These are the richest people on earth, and they're so manifestly unhappy. They just can't shut the [ __ ] up. And what tiny, petty, angry, unhappy people they all are. Every single one of them.
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
And I'm Scott Galloway. Ted Turner, the media mogul, CNN founder who helped create the 24-hour news cycle, died at 87. Turner was also a major philanthropist, making a record $1 billion in donations to establish the United Nations Foundation. He was a different kind of billionaire, although he was also the — it was called the Mouth of the South. Beyond media and philanthropy, Turner pursued countless other passions, from his Montana Grill, his eco-conscious restaurant chain, to being named Yachtsman of the Year multiple times. He was Larry Ellison before Larry Ellison. He announced he had Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder, in 2018. Jane Fonda, one of Turner's ex-wives who remained a close friend, remembered him saying, 'Men like Ted aren't supposed to express need and vulnerability. That was Ted's greatest strength, I believe.' And he was. And she — I recently interviewed her and she had told me he was quite ill. I talked to him a little bit for my books. He was real mad about the sale and everything else, except that when he sold the company, he had that famous quote where he said, 'This deal was better than sex.' Do you remember that? He always had something kooky to say at any one moment. And you know, a lot of people are like, 'Oh, he's the reason we have terrible cable.' His vision of cable was not this, what has happened. So I sort of push back against that because his idea was that you can get news to sort of democratize the news a little more from the big three. And so I consider him a real important — his legacy very important, even though it sort of morphed into this screamfest that it has become. But his was, you know, it was real news. And I happened to be with Christiane Amanpour, who got there pretty early, not right away at the beginning, and she had nothing but great things to say about his tenure when he was sort of doing real entrepreneurial news and other things, you know, and a very generous and charitable person at the same time, and also funny and weird and interesting. Your thoughts?
Yeah, this guy is, you know, he kind of defined the term that you don't hear anymore, a captain of industry. And the term captain — he was the — something people don't know about him is, I think he may be the only billionaire who was also an elite world-class athlete. He won the America's Cup.
And there just aren't very many billionaires who've reached the pinnacle of a sport. And maybe Roger Staubach — is he a billionaire now? Anyways, but he built CNN from nothing. It's really interesting how it emerged. So news when we were growing up was a public service, and that is ABC and CBS sold a [ __ ] ton of ads from Tang and Chevrolet running against All in the Family and MASH and the Partridge Family and the Brady Bunch, and they felt that it was a public service to have 23 minutes of news and 7 minutes of commercial in this money-losing thing called the local news. And he said he correctly figured out that there was money in a market for 24/7 news, and it was very scrappy. If you look back, it wasn't very well produced, and he started the whole thing. Now where it came off the tracks was quite frankly with Rupert Murdoch recognizing that the part of the news — they made an observation, and that is ABC news back in the 70s had something called Point Counterpoint, and SNL used to mock it, you know, Jane, ignorance —
ignorance, law — that's our show pretty much, but go ahead.
Anyways, so they recognized something called Point Counterpoint, and it was Bruce Herschensohn and Jim Tunny, and they would start yelling at each other, and someone did the analysis and found out that's what people were tuning in for.
And that was really the key, and arguably the most dangerous insight that Rupert Murdoch made.
And of course, no, this isn't about balance. It's enough news to keep — to give — to create a halo of legitimacy.
And quite frankly, CNN was guilty of it, too. Crossfire.
Yeah. And CNN now has a show like that where they all just start yelling at each other.
That's where Tucker Carlson started.
Yeah. And Michael Kinsley — remember Tucker and Michael just going at it?
And that seemed civil compared to — it is, it actually, when you watch it, it's actually —
It seems patrician. It seems — it's intelligent. It's intelligent.
It is digressed and has become something that is, I don't know, it's a longer talk show. Let's get back to Ted Turner. He gave away a billion dollars. He actually gave away a billion dollars to the UN. I would argue the UN actually meant something. Something also people constantly ask me for male role models for kind of a positive or aspirational form of masculinity. I think Ted Turner is a great role model. One, let's just go — let's just go to the male stuff.
Very aggressive. Also politically incorrect. When Time Warner — when Time Warner was acquired by CNN, Gerald Levin introduced the whole thing and said, 'And now I want to introduce my best friend, Ted Turner.' And Ted stood up and said, 'Best friend? I've never been to your [ __ ] house.'
And then my favorite was when he did an all-hands and it was Ash Wednesday and there were a bunch of people in the audience with ashes on their forehead. He's like, 'Shouldn't you be working at Fox?'
It was funny. I think there's a certain charm in a world now where everything is so, I don't know —
It's — he was a different time period. He wasn't malevolent, but he was charitable. He was visionary. He was aggressive. 14 grandchildren — 14 or 12 grandchildren — married to Jane Fonda. She still loves him. She told me she was — she — an environmentalist and also took his seat and his privilege and his wealth as an obligation to serve and connect nations with each other. He was very serious about uniting nations and trying to promote world peace.
He saw his wealth and his seat as an obligation that he was — he was optimizing for service, not for attention.
Yeah. He's a really — I would — I urge people if they're blaming what cable is now on him, not to. It's not what he — that was not his vision. I was around for that, and it became that, and it was not his. He may have created the 24, and they did take advantage. Remember the thing that really sent them over the top was the girl down the well. Remember the girl down the well story?
That's what — that's what Christiane was. She's like, 'Oh, that's the thing that really got people watching — that and the Iraq war.'
Yeah. And but you saw moments of that where remember the stud Arthur was — Arthur Kent — like it started to turn it — that's when you started to sort of see the beginnings of kind of the circus acts of these cable stations. And I was thinking that as I was, you know, I went on Sky News and BBC and stuff like that, and like the constant — and I think it's a very serious — I'm worried about the coronavirus, but the constant, 'Let's go back to the cruise ship, let's go back to the —' and I was like, 'This actually — we're in a war in Iran. I feel like perhaps we need to head over there and take a look at what's — had the cruising going on in the Strait of Hormuz.' But he has a great legacy.
Oh, my dad's favorite for the wrong reasons. Bobby Batista.
Oh yeah, Bobby. Well, that was great. It was great. It was — I grew up on CNN.
And also, I genuinely believe a decent administration would be CNN anchors.
Dana Bash should be president. She is smart. She's elegant. And she could smother you in your sleep. She's got that edge to her, which every president needs if you crossed her.
Anderson should be vice president. Any problems with the pope, he just goes over there and just talks about grief. Everybody loves him. Competent enough.
Fareed Zakaria, Secretary of State. Hands down. Hands down. All right.
Michael Mirkish. He could be Secretary of Commerce or Labor. Tell me that — tell me that cabinet.
Will I get anything? I'm a contributor. Do I get like an ambassadorship to something?
Oh, you're ambassador to Guyana. We've already decided this here.
Okay, we're going to — we're going to move on because you're saving me for myself there.
I'm saving you from yourself because it's interesting. I don't think Ted Turner — he didn't like the AOL Time Warner deal that I did speak to him about. First he was like, 'It was better than sex. The deal was the best thing I ever did. Better than sex.' And then afterwards he like totally publicly decried it publicly. And one thing that Barry Diller I think told him was like, 'If you sell your house and they wreck the patio, you need to shut up. You sold the house.' And I didn't necessarily agree with him on that, but he definitely had much regrets, and he probably wouldn't be thrilled. Where from the latest numbers from Warner Brothers Discovery, the company reported a net loss of $2.9 billion in the latest quarter. That's essentially a $2.88 billion termination fee tied to the Netflix deal. Paramount agreed to cover the cost, but the expense still sits on Warner's books until the deal officially closes. For people that don't see why that was that big of a loss, nonetheless, the first quarter revenue was down 1% year-over-year, and ad revenue slid 7%. Total streaming revenue did rise 9%, largely because HBO Max went international. Paramount had slightly better news to report, beating revenue and earnings expectations in the first quarter. Paramount added 700,000 subscribers during the quarter, helping streaming revenue grow by 17% year-over-year. The company's film studio did well with revenue up 11%. And they said they're making great progress on the Warner Brothers deal with late Q3 closing still on track. There's still some pushback to it. At the same time, I'm going to add one more earnings. Disney's under the first new CEO, Josh D'Amaro. The numbers were strong with revenue climbing 7% to $25 billion. Operating income across Disney's entertainment, sports, and experiences division beat expectations. The company says it expects earnings per share to grow 12%. That's solid in the fiscal year. And one weak spot: a dip in attendance at its US theme parks, probably due to fewer international tourists. They're going to see repercussions from gas prices, I'm guessing, and other prices, but it's only down 1%. Maybe the next quarter is where you're going to see it over the summer. That will be the real indicator there. Thoughts on the Warner and everything. They're just sort of bumping along, these companies.
So Warner Brothers, $1.17 adjusted GAAP versus estimates of 9 cents, which is actually pretty good. They had a 45% beat. Operating margin was down but mostly flat. The linear networks continue to bleed. The revenue fell 8% with domestic pay TV subscribers down 10%, and free cash flow was $476 million, and net leverage sits at 3.4x. The Paramount deal is expected to close Q3, which will form a company with $69 billion in pro forma revenue. Like if there's a book — if you wrote a book called The Worst Acquisitions in History, you could just call the book Time Warner. They are at the center of the —
I mean, three of the five worst acquisitions in history all involve Time Warner. It's —
It's just AOL, right? And this one I think will go down as, in terms of shareholder value destruction. Paramount posted a clean beat and streaming turned its first real profit. Revenue of $7.35 billion versus $7.28. EPS of 23 cents versus 15 cents expected. I mean, companies are just — it's just incredible. Companies are just blowing away their earnings. Their direct-to-consumer revenue was up 11%. Paramount Plus revenue up 17%. I wonder how much of that is Landman. They added 700,000 net subscribers to reach 79.66 million in total. Direct-to-consumer EBITDA improved to $251 million. TV media revenue fell 6% to $3.7 billion as cord cutting continues. And Paramount has nearly doubled its film slate for 2026 versus 2025 since closing the Skydance deal last August, which to their credit has been promising that.
Yeah. Everyone's been saying, 'Oh, they're going to gut Hollywood,' and they're coming out swinging and they're doubling their film slate.
The thing is, is it going to make money, right? That's the issue. Let's see what happens. So, let's just wait until they —
You can spend the money. I mean, that's what rich people do, but let's see if they make it. If they have some hits. If they have some hits.
And so, Josh D'Amaro's first earnings call, he reported a really strong beat. Shares gained roughly 7% after the report. But here's the thing: 100% of this beat, the credit goes to Bob Iger. Someone doesn't impact earnings two weeks after they take the CEO job. This beat was really ringing the bell for Bob Iger. Revenue at $25.2 billion versus $24.8 expected. Earnings at $1.57 versus $1.49 expected. Streaming operating income jumped 88% to $582 million. And Disney's streaming margins broke into the double digits at almost 11%. Their streaming revenue hit $5.5 billion, up 13%, driven by price hikes. And Disney no longer reports subscriber numbers, which is a shame, but their experiences that you referenced was up 7%, which must be an increase in prices because as you mentioned, numbers are down —
And they also have raised their buyback target, similar to what Apple did last week, and guided for — I think Disney is a buy. And tomorrow is — you know, he came out of the parks, which grew nearly 40% in revenue under his watch, and he called Disney Plus the digital centerpiece of the company. On Wednesday's earnings, he flagged fuel and consumer spending. Dana Walden, who I know you know, named president and chief creative officer, and that was an important keep for that company, the keeping her, because she was a CEO, she was the top contender.
Not only that, they're all — I mean, quite frankly, a lot of these people are probably — I mean, this is the challenge when your stock is below where it was 10 years ago. You have to get the most talented people in the room and say, 'I'm going to issue new options and please stick around,' because you got to think a lot of these people are looking at —
Except what is their option?
Producers, that's harder now. You can't be as good a — you can't do those sweet, sweet deals anymore.
Yeah, but if you're a Disney — if you're a talented Disney executive —
You could absolutely land, you know —
I would stay. See, now I would stay because you have power.
I agree. And pieces of that, you know, pieces of wood floating. I don't know. I just would say —
Oh, that's interesting. I hadn't thought of that analogy. I like that.
It was from The Devil Wears Prada, but go ahead.
I thought it was from the Titanic, isn't it?
It is, but it was — she just said that. She goes, 'We just got on the list.'
I was wondering how long it was going to be before you mentioned The Devil. It's killing it. Still killing it.
Yeah. No, it's great. Let's go over every movie that's actually making money.
Yeah, it's making a ton. It's going to change the world to see it.
Lawrence of Arabia meets The Sound of Music meets the —
But Disney stock is down more than 10% year-to-date despite back-to-back earnings beats. I don't know if it's because everyone's giving up on traditional media or because AI is sucking all the oxygen out of every other company of the other 490 in the S&P. But I think Disney actually right now is a really good buy, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's put in play in the next 3 to 6 months either by —
You keep saying that. By whom? To Apple? Because Apple was looking at Perplexity allegedly.
An activist. Oh, an activist comes in and says, 'You need to cut 20% of your staff or you need to put the company up for sale,' which they did with Iger. I mean, I went through that, right? Several times, I think.
Yeah. But he had so much credibility he was able to back this.
It's weak because this is a new CEO. Disney has this unbelievable franchise — or it might be corporate restructuring. Go good bank, bad bank, spin out the parks into its own business. And they decided not to, as you know, they were going to get rid of ABC at one point, then they decided to keep ESPN. And I think that's one of tomorrow's — an activist will argue that their decisions have been really poor because this company has probably the greatest collection of IP in the world, a booming parks business, and yet the stock is trading below where it was in 2016. This is sort of — I got to think there's a lot of activist, the same old sort of unpleasant Ike Perlmutter.
If I had to bet on any firm that shows up forcefully at Disney, it would be Elliott. And by the way, I don't know anything. I haven't talked to him about this. But I wouldn't be surprised. Unfortunately, it'll probably be someone like Peltz, but he's more consumer. I wouldn't put it past —
Peltz was in the last one, I think, with Perlmutter.
I don't know. I think if Netflix stock was — I don't — I think Netflix and Disney, this merger — the merger between Netflix and Disney could never happen under an administration that didn't have its — that didn't have an FTC or a DOJ that was in a slumber. So if there was any desire to do that, now would be the time. And if you had —
No, except Brendan is not — he doesn't like Disney. It's in his sights.
Brendan Carr. Brendan. I call him Brenda.
Yeah, but — well, he's specifically called out Disney like by name, saying he doesn't like —
Yeah, but he doesn't get to decide antitrust. It goes — it's the — I mean, I guess could he lead it? The bottom line is Disney and Netflix right now — Disney is cheap right now. Netflix and Disney in a windup would be game over. If you took Netflix's IP, including Wednesday, Stranger Things, Bridgerton, and used it to go vertical and create experiences and parks, I just think it'd be — I just think it'd be incredible. By the way, it shouldn't happen. It would be too much concentration of media, but from a — I would buy shares in that company.
Yeah, absolutely. I don't think it'll happen. You probably —
Although I don't know why it shouldn't, because they have a lot of companies to go up against these tech companies, but I don't know. Anyway, well, interesting to see. It was fine. It was perfectly fine. It was like, okay. It's so funny, you know, when Ted Turner — when that deal happened, I mean, media — that was the top for media, wasn't it? Like when AOL Time Warner happened, I think it was like they were running the [ __ ] show. They were the kings of the road, and then they weren't. Like it's been a downward, downward, downward slide for traditional media. The fall of traditional media for me is embodied by when I first moved to New York in 2000, and like all single people in their 30s, we would pile eight people into a house in Bridgehampton, and every weekend was a mad scramble to see who we knew at Condé Nast, who knew what magazine was throwing the most fabulous party in the Hamptons. And whether it was Details or Vogue, and the job — the masters of the universe were these — was the creatives and the business people working at Condé Nast magazines in the magazine.
That's true. And in the journalism business, I have to tell you, I was like the internet person, and they like treated me like [ __ ]. Like they were like, 'Oh, you're part of the internet,' you know, and you're — no, it was a Ponzi scheme. It was a Ponzi scheme. 'Oh, it's not going to — it's going to — it's all a bunch of — it's going to go away.' And the media reporters were such snot bags. I have to tell you, they just were. And I was like, 'I don't — I think you're in trouble.' I was — and they were like, 'You don't know. They're going to run the show and media, media, media.' And I was like, 'I think there's got some vulnerabilities there.' But they — I'll never — it was the same thing. It was sort of — it was, well, too bad. That's what happened. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back. Anthropic gets into bed with Elon and SpaceX. Lock that metaphor. Support for this show comes from Harvey AI. The future of law is agentic. Not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. Harvey was built on legal agents that analyze, draft, and execute with precision. But great lawyers don't just complete tasks. They strategize. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from secure data sources, run sub-agents in parallel, and draft the work product ready for your review so you can delegate the work and own the judgment. Harvey agents support work across fund formation, litigation, regulatory compliance, M&A, and more, adapting to the complexity of each matter and the way your team actually works. Trusted by more than 60% of the Am Law 100 and leading Fortune 500 legal teams, Harvey is the AI operating system designed specifically for legal work, helping teams move faster with greater precision and confidence. Harvey, AI tailored for law. Learn more at harvey.ai.
Scott, we're back. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says the company planned for 10x growth this year but is now seeing growth closer to 80x, creating a massive need for more computing power. Enter SpaceX — or rather SpaceX AI. SpaceX acquired XAI back in February. But Elon Musk has just revealed XAI will be dissolved and its AI products will be part of the SpaceX AI brand, of course, because everybody left and it didn't get quite the traction that he had hoped. So he's, as I said, folding it right in. Everything's going to get folded. Tesla's next. Under the new deal, Anthropic will get compute power with SpaceX AI's data center in Memphis, the one that's polluting people as it works to keep up with surging demand. Everybody needs power. A real turnaround for Elon, who earlier called Anthropic evil. He's now saying he was impressed after meeting with senior executives, adding, 'No one set off my evil detector.' Again, look in the [ __ ] mirror, dude. So is this the enemy? My enemy is my friend because of ChatGPT. This is an interesting thing. I mean, obviously, Elon has not had the success he had hoped to dominate, and it's all about his beef with Sam Altman, but in this case, this is what he's doing. I would be careful if I was Dario in general, but I think he's savvy enough to deal with Elon, though. And he seems to have enough pushback. Any thoughts on this?
I'd rather talk about me and reminisce a little bit longer. Is that okay? Just for a second.
Okay. But I want thoughts on this.
In 2000, I had said I'm moving to New York from San Francisco. I had just been abused, ridden hard, and put away wet by Sequoia Capital. Kicked off the board of the — kicked out of the band I started, kicked off of the board of the company I started. Just like got divorced — just like I just wanted — I wanted to never go back to San Francisco the rest of my life. And I moved to New York.
Can I ask you a question? Did you deserve it? Just a little bit. Did I deserve — what happened? What happened with Sequoia? I'm just asking. I'm just curious.
Oh, I was an obnoxious, aggressive entrepreneur that was arrogant and reckless, but also Mike Moritz is a small, vindictive man.
So, so yeah, I don't — I think there's enough blame to go around for everyone.
And also, the board was a bunch of — a bunch of obsequious people getting — Anyways, I'm still not triggered. I'm clearly over it. I'm clearly over it.
All of you are still to this day.
I'm clearly over it. Anyways, I moved back to New York and I started an e-commerce incubator backed by Goldman, JP Morgan, Maveron, Howard — Howard Schultz's company. And it was near impossible to recruit people to come to work for a technology incubator. And I would take people out who were working at traditional media who were making $500,000 or $600,000 a year. And I'd say, 'I can only pay you 200, but I'm going to give you 2 million options on 2 million shares.' And I would have to walk them through what options were. That the ecosystem. I couldn't even use a New York-based law firm because they didn't do venture. People don't realize New York in 2000 was about finance. It was about media. There was no, you know, what the —
There were a couple — there were a couple little ones.
I mean, there was Gilt and there was something.
Yeah. Gilt. I forgot about —
There was Gilt and that Kevin Ryan's company, and then there was —
The one ad company that got sold to — there was no technology —
There really wasn't whatsoever. There was one — oh, the one that was bought by Yahoo — Tumblr.
Tumblr, the worst acquisition in history.
The worst acquisition in history.
I broke that story. Nice to meet you, but yeah.
Yeah, within the same 60 days, Mark Zuckerberg made the best acquisition in history for a billion. He bought Instagram. It's now worth I think probably a half a trillion to a trillion dollars.
And Marissa Mayer said, 'I'm a baller.' And she bought Tumblr for a billion dollars, which seven years later got sold for how much?
A couple million dollars. It was a collection of — it was a collection of blogs, dirty sites, dirty blogs.
And then when they shut down the porn, I got into an online battle with what's the guy with the bad Caesar's haircut? I forget his name.
There were two or three. Union Square Ventures. Anyways, they told Tumblr they were no longer going to fund this bag of [ __ ] that was making no money, but he convinced Marissa Mayer to buy it for $1.1 billion.
Anyways, I'll walk down memory lane.
This has been fun. I've really enjoyed this.
Okay. And then I joined — and then my incubator collapsed within like 6 months of founding it after the dot-com implosion, and I joined the faculty at NYU where my first year salary was $12,000. Good times.
Anyways, back to Anthropic. What do we talk — I've said this. I wish I — I have never bet on a predictions market. I said this a week ago. I had Musk winning at 51 or 52%. Now it's all of a sudden fallen to 38.
Winning at what? Winning —
