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- [00:01]
Scott Galloway
Support for today's show comes from HubSpot. It takes a lot to grow your business. You've got to attract audiences, score leads, manage all the channels. It's a lot of long days and late nights, but with Breeze HubSpot's new AI tools, it's never been easier to be a marketer and crush your goals fast. Which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate, like 110% more leads in just 12 months. Visit HubSpot.com marketers to learn more.
- [00:31]
Kara Swisher
Support for Pivot comes from Upway. Stuck in traffic again? Frustrated with rising gas prices? There's a better way to get around. Commuting by E bike isn't just great for your health. It's a game changer for your wallet and your time. Here's my tip. Head over to Upway Co to find E bikes from top tier brands like Specialized, Cannondale and Aventon at up to 60% off retail. Whether you're into MTBS or Speedy City Bikes, they've got you covered. Plus, you can get $150 off your first e bike purchase of $1,000 or more with the code PIVOT150. You can thank me later. I love Eve Lights. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Forget the frustration of picking commerce platforms when you switch your business to Shopify, the global commerce platform that supercharges your selling wherever you sell. With Shopify, you'll harness the same intuitive features, trusted apps and powerful analytics used by the world's leading brands.
- [01:27]
Scott Galloway
Sign up today for your $1 per.
- [01:29]
Kara Swisher
Month trial period@shopify.com tech. All lowercase. That's shopify.com tech. Let me just say Amanda loves your whole. This whole jam, Scott. She was like, scott's on fire. I love it. She was vaguely attracted to you.
- [01:44]
Scott Galloway
I think vaguely is doing a lot of work there.
- [01:49]
Kara Swisher
Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York magazine and the Vox Media podcast network. I'm Kara Swisher.
- [01:54]
Scott Galloway
And I'm Scott Galloway.
- [01:56]
Kara Swisher
Scott, we've got a very special guest today, someone I like very much in Silicon Valley, which is an unusual thing. Joining us today is Reid Hoffman.
- [02:04]
Reid Hoffman
Good morning.
- [02:05]
Kara Swisher
So we're doing a new thing on Pivot. We're going to make people stay the whole show and Reid is our very first guest to do this. We're having a really good friend of Pivot. It's not just a friend of Pivot, it's an extremely special friend of Pivot. Reid is the co founder of LinkedIn, obviously the host of podcasts Masters of Scale and Possible. He's also the author of a new book, what Could Possibly Go Right With Our AI I feel like he's positive about the future, not on everything. Welcome, Reid again.
- [02:31]
Reid Hoffman
It's great to be here. I love being on this podcast with you guys.
- [02:34]
Kara Swisher
Good. So we're gonna talk about a lot of stuff and last time we talked was at your event right before the election, which you had participated in. We're gonna talk a little bit about that before we start. We have to acknowledge this tragic crash at Reagan Airport in D.C. on Wednesday night. The worst air disaster in over 15 years. An American Airlines regional plane with 64 people on board collided in midair with a Black Hawk helicopter with three soldiers aboard. Recording this on Thursday morning as the recovery operation is underway in the Potomac. There was a press conference a little while ago. Authorities confirmed there are no survivors. 28 bodies have been recovered so far. It was a flight coming in from Wichita. And the Black Hawk, they don't know. I'm not gonna speak about it. Cause I don't know anything about this. I don't have any extra information. It's tragic and very, very sad. But the authorities here seem to be doing their best to figure happened and moving on. And we're not going to politicize it. We're not going to do everything that has already broken out online. Any reaction from either of you? You don't have to have any whatsoever. But Scott.
- [03:41]
Scott Galloway
Well, look, these things, obviously it's a tragedy. The only thing, there's such a spectacle that they attract a lot of media. And I believe about a thousand people a week in the US or about 800 people a week die in automobile accidents, but they're not nearly as dramatic or as much as a spectacle. And you know what? I hear this, it's a tragedy. But at the same time, when I look at the data, it's just sort of incredible that it doesn't happen more often. I mean, what you said at the very top of this, it's the worst disaster in over 15 years because it doesn't happen very often.
- [04:13]
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
- [04:14]
Scott Galloway
So I'm not saying it doesn't warrant scrutiny. I'm not saying it's not a tragedy. I do think it's just a miracle though, that this form of transportation is as safe as it is. So anyways, I look at it almost as a glass half full, if you will.
- [04:30]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. Except for the people who died, of course.
- [04:33]
Scott Galloway
100%.
- [04:34]
Reid Hoffman
Well, and plus one, Scott's comments. And obviously hearts go out to the families and all the people. It's a huge tragedy and loss. On the other hand, there's this tendency to try to blame the faa, and you look at the fact is that it's much safer to be flying than it is to be driving. And so there's a credit to. To how the whole aeronautics and air transport system works. And there's going to be, I think, overly much of a witch hunt on the FAA camp, where actually, in fact, I think the system should also be acknowledged.
- [05:07]
Scott Galloway
I heard the air traffic controller was a lesbian. Your thoughts, Kara?
- [05:10]
Kara Swisher
Oh, anyway, I'm sure it was dei. If they start with that, I'm not going to have any of it. It's ridiculous. There aren't enough air traffic controllers. And obviously there's been a lot of uncertainty around the federal workforce right now, but it has nothing to do with tragedy. But that said, it's a wonderful system that we have, and at the same time, just for anyone. I live in D.C. flying into DCA is terrifying. I find it terrifying. There's so much air traffic going on. You see helicopters. There's a weird twist that you have to do because of all the federal buildings, including the Washington Monument and the White House. And so whenever you're coming in, I find it. I've always. It makes me nervous to come in because it's such a highly trafficked area with military and everyone else, but we'll see what happened here because you're right, it never happens. But let's move on. And we're so sorry for the families of all the people that were killed. We're gonna talk all about the deep sea craziness in a sec, but first, I wanna. Reid, I want you to start this. Why are you so positive about our AI future? I know you've talked about things that could go wrong and stuff. Your position on A is somewhere between doomers, gloomers, and zoomers. You call yourself a bloomer, accelerating toward a bright future, but managing risk. Can you just expl yourself so we can put you in the where we put you on the map here?
- [06:35]
Reid Hoffman
Well, I think in both creating immense value for humanity and also navigating risks, I think our future will have a much stronger tool set. So in the positive category, thinking about the fact that you can have a medical assistant that's better than today's average GP on every smartphone, running for under $5 an hour for anyone who has access to a smartphone for doing that, a tutor on every subject for every age. And then, of course, the fact that it's kind of the cognitive Industrial revolution of increasing productivity in a lot of different vectors. And I think all of that is extremely positive. Now, that doesn't mean there aren't risks to navigate and some questions to navigate in kind of good ways. But that's why I think I'm fundamentally an optimist and fundamentally also an accelerationist in this direction.
- [07:24]
Kara Swisher
But one of the things that a lot of people are talking about is cost to zero for lots of things. I mean, Marc Andreessen, I've heard it from Vinod, this idea that everything will cost. Penn Sometimes you all go over the top. So that's why people question your. Not credibility for you, but some people's credibility.
- [07:41]
Reid Hoffman
Well, that's the difference between Bloomers and Zoomers, right? The whole notion of everything created with technology is going to create an abundant Star Trek universe immediately.
- [07:50]
Scott Galloway
Abundantly.
- [07:51]
Reid Hoffman
That's a favorite word. Yes. Freely across this is a kind of exponential, an exponentialism hysteria that I think actually doesn't have particularly good thinking. I think the question about saying so that we can create so much better of a future with technology and with AI is very important and just kind of drive navigate intelligently.
- [08:15]
Scott Galloway
So Reid, I'm genuine with this question because I think you're one of the brightest blue flame thinkers in the world of technology. I'm sort of blown away by Deep Seek and I want to posit a hypothesis with you and think there's any and see if there's any merit. And that is. We were just talking about the airline disaster or the air crash and I was thinking about the airline industry. I was thinking about PCs. We can skirt along the surface of the atmosphere at 0.8 the speed of sound. It's added remarkable valuable to the economy and to consumers. Air travel, jet air travel. PCs have revolutionized the world. Yet neither of those industries were able to capture or any specific companies were able to capture a great deal of shareholder value. It was consumers and the general public that captured most of the value. And I'm wondering if Deep Seek is in fact a signal that in fact AI may be one of those industries where there's not a small number of companies that are worth a couple trillion dollars. But there's so much competition and the barriers are so low that it might have unbelievable winners. But those winners will be further dispersed into the general public and the economy. And we might not have a small number of winners as we did in social or search, that the big winners similar to the airline or the PC industry might be the public, but a lack of really big winners in tech Your thoughts?
- [09:43]
Reid Hoffman
Interesting thesis. I would tend to think it'll be more like kind of software Internet dynamics, but I actually don't think that's necessarily because there's only one or two. I mean, I think one of the things that the Internet brought about with it is previously when it was kind of like hardware dynamics and PCs were dominant. It was part of the thing where everyone was like, Microsoft's going to be competing with Disney and with airlines and everything else because it's the primary software OS and the Internet open it up to allow kind of Google and Amazon and so forth. So I think there's going to be multiple and I think we're more call it seven big tech companies heading to 15. But I don't think it's going. I think that the same kind of dynamics where you have a network effect for a social network or a LinkedIn or a kind of an enterprise integration or kind of the way that the kind of AdWords and buying the search traffic works for Google, I think those dynamics probably will still be present in AI, but that doesn't mean that I'm a venture capitalist investor at Greylock. I invest in a number of different startups and I think there will be just literally a field of interesting companies and I think that the public will benefit a lot from that. Just kind of like the way they benefit a lot from Wikipedia, the Internet, free communications and a bunch of other things. But I don't think it's necessarily kind of completely broadly dispersed.
- [11:16]
Kara Swisher
You're not going to see it. So why don't you just go into. Because one of the things some of our listeners are like, we didn't say enough about Deep seq. Well, honestly, we don't know, Scott and I don't know like you, for example. So it caused a frenzy in tech and markets and so we brought, we brought Reid in to explain listeners because we're idiots. Fine. So deepsea caused this frenzy and tech in the markets. I'd love your take on what we're seeing and what excites you about it and what worries you. And I will note that OpenAI, where you were an early investor, you're no longer on the board and Microsoft, where you are on the board now, are investigating whether OpenAI's data was stolen to build Deep Seq's model. They were also relying on open source stuff like Llama from Meta, et cetera. So talk a little bit about, give your take on this and make it a hot take because that's who the person you are.
- [12:02]
Reid Hoffman
Yeah, happy to do it. By the way, one of the benefits of me being able to speculate is I have no internal information from either Microsoft or OpenAI, so I can speak entirely as a outside commentator just looking at this. So deepseek released a highly competent model from China. And you know, kind of part of the reason I took the market by storm is the thesis was that it was created for a lot less money and a lot less compute. And what I think is there's certainly some parts of the story that are incorrect. The thing that we're trying to figure out is which parts of it are incorrect. And I would speculate with some vigor that they actually had some version of access to larger models in helping training, because this is actually something we all knew already last year, year before, is that large models will help train small, small. And so that means when you train a small model effectively, but you need a large model in order to do it, that's actually not disproving the need for these scale systems because when you have the better and better large scale models, you'll be able to train also really, really good.
- [13:11]
Kara Swisher
So they were riding off of your rails, in other words.
- [13:14]
Reid Hoffman
Exactly right. And so I would hazard strongly that there's something like that in the background. Now it could be that they had, you know, sort of some kind of access to ChatGPT. Certainly some of the data and evidence suggest that in terms of the way that it answers and does certain things, it could be that they actually had access to a compute cluster of size. Because the so called training run really makes sense. And I've cross checked this across multiple groups, you know, like outside groups saying, hey, you know, what is it, what makes sense here? And they're like, yeah, for the final training run on a serious compute cluster, that could be the dollars that was, that was spent on this in order to make it happen. Doesn't include talent, doesn't include all these other things.
- [13:56]
Kara Swisher
Right. The stuff that was so as they were saying it was 5 to 6 million. No one thinks that because again, the talent that they hired they put in place. It was a lot of younger people. Correct. That's their story, that it wasn't highly paid anymore.
- [14:08]
Reid Hoffman
Yeah, exactly. And I think it's nearly certain that it's dependent upon the large scale compute, the larger models in some way. The only question is we don't know in what ways and how. And I think that's one of the things that everyone's investigating. And so I think the kind of market frenzy on oh my God, AI can be here without large scale compute. And of course, by the way, AI can be here. I invest in startups that train small models and so forth. But the large models still bring certain critical elements to the table in terms of ability to train small models, ability to get to performance. Like if you say, well hey, moving from 10,000 GPUs to 100,000 GPUs, we only get a 20% better coder, medical assistant, legal assistant, tutor. Well, in a wide variety of those areas that really matters that, that actually that increase in cost when you amortize it across people accessing it across the entire Internet, the billions of people that could use it, that's actually completely worth it and makes, you know, total economic sense.
- [15:09]
Kara Swisher
So the cheapness of it. So what excites you about it and what, and why did it have such a market impact from your perspective? You saw Nvidia got crashed, it came back up. But you know, this was the idea. Cause the economic underpinnings of this might, which everyone's worried about, this amount of money, $50 billion, $80 billion, et cetera. Microsoft is 80. I think.
- [15:31]
Reid Hoffman
Yeah. By the way, I think that all of these questions are in the classic kind of like short termism versus long termism. Because if you saying hey, I'm spending, I'm doing kind of building this kind of capex thing of 50 to 80 billion dollars, a I can train much better intelligence, but B, I'm also, these are kind of data centers that in terms of serving intelligence through various apps to the world, you know, you could say, well the payoff is longer than I'd like as a public market. I think the payoff to be three years and maybe it'll be five years or seven years, you know, that's the kind of range you're talking about. So I find that the general discussion on the, you know, X tens of billions of dollars to be short sighted. Generally, me as a private citizen, me as a venture investor, obviously making zero comment as a, you know, kind of Microsoft board member. But the, and so I think think that it's an extremely important area to be investing in. And I'm actually glad that we as a industry are doing this. I mean one of the things that I've kind of thought about over December was that I want artificial intelligence not just to be amplification intelligence, I want it to be American intelligence.
- [16:41]
Kara Swisher
In terms of China thing. They're always bringing the xi or me kind of argument. Go ahead.
- [16:46]
Reid Hoffman
Yeah, yeah. And I think by the way, part of the criticism I used to get Last year and the year before when I was saying, hey look, we are game on with China, was like, oh, you're just trying to get the excuse that we shouldn't be interfering with you and slowing you down and so forth. It's like, no, no, no. I see the competition coming and one of, I think the huge virtues of Deep Seek is kind of like, yes, there it is. Right. That is serious and real competition. And I think that's the world we're in.
- [17:16]
Scott Galloway
Yeah. Who would have thought that China would engage in IP theft to create a cheaper product? We've never seen that before. I love that AI is taking the job of AI.
- [17:25]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, that's the big job.
- [17:26]
Scott Galloway
Jon Stewart said so. Another thesis. Most consumer markets, if you think of this as not only B2B but B2C, they bifurcate. It becomes Walmart or Tiffany, it becomes Android, which is essentially free and it's ad supported or it's iOS. Isn't this potentially just the first sort of shot across the bow where this market is going to become similar to every other consumer market where we're going to have Walmart and Tiffany and this is kind of the first entry into the Walmart. 80% kind of Old Navy. Old Navy is 80% of Gap for 50% of the price. And that hits a large market. But a lot of people want Gap or Banana Republic, that there's a market for both of these, if you will, both respective positionings, I think.
- [18:13]
Reid Hoffman
Yes. And actually, in fact, when we kind of talk about what is our agenda future, most people tend to think there's going to be Lord of the Rings, there's one agent to rule them all. And actually, in fact, I think there's going to be in a sense more agents than people because every person is going to have multiple agents. Now there may be a limited number of code bases, call it a thousand, kind of powering. All the different agents could be 10,000. But I think we're going to actually live in a very rich agent environment and that's going to have a. It's not just going to be the kind of the Walmart or Tiffany's. I think it's going to be, you know, this agent's actually particularly good at travel. This agent's particularly good at, you know, kind of interpersonal discussion. This agent's particularly good for, you know, people like Scott and this other agent's particularly good for people like Kara.
- [19:02]
Kara Swisher
Right, so an agent that writes better dick jokes. Go ahead, go ahead.
- [19:06]
Reid Hoffman
Exactly. No, no, but precisely the point is like, you know, this one will be sardonic and a little sarcastic. And Scott's like, yeah, that's my agent. And this agent's gonna be fiery and say, no, we gotta hold you to a higher standard. And that'll be the care agent. And then, you know, then you'll have the nuanced agent of the one for Reed saying, well, on one hand. And on the other hand, yeah, yeah.
- [19:25]
Kara Swisher
That would be your agent, wouldn't it be? So let me. Speaking of that, what he was talking about, you just raised 24, $25 million in funding for AI drug discovery startup focusing on cancer research. And doing this is something that, you know, Sam did this at the White House event, for example, and your book is called Super Agency. So this is drug discovery. Super agency is what you're writing about. Of these many things, where do you think the quicker is and the more important for the economy? And explain what super agency is, what you were just saying. Correct?
- [19:59]
Reid Hoffman
Yes. Well, super agency is what happens. And we've seen this from everything from the fire and agriculture to the printing press to the car and electricity is what happens when millions of people all get access to the superpowers of increasing their agency at the same time, and we collectively get super agency. Like, for example, when I get a car, I don't just get a place to be able to get a broader geographic mobility. My friends can come visit me. A doctor can come do a home visit. Things can be delivered into the local neighborhood. And so that's kind of the super agency. And the thesis is just like everything else, with kind of the Internet and the mobile phone, that we will all get super agency through AI because the cognitive superpowers that you get, that I get, that Scott gets, will actually be. We will get even more superpowers because we're all getting them at the same time. And that is, I think, kind of like it's William Gibson line. The future's already here, but unevenly distributed. That's already present. There's already a whole bunch of different things you can do with AI that most people don't realize is a huge amplifier in both how they navigate their personal life and how they navigate their kind of future life. Now, Manus is kind of my kind of thinking about what are the things that these AI things can greatly do to massively improve the kind of human life and human condition that are kind of in a different direction that most people are heading. So Manus, for example, is not building an agent. It's kind of saying, actually, in fact, the biology of our Human bodies is a complex language and part of what's going on with cancer is kind of misfires in that language. And we can take these great amplification that you get with AI and take the best of AI and take it with the best of science and then you can tackle a problem that, you know, five year olds get cancer sometimes. It's not just, you know, it's the entire everybody in the human race at all ages. Our system is naturally trying to regulate cancer and all of us are at risk for it. And it's something that we can potentially solve with AI.
- [22:26]
Kara Swisher
Right, but that's not agency, that's the other things it's gonna do like climate and everything else that's your focus. And so you're sort of where is most of your money going? Agents, these agents that you just, just spoke of. Or is it these other things or is it just like electricity? We don't know where it's going to be applied. It can be applied to everything from light bulbs to electrocuting people. You just don't know what the application is.
- [22:54]
Reid Hoffman
Well, I think there's a broad range and as an investor and as a kind of a theorist and thinker, it's anything that could make a massive difference for the human condition. So I'm both very pro agent agent universe, but I'm also pro all the other applications, whether it's kind of climate change, cancer. And I think that's part of the reason why this technology, like for example, electricity does an entire range of things. It's not just powering light bulbs, it's your heating and now cars and the whole range. We can't live in anything like even approximately close to our modern condition without electricity. And I think that's the kind of technology that we're the comparative.
- [23:40]
Kara Swisher
The comparative. So any amount of money spent is good money spent from your perspective?
- [23:44]
Reid Hoffman
Well, yes. It doesn't mean that some of it won't be seriously wasted by a bad approach and whether that's classic as you know, for the venture industry. So there will be hundreds of foolish investments, but the overall industry will create a massively good surplus for humanity and society.
- [24:05]
Kara Swisher
In any case, we got a lot to get to today. We're take a quick break, then we'll talk through some of this week's big headlines with Reid. Support for Pivot comes from Life360. You may not be able to proof everything in your day to day lives, but with Life360 you can family proof your family. Life 360 is a location sharing app that makes family life easier. Knowing where everyone is at any given time makes coordinating daily routines and activities a breeze. Plus, you can attach Life360's tile trackers to all your family's important stuff, especially those pesky things that tend to go missing and track them within the right app. I lose things all the time and I use these trackers all the time and I always enjoy where some of my things are. Even today when I can't get them back. I've gotten to try them out a lot. I put them in luggage, I put them in my bags, I put them on important items, I put them on things I can't lose. And I actually really like about the tile trackers is they're all different shapes so you can do different things. I don't follow my family around, though. Maybe I should slip one in one of my son's pockets to see what he's up to. But I do think it's important, especially when you have luggage and things like that. It's helpful to know where everybody is and to track them in a way everybody knows about so you're not sneaking around. This year you can stay connected with location sharing and stay coordinated with place alert notifications when someone arrives or leaves a given location. You can family proof your family with Life360, visit life360.com or download the app today and use the code Pivot to get 15% off. That's life360.com code pivot. Support for pivot comes from 1-800-Flowers. Valentine's Day is coming up and you can let your special someone know just how special they are. With the help of 1, 800, I am sending Scott a cactus. That's what's happening. They offer beautiful, high quality calla lilies. There's no calla lilies for you cactuses. They offer beautiful, high quality bouquets. And this year you can get double the roses for free. When you buy one dozen from 1-800-flowers, they'll double your bouquet up to two dozen roses. Of course, roses are a classic sweet way to say I love you, and 1-800-FLowers lets you share that message without breaking the bank. All their roses are picked at their peak, cared for every step of the way, and shipped fresh to ensure lasting beauty. I recently ordered something at 1,800 flowers. It's actually a plant. I like a plant. And so I am getting in fact a calla lily plant. I can't believe Scott just said it, but I probably am. Or I'm gonna get a gardenia bush, something like that. Their bouquets actually are selling fast, and you can lock in your order today. Win their heart this Valentine's Day at 1800-flowers.com it's probably their biggest day. To claim your double your roses offer, go to 1-800-FLowers.com pivot. That's 1-800-FLowers. Com pivot.
- [26:51]
Scott Galloway
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- [28:02]
Kara Swisher
Scott and Reid, we're back. We've got a lot to get to today. Let's get into some headlines now. Meta will pay Trump $25 million settlement for shutting down his accounts after January 6th. Most of the payment will go towards Trump's presidential library again, much as Disney's payment of $15 million is going to do that. X, who also kicked Trump off the platform after January 6, says it's negotiating its own settlement with Trump. Apparently the Trump people said Mark wasn't gonna get into the tent unless he did this. You don't seem to be paying anybody millions of dollars to get in the tent. So what do you think, Reid?
- [28:37]
Reid Hoffman
So, obviously, I think that was a.
- [28:39]
Kara Swisher
Long sigh that you just had there.
- [28:41]
Reid Hoffman
Well, look, I obviously think that the notion of kind of this sort of payoff is, I think, is, to put it charitably, suboptimal. And I think the question of the fact is when people are removed from services for violations of terms of service, they're removed from violations of terms of service. And I think that's a perfectly good thing. And I myself Am a massive advocate for the rule of law and how these contracts work, but I understand expediency in navigation.
- [29:20]
Kara Swisher
Okay, what does that mean? That means.
- [29:22]
Reid Hoffman
What does that mean?
- [29:23]
Kara Swisher
It's a vig. It feels like a vig to me. That's my. Sounds like a mob move to me.
- [29:28]
Reid Hoffman
Yeah.
- [29:29]
Kara Swisher
You know, I don't want. Wouldn't want nice company you got there, wouldn't want anything to happen to it kind of thing. Yeah.
- [29:35]
Reid Hoffman
Yeah. Well, let's hope that we see very little of that in the coming years, although, obviously we have deep worries in the other direction.
- [29:44]
Kara Swisher
Couldn't he keep doing this, suing people and getting these things?
- [29:47]
Reid Hoffman
Well, I guess the question will be is it's kind of like how much do people kind of respond to this sort of excess pressure on these kinds of things? And I think that. That frankly, you know, we shouldn't want it as a society. And, you know, I think probably there will at some point be a bridge too far on it. And seeing what that bridge looks like, I think is still something. Where we're looking for that bridge too far is.
- [30:26]
Scott Galloway
Well, there's two dimensions to this. The first is from a pure shareholder standpoint, it probably makes sense when the President's coming after you to say, and you make $20 billion a year in operating profit to say, yeah, just make it go away. Just give them $25 million to the presidential Library and make it go away. The problem is, and I wouldn't expect, based on pattern behavior, Mark Zuckerberg to think anything about this, is that this has real societal implications. And that is despite the fact Bob Iger made $45 million last year. I would argue he's becoming more and more impoverished in terms of his citizenship. And that is when a media company says things that are a fraction of. Of the misinformation, slander, disparaging statements that the President has made himself. That happens every day online. And they agree to set precedent by bending a knee and bowing to this intimidation. It sends a chill across the entire fucking nation. I'm on Morning Joe and I call the President an insurrectionist and a rapist. And Mika stops the show to clarify, he was found guilty of sexual abuse.
- [31:39]
Kara Swisher
Liable.
- [31:40]
Scott Galloway
Excuse me, Sexual. Liable. He was found liable of sexual abuse. Is that the right terminology?
- [31:44]
Kara Swisher
Yes, I just made. Call me Mika Brzezinski, but go ahead.
- [31:48]
Scott Galloway
But look at what we're doing. All right? And by the way, the judge then went on in his sentencing to say the street term for that is rape. So what do you have? You have a Group of people. This is straight out of the fascist handbook. Intimidate anyone who says anything negative about you. And if these companies, in my opinion, had more fidelity to American values and the very important role media plays in checking power, they wouldn't be bending the fucking knee like this. So is it a practical thing to do? Yes, you can argue with that. Has it sent a chill across the entire country in what is an incredible double standard that the critics of President Trump are now feel that they're being held to look at the shit he has said about people that's been incorrect. So, yeah, Bob and Mark. I expected this from Mark. I was disappointed to see it from Bob. Where are the men? Where are the Americans who are gonna stand up and say no if you're not guilty? If we're not. If the entire ecosystem has never been held liable for things much more slanderous or disparaging than these statements, I'll see you in court.
- [33:00]
Kara Swisher
In this case, it wasn't statements. He broke the rules of Facebook and they kicked him off. That's all. It was not as Reid was noticed.
- [33:07]
Scott Galloway
Which they're allowed to do.
- [33:08]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, exactly. So, Reid, when we talked in October, I asked if you were concerned about Trump and retribution and your own well being, and you said yes. Talk about now. How are you feeling? Cause obviously you were one of the more prominent supporters of Kamala Harris, obviously a big Democratic donor. You do give to Republicans also, for which for some reason you get endless shit. I'm not sure why. I think that's probably fine to do that. How do you feel now? Now do you feel in that crosshairs that we had discussed?
- [33:35]
Reid Hoffman
Well, it's unclear. I'm hopeful that a bunch of my friends who are around the administration say, look, that's just kind of all rhetoric and isn't actually going to be.
- [33:49]
Kara Swisher
That's what they say to you?
- [33:50]
Reid Hoffman
Yes, that's what they say to me. And so that obviously is hopeful, but obviously it's one of the things that I think, think both me personally and we as Americans need to watch carefully because we do want to be, to continue to be the home of the brave and land of the free. And I think that that's very important to be resolutely against kind of abuses of state power for individual interests. And so like I said, I went and talked to a whole bunch of people who are kind of in and around the current administration, said, look, I have this worry. They said, look, we've talked to a bunch of people. They say this is not something we're gonna do. I was like, okay, then let's wait and see.
- [34:40]
Kara Swisher
Are these the same people that said he wasn't gonna let out everybody at January 6th? He's only gonna let out. He wasn't gonna let out the criminals, but then he did. That's the case.
- [34:49]
Reid Hoffman
It wasn't the same people as those.
- [34:51]
Kara Swisher
He's done that several times. He's done that several times.
- [34:53]
Reid Hoffman
So there's worries. And like, for example, letting out the people who assaulted police officers, as per what Scott was saying earlier, is a terrible signal. It's basically saying, hey, if you're doing violence in a cause that I am supportive of, I have this thing of a presidential pardon. And that's obviously, you know, frankly, you know, terrifying. Concerning.
- [35:23]
Kara Swisher
Right, but you didn't want a presidential pardon, correct?
- [35:26]
Reid Hoffman
No, no, of course not.
- [35:27]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. You didn't do anything.
- [35:29]
Scott Galloway
But here's the problem. If I'm a thoughtful guy who's high profile, with a lot of business interests, with a family, I would be inclined. I'm not going to speak for you, Reid. I'd be inclined to keep a very low profile over the next 12 months. Whereas the people on the right are emboldened to be aggressive and pollute and flood the zone with misinformation and bullshit and attacks. And the people on the other side of the aisle feel like, well, maybe I should just keep quiet for a while because they are removing security details of people, which is nothing but repackaged violence. When you took out the head of the Iranian security forces and you ordered that strike as a general, and the president, for whatever reason doesn't like you, is removing your security detail. That is repackaged violence against that person. So what we have is a group. This is the road to fascism. Keep them quiet. Put a chill across people. I'm going to keep a low profile. Maybe I'm just not going to be quite as aggressive. That is, let me be clear, one of the roads to fascism. And I want you both to respond to. This is littered with calls or accusations that people are overreacting. Call me overreacting.
- [36:48]
Kara Swisher
Let me just say Amanda loves your whole. This whole jam, Scott. She was like, scott's on fire. I love it. She was vaguely attracted to you.
- [36:55]
Scott Galloway
I think vaguely is doing a lot of work there.
- [36:58]
Kara Swisher
Vaguely.
- [36:58]
Scott Galloway
Vaguely is doing a lot of work.
- [37:00]
Kara Swisher
She was. She wanted me to tell you. I think you're right. But I think it's people that are very high profile, like Reid certainly aren't backing down, don't seem to be disappearing. He's right here. Right. And he's talking about it. So I think the question is when Mark does these deals, when he just doesn't have to and it doesn't help them from a shareholder point of view. I really think that's nonsense. It's really. But again, we expected Mark to do this. Sorry. I know Reid. You were. Reid was early at Facebook and had been a mentor to Mark. I don't think he's listening to someone like you anymore. But that said, you and Bill Gates had been and probably are no longer, I would guess. But I don't know.
- [37:39]
Reid Hoffman
Look, the thing I think that the American people should pay a lot of attention to the removing the security detail from a person who spent their entire life serving the American people, putting himself in harm's way, kind of helping secure the safety of America, both locally and Americans abroad, and saying, hey, for petty reasons, I am putting that person directly in the harm's way of violence. And I think that is an unpatriotic personal thing that I think is extremely important that everyone should pay attention to. And I think it's exactly that is, I think that as Scott's saying on the things that are like that is the kind of thing that is deeply un American. I think people need to speak up about. And so 100%.
- [38:33]
Kara Swisher
So another thing that people are talking about a lot here in Washington at least, the Trump administration is offering 2 million government employees the option to resign by February 6th if they're not willing to return to the office full time and what's being called a deferred resignation. Employees that resign will continue to be paid and get benefits for eight months. This move has Elon Musk's fingerprints all over it, down the subject line of the email sent to those employees. A fork in the road, which he was an email Elon Musk sent to Twitter staff in 2022. I have been stopped by so many government employees saying, what should I do? I said, do not leave because they won't pay you. Because Elon still has severance issues with those people that were supposed to be paid at Twitter. It's one of these ploys to get people out the door. There's also federal employees have more private employees have rights in California, New York especially, but here they have more. What do you two make of this plan? It's unclear whether Trump can even offer this buyout package without budget authorization if he has the money for it. They're hoping that 5 to 10% of federal employees accept the offer, which could mean to hundreds of thousands of people. You've been involved in companies that do things like this, and obviously you end up paying them. Unlike what Elon did at Twitter. It looks like he went around everybody. It looks like he went around everybody. This plan was sort of foisted upon people without even Trump officials knowing it was happening. That was a story in the Washington Post today. So, thoughts?
- [39:58]
Reid Hoffman
Yeah. So it is a technique that, when deployed with honor, is actually, in fact, something that has some strength in the private ecosystem, because it's kind of in the private ecosystem. The way it works is if you're not committed to the future of this, then now is a good time to exit, because doing. And it works in the private ecosystem in part because, you know, part of it is not only am I committed to the mission of this, but there's also an economic reason to be keeping going. You believe in the stock options, the bonus plan, all these kind of things for that. Now, I worry in the public circumstance that. That. That applied here, that. That a lot of the folks who go, okay, you know, I could get jobs in 10 different places. I'm gonna go do one of those and do this. And this will be deplora, you know, kind of depriving the American people of some really great talent.
- [40:52]
Kara Swisher
So the good people will leave, in other words. Which is always a worry when you're doing this. Right. When you're doing one of these broad layoffs.
- [40:58]
Reid Hoffman
Yeah. And that's, I think, unlike the. In the private ecosystem, where you actually have a. And we have a rich incentive plan for staying. Two right here. It's like, you know, here's an incentive plan for leaving versus an incentive plan for staying.
- [41:12]
Kara Swisher
So the best people leave, and in the case of private companies, they try to retain or they specifically target certain employees. Correct. This is too broad in that regard. So the best people will go with the experience and the worst people will stay. Correct. Or the less good people will stay.
- [41:28]
Reid Hoffman
Yeah. There's a worry about a selection effect.
- [41:30]
Kara Swisher
Right. Did you notice the echoes of what Elon had done here?
- [41:34]
Reid Hoffman
Yeah, of course.
- [41:35]
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
- [41:36]
Reid Hoffman
And, well, I mean, look, I think. I think we will see many things that are the parallel to, you know, how Elon thinks an organization should be turned around from Twitter to the federal government. The fact that you're looking now where, you know, the. What was the leaked emails like, wait, we're not doing very well. You know, is. Whatever X years on it is for Twitter, you know, it's like, well, you know, should be learning from that. And that's within the standard understood commercial Ecosystem.
- [42:12]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. Just so you know, today you're not going to talk about financial results, but Tesla's results were terrible. Even though the stock is going up because, because they aren't selling as many cars in any case.
- [42:23]
Scott Galloway
Scott, you guys have said it. I don't like buyouts because the people with the most options, the most talented people, are the ones that exercise them. I'm much more. I, I don't think there's anything wrong with the thesis that there's too many federal employees and we need to trim it and they should be subject to the same standards and insecurities and anxieties and you know, work week that private employees are subject to. I don't have a problem with that. I think it should be based on what departments are least efficient or performance. But these, your most talented people leave. The people with the most options leave. It is a degradation, I think, in the quality of the workforce. It's not the way to go about this.
- [43:04]
Kara Swisher
Is there a good way to do this? Right. Elon's using all his playbook. Right. What is the playbook that would work here to do what Scott was talking about from your pers, if you had to think of it off the top of your head?
- [43:16]
Reid Hoffman
Well, I mean, the parallel on the commercial side is that you actually also have incentives for keeping the good people to stay, whether there's stock bonuses, other kinds of things as ways of doing it. So it's not just the stick, it's the carrot for, for the, for going long in your long term commitment to the organization. And it's in its, in its mission. So, you know, this would probably be harder and maybe not within the, you know, kind of presidential remit, but you know, bonuses like you could imagine. Like, you know, the kind of thing you'd say is, hey, if, if, if you figure out how to cut 10% of your budget will give you a 1% bonus on these kind of things would be the kind of thing that I would, you know, potentially look at. But I think it's, it's all, of course, very tricky and difficult and difficult.
- [44:10]
Kara Swisher
In a public environment versus a private one. Right, exactly. Because what is results? Because sometimes results people being less poor. Like what are the, what are the. It's not a stock. You can see it in the stock market versus something else.
- [44:22]
Reid Hoffman
Else. Exactly.
- [44:24]
Kara Swisher
Right. Which is difficult. Is the concept of cutting people a good idea from your perspective?
- [44:30]
Reid Hoffman
Fundamentally, yes. Just because it's part of what makes. What are the things we should learn from? A bunch of the things that we learn from the commercial side and part of it is refactoring organizations is essential for keeping them healthy. And so that refactoring is extremely important. I'm quite certain if one one looked through the kind of the federal government one would find like, and I'm sure that I'm using this as a hypothetical example. It's like, you know, you've got, you know, maybe still a weather balloon department, you know, and it's like, well, we should have one of those, got satellites and a bunch of other stuff. I'm sure we need one of those, you know, that kind of thing. And so I think that refactoring is good and I think getting to that refactoring, figuring out how to do it in a good intelligent ways is one of the things that I'm, I think is like we could be hopeful for maybe some good will come of this.
- [45:24]
Kara Swisher
Right. So a blunt force to it is a way to get it started.
- [45:28]
Reid Hoffman
Yeah, look, I think one of the things we're have to pay attention to is I think the default will be massively increase the deficit. And I think that the problem should be, is we should not be, we should try to reduce the deficit. I mean if you look at the actual budget and you want to get, you know, a lot of money out of what we're spending, we're spending on debt service is one of the massive line items. And so increasing that is just mortgaging our children's future more. I mean it's already somewhat mortgaged. Let's try to pay off the mortgage versus add to it.
- [46:01]
Kara Swisher
Right. In doing this. Well, we'll see what happens. Anyway, one of the other things that besides doing this, Elon's doing is, and this is an area you obviously came together with PayPal when he had X.com, but they're partnering with Visa to allow real time payments through its upcoming X Money service. CEO Lindy Acquirino announced the deal saying it would enable instant funding to an X Wallet. Visa Direct will also allow users to make peer to peer payments. Look, they were going to do this, they announced this. But I'm just curious where this is going. These ideas of the Everything app and this was a concept that not just X has. It's been going around forever. Everyone talks about this, but where is the payment payment space right now? Away from this. I would never trust anything Linda Yaccarino's working on with my money. But that's different. Where is it right now, the payments space? It seems like Apple dominates this whole space right now.
- [47:00]
Reid Hoffman
And PayPal, well, payments is an area that at least has scale effect, if not sometimes network effects. And one of the things you have to get to a certain scale before you even have a viable payments network. And so, so getting that scale really matters. I think that we want to see a bunch of good innovation on this. It is a very kind of common pattern to kind of go, oh, the way I'm going to more verticalize and extend my service is by adding in kind of payments and banking. And we see it in a number of different contexts. I mean, Google has one. There's a stack of these. And given my own background, you know, kind of doing the kind of payment space, it's actually one of the areas that I kind of look at because it adds to the flexibility. Like, one of the things I really loved about what we did at PayPal was try to make every individual able to be a merchant. Now that's now much more true in the whole world, which wasn't true before, which allows kind of individual entrepreneurship inside. And so I think it's a good area to improve. You know, lots and lots of people are doing it.
- [48:09]
Scott Galloway
Yeah, A platform built on rage porn and crypto scams, handling your money. What could go wrong? Look, the FDIC or banks have the fdic. Twitter has dog memes. I, I just. Our financial institution is based on trust. That you hit a button, that they have figured out a way to get it there safely, that along the way it doesn't get sequestered. That money is not know your customer. There's all sorts of things, FDIC insurance. I mean, there are so many protocols. Twitter, to me, does not reek of security or safety when it comes to people's money. It might actually. The underlying technology and its ubiquity, it might be a good use case for it, but the entire financial system is a case study in trust. And I don't feel this organization has created a great deal of trust.
- [48:57]
Kara Swisher
All right, so, Wade, where is the most innovative thing you're seeing in funding right now? I mean, obviously, again, again, I don't think I've touched. I've dealt with money for a year now. I don't even. Like I found a 20 in my wallet and I was like, oh, look at that. I use Apple almost entirely for all payments everywhere I go, obviously, because I have an iPhone. But what is the most innovative thing you're seeing in this area?
- [49:21]
Reid Hoffman
Well, I haven't. Since I've been so focused on AI stuff, I haven't actually been looking at this. This particular area closely. Obviously there's a whole bunch of things that are being developed within the crypto arena to try to have kind of ledgers and identity and all the rest of that. And the promise of that is to try to create something that has to elaborate on I think Scott's excellent comments is how do we have trustless trust, which is a trust in the system that doesn't require trust in a centralized authority whose ability to hold that trust may be limited. And, and so I think, you know, that's one area that I think continues to bur along. Now none of it has any of the in depth traction that, you know, Apple or other, you know, could because, you know, the key thing with payments tends to be ease of use and integration into your environment. And so, you know, I think that part of what Stripe's doing that I think great is making it very easy to incorporate, you know, kind of Delaware corporations from anywhere or from many areas in the world and then provide a kind of a economic powering structure underneath that to power. Entrepreneurship is, I think, a really good thing. But like I said, I've been so focused at AI that in this area, someone may call me after this and say, this is really good. And I go, oh, yeah, that's the thing I should have said, but I just didn't know at the time.
- [50:49]
Kara Swisher
All right, Scott and Reed, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about RFK Jr. S contentious confirmation here.
- [51:00]
Reid Hoffman
Still getting around to that fix on your car.
- [51:02]
Kara Swisher
You got this on ebay, you'll find.
- [51:04]
Reid Hoffman
Millions of parts guaranteed to fit. Doesn't matter if it's a major engine.
- [51:08]
Kara Swisher
Repair or your first time swapping your windshield wipers.
- [51:12]
Reid Hoffman
Ebay has that part you need ready.
- [51:13]
Kara Swisher
To click perfectly into place for changes big and small, loud or quiet. Find all the parts you need at prices you'll love. Guaranteed to fit every time. But you already know that ebay things people love.
- [51:27]
Reid Hoffman
Eligible items only, Exclusion supply. Health and Human Services secretary nominee Robert Flourite Kennedy Jr.
- [51:36]
Kara Swisher
Went before the Senate today in fiery confirmation hearings.
- [51:39]
Reid Hoffman
Did you say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon?
- [51:45]
Kara Swisher
I probably did say that. Kennedy makes two big arguments about our health, and the first is deeply divisive. He is skeptical of vaccines.
- [51:55]
Scott Galloway
Well, I do believe that autism does come from vaccines.
- [51:59]
Reid Hoffman
Science disagrees.
- [52:01]
Kara Swisher
The second argument is something that a lot of Americans, regardless of their politics, have concluded. He says our food system is serving.
- [52:09]
Reid Hoffman
Us garbage and that garbage is making us sick.
- [52:12]
Kara Swisher
Coming up on Today Explained a confidant of Kennedy's.
- [52:15]
Reid Hoffman
In fact the man who helped facilitate his introduction to Donald Trump on what.
- [52:19]
Kara Swisher
The Make America Healthy Again movement wants today.
- [52:24]
Reid Hoffman
Explained Weekdays wherever you get your podcasts.
- [52:33]
Kara Swisher
Scott and Reed, we're back. As we tape this, HHS Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is in the hot seat for the second day of his confirmation hearing. Things got a little heated on day one with Kennedy rejecting claims that he's anti vaccine, addressing abortion flip flops and struggling with the question about Medicare and Medicaid. He was also asked some of his previous controversial comments. Let's listen to exchange with Democratic Senator Michael Bennett, who's a favorite of Scott's and mine.
- [52:59]
Reid Hoffman
Did you say that COVID 19 was a genetically engineered bioweapon that targets black and white people but spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people? I didn't say it was deliberately targeted. I just, I just quoted an NIH.
- [53:17]
Kara Swisher
Funded and NIH published study.
- [53:22]
Reid Hoffman
Did you say that it targets black and white people but spared Ashkenazi?
- [53:26]
Kara Swisher
I quoted a study, I quoted NIH.
- [53:29]
Reid Hoffman
Study that showed that. I take that as I have to move on. I have to move on.
- [53:35]
Kara Swisher
Kennedy's own family is also expressing concerns. JFK's daughter Carolyn Kennedy sent a letter to senators ahead of the hearing. She called her cousin a predator and accused him of exploiting their family's tragic history. Let's listen. Bobby continues to grandstand off my father's assassination and that of his own father. It's incomprehensible to me that someone who is willing to exploit their own painful family tragedies for publicity would be put in charge of America's life and death situations. Unlike Bobby, I try not to speak for my father, but I am certain that he and my uncle Bobby, who gave their lives in public service to our country, and my uncle Teddy, who devoted his long center career to the cause of improving health care, would be disgusted. Okay, that was the nice part. Just so you know, for everybody, which wasn't very nice, you know, all these, all these things seem to be going through Pete Hegseth and everybody else. Any, any of them you'd like to comment. The Kennedy one is particularly. It looks like he will probably get through. Same thing with Tulsi Gabbard and et cetera, et cetera on down line what is happening here.
- [54:44]
Scott Galloway
I do believe a president should have pretty wide berth in terms of bringing in their own people. And for all of the weirdness and incompetence parade of some of these nominees, I think this is the most dangerous you have an individual here who's not only anti vaccine. If you were to list the greatest innovations in history, I think most thoughtful scientists from both sides of the political spectrum, vaccines would be near the top of the list. And the fact that we have now politicized it and have an individual with no science background spewing misinformation who seems to be committed to reducing or creating skepticism around vaccines. And then something that came out yesterday from Senator Warren was that he is being paid to find people to sue Gardasil an HPV vaccine that so far has shown to reduce cervical cancer in women by 90%. I don't know if either of you have known anyone with cervical cancer. I have. My God. We have something that can prevent nine out of ten times this vicious, awful disease. And we have the heck of HHS being paid to try and discourage and financially damage that miracle. This guy has no business at hhs. He is probably the most dangerous of the nominees in terms of what it could mean long term without attribution, where in 10 years we wake up and go, oh, cervical cancer's back and reverse engineer it to this individual who is blatantly repeatedly anti vaccine, I think is awful.
- [56:35]
Kara Swisher
I made my sons get it immediately when it happened. Reid, how are you looking at these? Obviously you're making these AI investments in cancer research. This guy will be right there at the head of all these organizations that are very related to some of these things.
- [56:52]
Reid Hoffman
So, look, I think the unfortunate prediction for RFK's probable confirmation is it will probably be measured in thousands of American lives lost. Lost. Right. I think that the, the question around the, the fact that he's saying, I'm just following science. No, he's not. Right. It's just, it's, it's not only is he anti vaccine in, you know, many, many statements over decades like he is essentially anti science. Like I've heard of meetings where he is meeting with, with scientists where the scientists try to tell him, he's like, no, no, you're supposed to listen to me. It's like, no, no, the whole point is to listen to good scientists. And I think this will be. If this confirmation goes through, I think the senators who vote on it should track how many thousands of American lives they're willing to spend in this calculus. Because if he implements any of the things that he has thought, he has articulated and talked about, I think is the cost is going to be measured in lives.
- [58:00]
Kara Swisher
Have you been surprised by how many tech people have been attracted to him? I'm going to Leave out Nicole Shanahan. She was not a tech person. She's just a rich person who married a tech person and got money that way. Have you been surprised by that? Because there is a whole strain of people who really back him in the tech firm, in the tech area, even as they make these big investments in AI and cancer and where he will have an impact.
- [58:28]
Reid Hoffman
So I think that one of the strengths and weaknesses tend to go together, and a lot of tech people tend to think they go, well, I've met him, and it was a perfectly reasonable conversation. And so therefore, like, oh, that's just all media stuff. It's like, it's media stuff that he said that he did in other rooms that you weren't in. Right. But there tends to be this really strawberry, you know, kind of like, no, no, I met him and I. Yeah.
- [58:55]
Kara Swisher
I got the cut of his jib. Actually, Gates did this the other day with Trump, which was disappointing, but go ahead.
- [59:00]
Reid Hoffman
And. And I think one of the things that's very important is to have a little bit of, like, look, just how a person talks to you is not necessarily how they actually, in fact, operate in the world. And you have to apply that. And so I've had a number of tech people try to say, rfk, he's great. I'm like, just look like, for example. Example in an alternative, like, hiring context. I prefer references to interviewing. I prefer to have both. But reference checking is much better. And it's like, I've seen the references on rfk. Like, that's part of the reason why. It's like, okay, this appointment will be measured in thousands of American lives lost.
- [59:39]
Kara Swisher
Well, let's leave it at that, then. All right, Scott and Reed, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Okay, Scott and Reed, let's hear a prediction. I'm gonna go first, actually. I'll be at the White House soon with Tracy Flick, the new press secretary. The White House is welcoming podcasters to the briefing room. Carolyn is running it right now. She has decided that new media, which I agree with, including independent journalists, podcasters, and influencers, will be able to ask question briefings. I welcome this. The Biden administration should have done it, should have had different and not just the traditional people. So I'm super excited to go to the White House, and I will be there this year. That's my prediction that Carolyn is going to let me in. Tracy, slash, whatever the heck she is. Thank you. Any comment?
- [60:33]
Reid Hoffman
I love that prediction. And by the way, I think it's a good thing to begin to broaden the kind of set of different folks in the briefing room. I just think it's critical if you, you think like I am, this is the office of the president for all Americans to have a, a diversity of, of access to it. I mean, so for example, you have a, you know, kind of a, you know, a Democratic president. You still have Fox News, obviously, in the room. You need to have that, that, that breadth of perspective to be representative to the American people. So I love that prediction.
- [61:08]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, I know she wants me there, there. She wants me on that wall.
- [61:11]
Scott Galloway
Well, first off, my long ear prediction, I immediately read that and I sent Jim Acosta an email saying, I need you to start a podcast. I want you back at those press. Yeah, those press briefings.
- [61:21]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. This is the CNN person for people who don't know who left when they tried to put him on at midnight. He started his own, he has started a bunch of stuff on his own, which, and he's a great guy, we.
- [61:32]
Scott Galloway
Love him, he's a great journalist. So I'm fascinated by what I think is kind of a tectonic shift with Deepseek or just the notion that there might be a reasonable facsimile of the best AI models at a much lower price. I think that this, regardless of what we find out, it was probably exaggerated. There is now, I think, a much greater likelihood we might be able to see cheap and cheerful kind of old Navy like models. So my prediction is there's an entire layer of companies in pharmaceuticals in the consumer sector that had allocated 100, 200, $500 million for capex for the cost, or Opex for the cost of AI that they were going to have to spend to rent these models to develop new drugs, come up with a better itinerary for your Airbnb stay that all of a sudden are going to decide, wow, we're going to be able to get all of the great taste of AI with a lot less calories, a lot less opex. And you're going to see a bunch of companies that were setting aside a ton of reserves because they thought this was going to be a lot more expensive than it's going to be. Recognize take those reserves back and it'll juice their bottom line. So I'm in the midst of trying to identify those. I don't know if it's Airbnb, I don't know if it's Johnson and Johnson or GlaxoSmithKline, but I think there's an entire layer of companies that just got Great news that their capex on AI could be 30, 50, 80% less than they'd originally anticipated.
- [63:03]
Reid Hoffman
Well, I think that actually we will see a variety of those. I don't think it's necessarily because of like the deep sea canoes. I think that we were actually already heading towards that. And I think that the part of the agency future this is commenting on, Scott's part of the agentic future will be actually in fact compositions of smaller models that deliver really effective services across a wide range for individuals, for organizations and so forth. So I, I agree with his prediction, but not necessarily just as a, as a deep seq response.
- [63:35]
Kara Swisher
Okay Reid, your prediction.
- [63:37]
Reid Hoffman
So I, you know, I was thinking about this a little bit and I think that one thing that would be an interesting thing that people wouldn't expect out of this is I think that the AI agents will trend towards creating agents that will be actually massively positive for human mental health. And I think that the actual natural market dynamics will reach in that direction because as people interact with these agents and I think I've already seen this from what my startup inflection did with pie that has helped a bunch of other agents following this to be high EQ kindness and other kinds of things. And I think those will actually in fact help people feel more heard, more seen a dynamic of interaction that is more who we aspire to be and will actually help naturally through people just choosing the agents they want to interact with to an increase in kind of mental health and well being.
- [64:42]
Kara Swisher
Well, unless you know, as you know, I interviewed the mother of the character AI, there's the lawsuit there. They can take that turn where they shouldn't be around young people, for example, or they shouldn't. You're talking about adults here, correct?
- [64:53]
Reid Hoffman
I'm talking about adults. Although I think we also can and I think we should be much more careful about how we engage with children in various ways. That's saying it's one of the important things for the technology industry to get much better at. But I tend to think that the natural dynamics of we will prefer the agents that have this characteristic. Now I think part of the thing that it can be is, is you know, having even agents that are trained to be very good in mental health.
- [65:23]
Kara Swisher
Will also be good so that they will so that there are good agents. My only issue is the potential for abuse is so massive and you're seeing it the lack of care, you know what I mean? Like why didn't that kid, why didn't that company alert it when the kid said Suicide, like for stuff like that. Like, why was that never there? And that's the problem. And their argument is now that it's free speech, it was gonna be section 230, but now it's these agents, these, like in that case, should bots have free speech? Like, that's the kind of stuff we're gonna have to deal with as a society. Is it free speech when it's bot generated?
- [65:59]
Reid Hoffman
I think at the moment it's definitely not free speech when it's bot generated.
- [66:02]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, well, that's one of the issues we're gonna talk about. Cause it will be just off the fly. I prefer kind agents to mean ones. But I suspect this is why I love Reid. He's such a sunny character. But I expect really mean agents because people like that like abusive agents and that kind of stuff.
- [66:19]
Reid Hoffman
So it may be they prefer agents to be abusive to other people, but I think most people prefer them to be kind to them.
- [66:25]
Kara Swisher
I don't know. I'm gonna. As usual, I take a darker turn on the thing. We'll see which our future brings us elsewhere in the Scott and Cara universe. This week on property markets, Scott spoke with Robert Armstrong, US financial commentator for the Financial Times. Let's listen.
- [66:43]
Scott Galloway
In the world we lived in last Friday, having a great AI model behind your applications either involved building your own or going to ask OpenAI, can I run my application on top of your brilliantly good AI model? Now, maybe this is great for Google, right? Maybe this is great for Microsoft, who were shoveling money on the assumption that they had to build it themselves at great expense.
- [67:12]
Kara Swisher
Interesting, Interesting. Okay, Scott and Reid, that's the show. Thank you for joining us, Reid. And again, your new book is Super Agency. What could possibly go right with our AI future. Thank you, Reid. Again, Scott, read us out.
- [67:26]
Scott Galloway
Today's show was produced by Lara Naim and Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Ms. Siberio and Dan G. Shalon. Nishat Kurwa is Fox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine@nymag.com pod we'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Have a great weekend.