Economic Protests, Social Media on Trial, and Big Tech Earnings

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I'm gonna stuff your corpse and have it next to me. I'm I'm doing taxidermy. Yeah, I'm gonna do taxidermy.

Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Before we do anything, I'd like to point out that as of this episode drops, it's been 42 days since the deadline passed for the DOJ to release all the Epstein files. Though we do have an update, DEOJ officials said in a court filing this week that they expect to release the files, quote, in the near term, but they did not provide a specific date. Pam Bondi, get on it.

Anyway, Scott, after Sunday's bonus episode about the violence in Minnesota, we've gotten a mountain of responses to our discussion of the economic strike that you suggested. I know you're working on something and we'll talk about that in a minute, but first here's what some of our listeners had to say. I'm seeing online some suggestions of people stop paying their income tax by updating their W-2.

I and many of my colleagues are watching with sadness a lot of anxiety and anger at the escalating violence. And I keep wondering what if anything people outside the US like me can do that's actually useful. Reportedly, Vanguard, BlackRock, and Fidelity hold half of the shares in two companies, GEO Group and Core Civic, which run nearly ninety percent of ICE detention facilities. If investors divested from these collaborators and others, Could that put a stop to ICE's worst abuses?

And given a lot of you have been writing in, wondering what you can do personally, we asked financial educator Vivian too, host of Networth and Chill, uh, to give some tips on how to make an impact. Let's hear what she had to say. Hey Scott and Kara. Heard you guys were talking about an economic blackout. I've got a couple personal finance tips.

For our friends with a lot of financial discipline, you could consider changing your W4 withholding for your taxes. You'll pay fewer taxes throughout the year and then pay them all in one lump sum come tax time. You're not gonna get to pay fewer taxes overall, but

Why let the government hold your money and do stuff with it for longer than they need to? Make sure you are taking advantage of time value of money. Up next, everybody talks about shopping local versus corporate, but another thing you can do is pay in cash. These local businesses oftentimes might even give you a small discount for doing so because then they have to give less up as well. Wink wink. And last but not least.

For the economic blackout, money that you aren't spending on buying stuff, make sure you're putting towards a really smart strategic cause, things like paying down your debt so you aren't so heavily tied to financial institutions. but also causes that you care about that might support things like immigration or human rights. The main takeaway is this.

Economic boycotts do not work if a small population stops spending cold turkey for one to two days. What we're actually going to need is a critical mass of people to scale back their consumerism over weeks and months. And even if they can only do it to 70 or 80% of their ability, that is going to have a bigger impact.

Scott, you should know Vivian's upcoming book is called Well Endowed. I thought you'd like that. There you go. She did not interview me. She did not interview me. So tell me, you tell me what's what we talked about this at ha a lot of people were talking about it. Go for it. Well last night I was about to make love to my sweet, sweet lady and uh she put my penis in her hand and then it was dark out and she said, I'm sorry, don't smoke. Um

National economic strike. Yeah, great. You're stepping on your penis there, Scott. Uh my bluff has been called here, and that is uh I think that Uh America feels a lot of anxiety around its government not providing security and prosperity, but terror and anxiety. And I've thought a lot about this and if you look at where Trump and the administration respond. They don't respond from citizenry, co equal branches of government, or even the Supreme Court, where they do respond really crisply.

is uh from markets. And within twenty four hours he backed off of Terrace, Annex and Greenland. um, pressure on interest rates, tariffs, when one thing has happened, the S P has gone down or the bond market has started to get wobbly. So then the question becomes if that's the fastest blue line path to getting ice out of cities or to putting in more protocols or or just flexing that we're watching. The fastest way to do that

W uh what you want is the most impact with the least amount of sacrifice from the citizens citizenry to make it. To make it easy. Make it easy. Yeah. And also maximum impact. Right. I think not buying groceries is not a lot of impact because these companies are very low margin. Uh they're not companies CEOs that he listens to or cares about. So I bifurcated into two types of companies, what I call ground zero.

Big tech controls forty percent of the S P. They are growth companies that are very, very highly valued right now. So any, any slowdown in growth could potentially have a disastrous effect. on them. So that's kind of the soft tissue of the economy right now and where our consumer economy, which is seventy percent

consumer spending could have the greatest impact with the least amount of effort. So I've listed a series of big tech companies and um launching the site uh probably on Sunday. What's it called? Uh it's called uh thank you for asking. Well in doubt. It's called it's called resist and unsubscribe. So if you like what we're saying, don't like and subscribe, resist and unsubscribe. I've also got the URL

um uh unsubscribe February. Because to Vivian's point, it can't be one day or a week. It has to be sustained. And there has to be a viral component to it. So the companies in what I call ground zero are Amazon and I have instructions on how to subscribe. So you could pick what you want, right?

Well hopefully all. And not only that, I don't wanna tell people what to do and what not to do. Exactly. Yeah. Uh people have different means and ideas on how they can participate. And I'm not gonna tell anyone to not buy groceries or not show up for work. But if you want to have the biggest impact possible, I've tried to identify those companies. Disney, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, OpenAI.

Uber and meta. And then you've given the argument why why what they've done, so you can decide what you think is acceptable or not. Aaron Powell The reason why I I really do think this idea is so powerful is you get a couple of free gifts with purchase. Not only do you achieve the quote unquote economic slowdown, but you have an outsized impact on subscribing specifically from these companies that are driving the market right now.

Two, it just so happens that the majority of the COs of this comp of these companies have been especially sycophantic and played a really large role in enabling all this bullshit. Whether it's Tim Cook Cook showing up and prostrating himself for the Melania documentary, whether it's Amazon greenlighting a thirty million dollar

um uh uh documentary that made no fucking sense. It was just pure grift or bribery, whether it's obviously meta, whether it's Sachin Adela sitting there and trying to communicate to people, I don't like it, but I'm gonna continue to do it. Just wanna remind everybody that back in the early thirties, Hitler's rise was largely enabled by corporate CEOs who basically said if you destroy our trade unions, we won't speak up against this democratic slide into fascism.

And once it got out of hand, it was too late for them to do anything. So we have been to this place before where people use the excuse of shareholder value. to enable and and basically not provide any friction

Can I can I ask you a question? Because I think a lot of people wanna decide like one of the things that's good is we're Scott's gonna I've seen some of it, is gonna give you information to make your own decisions. For example, with me I got rid of

Arcade. I got rid of the one thing. I got rid of a bunch of things. Not buying an iPhone. So canceling Apple Music. Whatever it might be. Yeah, whatever. But if you wanna do that and keep Apple Music, like we don't want we don't judge you. It's just here's your the tools, right? Here's the tools Stop doing Prime. If maybe if you don't want to cancel Prime completely, you can stop buying on it for like people should decide.

People should decide what to do. And it's not forever, by the way. It's not I shall never use it again, right? Like orange juice people still drink after the boycott of Anita Bryant. That's a hundred years ago, kids. Um but that's what you're trying to get at is giving people tools on does it have links to where you where you can do these things or just you can unsubscribe to, a link to where you unsubscribe, the unsubscribe page.

And a brief prescription of why we're doing this. So the the ground zero is big tech companies and also The truth has a nice ring to it. I'm going from two LLMs to one. I don't need anthropic and open AI. I'm going, and this is the one that hurts, I'm going from six streaming platforms to one. I'm not giving up on all streaming platforms. But I'm gonna pair it way back. And the free gift with purchase here, when you start looking at this stuff.

I found out, for example, I have three HBO Max accounts. I didn't realize I had three. It's not a bad idea to take some time to think where am I just spending money every month. Unbeknownst to me, where quite frankly, I probably could pair back a little bit. So there's the ground zero. That's the big tech companies that will have an outsized impact on your your absenteeism. By the way, the most radical act in a capitalist society, hands down, is non participation.

And then the second group of companies I list is called the Blast Zone. And these are companies that are directly working with uh ICE. AT and T awarded ninety million to provide ICE with IT and network projects, Comcast, Chartered Communications, Dell Technologies, Deloitte, FedEx, UPS. I list how you can how you can leverage your economic muscle against them and what how they are participating. You may decide.

that this is, you know, not for you or it's too big to give up. But I'm giving you a ton of options. There's ground zero, outsize impact, and then there's the blast zone. That is companies directly working with them. And I want to be realistic. I am not going to give up telco, but I've switched to Noble Mobile from ATT. I'm going to go from five streaming media platforms.

to one. And I think you can have a lot of impact here. I'm trying to make it as social as possible and hope that people join in. But I think if we're looking the f for the lowest tax weigh on citizenry to get the administration to um to pay attention. It's about markets. It's not about ideology. It's about math. And it's about not participating. And it's the easiest thing I could come up with to have an outsize impact. This is great.

We get a lot of stuff about people not knowing what to do and then maybe they don't want to go to protest or fly to Minneapolis. If you don't wanna do that or you don't wanna just sit around and doom scroll and hacktivism, this is a this is an uh one of the many, many, many ways. And I think it's great that you're doing this, Scott. Good for you. What streaming service did you keep?

Oh, I can't say. Oh. Um but I I was I was talking I had we had a family you know, one of those family meetings. I don't wanna play favorites. Um Uh uh because I've already heard from some of the CEOs of these companies. Word is already out and they're by the way, they're not thrilled about this. No, they're not. I've gotten some But that's that was the only that was really a aha mo. We had a family meeting and I said to my kids we're gonna cancel all streaming.

streaming media platforms and I literally got that look like memo to sell self, smother, dad and sleep. So I said I said, we can keep one and it's only for February. Yeah. And there's a huge argument'cause one kick gets into Premier League football and that's Paramount Plus and the other's like Paramount Plus, are you fucking high? And it just caused a near ride. I was like Oh yeah.

So they're like, Okay, I'm off Apple Music, Amazon Music, but they're keeping Spotify. It was interesting consumer preference. It came down to Netflix or HBO. Max was the two we distilled down to and I won't tell you which one we'd pick. But it's interesting to think about prioritizing. They're like, wait a minute, on my list. I was like

Oh, uh you know, but anyway, y you have those discussions. It's actually then it ended up being a really interesting discussion about economic boy taught some what you can do. So it's a great opportunity to talk to your kids. and your and your spouse or whoever uh about w the economic choices you make in life in general.

Anyway, to be clear, the site isn't up today, but uh but Scott will let us know over the next couple of days um and we will note activists around the country are calling for no work, no school, and no shopping today on Friday, uh January 30th, urging people to stop funding IC.

There'll be lots of activities like that. But not just Scott Galloway, the great economist Scott Galloway, but Robert Rice just talk talking about this idea. It's really catching on the idea of it. Um and it's well beyond just a temporary thing. It's like show you Take a minute and look at your life and what you're where you're putting your money. And your money is important. Anyway, I have an announcement now onto me.

Guess what? We have named my show on CNN that is coming in the spring. I can't say the exact date. Well, it's called Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever. What do you think?

Uh I think the tagline should be oh fuck. Is it really Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever? It is, it is. It's called Kara Swisher Wants to Live Ever. But what if you have a stroke in the middle of the church? Exactly. It's brilliant, don't you think? That's what Amanda said. Amanda said that too. Like she's like, oh.

Well then it would more people would watch it, right? I I would I think it should be what if we live what if we live forever? question mark with Kara Swisher. I would I wouldn't make it Ah well it's already done. Done done done. Oh well then I love it. I love it. I love it.

Well let me just say, let me just very briefly say for far too long the longevity space has been captive. This is the idea behind it of rich tech pros, jack dude influencers, nonsense sellers of useless supplements, and some lady who sells candles that are named after her private partner. Uh sorry Grenath, but you started it. Uh well after She's lovely by the way. I know, I know you talked to her, but uh i I'm tak I'm ta there's a new sheriff in town.

After enduring endless conversations over the years, how to live forever, I can't tell you how many dinner parties I've been in with tech bros telling me all manner of things, none of whom are doctors. I I want in, except I'm gonna show you the way for the rest of us. It will be grounded in science and facts about the best and most affordable ways.

to stay healthy, s happy and smart. Also I took ketamine so you don't have to, and Scott takes a nap in it, just so you know. That's what's that's what's coming for you. Um so a couple of things. One, uh I think the market was screaming for another person without medical training to tell us how to live our lives. Excellent. Uh I think that's what the market was telling us. But I talk to experts, unlike some of these people.

But does the second thing is an honest question. Say you're not I I'm all over this shit. I have I now have too much money and too little time. I've never noticed that you like to focus on your health and beauty. Um way too into this. And Uh so the question I would have is assume you're uh an average income household, you know, eighty, ninety grand. Yeah. Maybe living in a city, maybe doing a little bit better than that.

And you have insurance, but you don't have a ton of money to spend on the stuff. What are the two or three biggest learnings around changes in lifestyle that you would recommend to just The average American. Uh uh I'd be happy to. It's o just so you know it's only six episodes. Maybe we'll have another season because there's so much stuff out there and there's so much bad stuff, by the way. I was hoping it was five. No. Sorry, go ahead. Kara Switcher wants to live forever.

Anyway, um that's okay. You can make fun of it. I love I love it. Um Uh I say I would say well obviously the main thing about longevity is don't be poor. Like I hate to say that, but that's it it matters a lot of Well that's good advice. That's not gonna make anyone feel bad. Okay. Longevity is now going up. Make more money.

Sleep is important, obviously. Diet and and exercise are important. And there's lots of things, you know, that everybody understands, fermented foods, um, uh stuff like that, and eating. Um, you know, the protein debate has gotten out of hand. There's

Those are like around the edges of saving you minutes of your life. I think one of the things I took away was one, there's amazing stuff going on around cancer research, using AI, cancer and also mobility, like robotic stuff where people are gonna be outfitted.

But and the the addition of AI is going to change drug discovery, cancer research, everything it's like astonishing. That is really uh gene editing, all that stuff is really moving fast. And that will make a big difference in longevity or at least health span, right? That you'll live longer and not die of these terrible diseases.

The second one is G this is on the science part. GLP ones, Scott. I think you had one of the early people to this, but the benefits around uh just obesity is what comes from. I think it's a miracle drug. It's a miracle drug. And every doctor we talked to talked about this. And it now has follow on advantages. And so

You know, in very small amounts too and and that's I know a bunch of people do microdosing GLP one. Yeah, I'm gonna I I'm gonna start doing that. Uh uh related to my stroke actually, which is interesting. So um so anyway, so there's there's there's a lot of around GLP ones, really important and everyone vaccines and mRNA vaccines, I I know they're controversial, but they're not. They're they're they're they're gonna have a vaccine for cancer.

That kind of stuff is really amazing. But I have to tell you the abs and there's all the you know, all that other nonsense, the red lights, none of that one. Like some of the stuff you do doesn't work. But fine, whatever. Can I go through the stuff I do and you tell me what you think? Okay, I didn't do everything, so I may not have an answer, but go ahead. Testosterone therapy. Probably good for you.

This is that thing they did with Peter Aut, yeah. Um red light you don't No. Yeah. There's no scientific vitamins A v vitamin supplements. Some of them. Some of them and some not. Like a a vitamin D, vitamin K. Uh some of the EP super EPA stuff. Yes. Creatine, yes. Some of them ridiculous. I do creatine every day. Yeah, creatine is very good. What else? What about um NAD, either infusions or the pills? Most people think there's no scientific yet. Yeah.

Uh no not to push them out. Not to push them out. But you know, peptides is a big moment here. But unfortunately a lot of people are using them uh ineffectively or dangerously. But is there evidence that peptides might be We don't know yet. We don't know. Not yet. Not yet. That's a nice like there's a lot of stuff, like we'll see. It's just how you use it and how it's deployed. Like at the beginning of GLP ones, a lot of people were getting shitty compounds and getting really sick, right?

So don't do compounded these things, compounded. So it's it's a matter of uh the one more that is uh keep going. Go ahead. What else? Masturbation, great. Good for you. Cold sauna or cold plunges or sauna. Hot sauna, yes. Cold plunges. There's a lot new science so it may be really problematic on people. Although I know all the bros love it, um, but there's all these these issues around uh the shock and and different things.

Hot saunas absolutely. One of the things, let me tell you the number one thing, both scientifically and and b both causally and uh correlation is um is uh friends and family. A hundred. I wanna I wanna come back to that. So next one, getting plowed by six hockey players and rethinking everything.

Just rethinking everything, Kara. Is that good for my health? It is good for your health. Just be careful. But you you mentioned the one thing, the only thing I would add, the the the absolute key to longevity. You just you just referenced it. Key to good health and longevity? Relationships. Relationships. One hundred A million percent and related to that is the use of social media and synthetic relationships.

Lack of friction Bronley. Uh lack of friction for your brain, brain plasticity. G play games with people, do different things, talk to people you don't know. It has real health effects. Argue. Uh you and I are gonna live forever'cause of our relationship. You know. I'm just saying that It it was a really surprising number one thing. And it I'm not trying to be like all be have be friends. Talk to people you don't know.

Do things that challenge you. Um, be involved in the community. The more you i are in the uh the online space with synthetic relationships, the quicker you're gonna die. Yeah. So I interviewed Timothy Snyder yesterday, the guy who's the protest expert.

And we were talking about and I challenged him, I said, Our protest the new door knocking and that is they're losing effectiveness and he pushed back really solidly. He had a couple of really strong points. He said One, when people organize, it creates an infrastructure for other activities. He said, What's happened in Minneapolis?

People organize and then they get a database of people. They figure out how to communicate with each other. And they've been turning out on a dime to uh observe ice raids. And a lot of that is because the infrastructure that's been built through protest. And he also said something very powerful, very simply, said, You feel better when you do something with other people. And it was so simple but so punctured. You feel better when you do something.

With other people. Yep. And it's good for your health, as it turns out. It's very good for your health. And it's great to bring back community and again, neuroplasticity. Anyway. Uh moving on. We've got a lot to any we're very excited, Scott's site. What's the name of it again? Resist and unsubscribe or unsubscribe February. If you like this idea, don't like and subscribe. Resist. Unsubscribe. And also please post. I'll be posting my receipts. Ideas.

Please post your own ideas, your own receipts. If you've unsubscribed from Amazon Prime for the month or whatever it might be, please post it to your social and try and drive people to the notion of Resist and unsubscribe. Yes, you can do something. And mine is cares which you want to live for.

There you go. Only Megan Kelly thinks that's not a good thing. Anyway, moving on. We've got a lot to get to today, including big tech earnings and major social media trials going on. So let's dig in. White House Borders are Tom Homan. He of the Bag O'Money just gave a presser in Minneapolis a little while ago noting he's on the ground to quote regain law and order. It's

Tom says he's made a lot of progress since he got there like three days ago. This follows Trump saying he would de escalate a little bit earlier in the week, but the violence hasn't stopped. Uh representative Ilan Omar was attacked with an unknown substance at her town hall on Tuesday. It's the latest instance against a member of Congress representative Max while Frost was physically assaulted at Sundance last week and both are Democrats, just so you know, and quite uh

More on the liberal end of everything. Meanwhile, the two federal agents who shot at Alex Pready have been put on administrative leave. Border Control Commander Greg Bovino has left Minnesota, but Homeland Security Secretary Christy Gnome is hanging on to her job for now. She's now there's a lot of pictures of her. her and a head of lettuce going on.

Three quarter and that there's a lot of infighting in them in them between and among all those people. Three quarters of House Democrats are backing her impeachment and a couple of Republicans in the Senate are calling for her ouster. Tom Tellis, who's leaving, doesn't give a fuck anymore, has finally found his balls.

Uh w what do you make of the changing of tax? And also note, Amy Clobizar has just officially announced your bid for Minnesota governor. Your thoughts? Oh that's interesting. I didn't know that that Senator Clobusar is running for governor. I think that's a great idea. Um, I think, you know, I've called this before and I've been wrong. I do think this is a turning point and the

When I was in high school, my mom gave me a bunch of John Irving books. You know, The World According to Garp. And they made me feel for they made me just feel a lot better about myself when I realize everyone else is fucked up and neurotic and having weird thoughts.

And it had a big impact on me. And one of the books that also had a big impact on me was George Orwell's nineteen eighty four. I think in some ways it kinda might be the reason I kind of went down the progressive path. But There's a line in there and I'll get it wrong, but it's basically and the last act of the government was to ask us to ignore or deny our

are what we saw and what we heard. Mm-hmm. They basically all of a sudden the government had gone to no longer trust your faculties of observation. It was the last and most important. There you go. Thank you. And you always have to wanna mate. So

So I can be with you. But downlo yeah, there you go. I'm gonna stuff your corpse and have it next to me. Like I'll just like a like a pop. I'm I'm doing taxidermy. I'm gonna taxidermy you. Go ahead. Go ahead. Um But uh uh that moment, that literally that quote just popped into my mind when Christy Gnome or Secretary Gnome got up right.

We generally have these Judeo Christian values and I imagine there are also other other other religions, I don't mean to limit it, but that says when someone dies, you don't desecrate them. And When she got up and was so disrespectful of Alex Pretti and then also claimed he was a domestic terrorist. Yeah. That's a good thing.

And that he was there to massacre. He was brandishing a weapon and was there to massacre federal agents. I think that was Steven Miller. That was that was a moment where I thought, Oh my gosh. I've never seen I've seen people spin shit. I've seen people exaggerate. I've seen them lie.

But I've never seen the administration feel confident that it could just look people in the eyes and say, you know, ignore your faculties of observation and trust just believe what we say'cause we're saying it. That for me was

That felt very weird and chilling and like a turning point. And I think if you look to the American's credit, The majority of people and a lot more Republicans have said, Okay, this has just gone too far and you know how far it's gone when all of a sudden When all of a sudden a guy who took fifty thousand dollars in a brown lunch bag feels like the adult in the room are relieved that he's there.

Um I had a let me just say I had a very interesting discussion with my mom who of course I turned her to CNN'cause she decided Caitlin Collins dresses well and she likes it. and think she's adorable. I think that's a good reason. I I'm fine with it. Um so uh uh one of the things that was interesting is she she did not like those things, you know, that and one of the things that bothered her was the meanness. It was I don't know my mother can be very mean. Um

w she didn't l love it. Um and she one of the things I'll tell you is she zeroed on the math. Why are they why are they wearing masks? And I said no, police don't wear masks. That was the military. Yeah. She just she was asking a question, you know, and I was like, Well, because they're private police and they wanna hide and she's like, Well, they're worried about people knowing who they are I said, Yes, because of the things they're doing and so

Uh it was an interesting conversation. Well it's uh I mean think about think about how ironic it is. We're now deploying and coordinating unbelievable firepower and assets in Iran or in the Gulf, claiming that, okay, we need to do something because the government is executing people in the street. Well, our government is executing people on the street.

So that irony now granted it's not on the same scale, but that irony is not lost. No. Let me point something out. They're headed to Ohio to do this with Haitians. Let me s they're not stopping. They rated a uh an election site to try to f try to pretend that the election was stolen in Georgia. Very dangerous. Um, they're they're they're gonna do this thing in Ohio. These people aren't gonna stop. I just don't

I know we're like, Oh, finally we've got him. This guy finally we never get him. Whoever's controlling him, and I think he's not from what I understand, he's doesn't work very much during the day, uh, someone high up in the Trump administration told me he works five hours a day. Um

So the another nineteen hours is someone else. Um and so I think that that they're gonna keep going. They're gonna go. They have Stephen Miller has no shame and they will go to Ohio. Um and and JD Vance has talked about this. So I but I'd I'd love to Uh, when I think about this on a metal level, I think about the Trump administration and MAGA, a key philosophy or cornerstone.

Is that they believe if we could just turn back the clock and go back to fifties America where white people and males were largely in charge of everything. that this would be a better place. And they're just uncomfortable with the browning of America. They're uncomfortable with more progressive values. They're uncomfortable with women's rights. And they just wanna take us back. And it's almost sort of uh poetic's the wrong word, but ironic. But look at the

to famous or, you know, um uh Renee Good and Alex Pretti. So, okay, what do we have here? I mean, it's just so I don't know if you've noticed this, we have Uh and I I don't wanna re uh be reductive, but I'm going to be. Really lovely gay parents and a male ICU nurse. It's almost as if they said, How do we find what represents the future? And to push back on it in the most heinous way possible.

I mean, i i these two people in a lot of ways and ICE's ability to sniff out really good people. There was a story about Renee Good and her partner. the day before circling the school block two or three times because their kid struggles with social anxiety and waving at the kid to make the kid feel more comfortable. Did the send off the the video you found of of Alex Pretti. I mean this these were these are really good they're not only really good people.

But in a weird way I look at them and I think, that's the future of America and that's what MAGA hates. Well, it they will keep going and let me just say they they do in particular, let's not take the focus. They are they have been targeting people of color, like the immigrants who are hard working

Uh they're going for the Haitians now. Um the the people they're trying to weed out are are very hardworking. Well I think if this was accidental or not strategic. They didn't say go find a white ICU nurse. But doesn't it find you as is j doesn't you doesn't it strike you as just very ironic and almost like out of a play kind of it it does. The picture that got me the most was that y that kid. I think he his

His parents were the five year old. The five year old was just like his parents are uh immigrants and uh that got me the most. I have the hat and then the them sitting. They're just they're so um inhuman, uh that it's really it th the visuals are quite something. Now there have been visuals before whether it was the attack during the civil rights era, m if you remember the dogs and the and the hoses on uh on people.

of color, um, down in the south or and then there was, you know, the the Vietnam photo of the girl running. Um the one the one the the the child dead on the beach. There's a lot of

Very strong imagery. Yeah. There's a lot. Th this is coming at you so hard. That's what I was talking about last week, is that? Um, but speaking of i photos and impact, Tim Cook is finally speaking out in Minnesota calling for de escalation. Thanks, Tim. Um, it's like as as bland as the quinoa you enjoy. Um, after facing a backlash for attending the White House Milani premiere uh the same day as Alex Pretti the shooting.

Um Cook noted in an internal memo that he had a good conversation with the president where he shared his views. Sam Altman also weighed in, telling open AI's that ICE had gone was going too far, you think? though he said President Trump is a very strong leader and I hope he'll rise to the moment and unite the country. Both of them had to compliment Trump and spent very little time talking about the victims, in fact, not at all.

So very uh very I think weak sauce responses uh from uh and then and Altman managed to get a slap in at Zuckerberg at some point in one of his statements. Um talk a little bit about this because it's i yeah I'll tell you internally at Apple it's crazy. People are really furious, I can tell you that, um from talking to lots of Apple employees and all levels of this company. And

Uh you know, I think of all the companies it's really interesting, Apple feels the most betrayal if you if you look online at least. And I know that doesn't represent everything, but it certainly is not a good look for him to be standing next to Brett Ratner, who has his own issues. Um, and uh and in a tuxedo at the white it just the whole thing by the way, no one's ever going to see this Melania. One of the more enjoyable things is people showing pictures of

theaters that sell zero tickets. Um,'cause Amazon. Why aren't they more mad at Amazon who paid forty million dollars, spent thirty five million dollars marketing this? And there were two ex there were several Amazon executives at the event.

But what do you think about this? I think we love Apple, that's why, right? I guess. I don't know. I think Tim Cook is the new Bob Iger and that is he's gonna take an incredible career and put a giant, you know shit stick at the end of it. I uh uh there is an an unfortunate but necessary lesson in life around the intersection between your participation in time and other people. And that is the last five minutes are the most important five minutes.

When you're at a party and you're leaving, do your best to be as fucking charming as possible and go around and say hi. It th there's that famous study where they're giving dudes colonoscopies and one is just forty five minutes and the other's fifty minutes, but the last five minutes they don't move it around so it's not as uncomfortable.

And the men who had the device inside of them for fifty minutes said it was much more pleasant because all they remember is the last five minutes, which was not that unpleasant. When you leave an organization, when you quit or you've been fired, you swallow everything and you could not be more fucking charming because that is how they will remember you. Shockingly that's how I lead places, but go ahead. You you think I go. How dare you.

Or uh uh just on a more serious level, if you're getting divorced Do everything you can to be as gracious and generous as possible on the way out. Even if it means taking some lumps, being treated unfairly, th this this is if you've been married five, ten, forty years. Everyone, your partner, their parents, your friends, your kids will remember who was the bigger person. And uh Tim Cook, unfortunately, he's been an amazing CEO. And I also

From everyone I know that from everyone I know that knows him, including you, I don't know them, they say he's a good man. But here's the thing. This will be this this small period towards the end of his tenure. where he shows up to the White House for a ridiculous premiere, where he says he can't wait to spend time with Milane, and when he shows up with a with a uh handwritten disk drive and literally just is a sycophant to the president and then in the statement adding.

Adding the the president. Why could he just not this time? That to me, I was like, oh come on, leave that out, that one sentence. I just Well talk what was what did you call our relationship with Apple in that book when I met you? Um what was Apple? Our lover or our Uh Google is God. You know, you uh uh pray to it, ask it for an answer, it comes back with something.

Amazon is your gut, never consumption, you know, more for less. Uh Apple is your genitals. When you the the billion people have iOS are the most attractive potential mates in the world. It's the most subtle way of saying you should have sex with me. Well I would I would argue more so. Uh people love Apple. Like incredible products. No, but they they they have a relationship with it. The whole thing different they have marketed to you in a values way, right? Privacy.

He's had more shareholder value than any individual in his history with the exception of of Jensen Huang. And unfortunately, but you I'm just saying people have that's why people are like, Why why do you attack Apple when meta is too I was like, Because we don't like him. We like Apple. Well, this feels like more of a betrayal. Yes, that's right. We thought if there was one person who was gonna stand up and say

Uh I have been a huge beneficiary of rule of law and the progress of rights in America. And Apple's been an enormous beneficiary of competition and rule of law. And what's going on here is directly contrary to everything that's given me incredible opportunities. and created four trillion dollars in shareholder value. We are not down with this. But instead he's like,

Well, I'd love to hang out with Melania. Just make sure that we're exempt from those those China, those pest China terrorists. And de-escalate the word this this statement was such weak sauce. It was de-escalate. Like I also thought and as Stephanie Rule actually correctly pointed out, it was bland and The one from the Minneapolis commerce. It was like let's DS, let's all get along. I'm like, there's there is a side here.

And it's not with the police at this moment, or not the police. The police are doing great in Minneapolis. It's the um it's these thugs from from and y they have given Tim Cook and the rest of tech, a very easy way to say how dare you talk about people like that, which you were just talking about Christy Noam. They have gone to a ghoulish Place.

And one person who did speak out, let me just say, Finaud Kozla went w distance himself for something Keith Raboy was saying about the shooting, because Keith was wrong as always. Um and he also got into a beef with Elon Musk, very public about racism, which which I I'm not surprised Venaud is like that, but like it didn't cost Vinod anything to do that. And Venaud and I don't agree on lots of stuff, right? Sometimes he says things I'm like, Are you kidding me?

But like he was a person, right? He uh and this these statements by Cook and uh and Sam Altman and the rest of them, they're not you're not people. Stop acting like you're not people. And that having to throw in President Trump as a very strong leader or I had a discussion with President Trump.

A weak person, a a weak moral person. That to me, I just don't understand it. People keep b people ask me like what job is safe from AI? And I say, I personally think if I were to bet on one job, that's only gonna increase in importance. It's things around communications, strategic communications, investor relations, PR. And the two biggest communications mistakes of the last probably quarter happened in the last week. On a corporate level, whoever the fuck didn't literally body block Tim Cook.

from not only going to that dinner but but getting a picture with Brett Ratner And I'm not I'm not gonna make a judgment on Brett Ratner's past. But please go read about it. But that's just not please go read. But that's just not a s that's just not a good look to be at the Melania premiere taking

I mean, it's like the any PR person who has any intelligence in Apple thought, okay, yeah, I'm about to get fired and I deserve to be fired. And then the second biggest communications mistake, a rookie move. was for the administration to create a talking point. that oh you show up with a gun, you're looking for trouble at a protest. It's like, uh, well let me get this. When Kyle Rittenhell shows up with an AR fifteen.

He gets invited to the Republican convention and also the NRA came out and said, Look, and there's some data here. If you have the training that uh Alex Pratty had and you have a license to carry and conceal and you've never committed so much as a misdemeanor, you're seven to ten times less likely to commit a crime. There is something to the notion of safe well-trained, registered, you know, carry laws. And for them to come out and say,

Anyone going to the protest is looking to get in trouble. It's like, okay, so you're denying people's right to protest and You're saying that He First Amendment. And now you decide in one fell soup to talk about violating the second amendment, claiming the people that have guns are looking for trouble and more deserving. The entire second amendment is meant to prevent.

this. We need to arm as a citizenry in case tyranny takes over from the government. But that's not what he was even doing. He wasn't even brandishing. The word brandish He was brand that I think Gnome said that she was brandishing a gun. He didn't brandish anything. Never touched his gun. He brandished a cell phone, Christie. But that was just such a huge error on their part'cause quite frankly, when the NRA weighs in and says this is bullshit, it becomes a very bipartisan issue.

Well, in any case, Tim Cook, bad show. Bad show all around. I think you should do an interview with Kara Swisher and then see if you can make it through that. Anyway, uh let's go on a quick break. When we come back, big tech goes to court over addictive products. Support for this show comes from Dell. Every great idea deserves the power to bring it to life. Meet the all-new Dell XPS laptop.

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Scott, we're back with more news. This is a really interesting big tech trial taking place that we haven't really paid attention to. It's kicked off in LA this week where a plaintiff is suing meta, TikTok snap, and YouTube claiming personal injury through addictive products. This claims Uh features like infinite scrolling and algorithm recommendations lead to compulsive use, resulting in problems like depression and anxiety.

Um, executives including Mark Zuckerberg are expected to testify with nine cases likely to be heard. TikTok and Snap settled with the with the first plaintiff's where the trial began.

Uh, it's kind of a little bit of a big tobacco moment. I and I know these trials you never know where they're gonna go, but really people are v have not been paying attention to this trial and it's in an area y you and I talk about a lot and there's plenty of plenty of texts back and forth about obsession and addiction.

And and there's a lot of discovery here. Um, that should be really interesting of the of these executives talking about what they're doing, very similar to big tobacco. Yeah, we know when they smoke it, they love it. Like we know they're addicted, that kind of stuff.

And so I think it should be a really revol I mean, we know they know this and someone like Tristan Harris has been talking about it for years. I've been talking about it, you've been talking about it. Um, you know, and now it's got to the dangers of suicide with young people too. So any thoughts?

We're gonna look back on this era and decide that letting a sixteen year old on snap Or on Instagram or on TikTok is probably more harmful than if we'd let sixteen year olds smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol. Six percent of teens, um, qualify as being addicted to drugs or alcohol, twenty four percent. Qualify as addicts to social media. And the heaviest users are twice as likely to have suicidal intent. They're also the group in the highest usage.

are more likely to uh express poor body image uh more than the lowest use group. The bottom line this is The to say this is like kids smoking is unfair to tobacco. When When I I I mean this is gonna sound uh I've said this and I got a ton of shit for it a few years ago and it was the first time I was featured on late nine TV, not in Goodway. No, let's go. Well I said I'd rather give my sixteen year old a bottle of jack and some weed than Now I agree.

But go ahead and and they played that and said that was so ridiculous. When I I didn't I hung out with a Mormon kid all through in a in a in a a great athlete in high school and neither of them drank. I actually think I could have benefited from easing into alcohol. Anyways. This social media that I've said this that th the the thing we're gonna regret most, we're gonna look back and think, how did we let this happen to our kids? And then and even outside of hardcore addiction.

I'm not exaggerating. 60%, maybe 70% of the family anxiety, my family registers. arguments between me and the kids, arguments between the kids and their mother, arguments between me and their mother. Revolve around the fucking phone in social media. I feel you. I feel you, Scott. I feel you. And when we leave our kid alone and we go on vacation and we're checking custodial and he calls us and he's not at school and we find out he was on

Social media all night and and people say, Well, that's bad parenting. You're in control. Yeah, that means you don't have kids. Mm-hmm. Exactly. It's not a collective movement. If you take your kid off a snap. He is then further depressed'cause he's ostracized'cause this is how these kids communicate with each other. It needs to be a collective action. There should be no synthetic relationships. Collective r action.

Ca can I add I have to say one of the greatest moments of my parenting is when my son, without been unbeknownst to me, used Amazon to order a box to put his phone in. Alex did it, um, and locked it away. to do his homework'cause it was distracting him. You know what I mean? Like he this when he was in high school, I was really proud of him. Like he understood

the issue easily. And one of the things that's really hard w um i is including for adults. I I was at one work meeting and I made everyone put the phone in the middle of the table. It was very uncomfortable. I'm addicted. Yeah, it was I was like, put them in the middle. Don't touch them. Don't touch them. Like, oh, I have to, my kid. I'm like, it'll be fine. Nobody's nobody's gonna get in an emergency. And if it is, I'm sorry in advance, but it probably isn't.

Let's pay at we're gonna pay attention to this trial because it's really important, but we're gonna read out some of the texts and emails that these people know exactly what they're doing and they they they relish it. They relish the hold they have on people, they relish the hold they have on teens. And they are very aware, just like Big Tobacco, of what they're up to here and no matter what they say in public.

And so that will be stuff we'll be doing dramatic readings of that. All right, Scott, let's go to on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk big tech earnings. Support for the show comes from Frontier CMO, a new podcast from Think with Google.

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A lot of us have spent a lot of the last week watching videos of what's happening on the streets of Minneapolis and understanding what it is that we're seeing. But also what's real and what isn't and what's AI and who is taking these videos and how we're supposed to understand the source feels harder than ever. So this week on the VergeCast, we're talking about what's happening in Minneapolis, how information moves in an AI age.

and what it means to make sense of it all. All that, plus what's new with the new TikTok, why everything feels like it's falling apart on TikTok, and more on the VergeCast wherever you get caught. It may not feel like it, but Trump's approval rating is some of the lowest in recorded history. and has fallen to new lows in recent weeks, as the nation reels from recent killings of two anti-ICE protesters in Minnesota. But not everyone thinks he's failed. This week.

We're hearing from Trump voters. It is very unfortunate that it happened. But it's also unfortunate that the ICE is being blamed for like just murdering somebody who is just so innocent, which isn't the case whatsoever. A, they were provoked. B he got ran over and you know it just it's hard to tell what's real and what's not anymore.

He's delivered on virtually every promise he's made. The economy is booming right now. He closed the border. We're not getting any more illegals in. That has been done. That was a major promise. That's been done. Today explain. Listen wherever you get your podcast.

Scott, we're back with more news. The SP 500 crossed the 7,000 mark for the first time ever on Wednesday, ahead of major tech earnings. Tech, of course, fueled it. Let's walk quickly through the results. Meta posted a strong quarter uh with fourth quarter sales up twenty four percent year over year. That's really impressive.

Is AI spending spree continues with a projected capex of up to a hundred and thirty five billion in twenty twenty six, probably a lot of that will be dedicated hopefully to advertising for them because that's where they'll get the most bang for their book. Uh Microsoft also shows no sign of pulling back on AI spending thirty seven point five billion dollars on CapEx in the latest quarter.

Uh sixty six percent increase from last year. The picture was less rosy for Tesla, which reported uh a sixty one percent drop in net income for the quarter, down forty six percent of the year. The stock is still soaring inexplicably. Tesla's also scrapping the Model S and X cars using the factory space to build robots. He's coming all in on robots. I

One thing I say about him, he's when he goes for it, he goes for it. And I've heard is some of his robotic stuff is very impressive, but nonetheless he's betting the farm on it again. It's investing about two billion dollars in X AI. The combination of robotics and AI to me is really important. I've talked about this before.

Um also there's layoffs at Amazon and uh related to AI and Pinterest, uh very large layoffs. Uh they're all sort of using AI to to to cut labor costs. Um what jumps out at you the most? Well, I think AI is gonna add a lot of shareholder value, but not where we think it's gonna add the most value. I think the AI native companies are overvalued right now. I think the NVI NVIDIA is the

open AI, the anthropics of the world are probably overvalued. Where I do think you'll see an increase in shareholder value is the application of it specifically autonomous. I think Waymo is gonna be a trillion dollar company on its own. um, targeting of ads and and making the consumer experience better and creating a better advertising stack.

I gotta be honest, I think I think um I think Instagram and threads get better every day. I think they're fantastic. I think the consumer experience and also So does Gemini on Google, by the way. I've done a little poking around around how an advertise I I just don't see why. I I I can't imagine what it's like to be selling ads for MSNBC right now when the person the person from Meta Or Google show up and sho and show you what they can do.

Oh, you're targeting kids who just got their driver's licenses in Montclair, New Jersey? No problem. We can reach them one at a time. And with perfect ads that are helping. Yeah, at the right moment. It ends up people want to buy life insurance. uh in you know, at seven PM right after d I mean, they just

Anyways, um uh so uh w meta's earnings incredible, revenue up twenty four percent year on year. It's a big company. That's and not only that, their employee base wasn't up twenty four percent. I don't have the number, but I think it was barely up. And then um

Uh uh the one that was down six or seven percent, they were up seven percent. The one that was down was Microsoft because uh Azure didn't lit up its cloud company didn't it had growth of thirty nine percent, which still topped analyst expectations. But unfortunately the new expectations Is that you blow away expectations?

Um uh but still Azure Cloud Computing it the demand is so great that Microsoft's backlog of commercial bookings were up a hundred and ten percent to six hundred and twenty-five billion. There's some concerns about over reliance on open AI, where as a whopping forty five percent of this backlog is attributed to their quarter of a trillion dollar agreement they made in October.

And also it's gross margins because of the increase in CapEx is the lowest it's been in three years, coming in around sixty eight percent, which spook some people. Tesla, I can't even I can't even begin to understand what the fuck is going on there. I think this c this stock should be down ninety percent. It's become a meme stock. It's just that's all. I have heard I I suspect he's just decided cars aren't the way to do it and then he has some advantages in robotics and

Several people have s who uh have called me recent and said actually he's doing a lot of really innovative stuff around robotics. It's just he's betting the farm on that everyone wants to have an Optimus robot in their house, I guess. But you know, he's he he's done it before. Like that's the only thing I would say. But he hasn't shown. The other thing he's done before is say, we're gonna land on Mars, we're gonna he makes promises he never his mouth makes promises he can't keep.

in in reality. So the question is, like getting rid y the the model S and X cars were made by Rivian and Lucid and uh and and the Chinese, right? he's gotten out of this business. He's not in the car business anymore, it seems like. And so the question is, can this robotics business meet the challenge? We'll see. Well to be fair, they did beat expectations, but let's talk about what those expectations were.

The revenues are down. Of all the companies we talk about, no one no one is down. My you know, what Meta's up twenty three percent? Um, and then overall, a horrific quarter, their operating margins, and that is the amount of money you get to hold on to.

was seven point two percent in last year and the same quarter this year was uh down to forty six percent. That's like a that's a meltdown. Their free cash flow decreased thirty percent, their gap net income decreased sixty one percent. They realized They got a half a billion dollars in automotive regulatory credits that are gonna be running out thanks to the big beautiful bill. He's now using Tesla as kind of nutrition

for XAI. They disclosed that Tesla invested two billion in Musk's company X AI. So this is you know, and he's needs a new vision, a new distraction. And as you said, he's gone all in on Optimus, which I think is Oh gonna compete with the Cybertruck and the Segway and the Palm as the biggest flops in history or maybe the mixed reality headset. The other thing that struck me was the layoffs in Amazon. Yeah. And then if they laid off the

Sixteen. Yeah, but it's for different reasons. Pinterest is doing it because Pinterest is fucked and subscale. I like Pinterest. I like the people there. It's subscale.

it's gonna have a very difficult time. Um, Amazon laid off sixteen thousand people in their corporate workforce, which doesn't sound like a lot'cause I employ one point six million people, but the majority of those people are in their factories. This is probably close to ten percent of their corporate staff and this really is I've said for a long time that AI is corporate ozempic.

All these guys are going, you know, I mean Amazon has said they're going to double their top line retail revenue in the next five to seven years without a single increase in the number of headcounts. That's AI. And then also I think the place in Amazon's my big tech stock pick for twenty six.

The the collision and you've referenced this of AI industrialized robots, of which Amazon has a million industrialized robots, and the total number of industrial robots in America outside of Amazon is four hundred thousand. So they have gone just as Musk is going all in on robots? No fucking sense.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Amazon, Jaffe and Bezos are going all in on AI-driven industrialized robots, which is champagne and cocaine. But they were they were there before. They bought a company called Kiva many years ago. But just so you know, recent Amazon layoffs. plus October layoffs is ten percent of the company. It's it's a pre they had one Oh, is it? Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. But U P S cut thirty thousand jobs. I mean, uh these guys

Industrial robotics. I interviewed David Solomon from Goldman Sachs on Prof G and he said Uh, I mean I they're planning to grow their revenue substantially the next two or three years. Goldman's in a great spot right now, great leadership, they're doing well. Uh but he admitted employment will begin to flatten.

You know, no CEO is going to come out and say, I'm I'm going to reduce ten or twenty percent of my workforce, right? No one they can't say that because then everyone, the best people start leaving. But what he did say is it's gonna flatten. So what we're looking at here flattens. Right.

This takes their earnings and absolutely makes them go crazy. And then when these companies do well, everyone, you know, the S P does well because the S P is now kind of the SM, you know, the S it's not the S P five hundred, it's the S P ten. Anyways, these g companies on the whole continue to just be

Extraordinary. That is until this movement called resist and unsubscribe came along. Anyway, um one more quick break. This is absolute true. Oh z Corporate Ozempic. Take it away. We'll be back for predictions. Ready to lead at the highest level? Kelly's online executive Doctor of Business Administration is built for professionals who think strategically and lead with impact.

Apply advanced research directly to your organization while earning a respected doctorate from anywhere with a fast track option for MBA holders. Tap to learn more about elevating your influence, your credibility, and your career with Kelly's program. Learn more at Kelly.au.edu What's going on? We haven't worked a case in years. I just bought my car at Carvana and it was so easy. Too easy. Think something's up? You tell me.

They got thousands of options. Mm-hmm. Found a great car at a great price. Mm-hmm. And it got delivered the next day. It sounds like Carbana just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right. Case closed. Buy your car Delivery fees may apply. Turning Point USA's last big event, America Fest, was held in December without founder Charlie Kirk. Had Kirk been alive, it might have gone differently, but it was a mess.

Ben Shapiro went ham on Meghan Kelly, Tucker Carlson, and Candace Owens. So no, Tucker Carlson, it is not an excuse to go silent on Candace's targeting of TP USA. Or to mirror her bullshit lines of questioning because you love Candace personally. The same holds true of Meghan Kelly. Kelly and Tucker hit back at Shapiro to hear calls for like deplatforming and denounce. people at a Charlie Kirk event. I'm like, What? This is hilarious.

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Okay, Scott, I'm gonna make one quick prediction. Okay, if you don't mind. Um the Super Bowl is just a few weeks away and go Seahawks. Um, but I've already uh have a prediction for the best ad, Lady Gaga. Did you see that singing Mr. Rogers? Beautiful day in your neighborhood in an ad for Redfin and Rocket Mortgage. I don't really care about the ad.

But they they released a teaser clip and she sounds amazing singing. She's got an incredible voice. Oh, it's gonna be the best ad. I'm gonna we'll we'll talk about the ads later'cause that's always not the prediction I was expecting. Okay. It's very similar to mine in that is we're about to uh engage in military strikes against Iran. So very similar predictions. Yeah, okay. Lady Gaga.

Okay. It's just so strange that the Epstein files are now a distraction from it. It's like the behavior keeps getting more and more depraved that we have to do. Someone said they're the safe the the safest thing in America is the are the Epstein files, but go ahead. No, I I I've I've made this prediction before and I'm just making it again. I it feels like I follow this. I love this guy, the Geo Hussar on TikTok.

And there's a I mean, I'm fa I'm sold. I'm just fascinated with military equipment. And it just it appears that all our assets are being coordinated in the Gulf for a pretty obvious reason. And I don't know if Trump is doing it for the right or the wrong reasons, maybe as a distraction.

But I think he absolutely loves the Tarzan flex of of leveraging the best organization in history and that's the military. And it appears to me that they are absolutely even the planes that are deploying to the area are like giant gas stations in the sky.

Um I think Israel's on board because I think they think it would be good for their brand. So I think you're gonna see a coordinated some sort of coordinated strike in Iran in the next seven to fourteen days. I think you're gonna see a coordinated strike against Ohio or wherever they're gonna attack the Haitians. who are not eating the cats and dogs. That's where I think you're gonna see the next strike. Do you th so you you don't think they're gonna pull back at all? No.

Yeah, you're probably right. Not these people. 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. Okay. Today's show is produced by Lara Neyman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Undershot engineered this episode, Manola Moreno edited the video. Thanks also

Drew Bros, Mia Severo, and Dan Shallon. The shock curves, Box Media's executive producer of podcasts, make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York magazine and Box Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of And business care.

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