Tesla Layoffs, Amazon Earnings, and Walmart Closes Health Centers

23:19And then along the way, I got fascinated with FTX and I read that I actually read the bankruptcy filing. They're in there. That's right. And they had $9 billion in claims against a bankrupt company. It was going for 22 cents on the dollar. These claims, there was an open market or secondary market for bankruptcy claims against an FTX. And I calculated that just their stake in Anthropics was worth 30 cents. So I bought a lot or a lot for a professor. Do you realize everyone at FTX is going to get all the claimants are going to get all and potentially more than their original money back because they'll claim rights to interest on it.

23:52Yeah, well, let's let them out of jail. Let's let them out of jail. Anyways, 25 years, Jesus Christ. Anyways, so I technically own Anthropics. So I'm participating in the cloud via bankrupt coin exchange, crypto exchange. Yeah, you told me you're going to do that. But Amazon, I think Andy Jassy is sort of coming onto his own. There was always those rumors that Jeff is coming back. Someone said that to me last night. And I was like, he is absolutely, I was like, did you look at these earnings and stuff like that? No, no, no. Did you look at that thong? He's not coming back. He's not coming back.

24:21He's a thong. He's not coming back. That's what I said. I said he was like. Look at those earnings. Give me a break. Look at those fillers and that thong. Jesus Christ. No, but no, no. What I said is look at the earnings for, this guy has, he had a rough patch. And now I think he's getting his arms around it. The, the, the, the Hollywood stuff is the least of his issues. I mean, I think they definitely have been rocky in that area. But, you know, they're working it with the ads and the, you know, they're very systemic at Amazon. And, you know, they still face enormous regulatory challenges. But in every earnings call, the CEO, there's a subtext of what they're saying, but they're not saying.

24:58And in this latest earnings call, Andy was saying, what do you think of me now, bitch? Right. That's what he said. That's what he was saying. Because that's the kind of guy he is. He's not like that at all. What should they be doing right now? They're doing the health care. They're doing this and that. The exact same thing. I don't think, I mean, AI, look, everyone is zeroing in on the same thing. All the biggest players have said the fastest growing expenditure in history across corporations and to a lesser extent, the consumer is AI. They need infrastructure and it's perfect for them. The infrastructure costs so much money that there's only a few of us that can do it.

25:34We'll all have our different versions of mozzarella, but we will be the only deli in town. So we're just going to go hard at this and it'll increase our operating amount. I mean, they should do out. You know what they should do? They should do absolutely nothing new. They should stay focused on this. Yeah. All right. Well, congratulations, Annie Jassy. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back. We'll talk about Walmart shutting down its health care centers and CBS stock taking a major tumble, speaking of which, and Amazon's in this business.

26:05Scott, we're hitting the road, bringing Pivot Live to the people. Seven cities, Toronto, Boston, New York, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, and L.A., of course. You went to Oasis, you went to Beyoncé, you saw the remake of Wizard of Oz and The Sphere. All those suck compared to the Pivot Tour. This is the biggest tour. Same people that are organizing our tour that organized Taylor Swift's tour. They are much more excited about our tour. All right. That's enough, Grandpa. It's going to be so good. And we're bringing our brand of whatever we do to the people. And we're excited to meet our fans. We love our fans.

26:44For tickets, head to PivotTour.com. See you there. There 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'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.

27:30This week, we're talking about Trump and Kimmel, free speech, and a TV format that's remained surprisingly durable for now. That's This Week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

27:48Scott, we're back with our second big story. Walmart is shutting down 51 health centers spread across five states, as well as its virtual care service. The company announced closures this week, citing lack of profitability and saying there's not a sustainable business model for us to continue. Walmart started this health clinic initiative in 2019, and just last year said it planned to double the number of centers and expand to more states. Not surprised, another company that's struggling on the health care front, CBS. First quarter earnings were well below estimates. The company cut its guidance for the rest of 2024.

28:19CVS said medical costs were$900 million higher than expected, due in part to the company's Medicare Advantage plans. Shares fell nearly 17 % on Wednesday, the steepest one-day drop since 2009. So these are two interesting, similar companies. Talk first about these clinics. They're not any good if anyone ever tried them. There's so many other good options now in terms of urgent care, essentially, that I use, not Walmart. I think they're terrible. Obviously, Amazon's in this business. There's all kinds of people in this business. But a rehaul of health care, you know, delivered in these clinic things has to be underway.

29:02I just, what would be a sustainable market, for example? So I'm boasting again, but I've spoken at Walmart a few times. And one time, Doug and his senior management took me to a room and said, what would you do if you were Walmart? And this is like seven, eight years ago. They took you to a room? Did it have windows? It was a conference room. Okay. It wasn't like a super max interrogation facility. All right, I thought it might have been. Okay. And they gave me ketamine and asked me how I knew the folks at Target. Anyways, and I said, to be clear, I said, healthcare. Yeah. Hold on one second. For those of you sitting and listening at home, someone just came to the door, and that's why you never wear pants.

29:43That's what you call opportunity. All right. Back to Walmart. Is that wrong? You're in the room and you told them to get into healthcare. I told them to get into healthcare. And you know what? I was wrong. It appears I was wrong. What I would say is the following is that place-based healthcare, or I don't know if it's this demographic. I don't know what it is. I don't know if because Walmart attracts a patient that is high cost and low revenue. But again, and I might be wrong here, but everyone says, I'm speaking about AI tonight. Everyone wants to talk about AI. And they say, what's the biggest opportunity in AI?

30:14And I think by far the biggest opportunity of AI is to push out healthcare via people's phone, which everyone owns, such that they can take a picture of a rash. They can describe, they can upload their sleep patterns or their grocery receipts. That's the dream. And AI is going to be able to go, okay, it appears you're pre-diabetic. You need to make the following health choices. And we're going to upload, we're going to have an app for you that basically monitors you every day. And I think the opportunity to reach into the portions of America that are either intimidated or underinsured or think of health care, you know, their only interface with health care is the emergency room.

30:53And it's a huge opportunity. But maybe the bottom line is that that innovation, it might happen on a phone and not in a store. But I would have thought I would have thought this was a great idea. I got this wrong. You know, we were just briefly talking about sort of charging stations. It's going to be a commodity business in that regard. So you have to maintain it. They break all the time. They're always full. It's like one of these high-touch businesses, right? There's so many points of failure for these things and a lot of points of dissatisfaction for a user. These things are the same way. They're just not staffed right.

31:29They're not responsive. It's like a shitty experience. And then you have Amazon doing theirs, which is a$99 a year one where, you know, where you go into the one medicals, which you could probably drop prices on quite a bit and get, you know, different kind of customers and stuff. But it's just these in the store things are just terrible experiences as a product. That to me is really at the heart of it, whether it's at CVS or Walmart or anything else. And there's enough of these storefront versions of there's more than one one medical. There's a whole bunch in New York with a different name. And they work just fine.

32:06I just think it's just a very expensive business and a high touch and high disappointment. I don't know. I just feel like people wouldn't—you don't go unless you absolutely have to. And then you just go to the emergency room, which works just as well, sadly, for most people, for many people. And as to CVS, I mean, these costs are—have you been on a CVS lately? Oof, it's depressing. It's a depressing experience. I used to, this is how one of the many ways I could tell I was getting older. I used to love late night. I'd take an edible and go to the drugstore and I'd be like, should I have organic deodorant or a deodorant that works?

32:41And I would think about this shit for 10 minutes staring at, there's like 80 different deodorants. It really is. If you really want to understand the best and the worst of capitalism, go to a drugstore and find out there's 73 different flavors of mouthwash. You know what is really depressing to me about these drug stores is that, oh, you really need to put Advil behind a locked door. And I have to press a button and have some guy or gal come unlock it. The shrinkage is massive. The stealing is massive. But that's what's so depressing. Well, you know, Amazon is sucking up all this. Or Mark Cuban or AI.

33:17And these experiences in these stores are, you know, terrible. Just terrible. Even the supermarket business is tough. They have, you know, at our local giant, which is a local business, so many more security guards. They have shrinkage problems all over the place, like stealing and things like that. And so a lot of these businesses are, you know, it's just the people, they're going to be delivery and it's going to be very specific. When you have kids, there's these emergency pediatric clinics I use now. Very good. Very good experience. I would never take them to a CVS or Walmart now because it's just such a, it's an ick experience.

33:58It's an ick experience. And they don't stock the shelves. It feels, I felt like the other day I was like, are we in like Soviet Russia right now? Or what, you know, because they don't feel full. What store? I actually think Walmart does a pretty good job. Walmart does. It's a bigger store. I'm talking about a bigger store. But I'm talking about the health care. It is a grim Soviet-like experience when you go to these places. I don't know. I just hope in New York there's an explosion in CVSs and banks on every corner. I just think we need more of them. We absolutely need more of them. I was kidding.

34:28They're everywhere. I know that. I agree. But, you know, these$900 million, these Medicare costs, these costs are out of control. And we have to rethink this whole system. And you're right. AI is one way to do it. Let some of these tech companies take over. You know how we do it, Cara? What? We let people die? No, you push GLP-1 drugs to rural and poor communities. So much of this is related to obesity. So much of it. And guess what? Unfortunately, again, see above Dave and Buster's preying on young people. The industrial food complex and the industrial diabetes complex, they want to addict you to shitty, fatty, sugary foods, get you obese, and then hand you over to the industrial diabetes, kidney dialysis, hip replacement, knee replacement complex.

35:11There's too many people fighting not to have America healthy. Look at our food supply. Well, it's a good business. It's a good business keeping people sick. You know what's one thing I love about the UK? My milk goes bad in about four days. You know why? It's not packed full of preservers and hormones. There's something like 1 ,100 preservers and hormones and chemicals that are banned in the UK that are not banned in the United States. I don't know if you've looked at me. I look radiant. You look radiant. You look like your milk is sour. That's what you look like. Oh, my God. You should have seen the look when I just answered the door naked.

35:42They were very impressed. Yeah, were they? They were very impressed. Please don't do that to the staff of these hotels you stay at. I feel bad for them. Key Largo, call me if you need any help. I'll call the police. Key Largo, the ocean reef. I've never appreciated it down here. I don't get it at all. Oh, I like it. I love Key West. Really? I don't get it. I don't understand what's going on down here. Yeah, I loved Key West. I used to go all the time. I think this is where you come after you've divorced your fifth wife and really have very few options. You like the sun and you need to go somewhere where nobody knows your name.

36:14And someday the sea will take you. Well, it's okay to be a bartender at 63. All right, Scott. It could be worse. I could hate myself for being number one in miscellaneous. What the fuck does that mean? Miscellaneous. Miscellaneous. Number one miscellaneous. How to advice. My publisher's like, you're number one in miscellaneous. Miscellaneous. All right, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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38:17Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction, but I have a short one. I hear you're going to go on The View for my sources. Oh, you got me on The View? That's all you. That's all you. Is it Alyssa Farrah? Does she like my matter in Nantucket? I'm not telling you I have my sources. Let me just tell you something. Don't look at Joy in the eyes. Don't look at Joy in the eyes? Yeah, don't look at Joy in the eyes. She's going to lock eyes with me. No, I don't think so. Oh, no, I'm like, isn't she Jewish? All the Jews love me now. Yes, yeah, okay. Because I'm like a moderate that's angry about everything. And they're like, thank you for your support.

38:48Anyway, you're going on The View. It's Joy Behar? Is that it? Yeah, Behar. I just can't wait to meet Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Cindy McCain. They're still on the show, right? Cindy McCain. Cindy McCain? No, Meghan McCain was on it. Don't mention Meghan McCain. Let me give you that piece of advice. They run that place so well. You're going to love it. Oh, I'm sure it's a great show. Anyway, let's hear a prediction. My prediction is that we're going to find out that there's a reason that the tents in the encampment at NYU were the same tents at Columbia and other schools. There is a... Outsiders.

39:23Oh, there's some serious coordination and funding going on here. And I don't think we're going to like who's coordinating and funding these things. I think there's a lot more that meets the eye here. I also think that we've moved into the, okay, playtime is over. I think the universities, their leadership, the community, the governors have said, okay. Vandalism is different than free speech. They've said peaceful protests, have at it, proud legacy. Kids deserve a wide berth. But anything starting to resemble intimidating, like the type of intimidation and her real physical harassment we've seen, we're done.

40:03Playtime's over. And I think you're going to see, I think you're going to see, and you're already seeing it, I think it's going to go from hundreds to thousands of arrests, suspensions, and expulsions. And also, I've got a lot of shit for this. I think you're going to start to see faculty get fired. Because we have, for some reason, decided to give faculty and administrators the illusion that you do not have a responsibility to your employer to make it a healthy, productive work environment. And also, when we pay you, unlike students paying us, when we pay you, it sucks to be a grown-up. And if you are doing anything that makes the university environment so difficult that we can't have commencement, that you are making things more hostile in a community space here at school, they're often not public places.

40:55if you are making my life harder and I am the leadership here, then guess what? You have the rights to free speech. You have the rights to First Amendment. We cannot prosecute you, but we can fire you. You are an at-will employee unless you have tenure. And by the way, these places have become so bloated, so entitled that I think you're going to start to see universities say, let me get this. You're down, down there making things worse, and I'm supposed to not fire you because of quote unquote fear. Go into the lobby or the office park of MasterCard or Walmart and start screaming free, free Palestine or God, who cares, save the whales and make this a less productive work environment.

41:39You have the right. I have the right to fire you. You're going to see. I think the public is really fed up with this. And I think we're going to find that some of the funding and coordination here is not innocent. It's not going to be who we, the worm is turning here. And in a weird way, in a weird way, I think this has been really good for Israel. In every movement that's been effective, you've had a great spokesperson. What spokesperson, other than the young woman demanding that they cater food in the building they're occupying, by the way, the revolution will be catered. That was not great.

42:16Who has been able to articulate anything resembling a sane, reasonable position for these protesters. They lack it. It was interesting. There was a professor on Stephanie Rule's show last night, and I'm blanking. He runs an Israeli studies professor. I think it's at UCLA. And he was not, and she's like, you're not supporting the protesters. And he says, you know what? I'm a very reasonable, moderate, more than moderate, very progressive person. And I'm horrified by what's happening in Gaza and the brutality. And he said at the same time, the things they're asking for, one, divestment, which is very hard to do.

42:53And two, that you should limit academic, you should ban Israeli professors and Israeli exchanges at these universities because I'm for academic freedom. So I cannot sign on to their ridiculous demands of this kind of stuff. Now, it's interesting at other universities, they've started to have discussions like, right? Right. Right. Actual, which is perfectly fine. Everybody in a university setting should have discussions and debates and things like that. And I think that's what's it's interesting that some schools it is working that that dialogue is working, which I think is a good thing. and other schools it degenerates into violence and although I do think the media is over doing the violence a little bit you know I like come on like it's I was at one thing that was reported and I was like this was not a big deal it wasn't as tense as people thought and some of them certainly are so I just think it just it's like there was one point when there was one sort of crazy person from outside and they kept saying they this represents the the protesters And inside, it was different than outside.

43:59It's a very difficult reporting assignment, I think. But at the same time, I think the vandalism, the photos, the asking for catering, you're right. It was, you know, it seems like, do you want dialogue or do you want just to continue this? And I think that's where people are, people don't love chaos over an extended period of time. I got an email, of course, not signed anonymous, saying you're a pro-genocide, self-promoting professor about you too. And, you know, oh, and you're, you're a dummy professor. Clinical professors are not real professors. And I just typed in the email into Google and I found out it's a professor at the university of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

44:42So I wrote back to him and said, why are you hiding behind an anonymous email? Yeah. We can have a productive dialogue. I get it right all the time. Wrong, wrong. I get it wrong all the time. And so I went on the site and I wanted to find out more about the university. And there was a bunch of news about the university and there was footage of protests and the protests there were entirely civil. They were people with signs saying, chanting, whatever, on both sides. It was a productive civil protest. And I would bet, Kara, that 90 plus percent of the protests on campuses are just that, but they're not interesting.

45:19They don't get late night TV ratings. So I think there are hundreds of protests. It's just the only one the cameras are going to show up for is the ones that feel like this could turn ugly. There's enough of them, though. There's Dartmouth. I was sort of shocked. Yeah, I was shocked, too. Have you seen what's going on at UCLA? Yeah. I mean, two places that are so, like, I consider it to be more, like, ambitious kids, like, ambitious work. You know, I was interested. I think some of those kids are about to get a life lesson. I think parents and employers— I'm surprised where it's popping up, honestly.

45:48I was like, ooh, that's cool versus— I'm going to go— I would think the brown kids would be like in revolt, and instead they've had a very productive discussion with their – anyway. Look at it this way. UCLA, the way I see it – I did a play on words here – expels 90 % of their students during the application process. Nine out of 10 people that apply. If you don't have perfect SATs, you're essentially expelled from UCLA. You don't get in. Yeah, at least one of my kids didn't get in there, but go ahead. When I was there 40 years ago, there was something called the emergency loan window. And you could go up, show your student ID, and you could get 50 bucks, questions not asked.

46:25Didn't pay it back in seven days. I was suspended. I got two C's in a D one semester. Suspended. Okay, but you support. But you're creating hostility on campus. I think it's time, and I think it's about to happen. And I realize I sound like a get-off-my-long guy. But if you're one of the students, did you see that video of that Jewish kid who was being held from access to the library at UCLA because he didn't have a wristband on? because he was Jewish. I mean, I would really like to see facial recognition and I'd like to see these kids get a powerful life lesson. I think playtime is over. Peaceful protests, no problem.

47:05Though there were fighters, I mean, there was a, the thing at UCL was between two groups that counter protesters and counter protesters, which was, anyway. That's awful too. There's no reason for that. And that, and quite frankly, as someone who is, who has become an atheist, no connection to Israel, and has become a full-blown Zionist as of October the 7th. What I would tell to people who are upset by this, never, never resort to violence. You're hurting your own cause. Don't throw things at people. It's not up to you to decide when the tents should go. That's up to law enforcement and the administrators.

47:44And all you're doing is hurting our own. You're hurting us if you're pro-Israel. It's just you never do that. Let let the kids and the encampments and the professional protesters are doing our work for us. They're they're revealing themselves and the entire public. Do you know do you know support for Israel has actually gone up since the protest started on campus? I don't know. The Harvard Caps Harris survey showed that 80 percent of registered voters said they support Israel more in the war now. But they have one thing they have to do is be careful as they're doing this. Like Delaney Cobb, who runs where I went, Columbia Journalism School, was reporting and they nearly pulled him off campus.

48:23They leaving the reporters out, I think is. And by the way, can I just make a call out? Student reporters, especially at Columbia and other schools, have been doing a great job. David Bruin Radio is where everyone's getting information. I have to say, they're doing really. I'm so, so much respect for these reporters and And they're doing a great, even-handed, strong, strong reporting job that is really quite impressive. And speaking of life lessons, they've learned, you know, it's a great thing to, they're doing a great job. So also, but I think it's important for parents and leadership who are being very critical of universities, understandably, keep in mind, just as Twitter is not the world, The protests and the students and the professional protesters you're seeing on late night TV and on news, that is not universities and the student body.

49:13It's usually less, far less, even the hotspots than 1 % of the actual students. The majority of the students there are good people who have strong views but are focused on studying and getting through finals. and to think that I just hear too many people who tend to learn conservative who are using this as all universities are bad. This is America going down the tubes. No, guess what? America still does a few things really, really well. Weapons, software. We make the best media of men in tights. And also, even with this, be clear, folks, as someone who knows academia pretty well, we still have the best universities in the best environment.

49:53What you're seeing is a very small piece of what happens every day at our great universities. Yeah. But, you know, we'll see what happens with the workers. Just now, leadership of the union representing University of California academic workers voted Wednesday to approve strike authorization. So we'll see how that goes. Can't wait for the conventions, the Republican and Democratic conventions, although there's rings of security around those things. They better have a lot of security going forward for that because cities are not going to tolerate that. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind.

50:27Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Can you read us out? Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Indratot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Emil Saverio. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcast. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

51:02What's the fastest growing intellectual property in the world? Miscellaneous.