Pope Leo’s AI Warning, UFC at the White House, and CBS Shakeups

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You're not available, and by the way, it's defined free. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine, in the box media podcast network, I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Chris. Where am I?

I'm Scott Gauys. How was your tour going? I've gotten reports from the castro about you and my neighborhood. Yes, I was.

“When what is one of the most beautiful new theaters?”

Isn't it? Yeah. It's not new. It's really old, and they just renovated it. Yeah, excuse me, it was really renovated.

It was great. It was sold out. One of my, a couple of my role models were there, David Archer, who is, of course, I teach now, who's 88, and changed my life. Teach man strategy at Haas, the chancellor of Berkeley, who was there, who let me

with a 2.27 GPA, my sister, my niece, my nephew, so it was a nice night, as I often do, and talking about the age crisis in the 90s, 90s I started crying. Oh, yeah. You know, the castro theater, a stray white man with erectile dysfunction crying, and the child's son of Berkeley.

Oh, and the marching band, the marching band, my lawyer, Jesse Berg sent me, he loves to have it, and he loved. He said it was really fun, and it was really good. I'm sad. Louis could not go.

My son lives a block two blocks away, essentially, and he was working. He's a, he's a, he's a chef, and so he had the night, the evening dinner shift, so he said. There you go. Um, but he wished you well.

So, how's it going? Where are you going next? What's your next thing? Well, I'm here. I'm back.

I only went up for the show. I'm back in LA, and that's my favorite place to visit in the world. I describe LA as the world's most successful failed nation state. It's kind of. I think it is peak capitalism here.

There's more billionaires in LA than anywhere else in New York, but meanwhile 75,000 homeless. Yeah. Yeah, and it feels like I was a town built on delusion, but delusion and creativity can sometimes create a lot of shareholder value. Yeah.

Yeah. And I just, I absolutely love Los Angeles.

“I think it's, you know what it's turning into, Kara?”

What is it? It's turning into San Francisco. And then now everyone should post Los Angeles. They do. That's the city, because San Francisco looks good, and it's driving.

Yeah, San Francisco's on the rebound. Mm-hmm. And it doesn't hurt that about, what is it about? What is it about? What is it about?

What is it about? What is it about? What is it about? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, San Francisco rents last month.

One month. One bedroom rents up 24%. Everyone's spending their money before they have it. Pending luxury home sales nationally are up 4%. In San Francisco, they're up 48%.

Oh, I know.

I've had, in back in the first.com thing.

I had people knocking on my door to buy my house, and I have people knocking on my

It's that, and I'm like, no. But it's really, it's interesting, because lesser price houses, which are not lesser price.

They're in the million, 2 million range aren't selling as well.

But the really above 3 to 7/8 are really going crazy. It's a crazy market. But I'm glad Daniels, it has been on the rebound for a while. But yeah, San, Los Angeles is in that same. We hate ourselves.

Spiral. It's Spencer Pratt, but it's in Los Angeles. This is a wonderful city at the same time. You know, it's just sort of westside white people. Get all mad about whatever.

And some of them not even in Los Angeles. Well, I will say, and you know, it's not like a Karen, but it feels like, I used to say, it's a LA's a string of suburbs connected by my freeways. Now, I would say, it's a string of bubbles. I mean, the right, the quote unquote right part of LA are you for the magical.

And you venture outside those bubbles. And you see a little too much of the real world. So it's good for people, but the homeless issue really is staggering here. Yeah. Relatively the amount of money they spend.

I can, you really feel it's really interesting here. It feels like the mayoral race here. If you were a movie, it'd be Sophie's choice.

“Personally, that's how I would describe it.”

Oh, dear. But you, it's pretty, it's pretty decent. In fact, suddenly of the presidential race in 24, you have who I would describe as someone who's perceived as incompetent and not that compelling, which is created room for rage, cosplaying a political strategy in a reality star. I mean, this literally is Trump Harris over again right now.

Yeah. And you speak to people in LA. I'm not exaggerating. Reasonable people who wouldn't think would be supporting a reality star. And they have just had it.

And they just want change and chaos and they don't care. Yeah. I understand that, but it is a type of person by the way, first of all. I would not say everybody is like that. It's shocking how many people are just.

They don't even want to have a conversation there. I guess.

But here's what San Francisco, I'm just giving the comparison.

We didn't reelect it. Reelected, reelected, and reelected. Daniel, like Derek. Yeah. A technocrat.

Yeah. Technocrat. They should try to find like. That's the thing. Not on the ball.

I know that. But it's ridiculous that this is like, it doesn't mean, you know, because something's bad.

“You should do something absolutely fucking ridiculous and disastrous for the city.”

But, you know, they'll go through it. If they like this guy, they get what they get. That's what. And it's probably a lot of corruption, a lot of incompetence, a lot of just a mess. And abuse of people.

Like they're going to hire. Wait, they're going to go back. Because the old LA, you know, the only police department. And, you know, that that era of real brutality is really. It was real.

And so it's just, it's a wonderful city. And it should be doing a lot better. And the homeless problem is significant. A lot of it have to do with the weather. A lot of it has to do with a lot of things.

It's not just that. It's that this is a place where people naturally are attracted to. And so all kinds of people. And so it's a really, it's. Anyway, so you're, are you appearing in Los Angeles tonight?

Is that correct? Oh, yeah. We have Ted's around us. Is our guest tonight? Great.

Got about 30 friends from UCLA coming. Are you sold out in Los Angeles or are you doing?

No, we're about 90 percent.

Yeah. What's sold out in San Francisco? Right. In New York, about 90 percent in LA. It's a big theater.

“Also, I think LA just people do last night.”

And there's so many distractions here. Yeah. Yeah. Are you in the same theater? Which we did sell out for pivot?

What was it? Um, no, I think we're in the will turn. Is that right? Does that's off? Right.

And then I go to Vancouver Island for speaking gig. And then tomorrow, I take the red eye to Miami. And we're on Miami. Oh, that'll be fun. You love Miami.

Yeah. I do. I do. Well, we've got a lot. Congratulations on your turn.

Congratulations to Ed Nelson too. It's a really nice. These tours are really fun. I'm excited for ours in the fall. We have one of the fall.

So get ready. Rest up. There we go. You'll have August off. So you can rest in everything else.

So first off, I have to ask you. By the way, you're doing a lot of stuff. But did you watch the enhanced games last weekend? I didn't know that. I got to be honest.

I'm sort of here for it. I mean, I kind of have this idea. They just take no holds bar and let freak shows show up. People are doing this to themselves anyway. But did not.

I did not watch it all the way. Let me just say. Let me give you a few people who don't know. The enhanced games is a new sports event that allows athletes on performance enhancing drugs. It encourages them to try to break world records.

Events included swimming track and field, weightlifting and strong men. The experiment calls itself a global movement that unites humanity. Of course, it's a publicly traded company. Investors include Donald Trump and Jr. and Peter Teele.

There's also a German executive at many times who's really into it. There were no things broken except by someone wearing a swimsuit that was barred. This special swimsuit. I don't know. The stock has gone down.

I'm curious if there was a fight where both of us were enhanced. Who do you think would win?

Well, you know the answer there. Me. Yeah.

I've never been in a fight.

I've not a mountain person. Someone who I wouldn't know what to do. You've never been in a fight. You've never been in a fight in my life. You've never been in a fight.

You've never been in a fight. You've never been in a fight. You've never been in a fight. You've never been in a fight. You've never been in a fight.

You've never been in a fight. I think that I talk a lot about this.

“I think that one of the cores to never miss a chance to”

virtue signal and preach. But I think one of the core principles for managed to get older is just quite friend of the emotional regulation. Are you willing to sit and discomfort? And do you have control over your physical and mental well-being?

Well, it's an impulse to punch, right? It's an impulse to punch. And it may not have it much more. Well, for me think. So it's probably the most aggressive Mason.

So there's no arguing. The men are more violent. But that doesn't mean women don't engage in violence. Domestic violence rates in LGBTQ couples is about 25% according to the National Institute for Health and according to CDC anywhere from 17 to 40%.

Men are victims of intimate partner violence depending on the research methodology. There's discrepancy between whether it was a bone survey or a web survey.

“And then furthermore, there's only about three shelters.”

There's only three shelters across the entire US devoted to male domestic violence. There's still a lot of shame. There's a view that might be under-reported. Mostly women suffer from those problems. Yeah, but it's true.

There's an assumption. Yes, I get it. There's no arguing. The men are violent. But that doesn't mean women don't engage in violence either.

It didn't say that. But the comparison is most violence is committed by men in general. In general, in general, in general, in murder, mob, everything. Every statistic is largely mine. It's not really.

It's just, I do think it's a function of gender. I do think it's a function of impulse control and everything else. But I'm the scientist. Testosterone and cultural norms. Yep.

Yep. Yeah. Yes. There was a really great cover of the Atlantic recently about the sort of the man-hating groups. And they're always back.

They're always like, they're back.

I'm like, they're always there in some weird way. I'm speaking of man, men. There's construction crews are building the UFC fighting cage on the south lawn of a white house in preparation for the night of mixed martial arts, celebrating the 250th anniversary of the US independence over 4,000 spectators playing to watch from inside the arena. Kind of looks like a roller coaster.

There's all this complaining by Joe Rogan and others about nats and bugs and outside. And a lot of some of the champions aren't coming because it's. They don't usually do it outside. And it creates a, if you're going for a world, you know, these are actual competitors. If you're going for titles, it's not, it's not a good thing to fight outside apparently.

Wayans will be held at the Lincoln Memorial, which is, I don't know what to say about that, but okay fine fine fine. I just don't know what to say. I, I, it looks, it's a ridiculous, you know, it feels clownish. But whatever, he's the president, I don't, I don't know what to say. I, I'm not going to get overly angry about it, but it seems ridiculous, but I don't know how you feel.

“I was invited. I said no, I don't, I don't enjoy that stuff, and I don't need to be, you know, I, I think it's just ingenious for me to show up and break Brad or party with someone who I'm constantly critical of.”

It, the event itself is brilliant. Oh gosh, there, there's just an entire generation of, uh, young men, and, and quite frankly, a lot of women, their mothers and their sisters who in America, in this little trick or some people, still vote for the day perceived. We'll be most beneficial for their husbands and their sons, and young men are doing really, really poorly. And, uh, if you think about government, government in the United States largely speaking has been feminized, if you look at the events.

The events are basically like, you know, like the queen was merchandising and throwing them. For government events are very, feminine for lack of a better. Wait a minute, come on, stop. Today, you're very, if I woman today, I'm not going to be feminine. I'm not going to be feminine. I'm not feminine to bad thing. I am going to be talking to the women.

I am going to be talking to the women. I am going to be talking to the women. Oh, go to anything at the White House. It feels like it feels like the design. Oh, 100%. They're very, they're very proper, gentle. They're very feminine. And by the way, that, that is a wonderful thing. Well, men can be proper in gentle. I don't, I don't think that men can be.

Yes, men can demonstrate wonderful feminine attributes. Even like metal giving is is a feminine activity. Or I would just grab metal giving, but there's a lot of metal giving at the White House.

Never mind events in ceremonies tend to be very what people would consider. I think somewhat more.

Well, they're not a UFC fight. They're not a competition.

stepping out of what is seen as overly planned nurturing appropriate.

“Yeah, I think the events are very kind of very feminine. And what is, what are these guys doing?”

That's not going to UFC fight. And it's kind of, you're going to have, they're going to have huge viewership. It says to Trump reaffirms his view of one of the reasons to see one of the election. And that is like, I'm a man's man. I see men. I appreciate quote-uncle for lack of better term masculinity. Unfortunately, it's a fucked up weird formative dominant form of masculinity.

But it's a brilliant marketing strategy smart. I'm not, I don't, I think it's sometimes works. Like, let me give an example. This attempt to turn James Tallarico, like Steven Miller, who is literally the most weak, weak-looking person you've ever seen, is called, you know, he and others are calling, because they're terrified of Tallarico.

So they're pulling out the anti-trans stuff immediately, saying the first trans senator.

He doesn't know how to eat barbecues, that it took Ted Cruz, another, like someone I could easily beat in a fight. The tofu barbecues, the idea of soy boy. I mean, this is not manly in any way. This is like, I don't, and I don't think it works as much anymore with people. It's deeply insulting. It might work in Texas. I hate to say it.

I think the Tallarico people should take this very seriously because Kamala Harris, that didn't, with the trans stuff that worked really well in the election. And it might work in Texas.

“But they're trying to, you know, paint him as gay. I think that's what they're, where's the girl friend?”

Trans, trans, he's a soy boy, you know, this is all, like, and what do I think about it? It's so grotesque because I'm like, these are all men over 50, or whatever. I don't think, I mean, Steven Miller looks over 50, even though he's younger. But this is this, like, name calling, bullying bullshit that is not part of being a man. When he meant I know that I think or decent men.

It's fine if people want to do this.

When I was a kid, I went to fights with my grandfather and went to wrestling matches. He was a promoter, and he loved it. So I see the entertainment and everything else in it. But the, the, the, the, the soy boy trans thing that they're pushing on Tallarico is so, so ugly and toxic, and unfortunately it does work at some point.

But I don't know if you think it'll work in Texas. But it might, it certainly could. Yeah, I think, I think there's a fairly large distinction between a sanctioned sport. Where it's a lot of men in top physical shape. I don't like it.

I don't enjoy watching it.

“But I, I think that that is a legitimate sport.”

It's a huge sport. It's, I think, arguably one of the most successful sports of the last several decades. It's a well run sport.

Crits a lot of economic value for many of the fighters.

So I, you know, I think you can, I think in a bipartisan way, you can say that the UFC serves a purpose and a successful. The, the, the, the, the uglyness around Tallarico is not only that one. It's not true, but two to assume that loving an accusation that someone is gay or trans is supposed to be negative. It trains young people are people that if you call someone that, it, it, it's, You're a opponent doesn't call you something unless they're trying to say to the world, that's a negative.

Right. Absolutely. No. No. And a hundred percent.

And I, I hope at some point, people would regard it to it on things like that and say, quite frankly, it's, you know, someone. We used to call in college. You used to call people facts. Yep. To say this to be gay is to be bad.

It's a nice fact. Yeah. I got it. That's the point, some people someone says, yeah, and or what, it's like, people are online call me a Zionist. And I right respond proud Zionist.

I mean, I just, at some point people are going to realize, going after people sexual orientations just says more about you than it says about them. It does. It's, but it's, it's a tactic. They're trying to drown that in in that race. And it's unfortunately it might work in Texas.

Well, it is an indictment on Texas that these people have done the research and decided that it works. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. So I hope he responds.

I will say this. I'm not sure what the response is. In defense. Well, I'm not gay. In defense of James Tolerico.

He and I follow many of the same people on Instagram. And it's not that leaders, Cara. Yes, I know. It's some scorching hot, young ladies who make their living with a, with a, with a webcam. They just, they did it.

They also trying to do it to Andy Bashir. They obviously better. You know, it's, you know, it's a, it's, to me. It's, you know, at the end of the suggestion is to, I can speaking of that. The Justice Department is opened a criminal investigation.

Of course, that does all leads to the same thing.

And Carol, the formal magazine writer who won two civil lawsuits against Trump totaling, you know,

“close to $90 million in payments tied to sexual abuse and defamation.”

The DOG probe is reportedly focused on whether Carol committed perjury and testimony. Typical. This is what they're doing to, whether it's to the T.S. James or whoever they're trying to go at. Specifically, Carol, saying she hadn't received outside funding for illegal bills or lawyers.

Later, said Reed Hoffman had contributed. This is the latest in a series of DOG probes targeting Trump's opponents and critics like James Colme, T.S. James and others. Though none of these investigations have led to convictions. In fact, they get laughed out of court.

I spoke to E.G. Carol for an episode of on in July 2025. She talked about the threats. She's received in why she has no fear. Let's listen. It's stupid to be afraid.

Why live your life that way? I've been here 81 years.

I'm not going to waste the last of it. We're worrying about that guy. And Marmalade colored makeup. It makes no sense. So that's what I'm going to do.

So what do you think about this? Let's talk about misogyny and getting, you know, she's won the cases against him. And he's trying not to pay them. And he's doing everything possible to try not to pay them.

And this is the latest parry. You're using the Justice Department to carry out his toxic misogynistic efforts. I think it comes down to this. So one, if she did say something that wasn't true under oath, that's real. And they're claiming that she didn't acknowledge that she was getting help with her legal bills.

I don't know to the extent though, in a case like that, that is grounds for revisiting a case when it doesn't matter. When it doesn't have anything to do with the actual crime, she's accusing the president of. What is consistent here is the weaponization of the DOJ to go after his political enemies.

So this is just another example of the fact that we don't have a government that's meant to protect the people. It's now there to protect the president. And I think Eugene Carroll. I mean, I thought, okay, Eugene Carroll is ending the presidency because he was. I mean, just to keep in mind, folks, this was a jury of his peers.

He heard a ton of evidence. And they said, well, it was in liberal New York. Well, okay, New York, if you had nine jurors, five or probably Democrats before Republicans and two mature conviction, all nine have to agree. So so this was a, you know, this was, there's a reason that when someone is usually

can make it a crime, the public used to come together and say this person is guilty. You know, should be disqualified or you know, we keep it every time this stuff to happen, we keep, we kept thinking that's it. It's over and it wasn't. But it's just, I do think it's important to have a legal scholar to say in most cases

with this type of infraction, if in fact she, and she did. She did not acknowledge that she was having a legal bill. Well, to tend to when she was paid, they're going to have to investigate that. But they're just, they're just grabbing its straws here is what they're doing.

“That's what they're trying to do to find some way to impune her.”

And so he doesn't have to pay that money. It's all is saying it's all about money. I don't even think it's about the money. I think it's about overturning a conviction of a perceived enemy and going after. Mm-hmm.

I could have gotten the guy. The guy's made billions of dollars illegally on crypto. I think he still doesn't want to pay. He's a cheap bastard. He still doesn't want to pay.

I'm personally, I'm surprised I did this. I would have thought they would, I think this just brings it up again. I would have thought that we would want it to fade into the distance. He doesn't care. He doesn't care.

Anyway, E-Jane, we hope, but this goes away, but it's such a, it's such a fucking nuisance. And such a ridiculous nuisance, anyway. Let's go in a quick break. We come back, Pope Leo's warning about AI. I'm very excited to talk about this.

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That's odo.com. Scott, we're back and we're going to start off their next topic with a question from a listener. Hi, Karen Scott. My name's Bridget and I'm calling from Oakland.

I'm asking as a Catholic Buddhist pivotarian. I was so delighted to hear that Pope Bob, also known as Pope Leo the 14th,

delivered his first in cyclical,

which was about AI, and he was speaking truth to power from a place of power, which is pretty rare. Have either of you read it? And if so, what do you think?

Do you think it can move the needle towards putting guard rails up for this juggernaut that's really creating off the road already? Or maybe even rain in those dickheads

“who are mindlessly amping it up for their own self-serving profits?”

Thanks for all the humor and wisdom we've provided over the years and keep it up. Ha ha. Yep. I just set proffji up for a dick joke.

I love Bridget. I love our listeners and pivotarian. Let's start a religion. That would be so good. Thank you Bridget.

That was a great question. We love your sassiness. That's the kind of listeners we love. So to catch people up, Pope Leo released his first in cyclical this week of a 4200 word letter

to all about AI titled Magnificent Humanity Magnificent Fitness. I can't say it. But it's Magnificent Humanity. The Pope acknowledged that artificial intelligence

can be a valuable tool. He did not trash it,

“but also warn the AI's could become a new tower of Babel.”

He shared some strong words about what needs to happen next. Let's listen to him himself talk about it. Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed. The word is strong, I know.

But deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention, awakening consciences, and indicating paths forward for humanity. Some of the specific things the Pope is calling for. Government regulation of private companies driving AI development seems

normal, protecting children from violent sexual or fake information generated by AI, excellent suggestion. And safeguards to make sure humans are responsible for all decisions tied to the use of weapons, again, a great thing. He also didn't shy away from talking about people at the helm of AI.

That was really the focus as who's running it. In the abstract technology, in and of itself, is not a solution to humanity's problems, just that it's not inherently evil.

In practice, however, technology is never neutral,

because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise finance, regulate, and use it. Some big tech folks are on board here, and throughout the co-founder, Christopher Ola, joined the Pope at the Vatican as the Encyclical was presented,

but reactions from D.C. and Silicon Valley been mixed. Vice President JD Manz called the Pope's warning profound. That was interesting. But interior secretary Doug Bergham told Fox News, I didn't know what tech editorializing was part of the role being a Pope.

Well, it is Doug. It's certainly not part of your role as interior secretary. David Sachs wrote the Pope rightly. "Warns at AI must serve human dignity, not become a tool of domination of exclusion."

Well, someone who dominates and excludes, which is a nice thing to hear. But it goes on. If we hand gut, of course, he goes on.

the name of safety, how do we prevent it from being used to censor surveil our control citizens? Honestly, this guy is so hypocritical. Anyway, what did you think of the take? And I think he's been listening to pivot.

A lot of stuff we talked about for years. I love Pope, though, being on team on this team. But thoughts on this? Well, we talked a lot about the actions of the administration and different things

that have just been really bad for brand U.S. Whether it was the insurrection or, you know, cutting off U.S. there's just been so many poor decisions that have really hurt our brand.

“I actually think the best thing or one of the best things”

is having for the U.S. Brown to certain extent AI and just the economic movement here and the fact that we've been a seminal technology and a long time in terms of Cheryl, creation and what might have an impact on the world.

It's just owned and dominated by the U.S. That's very good for our brand. And I think this is been a great for our brand is the, is Pope Leo. He's just incredibly articulate.

It comes across as measured, brave, connects world-old issues with spiritual issues and issues of dignity. And he's American. He went to Villanova.

Yeah, that voice. Yeah. And he's American. I think if we wanted to go to there's the right. Yeah, right.

Yeah. But just his comments, if you were just to distill his comments

have really powerful, he believes that AI should serve humanity

not replace it. The biggest danger is the concentration of power. He's clearly he's talking a lot about income inequality. And he's, he's skeptical of a small number of companies controlling the infrastructure of intelligence.

And he wants, he thinks AI can amplify inequality and create. He talked about a new oligarchy, who are private firms wield enormous influence over truth labor and governments.

I would argue that, you know, the cat's already out of the bag there. One of the more controversial things, they're interesting things, I should say, as he said, AI is not neutral. That the algorithms encode the values of the creators,

not of some sort of neutral view on a different views of humanity, which I'm not sure. I actually think in a weird way what social media has polarized us.

“I think that because I think AI is different.”

I think it's more, I do think from a viewpoint and ideology standpoint, it's more moderating. And sometimes it comes across as quite politically correct, I think. He also talked about job displacement being a real moral issue. Autonomous weapons terrify him.

He called for it to be disarmed and worried about weapon systems, operating beyond meaningful human control. And then he talked about human connection and the thing I love, you know, like the software stuff, human connection and matter more than synthetic intimacy.

And then, and this is the thing, I think, if you were going to try and translate this into some sort of legislation, and we're not focused enough on this, is that children are the most vulnerable. And I was just thinking about, you know,

think about when you learn to write and how difficult it was. Like, you were on your school in the space. Claire is doing it right. Yeah, I was, but Claire is doing it right now. It's really interesting to watch too.

I got, I got in my senior year of high school. I got to see an English. I had a real difficult time writing. Yeah. And I went through that pain.

I went through that friction. And if I had just had AI, like write my papers,

I never would have made those connections.

I never would have gone through the friction of making those connections. Yeah. And so, and I think that really -- Triple writing, you're very good writer actually. Yeah.

I got season English. It's a matter of fact. I was on the upside with your writing. Well, because I did the work, right? And I think the question is, if kids have AI,

do they ever do the work and make connections? This is a matter of fact in my first year at UCLA. I was failing English one. And I said, what happens if you fail English one? Because it was a core class.

We had to take it. It was a requisite.

“They say, well, you have to take English as a second language,”

despite the fact that I didn't speak a second language. Wow. Yeah, that was a pretty big one. I got my act together. Yeah, the friction.

You're right. The friction is what made you a better writer to struggle with it, to figure it out yourself. And this is the problem in the threat of technology across all of our youth. And that is why venture outside and go through the pecking order

and the bullying order and figuring out your place and trying to find or join a gang, if you will. A friends when you think you can have the reasonable facts, you have a friendship on Reddit or discord. Why?

Why take risks? Go through the expense. Simulation and doing rejection. Trying to find a romantic relationship when you think you can replace it with synthetic life like character AIs or or porn.

So the the deep frictioning of life. And AI kind of takes it to a new level, especially with academia or academics.

It teaches young people to never develop the key skills they have

to really be successful in life and enjoy life. Absolutely. I think most important part is this. I do think who's making it matters. And he was very clear about that in terms of he was saying,

like for example, it's not the morality of AI.

And I think he was talking about being a very small group of people

who are very interested in money really. And I, you know, I thought it was very one of the things he was named a CEO because of the last pope to do something like this was over manufacturing and and the mechanization of things. And he's he's it was very selected to pick this topic.

He very carefully didn't insult technology, but he really clearly insulted its creators or said, we need to do better. And I think being the conscience saying Doug Bergen is such a moron. I mean, of course he's the conscience of, you know,

Judy Vance acknowledged that I think he's the conscience of the world of his world. And it extends well beyond Catholics. Let me say.

“And I think it's really important for leaders like this to step up.”

And and and and and suggested I do think it does have an impact as people are talking about it. And they are talking about the issues he brought up, including these safeguards around a weaponry. It's a protecting children.

And this is already in the air with people. And the fact that the Pope doesn't stands up without any. And then had some tech people there. I thought it was he's such a savvy person. I'm excited to see what else he takes on.

And you know, of course, the stupid Trump people come the woke Pope. But he honestly, he's just he's the caught. It's called conscience. It's not woke. It's kind of woke.

But he did say just to wrap up. When you were talking about. Automation and the last time technology appeared to be sort of a threat. You know, the industrial revolution mechanized labor. And what he's saying is that AI risks mechanizing judgment and creativity and intimacy and even

meaning itself. And his his the way I would turn turbo this comments was less catastrophizing around AI will kill us. But AI could potentially make us less human. Well, concentrating extraordinary wealth and power in the hands of a few firms and states. I just think, I think this guy distills right to the core of the issues.

He is very smart. He is very impressive. He is not afraid. I mean, his smart as he is.

“He clearly had very smart people work on these people.”

I've met at the Vatican. It's been amazing. But I love that he called it magnificent humanity. And by the way, I love that he made cliff notes for people. He made a little chart.

Which is really good. It's like excellent chart. I love a chart. And I love a cliff note. Anyway, there's lots more AI to get to have a lot of little stories.

So, important installs for Dr. Goom job 30% after Google announced. It's first overhauled 24 years. Many people are disturbed by this. Google changes include a shift to AI with bigger more interactive search box. So, let's use your task long request and upload photographs.

It's a significant change for search. I have not used Google search in a long time in a weird way. I definitely use it for some things. But I tend to use, I use all kinds of search services. But it's not only through Google, it's not saying it used to be only through Google.

And I like the simple box. I feel lucky box.

I always thought it was fine.

But I see why they're doing it. At the same time, a lot of people are like now they're never going to link to anything. But what they want to link to. But they've just sort of ended it for most people using Google to get to say media websites or whatever. Whatever you're looking for.

So, that seems to be a shift.

“I think it's a smart ball move. I think they've been accused.”

When you risk what is arguably or do any tweaks. The temptation around what is the most profitable or just told booth in history. When you risk, you know, there's just probably so much momentum to like guys. Don't fuck with it. I don't.

Absolutely. Don't change anything. So, I think it's actually a pretty bold move. And I do find when I do Google search those AI over here is actually quite helpful. They've gotten better.

They were better now. They're good. You said that. You said you like them. I do.

So, it's. I think it's the right thing. They have to respond. They have to push back. The reason why I alphabet was such an incredible biotrating.

It's 17 times learning. So, I see it was the market believes that open AI. And AI queries were an existential threat to search. So, it was to become the new search. And what we're saying is they're both growing like crazy.

So, but I find that I do oftentimes go to cloud instead of Google. Yeah. Exactly.

And Google just never gives me what I want anymore.

It's not. It's useless in some ways. But when I like look for like. How do you boil an egg? Or I don't do that.

But, you know, how many minutes for jammy aid? I'll go to Google. Right? That's. But now, actually, I might go to cloud.

You're right. I might do that. So, they kind of have to. You're right. I know people are bothered.

But it's. They have to change. You're absolutely right. Next up, President Trump abruptly postponed signing an executive order at on May after former AIs are David Sachs reportedly voice concerns and could prove two owners for the industry.

He got back. He was had lost power. Then he got it back. I guess the order would have granted the government oversight on a new AI models before they released to the public. Very temporary oversight, by the way.

And it was a little somewhat was voluntary.

That's probably more to the point. Being invited just 24 hours prior. I don't think this order was surface. There was a brief attempt by certain people within the Trump administration who are more interested in safety issues. And David, you know, got in there. And so did Zuckerberg and someone else.

I can't remember.

It was a third person who got in there and condensed him otherwise.

But Elon, it was Elon. This was, I thought it was a good idea. The order would have required AI labs to share frontier models with the government 90 days. Before a public release for security review. That seems like a very important and basic first step for any of this.

I mean, something that really struck me was the founders of this technology. The people that know more about it than any in the world are saying that this technology is potentially more liberating than nuclear fusion. And potentially more dangerous. So here's the technology that the people understand of the best are saying is potentially more dangerous than nuclear weapons. We didn't let up in high and start a company and start selling bombs to China.

That's actually a very good thing.

“Well, I think there's a really decent rational argument that if, in fact, you have something that is potentially more dangerous than any weapon in history.”

Wouldn't you want the government controlling it? We wanted to be part of it. We're not only not controlling it. It's not only done under the auspices of the Department of Defense cooperating with the private sector, Lawrence Livermore Labs or would have you. We have people trying to go public and who have lawyers and lobbyists.

Many of whom stepped in here to say, you know, we all talk about the need for regulation. We've been to this movie before. We show up and stand next to the Pope and say, in cosplay shell Sandberg, we need to do better. We need to regulate, we are open to regulation.

And then on to get on the phone, tell them no, tell them to stop telling his big bet on AI.

93% of GDP growth is now from AI, cap X, can't do anything to get in the way. And if you slow our runners down, the free games andabolic steroid pumped up Chinese models are going to come for us and beat us. And there's no truth to that. And if they did this correctly and they had standards, government review might actually make the industry better. And make them less prone.

Regulation at this point would be a feature, not a bug in terms of capitalism and these companies ability to know how to develop what they can, what they can't do, what they need to check. But a 90 day review. I know. It takes a drug a decade to get through these two. It's ridiculous. I just, there's a real beef going on in the administration.

And sex is on one side and some others are on the others. And we'll see, you know, eventually this will happen for these companies. I just want to put it off as long as they can. Sex is not working for the safety of the United States or anything else is working for his friends. And so I'm barely in that.

“You know who's actually increasing AI legislation in regulation?”

China. China, they are. That's right. Beijing State Council issued a 2026 legislative work plan in May with AI governance language appealing. And about jobs because they know what will happen if people feel a drift in China. That's not something they can happen. You're absolutely right. They're so much smarter in how they handle these things, which is really a depressing thing to say.

They released, they enacted binding rules on AI emotional interaction, identity disclosure, and content activity. Well, they read the Pope. They read the Pope. You know. We fast zero AI legislation.

Zero. Except in the States. And there's more to come. There's there's a real anger brewing and it's not, it's something a democratic candidate should not like kill the billionaires kind of thing or or pitch forks. But there's a pitch forky. I was just talking to Tim Miller on his podcast and he feels a pitch forky moment. And that's not what you want. You want something that makes sense.

And unfortunately, because the tech people just can't possibly accept any kind of structure or speed limit. They're going to, they're going to unfortunately get the worst, the worst outcome for themselves eventually. The probably it'll be just fine. Just as Lincoln said, no country can lose a war when it has public support, no country can win a war when it doesn't have it. If you look at what China has done with AI and it is released a series of legislative policies and around emotional security concentration of power and it's made them public.

The difference is the following. The Chinese now support AI.

“87% of Chinese people trust AI versus just 32% of Americans because why?”

Because the Chinese believe that their government has the ability to protect them against AI and is regulating the technology effectively. 54% of Chinese people embrace greater use of AI versus just 17% of Americans.

And young people, particularly, I mean, good job David Sachs.

Everybody you have the populace of China is embracing AI and trust it and trust that they have a government to kind of soften the edges or reduce some of the externalities. Whereas in the US, you have people driving hundreds of miles to protest a fucking data center. How great? So Dad, you want to talk about we just get it so fast. We do. It has to do with tech people being up in Trump's grill and controlling him.

And Trump believing that a lack of regulation he doesn't understand the industry. He moves toward it though. Why did he move toward it? Why was he going to, it's really interesting. There's largely probably because they wouldn't show up to his party. That's my guess with him because he's so ridiculous.

But any in any case, we have to move on to this because this isn't a topic that you've talked about.

Uber's COO says it's hard to draw a connection between the companies rising use of cloud code and the expense, especially the tokens. And innovation meant to serve consumers. This comes after. After reports, the company already burnt through its entire 2026 AI coding tools budget. This is to buy tokens in just four months. This is one of these indications you were talking about, right? This idea that what do we get in here for our money? My paying too much for this muffler, that kind of stuff.

There are 95% of CFOs in the industry studied in my professor out of MIT. Said that only one in 20 CFOs are a complaint to a positive ROI. And it's starting to bubble up into a real expense. Even Nvidia is claiming they're spending more now internally than they're spending on humans. And so this is going to be very interesting, because for example, cloud is about nine times more expensive than some of the Chinese openway to LLMs.

And when the CFOs see these bills and aren't immediately able to connect it, I Uber's blown through its AI budget in a few weeks or a few months. And someone's going to ask, "How is this making the consumers experience for the Uber better?" And this is how the whole thing on wines, one of really credible CFOs says, "Okay, we're going to scale back our investment here until we can figure out a way to more directly attach to some sort of consumer benefit or ROI."

“And I think where if you go second and third order facts, I think it goes to the following places,”

suppose the 80% of startups are hacking or using some sort of Chinese openway LLMs. One, they use less expensive chips, they have cheaper power. I also think they're pricing it below market because a lot of local provinces in China have sort of their local champions that they're subsidizing. And I think what we're going to see is the Trump administration when they start to see companies opt for their cheaper Chinese models. Kind of the movie before, China stills our IP, develops 80% of what we have and sells it back to us for 40% on the dollar.

Yeah, can I, I'm going to interject one of the things Mark Cuban had, when I was interviewing Daruma Modi at a recent event, I said send me a question and I said I had just written his, yes, a Darios, I say machines of loving grace.

And he, Mark wrote me, this first thing he wrote me back was explain the token economy to everyone here.

I see a scenario where the high cost of tokens makes a cheaper to hire people for certain jobs. I thought that was a great, I did ask that it was a really, it was it he was already clocking this issue that maybe people are more less expensive than this token. These tokens that that costs and tokens of what you spend on computing just for people around. Yeah, humans are less expensive and or can be. I mean, cloud, I think it's called cloud code, max or cloud map. I've already run out of tokens. I'm playing with this shit so often.

“I had one of those prompts that says you need to upgrade the cloud max, which is $200 a month.”

What's interesting? Do you get the benefits, do you get the benefits of the money you spend or just your playing with it? At this point, it's well worth it for me. I'm just fascinated by it. I have discussions around it. So hobby. Yeah, and I also use it to, I use it to find data.

If I'm struggling, if I have a paragraph that just sounds clunky, I say, I say, how would you edit this or what analogies would be better? You know, you could call me for free and I would probably do a better job. You're not available. And by the way, it's defined free. I. I'm just saying.

In terms of, in terms of economic costs, I would say it's free. In terms of non economic costs, I would argue you're pretty expensive. Anyway, we have to move on. Yeah, sitting bullset. What is free white man? Oh.

Anyway. But, but what's interesting of what I found out about cloud max, the $200 a month.

“I think that I'm about to upgrade to, is that it costs them for, for you use cloud max.”

It costs anthropic $5,000 a month to deliver that product to you. Amazing. Yeah, just the, the cost on infrastructure and power. Well, once we sell more, we'll, volume, we'll make it up in volume, right?

Well, no, the, the.

“What they're hoping is the, the laws, one of the first economic concepts you learn.”

Come stand.

Is that. And it's called.

I hope it's paradox. I forgot the sky wrote a brilliant paper on it. But I just thought he just summarized the term elasticity. But the economic term elasticity is that as the price of something goes down, the demand for it goes up. And everybody thought was computing power goes down and becomes so cheap. Chips will go out of business because you won't need as many from Intel.

And what happens is it is the cost of something goes down more and more people use it. And there's a viable argument, and I've sort of been making this argument about what I call apocalyptic snow. And that is all the catastrophizing around labor destruction, a sort of bullshit. That as the cost of AI go way down, we're going to find more uses for it. And we're actually going to end up hiring more programmers or vibe code.

Could be, I do think the costs are going to actually go down eventually, but just not today. All right, Scott, let's go in a quick break. We come back. We'll talk about Elon possibly combining SpaceX and Tesla. Just as care was your predicted. [music]

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So why not you? Try Odo for free at Odo.com. That's OdoO.com. [MUSIC] Scott, we're back with more news. His SpaceX prepares to go public rumors are again circulating that Elon Musk will eventually combine the company with Tesla.

Obviously, God, I mean, we're not speaking, but I know how this guy thinks. Musk has reportedly discussed the possibility with colleagues. The two companies are already share engineers in collaborate. There's all kinds of cross stuff that a lot of sketches across stuff. If you recall at the time when he took over Twitter and collaborate on power and compute issues,

also, by the way, SpaceX got a $2.29 billion contract to build a satellite communications network to connect military sensors

and weapons popperms around the world. They have to deliver an operational prototype by the end of 2027. So he's doing well. He's doing well with his help of Trump, et cetera. It's a mutual benefit society for them. But this putting Tesla in here, it just makes complete sense as it is.

Someone said it was like two, it was mortgage back securities, a bunch of companies that can't pay, wrapped around Elon Musk at a company that's okay, which is Starlink. So it's like a sort of a collection. And so he's shoving this stuff fall together. It makes sense on a data point of view.

It makes sense to hide a bunch of stuff. He already had these weird, very questionable transactions like buying cyber trucks for SpaceX,

So why not just mash the whole fucking thing together, and then make everybody buy it, who is in an index fund, which is another thing.

“So any of these comments, the contract, the merger, the Nasdaq situation?”

Well, you did predict it, but my analogy is the following. Snow White is hot, and that prospect of getting a marriage Snow White is super exciting. Snow White is SpaceX, but unfortunately, to buy SpaceX, you got to take on these seven fucking weirdos. They're expensive and erotic.

And I mean, X-A-I, which has been attached onto SpaceX's incredible company.

It's a money furnace that's playing catch up and SpaceX. Trying the infrastructure provider now. So was met up by the way, but go ahead. And SpaceX, I'm sorry, and Tesla, I still think Tesla is a great product. I got him on the other day.

And I do think they have a fantastic car, but it's a struggling business with a multiple. A hundred and twenty ninety two times forward earnings. And Apple trades at thirty three times forward earnings. And then if you look at Tesla's just business in Europe, they've sales of fallen for 13 consecutive months. It's market share in Europe.

It's gone from 1% to 0.8% while the EV market is expanded about 30% and 2025.

“And Norway sales would down 90% and that would lend down 80% UK down 50%.”

Meanwhile, BYD revelations are up 260% in Europe.

And the reason why it's valuation.

I didn't say it was a bad car. I said he didn't innovate in it. There was another new car. And BYD keeps innovating. Every time you see a new one, you're like cool.

Tesla's the same pretty much the same car for the past. And then they deliver cyber truck as their innovation. So that's my beef. Stocks are like brands. They're part promise and part performance.

And the promise, no one articulates and gets more cheap capital on the promise part of that equation in Elon Musk. He's arguably the best salesperson and communicator in the history of the public markets. And the promise though, the performance is like so far behind the promise, for example. These things have not, the promises have not worked out.

“Robotex amounts, they doubled sequentially in Q1.”

But it's, he was saying that there would be 1,000 Robotexies on the road about five years ago. Across all three Texas cities where Robotexies operate, Tesla has just 25 on supervised vehicles. I mean, not, right? Meanwhile, their SF Robotexies service still uses a safety monitor in the front seat. And there are five more cities on the way, but Musk's timelines famously cannot be trusted.

And then he tries to create all of these distractions. Look over here at robots. I'm staying, I'm staying in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. If I go to my deck, I can see a waymo. They're everywhere in LA care.

And there's actually fewer of the Tesla taxis, Robotexies in Austin, they've cut them back. And then the worst car release, you know, the worst tech product the last year was the cyber truck. Which, by the way, is about to be bested by one of the great brands in history. You're about to see one of the biggest brand failures in history. And that is the equivalent.

Tech has literally like infected so many things. And it's infected one of the pureest brands in the world. It's infected Ferrari. The new electric Ferrari is about to be just hand. It's getting paned right now.

Oh, it's going to be, it's going to be a funny eye. The Johnny I've demodied. It's going to be one of the brand stories that he said. It looks like a Honda, right? It's, it's, it's, it's basically they said Apple gave up on their project Titan.

And they slapped a, they slapped a stallion on it. You're going to see, oh my god, you're going to see the Ferrari purest. You're going to see so many 80 year old old men going to tick talk for the first time in their lives to ship post this thing. And SpaceX get this. SpaceX accounted for nearly 20% of cyber truck sales in Q4 2025 because he pocketed much of cyber trucks.

So I think it's smart for him to do. It's more jazz hands.

It's more pretending attaching something to something amazing to try and.

I mean, he's very good at this and you predicted it. But to take, put Elon on top of something that's very exciting around rockets, data centers and space rockets. Yeah, and he is a visionary. We need to be an interplanetary species. And now you have to buy it with NASDAQ.

Explain to people very briefly what that is. So so people understand the index fund issue is that it's, they've lowered the amount of time before job big IPOs go into the index and now people are forced to buy his company and also open AI also. Sure. And so basically the role was before you join the SMP you had to be profitable for certain amount of quarters.

And you had to be in the index for at least a year. They've wave those rules because they realize that it makes sense. They're big and important companies. What that means is if you invest in an ETF or an index or automatically own. These companies that those prices and at these prices at these valuations, I would argue.

The reason we went public, the reason Google in public was you couldn't raise three or five billion dollars from venture capitals and private institutions in 1997.

Now there's almost as much capital if not more in the private market.

“So logically you have to ask yourself why does a company decide to go public.”

And one reason it's a branding event to it creates more liquid currency potentially, but these companies are very liquid currency on the secondary markets. They do it because I think largely speaking and they don't want to say this out loud. Once the private investors go look, this thing's getting pretty frothy. Most of the juice has been squeezed out of it. Well, who is stupid enough to take the valuation even further up?

Well, okay, the last stop on the Trump train right now is the public markets.

So typically, a company like OpenAI would have gone public when it was worth 30 or 50 billion, but the existing investors of OpenAI and Tropic say, "Oh no, no, no, no.

There's still juice here. Let's keep this to ourselves and we'll find you capital." And then when they start going, "Wow, this valuation is rich for even us." Let's go see if Mom and Pop retail investor and people on Robinhood and people on Reddit who love Elon and people around the world who want to participate in the economy were actually willing to invest. My prediction is these three companies, especially AI, are going to go through a pretty serious repricing. Not a collapse, like a 2000 collapse, but a repricing.

And then when you combine that with the fact that you now have access to private companies with different secondary markets, potentially the tokenization of small companies, it's just going to make the IPO less and less relevant because of the reporting standards. And this is the indices trying to say, "We want to make it more attractive for companies to go public." And also reflect, the S&P should reflect. I get it. It's just that people shouldn't have the on-profitable company with held up by one guy shoved down their throat without it's like getting the U2 album.

Yeah, but you can say that is PNG shoved down their throat, it's the same thing. It is, but it's a profitable company. It's been a business like, let's just give it to the best returns that have been a company that are growing faster and not profitable. Yes, it is. And at the same time, let them buy it themselves. I mean, it just seems like a risky thing to stick in there this quickly. That's all, I just, I'm like, it's going to benefit the people. It's going to benefit Elon Musk, but maybe not the pension funds of nurses.

Like, I don't know. And I just don't think that risk is necessary. Well, in a weird way, there's so many dynamics of players. Well, my index fund, I don't want to own SpaceX. I don't know. I mean, if you look, if you look at the valuation of these companies going public, it's going to be combined $4 trillion. So from 1980 to 2020, the amount of money being raised just across these three companies is it's just staggering.

And what it probably will do on the short run is it'll probably take the S&P down because so much money is going to come from every corner of the earth to to participate in these things.

To raise $150 million, the rest of the market feels that.

“If you want to talk about, I mean, what happens? I haven't fascinated by this because what happens when these three companies go public, 11,000 people in the Bay Area are overnight.”

Imagine everyone who goes walks into Madison Square Garden, places sold out. Everyone who walked in was a 31 year old product manager making $180,000 or $240,000 to your good living, but some student debt can't afford a house. And they walk out on the worst 7 to 11 million dollars. What happens? They have more kids. They buy a new house. They have it on a spy skyrocketing prices. Upside here, you're going to see a lot of fun started.

There's also tremendous new business development. The other thing you're going to see, which is a good thing, you are about to see the mother of all increases in philanthropic giving in the Bay Area. One would help. Well, I do people do. These people will be started. Foundations. Let me just say, if you look at the actual statistics, it's McKenzie Scott, and then which is an enormous graph, like a big long bar.

And then all the others, including Elon Musk down here. I'm not talking about the big ones. I'm talking about a lot of people. Americans are a very generous philanthropic people. Not all the people. But I'm not talking, there's two things here.

When you do have this kind of liquidity event, you do see a bump up in philanthropy. Philanthropy is almost entirely correlated now, unfortunately, to big IPOs in the stock market. And a lot of people get stock to universities that tax it managed.

“That's what I've done. Every time I invest in a private company, I give a certain amount of it away to one of my, you know, do the public education or teen suicide prevention.”

And we've got to move on. But I will see where it goes. But it's a really interesting time. And I think Scott's right, it's going to, there's going to be a decline in some, in a lot of these anyway. But it's a really interesting time given all three of these are going at once. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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Two things. Quickly CBS News, just named tech journalist Nick Bilton, the new executive producer, 60 minutes.

Built in this long-time tech journalist and filmmaker who never worked in traditional broadcast news.

I know Nick interesting. The answer to see what he's going to do there. This comes on. The heels of 60 minutes correspondent Sharon Alfonsi announcing that CBS declined to renew her contract. She's an excellent report. She's a great stuff on character AI. She's been a wonderful reporter. The move comes six months after Alfonsi's report on abuse inside Salvadoran prisons was abruptly pulled before airing a month later. The time Alfonsi called the decision political and it certainly was in a statement. She said she did a really like she just burnt the house down leaving.

Alfonsi said the exit is quoted a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually actor reporting. She had since a chilling message across the entire newsroom and by the way, Sharon's not the only one. Anderson Cooper stepping out the way he is not usually leaving a few weeks ago saying, I hope 60 minutes remain 60 minutes. He also was sending sort of a shot across the bow there.

“She called these two excellent journalists of 60 minutes and Sharon's about as I don't know or just met her on text actually, but and Anderson I think has done an amazing job.”

So these are two really really great journalists and I predict that they will do just fine, but good for them for speaking out and especially good. The student who won in award at the Emmys last night, what was named scholarship for Mike Wallace and he delivered a blistering attack on supporting these these two journalists and supporting others like them and I thought that person was incredibly. It's very hard to speak out and Anderson and Sharon and this young student did so and I really, you guys will do just fine.

Anderson particularly, but in general, good for you for standing up. That's all that I predict. I think it's a really interesting, it'll be a really interesting case study and organizational behavior and management classes and business school and that is corporations continue to fall for the notion that if they bring in a small company they perceive is really innovative. That that small virus is going to affect the entire corpus and generally almost always what you find is that corpus rejects the virus. It's like acquisitions work when the acquiring company has the scale and distribution or capital to help scale the small innovative company, but to believe that the innovation is going to infect the larger corporation or corpus almost never works out.

So let's give let's give the free press to benefit the doubt innovative little company subscription based interesting positioning and the Alison thought that's the kind of mojo and juice and infection we need it.

There's been Oregon rejection also what CEOs of smaller companies fail to recognize is the following and it's the reason why I've never been able to grow a big company to small companies and that is a small company is ready for the small company is ready for aim. The person at the top really does get to make swift, crisp decisions. I am the decided this is the way we're going are one of our key things here is speed which means this is not a democracy.

There's very few things that are less democratic than a small company trying to work fast or go fast because it's kind of like what do we think okay get on it ready for aim let's start yesterday.

The large organization that's scaling it's more about consensus and getting people on board and culture and your your a speedboat rambling at tanker.

“And what you fail to realize is the CEO of a company like this and what I think barriers failed to realize is your failed jackson the coach of the balls and that is your job.”

I don't bless with some unbelievable assets your job is not to coach Michael Jordan it's to get along with him and be a resource for him you're not in charge they are. They're the assets when you're a McKellar Tetta and you're coaching Bucayasaka at Arsenal which by the way just won the Premier League this is very exciting. When you come into an organization like CBS and you do have kind of the stars that are iconic your job is to get along with them. And so I think well let me say 60 minutes have been enormously successful it's not.

I mean no, but I'm just saying like pretending is just because they're in cephalets in this sassy new start of is going to change things I think a lot of these errors or errors of incompetence not of trying to change things and these old people won't change these are like top level journalists that are we're doing a great job and has had 52 years of success like you know they're doing well it's not like they're not doing well so why.

“I think I was speaking past each other I'm agreeing with you. CBS is Michael Jordan very wise is Phil Jackson his job isn't to show up and reorganize and tell everyone how to dribble and play again.”

His job quite frankly is to get the only management of CBS is the following high nice to meet you how can I help.

That's it how can I help yeah and if the answer is go away and leave us alone fine if it's we could use more resources here we have trouble here or we don't think our advertisers are how can I help.

That's it I I love what you I I'm sorry I misunderstood let me say one of the things that happened at the Washington Post to blaming these reporters like when will we was was like trashing the reporters is like it's such an easy thing to do for people who think they're innovative is like you all. You all suck and some of some of the things need to change but to say it's it's a problem of it's a bigger secular problem that's the issue in terms of costs and everything else and so. Just telling people just breaking things is not building things and that's that is really hard to do when you're I that's why we I never want to be a big company I don't know about you but I like us being a small speed boat and if you make mistakes you make mistakes if you don't you don't that's how I feel but.

“I don't know about you oh yeah and this is is the reason why I've never built a billion dollar company I saw companies you know when they as soon as they have a CFO or someone in HR I'm like time to sell.”

Yeah, but having been on involved with a lot of big companies I just shocked me it just shocked me right away the first thing I thought what we should do this this and this.

And the CEOs were was okay they really had to think about what would be required to get buying to to to potentially change the culture to explain be thoughtful to. Create the right incentive mechanisms to ensure the behavior lined up and I mean you really are there's some amazing things about a tanker right you can carry whatever it is a hundred million barrels or ten million barrels of a product. But you are you know you're steering a tanker and it takes a lot of effort and a big engine room and a lot of people it's it is a different there's so few people.

They can go from a lot of people I would say where are you in the alphabet are you from a to D I'm good at a to D yeah some people are good at coming in my old CEO at L2 can alert was good at kind of data data H or I. Some people are can come into a company that's you know, gone public dark cost for shy is is amazing a very good example and mate is like great from an L to S he came into a company that was already jamming scaling huge infrastructure huge brand and said okay. Somebody needs a lot of work there and also there's some people who come into companies that are distressed who take a company from you know whatever it is T to Z that come in and cut costs and repackage something take it through bankruptcy and make a lot of money.

I've got your next book is the alphabet of management. Yeah. All right. I want to hear your prediction. I'm all confused and chat lag right now so I thought we were doing wins and fails. So I can't go to do win fails. But my win is and it just hasn't gotten enough attention and it's just so exciting and it's such a victory for the West and I would argue it's actually in many ways.

And today Ukraine is striking Russia to Russian military infrastructure oil refineries ports bomber bases and semiconductor plants hundreds sometimes sometimes more than a thousand kilometers inside Russia. Putin is on the run. He is. I told you when I told you that a couple weeks ago that all these people said Russia he's in much more trouble than you realize. But go ahead. Recently, they've hit the Ryazan refinery. One of Russia's largest fuel plants supplying the military. The two opposite refinery and the black sea. They're going after ships. They're going after the black sea fleet.

If infrastructure in Perms, 700 miles from the border, the he has a lottery refinery, 700 kilometers inside of Russia and even the English region, this country that happened cheese.

“If they started bombing oil fields in Texas or our military ships in San Diego, can you imagine?”

No, those Canadians or North or if they're going to be building our submarines, what of drones we're hitting. I mean, this is just incredible. And it's a function of drones. It's a function of Delta. That's great. It's also quite frankly. We don't like to say this. Must turning off Starlink and Russia has seated huge advantage to the Ukrainian army.

That's always been a benefit. No question.

Think about this. What are they doing? They're producing thousands of long-range drones per month in 2024 and 25. They're doing 3,000. They're going to be a huge technology country when this is all. Oh, yeah. That'll attract so much capital and assuming. I go there. If I was a young person, that's exactly. The corruption is really quite impossible to deal with. But if I was a young person to go there, but there are significant corruption problems within that government.

But there's a wonderful message being sent to the world. And that is, there's a brutal lesson for authoritarian. That corruption scales until it collides with reality and technology and an motivated populace. Russia built the Potentum Village version of a superpower, yachts, parades, hypersonic missiles, shirtless horse cosplay. Do you claim, like that? I like that part. Do you claims we love build software drones and engineers and just some numbers here to talk about it. Okay, because we got to go ahead of all this is.

“You're rushing them this morning. What? What? What? What? What? What?”

What? What? What? What? And you're a dollar nature. Fascinated with her. You're back to go interview. I'm not. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to be in line with anything. What does it go to Walter Mondale? Who's up next? I'm with Keroswisher. Russia has three times the population, ten times the economy, nuclear weapons, and one of the largest oil reserves in the world.

And Ukraine is kicking its ass. I know. I love it. And Ukraine has coders and hoodies turning home depot into Lockheed Martin.

I mean, these guys are amazing.

So look, increasingly, and this is a lesson for us, unfortunately, right now, the future belongs to the side that can innovate faster than the other side. I think there are lions with the boats and the drones. So that's my win. And it hasn't got enough attention. This is so exciting for the West for Ukraine. So can I make one caveat? If potent feels cornered and scary, he might be terrible. Yeah, that's the fear. You know, that that's, that's to me is the biggest.

Unless you're going to know it, your enemy, you've got to give them a way out. That's the Sun Zoo. Yeah, but I don't think he thinks that. I think he's terrified. There's a victory for also for the EU, who has been steadfast in their support on like Americans. I just, it's, it's just very exciting. Trump will back if they win. He'll go like, "Oh, I'm with the winners."

I'm with them. I was always behind you. I always behind them. All right. What's your fail?

“My fail is, I just, I think the best way, Timothy Snyder summarized it perfectly.”

I've been trying to figure out a way to describe what is effectively a 1.8 billion-dollar slush fund that Trump and his, his spokesperson, Blanche, had been trying to pitch and even even some Republicans are finally blanching. And the best way to describe it is a terrorist immunization fund. Uh-huh. And that is commit violence on my behalf, and I will not only legally protect you, I will pay you.

In addition to the corruption, it sends a signal to weirdos out there who are called members that if something gets in the way of Trump, whether it's people turning out to a poll booth, whether it's people showing up to inaugurate the other guy, which I'm claiming was not fairly elected, I want you to commit acts of violence. I want you to engage and tear it off. And you will not only get off, I'm going to pay you.

I love that word.

And that is the way I can't take credit for it. It's sympathy Snyder who's when I'm just obsessed with,

and I've had on the pot a couple times who's acting like a truron. I want to talk a lot about democracy and autocracy. He's fantastic and he's very brave. He's the dude, Heather Koch, should I just say. But this is, that's right.

But this is imagine if a nation in the Gulf found an aim your terrorist organization and said, "You blow yourself up, you commit acts of violence. And I'll prosecute you. We've set aside money for you." Right. Well, they kind of did that. Well, the PLO used to do that. The PLO used to say any suicide bomber,

we're going to give their family X amount of dollars. That's what this is. Yeah, I agree. Anyways, I hope that Democrats adopt that credit. I don't think the Republicans tell us the others are all very much against it. There's a lot.

And all of these hearings, why do you support the terrorist immunization fund?

“Good. Absolutely brave with that. That's what this is.”

Anyways, that's what our terrorist-baking fund. That'd be immunization. Anyway, all right. That's great. Those are both great.

And you're going to have to have new ones for Monday, just so you know.

We want to hear from you, send us your questions about business, check out whatever's on your mind. Go to nmymag.com/pivot. Just submit a question for the show or call 8555-1-Pivot. Before we go, I'm taping a live interview on with Kara Swisher

at the Rebecca Film Festival on Monday, June 8th. It is not the day. No, it's not the day. No, it's not the day. No, it's not.

I was booked before the deal months ago. Anyway, instead of Walter Martin, Hi, Daddy. Hi, Daddy. Hi, Daddy.

To the special dinner with Robert De Niro, but I am all be talking to comedian actor and podcast pioneer Mark Maran, not Mondale. Not Mondale. The original gangster.

Yes, thank you. Yeah, the original. He's, he's, he's really quite a legend.

“And he has, there's a new doc about him.”

He's also a great actor and funny comedian. And everything else he loves to do. You're my favorite statement of his. My favorite. And I use it all the time.

He's like, you realize Democrats literally annoyed America and defascism. Anyway, he's great. He's really great. Tickets are available now at www.trebeckoffilm.com/audio.

Scott with Scott's referring to is the Murdoch. James Murdoch. We will see you there. Okay. That's the show.

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