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0:00:38 – Hey, I’m John Glenn Hill,
0:00:41 host of a brand new show from Vox called “Explain It To Me.”
0:00:45 This week, the ethical murkiness of zoos.
0:00:47 – Do we as humans feel like we deserve
0:00:49 to just be able to walk around and see these animals?
0:00:52 Like, maybe we don’t deserve that.
0:00:55 Maybe there’s just some animals we don’t get to see.
0:00:57 – To zoo or not to zoo?
0:01:00 That’s this week on “Explain It To Me.”
0:01:02 Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
0:01:09 – An experimental procedure that is giving hope to–
0:01:11 – To get a heart transplant
0:01:13 from a genetically modified pig.
0:01:15 – There’s over 100,000 people
0:01:17 on the organ transplant wait list.
0:01:21 And some scientists think the answer might be pigs.
0:01:24 – Nobody in the world knew how a human
0:01:27 would react to a pig heart, right?
0:01:29 The next day when we asked him,
0:01:30 “You know, how are you feeling?”
0:01:31 He said, “Oink, oink.”
0:01:34 – This week on “Unexplainable,”
0:01:37 are pig hearts really the answer?
0:01:40 Follow “Unexplainable” for new episodes every Wednesday.
0:01:45 – Welcome to “Raging Moderates.”
0:01:46 I’m Scott Galloway.
0:01:48 – And I’m Jessica Tarlev.
0:01:49 – Jessica, where are you today?
0:01:50 What are you up to?
0:01:51 What are you doing?
0:01:52 – I’m at my mom’s house.
0:01:56 Like all good 40-year-old women who need a fireplace.
0:01:57 So they go to their mom’s apartment
0:01:59 to escape a potty training codler.
0:02:00 – I think the way you’re supposed to do it
0:02:03 is you have mom come over and watch the kids
0:02:04 and you go to the spa
0:02:06 or go to your friend’s house and eat ice cream
0:02:08 and smoke cigarettes.
0:02:10 I’m making a bunch of gender stereotypes here.
0:02:11 – I get it.
0:02:12 I’d like to continue with that, though,
0:02:15 to add to it that when my mom started dating again
0:02:18 after my dad passed away, when we were gonna put her online,
0:02:19 the joke was that her tagline
0:02:22 should be not that kind of grandma.
0:02:24 So she would not be the one coming over
0:02:28 to take care of the toddler and to do the potty training.
0:02:31 No, I mean, she’s into it, but she needs assistance.
0:02:34 She’s not a solo rider when it comes to that stuff,
0:02:37 but I’m appreciative of the apartment.
0:02:40 – Today, in today’s episode of “Raging Moderates,”
0:02:42 we’re previewing the VP debate.
0:02:44 Kamala Harris’ trip to the border
0:02:46 and her new economic plan, we’re gonna talk about it.
0:02:49 We’re gonna discuss NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ indictment
0:02:52 and to wrap up the episode, former Maryland governor,
0:02:54 Larry Hogan joins us for a quick discussion
0:02:56 on how the Republican Party feels about the election
0:02:59 and what it takes to govern across party lines.
0:03:02 All right, let’s light this candle.
0:03:03 The VP debate is here.
0:03:06 J.D. Vance and Tim Walls are going head to head
0:03:08 with just a month to go before election day.
0:03:10 Vance has been reviewing footage of Walls’ previous speeches
0:03:13 and studying his past policies.
0:03:14 Meanwhile, Walls spent the weekend
0:03:16 hunkered down in debate camp in Michigan
0:03:19 with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
0:03:21 playing the role of Vance in mock debates.
0:03:23 Jess, what’s your take here?
0:03:25 What should we expect on stage
0:03:26 and is this really going to move the needle?
0:03:28 Doesn’t matter.
0:03:30 – I think that it could matter.
0:03:33 I mean, historically, they don’t matter as much,
0:03:34 but there are a few instances
0:03:36 where I think people really got the message,
0:03:39 including the Joe Biden debate with Paul Ryan,
0:03:42 where I feel like really solidified things
0:03:45 for the ticket there in 2012.
0:03:46 – You think he beat Paul Ryan?
0:03:48 – I do, yeah.
0:03:50 I think Paul Ryan came off as wonky and detached
0:03:53 and Joe Biden was wonky and attached,
0:03:55 which made a big difference.
0:03:59 But I think this, similarly to the first debate,
0:04:03 I think this matters a lot more for the Democratic side
0:04:06 than it does for the Republican side.
0:04:08 I think that folks that are dug in
0:04:11 and they’re voting Trump Vance are voting Trump Vance
0:04:13 and there’s a lot more room to grow on the Democratic side
0:04:16 in terms of getting to know this ticket.
0:04:19 And something that I think Politico covered it,
0:04:22 but that has just been kind of ruminating in my circle,
0:04:25 is that one of the main reasons walls was picked
0:04:27 was that he was really good in interviews.
0:04:28 Remember, he was the first guy to say,
0:04:29 “They’re just really weird.”
0:04:31 I think he was on with Stephanie Ruhle.
0:04:34 And he was constantly on air.
0:04:36 And he was on our air on Fox, he was on CNN,
0:04:39 he was on MSNBC, doing every radio show.
0:04:42 And he’s disappeared a bit.
0:04:44 People haven’t seen him really since he became the VP
0:04:46 in the same way.
0:04:49 And so I think that this is a big opportunity
0:04:53 for him to remind people, like I’m good at this.
0:04:56 I may not be as wonky, but I know my shit.
0:04:58 I can talk to you about my record
0:05:00 and I don’t think you should apologize.
0:05:03 I know that the summer of the Black Lives Matter riots
0:05:06 is gonna come up and Minneapolis burning, et cetera.
0:05:08 I think he can make a really clear case
0:05:09 for why he’s been a great governor.
0:05:13 He won re-election in 2022 by an even larger margin.
0:05:14 He can talk about all of that.
0:05:16 But I think that he needs to remind people
0:05:19 that we are the normal ones.
0:05:23 He can do the job and that they’re ready on day one for this.
0:05:27 And someone smarter than me said to me,
0:05:29 “If you look at the transcript after the debate,
0:05:32 “don’t be surprised if it looks like JD Vance won,
0:05:34 “but in reality, Tim Walls did.”
0:05:36 Which I thought was an interesting way of looking at it.
0:05:37 What are you expecting?
0:05:40 And are you gonna stay up through the middle of the night
0:05:40 to watch?
0:05:41 – What time is it?
0:05:42 Is it 9 p.m.?
0:05:44 – 9 p.m., I don’t know why they do this all so late.
0:05:46 It should be like a 7.30 start, but.
0:05:48 – Well, yeah, but there’s this terrible thing called
0:05:50 California with 35 million people in it.
0:05:53 So it’s 6 p.m., I think it’s the best they can do.
0:05:55 And I’m not sure they’re catering
0:05:58 to the angry depressed people that relocated
0:06:01 from Delray Beach to London.
0:06:02 – Small demo.
0:06:05 – Yeah, I don’t know if we’re critical here.
0:06:09 Anyways, I was going to this a bit.
0:06:11 I think JD Vance is very intelligent.
0:06:13 I just think fundamentally, he’s a mythogenist
0:06:16 and also quite strange and has very fucked up views
0:06:18 on the relationship or the intersection
0:06:21 between government and civil liberties and women.
0:06:24 I think there’s something off there.
0:06:27 At the same time, if you’ve read his book,
0:06:29 I just don’t think there’s anything getting around it.
0:06:32 I think he’s brilliant, I think he’s very intelligent.
0:06:37 Also, there’s a certain sociopathy that he has demonstrated
0:06:40 given just how poorly he’s done, given that he’s probably
0:06:43 the least, I believe he’s the least popular VP pick
0:06:46 in history at this point in terms of his negatives.
0:06:48 It doesn’t seem to have phased him.
0:06:50 I bet he’s thinking this is a chance for me
0:06:54 to really kind of go hard and pick apart on arguments.
0:06:57 I think he’s going to be a formidable debating opponent.
0:07:02 Now, I would imagine if I had to project or speculate,
0:07:03 my guess is a lot of people are going to tune in
0:07:06 because they’re hoping for a total food fight.
0:07:10 But I just wouldn’t, I think Senator Vance is strange.
0:07:13 He is, I mean, we had Anthony Scaramucci
0:07:15 on the prop cheap pod and he described Steve Bannon
0:07:17 as one of the smartest people he knows.
0:07:20 And there’s something wrong there.
0:07:22 I think Steve is, I can’t even figure out
0:07:24 how he’s gotten to the place he’s gotten to
0:07:25 in terms of what he believes about America
0:07:28 and being an apologist for the insurrection.
0:07:30 I think J.D. Vance has cut from that cloth.
0:07:34 He’s one of those people that you know is just so bright,
0:07:36 but you can’t quite square the circle
0:07:39 on why he would decide to say that our country
0:07:40 is run by a bunch of people in New York
0:07:45 living in $5,000 a month, one bedroom apartments
0:07:48 who are childless and deeply unhappy.
0:07:50 I mean, I’m sure those people exist in New York.
0:07:52 The most of the people I know in New York are loving life,
0:07:54 are pretty happy.
0:07:57 And it’s like, where does he get this stuff
0:07:59 and what happened?
0:08:02 If there’s more of that, walls will win,
0:08:04 but I think he’s more disciplined than that.
0:08:06 I think walls right out of the gates
0:08:09 needs to do with Vice President Harris did
0:08:11 and try and put him on his heels
0:08:14 and talk a lot about some of the just ridiculous things
0:08:16 he said, what are your followup thoughts?
0:08:20 – I think he’s taking the culture war too far
0:08:23 and people who tend to live and die by the culture war,
0:08:26 it often doesn’t marry up with actually being super smart.
0:08:28 And that’s where JD Vance is,
0:08:31 the intersection of that.
0:08:34 He’s obviously wrong about New York and I grew up here
0:08:38 and most people here are what you describe,
0:08:43 but if he manages to rise above the fray
0:08:45 and I feel like walls will be throwing a lot
0:08:47 of this childless cat lady stuff at him,
0:08:50 eating the cats, eating the dogs,
0:08:52 they’re gonna be met with a very different response
0:08:55 than Trump who just starts sputtering
0:08:56 whatever he’s seen online
0:08:59 or what he’s seen from his favorite commentators.
0:09:02 And it is a bigger uphill battle,
0:09:04 I think than it would be in a debate with Trump.
0:09:07 And during the vetting process,
0:09:10 apparently walls voiced concern to Harris’s team
0:09:12 that he’s not a great debater.
0:09:15 He did say, I can do it, I have done it,
0:09:17 I don’t believe it’s one of my key strengths
0:09:20 and it’ll be interesting to see how nervous he is.
0:09:21 I mean, this is by far and away
0:09:24 gonna be the biggest night of his political life
0:09:27 and he’s the governor of a major state, right?
0:09:30 The sixth best state in the country to do business
0:09:33 and tomorrow night is going to be even bigger for him.
0:09:37 So I hope he just goes ahead with his game plan.
0:09:40 I think Pete Buttigieg knowing JD Vance,
0:09:42 like he’s got his number, right?
0:09:45 He knows exactly who he is, both have served,
0:09:48 talk about the same kind of values with Pete Buttigieg
0:09:50 actually living them versus JD Vance,
0:09:53 purporting to live by them.
0:09:57 And I think they will talk about really personal stuff
0:10:00 like immigrants with JD Vance married
0:10:03 to the child of Indian immigrants, talk about religion.
0:10:07 He was out over the weekend with a Christian nationalist
0:10:10 on his tour, the courage tour.
0:10:13 Someone who has said that Kamala Harris is possessed
0:10:14 by demons.
0:10:16 I think that all of these kinds of themes will be coming up
0:10:19 and if JD Vance can steer clear of a lot of it,
0:10:22 I think his favorability will still be negative 13,
0:10:23 but nothing will be hurt.
0:10:26 All the room to gain is really on walls aside.
0:10:28 – Yeah, I think the surprise issue here,
0:10:31 everyone’s expecting them to bring up immigration,
0:10:33 kind of the two eyes immigration inflation.
0:10:35 I think the third eye is going to play
0:10:38 perhaps a surprise role here and that’s Israel.
0:10:40 And there’s been so many, in my view,
0:10:43 really positive developments around debilitating,
0:10:47 defenestrating, decapitating, kneecapping,
0:10:49 whatever other terms I can come up with
0:10:52 for the largest terrorist organization in the world.
0:10:55 And I wonder who’s going to bring up Israel
0:10:59 and I think they’re going to try and out Israel each other.
0:11:03 I think both think, okay, I need to be to show anomalous
0:11:07 to the support or lack thereof or milk toast language
0:11:10 we’ve heard out of the White House regarding support Israel.
0:11:12 I think they’re both going to be trying to outmatch
0:11:15 each other and show even more and more resolute support
0:11:16 for Israel.
0:11:17 What are your thoughts?
0:11:18 – I wouldn’t be surprised.
0:11:20 It probably will be a question as well,
0:11:22 just since it’s so in the news
0:11:25 with, you know, dismantling Hezbollah.
0:11:30 And last night, I went to Douglas Murray,
0:11:33 who is a conservative commentator and journalist,
0:11:35 has something called the Save the West tour.
0:11:37 And he was at the Beacon Theater
0:11:41 and my husband and I went to see what it was all about.
0:11:45 And I disagree with a ton of Douglas Murray’s beliefs,
0:11:47 especially when it comes to Islam.
0:11:52 But he did go and embed in Israel right after 10/7.
0:11:53 He was embedded with the Ukrainians as well
0:11:55 after Putin invaded and he’s done a lot
0:11:58 of really interesting journalistic work.
0:12:02 And I mean, I could do hours on my takeaways from it.
0:12:05 But what really stuck out to me is that this room
0:12:09 that was full of Jews and Jewish allies
0:12:14 as far as the state of Israel really needed to be in a place
0:12:19 where they didn’t have to counter their feelings
0:12:21 about the Israeli offensive with,
0:12:24 of course, any loss of innocent life is a tragedy
0:12:26 or where they wouldn’t be called genocidal
0:12:29 for supporting BB’s actions.
0:12:33 And I felt that very strongly and he made one comment,
0:12:35 you know, whether you lean left
0:12:36 and no one really said anything
0:12:40 or whether you lean right and there was booming applause.
0:12:43 Now, that does not mean New York is going for Trump
0:12:45 or that Jews are going for Trump,
0:12:48 but you can see a desire on the behalf of people
0:12:53 who support Israel to not have to sugarcoat things,
0:12:58 especially in this moment, to just be damn proud of the IDF
0:13:00 and what they’ve been able to pull off.
0:13:03 You know, people wearing T-shirts that say bring them home,
0:13:06 saying I want to talk about the hostages every single day
0:13:09 until these people are back with their families.
0:13:13 It was moving in that respect on a very deep level
0:13:17 and I saw something that I had kind of read about firsthand
0:13:20 and was very thankful for the experience.
0:13:24 – I do think that the, what I’ll call the precise,
0:13:25 I mean, I would argue what’s happened
0:13:26 over the last couple of weeks
0:13:31 is the most precise anti-terrorist action taken in history.
0:13:35 And I do think that the Gulf nations,
0:13:38 the world do respect strength and that kind of expertise
0:13:41 and that kind of unapologetic defense.
0:13:43 And I’d like to think that this weird anti-American,
0:13:47 anti-Israel sentiment, largely or kind of the tip
0:13:49 of the spear has been the zombie apocalypse
0:13:52 that’s taking place in my industry on campuses
0:13:55 or the zombie apocalypse of useful idiots.
0:13:57 I would like to think that it’s bottomed,
0:13:59 that people see okay.
0:14:02 They are taking out people who were killing Americans
0:14:05 and thousands of Syrians and thousands of Lebanese
0:14:08 and have just invoked and created
0:14:12 so much despair and tragedy across Lebanon.
0:14:14 And there were people celebrating in the streets
0:14:16 across the Gulf at this guy’s death.
0:14:19 So I’m hoping this is a turning point
0:14:20 and just to bring it back,
0:14:23 I’d be shocked if it didn’t become
0:14:26 a pretty significant piece of content tonight.
0:14:28 – Yep, agreed.
0:14:31 And I will say, I thought that Kamala’s statement
0:14:34 on the murder or taking out of a Nuzrola
0:14:35 was very strong.
0:14:38 She called him a terrorist in the opening line.
0:14:41 And that’s exactly the kind of spirit
0:14:44 that we need to take to this fight.
0:14:47 And a crazy couple of weeks,
0:14:51 but I think that everyone is moving in the same direction
0:14:53 to your point about what’s going on on the campuses,
0:14:56 what commentators are saying, et cetera.
0:15:00 And BB’s kind of said, I’m gonna do this no matter what.
0:15:02 So are you coming with me?
0:15:05 Or I’m gonna take out someone that killed two,
0:15:10 it was a 250 Americans have been murdered by Nuzrola too.
0:15:13 – Yeah, yeah, well, it was a U.S. ordinance.
0:15:14 It was a U.S. missile.
0:15:16 They took out Hezbollah headquarters.
0:15:19 Okay, so anyways, we’ll be back after a quick break.
0:15:28 – When Kamala Harris and Donald Trump met
0:15:30 on the debate stage, it was obvious
0:15:33 that these were two very different people.
0:15:36 – But JD Vance and Tim Walls actually have a lot in common.
0:15:38 They’re both white men from the Midwest.
0:15:40 They’re both family men, and they were both in the service.
0:15:43 – But they disagree on what it means to be a man.
0:15:45 – Here’s my light pack.
0:15:47 Surround yourself with smart women and listen to ’em,
0:15:49 and you’ll do just fine.
0:15:51 – Today explained, every weekday,
0:15:52 wherever you get your podcasts.
0:15:58 – This week on Prophogy Markets,
0:16:00 we speak with Lena Kahn,
0:16:02 chair of the Federal Trade Commission.
0:16:04 We discuss ongoing antitrust cases,
0:16:06 how to measure consumer harm,
0:16:08 and her take on monopolies in big tech.
0:16:11 – We went through a 20-year period
0:16:14 where the Big Five technology companies,
0:16:17 Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon
0:16:20 collectively made over 800 acquisitions,
0:16:23 and not a single one of which was challenged at the time.
0:16:25 And now there are lawsuits
0:16:27 kind of retroactively identifying
0:16:30 that some of those were missed opportunities
0:16:32 and failing to stop those deals
0:16:34 had a really negative impact on the market.
0:16:37 – You can find that conversation and many others
0:16:39 exclusively on the Prophogy Markets podcast.
0:16:44 – Moving on, Harris made her first trip
0:16:45 to the US-Mexico border
0:16:47 since becoming her party’s presidential nominee.
0:16:49 This was only her second time there
0:16:51 as Vice President during her visit.
0:16:53 She criticized Trump’s immigration efforts.
0:16:55 Let’s have a listen.
0:16:59 – He made the challenges at the border worse.
0:17:01 And he is still,
0:17:06 and he is still fanning the flames of fear and division.
0:17:10 – The visit comes at a time when polls show voters trust
0:17:12 Trump and Republicans more in immigration.
0:17:13 And to no one’s surprise,
0:17:16 Trump called it a political stunt,
0:17:17 saying it’s too little, too late.
0:17:19 Jess, is there any truth to that?
0:17:21 Should Harris have made this move earlier,
0:17:24 or is this, you know, good campaigning?
0:17:26 I think it’s both.
0:17:29 I think that she has missed numerous opportunities
0:17:32 to be stronger on the border, to appear stronger.
0:17:35 And we can’t change the fact that we’re a visual species.
0:17:39 And seeing somebody at the crisis point
0:17:41 is different than hearing somebody talk about it
0:17:45 in an air conditioned room, in DC or Michigan,
0:17:48 wherever else you might be campaigning.
0:17:50 So I think there are missed opportunities.
0:17:52 I think it is also good policy for her to do it.
0:17:55 And we’re seeing like the latest Quinnipiac poll,
0:17:58 Trump’s advantage on immigration is down to eight points.
0:18:00 So you’re getting closer and closer
0:18:02 to a jump ball on the issue.
0:18:03 And I think that what she has been able to do
0:18:06 is not only emphasize the bipartisan border deal,
0:18:09 which Trump personally destroyed.
0:18:10 Right, he said, “I want a campaign on this.”
0:18:12 And Mitch McConnell said publicly that he did this.
0:18:15 James Langford met Romney.
0:18:19 But she is also offering people a bit of an offer.
0:18:21 And we say, it’s okay to like some of the things
0:18:23 that Trump is supportive of,
0:18:27 but you don’t need to pick Trump in order to get there.
0:18:29 So I will talk to you about more agents.
0:18:32 I will talk to you about more border wall,
0:18:34 something that she used to be very opposed to,
0:18:39 if it means that you will take this kind of more humane approach
0:18:41 to our immigration policy, like tough but humane,
0:18:44 I feel like is the tagline.
0:18:45 What did you think about it?
0:18:47 – I couldn’t decide if it was a good move or a bad move.
0:18:48 I don’t know how many people who believe
0:18:50 she’s been bad on the border
0:18:52 are gonna be swayed by her going down to the border,
0:18:54 or if she’s just bringing attention to an issue
0:18:58 that she’s fairly or unfairly considered weak on.
0:19:00 If I were her, I would just be hammering
0:19:02 around inflation at this point.
0:19:04 I think at the end of the day, I think most people
0:19:05 or a lot of people go into the voting booth
0:19:07 and says, “Who’s gonna put more money in my pockets?”
0:19:08 I’m fed up with government.
0:19:10 I just wanna know who’s gonna keep prices down
0:19:12 and get my salary up, what have you.
0:19:14 And I think his weakest, the soft tissue
0:19:19 or his Achilles heel is a combination of tariffs
0:19:21 and this weird anti-immigration policy
0:19:24 is just gonna absolutely bring inflation roaring back.
0:19:27 I would be doing that 25 hours a day.
0:19:31 And it’s, I don’t know, it just felt to me like,
0:19:32 I saw her down there and I thought
0:19:36 there’s gonna be a lot of eye rolls.
0:19:39 All right, Jess, let’s pivot to something,
0:19:42 I would say it’s less serious, but compelling.
0:19:45 We’re gonna talk about New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
0:19:47 He’s been indicted on federal corruption charges.
0:19:49 The feds are accusing him of taking bribes
0:19:51 from Turkish officials to push through permits
0:19:53 for their consulate, even though the building
0:19:54 didn’t pass inspection.
0:19:57 Plus, he allegedly scored massive discounts
0:20:00 on business class flights to Turkey.
0:20:03 I mean, it’s like, you know, when they say academics,
0:20:05 the reason we’re so vicious with each other
0:20:08 is because there’s so little to fight over.
0:20:09 It’s like, if you’re gonna go down,
0:20:11 you’re gonna go down over business class seats.
0:20:14 Anyways, I’m making light of something.
0:20:16 These are heavy charges ’cause they are in fact
0:20:18 corruption charges.
0:20:20 What is your read on the situation?
0:20:21 – Well, with the amount of buildup,
0:20:24 the number of phones that have been seized
0:20:27 from his top lieutenants, I think it’s up to six people,
0:20:29 six aides that they have their phones
0:20:32 and how long we’ve been talking about this,
0:20:37 I did expect bigger numbers, I guess,
0:20:39 for the scale of corruption.
0:20:41 But clearly the Southern District
0:20:44 wanted to air all of his dirty laundry
0:20:46 because they didn’t have to put everything
0:20:49 in the indictment, it was 56, 57 pages long,
0:20:52 including text messages, note to self,
0:20:54 obviously we’re gonna be doing crimes, don’t text,
0:20:56 like let’s do a crime now with a smiley face,
0:20:58 those kinds of things.
0:21:03 But they definitely wanted, they want him, right?
0:21:07 They think that he is somebody who has been doing this
0:21:09 for a very, very long time.
0:21:14 And I was thinking back to July when the fire chief
0:21:16 randomly resigned.
0:21:19 She’d only been in the job for a couple of years
0:21:22 and she just kind of popped up and was like, I’m out.
0:21:24 And I thought, well, that’s kind of weird, right?
0:21:26 ‘Cause the indictment story had been swirling
0:21:29 and they had been looking into people in Adams’ orbit,
0:21:30 but there was nothing about her.
0:21:33 And now, I mean, maybe it’s not a straight line,
0:21:37 I’m not sure between the Turkish building
0:21:40 that they wanted the fire assessment
0:21:41 to be changed on, right?
0:21:42 That wasn’t up to code.
0:21:46 And this woman saying, I’m tapping out.
0:21:49 But clearly something sinister was going on.
0:21:54 And I think as a New Yorker, what my main focus is,
0:21:57 whether he goes or not, and Huckle is not doing it
0:22:01 as of today, what does the next iteration
0:22:04 of the New York City mayoralty look like?
0:22:07 So if there’s a special election, Cuomo is eyeing that.
0:22:09 So then you’re gonna have someone that a lot of people
0:22:12 see as well as a gangster, but an effective one.
0:22:14 And is that the line now?
0:22:17 Like, we’re okay with corruption
0:22:18 if you’re good at your job,
0:22:20 but when you’re not so good at your job
0:22:23 and you’re corrupt, we’re not having it.
0:22:26 And I’m curious if you were paying attention to this angle.
0:22:29 Adams had spoken out against the Biden administration
0:22:30 for the migrant crisis.
0:22:33 And he gave a very stirring speech where he said,
0:22:35 like, help us out.
0:22:37 You can’t just do this.
0:22:39 You can’t saddle us with billions of dollars
0:22:40 in resources that we have to spend
0:22:43 without giving us the aid that we need
0:22:45 and also stopping this crisis.
0:22:46 It’s not just on the border.
0:22:48 It’s all across the country.
0:22:50 And do you think that that was part of this?
0:22:53 ‘Cause a lot of people do think they’re linked.
0:22:54 – The worst call you can get in the world,
0:22:56 other than obviously something regarding
0:22:57 the health of loved ones,
0:22:59 I think would be from the person
0:23:01 who runs the Southern District.
0:23:05 They’re just so smart and so fucking scary
0:23:07 and so aggressive.
0:23:09 And I think that part of what they do is,
0:23:11 one of the reasons you prosecute people
0:23:14 is obviously justice, that they’ll uphold the law.
0:23:15 But also, I think the Southern District
0:23:17 is really big on sending messages
0:23:19 to people in the finance industry.
0:23:22 They go after, they pick a target
0:23:25 and they’re unafraid, they’re unrelenting.
0:23:28 It’s just a call you don’t wanna get.
0:23:30 But when I read through it,
0:23:33 I quite frankly thought it was pretty underwhelming.
0:23:35 And it takes me to a couple of places.
0:23:40 One, his mistake, taking money from a group
0:23:43 and then using that to influence government actions
0:23:47 that favor them is kinda how the US government works.
0:23:48 For a small amount of money,
0:23:50 you give to a senator, to a representative,
0:23:53 you get access and if you need help
0:23:57 getting something approved, they’re there for you.
0:23:59 It’s always struck me with just a little bit of money
0:24:02 in Washington, how much access you can get.
0:24:04 – Even with foreign influence though,
0:24:06 I feel like that is a line in the hand with this.
0:24:09 – You stole my thunder, you stole my thunder.
0:24:10 – I give it back.
0:24:13 – The problem here is you’re not allowed to do it
0:24:15 from foreign nationals.
0:24:17 That is a bright red line,
0:24:19 especially a place like Turkey
0:24:21 where a lot of people would argue that
0:24:24 they’re not an ally of the US,
0:24:26 even though they weren’t, you wasn’t spying for them
0:24:28 or it wasn’t influencing,
0:24:32 this was fire safety at their consulate.
0:24:35 But nonetheless, you are not supposed to take money
0:24:39 from a foreign nation, much less a foreign nation
0:24:41 that we’re on sort of strange terms with.
0:24:43 So that’s where, quite frankly,
0:24:44 that’s where he really fucked up.
0:24:47 Where it takes me though,
0:24:51 is that this is a guy who grew up son of a single mother.
0:24:54 Never, you know, police chief probably made a good living
0:24:56 but living in Brooklyn probably never had,
0:24:58 you know, a ton of money.
0:25:01 And I think it’s very easy for these officials
0:25:03 to be seduced and start to rationalize.
0:25:07 I’m not excusing it, but I can see how this happens.
0:25:08 Oh, it’s a plane fare.
0:25:11 I get to stay at a nice hotel.
0:25:13 I’m not gonna do anything that damages America, the city,
0:25:16 but oh my God, fire safety, fuck yeah, just get it done,
0:25:18 right, they’re gonna create jobs or whatever,
0:25:20 we wanna be welcoming.
0:25:23 I can see how in his mind, he rationalized this.
0:25:25 And I’m not entirely sure.
0:25:26 When I read about this,
0:25:29 corruption charges Southern District,
0:25:31 I thought it was gonna be a lot worse.
0:25:33 And where I go though,
0:25:36 is that I think we should adopt Singapore’s model.
0:25:38 And that is, I think we should pay our elected officials
0:25:40 a million to $2 million a year
0:25:42 and have much tighter standards.
0:25:45 And just say, look, because the bottom line is,
0:25:46 they don’t make a lot of money.
0:25:50 So I believe the mayor makes around $258,000 a year.
0:25:52 Do you think we should increase the compensation
0:25:53 for our elected representatives?
0:25:55 I’m worried, let me preface this by saying,
0:25:57 I’m worried that the mayor of New York and other places
0:26:01 is basically gonna be these freakishly anomalous,
0:26:03 remarkable people focused on public service
0:26:05 and millionaires and billionaires.
0:26:07 And there’ll be no one in the middle.
0:26:10 – Yeah, I think that this is something that you would get,
0:26:12 you know, one of those 90% approvals for.
0:26:15 And the people who often say that elected officials
0:26:17 are not making enough have their own acts to grind.
0:26:19 And it’s not really about understanding
0:26:22 what the job entails and how important it is.
0:26:26 And I’m always struck by the fact that tons of members
0:26:28 of Congress in DC, they have roommates,
0:26:30 they share apartments.
0:26:32 You know, this is one of the most important jobs
0:26:33 in the country.
0:26:35 And I’m not saying it isn’t fun to have a roomy,
0:26:40 but you should be able to afford your own studio apartment
0:26:44 near Capitol Hill and also be able to afford to get home
0:26:46 to do your constituent work.
0:26:47 And you’re totally right.
0:26:49 Like Dan Goldman is my congressman.
0:26:52 He’s amazing, speaking of, you know, Southern District
0:26:56 prowess, but he’s also the heir to Levi’s fortune, right?
0:26:59 He can afford to be doing this,
0:27:03 whereas a lot of fantastic people can’t
0:27:05 or simply don’t want to because it’s not gonna have
0:27:08 the same kind of remunerative benefits for them, you know,
0:27:10 then going to work at a McKinsey.
0:27:11 – What do you think?
0:27:13 Do you think it’s gonna have to resign over this?
0:27:17 – I’m clear, but he’s definitely not out of the woods on it.
0:27:22 I think a lot will matter what Hockel signals about it.
0:27:24 I mean, she’s the only one who can remove him,
0:27:28 but certainly if she kind of Nancy Pelosi’s him, you know.
0:27:31 – Wouldn’t she just say, wouldn’t she just punt on it
0:27:34 and go let the voters decide in two and a half years
0:27:35 whenever it is, two years?
0:27:37 – Well, the primary thing goes in June.
0:27:39 – Oh, it’s coming up that quickly.
0:27:40 Oh, why would she do that?
0:27:45 – Well, it might be because there’s a corruption level
0:27:47 and we haven’t seen everything that’s to come.
0:27:49 I mean, they see someone else’s phones
0:27:51 even since this came down, but I don’t know,
0:27:53 Kathy Hockel also probably has a vested interest
0:27:57 in keeping Andrew Cuomo away from the mayoral race
0:28:01 and he’s kind of chomping at the bit to get back in there.
0:28:02 So.
0:28:03 – You stole my thunder again.
0:28:05 My prediction was Andrew Cuomo.
0:28:07 So what do you think his prospects would be
0:28:10 for winning mayoral race if for whatever reason,
0:28:13 Mayor Adams decides not to run again in 2025?
0:28:14 – I think they’d be pretty good.
0:28:18 I think that there are people who would feel
0:28:21 like they wanna choose competency
0:28:25 and that if it comes with a side of corruption
0:28:27 and a little bit of kissing
0:28:31 when you didn’t want it, Italian style as he put it,
0:28:34 like what was this defense, I’m just Italian,
0:28:36 that they might be able to look past that
0:28:38 because I think the field will be crowded
0:28:41 with a lot of very progressive people,
0:28:43 like the Scott Stringers of the world.
0:28:47 And I don’t know if that’s where New Yorkers wanna go.
0:28:51 If my Bloomberg is the gold standard for a majority.
0:28:52 I’m not saying there weren’t problems
0:28:53 with the Bloomberg administration
0:28:56 or there aren’t some lefties who didn’t really like him,
0:29:00 but in general, the city was cleaner, it was safer,
0:29:01 it was better run.
0:29:07 And I think that if Cuomo can try to grab that mantle back
0:29:10 that he would have a very viable shot.
0:29:12 And there are also a contingent of people
0:29:15 who just don’t think that he should have had
0:29:19 to leave Albany, that this was kind of trumped up
0:29:22 because of what happened with the nursing home deaths,
0:29:25 which is regrettable, and I wish that he would apologize,
0:29:26 just accept some responsibility.
0:29:29 And people wouldn’t even personally blame him,
0:29:31 say like you killed my grandpa,
0:29:34 but just to say there’s a chain of accountability
0:29:35 for these decisions.
0:29:38 And some of these decisions were not correct.
0:29:40 And I think that he would be in much better position.
0:29:42 (gentle music)
0:29:43 We’ll be right back to hear
0:29:46 from former Maryland governor, Larry Hogan.
0:29:46 Stay with us.
0:29:58 Welcome back, we’re joined by former Maryland governor,
0:30:01 Larry Hogan, a politician who has never been afraid
0:30:04 to buck the party line from leading Maryland
0:30:06 through two terms with bipartisan support
0:30:09 to his current bid for the U.S. Senate.
0:30:11 Hogan has shown a knack
0:30:13 for connecting with voters across the spectrum.
0:30:16 Governor Hogan, welcome to the show.
0:30:17 – Well, thank you very much.
0:30:19 Thanks for having me.
0:30:21 – We’re super excited to have you.
0:30:22 Thank you for joining.
0:30:25 And I paid particular interest to your campaign
0:30:29 as someone who is also not a fan of Donald Trump.
0:30:31 You’ve been a vocal critic and have distanced yourself
0:30:33 from much of the national GOP platform,
0:30:35 including Project 2025.
0:30:37 Just yesterday, you made some news
0:30:39 saying that you won’t be voting for Trump.
0:30:42 You haven’t in the past, but talking about it again.
0:30:44 So how do you see the future of the Republican party
0:30:46 and what role do you think moderates like yourself
0:30:48 are going to be playing in it?
0:30:49 – What a great question.
0:30:53 Yeah, I think I’ve been probably over the last eight years
0:30:57 or so one of the leading outspoken critics
0:30:59 about the direction of the party
0:31:01 and about Donald Trump in particular.
0:31:03 I’ve never been afraid to stand up.
0:31:05 I really didn’t break much news yesterday
0:31:07 because I’ve said over and over and over again.
0:31:10 That’s important, but it’s like every,
0:31:12 once a month, there’s a whole bunch of headlines
0:31:14 that say, “Hogan’s not gonna vote for Trump,”
0:31:16 which is what I’ve said for eight years,
0:31:21 but it’s, look, I’m concerned about the direction
0:31:23 of both parties, quite frankly,
0:31:26 but the Republican party moving off in this direction
0:31:27 of more of a MAGA party.
0:31:31 I’m kind of a traditional, I would say Reagan Republican.
0:31:35 I say I come from the Republican wing of the Republican party
0:31:36 and I want to see us get back
0:31:39 to a more hopeful vision for America
0:31:43 and a party that can appeal broadly to more people
0:31:46 and I want to see us focused on issues and solving problems.
0:31:49 And I know that some people say,
0:31:53 “Well, it seems as if you should just give up on that.”
0:31:55 And I’m just a guy that doesn’t like to give up
0:31:57 and I’ve been successful at winning
0:32:00 and arguably one of the bluest states in America
0:32:02 by convincing independents and Democrats
0:32:04 to cross over and vote for me
0:32:08 because I think most people really just want to see folks
0:32:10 work together and solve problems.
0:32:12 They want to see people reach across the aisle
0:32:15 in a bipartisan way and find common ground
0:32:16 for the common good.
0:32:18 And I’m not sure that we’re seeing a lot of that,
0:32:19 actually out of both parties.
0:32:22 We see a lot of finger pointing and name calling
0:32:26 and people more interested in just saying something outrageous
0:32:31 on cable news or online, in social media.
0:32:36 And I don’t come from the performative art school of politics.
0:32:39 I just want to try to see if we can find a way
0:32:40 to come up with solutions.
0:32:44 – It does feel as if there used to be
0:32:48 a lot of sort of Reagan Republicans in the Senate
0:32:50 and it seems one by one are moderates
0:32:52 who took pride in reaching across the aisle
0:32:55 and more pragmatists and ideologues.
0:32:56 And it feels as if the Republican party
0:32:58 said, “You’re not welcome here.”
0:32:59 It just feels like there’s fewer and fewer.
0:33:02 And I think it’s true on the Democratic side as well.
0:33:04 One, would you agree that it just feels like
0:33:08 there’s no place for moderates to hang their hats anymore?
0:33:11 And if you agree with that, why do you think that’s happened?
0:33:14 – Well, I agree that it’s happening in both parties.
0:33:18 I mean, if you just look at the folks that have left
0:33:20 and let’s focus on the Senate right now,
0:33:23 you have Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin
0:33:27 and Mitt Romney all leaving, and we’re,
0:33:30 there’s not a lot of folks kind of in that center,
0:33:33 problem solver, caucus kind of the folks
0:33:35 that were trying to work together across the aisle.
0:33:39 I was co-chairman of No Labels with Joe Lieberman
0:33:42 for three and a half years and our whole focus was on,
0:33:45 how do we find ways to govern from the middle
0:33:46 and get people to talk to one another?
0:33:51 And those three were a big part of the group in the Senate
0:33:54 that was trying to focus on that and now they’re gone.
0:33:59 And so I feel like there’s a huge void in the Senate
0:34:01 for that type of leadership.
0:34:03 And that’s one of the reasons why I stepped up to run.
0:34:07 I mean, I really didn’t need a job
0:34:08 and I wasn’t looking for a title,
0:34:11 but I’m concerned about the direction of the country
0:34:13 and I’m concerned that the Congress continues
0:34:17 to just become more divisive and more dysfunctional.
0:34:22 But whether there’s, I think there’s a huge demand
0:34:24 among the public and I’ve proven that
0:34:27 because I left office last January,
0:34:30 after eight years in a deep blue state
0:34:32 after getting things done over and over and over again
0:34:37 with 70% legislature cutting taxes
0:34:39 and cutting the cost of healthcare
0:34:41 and passing criminal justice reform
0:34:43 with Democrats and Republicans together.
0:34:47 I left office with a 77% job approval
0:34:50 and over 70 with every demographic, 79 with Democrats
0:34:54 and 81 with black voters and young voters and old voters.
0:34:57 So there’s a demand, people do like it
0:35:01 when you talk about common sense solutions
0:35:03 and they do like it when you work across the aisle
0:35:05 and when you have a different tone
0:35:09 and you’re willing to just disagree on the issues
0:35:11 without demeaning the other side.
0:35:13 I think it’s what they desperately want.
0:35:16 However, you’re right, that’s not what we have.
0:35:21 And so it’s, I think the elected leaders
0:35:25 do not really represent where most of the voters are.
0:35:28 40% of the people in America are now independent.
0:35:31 They’re far more than there are Democrats or Republicans
0:35:33 and it’s because they’re getting turned off
0:35:38 by the divisive rhetoric and by the more extreme positions
0:35:42 and they just want us to come together and fix things.
0:35:43 – Yeah, I wanna pick up on that.
0:35:45 So you’re in a competitive race.
0:35:47 I think the real clear politics average is six, seven points.
0:35:51 Lead for Angela also Brooks, who you’re running against.
0:35:54 We know Maryland is a deep blue state.
0:35:57 What issues are you finding are resonating
0:35:58 with your voters most?
0:36:01 And what do you say to people who have anxiety
0:36:04 about electing you who will be part
0:36:06 of the Republican infrastructure?
0:36:08 So let’s say Donald Trump does win
0:36:11 or even if he doesn’t win and majority of the party
0:36:14 has been overtaken kind of by the MAGA wing of things.
0:36:16 How will you serve as a backstop
0:36:19 against some of their more dangerous positions?
0:36:20 – Well, that’s exactly what I hope to do.
0:36:23 And I do have to convince some voters of that
0:36:26 because my opponent’s campaign is basically
0:36:28 just talking about red versus blue.
0:36:30 Like you have to vote Democrat
0:36:35 because I’m going to be somehow empowering the MAGA agenda
0:36:37 when I’ve been one of the leading voices against it.
0:36:40 And I think I can be that key voice in the middle
0:36:42 that’s willing to stand up.
0:36:45 Joe Manchin didn’t empower the far left
0:36:46 of the Democratic Party.
0:36:48 He stopped the crazy things from happening
0:36:52 and worked with Republicans to get things done.
0:36:56 I think, look at John McCain when John McCain called me
0:36:58 before he walked out on the Senate floor
0:37:01 to give the thumbs down on repealing Obamacare
0:37:03 ’cause he and I shared the same position
0:37:06 and I wanted to continue to cover the people in Maryland.
0:37:09 Sometimes one person can make a difference.
0:37:12 And I believe that I have the ability to do that.
0:37:14 I mean, I’m not naive enough to think I can fix everything
0:37:18 but I’m not going there to empower one party or another.
0:37:20 I’m going there to represent all the people of Maryland
0:37:23 and I’m gonna do whatever I think is best for the country.
0:37:26 And I think I’ve proven over and over and over again
0:37:29 that I’m willing to stand up to my party
0:37:31 and to the other party when I think they’re wrong.
0:37:33 I’ve stood up to the former president,
0:37:35 to the current president and I’m not gonna be afraid
0:37:38 to stand up to the next president, whoever that is.
0:37:41 I’ll work with them when I agree with them on an issue
0:37:43 and I’m gonna stand up and stop them when I don’t.
0:37:46 And so the people of Maryland know me,
0:37:49 that there are some, my opponent is saying,
0:37:50 even if you like Larry Hogan
0:37:53 and even if you voted for him twice for governor,
0:37:55 that’s 79% of Democrats that approved of the job
0:37:57 that I’m doing, I’m not winning all of them
0:37:59 because some of them are saying, we really like them.
0:38:01 We wish he was still governor
0:38:03 or we wish he had run for president
0:38:03 but we don’t wanna,
0:38:06 and we’re afraid of all those other Republicans in the Senate
0:38:09 and that’s the campaign we’re having to overcome right now.
0:38:12 And there are Democrats who say,
0:38:14 I wish I could vote for you.
0:38:17 Or they say, convince me that you’re gonna continue
0:38:20 to be the same kind of strong independent leader
0:38:21 that you’ll continue to stand up.
0:38:23 And so when I talk to them one-on-one,
0:38:24 I usually win them over,
0:38:27 but it’s hard to do that in a 30-second commercial
0:38:29 when you’re trying to reach millions of people.
0:38:30 – You sort of read my mind, Governor,
0:38:33 you’re literally out of central casting
0:38:38 for who moderates want more of NDC.
0:38:40 – I just think there’s such a huge base of people
0:38:41 who want somebody,
0:38:43 even if they don’t agree with them on every issue,
0:38:46 they say, this is a reasonable person
0:38:49 that isn’t trying to say inflammatory things
0:38:50 and make personal attacks
0:38:54 that get a ton of viral distribution on TikTok
0:38:57 that then raises a bunch of small dollar money,
0:38:58 never actually pass any laws
0:39:01 ’cause no one wants to deal with them
0:39:02 and wash, rinse and repeat.
0:39:05 It feels like there’s just so much of that in DC
0:39:08 and that we need this solvent called moderates.
0:39:10 At the same time,
0:39:14 I think that there’s probably some real fear
0:39:16 on the Democratic side,
0:39:18 if you say your center left,
0:39:22 that with SCOTUS going so far right
0:39:24 and with the Senate playing such an important role
0:39:26 around approving justices,
0:39:28 specifically I think around issues
0:39:30 including bodily autonomy,
0:39:34 that they’re gonna think, yeah, I really like this guy,
0:39:39 but I can’t risk the Supreme Court going further right
0:39:42 and even less representing people in the middle,
0:39:44 including moderate Republicans.
0:39:47 What would you say to give some of those people comfort?
0:39:49 – Well, yeah, I think people are concerned
0:39:51 about politicizing the court
0:39:54 and most people don’t want it to be politicized
0:39:56 to the right or to the left.
0:39:58 And it seems as if that’s the way we’ve been doing it.
0:39:59 Whoever has the power,
0:40:04 we’re trying to push through the most conservative judge
0:40:05 or the most progressive judge.
0:40:09 And look, I probably have more experience with judges
0:40:11 than most of the people or all the people in the Senate.
0:40:14 I appointed more judges in Maryland
0:40:17 than any governor in history, over 190 judges.
0:40:20 I appointed six out of the seven members
0:40:23 of our Supreme Court in Maryland.
0:40:27 It was the most diverse, most bipartisan judicial selections
0:40:30 in ever in history in our state.
0:40:34 I had all of my Supreme Court justices unanimously confirmed
0:40:37 by all the Republicans and all the Democrats in our Senate.
0:40:39 And it seems as if in Washington now,
0:40:43 we can’t even get one person to cross over,
0:40:46 to cross over and say, this is a qualified person.
0:40:48 I tried to make the best decisions
0:40:50 about did people have the right judicial temperament?
0:40:52 Did they have the right experience?
0:40:54 Were they gonna follow the letter of the law
0:40:56 as opposed to saying we have to have someone
0:40:58 that’ll take this position or that position.
0:41:01 They have to stand up for the left or the right.
0:41:03 I think it’s gotten out of control.
0:41:06 And I think, look, I think we need to make sure
0:41:08 that we have good judges appointed,
0:41:10 whether it’s Kamala Harris is the president
0:41:11 and she appoints a judge that I believe
0:41:13 is a qualified and decent judge.
0:41:15 I’m gonna vote for that judge.
0:41:18 If Donald Trump happens to get elected,
0:41:20 we’ll hope he appoints some decent judges
0:41:21 that I can support there too.
0:41:25 But I just don’t think we ought to continue
0:41:28 to try to jam through or change the rules
0:41:30 or have it swing back and forth every two years
0:41:33 or every four years, depending on who takes over
0:41:36 the House or the Senate or who’s in the White House.
0:41:38 We’re hopelessly divided right now.
0:41:40 And we need, it’s the same thing
0:41:42 on everything else we’re talking about.
0:41:47 We need common sense, compromise in the middle.
0:41:50 Not how do we jam through things on an extreme basis
0:41:51 to the left or the right?
0:41:53 And we need bipartisan buy-in.
0:41:55 We should have judges, we should have people
0:41:58 that senators on both sides of the aisle say,
0:42:01 this person’s obviously qualified to be on the bench.
0:42:03 – So just to double click on that,
0:42:05 based on your success and experience
0:42:07 appointing judges and betting judges,
0:42:09 the three most recent appointments,
0:42:11 Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett,
0:42:12 do you think the three of them,
0:42:14 had you been in the Senate at that time,
0:42:17 would you have advocated for their approval
0:42:19 and appointment to the Supreme Court?
0:42:21 – Well, I don’t wanna go back and look at past history
0:42:22 about what would have happened.
0:42:25 But I know that I spoke up when I thought,
0:42:27 against Mitch McConnell,
0:42:29 when I thought he was trying to jam through appointments
0:42:31 right before the election.
0:42:34 And I also stood up on Justice Kavanaugh
0:42:38 and said, we ought to have a full hearing of the facts of.
0:42:42 So I wasn’t there in the Senate, didn’t see all of it,
0:42:43 wasn’t part of all the hearings
0:42:45 and didn’t have to be in a position to make those decisions.
0:42:48 But in both cases, I stood up and said,
0:42:49 I stood up to my party.
0:42:51 I’ve stood up to my party when it’s hard.
0:42:54 And I’ll continue to do that.
0:42:57 – I guess Scott led with, people know you, right?
0:42:59 You’ve been around, I’ll figure a long time.
0:43:03 What is something that you wanna communicate
0:43:05 to your potential voters
0:43:06 that you don’t think they know about you
0:43:11 or how you would govern if you were able to win the seat?
0:43:14 – Well, I think that what I’d like to communicate is,
0:43:15 I’m running for the right reasons.
0:43:17 I only stepped up
0:43:19 because I’m very concerned about the country.
0:43:22 I’m concerned about making sure I get my party back on track
0:43:25 that we have a healthy and competitive two-party system.
0:43:26 And I want them to know
0:43:29 that I’m going to be the exact kind of leader
0:43:31 that I was for eight years as governor.
0:43:34 And I think we’ve developed a better track record
0:43:36 than almost anyone in America
0:43:39 for centrist common sense by partisan governing,
0:43:41 by for reaching across the aisle
0:43:44 and that I’m going to be the exact,
0:43:47 it’s a different job that Senator is.
0:43:50 And I know I’ve got to work with 99 other people,
0:43:52 but I’m going to continue to stand up
0:43:53 for whatever I think is right
0:43:55 for the people of my state and for the country.
0:43:58 And I’m not going to be towing the line
0:44:01 or being a rubber stamp for one party or another.
0:44:04 – Are you gonna vote for Kamala?
0:44:05 – No, I’ve said I wasn’t,
0:44:07 neither one of them has really earned my vote,
0:44:10 but I certainly am very pleased
0:44:15 that we have a lot of Harris Hogan split ticket folks
0:44:16 across the state of Maryland.
0:44:17 We currently have about 30% of them.
0:44:22 And interestingly, you’ll see sometimes a Harris
0:44:24 and Hogan yard sign in front of somebody’s house.
0:44:28 So I have to try to earn the support of people
0:44:30 on both sides of the aisle from the right and the left.
0:44:33 And that’s what I’ve always been able to do.
0:44:36 – Yeah, we should point out that polling shows
0:44:38 that a significant percentage of Harris voters
0:44:40 are backing you for the Senate.
0:44:44 And I think that speaks to your reputation as a moderate.
0:44:45 – Well, I need a few more of them.
0:44:46 So we’re still working hard.
0:44:47 – We need more of them?
0:44:50 – Over the next several weeks.
0:44:52 – My sense is that’s why you’re here.
0:44:55 So look, you’ve been in this game a while.
0:44:58 You obviously have really strong political instincts.
0:45:01 Handicap, we’ve been talking about the debate tonight,
0:45:02 the state of the election.
0:45:04 It feels like the polls are almost meaningless noise
0:45:05 at this point.
0:45:07 Any observations or insight you have about
0:45:10 the current state of the race or anything that surprised you
0:45:11 or you think the media is not covering?
0:45:14 – I’m just hoping on the vice presidential debate
0:45:18 that we’ll finally hear some honest discussion of the issues.
0:45:20 I think that’s been lacking in the campaign,
0:45:22 quite frankly, from the presidential candidates
0:45:25 and from the vice presidential candidates.
0:45:28 And I’m hoping it’s not just a food fight
0:45:31 and talking about crazy things,
0:45:33 but we’ll actually hear what each person has to say
0:45:35 about what their positions are.
0:45:38 On the race, I think it’s very close.
0:45:42 Just, I’m not a pundit or a political expert,
0:45:45 but I think the presidential race
0:45:47 is gonna go down to the wire.
0:45:51 And I think that people are really gonna have to get out there
0:45:54 and make their decision and I have no idea
0:45:55 what’s gonna happen in November.
0:45:58 I’m hoping that we’re gonna be able to get in there
0:46:00 and try to make a difference in the Senate.
0:46:04 And I’ll work with whoever is elected president.
0:46:06 I was governor through three presidents
0:46:08 and I worked with President Obama,
0:46:10 with the Trump administration for four years
0:46:11 and then with President Biden.
0:46:14 And whether it’s Donald Trump or Kamala Harris,
0:46:16 I’ll try to work with them when I agree
0:46:18 and help them get things done.
0:46:21 And when I disagree, I don’t think there’s any,
0:46:24 and nobody doubts that I’ll stand up and push back
0:46:28 and do what I think is right.
0:46:30 – Governor, you’re part of a rare species
0:46:31 we hardly see anymore
0:46:34 and we would like to see repopulate the earth.
0:46:36 We really appreciate.
0:46:38 – Well, I thought we were extinct,
0:46:41 but there’s one left, I guess, I’m a unicorn,
0:46:43 but I’m gonna try to find some more people
0:46:44 to come hang out with me.
0:46:45 And I really do believe
0:46:48 that sometimes one person can make a difference.
0:46:51 And there are at least a handful on both sides of the aisle
0:46:52 that kind of agree with me.
0:46:55 Maybe they’re not always speaking out quite as much,
0:46:59 but I’m hoping I can get a centrist caucus
0:47:01 in the United States Senate that’s willing to work together.
0:47:04 – Great, thanks, governor, and stay safe on the trail.
0:47:10 All right, last thing, prediction on tonight.
0:47:13 – Everybody will get to say that their guy won
0:47:17 and that it matters more for the democratic side,
0:47:19 that we need this more for walls
0:47:20 than we do necessarily for vans
0:47:25 who will continue to be reviled to some degree.
0:47:27 Yup.
0:47:30 – I’m gonna punt and just read funny jokes about Tim Walls.
0:47:32 My real concern with Governor Tim Walls
0:47:33 is that he seems like the kind of guy
0:47:35 if you leave your car unlocked in the summer,
0:47:38 he’s going to leave you six zucchini’s on your front seat.
0:47:40 That was pretty good.
0:47:42 Walls has the vibes of a man who makes short helpful videos
0:47:45 on how to fix garbage disposals in his spare time,
0:47:47 like that one.
0:47:49 Last one, Tim Walls is the kind of guy
0:47:51 who tells you to watch for deer
0:47:54 and call us when you get home before you depart his house.
0:47:55 Like that one, that’s my favorite.
0:47:57 – I love that guy.
0:47:59 Like the guy who’s like cares if you got home.
0:48:01 – One more, Tim Walls 1000% says,
0:48:05 “What’s the damage when the waiter hands him the check?”
0:48:06 I like that one too.
0:48:07 – Yeah.
0:48:08 – Okay, good stuff.
0:48:09 – Very cute.
0:48:10 – That’s all for this episode.
0:48:12 Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates,
0:48:15 our producers are Caroline Shagren and David Toledo,
0:48:17 our technical producers, Drew Burroughs.
0:48:18 You can find Raging Moderates
0:48:21 on the Prop G pod every Tuesday.
0:48:22 Please subscribe.
0:48:23 Right now we’re in the Prop G feed,
0:48:25 but soon we’re gonna be going to our own feed.
0:48:28 So please subscribe and download.
0:48:31 (upbeat music)
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0:48:36 (upbeat music)
0:48:39 (upbeat music)

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0:01:13 Hey, I’m John Glenn Hill, host of a brand new show from Vox
0:01:14 called Explain It to Me.
0:01:18 This week, the ethical murkiness of zoos.
0:01:20 Do we as humans feel like we deserve
0:01:23 to just be able to walk around and see these animals?
0:01:25 Like, maybe we don’t deserve that.
0:01:28 Maybe there’s just some animals we don’t get to see.
0:01:30 To zoo or not to zoo?
0:01:33 That’s this week on Explain It to Me.
0:01:35 Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
0:01:42 Today’s number, 6.5 million.
0:01:44 That’s how many leaders of beer festival attendees consumed
0:01:47 at Munich’s Oktoberfest in 2023.
0:01:50 Ed, I didn’t know if you know this, but my wife is German.
0:01:52 And I have her rank me on a scale of 1 to 10
0:01:53 whenever we have sex.
0:01:55 And the other night when I tried anal,
0:01:56 I said nine, nine.
0:01:58 So Ed, I think I’m improving.
0:02:12 Ed, I just ask play never gets old for me.
0:02:14 It never gets old.
0:02:15 Yeah, I could tell.
0:02:16 It’s my go-to.
0:02:18 It’s my go-to.
0:02:20 Yep, could tell that too.
0:02:22 You are in Germany right now.
0:02:23 You’re in Munich. How’s it going?
0:02:24 Good segue, Ed.
0:02:24 Yep, you’re welcome.
0:02:28 I am in Munich and I’m staring out the window here
0:02:30 at the Hasenplatz, I don’t know if I know what it’s called,
0:02:31 Masterplatz.
0:02:36 Anyways, and there’s a giant Ukrainian flag
0:02:38 and a giant Israeli flag.
0:02:39 I absolutely love Germany.
0:02:41 I think Germany is one of the more progressive
0:02:42 like shit-together countries.
0:02:44 If I spoke German, I would live in Munich.
0:02:45 I absolutely love it here.
0:02:49 I think it’s a wonderful society, fantastic football,
0:02:50 very progressive.
0:02:52 They know how to make amazing cars.
0:02:53 They work hard, they party hard.
0:02:54 I love it here.
0:02:56 Have you spent much time in Germany, Ed?
0:02:58 I was in Germany with you that one time.
0:02:59 Oh yes, I’ll never forget it.
0:03:00 When was that?
0:03:03 You and I and our team went to Munich for DLD.
0:03:05 Oh, that’s right, DLD.
0:03:09 And we went out and we parted in the basement of the,
0:03:10 what was that hotel called?
0:03:12 The Bayerische Hof, for whatever it’s called.
0:03:13 Bayerische. Bayerische Hof.
0:03:15 Hof, yeah, that’s right.
0:03:17 So yeah, no, I love Munich too,
0:03:19 but importantly, are you going to be able
0:03:21 to experience Oktoberfest?
0:03:22 I’m going to attend tonight
0:03:23 if I get no mercy, no malice done.
0:03:25 But yeah, I’ll probably go for tonight.
0:03:27 I’m not a huge Oktoberfest fan.
0:03:28 Why do I not really believe you?
0:03:30 Well, I don’t, here’s the thing.
0:03:31 I don’t look good in shorts.
0:03:32 You need to wear a kilt.
0:03:32 You look good in a kilt.
0:03:34 Yeah, I could do that.
0:03:36 Except my kilt, I have the big black kilt.
0:03:37 It’s really hard to travel with.
0:03:38 It’s giant.
0:03:41 It’s like, it’s literally like traveling with drapes.
0:03:42 It takes its own suitcase.
0:03:43 Anyways, enough of this shit.
0:03:44 Get to the headlines, Ed.
0:03:45 Stop stalling.
0:03:49 Nine, nine, stop stalling.
0:03:51 Let’s start with our weekly review of Market Vitals.
0:04:01 The S&P 500 rose, the dollar was flat, Bitcoin climbed,
0:04:04 and the yield on 10 year treasuries increased.
0:04:05 Shifting to the headlines.
0:04:08 The Justice Department is suing Visa for allegedly
0:04:10 monopolizing the debit card market.
0:04:13 Officials say Visa used various anti-competitive practices,
0:04:16 including paying competitors to stay out of the market.
0:04:19 The complaint marks the Biden administration’s first major
0:04:22 antitrust case in the financial services industry.
0:04:25 Meta unveiled a new prototype of augmented reality glasses
0:04:28 at the MetaConnect conference.
0:04:31 The new product, Orion, will use eye tracking and a wristband
0:04:34 to help users navigate apps with movements.
0:04:37 And finally, OpenAI’s chief technology officer,
0:04:40 Mira Murati, along with multiple other executives,
0:04:41 has resigned.
0:04:44 The exits come as OpenAI considers transitioning
0:04:48 to a for-profit company and giving CEO Sam Altman
0:04:50 a 7% equity stake.
0:04:53 Scott, your thoughts starting with this new complaint
0:04:54 from the DOJ.
0:04:56 So I’ve never met a breakup I didn’t like.
0:04:58 And my sense is it’s impossible.
0:04:59 There’s a general cadence here.
0:05:02 And that is, in most societies, what happens
0:05:05 is there’s a group of talented, hardworking, and lucky people
0:05:07 who get very successful and very wealthy.
0:05:10 And they can’t help but unwittingly.
0:05:12 And there’s nothing malicious here,
0:05:15 but they start becoming close to government officials.
0:05:18 And effectively, the same thing happens with corporations.
0:05:21 And that is one gets is so good and so talented.
0:05:24 And they get, as a result of that success,
0:05:26 are able to attract cheaper and cheaper capital
0:05:28 that other people just can’t compete with.
0:05:31 And they can overinvest and kind of run away with it.
0:05:35 And people will argue, well, OK, but the icons of yesterday
0:05:37 never survive.
0:05:39 But along the way, they can do a lot of damage
0:05:40 and squelch innovation.
0:05:43 When AT&T was broken up, we found out
0:05:45 there was cell, fiber, data analytics all trapped
0:05:47 at AT&T Bell Labs, so they didn’t want to compete
0:05:50 with their very lucrative, long-distance business.
0:05:53 So I generally find that by the time something ends up
0:05:57 on the FTC or the DOJ’s radar, it’s oftentimes
0:05:59 more too late than too early.
0:06:01 So the fact that they’re paying people
0:06:05 not to compete with them, right, using predator pricing
0:06:07 and then basically paying people to be the default card
0:06:12 and playing real hardball, that this is probably,
0:06:14 you know, probably a good example
0:06:17 of something pretty boring that has gone
0:06:19 flowing under the radar for a while.
0:06:20 What are your thoughts?
0:06:21 You know, when you look at the complaint,
0:06:25 they’re sort of saying that Visa is just ubiquitous
0:06:26 in debit card processing.
0:06:31 They control 60% of the debit transaction market.
0:06:32 And as you point out, they’re sort of,
0:06:35 they’re using these partnerships that they have
0:06:38 with financial institutions to box out competitors.
0:06:41 Now, just one side note.
0:06:44 They say that they’re boxing out young companies
0:06:46 and startups, but who they’re really boxing out
0:06:48 is PayPal and Apple.
0:06:50 I mean, these are not really small companies.
0:06:51 These are huge companies.
0:06:54 And I get the complaint, but I’m sort of like,
0:06:57 well, what else is Visa supposed to do?
0:07:00 Because, you know, when you’re a payments processor,
0:07:04 there isn’t really much you can do to innovate in that space
0:07:07 other than maybe bringing down prices,
0:07:08 which they are already doing.
0:07:11 Their prices are actually very low.
0:07:14 And if you want to maintain, you know, growth,
0:07:16 and if you want to maintain market share,
0:07:18 you know, yeah, you want to maintain your partnerships.
0:07:20 And maybe that means paying them more
0:07:21 and trying to box out your competitors.
0:07:24 And it feels like what’s happening with Visa
0:07:27 is exactly what has happened in the utility industry.
0:07:29 And that is, you know, once upon a time,
0:07:31 there were these electrical companies
0:07:33 and these water companies and telecom companies
0:07:36 that they were all, you know, considered normal products.
0:07:39 And eventually they developed into these natural monopolies.
0:07:41 And at a certain point, the government was like,
0:07:43 okay, this is a utility now.
0:07:45 This is a different type of product.
0:07:47 And we’re going to regulate it differently.
0:07:50 And so what I’m seeing here with the payments processing
0:07:52 is I feel like at this point,
0:07:55 processing debit cards and credit card transactions
0:07:57 is essentially a utility.
0:07:59 It’s the same as telecom.
0:08:03 It’s the same as water services.
0:08:06 And it feels like that’s how we should be treating it
0:08:08 from a regulatory standpoint.
0:08:10 It feels like we should be considering it
0:08:13 an essential part of societal infrastructure.
0:08:15 And we should start regulating this
0:08:17 as if it were a utility.
0:08:18 – I think it’s a really solid argument.
0:08:23 And that is being a monopoly isn’t in and among itself illegal.
0:08:25 ‘Cause in some instances like,
0:08:28 it doesn’t make sense to have two power companies in Orlando.
0:08:29 Because it’s very expensive.
0:08:30 The infrastructure is very expensive.
0:08:33 It makes sense to have one company providing the power
0:08:35 or generating the power.
0:08:37 And there might be good arguments for why
0:08:39 this is a business to scale payment processing
0:08:41 and the investments, requisite investments you need to make
0:08:45 in security, in liquidity and maybe scale,
0:08:46 lets you bring your prices down.
0:08:49 I think you’re making a solid argument.
0:08:52 However, I think most retailers would say,
0:08:54 we have to carry Visa, we have no choice.
0:08:55 We just have no choice.
0:08:58 And we’d like alternative options,
0:09:02 but these guys show up and we have to, as a merchant,
0:09:03 we have to work with Visa,
0:09:06 which gives them too much pricing power.
0:09:08 In addition, you mentioned something, you said, okay,
0:09:10 say in fact that scale does have its benefits
0:09:13 and they can show that as they grow bigger and bigger,
0:09:16 the third party merchants and consumers both benefit
0:09:18 through lower fees, okay, fine.
0:09:20 But use the word utility.
0:09:23 And utilities have a government official regulating them
0:09:26 and actually providing input and supervising their strategy
0:09:29 and their price increases or decreases, right?
0:09:31 ‘Cause they can have all of a sudden the utility
0:09:34 that’s given government approval to basically
0:09:36 be the only power supplier, say, you know,
0:09:38 we’re gonna raise rates 8% a year
0:09:40 when inflation is going up 2% a year.
0:09:43 So this is an interesting one.
0:09:45 I think your points are valid.
0:09:46 Curious though, what credit card do you care?
0:09:48 What does Ed Elson pay with?
0:09:49 ‘Cause your payment system,
0:09:52 there are certain brands that are self-expressive benefit.
0:09:56 Your shoes, your watch, the university you went to,
0:09:57 the company you work for,
0:10:00 like if you work for a cool podcasting company,
0:10:03 you finally get a girlfriend is what I’ve heard.
0:10:06 But what is the credit card you use
0:10:08 and does in your mind or payment system,
0:10:11 does it have any sort of self-expressive benefit for you?
0:10:13 – I use AmEx and the answer is absolutely yes.
0:10:15 – Do you have a green card, a platinum card?
0:10:16 What do you have?
0:10:16 – Platinum baby.
0:10:17 – Oh, you’re platinum.
0:10:19 And do you use it for signaling
0:10:20 or do you use it because of the benefits?
0:10:22 ‘Cause it costs what, three or 500 bucks a year?
0:10:25 – It really is all signaling to me when I think about it.
0:10:28 I mean, I don’t care that much about the benefits.
0:10:29 I really think that it’s,
0:10:31 I think these benefits and I think this signaling
0:10:33 is kind of the greatest scam in history.
0:10:34 I mean, it really is.
0:10:36 I like that it’s made of metal
0:10:39 and I like that it looks cool and I like what it says.
0:10:42 So, I mean, just to be completely transparent with you,
0:10:45 I think it’s pretty much all signaling for me.
0:10:48 But I know that it is the same for you, right?
0:10:50 – Well, I was gonna say what you just said
0:10:53 is really pathetic, but if you wanna,
0:10:55 if you wanna understand really, really pathetic,
0:10:58 like Uber pathetic, imagine taking your platinum card,
0:11:01 literally to spray painting at black
0:11:04 and then charging dudes $5,000 a year.
0:11:07 And I have paid that, I figured it out.
0:11:09 If I had taken all the money I’d spent
0:11:11 for the pleasure of owning a platinum card
0:11:13 that’s been sprayed, painted black
0:11:15 and invested it in the S&P,
0:11:18 I think I’d have like $1.3 million.
0:11:21 So my friend, we all, a bunch of us young entrepreneurs
0:11:24 back in the ’90s used to get together
0:11:26 and we go out to dinner.
0:11:27 And I remember once my buddy Greg Shove
0:11:29 was working at AOL, he was a big cheese at AOL,
0:11:31 he goes, “Ah, it’s my turn, I got this.”
0:11:33 You know, we were all trying to signal to each other
0:11:34 where it was like fighting for the bill,
0:11:36 like not because we were generous or nice,
0:11:38 but because we wanted to pretend we were ballers.
0:11:40 And he threw his credit card out
0:11:44 and it hit like a fucking wrench and went gunk, gunk, gunk.
0:11:49 And it was this weird titanium black thing
0:11:51 and we’re all like, “What the fuck?”
0:11:53 And we pick it up and we’re all passing it around
0:11:54 and the thing was impossible to break.
0:11:56 It was like a weapon.
0:11:58 And it was an AMIC centurion card.
0:12:00 And I’m like, “Oh my God.”
0:12:03 Anyway, so I called him and I said,
0:12:05 “My name’s Scott Gallo, I’m kind of a big deal.
0:12:07 I’ve heard about this thing called the centurion card.
0:12:09 I’d really like to apply for one.”
0:12:10 And this is what they said.
0:12:11 They said, “Hold on a moment.”
0:12:13 They transferred me and the person came on,
0:12:13 I said the same thing.
0:12:15 And the person said, “I love this.”
0:12:17 They said, “Sir, we value your business,
0:12:20 but we can neither confirm nor deny the existence
0:12:21 of so-called black card.”
0:12:26 And I’m like, “Oh my God, I must have one of these things.”
0:12:29 So I went on, I did some research before there were blogs
0:12:32 and I found out all you need to do to get a black card,
0:12:34 there’s no status in it.
0:12:39 You have to spend $250,000 on any one American express account
0:12:43 and if you spend $250,000 in a calendar year,
0:12:48 the person whose card that is gets an invitation to centurion.
0:12:50 So I was running profit at the time
0:12:54 and I forced everybody to, if you went to fucking Chipotle
0:12:57 and didn’t use my gold card, which was just so ridiculous.
0:12:58 You want to talk about cheesy?
0:13:01 Gold card, what the hell does a gold card mean?
0:13:05 Anyways, so finally it came and it was beautiful.
0:13:08 And my assistant, I was on vacation.
0:13:10 She opened everything and she threw it out.
0:13:11 I’m not exaggerating.
0:13:14 I called them and said, “Send me the goddamn invitation again.”
0:13:16 They denied it even existed.
0:13:18 I went down to the trash looking for that thing.
0:13:20 I dug through the trash looking for my invitation
0:13:22 to centurion card.
0:13:26 Anyways, finally got one and I’ve had it for,
0:13:29 gosh, I guess about 27 years now.
0:13:31 And I find that it was good in two situations.
0:13:34 One, if you’re recruiting somebody,
0:13:35 I thought it was powerful
0:13:37 ’cause a young person is impressed by that stuff.
0:13:38 And if you’re paying for lunch,
0:13:40 they see you have a black card.
0:13:42 It kind of says, okay, the guy I might be coming to work for
0:13:45 has his shit together and also quite frankly, for mating.
0:13:47 Any high margin product,
0:13:50 any high margin product is signaling.
0:13:52 We were talking about universities, Ferraris,
0:13:55 anything that has more than 60 or 70 points of gross margin
0:13:58 is meant to make you more attractive to the other sex.
0:14:02 It’s either software or it’s meant to make you more attractive
0:14:04 to the other sex or make you feel closer to God.
0:14:06 A lot of beautiful artisanship
0:14:09 has been sequestered to religious institutions.
0:14:11 So it’s been hardwired into our psyche that if you
0:14:15 hear beautiful music and smell candles
0:14:16 and see the most beautiful frescoes on the ceiling
0:14:19 that there’s a decent chance, God hangs out there.
0:14:21 And so when you see the slope on the back of a 911
0:14:23 or the mesh of a Patego Veneta bag,
0:14:25 I do think it steals you and makes you feel
0:14:28 like you’re in the presence of something supernatural.
0:14:29 Anyways, what’s our next story here, Ed?
0:14:33 – Let’s get your reactions to the new meta AR glasses,
0:14:34 the meta Orion.
0:14:35 What do you think of that?
0:14:36 – Look, let me go this way.
0:14:38 They came out with a product.
0:14:39 I think that’s 250 bucks.
0:14:44 So it’s a 10th of the price of the mixed reality headset.
0:14:48 I think if you go meta on this, if you will,
0:14:50 it goes all goes back to Mark Zuckerberg
0:14:51 figured out about eight years ago,
0:14:55 he was always gonna be Cinder Prashai or Tim Cook’s bitch,
0:14:58 as long as they controlled the vertical interface
0:15:00 via the phone with the end consumer,
0:15:02 that he was always subject to someone else’s
0:15:06 blood sugar level if he didn’t control the end device.
0:15:07 And so they’ve tried a lot of things.
0:15:10 They tried the portal, they’ve tried a phone,
0:15:12 they’re trying to figure out a way to go direct to consumer
0:15:14 and go vertical and control the distribution.
0:15:16 And typically a brand once against above
0:15:19 a certain dollar volume starts opening its own store
0:15:23 so it can take greater command or control of its own destiny
0:15:25 through vertical distribution.
0:15:29 And Zuck’s been trying to do this for a long time
0:15:30 and has burned tens of billions of dollars
0:15:33 trying to establish the headset is vertical distribution.
0:15:36 This probably will at some point succeed
0:15:37 once it gets to the point.
0:15:39 I think they were smart to partner with Ray-Ban,
0:15:42 but once they get to the point in probably five to 10 years
0:15:44 where the cameras are sophisticated enough
0:15:46 and the microprocessors are powerful and smart enough
0:15:49 to be elegantly seemed into your glasses
0:15:51 or your sunglasses, fine.
0:15:55 This is gonna put the mixed reality set,
0:15:56 I think, pretty much out of business.
0:15:59 It’s 60 or 70% as good as the mixed reality headset
0:16:02 from Apple and it’s 10% of the price.
0:16:06 On a product value relative to the Apple headset,
0:16:08 it’s just a superior offering.
0:16:09 What are your thoughts, Ed?
0:16:11 – I think Mark Zuckerberg’s been listening to you.
0:16:16 I mean, I think you said that VR headsets were stupid
0:16:18 because they’re too uncomfortable
0:16:20 and they make you look stupid.
0:16:21 They make you look uncool.
0:16:23 And so this is his response.
0:16:27 Has he come out with a headset that isn’t uncomfortable?
0:16:30 It weighs six times lighter than the Vision Pro.
0:16:33 It’s 100 grams and that was actually one of the first things
0:16:36 that Mark Zuckerberg said about it at the event.
0:16:39 And also it looks cool-ish.
0:16:43 It passes as perhaps a style statement.
0:16:45 Now, I don’t think it looks cool enough
0:16:47 where people are actually gonna wear it,
0:16:50 but credit to Zuckerberg because the best thing he said
0:16:53 at this event in my view was, quote,
0:16:56 the right way to look at Orion is a time machine.
0:16:58 These glasses exist, they are awesome,
0:17:00 and they are a glimpse of a future
0:17:02 that is going to be pretty exciting.
0:17:04 In other words, I think what he’s saying is,
0:17:06 this isn’t the product that’s gonna change things.
0:17:09 This isn’t gonna affect our business materially,
0:17:13 but what it does do is it sends a message to Apple,
0:17:15 to Microsoft, and to Wall Street
0:17:18 that augmented reality is coming
0:17:20 and do not get it twisted.
0:17:22 Matter is going to be a leader in that space.
0:17:25 And it was reflected in the stock movement.
0:17:28 The stock increased right after the event.
0:17:31 So I think Mark Zuckerberg is kind of crushing it right now.
0:17:35 He seems rational in a way that he hasn’t been before.
0:17:40 He seems relatable and weirdly cool in a lot of ways.
0:17:42 And you look at his favorability scores,
0:17:44 especially among people my age,
0:17:46 it has skyrocketed in the past year,
0:17:48 and it all happened after he started getting
0:17:51 into gold chains and T-shirts
0:17:53 and going on podcasts and talking about jiu-jitsu.
0:17:56 So he has committed what I think is probably
0:17:58 the best rebrand of the decade so far.
0:18:01 Let’s just wrap up here on the headlines
0:18:04 with what’s going on with open AI.
0:18:08 Mira Murati has just resigned.
0:18:10 And I just want to go through the timeline
0:18:13 of the open AI management team here,
0:18:14 ’cause it’s very strange.
0:18:16 I mean, you’ll remember a year ago,
0:18:19 Sam Altman was fired, and then he was promptly rehired.
0:18:23 And soon after that, the president, Greg Brockman, resigned.
0:18:25 And later, the chief scientist
0:18:28 and co-founder, Ilias Satskeva, resigned.
0:18:31 And then in August, another co-founder, John Shulman left,
0:18:33 and he went to go to Anthropic.
0:18:35 And now the CTO has resigned.
0:18:40 So my question for you, why is everyone leaving open AI?
0:18:42 – I don’t think they’re doing it voluntarily.
0:18:44 There’s that saying, if you stab the prince,
0:18:45 you better kill him.
0:18:47 I mean, essentially these people were either directly
0:18:50 or indirectly involved in his ouster
0:18:54 where they didn’t kill him, where Sachin Adela said,
0:18:56 “Okay, that’s really adorable and cute guys,
0:18:58 “but he’s going back on the board
0:19:00 “and he’s gonna be the CEO.”
0:19:02 And I think they were all on the green mile.
0:19:03 And I don’t know what her role is in it,
0:19:06 but basically, my guess is they said,
0:19:08 “Look, we’re gonna let things calm down,
0:19:11 “and then I’m gonna bring in my folks.”
0:19:14 I think they’re also about to give them 7% of the company,
0:19:17 which will be worth, according to the most recent valuation,
0:19:19 around $10 billion.
0:19:20 So he’s sort of, I think we’re in the trust
0:19:22 and the credibility of the marketplace.
0:19:24 He really is kind of the Bill Gates
0:19:28 or the Steve Jobs of this generation.
0:19:29 And I think he gets to do what he wants.
0:19:32 And I think with the equity he has at his disposal
0:19:34 and the money he has at his disposal,
0:19:36 he just wants to bring in his own team.
0:19:40 And my guess is the past few years have been very exhausting
0:19:42 or trying for a lot of these people
0:19:43 and they all want to go do their own thing or,
0:19:47 I don’t know, but I would bet once he returned,
0:19:49 senior management, sorry guys,
0:19:51 you tried to kill me and you didn’t,
0:19:53 you’re on the green mile.
0:19:53 – From my understanding,
0:19:57 the mirror was one of his advocates.
0:19:58 Does that change your view?
0:20:01 – I don’t know, but initially when this company started,
0:20:04 had sort of this crunchy granola AI to save the whales
0:20:07 and it was meant initially to be a think tank
0:20:09 to try and provide a check and research
0:20:12 about the dangers of AI in a trolling society.
0:20:14 When they figured out there were tens or hundreds
0:20:16 of billions involved, they all decided,
0:20:19 well, yeah, let’s save the dolphins on weekends.
0:20:21 This is an opportunity for all of us to get our golf streams
0:20:24 and it’s quickly pivoted to being a for-profit.
0:20:26 And my guess is a lot of the senior managers
0:20:29 who are probably are going to reap tens of millions,
0:20:30 maybe even hundreds of millions of dollars
0:20:31 from their time there and their tenure there
0:20:33 and their stock options.
0:20:35 For those of them that think, you know,
0:20:35 I just don’t want to be around
0:20:37 for the next evolution of this.
0:20:37 I don’t know if there,
0:20:39 I would guess that it’s a combination of them
0:20:41 being forced out or saying like,
0:20:43 it’s time for you to go on.
0:20:44 I want to bring in my own crew
0:20:47 that’s not going to stand by and let a coup happen.
0:20:50 I don’t know what a role was or wasn’t in this,
0:20:51 but it’s not shocking to me
0:20:54 that he’s totally changing over the management team.
0:20:56 When you have that kind of capital
0:20:57 and that kind of equity
0:20:58 and that kind of brand equity,
0:21:01 and I just did an AMA at section.
0:21:04 And one of the questions was,
0:21:06 I have an offer to go run AI
0:21:09 at a Fortune 500 company that’s not that prestigious,
0:21:12 or I can take a much more junior role at open AI.
0:21:15 And I’m like, oh, go to open AI.
0:21:17 When there’s a rocket ship taking off,
0:21:18 even if you have a shitty seat in economy,
0:21:20 you get on the rocket ship.
0:21:22 And you’ll be branded for the rest of your life
0:21:25 as someone who worked at open AI in the fairly early days,
0:21:29 which is like getting an MBA from Wharton or Stanford.
0:21:32 So I don’t think this is going to have any impact
0:21:32 on the company.
0:21:33 I think they just have so much momentum.
0:21:36 I think he’s such an outstanding leader.
0:21:38 And the fact that they’re able to raise money
0:21:40 at 150 billion means they’re just going to have
0:21:42 all the capital they need to kind of
0:21:44 keep on trucking, so to speak.
0:21:46 – And the headlines were just a callback
0:21:47 to a prediction that we made.
0:21:51 People might remember he was saying over and over,
0:21:53 he has no financial stake in open AI.
0:21:55 It’s a not-for-profit company, et cetera, et cetera.
0:21:57 And our prediction was pretty simple.
0:21:59 There is no way he isn’t going to make out
0:22:02 with a shit ton of cash from this operation.
0:22:05 – This is the easiest prediction ever.
0:22:08 Sam Altman, directly or indirectly,
0:22:11 is going to make billions of dollars from open AI.
0:22:16 – So yeah, he got rich off open AI and shocker.
0:22:19 – Yeah, do I remember that Senator,
0:22:21 well, Senator Kennedy from Louisiana,
0:22:22 I don’t have any equity.
0:22:24 – You make a lot of money, do you?
0:22:27 – I make, no, I paid enough for health insurance.
0:22:28 I have no equity in open AI.
0:22:29 – You really?
0:22:29 That’s interesting.
0:22:30 You need a lawyer.
0:22:31 – I need a what?
0:22:33 – You need a lawyer or an agent?
0:22:35 – I’m doing this ’cause I love it.
0:22:36 – I’m only interested in saving the world.
0:22:37 Don’t regulate us.
0:22:38 There’s no need to.
0:22:40 I don’t like money.
0:22:41 I don’t like, yeah, uh-huh.
0:22:44 – We’ll be right back after the break
0:22:45 with a look at Palantir.
0:22:48 (gentle music)
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0:23:02 Go look at the S&P 500.
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0:23:07 was once founded by venture capital firms,
0:23:10 producing billions of dollars in profits in the process.
0:23:13 The hard truth, however, is that the biggest venture funds
0:23:15 are almost entirely funded by institutional investors
0:23:17 like endowments and sovereign wealth funds.
0:23:20 So unless you knew a guy who knew a guy,
0:23:22 you and 99.9% of individual investors
0:23:25 did not get to participate in the pre-IPO growth
0:23:27 of any of those blue chip companies.
0:23:28 And it’s happening again.
0:23:30 Look at the biggest names in AI.
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0:24:14 Do you ever wonder how people
0:24:15 in Silicon Valley sleep at night?
0:24:17 Well, apparently very well,
0:24:20 on some of the most innovative sleep technology out there.
0:24:22 Aidsleep is revolutionizing the way we sleep
0:24:23 with what they call the pod.
0:24:26 You can add the pod to your current mattress
0:24:28 like a fitted sheet to automatically cool down
0:24:30 or warm up each side of your bed.
0:24:32 They’ve just launched the newest generation of the pod,
0:24:34 the Pod 4 Ultra.
0:24:35 It can cool down each side of the bed
0:24:38 by 20 degrees Fahrenheit below room temperature.
0:24:40 It can also track your sleep time, sleep phases,
0:24:42 heart rate, and even your snoring.
0:24:45 And you know who’s gotten to try out the new pod?
0:24:46 What do you think, Ed?
0:24:47 Tell us about your experience with the pod.
0:24:51 I love it, Scott.
0:24:51 It’s great.
0:24:54 It tracks my sleep, my heart rate,
0:24:57 and the best part is that it cools down my bed for me,
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0:26:20 We’re back with ProfG Markets.
0:26:23 It’s been a banner year for Palantir.
0:26:24 As we’ve discussed previously,
0:26:27 the data analytics company is uniquely positioned
0:26:30 to leverage AI as a government contractor.
0:26:33 Its stock is up 125% year-to-date,
0:26:35 thanks in part to the AI wave,
0:26:38 and has almost quintupled since 2022.
0:26:39 And as of last week,
0:26:43 the company has officially made it into the S&P 500.
0:26:45 Meanwhile, the CEO, Alex Carp,
0:26:47 has gone at a cult following.
0:26:50 On Reddit, he’s known as Daddy Carp.
0:26:52 And by making pro-America proclamations,
0:26:54 such as, quote, “We founded this company
0:26:57 “to be a ray of light to America and our Western allies,
0:26:59 “he has rallied a base of retail investors
0:27:03 “who hold about 40% of the company’s shares.”
0:27:05 So Scott, on the one hand,
0:27:08 it’s looking like Palantir is a bit of a meme stock.
0:27:11 On the other hand, it’s a very serious business
0:27:12 with government contracts accounting
0:27:14 for more than half of its revenue.
0:27:17 What do you make of this company’s success
0:27:22 and the fact that it is up 125% just incredible year-to-date?
0:27:25 – So right now, this company looks to be
0:27:27 one of the most overvalued companies in tech.
0:27:32 It snowflake in Microsoft traded 77 and 37 times.
0:27:38 Earnings, respectively, Palantir trades at 218.
0:27:41 And this guy isn’t the head of an analytics company
0:27:43 or whatever the fuck they call themselves.
0:27:45 He is an amazing storyteller.
0:27:49 And he understands some of the keys around Brande’s person.
0:27:51 He has personified the company.
0:27:52 He creates this mystery around it.
0:27:54 Just as Tesla has always tried to say,
0:27:55 “Oh, no, we’re not a car company.
0:27:57 “We’re an energy company or we’re a battery company
0:27:59 “or we’re a software company.”
0:28:02 Because if anyone actually, if he came out and said,
0:28:04 “Oh, yeah, we’re an analytics company like MicroStrategy
0:28:07 “or like, I don’t know, Gartner or whatever,”
0:28:09 they’d go, “Okay, you trade within this range.”
0:28:12 But he creates this, he kinda cloaks all of this
0:28:14 in the shroud of mystery that our biggest client,
0:28:17 although we can’t confirm it, is the CIA.
0:28:20 And his hair, the look, the distinct look,
0:28:22 he’s turned himself into a media personality,
0:28:23 went on Bill Maher.
0:28:26 And there’s always an opportunity in branding to zig
0:28:27 when everyone else is zagging.
0:28:29 As everyone was like virtue signaling
0:28:33 and letting Google employees stage a walkout during lunch
0:28:37 because for it to show empathy for the Palestinian people.
0:28:39 Jesus Christ, what a bunch of fucking jerks.
0:28:40 Yeah, that’ll show ’em.
0:28:42 Do a walkout over lunch.
0:28:43 Yeah, that’s gonna cause change.
0:28:45 That’s really gonna fill my change.
0:28:48 I mean, all this virtue signaling and bullshit wokeness
0:28:50 pretending to give a goddamn about these issues
0:28:53 as they’re literally consuming the or creating products
0:28:56 that generate the incremental electricity demand
0:28:57 of Argentina.
0:28:59 And this guy goes, fuck that.
0:29:02 And he’s like, we’re here to help America.
0:29:06 We have no problems working for the Department of Defense.
0:29:09 You know, I’m done with the politically correct bullshit
0:29:10 of Silicon Valley.
0:29:12 And people still don’t really understand
0:29:14 the company is shrouded in secrecy,
0:29:15 not because it has to be,
0:29:19 but because it creates this illusion of innovation.
0:29:21 And he’s created this brand,
0:29:25 this kind of mystical, mysterious, techie,
0:29:28 deep dark secrets in with the Defense Department
0:29:30 can do amazing things,
0:29:32 can do amazing sort of scary things.
0:29:36 And he’s very pro-America in the midst of this zombie
0:29:39 apocalypse of useful idiots roaming Palo Alto.
0:29:42 And it is resonated with retail consumers.
0:29:43 And if you look at it,
0:29:45 they actually have a much bigger ownership stake
0:29:48 amongst retail consumers.
0:29:50 And retail consumers tend to be more about momentum
0:29:54 and brand than they do about underlying fundamentals.
0:29:58 And this company is just trading at kind of evaluation
0:30:00 that just quite frankly, doesn’t make any sense.
0:30:01 So is it a great company?
0:30:02 Yes.
0:30:03 Is he a good CEO?
0:30:03 Yes.
0:30:07 And he is the new premier storyteller in the world attack.
0:30:09 And his shareholders are benefiting from it.
0:30:12 – I do want to sort of double click on this,
0:30:15 on this idea of fiduciary duty, especially,
0:30:20 because, you know, 40% retail ownership,
0:30:24 36 times sales, I think you said something like 220
0:30:27 times earnings, it’s pretty clear to me that Palantir
0:30:32 is overpriced and something of a meme stock at this point.
0:30:35 And it’s sort of because of him.
0:30:38 And I just like to get your take on whether you think
0:30:41 that is good or bad management.
0:30:45 In other words, a CEO who sort of uses their charisma
0:30:49 and uses their storytelling ability to inflate the stock
0:30:51 to a price that is quite frankly,
0:30:53 going to be a little bit unsustainable.
0:30:55 I’m wondering if you think that that is an example
0:30:58 of fulfilling your fiduciary duty,
0:31:01 or is it possible that perhaps it is betraying it?
0:31:02 – I think it’s a former Ed.
0:31:07 I mean, as a CEO, you’re trying to tell a story
0:31:10 such that you can pull the future forward, right?
0:31:12 Was it irresponsible of me to raise $15 million
0:31:15 of a PowerPoint deck at a pre-money valuation of $35 million?
0:31:18 And I’m an obligation to my investors to say,
0:31:21 I’m just a guy who’s 34 with a shaved head.
0:31:25 And I remember after I raised the money thinking,
0:31:27 I’ve committed fraud.
0:31:29 I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.
0:31:31 – Which company is this?
0:31:33 – Brand Farm, my e-commerce incubator,
0:31:37 backed by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Maveron back in 1999.
0:31:39 We closed in December of ’99.
0:31:41 And spoiler alert, it didn’t turn out well.
0:31:44 It was literally like two months later,
0:31:46 the da bomb implosion.
0:31:49 But if you have the gift of storytelling,
0:31:50 as long as you don’t commit fraud
0:31:52 and start putting electric vehicles on a mountain
0:31:54 such that, and then angling the cameras such it,
0:31:57 it looks like the car actually has an engine in it.
0:31:59 I mean, as long as you don’t break the law or commit fraud,
0:32:02 if your ability to attract cheap capital
0:32:03 because of your storytelling, your majesty,
0:32:06 your good looks, your charm,
0:32:08 we’re proud of the progress we’ve made.
0:32:09 We need to do better, whatever it might be.
0:32:14 Or Jeffrey Bezos, 1997 shareholder letter.
0:32:15 If you read it, you just want to buy stock
0:32:17 in the goddamn thing.
0:32:20 That ability to raise capital at a cheaper price
0:32:22 than your competitors gives you the ability
0:32:23 to pull the future forward
0:32:25 and maybe grow into that stock price.
0:32:28 So what this guy’s done is absolutely,
0:32:31 I think he’s being a great fiduciary
0:32:32 as employees are getting rich.
0:32:35 And he’s now gonna have access to cheaper capital
0:32:37 to build out infrastructure, technology,
0:32:40 hire better, brighter, faster, smarter people,
0:32:42 and make investments his competitors can’t keep up with
0:32:43 and sort of pull away with it.
0:32:45 And that’s kind of the job of a CEO.
0:32:49 What I would suggest is that anyone that works
0:32:51 at Palantir and has options that distinct
0:32:53 of how excited you might feel
0:32:55 about Alex or your company or colleagues,
0:32:58 that you do one thing, sell.
0:33:00 Sell as much as you can right now.
0:33:01 You’re never gonna look back
0:33:04 and I believe in when the stock goes up,
0:33:06 you know, really be pissed off at yourself
0:33:08 for selling at 218 times earnings.
0:33:11 We’ll be right back after the break
0:33:13 with a look at the Longshoreman strike.
0:33:15 (upbeat music)
0:33:24 Support for the show comes from Greenlight.
0:33:25 As your kids get older,
0:33:26 parenting gets easier in some ways,
0:33:29 especially in some really obvious ways.
0:33:30 See you later diaper bag.
0:33:32 But in other ways, it gets more complicated,
0:33:35 especially as your kids start to gain more independence
0:33:37 and maybe a little financial independence too.
0:33:39 The fact is it’s hard for kids to manage money
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0:34:03 Simply put, we were a Greenlight family,
0:34:06 a well before they even chose to advertise on Prop G.
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0:34:27 – When Kamala Harris and Donald Trump met
0:34:28 on the debate stage,
0:34:32 it was obvious that these were two very different people.
0:34:35 – But JD Vance and Tim Walls actually have a lot in common.
0:34:37 They’re both white men from the Midwest.
0:34:38 They’re both family men
0:34:39 and they were both in the service.
0:34:42 – But they disagree on what it means to be a man.
0:34:44 – Here’s my light pack.
0:34:46 Surround yourself with smart women and listen to them
0:34:48 and you’ll do just fine.
0:34:50 – Today explained, every weekday,
0:34:51 wherever you get your podcasts.
0:35:03 – We’re back with Prop G Markets.
0:35:04 The most disruptive strike in decades
0:35:07 could take hold of the U.S. economy on Tuesday.
0:35:12 Roughly 45,000 workers at 36 sea ports from Maine to Texas
0:35:14 are expected to walk out of the job,
0:35:17 halting half of the nation’s cargo indefinitely.
0:35:19 The International Longshoremen’s Union
0:35:21 is demanding higher wages
0:35:24 and a ban on automating freight movements.
0:35:25 The United States Maritime Alliance,
0:35:27 which represents the ports,
0:35:29 has called their demands unreasonable
0:35:31 and the two sides have not met
0:35:33 for contract negotiations since June.
0:35:38 – Scott, you’ve been particularly outspoken on unions
0:35:39 and on strikes over the past year.
0:35:42 What do you make of this potential strike
0:35:45 from the International Longshoremen’s Association?
0:35:47 – I think if they’re in a position to leverage,
0:35:50 I like middle-class workers getting more money.
0:35:53 I believe in the right to assemble, the right to strike,
0:35:57 and if they’re in a position to demand those sorts of wages,
0:35:59 technically that’s a function of supply and demand,
0:36:01 fine, more power to them.
0:36:03 What makes no sense and never works
0:36:06 is trying to ban or put the genie back in the bottle
0:36:09 in terms of automation and technology.
0:36:12 You can save off the wolves from the door
0:36:14 for a little while, but eventually,
0:36:16 if you’re able to do it domestically,
0:36:18 ’cause your union or your contacts with government
0:36:20 are so strong, then those jobs ultimately
0:36:21 just end up getting off short
0:36:23 or at some point they start off loading shit in Mexico
0:36:26 and driving it up in trucks or something like that.
0:36:29 But these guys make about, I guess, about 39 bucks an hour,
0:36:31 about 81,000 a year, up 11% since the start
0:36:33 of their expiring six-year contract.
0:36:37 Over the same period, inflation has increased 24%.
0:36:38 So they’re 13% down.
0:36:41 Now, that’s a far cry from the 77% they’re asking for,
0:36:45 so they absolutely deserve a raise.
0:36:46 And I would imagine supply and demand
0:36:48 would probably agree with that.
0:36:50 And J.P. Morgan, transportation analyst,
0:36:53 believed that this strike could cost the economy $5 billion
0:36:55 a day or about 6% of GDP.
0:36:57 Now, this is one of those instances
0:36:59 where the president has authority to intervene,
0:37:01 but he said he doesn’t plan to take action,
0:37:03 especially as he gets closer to the election.
0:37:06 The last thing he wants to do is fuck up his union vote.
0:37:08 The notion of trying to hold off automation,
0:37:10 that’s just not gonna work.
0:37:12 I don’t even think there’s a way to do that.
0:37:15 And I think it’s just sort of a ridiculous ask.
0:37:19 What they could ask for is more money for worker retraining
0:37:23 or an agreement with the port to upskill some of these folks
0:37:24 so that they understand this technology
0:37:25 or perhaps even get into programming
0:37:27 around this technology or whatever it might be.
0:37:32 I’m in Munich and I did this chart on worker retraining funds
0:37:36 and the US allocates far less money for worker retraining
0:37:39 than any developed nation in the world.
0:37:40 But anyways, back to me.
0:37:44 So red envelope, I got kicked off of the board
0:37:49 by Sequoia Capital who the representative there
0:37:52 was not only really aggressive and ignorant,
0:37:55 but he knew absolutely nothing about retailer brands
0:38:00 and was supporting just this incompetent CEO
0:38:03 and was also using the company as a dumping ground
0:38:05 for the failed products of his portfolio company.
0:38:07 I got into a pissing match with him, I lost.
0:38:08 I got kicked off the board
0:38:10 and I spent the next two years trying to raise capital.
0:38:13 – This is legendary investor, Michael Moritz by the way.
0:38:15 – There you go.
0:38:16 Most powerful man in venture capital.
0:38:18 Also really an awful human being.
0:38:22 Anyway, so I raised a bunch of money,
0:38:25 came back in thinking I was the conquering hero back
0:38:27 and first Christmas or first holiday,
0:38:31 I sweep out the old board, put in my people
0:38:35 and basically the cruel truth or the secret,
0:38:38 the uncomfortable secret especially retail
0:38:41 is that you lose money for 44 weeks
0:38:43 and you print money for eight weeks
0:38:45 basically from Thanksgiving through Christmas
0:38:48 and you make all your money in that short period.
0:38:52 So during that period, we have these software guns
0:38:54 at our Kentucky Ohio Fulfillment Center
0:38:56 and the software that spits out the label
0:38:59 spits out I think 12,000 of the wrong address.
0:39:02 So we send 12,000 gifts to the wrong homes.
0:39:05 That is devastating because if retailers
0:39:07 were not trying to create moral hazard
0:39:09 or the wrong incentives, when you wanna return something
0:39:12 it would be more economical for them to say just keep it
0:39:15 ’cause to return it, clean it, restock it
0:39:16 and then resell it is more expensive
0:39:18 than just telling you to keep it
0:39:20 but they don’t wanna create incentive to just start lying.
0:39:22 Returns are a fucking nightmare for retailers.
0:39:26 Anyways, so we have 12,000 gifts going to the wrong people.
0:39:27 So we have a customer service nightmare
0:39:30 at the call center, angry customers
0:39:33 and just thousands of returns we weren’t anticipating.
0:39:36 In addition, the Longshoremen went on strike in Long Beach
0:39:39 and a disproportionate amount of our holiday merchandise
0:39:42 was stuck on a cargo ship eight miles off the coast
0:39:44 to Long Beach and there was nothing we could do about it
0:39:45 so we didn’t have product.
0:39:49 And then finally some cogent 28 year old credit analyst
0:39:51 at Wells Fargo where we had our letter of credit
0:39:54 where we would tap it to make these big inventory purchases
0:39:58 before the holiday said I’m worried
0:40:01 about the credit markets, we’re pulling your line.
0:40:03 So all three of these things basically took our stock
0:40:06 from like seven bucks to 70 cents in two or three weeks
0:40:09 and within I think about two or three months
0:40:11 we were chapter 11 going through a reorganization.
0:40:14 I’d also like to add that all the vendors got paid
0:40:16 all the employees maintained their jobs
0:40:18 but the equity holders including myself
0:40:19 we all got wiped out.
0:40:22 Anyways, so I have a little bit I’m a little bit triggered
0:40:24 when I hear about a Longshoremen strike
0:40:26 but look they have the right to strike
0:40:27 I hope they get more money
0:40:30 but they should drop the demands.
0:40:32 They’re just gonna delay the onset of the strike
0:40:35 and not get anything more if they come up to the table
0:40:36 and say you’re not allowed to use technology
0:40:37 that’s just not gonna work.
0:40:40 – One of the things that we like to think about
0:40:43 on this podcast when it comes to strikes and unions is
0:40:44 who has the leverage?
0:40:46 Who actually has the bulking power?
0:40:50 When we looked at the WGA and the writer’s strike
0:40:52 it’s very clear to us that the writers had very little
0:40:54 leverage and that’s why they got a shady deal
0:40:57 and the same was true of the SAG-AFTRA strike
0:40:59 but there’s one number that you mentioned there
0:41:01 that I think is crucial here
0:41:03 and that number was 6%
0:41:07 and that is the percentage of daily GDP in America
0:41:11 that will be lost if all of these guys go on strike.
0:41:15 It will cost the US $5 billion per day.
0:41:19 It is a huge amount of money that they are putting at risk
0:41:21 and your own story there,
0:41:23 they essentially put you out of business.
0:41:26 They were the nail in your coffin
0:41:30 and so they are asking for some pretty unreasonable demands,
0:41:32 ban robots, that’s ridiculous,
0:41:36 increase salaries by 77% that seems crazy
0:41:39 but those numbers actually don’t matter as much
0:41:41 as that 6% number.
0:41:43 They can ask for whatever they want
0:41:44 because they have so much power.
0:41:46 If they want to go on strike,
0:41:49 they pretty much will get whatever they’re asking for
0:41:52 and we saw this happen with the UPS strike as well.
0:41:55 The UPS workers were making some pretty,
0:41:58 perhaps unreasonable demands and they got them
0:41:59 because we need the UPS workers.
0:42:03 We cannot allow our postal system to go out of business.
0:42:06 So I get the feeling that they’re too important,
0:42:09 they’re too systemic to our economy
0:42:11 that actually they could come back and say,
0:42:14 okay, we’ll give you a 77% raise.
0:42:16 – Yeah, just as I don’t think the riders,
0:42:20 I didn’t, I felt bad,
0:42:21 but I didn’t feel there was anything wrong with them,
0:42:22 not getting what they wanted
0:42:24 because supply and demand ultimately takes the market.
0:42:27 At the same time, if these guys are in a position of leverage
0:42:31 where they need their skills to keep the economy operating
0:42:32 and they can still make money
0:42:33 by giving them substantial raises,
0:42:35 then I don’t, I feel they deserve it.
0:42:37 If they can get it, then quote unquote, they deserve it.
0:42:40 Deserve and fair are kind of weird words.
0:42:42 This is strategic.
0:42:45 They’re doing it for a reason at this time of the year, right?
0:42:48 This is when literally everyone’s like, okay,
0:42:50 they’re calling their local representative
0:42:52 or they’re calling the port and they’re saying,
0:42:56 if I can’t get my shit in my store for the holidays,
0:42:58 I’m out of business.
0:43:00 So I really hope you guys can figure this out.
0:43:02 And they’re calling the representative saying,
0:43:06 if I can’t figure out a way to get these stuffed animals
0:43:11 to Mike and Betty’s toy store in Wasa, Wisconsin,
0:43:13 we’re fucked.
0:43:14 – Yeah.
0:43:16 And to keep prices, to keep prices down.
0:43:18 I mean, if they go on strike
0:43:20 and we gunk up the supply chain even more,
0:43:21 prices are gonna skyrocket,
0:43:24 which is gonna be an absolute nightmare.
0:43:25 – You know, this is a delicate situation.
0:43:29 My guess is they kind of, the ports or wherever
0:43:32 is the employing agency here holds their nose
0:43:34 and just tries to work this out sooner rather than later.
0:43:37 And I’m sure the president is urging them to do that.
0:43:42 But yeah, I don’t, you know, at least like these guys,
0:43:43 these guys don’t have their head up their ass.
0:43:45 They’re a little bit unrealistic
0:43:49 about asking to put a pause on technology,
0:43:51 but it strikes me that in an economy,
0:43:55 they’re strong with retail as strong as it is right now,
0:43:57 with the fact that their wages have not kept pace
0:44:00 with inflation, a big ask is not unreasonable.
0:44:01 They won’t get that,
0:44:03 but they’ll get something pretty substantial
0:44:05 and there’s money there.
0:44:09 There’s juice to squeeze from the lemon called commerce
0:44:10 that ports play a big role in.
0:44:13 In contrast to the WGA, they’re like,
0:44:16 “I know let’s strike at a time when the people paying us
0:44:18 are in a world of hurt.”
0:44:20 – I’d like to do a quick profile of the president
0:44:23 of the International Longshoreman’s Association.
0:44:25 This guy is named Harold Daggett.
0:44:27 He is the president of the union.
0:44:30 He is infamously aggressive.
0:44:34 He has posted videos publicly dissing Biden.
0:44:36 He recently posted a video saying,
0:44:39 “I will cripple you if you don’t meet our demands.”
0:44:42 He’s also accused of having ties to the mob.
0:44:45 People think that because he has these ties to the mob,
0:44:49 that’s how he worked his way up to be president of the ILA.
0:44:52 And my favorite stat is that last year,
0:44:54 he received in compensation
0:44:59 from the International Longshoreman’s Association $728,000.
0:45:04 He is one of the most well compensated union leaders
0:45:07 in America, probably the best compensated.
0:45:10 He seems like maybe a strategic genius,
0:45:11 the way he’s going at this,
0:45:13 the way he’s timing this strike,
0:45:15 the way he’s being so aggressive.
0:45:17 And it feels like, you know,
0:45:18 you can call those demands unreasonable,
0:45:21 but I’ll bet that that’s all part of the plan.
0:45:23 – A guy running this big an organization,
0:45:26 him making $720,000, I don’t have a problem with that.
0:45:28 And also, I think he seems mostly,
0:45:29 I think he seems like an impressive man
0:45:31 because I am shit scared of him right now.
0:45:32 – Right?
0:45:36 So I hope that he’s, I think he’s a very good man.
0:45:37 I’m with you.
0:45:39 I’m with you, Mr. Daggett.
0:45:40 – Best of luck to you.
0:45:45 – Let’s take a look at the week ahead.
0:45:47 We’ll see the unemployment rate for September
0:45:49 and earnings from Nike.
0:45:51 Scott, any predictions?
0:45:54 – There is some new data coming out showing that
0:45:57 when states legalize gambling,
0:46:00 bankruptcies go up somewhere between 20 and 35%.
0:46:01 And I worry that we’re raising,
0:46:02 especially a generation of boys
0:46:04 who seem to be more prone to addiction,
0:46:07 who are just gonna slipstream right into
0:46:11 different types of drug and gambling addictions.
0:46:14 I think we are going to see just an upsurge
0:46:18 in rehab facilities treating gambling addiction,
0:46:21 bankruptcies and suicide for people.
0:46:24 Gambling addiction actually has the highest suicide rate
0:46:27 because people don’t know a lot of times.
0:46:28 And if you were addicted to meth,
0:46:30 we would know it and we would try and do something about it.
0:46:33 But if you got in over your head and online gambling
0:46:36 and you felt like there was no way out, nobody knows it.
0:46:38 And that’s why it has the highest suicide rate
0:46:39 of all the addictions.
0:46:41 And so it just got me thinking that
0:46:44 you have all of these companies who are basically building
0:46:47 or prepping or grooming an entire generation of young men
0:46:49 to become addicts.
0:46:50 And Richard Reeves,
0:46:52 the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men
0:46:54 just came out with a study showing that
0:46:56 the incremental deaths of despair among young men
0:46:59 has gone up so dramatically since 2004.
0:47:01 We’ve lost an incremental 400,000 men,
0:47:03 which is how many men we lost in World War II.
0:47:05 And I think it’s just going to get worse.
0:47:06 And I know this is a terrible prediction,
0:47:09 but unfortunately gaming stocks are going to surge.
0:47:11 These private equity companies rolling up rehab clinics
0:47:13 are going to see a huge increase.
0:47:15 Nova Nordisk and GLP One drugs are going to boom
0:47:17 because they’re going to start using GLP One
0:47:19 to try and treat gambling addictions.
0:47:22 But we are literally going to spit out millions of young men
0:47:27 who are craving and ready and teed up to be addicts.
0:47:32 – Nine, nine.
0:47:34 – Yeah, that is a very depressing prediction.
0:47:35 – Isn’t that awful?
0:47:39 – One in 10 bankruptcies are a result of gambling.
0:47:43 I mean, it’s getting pretty crazy.
0:47:44 Do you, are you gambling much?
0:47:45 – No, what, you know what’s weird?
0:47:47 When I go to Vegas now, I don’t gamble.
0:47:47 I used to love to gamble.
0:47:48 I don’t gamble anymore.
0:47:50 – You just go to magic shows?
0:47:53 – Yeah, yeah, that’s what I do, magic shows.
0:47:56 – This episode was produced by Clay Miller
0:47:58 and engineered by Benjamin Spencer.
0:48:00 Our associate producer is Alison Weiss.
0:48:01 Our executive producer is Catherine Dillon.
0:48:03 Mia Silverio is our research lead
0:48:05 and Drew Burris is our technical director.
0:48:07 Thank you for listening to “ProfG Markets”
0:48:09 from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:48:11 Join us on Thursday for our conversation
0:48:16 with Lena Kahn, chair of the FTC, only on “ProfG Markets.”
0:48:22 ♪ Lifetimes ♪
0:48:29 ♪ You help me ♪
0:48:34 ♪ In kind reunion ♪
0:48:41 ♪ As the world turns ♪
0:48:46 ♪ And the ground flies ♪
0:48:49 ♪ In love ♪
0:48:51 you

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0:01:14 Hi everyone, I’m Brené Brown and I’d love to tell you about a new series that’s launching on Unlocking Us.
0:01:17 I’m calling it the On My Heart and Mind podcast series.
0:01:23 It’s going to include conversations with some of my favorite writers on topics ranging from revolutionary love and gun ownership
0:01:26 to menopause and finding joy and grief.
0:01:29 The first episode is available now and I can’t wait for you to hear it.
0:01:34 All new episodes will drop on Wednesdays and you can get them as soon as they’re out by following Unlocking Us on Apple
0:01:37 or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
0:01:43 I’m Scott Galloway and this is No Mercy, No Malice.
0:01:46 Why don’t we fix our immigration problem?
0:01:47 Easy.
0:01:49 It’s too profitable.
0:01:52 Unserious People, as read by George Hahn.
0:02:05 The best marketers in the world are tobacco companies, tech companies, universities and
0:02:07 the Republican Party.
0:02:14 The GOP primarily represents the wealthiest 1% of Americans and corporations, yet manages
0:02:20 to get about 47% of the vote because people will support reducing the top marginal tax
0:02:24 rate, hoping they’ll someday benefit.
0:02:29 The Democratic brand is less powerful, as they’re often guilty of being correct and
0:02:31 ineffective.
0:02:36 Voters prefer mendacious and strong versus well-meaning and weak.
0:02:42 Biden is likable, yet under his watch, taxes on corporations went down and women lost their
0:02:44 right to bodily autonomy.
0:02:50 Note, I realize SCOTUS had something to do with it.
0:02:56 Two years ago the governors of Texas and Florida started sending detained undocumented immigrants
0:03:02 to bastions of the Democratic establishment, including New York City and Martha’s Vineyard.
0:03:07 Many progressives, including myself, were appalled at the weaponization of vulnerable
0:03:13 people, but it was a genius PR move on the part of the GOP.
0:03:20 Similarly, in February, Donald Trump commanded his acolytes in Congress to kill a bipartisan
0:03:25 foreign aid and immigration bill that would have, among other things, provided funding
0:03:31 for border barriers and enforcement personnel and, given the Department of Homeland Security,
0:03:34 the power to close the border to asylum seekers.
0:03:35 Why?
0:03:41 Trump, like most politicians before him, is more interested in politicizing the issue
0:03:44 than addressing it.
0:03:48 The former president claims that he brought illegal immigration to its lowest level in
0:03:54 history — he didn’t — that a large share of immigrants are coming to this country from
0:04:02 prisons and mental hospitals — no proof of that — and that Democrats have signed “illegals”
0:04:08 up to vote in large numbers in our elections — again, false.
0:04:13 Then there are the claims regarding Haitian immigrants dining on dogs and cats and Venezuelan
0:04:15 gangs taking over Colorado.
0:04:20 In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating
0:04:27 the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.
0:04:31 And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.
0:04:36 Not happening, but it would make an awesome episode of The Last of Us.
0:04:42 I’d like to believe these campfire tales about immigration would hurt Trump, but they likely
0:04:45 help his campaign.
0:04:51 The sensational — i.e. bullshit — captures the attention of the media and the algorithms,
0:04:55 which square the spotlight on immigration.
0:05:00 So Trump is lying, but Harris then needs to explain why after four years of her and Joe
0:05:05 Biden, fentanyl is still flowing through our ports and over our borders.
0:05:09 And we still have undocumented immigrants crowding into shelters, schools, and emergency
0:05:14 rooms in border towns and cities across the country.
0:05:19 Arizona Senator Mark Kelly summarized the issue well.
0:05:26 The GOP is insincere about immigration, and the Democrats don’t understand it.
0:05:31 The immigration debate is intellectually dishonest — again, why?
0:05:37 Simply put, the upside of illegal immigration outweighs the downside.
0:05:41 Illegal immigration is a good problem.
0:05:46 Twenty years ago, I was renovating a house.
0:05:51 I needed to finish the basement, but didn’t have the money to build a proper man cave.
0:05:55 Just a livable space with some built-ins.
0:05:57 But nobody would take the job.
0:06:03 The two quotes I managed to secure were more than the down payment on my first home.
0:06:07 When I asked to meet with one of the subcontractors, he was a no-show.
0:06:13 Finally, my general contractor and I drove to a local 7-Eleven, where several people
0:06:15 rushed his truck.
0:06:21 The GC asked them some questions in Spanish, and six guys jumped in the back.
0:06:26 These men, each one with a different skill, worked around the clock, only taking breaks
0:06:29 to make design suggestions.
0:06:30 They weren’t just laborers.
0:06:37 They were craftsmen, skilled, hard-working, conscientious, and reasonable.
0:06:39 Were they taking American jobs?
0:06:44 No, as there were no Americans willing to do these jobs.
0:06:47 Take this times two million.
0:06:51 Pew estimates there are 12 million undocumented workers.
0:06:57 And you get the scale of what is likely the most agile, inexpensive, and effective labor
0:07:00 force in the world.
0:07:07 Construction, hospitality, health care, big egg, big chicken, and big beef all rely on
0:07:10 this flexible workforce.
0:07:15 Once in a while, an industrial chicken packing plant is raided for employing people without
0:07:19 papers, but those are mostly for show.
0:07:24 We haven’t wanted to fix this problem in any real way as we make a shit ton of money
0:07:25 from it.
0:07:31 These are the most profitable immigrants in history, and the people who profit from them
0:07:34 are all of us.
0:07:40 Yes, there are instances of crime, and waves of migrants do tax our social services.
0:07:49 But again, every day, we decide it’s worth it by doing nothing.
0:07:55 The political discussion of the issue has become dominated by myths and misleading tropes.
0:08:01 One of the biggest is that crossing the southern border on foot is how most undocumented immigrants
0:08:03 come into the country.
0:08:10 Actually, 50% or more of the people here illegally fly into the country with a work visa and
0:08:13 then overstay their visa.
0:08:17 No border wall is going to be high enough to keep them out.
0:08:21 We’ve made the border synonymous with illegal immigration.
0:08:22 It’s not.
0:08:28 The wall is just a logo, not a serious attempt to fix the problem.
0:08:33 Another myth is that undocumented people take jobs from Americans and don’t contribute
0:08:35 to the economy.
0:08:42 Way back in the ’70s, conservative economic icon Milton Friedman, a fan of free trade and
0:08:50 open borders, observed that unrestricted Mexican immigration to the U.S. is a net good thing.
0:08:54 As long as it stays illegal.
0:08:59 Immigration is the secret sauce of the U.S. economy.
0:09:05 Estimates vary, but researchers have estimated that all immigrants, legal and undocumented,
0:09:13 contribute about $3.3 trillion to the U.S. economy annually.
0:09:18 That’s as much as 17% of our GDP.
0:09:23 These illegals are paying into social security, and most of them will never see a dime of
0:09:25 it.
0:09:30 To be clear, illegal immigration is an issue that warrants a serious response.
0:09:37 Friedman in 1977 said U.S. employers and consumers were happy to reap the benefits of an undocumented
0:09:44 workforce as long as the costs, housing, social services, healthcare, crime, remained low.
0:09:51 Now, however, many believe we may be at or past the point where the strain of accommodating
0:09:55 these new arrivals has become too high.
0:10:01 Ask anybody who lives in Eagle Pass, Texas, or Sweden.
0:10:06 Another myth that’s often invoked as part of the debate, however, is that undocumented
0:10:11 immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than permanent residents.
0:10:17 Whenever an immigrant, here illegally or not, is involved in a serious accident or implicated
0:10:22 in a crime, politicians jump all over it.
0:10:26 Historically, though, immigrants have committed crimes and been incarcerated at significantly
0:10:32 lower rates than U.S.-born citizens.
0:10:37 The economic dynamics behind illegal immigration and our collective lack of will to do anything
0:10:41 about it are pretty simple.
0:10:47 If for whatever reason good or bad we wanted to put a stop to illegal immigration, it wouldn’t
0:10:49 be that hard.
0:10:54 We could also easily eliminate some of the worst aspects of social media by imposing
0:11:00 age gates if we were serious about that problem.
0:11:06 We focus on the supply side of the equation, which is largely a waste of time.
0:11:12 Lots of people around the world believe, correctly, that they and their families will live healthier,
0:11:16 happier, and more prosperous lives in the U.S.
0:11:26 We can’t keep drugs out of our prisons, yet we believe we can seal a 5,500-mile-long border.
0:11:30 The fix is on the demand side.
0:11:36 If we want to stop illegal immigration, we need to decrease demand by raising the costs
0:11:39 and enacting real deterrence.
0:11:45 The quickest route to a solution would involve punishing employers, create a biometric database
0:11:51 of documented immigrants, then levy any employer who knowingly hires somebody who’s not on
0:11:55 it with a $10,000 fine.
0:12:00 No restaurant is going to risk getting hit for $50,000 hiring five cooks or dishwashers
0:12:02 without papers.
0:12:09 No chicken processing plant is going to risk a $1 million fine for hiring 100.
0:12:13 This of course will likely not happen.
0:12:18 Too many of the people who employ undocumented workers also employ lobbyists and give significant
0:12:20 money to politicians.
0:12:25 Those politicians are happy to accommodate their backers and exploit the racism and fear
0:12:32 of many Americans by continuing to tell lies about immigration.
0:12:38 I believe one of the keys to healthy relationships and relative harmony is to not inject agita
0:12:44 (argue, get upset, etc.) when the stakes are low.
0:12:49 To not create disharmony where there isn’t a real problem.
0:12:55 Yes, illegal immigration is a real problem, but why let it divide us when neither side
0:13:00 seems genuine about fixing it or even having an honest discussion?
0:13:05 I believe we will have immigration reform once the perception of the problem appears
0:13:10 to eclipse the benefits of our existing hush-hush system.
0:13:13 And maybe that time has come.
0:13:18 The fix will need to come in the middle of the election cycle.
0:13:23 The issue is too easy for politicians to demagogue when they’re campaigning.
0:13:28 Again, if we’re serious about the issue, why was the legislation presented during an
0:13:32 election year?
0:13:38 The biggest benefit of illegal immigration has been love.
0:13:49 A 2018 study by the Migration Policy Institute estimates 13% of child care workers are undocumented,
0:13:55 and almost a third of home health care workers are immigrants.
0:14:03 The New American Economy Research Fund reported in 2020 that approximately 280,000 undocumented
0:14:10 immigrants work in the U.S. healthcare system, many in support and caregiving roles.
0:14:15 These workers often fill critical gaps in the caregiving workforce, particularly in
0:14:21 roles that are challenging to fill owing to low wages, demanding conditions, or the lack
0:14:25 of domestic workers willing to take on these jobs.
0:14:30 Their contributions are significant, but their undocumented status can also lead them lacking
0:14:36 access to many worker protections and vulnerable to exploitation.
0:14:42 A knee-jerk reaction taken from the fascist handbook of demonizing immigrants, like mass
0:14:49 deportations, detention camps, would have a devastating effect on the U.S.
0:14:55 It would be inflationary and reduce the compassion millions of undocumented workers bestow on
0:14:58 our children and the elderly.
0:15:07 Punishing immigrants could be the U.S. version of Brexit, a self-inflicted injury.
0:15:13 There is a cartoon of an undocumented worker criminalizing his way across the nation, carrying
0:15:18 a backpack of fentanyl, stopping to dine on your cocker spaniel.
0:15:27 A more accurate depiction is a person who keeps our costs lower, is vulnerable to exploitation,
0:15:34 and cares for your kids and parents when you aren’t able.
0:15:36 Life is so rich.
0:15:46 [Music]
0:15:55 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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0:01:17 Will the VP debate move the needle
0:01:20 in what’s shaping up to be a neck and neck election?
0:01:21 You never know in advance what will be the thing
0:01:24 that matters and the thing that doesn’t matter.
0:01:27 But Donald Trump will be almost 80
0:01:32 and J.D. Vance will be one cheeseburger away
0:01:34 from the presidency should they win.
0:01:36 I’m Preet Bharara and this week,
0:01:39 the Atlantic magazines David Frum joins me
0:01:41 on my podcast, Stay Tuned with Preet,
0:01:43 to break down what happened at the debate.
0:01:45 The episode is out now.
0:01:47 Search and follow Stay Tuned with Preet
0:01:49 wherever you get your podcasts.
0:01:54 Episode 318.
0:01:56 218 is the area covering cities
0:01:59 in northern and central Louisiana in 1918.
0:02:01 World War I ended.
0:02:02 So a little bone to pick.
0:02:04 I saved 100 orphans from a burning building.
0:02:06 Do they call me orphan, save or no?
0:02:10 I’ve put your 20 men with my bare hands in World War I.
0:02:12 Do they call me the butcher, no?
0:02:14 But you fuck one goat.
0:02:16 Just one goat.
0:02:18 Go, go, go!
0:02:19 Go!
0:02:34 Welcome to the 318th of Jesus Christ, 318th.
0:02:36 What am I like, 800 years old?
0:02:37 I mean, when does it end?
0:02:39 When does it end?
0:02:42 Anyways, the 318th episode of the Prop G-Pod
0:02:44 in today’s episode, we speak with someone I refer to
0:02:48 as my Yoda on the topic of young men,
0:02:49 specifically struggling young men,
0:02:51 and that is Richard Reeves,
0:02:53 who was the president of the American Institute
0:02:54 for Boys and Men,
0:02:56 and a non-resident senior fellow
0:02:57 at the Brookings Institution.
0:02:59 We discussed with Richard his new research
0:03:00 on unnatural male deaths,
0:03:03 including injury, suicide and drug overdose,
0:03:05 along with solutions and his take
0:03:07 on what the script for masculinity should look like.
0:03:08 Okay, what’s happening?
0:03:11 That’s right, I’m back in London.
0:03:14 I’m back in the UK, but I was in Madrid.
0:03:15 By the way, Madrid,
0:03:17 let’s talk a little bit about Madrid.
0:03:18 Hola, Senor Galway.
0:03:20 Who’s the old dude living upstairs?
0:03:22 Who is that guy?
0:03:23 He’s funny.
0:03:24 That’s right.
0:03:26 Who’s the guy with the big dog and the little dog?
0:03:27 Oh, that’s the dog.
0:03:29 Anyway, absolutely love Madrid.
0:03:31 I’m into this idea.
0:03:33 Richard Florida, I couldn’t remember the same the other day.
0:03:36 He’s like the, he is not like, he’s the city guy.
0:03:38 By the way, lives in Toronto and Miami.
0:03:40 What does it say when the city guy lives in Toronto and Miami?
0:03:41 That means those two cities
0:03:43 have it kind of going on for different reasons,
0:03:45 but Richard looks at the future of cities
0:03:48 and I am fascinated by looking at cities
0:03:50 in a similar way you look at stocks.
0:03:52 What is an undervalued city?
0:03:53 Where would you wanna move if you’re young?
0:03:55 ‘Cause a young person, I would argue,
0:03:57 needs to be constantly thinking about
0:04:00 what I would refer to as a lifestyle arbitrage.
0:04:01 Now, unfortunately, the arbitrage gets harder
0:04:04 as you put down roots, dogs, kids, shit like that,
0:04:07 but you always wanna be thinking about a lifestyle arbitrage
0:04:10 when you’re kind of very young or very old, for example.
0:04:11 Yeah, and my, one of the best things
0:04:13 or most creative things I did in my life,
0:04:16 I did a lifestyle arbitrage moving from San Francisco
0:04:18 to New York, but it wasn’t a lifestyle arbitrage.
0:04:20 It was more a philosophical arbitrage.
0:04:22 I wanted to get away from the tech community.
0:04:24 I didn’t like San Francisco.
0:04:26 Most beautiful city in the union, I get it.
0:04:28 Great, great professional environment.
0:04:29 I can’t stand the fog.
0:04:32 I can’t stand political extremism on either side
0:04:33 and I found it politically extreme.
0:04:35 But anyways, love New York,
0:04:36 but then the lifestyle arbitrage
0:04:39 is I moved to Florida in 2010.
0:04:43 And basically, not 80% of New York
0:04:44 ’cause it’s so different,
0:04:49 but water, beaches, Miami, hello, Latina, sexy vibe.
0:04:51 And I could do it on 40% of the price.
0:04:53 And I got to start saving money, invested a bunch of money
0:04:57 and the markets took off and champagne and cocaine
0:04:59 or as I call it, I moved to London.
0:05:02 So that was the kind of ultimate lifestyle arbitrage.
0:05:04 And I think a lot of people recognize that arbitrage
0:05:06 at the same period moving from California to Texas
0:05:07 or to other places.
0:05:09 Ultimately, the term arbitrage is the correct one
0:05:10 because people figure it out
0:05:12 and more and more human and financial capital
0:05:15 moves into these underpriced lifestyle areas
0:05:16 and things go up in price
0:05:17 and the arbitrage gets starched out.
0:05:21 By the time I moved away from Florida two years ago,
0:05:23 our house had tripled in value.
0:05:25 The school we sent our kids to had gone
0:05:27 from I think 12,000 intuition to 22,000.
0:05:28 So it almost doubled and they’re out of seats.
0:05:31 They didn’t have the capacity for new people.
0:05:33 So that arb is gone, if you will.
0:05:35 But anyways, I’m back from Madrid.
0:05:37 Oh, and I’m heading to Munich tomorrow.
0:05:38 I love Munich, it’s a beautiful city.
0:05:40 If I spoke German, I would probably move to Munich,
0:05:42 but I don’t, so I won’t.
0:05:44 I actually prefer Munich over Berlin.
0:05:45 I love Berlin for the history,
0:05:47 but Munich, that’s a nice, wealthy city.
0:05:49 Anyways, what else is going on?
0:05:52 Nike CEO John Donahoe is stepping down next month,
0:05:55 a move welcomed by pretty much everyone involved with the firm.
0:05:57 Critics, investors, and employees alike
0:06:00 say that Donahoe who took over a CEO in 2020
0:06:02 essentially oversaw Nike’s fall,
0:06:05 becoming a loser, ruining retail partnerships
0:06:06 and diminishing the brand.
0:06:09 As the former CEO of eBay and Bank Company,
0:06:11 he was hired to upgrade Nike’s digital sales.
0:06:13 Donahoe focused on direct consumer sales
0:06:14 and cut ties with longtime retail partners,
0:06:18 including Footlocker, DSW and Macy’s.
0:06:19 We actually talked about this
0:06:22 in our most recent episode of Office Hours.
0:06:25 Donahoe’s demise really started coming to full view
0:06:27 when Nike’s stock fell 20% in June
0:06:31 following disappointing sales growth and oblique forecast.
0:06:34 So essentially sales have really, really had a tough time.
0:06:36 As a matter of fact, they’re kind of,
0:06:39 Nike’s in a sales recession for the first time in a while,
0:06:41 meaning that you’re on your cells have gone down.
0:06:43 I think it’s really easy to play Monday morning quarterback.
0:06:47 I ran a firm called L2 that was a business intelligence firm
0:06:48 and Nike was one of our biggest clients.
0:06:53 And I want to be clear, my advice was to double down
0:06:56 on direct to consumer that they needed to develop more,
0:06:58 have more control over their channels,
0:07:00 either through the web or their own stores.
0:07:03 And it ends up that retail sales,
0:07:06 in-store retail sales came back much stronger
0:07:09 than anyone had anticipated post COVID
0:07:10 and they were caught flat footed.
0:07:14 I would argue the decision they made at that time
0:07:15 was the right decision.
0:07:17 By the way, very interesting, I think it’s very interesting.
0:07:19 When the military reviews and operation,
0:07:21 sure they look at the outcome, but more than that,
0:07:25 when they try to evaluate the officer’s decisions,
0:07:27 they look at given the information
0:07:30 that person had at that time was at the right decision.
0:07:32 Okay, maybe it worked, maybe it didn’t work,
0:07:35 but given what he or she knew at that moment
0:07:36 was at the right decision.
0:07:38 And I would argue doubling down on direct to consumer,
0:07:41 given what they knew was the right idea.
0:07:43 Where they have fucked up or fallen short,
0:07:44 they have not been nearly as innovative
0:07:48 around product and merchandising as Adidas
0:07:49 or, and they’ve lost a ton of share
0:07:51 to some long tail brands, Hoka and On Running,
0:07:53 which are the shoes I wear.
0:07:56 Hello, douchebag venture capitalist.
0:07:59 Anyways, I would also say there’s some bigger macro factors
0:08:00 that are outside of their control,
0:08:03 specifically China sneezes
0:08:05 and a bunch of these companies get a cold,
0:08:08 whether it’s Starbucks, whether it’s Estee Lauder,
0:08:11 these companies I’ve become so over-invested in China.
0:08:13 China was a gift that kept on giving
0:08:15 and when China domestic demand fell,
0:08:18 these companies really got whacked hard.
0:08:21 In addition, on a more meta-level, TikTok.
0:08:24 And that is the sword that has been the weapon of choice
0:08:28 for Nike has been building an okay shoe
0:08:31 that they infuse with unbelievable brand codes.
0:08:33 And the primary weapon for building those brand codes
0:08:35 has been broadcast television.
0:08:38 Nike is the best broadcast advertiser in history,
0:08:41 but that sword, that weapon of war, if you will,
0:08:44 has been getting dollar and dollar for the last 20 years.
0:08:46 And so it is harder for them to reach their core customer
0:08:49 with their core confidence than Adidas advertising.
0:08:51 They’re fantastic with endorsement.
0:08:53 They’re pretty good at direct to consumer.
0:08:55 I would argue the stores have gotten a little bit stale.
0:08:57 I remember everyone wanted to go to Nike town in 2000.
0:08:59 I’m not sure they’ve been closing some of their stores.
0:09:02 It feels like they need a freshen up, a refresh,
0:09:04 something that makes them a little bit
0:09:05 stand out a little bit more.
0:09:08 Anyways, do not count these guys up.
0:09:13 The new CEO, the new CEO is, oh shit, who is he?
0:09:14 Oh, Elliot Hill, I know Elliot.
0:09:17 I don’t know him well, but I did work
0:09:18 with him a little bit at L2.
0:09:20 I think this is a great hire.
0:09:22 I think the board did a really good job here.
0:09:24 And that is they brought in someone
0:09:27 that would provide some stability, some credibility.
0:09:29 And this guy’s kind of, you know,
0:09:30 if you were to stab him with a fork,
0:09:32 he kind of bleeds the swoosh.
0:09:33 He’s very much Nike.
0:09:36 And I think it was a great hire for them.
0:09:37 So well done.
0:09:38 Look for Nike.
0:09:40 Nike had its best trading day, I think of 2024.
0:09:41 The day they announced on it was stepping down
0:09:44 and they brought in, brought in Elliot.
0:09:45 But look for Nike.
0:09:47 I think Nike’s absolutely,
0:09:49 you do not want to bet against Nike.
0:09:51 Moving on, the Biden administration plans
0:09:53 to ban Chinese developed software
0:09:55 and internet connected vehicles in the US.
0:09:57 You don’t say.
0:09:58 Why?
0:09:59 National security concerns.
0:10:00 Wow.
0:10:03 Why national security concerns?
0:10:05 The ban aims to prevent Chinese intelligence
0:10:07 from tracking Americans and using car electronics
0:10:09 to get into important systems,
0:10:10 including the electric grid.
0:10:12 Jesus Christ.
0:10:14 That sounds very much spy versus spy.
0:10:17 National security advisor, Nate Silver said,
0:10:18 on a call with reporters,
0:10:20 with potentially millions of vehicles on the road,
0:10:22 each with 10 to 15 year lifespans.
0:10:25 The risk of disruption and sabotage increases dramatically.
0:10:27 Wow.
0:10:29 I don’t know how much of that is true.
0:10:31 Is the real national security concern
0:10:32 or it’s Mary Barra from General Motors saying,
0:10:34 “We need more jobs.
0:10:37 Detroit needs your help, Joe.”
0:10:39 I would argue we tend to err on the side
0:10:42 of being too permissive, too promiscuous
0:10:43 with our data and our infrastructure.
0:10:45 And there’s no fucking way they would let us
0:10:48 into their country or have they with Tesla and Auto Drive.
0:10:49 I don’t know, that’s an interesting question.
0:10:50 It’s an interesting question.
0:10:53 But typically what I see playing out in China,
0:10:54 and I’m paranoid, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong,
0:10:57 is that China will let companies in just long enough
0:10:58 to figure out what they’re doing
0:11:01 to establish a market in that sector,
0:11:03 create some demand, create some economic liquidity,
0:11:05 and then they boot out that company
0:11:06 or make it hard for them,
0:11:08 prop up a local Chinese entrepreneur
0:11:09 and capture the value internally,
0:11:11 as they did with Facebook and Google.
0:11:12 Ever heard of Baidu?
0:11:14 And it looks a lot like Google,
0:11:16 and my guess is the majority of the IP was stolen.
0:11:18 By the way, the greatest economic boom
0:11:21 in the history of China is probably the migration
0:11:22 from rural areas into city areas
0:11:24 and some of their central planning,
0:11:25 which has actually worked in autocracy.
0:11:28 The second biggest has been just out-of-fucking-control
0:11:32 IP theft from Europe and the US.
0:11:35 Anyways, I think that this follows
0:11:37 or this initiative follows previous actions
0:11:38 against Chinese technology,
0:11:40 including bans on Huawei products
0:11:43 and investigations into Chinese cranes at US ports.
0:11:46 Officials have emphasized the ban is driven by security,
0:11:47 not political models.
0:11:48 Okay, that makes sense.
0:11:51 The ban will also target Russian software and hardware.
0:11:53 Is there a lot of Russian hardware and software in the US?
0:11:55 What is it, vodka?
0:11:56 That’s my software.
0:11:58 That’s my Russian software.
0:12:01 By the way, Stola Chenaya is brewed in like Denmark
0:12:03 or something or is still in Denmark.
0:12:04 It’s a mean vodka, though.
0:12:05 True story.
0:12:07 I used to just drink beer in college
0:12:08 with a little bit of marijuana.
0:12:10 And then I started drinking vodka
0:12:11 ’cause I thought it was more elegant.
0:12:13 It’s kind of the alcohol, it’s alcohol.
0:12:14 I didn’t think the hangovers were bad.
0:12:16 And I literally became immune to vodka.
0:12:18 I literally became immune.
0:12:19 Could drink eight vodka drinks and I’d be like,
0:12:23 “Oh, I don’t like me, which means this isn’t working.”
0:12:25 And just a reminder, just a reminder,
0:12:26 I don’t know how I got there with Russia.
0:12:28 Oh yeah, there’s not a lot of Russian software,
0:12:29 I think, in the US.
0:12:30 And just a reminder, in May,
0:12:32 the Biden administration increased tariffs
0:12:35 on Chinese electric vehicles to 100%
0:12:37 and limited tax credits for Chinese-made EVs.
0:12:39 We also covered this issue in an office hours episode
0:12:41 back in July.
0:12:43 This ban would hinder the entry of Chinese car manufacturers,
0:12:45 including BYD, into the US market,
0:12:48 which poses a potential risk to US automakers
0:12:50 if they lack access to advanced technologies.
0:12:51 I’m not sure that’s accurate.
0:12:54 I think it’s probably a boon for US car manufacturers,
0:12:56 specifically Tesla, if they don’t allow BYD.
0:12:59 And I fucking hate tariffs.
0:13:00 I hate them.
0:13:01 The second biggest tax cut in the world
0:13:04 would be if we broke up big tech, it would oxygenate.
0:13:06 The economy, companies wouldn’t,
0:13:08 companies’ parents, consumers wouldn’t have
0:13:11 this extraordinary tax placed on them
0:13:13 called the monopolization of social search
0:13:16 and our kid’s wellbeing by a small number,
0:13:17 a handful of small companies.
0:13:19 So bringing these companies up
0:13:21 would require them to compete and lower the rents
0:13:24 on suppliers, retailers through party marketers,
0:13:27 digital firms, companies trying to acquire people online,
0:13:30 retailers, little brands trying to sell their shit online
0:13:31 when they have to pay these onerous,
0:13:35 useless prices in terms to Amazon.
0:13:37 So you wanna oxygenate the economy, break up big tech,
0:13:39 but the biggest tax cut in the history of mankind
0:13:43 would be if China and the US kissed and made up.
0:13:44 We have money, consumer demand,
0:13:46 incredible intellectual property.
0:13:49 They have a supply chain like no other
0:13:51 and also a decent consumer demand,
0:13:52 although it’s fallen off a little bit.
0:13:54 It seems like we should kiss and make up
0:13:57 and make cheap shit for everyone around the world.
0:14:00 More for less is the ultimate gangster business strategy
0:14:04 and we kinda got the more part in the US
0:14:06 and they got it for less, if you will.
0:14:08 Anyways, let’s hope we can all get along.
0:14:12 We’ll be right back for our conversation with Richard Reeves.
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0:17:13 (upbeat music)
0:17:29 – Welcome back.
0:17:30 Here’s our conversation with Richard Reeves,
0:17:32 the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men
0:17:34 and non-resident senior fellow
0:17:37 at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
0:17:39 Richard, where does this podcast find you?
0:17:42 – I’m home in East Tennessee, Southern Appalachia,
0:17:45 but I’ve been on the road of being in Hong Kong
0:17:46 and then being in Oregon.
0:17:49 I had this amazing trip out to this community college
0:17:52 in Oregon, where they’re just cratering
0:17:53 male share of employment.
0:17:55 They’re dealing with it, they’re acting on it.
0:17:58 And this guy told me he’s been visiting
0:18:00 all these rural high schools in Oregon
0:18:02 to find out why the boys are not applying
0:18:04 to college anymore.
0:18:05 And there’s a bunch of reasons.
0:18:08 He said the most common thing he heard was,
0:18:10 I’m afraid that I’ll be lonely.
0:18:13 That I kind of won’t belong, I won’t have friends.
0:18:15 – Really? – It’s really struck me, yeah.
0:18:18 – That’s wild, I mean, I know that generally speaking,
0:18:21 young men have a tendency to stay on the farm
0:18:24 and women have a tendency to take off for the city.
0:18:26 But that’s, I had never heard that about,
0:18:28 that being a reason for why young men
0:18:30 weren’t applying to college.
0:18:31 – Same.
0:18:32 I mean, we know they are more lonely,
0:18:33 like we’ve talked about this before,
0:18:36 like the loneliness epidemic has hit young men a bit more.
0:18:39 And a number of college campuses have told me
0:18:41 that when they do their kind of belonging surveys,
0:18:43 they very often find it’s kind of, it is men,
0:18:46 especially those from kind of more rural areas,
0:18:48 who will say that they just don’t really feel
0:18:49 like they belong on the campus,
0:18:51 like they don’t have the right habits,
0:18:54 the right language, the right sensibilities or whatever.
0:18:55 And I really worry about that
0:18:58 because you start to feel like college is not
0:19:01 for working class guys, especially from rural areas,
0:19:05 then you’re losing a heck of a lot of potential talent.
0:19:07 – Yeah, I’ve always been a big advocate
0:19:10 and it’s not as toxic to people now as it was,
0:19:12 but I’ve always been a huge advocate
0:19:14 for joining a fraternity or a sorority
0:19:16 when you get to school.
0:19:17 And there’s some credible stats.
0:19:21 You become twice as likely to complete
0:19:24 your four year education when you join a fraternity
0:19:26 or a similar organization that kind of
0:19:29 distills it down to a smaller,
0:19:30 I know a smaller community, if you will.
0:19:33 But anyways, the reason we wanted to bring you on
0:19:36 is you just put out a paper on unnatural male deaths,
0:19:39 including injuries, suicide, and drug overdose.
0:19:41 Why is this happening?
0:19:42 – Yeah, so we’re really motivated
0:19:45 by our previous work on suicide,
0:19:47 where the well-known big gap,
0:19:49 especially now among young men,
0:19:50 or like take their lives from suicide,
0:19:53 but CDC actually captures this really good data
0:19:55 on unnatural deaths,
0:19:59 so kind of injuries is the language they sometimes use.
0:20:01 And we really hadn’t seen anyone break that down by gender.
0:20:04 And so we did break it down by gender.
0:20:07 And a number of things jumped out to me.
0:20:08 The thing I wasn’t prepared for
0:20:12 was just the scale of the increase in injury deaths.
0:20:16 So it’s up by 57% since 2001.
0:20:19 It’s 200,000 men a year who are dying
0:20:21 from one of these quotes, non-natural causes.
0:20:24 The biggest one is drug poisonings,
0:20:29 followed by suicide, followed by motor vehicle crashes,
0:20:31 followed by homicide, and then the other ones.
0:20:33 And it’s just, it’s two and a half times higher
0:20:36 among men than among women.
0:20:38 And that increase is so big
0:20:43 and largely driven by this drug epidemic that we’re seeing.
0:20:44 The thing that really blew me away
0:20:45 is like if you look at the deaths,
0:20:48 you’re always gonna see deaths from non-natural causes,
0:20:49 the ones we’ve seen above, right?
0:20:52 The question is, are they going down or up?
0:20:55 And they’re going up in a way that’s extraordinary.
0:20:57 So just to kind of put a sharp data point on this,
0:21:01 if the death rate from these unnatural causes
0:21:05 had remained the same since 2001, right?
0:21:07 So it’d been a flat line since then,
0:21:11 then we would have lost 400,000 fewer men
0:21:13 in those couple of decades.
0:21:17 And that’s about the number of men we lost in World War II.
0:21:19 – That’s a fascinating stat.
0:21:21 The question I would have is that, okay,
0:21:24 the leading cause here appears to be drug poisonings.
0:21:28 Is that fentanyl and also is this rooted in loneliness
0:21:31 and depression and why people are men are turning to drugs
0:21:32 or because drugs are more available,
0:21:34 because they’re more accepted in culture?
0:21:39 Like what, give us some of the nuance here.
0:21:43 – Yeah, the way this has been framed a lot,
0:21:44 you talked about this yourself,
0:21:47 but this idea of deaths of despair.
0:21:49 And as I said, the rates are highest among middle-aged men,
0:21:53 men between 30 and mid-50s.
0:21:55 And it’s been associated for a long time
0:21:57 with kind of declining economic prospects,
0:22:00 community breakdown, loss of affiliation
0:22:03 to family, religion, et cetera.
0:22:05 And so if you like, that’s the kind of demand side,
0:22:08 but there’s also clearly a supply side issue here too,
0:22:11 which is the way in which these drugs,
0:22:13 fentanyl and others have just been flooded into
0:22:15 some of these communities on the supply side.
0:22:17 It’s clearly part of the story too.
0:22:19 And so there’s actually a big debate now
0:22:20 among social scientists,
0:22:23 whether this term deaths of despair is actually helpful
0:22:25 or not, because what that does is it kind of points
0:22:28 to the individuals themselves, to the communities,
0:22:30 and says, it’s all demand-driven, right?
0:22:33 But actually it’s supply side as well.
0:22:34 And we have to take both into account, I think.
0:22:37 But you’re right, there’s clearly a despair element to it.
0:22:39 One of the things I find interesting about this
0:22:42 is that the drugs that people generally die from
0:22:44 are things like fentanyl, opioids, et cetera.
0:22:45 They’re not party drugs.
0:22:48 They’re not drugs you take to go out and have a good time,
0:22:50 right?
0:22:53 They’re drugs that you take to retreat and withdrawal.
0:22:55 And interestingly, one of the main reasons
0:23:00 why those drugs do end up, or even killing people,
0:23:02 is because if there is a bad reaction,
0:23:04 then there’s no one with you.
0:23:08 And so a big predictor of dying from drugs is being alone.
0:23:11 – Johann Hari, I hope I’m saying that name correctly,
0:23:14 said that the opposite of addiction is connection.
0:23:15 I absolutely love that.
0:23:17 That basically kind of confirms everything
0:23:18 you’ve been saying.
0:23:22 And so I wanna use that as a bridge to a jumping off point
0:23:24 other than telling kids, you know,
0:23:25 not the Nancy Reagan, don’t do drugs.
0:23:27 Don’t do drugs alone.
0:23:30 But also, what are some potential solutions?
0:23:32 Should we be legalizing drugs,
0:23:35 or is it more just programs to help young men
0:23:37 feel more connected?
0:23:39 – Yeah, so I’m gonna confess to not being enough
0:23:43 of an expert on drug policy to talk seriously
0:23:45 about that side of it.
0:23:47 But what I would say, I’m much more interested
0:23:50 in the demand side and the conditions
0:23:53 with which what would lead people to kind of take drugs
0:23:56 and then with whom and to what end, right?
0:23:58 To what basis back to the like are you,
0:24:01 I’m not here to endorse drug use period.
0:24:04 But I just think like if you’re taking a relatively safe pill
0:24:06 to try and stay up late at night,
0:24:07 or you think you’re taking some cocaine,
0:24:10 you do that very occasionally, et cetera.
0:24:12 That’s very different to this drug of retreat,
0:24:15 drug of despair, drug of loneliness stuff
0:24:16 that we’re seeing playing out.
0:24:20 So to the extent that Johann’s line is correct
0:24:22 about, and I’ve heard him say that too,
0:24:24 and I like it too, it’s connection.
0:24:26 Then I think what we should be doing is pushing hard
0:24:29 on where are the places that men,
0:24:31 that boys and men can connect?
0:24:33 What are the social institutions?
0:24:36 What are the places and spaces and institutions
0:24:41 that promote, encourage and support fraternity, right?
0:24:42 It’s really weird.
0:24:45 That’s interesting to me reflecting on fraternities
0:24:48 is that the thing that I think that’s probably most lacking
0:24:51 in the lives of many young men and middle-aged men
0:24:53 is fraternity.
0:24:56 It’s friendships, it’s male friendships in particular.
0:24:58 It’s a sense of community and attachment and connection.
0:25:03 So why we’ve allowed boy scouts to drop the boy, for example,
0:25:05 so that it’s no longer boy scouts.
0:25:08 It’s now scouting for America and has gone kind of co-ed.
0:25:13 But also Scott, like the decline in participation in sport
0:25:16 in high school among boys, it’s going up among girls,
0:25:20 it’s going down among boys, the lack of coaches,
0:25:23 the disengagement from extracurricular activities,
0:25:27 all that stuff, it actually takes quite a lot
0:25:29 to build community, to build connection.
0:25:31 And we have not done a good enough job
0:25:35 of creating places and spaces and institutions
0:25:38 where boys feel comfortable creating those relationships,
0:25:39 which are back to where I started.
0:25:41 Like I was blown away by the fact
0:25:43 that these 17, 18 year old boys are afraid
0:25:45 of being lonely on college campuses.
0:25:47 And it’s less true for other groups
0:25:49 because those colleges are actually making a real point
0:25:51 of saying there’ll be affinity groups.
0:25:54 There’ll be a girl, a women’s support group.
0:25:57 There’ll be a girl to code group.
0:26:00 There’ll be a whatever, very intentional, explicit attempts
0:26:03 to create a sense of community among other groups.
0:26:04 And I think we’ve made the mistake of thinking
0:26:06 that men don’t need that.
0:26:07 – I saw some really interesting,
0:26:09 or I talked to someone who’s a family attorney,
0:26:12 which is a way of saying elsewhere we got divorced.
0:26:16 And he sent me some data saying that amongst gay men,
0:26:20 marriages with gay men, 28% divorce rate.
0:26:24 Straight couples, 48% divorce rate.
0:26:27 Gay women, lesbian marriages, 72%.
0:26:31 And I thought, wow, does this mean women
0:26:35 bring more quote unquote divorce energy to the relationship?
0:26:37 And that just sort of blew me away
0:26:38 ’cause I’d never heard that before.
0:26:39 And he said that the path,
0:26:42 he said he’s had a lot of his clients commit suicide
0:26:46 or die by suicide.
0:26:48 I’m told it’s the right way to say it now.
0:26:52 And he said something really rattling.
0:26:55 He said that we all wanna believe they’re mentally ill
0:26:56 and it’s something outside of our control
0:26:57 and outside of their control.
0:26:58 We have empathy for them.
0:27:00 They had no control over it.
0:27:02 Or that it’s not our fault.
0:27:04 He struggled with depression.
0:27:07 And he said, I get it.
0:27:10 He said these guys basically do the math.
0:27:12 They don’t wanna get divorced.
0:27:14 Essentially, their divorce is usually
0:27:17 presaged by some sort of financial stress,
0:27:19 a bankruptcy, lose the business,
0:27:21 some sort of emotional breakdown on the part of the man.
0:27:27 His spouse decides she doesn’t wanna stay in the marriage.
0:27:30 Family court is biased towards men.
0:27:34 So, and you actually may have even talked about this.
0:27:36 I apologize if I keep parroting back
0:27:38 to what I’ve learned from you.
0:27:40 But in one fell swoop within a matter of months
0:27:43 or a small number of years,
0:27:47 a guy loses his primary relationship, his children,
0:27:49 his economic wellbeing,
0:27:53 and he makes a very rational decision to kill himself.
0:27:57 I wonder if at some point you come back on one of our pods
0:28:02 and say drug poisonings, suicide and divorce.
0:28:05 What are your thoughts?
0:28:10 – Yeah, so the suicide risk among men generally
0:28:13 is four times higher than among women.
0:28:18 If you narrow that scope to just divorced men and women,
0:28:21 it is eight times higher among divorced men
0:28:23 than among divorced women.
0:28:25 And so I think there’s a general point here.
0:28:27 I didn’t know that data about divorce.
0:28:31 It’s also true that women initiate twice as many divorces.
0:28:34 Women account for two thirds of divorce initiations
0:28:35 in the US now.
0:28:37 So women are, just as a empirical matter,
0:28:39 they’re more likely to initiate divorce.
0:28:41 And there’s this interesting study recently,
0:28:43 I think it was out Sweden,
0:28:47 which looked at what happens to men and women
0:28:48 who win the lottery.
0:28:50 The men who won the lottery became a bit more likely
0:28:53 to get married and not to have children.
0:28:54 The women who won the lottery were more likely
0:28:56 to divorce their husband.
0:28:58 – I love that.
0:29:02 – I mean, I’m laughing in a sort of gallows humor way
0:29:05 because, and of course, a good feminist critique of that
0:29:07 would be, well, the women have got more exit power
0:29:07 and they’re using it, right?
0:29:09 And if it’s economic dependency,
0:29:12 tying them to the guy, then hallelujah, she’s free of that.
0:29:15 And that’s actually a great sort of microcosm
0:29:19 of the whole push for more economic independence for women.
0:29:21 And you and I are both strong advocates
0:29:24 of that being a wonderful thing.
0:29:28 The issue then is what happens to men
0:29:30 who get detached from institutions
0:29:32 like family and marriage,
0:29:33 and therefore end up, as you say,
0:29:35 feeling like they’re not valued.
0:29:37 And I probably said this to you before,
0:29:40 but the two words that men use to describe themselves
0:29:43 before they take their lives from suicide in notes
0:29:44 and so on, the two most commonly used words
0:29:46 are useless and worthless.
0:29:47 And we just did other paper,
0:29:48 this will be interesting to you, I think,
0:29:50 where we looked at the differences between men
0:29:53 with a college degree and those without,
0:29:54 to paper and working class men.
0:29:56 And one of the stats in there that really blew me away,
0:29:59 and I think I know this stuff,
0:30:01 and then I dig deeper and really get surprised,
0:30:04 which is that men without a college degree
0:30:07 between the ages of 30 and 50
0:30:10 are only about 50% of those men
0:30:11 have a child in their household.
0:30:13 It’s basically 50, 50,
0:30:15 whether they’ve got kids in their household.
0:30:17 For women without a college degree, it’s still 80%.
0:30:20 And for those men, it was north of 80%.
0:30:23 And so we’ve got to a situation now where,
0:30:24 like particularly for working class men,
0:30:26 if I can use that definition of them,
0:30:30 like 50, 50, whether they have kids in their household,
0:30:31 and they might have kids,
0:30:32 but not be in their household anymore.
0:30:35 And I think one of the things we’re learning
0:30:40 is there was some truth to the conservative concern
0:30:43 that if men became less economically important,
0:30:45 if women became less economic reliant on men,
0:30:48 that was gonna leave a lot of men feeling beached
0:30:50 and surplus to requirements.
0:30:53 And their fear was those men would start acting out,
0:30:56 we’d see massive rises in crime,
0:30:57 all kinds of antisocial behavior.
0:30:59 It’d be like Mad Max, right?
0:31:01 As these men are kind of roaming around.
0:31:03 And of course the opposites happened by and large.
0:31:05 We’ve actually seen men retreating,
0:31:06 they’re checking out more than acting out.
0:31:09 And I see suicide as in some ways
0:31:11 the most tragic version of men
0:31:15 just checking out, looking around
0:31:17 and deciding that society, their family,
0:31:21 their community, their church, their workplace,
0:31:22 really would be fine without them,
0:31:24 maybe even better off without them.
0:31:27 And if there is a greater human tragedy,
0:31:30 then leading people to feel unneeded to that extent,
0:31:32 then I don’t know what it is.
0:31:36 – Yeah, I was fascinated by that study on divorce.
0:31:40 So I looked into it and some additional data was that
0:31:44 they believed that a lot of women, quote unquote,
0:31:46 if you’re gonna say women have more divorce energy,
0:31:48 which is disparaging towards women,
0:31:50 you also have to acknowledge
0:31:52 that as women have made more money,
0:31:55 men shouldering domestic responsibilities
0:31:58 has not kept pace with women’s economic ascent.
0:32:02 And that marriage has become a worse deal.
0:32:04 And that is a lot of women feel like,
0:32:07 okay, I’m now making as much or more money,
0:32:09 but I’m also taking care of the house.
0:32:11 This is just a raw deal for me.
0:32:13 I don’t know if you thought about solutions,
0:32:16 but this goes to a question around solutions is,
0:32:18 if we know that the single or a single point of failure
0:32:21 for when a boy becomes much more likely
0:32:24 to engage in self-harm, be incarcerated, become addicted,
0:32:26 is when he loses a male role model.
0:32:27 Man, as mom and dad get divorced,
0:32:31 and I think 92% of the time mom ends up with the kids,
0:32:34 shouldn’t there be massive programs and immediate triggers
0:32:36 that when there’s a householder divorce,
0:32:39 it’s just the next thing is we have got to get,
0:32:42 figure out resources and programs to get men
0:32:44 to ensure men are involved in this boy’s life,
0:32:45 moving forward.
0:32:48 And two, when a man is divorced,
0:32:50 or when a couple gets divorced,
0:32:53 that there needs to be some sort of education
0:32:58 or program availability for these men post-divorce.
0:33:03 – Yeah, the work of Catherine Eden and Tim Nelson on this,
0:33:06 on particularly working with kind of lower income families,
0:33:08 just basically they conclude by saying
0:33:11 that the current child support system,
0:33:15 family court system, especially for unmarried men,
0:33:17 needs to be radically reformed.
0:33:20 It needs to be reformed into a pro-family system,
0:33:22 and into a pro-fatherhood system.
0:33:24 And right now, the way that the system works
0:33:25 is that it kind of treats,
0:33:28 it basically splits men, fathers into two halves.
0:33:31 It says on the one hand, where’s the money?
0:33:33 So it’s the child support element to it.
0:33:36 And then on the other hand, completely unrelated,
0:33:37 do you want to see your kid?
0:33:39 And the father, in every US state,
0:33:41 the father has to prove paternity
0:33:42 if the kid was born outside marriage.
0:33:45 And it’s a completely separate legal process to get access.
0:33:49 And so I think moving to the presumption of equal access
0:33:52 and equal custody is important.
0:33:53 Of course, there are always gonna be exceptions
0:33:55 that people can point to.
0:33:57 What’s interesting about this is that in states
0:33:59 that have tried to move to like an equal custody presumption,
0:34:02 in other words, in law, you just presume,
0:34:04 unless there’s a good reason to the contrary,
0:34:05 which they could be that, you know,
0:34:07 moms and dads have the same rights.
0:34:10 This weird alliance of lawyers
0:34:14 and pretty strong feminist groups join forces to kill it.
0:34:16 And the reason that the women’s groups do it
0:34:21 is because they’re protecting women’s position in the family
0:34:24 and access to child support.
0:34:26 And the reason the lawyers do it
0:34:29 is because they’re gonna lose half their business, right?
0:34:31 If it just becomes a straightforward 50/50 split,
0:34:33 then they don’t have couples arguing with each other,
0:34:36 then they’re gonna lose half their legal fees.
0:34:39 And so I do agree that thinking about fatherhood,
0:34:44 custody access more in a more pro dad way
0:34:46 is just huge.
0:34:48 I just like, we have failed to update our views
0:34:49 about fatherhood.
0:34:51 And by the way, fathers need to step up more
0:34:52 in the way you just said.
0:34:56 And so the legal system is still just antiquated.
0:34:57 And especially it’s antiquated,
0:35:00 given that like, except for college educated Americans,
0:35:03 most kids aren’t born inside marriage now.
0:35:05 And so you can’t just rely on divorce laws to do it.
0:35:07 You’ve got to deal with the fact that like,
0:35:08 the preponderance of cases here,
0:35:10 that the parents weren’t married.
0:35:11 The last thing I’ll say on this
0:35:14 is I actually had this guy in tears
0:35:16 at an event where I gave all my charts
0:35:18 showing how good dads are for kids, right?
0:35:19 They’re high school graduation rates.
0:35:21 Actually, their chances of using drugs
0:35:24 or just how important dads are as role models.
0:35:26 And this dad came up to me tears afterwards and said,
0:35:27 “Yeah, but also being a father
0:35:29 “is the most important thing in my life.”
0:35:30 And what he came to realize
0:35:32 is that fatherhood isn’t just a means to an end.
0:35:35 Fatherhood is actually a central part of the identity,
0:35:39 purpose, and meaning that a lot of men have in their lives.
0:35:42 – It’s really, I mean, what you say always resonates so much.
0:35:46 I’m struggling with my 17-year-old is now a boarding school
0:35:49 and it was sold to me and I’m gonna act like the victim here
0:35:51 as I’ll be home Friday afternoons
0:35:53 and go back to school on Monday morning.
0:35:54 No, he has school Saturday morning,
0:35:57 he gets home for 24 hours.
0:35:59 And I not only miss him, but what I’ve come to realize
0:36:01 is that I like myself as a dad.
0:36:04 I really do feel good about, you know,
0:36:06 I feel like I’m programs like this.
0:36:08 I virtue signal and create this picture
0:36:09 that I’m a better father than I actually am,
0:36:11 but I know I’m a good dad.
0:36:13 And I get a lot of confidence from it.
0:36:17 It gives me a certain level of, I don’t know, my role.
0:36:21 Like I check this box, I’m helping the species
0:36:26 and not 50% of my ability to act
0:36:30 in what I think is a nice role is gone
0:36:32 ’cause he’s no longer here during the week.
0:36:34 And it has really fucked with me.
0:36:36 It has hurt my self-esteem.
0:36:38 I feel anchorless.
0:36:41 I just wonder if there’s programs I’m even thinking like,
0:36:43 I am dreading, Richard, I don’t know if you feel about this.
0:36:44 I know you have kids.
0:36:46 I am so freaked out about the moment
0:36:48 my second leaves for college.
0:36:51 Like I, they talk about women go through this.
0:36:54 My partner, she’s gonna be fine.
0:36:56 She’s like, she’s already kind of counting the days
0:37:00 to let her out of the house ’cause I think she gets,
0:37:03 you know, she gets more work and less fun than I do.
0:37:07 But it just strikes me so much how that role of fatherhood,
0:37:10 it’s not only, you know, something I enjoy,
0:37:12 it’s just so central to my identity
0:37:17 and I can’t imagine what it must be like to just,
0:37:19 to, you know, I think in family court,
0:37:22 you know, you lose your kids, you lose access.
0:37:25 Mom, at least when my parents got divorced,
0:37:27 did your parents stay together, Richard?
0:37:29 – Yeah, mine did, yeah, still all together.
0:37:31 – That’s wonderful.
0:37:32 What happens or at least happened with me
0:37:34 and I saw happen with most of my friends is that
0:37:39 a kid can’t process the agitator or the dissent
0:37:43 or the problem of these two people splitting up.
0:37:44 It makes no sense.
0:37:46 So immediately they go, oh, someone must be a bad person.
0:37:48 And it’s unlikely that the bad person
0:37:50 is the person you’re living with
0:37:52 making your breakfast every morning.
0:37:55 It’s the bad person is the one who’s left,
0:37:57 whether he or she wanted custody.
0:37:59 And so I just think there’s a very easy tendency
0:38:04 for kids of divorced parents to kind of demonize dad.
0:38:05 And that’s what I did.
0:38:08 I’m like, mom’s a saint, dad’s awful.
0:38:13 I’m fascinated by this notion of what you said
0:38:16 was really striking that men are four times more likely
0:38:19 to commit suicide, excuse me, die of suicide,
0:38:21 but become eight times more likely recently divorced.
0:38:24 Are there programs or any more data that you’ve talked about
0:38:27 in terms of what happens with men
0:38:29 after they lose their primary relationship
0:38:31 and no longer live with their kids?
0:38:32 – Yeah, there’s data.
0:38:34 I mean, I’ve given you the suicide one,
0:38:37 but just their life expectancy goes down.
0:38:40 Their chances of earning, being employed,
0:38:44 goes down, other health conditions worsen.
0:38:46 And sometimes that’s a bit of an eye roll moment.
0:38:47 It’s like, well, of course,
0:38:49 if men don’t have women to look after them
0:38:52 and remind him to take his pills and go to the doctor,
0:38:54 then he’s hopeless, isn’t he?
0:38:58 There’s a sort of sense of that bit of an eye roll around it.
0:38:59 But I think a deeper understanding
0:39:01 of it’s closer to what you were talking about,
0:39:06 which is that sense of connection and purpose and meaning.
0:39:09 And neededness, right?
0:39:14 The sense of being needed versus surplus to requirements.
0:39:16 I think it’s really the access.
0:39:19 I try to think about this along.
0:39:22 Now, it’s very interesting to me that men now are more likely
0:39:24 to say that having kids and getting married
0:39:28 is important for a satisfying life than women are, right?
0:39:30 So the old trope about like,
0:39:32 it’s women that want to get married and have kids
0:39:33 and men who have to be dragged into it,
0:39:34 like the ball and chain.
0:39:37 And men would rather be off like a cowboy
0:39:38 just doing their own thing,
0:39:41 but it gets ensnared into domestic life.
0:39:43 But deep down, they want to be out on the range
0:39:44 or doing their own thing.
0:39:46 And that is bullshit.
0:39:48 It is absolutely the opposite of the truth
0:39:52 is that actually men, what makes you a man
0:39:54 is what you’re doing for others.
0:39:57 We both talk about this, the kind of connection to others,
0:39:59 but also generating a surplus, being generative.
0:40:02 This idea of generative masculinity.
0:40:03 And actually listening to you now
0:40:05 is just part of the thought that one of the things
0:40:08 we know from the work of Anna Machen and other people,
0:40:09 she’s great scholar on fatherhood, by the way.
0:40:10 If you don’t know her stuff,
0:40:13 she has this wonderful book called “The Life of Dad”,
0:40:15 which is basically about how we invented fatherhood
0:40:16 in humanity.
0:40:19 But actually dads really come into their own
0:40:22 in the adolescent years, right?
0:40:23 Mums seem to have a bit of a competitive advantage
0:40:25 in the early years.
0:40:27 And dads have a competitive advantage
0:40:27 in those adolescent years.
0:40:30 Cause you’re helping your kids like go out into the world
0:40:33 to grow, to develop, to take risks appropriately,
0:40:35 develop social skills.
0:40:37 In other words, like the simpler way to put it,
0:40:40 is that mums are really good when the kids are in the nest
0:40:41 and dads are really good at helping
0:40:44 prepare them to leave the nest.
0:40:45 But actually when they then leave the nest,
0:40:48 you’ve just lost the thing that you were doing
0:40:49 over the previous few years.
0:40:51 And so in a weird way, I think for dads,
0:40:55 their kids leaving at 18 is much more of a loss
0:40:56 than for mums.
0:40:58 Cause mums have sort of done more of their work,
0:41:02 if you like, emotionally anyway, like when the kids were eight,
0:41:03 right?
0:41:05 Whereas dads come into their own in these later years,
0:41:06 only to see them kind of fly away.
0:41:08 And a lot of dads, I certainly feel this,
0:41:10 is this mixture of pride and loss.
0:41:13 We’ll be right back.
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0:42:34 but might be open to the perfect position.
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0:42:40 don’t visit other leading job sites in a given month.
0:42:42 So to put it quite simply,
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0:42:45 you’re looking in the wrong place.
0:42:47 I’ve tried LinkedIn jobs myself
0:42:49 and we found that we got qualified candidates.
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0:43:20 On the diary of a CEO,
0:43:23 you said that we’re in the relatively early stages
0:43:25 of a cultural revolution.
0:43:27 One where the economic relation between men and women
0:43:29 has dramatically transformed.
0:43:30 Say more?
0:43:33 – Yeah, so with 1979,
0:43:36 13% of women earned more than the median man,
0:43:38 typical man, 13%.
0:43:41 Last time I looked, it was 40% of women
0:43:44 earned more than the typical man.
0:43:47 40% of breadwinners, a male in the,
0:43:49 female rather in the U.S. now.
0:43:50 So in the space of my lifetime,
0:43:53 I’m at mid ’50s, born in ’69.
0:43:55 In the space of my lifetime,
0:43:58 we have utterly transformed the relative economic position
0:44:00 of men and women in advanced economies,
0:44:01 including in the U.S.
0:44:04 Now, we haven’t achieved full equality
0:44:07 and obviously there’s still some work to be done,
0:44:09 but the level of economic independence
0:44:12 that women have achieved in the matter of decades
0:44:14 has been just gigantic
0:44:18 and hugely liberating, wonderful, et cetera.
0:44:21 But I genuinely think that it takes time
0:44:25 for cultures to adjust to such massive economic changes.
0:44:27 I mean, that is a fundamental change
0:44:29 in the economic relationship between men and women.
0:44:30 And what it’s done is it’s unbundled
0:44:32 the traditional ways in which men and women
0:44:34 were kind of tied to each other economically.
0:44:36 And I do think this comes back to earlier conversation.
0:44:39 I really think that we were focused
0:44:42 on the economic dependence of women on men
0:44:45 in traditional marriage and try to reduce that.
0:44:48 But I don’t think we paid quite enough attention
0:44:54 to the emotional dependence of men on those families,
0:44:56 on those marriages and on the kind of being
0:44:58 the co-residents with their kids.
0:44:59 And what’s happened is that as women
0:45:01 have become more economically independent,
0:45:04 the degree to which men are actually quite emotionally
0:45:06 dependent on those traditional structures
0:45:08 has become glaringly apparent
0:45:10 and the gap has really opened up.
0:45:13 And I think that’s the chasm that I see a lot of men
0:45:15 really struggling to cross or fall into.
0:45:20 And so culturally, just, I mean, that’s a gigantic shift
0:45:22 and it’s all, it’s good, it’s good.
0:45:23 But the thing I find frustrating about this
0:45:25 is people’s inability to say you can have
0:45:27 this really great change,
0:45:30 like the rise of women’s economic independence and choice
0:45:33 and to say, but by the way,
0:45:34 there’s gonna be some bumps in the road here
0:45:37 because you’ve just radically transformed
0:45:41 the way in which kind of men feel their place in society.
0:45:43 And you don’t have to end up being reactionary and saying,
0:45:44 oh, that’s why we should go back,
0:45:46 which is what some of the reactionary right wingers
0:45:48 are saying, which is that’s why we need to go back, right?
0:45:50 No, no, no, we need to go forward.
0:45:52 But we have to go forward with some empathy
0:45:55 and compassion for the fact that this is a very different world
0:45:58 that men are navigating now.
0:46:01 – You’ve touched on the idea of a new script for masculinity
0:46:04 and the new set of roles and the new set of dues.
0:46:07 What do you mean and what does the script look like?
0:46:10 – Yeah, so I’m always a bit reluctant around this
0:46:12 ’cause of course there are lots of different scripts,
0:46:14 but I mean, it comes back a bit to fatherhood.
0:46:18 I’ve now placed a lot of weight,
0:46:20 increasingly actually as I’m doing the work
0:46:24 on the importance of fatherhood as that anchoring,
0:46:27 I’m using the way you describe your own relationship
0:46:29 with your son like the anchor you feel anchored by
0:46:31 as an anchor for men.
0:46:36 And being a provider and a protector
0:46:41 in a way that is appropriate for the kind of modern world.
0:46:45 So I’ve come to believe that we have to retain these ideals,
0:46:49 these ideas about the role of men, but just update them.
0:46:51 So rather than saying, okay, we don’t need protectors,
0:46:53 we don’t need providers, we don’t, you know,
0:46:55 instead I think we need to say that you can provide
0:46:56 and protecting different ways now.
0:46:57 So I think actually, for example,
0:46:58 and your colleague, Jonathan Hyatt,
0:47:00 now a mutual friend is doing a lot of work right now
0:47:02 on how do you protect kids from some of the online
0:47:04 environments that they kind of might be?
0:47:08 Like how do you step in between some of the forces
0:47:10 out there in the world and your kid’s wellbeing, right?
0:47:13 That’s being a protector that have to be
0:47:14 throwing a punch every time.
0:47:17 And I would say the same way being a provider
0:47:19 doesn’t necessarily mean that your dollar, you know,
0:47:22 the dollar amount on your monthly paycheck,
0:47:23 you know, has to be a certain level
0:47:25 or has to be a certain level more
0:47:26 than your wife’s or your partner’s.
0:47:28 But by God, it means you need to be providing
0:47:32 to your household, time, energy, you know,
0:47:34 skills, et cetera, right?
0:47:37 You don’t have to be doing providing
0:47:39 in just this very narrow economic way,
0:47:40 but by God, you have to provide, right?
0:47:43 So I said this before, but like as a stay at home dad,
0:47:45 I felt like a provider, right?
0:47:48 Because I was providing the space and energy
0:47:50 for my wife to be able to work,
0:47:52 not knowing her kids were in safe hands.
0:47:53 I think actually for a lot of women,
0:47:56 knowing that their kids are in their father’s care
0:47:59 while they’re working, that’s usually powerful.
0:48:02 – I love this notion and we’ll wrap up here
0:48:05 because I just think it’s such a great construct
0:48:08 for young men or a great framework.
0:48:10 Talk about the notion of surplus value.
0:48:14 – So when you look through the history of like,
0:48:19 what turns a boy into a man in most human societies,
0:48:23 it is some mark of them producing more of something
0:48:26 than they need for themselves.
0:48:30 Now, in a kind of post-war economy with more money,
0:48:32 that’s the breadwinner version of it,
0:48:34 but that wasn’t true 5,000 years ago on the Savannah.
0:48:38 That was meat, that was protein for the tribe
0:48:40 and for the mother of your child.
0:48:42 In other places, it could be something else.
0:48:45 But I think that I love this idea
0:48:50 of masculinity, mature masculinity,
0:48:53 being defined in terms of giving more than you get.
0:48:55 It’s a service-oriented form of masculinity.
0:48:59 It’s definitely the one I got from my father’s knee.
0:49:02 I mean, just absolutely the kind of giving more than you get.
0:49:03 And that’s why there’s this movement online
0:49:05 of men going their own way,
0:49:07 like a men’s separatist movement saying,
0:49:09 we don’t need women, we don’t need marriage,
0:49:11 we don’t need kids, we don’t need the labor market,
0:49:13 screw you, we’re off.
0:49:15 That is literally the opposite of masculinity.
0:49:19 The idea of masculinity is surplus generator is,
0:49:23 I know you’re a man, when you’re generating more energy,
0:49:27 time, love, money, meat, whatever the hell it is,
0:49:30 then you need for your own survival
0:49:34 because that is historically what men have had to do
0:49:37 is to contribute to the family, to the tribe,
0:49:38 to the community.
0:49:40 And if you’re not a contributor
0:49:43 in all these different ways, then you ain’t a man.
0:49:45 And so if you’re wondering how to be a man,
0:49:47 start by doing something for somebody else
0:49:49 and that will lead you in the right direction.
0:49:51 – Richard Reeves is the president
0:49:52 of the American Institute for Boys and Men,
0:49:55 which he founded in 2023 to raise awareness
0:49:56 of the problems of boys and men
0:49:58 and advocate for effective solutions.
0:50:00 He’s also a non-resident senior fellow
0:50:02 at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC,
0:50:04 where he previously directed the future
0:50:06 of the middle class initiative
0:50:08 and the center on children and families.
0:50:10 His 2022 book of Boys and Men,
0:50:12 While the Modern Male is Struggling,
0:50:14 Why It Matters and What to Do About It,
0:50:17 was described as a landmark in the New York Times
0:50:20 and named a book of the year by both the economist
0:50:22 and the New Yorker and distinctive as accent.
0:50:24 He joins us from Eastern Tennessee.
0:50:26 Did I get that right, Richard?
0:50:28 – Correct, yeah, Southern Appalachian, yeah.
0:50:30 I would bet you’re one of the more interesting people
0:50:31 in that area, and that’s a disparaging statement
0:50:32 about Eastern Tennessee,
0:50:34 but I bet people are fascinated with you as we are.
0:50:37 And Richard, I say this, but it bears repeating,
0:50:40 you have literally inspired me to take this on as an issue.
0:50:42 Thank you so much for your good work.
0:50:43 – Thank you for your work, Scott.
0:50:44 Always a pleasure.
0:50:53 – This episode is produced by Caroline Shagren.
0:50:55 Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer
0:50:57 and Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
0:50:59 Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod
0:51:00 from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:51:03 We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice,
0:51:04 as read by George Hahn.
0:51:07 And please follow our Prop G Markets Pod
0:51:09 wherever you get your pods for new episodes
0:51:10 every Monday and Thursday.

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0:00:34 Welcome to the second and final episode of the PropG’s podcast special series,
0:00:39 “Future of Marketing,” where we answer questions about all things marketing.
0:00:39 Hey, Prof. G.
0:00:40 Hey, Scott and team.
0:00:41 Hey, Scott.
0:00:42 Hi, Prof. G.
0:00:42 Hey, Prof. G.
0:00:43 Hey, Prof. G.
0:00:44 Hi, Professor G.
0:00:47 In last week’s episode, we answered questions around a common marketing
0:00:50 misconceptions, the power of community-driven marketing,
0:00:52 and what the future holds for the industry.
0:00:55 I think the CMO is kind of already dead.
0:00:56 They just don’t know it.
0:00:59 Our first three clients have to be just fanatical about us.
0:01:00 We have to over-serve them.
0:01:01 I don’t care if we lose money.
0:01:03 I don’t care if you have to go on vacation with them.
0:01:04 I don’t care what it is.
0:01:05 They have to be evangelists.
0:01:09 How do I produce something of 80% of the quality
0:01:12 that I have produced in the past for 20% of the price?
0:01:14 That should be your goal.
0:01:17 Today, we’ll answer your questions surrounding Nike’s value destruction,
0:01:22 the power of rebranding, and how to build brand awareness outside of advertising.
0:01:25 So with that, first question.
0:01:31 I wanted to get your thoughts on an article that was written by a former Nike CMO,
0:01:34 where he talks about Nike’s value destruction and the decisions
0:01:39 that led up to their recent quarterly earnings.
0:01:42 I’m curious what your thoughts are on the author’s sake and how a leader
0:01:46 in any organization can avoid making similar mistakes.
0:01:48 Thanks for your time, and I hope you have a great summer.
0:01:49 Go Arsenal.
0:01:52 That’s right, the Gunners.
0:01:56 So former Nike branding executive Masimo Junco, I believe his name is Junco,
0:02:00 published a viral article back in July that focused on Nike’s significant losses
0:02:05 and market value following the release of its Q2 2024 financial results,
0:02:09 which saw the company lose $25 billion in a single day in market cap
0:02:13 and $70 billion over nine months, hitting its lowest stock price since 2018.
0:02:14 So think about this.
0:02:19 It’s at a six-year low, and I think the stock’s been cut in half in the last three years.
0:02:21 Here’s what Masimo had to say about Nike.
0:02:25 CEO John Donahoe’s tenure has been an epic saga of value destruction
0:02:27 that might take years to undo.
0:02:29 That’s hard to argue with.
0:02:32 From a shareholder perspective, the CEO has been a disaster.
0:02:36 Nike is losing its cool factor that came from limited edition releases
0:02:39 by retreating from independent retailers and focusing on its online stores.
0:02:42 Nike has reorganized its product by gender rather than sport,
0:02:46 making it feel more like generic fashion brands, including Zara, H&M.
0:02:49 This has contributed to a lack of innovation in energy and product creation.
0:02:52 Nike’s decision to scale back its wholesale business
0:02:56 and focus on its direct consumer model has distanced it from its niche boutiques
0:02:59 and skate shops that help build its cultural credibility.
0:03:02 And although the swoosh remains in market leader,
0:03:04 Nike’s brand has suffered culturally with more consumers
0:03:07 turning to competitors for cool footwear.
0:03:08 So I love Nike.
0:03:09 I’ve worked with a lot of people.
0:03:14 There are some of the brightest people at L2 that we worked with now work there.
0:03:16 And I’m part of the shift away from Nike.
0:03:19 I wear on running shoes, and I love them. They’re on brand for me.
0:03:22 I like the way they feel. Are my feet that smart?
0:03:23 Can I tell any difference? Probably not.
0:03:24 I just like what it says about me.
0:03:28 I think your shoes, your watch, your car and your smartphone
0:03:29 are kind of the ultimate self-expressive benefit.
0:03:32 They say something or you think they say something about them.
0:03:35 So let me let me be clear.
0:03:37 I would have done the same thing.
0:03:39 I would have doubled down on the direct to consumer.
0:03:42 As a matter of fact, I preach that to Nike
0:03:47 that they needed to get from 10% to 50% of their sales and direct to consumer.
0:03:48 And they bought that.
0:03:50 And I think quite frankly, I think that was the right move.
0:03:55 They have suffered because what we didn’t anticipate coming out of COVID
0:04:00 was that there would be such an aggressive, violent return to shopping and stores.
0:04:04 And Nike was not well prepared or well positioned to capture those gains.
0:04:08 And a lot of the cooler stores felt a little bit, I guess, overlooked or ignored
0:04:14 because they had basically totally focused their priorities on direct to consumer.
0:04:16 And I will say that going into a Nike town,
0:04:20 it does feel not as fresh or as cool as it used to the Nike controlled
0:04:24 or vertically controlled, vertically integrated stores.
0:04:25 But I don’t fault them for that.
0:04:30 I think that given the information they had at the time about the future of online,
0:04:31 I think that was the right decision.
0:04:35 And also the market trumps individual performance.
0:04:38 And Nike was on the wrong end of China.
0:04:44 And that is if you look at the S&P 500 companies that have really gotten kicked in the nuts.
0:04:51 Estee Lauder, Starbucks, Nike, quite frankly, it’s exposure to China.
0:04:52 China was the gift that kept on giving.
0:04:57 Just as everyone says AI, every other word in the earnings call, go back seven, eight years.
0:05:00 It was the same thing where everyone just said China over and over.
0:05:03 And these companies really massively invested in China,
0:05:06 including I think a one point Starbucks was opening a store every two hours.
0:05:07 And guess what?
0:05:11 They are now paying the price for what appears now to be overinvestment
0:05:13 that hasn’t been justified by the growth.
0:05:17 And anyone with a large presence or made a big bet on China is getting absolutely killed.
0:05:22 Anyways, I don’t know, what would I advise Nike to do?
0:05:24 Quite frankly, I would replace the CEO.
0:05:25 I think they need a fresh start.
0:05:27 I think they need a more product centric CEO.
0:05:30 I think they’re probably going to need to and I don’t know this.
0:05:32 I don’t know the revenue per employee.
0:05:35 I think they’re probably going to need to use this as cloud cover to do some cost cutting.
0:05:37 I know they’ve already started this.
0:05:40 But for me, it comes down to merchandising.
0:05:43 And I think the brand is still super cool.
0:05:46 I think they did a good job with the Olympics.
0:05:49 But I don’t think there is anything wrong with the Nike brand.
0:05:52 They can’t be fixed with what is right with the Nike brand.
0:05:54 Thanks so much for the question.
0:05:57 Question number two.
0:06:03 It’s been a hot minute since Facebook rebranded to Meta and Square rebranded to Block.
0:06:10 I thought it would be nice to do a then and now retro on your thoughts at the time of
0:06:14 those rebrands and how those rebrands have aged over time.
0:06:15 Thanks for the question.
0:06:18 I don’t know much about the Block rebranding.
0:06:23 I thought the rebrand of Meta, typically speaking, rebrands don’t work very well because
0:06:26 when you say there’s so many problems here, we need to change the name of the company.
0:06:29 And granted, they didn’t change the name of the core products.
0:06:32 They just changed the name of the corporate entity.
0:06:34 So it didn’t really matter that much.
0:06:38 But I would call it sort of indifferent or nothing, not that big a deal.
0:06:43 It does kind of mark the age and that is, keeping my marks at Zuckerberg, rebranded the whole
0:06:47 company Meta, thinking that the Metaverse was the future and began shifting the business
0:06:48 model towards the future.
0:06:52 And the wonderful thing about sitting on literally cash volcanoes is even when you make a mistake,
0:06:55 which the Metaverse was, makes no fucking sense.
0:06:56 No one wants to put that thing on their head.
0:06:58 Come on, enough already.
0:07:00 When can we declare headsets dead?
0:07:01 Right?
0:07:08 I’m going to get on my segue and head down to the town square and I’m going to jump on
0:07:12 my space and let everyone know that headsets are dead.
0:07:17 Anyways, and if I need to relax, I’ll go home and spend time with my pet rocks.
0:07:18 Okay, that’s pretty good.
0:07:21 Some pretty good cultural references there on the fly.
0:07:26 Facebook hoped to become more than just a social network and that the rebrand would
0:07:31 move the company away from the negative attention it was getting for issues, including misinformation.
0:07:37 So this just, quite frankly, has not worked, said, you know, said captain fucking obvious
0:07:38 here.
0:07:43 According to 2024 Axios Harris poll, a hundred of a hundred reputation rankings, meta ranks
0:07:47 number 97 and overall reputation with a very poor score of 59.6.
0:07:50 I think I’ve played a role in that.
0:07:53 It’s just three spots above the Trump Organization, look at that.
0:07:59 The Trump Organization and Facebook or meta are neck and neck, two spots above X and one
0:08:01 spot above spirit airlines.
0:08:07 Spirit the Trump Organization, Twitter, I refuse to call it X, and meta.
0:08:10 That’s like, that’s literally the shittiest neighborhood in the world.
0:08:13 That’s your parents come to visit you in that neighborhood and they’re like, okay, we fucked
0:08:14 up.
0:08:15 Something’s gone wrong.
0:08:20 And just in case you’re curious, NVIDIA is ranked number one, followed by 3M and Fidelity.
0:08:23 I wouldn’t have guessed any of that.
0:08:25 That’s fucking fascinating.
0:08:28 Anyways, this made no sense, but it didn’t really hurt them that much.
0:08:33 And to meta and Mark Zuckerberg’s credit, it doesn’t seem to have distracted them for
0:08:34 very long.
0:08:38 The stock, I think, dove to about 80 or 90 bucks when everyone said this makes no sense
0:08:40 and he refuses to acknowledge it.
0:08:46 But meanwhile, they’re incorporating AI into their ad stacks such that if you’re spending
0:08:50 money trying to reach people, there’s just very few ways to spend it better than on a
0:08:52 meta platform.
0:08:56 And as a result, the stock and I saw it to motor, my colleague at NYU said, don’t be
0:08:58 ridiculous, this stock’s wildly undervalued.
0:09:04 I think it’s gone from a low of 80 or 90 to where it is now, which is somewhere between,
0:09:06 I think, let’s look this up real quick.
0:09:14 The stock is at 537 and just literally, it was at 90 bucks, oh my God, it was at 90 bucks
0:09:16 less than three years ago.
0:09:20 So in the last three years, it’s up, it’s basically tripled.
0:09:21 So what do I think?
0:09:23 I don’t know anything about the block rebrand.
0:09:26 I think the meta rebrand was a distraction.
0:09:28 I don’t think it helped them, it obviously didn’t help them.
0:09:33 It’ll mark the age of what was one of the stupidest decisions around technology, but
0:09:38 the incredible management, adoption of technology, and Cash Volcanoes, this company sits on
0:09:44 overwhelmed or basically gave them a free get out of jail card that no other company
0:09:48 could probably survive spending this kind of money in this kind of lack of focus.
0:09:49 So what was it?
0:09:53 It’s kind of a big nothing burger.
0:09:58 We have one quick break before our final question, stay with us.
0:10:02 When Kamala Harris and Donald Trump met on the debate stage, it was obvious that these
0:10:08 were two very different people, but JD Vance and Tim Walz actually have a lot in common.
0:10:10 They’re both white men from the Midwest.
0:10:14 They’re both family men and they were both in the service, but they disagree on what
0:10:15 it means to be a man.
0:10:20 I heard my life hack, surround yourself with smart women and listen to them and you’ll
0:10:21 do just fine.
0:10:30 Today explained every weekday wherever you get your podcasts.
0:10:31 Welcome back.
0:10:32 Question number three.
0:10:34 Hi, I’m Rob from Astrea here.
0:10:40 I recently co-founded and launched a new automotive website, thebeep.com.au.
0:10:43 And whilst our growth has been rapid, we still face the challenge of increasing our brand
0:10:45 visibility in the market.
0:10:49 You previously mentioned if your product is strong enough, you don’t need to rely on
0:10:50 advertising.
0:10:54 So I’d like to ask, what are your top tips to build brand awareness in the digital space
0:10:56 if you don’t advertise?
0:11:00 If you think about the marketing funnel, it’s awareness, then it becomes intent, then it
0:11:03 becomes purchase, and then post-purchase kind of loyalty.
0:11:07 And without awareness, it used to be if you had a great product and you weren’t advertising,
0:11:09 you might as well have a product on Mars.
0:11:11 People needed to hear about it.
0:11:13 And as a result, advertising kind of ruled the day.
0:11:17 People spent less money on the product itself because manufacturing was pretty easy to reverse
0:11:18 engineers.
0:11:21 So it got harder and harder to differentiate on manufacturing.
0:11:25 And then the digital world just unlocked all sorts of product innovation and also unlocked
0:11:30 all sorts of different means of communicating or sharing great products such that you became
0:11:35 less reliant on broadcast advertising, which concurrently was getting less and less effective
0:11:38 with the fragmentation of media.
0:11:43 The result was what was an incredible means and a more important means of communicating
0:11:48 the top of the funnel became not only less effective, but more expensive.
0:11:53 And you’ve just seen basically this giant sucking sound of oxygen out of the room from
0:11:57 all broadcasts and ad-supported media to a small number of ad-supported media companies
0:12:03 that are direct to consumers specifically, specifically Alphabet, Meta, TikTok, and also
0:12:07 actually Amazon, which is one of the biggest media companies in the world.
0:12:11 People just don’t talk about it because they’ve done a great job of basically shop or marketing.
0:12:15 When you go in and you see an end cap, a cardboard cutout of Tom Brady selling you Bud Light or
0:12:19 whatever, more money is spent on that type of marketing than actual advertising.
0:12:24 And the mother of all shop or marketing is Amazon, Amazon media group that senses if
0:12:29 you put huggies in your shopping cart, “Hey, loves,” or Kimberly Clark or whoever makes
0:12:33 lugs loves, “Would you like to advertise to that new mom?”
0:12:35 And they say, “Yeah, we’d really like that.”
0:12:36 So the targeting is unbelievable.
0:12:39 Anyways, how do you get awareness?
0:12:41 I think it depends in the digital media space.
0:12:45 I think a limited amount of testing on these platforms is really important.
0:12:47 I would embrace new mediums.
0:12:52 I think unfortunately in digital media, if you don’t have a command of social media platforms,
0:12:53 you’re kind of fucked.
0:12:57 And a lot of people say, “Oh, I don’t like social media and we don’t do it that way.”
0:13:00 Well, okay, good luck with that.
0:13:02 Some tricks that I tried that worked actually really well.
0:13:05 L2, I wanted a reverse inquiry model.
0:13:08 I used to go out and sell consulting when I was in the ’90s.
0:13:11 My first firm was a firm called Profit Brand Strategy.
0:13:15 And my job was to go out every dinner, every meeting where there might be important and
0:13:19 powerful people, introduce myself to them, follow up with an email, get them out to
0:13:24 dinner, get them out to the golf course, and then establish all these proxy kind of father-son
0:13:27 relationships with the CMO and CEO of all these great brands.
0:13:30 I found it fucking exhausting.
0:13:34 And the next time I started, what was essentially a strategy consulting firm called L2, I said,
0:13:35 “I’m just done.
0:13:40 I just don’t have the skills, the patience to go and make a lot of new friends any longer.”
0:13:43 So I said, “I need a reverse inquiry model.”
0:13:45 I don’t need to go to subscription, but that’s another talk show.
0:13:48 We did membership as opposed to consulting fees.
0:13:50 And so some of the things we did was the following.
0:13:52 We created our own distinct IP with a ranking.
0:13:56 I figured out consumers and the press, especially the press loves rankings.
0:14:00 So we started something called the L2 Digital IQ Index, where I came up with 1,200 data
0:14:06 points across social, mobile, digital marketing, segmented it into five categories, Genius
0:14:08 Gifted, Average Challenge, and Feeble.
0:14:12 I’m especially fond of the term feeble.
0:14:17 And the press just went ape shit with these rankings, to see some huge iconic companies
0:14:18 ranked as feeble digitally.
0:14:21 And then they call me and I kind of had the receipts.
0:14:26 I just had so much data that they said, “Wow, this firm, you know, Ford Motor really does
0:14:29 have a weak website or whatever it was.”
0:14:32 And that got a ton of attention and a ton of press.
0:14:37 And the reason why comms executives have gone up six-fold in the last 30 years, and while
0:14:42 journalists have decreased, is that a really good comms person who can get you ink is obviously
0:14:44 very, very important.
0:14:49 The other thing I did is I tried to weaponize these mediums, not in addition to social,
0:14:52 but I started doing weekly videos called Winners and Losers.
0:14:57 And if one got 40, 50, 100,000 views on its own organically, I’d pour a little bit of
0:15:02 fuel on it, a little bit of juice, a little bit of secret sauce, a little bit of Tabasco,
0:15:06 a little bit, all salts and notes shit, and you can do that on YouTube.
0:15:09 And that would get it to three, four, 500,000 views.
0:15:14 And then I would release that in conjunction with these rankings I put out, would create
0:15:19 a reverse inquiry model where somewhere between three and 10 emails a day of people inquiring
0:15:21 about membership.
0:15:25 That changes the conversation, it changes the tone of the negotiation, it increases your
0:15:28 margin because, “Hey, boss, you bought us.”
0:15:34 Anyways, I would say try to come up with interesting IP, thought leadership, weaponize the platforms,
0:15:38 gotta be good on social media and see if there’s something interesting you can do that leverages
0:15:43 your strengths and creativity because the stuff that doesn’t work or that’s just really
0:15:48 fucking expensive is conferences, B2B marketing, advertising for a small company, that shit
0:15:49 is just really hard.
0:15:54 And at the end of the day, you have seen a reallocation of resources out of marketing
0:15:57 into the actual product itself because at the end of the day, if you can figure out a
0:16:02 way to have a 10x better product, word is gonna get out.
0:16:07 So it sounds passe, it sounds like table stakes, but the brightest people in the company need
0:16:10 to be focused on making a better widget whereas before the brightest people in the company
0:16:13 were just hiring Don Draper.
0:16:15 Appreciate the question.
0:16:16 That’s all for this episode.
0:16:20 If you’d like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to OfficeHours@PropertyMedia.com.
0:16:23 Again, that’s OfficeHours@PropertyMedia.com.
0:16:35 This episode was produced by Caroline Shagren.
0:16:39 Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer and Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
0:16:43 Thank you for listening to the PropG pod from the Fox Media Podcast Network.
0:16:47 We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice as read by George Hahn.
0:16:52 And please follow our PropG Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes and every
0:16:53 Monday and Thursday.
0:17:02 And by the way, our new brand extension Raging Moderates, oh my god, 200,000 views, 200,000
0:17:03 downloads.
0:17:04 That’s right.
0:17:05 That’s right.
0:17:06 Spreading the word.
0:17:07 The dog is everywhere.
0:17:09 The dog is ping on everything.