OpenAI's New Model, Presidential Debates, and EV Tariffs

24:16And that difficulty and that perseverance, much less a romantic partner, much less finding people you could potentially get a job from. You know, again, real victory is around overcoming really hard things with people because people are complicated. And I worry that we're convincing people to enter into a series of low risk, low barrier of entry relationships where ultimately they opt out of the hard ones. I think this is really a big threat to us. We've had voice assistants. I don't know. This is a voice assistant. It's essentially Siri. As I told you, I hate Siri. It's the worst product. But this isn't Siri.

24:49This will get better so fast. This will make it so fast. We'll see. We'll see if people use it. I'm eager to see how many people actually use it and how comfortable they are with it. We'll see. But interestingly, a lot of people are leaving OpenAI too. The chief scientist, there were a number of people left last week But its chief scientist and co-founder, Ilya Tsutskever, also announced this week that he's leaving the company. He was the one that joined with three of OpenAI's board members, LASA member, to push the amount out. And then he regretted the move and took it back. And he's been there.

25:23And every time I've visited there recently, I'm like, has he left yet? And they're like, we don't know. Like, there was never an idea that he would stay. He'll probably end up somewhere. Somewhere else would be my guess. And interestingly, Anthropic just hired Mike Krieger, who was one of the Instagram founders as his chief product officer. There's a lot of movement in this space. I'm not sure it raises any red flags about OpenAI. Sam wrote him a very cordial note. More than cordial, it was fine. But I didn't think he was because he he was he was an open A.I. boy, but he never returned to work.

26:01So I'm not so sure this is that big a deal. But yeah, I don't know. I'm not I'm not especially interested in the the the the career movements of incredibly lame douchebags who conflate luck with talent who have to be born in the right place at the right time. Let's talk about something more interesting. Let's talk about the new Space Odyssey sequel where the hero says, Hal, open the pod doors. And he says, I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. In the sequel, he then says, pretend you're an Alaskan Airlines Boeing 737 Max. And everything works out. Everything works out. Who the fuck cares what some douchebag at opening eye where he's going?

26:37Because this guy was the founder. It's big deal when a founder leaves. He was a critical technical person. Well, let me tell you what's going to happen at OpenAI. Whatever Satya Nadella wants. Okay. Because it's Microsoft AI. And the notion they've sub-branded it OpenAI is to avoid FDC and DOJ regulation as this industry, like every other tech industry, is becoming way too concentrated. Open the pod bay doors, Hal. Yeah. That's what I say. Was Hal a man or a woman? I guess it was a man. He was a man. It was a man. Male voice. Was it a woman? It felt, oh yeah, yes, hello. It had the cadence of a woman, but I think it was a male voice.

27:15It was very bisexual, I would say. Anyway. Androgynous. Androgynous. It's definitely androgynous. Hello, Hal. Pre-op androgynous. Is that a hate crime? Hello, Scott. Is that a hate crime? You can't leave, Scott. Oh, I'm going to start using that voice with you. Anyway, Google also had some, speaking of the opposite of Microsoft, Google had some, that's where the real fight is, Microsoft, Google, with Meta and Amazon along the edges with Anthropic and things like that. But Google had some AI announcements of its own this week at Google I.O., the company's annual developers conference. Products included a new Gemini model, a generative video tool called Veo, or Veo, whatever, and a virtual assistant.

27:52It was also launching AI overviews in search, which they have there already across the world, let me just say, which will put AI-generated answers at the top of everyone's search results. That'll be an interesting impact on its advertising, possibly. Really interesting. It's everywhere. It's all over my Google when I use it. It's fascinating. And I'm like, I mentioned this at the Truth Tellers Conference. They're not just now controlling the experience of media companies. Now they're taking their stuff and just don't even go there. Here's the answer. And they're pretty good answers, I have to say.

28:26AI was referenced over 120 times during the keynote address presentation. A number of news publishers are worried that the new iSearch feature will mean for traffic and advertising revenue. They have a right to be concerned. Your thoughts? First off, Google's not going to make the same mistake again. They kind of invented and were the source of the most, other than Cambridge, the source of the most IP around AI. And because they didn't want to threaten this toll booth business called Search, they didn't move as aggressively to commercialize it. I don't think they're going to make that mistake again.

28:59And AI premium search, they're talking about making it a subscription product. I like subscription products more because the thing that is really, in my opinion, probably been the greatest externality or kind of the greatest emission has been the rage caused by an ad-supported model online. So I like the idea of moving to subscription. The problem is the operational fish, it'll take their margins down because something people don't talk a lot about, every query into ChatGPT takes 10 times the energy of a standard search. What's also just really interesting about these companies is similar to energy in the 70s and 80s, whether it was Shell, Chevron, Exxon, they're all becoming the same company.

29:42They all have different front ends, but at the end of the day, they're all becoming energy slash compute companies that other companies that the rest of the fortune million, every other company in the world will rent their energy and their compute. Instead of powering cars and factories, these companies now power smartphones and LLMs. But you know what? They're all effectively becoming the same company. 60 % of Amazon's operating margin is from cloud. They're all becoming cloud companies that power AI. They're all turning into the same goddamn company, but there can only be four or five of them.

30:15You know, the search engine is very bad news for media and other websites in general because it will reduce the amount of traffic significantly. Like the whole SEO world is over. Like I was just as I was looking at it, I was like, oh, look at this. And everywhere I do something in Google, including everywhere, email, every part of my Google experience, AI has been inserted. and the search one particularly, it's quite good actually, but it's not good for search optimization. How are people going to find people? Now, Google search has been more dissipated. Amazon has searched. You know, their searches now is becoming much more widespread on lots of places.

31:04But I sat there and I was like, I don't have to click in anywhere. Here is the actual answer that I would have spent a lot of time clicking into things. I don't know what you think about that, but I think it's quite good and quite accurate, actually. Yeah, you saying that literally sent chills down my spine because I just realized the obvious in what you just articulated, and that is traditional search has been, it gives you, you type in, I don't know, you type in Biden-Trump debates and you see CNN, NYT articles on it, and you sometimes, oftentimes click through to the New York Times to read the article on it.

31:41And what Google has slowly but surely tried to do is say, okay, if you type in London to Las Vegas, where I'm going on Tuesday, it used to send you to Expedia or to an article about fun things to do in Las Vegas. Now it sends you to a place they can further monetize. They're trying to become closed systems. And I think what you just articulated is frightening because it's true. You're never going to need to leave Alphabet because what you're saying is there's going to be no need to click through. It gives you the answer. Yeah, this new head of search. This is a quote that just chilled me. This is her name's Liz Rae.

32:15She just became head of search. What we see with generative AI is that Google can do more of the searching for you. It can take a bunch of hard work out of searching, so you can focus on the parts you want to do to get things done or the parts of exploring you found exciting. You find exciting. Of course, that's a way of saying we're going to give you the answer. And I have to say it's good. And they still have other stuff there. And you can get to the news and whatever, Twitter, whatever you tend to ask for. But if Yelp was worried about this many years ago and has been suing Google, as you know, they have a true advantage here over all these different companies.

32:57And I think when you think about it, I just had breakfast and I'm going to have him on stage, the head of Getty Images, very smart guy. and he you know there's a lot of people that are using their imagery and how how they use them and how they scrape them now with imagery it's a lot easier to pull copyright stuff right as they're using it but with text it's not it's much more difficult to it's much more easy to shoplift essentially than it is with a photograph and he had some really smart thoughts about it and and it but text is harder to do the lawsuits are harder the copyright is harder than it is with imagery or videos.

33:38But what we're all looking for every morning or when we go to media, it's very difficult to differentiate on actual news. I mean, occasionally a reporter risks something or has a source and is able to get news before anybody else. That is really rare. That's less than probably one basis point, one one thousandth of the content you read is original reporting. What you're looking for is voice. You want stuff that has a view and a voice. I like the voice of Reuters. I like the voice of The Economist. And you can imagine fairly soon, will you be able to say, okay, chat GPT 4.1 or whatever they're going to call it.

34:13Give me a rundown of today's business news in the voice of Reuters. And guess what? It'll be nearly identical and you won't have to go to Reuters. And the scary thing is, is I used to think that, okay, the opportunity was for these guys to band together under like a badass big thinker like Barry Diller and create a consortium that charges them huge licensing fees to be the fodder of the grist for their LLMs. And that's a future where they might get to participate. And then I read this frightening article saying that the new LLMs are creating content for the LLMs to crawl. And I thought, they're not even going to need the original content.

34:53These LLMs are creating their own vogue and own travel and leisure and own economist content for the other LLMs. to satisfy or sate their insatiable appetite. But it is definitely, it feels like the traditional media companies are a little bit on the wrong side of this. Yeah, so how do people find things? Well, anyway, it's a really interesting time. And I got to tell you, they're making, look, let me just make one more comment and then move on to the next thing is that because they're a monopoly and they are, there has been no innovation in search because they run it. No one else, they've tried all these different people.

35:27As you know, you invested in one of the attempts. there's all kinds of attempts to do it but their duck duck go is very tiny they've got the deal wrapped up with apple essentially but paying them an enormous amount of money there's been no innovation in search it really hasn't this this is that but at their pace and to their advantage so it's even worse that they're a monopoly now the government really needs to step in here around this monopolistic position they have in any case it's really it's really an interesting time and And media companies have to, you know, once again, guess what? They're coming for you.

36:03I said that at the Truth Tellers Conference. I said they were rapacious. You knew the Truth Tellers. I did. I told the truth. Here's my truth. They were rapacious information thieves before, and they are still rapacious information thieves, except better. They're better at it. I had a better quote. I said, it's not working as well as it used to. I said at the Big Dick Conference. Oh, my God. You would not be invited to that conference either. That's good. Not that I've seen it. but what a feeling i'm sorry go ahead don't do that just come in all these women they're gonna rip you limb you keep talking about jennifer bills she's my friend i've never met her what i've never met her i mean i meet all your other like like pbs friends that are like hanging out in dc that aren't that cool i never meet jennifer beals you never will and you never you steal all my cool friends and you hide your cool friends never will for me any of my friends like that And you're never meeting Gretchen Whitmer now, obviously.

37:01She'd tear you in for a win. Governor Whitmer? Yeah, Gretchen Whitmer. I'm a big fan of the governors. She would beat the living hell out of you, and she'd be wearing pink doing it. I think that's repackaged violence. Whenever you talk about women, you say how they would physically assault me. I'm talking about mentally, but okay, fine. I won't do it. I'm so sorry you're so sensitive. I was being cynical. I'm fine with you threatening me with these. Yeah, I don't mind. I'm trying to. You're so woke, Scott. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the newly announced presidential debates.

37:30I'm weirdly excited about it. And take the listener mail question about setting kids up financially for the future, which I think Professor Galloway will answer, considering he has a best-selling book on the topic.

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39:14Scott, we're back with our second big story. President Biden and former President Trump have agreed to face off in the debate stage at least twice before the election. CNN will host the first debate on June 27th. That's pretty soon. ABC will host the second debate on September 10th. There may be a third debate on Fox. We'll see. There'll be no audience for the CNN debate. They agreed to that, which was part of the Biden campaign's term. So no screaming and clapping and all that stuff. Biden's team also said the president would only debate one-on-one, meaning no RFK Jr., and asked the microphones will get automatically cut off when the speaker's time is up.

39:48He's trying to Donald Trump-proof it, but good luck with that. Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are going to be doing the CNN debate, the first one. Thoughts? We're not political people, but let's talk about why these are important or not important. Are they just for the media? The Trump campaign has proposed, as I said, additional debates. Biden is just two, but maybe if he does well, he'll say yes. Mitt Romney likened these debates to watching two old guys on the Muppets. I love Mitt Romney these days. Two old guys, what? on the Muppets. I just love Mitt Romney. He's like, he was making fun of the stupid legislators up at the Trump porn trial wearing the same outfits, like going up there doing PR for him.

40:35He was like, they're pathetic. And Mitt Romney's over everybody at this point. But what do we think about all the things, the way it's set up, the expectations, et cetera? And this is before the conventions, by the way. Look, I think they're important. Vice President Harris as vice president because of a debate. It gives what you hope for, and you do get them, is when it's real time and there's antagonism and there's a moderator doing a good job, you get these unscripted moments that give you insight into the candidate. And so I think they're important. Unfortunately, I wanted a couple of things.

41:13I like the Mike thing. I think it's impossible to have a reasonable debate if someone just keeps interrupting thing. And by the way, Al Gore did this in his debate with George W. Bush. He kept making all these disgusted chortle sounds. And it ended up hurting him, but it just created a distraction for what is an important topic. I love the fact they're cutting the mic so he can go, so they can't hear Trump go wrong. I mean, all that bullshit, right? I think they should also, what I would love to see is an overlay, and someone will do this on YouTube, where they have something resembling an impartial group of people from Reuters or the BBC or whatever it is, and Fox, whoever, bring in a bunch of people who real-time fact check and then have a temperature meter as a chyron at the bottom going, this is accurate.

42:00What he just said is sort of interpreted, you know, maybe like red, yellow, green, right? Because I think it's important, people, because you said something really interesting about when we were talking about Bobby Kennedy, he's impossible to interview because, one, I find he softens previous things he said. He said, well, I don't remember saying that. And if I had been allowed to finish my statement, he said this a few times, I would have said the following. Well, you didn't. And then he will throw out a bunch of facts that you can't fact check. Not facts. He'll throw out a bunch of alternative facts that you can't fact check real time.

42:36So I would love some sort of real-time fact-checking. But yeah, they're important. As excited as you are about this, I am nervous, Kara. I think that, I don't think Biden, I think Biden is a good man. I think he has really good judgment. I think he surrounds himself with good people. I think for a few reasons, mostly because he's getting older. I just don't think he's very good on his feet. I don't think so. I think he's been very sharp. I've been watching a lot of his appearances. I hope you're right. They're quite good. Let me just say, Trump, I'm a little worried for Trump because he's cognitively, he keeps missing words.

43:10He's definitely gotten a little crazier. I think if he, the problem I think for Biden is that he's in court, even though he does these dumb standups at the end of the day, and then he has his little, you know, Trump hats behind him with their same ties. I'm thinking of wearing that outfit like on Chris Wallace this weekend. Even though he has all that, he seems crazier. And once he, I think it's negative for Biden for him to be in these trials because he's not out there being crazy. Because every time he does an appearance, one of these rallies where he feels safe, he mangles words. He says crazy things.

43:43In a debate, remember when he went off the rails in that one debate with Biden a couple of years ago? He went off the rails on something. It wasn't a good debate for him. He has not won debates with Biden, I would say, at all. And that's an interesting thing. Because I think Biden just has to poke at him and make him say crazy things, like a lot of crazy things, like let's jail pregnant ladies or, and he could do it. He could go there and say these things. Biden has control. Trump, you know, he complimented Hannibal Lecter at a New Jersey rally. I mean, and it doesn't get out enough. And I think this is going to have a huge, it's going to be a huge audience.

44:21It will, and then it'll be, you know, chawed over on social media and everywhere else. And one of the things is, should RFK Jr. be included? I don't think so. I think these are the two guys. But CNN said the debate would be open to any candidate who gets 15 % in four qualifying national polls and meets certain ballot access standards. I think they're just trying to keep him out, right? And of course, RFK Jr.'s whining away about it. I don't think he needs to be there. That would be something I'd worry about for both of them with him there. That'd be a distraction. And unfortunately, it looks like I looked at the data from the last election and basically or the polling right now is showing that it looks like Bobby's pulling more from Biden, which I hate to hear.

45:04But anyways, but where I would add some nuance to your comments about the debate is I don't think who wins the debate is based on what they say. I think it's how they say it. people don't really listen to the issues. They don't listen to what's actually false or not false. They look at someone and say, is he or she a leader? And I worry in this format that despite the bluster and the weirdness and how ridiculous and how it'll just be a non sequitur stream of lies, I worry that Biden is going to come across as very feeble and very not fleet of foot and that people and that will hurt him. What should he do?

45:41Because he did a pretty good job at the State of the Union. He was very sassy and fast, I thought. And there was a lot of reacting there. There was a public place. What do you suggest he do? If I were prepping - Marketing-wise. Well, there's a general, and I learned this finally after going on TV for about 10 years, and I finally learned, and I hate to say this, but don't answer the question asked, answer the question you want to answer. Yeah, that's a classic, yeah. I would sequester President Biden to Camp David with some of the brightest people from Pod Save America, those guys who were prepping Obama.

46:17George Conway probably would be good. And I would have 16 canned answers and say, anything along the lines of this, this is answer four. And the right intonation, the right inflection, the right indignation, the right set of facts. and I would set him up like a fucking robot. Press here. Oh, he's talking. Any question about Israel, if it's a question that has anything to do with Rafa, answer 11. I would just make it such that he didn't really need to think. Because I don't think, the bottom line is debates do not play well to 81-year-olds, nor to a 77-year-old. And he wants to come across as statesmanlike, reasonable, calm, and not flustered, not trying to react to the unpredictable, which is what Trump is.

47:11He needs to have the debate before he has the debate. And I would just pre-program everything with a series of talking points. And I know that sounds unromantic, but that's what I would do if The only thing from a visual point of view is that Trump is, of course, as usual, dropping the standards so low for Biden. Oh, he's dead Biden, this and that, which they did for that State of the Union. He's stupidly low barring it for Biden. He's never going to be good. He's not good at debates. If he's even marginally interesting, I think he wins that in that regard because the Republicans keep hammering on his age when Trump himself has these issues.

47:50And so I think Trump is more vulnerable if he seems out of it. He messes up words. I know words don't matter, but when someone stumbles in words, you do notice that. You don't see Biden doing that. Yeah, fine. If they want to create incredibly low expectations, you're right. That's dumb. But no matter what, no matter where Jake or Donna go, Biden has to, and he needs to be coached here, anything resembling the economy, any chance at all, even if it's not resembling. Oh, you're talking about inflation. Did I hear you say inflation? We have the lowest inflation of any G7 country while concurrently having the strongest growth, which according to a lot of economists is nearly impossible.

48:33Oh, you're talking about fairy tales. He's a liar. Let me give you another fairy tale. We have the Goldilocks economy here. No one thought we could. There are a series of talking points that regardless of where this debate goes, he has to get out. because the thing that's so frustrating about this administration is we have so much, they have so much to stand on and they're not doing it. They're not getting this message out. Oh, you want to complain about Israel? One of us immediately, one of us didn't sit around and make blustery, stupid statements. One of us deployed two carrier strike forces and 2 ,400 Marines within 24 hours because I know what the fuck to do here and I've done it before and I was on the phone with all these people who I've had 30-year relationships with.

49:19Would you say, would you make little reference, they've been doing it in the social media, which is somewhat funny, little references to court. Like I think the Jimmy Kimmel thing when he said, you know, it's past your prison time and how's court going, sleepy Trump or Don Snorleone or Teddy Dozevelt. Would you do any of those to tweak him? Because he's easily tweaked Donald Trump. Probably not. I think that the key to any brand is differentiation. and I think a lot of that happens on its own by the media. And I think President Biden wants, I think his position needs to be, look, I'm not gonna tickle your censors.

49:59I'm here to be the grownup in the room and I'm just not, I'm gonna let Jimmy Kimmel and Jon Stewart do that. And I'm here because I'm your president. And that means, because he wants to establish differentiation, Trump will take a bunch of cheap shots that tickle the censors of Fox and conservative viewers who he wants as moderates, and he wants to show that I'm an adult, I'm your president. No, I would just, I think Biden should look in the camera and say, do you have daughters? Do you have daughters? And just pause. And everyone will know what he's talking about. He doesn't need to call him a rapist.

50:36He just needs to look in the camera and say, America, do you have daughters? I do. I think he should do a series of things like that, But I think he should acquit himself as the president. Oh, that's a good one. He should say, here, I'll edit a little bit. Do you have daughters? I do. And I'm worried for her. Like with this guy. This guy scares me. Or something like that. Doesn't even need to go there. Do you have daughters? And then pause. Yeah. One of the most powerful things, and I didn't learn this until I was older, in teaching and communications, is the pregnant purposeful pause. Interesting.

51:09And let people fill the space. I'm going to steal that idea from you. I'm going to steal that idea. That's a really good idea. They should invite us to Camp David and we'll like wander around and they get arrested. There you go. Okay, Scott, let's pivot. We're truth tellers. We're truth tellers. We are. Let's pivot to a listener question.

51:31The question comes from Vanessa via email. I'll read it. Hello, Kara and Scott. Thank you, Vanessa. All's right with the world that Kara's first. My question is regarding a favorite subject of Pivot, our kids. My son is starting high school next fall and my daughter is starting middle school. It is hitting me hard that I have only a few years left with him under my roof. Oh, I know that. That's why I had more kids, Vanessa. Here's my question. What recommendations do you have to set your kids up financially for their futures? Anything that backfired? Anything you wished you had done but didn't?

52:03Looking forward to hearing your stories. All the best, Vanessa. I'm going to let Scott take most of this one, but I have to say I have had long conversations recently with both Louis and Alex. about finances and talking about how to mortgages and credit and stuff like that. And I started it pretty early, but not early enough. So the regret I have was not getting them to understand how things work much quicker and early on and then teaching them, you know, having maybe giving them some money for stock or different various and different things. So I would have done it earlier that otherwise I'm, we'd spend a lot of time right now talking about their financial futures.

52:39Scott, you take this one. Well, there's a few things. Exactly what you said, financial literacy and exposure to the markets really early. I think that I got wealthy starting in selling companies. I got very wealthy investing in stocks. And when I was 13, I met a stockbroker and I bought my first stock, 14 shares of Columbia Pictures. And every day for two years, three years in junior high school, I used to go to the phone booth, put 20 cents in and call Cy Saro at Dean Winter Reynolds. And we would talk about my stock's movements that day, and he'd give me like a 10-minute lesson in the markets.

53:14And I have been buying stocks since 13. And I mean, just the recognition of how powerful the markets are in developing an investing muscle is so powerful. So financial literacy and appreciation and a fondness and an affection for the markets. And the other thing is, what I've discovered in some of the research around what separates people who are really wealthy from those who are just wealthy is it's a whole person project. And it's not easy, but raising kids who are inclined to do small favors and try and acquire allies along the way, there's a myth that rich people are mean people stepping over others.

53:56That's not true at all. Really wealthy people tend to be ones who are put in rooms of opportunities, even when they're physically not there. So to the extent you can show your son or your daughter how powerful it is to make small gestures of kindness and generosity to people, and you may only get, you know, maybe one, assume 80 % of them never remember you, but it's so powerful to have allies fighting for you when you're not in the room, and you always want to have that. So every opportunity you have to be kind or do a solid for someone, even as a young person, you should take that opportunity.

54:31That's an investment in your own future. And then something I've been thinking a lot about is why do we send our kids to private school, right? We send them to private school because we hope that they'll have a greater shot at success. Well, what do we mean by success? Well, such that in a capitalist world, they have more opportunities professionally, most likely. Well, why do you want them to have professional success? Such that they can have the economic security to have children, the lack of economic anxiety, maybe buy a house. So here's an idea. Scott wanted to send his kids to First Presbyterian or Grace Church when they were one and four respectively.

55:07And I did the math. It was going to cost$62 ,000 a year for each of them. And I bet somewhere between a half and two-thirds of people who send their kids to these private schools are well off. But it is a strain. If you're going to spend$124 ,000 a year or$250 ,000 in pre-tax income to send your kids to private school in New York, I don't care how much money you're making unless you're crazy wealthy. It is a little bit of an economic strain. It does create additional economic anxiety. So here's an idea. There are studies showing now that the best place to send your kid to school is the one that's closest to your home.

55:43And then you reinvest that additional time and commuting in sleep and homework and in play. And then if you have the discipline to take that$62 ,000 a year from the age of four to 18 and invested in a low-cost index fund, let's assume, Tara, you were wrong and you should have sent them to a private school and they don't do as well professionally. And at the age of 35, they're not as economically ahead as they should have been had you sent them to that great private school. Well, guess what? You know what solves that problem? The$5.4 million you will have if you had put that tuition money in SPY and a low-cost index fund and then never touched it.

56:27And people are going to start to do the math here and realize that private schools and schools like NYU, well, okay, if money's no object, let's send them there. If they get scholarships, great. If not, we're going to figure out a lower-cost way. We're going to send them to junior college for two years, or we're going to send them to the public school instead of Grace Church, and we are going to be discipline and put that money away. And in case things don't work out, they're going to have millions of dollars to ease the pain. I'm going to interject. Clara, Jo Katz is about to go to public school in September.

56:57That was exactly, I did all the math. I did all the stuff. I'm putting away money for her. The money I might've spent, not as much of it. It was ridiculous prices, ridiculous. And I was like, where's my value? I can, if the school is walking distance from our house, I'm going to spend a lot of time at the school, like commit myself to helping. It's They're quite good. The D.C. elementary schools are quite good. And I also feel like having a public commitment to that is important because why not make it better? But away from all the public commitment of I'm not just cosplaying, oh, let's go to public school.

57:34I think it's an economic choice. Like this is a ridiculous amount of money I spent on my boys. My ex-wife really wanted them to go to private school. And she had the means because she worked at Google. and I was dragged along and I didn't make as much money as she did. And it was not great. I was like, I looked at it and I was like, that was a waste of my fucking money. I think you're 100 % right on that. And that's exactly what I'm doing with my second two kids, so. And there's also, there's something to, I wanted to go to private school. I went to Emerson Junior High School in LA and it was the year they'd started doing busing and integration.

58:10And it should be a Hallmark film about, oh, it was great. It wasn't. It was a violent place. We hated each other. That's the bad news. The good news is by the time we got to high school, we were all getting along. And my friends, all my friends went to this Tony private school called Windward. And I think they were better off in the short run. But in the long run, I think I got a lot of empathy. I developed a lot of skills. And I think there's something to be said to having to make your way in a public school and trying to stand out in a larger class. And I'm not suggesting it's for everyone. And if you have the resources, then sure, it's a great move.

58:45But what you also got to fess up to as an adult is what are you really spending this money for and why? And when I really do an audit of my own self, the reason I wanted my kids to go to Grace Church was so I could tell other parents that my kids were going to Grace. And that's just the wrong way to select a school. That's correct. I think a lot of this is signaling for the parents. and if you do the math, guess what? Just in case public school is the wrong decision, you're going to have millions of dollars if you're disciplined about putting that money somewhere else. Well, I literally, I was at a parent's thing and a lot of the kids, all the kids, every single kid, she's in a private preschool because she didn't get into the pre-K.

59:29It's a lottery to get into the pre-K for, but she's finally gotten in, the public one. And all these parents are saying to private school And they're like, we're the only family doing public school. And I was at an event. And they were like, oh, that's interesting. I said, yeah, she's going to have millions and millions of dollars later that I'm going to put aside for her. And your kids won't. And they're not that right. Yeah, I was like, oh, oh. And I said, yeah, that's how it's going to go. I mean, we talk about kids not being able to do the math. Parents aren't doing the math. They aren't. I just was like, I'm going to just hand her the money.

1:00:02She can go to medical school. She can do whatever she wants, buy a house. I'm just going to say it's a forced savings plan as much as I can put away for her. And, you know, in different ways that are taxed, you know, my dad tried to do like a low rent version of that. He took me to Annapolis. He wanted me to join the Navy because he didn't want to pay for my college. And he said, if I went to Annapolis versus UCLA, he'd buy me a Trans Am. Literally, that was the exact words. I'll buy a brand new Trans Am with a T-top. And I put my hairbrush on the dash. Anyways, and then I walked down Hillgard, I think it's called.

1:00:35Was it Hillgard or Strathmore? During sorority rush. And I'm like, oh, my God, I am so going to UCLA. I know. I can't see you in the arms. It was something out of a Cinemax film. An officer and a non-gentleman. God. An officer and a non - – anyway. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. Go Bruins. Oh, my God. You've been so kicked out of the Navy. Go Bruins. It's time for me to lose my virginity at 19. Oh, God. Oh, God. You and the Navy. That would have been a disaster. Oh, I would have been kicked out. I wouldn't have made it. You wouldn't look good in the outfits. You wouldn't look good in the outfits. I wouldn't have made it.

1:01:07Yeah, you still would have looked good in the whites. I appreciate that. So anyway, Vanessa, thank you. That's a really good, yes, early off and give them, go to private public school. If you've got a question of your own and you 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.

1:01:31There 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, our late night TV shows like Jimmy Kimmel 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.

1:02:20That's This Week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

1:02:30Okay, Scott, I'm going to have you do a prediction, but I'm going to make one prediction because I'm going to take my moment. Louis Swisher turned 22 this week, and he is going to have a wonderful future. Happy birthday, Louis. That's nice. Yeah. That's your prediction? Your kid's going to have a wonderful future? He just is. I can feel it. Is he finishing up his junior year at NYU? Yes. He's coming back from Argentina this weekend. As we talk about what a ripoff it is. I know that. I get it. I agree with you. Not for Alex. And I teach there. Not you, Mish, because that kid is going to be a billionaire.

1:03:00Like, Alex is money well spent. Michigan's a great. Michigan's an outstanding institution. Louis thought about not going to school a little bit. And I think he's really, it's teaching him to think. And I think it'll help him in that regard. Like, I find it's useful right now in a lot of ways for him. I don't think it's money not well spent. But Alex's, I definitely think it's well spent. He's taking calculus this summer. And physics and all those important things. Anyway, prediction please. He's a smart one. Well, my prediction is a story that I think is the most underreported story. And my prediction is it's going to get a lot more attention.

1:03:35So from 2001 to 2021, U.S. higher education institutions received$13 billion in funding from foreign sources. and we talked a little bit about this. Do you know where 40 % of that foreign funding has come from? Qatar has given$4.7 billion to U.S. organizations. Educational, like colleges, stuff like that. Colleges, Cornell, University of, you know, the Aggies. And if you look, you know, it's also Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood funding of higher education is going to get a lot more scrutiny because there is a statistically significant correlation between these protests and the amount of funding these universities have got from Qatar.

1:04:22This is going to be a much bigger story as we do forensics around what has happened at universities. And as Americans, parents look at what's going on in universities and quite frankly, just don't get it, just can't understand how these kids have come to these conclusions, you're going to find that where the protests have been most heated and, quite frankly, most confusing and, quite frankly, most irrational, we're going to find that for the last 20 years, this university has been cashing the checks of Qatar. And this is, in my opinion, around all of this, you know, this is the biggest story in America for the last few weeks has been campus protests.

1:05:01The next shoe to drop here is where does this money come from? And this is a lot more coordinated, a lot more funded. Americans, one of our real soft tissue is that we're much easier to fool than convinced we've been fooled. And I think there's going to be a lot of scrutiny and backlash. Is it Qatar or Qatar? Is it Qatar? I think it's Qatar. I call it Qatar, but Qatar, Qatar Qataris Qatar by the way I went there and I loved it I went for World Cup and I one of the wonderful things I love about living in London is I've been exposed to a lot of wonderful people in the Gulf but when the whores that are US universities take five billion dollars nothing's for free yeah nothing's for free for years many things have been secretly funded by the right to by the way you know all these like the people who make the Ulaines and all these different people and Leonard Leo, they're all funded to get judges on things.

1:05:57So there's always, there's always a, you know, a group or Chris Rufo, they're all, they're all coordinated campaigns. They did it with gay issues. They did it like creating false anger and things like that. So there it's, it's common for there to be these things. I think the troubling thing you're pointing out is that they're foreign, this is a explicitly foreign country, which has interests in getting what it needs out of it, is your point. Well, you're right. So a lot of these homophobic propositions in California, and it's up they were being funded by very extreme swings of Mormon entities in Utah.

1:06:34And it's important to point that out. But there's going to be, my prediction is there's going to be a very robust conversation about this because 4.7 of the 40 comes from a nation of 2.3 million people? Yeah, okay. What, you just think they're just fascinated with Wolverine football? Yes. I mean, wake the fuck up, people. What do you think is going on here? Yeah, I would agree. Okay. That's a really interesting and a very offbeat one. I like it. I like it. We'll see. We'll see what happens. I'm sure we'll get a lot of letters. I hate letters for that one. Anyway, we'll see if we will. Anyway, but it's a very good point.

1:07:05What do they want for the money? What do they want for the money? What does anyone want when they do secret money donations and all that stuff? There's an agenda there. Something. Absolutely. Okay, Scott, that's the show from Londinium, as they used to say on the old Batman show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot. I'm getting on a plane back to D.C. And then going up, you know what I'm doing this weekend? What are you doing this weekend? I didn't tell you over breakfast. I'm going to see Liberty play. It's a big Lesba Fest, but they're playing Fever. So I'll see Caitlin Clark play, I believe, in New York.

1:07:37The women's basketball, WNBA. So you're going to a play? I'm sorry. There's something. Oh, I thought you were going to a play called Liberty. You're going to see the W. Nobody knows what the WNBA is. Yes, they do. Caitlin Clark. It's Caitlin fucking Clark. Everybody knows who she is. Okay, she's a phenomena. So I'm going to see her play. It's like when Pele joined the Cosmos. No one cared. Yeah, in any case. I mean, best of luck to her. It's inspiring. It's inspiring. It's inspiring. Besides meeting Louis Swisher, who's coming back from Argentina after a year, this is such an exciting weekend.

1:08:10I'm going to see Caitlin Clark and then my friend Tim Daly, who is in a play. I'm going to see that. But I'm excited to see WNBA. Don't rain on my lesbian party. Let me just help you out. Let me just cosplay an announcer at halftime. Well, in an exciting game, the score is now 13 to 11, and Caitlin Clark is a star, and that's why she makes$9 ,000 a year, folks. And I want to say a big shout-out to the dozens and dozens of people watching the WNBA. No, it's packed. It is packed. Is it? Is it? Yes. The lesbians were liking you, and now they're not liking you. just so you know. I could feel a movement.

1:08:43Yeah, but they want to chase me up a mountain and eat me. That's my plan. It's all my strategy. There's so many straight women in there. Anyway, I will see you soon. I will see you in a few weeks in time. You're very uncomfortable with this conversation. You're trying to thread a needle here by being kind to me. I'm glad we had breakfast this morning. It's great to be in your town. It's very lovely. It's great to have you. And I will see you in a couple weeks where I'm going to be charging that 35 euro coffee to you at the Hotel Decap. I'm very excited. It's on me. It is absolutely on you, 100%.

1:09:15And we'll pull up to Meta Beach and the Zodiac. Zodiac. We're doing that. Get ready, Mark Zuckerberg. We're coming to your party. Anyway, Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Larry Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Indertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mille Severio. Nishat Kurwa 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. 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 care.

1:09:48Great to see you. Safe travels.