins. And of course, and then, you know, he's like a Clint Eastwood movie.

57:07This thing you've seen 109 ,000 times. That said, I learned a lot about cars and about tires. I like a lot about tires. There was a one sexy lady technologist in it who I love, who is his love interest. And I wanted to go to F1 after it. I have to say, I was like, I would like to go to F1. This was really interesting. And the whole, there's a little technology in there. Fantastic movie. Superman, also a great movie. I have to say I liked F1 better, but I can see why everybody, Superman is goofy, funny. It is so not woke. It's just goofy. Superman has always been an immigrant. It's always been a tone of this series.

57:46He comes from another planet. There's always this thing of him being from Krypton. I thought the guy who played him was delightful. I thought Rachel Brosnahan was fantastic. She was in Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I thought the whole cast was great. It was so fucking goofy. It was like there were jokes all over the place. And there was one character, this guy who plays Mr. Terrific, another person I've never seen. So funny. Whoever did this has an amazingly good sense of humor. and I think they brought it right where it belongs. I thought, I like Henry Cavill, but too brooding. All the Supermans before Chris Reeve, who I thought was wonderful, too brooding.

58:21Now it's really fun and I see why it's getting, it's what everyone wants. It's a fucking relief to go to that movie and there's a dog in it too. And then Supergirl shows up and she's like a badass partier and it's just fun, fun, fun, fun. So that's my win. My fail is Trump attacking Rosie O'Donnell and I thought Rosie made him. No, Rosie Epstein. Rosie Epstein. Let's just call her Rosie Epstein. She called her a threat to humanity. She moved to Ireland, by the way. I thought O'Donnell's reply was so fantastic. She did it on a bunch of places, but she called him King Joffrey with a tangerine spray.

58:55And I love that. And I called her Oleana Terrell. I thought AOC had the tweet of the week and it reads, wow, who would have thought that electing a rapist would have complicated the release of the Epstein files? Yeah, exactly. That was really good, too. She's good. I love these women that, like, slap the fucking shit out of this guy. But what if, like, what is he doing, Rosie? He's, like, I don't know what his deal. Rosie O'Donnell, he's obsessed with her. This has been going on for a long. No, he's not. He's obsessed with getting people to look away from possible implications of pedophilia. No, it goes back.

59:26You remember, speaking of Megyn Kelly when she used to do a good job. That's got nothing to do with this. Well, his, Rosie. Rosie Epstein. That's all I have to remember. Rosie Epstein. Anyway. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. Fail, Trump, victory, Rosie. Okay, your turn. So I'll excuse my win and my fail for a personal indulgence here. As you know, my father passed away last week. I wanted to talk a little bit about him and a couple of the takeaways over the past few days. is my father was born out of wedlock in 1930 in Sydney to a woman who was a domestic helper, a nanny for the McVicker family, a rich family in Australia.

1:00:00And one of their daughters was childless, which was a crime back then. And they said, we'll adopt your baby. And they gave her some money and she agreed. And then she had the baby, changed her mind and basically convinced her boyfriend, my grandfather, to meet her at the docks. And they immigrated back to Scotland. My dad was raised in Depression-era Scotland. He says his first memory was during the Clydesbank, I think it was called Raid, where the Luftwaffe bombed some docks and some factories. And he was very, he felt a real sense of patriotism. He was 15 when the war ended, but he said when, I love this image, he said when he was 10, him and his buddies in service to their nation, anyone with an accent in their neighborhood, they would follow around and take notes on them and then report them to the authorities.

1:00:46Like if someone had an Italian accent, they assumed they were a spy and they would follow them around. I love that story. And it was he at the age of 17, lied about his age, wanted to join the RAF. And he was told he was too tall to be a pilot. So he joined the Navy. And within 48 hours of joining the Navy and saying he could swim well, he was jumping out of a helicopter, practicing pilot rescue in a freezing North Atlantic, trying to put a 150-pound dummy back in a basket, sent his money home to his mother so he could save to come to America, got home after serving honorably in the Royal Navy for two years and found out that his mom had spent all the money on whiskey and cigarettes, which kind of scarred my father and has always had a really unhealthy relationship with money, but basically made the best decision I've ever made, and that is he took a huge risk and came to America, where he met my mom, his second wife.

1:01:45I was born to his second wife, my sister, who's been an enormous source of love and reward for me for a long time by his third marriage. He really did live kind of the American dream. One of my favorite stories was when he first got to San Diego, he interviewed to be a salesman at a candle manufacturer. And the HR person said, how long have you been here? And he said, two weeks. And she said, you got to wait here. And she brought in her boss and said, we have to hire this guy. He's only been here two weeks and he's already learned to speak the language. And my dad, my dad, you know, had a pretty nice life.

1:02:25But the reality, Kara's my father wasn't a very high character person. He had four marriages, four divorces, left his last wife when she had late stage Parkinson's, wasn't as kind as he could have been. to me and my mom or to my sister. And that created a lot of tumult in my life. And that gets to some of the learnings. The first learning is having gone through this. First off, a lot of people, I've gotten about 600 or 700 text messages and emails from you and other people who have been very supportive and nice. And I just want to say thank you. It does help. But also just to be grateful. I've been sort of overwhelmed by gratitude, even though maybe it wasn't purposeful.

1:03:04Um, again, the best thing that happened to me was being born in America. My dad took that risk such that I could be born in America. I have broad shoulders. I'm tall. I have a good voice and I have made an exceptional living communicating and all of those things I inherited from my father. And there's no reason not to be, uh, not to be grateful for the, uh, those things. And that helps a lot just to focus on the good stuff. And then about the advice I would have for anybody that I learned with my relationship, which was tumultuous at times with my father as a following. And that is about 20 years ago, I decided, look, I used to go back and forth.

1:03:49I had very conflicted relationship with my father because he wasn't very good to me as a kid. And so I would get angry at him as an adult and think, I don't want to be a very good son. And then I recognize, and it's been an enormous unlock in my life. Just imagine the son you want to be, or the partner you want to be, the girlfriend you want to be, the employer you want to be, the boss you want to be, and hold yourself to that standard and stop keeping score. And it was such an enormous unlock for me. I've had such a wonderful relationship with him for the last 20 years, just trying to be a generous and loving son and not think about whether or not I was in the the debit or the surplus category.

1:04:26And I've approached, that's just been such an enormous unlock for me in the rest of my life, thinking about what kind of partner do I want to be, what kind of friend do I want to be, and living to that standard, not keeping score. And that started with my decision to try and be a loving, generous son, regardless of what had happened in our relationship previously. Anyways, I'm writing this book on masculinity, and I digress to these three pillars of masculinity, of being a protector, provider, and a procreator. My dad did protect his country. He took huge sacrifices and put himself in personal risk to try and do the right thing and served his country.

1:05:04He did provide for two families, and obviously he was a procreator. He had two kids and four grandkids, but it's also cautionary tale. He never was really able to speak, to think about others in a very generous way. So even when my sister and I were thinking about whether or not we should have a service, we decided not to because the reality is the sad truth is nobody would show up. He didn't have any friends. He didn't really have anybody other than his daughter and his son who care about him. And so it really is a cautionary tale. But my dad did serve his country. He did his best. He He checked the primary box, I think, around being a father, and that is he was much better to me and his daughter than his father was to him.

1:05:49Anyways, 95, lived a very rich life, and his son and his daughter will miss him terribly. No, Scott, I'm so sorry. Almost made it through. It's okay. Scott, this is your best quality. Don't think it's not. Let me just say, I know your sister just a little bit. She's wonderful. but the best thing he did was give us you. That's nice. Thank you. Anyway, now you got me crying. Scott. There you go. We'll have to go through this. I'm lucky at some point. There you go. We'll probably have a party. Four wives, four divorces when you were in 70s California with a strong John at Glaswegian accent. You could not only think with your dick, you could listen to it.

1:06:33God, he had a good, he had a nice time. Yeah. And you, and then his son last week was in Ibiza having Molly. win win win win win no i'm serious scott you are a journey and i really appreciate that about you and i think you took a lot of lessons from your dad you had a tough time and it sounds like your mom was the real uh strong person for you but um uh it's still it's you're you're from where you're from right and that's what makes you the person you are anyway i really appreciate that and uh um whatever you need all of us are here for you including all your listeners and me too Anyway, we want to hear from you.

1:07:10Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Scott, I can't believe you made me cry. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe this week, on with Kara Susser, I spoke with astrophysicist and author of the new book, More Everything Forever, Adam Becker. Let's listen to a clip. I think that a lot of what's happened in this country over the last, at this point, 10 years, has shown like the kinds of risks that we as a society take by having billionaires, by allowing that kind of concentration of wealth.

1:07:48It erodes the democratic fabric of the country. And at this point, our democracy is in mortal danger and may already be lost. That was a particular, it's a great book. It's about the idea of more everything forever, which is a lot of sort of these tech people think, when in fact it's more everything forever for themselves. Anyway, it's a great book. He's really interesting. He sort of knocks away all the myths around living on Mars, et cetera. All their dreams that are not good for most of humanity, but it's good for them. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

1:08:22We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie and Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Sabero, and Dan Chalon. On the Shaq Kruas, Box 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 Box Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at mybag.com. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Thanks to everyone for all your warm wishes. It helps a great deal.

1:08:59Adobe Acrobat Studio. So brand new. Show me all the things PDFs can do. Do your work with ease and speed. PDF spaces is all you need. Do hours of research in an instant. With key insights from an AI assistant. Pick a template with a click. Now your Prezo looks super slick. Close that deal, yeah you won. Do that, doing that, did that, done. Now you can do that, do that with Acrobat. Now you can do that, do that with the all new Acrobat. It's time to do your best work with the all new Adobe Acrobat Studio. They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Well, why not make it a limited edition Groonie Smith Apple Vitamin Snack Pack from Groons?

1:09:37This isn't a multivitamin, a greens gummy, or a prebiotic. It's all of those things and then some. And bonus, it tastes great. All Groons Daily Gummy Snack Packs are vegan, not gluten dairy free, and packed with more than 20 vitamins and minerals. Grab your limited edition Groonie Smith Apple Groons available only through October. Stock up because they will sell out. Get up to 52 % off when you go to gruns.co and use the code VOX. Support for this show comes from Airbus. It took 100 years for electric vehicles to catch on. Modern solar panels? Half a century. Lithium batteries? Decades to go from their debut to daily use.

1:10:18It's a pattern. Energy tech breaks through, stalls, and then something tips the scales. But for every success, there are even more almosts. So what if there was a breakthrough sitting at this crossroads right now? SAF, or sustainable aviation fuel, could forever change the future of flight. Learn more about how Airbus is contributing to accelerate this journey at fly.airbus.com slash theflightpath.