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Oh, he's being a lesbian. OK, put on your earphones. We got to go. Hi, everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Cara Swisher, and it's Cocktober. No, Scott, we'll get to that in a second. Welcome. What?
Cocktober? That's not fair. Arnold Palmer. Cocktober, surprise?
Get it? Oh, yeah, I asked her an Arnold Palmer stiff yesterday. That's actually free, and I didn't get it. You're like, what?
What do you mean, Stephanie? It's a joke. I can't drink that now. It's so sad.
We'll get to it. We're going to get to it. Well, lesbians have always had a thing around. Exactly.
I've always loved an Arnold Palmer. You're a lesbian now. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm a power lesbian.
Oh, right. OK. I'm a power lesbian. I have never been to a WNBA game.
And because I know Cara Swisher, this total power lesbian couple, Leanne and Pia, I won't say their last names, because for security reasons, I think they're very high profile, but they know who they are. I get to go. This is what it means to be friends with Cara Swisher, my first WNBA game. I go to the last game of the finals on the floor.
Spike Lee came by and said, hi, to all the important people. He totally ignored me. Spike, I think it was a reverberated offense. But anyways, and then I'm sitting there watching this amazing thing.
We have half time. I go and meet these other, this really interesting woman and her partner. She's an alphabet. She's a VC.
By the way, not that I noticed, but both kind of crazy hot. Not that I noticed. I just heard of people I got the sounds. We don't like.
And then I literally, when I was on a plane once, the Dalai Lama was there. And he came up to this woman and child, and he blessed them with the flowing robes and everything. In the middle of the game, Meghan Rapinoe is like waving and hi. And I said, Leanne, I think Meghan Rapinoe is saying hi.
And she looked over, she's like, no, she's waving at you. And I way back. And she jumped up and waved to be waved at game five of the WNBA by Meghan Rapinoe. That is literally like being blessed by the Lama.
So I am officially a power lesbian. I am the new fraternity. Joy Becca Donuts representing the lesbian community. What is up with these gay men in tech who are threatened by us?
Carol, what is up? I don't know. I don't know. But I'm so glad.
Meghan texted me. She got there late. And I said, pay attention to Scott. Give him some love and stuff like that.
And I was thrilled. You were there. I finally, after all your hemming and hawing, you went. I thought you were going to ghost the lesbians, which would have been the end of your life.
No, no, no, no. No, no, no. I'm not crazy. Harvey Plaza was there.
There were celebrities up plenty. It was like a rocket. Tell us why you now like the NBA, please. Look, I love the sport.
I love watching the energy, the electricity, which is fucking amazing. But the thing that struck me is that I've been thinking a lot about how much young people seem to dislike America. And I think it's because our prosperity is not evenly distributed. I do think young people have it more difficult than we had it.
But I also think social media and algorithms and bad actors on these platforms are trying to convince them that America is a lot worse than it actually is. And last night was a lesson for me. And I just don't think people, especially young people, appreciate how far we've come. I used to go to a lot of my dad was a salesperson for ITT, Oh, I'm Scott.
So he's got a lot of tickets to stuff. So I used to go to Rams games. Sporting events when I were a kid were basically corporate, VPs. It was all corporate and all wealthy white men.
That's it. Those were the only people at sporting games. When James Harris became the first black quarterback who played for the Rams, why was he the first black quarterback? Because the assumption was in all sports that black people did not have leadership skills and couldn't be in the brain needed position.
And of course now, every amazing quarterback or near every amazing quarterback is non-white. At that game last night, it was people, I thought it was going to be this big lesbian fest. No, it wasn't. There was a healthy gay contention there, but there were straight people there.
There were people of all races, I don't want to say all income backgrounds. But even on the dance floor, it wasn't a bunch of ridiculously hot white women with huge eyelashes. They had something called the Senior Liberty and it was advanced troops. Yeah, they were fun.
Of 60 to 85 year olds. I mean, that shit is wonderful. Yeah, it was wonderful. It's got a great energy.
So that stadium is not only America, but I just don't think young people realize how far we've come. Right now, it was fun. It's actually fun. Did you go to the special area of eating?
Oh, they have a little candy room and everything. I was like, ridiculous, you know, Mike's candy and my pants and my Charleston shoe, which is always a, you know. I am so thrilled you did that. I really am.
I feel like you're new friends are lovely. Thank you. Your new name is Barbara as a lesbian, okay? Barbara?
Babs? Just call me Babs. Papa, can you hear me? Yeah, with all like the plastic surgery, I've got lined up.
I tell them. I went in. My doctor gives me Botoxie and says, all right, what do you want to look like? And I'm like, I want to look like Barbara Streisand in the first Yuntl.
Okay. I don't know what to say. All right. We've got to think of more lesbian things for you to do, but I am thrilled you did that.
Did you see the owner? Oh, yeah. She was there. Si.
Si. Yeah. She gave a speech to the end. But yeah, I'm now clearly the representative for the entire lesbian community.
Yeah. My work is done. I'm at the top of the heap here. You are.
Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including increasing tensions. We need open AA and Microsoft, and Elon Musk's Million Dollar Giveaway, which is raising legal questions. A lot of them. Plus our friends at Pivot are Chantal Fernandez, from The Cut and Lauren Sherman, from Puck.
They've written a new book, which is pretty interesting, selling sexy Victoria's Secret, and the unraveling of an American icon. They just had a new Victoria Secret show, but the previous owners were all wrapped up at the Epstein, and all kinds of nonsense. It's a really interesting business story of everything. Oh, wait.
You had a big moment. I did. I was on one of my favorite people, Desi Lydic, who's not a lesbian, but we all wish you were, on The Daily Show. Let's listen to a clip.
I think most startups would probably say that they get into it because they want to change the world. They want to make exists. They play this. They want to help society.
But these companies met at Google Amazon. Do you think that there's some disillusionment that what they think that they're doing is beneficial? Oh, I never thought they thought that. I just think they just said that along with the fact they wear hoodies, but they'd be catching your hoodies, so they'd cause it.
So, you know. So anyway, it was fun. She was great. That's a great show.
I have to say. It's Louie came with me. Ivy's girlfriend, Amanda came up. We had such a ball.
The thing I noticed about that show in addition to Jon Sur and the producers have done an amazing job just like fostering and ensuring all these amazing young comedians is the biggest contrast I noticed because I think I know you know this. I've also been on. But the audience is young, cool people. Quite frankly, when I've gone to other big shows, it's like they empty out the scene or some because they don't have a lot to do.
This was people with a lot of young people, funny, the thing they do after is really cool. It's a cool scene. It's a cool scene. It's how I imagined the crowd at SNL would be.
Yeah, great snacks too. Fantastic snacks. She's a star too. She's really impressive.
She wore sunglasses for me. She's just a lovely person and so funny. I think she's one of the, so many. Ronnie Chang is good.
They're all good. Jordan Clipper and the other guy. Yeah, they're fantastic. All of them are really good.
Handsome guy. I love them. Handsome guy. Yeah, handsome guy.
He's very funny. Anyway, speaking of handsome guys, Disney will name a new chief executive for Place Bob Iker in 2026, Handsome Bob. For Division leaders at Disney, they're hoping to grab Iger's spot. I think it's Dana Walden at Disney's top television executive.
She's also a very close friend of Tacoma Harris's. Josh Demaro, who runs the theme parks and video games. Alan Bergman, who is Disney's movie chief. I met him back in the oil days.
And Jimmy Patara, who I also know from Yahoo, who runs ESPN. The announcement came along with a board shakeup. James P. Gorman, the veteran Wall Street banker who joined Disney World this year will become chairman.
He's an Iger affiliate, I would say. Any idea who's going to be the next Bob Iger? Yeah, that's what I don't know. But this was overdue.
I think it was a mistake for Bob to go back. And I think a lot of these companies that have had real trouble in the markets. I think I think churn is a good thing. And as much as I really like Bob Iger and he's a great executive, I think we need to clear out this generation and bring in a new generation of people who grew up with different mediums, understand the technologies.
I don't know amongst these four. I don't know any of them if you were to pick someone. I know Jimmy. Jimmy's got digital experience for sure.
Right. I can't imagine the person. But quite frankly, I can't. I mean, here's the bottom line.
Is that it's so much about luck, like which division you're on and hopefully your division is growing. ESPN right now is a problem. It's a bug not a feature. And if you can turn it around, that's great.
But the theme parks and video games, just from a sector standpoint, that guy is going to have an easier time looking good at the right moment than the person who's running ESPN. Yeah. What about an outside person? Name an outside person who you'd like to see it.
Not it. That's really interesting. Besides you and I, which would be fantastic. I don't know.
I think the most talented guy on the sidelines right now is Jeff Sucker. Yeah. But I don't know. I don't know.
I don't have a vision for somebody who would come and do you have any ideas? No, I don't actually, which is where we are. Right. Right.
Who is like a, you know, remember years ago, it was bandied about for that job. It's going to be someone who does can deal with talent and also Wall Street. It's a really tough one. I know who they'd like to get, but they can't get them.
Who? Ted's around us. Oh, yeah. You're right.
I mean, you realize Ted. Yeah. We're going to talk about them in a second. We're in a video store for a year.
I mean, the guy just has a great gut for content. He's a brilliant businessman. He's humble. He's amazing Italian.
He obviously understands a new age. Now, a lot of talent would say that he's single-handedly is starting the margin from talent and absorbing it up until two Netflix. But he's a brilliant businessman. And I don't know if you know this, but I bought Netflix a 10 bucks a share.
That's a good news. I sold it at eight and it's now at 700. I literally want to find a time machine so I can go back and kill me and then kill myself. That would be my Gulfstream right now.
I'm not better. I have a name. I've done a Langley at Universal. I think she's a lot of really big successes.
Elegant, beautiful person, very sharp. Everybody likes her doing really well there. You know, she's someone that's a really, I think, is just well-liked and sharp as a freaking tack. I would put her in the list.
Yeah. Anyway, it'll probably be someone internally. I'm guessing either Josh or Dana Walden. One of those.
I don't know. She's been around. She's a fox. She's been around the block.
I think, you know, she's probably her. And if Harris wins, she gets a big up, I think. I would suspect she gets a big up. They are very actual difference.
But speaking of tests around, those Netflix shares are up 7% after reporting Q3 earnings. It's streamer beat expectations on earnings for share and revenue and saw a 35% quarter of a quarter jump for its ad-supported membership tier ad tier accounted for over 50% of signups. That's crazy. They've made it work.
The company said it expects Q4 revenue to rise 14% to 10.3 billion and expects a 12% growth revenue in 2025. I mean, they've also got hit shows all over the place. Nobody wants this. This little rom-com is doing really well.
All kinds of shows. I think Apple is keeping up with a couple of their shows and some others. There's good shows all over the streaming environment right now. This is now a good strategy.
Netflix is one step ahead of them at all times, you know, in everything. They're running away with it. Or they were passed on. They ran away from it.
They keep running. I mean, there's a couple of things that struck me about Netflix. The first is, for the first time in the history of the last two years, they haven't increased their content budget, which is them saying we've kind of won and don't need to because they have the money. They have the cheap capital with their stock price.
Because of the writer's strike, transferring power to people who already had a large content bank. None of us were thinking I'm going to unsubscribe from Netflix because my content bank, it's shrunk from 24 months of shit I need to get to 22 months. And so their stock went just abeship while everyone else went down. But also, for the first time, more than half their content now is being produced outside of the US.
And while Los Angeles will never be Detroit because it has an Alberta... Los Angeles production is way down. The spending on content is actually up 2% this year, so it's basically flat, but it's moving from LA to Albuquerque to Dublin, Ireland to Madrid to South Korea. So basically, Netflix is globalizing the production of the supply chain of the content industry.
And it's taking a real toll on the existing creative community. And then you add in the fact that Netflix is only the second largest streamer. They think they're the largest or not. YouTube is the largest streamer.
And then you pull out additional 10 or 15 billion a year in oxygen out from the incremental growth from YouTube and TikTok. And this industry is being reshaped around Netflix, YouTube and TikTok. And the existing players are just getting killed. They're just floundering.
They have some good shows. There are good shows, I think. But they've got right now nobody wants us, which is the Zeit show right now, which is about a hot rabbi. Essentially, this monster is a Lyle and Eric Menendez.
They make it out of jail with the attention. This has brought them. You know, they've got obviously their old things. Like love is blind.
They've got stranger things, et cetera, et cetera. And I think what's really interesting, I mean, they've got just like one after the next, after the next. And some of them are just okay. But you see big celebrities, like Holly Berry.
Like all these big names are in there, you know, in all the streamers, which is interesting. But then they have things like you and yellow jackets and the Lincoln where these shows that are in the diplomat, they're bringing that back for us. You know, I don't know if you heard, but there is an original about big tech that literally had every streamer bidding on it. And they chose to go with Netflix.
I think that's something. You did. I'm excited to see it. I think you picked exactly the right place.
I think you've got to hit it. That was a tough one. I absolutely love HBO. Yeah, I know, but I think it's right in this ad.
By the way, I had absolutely no influence over who we went with. I know, but I think it's good. I'm just kind of the tech guy. I'm going to interview you when it premieres at the Paris Theatre, which Netflix owns.
Can we go to the camp film festival? I want to go with that. No, we're going to do the Paris Theatre. Julia Benoosh.
I was like, oh, Julia Oman. She's too crazy hot. Yeah, she's going to ignore you completely. I need to go with an 86.
Oh, hello. Hello. I love her in all the Bond movies and stuff. Okay.
Let's get to our first big story. Sam Altman, once called OpenAI's relationship with Microsoft, the best romance in tech. But that love is found to fade according to report in the New York Times, which some of Microsoft were pushing back on to me recently. I just got a lot of text.
Financial pressure on OpenAI and concerns about its ability to contribute to attention between the companies. It's super expensive. OpenAI employees have also complained that Microsoft is not providing enough power. That's going to be a normal complaint.
Some of the tensions also tied to Microsoft's hedging its ability. I bet since spending $650 million to hire Mustafa Suleman and most of the employees from Inflection. Sam Altman and several OpenAI executives were not happy about that move when I interviewed Mustafa earlier this month. I asked him about the team's relationship with OpenAI.
Let's listen to that exchange. What is the relationship between them? Are you competitors? How does it?
No, no, no. We're siblings. Sometimes siblings are committed. Sometimes they squabble, but largely we're on the same team.
That's amazing for us. We collaborate closely with them on everything from the research side to core infrastructure and so on. Obviously we build competing products. I think that's healthy and a natural part of things.
It's a good relationship. Do you buy that? What do you think about this situation? Are these companies stuck with each other?
Could they actually go their separate ways? No. They're too inextricably linked. The agreement is that up until $100 billion Microsoft gets 49 or 51% of the profits.
They're like Simon's twins, but that doesn't mean they don't like each other. At some point someone takes out a steak knife and threatens to cut the corpus in half. They're so pissed off at the other. The issue I find with stuff like this, and it's the most, in my opinion, most challenging thing in business is compensation.
Imagine you're this brilliant young systems engineer or AI developer at Microsoft, and you're working, and there's three of you on your team or five of you, and you're working with the team at OpenAI and you collaborate and integration. The folks at OpenAI who've been there three years, say you've booked in there at your respective firms three years, right? They're doing the same thing. They're working together similar skillset.
And the folks at OpenAI, their options are worth $40 million. And the folks at Microsoft, their options are worth $400,000. It's like, it reminds me of Bain Consulting firms started a division called Bain Capital. And they lifted, and Romney, I think, was a founder.
They lifted a few of the best and brightest consultants out. And all of a sudden, hey, remember Lisa, who used to sit next to us and try and tell Mars how to, if they should go into Thailand or to tell the, you know, to tell the Libyan government how to improve their image, even though they're murderous. Lisa is now at Bain Capital, and I heard she just, she got $4 million off her latest deal and we're making $400,000. So I always go to the money.
I would bet the friction here is different levels of compensation between people working together. I would imagine that causes a lot of dissent within Microsoft. Yeah, that's a really smart point. Well, there's also questions about Microsoft's equity stake in governance rights when OpenAI becomes a for-profit company.
Both Microsoft and OpenAI have higher investment banks to advise them on this process. So that's also going to be another issue. But you can imagine Microsoft's like, we're $3 trillion company. You're $150 billion company.
And we've got this brilliant young man. It would be impossible for some not to have a little bit of a God complex right now and think, you know, my dick is 11 inches, even if it's not. And Microsoft is used to a command to control structure. And as far as Microsoft is concerned, it's like, we're on top bitches.
We, we, we, that's a lot of money. We've been very supportive here and the folks. And so they probably think, okay, we just need to diversify a little bit away from a company we can't totally control. And then OpenAI says, wait, you're diversifying.
But you don't want, you want us to coordinate, not compete. I imagine there's tension and flare-ups and border skirmishes everywhere. Yeah. And of course, do we get enough resources?
Are we getting enough resources? Anyway, it's a difficult thing. Meanwhile, former OpenAI CTO Mira Maradi is reporting raising funds from VCs for a new AI startup. Of course, she is.
And as did the previous people who left, like Ilya Satskivir. Perplexity is also now in funding talks looking to double its valuation to more than 8 billion. Um, competitive threats. It seems like everyone who work for AI is starting their own company, the safety company, even though they're raising enormous amount of money.
Um, Dow Jones and your post, by the way, filed a lawsuit against perplexity for copyright infringements. That's the company that a lot of people are targeting. This is just going to happen. This funding is going to continue, correct?
I mean, the bottom lines, once you have a 100x return like this, and the future looks bigger and brighter, and it's one step away from the best performing stock in history in video, everyone's looking for places to put money in AI. And why not go with the guys who aren't at 150, they're at 40? I personally think that if we're talking about the LLMs, I think that OpenAI has basically running away with it. The Netflix, the Netflix of the sector.
That's right. And Netflix was the Amazon media. And OpenAI is going to raise a ton of money, pull away from it. I think anthropic and clod with their relationship with Amazon will be the kind of the lift to OpenAI's Uber, maybe a little stronger, the Pepsi to their Coke.
Perplexity has a really nice brand positioning. It's seen as AI search, which is brilliant brand positioning. I think the rest of these folks, especially the money they're raising at, my advice to any of these companies raising would be to slow your role around valuation, because this is a hard part. When I was raising for Money for Red Envelope, I knew the froth was incredible, and I went on to raise money at an evaluation of 120 million.
And the problem was within about a year post 2000, it was worth 40 to 60. And it just creates all sorts of dysfunction at the board level. And also with employees who are all like, I'm rich. I'm not.
And then you have some people in the boardroom who are, I'm going to board right now. And the way their view of the CEO is entirely based on when they invested. The people invested recently are like, what the fuck is going on here? We don't have any affinity for this guy's idiot fucking decisions.
And the early investors are like, oh, cut her some slack. And I'm like, well, that's because you're up 10x on your investment. I get why you are very forgiving. But the folks who invested last year are probably down 30%.
Anyways, it's mismatch durations. Smart advice. They won't take it. They will grab as much.
Well, they sort of have, I mean, this is a tough one because they sort of have a responsibility to protect sort of existing shareholders and not take the dilution. But if I look at, you know, that graph that shows time to mass adoption, you know, TV took 10 or 20 years and then the facts took five years and Instagram took three years. The cycle time to mass adoption of a 10x product is getting shorter and shorter. And unfortunately, that also means the time to monopoly or do wobbly.
And I think that do wobbly is already formed here. I think it's open video. The Netflix off. Anyway, we'll see what happens.
I think they're going to raise money. And they're not going to listen to a very good piece of advice you just gave actually. Also, for the latest episode of on with Cara Swisher, I interviewed Robert Downey Jr. He's starring in the Broadway play McNeil, which gets into some ethics and morally issues around AI.
I asked him about the implications for Hollywood, who was doing some lawsuits, some deals, et cetera. Let's listen. So Robert, these images are deep fakes of you and others. They use Genevieve to create these digital replicas.
But Tony Stark died in the Avengers Endgame. They could resurrect him without you existing now, given how much body work you have. And do you have a writer to protect your likeness, something you want in your contracts going forward? I'm not worried about them hijacking my character soul because there's like three or four guys and gals who make all the decisions there anyway.
And they would never do that to me with or without me. But future executives certainly will. Well, you're right. And I would like to hear state that I intend to sue all future executives just on spec.
You'll be dead, Robert. I know, but my law firm will still be very active. It was an interesting discussion. He's a very sharp cookie.
It was a really interesting show. But, you know, it is interesting. He's an enormous body of work. And one of the great actors of our time.
Really. He won the Oscar, you know, I know he won it for Oppenheimer. But it was interesting because he really does think about these things. But there is it'll be interesting to see what happens to actors like him going forward because he's coming back by the way as Dr.
Doom. He's becoming a villain, which is interesting because we did we get we touched really briefly on Elon. And he was sort of like, yeah, that guy. Not me.
He's not playing me because he thinks he's Tony Stark. And Tony Stark does not think he is Elon in many ways. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back Donald Trump's closing arguments take a vulgar.
That's the word they're using vulgar turn. It's penis jokes, Scott. And then you're the experts. We'll talk about it.
And we'll speak with friends of pivot. Go to the chat and learn more about the rise and all the tutorials you created really fascinating business story. Want to go electric without sacrificing fun? That's the Volkswagen ID4, all electric and thoughtly designed to elevate your modern lifestyle.
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It's the family and friends event at Shofers Drug Mart. Get 20% off almost all regular price merchandise. Two days only. Tuesday, April 28th and Wednesday, April 28th.
28th and Wednesday, April 29th. Open your PC optimum app to get your coupon. I'm Estelle Herndon, and this is America Actually. We're all talking to each other to see what do we do wrong, what do we not see?
I'm in Washington, DC this week to interview Ruben Gaiago. He's a Democratic Senator from Arizona, and he's been thinking openly about running for higher office, but he's recently running to some hot water because of his connection to Congress with Eric Swalwell. I have to learn from this, and I will learn from this. But for me, it's not a 20-28 question.
It's about what it means to be a better first boss in my office and also a better Senator to my constituents. This week on America Actually, we ask Gaiago about predatory behavior in Washington. His plans for immigration reform and more. Scott, we're back with two weeks ago on election day.
The presidential candidates are making their closing arguments in very different ways. Vice President Kamala Harris focused on abortion rights at a rally in Atlanta over the weekend and visited black churches in a push for early voting. Former President Donald Trump had a stage managed photo up at a McDonald's serving for eyes to supporters in a closed place. That was after a rally where he shared a story about golfer Arnold Palmer's penis.
By the way, his daughter today said Arnold Palmer did not like Donald Trump and thought that was grotesque. You're the expert on penis jokes. Why don't you, what did you think of this penis joke he made? I don't know.
Look, it represents, so all right, the person who wants to be commander in chief from representatives to allies and enemies and to parliaments around the world, you gotta put on a tie and that is, you're going to church, you gotta put on a tie. You're going to a funeral, you gotta put on a tie. You wanna be president of the United States. You just secure that shit.
You acquit yourself and you compose yourself with a certain level of decorum. You are the ultimate statesman, full stop. So that at a minimum, it sort of says, it just reflects poorly on this person's qualifications to command that role too. And I don't like to say this, but I think it's true.
I think that it's a big part of his appeal because I think for the last 30 or 40 years, politicians stood in front of people and told them whatever they thought they wanted to hear and use PG-13 or G-rated analogies and language and people just felt like, I'm just sick of being lied to. Yeah, but do they want a penis joke like this? Yeah, but I think part of it's part of his appeal care because he's raw, I hate to use this word. He is authentically a crude and coarse person.
And there's a certain level of that outrageousness that I think appeals to his base. I don't, I think he seems cognitively disabled. I think this is lack of inhibition. I don't think this was planned.
I think, you know, I've heard from people who spend time with him. He is kind of, he is kind of dirty in person, right? Like in private, he tells dirty jokes and stuff. I think he's lost his fucking mind.
I think he's cognitively disabled. He doesn't have control. And he's not just doing it on on Palmer's penis, which is gross, I think. And I think a lot of independence don't like it much.
Didn't like that one. There's one thing to be funny. The other thing that it's just weird and creepy, I think. I'm not so sure it is appealing, this new one.
But here's the problem. Yeah. The strategy works here because we're talking about this, which people don't really care about instead of saying, okay, if he implements tariffs and cuts down on immigration, it's going to be wildly inflationary. And so he'd rather, hey, look over here.
Am I outrageous behavior? That people who don't like him? Yeah, that's fair. That people who do like him don't care instead of having a thoughtful conversation around policies that would be massive inflationary for America.
So quite frankly, he wins on this stuff. Yeah, it's true, he's willing to go low. When they go low, I go lower or very low or subterranean. There's such a contrast in these two candidates.
I mean, you know, Jim Gaffigan at one of those dinners was like, you don't understand the contrast. I don't know what's wrong with you. There's a lot of surrogates out there. Michelle and Barack Obama both hitting the campaign trail with Harris this week, Liz Cheney, his campaigning with the vice president and Elon Musk is doing town halls in Pennsylvania engaging in some potentially legal practices.
You've talked about the importance of surrogates. Trump also indicated that Nikki Haley might be joining him on the campaign trail. We'll see. Do you think they're effective at this point in the game?
Well, first off, actors traditionally have shown they always lean Democratic, whether it's Warren Beatty and the governor and actors always seem to, and there isn't a lot of evidence that that helps. Well, I do think it's really powerful to have the Obamas out there. I think Secretary Buttigieg, Governor Shapiro, Governor Whitmer, I think these are powerful articulate surrogates. And if you look at the kind of the team, it's Kellyanne Conway and Ted Nugent on the Trump side.
All right, and Elon. Yeah, and Elon, and just going to Elon for a second. The same issue is there. I saw everyone with their hair on fire, citing election law, say.
Just so people don't know, let me fill them in. Elon is randomly awarding a million dollar daily price to registered swing voters who signed his petition supporting the First and Second Amendments. Federal law says it's a crime to pay people with the intention of inducing a reward and be cast a voter. Get registered, the election law experts just split over whether his actions crossed the line.
Let me just play this, speaking of Shapiro, Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro was asked about the legality of the giveaway by Kristen Welker on Meet the Press, let's listen. When you start flowing this kind of money into politics, I think it raises serious questions that folks may want to take a look at. So you think it might not be legally yes or no? I think it's something that law enforcement can take a look at.
I'm not the Attorney General anymore, Pennsylvania Governor, but it does raise some serious questions. See, I think this is just a risk assessment by Elon. Now they're not going to come after him and if Trump wins, it won't matter. It is, I always argue, because he's not directly paying for registration, but for a petition signature, it's not illegal.
It's very typical of him. This is a very typical risk he would take easily, including attacking Dominion systems, which I think is probably not a great risk to necessarily take. But go ahead and finish what you're saying about him. It all comes down to incentives and the algebra of deterrence.
The whole point of our criminal justice system is that criminals do the math or when you're about to commit a crime, you do a math and it's the following. The likelihood I'm caught times the potential penalty has to be greater than the potential upside. And one of the biggest problems that ails our society is in certain key sectors and components of our economic system, the algebra of deterrence is all fucked up and I'll give you a couple of very three stark examples. If I'm meta and I know, I sit on top of research that is showing that there's a direct correlation between usage of my platform and teen depression and self-cutting and I continue to engage in this or I violate my consent decree and I knowingly violate my consent decree.
I know that the likelihood I get caught, that the lay and the size of the fine are vastly smaller than the upside of continuing to break the law. In taxation, all really wealthy people have an incentive to be so fucking aggressive with their taxes because their taxes are so complicated and the IRS has been so underfunded that the likelihood you'll get caught and the penalty are vastly overwhelmed by the amount of money you're gonna say. Yeah, by being incredibly aggressive on your taxes and now let's go to Musk, who gives his shit if it's illegal? They're not gonna put him in jail, they're not gonna say to Trump, all of our election laws are the following, lie, cheat, break the law, get an office and then it'll be embarrassing and the election commission will find you and they'll shame your election, your campaign manager and you're still the fucking senator.
So the incentives, until they say, until there's some sort of real risk that they can shut down, for example, all your media spending, if they say, okay, if this guy engages in this, he could go to jail or the campaign has to stop on media spending, like you could get an injunction if it's really blatant, what incentive is there for Musk not to do this? Yeah, I agree. I think everyone's like, can you believe? I was been asked, I was like, he doesn't care.
He's not gonna pay, if Trump wins, he's scot-free. This is a scot-free risk that he takes and if he loses, she's gonna have a hard time going after him and she probably won't, right? And so I think our laws, especially the election laws, do not anticipate shameless Fox, like they just don't and this is Trump and this is, you know, as you're saying with the penis joke, I don't think, I think a lot of women, woof, yuck, yuck. And I agree with you paying attention to him, but I think it brings to question whether he's cognitively or say, but that's a negative, that is showing up on poll after poll after poll, is he Biden too, but are he Biden, essentially?
And those numbers are showing some real resonance. We were showing off some stats about that. Is he too old? And then therefore you're voting for J.D.
Vance, who is paid for by Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, essentially? So I do think it's a risk for Musk to take and he will take it because he will be advantaged. And if she wins, I think the risk will be problematic for him, but not fatal for him. You know, he'll just behave.
Although saying she hates Christians and stuff like that shows that he's really, he's also mentally, has some mental problems. I think the real quiet winner in this is Peter Thiel, and I think he will take down all of them because he quietly, he's very sharp, he sits behind the scenes. He and Elon did not get along before this, by the way, at all, in a way that was significant. So I suspect if Trump wins, there's gonna be one ugly, there's gonna be one ugly fight going on among those people.
There's about a one in three chance if Donald Trump is reelected that he dies in office, just based on his age and his body mass index. That means there's a guy who was a mediocre entrepreneur of VC at best, served four years in Marines, which he should be honored for, got elected to Senate two years ago, and this guy is bought and paid for by Peter Thiel. It's not his service in the Marines, it's not, he's a smart guy, it's not his book, it's not any of that. There's two reasons that Senator Vance could be a heartbeat from presidency.
And basically the president, there's two reasons the first is Peter, the second is Thiel. Yep, that's the one I'm watching. You know, I think Elon's in more trouble in a prompt presidency than a Kamala Harris. I think he's got issues, you know, democratic issues of investigation and regulatory.
There is gonna be an ugly fight at the top there if Trump wins, I wouldn't wanna be Trump. I think he's among some very difficult characters. I didn't see that, that's interesting. I didn't see that, but because the way I see it again, it just always, in my opinion, I love to write a book called Incentives.
I just want people to connect the dots, but here are the Incentives, and this is what's so dangerous about not immediately having a gag reflex around a move to autocracy. There's greater incentive to support Trump than Harris, if you're famous or you're, because here's the thing, if you're Elon Musk and you support Trump very, very visibly and Harris is elected, they're not going to, they're not going to punish your company, they're not going to put you in jail, they believe in rule of law. Yeah, that's right. Donald Trump is saying, if I'm elected, I'm gonna prosecute Google to the full extent, or Jews, it's your fault if I don't get elected.
So all of the Incentives are okay, if I root for this clown and he doesn't win, I'm okay because the people, the other side believes in rule of law, they're not gonna, they're not going to go after personal persecution, but the autocrat might come after me. I think that is what's exactly gonna happen. So say more, what do you mean, Karen? I mean, I think Elon's in more trouble in a Trump presidency.
I think he doesn't, he's the one who's sort of, he's got obviously some cognitive issues, he's really lost his mind in many ways, allegedly. I think Teal is pulling all the strings here. I just, Peter Teal is quiet and deadly. Elon Musk is loud and he just reminds me of some of these oligarchs that ended up not living.
But the whole point of a democracy, the whole point of having different branches of governments and members of Congress and three branches and a military, a secretary of defense that comes from a civilian background, not a military, all of these things are meant to put in place checks and balances. And we're about to for the first time, I think maybe there's someone else where essentially you have one man, Peter Teal, who could literally control the president. There is no something, something Peter Teal will never hear from a vice president or potentially a president dance. Something he will never hear is no, ever.
He's the one I'm watching. I'm not watching him. He's just a ridiculous circus of a person. I don't know, I think it'll end badly for him, but Peter Teal's the one I'm looking at.
Anyway, we'll see. Let's bring in our friends a pivot. Chantal Fernandez is a fashion features writer at the cut and Lauren Sherman is Pogg's fashion correspondent together. They've written a new book selling sexy, Victoria's Secret and the Unraveling of an American icon.
Welcome, both of you. Hi, thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. The New York Times Review puts it in.
This book is about bras in the same way that Citizen Kane is a movie about a sled, which is to say not at all. Talk about this. This is a business story. And for people who don't know, Victorias, you just started their fashion shows again after a very controversial, you know, some of the executives, but one particular one that had a marketing feels like a sexual harasser of the old school.
But talk a little bit about what the story you wanted to tell. Why don't you start Chantal? Yeah, Victoria's Secret has been so connected to the zeitgeist for decades. And we really saw it as a window into the American consumer psyche.
It's a brand that so many women have had a hate-love relationship with, but it was so dominant. Really didn't have any meaningful competitors at its peak. And we really wanted to explore how that happened, how did such a tiny boutique come to dominate a really utilitarian category and turn it into a fashion category. And it was also a way to talk about the rise of specialty retail, which Les Wexner, who acquired Victoria's Secret from its original founders, and scaled it.
So impressively, you know, he didn't invent specialty retailing, but he sort of perfected that model. And through telling the story of specialty retail, it's a way to talk about the way that American fashion has evolved since the 1950s and all of these really fascinating ways. And Lauren and I wanted to write this book because there was the Victoria Secret Downfall was really a marketing angle in the media that the angels were out of touch. But it was also, we felt there was a business story there that hadn't been told that really also led to the challenges that that brand had.
And Lauren Wexner is a really unusual character, I think. He obviously shaped Victoria's Secret and brought it to, like, very similar to what happened at Starbucks. There was original Starbucks and then Howard Schultz made it into Starbucks, essentially. And his maxim for the business was, we sell hope not to help.
He also was close with Jeffrey Epstein, reportedly used his ties to him to lure young women. Talk a little bit about him, Lauren. Lauren So he, it was sort of proto-fast fashion. He changed the way we all shop.
And I think everything Chantal said, American culture is consumer culture. And he was hugely important in the making of the American mall as like a part of society. And he very, very early, his parents were in the trade, like many Jewish immigrants. And he very early saw what his parents were doing.
They owned a small store and realized, oh, the price value equation of the clothes they're selling isn't right. I could be making things cheaper without brand names and people would buy them because they would feel like they were better value. And they would feel about value value value. Pre-Wexner owning Victoria's Secret, it was more like a Barney's.
There was sets. This is like late 70s. And you could buy a brand under where I set those $2,000 there. When he bought it, like all the old executives, the first thing they talked about was the $20 red teddy that he brought to market.
And he kind of took the style that the Raymonds, the original founders created and scaled it and made it cheaper and faster. And so he's a very interesting character as a personal life, too. And the relationship he had with Epstein and how much control he gave Epstein over his life. He gave him power of attorney a couple years after they had met.
He was a guy who was very closed off and had really only worked with people he knew since high school. A lot of his first business partners were people he grew up with. So it's a very strange, strange relationship that we get into. And it's sort of their relationship and the rise and fall of Epstein sort of mirrors the rise and fall of Victoria's Secret.
So why? Why with Epstein? I think, you know, you could get Psychology 101 here. Wexner is a very shy, closed-off person who did not feel comfortable in New York City in the 80s.
There's a big New York magazine profile from, I think, where wexner's sort of like on the scene in the city. And Epstein provided, you know, as everyone knows, it was charismatic. He had a lot of connections, really powerful people trusted him. And so I think Epstein was sort of a buffer to all these things that made Wexner really uncomfortable and he felt protected by him.
He also, you know, as Epstein came in, Wexner's mother, who had been like a very controlling figure in his life, Bella had worked at the company essentially since it started. She sort of receded to the background. Epstein took her role on a board of a charity that they worked on. Like there were all these things where Epstein's presence allowed him to kind of get rid of, there's this guy, Bob Muraski, who had worked with him since the beginning.
They fired him. Like it allowed him to kind of, he was like a henchmen type thing. It's nice to meet you both. So my sense is the Epstein scandal makes for interesting media and articles, but it had almost nothing to do with this downfall.
I just don't buy it. I think this is a story of merchandising that missed the mark. And there's been a ton of scandal that founder of Abercrombie and Fitch did not trade himself in glory and they've had an unbelievable renaissance. When I think of Les, I think he got something very right and very wrong.
He actually was known, especially retails that got the first broad data, like hard data science to, especially retail. At least that's how I remember him. But the whole angels, this unattainable aesthetic that merchandise, it just kind of like most especially retail. Isn't this just a story of quite frankly and it's not sexy, but they just got the product wrong for a really long time.
Yeah, I think by the time the conversation turned against the angels and it was seen as culturally out of step, they already had a lot of merchandising problems. You know, they're the way that business was structured between e-commerce and stores was completely separate. They had invested in e-commerce. There was the rise of the bralette, you know, that kind of underwire molded that was their bread and butter.
Yeah, if they're active where it had been stronger when all of this happened, they probably wouldn't be in the position they are now. We really pinpoint it to their miss on the bralette. That sort of foreshadowing when the bralette became really popular in culture about 10, 11 years ago. There were a lot of executives internally who were pushing it, and Wexner in particular was like, no, again, we sell hope not help.
Our vision of sexy is an underwire bra. Also, underwire bras are more expensive. They have higher margins and they're harder to make. So we see that as sort of the turning point.