Comcast Splits, OpenAI Weighs IPO Delay, and Buttigieg Targeted

Always good! Always good! Always great!

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And what designing for women's athletes and their fans should actually look like? Check out the latest episode of a touch more, wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. Can I just tell you, I love the word vulgar.

I love the word vulgarities. You have vulgas! Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the box media podcast network on KaraSwish her. And I'm Scott Kalloway.

Scott, they just did a profile me, the APDAN. And who did they call? You, and Gavin Newsom, two men, white men, I know I all the time. And also Tom Tillis, all white guys. Well, it's funny when people meet up,

they mistake us from one another. Me and Gabby and go underneath him. Yeah, yeah, except for the hair part. Except for the handsome, tall part. Handsome, dreamy.

Yeah, dreamy. None of that.

“Don't you read the description of our relationship?”

I did not put them up to this. She and Galloway have developed a strong, if unlikely, chemistry in which his pension full of vulgarities can make her seem almost hybrid. You've reminds me of Kokeshinel has a great quote.

She says, the opposite of luxury is not poverty. It's vulgarity. Oh, and so you're Kokeshinel. I am Kokeshinel. No, I'm not a Nazi.

You're Kokeshinel. Can I just tell you, I love the lady Nazis. Sorry, I had the lady Nazis. I love the word vulgarity. Oh, you heard it.

You know what I find? You know it's much shocking. You know it's much shocking by the vulgarity is that the, I think women like it more than the men. I can get more positive feedback on the dick jokes

when the women in the men. I get a lot of, and I like him. And then like, I get that, that happens a lot. That by the way, that piece for the AP. That was, I mean, I don't call it a puff piece

'cause AP doesn't really do puff, but it was pretty proper memory, yeah. It was, I'm a power program. Oh, my, oh, that's right. They made it sound like you're the new king maker.

You're going to decide, by the way, who's going to be the next president? 'Cause according to AP, you get to decide. Look, the nanobubular. Yeah, they're like in memorial.

'Cause it can fix the algae. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know who shall I select among the many fine people of the country.

Yeah, they're like.

“I can kick Mark Cuban, honestly, I won't.”

Really? Yeah, I would. I would like that, 'cause I'd get to go to the Lincoln Bedroom, partially. I don't think business people should be president.

Oh, you're right. Maybe he wouldn't be good. Who would we pick? It could select what I mean. Imagine wand, anybody?

Yeah. Yeah. I don't think you can get through the democratic primary, but in terms of pure intellect, served as country, I would pick Mayor Pete.

Hey, Pete, I'm doing an event with him soon. Oh, we're gonna talk about him lately, I love him. And I know, I love high IQ people. I think at some point, smart intelligence has to make it come back in the oval office.

He would be, he would be a good. There's a lot of good. There's a lot of people I'd like to be president. I'd love Governor Newsom, Governor Shapiro, Governor Pritzker. Is there any Republican you like?

I think Ambassador Haley is quite talented. If you would stop sucking up, if you would just hear-- Well, there's no way to survive, come on. I know, there's no way to survive that orbit. Any Republicans?

I think there's a move for someone who does resist. I agree. Interestingly, oddly enough, someone who's going to be-- I thought, when he finally got his balls, Tom Tillis was really smart.

And very good business person, really sharp. He was actually very supportive of gay rights, oddly enough. Yeah, high grade. If I had picked that person-- someone I didn't disagree with a lot--

but my galager, I was always impressed with,

as though we totally just hear some really gross gay issues stuff. But like smart people, smart people, smart is what we're

Yeah, I mean, have you ever wanted Romney to be president more?

Yeah. I don't know. I think there's a lot of-- I think there's some talented Republicans. They've been benched and kind of shoved off to the side.

And also, just on an objective level, and I realize I'm not objective, but there's some objectivity here. I think the Democrats have an off-off is giving great Camelot energy right now.

I think Mark Kelly doesn't have kind of-- the risk of a president, but he'd be an outstanding president. Vice president, too. Interesting about that. There's a ton of--

“Secretary of Defense, that's what they should do for him.”

If they don't-- 100%. He'll be in the cabin. He'll be so good. He'll be in the cabin.

As long as he gets to the point, the next center.

Anyways, anyway, I don't know. I vote for the vulgar Scott Kelly. There you go. Like chicken and every pot of Seattle is an every cover. Oh, my God.

Galloway, 20 years. You thought Rump was perfect. Oh, my God. Get ready for us. I'd have Patrick, my male escort, and the Lincoln bedroom,

just for, hello, lady. I'd open a dispensary. You want to see a UFC fight? I'm opening it a dispensary on the use of it. It's true.

And I would have the nano-bubbler business everywhere. I'd be bubbling nanos, everything. I don't even know what that is. Let me just tell you. I'm a nano-bubbler for president.

Anyway, we got so much to get today. What else is going on? What are you worried, London? I'm in London where it's down to 72. But it's really-- when it's 78 in Southern California,

it feels pleasant with libraries. When it's 78 here, it feels like Africa. Can you tell me that? Yeah, it's-- you didn't lie down. Let me see.

That was hot as fuckity fuck in France. And the metaphor for the UK is the following. I have air conditioning except when you need it. It doesn't work. If it's 65 degrees, I can cool my house to 55.

But once it gets above 80, it just doesn't work. Oh, wow. They're not good with the air conditioning now. They've got to get good with it. Because every summer, it seems worse and worse.

I mean, there are ovens, those apartments. They really are, they're really. France-- last week, France was the hottest place on Earth. Because the dog was wearing shorts. You were by the ocean, but in Paris, it was very hot.

I am at a different point where it's going to be really hot here, here, and it's going to be hot there. It's going to be hot all across the east coast this week. This heat stuff is really something that I've got to say. I've got to say something.

It's become-- we've got to really think hard about it or do it by the way. Data centers. No. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. So let's do it again.

There's so much news, Scott even participated in the group chat. He was like, there's no much news. What's going on? But actually, his selections were correct.

“But because the first one is something-- I think I was a little--”

was I surprised, Comcast is spinning off NBC Universal and Sky into a separate publicly-traded company. The new NBC Universal will include NBC, the Universal Film Studio, Theme Parks, and Sky. This is the Satellite Service I have in Europe. Comcast keeps expending the internet and wireless, so it's back to square one, I guess.

The market liked it. Comcast shares jump 21% in pre-market trading Monday morning. It's not a totally clean break. Comcast will hold roughly 20% stake in the new NBC Universal. I think they still have a big stake in MS now, too.

And the deals expect to close in about a year. There's a catch, though, analysts say, while the spin-off gives NBC Universal more freedom to do deals that leaves Comcast broadband business more exposed at a time when cables are already under pressure. So talk about this.

The people that are putting in place are very good executives. But does NBC now now emerge with MS now or what? I don't know. You need to explain this to me. I really didn't quite understand why they're doing it now.

What the troubles they're seeking, I know they had looked at buying Warner at one point. So could Netflix buy NBC Universal? There's a lot there. There's a lot at those studios, so thoughts. So, this is why companies can glomerate.

The board who decides to see his compensation hire as a firm called Towersmehran, because

“the compensation is the hardest part and one of the important things that a board does.”

And because boards don't want to do any work, they pay this firm, Towersmehran, $200,000, and they come in with a survey. And the survey says on a scale of 0 to 100, 50 being the average compensation, and they look at the industry and the size of the business. And so if you're running a bank that does 10 billion year in business, 50 percent might be

3 million year. But if you're running a bank that does 80 billion in business or whatever, then the average compensation is 20 million. So the incentives and also the ego and the also the testosterone and the penis and the midlife crisis all lead incentives for the CO to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

And sometimes there are real synergies around different businesses, but almost always not.

Typically what happens is you end up with a Frankenstein. And so the market gets to a point where you have these Frankenstein's of businesses that have no synergy and what the market. And I change the matter.

A turdalkin. Thank you for that.

“And what the market has a tendency to do is it looks at the shittiest business because”

it says there's no synergy here and it says OK, New York Times.

You own 17 percent of the Boston Red Sox and the seven tallest building in America.

This is how much the building is worth. This is how much the Boston Red Sox are worth. But instead, we're going to look at your shittiest business, your regional newspapers, trade it four to five times EBITDA and we're going to sign that multiple to the entire business because they don't give you any credit for the stuff that's working really well.

So the disposition of assets becomes a creative to shareholders. And in this case, you have a media business that's strong and growing while the connectivity business is shrinking. And what they do is shareholders assign the multiple on the connectivity business to the strong and growing business.

Last quarter, the media division get this reported a 40 percent increase in revenue to nearly 12 billion for the quarter, theme parks, good 24 percent media, good 61 percent and studios good 21 percent and over the same period, the connectivity division shrunk revenues 3 percent. So what you have is that so it's connectivity that's not right residential connectivity shrunk about 4 percent while business connectivity grew 6 percent. So what happens is if you split

these things apart, you have one company, the connectivity business, which is a mature business that's instructional decline, but still spends off a ton of cash. And then you have a growth business when it becomes a pure play growth business gets a much higher multiple. And the result is a stock that was up 25 percent based on these two companies that have more focus. So what happens to each of them is they're like, look, you have MS

they split off MS now and now it's trying to create its own little new division. And doing well for what it is, right? It actually has seen some growth under those executives. And then you have the media business that has, by the way, there's some fine executives at the media party. That's very well happening.

Donald Langley, Mike, anyway, it's a very smart group of people whenever I meet them

I'm always so impressed. But they weren't able to participate in the water thing, for

example. I know it was frustrating because they were actually the natural owner for that. I agree. You know, I was like, of all the things, I was like, Paramount, they're a bunch of incompetence. Netflix is going to be too big and going to get in trouble. Comcast was the perfect buy for that, you know, in terms of quality people and the theme parks and everything else.

So what happens here and the other thing, just as a side like the other two things,

“could Netflix come in and do something here, I think it's too much. Disney CFO has signaled”

they intend to keep the linear and streaming businesses together for now. They know they don't own a cable division and not split it off. So they're keeping those together, the studios and the streaming and everything else. So it is the strategy, it seems like it's the same strategy if they're going to hold on to NBC, Universal Film Studio, theme parks and sky. Right. So that's a little connectivity, I guess. But thoughts on that, what happens

to each of these parts? What happens to the cable parts? And then what happens to the, I mean, could like Elon come in and buy the cable parts for Starlink or there were rumors of him buying one of the phone service businesses. Thoughts? Well, I mean, it's scary, but with a two trillion dollar market cap, there's very little he couldn't buy right now. Right. So Versant, their stock is now 21% since this men off. I don't know what happens. Okay,

first off, Disney for the time being is holding on to its cable assets. That means they have no one's off for the price they want. It will make sense for them to shed that business. Because the parks, the IRL business, the parks is an unbelievable business. So this is all a long way of saying, I'm not sure what they're going to do, but they have simplified

and created pure place. Because here's the bottom line. If you put yourself in the shoes

of an investor, they don't need the Roberts family to diversify for them. CEOs love diversification. Why? Okay. My connectivity business is down, but my parks will have 24% in other words. Right. Yeah. They sleep better at night because they can grow six eight, 10% a year and not worry that I'll fuck. I got a problem that MSNBC. Right. Whereas this is a thing though, investors, I don't need you to diversify for me. I can

buy for some stock if I think it's really cheap. I can buy the parks business stock if I think it's a grower and I want growth. But CEOs incentive and compensation and quite frankly wanting to sleep at night and be bigger and better leads to an agglomeration or

“agglomeration that eventually the stock market throws up on. And that's what's happened”

here. And you know what? The next real, there's a stock right now that if it broke up, it would triple. You know what that company is? What's that? What is? I'll give you a hint.

it before. I'll give you another hint. VR, but only sub-scale. Oh, Snapchat. If snap, spawn their spectacle's group, the stock would triple or quadruple. That is the most, that is the greatest unlock waiting. He loves them spectacles though. Well, that's the problem. It's a single, it's a dual class shareholder and you have it in controls the company.

“Yeah, they love some spectacles. Do you realize that I think meta gets about $400 in”

market cap per user? Snap gets 17. Wow. Yeah, you're right. He should get rid of the spectacles. If they spawn and did a deal with Xiaomi or something, if they spawn the spectacle's group and it was just a pure play social media platform, rocket ship. Interesting. Oh, I like that. I do get this. Do you know how much the stock is off the last five years? A lot.

Yeah. 93%. Yeah. It's crazy. 93%. A pure play 500 million people a day social media network

that has the most attractive user based for advertisers and history that is people onto the age of 25. You get rid of this weeping sore called the spectacle's unit that is sub-scale rocket ship. What happens to each of these to it? So, there's, there's version, obviously, mourners, there's his own little nightmare, although there's rumors, the CNN will get spun off with Rob Bonta and the California Attorney General. But what happens to each of these divisions?

Well, I think the media parks business has real synergy because if you put out a Harry Potter film, you can have a Harry Potter ride, right? Yeah, right. Right. The connectivity business should be run. They do. They do indeed. They just get, they just get, they just get focused. Now, in terms of verson and the cable assets, those are declining businesses, but those can be amazing businesses. You go yellow pages. And that was, this is the weakest flex in the world. I was on the board

of the world's largest yellow pages company. And all we did was just go around the world and by

other yellow pages companies and basically hold onto the salespeople, get rid of everybody else,

“and their cash machines. And that's what you're going to see. It doesn't make CNN, CNN should”

go into verson and ABC should sell their shit. They need to consolidate the back end on these, these cable properties. And that's what they'll do. And they'll still be good businesses. They'll just be into clon. Yeah, that's absolutely right. They could buy. They could be the largest small player, right? It'll do well. It'll do well for a long time. They're hugely profitable businesses. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be interesting. I wonder if they'll bring Verson back. Will they?

Why would you? Why would you want them? No, I don't think so. Again, the story has to be clean, right? I mean, Alphabet's learned their lesson. They're going to spend waymo. Waymo's already spun, I guess. It's an independent company. Why didn't Sky say with the cable business? That's a correct question. I don't know. That was the one stuck in my head. Yeah. So it'll be interesting. Yeah. Because they do, you're right, theme parks, the film studio, NBC.

I'm not sure where that fits in. Exactly. A broadcast network. I guess it just... But Comcast and Hearst are the most underrated management teams in media. They're just very smart people who consistently do the right thing for shareholders. They're aggressive. They're smart and they're totally under the radar. Like they don't want... They don't want their, they're see getting in trouble or making earnings doing this. They also couldn't play in the Warner.

I remember, I went to the wicked premiere and I ran it to a bunch of them and they were like, "We are the obvious right owner." I was like, "Oh, I know, but you're not getting it because rich you rich over there." And the crazies at Netflix can't, you can't beat them. Right? You can't beat

“either of those companies. But I think this does give them a cleaner shot at buying stuff up.”

You know, there's all kinds of things for sale like Lionsgate. There's a man... There's all manners to up for sale in Hollywood. So we'll see what happens. You'll see a lot of M&A as Scott Galloway says. Anyway, interesting move by Brian Roberts, who I really like a lot. I have to say, he's a classy guy. Everyone over there is classy. They're a classy gang. They're very comfortable. They're from Philadelphia, which means they've killed people. That's all I know.

I'm sorry. Anyone who's anyone, any family that is self-made billionaires in Philadelphia, there's definitely people buried in the foundation of a building of that sky tower. You know, why I have a good feeling for Brian Roberts is because I was working for Murdoch and then I went over to Comcast and it was such a pleasure. I just tell you, it was such a different personality. Although it was more fun at a party. Anyway, let's go in a quick break. We come back

why open AI might delay its IPO. We're all tech this week.

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wisdom is coming. New episodes drop weekly on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. Scott, we're back. Open Ayers reportedly considering delaying its IPO until next year according to New York Times, the company has been planning to go public as soon as the third or fourth quarter. This year, valuation appears to be one of the sticking points. Sam Altman is reportedly holding out for a $1 trillion dollar when they all want this. The company was valued at $850 billion

back in March, or $50 billion. There's also some hesitation in light of SpaceX, PIPO, which is sort of bumpy, which has been trending downward after the sky-high debut, though it's doing a little better as we record. News of the possible delay led to tech sell-off, stock sell-off, with shares of Oracle, core we even saw bank all falling. And there's a possibility that anthropic is breathing down their neck that they made delay, too. There was some chatter about that. So is it important for them

to weigh, as you talked about, the money is getting sucked out of the system, and their financials

leaked a few weeks ago with losses increasing in the ADACs in 2025, and spending hitting $34 billion.

It's not the greatest story in the world. Thoughts, and of course they've got anthropic right in front of them, not breathing down their neck, right in front of them, they're riding behind it.

“I think this is, I think this is not systemic, or I think this is an individual thing, and that”

is, I believe the anthropic is still going to get out. This is what I call the great flippening. Lippening. Is that the word you made up? Is that a vulgar word you made up? Flippening. Yeah. There you go. There you go. In the look in the bedroom tonight. Come on, just look at the sex act. There you go. Let me look at that B. Well, I feel as if I need to use my safe word right now. Maybe. Anyways, the the great flippening. I love it that every time.

It's good. It's good. It never goes well. Hundreds of times to me. I love it. Every time. Go ahead.

So Q4 of 2025, OpenAI is the dominant leader right now on Thropic, because we've never seen Ava silver take hurts this fast. This isn't even Pepsi over taking coke. It's like RC Colow one morning is the market leader. I think Enthropic is out, but I think OpenAI, if they were going to have to show their wares or open their cupboards, there was just going to be evidence everywhere that Enthropic is eating their lunch. I talked to a lot of CEOs about AI and a company I'm an

investor in section talks. It does all this helps companies upskilling around AI. What they're seeing is the following. There's quote unquote blame the model. And everyone's blaming OpenAI and swapping them out for Anthropic believing they're going to get a much greater ROI. So I think the

going to happen in the next 12 months, this will be seen as a real crack that it kind of was a signal of what's to come. This is smart to wait. You talked about the sort of lack of cap. There's not

“enough money here, essentially. I don't, if they could get out, they would. I think what I think”

what this says is the CFO talk to the banker and the banker said, okay, there's no wallpapering

over this. Your business has lost a ton of momentum. And then you combine it with the second thing

that is different than Anthropic. All men has taken the Amazon and Netflix, taken until you make it spend more money than anyone else and your stock will go up. He's taken that to an extreme that is too much. And that is, if you look at how much money they are burning, I think what they S1s and they would be, they would be side by side immediately. Everyone would be comparing Anthropic and OpenAI's financials against each other. And I think what you would see is

the following. Not only has OpenAI massively lost momentum against Anthropic, it is also operating much more promiscuously with cash. And that is, despite Anthropic's massive investments in massive losses, it's projecting that it'll break even by 2030. And Sam Altman's whole thing is, I know

“I'm committing to a trillion dollars in cap X because the future there's only one winner. And I think”

the market, I think the S1 side by side, which will accompany that is losing momentum and spending way too much money and losing too much money. And I think the bankers have come back and said the fall. They don't want the comparisons. Well, this is what's going to happen in the next six months. This is going to be the great exit from cost. This is going to be the great reduction in spending and cap X commitments by OpenAI. They are going to massively decrease their expenditure in cap X commitments.

Because I think the bank then it hits Oracle, it hits a lot of them and hits all of them.

Still an amazing company, it's still growing really fast. But the amount of money they were committing

to in terms of cap X has gotten out of control. And then you couple that with a reversal in momentum. I think Goldman and JP Morgan and the CFO have said to Sam, this is going to be hard. So then what do they do? If Anthropic gets out at over a trillion, they've got to meet that, right? Speaking of Dick Measure and Contest, they kind of want that number.

“Can they actually get out then in 2027? Oh, I think this is a cost story. And that is,”

I think they're just going to have to reduce their commitment. Yeah, because okay, say they get out at 700 and not a trillion, that's still pretty good. I mean, at some point, they're going to need to raise capital in the public markets, I think. Or maybe they raised in the private markets. The weird thing is, I wonder if TBG and the private equity firms that got a 16 or a 17% heck, which is really our guaranteed return, which is really unusual in the private markets.

I wonder if they would still do that deal today, because the reversal in fortunes here has been like nothing I've ever seen in business without a scandal. And so we're question, does it get bought? There's so few players that could buy it. I mean, it's a handful of companies that could afford to buy it. It's one of the big tech companies or SpaceX. That's it. There's maybe five companies. There was all this online plotting that Elon did sort of make sure that SpaceX IPO

was too big and then failed a little bit to stop them to say, you know. Well, if the next round see rather than do a down round, what Altman did was he he offered guaranteed it. Yeah, he offered these these these terms that typically don't agree to. I guaranteed return

because he wanted the headline number to be whatever it was, 850 billion or whatever.

But at some point, if they start running into a cash crunch, which I don't think they will, the bottom, I think the second half of 2026 is about Sam Altman rationalizing the expense side of the business and their capex commitments because it's still growing like crazy. And then Anthropic goes out, doesn't delay. If I were Dario, I'd want to be like, I'm on top bit. I'm going public. Yeah. Yeah. Right away. Yeah. They've got it. It's a momentum story for them.

Absolutely. And they have a great story. I think the S1 is going to look really good for Anthropic. comparison. Yeah. And comparison. I mean, what's really interesting is how kind of pissy the open AI people are about the story Dario gets over and over again. I mean, he can be in Paris himself and, you know, a little bit self-righteous, which is interesting. But I think he's got the better story. He does. And a lot of this is narrative. And it

actually would be good for Anthropic for not to have them there. Although, you know, looking better than Open AI is a good thing for them, right? Presumably. He hasn't been as as spending. This is the CFO. This is the CFO in JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs said,

the perception to the ones that did go public wasn't great. All right. We'll see what happens.

“Interesting story. Interesting developing story. But it will if impact companies like Oracle”

and other ones. You saw that draw just a small drawdown of their shares because they have so many commitments all around the board. All right. Scott, let's go in a quick break. We come back. We'll discuss Pete Buttigieg getting targeted. Scott, we're back. I want to talk about a story that came out of the weekend about Pete Buttigieg's family. Buttigieg says police showed up at his house after anonymous tip claimed

his four-year-old twins were at risk. CPS investigated claim in the Michigan State Police

later confirmed the report was completely fabricated. While the incident was being investigated,

Buttigieg was not allowed to be alone with his four-year-old children for 24 hours and they were interviewed by a thorns without either parent present. The incident happened during pride month right after the family posted a father's day photos online. I was this was terrifying. It's a someone like myself. This was like it was just some tip that was called in about another tip of something. Pete allegedly was all nonsense from them. But they had to because there were

authorities and he's a well-known person. They had to actually investigate, which is their job.

“I think they felt sick to do it, but it turned out to be all false. It's a version of swadding,”

but more nefarious. Swarming or whatever. He's polling well for the 2020 presidential run. This is just, I can't imagine. I know that pretty well, especially test. This is the fear they have as gay parents and something I've discussed with them. This is the fear. This is this sort of weird feeling people have about gay parenting that is just, I don't even want to call it gay parents, just parenting, but that they get stuck with their wonderful parents and these kids are lovely.

And for them to have to go through this, just sent a chill when I read his piece. And he's not someone he usually is particularly dramatic, but he was curious about what happened as he should have been. Any thoughts on this? I don't think this is a gay thing. I think this is stochastic terrorism. I know a couple of stray couples in the Midwest and child protective services showed up at the door one day and said we need where from child protective services we need to speak to your children.

They had no idea what was going on. By the way, the whole neighborhood found out about it. There's no way you recover from that. No matter how innocent you are proven, that's on your Wikipedia page. If you're ever on trial for anything, the prosecutor can ask, we're in child protective services called your house. And when I go through GSA, I immediately feel guilty. I immediately like, oh, where's that join in my pot? I've done something wrong. When you see your

suitcase go to the part where they investigate it, you immediately feel guilty. How does a four-year-old

“not remember that strangers who you're supposed to speak to who have the authority to separate”

you from your parents? Start asking these types of questions. How do you not somewhere in your brain think are mommy and daddy not good people? How do you hundred percent? How do the parents the community, their reputation and the kids ever recover from that? I agree. And this is the problem. This is a result of the fetishization and anonymity being linked to shareholder value. And that is democracy depends upon disagreement, but also accountability. And when the loudest

voices face no consequences, the most thoughtful ones log off in fear and what happens here is the following. Child protective services, they're hardest in the right place. They're trying to encourage people to to bubble up real instances of child abuse. Yeah, because they usually miss a lot of them,

right? That's right, but here's the problem and here's what needs to be done. The fix isn't

to end anonymity. It's smarter than that. The solution is verified yet anonymous credentialing. And that is online, there should be a digital stamp that proves you are a unique human being without revealing which human you are. When you call child protective services and as it ended up, so the family I was referencing, you know what it ended up? Two months later, they found out one of their daughters was in a beef with another girl in the same high school and the girl,

the rival girl called. This happens all over, but here's the problem. The family faces no consequence. So if you call child protective services, we're going to guarantee your anonymity. But after investigation, if we find out, there's no evidence. Guess what? We're going to investigate you.

Swatting is dangerous because there's guns involved, like with kids and everything else. And to me, I so hane us the idea of it. Swatting is when you call in that there's some terrible thing happening at the house and then, you know, swat teams come in as they should

when because they never know, right? And so this is such an abuse of a system that's already broken,

right? It's already a problematic system. They don't catch enough child abuse. And sometimes kids don't get checked on and you read those stories over and over again. But in this case, what what sick fuck would think of this thing? Like what sick fuck would make this stuff up? That to me,

“and I would like to find them and you know what I do to them. But I think the authorities really need”

to have a system. And the thing is, you don't want to discourage people from telling on real issues of abuse, right? That's the thing. It's just, I was so upset by this. This is really upsetting. But the bigger issue is the following. That same architecture, anonymous consequence free, infinitely scalable online platforms. They let bots flood elections radicalize millions and make

public service a target sport. And the bottom line is, this is where the right gets in wrong and

the left gets in wrong. The internet doesn't have a speech problem. It has an accountability problem. And our fetishization for free speech and anonymity has resulted in a total lack of accountability. If you believe the kids across the street are being abused and child protective services shows up and they find out, oh, you misunderstood the situation, you're still not liable. You didn't do anything wrong. Your, your reasons were valid. But if it finds out you're just a homophobic

fucking weirdo or your, your daughter has had a beef with the other with with with another girl in the highest school. It should be consequence. There's consequences. I think, Pete was talking about that. You know, when it would, I hope, look, I know they're worried about these these issues as gay

parents as we all are because I was always worried about. I've been, it's just sticks in the back

“of your mind. If it prevents him from running, which I really, I hope it doesn't. That's what”

I hope it doesn't. I mean, because let me just say, they're wonderful parents. They're wonderful people and they're wonderful parents. But what do you say to the kids? And there's this strange people in that food sense. I need you to go straight. Yeah, the whole thing is. I go, do you say to your kids? Yep. Like a four year old? What do you say to them? I, I wouldn't even, I don't even want to think about it. It was so upsetting. Anyway, Pete and Justin, we're so sorry.

This is just, this is disgusting. And this is not how you behave towards people who are decent, great parents. And whoever did this, I hope they find you. And I hope you have some sort of reckoning. As of this recording, by the way, we're going to move on. How speaker Mike Johnson says, he's sending the landmark housing bill to the White House days after Trump abruptly canceled a signing ceremony for that bill. Interesting move to build, which path both houses of Congress

with overwhelming bipartisan support aims to, and also would be a win for Trump aims to bring down housing costs to expand home ownership and boost construction. But Trump says he won't sign it into law until Congress passes his Save America Act, which would require a photo ID to vote in effectively and mail-in voting. By the way, this room court just upheld a Mississippi law for later arriving mail-in ballots, a blow to the Trump administration's efforts to queer the election,

which is what they're trying to do. And the housing bill can still become law even if Trump doesn't sign it. So it's a technical, if he doesn't sign it, it can become law. If he

“videos, it would, I believe they have the votes to overcome his veto. So they're kind of putting”

him in a position under the Constitution. The President doesn't sign a bill within 10 days. It becomes law without a signature. And again, Congress can override this one. And so it was interesting that Johnson did this. He obviously knows it's a good thing for to have this on the Republican record, or at least take credit for it, even though it's kind of bipartisan. Thoughts on that. Housing is one of the biggest problems in America, whether it's, I was reading this morning that

Finland took an opposite instead of focusing on mental health or veterans affairs for the homeless. They just focus on housing. They're like, just build sheep housing and get people in housing. And it ends up that housing is a weird form of birth control that every 10% increase in housing prices, birth rates go down 1%. It reduces people coupling. It reduces birth rates. It reduces self-esteem. Housing, affordable housing is really important. And what we have here is again,

the incumbents, once they've owned homes, make it more and more difficult for new permits. It's gone way too far. Congress, to their credit, recognized it. This bill attempts to get rid of Nimbi legislation and proposed Yimbi legislation, credits, more credits, more federal sponsorship

is pretty weak sauce, but it's a very strong symbolic movement in the right direction. And in addition, when does the last time, Congress voted 358 to 32 on anything? Right. Right. So, and this makes all sorts of sense, Trump getting in the way. This was just stupid. And again,

“it's veto proof. So, I think this is a win. What does he do? What does he do, sign? He's got a”

sign and take credit. No, I think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. But he's still going to try everything possible. Just say that that's not going to pass President Trump. It's not, it's not happening. So, why does he keep doing this? Oh, shit. I mean, you're asking me to get into this guy's brand. I would have thought he would, if I were advising him, I would say, oh my god, put on a, put, put on a tool belt like you're on a construction site and run around. And take credit for this thing,

take credit for housing. This is, this is a big, big issue for Americans. Right. You know, instead he's obsessed with, you know, he now he wants to build a golf course and put trees in front of the white house. He's just obsessed with all these weird, obsessive things around the DC area to preserve his legacy, which seems more interesting to him. He went and visited, it was pouring rain yesterday, and he was out at the Haynes Point where he wants to put in a golf course of some resort.

There is a golf course, there, but he wants to improve it. And then putting maple trees around Lafayette Square, all this stuff. And then, of course, touting his really loser, American state fair, whatever that was, nobody went to. It just seems all obsessed with that kind of stuff. And not something that is, even if it's symbolically, even symbolically, it's important to,

“to, I don't get this, this guy. I think he's terrified that things are going to go very badly”

after no member. And so it seems to, he's going to self-sude with maple trees. There you go. Self-sude. Self-sude. Right. Anyway, but he should take credit for this one, and he won't. All right, Scott, we're going to have one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

Okay, Scott, we're going to do some wins and fails. I think I should go first. There's so many

failed choices. The grift watch of the Trump mining deal and Kazakhstan with Don and Erad, standard profit along with Latinx, Latinx family. What's happening in Venezuela is really depressing, watching them try to find people so many people who died. But I'm going to be a little personal here. There's two people who died this week who I know very well. I'm a very impactful on my life. One was O'Malek, one of the very early tech bloggers, someone who had worked very

like me in regular media. But then sort of spun off and started doing a really fascinating kind of bloggy and yet fully reported attitude, attitude and stuff back way back in the day in excellent reporter. He also did events, he did parties, and I really, I got a lot of inspiration from home who is one of the most jolly fellows. I just really enjoy it. We've fought a lot about a lot of things,

but what an amazing impact he had on early tech journalism when it was, you know, a lot more hopeful

in a lot of ways, but he actually did call people on things very early, very wonderful guy. He had he had shifted to becoming a venture capital as I didn't go that direction. But just a really wonderful, and he's getting much deserved praise from all of us who are around then, and he's struggled with hard issues for a long, long time and was just a really wonderful guy. The other one was my assistant. I don't want to have an assistant, but I did for many years at daily,

also died. He had also had health problems around diabetes and everything else. And just a tremendous important part of the growth of my business in the beginning of them and worked for me for a long time was an invaluable help. And you know, the kind of person, you know, here about, he was a reporter, but did so much stuff to really build the businesses, Walt and I built. And just was a wonderful guy and was wonderful to my kids, especially Louis and Alex took them on camping trips with

his partner Mark and just just one of these hardworking, really wonderful people who helped so many people and just really sad. I'm sorry he Louis just went to see him recently. So I'm glad that happened, but really being in fact on my life and just a tremendously huge, chartered person. So that is my fail. Although I, I also, my heart goes out of the people and then as well and everything else.

And my win is the Supreme Court just rejected Trump's attempt to get five million dollars

“murder in the Eugene Carroll sexual abuse case. So I said, this is the end of the road for him. Now I think”

he's going to, I just texted Robbie Kaplan. Let me see if she wrote back. But who is the lawyer in the case? We'll see where it goes on the smaller verdict. He has to pay the five million. There is the

five million. And which I just kind of love. And now he is very firmly what he is accused of.

“He did and he can't take it any further. And we'll see on the second part of which is a”

defamation related to this case. Anyway, good for Eugene Carroll and pay up Donald Trump for what you did to her. And I just felt that it was like today is the day that Supreme Court kicks Trump in the teeth a little bit after giving him a lot of wins on immigration, which were that the Haitians, particularly the Haitian ruling was really terrible, really hardworking people in this country. In any case, congratulations to Eugene Carroll. Nice. Okay. So my fail is, I can't get over.

Well, you could argue it's a win for broadcast news. But there were two really illuminating interviews

this weekend. The first was John Carl from ABC News interviewed Senator Todd Young and along with

Senator Mark Kelly. And they talked about how President Trump accused Mark Kelly of sedition. Okay. So first off, Senator Kelly flew combat missions and also flew the spatial of 20,000 fucking miles an hour. I mean, there are a few things more patriotic than the actions of Senator Mark Kelly. And they asked, I appreciate John Carl calling Senator Todd Young out in front and say, "How come you didn't do agree with this?" And of course, Senator Todd Young broke into song about

he texted Senator Kelly to make sure he was all right. But he didn't say a fucking word. And at some point, I'm waiting for people before they are, you know, lose their primary limit. At NYU, we have a second year, which is really a waste of money. It's such that we can charge the kids 140,000, not 70. And we teach all these electives like sustainability and leadership and ethics. Let me save you $7,000 on the leadership course of any major university. Do the right thing even when

it's hard. There. You just save $7,000. And we bring in a formally important person to talk about

what a fucking amazing person they are and how the world was against them. But they did the right thing.

And we call it a leadership course. Thank you for your $7,000 student debt. There is such a lack of leadership on the most obvious issues. And I don't understand the calculus from a senator

“who I believe is a probably a good man and respects his fellow colleague coming out and saying,”

"It is wrong to accuse Senator Kelly and American hero in patriot of sedition." That is just beyond the line. And then the same time Ryan Nobles, who was an outstanding stand-in for Kirsten Welker, who I also think is wonderful. I meet the press. Basically kind of got in the face of Senator Roger Marshall and asked him to cite a single example of where voter fraud has influenced an election. And I thought he, I watched it, I'm like, "Go." And of course this guy just went into

blather and doctors need to be trusted. But I was like, "What?" And I was like, "What are you talking about?" He's got a pilot's need to be in it's like, "Hi, okay, hi." There's no problem here, but a plane's crash. There is no, no one has ever been able to provide evidence that a single election has been influenced much less decided by voter fraud. This guy's been all over the TV, the doctor Roger from Kansas, the Senator. And he's doing the same song and dance everywhere.

I don't know why. Maybe he's in a tough fight. I don't know. It's weird. He does this a lot.

“He's done this a lot. Well, I understand that the only way you can do good is to get elected.”

But at some point, they've got to recognize that, you know, this guy is coming is becoming a lame trodoxin, as you would say. And at some point, they're going to show something resembling leadership. And I can't, I can't swear the calculus of a Senator coming out and saying, Senator Kelly is an American hero. Exactly. I don't get it. It's the same thing when they when Fox News is broadcasting from that American state thing, which looks like a like the fire

festival. And there's like, look at all the people and I'm like, "There's nobody behind you." Like, how do they do that? Peter Ducey, how did you manage to do that? Oh, everyone's having fun here, and there's 26 people there. And it was so weird. I don't get it. When are they going to give? When are they going to give? When do you think they're going to give on? Same thing with this guy. It's like, you know, don't believe you're lying on. It's kind of thing. I don't know.

Anyways, I guess it's sort of a win for ABC and NBC News. And these these programs still matter,

me at some point, senators who are elected to six year terms. At some point, I'm going to

be in time to understand that, you know, okay, with the definition of going to go a leadership. My win is that Bill Mar was awarded the Mark Twain Award and I thought it was really fitting. There was at the Kennedy Center. But like, I have said this something I don't like about myself

“is I have been way too influenced by comments in social media, which I think are so fucking”

corrosive, because they start influencing you to say this type of thing and not this type of thing. And I've tried really hard in the last couple of years to say, I'm going to say what I mean, mean what I say, and I don't care what the comments are. There are very few posts that get as much blowback is when I say the following, and I mean it, Bill Mar is a hero of mine. And I think if you were to take every political plundin and have it zero, say, I don't know who the craziest

right wing person is and on a hundred be the craziest left wing person, if I had to identify someone who was exactly at 50, it would be Bill Mar. And evidence that he is a centrist is that everyone appears to hate the guy publicly. And then every podcast I go on the host when I follow up and say, is there anything I can do to help you? They asked me, can I can I introduce them to someone at Bill Mar? The guy has been in the business for 33 years. He is fearless. He is funny. And his contribution

isn't defending the idea that people who disagree should be allowed in the same room. It's that the weirdest thing is that it's so remarkable. And today that is remarkable. And he he didn't build an audience by telling people what they wanted to hear. He built one by telling everyone something they didn't want to hear. He literally pisses off everybody. Yeah, which is why he gets above. I mean, he does. He does seek out like his earlier stuff on Islam and stuff like that.

So he is who he is. And I do, I'm always fascinated by how much I get blow back on your

behalf, which is interesting. Or why are you on that show when I go on? It's a really interesting discussion. And I don't, I don't lump him in with all the others who I do find someone heinous

“in that regard. And I agree. I think he deserved that. And he's very funny. I think he, I don't always”

agree with him. That's for sure. But it really is. Yeah, I don't find it. I don't know. He attracts an unusual amount of iron. He really does. You will get pushed back on this. When I say is a role model mind. And when I graduated from college, when I got my first bonus check, when I sold my first business, there are moments in your life you remember professionally. One of those biggest moments for me was three or four years ago during COVID when Susan Bennett called me and said we'd like

you to be on Bill Mark. It's the only show my dad watches. Susan's a producer. She's a producer. Terrific producer. And I think the guy, I think the guy is is fearless. And he, he brings to like the notion that free speech isn't tested by popular opinions. It's tested by the people who piss you off. And he does that. And he's an equal opportunity, agitator. And he was one of the last people in television willing to to make both sides equally uncomfortable. I mean, he's

really an independent voice. And I don't think it is controversial. We'll be remembered as changing minds. It was proving that you can disagree without deciding the other person is evil. And his legacy, although he's a great comedian, I don't think his legacy is comedy. It's defending the proposition that democracy requires conversation, not just conviction. And we have lost so much of that. And I sort of know him, but know him well. But the people he surrounds himself with, here's some

things about Bill Mark. He has this big rant on how he doesn't have kids and doesn't married. Everyone around him has been working with him for 20 years. The woman in makeup, the guy who brings

“you to your COVID test, his producers, I think he's a very loyal man. I think he shows up. I think he”

works very hard. I think he's on a freight. I think he's a great role model for people who like me want to be centrist distinct of the hate you get because you piss off everybody. I thought he's an outstanding recipient for the Mark Twain Prize. Anyways, my, my win is the unafraid courageous of believer and free speech that pisses off everybody and everybody wants to be on his show after 33 years and that is Bill Mark. Well, good for you. Good for you. You do care about

comments. You're never going to not care about comments. Never. Well, I'm addicted to the

affirmation of others care. It's really pathetic. Not pathetic. You'll give yourself a hard time. It does get to you. It gets, it doesn't get to me as much as it gets to you, but it gets to me, too.

Shaming is a very powerful feeling because until about 50 years ago,

if you were shamed and expunged from the tribe, you were going to starve or be eaten by a bear in 72 hours or less. Well, you're not going to get eaten by a bear. Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think so. You're vulgar, but you're not getting eaten by a bear. But no, I agree with you. I think Bill deserves that award. And I know people, you know, we often disagree. We really do. But the kind of, um, I mean, I see, listen, if you don't like Bill Mar,

“don't watch him. I don't know what else I say. That's my feeling. It's like that's what I say to”

people. And by the way, you know, people in my family, my one of my kids is like, why are you going on his show? And I'm like, you know, what is some of your fucking business? I am, because I like, I like going on it. I enjoy the show. So, uh, I'm going on, I think to lie 29, I'm going to take

beada and I'm going to take my both my sons and I never take them all that anything. And I said,

this is important. I want you to come with me. Oh, okay. Anyway, uh, good ones. Good ones for you. That was a good one. Um, can I do one more refailant? I don't want any, I just want to say Scott Wainer is a friend of mine. And what happened to him in San Francisco this week was hanging out. Like, I don't usually mine criticism around, uh, of Israel. And I think it's really important for, and I don't think every criticism Israel is anti-Semitic. But what happened to him and he has been a

supporter of all manner of things in San Francisco. He was, it was was anti-Semitic. It was

“really truly and strange. And that kind of, that really shouldn't, I feel terrible for Scott,”

because he's been, you know, there's lots of things you could disagree with Scott on, but not what they were yelling at him about. And so it had a real tinge of real hatred. And that really repulsed me in a way that I usually am okay with some criticism of all manner of countries and stuff like that. And so just, that cannot be tolerated by the Democrats that cannot be tolerated. That kind of behavior. So I would just want to say that, but I feel bad for Scott who's been a really

hardworking public servant anyway. All right. So that's the show, um, congratulations to Bill Mar. We want to hear from you, send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot, just a minute of question for the show or call 85551. Pivot, elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe this week and on, I just spoke to Jim Bankop, the CEO of Vox Media, and Meredith Copet, Levine, President and CEO of the New York Times at Can Lions, which was

really fun. We talked about the ways they adapted to a changing media landscape and the effects of AI on publishing. And it was a great session. Thanks to UTA for hosting us and keeping it quiet. Let's listen to a clip. The leverage is, even the LLMs will need an information ecosystem with high quality independently produced verified information. If they don't have it,

their products will not ultimately be good either. We all want to live in a society where

quality information is available. And I believe they do too. And I think that these are information companies, these are information tools. And I think information, at a certain point,

“for you to have a healthy functioning democracy, you have to have high quality information.”

And people have to be able to identify the difference. This was a really good discussion. And we had a little testing this around a couple of things. But it was great. It was a really interesting discussion about media and where it's going and Meredith. Both Scott and I have huge regard for her and not Jim back off guys. Nice too. So you want a little known fact about this year of New York Times? No, let me tell you. It's got a dreamy boyfriend. He's a tall drink

a lemonade. Can you met him? Yes I can. I went up to her and I'm like, that God, it's so handsome and she looks around. It's just like, I know. She's great. She's like literally like I can. Yeah, he's great. I'll take my mask and let it go. Jesus Christ. I love everything about Meredith. She's a great executive. She's a great parent. She's really. She's all that in a bag of chips, as they say. And so. So lucky for him to have her.

Okay. That's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Today's show was produced by Lera and Amin soy Marcus Taylor Griffin, Todd Wiseman, and Christine Driscoll. Additional assistance from K. Gallagher and Brad Sylvester and Inter tied entry in this episode. Thanks also to DuBros, Mr. Varian, and Dan Schalon. The short chorus box members who's executive producer

podcast, make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from box media. We'll be back later on the week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great rest of the week.