The Politics of Joy, Telegram CEO Arrested, and Guest Host Adam Grant

24:06Yeah, it's also just, I think it's not as judgmental. I think that we all know weird people that we accept. So it's a way of saying, hey, you're not like us without saying, you know, you're less than us. Right. Got that. So one of the things she did, I thought, effectively, it seemed to work when she was listing a bunch of things they were doing. And then she's like, they're out of their damn minds, the way she talked. Talk about that. That was effective, I think. Maybe it wasn't, but I felt it was. What did you think was effective about that? I'm curious. Because I've heard regular people say it.

24:39Like when someone, you're at work and your boss does something, you're like, they're out of their damn mind. Like you can feel everybody feels good about talking. And it doesn't feel really rude. Yeah. So it sounds like in part, it's validating what some people are already feeling. And I think it's also, at some level, I don't know how far I would go with this, Kara, but part of me hears that language and thinks, okay, we're tired of all of this trying to reason through and rationalize the appeal of Trump. Right. How many articles were written in 2016 and 2017 about, well, actually, you know, it's not X, Y, or Z thing that you hate.

25:23It's really, you know, people are feeling, you know, that economic precarity. And, you know, they feel seen by Trump. It's like, no, some of this is just ridiculous and unacceptable. Let's not legitimate it. Right, yeah. So what is her best quality and the one you think is problematic for her, possibly problematic, and the same with him? Okay, so I think her best quality right now is momentum, fresh energy. I think that's what we're all riding on. I think her biggest challenge is a lot of people don't think they know what she stands for. They're either proxying Biden's policies as hers, or they're saying, I don't really know what her principles are.

26:05I don't know what she's going to try to implement. Yeah, I call it Kamal Curious in a positive way. That's a great way to frame it. I do think she handled that really effectively in her speech when she talked about Israel's right to exist, but also how some of the Israeli government actions in Gaza were unacceptable and how Palestine has a right to self-determination, too. I thought she walked that line very effectively in a way that, frankly, very few people have done. It was, you know, I took, I looked at it carefully and each sentence was strong, right? It was, so it felt like everybody was addressed, but it didn't feel like she was modulating wimply, right?

26:44That's how I took it too. And I think those kinds of messages will probably be helpful in the next two months. I probably wouldn't debate Trump at this point. I think. Oh, well, he might not. He's trying to get out. Yeah, it looks like he's waffling, but I don't see a lot of upside for her. Do you? I do. I do. Because she could get him to say something terrible. Like one more terrible thing. I mean, how many more do we need, though? I think she could get him to say something very terrible. Do you really think... Okay, let's assume she could do it. Yeah. Do you really think there's anything he could say at this point that would hurt his candidacy?

27:18There are several words he could say about her and about people of color. Yes. Everyone's talked about him saying those words, but him saying them in a public setting is a very different situation. It's super ugly. It's like Bull Connor. If you could get him into a Bull Connor moment, that would be effective. If he could say something terrible about women, not nasty women, something worse, and he's called her worse names. Yeah, you could, yes, there are words. And you think her ability to think on her feet and her prosecutor experience will allow her to debate him in a way that other people have tried and failed?

27:54Not so much. Well, she's good at it. She has the skills, certainly. But I think her very being offends him. I do think what was interesting to me recently is he keeps attacking walls, who doesn't matter, even though he's totally appealing. But he never attacks her like he attacks walls. And I'm like, oh, you think you're running against walls? It doesn't matter. Like, he's just an extra added cherry on the top of this happy fest, right? He's not like he matters, but he doesn't matter kind of thing. Yeah, I think part of his strategy is he throws a lot of things against the wall to see what sticks.

28:27and Walls is a new target, right? Kamala Harris is not entirely new. He's been dealing with her over the course of the Biden presidency. Okay, due to his negatives and positives. Yeah, well, look, I think one thing that he's doing effectively, and it bothers me to my core that this is effective, is he's continuing to delegitimate all the sources of credibility that would call into question his competence and his character, right? So you can't trust the media, they're fake news. You know, all the people who are prosecuting me, oh, that's the Biden Justice Department. And it has created, I think, some lingering questions in the minds of people who would otherwise, in a different era, have said, you know what, we got to move on.

29:05This guy is not qualified to lead. And what about negative qualities? I think on the negative side, beyond what we've already talked about, I think he seems to be even more undisciplined than he was before. There isn't a semblance of a strategy right now. And for somebody who's as effective at communicating on the fly as he is, you would expect a little bit more focus. And not rambling. Well, one of the things could be age. And it's interesting that the media is not covering his obvious cognitive deficits. Now, you wrote about President Biden, a column in New York Times back in July, shortly before he stepped aside, you talked about how there was a groupthink happening with no one being honest about the reality of the situation.

29:43This is pretty common in politics and business, particularly with a powerful, controlling leader. First of all, what do you see as the best way to communicate and get people to see-through the reality. And tell me why you decided to write that. I thought I was surprised and also thought it was terrific. Oh, thank you. Why were you surprised? Because you don't seem to go, you're not a limb goer. You know what I mean? Like I can see George Clooney doing it, but although I was inspired by George Clooney, actually, I was like, huh, this is going to cost you, right? And calling, we got in, Scott and I got in trouble for saying he should step aside a lot.

30:18So talk a little bit about why you did that and what's the best way to get out of groupthink happening. I just thought it was an interesting take on what was happening there. All right, yeah, I'll start with the why. So I don't think about this from a cost-benefit perspective. I think about it more in terms of, is this an issue where I have unique expertise to bring to the table? And so I don't weigh in on a lot of politics because I don't think as a social scientist, I'm adding value there. But in this case, he's making a leadership decision. And I'm watching him, first of all, fall in the escalation of commitment trap where he's throwing good money after bad and digging his heels in when he should be doing a clear-eyed analysis of, you know, what are my odds of winning and how much am I hurting the congressional races down the ticket, which took way too long to happen, in my view.

31:04And so I thought, okay, there's an analysis waiting to be done there that actually brings, you know, evidence from organizational psychology to the table. I have something to say here and nobody else is talking about it. And then, you know, in terms of how to get out of that kind of situation, I think that, unfortunately, what you need is a group of people who are committed to principles larger than just appeasing the leader. So if I'm talking to Team Biden back in July, the first conversation I'm having with them is, is your goal to make Biden feel good about you and solidify that relationship?

31:38Or is your goal for Trump to lose the election? And if you focus on that latter goal, it becomes a lot easier to be candid. I think too many people are doing the political calculus. And this is what you see in the research on groupthink is people ask, well, you know, is this going to help me or hurt me? And what you want is not a logic of consequences, as Jim March first put it, but a logic of appropriateness of what should a person like me do in a situation like this? What's the right thing to do? And there's no question there. The right thing to do is to challenge him and get him to recognize the very real possibility that he's basically driving a sinking ship.

32:14So only one person did that very effectively, Nancy Pelosi. And she said it. She goes, my goal is to beat Trump. And unfortunately, our relationship is the, you know, the collateral damage, essentially. You had a great conversation with Nancy Pelosi about that. I think she was the only person who did it effectively publicly. I heard from a bunch of people who had private conversations with Biden. And I even got one note from somebody who said, I used your article as a template for how to talk to him. And I said, you could have just called me. We know each other. But they wouldn't have called me.

32:48And I had to write to them in the pages of the New York Times, which was an aha moment for me. But I guess you've experienced that many times. Many times. How do you get a leader to do that? Because, you know, here you are. You've finally gotten to the presidency after all these years. You do have cognitive issues, right? You're like stubborn as a personality. before you were older. And it only, you know, calcifies, I think, in people's, their personalities calcify, essentially. Yeah, my impression from talking to people who were close to Biden around this was that the legacy conversation was effective.

33:22That getting him to think about how he wanted to be remembered and also following in the footsteps of George Washington, who walked away from power, not wanting to take that third term when the people around him were encouraging him to do it. I think that precedent was very powerful. I think a lot of people focused on the loss message, which was not effective. He did not want to believe that he was not the best person to beat Trump. And so reframing that as a gain, and this comes right out of the evidence on how to get people to deescalate their commitment, was effective in getting him to say, okay, there's actually upside here.

33:54I can pass the torch. I can solidify my legacy. I can elevate the next generation. I can lift up a woman of color for a shot at the presidency. I think those arguments landed. And that is very much what we see outside of the Oval Office is if you're going to have that kind of conversation with a leader in power, you have to help them recognize that they're compromised in their judgment, that they're obviously going to be looking for information that convinces them that they're going to win and discounting anything that would lead them to lose. And so I would have gotten him to pre-commit to say, OK, there are a group of people I trust or there are a group of polls that I would be willing to trust.

34:30And if the polls hit a certain level, then, yes, I will step aside. Right. Now, that's difficult. I was just reading, there was an excerpt from a new book about the Twitter takeover, and a lot of it was about people who knew better, this was particularly around the blue rollout, which wasn't going to work. And a lot of us said this, like, come on. internally that knew that and continued, tried to say it and then couldn't. And there was all these people who had to cope with the leader, you know, who was different one-on-one versus in a group where they had to feel dominant in a group. Some situations are impossible, correct?

35:05That you can't because it's their, you know, it's their pop stand. And so they're going to do what they want. It is frustrating how much of this rests on the shoulders of a leader, right? To not only ask for dissenting views, but to prove that they can handle the truth. If you have a leader that doesn't do that, yeah, I think you're going out on a limb there. I think the first thing you could do is, you know, is just say, I'm worried that people are not going to be honest with you because they care a lot about your approval and your opinion. You know, it has real weight around here. Can we do an anonymous poll?

35:35And sometimes that's enough if the leader's open to it. I think to your point, it's a lot easier to have trust one-on-one than it is in a large group setting. And so I would try to catch the leader before or afterward. But easier said than done. You know, I think that weak leaders shoot the messenger. I think that strong leaders praise the messenger, but truly great leaders promote the messenger. And I don't think we have enough leaders doing that. No, not any, actually, in my experience. I don't know. Anyway, it's really interesting. We'll see what happens. I do think one of the things I will say about Kamala Harris, having spent a lot of time with her, is she really does try to listen to a lot of opinions.

36:14I was always struck by that about her. She'd always have me in and say, what's the worst thing here? Very much like a lawyer would, what can I get hit with? And it wasn't so much political. It was more like, challenge me so I can make a better argument. It was interesting. She's a really interesting character. That's encouraging. Yeah, it was. It was. And I was always like, oh, you're fucked on that one. You know, and she welcomed it. I didn't say she welcomed it, but she wasn't pretending it wasn't true. Anyway, that's what good, I think that's what good leaders do, collect all kinds, and then make a decision, even if it's wrong.

36:45All right, Adam, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, the questions being raised about gender in this election, and we'll speak with friend of Pivot, Anupri Tadas, about the evolution of Bill Gates.

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39:05Adam, we're back. If Kamala Harris wins the election in November, it'll be a victory for the history books as she becomes the first woman president of the United States, although she's not really leaning into that. Interestingly, the historic nature of Harris's candidacy is being downplayed by her campaign, a strategy in direct contrast we saw with Hillary Clinton. I'm with her. She's a lot of we's in her messaging. It hasn't stopped a number of outlets continuing to ask. Is America finally ready for a woman president? I know you have some thoughts on that question, America being ready for a woman president.

39:33Why do you find it problematic? I find it horrifying, but tell me why. Well, it's a stupid question. First of all, 65 million Americans voted for Hillary Clinton eight years ago. We're ready. Secondly, asking the question actually reduces people's likelihood of voting for a woman. There's evidence that if people support a female candidate, but they're afraid that others won't, that that can discourage some of them from voting. And so I think we need to change that narrative really quickly and say, look, yes, America is ready to vote for a woman. We've been ready for a long time. Let's do it. Should she focus on it?

40:06Nancy Wilsey has said, the prospect of the first woman president brings tears to my eyes, but not the votes to the ballot box. It's icing on the cake, but it ain't the cake. Oh God, she's, you gotta study her. I think that's your next book. At 84? Yeah. She's not too old to run. Talk about that. Is she making, should she talk about it? Because I think if she does talk about it, it is, or I'm a black woman or whatever, a woman of color. No, I think she's taking the right approach. I think she doesn't want to be branded as a diversity candidate. I think also the more that she activates gender and or race, the more that she associates herself with stereotypes.

40:40And we want to get away from stereotypes, right? I mean, I don't need to tell you this, Cara. The evidence is overwhelming that women are more likely to get hit when they're running for leadership, for being self-serving, for lacking warmth, for questions of integrity, which is just grossly unfair. And so let's not make that any more salient than it already is. So that's pretending it's not happening because there's a lot of talk about the role of masculinity in the election. People do lean into that and the contrast between the two sides. Scott was talking about it at the convention last week.

41:06With the Republicans, we've got Donald Trump and J.D. Vance offering a sort of uber masculinity, a different kind of masculinity with one pollster is described as the testosterone ticket. I would say the HGH ticket, like a little too much testosterone. On the Democratic side, we see Tim Walz is offering a tenderness and toughness, as we saw in his convention speech. Now, you've written a lot about masculinity and gender stereotypes. What do you think of the contrast? Well, I think the problem is that the stereotypes we have of men tend to overlap a lot with our prototypes of effective leaders, right?

41:38When you ask people to describe what makes a leader. Great. They say, we want somebody who's bold, dominant, assertive. And those are the same intuitive assumptions that people make about men. And so you get this nice overlap. I really like the way that the Harris-Walls campaign is breaking that form and saying, look, you can do tough love. And I think both of the candidates, both Harris and Walls, are modeling different versions of that. You know, we have sort of what's been called the mama bear effect with Kamala Harris's presentation, right? She's going to take down drug dealers. She's going to fight the drug manufacturers on the cost of insulin.

42:12Not different than Sarah Palin. That was one of her most effective lines. I'm a, you know, I'm an attack dog of a mom. Like I'm a hockey mom. Sarah Palin had effective lines? Yes, she did. She had, I remember, I'm a hockey mom. I didn't remember that. I don't get in the way of a hockey mother, that kind of thing. Something like that. Oh, that works. I mean, that is when women are given cultural freedom and permission to be tough on behalf of others. And Walls, I think the football coach persona and the dad jokes are capturing that really nicely. How does it play? Because, you know, there was a discussion about Gus Walls' display of emotion at the DNC.

42:44Super heinous remarks by Ann Coulter. That was outrageous. There were several people that really did nothing. They were just heinous people. I don't know what else to say. And they should not have children. But they shouldn't. I have strong feelings about that one. I do. I do. I do because, you know, it's it's sickening to attack children in general and in particular for showing emotion when we are. So we're a society that doesn't show enough emotion. So we talk about that, that showing of emotion. He's very his kids in him are obviously bonded. It's not fake. It's it's so like, you know, it's just a real thing.

43:22How does that play with people? They seem comfortable with it. for some reason. I think they're doing it in a way that's socially appropriate. And that's the key, right? You don't see Walls bawling at a movie. You see the emotion around his commitment to his family. And I think that's strong love, right? As opposed to, I lack control or I'm a weak man. And so I do think they have to be a little bit careful about that. But it works when it's connected to something that everybody values and admires. But is that effective to lean into those gender stereotypes for the ticket and for the other one, too, for the Trump Vance, which is hyper-testosterone male.

44:03Yeah. Look, it's easier to violate stereotypes in the desirable than undesirable direction, right? So it's easier for a man to be hyper-masculine than it is to be a little bit feminine. But I think on this one, I think it works and I think we have precedent for it. I think Lincoln was one of our first models for this, right? It wasn't just the charisma as a speaker and the vision as a leader, he held office hours listening to the concerns of ordinary citizens so that he could better address their problems. Now, obviously, that doesn't scale to America 2024. But the care he showed in that, right, I think is very much something we associate with presidents.

44:40And I actually ran an experiment back in 2015, 16, where I just reminded people that Lincoln did that. And all of a sudden, they were more willing to vote for a female candidate. Oh, interesting. Wow, that's interesting. So she should also lean into empathy, just that kind of thing. I think so. I'm a little reluctant on it because I don't want to essentialize gender differences that are heavily socialized around expectations. You're absolutely right. I want to make the case, look, men can be caring and empathetic. Lincoln did it. Women can be tough and strong. We're seeing that from Kamala Harris now.

45:13But I do think because people associate women so strongly with empathy and compassion, it's probably not a bad idea to amplify that a little bit. Right. No, absolutely. I think if she shows, I think there's a line where you're tough and strong, but if you don't have some level of humor, I think she does. She's not, someone's like, she's like Hillary. I'm like, she's nothing like Hillary. Hillary is, I think Barack Obama did nail it. Like, she's likable enough. And it was as sexist as that was. I think it really did. It still exists today, right? I'm going to disagree with you on that one. I think that's Hillary Clinton having been forced to contort herself into a public image on stage.

45:54I think anybody who interacts with her in person finds her extremely warm and charismatic and likable. Yeah. Oh, no, she's fantastic. She's one of these people you want to have a drink with. But she couldn't translate it. You're right. But I think that was another era. She felt like she couldn't be herself. Well, I remember a 538 analysis showing that her approval ratings went down every time she ran for office and up every time she held one. That's correct. And I think that speaks to the traps that are laid, right, for a candidate who doesn't fit into the stereotypes of the job or their gender perfectly to say, look, if they're advocating for themselves, then we're going to penalize them.

46:33But once they're in a position that depends on competence, we're going to celebrate them. All right. Last question on this. It's interesting because a lot of people, Harris is obviously very compelling to people and she's got a lot of charisma. It's, you know, and someone was like, is this fake? I'm like, no, this is what she's actually like. She was contorting herself before. Like, this is the person we knew as attorney general or senator or district attorney even way back when. And then something happened during the election that she tried to be president and then vice presidency. see um is is being genuine to yourself the best way to translate as a leader genuine to which self to herself to the way i don't think she has one self right i think she has a constellation of right that's traits and skills right i get it but i think yes i think that it's look i don't i don't think anybody's a good enough actor to sustain multiple months on a campaign trail of faking it And I think what she's doing now is really smart, which is she's channeling things that are natural for her and bringing them out and making them more visible.

47:38And I do think you're right. I think she was suppressing a lot of those tendencies before because she didn't want to be perceived as unserious. And we saw those laughing Kamala memes, but they don't seem to have hurt her. So I would say, look, you shouldn't. I guess there's a distinction that sometimes gets made between what you conceal and what you reveal. I don't think you should display all of your tendencies, but I don't think trying to put on a mask all the time is going to work for anybody. I think it's not good. I think there's a thing I had in Silicon Valley of executives who were very different privately from publicly.

48:13And the ones that were successful were the same. That's what they're like, you know, publicly and privately. Which is ironic because it's a job that almost forces you to be looking in the mirror constantly. Yep, absolutely. But I think you're right. I think that the less you pay attention to the image you're trying to manufacture, the better. Yeah, absolutely. All right, let's bring in our friend Pivot to talk about someone whose image has changed quite a bit, Bill Gates.

48:42Anupri Tadas is a South Asia correspondent for The New York Times and author of the new book, Billionaire Nerd, Savior King, Bill Gates and his quest to shape our world. Welcome. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Thrilled to be on here. So the Bill Gates persona has changed so much over the years. And trust me, I've been there for all of it. From boy genius to tech entrepreneur to philanthropist and such. And you say in the book that he switched between an entitled hero and somewhat a villain and every shade in between. You also go into detail about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, noting that why Gates hung around with Epstein may remain a head scratcher forever.

49:20Actually, I have some thoughts on that. Why? But talk a little bit about this, because he definitely has shifted. He was very unlikable for much of the time I covered him and difficult, but always interesting. Right. But someone who was a problem to cover, I would I would say over the many years. Yeah, when I began looking at him in 2021 after the divorce, because that was really fascinating at that moment, there's so much about Gates. Suddenly in the press, I went back and looked at the clips from the 80s. And it's amazing how there's a uniformity about who this guy is in both his public persona and who he was as Microsoft co-CEO.

49:59You know, here's a guy who could be condescending, mercurial, you know, just didn't like talking to people unless he had to. obviously very brilliant. And a lot of reporters kind of wrote about him that way. They also looked at him as kind of the archetype of a nerd, you know, kind of this alternate vision, version of masculinity, where you're looking at sort of this guy who is slouchy. He doesn't care about the way he comes across. He's wearing these glasses that are frayed at the ends. And so if you think about it, that guy, that nerd, in a way, is who we think of as nerd today. I mean, obviously, the nerds have kind of become tech bros now.

50:45It's a separate conversation. But that was really interesting to me to see how much that person from the 80s actually continues to be that person today. But publicly, he does have a different image. And so that was, yeah. He's learned. He's learned. I mean, yeah. I think his media handlers have taught him a lot. Well, except that he doesn't always listen. Like one of the problems with all these people, and Adam knows this, they don't listen, right? They think they're great the way they are. And one of the problems with Gates is he sort of let the jerk part of himself constantly. And he had issues around how to communicate.

51:22I think he used to rock quite a bit more than he does. Because he's sort of, the edges have been, you know, sanded down, some of it, but it's still there. It's the same personality is still there. Better haircut, he washes. I don't mean to joke about it, but he really didn't wash. I mean, I don't know what else to say. He didn't. But what do you think about his impact in that regard when he's in this evolution? Because he sort of was a villain and now he's not so much a villain, although the Epstein thing has certainly dragged him down perceptibly. There's a huge shift in how the world looks at him, right?

52:03Like here's a guy with billions of dollars. He could be buying yachts. He could be buying multiple houses. But he's choosing to put this money to work to save, you know, and to fix the world's problems. So that gives you a very different public persona. You know, you're the good billionaire. You're out there helping people in the global South, people who have diseases that are incurable, but you're then researching and investing in vaccines. What could be wrong with that? The challenge there, and people don't immediately understand, is that the Gates Foundation is so enormous that it has a lot of influence around the globe.

52:41And we don't really see that in the U.S. because they've played mostly in charter schools. But they are one of the biggest donors to the WHO. You know, they have billions to spend on vaccines, on polio, on malaria. And so when you have that kind of money and you're giving it away, you're both the savior, but you're also influencing global health agendas. And so I would say that he's seen as a very good guy, but there is also the approach of the Gates Foundation kind of reflects who he is. And we can talk more about that, of course. Which is aggression. Dominance. And bigness and pushiness, dominance.

53:20Adam? Hey, Anuprita. Full disclosure, I've done some work for the Gates Foundation over the years. And one of the things that's swirling in the last couple of years is conspiracy theories, much more than before, right? About what's happening with all the farmland being bought and what kind of microchip might be in a vaccine. What's behind this and how widespread is it? It's pretty widespread. I mean, I think a lot of it came to light during the Epstein revelations and during the pandemic. So in 2015, Gates had predicted that the next big event in the world wasn't a nuclear war, but it would be a pandemic.

54:01So when it actually happened, people kind of looked at him. Some people looked at him as an oracle, but others kind of looked at him as like, how did he know what was going on? Was he trying to spread disease? So that was one set of conspiracy theories. You know, there's also the idea, as you said, Adam, that he was trying to implant microchips in people. And that came from a small feasibility study that MIT had done that, you know, looked into some of that. But they decided it was not possible. But then conspiracy theories take on a life of their own. And so that became kind of the Microsoft co-founder wants to implant chips in all of us.

54:41And, you know, so he's evil. And then the Epstein stuff. And I think everyone who has been in that Epstein world, everyone who's been connected to Epstein in some way, their reputations have been tainted. And Gates, again, it's, you know, especially because he was seen as such a good guy, the fall for him has been even more immense than a lot of the other billionaires and influential people. Yeah, the Epstein thing is interesting because, you know, there's a lot more than him who went to that island, right? There's a lot, a ton of tech people, especially. And Epstein spent a lot of time cultivating those people.

55:17In a lot of ways, Bill was bored and doesn't get to do a lot of stuff, right? Because as rich as you can be, you're often in a sort of, I call it a cashmere prison of your lifestyle that you really can't do much without it being, unless you're totally evil or totally like don't care like Elon Musk, right? You just decide, what the hell, I'm going to live the whole Bond villain life. And I think this is what I am. And so I always assume he's lonely. He was lonely and bored or something like that on some level. but talk about how does he overcome that ultimately because another thing that was happening because in his changing ways you dug into his fraying relationship with Warren Buffett in the book which was, you know, they were very performative about their friendship a lot of photos, a lot of aren't we cute kind of thing and it was cute, like let's be honest, it was adorable.

56:11Talk a little bit about that too and how, what he's doing now, what do you think he's doing at this moment? He's focused on, you know, specifically he's focused on climate change. He talks a lot about AI. So those are sort of his two big preoccupations right now, climate change in particular. But he has become this sort of, you know, lovable nerd philanthropist. And that was actually the image his media team was going for, very much so. If you think about in 2000, he was very much the villain, the guy who was, you know, Rockefeller equivalent, the Selecht monopolist, Darth Vader, every kind of popular culture villain, he was that.

56:52And then beginning in 2008, I was mid-2000s, once the Warren Buffett money started going to the Gates Foundation, I think the idea of putting him and Melinda French Gates as the chief spokespeople for the Gates Foundation gained traction. And then if you look at the friendship, you know, the performative aspects, they're largely, almost entirely from Gates's side. You know, the goofy videos, the corny stuff, it's all cute, but it isn't Buffett who was initiating all of this. I mean, he went along. I mean, Buffett and Gates have been friends since 1991. So obviously they had kind of a profound and deep connection there.

57:33But it was very important for Gates to manage and sustain that image and to minimize sort of the negatives that were out there in from the 90s and 2000s. So I think Buffett being soft and cuddly in a way really, really helped soften his image as well. And then the Epstein thing again turned that turned that around. And where he is right now is is someone who is perhaps not going to get the Nobel Peace Prize. Again, don't hold me to it Because we never know. But I think at one point he might have been a candidate, he and the Gates Foundation and people at the foundation, people in his personal private office were definitely pitching and aiming for that.

58:18Like if you think of Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, right? So that kind of equivalent. But I would say that at this point, he is obviously really respected and well regarded, but that taint isn't going away. And I don't think it will, at least for, you know, maybe another decade or more. I'm wondering how this evolution has affected his influence on founders. You mentioned that he was in some ways the archetype that everyone looked up to. And I know for a lot of the early 2000s, he was a mentor to up and coming tech founders. Mark Zuckerberg, particularly. Still. Among others. Still. What does that look like today?

58:55I don't think that Gates is seen as the model to follow. I also think that there's been such an evolution of the way tech founders act and behave in a way they've, you know, transformed. If you look at Emily Chang's book, you know, sort of the nerd to bro transformation to me also, you know, kind of mirrors the growth and impact of tech. and Cara, obviously, you know, you've captured all of this. So it's the potency, like back in the 1990s and 2000s, there was just Gates and he was dominant in people's imaginations. And now you have five, six, seven, you know, 10 different people and their physical transformation is very, very interesting.

59:43If you look at, I was just looking at this picture of Bezos and Gates playing tennis. And I mean, you know, I mean, the guy looked like a schlub. I mean, Bezos did. And so did Zuckerberg, right? When he first kind of started. And now he's ripped. And, you know, he's like asking Moss to a cage match. We're still waiting for that, of course. No, we're not. We're not waiting for that. It's never going to happen. So I think Gates is seen as an elder statesman, but I don't see him as being kind of the model or the hero or the person to emulate, you know, as you have a lot of antitrust issues, you know, Google, all of these companies, right, being hauled.

1:00:27All these. So again, you're not just writing about Bill Gates, but this billionaire class, you mentioned Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and others. What do you think is the biggest problem this group has currently? I've never seen, you know, I hate, I've never been so sorry to be right about people. I have to say, you know, even though everyone's like, oh, you're so mean to him, I'm like, I wish they didn't have to be, it didn't have to be like this, right? And there are some very people I really do admire. You see, the direction Mark Cuban is going in is very different, for example, and he started off as such a jerk, like such a jerk, more of a puckish jerk, but not a jerk nonetheless.

1:01:05You have a whole chapter titled Why We Hate Billionaires, where you note America appears to be growing increasingly uneasy about them. This is not a new fresh thing for Americans. You know, it goes back to the robber barons and everything else. But can you talk a little bit about them as a group and then the role that they're trying to play in the election quite explicitly and mostly ignorantly? Right. I mean, I think the main difference now is just their numbers, right? You've had this massive increase and a swift growth in wealth. I think that's what makes people uneasy. So you've always had the billionaire class, right?

1:01:40But if you look in the past decade or so, it's just jumped exponentially, whereas incomes for everyone else haven't kept pace in that same way. So the inequality is like really quite telling from the 80s on. And so I think that makes people uncomfortable that you've got so many people with so much money. And that just translates into influence everywhere. They have cultural influence, right? Elon Musk drives news cycles, multiple news cycles, and that's just one person. Bill Gates has enough money that his private firm is like a Wall Street firm, right? And what do they do with their money? They kind of use it to determine and push for outcomes they think is right for society.

1:02:23For instance, the charter school movement, you know, that was a time when you had everyone from Zuckerberg to Bloomberg to Gates, of course. And now Warren Buffett's daughter, Susie, is a big opponent of charter schools. And so, you know, there's these fights, but all ties into what your policy preferences are. And same thing with campaign finance, right? You look at the Koch network. And so they're buying influence in many ways, but they also have cultural influence. And I think there is this sense that they've done more than they have in terms of the tale they tell people the world and what we buy into.

1:03:05Right. So there are a lot of backstories of how they got to where they are. But you have the self-made idea. And right. They're self-made. There's a lot of them are self-made. But I don't know. Yeah. I wonder a little bit about some of the unintended consequences of scrutiny. Obviously, the more power and wealth people accumulate, the more they need to be held accountable. At the same time, I'm hearing a lot of people say, look, Gates in particular did a lot of good things in terms of getting a computer on every desk and was building good technology and then is trying to do a lot of good. You may disagree with the way that the foundation allocates their funds, but solving major problems, eradicating diseases and getting vilified for that too.

1:03:48What's the point? Yeah, I think no one, at least I'm definitely not in my book kind of going after billionaires in any way, saying that, you know, you don't take away from what they've done. What I was trying to do, what I'm trying to do is even when you say self-made, there are, if you look at the fact that the billionaires list, right, overwhelmingly, they're white and male. Now, you could make two arguments. Are white men more successful, smarter than everyone else? Or is it that they've had systemic privileges? Sorry, Adam, I don't mean to make it personal, but, you know, you kind of have to think of the systemic, you know.

1:04:23Not yet. Yeah. You're the counterpoint. So I think they have obviously contributed a lot, but also people often forget that like there is an enormous amount of money and some of it is also it's doing good, but it's also building a legacy and a reputation. Right. And I think that's really important for a lot of billionaires, how they want to be remembered. So there's two ways. You can think of it as hubris and, you know, kind of an ego trip, or you can think of it as really trying to do something as a patriot. And I think it can be both. And there is a lot of hubris in the sense that you think that you can do one thing, you've done one thing really well, and then you think that that makes your skills transferable.

1:05:13And because you have so much money. Yeah, you don't think they should be doing Ukraine public foreign policy? No, I don't either. Last question for us. You focus on Gates' ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, who I know very well, including when she was a product manager at Microsoft. She's obviously started a new chapter for herself after divorce. She left the Gates Foundation a few months ago announcing a new direction with her philanthropy. She's also doing investments through Pivotal Ventures. She also donated$1 billion globally over the next two years to help women and families. There's a series of women that are doing very differently.

1:05:48Mackenzie Scott, ex-wife of Jeff Bezos being one of them, Lorraine Powell Jobs, doing that. It's a very different style, you know, and it's not performative. It certainly isn't look at me. It's not, you don't see them tweeting endlessly. Is there a difference? Is there a gender difference here in that regard? I think there is a level of empathy, perhaps. And going back to Belinda French Gates, she was always the sort of quote, unquote, human counterpoint to Gates is very data driven approach. You know, she was thinking of the people and she was also made a very specific she's created a very specific niche for herself, right, focusing on women and girls.

1:06:27And so that dedication to her cause and her choice to do it differently, and all of them, I think what they're doing is both jobs, Powell Jobs and French Gates are building what you call LLCs, right? So there's the philanthropy piece of it, but they also want to have advocacy. They also want to invest and they want to have these different arms. And so to me, I think they are building a different kind of philanthropy, but that's not unique to women. But I would say the main thing is like really, really having empathy in determining what causes you want to go after, how you approach people and how you build those connections.

1:07:10Yeah, it's interesting. I'll tell a very brief story for you. I was backstage with Gates at one of our conferences and Melinda was on stage with Walt Mossberg and she was giving a fantastic interview. I've always thought she was the brains of the operation myself. And he and I didn't get along very well, but I turned to him. I said, you know what? Being married to her, we like you 10 % more now. and he turned to me and he knew my ex-wife who was lovely also and he said, because you're married to her, I like you 10 % more and I said, so we're at 10 %? And he goes, yes. It was something else. He certainly has.

1:07:46It'll be interesting to see how he goes down in history and certainly it's a low bar now. Anyway, thank you so much. The book, again, is Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King, Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World. We really appreciate you being here. Thank you. It was great to be on here. All right, Adam, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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1:10:59Okay, Adam, let's hear some wins and fails. Okay, I have a win. It looks like Ted Lasso is coming back for season four. Oh, that was questionable? It's a success, right? It was supposed to be, well, it wasn't supposed to happen. Right. They were done. They did their series finale and now it's being rebooted. And what's the, why? Tell me why. It sounds like there's energy from a bunch of the stars and maybe Jason Sudeikis too. Yeah. I don't believe they stop at three anymore. TV is so funny. It used to be 10 seasons, right? Or six or seven and stuff like that. Not okay. I think if you develop a following like that and create such great content, you have a moral responsibility to keep producing.

1:11:40Oh, wow. Okay, so West Wing should still be going right now. I don't know if we go that far. I mean, shows do run their course, but give us at least five. All right, and it's a feel-good show too. It's a feel-good show too, absolutely. Okay, what's your fail? Oh, there's so many fails. I'm gonna choose a really obvious one. I think a big fail has been J.D. Vance. So, explain. Just, I mean, this was an avoidable mistake. There's so many candidates who would not have gotten all the negative attention that Vance has gotten. and I think they should have known that from how quickly he flip-flopped and also how green he was.

1:12:16Yep, yep, yep. And were you surprised by this? I wasn't. No, I was surprised that he was chosen, especially given that Ohio was not an easy election for him. He was chosen by someone who thought he was going to win easily. That's what it was. If he had been smart, he would have picked Nikki Haley or someone like Marco Rubio. I think Nikki Haley would have been the ideal choice for him. But he can't. And I still wonder if there's an October surprise coming. Not with her, I don't think. Honestly, I don't think he likes women. I'm sorry. It's just, I don't know. It's sneaking suspicion of mine. Do you think he's going to keep Vance?

1:12:50Well, the Robert Kennedy thing is weird as fuck. Like, speaking of weird, like that whole thing, he's trying to position himself as his running mate, it looked like. If I were J.D. Vance, I'd worry quite a bit, right? I'd be, or maybe not worried. Maybe he wants out. This can't be a good position to be in. Well, except what does he do? because he really, he isn't, I call him Peter Thiel's failed intern. I think that was a Rachel Maddow thing, you know, or a butler for billionaires. But he doesn't have, he shouldn't have been. He was arrogant to think he could do this job. I'm sorry. He wasn't ready.

1:13:21And the arrogance is so vast, but, you know, typical. Okay, my win is Moana 2 is coming. Two movies I'm really excited about. One is about Christopher Reeve, who I thought was a really wonderful guy. He played Superman. He happened to grow up in the town and went to the high school I went to. But there's a new documentary coming out about him. And of course, he got in a terrible accident while riding a horse and just dedicated his life to a lot of things. He was a really honorable and really interesting and very, for all him being a superhero, was a very deep and fascinating person. So I'm excited about that documentary.

1:13:58It's called Super Slash Man coming out. And then Moana too. Looks fantastic. I have to see it 50 times, so I'm very excited that it looks good. For the negative things, I think the tech bros using this Pavel Durov's arrest to do their virtue signaling around free speech is really dishonest and grotesque. There's a difference between free speech and crimes against children or crimes. You know, the inability to moderate child sex crimes, I don't feel like you need to be on that side in any way. And, you know, but, you know, his biggest, you know, the person who's taking advantage of much is Elon, but who uses the word pedophile in a really insulting and ridiculous way when it's a very serious topic is grotesque, I think.

1:14:46So, you know, we'll see what happens here and what they've done. I'd like to know what they've done. I wish there wasn't so much confusion around it. And I certainly believe in as much free speech as possible, but it does have a limit. So anyway, we'll see. We'll see. But using it for your own purposes and to virtue signal is childish and ridiculous. But I suspect you're people who just want to see the world burn. So that's the way you are. So I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say about you, as Tim Waltz would say. I don't know what to say about you. Wouldn't he say something like that?

1:15:18I don't know what. I don't know what. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Adam, that's the show. As always, I'm very excited to talk to you whenever I do. And thanks for joining me today. And obviously, tune into Adam's podcast, all his many books. Anyway, we'll be back on Friday for more. And I'll be joined by an extra special group of co-hosts that will show my empathy, I think, and my strength. Anyway, I will read us out. And again, thank you so much for doing this.

1:15:55I appreciate it. Thank you. This was a blast, Kara. Cool. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Enderdot engineered this episode. 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 later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business, and then Scott Galloway will be back. No. Yes. Don't bring him back. I'm bringing him back.

1:16:26We like the guest hosting. I understand. How about Scott Freefall?

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