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Scott Galloway
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Kara Swisher
This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad, Ryan. Real United Airlines customers.
Scott Galloway
We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he.
Guest or Additional Speaker
Wanted to see the flight deck and.
Scott Galloway
Meet Kath and Andrew.
Kara Swisher
I got to sit in the driver's seat.
Guest or Additional Speaker
I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age.
Kara Swisher
That's Andrew, a real United pilot.
Guest or Additional Speaker
These small interactions can shape a kid's future.
Kara Swisher
It felt like I was the captain.
Scott Galloway
Allowing my son to see the flight.
Guest or Additional Speaker
Deck will stick with us forever.
Scott Galloway
That's how good leads the way.
Guest or Additional Speaker
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Kara Swisher
It's exactly what we need at this moment. I have to tell you, it brings together MAGA and lesbians in a way that's really satisfying. I don't know how they did it. 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
Hey, Scott. How's it going? What a week, huh?
Scott Galloway
Yeah. How was your weekend?
Kara Swisher
It was good. A lot of really interesting stuff. And then I took my mom out to lunch yesterday with my ex wife. That was nice.
Scott Galloway
That's nice.
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
Scott Galloway
How is Megan?
Kara Swisher
She's good. She's really been lovely to my mother, I have to say.
Scott Galloway
That's nice.
Kara Swisher
Yeah. And then just getting, getting ready today for all the week. Cause there's a big week ahead and a lot of news and a lot of news. What did you do?
Scott Galloway
You know what? I had one of those really lovely but Somewhat bittersweet weekends. It was my son's 18th and he had some friends over and, you know, so I spent most of the weekend like looking through old photos of him and like, trying to hold back the tears. It's just wild how fast it goes.
Kara Swisher
18, that's a big birthday.
Scott Galloway
It is a big birthday.
Kara Swisher
He doesn't have to listen to you anymore.
Scott Galloway
Well, that happened on his third birthday, but ah, yeah, but in England they can drink. And he invited over a bunch of his friends. He goes to this great school and he has great friends in his house. And they just came over and they had two beers and acted like they'd had 12 beers. I think it's more the Pavlovian effect than anything. And they're just such smart, good kids. A couple of them are trying to get into Cambridge and Oxford. They're at that age. And another one is interesting. One of them has decided he's going to go to the Gulf. He's this kid who just sees all this opportunity in the Gulf and he wants to move to either Riyadh or Dubai. You know, they're just such lovely young men. And my son seemed really happy. So I don't know, it's just very nice, very rewarding.
Kara Swisher
What was your word of advice? Your 18th, I remember. I mean, it's probably a little different with a dad and a son, I have to say, but I remember when they both turned 18, it was a big deal. 21 is also a big deal.
Scott Galloway
Yeah. My advice has been to my oldest and also a little bit to my youngest, is that, you know, I talk a lot about what makes a man. And I said manhood. There's a lot of males who get older and never become men.
Kara Swisher
Most of them. Sorry.
Scott Galloway
Yeah, okay, fair enough. But in the delineation when you become a man is this idea of surplus value. And that is you take a lot of love from your family as a kid. At some point you do what you're doing. You know, you're taking Lucky out, you're adding surplus value. You're adding much more value to Lucky than she is to your life.
Kara Swisher
Quite frankly, that's pretty much all.
Scott Galloway
But also, Carrie, that's a deficit. You're making a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes. You're creating more tax revenue than government services you've absorbed. That's surplus value.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, I'm a man. I am a man.
Scott Galloway
But that's my point. My point is, at some point you notice people's lives. You absorb more complaints than you complain. You do more cleaning around the house than people cleaning up after you. You provide more emotional support. At some point, then you're a better father to your kids than your dad was to you. So I'm really into this idea of surplus value. And at what point do you get there? At what point do people. He lives in a little house at his boarding school with 40 other young men. At what point are you seen as somebody that is adding more to the house than you're taking? And it's okay to occasionally lean on people. And that doesn't mean don't be vulnerable. It doesn't mean don't be a stoic. Because I think being a good friend means occasionally opening up to people, because that's what friends want. Friends want people that occasionally need them. Right?
Kara Swisher
Right. A hundred %. Both ways.
Scott Galloway
100%. Yeah.
Kara Swisher
One thing I noticed with Louis, he was always giving a little more to his friends than they were to him. And we had a long talk about it. I was like, you need to ask for things because he's one of those guys, right? Let me fix it for you kind of thing, which is good. But it's also important to take at various points in your life.
Scott Galloway
I find there's. There's hacks around. I mean, first off, I've met people who say, I pride myself on never asking anyone for anything. I'm. And I'm like, well, then you're not gonna. You're never gonna be that close to anybody. Because people don't wanna be charities. People don't wanna be your patient. People wanna occasionally have the opportunity to help you. And I like the idea. And one of my hacks is when you ask someone how they're doing, let them respond, and then stop and say, no, really? Oh, how are you doing? And then another hack is to say, I'll go first. I'm struggling at work, or I'm in a bad place with my wife right now, or I've got this thing acting up. I was just diagnosed with high blood pressure, and it's got me totally fucking freaked out. When you pause and say to someone, no, really, how are you doing? And then say, this is what's going on with me. You literally. It's like pulling. It's like opening the doors to a lock of a million gallons of water. The moment you're willing to kind of sort of open up, especially as men, and say, you know, fuck, I'm worried about money.
Kara Swisher
Scott. Scott, how are you doing?
Scott Galloway
I'm actually okay. So the honest answer is no.
Kara Swisher
We have to ask the second part, you have to say, fine.
Scott Galloway
And then I say, oh, I'm fine. Kira, how are you?
Kara Swisher
How are you really doing?
Scott Galloway
Ever since this Kirk thing, I have been extremely online, and I think it is taking a toll on me. I think I am disassociating from reality and relationships. I have been so going down rabbit holes around this shit, and it is taking a toll on me mentally.
Kara Swisher
Oh, wow.
Scott Galloway
And that's fine. That's probably a natural part of the cycle. But the last five days have, quite frankly, have been awful. I have this.
Kara Swisher
You had. We talked yesterday.
Scott Galloway
I have this eerie feeling that this is very ominous, that this is different. When January 6th happened, I was angry. I was embarrassed. But this feels different. This feels as if it's sort of a cauldron or a crow showing up or a black cat.
Kara Swisher
Oh, wow. Black swan.
Scott Galloway
And the black swan. Something black. And I don't know. I have trouble dissecting my own anger and depression as I get older, or what is probably better than most people's spidey sense about cultural and societal norms. But as it probably should have been, the last four or five days have just not been great. How are you?
Kara Swisher
I have hemorrhoids. No, I'm kidding. I asked for something from you yesterday. I said, I want to be on your plane, Scott.
Scott Galloway
That's what you're focused on. I like that. Which part of the trip should I join you for? And I'm like, oh, okay, no problem. For all of it.
Kara Swisher
I asked, he's told me to ask. I'm not a charity. You're not a charity. I am good. I'm actually. I feel less. Look, this is.
Scott Galloway
You're able to disassociate pretty well.
Kara Swisher
Here's what I didn't disassociate. I look at history. That's what I do. And we're going to talk about this more in. The thing is, I put on from Hairspray, you can't stop. You know, Can't Stop the Beat, that song. And I played it like it's. You know, Hairspray is about an integration of a TV show in Baltimore. It's by John Waters, obviously. Hairspray. And I put it on and I listened to it three times. I was like, you know, it's a really good song. And that's what I do.
Scott Galloway
I was like, hairspray? That's your answer. Hairspray.
Kara Swisher
I feel like the forces of retrograde, which are always there, are particularly desperate and strong today. Right. It's like Mercury in retrograde or Whatever you call it, it's like right wingers in retrograde. And I think that they are desperate to turn back the clock on every single thing. And as they become more desperate, they get more vicious and violent. And that's a worry. At the same time, you can't stop the beat. I don't know, I just don't want to say you can't, you can't, you can't, they can't. History has shown again and again, they try it and they never win. And so we'll talk about this in a little bit more. This is getting very intense.
Scott Galloway
But just to press pause on that, you said something really powerful and that is something that does give me comfort is I do start reading a lot about history. And for all the people saying this feels like it's going to be a civil war. We have been much closer. I mean, there was the actual Civil War, but since then we have been much closer to Civil war than we are now. Yeah, people forget. 20,000 former World War I veterans marched on Washington to protest the economic conditions of the Great Depression. And a young general gave the order to fire on those veterans. That young general, by the way, was Douglas MacArthur, who would go on to be a World War II hero. The Civil rights movement. There was much more anger on both sides. So the notion that I think people who don't have a sense for history, who believe that or even just logistically, how would Civil war happen here? Because you think, oh, it'd be the red states declaring war on the blue states. The red states can't afford to declare war on the blue states. They're takers. They get so much fucking money from the federal government as a means of channeling additional surplus revenue from blue states. It's like there might be an increase in political violence and we'll talk more about this, but Civil War one, historically, we're nowhere near the same temperatures we've been several times before, as bad as it might seem. And two, logistically it just doesn't make sense how it would unfold.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, they still are so enthusiastic about their retrograde behaviors. But anyway, we got a lot to get to today, by the way, and why don't we just get started on this first? We have some competition. As we tape, JD Vance is hosting the Charlie Kirk show over on Rumble. He announced on X it would be an honor to, quote, pay tribute to my friend Charlie Kirk's suspected killer. 22 year old Tyler Robinson is expected to be formally charged this week. He's currently not cooperating with authorities I think he's in that fuck that moat since he did what he did. Seems, as we, Scott and I have talked about, to be terminally online. Robinson's motive is still unknown. There's a lot of speculation and misinformation floating around. Utah Governor Spencer Cox shared some details of everything, saying Robin was indoctrinated with leftist ideology and spent much of his time on the deep, dark Internet. Cox is saying that Robinson had a roommate and romantic partner who was transitioning. Again, they're not providing any details, so I'm not going to believe anything, including what Cox said. I think he is trying his best and he's getting enormous pressure from Trump. But when asked it was irrelevant to motive, Cox said, that's what we're trying to figure out, though. FBI Director Cashpelt shared a link to a Fox News story about it on X. I mean, literally, make your own announcement. Kash Patel, if you don't mind, rather than doing stuff like that. What a. What an idiot he is. So we don't know his motives at all. Again, as Scott and I have been saying, let's find out. Obviously, when you move to murder, there's something very deep and tragic going on and also possibly mental illness, too. Talk about. You just talked a little bit about your overall thoughts in terms of what we know and don't know. And since you've been down a rabbit hole, I just don't. I'm not gonna believe anything until a trial. That's my feeling. I just don't. I don't trust Kash Patel in any way. I think people are grabbing bits and pieces for their own. You know. The bullet was trans. No, it wasn. The shooter was trans. No, he wasn't. Oh, his roommate is trans. Well, I don't know. And so I'm gonna go with the. And I don't even know it has anything to do with it. Like, that's the other thing is, that's the really key part. So your thoughts.
Scott Galloway
It's clear what's happened here. Governor Cox made the mistake of acting like a leader.
Kara Swisher
Agreed.
Scott Galloway
And trying to take down the volume and not engage in the violence entrepreneurship that the President and some people on the left, but mostly people on the right, have engaged in to find an opportunity around violence to create advantage at the expense of potentially fomenting more violence. So let me go to the notion. Let's assume his roommate was transitioning. Okay, so the fuck. What if he had been in a relationship with a white girl in a sorority at asu? Does that mean this is The Republican's fault. I mean, who the fuck cares? What does that have to do with anything? With anything?
Kara Swisher
I agree. His grandmother was like, where Mag? I'm like, I don't care. That has nothing to do with it. Thank you, Grandma.
Scott Galloway
And this all goes. What's so frustrating for me about this is look at the data and to try and figure out who the real culprit is such that we can stop this or reduce it the likelihood of it happening again. 98% of mass shooters are men, mostly young men. Almost every act of political violence, of course, here's my rabbit hole. Let's just talk about the right. Mostly the right, but also the left is doing everything they can from interpreting the font on these bullets to who their roommates are to find evidence, to cherry pick evidence to try and show that it's the other side of the political spectrum's fault. And this is the bottom line. This kid, he was 22, was raised in a Republican household, registered unaffiliated and I'm not sure, but I don't think he's voted yet.
Kara Swisher
No, he didn't vote.
Scott Galloway
Okay. Thomas Matthew Crooks, the person who shot Trump and Butler, registered Republican. And when he was 17 he gave 15 bucks to a voter registration tribe that used Act Blue. Luigi Mangione. He was more mission and policy oriented in so much that he'd taken on corporate greed and healthcare as his cause. But he didn't come across as partisan of any left or right aligned political movement. Vance Luther Bolter, age 57, the alleged killer of the Minnesota political figures. He was more politically oriented, but ultimately no more politically engaged than the stereotypical angry uncle at a Thanksgiving who rants. Cody Alan Balmer, age 38, arrested after the attempted arson and kill attempted murder of Governor Josh Shapiro. No political associations beyond some angry social media post. David DuPage, age 42, attacked Pelosi's husband with a hammer, broke into Pelosi's house. Very online and immersed in conspiracy content, but again, not a member of any group. And so each side is trying to blame the other and then media tries to play referee to get their ratings up. But this is the bottom line. What do we have in common across all these acts of violence? They are almost always young men and they are almost always not political extremists, but extremely online. So if you just want to reduce, how about we just reduce violence, including political violence, including mass shootings. Let's figure out how we get more young men to engage with guardrails in the form of relationships, more male mentorship More males in high school, more economic opportunity.
Kara Swisher
Yes, sir.
Scott Galloway
Right. More safeguards. And how about we hold the rage machine that is driving 40% of the S&P's value? How about if we hold them to the same standards we hold every other media and say if you elevate content that has been directly correlated to rage, which results in violence, mostly violence against themselves. Social media creates a lot of violence against themselves among young girls, a lot of violence of young men against themselves. But also with young men sometimes. And I don't mean to pathologize young men who are extremely online, most of them will not pick up a gun, but some of them do.
Kara Swisher
That's right.
Scott Galloway
So if anyone is interested in actually reducing the violence, they're going to talk about removing Section 230 protection for algorithmically elevated content and providing more opportunity and more empathy and, quite frankly, more love and relationships for young men.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, I'm going to interject. I would say they don't want to do that. Groups do not. They want to engage in this sort of sharks versus jets kind of situation that's going on. And it's like. I have to say one thing. I picked up my mother's phone. She's somehow gotten on some Trump group things. Her texts were full of the most heinous efforts to get money. Charlie's a martyr. Charlie's this. You must fight the left who's trying to kill us. It was so upsetting to read her texts. I deleted every single one of them. I tried to block them all. It was such. And her email was worse. It was all these, like, efforts. And, you know, it's fine, JD Vance can go on his show, but they're all doing it in order to raise money for themselves and to push their cause. This is just grotesque, what they're like. Same thing with Donald Trump Jr. They're all trying to push. They literally are walking over this guy and using him as a way to raise money, a way to get people mad, a way to get political advantage. I mean, it's grotesque at this point. Have they forgotten their friend died or something like that? I just find it really strange. The stuff on my mom's phone was so disturbing. Scott couldn't. I was sort of like. And then you have someone like Elon Musk who is making it worse.
Scott Galloway
Like, Democrats are the party of murder.
Kara Swisher
Party murder. He just was like. He's putting out lists of people who said negative things about Kirk. He's done, like, a number of things. We have to stop these people. We have to and now the words are de indoctrinate. We have to. It sounds like fucking Russia. Like it's really disturbing. Let's move to that. Because people across the country are getting fired, suspended or investigated over post criticizing Charlie Kirk after his assassination. Washington Post columnist Karen Attia just shared a little while a while ago that she's been fired over her blue sky posts, which are at best nothing like seriously, nothing that she's done here has injected that they were waiting to fire her. That's another story. But far right activists have been doxxing people they say are celebrating Kirk's death. Then they're just deciding what a celebration is and what's not. Just regular criticism. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered his staff to identify military personnel who mocked Kirk's killings so they can be punished. These are the free speech warriors. These are the people that went on and on about so cancel culture. They used to their advantage and now they are doing cancel culture in full. They are the most cynical, non free speech people I have ever encountered. And it's really astonishing how quickly they move to this. Thoughts?
Scott Galloway
Well, again, it's term I like. It's violence, entrepreneurship, trying to reap capital and advantage from an opportunity where you see violence. And two, and another thing we're just not talking about is the CCP and the GRU are having a field day. And do your own research here. Go on TikTok or go on Threads or Instagram or on Facebook or on Twitter. And when you see something really inflammatory from either side, look at the comments. The algorithms elevate content. That gets a lot of comments because every comment results in the person, the people who respond to the comment coming back. And that's another impression, another ad, more shareholder value. Look at the really heinous comments that would likely incent and do motivate. More comments, more Nissan ads, more shareholder volume. Click on the profile. It's someone with 38 followers.
Kara Swisher
Yes, exactly.
Scott Galloway
Guess what? If I were in the gru, in the CCP and I couldn't beat us economically or kinetically, might I decide to do what is happening now and divide us internally? Make the call come from inside of the house.
Kara Swisher
Putin has talked about this very specifically and by the way the Nazis talked.
Scott Galloway
About it, I mean they have done a great job of convincing us. No, the threat isn't massive energy, a willingness to kill millions of their own people, technology, the largest consumer economy in the world, India, China and Russia binding together to push back on our interests. We've decided no, it's some young White liberals saying really heinous things. And they are heinous things. So let's elevate that content. Or let's listen to senior advisor Stephen Miller claiming that it's civil war against the Democrats. Let's elevate that content by filling up anything with those feeds with bots with comments that take that content beyond its organic reach on its own. And what Governor Cox initially said, go out and touch grass, go out and touch people. Because generally what you find is, well, with their consent.
Kara Swisher
But go ahead, just go touch people.
Scott Galloway
Go out, go out. I don't think that's true. I think we need to be more affectionate.
Kara Swisher
But anyways, I understand, but you should really ask.
Scott Galloway
And I also think we need a lot more socks and a lot more alcohol. Trust me, kids, the risk to your 25 year old liver of alcohol is dwarfed by the risk of social isolation. I go to conservative places. I meet a lot of people in person. It is shocking how lovely people are.
Kara Swisher
I get it. I agree with you. But I'm just saying it's being for you've got. Speaking of you going down a rabbit hole, you have to get offline. Like Elon Musk literally just tweeted someone said, I am now 100% confident that some guy named Aesthetica that Charlie's assassination was carried out by Charlie's cause he's a friend of his right, was carried out. Radical left wing transgender terror cell. Let's get into the evidence. And then Elon Musk tweeted, seems likely. Now, Elon, I'm sorry your kid's trans. And you have this reaction. I'm not sorry your kid's trans. I'm sorry that you're such a jackass about it and such a strange, twisted person. But to do things like this just to create this. I think they believe there's a transgender terror cell, which there isn't. But fine.
Scott Galloway
There's no evidence. The only evidence we have on mass shooters is the following. The overwhelming evidence is that they're young men who are disenfranchised. This isn't about division, it's about the disenfranchised. This isn't even about. I would argue it's not even about political extremism. It's about being extremely online.
Kara Swisher
Yep, you and I agree on this.
Scott Galloway
You could get around the most hostile table of political. You know, you could take Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson. These shooters, these folks committing this political violence, they are less politically affiliated than those two. These are people who have not connected to Others and have easy access to.
Kara Swisher
Weapons, to guns, and have no judgment.
Scott Galloway
And go extremely online. And don't have a good friend, don't have a romantic partner, don't have in person work, don't have a male role model to say, something's going on with you. What's going on? What are you thinking? Where are you spending your time? No, that's not right. Come to my church group. You're gonna see how good people are from both political spectrums. Hey, have we been thinking about getting in better shape? I noticed you're acting strange lately. What's going on? You know how much we care about you, right? Are you all right? It's a case of lack of mammalia. If you put an orca in a tank alone, it goes fucking crazy. Most animals, the worst thing you can do to a dog is leave it alone. And then when you put it in a tank where they start pumping in sound waves to make the orca go crazy. Because whoever pumps in the sound waves can make billions or trillions of dollars in shareholder value, which is effectively what's going on. 40% of the s and P right now is represented by companies that have an economic incentive to divide us. And instead we want to dissect the font on a fucking bullet so we can blame the other side.
Kara Swisher
It worked so well. That's the thing. Let me go back to Spencer Cox, because people are like, you shouldn't like him. I'm like, I'm going to a little bit. Okay. He has kept up his criticism social media, since you're doing it right now, calling it a cancer. In an appearance on Meet the Press, he appeared to be taking notes from you. Scott Gallery. Let's listen.
Guest or Additional Speaker
Anyone can change the trajectory of this. It truly is about every single one of us. And I can't emphasize enough the damage that social media and the Internet is doing to all of us. Those dopamine hits, these companies, trillion dollar market caps. The most powerful companies in the history of the world have figured out how to hack our brains. Get us addicted to outrage, which is the same type of dopamine, the same chemical that you get from taking fentanyl. Get us addicted to outrage and get us to hate each other. I'm seeing it in real time since the tragic death of Charlie Kirk. I'm seeing it in every corner of society. The conflict. Entrepreneurs are taking advantage of us and we are losing our agency. And we have to take that back. We have to turn it off. We have to get back to community, caring about our. Our neighbors, the Things that make American great. Serving each other, bettering ourselves, exercising, sleeping. All of those things that this takes away from us.
Kara Swisher
Conflict entrepreneurs. I love that. You should steal it. Conflict. That's exactly what they are, 100 and the same. Conflict entrepreneurs. May I point out, people like Elon and Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, are shutting down actual free speech, which people should be able to do. Thoughts?
Scott Galloway
At what point do we get serious about this problem? The media has a vested interest in pretending the referee and getting more clicks and more views and notice how quiet Big Tech has been on this. They know what's going on. They know. I mean it's really.
Kara Swisher
They'll try to shut down.
Scott Galloway
Cox, you know that anytime you arbitrage one substance into another, you have externalities. The greatest arbitrage in history has been fossil fuels to energy. You can't build a hospital without massive fossil fuels. The externalities there, carbon are obvious. The externalities of turning attention into shareholder value. The externality there is rage. These guys know it. They know what's going on. They know that they profit off of this divisiveness and this rage. They're not bad people by commission. They didn't set out to do this. They are bad, irresponsible Americans by efforts of omission, they are ignoring and obfuscating what is going on here. They know what's going on. And also the illusion of complexity has been weaponized here. There are common sense. People are bereft and throw up their arms and say it's only gonna get worse. Bullshit. There are absolutely common sense solutions here. No social media under the age of 16, no smartphones in schools. They have banned phones in I think about 19 states.
Kara Swisher
And that's with a lot of teachers tell me that kids can't wait to get to their phones even when they ban them. Right? That's even a problem.
Scott Galloway
That's okay, but at least they're not. They're not agreed. I don't think my kids are capable of any longer sitting through a two hour movie because of the way their brains have been rewired. And again, it's political. I don't care. In the next six hours there's going to be more gun deaths in America than there will be in the UK over the next 12 months. If we want to get serious, there are a variety of programs, more after school programs, national service, more men in primary education, more money for young people such that they're more economically secure. And they start. They start mating 8 million houses in 10 years such that people have something to look forward to and a way to save money and don't feel is hopeless. Also, let me just take a page out of the right. We have orientation at universities for a week. We have increasingly spent more time at orientation talking about mental health and saying, look, if you're feeling bad because you get your first D, if you're feeling bad because you haven't had a lot of experience with relationships and someone breaks up with you, that is a normal part of life. And what has happened over the last 20 or 30 years is because kids are so sheltered with concierge parenting and with social media, you might feel hopeless. It's not hopeless. Trust me. We've all been there. You need to reach out to someone. There is something to the notion that these kids have turned to this oppressed or oppressor ideology and are going on the hunt for people that say certain things.
Kara Swisher
I do think that's changing stuff.
Scott Galloway
I hope so, but.
Kara Swisher
And now it's the right that's doing it. Just.
Scott Galloway
I actually don't agree. Carol. 1 out of 3 people on campus now believe that political speech and certain words are violence and can warrant actual violence. And it is mostly from kids who are strongly on the left.
Kara Swisher
I think that's changing.
Scott Galloway
Hold on, let me finish. College should be a safe place physically. It should be a dangerous place intellectually.
Kara Swisher
Yes, Agree.
Scott Galloway
And we have to tell these kids. And I've seen this firsthand. I've seen them turn it on each other. There's like two or three kids who are brave enough to support Trump in my class, and everyone turns on them. We are supposed to say provocative, offensive things.
Kara Swisher
Can I make a point there?
Scott Galloway
Yes.
Kara Swisher
If they want to do that, then they should be strong enough to defend it. Like that's actually a good thing to be turned on.
Scott Galloway
Agreed.
Kara Swisher
Right.
Scott Galloway
Critical thinking. Let's debate it.
Kara Swisher
Let's debate it. Let them have it. But I have to say, one of the things you accuse the left of, not you one accuse, is like, oh, they're shutting things down. Is the people that are actually banning getting people fired.
Scott Galloway
Agreed. Are the free speech warriors.
Kara Swisher
And it wouldn't be so irritating that they were such free speech warriors lecturing us, you know, someone like Chris Rufo. The rest of them are now using cancel culture oppositely. And it's typical. We have to move on. But conflict entrepreneurs. Governor Cox has that right. That's what they're trying to do. And unfortunately, because this is a dopamine hit. We are drug addicts. We are addicts.
Scott Galloway
But you've already seen his narrative change. And quite frankly, Governor Cox, stick to being a leader. You can see, you know, what happened over the weekend. He tried to go back again over the weekend. Trump called him and said, sign up, motherfucker. And all of a sudden he's saying that there was certain leftist ideology. No, there isn't certain leftist tendencies. He may have had a roommate that was going through transition.
Kara Swisher
Who cares?
Scott Galloway
Why would you even bring that up?
Kara Swisher
Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Unless they're. No, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all. This is a young man.
Scott Galloway
He was dating someone that went to a gun range. This clearly is the right's fault. Said no Democratic govern ever in the midst of this type of violence.
Kara Swisher
Ever. Nothing about his grandmother. Great. His grandma's maga. We're not blaming her.
Scott Galloway
Who cares? Right?
Kara Swisher
Exactly.
Scott Galloway
He likes Sydney Sweeney and her family is maga. It must be a conspiracy from the right.
Kara Swisher
Yes, exactly. It's exhausting, people. Just pull yourselves out of it. Okay, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump teases a TikTok deal. We'll see. Support for this show comes from Smartsheet. You know that frustrating feeling when you're getting really into the flow of a work task? But when you hear a little ping of a message notification, you then switch your screen, then you open a new application, then check the message, then click on the link in the message. Whoops. That opened a new application and your flow is totally broken? Well, you're definitely not alone here. On average, this toggling between tasks and application adds up to about 9% of time spent working each year. That's five whole work weeks. This distracting task switching is what Harvard Business Business Review called toggling tax and increases stress hormones, decreases focus, and makes it impossible to tap into a state of flow. That's where Smartsheet comes in. Smartsheet is the work management software where you and your team can plan, track and deliver their best work without toggling back and forth between multiple applications. Imagine that you could do with those extra five work weeks if your work happened all in one place. Smartsheet work with flow. Visit Smartsheet today to learn more.
Scott Galloway
Support for pivot comes from LinkedIn ads. Sometimes the best B2B marketing doesn't fail because of your message. It fails because it never reaches the right people. You can have the sharpest creative, the most persuasive offer, and a campaign you're proud of. But if it lands in the wrong inbox or shows up in the wrong feed, it's wasted. So. So if you want to reach the right professionals, you should check out LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown into a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers worldwide. And that's exactly what sets it apart from other ad buys. It's not just about reach, it's about reaching the right people in the right context. And LinkedIn is where business actually gets done. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills and company revenue so you can stock stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. It's why LinkedIn ads generates the highest B2B ROAS of all online ad networks. Seriously. All of them. You can spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. No strings attached. Just go to LinkedIn.com Scott that's LinkedIn.com Scoped. Terms and conditions apply.
Kara Swisher
Support for this show comes from Vanta. Here are a few things that are probably essential to your company's survival in the modern world. Internet access A tax id A great snack pantry well, here's something else that's essential. Trust. In today's fast changing digital world, proving your company is trustworthy isn't just important for growth, it's essential. That's why Vanta is here. Vanta helps companies of all sizes get compliant fast and stay that way with industry leading, AI automation and continuous monitoring. So whether you're a startup tackling your first SoC2 or ISO 27001, or you're an enterprise managing vendor risk, Vanta's trust management platform makes it quicker, easier and more scalable. Vanta also helps you complete security questionnaires up to five times faster so you can win bigger deals sooner. The results? According to a recent IDC study, Vanta customers slash over $500,000 a year in costs and are three times more productive. Establishing trust isn't optional. Vanta makes it automatic. Visit vanta.com pivot to sign up for a free demo today. That's V A N-T-A.com pivot Scott, we're back. President Trump says the big U.S. china trade deal in Europe is going, quote, quite very well. Who knows? He posted on Truth social that the two countries have reached a deal on TikTok that will make the young people very happy. I don't think he named TikTok, but whatever, that's what he was talking about. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, meanwhile, is calling the quote framework of a deal, which always Makes me, like, wonder what the hell's going on. Parent company ByteDance is supposed to sell US assets or face an issue. I ban by Wednesday the 17th, which is just a few days. Trump is saying he'll talk to Xi Jinping on Friday. All of this comes as China accuses Nvidia violating antitrust law. I don't know. Everyone who's near this deal tells me it's such a fake deal. It's such a. Like they're really not separating them. It's really not gonna be anything but a lot of fakery on top of what it is. And then they'll give some pretty stuff to Larry Ellison, who seems to be winning all day long. Your thoughts?
Scott Galloway
I just think it's bullshit. I think this is a fake story. Let me use the term fake news. I just don't.
Kara Swisher
You don't do it with conviction.
Scott Galloway
I don't buy it. I don't buy it.
Guest or Additional Speaker
Me neither.
Scott Galloway
It's fake news. It's from. Yeah, sure. Okay, sure.
Kara Swisher
They're just trying to stave off that deadline.
Scott Galloway
Yeah. And it's an excuse to not ban TikTok because Trump has decided that TikTok, the CCP, when they're about to be banned, said dial up the algorithm to be positive Trump. And then somebody on his team came back and said, oh, no, TikTok's good for us. And all of a sudden he now likes it. And one of his biggest donors, who gave him nine figures is one of the biggest shareholders in TikTok. This is pay for play and he thinks it's good for him. So he didn't like it until he liked it. And also, this represents a breakdown in government because this was a law passed by both houses signed into law, and we've decided just not to do it.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, it's ridiculous. By the way. Scott Descent is starting to really irritate me on so many levels. He's like such a. Such a suck up and such a. Like, he's punching people. I don't like that much either. I don't care if it's Elon he's punching. I don't like him punching anybody.
Scott Galloway
Well, I thought violence was never the answer, Kara.
Kara Swisher
That's correct. I know. I just find it so, like, ugh. Ugh. Anyway, yes, Scott and I will believe it when we see it. And we think it's probably a lot of nonsense and that you aren't going to be protected from the CCP with this gang, that's for sure. OpenAI is also making some big moves on the way to becoming a for profit company. This is something they've been trying to do. Musk has been trying to stop that. They're finalizing terms for a new agreement with Microsoft. Microsoft, expecting to take roughly a 30% take in the reorganized company. OpenAI's nonprofit parent, will also hold an equity stake valued over $100 billion. But Attorneys General in California and Delaware say they still have serious concerns about user safety. Good for them. And want to see improvements before signing off on restructuring. What do you think about this? I assume there'll be an ipo, Correct. That's the way it looks like it's heading once they get this through. This idea of essentially a for profit company with a vague nonprofit hanging over it. And again, Musk still has legal challeng to a lot of this and he has a lot of allies still.
Scott Galloway
I think it would be so interesting to see what OpenAI's legal bills are and what's happened to the cadence of those legal bills. Because there is so much money on the line and this thing is so just as there's technical debt, you know, you come into an organization and they've invested so much in old mainframe technology that was on the board of Yellow pages company and they said when we actually fired the CIO was when he came in and basically said, you know, it's going to take us 18 months to reconfigure the technology. It's like it's a fucking yellow pages company. This isn't a cloud company. And he kept going on about technical debt. So the term technical debt means preexisting investments make it just really difficult to sort of untangle everything and expensive. I would love to know what the legal Debt is at OpenAI. And that is this company has such an unusual corporate structure that they are trying to unwind.
Kara Swisher
Yes.
Scott Galloway
And how much they've invested in legal work. I would love to know how much they're using AI. They must be spending 10 or 20 million dollars a month on lawyers right now. I would love to know as a case study how, if and how they're deploying their own AI to reduce their own legal costs.
Kara Swisher
That's so funny. But what about an ipo? I assume if this gets through and the restructuring gets through, which probably it will given the money at stake here. Because they're spending money all over the damn place. They got to. They got to get cooking on the making of the money.
Scott Galloway
It's a really interesting question because there are 3,700 publicly traded companies right now that is down by 50% since 1997. It's down 17% just since COVID Because every time there's an acquisition or a bankruptcy or a take private, it's like in China now, there are more people dying than there are being people born. So the same thing. There are more companies coming off of the NASDAQ and the S and P than are going on. And we'll talk more about this. Some of it say it's regulation, but more than anything, a company like OpenAI, I think OpenAI just did a secondary where they gave every employee, like, a $1.6 million bonus. They can raise capital, they can acquire companies, and they don't have the regulatory burden of being public. So unfortunately, unlike in 2003, when Google goes public at effectively what was $2 a share and gives retail investors the chance to 100x their money, there's so much money in the private market that effectively, as long as the company is still jamming its current investors and private market investors and institutions, which tend to be wealthier, Americans, say, no, no, no, no. We want to hold onto all that juice ourselves. So increasingly, you would have never had a company like OpenAI worth a half a trillion dollars having not gone public. So what does that mean? It means the retail investor no longer has access to these great growth companies, and these guys have less incentive to go public. And typically, when they do go public, it's the following. All right, the smart guys who really know our company have decided there's not much upside left here. We gotta find a group of people who will turn this into a meme. Stock. Oh, I know. Public market investors, Right.
Kara Swisher
Just like what's happening with Tesla.
Scott Galloway
So all of the juice, you know, the juice has been squeezed by the time these guys go public now. Does that mean there's still not opportunity in the public markets? No, there probably still is, but you would have never. It used to be it took a company seven years to go public. Now it's 14. The really good companies are staying private because they can get everything they need in the private markets now.
Kara Swisher
So we'll see.
Scott Galloway
This is the seventh most valuable company in the world, I think, right now.
Kara Swisher
I know it's not public. It's crazy. The only one that I was thinking of that was really valuable that never went public was Mars. Remember the Mars people? Never went public.
Scott Galloway
The Mars family, also, it used to be a company called Bechtel. And then before that, my biggest client in the 90s was Levi Strauss and company.
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
Scott Galloway
And these were not like big companies because the Only way you could attract employees, make acquisitions. All of that good stuff was to be a public company. All of those things are now available in the private markets.
Kara Swisher
So, I mean, we'll see what happens. But they definitely, probably will go public, presumably. Correct. That's my. I'm assuming they will at some point. When. When. When. When that moment passes. I want to mention a bizarre moment from Tucker Carlson's interview with OpenAI CEO Altman last week. Carlson brought up a conspiracy theory about the death of an OpenAI whistleblower, which is being pushed by Elon Musk, by the way, suggesting it was murder, not suicide, as authorities had ruled. Let's listen. I don't think we should say, well, he killed himself when there's no evidence.
Scott Galloway
That the guy was depressed at all.
Kara Swisher
I think. And if he was your friend, I would think he would want to speak.
Guest or Additional Speaker
To his mom or I did offer.
Scott Galloway
She didn't want to.
Kara Swisher
So.
Guest or Additional Speaker
Do you feel that, you know, when.
Kara Swisher
People look at that and they're like, you know, it's possible that happened, do you feel that that reflects the worries.
Guest or Additional Speaker
They have about what's happening here? Like, people are afraid that this is like, I haven't done too many interviews.
Scott Galloway
Where I've been accused of, like, oh.
Guest or Additional Speaker
I'm not accusing you at all.
Kara Swisher
I'm just saying his mother says that.
Guest or Additional Speaker
I don't think a fair read of the evidence suggests suicide, at least all.
Kara Swisher
Well, now. Thank you, Inspector Clouseau. What are you talking about? This is like. This was the craziest thing. Like, don't you think we should entertain conspiracy theories that there's a cult in. You know, there's a. A murderous cult inside of OpenAI? I mean, I don't know why he sat down. I. I was. I couldn't understand why he would talk to this guy, given I get why he would, but. Ew. Ew. The whole thing was really strange. Tucker Carlson's gotten really strange like everything else.
Scott Galloway
First off, Tucker Carlson now appears to be a fully credentialed psychiatrist around self Harm.
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
Scott Galloway
Also a detective, because he's decided that this guy does not qualify as one of the 25,000 people who every year decide, I'm really down. I'm really depressed. And, oh, by the way, there's a gun upstairs. I know what to do. Okay, first off, this is just all about money, and that is Tucker Carlson, who I think is a bright guy, decided, oh, I know how to get this, to be a Ted Cruz, like, viral moment and be number one instead of number four in podcasting. And make more money. I'll create a rumor in front of one of the most powerful people in the world that he's a murderer. That's what he's saying right here.
Kara Swisher
He is. He is. That's what Sam was like. I've never been accused of murder.
Scott Galloway
He's saying, I think you murdered. Murder this guy in some sort of. Of thriller. And let's go back. Aside from the fact that while I think Sam Altman might be a sociopath, and that is ignoring the harm of AI because there is so much pressure on him to live up to the incredible expectations. And that is not a nice thing to say, but I have a lot of fact patterns around all these guys who in their hushed tones, pretend to give a flying fuck and then go on to build character AIs with no guardrails that result in real harm. I think. I believe that there is no. That economically, it would be really stupid for Sam Altman to put out a hit on one of his employees. Yeah, I would agree. For a lot less money, he can give money to Charles Schumer and to Senator Cotton and make sure that there's no legislation that gets in the way or slows down AI. Or show up to a dinner and say, gee, President Trump, your big orange cock is like nothing I've ever seen. And it's so huge.
Kara Swisher
Apparently it's little enough mushroom shape, but go ahead.
Scott Galloway
And you're such a great kisser. It is so much easier and low risk for Sam Altman to pursue legal means of economic success than to order a hit on one of his employees. Sam Altman is already a billionaire. He would never risk spending the rest of his life in prison. He would never risk the economic implosion of putting a hit out on his own employees and Tucker Carlson. In my opinion, no one should go on that show if they're going to be falsely accused of being a murderer for cliques.
Kara Swisher
Agreed. I agree. I think it's crazy that he sat there. I actually texted him. I'm like, oh, so you're a murderer. Good to know. It's just ridiculous. Like, this guy did this anyway. We don't believe he's murderer just officially. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Paramount. Skydance tries to shake up Hollywood with a new deal.
Scott Galloway
Support for the show comes from Mint Mobile. We all procrastinate. Totally understandable. Why do something now when you can just do it later? But what might come back to bite you is procrastina saving. That's when you put off something you know could save you money that's losing out on money in your pocket now and in the future. Mint Mobile's best deal of the year will stop your procrastina saving in its tracks. 50% of the off Unlimited Premium wireless for new customers. That's 50% off for new customers. Plus all Mint Mobile plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text on the nation's largest 5G network. You can use your current phone and phone number on any Mint Mobile plan and bring along all your existing contacts. Don't miss out on three months of unlimited premium wireless from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month. But hurry because this deal ends September 22nd. Quit stalling and start saving when you make the switch. Shop plan plans@mintmobile.com pivot that's mintmobile.com pivot upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to 15amonth limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on a limited plan, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Support for the show comes from Hims when it comes to your money, your goals and your future, it's important to have options the freedom to choose. But when it comes to your healthcare, it too often feels overly prescriptive. One size fits all treatments, preset dosages, zero flexibility. It's like trying to budget a fixed expense with no alternatives. But now there's another way with Hims and Hers. Hims and hers is reimagining healthcare with you in mind. They offer access to personalized care for weight loss, hair loss, sexual health and mental health. Because your goals, your biology and your lifestyle are anything but average. No membership fees, no surprise fees, just transparent pricing and real care that you can access from anywhere. Feel like your best self thanks to quality, convenient care through HIMS and HERS? Start your free online visit today at himss.com pivot that's H I M S.com pivot to find your personalized treatment options. Not available everywhere. Prescription products require provider consultation. See website for full details, important safety information and restrictions.
Kara Swisher
Trip Planner by Expedia.
Guest or Additional Speaker
You were made to outdo your holiday, your hammocking and your pooling. We were made to help organize the competition. Expedia made to travel.
Kara Swisher
Scott we're back in the small ball area. As I predicted last week, Paramount Skydance is preparing for a mostly cash bid for Warner Bros. Discovery backed by the Ellison family, who's richer than ever for those trying to keep score at home, Paramount itself was just acquired by Skydance last month. And Warner Brothers Discovery has plans to split into two separate companies. One with the big studio and streaming properties, the other gets the live cable networks. Currently Warner Discovery has double the market cap of Skydance. It's a lot of money. It's 30 some billion dollars. This would be for all of it. So not to split it up. Obviously they want the Warner Brothers studio and streaming properties. I'm not sure why they're not waiting for the split. The bid hasn't been submitted. We'll see what the FCC thinks. Although that guy's a toad to the Trump administration. And if R. Ellison wants it, Lar Ellison will get it and we'll see. There'll be other bidders, presumably Comcast and some others. If there are bidders, in fact. Thoughts?
Scott Galloway
This is huge. I mean, because there's so much news. This would have been huge news. It's been drowned out. Warner Brothers Discovery, who has the highest paid investment banker in history. Their CEO convinced a bunch of investors to buy Warner Brothers from AT&T and in exchange for destroying a massive amount of shareholder value has taken out about a third of a billion dollars. He's the most, maybe with the exception of Chamath Palihapitiya, he's the most well compensated investment banker in history. Now what you have here is in the last five days the stock is up 55%. It's had its best week in history. Why? Why? Because Larry Ellison figured out there should be a number two to Nvidia, stopped doing stock buybacks, made a massive bet on being the number two infrastructure provider in AI and announced an agreement where OpenAI was going to commit to $60 billion a year in compute from Oracle, despite the fact it's only running at 10 billion a year. And in one day Larry Ellison increased his net worth $130 billion.
Kara Swisher
So he can afford this easily.
Scott Galloway
Larry Ellison could buy three Warner Brothers with the gain in wealth he registered in one day. And this is where it all heads. And I think it's fucking fascinating and I wish I had the time to do more about this, but instead I'm spending a ton of time trying to talk about young men and its relationship to online speech and everything. Anyways, I went to go see the Fantastic Four. I hope there is never a sequel or a superhero movie ever again. I hate these superhero films.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, this one didn't get good reviews. Superman did, but go ahead.
Scott Galloway
Anyways. I love Vanessa Kirby. I think Pedro Pascal's a movie star and my son loves superhero movies. So we went and like all 15 year olds or not all, my son makes me stay through to the very end. Because these goddamn movie makers always have an Easter egg at the very end. Do you realize how long the credits went on for?
Kara Swisher
A long time. I've done it. I've done it. My friend with my sons.
Scott Galloway
Okay, so I typed into AI approximately how many people worked on Fantastic Four. Somewhere between 12 and 1500 people worked on that film. And I got screenshots online. It had things like costume design, Sweden, and it had 20 people. This is what's going to happen. They're going to roll up these companies and then at some point, Larry's going to go say to his son, all right, I gave you a bunch of money to plan traffic. Now it's time to get serious. Are they going to do that through innovation or new types of movies? No, this is what they're going to do. That movie probably cost $200 million to make before even marketing. Marketing. He's going to go, we're very good at AI. We have the best AI infrastructure, cloud relationships with LLMs. I need you, David Ellison, to come here and we're going to figure out how to take a $200 million film and produce it for 20 million by going through each line item, let's say costume design, 50 or 60 people. We're going to use AI, the agentic layer that speaks to AI enabled fabricators in China. And we're gonna need three highly skilled costume designers to basically put in long prompts that use 3D imaging and all sorts of shit to basically get the costumes made with three people, not 20. And they're gonna go through each of these things that have 30, 40 people. And then we're gonna reduce it to three or four. And it's gonna happen at Ellison's company, with the help and the urging of.
Kara Swisher
Dad at Oracle, and then with TikTok involved with it too, the whole thing. I know that's interesting. You thought this was like a nothing burger. Small ball, you always like, parent, who cares? But do you think this is a big deal or you just said it's.
Scott Galloway
In the world of media, it is. But when I say small ball, if Larry Ellison had 15 kids, he could give each of them a Paramount with the economic gain he had in one day. So there's the economy and then there's the economy, which is AI. I mean, everything is being driven. Who would have thought you're about to see costume designers. 70% of them get their real estate licenses in Hollywood because Oracle announced its best earnings in history. This is impacting everything.
Kara Swisher
Well, see, others will try to get this. Comcast will try to go for this, maybe Amazon.
Scott Galloway
I don't think they can afford it.
Kara Swisher
That's the thing. He's so fucking rich.
Scott Galloway
This is the thing, Kara. These are shitty businesses and they're declining. And I put together, I was approached by a group. Here's two examples of companies that are going to get the shit kicked out of them. With AI Gartner has this amazing business where if you're a small regional bank trying to figure out should we use Azure or aws, you call a stay at home mom who's learned everything about cloud companies, who lives in Madison, Wisconsin. She makes 200 grand a year. She works from 7 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon answering questions, questions from clients. And Gartner charges First national of Oklahoma $120,000. Now that person, the CTO. And they do a good job. It's an amazing business. Stock has tripled since 2017. They do an amazing job. Now the CTO at First national of Oklahoma has figured out if they type in a thoughtful prompt, they can get the pretty much the exact same answer back for their $20 a month GPT5 Pro subscription. And since the beginning of the year, Gartner stock has been cut in half. And I think it's AI is going to come after that business OnlyFans. I was approached by a group of people that said we're putting together an investor group to buy OnlyFans. Why are they selling? Because to do 60 minutes of video cam with a live creator costs anywhere from $300 to $1,200, depending on the popularity of that creator. AI is going to start to create AI girlfriends that get closer and closer to the thrill of watching a live person talk dirty to you or whatever.
Kara Swisher
Not illegal either.
Scott Galloway
And the guys, the folks that own OnlyFans are like, we're out. We have seen the future. I mean, you're gonna see so many, so much of this stuff, so many interesting places. And here's the issue moving to solutions. This is gonna create so much economic value. Here's an idea. Any company that does over a billion in profits, we have a progressive tax structure of, say, 40%. And we figure out really thoughtful retraining and apprentice programs that people can sign up for and say, I see the writing on the wall. You know, I've always wanted to be. You know, I've always wanted to be. Who knows? I've always wanted to be. Christ, a therapist. I've always wanted to Be in nursing. I've always wanted to be. Do something in with my hand. Whatever it is. Retraining. Right. But instead we're like, let the thoroughbreds run and let the shit shake out where it is.
Kara Swisher
That's right. That is correct. Guess where we are. Ellery Ellison is now trained Daddy from Gilded Age. That is what's happened here. We'll see how that goes. It's not going so well for Train Daddy right now.
Scott Galloway
That was almost as good as your. What was that? You were making a reference to that 50s musical, the Sharks. And what was it?
Kara Swisher
The Sharks and the Jets. West side Story. I'm very cultural.
Scott Galloway
Could you be any older?
Kara Swisher
Oh, stop.
Scott Galloway
Jesus.
Kara Swisher
Train Daddy. Gilded Age is very popular, I'm sorry to tell you that, but it's owned by Warner Brothers, by the way. Speaking of which, he will now own Train Daddy.
Scott Galloway
Oh, is that the one with Cynthia Nixon? Yeah.
Kara Swisher
Cynthia Nixon.
Scott Galloway
Yeah, Cynthia Nixon. Excuse me.
Kara Swisher
Yeah, Miranda. Well, anyway, we'll see if they get it. I can tell you one thing. Karis Wisher will not be working for the Ellisons. Let me just make that statement right now. Anyway, one more corporate shakeup very quickly. Trump is now suggesting that US public companies should no longer report earnings quarterly, but every six month. I think you might like this idea. I didn't hate it, but maybe not. No shareholders should know what's happening at companies. Although then people focus on the short term. Your thoughts, very quickly.
Scott Galloway
I do like it. It's a response. And the reality is that there's a fine line here. One, there's too much administrative and very costly burden on public companies. It costs two or three million dollars at least a year just to be public. More than that, CEOs, CFOs, IR professionals spending spend two weeks of their life every 12 weeks managing the earnings call and trying to figure out the right words and legal liability and the fallout from the markets. So it makes sense that the administrative burden should lessen. Having said that, one of the reasons our market trades at 26 or 27 times PE and every other market trades from 22 to 12 is because of the regulatory burden. Orphans and widows are less likely to find out they own stock in Enron when they buy a company in the s and P versus A company I was pitched by a hedge fund 10 years ago. That said, all we do is find fraudulent companies in China. And they're everywhere because the regulatory standards and they have gone up the last 10 years weren't as high. So the whole idea of these regulatory standards is when you Buy a company in the s and P500, it may go down, it may not have a good future. But there's much less likelihood of outright fraud because of these regulatory constraints. Now, good private companies, every company and I've run or been an investor in, that's a good company. We do effectively what is an earnings call every three months. However, it's not the same level of regulatory burden. What I think is going to fill the void of the Delta, quite frankly, and this is an opportunity, is some sort of AI good seal of approval. And that is okay, Company X. If you send us your financials and let us tap into your APIs, we're every three months going to put out a rating on the financial health. Basically, these companies every three months are to signal growth and also to make sure there's not fraud. I can see an AI Good Housekeeping seal of approval. Better Business Viewer, Rotten Tomatoes, which has become an arbiter of whether you want to waste your time that says it doesn't look as if this company similar to a Fitch or a Moody's or an S and P. It doesn't look as if there is fraud here. It's got a 2% rating of fraud, not 99.
Kara Swisher
Well, that calls for more scrutiny then, not less. You like 6% months or do you not like 6 months?
Scott Galloway
Oh, I like it. Because the reality is the administrative burden, it goes back to what we said previously. There's too few companies that are public and there's too few companies for retail investors to pick from. Part of the reason companies are not going public is because of what has probably become burdensome regulatory oversight. Now, it's a fine needle to thread. You do want some disclosure requirements. I believe that AI will create a level of disclosure and fraud protection should you decide to engage in with it. That could give you a Good Housekeeping seal of approval that it's unlikely fraud is taking place here and there will be hopefully more public companies. Because the reality is, if you can bet on whether there's civil war, which you can right now in Polymarket, should we really be infantilizing investors and not letting certain companies go public for risk or a belief that we need to protect them? Jesus Christ, People can bet on the super bowl on their phone right now. So if you know it's gone overboard. We need more public companies. We need retail investors to have access to more companies.
Kara Swisher
All right, Okay.
Scott Galloway
I do like it.
Kara Swisher
I thought you would like it. I thought you would. I actually do too. Because the short term thinking of all our companies is really problematic. I think in a lot of ways that's a bigger problem in the United States. America, but still. All right, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Hey, Vox Media listeners, it's Mike Murphy.
Scott Galloway
Murphy, what happens when you get two political hacks who've been running campaigns against.
Kara Swisher
Each other for forever and add a world class journalist?
Scott Galloway
You get a big bar tab. That's what you get. This David Axelrod telling you you also get a great podcast called Hacks on Tap.
Guest or Additional Speaker
This is John Heilman.
Kara Swisher
I'll tell you what.
Scott Galloway
We give you a weekly podcast that covers news, the headlines, and also the.
Guest or Additional Speaker
Longer term trends driving our politics with the perspective of three guys who've seen.
Scott Galloway
It all from the campaign trail to the forward cabin of Air Force One. Join us every week on Hacks on Tap on the Vox Media podcast network.
Kara Swisher
Hi, this is Bella Freud. Each week on Fashion Neurosis, I interview highly creative people in the world of fashion, film, art, sport, literature and music. The format of the show is that my guest lies on the couch and I sit in a chair like an analyst. I know I ask questions, quite simple things that revolve around how we reveal or hide things through what we wear, how we do or don't draw attention to ourselves. This week I welcome Amelia de Moldenberg, the Host of the YouTube series Chicken Shop Date. One of my friends came up to me, I remember like on the early days and said, do you mean to. To dress frumpy on the date? I said, frumpy. This is my wardrobe. Find fashion neurosis on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Noel King and today on Today Explained from Vox, I'm talking to conservative activist, writer and provocateur Christopher Ruffo. Why? Because Chris Ruffo gets what he wants from universities, from corporations, from President Trump. He wanted an end to dei. He got it.
Scott Galloway
We've ended the tyranny of so called diversity, equity and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government.
Kara Swisher
He wanted the government to yank federal funding from universities unless they submitted to his demands. He got that, too. He wanted an obscure academic legal theory to become a national boogie. Done.
Scott Galloway
We have removed the poison of critical race theory from our public schools.
Kara Swisher
He wanted Cracker Barrel to change its logo back.
Guest or Additional Speaker
We could in fact break the barrel.
Scott Galloway
With just a small amount of effort.
Kara Swisher
Since he's getting what he wants, we thought it was worth asking, what does he want now? Chris Ruffo's cultural Revolution Today explained is in your feeds every weekday. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like me to go first?
Scott Galloway
Please?
Kara Swisher
Guess what's coming back. Hunting Wives. And they did the funniest.
Scott Galloway
I thought you were gonna say the L word or something.
Kara Swisher
No, that is maybe coming back. The Hunting Wives is coming back for season two. And they did, I have to say, Malin Ackerman.
Scott Galloway
What is it? What is the Hunting Wives?
Kara Swisher
You need to watch it. Just watch it and then call me.
Scott Galloway
I don't watch TV anymore. Oh, wait, is that the one where Charlie Turron and someone else make out?
Kara Swisher
No, that's another one. There's plenty of lesbian things material going on these days, but no, it's maga. Christian gun toting lesbian. So there you go, Naga.
Scott Galloway
Christian gun toting lesbian, whatever in Texas. Just what you said there. I'll see it twice.
Kara Swisher
Exactly. So it's coming back to. And they did the best. Malin Ackerman and Brittany Stowe did the funniest announcement using a cell phone conversation that was very hysterical. And congratulations, ladies. And I'm hoping to interview the creator of it because it's just such so funny. It's exactly what we need at this moment. I have to tell you, it brings together MAGA and lesbians in a way that's really satisfying. I don't know how they did it, but they did it. That is my win, my fail. And is Donald Trump and his incessant lies. And especially Pulte. Bill Pulte, who is just a nepo baby imbecile. They accused this woman, Lisa Cook, of mortgage fraud. It turns out it's bullshit.
Scott Galloway
Oh, it's bullshit.
Kara Swisher
Fuck you, Bill Pulte. Oh my God. Stop it.
Scott Galloway
She registered it as her vacation home.
Kara Swisher
You liars. They just. They. They raise. This is what they do. They raise a lie. And then they. And then they. And then it's not true. But they've caused damage along the way. They do not care about the truth. And that is Bill Pulte in any other place. So would Kash Patel, so would Pete, so would Kristi Owen be fired for their incompetence. Their like rank incompetence. But as long as they salute at the. At the. At the Leader, Dear Leader, they're going to stay in their jobs. But that guy is really a heinous piece of shit. And let me tell you, Bill Pili, call me up, come and visit Kara Swisher, because what you did to this woman is reprehensible in terms. And I know why you're doing it, but it's Grotesque. And at some point this has to stop. Maybe it doesn't, but it should stop anyway. That's my fail.
Scott Galloway
So funny. I don't know. One of my favorite movies is a movie called Hannah and her Sisters.
Kara Swisher
Yes, yes.
Scott Galloway
And there's a scene. Max Von Syto is having an affair with a much younger woman who I thought was one of the most beautiful women I'm dating myself with Barbara Hershey. And I always remember that movie. Oh, God, what was it with Bette Midler?
Kara Swisher
Beaches.
Scott Galloway
Beaches. Thank you, Barbara. And I just thought it was hilarious. I always joke that of course one of them gets cancer and dies and everyone's crying at the end. And I thought if Bette Midler was dying, there wouldn't be a tear.
Kara Swisher
Not so. I love that Bette Midler.
Scott Galloway
Oh, no, no. When it's the hot, sublime, beautiful one that dies of cancer, everyone's crying now.
Kara Swisher
Bette Midler is a national fucking treasure.
Scott Galloway
I'm not making a statement on Bette Midler. Nonetheless, I'm not making a statement on how looks as we are. Okay, anyways. But in the movie Hannah and Her Sisters, Barbara Hershey wises up and decides that she's gonna leave Max Von Syto. And he's like, he's panicked and he's upset and he's like, you're my link to the outside world. I feel like you have become my cultural link to the outside world. I watch Premier league football. Other than that, I don't turn the TV on anymore.
Kara Swisher
Trust me on the Hunting Wives. Go ahead.
Scott Galloway
No, I take your recommendations. I just wrote down the Hunting Wives. Anyways, okay, so my fail is along the lines of government incompetence. One of the most storied best brands in government institutions, one of the best institutional brands in the world is the FBI. I've known some people who worked at the FBI and universally, they're these low key people who literally reek of competence and humility.
Kara Swisher
Competence. That's correct.
Scott Galloway
They are the last people to go on social media and start saying, I have a suspect in. In custody. And then have to go back and say, oops. The FBI typically doesn't speak. They speak with arrests, indictments and prosecutions. That is how they communicate. And with a workforce of incredibly talented people who could make a lot more money elsewhere but decide they want to serve their country. And what is the elite of the elite of our law enforcement until fucking cash Patel. Who is. There are so many reports inside of the FBI about what a bumbling idiot this guy is, announcing they have A suspect before it's confirmed and having to walk that back.
Kara Swisher
Firing competent people because they're a woman or person of color. Go ahead.
Scott Galloway
And then the ultimate contradiction of the speak softly but carry a big fucking stick. That is the FBI is he goes on. On national TV and says on a press release and says, and my friend Charlie. Rest now, my friend. He said, rest now. We have the watch. I will see you in Valhalla, dude. First off, if this is your friend, you should recuse yourself from the investigation, as every FBI director would have done.
Kara Swisher
Yep.
Scott Galloway
And this is not.
Kara Swisher
I think.
Scott Galloway
I don't. People have the right to own their grief and miss their friend. I get that, brother.
Kara Swisher
They're so performative.
Scott Galloway
Good for you. And I think it's important that men. That men say how much they're gonna miss their friends. That's not what the head of the FBI does. That is the last thing that.
Kara Swisher
He's a podcaster.
Scott Galloway
That is so opposite.
Kara Swisher
He's a children's book author.
Scott Galloway
That is so opposite of the FBI brand. Have you no sense of the history of the FBI?
Kara Swisher
No. This guy makes J. Edgar Hoover look like great.
Scott Galloway
They are just quietly very good at what they do. Tracking down bad guys. They don't go on social media anyway. The continued incompetence and erosion of some of the best institutional brands in history run by people who are more like there for personal satisfaction than operational excellence, as evidenced by RFK Jr. And now Kash Patel, who has no business, no running one of the finest institutions, one of the best brands in the world. My all right.
Kara Swisher
Fail.
Scott Galloway
That's my fail. My win is New Mexico announced that they're going to basically have universal child care and distinct of the morality of it. I'm not going to go to like, you know, mothering is the hardest job in the world. I've never bought that. Fine, okay. It's a difficult job. Most people are pretty decent at it. I've never bought this notion it's the toughest job in the world. Let's just look at the economics of it. When you give people universal childcare, it stimulates labor force participation, particularly among mothers who by the way, are increasingly more educated and in higher demand for information economy like jobs, it reduces poverty and income inequality. Right. Because childcare costs can push working families into poverty or force them to no longer work. And it boosts disposable income and consumer spending because typically the person going to work. When you have the scale of universal childcare such that it costs less for good care, then they have this positive arbitrage where they have more money. Because when you send a highly qualified woman into the workplace, she makes more money than the cost of good childcare at scale. When you get universal childcare, it strengthens the childcare sector as employers pay better facilities improve, it creates jobs, it improves future economic outcomes via better early childhood development, which means less remedial education, higher earnings, et cetera. The return on investment studies show distinct. Of the morality. And all this stuff about the toughest job in the world.
Kara Swisher
It is the toughest job. I'm going to keep my mouth shut. It's one of them. Go ahead.
Scott Galloway
Well, okay. But the majority of literally both my.
Kara Swisher
Kids were sick separate weeks and Amanda and I are about to like, fall over dead because.
Scott Galloway
Go ahead, I get it. But 90% of parents manage, in my opinion, to do a pretty good job. This is a different conversation for a different day. But if you look just. There was a study at the Wharton School at Penn and it found that childcare expansion and universal childcare increases GDP by 0.1% relative to. Even if you were to deficit finance it, even if you were to borrow money to pay for universal childcare, you get a positive return on that investment. We are the only G7 nation that doesn't offer. So I'm not going to make. I don't want to make a far left argument around how difficult it is and mothering and mothers need help. All I'm saying is, okay, let's go for the money.
Kara Swisher
More money. I like your argument.
Scott Galloway
Let's create economic growth, more shareholder value, more household income, more Netflix, more trips to Disneyland, more money to take care of our parents. What is a way to get there? How do we get a positive return? Return on investment from the government. Universal childcare.
Kara Swisher
I like it.
Scott Galloway
High standards. High standards ensure that you're getting your money's worth.
Kara Swisher
Every other democratic nation does it too, by the way.
Scott Galloway
And it pays off. So my. Anyways, my fail is Kash Patel undermining one of the great brands in institutional history, the FBI. And my win is this new universal childcare program being implemented in New Mexico which creates economic benefits and economic, let.
Kara Swisher
Me say a woman governor there. Men can do this too, by the way. It doesn't matter.
Scott Galloway
Do you hear the stress in my voice? I sound like I'm ranting.
Kara Swisher
I know you are ranting. That's okay. You know what? It's been a hard week. It's been a hard week. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, I recently spoke with Cristobal Valenzuela, the co founder and and CEO of Runway AI. We talked about how Hollywood is using AI and why it's not necessarily a job killer. I didn't agree with this, but let's listen to him.
Scott Galloway
Technology will change jobs all the time. Look at the history of film is the history of technology. It has changed many times before through many of the decades we've seen. And it wasn't really about the jobs as much as, like, the people doing the jobs. So if you're hiring people, if you're a guild member, if you're in a union, like, well, help your people understand how to use these tools, train them, get them on board with the latest, understand how they can upskill what they already know. I think it changes a little bit the perspective, and I think that's been my position so far. I think it allows us to work alongside them in much more productive ways.
Kara Swisher
He's making a good case, but we'll see.
Scott Galloway
Did he bring his crack pipe with him?
Kara Swisher
Okay, okay. That's the issue. Well, he's selling anyway. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out.
Scott Galloway
Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin and Corinne Ruff. Ernie Intertodd engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Severial, Dan Shalon and Kate Gallagher. Nishat Kurohaz, Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and 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. How do we grow our economy? Simple Universal child care.
Hosts: Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway
Podcast: Pivot (New York Magazine and Vox Media Podcast Network)
This episode delivers a charged, insightful look into the volatile intersection of tech, politics, and society, following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway dissect the nation's online culture wars, scrutinize narratives swirling around the Kirk shooter’s motives, analyze government and tech company roles in fomenting outrage, and discuss the latest on TikTok’s “framework” deal, tumult in AI and media, and the ever-blurrier lines between public policy and profit motive. As always, Kara and Scott’s trademark mix of sharp critique, historical context, and biting humor makes a turbulent news week both accessible and illuminating.
[01:41–09:14]
“Ever since this Kirk thing, I have been extremely online, and I think it is taking a toll on me. I think I am disassociating from reality and relationships. I have been so going down rabbit holes around this shit, and it is taking a toll on me mentally.” (06:39)
“I feel like the forces of retrograde, which are always there, are particularly desperate and strong today. … At the same time, you can’t stop the beat…History has shown again and again, they try it and they never win.” (08:36)
“If you start reading about history—for all the people saying this feels like it’s going to be a civil war—we have been much closer…since the actual Civil War.”
— Scott Galloway (09:14)
[10:35–24:43]
“Let’s assume his roommate was transitioning. OK, so the fuck. What? … Who the fuck cares? What does that have to do with anything?” (12:41)
“98% of mass shooters are men, mostly young men. Almost every act of political violence…They are almost always not political extremists, but extremely online.”
— Scott Galloway (14:26)
“It’s grotesque…They literally are walking over this guy and using him as a way to raise money, a way to get people mad, a way to get political advantage.”
— Kara Swisher (17:03)
[18:22–31:08]
“They are the most cynical, non free speech people I have ever encountered. And it’s really astonishing how quickly they move to this.” (19:44)
“Conflict entrepreneurs. I love that. You should steal it…That’s exactly what they are.”
— Kara Swisher, crediting Governor Cox’s phrasing (26:02)
[34:01–38:24]
“I just think it’s bullshit. I think this is a fake story. Let me use the term fake news. I just don’t buy it.”
— Scott Galloway (36:11)
[38:24–42:24]
“The retail investor no longer has access to these great growth companies, and these guys have less incentive to go public.” (39:44–41:51)
[42:54–46:50]
[49:16–57:01]
“They’re going to figure out how to take a $200 million film and produce it for $20 million by going through each line item...AI will streamline everything.” (52:13)
[57:12–61:17]
“It brings together MAGA and lesbians in a way that’s really satisfying. I don’t know how they did it, but they did.” (64:53)
“You liars. They raise a lie. And then…it’s not true. But they’ve caused damage along the way. They do not care about the truth.” (65:39)
“The continued incompetence and erosion of some of the best institutional brands…run by people who are more there for personal satisfaction than operational excellence.” (69:57)
“Let’s just look at the economics of it…labor force participation, reduces poverty, boosts disposable income…studies show even if you borrow money for universal childcare, you get a positive return.” (70:28–73:42)
Scott on mass shooters and online culture:
“They are almost always not political extremists, but extremely online.” (14:26)
Kara on media exploitation:
“They literally are walking over this guy …to raise money, get people mad, and get political advantage.” (17:03)
Scott on social media’s profit model:
“40% of the S&P right now is represented by companies that have an economic incentive to divide us.” (24:43)
Governor Cox, on society’s media addiction:
“Get us addicted to outrage and get us to hate each other…The conflict entrepreneurs are taking advantage of us and we are losing our agency.” (25:01)
This episode deftly captures the poisonous feedback loops between online extremism, violence, and political opportunism, especially in the aftermath of high-profile tragedy. Swisher and Galloway’s historical framing and insistence on data over narrative are counterpoints to the performative outrage they criticize. Their breakdown of media, tech policy, and economic shifts (from TikTok to Paramount, AI to reporting standards) highlights the interconnected, high-stakes web of power and profit driving each week’s headline news.