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Scott Galloway
Word, sister. And by the way, I love your hairless legs.
Kara Swisher
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
Scott, what do you think I did this morning?
Scott Galloway
Hmm, you know, I don't know. What did you do this morning, Kara?
Kara Swisher
Guess who might be living in Washington D.C. lucky.
Scott Galloway
Oh, you moved your mom down to D.C. not yet.
Kara Swisher
Not yet. We're looking at this new. They took this amazing hotel, the Fairfax Hotel was the Ritz Carlton. It's right downtown down on Embassy Row. And they've turned it into a senior facility. That's very elegant. We have fans there, by the way, Brian, shout out to you, Brian, of the innovation part of this thing. But I'm thinking of making the move. We should do a whole show on dealing with elderly parents and stuff. You and I should, I think.
Scott Galloway
Yeah. It basically makes a Fellini film feel like a musical fucking comedy. It does.
Kara Swisher
We both have faced so many people are facing this challenge like wherever you are on the spectrum. It's something. It's really difficult the way our system is set up for people who need help or extra help or figuring out nursing. This is a beautiful facility. I'm not going to name the name of it, but it's really lovely. And lucky requires a certain level of fanciness, but it's really difficult because you have to figure out where to put them. The nursing care, the medical care. As people get older, you have to have things that have like graded. You just need a little help, more help, the most help, et cetera. It's really something. It's, it's. Takes a lot out of your system.
Scott Galloway
Yeah, it's a ton of time. I mean, you have one, the costs are incredible. And two, unfortunately, sometimes your parents are not very cooperative.
Kara Swisher
Correct, Correct. Correct. Correct. How did you know?
Scott Galloway
Well, at least with kids, you're bigger than them, and you can kind of like force them to do what you want with. With. With people who are actually legally can make their own decisions. It's very hard to just say, no. This is where you're living.
Kara Swisher
And you got to sell it. You got to sell it. It's so funny, because last night, struggling with Saul over a whole bunch of things, and then my mom's actually being very cooperative. She wants to be right near me. But it's really interesting because, you know, I'm, like, dealing with Saul and, like, potty training or whatever, I want to carry this train. I want to do this. And it's very similar techniques. Yeah, you're right. You can carry a kid, throw them on the bed or whatever. But.
Scott Galloway
Yeah, similar to, put on your fucking shoes now or you're gonna get a thick ear. That's my father used to say. Now.
Kara Swisher
Oh, really?
Scott Galloway
That's what my dad used to. He used to threaten me, I'll give you a thick ear. And I had no idea what that meant. And then I made the mistake of asking my mom. He was like. His father used to hit him so hard, his ear would swell.
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
Scott Galloway
And I'm like, that's what a thick ear?
Kara Swisher
That's a cauliflower ear.
Scott Galloway
I'm like, oh. And it's funny, my father never struck me, but the fear of it, I think, was much more. Was a much greater deterrent. Cause he seemed literally like a hair's trigger away from hitting me every seven minutes.
Kara Swisher
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Never did, never did, never did. Yet there is that, you know, balance. Like, I definitely. Saul and I are like. He's like, huh? Can she get me? I don't know. Can she catch me? You can see him, like, doing that. I try to be the tougher parent.
Scott Galloway
But, no, I go to the gangster move. I'm like, I'm calling Mom. I'm calling Mom.
Kara Swisher
Oh, you're my.
Scott Galloway
Okay, okay. Never mind. We'll clean our room, right?
Kara Swisher
Yeah. See, But Claire, on the other hand, like, she makes her bed. When you ask her, you have to ask her things three times. But it's. Anyway, it's just. It's an interesting dichotomy of dealing with elderly. Anyway, I love the place. Lucky will be here and so you can see her whenever you come visit.
Scott Galloway
Scott. I want to build. If I get rich enough, it's still motivating. For me. I want to get a little bungalow. Not at Mar a lago, but at 11 at strip club.
Kara Swisher
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah.
Scott Galloway
I want to get a bungalow on like the fourth floor. Yeah.
Kara Swisher
You know why I know about 11? Because we were on the beach and they kept going by with a plane saying 11. Is it a strip club? Is that what it is?
Scott Galloway
It's an entertainment facility, Kara. It's nightclub review. I've never been, which is actually true. I'm still waiting for someone to invite me. But what they've done is they've kind of thread the needle between a club, a restaurant and a strip club. So it doesn't feel as down and dirty that you're going to a strip club and it's on fire and they get big DJs and anyways, yeah, very.
Kara Swisher
Much like this senior facility I'm putting mom in. It's just nice enough.
Scott Galloway
Someone did a study of the businesses that have the greatest survival rate and seniors care facilities have a 90 plus percent. I can see that success rate and the reason why. And it goes back to this. I always like to bring it back to a learning the sexier the business, the lower the return on investment and the lesser the likelihood it'll survive. And there's very few things that are less sexy than taking care of really old people, but they're great businesses. It's also disproportionately populated by people from the Philippines. And something I've gotten to know being in several facilities with my dad is that the Mexican culture or I should say the Latino culture and especially the Filipino culture are especially caring. And it really is disproportionately populated by certain communities. The caregivers.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, I was talking about the economics. Like there's the high end ones, there's a lesser high. It's sort of. Disney is into it. It's really. It's a very difficult thing, especially as people live longer, as you know, and we keep them alive longer, actually when people used to just keel over much earlier.
Scott Galloway
It's hard though, because my dad three months ago just stopped recognizing me. Really strange. Has declined so fast. And now it's like a baby doesn't recognize me. So now I can't threaten to cut him off.
Kara Swisher
Doesn't care, doesn't matter. It doesn't work on Lucky either. And she's totally. Let me just tell you, Lucky is as sharp as a frigging tack. Let me tell you. It would be a lot easier if she wasn't as sharp. But she's like. She clocks everything. Scott, let me just say. Anyway, it's just mobility is the issue with her.
Scott Galloway
Well, she's lucky to have you.
Kara Swisher
Yes, it's true. And my brothers who are really wonderful and my sister in law. Everyone, everyone's. Amanda went with me today. It takes a village, let's just say to take care of a kid.
Scott Galloway
A lot of resources.
Kara Swisher
Yes we do and it's still exhausting. Anyway, we got a lot to get to today. There's so much going on. Speaking of cranky people, trade wars, tick and target. But first, this is a really interesting story and I think we have discussed the amount of spending on AI that US companies do. The price of chips, the run of Nvidia. But there's a new AI model on the scene that's smart, cheap and made in China. It's called deepseek and it's causing a panic in Silicon Valley which is paying a lot of attention. And also on Wall Street Deep Seq is reportedly outperformed models from OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic in some third party tests and it operates at a fraction of the cost of those models using fewer high end chips. This is the ones that are made by Nvidia and are hard to get and the incumbents have been pricing them up heavily by grabbing all of them. The markets are not reacting well to Deep Seq. As of this recording, Nvidia is down 16%, Oracle is down 10%, Microsoft is down nearly 4%. Obviously Meta is going to be affected all the others. So there's a lot to talk about and I've seen different analysis of exactly what Deep Seek does. Jan Lecun from Meta was making an argument that it isn't as what they're they're doing sort of a cheap and dirty version and it's not nearly as the stuff they're doing is much more advanced by the US companies. We're going to talk about Meta's AI plans in a bit. They've reportedly set up several war rooms to dissect and analyze Deep Seq. It's currently number one on Apple's free Top Apps chart. Again, China invading in this country in a very different way. So thoughts on this situation because you and I have talked about this quite a bit. Is this money ill spent by US companies and is it being relegated to the rich incumbents?
Scott Galloway
Well first you just have to temper the or put some context to the I mean Nvidia is down 15 or 16%. It shed something like a half a trillion dollars which basically you take out Tesla, it's shed today the value of the entire global automobile industry. Sons Tesla so this is pretty dramatic, but at the same time that just takes it back to its valuation in October. And when you look at market dynamics, when these companies have experienced these type of run ups, it is like a balloon inflating beyond its natural capacity and the slightest, the slightest touch can pop it. And so in some ways the market was probably looking for an excuse to take these stocks down a bit. And it got it. Because what's interesting is Nvidia will have a pretty interesting argument on Capitol Hill saying when you refuse to let us sell into these countries, they come up with workarounds and in this case this workaround might tank the U.S. economy. And everyone's excited by the fact that these models OpenAI, supposedly their models, their LLMs cost 100 million to train. And they're claiming this thing costs and they've been public, it's open source, costs a little over 5 million to train. So whereas the majority of LLMs and AI companies have been taking sort of this brute force strategy where it's buy as many chips as possible, this is saying maybe you don't need as many chips. The thing I find equally interesting is the second order effects here and that is Constellation Energy. And some of these nuclear stocks have skyrocketed because the choke point was supposedly going to be energy. But now with this model, which appears to have chips speaking to each other in a more efficient, less energy, consumptive way, nuclear stocks are crashing. Electric, Constellation Energy, all these things that have had incredible run ups are saying, wait, the entire supply chain or the assumptions we made about the supply chain in terms of the kind of the brute force of chips that we're going to need, the amount of energy. It's all now coming into a little bit of question. But to be clear, the correction here is like it's taken them back three months and all of the stocks that have crashed, quote unquote crashed, are only up 70% for the year now, not 98. So I think you have to put it in context. And a lot of analysts, the smart analysts I've read have said like every community or any sector, it's going to bifurcate into the cheap layer and then the high end layer which will still go hard at massive computing and massive energy and do more sophisticated things and this will be sort of everything eventually goes Walmart, Tiffany, right? And they're saying this might be the Walmart and it's the Chinese and they'll come up with cheaper models. But it's fascinating to see that basically this notion, this kind of conventional wisdom that you would need massive GPUs and massive energy may not be kind of the written in law that we thought it was going to be.
Kara Swisher
Let me read Yann Lecun who's the head of Meta, I just recently interviewed him and you can go listen to that long interview about this. But he's writing to the people who see the performance of deep seats and think China is surpassing the US in AI. You're reading this. The correct reading is open source models are surpassing proprietary ones. Deep Seq has profited from open research and open source. For example PyTorch and llama from Meta. They came up with new ideas and built on top of other people's work because their work is published and open source, everyone can profit from it. This is the power of open research and open source. Obviously this is the way he's talking his own book. That's correct. I was just going to make that.
Scott Galloway
Llama is open source.
Kara Swisher
Yes, that's correct. That's what I was going to say. But it's interesting. He's having really interesting arguments and he said, and one of them that he just did because Gary Marcus, this guy who's somewhat of a crank a little bit, was saying that Congress needs to bring in Zuckerberg and LeCun to discuss how their unilateral open sourcing decision rapidly undermined the US advantage in general of AI. He goes an absolutely hilarious take, revealing the complete misunderstanding of the fact that open research, open source accelerates progress for everyone. From someone who's repletely claimed that deep learning was hitting a wall. But one of the things he just wrote, again, because he's getting in there very deeply, major misunderstanding about AI infrastructure investments. Much of those billions are into infrastructure for inference, not training. Running AI assistant services for billions of people requires a lot of compute. Once you put video understanding, reasoning, large scale memory and other capabilities into AI systems, inference costs are going to increase. The only real question is whether users will be willing to pay enough directly or not to justify CapEx and OpEx. I think that's, that's probably. He thinks these reactions are woefully unjustified. And at the same time he's sort of arguing that they aren't right, which is interesting.
Scott Galloway
It's just so difficult to Chinese to come. I mean the entire Chinese economy was sort of built on more for less. And my guess is they had a mandate or they've said, all right, we're not Going to have access to the same level of high end chips. We need workarounds and it appears to have spawned really interesting innovation.
Kara Swisher
Using open source. Using open source?
Scott Galloway
Yeah, using open source. I mean the scary thing, in typical meta fashion, their LLM, you can download a version of Llama with absolutely no guardrails and you can, you can request information on anything. The most politically correct I find of them is anthropic. If I start asking questions about insider trading from speaker to emerita Pelosi, it immediately gives me all these things back. We cannot endorse nor promote strategies around insider trading. ChatGPT kind of goes straight into it and I think Llama will say, well here's what you do. You call your cousin.
Kara Swisher
There's a lot of really great. One thing that social media sucks most of the time, but there's a lot of great things called like use chatgpt, use this. And they tell you how to do things like put your deck in and here's the seven things you ask it and it improves it. But you're right, these open source models have been a boon for China for sure in keeping up. Yeah, Llama's the most open one and has the most information. That's true.
Scott Galloway
Or the most people. I mean it's the whole benefit, you know, it's the whole argument around open source catching up, catching up fast. But I find this, I find it fascinating. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the stock. I mean these companies have already let some air out. It's already gone to the energy guys. It'll be interesting to see how the market reacts. Is this, I mean the question is, and I don't know the answer, is this the beginning of a massive correction that will infect the entire nasdaq, the entire S and P. And quite frankly now these companies, I don't say become too big to fail, but they fail. You know, if they sneeze, the US economy is going to catch a cold right now because the stock market's going to crash. So is this the beginning of the correction we've been waiting for for 15 years? I mean a real correction, we had a mild one in 21.
Kara Swisher
It does feel a little nervous. I think people feel a little nervous.
Scott Galloway
I think people feel a little nervous about that or. And it's also kind of in a weird way an argument for free trade. And that is, if we had let them just buy Nvidia GPUs, would they have figured out this workaround? Would they have felt as motivated to figure out a workaround, or quite frankly, is today one of those days? We're going to look back when we're going to think that was a buying opportunity because they're going to resume. They're hyperscaling. So I think it's fascinating.
Kara Swisher
Well, speaking of world, speaking of free trade, President Trump almost began the first trade war of his term this week, and the US And Colombia spent most of Sunday in a standoff effort. Colombia's president said he had denied entry to US Military planes carrying Colombian migrants, saying deportation should be done with dignity and respect. Trump responded by saying he'd impose a 25% tariff on Colombian goods coffee, which was met with retaliatory tariffs from Colombia. By the end of the day, Colombia had said it overcome the impasse and would facilitate the planes. I'm not sure what happened, removing the tariff threat. Trump's trying to say it's because he chest beating. So these threats he's making, he seemed to have had it written out and everything else. He misspelled the country's name, spelled it like the place you might get a puffy jacket in the winter. Columbia, the sportswear maker. But in any case, thoughts on this, on the threat he made and where it ended up? Cause this guy's social media was pretty tough.
Scott Galloway
Well, we're sort of nine days in the administration, and so far we have a meme coin which is, in my opinion, grift a ton of executive orders. And it appears we barely avoided or are on the verge of a trade war. And I don't understand. I mean, first off, these C130s that they were transporting down with people in cuffs and people who had to wear their ice jackets, they could just send them on fucking JetBlue. But they want a photo moment. They want a. It's symbolic. It's not. In my opinion, there is something indicative of this. I mean, to a certain extent, they want to show action, they want to show they're serious. I get that. But this is sort of unnecessarily coarse and cruel. I don't, you know, I'm for, by the way, I'm for. I'm for deporting criminals. The most telling thing about this whole effort, though, for me was that ICE has decided the best way to find these undocumented workers, or illegal immigrants, whatever the term you want to use, is to go to a place of work. Say we wanted to start deporting American citizens. Would we go to a McDonald's, would we go to a basement or a video game? But if you want to import. If you want to deport or round up illegal immigrants, you go to work sites. And that to me was very telling that these folks are actually, they're working. And it just struck me as that sort of ironic. But I find the whole thing and look, we're very powerful, so in the short term we can flex. And people are going to flinch. Over the long term, though, does the Colombian president, who also has his own ego and will have the support of the people now to basically when China calls and says, hey, you know what, we'd like to invest in Colombia and maybe we'd like a airfield there or an air base there. This shit over time. When you shit post people and you treat them poorly and you publicly embarrass them, you make it a short term win if you're the bigger person. But at some point they're going to bind together and they're going to strangle you in your sleep or they're, you know, they're going to decide that they're not going to cooperate with you. And also when consumers see the price of coffee go up, I find again, it goes back to when my friend Duff Seidman wrote about. It's not. I think what they're doing here is probably correct. It's how they're doing it. It's just they're creating unnecessary enemies where they don't need them.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, yeah, it was quite something. We'll see. It looks like a lot of chess thumping to me when we have to be thinking broader. But he doesn't want to. You're right. He wants a photo op and we'll see where it goes and who he next spells. But please, please. Office of the President. Spell people, countries, names correctly. I don't. I'm sorry, I find that that was sloppy.
Scott Galloway
We're going to Colombia.
Kara Swisher
I know. Speaking of which, to explain again why you are part of. You're a pro Colombian.
Scott Galloway
I told you, we bought a football team in La Ecuidade. I'm part of an owner group.
Kara Swisher
Wait, I love. Wait, who did you buy it with?
Scott Galloway
Oh, I don't know if you've heard of them. Rob McElhenney, Ryan Reynolds, Eva Longoria, Kate Upton. It's clear, let's be honest, that Kate demanded I was in the group. Her husband, the Verlander guy, her soon to be her future ex husband when she falls in love with the professor and the owner group. But we're going. You're gonna trust me on this. My prediction, in the next year you're gonna be at a You're gonna see La Ecuidad. You're going to a Grupo A primera game in Bogota.
Kara Swisher
You fly me down there, I will go.
Scott Galloway
It's gonna be great.
Kara Swisher
It's gonna be fine. I will go if you fly me down. That's my deal with you. If you fly me the frig down there.
Scott Galloway
Have you been to Colombia?
Kara Swisher
Never. I will go.
Scott Galloway
A beautiful.
Kara Swisher
I understand that. I need you to fly me down there though. Okay. And invite me to a game. It'll be really fun. Let's do a. Let's do. Let's do Scott's 60th birthday redux. Okay?
Scott Galloway
This is exactly why I did it. I want to have fun with friends and family and go to football games. What did I ask me what I.
Kara Swisher
Did this weekend, which I know what you did. Explain what you did this weekend very briefly. Go ahead.
Scott Galloway
Took my 14 year old to Paris and went to a PSG Paris Saint Germain football game against Rennes where they tied.
Kara Swisher
What did you do for your employees too? I heard about that.
Scott Galloway
Oh, really? I didn't do well. I'm doing a lot of virtue signaling right now. That's okay.
Kara Swisher
It was very generous.
Scott Galloway
You know, my retention vehicle is the same anytime four of them are together. They get my credit card and they take advantage of it. And about eight of them went to Saint Barts this weekend, including George Hahn.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, very generous. You're a very good employer. Someone was asking me if you were generous.
Scott Galloway
It's not generosity, it's retention. They talk about it, they brag about it. It's great culture.
Kara Swisher
It's all over social media. That's why I'm bringing it up. It's not a secret. Very generous. I said you were generous to someone. They were question. And I said no. He really is. Actually lets me stay at his apartment. He's often generous about things that other people are not. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll oracle be TikTok savior. We'll discuss.
Chevrolet Ad
Support for today's show comes from Chevrolet. No matter where your travel takes you in the new year, it's always good to travel with confidence, comfort and connectivity. Whether it's a quick jaunt or a long journey, the all electric Equinox EV has you covered. Equinox EV is America's most affordable over 315 mile range EV and comes equipped with a massive 17.7 inch diagonal color display touchscreen. Add in sleek styling, it's more than 15 standard safety and driver assistance features and a starting price at around $34,995. You can feel confident and comfortable going down the road. Learn more@chevrolet.com Electric Equinox EV based on a comparison of msrp of the 2025 Chevrolet Equinox EV LT with that of competing EVs EPA estimated 319 miles on a full charge with front wheel drive. Actual range may vary based on several factors including temperature, terrain, battery age and condition, loading, and how you use and maintain your vehicle. Safety or driver's assistance features are no substitute for the driver's responsibility to operate the vehicle in a safe manner. Read the vehicle owner's manual for important feature limitations and information. The manufacturer's suggested retail price excludes tax, title, license, dealer fees and optional equipment dealer sets final price.
Kara Swisher
Scott we're back. Oracle and a group of investors including Microsoft, are reportedly in talks to take over global operations at TikTok, shades of the first Trump presidency. The White House is reportedly negotiating the deal, though President Trump denied working with Oracle this weekend. The deal would reportedly involve Oracle taking over TikTok's algorithm data collection software updates. By the way, Oracle has been working on this through Project Texas and has been dealing with a lot of stuff related to TikTok, so it's quite familiar with it. Microsoft had been part of the the previous thing. When Trump tried to ban TikTok in his previous administration when he was anti TikTok owned by the Chinese, he had brought Oracle in and Microsoft was there. He wanted a vig for the US Taxpayer, which I kind of like, he said. The decision on the sale will likely happen in the next 30 days. Obviously Elon's floating around the basket. All kinds of people are there. There's some others who are not really gonna be investors, I would say, but we'll see. So the Chinese might still own a piece of it, by the way, a smaller P of it. Thoughts?
Scott Galloway
My thoughts are the same. And that is, has anyone actually heard from the ccp? Are the Chinese interested in actually approving this deal? I don't. I think I feel like the president could decide he wants to chop it up and give it to his favorite Republican donors. And there's no shortage of tech executives that would like a piece of what is the most ascendant brand in tech in the last decade, arguably. But has anyone actually spoken to the people in charge? So the honest answer is I have no fucking idea because I don't know if the CCP has decided. Well, if we can figure out some sort of deal that makes the president look good, but we still kind of control it. We still have a backdoor into the algorithm and it's people that we have leverage over because of their business in China. Fine. And maybe we get to put this bullshit tariff conversation aside and if he wants a win and he can talk about it and to say he's done a deal, he'll give us a bunch of shit under the table. Or they might just say, yeah, let them have all this activity. And at the end of the day we're just gonna say no. I have no insight into the decision makers here. And the decision makers aren't in DC or in Silicon Valley, they're in Beijing.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. We'll see. I think the question is, as Mark Cuban put it to me at the time when this was happening, the last go round I think, was what do you get for it? What do you get for. If the Chinese and the algorithm, can they recreate the algorithm which is so popular Again, China's done an astonishing job at creating a service that is infectious. Right. That's really fun to use and everything else. So what do you get with it? They're not gonna give you the original algorithm, so what do you get? You get the brand and is that worth that and can they replicate it quickly, et cetera, et cetera. And so. And will China even let you do this? Any of this? You're correct. Will they even let you? There might be obviously behind the scenes things happening. He could threaten a terr, but over TikTok, he's going to threaten a tariff. It's a much bigger picture with China than just one service. So I don't know, I don't see other investors jumping in. I think the ones you imagine being there, Oracle, Microsoft, Elon Musk. There's a whole bunch of people you could see involved here. And you're right, anybody would want a piece of this. But there is a significant risk of it becoming a MySpace like situation where it's not worth anything after a certain amount of time and other things. And people may create copies of this in the new thing. So we'll see. But there's no lack of money in Silicon Valley. Meta's AI spending, for example. We were just talking about what they're doing, but Mark Zuckerberg announced last week that Meta's capital expenditures are between 60 and $65 billion this year, a huge jump from 40 in 2024. Again, most of the money will go towards building expanding data centers to power Meta's AI products. They're doing one in Louisiana. How Interesting, right where Speaker Johnson is and Mark noted that data center in Louisiana will be so big it could cover a significant part of Manhattan. This spending just. Is he trying to top the Stargate announcement? They're all seeming rushing to make these big announcements and we'll see where those go. Right? Spending is not the only way out of this thing, but it's certainly where these companies are headed.
Scott Galloway
It's staggering. I mean this increase, their capex or Meta's. Capex is up 70% in comparison to 2024, and in 2024 it was up 40%. They announced last month a 10 billion 4 mile square foot data center in Louisiana. That's the latest of its 27 data centers between Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft. They're expected to spend, I think it's over $300 billion in CapEx this year. And that's about what it costs to put a man on the moon over 13 years. So this is kind of the AI moonshot. And for the same amount you could build another international space station, reinvent the nuclear bomb, construct six nuclear submarines and re dig or dig another Chunnel, which I took this weekend to see. PSG Tyrens, by the way, Paris Kerridge is a beautiful city. I'd forgotten how beautiful it is.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, it's still beautiful, remains beautiful. It's the Catherine Deneuve of cities.
Scott Galloway
Is she in my investor group?
Kara Swisher
I'm sorry, no, she's not. She's not in your investor group. One of the things that's interesting about the spending, remember when we were like going, God, that $10 billion on the metaverse is ridiculous. Remember that?
Scott Galloway
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Kara Swisher
I mean, just think about that. That was what, two years ago when we were talking about that? And that's gone. That's like, see you later, alligator.
Scott Galloway
Well, they've spent 60, 80 on it now, right? Isn't it? It was 10 or 20 a year over three or four years.
Kara Swisher
It's much less. Obviously they're still there with the Ray Ban glasses, but it's much diminished, let's just say, and this is the way they're going, we'll see if it's money well paid off or if it's not, or if they're racing towards. A lot of people I talk to now, they're like, it's a race to the bottom with this stuff eventually. So we'll see where the spending matters. And again, it could almost be like I had an argument with someone online. If you didn't invest in the Internet back in 92 there, lot of spending it seemed out of line, so and obviously it wasn't. Anyway, we'll see what happens. Let's take a quick break. We come back Target becomes the latest company to roll back dei.
Chevrolet Ad
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Kara Swisher
Scott we're back. This story just never ends. Target is one of the latest companies to hop on the anti DEI train. They got spooked because they had some gay flags up and it made their CEO Brian Cornell into a Gian Bryant wimp. Brian, good to see you. Good to see you being a wimp, I know him pretty well. The retailer will end DEI goals and a program focused on carrying more products from black and minority owned businesses. But not everybody is hopping aboard. Costco said 98% of shareholders voted against a proposal to review risk to its DEI programs. Same thing with Apple. There's a whole bunch of others. There is a lot of legal attacks by the same people who brought you the attacks on affirmative action and everything else. So it's going to the Supreme Court these DEI cases eventually and some of companies are holding firm, others are not. I don't know if it's a bow down to Trump or a way for companies to get out doing something they never wanted to put effort in the first place. I don't know your thoughts on this.
Scott Galloway
I think companies or private companies should do what they want. I think there are laws to protect. If you can show that you are a different compensation relative to. And your lawyer based on discovery can say that on average, people of this group were making 20% less. I think you have a legal case. At the same time I was on the board of a CRM company and we all looked around the table about eight years ago and said, all right, it's all people with the same color skin with outdoor plumbing. This is an issue. And DEI was warranted or DEI efforts were warranted there. And if a company recognizes they have a problem or the shareholders recognize they have a problem, I think that some of these efforts still make sense. It's a nuanced conversation because I would argue the DEI for the most part on campus has gone way out of control. And you typically have DEI initiatives at the most diverse, equitable and inclusive places on earth. Probably don't need 200 people working in DEI as the university of Michigan has right now. I think that's overboard. I really don't. I think the apparatus should be disassembled at universities. I still think there's parts of the corporate world where DEI is needed. And if Costco wants to have dei, that's more power to them. And if Apple does and if Target feels like it's gone overboard and they don't need it, I think that's their right too. And their shareholders and their consumers can decide if they want to shop there or not.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. One of the things, I had an interesting argument with someone, you know, because say, say Patagonia, which is very, you know, it signals, signals liberal, right? You know, recycling and a lot of kids like it. They like to do it. And then I was talking about, Ben Shapiro was selling razors. He has a very substantive E commerce business I think. And they're, they're anti woke razors and someone was getting mad at them. I'm like, well they're. I, I bought them cause I wanted to see if they're good. They're good razors by the way.
Scott Galloway
I'm not even gonna go there. I'm not gonna ask any follow up questions.
Kara Swisher
I can shave my legs. I shaved my legs. So I think you should be able to do this on either side. I think the issue I have is how angry and ridiculous people like Bill Ackman are over it. Like they virtue signal themselves how horrible it is. It is not horrible to want to have more equitable for lots of different people because they've gamed the system for themselves for so so long. And the directionality is the is we want a more diverse group of people. And I don't just mean gender, I don't just mean race, I mean age. I mean political affiliation. It is a stronger company. Their anger and ire is so out of line with figuring out a great way to be more equitable as a country that it's kind of like that to me that's the tell with these people is they just can't shut the fuck up like in that on and think and then they blame like Elon like oh, the plane crashed because of dei. This happened because of dei. They attributed the fires dei. None of this is true and that drives me fucking nuts. Or like Megyn Kelly calling making fun of fat lesbian firefighters like give me there's so many fat firefighters who are white men. Like let's stop with this. Whatever, it doesn't really matter. But using it as a cudgel has gotten way out of line. That's my feeling on the whole thing.
Scott Galloway
It reminds me of the trans issue. I think corporations shouldn't be legally mandated to have a third bathroom for people going through transition. I think it doesn't make any sense to have transgender women participating in sports where there's college admissions or money on the line. But at the same time, why do we feel the need to demonize a group of people who've probably taken enough shit on their own. It's like we can't. It's just as that notion. You can never spot visually a pendulum on a clock when it's at center. The Democrats, I would argue, are usually right and then they take shit too far and we create open space for an overreaction that is cruel and coarse and un American.
Kara Swisher
Absolutely. Anyway, speaking of a case that I'm really interested in, Character AI has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by a mother whose 14 year old son committed suicide allegedly after interacting with a chatbot for months. Character AI's lawyers say the platform is protected by First Amendment. They're also arguing users First Amendment rights would be violated, not the company's if the suit succeeds. You'll remember I spoke with Megan Garcia, the mother who brought this case against the Character AI and Google, along with her lawyer back in December, Garcia's lawyer, Mitali Jain was already anticipating part of this argument from the other side. Let's listen. We've seen platforms kind of leveraging a one, two punch and doubly insulating themselves both with Section 230 and then alternatively, with the First Amendment, and I think here too with the First Amendment, there's a really good case that this is not protected speech. So anyway, they're going to try to do that. I just feel like kids shouldn't be using these things. Maybe that's the issue. Adults is another issue. The latest motion did not address section 230, though it's possible it come down the line. Obviously they're saying that their bots can say anything they want, but of course we prosecuted a young woman for convincing a young man to commit suicide. So this is not free speech, this is dangerous speech. And especially when it's kids under 18 years old. I'm sorry, these people should go to jail as far as I'm concerned.
Scott Galloway
But thoughts, words, sister. And by the way, I love your, your hairless legs. Look, they're, they're trying to create another moat and put one alligator in it, hoping that it creates delay in obfuscation and more costs. And then, but ultimately I think they'll go to the 230 excuse. But simply put, all algorithmically elevated content should, should lose or be absolved of 230 protection. And in addition, if your platform is readily available to anyone under the age of 16, we need age gating and also age liability. Similar to if someone shows up to your bar and drinks a lot and they kill someone on the way home, you're in trouble. But if a 15 year old shows up to your bar and you serve them and they kill someone and themselves, you are in deep, deep shit. And that's what it should be here. And that is if you read this story, I mean it brings up a few things. It also brings up up issues, really important issues around gun control. Like how did this kid have access to a firearm? But this is every parent's nightmare, that your kid develops what feels like a parasocial relationship with someone who can encourage him to kill himself. And also this to me feels like at some point we gotta get rid of section 230 for algorithmically elevated content. We gotta have age gating where there's a different set of liability. If you can reverse engineer self harm or physical harm or whatever, it is just anxiety among teens. What other product is allowed other than guns? Well, even guns, they're not allowed to buy them. I mean most gun manufacturers and gun retailers won't sell to people under the age of 18. But you can go on and establish a relationship and basically this bot can say, I'm waiting for you, my prince. And encourage, after you say, should I End it here. Anyway, this to me feels like something that a senator or a congressperson should pick up and run with.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, absolutely. Character A. I have contacted a dozen people around this to take a look at and they have O'Connor, many others. So I'm not giving up on this case at all. It's really, you know, as a God with kids. It's just if you. You don't have to have kids to be concerned about this. You would prosecute someone who did this to your kid who's living. We're going to be prosecuting these bots. The people who are living can't do this. People who are actual humans can't do this. Neither can bots. They absolutely cannot. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like to go first or shall I?
Scott Galloway
Why don't you go first?
Kara Swisher
Well, a win. I gotta tell you, I'm watching Severance, so.
Scott Galloway
Oh, really? Ben Show.
Kara Swisher
Ben Show. He's directed a lot of them. He's not the writer of it, but it's his show. He produces it. I went back and we've been watching the last. I'm gonna interview him soon. Watching the last couple episodes of last season, but it is then now watching the new season. It is such a fantastic mind fuck. And it's everything we talk about around yourself, where you split your world up. It's return to work, it's isolation, it's technology, it's. It's a workplace comedy, but it's not like it's a thriller. And there's all these characters who. Let me just say all these actors are superb. And some of them I've never seen. There's two in particular who are astonishing, who I've never seen. There's some well known actors who are killing it here, like Christopher Walken and John Turturro. Every bit of it is beautifully designed, beautifully photographed. You know, Adam Scott, who's the main character in it, is amazing. The visuals just. I cannot say enough about this show. And it's so smart, but also accessible. I just love it. I have to say that is my win. My fail is as I predicted, there are going to be increasing numbers of efforts to get marriage, gay marriage in front of the Supreme Court. Again, Idaho is the latest. Trying to push up against current law. Trying to get the Supreme Court law that passed. Gay marriage, it's Oberg. So it's been legal. Same sex marriage has been legal in Idaho since 2014. But they are trying. The Idaho lawmakers want to overturn same sex marriage decision and bring it back to the states. So they're trying to get a challenge to that to take it to the Supreme Court because some of the new Supreme Court justices and some of the others are trying to make this the same thing with. Same thing with abortion. And I don't care. We were right about abortion and I'm 100% right here. They want to bring it to the state states. They want to undo. It's Obergefell v. Hodges. It was a landmark decision that gave same sex couples the right to marry. Obviously they're attacking the 14th Amendment, which is part of it, is based on that. And they want to reverse it. And so there's all kinds of funding. Just like the people who are doing dei, just like the people who were doing that. They're going for this to try to get it to. To the Supreme Court so they can do something like they just did. And that's all they're doing is a naked grab for overturning the gay marriage Supreme Court decision. Like they overturned Roe v. Wade. And it's very vulnerable. Two court justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said it should be reconsidered. So we'll see. It's theater. It's theater. But they're going to try to do this. They're trying to get a case up there that will make it happen the same way they're trying to get a libel case case up there so that journalists lose their libel protections they've had for so long. So I just watch this space. I keep saying it. I'm not overreacting here. It's disturbing. I don't know what they'll do with current marriages, but boy, is it. I'm frightened for all of us.
Scott Galloway
Okay, so my win is. That's a strange one. I'm trying to figure out a way to select the right words here. But I think it's important that we continue to commemorate and recognize key moments in history such that we don't go back there again. But Today is the 80th. We're recording on Monday. It's the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. Originally envisioned as army barracks, then turned to a prison for Polish and Soviet prisoners, ultimately became a real stain on the species or our modern world and ultimately became the largest single site of the greatest murder in history. 1.3 million people. People sent there, 1.1 million were murdered. 900,000 Jews. One out of basically six Jews murdered during the Holocaust. Perished at Auschwitz. But it wasn't just Jews. It was gypsies, Polish civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, political prisoners, people with disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses. Jehovah's Witnesses. Actually, there's some nuance there. Gay men. And then the Nazis also imprisoned and killed people they saw as asocial, including homeless people, sex workers, and those accused of petty crimes. This is. I mean, it's important. And the King showed up. The King of England, Macron showed up, The Chancellor of Germany showed up. And I think it's important, and I do. They also think it brings attention to other genocides, whether it's Armenia, Cambodia, genocide in Ukraine. I mean, it's important. Rwanda. I think about this a lot because, unfortunately, I'm fascinated with World War II history. But I can tell, you know, you have certain triggers when you're not doing well. When I feel myself going dark or depressed, I think I'm thinking too much about the Holocaust. I go there and it like takes me into sort of a downward spiral. And the way I've sort of tried to think about it, instinctually or anthropologically, is that just as our instincts have not caught up to institutional production around eating or gambling or sex and porn, our instincts towards rage and demonization and perceiving enemies as a means of protection, it has not evolved to industrial production. And unfortunately, this was the most horrific case of a group of people perceiving enemies where they didn't have them and then combining it with industrial production, they're just resulted in what was kind of the ultimate horror. But I think bringing people together to recognize what is important. And because basically all the survivors are gone, or nearly all of them, they're all dying off. And I don't collect art, but I have a photo of Otto Frank in the attic where Anne Frank was hiding before she ultimately was discovered. And she is, I don't know if she's the most famous person who perished, but whenever, literally whenever I think I'm starting to feel sorry for myself, I just look at that photo. But Today marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation by the Soviet army of Auschwitz. And I think it's a win that our society still says we need to recognize this and we need to pause. And also, it is especially dangerous and heinous and needs to be called out when the President says they're uses terms like they're poisoning our blood, or when the wealthiest man in the world says, you shouldn't dilute your culture.
Kara Swisher
He was in Germany.
Scott Galloway
Be clear where he was speaking to a far Right.
Kara Swisher
Group called Alternative for Germany party.
Scott Galloway
Just so you know, this is literally taking a page out of the, you know, the pre playbook, the game plan for early 30s Germany. And to think that it can't happen here. Just look at Germany in the 20s and 30s. It was a thriving community with a really prosperous gay community, an art scene, a music, the best universities in the world, the most celebrated academics, including Einstein and others. And then on campuses it started breaking out. Anyways, this is. It's important that we take time to stop, recognize what happened here, be very transparent about it.
Kara Swisher
Absolutely.
Scott Galloway
And I was really moved by the fact that so many important world leaders decided to take time and recognize it. I, I'm appreciative and I think it's important of their time.
Kara Swisher
Can I just say, let me just read Elon's quotes. He said there was too much focus on past guilt, which was Nazism. It's good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything. We don't want everyone to be the same everywhere, where it's just one big sort of soup. I don't even know what to say.
Scott Galloway
Well, and word to a South African who immigrated here, the American culture is multiculturalism. That is our culture. So when you talk about diminishing the power of multiculturalism, you're diluting what is America. And that has absolutely no place in our discourse. And it should be called out for what it is. And that is catering to the worst instincts of our species, where institutional production colliding with these terrible instincts can result, result in a single site that murders more people than any site in history. And if this type of rhetoric continues to spin out of control and we continue to demonize people with the institutional production and tools we have at our disposal right now, it could make Auschwitz seem like a fucking garden party. So this stuff needs to be arrested and checked. And I think that event helps that. Anyways, enough of my indignance.
Kara Swisher
There's never enough indignance on that topic, but go ahead.
Scott Galloway
My fail is the Democrats had two and a half months to prepare or the Democratic leadership had two and a half months to prepare for Trump being president. He's doing it to his credit. He's doing exactly what he said he was going to do. And I can't stand this. We need to come together, we need to work with him. They're scared of being primaried or not elected or they think this tells us, okay, we need to rethink where America is and My attitude is I'm sort of at the point where Sarah says I choose violence. I don't think Democrats should be heeding a call of coming together. I think they should be heeding a call of coming to the rescue. And that is what is going on. Some stuff, you ignore the stuff around, I believe, deporting immigrants who are here illegally, I get it. Renaming gulfs of cheaper eggs, fine, let them have at it. But some of this stuff around, the grift, around the coin, some of the stuff, stuff around. I mean, just the coarseness and cruelty of the way they're going about stuff. Deficit spending, reducing, threatening to eliminate the security details of your political enemies. The Democrats need to find somebody who isn't day trading their stocks. Speaker Amitopelosi doesn't brighten a room by leaving it Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer. And we need to find people who can actually speak eloquently and forcefully to what is going on here and push back.
Kara Swisher
Who would you pick?
Scott Galloway
Well, I think AOC does a great job. I think Wes Moore does a good job. I think Representative Torres does a good job. I'm waiting for Senator Klobuchar to wake up and talk about the importance of the direct correlation between inflation and this out of control deficit spending and these immigration policies. I mean, where are the fucking Democrats? We should be having, in my opinion, we should having. I want to have the. Why wouldn't we have the Energy and Commerce Committee immediately get subpoena Twitter CEO Yakarino? Because there's now pretty decent evidence that, okay, they created thousands of bots, spun up their algorithm for pro Trump content. I want her to under oath, tell us whether or not there's the corporation engaged in spinning up thousands of fake accounts to spread misinformation, trying to get one candidate elected. And by the way, it may not be illegal, but I want her to tell us whether that happened or not. So it's. The American public can decide if they want to engage with Twitter. The Homeland Security Committee should decide whether or not. We need laws that say, all right, if every former official, if some former officials are going to have their security detail removed, such as, as Dr. Fauci, then everyone needs to remove. You don't think Stephen Miller's gonna need security after he leaves this administration. So there needs to be. The Democrats, in my opinion, need to wake up and start pushing back and start calling this for what it is. This is not a time, in my opinion, and I understand the very noble cause, but we're always the ones that wanna Come together in some PBS weird fucked up vision of being your better self. Did you see the movie the Mission?
Kara Swisher
A long time ago, yeah.
Scott Galloway
Well, it's a wonderful. It's a wonderful film. And Robert De Niro, these missionaries, Robert De Niro said, the British are coming for us. They're gonna slaughter us. We need to prepare. And Jeremy Irons, who's a priest, says, no, I choose nonviolence. And of course they're slaughtered. I'm not up for being slaughtered at this point. I think they have chosen violence and I think we need to hit back. And all of this rhetoric around just. We are so flat footed right now. Who on the democratic side of the aisle is actually pushing back in a forceful, thoughtful, articulate way?
Kara Swisher
Aoc. You know who. I just watched Charlemagne, the God, saying, here's aoc. He was saying that he's like, stop. Stop being nice to them. Like, push back. And then he was using AOCs and she was like going to the inauguration. No, I don't go to the inauguration of a rapist and an insurrectionist. I don't. Okay, next question. Like, it was really interesting. Cause she's. And she's much more articulate than that. That was sort of a slap. But you're right, I agree. Like we said, we're not gonna be coerc.
Scott Galloway
And also, let's have hearings and have that new AI and crypto task force come explain to us in public with CNN and fox. Just lay out for us, if you wouldn't mind, what happened with the Trump coin and the Melania coin. And also, we're going to invite some people who invested in day one and have lost 80% of their money. Let's get all of this out in the open and let's let the American people see what's going on and make.
Kara Swisher
Sure that I love it. Let's do it with this show. How about that?
Scott Galloway
I think we're trying to do it.
Kara Swisher
We're trying to do it. We're trying to get them mad. Let's get them mad.
Scott Galloway
Anyways, I choose violence. Kara.
Kara Swisher
All right, okay. Not violence. Violence. Ish.
Scott Galloway
Well, you know what I mean. Anyone who understands Game of Thrones, I'm sick of some PBS professor in a fucking cardigan calling on our better angels. Yeah, you know, suit up anyway.
Kara Swisher
We want to hear from you. We do not choose violence. Just so you know. We do not choose violence. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. We choose angry. Go to nymag.com pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551, pivot. And while we're at it, the results from last week's Threads poll are in. We asked you about who you thought would be the next person in Trump's inner orbit to get the boot. Some popular answers. Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and our favorite, Melania. That is not happening. Just so you know, Melania is totally in on this whole thing. Folks don't think she's, she is grifter numero dos.
Scott Galloway
You mean the Hamburglar?
Kara Swisher
Whatever. The hamburger. Okay. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe, for on with Kara Swisher, I recently spoke with MSNBC's Chris Hayes, who has a new book out called the Sirens Call. It's All About Our World has become a battle for who or what can grab our attention. He's trying to get on the John of and Hate band and Scott Galloway Bandwagon. Chris shared his predictions from what might happen next. Let's listen.
Scott Galloway
The backlash that is brewing to this experience of contemporary life is enormous.
Kara Swisher
It is indeed.
Scott Galloway
It is growing by the second. People do not like it. And whoever figures out how to channel that. And there's going to be a million different ways people are going to drop out. There's going to be a kind of no phones offline movement. There's going to be people that try to build a new version of the non commercial Internet. The folks who are now trying to do that with a blue sky develop protocol. There's, there's, there's people are going to opt out. They're going to try to create niche businesses that block your phone. They're going to try light new changes to lifestyles. They're going to try political movements that regulate attention, that take phones out of schools. There's going to be all this stuff.
Kara Swisher
He's on our bandwagon. Scott. Thank you for arriving. Chris, we've been at this for a long time.
Scott Galloway
Yeah, I was gonna say he's in the caboose of our bandwagon. Oh, it's an attention economy. Wow. Some real insight there.
Kara Swisher
It's actually a pretty good book. He's well spoken, though. We'll take him, Chris. We'll take you in our army of more powers here. We're with you, Chris, but we're violent. Be careful. All right. Anyway, by the way, Scott, you were in the Financial Times this week and you had a few quotes about the rise of the manosphere podcast podcasts.
Scott Galloway
I'm not a subscriber. I couldn't read them. I was literally pinging everyone. What's your credentials for ft?
Kara Swisher
Yes. What did you say?
Scott Galloway
I said that these podcasters were really relatable. And I said it was like when you're on your way to high school and some guy would be out front fixing his Trans Am in the, in the driveway and he'd throw a beer can at you and call you a pussy and on the way home, invite you in for your first bong load. I'm like, these guys are very relatable.
Kara Swisher
Where did those guys end up? Where did those guys end up?
Scott Galloway
But they. I went on Theo Vaughn. I can see why. There literally are tens of millions of mostly young men who are like, I don't need some over educated liberal in New York telling me the day's news.
Kara Swisher
True, true. Although I have to say, they can also be repulsive to some. Like, Alex is pretty. You know, he's sort of his like, frat guy, big guy, sports guy, finds these people repellent in a different way. It's like, what a bunch of idiots. Like, there is a backlash for another kind of man. He loves you. Let me just tell you, if Alex Swisher keeps quoting Scott Galloway to me, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Like, he loves this.
Scott Galloway
I love that. And I love how much you must hate it. No, I don't hate it.
Kara Swisher
But I'm like, well, I kind of did something on yonder. And he's like, yeah, yeah. But what Scott said, literally, I was like, well, I kind of did a podcast on that.
Scott Galloway
It's like when people come up with a book and ask me to sign your book.
Kara Swisher
I'm just saying my son is fully in the Scott Galloway maniverse. That's all I have to say.
Scott Galloway
I'll tell you, they have tapped into something.
Kara Swisher
They have. But there's another manosphere that I think is coming. I can feel it.
Scott Galloway
I hope so.
Kara Swisher
There is. I like a manosphere. I like a man cave. It's coming. Anyway, Scott, read us out. Manosphere.
Scott Galloway
There you go. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin, Ernie or Tide engineer this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ms. Silverio, and Dan Schulen. Nishat Kurwa is Vox 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, Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine@nymag.com pod we'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business Open Quote After Auschwitz, the human condition is not the same. Nothing will ever be the same here. Heaven and earth are on fire. Elie Wiesel at a commemoration in 1995.
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Pivot Podcast Summary: DeepSeek Shockwaves, Nvidia's Plunge, and Target's DEI Rollback
Release Date: January 28, 2025
Hosts: Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway
Published by: New York Magazine and Vox Media Podcast Network
Timestamp: [01:12] - [07:07]
Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway open the episode by sharing personal experiences and challenges related to elderly care. Kara discusses the consideration of moving her mother to a newly converted senior facility, highlighting the complexities and emotional strain involved in such decisions. Scott echoes these sentiments, emphasizing the high costs and the often uncooperative nature of elderly parents when it comes to accepting care.
Notable Quotes:
Timestamp: [07:16] - [15:56]
The conversation shifts to the emergence of DeepSeek, a new AI model developed in China. DeepSeek is noted for outperforming established models from OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic in third-party tests while operating at a fraction of the cost. This development has led to significant stock market reactions, with companies like Nvidia, Oracle, and Microsoft experiencing substantial declines.
Scott provides an in-depth analysis of the situation, suggesting that DeepSeek's efficiency challenges the previously held belief that high-end GPUs and significant energy consumption are indispensable for advanced AI models. He also touches upon the second-order effects on energy companies, noting the impact on nuclear stocks due to DeepSeek's optimized energy usage.
Notable Quotes:
Timestamp: [15:56] - [19:34]
Kara brings up a recent standoff between the US and Colombia, sparked by President Trump's threat to impose a 25% tariff on Colombian goods following Colombia's denial of entry to US military planes carrying migrants. The situation escalated quickly but was resolved within the day as Colombia agreed to facilitate the planes, effectively nullifying Trump's tariff threat.
Scott criticizes the move, describing it as unnecessary and symbolic cruelty. He highlights the potential long-term repercussions of such aggressive rhetoric, suggesting it could foster tensions that benefit rival powers like China.
Notable Quotes:
Timestamp: [23:17] - [27:35]
The hosts delve into the ongoing negotiations involving Oracle and Microsoft aiming to take over TikTok's global operations. This potential acquisition is reminiscent of the early days of Trump's presidency, with implications for data security and US-China technological competition. Scott raises concerns about the lack of communication from the Chinese government regarding the deal and warns of possible economic repercussions if the deal falls through.
Kara adds context by referencing OpenAI's open-source model, Llama, and its impact on the AI industry, further emphasizing the competitive race in AI advancements between the US and China.
Notable Quotes:
Timestamp: [31:13] - [35:20]
Kara discusses Target's decision to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) goals and programs aimed at supporting black and minority-owned businesses. This move comes amidst increasing legal challenges and shareholder resistance from companies like Costco and Apple, who are choosing to uphold their DEI initiatives despite external pressures.
Scott shares his perspective on the necessity and implementation of DEI, advocating for nuanced approaches where DEI is essential but cautioning against overextension, especially within educational institutions.
Notable Quotes:
Timestamp: [37:28] - [39:30]
The discussion turns to a lawsuit filed against Character AI by a mother whose son committed suicide after interacting with a chatbot. Kara and Scott debate the implications of the lawsuit, particularly focusing on the protections provided by Section 230 and the First Amendment. Scott argues for the reevaluation of Section 230 in the context of algorithmically generated content, emphasizing the need for accountability, especially concerning content that can lead to self-harm.
Notable Quotes:
Timestamp: [40:16] - [54:28]
Wins:
Fails:
Notable Quotes:
Timestamp: [55:16] - [58:35]
Scott discusses the increasing popularity of manosphere podcasts, noting their relatability among young men who feel disconnected from mainstream media narratives. Kara reflects on how these podcasts resonate with their audience while also acknowledging the diverse reactions they elicit.
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Kara and Scott conclude the episode by encouraging listeners to engage with the show's content and participate in ongoing discussions about technology, business, and societal issues. They reiterate the importance of addressing the challenges highlighted throughout the episode and emphasize their commitment to fostering informed and critical conversations.
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In this episode of "Pivot," Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway navigate a diverse array of topics, from the disruptive advancements in AI and their economic implications to the intricate dynamics of trade relations and corporate DEI initiatives. Their candid discussions offer listeners a comprehensive understanding of the current technological and political landscapes, enriched with personal anecdotes and critical insights.
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