Election Predictions, Comcast Spinoff Plans, and Guest Dan Harris

Summary

Pivot Podcast Episode Summary: Election Predictions, Comcast Spinoff Plans, and Guest Dan Harris

Hosted by Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway from New York Magazine, the "Pivot" podcast delivers incisive discussions on the latest in tech, business, and politics. In this episode, titled "Election Predictions, Comcast Spinoff Plans, and Guest Dan Harris," Kara and Scott delve into critical topics ranging from market shifts in the semiconductor industry to the looming U.S. election, culminating in an insightful conversation with Dan Harris on managing election-related anxiety.

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1. Intel’s Replacement by Nvidia on the Dow Jones Industrial Average

Timestamp: [09:17]

Scott Galloway opens the episode by discussing a significant change in the Dow Jones Industrial Average: Nvidia's addition replacing Intel. This move aims to provide a more representative exposure to the semiconductor industry.

• Market Impact: Nvidia saw its stock rise nearly 3% in after-hours trading post-announcement, while Intel experienced a nearly 2% decline the previous week, including a historic $16 billion loss in Q3.

• Scott’s Insight: He argues that Intel's replacement signals mismanagement and contrasts it with historical examples like Time Warner's decline. Scott emphasizes that such changes highlight the varying performances of major tech firms and their influence on investor sentiment.

Notable Quote:

Scott Galloway [09:17]: "I think it doesn't matter because it sends a signal about one company doing poorly and one doing really well."

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2. BYD Surpasses Tesla in Q3 Revenue

Timestamp: [14:50]

The conversation shifts to the electric vehicle (EV) market, highlighting BYD, a Chinese EV manufacturer, overtaking Tesla in Q3 revenue for the first time.

• BYD’s Growth: BYD reported a Q3 revenue of $28 billion, a 24% increase from the previous year, surpassing Tesla’s $25 billion.

• Challenges Ahead: Despite this achievement, BYD faces potential headwinds from EU-imposed tariffs on Chinese EVs, which could reach up to 45%.

• Scott’s Analysis: He praises BYD for cracking the cost challenge in EVs, suggesting that their innovative approach gives them a substantial edge over Tesla, which he feels needs a "freshening up" to maintain its market position.

Notable Quote:

Scott Galloway [14:50]: "There's just no getting around it. BYD as far as I can tell, is kicking Tesla's ass."

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3. Comcast’s Strategic Spinoff of Cable Networks

Timestamp: [17:12]

Next, Kara and Scott examine Comcast's strategic move to spin off its cable networks, including MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, and USA.

• Spinoff Details: Announced by Comcast President Mike Kavanaugh during the company's earnings call, the new entity would be owned by Comcast shareholders and remain well-capitalized.

• Market Reaction: Comcast's shares rose by over 3% following the announcement, indicating positive investor reception.

• Scott’s Perspective: He interprets the spinoff as a sign of structural decline within Comcast's conglomerate model. By separating volatile cable assets from its core business, Comcast aims to streamline operations and present a clearer, more focused company profile to investors.

Notable Quote:

Scott Galloway [17:12]: "It's typically the sign of a company in decline that doesn't think they're getting the credit they deserve."

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4. Election Predictions and Poll Analysis

Timestamp: [25:26]

As Election Day approaches, Kara and Scott engage in a robust analysis of the latest polls and predictions.

• Current Polls: They discuss the New York Times Sienna poll, which shows Vice President Harris slightly ahead in key swing states like Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, while Donald Trump maintains narrow leads in Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia.

• Poll Reliability: Scott humorously critiques poll reliability, emphasizing his distrust of conventional polling methods. He prefers more straightforward, less convoluted polling approaches to gauge election outcomes.

Notable Quote:

Scott Galloway [29:38]: "Well, first off, that's misinformation. My favorite poll is a short one that has an on switch, and then I stick it up my ass."

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5. Guest Interview: Dan Harris on Managing Election Anxiety

Timestamp: [43:29]

To address the high levels of stress surrounding the election, Kara and Scott welcome Dan Harris, host of the "10% Happier" podcast, as their guest.

• Dan’s Advice: He recommends proactive strategies to manage anxiety, such as taking action to feel more in control. This includes volunteering, engaging in community activities, and fostering quality relationships, which research shows are pivotal for mental well-being.

• Mindfulness and Self-Awareness: Dan underscores the importance of mindfulness in regulating stress, advising listeners to become more aware of their mental states and to set healthy boundaries with news consumption to prevent overwhelm.

• Personal Insights: Sharing his own experiences with anxiety and panic disorder, Dan highlights techniques like exposure therapy and cognitive restructuring to combat negative thought patterns.

Notable Quotes:

Dan Harris [43:29]: "There's a great expression... action absorbs anxiety."

Dan Harris [46:14]: "Most of that was kind of based in fear. But eventually, a couple years ago, I was able to make the leap and retire and just do this full time."

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6. Final Election Thoughts and Predictions

Timestamp: [68:06]

In their concluding segments, Scott and Kara offer their final election predictions and reflections.

• Scott’s Prediction: He anticipates a decisive victory for Harris, citing strong fundraising from small donors and effective grassroots canvassing. Additionally, Scott foresees Intel potentially being taken private due to its undervalued status and operational challenges.

• Kara’s Perspective: She echoes Scott’s optimism about Harris’s chances, emphasizing the motivational drive among women voters and critiquing Trump’s current campaign missteps, such as underperforming rallies and questionable surrogate endorsements.

• Mutual Agreement: Both hosts agree on the importance of avoiding extreme catastrophic views and advocate for a focus on unity and resilience, regardless of the election outcome.

Notable Quotes:

Scott Galloway [68:55]: "I think she's gonna perform better. But I have to tell you, I think he's gonna do everything possible to stay out of jail..."

Kara Swisher [73:56]: "I agree with you, Scott, and I think it is... hoping to kick Trump to the curb finally."

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Conclusion

In this episode of "Pivot," Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway provide a comprehensive analysis of current tech and business developments, intertwining them seamlessly with the high-stakes atmosphere of the upcoming U.S. election. Their thoughtful discussion, complemented by expert advice from Dan Harris, offers listeners valuable insights into navigating both market dynamics and personal well-being during turbulent times.

For more in-depth discussions and sharp analyses, subscribe to "Pivot" on your preferred podcast platform and stay informed with New York Magazine and Vox Media’s leading tech and business voices.

Transcript

[Scott Galloway]

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[Kara Swisher]

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[Scott Galloway]

Support for Pivot comes from Huntress. Huntress is one of today's fastest growing cybersecurity companies. His platform is designed from the ground up to work for small to medium sized businesses and promises enterprise grade security driven by the technology, services and expertise you need to defend against today's cyber threats, all at a price that makes sense. Today it seems like even the most sophomoric hackers can still do a ton of damage to your small business. That's why Huntress built a fully managed, highly sophisticated security platform for its customers to guard against potentially devastating threats. Plus, you can rest assured knowing that the elite human threat hunters running their 24. 7 Security Operations center will offer real protection all day, every day. So if you want cutting edge cybersecurity backed by experts who monitor, investigate and respond to threats with unmatched precision, you can visit Huntress.com to learn more and start your free trial. My favorite poll is a short one that has an on switch and then I stick it up my ass. Maybe I should try that. I'm so stressed out. Xanax and Asplay. There you go. That's the peanut butter and chocolate. You asked me what I was going to do tomorrow night. There you go.

[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]

How you feeling today, Scott? You're posting a lot on the threads, the fast growing threads.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, I think that's a sign of neuroses. When people say, how are you? I say, you know, I'm okay. And then the voice in my mind goes, you're pretty fucking far from okay. I'm actually really stressed. How are you?

[Kara Swisher]

Are you? Yeah, I'm a little stressed, but Clara was sick, so that sort of got me out of my stress. You know, I'm just. I've decided to be Zen. I'm going to try to be Zen.

[Scott Galloway]

Can you decide to be Zen? Is that a decision we get to make?

[Kara Swisher]

I can. I don't think you can, but I can, yes. I have a lot of control over my emotions from years of. Years of having to be controlled. You know, I watch Menendez documentaries.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, we started watching. I find that really disturbing, but it's really good.

[Kara Swisher]

I got it. I love both of them. I like the Ryan Murphy one and I loved the documentary. I thought it was great. I was.

[Scott Galloway]

I've been watching the original scripted series with Ryan Murphy. Yeah. Is that Ryan? Yeah, I'm two episodes in.

[Kara Swisher]

Keep going.

[Scott Galloway]

I grew up with that. I was a senior. I was a first year in grad school or senior in college when that happened. That was a big deal.

[Kara Swisher]

It's a lot. It's a lot about stories and narrative and what we think about men being abused. You know what I mean? Like the second trial, which they went to jail on, the judge said they couldn't use the abused woman defense, essentially because men don't get abused. It was really. Things have changed so dramatically and it looks like there's more proof that the father was indeed exactly what they said he was. So this imperfect self defense thing, they may, they may get out. The two of them may get out. Anyway, that's what I'm watching. To feel better. Let me just say I went to Miami for a wedding this weekend.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, how was that?

[Kara Swisher]

I loved the breezes. It was nice. It was lovely. She lives in Miami Beach. It was very pretty. On the waterway. I don't know which waterway it was.

[Scott Galloway]

The Venetian Causeway.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't know. I have no idea. Anyway, I just took an Uber there. It was nice. I stayed at the edition. Was there for five minutes.

[Scott Galloway]

It's a nice hotel.

[Kara Swisher]

Literally 24 hours in Miami. We got there, I went with Tammy Hatted, saw a lot of friends.

[Scott Galloway]

Did you go to the Matador Room? It's beautiful. All the paneling not really.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I didn't.

[Scott Galloway]

Did you see the bowling alley or the ice rink?

[Kara Swisher]

Didn't.

[Scott Galloway]

I spent a lot of time at the edition. That smell, that was. That jazz, whatever.

[Kara Swisher]

It's lovely. It's lovely to go off on the beach, et cetera.

[Scott Galloway]

But the Pollo Conaro is their specialty at the Matador Room.

[Kara Swisher]

And yet I didn't do any of that. So I literally. The plane was late, I got there, got dressed, went to the wedding, had drinks on the deck there at the. At the hotel afterwards, and then left the next morning by 8:00. So I was gone. But I have to say, you know one thing I did like and I forgot how much I like not just Miami, but Hawaii, the Caribbean. Is that those warm weather breezes? No, it's warm here. It's. We have warm weather here. It's more the breezes, the tropical breezes. I love that feeling, you know, it goes.

[Scott Galloway]

You know what I miss that they don't have in London or most places. Really fucking hot women wearing nothing. They are everywhere. Enjoying those. Oh, it's a warm breeze. I think I'll wear a halter top. Oh, God.

[Kara Swisher]

Love Miami. Not in London.

[Scott Galloway]

Love Miami.

[Kara Swisher]

A lot of tweed.

[Scott Galloway]

And they love the wealthy, older, ugly guys. Hello, ladies.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, that's you. That's you. That's you. Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

No, you're not supposed to agree with that.

[Kara Swisher]

I just didn't say anything. I was. So anyway, so I had a good time. I saw my friend Jennifer Beals. I saw my friend Carrie Farrell. Hello.

[Scott Galloway]

Name drop. What was that? That was three and a half minutes in and you sent me a picture.

[Kara Swisher]

Tell you. Yeah, she's great.

[Scott Galloway]

She's a very tall woman.

[Kara Swisher]

She's very tall. She took all the pictures for me because I was way in the back. Let me just tell you. I was stopped several times at the.

[Scott Galloway]

Airport about how much people love us.

[Kara Swisher]

No. Yes, they do. Yes, that they did. But white men, Republicans. When I was like, oh, no. And then they're like, I'm voting for Harris.

[Scott Galloway]

How do you know the Republicans are white and they're men? I'm triggered.

[Kara Swisher]

They said it. They said it.

[Scott Galloway]

I voted McKenzie. And you owned a Subaru Forester.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm just telling you, they said it. They said it. I was waiting for the, ugh, pushback. And then they're like, I'm voting for Harris. And you all convinced me that's one of the reasons. And they're like, I love John McCain. I love. I'm always a Republican, all men. And I Literally was expecting some incel nonsense from most of them. So just was interesting.

[Scott Galloway]

It's so funny. Cause I have, I'm not exaggerating. I have women come up to me all the time and say, I'm now a lesbian because of you. That's good.

[Kara Swisher]

Anyway.

[Scott Galloway]

That's good. It's usually an ex girlfriend. Well, I'm lesbian now. Oh, okay. Thanks for that.

[Kara Swisher]

I started off lesbian watch I'll turn straight. Cause you're so attractive.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, that. No risk there, Amanda. Absolutely no risk there.

[Kara Swisher]

Anyway, I just wanna play a quick clip from Instagram of comedian Ami Kozak. He does this bit called if Scott Galloway Was a Weatherman. Let's listen. What we're facing Wednesday for the forecast is a chance of rain and then an absolute disaster. It looks like over the weekend there'll be some rain and mixed with some sunshine and then an absolute disaster. So if we don't do something soon, I mean, this is catastrophic proportions in which the weather's just gonna be an absolute disaster. We're facing absolute disaster. It is just a disaster for young men.

[Scott Galloway]

I love that kid. I didn't know you guys were gonna do that. You know me, I'm a narcissist. So thank you for doing that. Makes me feel nice. Yeah, he's good.

[Kara Swisher]

It's an absolute disaster. He's got you cold. I always love when people make fun of you. It's very fun. They usually got you dead on Ami. Thank you. That was really great. We've got a lot to get to on this election day, from the last minute polls to the final campaign pushes. Plus our friend of pivot. This is who we brought in to make you all feel better today because this will be published on election day. Dan Harris, host of the 10% Happier podcast. Dan is going to tell people how they can manage some of their election anxiety, including people if Trump loses, you guys are going to have to deal. So not that we care very much how you feel, but you're going to have to deal if he loses anyway. We're not going to skip our business and tech stories today though. Up first, Nvidia is replacing this is interesting rival chip member intel on the Dow Jones Industrial Average this week. The change is being made to, quote, ensure more representative exposure to the semiconductor industry. Nvidia stock was up nearly 3% in after hours trading after the change was announced, which makes sense. Last week, intel was down nearly 2%. One of those fallen angels, as Scott calls them. Intel also just posted a $16 billion loss for the third quarter the biggest quarterly loss in the company's 56 year history for a lot of charges in that one. But what do you think this move to put Nvidia and the Dow and does it matter or Dow used to matter a lot more? I guess. I don't know. What do you think?

[Scott Galloway]

I think it doesn't matter because it sends a signal about one company doing poorly and one doing really well. And also I believe there are certain funds, kind of quote unquote passive funds that buy the index and they only buy companies in the index. So it puts some selling pressure on companies that are kicked out and puts some selling buying pressure moving the stock up. It's just an indication of how well and how poorly each of these firms are doing respectively. And it's happened so viciously. I think there are a few companies that have been more poorly managed than intel because typically when you talk about.

[Kara Swisher]

A company, many leaders. Many leaders.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, okay, look at Time Warner for example. That company has fallen really far in that it made a terrible acquisition or merger. It was convinced by Steve Case who recognized he was sitting on a company that was going to go down 90% of value. And Steve did his shareholders a solid and said it is time to get out of Dodge and we're not going to merge with an Internet company. We're going to merge with a company with real old world assets which are less likely to implode. Like he correctly foresaw. These Internet assets, especially a dial up asset was going to implode. And then since then, essentially Warner Brothers or Time Warner has, you know, Time Warner since going public or doing this merger with discovery has lost 70% of its value.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I thought Jeff Bukus did very well to sell it. I thought that was kind of a good thievery on his part in that in getting it over to AT&T.

[Scott Galloway]

Jeff pulled off Jeff. There's one kind of person who likes Jeff and that's shareholders. He sold the magazines right before the magazine industry imploded. He sold the cable business when cable was peaking. And this is what's so unusual about this is CEOs have a habit of acquiring and not disposing of assets because traditionally their compensation is linked to how big the company is. And then he got the hell out of Dodge when AT&T saw Verizon by Yahoo, AOL and he sold it for 115, $120 billion. And now it has an enterprise value of barely half that. Now the reason I bring it up is that Zaslav can legitimately say the CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery. He can legitimately say I have faced enormous headwinds. Now granted, there's no excuse for why he's paid himself a third of a billion dollars while the Stock's gone down 70%. But he can legitimately say the market is bigger than any specific company. And the market dynamics here around cable and broadcast and ad supported media have been terrible. What's unusual about intel is it is a shadow of itself in what is arguably one of the best business sectors in history. So where this was a company everyone wanted to work for, Dominic going out of business.

[Kara Swisher]

Remember Intel? Inside Intel.

[Scott Galloway]

Andy Grove was the CEO of the Sensor.

[Kara Swisher]

I covered Andy Grove, I covered Andy Grove and they had Mark, they had a whole, they had a bunch of people. They did keep shifting after he died. It was, he was sort of, he ran it up the table for years and years and years. Like he really was the, he was such a character too. But one of the things that you have to. There's a lot there, I think there's a lot of brand there. But you can see how quickly this thing can, you know, topple. But it's. Do you, would you buy the Intel? Would you now that it's off?

[Scott Galloway]

Now I like to signal myself if intel goes below 20, 20 bucks a share. And this is why I've lost a lot of upside. I always think stuff's not cheap enough. I think that at a hundred billion dollars market cap, if this company shows they have incredible ip, a lot of patents, they do have a lot of fantastic managers there, they have incredible supplier relationships, capital. If this thing shows any sign of life, it doubles or triples. Whereas Nvidia has to be a $10 trillion company to triple.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, we keep saying that. It keeps coming up.

[Scott Galloway]

I think, I think intel is absolutely. If someone said I do not own either intel or Nvidia, but I'm actually looking at intel because I think any pulse here, any pulse here, the thing.

[Kara Swisher]

Doubles, we might get a new CEO. We'll see. Anyway, interestingly, Chinese EV company BYD just scored a major victory in its battle for dominance, topping Tesla in revenue for the first time. BYD's Q3 revenue is 28 billion, up 24% from a year ago. Tesla recently reported a $25 billion for the same period, Tesla still has a lead over BYD in terms of net profit. BYD is set to face some headwinds with the EU recently announced tariff increases on Chinese EVs taking duties as high as 45%. Same thing if they come to the US, by the way, especially if Trump takes. Everybody's going to put tariffs on everybody, including Mexico. Apparently today he was talking about fluoride and tariffs from Mexico. Crazy stuff. We'll talk about that in a minute. You know, BYD is also has some very innovative stuff that Tesla does. A lot of hand waving, has not introduced the smaller cars, the cheaper cars. You know, talk about he's going to continue to increase tariffs on Chinese EVs if Trump wins. Trump did soften his anti EV stance back in August, saying, I'm for electric cars, I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly. But I don't know, it just, I don't look at this guy. Felt the last three days, we'll talk about it. Seems addled this can be. So where do you imagine this going?

[Scott Galloway]

There's just no getting around it. Byd as far as I can tell, is kicking Tesla's ass.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

In terms of the global EV market, in 2021, BYD had 7%, Tesla had 21. By May of 2024, BYD is now at 16% and Tesla 17 May. Probably meaning as we sit here now, given this momentum, that BYD likely has a greater share of the EV market than tes. And my sense is they have figured out a way to deliver what I mean, the biggest complaint about EVs is a lack of charging infrastructure. And number three is range. But number two is cost. And BYD has cracked the code on this. They make what is supposed to be an outstanding EV for.

[Kara Swisher]

I think it's adorable too.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, for something like sub $15,000, really cute. I would love to see this car.

[Kara Swisher]

Every time I see a Tesla, I'm so bored with them now. I mean, even if I wasn't such a chode, I'm like, oh, look at that. And when I get picked up, I'm like, oh, I would like a different car, like a different looking car. It feels like, you know, when, like, I don't know, like 1980 wants you back, like kind of thing. I'm like, it's a great car.

[Scott Galloway]

It just hasn't. I like the word you use. Needs a freshening. A freshening.

[Kara Swisher]

Needs a freshening. And I have to say some of the other cars I've seen, I'd love to get in one of these Chinese EVs. I'd love to see them. I haven't seen them because they're not in this country widely. I don't think they're here at all, actually. Anyway, we'll see. I think they're Going to dominate. This is the country wants it to work. They're going to flood the market eventually. But I think probably Harris will be pretty tough in that regard too, would be my guess. Interesting story. I was curious what you thought of this. Comcast is exploring the creation of a separate company for its cable networks, which include msnbc, cnbc, Bravo and usa. Comcast president Mike Kavanaugh, who I think is very smart, I've spent some time with him, announced the spin off possibility on the company's earnings call last week. He said the new company would be owned by Comcast shareholders and be well capitalized. I don't think they're going to shove a bunch of debt over there. Who knows? Do they have a bunch of debt? The NBC broadcast network and streaming service Peacock would remain with the core company. It's sort of more of a cable thing, I guess. Comcast shares gained more than 3% on Thursday after that earnings call. What do you think of this spin off? You know, a lot of people were talking about this and I thought it was.

[Scott Galloway]

It's typically the sign of a company in decline that doesn't think they're getting the credit they deserve. And that is when you're doing really well and you have cheap stock, you go make acquisitions and then at some point, oftentimes the synergy doesn't manifest and all of a sudden your stock is getting hurt and the company has good assets. But typically when a company in a conglomerate model as Comcast is with a mix of businesses in different businesses, the way investors evaluate company and structural decline is they say, let's look at the shitty assets, the shittiest part of the business and assign that multiple to the whole thing. So at the New York times, we owned about.com, which on its own was worth probably a billion dollars. We owned the tallest, seventh tallest building in America. That was worth close to. I think. I forget what it was worth. It was worth a lot. At some point it was worth more than the paper. So I'm like, are we in the. Are we a REIT or are we a newspaper company? We own 17% of the Boston Red Sox, which made no fucking sense. So when you pull these assets out, especially when a stock's price has been under pressure, the disposition of assets are accretive because essentially there was no multiple on. There was no EBITDA from the Boston Red Sox. So we got no credit for it for owning a baseball team. Meanwhile, some midlife crisis guy was going to show up and pay 100 or 150 million. Or you could spend. I wanted to spend about.com because I'm like, we could get a billion dollars for this thing right now.

[Kara Swisher]

Remember that?

[Scott Galloway]

And then. And so this is a smart move. And so what they do is. And not only that, it creates a cleaner story. Investors like a clean story because this is what CEOs do. They claim their synergy, but there's not usually. Usually what they're trying to do is they're trying to say, I hate being responsible for one type of business that is volatile and I like to smooth out my earnings. So I'll buy assets which will increase the size of my business, which likely gives me bigger compensation because my compensation is based on the size of my business. And then it makes my life a lot nicer. But here's the thing. Investors in their way, in their own way, via a stock price will say to the CEO, I don't need you to diversify for me. Unless there's real synergy here.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I can do it myself. Let me ask you, why isn't NBC in this? I don't quite know. Is NBC in this?

[Scott Galloway]

No, no. The spin off would not include streaming service PCOP or broadcast network NBC.

[Kara Swisher]

I guess they see why because MSNBC picks up stuff from NBC and so does CNBC or. I don't know, it seems like the confusing part.

[Scott Galloway]

The only thing I can figure out is one of the Roberts is very affectionate around NBC and doesn't want to. I don't know that they see it as too core or too central to the whole brand position. It doesn't make any sense to me.

[Kara Swisher]

Pretend you're him. He's a lovely guy, by the way. Pretend you're him. Why would you.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm a billionaire that's going to be dead in 20 years and I get to do things I enjoy and I enjoy having NBC as part of this. I don't know, it doesn't make any economic sense to.

[Kara Swisher]

You would put it in there. I would think. Yeah, I can see why the streaming service stays because it's part of a cable offering, but then have a relationship with them.

[Scott Galloway]

Basically what they're doing here is kind of good bank, bad bank. And that is the bad bank is these companies in structural decline that have really good cash flows. All right? People know how to value that. The good bank is a streaming service that has some, you know, has some momentum and these things trade at a much higher multiple and those things lose money. But the market will afford some capital or at least more capital, I guess.

[Kara Swisher]

Because if you're keeping Peacock, you have to keep NBC for the entertainment assets.

[Scott Galloway]

This is what Warner Brothers Discovery is going to do. After Comcast, which is considered a better managed company, does Warner Brothers Discovery will do the same thing. They'll go good bank, bad bank. The bad bank will be all of their cable assets, all the Discovery stuff, cnn, the Turner Network, all that stuff. And then they'll take, take HBO and they'll take Warner, the movie company, which has a lot of IP and can feed stuff directly into hbo. They'll say this is the good bank, which will trade at a higher multiple because it's a growth company and has more definitive or defensible assets. This is the bad bank. And by the way, the bad bank is still a good, might be a good investment because these companies still generate a lot of cash flow. But when you mix companies of different ages, if you will, or different investor complexions, unless you can really, really justify the synergies, there the market goes. I don't like it. I can't figure it out. I'll go buy Netflix, which is a pure play.

[Kara Swisher]

Pure play, right.

[Scott Galloway]

Or I'll go buy. Or I'll go buy Gannett, which is a shitty company, still spending cash flow. New York Times, right?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. All right. Okay. Well, good explanation, Scott. Okay, let's go on a quick break. We come back, it's finally election Day. How close are we to the end of the race? Hopefully soon. And for everyone who's anxious right now, our friend of Pivot, as I said, is Dan Harris on how not to drive yourself crazy today. Support for this show comes from arm. Have you ever thought about the technology that makes this podcast possible? Whether you're listening on your phone, in your car or via a laptop, there's also the data centers that make it all work. One company is at the heart of it all. It's the same company that powered the smartphone revolution and is helping define the AI revolution. That company is called arm. ARM designs compute platforms for the biggest companies in the world so they can create silicon solutions to power global technology. ARM became a NASDAQ 100 company in less than a year of its IPO and is proudly NASDAQ listed. ARM touches nearly 100% of the globally connected population. 99% of smartphones are built on ARM. Major clouds run on ARM as well as all major mobile and PC apps. Now their engineers are tackling the insatiable demand for compute and power efficiency that AI is creating. AI enabled ARM CPUs are able to provide the compute platform for the global AI revolution in the years to come. But for now, relax and enjoy this podcast. It's very likely running on your very own ARM powered device. Visit arm.comdiscover to learn more. Support for Pivot comes from Vanta. Whether you're starting or scaling your company's security program, demonstrating top notch security practices practices and establishing trust is more important than ever. Vanta automates compliance for SoC2, ISO7001 and more, saving you time and money while helping you build customer trust. Plus you can streamline security reviews by automating questionnaires and demonstrating your security posture with a customer facing trust center. All powered by Vanta AI. Over 8,000 global companies like Atlassian FlowHealth and Quora use Vanta to manage risk and improve security in real time. You get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com pivot that's vanta.com pivot for $1,000 off.

[Scott Galloway]

Support for this podcast comes from Oracle. Even if you think it's a bit overhyped, AI is suddenly everywhere from self driving cars to molecular medicine to business efficiency. If it's not in your industry yet, it's coming fast. But AI needs a lot of speed and computing power, so how do you compete without cost? Spiraling out of control? Time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or oci. OCI is a blazing, fast and secure platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, plus all your AI and machine learning workloads. OCI costs 50% less for compute and 80% less for networking, so you're saving a pile of money. Thousands of businesses have already upgraded to oci, including MGM Resorts, Specialized Bikes and Fireworks AI. Right now, Oracle is offering to cut your content cloud bill in half if you move to OCI for new US Customers with minimum financial commitment. Offer ends December. See if your company qualifies for this special [e-mail] pivot that's oracle.com pivot.

[Kara Swisher]

Scott we're back. It's a day we've been anxiously waiting. Roughly half of the 2020 electorate has already taken advantage of early voting. Including Republicans are voting early now because now Donald Trump has decided it's not evil. But today is the last day to cast your vote. Have you voted already? Do you have a vote in the plan?

[Scott Galloway]

Oh yeah, yeah, I voted. I had a weird experience. This is how old I'm getting. I'm in Florida and I thought, oh this would be nice. And I went to the place behind the tennis courts in Delray beach and I walked in to do my Voting thing. And I walked up and they said, it says you've already voted. And they looked at me like I was trying to vote twice. And I said, are you sure? And they're like, yeah, we received a mail in ballot nine days ago. I'm like, oh, fuck, I've already voted. I totally forgot I'd already voted. So I tried to vote twice. The Republicans are right. It's a conspiracy. I'm literally the person they're. But it's my age, it's my early onset Alzheimer's. There's no conspiracy theory. And just so you know, they knew right away. They turned around and they're like, yeah, you had a mail in ballot and we received it eight days ago at 11:31am and here's your signature. And I'm like, oh, never mind. Thank you for your service.

[Kara Swisher]

I hope you voted for the right person. Scott, I am going to go to the. I love going on election day and we're taking Clara. I used to take my boys every year to vote. I think it's really important to take kids to vote to make them understand the privilege that we have. So we, Amanda and I are going to take Clara. Both sons voted also, by the way, early. Congratulations, Alex, on your first election. Congratulations. Your first presidential election. I'm very pleased that you voted in this important state. But Vice President Harris will watch election returns at her alma mater, Howard University here in the D.C. area. Former President Trump has a watch party. Where do we guess it? West Palm Beach. What are you going to do the night with hours left to in the race?

[Scott Galloway]

I think I'm going to go out because I'm going to try and not watch. I say this and I won't be able to do it, but the plan is I'm going to go out and I'm going to get up really early on. I mean, we're now, we were four hours ahead, now we're five hours ahead because you guys, I guess you guys fell back yesterday. But I don't want to look at it until Wednesday close to. I just, I find the. I remember in 2016 when I was following it and essentially I can do math and they showed all these Florida counties and I go, oh, Immediately I could tell Florida's going to Trump. And then I did the broader math. I'm like, trump's won. And it was fairly early in the evening. And the thing I don't like about it is they try and create tension as if no matter what they do. Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

And then that noise they make.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, and Then they go to some reporter on a basketball court in a high school gym saying, we just found someone, someone who's not that smart to talk to us about what they think about the election.

[Kara Swisher]

Exactly. I'm going to watch Menendez documentaries.

[Scott Galloway]

It reminds me of the IPO of Meta. This is like, I don't know, six or eight years ago, I was on with Stephanie Rolle when she was still at Bloomberg, and Alex Ohanian, the co founder of Reddit. And we were supposed to go. It was supposed to go public at the open, and there was a technical glitch and it didn't go public till noon. So we sat on air for two and a half hours trying to talk about Meta. And the producer kept coming out on a break and going, I'm sorry, maybe talk about WhatsApp. And me and Alex were sitting there like, we're out. We thought we were gonna be here for six minutes and we're supposed to talk about this shit anyways. With Stockholm syndrome, I'm convinced that's why Stephanie Rule and I like each other so much. We have literally been.

[Kara Swisher]

Cause you were stuck. Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

We have been through years.

[Kara Swisher]

All right, let's get back to the election. Let's get back to the election. With hours left in the race, they're neck and neck, apparently in swing states, according to the final New York Times Sienna poll. More specifically, it shows Harris marginally ahead in Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin. The poll has Trump slightly ahead in Arizona, Michigan, Georgia. Michigan is more Harris, actually. Georgia, Pennsylvania. Georgia and Pennsylvania are extremely close. One surprise, a separate outlier Iowa poll showing Harris three points ahead of Trump in a state he's won twice. This is not a state that was even considered being played. But the pollster is one of the most respected, the one who is not an irritating chode. J. Ann Seltzer. She is considered the best pollster in politics. And then there, of course, is Scott's favorite poll, which I do not agree with. Trump media stock price up 54 a week ago, down in 30s and headed down as we head into Election Day. You may use that. I'm not going to use that. Or the predictions market. So, thoughts? Top line thoughts?

[Scott Galloway]

Well, first off, that's misinformation. My favorite poll is a short one that has an on switch, and then I stick it up my ass.

[Kara Swisher]

That's good.

[Scott Galloway]

That's good. All right. Anyways, maybe I should try that. I'm so stressed out anyways. I know Xanax and ass play. There you go. That's the peanut butter and chocolate you asked me what I was going to do tomorrow night. There you go.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, I didn't wish I had.

[Scott Galloway]

That's my Tuesday night. And it's not just election week either.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

I don't remember the question.

[Kara Swisher]

I got so excited about Stopping your jokes. Elon Musk, let's go. Okay, what are your overall thoughts? Because I'm going to move on.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, my overall thoughts.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm going to move to Carter.

[Scott Galloway]

I got to be honest, Jess Tarlov had the exact right term to describe my mood. I'm nauseously optimistic.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. Nauseously optimistic.

[Scott Galloway]

Kara. I was bereft about seven, eight days ago. The momentum is squarely in Harris. On Harris right now or for Harris and this poll. The Seltzer individual is probably the best pollster in the nation, hands down in terms of her ability to predict stuff over the last eight or ten elections. And she has Harris up three to four points in Iowa. And in addition, I think it's all over the place.

[Kara Swisher]

It's whether it's happening in other states nearby. That's the.

[Scott Galloway]

I thought that that's pretty interesting. And two, I think his media coverage lately has just been horrible. I think he looks old horrible and saying crazy shit.

[Kara Swisher]

The crowds have you. There's a lot of videos of the crowd this morning in North Carolina is half full. All his venues are half full. And that's not just Kamala Harris trolling him, which she is, but they're actually half full in several places.

[Scott Galloway]

Name one good thing that's happened for him in the last five days.

[Kara Swisher]

Nothing. Fluoride with Robert Kennedy Jr. What the fuck is that? Guy keeps showing up saying don't drink Gatorade, mayonnaise or fluoride. Like what the fuck? Like have you seen that?

[Scott Galloway]

All of these self inflicted wounds. Tony Hinchcliffe.

[Kara Swisher]

Hinchcliffe. And then the Mypillow guy, Al Capone and the Mike Pillow guy with Trump. I was like, what are you doing, Grampy? Go back.

[Scott Galloway]

And these are unforced errors. You could have said about rfk. We're going to have him on the environment. I want to softened them. Instead they said we're going to put this guy in charge of vaccines and also women's bottle. I mean all of these self inflicted injuries that they don't. And also I've heard, I have friends canvassing in Pennsylvania and they run into other canvassers from both sides. They said the number of canvassers in Pennsylvania right now is running people getting kind of souls of the poles. Feet on the street is 10 to 1 Harris canvassers, they pay people.

[Kara Swisher]

They pay them. Unlike the Elon Musk crowd. He's outsourced everything to Elon Musk, which is. He's running their. At this. It looks like he's running it like he's running Twitter and not Tesla or SpaceX. It's the Twitter Elon running this, not the SpaceX. Elon who is very competent. It does not mean the madness is going to slow down, though. The election is everything from the FCC to Cardi B. Who gave Elon a real slap in the head, which she's so, you know, turns out she was like in AP history. She never talks about her academic career, but all her teachers were like, she was the smartest kid we had. Grew up from very humble background. And she whacked Elon Musk hard in the head over on Twitter. But NBC gave Donald Trump free airtime during Sunday's NASCAR race in order to stay compliant with the FCC's equal time rule. The move came after Trump appointed FCC commissioner Brandon Carr, who is such. I'm sorry, he's just such a. He's so thirsty. Claimed that Kamala Harris Saturday Night Live appearance this past weekend violated the rule. Fine, Brandon, you were so thirsty all over.

[Scott Galloway]

I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with that.

[Kara Swisher]

He was all over the airwaves. He could just have said it and not like. Like he's thirsty. Anyway, we can talk about the relevance of equal time in the broadcast in just a second, but it's an interesting comparison to see how each candidate used their time. First up, Kamala Harris on snl. Maya Rudolph was doing her regular Kamala Harris impression, which is fantastic. And the vice president popped up to play her mirror image. Together, they poked fun at Donald Trump's recent stop in Wisconsin. Let's listen. Nice to see you, Kamala. It is nice to see you, Kamala. And I'm just here to remind you, you got because you can do something your opponent cannot do. You can open doors.

[Scott Galloway]

I see what you did.

[Kara Swisher]

They're like to a garbage truck, right? Next up, Trump campaign commercial that aired after NASCAR race. We've never seen anything like it, at.

[Scott Galloway]

Least for the last 40 years.

[Kara Swisher]

We have to straighten out our country.

[Scott Galloway]

We have to close our borders. We have to lower our taxes. We have to get rid of inflation.

[Kara Swisher]

And we're going to do it.

[Scott Galloway]

Just remember, Kamala and her friends broke it. I'll fix it. Most important election in the history of our country.

[Kara Swisher]

Go and vote. Wow. Okay. Equal time for both of them. That we give them here at Pivot. I thought that was terrible, but whatever he said, no, they were both strong.

[Scott Galloway]

They were both strong.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't know.

[Scott Galloway]

Trump hit the notes at his base once and as people wanted to hear, that was strong.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes. In any case, she was funnier. The equal time rule requires broadcast stations and candidates comparable opportunities to appear on the air this close to the election. I think that's one of the things. Seven days. It doesn't mean they have to be on the same show or that they have to give advance notice. But in any case, they did that. And I did think Gama was charming. I don't know about you. I thought she was terrific in that.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, you got to think. Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the majority of the SNL writing staff leans progressive. A bunch of Harvard educated people who live in New York writing for snl. I'm just going to go out on a limb and assume that they're probably progressives. They got the assignment. They sat down and said, we need to make her look likable, funny, intelligent. Deposition. Him and the writers there. Wow, they showed up. That is not an easy thing to do. That was really well done.

[Kara Swisher]

Can I say I thought she did? Because when Hillary's been on, it's been a little stiff. When other people have been on, it's been a little stiff. I thought she handled it beautifully. I was surprised by how adept she was. She usually can be a little awkward, but she was quite good. I think she likes Maya Rudolph. I think there was a real rapport between them. I thought that worked really well. It was interesting. And I also think that. And she also looked good. I hate to say that, but she looks younger than he does. That's the. She looks significantly more attractive. Yes. And I know that's dumb, but it's a thing. It's a thing.

[Scott Galloway]

Dumb.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I don't know.

[Scott Galloway]

I'll work for me. What do you mean, dumb? It matters. It's hugely important.

[Kara Swisher]

He does. He looks really old.

[Scott Galloway]

It looks hugely important.

[Kara Swisher]

Really old. He looks really addled and old. But interestingly speaking of his top surrogate, Elon Musk, as I noted, Cardi B and he are fighting. Musk called the rapper a puppet following her endorsement of Harris in Wisconsin last week. Her response? I'm not a puppet, Elon. I'm a daughter of two immigrants parents who had to work their ass off to provide for me. P.S. fix my algorithm. And she didn't say please on the latest episode of on with Kara Swisher. I assembled a panel of experts. Look at Elon's role in the election. Though that was the perfect thing for my show because he's been so active. I got the reporters who have broken a lot of these stories, whether it's on Putin or all manner of things. The million dollar giveaway, whatever. Reporter Zoe Schiffer talked about how Elon's ex management provides some hints about his potential future in government if Trump wins. Let's listen from Elon's perspective. He's like, look, I got rid of.

[C]

All these people, I save all these costs, and the platform is still relatively functional.

[Kara Swisher]

But it's one thing to have a.

[C]

Relatively functional Twitter or X, it's another to have a semifunctional government. And I think him deploying these same techniques in the US Government is a much scarier prospect.

[Kara Swisher]

Anyway, you talked about a range of things. You know, Elon's really, as I said, I think it's the Elon election you've talked about it being the podcast election. I think probably it's both his on the ground canvas efforts, as you noted, seem completely disorganized. Lots of stories of putting people in trucks without windows, without seats and stuff like that, and not paying them and stranding them in Michigan. Do you think if he loses, I suspect they're going to point a lot of fingers at him and Trump, of course, but him in particular, I don't know. What do you think? Is this? Yeah, it must. Do you think, or what do you think? We all concluded that he'll be fine in either administration. He'll be more irritating in the Trump administration administration and dangerous. But in the Harris administration, he's done rather well in the Biden administration, by the way. So what are your thoughts of where he goes in each scenario?

[Scott Galloway]

Well, we talked about in this last episode that's the problem with autocratic tendencies, is that it pays to support the autocrat, because you're right, there'll be no downside for him, as far as I can tell, if Harris wins. And also I think if Harris loses, people are going to correctly, in my view, blame Biden's narcissism and the Democratic Party's consensual hallucination that this guy had any business running for reelection. And two, a huge tactical error not rising to the level of why she might, you know, why she didn't do better than she did. In retrospect, it was a huge tactical error for Biden not to kiss Elon's ass. And I know that sounds. I know we want to say.

[Kara Swisher]

I agree.

[Scott Galloway]

I know we want to say good for them. They don't kowtow to Elon to have an EV summit and not invite him. Keep in mind, Musk did vote for Obama. And as much you know, neither of us are fans of Elon Musk. He's an outstanding surrogate for Trump because there are few people in this nation or globally who more young men look up to. And he's robust, he's in it, he's unafraid, he's out there for him. It's just too bad. And another talking about unforced errors. It's an unforced error that Biden didn't kiss his ass and do what everyone does for Trump and that has kiss his ass to get him on his side. But if he loses my sense right now, Musk is okay. Twitter, he's cut the value by 75%. But SpaceX is on a roll. SpaceX is on a roll. That one of the most seminal images. I mean, quite frankly, I think two of the most the images of the year. I think it's a toss up between Trump with pumping his fist in the air after the failed assassination attempt or that rocket being captured by those metal chopsticks. And that's Trump and Musk.

[Kara Swisher]

So, yeah, although I give you a third. The picture of Kamala Harris niece looking up at her, I thought that was a beautiful photo. Do you know the one with her hair?

[Scott Galloway]

I know what you're talking about.

[Kara Swisher]

Beautiful. That was a beautiful picture.

[Scott Galloway]

It kind of depends who wins, right? What will be seen as the image of the year.

[Kara Swisher]

But, oh, I think the Trump one was quite a picture. I mean, I'm talking just pictures. I think those two to me, Harris with the niece and Trump. I thought those were the most important political pictures of the year.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, you're right. I think one's more sweet than historic. I think that anyways. But there's no getting around it. Musk is an outstanding surrogate for Trump and it was a self inflicted wound that we shouldn't have made to alienate him the way the Democratic Party did.

[Kara Swisher]

And I'll put some insight in here. When that happened, two things. I heard from Musk a lot about it and he was like, why are they doing this? This is shitty. He could not stop talking about it in a very manic way, I would call it. We were speaking then and I was sort of perplexed. I was perplexed too. I was like, huh? You kind of do even Though you're an egomaniac, you kind of deserve that one. And I was like, well, it's the union thing, I assume, but he wasn't taking any of that. He's like. I was like, it's the union thing. Don't get your nose out of joint. Which made sense to me. But then. And when I call, I actually called people in the Biden administration, I'm like, this was a big fucking error. This guy is pissed. They're like, oh, come on. He's not that pissed. He gets it. I'm like, no, no, he's pissed. Like, in a way, I see. This is not a normal person. And he's not. He has normal emotions. He thinks he's the father of all electric cars at this moment. And so.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, he kind of.

[Kara Swisher]

Anyways, well, no, but technically, no, but yes, yes. He was the one that pushed.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm sorry. We're going to have an EV summit. Invite the person in charge of the Pontiac Leaf, but not Tesla.

[Kara Swisher]

I know that. I get that. I get it. This is what I said to the Biden people. And I thought it was an error the whole time. Although I thought they traded a very short term thing, which was the unions being angry at him and one being Musk being. And I always felt Musk was more dangerous than the unions to them. But you're right, that really was a moment for him and he overdid it at the same time. He could have gotten over it, but he wasn't going to if they understood him as a character. And he really does have a Jesus complex. So in any case, we will see what happens. Let's bring in our friend of pivot. Dan Harris is the host of the 10% Happier podcast. Welcome, Dan.

[C]

Thanks for having me. It's so weird. I'm sure you hear this all the time. So weird to be on a show that I've listened to for so many years.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, well, welcome. We're so thrilled you're here. And I am 15% happier right now for you to be here anyway, because we're here on election day. This is publishing on election day. We want to share some numbers. 69% of American adults say the 2024 election is a source of stress. That's mostly Scott Galloway in that survey, but it's a survey of the American Psycholog Association. 72% are worried that the election results could lead to violence. I am, too, actually. Shockingly, I usually am not that way. So let's start off sort of high level. What's your advice for People, specifically Scott Galloway, in terms of managing stress and anxiety on election day and the days that follow on both sides, please.

[C]

I mean, Scott, who I, whose career I follow quite closely, is actually doing the thing that I would recommend as a first step. There's a great expression. I did not come up with this, but the expression is action absorbs anxiety. So I follow Scott on social media. He's out there talking about what he believes and he's taking action. And we all have the capacity to exert our agency, even though of course none of us can single handedly affect the outcome or control the outcome for sure. But you can take action by joining a campaign or doing what Scott does is speaking out publicly. To the extent that you have that capacity, it doesn't even have to be related to politics, however, you can just volunteer at a soup kitchen or an animal shelter. You can just be more useful to the people in your environment. There's a little inner inquiry I ask people to do, which is what does it feel like when you hold the door open for somebody? It feels good if you're paying attention. And that feeling is infinitely scalable.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, I like that idea. It's interesting. A lot of my friends who are driving me crazy actually, because they're very stressful people, they've all gone out canvassing and they are so much happier. You know, even if they, they see people who don't agree with them, every one of them is now not irritating in the way they were, which was interesting. So you recommend worrying, making worrying a team sport. Can you explain that?

[C]

I mean, we're doing that right now. This is based in an enormous amount of evidence. So just for some context, there was this study that you guys may have heard of, the Harvard Study for Adult Development. It's been going on for nearly 90 years and they've been following several generations of families in the Boston area to try to figure out, like what, what contributes to a long, happy and healthy life. And the number one variable is not sleep or exercise or whether you're achieving ketosis. All of those things, I guess, are helpful. But the number one variable is the quality of your relationships. That is the, that is what matters most.

[Kara Swisher]

Why?

[C]

Because stress is generally what kills us. And the most effective way to regulate stress for a social species such as Homo sapiens, the most effective way is through quality relationships. Hence the expression also not mine. Never worry alone. Make your anxiety a team sport. Call your mom, call your friends, talk about it with people who you respect. That is, I think, probably the best way to get through this.

[Kara Swisher]

Interesting. So Dan, essentially you are a less neurotic, friendlier, better haired person than Scott, but you're the same person. So. So here you are, Scott, ask your question. You're his doppelganger in a weird way.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. So let me just say bias. I love Dan and his content and I steal your sayings. I say I'm 10% more Jewish now.

[C]

Yeah, I heard you say that actually.

[Scott Galloway]

But your content for me is a little too optimistic. I don't like that part of it. But what has really moved me with your content is you come across as just so shit together and like the guy you would want in a crisis. Like you remind me like if you're ever in a movie, you're going to be that medic on D day, just running from injured person to injured person. You come across as so quite frankly just shit together and can handle everything. And you've been very transparent about your struggles with anxiety, even so much. I've seen videos of you deplaning because you couldn't handle because you were having a panic attack. And I think it's really important that people see who they perceive to be very strong men having that sort of vulnerability. So for those of us who do struggle with anxiety, talk a little bit about your struggles with it, where it's happened recently and what kind of cognitive therapy or behavioral therapy you've incorporated that has helped you.

[C]

Well, thank you for that. One of the little jokes I make is that some, some people teach from the mountaintop and I teach from the fetal position. And I'm not, I'm not some sort, some sort of perfected being. And occasionally people will say to me, you know, you're, you're pretty anxious for a meditation guy or a happiness quasi expert. And my answer is, you have the causality wrong. I am into meditation and wellbeing because I'm so anxious. And you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think this is. First of all, we're at a time where we have unprecedented anxiety in our culture. But the good news is there are ways to treat it. I'll talk about two that have been very helpful for me. Not only am I anxious, I also have panic disorder. So that can show up in public speaking or in claustrophobia. So on a plane or in an elevator. Two things that are helpful for me me are. One is called exposure therapy. And this is just everyday bravery. Being afraid of something and doing it anyway, saddling up anyway and approaching the things that scare you as Counterintuitive as this is, if you can carefully and slowly and systematically approach the things that scare you, that is the way through anxiety for many people, myself included, and especially with panic. So elevators have been tough for me historically and so I'll ride an elevator at the Westchester Mall with my shrink for an hour and it's uncomfortable, but that's how you get over it. The second thing for me is learning how and to me this is just so radically powerful and such good news that you can rewire the way you talk to yourself. And so for me, just learning to talk back against my inner critic or my inner anxiety dragon in in to to channel my capacity to mentor other people and direct it toward myself has been really helpful.

[Kara Swisher]

So social media of course can be a source of stress and people will likely be doom scrolling as they do all the time. Now is it helpful to take a break or, or not? Because I think people can't or news I more than just social media but news consumption like every little moment.

[C]

Yes, this is a short answer. The slightly longer answer is we all have to make the call individually but it's about for me it's about drawing the line between being an engaged citizen and informed citizen, which is important and being a crazy person and we have to figure out how much is enough, how much can our nervous system handle. To me, one of the most powerful tools in terms of gauging this, in terms of walking this line is mindfulness, which is of course the fruit of mindfulness meditation which helps you have more self awareness so that you might notice. Oh yeah, I'm on hour 8 on x Twitter and I'm typing in all caps. Maybe it's time to put this thing down and take a nap or my stomach is rumbling, I haven't eaten. Whatever it is to have the self awareness of what's happening in your body in mind so that you're not owned by it. Mindfulness is very helpful in that way especially as it come as it comes to the titration of your news consumption.

[Kara Swisher]

Scott.

[Scott Galloway]

So Dan, you, your career was, I mean you essentially rose to be I think either the anchor or the co anchor of Nightline. Is that right?

[C]

Yeah, one of the co anchors of Nightline.

[Scott Galloway]

So that's, that's a pretty big, that's a pretty big seat. And, and the majority of the anchors I know from broadcast television, whenever I speak to them they're complaining about just how shitty their career and compensation and prospects have become because that business is melting and you managed to transition to I think you actually have a bigger footprint right now than you used to. Maybe you're one of the few that kind of got out of. Made it out. What advice? Well, let me go back. What were the pivotal moments and how did you manage to do that successfully when. So quite frankly, just a lot of people have had a really difficult time transitioning out of old media into new media.

[C]

I mean, it's brutal in old media. I'm not telling either of you anything you don't know. And I started to really think about this many years ago. I remember as early as 2008, 2009, thinking, I better build a personal brand. And I didn't know what that was going to be at first. I had a little show on YouTube about indie rock. I'm a big indie rock fan. That show did horribly, and most of the comments were really, really negative. So I ended up euthanizing that. And then around the same time, I was starting to get interested in meditation and mindfulness. And I had this entrepreneurial sense that, yeah, there's a lot of science that shows that this stuff is really good for you. And most of the books I'm reading about this are really annoying. And so I thought, well, let me write a book that tells really embarrassing stories and uses the word fuck a lot and see if I can, you know, get people who otherwise would reject this material interested in it. And, yeah, so that. That became a book called 10% happier. And that ended up sort of swallowing my life. And I spent a lot of time trying to do two things at once. Maintaining my career at abc. Why? While becoming this, you know, traveling evangelist for meditation. And most of that was kind of based in fear. But eventually, a couple years ago, I was able to make the leap and retire and just do this full time.

[Scott Galloway]

When did you start the pod?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, how did you start? Yeah, what advice would you give to people still there when they. I bet they call you. Correct.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I hear about this all the time. I think I did it incorrectly in that I waited too long to leap. But I think you can start developing your personal brand while you are within the belly of the beast. And there's a way in which being associated with a major organization, for me, it was incredibly helpful. I was employed by Disney, which owns ABC News, and that allowed me an enormous. That gave me just a huge platform from which to build. So I think it's possible to do this straddle. But I mean, the good news, and I mean, I'd be curious to hear from the two of you, but My reading of the media landscape is that while there's. It's largely a blightscape, the one bright area is what the three of us are doing, which is building a brand around a distinctive voice and figuring out what you can add and then building around that. Now, there's never been a time better than right now for that. Would you agree?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, absolutely. We love it. We never done better, I think. Right, Scott, don't you think? In a lot of ways, or happier. We're at least 10% happier.

[Scott Galloway]

We're going to need a bigger boat. The bottom line is you can have a third of the audience that you used to have, but it requires a tenth, if not a twentieth of the resources, making it a much more profitable economic venture. And I mean, I can't imagine the infrastructure you had to have around you to produce Nylon Line. And you can garner maybe 50% of the audience or a quarter of the audience. You have a top 200 podcasts on a fraction of the resources, making it a better economic model. Having said that, the unfortunate thing about podcasting, which is taking over everything that's been digitized, is there's tremendous inequality, and that is you're talking to three people who are in the top 200 podcasts of a world that produces 600,000 a week. So if. Unless you're in the 0.001%, this is a brutal industry as well. But if you get there, there, it's where media is headed. It's just a better economic model.

[C]

Yeah, but podcasts are also happier. Podcasts and happier. I totally agree with you, Kara. Podcasts are really brutal. However, I do think social is a place that's become more democratic in that as we've moved from the social graph to the interest graph. In other words, I can create a video with very few followers that reaches millions of people because the algorithms have changed recently. So I think there are places where you can build an audience that are. That would be easier, more hospitable than the podcast space.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, absolutely. All right, a couple more questions about the election. I have just two more for parents out there. How can we avoid passing our anxiety on to our kids? We have a lot of kids. I don't know if you have kids, but I assume you do. And what will you be doing on election night to stay calm as you're. And maybe you're not watching results? Scott is not watch. He's going out. I am not going out at all. And I'm going to read history books.

[C]

Wait, so you're avoiding it?

[Kara Swisher]

Scott?

[Scott Galloway]

Well, I live in London and generally speaking, this really does. I don't know if I'm older and so I have a better perspective on how important this election is or I'm just older and more stressed, but because I wouldn't know, I'm not gonna know anything on Wednesday morning. Tomorrow night I'm just gonna, I'm going out with some buddies and I'm just gonna enjoy myself and I'm gonna wake up Wednesday morning and freak out then. But yeah, I'm not going to engage. Oh, I'm going on Brian Williams on Amazon for a few minutes, but other than that I'm not going to engage.

[C]

Karen, you're going to read.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm going to read too. I'm interviewing some historians right after the election. So I'm reading history books. That's what I'm doing.

[Scott Galloway]

I think you're totally posing. I don't believe you.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm. I will watch.

[Scott Galloway]

I think you're going to have eight TVs on.

[Kara Swisher]

No, just one. Just one. And I'll flip among them.

[Scott Galloway]

I think I'll watch Rachel poetry and.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I'm not going to read the book. Go to the class, but I'm not going. I'm not going going to a party, that's for sure. I'm not going out because I just can't, I just can't do it. There's lots of parties but I'm not going to any of them.

[Scott Galloway]

What are you doing, Dan?

[C]

So just to respond to all of that, first of all, I think it's great to do whatever is in your best interest to keep yourself sane. And as a parent myself, I have a nine year old. That is what osmotically is likely to land for your children better than any lecture you could give them is taking care of yourself in a way that they observe and will, I think, absorb. And in terms of history, there's some evidence that reading history actually is a balm in the face of our current tumult because you can start to see that we've been through horrible stuff before. Would you rather be where we are right now or on the lip of World War II or the Civil War? Personally, I'll take today. So I think I hear a lot of wisdom in both of your election evening plans. And also Scott, I'll be on with Brian Williams as well.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, I'm on at like 4am they have you up first.

[Kara Swisher]

It's as tight as a tick and a da, da, da. He'll have a million of those, right?

[Scott Galloway]

He'll be like, that's like watching a moose drive a convertible. And everyone like. I don't know what that means, but it sounds good.

[Kara Swisher]

You know, you guys are going to the nicest place. Mr. Williams is very calming. I think that's a good choice.

[Scott Galloway]

They have to have you on if you have a Prime membership. So 87% of Americans are on.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm gonna just watch Rachel Maddow. That's all I'm gonna do. Cause she makes me feel calm. Jesus.

[Scott Galloway]

And that's gonna help your stress?

[Kara Swisher]

It is. She does the lesbians make me calm.

[Scott Galloway]

That's like two Subarus colliding into each other at 150.

[Kara Swisher]

No, it's not. It's the militia at the.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh my God. So inappropriate. A Subaru Forester and a Subaru Impreza had a head on collision on election night.

[Kara Swisher]

If Trump wins, we have to initiate the militia Etheridge. And so we've got to move on. So anyway, I think I'm going to stay home and just be calm about it anyway. Amanda of course is like lost, is already losing her mind already. So we'll see where it goes. She already warned me. She goes, I will not be good if he wins. I was like, okay, great. Sounds fantastic. Anyway, Dan, are you writing 15% happier next? What is your next thing?

[C]

I am working on a book that I've been writing for six years that I have not been able to get right. Which really moves from mindfulness, which was the subject of my first book, to. And I don't know the right word for this, but I'm going to use the word love or warmth or friendliness or this capacity we all have for compassion that we can direct not only toward other people, but also ourselves. That seems like the missing skills. Skill in an anxiety epidemic. And in the middle of a really divisive time. So that's what I'm thinking about.

[Scott Galloway]

So you mentioned you have a nine year old at just one or just one. So I really relate to some of the stuff you talk about around anxiety and panic attacks. I also get them rarely but consistently when I'm speaking. And one of the things I found really helps when I'm feeling stressed is time with my boys. In general, my boys just raise my stress level. But when I'm really stressed, I find they bring it down because they can be so off. It demands that I go out of my own head. Any thoughts around time with kids.

[C]

I mean, to me this goes back to action, absorbs anxiety. If you can be useful to anybody else, it will pull you out of your stuff. And so parenting, for all of its vexations, can do that. And you can up the effectiveness of that by just tuning in to what does it feel like if I. I'm taking care of another being? It feels pretty good. So let's, let's, let's turn the volume up on that and turn the volume down on our own self centered rumination. I mean, another of my little dumb quips is that the view is so much better when you pull your head out of your ass.

[Kara Swisher]

And I think that's where we will end it. That's really. The view is so much. That's our latest poll. It is. You will be 26% happier if you pull your head out of your ass. That's my feeling on that one. Dan, you're fantastic. We love your podcast. We love all your work.

[C]

Thank you.

[Kara Swisher]

And thank you so much. I already feel better. And you can listen to Dan on 10% happier.

[Scott Galloway]

Thanks, Dan.

[Kara Swisher]

Bye. Wasn't that lovely? Isn't Dan lovely?

[Scott Galloway]

So you didn't come through. You purposely tried to get in between me and Emily Ratajkowski. But I want to be friends with Dan Harris, so I need you to set us up for a man. Now, I want Emily, but I need Dan. So I realize you're a little jelly of me and Emily's budding relationship, but you can make up for it by setting me up with. I want a mandate with Dan. I need that guy in my life. That guy just makes me feel calm. He's a total baller.

[Kara Swisher]

His hair is spectacular.

[Scott Galloway]

He's very handsome. He's very successful. That's why I want to roll. And I'll have lunch. Does he live in D.C. seems like kind of guy would live in D.C. i don't know. I don't care where he lives. But I go to dinner with him and people are like, oh, there's Scott with Dan Harris. I always knew Scott was more interesting than he seems. And people, people will love him.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, okay. I will make he.

[Scott Galloway]

I need a playdate.

[Kara Swisher]

So next time you're in the house.

[Scott Galloway]

Set up a playdate. That's your job.

[Kara Swisher]

I will set up a playdate for Scott Galloway. I will do that. That will be your birthday present, by the way. Everybody wish Scott a happy birthday.

[Scott Galloway]

The birthday that will never end birthday.

[Kara Swisher]

The last weekend I forgot, but it was his birthday just recently. So congratulations.

[Scott Galloway]

Thank you very much, Carol.

[Kara Swisher]

All right, we'll be back for. We're going to change wins and fails to predictions and then we'll do wins and fails on Thursday. So we're obviously going to predict about the election and we will do that in a minute.

[Scott Galloway]

Support for the show comes from HubSpot. Picture this. You're at a party and someone asks you what you do as a marketer. How do you even begin to describe it? You have to generate leads, score them, contact them, create content, gather data, and tomorrow do it all again and wonder if it's even working. Marketers are spread way too thin, but HubSpot has a better way. With the help of Breeze and tools including Content Remix, now you can turn one piece of content into a suite of assets. Pinpoint the best prospects with predictive lead scoring and level up your campaign's KPIs with a new analytics suite so your day to day becomes less busy work and more driving revenue through the roof. And most importantly, you'll have a way easier time describing what you do at parties. Visit HubSpot.com marketers to learn more.

[Kara Swisher]

Support for Pivot comes from NetSuite planning for the future in business is like trying to solve a Rubik's cube that keeps changing color dollars. Economic variables are always shifting, whether it's a bull market or bear market. And if inflation's up or interest rates are down, the whole thing is a game of constant recalibration. That's why so many businesses are finding their footing with NetSuite by Oracle with real time insights and forecasting, NetSuite says they're the go to management suite for nearly 40,000 companies. Think of it as one platform for everything. Accounting, finance, inventory, HR, you name it, all tied to together in a single source of truth. With real time data at your fingertips, you're set to make smarter, faster decisions. So if you're wondering what AI can do to your bottom line or your industry in general, netsuite is already there, giving you the data edge to stay sharp for whatever's coming next. Speaking of AI, you can download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com pivot. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com pivot net.

[Scott Galloway]

Support for pivot comes from Anthropic. If your company could tap into a powerful source of knowledge, analysis and creative problem solving, imagine what you could achieve. Innovative ideas could be realized faster than ever. Claude the AI system from Anthropic empowers your team to rise to new levels of productivity and innovation by providing vast knowledge and rapid analysis. With Claude, your existing talent can harness cutting edge AI to work smarter, brainstorm bigger and pursue visionary goals complementing human ingenuity. What a word salad. I'm going off script just to tell you I no joke, use Claude almost every day. I think it's fantastic. Claude is next generation AI assistant built to help you work more efficiently without sacrificing safety or reliability. Anthropic's Midway model Claude 3.5 Sonnet can help you organize thoughts, solve tricky problems, analyze data and more. Whether you're brainstorming alone or working on a team with thousands of people, all at a price that works for just about any use case. If you're trying to crack a problem involving advanced reasoning, need to distill the essence of complex images or graphs, or generate heaps of secure code, cloud is a great way to save time and money. Plus, the Anthropic Leadership Team was founded in AI research and built Claude with an emphasis on safety. To learn more, visit anthropic.com Claude that's anthropic.com Claude.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay Scott Galloway, prediction from you, obviously about the election. Unless you want to talk about something else.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, I'll do two because we're supposed to be the tech and business. So I'll try and I'll do something about tech and business and then obviously people either come here for a prediction or either will love or hate this prediction. But I think there's a really decent chance. I think intel is probably the ripest large. It's not large cap now, it's mid cap. It's the ripest candidate I've seen in a while for a take private that is, it's got outstanding assets, decent cash flow. I think actually a pretty talented CEO, depressed stock price and it needs to be out of the public view or public markets for a good 12 to 36 months, similar to what Dell did. The investments they need to make, the layoffs they need to make, quite frankly, the efficiencies they need would best be done as a private company, not a public. And it's got so many outstanding assets in terms of its management, its suppliers, its supply chain, its vendor relationship, its customer relationships, its brand, its global brand. It's arguably one of the probably the 10 most recognized tech brands in the world. It, to me, Kara, just screams are.

[Kara Swisher]

You up to something?

[Scott Galloway]

I am not personally, no.

[Kara Swisher]

Are you up to something?

[Scott Galloway]

It just screams take private to me. This would be, I got to think that this would be one of the better. It's just so fucking ripe. It's about to fall off the tree for a big private equity firm to come in and Put together a great investor group and take it private in my view. My other prediction is simple. I think this poll out of Iowa shows there's real surprising momentum. It just feels everything is coming our way and then just a feet on the street operation organized by the Harris campaign because of the money and the organization here. I don't even think this is, I'm predicting, Kara, that it's not just a win for Harris, it's a decisive win.

[Kara Swisher]

Sorry, Scott, I had to change to my iPhone because we had a power surge. I'm blaming Tucker Carlson.

[Scott Galloway]

I said that Kamala was going to win and was going to be decisive.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, Scott, I think I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's, that's something I've been saying for a long time. I think women are the quiet majority of people who are going to be active in this election. Doesn't mean that Trump hasn't done very well given all his, all the hair on this guy and there's a lot of it. But he was a president and so there is that popularity element of it. I just think the people he's aimed at are people who are low propensity voters and they don't leave the basement because they're stoned. That's the people he's trying to get to vote. I think the last week all the mistakes have been massive and really significant. Much more so than people realize. I think reporters have spent far too much time on Twitter and so they think that the world is more dire than it is because Elon's managed to create a terrible environment there. And so media reporters just cannot possibly imagine being pro Harris at this point. So that's why they're doing that. And they spend too much time focused on polls and easily gamed predictions, models, markets. My biggest thing, two things have been and then you can react is one, the amount of money she's raised from small donors. It says a lot to me. It's about motivated people. I do think women do vote and they don't. And they're tired of incels, they're tired of rapists, they're tired of being told what to do with their bodies. And they are much more motivated than the men who are just like, I like a tough guy, like that kind of thing. I don't think they like them that much. Lastly today, in the last week and a half at least, his rallies have been sparsely attach. And if the right now there's pictures of him in North Carolina on the final day of the election, half empty halls in North Carolina. It says a lot to me. These people are tired of the show. And as a longtime watcher of the Apprentice, let me just say I got tired of the show in the last season and got stopped watching it. And that's what it feels like. And you can decry me for watching the Apprentice, but it was a good show. So that's where I feel. I think she's gonna perform better. But I have to tell you, I think he's gonna do everything possible to stay out of jail, including declaring victory early in the evening. So it could be a very long few days and very. And I'm worried a little bit more than probably you about violence.

[Scott Galloway]

So I agree with Annette. Nat. I do get a little bit defensive. I think there's some misandry in there. Kara, when you refer to young men as saying women are tired of rapists and incels and they're getting stoned in their basements. I don't think the Democratic Party has done itself any favors by ignoring the struggles that young men face. And I think the Democratic Party party has lost a lot of potential voters. Young men are actually is in favor of gender equality as young women. They just. They just don't feel that the Democratic Party. They feel the Democratic Party by purposely advocating or stating that they try and advantage 76% of the population is not advantaging that 74%, but it's discriminating against the 26% that are young men. And I think sometimes we have a tendency to. To stereotype them and not recognize the nuance and just the very real struggles that young men face. And I don't think the Democratic Party's drape itself in glory there.

[Kara Swisher]

I 100% agree. And I think it's one thing Harris should spend a lot of time doing, bringing in people like you and Richard Reeves and stuff like that, because I think it is a crisis. I'm just talking political strategy. I don't think this is a dependable group of voters. That's all.

[Scott Galloway]

I think you're right. I think you're right.

[Kara Swisher]

That's what I mean. And I think we have to. I have three sons. I matter a great deal to me how young men feel about their lives. And we want to bring them in and make them feel better and not. I don't love that a lot of, say, men of color right now are like, oh, Trump doesn't like us. That's why I'm not voting for him, because he's saying we're garbage. I don't like that. Either. It's like, they should feel good about this country, and they should feel good about their role in it. But I do think women have had it, really had it with. And I'm not saying incels. You made this argument yourself, which was, you know, like, women are tired of being, like, told what to do with their body, really and truly. And I think that's the quiet thing that men are now saying out loud about being unhappy. I think women are very unhappy underneath in a way that will motivate them to vote. And we should begin to bring ourselves together as a group of people. And I would recommend you watching the Will I Am video of the song. We used to get along not as well as we could have, but better than we do now. And this. All this garbage has to stop. The gar. Everything with garbage has to stop. We're not garbage. We're the American people. It has to stop. And hopefully that will mean kicking Trump to the curb finally, because he is a part of our personality that exists but shouldn't anymore.

[Scott Galloway]

Word. Word, my sister.

[Kara Swisher]

Word. Sister. Brother. Well, we'll see. We'll see on Thursday. We could be totally depressed, but we're here for it. We're here for it, and we'll do whatever we can, but we're still going to build a great country regardless of what happens. But we want Kamala to win because she's super cool.

[Scott Galloway]

But I think that's an important point. Something that's unproductive is the catastrophizing on both sides to claim America is over if he or she wins. America has endured worse than he or she. And while I do think certain groups, in my view, young people who would incur deficits or what are effectively tax increases, that'll be unprecedented, obviously women in terms of a continued loss of domain over their own bodily autonomy. But to believe that America's not gonna be around in four years if he or she wins just doesn't recognize history or how enduring and outstanding America is.

[Kara Swisher]

I agree with you, Scott, and I think it is. And I do like her message, which is much more about unity on the way out. His is about fluoride, whether you should have fluoride in the water, and Al Capone. We're done with that. And I'm glad that she's doing a unity message at the end. Hopefully she can stick with that, and I hope she does if she becomes president. And it would be a great moment in our history to have the first woman president of the United States. Just exciting. And I'd be just as excited if it was a Republican, honestly, as long as it was a good one. But I'm very excited about that. Anyway, Scott read us out.

[Scott Galloway]

Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin and Christine Driscoll. Ernie or Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Bros, Mia Severio and Dan Schulon. Nishat Kurwa As 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 and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the [e-mail] pod we'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Cara, I will see you on the.

[Kara Swisher]

Other side and go vote everybody. Support for the show comes from AT and T. What does it feel like to get the new iPhone 16 Pro with AT and T Next Up Anytime? It's like when you first light up the grill and think of all the mouth watering possibilities. Learn how to get the new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence on AT and T and the latest iPhone every year with AT&T. Next up anytime ATT connecting change changes everything. Apple Intelligence coming fall 2024 with Siri and device language set to US English. Some features and languages will be coming over the next year. $0 offer may not be available on future iPhones. Next Up Anytime feature may be discontinued at any time, subject to change. Additional fees, terms and Restrictions apply. See att.com iPhone for details. Food insecurity still affects millions of individuals around the globe, and Nestle, a global leader in nutrition, health and wellness, understands the importance of working together to create lasting change. Nestle's partnerships extend beyond just financial support, from building urban hoop houses to producing custom seasoning for food banks. Nestle and their partners actively engage with local communities, listening to their needs and working together to find innovative solutions. Nestle is committed to helping support thriving, resilient communities today and for generations to come. Together, we can help to build stronger, healthier communities. Learn more at Nestle Combination.