CEO Shooting, Bitcoin Surge, and Bezos’s Trump Optimism
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hug handbag, or signature loafers and belts, visit Ferragamo.com to discover the most thoughtful holiday gifts for the entire family. You do spy on me. You fucking text me at three in the morning. You know what I'm doing at all moments. I do know what you're doing at all moments because I've got to keep track of you because you're up to things.

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, it is cold as a mother outside. It is freezing here in Washington. Really? I feel like I live in London. No, if you lived in London, it would be 50 and dark already.

And you'd be thinking, a spa of tea. Ask where the dog is, Kara. Where's the dog? Where are you? Where are you? I'm in the Cotswolds. I'm in the Cotswolds. We're moving. And my job when we move is to simply put, get the fuck out of the way. And my value add is to bring the dogs out to the Cotswolds. Here, let me do my impression of me moving. I'm in a room packing my stuff. And occasionally you just hear an expletive. And then, where are my edibles? I can't find my edibles. Yeah.

And so the Panzer tank commander who is organizing this move has decided, I am not a value add and my job is to leave and take the dogs with me. So I'm out at Heckfield Place taking long walks with the dogs and having farm activities.

All organic breakfasts and... Oh, okay. Do you know who else is in the Cotswolds? I'm sure there's quite a few people. Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi. They've moved from the United States. To the Cotswolds? Yeah, apparently. Huh. I did not run into Ellen on my walk today, but... Well, I'm just saying. It could be like a beautiful, you know, one of those British romances where you ride up on the horse and, you know, they...

Accidentally dropped my scarf or she dropped her scarf? Yes, or something, or else they just, they run out into the moors or whatever the hell they call it. I think I'm more into her wife, Portia. She was great in Arrested Development. I thought she was hilarious. She was great in a lot of things. She was in Ally McBeal. You don't remember that. That's back, by the way. You can watch it. I never watched Ally McBeal. I never. Oh, my God. Do yourself a favor there in the Cotswolds and get your butt. I think it's on one of them. I forget. You know, my cue does not include Ally McBeal.

I'm just telling you, you'd like it. Shockingly, I have this feeling that you would like it. Anyway, well, that's nice. I'm here in the District of Columbia. D.C., but do you have sunshine there? Like, has the sun been out in the last seven days? No, it's gray today. It's going to be sunshine and freezing tomorrow, but no, we have gray, and I am preparing for a weekend of Christmas parties. I was supposed to go to the Meta holiday party tonight, but Amanda's not...

Yeah.

That's because you're powerful. They don't need to be nice to me. I hate them, but I have no power, so they can just not invite me. They hate you, but you have power, so they pretend to like you. A couple of them are super smart. I think they're not. That's the problem. A lot of them are super smart. That's the whole problem. Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're 100% right. And then go into a bunch of parties. It's going to

It's a holiday party weekend is here in D.C. You're going to get drunk and make out with anybody? No. Or be like stumbling drunk and then run for and then be a nominee for the cabinet? No, I'm a rare party goer. I don't I'm very rare and I leave early. I'm not like and I don't give a lot. I don't give a lot. And that's my power. I'm like, you know, I'm glad you finally acknowledge that across all your relationships, Kara.

Your tea stirring is loud. I can hear your dinkity-dink. Let me hear that again. Oh, no. It's one of these weird bottles that they can't just give you water. It has to be something kind of classy and stylish. British design actually really stepped it up in kind of the aughts. And it even says on it, still water. Well, thank you. And I tried to make tea with free-range leaves or whatever it was, and it tasted like ass. And I'm like, eh.

I'm just going to order a latte from room service. You are such not a British person, but I'm glad you're there. You know, the theme of my school, my Sal's preschool, they have a party every year, which I try not to go to, but then Amanda demands it, which is James Bond. Oh, that must be fun. Okay. I'm going as Holly Goodhead. True story. That was a true Bond girl, Holly Goodhead. It was the woman who was in...

I forget her name. She was in broadcast news. She played the anchor that threatened Holly Hunter, so they sent her to Alaska. I forget her name. Tall Drink of Lemonade. Yeah, I love them James Bond movies, but I'd rather be home. Still best Bond girl? Dandy Newton. Most beautiful woman in the world. Dandy.

Yeah. No, if she's ever on your pod. I will let you know. She's in London. I shall let you know about her if there's ever that. You could get her on your pods. Anyway, everybody loves a pod, Scott. Don't you know that? Oh, my God. How many people have called you in the last two weeks saying, hey, what's going on? You know, I think we'd have a really interesting discussion on the pod. I'm like, yeah, boss, get in line. Anyway, I did a really good one in New York with the CEO of Tubi, which is this quiet place.

streaming service is killing it and Anjali sued and she's a young woman and is killing it at this thing quietly as others are anyway it's really cool she used to be CEO of Vimeo and she's like 12 there's a bunch of those guys Pluto what's the other one um

One of them closed. Freebie closed. Amazon closed Freebie. Anyway, 81 million people using it. Not subscribers because it's free, but 81 million. It's huge. It's bigger than almost all of them except for Disney, Netflix, and I think Amazon. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including Sam Altman trying to make nice with Elon. Bitcoin surging. Oh, now we have to be nice to Cathie Wood, but we're not going to anyway. Surging on the news of Trump's SEC pick.

So we have to dive right in. Andrew Ross Sorkin, our favorite Canadian, had quite an action-packed

event yesterday in New York with everybody was there. It was kind of crazy. He's sort of become the code conference. Interesting. I was just going to say he's filled a vacuum left by, you know, what is it? A very small man can cast a long shadow. Oh, don't tell him that. You have cast a very long shadow and you have left the stage. Oh my God, Bitcoin's at $103,000. Jesus Christ. I know. We'll get to it. We'll get to it. Raise your hand if you don't own a single fucking coin.

Anyways, I generally believe that you left a void in the market and Andrew, who does a great job on his own, but that, and I would argue the Milken Conference have kind of become, well, actually there's still Sun Valley, but I think the Milken Conference and Andrew Ross-Horkin's thing. So I spoke at one of those breakout panels that Andrew has, it was kind of like they

they pretend they've asked you to speak on the main stage and you show up and you're in a room with like eight other people. And then I was asked to speak, because I know you wanted to bring it back to me. I do, always. I was asked to speak at the Milken Conference. And I said, I sent them my speaker sheet with my fees and I'm like, boss, we don't pay anybody to speak.

And I wrote back and I said, okay, they want to put me on a panel on like, I don't know, media and tech. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I only do keynotes. And they wrote back, I guess it's not going to work. We don't have keynotes, just panels. So I am literally the Karen of the Milken Institute. You are. I did the same thing. Scott, I did the same thing. And I screwed up. I'd like to go. It's supposed to be amazing. Anyways, whoever curates the Milken thing. Maybe we could offer ourselves up as a thing. No, they don't want entertainment. They want like real like brainpower.

So don't fight you. That's not true. What are you talking about? We're like so brainy. We're brainy? Anyway, just so you know, Andrew Ross Ergen is not a Canadian. We'll get back to Andy. He's a Canadian spy. Do I have to remind everyone again? Several different things were interesting. Jeff Bezos says he's optimistic about a president like Donald Trump. Second term at the summit, he was doing more sucker-upery. Let's listen. I'm actually very optimistic this time around that he seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation.

And my point of view, if I can help him do that, I'm going to help him. Yeah, he's in full suck-up mode. He really wants those government contracts. And he also made the most ridiculous statement. Let me just read this to you because I thought it was just kind of silly. He finally acknowledged he was the one that did the...

changes of the Kamala Harris endorsement when the company had said it was a group effort, but he was like, no, it was me, essentially, which we all knew, which didn't need to be told by him. But one of the interesting things he said, it creates a perception of bias if you do them,

And then, of course, he was creating a perception of bias by being so effusive about Trump. He's really more than anybody else and not really acknowledged. He should not own that paper in so many ways. He said he's going to fix it and save it the second time. But people who were there thought he was quite arrogant, actually. I talked about a dozen people and trying to be adorable and not succeeding. He said he would try to talk Trump out of the idea that the press was the enemy and he thinks Trump is, as I said, calmer.

I don't know. I just think he wants space contracts. That's really pretty much what I took away from that one. Thoughts? There's a couple things. One, I agree with you. If you're going to take over a national treasure like the Washington Post, which plays an outsized role relative to its actual business,

in the policing and the truth to power, neither fear nor favor. It really does play an important role. And I do think that Bezos saw that and bought it for a song. $250 million, you said? Yeah. Bought it for a song and generally was thought of it as

I don't know, a goodwill gesture towards the community. At least that's how he positioned and framed it. He did. A lot of billionaires buy media companies or control them because they're thinking, if anyone comes after me, I can defend it with this heat shield called my own media network, or I can evangelize my own political views. Media is just so goddamn powerful. Eventually, almost every billionaire either has an interest in or decides to control a media company, recognizing that's the ultimate prophylactic and the ultimate offensive weapon.

So when he gets involved, when he makes editorial decisions, choosing to not endorse anyone was an endorsement of Trump. Right, of course. At the last minute, too. At the last minute. Yeah, it was an endorsement of Trump. And that is terrible for the culture. It was a really low, what I'll call management EQ move. You're creating dissent across a group of talented people where there's already strain because the business is strained.

So you're adding chaos where there doesn't need to be. So you're right. He's the wrong owner. He should put it in a trust such that he can say, guys, I have no influence. Mr. President, I have no influence over this thing. I know that article they wrote about you saying that you've been that you're a felon, that you've been found guilty by jury of your peers of rape.

that you actually coordinated and inspired an insurrection, you know, true or not, I can't help it. They're going to report the way they're going to report. When he weighs in, that means he's the wrong owner because he has a conflict. And that is the right thing for him to do as a fiduciary for Amazon shareholders is

is to unnaturally kiss Donald Trump's ass, because it works. Yeah, absolutely. He's very good at it, let me just say. I was comparing all the different statements by all the CEOs. Jeff has gone over and above all the others. I never mentioned The Washington Post, and he's the only one with a newspaper. I get it when Cook does it. I get it when Nadella does it. I get it when all of them do it. And I had an interview with Mark Benioff yesterday, and we had a great discussion about this.

But he was forthright about it. And Bezos is sort of playing games. That's my feeling. I mean, Mark was like, this is why I'm doing it. This is why, you know, why it's good. This is why it's bad. I get it that I own time. So I got to be very careful and make sure I stress that time will do what it will. You know, it was a whole different experience with Mark Betty offers. And I think Mark wants to sell time, no? He wants out. He says he does.

It was interesting. On the record, he said people have approached him. Oh, yeah. A lot of people want to own Time magazine. I know. Yeah, I get it. So I don't know. I couldn't tell. I think if he got a great offer, he'd sell it. But he was pretty much, I'm not selling it right now, essentially. Yeah, that's... He's not trying to sell it. He's incoming. That's someone selling, trying to get a decent number and get out of Dodge. He could have said it's not for sale. The guy doesn't need to sell it. So even being open to it means...

Anybody, I want to sell it. Look,

Billionaires mind media companies is like when you buy a boat. It's a ton of fun for a while and then you just- Yeah, until it's not. Until it's not, yeah. I think one of the better owners is Lorraine Powell Jobs. She apparently leaves her hands off over at the Atlantic and they've been doing some very tough reporting. And she never says anything public, even though she supported Kamala Harris, she never was public in any way. She's got an extra responsibility. One thing Bezos said, what presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias, a perception of non-independence.

This is exactly what happened by his Claudus decision at the wrong time and then his effusive praise. That's exactly, like every accusation, as I say, is a confession with these people. Anyway, we'll see, Jeff. Good luck. But I have to tell you, most people there thought you seemed like an arrogant twit.

Sam also had some interesting things to say at the summit, Sam Altman. He noted that there have been misalignments and challenges in the open AI Microsoft relationship. No shit, but insisted the two companies were not disentangling. He played down AI threats that artificial general intelligence will arrive soon and discussed open AI's transition to a for-profit model. He was asked, obviously, about Elon Musk's relationship with Trump because Elon's back to suing him again, as we discussed last week, and possible misuse of power. Let's listen.

I believe that pretty strongly, I may turn out to be wrong, but I believe pretty strongly that Elon will do the right thing and that Americans would be profoundly un-American to use political power to the degree that Elon has it to hurt your competitors and advantage your own businesses. And I don't think people would tolerate that. I don't think Elon would do it. It would go...

Again, lots of things not to like about him, but it would go so deeply against the values I believe he holds very dear to himself that I'm not that worried about it. He's wrong on both counts. I agree. Musk would do it. And unfortunately, America has shown an ability to tolerate it recently. I agree. So, yeah, don't hold your breath, boss. If you're waiting for the better angels of Musk to show up, don't hold your breath in terms of putting you out of business, supporting that ridiculous idea.

kneecap every AI legislation in California that Governor Newsom correctly vetoed. I mean, of course he would do everything within his power to kneecap open AI to hope that XAI catches up such that he can control every technology. And unfortunately, I no longer have the confidence I once did

that this couldn't happen. You know, it happened, actually, Vivek Ramaswamy. By the way, they're here in Washington. They go up and talk about Doge on the Hill today. They're here, so I'm staying at home. But they had talked about it quite openly. Vivek Ramaswamy said maybe they should look at the last-minute Rivian loan, which is a competitor to Tesla and a lot of the other things.

It was so stupid. Not the oblivion loan, because Tesla got a $450 million loan that saved him. It outs them as so partisan. It undermines their credibility. Why would they, even if he thinks that, why would he say that? Because he's a jazz hands, never met a camera. He didn't want to...

fuck, essentially. And so I think Sam is very naive here because Elon sued him, then unsued him. They had a discussion. They hugged in Montana, as I said, and then he sued him right back. Elon uses litigation, political power, and any means he can for advantage. Sam, I think, is being shockingly naive here. But, you know. Well, he's hoping that people... So Sam is a very bright guy. And Sam's

complexion or posture I think is very smart and quite frankly, much more mature than many of the tech executives that are 10, 20 years a senior. And that is, he never makes personal attacks. Well, he does little under, he does sometimes. They're very clever. You can pick them up. But they're passive, passive aggressive. Yeah. Again, there's a lot of things not to like about him. He gets that in. But OpenAI was basically started and Musk wanted out or they couldn't come to an agreement. He wanted more.

and they wouldn't let him have more. Right. Musk wanted to control it. So he, and Altman said no. And Musk said, I'm taking my ball and going home. Signed airtight legal documents saying he was out and he no longer had ownership or control over the company. And now that it's the leader in open in AI, he's decided that, oh,

I'm angry and I'm going to burn the village to say that. And I have my own company I want to advantage, which is... Yeah, that I want to kneecap the leader here. And if the shoe were on the other foot, I mean, Musk would be on Twitter every day accusing Altman of pedophilia and...

And saying that this company is anti-American, it's been weaponized by Putin. I mean, it would be. Yep. He would be turning the algorithms of anything he could on this guy. I'm excited to find out from Sam why he thinks that. I'm going to try to see him soon because I think he's wrong. I think he's hoping this is the way it's going to go. I don't think he thinks that. I think he's trying to come off as the good guy. Yeah.

Maybe so. And hope that politicians and people see OpenAI as the innovator and the leader and put some shark repellent around them, say, no, this is bullshit. We'll see. I think he kind of had to say that. And he doesn't want to seem like a victim of Elon. I think that's smart in that regard. Let's turn to something really, I was very shook up by, I happened to be in New York yesterday. I was leaving, was right actually nearby when this happened, a

nothing to do with me, but the shocking murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday has prompted. The killing in and of itself was targeted. They don't know by whom, but it's prompted a wave of social media reactions, including incredibly tasteless jokes. Users took jabs at UnitedHealthcare, health insurance in general. Thompson's company is the largest private health insurer in the U.S. and many in the industry. It's been targeted with lawsuits and criticism over allegedly denying claims to maximize profits.

Thompson's wife said her husband and getting threats that seemed to be tied to lack of coverage. But the behavior of people online was just appalling. Clara Jeffrey from...

Mother Jones, who I think is quite a good journalist. We can all hate insurance companies without cheering the murder of someone or worse, trying to monetize content about that murder. Really gross day on the internet today. And I agreed. I said, you're ghouls to do this. And I have to tell you, I got a spate of... And a reporter who's covering this said, Mike Hixenbaugh said, you're about to be sworn by bad faith replies from people who want to believe that not celebrating murder makes you a bootlicking apologist for our broken healthcare system.

And I have to tell you, he was 100% right. I got all these terrible... I had to turn off the comments on Blue Sky, which I never have had to do. But they were all really unpleasant. Like, it's okay to murder this guy because he murders people. And I've gunned them down in cold blood in the street of New York. It was shocking. I don't know how you felt. And again, I get it. People are mad at the healthcare industry. But to celebrate this guy's death is heinous. And the people who did it are...

really ghouls as far as I'm concerned. I think it's all reverse engineers to the same place as most of our problems, and that is massive income inequality. And the people, let me be clear right up front, this is murder. And I hope they find this person, pursue him to the four corners of the earth and bring him to justice. And my heart really does go out to the family. The people who empathize with this or can not empathize with it, can understand why it happened and

Are the 41% of U.S. adults that currently have some form of debt caused by their own or a family member's medical or dental bills? Absolutely. Healthcare expenditures in the U.S. are $12,500 per person, about $4,000 more than any other high-income nation with worse outcomes. The number one cause of bankruptcy is medical debt.

So what you have is a massive regulatory capture. You have a healthcare system. You and I get the best healthcare in the world because we're wealthy. But that top 10%, the bottom 90 has been optimized for regulatory capture and shareholder value across the medical industrial complex. And the people who've done the worst are the bottom 90 and also, quite frankly, frontline medical workers.

But when you find out your wife has lung cancer, that's the bad news. The worst news is it probably means there's a decent chance your family might go bankrupt. And so there is so much despair. And one of the charts circulated. And again, this in no way justifies murder.

But one of the charts being circulated shows that the greatest number of claim denials is from, you guessed it, UnitedHealthcare. And if you look at the bullets, when I first heard, we do an editorial call to talk about what issues we're going to talk about at Prof G. And I said, let's not talk about this because we don't know. As far as we know, this is just

an insane person. We just don't know what happened here. Let's not connect it to a broader theme. The thing that made me change my mind and feel like you can connect it to societal issues is the following. The casings on the bullets had inscribed in them, Deny, Deflect, and Delay. That's the name of a book, the title of a book that's about how insurance companies deny claims.

This was clearly, that's not to say this person isn't mentally ill, but this was clearly rooted or inspired by some weird notion of restoration of societal values.

injustice. You know, I completely get it. There's two different things going here, anger over health care. And you can either be, not positive, you can either take positive steps like Mark Cuban is doing with Cost Plus or trying to bring down health care costs or attacking these companies in legislatively and with lawsuits and everything else. And I understand this is not the solution. I mean, this is not the solution. Yeah.

And by the way, these aren't the people who are denied healthcare. Those people are not on the Twitter and they don't get to go on here and do this. And I just think it brings down, there's no solutions in doing this. And I don't think it makes change. If it made change, I'd be like, ah,

Like the people in Korea, they went, they scaled the fence and things happened, right? I get all that stuff. This is just, it's a really ugly part of humanity. And you're right, we have to solve, we absolutely have to solve this healthcare problem that is continuing because this is where it goes. This is exactly where it goes to a murder on the street of New York. And in any case, it's a sick symptom of our society because we don't keep people healthy and we treat them only with shareholder value. You're 100% right. Yeah.

All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Trump's SEC and antitrust picks and take a listener mail question about our own dream cabinet choices. Oh, interesting.

Support for the show comes from Intuit. If you're marketing to small businesses, then you know that reaching the right companies online can be challenging. Intuit SMB Media Labs is a first-of-its-kind B2B SMB ad network built with first-party small business audiences. Now you can connect with the businesses that need your services most.

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It's easy to think that the success of tech giants like YouTube, Dropbox, and Reddit was inevitable. I was there and it wasn't, trust me. One thing these companies have in common is that they all survived the make or break moments that nearly took them down and each of them had these. On this season of Crucible Moments, you can hear the unvarnished histories of some of tech's influential companies told by the founders themselves. Like how Dropbox's disastrous public launch paved the way for the company's viral success.

Hosted by Rolof Bota of Sequoia, Crucible Moments provides a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most defining milestones in tech's history to show the moments of turmoil that can sometimes become great moments of triumph. I have to say, Rolof's a really good VC, and I've covered him over the many years. And I have seen a lot of these companies, and it's really great, actually, to hear from founders of what their problem was. YouTube was very touch-and-go. Reddit, oh my God, I can't even tell you how many...

crisis as they had. Same thing with every company I've ever covered. Tune in to the new season of Crucible Moments now. You can listen at cruciblemoments.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Scott, we're back with more headlines in international news. The French government collapsed on Wednesday after Parliament voted out to oust Prime Minister Michel Barnier and his cabinet. The vote was called after Barnier pushed an unpopular budget proposal without parliamentary approval. Marine Le Pen of France's far right led the opposition against the budget. President Macron will have to appoint a new prime minister.

And also, at the same time, South Korea's president is facing impeach and vote after declaring martial law that turned rather quickly and after revoking the motion due to political pressure and a lot of people coming down there and climbing the fences.

It was really interesting how quickly South Korea turned that around, the people of South Korea. But it's really, there's so much chaos happening across the world. Any thoughts? I think it's linked to the vile messages you're getting. And I know this sounds paranoid, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong. But if I were the head of the GRU or the CCP or the security services in the Islamic regime, I would think, okay, we can't defeat them economically. We can't defeat them militarily.

let's leverage their CapEx, their hunger for shareholder value over everything, their inability to regulate these platforms,

And let's use AI to create millions of bots that get people fighting with one another. And when we see a powerful yet controversial figure who's a journalist, who weighs in with an issue, let's just automatically try and start fights and get people hating each other and get people depressed and upset. That's what I would do if I were the head of the GRE. Now to France. Now to France. Well, okay. So what you have across the world is every incumbent party is being kicked out.

Because everybody hates every no one is satisfied. Everybody is. And it goes back to the same thing. Get every democracy arguing and believing that their country is doing really poorly. If you just read the media, if you just went on social media, you would think that America is just a fucking mess right now. No, it's it's not. I mean, we have issues, no doubt about it.

But show me almost any special interest group, maybe the exception of pregnant women and trans people. I would argue gay people, non-whites, the poor, almost everybody is doing markedly better than they were 10, 20, 40, 50 years ago.

But you would believe that there needs to—every spark here turns into a five-car alarm because they are smarter than us. And our superpowers are optimism, but the externality of the Achilles heel of that is that we're easier to fool than convince we've been fooled. Cara, I think in 20 years we're going to look back—

and see the information war of Goebbels, of Nazi Germany, of whether GRU did. And I think they're going to look at America and how these platforms were weaponized to get us hating each other such that we no longer talk to our neighbors. We no longer went on dates. We hated every incumbent person in power thinking that they were the problem. And almost every Western nation has seen turnover in their leadership.

Does that mean they're all bad or is something else going on? And it's the same thing here. I was heartened by South Korea, how quickly they turned that around. Yeah, but he's out. He's out. He's out. That's right. He's out. But he really made a rather...

But I just hope Trump isn't taking notes. I don't think he is. I think he's taking notes like what happened in South Korea could happen to him, right? He doesn't have... Good point. By the way, there was another Democrat that won a seat in California. Oh, 200 votes. It was just 200 votes. It was crazy. Democrat. Democrat won in California. And it flipped a seat. So now Congress is so close, it's crazy. And because Trump has appointed several congresspeople, they don't have... They have, like...

almost one or two scooch rooms. So if, you know, any single congressman can overturn anything in the Republican side. So it's really, we have to get along. We literally, no one's going to get anything done if we don't get along in some fashion or find compromise. So I would agree with you. It's really... National service, final five voting, ranked choice voting. All of us have a personal...

obligation to take the heat down. I mean, there's just a lot. And also, wake up. Our platforms, our media, Americans, two-thirds of Americans get their news from social media. It has been weaponized. This is no different than if the Kremlin had controlled CBS, ABC, and NBC in the 60s. And yet we've decided to let it happen. Yep, I agree.

I agree. So in any case, no one's coming between us, Scott, just so you know. I'm going to make sure. I'm going to make sure. No, we have true dysfunction. It's not the GRU or the CCP coming between us. Yeah, it's true. But no one's going to do it. Just us. We're going to make ourselves hate each other. By the way, I am absolutely exhausted from my French self-defense class. I have never run so far in my life.

A little World War II surrender humor there. I know. Don't insult. I'm not going to let you back in. Pete Hegseth is campaigning to keep his spot as Pickford Defense Secretary, what Trump reported he considers replacing with Ron DeSantis, who seems very qualified in comparison. Isn't that funny? I know. And let me just add some more. Over at the SEC, Trump has nominated Paul Atkins as chairman. I think people feel pretty good about that. Atkins was an SEC commissioner under President George Bush and his favorite

of a crypto community. The price of Bitcoin hit $100,000 for the first time Wednesday. And lastly, the Justice Department. Trump had nominated Gail Slater as the head of the antitrust division. Slater was policy advisor for a vice president like J.D. Vance and served as a tech policy advisor at the National Economic Council during Trump's first term. I'm not hearing bad things about her. I think she's quite anti-tech, actually, although she's worked for some tech companies, I think. They all have. So, look,

these other ones seem fine and there's several fines and then you have they throw out Peter Navarro and you know crazy fine fine fine crazy fine fine Pete Hegseth wow what a media story he's out this has just gotten too far when his mom goes on Fox to say she didn't mean it and he was he had a non-profit that he was bilking for his own personal expenses when he showed up he was drunk hitting on people I mean

He's toast. There are already five Republican senators that have said they're concerned, which means basically don't make me vote no, resign. I bet he's out in the next— I think Lindsey Graham has flip-flopped again. He was negative and now he's— Yeah, because Trump called him and said, I'll tell you when to be negative. He's out in the next 24, 40 hours. The good news is, with respect to the SEC pick, I do think something rational comes over, washes over Trump when it comes to these picks.

And then you can't say that about Peter Navarro. Peter Navarro struck me as a total fucking nut. But anyways, the SEC, I think it's an important position. This guy seems very credible to me. Also, you know, Governor DeSantis,

I'm a resident of Florida. I don't like his policies. Oh, he can run things. He's a competent individual. And also, the people I know who work with Governor DeSantis have always said he's very data-driven. He was a lawyer for the Navy. He's qualified. No, he handled the hurricane. I'm not a favorite. The pudding fingers is not my favorite, but...

He ran and handled the hurricane fine. I mean, the comparison to this guy, it's like the lowest of bars, this guy. He's qualified. He's qualified. He's certainly qualified. What do you think of Senator Ernst? I don't know much about her. I think she's great. I think she's really interesting. I don't agree with her on tons of stuff. But I think she's trying very hard because she doesn't want to get

primary necessarily and at the same time i don't think anyone blames her for being like pete hegg says get the out of my office and don't grab my boobs right you know that kind of thing she served and of course she had issues of sexual harassment in the military served in combat

really, you know, deserves to be heard on this one. And whatever she wants is what should happen. I know her name was bandied about for that job, but I think it's DeSantis is the one. Because he turns out, and then he's got, there's not really a lot, he could run for office to try to take over for Trump from the Defense Department. I don't know. My favorite, I have to say, it has unleashed an incredible series of, also, Pete has said, letting your mommy, after

after insulting and sexually arousing women, letting your mommy fix your problem is really something else. This is my favorite one. I'll stop drinking if you let me run the Pentagon is maybe the most alcoholic thing anyone has ever said. That's what he told people. He'd stop drinking. I mean, get some help. Anyone in recovery, anyone who knows anything about addiction says, okay, first you got to fix the underlying problem. And saying you're going to quit if, I mean, you haven't even acknowledged you have a problem.

You know, if he'd said, I've struggled and I've quit, and with the help of God and my wife, you know, I'm going to, but saying, give me this and I'll stop drinking. I mean, you know, it was the wrong day for me to give up meth. I mean, what?

I can't believe some of the senators were like, uh-huh, uh-huh. Oh, sure. Well then. Well then. Here's my winner. That's not my winner. Has anyone checked to see whether Hegseth is actually Kavanaugh's drinking buddy, Squee?

I love how they mix the cab, because he said on Megyn Kelly, Pete, whatever, bad Pete, said he was cabin-od. By the way, Megyn Kelly did a terrible job with that interview. Oh, really? You're not an alcoholic. You seem like one. I don't have a drinking problem. Why did you fall? At Fox News, he apparently had to be carried out of a work event. Carried out. How drunk do you have to be? Have you been carried out of anything?

No, I think one of the problems that I drink, one of the downsides, is it a downside of me drinking a lot is I'm a better version of me, a little fucked up. I'm friendly. I'm nice. I'm smart. I'm just good. I just get I'm just a better version of me. People.

I remember in college and the fraternity, occasionally, not often, but occasionally guys would get drunk and they get violent or mean. And you immediately, you know, immediately you're like memo to self, stay away from this person. I think how people behave when inebriated and how they treat their pets or looking glasses into their souls is

And you can really tell a lot by a person by the way they act after a few drinks. Because they often are a better version of themselves. One of the expressions that was used, I think, is does the drunk agree with the sober? Is it varied if you change it?

It's always some women behave like this, but it's always the man, the bad guy that suddenly comes out. Interestingly, some women get very mean on alcohol. Yeah, they do. I know they just try gin. There's a word for it. I get it. Tequila makes her clothes fall off. I get that. That's a great song, by the way. One of the things that Louie told me we were talking about a song in New York this week, and he didn't know a lot about it, but he was sort of aware of it. And I said, well, this guy, you know,

probably blames drinking on his sexual harassment that happens in the wake of that. And he said, I've been blackout drunk and I've never done that. Like he was like so sensible. He's like, you don't have to behave like that just because you're drinking or blame drinking for your bad behavior. It is you at your heart.

I think that's correct. Anyway, Pete, good knowing you. I would be shocked if he held on. Both of us would be shocked. Friday is when you take the trash out and that's when he's going. That's tomorrow. When you say he takes the trash out, are you saying because... That's an expression in Washington. But what I... Oh, I thought there was a double meaning there and that is they release bad news on Fridays because it doesn't get as much coverage. That too.

Yeah, that's what they're going to do. And they'll probably combine it with something else. They'll probably combine it with something else. Anyway, very quickly, Elon Musk might be getting his Tesla page package reinstated after the Delaware judge, she reaffirmed her previous ruling in her 103-page opinion. I love this judge in Delaware. Judge Kathleen McCormick says Tesla's lawyers had no grounds to reverse her January ruling.

Based on evidence they created after trial, the pay package initially worth more than $50 billion is now worth $100 billion. Thanks to Tesla's share price soaring in recent weeks, Tesla said it will peel the decision and some experts suggest they might try to reconstitute the package and get approval in Texas, of course.

Elon's favorite, judge shopping. After the ruling, Elon, of course, attacked. Note to Sam Altman, attacked Judge McCormick, calling her a radical far-left activist, cosplaying as a judge. Oh, she is not. She is not. But I'm just saying this. Get ready, Sam, for Elon's attacks on you.

which he's already been doing. So any thoughts? Yeah. I think she got it wrong and I think she's eventually going to get its money. Oh, he is going to get his money. I think so too. The word the judge kept using was fair. If you want to talk about CO compensation, come over and we'll smoke cigarettes and eat ice cream and talk about fair. I think the board got it wrong, but the way corporate governance works in a corporation is that the shareholders nominate and elect directors and the directors get to decide CO compensation.

And this is outrageous. I think that no person should be worth a third of a trillion dollars. I think power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts. But if you have a capitalist society, the way it works is the board gets to decide compensation. They decided it and the shareholders effectively approved it. And so when judges start saying what type of compensation is fair or not fair, I believe it's government overreach. So as ridiculous as this is, I think the board got it wrong.

The way I think you handle this is through a more progressive tax policy. I think anyone making over a billion dollars should pay an alternative minimum tax of 80%. But the moment judges start talking about what is fair or not fair in compensation, I just think it's government overreach. I think she got this wrong. Yeah. Well, she's reacting to a shareholder lawsuit too at the same time, right? Of a minority of shareholders. The majority of shareholders have approved this pay package. Yeah, it's true. He'll probably get it. He'll get it. If you own a building and

And you pay the maintenance people or the person running the building an outrageous amount of money. That's what you get to do if you own the building. And the majority of the owners of this company have decided he's going to get a hundred. I get it. I get it.

So, and the analogy I would use is that if they can't, if Tim Cook- I think it was always 40 billion. I think it was always 40 billion, but go ahead. Go ahead. Anyways, if Tim Cook went to his biggest shareholders and said, we're worth 3 trillion, I think I can make this company worth 20 trillion. But in order to do that, and I'm the singular person that can do this, I want a trillion dollars. I think at that moment, a majority of shareholders might go, a trillion dollars is ridiculous, but sure, if you can make this thing worth 20, we'll give you a trillion. Yeah.

And that's kind of what he did here. So, again, I think fairness and the support of the greatest innovation in history, the American middle class, is through a progressive tax structure. But a key component of capitalism is the owners of an asset get to decide what to do with it, including the compensation. Yeah, that's what I said. Someone was complaining about Patrick Soon-Shong over at the LA Times. Like, he owns it. I don't know what to tell you. He can put Scott Jennings, that smart meat, you know.

commentator on his thing if he wants. He can do it if he wants. Same thing with Jeff Bezos, honestly. It's still untoward. And this board, let's just reiterate, this board is such a fall over for Elon board. They're particularly in the tank because they also make a lot of money from him.

They've made tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars for just nodding their head and saying he's great. Not a good board. Not a great board in the way I think of boards, which should be a little less slavish. Anyway, he's made a lot of money. So there you have it. OK, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question.

The question comes from David. Let's listen. I've listened to the last few podcasts in which both of you discussed the various nominees Trump has put forward for cabinet and other important administration positions. My question for each of you has two parts.

Which positions do each of you consider the most important positions and why? And second, if you were president, who would you nominate for the most important positions in your administration and why? Thanks. My name is David. Oh, that's interesting. That's a great question. I'll start. I think the Secretary of Defense is critically important. The Attorney General is critically important.

And obviously, the Treasury Secretary. So if I was President Trump, or if I'm me, if I'm me, I probably would have picked Jamie Dimon for the Treasury job. For the head of the Defense Department, that would be interesting. I'd have to think.

Maybe, God, I wouldn't say Pete Buttigieg, but someone who's served and who understands how to run big systems. There's lots of people like that. Certainly not

Pete Hegsath by any means. I could run it better than him. And then the third attorney general, someone not quite as partisan and who didn't deny the election like Pam Bondi. I do think she actually has qualifications. There's no question she ran a big important state's HSAT. She knows her way around a courtroom, as they say. But I think those are the most important. But one of the ones, as we were just talking about this UnitedHealthcare thing, is the Health and Human Services director. I would make that Mark Cuban.

You know, or someone like that. You need to facilitate change in how healthcare goes in this country very drastically and how we eat and the chemicals that are in our system. I completely agree with that. But this frigging nut job, RFK Jr., who now looks good next to these other people, is a disaster, especially around vaccines and everything else. So someone who respects science, I would say Mark Cuban for that job. Your turn, Scott. Yeah.

I would go, I like the whole cable news as a cabinet strategy. I'd have Dana Bash, except I'd go another cable network. I think the people at CNN are so impressive. I think it should be President Dana Bash. Her vice president is Anderson Cooper. And we laugh, but these people would be a hell of a lot more competent than some of the people he's proposing now. Peter Hegseth and Peter Navarro, give me a fucking break. Or Kash Patel. Michael Smirconish, I'd like to be Secretary of Commerce. I'd like to see...

I would—there's so many outstanding—I'd love to see Michael Bennett as Secretary of Education. I think Vivek Murthy as Head of Health and Human Services. I think he is the most consequential surgeon general in history, bringing up loneliness and the stress on parents.

There's a ton of fantastic—oh, I would put together the hottest and most competent cabinet in history. And I'd give AOC a job just because she's ridiculously fucking hot. Mm-hmm. Good. Also competent. And it's important to have good-looking people. Okay. But Ro Khanna would have a spot in there. I think Amy Klobuchar, I'd put at the head of the FTC or the DOJ. Is she a lawyer? DOJ, yes, yes, yes. Yes, she wrote that big, giant antitrust book, remember? Yeah.

She's a good lawyer. She's a lawyer. Oh, she'd be a good AG. Oh, yeah. You're right. She's a fucking gangster. She's not afraid of anybody.

Yeah, I would have a ton of, I could, oh my God, give me the chessboard, I will put the pieces in the right place. What would we be? What would be our job if you had to pick one? We do exactly what we're doing right now because our lives are really nice. I understand, but if you had to take a cab, they said, here, Scott, you have to take one cab job, you don't have a choice. Oh, easy. I'd want to be secretary of education. Oh, wow. Interesting. Easy. What would you guess I would want to be? Head of the CIA. That's right. That's right, my friend.

That's correct. I'd spy on you. You do spy on me. You fucking text me at three in the morning. You know what I'm doing at all moments. I do know what you're doing at all moments. I've got to keep track of you because you're up to things. Last night, I was texting a variety of people. I'm not going to say who, but well-known people. And I was thinking, yes.

Scott up to... I feel like Scott's up to something right now. I don't know why, but I thought, is he up to something? I was eating alone in the Cotswolds after taking an edible and listening to Tom Petty and then taking my dogs for a long walk at night. All right. Okay. Well, I didn't know that, but for a second, I was like...

What is he up to? What little machinations is he up to? By the way, your other girlfriend, your side piece, Jessica Tarlow, texted me. The hotter, younger woman? The hotter, younger version of me. She was going to come to this dinner in New York when she couldn't. But she's going to take my mom to see The Five, and I have to go. Oh, that'll be great. That'll be great. Will you come with me? No way. 100% no.

No. Speaking of Fox, I'd give Neil Cavuto a position. I like him. Yeah. Okay. I'd give Cavuto a position.

God, this would be fun. Well, you left out Stephanie Ruhle. I can't believe it. She's going to kill us. What would you give her? Oh, she'd be ambassador to our most important, like I'd make her ambassador to, I just like, I'd want her to be an ambassador to France because she'd throw, she would throw amazing parties at the residence in Paris. Oh, we could go. Yeah. No, she should be ambassador. She could be like Keri Russell on The Diplomat. And she's got great style. I mean, ambassador to France. That's an easy one. All right, ambassador to France. Okay. Okay.

All right. There we got it. Thank you, David. We've made it. I need you to be president so we can do this. Oh, my God. It would be so good. I'll be the puppet master. I'll tell you exactly what to say, what to do, and you can just be. So you're like Steve Bannon? Yeah. I get that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. This would be fun. We'd be good at this. Seriously. I can't believe I'm more qualified to be the Secretary of Defense than Pete Hegseth, but it's true.

And so are you. All right. For the rest of you listeners, it's time for this week's Threads poll. Do you agree with Bezos and Altman? Will Trump and Elon not be as bad as we think? Okay. Visit us on Threads at Pivot Podcast Official to vote. I got to admit it. I'm coming out of the closet as someone who's kind of excited about Doge. I don't like those guys, but I'm curious to see what they come up with. Do you know what? It would be great except... Except them? Except them.

No, they never met a camera. They didn't want to fuck. And it's like they drop stupid things like the Rivian things. This is a serious topic of reforming government, but they're doing it in the typical way of, look at the $600 toilet. Like, that's not... It's fine to do those things, but...

creating outrage is let's make it more efficient. Again, I had a great discussion with Mark Benioff about this, the efficiency, using AI, talking about it, honestly, getting along. If we did that, I would embrace it because government waste and fraud and everything else, of course, but government is not...

You know who wrote a great piece was Adam Lashinsky in The Washington Post. I would turn your attention to that piece because he really did lay it out. He's like, sometimes, you know, to help the whole republic is not to be efficient or some things don't work. And to just needlessly attack, Elon's needlessly attacking individual government employees because he thinks it's funny. That's unforgivable, naming people. That's a dumb thing.

It's all about hate. It's all about government sucks. I think if you're serious, you two, stop being such jazz hands. Look at me. Bullshit. And I get there's part of that is important, but it's all through the negative lens instead of, again, I point to someone like Mark Cuban, the positive lens. What can we do to make this better and not demonize everybody? And it's

A lot of government employees are great employees, and they do not deserve this kind of bullshit, even if we should have a more efficient government. I would agree. I would be on their team, except they're such assholes. I don't want to be on their team. I'm going to hold my judgment for the recommendations. You know, there's just some interesting—it's catalyzing an interesting dialogue. We have five Air Forces in the military. Do we need five Air Forces? I mean, there's just some interesting conversations here. I wish they would go after the military. When they started to do that, everyone was like, yeah, oh, and I was pleased with that, and so was Bernie Sanders.

Anyway, and I love the military. I think it's important, but everything could be made more efficient. It's just how you do it and how you treat people when you're doing it. It's like laying people off. Elon laid people off with cruelty, needless cruelty, and he didn't have to. You can lay people off. So anyway, maybe you could get nicer boys, but doubtful considering who you are. If you've got a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

A big thanks to everyone who had Pivot on their Spotify rap this year. Be sure to tag us on social media when you share your list. Scott, what was your, did you look at your rap? What was it? My rap? I think this is a cool thing. And they did an AI movie on Spotify. You know, all the music you listen to. Oh, yeah. I keep getting forwarded people who say that we're on one of their top pods. Yeah. Yeah. So what, did you look at yours or not? I haven't yet, no. Can you guess who my...

top artist was? Taylor Swift? Yes, and she was everybody's top artist. Ooh, my rap. I just pulled it up. Do you want to hear mine? Okay, hold on. Okay, what is it? Yeah, go ahead. Tell us. All right. Top artist. Number one, Electric Light Orchestra. Number two, Calvin Harris. Number three, Fleetwood Mac. What?

Number four, Find Young Cannibals. Number five, Supertramp. Your top songs. Oh, you're living in the 80s and 90s, Scott. Wouldn't you? Have you seen pictures of me in the 80s? Seriously, that shit worked. You've been putting out social media things, very lovely songs, by the way. I like them a lot. That's how I relax, is I pretend I'm just out. I'm in my junior year at UCLA. Right. And anyways, my top songs were the Safety Dance, Men Without Hats. That's a great one. Enola Gay, okay.

Enola Gay, but I think that's Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark. You Get What You Want by the New Radicals. She drives me crazy, again, the Fine Young Cannibals.

and Give a Little Bit by Supertramp. I'm shocked that Don't Bring Me Down or even The Losers by Tom Petty. I can't believe Electric Light Orchestra, Mr. Blue Sky. Former London Symphony musicians who kept seeing each other in studios and doing serial commercials and said, let's start a rock band. 1979, highest charting hit in the United States was Don't Bring Me Down.

Another example of how the UK dominates IP, name a great American band, and I can name you five UK bands, and yet all the money is made in the US. Anyways, the original AI, they invent it and we monetize it. So question, not Taylor Swift is your favorite. She was everybody else's. No, Taylor, yeah, no. I'm stuck in the 80s. Okay. You are. That's lovely. Electric Light Orchestra, I haven't thought of them in 100 years. Anyway, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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Join Ferragamo in celebrating the spirit of the holidays with a collection that promises to evoke joy in every recipient. From small leather goods to the iconic Ferragamo loafers and belts, visit Ferragamo.com to discover the best holiday gifts for the entire family. Okay, Scott, don't bring me down. Let's hear a prediction. I've been taking these ridiculously long walks with my dogs. I have weird predictions. The first is sort of a serious one. I think that

We're so focused on some of the stuff domestically that the biggest news are usually things we're not thinking about. I think you're going to see an uprising in the beginning of potentially what is a revolution in Iran. Iran's proxies, of which they've invested tens of billions of dollars over the last couple of decades, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and now Syria, which is in the midst of its own uprising, has essentially had their hands cut off. And I think a lot of the

people within Iran. You know, you shouldn't say Iran when you're talking about the leadership there, you should talk about the Islamic regime or the Islamic Republic because the Iranian people, in my view, this is a leadership that is corrupt, incredibly, I think the Ayatollah is sitting on a house of cards right now, or Khomeini, I should say.

And I think that the Bashar al-Assad's weakness, the second largest city, Aleppo, has been taken by rebels or HTS. I don't know how to pronounce his name. But I think effectively Iran is more vulnerable right now than they have been in a couple decades. And I imagine adversarial parties within the country sense that and will strike soon. So 2025, I think the biggest or one of the biggest news stories will be an uprising in Iran soon.

It would be great if an incumbent lost power in that regard. Speaking of incumbents. Oh, yeah. You know, we were talking about incumbents losing power across the globe. Well, I mean, Hamas has the support of the Palestinian people. The Islamic regime does not in Iran. And I think that all of their proxies being weakened and also all of their buffer states, you know, Iranian air defenses are really vulnerable right now. Israel, it's really weird. The Middle East is being dictated by three non-Arab nations. It's really...

It's really Iran, Israel, and you could argue Turkey right now, which is kind of filling that vacuum. I mean, and Assad was going to turn to Russia. Russia has its own issues in Ukraine. I think all of the cards, all of the tea leaves are turning up really bad for Iran right now. And I think domestic trade

domestic rebel forces or people who want to overthrow this regime, which I think the West would like to see, probably feel more jonesed up and confident right now than they've been in a while. That's a serious prediction. I have a less serious prediction. All right. Okay. Because Scott Sicario, we have Scott Sicario going on here. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm dumb. It doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Oh, Fareed Zakaria, Secretary of State. Boom. I'm so good at this. Okay. All right. Move along. Oh, Fareed. Fareed, that guy's a genius. Yeah, sort of. I don't care. That guy's a genius. Surround him with a few buffers, fine. But that guy, that guy's a clear blue flame thinker. Kind of. Nice man, too. Anyway. Not every time. Go ahead. Who is every time? Yeah.

Anyway, so my second one is a little bit more, I don't know, trivial, but equally profound. And that is, I think that you're going to see a strike, another strike, but I think it's going to be by the world's top football players. And that is because of the outrageous explosion in value of these teams, a lot of the owners are trying to monetize it and meet the demand of the sport, which is growing exponentially by creating more fixtures and more international competitions.

And there's this weird dynamic in football where a 22-year-old can basically play every fucking day. But by the time you're 26 or 28, which is what the best players in the world, when they peak, they're getting fed up and they're getting injured and they aren't playing around the calendar. And I think that that's hit a bit of a breaking point because the best players in the world are the ones with the most demands on them physically. And I think with the announcement like FIFA, which has always been a tad corrupt, if tad means a lot,

has just announced another tournament, another fixture. I think it's at a breaking point. You're going to see the best players in the world decide we've had enough and go on strike. Anyways. Although getting paid, you saw Larry Ellison's wife. No one knew she had gotten married. She was a University of Michigan person. They grabbed that player from Louisiana. Everyone in Louisiana was crying, and Larry paid $12 million to get this call. I like them getting paid. I don't know. I like college students getting paid. It is ridiculous. Yes.

This notion that somehow the NCAA, which pays themselves a shit ton of money and then wraps themselves in some sort of bullshit purity of college athletics, figures out a way to pay the 55-year-old white guy on the court $3 million a year, but all the black kids on the court, no, no, it's the purity of the sport. It is ridiculous.

I mean, enough already. Yeah, absolutely. Let these kids get paid. 12 million bucks. I love that. Good for him. And Larry Ellison, just like here's the Alex called me like beyond belief, excited. And of course, someone from Louisiana was like, how dare they do that? I'm like, what are you talking about? He deserved the money.

Free market. Free market. Anyway, good predictions. Elsewhere in the Scott and Cara universe, this week on Profiteer Markets, Scott spoke with Michael Saylor, great idea, the founder and executive chairman and perfectly timed of MicroStrategy to discuss MicroStrategy's decision to become a Bitcoin treasury and why it emerged as the best performing stock in the S&P 500 this year. Let's listen. Volatility is fire. If you're a normie, you run away from fire.

If you're Henry Ford, you put the fire into an engine, you put it in a horseless carriage and you create an automobile and now people can go. And then you put it into a plane and a train, you see? So engineers are putting volatile, you know, you're a nuclear reactor in the spaceship. It's scary in the submarine. But Bitcoin is like the financial fuel. These things are crypto reactors, right?

It's a technically better way to do this. And it's the volatility that's actually the motor that's driving the portfolio or the treasury forward. That was really good. I liked it. I really enjoyed listening to it. I was going to talk to him. The number one, the best performing stock in the S&P. Number two is NVIDIA. Number one, MicroStrategy. Yeah.

I mean, this guy took a business intelligence firm that was worth, I don't know, a couple billion dollars, and he levered up the company to buy Bitcoin. And then now he's just issued zero coupon bonds, which means he doesn't have to pay interest to buy even more. And his stock is up sevenfold this year.

And you listen to this guy speak. I'm skeptical of the whole space. I think partly one, because I've missed out on the bull run. And two, I don't like the idea of the de-dollarization and replacing the dollar. I think it's like the kind of invisible aircraft carrier for us. Dangerous. And also, I do think there's some real downsides that Bitcoin maximalists, including Michael, don't acknowledge in terms of the danger of it funding. I think it's good occasionally where we see the flows of power and money. But anyways,

But I've known Michael for 20 years. The thing I like about him in this, he is the voice the space needs because he's not only a very effective cheerleader, evangelist, whatever you want to call it, advocate. I have known him for a couple of decades. He's a nice man. And he never he doesn't start calling you a pedophile if you're not a Bitcoin maximalist like the rest of the Bitcoin Taliban or the crypto Taliban. He's not in jail. He's he's actually quite I've known him enough.

long enough to say this about him. He's a generous, nice man. That's the voice they need right now because the other folks hyping this thing or evangelizing it are not nice people. They generally don't acquit themselves well. You either sign up for their religion or you're an apostate. So anyways, but the conversation, it's already, I think, our most downloaded pod so far this year.

But this guy, you want to talk about balls of steel. He's kind of the Elon Musk we want. He took this enormous risk that paid off enormously, but he didn't start accusing people of sex crimes along the way.

Well, that's the lowest bar, but yes, indeed. I was thrilled that you interviewed him. It was great. I recommend everyone listen to it. It was terrific. I listened to it yesterday. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Please read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andertodt engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Severio, and Dan Shulon.

Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you're subscribed to the show or every listening podcast. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nomadmag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.