Pope Leo’s AI Warning, UFC at the White House, and CBS Shakeups

Summary

PIVOT – EPISODE SUMMARY
Episode: Pope Leo’s AI Warning, UFC at the White House, and CBS Shakeups
Date: May 29, 2026
Hosts: Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway

---

Overview

In this episode, Kara and Scott cover an eclectic mix of tech, business, and political stories, marked by their signature mix of sharp insight and banter. Major topics include the impact of Pope Leo’s first AI encyclical, the spectacle of UFC at the White House and masculine political theater, ongoing shakeups in the media industry (with a focus on CBS and 60 Minutes), AI industry upheaval, and the looming combination of Elon Musk’s companies.

---

Main Topics & Discussion Points

1. Personal Updates, Live Tour Life, and Local Politics

• (01:38–08:17)
  • Scott recaps his sold-out show in San Francisco, reflecting on the AIDS crisis and the unique energy of the Castro district.
  • Both hosts discuss the urban contrasts in LA and San Francisco, focusing on homelessness, wealth inequality, and how these issues spill over into politics.
  • Scott describes LA as feeling like “a string of bubbles” and “the world’s most successful failed nation-state.”
  • Political disaffection in LA is likened to the national mood; citizens are gravitating towards outsider candidates and “rage cosplay.”

“Delusion and creativity can sometimes create a lot of shareholder value.” — Scott (03:23)

---

2. Enhanced Games and Violence in Sports

• (08:17–12:47)
  • Discussion of the “Enhanced Games,” a sports event for athletes on performance-enhancing drugs, sparking debate about what spectacle the public wants.
  • Scott opens up about never being in a fight and segues into a broader conversation about violence, masculinity, and impulse control.
  • Kara and Scott dissect statistics on domestic violence and how gender and culture impact aggression.

“One of the core principles for men as they get older is just, quite frankly, emotional regulation.” — Scott (09:35)

---

3. UFC at the White House and Masculinity Politics

• (12:47–17:56)
  • The White House plans to host a UFC event on the South Lawn for the US’s 250th anniversary. Scott, invited but declining to attend, calls the event “brilliant marketing” targeting male alienation and political disaffection.
  • They discuss how modern political events have become performative spectacles of masculinity and how culture wars play out in such settings.
  • Kara criticizes the right’s attacks on Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, especially transphobic and homophobic smears.

“Unfortunately, it’s a fucked up, weird, performative, dominant form of masculinity. But it’s a brilliant marketing strategy.” — Scott (14:27)

---

4. Weaponization of the Justice Department & Misogyny

• (19:03–22:44)
  • Kara reports on the DOJ’s criminal probe into E. Jean Carroll, noting this as typical retributive targeting by the Trump administration against critics and perceived enemies.
  • Scott frames such weaponization as “protecting the president, not the people,” highlighting the erosion of basic government integrity.

“We don’t have a government that’s meant to protect the people. It’s now there to protect the president.” — Scott (21:13)

---

5. Pope Leo’s AI Encyclical: “Magnificent Humanity”

• (25:56–36:22)
  • Listener question sets up this segment: Pope Leo’s first encyclical is a 4,200-word meditation on AI’s risks and responsibilities.
  • Key points:
    • The Pope calls for government regulation, protection of children, and keeping humans accountable for weaponized AI.
    • He warns AI is not neutral—it carries the values of its creators, and power concentrated in a few hands risks a “new oligarchy.”
    • Kara underlines the encyclical’s resonance beyond the Catholic sphere and the importance of spiritual voices in this debate.
    • Scott commends the Pope for focusing on human connection, the moral dangers of job displacement, and AI removing productive “friction” from youth development.

“AI risks mechanizing judgment and creativity, intimacy and even meaning itself.” — summary of Pope Leo's view (35:34)
“Technology is never neutral because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate, and use it.” — Kara (28:16)

---

6. Tech Shifts: Google’s AI Search and DuckDuckGo Surge

• (36:22–39:43)
  • Google’s dramatic AI overhaul of its search engine is discussed. DuckDuckGo sees a 30% jump as users look for alternatives.
  • Both hosts note ongoing issues with Google failing to provide desired results, suggesting user trust is eroding.

---

7. AI Regulation: U.S. vs China, Trump’s Exec Order, Uber & ROI Issues

• (39:43–49:18)
  • Trump delays a planned AI executive order after tech industry lobbying, notably by David Sacks and Elon Musk.
  • China, by contrast, pushes forward with strong AI regulation and enjoys public trust as a result.
  • Uber burns through its 2026 AI coding budget in just four months—Scott and Kara spotlight the ballooning and often unproven cost of AI for big enterprises.

“Only one in 20 CFOs can point to a positive ROI.” — Scott (45:40)

“Claude Code Max costs $200 a month, but it costs Anthropic $5,000 a month to deliver to a single user.” — Scott (49:10)

---

8. Elon Musk: Rumored SpaceX–Tesla Merger and Index Fund Impact

• (52:22–64:04)
  • Rumors circulate about Musk combining SpaceX with Tesla, effectively leveraging SpaceX’s strength to paper over Tesla’s stagnation.
  • Scott compares the combination to “Snow White and the seven weirdos.”
  • Discussion on the NASDAQ rule change: big IPOs (like SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic) now enter the index quickly, forcing passive funds (and ordinary investors) to buy in at record-high valuations.

“Stocks are like brands... part promise and part performance. No one articulates and gets more cheap capital on the promise part than Elon Musk.” — Scott (56:09)

“It’s like getting the U2 album.” — Kara, on passive investors being forced into these new IPOs (61:09)

---

9. Media Upheaval: CBS, 60 Minutes, & Management Dynamics

• (64:04–74:36)
  • Kara calls out CBS for “penalizing a journalist for refusing to sanitize reporting” (Sharon Alfonsi), noting Anderson Cooper’s public comments as well.
  • Scott analyzes why small, innovative companies rarely “infect” a big corporate culture—instead, the bigger entity remains dominant (“the corpus rejects the virus”).
  • Cautionary tale: leadership at scale is about consensus, not unilateral disruptive moves.

---

Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Delusion and creativity can sometimes create a lot of shareholder value.” — Scott (03:23)
• “One of the core principles for men as they get older is just, quite frankly, emotional regulation.” — Scott (09:35)
• “Unfortunately, it’s a fucked up, weird, performative, dominant form of masculinity. But it’s a brilliant marketing strategy.” — Scott (14:27)
• “We don’t have a government that’s meant to protect the people. It’s now there to protect the president.” — Scott (21:13)
• “Technology is never neutral because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate, and use it.” — Kara (28:16)
• “AI risks mechanizing judgment and creativity, intimacy and even meaning itself.” — Paraphrased from Pope Leo’s encyclical (35:34)
• “Claude Code Max costs $200 a month, but it costs Anthropic $5,000 a month to deliver to a single user.” — Scott (49:10)
• “It’s like getting the U2 album.” — Kara (61:09)
• “The corpus rejects the virus.” — Scott (69:28)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Urban Politics & Personal Banter: 01:38–08:17
• Enhanced Games & Masculinity: 08:17–12:47
• UFC at White House & Gender Politics: 12:47–17:56
• E. Jean Carroll & Weaponized DOJ: 19:03–22:44
• Pope Leo’s Encyclical on AI: 25:56–36:22
• Google Search Overhaul & DuckDuckGo: 36:22–39:43
• AI Regulation Fight & China’s Approach: 39:43–44:42
• Uber’s AI Token Burn, Claude Pricing: 44:44–49:18
• Tesla/SpaceX Merger Rumors & Index Change: 52:22–64:04
• CBS/60 Minutes Shakeup & Management Lessons: 64:04–74:36

---

Prediction & Wins/Fails

Scott’s Win:

• Ukraine’s military innovation—Ukraine now able to strike deep into Russia, delivering an unexpected blow to Putin and sending positive signals about Western resilience and technological prowess. (75:25–78:54)

Scott’s Fail:

• Trump’s “Terrorist Immunization Fund”—a “corruption and violence fund” incentivizing political violence, succinctly described by historian Timothy Snyder. (79:00–81:04)

---

Tone & Style

• Expect trademark Kara-Scott banter—wry, sarcastic, and unfiltered.
• Language is direct, full of expletives and comedic asides, especially around male culture, the current administration, and Silicon Valley’s hubris.
• Balanced depth and topical variety provide a comprehensive, engaging news breakdown.

---

Pivotarian: “Become a Pivotarian.”
—“Have sex. Have sex with the cult leader. Cut off all contact with your parents. Give us all your money.” — (82:27)
[Running joke from the outro, classic Pivot sign-off]

---

*For more, subscribe to Pivot on your favorite podcast platform or YouTube channel.

Transcript

[Scott Galloway]

Make every get together chill this Memorial Day. Get up to an extra thousand dollars off select top brand appliances like LG plus. Get free delivery at the Home Depot. Tackle pool towels and camp laundry with a large capacity washer and host in style with the fridge serving craft ice, mini craft ice, cubed ice and crushed ice. Shop Appliance Savings now through June 3rd at the Home Depot. Offer valid May 14th through June 3rd US only. Free delivery on appliance purchases of $998 or more. See store online for details. Ray Ban Meta lets you explore the world without a screen getting in the way so you can stay present in the moment.

[Kara Swisher]

Hey Meta, tell me what kind of dessert this is. That's a Stroopwafel, a Dutch waffle with spiced syrup in the middle. Is it sweet? Yes. Perfect for a snack or dessert. Mmm, delicious.

[Scott Galloway]

Get answers on the go without interrupting your flow. Ray Ban Meta Iconic style meets Meta AI.

[Kara Swisher]

Available at Walmart and other authorized retailers.

[Scott Galloway]

Did you know if your windows are bare, indoor temperatures can go up 20 degrees. Turn the temperature down with blinds.com and get up to 50% off custom window treatments like solar roller shades and more during the Memorial Day Mega Sale. Whether you want to DIY it or have a pro handle everything, we've got you free samples, real design experts and zero pressure. Just help when you need it. This is your last chance to shop up to 50% off site wide during the Memorial Day mega [e-mail] rules and restrictions apply.

[Kara Swisher]

You know, you could call me for free and I would probably do a better job.

[Scott Galloway]

You're not available. And by the way, define free.

[Kara Swisher]

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

[Scott Galloway]

Where am I? I'm Scott Galloway. Sorry, Jelly.

[Kara Swisher]

That's what I am. How is your tour going? I've gotten reports from the Castro about you. You were in my neighborhood?

[Scott Galloway]

Yes, I was in what is one of the most beautiful new theaters.

[Kara Swisher]

Isn't it?

[Scott Galloway]

Oh my gosh.

[Kara Swisher]

Gorgeous. It's not new, it's really old and renovated it. Renovated.

[Scott Galloway]

Excuse me. Yeah, recently renovated. It's great. Was sold out. One of my. A couple of my role models were there. David Aker, who is. Whose course I teach now, who's 88 and changed my life, Teach brand strategy at Haas. The Chancellor of Berkeley, who was there, who let me in with a 2.27 GPA. My sister, my niece, my nephew. So it was a nice night, as I often do and talking about the AIDS crisis in the 90s. 90s. I started crying.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

You know, the Castro, the straight white man with erectile dysfunction crying. And the Chancellor of Berkeley. Oh, and the marching band. The marching band.

[Kara Swisher]

I saw the. My lawyer, Jesse Berg sent me. He loves pivot and he said it was really fun and it was really good. I'm sad Louis could not go. My son lives a block, two blocks away, essentially. And he was working, he's a chef. And so he had the night, the evening dinner shift. So he was sad. But he wished you well. So how's it going? Where are you going next? What's your next thing?

[Scott Galloway]

Well, I'm here, I'm back. I only went up for the show. I'm back in la and that's my favorite place to visit in the world. I describe LA as the world's most successful failed nation state. It's kind of, I think of it as peak capitalism here. There's more billionaires in LA than anywhere else but New York. But meanwhile, 75,000 homeless.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

And it feels like, I would say it's a town built on delusion. But delusion and creativity can sometimes create a lot of shareholder value.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

And I just, I absolutely love Los Angeles. I think it's, you know what it's turning into, Kara?

[Kara Swisher]

What, what does it turn into?

[Scott Galloway]

It, it's turning into San Francisco and that now everyone shit posts Los Angeles.

[Kara Swisher]

They do. That's the, that's the city. Cause San Francisco looks good and it's thriving.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. San Francisco's on the remount for sure. And it doesn't hurt that about. What is it about $150 billion is about to become liquid on 4 trillion in liquid currency.

[Kara Swisher]

Right? Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

Yep. By the way, in San Francisco rents last month, one month, one bedroom rent's up 24%. Everyone's spending their money before they have it. Pending luxury home sales nationally are up 4%. In San Francisco, they're up 48%.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, I know I've had, back in the first.com thing, I had people knocking on my door to buy my house and I have people knocking on my border by my house again. It's that. And I'm like, no. But it's really, it's interesting because lesser priced houses, which are not lesser priced, they're in the million 2 million range, aren't selling as well, but they're really above 3 to 7, 8 are really going crazy. It's a, it's a crazy market. But I'm glad Daniel's. I mean it has been on the rebound for a while. But yes, Los Angeles is in that. That same we hate ourselves spiral, hence Spencer Pratt. But Los Angeles is a wonderful city at the same time, you know, it's just, you know, it's sort of. Sort of west side white people that get all mad about whatever, and some of them not even in Los Angeles,

[Scott Galloway]

although I will say. And you always sound like a Karen, but it feels like I used to say it's a la is a string of suburbs connected by freeways. Now I would say it's a string of bubbles. I mean, the right parts of LA are euphoric, they're magical. And you venture outside those bubbles and you see a little too much of the real world, which is good for people. But the homeless issue really is staggering here relative to the amount of money they spend. I can. You really feel. It's really interesting here. It feels like the mayoral race here. If it were a movie, it'd be Sophie's Choice. Personally, that's how I would describe it. Oh, dear.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay.

[Scott Galloway]

But it is a pretty decent facsimile of the presidential race. In 24. You have who I would describe as someone who's perceived as incompetent and not that compelling, which has created room for rage, cosplaying, a political strategy and a reality star. I mean, this literally is Trump Harris over again right now.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

And you speak to people in la. I'm not exaggerating. Reasonable, reasonable people who you wouldn't think would be supporting a reality star. And they have just had it and they just want change and chaos and they don't care.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I understand that. But it is a type of person, by the way. First of all, I would not say everybody is like that.

[Scott Galloway]

It's shocking how many people are just. They don't even want to have a conversation. They're just angry.

[Kara Swisher]

Here's what San Francisco. I'm just giving the comparison. We didn't re elect at realistar. We elected Daniel a technocrat. Technocrat. They should try to find, like, that's the thing.

[Scott Galloway]

Not on the ballot.

[Kara Swisher]

I know that, but it's ridiculous that this is like. It doesn't mean, you know, because something's bad. You should do something absolutely fucking ridiculous and disastrous for the city. But, you know, they'll go through it. If they like this guy, they get what they get. That's what. And it's probably a lot of corruption, a lot of incompetence, a lot of just a mess and abuse of people. Like they're going to hire weight. They're going to go back because the old ladies, you know, the LA Police Department and you know that that era of real brutality is really. It was real. And so it's just. It's a wonderful city and it should be doing a lot better. And the homeless problem is significant. A lot of it have to do with the weather. A lot of it has to do with a lot of things. It's not just that. It's that this is a place where people naturally are attracted to and so all kinds of people. And so it's a really. It's. Anyway, so you're. Are you appearing in Los Angeles tonight? Is that correct?

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, yeah. We have Ted Sarandos as our guest tonight.

[Kara Swisher]

Great, great.

[Scott Galloway]

We've got about friends from UCLA coming.

[Kara Swisher]

Good. Are you sold out in Los Angeles or are you doing.

[Scott Galloway]

No, we're about. I think we're about 90%. We're sold out in San Francisco, in New York, about 90% in LA. It's a big theater also, I think LA. Just people do last minute and there's so many distractions here.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, yeah. Are you in the same theater which we did sell out for Pivot? What was.

[Scott Galloway]

No, I think we're in the Wiltern. Is that right? Does that sound familiar? And then. And then I go to Vancouver island for a speaking gig. And then tomorrow I take the red eye to Miami, and we're on Miami Saturday night.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, that'll be fun. You love Miami.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, I do.

[Kara Swisher]

Anyway, in Miami. Well, we've got a lot. Congratulations on your tour. Congratulations to Elson, too. It's really nice. These tours are really fun. I'm excited for ours in the fall. We have one in the fall, so get ready, rest up.

[Scott Galloway]

There we go.

[Kara Swisher]

You'll have August off so you can rest and everything else. So, first off, I have to ask you, by the way, you're doing a lot of stuff, but did you watch the Enhanced Games last weekend?

[Scott Galloway]

I didn't. Although I gotta be honest, I'm sort of here for it. I think it's kind of. I mean, I kind of had this idea that just take no holds barred and let freak shows show up. People are doing this to themselves anyways, but I did not watch it.

[Kara Swisher]

Although, let me just say, for people who don't know, the Enhanced Games is a new sports event that allows athletes on performance enhancing drugs and encourages them to try to break world records. Events included swimming, track and field, weightlifting and strongmen. The experiment calls itself a global movement that unites humanity. Of course, as A publicly traded company. Investors include Donald Trump and Junior and Peter Thiel. There's also a German executive I've met many times. There were no things broken except by someone wearing the swimsuit that was barred. This special swimsuit. I don't know. The stock has gone down. I'm curious, if there was a fight where both of us were enhanced, who do you think would win, you or I?

[Scott Galloway]

Well, you know the answer there.

[Kara Swisher]

Me.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. 100%. I've never been in a fight. Yeah. I'm not a violent person. If someone hit me, I wouldn't know what to do.

[Kara Swisher]

You've never been in a fight? Wow.

[Scott Galloway]

Never been a fight in my life.

[Kara Swisher]

I think. Let me think. That might not be true. No, I haven't. No, I haven't.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. And I, you know, I. You know, I. I was beaten up and abused ex wife. But no, I was never. Never been in a. Never been in a fight. I think that I talk a lot about this, that I think that one of the cores, too. I never miss a chance to. To virtue signal and preach, but I think one of the core principles of. For men as they get older is just, quite frankly, is emotional regulation. You know, are you willing to sit in discomfort and do you have control over your. Your physical and mental well being?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, it's an impulse to punch. Right? It's an impulse to punch. And men have it much more. I have. Well, let me think. Saul's probably the most aggressive. My sense.

[Scott Galloway]

So there's no arguing that men are more violent, but that doesn't mean women don't engage in violence. Domestic violence rates in LGBTQ couples is about 25%. According to the National Institute for Health, and According to the CDC, anywhere from 17 to 40% of men are victims of intimate partner violence. Depending on the research methodology, there's discrepancy between whether it was a phone survey or a web survey. And then furthermore, there's only about three shelters. There's only three. Three shelters across the entire US Devoted to male domestic violence. There's still a lot of shame, and there's a view that it might be underreported.

[Kara Swisher]

Mostly women suffer from this problem, Scott.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, but it's true. There's an assumption.

[Kara Swisher]

I get it.

[Scott Galloway]

There's no arguing that men are violent, but that doesn't mean women don't engage in violence either.

[Kara Swisher]

Didn't say that. But the comparison is, most violence is committed by men in general. In general. In general, it's murders, blah, blah, everything. Every statistic is largely. It's not really, it's just, I do think it's a function of gender. I do think it's a function of impulse control and everything else, but I'm no scientist.

[Scott Galloway]

Testosterone and cultural norms and Yep, yep, yep, yep.

[Kara Swisher]

And this manliness, this man there was a really great cover of the Atlantic recently about the sort of the man hating groups. And they're always back. They're always like, they're back. I'm like, they're always there in some weird way. Speaking of man, men, there's. Construction crews are building the UFC fighting cage on the south lawn of a White House in preparation for the night of mixed martial arts celebrating the 250th anniversary of the US independence. Over 4,000 spectators plan to watch from inside. The arena. Kind of looks like a roller coaster. And there's all this complaining by Joe Rogan and others about gnats and bugs and outside. And a lot of some of the champions aren't coming because they don't usually do it outside. And it creates a. If you're going for world, you know, these are actual competitors. If you're going for titles, it's not a good thing to fight outside. Apparently weigh ins will be held at the Lincoln Memorial, which is. I don't know what to say about that, but okay, fine, fine, fine. I just don't know what to say. It looks, it's ridiculous. It feels clownish, but whatever, he's the president. I don't know what to say. I'm not going to get overly angry about it, but it seems ridiculous. But I don't know how you feel.

[Scott Galloway]

I was invited. I said no, I don't, I don't enjoy that stuff and I don't need to be, you know, I think it's disingenuous for me to show up and break bread or party with someone who. I'm constantly critical of it. The event itself is brilliant. You think, oh, gosh, there, there's just an entire generation of young men and quite frankly, a lot of women, their mothers and their sisters, who in America. And this will trigger. Some people still vote for who they perceive will be most beneficial for their husbands and their sons. And young men are doing really, really poorly. And if you think about government, government in the United States, largely speaking, has been feminized. If you look at the events, the events are basically like, you know, like the queen was merchandising and throwing them for government. Events are very feminine, for lack of a better word.

[Kara Swisher]

Wait a minute. Come on, Scott. Today you're very anti woman today I'm not being anti women.

[Scott Galloway]

Feminine is a bad thing.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm just calling it as a government. Things are feminine.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, go to anything at the White House. It feels like, it feels like it's been design. Oh, 100%. They're very proper, gentle. They're very feminine. And by the way, that is a wonderful thing.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, men can be proper and gentle. I don't think that men can be.

[Scott Galloway]

Yes, men can demonstrate wonderful feminine attributes

[Kara Swisher]

like metal giving is a feminine activity.

[Scott Galloway]

I wouldn't describe metal giving, but there's

[Kara Swisher]

a lot of metal giving at the White House.

[Scott Galloway]

Government events and ceremonies tend to be very. What people would consider, I think, somewhat more. Well, they're not a UFC fight. They're not a competition.

[Kara Swisher]

No, but the UFC fight is winning.

[Scott Galloway]

Even like comedy. The White House. The White House dinner comes the closest to sort of something stepping out of what is seen as overly planned, nurturing, appropriate. Yeah, I think the events are very, kind of very feminine. And what is, what are these guys doing? They're throwing a UFC fight and it's kind of, I think you're going to have. They're going to have huge viewership. It says to Trump reaffirms his view of one of the reasons he won the election. And that is like, I'm a man's man. I see men. I appreciate, for lack of a better term, masculinity. Unfortunately, it's a fucked up, weird, performative, dominant form of masculinity. But it's a brilliant marketing strategy. It's smart.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm not. I think it sometimes works. Let me give an example of this attempt to turn James Talarico, like Stephen Miller, who is literally the most weak looking person you've ever seen, is calling. You know, he and others are calling because they're terrified of Talarico. So they're pulling out the anti trans stuff immediately, saying, the first trans senator, he doesn't know how to eat barbecue. Is that a Ted Cruz? Another, like someone I could easily beat in a fight. The tofu barbecue, the idea of soy boy. I mean, this is not manly in any way. This is like this. I don't, and I don't think it works as much anymore with people. It's do. It's deeply insulting. It might work in Texas. I hate to say it. I think the Talarico people should take this very seriously because Kamala Harrison didn't with the trans stuff. That worked really well in the election and it might work in Texas, but they're trying to, you know, paint him as gay. I think that's what they're. Where's the girlfriend?

[Scott Galloway]

That's what they're intimating.

[Kara Swisher]

Trans. Is she trans? He's a soy boy. You know, this is all like. And what I think about it's so grotesque because I'm like, these are all men over 50 or whatever. I mean, Stephen Miller looks over 50 even though he's younger. But this is this like name calling, bullying bullshit. That is not part of being a man. Any men I know that I think are decent men. It's fine if people want to do this. When I was a kid, I went to fights with my grandfather and went to wrestling matches. He was a promoter and he loved it. So I see the entertainment and everything else in. But the soy boy trans thing that they're pushing on Talarico is so, so ugly and toxic. And unfortunately it does work at some point. I don't know if you think it'll work in Texas, but it might. It certainly could.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. I think, I think there's a fairly large distinction between a sanctioned sport where it's a lot of men in top physical shape. I don't like it, I don't enjoy watching it. But I think that that is a legitimate sport. It's a huge sport. It's, I think, arguably one of the most successful sports of several decades. It's a well run sport, creates a lot of economic value for many of the fighters. So I think in a bipartisan way you can say that the UFC serves a purpose and a successful. The ugliness around Talarico is not only that one, it's not true, but two, to assume that leving an accusation that someone is gay or trans is supposed to be negative. It trains young people or people that if you call someone that your opponent doesn't call you something unless they're trying to say to the world, that's a negative, right?

[Kara Swisher]

Absolutely. No, no, a hundred percent.

[Scott Galloway]

And I hope at some point people regurgitate on things like that and say, quite frankly, it's. You know, someone we used to call in college, you used to call people fags. To say this to be gay is to be bad. It's an insult.

[Kara Swisher]

Y.

[Scott Galloway]

And at some point some people, someone says yeah, and. Or what? It's like people online call me a Zionist and I respond proud Zionist. I mean, I just. At some point people are going to realize going after people's sexual orientations just says more about you than it says about them.

[Kara Swisher]

It does, it's. But it's, it's a tactic. They're trying to drown that in. In that race. And unfortunately, it might work in Texas.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, it's an indictment on Texas that these people have done the research and decided that it works.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Yes, absolutely.

[Scott Galloway]

So I hope he responds. I will say this, that I'm not

[Kara Swisher]

sure what the response is in defense.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, in the fence of James Talarico, he and I follow many of the same people on Instagram. And it's not the leaders, Kara.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, I know.

[Scott Galloway]

It's some scorching hot young ladies who make their living with a, with a, with a webcam.

[Kara Swisher]

They just, they did it. They also trying to do it to Andy Beshear. They obviously beto everything. You know, it's a. It's, to me, it's in at the end misogynistic. And speaking of that, the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation. Of course, this all leads to the same thing. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the formal magazine writer who won two civil lawsuits against Trump totaling, you know, close to $90 million in payments tied to sexual abuse and defamation. The DoD probe is reportedly focused on whether Carroll committed perjury and testimony. Typical. This is what they're doing to, whether it's to Letitia James or whoever they're trying to go at. Specifically car saying she hadn't received outside funding for her legal bills. Her lawyers later said Reid Hoffman had contributed. This is the latest in a series of doji probes targeting Trump's opponents and critics like James Comey, Letitia James, and others. Though none of these investigations have led to convictions, in fact, they get laughed out of court. I spoke to E. Jean Carroll for an episode of on in July 2025. She talked about the threats she's received and why she has no fear. Let's listen.

[Scott Galloway]

It's stupid to be afraid.

[Kara Swisher]

Why live your life that way? I've been here 81 years.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm not gonna waste the last of

[Kara Swisher]

it worrying about that guy in marmalade colored makeup.

[Scott Galloway]

It makes no sense.

[Kara Swisher]

So that's what I'm gonna do. So what do you think about this? Talk about misogyny and getting, you know, she's won the cases against him and he's trying not to pay them, and he's doing everything possible to try not to pay them. And this is the latest. Perry using the Justice Department to carry out his toxic misogynistic efforts.

[Scott Galloway]

I think it comes down to this. So, one, if she did say something that wasn't true under oath, that's real. And they're Claiming that she didn't acknowledge that she was getting help with her legal bills. I don't know to the extent, though, in a case like that, that is grounds for revisiting a case. It doesn't matter when it doesn't have anything to do with the actual crime she's accusing the president of. What is consistent here is the weaponization of the DOJ to go after his political enemies. So this is just another example of the fact that we don't have a government that's meant to protect the people. It's now there to protect the president. And I think Eugene Carroll. I mean, I thought, okay, Eugene Carroll is ending the presidency because. And he was. I mean, just to keep in mind, folks, this was a jury of his peers who heard a ton of evidence, and they said, well, it was in liberal New York. Well, okay, New York, if you had nine jurors, five are probably Democrats, but four Republicans, and two to mature a conviction, all nine have to agree. So. So this was a. You know, this was. There's a reason that when someone is usually convicted of a crime, the public used to come together and say, this person is guilty and, you know, should be disqualified. Or, you know, we keep it. Every time this stuff happened, we keep. We kept thinking that's it, it's over, and it wasn't. But it's just. I do think it's important to have a legal scholar to say in most cases with this type of infraction, if, in fact she. And she did. She did not acknowledge that she was having her legal bills.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, it depends on when she was paid. They're gonna have to investigate that. But still, they're just grabbing at straws. Here is what they're doing. That's what they're trying to do, to find some way to impugn her and so he doesn't have to pay that money. It's all the same. It's all about money.

[Scott Galloway]

I don't even think it's about the money. I think it's about overturning a conviction of a perceived enemy and going after. The guy's made billions of dollars illegally on crypto. I think it's.

[Kara Swisher]

He still doesn't want to pay. He's a cheap bastard. He still doesn't want to pay.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm. Personally, I'm surprised they did this. I would have thought they would. I think this just brings it up again. I would have thought they would want it to fade into the distance.

[Kara Swisher]

He doesn't care. He doesn't care. Anyway, Eugene, we hope this goes away. But it's such a fucking nuisance and such a ridiculous nuisance. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back Pope Leo's warning about AI. I'm very excited to talk about this.

[Scott Galloway]

This whatever your thing. It could be anything. Canva helps you make that thing a thing. Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design, with our magic AI tool, things you can social media your thing, generate images or videos of your thing, make decks or presentations to show your thing whatever needs to be done for your thing. Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing. Support for the show comes from Zbiotics. Zebiotics Pre Alcohol Probiotic Drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for rough days after drinking. Pre alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. So I have been using Zbiotics even before they were an advertiser. If I know I'm going to drink, I take a Zbiotic and I found that on average it takes away about a third of the yuck the next morning if you will. So for me that's absolutely worth it. May is packed with back to back reasons to be out. Don't let a rough morning after keep you on the sidelines. Drink Pre Alcohol to stay ahead of it and make the most of every Saturday this month. Go to zebiotics.com pivot to learn more and get 15% off your first order. When you use pivot at checkout, Zebiotics is backed with 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com pivot and use the code pivot at checkout for 15% off. Support for the show comes from Odoo. There's an endless supply of software out there that promises to streamline your workflow. That may be true for a specific aspect of your business, but if you need one app for accounting, one for inventory management, and another for sales, how streamlined can your workflow actually be? If you have to be the middleman between them. Odoo says they're the answer you're looking for. The only business software you'll ever need, Odoo can be your one stop shop for CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce, hr, and more. Plus, it's super customizable and easy to use out of the box. And the best part? They say not only can they replace multiple applications, but they say they'll do it for a fraction of the cost, whether you're just starting out or already well on your way to scaling. Odoo wants to help you put the clutter aside such that you can do what you set out to do when you started your company. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you try Odoo for [e-mail] that's odoo o d o o.com.

[Kara Swisher]

Scott we're back and we're going to start off with our next topic with a question from a listener. Hi Kara and Scott, My name's Bridget and I'm calling from Oakland. I'm asking as a Catholic, Buddhist, Pivotarian, I was so delighted to hear that Pope Bob, also known as Pope Leo xiv, delivered his first encyclical which was about AI. And he was speaking truth to power from a place of power, which is pretty rare. Have either of you read it and if so, what do you think? Do you think it can move the needle towards putting guardrails up for this juggernaut that's really careening off the road already?

[Scott Galloway]

Or maybe even rein in those dickheads who are mindlessly amping it up for

[Kara Swisher]

their own self serving profits? Thanks for all the humor and wisdom you've provided over the years. And keep it up. Ha ha.

[Scott Galloway]

Yep, I just set Prof. G up

[Kara Swisher]

for a dick joke. I love Bridget. I love our listeners and pivotarian, let's start a religion. That would be so good. Thank you Bridget. That was a great question. We love your sassiness. That's the kind of listeners we love. So to catch people up, Pope Leo released his first encyclical this week, a 4200 word letter to all about AI titled Magnificent Humanity. Magnifinous. I can't say it in Latin, but it's magnificent humanity. The pop Pope acknowledged that artificial intelligence can be a valuable tool. He did not trash it, but also warned the Aras could become a new Tower of Babel. He shared some strong words about what needs to happen next. Let's listen to him himself talk about it.

[Scott Galloway]

Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed the word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention, awakening consciences and indicating paths forward for humanity.

[Kara Swisher]

Some of the specific things the Pope is calling for. Government regulation of private companies driving AI development seems normal. Protecting children from violent sexual or fake information generated by AI. Excellent suggestion. Safeguards to make sure humans are responsible for all decisions tied to the use of weapons. Again, a great thing. He also didn't shy away from talking about people at the helm of AI. That was really the focus is who's running it in the abstract. Technology in and of itself is not a solution to humanity. Humanity's problems just it is not inherently evil. In practice, however, technology is never neutral because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it. Some big tech folks are on board here. Anthropic co founder Christopher Ola joined the Pope at the Vatican as the encyclical was presented. But reactions from D.C. and Silicon Valley have been mixed. Vice President J.D. vance called the Pope's warning profound. That was interesting. But Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox News, I didn't know what tech editorializing was part of the role being a Pope. Well, it is, Doug. It's certainly not part of your role. As Interior Secretary. David Sacks wrote, the Pope rightly warns that AI must serve human dignity, not become a tool of domination and exclusion. Well, someone who dominates and excludes. It's a nice thing to hear, but it goes on. If we hand. Of course he goes on. If we hand the government sweeping power over AI development in the name of safety, how do we prevent it from being used to censor, surveil or control citizens? Honestly, this guy is so hypocritical. Anyway, what did you think of the take? And I think he's been listening to Pivot or a lot of stuff we talked about for years. I love Pope Bilt being on team on this team, but thoughts on this?

[Scott Galloway]

Well, we talk a lot about the actions of the administration and different things that are just been really bad for brand us. Whether it was the insurrection or you know, cutting off usa, there's just been so many poor decisions that have really hurt our brand. I actually think the best thing or one of the best things that's happened for the US brand, you know, to a certain extent, AI and just the economic boom out here and the fact that we the most seminal technology in a long time in terms of share creation and what might have an impact on the world, it's just owned and dominated by the US that's very good for our brand, and I think that's been great for our brand. Is Pope Leo. He's just incredibly articulate. He comes across as measured, brave, connects real world issues with spiritual issues and issues of dignity. And he's American. He went to Villanova.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, that voice. Yeah. Chicago. He's got such a Chicago accent. He wanted to go da Bears to.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, right.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

But just his comments. If you were just to distill his comments that were really powerful. He believes that AI should serve humanity, not replace it. The biggest danger is the concentration of power. He's clearly. He's talking a lot about incremental quality, and he's. He's skeptical of a small number of companies controlling the infrastructure of intelligence. And he wants. He thinks AI can amplify inequality and create. You talked about a new oligarchy where private firms wield enormous influence over truth, labor, and governments. I would argue that the cat's already out of the bag there. One of the more controversial things, or interesting things I should say is he said AI is not neutral, that the algorithms encode the values of the creators. Not some sort of neutral view on different views of humanity, which I'm not sure. I actually think in a weird way why social media has polarized us. I think that because I think AI is different. I think it's more. I do think from a viewpoint and ideology standpoint, it's more moderating, and sometimes it comes across as quite politically correct, I think. He also talked about job displacement being a real moral issue. Autonomous weapons terrify him. He called for it to be disarmed and worried about weapon systems operating beyond meaningful human control. And then he talked about human connection. The thing I love, you know, I like the softer stuff, human connection mattering more than synthetic intimacy. And then. And this is the thing, I think if you were gonna try and translate this into some sort of legislation, and we're not focused enough on this, is that children are the most vulnerable. And I was just thinking about. You know, think about when you learned to write and how difficult it was. Like, I know you were on your school newspaper.

[Kara Swisher]

Claire's doing it right. Yeah, I was, but Claire's doing it right. Really interesting to watch. Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

In my senior year of high school, I got a C in English. I had a real difficult time writing. And I went through that pain. I went through that friction. And if I had just had AI, like, write my papers, I never would have made those connections. I never would have gone through the friction of making those connections. And so And I think the really trouble writing.

[Kara Swisher]

You're a very good writer.

[Scott Galloway]

Actually, I got season English, as a

[Kara Swisher]

matter of fact, on the upside with your writing.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, because I did the work right. And I think the question is, if kids have AI, do they ever do the work and make the connections? As a matter of fact, in my first year at UCLA, I was failing English 1. And I said, what happens if you fail English 1? Because it was a core class, you had to take it. It was a requisite. They say, well, you have to take English as a second language, despite the fact I didn't speak a second language.

[Kara Swisher]

Wow.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, that was pretty big. I got my act together.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. The friction, you're right. The friction is what made you a better writer. To struggle with it, to figure it out yourself.

[Scott Galloway]

And this is the problem and the threat of technology across all of our youth. And that is why venture outside and go through the pecking order and the bullying order and figuring out your place and trying to find or join a gang, if you will, of friends when you think you can have a reasonable facsimile of friendship on Reddit or discord. Why take risks, go through the expense, humiliation, enduring, rejection of trying to find a romantic relationship when you think you can replace it with synthetic lifelike character AI or porn? So the defrictioning of life and AI kind of takes it to a new level, especially with academia or academics. It teaches young people to never develop the key skills they have to really be successful in life and enjoy life.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, absolutely. I think most important parts is this. I do think who's making it matters. And he was very clear about that in terms of. He was saying, for example, it's not the morality of AI, it's the morals of the people who make it. And I think he was talking about being a very small group of people who are very interested in money, really. And I thought it was very. One of the things. He was named Pope Leo because of the last pope to do something like this was over manufacturing and the mechanization of things. And it was very selected to pick this topic. He very carefully didn't insult technology, but he really clearly insulted its creators or said we need to do better. And I think being the conscience, saying, Doug Burgum is such a moron. I mean, of. Of course he's the conscience of. You know, that J.D. vance acknowledged that. I think he's the conscience of the world, of his world. And it extends well beyond Catholics, let me say. And I think it's really important for leaders like this to step up and suggest it. And I do think it does have an impact as people are talking about it and they are talking about the issues he brought up, including these safeguards around weaponry protecting children. And this is already in the air with people. And the fact that the Pope does it and stands up out any and then had some tech people there, I thought it was. He's such a savvy person, I'm excited to see what else he takes on. And you know, of course the stupid Trump people call him the woke Pope, but honestly he's just. He's the. It's called conscience. It's not woke, it's conscience.

[Scott Galloway]

But he did say just to wrap up when you were talking about automation and the last time technology appeared to be sort of a threat, you know, the industrial revolution, mechanized labor. And what he's saying is that AI risks mechanizing judgment and creativity, intimacy and even meaning itself. And the way I would interpret his comments was less catastrophizing around AI will kill us, but AI could potentially make us less human while concentrating extraordinary wealth and power in the hands of a few firms and states. I think this guy distills right to the core of the issues. He is very smart, he is very impressive. He is unafraid. I mean, as smart as he is, he clearly had very smart people working on these.

[Kara Swisher]

The people I've met at the Vatican have been amazing. But I love that he called it magnificent humanity. And by the way, I love that he made Cliff Notes for people. He made a little chart which is really good. It's an excellent chart. I love a chart and I love a Cliff Note. Anyway, there's lots more a to get to a lot of little stories but important installs for DuckDuckGo jumped 30% after Google announced its first overhaul in 24 years. Many people are disturbed by this. Google changes include a shift to AI with bigger, more interactive search box that lets you users ask longer questions and upload photographs. It's a significant change for search. I have not used Google search in a long time. In a weird way, I definitely use it for some things but I tend to use. I use all kinds of search services but it's not only through Google is all I'm saying. It used to be only through Google and I like the simple box I feel lucky box. I have always thought it was fine, but I see why they're doing it. At the same time, a lot of people are like now they're never going to link to anything but what they want to link to but they've just sort of ended it. For most people using Google to get to say media websites or whatever, whatever you're looking for. So that seems to be a shift.

[Scott Galloway]

I think it's a smart bold move. I think they may when you risk what is arguably or do any tweaks the temptation around what is the most profitable largest toll booth in history when you risk there's just probably so much momentum to guys don't fucking with it like don't absolutely don't change anything. So I think it's actually a pretty bold move. And I do find when I do Google search those AI overviews are actually quite helpful.

[Kara Swisher]

They've gotten better. They were bad and now they're good.

[Scott Galloway]

You said that, you said you like them.

[Kara Swisher]

I do.

[Scott Galloway]

So it's. I, I think it's the right thing. They have to respond. They have to push back. The reason why Alphabet was such an incredible buy trading at 17 times earnings last year was the market believed that OpenAI and AI queries were a an existential threat to search. That it was because going to become the new search. And what we're saying is they're both growing like crazy. But I find that I do oftentimes go to Claude instead of Google.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, exactly. And Google just never gives me what I want anymore. It's useless in some ways. But when I look for how do you boil an egg? Or I don't do that but how many minutes for a jammy egg? I'll go to Google. But now actually I might go to Claude. You're right. I might do that. So they kind of have to. You're right. I know people are bothered but they have to change. You're absolutely right. Next up, President Trump abruptly postponed signing an executive order on AI after former AI czar David Sachs reportedly voiced concerns it could prove too onerous for the industry. He got back. He had lost power. Then he got it back. I guess the order would have granted the government oversight on a new AI models before they released to the public. Very temporary oversight by the way, and some of it was voluntary. AI companies also been told that Trump was not happy that many of their chief executives could not attend attend the signing. That's probably more to the point being invited just 24 hours prior. I don't think this order will resurface. There was a brief attempt by certain people within the Trump administration who were more interested in safety issues and David got in there and so did Zuckerberg and someone else. I can't remember who it was. A third person who got in there and convinced him otherwise. Wise Elon. It was Elon.

[Scott Galloway]

This was. I thought it was a good idea. The order would have required AI labs to share frontier models with the government 90 days before public release for security review. That seems like a very important and basic first step for any of this. I mean, something that really struck me was the founders of this technology, the people that know more about it than any in the world, are saying that this technology is potentially more liberated than nuclear fusion and potentially more dangerous. So here's a technology that the people who understand it the best are saying is potentially more dangerous than nuclear weapons. We didn't let Oppenheimer start a company and start selling bombs to China.

[Kara Swisher]

That's a good comparison. That's actually a very good.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, I think there's a really decent rational argument that if in fact you have something that is potentially more dangerous than any weapon in history, wouldn't you want the government controlling it?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, we want it to be part of the decision.

[Scott Galloway]

We're not only not controlling it, it's not only done under the auspices of the Department of Defense, cooperating with the private sector or Lawrence Livermar Labs or what have you. We have people trying to go public and who have lawyers and lobbyists, many of whom stepped in here to say, you know, we all talk about the need for regulation. We've been to this movie before. We talk about show up and stand next to the Pope and say, and cosplay Sheryl Sandberg. We need to do better. We need to regulate. We are open to regulation. And then, oh no, get on the phone, tell him no, tell him, tell him to stop. Tell him his big bet on AI 93% of GDP growth is now from AI capex. Can't do anything to get in the way. And if you slow our runners down the free games anabolic steroid pumped up Chinese models are going to come for us and beat us. And there's no truth to that. And if they did this correctly and they had standards, government review might actually make the industry better and make them less prone. You know, regulation at this point would be a feature, not a bug in terms of capitalism. And these companies ability to know how to develop what they can, what they can't do, what they need to check. But a 90 day review, I know, I know. It takes a drug a decade to get through the fda.

[Kara Swisher]

Exactly. It's ridiculous. I just. There's a real beef going on in the administration and Sachs is on one side and some others are on the the others. And we'll see. You know, eventually this will happen for these companies. They just want to put it off as long as they can. And Sachs is not working for the safety of the United States or anything else. He's working for his friends in Silicon Valley.

[Scott Galloway]

You know who's actually increasing AI legislation and regulation? China.

[Kara Swisher]

China. They are. That's right.

[Scott Galloway]

The Beijing State council issued a 2026 legislative work plan in May with AI governance language appealing and about jobs because

[Kara Swisher]

they know what will happen if people. People feel adrift in China. That's not something that can happen. You're absolutely right. They're so much smarter in how they handle these things, which is really a depressing thing to say.

[Scott Galloway]

They released, they enacted binding rules on AI, emotional interaction, identity, disclosure and content.

[Kara Swisher]

They read the Pope, you know, Anyway,

[Scott Galloway]

we've passed zero AI legislation.

[Kara Swisher]

00. Except in the states. And there's more to come. There's a real anger brewing. And it is not. And it's not. It's something a Democratic candidate should not like kill the billionaires kind of thing or pitchforks. But there's a pitchforky. I was just talking to Tim Miller on his podcast and he feels a pitchforky moment. And that's not what you want. You want something that makes sense. And unfortunately, because the tech people just can't possibly accept any kind of stricture or speed limit, they're going to unfortunately get the worst, the worst outcome for themselves eventually. But probably they'll be just fine.

[Scott Galloway]

Just as Lincoln said, no country can lose a war when it has public support. No country can win a war when it doesn't have it. If you look at what China has done with AI and it has released a series of legislative policies and around emotional security, concentration of power, and it's made them public. The difference is a false following. The Chinese now support AI. 87% of Chinese people trust AI, versus just 32% of Americans. Because why? Because the Chinese believe that their government has the ability to protect them against AI and is regulating the technology effectively. 54% of Chinese people embrace greater use of AI versus just 17% of Americans. And 9 in 10 Chinese age 18 to 34 said they had faith in the technology, versus 4 in 10 of

[Kara Swisher]

Americans in the same age group and young people particularly. I mean, good job, David Sachs, everybody.

[Scott Galloway]

So you have the populace of China is embracing AI and trusts it and trusts that they have a government to kind of soften the edges or reduce some of the externalities. Whereas in the US you have people driving hundreds of Miles to protest a fucking data center.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, agree.

[Scott Galloway]

So that you want to talk about. We just get it so bass ackward.

[Kara Swisher]

We think. Well, it has to do with tech people being up in Trump's grill and controlling him.

[Scott Galloway]

That's right.

[Kara Swisher]

That's the case.

[Scott Galloway]

And Trump believing that a lack of regulation. He doesn't understand that in the streets.

[Kara Swisher]

He moved toward it though. Why did he move toward it? Why was he gonna. It's really interesting. There's just largely probably because they wouldn't show up to his party. That's my guess with him. Cuz he's so ridiculous. But in any case, we have to move on to this because this is a topic that you've talked about. Uber's COO says it's hard to draw a connection between the company's rising use of CLAUDE code and the exposure expense, especially the tokens and innovation meant to serve consumers. This comes after reports the company already burnt through its entire 2026 AI coding tools budget. This is to buy tokens in just four months. This is one of these indications you were talking about, right? This idea that what are we getting here for our money? Am I paying too much for this muffler? That kind of stuff.

[Scott Galloway]

There are 95% of CFOs in an interesting study done by a professor out of MIT said that only one in 20 CFOs can point to a positive ROI. And it's starting to bubble up into a real expense. And there's even Nvidia is claiming they're spending more now on AI internally than they're spending on humans. And so it's going to be very interesting, Cara, because for example, Claude is about nine times more expensive than some of the Chinese Open Weight LLC. And when the CFOs see these bills and aren't immediately able to connect it, Uber's blown through its AI budget, you know, in a few weeks or a few months. And someone's going to ask how is this making the consumer's experience with Uber better? And this is how the whole thing unwinds. One a really credible CEO says, okay, we're going to scale back our investment here until we can figure out a way to more directly attach it to some sort of consumer benefit or roi. And I think where if you go second and third order effects, I think it goes the following places. Supposedly 80% of startups are hacking or using some sort of Chinese Open Weight LLM. One, they use less expensive chips, they have cheaper power. I also think they're pricing it below market because A lot of local provinces in China have sort of their local champions that they're subsidizing. And I think what we're going to see is the Trump administration when they start to see companies opt for their cheaper Chinese models. We've been to this movie before. China steals our IP, develops 80% of what we have and sells it back to us for 40% on the dollar.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. I'm going to interject. One of the things Mark Cuban had when I was interviewing Dario Emodi at a recent event, I said, send me a question. And I said I had just written his essay, Dario's essay, Machines of Loving Grace. And Mark wrote me this. The first thing he wrote me back was explain the token economy to everyone here. Do you see a scenario where the high cost of token makes it cheaper to hire people for certain jobs? I thought that was a great qu. I did ask that. It was a really. He was already clocking this, this issue that maybe people are more, less expensive than this token. These tokens that costs. And tokens are what you spend on computing just for people who don't know.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, humans are less expensive and.

[Kara Swisher]

Or can be.

[Scott Galloway]

I mean, Claude. I think it's Claude Code max or cloud max. I've already run out of tokens. I'm playing with this shit so often. I had one of those prompts that says you need to upgrade to CL Max, which is $200 a month.

[Kara Swisher]

What's interesting, do you get the benefits? Do you get the benefits of the money you spend or just you're playing

[Scott Galloway]

with it at this point? It's well worth it for me. I'm just fascinated by it. I have discussions around.

[Kara Swisher]

It's a hobby.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. And I also use it to. I use it to find data. If I'm struggling. If I have a paragraph that just sounds clunky, I say, I say, how would you edit this? Or what analogies would be better?

[Kara Swisher]

You know, you could call me for free and I would probably do a better job.

[Scott Galloway]

You're not available and by the way, define free. I actually think, I'm just saying, in terms of economic costs, I would say it's free. In terms of non economic costs, I would argue you're pretty expensive.

[Kara Swisher]

Anyway, we have to move on.

[Scott Galloway]

As Sitting Bull said, what is free, white man?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh.

[Scott Galloway]

Anyways, but what's interesting, what I found out about CloudMax, the $200 a month thing that I'm about to upgrade to, is that it costs them for you to use CloudMax, it costs Anthropic $5,000 a month. Month to deliver that product to you.

[Kara Swisher]

Amazing.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. Just the cost on infrastructure and power.

[Kara Swisher]

Once we sell more volume, we'll make it up in volume. Right? Is that the.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, no. What they're hoping is the laws. One of the first economic concepts you learn comes down is that. And it's called. It's not Jehovah's Paradox. I forget this guy wrote a brilliant paper on it, but I just thought. He just summarized the term elasticity. But the economic term elasticity is that as the price of something goes down, the demand for it goes up, up. And everybody thought, well, as computing power goes down and becomes so cheap, chips will go out of business because you won't need as many from Intel. And what happens is as the cost of something goes down, more and more people use it. And there's a viable argument, and I've sort of been making this argument about what I call apocalypse. No. And that is all the catastrophizing around labor destruction is total bullshit that as the costs of AI go way down, we're going to find more uses for it and we're actually going to end up hiring more programmers or vibe codes. Could be.

[Kara Swisher]

I do think the costs are going to actually go down eventually, but just not today. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about elon possibly combining SpaceX and Tesla. Just as Kara Swisher predicted,

[Scott Galloway]

Support for the show comes from hims. If you have weight loss goals, you already know how difficult it can be. Enter weight loss by himss. It's designed to support you not only in losing weight, but keeping it off as well. And now HIMSS is offering access to access to affordable range of FDA approved GLP1 medications, including the Wegovy pill and the WeGovy pen. With WeGovy at HIMSS, you can lose up to 20% or more of your body weight. When combined with diet and exercise, it can help you regulate your appetite and eat less. So success is within reach. Plus, WeGovy is the first ever GLP1 pill for weight loss, so there are no needles needed. Plus Hims is everything online. You'll connect with a licensed provider who will determine if treatment is right for you. Ready to reach your goals? Visit himss.com pivot to get personalized affordable plan that gets you. That's H I M S.com pivot himss.com pivot Weight loss by HIMS is not available in all 50 states. WeGovy is a registered trademark of Novo Nordisk as to get started and learn more, including important safety information, wegovy, clinical study information restrictions, visit himss.com Support for the show comes from Coreweave. AI isn't just a new tool, it encompasses so much more. It's spurring a revolution across all industries and reshaping itself to become a big part of our future. Together, coreweave is at the center, powering some of the biggest names in AI as the essential cloud for AI. Coreweave provides an AI platform that combines next generation infrastructure, intelligent tools and expert support. It's powering the world's most complex AI workloads faster and more efficiently. From medical research and diagnosis to education, from complex visual effects, from movies to breakthroughs in science and technology. Technology. If it's AI, Core Weave is uniquely ready to power it. With purpose built tech, the big ideas, the wild visions and what ifs and why nots, coreweave is working to build what's never been built before. Coreweave is the essential cloud for AI. Ready for anything, ready for AI to learn more about how Core Weave powers the world's best AI, go to coreweb.com readyfor anything.

[Kara Swisher]

Hi, I'm Maria Sharapova, host of the Pretty Tough podcast. Each episode I sit down with high achieving women to discuss the pursuit of excellence without apology. This week on the show, clinical psychologist and founder Dr. Becky Kennedy and I unpack what it really means to raise kids today. I think parenting is the most important job in the world and the one that has the most impact on your world and the world. It is nonstop. Check out Pretty Tough new episodes on Wednesdays. You can watch it on YouTube or listen in your favorite podcast app. Scott we're back with more news. As SpaceX prepares to go public, rumors are again circulating that Elon Musk will eventually combine the company with Tesla. Obviously. God, I mean, we're not speaking, but I know how this guy thinks. Musk has reportedly discussed the possibility with colleagues. Two companies are already share engineers and collaborate. There's all kinds of cross stuff that a lot of sketchy cross stuff if you recall at the time when he took over Twitter and collaborated on power and compute issues. Also, by the way, SpaceX got a $2.29 billion contract to build a satellite communications network to connect military sensors and weapons platforms around the world. They have to deliver an operational prototype by the end of 2027. So he's doing well. He's doing well with his help of Trump, et cetera. It's a mutual benefit society for Them. But this putting Tesla in here, it just makes complete sense, is that he's. Someone said it was like it was mortgage backed securities. A bunch of companies that can't pay wrapped around Elon Musk and a company that's okay, which is Starlink. So it's like a sort of a collection. And so he's shoving this stuff all together. It makes sense. On a data point of view. It makes sense. Sense to hide a bunch of stuff. He already had these weird, very questionable transactions like buying Cybertrucks for SpaceX, which makes no sense except if you want to look good. So why not just mash the whole fucking thing together and then make everybody buy it who is in an index fund, which is another thing. So any of these comments, the contract, the merger, the NASDAQ situation.

[Scott Galloway]

Well you did predict it, but my analogy is the following. Snow White is hot and the prospect of getting to marry Snow White is super exciting. It's no wide of SpaceX, but unfortunately to buy SpaceX you got to take on these seven weirdos who are expensive and neurotic and I mean Xai, which has been attached onto SpaceX, an incredible company, is a money furnace that's playing catch up.

[Kara Swisher]

And SpaceX trying to be an infrastructure provider now. So is Meta, by the way, but go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

And SpaceX, I'm sorry. And Tesla. I still think Tesla's a great product. I got them one the other day and I do think they have a fantastic car. But it's a struggling business with a multiple of 192 times forward earnings. And Apple trades at 33 times forward earnings. And then if you look at Tesla's just business in Europe, sales have fallen for 13 consecutive months. Its market share in Europe has gone from 1% to 0.8% while the EV market has expanded about 30% in 2025. In Norway, sales are down 90. Netherlands down 80%. UK down 50%. Meanwhile, BYD registrations are up 260% in Europe. And the reason why, its valuation.

[Kara Swisher]

I didn't say it was a bad car, I said he didn't innovate in it. There was another new cars and BYD keeps innovating. Every time you see a new one you're like cool. Tesla's the same, pretty much the same car for the past and then they deliver cybertruck as their innovation. Innovation. So that's my beef.

[Scott Galloway]

Stocks are like brands and that is they're part promise and part performance. And the promise no one articulates and gets more cheap capital on the Promise part of that equation than Elon Musk. He's arguably the best salesperson and communicator in the history of the public markets. And the promise, though the performance is like so far behind the promise, for example, these things have not. The promise has not worked out. So Robotaxi miles, they doubled sequentially in Q1, but he was saying that there would be a thousand robo taxis on the road about five years ago. Across all three Texas cities where robo taxis operate, Tesla has just 25 unsupervised vehicles. I mean none. Right. Meanwhile, their SF robotaxi service still uses a safety monitor in the front seat and there are five more cities on the way. But Musk's timelines famously cannot be trusted. Trusted. And then, and then he tries to create all of these distractions. Look over here at robots. I'm staying, I'm staying in Beverly Hills, in Los Angeles. If I go to my, my deck, I can see a Waymo. They're everywhere.

[Kara Swisher]

In La Cara, there's actually fewer of the Tesla taxis. Robo taxis in Austin, they've cut them back.

[Scott Galloway]

And then the worst car release or you know, the worst tech product the last year was the Cybertruck, which by the way is about to be bested by one of the great brands in history. You're about to see one of the biggest brand failures in history and that is the equivalent equivalent tech has literally like infected so many things and it's infected one of the purest brands in the world. It's infected. Ferrari, the new electric Ferrari is about to be just panned.

[Kara Swisher]

It was. Yeah, yeah, it's getting panned right now.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, it's going to be Johnny I've.

[Kara Swisher]

The Johnny I've divided.

[Scott Galloway]

It's going to be one of the brand stories of the year.

[Kara Swisher]

They said it looks like a Honda, right?

[Scott Galloway]

It's basically, they said Apple gave up on their Project Titan and they slapped a. They slapped a stallion on it. You're going to see, oh my God, you're going to see the Ferrari pure. You're going to see so many 80 year old old men going on to TikTok for the first time in their lives to shit post this thing. And SpaceX, get this, SpaceX accounted for nearly 20% of Cybertruck sales in Q4, 2025 because he bought back a bunch of cyber trucks. So I think it's smart for him to do. It's more jazz hands, it's more pretending, attaching something to something amazing to try. I mean he's very good at this and you predicted it. But to take put Elon on top of something that's very exciting around rockets, data centers in space rockets. Yeah. And he is a visionary. We need to be an interplanetary species.

[Kara Swisher]

And now you have to buy it with nasdaq. Explain to people very briefly what that is so people understand the index fund issue is that they've lowered the amount of time before big IPOs go into the index, and now people are going to be forced to buy his company. Also OpenAI, also anthropic, etc.

[Scott Galloway]

So basically the rule was before you joined the S and P, you had to be profitable for a certain amount of quarters and you had to be in the index for at least a year. They've waved those rules because they realized and it makes sense, they're big important companies. What that means is if you invest in an ETF or an index, you're automatically own these companies at those prices and at these prices, at these valuations. I would argue, argue, I mean, to a certain extent, the IPO markets might be over. And that is the way I see it, is the reason we went public, the reason Google went public, was you couldn't raise three or five billion dollars from venture capitals and private institutions in 1997. Now there's almost as much capital, if not more, in the private market. So logically, you have to ask yourself, why does a company decide to go public? And one reason, it's a branding event. Two, it creates more liquid currency potentially. But these companies have very liquid currency on the secondary market markets. They do it because I think, largely speaking, and they don't want to say this out loud, once the private investors go, look, this thing's getting pretty frothy. Most of the juice has been squeezed out of it. Well, who is stupid enough to take the valuation even further up? Well, okay, the last stop on the Trump train right now is the public markets. So typically, a company like OpenAI would have gone public when it was worth 30 or 50 billion, but the existing investors of OpenAI and Anthropic say, oh, no, no, no, no, they're still juicier. Or let's keep this to ourselves and we'll find you capital. And then when they start going, wow, this valuation is rich for even us. Let's go see if mom and pop retail investor and people on Robinhood and people on Reddit who love Elon and people around the world who want to participate in the economy are actually willing to invest. My prediction is these three companies, especially AI, are going to Go through a pretty serious repricing. Not a collapse like a 2000 collapse, but a repricing. And then when you combine that with the fact that you now have access to private companies with different secondary markets, potentially the tokenization of small companies, it's just going to make the IPO less and less relevant because of the reporting standards. And this is the indices trying to say we want to make it more attractive for companies to go public and also reflect the S and P should reflect.

[Kara Swisher]

I get it. It's just that people shouldn't have an unprofitable company with. With held up by one guy shoved down their throat without. It's like getting the U2 album.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, but you don't say that is P and G shoved down their throat. It's the same thing.

[Kara Swisher]

It is, but it's a profitable company. It's been a business like let's just give it a shot.

[Scott Galloway]

But the best returns have been in companies that are growing faster and not profitable.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes it is. And at the same time let them buy it themselves then. I mean it just seems like a risky thing to stick in there this quickly. That's all. I just, I'm like it's gonna benefit the people, it's gonna benefit Elon Musk, but maybe not the pensioners funds of nurses. Like I don't know. And I just don't think that risk is necessary.

[Scott Galloway]

In a weird way there's so many dynamics at play.

[Kara Swisher]

Or my index fund. I don't want to own SpaceX. I don't want to not right.

[Scott Galloway]

I mean if you look, if you look at the valuation of these companies going public, it's going to be combined $4 trillion. It's like from 1980 to 2020, the amount of money being raised just across these three companies Y is. It's just staggering. And what it probably will do in the short run run is it'll probably take the S and P down because so much money is going to come from every corner of the earth to participate in these things to raise $150 million. The rest of the market feels that. If you want to talk about, I mean what happens. I'm fascinated by this because what happens when these three companies go public? 11,000 people in the Bay Area are overnight. Imagine everyone who goes walks into Madison Square Garden places sold out. Everyone who walked in was a 31 year old product manager making $180,000 or $240,000 a year. Good living, but some student debt, can't afford a house and they walk out on the worst, 7 to 11 million dollars. What happens? They have more kids, they buy a new house. As evidenced by skyrocketing prices upside here, you're going to see a lot of funds started. There's also tremendous new business development. The other thing you're going to see, which is, again, you are about to see the mother of all increases in philanthropic giving in the Bay Area, one would hope. Well, I do. People do. These people do start foundations.

[Kara Swisher]

Let me just say, if you look at the actual statistics, it's Mackenzie Scott, which is an enormous graph, like a big long bar. And then all the others, including Elon Musk down here.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm not talking about the big ones. I'm talking about a lot of people. Americans are very generous philanthropists. People. And when all of these people. Sorry, I'm not talking. There's two things here. When you do have this kind of liquidity event, you do see a bump up in philanthropy.

[Kara Swisher]

Sure.

[Scott Galloway]

Philanthropy is almost entirely correlated now, unfortunately, to big IPOs in the stock market. And a lot of people give stock to universities, Tax advantage universities. That's what I've done. Every time I invest in a private company, I give a certain amount of it away to one of my public education or teen suicide prevention.

[Kara Swisher]

We gotta move on, but we'll see where it goes. But it's a really interesting time and I think Scott's right. There's going to be a decline in a lot of these anyway. But it's a really interesting time given all three of these are going at once. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Pregnant athletes are not fragile. Yeah, that's right. I said pregnant. Ah. I am rabbinatisson VPN head instructor at Peloton, and I PR'd my deadlift the week before my son was born. I was also a, quote, geriatric type 1 diabetes pregnancy. And so I know there can be a lot of fear and uncertainty about what is healthy movement when you're pregnant. That is why I got trained in pre and postnatal fitness. And this week on my podcast, Project Swagger, I am sharing some key guidelines and the snow story of how I stayed active during my pregnancies. Listen now at Project Swagger. Hey, girl, it's Teffy. This week on Teffy Talks, we're talking Kendall and Jacob reality TV villain Spencer Pratt running for mayor and a look inside the Cannes Film Festival. Mind you, I bought the majority of my crystals from Pratt. Daddy crystals. Incredible quality. But I never thought he'd be running for mayor and it does pain me to say the words proud Daddy. If you're not already following the show, find us everywhere at Taffy Talks. Subscribe on YouTube and all the podcast platforms and Instagram and TikTok so you can share with your other work. Bestie. See ya. In the span of a decade, Ben Shapiro built the Daily Wire into a conservative media empire. He produced hit podcast that bit at liberal excesses and documentaries and lectures about the founders, the genders, the gospels. He peddled polos, hats, candles, provided a home for deplatformed conservative stars like Matt Walsh and minted stars like Candace Owens. Let's put a pin in that. The Daily Wire even has kids programming a judgmental puppet named Zoodles Zoodles who share Shapiro's load bearing eyebrows. This year, though, the empire showed signs of collapse. The Daily Wire's YouTube videos are down from millions of views to the low five figures. Web traffic is plummeting, and recently Shapiro laid off 13% of his employees. Asked by the Washington Post what had happened, Shapiro accused other conservatives of click whoring by embracing radical Islam, theorizing about the evils of Winston Churchill, and mocking the widow of Charlie Kirk. The kid still got it on Today explained. The fall of Ben Shapiro Today explained. Drops every weekday afternoon. Okay, Scott, I'm going to start just very quickly. I want to call out something that happened two things quickly. CBS News just named tech journalist Nick Bilton as the new executive producer of 60 Minutes. Bilton is a longtime tech journalist and filmmaker who's never worked in traditional broadcast news. I know Nick. Interesting. It'll be interesting to see what he's gonna do there. This comes on the heels of 60 Minutes correspondent Sharon Alfonsi announcing that CBS declined to renew contract. She's an excellent reporter. She did great stuff on character, AI. She's been a wonderful reporter. The move comes six months after Alphonse's report on abuse inside Salvadoran prisons was abruptly pulled before airing a month later. The time Alfonsi called the decision political. And it certainly was. In a statement, she said she did a really like she just burnt the house down. Leaving, Alfonsi said the exit is, quote, a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, she added, sends a chilling message across the entire newsroom. And by the way, Sharon's not the only one. Anderson Cooper stepping out the way he is not usually leaving a few weeks ago saying, I hope 60 minutes remains 60 minutes. He also was sending sort of a shot across the bow there. I just want to call it these two excellent journalists of 60 Minutes and Sharon's a badass, I know her, just met her on text actually. And Anderson I think has done an amazing job. So these are two really, really great journalists and I, I predict that they will do just fine but good for speaking out and especially good there was a student who won an award at the Emmys last night, was named a scholarship for Mike Wallace and he delivered a blistering attack on supporting these two journalists and supporting others like them. And I thought that person was incredibly. It's very hard to speak out and Anderson and Sharon and this young student did so and I really, you guys will do job of Anderson particularly. But in general, good for you for standing up. That's all to say prediction.

[Scott Galloway]

I think it's a really interesting, it'll be a really interesting case study in organizational behavior and management classes in business school. And that is corporations continue to fall for the notion that if they bring in a small company they perceive as really innovative that that small virus is going to infect the entire corpus. And generally, almost always what you find is that the corpus rejects the virus. It's like acquisitions work when the acquir company has the scale and distribution or capital to help scale the small innovative company. But to believe that the innovation is going to infect the larger corporation or corpus almost never works out.

[Kara Swisher]

That's an interesting story.

[Scott Galloway]

That's an interesting story. So let's give the free press the benefit of the doubt. Innovative little company, subscription based. Interesting positioning and the Ellison's thought. That's the kind of mojo and juice and infection we need at this larger, somewhat encephalitic corpus called CBS or P. Paramount. There's been Oregon rejection. Also what CEOs of smaller companies fail to recognize is the following. And it's the reason why I've never been able to grow a big company to small companies. And that is a small company is ready for our aim. The person at the top really does get to make swift, crisp decisions. I am the decider. This is the way we're going. One of our key things here is speed, which means this is not a democracy. There's very few things that are less democratic than a small company trying to work fast or go fast. Because it's kind of like what do we think? Okay, get on it. Ready? Fire. Aim. Let's start yesterday. In a large organization that's scaling, it's more about consensus and getting people on board and culture. And you're a speedboat ramming a tanker. And what you fail to realize is the CEO of a company like this. And what I think Barry has failed to realize is you're Phil Jackson, the coach of the Bulls. And that is your job.

[Kara Swisher]

Job.

[Scott Galloway]

You're blessed with some unbelievable assets. Your job is not to coach Michael Jordan. It's to get along with him and be a resource for him. You're not in charge. They are, they're the assets. When you're Mikel Arteta and you're coaching Bukaya Saka at Arsenal, which by the way just won the Prem League, this is very exciting. When you come into an organization like CBS and you do have kind of these stars that are iconic, your job is to get along with them. And so I think.

[Kara Swisher]

But let me say 60 minutes have been enormously successful. It's not. That's my point. I mean, no, but I'm just saying like pretending it's just because they're encephalitics and this sassy new startup is going to change things. I think a lot of these errors are errors of incompetence, not of trying to change things. And these old people won't change. These are like top level journalists that were doing a great job and has had 52 years of success. Like, you know, they're doing well. It's not like they're not doing well.

[Scott Galloway]

So why I think we're speaking personally past each other, I'm agreeing with you. CBS is Michael Jordan, Barry Weiss is Phil Jackson. His job isn't to show up and reorganize and tell everyone how to dribble and play again. His job, quite frankly, is to get. The only management of CBS is the following. Hi, nice to meet you. How can I help? That's it. How can I help? And if the answer is go away and leave us alone, fine. If it's, we could use more resources here. We have trouble here. Or we don't think our advertisers. How can I help? That's it.

[Kara Swisher]

I love what you've. I'm sorry, I misunderstood. Let me say one of the things that happened at the Washington Post too. Blaming these reporters, like when Will Lewis was like trashing the reporters is like, it's such an easy thing to do for people who think they're innovative is like, you all suck. And some of, some of the things need to change. But to say it's a problem of it's a bigger secular problem problem. That's the issue in terms of costs and everything else. And so just telling people just breaking things is not building things. And that's that is really hard to do when you're. I. That's why we. I never want to be at a big company. I don't know about you, but I like being a small speedboat. And if you make mistakes, you make mistakes. If you don't, you don't. That's how I feel. But I don't know about you.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, yeah. And this is, this is the reason why I've never built a billion dollar company. I sell companies, you know, when they, as soon as they have a CFO or someone in hr, I'm like, time to sell.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

But having been involved with a lot of big companies, I just shocked me. It just shocked me right away. The first thing I thought, well, we should do this, this and this. And the CEOs were always okay. They really had to think about what would be required to get buy in, to potentially change the culture, to explain, be thoughtful, to create the right incentive mechanisms to ensure the behavior lined up. And I mean, you really are. There's some amazing, amazing things about a tanker. Right. It can carry whatever it is, 100 million barrels or 10 million barrels of a product. But you are, you know, you're steering a tanker and it takes a lot of effort and a big engine room and a lot of people. It's, it is a different. There's so few people that can go from A lot of people. I always say, where are you in the Alphabet? Are you from A to D? I'm good at A to D. Yeah, me too. Some people are good at coming in. My old CEO at L2, Ken Allard was good at kind of Dita, hi, your eye. And some people are. Can come into a company that's, you know, gone public. Dara Khasrowshahi is amazing at very good example. M8 is like great from L to S. He came into a company that was already jamming, scaling, huge infrastructure, huge brand, and said, okay, somebody needs to

[Kara Swisher]

build a lot of problems. Yeah, yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

And also there's some people who come into companies that are distressed who take a company from, you know, whatever it is, T to Z, that come in and cut costs and repackage something, take it through bankruptcy and make a lot of money.

[Kara Swisher]

Scott, your next book is the Alphabet of Management.

[Scott Galloway]

Alphabet of Business.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. All right. I want to hear your prediction, though.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm all confused and jet lagged right now, so I thought we were doing wins and fails. So it's okay. I'm going to do wins and fails, but my win is. And it just hasn't gotten enough Attention. And it's just so exciting and it's such a victory for the West. And I would argue it's actually in many ways while Iran has overshadowed it and inflation, people really don't understand that something incredibly wonderful is going on here. And that is. Three years ago Russia was supposed to take Kyiv in a weekend. And today Ukraine is striking Russian military infrastructure, oil refineries, ports, bomber bases and semiconductor plants, hundreds, sometimes more than a thousand kilometers inside of Russia. Putin is on the run.

[Kara Swisher]

He is. I told you when I told you that a couple weeks ago, that all these people said Russia, he's in much more trouble than you realize. But go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

Just recently they've hit the Ryazan refinery, one of Russia, Russia's largest fuel plants, supplying the military. The Tawopsi refinery in the Black Sea. They're going after ships, they're going after the Black Sea fleet oil infrastructure in Perm, 700 miles from the border. The Yazz Lavriv refinery, 700 kilometers inside of Russia and even the Engel strategic

[Kara Swisher]

region in this country, if that happened.

[Scott Galloway]

Jesus, if they started bombing coming oil fields in Texas, Buffalo or our military ships in San Diego, can you imagine?

[Kara Swisher]

No, no, no, those Canadians or Norfolk,

[Scott Galloway]

Virginia building our submarines. What if drones were hitting. I mean this is just incredible. And it's a function of drones, It's a function of. It's also, quite frankly, you know, we don't like to say this musk turning off Starlink in Russia has ceded huge advantage to the Ukrainian army.

[Kara Swisher]

That's always been a benefit, no question.

[Scott Galloway]

But it is just, I mean, if you think about this, what are they doing? They're producing thousands of long range drones per month. In 2024, in 25 they're doing 3,000.

[Kara Swisher]

They're going to be a huge technology country when this is all.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh yeah, they'll attract so much capital. Assuming, assuming you go there.

[Kara Swisher]

If I was a young person, that's exactly. The corruption is really quite impossible to deal with. But if I was a young person, I'd go there. But there are significant corruption problems within that government.

[Scott Galloway]

But there's a wonderful message being sent to the world and that is there's a brutal lesson for authoritarians. Corruption scales until it collides with reality and technology and in a motivated populace. Russia built the Potemkin village version of a superpower. Yachts, parades, always hypersonic missiles, shirtless horse cosplay. And the Ukrainians meanwhile, I like that part. The Ukrainians meanwhile built software, drones and engineers and just some numbers here to Just talk about how incredible this is. You're rushing them this morning. What? What?

[Kara Swisher]

I'm not rushing you.

[Scott Galloway]

Weirdo that you're fascinated with. Are you about to go interview?

[Kara Swisher]

I'm not. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to be in my friend of mine.

[Scott Galloway]

What is it? The ghost of Walter Mondale. Who's up next on. On with Kara swisher. Russia has three times the population, 10 times the economy, nuclear weapons, and one of the largest oil reserves in the world. And Ukraine is kicking its ass.

[Kara Swisher]

I know. I love it.

[Scott Galloway]

And Ukraine. What does Ukraine have? Ukraine has coders and hoodies turning Home Depot into Lockheed Martin. I mean, these guys.

[Kara Swisher]

Amazing.

[Scott Galloway]

So look, increasingly. And this is a lesson for us, unfortunately, right now, the future belongs to the side that can innovate faster than the other side can.

[Kara Swisher]

Like the Iranians with the boats and the drones and the.

[Scott Galloway]

So that's my win. And it hasn't got enough attention. This is so exciting for the west, for Ukraine.

[Kara Swisher]

Can I make one caveat? If Putin feels cornered and scared, he might do something terrible. Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

That's the fear.

[Kara Swisher]

You know, that. That's. That, to me, is the biggest thing.

[Scott Galloway]

Unless you're gonna annihilate your enemy, you gotta give him a way out.

[Kara Swisher]

That's what.

[Scott Galloway]

That's Sun Tzu.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, but I don't think he thinks that. I think he's terrified.

[Scott Galloway]

But this is a victory for. Also for the eu, who has been steadfast in their support, unlike Americans. I just. It's. It's just very exciting.

[Kara Swisher]

Trump will back him if they win. He'll go like, oh, I'm with the winners.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm with them. I was always behind you.

[Kara Swisher]

I was behind them. All right, what's your fail?

[Scott Galloway]

My fail is I just. I think the best way. Timothy Snyder summarized it perfectly. I've been trying to figure out a way to describe what is effectively a $1.8 billion slush fund that Trump and his. His spokesperson Blanch have been trying to pitch. And even. Even some Republicans are finally blanching. And the best way to describe it is a terrorist immunization fund, and that is commit violence on my behalf, and I will not only legally protect you, I will pay you. In addition to the corruption, it sends a signal to weirdos out there who are cult members that if something gets in the way of Trump, whether it's people turning out to a poll booth, whether it's people showing up to inaugurate the other guy, which I'm claiming was not fairly elected, I Want you to commit acts of violence. I want you to engage in terrorism.

[Kara Swisher]

You will get off.

[Scott Galloway]

And you will not only get off, I'm going to pay you. So this is not a slush fund. This is not only corruption, it's a terrorist immunization fund.

[Kara Swisher]

I love that word.

[Scott Galloway]

And that is the way I can't take credit for it. It's Timothy Snyder, who's one I'm just obsessed with and I've had on the pot a couple times, who's at the University of Toronto and talks a lot about democracy and autocracies. He's fantastic. And he's very, very brave.

[Kara Swisher]

He's the dude. Heather Cox Richardson.

[Scott Galloway]

But this is. That's right. But this is. Imagine if a nation in the Gulf found name your terrorist organization and said, you blow yourself up or you commit acts of violence, not only will not prosecute you, we've set aside money for you.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. Well, they kind of did that.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, the PLO used to do that. The PLO used to say, any suicide bomber, we're going to give their family X amount of dollars. That's what this is.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

And it's. Anyways, I hope the Democrats adopt the president.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't think it's gonna pass. I don't. I think the Republicans tell us the others are all very much against it.

[Scott Galloway]

There's a lot in all of these hearings. Why do you support the Terrorist Immunization Fund? They should absolutely label it. That's what. That's what this is. Anyways, that's my fail.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Terrorist Baking Fund, maybe Immunization. Anyway. All right, that's great. Those are both great. And you're gonna have to have new ones for Monday, just so you know. We wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551, pivot before we go, I'm taping a live interview of on with Kara Swisher at the Rebecca Film Festival on Monday, June 8. It is not.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, someone's got their nose off Murdoch's ass.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I'm not. Hi, you, boss. I was booked before the deal. Months ago. Anyway, instead of Walter, you're not invited to the special dinner with Robert De Niro, but I am. I'll be talking to comedian, actor and podcast pioneer Marc Maron. Not Mar Mondale.

[Scott Galloway]

The original gangster.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes. Thank you. Yeah, the originals. He's. He's really quite a legend. And he has. There's a new doc about him. And he's also a great actor and funny comedian. Everything else, he loves to chat.

[Scott Galloway]

My favorite statement of his, my favorite, and I use it all the time. He's like, you realize Democrats literally annoyed America into fascism. I love that.

[Kara Swisher]

Anyway, he's great. He's really great. Tickets are available now at the rebecca film.com audio. What Scott's referring to is the Murdochs. James Murdoch owns Tribeca. We will see you there. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure. Pivotarian. Become a pivotarian. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week.

[Scott Galloway]

Today's show was produced by Larry Amen, Joy Marcus, Taylor Griffin and Todd Wiseman. Ernie Intertodd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Jabros, Mr. Ferri and Dan Shalonda, Shock Cruise, Fox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to find follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Pivotarian. Pivotarian. Have sex. Have sex with the cult leader. That's okay.

[Kara Swisher]

No.

[Scott Galloway]

Cut off all contact with your parents. Give us all your money and. Yeah, no, I'm into it. Pivotarian.

[Kara Swisher]

Good luck in LA tonight, Scott.