Tech Stock Troubles, Epstein Fallout, and SF Mayor Daniel Lurie

Summary

Pivot Podcast Summary Episode: Tech Stock Troubles, Epstein Fallout, and SF Mayor Daniel Lurie (November 17, 2025) Hosts: Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway Special Guest: San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie

Episode Overview

Broadcast live from San Francisco’s Sidney Goldstein Theater, this episode delivers a sharp, candid discussion of critical tech, political, and business stories, diving into:

• The state of San Francisco (housing, crime, AI, and tech resurgence) with Mayor Daniel Lurie
• The sharp downturn in tech/AI stock markets
• The Epstein files fallout and political repercussions
• Recent US immigration guidance
• San Francisco’s unique culture and future prospects
  Plus, a lively audience Q&A segment, featuring both humor and pointed policy analysis.

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Key Discussion Points

1. San Francisco’s Recovery & Future with Mayor Daniel Lurie

Housing and Affordability Crisis (02:14 – 09:04)

• Kara Swisher launches with the city’s surging rents and housing crisis, pressing Lurie on criticisms of his density proposals.

• Lurie explains "family zoning" and increased density along transit and commercial corridors:

  “Parts of our city have not been rezoned for 50 years. We need to build more housing ... We want to be a city that does it our way—and not the Sacramento way.” (03:15)

• Swisher notes big tech’s role in the affordability crunch and their exodus/return cycles.

• Lurie: Public safety, behavioral health, and the demand for civic engagement from tech companies are the city’s current priorities. He outlines new business partnerships and asks tech firms for deeper involvement in public goods:

  “My demand is that you as a company be engaged in our public schools, be engaged in our arts and culture, which they were not.” (07:07)

Tech Relations, Crime, and Business Climate (04:17 – 09:04)

• The city is seeing improved crime stats (“down 30% year-over-year”) and commercial rebirth (big retailers returning, Blackstone investing).
• Lurie emphasizes leveraging San Francisco’s unique assets:

  “We are indeed a city on the rise, where the home of AI ... It’s all happening in San Francisco.” (05:19)

Tech Industry’s Social Contract (09:04 – 11:19)

• Lurie calls for tech companies to reinvest locally: supporting transit, arts, and schools, not just reaping benefits:

  “No one’s coming to save San Francisco except for San Franciscans.” (08:12)

• Lurie’s ‘ask’ of tech:

  • Be in the office, support local businesses, and fund public transit.

  “When you come back to work, be in the office five days a week ... go shop at the local businesses.” (10:58)

Federal Politics & Trump’s Threats (12:04 – 14:47)

• Swisher asks about Lurie’s interaction with President Trump (who threatened to send troops), and the dynamic with tech billionaires involved.

  “I just stay focused on what I can control ... I can control public safety in San Francisco.” (13:55)

AVs and Innovation Balance (14:47 – 16:49)

• Discusses Waymo/Cruise and the expansion of AVs, balancing tech innovation with climate and safety:

  “I always want us to be on the leading edge ... I think Waymo is incredibly safe ... I don’t think it’s an either-or between AVs and transit.” (15:50)

What’s Most Challenging? (16:49 – 17:52)

• Lurie shares frustrations with the slow “pace of change,” but notes a recent rapid government push to restore food stamps after shutdown:

  “Seven days from start to the time we put in the mail ... We got it done in seven days.” (17:47)

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2. Tech Stock Troubles & AI Valuation Bubble

Post-Shutdown Stock Drop (21:03 – 24:34)

• Swisher and Galloway break down plummeting tech/AI stocks after government shutdown. Nvidia, Alphabet, Meta, and more were hit.
• Galloway on S&P concentration:

  “10 companies now represent 40% of the S&P by market value ... If these companies sneeze, the whole world is probably catching pneumonia.” (22:00)

AI Bubble, Echoes of Dot-com (24:34 – 28:27)

• Related-party deals between Nvidia, OpenAI, Oracle, and others evoke late-90s-style bubble behavior.

• Galloway: Enormous company commitments (e.g., $1.2 trillion spend by OpenAI) may be “marketing ... trying to scare away competitors.” (27:05)

• Swisher: Today's infrastructure/build-out costs make it different from the dot-com era; still, consolidation looms:

  “At some point it’s going to be good for maybe one, possibly two players ... everyone else ... is going to be shit out of luck.” (28:27)

Is the Bubble Burst Inevitable? (29:20 – 32:43)

• Galloway: Predicts Chinese dumping of cheap LLMs, eroding margins; historical analogy to airlines, vaccines, PCs—innovations that changed society, but didn’t make lasting corporate profits:

  “No technology that’s changed my life more [than] planes ... But as of today ... the airline industry is at breakeven.” (30:29)

  “I believe China right now is planning to dump massive AI LLMs at a fraction of the cost ... It’s going to take these companies down and really fuck with our economy.” (31:06)

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3. Epstein Fallout & Political Repercussions

The Latest Files and Effects (32:43 – 46:13)

• Massive dump of Epstein-related files shows deeper Trump association.

• Swisher: “The release of the documents ... is such an online phenomenon, it’s crazy ... it’s problematic for the president.” (36:13, 38:03)

• Galloway:

  “I hope Ghislaine Maxwell dies in prison but I don’t really care ... we’ve bastardized ... a very important process of our justice system ... clemency and pardons.” (33:55)

• Both hosts reflect on the coin-operated, corrupted justice process and contrast with petty virtue signaling.

Redline, Visuals, and Endgame (41:31 – 45:14)

• Swisher believes the Epstein story may finally undo Trump, especially if photos or further evidence emerges.

  “If there’s a photo ... like what happened to Andrew, I think it’s game over.” (42:35)

• J.D. Vance (VP) may be next up; hosts jokingly discuss couch-related innuendo about him.

• Galloway highlights the risk that the administration will selectively release or “soft release” only damaging info to opponents.

Media, Distraction, and Accountability (46:13 – 48:03)

• Swisher critiques Megyn Kelly’s appalling comments in the context of the Epstein fallout—calls for moral lines in media, while Galloway laments overreaction and distraction.

  “I think we need less career ending stuff when people fuck up ... we have to have a little [grace] if we’re going to have 24/7 media.” (46:13)

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4. Immigration Policy and Nativist Creep

New Visa Restrictions (49:25 – 55:19)

• Secretary of State Rubio’s new guidance: denies visas to those with chronic health issues, seniors, or dependents with disabilities.

• Galloway:

  “70% of America is either overweight or obese ... That seems very strange to me [to exclude on obesity].” (50:24)

• Swisher: “The real obesity problem is here in this country. They don’t want to address that.” (51:13)

• Galloway describes the cycle where progressive overreach (e.g., lax border policies) provokes authoritarian overreaction; both agree the new regulations are cruel and performative.

---

5. San Francisco’s Unique Appeal and Tech Culture

City Love/Hate, Social Commentary (55:19 – 56:38)

• Galloway reminisces about past life in SF—bluntly calls out tech industry hypocrisy:

  “Never met a more rapacious bunch of douchebags who would fuck their sister for a nickel. But we’re saving the whales.” (56:01)

• Swisher’s defense:

  “I love San Francisco ... had the best day ... I love San Francisco in the rain.” (56:38)

---

Audience Q&A Highlights

Former Flames & AI Workforce Fears (59:05 – 66:06)

• Surprise reunion with Scott’s elementary school crush, Debbie Brubaker, brings humor and nostalgia.

• Tech journalist Casey Newton raises a key AI question:

  “You did not seem to take into account the possibility that one or more of these companies creates a pretty effective digital worker ... If that happens, how might it change your analysis?” (62:18)

• Galloway’s analysis: Massive labor force impact required to justify current AI valuations—predicts either economic chaos or stock collapse:

  “The only way ... is a 12.5% destruction in the labor force ... which is chaos. So we’re either going to have unemployment chaos ... or the companies get cut in half.” (64:22)

Legal Weed’s Perennial Problem (66:24 – 71:47)

• Audience member Joyce (cannabis entrepreneur) asks why banking/advertising barriers persist despite popular support.
• Swisher: “It’s ridiculous ... 80/20 issues where Congress does the very opposite ... alcohol lobby just has more power.” (68:41)
• Galloway: Advocates youthful experimentation—“I love being high. I’m a better version of myself ... But guardrails matter for young people.” (70:28)

---

Notable Quotes

• Mayor Lurie:
  • “No one’s coming to save San Francisco except for San Franciscans.” (08:12)
• Scott Galloway:
  • “There’s been more wealth created in a 7-mile radius of SFO ... than all of Europe in the last 20 years.” (23:57)
  • “I believe China ... is planning to dump massive AI LLMs at a fraction of the cost ... It’s going to take these companies down and really fuck with our economy.” (31:06)
• Kara Swisher:
  • “[The Epstein doc release] is such an online phenomenon ... It feels like the late stage of Trump ...” (38:03)
  • “At some point ... everyone else is going to be shit out of luck in this scenario. It’s not going to be lots of companies.” (29:20)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:14] – Mayor Lurie on San Francisco’s housing crisis
• [04:50] – Lurie: Falling crime, business climate, tech’s role
• [09:54] – Tech industry’s asks, civic engagement
• [12:04] – Federal intervention and Trump
• [14:47] – AVs, safety and innovation
• [21:03] – Stock crash analysis, AI dependence
• [29:20] – Bubble warnings, China/AI threats
• [33:55] – Epstein fallout and political corruption
• [41:31] – Will Epstein files end the Trump presidency?
• [49:25] – Rubio’s immigration/health policy
• [59:05] – Debbie Brubaker reunion
• [62:18] – Casey Newton’s AI jobs question
• [66:24] – Cannabis business, law, and social change

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Tone & Style

The episode is dynamic, candid, at times profane, with Swisher’s signature bulldog interviewing and Scott’s biting analysis. Both challenge, joke, and warn, blending the personal and the global, political and economic, with a bias for facts and irreverence.

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For those who missed the episode:
Expect a rapid-fire, unfiltered conversation—covering SF’s challenges and prospects, Wall Street’s AI addiction, the tectonic shift of Epstein revelations, immigration policy’s cruelty, and the joys/irritations of tech culture. All with audience laughs and participation woven through.

Transcript

[Odoo Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one, fully integrated.

[Scott Galloway]

Platform that makes your work easier.

[Odoo Announcer]

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[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

If.

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You'Re overextended and understaffed, Upwork Business plus helps you bring in top quality freelancers fast. You can get instant access to the top 1% of talent on Upwork in marketing, design, AI and more, ready to jump in and take work off your plate. Upwork Business plus sources, vets and shortlists, proven experts. So you can stop doing it all and delegate with confidence. Right now, when you spend $1,000 on Upwork plus, you get $500 in credit. Go to Upwork.comsave now and claim the offer before December 31, 2020, 25. Again, that's Upwork.comsave scale smarter. With top talent and $500 in credit, terms and conditions apply.

[Scott Galloway]

She thinks this is her town.

[Casey Newton]

Hello, ladies.

[Kara Swisher]

No, it's it' for you, Scott. Scott, it's hello men for you. Get the city right. Hi, everyone. Live from the Sidney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, the best city on earth, this. Oh, I just got a. A loud environment notification from Apple. All right, I'm Kara Swisher.

[Scott Galloway]

And I'm Scott Galloway.

[Kara Swisher]

Before we start, I want to send a big thank you to our sponsors, Odoo and upwork. Please again give a round of applause for tonight's special guest, Mayor Daniel Lurie. So the mayor has a short time here, but we've got a couple of questions. So let's start off with an easy topic. The housing affordability crisis here in San Francisco. The city has an estimated 830,000 people living on about 7 square miles. San Francisco residential rents have risen the most in the nation over the past year, with apartment prices in the city jumping about 6% in that time. Average rent for a San Francisco apartment is $3,315 a month, which makes it the second highest in the country behind New York City's 3,360. 3,360. You proposed taller buildings and denser zoning. Critics have Responded by calling you a gentrifier and Republican. Talk about which one of those criticisms offends you more? Probably today with Epstein, probably Republican. Anyway, talk about the.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

So we have a state mandate imposed on all 58 counties in the state of California. We've responded by putting forth what we call our family zoning plan density along our commercial corridors and making sure that we allow the next generation of San Franciscans to have an opportunity to stay and live here. And it's on the high Reese sourced neighborhoods, the north and west side of town, parts of our city have not been rezoned for 50 years. We need to build more housing. We need to build it along transit corridors and along commercial corridors. And that's what we're focused on. And we've made a lot of amendments and we're working with our Board of Supervisors, which is our City Council here in San Francisco. And we're almost at the finish line on it. And we want to be a city that does it our way and not the Sacramento way. And so this family zoning is going to help us increase density in our city in the coming years.

[Kara Swisher]

All right, One of the signs. So one of the signs of San Francisco's hospitality recovery. Blackstone is nearing $130 million deal to acquire the Four Seasons Hotel. City hotel Occupancy has rebounded 70%, up from below 50% in 2021. However, there's discounts going on. Talk a little bit about what's happening commercially for the city, which got attacked by Fo can boo. But talk a little bit about it. Feels as if to me, I'm seeing a lot more business generation. I'm seeing a lot more return.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

This city is on the rise. There's just no question about it. All the crime data is going in the right direction. We're down 30% year over year in terms of crime. We're down 40% in Union Square. In our downtown area, our local law enforcement is doing incredible work. We're using drones as a first responder. We're using license plate readers. When you commit a crime in San Francisco now, you're getting caught. And I think public safety has to be our number one priority. It has been from day one. And I think the small business community, our restaurants, our bars, they're seeing that. And I think big business. You had John Gray of Blackstone running along the wharf, Fisherman's Wharf, two weeks ago saying, buy San Francisco real estate. I mean, if that isn't a good sign, retail space. We got Nintendo, we got Zara, we got uniqlo that left four years ago is reinvesting at 4th and Mission. These major retailers. They're coming back to San Francisco because they know what we all know here in San Francisco and that we are indeed a city on the rise, where the home of AI. It's all happening in San Francisco. It's not happening in Silicon Valley, it's happening in San Francisco.

[Kara Swisher]

But let me ask you, because a lot of the blame for the affordability crisis is going to the tech industry, which you wanted to come back now.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

But that. You're bringing that up. But that's what we said five, six years ago. That's correct. Right. Okay. So that's like a narrative. And if we don't build more housing, it will get that way again.

[Kara Swisher]

Absolutely. But a lot of these companies, of course, famously left and kicked San Francisco on the way out. And I actually ran into one of the people that did that in a beautiful bakery here. And I said, and I walked up to him, I said, get the fuck out of here. Like, we can't have our bread. Like, they're back and they're. And AI, of course, has led that. And companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. How do you entice companies? And also we have other companies like ELF and many others who have stuck with San Francisco. So yay, there's the ELF people. We don't want to give up too much to these people.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

No, we want them to be invested in San Francisco. So I say public safety. We have to get our behavioral health crisis under control, which we're working on every single day. And then third, I want everybody to know that San Francisco is open for business. We're stripping away red tape, we're cutting bureaucracy. But then my demand is that you as a company be engaged in our public schools, be engaged in our arts and culture, which they were not.

[Kara Swisher]

Which they were not.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

They. There was a lot left lacking, as you and I talked about for years. And I worked hard on it when I was running Tipping Point. And you'd see some good people, but I'm seeing more. We started something, Scott. We started something called the Partnership for San Francisco, modeled after what New York City did in the 1970s when New York was really hit hard. We now have 35 business leaders that are home based here or live here in San Francisco, recommitting or committing to our city and helping not only revive.

[Kara Swisher]

Us, they'll be part of San Francisco. Because mostly they seem like takers to me the last day.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

And I'm. I'm only interacting with those that will make sure that they commit once again to funding Muni. We have to make sure public transit is top notch in San Francisco, that our arts and culture institutions are supported, that our public schools are supported. We started something, Manny who's backstage, he and I started something called the Civic Joy Fund a few years ago where we're doing trash pickups across this city. This city. No one's coming to save San Francisco except for San Franciscans. And I want those companies to engaged. I want them involved and they will be and we're demanding that of them. But we also need to entice people back because I want that revenue here. I want our public schools getting more of those tax dollars. And so I think it is a give and take and they need to give more than they did in the 2010s.

[Scott Galloway]

Scott well, just on an interpersonal basis, I've always been struck by, and I want to be clear, this is pure pandering the But I've always been struck by all of these people who, for lack of a better term, shitpost San Francisco. These tech brothers, these people have more options than anywhere in the world, anyone in the world, and yet they all decide to stay in this hellscape. When you interact with these folks, what's the vibe? Are they constantly saying, what is the ask to you? As they threaten to leave every day and don't wouldn't they meet with you and say, it's awful here and I could go anywhere in the world, but I'm going to stay? What does the conversation. How does the conversation.

[Upwork Announcer]

But go ahead.

[Kara Swisher]

Mark, we'll get to him.

[Scott Galloway]

That's not fair. Mark is far from the worst.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

So just to be clear. Yeah, and for your listeners out there that don't know me, I'm 10 months into this job. I had never been in politics before. I ran because I saw our city going in the wrong direction and I couldn't sit on the sidelines and just, you know, complain. I wanted to get into the action. And so it's been a different conversation over the last year and a half. We got caught flat footed by the fentanyl crisis. We did not protect families and kids going and taking muni to school. There's people smoking fentanyl and we were just like, that's okay. So I saw some of our challenges up close and personal, walking my kids to school. And so the conversation I've had over the past year with these people is, I'm fixing it. I want you here, but you better help me fix it too. And so I haven't heard, what does that mean?

[Scott Galloway]

How do they help you fix it? What's the ask?

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

The ask is, when you come back to work, be in the office five days a week. Don't necessarily just have your kitchens and your cafeterias inside. Go shop at the local businesses. Get out. Fund public transit because your employees take.

[Kara Swisher]

Transit here rather than special buses.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

Yeah, that's right. So my ask is, it's that conversation that you're talking about. It was four or five years. And what we all know the answer to this is when San Francisco is at its best. This is the greatest city in the world. It's the most beautiful city in the world. It's got the most innovative ecosystem in the world. We got Stanford, we got cal, we got UCSF right here. We got OpenAI. We got anthropic. We got a new company that called Cursor. I mean, we have. Kara knows. You guys know this, like. And every city that you've stopped in six straight, they would die to have one of those companies in their city. We have them all, and they better get involved in our community. And that's my ask of them.

[Kara Swisher]

So just a couple more questions. Last month, you talked President Trump out of sending a surge of federal troops here to Hellscape. Trump says he backed off because you, quote, asked very nicely. What is wrong with him? A lot of big tech guys reached out to him on your behalf, which I think is fine, but horrible that this is the way it goes. It's like it's an oligarchy. If that's the case of the rich guys have to do this. Jensen Wong and Sam Altman, very different strategy than Gavin Newsom's. But talk about that like, what is. Is. Does it still hang over your head? Does it like, could he still threaten you if he decides?

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

Well, let me just tell you what. What I said to him that this is the greatest city in the world.

[Scott Galloway]

When our.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

When we are at our best, our local law enforcement is crushing it when it comes to driving crime down. We are the innovative ecosystem of the world. I think what happens in places like D.C. is they have this old narrative of San Francisco, just like the conversation with some of these tech people that were leaving. But you walk through. I walked through the Ferry Building today, and every place is leased out in that building. It's got amazing food. You walk through north beach, it's packed right now. I mean, every neighborhood in San Francisco, the Sunset is doing incredibly well. And so we just have to. My conversation with him was telling him what is actually happening here in San Francisco.

[Kara Swisher]

God, you have to suck up to that guy. I mean, honestly, I couldn't be mayor. I'm so glad I didn't run. I just have to be like you.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

There was just, it was just facts is what I said. And it was straight facts.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Do you expect. What will you do if they decide to do. He decides he needs to get out of, say, the Epstein situation and decides to distract people.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

So this is a question. You and I have talked about this. I am the mayor of San Francisco and it's first off, I love my job. Second off, this city is so incredibly important and special that I just stay focused on what I can control. I cannot control what's going on in dc. I can't control what's going on in Sacramento. People ask me questions about different things happening around this country. I'm like, I can control public safety in San Francisco. I can work hard to tackle this fentanyl crisis and we can make life easier for our small business owners. We can build more housing, we can fund public transit. I can't. I'm, I'm only 10 months into this job. The idea that I could control anything outside of San Francisco, and you know, you can't necessarily control what's going on in your own city. So I just relentlessly stay focused on what I can control.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, God save you for that one. So I have one last question, and Scott might. But San Francisco is a major a hub for autonomous vehicles with companies like Waymo and Cruise operating driverless taxi services. I've been riding them for years. Crucially not Cruise cruises out. Sorry, that's right. They had some issues, but Waymo just announced it's going to start offering driverless rides to freeways here in San Francisco as well as Phoenix and Los Angeles. I've been driving in Waymos for years. Actually, I'm a fan. I know not everybody is, but Uber is in a robo taxi testing phase here and plans to roll out of service late next year. Two thirds of San Franciscans now support autonomous vehicles, but critic says say they're entrenching car dependent infrastructure. Safety concerns, obviously. Recent a Waymo struck and killed a beloved San Francisco Cat named KitKat in the mission District. So talk about this idea of balancing innovation with the city's first transit policy and climate goals. Because, I mean, I know Gavin Newsom had to deal with the Google founders trying to put a chairlift in San Francisco up the hills.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

I remember that. Listen, I think we're going to always be on the leading edge here in San Francisco. I always want us to be on it. I think we put guardrails in place. We make sure safety is forefront. This is state regulations, as you know. And I think Waymo is incredibly safe, and they're doing really great work. And I don't think that means that you can't go all in on transit, and you can't go all in on making sure that people that are walking and biking and driving all feel safe. Like, I don't think it's an either or. Waymo is. Has been. It's incredibly popular for our tourists, and as you said, like, two thirds or more of the city now understands that it's safer than you or I getting behind a wheel.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I just had a biker get in front of the Waymo, and all the humans drove around it like a crazy person. But the Waymo was behind it for hours. And I. At first I was like, you asshole. And I'm like, san Francisco, it's fine. It's fine. Last question for you.

[Scott Galloway]

What. What isn't working? What do you think is presenting a bigger challenge than you hadn't. Than you'd anticipated?

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

Scott? I think the pace of change just. Just it. I'm constantly frustrated. I'm constantly wanting us to go faster. But I. I will close with this because, you know, one thing that I'm really proud of is that we did as a city is that with this government shutdown, we were able to get and cover the 112,000 San Franciscans that were going to go missing from their food stamps. And we moved heaven and earth. And from the time we said go, and we put 9 million in, and Crankstart foundation put $9 million in, and we had a press conference on the City hall steps, and we said, we got you, San Franciscans.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

Seven days from start to the time we put in the mail, access to gift cards for people, we got it done in seven days.

[Casey Newton]

It was.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

It reminded me that when government is at its best and when it wants to work, it can. But too often, it takes so long. And the people deserve faster bureau, you know, faster government. And that's what we're trying to do every day here in San Francisco.

[Kara Swisher]

All right. All right. Mayor Lurie, thank you so much. Well, let me get back to work.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

Good to see you, Kara. Always.

[Kara Swisher]

Let's have another round of applause for Mayor Lurie.

[Scott Galloway]

All right.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. We need to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll get to some of the latest headlines.

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[Scott Galloway]

Before you know it, you find yourself.

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[Kara Swisher]

Support.

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[Kara Swisher]

Scott, we're back. See how that worked? Incredible. That was an interlude there. We're taping this on Thursday when stocks are having their worst day in A month taking a massive dive in the wake of the record six week government shutdown. The S&P fell around 1.6%. The Dow dropped 800 points, the NASDAQ about 2.3%. Tech and AI stocks got hammered. Something you and I have been talking about this past past seven days in our togetherness week. Nvidia, Broadcom, Alphabet all slid on valuation. Meta Disney crashed on disappointing earnings. Markets also soured and a chance of December Fed rate cut dropping. So talk about this AI people have been sort of talking about it incessantly. Michael Burry, famous short seller has been talking about it a lot. So is it because the AI earnings don't support valuations or is it a healthy reset?

[Scott Galloway]

Yes. Okay, so look, America could best be described right now as just a giant bet on AI. It's hard to imagine a period maybe back when with the railroads where our economy has been this dependent on a small number of companies. You have 10 companies that now represent 40% of the S and P by market value, which represents 20% of global value. If these companies sneeze, the whole world is probably catching pneumonia. And if you look at the multiples historically, the Shiller index which looks at the PE ratios on an inflation adjusted basis, it is higher than it's been since they've been tracking it for 99% of the time and it's in the top 1% right now periods in terms of an index, the Buffett index, which measures market cap as a percentage of GDP, typically trades around 85%. It's trading at 220%. So and I want to be clear, when quote unquote, people like myself are convinced something's about to crash, that means it's usually about to skyrocket. And then I throw the towel in and then it crashes.

[Kara Swisher]

So I'm having Tesla with Scott.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm having PTSD because I was here from, I went to, I graduated from the Haas School of Business. I lived in San Francisco from 1992 to 2000, started two companies, Profit and Red Envelope. And I remember in 1997 thinking, Everyone, the Economist, everyone, Wall Street Journal, all the smartest people, Julian Robertson, all these incredibly smart investors said the dot com, they perfectly called how the dot com bubble would unwind. First it would be B2C then it would be B2B and then it would go to the infrastructure guys, the plays. Everyone was like, well it's not B2C, go to B2B and then go to Cisco. And Cisco and Amazon lost 90% of their value from 1999 to 2001 but the people who called it in 1997 the NASDAQ doubled from that point. But what you have is so frightening because quite frankly the string that might get pulled by some of the companies that are headquartered here, I mean I'd like to give the mayor some talking points. In the last 5 years as much as people shitpost California, there's been more wealth created in a 7 mile radius of SFO International Airport than in all of Europe in the last 20 years. I mean it's, it's striking how much value has been created here. But the string that might get pulled here is just so extraordinary. And I think it goes something like this. A large company announces that they're scaling back their investments in LLM.

[Kara Swisher]

A large non tech company, PepsiCo or.

[Scott Galloway]

Toyota says look on their earnings call we made this enormous investment and site licenses from you know, OpenAI or Dropic and it's just not showing any ROI or it's not showing the RI we had anticipated. We're scaling back and it's not OpenAI that could take in my opinion the market down. It's OpenAI which is the front, the helm of the bobsled and then the company that could take the global economy down right now is one that is worth more than the entire German stock market and that is Nvidia and that is this company is worth $5 trillion. Take, take every company publicly listed company in Germany and half the company's publicly listed in France. That's what Nvidia is worth. And so there is no soft landing. And if Nvidia got caught by 60 to 80, got cut by 60 to 80% it still might not look cheap. And if you lose $2 trillion in market cap from the S and P, there's just nowhere to hide.

[Kara Swisher]

Right? Because the other companies are the ones that are suffering from this was a magnificent seven or ten is that they didn't get affected by tariffs, they didn't get affected by all kinds of things.

[Scott Galloway]

But the president. So this is the dark side of the run up here and that is I believe that AI has this. Without these 10 companies the market, the S and P would be flat, possibly down and we'd already be in a recession and GDP would be negative. And quite frankly, and you never know where externalities are going to come from. I don't think the president would have cloud cover to be sending mass secret service or secret police into cities if the market was down 2% because of the idolatry of the dollar and our obsession with wealth and IMM innovators in this country. As long as the markets are up, most damaging metrics in history are the S and P and the Nasdaq because they give the illusion of prosperity. They are not the mainstream economy. And also when the markets are up 16% and as of this morning, 14%, it gives cloud cover for the administration to kind of do whatever they want because everyone's like, well, as long as the market's up, they must be doing something right and I'll forgive them. So what you're going to see, I believe, is a series of nonsensical crony autocratic financings where they back debt to buy more chips and create these circular deals.

[Kara Swisher]

Government, because we've been talking about the. Scott and I lived through the first Internet part, which was this. There's a company called Purchase Pro and it was like that was one of them. But there was all this round tripping where the same $5 would go from. AOL would invest and then they would spend on AOL and et cetera.

[Scott Galloway]

Nvidia invests 300 billion, wasn't it? No. Well, right now, 100 billion. Right now, Nvidia invests billions of dollars in OpenAI in exchange for them buying Nvidia chips. That's a related party transaction. There were a ton of them going on in the late 90s. We were all buying each other's crappy software. And then when we realized that consumers weren't showing up at the level we'd anticipated for the great world of E commerce, the whole thing, the downward spiral, I mean, these deals just feel very late stage 90s. It is different this time because these are real companies with real earning earnings growth. But when you're OpenAI committing to $1.2 trillion in spend on 12 billion in revenues. And by the way, I'd love to see the actual legal language behind these commitments to buy 300 billion in compute from Oracle because there's no way they're not going to have an out. I think a lot of this is marketing, I think saying, I need 40 nuclear power plants and I'm going to buy 300 billion in compute is saying, jesus, you should see the size of my dick. You haven't seen it. But just wait. I am so confident in my business that I'm going to commit to a $300 billion deal. I bet this deal, similar to a tariff deal, is a quote unquote framework. And it's marketing saying, I know more than you. And these huge deals they're trying to scare away Competitors.

[Kara Swisher]

So one of the things when you have these kind of deals, it does create this froth. And even as you said, these are companies with actual customers. Certainly OpenAI has many others, but it creates this. It so reminds you of the dot com thing. Except in the dot com time period to start a company was inexpensive and there were lots of them, right? It was relatively inexpensive to start something up and gin it up comparatively. Right now you need data centers, you need energy, you need water. The amount of money spent on real things that they're spending on or committing to. They just announced something in Wisconsin and Louisiana. Meta did, et cetera. Now Meta has plenty of cash. Cause they make a lot of money through advertising right now. At some point it's going to be good for maybe one, possibly two players. And everyone else I assume is going to be shit out of luck in this scenario. It's not going to be lots of companies.

[Scott Galloway]

So I have a different view on this. And that is because the majority of the people running these companies are under the age of 45. They don't remember airlines, vaccines or PCs. And that is I think the greatest innovation in history other than the American middle class is vaccines. So it saves millions of people's lives every year. And, and by the way, if you don't believe that, your head is so, so far up your ass, I can't save you. But I would imagine almost everybody here believes that. But we have come to believe that any huge tectonic innovation from technology can be sequestered by a small number of companies who create IP moats, create distribution modes, brand moats, such that they can accrete trillions of dollars in value or hundreds of billions to shareholders. There is no technology that's changed my life more than the ability to get in a plane and skirt the surface of the atmosphere at 8, 10 the speed of sound. That is just such an unbelievable unlock. It took my parents seven days crawling across the Atlantic and six months salary to get to America. People to get to San Francisco 150 years ago used to have to stop and eat their nephews and nieces on the way. I mean the. But guess what? As of today, as of today, if you added up all the profits and losses of the airline manufacturing industry and airlines, it's at break even. Vaccines. No one's made a lot of money from vaccines. Moderna stock is down 90%. I was on the board of Gateway Computer, which I realize is almost as weak a flex as you saying. I've been taking Waymos forever.

[Kara Swisher]

Smell you last night Look Waymos as we were driving in.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

Check that shit out.

[Kara Swisher]

Check it out.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh my God. So I could masturbate in the back and no one would care anyway, that was even awkward for me.

[Kara Swisher]

Did you do that today? Is that what you did today when you were away from me?

[Scott Galloway]

Don't rag on my hobbies, okay? Anyway, so vaccines, PCs, we put a supercomputer on everyone's desk that cost $30 million is 15 years prior to the entire PC industry has been a shit show. What I was saying with Gateway Computer we were the second largest computer manufacturer in the world. We sold the company for $700 million which is what Google loses or makes in about three minutes in a trading day. My thesis is the following that the ability to reverse engineer other LLMs because of AI. And the second factor, the CCP is so sick of this idiot fucking with them that they have said the easiest way to go for the jugular in America is to do in the 80s what they did with steel when they started dumping steel in America. I believe China right now is planning to dump massive AI LLMs at a fraction of the cost, a fraction of the energy consumption. It's going to take these companies down and really fuck with our economy. That's what I would do if I were Xi. So one I think we're going to be the winners here just as we were the winners from airlines, PCs and vaccines and the Internet. But I don't think a small number of companies are going to be able to sequester the kind of value we are anticipating. So instead of sum I think we're going to win as a society. But the markets I think are about to get an absolute shit kicking as the string gets pulled by on these small number of companies which we have become way too dependent upon. Because if I'm in China I'm like I really would like to fuck with this guy. I am going to dump so many cheap LLMs and AI into the ecosystem that these guys won't be able to support have any sort of pricing power.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, very. I agree with you on this. It's a really problematic. You start to see see it including just this today they used AI to do a hack for the first time, a fully AI powered hack which was there's all kinds of things the CCP can do to hurt us. And meanwhile they spent a lot of time kissing up to Trump in order to get things, you know, doing the Jeremy argument that we talked about. But let's move on to the latest Epstein news. The lawyer that got Ghislaine Maxwell transferred to a minimum security prison has egg on his face today and much more. In a Twitter spat with George Conway, Deputy AG Todd Blanche seemed to admit that Wednesday's Epstein document dump undermined the interview he had with Maxwell. Pre transfer and interview is doing a lot of work in that sentence right there. The transfer looked even worse after Wednesday's document dump showed that Trump and Epstein were tighter than people thought. Scott, do you think she'll have to go back to the old prison? Let's I'd say a hole down at the bottom of the ocean would work for me but thoughts he did he admitted he didn't know the things although the Justice Department has all these has 10 times more documents so what I.

[Scott Galloway]

Don'T like about Democrats is that and I consider myself a proud progressive but I think oftentimes we get caught grasping for a virtue pen or pin as opposed to really focusing on what impacts the material and psychological well being of more American. I hope Ghislaine Maxwell dies in prison but I don't really care. I think the more important thing that impacts people is we have bastardized, perverted and ruined a very important process of our justice system which is clemency and pardons. And there are really talented people who are. There are people because of things like three strikes, because of incompetent representation, because of mental illness. There are a lot of people who are imprisoned and then there's great work done to uncover DNA testing that finds out that they're in fact innocent of the crimes or that they're spending life in prison because they stole a car antenna out of a Kmart. And this whole process is an incredibly important process and it has been totally perverted by this notion that essentially in America we've monetized health care. In Europe, healthcare is about trying to keep people healthy. Here it's about trying to figure out a way to make the pharmaceutical and the obesity industrial complex profitable. We have monetized healthcare in this country. It's the best place in the world to be sick. If you're in the top 10%, it's one of the worst places to be in the bottom 90. We pay double per capita for healthcare to be more anxious, depressed, obese and die sooner. And now who would have thunk it? We're monetizing the pardon and clemency process.

[Kara Swisher]

Well this is, this is not a surprise. This is a coin operated process.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, that's my point.

[Kara Swisher]

You know, I agree. I mean it's one of the problems that we have here Though, is that is the relentless lying. And obviously you at the time when Epstein first. When Elon first tweeted the Epstein thing, remember, you were like, oh. And I said, oh. Cause I saw that.

[Scott Galloway]

I get the sense I was wrong and you were right. I don't know where this is going.

[Kara Swisher]

That is correct.

[Scott Galloway]

Whenever we revisit history, it ends with.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

And I was right.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I was.

[Scott Galloway]

You liked the new biography from Kara Swishman. No, no, no, I was right.

[Kara Swisher]

But the thing is, I was right, so. But he did. He sloughed it off. And you said it's not. I said, this Epstein thing is going to blow up like a Roman fucking candle.

[Scott Galloway]

I said it wasn't.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, you did. But he threatened Elon when he threatened to ruin Trump. He put a tweet out when he was on his way out of Doge, when Doge. You know, he saw the files is what I thought, and he made veiled threats. But then he took it down when he realized he went too far. But when he put that up, I went, oh, Elon, I know what you're up to. Because he knew. And so it's become this phenomenon. I think it's a problem for Trump. It looks like much of the House and the Senate are gonna let this thing go through this release the Epstein files. It looks like it right now. So let me finish. The release of the documents right now, though, is such an online phenomena, it's crazy. It already was with the QAnon gang, but now everyone's participating in it at this point. So talk about what's happening here, because just what's been released now is crazy and problematic for the president, obviously. And I think he hasn't had an eruption all day. You haven't. J.D. vance is gone. I don't know where he went. He usually gets on and gets all mad about things and, you know, sits on a couch, et cetera. And he has not been. I have to. I don't think he fucked a couch, everyone. I think. I. I don't. I don't think he fucked a couch. But the fact of the matter is, I think he could. See, that's. That's what I feel about him, right? I'm like, yeah, sure, he'd fuck a couch, right? But I don't think he necessarily did. I don't care at San Francisco.

[Scott Galloway]

I'm glad we cleared that up.

[Kara Swisher]

You know what? It's San Francisco.

[Scott Galloway]

It's a great alternative media.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. All right. What do you imagine the repercussions? Because if there is. If this starts to really slide and it has that feeling of slide, especially. Cause it's. Now we don't have to believe everything Jeffrey Epstein, that heinous monster, said, but it has the feel of something sort of late stage Trump, for some reason to me. And I think a lot like you saw Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, who pretends he's like Foghorn Leghorn, but he said he's like, well, I think I should. I'm going to vote for this thing and I don't care if I get a sombrero. Which is. I thought at first, oh, he's so racist. But then I realized Trump put a sombrero on Hakeem Jeffries had. So anyway, my point being, what do you think the couch fucking Epstein files. What do you think? What do you think is happening here?

[Scott Galloway]

Do you think we're going to reheat your soup for you? You're fine.

[Kara Swisher]

What do you think is going to. I feel like a QAnon person, but do you. What do you think is going to happen here? And strategically it out for us?

[Scott Galloway]

So the reality is, and you've pointed this out, I think I'm better than your average bear at predicting business outcomes. I'm worse than your average person. I would have thought that we crossed about 8. I would have thought launching a meme coin the Friday before your inauguration where people could billions of dollars into essentially a Swiss banking account that you then monetize. There's been so many red. The orgy of corruption here has been so extraordinary. Taking a plane from a gulf. I always thought, oh, this is it. This is the red line. And so I don't know if this is the red line. The thing I can't figure out, though, or so supposedly every morning on his calendar, he has, quote, unquote, executive time where he just watches Fox News and hangs out, right? And what I imagine is he meets with his decorator for the East Wing, and then he meets with his comms consultant talking about the Epstein files. And I think it goes something like this decorator comes in mood board. And, like, I want it to look like the best whorehouse in Iraq. I think that's. And two, he says to his comms person around Epstein, I just want to look so fucking guilty. Just I want to look like I want everything I do, my body language, everything I say, I just want to convince people I'm guilty. Because there's been a lot of people who've gone to the island and they've come out and they've said, huge error in judgment. I shouldn't have been down there. I shouldn't have cohorted with this guy. It was really stupid. And people have forgiven Trump for so much more than that. For him to be this panicked. It just looks and smells and feels like there's something really ugly here. And typically with a crime, it's not the crime itself that you get in trouble for, it's the COVID up. Right. Martha Stewart wouldn't have gone to prison if she said, yeah, I traded on insider information, I didn't know what I was doing. I'm really sorry. It was her lying and trying to cover up Americans, actually, although I don't think they'd forgive him for this. But in general, Americans like to forgive. What they hate is people who won't come clean. So I don't. And his body language is so extraordinary. I wonder if this is the event, the kind of singularity or the apex kind of predator and that is, people start fleeing from him. But I have seen it in the.

[Kara Swisher]

Polling numbers, including, especially with Republicans actually, the Republican numbers are down and then all of a sudden all his defenders are now trashing him, which is interesting to watch.

[Scott Galloway]

But who is that? I mean, other than Mason.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't. Cat turd, et cetera. Those people, they are, they're starting to really. The thing they're most mad about is him insulting American workers over Chinese workers.

[Scott Galloway]

It's just so I, I mean, they're.

[Kara Swisher]

Not mad about pedophiles, they're mad about American workers. Whatever. They're mad people.

[Scott Galloway]

I'll put it back to you because I have been just so wrong on this for so long. What I thought, I think, I do.

[Kara Swisher]

Think this is it because I do.

[Scott Galloway]

Believe when you say it. What happens.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I think more will be. I think he can, he can. It may not get. I think if it pass, it's going to pass the House. I have a feeling it might pass the Senate because you don't want to be on record as trying to quash this kind of stuff. He'll get to his desk. He's gonna have to veto it, right? He's gonna veto it. If he vetoes, might not get out, but it will then get out.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, but it. Okay, first off, I think more stuff.

[Kara Swisher]

To me what has to happen these emails and by the way, I spent all day reading them. These emails are problematic enough. There's a photo and Epstein has referred to it. There's a video. There is definitely a photo of him in some fashion and that will get out and then it'll cause as you said, visual stuff is what people respond to. People are very upset about the East Wing because visually it's repulsive to look at. And so if there's a photo, I think, you know, the pussy grabbing thing was voice, which was problematic enough. But there's a photo like what happened to Andrew, I think it's game over. And then we have President fucking J.

[Scott Galloway]

But it forced to speculate. If forced to speculate. The thing that I think I would guess happens when you have a sycophant, unusual gentleman running your FBI that is claiming the files have any. That the files have been released to the extent that is legally possible, which is a lie. And you have your own personal attorney running the doj. I just wouldn't put him past them to do what I would call a soft release. And that is they release stuff and claim it's a full release and it just says the names of all these Democrats. But quite frankly, I just. Why would we think it's not above them to do that to engage in the corruption of bastardizing, lying and altering the it here when they have implanted or embedded up and down the supply chain a group of corrupt people.

[Kara Swisher]

You know, I'm a big believer, as people know when I covered Silicon Valley and the leak. And I think there's gonna be people leaking this stuff and it's gonna be drip, drip, drip. And this is something I think, you know, it would be super ironic that this guy gets taken down by emails.

[Scott Galloway]

You love that.

[Kara Swisher]

Hillary Clinton must be like, you know, they were on her. It was a big joke on the Internet. The thing that was on her server was, was she was trying to help a young girl get out of Afghanistan. Was what got leaked for her and for him it's, you know, all this.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, I would put. I would say this is worse.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, we'll see what happens. I think this. I just, I don't know. I feel like we're gonna have President J.D. vance by the end of 2026. I get it.

[Scott Galloway]

But he is the president. You think this ends his presidency prematurely.

[Debbie Brubaker]

Yes.

[Kara Swisher]

He'll be sick. He'll be that bad about. Yeah, I do. I think he's not going to make it to the end.

[Scott Galloway]

Be careful what you wish for. I think J.D. vance is. I agree.

[Kara Swisher]

Hello. I just called him a couch fucker to San Francisco.

[Scott Galloway]

J.D. vance or alleged couch fucker is all of the calories with none of the great taste of stupidity that doesn't get things done. This guy is. You want Peter Thiel to be President. Because that's who's going to be president.

[Kara Swisher]

Yep. And by the way, who is also in the Epstein emails? FYI, a lot of people are in there. He was just. They're just joshing off.

[Scott Galloway]

Gotta be honest, I love the stuff about Larry Summers getting dating advice.

[Kara Swisher]

Larry. Larry Summers. To me, the worst thing today was Megyn Kelly sort of parsing age. Age.

[Scott Galloway]

It's not as bad as we thought because it's 15 year olds, not 5 year olds.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, 10 year olds.

[Scott Galloway]

10 year olds.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. 5 year olds are worse for her, I guess. I don't. The whole thing was demented. Like. Like it was demented. I listened to the whole thing because I was trying. I'm like, oh, she can't have said that. And I'm like, she said that and more. Like it was really. To me. And in a different age, that would have been career ending. And it's not. She'll just rage her way through it with her fan base.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, well, I don't. I like the fact. I think we need less career ending stuff when people fuck up, because if we're going to have 24 by 7 media, I think you have to have a little. Why does anyone want to run for anything if they. Have you noticed in this guy, the mayor, he's unique because he doesn't want to. I generally believe he doesn't want to do anything after this because he wouldn't come on my podcast. I can get anyone on my podcast right now because they're all running for president. And he said no, which means he has no desire to move on beyond being.

[Kara Swisher]

Maybe he doesn't like you because he's coming on mine.

[Scott Galloway]

Actually, he already went on yours. And you know our deal in this relationship, when you bring in a third person, I @ least get to watch. Anyways, where were we?

[Kara Swisher]

So profoundly uninterested by you.

[Scott Galloway]

What I was saying, essentially, unfortunately, the reason politicians are so boring and so starched is they're worried about saying something. Indelegan. I'm not talking about Megyn Kelly. And I think the Democrats, quite frankly, need to be more forgiving and have fewer purity tests and be more focused on the program.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, I agree. You know, I agree with it, but I don't agree. I don't agree. When you say, hey, it's a 15 year old. We can all understand that.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, but you hate Megyn Kelly and she hates you.

[Kara Swisher]

No, no, no. That is not my. No, of course not. I advise her to go into podcasting. A thing I regret to this very day.

[Scott Galloway]

She's very good.

[Kara Swisher]

I get it. But this, you have to. I'm sorry. There's certain things. You're right. You shouldn't be careful about saying.

[Scott Galloway]

It's a giant fucking distraction.

[Kara Swisher]

No, it's not. It's a heinous thing to say.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay, but why are we spending.

[Kara Swisher]

I just think it was particularly heinous on a heinous day of things.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, she's a fucking podcaster. What we say is not that relevant. The emails and what's going on with him are the news.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, absolutely. I agree. I still think she's heinous. Anyway. All right, we need to take another quick break. And we come back, we'll get to. To some more little more news and then listener questions. So get ready.

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[Kara Swisher]

Scott, we're back. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has directed visa officers to deny entry to people with chronic health conditions like obesity, diabetes and cancer, citing potential health care costs.

[Scott Galloway]

They fit right in.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I know, exactly. The guidance also flags retirement age and having dependents with disabilities as a reason for denial. The White House claims it's just enforcing an old policy, not letting in people who'd be a drain on taxpayers. But immigration lawyers say it's a massive expansion of who can be turned away. About 16% of adults worldwide are obese, probably Largely here. What does this sound like? It's not give me your tired, you're poor kind of attitude. What historical government does this remind you of, Scott?

[Scott Galloway]

Look, I don't think anyone has. This is a tough one because, I mean, it's sort of the one thing we share in America, except in wealthy cities where you all go to Equinox.

[Odoo Announcer]

By the way, I went to the.

[Scott Galloway]

Equinox in my hotel today. The hottest men.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay.

[Scott Galloway]

My God.

[Kara Swisher]

Did you hook up?

[Scott Galloway]

Wow. Yeah. And a bag of a Wemo.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

Now, so 70% of America is either overweight or obese. That's the one thing we share. 70% of Americans aren't anything except we're obese and overweight. So that seems very strange to me that we wouldn't say, oh, you're uniquely American if you're obese. But at the same time, I do think that. And it can go up and down if you're an outstanding roofer and you don't have a criminal record. We need roofers. We need people to take care of our elderly. We need people to keep our prices. I'm a big fan of going up and down the supply chain in terms of who we let in, but I do think there should be criteria around who will or who won't be a drain on the system. I just don't know if it's.

[Kara Swisher]

Why now? Because they're taking snap and this is all about cruelty, just cruelty to various people. And again, the real obesity problem is here in this country. They don't want to address that.

[Scott Galloway]

But on a meta level, this is what happened when progressives wouldn't enforce the border, Fascists will. We stuck our chin out. We let a quarter of a million people come across the border in one month under Biden by going asylum. That's all they had to do. And so the general cadence and rhythm of politics in america the last 10 years is the following. We are well intentioned progressives. We do really fucking stupid things. We let a transgender woman show up at an NC2Ameet and compete, Right? And I'm not suggesting that a transgender athlete in junior high school leave it up to the school if it gives her confidence, fantastic. But when we let transgender athletes compete for medals and money and we all just ignore it, fine. When we let a quarter of a million people come in, and then what happens? We have this severe reaction of fascism from the right where they start pulling the names off of people who have served honorably. And we decide, in a little nod to the gay community's contribution to the military that we're going to name a secondary frigate after Harvey Milk, and they decide to take the fucking name off. I mean, that's just. That is just so. Or weird. They're now kicking all transgender service people out of the service who have served honorably, which is not only mean and cruel, but it makes us less safe. But let's be clear, folks. We stick our chin out, in my view, and I know that's not popular among this audience, but when we go fucking insane and do things that are well intentioned, but we built an infrastructure and an apparatus where people like me can pay themselves well and have no accountability or measurable outcomes, then sweep in this ridiculous fascist argument that we should cut funding to universities under the auspices of antisemitism. We take good intentions way too far, focused on virtue, not on actual, on the ground material or economic or psychological well being. And they overcorrect with what feels like fucking 1933 Germany.

[Kara Swisher]

But see, Scott, that's the thing you're saying. I might agree with you on some of that, but it's the level of cruelty and how far they go. Agreed. The left can be censorious and then the right bans books. It's a very different level of.

[Scott Galloway]

We're saying the same thing.

[Kara Swisher]

But when you have something like this, what should be the criteria? Who comes in? People who are useful that we need here in this country who kick people out, not people who are hardworking, paying their taxes, et cetera.

[Scott Galloway]

You know how I feel about this stuff. I don't. I think it's. We need people to. Look, the reality is this. People say immigration is the secret sauce of America. Okay? I don't know what that means. The most profitable part of immigration is illegal immigration because these people pay. So they call them undocumented workers. They have all sorts of documents. They have taxpayers because we want to collect Social Security payments for them. They have phone contracts, they have driver's licenses, they have insurance contracts, they have cable bills. We paper them up all over the place so we can collect money. Right? And we've been turning a blind eye to this for 40 years because the reality is they come in, they don't tax our services, they commit less crimes, they go to the emergency room less, and they pay Social Security taxes. And generally they return home before they collect Social Security. They're the most profitable, flexible workforce in history. Having said that. Having said that, you do need borders, you do need some sort of system for evaluating. And I personally believe that being born on planet Earth does Not give you a birthright to live in America. Otherwise we're going to have a billion people on our shores. So there needs to be criteria. Some of it needs to be based on true political asylum and where we can help people. But I do believe at the end of the day, we should let in people that are most accretive to our economy and our society. I think there should be a criteria, and I think we should say no to a lot of people.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, well, I still think this is cruel. I just think it's just. He's. They're just doing it for. For performative. Performative ways. Okay, last question. Then we're going to get to audience questions. Now. Do you see why I'm so positive about San Francisco? Why? I love it. He always gives me a hard time.

[Scott Galloway]

But I love it. I lived here for 10 years. I was married. We were doing things like going sailing and going biking in Mount Tam. And I thought, another 10 years of this and I was in tech. I'm going to go into the garage, turn the car on and leave the door down. There's nowhere to get a hook. Get a cocktail after 10pm here, everyone. Everyone wants to go to Sonoma and go wine tail.

[Kara Swisher]

Fuck.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, my God. Oh, and the technology industry. We're saving the planet. I have never bet a more rapacious bunch of douchebags who would fuck their sister for a nickel. But we're saving the whales. We're saving humanity. So fucking unattractive. Oh, my God. Come to New York. Hello. Hello. They drink. They love to make money. Anyways, so true story. I said to my wife, I said, we decided to get divorced. And I said, I want the dog. You can have all of our friends. I'm never coming back.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I love San Francisco. I literally had the best day. I walked around Noe Valley and I walked. It was pouring rain, but it was lovely. I love San Francisco in the rain. I had oysters. And by the way, my son Louis is moving back here, so I'm very excited. He was born and raised here, so. Thanks, Scott, for that terrific ad for San Francisco. We'll take one more quick break. We'll be back for some audience questions. We're very excited.

[Odoo Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough and you don't need to make it harder. With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

[Scott Galloway]

Before you know it, you find yourself.

[Odoo Announcer]

Drowning in software and processes. Instead of focusing on what Matters growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all in one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce, HR and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you try Odoo for [e-mail] that's O-O-O.com.

[Kara Swisher]

Scott. We're back recording live from San Francisco here in the city by the bay and my favorite place on earth. We're ready to take some questions to the audience and we love hearing from you. We might not get to everyone tonight. We're going to try. We've been trying in every city. We're getting Biggie long lines. That said, keep questions short so we can get to as many people as possible. But let's just look. I have a special person starting. Let's show this clipping photo here. You might want to look at it. Okay. This is a picture of Scott Galloway as a kid doing Taekwondo.

[Scott Galloway]

Where did you get this exactly?

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

Seriously?

[Scott Galloway]

Didn't hear.

[Kara Swisher]

So let's bring the lights up, please, so I can see where people are.

[Scott Galloway]

This is in.

[Kara Swisher]

So. Hi.

[Debbie Brubaker]

Hi.

[Kara Swisher]

What's your name?

[Debbie Brubaker]

Debbie Brubaker.

[Scott Galloway]

Jesus Christ. Really?

[Debbie Brubaker]

Hi, Scott.

[Kara Swisher]

This is apparently. Or Scott thinks so. His fourth grade girlfriend, I'm thinking.

[Debbie Brubaker]

So.

[Kara Swisher]

That'S her up there. He's right there.

[Scott Galloway]

Just real quick. Debbie and I were the smartest kids in the third grade and they used to send us to fifth grade for math and English and we used to hang out.

[Debbie Brubaker]

We did. And I am. I'm thinking maybe you had a crush on me and maybe. Maybe I had a crush on you. But I am now on Kara's team. I bat for the other side. But I haven't seen you in 50 years.

[Scott Galloway]

You didn't know. She didn't know who I was when they asked her to come in.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. She's not online. Is that right? Debbie, get on the thing. Get back up here. Scott Galloway, stop making out with your third grade Girlfriend who is, of course, Scott's always like, everyone I went out with became a lesbian. I'm like, let me find one. Let me find one for you. It was so easy.

[Scott Galloway]

I should have known. We spent the night in your dad's camper and you wouldn't even kiss. We're playing truth or dare, and you're like, nope. Debbie, it's so good to see you.

[Kara Swisher]

So do you have a really quick question for us, Debbie, by the way, you're not on social media. Do you have any questions for us?

[Debbie Brubaker]

I am not on social media at all. It just.

[Scott Galloway]

Good for you.

[Debbie Brubaker]

I'll just tell a quick story, but my stepsister who's here is a huge fan of both of you. She listens to Pivot every podcast. And she, I guess, heard you say something about me and being the smartest girl in third grade. And she texted me, I guess she almost got in an accident. She was driving. And she texted me immediately and said, do you know Scott Galloway from fourth grade? And I said, yes, I do. And that led to other things that got me here. And I've never seen you bald or Paul.

[Kara Swisher]

It's not a good look, is it? You're going to change back for him. Don't.

[Debbie Brubaker]

Maybe I'd like to get to know you.

[Kara Swisher]

Anyway. Debbie, thank you so much.

[Scott Galloway]

It's so good to see you. That was so nice.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

Thank you.

[Scott Galloway]

What a thrill.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Come to our party.

[Scott Galloway]

Thank you.

[Kara Swisher]

All right, next up, my butler, Casey Newton.

[Casey Newton]

Hi, everybody.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, no. Casey.

[Casey Newton]

Great to see you guys.

[Kara Swisher]

I like to. My sons call him Gacy, but.

[Casey Newton]

That's right. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of the pot. I actually had a crush on you, Kara, when I was in fourth grade. So it's nice to see you tonight. You know, I thought in the San Francisco fashion, I might ask another AI question.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay.

[Casey Newton]

I noticed in your analysis of the potential crash, you did not seem to take into account the possibility that one or more of these companies creates a pretty effective digital worker, something that you could swap in for many, many thousands of employees. And so I wondered, is that because you don't think it will happen? And if you did think it might happen, how might it change your analysis?

[Scott Galloway]

I'm sorry? An effective digital workplace, what we might.

[Casey Newton]

Call AGI around here, a worker. Like something that you could, you know, use software instead of hiring a person. Automation.

[Scott Galloway]

So I think these companies are incredible companies, and I do think AI is going to. So every year I pick a technology of the year. I do a predictions deck at the end of the year. And I picked AI two years in a row. And actually this year I picked. I actually think GLP1 is bigger than GPT5 in terms of on the ground impact on Americans lives. I think these things are going to be incredible. I just doubt they're going to be able to live up to the expectations built into. If you look Casey, at the market cap they're at built into any sort of reasonable forward price earnings, they're built into the valuations of these companies is the assumption that they're going to either create 3 to 5 trillion dollars in incremental revenue for their clients or save 3 to 5 trillion dollars. And so far I don't see a lot of AI moisturizer or cars that are designed or driven by AI autonomous.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

You could argue.

[Scott Galloway]

What I see so far is efficiencies, which is Latin for layoffs. And if you do so, what you see is you hear about firms saying we're going to save 10 or 20 or 30 or $50 million on legal costs or compliance, which again is Latin for layoffs. And if you do the Math, math, only 160 million Americans work. Assuming they need, you need to get, you need to find a trillion dollars a year in efficiencies to justify these valuations. An average salary of 70 or 80 grand, including load, office load, 100 grand. Let's just assume to save a trillion dollars in efficiencies to justify the valuations. That means you need to find 10 million fewer jobs or there needs to be a Labor destruction of 10 million jobs. If I have 160 million total employment. Stick with me. I know this is boring. If half the industries are immune to AI, plumbers, chiropractors, nurses, whatever that means, 80 million people are vulnerable. And the only way you could justify these valuations is one of three things needs to happen. They come up all of a sudden we start using all these AI driven products that convince us to spend more money or we have a 12.5% destruction in the labor force across the industry susceptible to AI, which is chaos. That may not sound like a lot, but at the height of the automobile collapse it wasn't that much labor. So we're either going to have an unemployment chaos across several industries or these companies are going to get cut in half. Either way, I see tumult. But Casey has this amazing substack called platformer.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

That's right.

[Scott Galloway]

And what I'll put it back to you. Where do I have this wrong? And what do you think about that assertion?

[Casey Newton]

You may very well not have it wrong. I just know that all of the folks I talk to here who work in the industry, who run These companies, say 12 and a half percent, like, yes, I can, I can take that number of jobs out of the economy. So, you know, I don't know if they're right, but that is certainly the assumption that is holding here right now.

[Kara Swisher]

Or perhaps they don't know. Well, yes, that's my assumption. That's my, that's always my assumption. And you know, I think some of the clues to that is when OpenAI announced an erotica service that mean they'd run out of ideas. Right. And they went right to porn. I was like, ah, we're porn now. Oof, that's a problem.

[Casey Newton]

All right, well, thanks very much, John.

[Scott Galloway]

Love you too. Thank you for the question, you guys.

[Kara Swisher]

We really do recommend platformer. Casey has been a longtime friend of me. He did live in my house where Louis is going to be living, Casey, in case you're interested. But, but he's a great, great writer and a great analysis, so you should read him. Next question.

[Audience Member Joyce]

I'm Joyce, 25 year resident of San Francisco. Worked in music first and then tech. Music got destroyed by streaming. Tech kind of has had its bubble too. And now I work in legal weed. Oh, great.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

Hello.

[Audience Member Joyce]

Yes, Consumer here. Yes, Is the.

[Scott Galloway]

Did you bring some for the dog?

[Kara Swisher]

I brought you a present.

[Scott Galloway]

I did, I did.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh my God. This year, my shot, right?

[Audience Member Joyce]

Yeah, it's called Sonoma Hills Farm. We're the first ocal certified organic cannabis farm in the state.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Yesterday was a big crazy congress.

[Audience Member Joyce]

Well, hemp was banned yesterday. I think it was 76 to 24.

[Scott Galloway]

That makes sense, right?

[Upwork Announcer]

Right.

[Audience Member Joyce]

You know, regulated parties are like, well, you know, hemp just kind of has this loophole and we've spent all this money, but at the end of the day, it was like the biggest step towards backtracking prohibition that we've seen in a long time. We have 24 legal states, 39 with, you know, medical cannabis, helps with reducing anxiety.

[Kara Swisher]

That was Mitch McConnell in the alcohol lobby that did that, correct? Yeah, yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

You know, they have these amazing off brand pharmacies here where you can get generic drugs and I got some generic erectile dysfunction drugs. The generic term is my coxifloppin.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay, what is your question? No, that's bad.

[Scott Galloway]

That's good. Doesn't that word just make you happy? My coccaflopin?

[Kara Swisher]

No, it doesn't. It makes me sad. Besides giving Scott drugs, what is your question?

[Audience Member Joyce]

My question is you know 70% of Americans approve of legalization and yet 24 people said yes yesterday and 76 said no. And here we are with 70% of the population able to buy legal Canvas Meta will not let us advertise. None of the fintech companies let us use their software. So these business owners who probably ideated high now have these big companies and they're saying no cannabis, you can't play in this field. I'm interested in like why big business and government keep saying no to something that a massive swath of the population can't.

[Kara Swisher]

I mean it's a really. I agree with you. It's ridiculous. Which is why so much of the action's been on a state level. Right. I find it. It's the same thing with gun control when it's like 80%. There's a bunch of topics that are 80, 20. And our Congress does the very opposite for all various and sundry reasons, depending on the topic. But something like this, this is a, you know, it's a difficult industry. I know it's been through its ups and downs, especially the legal marijuana industry. It's been a tough road in so many ways. I think it's the alcohol lobby just had more power than the marijuana lobby and somehow you have to gain more power. And I suspect when Congress is in 103 fucking years old and puts back the liquor and Mitch McConnell's Long Gone, which is next week hopefully. But some of these people, it will change as younger people come up and don't because I certainly know among I have four kids, but my older kids, well, Alex just does protein shakes but they're not drinkers, they're weed people. Right. Or that's the preference. And so it seems like all their friends are like that. So I think it's just a demographic trend that's just going to take a while. Scott, do you have any thoughts?

[Scott Galloway]

So this goes back to dating advice. I think substances play a really important role in a young person's life and they're not for everybody. You may decide that it's not for you. I'm trying to drink less alcohol as I get older because I realize my 51 year old liver cannot handle 51.

[Kara Swisher]

He's not 51.

[Scott Galloway]

Just go with it.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

No, I'm not just go with it.

[Kara Swisher]

Or of like podcasters. Anyways, darling, I am very.

[Scott Galloway]

I love being high. I'm a better version of myself, a little bit fucked up and as I get older I'm trying to reduce my alcohol content and I replace it with thc. And edibles. But I'm very serious and I've said this and I've had Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia on my podcast. I think one of the worst things, the second worst thing to happen to young people, the worst is remote work. One third of relationships begin at work. You need to touch people. You need to with. You need to. You need guardrails. If I hadn't had a job at Morgan Stanley that demanded I got into the office, I didn't have the discipline not to walk my dog and watch Netflix and smoke a lot of pot every day. I needed the office. I made friends. I found mentors. So anyways, but the second worst thing is this anti alcohol movement. Look at the most important things in your life, the relationship. Look at your best friends, look at your romantic relationships. Did alcohol play some role in that? Weed, Seriously, what about weed?

[Kara Swisher]

She's asking about that.

[Audience Member Joyce]

For some of us it was weed.

[Mayor Daniel Lurie]

Weed.

[Scott Galloway]

I would say the same thing. But my advice, generally speaking to young people is drink and do some edibles and then go out and make a series of bad decisions that might pay off.

[Audience Member Joyce]

Nice.

[Kara Swisher]

And for the marijuana industry, you'll beat the. At some point, you absolutely will, because the old people will die. As Scott says, biology is undefeated. Anyway, we really appreciate this and I'm so glad to see so many friends. I have so many friends. My amazing brother is here. Jeff Swisher, Dr. Swish, his lovely wife Dana. I don't know where they are, but.

[Scott Galloway]

My good friend Robert May is here. Robert, I don't know where you are. Tons of friends gave me my first office space.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. In any case, we really appreciate it. We love San Francisco. We will be back. You can catch selected shows from this tour on YouTube in your podcast feeds. So that's all we've got time for today. Scott, read us out.

[Scott Galloway]

Today's show was produced by Lauren Amen, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin and Kate Gallagher. Amazing support provided by Trish, Kelly Schwanter and Kaitlyn Lich. And a big shout out to the Vox Media experiential team, Riley Courtney Given, Abby Aronofsky and Caitlin Burlaw. Make sure to follow David on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Vivid from New York magazine, Vox Media. You can subscribe to the [e-mail] Pog we'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Thank you, Kara Swisher and thank you, San Francisco.

[Kara Swisher]

Thank you, San Francisco. We love you. Thank you so much.

[Odoo Announcer]

Support for the show comes from ODOO Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

[Scott Galloway]

Before you know it, you find yourself.

[Odoo Announcer]

Drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters growing your business this is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all in one, fully integrated platform that helps handles everything. That means CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce, HR and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you try Odoo for [e-mail] that's o d o o dot com.