Colleges Push Back, Ozempic Price Promise, and White House vs. Anthropic

Summary

Pivot Podcast Summary

Podcast: Pivot
Hosts: Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway
Episode: Colleges Push Back, Ozempic Price Promise, and White House vs. Anthropic
Date: October 21, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode features Kara Swisher reporting from Las Vegas and Scott Galloway, as the duo unpacks major stories across technology, business, and politics. The conversation circles around ongoing nationwide protests, colleges rebelling against Trump administration mandates, the White House’s targeting of Anthropic on AI regulation, the price war over Ozempic, recent cybersecurity threats, and the broader tensions between tech power and government oversight. Swisher and Galloway's trademark banter is on full display, with plenty of personal anecdotes—ranging from Vegas nostalgia to drug breakthroughs—underscoring the episode's layered discussion on power, accountability, and societal change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Vibes from Las Vegas (02:05–06:32)

• Kara is in Vegas for an AI speech; observes the city is lively, though casinos aren’t jam-packed.
• Scott reminisces about youthful trips to Vegas, praising its affordability and appeal to retirees.
• The conversation detours humorously into Vegas oddities and strippers, then Kara discusses her upcoming trip to South Korea to speak about aging population challenges.

2. Demographic Crisis in Korea and Globally (06:32–09:19)

• Korea’s population is aging rapidly, and its government is proactively addressing these challenges with technology and planning.
• Scott: "Supposedly only 1 in 20 or 1 in 200 Koreans is going to have a grandkid... Women get more economically viable and...decide this whole kid thing kind of sucks for me, and they stop having children." (07:52)
• The discussion links demographic shifts to broader discussions about economic power, generational wealth gaps, and societal well-being.

3. No Kings Protests and Trump’s AI Trolling (13:54–19:29)

• Swisher describes the massive "No Kings" protests: 7 million+ people across 2,700+ events, marked by peaceful turnout and clever, satirical protest signs.
• Trump responds with an AI-generated video featuring crude imagery, trying to shift media focus.

Notable Quote:
Scott, summarizing the protest’s ethos:

"The no Kings protest isn't about hating America, but about loving it enough to defend it... This is one of those moments that defines who we are." (15:57)

• Scott: Warns against celebrating violence against political opponents; Kara finds the protest diverse and uplifting, contrasts it with Trump’s childish responses.

4. Colleges Push Back on Trump Administration's Higher Ed Compact (19:28–27:56)

• At least six colleges (MIT, Brown, Penn, USC, UVA, Dartmouth) rejected the administration’s "Compact for Academic Excellence," which would tie federal funds to controversial policy demands—including admissions quotas, limits on international students, and ideological compliance.
• Scott sees this as executive overreach:

  "Should the federal government threaten to withdraw funds unless [colleges] sign up to a series of standards—some of which include what sort of distills down to thought control or who you hire? ... Reducing the number of international students—just to riff on that for a moment, we lose a billion dollars for every 1% decrease in international enrollment." (20:31–22:07)

• Both agree: Universities must coordinate, litigate, and leverage alumni for funding to withstand government pressure.

5. White House and Anthropic: Regulatory Power Games (30:25–41:34)

• David Sacks (Trump’s AI advisor) attacks Anthropic’s Jack Clark for “regulatory capture based on fear mongering.” Kara finds this accusation deeply hypocritical and indicative of insider favoritism.
• Scott: “Every accusation is an admission... We have never seen regulatory capture like Big Tech showing up to the White House... For [Sacks] to say that because Anthropic has said ‘I'm not going to bend the knee on everything here’ is... He didn't write this, the White House wrote this.”
• Both critique the administration’s open corporate favoritism, concern over government picking tech winners, and the infusion of personal religious narratives (Peter Thiel’s “Antichrist” speeches) into regulatory debate.

Memorable Moment:
Kara:

"The weirdest thing this week was these stories of Peter Thiel... warning it could summon the Antichrist if we stop [AI]." (36:05)

6. Ozempic Pricing & GLP-1 Drug Revolution (43:04–52:56)

• Trump claims Ozempic prices will fall to $150/mo (versus ~$1,000), causing stock tumbles. Dr. Oz, now in federal service, tempers expectations.
• Scott: Declares GLP-1 drugs the most impactful tech of 2024, even more so than AI:

  "If you were to stop 10 people on the street in America and find 10 hardcore users of AI and 10 people on GLP1 drugs... GLP1's having a much bigger impact on people than AI." (47:03)

• Swisher: Shares moving story of a nurse transformed by GLP-1 therapy, underscoring need for access and support for lifestyle changes—not shame.

Strong Insight:
Scott argues for sweeping, government-negotiated pricing to make these drugs accessible as a public good, comparing the life-changing effects to the introduction of Accutane for acne.

7. Cybersecurity Threats – The F5 Breach (62:14–68:17)

• F5, a major network security provider, suffered a major breach attributed to Chinese state-backed hackers; risks to hundreds of major companies.
• Broader context: America’s cyber defense is strong in resources but poor in long-term strategy—"American mentality does not play the long game. The Chinese have a 50-year plan." (66:03)
• Swisher: Points out lack of transparency, government downplaying, and the interconnected vulnerability magnified by cloud and tech platform monopolies.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Kara Swisher (on billionaire influence in politics):

  "Rich people had far too much of an influence in both parties. Far too much. Far too much. And that's what's got to end." (84:11)

• Scott Galloway (on the need for unity among universities):

  "They need to say, 'Whatever this group decides, we are going along with.' Because how they lose is to be divided, pulled off one by one... The first thing is coordination. The second thing is litigation." (23:36)

• On GLP-1 drugs (Ozempic):

  "When you're obese in America on many levels, you're fucked... Let's give them GLP1 drugs. But when the industrial food complex... started to romanticize and celebrate obesity... You're not finding your truth. You're finding a fucking ventilator in diabetes." (50:41–54:20)

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Segment Timestamps

• Vegas Banter, Kara’s Travels: 02:05–09:19
• No Kings Protests & Trump Response: 13:54–19:29
• Colleges Stand up to Govt.: 19:28–27:56
• Anthropic vs. White House: 30:25–41:34
• Ozempic, GLP-1 Drugs: 43:04–52:56
• Cybersecurity & F5 Breach: 62:14–68:17
• Wins & Fails / Closing: 70:35–end

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Wins & Fails

Wins

• No Kings Protest: Massive, peaceful turnout signals American engagement and defense of democracy. (70:35)
• Philanthropic Accountability: Swisher commends Lorraine Powell Jobs and Ron Conway for speaking out against Marc Benioff’s National Guard comments. (75:17)
• Entertainment: Swisher lauds 'The Diplomat' Netflix series for its writing and performances. (77:51)

Fails

• George Santos Pardon: Trump commutes sentence of disgraced former congressman, undermining justice and clemency’s purpose. (73:42)
• Big Tech’s Global Impact: Tech companies’ data centers trigger blackouts, water shortages, and lack transparency, especially in vulnerable communities. (75:17)
• Tech-Safety Pushback: Resistance from tech industry leaders to safety measures and regulation, under guise of innovation. (75:17)

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Overall Tone and Takeaways

The episode balances humor, irreverence, and insight. Swisher and Galloway are critical of government overreach, tech plutocracy, and crony capitalism, but also highlight moments of collective action (No Kings) and medical innovation (GLP-1 drugs) that point to hope and resilience. The central thread is the urgent need for accountability—whether at the ballot box, in the halls of academia, or within technology’s most powerful boardrooms.

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For Further Listening:
Hear Bernie Sanders’ take on billionaire power in politics at [85:49]. For those interested in what motivates and depresses Galloway, start at his acne/Accutane story [56:08]. For a snapshot of how AI and Big Tech money wars are fought in D.C., tune into the Anthropic segment [30:25–41:34].

Transcript

[Scott Galloway]

Support for the show comes from user testing. You can stop with the guessing because with user testing, you can test anything and learn everything from the people who matter most, your audience. Whether it's an ad campaign, a website prototype, or a brand new product feature, user testing helps you see and hear real reactions in just hours, not weeks. That means no guesswork and no wasted effort. Just insights you can act on right away. Teams use user testing to move faster, make smarter decisions and craft experiences people truly love. Real people, real reactions, real fast. Learn [e-mail] pivot.

[Kara Swisher]

Support for this show comes from Apple. Before it was Pivot, it was just an idea. And the place where my ideas could take flight was always on my Mac. I've been using a Mac for everything since I started using computers and of course an iPhone. I got one of the first ones. You know, I use my Mac all the time when I'm doing podcasts, especially when I was traveling. But I used it in the very beginning of doing podcasts when I did remote stuff. No matter what you have an idea for, whether it's an innovative piece of tech, a groundbreaking policy, or a short story concept you can't get out of your head, go for it. You just need to get started. Great ideas. Start on Mac. Find [e-mail] Mac.

[Scott Galloway]

Every great company's story is defined by moments when the founders make bold decisions. These are high stakes moments that risk the business, but can lead to greatness. I'm Rudlof Botha, Managing Partner of Sequoia Capital and the host of Crucible Moments. We're returning for a brand new season. Join us as leaders from Stripe, Zipline, Palo Alto Networks, Klarna Supercell and more. Share what it's actually like to navigate the make or break decisions. Crucible Moments is back on October 23rd. Until then, catch up on seasons one and two wherever you find your podcasts.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. You said short story. Go ahead, Go ahead. Oh my God. You're so. Okay. Oh my God. Where is this going? Hi everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

[Scott Galloway]

And I'm Scott Galloway.

[Kara Swisher]

Guess where I am.

[Scott Galloway]

I like this game. Where are you?

[Kara Swisher]

Las Vegas. Your favorite place? Vegas?

[Scott Galloway]

What are you doing in Vegas?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, I'm giving a speech at. Place you gave a speech at. I can't remember this. Stansbury. Anyway, I'm here to talk about AI. Of course. Cause that's the topic du jour of many of these events.

[Scott Galloway]

Nice.

[Kara Swisher]

I didn't do Anything in Vegas last night I went to sleep and I watched the Diplomat before that. That's what I did.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, really?

[Kara Swisher]

Entire evening? Yes.

[Scott Galloway]

I love Vegas. How does it feel?

[Kara Swisher]

To what?

[Scott Galloway]

Well, I mean, how does the mood. People say Vegas is dying because people now have Vegas in their pocket with their phones and people.

[Kara Swisher]

You know, it was full. You know, I was, I met Eight at the. I guess it's the Wynn, the one with all the trees that hang down. You know Las Vegas better than I do, but I'm staying at the Encore. That whole facility and it's. It was packed. I was surprised. It was very jolly. Although it wasn't. I wouldn't say the casino was packed, that's for sure. But it was, it wasn't like unful, I guess. I don't know. Is this the time of year for it to be full?

[Scott Galloway]

I think Vegas is pretty much a year round place around conventions and everything.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. I've only been here at like ces, so it's always full. It's not like that, like by any means like that whatsoever.

[Scott Galloway]

I used to go there. My friend Lee Lotus and I would get ridiculously fucking high and decided to am that it was a good idea to go to Vegas. And we jump in his Volkswagen Jetta.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

And head for five hours to.

[Kara Swisher]

Across the desert to Vegas.

[Scott Galloway]

Across the desert. And we'd stay at the Golden Nugget where they. Because they had this buffet for 9.99, you could basically eat for a good, you know, enough for a day or two.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

And we would always put $5 in the glove box so we had enough gas to get home because we knew we'd lose all our money.

[Kara Swisher]

And did you?

[Scott Galloway]

Oh yeah, that's part of the fun. Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

I was gonna go out and bet last night and then I got tired and I love Keri Russell, so.

[Scott Galloway]

So I always used to with Vegas, I would take my mother's boyfriend's cardigan because it was really, really plush and nice and I thought it made me look older.

[Kara Swisher]

They let you in here? They'd let like a 10 year old in here, wouldn't they? I mean they're kind of like.

[Scott Galloway]

They're much more strict now. I think back then they would. Now they're very, they're very strict. My favorite was there was a casino called Circus Circus to be family friendly.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Actually, I was, oddly enough. I texted Amanda and I said we're going to California for the, for Christmas and we have like a couple of days and it's either go to like LA and go to like a theme park or I was like, why don't we come to Vegas and watch the wizard of Oz and the Sphere with the K or something like that. Literally. And she didn't reject the idea because she's never been to Vegas. She didn't totally reject the idea.

[Scott Galloway]

It's the best place in the world for 36 hours and on an hour 37 it turns into the worst place in the world.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I thought we'd be kind of fun, go to the buffet and the kids would. It's so weird and strange. I thought they would enjoy it for a short time. And it's so. I know it sounds dumb, but it's kid oriented. Cause there's all the noises and things and you know, like it's sort of a nursery school for adults, I guess. I don't know.

[Scott Galloway]

It's also Vegas is. And I know firsthand, it's actually a wonderful place to retire because my mom, as you know, retired there on. During the middle of the week, say on a Tuesday or Wednesday you can go see, you know, the ABBA show or Cirque du Soleil and a dinner for like 14 bucks. They have all these local resident discounts on their off nights and you know, you basically can see world class theater concerts and they have very high end food for pretty low cost of living. It's actually. And it's the desert, which old people like. It's actually a really nice place to retire.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. And plus strippers, right? I mean, you know.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, well, no, I wouldn't know about that.

[Kara Swisher]

I used to go to that.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, I lost contact with her after 20 years about a year ago.

[Kara Swisher]

What's the club? The strippers? Yeah, that's where all the CES guys went and I went to and I ran into them and they'd lose their minds when they'd see me in the strip club. It was very funny.

[Scott Galloway]

I haven't been to a strip Club in 20 or 30 years. I have a. I have a general rule. I don't eat fast food or go to strip clubs in the city I live in.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. All right. Well we could do it on every night in the tour and stuff and see.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, that's not going to happen.

[Kara Swisher]

Anyway, I'm in Vegas. I'm leaving. I'm going to Korea this week, so.

[Scott Galloway]

Korea?

[Kara Swisher]

Going to Korea?

[Scott Galloway]

She, she had to stop this. Why are you going to Korea?

[Kara Swisher]

It's for the secret show. For the secret. Oh God, it's the last episode.

[Scott Galloway]

They wanted Korea's where I know. I know a bunch of women who take trips to Korea to look. Not look Korean, but to look younger, I guess. Korea, they're obsessed with beauty, and they're very good at it.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Yeah, they are. So we're going to do a little bit. There's. They're also have the. One of the most aging populations, and they're the. The country that's doing the most about it. Like, I'm going to be in an ex ectoskeleton or whatever. But they're planning a lot for their aging population in a really interesting way.

[Scott Galloway]

So they're bringing you over to inspire young people to start having sex. I missed the gap there. I missed the connection.

[Kara Swisher]

Anyway, I'm going to put some shrimp semens lotion on my face. That's what I'm doing. And I'm going to bring some back for you.

[Scott Galloway]

You know, there's a component of that that is appealing, but it's not. Yeah, yeah. I'm not even gonna go there. I feel like you're giving me so many softballs.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm giving them to you. I'm throwing them up. And you're not taking shrimp semen.

[Scott Galloway]

You could do nothing with shrimp semen. That is not the facial I imagine or want to see.

[Kara Swisher]

All right. Okay. Scallop semen. I don't know. They're gonna have, like, all kind. There's always the word semen in their. In their. In their facials or something. I'm assuming swimmers.

[Scott Galloway]

Supposedly only 1 in 20. Is it 1 in 20 or 1 in 200? Some scary low number of Koreans is going to have a grandkid. Because if basically, as women get more economically viable and quite frankly, get smarter, more educated, they decide this whole kid thing kind of sucks for me, and they stop having children. And essentially that book in the 70s that said that the world was going to overpopulate, collapse on itself, and that there was going to be a population bomb. Well, the bomb exploded. Except it didn't explode. It imploded. And we're having trouble figuring out how Western nations and democracies maintain population growth. And the percentage of young people to old people is just shrinking every year.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. Which is why, hence Kara's going to Korea to talk about it.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. And old people have this habit of voting themselves more money. And before you know it, young people are 24% less wealthy than they were 40 years ago, as they are in the U.S. and old people are 72% wealthier. And our society is kind of turning upside Down. And young people have no hope.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay, Elon Musk. Got it. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. No, I'm going to talk about this topic. This is the topic. This is the topic. Anyway, I. Last time I was there, I was with Walt when we were deciding where to have our Asia conference and Korea. We considered Seoul for a minute. I really do like Seoul, though. I don't know how many times you've been there, but I really like it a lot.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, I haven't been there and I haven't been there since business school. I'm kind of curious to go back and check it out.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm going to get on a bullet train. You know, things like that.

[Scott Galloway]

It should be before or after you get a facial.

[Kara Swisher]

All of it. All of it. I'm gonna do.

[Scott Galloway]

This is literally like. This is like a 12 step method to get me to stop watching you. Porn is I type in facial and I see you in Korea. It's literally. Okay, that's it. No more porn. I'm done. I'm cured anyway. I'm cured. I'm one of those people that doesn't drink and doesn't watch porn.

[Kara Swisher]

There's endless taping of tv. I see a.

[Scott Galloway]

Speaking of, Speaking of people who abstain, I was. I met. I met literally the woman of my dreams right after I moved to New York. I'm going to say her name because she's really a cool woman. Her name was Olivia Shantekai. This will get to her and she will absolutely freak out. And she had a cosmetics line. She was smart, she was funny, she was spectacular. And I was in full blown douchebag mode.

[Kara Swisher]

Because you had hair.

[Scott Galloway]

I had bought a house in the Hamptons with a sand beach volleyball court. Which gives you a sense of the mode I was in.

[Kara Swisher]

You're like a Sex and the City character.

[Scott Galloway]

I buy the house in the Hamptons. I am just optimized. I have a place in Miami. I'm just optimized for the random sexual encounters that did not materialize Olympics. Anyways, and I met this woman, Olivia at a party. And I worked it so hard. I would find out. I would try to accidentally be at party she was at. I'd lay on a little of the dog charm, a little like reticent humor. And I had this whole rap about I was a professor and whatever. I was trying so hard. And finally, finally I get her to go out on a date with me. And we went to this place. This is how clueless I was. We went to this place called Blue Water Grill, which might as well be like a corporation exploding into a restaurant, because I didn't know where to take her. And we sat down and we started talking, and the guy came over and he said, can I get you guys something to drink? And I said to her, yeah, I said, I'll have a. I said to her, I said, what would you like to drink? And she said, I don't drink. And literally, instinctively, I go, it's not gonna work. It's not gonna work. I can't.

[Kara Swisher]

Out loud.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, yeah. I'm like, it's not going to work. She's like, what? And I'm like, it's not going to work. We can be friends, but it's not going to work. And she's like, why? And I'm like, imagine this coming at you sober. It's just not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. I've never dated a woman who doesn't drink.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, wow.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, we never will date, so who knows? If I had Me and Olivia, it could have been a great romance.

[Kara Swisher]

Where is this going? So no drink?

[Scott Galloway]

I just can't. I can't date anyone that doesn't drink. It's just like, I have no interest.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, your wife likes to enjoy the. Enjoy herself. She has a good time with her team of ladies. She's fun. Who says your wife is fun? Your wife is a lot of fun.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, yeah. She's in the midst of a midlife crisis. She puts everything. Oh, my God.

[Kara Swisher]

Her and her friends.

[Scott Galloway]

Let me just. Let me just dial you into what happens when women hit a certain age. They were. They had their hot twenties and they gave up their hot twenties because they got. Basically guys found them and started procreating with them, and then they had the mess of kids, and then all of a sudden they wake up and they're in the late 30s, early 40s, and they're like, oh, my God, I'm losing my hotness. My eggs are dying. I gotta go fucking crazy. They go to music festivals called Having a Life. They hang out with younger men. They, like, go. They experiment with drugs. The midlife crisis of a woman in her late 30s, early 40s is the most underreported explosion of hormonal loss, fear. Oh, my God. They go crazy. The guys like, I don't do this. But when their husbands get together, they go golfing or in bed by 7:00pm yeah, that's true. The ladies and then, you know, talk about how their gout and how much it sucks to get older and tax avoidance. That's. That's our big topics. And the women are out till. I'm not exaggerating. They're out till 6 in the morning.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I know. Your wife's a lot of fun. I went to sleep when we were all together and they were all out doing. Running around. Anyway, Anyway. All right. We've discussed partying because I'm in Vegas when I did. None of it in any case. But we've got a lot to get to today, including Anthropic and David Sacks fighting over AI regulation and colleges pushing back against Trump, which is really interesting. Wait to hear your take. But first, almost 7 million people gathered to take part in no Kings protest this weekend. Around the country, over 2,700 events took place in 50 states. The protests were peaceful with no arrests, no arrests being made in cities like D.C. and New York, which drew obviously the biggest crowds. Some sign highlights. Real clowns would run things better. I like taters, not dictators. Tylenol is safe from the tyranny you sucked in Home Alone 2. Mike Johnson blocked me on Grindr and of course, Groper Cleveland. GOP lawmakers are calling the movement a hate America rally. Still, I think they won't stop and claiming it's a political cover for a shutdown. It looked pretty jolly to me. Of course, as usual, President Trump tried to suck up the oxygen in the room by posting an AI generated video to pick him dropping feces. Well, it was just a poop. A big giant diarrhea from a fighter jet onto protesters. A lot of the mainstream wouldn't say that that's what it was. I mean, I think it was just a distraction because he didn't get any attention. Turnout was impressive. I don't know if it does much, but it was really quite amazing. It was like, that's a lot of people. And again, it was peaceful and seemed lovely and a good organizing thing, I suspect. Any thoughts?

[Scott Galloway]

I think it's really important. I think that I always go back to World War II, and that is what was so disappointing about World War II initially was that so many people seemed to enable it or look the other way. And then the pushback by Americans. Obviously Europe had an existential threat that this guy was invading them. But America did have real controversy over whether to re enter Europe for the second time after they'd paid such a terrible cost in the first World War. And a lot of people didn't really understand why that was our war and we're about to do it again. And ultimately their decision to Move into the war was, you know, kind of a vision of FDR that, like this. This will hit our shores eventually. And they weren't as much pushing back on antisemitism, really. They weren't pushing back on antisemitism. They were pushing back on fascism. And this is, in my view, America has become very fat and happy and lazy and has taken its prosperity, its alliances, and its freedoms for granted, because the majority of us have been raised in an era where those things continue to get better. And so the natural assumption is it couldn't happen here and it'll keep getting better. And I think for the first time, Americans are thinking, or first time in a while are thinking, okay, maybe that isn't a guaranteed right. And the best summary of it to encapsulate, I think, at least how I feel about it is the following. The no Kings protest isn't about hating America, but about loving it enough to defend it. For generations, Americans have stood up when power grew too big, when truth got twisted, or when leaders forgot they served the people. This is one of those moments that defines who we are. As Americans, we will stand together peacefully, not to divide the country, but to remind it who we are. And that's from this great philosopher, Eric Theodore Cartman from South Park.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, so.

[Scott Galloway]

But he said, I thought it just kind of perfectly encapsulated the moment. So to be clear, I'm not sure if that was AI. I did some research, and some people. People have attributed that quote to Heather Shreve Bueller. But regardless, it's a wonderful quote. And this stuff is important. And people say, well, I agree that these protests are better when there's a specific action required. But I think that when you saw those videos yesterday in your feed on social, you realize Americans are upset. Americans are prone to action. Americans will take the time to give up their Saturday and put together a sign. The Americans on this side, it always comes across as a little hippie dippy and a little bit like Mother Jones and Cynthia Nixon and with kombucha, you know, which I don't. You know, they come across, but I.

[Kara Swisher]

Don'T think this one did, but go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

No, this one was less of that. It felt just very positive, very solid. There were some videos that really bothered me. The video flying around the Internet that really upset me was of that idiot who gets tripped and hurts his face. And a lot of progressives are celebrating it and calling it karma. I don't think that's good for us or the nation.

[Kara Swisher]

I saw a lot of people in Inflatable animal costumes, which I thought, that's hilarious.

[Scott Galloway]

That's been going on all over the city.

[Kara Swisher]

I like those memes. You know, lots of my friends who went, they said it started, I had the kids yesterday or the day of March. Several people said it started off kind of lefty. But then as the day grew, it was sort of all kinds of people and much more sort of people like moms and daughters and fathers and sons and stuff like that. And they said it seemed like very like lots of different people they were struck by. They go to, you know, more than one or two protests every now and then or marches. And so I thought, I thought the photos were amazing. And again, they did a lot of really good stuff on social around the contrast between Trump's military parade, if you recall that kind of loser of a parade and that. And it seemed, it didn't seem. Festive is the wrong word. It seemed, it didn't seem positive. It seemed positive. Yes, that's right. Yeah. And I thought it was like, it's great for. I bet they collect lots of names, you know, it sort of gets people energized for the fight. And then of course, Trump had to do a stupid thing. And I think, honestly, just so weird. It was so weird to do that and thinking it's funny when you're a 79 year old man and I'm sure part of me feels like the fact that he did a pooping thing, right, that an elderly man to do a poop thing, either it's sort of self harming himself by posting it or else whoever is working for him is doing some brutal trolling of him. I just thought it was such a weird selection.

[Scott Galloway]

It's just more of the same. It's just a total lack of respect for Americans if they don't agree with you and I don't know, trying to. And again, it's effective because we're talking about it and it enters the news cycle.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, actually it enters the news cycle, but all his little minions did one too of him not leaving office or him as a king. And I keep thinking these people are like 60, 52, 79. This is like you act like a 20, like a badly behaved seventh grader who no one he likes. I don't.

[Scott Galloway]

But it works.

[Kara Swisher]

People like that, I guess. I don't know if people like the poop thing. I don't think anybody likes. I mean, maybe if you're 12, I guess, but. Well, I doubt they did. Anyway, it was very impressive and the media should have covered it More because I thought it was really lovely. Now as of this recording, six colleges have rebuffed the Trump administration so called Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education ahead of the White House deadline. The agreement offers special access to federal funding in exchange for schools agreeing to a set of demands including eliminating race and sexist factors and admissions and capping international enrollment. Mit, Brown, Penn, usc, uva and Dartmouth have all said no, arguing the deal would undermine free speech and academic independence. The White House initially approached nine universities and is now reaching out to more schools after a wave of rejections. Really interesting, I think really interesting that they're doing this. I don't know as much about it. How did you feel about this as someone who's you like some of it. But I think overall the government is getting its dirty myths and things that is none of their business.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, some of it, I mean some of it sort of come. It's not even what's in there that's unimportant. What's important is whether or not the federal government should be threatening to withdraw funds unless they sign up to a series of standards, some of which include what sort of distills down to thought control or who you hire. And I think the majority of it could be, or a lot of it could be perceived freeze tuition. Although that's basically a price control, that's socialism. But who you hire and who you let in, that sort of, I don't know, I have some issues with that. Reducing the number of international students. I mean just to riff on that for a moment, we keep talking about bringing American jobs back and there is, there are few. For every 1% decrease in international enrollment we lose a billion dollars. And that is imagine just to highlight how stupid fucking stupid these tariffs are. International trade wildly is asymmetrically beneficial towards us. We sell a Nvidia GPU hopper at $100,000. It's $55,000 of operating profit times a PE of 40. We get $2 trillion in market value. Mercedes sells in $100,000. Mercedes at 10% operating MAR. Multiple of eight. They get $80,000 in shareholder value. And another great example of how asymmetric and beneficial to us our international trade is. There will be a small number of students, although it will triple or quintuple this year of American kids who decide to go to Instituto Empresa in Madrid. And they will spend money, they will spend their American dollars and their parents American dollars in Spain, which will grow the Spanish economy. We get, we get hundreds of thousands if not millions of kids and families who come here and at NYU, they're spending about $280,000 in tuition over four years. They're renting three, five, $7,000 apartments, they're buying Chipotle every goddamn day. And then there's the soft power of they like Americans and they stay in contact with them. When they go back to run the Economic Ministry of El Salvador or wherever. It's just that it is so much high margin revenue for us and to discourage foreign students by putting a cap on the number that can come here, they're looking at it the wrong way. And that is the University of North Carolina says, okay, we're going to give you $650 million, but you have to let in 82%. Now what they should do is just expand the top line number with their endowment and let in more kids. But anyways, I don't mind that. What they need to do is the following, in my view, and I had dinner on Thursday night with the Chancellor of ucla, Julio Frank, who's a really impressive guy. And I won't speak to the specifics of the conversation. My view is the first thing they need to do is coordinate. And that is they need to hold their tongues and elect a couple presidents of these universities to represent them all. And then stand around the fire, hold hands and say, whatever this group decides, we are going along with. Because how they lose is to be divided, pulled off one by one. Yeah, that's exactly right. UCLA says we'll take the money. And SCC says, no, that's an authoritarian's playbook. You go along with me, I'll make you super rich. You don't go along with me, I'll illegally punish you. The first thing is coordination. The second thing is litigation because a lot of this is just wrong. A lot of this is. So they're trying to interpret visa rules arbitrarily. And there's a precedence against that. A legal decision. The 2022 DACA rescission. There's constitutional protections here, the First Amendment against compelled speech or ideological litmus test for faculty or curricula. That's a violation of the First Amendment, the tenth Amendment spending clause, that federal funds are conditioned on political compliance. They could file in sympathetic jurisdictions. They also need to weaponize. And they haven't done this, they're alumni. To make financial commitments such that they have the financial wherewithal, at least in the short term.

[Kara Swisher]

Harvard is up, right? Harvard is actually up in donations.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, also the schools that have immediately pushed back here, it's no accident they're the ones with the largest per capita or per student endowments because they can afford to push back. And then state level counterweights, they could have legislative shields, Attorney general, lawsuits, parallel funding. And some they need to use the courts, coordination, inspiration around fundraising and litigation to delay this bullshit. But they all need to speak with one voice.

[Kara Swisher]

Otherwise it seems like I don't know who the others the nine are, but that's when that's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5 of them. All of them should be part of this.

[Scott Galloway]

They should be speaking with one voice.

[Kara Swisher]

It's sort of like the Pentagon thing last week. Just stop it.

[Scott Galloway]

And also, also I think they should go gangster. Universities are a corrupt cartel. They have this enforcer of the corruption which is the accreditation. There's a board made up of the incumbents that accredits universities and you need accreditation. Otherwise you don't qualify for federal student loans. And it's just insane. They don't allow new universities, they don't accredit new ones. So what do you know? Universities have not grown. They are not adding additional universities. Students are actually, there's a bit of a birth dearth. You know, there's a chill over international students. They think international applications from international students are going to go, are going to go down 20 to 40%. And for every student that comes here to a private university that's literally probably like, let's think about it, that's probably four or five hundred thousand dollars. Say the average family spends 15,000 when they come to America. It's like 20 or 30 families not coming here to go to Disneyland and Universal Studios and see the Grand Canyon. It's just really fucking stupid. It's a huge. And in addition, our PhD students and I've gone on about this forever. We attract the best and brightest to make our weapons. Our chemotherapy, our pharmaceuticals, our Internet applications would spill over into huge job growth. So this is just, I mean in addition to the economic end of it, this is the bottom line. The accreditation institution should be an enforcer here and say we're speaking with one voice, bitch. And if you decide to go make a side deal with your buddies in the administration. Yeah, maybe you're even legally compliant. But we're gonna make it hard for you to get accredited. Universities need to go a little bit gangster here and speak with one voice. Otherwise they will be picked off one.

[Kara Swisher]

At a very briefly, will they do that?

[Scott Galloway]

No, because they're all administrators and they lack the type of leadership. Okay, I don't want a leader needs to emerge a leader needs to emerge. Like, there's some very innovative people. I don't know who the new president of UVA is. I really think the president of Harvard has done a decent job. There needs to be a leader who steps up and says, Calls all of them and says, we either fall together or stand together. And you may have your own views on which parts of this you like or don't like. And there's a very solid argument for saying, I represent usc. So I'm going to have a dialogue. And this is what happens. The first university that cracks and agrees will get more, won't have to give up that much. And then they're gonna come back for even more to number two. So they absolutely need to stand together.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, right, right. I made a mistake in six schools out of nine. But I agree this is kind of ridiculous. And they keep winning legally. So it seems like, you know, I think the proclivity of a lot of these places and then we're going to move on is, let's just talk. Let's not fight, let's talk.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, let's dial up.

[Kara Swisher]

Let's dial up.

[Scott Galloway]

That's what we do. That's what we do.

[Kara Swisher]

And so that's where they're getting. And I thought again with the, with the reporters the Pentagon did. I don't know what the result of that. We're just not gonna. We're not gonna agree. And then the people that agree are a motley cruel of shitty whatever, not even journalists at the Pentagon. And they look ridiculous. And I think in this case, if they stand together, the Trump people typically fold. That's always seems to be their thing, is they push and push, and then it's taco. It's essentially Taco Tuesdays. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back. This is an interesting story. Anthropic becomes a White House target. Support for this show comes from Deleteme. Right now, the headlines are chock full of data breaches and regulatory rollbacks, making us all vulnerable. But you can do something about it. Deleteme is here to make it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online. Deleteme does all the hard work of wiping you and your family's personal information from data brokers, websites. You can sign up and provide Deleteme with exactly what information you want deleted. And their experts take it from there. And Delete me is always working for you, constantly monitoring and removing the personal information you don't want on the Internet. I've used Deleteme many times and I have to say, as always, I'm shocked by how much stuff I found out about myself on the Internet. A lot of it inaccurate, but a lot of it accurate and brought together in ways that seem really disturbing. See why Wirecutter named Deleteme their top pick for data removal services? Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com pivot and use the promo code Pivot at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com pivot and enter code pivot at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com pivot CodePivot.

[Scott Galloway]

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[Kara Swisher]

Support for this podcast comes from Zeta. Marketers have been juggling too many tools for way too long. But imagine a world where all your marketing and advertising work together. No silos, no wasted spend, just smarter growth. That's what Zeta makes possible. Zeta is a marketing platform that unifies both paid and owned channels in one system. This helps eliminate duplication, wasted spend and slow execution. With Zeta, there are no more silos, just accelerated growth. The Zeta Marketing platform is an AI powered solution that unites both owned and paid channels together in a single system, giving CMOs and CFOs a measurable path to predictable, profitable customers. So you can forget about the days of relying on third party cookies as Zeta is built on first party data so you can have reliable foundation for your marketing growth. Zeta is the AI marketing cloud, the platform that unites paid and owned channels into one system, giving CS, CMOs and CFOs a measurable path to predictable, profitable customers to learn more about Zeta services, go to zetaglobal.com pivot that's zetaglobal.com Pivot One last time. That's z e t a global.com pivot Scott, we're back. The latest feud over AI regulation is between Anthropic and the White House. Specifically Trump's aizar David Sachs. Sachs is accusing Anthropic co founder Jack Clark of running a quote, sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear mongering. Oh, did you look up all those words, David? This was in response to an essay Clark wrote about balancing optimism and caution around AI. Sachs is also claiming Anthropic has positioned itself as a foe of the Trump administration. And while CEO Daru Amodi, who backed Kamala Harris isn't bending the knee like other tech CEOs, Anthropic still has a number of government contracts and partnerships. Really weird, a weird attack, I thought. And specifically calling him one as someone who's supposed to be this AI czar and supposed to be pushing all the companies and everything and of course those that have showed up for Trump and given him money and done all these things get all the juicy bits. It's sort of an insider game here with Sachs at the center of it. And I'm sure he's quite effective at getting what he wants around cyber and I mean crypto and this. But to attack one company for just making normal. They want to build the brand around safety to do that. It seems bizarre to me. I guess he wants everybody to go along with the casino that speak in Las Vegas and the House is always in charge. But I don't know any thoughts on this.

[Scott Galloway]

You said something that so struck me and that every accusation is an admission is that what you said is a confession. He wrote, Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear mongering. No, we have never seen regulatory capture like Big Tech showing up to the White House. And the tariffs are effectively a transfer from the 490 that have to figure out the sclerotic strategy to the 10, the magnificent 10 that really aren't affected by a tariff. And for him to say that because Anthropic has said I'm not going to bend a knee on everything here is sort of. And also let's be clear, he didn't write this. The White House wrote this. This the White House. He's not going to do anything without the White House's approval. And so for some reason, Anthropic has gotten cross eyed with the Trump administration and he's sort of threatening him and threatening them. In addition, this just at a very baseline level, we forget the administration is not supposed to speak to punish or reward individual companies.

[Kara Swisher]

Correct. That was what was so strange about it.

[Scott Galloway]

They're supposed to pass laws that affect everybody or don't affect everybody, or they take all AI companies on a tour of Asia with the Secretary of Commerce to try and build business. Or they say, here's an idea. Every AI company cannot have any technology that lets people under the age of 18 engage in synthetic relationships. You don't decide, okay, I don't have an investment. Me and my venture firm and my buddies don't have an investment in anthropic. So I'm going to go after them individually. This is. And if you look at a more broader level, if you look at jobs, what's happening with jobs, Job increases have gone to really big companies. And actually, who's getting really hurt are small businesses. And small and medium sized businesses are responsible for two thirds of job growth in America. Why? Because small and medium sized businesses have no seat at the table. They don't get to go to the White House and cut sweetheart deals and get big deals and big contracts.

[Kara Swisher]

Like, that's the whole thing. I was thinking about all these businesses. I don't get to go to Mar a Lago Patio, as I said. And one of the things around this essay is. Read the essay that Jack wrote, Jack Clark wrote. It is essentially like, I'm really excited about AI, but there are some things we should worry about. Like, literally, he's not a foe of the Trump administration. He's just making a normal thing that everyone. And by the way, there is a growing worry about all this, like, among normal people, which Sacks never or never sets his foot near. And I think if you're a parent, if you're a business, everybody is. And the stock market feels very frothy based on the spend. Everyone understands what's happening here from a stock market point of view. And all he was saying was we should be cautious just because he wants to have a little bit of regulation and put it in the hands of our elected officials, which would be Congress to be passing some of this stuff. I think it's just I was sort of really struck by how corrupt the situation has become. And of course, it puts anthropic. It's going to have to do government contracts. It's going to have to do, you know, just like this is where all the big money is for these things to grow into actual businesses. And so it's really the picking and choosing again. Socialism. And then the weirdest thing this week was these stories of Peter Thiels has some thoughts on AI regulation. He's warning it could summon the Antichrist if we stop it. Like he's giving these speeches that are seem like we must do this or the ant. So I'm not clear who the Antichrist is. I guess it's people who oppose the complete takeover of the government by tech billionaires like it was. So I don't even understand he's gotten increasingly religious and good for him if he finds comfort in religion.

[Scott Galloway]

Peter Thiel's gotten religious?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh yeah. Yeah, very much so. There's a whole gang of them that are. I think it's a brand of Catholicism. It's a branch of it and so just the Antichrist. Are you kidding me? It's just the strange. So now it's becoming in terms of a real existential fight for the future of humanity is how they're selling it and I think believing it actually I don't think this is a feint. I don't. I think it's an actual belief system. It's all very strange.

[Scott Galloway]

It's it you do. I use both. I try to cross reference and use them to check each other. I use Chat GPT and I use Claude to just see. And I like Cloud better. I use Cloud more because I find it's better with the written word. But chatgpt I find has more comprehensive data. What I have also noticed is that, that and sometimes it bothers me quite frankly is Cloud is more politically correct. If I'm doing research on the shooters of or the perpetrators of political violence. Sometimes if you phrase the question wrong it comes back and says I can't provide information on attempted murders or whatever. And then you know, and then last night I got very upset. It wouldn't give me any information on. I wanted to see images of lesbian tech journalists getting facials in Korea and it just wouldn't go there. Oh you just got that? You just got that. That just registered. Anyways it is more politically correct and so my sense is that at Anthropic they're sort of trying to be the good guys and this guy just sort of steps out of line and doesn't line up for the. You know, doesn't line up to be part of the mafia that David Sachs is clearly a soldier of the dawn in Washington in and the degree is sign up and you're going to make a shit ton of money at the expense of the lower 490. And it seems like the head of Anthropica for him is not signed up and says, well, actually I have some views and I have some concerns because the, you know, I think the collision personally between synthetic relationships and AI is just so fucking frightening. I. I just think it's. And they're not talking about it. I think it's going to make it seem like phones and social media were just an Easter parade, when all of a sudden we notice that everybody or a third of the people in our life have disappeared and are long coming down for dinner, no longer talking to us because they have decided that their synthetic relationship knows everything and knows them and it can run their lives.

[Kara Swisher]

And anyways, this is with Teal is much more profound. Let me read a quote. Because one of the things is the hostility towards technology is his focus. And let me just read this quote because according to some Christian traditions, the Antichrist is a figure that will unify humanity under one rule. But this is from Wired before delivering us to the Apocalypse. For Thiel, its evil is pretty much synonymous with any attempt to unite the world. How might such an Antichrist rise to power? Thiel asks. By playing on our fears of technology and seducing us into decadence with the Antichrist slogan peace and and safety. In other words, it would yoke together a terrified species by promising to rescue it from the Apocalypse. And he's like, blaming, like Nick Bostrom, who's an AI doomer, who. I'm not a fan of Nick Bostrom either. But this is so strange. And to fend it off, we have to stop people like this, I guess, like anthropic, like any AI Doomer. And if there's any. It's just, it's so strange and disturbing that this guy is at the center of power and is influencing all these people. And of course south park made fun of him. Peter Thiel knows the Anti is worried about the Antichrist, which was a very funny episode.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, I had some experience with this. I'm not. No joke. I had a dream and the devil showed up in my dreams and whispered, I'm coming for you. And so I whispered back. I whispered back, that's gay. Why should we be worried about the most powerful people in the world that have an unbelievable command of godlike technology, who basically own the vice president, who are becoming increasingly theocratic? I mean, no worries there. No worries there.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I recommend South Park's Peter Thiel and the Antichrist. It's really funny. It was really, really funny. Anyway, it's worrisome and that's enough.

[Scott Galloway]

He's one odd duck.

[Kara Swisher]

Odd duck, odd duck.

[Scott Galloway]

I'd like to go to a strip club with him. Have you ever partied with him?

[Kara Swisher]

No. I've been to a party at his house. Yes, I had an argument with him at it. Anyway, it was a long time ago over something I can't even remember. It was many moons ago. Many iterations of Peter Thiel ago. I'm exactly the same. This is an interesting story. GLP1 drug stocks fell late. Lastly, after Donald Trump said in an Oval Office presser that the price of Ozempic, or as he called drug, would soon drop to $150 a month, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who's now running Medicare and Medicaid, quickly jumped in to clarify that's not a done deal yet. The clarification didn't do much to calm investors. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly both lost billions in market value. The price of Ozempic is currently around $1,000 a month. Talking about the implications, the price really goes down to 150. I'm of two minds. I think it should be 150, right? It should be really inexpensive for people who especially people are overweight to figure out a way because again with a secret thing. Actually every doctor I talk to talks about the importance of these drugs on the general population. Probably it's the Antichrist because it will unify us in health. But what do you think of this? You were one of the first people to talk about the implications of GLP1 drugs. But the prices remain stubbornly high and out of reach of most Americans on a monthly basis.

[Scott Galloway]

Every year when I do my predictions deck which I'm about to do in a month month for the next year, I predict a technology of the year. And in 22 and 23 I said it was AI first time I've done back to back on a technology. And in 24 I said the technology that's going to have more impact on a ground level than AI in 24 is GLP1 drugs. I think these things are nothing short of revolutionary. I mean the fact that if you think about when we came off the savannah are, you know, we didn't have access to trans fats, we didn't have access to mating opportunities, free play. So we've become addicted to food, to porn, to gambling because our instincts have just not caught up to institutional production. And these things are literally scaffolding on our instincts. And when you go into the grocery store, you not only buy less food you buy more lettuce and kale and yogurt and you buy less cookies and soda. It's just how does it know how to turn on off the parts of your brain that says, I need to eat chocolate covered almonds late night after my 5 milligram edible, which I did last night.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I had Milk Duds, but go ahead. I love Milk Duds.

[Scott Galloway]

Ooh, those are really bad for you. Anyways, the. Yeah, you're not going to find those in Korea when you're getting your facial.

[Kara Swisher]

I know, that's why I had them here last. I found them in LA Vegas, but go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

There you go. So. Oh, in the mini bar.

[Kara Swisher]

No.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, God, that's my favorite thing with my son. As we bond, we go back to the hotel and we raid the mini bar. Um, anyways, what was disappointing about GLP1, at least initially in the United States, was the region that had the greatest penetration of GLP1 was also, ironically, the richest. The thinnest.

[Kara Swisher]

Thinnest. Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

And thinnest and richest go one. It was. It was ladies of lunch on the Upper east side trying to lose that last 10. That is not. Who needs GLP1? I believe a decent government program would be for Medicare to repeal the legislation that says Medicare cannot negotiate on drugs. Drugs. We spend two to four times more on Ozempic than they do in other nations. Despite the fact that Novo Nordisk produced, which is a European company, we have American produced GLP1 drugs. I would love to see just the federal government do what it's supposed to do, and that is help prevent a tragedy of the commons and use their purchasing power to take these drugs down to 50 bucks a month. Because then it becomes accretive. You will save more than that on food. And the one thing Americans share, share. It's not military service, it's not their ethnicity, it's not their religion. The one thing we share as Americans is that 70% of us are overweight or obese. And if you wanted to figure out a way to save 100 billion, 200 billion, a half a trillion dollars a year, you would get America down to Japanese, like levels of obesity where only 4% of the Japanese are obese.

[Kara Swisher]

I think it's, it's actually more than that. Because I have to say in doing all this, this series I'm doing, everyone's like, ultimately it's food, exercise, being rich and sleep and stuff like that, ultimately for longevity. But every expert I talked to is like, these drugs are miraculous in terms of getting us to the Place we need, besides the really cool stuff that's happening with cancer and AI and, you know, crispr, it's here. This is the thing that every single. And not just that, but around issues around, stroke around and taking it in a small amount, like my doctor's, like, you need to take a little bit.

[Scott Galloway]

In a small amount. I know a ton of people that aren't fat, that microdose feel people, but.

[Kara Swisher]

It'S more addiction, right? And drinking and cognitive stuff, all this stuff that is, like, around it. And of course, it does worry some people that it could, like make a left turn like fen phen or whatever. But most every doctor I talk to is very much, like, not worried about this drug. It's a really interesting. It's a really interesting development.

[Scott Galloway]

About two years ago, I got invited to a dinner to speak at a dinner. And it was neuroscientists. And I thought, wow, I would like to be in there with a bunch of neuroscientists in case I ever get sick or it's just not a bad idea to have relationships with really good doctors. Doctors. And so it was a dinner. There was about 16 neuroscientists and me there and the head of this hospital and I think probably a couple people who, like, funded the gold circle of whatever it was laying down. And I noticed, about an hour into the dinner, I noticed, I looked around the table and all the plates were half eaten. All of them, no one had finished their meal. And I said, I can't help but I notice. And then people had pushed away their food or acid to be taken away. And I'm like, I said, this is very unusual. No one's eating their food. I said, can I ask a question? And obviously it was off the record. I said, who here is on GLP1 drugs? And they all looked at each other sheepishly. And like eight of the 14 folks, it was 12 men and two women raised their hands. And that is supposed to be the tell for if a drug works is its adoption by the medical community itself. But these things. If you were to stop 10 people on the street in America and find 10 hardcore users of AI and 10 people on GLP1 drugs and query them about the impact on their life, emotionally, psychologically, economically. I think GLP1's having a much bigger impact on people than AI.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm talking about getting it down to the regular, you know, the people I did.

[Scott Galloway]

We should give it out.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, that's the thing. I did an interview with a nurse who was £350 and she went down. But what they did. And then I interviewed her doctor, who's also a well known weight loss. And it was a nutritionally focused doctor, but it was combined with learning how to cook fresh foods and exercise like.

[Scott Galloway]

It'S the whole package. You gotta exercise.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, it's the whole package. And not just. This is not that you just take the drug and that's it. And that's what was. I mean, I was. Of all the interviews I've done for this thing, that interview was the most moving. Cause I had dinner with her family. And one thing that was really interesting is she said to me in the kitchen, she goes, I was embarrassed. I couldn't do things with them. Like they went to the Grand Canyon. It's a very fit family, except for her. And they went and hiked and I couldn't do it. And I'd have two seats on an airplane. You know, the whole story of overweight people. And. And she goes, I was so embarrassed for them. I was embarrassing to them. And I repeated it. She hadn't ever told her family and they were heartbroken that she felt that way. It was a really. I was very moved, you know what I mean? And it wasn't like I could because she tried everything. Like she tried all the diets and everything else. And I have to say, she has such a better life. And it's not someone who has a lot of money, very modern, modest house in Massachusetts, nurse, hardworking and knows about health. Right. Is not someone who's not aware of the issues and just it seems like she's going to live a lot longer. That's just the facts. Right. And so I was like, the combination of the drug with lifestyle changes and the drug allows you to do the lifestyle changes more successfully is a really interesting thing. But what do you think of Trump doing this? This is like crazy. Like, although it's kind of good. Like in this case, I'm like, fine.

[Scott Galloway]

I love this topic. So let me back up. The reason why Gavin Newsom will likely be president in 2028 is the same reason why we should have a federal program to get GLP1 drugs out to everyone that needs them after negotiating a ridiculously low price. And it's the following. America is an exceptionally and dangerously and unfairly looks this country. And one of the strongest forward looking indicators of whether a child is going to suffer from adulthood depression is if they're overweight. And also the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is not promiscuous around recommending drug intervention for children, has recommended right. Has embraced GLP1 for children. Because here's the bottom line. When you're obese in America on many levels, you're fucked. You're going to have trouble finding a mate. You're going to have trouble getting hired. People immediately look at you, and regardless of how many subscriptions to the Atlantic or the New York Times, they immediately subconsciously go weak, and it's unfair. And then you look in the mirror and you go, I'm weak and I have no control of my life. And in my view, after negotiating a radically low price and playing them off against each other, every household in America that is suffering from obesity and not a woman looking to lose her last ten pounds. But if a doctor says obesity is a pre stage for diabetes for you, it is getting in the way of your mental health. It is getting in the way of your ability to exercise. This shit should be everywhere. It's like fluoride and water. Put the GLP1 in, effectively, metaphorically in water. This would be one of the most accretive things, emotionally and financially, we could do in the United States. Over 30.

[Kara Swisher]

One of the things that I am against is like, what Pete Hegseth did. Fat generals, like, making it awful. Figuring out ways for people to have a better life is different than using fat shaming and everything to do 100%. I'm not. I'm just saying. That's what I'm saying. And then the second thing is what's interesting about the Trump administration, RFK Jr. Is against all this and Oz is on the other side. So this should be a really interesting discussion. I think it'll be interesting to see what happens here because RFK thinks you should just jog and eat, you know, kill your own animals.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, yeah. But RFK is blessed with good genetics. And Mehmet. Mehmet is a doctor and he sees some people. You know, everybody has people who are overweight in their lives, and we immediately look at them and we unfairly think they're weak. A lot of them are in food deserts. A lot of them don't have the money to do anything but eat cheap calories, which are fat. And quite frankly, a lot of them are just born really big. They're just, you know, they're born big. So we need empathy. Having said that, Kara, I do think there was a movement that was unproductive. And unfortunately, there's no. The pendulum is never at the middle where it's like, okay, let's have empathy for these people. Let's figure out programs that give them the capability. Let's give them GLP1 drugs. But when the industrial food complex, including Coca Cola, McDonald's, which by the way is. Is the stock price of Coca Cola, PepsiCo, McDonald's, KFC, they're all almost entirely correlated to obesity in the U.S. and so what do they do? And also many of the major clothing brands are very much tied to plus size clothing. What did they do? They started to romanticize and celebrate obesity. And I hate to say this, and I'll get negative comments for it, you're not finding your truth. You're finding a fucking ventilator in diabetes. So while we have to have empathy for these people, let's at least be honest and say, folks, this is not something to romanticize and celebrate.

[Kara Swisher]

No, but it was because of the hatefulness that went on for decades before. I think it's okay to. No, maybe so, maybe so. But the kind of. If we're. I've had heavy people in my family. It's hateful, the kind of things people say.

[Scott Galloway]

I agree with you.

[Kara Swisher]

And now they have a tool to help get people there. And it is no question the right thing to do. It's just that making people feel ugly about themselves is never a prescription to good health. That's my thing.

[Scott Galloway]

We agree with that. But should we have done away with the Presidential Fitness Awards? That celebrates fitness because we think of it as fat shaming.

[Kara Swisher]

Trump doesn't exercise. He's not. Look, if he ends up dropping the price, I'm good with you.

[Scott Galloway]

Answer my question. I used to be very motivated to get the Presidential Fitness Award. The third, the fourth, and I didn't get the fifth year because I had a growth spurt and I couldn't do the pull ups. And it was very motivating for me to be fit and strong. Just one last thing. I'm virtue signaling right now. Pharmaceuticals, glp. One can do what. There was a drug that changed my life. Changed my life.

[Kara Swisher]

Kara Swisher.

[Scott Galloway]

And I'm still addicted to it. What's the definition of addiction? Something you continue to engage in despite.

[Kara Swisher]

The fact that your one last thing. What's your one last thing?

[Scott Galloway]

That's right.

[Kara Swisher]

What's your one last thing?

[Scott Galloway]

I'm addicted. And baby, if this addiction is wrong, I don't want to be right.

[Kara Swisher]

Loving you is wrong.

[Scott Galloway]

What are you getting that facial anyways? All right. A drug I had until the age of 40. I had never taken an Advil. I just never took any sort of drug. I barely. I think I saw the doctor eight times up until the age of 40.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay.

[Scott Galloway]

I just didn't. My parents didn't have money.

[Kara Swisher]

Short story. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay. A drug literally changed my life. Any guesses? And it has to do with aesthetics.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't know. Milk tots.

[Scott Galloway]

From the age of 13 to 19, if I was ever able to maneuver, using a mix of humor, luck and persistence, able to get a date. This is what you did on a date.

[Kara Swisher]

Liquor.

[Scott Galloway]

You would take a woman to a movie. And I remember going to see Grease with Melanie Burke. Maureen O. Bourke. Excuse me, Maureeno Burke. And I was so excited. I went down to this ridiculous preppy store. I'd saved up. I got my mom to give me a credit card. I couldn't spend more than $30. And I bought nice corduroys and a polo Ralph Lauren polo shirt with the actual polo logo on it. And I bought Sperry Topsiders. I was just so fucking ready. And I go into Greece. And every time I went into a movie, on the few dates I had, I would have to purposely plan, do I go into the aisle first or do I let her go into the aisle first? And you know what that was basically on what? Which side of my face had fewer zits than the other?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, okay.

[Scott Galloway]

Every time I went to the movies, I would strategically plan, which side am I going to sit on? Because my acne was so bad, I would have to think, which side is it less grotesque? And finally, my dermatologist, after soaking me for six years of money I did not have have said, maybe we should try this drug called Accutane.

[Kara Swisher]

Accutane. Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

And in 11 weeks, I had perfect skin. Perfect skin. And if you want to talk about someone going through the most sensitive, insecure, self conscious time of their life, and they have white heads and just their faces riddled with acne, up and down their back and their throat. And all you can think about when you're talking to someone is they're staring at my zits and they hurt and they're painful. And then nine weeks, 11 weeks later, I have perfect, beautiful skin. And all of a sudden, girls are smiling at me. And all of a sudden I don't think about my skin. And all of a sudden, shaving isn't like navigating a fucking landmine. It's the only letter I've ever. The first letter I'd ever written to a corporation. I wrote to Hoffman Laroche and said. And said, this has absolutely changed my life. And now. And I did this about. I felt like it was two Months ago, seven months ago, I was at a gas station in Nantucket where they actually pump your gas.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay, go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

And there was a young man and he had terrible cystic acne. And I said, look, I'm not, I'm probably overstepping my boundaries here. I had terrible acne. I took a drug called Accutane and it cleared it up in 11 weeks and it changed.

[Kara Swisher]

And now we have scotch. You know, celebrities are microdosing Accutane now. Just so you know. Just so you know.

[Scott Galloway]

But my point is I think that GLP1 can do that. I, I, I, I kind of think there's an equivalence between terrible acne and obesity. And if you can give people back their confidence, their sense of self, their, their, their. I mean, this, there's nothing more important.

[Kara Swisher]

But let's not make people feel badly. I, you, if you, when you see this interview, she tried everything. But in any case, we think this is fascinating. We'll keep covering it. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break and when we come back, we'll talk about a major security hack. No, not the Louvre.

[Scott Galloway]

Support for the show comes from Vanguard. The lineup includes over 80 bond funds. To all the financial advisors listening, let's talk about bonds for a minute. Capturing value and fixed income is not easy. Bond markets can be made massive, murky. And let's be real, a lot of firms throw a couple of flashy funds your way and call it a day. But not Vanguard. Vanguard bonds are institutional quality. They're actively managed by a 200 person global squad of sector specialists, analysts and traders. Lots of firms like to highlight their star portfolio managers like it's all about the one brilliant mind making the magic happen. Vanguard's philosophy is a little different. They believe the best active style strategies should be shared across the team. That way, every client benefits from the collective brain power, not just one individual's take. So if you're looking to give your clients consistent results year in and year out, go see the record for [e-mail] pivot that's vanguard.com pivot all investing is subject to risk. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor.

[Kara Swisher]

Support for Pivot comes from LinkedIn jobs. As a small business owner, your work hours aren't dictated by the hands on a clock. Your business is on your mind 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So when you're hiring, you need a partner that works just as hard as you do. That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in by making it easy to post your job. Share it with your network and qualified candidates that you can manage all in one place. LinkedIn's new feature can help you write job descriptions and quickly get your job in front of the right people with deep, candid insights. Either post your job for free or pay to promote as promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants. At the end of the day, LinkedIn wants you to feel confident that you're getting the best because the most important thing to your small business is the quality of candidates. And based on LinkedIn data, 70% of small business owners using LinkedIn say that the platform helps them find high quality candidates. Plus, you can let your network know you're hiring by adding the hashtag hiringframe to your profile picture. To get two times more qualified candidates, find out where why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for [e-mail] pivot that's LinkedIn.com pivot to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.

[Scott Galloway]

Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes so you don't have to don't know the difference between matte paint, finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app Download today.

[Kara Swisher]

Scott we're back with more news. Cybersecurity and Network Security Company F5 says Nation State hackers broke into its systems this summer, exfiltrating files and stealing some source code. The breach has been blamed on state backed hackers from China, over 80% of the Fortune Global 500, as well as universities and credit unions or F5 customers. This is as big as SolarWinds. That many people I've talked to this week. Actually F5 is a publicly traded company, which would usually mean it's required to disclose cyber attacks within four business days. But the DHA allowed the company delay notification which can do for attacks that post national security risk risks really disturbing. And I'll note early Monday morning a major AWS outage took down services like Amazon, Snapchat and ChatGPT. There was no indication of malicious anything malicious at play. But again, every single cyber person I talked to this week was like this is bad. This is another bad. Our landscape is so porous for hackers from state backed, especially from China. It was, it was another Disturbing thing that they didn't have to say anything, that people couldn't act and we are so exposed. From a security point of view, this was a really bad attack for people to understand how dependent we are on these kind of things and how vulnerable.

[Scott Galloway]

What I don't understand is, and it's easy to heckle from the cheap seats is I've met some of our folks who run our cybersecurity or our cyber defense and they're very popular conferences. And by the way, most of them have been fired because they're not Republicans, which makes no fucking sense to me. But what they all say is that we actually have the best. And what I don't understand is why isn't it like nuclear weapons in the sense that if they do something like this, shouldn't we be hitting them back three times as hard until we all come to sort of a detente?

[Kara Swisher]

We may be, but they were in there. One of the things that's classic of these things, they've been in there for two years and then they, then they place things there and then disappear and erase where they were. And that's what they've been doing. And so there's very little known because they keep everything quiet. And the question is, what should people know? What should we understand about it? Everyone considers this as big as solar winds, which happened in 2020, the end of 2020. And so I suspect lots of stuff is going on behind the scenes scenes with this stuff. But again, the cuts by this administration again exposes us the solar winds happened in the Trump administration. Right. It was the end of. It was before, just before Biden got into office. And it's the same thing. The idea of like exposing. We have such an exposed. Everything between our surface of attack is bigger here, the surface attack is bigger. And we do not have the people in place in the government as much. I mean, remember he fired Chris Krabs, who's. I love Chris Krebs and you know, a lot of people. But we're, you know, all this is all interconnected including with the, with the federal government. And so the Chinese have been very successful. I suspect we have been hacking them too, et cetera, et cetera. But there's broad risks here that I think we as a country we have not taken seriously given our dependent. And even the ones that aren't deemed malicious, like this one this morning. If AWS has a major outage, all the services get affected, whether it's Amazon, the stuff we use day to day. And so it's something we really do. We should talk about more. And it's complex, obviously, but our country is much more exposed than people realize. I'll just note that.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, our tech infrastructure, technology loves scale and compatibility, right? So everything's running on the same source. Code can be more fluid and more frictionless. And to their credit, we have 50 states and 50 different electoral procedures and 50 independent technologies tallying votes. And a lot of people or tech companies have said this should all be on one system. And the best defense against that is that, okay, it's feasible that one of us gets hacked, but it's very unlikely all 50 are going to get hacked because we're all on different systems. And just as technology loves scale, it creates more vulnerability because, because you have entire power grids now that are essentially, if someone figures out how to hack that power grid, you could have three states in the southeast go down. And what this requires, which we don't have, it requires skill and resources of which we have more than anyone in the world. What we don't have is the long game. So for example, I think the greatest anti terrorist precision attack in history was the pager attack against Hezbollah. That was years in the making. And what the Chinese do, it's a long game. My guess is a lot of every time there's a real, there's a cyber attack, my guess is it was put in place or the wheels were put in motion two or three years ago. And unfortunately because of this political back and forth and firing and hiring, it is much more difficult. And also just American mentality focused on quarterly earnings. American mentality does not play the long game game. And the Chinese, you know, the Chinese have a 50 year plan. So they're already have, they already have assets on the ground here trying to implant listening devices, security code routers that maybe in two, three, five years they activate because what you don't want to do to raise red flags. Red flags are a function of not only the activity, but the cluster and the concentration of them. And so if it's just one or two small infiltrations and then there's not a follow up, follow up, people don't worry as much about it. In part of there's so many ways that our short term, quite frankly, thinking helps us, but on a lot of levels it hurts us. And this is one of those ways. These guys are in for the long game. They'll start putting in place the infrastructure for cyber attacks that they won't be able to activate for five or seven or ten years.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, one more quick break and we'll be back for wins and fails. When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn [e-mail] Ever Gone on Vacation outside the country and felt like the food was just better? When I was in Japan recently, the produce and meat were amazing and even a minor skin issue that I usually have cleared up by the end of the two weeks. What's up with what we eat here?

[Scott Galloway]

Tomatoes are renowned for looking delicious but not tasting delicious.

[Kara Swisher]

Is some food? Is food actually better in other countries? And what are they doing differently?

[Scott Galloway]

A law passed in 1993 that said if you buying bread in a boulangerie, it must be made with four ingredients, essentially.

[Kara Swisher]

Find out more this week on Explain It To Me. New episodes every Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts. Megan Rapinoe here this week on A Touch more. We've got WNBA champion Jackie Young, aka I.A. jack, on the show. We're so excited. We'll find out how she's been celebrating her third championship, how the Aces turn their season around, and whether they're the greatest dynasty ever. Plus, we're handing out the most prestigious awards at the WNBA season, the Maggies. From best dressed to gayest moments of the season. You do not want to miss it. Check out the latest episode of A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. Okay, Scott, some wins and fails. We gotta be quick because Kara's got another interview soon. Why don't you start?

[Scott Galloway]

Well, well, the obvious one here is, and we spent some time talking about it, I do think that the protests were an enormous win for America. We've all been just so desperate for some pushback and wondering where Americans are. Well, 7 million turned out and that's about 2% of the population, supposedly. I don't know where this test comes from, but supposedly when you had 3.5%, which would be 11 million, that's when real action starts. But I just don't think there's any getting around it. A lot of Republican congressmen and senators must have noticed that and said, okay, this is, there's some real issues here. So I thought at a minimum it just gave a lot of comfort to Americans that people value our democracy, they value peaceful protest. And they're resisting and they're willing to give up their own time. And they really do value the blessings, the liberties and the, you know, the prosperity. So look, that's, that's my win. I thought it was really, really wonderful and inspiring and I tried to take my kids to the tube station where their mother slept to talk about fascism. They wanted nothing to do with it. But there were protests in Germany, there were protests in the uk. They were all incredibly peaceful, incredibly positive, incredibly optimistic. It was just a good look for America, a very good look for a democracy, a very good look for people who want to resist against Trump. Trump. That's my win. That's an easy one. The fail is George Santos, the disgrace representative. His seven year present sentence has been commuted by Trump after serving just three months. He pled guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Look, he lied, he committed crimes. He was an embarrassment to the government. But the thing that really chased me here, he's no longer required to pay back more than $370,000 in court ordered restitution to his victims. So the people he l to and stole from, he no longer has to pay them back. In addition, he was only the sixth lawmaker in U.S. history to be expelled from Congress after an ethics report was released outlining his behavior in 2023. He was also the first to be expelled before being convicted of federal crimes or supporting the Confederacy. So just some of his claims. He claimed his grandparents were Holocaust survivors. They were not. He claimed that the CCP kidnapped his five year old niece. That is not true. He claimed to be Jewish then. Jewish. He claimed he was a model for Vogue. That's my favorite. He claimed he had a university degree, by the way. He said he went on a volleyball scholarship. That guy hasn't jumped since 1988. He claimed he had a brain tumor. And some of the more outlandish things he said or did well after being in Congress. He spent campaign funds on Botox, Hermes, and my favorite onlyfans. He started selling $200 costume videos on Camel. I don't think that's that bad. He had a staffer impersonate Kevin McCarthy's chief of staff to raise money. And he committed ID theft by using donors credit cards to make purchases. So. And what's so sad about this?

[Kara Swisher]

He's just a scam artist.

[Scott Galloway]

There are some people who are currently incarcerated who have applied for clemency. And some of them have done their best to compensate their victims, show that they're on the right track and are deserving of clemency. And because they're trying to get Marjorie Taylor Greene back in camp. On camp, and she seemed to like George Santos. They move a guy who showed no remorse, who is a fucking embarrassment to the Constitution, to America. They push this guy to the front of the line and the people he stole from are shit out of luck. Such that we can. Such that the President can kiss Marjorie Taylor Greene brain's ass. This is such an abuse of the whole. The basic understanding of what clemency is for. Clemency. The clemency in pardoning is a wonderful thing. We get it wrong all the time in our justice system. The justice system is a powerful. But it is a crude instrument. And we find out new evidence comes to light. Or we find out that for whatever reason, strange laws resulted in a guy who stole an intelligence tenant from a Kmart, gets issued a life sentence. And these things are taken seriously. And very talented people review these things. And we're just making a mockery of the system. Anyways. My fail is that Representative George Santos, his sentence was commuted because of the President's attempt to get Marjorie Taylor Greene to stop talking about the Epstein files. And by the way, my favorite sign was GOP Guardians of Pedophiles.

[Kara Swisher]

Anyway, my fail is these issues around these tech companies and safety, like pushing back against the idea there should be safety. But it's more than that. There's a great story in the New York Times today about as tech companies build data centers worldwide to advance artificial intelligence, vulnerable communities have been hit by blackouts and water shortages. They're not just the idea that we are against advancing technology and then they say at any cost is ridiculous. They're setting it up so that they'll. They get all the juicy bits and they hurt people around the globe. 60% of the data centers are outside of the US and there's lots of projects coming all over the place around the world. But it takes enormous amounts of power for computing and water to cool the computers. And these people are. You know, the famous one was Musk going into a community, I think in Tennessee and polluting it. Cause he wanted to get his thing up faster than anyone else. And all the governments are angling to give them cheap land and tax breaks and things like that. But there is very little transparency around how they're building these data centers. And it's the same idea. They don't care about safety of anybody because they themselves are doing things. And it's really hurting individual communities. And they go into vulnerable communities to be able to do what they need to do and it's very dangerous. And they're not really investing in the communities because most of these things use very few people and these plans just sail through. And it's the same idea. If Anthropic wants to talk about safety or if we want to talk about safety, it doesn't mean we hate it that we care about the citizens more than lining the pockets of David Sacks and his friends. I have two very quick wins. I've got to give a credit to both Lorraine Paljobs and Ron Conway. He resigned from the board of Salesforce's philanthropic arm over Mark Benioff's original comments about bringing National Guard into San Francisco. Lorraine Powell Jobs also wrote an essay, beware of philanthropists who want to control in exchange for their giving. And it was a great essay about that. I really give kudos to them for stepping out rather than a lot against Mark's stupid comments. He now doesn't believe the National Guard needs to come. He walked himself back, but he looked. He tarnished himself. So I give credit to. Lots of people complain, but it's hard to go out on a limb if you're in that group of people. And they did. But I actually wanna give the win to the Diplomat. The new season's downloaded to Netflix and Keri Russell is so good. It's such a good. And Alison Janney and Bradley Whitford, everybody on that cast is amazing.

[Scott Galloway]

This is so you have a crush on.

[Kara Swisher]

I love her. She's a fan of Pivot, by the way. I don't have a crush on her. I actually have a crush on the whole show because it's so diplomatic. I want it to be in the State Department. So I love the whole. It's sort of like my home. I liked home life.

[Scott Galloway]

Is she going to Korea with you?

[Kara Swisher]

No, she's not. But we're going to have like. She's a fan of Pivot.

[Scott Galloway]

Look at you lied on. I just say Kerry Russell and you start smiling.

[Kara Swisher]

No, no, it's okay. You're wrong. Not my type.

[Scott Galloway]

But nonetheless, Even though you're 80, you still have hormones.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I. She's not my type, but I've been.

[Scott Galloway]

Taking that estrogen you're getting.

[Kara Swisher]

I just want to say it's a great show and lots of people like this show. Stop it. Everyone likes show. As usual, you turn something beautiful into ugliness. But it's a great.

[Scott Galloway]

Never seen it. Never seen it.

[Kara Swisher]

All right. It's great. You would love it.

[Scott Galloway]

I watched four episodes of Slow Horses Last night.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. If you like that. Do you do like Homeland?

[Scott Galloway]

Love Homeland.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. You'll love this. The writer, I think is the writer of this is Deborah Kahn. She's so talented. There was one line. This is why I love it. There's all these great lines. Besides, she doesn't comb her hair, et cetera, and they make jokes about it. But, um, there's one line.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, I'm sure she looks just awful.

[Kara Swisher]

She looks.

[Scott Galloway]

She's the one that, like. Yeah, but. Yeah, that, that's. Let me guess. She's like really sloppy and still looks like a 9 out of 10.

[Kara Swisher]

11 out of 10. Yeah, but she's really good. She's had a great career. She's had really interesting roles, including the Americans and things like that. But I don't want to talk about Carrie Josel, because even though I think she's great, but I have to say there's a lot. There's a lot of lines in it. The writers are terrific and they. And one reminded me of you, which is you're. You're about. They're talking about her husband half. And I'm blanking on the actor's name, who played. But who's great too. But she goes, you're about as subtle as a kidney stone, which I immediately thought of you, Scott.

[Scott Galloway]

I appreciate that.

[Kara Swisher]

You're about as subtle as a kidney stone. Anyway, I love that show. And now you're making it ugly, which is very sad.

[Scott Galloway]

I have comments on all of this. Do you have to go get a pedicure with Boutros Boutros Ghali?

[Kara Swisher]

No, no, go ahead. Very quickly, very quickly. Go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

That's impossible for me. Okay, first off, the data set centers. The data centers are nothing. But again, another elegant transfer of wealth from middle class homes to big tech. How's that going to happen? They are picking these areas where they are, quote, unquote, desperate for jobs or where the congressperson representing that area wants to get some of that AI money sent to their pack for regulatory capture, for campaign fundraising. And the bottom line is these data centers might as well be dark during the day. They create very few jobs. What they do is they will create jobs to get built, but they create very few ongoing jobs. What they do is they are so power hungry that you are going to see 50, 100, 200, 300% increases in electricity costs in these areas. And what will end up happening is the government. These people will get outraged. So the government will step in and will subsidize the electricity costs of the grid, which is Nothing but a transfer of wealth from taxpayers, especially people consuming electricity in those regions, to big tech firms. Everything in America right now is trying to prop up 10 firms who have been responsible for 77% of the S&P's gain this year, which is the only cloud cover that Donald Trump has to send federal troops into peaceful cities. This will be another elegant transfer of wealth. And then what was your second one?

[Kara Swisher]

Kerry Russell.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh wait, Kerry Russell the diplomat. Oh no. Mark Benioff.

[Kara Swisher]

Benioff.

[Scott Galloway]

Just so I can fill our YouTube comments with a bunch of hate. I love Lauren Powell jobs. I thought it was an elegant article. I think Ron Conway is fantastic. He invested in two of my companies. This is how we lose 28. And that is. I get it. Marc Benioff said something stupid. He has since apologized and now everyone is doing what Democrats do. They're more interested in a purity test. They're more interested in grabbing social virtue. They're more interested in getting their guardians of Gotcha pen. They're more interested in going after a white billionaire than they are around being effective. Marc Benioff is, is a huge ally for San Francisco. He is a huge ally for Democrats. He fucked up and he's being treated like an apostate. And this is exactly what is wrong with the.

[Kara Swisher]

They said things were before. They said things before and they didn't want to affiliate with him.

[Scott Galloway]

If you're Marc Benioff and you have literally spent 20 years trying to be the most generous guy in California, supportive of progressive policies, supportive of Democratic politics, and then all these Democratic Democrats wave in with their finger cuz he fucked up. And he did fucked up. And by the way, he's apologized. Let's just talk about the reality of this. Do you think Marc Benioff is now gonna be really, really in it to win it and support Democratic candidates right now? Or is he thinking, you know what guys? Go fuck yourselves. This is what Democrats do. We have decided maybe you're my ally, but you're holding the gun wrong. So I'm going to go after you rather than the real enemy. Could we be any, any more fucking stupid?

[Kara Swisher]

And this is typical Democratic National Guard to come to San Francisco.

[Scott Galloway]

He fucked up. And he's also been an enormous, an enormous supporter of Democratic ideals and politics. And here's the thing.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm not agreeing with you.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, sorry. One strike, you're out. We're Democrats. Guess what, J.D. vance in 2028, this is exactly how we lose the election.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I think we should.

[Scott Galloway]

Democrats are much more concerned with Grabbing social virtue than they are.

[Kara Swisher]

It's not social virtue to be. Be critical of your own allies. It's not. It's normal. It's actually. What? No. You're so far down the Trump world.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, yeah, me and Trump were very tight.

[Kara Swisher]

No, no, but the Trump world is. You don't apologize for anything. And you.

[Scott Galloway]

He did apologize.

[Kara Swisher]

He kind of did. But that's okay.

[Scott Galloway]

Whatever he said, I'm sorry.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes.

[Scott Galloway]

He said my comments were ill timed and I'm sorry. And now everyone's writing op EDS about how billionaires and philanthropy shouldn't rule.

[Kara Swisher]

That op ed was written, by the way, before. And I think it influenced him, by the way, FYI.

[Scott Galloway]

And I think there is so much. There is so much. There is so much hate right now out there from people who see an opportunity to pile on and grab social virtue at no risk to themselves.

[Kara Swisher]

Guess who I interview.

[Scott Galloway]

Fraction.

[Kara Swisher]

I've got to go. Democratic Party of guess who I interviewed over the weekend? Bernie Sanders. He says we shouldn't even go in with the billionaires.

[Scott Galloway]

The lady giving you a squid face.

[Kara Swisher]

Rachel, in Seoul, I interviewed Bernie Sanders and he's like, this is the problem with going with the rich people and just saying.

[Scott Galloway]

He's just saying, okay, that's going to help. Just demonize rich people.

[Kara Swisher]

Not demonize them. But come on.

[Scott Galloway]

Rich people have. Billionaires shouldn't exist. According to Bernie Sanders.

[Kara Swisher]

No. Rich people had far too much of an influence in both parties. Far too much. Far too much. And that's what's got to end.

[Scott Galloway]

That's Citizens United.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, I get it. But they. They've had far too much.

[Scott Galloway]

But in the meantime, let's try and get as many billionaires on our side.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I know. We've got to like build. We have to build a coalition of every billionaire.

[Scott Galloway]

The same people saying maybe it would be smart to bring Elon Musk back into the Democratic party. Are taking a great Democrat who fucked up and basically putting him. Casting him onto island.

[Kara Swisher]

They won't let him into the Trump gang anyway, so it doesn't matter. That said, we should have not. There's been too much billionaire influence of all the billionaires.

[Scott Galloway]

Agreed.

[Kara Swisher]

And it hasn't.

[Scott Galloway]

Anyway, we're not gonna argue Citizens United. You're saying we should. I agree with you. We should do away with Citizens United.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay.

[Scott Galloway]

All right.

[Kara Swisher]

There we. Let's end on that. By the way, Mike Johnson swear in Democratic Representative Grijalva. You squirmy little bitch. Put her in office.

[Scott Galloway]

That's awful.

[Kara Swisher]

Put her in office. Because you know what the Epstein.

[Scott Galloway]

What a lie.

[Kara Swisher]

What a lie.

[Scott Galloway]

The guy running the country right now is in an unmarked grave. Jeffrey Epstein is running the country right now.

[Kara Swisher]

I swear. Put her in office. She was elected by people. I want the people to speak anyway. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551, pivot. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe. This week on with Karen Swisher. I just said I spoke with Senator Bernie Sanders just as he got back from the no Kings rally. Let's listen to what he had to say about pushing back against billionaires. Let's listen to him.

[Scott Galloway]

Money is important. I'm a politician. Politician. You don't need zillions of dollars to run a campaign. You need a certain amount and you can win. But that is. And then, of course, ultimately, you got to get rid of the Citizens United, which allows billionaires to buy elections.

[Kara Swisher]

So a heel turn on billionaires. Say, just ignore it. Just say good for them.

[Scott Galloway]

If they want to contribute and play a role, that's fine. I mean, I appreciate that. I'm not. You know, there are a lot of decent people who happen to be billionaires. They think that democracy, truth is important, God bless them. But the future of this country depends on working class people standing up and taking on the billionaire class, which is getting richer and richer. I agree with all of that.

[Kara Swisher]

See, there you go. Now, see, you didn't think that that was the case. That's. He's very reasonable. Anyway, and reminder, I like Bernie. I know. I do, too. Lots of people do. It was amazing that a lot of Bernie Bros went to Trump. I think they're coming back in a lot of ways. Of a lot of his messages. He's coming around. Suddenly everyone's coming around to Bernie. And a reminder, we're going on tour. We'll be going to Toronto, Boston, New York, D.C. chicago, San Francisco and LA. Visit PivotTour.com for tickets. There's very few left, actually. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, next time I see you, I will have had my shrimp semen facial and I'll let you know how it goes. Ready us out.

[Scott Galloway]

Today's show was produced by Lara Naman, Tony Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd entered this episode. Jim Mackell edited the video. Additional support from Brad Sylvester and Rosemary Ho. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Silverio and Dan Shalon. Nishat Kuro As Vox Media is executive producer of podcasts, make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from your magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the [e-mail] podcast so we're back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara I call my penis Bernie Sanders because it leans far left and stands up for everyone. That's good, that's bad.