Meta Ends Fact Checking, Trump Tries to Redraw the Map, and the Los Angeles Fires

24:06You have to have shared stories that we're the good guys and we won World War II for the right reasons and Americans' hearts are in the right place and believe in the founding fathers and the rights of people. And you also have to have kind of a lot of social capital within smaller networks, whether it's your church or your neighbors or maybe you served, you know, how you feel about people who also served in the Marines or whatever it might be. And slowly but surely, social media is eroding all of those things. And this is just another example of how those three things will continue to come down and be eroded.

24:41You have somewhere between a half and two-thirds of Americans, depending on their age, now get their news from social media. And today, when I was on Morning Joe, I called Trump an insurrectionist and a rapist. And Mika had to stop the show and say that Trump was found liable for sexual abuse. Now, imagine in contrast what you're going to be able to say about anything, health, elections, what you should do when a fire breaks out in the Pacific Palisades on Meta. I mean, we are all going into, we are all separating further and further. And to think that this doesn't have not only implications around candidates or politics, but violence.

25:23Look what happened in 2017. there was violence against the Rohingya. Myanmar. And a year later, there were rumors circulated on WhatsApp, unfettered, and people were being pulled out of cars in small towns in India and hanged because of rumors around kidnappings. I mean, this, remember Pizzagate? That started on social media. So four years ago, he called it moderation. Now they call it censorship. And I got to give it to the guy. I do think he's a brilliant businessman. He said, OK, this guy has threatened to put me in jail. I'm going to turn chicken shit and turn it into chicken salad and come up with a way to please him and potentially reduce up to$5 billion of costs in the safety and security team.

26:13The move to Texas is actually not political. It's a means of quiet firing 30 to 60 percent of the staff because they won't move. And if you take – say he saves three or four of that$5 billion, it trades at a P of 30. 30 times 4, 120 billion, it owns 50. He just made another$18 billion while managing to kiss Mark Zuckerberg's ass. No, Donald Trump's ass. I'm sorry. Excuse me. While managing to kiss even more. No one wants to kiss Mark Zuckerberg's ass, but go ahead. And just a larger point here and the point I made on Joe Scarborough as I've broken my indignant self, preachy self. My question is the following.

26:51Where are the fucking men? Where are the men that recognize, okay, I've made tens of billions of dollars here. I lead a remarkable life. My kids have incredible opportunity. I have a broader selection set of mates than I deserve. People laugh at my jokes. I get to dress like this, but go ahead. I'm going to live five or 10 years longer than most people. I get to do remarkable things because of this operating system called America and the blessings of America. And yet I have abso-fucking-lutely no fidelity to those values. None of them. What is the point of having this much money and this much power if you have to bend the knee to a kleptocrat?

27:30But it's more than that. Let me just say, let me do my little rant now. Because it's more than just bending the knee. Of course, he's doing it in his self-interest and his business interest, which is always. Mark, someone was like, I think it was on Piers Morgan. He's like, are you surprised? I'm like, no, no, this is what he's like. This is what I've told you he's like. You know, I wrote a piece in the New York Times where I was like, this guy is the most dangerous person on the planet. Like, he is amplified and weaponized everything, and then he doesn't want to take responsibility. Let me tell you, I've talked to a lot of people inside Facebook and Meta.

28:02They are sick to their stomach, Mark, just so you know. I know Joel Kaplan is kissing your ass to get the job that he got. But let me just be clear. So many people called me this past week. The first person who was this first PR person was like, we got to get off threads now. Like, I've had so many calls. Sick to their stomach seems to do it. And they should be sick to their stomach because you are a sad and shameless weather vane. In four more years, if the Democrats take over, you're going to shift again because that's what you do. You have no values whatsoever. And I thought Will Aramis did a great piece in the Washington Post, well, places, where he goes, Mark Zuckerberg cited a cultural tipping point to justify dumping fact checks and relaxing hate speech rules.

28:47Meta-ending fact checks in the U.S. made headlines, but the real ballgame here is a broader repudiation of the idea that a company is responsible for bad stuff on its platform. As Zuckerberg puts it, bad stuff. Mark, you don't, bad stuff. He thinks he's going to like stub a toe. You put people in danger. The company never really wanted that responsibility, and Trump's election allows them to shrug it off. And they never wanted to. That's the thing is, first of all, these fact-checking systems do make mistakes. So does community notes. So does AI. But you have to employ, if you want to build your fucking social media network, you need to have all of them at work.

29:27And to impugn these fact-checkers, by the way, they have conservative fact-checkers. They're not all libtards, Mark. Sorry, they're from conservative publications. If you want to do that, you need fact checkers that make mistakes, and then you correct them. You need AI. You need community notes. To wholly embrace what they're doing at Twitter on top of it with X is repulsive. Mark, he hates you. Just so you know, they laugh at you behind your back. In front of your back, they laugh at you. And the fact that he cannot, he switches his tune. I've had conversations where he says, Cara, AI was going to do this someday.

30:03Cara, community is going to do this. Cara, moderation is going to do this. I don't believe a word coming out of your mouth anymore. Honestly, you say mundacious fuck all the time, Scott, and I got to tell you, it's exactly what's happening here. Now, secondly, when he put UFC CEO and Trump crony Dana White on the board, that also upset people inside the company. And they tamped down the criticism on internal Facebook boards among employees because this guy was caught on a videotype hitting his wife. His wife hit him. But I spent years, years talking to my sons about never hitting a woman. No matter what, if she hits you, I don't care.

30:46Right? These are the people he's bringing onto the board of Meta right now because he happens to like doing, you know, MMA. And by the way, Mark, the reason all those MMI fighters hang with you is because you're rich. They don't think you're that good. It's great to hang out with a rich person. And I'm glad you're doing it. I'm hoping you're having fun. But the whole thing couldn't get worse except for what Amazon did about giving Melania$40 million. No, that wasn't even as bad. And when these guardrails are removed, it is going to be disastrous for people. Scott, take over on your indignancy, please.

31:20Well, I just I feel a need to just fact check myself and disclose that on the international markets around Meta, I do believe they're going to maintain some fact checking and safety and security because I do recognize that there's real danger overseas for people. I mean, this has so many negative ramifications, one of which being that News Corp, when they say Smartmatic and Dominion have been weaponized in an election and they knew that was not true and decided to put it out anyways or promote it because they knew it would tickle the censors of their viewers. and then Dominion says, you have defamed us because this has hurt our business and you knew you were lying.

32:01And the courts say, yes, this qualifies as defamation. You have to pay them $774 million. And then Iger's worried about a suit from the president, retribution from the president, and ABC has to pay. The companies that are now having to spend a ton of money on moderation and are chilled and scared and have to stop an interview with me because I call someone a rapist instead of a sexual abuser. Folks, be careful, slow your roll. Everyone from News Corp, from the Wall Street Journal to the BBC, to Wikipedia, to the Washington Post, they're all shrinking and going away. And there's been all these articles recently about some anchors, including anchors we know and love, having to take pay cuts.

32:47So congratulations, your lamestream media is going extinct and you're going to have to get all of your news from social media, which is a fucking food fight around whichever algorithm grabs the most novel, i.e. conspiracy, i.e. false narrative to punch out there. I mean, these traditional media outlets do play an important role and they are having their windpipes are being crushed right now. They can't compete with companies that have no liability. Have no regulations, that have no rules, that have no liability. They cannot. It's a great business model, folks. And the fact that I could go on meta and say incredibly defamatory things about people with fake accounts and say ridiculous things about health claims or whatever it might be.

33:43And the more ridiculous it is, the more inorganic reach it gets because the algorithms love it. I mean, we are literally moving to an idiocracy. And the companies that we're serving at that played a key role, whether you think it's News Corp, whether you think it's Comcast, they are having the oxygen sucked out of the room. There's two things I can say. The video, you must go watch it because it's full of things that are not true about a lot of things. He was just he took a swipe at the media because he's a mad little man. He's mad because they're mean to him. You know, he actually said, if you want to leave because I've done this, you're virtue signaling.

34:19No, Mark, they just think you're an asshole. Let's just like, I'm sounding like Bill Maher. They just think you're an asshole. They're not virtue signaling. They think you're an asshole. That's why they're leaving. And you make shitty products compared to, say, a Steve Jobs, by the way. And let me just tell you, Steve Jobs would have been horrified with all of these behaviors. Absolutely. He believed in the free press. From a shareholder standpoint, I hate to say this, Kara. Right. It's absolutely the right move. And did you see the words on his video? I get it. More. He said the words where it was like, oh, my God, these guys are so good and so mendacious.

34:51It was more speech and fewer mistakes. Oh, right. Is the way they framed this video. No, it's not. It's less moderation, more misinformation. That would have been the title of this of this video. And then they wrapped themselves in the First Amendment stuff. I don't think they've read it. I think it's too long for them. I mean, it's first, so they should be able to find it, but they haven't read it. I mean, it's ridiculous. And then what they do is they get—I was on an interesting panel with Piers Morgues. It was some right-wing people and stuff like that. And I was like, don't you see what they're doing?

35:22They're trying to get us all fighting with each other, and then they're sitting up at Mar-a-Lago with President Trump getting all the goodies because they're going to make us argue over Invermectin or this or that or the other thing. And they're all reaping the benefits of that. Let me just tell you, right-wing, they're not your friends. And by the way, a lot of those right-wing people get that. If you notice Bannon, Loomer, Charlie Kirk, they're suddenly on an anti-tech guy thing because they know a thief when they see them. And Walt Mossberg, many years ago, called a lot, especially he called Zuckerberg an information thief and the Google people.

35:58That's what they are. They're information thieves stealing our souls. They're stealing our information. They're stealing everything and without anyone in place to stop them in any way whatsoever, including great senators like Senator Klobuchar. And Trump will hand it all to them for a payment or to get close to him. And maybe, you know, there was a lot of conservatives who were quite worried about the power of big tech, and I hope they continue to be. And I don't really care the reason, if they think it's censorship or whatever. I would like some laws to go into place to stop this nonsense. The last thing is, of course, after not putting political content before the election, now Instagram head, Adam Assari, who also runs Threads, they'll be adding political content recommendations on Instagram and Threads after the election.

36:44Interesting. That's an interesting development, of course, because these people are opportunistic at every single turn, whether it was Beacon way back in the day, whether it was anything they do is always in their self-interest. Just keep that in mind. Should Blue Skies seize the moment here? That's my last question, then we'll move on. Well, it's interesting. Blue Skies supposedly raising money at a valuation of$600 million. They are. I merely thought, Jesus Christ, now I got off of Twitter. Now am I going to have to get off of threads and Instagram? I mean, at some point, do we have to get off those platforms?

37:17Blue Sky is raising money. It's growing. It's user-based by a million people a day. I thought, wow, that seemed pretty inexpensive. But this is, I don't know. I'm kind of befuddled as to what's going to happen. It feels like any real source of information that doesn't, I mean, there's so many layers here. Quite frankly, I'm so pissed off that because we have a guy who looks like he's about to go into hospice as president, Trump and Musk are president. We can't even maintain any semblance of a media presence because the people around Biden aren't confident enough to put him on stage in front of a place we might actually have to answer questions.

38:05So President-elect Trump is basically President Trump, and they're already making public policy speeches. Elon Musk has more power than President Biden right now. And all President Biden can do is have a highly scripted moment where he wraps a medal around Bono. I mean, this is, it is, I have never. That was a nice moment, though. That was a nice moment. But go ahead. Yay. Yay. And meanwhile, everybody and then we talk and then Trump gets on and starts talking about invading Greenland. And we all look over there. It is it is just insane that we have we don't have the leadership and we don't have the balls or the charisma to get out there and push back on the narrative here.

38:51Where are the fucking Democrats here? Elon and President-elect Trump are dominating the media landscape right now. You can see a few in the tech, so you see Cuban speaking out. You see a bunch of them. They are trying. They are trying. And I think they're going to get. I've gotten lots of emails from some tech people. They're like, I'm fucking sick of this shit. You know what I mean? And I think they're getting ready to get up again. We certainly have gotten up, I think. Don't you think? I have to say, I got to say, speaking of getting up, the very best insults were Jimmy Kimmel this week. Mark Zuckerberg showed up to debate debase himself at Mar-a-Lago shortly after the election.

39:27Today, he released a suspiciously Trump-friendly announcement. Hey, everyone. I want to talk about something important today. What? The fact that you're dressed like a Molly dealer from Chechnya? No? Oh, okay. Go on. First, we're going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X starting in the U.S. Oh, good. Facebook's going to be similar to X now. No fact checkers. This is like Del Taco announcing they're done with health inspections. I thought it was great. I thought some of our comics, getting back to comics, are doing a fantastic job tearing these people down.

40:03I think Daily Show did a great job. They're doing some really good, you know, social commentary. And I know we don't have the power. We just don't have the power to actually change things. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Donald Trump's plans for world domination and take a listener mail question about responsible podcasting.

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41:47Scott, we're back with our second big story, speaking of which, you just referenced it. President-like Donald Trump seems fixated on geography this week. He's talking about annexing Greenland, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America, reclaiming the Panama Canal, making Canada 51st state. A lot of this is just nonsense, and he knows it. He's also considering declaring a national economic emergency to provide legal justification for his tariffs on allies and adversaries, according to CNN. Greenland has a lot of minerals there's a reason to possibly do a deal with them that's certainly true and it's a big military important military spot the Gulf of Mexico thing is just inane the Panama Canal we could do a deal down there if we wanted to work better and Canada Canadians have got to be fucking pissed as hell and they never get pissed a lot of this is chest something I think on some things but we look idiotic I did love the new head of Mexico who got in front of a map and was like, I think we'll call America Nuevo Mexico.

42:48And she sort of slapped back at him, making fun of him. But we're a laughingstock. Well, look, Panama, the Panama Canal, it's a small business. It's strategically and militarily quite benign. You know, it's been kept open. It hasn't been politicized. And the total business of the Panama Canal, it made about$5 billion. dollars. It's just not, quite frankly, unless it was threatened, it's not that strategically important. It serves its purpose, but it's not a big business. It doesn't have a lot of economic value. Greenland is an entirely different matter because of global warming and the fact that so much of the ice and the polar cap has melted.

43:27Did you ever see those shows? There was an amazing show, I think it was called The Terror by Ridley Scott about some British explorers who tried to find the passage across, you know, I forget what it's called, but that - The Northwest Passage, right? Well, Russia has lost access to a warm water port with Syria, but if all of a sudden the polar cap melts, a bunch of different countries are going to have access to everybody else for their navy. To the Arctic, yeah. And so that is strategic. Greenland is strategic. Everyone talks about, in terms of scenario planning around World War III, that Greenland would play an incredibly important role in terms of refueling bombers and submarines.

44:05So that is strategic. But what I don't get is when you start on a more meta level, what you don't realize or what we don't realize or what I would say Trump doesn't realize, as powerful as we are, we're about a third of the world's economy. And without allies, we haven't accomplished anything on our own. Greatness is in the agency of others. If you want to expel Hussein from Kuwait, if you want to take on Nazi Germany, if you want to implement sanctions, you have to have the cooperation of your allies. And every president has understood that until this one. So when he starts saying dumb shit, like we're going to rename it the Gulf of America or starts threatening places like Greenland, he just, all he's doing is saying, you know what, we're going to have fewer and fewer allies around the world.

44:58And at some point, he's going to need allies. When, you know, if China goes into Taiwan and we want to expel them and we want to do it crisply, he's going to need Japanese intelligence. He's going to need South Korean reconnaissance. And these people are going to go, we don't trust this guy. They're going to start coming up with contingency plans to form alliances against them. Now, having said that, there is an unintended consequential benefit here, and that is most Western nations now are massively increasing their military budgets because they don't feel they can count on the military umbrella.

45:37Defense stocks are rising. That's right, because everyone from Germany, you know, these places are all saying, we've got to take our military budgets up. Having said that, That is probably a good thing because they were too reliant on Big Brother, who is benign Big Brother. And now they're like, Big Brother's fucking crazy and is addicted to meth. We don't know what is going on with this guy. So there are so many different ideas. And Bremmer on the pod yesterday. There are just so many different layers to this. We are in uncharted territory with a guy who pops up and says, we want Greenland. I mean, that's where you're focused.

46:11Right. You know, again, you know, and of course Musk backed him. I mean, they want the minerals there. There's all these rare earth minerals there, and China's been sucking up all the rare earth minerals around the world. Get it. Why don't you just say that? Why don't you just say— But we buy them right now. It'd be a lot less expensive to continue to buy them than try and take over green. Exactly. I mean, why not just say that, though? Why not just have a coat? Like, here, this is an important thing. I mean, I need Advil. I don't invade the 7-Eleven. You did. I saw you do it. I saw you do it.

46:40You went in with the whole team. There you go. Of course, you failed because you couldn't open the top. With my breathwork guy. With your breath work, you and me. We're the least scary duo. I'm like, let me put this drum on your chest. Lie back. I'm going to get a Slurpee. I'm going to get a Slurpee and a four-day-old hot dog, and we're going to do some sound work here. And he's right when people are all like, well, actually, it's genius. I'm like, oh, my God. He's like the crazy guy in the corner. He's not genius. He's just crazy. My worst part was that Don Jr., he went with Charlie Kirk and some other guy who's like head of office personnel in the White House.

47:14Three idiots, I call them Five Head and the Morons, they're the new Eurovision band. They went to Greenland and they're taking selfies there. Like literally, you people, you're morons. You're absolute morons and you're making the U.S. like morons. They're like, someone on one of the commentaries, they're like those guys in high school or in middle school that used to sit back and write boobs on a calculator and laugh hysterically. Yeah, but it's just such a lack of respect for people. It's, all right, you're an unelected rich kid's son who's, all right, and you show up in some sort of like militant, faux, faux government.

47:57You make us look like such assholes. Moron. You're such a, you're so, you have no game whatsoever. Speaking of no game, Trump's BFF, Elon Musk, has focused his attention on Europe, once again obsessed with pedophiles. His new nemesis is UK Prime Minister, I think it's Keir Starmer. Keir Starmer, yeah. Keir Starmer. He's also endorsed Germany's far-right party. He's pushing out all sorts of conspiracy theories and misinformation, particularly about these grooming gangs. I think it's got a bunch of information. Even the person who took over the thing said Starmer did a very good job and moved it forward, rather.

48:30There was a slowness at the beginning of it. There's no question of that. But there's no proof of the things Elon's alleging, at least. They were definitely slow, but he is bullying the world. He's worked in the U.S., and now he's moved on. And these European leaders all released statements seemingly together. They pretended it was a part, but they were all the same statement. What's it like there in England? Obviously, people are always concerned about issues around children being abused, but he could give five fucks about these women at all. Yeah, that's right. You know, at all. He's using it for something else, probably to attack their online safety bill that he doesn't like, et cetera, et cetera.

49:10What is your take from living there? You know, the honest answer is I don't know. I don't – I'm in a bubble here, but occasionally my bubble at least is somewhat translucent. I can see out of it every once in a while. In London, I'm in a bubble that's totally opaque, and I just don't feel qualified to – the only thing I would say is just looking at it from a game theory standpoint. point, at some point, these Western nations are going to get together and say, we need contingency plans where we don't necessarily rely on America. And it's really, it's dangerous for us because what people don't realize and they take for granted is the North American treaty over and NATO has probably been the most important alliance.

49:53It has kept the peace since the end of World War II, the fact you attack one, you attack all of us. And together, you've seen this happening in repelling what was supposed to be this ferocious force in Ukraine because NATO in Europe and the U.S. rallied around it. I think the reason that Xi has decided not to come into Taiwan is he's probably saying, okay, if the West binds together under the auspices of the West and cooperation, you know, we always, we're like siblings. We fight, but when shit gets real, well, we have each other's back in the West. And I worry that's no longer going to be the case.

50:32I worry that we're going to be divided because the biggest brother with the best job who has the most money and is quite frankly, the strongest is just unreliable, has just gone off, is just kind of, we don't know how to deal with this person. And this is a huge security risk for us because I think a lot of nations will notice and think this is the time to strike. They're divided. They'll argue over it. We have conservative commentators who seem to be more fond of Russia. I mean, at some point, I can see certain conservative commentators, if she were to go into Taiwan thinking, yeah, that's what a real man does.

51:14What I'm hoping for is, and I think there's a little bit of this across Europe, or when I speak a lot in Europe, what I sense is they're thinking, okay, we just got to get through the next couple of years. He's getting older and things will calm down again. I think people, what's interesting, and I was talking to people in Brazil, they give America the benefit of the doubt. They seem in some ways less freaked out than we are because they think American institutions are so strong. I find the Europeans freaked out. Everyone I talked to today is just over there. They're like, what is he doing, Elon Musk?

51:44Well, Elon is just a different, I don't know. It's so hard. There's so many moving parts here. They're so unpredictable. And it's not, I don't, I find myself almost sort of like resigned to like, okay, I'll just see what happens tomorrow because I don't know how to process this. Let me tell you, someone from Facebook who Amanda ran into said something about, doesn't like what's happening there and said something like, just let it happen. Just let them do it. Let them see how it turns out when they do it. I think a lot of people are in that zone, like, okay, let's watch this play out. Yeah, catch the car.

52:25Catch the car. Go for it. It's all yours. Like, that's a little dangerous for some people, but a lot of people seem resigned that way. Okay, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question.

52:42This question comes from Stacey in Los Angeles. Stacey, I hope you're safe and you're doing well. Let's listen. Hi, Karen Scott. Question for you with all of the talk about podcasts recently. As traditional media consumption continues to wane and people are increasingly turning to media like podcasts for their news, what measures can we take, you take, everyone take to stem the tide of myths and disinformation in this space? There's obviously been lots of discussion about regulating social media, but what about podcasts? What are the potential checks and balances when it comes to things like fact-checking?

53:20And I think my biggest question is really, how can we collectively encourage responsible podcast listening and producing? Want to hear your thoughts on this. Love the show and never miss it. Keep up the good work. Oh, and this is Stacey in Los Angeles. Thanks. Oh, Stacey, that's a great question. You know, actually, we do have regulations, libel, defamation. You know, even Joe Rogan can be sued, FYI. And he says a lot of nutty stuff when he gets on there. You know, it just depends on the listenership. Some people just like, for example, those pro—I use Joe Rogan as the example. Some of his stuff is good.

53:53Some of it's nutty. Some of it's absolutely inaccurate. And he does not seem to pay a price for that. He does get pilloried. At some point, probably someone will sue him, and he gets to be sued, just like we do or anybody else. So there is a check and balance on most media, just not Mark Zuckerberg. So, you know, I think you have to pick and choose your podcasts as you feel like, especially in areas you know. That seems right. That doesn't seem right. We have pack checkers on all our podcasts. As Scott and I know, things get changed on our podcasts when we make mistakes. And so we think that's important.

54:32I have them over on On. I think you have them over on Prof G, Scott, checking to make sure you're accurate. Because accuracy, in the end, away from opinions and our thoughts on things, accuracy is really important because then we look like a horse's ass if they're not correct. Scott? Yeah, look, I do think in podcasting there is, it's become sort of the, I don't know, it's the new lamestream media in the sense that it reflects some of the same dynamics of media. It's ad-supported. There's fact-checking. There is, as you said, we're liable. We're legally liable. If we say something false, we know it's fault and it defames or slanders someone or something and it's malicious, we can incur economic harm and we have to pay for insurance.

55:17So it is similar to media that way. Also, the most popular podcast over the last several years in news has been The Daily from the New York Times. And there is a lot of conservative, I think it bifurcates. And that is, I think a lot of podcasts are not news, they're commentators. And people have to decide whether they find it entertaining or interesting. I think the key to trust is checking several outlets from kind of different angles. Go to the FT, go to the BBC, and then check it against something more conservative, the Wall Street Journal, whatever it might be. But it's, there is no, it used to be, I didn't get nearly as many questions around who can I trust.

56:06It's become a big issue. And there are now, I think the podcasts that are sort of rising to the top are one of two things. They're either incredibly entertaining or people think if I'm going to listen to the daily, it has a bias. It's the New York Times. I hated the New York, I hated, absolutely hated the interview with Anthony Blinken. And I thought the reporter that did that brought so much bias in the way she framed her questions. That's Lulu Garcia. Having said that, they do fact check. They take it very seriously. And, you know, it's a word salad for saying I don't know. Yeah. Well, it's just like regular media.

56:45That's what it feels like. That's what we have to do. And we use fact checking. Every podcast is different. Most of them do use fact checkers. I'll tell you that. Many of them because they're worried about the things that you worry about. and getting it wrong, and especially ours. We think it's really important, and we take things out when things are wrong and fix them all the time. Anyway, if you've got a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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57:54One big question I've got is why, in 2025, are late-night TV shows, like Jimmy Kimmel's show, still on TV? Even in our diminished times, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, they're just some of the biggest faces of their networks. If you start taking the biggest faces off your networks, you might save some nickels and dimes. but what are you even anymore? What even is your brand anymore? I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels. And that was James Ponowozik, the TV critic for the New York Times. This week, we're talking about Trump and Kimmel, free speech, and a TV format that's remained surprisingly durable for now.

58:38That's This Week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

58:48Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Well, okay, so collectively we're disappointed in the lack of leadership, spine, testicles, manhood that is being represented by our tech leaders not standing up for the American values they've benefited so greatly from. Having said that, just looking at it very unemotionally, the AI company of 2025 is going to be meta. and if you look at the kind of grist or the fossil fuel for AI, it's raw training data. And Meta has more unique human language data than Google, Reddit, Wikipedia, and X combined because of the amount of time and content on it. In terms of attention, 9 out of 10 internet users, SANS China, are active on Meta platforms monthly.

59:37And in terms of compute, get this, Meta has purchased more NVIDIA Hopper GPUs, the latest and most advanced AI hardware, than any U.S. company other than Microsoft, giving it unmatched AI training and deployment capacity. And you're also going to love this one. And I just want to acknowledge this. While we were early and I think right around, mixed around VR headsets, you know what the tech product of 2025 is? No, what is it? Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses. They're sold out in the majority of stores in Europe. They have greater margins. They retail for 300 bucks. They look good. The Financial Times reported that Meta plans add a small display to the Ray-Bans in 2025.

1:00:24The display would likely be used to show notifications or responses for Meta's virtual assistant. The tens of billions of dollars of investing and the steadfast commitment he's had to technology, micro cameras, and VR, when you match their data, when you match their consumer interface, when you match their GPUs that they're purchasing, and you match their progress in smart glasses or hardware, I think that the AI company of 2025 is going to be meta. I think this guy is really fucking smart. All right. You know what he is, but he's an asshole. The thing that I think is going to, might happen, and I know you like to insult Apple, is they too have a lot of great stuff.

1:01:09I think, as you say, the second bird gets the worm, whatever. What's your expression? Second mouse gets the cheese. Mouse gets the cheese. They'll come in with a glasses that's better looking, better done, possibly, and hopefully do that. They've done that a number of times and used all the experience they've had with their stuff and created glasses that are – and by the way, I like the meta ones. They have limited use, but I like the use that they have, if that makes sense. And I like that it has limited use. But I feel like Apple could possibly come in here and grab it from them if they wanted.

1:01:41Well, that's what they do. But I just look at the data. I look at the investment he's making. It's a lot of money to spend on glasses, though. The data they have, the money he's spending on GPUs, and the access, the consumer access they have. And I just thought, oh, my gosh, this guy is playing chess. Anyways, that's my prediction. Do you have any? No, I don't. I don't have a prediction right now. By the way, people really enjoyed our debate about the post, so we'll do some more of it as it moves forward. As it moves forward. I want to run the style section. Can I run the fashion section or the style section?

1:02:16Yes, 100 fucking percent, Scott. No, I'll do the movie reviews. Yes. I'll do the TV reviews. Yes, anything Scott wants. That's how I'll say it. Scott's part of the package. Oh, thanks. I like it. I'm on board then. I hope it works out for you. It's a great idea. I'm on my seventh billionaire, and they all kind of like it. I'm just telling you. I'm in for$30 ,000. Okay. If I don't get through to Jeff, I'm getting through to Lauren. I'm going to somehow finagle a lunch with Lauren because I think she's the brains of the operation. Lauren, you're the brains of the operation. We all know it. Anyway, that's the show.

1:02:45elsewhere in the Scott and Kara universe this week. As he mentioned, Scott kicked off the year with Ian Bremmer to discuss the geopolitical state of play and the top risks for 2025. Let's listen. The U.S. in particular has just fundamentally rejected the idea that we're going to be global leaders supporting rule of law and multilateral institutions. It's America first, baby. It's our way or the highway. And we're going to tell other countries that you're going to work with us and do the things we want our way, or there's going to be hell to pay. And so, yeah, that sounds a lot like a reversion to the law of the jungle, that the powerful and strongest countries and people get to do what they want.

1:03:29Scott, that sounds like a great interview. Sounds really nice. Really well done. I love Ian. Yeah. And his and my back and forth actually got quite salty over Israel, but we're friends and he and I have a similar relationship to you and that is we can disagree and still like each other. But I'm a big fan. He's my Alec Baldwin. Alec Baldwin has hosted SNL 17 times and Ian has now been on Prop G eight times. Yeah, he's a good perian thruster with you, so to speak. I mean, I'm not that sexual in any way. I know. Perian thruster. It's a little hot. I don't know what that means. A little hot, a little hot.

1:04:05It's a little bit of a strap on. Where's the battery going, the perian thruster? No, I'm talking about sword fighting. Keep your mind out of the gutter. I hope your breath work went well with him. Anyway, you can find the rest of that interview over at the Prof G pod. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. And again, to the people of Los Angeles, I love Los Angeles. And so does Scott. And I just want to note that California, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, everything else contributes so much to this country. It's a giver state. Great point. You should worry about wither California and stop dunking on it because it's a giver state.

1:04:41Lots of red states are not. And so you should hope that everything goes well in Los Angeles and everybody else. We contribute so much to this economy. Such an important thing. You should get in there and help and do whatever you can to help the citizens there. We're really sorry for what's happening there. So, God, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neyman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and Jatot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Jubiroz, Amir Saverio, and Dan Shulan. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

1:05:10Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.