Bill Maher and Media Discussion

From the Goldman Sachs Trading Floor , in ten minutes or less , investors and analysts shared timely analysis on the week's market activity. The markets podcast from Goldman Sachs, listen now Are you feeling stuck? I'm Rapin UpSone VPN head instructor at Peloton. I've watched literally millions of people try to transform their lives and I have heard the same five sentences hold people back. So this week on Project Swagger, we're doing a self talk audit. I am going to name each of these destructive sentences and tell you what it's costing you and give you the reframe, the swap you need to unlock your true potential . Let's go. Follow Project Starter now wherever you get your podcast. Can I just tell you, I love the word vulgar? I love the word vulgarities . You are vulgar, sir . Hi everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine, and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Gallaway. Scott, they just did a profile the AP did. And who did they call? You. And Gavin Newsom, two men, white men, I annoy all the time. And also Tom Tillas, all white guys. Well, it's funny when people meet us, they mistake us for one another. Mean and Gavin and Governor Newsom . Yeah, yeah, except for the hair part. Yeah, except for the handsome tall part. Handsome, dreamy. Dreamy none of that. Let me read the description of our relationship. I did not put them up to this. She and Galloway have developed a strong , if unlikely chemistry in which his penguin filled vulgarities can make her seem almost high brow. It reminds me of Cocoa Chanel has a great quote. She says the opposite of luxure is not poverty, it's vulgarity . And so you're Coco Chanel. I am Coco . I'm not I'm not a Nazi. Chanel. Can I just tell you, I love the word Nazis Nazis. I love the word vulgar ity. Vulgarity . You know what I find? You know what's most talking about vulgar? You know what's most talking about the vulgarity is that I think women like it more than the men. I can get more positive feedback on the dick jokes from the women and the men. I get a lot of and I like him. And then like I get that, that happens a lot. That, by the way, that piece for the AP, that was that, I mean, I don't want to call it a puff piece because AP doesn't really do puff, but it was pretty complimentary, yeah. I'm a power broker. Oh my that's right. They made it sound like you're the new kingmaker. You're gonna decide I guess. By the way, who's gonna be the next president? Because according to AP, you get to decide the nanobubler. Yeah , the Lincoln Memorial, does it convince the algae? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Who shall I select? I don't know. Among the many fine people of the country I would take Mark Cuban, honestly, I wouldn't really Yeah, I would like that because I'd get to go to the Lincoln bedroom largely. I don't think business people should be president. Oh, you're right. Maybe he wouldn't be good. Who would we pick? A celebrity I mean a magic wand, anybody? Yeah. Yeah,. yeah I don't think he can get through the Democratic primary, but in terms of pure intellect served as country, I would pick Mayor Pete. Mayor Pete, I'm doing an event with him soon. Oh, we're gonna talk about him lately. I love him. And I know that I just I love high key people. I think at some point smart intelligence has to make a comeback in the Oval Office. He would be nice. There's a lot of good there's a lot of people I'd like to be president. I'd love Governor Newsom, Governor Shapiro, Governor Pritzker. Is there any Republican you like? I think Ambassador Haley is quite talented. She would stop sucking up if she would just there's no way to survive come on. There's no way to survive that orbit. Any Republicans ? I think there's a move for someone who does resist. I agree. Interestingly, oddly enough, someone who was called an abuse. I thought when he finally got his balls, Tom Tillis was really smart and like very good business person , really sharp. He was actually very supportive of gay rights, oddly enough in the state. I agree . If I had, you know, pick that person , someone I didn't disagree with a lot, but Mike Gallagher wasy always I impressed with , although we totally disagree. He had some really gross gay issues with stuff, but like smart people, smart people, smart is what we're talking about. Smart , right? Yeah, I mean, have you ever wanted Romney to be president more than yeah I don't know. I think there's a lot of I think there's some talented Republicans. They've been benched and kind of shoved off to the side and also just on an objective level and I realize I'm not objective, but there's some objectivity here. I think the Democrats have an outstanding Os is giving great camelot energy right now. Yeah . I think Mark Kelly doesn't have kind of the risk of a president, but he'd be an outstanding president. Vice president too. No, the interesting . There's a ton of Secretary of Defense, that's what they should do it for him if they 're percent. He'll be in the cabinet. He'll be in cabinet. As long as the governor gets to a point, the next center. Anyway. Anyway, I don't know. I vote for the vulgar Scott Galloway. There you go . Chicken and every potassialis and every cupboard. Oh my god. Galloway twenty eighteen. You thought Rump was good. Oh my god, get ready for us. I'd have Patrick, my mail escort in the Lincoln bedroom just for hello lady. I'd open a dispensary. You want to see a UFC fight? I'm opening a dispensary on the USC on the West. True. And I would have the nanob ler business everywhere. I'd be bubbling nanos, everything. I don't know what that is. Let me just tell you, Nanob ler for President. Anyway, we got we've got so much to get today. What else is going on? Don't? What are you where are you London? I'm in London. Where it's down to seventy two , but it's really interesting. When it's seventy when it's seventy eight in Southern California, it feels pleasant with libraries. When it's seventy eight here, it feels like Africa. Yeah. You didn't like it. That was hot as fuckin' fuck in France. And the metaphor for the UK is the following. I have air conditioning except when you need it, it doesn't work. No. If it's sixty five degrees, I can cool my house to fifty five It gets above eighty , it just doesn't work . Oh, wow. They're not good with the air conditioning there. They got to get good with it because they every summer it seems worse and worse. I mean, they're ovens, those apartments, they really are. They're really France last week, France was the hot test place on Earth. It's because the dog was wearing shorts. You were by the ocean, but in Paris it was very hot. I am headed to Vermont where it's going to be really hot here and it's going to hot there. It's going to be hot all across the eastast Co this wee k. This heat stuff is really something I gotta say something. It's become we got a really thin car doing it by the way data centers. No , anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. So let's dig in. There's so much news . Scott even participated in the group chat. He was like, there's so much news what's going on. But actually, his selections were correct, because the first one is something I think I was a little was I surprised? Comcast is spinning off NBC Univers al and Sky into a separate publicly traded company. The new NBC Universal will include NBC, the Universal Film Studio, theme parks, and Sky. This is the satellite service they have in Europe. Comcast keeps Xfinity Internet and wireless. So it's back to square one, I guess. The market liked it. Comcast shares jumped twenty one percent in pre market trading Monday morning. It's not a totally clean break. Comcast will hold roughly twenty a percent stake in the new NBC Universal. I think they still have a big stake in MS now too . And the deal's expected to close in about a year. There's a catch though. Analysts say, well, the spinoff gives NBC Universal more freedom to do deals that leaves Comcast broadband business more exposed at a time when cable is already under pressure. So talk about this. The people they're put in place are very good executives , but does NBC now remerge with M S now or what in the I don't you need to explain this to me. I really didn't quite understand why they're doing it now . What the troubles they're seeking. I know they had looked at buying Warner at one point . So could Netflix buy NBC Universal? There's a lot there. There's a lot at those studios. So thoughts. So this is why companies conglomerate . The board who decides to see us compensation hires a firm called Towersparent compensation is the hardest part and one of the most important things that a board does. And because boards don't want to do any work, they pay this firm Tower's parent two or three hundred thousand dollars and they come in with a survey. And the survey says on a scale of zero to one hundred, fifty being the average compensation, and they look at the industry and the size of the business . And so if you're running a bank that does ten billion a year in business, fifty percent might be three million a year. But if you're running a bank that does eighty billion in business or whatever , then the average compensation is twenty million . So the incentives and also the ego and the also the testosterone and the penis and the midlife crisis all lead incentives for the CEO to get bigger and bigger and bigger . And sometimes there are real synergies around different businesses, but almost always not. Typically what happens is you end up with a Frankenstein . And so the market gets to a point where you have these Frankensteins of businesses that had no synergy. And what the market change the mad urocken. A Tdocken. Thank you for that. And what the market has a tendency to do is it looks at the shittiest business because it says, there's no synergy here. And it says, okay, New York Times. You own seventeen percent of the Boston Red Sox and the seventh tallest building in America. This is how much the building is worth. This is how much the Boston Red Sox are worth. But instead, we're going to look at your shittiest business, your regional newspapers , which traded four to five times EBITDA , and we're going to assign that multiple to the entire business because they don't give you any credit for the stuff that's working really well . So the disposition of assets becomes accretive to shareholders. And in this case, you have a media business that's strong and growing, while the connectivity business is shrinking . And what they do is shareholders assign the multiple in the connectivity business to the strong and growing business. Last quarter, the media division get this reported a forty percent increase in revenue to nearly twelve billion for the quarter. Theme parks grew twenty four percent, media grew sixty one percent and studios grew twenty one percent and over the same period , the connectivity division shrunk revenues three percent . So what you have is so it's connectivity that's not that's right. Residential connectivity shrunk about four percent while business connectivity grew six percent. So what happens is if you split these things apart, you have one company, the connectivity business, which is a mature business that's in structural decline, but still spends off a ton of cash. And then you have a growth business when it becomes a pure play growth business gets a much higher multiple. And the result is a stock that was up twenty five percent based on these two companies that have more focus. So what happens to each of them is there like look, you have MS they split off MS now and now it's trying to create its own little new division and doing well for what it is, right? It actually has seen some growth under those executives. And then you have the media business that has, by the way, there's some fine executives at the media public. Very well company. Donald Langley, I think Mike, Mike, anyway, it's a it's a very smart group of people. Whenever I meet them, I'm always so impressed. But they weren't able to participate in the Warner thing, for example. And I know it was frustrating because they were actually the natural owner for that. Agreed. You know, I was like, of all the things, I was like, Paramount, a b theyunch're of incompetents. Netflix is going is too big and going to get in trouble. Comcast was the perfect buyer for that, you know, in terms of quality people and the theme parks and everything else. So what happens here? And the other thing, just for as a side like the other two things, could Netflix come in and do something here? I think it's too much. Disney's CFO has signaled they intend to keep the linear and streaming businesses together for now. They know they don't own a cable division and not split it off. So they're keeping those together, the studios and the streaming and everything else. So is the strategy? It seems like it's the same strategy if they're going to hold on to NBC, Universal Film Studios, theme parks and sky , right? So there so that's a little connectivity, I guess. But thoughts on that. What happens to each of these parts? What happens to the cable parts ? And then what happens to the I mean, could like Elon come in and buy the cable parts for Starlink? Or there were rumors of him buying one of the phone service businesses thoughts? Well, I mean, it's scary, but with a two trillion dollar market cap, there's very little he couldn't buy right now. Right . So Versant , their stock is down twenty one percent since the spinoff. I don't know what happens . Okay, first off , Disney , for the time being, is holding on to its cable assets. That means they no one's offered the price they want. It will make sense for them to shed that business because the parks, the IRL business, the parks is an unbelievable business . So this is all longed way of saying, I'm not sure what they're going to do, but they have simplified and created pure place. Because here's the bottom line. If you put yourself in the shoes of an investor , they don't need the Roberts family to diversify for them. CEO's love diversification. Why? Okay, my connectivity business is down, but my parks were up twenty four percent. In other words, right. Yeah, they sleep better at night because they can grow six, eight, ten percent a year and not worry that, oh fuck, I got a problem at MSNBC . Right. Whereas this is the thing though, investors, I don't need you to diversify for me. I can buy Versant stock if I think it's really cheap . I can buy the Parks Business Stock if I think it's a grower and I want growth . But CEO's incentive and compensation and quite frankly wanting to sleep at night and be bigger and batter leads to an agglomeration or a conglomeration that eventually the stock market throws up on. And that's what's happened here. And you know what? The next really there's a stock right now that if it broke up, it would triple. You know what that company is? What's that? What is I'll give you a hint. I went to their dinner last Sunday night. I don't know. What is it? Maybe you've mentioned it before. I'll give you another hint. VR but only subscale . Oh, Snapchat . If Snap spun their spectacles group , the stock would triple or quadruple. Oh, interesting. That is the most that is the greatest unlock waiting. He loves them spectacles though. Well, that's the problem. It's a single class it's a dual class shareholder and Evan controls the company. Yeah, he loves them spectacles. Do you realize that I think Meta gets about four hundred dollars in market cap per user . Snap gets seventeen. Wow. Yeah, you're right. He should get rid of the spectacles. If they spun and did a deal with Shao Mei or something, if they spun the spectacles group and it was just a pure play social media platform rocket ship. Interesting. Ooh, I like that idea. Get this, do you know how much the stock is off the last five years? A lot. A lot yeah. ninety three percent. Yeah, it's crazy. ninety three percent. A pure play five hundred million people a day social media network that has the most attractive user base for advertisers in history that is people under the age of twenty five . You get rid of this weeping soar called the spectac les unit that is subscale rocket ship. What happens to each of these divisions? So what there's there's Verson , obviously Warner's own little nightmare, although there's rumors the CNN will get spun off with Rob Bonta and the California attorney general. But what happens to each of these divisions ? Well, I think the medium parks business has real synergy because if you put out a Harry Potter film , you can have a Harry Potter ride, right? Yeah, right, right, exactly. The connectivity business should be run. They do. They do indeed. They just get they just get, they just get focused. Now in terms of Resan and the cable assets , those are declining businesses, but those can be amazing businesses. You go yellow pages. And that was this is the weakest flex in the world. I was on the board of the world's largest yellow pages company. And all we did was just go around the world and buy other yellow pages companies and basically hold on to the salespeople, get rid of everybody else and their cash machines. And that's what you're going to see. It doesn't make CNN CNN should go into Versante and ABC should sell their shit . They need to consolidate the b and on these cable properties. And that's what they'll do. And they'll still be good businesses. They'll just be in decline. Yeah, that's absolutely right. They could buy. They could be the largest small player, right? It'll do well. It'll do well for a lot. hu Theyge'rely profitable businesses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll be interesting. I wonder if they'll bring Versant back. Will they? Why would you why would you want them? No, I don't think so. Again , the story has to be clean, right? I mean, alphabets learned their lesson. They're going to spend Waymo. Waymo's already spent, I guess, it's an independent company. Why didn't Sky stay with the cable business? That's a correct question. I don't know. That was the one that stuck in my head. Yeah. So it'll be interesting. Yeah, because they do, you're right, theme parks, the film studio, NBC, I'm not sure where that fits in exactly a broadcast network. I guess it just but Comcast and Hurst are the most underrated management teams in media . They're just very smart people who consistently do the right thing for shareholders . They're aggressive, they're smart and they're totally under the radar. Like they don't want they don't want their their CEOs getting in trouble and making earnings doing that. They also couldn't play in the Warner thing. I remember I went to the wicked premiere and I ran into a bunch of them and they were like, We are the obvious right owner. I was like, Oh, I know, but you're not getting it because Richie Rich over there and the crazies at Netflix you can't beat them , right? You can't beat either of those companies. But I think this does give them a cleaner shot at buying stuff up. You know, there's all kinds of things for sale like Lion's Gate, there's a man there's all manner of stuff for sale in Hollywood. So we'll see what happens. You're gonna see a lot of M and A as Scott Galloway says. Anyway, interesting move by Brian Roberts, who I really like a lot. I have to say, he's a classy guy. Everyone over there is classy. They're a classy gang. They're very complicated. They're from Philadelphia, which means they've killed people. That's all I know . I'm sorry. Anyone who's anyone, any family that is self made billionaires in Philadelphia, there's definitely people buried in the foundation of a building of that sky tower. The reason why I have a good feeling for Brian Robbies is because I was working for Murdoch and then I went over to Comcast and it was such a pleasure. Let me just tell you it was such a different personality, although it was more fun at a party. Anyway, let's go in a quick break and we come back why Open AI might delay its IPO. We're all tech this week . Support for the show comes from Upwork big. life A hack is finally admitting to yourself that you need help and that you can't do everything yourself. Thankfully, Upwork makes it easy to bring in the right freelancer when you need them, so you can stay focused on what you do best. Upwork is a one stop platform to find, hire and pay expert freelanc ers across web and software development, data and analytics, business operations and more. Upwork also helps grow your business by giving you fast access to specialized talent across one hundred twenty five plus categories, so you can fill skill gaps, launch projects faster and scale support up or down without committing to full time headcount. Thousands of growing businesses already trust Upwork Dire flexible, high quality freelance talent for everything from one off projects to ongoing support. You br canowse profil es, review past work, and get help scoping the roles so you can hire with confidence and get started quickly. It's free to sign up and posting a job is easy. Visit upwork. com slash pivot right now and post your job for free. That's upwork. com slash pivot to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's UPW RK . com slash pivot upwork dot com slash pivot . Support for the show comes from Odu. There's an endless supply of software out there that promises to streamline your workflow. That may be true for a specific aspect of your business, but if you need one app for accounting, one for inventory management and another for sales, how streamlined can your work flow actually be if you have to be the middlemen between them. Odu says they're the answer you're looking for, the only business software you'll ever need. Bodu can be your one stop shop for CRM, accounting, inventory, e commerce, HR and more , plus it's super customizable and easy to use out of the box. And the best part, they say not only can they replace multiple applications, but they say they'll do it for a fraction of the cost. Whether you're just starting out or already well on your way to scaling. Odu wants to help you put the clutter aside such that you can do what you set out to do when you started your company. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at ODO . com that's Odu ODO . com I'm Seth Matlins. My new show Creator Destroy Reimagining Marketing explores how every decision a company makes , not just the marketing ones, but the HR, IR, pricing, or design, and planning ones, the ones most don't consider marketing at all, contribute to either creating value or destroying it. Each week I sit down with CMOs, CEOs, founder,' cultural think ers, the people building, breaking and reimagining how businesses grow or don't, for conversations about what creates value and what destroys it. It's a business show, it's a marketing show. Creator destroys the show that argues they've always been the same thing from the Box Media Podcast network and the Wisdom is coming . New episodes drop weekly on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. Scott, we're back. Open Air is reportedly considering delaying its IPO until next year, according to New York Times, the company has been planning to go public as soon as the third or fourth quarter of this year. Valuation appears to be one of the sticking point s. Sam Altman is reportedly holding out for a one trillion dollar. They all want this. The company was valued at eight fifty billion back in March fifty billion dollars. There's also some hesitation in light of SpaceX Pipeo, which is sort of bump y, which has been trending downward after the sky hike debut, though it's doing a little better as we record. News of the possible delay led to a tech sell off, stock sell off with shares of Oracle, Core Weave and Saw Bank all falling . And there's a possibility that anthropic is breathing down their neck that they may delay too. There was some chatter about that. So is it important for them to wait ? As you talked about, the money is getting sucked out of the system . And their financials leaked a few weeks ago with losses increasing nearly eight x in twenty twenty five and spending hitting thirty four billion dollars. It's not the greatest story in the world. Thoughts that and of course they've got anthropic right in front of them, not breathing down their neck right in front of them. They're riding behind it. I think this is not systemic or I think this is an individual thing , and that is I believe the anthropic is still gonna get out . This is what I call the great flippin'. Flippining. Is that the word you made up? Is that a vulgar word you made up? Flipping. Yeah, there you go. There you go. In the Lincoln bedroom tonight 's sex act, doesn't it? There we go. What would that be? Well, I feel as if I need to use my safe word right now . Maybe. Anyways , the great flippin. I laugh at that every time. It's good. It never got hundreds of times to me. Every time, go ahead. So Q four of twenty twenty five, OpenAI is the dominant leader right now andthropic is a we never've seen Avis overtake hurts for this fast. This isn't even Pepsi overtaking Coke. It's like RC Cole one morning is the market leader . And I think I think Anthropic gets out , but I think open AI if they were going to have to show their wares or open their cupboards, there was just going to be evidence everywhere that Anthropic is eating their lunch. And I talked to a lot of CEOs about AI and a company I'm an investor in section talks it does all this helps companies upscale around AI. What they're seeing is the following this quote unquote blame the model and everyone's blaming open AI and swapping them out for anthropic, believing they're going to get a much greater ROI . So I think that basically if when we look back on the grade drawdown that will be AI evaluations that is I think, going to happen in the next twelve months , this will be seen as a real crack that it kind of was a signal of what's to come. Is it smart to wait? You talked about the sort of lack of cat, there's not enough money here, essentially. I don't if they could get out, they would. I think what this says is the CFO talked to the banker and the banker said, okay, there's no wallpapering over this. Your business has lost a ton of momentum and then you combine it with the second thing that is different than Anthropic . Alman has taken the Amazon and Netflix , fake it until you make it spend more money than anyone else and your stock will go up. He's taken that to an extreme that is too much . And that is if you look at how much money they are burning , I think with the S one's and they would be side by side immediately. Everyone would be comparing Anthropic and Open AI's financials against each other. Yeah. And I think what you would see is the following, not only has open AI massively lost momentum against Anthropic , it is also operating much more promiscuously with cash . And that is despite Anthropic's massive investments and massive losses, it's projecting that it'll break even by twenty thirty. And Sam Alban's whole thing is, oh no, I'm committing to a trillion dollars in CapEx because the future there's only one winner . And I think the market I think the S one side by side with a company that is losing momentum and is spending way too much money and losing too much money. And I think the bankers have come back and said the fall they don't want the comparison. Well, this is what's going to happen in the next six months , this is going to be the great exit from cost. This is going to be the great reduction in spending and CapEx commitments by open AI . They are going to massively decrease expenditure and CapEx commitments because I think the bank then it hits Oracle, it hits a lot of them and hits all of them, right? Still an amazing company. It's still growing really fast , but the amount of money they were committing to in terms of CapEx has gotten out of control. And then you couple that with a reversal and momentum. I think Goldman and JP Morgan and the CFO have said to Sam , this is going to be hard. So then what do they do? If anthropic gets out at over a trillion, they've got to meet that, right? Speaking of dick measuring contest, they kind of want that number . Can they actually get out then in twenty twenty seven ? Oh, I think I think this is a cost story and that is I think they're just going to have to reduce their competition clean it up. They got to clean because okay, say they get out at seven hundred and not a trillion . That's still pretty good. I mean at some point they're going to need to raise capital in the public markets, I think, or maybe could they raise in the private markets? The weird thing is, I wonder if TBG and the private equity firms that got a sixteen percent or a seventeen percent hick, which is really or guaranteed return, which is really unusual in the private markets. I wonder if they would still do that deal today because the reversal in fortunes here has been like nothing I've ever seen in business, without a scandal . And so weird question, does it get bought ? There's so few players that could buy it. I mean, it's a handful of companies that could afford to buy it. It's one of the big tech companies or SpaceX . That's it. There's maybe five companies. There was all this online plotting that Elon did sort of made sure the SpaceX IPO was too big and then failed a little bit to stop them. Just so you know. Well, if the next round, see, rather than do a down round , what Altman did was he offered . He guaranteed it. Yeah, he offered these terms that typically don't agree to, a guaranteed return because he wanted the headline number to be whatever it was, eight hundred fif andty billion or whatever. But at some point if they start running into a cash crunch, which I don't think they will, the bottom line, I think the second half of twenty twenty six is about Sam Altman rationalizing the expense side of the business and their CapEx commitments because it's still growing like crazy and then anthropic goes out, doesn't delay goes out. If I were Dario, I'd want to be like, I'm on top bitch, I'm going public. Yeah, yeah, right away. Yeah, they've got a it's a momentum story for them. Absolutely. And they have a great story. I think the S one is going to look really good for anthropology. Comparison. Yeah, in comparison. I mean, what's really interesting is how kind of pissy the open eye people are about the story Dario get s over and over again. I mean, he can be imperious himself and a little bit self righteous, which is interesting. But I think he's got the better story. He does and a lot of this is narrative. And it actually be good for anthropic for not to have them there. Although , you know, looking better than Open AI is a good thing for them, right? Presumably. He hasn't been as much as spendy. This is the CFO , this is the CFO and JP Morgan . And Goldman Sachs said, You don't want these numbers public right now? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And by the way, the reception to the ones that did go public wasn't great. All right, we'll see what happens. Interesting story, interesting developing story, but it will impact companies like Oracle and other ones. You saw that just a small drawdown of their shares because they have so many commitments all around the board. All right, Scott, let's go in a quick break . We come back. We'll discuss Pete Butaj getting targeted. Scott, we're back. I want to talk about a story that came out over the weekend about Pete Budaj's family. Butaj says police showed up at his house after an anonymous tip claimed his four year old twins were at risk. CPS investigated the claim and the Michigan State police later confirmed the report was completely fabricated . While the incident was being investigated, Budaj was not allowed to be alone with his four year old children for twenty four hours and they were interviewed by authorities without either parent present. The incident happened during Pride months right after the family posted a Father's Day photos online , I was this was terrifying to someone like myself. This was like it was just some tip that was called in about another tip of something Pete allegedly, it was all nonsense from them, but they had to because they're authorities and he's a well known person. They had to actually investigate, which is their job. I think they felt sick to do it, but turned out to be all false. It's a version of swatting, but more nefarious. Swarming? Swarming or whatever . And you know, he's polling well for the twenty twenty eight presidential run. This is just, I can't imagine. I know them pretty well. I know especially Tess and this is the fear they have as gay parents. And as something I've discussed with them , you know, this is the fear. This is this sort of weird feeling people have about gay parenting that is I don't even want to call it gay parenting, just parenting , but that they get stuck with they're wonderful parents and these kids are lovely . And for them to have to go through this just sent a chill when I read his piece . And he's not someone who usually is particularly dramatic, but he was furious about what happened as he should have been. Any thoughts on this? I don't think this is a gay thing. I think this is stochastic terrorism. I know a couple interesting. I know a couple, a straight couple in the Midwest, and Child Protective Services showed up at their door one day and said, We need we're from child protective services. We need to speak to your children. They had no idea what was going on. By the way, the whole neighborhood found out about it. There's no way you recover from that. No matter how innocent you are proven, that's on your Wikipedia page. If you're ever on trial for anything, the prosecutor can ask Weren't Child Protective Services called to your house ? And when I go through GSA, I immediately feel guilty. I immediately like, Oh, where's that join in my pie? I've done something wrong. When they when you see your suitcase go to the part where they investigate it, you immediately feel guilty . How does a four year old not remember that strangers who you're supposed to speak to who have the authority to separate you from your parents start asking these types of questions , how do you not somewhere in your brain think are mommy and daddy not good people? How do you percent? How do the parents, the community, their reputation , and the kids ever recover from that . Ever. I agree . And this is the problem . This is a result of the fetishization and anonymity being linked to shareholder value. And that is democracy depends upon disagreement but also accountability . And when the loudest voices face no consequences , the most thoughtful ones log off in fear. And what happens here is the following . Child protective services, their heart is in the right place. They're trying to encourage people to bubble up instances of child abuse . Yeah, because they usually miss a lot of them, right? That's right. But here's the problem and here's what needs to be done. The fix isn't to end anonymity. It's smarter than that. The solution is verified yet anonymous credentialing . And that is online. There should be a digital stamp that proves you are a unique human being without revealing which human you are . When you call child protective services and as it ended up , so the family I was referencing, you know what it ended up? Two months later, they found out one of their daughters was in a beef with another girl in the same high school and the girl, the rival girl called . This happens all over , but here's the problem the family faces no consequence . So if you call child protective services , we're going to guarantee your anonymity . But after investigation if we find out there's no evidence, guess what ? We're going to investigate you . I agree. I was like, who are these people who did this ? And you know, swatting is bad. Swatting is dangerous because there's guns involved, like with kids and everything else . And to me, so heinous the idea of it. Swatting is when you call in that there's some terrible thing happening at the house and then SWAT teams come in as they should when because they never know, right ? And so this is such an abuse of a system that's already broken, right? It's already a problematic system. They don't catch en ough child abuse. And sometimes kids don't get checked on, and you read those stories over and over again. But in this case, what sick fuck would think of this thing? Like what sick fuck would make this stuff up . That to me and I would like to find them . And you know what I'd do to them, but I think the authorities really need to have a system . And the thing is you don't want to discourage people telling on real issues of abuse, right? That's the thing. It's a it's just I was so upset by this. This is really upsetting. But the bigger issue is the following, that same architecture , anonymous, consequence free , infinitely scalable online platforms, they let bots flood elections, radicalize millions and make public service a target sport . And the bottom line is, this is where the right gets and wrong and the left get s it wrong. The internet doesn't have a speech problem, it has an accountability problem . And our fetishization for free speech and anonymity has resulted in a total lack of accountability. If you believe the kids law the street are being abused and child protective services shows up and they find out oh, you misunderstood the situation, you're still not liable. You didn't do anything wrong. Your reasons were valid. But if it finds out you're just a homophobic fucking weirdo , or your daughter has had a beef with another girl in the high school. There should be consequences. There's consequences. I think Bate was talking about that. You know, I hope look, I know they're worried about these issues as gay parents as we all are because I was always worried about I've been it's just sticks in the back of your mind . If it prevents him from running, which I hope it doesn't. That's what I hope it doesn't. Because let me just say they're wonderful parents. They're wonderful people, and they're wonderful parents. But what do you say to the kids? And there's this strange people in suits saying I need you to go stay . Yeah. The whole thing is like, what do you say to your kids? Yep, like a four year old? What do you say to them? I wouldn't even, I don't even want to think about it. It was so upsetting. Anyway, Pete and Jessin were so sorry. This is disgusting and this is not how you behave towards people who are decent, great parents. And whoever did this, I hope they find you, and I hope you have some sort of reckoning. As of this recording, by the way, we're going to move on. House Speaker Mike Johnson says he's sending the landmark housing bill to the White House days after Trump abruptly canceled the signing ceremony for that bill interesting move. The bill which passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan supports to and also would be a win for Trump aims to bring down housing costs, expand home ownership and boost construction, but Trump says he won't sign it into law until Congress passes his Save America Act, which would require a photo ID to vote and effectively end mail in voting. By the way, the Supreme Court just upheld a Mississippi law for late arriving mail in ballots a blow to the Trump administration's effort s to queer the election, which is what they're trying to do . And the housing bill can still become law, even if Trump doesn't sign it. So it's technical. If he doesn't sign it, it can become law. If he vetoes it, I believe they have the votes to overcome his veto. So they're kind of putting him in a position . Under the Constitution, the president doesn't sign a bill within ten days. It becomes law without his signature. And again, Congress can override this one. And so it was interesting that Johnson did this. He obviously knows it's a good thing to have this on the Republican record or at least take credit for it, even though it's kind of bipartisan thoughts on that ? Housing is one of the biggest problems in America, whether it's I was reading this morning that Finland took an obstacle instead of focusing on mental health or veterans affairs for the homeless, they just focus on housing. They're like, just build cheap housing and get people in housing. And it ends up that housing is a weird form of birth control. That every ten percent increase in housing prices, birth rates go down one percent . It reduces people coupling. It reduces birth rates , it reduces self esteem . You know, housing affordable housing is really important. And what we have here is, again, the incumbents once they've owned homes make it more and more difficult for new permits. It's gone way too far . Congress to their credit recognized it. This bill attempts to get rid of Nimbi legislation and proposed YMBI legislation, credits more credits, more federal sponsorship for communities that have more housing . This is I actually thought the bill itself when you read it is pretty weak sauce , but it's a very strong symbolic movement in the right direction. And in addition , when this last time Congress voted three hundred and fifty eight to thirty two on anything ? Right, right . So and this makes all sorts of sense . Trump getting in the way of this was just stupid . And again, it's veto proof. So I think this is a win. What does he do? What does he do? Sign, he's got to sign it and take credit. No, yeah, I think so. But he's he going' tos going to try everything possible. This save act that's not going to pass President Trump. It's not. It's not happening . So why does he keep doing this ? Oh should. I mean, you're asking me to get into this guy's brain. I would have thought he would if I were advising him, I would say, oh my God, put on put on put on a tool belt like you're on a construction side and run around . That's his thing. Take credit for this thing. Take credit for a h ousing. This is this is a big, big issue for Americans . Right. You know, instead he's obsessed with, you know, now he wants to build a golf course and put trees in front of the White House. He's just obsessed with all these weird obsessive things around the DC area to preserve his legacy, which seems more interesting to him. He went and visited it. It was pouring rain yesterday and he was out at Haynes Point where he wants to put in a golf course of some sort. There is a golf course. Everybody wants to improve it . And then putting maple trees around Lafayette Square, all this stuff, and then of course touting his really loser American state fair, whatever that nobody went to . He just seems all obsessed with that kind of stuff and not something that is even if it's symbolically even symbolically it's important I don't get this. This is this guy. I think he's terrified that things are going to go very badly after November . And so it seems to he's going to self soothe with maple trees. There you go. Self . Self soothe, right? Anyway, but he should take credit for this one and he won't. All right, Scott, we're going to have one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, we're going to do some wins and fails. I think I shall go first. There were so many fail choedices the grift watch of the Trump mining deal in Kazakhstan with Don and Eric Standard Profit along with Lutnik's Lutnik family . What's happening in Venezuela is really depressing watching them try to find people, so many people have died. But I'm going to be a little personal here. There's two people who died this week who I know very well and were very impactful on my life. One was O'Malik , one of the very early tech bloggers, someone who had worked very like me in regular media , but then sort of spun off and started doing a really fascinating kind of bloggy and yet fully reported attitudinal stuff back way back in the day, an excellent reporter. He also did events, he did parties. And I really got a lot of inspiration from Om, who is one of the most jolly fellows . I just really enjoyed Om. We thought a lot about a lot of things, but what an amazing impact he had on early tech journalism when it was, you know, a lot more hopeful in a lot of ways. But he actually did call people on things very early, very wonderful guy . He had , you know, he had shifted to becoming a venture capitalist. I didn't go that direction , but just a really wonderful and he's getting much deserved praise from all of us who are around then. And he's struggled with heart issues for a long, long time and was just a really wonderful guy. The other one was my assistant. I don't have an assistant, but I did for many years. Ed Daley also died . Another , he had also had health problems around diabetes and everything else . And just a tremendous important part of the growth of my businesses in the beginning of them and worked for me for a long time was an invaluable help. And you know, the kind of person you don't hear about wasn,'t he rep orter , but did so much stuff to really build the businesses Walt and I built and just was a wonderful guy and was wonderful to my kids , especially Louisiana Alex took them on camping trips with his partner Mark, , and just a one of these hard working, really wonderful people who helped so many people. And just really sad. I'm sorry Louis just went to see him recently. So I'm glad that happened, but really big impact on my life and just a tremendously huge hearted person . So that is my fail . Although I my heart goes out with people in Venezuela and everything else. And my win is the Supreme Court just rejected Trump's attempt to get five million dollars verdict in the Eugene Carroll sexual abuse case toss out. This is the end of the road for him. Now I think he's going to I just texted Robbie Kaplan. Let me see if she wrote back, but who is the lawyer in the case ? We'll see where it goes. On the smaller verdict, he has to pay the five million. There is the eighty, I think eighty five million dollars, eighty million dollars verdict that he is still being disputed, but he has to give her the five million and which I just kind of love . And now he is very firmly what he has accused of, he did , and he can't take it any further we'.ll And see you on the second part of which is a defamation defamation related to this case . Anyway, good for Eugene Carroll and pay up Donald Trump for what you did to her. And I just felt that it was like today is the day the Supreme Court kicks Trump in the teeth a little bit after giving him a lot of wins on immigration , which the Haitians, particularly the Haitian ruling was really terrible for really hard working people in this country . In any case, congratulations to Aegean Carroll. Nice. Okay, so my fail is I can't get over, well, you could argue it's a win for broadcast news, but there were two really illuminating interviews this weekend . The first was John Carl from ABC News interviewed Senator Todd Young and along with Senator Mark Kelly . And they talked about how President Trump accused Mark Kelly of sedition. Okay, so first off , Senator Kelly flew combat missions and also flew the space shuttle at twenty thousand fucking miles an hour. I mean, there are a few things more patriotic than the actions of Senator Mark Kelly and And they asked I appreciate John Carl calling Senator Todd Young out in front and say, How come you didn't do you agree with this? And of course, Senator Todd Young broke into song about he texted Senator Kelly to make sure he was all right , but he didn't say a fucking word . And at some point I'm waiting for people before they are , you know, lose their primary . At NYU , we have we have a second year, which is really a waste of money. It's such that we can charge the kids one hundred forty thousand not seventy. And we teach all these electives like sustainability and leadership and ethics. Let me save you seven thousand dollars on the leadership course of any major university . Do the right thing even when it's hard . There, you just save seven thousand dollars. And we bring in a formally important person to talk about what a fucking amazing person they are and how the world was against them, but they did the right thing. And we call it a leadership course. Thank you for your seven thousand dollars in student debt. There is such a lack of leadership on the most obvious issues I. don And't understand the calculus from a senator who I believe is probably a good man and respects his fellow colleague coming out and saying, it is wrong to accuse Senator K elly, an American hero and patriot of sedition. That is just beyond the line. And in the same time , Ryan Nobles , who was an outstanding stand in for Kirsten Welcher, who I also think is wonderful. I meet the press basically kind of got in the face of Senator Roger Marshall and asked him to cite a single example of where voter fraud has influenced an election . And I thought he watched it. I'm like, go . And of course, this guy just went in to blather and doctors need to be trusted by I was like, what in the fight? Doctor? Pilots need to be and it's like pipe . There's no problem here. Planes crash. There is no no one has ever been able to provide evidence that a single election has been influenced much less decided by voter fraud. This guy's been all over the TV with Dr. Roger from Kansas, the senator, and he's doing the same song and dance everywhere. I don't know why. Maybe he's in a tough fight. I don't know. It's weird. He does this a lot. He's just done this a lot. Well, I understand that the only way you can do good is to get elected , but at some point they've got to recognize , you know, this guy is coming is becoming a lame Traducken, as you would say . And at some point, they're going to show something resembling leadership. And I can't I can't swear the calculus of a senator coming out and saying, Senator Kelly is an American hero. Exactly. I don't get it. The same thing when Fox News was broadcasting from that American States thing, which looks like the fire festival and they're like, look at all the people and I'm like, there's nobody behind you. Like, how do they do that? Peter Ducey, how did you manage to do that? Oh, everyone's having fun here and there's twenty six people there. And it was so weird. I don't get it. Like when are they gonna give? When are they gonna give? When do you think they're going to give on? Same thing with this guy. It's like, you know, don't believe your lion eyes kind of thing. I don't know. Anyways, I guess it's sort of a win for ABC and NBC News and these programs still matter, despite their declining audiences, they do are still really relevant . And specifically, it just strikes me at some point senators who are licked at the six year terms at some point are going to be to understand that , you know , okay, with the definition of quote unquote leadership , my win is that Bill Mar was awarded the Mark Twain Award. The Mark Twain award. And I thought it was really fitting that it was at the Kennedy Center . But look, I have said this . Something I don't like about myself is I have been way too influenced by comments in social media, which I think are so fucking corrosive because they start influencing you to say this type of thing and not this type of thing. And I've tried really hard in the last couple of years to say , I'm going to say what I mean, mean what I say , and I don't care what the comments are. There are very few posts that get as much blowback as when I say the following and I mean it. Bill Mar is a hero of mine . And I think if you were to take every political pundit and have it zero, say, I don't know who the craziest right wing person is and on a hundred be the craziest left wing person . If I had to identify someone who was exactly at fifty, it would be Bill Mar . And evidence that he is a centrist is that everyone appears to hate the guy publicly. And then every podcast I go on, the host, when I follow up and say, Is there anything I can do to help you? They ask meed, can I can I introduce them to someone at Bill Maher The guy has been in the business for thirty three years . He is fearless . He is funny . And his contribution isn't defending the idea that people who disagree should be allowed in the same room. It's that the weirdest thing is that it's so remarkable . And today that is remarkable. And he didn't build an audience by telling people what they wanted to hear . He built one by telling everyone something they didn't want to hear. He literally pisses off everybody. Yeah, which is why he gets a blob. I mean, he does, he does seek out like his earlier stuff on Islam and stuff like that. So he is who he is. And I do, I'm always fascinated by how much I get blowback on your behalf, which is interesting . Or why are you on that show? When I go on, it's a really interesting discussion. And I don't lump him in with all the others who I do find someone heinous in that regard. And I agree. I think he deserved that. I think he's very funny. I think I don't always agree with him, that's for sure . But it really is a point . Yeah, I don't find it . I don't know. He attracts an unusual amount of ire. He really does. You will get pushed back on this. When I say he's a role model of mine, and there are few like when I was trying to think when I graduated from college, when I got my first bonus check, when I sold my first business, there are moments in your life that you remember professionally. One of those biggest moments for me was three or four years ago during COVID when Susan Bennett called me and said, We'd like you to be on Bill Markets. It's the only show my dad watches. Susan's a producer. She's a producer. Terrific producer. And I think the guy I think the guy is fearless and he brings to light the notion that free speech isn't tested by popular opinions . It's tested by the people who piss you off . And he does that. And he's an equal opportunity agitator and he was one of the last people in television willing to make both sides equally uncomfortable . I mean, he's really an independent voice and I don't think his contribution will be remembered as changing minds . It was proving that you can disagree without deciding the other person is evil. And his legacy, although he's a great comedian, I don't think his legacy is comedy, it's defending the proposition that democracy requires conversation not just conviction . And we have lost so much of that . And I sort of know him but I know him well, but the people he surrounds himself with, here's some things about Bill Maher. He has this big rant on how he doesn't have kids and doesn't married. Everyone around him has been working with him for twenty years . The woman in makeup, the guy who brings you to your COVID test, his producers, I think he's a very loyal man. I think he shows up. I think he works very hard. I think he's unafraid. I think he's a great role model for people who like me want to be centrist, distinct of the hate you get because you piss off everybody. I thought he's an outstand ing recipient for the Mark Twain prize. Anyways, my I would agree. My win is the unafraid , courageous believer in free speech that pisses off everybody and everybody wants to be on his show after thirty three years and that is Bill Mar. Good for you. Good for you. You do care about comments, Scott. You're never gonna not care about comments. Never. Well, I'm addicted to the affirmation of others care. It's really pathetic. Not pathetic. You'll give yourself a hard time. It does get to you. It gets it doesn't get to me as much as it gets to you, but it gets to me too. I mean, I think it's I think you will it's okay for it to hurt. I have to get it. Shaming is a very powerful feeling because until about fifty years ago , if you were shamed and expunged from the tribe, it meant you were going to starve or be eaten by a bear in seventy two hours or less. Well, you're not going to get eaten by a bear.. Yeah I, don I' dont't think think so so. You're vulgar, but you're not getting eaten by a bear. But no, I agree with you. I think Bill deserved that award. And I know people, you know, we often disagree. We really do . But the kind of I mean, I see listen, if you don't like Bill Maur, don't watch him. I don't know what else to say. That's my feeling. It's like, that's what I say to people. And by the way, you know, people in my family, my one of my kids was like, Why are you going on his show? And I'm like, you know what, son of your fucking business? I am because I like going on it. I enjoy the show. So I'm going on, I think july twenty ninth. I'm going to take Bayata, and I'm gonna take both my sons. I never take them all to anything. And I said, This is important to me. I want you to come with me. Oh, okay. anyway, good ones, good ones for you. That was a good one. Can I do one more brief? And I don't want any, I just want to say Scott Wayneer is a friend of mine and what happened to him in San Francisco last week was hate . Like I don't usually mind criticism around of Israel and I think it's really important and I don't think every criticism of Israel is antisemitic. But what happened to him and he has been a supporter of all manner of things in San Francisco , he's anti Semitic. It was really, truly and strange . And that kind of that really shouldn't I feel terrible for Scott because he's been, you know, there's lots of things you could disagree with Scott on, but not what they were yelling at him about. And so it had a real tinge of real hatred. And that really repulsed me in a way that I usually am okay with criticism of all manner of countries and stuff like that. And so just that cannot be tolerated by the Democrats. That cannot be tolerated that kind of behavior. So I would just want to say that, but I feel bad for Scott who's been a really hard working public servant. Anyway , all right, so that's the show . Congratulations to Bill Maher . We want to hear from you , send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag dot com slash pivot, just submit a question for the show or call eight five one pivot elsewhere in the Karen Scott Universe this week and on. I just spoke to Jim Bank theoff CE,O of Vox Media and Meredith Copet Levian, president and CEO of the New York Times at Cannes Lions , which was really fun. We talked about the ways they adapted to a changing media landscape and the effects of AI on publishing , and it was a great session. And thanks to UTA for hosting us and keeping it quiet. Let's listen to a clip . The leverage is even the LLMs will need an information ecosystem with high quality, independently produced , verified information. If they don't have it, their products will not ultimately be good either. We all want to live in a society quality information is available and I believe they do too. I think they do too. I think that these are information companies, these are information tools and I think information at a certain point for you to have a healthy functioning democracy, you have to have high quality information and people have to be able to identify the difference . This was a really good discussion and we had a little testingness around a couple of things , but it was great. It was a really interesting discussion about media and where it's going and Meredith Bill Scott and I have huge regard for her. And that Jim Bankoff guy is nice too. Do you want a little known fact about the CEO of New the York Times? No,. let me tell you Dreamy boyfriend. He's a tall drink of lemonade. She met him. Yes, I have. I went up to her and I'm like, that guy dude's so handsome and she looked around and she's like, I know. She's great. She's like literally like I counted. He's great. I'll take my masculinity to go Jesus Christ . I love everything about Meredith and she's a great executive. She's a great parent . She's really she's all that in a bag of chips , as they say, and so she's so lucky for him to have her. , that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot, and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Today's show was produced by Laura Namanzoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, Todd Weisman and Christine Driscoll. Additional assistants from Kate Callagher and Brad Sylvester Todd entered into this episode. Thanks also to Dubros s Dark Cozy producer for podcast. Make sure to follow a pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Box Media. We'll be back later in the week for another breakdown of All Things Tech and Business Care, have a great rest of the week. DelPCs with Intel inside are built for the moments you plan and the ones you don't. There are those all night study sessions the moment you're working from a cafe and realize every outlet is taken. The times you're deep in your flow and can't be interrupted by an auto update. That's why we build tech that adapts to you. Built with a long lasting battery so you're not scrambling for an outlet and built in intellig ence and makes updates around your schedule, not in the middle of it. Find technology built for the way you work at Dell .co dot UK forward slash delpcs built for you