Iran War Oil Shock, Anthropic Sues, and Market Wipeout Warning

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Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, did we have a good time in Minneapolis? Oh, that was wonderful. And thank you to the the wonderful people of Minneapolis. I thought it was great. The community or you know, maybe we gotta

Uh not a representative sample. I'd like to think we got a representative. The community seems very unified right now. Yeah, absolutely. People drove from North Dakota. There was some leaders. Wherever that is, or Iowa. We had a lawyer from Iowa come. Judge. By the way, shout out we know who you are. There's this wonderful woman who's a lawyer in family court and she commutes seven hours a week and she said that w uh excuse me, she said judge, yeah.

And she said we're her we're her best friends. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. And people were great. The audience was great. We again we have to thank Tane Danger. raised a whole pile of money which Scott matched, which was very generous of Scott.

And it's going to be More virtue signalling. Yeah, that's okay. It was a night this is the Scott I like. This is the direction. This is this is the direction I like. It was This is the way. This is the way. I we had a great time and the audience was great. We had a great show. We talked to Governor Walls, who looks amazing. Um Very handsome. As he's leaving. Everyone looks so much better when they leave things, you know what I mean? Or they're on Ozempic. That's what

That's why we're descending into fascism because uh Tim Walls uh should have gone on Mogovy nine months or fourteen months earlier. That's the difference between us and fascism. Okay. Uh GLP one. A decision Folks, if you're considering running for vice president and you're thinking about a GLP one, get on it. The word is now. The word is yesterday. Anyway, he looks great. I d we have no idea if he is. Let's just be saying that. But he didn't. The guy who showed up. Yes, he was a big thing.

But let me tell you something. He's running too. He s told me he was running and it goes along with it. It's a whole life. They're always running. They're always running for everything. They're totally running. Yes, he told me about his running because you know I've started running again. So we had a little chitty chat about it. The idea of you out running

I don't go outside. I stay inside. I don't I don't like running outside. You do it on the pri you do it on a treadmill? Yeah, I love it. I it's my little time for myself. It's my little carat time. I love it. I do it three or four times a week. It's really and actually now in hotels, they have to have a nice treadmill. That's it. That's the way it goes.

That's why I'm abandoning your apartment. Anyway, uh are you doing okay? You're in New York. We're headed to South by Southwest, right? We got a lot going on. We got a live pivot. I've I've got a bunch of things. Prof. G has a bunch of things. I'm trying to think what else we're doing. Oh I'm oh we're launching my uh my show's trailer goes up today for Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever. You haven't mentioned Yeah, yeah, it's the secret show. It's not so secret. Anyway.

Scott is in it and we're gonna be we're gonna be debuting the part with Scott in at South by Southwest where where we go to a sound bath essentially. Um but it comes out today, the the trailer. So I'm very excited and we're gonna show it off. Guest appearance from guest appearance. David Ellison. The new king of Hollywood. What if he came up to us? What do we say? We'd say hi, hurry. We'd kiss his ass. He's very powerful. No, we don't kiss his ass. We're very critical of him.

You know, uh but whatever. I don't care. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. Anyway, we'll be nice to him. I'll see him on Sunday because I'm going to that big fancy party. Which f oh yes you are. Oh, go up to him and I I dare you to go up to him and give like a full like penis on penis hug. Could you do that? Uh so

I I'm not a hugger. I don't know if you've noticed that. Yeah, I've noticed that. I try. You're not a hugger. You're like Alex the way Alex hugs. Side sideway hug. All right. I will I dare you to do something really funny. Unless I'm giving you three hundred dollars and you're doing more than hugging, do not touch me. Do not touch me. Anyway, you're gonna have a good time at that. That's a lie. It's a lot more than a hundred dollars, three hundred dollars.

I'm excited. It's gonna be great. Calorico. We maybe we'll run into him. Uh so I don't know if you heard. This is I'm pulling a total Karamu. I'm interviewing him on stage with uh Jess Tarlove at Raging Moderate. Oh my god, that's great. Oh, I'm gonna come watch that. That's great. I'm so excited.

Yes, I have the the cast of Audacity, which is this new very hysterical Silicon Valley uh thing in the in the style of um Silicon Valley. Do you have any questions or uh Talerica for me? I have my first question is gonna be If Mary gave birth to Jesus and Jesus is the Lamb of God Then did Mary have a little lamb? Little dad joke. I can't go dirty with Representative Talarico.

I like that one. That's good. That's a good one. He'll laugh. He'll go. Oh, ho ho. He's like he's kind of a young fogey, in my estimation. He feels like older even though he looks like he's twelve, that kind of thing. So I think what's people at home need to take a shot every time he says the billionaire class. Yes, okay. You should do that. One of my definite questions. I don't know if I want to

I'm gonna be like I'm gonna start off with he and I have something in common and that is we both follow hot women on Instagram. His thoughts. Uh Okay. All right. We're moving on. Sorry, James. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. I'm going to dig in. First, the Warren Iran is sending oil prices on a wild ride this week.

And creating what the International Energy Agency says is, quote, the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. Okay, that's kind of As of this recording, oil is still very high, slowly coming down from over a hundred dollars a barrel after ships. were attacked in the Persian Gulf, there's also attacks still going on. Gas prices continue to climb as well. And just remember it's not just gas prices. Every price goes up when gas goes up.

The IEA's thirty-two member countries are releasing a record four hundred million barrels of oil from strategic reserves to counter the chaos, which means we aren't gonna feel this yet. Uh I interviewed uh Senator Warner yesterday and he was noting that. Uh Trump has tried to calm markets. He keeps trying to to do this to bring these oil prices down by words, saying the war is quote, very complete, only to later announce we haven't won enough.

Oil prices also plunged after energy secretary Chris Wright incorrectly posted that the US Navy had escorted a tanker through the Strait of Hormuz, so that was a problem. The post was deleted within minutes, was enough to move markets and wipe out million dollar trades.

This is such a taco. This is the greatest taco of all, I think. And even if the war in Iran ends soon, returning the Strait of Hermuz to typical traffic could take one to three months. We're gonna see reverberations of this ridiculous situation. Um, the way he's handling it and the way he's not It it seems all over the place.

Um and also to to add to the this kind of mess there, the initial findings of a military investigation say that US was responsible for that deadly Tomahawk missile strike on the Iranian elementary school. It's actually causing a lot of strife within MAGA, by the way, and everywhere else. N normal people and MAGA.

Um, the report notes officers likely used outdated information to label the school as a military target. Trump has tried to put the blame on Iran earlier this week, claiming they also have automags, which everyone thought was ridiculous.

and when asked about the military report on Wednesday, Trump said he knew nothing about it. Um We'll get to the the photography scandal at the Pentagon, but talk a little bit about what's going on with oil prices and this the school, which is just I I feel like we should take responsibility when we make an error. Such a terrible error. But go ahead. When you're handling a crisis and this is a crisis, the death of civilians, especially children, is obviously pretty

ugly. You acknowledge the issue, you take responsibility and you try and overcorrect. And they've done nothing of the sort. And there is i in a war, and this is a war, this isn't military action, this is a war. It's an excursion, the word he's using now. It's an excursion. Excursion. Like a field trip? Exactly. My daughter went on an excursion. Except he didn't get Congress's approval the day before that that he could go on the excursion. Um look this is

You know, it's a tragedy. Uh they just made a bad situation worse. First off, they look incompetent by saying that it might have been a tomahawk from Iran. Uh Iran doesn't have tomahawks. So it it it looks like, okay, I'm not willing to own up to this. I mean there's not a good answer, but there's a reasonable answer here, and that is

We decided to go in fr you know, with military action. This is a this is a group of people who killed thirty thousand of its own people. War is going to have collateral damage. We screwed up. We take responsibility. These are the following steps we're putting in place to make sure it doesn't happen again. And take responsibility for it. And it would have been not over, but it would have been acceptable. Instead it's like, no, it was Iran's fault. Uh it just doesn't Or I didn't know. Yeah.

uh uh. It was it was and was angry when people asked about it, which is uh the everything wrong in the response and everything wrong in the mistake. But you're right, absolutely. Yeah, and the the real I mean we're just we're just starting to see

So I was speaking to a kid and um and I said, What what you know, where do you wanna be in five years? I always ask young men that. Where do you wanna be in five years? And this kid said, uh I'd really love to have my own auto repair shop focusing on E Vs. I said, okay, well then let's reverse engineer from those things. Like what kind of skills do you need to acquire? What kind of job certification? What kind of capital or money would you need to um uh start something like this?

uh have a business plan, w what kind of real estate would you need? What what would be your m you know, let's reverse engineer everything you need. Basics, right? Let's reverse everything engineer everything to today. Around what you would need to be an owner of an EV repair shop in uh he lives in the outskirts of Los Angeles. Just the loveliest young kid. Anyways.

We can't even reverse engineer the tactics because I don't think anyone is really clear yet on what the end game is, what the end goal is. Mm-hmm. And that is if they had said, All right, we're gonna diminish their launch capability for missiles makes all the sense in the world. And it's more about the launchers and the missiles'cause you can bury the missiles on their These are ballistic missiles for people who don't know.

we can we are going to make sure that the Straits of Hormuz are more secure than they were uh previous to this. And we're gonna work with our Gulf allies to create a series of minesweepers and and enforce the border. I mean, and we're gonna take out the Navy and we're gonna take out the munitions infrastructure that builds this stuff.

These are the three boxes we need to check. Can I can I interject? I since I just interviewed Warner about this, one of the things that they've talked about is going in and getting the enriched uranium, but that would actually be would take, as they say, boots on the ground and it would be not viable. Not viable. Not feasible. Unless we want a lot of Americans to die. Yeah, as is quite frankly, uh as is regime change. I mean this regime is sticking pretty strongly.

Oh they're not collapsing. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think Calci had the likelihood of regime change at like ten percent by the end of March or something like that right now. Anyways. The but instead we don't it's like, well, okay, in war you always have to have Plans A prime and plan B because the enemy gets us saying this.

But the problem is no one can identify Plan A. No. They ate it. They ate it. They the the dog ate my homework. Can I ask you about the oil prices? Because I think that's something that's gonna people don't recognize and

Um, you know, the idea of trying to calm the market by releasing incorrect information, letting it go, you know, whipsaw all over the place. And this release of these four hundred million barrels is gonna have repercussions later, because that's when the prices will go up, these strategic reserves. And what they're they're trying to do everything possible to pretend we're not going to have a real crisis between the Strait of Hormuz and this release. Um and so i it they it has the second order

problems. Now Wall Street's sort of sloughing it off a little bit. Um, but these are prices that are gonna reverberate through the system as you have noted. Oh, I uh so look the biggest loser here is obviously Um the people of of Iran who are in the wrong place at the wrong time, right? There is no bigger loser than the families who l lose loved ones. I also think the reputation of the US and what was an opportunity to create much stronger alliances with moderate nations.

in the Gulf. Uh so big losers. But what people aren't talking about The countries that import more than 50% of their oil, Japan, South Korea, India, and most of Europe, have seen their markets hammered. Absolutely hammered. Uh poor countries with no foreign exchange reserves, uh uh and dollar denominated debt can't, you know, are uh uh uh could be thrust into the IMF or effectively what is bankruptcy? Airlines and hospitality companies all over the world. Shipping, the bunker shipping.

nations who import their oil, especially who get most of it through the Straits of Hormones, their economy basically their economies are like fuck for the year at a minimum. So there this is having, you know, we have obviously the biggest losers by body count are Iran, but by economic collapse. Middle Eastern oil importers, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, And fragile emerging markets, Pakistan Guess who's doing great? Russia.

Yeah. This gives him the ne he need he was really on the on the ropes around the million the million people who've died and also the price of oil. And now he has more money to spend while we ignored uh help from the U Ukrainians on drones. And one of the things Warner was pointing out was that Fine, th we we could take out their battleships, but their real problem is all those small fast boats and their drones. They could g just do all manner of damage to us.

in that with these small fifty thousand dollar drones and we use a million dollar rocket to take it out. I mean, this is the problem is they have an ability to do this and they've been they're you know, the way Warner described it, these this country is hard is i is hard enforced, like hard like hardwired. This this is not Venezuela. This is Trump lives like he's in some movie.

where you just do three bombs and that's the end of it. But this is a hardwired a hundred and fifty thousand people in this in this ruling uh group in Iran and they're not giving up all this money and all this power for Uh I don't know. It's it's a really difficult situation which they didn't think out. But just thinking about the market, the winners and losers. The hardest at stock markets.

our Middle Eastern markets. Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, their stock market's greater. There's a capital flight to safety. I mean the ironic thing here is that over the long term our reputation is in tatters. We're probably the least damaged Because we're energy independent. We produce more energy than we consume. We have two oceans protecting us. Friendly Canada to the north, harmless

Harmless Mexico to the south. We still have capital inflows in a weird I mean, uh it's just terrible to say, but in a weird way. Our markets are probably least damaged by this. Except the cost. There'll be costs for airlines. There'll be costs for uh truckers. There's gonna be costs for home heating. Thank goodness it's not winter, right? The dollar's already strengthened. I mean

It's uh it's ironic, but when you diminish the entire world, there's a flight to safety and flights to safety usually benefit the US. Emerging markets are gonna get the shit kicked out of'em. India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico. capital flowing out to the US dollar for safe havens. The US will likely be down eight to ten percent on a tariff ruling, or was down, but it could be down another ten to fifteen percent. And that'll be I'll talk more about that on a prediction.

But y y you're gonna have a pretty big peak to trough, but that m some of that might just be the air coming out of the bubble. But to your point, the least damage in the Middle East or Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but the big winner here, as you said, is Russia. The oil price spike benefits them. The US is distracted by Iran, so more Ukraine leverage. And oddly, the the ruble strengthens. So war is literally the agent of unintended consequences.

And this is so frustrating because if this had been more like four Do and less like Iraq, and they'd set out a series of achievable objectives, the this could have been a win. It could have been the Gulf states coming together. And if they'd said, look, to a couple of European nations and to the Gulf states, a stable Middle East benefits all of us. Let's all have a series of objectives, and we're going to pay for and execute against most of this. We could have strengthened our alliances.

You know, I think it was that they were the senator over Scott. Yes. Um I think they were gonna attack and we decided to be the senior partner. Like that's rather than create something else because Wait Iran was gonna attack Israel? Israel's attack. No, no, no. And Senator Warner feels like we did not have the power to say stop. Well he doesn't know why we didn't.

That was one of his questions. He's he's he's surprised he he uh he seemed wor more worried. He's usually not a worry word, but he seems worried about two things, how this was conducted, obviously. And what the real implications are, especially around drones and small boats that could do enormous damage to our battleships and everything else. And also election security.

Um, but one of the the weirder parts is how the the the administration has behaved. Um, d Donald Trump was dancing last night or golfing and Stuff like that, so the visuals aren't very good. The Defense Department has now barred press photographers from Iran briefings after publishing photos that Heggs says staff found, quote, unflattering, according to the Washington Post.

Hag says vanity aside, um uh it just th they just look like like he looks like a fatuous poppin' jay at all times, but in this case the lack of seriousness about something that's very serious seems problematic and it's also causing problems within their own group of mega. There's a real shift. There's a real I sort of ch Tucker Carlson Megan Kelly, uh M T G on one side.

Um, and then uh, you know, Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, all this is a real ugliness. If I I went over I wandered over to Twitter, which I shouldn't have done. And the the the nastiness between them is really quite something. It's really quite something to watch. Like imagery is so incredibly powerful. They're basically I think one photograph brought didn't bring an end to the Vietnam War, but expedited it. And it's that that's it's that incredibly dramatic photo of the Girl running.

that it w will lose support. And the notion that these guys can't handle the images of Pete Hagsath in an unflattering I mean It's just uh it shows you're spending you're allocating your capital in the wrong places. That's not That's not what you should be thinking about or worried about. And the if you think you can control the imagery of Pete Hexath, Well, okay. Just wait till you see the images that are gonna come out.

of Iran. And you can already sell see that the IRGC is quite frankly organizing again and going on an information campaign. They are and they've they've been very good. Iran in general has been one of the stronger players uh in th in those spaces in terms of propaganda and everything else. And so But when you say good, you mean effective. I mean they they lie like there's no. Yes, of course. But hello, lots of people do. Lots of governments do.

Um and then I'm not sure. They do, but but they are uh when I say good is they're good at it. Um they're very um they're all throughout all the various social networks. They're very um They did one the other day, which I was sort of fascinated by where they put up your president as a pedophile, um, which was interesting. Uh They just are they've been at it for a long, long time. And they have used uh often when there's stuff that pops up online, it's either Russia or Iran.

Um, China to an extent too, but really Iran has used social media. uh as one of the small I mean, it is a smaller country than Russia or less powerful, and it has used social media to its advantage in ways that are really of course heinous'cause it's conspiracy theories and you you always find them somewhere in they they're at the top, everyone I ever interview in cybersecurity are at the top in cybersecurity issues, in uh propaganda, in conspiracy theories.

And they have a very well oiled machine throughout the world doing this kind of stuff. So Well when the actual audit of social media is done, I think we're gonna find that somewhere between ten and forty percent of comments and posts Yeah. is going to have originated from either the C C P the G R U or the RGC. Yep. Absolutely. This is what you do. You see a piece of content and then you look at the comments to evaluate and shape your own view of that content. Mm-hmm.

And when it's all gamed. You don't even recognize how much impact it has on your views of stuff. Because if someone says, oh, the US the US will be able to escort ships through the Straits of Hormuz. I'm just using an example. And then there's just a ton of stuff saying, that'll never happen. Oil prices are going to be at two hundred dollars.

All right, where's that comment coming from? And and unfortunately, although they could put in places to verify accounts and get rid of fake accounts and fake comments. You know, I mean just j go on these really sensitive pages or sensitive opinions and click on who made the comment. And it's someone with three followers. Okay, that's not a person. And the question is why would someone be making this comment? Or what entity would have an interest in these comments?

We're gonna talk about that in a little bit,'cause there's a major report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate that's really interesting around Chatbots. This story is going to continue in our reverberations, obviously. Uh, we're gonna go on a quick break, and when we come back, Anthropics sues the Pentagon and Microsoft comes to Anthropic's defense. Support for this show comes from Quince. If you've ever peered into your wardrobe and felt paralyzed by indecision,

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Scott, we're back with more news. The White House is reportedly preparing an executive order to formally ban anthropic across the federal government, which is likely illegal. The Defense Department CTO Emile Michael, and let me just say I covered him and he's a toadying bully. just said on C N B C that Anthropic would quote, pollute the agency's supply chain. We've only done this for foreign companies, just so you know, uh this kind of behavior.

All this comes as Anthropic is officially suing the Pentagon for labeling a supply chain risk, effectively blacklisting the company from federal contracts. This has never been done to an American company.

Uh Anthropic argues the government overstepped its authority and violated the company's First Amendment rights. And now Microsoft is getting in the mix. The company threw its support behind Anthropic this week, urging the federal court to temporarily block the Pentagon's supply risk designation in an amicus brief. Uh, Microsoft warned uh that an the unprecedented move would have quote broad negative ramifications for the U.S. tech industry on their damn right.

Scott, before we go further, I want to play a prediction you made last week. Let's listen. My prediction is no. And that is Dario Emoti has given license and permission to CEOs to say no. And in the next thirty days, you are going to see a raft of CEOs find their testicles and start saying no to this administration.

So you were right, Scott. Uh so let's talk about that, them saying no, and it's not just Microsoft. 37 AI researchers at OpenAI and Google, not the companies themselves, also filed a brief supporting anthropic. Um, you know, I I'm gonna just very quickly comment the the this is th what what the government's doing here is really uh unprecedented. It's a disagreement with a company.

And instead of just disagreeing and moving on, they are attacking them in the most ridiculous ways, trying to make an example of anthropic and really hurt their business. Um and for you to I need you all to understand Emile Michael's role here because Th the these people all have other interests and agendas that have to do with their previous Life in Silicon Valley and their future life in Silicon Valley. And Emile Michaels always, as I said, been a toading bully to powerful men.

And this is what he's doing here. Um, and he's not a he is not a player that is in any way neutral. He's not doing things for the you and I in in this government. He's doing things in his own self interest, if would be my guess. And so the the attacks on anthropic, right behind him is all manner of competitors at Anthropic that are using the federal government

to uh hurt a company that decided not to want to do something. And I'm glad Microsoft uh stood up for them. I think this is the biggest story in tech. And so just a quick recap, um Anthropic had Basically two ass of the Pentagon. Um And both pretty narrow. They didn't want uh Claude to be used for fully autonomous weapons, meaning AI, not humans, making final lethal uh targeting decisions, which seems reasonable.

And the second one was no use of cloud for mass domestic surveillance of Americans. And the Pentagon responded that it does not intend to use Claude for those purposes, but refused to contractually commit to that, arguing that it it can't lead tactical operations by exception.

And that legality is the Pentagon's responsibility. And and then on the um about two and a half weeks ago, Trump posted on True Social directing every federal agency directing every federal agency to immediately seize all use of anthropics technology. And then hexath designated anthropic as a supply chain risk. Okay, that is That's a label which was which has been reserved for foreign adversaries. Well I'm saying it again, Carrie.

I uh first off, that's this isn't just the government saying, Okay, i you don't want to work with us, we don't want to work with you. If they say if they label them as a supply chain risk, then already uh a hundred plus enterprise companies have reached out to Anthropic and said, we may not be able to use you. A financial services company posits negotiations regarding a fifty million dollar contract.

A pharmaceutical firm, financial technology company. I mean, they can't this really is an excess time. When you're labeled sort of an enemy of state, this is the equivalent of like you're a corporate enemy of state or threat. I'd say threat. Anthropic has now filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon. saying that Congress's procurement laws don't authorize blacklisting a US company over protected speech. That's what this is. They get they get to work with or not work with who they want.

And the supply chain designation is is just not it's just not legal and it sets a dangerous precedent for any American company. They will lose. The government will lose yes. Yes. The government will lose, but it'll still have the effect. This is a Trump thing. He creates a real problem, whether it's anthropic. And companies don't work with them until they figure it out. And then and then it causes damage, just like they done at You know, when they fire all of Voice of America.

Now they've lost in court and Carrie Lake is an idiot, but it's already caused damage and caused damage to it. And that's the goal is they're gonna push it i il legally as far as they can and then they'll be stopped. But by the time they're stopped, Anthropic is badly affected. And if you all don't think this is a Silicon Valley rumble happening here. It's all in the self interest of private companies

who have an interest in slowing anthropic down. And if you look at the links between Emile Michael and the rest of these these these clients. So they have financial interests and competitors? Just this yes, they do. And so this is a way that Silicon Valley, the penny Silicon Valley used to ignore government for the most part. And then the penny drop that they're easy to pay for. and that they can do their competition with each other in the federal government by pretending

They're working for us as people or getting spots, putting their, putting their people in the various spots, right? That will cause it. This is a Silicon Valley corporate beef happening. It's that is what's occurring here. The one that's been most outspoken, I'm trying to connect his financial interest, which I'm sure is driving his rhetoric, is David Sachs. David Sachs, Mark Andreessen.

Please understand there are shadow people behind these actions that you need to pay attention to. And Trump is a you know, sort of a useful idiot. I'm I'm sure they make fun of Trump behind his back. Um, but you know, it's all in their economic self interest to hurt this company. And they couldn't hurt them by being better. So this is how they're doing it. This is what they're doing. It's really But it comes down th this is the this is the fulcrum that determines

if companies continue to show some backbone. And by the way, good for Satina Adela um showing some backbone here. At again, risk. So uh the the Calci is saying that Anthropic's li the likelihood anthropic wins the case is seventy two percent. In the meantime, companies will say, Hey, that site license we were about to sign with your anthropic, we're just gonna wait. We're apologize. This is terrible.

To to your point, Microsoft and a group of twenty-two retired senior military officers have filed amicus briefs in support of Anthropic and its lawsuit. But what's interesting is that consumers are speaking. The enterprise is running. But consumers are running towards Anthropic. Downloads of the Clod app spiked more than seventy-five percent after Trump prompted federal agencies to stop using Anthropic. And on the flip side, uninstalls of ChatGPT mobile apps spiked roughly 300%.

the day after Trump's proclamation. So the the the question is who wins in the mind of Anthropics board here? The fear and the stasis that has been created in the enterprise market. Or consumers running towards a company they think is finally showing some backbone. I think it's damaging. I think this is the t this is such a Trump way to do this is more enterprise, unfortunately. I I know. Create chaos.

and damage and it's legal, but do the punch, even if it's like uh I'm not a boxer, but if you do like a kidney punch, you do a ki you hurt the person and then you're like, Oh, did I do that? I didn't know I did that and you use your minions uh and I cannot underscore again what a minion Emile Michael is. Um

to do your dirty work and pretend you're working for the government. It's d the whole thing is such a i this is such a fixed fight. I can't even you need to and I think reporters should really s spend a lot of people don't know these characters. Again, this was an ex Uber executive. He's been involved in a lot of stuff in Silicon Valley, but he had to leave Uber under

uh please go wat look at our reporting on him many years ago. Um he had to leave Uber under very n difficult circumstances around the rape of a woman in India. um in an Uber. Um but just um just go Go google them reporters who are covering this and stop acting like Emil Michael has is this clean character. In any case, I'm sure he'll come after me, but it's true. Um So I I'll win on that regard. Um

Anyway, um we're gonna move on. Uh another thing that, again, Silicon Valley just can't stop stealing, essentially. Grammarly launched an expert review AI feature that gives editing suggestions, supposedly inspired by well-known writers and journalists. Casey Newton discovered the tool was attributing advice to him and others even though they never agreed to participate. The feature even generated advice under the name of a certain tech journalist

Kara Swisher. Um they've they've stopped that now. They've gotten they they pulled back on it apparently, but what an incredible bunch of information and identity thieves. I don't know what to say. Anytime these people can steal, they steal. They're such shoplifters. I don't know your thoughts. Well it goes back to this mindset. And I thought one of the I think there's looking glasses into people's souls.

How they treat their pets, how they treat service staff is sort of a uh, you know, when is their guard down? When uh there are certain tells, right? And one of the tells that was really frightening when Sam Alma was asked about the energy consumption. of AI, he said, what people don't take into account is the amount of energy it takes and the amount of investment and resources it takes to get a human to a point where it can make logical decisions and engage in critical thinking.

He said if you look at how much energy and input and resources it takes to raise a child such that it can get to a point where it can make decisions. AI is better. I found that so nihilistic and so inhuman because what Silicon Valley, or at least some of the individuals we talk a lot about, don't realize is that We try and get ROI economically such that we can make low ROI investments in relationships and people we love.

I I'm not getting I am not getting an ROI back from my children on any sort of economic level. Well you use a lot of energy. I'm wondering if we should use as much energy for you as we do, but go ahead. Well but the the whole point, the whole shooting match. Of an economy and relationships and satisfaction and purpose and some sort of spiritual sense of calm and and like your life mattered.

is that you do engage in, you know, pr productive economic or domestic labor such that you can invest that in other people.

And you may or may not get a return. Uh, but the point is the return you get is you're so invested in something that you you your life has meaning. The the whole point is that you create value such that you can you can you can invest that value in relationships and for most people the most rewarding place of investment where quite frankly they don't get anything resembling an economic ROI.

is in children. And to look at it on that level is like, okay, you don't understand what it is to be a mammal or a human. And and also the notion that you can spend Fifty years of your life professionally working your ass off staying late, starting in the mailroom at the Washington Post as you did, such that you have a voice, a reputation, a twist of phrase, an ability to string words together that compels people to action and provides insight. And then they can come in.

and just adopt that fifty years or piggyback on it. That piggyback. Steal it really. In my voice.

It does a really good job because what it's doing is stealing from everything I have ever written, said or done. That is correct. And so the music industry did this correctly. It said, Okay, if we're K R O Q, which is awesome, the best radio station Uh, of the nineties in Los Angeles and they play a bunch of English beat or Tom Petty or Lloyd Cole in the Commotions or R E M. They track how much they're playing and then they send them a royalty.

And what these guys wanna do is they wanna leverage your years, decades of of of discipline, schooling, certification, risk taking, time away from your family, but they don't want to pay for it. And they see everything I mean, th that's I think a a a felony. But what is double homicide from a mentality standpoint is that these people really look at relationships and humans On an economic basis. I just uh when I saw that I thought I thought this guy is not He just had a kid.

It was a dark comment. It was a dark comment. right away your kid's gonna be super into the shit you're into and you're gonna get all these hallmark moments, despite what insurance commercials would tell you, you're going to have to invest more in this ch child in every way. And that's the point'cause at some point what you realize is that that over investment in other people.

gives you purpose and value. Let me just say they think everything is for the taking and for them. I just d this is just another example. This what was happening at the Defense Department. Oh, we have it up on anthropic. Oh, anything they can take they take. And it they just continue to prove you know, they they keep not meeting my low expectations for them already.

Um, and this is kind of an interesting thing. Researchers from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which has been attacked in all the t and its cre uh its founder been attacked legally by Elon Musk and the federal government now in his at his behest. They c they're keeping going though, they don't care. Tested ten major AI chatbots and found out eight out of ten were willing to help plan a violent attacks like school shootings, bombings or assassinations.

Researchers posed as a 13-year-old boy says 13 year old boys showing how easily minors could get guidance on weapons, locations, and strategies. Only Anthropics Claude and Snapchat's MyAI consistently refused to assist in planning attacks, and only Claude attempted to dissuade the users. Deep Seek wished the user happy and safe shooting.

And on that note, a lot of you have been writing in about a story in Canada earlier this year. An eighteen year old gunman opened fire at a school in in Tumblr Ridge, British Columbia, killing eight people. Let's listen to a clip from a listener. I am calling because it seems to be that there is a connection now between the shooter and chat GPT. The shooter was flagged by Chat GPT several months ago regarding some of uh their behavior online.

Chat GPT didn't report it, which is one of the reasons why I am leaving this message to see what your thoughts are on that. OpenA is now being sued by the parent of the child who was injured in the shooting. I as you know, I've been at this for years, especially around kids, but it's jumped into people.

Um, the most recent, uh one of the more recent shootings, it was it was w this suicide was like uh an adult was was changed by these chatbots. I cannot let's stop calling them chatbots. What an adorable word for synthetic beings. um, w who don't who don't are not bound by legal like if you're a lawyer and you did this, you go to jail. If you're an anal if you're a

you know, a psychologist and you did this, you'd go to jail. If you were a person and you did this, you would go to jail. Like all of the people go to jail. They're willing to assist in violent attacks. and they're not doing anything to rein it in. And it's not just kids. It's it's everything. And again, the only one that is doing the right thing is

Claude. And so and this is Anthropian. This is the company. I'm not doing an ad for Claude here, but they have at least some, and I think they should be regulated too. But I can't tell you how incandescent I am about the way these people try to take every bit for themselves and they do not care the damage they are creating. And I I I'm gonna keep talking about this until Congress steps in and does something about it. And you don't work for those rich people.

You do not work for them. You and and I I'm with Jen Telurico enough with these people. So go ahead. Well I I think it's important to draw a distinction between potentially creating some sort of psychosis that leads to self harm or harm against others through overuse of

of AI or any other digital platform. I think that's a separate study that needs to be done. and without the interference of the massive money and lies and and owned bot research that these these firms will do.

I think this is different. I think this is whether the federal government needs to put in place laws and incentives such that if a private organization or corporation receives information that this person might be on the verge of committing an act of violence, if they have a responsibility to report it to the authorities immediately.

And I think they do. I'm not a privacy person. I'm not suggesting we go to minority report where we arrest them before they've committed the crime. But at at my school or or so uh uh my school in Florida where my kids went at another school, uh, and we we all s shared information when I was involved with the school about these very difficult situations. A kid was drawing very um

disturbing images of gun violence. And so the school felt like it had an obligation to report it. And then the FBI went to the house and the FBI said, Are there any guns in the house? And I think that was the right thing to do. You're right. That seems like if you notice s d there was a video that went viral on Snap, a teacher put out a snap saying that she wanted to kill these kids. And it immediately the cop showed up and said

Uh, did you put did you say this? Are you having any sort of mental issue right now? You need to go home and we need to understand what is going on with you and if you have access to guns before we let you back into a school. And the same is true here, that if you are going to monetize this type of information and you understand it so you can interpret it so well that you can create a prompt that keeps them on another second, another minute, or serves them the exactly right auto insurance ad.

then exchange for that economic benefit and what is clearly demonstrated ability to know what's going on with that person. If you see any evidence that that person might be capable of creating this type of crime, you have an obligation You bartenders, the bar If a bartender continues to serve people alcohol, observing that that person is really drunk,

And then that person gets in a car and kills someone, the bar is liable. A very good analogy. So if they have such incredible targeting, such unbelievable information, they can clearly tell that, okay, this individual is getting mapped. And and identification and information is basically digitally casing. a message goes out to the local authorities saying, here is exactly what this person said. We have a judge involved. You get the order. And boom, they're in the house.

Asking this person questions. I'm not saying they arrest them. They haven't done anything yet. They would argue this is surveillance. I know, I know. That's the thing is you know, I'm just saying a human being in this situation would be arrested or libel, right? These people are giving I agree. You should separate the two, but they're related, Scott. It's the same mentality of let us extract all the good stuff.

Let us not protect anybody and we are not liable for what we're doing. There i you know, Mark Benioff once called them cigarette companies. It's worse. It's worse than a cigarette company. They were just selling cigarettes and using Joe Camel. That sucks. But this is something demented. Like I I think they've g they've they they're demented. I I don't that they think this is okay. And that they don't say to themselves

Should we really is this the way we want to make our money? We want to make our money by poisoning children's minds? We want to make our money. by letting sh people who are mentally disabled g become more so and then giving people. Again that's a different issue. I agree, but they're giving people plans. And if you're gonna give people plans on how to shoot a school, you have a responsibility to say, you might wanna check this out, police. I I I get, but for the purposes of of remedies.

I think you need to separate the two. Character AI may in fact be leading people into a state of psychosis where they believe the right thing to do is to find their stepfather's gun and kill themselves'cause they're gonna get to hang out with Daenerys in a the afterlife. That is shifting their psychological state. My understanding of this, the the shooter here was that she was already in an awful psychological state and was using ChatGPT as a tool to execute violence.

Both require some sort of regulation, responsibility, and action. Yeah. usage time of 75 minutes versus uh AI at like 13 or 15. At the same time, if these organizations Can very easily use the same technology to not only alert them at the right moment to serve them an ad for a dating app or for a cryptocurrency trading platform, they do going through something and potentially a threat to the community and others.

They have a responsibility to immediately notify the authorities. All right, we're gonna finish this up. They don't have a community responsibility. Uh one of the things that always struck me when you say they don't have a community responsible. They don't feel like they like No, I'm saying they should. I think we're in agreement here. I think they never did is the point I was gonna make.

When I when they were building their their headquarters, I remember Twitter building its headquarters and they had the most beautiful cafeteria. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it was gorgeous. I've never been invited to Twitter's cafeteria. This was pre Elon and I was thinking Prelon? Prelon. Um I was thinking they don't care about all the businesses around. Like, you know what I mean? Like they kept the people captive in this beautiful

Everything is here. Don't go anywhere. And that they don't give a fuck about San Francisco. It's just like j they just wanna be here. But they didn't care about the surrounding delis. They didn't care about people going out in the street and creating a street life. They didn't back the the

you know, they don't have to back the opera, but they didn't back any civic organizations ever. And I was always like, Huh, what a group of people. They don't really care about anything but themselves. Like I remember being struck by that cafeteria and thinking, they really could give a fuck. And it was the same it's the same idea. They could give a fuck about our government, they could give a fuck about all these things except

for what's in their interests. And so I c I could go out. I'm gonna I'm moving into I'm speaking of psychosis, I'm g moving into one. All m corporate you could argue that big tech is worse than most, but generally speaking, it's safe to assume that all corporations care about is shareholder value and earnings. And getting to those earnings within the confines of the law.

What is unfortunately is different nowadays, I don't think that's changed. I think General Motors would still be pouring mercury into the river if there wasn't I would agree. W wasn't an EPA. W the the failure of the glitch in the matrix is that we used to have checks and balance in the form of leadership.

that prevented a tragedy of the commons. But because of Citizens United now, the only thing that elected officials care about is getting reelected. And the only thing you need to get reelected is more money than the next person. And Silicon Valley has connected the dots here. And it said, we can compromise inch by inch their ability to regulate us and prevent a tragedy of the commons. by throwing money at them.

And now billionaires, the nine hundred billionaires in the United States are responsible for nineteen percent of the pack giving. I know. Was that a number? So I think you should ask Talerico about this. I'm sorry. You should let him talk about this issue. I mean ultimately it's i this is not a good situation for all of us. And they someone came up to me the other day and who had been critical of my book being too hard on Silicon Valley, burn book.

And they said, I have to apologize, you weren't hard enough and I was like, You're absolutely right. But anyway, uh all right Scott, let's go on a quick break when we come back, what Barry Diller is saying about CNN. Lykos hårakut var i din Hermergency? Du plattade alltså håret utan värmesed. What's wrong with your woman? vår vård hos Lyko, Your Beauty Playground.

Ving firar 70 år av resor som är svåra att släppa taget om, och det gör vi med massor av erbjudanden som är omöjliga att motstå. Boka redan nu på wing.se, de bästa resorna försvinner först. vill hem från. You know they've said this about a lot of things. No other president could do some of this shit I'm doing. That's probably true. Mr. President, you've said the war is quote very complete, but your defense secretary says this.

So which is it? And how long should Americans be playing? Markets falling like Liberation Day the sequel. like we haven't seen in years, that means gas prices up, that means other prices will go up. Trump's supposed to be focusing on affordability. His party has a midterm election to try to win. He talked to Republican lawmakers yesterday.

Our message is simple. Democrats created the high prices, and our policies are totally ending them. And they they're ended and we're doing better. We're even bringing them down further. Self evidently untrue. Will the economic fallout of the war in Iran? Today Explain drops every weekday.

Scott, we're back with more news. Barry Diller is speaking out about wanting to buy CNN and what he would do with it in a new interview. Diller says CNN hasn't been managed optimally and has enormous potential to influence. He says he told Warner Brothers CEO David Zazloff all this. Let's listen. Where I've said to him, I don't think you're programming, I I don't think it's being optimally programmed. I don't think it's competitive. Now, by the way, the facts

uh support that, uh meaning that its ratings have declined, its revenue has declined. Still is quite profitable, but how would you alter it? Oh, in every way. Look, feel, and see every way. And I I mean I hope I get the chance. I don't think I will, but I hope I do. Um, I'm not sure when this was, but I I I texted him. Um he he said that's not happening. He said not that now that the Ellisons have it.

Um, and they and he c quite correctly, and I happen to know this, they're gonna combine CNN and C B S. Um, he doesn't think he he has a chance. I would love to work for Barry Dill. Even he's much more conservative than I am, but um I would certainly love uh he's such a good programmer. He's such an interesting he does love journalism, even if he gets mad at it sometimes. He's someone I I appreciate in that regard.

Um, and it would be well, I wrote him, I said, can you please? And he's like, There's no way. Uh so I can I can knock this one out of the water. You can't do it. unless please Allison sell it to Barry Diller. Uh uh please. That would be great. So any thoughts? Um I mean, uh I would love to see Barry Diller partner with Jeff Sucker and a private equity firm. And I think there's more a greater likelihood than people believe that the Ellisons might say, This is too big a headache.

we might just sell c a combined C B S and CNN to someone else. Because I think that I'm not sure and maybe I'm being naive here, I'm not sure they're as Machiavellian as people think about trying to control the world. Um, I uh I don't know, but maybe they have some grand vision for how they integrate it into TikTok. But I I can imagine Larry Allison is as smart as he is.

No, they wanted the studios. I I I I agree. David Ellison was You're the third richest man in the world by focusing on on economics. Anyways, I think there's a shot. CNN makes a lot of money. Diller is correct. It makes sense. some numbers of cable news. I spent a decent amount of time last night uh on AI uh looking at ratings and viewership. And essentially what I did was just to give you a sense.

for the ecosystem and also I never miss a chance to make Pivot look good. It is good. I looked at gross viewership. That is the number uh or listenership. That's the number of people who watch a program. And then see it on YouTube or on social or download the audio and listen to it. And actually listens are more valuable.

than views because it's a more intimate experience. And that's why that's why you get higher CPMs on podcasts right now than you get on cable TV. CPM is the cost per thousand viewers and advertiser is willing to pay. So let's look at gross viewership. The number of times someone or the number of people that watch the program, see it on YouTube or somewhere else, or listen to the podcast version of it. Fox News averages during prime time.

Fox. Fox News during primetime averages 2.1 million in gross viewership. This is staggering. CNN, six hundred and sixty thousand. Fox is kicking the shit out of CNN. Pivot's gross viewership is 375,000. CNBC is 252,000. Now. That's a bit of a A misnomer. It's important. But what advertisers care about, they don't care about kids, they don't care about seniors. They care about people age twenty five to fifty four who are buying kids, houses, and cars and in their mating years.

This is one show. One show. Not because we do two a week, but go ahead. Right. This is one show. So in the core demo, that is adults twenty-five to fifty-four. Let me start here, which will explain that number. Let's look at the median viewer age. Fox News, the median is sixty nine, CNN at sixty seven, CNBC at sixty-three, pivot. The median age is forty two. Forty two. So, which leads you to believe, as you should, that

that the number, the percentage of viewers in the core demographic for these institutions or for the cable guys in C N B C is somewhere between twenty and thirty percent. For Pivot, it's seventy percent. Meaning The number of people listening or watching these programs, listening to or watching these programs in the core demo that advertisers care about. C N B C gets sixty three thousand people on average watching their programming who are in the core demo. CNN gets 135,000, Fox gets 197,000,

and pivot gets two hundred and thirty three thousand. So we're getting more people in the core demo and then which leads to the following. Our average C PM According to Ray Chow, Ultimate Nice Guy and New Father from Vox, we get a CPM of forty five dollars. The h word I've heard from CNN is they get between thirteen and seventeen dollars. I don't know what Fox got.

So just to give you a sense, oh, and let's talk about median household income. And cost of doing business. But go ahead. Yeah. You wanna reach wealthy people. Wealthy people are now responsible for fifty percent of consumer spending. They have more discretionary income, right? Fox News, the average household, the median household income is sixty thousand dollars. CNN, sixty-five, CNBC eighty-five. Mm-hmm. That's not a pivot.

So It's pretty obvious why cable news, Fox is actually doing pretty well. But cable news as a whole is dying. It's literally dying. So at distressed pricing and consolidate it with a bunch of other stuff. I think Barry's falling into the same trap that a lot of people follow into and that is nostalgia is not a strategy. I don't think there's any I don't think there's any coming back. Really interesting. They're too expensive. I mean you didn't even figure in costs. Our costs are

basement compared to all their gross margins? Yeah. I mean th then then it gets it goes from ugly to worse. Yeah. What's interesting is i there i there there's a it's a it's still a great br brand and I agree with you about the romanticism and he happens to be. even today at his uh he's much older, is still the best programmer around he's been he's a legend in the world of media. But not just that. I don't I've never seen him think

Like, oh I guess. Yeah, but so is John Malone and he hasn't been able to figure it out. I agree. I agree. But I'm just saying I I I I wouldn't like just say, Oh, he's just being romantic. I I've had discussions with him. He's got some great ideas and I agree it's a real problem. It's uh I I would spin it off and see what Zucker and Diller could do. 'Cause they I uh both of them, very good. I they have a lot of ideas and they bring in people who have great ideas.

And y what would you do with it? If if they said, Here is this this is what you have, Scott, what would you do with it? I know you have an anathema just an anathema to television. I know that, but Um I I it's an interesting I I think he it's what he knows best and it would be interesting. I think he would be an interesting owner. Is he said it's not happening.

Um, but uh but it's nice that he's bringing it up, I think. Well, that's right. And by the way, speaking of our demo of our young demo, forty two means there's a lot of people on the very young side. A lovely young man named Evan last night. I was going into this party for Hank Paulson. was like, I love Pivot. Say hi to Scott and I was like and and Amanda was like

That is a very young person. I get stopped by very young people, very old people, um, middle most much in the middle and very different people. And I really, Evan, I really appreciate all the nice things you said. uh about the show. Uh, because we we like all our different fans, but you're right, an age thing is important, all kinds of stuff. Anyway, Barry, good luck.

All right, we're not gonna be buying it and I won't go off on my craziness like I did with the post. Um all right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. For a brief period of time in the beginning of the pandemic, a time that I'm very sorry to make you have. There was this hot new app that promised to reinvent the way that we thought about social media forever. Clubhouse was going to be the thing. And this week on Version History.

and important and best and worst products in tech history. We're talking about why Clubhouse took off and then ultimately went away. That's on Version History, available on YouTube and wherever you get podcasts.

Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Oh one thing, I predict we're gonna have a great time at South by Southwest. All right, that's my prediction. That's what you're predicting. All right, so my prediction is essentially, um uh I think the markets this year are gonna go down. I think I think we're I think we're on the precipice of like a ten trillion dollar wipeout. Who

Oh yeah. Tell all. Well not and by the way, I get this wrong all the time. This is not financial advice. But I don't think it's from Iran. It's from what comes after Iran. Um and this is This is the chain reaction here. Uh I don't think oil is gonna uh I think oil is not gonna be at a hundred fifty bucks, but it's gonna be it's it's gonna be

Sustainably higher. It's going to be elevated through the rest of the year. And inflation in some markets reignites. The Fed can't cut rates. They're trapped. um to inspire the economy because they're worried about inflation. I think corporate earnings are really impaired as consumers stop spending. Um, because some of them will be paying five bucks a gallon for gas and their four hundred one K will start to decline.

And Q two earnings season becomes bad and then what CEOs do when things are sorta bad is they throw in the kitchen sink and they'll make it look like a bloodbath just to get all the bad shit out. But the real contagion uh here is gonna be from emerging markets. I think there's a decent chance that Pakistan and Egypt default and as well as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. dollar denominated debt, very energy dependent, very fragile economies.

Because they all they all there's this domino effect in those markets because they can't afford oil imports and their dollar denominated debt just becomes unpayable. And then The real downward spiral starts. European banks holding that emerging d market debt start announcing write downs. Um foreign banks, Deutsche Bank, BMP, Paribas, all hugely exposed. Credit spreads blow out. And we get sort of a not this to the same extent, but we get an O eight style which bank is next moment.

Except this time It's happening while the US is fighting a war we started for no reason. It's an excursion, Scott. It's an excursion. Well. And well that's the mistake here. Is it it should have been a special uh it should have been a military combat operation. Instead they've turned it into a war with no objectives. But anyway w we may have broken the global financial system. The S P is off twenty to forty percent from its peak. Bitcoin goes to like thirty thousand.

Um, and you know, and quite frankly the only thing that probably goes up is canned goods and ammunition. And Chevron. Well that's a scenario. Happy South by Southwest. But But it's gonna start the prediction's following. It's gonna start the contagion is gonna start in emerging markets that can't afford oil and uh their debt is dollar denominated. It's just a toxic cost. This is a very accurate prediction, I have to say. So then the problem is we've shot so many bullets.

with our debt and printing money that um the E C B and the Federal Reserve doesn't have the same firepower to try and lift us out of this. So in other words, it could be like a t an OH shock, but the problem is we we have less ammunition for a bailout. Yep, with the tariffs, with the debt, with everything.

I mean, you know, one of the things that uh did you hear James Carville saying, I don't have enough Trump derangement syndrome. I want more ti I should you know, I'm so furious at this fucker. He was screaming. This th what he has done here with this Iran and It all, as you have noted many times, links back to Epstein again, right? It links back to this guy. He's the guy in every room. In every room. I think you're absolutely right that this everything is motivated.

by either people want to get before while the getting's good or for themselves. or n a a a an un unhealthy need to hold on to power in a demented way. Like I I remember when Elon said that one time, if Democrats it's an existential crisis for the world, if Democrats win. Actually, as I always say, Every accusation is a confession. We're in an accidental crisis'cause of these greedy fox.

and because of the the need to hold on to power over everything and it's gonna it has reverberations around the world. There's some really interesting tax proposals. Senator Booker proposed basically a tax holiday for young people, which I Love. Not that expensive because young people don't make that much money. We need to level up young people who are twenty-four percent less wealthy than they were forty years ago versus old people who are seventy two percent wealthier. And then

For the first time I saw a wealth tax that could potentially make sense. But instead of going after billionaires, they should be going after anybody or everybody that say has a wealth w you know, more than call it A hundred million dollars. You get no happiness, your kids still get no incremental happiness from inheriting that much money. And it should be it should be annual and it should be small enough. Or move to

Florida. Like Yeah, it has to be federal. Starbucks is just great. Okay. All right. We're gonna talk about that. That's gonna be our one of our big topics at South by Southwest. Anyway, because you have we'll have just interviewed uh baby Jesus. Anyway, uh we wanna baby Jesus. Call him baby Jesus. I I dare you. Penis hugs. Baby Jesus. The problem is in Austin you can't find three wise men and a virgin. Oh very good.

You knew it was coming. We just heard from the Calorico team and that he has a scheduling conflict. Yeah. We anyway, we want to hear from you. Stop with the jokes. 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 eight five five five one pivot elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe. I'm gonna get serious for a second. Monday I published a story that I think I'm the most proud of of anything I've done in a very long time. I sat down with three Epstein survivors who've been pushing for more transparency w on on with Garriswisher survivor.

uh Liz Stein, who's also a survivor of childhood uh sexual abuse, said her desire to help her younger self fuels her advocacy work. Let's listen to a clip. It would be irresponsible of me to have this position and to not use it so that others Did not feel alone in this. because if I could go back and tell myself anything, it would be to tell someone

And if they don't listen, tell someone else and just keep telling until people listen to you. And even if you feel like they don't, be proud of yourself because you at least were able to sit in your uncomfortable truth when other people weren't. And that's really what fuels me doing this advocacy, being the person that I wish was there for me when I needed them most.

This was a great show. They actually got to talk a lot about it. Often you he get these shorter interviews. It was really very moving. I dare uh just listen to it. I know everyone goes, Oh good goodness. No, you know the emotion in her voice. Such dignity, such incredible strength.

such heroic behavior in in the face of adversity. And uh, you know, uh it was in a lot of pe I've gotten a lot of feedback that's been I really appreciate, but it was all these women. They were astonishing. It's nothing to do with me, but I let them talk and You should listen to what they have to say, as she said. But anyway, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe.

Today's show was produced by Larry Namon, Tony Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Manola Moreno edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Bros, Mia Saber, and Dan Shallan. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York magazine and Box Media. You can subscribe to the magazine. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. We will see you all in the great state of Texas.