Billionaire Campaign Spending, Apple's Budget Gamble, and Hegseth vs. CNN

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Forms and conditions apply, hiring, do it the right way with Indeed. I'm curious what you think is you have sons, I have sons. They don't gamble. Yeah, but you're better parent than me. Yes.

Yeah. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. And we are live from South by Southwest in Texas.

So before we get to it, again, I work like to be here this live episode. We want to thank our presenting sponsor Odo. They've supported our pivot to our last year, so they're really into us. Anyway, we've got a lot to get.

“Well, first of all, are you having a good time here?”

Are you enjoying it? I'm having a great time. Now, last night, I'm so sick of rolling up to the parties. Now, kind of suck. Because you meet some guy and I got a grab a drink and he's like, "I'm at your sober

and I want a Peloton influencer. Fuck you."

I want to find the guy who's a custody battle, so we can never see his kids.

That dude, I'll roll. And he's having a nice time. You're having a nice time? Everyone is working on their sleep. Well, good for you.

Yeah. So you're leaving. You're going to the Vanity Fair Oscar party. That should be fun. Yeah.

That should be good. And I'm too excited. I'm staying.

“I was the plus one and the plus one RSVP, yes, and Cara said, "No."”

So you have a good time. Try not to bother the celebrities. That's my only advice. Just be cool. Okay.

Can you do that? Thank you for that. That's hugely helpful. I think. Just be cool.

Is there anyone you want to meet? Is there, like, Sean, he probably won't be there. I want to meet. Simple. I was going to say the gay hockey guys.

What's it called? He did rival, right? Get a rivalry. I'm sorry. I'm just announcing now.

Executive producer, season two, he did rivalry, Swedish women's team. Biggest show of next season. Biggest show of next season. Oh. I'm going to go for two here.

I'm going to alert security at the Vanity Fair Oscar party for this. My name is just be cool. Say nice things. You'll probably get recognized by some of them. It'll be nice.

With the bar. Excellent. All right. We've got a lot to get to today. We've got a lot to talk about.

There's so much. It's crazy amounts of news all the time and every moment. But first things, surprise, wealthy people are swaying elections with their money.

Billionaires made about 19 percent of all reported campaign donations of 2024 federal

elections. This is a quantum leap in numbers. Within the 19 percent for every dollar that went to Democrats, $5 went to Republicans. The Billionaire families gave an average total of $10 million each, roughly equal to the amount 100,000 typical donors give combined.

Scott before Citizens United, the share of Billionaires spending was under 1 percent. This is 19 percent.

Let's talk a little bit about that because obviously Billionaires' taxes are being discussed. There's all manner of things happening here. But their influence is absolutely clear. Yeah. I mean, if you think about 19 percent from 900 people and it's like the boring stuff that

kind of moves the needle that it's not that interesting to talk about. But we're going to wash, rinse and repeat a cycle of autocrats. I actually believe there's, if you look at history, there's as much danger of an autocrat coming from the far left as from the far right.

“I believe the far left is as dangerous as the far right.”

It's the extremes to present a threat to society.

And the two things that are probably most important to avoiding a strong man or a strong

woman from either side of the party are very boring things. But until we have them, we're going to have the weaponization of a decline in the structural and economic standing, in my opinion, of middle class, especially middle class males, who tend to be unfortunately more violent and upset when they don't have economic and romantic prospects.

But the two major reforms that we need to happen, or we're going to have a cycle of strong men and strong women for the next 50 years, is one we need to teach them at gerrymandor the US because the general election no longer matters. It's the primary and who turns out in the primary, the craziest. So every district now is hard blue or hard left and we keep sending 535 very far left

or very far right people who share no comity, no collective values, don't want to work together and nothing happens and they generally don't like each other and the narrative from our leadership is not how do we work together and get something done. It's that the other guys are wrong. And so it creates a level of division and states that's really unproductive.

And then the other thing is citizens united. We can't have a small group of people who aren't evil, but incrementally we'll say,

hey, Charles Schumer and I'll use a democratic example because we always talk about republicans

democrats take a lot of money too. It's republican, it's republican donors typically, but also democrats do do basking a lot of the pack money. And what happens is republicans are much more overt about trying to get tax cuts for who they think of the most productive people and corporations in the world.

The democrats do is just ring their hands and kill stuff in comity and say they have concerns about things. But if you have until we have citizens united overturned and de gerrymandor, we're just going to ping from the far left to the far right for the city of republicans. I do think the republicans are sort of doing things in plain sight in an effective way by

channeling all this money, right? But the number from going from 1% to 19% is a varies and you're right. It's a very small amount of people and actually it's a small amount of people from Silicon Valley. So it's a very particular, I mean there's there's the you lanes the box people, there's

a bunch of other rich people you don't know as well and by the way look on your bottom your boxes.

“That's what you're getting from Amazon is from this very far right family.”

But one of the things that's the problem here is that this stuff is done in plain sight. And what's, they're not going to under overturn citizens unite from what I understand. The I interviewed Larry Lesser recently who has another case that could hollow out citizens united in terms of super hacks and dark money. But what is the solution until then because I don't think they're letting up, I don't

I think they won't let up in this presidential election. It doesn't seem like all of a sudden Elon Musk is going to call start calling himself they that it's not happening for us. So what could be done in the interim because he will continue to span and he's sort of the poster child for this, but you quietly have a whole bunch of them doing the same

thing. The other answers I don't know I don't know if there's a way to prohibit certain political spending across certain more targeted media. So I have a movement called resistance and unsubscribed and neither alphabet nor meta would take my dollars to drive traffic.

“But if you want to promote coal and get in the way of the earned child tax credit, spend”

away. So I also I think there might be some work around so people have talked about by going to state by state, but until I think and tell them unless it's overturned, which I agree with you doesn't want to, this is all a word salad or saying I don't know. Yeah.

So when you think about, we've talked a lot about the billionaire tax. You have proposed other things like an AMT tax and there's some things in committee right now speaking of Democrats, which seem much more effective, which is giving tax relief to people under a certain number and then at the same time making the group of people taxed larger.

Well there's three different tax proposals.

So the Democrats to our credit have finally wise up and realize that they need to move

constantly talking through identity politics about what's right and what's wrong with the world and if you tell billionaires their evil and white people the racist and young men that their predators, they'll leave the party and like okay, this party's not from me and if you look at those three groups, they have largely abandoned the Democratic Party.

“So what they realize is that the key to 26 and 28 is to talk less about redistributing”

virtue and redistributing income and also that the best narrative for redistributing income is tax cuts, not handouts. Now the three, there's the Conna proposal, there's the Booker proposal and then there's the Warren proposal, Warren is basically a class warfare, it's a 5% tax well tax every year, that may not sound like a lot, but the majority of people don't have 5% liquid

taxes sitting around, I can't imagine hundreds of thousands of people who would be hired to try and diminish or decrease the lower the value assessed value of billionaires well,

it goes after basically 900 people, actually that's not true, people over a billion

it's 5%, but to tell billionaires they have to come up with 5% of their wealth every year, I do think that that's the tipping point where you would lose somewhere between a quarter, at least from a residency standpoint to a third of billionaires in the US. The example is the non-dom tax in the United Kingdom, it was theoretically made all

“sense in the world, it's like you've been here for a while, you should pay UK taxes.”

The tax receipts this year are going to be lower because 10,000 millionaires have moved away in the last year, and people have this populist bullshit of let them go, okay, who's going to pay for the NHS? So the wealth tax doesn't work, the wealthy of the most mobile people in the world, they have homes all over the world, they can have really nice lives in Milan or in London.

So if you're looking to actually be effective, not just right, the wealth tax doesn't work, rose is more about social services and corporate taxes, expanded child tax credit. The one I like the most is bookers, he's saying, okay, it's the first 75,000 it's tax free. Right now, what people don't realize is that first off, the myth that wealthy don't pay their taxes, the top 1% paid 19% in 1980 now, they pay 42%, it's the 0.1% that are getting

away quite frankly with murder, they can use all sorts of tricks to lower their tax rate into the high teens.

But the 1%, the work courses, moms abolit a law firm, she's a partner, making a million

half two million bucks, dad owns three carpactive clinics, he's making 800 grand, they make 2.3, 2.8 million, they're probably living a blue state in a blue city. They're paying 48 or 52% and I'm marginal tax rate. So the whole notion of tax the rich doesn't go very far.

“What I think bookers saying is, essentially, if you go the first 79,000, pay almost no”

pay no federal taxes right now, he's saying, be it the first 75,000. Now the devil in the details is that even though it sounds like, oh, that benefits people who make up to 75,000 the most, it actually benefits people who make 150,000 the most, because they get to apply that free 79 in the lower tax rate on a larger base. It's a good idea, it's time that we level up the middle class, so I like that and it's

a little bit more elegant. Whenever you send money to Washington as opposed to lowering taxes, there's some inefficiency and friction in Washington. So I think it's a good idea, but I think there are more elegant ways to raise tax revenue. Lower basically do away with or lower the state tax, the exemption on money that's inherited

from 30 million to 1 million.

We're creating dinastic wealth and the key is to have taxes that are least taxing. If your kids inherit 11 million instead of 14 million, you're obviously no less happier because you're not around to see it and the kid isn't any less happier. If you get to 11 million or she gets 11 million versus 14 million, the other thing we need is AMT, and that is if you make a million bucks or your corporation that makes

over 10 million bucks, use the 4,000 pages of loophole to skirt it down, skirt it down, 1202 depreciation, but if you're not paying at least 40%, there's an AMT. So I'll turn it to minimum tax, and then triple the budget of the IRS because the biggest tax cut in history that we're going to talk about is that the Trump administration is essentially neutered the IRS.

So crime's going to go up when there's no cops on the beats. Mostly $750 billion a year is called the tax gap, which is uncollected taxes that are owed. So get rid of the estate tax exemption, alternative minimum tax of 40%, support the IRS. And support the IRS, as opposed to what feels a little bit like class war fair, right now.

I don't think it works very well because people are aspirational.

That said, the tech people, especially who are the wealthiest, have not really slathered themselves in glory in terms of people, I mean, the brand has gone down, and so I think people don't, when Jeff Bezos rents Venice or Alex Carp talks about disenfranchising white

“democratic women, I think that's what he was sort of saying in his statements the other”

day. It feels like let's get them, like they're sort of they're creating an anger toward them that I think is unnecessary and unproductive and at the same time he sort of want to take all their, you know, leave them naked without clothes, well I don't want to see them naked. That's not true.

But it's a real conundrum and I do think one of the things that has to happen is there's got to be some neudering of citizens united in that regard because I think it's very clear what the trends have been. On a middle metal level, the biggest tax cut would be having the stones to go after entitlements.

Because we spent $7 trillion and $5 trillion in receipts and every time we do that, in order to keep the government pumps up and going and the asset prices, the assets which you and I on keep them elevated, we issue more debt. So the biggest tax cut in history would be fiscal responsibility and it's a tax cut on your kids in the future who are going to have absolutely no money in the government to invest

in education or technology. And if you really want to get serious about quote unquote taxing future generations, some

Democrat is going to have to be the adult in the room and say that if you make over a million

dollars a year as a senior citizen, you're not getting social security and we need to move back the age and we need to mean test it and we need to distribute GOP want to bring down health care costs. But if we're serious about lowering taxes on future generations, we can have populist ideas but what we need to do, quite frankly, is just have more fiscal responsibility because

the deficit every day is a $2 trillion tax on future generations because someone's going to have to pay the shit back. Well that may be true but the Trump administration has brought up the deficit more than any other of any of the, it's been a bipartisan thing certainly, but Trump is seven trillion George Washington and George Bush, 30 trillion since George Bush, but Trump's been the worst.

So we're going to move on to March madness kicks off this week and sports books are expecting

to take in $4.5 billion in bets on the NCAA college basketball tournaments, now only 11%

of that will come from the prediction markets this year, which is a large amount, but that's a perfect time for polymarket to announce that it's bringing in Palantir and TWGAI to monitor sports contracts and flag anything suspicious, reminder polymarket is backed by Peter Teele and 1789 capital, which is Donald Trump Jr's fund, an AI system monitoring predictions markets seems like that's the fox guarding the henhouse.

But as a mentor, as a mentor, in the mom Donnie race, what was strange, when you see billboards everywhere saying that mom Donnie, chance of winning 91% if you're voting for Cuomo or some other candidate, I supported a guy named Whitney Tillson, I'm not a New York president but my friend Whitney ran anyways, you don't show up or you think oh great, you've got excited.

So these prediction markets actually, the polls have influenced on the actual voting.

“I think AI in terms of monitoring, I like the idea, I vote with self that AI could be used”

for defensive measures as much as offensive measures whether or not Peter Teele has other objectives. That's a little bit serious. Maybe he does. So that you're right, it's not AI as a defense mechanism or for compliance, it's the

fact that Peter Teele who believes in no democracy, I believe it is. Yeah, it feels like democracy's an outdated mode, but just in terms of gambling, he just threat to young men and what people don't know about gambling is an addiction, is that it's got the highest suicide rate of any addiction, because if you have a meth addiction, people notice it, and they weigh in, you can spend your kids college fun, mortgage or house,

spend everything, and people have no idea, and oftentimes people feel like it's just too late. And in the States where they legalized gambling, bankruptcies skyrocket, 35% of that same year,

“I was just in Vegas, Vegas is dying, because why be in Vegas when Vegas is in your pocket?”

And I'm curious what you think is you have sons, I have sons. They don't gamble. Yeah, but you're better parent than me. Yes. Yeah.

But the question is, speaking theoretically is a parent. I don't think they gamble. If for young men, do we infantilize them? Do we have more regulation? Is that a life system?

No, I think young men do have a higher risk profile. I mean, just between my daughter, it's more comparable.

of the day, like, and it's, you're always like, wow, that's going to hurt when you get

to the bottom of those stairs on your head. And my daughter is very careful. So it's a really, I hate to say that, because I don't like to plan to gender tropes, but it's true. It just is.

But when? Trope away. We're different, and that's okay. She happens to be. I was very risk-tanky when I was a kid.

I'm with you, aren't I, hello. And someone's like, what's your biggest risk?

I go that any moment, it will be over, it was Scott, which never happens.

It's like a really exciting series that ends on a cliffhanger every episode.

“But one of the things that I think about with gambling is I, my son's don't gamble, which”

is interesting. I kind of like gambling better than they do, which is interesting. But I think the fact that you're right, AI should be used in positive ways, and we should mitigate the negative ways. But again, a lot of this is controlled by people with self-interest that you never understand.

And so what are they, and earlier today, I did an interview with the cast of the audacity, which talks about these issues, it's a new Silicon Valley show. And the idea of the manipulation of our information for, in all manner of way, I think we do not understand where it's about to go. And so who owns it, and who's running at same thing with media, where are the interests

is going to be a huge problem going forward? But your point is, your point is the right one in what you just said. And that is, AI should be applied to monitoring and compliance. It should just be an AI that reports to a federal agency that's trying to prevent a tragedy that happens.

Not to Peter Till.

“And keep him, I mean, it's this is a difficult one, because I think a lot about young men,”

and between 24 by 7 porn and gambling and an economy that's basically linked to dope a hits that's trying to evolve a new species of a social, asexual males, I believe that our economy now is essentially tied to evolving this new species of male, that is basically a shitty citizen who starts blaming immigrants, prone to conspiracy theory, prone to misogyny,

prone to obesity, depression, anxiety, never develops the skills outside of their house, males

age 20 to 30 are now spending less time outdoors and prison inmates. And unfortunately, they're up against this indomitable foe of an AI driven platforms that at their exact right moment will convince you, hey, don't go to class, but on the jet's game, or hey, you know, you can get rich in screenshots of people trading crypto. And why go through the effort, perseverance, caution, resilience, developing a rap, you

know what I'm going to go off to scripture, you know, movement I fucking hate, I think the worst movement in America right now, to sense some of the far right crazy shit is the insult movement. And involuntarily sell a bit, and I speak to a lot of young men, and some of them identify as being in cells, and they say it is a point of pride, like they have found their community,

“and it's not their fault, and they just come out and say I'm an insult, and they give up.”

62% of men under the age of 30 aren't even trying to date, 42% of men 18 to 22 have never asked a woman out in person. And this movement infuriates me, because just to heads up, a spoiler alert, for 99% of history, 99% of men have been involuntarily sell a bit. I was involuntarily sell a bit the first 19 years of my life.

I absolutely wanted to be in-cell of it, but I couldn't find anyone to participate in my program. I'm so surprised by that. I know shockers, 62, 62, 140 with bad acne, not a great rap. I totally got a rap.

But this is the basis, Scott, I got a lot. You've told me that over and over. The basis of evolution and the basis of mating and civilization is the following. If we were at the Elano Smorset Conference last night, and it was alcohol involved, the majority of the men in this hall would have sex with the majority of the women.

The majority of the women in this room would have sex with none of the men. That is the basis of evolutionary progress. Men are exceptionally promiscuous and feel their jobs as spread. Their seed to the fore corners of the earth, women feel their job as to put up a much finer screen and select the smartest fastest and strongest seed.

What do you know? The majority of us are in-cell of it, and this is what we do. We level up. We get certification. We get a plan.

We get a sense of humor. We start making girl friends that teach us how to behave around girls and maybe find where a decent guy. We start thinking about dress. We develop a sense of humor, a plan, a kindness practice, sucks that over time.

We can be voluntarily in-cell of it.

up-bitch.

It's been hard for all of us.

I feel like there's a book in there.

“Anyway, speaking of some, and I wish was in-cell of it, in case any was wondering where the”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegg says stood on the Paramount Warner Deal we know now at a briefing on Friday, Hegg Seth, who is a moron, called -- that's just -- I mean, it's factual. Called a CNN report on the war in Iran fake news and said the sooner David Ellison takes over the network, the better, also ran in-car, moron number two, oddly enough, not even as smart as Pete Hegg does, which is an awfully low bar.

His threatening networks, because he doesn't like their coverage of the war and is calling it fake news.

It's astonishing that the head of the FCC says these things.

It's actually illegal, what he's saying, and he's threatening the broadcast licenses of networks who do not comply with the correct news. Officers are also, by the way, urging the DOJ to block the deal unless Paramount agrees

“to protect jobs and increase US production.”

Talk about this, because they -- they think they'd be on their back foot at this point, but they're doubling down on lack of -- well, just everything terrible, but this was sort of astonishing to hear from him and then followed by the FCC Chairman around a deal. We're obviously -- the Ellison's licked Trump up and down. Like it wasn't -- I mean, they did.

They didn't even pretend this is not what they were doing. They made promise. They're making -- they apparently made promises well-reported about CNN and what they're going to do there. What?

Talk a little bit about this and where you -- him saying the loud part out loud, I guess. Well, it's not only wrong, but it's stupid, because it creates -- but it creates legal. It's exhibit A in a case trying to block this to say it's an unfair merger, and that it's not based on market dynamics, it's based on government interference, which it's not supposed to.

I'm not as worried, and -- I mean, you're the journalist here, but I'm not as worried about suppression of speech, because what I see is alternative media and niche media thriving despite these threats, and it only brings oxygen, you know, bulwark, and, you know, puck, they'll have their biggest days today being outraged about this on YouTube. So I don't think -- I don't think that as much as these folks would like -- I still think

the courts will hold around first amendment, but what it indicates, in my opinion, is something

more dangerous, and that is we generally decide we have regulated competition, and if we have regulation, it applies to everybody, and that everybody gets to play by the same rules. And when the president starts deciding, I know how to run a steel company, which microchip companies we should invest in, and who's saying the right speech and who it isn't, it reflects

“I just think -- I think we're just going to get -- and I've said this before, we're”

going to get poorer, our earnings straight to the highest price running multiple, because of systemic laws, where you don't get on the wrong list and get the wrong call, I'm not as worried about -- I mean, it's just so nakedly anti-first amendment, but I think it'll be slapped down in court. Yeah, but the tactics they use is they create a problem, and they get slapped down in

court, like they just did with Jerome Powell, with prosecutor-boxyline, what ever boxyline, lady, watch it successfully strong on her perfect -- you know, they do the thing, create the damage, cause a chilling effect, and then move on when they lose in court, right, or they get pushed back, and then they're outraged about losing in court, and then attack the courts.

I mean, it just goes -- it does cause actual damage to people, and not just outrage. It's not just -- I can't believe they said -- I totally believe they said it. I don't -- I don't find it outrageous, I just find it astonishing that they do it in order to create the kind of crisis that will occupy people until they're slapped back, and by the time they're slapped back, it's too late.

The tension, the fear is that it creates a chill, and people think twice before writing an article about the Trump administration, and are more promiscuous writing articles truth telling about Democrats and Republicans, we start having a chill around speaking openly about Republicans. My sense is that if you look at Kimmel, Colbert, is it quite frankly, it's only emboldened,

journalists, and institutions to write, and also, I don't know if the chill is working,

about truth to power and we're unafraid, and that there's a market for it. -- Well, why not just remove the broadcast networks from those rules? Why are they -- I'm -- They shouldn't be applicable. -- They shouldn't be bound by that moron branding car, but clearly when the courts

attack -- And of course, it's a job which will be dancing with the Nazis, but anyway. -- It's wrong.

I guess the question is, we always talk about the industry, I mean, writing being effective.

They're wrong. In my sense, it's so far, they've been ineffective.

“I think the best thing to happen to Colbert and Kimmel, the ratings exploded when they”

have CC threatened them, so my sense is the autoimmune response of Americans who value free speech is kicking in here, and it's working really well. -- Perhaps, but at the end of the day, the Ellis' own will own this, and then we'll have say over it, and we'll quietly do, you know, smother people possibly -- I don't even know if they will.

Honestly, I don't. I don't care to stick around and find out, but one of the things is that you create a situation where you don't trust your owners, right? You don't. I mean, when I worked at the Washington Post, I mean, it was a different environment for

media and everything else, but I completely trusted the grams.

I, you know, I didn't feel like they would toss me over under a base of things, and I know he was just there this week talking to some of the reporters and was answering questions, which he should. I can't, I have no idea what they do, and, in fact, probably opt to go to Mara Logo over protecting something he bought.

-- Look, you're going to forget more about journalism than I'm going to know, so I'm going to defer to you, but what I see happening is the following. They make these ridiculous, onerous, fascist, autocratic statements, to try to control the press, and trying to put a chill around free speech. I feel like that attempt to chill free speech is backfiring.

I also don't have any nostalgia, or think that we've talked about this.

“I don't think the CNN, I think CNN and the Washington Post can go away, and it's not”

going to be anything. I just don't, I think that these folks quite frankly, many of them. I think Friedzikariah starts a podcast and a newsletter and has the same reach with a lower cost of production.

I think these incredible journalists go to different places, start alternative media.

They're quite frankly, is maybe more effective. So I think that you're going to see a dispersion of truth to power and journalism. The key is as long as the courts at the end of the day support those people and fall in the light of First Amendment. But I think what happens a lot of times when we talk about this is the journalists and these

organizations see themselves as iconic and very precious. What's precious is First Amendment protection to speak truth to power. And what I see is that every person who's laid off from the Washington Post or CNN who has any talent, now finds incredible platforms and outlets and subscribers. I just launched on Substack.

And it's so much fun. You see subscribers and you can make good money. You know a lot of people who've left big institutions and are doing well now. So I feel like the attempt to chill is like when they hit CNN, it breaks into a hundred different alternative niche media companies.

The only issue with that is covering a war, cost money. You have to have a larger thing. And so one of the things instead of reforming the costs of something like a CNN or whoever fill in the blanket, B.C., instead of reforming that economy, they're doing damage to it. So it can't revive itself in a way that's caused that those things cost like that kind

of things. So you're not going to have a logger go over to Iran and do the correct coverage. We'll see what happens. Okay. We need to take a quick break and when we come back, we'll get to more of the latest headlines.

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Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool, outputters for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/disclosures. Scott, we're back recording live from South by Southwest. So Apple is entering its affordable era, affordability counts.

The company just introduced the MacBook Neo, a laptop, priced at $599, we have the price of a MacBook Air and powered by an iPhone chip. Well, some analysts are saying this is smart. We have getting new markets here, others online are wondering if the budget Apple laptop is a, quote, recession indicator.

Talk about this about Apple, what's happening over there and where it goes as they start to figure out their next leadership group, which has been in their since a long forever, actually since it's revival back 25, 30 years ago, it's the same executives.

“So I think the strongest luxury brand in the world is not Chanel or Vuitton.”

I think it's Apple and essentially Apple says, Apple is the most, the perfect luxury brand is one that says, you're wealthy, you're part of the creative class, but you're not trying to exhibit your wealth. When you roll around with a broken bag, you're saying, I'm rich and I want you to know it, and I, or I have such an incredible sense and passion for it as type of design.

I'm willing to sacrifice a great deal of resources for it.

The iPhone, basically, the, the iPhone is become so dominant in identifying the billion wealthiest

people in the world, they're billion iPhone iOS contracts. And the other six billion, when you pull out an Android, it's like sending a date or a request or a Venmo, you're not getting late, it's sort of, when when you, when you have an Android, you're essentially saying to the world, life hasn't really paned out the way that I'd hoped and I should be starts from the gene pool.

And the pricing, people don't recognize, I'll go back to my search. I'm waiting. Most of sacks are eight bucks a month or a, you know, 12 bucks a month, a hundred bucks a year. We purposely did 20 bucks a month and 200 bucks a year, because pricing is a signal.

And one of the case studies I love that we talk about on my brand strategy course.

The most successful or fastest zero to billion alcohol brand in history was Gregos.

And I do a taste test in class and everyone thinks, oh, yeah, you know, all these young douchebags, I can tell the difference. And none of them can tell the difference between Smyronov, Sky, absolute, and Gregos, none of them. Like nine out of ten, not even that can tell the difference.

But the owners of Gregos said, all right, the fifth of awkward ever costs about 35 bucks, 45, because think about it, when you walk into a store and you're looking at anything, you're immediately sort of want to check out the most expensive thing. Pricing is a really strong signal.

“And I think that Apple's genius is itself expressive benefit.”

The strongest stuff expressive benefits in the world are the country you come from. I'm proud to say I'm from the US as much as, as head up our asses we are right now. I still like telling people what I'm overseas and I'm American, it makes me feel good. The second strongest self-expressive benefit is where you want to college.

doesn't have much else going on, he's like, well, it's Cornell. That's the second strongest self-expressive benefit. The third strongest self-expressive benefit is your phone, because it's immediately apparent. And the Apple has really become- Because you think this neos of stake.

I would always be premium priced if I were Apple. I'd always be unattainable for 78, 85%

of the world's population.

“Really? What do you think he's an indicator of that?”

I don't know, they, you know, more market share. They see a market for the near, near luxury, or you they want to expand their market. And by the way, these are some of the smartest marketers in the world. The second most valuable company in the world. So if it's like the strategy team at Apple or Skycal, or you go with the strategy team at Apple.

But I think this is, this is a luxury brand. Keep in mind what Apple's been able to pull off. Margin is Latin for irrational. When you pay a lot of margin for something, it's either because you think it'll make you feel closer to God.

It's immunopoli, or it thinks you make, makes you more attractive to potential mates. Margin means irrational.

And the irrational margins that Apple has been able to garner.

I was on the board of gateway computer, remember then, which I realized is the weakest flex in the world. But our margins were 8%. If we sold a computer for a thousand bucks, a cost is 920 to assemble the thing. Meanwhile, Apple was getting 30 and 40 points of margin.

Because people wanted to, I was, I remember when the, the seatbelt like goes off.

“Do you grab a Dell computer that says you work for a corporation?”

Do, you know, grab an ASUS, which means you work for a bad corporation? Or do you pull out your Apple and say, "I'm in the creative community." "I'm interesting." "I think different," right? And so what you have with Apple, they have pulled off the impossible.

The impossible. And that is, they have-- I want you to say why they're doing it that. Okay. You're in that meeting.

We're going to sell a 575 dollar computer. Just let me finish my last sentence here. Apple has the margins of Ferrari with the production volumes of Toyota. No companies ever pulled that off before. They think they're going to expand share and clear out a bunch of their competitions,

why they're doing this. And, and good bad. You think it's, I think it works in a short run. I think in the, in the long run, if Chanel came out with a $400 bag, they would sell a shit ton of them.

And then over time, it erodes their margins. And the truly aspirational people stop, start buying more air meds or what have you. So I think it's, I think it's a, a trade-off of market share in the short run for what is the core asset. And that is a rational margin as the premier luxury brand and consumer products.

And very briefly, how are you feeling about their stock right now, as they transition away from Tim Cook? Well, I've been selling down my Apple stock because I think Tim Cook has a deplicit of mother fucker who's benefited from the American society and is not giving back. Okay.

But that's why you did. I would hold on, I would hold on to Apple stock, I think Apple is,

I think these are incredible companies, it hurts to sell the stock.

I just trying to walk, trying to walk the walk and purchase signals. So you know it. Anyway, we need to take a quick break and we come back, we'll get to wins and fails. So for the show comes from Odew. There's an endless supply of software out there that promises to streamline your workflow. That may be true for a specific aspect of your business, but if you need one app

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Try Odo for free at Odo.com. That's OdoO.com. Scott, we're back recording live from South by Southwest. All right, we're going to do one win and one fail each. I think I am going to start. I think the win this week for me was the impression I don't know the guy's name of Tucker Carlson on SNL last night. If you watched it, it was fucking superb. Oddly enough, in some cases,

in some of the things, Tucker Carlson's a terrible person. Let's, I'm not going to agree with them. But I thought it was a beautiful rendition of a lot of these sort of noisy, right wing people who are parodies of themselves. And I thought it was, it just got to the heart of the problem with him that I thought was just beautiful. It was highly entertaining. It made me laugh. And by the way, Harry Styles was terrific. And I love Harry Styles so much. I don't know why,

but I do. I find him incredibly appealing. The negative this week was Elon Musk saying Grock didn't quite work as planned at the same time. And everybody leaving Grock, even though it

has these incredible valuations, nine of the 11 original founders have left. Obviously, you have

mech Hitler, you have all manner of things that is doing. You have a non-consensual sexual images, child pornography. It's not doing great as an AI product. And again, a low bar. But I thought it was interesting that he admitted what a mess it was. It's still will not have any effect on the valuation because anything Elon does, they will invest in no matter what.

“But I thought it was a moment where he's sort of admitted what a disaster Grock is. And I think”

you're going to see more of that going forward. And at the same time, in continuing disasters are brought by Elon Musk, the two, do yourself a favor and watch the testimonies, the interviews on video of two of the doge bros. There worse than you thought. I couldn't believe there were worse than you thought. But these were speaking of in-cells, like an in-cell mode. I don't know if they're in-cells are not, but they should be. When any women think of dating them should watch

these, I thought they were just sort of this banality of evil kind of thing where you just watch these ignorant, stupid young men telling you why they were cutting. And essentially, in many cases, murdering people across the globe, by using chatGBT and search to decide and make decisions. And someone, I couldn't believe this kid asked, maybe I could. I don't, I kept thinking who raised, I want to find this parent and go have a discussion with them. But one of the things

they said is, "Why did you cut it?" And he's like, "Do you think you're qualified to make the decision on something that was very complex around expertise and everything else?" And he said, "Yeah, I'm qualified." And he goes, "Why?" And he goes, "Well, you don't have to read all the books

“to know things." I was like, "Actually, you need to read all the books to know things." And if you do,”

if you do something any favor, it was such a failure of these obviously, probably very good coders in technology and that had talents in a certain area being unleashed upon things that took a lot more. And I don't think you can't cut government programs or not one of those people.

it's a real sight to see. And one of the things, many years ago I found a column I did

that I wrote about the need for ethics, history, and philosophy course with technology people. And vice versa, by the way, liberal studies people should understand AI and everything else.

“And one of the things that I thought I wanted the better things I think I did as a parent and”

Megan, my ex-wife, is here too, is our son, Alex, for example, is a technology, but he takes design, he's really interested in history. He's got a wider range of interests around politics and everything else. And I don't, that's not our fault, but I think we encouraged him to have a wider range of, we could learn more about AI. Our older son could probably learn more about AI than he does.

But it was really a moment where I thought, what are we making? What kind of children are we

making here that they think this is right? And so I thought it was a real, it's an eye opener to watch these testimonies. And they sit there with these very fresh, young faces. And it was so disturbing to me on every level. So I encourage you to watch and be disturbed yourself. Winning thumb. I like that. My fail is that the save act, the one that's trying to, it looks like

“it's going to be dead on arrival, but the act would force people to show up with either a passport”

or a burst ticket, only 50% of Americans have a passport, they cost 160 dollars to get. A lot of people have to change their burst ticket because they get married or they're hyphenating their name. This is just such a naked attempt to suppress voter turnout. It's difficult. And I do, it does feel like it's dead on arrival, but it's difficult to imagine anything more anti-American than doing everything to pass it. Yeah, I'm hoping. Yeah, I'm hoping.

Getting your Senator John Corne and who is just literally the worst. I mean, Kempaxons are already sort of criminal issues or criminal adjacent, but this guy used to have values and now is anything to be an office. And to, to the other side, my win is we interviewed a state representative James Halorico yesterday. And he has... He had the most moving description of, and he wasn't framing me this way.

Of masculinity. And he said that his father every weekend would mow his lawn and then without asking, without talking about it, would go next door and mow their lawn. And he said that was masculinity. I thought that was just so perfect. You know, I struggle with trying to identify at the histories of adjectives. And it just, it just without asking, mowing your neighbor's lawn. I just love that.

That's my lawn. I have several lawns. I'm not going to go there. I don't understand. I am. I, I, I, I, I did watch this too easy and too wrong. I'm just, just seasoned to sweetest US women's hockey team. All right. He's, I got to meet him. He's the baby Jesus. It's very nice. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I was planning to to ask all these singers. Like, dude, we follow the same people on Instagram. You'll get it. He's supposed to look it up.

Supposedly follows all these talk went on Instagram. I wanted to ask him to be dates. And I just couldn't do anything. But he's so earnest. That's right. He's so real and so earnest. And you're just looking at my, literally, like, take my money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's a really, it's going to be an interesting race. Anyway, okay. We need to take a quick break and we come back. We'll take some questions from the audience.

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Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/padevox. All right, Scott, we're back recording live from South by Southwest. All right, we're ready to take some questions from the audience. We only have time for just a few. So keep them short that we can answer quickly and easy for Scott, please. Hey, guys, Melissa Richards person and I'm from Louisville, Kentucky.

My dad is turning 103 months and the reason I offer that, thank you, is that he was a civil engineer

“and he was engineering things built to last. Got it. And I think about us.”

Okay, we have we lost the ability to think long-term as opposed to short-term. That's a great question. That's a great question, Scott. Well, technically, we're focused on shareholder value and the markets reverse engineer earnings way out in the future. So technically these big cap-ax investments that are driving the economy with argue are actually long-term investments. So I think the financial markets would say,

no, we are actually still the second largest manufacturer in the world. I think people have a fondness

in nostalgia for quote unquote building stuff, but the reality is 80% of Americans think we should

have more manufacturing, but only 20% of Americans want to work in manufacturing. You can't bring your dog to the factory floor. So I would argue that Americans still do have more risk capital to invest long-term, but quite frankly, just like we were talking about CNN and Washington Post, we have this romanticism for manufacturing, but very few young people other than Kerosene, when you ask them what they want to do, so I want to go into manufacturing. So I still think

“we're thinking long-term and make great things. I think our products are still some of the best in the”

world. I do think we go through cycles of that and I think we're probably heading into a more long, especially if you have anyone who's a young person, they're moving away from a lot of this quick-fast. I've noticed just a little more community. There's a lot more of a need and a desperation for community connection long-termness. I've picked it up and that's just anecdotal. Next one. Hey, Kerosene. Scott. Thanks for taking questions. You've grant. Scott,

you talked about the attempt to chill free speeches back firing. I'll turn it into media. We'll fill the gap. As long as courts protect them, I like your optimism. What about the doctor? Gochromedia loss? The demonstrated the court's December that the money wins? It's a fair point. I'll turn to my dream. Yeah, I think you're right. I am much more concerned. I think they can chill people. I worry myself. You think about it. I don't do it. I of course immediately run right into the

breach, but I do think it does create a situation when I always like to see the enemy back in the

day whenever it's like how dare these anti-gay people. I can see them. It's the ones I can't see I'm worried about. I see what their move is. It's an easier person to fight when you see who they are and what they're up to. What they're up to is very typical of autocracies. It's tried to slowly bring it down. I do think there's a lash back because we do have so many tools available to us and power has shifted from the typical broadcast networks to people like us to others. It does tend to

unintended consequences of being such incredible more on what's going to happen. Again, I think bread and cars and embarrassment will end badly for him. Eventually, just because you don't

“know the end, because you don't know the end of the story doesn't mean that's how it's going to end.”

That's how I look at things. All right. Thank you. All right. That's all the time we have for today. We really appreciate South by Southwest. We do appreciate all our fans. Thanks for listening to

We'll be back later this week. Thank you so much, South by Southwest.

“Today's show was produced by Lairon Amons doing Marcos Telegram with Ground Support from Trish.”

Aren't you still on the barx media experience with team? Are you trying to enter into the steps to ritstively edit the video? Thanks, South by Dr. Brows, Mr. Varian on dance lawn.

You start across Varks Media's exact producer Parkhouse. Make sure to follow pivot on your favorite

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breakdown of all things tech and business. Thank you to the great state of Texas. Thank you. [Music] Thanks again to Odoo for supporting this show. Odoo wants to be your ultimate all-in-one fully integrated platform to handle everything. Seriously, everything. Inventory, CRM accounting HR and much more. No more shopping around or suddenly for expensive services, they can only handle

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“part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over”

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