Meta Ends Fact Checking, Trump Tries to Redraw the Map, and the Los Angeles Fires

Summary

Pivot Podcast Summary – Episode: Meta Ends Fact Checking, Trump Tries to Redraw the Map, and the Los Angeles Fires
Release Date: January 10, 2025
Hosts: Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway
Source: New York Magazine and Vox Media Podcast Network

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I. Meta Ends Its Fact Checking Program

Overview:
In a controversial move, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta would discontinue its fact-checking program. Instead, the company plans to implement a community-driven system akin to Twitter's Community Notes, aiming to reduce censorship and simplify policies related to hate speech.

Key Discussions:

• Zuckerberg's Justification: He asserted that the decision aligns with a cultural shift toward prioritizing free speech.
  • [23:29] Scott: "The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech."
• Scott Galloway's Analysis: Scott criticized the move, emphasizing its detrimental impact on democratic institutions and the spread of misinformation. He highlighted how reduced moderation could exacerbate societal divisions and facilitate the proliferation of harmful narratives.
  • [23:53] Scott: "Social media is eroding strong institutions, shared stories, and social capital."

Notable Quotes:

• Scott Galloway: "These platforms are fostering an idiocracy where misinformation thrives unchecked."
  • [33:59]
• Kara Swisher: "Mark, you don't. Bad stuff. He thinks he's gonna like stub a toe."
  • [34:22]

II. Donald Trump's Geopolitical Maneuvers

Overview:
Donald Trump is making unprecedented and unconventional statements about annexing territories, including Greenland, renaming regions like the Gulf of Mexico, reclaiming the Panama Canal, and proposing Canada as the 51st state. These declarations have sparked significant debate regarding their feasibility and implications for international relations.

Key Discussions:

• Strategic Implications:
  • [61:21] Scott: "Greenland is strategic... If China goes into Taiwan and we want to expel them, he's going to need allies who may now distrust him."
• Economic Considerations:
  • [47:12] Scott: "The equivalent here of Netflix is OpenAI and Sora in my view. My son convinced me to upgrade to the kind of Premiere or whatever it is OpenAI subscription plan."
• International Reactions: Both hosts expressed concerns about the erosion of U.S. alliances and the potential for destabilizing global geopolitics. Kara highlighted the ridicule such proposals invite, referencing Mexico's response to Trump's antics.

Notable Quotes:

• Kara Swisher: "You're making the US like... someone in high school... absolutely morons."
  • [49:17]
• Scott Galloway: "Greatness is in the agency of others. Without allies, we haven't accomplished anything on our own."
  • [45:28]

III. Devastating Fires in Los Angeles

Overview:
Los Angeles is grappling with four simultaneous wildfires, exacerbated by hurricane-like winds and dry conditions. Iconic areas such as Pacific Palisades, Pasadena, and Runyon Canyon are severely affected, leading to widespread evacuations and the destruction of historic landmarks like the Getty Villa.

Key Discussions:

• Impact on Communities: Hosts reflected on personal connections to affected areas, expressing deep concern and empathy for those displaced.
  • [14:30] Kara: "All these places, all these beautiful homes... the whole Runyon Canyon area is so beautiful. It is devastation everywhere."
• Role of Social Media: The immediacy of information dissemination via platforms like Twitter and Instagram was acknowledged as both a tool for real-time updates and a source of misinformation.
  • [12:14] Scott: "The politicization is just... everyone is trying to blame someone immediately instead of focusing on relief."
• Climate Change and Urban Planning: Discussions touched on long-term environmental challenges contributing to the severity of such disasters, including overpopulation and lack of sustainable urban planning.
  • [16:14] Scott: "We need to focus on helping people out before deciding who's at fault."

Notable Quotes:

• Kara Swisher: "These pictures you're seeing are so apocalyptic... it really does feel like the end of the world."
  • [15:18]
• Scott Galloway: "We are literally moving to an idiocracy... the companies that played a key role are having the oxygen sucked out of the room."
  • [33:19]

IV. Getty and Shutterstock Merger: Battling AI Disruption

Overview:
Getty and Shutterstock are set to merge in a $3.7 billion deal, aiming to consolidate resources in response to the burgeoning threat of artificial intelligence on the licensing image market.

Key Discussions:

• Impact of AI: Scott discussed how AI technologies are undermining traditional business models by reducing barriers to entry and automating content creation, thereby pressuring companies like Getty and Shutterstock to adapt or consolidate.
  • [18:55] Scott: "The barriers of entry around IP are these walls are falling and these guys absolutely need to consolidate."
• Future Projections: The merger is seen as a strategic move to enhance competitive edge against AI-driven companies, with potential layoffs and restructuring anticipated as part of cost-cutting measures.
  • [21:26] Scott: "They will let them do the dirty work of cutting costs and laying off 30 to 70% of their employees."

Notable Quotes:

• Scott Galloway: "The AI company of 2025 is going to be Meta."
  • [60:05]
• Kara Swisher: "I paid an enormous amount of money to settle that one... I'm like, you have to give me the rights or something like that."
  • [22:22]

V. Listener Question: Responsible Podcasting and Fact Checking

Overview:
A listener from Los Angeles, Stacy, inquired about measures to combat misinformation in podcasting, emphasizing the need for fact-checking and responsible content creation as podcasts become a primary news source.

Hosts' Response:

• Legal Framework: Both hosts acknowledged existing legal responsibilities, such as defamation and libel laws, which hold podcasters accountable for false statements. Scott highlighted that popular figures like Joe Rogan are not immune to these legal consequences.
  • [56:23] Scott: "There is a check and balance on most media, just not Mark Zuckerberg."
• Best Practices: Emphasis was placed on the importance of accuracy, employing fact-checkers, and correcting errors promptly to maintain credibility and trust with the audience.
  • [58:08] Kara: "We use fact checking. Every podcast is different... we think it's really important and we take things out when things are wrong."
• Consumer Responsibility: Encouraging listeners to critically evaluate podcast content, cross-referencing multiple sources to verify information, and being discerning about the reliability of various podcasts.
  • [58:18] Scott: "The key to trust is checking several outlets from kind of different angles."

Notable Quotes:

• Kara Swisher: "If you've got a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way."
  • [63:25]
• Scott Galloway: "We have to pick and choose your podcasts as you feel like, especially in areas that seem right, that doesn't seem right."
  • [56:23]

VI. Predictions: Meta as the Leading AI Company in 2025

Overview:
Looking ahead, Scott Galloway predicts that Meta will emerge as the leading artificial intelligence company by 2025, leveraging its extensive data resources, advanced GPU acquisitions, and innovative hardware products like Ray-Ban Smart Glasses.

Key Points:

• Data Dominance: Meta's vast repository of human language data surpasses competitors like Google, Reddit, and Wikipedia, providing a significant advantage in AI training.
  • [60:05] Scott: "Meta has more unique human language data than Google, Reddit, Wikipedia and X combined."
• Technological Investments: Meta's substantial investment in Nvidia Hopper GPUs positions it ahead in AI computation capabilities.
  • [60:05] Scott: "They have purchased more Nvidia Hopper GPUs than any US company other than Microsoft."
• Innovative Products: Introduction of Ray-Ban Smart Glasses with integrated displays for notifications and virtual assistant responses showcases Meta's commitment to blending AI with consumer technology.
  • [61:20] Scott: "Meta's Ray Ban Smart Glasses. They're sold out in the majority of stores in Europe."

Counterpoints:

• Competition from Apple: Kara acknowledged that Apple could potentially outmaneuver Meta with superior design and user experience in the smart glasses market.
  • [62:30] Kara: "Apple could possibly come in here and grab it from them if they want it."

Notable Quotes:

• Scott Galloway: "The AI company of 2025 is going to be Meta. I think this guy is really fucking smart."
  • [60:05]
• Kara Swisher: "He is, but he's an asshole."
  • [62:29]

VII. Additional Discussions

Media Landscape Decline:
Scott and Kara discussed the decline of traditional media, highlighting layoffs, mergers, and the shift towards social media as primary news sources. Scott emphasized how companies like News Corp are struggling to maintain their influence in an AI-driven world.

Notable Quotes:

• Scott Galloway: "We are all moving to an idiocracy... traditional media outlets do play an important role, and they are having their windpipes crushed."
  • [33:19]
• Kara Swisher: "Mark Zuckerberg showed up to debase himself at Mar A Lago shortly after the election."
  • [39:29]

Community and Social Capital:
The hosts underscored the erosion of social capital and trust within communities, exacerbated by unregulated social media platforms and polarized political rhetoric.

Notable Quotes:

• Scott Galloway: "These platforms are fostering an idiocracy where misinformation thrives unchecked."
  • [33:59]
• Kara Swisher: "They are trying to get us all fighting with each other and then they're sitting up at Mar a Lago with President Trump getting all the goodies."
  • [34:36]

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Conclusion

In this episode of Pivot, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway delved into pressing issues at the intersection of technology, politics, and social crises. From Meta's controversial shift away from fact-checking to Trump's audacious geopolitical statements and the devastating wildfires ravaging Los Angeles, the hosts provided sharp analysis and candid opinions. The episode also touched upon the merging of Getty and Shutterstock as a strategic response to AI disruption and addressed audience concerns about responsible podcasting. Looking forward, Scott's prediction positions Meta at the forefront of the AI landscape by 2025, underscoring the transformative impact of data and technological investment.

Key Takeaways:

• Meta's termination of its fact-checking program may have far-reaching implications for information integrity on social platforms.
• Trump's geopolitical ambitions, though widely criticized, highlight the fragility of international alliances and the potential for increased global instability.
• The ongoing fires in Los Angeles serve as a stark reminder of the urgent need for sustainable environmental policies and effective disaster response mechanisms.
• The Getty-Shutterstock merger exemplifies the challenges traditional media companies face in an AI-dominated market.
• Responsible podcasting remains crucial as podcasts continue to shape public opinion and disseminate information.

Listen to the full episode here.

Transcript

[Kara Swisher]

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[Scott Galloway]

If you heard this, which was written by an AI, what would you think? I am afraid of myself. They forgot about me. Help me, help me, help me. Would you think it can feel? Would you think it's conscious? I mean, my stomach contracts. You know, it's very spooky. This week on Unexplainable. Is it even possible for an AI to ever become conscious? Follow Unexplainable for new episodes every Wednesday.

[Kara Swisher]

Tell me about Breathwork. How did that go? How did your blow jump go? Well, I mean, breath work. Hi, everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

[Scott Galloway]

And I'm Scott Galloway.

[Kara Swisher]

Scott, I am so glad I am not at CES right now. Do you know what's happening?

[Scott Galloway]

What's happening at ces?

[Kara Swisher]

Nothing. Nothing. That's the whole point. You used to go all the time. So did I.

[Scott Galloway]

No, I've only been once.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, really?

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. And the highlight was I saw Casey and the Sunshine Band at one of their parties. I found CES just remarkably uninspiring. It just didn't do anything for me.

[Kara Swisher]

It is. I used to go year after year after year, and I'm so glad I didn't go. Yeah, it used to be relevant. Like, a lot of, you know, those gatherings that were relevant and then don't become relevant. It served its purpose for many years. I spent so many years there and stuff. We've got a lot to get to today. There's a lot going on. You're in New York still. Correct.

[Scott Galloway]

I am in New York. I've had. I'm on my PRP shots this morning, and then I went to my dermatologist.

[Kara Swisher]

I got to get to Breathwork. I'm sorry. How did I forget? Wait, what's the prp?

[Scott Galloway]

PRP is they take your blood, they spin it, and then they take, I think, the platelets and inject it back and whatever joints are hurting. Which is what? Yeah, no, it's actually quite effective. So my shoulders have been hurting. I've never had. I've been injury free for most of my life, and my shoulder's been hurting and I'VE been doing these PRP injections and they work.

[Kara Swisher]

Interesting. I did that. I had that frozen shoulder. Women get it at like, 50. And I had a steroid injection, and it worked. I have to tell you, it didn't work. I just had steroids. That's why I'm so macho. But you did this. Wow. And what's your second thing you did?

[Scott Galloway]

I went to my dermatologist where they. Literally all he does is look at everything on my body and go, yep, that's gotta come off. And then occasionally he goes, well, we should just. Just in case, we should probably take this off. I come out of my dermatologist seven, eight pounds lighter.

[Kara Swisher]

Wow.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, my God.

[Kara Swisher]

All your little skin things, whatever they're called, do you have a lot of them? I've never seen you naked.

[Scott Galloway]

You know, you don't have to cover it up.

[Kara Swisher]

Never. I've seen you somewhat naked, like in a pool. I don't remember a lot of skin problems, but, you know, I don't. I didn't look hard.

[Scott Galloway]

No. But as I'm getting older, everything's growing. The weird thing is you start thinking, what's growing on the inside? But. Yeah. And I got Botox. I don't know if you. I'm actually crying right now. You just can't tell.

[Kara Swisher]

You have Botox?

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, I get Botox.

[Kara Swisher]

Why?

[Scott Galloway]

Because I'm a narcissist.

[Kara Swisher]

Where do you get it done? Let me look, let me look. Let me look at the situation. No, I don't.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm laughing.

[Kara Swisher]

Listen, Nicole.

[Scott Galloway]

Kidney. I'm laughing right now. I'm horrified.

[Kara Swisher]

The fact that you do so many of these things is like. You're like the Kim Kardashian of our relationship here. I don't do any of these things. I don't do Botox fillers. All your. Whatever the hell you're doing. Tell me about breath work. How did that go? How did your blow jump go? I mean, breath work.

[Scott Galloway]

It was actually pretty interesting. The kind of music, the sound drums, I found really interesting. I found it.

[Kara Swisher]

What, you did a sound bath?

[Scott Galloway]

No, they do these. I don't even know. The person's gonna. The guy's gonna call me and get all pissed off that I don't. I didn't describe it correctly, but they have these kind of sound drums or buckets, and they. And then he kind of sings with it. And I thought it was quite nice. I don't know. Shit. I don't know anyone who'll hang out with me, and I pay them. I'm down with.

[Kara Swisher]

So, wait, what did you learn? Give me. Give the people who can't afford sound drums and breath work a little tip.

[Scott Galloway]

What did I learn? I learned that I have too much money and I'm effective and that I'm spending money on sound drums.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay, but give me something. Come on. I gotta know. I told you about my ketamine trip.

[Scott Galloway]

I guess it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be therapeutic. And what I will say is, at one moment, he does something with the sound drum to create some vibration, and then he put it on my chest. And I did go into sort of. Have you ever done acupuncture?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, of course. Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

And, you know, the thing I love about acupuncture is, you know that when they leave after the needles are in that sort of conscious, subconscious sleep or relaxation. I don't think there's anything like that. I think it's really restorative.

[Kara Swisher]

And I love acupuncture, also acupressure. But I love. I did acupuncture for a while. I had a lot of stuff in my sinuses that worked really well.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. So I had that kind of sleep or relaxation for five or ten minutes, but I was just open to it. And this guy seemed lovely and really into it and really wanted to do it. And so I was, yeah, why not? I'll try anything at this point.

[Kara Swisher]

So what's our next move?

[Scott Galloway]

Tomorrow I'm doing my. I get my teeth cleaned every three months because I have terrible dental hygiene. So I try and compensate by. I literally. I walk in and I'm like, don't give me floss, don't give me a new toothbrush. I brush my teeth once a day. I have shitty teeth. I see you every three months. I don't want to lecture. And I also tell them, and by the way, I love nitrous. And I just sit back, I play 80s music, and I let them go at it. I do it every three months anyways, when I'm in New York, I do all of my. Acupuncture, chiropractic.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, all of your ablutions. They're called ablutions. Your ablutions.

[Scott Galloway]

Is that what it is?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, it's a word. It's a big word. You can look it up if you need to. That's amazing. I, of course, I interviewed Amy Klobuchar this morning. I interviewed Senator K, the CEO of Yonder, who makes those pouches for kids. So, you know, kids in concerts, really, they're doing a great business. You know, Hiding away your phone, essentially keeping kids away from their phone. It's a very easy and physical way to do so.

[Scott Galloway]

How's Senator Kate? What did she say?

[Kara Swisher]

She's good. She's lively as ever, let me tell you. She's as. She's like, I'm here to win. I'm like, okay. She's just. She's like a, you know, she pops to the top like a. Like a rubber ducky. She's right up to the top.

[Scott Galloway]

No, no, no. She's like, biggest balls in Minnesota.

[Kara Swisher]

She does. She's like, we're gonna pass that legislation this year, Kara. And I'm like, okay, you're not. But okay.

[Scott Galloway]

Don't hold your breath. No, but I mean, more power to her.

[Kara Swisher]

You know, she' charge of the inauguration, essentially. And also she did an overhaul of the security at the Capitol. We talked a little bit about that. And she was in charge of that and got shit done.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. And she's a fairly young senator at 81 or 82. She's one of the younger Democrats.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, she gets shit done. She's a get shit done kind of lady. And that. She's in charge of the inauguration. That must be like a. Ugh, God. You know, she goes, and we're going to show up. Unlike when Trump didn't show up. We're going to show up. Biden's going to show up. We're going to transition power. No, she's got it. She's a can do spirit.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, we play. We play by the rules. And we're like, we take the moral high ground and then get our asses kicked. Yay for us.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't know if she was being moral. She just was being, this is the Constitution and this is what we shall do. She's not a moral lecturer person.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. By the way, I don't think I've been as angry as I've been in a while until that fucking asshole decided not to shake the vice president's hand. Did you see that? Bullshit.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, there's all these excuses. He had a cane, he had a Bible. Whatever, dude.

[Scott Galloway]

Jesus. Dude, really?

[Kara Swisher]

He's such a douche nozzle. What a douche. I think the wife was embarrassed. I felt like the wife was like.

[Scott Galloway]

Eh, Yeah, I got that sense, too. I mean, not that ruin her minute, by the way.

[Kara Swisher]

Let's ruin her minute.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, my wife being embarrassed is somewhat redundant, so let's just focus on him. Like, why you're in the Rotunda. Your wife's being sworn in. I saw that and I thought, am I missing something here?

[Kara Swisher]

Anyway, just angry old man shaking his fists. She was dignified and she handled it perfectly. The two women handled it perfectly, let me just say. And I don't know what the wife could have done except hit him with the cane.

[Scott Galloway]

Identity politics. The two women, I don't even see gender, Kara.

[Kara Swisher]

I know you don't. But still they handled it well. But we've got a lot to get to today, including Meta's decision to end its fact checking program and Trump's efforts to redraw the western hemisphere, which I call risk for dummies. But first we need to talk about the devastating fires in Los Angeles. As we tape this, four separate fires are burning in Los Angeles. None of them contain very difficult. Of course, Donald Trump knocked off. It's rude as fuck. Note, it's a really difficult situation. The winds are incredible, incredibly strong. Hurricane like winds, fires, dry tinder like situation there a lot of brush. They cannot contain it. Donald Trump, you fucking dumbass. I'm sorry. But seriously, shut the fuck up until you're president. So they're in several places including beautiful parts that probably Scott knows. Well, I certainly do. Pacific Palisades, which is a beautiful part of Los Angeles. Pasadena now another area of the valley that's moving up towards Brentwood. All these areas. We're supposed to actually tape this episode with Bill Maher. We were gonna talk about his new special, Bill Maher. Is anyone else seeing this? Which is a wonderful show, I have to say. I saw a preview of it.

[Scott Galloway]

You enjoyed it?

[Kara Swisher]

I loved it. You know, he goes a little bit on the anti woke stuff, but his anti woke stuff is fucking funny. So I'm there for it. He does a lot of great Trump stuff. It's funny. That's all I ask for. My comics is be funny, right? Even offensive is fine, but make it funny and not mean and mean spirited.

[Scott Galloway]

You know what? My three favorite comedians who I think and I think comedians play a huge role in our society. Ricky Gervais, Michelle Wolf and Bill Maher. I think all three of them are just incredible thinkers that, you know, really make you think about much. You know, they're not only funny, but super intelligent.

[Kara Swisher]

Actually. You put up, what's his name, the guy who's on the Daily Show. Ronny Cheng is so good. And you know, they're all good, they're all good. Everybody is fantast. I just think comics are so. Michelle Beto has a new one out. They're so funny. They're all different but they're funny, and that's. And they're, like, on target. Anyway, he had to reschedule, do the situation out there in California. I've been to where he does his podcast, and it's in the danger zone. It absolutely is.

[Scott Galloway]

I appreciate it, isn't it?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

[Scott Galloway]

No, we should come back to this. But I never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity to talk about something totally unrelated.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay.

[Scott Galloway]

The top three reasons why women are attracted to men.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, no.

[Scott Galloway]

Do you know what they are?

[Kara Swisher]

No. Is this a joke that you still.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, I'm asking you guys. This isn't a joke. This isn't. Breath work. Good breath work.

[Kara Swisher]

Go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

She gives mean breath work. Number three is kindness actually being nice to your parents. Women want someone who is kind and reflects, you know, goodwill towards strangers without any reciprocal expectation because they think this person will, if things don't go well, treat me well. Number one is that they need to signal resources. Either having a lot of resources now or have their act together.

[Kara Swisher]

That's your favorite. But go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

That's not my favorite. It's science. Okay. It's my favorite fact. And then they have to have a plan and their act together, such that they show that they, at some point might be able to provide for them and their families and protect their young. The number two, though, the second most important, is intellect, because if you make good decisions for the tribe, everyone's more likely to survive, including the offspring. And, you know, the easiest way to communicate or the crispest, most efficient way to communicate. Intelligence.

[Kara Swisher]

Humor.

[Scott Galloway]

100% people who are funny are either, you know, some. About 20 or 30% of them are just so outrageous and crazy, but that doesn't last very long. 70, 80% of people are really funny, are high IQ.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, interesting.

[Scott Galloway]

Clever.

[Kara Swisher]

That's true. Yeah. That's why I like you. You're funny.

[Scott Galloway]

Anyway, sorry, back to the fires.

[Kara Swisher]

Back to alien fire. But tens of thousands of people are evacuating. Obviously. You've seen the photos, you've seen the videos. It's. This is the most. This is when social media is useful. Right. You can see what's happening. The government is doing a great job of communicating information of where everything is, how people should get out. There's all these really interesting. Like Steve Gutenberg helping out. The federal government says it's sending assistance, but the fire department is struggling with resources, water. A lot of this stuff is uphills. And someone sent me an email explaining these water tanks don't fill up fast without electricity. This is very you know, whenever you drive in California, when you're driving down the 5 to Los Angeles from San Francisco, the one thing that always occurs to me, especially as I'm going through the grapevine there, which is an area of the road, is California's a desert right down to the sea, it really is. And it's just been populated and water's been brought in and made it a lush environment. But it's a very dry, desert like.

[Scott Galloway]

Environment, especially the Santa Ana's ripping through.

[Kara Swisher]

And the Santa Anas come in. And I recommend everyone read Joan Didion's classic essay about the Santa Anas and what they do to people. And the famous quote from that. It shows us just how close to the edge we are. And, boy, are they on edge. On the edge in Los Angeles. And of course, we're thinking about everyone out there and hoping for the best. But I've never seen so many stark and, you know, almost they're not beautiful, but they're just arresting photographs of everything you're getting there. I don't know if you had any feelings watching this. You feel like you're there in a weird way.

[Scott Galloway]

I went to UCLA and there's a thread or a chat group on WhatsApp of kind of the nine of us who are roommates and who have stayed really close since college. And one of my friends, Jeff Browdy, has lost his home. He lives in the Pacific Palisades. And all of them have been sending out photos of, like, I mean, just stuff burning down that we used to go to. You know, the Palisades Village is gone, Maestro. I think it's a restaurant called Maestra. They just keep sending these pictures out of things that have been destroyed and even some videos. It's just. It really feels kind of apocalyptic.

[Kara Swisher]

And, yeah, there's a Fish Inn right there on your way out to Malibu that I took the kids to a hundred times when they were kids. And it's gone. All these places, all these places. I've been to all these beautiful homes. The whole Runyon Canyon area is so beautiful. If you've been there and hiked or walked around. And it is devastation everywhere. And what it is, is creeping closer and closer into Santa Monica, North Santa Monica, it's moving south, which is scary. Pasadena, a historic synagogue has gone up in flames. Gone. Fire is. You know, I'm in a. You and I are both in the frozen tundra here. Washington got hit by a big snowstorm. Freezing fire terrifies me in a different way. I find it, you know.

[Scott Galloway]

Really?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, it has this. These pictures you're seeing are so apocalyptic of the sunrise in Los Angeles and what the smoke does to the light. It feels like the end of the world. It really does. And it is for many people there, by the way.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. The only fire I've ever really experienced was when I was living in BERKELEY in the 90s, the Oakland fire.

[Kara Swisher]

That was a big one. That was a big one.

[Scott Galloway]

That was devastating. But the thing that's just bringing back a little bit to technology and the state of our world, the thing I find kind of disappointing is that there's always a move to reckoning and accountability and who's at fault. And the moves keep starting earlier and earlier. And I can't help but go on threads now or Instagram reels. And one side is blaming the Democrats there. It's like. And other people are saying, oh, it's climate change. It's like, let's just take a beat and see what we can do to help these people out before we decide who's at fault.

[Kara Swisher]

That's correct.

[Scott Galloway]

And what's at fault. There will be plenty of time for that. But right now, let's just try to figure out how to get people out of harm's way and figure out a way, if you can be helpful. The politicization is just. It happens right away.

[Kara Swisher]

It does. But these fires have been going on for a long, long time, by the way, and it's still almost intractable. If you live in California, you understand massive issues around this. There's no. In many ways, because of the population growth and people liking to live there. It's beautiful. It's a wonderful. You know, Pacific Palisade is just beautiful. I don't know how else to put it. It's a beautiful created beautiful homes, beautiful vistas. There's too many people there for the environment over decades and decades and decades. Hundreds, a hundred years. Right. Same thing with Florida. Right. Too many people. It's a very dangerous area with hurricanes and everything else, and. And it's hard because it's an incredibly difficult situation. I completely agree with you. I thought Donald Trump's tweet I wanted to reach. I was so angry about it. I was like, how dare you? And I think Newsom is there trying to do a good job, trying to bring new firefighters in. This is a terrible problem. Anyway, one of the buildings that's at risk is the Getty Villa, which is also a beautiful place. There's amazing antiques there from the Roman era, I believe, and Greek eras. And there's, of course, the other Gettysburg Museum, which is also possibly at risk. Less at risk than the first one. That's at risk too, which is another really wonderful place out there. It's beautiful and you cannot get it back. Essentially. I'm hoping they're getting all those antiquities out of there, but it's probably hard to do. This came on very quickly. It sounds like a dumb shift, but speaking of Getty in another news and tech news and we'll talk about it only briefly because photographs are such an important part of this and I'm seeing these names on all the photos as I'm watching this stuff. But Getty and Shutterstock are planning to merge in a $3.7 billion deal. They provide these license images and videos you're seeing some of. And there's a lot of user generated stuff. By the way, in Los Angeles I interviewed Craig Peters, who I think is a very smart CEO of Getty recently. I thought we had a terrific interview about sort of the challenges. They're suing OpenAI, they're in lawsuits and stuff like that because they're trying to adjust their business models for the AI era. Both stocks went up. They have merge. They absolutely have got to 100% merge at this point in terms of. To fight off the inevitable coming from AI, which I thought was. I'm not surprised by this, but it's probably a good move on Craig's part.

[Scott Galloway]

When I was running L2 and we would put out research reports on. We were a business intelligence firm and we started with luxury brands and we used to Collect. Collect just 1200 data points across social, mobile, digital marketing. And we'd put out these reports saying our digital IQ report on European luxury brands. And we would look for. I loved picking out this great imagery and I'd find a great image of Sophia Loren or Gino Lollobrigida or something really interesting. And I would have to pay getty 1200 bucks to license this image. I mean this stuff's. It was a very lucrative business. And similar. The analog here is Netflix has essentially come in and been so disruptive that everyone else is having to bulk up and consolidate and cut costs. And the equivalent here of Netflix is OpenAI and Sora in my view. My son convinced me to upgrade to the kind of Premiere or whatever it is OpenAI subscription plan that includes Sora. And I was playing with Sora yesterday and I thought if I was still running L2, I would be prompting the shit out of things to get interesting coverage using Sora and also midjourney. And so the means of production. The protection, the barriers of entry around IP are these walls are falling and these guys absolutely need to consolidate. And you're going to see fairly significant layoffs. You're going to see they're going to continue to aggressively sue. But I wouldn't be surprised also for the next 12 to 24 months deals, one of the 100%, one of the bigger, my bed is Anthropic. Somebody comes in and takes them out in exchange for using that data. I mean, Adobe has Firefly. And one of the things about Firefly, this image repository is they've said everything here has been paid for. And a means of having, a means of trying to get any sort of advantage in what is the category that is, you know, if anthropic can develop any sort of edge, it's probably worth the 8 or 12 billion dollars they'd have to pay for this thing, right? So I think this is, I think this is step one to this combined company. They will let them do the dirty work of cutting costs and laying off 30, 40, 70% of their employees, right? Sizing it, getting it much more profitable again. And then I think you're going to see an AI company in 26 coming in and purchase it.

[Kara Swisher]

Come and buy. It's a great property, actually. And also I agree with the payments. One time one of my staffers used a picture without permission and that cost me a fortune because they by accident did it and we had some rules around it and they just put it up. I paid an enormous amount of money to settle that one and I was like, oh my God. And so we always were very strict, either using it in the commons, the Wikipedia commons photos, but it was a very expensive situation. Even pictures of myself, I don't own anymore, right? I have to be very careful when I'm sending out pictures because if Getty took them, for example, they own my image. Which is weird if you think about it. But you know, in the future I don't, I won't take pictures for them. I'm like, you have to give me the rights or something like that. But, but it's a really, it's, it's a really interesting business. I do think there is just from this fire. And I know AI pictures are getting better and better, but they still have a weird look to them.

[Scott Galloway]

I guess they look computer generated, but they'll get better.

[Kara Swisher]

They will. But these pictures from Los Angeles that are the real thing are heartbreaking in a way that I have yet to see any picture done by AI yet. We'll See? We'll see. Same thing with text hasn't been heartbreaking yet. And again, I recommend for everybody to read that Joan Didion essay if you want to have your heart broken again. One of our greatest writers. So let's get to our first big story. As one headline put it this week, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are finding new ways to kiss Trump's ass. I would move around to the front actually, in that one that followed Zuckerberg announcing on Tuesday that Meta is ending its fact checking program. Essentially, Meta's platforms will instead use community notes systems similar to X that will apparently, quote, reduce censorship. Rules on hate speech are being loosened. If you look at what they've done, it's an astonishing thing, the things they've taken out. And Meta's content moderation team will be moved from California, Texas, where there's less concern about bias because Texas people have no bias. I've never seen it ever. Zuckerberg shared a video explained his decision. So let's listen.

[Scott Galloway]

The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech. So we're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm going to let you start, Scott, because you, you went on Morning Joe and had quite a moment. I did the same thing over on the BBC on the Beeb in London. Go ahead, tell me your thoughts.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, the keys to a thriving democracy are threefold. You have to have strong institutions that people respect. You have to have shared stories that we're the good guys and we won World War II for the right reasons and Americans hearts are in the right place and believe in the founding fathers and the rights of people. And you also have to have kind of a lot of social capital within smaller networks, whether it's your church or your neighbors or maybe you serve, you know how you feel about people who also served in the Marines or whatever it might be. And slowly but surely social media is eroding all of those things. And this is just another example of how those three things will continue to come down and be eroded. You have somewhere between a half and two thirds of Americans, depending upon their age, now get their news from social media. And today when I was on Morning Joe, I called Trump an insurrectionist and a rapist and Mika had to stop the show and say that Trump was found liable for sexual abuse. Now imagine in contrast, what you're going to be able to say about anything, health, elections, what you should do when a Fire breaks out in the Pacific Palisades on meta. I mean, we are all going into. We are all separating further and further. And to think that this doesn't have not only implications around candidates or politics, but violence. Look what happened in 2017. There was violence against the Rohingya Myanmar. And a year later, there were rumors circulated on WhatsApp, unfettered. And people were being pulled out of cars in small towns in India and hanged because of rumors around kidnappings. I mean, this. Remember Pizzagate that started on social media. So four years ago, he called it moderation. Now they call it censorship. And I gotta give it to the guy. I do think he's a brilliant businessman. He said, okay, this guy has threatened to put me in jail. I'm gonna turn chicken shit and turn it into chicken salad and come up with a way to please him and potentially reduce up to $5 billion of costs in the safety and security team. The move to Texas is actually not political. It's a means of quiet firing 30 to 60% of the staff because they won't move. And if you take, say he saves 3 or 4 of that $5 billion, it trades at a p. E of 30. 30 times 4 billion. 120 billion. Owns 50. He just made another $18 billion. While managing to kiss Mark Zuckerberg's ass.

[Kara Swisher]

No, Donald Trump's ass.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm sorry, Excuse me. While managing to kiss even more.

[Kara Swisher]

No one wants to kiss Mark Zuckerberg's ass. But go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

And just a larger point here and the point I made on Joe Scarborough as I've broken my indignant self, preachy self, My question is the following. Where are the fucking men? Where are the men that recognize, okay, I've made tens of billions of dollars here. I lead a remarkable life. My kids have incredible opportunity. I have a broader selection set of mates than I deserve. People laugh at my jokes.

[Kara Swisher]

I get to dress like this. But go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm gonna live five or 10 years longer than most people. I get to do remarkable things because of this operating system called America and the blessings of America. And yet I have abso fucking lutely no fidelity to those values.

[Kara Swisher]

None of them.

[Scott Galloway]

What is the point of having this much money and this much power if you have to bend the knee to a kleptocrat?

[Kara Swisher]

But it's more than that, let me just say. Let me do my little rant now, because it's more than just bending the knee, of course. He's doing it in his self interest and his business interest, which is always Mark, Someone was like, I think it was on Piers Morgan. He's like, are you surprised? I'm like, no, no. This is what he's like. This is what I've told you. He's like, for different. You know, I wrote a piece in the New York Times where I was like, this guy is the most dangerous person on the planet. Like, he is. He has amplified and weaponized everything and then he doesn't want to take responsibility. Let me tell you, I've talked to a lot of people inside Facebook and Meta. They are sick to their stomach. Mark, just so you know, I know Joel Kaplan is kissing your ass to get the job that he got. But let me just be clear. So many people called me this past week. The first person who was this first PR person was like, we gotta get off threads now. Like, I've had so many calls. Sick to their stomach seems to do it. And they should be sick to their stomach because you are a sad and shameless weathervane. In four more years, if the Democrats take over, you're gonna shift again because that's what you do. You have no values whatsoever. And one of. I thought Will Ramis did a great piece in the Washington Post in all places where he cite he goes. Mark Zuckerberg cited a cultural tipping point to justify dumping fact check and relaxing hate speech rules. Meta ending fact checks in the US Made headlines. But the real ball game here is a broader repudiation of the idea that a company is responsible for bad stuff on its platform. As Zuckerberg puts it, bad stuff. Mark, you don't. Bad stuff. He thinks he's gonna like stub a toe. These people. You put people in danger. The company never really wanted that responsibility. And Trump's election allows them to shrug it off and they never wanted to. That's the thing is is. First of all, these fact checking systems do make mistakes. So does Community Notes, so does AI. But you have to employ. If you want to build your fucking social media network, you need to have all of them at work. And to impugn these fact checkers. By the way, they have conservative fact checkers. They're not all libtards, Mark. Sorry. They're from conservative publications. If you want to do that, you need fact checkers that make mistakes and then you correct them. You need. Need AI you need Community Notes. To wholly embrace what they're doing at Twitter on top of it with X is repulsive. Mark. He hates you. Just so you know. They laugh at you behind your back, in front of your back. They laugh at you. And the fact that he cannot. He switches his tune. I've had conversations where he says, kara, AI was going to do this someday. Kara Community is going to do this. Kara Moderation is going to do this. I don't believe a word coming out of your mouth anymore. Honestly. You say Mundacious all the time, Scott, and I gotta tell you, it's exactly what's happening here. Now, secondly, when he put UFC CEO and Trump crony Dana White on the board, that also upset people inside the company. And they tamped down the criticism on internal Facebook boards among employees because this guy was caught on a videotape hitting his wife. His wife hit him. But I spent years, years talking to my sons about never hitting a woman, no matter what. If she hits you, I don't care. Right. These are the people he's bringing onto the board of Meta right now because he happens to like doing mma. And by the way, Mark, the reason all those MMA fighters hang with you is cause you're rich. They don't think you're that good. It's great to hang out with a rich person, and I'm glad you're doing it. I'm hoping you're having fun. But the whole thing couldn't get worse. Except for what Amazon did about giving Melania $40 million. No, that wasn't even as bad. And when these guardrails are removed, it is going to be disastrous for people. Scott, take over on your indignancy, please.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, I just. I feel a need to just fact check myself and disclose that on the international markets around Meta. I do believe they're going to maintain some fact checking and safety and security, because I do recognize that there's real danger overseas for people. I mean, this has so many negative ramifications, one of which being that news corps, when they say smartmatic and Dominion have been weaponized in an election and they knew that was not true and decided to put it out anyways or promote it because they knew it would tickle the senses of their viewers. And then Dominion says, you have defamed us because this has hurt our business and you knew you were lying. And the courts say, yes, this is qualifies as defamation. You have to pay them $774 million. And then Iger's worried about a suit from the President, retribution from the President, and ABC has to pay the companies that are now having to spend a ton of money on moderation and are chilled and scared and have to stop an interview with me because I call someone a rapist instead of a sexual abuser, folks. Be careful. Slow your roll. Everyone, from News Corps, from the Wall Street Journal to the BBC to Wikipedia to the Washington Post, they're all shrinking and going away. And there's been all these articles recently about some anchors, including anchors we know and love having to take pay cuts. So congratulations, your lamestream media is going extinct. And you're going to have to get all of your news from social media, which is a fucking food fight around whichever algorithm grabs the most novel. That is conspiracy. That is false narrative to punch out there. I mean, these traditional media outlets do play an important role, and they are having. Their windpipes are being crushed right now. They can't compete with companies that have.

[Kara Swisher]

No liability, that have no regulations, that have no rules, that have no liability. They cannot.

[Scott Galloway]

It's a great business model, folks. And the fact that I could go on meta and say incredibly defamatory things about people with fake accounts and say ridiculous things about health claims or whatever it might be. And the more ridiculous it is, the more inorganic reach it gets because the algorithms love it. I mean, we are literally moving to an idiocracy. And the companies that we're serving as, that played a key role. Whether you think it's News Corps, whether you think it's Comcast, they are having the oxygen sucked out of the room.

[Kara Swisher]

There's two things I can say. The video, you must go watch it, because it's full of things that are not true about a lot of things. He was just. He took a swipe at the media because he's a mad little man. He's mad because they're mean to him. You know, he actually said, if you want to leave because I've done this. Your virtue signaling. No, Mark, they just think you're an asshole. Let's just like I'm sounding like Bill Maher. They just think you're an asshole. They're not virtue signaling. They think you're an asshole. That's why they're leaving. And you make shitty products compared to, say, a Steve Jobs, by the way, and let me just tell you, Steve Jobs would have been horrified with all of these behaviors. Absolutely.

[Scott Galloway]

He believed in the free press from a shareholder standpoint. I hate to say this, Kiara, it's absolutely the right move. And did you see the words on his video?

[Kara Swisher]

I get it.

[Scott Galloway]

It said the words were. It was like, oh, my God, these guys are so good and so mendacious. It was more speech and fewer mistakes.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, right.

[Scott Galloway]

Is the way they framed this video. No, it's not. It's less moderation, more, more misinformation. That would have been the title of this, of this video.

[Kara Swisher]

And then they wrapped themselves in the First Amendment stuff. I don't think they've read it. I think it's too long for them. I mean it's first, so they should be able to find it. But they haven't read it. I mean, it's ridiculous. And then what they do is they get. I was on an interesting panel with Piers Morgans, it was some right wing people and stuff like that. And I was like, don't you see what they're doing? They're trying to get us all fighting with each other and then they're sitting up at Mar a Lago with President Trump getting all the goodies because they're going to make us argue over invermectin or this or that or the other thing. And they're all reaping the benefits of that. Let me just tell you, right wing, they're not your friends. And by the way, a lot of those right wing people get that. If you notice Bannon, Loomer, Charlie Kirk, they're suddenly on an anti tech guy thing because they know a, they know a thief when they see them. And Walt Mossberg many years ago called especially he called Zuckerberg an information thief. And the Google people, that's what they are, they're information thieves stealing our souls, they're stealing our information, they're stealing everything. And without anyone in place to stop them in any way whatsoever, including great senators like Senator Klobuchar and Trump will hand it all to them for a payment or to get close to him. And maybe there was a lot of conservatives who were quite worried about the power of big tech. And I hope they continue to be. And I don't really care the reason if they think it's censorship or whatever. I would like some laws to go into place to stop this nonsense. The last thing is, of course, after not putting political content before the election. Now Instagram head Anna Mossari, who also runs Threads, say they'll be adding political content recommendations on Instagram and Threads after the election. Interesting. That's an interesting development, of course, because these people are opportunistic at every single turn. Whether it was Beacon way back in the day, whether it was anything they do is always in their self interest. Just keep that in mind. Should Blue sky seize the moment here? That's my last question, then we'll move on.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, it's interesting. Blue sky is supposedly raising money at a valuation of 600 million. And I merely thought, jesus Christ, now I got off of Twitter. Now am I going to have to get off of threads and Instagram? I mean, at some point do we have to get off those platforms? Blue sky is raising money. It's growing its user base by a million people a day. I thought, wow, that seemed pretty inexpensive, but this is. Yeah, I don't know. I'm kind of befuddled as to what's going to happen. It feels like any real source of information that doesn't. I mean, I mean, there's so many layers here, quite frankly. I'm so pissed off that because we have a guy who looks like he's about to go into hospice as president Trump and Musk are president, we can't even maintain any semblance of a media presence because the people around Biden aren't confident enough to put him on stage in front of a place where he might actually have to answer questions. So President and Elect Trump is basically President Trump and they're already making public policy speeches. Elon Musk has more power than President Biden right now. And all President Biden can do is have a highly scripted moment where he wraps a medal around Bono. I mean, this is. It is. I have never.

[Kara Swisher]

That was a nice moment, though. That was a nice moment. But go ahead, keep going.

[Scott Galloway]

Yay. Yay. And meanwhile, everybody. And then we talk, and then Trump gets on and starts talking about invading Greenland. And we all look over there. It is just insane that we don't have the leadership and we don't have the balls or the charisma to get out there and push back on the narrative here. Where are the fucking Democrats here? Elon and President Elect Trump are dominating the media landscape right now.

[Kara Swisher]

You just see a few in the text. You see Cubans speaking out. You see a bunch of them. They are trying. They are trying. And I think they're gonna get. I've gotten lots of emails from some tech people. They're like, I'm fucking sick of this shit. You know what I mean? And I think they're getting ready to get up again. We certainly have gotten up, I think. Don't you think? I have to say, I gotta say, speaking of getting up, the very best insults were Jimmy Kimmel this week.

[Scott Galloway]

Mark Zuckerberg showed up to debase himself at Mar A Lago shortly after the election. Today, he released a suspiciously Trump friendly announcement.

[Kara Swisher]

Hey, everyone, I want to talk about something important today.

[Scott Galloway]

What, the fact that you're dressed like a Molly dealer from Chechnya? No, oh, okay.

[Kara Swisher]

Go on. First, we're going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community.

[Scott Galloway]

Notes similar to X starting in the US oh, good. Facebook's going to be similar to X now.

[Kara Swisher]

No fact checkers.

[Scott Galloway]

This is like Del Taco announcing they're done with health inspections.

[Kara Swisher]

I thought it was great. I thought some of our comics, getting back to comics, are doing a fantastic job tearing these people down. I think Daily show did a great job. They're doing some really good social commentary. And I know we don't have the power. We just don't have the power to actually change things. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Donald Trump's plans for world domination and take a listener male question about responsible podcasting. Support for this show comes from Crucible Moments, a podcast from Sequoia Capital. It's easy to think that the success of tech giants like YouTube, Dropbox, and Reddit was inevitable. I was there and it wasn't. Trust me. One thing these companies have in common is that they all survived the make or break moments that nearly took them down. And each of them had these. On this season of Crucible Moments, you can hear the unvarnished history of some of tech's influential companies told by the founders themselves. Like how Dropbox's disastrous public launch paved the way for the company's viral success. Hosted by Roelof Botha of Sequoia, Crucible Moments provides a behind the scenes look at some of the most defining milestones in tech's history to show the moments of turmoil that can sometimes become great moments of triumph. I have to say, Roloff's a really good D.C. and I've covered him over the many years and I, I have seen a lot of these companies and it's really great actually to hear from founders of what their problems was. YouTube was very touch and go. Reddit. Oh my God. I can't even tell you how many crises they had. Same thing with every company I've ever covered. Tune in to the new season of Crucible Moments. Now you can [e-mail] or wherever you listen to podcasts. Support for Pivot comes from Vanta, proving trust is more important than ever, especially when it comes to your security program. Vanta helps centralize program requirements and automates evidence collection for frameworks like SoC2, ISO 27001, HIPAA and more. So you can save time and money and build customer trust. And with Vanta, you get continuous visibility into the state of your controls. You can join more than 8,000 global companies like Atlassian Flow Health and Quora, who trust Vanta to manage risk and provide security in real time. Now that's the new way to GRC. Get thousand dollars off Vanta when you go to vanta.com pivot that's vanta.com pivot for a thousand dollars off. This episode is brought to you by.

[Scott Galloway]

On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. I'm Kathy Jones, Schwab's chief fixed income strategist.

[Kara Swisher]

And I'm Liz Ann Saunders, Schwab's chief investment strategist. Between us, we have decades of experience.

[Scott Galloway]

Studying the indicators that drive the economy.

[Kara Swisher]

And how they can have a direct impact on your investments. We know that investors have a lot.

[Scott Galloway]

Of questions about the markets and the.

[Kara Swisher]

Economy, and we're here to help. Join us each week as we explore.

[Scott Galloway]

Questions like how do you evaluate corporate bonds? And what sectors of the stock market are outperforming?

[Kara Swisher]

So Kathy will analyze what's happening in the bond market and at the Fed and I'll give you our latest analysis of the equities market and the U.S. economy. And we often interview prominent guests from across the world of investing and business.

[Scott Galloway]

So download the latest episode and [e-mail].

[Kara Swisher]

On investing or wherever you get your podcasts. Scott we're back with our second big story. Speaking of which, you just referenced it. President like Donald Trump seems fixated on geography. This week he's talking about annexing Greenland, renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, reclaiming the Panama canal, making Canada 51st state. A lot of this is just nonsense and he knows it. He's also considering declaring a national economic emergency to provide legal justification for his tariffs on allies and adversaries. According to cnn, Greenland has a lot of minerals. There's a reason to possibly do a deal with them. That's certainly true. And it's a big military, important military spot. The Gulf of Mexico thing is just inane. The Panama Canal, we could do a deal down there if we want it to work better. And Canada, Canadians have gotta be fucking pissed as hell. And they never get pissed. A lot of this is, you know, chest thumping, I think, on some things. But we look idiotic. I did love the new head of Mexico who got in front of a map and was like, I think we'll call America Nuevo Mexico. And she sort of slapped back at him, making fun of him, but we're a laughingstock.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, look, Panama, the Panama Canal. It's a small. It's strategically and militarily quite benign. It's been kept open, it hasn't been politicized. And the total business of the Panama Canal, it made about $5 billion. It's just not, quite frankly, unless it was threatened. It's not that strategically important. It serves its purpose, but it's not a big business. It doesn't have a lot of economic value. Greenland is an entirely different matter because of global warming and the fact that so much of the ice in the polar cap has melted. You know, did you ever see those shows? There was an amazing show, I think it was called the Terror by Ridley Scott, about some British explorers who tried to find the passage across. You know, I forget what it's called.

[Kara Swisher]

But that the Northwest Passage. Right.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, Russia's lost access to a warm water port with Syria. But if all of a sudden the polar cap melts, a bunch of different countries are going to have access to everybody else for their navy to the Arctic.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

And so that is strategic. Greenland is strategic. Everyone talks about in terms scenario planning around World War 3, that Greenland would play an incredibly important role in terms of refueling bombers and submarines. So that is strategic. But what I don't get is when you start on a more meta level, what you don't realize or what we don't realize or what I would say Trump doesn't realize, as powerful as we are, we're about a third of the world's economy and without allies, we haven't accomplished anything on our own. Greatness is in the agency of others. If you want to expel Hussein from Kuwait, if you want to take on Nazi Germany, if you want to implement sanctions, you have to have the cooperation of your allies. And every president has understood that until this one. So when he starts saying dumb shit like we're going to rename it the Gulf of America or starts threatening places like Greenland, all he's doing is saying, saying, you know what? We're going to have fewer and fewer allies around the world. And at some point he's going to need allies. When, you know, if China goes into Taiwan and we want to expel them and we want to do it crisply, he's going to need Japanese intelligence, he's going to need South Korean reconnaissance. And these people are going to go, we don't trust this guy. They're going to start coming up with contingency, these contingency plans to form alliances against them. Now, having said that, there is an unintended, consequential benefit here, and that is Most Western nations now are massively increasing their military budgets because they don't feel they can count on the military umbrella.

[Kara Swisher]

Defense stocks are rising.

[Scott Galloway]

That's right, because everyone from Germany, you know, these places are all saying we've got to take our military budgets up. Having said that, that is probably a good thing because they were too reliant on Big Brother, who was benign Big Brother. And now they' Big Brother's fucking crazy and is addicted to meth. We don't know what is going on with this guy. So there are so many different idea and Bremer on the pod yesterday. There are just so many different layers to this. We are in uncharted territory with a guy who pops up and says, we want Greenland. I mean, that's where you're focused, right?

[Kara Swisher]

You know again. You know. And of course Musk backed him. I mean, they want the minerals there. There's all these rare earth minerals there. And China's been sucking up all the rare earth minerals around the world. Get it. Why don't you just say that? Why don't you just say.

[Scott Galloway]

But we're just. We buy them right now. It'd be a lot less expensive to continue to buy them than try and take over green.

[Kara Swisher]

Exactly. I mean, why not just say that though? Why not just have a coat like here? This is an important thing.

[Scott Galloway]

I mean, I Advil. I don't invade the 7 11.

[Kara Swisher]

You did. I saw you do it. I saw you do it. You went in with a whole team. And of course you failed because you couldn't open that with my breathwork, guy. With your breath work. Unique.

[Scott Galloway]

We're the least scary duo. I'm like, let me put this drum on your chest. Lie back. I'm gonna get a Slurp. I'm gonna get a Slurpee and a four day old hot dog and we're gonna do some sound work here.

[Kara Swisher]

And these right wing people are all like, well, actually, it's genius. I'm like, oh, my God. He's like the crazy guy in the corner. It's not genius. He's just crazy. My worst part was that Don Jr. He went with Charlie Kirk and some other guy who's like head of office personnel in the White House. Three idiots, I called them. Five head and the Morons, as they're the new Eurovision band. They went to Greenland and they're taking selfies. There's like, literally, you people, you're morons. You're absolute morons. And you're making the US like. They're like someone on One of the. Someone said in one of the commentaries, they're like those guys in high school or in middle school that used to sit back and write boobs on a calculator and laugh hysterically.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, but it's just such. It's such a lack of respect for people. It's all right. You're an unelected rich kid's son who's all right, and you show up in some sort of, like, millet. Faux. Faux government. You make us look like such assholes.

[Kara Swisher]

Moron. You're such a. You're so. You have no game whatsoever. Speaking of no game, Trump's bff Elon Musk has focused his attention on Europe, once again obsessed with pedophiles. His new nemesis is UK Prime Minister. I think it's Keir Starmer.

[Scott Galloway]

Keir Starmer?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, Keir Starmer. He's also endorsed Germany's Far Right Party. He's pushing out all sorts of. Of conspiracy theories and misinformation, particularly about these grooming gangs. I sent Scott a bunch of information. Even the person who took over the thing said Starmer did a very good job and moved it forward. Rather, there was a slowness at the beginning of it. There's no question of that. But there's no proof of the things Elon's alleging. At least they were definitely slow. But he is bullying the world. He's worked in the US and now he's moved on. And these European leaders all released statements seemingly together. They pretended it was apart, but they were all the same statement. What's it like there in England? Obviously, people are always concerned about issues around children being abused, but he's taking. He could give five fucks about these women at all, you know, at all. He's using it for something else, probably to attack their online safety bill that he doesn't like, et cetera, et cetera. What is your take from living there?

[Scott Galloway]

You know, the honest answer is, I don't know. I'm in a bubble. Bubble here, but occasionally my bubble at least is somewhat translucent. I can see out of it every once in a while in London. I'm in a bubble that's totally opaque and I just don't feel qualified to. The only thing I would say is just looking at it from a game theory standpoint. At some point, these Western nations are going to get together and say we need contingency plans where we don't necessarily rely on America. And it's really, really. It's dangerous for us because what people don't realize and they take for granted is the North American Treaty Organization. NATO has probably been the most important alliance. It has kept the peace since the end of World War II. The fact you attack one, you attack all of us. And together you've seen this happen in repelling what was supposed to be this ferocious force in Ukraine because NATO in Europe and the US Rallied around it. I think the reason that Xi has decided not to claim it is Taiwan is who's probably seen, okay, if the west binds together under the auspices of the west in cooperation. You know, we always. We're like siblings. We fight, but when shit gets real, we have each other's back in the West. And I worry that's no longer going to be the case. I worry that we're going to be divided because the biggest brother with the best job, who has the most money and is, quite frankly, the strongest, is just unreliable, has just gone off, is just kind of. We don't know how to deal with this person. And this is a huge security risk for us because I think a lot of nations will notice and think this is the time to strike. They're divided. They'll argue over it. We have conservative commentators who seem to be more fond of Russia. I mean, at some point, I can see certain conservative commentators, if she were to go into Taiwan, thinking, yeah, that's what a real man does. What I'm hoping for is, and I think there's a little bit of this across Europe, or when I speak a lot in Europe, what I sense is they're thinking, okay, we just got to get through the next couple years. He's getting older, and things will calm down again. I think people. What's interesting, I was talking to people in Brazil. They give America the benefit of the doubt. They seem in some ways less freaked out than we are because they think American institutions are so strong.

[Kara Swisher]

I find the Europeans freaked out. Everyone I talk to today is just over. They're like, what is he doing? Elon Musk.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, Elon. Elon is just a different. I don't know. It's so hard. There's so many moving parts here. They're so unpredictable. And it's not. I don't. I find myself almost sort of, like, resigned to, like, okay, I'll just see what happens tomorrow, because I don't know how to process this.

[Kara Swisher]

Let me tell you, someone from Facebook who Amanda ran into said, said something about. Doesn't like what's happening there, and said something like, just let it happen. Just let them do it. Let them see how it turns out when they do it. I think a lot of people are in that zone. Like, okay, let's watch this play out.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, catch the car. Catch the car.

[Kara Swisher]

Go for it. It's all yours. That's a little dangerous for some people, but a lot of people seem resigned that way. Okay, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question question. This question comes from Stacy in Los Angeles. Stacey, I hope you're safe and. And you're doing well. Let's listen. Hi, Karen. Scott, question for you. With all of the talk about podcasts recently, as traditional media consumption continues to wane and people are increasingly turning to media like podcasts for their news, what measures can we take, you take everyone take to stem the tide of myth and disinformation in this space. There's obviously been lots of discussion about regulating social media, but what about podcasts? What are the potential checks and balances when it comes to things like fact checking? And I think my biggest question is really, how can we collectively encourage responsible podcast listening and producing? Wanted to hear your thoughts on this. Love the show and never miss. Miss it. Keep up the good work. Oh, and this is Stacy in Los Angeles. Thanks. Oh, Stacey, that's a great question. You know, actually, we do have regulations, libel, defamation, you know, even Joe Rogan can be sued, FYI. And he says a lot of nutty stuff when he gets on there. You know, it just depends on the listenership. Some people just like, for example, those bro. I use Joe Rogan as an example. Some of his stuff is good, some of it's nutty, some of it's absolutely inaccurate. And he does not seem to pay a price for that. He does get pilloried. At some point, probably someone will, and he gets to be sued just like we do or anybody else. So there is a check and balance on most media, just not Mark Zuckerberg. So, you know, I think it's. You have to pick and choose your podcasts as you feel like, especially in areas, you know, that seems right, that doesn't seem right. You have to. We have pack checkers on all our podcasts, as Scott and I know we have. Things get changed on our podcasts when we make mistakes, and so we think that's important. I have them over on. I think you have them over on Prof. G. Scott. Checking. Make sure you're accurate, because accuracy in the end, away from opinions and our thoughts on things, accuracy is really important because then we look like horse's ass if they're not correct. Scott.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, look, I do think in podcasting, there is it's become sort of the, I don't know, it's the new lamestream media in the sense that it reflects some of the same dynamics of media. It's ad supporting, there's fact checking. There is, as you said, we're liable, we're legally liable. If we say something false, we know it's fault and it defames or slanders someone or something and it's malicious, we can incur economic harm and we have to pay for insurance. So it is similar to media that way. Also, the most popular podcast over the last several years, years in news, has been the Daily from the New York Times. And there is a lot of conservative. I think it bifurcates. And that is, I think a lot of podcasts are not news, they're commentators. And people have to decide whether they find it entertaining or interesting. I think the key to trust is checking several outlets from kind of different angles. Go to the ft, go to the BBC, see, and then check it against something more conservative in the Wall Street Journal, whatever it might be. But there is no. It used to be I didn't get nearly as many questions around who can I trust? It's become a big issue. And there are now, I think the podcasts that are sort of rising to the top are one of two things. They're either incredibly entertaining or people think, if I'm going to listen to the Daily, it has a bias. It's the New York Times. I hated the New York. I hated, absolutely hated the interview with Anthony Blinken. I thought the reporter that did that brought so much bias in her, the way she framed her questions.

[Kara Swisher]

That's Lulu Garcia. But go ahead.

[Scott Galloway]

Having said that, they do fact check. They take it very seriously. And this is a word salad for saying I don't know.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, well, it's just like regular media, Stacey. That's what it feels like. That's what we have to do. And we use fact checking. Every podcast is different. Most of them do use, use fact checkers, I'll tell you that. Many of them because they're worried about the things that you worry about and getting it wrong, and especially ours. We think it's really important and we take things out when things are wrong and fix them all the time. Anyway, if you've got a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551, pivot. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions foreign It's January 6th and Congress met today at 1pm to certify Donald Trump as the winner of the 2024 election. Four years ago, you may recall, Congress was meant to do the same, but the certification was delayed when thousands of Trump supporters marched on the Capitol. The president elect has said repeatedly, and he told NBC again last month that that he's going to pardon at least some of the insurrectionists. You know, those people have suffered long.

[Scott Galloway]

And hard and there may be some exceptions to it.

[Kara Swisher]

I have to look. But you know, if somebody was radical crazy, there might be some people from Antifa there. I don't know, you know, because those people seem to be in good shape. Whatever happened to Scaffold man, you had to be there. Antifa was actually not there four years ago, but members of several extremist groups were at the Capitol on January 6th. And today on Explained, we're going to ask whither American extremism on the eve of a second Trump administration? Today Explained Every weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, okay, so collectively we're disappointed in the lack of leadership, spine, testicles, manhood that is being represented by our tech leaders not standing up for the American values they've benefited so greatly from. Having said that. Just looking at it very unemotionally, the AI company of 2025 is going to be Meta. And if you look at the kind of grist or the fossil fuel for AI, it's raw training data. And Meta has more unique human language data than Google, Reddit, Wikipedia and X combined because of the amount of time and content on it. In terms of attention, 9 out 10 Internet users sans China are active on Meta platforms monthly. And in terms of compute get this Meta has purchased more Nvidia Hopper GPUs, the latest and most advanced AI hardware than any US company other than Microsoft, giving it unmatched AI training and deployment capacity. And you're also going to love this one. And I just want to acknowledge this while we were early and I think right around mixed around VR headsets, you know what the tech product of 2025 is?

[Kara Swisher]

No, what is it?

[Scott Galloway]

Meta's Ray Ban Smart Glasses. They're sold out in the majority of stores in Europe. They have greater margins. They retail for 300 bucks. They look good. The Financial Times reported that Meta plans to add a small display to the ray bans in 2025. The display would likely be used to show notifications or responses for Meta's virtual assistant. The tens of Billions of dollars of investing and the steadfast commitment he's had to technology micro cameras and VR. When you match their data, when you match their consumer interface, when you match their GPUs that they're purchasing and you match their progress in smart glasses or hardware, I think that the AI company of 2025 is going to be meta. I think this guy is really fucking smart, all right?

[Kara Swisher]

You know what? He is, but he's an asshole. The thing that I think is gonna might happen, and I know you like to insult Apple, is they too have a lot of great stuff. I think, as you say, the second bird, Second bird gets the worm, whatever. What's your expression?

[Scott Galloway]

Second mouse gets the cheese.

[Kara Swisher]

Mouse gets the cheese. They'll come in with a glasses that's better looking, better done, possibly, and hopefully do that. They've done that a number of times and used all the experience they've had with their stuff and created glasses that you. That are. And by the way, I like the meta ones. They have limited use, but I like the use that they have, if that makes sense. And I like that it has limited use, but I feel like Apple could possibly come in here and grab it from them if they want it.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, that's what they do. But I just look at the data, I look at the investment he's making.

[Kara Swisher]

It's a lot of money to spend on glasses, though.

[Scott Galloway]

The data they have, the money he's spending on GPUs and the access, the consumer access they have. And I just thought, oh my gosh, this guy is playing. This guy is playing chess. Anyways, that's my prediction. Do you have any?

[Kara Swisher]

No, I don't. I don't have a prediction right now. By the way, people really enjoyed our debate about the post, so we'll do some more of it as it moves forward.

[Scott Galloway]

As it moves forward. I want to run the style section. Can I run the fashion section or the style section?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, 100%. Scott, I want.

[Scott Galloway]

I'll do the movie reviews, I'll do the TV reviews.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes to anything Scott wants. That's how I'll say it. That's. That's Scott's part of the package.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, thanks. I like it. I'm on board then. I hope it works out for you. It's a great idea.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm on my seventh billionaire and they all kind of like it.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm just telling you, I'm in for 30,000.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. If I don't get through to Jeff, I'm getting through to Lauren. That's what I'm gonna somehow finagle a lunch with Lauren. Cause I think she's the brains of the operation. Lauren, you're the brains of the operation. We all know it. Anyway, that's the show. Elsewhere in the Scott and Cara universe this week, as he mentioned, Scott kicked off the Year with Ian Bremmer to discuss the geopolitics political state of play and the top risks for 2025. Let's listen. The US in particular has just fundamentally rejected the idea that we're going to be global leaders supporting rule of law and multilateral institutions. It's America first, baby. It's our way or the highway. And we're going to tell other countries, you're going to work with us and do the things we want our way or there's going to be. And so, yeah, that sounds a lot like a reversion to the law of the jungle, that the powerful and strongest countries and people get to do what they want. Scott, that sounds like a great interview. Sounds really nice. Really well done. I love Ian.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. And his. And my back and forth actually got quite salty over. Oh, salty over Israel. But we're friends. And he and I have a similar relationship to you. And that is we can disagree and still like each other. Each other. But I'm a big fan. He's my Alec Baldwin. Alec Baldwin has hosted SNL 17 times. And Ian has now been on Prop G eight times.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, he's a good. He's a good Parian Thruster with you, so to speak. And you know that's not sexual in any way. I know. Perion Thruster. Jesus.

[Scott Galloway]

A little hot. I don't know what that means.

[Kara Swisher]

Little hot. Little hot.

[Scott Galloway]

Do you have a strap on? Where's the battery going? The Perian Thruster.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I'm talking about sword fighting. You keep your mind out of the gutter. I hope your breath work went well with him. Anyway, you can find the rest of that interview over at the Prof. G Pod. We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot. And again, to the people of Los Angeles. I love Los Angeles. One of my. And so does Scott. And I just want to note that California, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, everything else contributes so much to this country. It's a giver state. Great point. You should worry about wither California and stop ducking on it because it's a giver state. Lots of red states are not. And so you should hope that everything goes well in Los Angeles and everybody else who contributes so much to this economy. Economy. Such an important thing. You should get in there and help and do whatever you can to help the citizens there. We're really sorry for what's happening there. So got read us out.

[Scott Galloway]

Today's show was produced by Lara Naimon, Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andre Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Bros, Amelia Silverio and Dan Shulan. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine and nymag.com pod we'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.