Meta's Stock Surge, Biden's Economy, and Guest Denise Hamilton

24:45Let's listen to what he has to say. We have a strong economy. Growth is going on at a solid pace. The labor market is strong, 3.7 percent unemployment. With the economy strong like that, we feel like we can approach the question of when to begin to reduce interest rates carefully. And we want to see more evidence that inflation is moving sustainably down to 2%. We have some confidence in that. Our confidence is rising. We just want some more confidence before we take that very important step of beginning to cut interest rates. So we'll get to what – that Joe Biden is still not getting credit, though he did rather well in South Carolina, a lot better than people thought.

25:29What do you think are your numbers and what do you think of what Powell said first? Well, I mean, let's just review. Biden summarized it. The US is the strongest economy in the world. Let's just talk about jobs created by president. Joe Biden, in three years, his administration has overseen the creation of 14.8 million jobs. Okay, well, it's not jobs. That must be inflation. They're handling the economy. No, inflation is crashing faster than in any G7 economy. Well, what about China? He's not paying enough attention to China. China has lost 40 % of its stock market value in the last three years and has a 25 % unemployment rate across people under the age of 30.

26:07The problem, the issue is just as William Gibson said, the future is here, it's not evenly distributed. The prosperity here is unprecedented, but in America, it's not evenly distributed. And so much of this prosperity continues to be crammed into the top 1%, if maybe not the top 10%, that the lower 90 doesn't feel, doesn't sense this prosperity, and this is about a real need for systemic change around tax policy, around leveling up young people, around stopping the generational theft where the average person under the age of 40 is 24 % less wealthy. The pie is growing faster than any nation in the world, but we keep deciding to give more and more of the pie to a smaller group of people.

26:53And then every day, these algorithms shoved their lack of success in their face. What, you're not on a jet? What, you don't have amazing abs? You're not making millions of dollars trading stocks? Well, you're a fucking failure, and people feel a lot of shame. But the numbers don't lie. Relative to any nation, any nation, we have the strongest economy on multiple dimensions. So why isn't Biden getting the credit? Let's talk a little bit about that. The latest NBC News poll shows Trump with a 22 percent advantage over Biden on the question of which candidate would do a better job handling the economy.

27:27By the way, Trump is taking credit for this economy inexplicably. And some reporters, Maria Bartirone, possibly the worst interviewer in history, was letting him do that. Why do you think he's not getting credit and what should Biden be telling voters? Now, let me just say, every time these polls come out, he tends to do 30 to 40 percent better. That said, this is an NBC poll that showed him up on Trump a lot in the last election cycle. One strategy we're starting to see Biden taking aim at grocery chains and other companies keeping food prices high, which they are. Talk about that. What are your thoughts on how he gets credit for what is clearly a Joe Biden economy?

28:10But we've lost trust in our institutions. So when the Labor Department of Labor and Bureau of Statistics comes out with these numbers, they don't trust it. They trust their feelings. Well, Fox is telling me that the economy sucks and maybe I don't feel the same uplift. And while I've got while I've registered a six or an eight or a 10 percent increase in my salary, that's because I'm awesome. But but diapers are more expensive. That's the president's fault. Everything has become, I feel like people don't even make really decisions anymore, that 45 % on the right and 45 % on the left see all decisions through the lens of their political party.

28:45When Trump was elected president, Republicans, the day he was inaugurated, said the economy was doing better. And then Democrats are equally biased. When Biden was elected, they all of a sudden decided the economy was doing really well. There's a lack of faith in institutions and in data. And this is on a broader level. That's what's so fucking scary about what's going on, because the playbook of moving to fascism is don't trust the academics. Don't trust the experts. Don't trust the data. Certainly don't trust journalists. Trust your emotions and your feelings and who makes you feel the best.

29:18There used to be a time when at one point, all legislators on both sides of the aisle would wait till the data came in, and then they would defer to the data. Right. Yeah, they don't now. They're immediately. Yeah, the idea of it still sucks has got to go on with the Republicans. They can't because it looks like it's going to break right. The good feelings are going to break right when the election's happening for Biden, which is interesting. Like, that's the issue. This is a lagging indicator, right? People suddenly feel better, even though they should feel, money should feel better now. They're not going to for a couple of months.

29:53And then they will. Then they will when the housing market breaks a little bit. We were guilty of it when Trump was president. When Trump was elected, no joke, the next day, I sold, I think, almost all of my stocks. I'm like, this guy's a fucking idiot and an autocrat. That's not going to be good for the markets. And the reality is the stock market boom that year. Unemployment among non-whites hit record lows during his administration. administration. Tax breaks. And yeah, you could argue, well, it was deficit spending. I mean, we're all going to decide how to interpret the data based on our emotion.

30:28And instead, we should, you know, we need to, and I don't know how you teach this in school, critical thinking, your emotions need to be, I don't want to call it filtered, but they need to be checked in a sober analysis of the data, regardless of whether it comports your narrative or not. Yep. Agreed. Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Metastalk surges to a record high and we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Denise Hamilton, about what people are getting wrong about DEI.

30:58There is a lot to talk about when we talk about Donald Trump and Jimmy Kimmel. One 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.

31:47That's This Week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

31:55Scott, we're back. Meta has been done. Wall Street's top comeback kid after its fourth quarter earnings report showed profits have tripled. The news sent Meta stock rising 20 % on Friday, closing at an all-time high. The stock surged and added some$200 billion to Meta's market value and increased Mark Zuckerberg's net worth by more than$28 billion. The company also announced it's paying its first ever dividend. That's an old company thing to do at 50 cents a share, probably smart, and revealed plans for a$50 billion stock buyback. It doesn't know what to do with all the money it made. You're not surprised to see Meta doing this well.

32:30success is being attributed to a rebound in digital ads, as well as optimism over its investments in AI and probably getting out of the metaverse. We're also seeing, and quickly, we're also seeing the impact of Mark Zuckerberg's so-called, quote, year of efficiency with cost cutting measures and included reducing the company's headcount by 22%. If you're a meta investor, does the profitability outweigh the regulatory and safety concerns, which were there, yet not a great performance on the Hill? And what about the momentum? Tell me about what you think about that? Well, if we're just going to be capitalists here, this is nothing short of remarkable.

33:04And the number that stuck out to me are the numbers. This is a company that is an information age company. The majority of their costs are people. They pay their people really well. That's their biggest expense line is people. Their headcount decreased 22 % over the last 12 months. If you read that, you'd be like, oh shit, this company is in massive structural decline. companies that are really struggling. I mean, Ford and GM, the year before they went bankrupt, they didn't lay off 22 % of their workforce. But wait, what makes this historic? They grew the revenue. The year they laid off 22 % of their people, they grew their revenue 16%, which resulted in this nitroglycerin of reduced costs while maintaining revenue growth of an explosion in net income of 62%.

33:55In addition, on a tactical level, Mark Zuckerberg said, okay, Tim Cook, you think you're going to sequester me from end consumers? I'm going to deploy AI and figure out a way to not only compensate for the decrease in effectiveness of the advertising that you have levied on me through my inability to track via iOS, I'm going to use AI to not only get back to level water. But now, supposedly, the ROI on ad dollars going through Meta are now 30 % more effective than pre-pandemic because of AI. And just to wrap this up, the tragedy here is the following. I feel like I know exactly what's going on at Meta.

34:36They have deployed their 600 plus strong, talented, well-paid public relations and comms people to say, circle the four corners of the earth and get everyone talking about what are historic earnings and wash over the fact that we continue to create massive despair and death across households with teens across America. We need to bury that story. And here's what's going to happen. America is going to be much more obsessed and talk more about profits than the death and despair of teens because in America, we have opted for capitalism over the health of our children. So I look at this and think it is both, I can appreciate how amazing it is through the lens of someone who's a capitalist, is very focused on economic security.

35:25I think it's an amazing thing to build for other people. I think it's one of the things that make America great. The problem is it's wallpapering over our children's mental health. Yes, indeed. Yes. And that was a bad performance he had on the Hill. He did. He just was, as you know, neither of us have any affection for the politics, politicians who could have done something about it. But he didn't look good. It wasn't a good look, but it reminded people of what he had done. Just so people to be aware, Mark and Meta hit another milestone, Facebook turning 20 this week. He posted about the anniversary, Zuckerberg did, on Facebook, of course, with a look-back video, noting in part the best is yet to come.

36:05What an incredibly creative thing to think of. I have been there all the 20 years. And just so you know, my book is coming out in a few short weeks. Mark Zuckerberg has a big character in it. I have had some memorable interactions with him over those years, including in the early years. One of the stories I have in the book is the first thing he said to me was, so you think I'm an asshole. And so I don't think you're an asshole, Mark, but you're a lot of other things I don't like so much. And I do give you kudos for your capitalistic strategery. You're very good at it. You're good at business, Mark Zuckerberg, and ability to pivot away from really some heinous stuff that your company's responsible for.

36:45I mean, he seems reinvigorated. He seems reengaged. Where do you think Meta's going to be in the next 20 years, Scott Gallery? And how are you? You bought that stock last year. How are you looking at them as a company? No, I divested of Meta several years ago because people started correctly pointing out that I should post the company and say they're bad for children. But you bought theirs. You recommended their stock. It was my number one stock pick for 2023. But you bought their stock. Is that right? No, I didn't buy. I didn't buy. Got it. Yeah. I just said when the stock was at 80 bucks, it's been oversold.

37:14And regardless of these ridiculous consensual hallucination called the Reality Labs, the cash volcano that is Instagram and will at some point be WhatsApp and the core platform, it's been totally oversold. And what is it at? 400 now? Anyway, but I didn't participate personally in that. I will never own this stock. I think that, and I've said this, I think Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg will go down in history as two people who've created more despair and depression across children than two individuals. And as we've said, they're culpable, but they're not the culprits. It really represents a breakdown in what our elected officials are supposed to do.

37:50Meta as a whole is the most successful product thing, invention, innovation in the history of mankind. It's the most successful thing that has ever been launched. He is arguably, unfortunately, because I think that in America, people, good people, and he might be a good person, have an incredible ability to rationalize the damage they're doing for as long as they can, because America has essentially forgives everyone as long as you're rich and as long as you don't break laws. But I think Mark Zuckerberg is probably, I mean, there's so many incredible business minds out there. Ted Saranda, Satya Nadella, Tim Cook.

38:24I mean, these people are just, these people are brilliant. And they not only are big thinkers, they are operationally outstanding. They understand people, they understand management, they understand communications. Mark Zuckerberg, I would argue, is probably the premier. So where is he? We're 20 years, 20 years. I have no fucking idea. He's 20 years in. 20 years is too long. No fucking idea. 20 years, who knows? 20 years is too long. Yeah. WhatsApp. I think WhatsApp will be their growth vehicle for the next 10 years, is what I would say. What do you think? Okay. I think he's run laps around all these executives, even better products.

38:59Snap just announced plants to lay up 10 % of its global workforce, around 529 employees. Shares are up for doing that because the cost cutting is a good thing. And they already had done some. But he's running laps around everyone. I do think Snap's a better product. But he's starting to make decent products, really good. Instagram, it was a smart buy. I think Threads is quite good. I think it's getting better. He's getting better. It's getting better. He just is. The products are getting better. but you're 100 % right. They're responsible. He continues to not be as concerned with the impact of his products as he needs to be and thoughtful about it.

39:38He should know by now and should, they're so scared of liability and everything else that they refuse to step up and be, it's his time to, Bill Gates did it, turned himself around a little bit, not totally by the way, but it's his moment to sort of start to take responsibility for what he's doing. I don't think he's going to be do a Bezos and go off on and like be the best ad for midlife crisis ever. But he hasn't he's an opportunity to be a leader. I think he does. I think he does. And I think he's capable of it. I've never thought he was as villainous a figure as others have become. But I think he he can he can take responsibility and I wish he would.

40:21And that's not me believing he will because I don't think he will. So we'll see. My pushback here and we talked about this in the last episode, but quickly, I think supposedly Goebbels had real regrets. It didn't fucking matter. It didn't matter that he had real regrets. Yes. Got it. I got it. This guy's doing a lot of damage. He is. And thinking that someday his better angels will show up. The allied forces, the P-51s, the fighting force, the invading army we need has to be our lawmakers. All right. Great. Agree. But worrying about whether or not on his deathbed he has a moment of clarity around the incredible harm he's done, I don't give a shit.

41:00We want the Marines to move in on this motherfucker. And they're our elected representatives. I agree. I agree. You know what? In my book, I call him the most carelessly dangerous person in the history of tech. So I hope that's enough. Anyway, let us get to our friend of Pivot.

41:24Denise Hamilton is an inclusion strategist and author of Indivisible, How to Forge Our Differences into a Stronger Future. Adam Grant insisted I have you on the podcast, Denise, and said you're brilliant. Welcome. Thank you for coming. Thank you so much for having me. No problem. I want to explain what an inclusion strategist does. It's kind of one of those words that Scott might make fun of in a sentence in a minute, but go ahead, go ahead. He has lots of questions here. Yeah, I think that just because you know how to sell sprockets, it doesn't necessarily mean you know how to address issues of inclusion in your organization.

42:04So I actually help leaders operationalize DEI goals, like make them real, right? I have the fiduciary experience and the business experience to know that sometimes our objectives and our values don't always align. And so how do you make it actually happen in a way that's executable and can show demonstrable results? Right. So in the book, you acknowledge that we have outgrown, you say, quote, we have outgrown the language of DEI. Talk about a more effective approach because you also write many organizations have confused DEI with public relations. I think it is something Scott talks about. So talk about that idea of the language and what would be a more effective approach.

42:46Yeah, I think we say things, I mean, what does it mean to be diverse? Diverse from who? Equal to who? Included by who? We still center one group and kind of everybody's scratching and clawing and trying to get to the middle. And I kind of feel like there is no middle. There's no hierarchy. There's no caste system. At least there shouldn't be. So if we could remove that language and just kind of move to a space of like, what is the actual goal? And in my opinion, the actual goal is to be indivisible, to have an environment where giftedness is allowed to emerge. We remove artificial barriers, whether intentional or unintentional, to make sure that we have the best opportunities.

43:29I have this like recurring nightmare that the cure for cancer has already been born. It was just born in the wrong neighborhood. And so we as a, as a, as humanity, as society are not getting to benefit from the gifts of all of the members of our society. And so you're using the greed argument, like, hey, it's going to be better for the organization. Well, it's better for humanity. I know that we have, we kind of forum shopped, right? And I think the workplace and schools are the places that people meet. We're still largely segregated in our private lives. So we meet in these two forums. And so they become like the test labs for all of these conversations.

44:10But they're really just a few of the spaces that these topics come up. These topics are about life. They're not about, you know, the bottom line. But I think if an organization is investing resources, they want to see that there's a return on that investment. And so how do we kind of make all of that work? I think it's really tricky. It's really tricky. Nice to meet you, Denise.

45:03and define our success or lack thereof around diversity? I think that we're still figuring that out. You know, one thing that we don't really talk about in this conversation is that it's still relatively new. We're negotiating, we're figuring it out. One thing we're all, I hope, clear on is we can't keep going the way we've been going, right? So I think as we move forward, we need everybody at the table to say, what does forward look like, right? Because I don't think we're sure about that. But I think that there's an opportunity that we have when we talk about these topics to determine together what that looks like.

45:44And I think nobody wants ideas to be superimposed on them. You know, they want to be a part of the discussion. And so when I think about like, what does the right mix look like? Even that framing, I kind of resist because it means kind of an artificial target. That's why I wrote the book. That's why I'm trying to introduce this different concept. What is optimal for our country? That's what I want to understand. I don't want a permanent underclass. I don't want structures that don't allow our actual problems to get the attention they need to get. I don't want people who have gifts for those gifts to be lying fallow because of unreasonable barriers.

46:31So for me, it's not a Noah's Ark approach of two of each kind in the space. It's creating the actual platform for people to thrive and succeed. And we're going to disagree about some of those tactics. But there are tactics. I think well-intentioned people can completely disagree about tools and tactics, but we have to be clear about the goal. And the goal has to be this method of operation that is better than what we're doing right now. So there's been a lot of debate. Mark Cuban's been very out front talking about it, I think, in the way you're talking about it, in that it's good for my business.

47:10I can tell you what happened with me, and here's how I look at it, which is a very different way. And the right has, of course, taken it and used it as a backlash on college campuses and corporate America on social media. And they're using it as sort of a boogeyman kind of thing. Like, what do they get wrong about DEI? Because there's proposals aimed at limiting any DEI programs on college campuses have been introduced in 21 states since 2021, according to Axios. How do you change that conversation? Mark certainly is trying to change it, talking about what you're talking about. But the right has gotten a lot of mileage out of this.

47:46Yeah, I think I would say instead of banning books, start reading them. I think that this is we've done this before. The same people that are quoting Martin Luther King Jr. today, you know, would have disapproved of him. So I think it's really easy to think that in these historical moments, we would have been very different. I would have stood up. I would have fought for equality. I wouldn't have been in the crowd yelling at six-year-old Ruby Bridges when she was walking into that school with guards on either side of her. I would have been different. But here we are. This is our generation's opportunity to test where we would have been.

48:27Do we want an equal playing field or not? And I think sometimes we get in trouble. We use these unusually aberrant situations as test cases. You know, Scott, you and I have something deeply in common. When people ask me what I think about college campuses and what's going on in college campuses, I tend to tap out of the conversation because I don't think it's a real conversation. I don't think Harvard's a school. I think Harvard's a portkey, right? And for those of us who don't follow Harry Potter references, a portkey was a magical object that you could touch and it could transport you to a different place.

49:15Everybody wants to touch the Harvard portkey to be transported to the highest levels of American society. It's not real. If it was a school, it wouldn't have 1 ,500 students taken in a year. If it was about educating the best and brightest, there would be a Harvard Houston or a Harvard Atlanta because they've got enough money to do it. Right. But that's not what it is. What it is, is a way to access the top next level. So how do you layer like what's right on top of a foundation that's kind of so wrong? I think it's important we distinguish between the DEI effectiveness and efforts between what's happened on university campuses and corporations.

49:58I would argue the former has gone too far and accidentally the snake is eating its own tail and has resulted in instances of racism. Whereas I think DEI still has a long way to go in the corporate world. There's, you know, there's too many pale males on the boards I'm on. I just inevitably I find that. And then I think, well, is it really about race? So what I'd like to know is, do you ever, if I look at the hard metrics around who's getting entry into, I bet, the kind of companies that hire you that are likely, I won't call them progressive, but evolved, concerned about these issues, oftentimes the most underrepresented group are non-college graduate white males from red states.

50:36that who is, if you look at Asians are overrepresented in these companies right now, women are overrepresented. Have you ever, or have you ever seen a DEI initiative that says we need to do a better job of reaching into non-college, red state, white males? I've never had, I've never seen that as a recommendation coming out of DEI. Even if you look at the metrics, that would indicate that that's the group that quite frankly is underrepresented in our most profitable companies? Well, I live in Texas and I work in, I work with the late adopter organizations. I work with some progressive organizations, but the vast majority of my practice is oil and gas, is finance, is commercial real estate, because I think that we have to bring everyone along.

51:24And I know a lot of, there's a lot of practitioners that don't work with these populations because it can, these environments can be really tough because of what you're talking about. But I will also say those populations are what give me the kind of optimism and faith to keep going and doing this work because I see the effort. I'm kind of a secret weapon of CEOs. I'm passed around by people who have really good intentions, but they don't know how to do it. And I think very often, to your point, we can be exclusionary in some of our speech and some of the approaches taken. And I think there are a number of different places that we need to include and invite people into these conversations.

52:12And I think the calculus, quite frankly, is different for white men in organizations. I think it's a different cost to kind of, there's a humbling of yourself when you're a woman or a person of color and you move into these spaces. You kind of, it's okay for you to say, this is hard, this is challenging for me. It's a little different when you're a white male going into these spaces and you're low income. You're expected to like jump on the ramp. I even share a story in the book about a gentleman that was promoted into leadership in his organization. And he had to travel for business, but he didn't have a personal credit card.

52:50So he's gone for weeks at a time and literally his family at home can't pay rent because he has so many company expenses and the company hasn't reimbursed him for his expenses. He literally thinks he has to quit this job because he can't afford to do the job. And so we talked with him and he raised that issue to management and they changed the policy because they didn't realize that they were really making this job incredibly hard for the lower income employees in their organization. But you just, just to press pause, you invoked MLK and MLK said something I thought was really powerful. And he said that we need to bring along the white poor because if we don't, they're going to resent people of color and it's going to create further division and we're never going to come together as a country.

53:39Do you think that when you're talking coaching CEOs, do you talk about, well, let me put forward a thesis, that a better metric for diversity is trying to find good people who have come from lower income backgrounds as opposed to using other metrics? What are your thoughts on using that as a metric? I think that it's one metric. I don't think it's the metric. And I'm always careful about better metric, right? Because I think if you've read Isabel Wilkerson's incredible book, Cast, or seen the movie Origin, there is a caste system that we don't talk about, but that is present in our society. And I'm very careful about limiting successful Blacks.

54:22There's a discussion of like, well, this person is successful. They don't need this support. These kids come from a successful—their parents are successful. They don't need that support. Well, why? Does Jared Kushner get that support? Do rich white students get that support all the time? Right. So I'm very careful about things that kind of inject or reinforce what I perceive as a caste element. I think I come from a low income background. Right. I know the experience of trying to navigate these really difficult environments as a complete stranger. So I think it's a metric. But I also think in the United States of America, the exclusion around race was so profound for so long that I don't think you can be intentionally exclusive for hundreds of years and then be accidentally inclusive.

55:13If we just make it class, then everything else will work itself out. I don't necessarily believe in that, but I will say this. I'm listening, right? Like I'm open to that argument and that discussion, but I do have real concerns. So I have just one more question. What advice would you give to a CEO or college president right now, given how tense everything when it comes to just call it something else like hot dogs or something else, make up a new name? It's so weird, right? We're going to do hot dogs now. Everyone likes a hot dog. Whatever. I don't know. Could you have to just change the name because it's been so sullied?

55:53I think we've seen an intentional bastardization of all language that is related to this subject. We can't even define what DEI is. If you stop a thousand people, you're going to get a thousand different directions because intentionally the language has been altered. I'm of the opinion. I do the long game of history, right? And I'm seeing people changing the names, changing the sections or changing the class names or making the club a different name. I mean, we can do that. I think that we need to, I think we've lost the plot. And I think we need to recommit honestly to what it is we're trying to accomplish.

56:38and also be clear of the temptation of the status quo. You know, our stories, they just don't let us go easily. We like our stories. We like the status quo. We like the way it is. We say we don't, but we do. And so we've got to, I think, step into the space of really challenging what the belief systems are that are going to animate us in the next generation. I feel like it's our generation's turn to write the next chapter of the American story. And it shouldn't be a rehashing of chapter seven or eight. It should be something new or something better, something more incredible. And we have to do that together.

57:19We cannot have, you know - But there's no question. It's really radioactive to a lot of people I talk to. It's like, oh, I don't want to say a word. Yeah, but we've been here before. I mean, I don't know. I walk around the world. I always say I walk around the world with an inappropriate level of optimism. You know, I think the only people who change the world are the ones who think they can. Well, you're working with oil and gas people. So I assume you are. I assume you are. That must be experience. Scott, last question. So I, like you, came from a low-income household and I benefited from affirmative action in the form of Pell Grants and admissions directors who I think gave me an unfair advantage because of my background.

57:59And it was life-changing for me. So as someone who came from a low-income background, what institutions or programs really benefited you as a means of trying to identify what works? Oh, goodness. What a great question. I think that any program that really created mentorship, where it's people to people, where someone actually said, this is the path, this is the direction. That's the saddest thing about the attack on DEI for me, is that for a lot of people, they don't speak the language of elite spaces. They just don't speak the language. And so many of these programs really support people in navigating the difficulty and sometimes the toxicity of those environments.

58:44Those programs were critical for me. They were critical. They're why I'm sitting here right now, you know, because somebody said, Denise, go this way, not that way. And I hope that people invest themselves into these processes. We've outsourced culture kind of to a small group of people on both sides. And I think what I'd like to see is to have people step into their responsibility for what the next decade looks like. So I will say this, and I think it's really important to say, you know, I always use the metaphor of we've inherited an old house. It's got great bones. That's the use in our origins.

59:31It's that's the one. Yeah, well, it's a little different. Is that the foundation has settled and it's crooked now. All the lines are kind of crooked and you want to hang a gallery wall, right? And you have two choices. You can get a level out and you can hang all the pictures straight. but it won't look straight. Or you can eyeball it against the crooked ceiling and you can hang the pictures so they look straight. I think we've got to decide if we want it to look straight or if we want it to be straight. And to do that, we've got to address the foundation. And we've got to start thinking about the why we do the things we do.

1:00:10All right. On that note, I love a good hardware metaphor, as you know, as a lesbian. Anyway, Anyway, Denise, thank you so much. And again, the book is Indivisible, How to Forge Our Differences into a Stronger Future. We like an optimist. We do. Scott's an optimist, a secret optimist. Thanks, Denise. Thank you so much. Nice meeting you. Don't you love an optimist, a realistic optimist, anyway? Yeah, but just on one of the points that I think bears repeating, because I think people are conflating DEI in the private sector with DEI on campuses. And I think there's a huge distinction. corporations benefit from the fact there's this unifying theory called money they pursue profits and it's somewhat unifying and also i think with 51 of harvard's freshman class is non-white there's very few corporations that can boast 51 of senior management is non-white there's a huge difference and need i mean to just talk about dei in the context of all these The approach in the organizations, I think DEI is still very much warranted and has a long way to go in corporate America.

1:01:21I think it's gone too far in universities. And it bothers me when people just crudely reduce it to all DEI. I would agree. I would agree. It's a complex topic, as you noted. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

1:01:44okay scott let's hear some wins and fails you go first well the win is obviously lesbians once again they have triumphed um uh a true detective i think we're watching i think we're watching the same porn what's your win i know uh true detective amazing show jodie foster being straight on it is very disturbing it's really good it's so dark it's so dark but it's got such a lesbian vibe no matter how you slice it and then they pretend all these main characters are straight. They're deeply in love with each other. No, they're not. It's such a good show. It's so grim. It's so great. I watched episode one, and I wasn't into it.

1:02:21Does it get better? It gets grimmer. It certainly gets grimmer. Grimmer. Grimmer, grimmer, grimmer. Amanda was like, if this doesn't turn around, I'm not staying with it. I love it. I love it. But I would say Tracy Chapman on the Grammys last night and Brandi Carlisle. Tracy Chapman, that fucking song. I literally watched Luke Combs and her singing her song, Fast Car. I'm thrilled she's making dough from it. I felt like the world was healed for one second. Like, you know what I mean? Like, she's such a, she doesn't perform in public very much anymore. I interviewed her when she wasn't famous a long time ago at a festival called Sister Fire in Washington, but right before she She got really famous for that first album.

1:03:03And I got to say, between her and Joni Mitchell and Brandi Carlile, I was just, it was, I was like, and then you had last week with Robbie Kaplan winning the case. I was like, lesbians need to run the fucking show. That's what I decided. So wins for the lesbians everywhere. And Joni Mitchell's a lesbian adjacent. So I'll take it. I'll take it. In any case, really powerful. Lesbian adjacent. Does that mean she's one of the women who make out with another woman at a bar? No, leave Joni Mitchell alone. That was a beautiful rendition of Both Sides Now, which is a song. I'm not saying anything bad about Joni Mitchell.

1:03:40Okay, don't you dare. I have a Lesbro hoodie that I wear everywhere. I'm very down with the lesbians. You are. You are lesbian adjacent. You are lesbian adjacent, and I really value that. Le-jacent. Le-jacent. Le-jacent? Whatever. And I think the nonsense in Washington over this border deal, so ridiculous. They don't want to solve problems. Like we talk about with tech, they don't want to solve problems there. And Mr. Speaker of the House looks like he's his servant. It's just so Trump's servant. It's depressing. There's some real chance to make some headway here, even though we will never make headway, I feel, with this issue.

1:04:20But boy, are they just showing their true colors. You know how they say people begin to look like their dogs when they hang out? You and I are becoming the same person. This is no exaggeration. My win and fail are the exact same thing. So I'll try and put a different frame on it. My fail is this legislation that's, if you read the legislation around the border legislation, the immigration legislation, it's three different things. It's tied to Ukraine. It's tied to aid to Israel and then immigration reform or border security. You would think that it was a bill authored by Republicans and that there is no way Democrats would approve it.

1:05:00So some of the details, it would expedite the hearings to see who is in fact, who is in fact qualifies for asylum. If they don't, they get shipped back. There's absolutely no path to citizenship included in it. And it's a massive increase in border security. It feels very Republican, whether you like it or not. Joe Biden's taking a big risk here, big risk for Joe Biden from the left flank. The fact that it's being held up by a Republican Speaker of the House is so incredibly cynical solely because, nakedly because the president, the former president, wants it to be a campaign issue, despite it being bad for America to continue to have no immigration reform.

1:05:39It's also going to leave several hundred thousand Ukrainian soldiers who are risking their lives every day to protect the West from ammunition. They're essentially out of cash and ammunition. And unfortunately, this has been tied to that. This is ground zero for when government becomes ineffective. And because we have so many radicals on the left and the right and they haven't served in public service, and because there are no term limits, because there is no rank choice voting to have moderates, We have a bunch of zealots who refuse to get along with each other, who devote the majority of their energy not to helping America, but making the other side look bad.

1:06:16This is, God, it's just so discouraging. I really hope that people call their congressperson. Let's be clear. The left is not blocking this as much as the right. This is crazy. I call Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. My new name for him is Little Tiny, but go ahead. Anyways, we share fail. My win's the same. I just thought we do a lot of shitposting of award shows. I thought there were so many incredible moments. You mentioned one. I thought for a moment, art really is healing or it can be. When I heard that song, it was so powerful with Tracer Chapman and Luke Combs. And I thought to myself, I hope that young people see that.

1:06:56And sometimes you need artistry for that. The distinctive what you see on cable television, distinctive what you see in your comments on social media, that the majority of people, regardless of their income, regardless of their sexual orientation, regardless of their politics, get along. You know, most of us get along. I mean, can you imagine two more different people, Luke Combs and Tracy Chapman? And you just got the sense that like they could come together and do something wonderful together. Most people get along. The moment I loved was Miley Cyrus. Oh, she's great. Also lesbian adjacent. I was so happy for her.

1:07:38I think she has an unbelievable voice. And I was also happy, and I'll finish off here. I was happy to see Taylor Swift, first artist in history to have album of the year for a time in the world. And the only thing I don't get, I don't love her music. I could do without the pans to her reaction in a football game. but this coordinated attack on Taylor Swift that seems to be permeating our society, who exactly would you want better to be a role model for young women? You don't have to like her music. You can roll your eyes when you see her at an NFL game, but all these attacks on her, I was saying, I was just on this podcast that appeals to young men, and the guys sort of went off about Taylor Swift.

1:08:21I'm like, look, if Taylor Swift really triggers you, it probably means you have a problem with women on top. Because when Beckham dates Posh Spice, everyone loves it because they're famous, but they're not more famous or more powerful than him, so it's okay. When this thing erupts and the reality is as amazing as he is, she is a bigger influence and more powerful than him. And people just aren't down with that. If this really triggers you, It's not about Taylor Swift. It's about you. And also anyone with parents, didn't you? Again, Joni Mitchell is someone whose music I've never really appreciated.

1:09:02That was weird. A lot of people weighed in and started sending me clips of Joni Mitchell songs. But anyways, anyone who has parents, she was on stage belting out that song at 80. She's 80. I mean. But it was a really good show. I would recommend everybody watching every bit of clips from it because it was really, and the costumes were great. And you're right, Miley Cyrus is an unsung. She deserves much more for her talent. She's super fucking talented. But if you really need to like chill and feel better about your place in the world and the world's place in you, take five and a half minutes and listen to that Tracy Chapman.

1:09:38Yeah, Luke Combs, Fast Car. And Luke Combs. That song, Scott, that song, you know, for so many people, that album changed my life. That song changed my life. It's a beautiful album. But that song, I can't listen to it without having all kinds of feels, I got to say. I don't know why. I don't drive a fast car. I don't need a ticket out of here. Are you talking about a revolution? Oh, I love that song, too. I love that whole album. The whole album takes me back to my 20s. Sorry. All of it. That's a beautiful song. Everything she does. Takes me back to my 20s in a really fantastic, and sometimes sad way.

1:10:12It has a lot of feels. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. We also want more of your questions about gaming. We're going to talk about gaming. Scott has pointed this out. What a huge industry. We're going to cover that topic. And we'd like to hear what you'd like us to hear us cover on that topic. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. I'm actually going to use gaming on the Vision Pro as I test it. I'm going to learn how to do gaming because I haven't. And I'm going to do it. It's really good on it.

1:10:43It's really good. I was wondering if we go an episode without mentioning it. By the way, just a quick lesson, mini lesson for men out there. Make sure that you know how to use tools, but don't be the tool. I like that. I like that. Anyway, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday with more. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Under-Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mille Severio. Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

1:11:15Thank 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 later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Take five and a half minutes today. Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs. Fast car.