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- [00:02]
Kara Swisher
Support for this episode comes from the Current Report. From data privacy to the future of tv, retail media and beyond, the world of digital marketing is constantly in flux. So how can you keep up? Well, the Current Report is there for you each week. Marketing leaders on the cutting edge give you the latest insight. So if it's creating a buzz, they'll be talking about it. Subscribe to the Current Report wherever you get your podcasts. Support for Pivot comes from AT&T. What's it like to get a new iPhone 16 Pro with AT and T? Next up Anytime. It's like when you first light up the grill and think of all of the mouth watering possibilities. Learn how to get your new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence on AT&T and the latest iPhone every year with AT and T. Next up anytime. ATT connecting changes everything. Apple Intelligence is coming in fall 2024 with Siri and device languages set to US English. Some features and languages will be coming over the next year. $0 offer may not be available on future iPhones. Next Up Anytime feature may be discontinued at any time, subject to change additional fees, terms and restrictions apply. See att.com iPhone for details.
- [01:22]
Scott Galloway
Support for Pivot comes from Solidym. Creating highly advanced AI is complicated, especially if you don't have the right storage. A critical but often overlooked catalyst for AI infrastructures, solidigm is storage optimized for the AI era. Offering bigger, faster and more energy efficient solid state storage, solidigm delivers the capability to meet capacity, performance and energy demands across your AI data workloads. AI requires a different approach to storage. Solidigm is ready for everything, everything the AI era demands. Learn more@storageforai.com.
- [01:58]
Kara Swisher
I am an irritating person.
- [02:00]
Scott Galloway
True that.
- [02:04]
Kara Swisher
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast network. I'm Kara Swisher.
- [02:09]
Scott Galloway
And I'm Scott Galloway.
- [02:10]
Kara Swisher
Where are you Scott, today? Where are you? I'm in San Francisco. I just got here last night.
- [02:14]
Scott Galloway
I'm in the uk. I'm at a hotel around the street from the place I'm supposed to be moving in that isn't ready. And I just got back from a shoot a count. I was at a castle where we went and I did not because fortunately I'm a terrible shot.
- [02:30]
Kara Swisher
Oh, a shoot shoot, like with guns shoot?
- [02:32]
Scott Galloway
Yeah.
- [02:33]
Kara Swisher
No, not like a TV shoot. I was like, you always do a TV shoot.
- [02:35]
Scott Galloway
It's a big deal. I was at Hackfield and then it was so much fun. I was with these. I met so many impressive guys and couples here in London. But my one friend Tor and his wife Kristen, they love this and they love kind of old British culture and they do these shoots and it's not my. I gotta be honest, this is not my thing and. But they were just so happy to show us it and it was just nice, you know, when your friends are just like so excited to show you something. And it was so. It was really enjoyable. The best part about the whole shoot was after, you know, these birds drop from the sky that always. But I don't know if I told you, it's substantially reduced my alcohol intake is. The dogs, these beautiful hunting dogs go and grab the birds. And it was in the countryside. It's beautiful.
- [03:27]
Kara Swisher
But was it quail? My uncle, my aunt's husband, he's since died, was a big hunter with dogs and he raised those dogs and sold them to people, those pointers and everything. They were gorgeous, those dogs. They were gorgeous. And he did quail hunting. That's what he did. Anyway, we got a lot to get to today, including TikTok's latest legal setback in Trump's new AI and crypto czar. Someone not a fave of Garrett Swisher's, but, oh well. Plus our friend of Pivot is Vivian Tu. She's the host of the Vox Media podcast Net Worth and Chill. And she's built a huge following on social media where she goes by your rich bff, giving financial advice to millions. Sort of like a female Scot, except she's very good.
- [04:06]
Scott Galloway
Have you, have you seen her stuff? She's great.
- [04:09]
Kara Swisher
No, but I'm excited. This was a suggestion by you, I believe. Anyway. But first, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has placed Google under federal supervision. The agency specifically had concerns with Google Pay, which has largely shut down earlier this year. The move could subject Google to regular inspections and monitoring, typical in banks. Google filed an immediate lawsuit against the agency to block its oversight. Well, it's anti regulatory time, so I guess they're going to try to do, you know, do. They're trying to get. Elon's trying to get rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We'll see if he can do that. But what do you think of this?
- [04:43]
Scott Galloway
You go first here. I don't.
- [04:45]
Kara Swisher
I think they're trying to do things before Trump gets in here and denuders this entire thing. I mean, what's incredible is all these companies want to be, banks want to be this, want to be that, want to. To do money, but they don't want any regulation whatsoever that everyone else is subject to and While there might be too much regulation on banks or whatever, you know what happens when there isn't. And so they'll do anything possible to push back on any possible protection of consumers in any aspect of their businesses. No matter what it is. Whether it's teens becoming depressed or killing themselves, whether it's banks that could be dangerous, they don't want any monitoring whatsoever. And that's the trend that's going forward. I don't know what else to say. I think it's, you know, it's the last. This, this group is pro. Probably worried about what's to come. We'll see what's going to happen. Thoughts?
- [05:33]
Scott Galloway
One of the things I, I'm following Doge closely but one of the things that is sort of innovative is I do think on a regular basis you need to dramatically reduce the amount of regulation and their, their response to okay, 80% of government spending is just not on the table. You just can't. There's no real way to cut, you know, most of it. You know, if you take out entitlements and you take out defense spending and interest on our debt, you're kind of left with 20% to kind of go after this efficiency, if you will. What they've been saying and it is interesting is that the Chevron act, where you don't immediately defer to the agency that you can strip out regulation, that if you strip out regulations it just reduces friction and costs. And I think there's some value there. What people don't celebrate is regulation. So since 2008 we have not had a financial crisis. We had a run was basically inspired by a bunch of 50 plus year old venture capitalists in a panic room looking for attention, trying to create a run on banks such that their crypto investments would go up. But the market proved incredibly resilient and SVB was ring fenced. The FDIC did its job, but since Sarbanes Oxley and since we've had stress tests on banks, we have had a remarkably robust banking sector. JP Morgan is now worth more than the top 10 European banks. That does thread the needle I think between one ensuring that they don't collapse and over lever and create a financial crisis. But also you need a little bit of risk taking in the banking system because the modern marvel of the banking system is with $100 in deposits. As long as you don't take too many deposits from the same people, you can lend out $120 and you create growth. It's like levered growth with a decent amount of Risk controls. So regulation can be a wonderful thing. And these individuals are never going to suggest more regulation. They're just very much anti regulation. These are risk aggressive people who see regulation as the enemy. And I think you just need a more balanced approach, recognizing that some regulation creates scale and growth. So anyways, it's a long winded way of saying I really don't know.
- [07:52]
Kara Swisher
I think this always goes back and forth. But these people are particularly resistant to any regulation whatsoever. I mean, these people hate regulation no matter what. It doesn't matter what you say to them. They would serve you tainted meat if they could. Honestly, sometimes it's. I think I agree with you. It goes back and forth and there's things can be over regulated. But I think what happened with the SEC and crypto, for example, has gotten that distaste in their mouth that they really don't want any. And that's what's going to happen in the new administration. They're going to just strip regulation after regulation and then there's going to lead to a crisis of some sort because it always does. I think it'll be over by the time Trump gets in. And anyway, we'll see what happens to this board. Omnicom Group has agreed to acquire Interpublic Group in a deal that would create the world's large advertising company. Scott, I really wanted to hear your thoughts on this. Interpublic has a market value of $11 billion. The two combined would have a net revenue of more than $20 billion. Omnicom and Interpublic are currently the third and fourth biggest companies respectively. Well, this goes through, I mean, I know advertising groups like this are under an enormous amount of pressure, but. Thoughts? Is it bad for advertising or just helping them keep up? It reminds me a little bit of Hollywood companies with tech companies coming in and just eating their lunch in so many ways. So they have to bulk up. I don't know. Thoughts?
- [09:07]
Scott Galloway
That's exactly right. This is, this is about survival and consolidation. When I was my first company, I started my second year in business school was a firm called Profit Brand Strategy. And we were effectively a services company helping companies manage their brands as assets. We didn't do any design or advertising. We were trying to take a strategy approach, just focused on brands as assets. And I was always very economically driven. I'm like, okay, I'm going to build this thing for five years and then sell it. And the 10 ton gorillas, the masters of the universe, of the entire communications and media world were Omnicom, ipg And wpp. And then Publisi was kind of in the mix, and then there were some new ones that popped up.
- [09:49]
Kara Swisher
I think WPP is the biggest now, right? Wpp.
- [09:52]
Scott Galloway
Wpp. I still think it's the biggest. And these two combined would surpass wpp. And they basically, their model was take advantage of this algorithm. That was the algorithm for creating shareholder value. And that was find a mediocre product and infuse it with amazing brand codes of masculinity, maternal love, European elegance, sex appeal, and then use this incredibly efficient mechanism called broadcast television, where we managed to get 80% of Americans in front of one of three outlets five hours a day and print money. And then that era came to an end. The brand era came to an end in 1995, when all of a sudden these weapons of mass diligence called Google TripAdvisor, your social graph, you no longer needed to defer to the shorthand of the brand. And also people found it was much easier to find. Fill the customer funnel, if you will, with people based on their behavior. Specifically, if they indicated Audi Q5 best price into my Google search bar means I am looking for a car. And this person is worth a lot of money to Audi. And you have seen such a tectonic tsunami, like transfer of money, capital, and power. These guys, Kara, you know you've been to Cannes with me. These guys used to be the gods of Cannes.
- [11:09]
Kara Swisher
The gods, yeah.
- [11:10]
Scott Galloway
And now guest parties. Yeah. And now they have a beach chair, but they don't have a beach party. They don't have. They're a shadow of themselves. Google. Google loses the value of all three of these companies or gains it in a trading day. And. But they're still very talented, still very creative. But the reality is, you know, the brand era is not only over. Don Draper has been drawn and quartered. So the idea that they absolutely need to consolidate cut jobs at headquarters just for survival mode, because these have not been good performers. These have been terrible places to work or invest.
- [11:48]
Kara Swisher
Let me ask you this question, because whenever I went to those parties or talked to them, I'm always like, what do you do? Exactly Like. And they explain it to me. I'm like, what do we need you for? Even back then, I was like, aren't you the middleman? Aren't you between me and the sponsor? It was really interesting. Even me, little Kara Swisher was like, with a small little business, I was like, I feel like I don't need to pay you more and more. I know it sounds crazy, but they Seemed not useful in ways that technology would take care of.
- [12:18]
Scott Galloway
I always used to think that you still need them. I think of this. There was this incredibly moving ad last year by Norwich City or Norwich City football. But it showed these two men who go to a soccer game together. And one's effusive and super, super outgoing and funny, and the other looks just sort of morbid and depressed. And it shows them going to another game and the one seat is empty. The guy who is really effusive and happy. And it says something along the lines of, ask your friends how they're doing, because you may not really know how they're doing. Oh, it was the same and it was so incredibly moving. And ad agencies and creatives still are the domain of breakthrough emotion that moves you.
- [12:57]
Kara Swisher
Did you see the AI ad that Coke did? Just curious.
- [13:01]
Scott Galloway
That was. That was good. But even, even better, the ad that Apple just did. I mean, occasionally these folks come up with something that just really moves the needle. In addition, even Google needs help figuring out how. How to allocate. When Google does their beach and spends $40 million having Lenny Kravitz play and. And not inviting Scott Galloway, they need an ad agency or a creative agency to come up with all the branding, make sure the beach looks branded. There are agencies doing everything. When I go to all these conferences and speak, there's an agency figuring out how to bring Dreamforce alive and represent Salesforce in the future.
- [13:40]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, I get it. When I said AI is, there was an ad made by Coca Cola by AI and it wasn't bad, I have to say, wasn't bad.
- [13:49]
Scott Galloway
But they still need someone to come up with the ideas. They still need design. They still need even spending money once you get to a certain point. I'll give you an example. I think podcasts, our business are about to go through a reshuffling. And the reshuffling, I think, is going to be based on who does the best job using this new distribution mechanism for a podcast that is bigger than Spotify or Apple. And it's YouTube. Joe Rogan gets 15 million downloads of his interview with Trump. He got 40 million on YouTube. I'm thinking about hiring a small agency to help me figure out how to get Prop G and Pivot and other people to scale our distribution on YouTube because there are little niche agencies that just are better at it than we are. And there's always opportunity for customer acquisition, branding events. It's just no longer the heyday of, hey, you're General Motors, you're going to spend a billion dollars running ads. And I'm going to take 12% of it by pitching you the next big Don Draper idea. Those days are over.
- [14:50]
Kara Swisher
I thought they were so small. When I saw the numbers, I'm like, whoa, these are really small businesses. It did remind me of Hollywood. It did.
- [14:56]
Scott Galloway
Like, oh, in the time I've been going to Cannes, Maurice Levy. Levy, the CEO of Publissy, has gone from fucking James Bond, who ran the place and Martin Sorrell was the master of the universe, to almost sort of like cute and majestic and sentimental. Right? They're just. They are no longer, quite frankly, they're no longer players. I know that's terrible to say. And Sir Martin is one of the brightest minds in the history of media.
- [15:23]
Kara Swisher
It is. It does feel like old Hollywood. It does. Speaking of regulators, anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield has backed off a controversial plan to only pay for anesthesia for a limited amount of time. In case you wake up. The insurer initially announced the plan in mid November. But as outrage over healthcare became front page news last week, outrage over the decision grew. Politicians, including New York Governor Kathy Hochul got involved, causing reversal. This is a moment for. Because of this Brian Thompson murder, I think you're going to see a lot of awareness on the behalf of healthcare companies of the heartlessness that they display towards people. We'll see if there'll be changes. How many politicians will get involved? I'm not sure. But certainly it's a moment. It's certainly a moment that some line has been crossed here that I think the anger on one side and the, you know, the relentless pursuit of profits by these companies is sort of meeting each other rather significantly.
- [16:25]
Scott Galloway
This is. I mean, it's weird. Bashar Al Assad fleeing to Moscow is really big news. It doesn't get enough attention. But one of the most interesting discussions catalyzed by a Murder is the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. And the reaction online was just stunning to me. And it made me realize that someone pointed out that Elon Musk said a revolution is inevitable or civil war is inevitable. Well, 50,000 people killed themselves in America last year. And I wonder how many of those people killed themselves because of financial strain, in large part created by medical debt. And also, there's just no getting around it. If you look at the insurance industry, especially the healthcare insurance industry, they have figured out that a decent way to add earnings and shareholder value is to come up with algorithms and sophisticated legal ways of denying coverage to people, which has created a lot of despair. And, I mean, you've seen the tweets. Like, empathy is outside my coverage zone.
- [17:25]
Kara Swisher
Listen, everyone experiences it. Someone's like, you never experience it. I'm like, I literally spent all the last three. I have some procedures arguing with insurance companies, like, a lot in very irritating way of very important tests for me, you know, as an older lady. So it. I get the. I don't get the murder. I get the rage at the same time, but go ahead.
- [17:47]
Scott Galloway
The seminal moment in my life that was both horrifying and motivating was as a young male until the age of like, 25, I was sleepwalking through life. Underachiever. Got into UCLA because they accepted 76% of people got, you know, graduated from UCLA with a 2.27 GPA. Talked my way into Morgan Stanley, somehow got into Berkeley graduate school because the standards were so much lower back then. When I got that call from my mother in my first year in graduate school and said, you need to come home. And I walked into a house where my mother, after her second mastectomy, had been discharged early by Kaiser. We were underinsured. And I walked into a situation the likes of which I had never seen before and I could not handle. And I started calling nurses and said, I need to get someone over here immediately because this hospital wouldn't take her back. So they're like, call an ambulance. My mom's like, don't call an ambulance. And nurses were 35 bucks an hour, and our insurance didn't cover it. And I didn't have that money. I remember thinking it was. And it was literally like, at that moment, I thought, no one can decide to be rich. But I thought, I'm going to work so fucking hard from this point forward because I can control that. The most frightening moment of my life, the first 25 years of my life, and something that was, quite frankly, exciting, exceptionally motivating, was my mother being underinsured. Because, I mean, you want to talk about, you know, fucking with a young man's sense of well being when you can't take care of your mother, your sick mother, and times that by 10 million. That is what has happened. When you insert a profit motive into something as important as healthcare. And the reason why we're the only major democracy that focuses on shareholders as opposed to the wellbeing of consumers, that story is devastating.
- [19:36]
Kara Swisher
I can't imagine Young sky dealing with that. And I do have more means. But I have to say, most of the most frustrating times of my life are dealing with healthcare. Whether it's appointments, whether it's Getting information, whether it's understanding it. And let me just say I have, I have, I haven't. I am an irritating person and I'm educated. I keep. Every time I do this I think, what if you couldn't understand it, what it was like? It's like I find dealing with computer fix it things easier than that. And it's really. And you're just confused and you're turned around and you get a stupid no. And then you have to call and argue with them. It got me there. It's like literally the most frustrating part of dealing with having lots of kids and getting them healthcare, whether it's dental or whatever. Nobody understands it. It's so I'm always working over money, even though I have insurance and always arguing over care. And I am the lucky one.
- [20:33]
Scott Galloway
There are a few industries that are more advanced, technically, make more money and are a larger source of despair and suffering. And this has come to a head and it all comes down to the same thing. And that is a $10,000 reward for information leading to his arrest. Most people can't buy health insurance for their family for $10,000.
- [20:55]
Kara Swisher
People pointed that out.
- [20:57]
Scott Galloway
And when you're living in a society with all this prosper and it is a regular occurrence that, oh, I got bad news, your wife has lung cancer. I got worse news, it probably means you're going to go bankrupt. And we're the wealthiest society in the world. It's like one of these things does not foot to the other. This has inspired and all of these tech executives and quite frankly, I'm guilty of this. I was horrified by it. And it's like the people who are most horrified by this are insured wealthy people because since then hundreds of people have killed themselves, hundreds of non white kids in terrible areas have been murdered and a CEO gets murdered. And it's horrifying and we're all grabbing, clutching our pearls. It has really inspired an overdue conversation.
- [21:42]
Kara Swisher
It has, it has. I think you can have two things happening at once. You can be horrified by this and also I think I don't like. See, unfortunately, everything gets reduced. You're either against this murder and then therefore a rich person who doesn't understand or you understand what happens. Like I do think it's a warning signal, the fact that this guy is becoming an unfortunate folk hero.
- [22:03]
Scott Galloway
What'll be really interesting is what the jury decides. Won't it be interesting what happens at the jury trial?
- [22:08]
Kara Swisher
Yes, a hundred. Yes. It had a lot of OJ vibe to it in that regard. Right. It had a kind of that you deserve this kind of thing. Anyway, we'll see. It's going to be an ongoing story and these companies, companies are certainly on notice, that's for sure. Anyway, let's get to our first big story. A federal appeals court has upheld a law that could lead to TikTok getting banned next month if TikTok parent company ByteDance does not divest. A panel of three judges denied TikTok's petition last week saying ByteDance's ownership represents a national security threat, rejecting the argument the law violates the First Amendment. That national security TRUMP Trump's the First Amendment in this case. TikTok has just asked the appeals court to temporarily block or pause the law so the Supreme Court can review the case. It'll be interesting to see. They could. What do you think of the ruling? It's not clear what Trump will do or if he can do anything. It's a law. He's gonna. They're gonna have to change the law. As many in Congress pointed out, which he certainly can do with control of the House and Senate. He's been a big flip flopper on TikTok as one of his biggest AS donors was a big TikTok investor. Jeffy Ass. I don't know if there's a buyer. There's several buyers. Bobby Kotick is in there. Frank McCourt seems to be in there. Steve Mnuchin has been in there. I don't see the Chinese letting this happen, but there's a lot of winners who have emerged. Let me just. And then on your thoughts, Scott. Meta shares rose 2.4% and closed at a record high on Friday following the news of this ruling. And Snap shares are very un because they're obviously the original version of this. I think they're all hoping the ban happens, but will it? Thoughts? And it is unclear what Trump can do, but it's certainly onerous the stuff he's got to do. And then there's the Supreme Court, obviously, who's going to take this up, no question.
- [23:56]
Scott Galloway
Well, I've been advocating for and predicting the following that it would be banned and that ultimately it'll be spun. The US interests of TikTok are worth us. TikTok is worth $100 billion.
- [24:09]
Kara Swisher
Owners, you're saying US owners, just to.
- [24:11]
Scott Galloway
Be clear for listeners, divested to US ownership. I think there's so much money involved that they'll figure it out. Look, I generally find 95% of the time you're right. If you just go follow the money and to. I mean, there's a couple things. One, going back to Trump, he could just not enforce it. He could say wink, wink to different I'm never going to enforce this or I'm going to tell my AG to never pursue anyone if they violate it because basically what it would the people who have to comply here, who have the most power would be Apple or Alphabet to make it the app no longer work in their App store. But he could also say this will never be enforced. There's some elegant ways around it. I don't think he's going to do that because I think it gives him leverage against the Chinese. And also it's a goodie he'll be able now that we've gone full kleptocrat. It's a goodie he can hand out to a US consumer. But I've always predicted two things. One, I thought that, one, it should be banned and I believe it will be. And two, we're not going to lose our TikTok that at some point there's so much money here, there's so many US Investors who are going to make so much money or lose so much money that they will figure out with the White House, maybe they give him 10 billion or his buddies 10 billion of the 100 billion, but they will figure out a way to accommodate everybody and spin it and divest it. There is too much money on the line here. And in addition, you have a China where the economy isn't struggling. Doug Guthrie, who I think is the brightest mind on China, US China relations, he called me and said, scott, you don't get it. They're fine to let this stuff roll. They're not doing as poorly as people think. But I still think there is so much money involved that they're going to figure out a way to divest it to US Interests or do enough to satisfy the quote unquote ban. But I mean, it's already happened technically. I mean, he would have to change the law and I don't think he has the attention or the desire to do that. What do you think?
- [26:12]
Kara Swisher
I don't know. I think it was. I think they have to do that, right? I think the Supreme Court is the one that's going to weigh in here.
- [26:17]
Scott Galloway
But the Supreme Court might not even agree to listen to the case.
- [26:21]
Kara Swisher
Well, I think they're going to. I talked to a bunch of lawyers this week and they all said, yes, they were going to, that they thought they were going to. So it's too good. It's too good at one you know what I mean? There's a lot happening here. It's national security versus First Amendment versus ownership and capitalism. There's too much good stuff in here for them not to weigh in. I don't know. That's what I. That was the thoughts of people who watch this stuff when I talk to them. If they do, it'll be interesting. I mean, I think they can change the law. That's what I understand. I think you can't do this by executive order at this point. Again, enforcement is one thing, but there's too much attention on this thing and too many financial interests at stake. They have to find a sell. The question is the Chinese are the wild card here. How are they going to react? They certainly have been hostile to this for a long time. And then is it worth anything? As I told you, Mark Cuban pointed out to me, is it worth anything without the algorithm? And what are they buying? What are these people buying? I have to talk to. I don't know Steve Mnuchin, but I do know Frank and Bobby. I should probably just call them and ask and what the reasoning is. Anyway, we'll see. But watch that space. I think it's going to be a big deal and it matters to companies like Snap is really benefiting from this, as it would. It makes sense. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump reveals his new AI and crypto czar. We'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Vivian too, about becoming Gen Z's financial guru.
- [27:48]
Scott Galloway
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- [28:54]
Kara Swisher
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- [32:57]
Scott Galloway
Look, I don't like the way these guys equit themselves around how they treat you. I've had one guy Tweet about me 445 times. It's part of that mafia, but it's mostly out of insecurity and that he just wants to fuck me.
- [33:08]
Kara Swisher
But he does.
- [33:11]
Scott Galloway
Oh, he does. No, I've never had someone want me as badly as this guy wants me.
- [33:16]
Kara Swisher
Clearly, we know. Anyway, he's part of the gang there.
- [33:18]
Scott Galloway
But he has no power. So it's not a threat to Me, the folks with some real power. I think David is a smart guy and David has real money and his buddy Elon, for whatever reason they seem to be. I think at one point Elon called you the definition of pure evil. Like he decided that was the tweet he was going to put out. That is just so.
- [33:39]
Kara Swisher
I'm sure that was yol. I was something else. But yeah, in that range, Fjall Roth was the definition of pure. I can't remember. They always do it. They dunk on everybody, but go ahead.
- [33:47]
Scott Galloway
But it's like, okay, that's how you reflect your blessings. And I can't stand the general ship hosting of America by the people who, if they lived in any other country would be the selling Subarus and wherever in Ecuador, they just wouldn't. Anyway, when you join the government you get. Not in this position, I don't believe, but if you become treasury secretary you get this unbelievable perk. And that is. And Hank Paulson enjoyed this perk, you become exempt from taxes on the sales of stock you get to buy.
- [34:23]
Kara Swisher
My ex wife did that. My ex wife did that.
- [34:24]
Scott Galloway
Right. But the reason they do that is because they need you to sell your stock. Because when you have the most influential organization in the world, the US government, making business decisions for tens, hundreds of billions of dollars, they don't want you to own stock. And the idea that someone is going to have influence over what are the most high intensity valuation creation and destruction sectors right now, AI and crypto, but also maintain it. I don't have a problem. Trump gets to pick his guys and his guys who throw fundraisers for him.
- [34:59]
Kara Swisher
No, everybody does it.
- [35:01]
Scott Galloway
I've never listened to their show, but I've seen clips on TikTok and I think David is a smart guy. The problem is there's no fucking way he should be able to maintain his position as a venture capitalist while dictating and advising on policy and regulation around AI and crypto. I mean, you want to talk about setting up an environment where there's absolutely no guardrails and retail investors and they're.
- [35:25]
Kara Swisher
Not here to help everybody. Right. Once you get that job, I think you do rise to the fucking occasion. And to treat everybody equal. But like Sam Altman, after X took to X after the sax announcement to post his congratulations in this polite way, Elon responded with a laughing, crying emoji. These guys are like, it's just ridiculous. They're like, oh, now we're running the bar, right? That kind of thing. By the way, the Elon tweet was. I have rarely seen evil in as pure form as Yoel Roth. And Kara Swisher's heart is filled with seething hate. That was. I have seething hate and I was vitriolic hate. Yeah, yeah. I just think they're not in it for everyone, they're in it for themselves. And so like, you know, if you get this fucking job, David, act like you work for the whole United States of America. Don't take part in this juvenile. Listen, I don't like this guy.
- [36:16]
Scott Galloway
He's not at fault here. Because it's the administration that has decided to let people dictate massive flows of capital or a lack of regulation while maintaining economic interest.
- [36:29]
Kara Swisher
They don't care. No conflict, no interest. Right, no interest, no conflict. Whatever. I, whatever. Remember that is no conflict, no interest. That kind of thing. They're just, it's so cynical. It is not about the United States of America. They will favor their friends, they will hurt their enemies. It feels like that, like that's where we're headed and that's what a, that's what like a rinky dink third world country does. I'm sorry, it's not the United States of America. You know, all the minions are coming in. I call them the minions. They're.
- [36:54]
Scott Galloway
I literally for a moment I heard someone, someone send me something saying one of the all in guys is going into the administration. I'm like, oh my God. And I had for a moment, I'm like, let me guess, Chamath is going to be head of the sec.
- [37:04]
Kara Swisher
Oh wow.
- [37:07]
Scott Galloway
It's going to be spac mania.
- [37:09]
Kara Swisher
A spac mania. Oh God, these people again. They're so poor, all they have is money. Another Elon Minion and tech billionaire joined the team. Jared Isaacman has been nominated for NASA administrator. Isaac Min is a founder and CEO of payment processing company Shift4, which makes him. He's flown to space twice on commercial SpaceX missions. He obviously is qualified running NASA, whatever this is. Like, you know, then he can get, send these contracts to SpaceX which has a lot of them. But there's no facade of fairness in any of this. It's all like Elon's guys. Like this is like throughout the thing and I guess you know he spent a quarter of a more quarter billion dollars to help Trump win the election. And I guess to the victor goes the spoils in a third world country. Most of the money went through his America PAC. Although Elon also gave $20 million. He was the only funder to the R PAC, a super PAC that suggested Trump and the late Justice Ginsburg were aligned on abortion rights. Her. Her family is horrified. And he was the. He was the funder of this. It's still the single best investment of the year, possibly the century. And as you remember, he said he wasn't going to be donating to either candidate. Earlier this year in March, I called him out on that, said he was lying, and it turns out I was correct. But he gets all the stuff. There we are.
- [38:28]
Scott Galloway
It used to be. And so very recently, the people who gave money and people always rolled their eyes with, fine, okay, you're Howard Leach, who I. Who invested in one of my companies. Nice man, investor. So they let him be ambassador to France. It's payola, right? Ambassadorships. Unless it was China or the UK or something strategic who gave us money, fine, they get those jobs. But the hardcore stuff that was about American security and prosperity and running actual government. Government was based on veracity, credibility, stature, intellect, experience, all that. These are all now ambassadorships. It's who gave the most money. And this guy. I don't. This guy's actually a thoughtful, successful guy who's passionate about space, but he doesn't understand government. I mean, he does have. He wasn't evangelist for Hubble, but he has no real domain expertise around our space program or how it actually works or the relationship between the private and the public sectors. So all of a sudden, we've just gone, hey, who wants to be secretary?
- [39:34]
Kara Swisher
I mean, I can see them sitting in a room. Can you see them sitting in a room? Like, what do you want to be? Why don't you run CIA?
- [39:43]
Scott Galloway
You like James Bond movies, But when someone can give. And by the way, the numbers keep going up. I thought the number I heard that Musk gave was 119 million. Now I hear it's a quarter of a billion. This guy gave a quarter of a billion dollars. I mean, if you think someone has a 50% chance likelihood of winning and you're a billionaire and you either have economic interests, it's a great investment. To go 2, 3, $400 billion into a campaign. We're going to see someone give a billion dollars to a candidate in the next campaign. If you're worth 5 or $10 billion, why not give $250 million so you can run NASA or maybe, who knows, be Attorney General?
- [40:21]
Kara Swisher
I mean, yeah, I know it's seriously, it's pay for play, it's coin op presidency. It's just like my favorite is lying about it. Back in March when I said that I Got pilloried by the Elon. I'm like, he's totally backing Trump. Give me a break. He's going to hand over money and buy influence, essentially. Not allegedly, but it seems so obvious to me that this is what he's going to do. But, yeah, he's doing a play, as usual. Elon is innovative. Innovative Elon, in terms of things, this has been going on for centuries.
- [40:50]
Scott Galloway
He's increased his wealth by 100, 130, or $150 billion. That $250 million bet was the best trade of 2024, anyway.
- [40:59]
Kara Swisher
Well, we'll see where it goes. Good luck, Dave. The only thing I'm upset about is they're going to be in Washington now and I might run into them. I'm like, I escaped. I crossed the country to get away from these people, and there they are. They're going to be odds that I'll run into each of these shows. I'm just like, fucking, what the fuck? Get out of my town.
- [41:21]
Scott Galloway
Your heart is seething with hate.
- [41:23]
Kara Swisher
I'm seething. I'm seething with like, oh, for fuck's sake. That's what I'm seething with. Anyway, so let's bring in our friend of pivot. Vivian Tu is the host of the Vox Media podcast Net Worth and Chills. She's also known as your rich BFF on social media, where she's become a financial guru of sorts, dispensing advice and tips to millions of followers. Vivian, welcome.
- [41:49]
Vivian Tu
Thank you so much for having me.
- [41:50]
Kara Swisher
There's been iterations of what you're doing for many years and lots of newspapers. I used to work for all kinds of stuff, and I just love this kind of thing. But what you're doing is really particularly, you know, important for young people. So if for people not familiar with your rich bff, can you explain what it's about? And you have found a way, as many writers in this area do, to make it understandable and accessible, especially to young people. I'd love to know what you think traditional media gets wrong when it comes to financial literacy. So explain what rich BFF is and then how is it different from previous iterations of this?
- [42:24]
Vivian Tu
Yeah, I think for a really long time, a lot of us have just wanted to be heard or even seen. And traditional financial media has very much catered to folks who look like Scott and probably have as much money as he does. I joke, but transparently, it really hasn't offered much to women, to people of color, to young people, people who grew up low income. Immigran, anything of that nature. And it's really hard to find good, reputable information in this space because when you Google the words Roth, Ira, you get 3 million hits. And if you don't know what you don't know, you really don't know which of these links to even click. So it's really hard to begin that journey because jargon is so rampant in the financial news media that we're seeing in writing on TV everywhere. Um, but what you're rich BFF does, essentially, is it is a financial equity platform that's breaking down this information for the next generation so that everybody can have access to it and then implement it into their daily lives. It's actual, usable, actionable tips versus. Oh, in theory, this could happen. It's, you know, this is how you actually make your life better.
- [43:37]
Kara Swisher
And talk about what. Who are you aiming at? What does rich BFF mean? Is it just, you know, cause it's fun on social media or what's the concept behind it?
- [43:45]
Vivian Tu
Yeah, the big concept behind it is my friends had come to me for this kind of information, for these tips, for this advice and the whole premise. Everybody focuses so much on rich, but the real word that we should be focusing on is bff. I'm not lecturing you like a college professor. I am not talking to you like I'm a parent. I'm not talking to you like I'm better than you, smarter than you, richer than you. I'm talking to you as a friend. What advice would a rich friend give you in this arena if they wanted to see you succeed, if they wanted to see you do well.
- [44:19]
Kara Swisher
Excellent, Scott.
- [44:21]
Scott Galloway
So I just. Full disclosure, I love Vivian too. I don't know if you've noticed this. I'm not quite stalker level yet, but I'm constantly retweeting her stuff. I think you are a gift.
- [44:35]
Vivian Tu
Thank you.
- [44:36]
Scott Galloway
I think you are a gift to young people. I love your content. I love the optimistic tone you bring. You're like the first person under the age of. I don't know how old you are. 30. That talks about 1202. And there's this myth that you're not supposed to talk about money, which I think is nothing but an attempt by the rich to keep poor down, to create a sort of taboo. And I love how you're breaking that taboo. I want to repurpose a question that I got from a gentleman on another show because I got insecure that I didn't answer it correctly. So I want to give you a shot at it but a Gentleman in his 50s said him and his partner have saved some money. Not a lot, but they're really risk averse. So they have it all probably in money market and they've missed out on a lot of returns. So what would you suggest? Someone with a little bit of money that wants to start investing. What would be your asset allocation recommendation? Kind of loose.
- [45:27]
Vivian Tu
Yeah. I think with terms of like asset allocations, what I typically recommend is you take your age and you round to the nearest tens, so tens, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and then you actually subtract by ten again. So this person is in their fifties, we are minusing that number by ten again. So forty. And that is what percentage of your portfolio roughly should be in fixed income assets, whereas the rest of it should actually still be in the public equity market. So stocks in particular, I recommend broader index funds through ETFs with the lowest possible expense ratios. The reason I say this is just because now that they're in their 50s, even if they are feeling a little behind, they don't have to feel like the world is ending. Yes, they want to do some sort of preservation of their existing wealth so that they're going to have money to draw from in their later years. But also also still having more than 50% of your portfolio in the public equity markets allows you to participate in that continued growth. Odds are good. The second they turn 59 and a half, they're not going to need every single dollar in that account. So this just gives them a chance to have a portion of their money continuing to work pretty hard while another portion of it is still set aside because they are getting closer to retirement. And the other big hot tip that I would encourage them to think about is catch up contributions for everybody who is above 50 and starting to get a little closer to retirement. You can actually contribute more to your Individual Retirement accounts, whether they be of the traditional or Roth variety or your employer sponsored accounts than the average person could that's younger than that. And it just gives them a chance to literally catch up.
- [47:11]
Scott Galloway
That was great. Thank you.
- [47:12]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, maximize things like that on that, especially the matching stuff. Obviously the stock market's been on a tear. People are worried about it being on a tear right now. And most people in the stock market are people that look like Scott. Right? It's not everyone's not in the stock market. It's a small group of people, but it tends to affect us mentally.
- [47:29]
Scott Galloway
But tall and handsome. What do you mean looks like me? What do you mean looks like me?
- [47:34]
Kara Swisher
Yes, that's it. Tall and handsome.
- [47:35]
Scott Galloway
It's more diverse than you think. It's about rich people. It's not about a specific gender, I understand.
- [47:39]
Kara Swisher
But oddly enough, they tend to look the same. So what do you think the biggest. I'm just tease. I tease, I tease. What do you think the biggest change for the economy and markets when Trump takes office? Obviously he just said he was going to try to get rid of Jerome Powell, who knows, he could change his mind in seconds if he doesn't like something. But what are you looking at? Obviously there could be a big stock rally. Does that matter? There could be a tax cut. Does that matter? What are you looking at?
- [48:04]
Vivian Tu
Yeah, I mean, just going off of what he has openly said, realistically, we're going to see corporate tax cuts, we are going to see rollbacks on regulation. We are already seeing one of the richest, most money cast cabinets ever, period. And what is problematic to me about this is this is very much going to see a further K shaped diversion between the have and have nots. Folks that are already investing are going to be able to participate in these profits, right? Because when corporations are given tax breaks and are rolled back on regulation, they're going to prioritize one thing and one thing only. They're going to make money. They are going to do right by their shareholders, which is excellent if you are a shareholder. But when we actually look at the distribution of wealth of who is actually investing versus who isn't, it's much easier when you have discretionary funds to invest. If you are more worried about buying apples than Apple, like you're not going to be participating in that upward growth. So we're going to see.
- [49:09]
Kara Swisher
And tariffs on time.
- [49:10]
Vivian Tu
Exactly.
- [49:10]
Kara Swisher
Yes. Right. And he said on this interview yesterday, he's like, yeah, it could cost, cost more.
- [49:15]
Vivian Tu
Oh well, yeah, that kind of thing. It could cost more. Oh well, like that's really unfortunate because when you actually think about how rich people and broke people spend, and I say that like very glib, tongue in cheek but like we still all have to buy some of the same things, right? Like regardless of if you're super moneyed or not, you're buying toilet paper. But the ultra luxurious organic triple ply toilet paper is probably only a couple dollars more more than the crappy generic brand that's one ply. We all still have to buy it. And unfortunately these tariffs are going to make toilet paper a much larger portion of someone who is a lower income individual, a larger portion of their paycheck than it is versus someone who is in the higher net worth area. So we're going to see people, you know, in the bottom 50% really struggle with their cost of living. They're realistically not always going to be able to invest because they don't have those discretionary funds. Shit's gonna get tough, for lack of a better phrase. But for the top 50%, like, especially people who are high net worth, this is going to be a golden era of money making.
- [50:22]
Scott Galloway
I would actually go. I bet it's more like top 10 or one.
- [50:25]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, yeah. I was talking to some of my relatives who have lesser jobs than I do. Right. They're just. They're more paycheck to paycheck people. And they were, like, doing their, you know, their dunking on me, like, oh, Trump won. I'm like, good for my money. Yeah. I was like, you really realize I will do great and you will not. Just FYI, but thanks for the vote. Like, I didn't know what to say. Like, I was like, are you? But no, they think they're going to do better. They do. They absolutely think that.
- [50:51]
Vivian Tu
Well, I just think that, like, this election, generally speaking, was both the people who are voting for both parties. We voted against our own best interests. Only one specific set, though, knew that we were doing that. Right. Like, so you're talking about these coastal elites voting blue, realistically, having more money, being closer to that, you know, and frankly, Scott's probably right. 50% is incredibly generous. The top 10, top 1% of folks, a lot of them voted for Kamala Harris. Well, against their own best interests, knowing that we would be taxed more. I, you know, transparently voted that way. But I have family and relatives who voted the opposite side, and they're trying to tell me that they are going to benefit. And I said no. People like me, people who. A huge portion of my annual, like, monies comes from investments, not just my labor. I am going to benefit, not you. And I think it's a. It's a hard conversation to have, especially around the Thanksgiving dinner table with family, with friends. But, like, I think we all voted against our best interests, financially speaking.
- [52:05]
Scott Galloway
How do you make money? What's your business model? And what advice would you give to people who look at you and think, I'd like that job? Is it? Well, one, what's your business model? How do you make money? And any tips on getting started or if and when there was some sort of, like, seminal strategy or moment that helped kind of elevate you to being, you know, a guest on Pivot, which is a crowning achievement for almost any.
- [52:31]
Vivian Tu
It is, it is. So I got very lucky. I will say luck has a quite a lot to do with it because my very first video went viral. That is very strange. That doesn't happen for most people. But my first video ended up getting 3 million views on TikTok. And from there I continued to post every single day. I will say this is one of the things that I'm most proud about myself is that I took my Wall street work ethic, where I cut my teeth and put it into this into youo Rich bff. So when people were getting tired and saying, I don't feel like making a video today, I kept churning them out. And so now I have a very diversified business. I'm very proud of that because I think a lot of us struggle with the idea of like the I word influencer. It's like you turn out a bunch of brand deals and then suddenly within two years, people have forgotten about you. Um, I've diversified my business so that, you know, still the lion's share of my income comes from branding, partner, branded partnerships. I get paid directly from platforms for creating content that gets a lot of eyeballs. I get paid to speak. I got a book advance for my first book, just signed for my second one. My podcast itself has ads on it. And then in addition to that, currently working on a tech platform that is going to be direct to consumer. That's still not ready to be rolled out yet. But I did want to tease that here. Um, so there's just a lot of ways that I make money to help.
- [53:58]
Kara Swisher
People with financial tools and things like that.
- [54:00]
Scott Galloway
And which. Just. Just some follow up questions. Which of those businesses is growing the fastest? And in your mind, which platforms are on the way up, way down as it relates to your business?
- [54:11]
Vivian Tu
Yeah, you know, I think brand partnerships is still the lion's share of my income. It has grown very much so this year, especially as people have become, become, I would say, more financially aware. Even brands that normally wouldn't target a financially minded audience or like, okay, like how do we speak to people now that everybody's worried about their wallet? What's in it and what is not in it? So brand partnerships, but also speaking, I would say with the sale of my first book, with that launch, you know, hitting the New York Times bestseller list, suddenly there were a lot of inquiries for my speaking. So that's something that's growing very quickly. And I think one thing that I have still been kind of trying to mull over is the whole is TikTok, is TikTok getting banned? Is something going to happen? Is there going to be a sale? But regardless, I think I've set myself up in a good position because if TikTok sticks around, great, it's one more platform where I'm able to create content and share it. But if not, I have really diversified my audience to other platforms and ultimately those, those hours of watch time, that attention doesn't just dissipate, it's going to go somewhere else. And realistically I'm guessing it'll probably go to places like Instagram and YouTube shorts.
- [55:33]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, so. So you have this big TikTok following. Are, are you concerned? What do you, what's the plan?
- [55:38]
Vivian Tu
Um, I'm not as concerned, I think, as some other creators who've really, really leaned into TikTok being their main know cash cow. I have tried very hard to make sure that I have a Strong following across TikTok, across Instagram, across Facebook, across YouTube, across Snapchat. Like when everyone was making fun of me for posting on Facebook, saying that nobody was watching my content on Facebook. Like now I feel so smart that I was able to do that and diversify my audience because I'm going to still be able to reach them. Not to mention me having built my own own roster of BFFs, my own newsletter, my own mailing list. So I can speak to them directly, right?
- [56:21]
Kara Swisher
Absolutely. Don't listen them. You don't have to be hip. So one financial tip or habit you'd recommend for people going into the U. I have two sons just understanding money now. I spent a lot of time them learning about things like paying the rent and costs and my one son's leaving college and I'm like, so what are you going to do to make money? I was like, the mom trained strain is ending soon or relatively soon. So what financial tip or habit would you recommend besides getting a job obviously going into the new year?
- [56:50]
Vivian Tu
Yeah. Oh man, this is a good one. I would say find your ikigai, but in part I really encourage people to prioritize the can I make money of this? So ikigai is a Japanese term essentially saying that you are able to find your purpose once your thing fits four categories, one of which is do I like doing this? Am I good at it? Does the world need it? And can I make money? So once you found something that fits into all four of these circles, it's like the center of the Venn diagram. And we give this advice especially to students going into higher education of Follow your passion, you know, whatever you want to do, like whatever your hobbies are. No, I'm so sorry, but the world.
- [57:36]
Scott Galloway
Doesn'T need another dj and no one's gonna pay you for it.
- [57:38]
Vivian Tu
Exactly. Like, we need plumbers, we need electricians, we need people who have real skills. And I laugh because I come from a Chinese immigrant family, so that was never on the table for me. Like, I was never going to be allowed to major in certain majors because there was no opportunity to make money and my parents weren't gonna be able to help me after school or anything like that. If you come from generational wealth, you have the luxury of following your passion. But if you are a regular schmegular person with a regular schmagular family and not to mention lower income, pick a job that is going to create the lifestyle that you want. Prioritize your lifestyle, because you are not defined by your job. But if you do not have the life that you want, you're going to be sorely unhappy.
- [58:25]
Kara Swisher
Excellent answer, excellent answer. It depends. It also is what it is. We know what the job happens to be. You know, something that you like too, you can't like.
- [58:33]
Vivian Tu
Was that too practical? Was that too practical?
- [58:35]
Kara Swisher
No, it wasn't. But you should also like what you're doing. You know, you shouldn't like if you can. If you can like it, it doesn't have to make a lot of money. But then you have to adjust what the lifestyle is.
- [58:44]
Scott Galloway
I find when you make a shit ton of money at something, you start really liking it, you start really loving it. I deal with this really difficult woman on this podcast, and I don't love it, but we're making bank. I like podcasting.
- [58:58]
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
- [59:00]
Scott Galloway
So, Vivian, the thing about low cost index funds is you're still stock picking. You're just stock picking at a macro level because there's different index funds. There's nasdaq, which is more aggressive. There's still some quote unquote selection around which indices you invest in. Do you believe, and this is a loaded question because obviously I'm putting forward a bias here, that the American market has gotten so expensive, relatively speaking, to emerging or non American markets based on traditional PEs, that people should be thinking about index funds outside of the US and maybe rebalancing their portfolio and putting more money. I mean, you're basically your whole rap, and it's the most powerful wrap is around diversification. You don't need to find the needle, buy the whole haystack. But do you think given how expensive the American market is and quite frankly, how cheap some of the emerging or non American markets that people should be thinking about allocating a greater percentage of their portfolio to index funds outside of.
- [59:59]
Vivian Tu
The U.S. yes, absolutely. It's so funny. I feel like you teed me up for this one, but you don't want to, again, be overexposed in any one specific arena. And I think to your point, Even with general US index funds, what is it, 85% of the returns came from six companies. You are.
- [60:21]
Scott Galloway
That's right.
- [60:22]
Vivian Tu
To a degree. Like, very, very exposed.
- [60:24]
Scott Galloway
That's right.
- [60:25]
Vivian Tu
I love looking at. I believe the ticker is VX us. So that's like a Vanguard fund. Every single different brokerage.
- [60:34]
Scott Galloway
Everything but the U.S. correct. Yeah.
- [60:36]
Vivian Tu
So as long as you are, it makes sense, right? Like VX us. Every single brokerage has their own version of this. So make sure you're getting the one that's at the brokerage you are investing with. So you aren't paying additional fees.
- [60:49]
Kara Swisher
But.
- [60:49]
Vivian Tu
But you can not only just invest in index funds, domestically speaking, but having something like that that is going to give you broader band exposure across the globe is very, very smart. I think the tricky piece is what? Because people don't want to sit there and be like, okay, well, which of these countries has like a strong economic situation right now? Like which of these?
- [61:13]
Scott Galloway
Brazil or South Korea?
- [61:14]
Vivian Tu
Yeah, right, exactly. Like, they don't want to sit there and be like, okay, should I invest in like a BRICS country? Like, they want to just have it done for them. And if you want that, I think there are, again, index funds out there that are going to be able to help you do that in a very easy way where you can buy one thing and get exposure to the rest of the globe.
- [61:30]
Kara Swisher
Great. Okay, perfect. Vivian, we'll have you back and talk to us about Bitcoin. We're not going to go into it right now, but we'll talk about that next. All right. Because a lot of young people.
- [61:38]
Scott Galloway
I love Vivian too. I think she's fantastic.
- [61:41]
Kara Swisher
You're coming on again.
- [61:42]
Scott Galloway
I think she's fantastic.
- [61:44]
Vivian Tu
I love you guys.
- [61:45]
Scott Galloway
We should get a podcast for her on Voxel Away.
- [61:47]
Kara Swisher
Oh, she does Away Speaking, which people can find you on social media. You're rich, bff, and your podcast is Net Worth and Chill. What a good name. Thank you so much, Vivian.
- [61:58]
Scott Galloway
Congrats, Vivian.
- [61:59]
Vivian Tu
Thank you guys so much for having me.
- [62:00]
Kara Swisher
All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Support for Pivot comes from ATT. What does it feel like to get a new if iPhone 16 Pro with at and T Next Up Anytime. It's like when you first pick up those tongs and now you're the one running the grill. It's indescribable, like something you've never felt before. All the mouthwatering anticipation of new possibilities, whether it's making a perfect cheeseburger or treating your family to a grilled baked potato, which you know will forever change the way they look at potatoes. With AT and T Next Up Anytime you can feel this way again and again. Learn how to get a new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence on AT and T and the latest iPhone every year. With AT and T next up anytime attconnecting changes everything. Apple Intelligence coming fall 2024 with Siri and device language set to US English. Some features and languages will be coming over the next year. $0 offer may not be available on future iPhones. Next Up Anytime feature may be discontinued at any time. Time subject to change. Additional fees terms and Restrictions apply. See att.com iPhone for details. Support for Pivot comes from Lingo by Abbott when it comes to healthy habits, you can spend a lifetime cycling through wellness trends, diets and workouts. But the hard part is figuring out what actually works for you and sticking to it. That's where Lingo comes in. Lingo is a biowarable, an app that tracks your glucose in real time. That means you can get personal insights and recommendations that help you learn how to eat in a way that works for you. I'm about to try out Lingo myself, and I'm very interested to see what happens when I eat something in the morning and what it really means Is that oatmeal actually good for you? Or should you try eating an egg? It'll be interesting to track my unique glucose patterns, optimizing my nutrition and understanding the impact of that cookie at 11pm at night. It's water resistant. No more chasing wellness trends. When you use Lingo, your body can tell you what works for you. The Lingo glucose system is for users 18 years of age and older, not on insulin. It is not intended for diagnosis of diseases, including diabetes. For more information, please visit hello lingo.com.
- [64:18]
Scott Galloway
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- [65:16]
Kara Swisher
Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. You go first this week.
- [65:20]
Scott Galloway
Well, these are both good things, so I don't know how to categorize them as wins or fails, but Bashar al Assad, who's arguably one of the most murderous people in recent history, was forced to flee after rebels took control of Damascus. And there's a decent amount of insecurity around the devil you know versus the devil you don't know. It's not like these are good people who've taken over, but.
- [65:40]
Kara Swisher
But we don't know they've changed, but go ahead.
- [65:42]
Scott Galloway
Yeah, we don't know. And right now Israel is bombing military installations in the Syria because they don't want these new folks to have access to this stuff. But this is someone gas on his own people killed somewhere between half a million and a million of his countrymen and no one seemed quite frankly to be that outraged about it. But anyways, another talk show. But what people don't realize is that as much as we shitpost America and we're angry about it, our support in conjunction with our allies in Western Europe, our support of Ukraine has basically made it impossible. And also Israel's attack on the proxies of Iran have dramatically weakened the allies, Iran and Russia respectively, that Bashar al Assad turned to to save his ass. And the reason they're weakened is because right now Russia is losing 1500 people a day in Ukraine as Ukrainian army with drone technology and Western aid is proving to be the ultimate underdog that no one ever thought could put up this sort of fight. And Russia has its own problems right now. And when Bossier called Putin, he said, sorry boss, we got our own shit to take care of. And then when they called Iran, whose proxies Hamas, Houthis and Hezbollah and also Syria, their hands have been cut off and their air defenses are weakened. People don't give enough credit to the west and that is we are toppling dictators. Do you think Putin is really strong right now? You don't think the Islamic regime in Iran is really worried right now? And the thing that disappoints me is that young people in Americans get angry and upset about everything America and they don't realize that democracies, our commitment to the military, our military expenditures, our allies, our intelligence apparatus are winning. We're doing, we are a formidable force and we are not getting the credit. People are not recognizing the incredible work of our security apparatus, how strong we are when we're allied with people and the impact it is having on verification, just how difficult we are making it for very bad people. And I'm disappointed that the media doesn't recognize and people don't recognize how wonderful a victory this is and what wonderful things it says about the alliance between the us, Israel and Europe. We are making the lives of very bad people much more difficult right now. Anyways, I don't know if that's my win or fail. And my win, and this is a weird one, is do you remember the governor of Texas that ran for president? I think his name was Governor Perry. Rick Perry, Yeah, yeah.
- [68:16]
Kara Swisher
Remember, he wasn't, he didn't come off rather well. He seemed dumb.
- [68:20]
Scott Galloway
He lasted for a hot minute. But I liked him because he was very handsome. I also thought he was quite reasonable. And he said on a public debate stage before all this anti vax misinformation, he said he signed into law mandatory HPV vaccine for girls in schools. And there was a lot of pushback. And he said on stage, he said, well, you know what? I hate cancer. So there's just wonderful news that this vaccine for HPV has been found in a peer reviewed study to reduce cervical cancer by 62%. So think about this. A two thirds reduction in what is a terrible cancer that does happen to young women has been eliminated. And there's even evidence that a new, more advanced form of an HPV vaccine has the possibility or the potential to eradicate cervical cancer. This is just such wonderful news on what continues to be one of the great gifts of our modern economy, and that is vaccines.
- [69:21]
Kara Swisher
Those are great ones. I'm sure you're going to love this. But I have two actually positive ones and one very short negative one is Taylor. Taylor Swift's eras tour is over a record $2 billion in ticket sales. Just crazy. The amount of and the economic impact of this woman is enormous. That's just $2 billion. It doubled the gross of its closest competitor over 21 months and now it's the end of it. Congratulations. As a business person. So much economic benefit from one person's creativity. Whether you like her or not. Scott. She doesn't. She makes some jokes.
- [69:53]
Scott Galloway
I didn't like her. I just didn't love her music.
- [69:55]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, that's great. She makes a ton of money. So let me say what an incredible. What an incredible economic for everybody this year.
- [70:03]
Scott Galloway
I saw her.
- [70:04]
Kara Swisher
I did.
- [70:04]
Scott Galloway
I went.
- [70:04]
Kara Swisher
I did. Yeah, I know. Did. I liked. I loved it. But the economic benefits were enormous. Just enormous. Really quite something. And real money that was based on real things. I really appreciated that. And some of this crypto stuff going on makes me nervous. Young men trading. But this was real money made by a really great entrepreneur. So congratulations to Taylor Schist. Very briefly for another positive, very quick. Dick Van Dyke dancing in a Coldplay video.
- [70:31]
Scott Galloway
Oh that's great.
- [70:32]
Kara Swisher
99 years old, amazing dancer. Every year of his life. An amazing, amazing entertainer person. If you listen to him talk what a decent person he is. 99 years looks fantastic. Dancing his life out. Love that Dick Van Dyke. Love him so much. I can't even say how much I love Dick Van Dyke. And I just had my kids watch Mary Poppins which he's in. He's fantastic. My negative thing I think is this is people. What Biden is going to have to do in the next month. I guess you know he's just the EPA banned two cancer causing chemicals used in everyday products. They're trying to get in under the wires. One's in dry cleaning. Trying to get past all these things. He's urged to empty federal death rows before Trump takes office. Pardons. There was a back and forth with Liz Cheney who doesn't seem to want a federal pardon. But what he's going to do and some of them I'm like, like don't do this because it's against the rule of law. Right. In the opposite way. And the second part is then Trump says members of the January 6 committee should be jailed. He said it in an interview. I mean again, third world country antics. And so I don't envy the decisions Joe Biden is going to make because he wants to sort of be the rule of law guy. But at the same time this is unprecedented for an incoming president to say he wants people doing their jobs. The January 6th committee with zero proof by the way. 00, zero. And everything he said was wrong in that interview with Kristen Welker doing this. It's threatening. It's demented. It's an escalation in threats to these members, said they should be prosecuted for their lives. He accused them of treason last year, especially Liz Cheney. And her response, Astonishing. She is a brave. I don't care what you think of her. She stands for the rule of law. And I know people don't like her because of the war stuff, et cetera, et cetera, but just really disturbing that interview in many ways. You should go listen to it. Okay. That's my wins and fans.
- [72:35]
Scott Galloway
It's funny. Just going back to your win about Taylor Swift. My car took it in because it was making a whining noise and all they needed to do was take the Taylor Swift CD out.
- [72:44]
Kara Swisher
You will never acknowledge women killing it. A man can. Like literally.
- [72:49]
Scott Galloway
I'm not exaggerating. She waved at me in the crowd. I didn't wave back. So you can expect another album and tour in the next few months.
- [72:55]
Kara Swisher
All right, okay, whatever. Anyway, I loved you, Taylor. Good for you.
- [72:59]
Scott Galloway
By the way, she's a fantastic professional. Pays her people well, puts on a great show, not. Not a ton of obvious surgery or like profanity. I think she's a wonderful role model for young people.
- [73:10]
Kara Swisher
Oh, thank you.
- [73:11]
Scott Galloway
And I'm going to go see Wicked again.
- [73:12]
Kara Swisher
Okay, go ahead. Did you see it?
- [73:14]
Scott Galloway
No, I didn't see it.
- [73:15]
Kara Swisher
I didn't think so. Don't go. I don't want to listen to your insulting of it. Okay.
- [73:18]
Scott Galloway
I'm sure it's great. I love I. Cynthia Riva. Who's the hot one that dated the SNL guy? What's her name?
- [73:24]
Kara Swisher
Ariana Grande is amazing.
- [73:26]
Scott Galloway
She's incredible.
- [73:26]
Kara Swisher
She's amazing. Actually, go see it. She's amazing.
- [73:29]
Scott Galloway
Oh, no, I want to see it. I heard it's great.
- [73:31]
Kara Swisher
It's great. You should see it. It's long, so get, you know, pee before because of your elderly issues or. My pee.
- [73:37]
Scott Galloway
My elderly issues?
- [73:38]
Kara Swisher
Jesus Christ.
- [73:39]
Scott Galloway
My elderly issues.
- [73:41]
Kara Swisher
Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551, pivot it. I also want to mention a powerful interview I just did for on with Kara Swisher. I spoke to Megan Garcia, whose 14 year old son took his own life after spending several months interacting with a character AI chatbot. Megan discussed why she's suing Google and character AI and detailed her claims against these two companies. The question I asked was what she would say to the creators of this technology. Let's Listen, it might not matter to them that there's a little boy in Orlando, Florida that is gone and a mother who is devastated, but it matters to my little family here, you know, and you should. You should get to keep making products that are going to be hurting kids. You shouldn't get to master a dangerous product, train it to be super smart, and turn around and ride your golden chariot back into Google. You shouldn't get to hurt children the way that you are hurting children because you knew that this was dangerous when you did it. You knew that this was. This was going to be a direct result of doing that. And you knew that you didn't have the quote, unquote, brand safety implications as a startup that Google had. So you felt like that was a license to do this. Like, that's unconscionable, it's immoral and it's wrong. This was a really tough interview. She's astonishing. And you'll see it's a very complex story. So I recommend everybody listen to it. It's got a especially. We talk about this issue a lot.
- [75:13]
Scott Galloway
Yeah. I appreciate her courage and I appreciate you bringing the story to light. I don't think any of the sense until someone goes to jail.
- [75:19]
Kara Swisher
I agree. You know, one thing that I'll just note very quickly before we go is she has not been approached by any legislator to do something about this. This is just. I am on the frigging phone with these people and every time I talk to one, I said, you need to listen to this and do something about it.
- [75:33]
Scott Galloway
I should also note, and I'm very ra reticent to say this because I don't want to add to her pain. This also brings up some important issues around gun control, though, because the kid did find his stepfather's gun. And so this is a tragedy on a number of levels. That brings up a warranted conversation on a variety of topics.
- [75:55]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. But let's start with this thing they made, so we'll see where it goes. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday. For more, please read us out.
- [76:04]
Scott Galloway
Today's show was produced by Lara Aman, Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Interd engineered this episode. Thanks also to D Bros and Mio Yashat K, 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@nymag.com pod we'll be back later. This week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic it's not always easy to harness the power and potential of AI. For all the talk around its revolutionary potential, a lot of AI systems feel like they're designed for specific tasks performed by a select few. Well, Claude by Anthropic is AI for everyone. The latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonet offers offers groundbreaking intelligence at an everyday price. Claude Sonnet can generate code, help with writing and reason through hard problems better than any model before. You can discover how Claude can transform your business@anthropic.com Claude.
- [77:15]
Kara Swisher
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Vivian Tu
Overlooked catalyst for AI infrastructure, solidigm is.
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Kara Swisher
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Vivian Tu
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Kara Swisher
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