Writers Strike Deal, Betting Against the FTC, and Guest Mathias Döpfner

26:17And I thought, wow, that is powerful. But what I see is, or what I view this as, is nothing but an externality of giving a sector a hall pass such that they're no longer subject to the same laws and standards as the rest of the people in their industry. I think you're 100%. That's a very good point. Specifically, when we implemented 230 to give nascent technologies protection from the liability most media companies face when they slander or they defame or they spread misinformation and people start dying. When we removed, when we gave them that liability shield, they started behaving recklessly.

26:55And we haven't adapted our laws in the last 26 years to recognize that these guys are now responsible for the majority of the information we consume. So into that void stepped the government that said, hey, when it goes viral that there is an outbreak among teenagers of the enlargement of hearts and there really isn't any data to support that it's above where it was before, we would like you to stop to check that data and to make sure it doesn't spread to everybody such that nobody wants to get their kids or their teens vaccinated. and correctly, correctly, legally, you could say the government shouldn't be telling us what to say.

27:35It's a really powerful argument. The government should not be telling media companies what to say. I get it, except that this is what they've done, these right-wingers all the time, is go to put lawsuits in front of these people that are doing research. Every single person I talk to that I have talked to in the past at the Stanford Internet Observatory, everywhere else, they have clammed up like you can't even off the record, they've clammed up. And it's crazy. And it's because they're threatening them. They're going to threaten them. And they're using this First Amendment as a cudgel when it's all cynical.

28:10It is not a first free speech issue for these people. It is a, we don't want you to say this because our constituency is a bunch of dumb asses and we want them to stay stupid. And, you know, perhaps the government shouldn't be involved, but these researchers, are you kidding me? Like they're going to sue them out of existence. This is a patented technique, these people. I wish the Democrats would use these, Democratic or liberals use these lawsuits more as a cudgel. But this is a perfected methodology of these groups. And people like Jim Jordan are the most cynical people on earth. They're not interested in the truth.

28:46They're interested in shutting down, you know, shutting down researchers who are telling the truth. They just don't want it because they believe, some of them do, and you've seen the huge rise in anti-vax power. There's been so many powers of anti-vax people, people not wanting to get their kids vaccinated. You know, just like what happened with COVID, this is natural selection happening again, right? Because a lot of these kids are going to get diseases that don't get vaccinated that have been out of, that have not happened for decades and decades. And then the ones who do get vaccinated won't.

29:20And it's, I just, It's so irresponsible on so many levels. I just don't, I don't know what to say. When we talk about this stuff, we naturally kind of throw up our arms and tech companies will throw up their arms and their go-to is the delusion of complexity that these are intractable, unsolvable problems. And for me, it all goes back to the same place and the same potential solution. And that is the dissenter's voice is really important. The first people online who said, well, I think the virus originated in a lab in China were called jingoist and dangerous. And it ends up, there's probably more veracity to that statement than we'd originally thought.

29:55They don't know. Let me just, Scott, I'm going to press you there. Nobody knows. Well, it's no longer, I would argue it's no longer a conspiracy theory. Fine, fine. The only reason that happened was because Trump kept saying China or whatever he was saying. It was linked, it was next to something else. I think you're going to agree with my end destination here. I think that the dissenter's voice is important. And if somebody wants to say, I believe mRNA vaccines alter your DNA, they should have the right to say that. The question is, when a social media platform's algorithms who are not benign, they're not malicious, they're just totally indifferent, they're all about optimizing to get to sell more Nissan ads, says, you know what?

30:34Certain types of content enrage people, specifically novel content, which oftentimes can be false or incendiary. And what we're going to do is we're going to take that content and we're going to elevate it inorganically, unnaturally. We're going to elevate it such that it gets more and more sunlight than it would get on its own merits. And when people start seeing this thing over and over and over, there is a psychological effect. When you see something over and over and over, you tend to believe it's less crazy than it might be when it only got the natural sunlight based on the merit of the science behind it.

31:08So when a media company, and these are media companies, algorithmically elevates content for their economic benefit, why on earth would they not be subject to the same scrutiny, laws, and obligations as every other media company that decides to elevate content and put it on their primetime and say that Hugo Chavez was weaponizing voting machines? Well, you know that's a lie, but you elevated it to primetime, and you continue to lie about it, so you have to pay$800 million. But when there's 3 million times that amount of content on Meta, they're not liable. Yep, I agree. I agree. Let's sue the bastards.

31:46Let people sue the fucking bastards. That's what I say. Well, we got to have carve-outs to$2.30. They do. Anyway. Okay, let's move on to our next big story. We've talked a lot about Lina Khan's record as the FTC chair and whether she's taking on Meta, Microsoft, or Activision Blizzard. She's lost more than she's won. when one hedge fund is making the most of that losing track record and finding a winning strategy in betting against Khan, according to the Wall Street Journal. By anticipating the failure of Khan's FTC cases and investing in trading accordingly, Florida-based Pentwater Capital is reaping the benefits in a big way.

32:20The CEO of the fund telling the journal after a recent FTC loss, we have had the ability to take something that would have made tens of millions of dollars and instead make many, many times that amount. They've clearly hired lawyers to go over this because they thought the strategy she had was wrong and weak, and they bet against it. In the case of the Pentwater CEO, he spoke about a recent FTC action against pharmaceutical giant Amgen, saying it was just clear from the reading of the complaint the government wouldn't be able to prove its case. I was very surprised the FTC would bring such a weak case.

32:53Not just Pentwater, there's others finding success with the strategy. This guy doesn't think it's going to last too long because she's going to win at some point. But what do you think of this? What would you think about this? This is interesting. I thought it was interesting. I thought it was interesting too, but I think it was unfair to paint this guy as the villain. You know, hedge funds - I don't think they did, did they? It made it feel like he was doing something wrong, is the way I read it. Look, this is a good bet. And that is that over time, over the last 30 years, betting on the side of mergers going through and the government's inability to block mergers has been a good bet.

33:28And when a stock declines 20 % on the threat of a lawsuit from the DOJ or the FTC, it's just a good bet to say, no, I think this merger, I think the, whatever you want to call it, the power of capitalism or judges to err on the side of deals getting done, whatever it is. I mean, the most ridiculous one, literally the most ridiculous one was when the DOJ under Trump filed suit against - Oh, AT &T merger. Against AT &T taking over Time Warner. And that, I mean, that was just ridiculous. But anyways, Because this guy is basically betting on lobbyists and betting on these organizations' power to get these deals through.

34:09And he's been more right than wrong. And how hard it is to do this. Yeah, to block a deal. Last year, Khan said, I'm certainly not someone who thinks success is marked by 100 % court record. If you never bring these hard cases, I think there's a severe cost to that that can lead to stagnation and stasis. Now, the CEO noted that, is that she'll win at some point or they will win at some point on some of these things. and the long-awaited Amazon antitrust case is expected to be filed in federal court this week, they'll probably be looking at this, another harder one. I think they just, there's no such thing as an ironclad case, but on the weak ones, it's good to bet against Lena Kahn in that regard.

34:41Yeah, there's two, a more active FTC is probably a good thing. I mean, you can say both ways. If she keeps racking up, a lot of people would argue that the scrutiny here is what causes a change in behavior, Even if it ultimately ends up going through, they usually have to provide some concessions. And all of that, you got to respect someone in their, you know, an academic coming up and saying, I'm not afraid of anybody. You know, I'm just, regardless of whether there's, and also fighting the good fight, you could argue you're supposed to fight the good fight regardless if you think this is the wrong deal.

35:15Regardless of the likelihood of victory here, you're supposed to fight the fight. Having said that, and we've talked about this over and over, she needs a big win desperately. She does. She does. We'll see. It's very hard to do what she's doing. But this is just, I didn't think he came off as a thing. I thought it was interesting. Smart guy. That's what I thought. I don't know. I just thought, oh, okay. These smart guys, these hedge fund guys are smart. They only find money under every fucking rock there is. Well, actually, just a word on hedge funds. The best way, and I've been involved with hedge funds for 30 years.

35:43The best way to describe, is that true, 30 years, 20 years? The best way to describe hedge funds or alternative investments is expensive but bad. And that is, if you look at the stock market against the last 10 years, they've been crowded into these big names that you don't need a hedge fund to buy Apple for you. So they've had to find other means of trying to outperform the S &P, and the majority of them have not. All they have done is underperform the S &P and then charge you$2.20. So this is an industry - Explain what$2.20 is. It's 2 % of the fee and then 20 % of the carry, right? Rich people in institutions like to think that they're rich because they're smarter and smarter people should have access to a luxury brand and something better.

36:22So instead of just investing in SPY or index or ETF funds, which is exactly what they should be doing, they hire expensive groups of people with big degrees. And they say, we're going to find alpha and different types of underappreciated investments. And you're going to give us$100. And every year, we get$2 of that. So if you have a hedge fund that has$10 billion under management, on January 1, you get$200 million. It's a really good business when it gets to scale. And then if we double that money and we turn$10 billion into$20 billion, we get another$2 billion. We get 2 % of the assets under management and we get 20 % of the upside.

36:55And the reality is the majority of alternative investment vehicles that charge you outrageous fees. Vanguard, I think, charges you 10 basis points or 0.1 every year and none of the upside. And most Vanguard ETFs have outperformed the majority of these really expensive alternative investment vehicles. That's a very good point, people. people. I always say the only people that always get paid are government officials and tax officials and venture capitalists. They always get paid no matter how. Low cost ETF and index funds. Yeah, it's the way to go. It's the way to go. Anyway, that's really interesting.

37:26But this guy managed to find a little in. They managed to find a little in. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

37:38Matthias Dopfner is the chairman and CEO of Axel Springer, the German media company that owns Politico and Insider, among many others. They also own some German papers, I understand. His latest book is The Trade Trap, How to Stop Doing Business with Dictators. I've interviewed him many times, know him pretty well, a really interesting media figure. Welcome, Matthias. Hi, Kara. Hi, Scott. Anyway, we're going to get to the book. But first, I just would love to get your thoughts on the Rupert Murdoch news. And I'm going to put retirement in quotes because I don't think that old crone is going anywhere.

38:11But go ahead. Tell me what you think. Well, I have no particular insights. I think it is a complicated succession story, it seems. I think it is an interesting retirement age at 92. The question is whether that is really kind of the mark of a new era of media ownership. Because I think really this kind of type of media owner, media mogul is probably over. And that's why it may be the end of an era. And as we are always open for change and new things, the new era may be even better. Let's see. It could be. Has Murdoch influenced the way you do business? You were described as a press baron for the digital age, part Murdoch and also part Musk in a New York magazine profile.

39:01But has he influenced you or who influences you? Well, the figures that really had an impact on my kind of thinking are more journalists, publishers, in the sense of active writers, authors. But of course, if it is about doing business and creating an incredibly powerful and global media property, of course, Rupert Murdoch is definitely a towering figure. And as always with these towering figures, it's white and black and some gray nuances in between. I'm just curious when you think about that, the idea of what is a modern press digital person? How would you describe it? Well, there is first this old kind of saying, if you want to have influence on a newspaper, you should not own it.

40:00And I think that defines very well a fine line that I think modern media owners should respect. Of course, we have values and hopefully we are transparent with the values and the values define a corporate culture. And there's nothing, no such thing than a neutral media asset or neutral journalist is always human beings. But it should be not the reflection of the owner's views. And I think a modern factor would be that you should clearly distinguish between your own views and preferences and the views of your publications. They should and may not and cannot be in sharp contrast. They would be also to a certain degree, but keep a distance, keep a healthy distance and don't try to make the media brand an amplification of your own views.

40:52I think that is a very important thing. Then the second aspect would be that technology plays a completely different role today. And at least the role of technology should be deeply understood. You don't need to be a techie in order to do that. But that is definitely a different priority. And we may also have to rethink the whole role that a media brand or a publication plays. It used to be the media brand that attracted the readers. I think today it is way more the authors, the creatives, the creators. And so perhaps a modern publisher, a digital publisher is more a bit like a music company where you create an environment and you create an infrastructure and a technology and a marketing that helps great talent to excel and to reach its audience.

41:40But they definitely play a bigger role than that used to be the case. So those would be three criteria, but there are many more perhaps that define a new form of media ownership. All right, Scott's got a good question, but let's talk about the trade trap, which you write in this book about the future of our freedom, which you are expressing your opinions, by the way, and we need to decouple from countries like Russia and China. How would that happen exactly? Well, the most important point is that we have to define that really as an international project and not as a form of unilateral decoupling.

42:17That is the way that the United States have chosen so far. I think that is not going to solve the problem and it is only weakening the United States. And if Europe thinks that in dealing with China, with Russia, with other autocracies or dictatorships, they can do it alone, I think they're making a big mistake. That's why I truly think that isolationism is the absolute counter recipe for what we got to do. We need to form, and that is the concrete proposal that I'm making, we need to form a free alliance of democracies that do business together based on three criteria, acceptance of the rule of law, acceptance of human rights, and acceptance of certain CO2 targets.

43:02And everybody who accepts these criteria can become a member in a very informal way and can do tariff-free trade. Everybody who doesn't accept that can still do trade, but has to pay high tariffs. And I think that will strengthen democracies. It's a bit like a tax reform. In the short term, it may have some costs and perhaps some downsides. In the mid and long term, it is far overcompensating these costs and downsides. And with that, strengthening and defending democracy. That is, in a nutshell, the proposal that I'm making. But again, it is only going to work if we reach critical mass. America can do it alone.

43:38Europe can do it alone. this transatlantic alliance is the basis, but then as many democracies as possible should join from Japan to Canada and Australia to democratic parts of Asia, Latin America, and very importantly, India. India is a pretty decisive country here. A more global and woker NATO. Matthias, good to see you. We've been having a lot of conversations about the rider's strike and unions more broadly. And the term we use is there's a difference between being right and being effective. And loosely speaking, I've been saying that unions in the U.S. are right, but not effective. I would argue in Germany, they're both right and effective.

44:18I'm curious, coming from a nation that is highly unionized, any observations you might have around the writer's strike? And what is the difference between unions' role in the U.S. and their effectiveness and in Germany? I think a good balance between labor representatives, unions, and shareholders and executives is healthy and has, in a way, over the long term paid off for a more stable, more predictable and fairer system of economy. All exaggerations are wrong and are worrying. And I think it is very important that good units, good labor representatives really see themselves as the representatives of the workforce of the labor.

45:01And you could always say, in that sense, the interests of the well-being of a company and the well-being of the workers are very much aligned. Only if the company does well, only if the company is successful, it is in the long run healthy and good for the employee. So concretely, in that context, without interfering at all and having a point, having a judgment on the strike in America, I'm a European, so it's hard for me to judge. But I think in general, whether it's Europe or America, you can never fight progress. And the most important thing is you have to embrace progress. You have to embrace progress.

45:40You can discuss and can have a controversial discussion about what is appropriate in order to fairly compensate creatives, for example, in that concrete context. But don't try to fight artificial intelligence. That is a lost case. We got to embrace this. we got a benefit from that. And I see for the whole industry, for the creative industry, for journalists, for script writers, for actors, for musicians, I see a lot more opportunity if we really use artificial intelligence in order to get empowered and be more creative and be even better with regard to the quality of our creative products. But to just say, we have to fight that kind of progress.

46:25It's not going to work. So when you're talking about progress, You know, it's interesting because Biden, when he was, President Biden was talking about China in his speech at the UN General Assembly last week, was shifting it a little bit. And he's saying we're for de-risking, not decoupling with China, which means acknowledging where they're headed. And we seek to responsibly manage the competition between our countries so it does not tip into conflict. Do you, and he also, of course, did the prisoner swap last week, five Americans freed in Iran exchange for five Iranians who'd been in U.S. custody, plus Iran getting access to$6 billion in previously flown assets.

46:59Is that the kind of thing you're talking about, the idea of a more flexible democratic initiatives or not? So, first of all, I think these terms, whether it's decoupling or de-risking, don't matter too much. I mean, it's just the packaging. The question is really, what is the essence? What is the substance? And it is very clear that on the one hand, we cannot stop doing business with a country like China tomorrow. And on the other hand, I think for me, it is crystal clear that we can't continue on the old path. And the old path was the more you do business, you as a democracy, you do business with a non-democracy, the more the non-democracy will turn to a freedom and human rights-oriented model.

47:46And that has not been the case. This old paradigm change through trade didn't simply happen, or it happened the other way around. Because the more we dealt with Russia, particularly we, the Europeans, the Germans, the more we strengthened Putin and created basically the Putin that we have to deal with today in this terrible war. The EU is, on a daily basis, transferring more than a billion euro to this dictatorship because we have created an unnecessary energy dependency from Russia. If trade relationships turn into dependency, it's always bad. That was the case with Russia, and it is also the case with China.

48:22More than 90 percent of US antibiotics are based on components that are exclusively produced in China. So you could say our health system is already to a certain degree dependent from China. That is unhealthy, and we need to come up with an alternative. And this alternative, I think, cannot be we stop business tomorrow. It cannot be unilateral decoupling. It cannot be a third way for Europe that we try to be best friends with both. That's not going to work. We need to step by step reduce dependency. But I think we need to do it based on a self-confident and bold proposal and behavior. And that is the one that I'm making in my book, The Trade Trap, because we have been led in a trap.

49:03Now, how to escape by saying, we join forces, we basically re-establish a transatlantic alliance that is not only a security alliance like the NATO, it is also a trade alliance, perhaps a bit in the spirit of the old GET agreements that work pretty well and way better than W2O, which is a dysfunctional bureaucracy and should cease operations sooner or later. So you've made big investments into to growth media companies, Politico and Business Insiders. You made big investments, which naturally connotes that you're bullish on American media and bullish on the American economy. Why is it that you're bullish on America and specifically American media?

49:50Well, first of all, experience, because if we look to the developments over the last couple of hundred years and decades, America did pretty well, despite some bad-mouthing, some adversarial trends. America has a very, very vital ability to, in a way, reinvent itself. And also its institutions, its democratic institutions, have a very strong ability to prevail. Even if there are crises, we have seen some also in the very recent past. The American institutions are strong and the American people are very strong. this free will of the American people is the most important thing that I count on. In America, the value of freedom is deeply rooted in the individual.

50:35And Americans will never allow to be in a kind of dependent relationship, neither to their own government, which they always want to keep under control in a very healthy manner, but even more with regards to other nations and particularly with regard to non-democratic nations. So in that sense, America remains for me, despite all the crises and the grass on the neighbor's green, maybe always greener, maybe that insiders and Americans may see some things in darker tones. But I still think that the likelihood that America is going to remain a healthy democracy is, despite current events, is very high.

51:16and that this kind of aspiration that is very kind of strong in the American society is also an important factor that you can count on. And that combined with the absolute size of the market, it is still the biggest democratic economy in the world. I mean, simply makes it a very attractive market. Scale is way different. Look at the European markets. They are all limited also by languages and geographies that are way smaller. So the potential in America is simply in a different dimension. So you're very bullish. You know, we're a year away from the presidential election. We've got a government shutdown looming.

51:55There's a concern about disinformation, particularly with AI in the mix. We got some crazy going on. We have bad theater goers among our elected officials. When you think about that, you were making a very bullish case, but is there things that you and your publications are doing to combat that or not? It's just you're not worried about it. Well, yes, I can give you a very concrete answer. The thing that worries me perhaps most, and that is a global trend, but it is also very strong in America, is polarization. I think polarization is super dangerous. And polarization based on the idea of alternative facts, where each bubble has its own facts, is even more dangerous because that destroys the fundament of democracy.

52:41Also, it destroys the fundament of free decisions during an election, for example, because if you have no mutual factual base, what do you decide upon? So it is basically opening a door towards manipulation and propaganda that is then closer to non-democracy. So that worries me, and that is, you could say, on one hand, a political phenomenon on all sides and bubbles in various areas of society. But it is also something that, unfortunately, some media or an important amount of media brands are amplifying, but also taking predictable sides. As I said, there is no neutral media outlet, but I think a media brand should always keep a certain degree of unpredictability.

53:23Being unbiased, being nonpartisan and being critical towards all sides. Our role is not to advocate a good idea. Our role is to ask critical questions, to do perhaps unwelcome investigation, come up with investigative news and scoops, create news in that sense and be a critical reflection of what the powerful in our society are doing. I think that is the role of media. And now you could say basically in America, a lot of media brands are doing pretty much the opposite of what I've just described. Maybe now we take the contrarian bet if almost everybody does this to do the opposite, maybe a good contrarian case.

54:05That's our bet. You're also investing a lot in AI. You did some cost-cutting measures across Axel Springer, laying off some people. And it was tied to AI, with staffers told that the paper would be, quote, parting ways with colleagues who have tasked that in a digital world are performed by AI and or automated processes. And when we talked last year at Code, you stressed the importance of, as you were noting right now, editorial quality in journalism and digital journalism in particular. Are you concerned at all that AI has some issues which could also create more polarization and problems? Honestly, I'm always concerned because wouldn't I be concerned I would be naive and stupid.

54:42They are always dangerous. And with every progress, with every new technology, there is a danger, of course. I see that and I see also the need for immediate and strict regulation that protects the IP of the content creator because otherwise there is no incentive to ever invest into a film, invest into music, invest into journalism, invest into science. So that is absolutely right. But, and this is my important but, I see a lot more opportunities than threats and very concretely in the media industry. We have now the historic opportunity to basically delegate all the boring stuff of our business that we had to do.

55:20And I give you some examples. that is the technological part of production, that is to a certain degree error correction, that is translation, that is layout, that is photo selection, that is a kind of aggregating information that is out there and rewrite it. All that can be delegated to bots step by step, and they will do a good job. They will do a better job than humans. And then journalists, human journalists can focus on what always has been the core, and that is go out and observe reality, describe reality, be a good reporter. Go somewhere and investigate something that was not supposed to get published and create investigative scoops.

56:00Have a correspondent at a place on earth where nobody is and nobody sees what is happening there and come up with very individual and unconventional analysis and opinion pieces, editorials that stimulate discussion. Those are the things that have always been the interesting part of journalism. They have distinguished great brands from not so great brands. That was the fun part of our business, and that we can do now. And we can allocate money and investments from the boring part to the exciting part. So, Matthias, we caught up a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't know this about you. You have four sons.

56:34So, obviously, that forces you to think about the future. You're sort of at the helm of the bobsled of politics, business, both in Europe and in the U.S., what do you think the biggest threat, when you think about your sons and their lives after, you know, we're gone, what do you think is the biggest threat facing democracies? Yeah, Scott, I dedicated my book to my kids because I think the biggest threat is that we lose democracy. That is what I'm most worried about, that we lose this fundament of a free and open society, of individual freedom, of human rights. It is driven by economic success and the dependency that step-by-step is created from countries that have very different values.

57:22And I'm also worried by this bigoted approach that we have more and more companies who excel with regard to ESG standards and focus on every little detail, if it is about gender pronouns or whatever. And the same company, the same CEO is delegating large parts of the business to non-democratic countries where people are killed because they are gay or women get stoned because of adultery. That is double standards. And that shows me that democracy is under attack. Also, if I look to the numbers of Freedom House and that also the consensus that it is something that we need to protect is going to disappear because people think democracy and freedom is granted.

57:59It's there. It's going to remain forever. It's not, if I'm looking to my four kids, that they may live in a different world, authoritarian system, surveillance by the state. Everything is monitored and they are just acting like slaves serving to an authoritarian force. That is my dystopia. And this I want to avoid. And that's why I'm getting up in the morning, trying to be a good journalist and run a media company appropriately. And that's also why I wrote that book, to stimulate a discussion. And getting back to the end, what is the biggest threat to free trade from your perspective right now?

58:33The biggest threat to free trade is unilateral decoupling, which is going to foster nationalism. And that is very unhealthy because we live in a global world and we can only solve the challenges from climate change to the kind of big economic challenges. is we can only solve that together and we cannot solve it in a kind of isolated, isolationist, nationalistic manner. And the other big worry is that if we don't do anything and if we just continue as we do, that we then get undermined by non-democracies. And we have seen the writings at the wall. I mean, just to illustrate that the German car industry is pretty dependent on China already, that the CEO of Daimler had to publicly apologize for an advertisement that was quoting the Dalai Lama in a very, very harmless manner.

59:28And then when I asked the Chinese ambassador, did he really have to apologize? The answer was, not really, only if Daimler wanted to continue to sell cars in China. Then that gives me a flavor of what may happen if we don't do something. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, Matthias, it's a really interesting book, and it's true, They're all linked together in that way. Anyway, his book is called The Trade Trap, How to Stop Doing Business with Dictators, which I think we should all do immediately. And it's out now. Thank you, Matthias. Thank you, Kara. Thank you, Scott. Thanks, Matthias. Good to see you.

1:00:02He is an impressive man. I don't always agree with him, but I got to say, what do you think, Scott? I think Matthias is a great role model for young people and especially young men. He's been married for a long time. He has four sons. He's a baller professionally, and he takes seriously protecting democracy, protecting people who are less fortunate than him. You know, I think he's a great role model for young men and young professionals. I will note that they're the one company, media company in Germany, that really stresses issues around anti-Semitism and signing things and pledging and making people sign it who work there and work with them.

1:00:40Anyway, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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1:01:53Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Do you have any? Wins is my brother's birthday. Happy birthday, David Swisher. That's my win. No. Yes, it is. He's a great brother. He's the one you don't hear about. I don't know. The quiet one. And he prefers to remain quiet. And so, happy birthday. That's so unswisher-like. I know. He's so unswitted. We don't know where they dropped him. They dropped him from like a, like a down the chimney or something. He's like quiet and considerate and much more conservative than me and Jeff, but it just, he's a very, he's a, just works hard. He's a hard worker.

1:02:28And yeah, he's quiet. That's, it's not a swisher trait in any way, though he has a lot to say. You'd like him quite a bit when he talks. He's very, he's very analytical and everything. Anyway, I love him. He's a great brother. The new Apple, speaking of power of Apple, they have a documentary coming out on supermodels that looks fantastic. You're looking forward to that? I am. It looks great. I love those ladies because I think they really are really interesting and powerful. And I'm interested in the business of it. Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, and Cindy Crawford. And I just think they were such a force and just, I don't know, I just think they're interesting all individually.

1:03:06I'm particularly impressed with Christy Turlington, I have to say, in lots of ways. So I'm excited for it. That's going to be a win for me. I'm going to watch that. And that's just because I don't particularly think two miles are prettier than other women, actually, as a lesbian. But it just looks interesting. Looks super interesting. And all of these thoughts running through my head, don't say anything. Don't say anything. Don't say anything. I think my fail is obviously Kevin McCarthy getting pulled around by the nose by Matt Gates. Honestly, what a failure of leadership on his part. And I'm not sure there's anything he can do.

1:03:43But man, if you have like such a ridiculous forehead like Matt Gates in charge of our country, I'm moving to Germany and living with Matthias. That's what I'm doing. I'm calling him the forehead. He's a Joey fucking bag of donuts. No, he's not. He's something else. We got to think of a name for him. Okay, I have two wins. My first win is the FBI. Their mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States, and they investigate everything from terrorism and counterintelligence to cybercrime to organized crime to violent crime to weapons of mass destruction. and their action or their investigation against Senator Bob Menendez, where they found$450 ,000 in cash and gold bars.

1:04:37And also on his computer, he had Googled how much is a gold bar worth. And he's claiming that it's persecution against Latinos and that he has a function of his Cuban heritage, would take money out. But distinct of the alleged corruption here, The only people who are more disappointed to hear about the FBI going after Senator Bob Menendez were the far right who would like to deposition the FBI is anything but what they are. And what the FBI is a group of thousands of men and women who take an oath to the Constitution and who do an outstanding job and just go, just try to protect the Constitution.

1:05:17This guy is a walking corruption. Oh, it's just. And then you know who supported him? George Santos. That's what's important. I mean, it's almost sort of hilarious. The money in the clothes with his name on it? With his name on it. The gold bars? Gold bars. Do you have any gold bars, Scott? I don't own. No, I don't own any gold bars. I thought you might. Someone asked me, does Scott have gold bars? I go, I bet he does. Gold bars? I bet he has gold bars. Yeah, someone. I don't know. Remember on Billions where they went to the safe, him and the wife? Oh, their go bag? Their go bag. I don't have a go bag.

1:05:52But there's gold bars fucking everywhere. I don't think anyone should have a go bag. I think when you build a go bag, you've decided to elevate yourself from the comity of man. And I think we're all in this together. Yeah. As I say that from Marlebone. You know, to be honest, Scott, if I needed to, I'd trade you for a gold bar if I had to. In the end times, I'd go take him. A gold bar, not bad. Not bad. I take that as a compliment. Not bad. It's$62 ,000 for a Q-Day, just so you know. Yeah. You're worth$62 ,000. Oh, speaking of supermodels, by the way, California Governor Newsom vetoed the state ban on driverless trucks.

1:06:27I have called AB 316 stupid. California has to lean into innovation like this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, guys. He was right to do it. We can't, like, be the state. Then they wander over to wherever the fuck they wander over to Texas, where they're doing it to. But California has to be innovating in cars. You know how much I love these. The lawmakers were speaking of were egged on by unions and they wanted a human on board for these things. And I just over fears of safety, which I think are misspent job losses, there's not enough truckers. Gavin Newsom said no. And I'm I got to say I'm with that supermodel of a governor on that one.

1:07:08By the way, I think it's looking like he's running for president. But anyways, different talk show. Well, that's why he did this. But he's right, too. I don't care. He's right. He's correct. My other win is on your recommendation, I watched Painkiller. Oh. And that's not my win. That series was a fraction as good as Dope Sick, and it was still great. The beginning of every episode is really, really very moving. But my win is there's a leading man in it who is so outstanding. And Matthew Broderick's always good, but that's not who I'm going to talk about. Do you know who Taylor Kitsch is? Oh, yeah, he was great.

1:07:40Yes, of course. He was in Friday Night Lights. And then he was in Lone Survivor. He was great in True Detective. Oh, yeah, he was in that. I forgot. Anyways, this guy, I'll tell you, you can't watch this guy and watch his digression and his fall into addiction and how he tries to get out of it and not feel empathy for addicts. You do. I agree with you. I agree with you. First off, he is such a leading man. He is so likable. He is so handsome. But in addition, you just want to wrap your arms around addicts and sort of say, I don't know, at least for me, I've always looked at addicts as like it's a personal failing and get your shit together.

1:08:25And you just see this guy who just has everything and is a really good man and strong and just has fallen to addiction. And I just thought, I spoke to a person who's considered, I guess, technically a whistleblower now about a project I'm working on. I thought, why would this person do this and speak to us? And this person said that art is so important in terms of storytelling and empathy and progress. And that really struck me. And this embodied that for me, that this guy's portrayal made me so much more empathetic for addicts. And anyways, my win is leading man Taylor Kitsch. I think this guy is going to be an enormous, I think he could be kind of like a Marlon Brando-like figure.

1:09:11I think he was fantastic. Oddly enough, this weekend, Amanda met one of the screenwriter for it and the showrunner. Micah Fitzerman Blue, I think that's who she met. And he was wanting to get back to work. But I think, worth seeing, and you're right, Taylor Kitsch was amazing. Yeah, really, really fantastic. And wow, do you walk, I mean, as always, at the end of this thing, you walk away just so upset. Don't you want to just get a Sackler, find a Sackler anywhere? That's how I felt after Dobesick. I know they're not the only problem in the world, but I wanted to find a Sackler and just be very angry at him in a very angry way.

1:09:50Anyway, there's a lot of Sacklers out there still wandering around. They didn't pay anything near what they did to this country. They didn't, not at all, because of Rudy Giuliani, as you noticed, popped up in that one. Could you believe that? Of course I could. But Mary Jo White, too, by the way, someone who had a much better reputation than Rudy Giuliani. A whole bunch of people just totally took a digger for those terrible people for the money. What do you got planned this week, Cara? This week, I'm going to California. I'm going to be at Code. Oh, that's right. In Orange County. Yes, Orange County.

1:10:22So I'll be there in LA for a short time. And then I'm going up to San Francisco for several days. And for the weekend, doing some things around my house, some interviews. I'm going to look at some of these efforts downtown to try to reinvigorate downtown for possible doing a podcast on it. What are you doing? What am I doing? I'm going to Helsinki on Wednesday, and then I come back. And then I'm going to the south of France for the weekend. And then I'm going to Barcelona for another work event on Monday. Barcelona. Barcelona. Well, that's good. Yeah, it's a great city. You're such an international man of mystery.

1:10:56Anyway, I think we got a lot of listeners in Hollywood after all our smart talk. And I've heard from most of them, and it hasn't been pretty. What? What do you mean? It hasn't been pretty. Oh, the union people are mad at you. But you continue to slap the union silly for, I don't know why you keep doing it, but there you are. That's why, right? They're mad at you for that. I've heard from a lot of writers. I quietly, I get emails from people saying, you're right, da-da-da, and then I get very public. Yeah, angry. Yeah, people are very, very upset. Anyways. Oh, can I just say, though, I sent you a picture of a woman with a dog like yours.

1:11:29I met them. They're a great dain. Yeah, they love it. I took a lot of selfies. And every single person at the two weddings I was at in the past two weeks, every single person, house God, everybody. It's literally like we're married. That makes me feel good. It's all of them. They love the show. It makes them happy. They hug. It was nice. It was very lovely. Well, any person who owns a Great Dane is someone who's affectionate and has strong character because you have to. Did you see that New York Times article about owning a big dog in the city, though? Actually, big dogs, there was some misinformation in that article.

1:12:01Great Danes are fantastic apartment dogs because they're actually quite sedentary. It's the young gun dogs. You don't want like a Vichla or a German Shorter Pointer. That is what you do not want in a city because they will take off. Yeah. They will take off. In a small apartment in New York. Okay. That sounds great. Anyway, how was your Great Dane? Oh, she's adorable. Although last night I was on the computer and I'm like, get away from me. You know, she comes over and Great Danes will rear up their hindquarters as a means of affection. And I'm like, get away from me. And I'm not exaggerating.

1:12:29She went over to her dog bed outside of the TV room, which she never does. And then I was going to bed. She used to come down to bed with me. She wouldn't even look at me. she wouldn't she like wouldn't you like my i'm like come on sweetheart and she like wouldn't even look up at me and then she didn't come down to like three in the morning it's literally i am i am in i'm in a passive-aggressive relationship with my great day i can see that that gives you that look that side eye very emotional very emotional like oh now you want me now you want me i am not an affectionate spigot you can turn off and on because your wife is i'm assuming head on, like when she's pissed, you know it, right?

1:13:04Oh, no, you don't want to piss off the Panzer Tank Division. No, you best stay out of that. Do not poke the German bear. Yeah. Whatever I said, I'm sorry. I like the dog doing that. Oh, my God, you're so controlled by everybody in your life. 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. Scott, that's the show and an enjoyable one it were. We'll be back on Friday for more. Will you read us out? Today's show was produced by Lara Neyman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

1:13:46Ernie Andertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miel Saverio, and Gad and Bain. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, have a great rest of the week. You too.

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