Psychedelics in Silicon Valley, and Restrictions on AI Chip Exports

22:09I'm like, you know, you need a disc. It's hard for your mother. I'm like, no, it's hard for my money, for my mother for one reason. We needed more money. Yeah. And I've always thought the best thing you can do as a boss is figure out a way to put more money in the pockets. I mean, with money comes power in a capitalist society. And I've always thought that if you want to insure, and that's the place the law should really kick in, is around compensation. Well, therefore, Vanna White deserves more money. Thank you, Scott. Okay, we're going to end on that. All right, let's get to our first big story.

22:45The Wall Street Journal had a big piece this week about the use of psychedelic drugs in the tech industry, something I've written about for about 10 years now. According to the report, but they name names. According to the report, drugs like ketamine, psilocybin, which is magic mushrooms, and LSD have been increasingly taking hold of Silicon Valley's corporate culture. These seen as an important springboard to reaching next-level innovation. The story says a VC from Founders Fund, which is invested in SpaceX and Facebook, has thrown parties with psychedelic drugs. Founders Fund also invested in psychedelic drug research.

23:13The report also says Google co-founder Sergey Brin has been known to use magic mushrooms. The report says Elon Musk has told people he microdoses ketamine for depression. He hasn't confirmed it publicly, but Muck tweeted this week that SSRI is a common form of antidepressants. Zombify people and that ketamine is a better option. Ketamine has been found to be highly effective in patients with treatment-resistant depression and other issues. There's all kinds of fascinating research going on. And I am going to start because I've written about this for years, this use of psychedelics and mushrooms.

23:42As far back as 2016, because I was being offered it a lot by these people. And they were all using it and they all were. They were also investing in it, which I found, that's the part I found really interesting is a lot of these drugs, ketamine, psilocybin, LSD had been demonized. And, you know, Michael Pollan was a very early writer about this. And I think SSRIs, that's correct. It does zombify people. And so it was really interesting to me, the investments that tech people were making in a way that I think would be good for people that have PTSD. It's a very good thing. There's all kinds of depression, self-actualization in a lot of ways, but a lot of really good in a clinical setting.

24:24And so I love that they were doing this founding. Tim Ferriss was one of the early people. Joe Green, I've interviewed all of them about this topic and written about it quite a bit. But that said, some of this has gotten out of hand, these parties. And I don't care if they use them, but it is still drug abuse. And there have been a lot of stories about excessive use of ketamine, excessive use of any of these things creates problems like anything else. And so I didn't find the journal story particularly scolding. It just was naming the names that people use it. And from what I know, it was a highly accurate story.

25:00Again, I was urged to use mushrooms, ecstasy, LSD, way back in the 2010s. They thought I'd be a better reporter, a nicer person. Someone told you to do drugs because you'd be a nicer person? Yes, yeah. Yeah, one guy, he bought lunch with me in a, you know, like one of those auction things. And he was really into ayahuasca, this particular person. Every lunch I would have, I'd get offered drugs. And he's like, would you like to do that with me? And I was like, there's nothing less I would like to do. And he goes, you'd be a nicer person. I thought, why would I want to be nicer? Why didn't you just pay$50 ,000 to have lunch with me?

25:36But OK, fine. So I think drug use is not a new thing in Silicon Valley or anywhere else. Steve Jobs was a well-known user of LSD. And when I spoke to Michael Pollan, who's written extensively, as I said, about the psychedelic moons, he talked about they've taken a moment of inspiration and adapted it to capitalism. And I think that is correct. So what do you think? What do you think about this? Just to kick it off, I've received, and I don't know if you've received the same emails, I've received several emails from women, mothers. It goes something like this. It says, Scott, me and my son listen to you and Kara.

26:10We love your show. But it bothers me, and it's damaging when you romanticize drug use. Yeah. And I think that's fair. And I just want to be very transparent. I've had a lot of alcohol in my life. I haven't had as much marijuana as I claim, but I do THC, I do edibles sometimes. I've never done cocaine. I've done X a handful of times and decided it was so good I should never do it again. I did mushroom chocolates a couple times, specifically a few weeks ago on Summit at Sea. Other than that, I've never done drugs. Yeah. And I always joke that in high school— Not ketamine or LSD or— Never done any of that.

26:43Never tried it. But I always joke in high school, I experimented with sex drugs and rock and roll. Specifically, I was the control group. I didn't smoke pot, have sex or drink until I was 19. And if I could go back in time, I would have, I wish I could have had sex earlier, specifically a relationship, but I wasn't in control of that. And two, I'm glad I didn't drink and do drugs in high school. I was just trying to figure out who the hell I was. And I don't think those influences until you're really comfortable with yourself or have some sense of self. I think you're better off being into sports, being into school, and quite frankly, being into the opposite sex.

27:21But I just want to – my public service announcement is I don't regret not doing any of that in high school. Anyways. I get it. I think jokes about drugs are fine. It's fine. I think what's interesting about this is abuse. Is abuse in like – I think there's such amazing research being done about a lot of these things to help a lot of people. And there's all these initiatives in Oregon. Joe Green's buying a bunch of them. There's these groups that are trying very hard to find new ways of dealing with depression that are not addictive and not zombifying, which I think is correct again. That said, a lot of what really turned me off, and let me just say, I don't use any drugs.

28:00I haven't used any drugs. I tried pot once, and that's the extent of my— But you didn't inhale. I don't even know if I did. It was gross. I don't like smoke. I smoked a cigarette once in sixth grade. That's really it. I have gotten drunk, but it's not something I do a lot at all. You know that. So I don't have a lot of context, but I was very much attracted to the research that was being done around depression and everything else. And I'm encouraging of it. There's Johns Hopkins doing it. I think LSD has been demonized. There's all these things. And again, I would push everyone to Michael Pollan's reporting, which I think is quite even-handed and good.

28:39That said, the recreational use and the pushing it on people and it being like, you're smarter if you use it, it just strikes me as the typical abuse that happens with liquor or anything else. Everyone likes a drink, but everyone doesn't like 20 drinks, right? And that's, you know, a lot of people like 20 drinks. But they act like it's something different than drinking too much. and there is a noticeable difference in the people I know to use a lot of it in terms of their personalities. Excessive use of especially ketamine. You can see it, they're changing personalities and I don't blame it on the drugs, I blame it on them but I think they have pain that they never wanna actually do the work to figure out and so this is the version of it, right?

29:23And it does affect them. And so I think that's what this depicted well and they're very self-righteous about it And they're very, if you don't take this, you're not as smart as I am, et cetera, et cetera. And that's what's distasteful to me about it. So there's, I mean, there's a lot here. So first off, what the research shows and Michael Pollan, who is, I think, and you've had him on your podcast, I've had him on mine. He's really taking this kind of out of the closet, if you will, and got rid of some of the stigma that was cemented in the 60s of, you know, tune in and drop out or drop, whatever it was.

29:56But the research shows this might have really wonderful tangible benefits for people suffering from depression and also people with terminal illness at end of life, where they can envision their own death and their afterlife and actually get comfort. So this is really exciting that people are looking at it. I mean, for some reason, we'll experiment and do all sorts of research and spend billions of dollars on pharmaceuticals, but around, call it LSD or psilocybin or massive hit of ketamine. It really does sound like it can be a real unlock in terms of depression, in terms of people with terminal illness or PTSD for more, all kinds of stuff.

30:33That's super exciting. There is no evidence as far as I can tell or what I've read that there's anything that shows that you unlock more creativity or productivity with the use of psychedelics. And this falls into the same category as a submersible with rich people or going into space or buying an F1 team. And that is when people are this rich and get exposed to so many amazing opportunities, they keep looking for the next OPA hit. And whether it's buying a sports team instead of just going to a football game or it's doing the latest hottest drug with some shaman that your friend has flown in from New Mexico.

31:08No, no, they're flown in from Nepal, just so you know, on their planes. It's a luxury item in an experience. And you know what? More power to them. If you're rich, you want to do these things where I do think that there's what I call business operators. So I have found with THC, I might think I'm more creative. I'm not. I have found with alcohol that when I'm writing about relationships, I write more fearlessly and more emotionally. And because alcohol for me brings down a lot of barriers and I'm more emotionally brave. So I have found that in terms of creativity. But there's no evidence really.

31:43There's a lot of evidence that a lot of creatives are addicts. So there must be some correlation in terms of whether they're susceptible to it or I don't know what it is. But there's no evidence that flow or whatever unlocks anything. Yeah, they talk about that. I can't tell you how many lunches I've had like this. There might be. But the thing I do think you're going to see more of and why it's probably a pretty good place to invest, it's not this bullshit that it's going to help you invent the next SaaS platform. But what I have noticed is that when I was offered mushroom chocolates, I did some.

32:14and I usually when I'm in a quote-unquote parting mood, unfortunately I have a high tolerance for alcohol so I can drink five, seven, eight drinks before I finally get to the point where I think I have rhythm and I'm a good person. Do you know what Cara's limit is? Zero, half a drink, sip of wine. And I'm like, woo! I'm out. But what I have found, what I do think you're going to see is I think the drinks industry is going to come under pressure because I think people are going to go to a hybrid model and that is they're going to take something like a mushroom chocolate or an edible and they're going to have one or two drinks instead of seven.

32:48And what I have found, and the reason I have toggled away from alcohol and more into edibles is on the one night a week or the two nights a week where I want to relax or party, whatever the right term is, the cost my body pays the next day from THC is substantially less than the cost incurred when I get drunk. Now at my age, if I have a lot of drinks, the next day I feel like I've had a battery of chemotherapy. Whereas when I have an edible, the next day, half the time I wouldn't even known I had taken anything. And so the downside, the cost, if you will, there's no free lunch, but I would argue that edibles are a freer lunch than alcohol.

33:29Yeah, no, I get it. I'm more talking about abuse and the sort of arrogance that comes with it. I just get, it's like they're showing me their new shoes or their new 20 wheeled bicycle or their new whatever, their boat. It's an attitude. And here's the thing, it doesn't create your new startup. It doesn't, like that's about some of the things. But I'd love to see the research. I'd love to see them really clinically apply these things, especially around depression. Have you ever thought of trying a ketamine in a clinical setting? Because you have depression issues. Yeah, so I have thought about it a lot.

33:59There's a guy, I won't use his name because I don't know if he's out about it, but the head of a tech company I know pretty well, he feels it's his mission in life to tell people about guided, I think it's a massive ketamine hit. And so Field Trip is this retail startup where basically - We had them at Code, remember. Yeah. And Ronan's a really compelling guy. But you come in, you do a pre-session with a therapist. What are you trying to solve here? Solve for? What are you looking for? You go and you take the massive hit in a controlled environment, and then you do a follow-up session. And a lot of people say that is really helpful.

34:30And the idea of having an extraordinary unlock around depression or PTSD, I think it's just so incredible. Which is how they're selling it when they're trying to get these legalized. I'm going to interview Joe Green again soon because there's all these initiatives in Oregon and other places. That's the idea as veterans. That's who they're aiming at instead of rich, stupid people. And that is where it should be. That's wonderful. My fear around it, and Ronan has been very generous with me and said, come in, we'll do it. And my other friend that's head of this tech company, like literally calls me every month.

35:01The thing that scares me is that my friend who runs this tech company did it. And the way he described it was very poetic, the way he described it. He said, think of your life as an ocean. There's just so much going on underneath the surface that you can sort of see, but not really. He goes, this drains the ocean and you're walking along the sea floor and can see everything 2020 in your life. And I thought, wow, that sounds That's really good. And then I'm a huge fan of Sam Harris. Sam Harris says that the way he would try and distill his experience with mushrooms is that he just felt extraordinarily grateful.

35:31And I thought, well, those are both really nice things. The thing that scares the shit out of me is that my buddy at the tech company said that after doing this and seeing the world for what it was, he came home and told his wife of 17 years that they needed to get divorced. What? That he was with the wrong person. Yeah, that he came to that realization. And he sees that as an unlock. And here's the thing, Kara. Other than struggling with some anger and occasionally having a panic attack on stage when I speak or something like that, I like my life and my relationships a lot. And whatever shit is there, I've managed to suppress it in a nice clean box.

36:06And I don't want to open the box because I'm good. Like whatever trauma that I have faced, I don't need to see it because I have managed to suppress it. Yeah, someone said that to me once, one who was in therapy five times a week. I'm like, how much can you fucking find out about yourself? I was teasing them. I'm good. They go, Kara, you're blocking. I said, it's working. As long as it's working. Yeah. I don't need to be in touch with my emotions. Yeah, a little bit. I don't know. We should do it together. Let's do it together and find out what's on the bottom of our ocean floor, Scott. I don't know.

36:40I don't know. We need to move on. I think I'd love to see Veteran Affairs involved in this. I think it has enormous opportunity and potential in palliative care. That rich people abusing drugs is not a new and fresh story. It used to be whatever. It used to be cocaine or it still is cocaine. Have at it. Have fun. But don't pretend you're going to do anything with it. The people I know to be what I consider abusing it have changed in bad ways. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, chip makers are worried about possible clampdown on selling to China. And we'll take a listen to our question about the challenge of attracting young talent to local government.

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39:38Okay, Scott, we're back with our second big story. The Biden administration is reportedly considering new restrictions on exporting chips used in AI computing, specifically to China. They're citing national security concerns. This has happened before, but now it's focused on AI. NVIDIA and AMD are the two big manufacturers of these type of chips. Their stocks have really taken off since the real boom in AI. Nvidia CFO said over the long term, restrictions like these would, quote, result in a permanent loss of opportunities for the U.S. industry to compete and lead one of the world's largest markets.

40:10Whoa, that's a big deal. So she was essentially saying that these restrictions are going to set the U.S. back permanently. This is Nvidia CFO Colette Kress. National security arguments are compelling. These chips can be used to development of AI powered weapons, sophisticated cyber attacks. What think you about this? I want to be clear. I would like to see someone run against Biden. I think Biden has been an outstanding president and got this right. The chips are the new – they're the brains behind every new toaster oven and every new missile guidance system. And we want the most sophisticated brains, and it needs to be a competitive advantage.

40:49And the CHIPS Act was fantastic legislation. And in my view, we should be very thoughtful about which chips – and if they needed to go to this – here in the development of these chips. Yeah, which is a good, and we want to keep them behind. And the notion that we should take it all seriously what the CFO of NVIDIA thinks about this issue, whose options are based on the market share. I mean, it's like, yeah, and Sheryl Sandberg thinks is proud of their progress. And Mark Zuckerberg says that social media is actually good for teens, what he's read. What do you know? The CFO of NVIDIA isn't worried about American security and thinks we should be thoughtful about what advanced technology we sell to China.

41:32These are, this is the next battlefront. This is the next. And we should be very thoughtful, not only about ensuring that we make the requisite investments on a massive scale, which is still needs to be done by the US government, but we have the best and brightest and the best chips. And quite frankly, we give them to the West. We give them to the front lines in Ukraine. But Russia, North Korea, Iran, and China for now. Good. They'll steal them. Sorry. Steal them like you usually do. Sorry, sister. Yeah, I would agree. But the thing is, they can't even, this is the wonderful thing about this technology.

42:02They can't even steal it because it's hard to make. You need crazy PhDs. You need crazy materials. You need crazy factories. This shit is complicated. Yeah. Yeah. Well, sorry, NVIDIA. You're going to have to be an American. Also, speaking of global, OpenAI, the San Francisco-based company behind ChatGPT is opening its first international office in London. They also considered France and Poland. You know, DeepMind was in London. Obviously, a lot of the AI is based in San Francisco right now. So they're going global. I thought it was interesting that they picked London. And I've always thought that there really needs to be a way to try and spawn the arts or inspire the arts.

42:44Well, it's Cambridge and Oxford, Scott, obviously. I mean, that's where DeepMind was developed and everything else. So that would be my guess. Well, it's not only the education infrastructure here, which is the second best in the world. in terms of higher education next to the US. But it's that I think the primary reason these companies, whether it's Andreessen Horowitz, which just announced they're opening their office here, I think the reason people pick London is because it's a palatable option to not only the people coming here, but their spouse. They can stream their kids into school. If you have money, and most of the companies announcing this have very well compensated employees, I'm this person.

43:24I could have lived anywhere in Europe. And I kind of toyed for the idea. We toyed with the idea. Well, let's go to Germany. We love Munich. Wouldn't it be great to be in Paris? And then when you really do the analysis, you're like, we're coming to London. Of course we are. The quality of life here, if you can lubricate it with money, the quality of life here is outstanding. And so the education system and all that. But London might be the opportunity. London needs something desperately because they have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Yeah, they had tried to do tech a long time, a long time.

43:55And they have certain companies. DeepMinds was there. And obviously Oxford and Cambridge have been the center of so much technological innovation over hundreds of hundred years. But the three greatest self-inflicted injuries of the last, call it 20 years, the invasion of Iraq by the U.S., the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and Brexit. it. They figured out a way to craft and pass legislation that makes their products and services more expensive, but reduces their export market. I mean, it's just, it's like, find an economist and say, hey, how could we really fuck ourselves? And they found it, and they wrote this legislation, and it has just been, it continues to kick a great society with a great culture over and over.

44:38They need something. They need this. Yeah, years ago, this was almost 10, 12 years ago, I did an Oxford debate, or I think it was an Oxford debate, yeah. And the British people are on one side, and I was with Reid Hoffman, me, a bunch of Silicon Valley people, and the premise was, will Silicon Valley or London be the center of technology over the last 10 years? And they were convinced they were going to be. And Reid and I, all Reid and I did is get up and say, Google fuckers, like, are you kidding? And then since then, obviously, there's been dozens and dozens of successes in the U.S. and very few in London.

45:15But they won the debate. They won the debate. To be fair, London has made huge strides in fintech. It does have the greatest concentration of market cap of unicorns. There is no reason why they shouldn't have a robust. Quite frankly, Germany, the largest economy in Europe, is half the size in terms of its tech company valuations. I think that's a function of there's less downside. Why not go to work for Porsche or Volkswagen and make 90 ,000 euros? The schools are great. The social services are great. The parks have beer and trampolines, something for everybody. But London should be, you know, there's no reason why it shouldn't be Singapore, Seoul, and maybe someday even like the Valley.

45:57Yep, yep. Let's move on. AI, speaking of which, I think the U.S. is going to dominate here, period. This year, AI-focused companies made up 35 % of startups selected by Accelerator Y Combinator, which is obviously the most popular accelerator. 35 % is a lot. It'll be interesting to see how many of them do well. But it's obviously putting AI as been the new crypto or meta or whatever. Dot com. Yeah, 100%. In this case, it's real. And I do think even though the U.S. tends to run into everything like a lunatic, just like they did crypto or whatever, it works. It tends to work. And so there's going to be more AI-focused companies in the U.S.

46:34than anywhere else. I think there'll be a lot of not-AI companies that are pretended to be AI companies. But I do think the U.S. will stay ahead on this thing. Yeah, agreed. I've been pitched on investing in three different AI companies in the last two weeks. And I still can't wrap my head around this stuff. And it was crypto before, right? Would it be crypto before or what? Yeah, but this, if you look at the arc of academic research around AI, it looks much more similar to mobile and GPS. Yeah, I agree. Which means it's probably an enduring technology. This does feel real to me, but I still, I don't feel like - How are you deciding what to invest in?

47:10My decision so far is to not invest and invest in the infrastructure guys. I think the Googles, the NVIDIAs of the world are going to be the big winners here because I think trying - I hear the CFO's pissed off. It's Biden, but go ahead. Sorry. There you go. But I think it's really difficult to figure out. It's like going back to the 90s. I started an e-commerce company. There were thousands of e-commerce companies. And the place to invest, obviously, it was Amazon, but you didn't know. The place I think you invest, where I'm investing, is big established companies that can leverage AI to become more efficient.

47:46I think that, for example, a lot of really beaten down media companies. We were with iHeartRadio. I'm going to get to that. Can I get to that? Go ahead. In a second. Because human-made media companies are concerned about AI. The Wall Street Journal reports that executives at places like the New York Times, News Corp, Condé Nast, and our very own Vox Media have discussed forming some sort of coalition to deal with issues involving generative AI. I think they should. Barry Diller bent my ear on this issue. He owns Meredith that they have to start suing and copyright and that they should join together, not getting played like they did the last time.

48:17They have a lot of regrets, publishers, of how late they were to standing up to big tech platforms that ultimately gutted much of legacy media. What do you think they should – I think they should be joining and fighting like right now or yesterday. So there's several dimensions to this. The first is what you're talking about. And that is creating a coalition such that and then building their own generative AI that spots that, okay, you are using our content to inform your LLM and you're not compensating us. And we're going to sue you. and that's the vision around Adobe's Firefly is they have secured all the IP for every input into their generative AI.

48:53I think this is gonna be a big unlock and a new source of revenue streams for people like the FT and the New York Times and News Corp that have a ton of content that will be fed into and inform these LLMs. At the same time, I think there's a real upside here and that is the thing that always kept us back at the New York Times was the newsroom in the sense that the investment you need to make in your newsroom to have that sort of quality journalism has never gotten any scale. It's totally unscalable until now. And what do I mean by that? What I mean is that a great, I think Nicholas Kristof is going to be able to punch out three articles every two weeks, not two, using generative AI to draft stuff, to improve it, to tighten it.

49:37He'll never do it. Oh, I disagree. AI is not going to take your jobs. I think a lot of reporters will never do it. Well, then they're going to make less money. They're going to make less money because the great reporter who embraces it. If Maureen Dowd gets good at AI, Jesus, watch out. I've been encouraging them all and they're all, I can't even tell you how recalcitrant. What's interesting is - They're going to shed their skin and a new generation of writers are going to come along. Well, not just writers, but the publishers, what I've been saying to them is like, listen, you better understand this and you better start suing.

50:09And you also have to, because if they took your business before, they're going to take your IP this time, right? This is what's going to happen. They sort of took your IP by linking to you and controlling the links. Now they're really going to take everything, like the whole enchilada in that regard. But they're going to be able to punch it. I mean, I've spent a lot of time with this. It spits back plain vanilla stuff. But what it can do is, the mistake was calling it artificial intelligence. They should have called it enhanced intelligence. And that is, it adds. E-I. EI. EI. EI. EI. EI. It adds five or 10 IQ points to everything you do.

50:44But the thing is, if you're the New York Times newsroom, you start at 130. You're just well ahead of where everyone else is. There's nothing that can replace the magic of what those folks bring together, the original thought, the original twist of phrase, the fact checking. But instead of having 1 ,200 people in their newsroom, I think in five to 10 years, they will have eight or 900 because they'll be more productive and they're going to be much more profitable. I think that this is going to be, I think Vox will have 20 % fewer employees and more podcasts in about 24 months. Well, I would agree.

51:17I would agree. Well, we'll see where it goes. It'll be interesting. This whole, it's going to be the story we're going to be talking about a lot in the next year, I suspect. Okay, Scott, let's listen to a listener question. You've got, you've got. I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. The question comes in via email. I'll read it. Hi, Kara and Scott. I'm 28 years old and live and work for a medium-sized Midwestern city's local government. I'm a city planner. I'm the youngest in my office by at least six or seven years. My city is home to a state flagship university. It should not be difficult to attract and retain young talent, but it has been.

51:53How do small and medium-sized local governments attract and retain talented, passionate employees instead of losing out to larger cities in the private sector? Kara, you flirted with political office in the past. What say you? Keep up the good work, both of you. I look forward to Tuesday and Friday mornings when Pivot drops. Thanks. Lucas. Oh, Lucas, I think this is a problem for all governments, not just city governments. The national government, you know, is keeping and attracting talent. One, because the pay is so bad. And two, because the larger cities will beat out the smaller cities typically, unless people have different reasons for wanting to be in a smaller city.

52:28I think the issue is that a lot of people do have a mission-driven feeling in tech. And that's how you need to bring in and make them feel like they're actually impacting people. We talked about that recently on the show. So I think the idea is getting them to feel like, okay, you're not going to make as much money. Maybe you're living in a smaller city, but you're going to really affect people. And it is a strong attractiveness to a lot more people than you think if you can sell it that way, the way you might sell military service or things like that. But you do have to market it in that way.

52:59Scott? Look, this all started, what, 40 years ago now when Thatcher and Reagan went on the screed against government. And in Israel, the people who command the most respect in the military, in the U.K., used to be government officials. In the U.S., it's entrepreneurs. And we used to have a lot more respect for our government officials. I think that at a local level, we need to come up with federal programs that maybe do student debt relief if you go into local government and offer just more opportunity and make it more attractive for the best and brightest to go into those fields. Because what happens is when you cut the funding, when you underpay these individuals, it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.

53:40And that is you go into the DMV and you think, this is not a great experience. I feel worse about paying taxes. And I want a politician who's going to cut government services. And it's really too bad because I think there's a thirst out there amongst young people who want purpose and meaning in their work. and when you work in social services, I remember in New York State and you pay really high taxes in Manhattan. You pay 13 % state and city taxes and my son was speech delayed and the story ends well. He's now, you know, heads list doing great but he was speech delayed and because it was our first child, we were freaked out and New York State has this incredible service that you sign up for and a speech therapist and occupational therapist come to your house twice And it's this incredibly well-educated, lovely young person who can immediately establish rapport with your child, demonstrate incredible skills, and makes the whole house feel better about government, about your child, about the situation you're in.

54:44I remember she was kind of there more for us than for the kid. Like, oh, this happens everywhere. Your son's going to be. I mean, she was just, I thought to myself, you know what? I don't mind paying the 13%. Government's job isn't to lower taxes. It's to make it worth it. And there are really a lot of great programs that do make it worth it. So the question is, how do we make that a really attractive job? Because all of these individuals I met, these occupational and speech therapists, they had a lot of options, but they wanted to do something in the agency of something bigger and more meaningful.

55:14So it's up to us, I think, as voters to say, we want our government officials to make good money. We want them to have good pensions. Now, should cops be making two and a half times their last year a salary and they are We're in cahoots with each other and we have MTA conductors making$280 ,000. I mean, granted, there's some places that are just out of control. But on the whole, the people at the ground level and state government, we need to move it back to being an aspirational position. Yep, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Well, Lucas, thank you for your excellent question. That is the way to do it, aspirational.

55:48There are a lot of mission-driven people in tech, and they do not necessarily want to make as much money if they can really impact people. And you have to show that impact. Anyway, if you've got a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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58:20Okay, Scott, we're going to do predictions. But just as we record this, the Supreme Court has struck down, essentially has struck down affirmative action. Ruling colleges, these two colleges in the case, this is UNC and Harvard, can no longer use race as a factor in their college admissions. Very testy Supreme Court on this one. And they'd been sort of doing a lot of more liberal things. And now here it is. This is what we were waiting for. They are ending racial preferences in college admissions, essentially. Justice Roberts wrote for the conservative members, liberals dissenting. There was a real back and forth between Justices Clarence Thomas and Jackson and one liberal, one obviously conservative.

58:59And he's been a longtime opponent, Judge Thomas, of affirmative action. And he read his concurring opinion immediately. He spent his time engaging with Judge Jackson, the only other black justice besides Clarence Thomas. He said in Jackson's view, quote, almost all of my life's outcomes may be unhesitatingly ascribed to race. I don't think she said that. And then Judge Jackson wrote back because she's a much better thinker and writer and justice, essentially. With let them eat cake obliviousness today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces that colorblindness for all by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.

59:40That's a drop the mic kind of line. Yeah, that was powerful. Anyway, this is what's happened. And so I suspect there's going to be a really interesting prediction is this is not over. And it'll be interesting to see the repercussions going forward. I'm not an expert in this area by any means, but certainly a big decision in a term of very big decisions around voting rights, etc. et cetera. So go ahead, Scott, go ahead and make your prediction. So my prediction is the IPO market is going to come roaring back in Q3 and Q4. The VIX, which is sort of a fear gauge, is at a multi-year low below 20. There's a ton of money on the sidelines.

1:00:21A lot of companies that were sort of pre-IPO have used the last two years to kind of get in fighting shape and cut some costs. The Cava, the recent quick serve restaurant Cava doubled on its opening. I think Q3 and Q4, we're going to see. I think I can just feel, Kara, the animal spirits coming back into the market, inspired by AI. In Q3 and Q4, we're going to see some of the champagne and cocaine. Not that you should do any of those things. Not abuse them. Anyways, the IPO market's ripping, absolutely ripping back. And I just can't help it on the affirmative action thing. I'm a huge believer in affirmative action, but I think it should be economically based, not race or gender based.

1:01:01Yeah. All right. Which, by the way, would have almost the exact same impact that race-based affirmative action happens, but it wouldn't create – anyway, it's a longer conversation. Yeah. Well, maybe we'll talk about it next week. Really, it's a big decision. It's a big decision. We'll see. Just so you know, the Post has some charts showing that in every state that has banned affirmative action, white people are overrepresented, black people are underrepresented, most other people are in parity. But we know the effects. We understand the effects of what happens. Anyway, we'll see. We'll talk about it.

1:01:36Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Please read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Nishak Kerwa, Travis Larchuk, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertot engineering this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Silverio, and Gaddy McMahon. Make sure you're following the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara Swisher, your intellect, your bravery, your humor, that's my drug of choice, baby. If I'm addicted to you, so be it.

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1:03:00Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.