OpenAI Shake-Ups, Harris’s Economic Vision, and Meta's Big Show

24:55initiatives, you know, I got to tell you, I'm not sure what, I haven't done any reporting, so I don't know what's actually going on. But what do you think? What's your take? First off, Sam Altman is the business leader of this generation. And I think what this all comes down to, one, I appreciate that they're just sort of coming out of the closet and saying, we're a for-profit company. We always have been. Let's stop the nonsense. If you stab the prince, you better kill him. And all of these people, or at least some of them, were involved in the coup, fired him. And then he came back. And my guess is he said, okay, I'm going to stabilize everything and get everything.

25:29And the moment everything's stabilized and it looks like we're going to raise money at an enormous valuation. These people were on the green mile ever since he came back. You don't try and pull a coup. If you want to kill Erdogan, if you want to coup against Erdogan, you better make sure he's dead. Because if he survives the coup, you're going to be executed. And the notion that these folks weren't dead the moment he was reinstated as CEO is just laughable. Well, a lot of the employees backed him, and Mira did switch. Okay, switched? You mean after he came back? No, no, no, no. She was part of him also coming back, too.

26:06Like several of them, apparently she went and complained about him, but then she thought they used her complaints to try to kill him, which she didn't. She was just complaining about some of his ways, which he's very aggressive. And then, but he's been touting her. They've been making her the face of the company for the past year or so. I think it's natural when you go through something like this, that anyone that was involved, friendly or not, or thought they were doing the right thing for the company by creating this sort of chaos and not killing him, and he gets to come back, you're dead. You're dead.

26:40No matter how sorry you are and you changed your mind or you didn't have a role in, uh-uh, he's going to clean house. And he has the capital and the equity to get incredibly talented people. I don't think this is a threat to the company. I think these are very smart people. I like it in the sense that my guess is these folks will go start competitors that will be subscale and get squashed. Yeah, they have. Several of them have, as you know. You know, it's interesting because a lot of the people who were there at the beginning were indeed true believers in the safety thing, right? in the non-profit version of it.

27:12And they really were. Like when you talk to those people, they really have, it's a belief system with them. And I remember talking to Mira at one point and I was like, you know the money's gonna run everyone over. You get that. And she's like, no, we're here for this and good. And you know, very great, a good technologist. But I was like, I don't care, the money is too big. I was like, do you see how big that money is? It's gonna get bigger. It's there's no way these these capitalists, these very greedy capitalists aren't going to run everybody down. They're just I don't the money will win over everything.

27:45And I think that's really, you know, what's happened here. I'm trying to pull up this data. But basically, when you're talking about ChatGPT or OpenAI, I mean, just they are literally running away with it. And I hope there's other folks, but basically the monthly site visits to ChatGPT now are about the same and will blow by Amazon. They get 2.9 billion visits per month. Gemini, you know, Alphabet's offering an Alphabet. With all its advantages. That kind of probably arguably has more IP around this and sort of invented it. Is it 342 million? I mean, it's an eighth of it. And then the LLM I use, Claude from Anthropic, has$65 million.

28:37It's one-fortieth of the side. And then Mistral. And if you really look at the valuation— Why do you use Claude over—I'm just curious. I like it for writing. I find—I generally—so people are in the illusion that, okay, so I like to write. And I think, oh, great, I'll write my next book on masculinity using ChatGPT and Claude, and I will just get paid. No, that doesn't work. It spits back a chapter that is so anodyne and sterile and devoid of any. It's all chip no salsa, right? But it's a fantastic thought partner. Chip no salsa. It's true. It's just like, well, I could really use something on this.

29:13It's like, you know, it's just like, I don't know. You got some good ones today, Scott. Go ahead. Or, I don't know, it's like, I don't know, jerking off to primetime TV. It's just not really going to get you there. Oh, he's keeping going. Okay. Yeah. I don't know where I got that one. Anyways, it's very anodyne. I stole that word from you, but it's an amazing thought partner. And I find also what I use it for every week, my problem with my newsletter, No Mercy, No Malice, is I know it needs to be 1 ,500 words. I don't pay attention for longer than 1 ,500 or 2 ,000 words. I always end up somewhere between 2 ,200 and 2 ,500.

29:46And what I found they're great at is editing and reducing. I say, all right, take this from 2 ,200 to 1 ,800 words, punch it up, and where there's key points, where would I insert data. And then I'll go back and say, where did you cut and why? It's like, it's just having a great thought partner. And what I have found is around editing and looking at the written word, I like Claude's approach more. And when I say in the voice of Scott Galloway, it does more than just add in dick jokes. It adds in data, whereas ChatGPT just comes up with a dad joke. Oh, I see. Interesting. So for me, Claude, but most people say - So your data and dad jokes.

30:25There you go. Most people say, though, most people on my team say they use both, but they tend to defer to ChatGPT. And the new one is supposed to be amazing. The new one, and it's such a, I love the marketing gimmick where it takes longer to pretend it's thinking. That is such a jazz hand. Yeah, it's like that. It's like the car on Uber. Like, there's no car. So interesting. One of the things that, you know, I just think people are going to use these as they, I just interviewed Mustafa Suleiman, who's running Microsoft AI, which is, they just announced a whole bunch of co-pilot things that sound, I'm really excited to try.

31:01Like, it'll be interesting to see which ones work and which ones don't. And when you use the idea, when you just said that, that it's, basically, it's a good copy editor for you, for your use case. And one of the things I used to say, certain editors I had that weren't very good at different places I worked, I used to say, you have the soul of a copy editor. And I wasn't meaning it to be insulting, but I was like, you're just a copy. And I don't mean, I value copy editors, but it was a very valuable thing, but they thought they were more and they weren't, right? They just were good copy editors.

31:35and they didn't have that creativity. It's very hard to not make it dull. It requires humans still. I have not seen any of these things that make it better creatively. There's better ideas. There's better tightening I hadn't thought of, but it's the soul of a copy. 100%. I have, my team is constantly coming. I'll say to them, okay, I need you to write up, do a page on, And I think there's a great rotation coming out of flows of capital into mature markets, into emerging markets. And I want to look at the ratio between the MSCI for the world versus the U.S. to make my point. And they come back with a paragraph, two paragraphs.

32:16I'm like, okay, this was clearly written by AI. I want you to write it. And then I want you to use AI to edit it and come up with more examples. But AI can't be the source code. It can be. It can't be. It can be the seasoning. It can be the condiment. It can heat it up. It can make it more spicy. But you've got to scramble the eggs here. And you've got to make your points. Otherwise, it sounds like a fucking computer wrote it. Let me shift back to OpenAI. What do you think of this governance for this type of company? The way they're doing it is this for-profit benefit corporation. But it's essentially a for-profit company.

32:56Oh, stop it. The benefit corporation means they have to have certain goals. It's like all this bullshit invented by Union Square Ventures where they called it a for-benefit profit. You know, I'm going to give 1 % of profits in 10 years to save the whales or girls who can code. God, give me a fucking break. You're in the business of for—this is what you do, and you're good at it. And what we need to do is start taxing you more than the lowest tax rate since 1939. So that we can use the money to help girls and to help—yeah. Yeah. And then we'll have voters decide how to spend this money. I agree.

33:31I agree. I just want them to be a for-profit company. That's all. Just, yeah. And I appreciate they're kind of headed that way. And then have the government watch the troubles, the safety issues, have the government and the companies and advocates all decide on safety together. That's what I would prefer. But talking about valuation here, I mean, I just think it's just hilarious. I'm actually interviewing Lena Kahn later today. the notion that this isn't more concentrated i mean technologies a german sound sorry go ahead that was just what are you doing here see i'm they're coming for you scott go ahead sorry lean it on that's my favorite brand of marijuana it's called they're coming they're coming my second favorite edible gorilla panic that's the best that is the best name of an edible Anyways, or Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

34:22So let's go back to OpenAI and valuations. I just think it's just so ridiculous. All of these technologies have faster adoption and a leader and a monopoly player emerges faster now. And that monopoly player is OpenAI slash Microsoft. And also, it's the best investment. If you look at a multiple on revenues of these companies, right? Anthropic trades at 40 times. OpenAI, which has much more momentum and is the market leader, based on this$150 billion valuation they're supposedly raising at, is trading at 44 times. So now it's turned to hugging face, perplexity, and some other smaller players or emerging players in the space?

34:58They're raising money at 142, 150, and 157 times revenue. So my attitude is, if you can invest in the market leader that's running away with it at 44 times, that's where you want to put your money. And just to give you a sense of how expensive the entire space has become, publicly traded SaaS companies trade at six times revenues. And consumer companies - They're the old guard. Consumer companies trade - They're the cola guard, as they say. And consumer companies, even gray ones, trade at like 0.2 to two times. 0.2. Media companies, one and a half, right? Anyway, interesting. All right, well, we'll see what happens, Sam.

35:34I don't know who else is left to leave. I think that's about it. I think he's started really cleared up. He's gonna have no trouble finding really smart people. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Kamala Harris's economic vision and take a listener mail question about the growing role of private equity in businesses.

35:52There 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.

36:41That's This Week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

36:51Scott, we're back with our second big story. Vice President Kamala Harris laid out her vision for what she calls a pragmatic approach to the economy in a speech this week. Harris promised another new way forward. That's her expression she uses for the middle class and outlined plans for tax incentives to spur next generation industries. In a one on one interview with MSNBC's Stephanie Rule, the boss, Harris explained. Supreme Ruler. Supreme Ruler, Stephanie Ruler. Harris explained why she supports raising corporate taxes. Let's listen. But we're going to have to raise corporate taxes and we're going to have to raise, we're going to have to make sure that the biggest corporations and billionaires pay their fair share.

37:31That's just it. It's about paying their fair share. I am not mad at anyone for achieving success, but everyone should pay their fair share. And it is not right that the teachers and the firefighters that I meet every day across our country are paying a higher tax than the richest people in our country. Yeah, this is sort of Bernie Sanders-y, but, you know, I'm a capitalist butt. Talk a little bit about her plans and messaging here. I thought it was a very good interview. I think it started off slow for her, not for Stephanie. And then she got going, and I was like, oh. She finds her footing. She really does.

38:07It takes her like literally minute 16 is when she turns on. And then it was super interesting, I thought. I thought it was a very solid interview and good. It was one of the more – it wasn't all talking points at all. She pressed her where she's going to come up the money if the House and Senate turn Republican. How can you pay for these things? Talk to me about it and then we'll move on to Donald Trump. But I'd love to know your thoughts on her announcements. I am a capitalist, but I think is what I would call this. Yeah, look, corporations are paying their lowest tax rate, as we referenced here on the show, since 1939.

38:42The wealthiest Americans are not paying their fair share. I get the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren rant, but unfortunately, it just sounds like reheated Sanders and Warren populist rhetoric, even if it's right. Where I think she misses an opportunity here is to appeal. This is the problem. When someone starts saying we need to raise taxes on the rich, that's what people hear. People think, okay, I'm the head of M &A transactions for Skad and Arp. My husband is a very successful chiropractor with three clinics. We make two, three million bucks a year. We live in New York. We live in Manhattan in order to have these baller jobs.

39:20We're paying 52 % taxes. Yeah, welcome to Kara Swisher. And while no one feels sorry for me, I get it. I mean, Kara, you're probably paying 45, 48 % tax rates. And here's the thing. This is the nuance she should add that would make her argument so much more powerful. And by the way, she should say, the people who get most screwed are the people who play by the rules, work their asses off, and are super successful but are not billionaires. They're paying 50 cents on the dollar. Well, I think she was saying that billionaires and corporations. I think she was not saying. Billionaire has become code for everybody.

39:56I think she needs to outline specifically. Who she's talking about, yeah. I mean, here's the bottom line. If we talk about tax rates, that's a misdirect. It's not tax rates. It's the tax code. Because while people are supposed to pay in a progressive tax rate, as soon as they make the jump to light speed and no longer become earners but owners. Is that coming? They're coming for you. It's all coming. Anyway, I mentioned edibles and they used AI. Raid is room. Anyways, the people who get most screwed on our tax code, and no one has really captured this, and it'll resonate with a lot of people, is our workhorses.

40:40The people who've done really well and live in blue states. What tax rate do you pay, Scott Galloway? I've been very open about my tax rate. I've paid over the last 10 years a tax rate of 19%. So I have a self-imposed tax rate now of I take all the money I spend in a given year and I give that much or more away. Because I realize, I want to be clear, I take advantage of every loophole. 1202, when I sold my company, first$10 million were tax-free. Does that make any fucking sense? Does that make any sense? The answer is no. That makes no sense. There are the tax code has gone from 400 pages to 4 ,000.

41:17And trust me, folks, that incremental 3 ,600 is there to fuck the middle class. And the way that happens is wealthy people and corporations weaponize government and say, I got an idea. When someone sells real estate and it's a commercial property, let them roll that into another property without without recognizing a capital gain. I got an idea. I got an idea. If you start a company, the first 10 times your principal or the first 10 million are tax free. I got an idea. Opportunity zone. Let's help the poor. No, you're not helping the poor. You're helping rich. You invest in these areas or you invest in small business and you get to defer your taxes.

41:52And if you hold on to the stock for 10 years, you pay no taxes. It's the tax code. We could. It is amazing. When Donald Trump said, why shouldn't I take advantage of it? Everyone was mad. I'm like, well, why shouldn't he if they let him? That's the only thing I thought that he said was sensible. Greedy, fuck, but nonetheless sensible. I just listened to Suzanne Craig. We're going to get her on to pivot. And Ross Buettner wrote this book called Lucky Loser about Donald Trump's money. They're the ones that broke all those tax stories and everything else. Really amazing reporters from the New York Times.

42:25And they essentially said that. He took advantage of every single possible thing. And instead of being mad at him, be mad at the tax code, right? 100%. Now, he veered into other things where he said things were worth more than they were. But the whole system is designed to let him do that, right? To let him then violate real laws and stuff like that. Anyway. Once you make the jump to light speed and you can afford to have really talented people navigate your taxes. And by the way, I think just as prisoners of war have an obligation to escape, I think you have an obligation to your family and to pay the minimum amount of legally owned taxes.

43:05No one's going to say at your funeral, and you know what? What a great woman she was. She paid more than her fair share of taxes. No one's going to say that. What you need to do, though, is if you believe in a progressive society where the middle class isn't a naturally occurring organism, you've got to vote for people that are going to actually restore. We need an AMT. We need an alternative minimum tax that says above a million, two million, pick a high number, you pay at least 30 percent. Because here's the thing. No one loses anything. People above a certain amount of money, it doesn't reduce their happiness, but you can take that money and make a lot of people much, much happier.

43:36Well, let's talk about Donald Trump. He's been touting his own economic plans, which include courting foreign companies to set up factories in the U.S. with low taxes and little regulation. That's not a new, fresh thing. He also keeps talking tariffs. He needs to stop talking about tariffs. The latest, he said he was imposed 200 percent tariff on John Deere if it moves production to Mexico. This is, you know, he had talked about an infrastructure week that never happened. And that did happen under Joe Biden. What's interesting is Harris seems to be blunting his dominance on the economy. Now, the voters favor him on the economy, most polls because.

44:09And again, Suzanne Craig talked about this, this image of Trump versus the reality of Trump. He's not a very good business person. away from the tax stuff. He fails at businesses and overspends, et cetera. And this book is riveting in that regard. But he's losing. He still has the economic thing because of The Apprentice, probably. His lead is decreasing. Trump now averages a six percentage edge on the economy over Harris. It was a 12 point lead over Biden. She's really bringing it close, like bringing it much closer, which is a good thing for her. Because the two areas he wins on are immigration and economy.

44:45I mean, she wins on almost everything else. But she's going to the border again. She went to Republican voters in Pennsylvania this week who really appreciated meeting her. What do you think of his – I think if she can zero in on the tariff problem, which she did do in this interview with Stephanie, how dangerous this is and how they never did infrastructure week. It might really start to chip away even in the short amount of time left. The most profane word among citizens as it relates to an election and leadership is the I word, inflation. Inflation literally brings down societies and causes revolution because if the amount of money I'm making doesn't keep up with the increasing price of goods, I have to go from meat to no meat to potatoes to I can't afford to pay the tuition for my kids after school and people get really, really angry.

45:40And what I would do is I would just try and literally tattoo the guy with an inflation on his forehead and saying, OK, he's talking about tariffs that will double and triple the cost of items here. And at the same time, he wants to kick out people who are potentially here legally that are an unbelief. These are the most you are going to see rampant inflation with this guy. I would be all inflation all the time. The other thing that I think is going to help her that we're not talking about, Microsoft and I think a power authority are talking about restarting Three Mile Island. That's going to create billions of dollars in economic growth in Pennsylvania.

46:18It's going to create jobs. And it is happening in the right state at the right time. I would be literally, if I were Vice President Harris, I would be repelling down one of those water coolers at Three Mile Island and say, here I am. I love nuclear. I love, hello, Pennsylvania. I mean. And then she goes to the fracking facility. Yeah, and then I'd get, and then I'd go to an oil rig and say, on weekends and evenings, what do I like to do? I like to frack. I mean, I would be all over inflation, economic growth. I think she has a real powerful message here in contrast to him. I can't for the life of me understand what he's doing.

47:01But just going back to John Deere, I used to have the most amazing John Deere lawnmower, and I had something really weird happen. A frog jumped under the lawnmower, and it was terribly—he wanted to kermit suicide. Kermit suicide. Kermit. Oh, my God. I actually drove a John Deere tack—I mowed lawns when I was a kid. I mean, when I was a teenager. Did you really? I did that. For money. I love my tractor, my little John Deere tractor. It was a great little tractor. I did it with the regular manual mower. I cut out a stroke. My dad was like, it builds character. Jesus. Literally in the Ohio summer.

47:39That was my favorite job. It was so pleasurable to cut grass. You feel so good afterwards. I'm going to ignore every lesbian joke running through my head. I just don't say it, Scott. Don't say it. Okay. In any case, Kamala, start embracing just regular millionaires. rappel down a nuclear device or a nuclear tower. Hello, White House. Hello, White House. Hello, White House. We have your answers. Call us, Kamala. Don't call just Stephanie. I'm going to bring you to the White House. She wins. We're going to the White House. We're going to visit. We did already. We did that already. I don't know how I feel about that.

48:13I'm intimidated by the White House. I was intimidated when I went with you. You missed her the last time we were there. She ran right into her. You ran out. I know. I heard you guys basically hung out. We hung out because I'll just tell you, she's like, where's Scott? She did say, where's Scott? But nonetheless, I don't believe you. Did she really say that? She did. That was like he ran out because, you know, the White House isn't quite impressive in us. I don't believe I think you're being generous. Although I did have that succession deep moment when we're walking around this place. First off, the thing that struck me about that place is just how many badass men and women are walking around with machine guns.

48:46I mean, I feel like they could fight off the Russian army if they needed to. So the thing that my moment, though, my one moment was you see this crowd of people following a guy, this handsome guy who just looks like he'd be secretary of state. And it is Secretary Blinken. And this gaggle, this line, this running line in and around Secretary Blinken as he's moving to his next very important meeting. All of a sudden he stops and he's like, Kara! I don't wait in line. I don't wait in line. And you come over. And then he came over to me and he said, I saw you on Bill Maher, which was a nice moment for me.

49:23And then the line continued. But yeah, you're the definition of soft power. Anyway, let's pivot to a listener question.

49:37This question comes from Mark. Let's listen. Hello, Karen. Scott, this is Mark Lowenstein. I am a longtime industry analyst in the telecom space. I've enjoyed your show for years. And my question actually has to do with the role of private equity in our economy. It just seems lately that the headlines are all pointing to the negatives of private equity incursions into everything from doctor's practices to real estate to vet practices and so on. And it usually seems, you know, as amplified, for example, by the giant collapse of the Stuart healthcare system recently, usually it seems that the consumer is not at the winning end of these deals, ultimately, since these PE deals are so focused on cutting costs.

50:25So I'd love you to actually take a balanced approach and talk about the role of private equity in our economy and maybe enlighten us with some examples where private equity is actually playing a positive role. Maybe there's some examples or case studies you could discuss. Thanks so much. Ooh, he wants work from us. Yes, thanks, Mark. I'm not an expert here. I know Scott is much more, he's more involved with private equity companies. What is the area they've just moved into that people are a little nervous about? Oh, they're really big in roll-ups in healthcare, so dental clinics, dermatology clinics.

50:58Right, I get that. But there was another area where there hasn't been private equity that they may be allowing them into. I don't think they're legally prohibited from anything that's for sale. I don't see why they would be. Oh, sports teams. Sports teams. I think it was. Oh, yeah, they're moving in on sports teams. They're moving in on sports teams. That's what it is. To me, I'm not an expert in this. They're like the Borg. They'll just come wherever they can make money and cut costs. That's what they do. And their idea of themselves is that they're cleaning up the economy and cleaning out the bad fish, essentially, the dead fish.

51:27And that's good. That's a good thing, even if it ends up collapsing certain industries. Of course, most people have the opposite, that they're rapacious vultures taking all the good bits for themselves and leaving us with, you know, hollowed out cities and companies and et cetera, et cetera. I don't know, Scott, give a good example. Yeah, I don't buy the argument. I think it's populist bullshit. First off, let me acknowledge that any private equity partner, partner in a venture capital firm, partner in a hedge fund, there's absolutely no reason why they should get a lower tax rate on what is essentially a commission.

52:04The way it works in private equity and hedge funds is carried interest. The carried interest loophole, thanks to Kristen Sinema, where she wanted to support the private equity firms in her state, none. Again, I've always said this. It doesn't bother me that our elected representatives are whores. It bothers me what cheap whores they are. the but effectively what what these guys have figured out a way to do in hedge funds is if i sell if i buy a copier and i sell it for more um you know i get a commission and that is or you know if i sell something i get a commission i do a good job in private equity or venture capital if you make money for your investors even though you didn't put your own capital in you get long-term capital gains treatment it's called the carried interest loophole it's the The most insane, unfair part, the wealthiest, literally the wealthiest people in America pay lower taxes than people who get a commission or a tip or something on something else.

52:58So let me be clear. The compensation structure of these firms is totally fucked up. Having said that, coming in, I've worked with a lot of private equity firms. They come in, and you're right, they will cut costs. And a lot of times it doesn't work. And a lot of times and most times, it not only saves the company, makes it stronger and it makes the employees and the community and the people who stuck with it wealthier. In addition, private equity also invests. I co-invested with Apollo and Yahoo. They bought it from Verizon and they are proactively investing to try and give Yahoo a fighting chance of being one of the key players.

53:35And Yahoo has thrived under private equity ownership. So the notion that they're just these evil folks coming in, it's just not accurate. You might say, all right, there's tax loopholes we got to close here. But if you didn't have private equity out there, this is what would happen. The most immediate, if you put real taxes or prohibitions on what industry's private equity could go into, the guy, Craig Spodak in Delray, has the best dental practice. He will eventually get bought by private equity. His ability to retire, small business and medium-sized business owners will make a lot less money because they won't have these giant pools of capital coming to them saying, look, rather than operating one dental clinic in Del Rey, let's operate 50 of them.

54:17We can all have one marketing, one CFO. This place is going to make more money. You're going to sell me most but not all of this company. And we're all going to make a lot of money because we have the capital, the infrastructure, and the expertise to make this a more valuable, robust business. Are there examples of private equity bought purchase firms where they layer on too much debt, they take out their money and then basically let the company die? Yeah. That's a lot of movies, starting with Gordon Gekko, Wall Street. But that is not – a private equity player that comes in, these people aren't stupid.

54:49They're not going to just sell you the company at a price where you could just layer on a shit ton of debt. I remember talking to Jeff Bukas, the former CEO of Time Warner, and an offer was made for his company by a rival that we talk about a lot. And he said, no, I could go out and pay that just by borrowing debt. I'm not going to let you use my debt capacity to buy me out. So the notion that these companies get bought for a price where you could just go layer it with debt and then shut it down and the private equity players ride off into the sunset, that's just not economic reality here. So they play a valuable part of the ecosystem.

55:23They juice up the prices of asset owners and small and medium-sized businesses. They should just pay more taxes. I think we do get our visions from Hollywood, which finds the worst cases and portrays them that way. And obviously, there's been a lot of devastation individually, and it matters to everyone who's been devastated, right? But a lot of the times, they do grab things that are on their way down, right? On their way down. But not everything does need consolidation. But I'll give you one more quick example. A close friend of mine is the best cosmetic dentist in Los Angeles, David Frey. He did my veneers.

55:59And I don't know if you've noticed. I have a gorgeous smile, Cara. Your teeth look fantastic. I have a gorgeous smile. So, yeah, it's my best feature out of my sublime skin tone on the smile on my back with the tramp stamp. Anyways, he will eventually, his retirement is, he's at the age where he's got another 10 years left on his tires, tread on his tires. He will eventually sell, I would bet, to a private equity firm that will say, David, we want you to keep growing and we're going to do a better job of marketing. We understand technology. We can buy the best software around scheduling. Which he doesn't want to do.

56:30Which he doesn't know how to do and doesn't have the capital to do. It'll give him a retirement. It'll make sure that his business brings in more cosmetic dentists, more hiring. And the investors in the private equity firm, which largely consist of public pension funds, firemen, cops, widows, whatever, this is a key part of the economy. Yeah. Okay. All right. There we have it. Anyway, if you've got a question on 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.

57:32Please drink responsibly. Hard seltzer with flavors. 8 % alcohol by volume. White Claw Seltzer Works. Chicago, Illinois. Ford was built on the belief that the world doesn't get to decide what you're capable of. You do. So, ask yourself, can you or can't you? Can you load up a Ford F-150 and build your dream with sweat and steel? Can you chase thrills and conquer curves in a Mustang? Can you take a Bronco to where the map ends and adventure begins? Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right. Ready, set, forward.

58:13Okay, Scott, we're going to hear a prediction. I'm going to make one. Gene Smart is going to be brilliant, as well as Maya Rudolph on Saturday Night Live, which is premiering this week. 50th. Wow. 50th year. Incredible. Incredible. Lorne Michaels, you got to give it to him. You got to frigging give it to this guy. They have, you know, everyone's like, oh, it's not funny anymore. It's been very funny for 50 years. I mean, on the whole, like some bad stuff. But when you look at like the people that have gone through there, even, you know, there was one they were showing sort of 50 years of it. You just are astonished by the talent that's wandered through that place and left and come and gone and stuff like that.

58:49So it's going to be it's going to be a great show. I love Jean Smart and Maya Rudolph is going to make a great Kamala Harris. So I'm very excited. So it's your prediction. So my prediction is that gaming and casino companies and rehab clinics, which, by the way, are being rolled up by private equity, and Nova Nordisk and GLP-1 drugs are all going to boom and unfortunately reverse engineers to a pretty dark place. And that is, we are essentially, and I referenced this earlier in the program, we are using godlike technology to provide so much immediate DOPA to young people as their brains get wired that we set them up for a massive craving for DOPA, which makes them more prone to addiction.

59:28And now 12 % of boys and men over the age of 12 have a substance use disorder compared to 6.5 % of women and girls. Boys are especially vulnerable to this DOPA craving. And about one in 10 children who play video games show signs of addiction. And 50 % of American teenagers feel addicted to their mobile devices. Fast food triggers DOPA releases in the brain's reward system. And over a third of kids eat fast food every day. And there's a new study that just came out that shows when a state legalizes gambling, there are 25 % to 35 % more bankruptcies. And so what you have essentially is the brightest people in the world, the deepest resource people in the world are spending a lot of their time trying to get kids addicted to fast DOPA when they're young.

1:00:19And the downstream externalities are just going to be enormous. And what are we, I was thinking about this, what are we supposed to do as parents? Kind of our entire mission is to give them what I'll call SLOPA, and that is slow DOPA. And that is like, okay, I work out with my son. And I'm one of the most, I'm like, I was sold a bag of shit about this boarding school nonsense that he'd be home on weekends. My son is home 24 hours on the weekend. And it is like one of the worst thing that's happened to me. Anyways, it's, having said that, it's one of the nice things that's happened to him. But every night or almost every night, I try and get on FaceTime with him for seven or nine minutes.

1:00:56And I do like this mini CrossFit workout with him. And I just like seeing him. And he likes it because he's at the stage I was. And that is he keeps growing. And he's, you know, real thin. But he's starting to see muscles. And the whole idea is slow DOPA. Like, okay, you work hard, you work out every day, and in six, eight, ten weeks, you get some DOPA. You study hard for your GCSEs in biology, you put it off, you get a nine on his GCSEs in biology, which we're hugely proud of. Our entire fucking mission is to create slow DOPA. Invest. Be disciplined. You won't get the dopa right away, but over time, you're going to feel something even more exciting and more rewarding.

1:01:40And that is you're going to get a dopamine rush when you realize achievement and success from long-term investment. That's the basis, I think, or one of the basics of parenting. And the most well-resourced companies in the world are fighting us. They're trying to give kids a sense that I need fucking immediate gratification right away. And I see it not as much now, but with my youngest. when he was on screens, action, reaction, action, reaction, TikTok, action, reaction. Don't like this video? No problem. I can get to something with DOPA. It's funny. It's titillating. And then he gets off the fucking screen and it's like, where's the DOPA?

1:02:15So you know what he starts doing? He starts wreaking havoc in the household to get a reaction. He has to have a reaction. And I think we are setting up an entire generation of young people, maybe even more so among boys who are totally into online gaming, gambling, drugs. And Richard Reeves just came out, the president of the American Institute of Boys and Men, just came out with this really frightening study showing that. Deaths of despair have skyrocketed since 2004. People who died by suicide, violence, gun deaths. But more than anything, it's been drugs, opiates, and drug addiction. And I think we're going to continue to lose more and more and more as long as the greatest shareholder value increase in history is putting fucking Tim Cook outside of junior high school with a bunch of smack.

1:03:06This is happening every day across America, and we're starting to see signals. Oh, you legalize online gambling? There's an entire generation that needs that DOPA, and boom, bankruptcy skyrocket. My prediction, gaming, rehab clinics, Nova Nordisk, it produces GLP-1, which has been shown to be effective against these types of addictions, are going to skyrocket. And it's going to be nothing but a transfer of wealth from government who has to cover those bankruptcies, cover those hospitals. And families are going to pay an extraordinary price. Yeah. Well, that's a big one. Wow. There you go. Wow.

1:03:45I'm going to go drink beer. I'm going to the fucking tents for October 1st. I'm going to go drink beer. Okay, I think Bia. Go to the Bia Garten. I forgot one thing, one more prediction for me. My brother, David, just turned 60. Oh, nice. And I want to wish him the next, I predict he's going to have a great next 20, 30 years of his life. And he's been a great brother. And I don't talk about him that much, but he's fantastic. You've become increasingly fond of him just in the time I've known you. Well, I don't love the conservative stuff, but that's okay. Separate the person from the politics. separate the person from the politics, Gary.

1:04:22I try. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's a great dad. And he's a very good brother. And he's a great son to my mom. He's been great. But happy birthday, David. Happy birthday. Well, can I ask you a question? Sure. When you're both really fucking old, which you are already, and he's getting there. When you're really old and you're hanging out and you're holding each other's hands and you're like reflecting on life as you get towards the end. Yeah. Are you going to remember what a great guy was and what a great daddy was? or that he was a conservative. Of course. Oh, thank you, Scott. Of course.

1:04:52I still, I always remember what a great guy he is. Take that, Brene Brown. Take that. Oh, my God. Esther Perel. She has nothing on me. We'll import another psychologist in here. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Please read us out, Scott. Today's show was produced by Larry Niamh and Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Bows and Milo Saverio. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

1:05:24You 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. Gorilla Panic. That is so my favorite brand of edibles.