A (4:02)

It's funny, I, you know, I don't necessarily think young men are underserved in the media, but certainly they're underserved from his particular lens, which is he's the co host of a show called Raging Moderates. So he's kind of trying to reach back out to men who've. Younger men who've been alienated and who've kind of drifted further to the right. It seems that. That kind of seems like it sums up his. His point of view. Right?

B (4:25)

Yeah, but he's kind of a self help guru. He's not mostly talking to young men about politics. I think he's talking to people about finding ways to like, you know, actualize themselves without just like eating raw meat and hating women.

A (4:40)

Yeah. And making your bed. He's like centrist Jordan Peterson, basically.

B (4:43)

Yes, that's exactly right. I think. Left of center, Jordan Peterson.

A (4:47)

Left.

B (4:47)

Yeah, like Peterson. For future New York Times subscribers and.

A (4:51)

Current New York Times subscribers, for sure. It's interesting to me too, because, you know, he brands himself as. As Prof. G. I kind of thought, you know, for a while when I was first starting to tune into his career and tune into one of his many podcasts, he refers to himself as Prof. G. And that's his kind of podcast network. I kind of thought this guy is a. He's a professor of marketing at nyu. And I was like, okay, whatever. This guy, his. He teaches. He teaches a marketing class. Why does everybody want to listen to him all the time? He's also, he is incredibly successful. I didn't realize that he was worth like $100 million. He had sold all of these companies that have done incredibly well. So I actually, that he kind of undersells himself by just referring to himself as a marketing professor from nyu. It's interesting.

B (5:33)

Yeah. Well, I mean, it also, like, I mean, he's a real marketing professor at a real university, but the Internet is full of people who kind of have phony academic credentials and no real business experience, whose only business is selling business advice. And I misread him that as that at some point. But no, in fact, he is a real business guy, but also, I think, a real new kind of ubiquitous media figure. And that's, in a way, the thing I'm most interested in is like, what is the business of being Scott Galloway?

A (6:01)

Well, sometimes we say our guest is here, and they are not actually here waiting for us, but we are. I'm getting a note from our producer that says Scott is actually here, so we should actually bring him in right now.

B (6:11)

Let's bring on Scott. Thank you so much for joining us, Scott.

C (6:16)

Ben. It's always good to see you, Ben. You're actually, you know what? You're better looking in person. Like, right. Right here. You look good. You're actually a very attractive, handsome man in person.

B (6:25)

That's really kind of you to say flattery. Flattery will get you everywhere. Is that like a tactic or is that.

C (6:30)

Ben was totally silen by that. Ben was totally. I've never seen Ben just totally flown.

B (6:37)

Is this like a some kind of reverse pickup artist tactic you're using on me, Scott?

C (6:41)

I find, I find that it's important that part of progress is that when men begin to objectify other men.

B (6:46)

Well, we're off to a great start here, but the masculinity is part of this show is going to be kind of the second half of the show. And I did. This is a media show, and I did want to start by asking you about media, Scott. And I've realized, like, I knew who you were as a marketing guy and as a New York Times board member, and I think. I don't quite know when you became a media figure. Do you know when you was there a moment when you looked up and thought, oh, like, the business I'm in is the business of Scott Galloway and the media business.

C (7:18)

Well, so people, I love the saying, after working my ass off for 30 years, I'm an overnight success. You know, I've been at this for a while. I would say the kind of the seminal moment was when I wrote my first book. So I've been an academic for 24 years and also I've been a serial entrepreneur up until that point. And my dean said to me, said, if you want to be taken seriously as an academically, you either have to do peer review research or write a book. I had no interest in peer review research. I find it's mental masturbation amongst colleagues trying to justify the accolades such that they can enter into a guilt that results in above market compensation and student debt on middle class households. I'm not a fan of peer review research, so I decided to write a book. My book came out in 2016, 2017. This woman named Kara Swisher, who was a tech journalist, invited me on her podcast and she called me after our podcast and said the numbers. And Kara's had everyone from Bill Gates to Elon Musk on her pod. She said, the numbers show that this is the most downloaded podcast in our history. And this is my favorite part. She goes, I'm certain it was a mistake, so we'd like to have you come on again. So I went on a second time. The numbers were strong and she said, why don't we start a podcast together? And the only podcast I had ever listened to, the first one I'd ever listened to, was the one I did with Kara. So I just fell into this medium. And when I sold my company in 2017, I was blessed with a really good problem. What do I want to do? And I started just putting out content. I started books, speaking, newsletters, podcasts. So I sort of just fell, really just kind of fell into it accidentally. But I would say you asked for a moment, the moment where I quote unquote got became whatever the term is, a media small, small player, lowercase player. Is the podcast star podcasting with Kara.

B (9:13)

Swisher and did you know Kara or was that like. Cause your on air relationship is so weird and intense. Like was that a pre existing off air relationship or did the whole thing kind of happen on the show?

C (9:23)

No, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even say we were friends for a good one or two years after we started the podcast. We're. I have a lot of affection for Kara. I really like, in addition to learning from her professionally. Where I really learned from her is she's an outstanding parent. I just sort of observe how she approaches parenting, and it's taught me a lot. She's also a really kind of passionate friend. She's also kind of fearless. She's. I mean, I'm kind of waxing on here, but how many people can say they're a leader in their community? Like, I can't say that. I mean, so I have a huge amount of respect for her, but we were not friends the first year or two year, and we've had some clashes behind the scenes. She's used to getting her way. So am I. We both kind of run our own businesses, so we're used to people laughing at our jokes and deferring to us all the time. And so there's been some storming, norming and forming in the relationship around certain issues. We really clashed on Israel, but it's one of the better working relationships I've ever had. And I've become actually quite fond of her and know her family and she knows mine. So it's worked out. It's worked out really well. But anyways, I owe, I owe a lot of this to Kara as a reality man, that's very sweet.

A (10:35)

I feel like she was, you know, she was, she was nagging you when she came on here, but I'm sure she would, she, she would say the same. She suggested, I think she said in the New York Times that you guys are making around $35 million each over four years. And, you know, you gave a bigger number with this new deal that you guys have just signed with Vox. Is the $35 million a year, is that right from podcasting?

C (10:57)

So first off, I'm self conscious talking about this because a lot of my wealth porn is an attempt to get the affirmation of others by showing other people how rich I am, which I think makes me more interesting to other men and sexier to women.

B (11:13)

Self awareness is an incredible gift.

C (11:15)

So I'm just trying to be in touch with why is it that I feel compelled to make sure people know I'm really successful. So first, I recognize that some of that comes from an insecure place where the algorithms all want to shove wealth porn in people's face, and we've conflated character with wealth in the United States. But also there is a strategy, and that is, I think that not talking about money as a zeitgeist imposed on the middle and lower class households by the rich, such that they stay illiterate about money and we aggregate a disproportionate amount of resources. I think it's important that people talk about money. If you want to be great at tennis or you want to be great at the geopolitics of Europe, you need to talk about it a lot. And so I encourage young people to talk about money, to share investment ideas. So I very openly talk about the money I make, the investments I make, the money I lose, dumb things I've done, smart things I've done, how much money I make. So with that, the pivot Universe is about $10 million a year. The Prof. G. Podcast universe will be close to 15 or 20 million next year.

A (12:19)

Wow.

C (12:20)

And these are very. And that's before speaking or newsletters. I'm in San Francisco right now. I probably make four to four and a half million bucks a year just in speaking gigs. So we make an exceptional living, but above a certain number. Daniel Kahneman, the Israeli American psychologist, has written about it. Once you hit your number just for your own emotional well being, spend it or give it away. And that's what I've been doing. But the podcast business is an incredible business right now.

B (12:49)

Speaking of the podcast business, because I think like a lot of our listeners are one way or other in the media business. And I think thinking of. And you're, you're in a bunch of businesses, you're doing speaking, podcasting, newsletters, classes. I'm curious in a sort of more straightforward way kind of how those businesses compare and, and, and how you. I don't know where, where you see the growth like our PI is podcast, the explosive new business, or is that the legacy or whatever you're getting into now is where the growth is.

C (13:17)

I have an education startup. For the last seven years, Venture backed, raised $37 million. That's been a really difficult business. The disruption in education that we all thought was coming has not happened.

B (13:27)

Media just got all the disruption once again, 100%.

C (13:30)

And the businesses I'm in. Education so far has been really tough. It's been an uphill battle. Books, Ben, you've written books, right?

B (13:39)

I wrote a book.

C (13:40)

So you know how fucking hard it is. I can't imagine people who try to make a living just writing books. It is really hard.

B (13:47)

It is so much harder than podcasting. No offense to podcasters.

C (13:51)

Good or bad, this is done in about 45 minutes. You turn in a shitty chapter to your editor, they're like, this is shit. Start over.

B (13:59)

Yeah, I did that. I think my editor told me it was the worst first draft. He'd ever seen.

C (14:03)

Yeah, there you go.

B (14:05)

Not a good day.

C (14:06)

It's really about. I'm on my sixth book now, and about halfway through any book, I think. I can't believe I agreed to do this again. The newsletter business is fine. That's really my therapy. On Thursday nights, I talk about everything from the valuation of Tesla to what it's like raising boys. That's more just sort of my own personal therapy. I do that every week. The speaking business is fun and hugely lucrative. That's basically me monetizing my career. But the podcast business, and you guys will find this, it's like being in the NBA. And that is if you make the NBA. It's an incredible living. But I was an athlete in college. I was one of the 2,800 people who have rode crew at UCLA and 10 of us went to the Olympics. So 0.3% of oarsmen and oars women at UCLA have gone to the Olympics. In podcasting, generously, 0.1% make money. There are 1.6 million podcasts. 600,000 put out content every week. The top 600 probably are not economically self sustaining. It's probably the top 100. So at UCLA, I had three times. I was three times more likely to go to the Olympics, which I did not do, than have a successful podcast. I would bet two thirds of the listenership and 97% of the revenue is captured by the top 100 because advertisers want scale. But once you bust into that top 100, the margins, once you get above a certain, you know, this shit just isn't that expensive. No matter how, you know, sophisticated the bookshelf is, or cool, that clock is behind max. Once you hit 100, 200, 500 grand a year in revenue, it's 90% margin. And then the dirty trick of podcasting is that because I've been in it so long, I have large subscriber bases and my podcasts are automatically downloaded, which counts as a listen. And so there's a natural moat around the business. And what I've been able to do is use my RSS feed to launch brand extensions. So Profg Markets, which is our fastest growing podcast? Prof. G's raging moderates with Jess Tarlov, Prof. G Conversations, which basically is a call in show modeled after Fraser. And you know, my first year in podcasting, I think I did 70 or $80,000 in revenue. And as I said, this year we'll do about 20 million. And once you get above a certain number, the margins are just extraordinary. So podcasting has become a winner take all industry. But if you're fortunate enough to be one of those that's been in it a while, it's a hugely profitable. These are hugely profitable small businesses is the way I would describe it.

B (16:37)

Yeah, it's interesting. The advertising business kind of, I feel like, was out of fashion for a while. But this is the nice thing about advertising, is that the margins can be great once you hit a certain point.

C (16:45)

Well, just to talk about real briefly, why podcasting is the fastest growing ad supported medium, and that is advertising has become a tax that the technically illiterate and the poor have to pay. If you're watching a lot of advertising, it means you're 76, white and watching MSNBC waiting for the next opioid induced constipation medication ad to come on. It is not a good business. Only old people or the poor are being subjected to ads. The majority of young people with any money are watching Netflix and on Spotify. But podcasting is one of the few mediums where people will endure the ads. And the average age of an MSNBC viewer is 70. They know who they're voting for, they know what car they want. They're not spending money on stupid shit to signal their worth as a mate. And advertisers hate those people because they're rational. What they want is young people in their mating years who make stupid decisions and buy high margin shoes and coffee and stupid cars. That's who they want to reach. You just described a podcast listener. The average demographic of a podcast listener is a 34 year old male who makes really stupid decisions because they're trying to spread their seed to the four corners of the planet and trying to signal wealth and will buy stupid high margin products. So what you've seen is advertisers have now discovered podcasting. In addition, the person who is probably more responsible for Max and Ben's income right now, or you're increasing your income that you'll derive from podcasting is Donald Trump. Because when Donald Trump went on Joe Rogan and instead of going on cable news, went on podcasts, that played a huge role in his election because the 40 million YouTube views, the 15 million audio downloads he got for Vice President Harris to have matched that exposure, she would have had to go on msnbc, CNN and Fox every night for three hours for two weeks. So what you're about to see, you are going to see over the next three years an enormous reallocation of capital out of local news stations who political parties are spending money on because they Assume, okay, old people watch local news to get their weather to podcasting because Donald Trump showed that podcasting is the new arbiter of who gets elected. So we have seen our listenerships up 20% this year, but our revenues are up 50 or 60% because all of a sudden big advertisers remember how shitty our ads were just two, three years ago. Now it's Range Rover, right Now it's Oracle. So this medium is a, one of the few mediums that people endure advertising. And two, Donald Trump showed the whole world that this is the audience you want.

A (19:19)

Yeah, I think the podcast business was really happy when we all decided to call the last election the podcast election. And I think that that's definitely something that advertisers have picked up on. It'll be interesting to see whether the local TV ads, all the political money that goes into local TV ads will move more into digital. I mean, you know, we saw this with the mayor's race here in New York, right? Cuomo super PAC spent a bunch of money on local TV ad and it did literally nothing. Cuz Zoran could make, you know, good viral videos that got, you know, young people excited and got 20 year olds knocking on the door to my apartment trying to get me to vote for him.

C (19:54)

Yeah.

A (19:57)

We have to take a short break, so we'll be right back with more from Scott right after this.

B (20:09)

This week on our branded segment from Think with Google, we have part two of my conversation with Josh Spanier, Google's V. VP of marketing, about how modern marketing is more than AI So last week we talked about the foundations of modern marketing and today we're talking about a central element of that which is understanding your customer. So what does that mean for today's marketer?

D (20:30)

So confession time, Ben. I listen to all my podcasts at 1.6 to 1.8 speed.

B (20:36)

Yikes.

D (20:37)

But I know I'm not the only person who does this. And it speaks to a larger truth that as marketers you have to understand your audience. If you don't, you're never going to be engaged with them, you're never going to convert them, you're never going to get them become loyal customers. So I think about this from three axes or three principles. The first is you need to understand your customers needs and their wants. If you don't know that, then you can't make your product fit with them. So understand their needs and their wants. The second axis is really just think about and understand what your customers contextually really interest. What is their passion? What are they obsessed by what is their super bowl every week or every month that they engage with. Because when you understand that, you can then show up in relevant and interesting ways. And third, and this is the one which, as marketers, we often don't do enough of, think about the shape and the format and the very texture of how people consume their content, how they consume their media. And this has been an area which is rapidly changed in the last sort of 10 years and last year, two years. And we need to do a much better job as marketing organizations.

B (21:41)

What are some examples of that?

D (21:42)

So, for someone like me who's listening to my podcasts at 1.6 to 1.8 speeds, that's a pretty useful insight for a marketer to understand. If they're trying to reach me, a busy marketing professional in a B2B context, what does that tell them about how to engage with me and how they can actually build their marketing plan? With that insight in mind, of course, there's lots of others. Let's take YouTube shorts. 200 billion video shorts are watched every day. Every single one of that 200 billion is in vertical view. And we talked about vertical view format for kind of a long time, and yet today, still too many marketers make assets using wide format, like for a television screen, 200 billion views, all in vertical. And all the evidence we have shows that when you build for the platform, platform, the way people actually consume their media, you get higher brand lift, higher recall, higher engagement, and you make more sales.

B (22:37)

Where can people find out more about this?

D (22:39)

Head on over to thinkwithgoogle.com where there are a huge amount of articles about understanding your customer, tapping technology, and using the tools that Google has to actually get you to that deep understanding of your customer base. Over@thinkwithgoogle.com.

A (23:08)

I was listening to your show this, several of your shows this week, and, you know, you were talking about the weekend that you just had in Ibiza, and you were talking about doing ecstasy or Mali and going to Ibiza, which I thought was so fun. And if you're in Ibiza and not on one of those substances, you might be in the minority. But I'm kind of curious like you do you feel like because you're doing so many hours of podcasting every day and because people have kind of gotten to know you and that they kind of like you, Are you living your life on these podcasts? Like, how much of your life is going into all of them? And what are you keeping away from that? Is it like 90% of your life is playing out across the various shows and I don't know, what do you think? Where's the boundary? I guess.

C (23:47)

Well, as you've highlighted, my boundaries are probably a lot, a lot more dotted line than most people. Yeah, look, I live out loud on the podcast. I think of myself as fairly strategic. And a lot of the content I put out there, it does fall under the auspices of some sort of strategy, even if it's flawed. And I think the biggest strategy or the white space that I try and occupy, that's just huge open field, is for a straight white man to talk about his feelings. And the content that gets the most reaction, hands down, is when I talk about. I'm a six year old man that hasn't gotten over the death of his mother. And I talk about it like, miss my mom every day. Just talking about it right now makes me feel emotional and I talk about this stuff and I can't tell you the number of men I hear from, who it resonates with. So that is, from a marketing standpoint, we're taught as mental, that talking about your emotions, and there's a reason here because this was sort of true for most of our history, meant that other men might perceive you as weak and kill you and take your shit away or that women won't want to have sex with you. It's like. And I make a lot of sexist jokes because I think it's funny. But when women constantly say on TikTok they want men who are in touch with their emotions, I'm like, do you really? That just leaves two of us in a car crying in the parallel parking space, empty. I mean, so there's a lot of reasons why men have been taught not to talk about their emotions. And I try to talk very openly about money and the stress it causes me and how much money I make or lose. I try to talk very openly about my incredible reward and what's been profound for me, and that is being a father and sometimes how I feel like I'm not very good at it as hard as I try. I talk about relationships, I talk about my struggles with anger and depression. And I find that people really, it really resonates with people, especially other men like me, who have been taught that keeping this shit bottled up and not talking about it is a sign of strength. So that's kind of the unlock, but there is a strategy around it.

B (25:59)

You know, it's one of the things that is so interesting in listening to you is your sort of self awareness and your kind of Inner voice telling you to bare your breast and share these feelings. And then your analytical marketer's voice saying, and wow, look at the reaction to this. I'm gonna follow that. I mean, is there something a little cynical about that loop?

C (26:19)

I think you just accused me of being a total fucking whore. Yeah, look, I think that I do it selfish. I mean, there's a lot of things going in here. One, it's a capitalist move. It works. It works. It resonates with people, which brings in more Nissan ads, which brings them more money. But I think anyone listening to it would go, that's more than an act, it's real. And some of it is narcissism. I get to talk about my favorite subject me. But, yeah, is it authentic in generally trying to help other men become more in touch with their emotions, or is it a means of making more money? The answer's yes.

B (27:05)

Was there a moment when you. I mean, because it is interesting. I mean, I do think you've really found this big space, as you said, of particularly young men, though not only young men who are served, like, often conservative, but also often, like, very kind of cynically anti, you know, kind of misogynistic content and also sometimes like, kind of really strange, like, eat your meat raw type stuff. Like a lot of the. That targets young men is kind of odd. And it feels like you have found and pioneered a totally different space, but also this huge audience that was obviously waiting for it. And I'm curious, was there a moment when you sort of realized that that was the conversation that you were getting a reaction to, that this was this huge, underserved audience of young men.

C (27:47)

My concern, or this topic around struggling young men was triggered by. I remember the exact moment. I think it was in 2020. And I read about this kid, Alex Kearns, who got an errant customer email from Robinhood saying he was down $60,000. And he was so distraught and emailed Robinhood four or five times. And of course, because they're automated and they're a tech company and they want to scale, he didn't get a response back, and he decided to take his own life. And I started reading about. I went down this rabbit hole around young men and suicide. And I found this one stat that if you're in a morgue with five people who've died by suicide, four are men and young men. I mean, the data is just so overwhelming. 3 times more likely to be homeless, addicted. 4 times more likely to kill themselves. 12 times more likely to be incarcerated. The moment a Boy loses a male role model through divorce or death of a father, he becomes more likely at that moment to be incarcerated than graduate from college. And I was that guy. I was raised by a single mother and it just so resonated with me. And I thought, this is something people aren't talking about because there's a lack of empathy for young men because of the privilege, the unearned privilege that I garnered that now there's this certain resentment that a 19 year old male being raised by a single mother, who quite frankly, is discriminated against by colleges and by the workforce because I received so much advantage. There's been, I don't want to call it an overcorrection, but if you look at the Democratic Party's platforms, if you look at affirmative action, the DEI apparatus on campus, they're advantaging, if you add it all up, 76% of the population, which doesn't mean they're advantaging 76% of the population. It means they're discriminating against 24% and that 24% are squarely young males. So I just saw something I related to. I was very moved by it. It was something that the far right, to their credit, had recognized was a problem. They were the first to recognize the problem. The problem is, their solution is, is to go back to the 50s when we were discriminating against women and non whites. And I thought, there's something else here. There's something around. The far right conflates masculinity with coarseness and cruelty. The far left says, well, the answer is to act more like a woman. Which isn't useful either. I thought, there's gotta be something around masculinity as an aspirational code for men. Be aggressive, take risks, be horny. Wanna be a better man, wanna be strong, wanna be a baller, wanna be kind, want to demonstrate excellence, want to have sex, want to be rich. Those things are wonderful things that if channeled correctly, can turn you into a better man. And also, I think women want more economically and emotionally and aggressive men. But at the same time, I think there's a lot of men who are like, I want women to thrive. I have no problem with the transgender community. Maybe I don't get it, maybe I don't understand it, but for God's sakes, I don't want to demonize them. Being a man isn't about cutting off food stamps to economically disadvantaged households. Being a man means recognizing that the whole point of prosperity, the whole fucking shooting match, is to protect people. I think there are a lot of young men out there that feel politically homeless and have been told that they don't have problems, they are the problem and are pathologized as being misogynist or as racist. And they're not.

B (31:16)

You ever think about running for office? That's a hell of a stump speech.

C (31:20)

I appreciate that. Well, as a narcissist and a wealthy white man, it's obvious I should run for office. I have all of the qualifications. Look, I've spoken openly about this. I had a group of people call me and offer to raise me 10. This is funny. I like this. They said, we'll raise you 10 million, but you gotta put in 10 million if you declare for president. And I said, well, of course. I immediately thought, well, I think everybody, every dude at some point wakes up and looks in the mirror and says, hello, Mr. President. And I said, give me some time to think about it. And I came back and said, I don't see a path to victory. And they said, oh no, you'll never win. These are smart people. They said, you'll never win, but you'll help shape the conversation.

A (32:03)

Who asked you?

C (32:04)

It was three partners of a law firm who said that they appreciated the message around inequality and struggling young men and they would commit to raising me 10 million bucks. I've had a number of those calls actually. And I've actually had people ask me to run for the, the open Senate seat in Florida. I think if you have any name recognition and money, they want you to run. The reality is, though, an honest self analysis, I don't have those skills. And there's some amazing Democrats who. The way I can be a patriot, and I think of myself as a patriot, the best way I can contribute to America is to get one of these fantastic democrats elected in 28 and help flip the house in 26. So my narcissism lasted about 10 minutes and then I realized I have neither the skills nor the desire to do something like that.

B (32:45)

That.

A (32:46)

So we had Ezra Klein on the podcast a few months ago and we asked him about his. You know, he's been meeting with Kamala Harris. I think met with him a number of. Gavin Newsom is shouting him out at his. At a state legislative bill signing in California. I'm curious, as your platform has grown and as you become kind of a more well known advocate, have you heard from any of these Democratic leaders? I'm sure plenty of them listen to the podcasts, Max.

C (33:13)

I've heard from all of them. I can tell you who's running for president, they call me and say, I'm really interested in your views. Which is Latin for send me money and put me on your podcast.

A (33:21)

All right, who is it? Who's running in 2028?

C (33:26)

The answer is yes. The more interesting question is, who isn't? So, okay, when I hear from Rahm Emanuel, who's already announced he's running, he's a really good guy, he's smart. But Rahm has taken an interest in being my, you know, getting my. I hear from all of these folks, several senators, several governors, really interested in your views on young men. We should talk. And I just write back, you don't need to fuck with me. You want to come on the podcast. You're running for president. Let's roll. Let's do it. And by the way, I'll send you money. I want to send money to all these folks. I want to give them a platform. We have. You know, when you hear people approach business people about running for office, the reality is there's this bullshit notion that we don't have great people in government. We have some outstanding people in government. We have some outstanding governors, some amazing senators. You meet these people. I always walk away from Washington when I hear and read about Washington, I'm discouraged. Whenever I go to Washington and I meet with these people, I am consistently buttressed, reinforced, encouraged by how smart and hardworking some of these people are.

A (34:33)

So.

C (34:33)

But yeah, I hear from all of them and it's because they want to come on the pod. They want exposure to Cara, they want to come on raging moderates, and they want to start raising their profile for their run in 28. And I think we have an incredible bench. I'm really excited about it. I'm going to give a little bit of money to all of them, Give all of them some exposure. And then as this incredible process that wasn't really allowed to run in 16, 20 and 24, called the Democratic primary, that not only matures the right person, but the right person for the moment. I think we're gonna have someone outstanding. So I wanna play a role in that. But, oh, God, I hear from all of them, they all pretend to like me.

B (35:12)

Yeah, that's the worst. Is there anyone, like, sort of non obvious that you're excited about or that you find really impressive?

C (35:17)

I think there's so many of them. I think that Wes Moore, Andy Beshear, I'm a fan of Governor Newsom. I think people hugely underrate him. I'll give you an example. I know who's not going to be president. No one under the age of 5 foot 10 or a woman's going to be president in the next couple years.

A (35:31)

Unfortunate for our friend Rahm, who I think is under five' ten, I believe.

C (35:35)

Look, America is a looksus nation. We can play depth of voice and height with character and leadership. Show me someone who has 140 IQ and is 5 foot 4 with a high pitched voice. Hello, school board president. Show me who's someone who's six two with a good head of hair, 110 IQ. Hello, Mr. Senator. We are hugely looksist. We will have a female president. She will be a Republican who has a reputation for drone striking a family. If they run a stop sign. We are going to. The Democrats are going to elect a straight white male who is tall and good looking because they are not going to take any fucking chances this time. And so I think there's a. I think Senator Murphy's hugely impressive. I think Governor Whitmer is hugely impressive. I just think there's a ton. I'm a huge fan of Senator Bennett. I think we have so many outstanding Democrats who. I think Mark Cuban would add a lot of spice to the race. I don't think a business person should be president, but I think he would add a lot of flavor to the race. So I think there's a ton of.

B (36:38)

He might take the Galloway lane.

C (36:40)

There you go. But he has the skills and he has a lot more money than me and he likes people and he's much more. He's much more engaging than I am. What do you guys think? I'll put the question back to you. Is there any one person that stands out to you?

B (36:56)

I agree with you that Gavin is more impressive than people realize. It's easy. He just has a level of experience that people on the east coast haven't watched him grow up, but has been doing this a long time and has a kind of wattage that can be hard to match for some of these other guys.

A (37:12)

I think, I think he's a really savvy. I agree with Ben. I think he's a really savvy understander of media and I think he knows his own im. Other people, people think that he's this like kind of out of touch guy with, you know, the gel in his hair and whatnot, when the reality is is he's like glued to his phone and watching all of the clips of himself and reading about himself and knowing what his strengths and weaknesses are. So I kind of agree. I think that there'll be a Lot of people, though, running in that lane. Right? Like Shapiro is running in that lane, Bashir is running that lane. And like the all the kind of competent executives, it'll be really interesting to see what the other lane is. And it's not a surprise why all these guys are going to South Carolina because they know that that's really, really important. And guys who haven't necessarily connected with the older black voters who are the Democratic base, they're weak there. So if there's somebody who can really take off and win those voters, we saw Biden do it, and that's what propelled him in 2020. So it's interesting to see them all make the pilgrimage down there. Three and a half years out.

C (38:10)

Agreed.

A (38:10)

Well, Scott, thank you so much for coming on with us. This is so fun, and we appreciate you. Coming down to this is to extend your NBA analogy. You know, you're like coming to play scrimmage with us in the park. It's like when Katie shows up to play in the park in on West Ford. So we appreciate that, and I hope that you appreciate our ball handling skills. And we appreciate being able to play pickup with Theo.

C (38:31)

That's a terrible fucking metaphor, Max.

A (38:33)

I think it's actually. No, that works. Are you serious? That works. That totally works.

B (38:36)

I thought that was great, Max.

A (38:38)

Thank you very much. Yeah.

C (38:39)

And Ben and Semaphore. I love Semaphore. I'm rooting for you guys. I think you guys do a great job. I love the little bullet thing. This is what you should be thinking about today. It's like a cheat sheet for what's going on.

B (38:49)

That's what it's meant to be. Well, thank you, Scott, and congratulations, seriously, on what you built.

C (38:53)

Thanks, brother. Right back at you.

B (39:05)

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A (39:37)

So, Ben, you know, despite his desire to connect with younger men, Scott did not appreciate my NBA metaphor, which I actually think worked pretty well. If he's talking about podcasting, like, NBA teams, I feel like I would say that he's, you know, he's in the. The top 20 and we're, you know, we're, we're a more of a niche player with skills that the real heads.

B (39:58)

Like, like one of those European teams you watch. Yeah.

A (40:01)

Yes, exactly. Like the Slovenians, when sometimes they, they come and almost upset the United States. They, it's like you're, they've got a few players on the team. You're like, huh, why isn't that guy in the NBA? But besides him not liking my, my hoops comparison, what, what did you think about Scott? I. I found him to be obviously, you know, very compelling and I, I actually don't quite understand why he, he doesn' Run for some sort of office. Regardless of whatever the policies are, it seems like he definitely understands how to keep people's attention.

B (40:29)

Yeah, I mean, just, I'm kind of in awe. Like what an absolutely. Kind of like world class talker and like kind of as you mentioned of Gavin Newsom, a lot of media figures are more self aware than you realize. Like they're more calculating, more in a feedback loop. Think about their Persona more than you realize. But the thing about Scott is that it's like, it's actually like talking to ChatGPT. You see the thought process in the little before the response comes out and it's all out there and that's part of what's his charm. And in a way he can be as. Cause he is a marketer and he is like there is something kind of inherently cynical about marketing and yet he kind of is just so absolutely transparent about his motives that it just kind of wraps it in this weird charm. I mean, yeah, very a real man of this moment, I think, and a real interesting media figure because he's built really a pretty big media company just around his own voice and his own capacity to riff.

A (41:27)

Were you surprised by the fact that he now is bigger than Pivot? His whole empire is at least brings in more money than Pivot or No.

B (41:37)

Yeah, I was actually. That's really. That's pretty remarkable. I mean, why do you think that is? Pivot is a big mass show.

A (41:43)

I mean, I think that part of it is the cadence, right? Like he's just, there's just more stuff in the feed every day than there is with Pivot, which I think is only twice a week. But I also do think that there is an audience for, you know, what he has to say from the center slit, lean center left about men and trying to represent a capitalist but liberal, you know, successful urban lifestyle. And I think that part of it is, yeah, he puts himself out there, you Know, he's talking about partying with his boys, flying to Aspen. He's talking about, you know, the fact that he was in Ibiza at a Calvin Harris show on Mali or Ecstasy. You know, there is a. He's talking about that and then flipping right into breaking down something, you know, the biggest topics of the day in business. And also, you know, drifting increasingly towards politics, which inevitably is where every successful media figure drifts towards, because it's the most important and fascinating and fun thing to talk about. We've tried to keep this a media show, but of course, we end up drifting there like everybody else.

B (42:44)

Yeah. And he has, whether through his instincts or whether, because it's where the money is, he has sort of intuited his way to the most lucrative audience and the hardest to reach young men, making these purchasing decisions about, you know, cars and cologne or whatever it is. And so I think that probably helps with the business, too.

A (43:02)

Absolutely. Ben, thanks for inviting him on. You know, we've got a run going of men and male guests here on the show. I think we're modeling some, you know, some sort of male kind of success. But I'm excited for us to, to. To veer away from that suit and, and to talk to some successful people who are in media who are. Who are also not men.

B (43:22)

Women, for instance.

A (43:23)

Yes, exactly. Yes, exactly. Am I going to get in trouble with the Trump administration for not saying, just saying women and saying other people who are not men?

B (43:32)

We'll run this by Brendan Carr before we air it.

A (43:34)

Exactly. I think I know the answer. Well, that is it for us this week. Thank you for listening to Mixed Signals here on Semaphore Media, especially if you made it this far. That's incredible. And, like, you should be thanked doubly much more than the people who just tuned in for the first 10 minutes. Our show, as always, is produced by Sheena Ozaki, with special thanks to Josh Billinson, Chad Lewis, Rachel Oppenheim, Anna Pizzino, Garrett Wiley, Jules Zern, and Tori Kaur. Our engineer is Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Billy Libby. Our public editor is Kara Swisher, who Scott had very nice things to say about. We were kind of hoping to start a little bit of podcast beef here, but it's, you know, he was just too reflective and, and sweet.

B (44:19)

If you like mixed Signals, please follow us wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're watching on YouTube, please don't forget to like and subscribe.

A (44:25)

And if you want more, you can always sign up for Semaphore's media newsletter out every Sunday night. And don't forget, also send us a tips. Send us story ideas. We'd love to hear that as well.