Transcript of Ellison's Rebrand, Netflix's Struggles, and Elon's Breakup

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Well, I was forced to after the settlement.

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

I'm Scott Galloway.

Scott, I had the best weekend. Clara turned 7, and we had a witch birthday party.

Really?

Yes.

That's exciting. God, she's 7.

She's 7.

That's crazy.

It was such a good birthday party.

Yeah?

It was so good. Yeah, a lot of girls. Hey, yeah, she had a mixed group of people.

It was really fun.

And Amanda, of course, baked a cake. I jokingly called her trad wife and all the other parents stared at me. Stared at me in a bad way. It was a joke. She baked a delicious cake.

That's nice.

Yeah, it's really nice. I can't believe how old she is. Honestly, it's crazy.

Amanda's younger than you.

Yes. Oh, you mean Claire. Claire.

Number 3, you're going to go really young.

I am not remarrying again. I really love Amanda Katz.

You know why men marry women much younger than them?

Why?

Because they can kill.

Oh, very funny. Oh, God. You're still in Los Angeles wandering around malls, I see.

I am. That's how bored I got. I went to the Century City Mall.

Oh, that is like dystopian.

It's nice.

It is. The mall is nice. Century City is. That's where they filmed one of the last Planet of the Apes. I don't know if you know that piece of trivia.

Oh my God. That goes way back. They filmed it right outside of the Shubert Theater where I saw A Chorus Line and Beatlemania with my mom.

Beatlemania. I saw Beatlemania.

We used to go— this is like the '70s. We used to go wait in line for tickets where people didn't show up. And occasionally you could get like a 4th row ticket for like $8. I'd go with my mom to see plays at the Shubert Theater.

Beatlemania. Wow. Yeah. Anyway, so you're wandering around a mall, which is— I was like, what is he doing?

I have been so cooped up. And then I walked over to the Century City Mall and I loved it. And I walked around and I did this great review of all the retailers. And I'm like, Macy's, sometimes it's darkest before it's pitch black. My favorite new brand, Brands. James Purse, Buck Mason.

Oh, James Purse is nice.

Yeah.

You have a lot of James Purse stuff that I've stolen. I know that.

Do you?

Yeah.

Those are my go-tos.

Did I just say that? Yeah. They're really nice.

Yeah.

I bet you were, when you were in the mall, do you remember Spencer's Gifts? I put that in the little—

Spencer's Gifts? No, I'm not 110.

Well, come on. We're the same age, Scott. We're essentially the same age.

Kara, you are much older than me.

No, I am really not.

You are much, much older than me.

No. Spencer's Gifts is where they had the edible underwear that you would buy as a joke gift as a teenager.

Ugh.

What do you mean, ugh?

Ugh.

I mean, ugh.

Okay. Anyway, I thought you would be at that kind of mall where there'd be a Spencer's.

No, I love— there's an Eataly there.

There is. There was a Pink Taco.

There's a Shake Shack there.

Yeah.

I love it there.

That's a Scott Mall.

That's a—

that is a vague—

Do you know what happened? So there's always— we, we like overnight— I used to go to Westwood every Friday and Saturday night and we would just walk around with my friends.

Walk around. Yeah.

And then we'd see girls from our rival, uh, high school, Palisades High School, and we'd see them 2 or 3 times and not talk to them. And then we'd go to Swenson's. Swim for ice cream. Try and sneak into the Mann Bruin or the UA Theater, which, and see a movie or the last half of a movie. Go to the poster mat and look at that picture, that poster of Farrah Fawcett. Then go to late night, go get a $3 bag from Stan's Donuts. But anyways, Westwood was thriving. And then, I don't know if you remember this, a graduate student got in the way of gunfire from gangs and was shot in the head. And no exaggeration, The next day Westwood was empty and everyone went to Century City and Westwood has never recovered.

Oh, interesting.

Never recovered.

Westwood was the spot, as I recall.

Yeah, back in the day.

And you were a mall rat. I didn't know that. I was a bit of a mall— Quaker Bridge Mall, the Quaker Bridge Mall.

The mall was the great equalizer. There were kids from all income levels, all ethnicities. You all went to the Orange Julius. Now, if the mall has an Apple and an Hermès that's growing 5%, If it has, if it has a Macy's and, you know, I don't know, name a meddling brand, it's declining 5%. 50% of the value of all malls in America is represented by the top 10%.

They're trying to turn them into pickleball courts, some of them.

Well, malls, malls are basically a reflection on America. They become very K-shaped.

Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Anyway, I enjoyed you wandering around and everything else. We've got a, we've got a lot to talk about this week. There's so much that happens every week. By the way, many people are complimenting me on the last 2 shows. They said they really enjoy us. Complimenting me. Well, you weren't there. They're complimenting us. Many people are complimenting me about us.

Let me just highlight how much people are complimenting me.

Complimenting me about us because they're enjoying the banter. You're such an asshole.

Anyway. The comments are literally— let me summarize all the comments. Can it be scot-free August forever? I'm like, yeah, it's called—

Don't read those.

On with Kara Swisher. Everyone's like, she should dump Scott. I'm like, she already has dumped Scott. It's called On with Kara Swisher.

There is a lot of that, but that's okay.

I don't care.

I say no.

I always say no.

I always push back. I do. I do. I don't, don't read the comments. Anyway, um, let's start because we've got some real juicy stuff and we've got some serious stuff. But Siobhan Zillis, Elon Musk's longtime partner and mother of 4 of his children, says Musk has abruptly ended their relationship. Didn't see that coming. And that she went from in love to let go in a week. Zillis shared the news publicly on X, including a screenshot of their recent text exchanges, responding to a post pointing out that Musk had unfollowed her. Zillis is the director of operations at Neuralink, which is a Musk company. Scott, if you ever abruptly break up with me, I will also post our texts.

I think that'll reflect more poorly on you. First off, they're at 2:00 AM. You text me very late.

What are you doing?

I can't believe you said this. I heard from Sheryl Sandberg.

So, this is so strange. I feel sad. The whole thing was such an obsequious thing. like breakup. It was— I was like, girl, get it together. Like, and then of course, Ashley St. Clair, another ex, said we should have a group text thing with all the exes, which I thought was funny.

Yeah. I feel even these people deserve a modicum of privacy. But when you announced your breakups on the guy's platform, can you imagine, first off, if— and I'm trying to think of— if Tom Keene, a really big reporter, anchor on Bloomberg, went on Bloomberg TV to announce he was no longer in an affair with Michael Bloomberg. It'd be strange and an HR issue. But somehow this seems normal in these people's worlds.

This is not an HR issue. She works for him too. You know, it's not even that. They've been together. I mean, they've been clear. It's fine. It's fine they were together. But this was so strange. I've always thought she was very slavish towards him. And I felt this I really did. Like the others, at least, like Sinclair got a backbone. And of course, Justine Musk has spoken out in this new Musk documentary coming out this week. But this was so odd and sad. I don't know what to say. I mean, seriously, it's this sort of— here's what it reminded me of. All of these tech people just cannot shut up about anything, including their sordid Problem— romantic problems, everything. They just have to like share. They seem to be oversharing in a way that's really quite disturbing to me at least.

I mean, my first instincts are like, she comes across as gracious. But women have agency. If I ever break up with you, I'm going to do it the Elon way. I'm going to unfollow you and let a bot break the news.

Oh God.

I just— I go back to the same thing, Kara.

Yeah.

Don't these people have friends?

Yes, exactly. You see that a lot. That would be a good book.

Isn't there someone she could have said over a couple glasses of whatever they say, rosé, or should they go founder mode on skinny margaritas or whatever they do?

Right. Yeah. Right.

Say, oh, I'm thinking of announcing our breakup on Twitter and being—

Humiliated.

Yeah. And then having all these bros, these bro-oligarch and Musk acolytes weigh in and insult me. You and your kids don't need that.

Right.

That's the thing.

My sense of her is that Regardless, you know, the genitals and the heart are the most powerful organs in history and the stupidest at the same time. And, you know, my advice would have been to her the same. Some of the best advice, best advice ever was given by Albert Brooks to William Hurt in Broadcast News. When he says, what happens when your real life exceeds your wildest dreams? And Albert Brooks says, keep it to yourself.

Keep it to yourself.

This is—

I feel like maybe there's some, strategic reason for doing this? I don't know. Money? I don't know.

You know what? I hadn't thought of that. I wouldn't put it past him to say, I'll give you $1 million a month if you say great things about me on my pla— Who the fuck knows?

I feel like there's a strategy going on here. It seems so pathetic. Anyway, we'll move on from Siobhan. Sorry, Siobhan. I'm sure it'll all work out eventually. Breaking up is hard to do, especially with a guy who's now a trillionaire this week because of the SpaceX shares, of course. increased. Another one, speaking of Elon, Sam Altman called Elon Musk a bully and said, once in a while you got to punch a bully back in the nose, in a new interview with Vanity Fair where he's posing.

Posing.

There's a lot of posing happening in it. During a rapid-fire word association, Altman called Trump powerful. Oh dear. Bernie Sanders consistent. And simply passed when asked about Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. When talking about how the public views him, Altman said he once had an evil caricature of Mark Zuckerberg in his head, but realized after getting to know him, that he's, he'd been projecting. Oh, interesting. Okay, fine. Well, that's usually the case with most people. They're reasonable when you meet them, but that doesn't mean they don't do bad things. Let's do a rapid, rapid word association. Sam Altman. Just that one.

The gay son we all wanted and then didn't.

Oh, man.

All these guys go from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader.

I know. It's really weird. It's really funny.

All of them.

Remember a year ago? Yeah.

And it's hushed tones. Well, Senator, that's a very interesting topic. Oh, I don't take any money. I don't take any money. And I mean, God, we keep falling for Sheryl Sandberg. We keep getting Sandberg'd. Oh, she's different. She's the different tech executive.

Oh, it's true. Anyway, he also said that we have to take some pain if we want AI. There's going to be some accidents, etc. I was like, oh, not for you. But it was some weird— I think it was the The Verge. I think it was other podcasts where he said we have to take some pain.

I actually sat 2 seats away from him. I sat next to him and in between us was this lovely woman who was on Mad Men. I forget her name. She played Pete's wife.

Okay.

Couldn't have been more lovely. And then it was Sam. And that was awkward. I gotta be honest.

It was awkward. When was it? Recently?

The Vanity Fair Oscars dinner.

Oh, that one you went to. Oh, yeah. Interesting.

It's him. I got to talk to him. Did you say hey? Did you say, hey girl? I said hello. I, I said, I introduced myself and shook his hand. Our only conversation was I asked him where the bathroom was. Seriously. He seemed like a nice man. Seemed like a nice man. But it was, it was definitely awkward. I think the week before I'd called him like, yeah, you had, I don't know, baby Stalin with a CS degree.

You just got him again with the gay one. Uh, the, he is a bully. I don't understand Trump calling him a bully.

You think Howard's a bully?

No, he called Elon a bully.

No, Elon, Elon, more than a bully.

Sam is not a bully.

No.

He has other talents of— he's manipulative for sure.

It's not— I've learned in business school, it's not manipulation, it's management.

Oh, I see. Okay. Whatever.

That's what we call it.

Is that how you handle this?

Charles O'Reilly, my— I took HR in business school for some reason. He's like, notice how manipulation, the first 3 words.

You took an HR course? That's—

Well, I was forced to after the settlement.

That's like, you took an HR— you actually went to about HR? How that didn't work.

Oh, they don't call it HR. They call it organizational behavior. But you know what all HR classes should be called?

What?

I could get everyone through business school in one semester and save everyone $75,000.

All right, okay, all right.

All HR should be called, use your common sense.

Use your common sense.

Use your common sense. And also, also, any guy that becomes an officer of a company Your fly is up and locked.

All right. Okay. That's a fantastic goar soapbox.

Well, no, but I'm, I'm being honest here. When I'm on boards, we always deal with these issues.

Yeah.

Young people, young people. You ask young people to be in a closed environment, intense situation, they're going to start having sex. I actually think it's a good thing for 1 in 3 relationships to begin at work. Young people have at it. Disclose it to your boss. Tread lightly. Any person, man or woman, above an executive level, you don't fuck anybody. No excuse, you're fired. There's some amazing things about being an executive at a public corporation. People laugh at your jokes and make a shit ton of money. One of the downsides, no sex at the office. You have a different set of rules. You make millions of dollars. You're right, it's different for you. It creates too much trouble in terms of the power asymmetry. Men will naturally mistake kindness for sexual interest. Women will mistake sexual interest for kindness. It creates problems when there's a power asymmetry behind a senior level guy because some young woman laughs at his jokes. She thinks he, that she's sexually interested in him.

Anyway, All right. Well, it's good to have you back in the classroom. And you've been kicked out again. Equal pay!

Again, one of the most powerful women in Washington. Comments.

The hot takes. Yeah. I was also— I also— you and I were the most powerful people in New York for some reason. Did you see that?

Really?

Yes.

We got on some list. What was it?

Was this one the $300 million most powerful?

No, it was a smaller group. It was $100 million, I think. Really? Yeah. You and I together.

I want to be on one of these lists alone. Was it Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway?

It was the two of us.

Really?

Yeah. We're powerful together.

Really?

Yeah. I still think you're a powerful Washington woman, so that's fine. All right. We're going to turn to— speaking of classrooms, we're talking to a difficult topic. You and I have been talking on the phone about this, actually. Cornell's president is calling the rape allegations against 7 fraternity members a defining moment for the school and promising this will not be a moment that passes. I'm not sure what he means by moment. The former student identified as Jane Doe has sued Cornell and 7 men alleging she was drugged and repeatedly raped in 2024. We did discuss this briefly last week or the day before that. Attorneys for some of the men have denied the accusations. Cornell's president says the university supports an independent investigation and will also review fraternity culture on campus. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has appointed Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor to do a fresh and thorough review of the case, which is sorely needed, and bring charges if warranted, which might be difficult given different laws in New York. I mentioned this, as I said, as my fail the other week, and since it's blown up, I just want to say, A lot of good reporting has happened, a lot of texts from these young men, which are heinous.

But I think, and the university at first was on its back heel and seems to be leaning into it to do a better job. One of the things that I would note, Cornell has this reputation, the frats do. And of course, a couple hours before this happened, this particular frat had a drug raid too. There was just some reporting on that. And oddly enough, on White Lotus, the guy who was the douche, the frat douche in the first season, I think had a Cornell hat on because the creator of the show said he was so well known. And it is well known that this is a school that just loves them frat, those douchey frats. But anyway, why don't you start? What would you like to talk about, Scott, in this topic area?

Kara, I don't think I've ever meant anything more when I say you go first.

Oh, okay. I, you know, I think as I said to you on the phone, And look, we don't know— I think there's been a little bit mob mentality online, which is very typical of online. And everyone does deserve a chance to defend themselves. That is— that's my general stance on everything. That said, there was not a real independent investigation here. There was a botched investigation. It seems like through all the texts you're seeing and all the different back and forth that this woman tried hard to say, I went to something for a party and maybe to have some fun, and then it spun out of control, and I'm trying to figure it out. And a lot of the men are saying, were trying to shut her down of those legitimate feelings she had that something turned badly. She said 100% it was rape, but it turned into rape at least. I think that there needs to be an independent investigation. That's what I would like to have happen so that we can determine— so that law enforcement people can determine about this. I don't know where it's going to end up. It's kind of a long time.

I don't know. I think it's really an opportunity to talk to not just our sons, but our daughters and everyone else about this. And I know I spent a lot of time talking my older sons about this a lot, very early on. And in fact, I had a discussion with my 5-year-old when he was hitting. And I said, you know, I was trying to get— not the no means no thing, but talking about the concept of kindness, men being kind. And I spent a lot of time with my sons. I had a great talk with Alex and Louie about this. Both of them have seen situations like this. They know they need to intervene. They can't believe that men would behave like this, which I felt good that they, you know, their reaction was the same as mine. I think they came to it on their own. But it's really important to educate, especially young men in situations like that, to help, even if the woman's mad at you for pulling you out of a dangerous situation, to try to get in there, as you say, Scott, to be a protector. But it's the same thing for women that they have to— I talked to Clara just briefly.

I'm like, listen, as you get older, you need to start thinking about how you operate in the world. And so, we had, you know, we had, like, the 7-year-old-level discussion about it. But I want them to all be aware of both taking care of themselves and taking care of other people at the same time. And I think it's really an important opportunity in this sort of heinous story to do that.

Under advice of counsel, I'm invoking my Fifth Right. Like, okay, I was in a fraternity. I was president of fraternity council. Your son's in a fraternity.

Yes.

I'm going to a Regents meeting at the University of California in about an hour where we will talk about this. I have a lot of viewpoints on this and I have sons and my guess is my oldest son will probably join a fraternity. I think the 3 most accretive things in the world that would be the most beneficial things for the world are free. And that is one, Getting rid of Citizens United, which has corrupted the most powerful and best nation in the world, the United States. 2, that everyone over the age of 72 would have to retire globally, Putin, Netanyahu, Trump, in the next year. And 3rd, I think that we need fathers to be much more engaged in their sons' lives and have much more robust, fluid conversations and open and honest and raw conversations around things. And at the outset, of the year, I said I had kind of 2 goals. Uh, you know, I'm struggling a lot with purpose. I'm in my head too much. And one was kind of zero fucks given. But the second is, um, I want to think a lot about, we talk a lot about, you know, girl dads and boy moms.

And, but we don't talk enough about boy dads. And that is the single point of failure for men across a lot of levels is when they have a lack of, uh, male mentorship and involvement. And so, I thought, okay, everyone from my DJ to my personal trainer has a viewpoint on the Attorney General, Cornell, the people involved in this case, New York laws. I'm like, okay, that's not how I want to approach this. I want to approach this as a dad and what I say to my sons. And I talked to my sons over the weekend about this. And I want to be clear around parenting. There's never been anything I've ever done that I am least certain about. I, my problem comes from too much certainty around too much, too many issues. Where I have total healthy uncertainty is my approach to parenting. 'Cause every parenting book I've read has one thing in common. It totally contradicts the one before it. But what I can tell you as a dad, the first thing is ask them what they think about it. Just get their views on it, force them to think about it. And then I go to very macro and very micro things and I try to limit it to a certain number of things.

I almost always try to limit my lessons to my kids to 3 things, 'Cause as a consultant, I read somewhere that once you get past 3, people forget the first, but 2 are macro and 2 are micro. And the first is that empathy isn't sympathy. It's putting yourself in that person's shoes. And I said, in a situation like this, you need to imagine that you have a sister who's in an exact similar situation at a university across the campus and ask yourself, how would you want the men there to behave? really empathize with people in weird situations or out-of-control situations and say, okay, that's my sister. In an alternative scenario, how would I want the men to behave? And I like the idea of protector, but the reality is 93% of sexual assault is from someone the woman knows. So to a certain extent, we've got to protect them from ourselves. And the way we— we need better men. We just need to raise better men who make better decisions. The second kind of global issue is I talk about with my sons, your future self. And I say, whenever you're in a weird situation, imagine—

Oh, that's a good piece.

Or a situation involving drugs or alcohol or other people, imagine yourself in 10 years. I do the deathbed test. I don't think you can tell kids to do the deathbed test. They can't imagine being near death. But imagine yourself in 10 years. You have a wife, you have kids, you're professional. What would your future self tell you to do right now? Like, go to your future self and say, how do I make decisions here? And then I get very tactical, and this will cause the most pushback, but I get very tactical with my kids. I say, look, going out, getting maybe a little bit drunk, you know, clothes on the floor, I think it's a lot of fun. It should never happen on first contact. The first time you are physical, with a partner, you should be sober. And it means, it means a reduction in first-time contact, but there's too much risk on everyone's part when the first time you have physical contact, and I've said this to my boys, just trust me on this, the first time you kiss or more with a partner, you should both be sober. It just makes things less Dangerous for everybody involved.

Just always be sober. If, if you're with your girlfriend and you've been out with someone 4 or 5 times and you want to go out and get fucked up and have wild sex, have at it. I think that's fun. I think that's great. The first time you have contact with anybody, you should be sober. Also, a trend among young people is choking. Don't choke anybody for any reason.

You know that was going here. Okay. All right. Okay.

Yeah, it's a trend. Kara?

I know. Okay. I get it. I get it. I just don't want to talk about it.

Supposedly oxygen asphyxiation is a better option.

Yes, it is. It is something.

Yes.

Yes.

I am aware of that. And also to be cognizant of the fact that porn takes you incrementally towards a normalization of violence against women.

You are correct. That is what— that's more to the point.

No choking and modulate your porn and be cognizant of the fact that porn is normalizing violence against women.

So— Yeah. And then the drug use that was heavy at this particular, you know—

Well, first contact.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

I smoke marijuana, I drink. So in sum, your future self, what does empathy really mean? No, no first physical contact sober. And no, nothing. Be cognizant of what violence can be and no violence. No violence.

No choking.

That's my lecture on violence.

That was very fair. That was really fair. I do think it gives everyone an opportunity. I get everyone likes to like like, oh, did she tell us? I thought one of the more heinous ones was Megyn Kelly very, very cruelly called this woman out for not reporting earlier when she herself took 10 years to report that Roger Ailes harassed her. So I don't think we need to like— this stuff is going to go back and forth. And what would— the bad result would be men and women not trusting each other.

And I think that— That horse is out of the barn.

It isn't completely though. It isn't. It's that you have to assume— look, this is obviously a situation where, you know who failed everyone here besides these young men? I'm sorry, I think they did. Was the college and then the local investigators, the local law enforcement. And that's the difficulty. And I know things are changing, but one of the things that has driven me crazy here is why didn't she take a few weeks? Let me tell you, it was only a few weeks that she took after something like this because you have to process these things. And you really do have to understand abuse. I was thinking this as I was writing up— I'm in New York today. Abuse victims often talk to the people who abuse them, of all kinds of abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, etc. And it's a very confusing thing. But the one thing is that I said to my son, both my sons, including my young one, is when you're in a position to help someone that seems in distress, you have to take it even if it costs you. Right? Because it just, you know, if you pulled a woman out of a bad situation at a frat, I was talking Alex about this.

I'm like, you'll— or maybe it was Louie. If they're mad at you, it's okay. You could have prevented— you know what I mean? It's okay to take— or your friends are mad at you, or if they call you a vibe killer, it's fine. You'll get over that. Your sins of omission are the things you will very much commission to, but very much regret. Anyway, hopefully we'll get a good investigation here and it won't turn into finger-pointing crap. Anyway, we're gonna move on, but let's— hopefully there'll be some resolution here and some clarity, which would be great. Okay, that was excellent, Scott. Thank you for talking about that.

Thank you.

Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, David Ellison makes a slew of announcements as the Paramount-Warner Brothers merger closes.

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Scott, we're back. The Paramount Warner Brothers Discovery merger is set to close this week with a new name of the media monsters getting roasted online. CEO David Ellison announced on X late last week that the The combined company will be called Skydance, the name of the production company he founded in 2006. Warner Brothers and Paramount Pictures will keep their names as separate studios under the Skydance umbrella. Ellison says he wanted the combined company to have its own identity without overshadowing either studio, allowing the brands to remain in the spotlight. And there was this also from Reddit, why abandon a century's worth of brand recognition for something that sounds like a stargazing app? I don't know. He bought the company. Ellison's bought it. They can call it whatever they want. They can call it Phyllis. I don't— You're a branding person. Just explain to me whether was good or not. I don't really care that he wants to call it that. People seem to not think that's a good idea, but the reasons were not very good except he's obnoxious for doing it. I don't think— so what? Like, it's a perfectly good name.

It's, it's a mistake, but it's not a profound mistake because it's— the parent company is a B2B brand. It's not— yeah, no one's gonna not go see the movies because they're from the Skydance studio versus Warner Brothers or Discovery. Both of those brands, though, are really storied brands. They connote quality.

Paramount too.

Yeah. Paramount. They're all, they're all fantastic brands with real legacy. And, and it's so hard to build that kind of— I mean, one of the things that's just so hard to do, Lexus was a better car than Porsche or Mercedes, but they just didn't have the iconic history and legacy. You can't build that. And so I was a, a brand consultant to all of those firms. And whenever I'd go to Germany, I'd be like, talk about your heritage. It's the only thing Lexus— Lexus was spun outta Toyota in like 1985 or something. They can't talk about you know, winning the African, you know, Dakar race in 1953. They can't talk about how you decided to share airbag technology in 1979 with everybody else. These are heritage brands. They're really powerful. It's not gonna have much impact on the business.

What would you have called it? It's hard 'cause those are 2 good brands, Warner and Paramount. Discovery, probably less so, but—

So when Wells Fargo acquired Norwest, This happens all the time in an Arab media. What you do is you have Norwest, a Wells Fargo— Norwest was actually a much bigger company than Wells Fargo. You have Norwest, a Wells Fargo company, then you have Wells Fargo Norwest, and then it's just Wells Fargo. Morgan Stanley acquired Dean Witter. For a brief amount of time, it was Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, then it just became Morgan Stanley 'cause Morgan Stanley was a better brand. It probably would've been some mashup, a Warner company or something. At the end of the day, I just would've called the whole thing Warner. I would've said over time, Jack Warner, and Warner is so storied. Paramount's right up there. I just would've said over time, what is the iconic name that means creativity in Hollywood? And I just would've called the parent company one name.

Would it be Warner Brothers or Warner? Just Warner?

That's interesting. I don't— does the Warner Brothers—

Warner Brothers feels old and true.

I would've attached— it wouldn't have been Skydance though. It wouldn't have been— I probably would've called the whole thing just Warner.

Yeah, I agree.

And it's a great logo. It means Hollywood. There's legacy there.

It means quality.

I mean, there's just so much story behind that brand.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a minor mistake. It's fine if he wants to— he's all right.

Yeah.

It's not—

it's meaningful. It's not profound.

It would've been an interesting indicator. I mean, Skydance has to do with the fact that he likes to fly, and that's why he named it that.

Yeah. But the gangster move here would've just— a nod to the industry they're going into.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. And it would've stressed the movie stuff over the news stuff. Speaking of which, Mark Thompson, the chief executive of CNN, has confirmed he'll be staying as chairman and CEO. editor-in-chief. In a memo to CNN employees, Thompson said he will now have the same responsibilities and prerogatives that I have now. In terms— he is CEO, editor, he is all of them. In terms of leadership structure, Thompson will be reporting directly to both David Ellison and co-CEO Enon Kreis. Barry Weiss will still be editor-in-chief at CBS News. They at some point will have to merge these things eventually. But I'm glad. I hope it's for the long term. I just don't know because because some people felt like it was an interim move to get the noise away from CNN, which is not a minor part of the money, but is a minor part of the business. They really need to focus on 2 things, the streaming service, which will be run by Casey Bloys, and their movie, like how they're going to figure out costs to run their movie. And then thirdly, of course, the debt, the insane amount of debt, which I think really is what— they can't take another noisy situation around the news part, which, you know, at one point, Brad Roberts said it was 5% of his money.

95% of his headaches. In this case, I think CNN does contribute significantly. But at some point they'll have to combine them, although one, CBS is unionized and CNN isn't. But I'm glad Mark is there. I've been talking to him a lot and he's a great guy. I really have, I trust him completely. And that's a good thing. I'm glad they decided not to be nuts here.

Both of us have a lot of friends at CNN. I mean, you're at CNN. Um, I was obviously the premier, uh, star of their CNN+ lineup.

Yes, yes. I am but a bit player, a noisy bit player.

So just a quick, a little bit of nostalgia. Uh, my show, I'm in San Diego and, um, uh, my producer called and I don't know if it was Rebecca Cutler, someone called me and said, you're the number one hourly show on CNN+. And I'm like, what does that mean? 14 people? And they wouldn't tell me that, what it meant. And so I got the team on the phone. I'm like, high five, we're TV stars. And then I wake up, I get, as usual, I get an early morning, oh dark hundred text from Kara Swisher.

Yeah.

Are you all right? Which is a great text to get when it's dark and you're in some bad hotel in Moab. And I'm like, am I all right? I'm like, who died? And I'm like, text her back. I'm like, what the fuck? And she, and you sent me New York Times. CNN+ to be unplugged immediately.

Unplugged.

I can't tell you what's gonna— Zaslav came in and said, bitch, I'm on top.

I'm on top.

And unplugs. And by the way, they've basically done CNN+ again. Anyway, without the dog. Every anchor I know, and I'm like you, friends with a bunch of them, they're lovely people. And 201, I was with a bunch of them at an event a couple weeks, they all say the same thing. Or they'll ask, what do you think's gonna happen? And the only thing I was fairly certain of, and I said it on this show, is that Mark Thompson was gonna stay and they were gonna elevate his position. The Ellisons are business people.

They're not that stupid. They've been stupid, but they've not that stupid.

They're business people. They're smart. They need that $600 to $800 million in cash flow. Mark Thompson is a stabilizing force. He is— what people don't understand sometimes, CEOs usually aren't the smartest people. usually aren't the visionaries. You know who becomes CEO of most publicly traded companies? The guy or the gal that's pissed off the fewest people, that's made the fewest enemies. They have to be competent. They have to be good. But have you ever heard anyone who doesn't like Mark Thompson?

No, no. And I like him a lot. I've gotten to know him for many—

He's thoughtful.

He's thoughtful.

He's nice. He's a stable— he's competent. He took the New York Times Company and probably will do some more.

And BBC.

He ran the BBC.

But he took his— probably if his career obituary, if they were to look at what is the most seminal thing he did, he took the New York Times from like 70% ad revenue to 40% and basically made it a mixed revenue subscription company.

And then hired Meredith Levien too. Like he did, and put her in place and she's been an amazing success story. And she's been a solid CEO. And that's like, that's hard for— I remember when he told me he was leaving, we were in California. And I was like, good for you, because most people don't like to be succeeded well.

I'm not Mitch McConnell. I'm gonna Mitch McConnell this podcast.

I know. But I'm just saying, I was really impressed with him at that moment. I remember thinking, wow, not a lot of people will give it to someone who's going to excel past them. And I don't think necessarily she has, but they've both been great leaders. And I just think he's— the only thing thing that just chaps my ass is why it took a second for them. This guy is so highly qualified. It shouldn't have even been a, like, a major question.

Well, they were supposed to. They announced it a couple weeks out, 2 weeks after the deal closed.

No, I get it. No, no. But it was back and forth and back. They should have— they had been talking to Casey Bloys. They kept him in the dark for far too long.

I know. They've kept the CBS management. It's like Sofia Coppola at the Oscars. They're like, you're staying home. You're not getting anywhere near the Oscars.

Yeah. Anyway, in any case—

That's a reference to Godfather III in the '90s.

It is.

That's a terrible Godfather.

Anyway, congratulations, Mark. I'm glad for CNN because he's been— I've never had anything but great times with him, especially during my show, Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever.

That's a smart move.

It is.

That company needs stability. Just get back to work. You know Mark, you like him. I'm sure he's already sat down with everybody.

It's important to keep Anderson and some others there.

Casey.

Yeah. And Casey. Casey. Casey. And did you see Casey's, uh, Kaitlan Collins, uh, cup that she had? She never says a word. And then she had a mug that said something, the world needs nasty women. After, 'cause Trump keeps attacking her like dementedly. He's got, he has Kait Collins derangement syndrome. That's what he has. Kaitlan Collins dementia. Anyway.

I think he's just obsessed with young women.

But I love that she just had the one mug. That's how, that's how she rolls. Anyway.

Good for you, Mark.

Good for you, Mark.

Congratulations.

Gin on me. A gin. He likes an expensive gin.

All right, let's go on a quick break.

When we come back, Netflix needs a growth spurt.

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Scott, we're back with more news. This was interesting. Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos says the company is not growing as fast as he wants, with engagement up just 2% in the first half of the year. The streamer is spending about 5% of its content budget on live programming, even though it currently accounts for only 1% of total viewing. Uh, the company is also planning to expand theatrical with a wide release planned for Narnia and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory after putting more than 30 movies in theaters last year. Netflix shares are down 26% year to date.

Thoughts?

This is really interesting. He also said he would only pay so much for the Warner deal. Probably a good thing he didn't get it. He'd be in a mess of trouble right now.

Oh, yeah. That'd be ugly right now.

I think he made the right choice to pull out, so to speak. But what do you think is happening there? There's all kinds of rumors about it. about, you know, people being in and out and this and that, but thoughts?

Well, we've talked about, we said it last year that it's not a talent problem, it's a metabolism problem. And that is when you have so much success, you become more risk-averse with an existing model. And one of the most underreported stories in media is, and it's happened slowly then suddenly, is a transition from streaming to what you'll loosely call the clip economy. And I, and this is anecdotal evidence, but I will get real data on this, but I'm no longer turning on the TV. I'm watching YouTube. And I love TV, but I'll watch the best 3 minutes from Fareed Zakaria's GPS on my phone. And someone has zeroed in on the best 3 or 6 minutes.

Yeah, same thing with SNL.

I don't watch SNL. I see the best bits. Someone very talented has clipped the 4 best 3-minute segments.

Yep, exactly.

Yep. And unfortunately—

Not lucrative.

The platforms that monetize that are not Netflix. And I said this when I met with Ted 3 years ago. I'm like, Netvibes, the 99% of your programming that gets 1% of the content, make it open source and let people have at it. New music, new storylines, clips, let them just go apeshit with it and produce new content. The viewership grew 2% on 200 billion hours in the first half. So Sarandos said it's— he isn't growing as fast as he wants, but he did say the business is great and growing fine. Revenue growth was 13% in Q2. It's interesting. Talk about good problems. Companies would kill— media companies would kill for 13.5% growth.

Yeah, they would.

They would.

Live takes about 5% of the roughly $20 billion content budget, around $1 billion, and generates about 1% of viewing. Sarandos admits that the ROI isn't there, but he says the signups— it drives signups and retention and ads. HSBC downgraded the stock to hold, arguing YouTube's gains are partly coming at Netflix. Netflix isn't competing against Hulu or HBO. It's competing against YouTube, full stop.

YouTube, yeah.

And Netflix pays $20 billion a year for content. YouTube pays creators on a revenue share basis and gets 20 million uploads a day for free. It's just, it's difficult to compete against that cost structure.

So what do you do? What do you do then?

I just said it. I think they need to take, what are their assets? Bella and Ted and his co-CEO, they produce probably not the best content, but the most gross tonnage of it. They're the Russian army. I mean, they're just— no one has a— they have the biggest content budget in the world. They do produce great content.

A lot of it.

They need to create a platform and technology to start slicing and dicing it and move to where the puck is headed. And that is a generation of people that wants to watch shit in 2, 5, and 10 minutes. I watch—

So right. The Quibi turned out to be a good idea.

That was right.

They don't have to watch have the capital.

I watched my, my, one of my favorite series just released season 2, Mobland. But after the, the aficionados have gone of that show and are willing to watch it for an hour have gone away, make it open source and let every creator just have, have at it and slice it and dice it a million different ways and do one season in 30 minutes and do all the different murder scenes and do all the different music.

That's a great idea.

You know, just have fun with it.

You know what's so strange? Years ago when I did, we did about 7 or 8 Steve Jobs interviews. And when he died, I tried to get News Corp to dice it up of Steve Jobs management tips from all these interviews. 'Cause, you know, like collect them over the years. And they didn't wanna do that. They never wanted to do that because they were like, it's stronger as the whole. And I was like, well, wouldn't it be kind of cool to hear his thoughts on 6 different topics that he covered over 8 years? Anyway.

I do think the stock is a buy though. Any stock that's down 26% and off 40% from its highs with 13% revenue growth, it means the market is repricing Netflix and has transitioned from thinking of it as a growth stock to a utility. It's the best company in traditional media priced like it's done growing. It's growing 13%.

Should it buy something? Should it— there's, you know, rumors that it'd buy a studio.

I always thought the gangster merger for them would be with Disney. That way they could take Wednesday, and all these incredible Netflix series and go into theme parks and rides.

They do some. There's some— they do deals because you see it. Like, I was in Vegas, there was a Netflix cafe. They do some of those deals.

I think everything comes down to warfare. And that is Netflix— Netflix is— they own the arms race. They have the biggest army. And then they looked up and YouTube, Ed, owns the skies in asymmetric warfare.

Yeah.

YouTube can launch a million drones and just see which one works, right? Netflix is committing to B-1 bombers. Like, they spend a lot of money on series. The live sports is weird. It's like a gym membership. Right now, nobody uses it as much, but they don't want to stop paying for it. So we'll see.

But what about like, I've noticed I don't look at any other podcasts there. I mean, the only one that's doing well, as I said, was Charlamagne tha God.

Is that right?

Yeah, that's what I understand. Like doing like really well. I mean, I'm sure they do fine, but I never— I see it there and I never think of it for them. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know why. I don't—

It's such a big opportunity for them.

It is. I just don't know what would make me click on it.

Oh yeah. The home screen. Next to iOS, the Netflix home screen's the most aspirational piece of real estate in the world.

Yeah, I know. But I'm just saying it doesn't— it doesn't— I see it there and I don't think it's, it's picking up speed in any way. I don't know. But short things, I agree with you. Short things.

Well, here's a prediction. Here's my— it was gonna be my Prediction Friday, but I will come up with something different on Friday. Within the next 12 or 24 months, Netflix is gonna buy or partner with a creator network. And the whole, we're professionally produced mantra is kind of like what Blockbuster said about mail order. They're gonna get into— they've gotta get into the clip economy.

They do. They kind of are dipping their toe in. They've done that a bunch of times. Yeah, you're right. 100%.

I don't think at this price though.

Yeah.

God, the content library, the distribution, the homes they're in, the management team. I don't know. I like this company a lot.

Yeah, me too. We'll see. But there are, just so you know, there's plenty of rumors around whether even Ted will survive it. I think he will. Oh yeah. No, there's rumors about all of the executives. You know, I'm just telling you, it's out there. I think it's probably done by their enemies. But I think pound for pound, it's sort of, they remind me of Apple. They've really produced well over the many years, right? Like, the same executives and they seem to be refreshed.

So, okay, I'm, I'm going to my, how important am I? I'm telling you about the board members. The board members have made so much fucking money under the leadership of Ted Sarandos. They have built a lot of goodwill. Ted can hit a few speed bumps and everyone on the board's gonna ignore it.

Yep. I agree with you. I think—

Right now, right now everyone's saying to Ted, oh, don't worry about it. You'll figure it out. That's what they're saying to the board.

He will figure it out. I've always been impressed with Ted Sarandos myself. I've always enjoyed talking to him. I think he's always up on things and has not, you know, sometimes executives get little slower. But I have to tell you, the Apple group did very good for a very long time, and this new guy, we'll see what happens. Um, all right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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We're just about one month out from the midterm elections in these United States, and despite all the gerrymandering and voting restrictions, legal challenges and personnel shakeups, it looks like the Democrats are gonna flip the House of Representatives.

The vibes, if you ask Democrats, are The odds are incredibly strong. It's mostly Democrats trying to tell each other, like, don't oversell how amazing of a night we're going to have.

So on Today Explained from Vox, how are the Democrats going to mess this up? Nah, JK, JK, JK.

Let's enjoy it while we can. The question isn't anymore like, will Democrats flip the House majority? It's how big is that majority going to be? Can they hear the sound?

So on Today Explained from Vox, we're going to talk about the new sheriff in town if all of this goes as Democrats think it's going to go. Hakeem's House on Today Explained, Monday through Friday afternoons in your feeds.

What we're after. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like me to go first?

You go first.

Elon Musk has announced he's changing the name of SpaceX AI to SpaceX SI because he's a suck-up to Donald Trump. This is so inane. Like, oh my God, Elon, guess what? There's an election coming up where it might not go so well for you. Although he will try his level best to manipulate it, but, or spend money, excuse me, not manipulate it, spend money in order to win his side.

Stock's up today.

It is. He's rich again, whatever.

Again.

Again, whatever.

Thank God.

Whatever. I don't know what to say. My win is, I really do, The Social Reckoning is opening this week and so is Musk. I recommend people see it who don't know a lot about this because I think it does a really nice job. It is long. Abso-fucking-lutely. I have a really interesting interview coming up on Thursday which I can't reveal yet. But I found it really— I think it's really important to think about this person in a position of enormous power. Even though sometimes he seems like an ass clown, he's also very dangerous and incredibly influential. And so we should never take our eyes off of him. And getting yourself educated for this documentary, Musk, is great. And I did like The Social Reckoning. I don't think it's as good as the first one, but it's still, you know, I think it's a really strong movie. And it's, I think it's worth, another movie worth seeing. And it certainly goes by quickly. It's a great cast with, I think it's Mikey Madison. I think Mikey Madison. Anyway, the whole thing is, it's well done. Anyhow, Jeremy Strong is in it. The other Jeremy from The Bear in it.

So it's a good movie. So those are my, my wins.

Nice. So my win is the FlyDubai FC1073 passengers. On September 30th, passengers said the copilot stabbed the captain, after which the plane lost control and dropped 17,000 feet in under a minute. Israeli passengers got into the cockpit and incapacitated the copilot and Omani national. 2 off-duty pilots then reportedly took over the controls. 3 Israelis tied up the attacker and the plane made an emergency landing at Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia. So what it says about Israel, I think it says some very positive things about Israeli culture. Near universal military service, most Israeli adults have trained for crisis, a bias towards action, and kind of echoes of Flight 93. But also the heroism is shared here. And one of the nicer things about it is an Indian pilot. He was also hailed as a hero along with the passengers. There's a Gulf angle here. Saudi Arabia took in an Israel-bound plane, and passengers thanked Tabuk Airport for the warm welcome. Kind of reminded me of when Gander accepted our planes, American planes, after 9/11. So this was not, you know, this is about a wonderful ending, which we needed in good news.

Yeah, it didn't crash. It didn't crash.

And Israel and Israeli culture plays a nice role here, but it's not a story, just a story about Israel. It's a story about heroes come from different nationalities, and that heroism can be used to kind of create connective tissue. There's a lot of really nice feelings back and forth between these countries right now in an era where we just need more connective tissue between nations.

Yeah, that Indian pilot, he got stabbed supposedly, and I mean, this is what the reporting was, and then opened the door, which is—

Yeah, and yelled for help.

Critical. That was critical to the entire thing because those doors are now locked.

And by the way, there was a passenger who immediately knew how to land the plane.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anyways, I just think, quite frankly, I think that is such a nice story that the world needed to hear right now, and I don't feel like we're hearing a lot about it, and that's a different issue. So my fail is Musk exports US polarization to Germany. The AfD won 44% of the vote, and the extremism label is earned here. The state's domestic intelligence service classifies the Saxony-Anhalt AfD as a proven right-wing extremist organization. Which of course the parties deny. Now, Musk role on election night. Musk posted, gut gemacht, good job. The AfD-led candidate Ulrike Singmann thanked him for support and perspective on politics in Germany. So the platform. So Global Witness found that 2/3 of party political content X recommended from unfollowed accounts supported the AfD, and 78% on TikTok. This was despite the CDU and its leader posting 69% more content than the AfD. And It appears that the Twitter algorithm is biased towards far-right groups in Germany. They have had pushback. Poland's Tusk said only idiots or traitors in Poland could celebrate the AfD's win. I think Poland is the unsung bulwark now against Russia and far-right extremism in the US. So the AfD, let me be clear, the AfD's rise to power isn't because of Musk.

It's because of anti-immigration policies where there is some legitimacy to the fact that Merkel probably thought about immigration before assimilation, and there's economic problems. But in sum, America's most successful export used to be democracy, and now it's polarization sold through one man's algorithm to one country that has the best reason to know where this extremism ends. And this is the same guy that claims there's a white genocide taking place in South Africa that has, in my opinion, going to go down in history as the greatest cause of unnecessary death, disease, and disability among Black people in Africa. This is not the guy who should be tweaking an algorithm to help support and give rise to a far-right extremist party in Germany. And again, political extremism shouldn't be our export here.

Well, it's actually in Spain, the leader there because of immigration is in a little bit of trouble. In Bolsonaro, looks like the son of Bolsonaro looks like he's going to be beating the left party there. There's all manner of things happening. Can I just point one thing out about the AfD? The co-chair of the party is a lesbian who has a woman of color as her partner and they have children and she's against gay marriage. marriage. She's anti-immigrant. And just is everything she lives, and she lives out of the country too. She lives in Switzerland most of the time. Everything about her life she is pushing against. It's really something. Her name's Alice Weidel. I kind of want to interview her and maybe have a wrestling match of some type. Lesbian wrestling.

I'd tune in for that.

Yeah, me too.

The wrestling match, not the interview.

Anyway, that's a good one. You're right. He's doing it. He did it in Britain too. Like it's not just Germany, it's all over.

He hasn't been to Britain in 3 years.

I know, but he—

I live in London. If you believed Elon Musk, you would think a bunch of Muslim rape gangs are roaming the streets at night.

Yep, yep, that is not happening. That is not happening. Anyway, good one, Scott. Good one, Scott. What a good show once again, as people will compliment me about. Anyway, they'll compliment me about it. Anyway, we wanna hear from you. If you'd like a chance to hear yourself on the show, send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot, submit a question for the show Call 855-51-PIVOT. And don't forget, Pivot Tour is less than a month away. Go to pivottour.com to get your tickets. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday.

Today's show was produced by Lara Namensway, Marcus Taylor-Griffin, and Todd Wiseman. Ernie Enretad engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Brels, Mia Silverio, and Dan Shalon. Nishad Khura is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, I'll see you later in the week.

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