Kara Swisher: The Tech Bros Should Just Shut Up

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Every year, our platforms analyze over 100 billion documents with over 90% accuracy. Stopping fraud before it ever hits the balance sheet. Human eyes see a signature. Parascript's proprietary AI sees fraud before it clears. Meet your new standard for document protection at parascript.com slash stop-fraud. Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show, co-host of Pivot, host of On with Kara Swisher, creator of the CNN original series, Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever. The only person producing more content than me, it's Kara Swisher. We are funny that way, aren't we? We are. We love content. We should do less probably. No, no, more. Yes, I don't feel like there's enough of us out there. I agree with that. Yeah, JVL is suggesting we do a spin-off podcast about coaching our children's sports teams. And I was like, do people want to hear my opinion about everything? Really? That's a good one. I was a terrible coach, Tim. You were a terrible coach? You're probably good. It's probably the flip on the gay thing, right? I thought, well, the outcome wasn't that great this year. So talk to me next year. Okay, I felt good. I felt like we were improving throughout the year, but the end outcome wasn't great. So we'll see how it goes. I felt like it was hurting cats and I just didn't like the entire experience. It just wasn't. I'm surprised because I would have thought the opposite with the lesbian thing. The coach that was running circles around me in the youth basketball league. I thought she was a lesbian. My husband just thought she was a sporty straight. Oh, that happens. It's very confusing these days. I went to the Liberty game over the weekend and you can't tell. You can't tell anymore. It's just really hard. Hard to know. All right. We've got much to get into. Obviously, it's all the tech, AI stuff, Elon, Bezos. I wanted to just ask a big picture question to start, though, because Scott said on your pod the other day, we're in 1999 and you agreed with that. I thought that was provocative and I wanted more. Give us a state of play. We were talking specifically about the SpaceX documents, the SEC documents, which are so bad, mathematically speaking, that it calls to mind a lot of stuff that we had previously seen at the height of the dot-com bubble, where just everybody was like, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. And most of it was nonsense. Now, that said, out of it came Google, out of it came Amazon. You know what I mean? Amazon had been troubled at the time. So, it doesn't mean that there's not going to be big, big winners here. It's that there are a lot of stuff that isn't good exist. And everything, I think 10% of the stock market, some number is predicated on a small number of companies. And so, if one of the struts falls out, say just this week, Uber, the CFO said, we're spending too much money on AI tokens and we don't know the efficacy of it. Like, that's a statement. Like, if there's more of those statements where people are doing all this AI spending and then not finding any good use for it, it just feels like that. The cheerleader, of course we need MySpace, of course we need six search services, of course we need whatever it happened to be at the time. I'm trying to remember, Mary Meeker was backing toys.com or ETOYS. Remember, there was a bunch of them. And it has that feel. And it doesn't mean it has to happen that way. And it doesn't mean I don't think there's not going to be big companies. It's, everything is very fragile. And when you read that SpaceX thing, you're sort of like, you've got to be kidding me that people are going to invest in this. And then now, index funds have to invest in it, are forced to. I want to come back to the AI stuff. So let's just sit on Elon for a second. Let's try not to do that. That's gross. I mean, you can do it if that's your preference. Not my type. I'm not really into kind of like the, you know, looks like you're wearing a pillow underneath your shirts type, type vibe, but whatever. Yeah, I'm the guy from Minions, kind of like the bad guy from Minions. Isn't really my look, but... Croc, roc. Yeah, croc. To each their own. On the IPO, I guess it's about a $2 trillion valuation. Well, maybe. I just like, well, that's what they're going for. I just run through it for like, what is this? I'm like, Starlink seems like a legit business. Yes, sure is. What would be a more rational valuation? Like how, you know, outlandish is it? Like in terms of the Starlink business is really promising. Now, it doesn't mean to say that they're not going to have competitors and they are, right? But right now they're far and above the best product. They're just about to be incorporated into American Airlines. So they're doing a lot of cool commercial stuff. They just got a giant Pentagon thing. Deserved or not, they're doing a lot around drones. They're doing, you know, Starlink is really, is interesting. And that's a part of the business. It's the, it's the communications part of the business. And it's attached to SpaceX, which is a rocket company, which is a money furnace, right? And it doesn't, it's, it doesn't mean they're not far ahead and they really, really are, but it doesn't mean people are going to catch up and it doesn't mean it's ever going to make a lot of money. So that's, that's another problematic thing. Now that's still a promising company, but it's just not making money. And their way ahead and their products, you know, they keep blowing up rockets, not necessarily a bad thing, but they're far ahead of most other competitors, except for state run enterprises, right? NASA or whatever China's cooking up. And then you have, they stuck Twitter in there, right? And that's supposed to be, it was supposed to be, not well, but it doesn't matter because what it is is a data play, right? It's a data and infrastructure play. First, they merged Twitter into Grock. I think I'm doing this right because it was losing money and then they just hit it. And then everyone let him off the hook and all the other stuff because they wanted into this IPO. Then the Grock wasn't working out so well. So he sold his compute to Anthropic, which is doing well. So now he's renting out his seed corn because his own business in AI is not working and calling it data infrastructure. Sure, why not? Okay, you're just, you're essentially, you couldn't make it work. And so you're selling off your compute to someone who's making it work. So that's, they're getting a billion dollars a month, I think through 2029 for that. It's sort of like renting out if you, you rent a too big an office for your startup and you start renting out pieces of it. That's what Scott was comparing it to. So that's another shitty business. And now they're thinking of shoving Tesla in here, which is a business on the decline, even though the stock stays elevated, it has, it has the Elon part of it in there. And so even though Tesla's business is declining pretty precipitously without a new product, which their last product was the Cybertruck and we all know how that worked out not well at all. Largely because it's a shitty product and ugly and does just nobody bought them except for SpaceX bought Cybertruck. So now there's all this self-dealing happening, which is very typical of Elon. He does a lot of these things. What is SpaceX doing with the Cybertrucks? Is it just like sending them up into space or they using the outside for the, for the rockets? They eat them for things. Who knows? It doesn't matter because this is a board that lets Elon do whatever he wants, right? Doesn't matter. It's a self-dealing thing. They don't, they're not doing anything with them. They were sitting on lots. There were pictures of lots full of Cybertrucks nobody wanted to buy except for straight men with a middle-aged crisis, like a midlife crisis, who are not going to get dates because of this FYI man. Who could get into the front seat of that car with any dignity on a date? Well, some, there are ladies who might like that. Sure. Why not? Right? Like, let me just find this one thing. Years ago, I said, you know what he's going to do? He's going to shove that in here. He's going to shove that piece of shit in here because that's what he does. And I got attacked on Twitter like, oh, how dare you? He's a genius. And I was like, I don't care. He, he shoves shit in places so he can hide it for other things. And, and that's precisely what he's doing because it makes sense. It also gives them a lot of data, you know, all manner of things. Let me read this. SpaceX is like a 2008 mortgage-backed security, but instead of an assortment of bad debt from people who aren't going to pay it back, it's an assortment of Elon's shitty companies, bad debt from people who aren't going to pay it back. Give it an Elon premium because everything gets, no matter what, people meme stock this thing. And so double it, 1.2 trillion. How do you get to two? And the reason he's merging Tesla and the other is because some of his payoffs result, if he can get the market cap up to eight, I think, he's, this gets him up to 3.5 trillion. So merging it helps him get to his payoff, his giant payoff. So it's all self-dealing. It's all self-dealing for Elon, must to get richer. In the middle of it, some great products. In the middle of it. Yeah. And the spoken mirrors in the self-dealing kind of works though, right? Because he's able to get capital to go out and do other cockamamie stuff. And you know, who knows, like something hits, like Starlink does, and you just perpetuate. It's not that much of a hit. It's a stock hit that the people seem to buy Tesla even if it's declining. And so people are going to buy this. And now that they've had this new SEC trick where it has to immediately, pretty immediately within 15 days, goes into the NASDAQ index. That means all index funds have to buy it. Therefore, Can you explain that to the trick of what the new changes? Well, it used to be they'd include large IPOs into the NASDAQ index, and then index funds are forced to buy them because they have to buy a market basket of stocks. This will go in much faster and with lesser rules, right? There used to be profitability rules. This is not making money, etc., etc. And so every pension fund, every index fund, you must be an index fund. I'm an index fund. They're going to have to buy it. And therefore, our money is being transferred to Elon and his friends, right? And then they'll cash out and we have to stay in it because we're in the index funds. And so OpenAI is going to take advantage of this. So will Anthropoc, they're big giant IPOs. And so they'll land in here. And the question is, shouldn't there be better standards for what lands into the market basket of stocks that index funds are forced to buy because they're index funds? And so again, it's another gimme and that just happened for Elon. So good for him. I think it's obviously working for Elon, maybe not to the degree that he thought in 2024, given how Doge claimed out, etc., but just on balance, it's working for him. The last time you were on, the thing I always ask folks who are in tech world and who associate at various degrees with the big tech guys that kind of went from being, basically capitalist Democrats to being all in with Trump is how they feel their deal at the devil is working. And it seems a lot worse than it did six months ago. Yeah, because it's working. I don't think they were ever Democrats. I never agreed. I thought the people below them certainly were very liberal, like the people who work for these companies. But these people, I would say I didn't know they're all... I don't know Zuckerberg, you know, Andreessen, he helps whoever helps him. They work for Trump in 16. Yeah, right. But he helps him, who helps him. Whoever can help them, they go towards. I never really knew their politics very much, liberal or Republican. You never heard it. It was never an important part of their thing. Even Zuckerberg, he complained about regulation, but not Democrats in particular. I think it was with Warren sent him around the bend. That's my impression, as he was really irritated by her or scared of her, whatever. But I think this is a coin operated presidency and they have coins and they figured it out. Used to be disdainful of politics. Now they're like, oh, it's cheap. It's cheap to buy. It's cheap to manipulate. It's cheap to hide things. We can use all manner of our power to do so and buy our way in. And I think they just, from a logical point of view, it makes sense. If you have money and they'll, you give them money and they'll do what you want and you'll get the contract back. It's a very cheap thing to start a pack of $100 million because you'll get what you want from these politicians. And so to me, it's kind of like we're in the Jimmy Stewart days. That's who's going to win is the influence peddlers. You don't see anyone looking at it and thinking, God, look what happened to Anthropic and like, geez, he seems pretty erratic and look what's going on with the broader economy in Iran and maybe this isn't, this is a risky bet. No, I don't think they care. I think they actually have become true believers. Like you have a David Sacks with all me. You know, the only person who stands out is the Anthropic CEO and the founder who is just with the Pope. And they have a very different point of view, but they left open AI over safety issues. So this is at the heart of their feelings, right? And so there are quieter people, the Reed Hastings, you know, Reed Hoffman's been a lot quieter lately because of the Epstein stuff, obviously, they really tried to drag him in a way that I think is probably unfair. And there's quieter ones that are just sort of sitting by the sidelines, but there's no plus. If you want a thing, look at Tim Cook, he showed up with the gold statue and went to the Milani Brewer pros next to Brett Ratner at the Milania Premier. Did he have to do that? You don't see Sachin Adele doing that, do you? Like they're quiet, the ones that are objecting to it, just like the Republicans. Suddenly Tom Tellis is a critic like he was before, he was before off the record. But he wasn't. Now he's on record. How cowardly though. It's like, oh, and he even says it, it's like, I don't know, how do you have any dignity as a man by saying that, which is like, I have the freedom to do that, to say that what I think now. I called him too late Tom and he got real mad about it. But I listen, I'll take it. I'm fine. Go ahead. Be brave. Here's another one of your old Silicon Valley friends that feels like the deal with the devil wasn't pretty good for him. Jeff Bezos was on Squawk Box the other day. And I just want to play a little clip for when I last interviewed you about two years ago, President Trump had just won. He was not the president yet. And I had asked you what you thought of him at the time. And you said that you thought that he had mellowed, that he was calmer. Yeah. And I'm curious now, here we are. Yeah, I still think that two years later, we've had lots of wars and tariffs and all sorts of things that have happened since then. What do you think? I think he has, I mean, I'm comparing him to his first term. And I think he is a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term. Trump has lots of good ideas and he's done a lot of, he's been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due. What's happened in there? Oh, the whole interview was disingenuous from the get go. That's how these people are. They're so equivocal about everything, right? They're just like, well, on one hand, I'm getting my tax breaks. The very first line of my book was so it was capitalism after all, when they were giving in on immigration. And everyone was like, how can you say that? I was like, because it's money to these people. Like that's where, that every decision is made in that way. If you think humanity figures into any of their decision making, you're really naive, right? It's really about, well, it's not so bad. And probably Bezos is hurting because press criticizes him. That's, you know, he probably mad at press who criticizes him, which is why he's taking his feelings out on the Washington Post so badly. But I think, you know, it's not true. It's just not true. You know, he has some good ideas. Well, sure, yeah, he does. You're right. One or two. But to dismiss the rest of it is just beyond belief. More discipline. Do you have to hand it to him? And the whole thing is preposterous. He turns the Washington Post into like a purported, we're going to be for free markets, you know, kind of a B list Wall Street Journal editorial board situation. But it's like, that isn't Trump. I mean, the types of stuff that Trump is doing, you know, if a Democratic president was doing, you know, if he was shaking, if he was shaking down CEOs and saying, you've got to settle with me on these cockamamie lawsuits or taking positions in companies, you know, or, or the tariffs or on and on and on, like they would be, their hair would be on fire about that. That's correct. That is correct. Listen, you assume just because they're rich, they're intelligent in these kind of things. They're intelligent about certain things. By the way, I give it to him. What amazing things he did at Amazon, but I don't really want to listen to him talk about the media. He doesn't know what he's talking about. And when he opens his mouth, it's sort of hello, he lied. Like the issues of the Washington Post were definitely secular and media companies definitely have to make money. Thanks for that tip, Jeff. Gosh, I had no idea until that this moment. Time seems to be making money. We're making money at the Bolark. You're making money. Right. Exactly. One of the things that, you know, he was like, well, the Posts make money. Well, over at the Atlantic Lorraine job seems to be doing a pretty good job or the New York Times seems to be doing a pretty, all our independent stuff. They could do a pretty good job. What he's done is the problems of the Washington Post were entirely created by him, not the reporters. He kept management in place that didn't react after the first Trump administration and tried to change. He kept that management in place. He did it. Then he managed to hire an even worse person who drove it even faster into a wall. And then he like repelled reporters and he repelled subscribers. And then he's like, well, you got to make money. Well, it's not, not, well, this idiot media owner is kneecapping everybody every five minutes and then won't take accountability for what he's done. I really don't like doing the laundry. So I'm a fan of anything that makes it just a little bit easier. Recently I've been enjoying laundry sauce. They have pre measured detergent pods that are super easy to just pop in the machine and go and they make your clothes smell great. Laundry sauce is a premium scented laundry pods that don't just clean your clothes. 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Please support our show and tell them we sent you. It's time to make laundry day the best day of the week. I'm sorry to ask you this question because I'm sure you hate it because I hate, I get sick of getting this question every time I go places which is like, why are the Republican senators doing what they do? But I just, it is mind boggling to me. Like I look at Bezos and it's like, he can do whatever he wants. He has the Barbie dream wedding in Venice. He can own islands. He has a rocket ship. He can go to the moon if he wants. He can live the manner no one else in history has ever lived. He can achieve any dream he ever wants. And yet he feels like he needs to go into NBC and talk about why Donald Trump has gotten more disciplined and how we have to hand it to them. It's like, why? Why does he feel like he has to do that? I don't understand. I think all of them need to stop talking. Like that's the issue. You know, whoever it happens to be every five minutes, they need to say something about things they know nothing about. And what it's really interesting, I almost wrote a piece recently called, why won't they just shut up? Like, you know, girl, keep it to yourself kind of thing or sit down. And they're constantly victims, by the way, because the press is so mean to them, like what a bunch of babies. And secondly, you know, they have to tell you what they think about everything. And then they are disingenuous when they're doing it. It's really, I do appreciate the Sachin Adele's. I have no idea what he's thinking. You know what I mean? Like, I'm sure he's not loving having to like bow and scrape. But you know, there was a controversy over Mark Cuban last week, which I took Cuban side, because he wants to get lower prices for drugs. You can hate on me all you want, but there's no other way except through Trump. And so if you want to be part of Trump RX, even though it shouldn't be called Trump RX, we all know that. And so does Mark Cuban. Like he said, I'm not going to be a fucking idiot if you think I'm going to trade politics for cheaper drug prices. And he's not. But everyone is forced into unnatural positions. In the case of most of these people, they like those positions. And that's what they're like. Yeah, what's the Bezos trade? He'd be fine. He was like that before. Yeah, maybe the rocket ships. Maybe he was like that before, Tim. Some of these people don't change. Let me just say he was not the happy laughing fool. He wasn't that guy before. He was always, if you look at the history of Amazon, a son of a bitch. So like, you remember, like there was all those stories about treat. This thing didn't just come out of nowhere, the culture of that company. Some people change. I have to say Steve Ballmer couldn't be more delightful now. And he's screaming me like people change both directions. He's yelling about the clippers. I understand that. Maybe this is why I'm not going to be a trillionaire ever. But the idea that there would ever be a situation where in order to get an extra hundred billion, I would have to call a moron big up like this really smart guy. He's so good. I have to flatter somebody to get money when I already have the most fucking money in history. I just, I can't wrap my brain about it. It's not in my makeup. Well, that's the expression. It's expression is why do you fuck you money if you don't say fuck you, right? But I think he likes him. Like I think he admired him. I think you might be thinking they're quietly going home and going, what an asshole. I don't think they do that. I think they don't think they're an asshole. I think they like it. Yeah. Boy, that's tough to sit on. And their concerns about backlash in their victim culture. There's this interesting parallel right now between what APAC is doing and the two biggest groups throwing all these money into these primaries is APAC and their allies, pro-Israel Americans and then tech broadly, AI, crypto, etc. And they're both playing huge in primaries. They are. Tens of millions of dollars are going in to get their preferred candidates in Congress and then flapping around on the ground and crying when you point it out. Yes. You know, when people criticize them. But it's for me, it's like it's a free country. If you want to go and try to put stooges into Congress by using your tens of millions of dollars, you're allowed to do that. But we're also allowed to notice. And I think that's interesting. I saw you kind of posted with Outthrowed to Andreessen the other day, but we are. You can't believe money gambling is going on in this casino. What? Yeah. He did the same thing. He's like, what he was pushing was Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful. Is that his name? Whatever. I don't think he's so wonderful. That was his real name. Sure. Whatever. One time he came up to me and he goes, call me Mr. Wonderful. I go, I think I will not. I was like, no, I refuse to call you Mr. Wonderful. It was my little moment in a green room, a green room victory, I say, which are always sweet victories. I cherish all my green room victories as well. I love green room victories. I have a bunch of them that I'm very pleased with. And, you know, he's building this data center that is clearly people of the area don't like. So instead of just acknowledging that maybe people don't like it, real people, he's got to blame what George Soros or a group of secret money people that are funding all this, or it's the damn media who concocting a story, people love it here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. To me, every accusation is a confession with these people. They do that. So they assume everyone else does. And so what if there's a confabulation of organizations that are trying to stop a big deal? There's also real people who care about these things in these areas. When they use the money, it's fine. When others use the money, it's conspiracy. It's up to something, left wing craziness. They're so violent. And when in fact, it's them, they're talking about themselves and doing a lot of tell on themselves. And so, Andreessen was like, concerning. Like, if you're so fucking concerned, why did you put together a hundred million dollar AI fund? You're not concerned. You're concerned that they might fight back is what you're concerned about. Where do you think the balance of power is on that? I guess as far as like their money versus the blowback and the blowback that's coming up for them is pretty real. I've never seen people turn into movie villains faster, right? They're literally a different bond villain. Each of them is a different version. Or if you happen to watch Paw Patrol, all the various villains or the Spider-Man villains, right? I'm like, oh, look, it's the green, whatever, whatever. I don't watch it closely enough. My kids do, but I'm a nail on Paw Patrol. Yeah, I agree. I call it copaganda, but my kids love it. I don't know what to say. I have no ability to fight Paw Patrol at this moment. It's stupid and cop again. You know what they do on Paw Patrol? They make their own messes and then they clean them up and then they celebrate themselves for it. And I'm like, you made the mess. You cleaned it up. Anyway, watch it. Right. So I think one of the things that they want to do is, is like ruin their reputations. And you see it in polling. AI polling is really devastating. And you see kids yelling at speakers at graduations. And that's not a, not a small trend is kids really are rejecting this stuff. And so are regular people. They don't like this. And they have an uncomfortable feeling about what's coming. And instead of acknowledging that uncomfortable feeling, they tell you, you're stupid or that it's cooked up by sorrows or that you don't know, the media is convincing you of something that isn't true. And the more they do that, the more I know they know that we don't like them, right? That most not we, but a lot of people broadly speaking to find Elon to be now having been a really interesting innovator and someone to look up to, someone who is, is laughable no matter how rich he gets. It's a big shift though. I'm back in my prior life when I briefly did some Facebook consulting when I was out in the wilderness. You know, that era of Facebook mid 2010s, if people were booing them at graduations, it would have been an internal panic, right? Like they had done thought about everything that we can do. How do we improve our image? You know, we want people to see us as a positive force in the world. That was a Cheryl era, right? That was the Cheryl era. Now fast forward to now they're getting booed. All these guys are getting booed at commencement addresses. And it seems like they're kind of mad at people for booing them, but they're not even trying to appeal. No, they aren't because I think in say Zuckerberg's case, it's like, I tried to be nice. They didn't like me. I was myself. They didn't like me. And I'm like, well, maybe you're just like a bonus. I think that's really where we are on that one. But I think that's what it is. It's like, why should I bother when no matter what I do, I'm disliked. And that's a, that's a personal problem. I think that there are some fables about that mindset that I don't know how that ends well. So other stuff in the AI thing, just on the open AI, anthropic IPOs, I'm just wondering kind of how you look at that compared to what we're seeing from Elon. And like, there's a lot of fallout coming from that. Well, it depends on who you're talking about. I mean, I think open AI has a lot more troubles. They just finished that trial with Elon. That is still going to be ongoing because he continues to press his heart feelings using his money on them for getting out of it. He wants a piece of it. You know, they're going to have a harder time because their numbers are a little bit more shaky than they used to be. They focus on consumers. Sam Altman has said a number of things. Again, should not speak. Hush, hush. Like, you want to put your finger like, say nothing. You don't think doing the Tucker Carlson podcast was, was a net positive for the company? I think they should all stop talking. I just, and I hate to say that as a journalist, but enough with, I don't care every thought that's in their head. That's going to be a more troubled IPO, I think especially because the specter of Elon hanging over it all, he's always trying to make trouble for them. Their business has also been, you know, they've had a lot of churn of people, businesses are less trustworthy than them. Now, Anthropoc has come up the middle from all of them and has built what looks like a pretty significant business, very enterprise heavy, which is smart because enterprises don't churn as much. But I do think they do know that if enterprises don't find Claude to be useful or version or whatever product they're selling, they're going to be in trouble, obviously, when people start to make AI spending cuts, because now everybody's into spending on AI. So if there's any cutbacks, they'll suffer first, especially with companies. Right now, it doesn't seem to be the trend, but they're the ones that are building what I consider a more solid business. And they did so quietly, I think is the rest of them were kind of hand waving. They just came right up the middle. Their revenues are growing pretty significantly in on a solid basis, but it doesn't mean that it couldn't go poof. And Dario Amodius said this, by the way. There's this interesting other element to the thought from their IPOs. I've been starting to read some interesting stories on, which is like, we're going to have this new batch of really rich people that are coming. You can particularly at San Francisco, where we once lived. I have a house there still. People are trying to buy it again. Oh, yes. Suddenly, I have people knocking at my door again. Can we buy your house? Well, I guess that's my question. Well, anybody who has not a multimillionaire ever be able to live in San Francisco again. I think that's that ship has sailed in many ways. Although it's, but there was a nice respite when they all left. It was really lovely for five seconds, but I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I just, having, being a homeowner in San Francisco, I suddenly, my house suddenly is very, it was never went unvaluable, by the way. It did just fine. I bought a very, I bought it 25, 30 years ago. So it's a very different thing. But there was a moment during the first dot com bubble that was insane. When you bought a house, you had to write a letter to the house on why you would be a good owner. Which was crazy. That's how many people were bidding for these houses because of the amount of money. At one point, someone made me write a letter. So I wrote, dear house, here's the fucking money. That's what it's for. Thank you. I didn't get the house. I think, yeah, I think it's a real problem. It's something that Daniel Lurie is trying to deal with in terms of where can you do affordable housing and how do you make a, you don't want to build the same problem that happened the first time because it's going to happen the second time, right? Is if numbers are gone up in terms of prices and you don't have a city that's diversified and it's in its population, you're going to end up, every time there's a boom and a bust, you're going to get screwed, you know, on tax base. And right now, it's, right now, California is up, right? Suddenly, and it was down before, and everyone moved back as you knew they would because living in Austin or Miami isn't the dream everybody decided. It's very nice places, by the way, but not the same thing as San Francisco. So I don't know. It's always been an issue there and it's been sad that they can't figure out a way to build affordable housing and at the same time have the rich people there. You figure there'll be some other kind of effective altruism fad that comes out of this. Not among the rich people. They're all going to keep all their money. They love their money. They like their houses. You know, one of the things that I think about a lot is, do you remember in succession where as they got more and more isolated, they got more and more in these cashmere prisons where they went from their cars to their planes to their houses and it was so antiseptic but beautiful, you kind of see a lot of these people. Scott makes this point a lot and I think he's correct is they live with a different housing world. They live with a different help world. They have their own healthcare. They have their own travel. They have their own blank blank goes on and on and on and so increasing numbers of people live like this and therefore aren't living with everybody else. And so no, if not if they have the money to live in this highly comfortable cashmere prison, I think they'll continue to do so. It's not a way to live. Including vacation spots, by the way. Yeah, it's not a way to live. No. You have to be with other humans. You do. And the pitchforks are coming. They are. They are. I know, already out but and it's going to get worse and worse. They feel it. You can feel they feel it, which is why they're saying worse things. I'm like, you need to stop talking because you really seem terrible. You seem like terrible, tiny, greedy people and it happened in the Gilded Age. Look at the history of what happened there. The government eventually shifts around and we get out of the real corrupt period and then unfortunately comes too harsh a retribution. And that's, of course, my worry is that that's going to happen, which is not good for this country. Yes. And the Bezos nurse thing in that same interview where you're talking about how you could tax me more, but it's not going to help the Queen's nurse at all. It's just like, bro, literally you could double the salary of every Queen's nurse. You could just decide that you wanted to create the Queen's nurses organization and give them money directly to do a cash transfer. And you wouldn't even know who it occurs to, his ex-wife, who just gives money, drops 10 million and leaves the room. Do you hear from Mackenzie Scott ever? You do not. You just, she do a press release. She very much does not. She just gives the money to Meals on Wheels, $70 million. That's going to help a lot of people. Do you think Bezos would do that without requiring a parade or whatever, putting on one of his cowboy hats and dancing around in boots that look uncomfortable on him? I don't know. I don't get it, Tim. I think it's really short-minded. I think they're angry in a lot of ways, and I think they do feel no matter what they do, nobody likes them. Did none of them have Catholic mothers, I guess? My mother would be so ashamed of me. But you know, Mark Zuckerberg's parents are lovely. I've met them. They're lovely. I've never met Jeff Mezos's mom. Did they not guilt them enough? I don't know. I have met Elon's parents. I feel bad for him. Oh my gosh. In that case, I mean, he's close to his mother, but I think she's a terrible person. That's just me. Some of them are also buying media properties with their fund money. A CNN you dropped out of. I haven't yet. You planned to. Well, I'm under contract till the end of the year. I've said I don't see, given their choices so far, and today they sort of go of Sharon Alfonsoy, who I like in regard with great, she's an amazing journalist. She's a 60-minute reporter. That's a 60-minute reporter. Right. She's on CBS. 60 Minutes is on CBS. I don't know if she's staying there or whatever, but the fact that someone like this who just had a beef over a story gets jacked for this, it seems ridiculous because she's insubordinate. Guess what the role of a journalist is to be is in subordinate in case you're interested. I just don't see them making editorial decisions, I think, or of any, I think they're incompetent. I don't really want to work for people that seem to me to be incompetent. Politics aside, although the politics is never aside, but in this case, incompetence trumps everything. Do you have any sense? Sometimes you get buzz. You show up in all kinds of random places. I do. I do. What's your sense for what their plans are for CNN? I think they're sticking with the plans they've had for CBS. I don't see any. If you're hoping for their better angels, you're absolutely wrong. I'm learning from practicality. I do think that it felt a little bit like the barry bubble is, I don't know if it's popped, but it's weakening, both just like the just basic incompetence like Tony D. Couldn't get a visa to get a China, embarrassing things like that, but then also just kind of going all in on the pro-war propaganda when it's been the most embarrassing and incompetent war imaginable. Sure is. And so that's a little bit of a on her face, you would think. One would think, but I think it all, she's hardly the point, right? People focus on her a lot, but I think she's just the vehicle. I think you have to focus on Larry Ellison. David aside, very nice guy, but the game is with him, with Larry Ellison. He's the one who made the money. He's the brilliant entrepreneur. He's the technologist. Let's be clear who's running the show here. And if he likes her, she's staying. That's the way it goes. And I suspect he likes her. And he probably doesn't see the war as that bad. He doesn't care for it. Yeah, he doesn't care. And of course, he's very pro-Israel, more than most people. That's one of his biggest, most important issues. I think it is his most important issue. And so there you have it. That's why we have it. So does he care about Sharon Alfonso? No. Does he care about 60 minutes? Probably not. Does he care about journalism? Doubtful. Do you think they'll even be a CBS Evening News at the end of this? There shouldn't be. That's another issue. You know, everyone's like, the media like to write about these kinds of things, but I had a show of hands when I was on my pivot tour and you do tours too. You get a real sense of people. They're great. Someone asked the inevitable CBS quote, what's going to happen here? I'm like, show of hands of who watched CBS News last night. We had a pretty young crowd. You do too, I think. Nobody. Like one person. Who watched in the past month, who watched CBS News? One hand maybe goes up. Even if that, by the way. Who cares? Who cares? Because Donald Trump cares because Donald Trump lives in the 1980s. So that's why it matters right now. Just like Elon bought Twitter for influence, for influence, not for making money, for influence. They're buying it to influence Donald Trump, but they don't care about the product. They don't care about the reporters. They don't care about journalism. I think David Ellison wants to make nice movies. I do think he cares about that. I do, but that's about it. That's more fun. You get actors fucking that too. Yeah, Rich Kid wants to make movies. He loves the movies. They're so happy for him. Like good. Get to the Oscars, be backstage. The news business doesn't matter at all to these people. Yeah, I'm more with you on that. I was just just interviewing Nicole where you're kind of offering that too, just because, look, the independent media is rising. I'm concerned about the algorithms. I'm concerned about their influence over TikTok. Elon's algorithm a little less so, though it does dominate a lot of the conversation and elite media spaces. YouTube algorithm seems to be fine, but you never know. Right, like that to me, the algorithm owners, whatever AI thing comes next, I'm a little more concerned about that than I am like the media properties themselves. You should be concerned. What I want to get through to people is get away from the politics. Get away from the nefarious plaudery of whatever billionaire you have or you want to hate on billionaires. It's really very simple. They don't care. I keep saying that. I'm like, they think about you never. They don't think journalism is important. They think it's silly. They're annoyed by certain journals. Unless somebody says something mean about them. Correct. Because they're like, what the hell, why can't I buy this? Yes, why can't I buy this and shut them up? I know we'd like to think it's part of a big plot, but it's just not. It is, you know, rid me of this irritating priest, right? Rid me. I do not like this person who's telling me things. I think down deep, like you said about the pitchforks, they know it. That's the worry is they know it and they're trying to do anything possible. When the thing they should be doing is being very generous with their money, building great works, like that's what happened with the old Gilded Age people. Suddenly Andrew Carnegie built libraries. Suddenly, you know, and maybe that's the outcome of this. Maybe that's where they'll go, but those were hated people for quite a bit of time there. Then they shifted because of the misery they brought on people. They got to be too much. The other thing you talked about, Nicole, is that you felt, and you mentioned this briefly, was that you can feel the sense of the shift among your kids. Oh, 100%. You know, from these products away from, you know, maybe how things would have been 10 years ago. I'm wondering how you think about that. I know, you know, we really have kind of gone through this period where it did feel like there was all this possibility. And now, neither of us are bloodied. I'm not anti the products. I think I will do some great things. But like, there's just this, there's a range from like skepticism to cynicism to hostility, just because of how things shook out with the big social media platforms. And I'm just wondering, like, where do you think that's going? Because in some ways, the next generation being more hostile to the products gives me a little bit of optimism. Because the worst case scenario is they just like rely on them so much that their brains don't develop because they just become, you know, an extension of the AI brain. I think the problem we have is 30 to 50 year olds, right? That's what I think has, sorry. You know, and older people too, because they've got sucked, but they got sucked in by the Fox News of it all, right? So if you want to look for a propaganda vehicle, or even the people that are two MS now people, they're a little cra- you know what I mean? Yeah, sometimes I think there's somebody says I watched nine hours of MS now a week, or a day. I'm like, you know, maybe cut that in half. Yeah, right. It's a different version. Don't tell Rebecca I said that, but you know, healthy four hours is fine. Right. But it's a it's a it's a playing into whatever you're happening to be. The Fox people are much my mother is one of them, for example. She was super concerned with transfencers recently. And I was like, what? They're taking over. I'm like, what? Fencing? Like, I feel like I'm good with that. I feel, okay, sure, you can't see their faces. Anyway, in any case, I think women vendors are quite almost equal with men fencers to anyway, regardless. I don't know anything about anything. And I don't feel like it's a national crisis. That's how I feel. But nonetheless, she was very concerned because it was on Fox. But I do sense among my kid, I have a 21 year old and a 24 year old just turned 24. They use, it's really interesting because they use social media very little. And it's not, I don't think they're outliers neither do their friends. They're very much more into hiking and group activities and stuff like that. They use it for information. I watch how they use it like friend of mine, son, he's a sports nut. So he gets lots of stats and I see why you would use digital is great. It's really great. Another one's a cooking nut. You know, they like all the cooking. I feel fine. That's fine. That's just like I used to buy cooking. I used to read gourmet magazine all the time like a lunatic. They don't use social media and they're moving away from it. They use it for YouTube is television. They watch TV shows for sure on there. And that's where they get stuff. Netflix, they certainly use quite heavily, but they don't use social media and they don't like it. Because at one point I asked my son why he didn't use it. He says it makes me feel bad about myself. And I was like, good reason not to use it. And I feel like there's a fatigue to it. I feel it myself. I don't know about you, but unless I'm marketing something or I'm watching, you know, I'm very into this one guy who makes, who cuts up vegetables and makes plants, that's perfectly enjoyable for me. I don't, I find I don't dwell on the dunking as much as I used to because it feels bad. You're good at it. Yeah, I don't know. I, yeah, it's a, it's probably something I need to spend some time with the therapist on because on the one hand, I feel, I've, doesn't everybody that has a problem feel this way? I feel like I recognize like the limits and I see issues and other people. It is so intertwined to what I feel like I'm doing. I don't know how you're consuming information, but like, yeah, I'm just like consuming so much, either other people's pods. And so sometimes long firm says listening sometimes it's scrolling, but like, I need to get, I'm going to do this every fucking day. So I need material. I need to know what's having the news, but be, I also need material. But you used to have magazines and newsletters and stuff. So I don't, I think it's just replaced like the cook report. Like I'm sure you're one of those people that got the cook report or, you know, New Republic or whatever. And so you're replacing something and that to me is fine. Like I don't see that being as a problem and you're a news hound, right? Presumably. So am I. And so that's perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned. I think the question is how much do you get sucked up into the performative aspects of it? And I think that's where you feel kind of sick. I'm going to give you my thoughts on Ken Paxton. Well, he's a fucking criminal, right? Is that we need to know there? He's a criminal. Well, getting the consuming of other people's fights and stuff, right? Like in drama and, you know, get some and, and feedback. Anyway, it's, we should have a longer talk about that. I want to focus on the most important thing to end being hot. Okay. Okay. Yeah. We're on with Bill Maher. And he said something interesting. He said that you tell you after the show who it was that some CEO is complaining that GLP ones are making staff less ambitious. I was intrigued by that. What's, what was that? I think he just made that up. I'm sorry. He may have heard that from someone. I just, you know, it's the idea that addictive personalities get less addictive on GLP ones, whether it's food, the food noise or alcohol noise, or he was taking it too ambitious. You don't want to, you don't want to win quite so much. You're not so hungry. I guess it's around the same idea of hungriness and you're not hungry anymore. I have not seen any statistics to prove. I think he just made it up. Honestly, I don't know, in some, but I'm sure someone said it to him. I just don't think it's true. I think GLP ones are miraculous and are proving to be somewhat miraculous in other areas, strokes and heart and cognitive issues. We'll see as it's tested, right? All these things require gold standard testing and a real population and GLP ones are really deep in the population now in a way that's significant. What about the GLP threes? What do you know about that? Retritudes? Retritrude? Yes, there's a bunch of them. It's among the gays. Yeah, the gays, the gays are gone onto peptides. They're very big. What do you know about that? Here's my problem with these. There's very little proven. I know I had 17 gay guys come up to me and was like, you're wrong about peptides. I feel better. I'm like, good for you. I said, let me just to give you something. Hello, sepsis. I don't know what to tell you, but you're injecting yourself with unproven, unclear if they're, oh, it's subcutaneous. I'm like, no, no, no. It's dangerous. One bad shot and you're fucked as you all know because gay guys tend to try everything. My experience in San Francisco, that was like, let's try it, whatever. That's why we were crushing in the monkey box space. Right, whatever. Yeah, exactly. Look, that doesn't mean there shouldn't be tests and there should be and there's some promise, but there's no scientific proof. There's just not any of any significance over a time frame. I'm a gal who loves to like prove something before we just decide to use it. The other thing is a lot of these peptides are being mixed in China, that they're getting them from. You don't know where their provenance is from. It could be full of impurities. You just don't know where you're getting it from. And so if you're fine with that and if you're interested in possibly of getting sepsis, go for it. I just don't, I feel like I don't inject myself with things that are the provenance of is questionable. We'll see if some of these things work. And by the way, one of the takeaways from my show was there's amazing science. This morning I interviewed the guy who did all the pancreatic cancer stuff around mRNA technology. Amazing stuff happening using both AI and technology and mRNA and GLP ones. The question is what stuff is sort of nonsense? One stuff is unproven as yet and doesn't mean it won't be. And what stuff really works? And much of the stuff as you know over time being a gay man, most of it doesn't work. Yeah. So GLP ones seem like they're working good. Yeah. The wet market GLP three peptides TBD. We're a TBD in it. If you're feeling lucky, I suppose. And I know some people think they feel better. Great. I don't know what other things have learned the show again, Kara Swisher wants to, the show again, Kara Swisher wants to live forever. I like I tell them to fix it. No, don't fix it. Don't fix it. Keep it in. Yeah. Okay. That's the show. That's what it's called. Don't want to watch it. I just want you to tell me the answer to my key question, which is how do I stay handsome for longer without spending as much money as Scott Gallo has on his face? Okay. Well, and, and, and you know, not everything works since Scott Gallo tries it, but he's our little guinea pig. I would say I hate to tell you it's a pretty basic thing. Tim, have friends and family spend a lot more time with your kids, spend a lot more time outside, spend a lot more time doing things that is challenging to you that isn't scrolling, scientifically proven over and over again, obviously sleep, diet, exercise, critical. VO2 max is a really interesting indicator of health of, of, I'd have a test if you have the money to do it and try to improve your VO2 max score shows very VO2 max, VO2, you put the mask on your face and then you try to raise the way your muscles interact with your heart. It's a real shine of longevity in health. You know, try to do the Mediterranean diet. It's very such basic stuff that doesn't cost anything. And then ultimately the rest of the facial stuff, I'm going to leave you and Scott to it because I just, I can't, if you want to do facial planing, go for it. I just, I, you know, John Lovett was at his wedding this weekend, he's looking at summer than he ever did. I mean, I hung out with John Lovett 20 years ago when we first met. He's way handsomer than he was then. I don't think that's natural. He's using JLP once. I think he talks about it. He's talked about it before. I think, which is great. He's, I bet he's getting fitter, but he also gets you in the mode of taking care of yourself, but it's not, he's not doing all interventions. He's doing like diet stuff. And I think, you know, instead of a supplement, have a piece of salmon or an avocado. It's no like red light or, you know, nothing, no cheating. You did all this. You got, you got all these like extra limbs and stuff and you came back, you have nothing. There's not doing anything interesting in Singapore. It's basic, good sleep, not as much as you think. It's more between 6.4 and 7.8 hours. Try really hard to be with friends and family. Do things that are cognitive, because the cognitive decline is the real, as we know from the current president, is the real problematic thing for most people. And so try to do things that are challenging for you. Kids have kids. Yeah, I'm good on that. Yeah, I'm challenging. I'm having to talk, do this, you know. Someday, you know what, actually, let me give you some, someday they're going to be able to place every single organ. Someday your teeth will grow back. Someday they'll be able to replenish your skin pretty naturally. Some of the stuff in Korea was pretty cool, what they're doing. But largely it's because of their diet and their attitudes is one of the reasons they're so healthy. Well, tick-tock on that. I'm not coming as close to the end as the president. I think you look good. You look good. We're doing our best. You look good. Kara Swisher, thank you. We'll end there. Coast of Pivot, most of all with Kara Swisher and the CNN Original Series. Kara Swisher wants to live forever. Appreciate you very much. We'll see you soon, all right? Thanks, Tim. Everybody else will be back tomorrow for another edition of the podcast. The Board Podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown. I'm Elizabeth Derrico from Chicago, Illinois. I'm a bulwark subscriber because I believe in truth, I believe in honesty, and I believe in integrity. The bulwark has been a beacon for me in very troubled times to uphold the values of liberal democracy that I hold dear. It helps me fight and it helps me understand the present moment and take action to ensure the future. Join because the bulwark is not run by a bunch of oligarchs. You are supporting people who are dedicated to the notion of a free press as a bulwark against tyranny. Join the bulwark community as a Bulwark Plus member. 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