Did JD Vance Just Blow Up His 2028 Run? | Pivot

Scott Galloway 0:00 I'm sorry, Pope-- The Pope shouldn't talk about matters of theology? Isn't that exactly who should be discussing it?

Kara Swisher 0:06 I think he's torpedoing his twenty twenty-eight chances by picking a fight. [upbeat music] Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott Galloway 0:21 And I'm Scott Galloway.

Kara Swisher 0:22 How's it going, Scott?

Scott Galloway 0:23 Just so well, Kara.

Kara Swisher 0:25 Let's do a rundown

Kara Swisher 0:26 of the latest with Iran. President Trump says the war is very close to over again. As we tape this, Iranian officials and Pakistan's military chief are set to meet in Tehran to discuss messages exchanged by Iran and the US. Meanwhile, Iran's military has threatened shipping in the Red Sea if the US continues its blockade of Iranian ports.

Scott Galloway 0:44 Let me just piss off everybody. I think that the US threatening to fully block the Strait of Hormuz is the right move right now.

Kara Swisher 0:50 Mm-hmm. Many people do.

Scott Galloway 0:51 Because, uh, freedom of navigation for the last hundred and fifty years has been a key component of the global economy. It's a generally accepted principle that the Strait of Malacca or the Straits of Singapore, if Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore decide one day to exert their geopolitical power and get tens of billions of dollars, that they could block the strait. Egypt could block, uh, the Suez Canal. And so if there isn't a multilateral force that keeps this thing open, it just sets a terrible precedent. Now, how we got here, I think a lot of people have very valid arguments around, well, we broke it, now we're asking the world to fix it. But I think it's actually a good strategy to say, "Okay, if you want the straits blocked, we're gonna make them blocked for everyone, including all entry into Iranian ports," which I think is the right move. Um, what is really unusual about all of this, and I know we're gonna get to this, is that the markets are up.

Kara Swisher 1:44 Yeah, they are.

Scott Galloway 1:44 Um, which is just, uh, it, it fully seems like-

Kara Swisher 1:47 Yeah, let me-

Scott Galloway 1:47 ... the markets have totally dislocated.

Kara Swisher 1:49 Yeah. The, the, the S&P-

Scott Galloway 1:50 Go ahead. I'm sorry

Kara Swisher 1:50 ... is up two point eight percent at the time of this taping. Just they are going up 'cause they feel that there'll be some, some opening of the Hormuz, correct? I mean, or, or as Scott Bessent call it, the Strait of Vermouth, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway 2:03 There's a few things happening. One, [sighs] I've, I've said this for a while. I think the NASDAQ and the Dow are the two most damaging metrics in the world-

Kara Swisher 2:11 As you said, yeah

Scott Galloway 2:11 ... 'cause they give people a false sense of how, of the prosperity and wellbeing in the world. And the reality is America is energy independent, and so there's actually some stocks that are up twenty to forty percent in the oil sector, so it's not a defense risk to us. There is... The markets seem to be saying that the war will at some point be resolved sooner rather than later, and that the oil flow through Hormuz will begin again. You also have this unusual situation where in the last three bi- major conflicts the US was involved in, or three exogenous shocks, the Gulf War, the Iraq War, and COVID, what ended up happening was the markets were way down. And initially, in March, at the outset of the war, the markets declined ten percent. But in each instance, there's been a rip back. In the following year, the stocks are up. So people have been buying the dip, and basically what's happened now is people buy the dip sooner, and the markets recover based on a historical pattern-

Kara Swisher 3:06 Sure, but-

Scott Galloway 3:06 ... of the market surging after-

Kara Swisher 3:07 But it's still a mess there, a mess created by Trump that was unnecessary, right? The si- the way he's doing, the way he's conducting it.

Scott Galloway 3:13 No, that, that's a political statement.

Kara Swisher 3:14 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 3:14 And I, I, uh, you can agree or not agree. I'm just talking about with the markets.

Kara Swisher 3:17 No, uh-

Scott Galloway 3:18 The markets have totally disassociated there.

Kara Swisher 3:19 Th-they have. And I think what-

Scott Galloway 3:21 And-

Kara Swisher 3:21 You know, Stephanie Ruhle actually had some, a really good take on this, uh, this week, where she was talking about why they're like this. And they just feel... They're just trading, that's what she said, the ups and downs. They don't care about anything else. They just have watched the historical, um, behavior around this.

Scott Galloway 3:36 But also, look at who, look, look who this is hurting. Uh, gas is up.

Kara Swisher 3:41 Right.

Scott Galloway 3:41 Gas prices are, you know, Brent crude is up. You know, the European benchmark's up thirty, uh, two percent. The price of gasoline in America is up thirty-six percent. Brent oil futures are up thirty-one percent. But let's be honest, who does this hurt? It hurts the lower half of Ameri- Oil prices doesn't, don't really impact you or me, Kara.

Kara Swisher 4:00 Yeah. Well-

Scott Galloway 4:00 And, and-

Kara Swisher 4:01 ... little bit

Scott Galloway 4:01 ... the reality is ten percent of Ameri- the top decile of American citizens now are now responsible for fifty percent of consumer spending. They own ninety percent of the stocks. Do they care that gas is at six bucks? I mean, it's an interesting media headline, but the reality is the stock market is now a proxy for companies that are mostly invested in technology and some oil companies. You could argue some consumer companies will get hurt because consumers will stop, will spend less, but wealthy people-

Kara Swisher 4:28 Right

Scott Galloway 4:28 ... just aren't affected by this.

Kara Swisher 4:28 Which is, which is the point you made. I'm gonna inter- one of the thing-- I interviewed, uh, José Andrés this week, um, at the, um, Semiformal.

Scott Galloway 4:35 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 4:35 And he was talking about fertilizer prices and how people, you know, people m- across the world eat hand to mouth and, and he was noting that. He said, "You and I, you know, it'll be irritating to pay four, five, six dollars at the gas station, um, and it will, it will hurt us, but not in the way it hurts people around the world." And, and also, uh, fertilizer prices, um, for, for farmers in the Midwest. And added to the tariffs with Canada, the United States primarily imports fertilizer from Canada and I think Russia. Anyway, we, we have an issue with everybody else, and so the stock market doesn't reflect people's lived experiences, right? S- that's-

Scott Galloway 5:12 That's exactly right.

Kara Swisher 5:13 So one of the things that, um, that House Democrats are doing, now you told them to act, and I don't know if you think this is a thing to do, but they just filed six articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. I think they're getting ready, as Rahm Emanuel has start- started to make some moves, high crimes and misdemeanors related to Iran. And by the way, Hegseth, I must note, he read a fake Bible quote from "Pulp Fiction" during a prayer service at the Pentagon on Wednesday.

Scott Galloway 5:37 "Pulp Fiction," yeah.

Kara Swisher 5:37 It's beyond political. It's now economic for most people. You know, it doesn't get missed in all this, but it has a real impact, including this beef with the Pope. Um, let's listen to a clip. Now JD Vance has entered the conversation.

Speaker 5:49 But I think that it's important, in the same way that it's important for the Vice President of the United States to be careful when I talk

Speaker 5:55 about matters of public policy, I think it's very, very important for the Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.

Kara Swisher 6:02 Yeah, peace is a really big... thing in Catholicism

Scott Galloway 6:05 I'm sorry, Pope, the Pope shouldn't talk about matters of theology?

Kara Swisher 6:09 He has to be careful.

Scott Galloway 6:10 Isn't that exactly who should be discussing it?

Kara Swisher 6:11 He should be careful, even though he's a very well-regarded theologian. But J.D. Vance has some words for him. He's-- I think he's torpedoing his 2028 chances by picking a fight.

Scott Galloway 6:21 That's-

Kara Swisher 6:22 I just don't understand

Scott Galloway 6:23 ... Uh, he is trading off. He's decided still that he needs to have such, to be such an acolyte. This is a politically stupid move for him.

Kara Swisher 6:31 It really is

Scott Galloway 6:32 Because evangelicals are actually swing voters. They were sort of a toss-up with Biden, and then they, they went hard for Trump. If he doesn't get eva- evangelicals, he's not gonna be the nominee. And he's clearly decided that it makes more sense... I mean, quite fr- I, I don't get this at all because if he were to come out and say, "Those comments, while I respect what Trump said, I feel like the Pope's comments were ill-timed. I still have an issue, and I will not be critical," or i- if he came out slightly against Trump, Trump might be furious at him. Trump's not gonna dump his VP at this point, and J.D. Vance needs evangelicals. I mean, this was just a really stupid thing. And also, uh, uh, just because I think it's important to be as offensive as possible and convince people that I am not, in fact, running for president-

Kara Swisher 7:20 [laughs] Oh, no

Scott Galloway 7:20 ... you know how a little boy saved a priest's life?

Kara Swisher 7:23 Oh, no, no, no. We're not doing, no, we're not doing, we're not-

Scott Galloway 7:25 Okay, never mind. I'm sorry. I won't do it. I respect you. I got a picture of you behind me.

Kara Swisher 7:28 Yeah, okay. [laughs] Okay.

Scott Galloway 7:29 Never mind. Let's move on.

Kara Swisher 7:30 Um [laughs]

Scott Galloway 7:30 He found a lump on his scrotum.

Kara Swisher 7:32 Oh, no, no. [laughs]

Scott Galloway 7:32 He found a lump on his scrotum. Cop pulls over two priests and says, "We're looking for two child molesters," and the priests look at each other and then look to the cop and say, "We'll do it."

Kara Swisher 7:40 Oh my God. Okay. We're not insulting the Catholic Church-

Scott Galloway 7:44 It's terrible

Kara Swisher 7:44 ... right now because Trump is doing so... You know, I know it's a joke about Pete Hegseth quoting from "Pulp Fiction." He probably did an AI search and thought it was that, right? That's my guess. That's, that's probably what happened, and one of his dumb minions added it in.

Scott Galloway 7:57 But, but, but go on.

Kara Swisher 7:57 It's a fake Bible-

Scott Galloway 7:58 I, I'm-

Kara Swisher 7:58 ... but these people are so-

Scott Galloway 7:59 Sorry. Go ahead

Kara Swisher 7:59 ... performatively religious is the, my issue. Like, they don't even, they don't even read the Bible. They just quote from "Pulp Fiction" 'cause they don't know the difference. And if you were actually someone who's really, uh, religious, you do know the difference. A- and with the vice president, he just l- literally... Let me just take one more point. Uh, the Pope is an American citizen. He should be able to say what he wants, by the way. He, I, I don't... He, he remains an Amer- I assume he remains an American citizen, um, des-

Scott Galloway 8:27 From Villanova

Kara Swisher 8:28 ... despite being pope. [laughs] Um, but he doesn't lose those-

Scott Galloway 8:30 Yeah

Kara Swisher 8:31 ... First Amendment rights.

Scott Galloway 8:31 Very impressive guy.

Kara Swisher 8:32 But he's talking about peace. He's talking about tyrants. He's talking about everything Jesus talked about.

Scott Galloway 8:38 He's very good.

Kara Swisher 8:38 Everything.

Scott Galloway 8:39 Yeah. He's very good.

Kara Swisher 8:40 And, and solidifying his power.

Scott Galloway 8:41 But more importantly, what do, what do you get when 500 Jewish mothers convert to Catholicism, Kara?

Kara Swisher 8:47 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 8:48 You get critical mass.

Kara Swisher 8:50 [laughs] Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Scott Galloway 8:51 Get it? Critical mass.

Kara Swisher 8:54 Oh, my.

Scott Galloway 8:54 I think that's pretty good.

Kara Swisher 8:56 We're gonna move on. This is really-

Scott Galloway 8:57 I think that's pretty good

Kara Swisher 8:57 ... disastrous, this fight with the Pope. The Pope is gonna win, kids.

Scott Galloway 9:00 [laughs] Oh, yeah. No, don't go up against El Papa, especially this papa. He's very good.

Kara Swisher 9:05 Oh, man, I even wanna go in the church. That's how b- good papa it is. I'm like, "I'm going back."

Scott Galloway 9:10 You're gonna go to one of those crazy Unitarian churches with some lady with blue hair.

Kara Swisher 9:14 Yeah. No, I don't like Unitarian.

Scott Galloway 9:16 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 9:16 'Cause I-

Scott Galloway 9:16 Baptizing-

Kara Swisher 9:17 I don't like-

Scott Galloway 9:18 Bapti- baptizing support or rescue dogs.

Kara Swisher 9:21 No.

Scott Galloway 9:21 You'll end up in one of those kind of churches.

Kara Swisher 9:21 No, I won't. I don't like those. I actually... I, Megan went... We were-

Scott Galloway 9:25 Or go to Glide next time in San Francisco.

Kara Swisher 9:27 I love Glide. I love Glide.

Scott Galloway 9:28 That's awesome.

Kara Swisher 9:28 It's a wonderful church. It's a wonderful church.

Scott Galloway 9:29 Yeah. They do good work.

Kara Swisher 9:30 I don't like Unitarian ch- churches. My, my ex-wife took me to one. We were married, and I was like, "Do they stand for anything?" [laughs] Like, I, for some reason, the Catholic in me got going, and I was like, "W- what?"

Scott Galloway 9:40 They're too politically correct for you?

Kara Swisher 9:41 No, they were like... It was like, it was like everyb- everything. They believed everything, and I was... And I, listen, I have a lot of respect for all, all religions, but I got... I, I had to leave. I was really-

Scott Galloway 9:50 All right. There's your land acknowledgment. I don't. I believe some religions are worse than others.

Kara Swisher 9:55 Oh, they're not worse. They're lovely people.

Scott Galloway 9:55 Let me just say that. I just wanna... I just... I got interrupted by my, uh, my, um, uh, poorly, poorly timed jokes. B- I just wanna go back to the notion of trying to do, uh, an impeachment or begin impeachment proceedings of Hegseth. I think that's stupid. I don't think you... I, I think if we've learned or one thing we should've learned as Democrats is that, uh, unless you have the votes lined up, you don't do it. It comes across, uh-

Kara Swisher 10:21 But I thought you said for them to signal what they're gonna do

Scott Galloway 10:23 ... I just don't think America needs another impeachment.

Kara Swisher 10:23 Isn't that kind of signaling what they're gonna do?

Scott Galloway 10:26 No. This is... In my view, this is what they do. A, an, an impeachment nostalgia tour, the Democrats don't need again. It, at this point, it wouldn't work. I'm all for impeaching the president at this point and the secretary of defense. You don't do it until you know the votes are locked. You announce it and then start the vote the next day. Otherwise, it's just performative and pisses off the other side and is a waste of time. This is what you do. You announce legitimate legal action and coordination with the state AG to go after certain individuals who have committed actual crimes, and there's a lot of them in this administration. This is performative, it's political, and we're gonna, again, look stupid.

Kara Swisher 11:03 Oh, okay. All right, back to... All right, the Democrats still suck according to you.

Scott Galloway 11:05 Sorry.

Kara Swisher 11:06 Um, but what, what do you think about the Powell situation? 'Cause this seems like another self-own here. Tillis is not... I... Trust me.

Scott Galloway 11:13 It's-

Kara Swisher 11:13 Tillis is not backing down, like, just FYI. [laughs] Anyway, um, I'm gonna move on because the chaos follows Trump wherever he goes, and he's back to his Jerome Powell fight. He's like an old man who forgot he was fighting with someone and then remembered. He said if he doesn't, uh, step down next month, he's gonna fire him, like, even though he has more time on the board, and also says

Kara Swisher 11:32 the DOJ probe of Po- Powell and the Fed should continue. Powell's Fed chair term officially ends on May 15th. His term as Fed governor is up in 2028. Usually, they leave when they, when they finish their chair, but he doesn't have to, and he plans to stay on as acting chair until his successor, Kevin Warsh, is confirmed. Powell says that's what the law calls for. Warsh's confirmation hearing is scheduled for next week, but Senator Thom Tillis, who I interviewed, as said, confirmed again, he won't confirm him until the DOJ probe is resolved. All this from the prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney Jenine Pirro's office showed up at the Fed this week trying to get a tour of the building's renovations, got turned away. She's trying hard to become attorney general, FYI. Um, uh, he can't... If he fires Trump, uh, Powell, he's in big trouble. He's gonna taco this one, right?

Scott Galloway 12:19 It's three people in a roomWith, with, with Claude and ChatGPT, and every time the temperature in association with Epstein gets a bunch between-- the link between Trump and Epstein and its presence in the media gets above a certain temperature, they say, "Throw something out and distract everybody."

Kara Swisher 12:38 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 12:38 And this is just another one, because I don't even think he legally has the right-

Kara Swisher 12:42 Yeah

Scott Galloway 12:42 ... to remove Powell from the Board of Governors.

Kara Swisher 12:45 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 12:45 So, uh, uh, uh, Pa- his term doesn't end till January twenty twenty-eight.

Kara Swisher 12:51 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 12:51 So i-i-i- this is just, again, I believe he knows, and his people have said... I mean, there's two things that are going on. Either Grandpa just says shit as he's, as he's thinking it, and maybe that's true, or if you give him more credit than that, it's another attempt to distract from, from Epstein. I don't want to say I feel bad for Kevin Warsh, but all-- his entire hearing is gonna be about Jerome Powell-

Kara Swisher 13:14 Mm-hmm. Correct. Yeah

Scott Galloway 13:14 ... not about Kevin Warsh. And what I've said before [chuckles] is that as long as Powell is on the Board of Governors, he's the de facto chair, because anything he says, eleven of the twelve governors are gonna nod their heads.

Kara Swisher 13:26 Which is why Trump wants him gone.

Scott Galloway 13:28 The chair-

Kara Swisher 13:29 Which is why Trump wants him removed. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 13:30 That's exactly right, but he does not have the power-

Kara Swisher 13:32 Yeah

Scott Galloway 13:32 ... to do this. And you're going to have several Republican senators find their testicles and come out in favor of Chairman Powell remaining on the Board of Governors. It's, uh, uh, it-- But I think Trump, I think Trump knows that and just today said, "I need something to keep Epstein out of the news."

Kara Swisher 13:50 Right, or the war, or-

Scott Galloway 13:51 "I'll go after Powell again today."

Kara Swisher 13:52 Yeah, or, or fiction, yeah.

Scott Galloway 13:54 Yeah, my favorite is, my favorite is they're gonna start talk about, talking about Epstein to distract from Iran. [laughs]

Kara Swisher 14:01 They're not gonna fire Powell. They're not. They're just not. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break, and when we come back, Amazon makes a big acquisition. [soft music] Support for this show comes from Quince. If you're participating in a time-honored tradition of cleaning out your closet this spring, you might wanna consider replacing some of those old clothes with high-quality pieces from Quince. Quince makes stylish everyday clothing using premium materials like a hundred percent European linen, organic cotton, and super soft denim, with styles starting around fifty dollars. Their spring pieces are lightweight, breathable, and effortless, the kind you can throw on and instantly look put together. And they work directly with top factories, cutting out the cost of the middleman, so you're not paying for a brand markup, just quality clothing. I have just gotten a bunch of new Quince pieces. I usually get soft pants and comfortable things, but I just got a cardigan, I got a pair of jeans, and they're incredible. They're incredibly soft and, uh, look great and actually look ex- more expensive than they cost me. They also have a lot of seasonal colors and prints for spring that'll make getting dressed a breeze. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Right now, go to quince.com/pivot for free shipping and three hundred and sixty-five-day returns, now available in Canada too. Go to Q-U-I-N-C-E.com/pivot for free shipping and three hundred and sixty-five-day returns, quince.com/pivot. [soft music] Support for this show comes from Mint Mobile. We all like to have money. It's what pays for the bills, lets us do fun things, and feeds our families. Unfortunately, big wireless companies also like to have our money, so much so that they come up with all kinds of bogus fees and free perks that actually cost more in the long term. But Mint Mobile says they're a different kind of wireless provider. Mint Mobile offers a premium wireless phone plan for just fifteen dollars a month, and all of their plans come with high-speed 5G data and unlimited talk and text. You don't need to bother getting a new phone or number or enter into some long-term contract. Just activate online in minutes and start saving immediately. That means no more expensive monthly phone bill riddled with unexpected fees. Get three months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for just fifteen bucks a month. If you like money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at mintmobile.com/pivot. That's mintmobile.com/pivot. Upfront payment of forty-five dollars for three months, five gigabyte plan required, equivalent to fifteen dollars a month. New customer offer for first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

Kara Swisher 16:31 [soft music] Amazon is acquiring a satellite operator, Globalstar, in a deal worth around eleven point five billion as it tries to catch up to SpaceX Starlink. Under the agreement, Amazon gets Globalstar's existing satellites and infrastructure, which will operate alongside Amazon's own, uh, network, now called Leo, as-- after the Pope, I guess. Uh, Amazon says the deal will enable it to build direct-to-device satellite system with a rollout expected in twenty twenty-eight. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr says his agency is very open-minded to the deal, and the FCC is taking all gas, no brakes approach to expanding the US space economy. He kinda has to. Talk about this, because obviously Amazon isn't going away, um, with-- and they're trying to solidify this network for themselves to be the, at least the number two player here.

Scott Galloway 17:17 My big stock pick for twenty twenty-five was Alphabet. We got that one right. My big tech spo- stock pick for '26 is Amazon. This is what I think Amazon is going to do. They are going to build a viable competitor to Starlink using Kuiper as a platform, and this is another-

Kara Swisher 17:36 It's called Leo now

Scott Galloway 17:36 ... step in that.

Kara Swisher 17:37 It's called Leo.

Scott Galloway 17:37 They get... I'm sorry, Project Leo. They bought, basically they bought twenty-four satellites here, and it's never been pro-profitable, but g- Amazon closed up three percent, and this is what I think Amazon's strategy is. Amazon's gonna launch a phone, and then they're gonna offer Amazon Prime Plus, which will offer you a phone and lightning-fast connectivity into your home. They're going after AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast, and basically gonna offer you connectivity with Amazon Prime, and they need the satellites to do this. So why would they buy a non-profitable satellite company? Again, see above, twenty-four satellites. They get spectrum. They get radio waves. The wireless signals, uh, including Wi-Fi, travel on. The government owns these and issues specific licenses for them, but spectrum is auctioned off by the FCC and extremely expensive, so they get thatThey could do for B2C, again, Amazon price, they could sell Wi-Fi to Prime subscribers. B2B, they could sell private wireless networks to serve its warehouses, delivery hubs, robots, drones. Robots and drones need this connectivity to communicate wirelessly constantly, and it's much easier if it's cost-efficient if Amazon has its own network.

Kara Swisher 18:50 Yeah, so it's a strong number two.

Scott Galloway 18:52 This is essentially an extension-

Kara Swisher 18:53 It's to create a strong number two.

Scott Galloway 18:54 This is-

Kara Swisher 18:55 Presumably

Scott Galloway 18:56 ... this is essentially what Amazon is. It's the strongest infrastructure company in the world. It's an extension of their investment in their logistics network. And right now, Project Leo has two hundred and forty operational satellites. It plans to ramp up its network by deploying thirty-two hundred in Earth's low orbit by twenty twenty-nine. Starlink has over ten thousand. This is definitely catch-up, but Amazon has a hundred and fifteen million homes to offer this service to overnight.

Kara Swisher 19:23 Right, a relationship with consumers, right? So you have to go out and buy Starlink, and people do love it, I have to say. You know, oddly enough, José Andrés, who has had beef-- has a huge beef with, with Musk-

Scott Galloway 19:33 Great product

Kara Swisher 19:33 ... over, uh, USAID saying he's killing... essentially saying he's-

Scott Galloway 19:37 Great product

Kara Swisher 19:37 ... killing people. Um, he said we used... Starlink is critical to our World Central Kitchen operations, and I think he would like an alternative, but he definitely said it's really a shame. I wish that Elon was around and not this other one, um, which is, you know, hugely damaging to their efforts across the world, feeding people. Um, but between that fertilizer and that, like the cuts at USAID, they're facing, you know, a huge uphill battle against hunger across the world. But one of the things that's happening here is you get an alt... This is what's happened with Tesla. This is what happened. There's going to be number twos. Now, will it have an impact on the SpaceX IPO? I doubt it. I think it's gonna be like... It's gonna run. Oddly enough, interestingly enough, Google is a big owner of it, um, of, of the SpaceX IPO. They're gonna make like many commas of money, um, from this deal. So that should, that would, that, that'll be an interesting thing because many years ago, Yahoo owned a big piece of Google, I don't know if you remember in the beginning, and that's what saved them for a while, like having that investment in, in Google that they made. Um, and now in this case, Google's gonna make a lot of money from these SpaceX, but I don't think the SpaceX IPO will be damaged in any way, correct, from your perspective?

Scott Galloway 20:50 No, it's, it's arguably one of the strongest brands in the world right now, and people are excited about it. It, it'll go out wildly overpriced. I think it'll get a slight bump. It'll be the biggest IPO of, of, um, '26. The best IPO of '26 will be Anthropic, which will get out ahead of OpenAI because it has more momentum. But it's going to be... Again, if you look at SpaceX, um, what do I think, eighteen billion in revenue, six billion in profits, so when, um... It's gonna, it's going out at a hundred times revenue. It's growing twenty-four percent a year. When Google went public, it was growing two hundred and forty percent-

Kara Swisher 21:31 Yeah. Yeah

Scott Galloway 21:31 ... a year and trading at ten times revenues. So SpaceX, incredible company, the most overvalued IPO in history? Uh, the answer is yes.

Kara Swisher 21:40 Yes, yes. And I think it's great that-

Scott Galloway 21:41 It's, it's just insane the valuation we're talking about

Kara Swisher 21:42 ... there's another, there's more satellite efforts like this. There has to be at least two or three. I mean, there's not gonna be more than that, by the way, because the costs are so huge, but it's good for having them run for their money. Speaking of OpenAI and Anthropic, O-OpenAI is

Kara Swisher 21:55 distancing itself from Microsoft and cozying up to Amazon, which is interesting. In a memo sent to staff, OpenAI's revenue chief, Denise Dresser, said that Microsoft partnership has limited the company's ability to meet enterprises where they are. No, no shit. On the other hand, Dresser said the company's Amazon deal has generated frankly staggering demand. Dresser also used the memo to go after Anthropic, accusing the rival of building its strategy on, quote, "Fear, restriction, and the idea that a small group of elites should control AI," which is interesting to say. Obviously, they're throwing... They're trying to hurt Anthropic in the race to an IPO. They're throwing Microsoft under the bus. Speaking of Anthropic news, the company has recently received multiple offers from VCs to invest at valuations as high as eight hundred billion dollars, and Anthropic has briefed the Trump administration about its new Mythos model, which is not being released to the public due, as we talked about last week, due to its alleged cybersecurity capabilities. Um, interestingly, Amazon, an Amazon-- Bezos-owned Washington Post said that efforts by the Pentagon to thwart, to thwart Anthropic are stupid, which was interesting this week. They're fighting it out in court. I suspect the Trump administration is gonna start dropping that soon enough.

Scott Galloway 23:02 Anthropic has more momentum than any company in the world right now. It's gone... I mean, it's gone, at the end of twenty twenty-five, which wasn't that long ago, its ARR was nine billion. It's now thirty billion. It's more than tripled its annual recurring revenue in four months. And by the way, uh, OpenAI's is twenty-five billion, so the little engine that was, you know, kind of an afterthought to OpenAI just twelve, eighteen months ago is now a bigger business than OpenAI. And this is the first time that Anthropic has led on revenue, and it's growing faster. It's... And not only that, it's a better business because that growth is almost exclusively enterprise-driven, which is a better business.

Kara Swisher 23:43 So what is OpenAI doing here by release-- They released the memo. Let's not pretend that this is what they were doing. What, what's the messaging?

Scott Galloway 23:50 This has become Coke versus Pepsi.

Kara Swisher 23:52 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 23:52 And yeah, I f- I think it feels desperate.

Kara Swisher 23:55 I do too.

Scott Galloway 23:55 I don't, I don't... They're trying to, they're trying to weaponize the government against them. They're trying to shit post them. These guys hate each other. It's, it's the Hatfields versus, uh, the McCoys. And Anthropic has one thousand customers paying over one million dollars a year. That's up from just five hundred in February. The number of customers spending over a million dollars a year has doubled in the last-

Kara Swisher 24:16 So they don't seem to care about the Pentagon thing at all. You had thought they might, but it looks like they don't. Looks like they don't.

Scott Galloway 24:22 The, the numbers here, let me give you some more data. Eighty percent of Anthropic's revenues come from business clients who are, quite frankly, are just more reliable and more, and less margin sensitive than consumers.Yeah, versus 40% at OpenAI. 70% of every incremental dollar spent on AI coming from the enterprise is going to Anthropic. They raised thirty billion in their Series G at a three hundred and eighty billion dollar valuation, which is ridiculously low compared to the eight hundred and fifty billion dollar valuation that OpenAI did, guaranteeing a 17% return, which could crush previous investors if they don't, if they have to go out lower than that. They, they also said, I, I mean, the, both companies are exploring an IPO this year, and Anthropic projects, uh, positive free cash flow by 2027. OpenAI has said they're gonna break even in 2030. But the bottom line is, Dario Amodei is just showing himself to be a much more competent CEO-

Kara Swisher 25:19 Right. Let me ask you a question

Scott Galloway 25:21 ... than Sam Altman.

Kara Swisher 25:21 This focus on consumer.

Scott Galloway 25:23 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 25:23 Here's what I see. OpenAI definitely focused on consumer and being like Kleenex or Google, right? That was what they were going for, the, the one that everyone thinks of. ChatGPT is AI, right, for everybody, essentially. Not Claude. ChatGPT is Kleenex, right, or Cla- or Google or whatever, the, the, the representative of everything.

Scott Galloway 25:42 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 25:43 So they relied on the consumers. Then they have a really g- they start, Sam Altman starts to get a very bad consumer reputation, so he g- that, like... And up and, up to and including people attacking his home, right, which is heinous. They have relied on-

Scott Galloway 25:59 Mm-hmm

Kara Swisher 26:00 ... consumer relationships, which are very easy to break, right? Suddenly you become the bad guy, and I think that, that's one of the things. But h- bear hugging Amazon and pushing away Microsoft, what is that? If you're in the room, what do you think the strategy is?

Scott Galloway 26:14 The honest truth is, I don't know. My guess is there's some ego involved here and some dynamics behind the scenes that I just don't understand. But let me be clear. It, it, it's not easy to build a consumer brand. It can be very powerful. I'm not suggesting... I'm biased 'cause all my businesses have always been B2B, and the b- and the one business I did B2C, Red Envelope, was just so much fucking harder, uh, that I found, than doing, building a B2B business. Now, what I think the dynamic here is the following. The reason why Anthropic is gonna be worth more and get to the IPO starting line faster than OpenAI, as an enterprise-dominant business as opposed to a consumer business of OpenAI, is not necessarily that one is much better than the other, but here's the difference in terms of competitive dynamics. You can get, as a consumer, a really outstanding LLM and AI for free. If you're a company, if you're Clorox looking for a three million dollar enterprise-wide LLM, uh, AI offering, there's no free alternative. So, uh, in sum, the substitutes on the consumer level are just much greater than the substitutes at an enterprise level, which says to me, whoever dominates enterprise has a, just a much better business. Also, these, with just, with just a duopoly, if one is perceived as better, which right now Anthropic is perceived, um, as better in the enterprise, enterprises are much less consumer sensitive, 'cause if they're gonna implement technical debt, they don't care if it's 30% more expensive.

Kara Swisher 27:45 But is, was it a mistake? Is it a mistake to then say, "M- we, we didn't get in the enterprise fast enough due to Microsoft," which may in fact be the case, "and now we're gonna hug Amazon?"

Scott Galloway 27:53 That makes no fucking sense.

Kara Swisher 27:55 Right. Why do it?

Scott Galloway 27:56 You're gonna piss off-

Kara Swisher 27:56 Why are they doing it?

Scott Galloway 27:57 Well, you're gonna piss, you're gonna piss off one of the most important, measured, thoughtful people in tech, Satya Nadella.

Kara Swisher 28:03 Who backed you.

Scott Galloway 28:03 That just makes no sense.

Kara Swisher 28:04 Who backed you-

Scott Galloway 28:04 That's not-

Kara Swisher 28:05 ... when you were in trouble.

Scott Galloway 28:06 Yeah, and it shows, it shows that you're not getting along with... Y- you have these fights behind the scenes. You don't, you don't say that publicly, that you don't get into a war with Microsoft.

Kara Swisher 28:18 But one of the things they have to do is they have a problem with their image. N- because they're the face of AI, they're the face of AI, right? Well, Dario looks like a hero from a, from a marketing point of view, at the very least. And so that's, I think, the real problem, is Sam Altman represents AI, which everybody is hating on. Like, young people, all the polls, all, everybody has a problem with it, and when the problem shows, you look at someone like Sam Altman and not Dario. You know, Dario's not getting the kind of hatred that Altman is getting now, which I think is a problem. But why hug Amazon too?

Scott Galloway 28:52 Because Amazon is executing against infrastructure like no one's business, and if you wanna... I mean, arguably, Amazon, from an enterprise level, is the most discerning consumer in the world, and A- Amazon is the best infrastructure company in the world. I, I, so, but I think there's some ego here. I think someone got pissed off at someone. But you don't, you don't get into a public tiff with Microsoft. By the way, just in terms of stocks, Microsoft as a multiple of free cash flow is cheaper than it's ever been. I think Microsoft's a really good buy right now. But th- th- look, the, uh, Anthropic has so much momentum right now, and OpenAI does not. Do you re- uh, g- get this. Kalshi is saying the odds of Sam Altman being replaced as CEO are up to 27%. I mean, for the first time, Sam Altman being replaced by the end of the year is a real possibility because OpenAI, public tiffs with Microsoft, who was supposed to be your partner in this, throwing up, totally shitting the bed in the enterprise market, all this negative PR and press. I mean, and there's just no getting around it. Uh, Anthropic is worth more than OpenAI right now. The, and, uh, so I, I think Sam, I think they were smart to be focused. They're gonna do away with that ridiculous fucking nonsense from IO. That, that was the stupidest acquisition-

Kara Swisher 30:14 Mm-hmm

Scott Galloway 30:14 ... of 24-

Kara Swisher 30:14 This is the ChatGPT thing

Scott Galloway 30:15 ... or whatever it was. That's gonna be a s- that's gonna be a six billion dollar write-off. They're smart to stay focused, but this is, this is a tale of two cities, and one city is skyrocketing, and that's Anthropic, and the other is burning up on re-entry, and that's, um, that's OpenAI.

Kara Swisher 30:33 You know, I think about-

Scott Galloway 30:33 So-

Kara Swisher 30:33 It is, it's, it... But the posturing is important, right? So Altman is fighting with Musk on, on, on that case, which is gonna be full. It's going to trial, it looks like, this case, so that's gonna bring-

Scott Galloway 30:44 Mm-hmm

Kara Swisher 30:44 ... unnecessaryNo matter what, Elon fights, you know, with a lot of swords, so it doesn't... He'll, he'll, he'll land some blows even if he's... a- and make them look bad. He will. Even if he looks, he doesn't care, 'cause he's like the villain, so it's fine if he makes other people look like a villain, I mean, from a, from a public perspective. Um, they're also, um, you know, it's not just Altman. It's like someone like Chris Lehane, who I find very aggressive, right? And th- this is a very aggressive group of people that sounds like they're not getting along internally. You sort of feel rumbles of that. Um, you know, the mistakes of not embracing enterprise and going full scale into popularity. Now, I agree they shouldn't be fighting with Microsoft, but they made their, they made the mistake, and now they're blaming their partner for that, right? Ability to meet enterprises where they are, 'cause they're actually com-

Scott Galloway 31:34 They look like they're flailing

Kara Swisher 31:35 ... they're competing with Microsoft.

Scott Galloway 31:36 They look like they're just flailing right now.

Kara Swisher 31:37 They are competitors in that, in that space. So anyway.

Scott Galloway 31:40 But what's to be gained, what's to be gained by shitposting Microsoft in public?

Kara Swisher 31:45 I don't know. I don't know.

Scott Galloway 31:46 What do they get?

Kara Swisher 31:47 Just to say, "We, we're serious about the-

Scott Galloway 31:49 I don't

Kara Swisher 31:49 ... we're gonna really compete in the enterprise. This, now we're serious." I don't know. I don't know. I just, I don't understand this memo whatsoever.

Scott Galloway 31:56 But what enterprise is gonna hire OpenAI because they've been critical of Microsoft? I, I don't, I, I absolutely don't get it. This, these people have egos. Satya Nadella doesn't need, doesn't need Sam... I mean, Microsoft could write off its investment in OpenAI. It- quite frankly, the market has already done that. The market has taken Microsoft's st- stock down, I don't know, 20 or 25% in the last six months. They, the trouble in Mudville has already been perceived by the market with respect to Microsoft's playing in traffic with OpenAI, and that their investment in OpenAI may not end up being, you know, the, the, the, the kicker and the afterburner everyone thought it was.

Kara Swisher 32:32 And then Amazon got in at a-

Scott Galloway 32:34 And a guy like Sat-

Kara Swisher 32:35 No, go ahead. A- Amazon got in at better rates-

Scott Galloway 32:36 And a g-

Kara Swisher 32:37 ... essentially, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway 32:38 And a guy like Satya Nadella doesn't scare easily. I, I do- I don't, I absolutely don't understand who approved this public spat on the... And it says to me that OpenAI-

Kara Swisher 32:48 It's desperate. Yeah

Scott Galloway 32:49 ... does not have a board that, that would say, "Oh yeah, that's a good idea. Let's get in a war with Microsoft."

Kara Swisher 32:54 And, and I think, I think-

Scott Galloway 32:55 There's ego here.

Kara Swisher 32:56 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 32:56 Someone got pissed off at something.

Kara Swisher 32:57 Yeah. The Anthropic, going after Anthropic as being fair restriction idea this small i- is just sort of so backward looking. Just to, to... When you start attacking the number two, there's something going on, especially, I think they were trying to get reporters interested in this run rate and, you know, inflation of revenues, which by the way, no one really cares about with these companies at this point. They wanna know who the leader's gonna be. Anyway, um, I mean, they should care, but they don't.

Scott Galloway 33:22 Th- th- there-

Kara Swisher 33:23 It's just a dump

Scott Galloway 33:24 ... there's a general crucible r- rule, fundamental truth in branding and marketing, is that when you're the market leader, or you wanna be perceived as the market leader, which I think OpenAI would say, "We are the leader, and we wanna be perceived as the market leader," you never reference the competition. You don't. You just never... Uh, Visa was a client of mine back in my brand strategy days at Prophet, and I said, "Why wouldn't you talk about this versus MasterCard?" And he goes, "We're the market leader. We never reference the competition." When you reference the competition, you're immediately saying they're a competitor, and when you're the market leader, what you wanna say is, "We have no..." Coke never re- Coke never referenced Pepsi. Coke never did a taste test. They're like, "We don't even... As far as we're concerned, Pepsi doesn't exist-

Kara Swisher 34:11 Have you done that?

Scott Galloway 34:11 ... 'cause we're fucking Coca-Cola."

Kara Swisher 34:12 In business, have you done that? I, I used to do it when they were talking about competitors. I'm like, "Who?" I'd do things like, like, "I'm sorry, I didn't see it." Like, I would [laughs] on purpose.

Scott Galloway 34:22 Yeah, I don't... The best, I don't do that.

Kara Swisher 34:24 I do.

Scott Galloway 34:25 Uh, well-

Kara Swisher 34:26 I'm always like, "Scott?"

Scott Galloway 34:27 Okay, I'll try and draw this-

Kara Swisher 34:28 I don't know any Scott. Scott.

Scott Galloway 34:29 Who's that? Who's that? What? I think someone said he has a picture of me-

Kara Swisher 34:32 Yeah, I know. He's a little obsessed

Scott Galloway 34:32 ... behind him on his podcast.

Kara Swisher 34:34 He's a stalker.

Scott Galloway 34:34 The, the personal learning here is the following, uh, or what I've finally come to peace with. When people shitpost you or criticize you online, the best revenge-

Kara Swisher 34:42 Say nothing

Scott Galloway 34:43 ... hands down, indifference. Just indifference.

Kara Swisher 34:46 You've gotten good on that.

Scott Galloway 34:47 Don't, don't mention it.

Kara Swisher 34:48 Remember you used to get mad at certain people attacking you. You'd get all, uh, hang on.

Scott Galloway 34:52 Well, I wasn't used to it. I used to be this cute professor that everyone said nice things about.

Kara Swisher 34:55 Yeah, you got-

Scott Galloway 34:56 And then when I got big because of you-

Kara Swisher 34:58 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 34:58 ... people started actually looking at my shit and saying, "This makes no sense." Uh, and I would get upset.

Kara Swisher 35:03 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 35:03 Anyway.

Kara Swisher 35:04 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 35:04 I'm fine now.

Kara Swisher 35:05 Agreed.

Scott Galloway 35:05 And then I discovered edibles.

Kara Swisher 35:06 Yeah, that's good. Anyway, you've gotten much better about that, I have to say.

Scott Galloway 35:09 And then I discovered edibles.

Kara Swisher 35:09 And getting off of Twitter, which you did first, I will acknowledge. I'm sorry for making that mistake last week. Anyway, um, another interesting story. We're gonna go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about a potential United American Airlines merger. Seems unlikely, but here we go. [gentle music] Support for this show comes from Built. The roof over your head is one of your biggest, if not the biggest, monthly expense. Whether it's rent or mortgage, it's just one of those things we all have to pay for. So why not earn something back while you do it? That's exactly how Built made a name for themselves. They started out by rewarding members on their rent. Now, as of 2026, Built members can also earn points on mortgage payments to wherever they live. Every housing payment earns you points you can use toward trips with top-level partners like United and Hyatt. Plus, you can use them towards Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases, and so much more. Built members can also get access to a neighborhood concierge. It can make restaurant reservations, book fitness classes, and find new local spots, all while you're being rewarded at more than 40,000 merchant partners. It's like having a personal assistant baked into where you live. It's simple. Being a renter and now owning a home can feel a whole lot better with Built. Join membership for where you live at joinbuilt.com/pivot. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com/pivot. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you.Support for this show comes from Harvey AI. The future of law is agentic, not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. Harvey was built on legal agents that analyze, draft, and execute with precision. But great lawyers don't just complete tasks, they strategize. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from secure data sources, run sub-agents in parallel, and draft the work product ready for your review. So you can delegate the work and own the judgment. Harvey agents support work across fund formation litigation, regulatory compliance, M&A, and more, adapting to the complexity of each matter and the way your team actually works. Trusted by more than sixty percent of the AM Law 100 and leading Fortune 500 legal teams, Harvey is the AI operating system designed specifically for legal work, helping teams move faster with greater precision and confidence. Harvey AI tailored for law. Learn more at harvey.ai.

Kara Swisher 37:33 Scott, we're back with more headlines. The CEO of United Airlines reportedly pitched a merger with American Airlines directly to Donald Trump. Of course, the two companies combined would account for about forty percent of the US domestic flying capacity. Industry experts and lawmakers are already pushing back, flagging major antitrust concerns. I mean, even I know that. As one analyst puts it, the Justice Department doesn't object to that. They... What would they object to? Trump is staying quiet for now, with the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, saying he has no opinion on a potential merger. I mean, I don't mind, uh, this guy trying it, but w-why not? It's the last days of N-Nero's empire here, so why not? But this seems like something that would be dead on arrival. I just don't, I don't see it.

Scott Galloway 38:13 Yeah, but you just, you summarized it perfectly, and that is the last days of Nero, and that is you're gonna see, in the next two years, you're gonna see so many mergers, um, proposed because everyone's gonna go, "There's no fucking way [chuckles] an FTC or a DOJ that is not in a deep coma would allow this." So if we're, you know, if we're, what are the, you know, two most dominant play-- If you're just gonna see mergers like crazy because they're gonna go, "This is our last chance," because this absolutely makes no sense, uh, from a concentration and monopoly standpoint. This should not be allowed to happen. It would create the largest airline on Earth, thirty to forty percent of US domestic capacity, and air-- I don't know if anyone's noticed, airline tickets are skyrocketing.

Kara Swisher 38:57 Skyrocketing. Oh, I have. I just bought some.

Scott Galloway 38:59 Um, I was looking at a one-way from Miami to London business class, and it was eleven grand.

Kara Swisher 39:05 I know. It's crazy. They're crazy.

Scott Galloway 39:07 Um, Kirby's argument to the administration, a combined airline would be a stronger competitor internationally. Okay, yeah. He noted two-thirds of long-haul a- seats from, two from US are on foreign carriers, but sixty percent of passengers are American, framing it as a trade deficit issue. And also American, I love airlines. I love aviation. Uh, Delta does the best job domestically. JetBlue's Mint is the best product, but American has been, America is, is, i- uh, has the best, uh, has the worst product. They're the weakest of the big three. A hundred and eleven million in net income last year on fifty-four billion in sales, basically break even. It carries twenty-five billion in long-term debt, more than its rivals. On the other hand, United, which is a better run company, did three point four billion on fifty-nine billion, and American Airlines stock jumped nearly ten percent on the news.

Kara Swisher 39:55 So what does that say?

Scott Galloway 39:56 But the antitrust-

Kara Swisher 39:58 That it could happen? This can't happen.

Scott Galloway 39:59 Well, people-

Kara Swisher 40:01 This will not. No way.

Scott Galloway 40:02 Well, the market thinks it might because, again, see above, the guy-- It's just fucking ridiculous that CEOs go kiss the ass of the president to try and get a merger through. He should have nothing to do with this. But the, the antitrust problems here are striking. There are two hundred and eighty-nine routes where the two carriers overlap, and combining them would leave only one or two airlines serving that route. S-see above, increase in prices.

Kara Swisher 40:24 They will fuck consumers so hard.

Scott Galloway 40:25 Fortress hubs which overlap.

Kara Swisher 40:27 Right.

Scott Galloway 40:27 Some of the routes that overlap are Chicago, Los Angeles, New, New York, Newark, Phoenix, Charlotte could require divesting entire hub operations in some cities. Uh, and the DOJ previously blocked the JetBlue Spirit deal-

Kara Swisher 40:39 Right

Scott Galloway 40:40 ... which was a fraction of this size.

Kara Swisher 40:42 Right.

Scott Galloway 40:42 So this is exactly the kind of deal that shouldn't even be considered if there was a DOJ or an FTC that was independent and looked at consumer prices. And these consumer mergers and the lack of regulation does two things. It transfers capital from labor and from consumers to shareholders, full stop. And this, it, it, it's been a one-way flow of capital and power for the last thirty years, and the DOJ and FTC have almost no reviews anymore.

Kara Swisher 41:13 They can't. They absolutely-

Scott Galloway 41:14 I mean, it's like if you wanna save money, get rid of the DOJ and the FTC

Kara Swisher 41:17 ... cannot do this.

Scott Galloway 41:17 What the fuck are they doing now?

Kara Swisher 41:18 I mean, w-- You know, it's interesting because on Monday they're, you're seeing the significant pushback to Paramount now. A lot of Hollywood is now, like, got the pitchforks out essentially. I don't know if they can do anything about it at this point, but y-you see them, like, really organizing. On the, the Cinem- at CineCom, all these places, there's all this pushback. And again, um, David Ellison wouldn't show up for, uh, a hearing, uh, uh, in, in Congress about this, uh, just, uh, for personal reasons. But, um, but there, there's just a lot of pushback there, and you sort of see it beginning to coalesce, these ideas of, "No, I don't think so," which is interesting. You'll see if this happens. Like, I, I, I feel like people are, are quite in the mood to stop these things now, and that's gonna be... They're gonna overreach on the other side probably. Um, but it's, feels like this is like, I can't even believe this guy did this. Like, [chuckles] I'm just like, "Well, okay."

Scott Galloway 42:10 By the way, I, I feel bad saying I need to correct the record. The DOJ and the FTC do serve a purpose. They did, they did decide that Live Nation was a monopoly-

Kara Swisher 42:18 Yes. Mm-hmm

Scott Galloway 42:18 ... which was the right-

Kara Swisher 42:19 They did

Scott Galloway 42:19 ... which was the right decision.

Kara Swisher 42:20 Yeah. So-We'll see. We'll see where it's going. There's a lot of pushback on all these things, but you're right, they're gonna keep trying to do so, um, as things come forward, and then we'll get to a normal level again, um, hopefully. Um, one thing

Kara Swisher 42:33 that's interesting, about 5 million kids have signed up for Trump accounts. Um, uh, 1.2 million eligible for a thousand dollar Treasury seed deposits. The accounts were created through Trump's big beautiful bill and are set to officially launch July 4th. The Bank of New York Mellon will manage the accounts, and Robinhood will build a Trump accounts app. Um, what do you think about Robinhood, known for getting [chuckles] people into risky trades involved in this? Obviously, another suck-up to Trump in some fashion. But, um, I have, uh, several friends who are just doing it. It's like thousand free dollars. Like, why not? Like, just why not? It, it seems like let's take the money and, and use it to save for college or whatever you wanna save for for kids. Any thoughts on this?

Scott Galloway 43:15 I love this concept. I remember meeting with a guy named Alex von Furstenberg a couple years ago, and he was pitching me on the idea of baby bonds, and he was very passionate about it, and he's been very involved in it. I, I love the concept of at the very outset giving, you know, for every infant born, giving them some money and letting compound, you know, the most powerful force in the universe. I would've gone much deeper than this. For $40 billion a year, you could give $7,000 to every baby, and then I would totally infantilize them and not let them touch it till they're 65. You give... You spend $40 billion a year, and then in 20 or 30 years, you announce in another 20 or 30 years we're no longer gonna need Social Security-

Kara Swisher 43:53 Yeah

Scott Galloway 43:53 ... 'cause everyone's gonna have a million bucks at 65.

Kara Swisher 43:55 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 43:55 Interest rates dive, and it pays for itself.

Kara Swisher 43:58 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 43:58 But our Congress doesn't wanna think past their than their fucking two-inch dicks. So-

Kara Swisher 44:02 Is there danger here of riskiness-

Scott Galloway 44:04 This is-

Kara Swisher 44:04 ... for people's like... I mean, this is free money. That's what I c- I, you know, someone sheepish just said, "Oh, I took a Trump account." I'm like, "Are you kidding? Grab it." Like, absolutely take a Trump account.

Scott Galloway 44:14 Oh, why wouldn't you?

Kara Swisher 44:15 Yeah, if you're eligible.

Scott Galloway 44:15 So just to, just to give you a sense of compound interest, you know, my kid's going to college next year. When he was born in 2000 and, um... When was my kid born? 2000, 2007. I put $10,000 in, I think it's called a five twenty nine-

Kara Swisher 44:32 Yeah, I did too

Scott Galloway 44:32 ... New York account.

Kara Swisher 44:33 I did too.

Scott Galloway 44:34 And I'm like, I'm worried about college. I don't... I was a clinical professor making 160 grand a year living in faculty housing, and so I thought, "Okay, I'll scrape together 10 grand." And I didn't do it again. I was stupid. I didn't do it again. I just looked it up online 'cause I'm like, "Oh, what about that five twenty nine I did?" Now, granted, the markets have ripped. Do you know what that $10,000 is worth right now?

Kara Swisher 44:54 Couple hundred thousand dollars.

Scott Galloway 44:55 No, 85.

Kara Swisher 44:57 Oh, okay. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 44:57 But still, in 18 years, it went from 10-

Kara Swisher 44:59 Oh, I put more in. I did them for both boys

Scott Galloway 45:00 ... to 85.

Kara Swisher 45:01 Mm-hmm. I paid for all of college with Louie and Alex. And people have controversies around five twenty-ones. You could've done better in the market, but I just put it away and forgot about it, and I kept... I added the maximum amount to it at the time.

Scott Galloway 45:12 Yeah, but it's tax-

Kara Swisher 45:13 That's tax-free

Scott Galloway 45:14 ... it's tax-free.

Kara Swisher 45:14 I just was like-

Scott Galloway 45:15 You can take it out if you-

Kara Swisher 45:15 I didn't wanna f-

Scott Galloway 45:15 If-

Kara Swisher 45:15 I know I could probably do better in the market, but I don't care. I had the money.

Scott Galloway 45:19 Hmm, I don't think you-

Kara Swisher 45:20 It was a certain bet.

Scott Galloway 45:21 I don't think you could've because, because the difference, just to explain it, if you invested $10,000 and I had 85 in the market, say out of 100, I'd have to pay, I'd have to pay capital gains on it. Whereas if you apply it towards tuition or school supplies, you get to... You don't have to pay taxes-

Kara Swisher 45:36 Yeah

Scott Galloway 45:36 ... on the gains. My point is, the idea of giving kids, every baby born, a retirement account, I wouldn't let it, them have access to 18 or 25. The problem is, and the thing that's gonna bankrupt our nation as we continue to send more and more old people who vote, old people more, vote themselves more money, we have to reduce entitlements for old people, and this is the way to do it. And that is-

Kara Swisher 46:02 So they're not entitlements, they're investments.

Scott Galloway 46:03 A lot of people make an argument-

Kara Swisher 46:04 So they're not entitlements. They're, they become investments. I mean, I think the danger obviously-

Scott Galloway 46:09 But in-

Kara Swisher 46:09 ... is if we remove it completely, is people are, you know, subject to whatever the vicissitudes of the market, and that's, that's the always been the worry, right? That's why it's called Social Security.

Scott Galloway 46:19 There has never been... Okay, but there has never... You could buy any five stocks since the beginning, the beginning of the markets.

Kara Swisher 46:27 I know.

Scott Galloway 46:27 You could buy any five stocks in the S&P, and if you hold onto them for 10 years, you've never lost money.

Kara Swisher 46:32 I know.

Scott Galloway 46:32 Because of demographics and innovation, the long-term trajectory of the market. Now, there's been, there's been decades where it's gone flat, but over the, over the long, over the long term, there's nothing like the up and to the right of the markets.

Kara Swisher 46:47 I agree.

Scott Galloway 46:48 And-

Kara Swisher 46:48 I put, I put that money away for my kids

Scott Galloway 46:48 ... I think this is a great idea.

Kara Swisher 46:50 And I never paid a dime for college because w- it had been saved-

Scott Galloway 46:54 But this is the flaw-

Kara Swisher 46:54 ... and put away. I, and it was all tax-free.

Scott Galloway 46:56 This is-

Kara Swisher 46:56 It paid for their, their, their dorms. It paid for their food, and Alex eats a lot. Um, and it was, [laughs] it was, it was great. And I was like-

Scott Galloway 47:05 That meal plan. Yeah, Michigan is losing money on Alex.

Kara Swisher 47:10 The very end of Louie's college thing, uh, Alex went to a less expensive college, was just a little bit of money, but it was zero. It was the best money I ever invested, I have to say. I was just... Speaking of which, Alex Swisher turned 21. Congratulations, Alex. You're on your own.

Scott Galloway 47:26 All right, Alex.

Kara Swisher 47:27 I know. I know.

Scott Galloway 47:27 Good for you, man.

Kara Swisher 47:27 Of course, he was studying last night, and I was like, "Alex, go get a drink." [laughs] Like-

Scott Galloway 47:32 My guess is he's already, he's already done that.

Kara Swisher 47:34 No, I know.

Scott Galloway 47:34 This is the bottom line, or, or this is a theory you wanna tap into. The most profitable businesses in the world tap into one thing, and that is a flaw in our instincts. We're desperate for affirmation. We're desperate for free gaming. We're desperate for opportunities to procreate. So we buy Ferraris, we go on Instagram, and we gamble. The, the highest margin products in the world tap into a flaw in our instincts. You wanna reverse that and tap into the following flaw, and that is humans are really bad with respect to the time-space continuum. What do I mean by that? Because for the majority of our time on this planet, we haven't li- lived past 35, and now we live to 80. People have no sense-

Kara Swisher 48:19 Yep, not what they need

Scott Galloway 48:21 ... of how fast time is going to go. And they say, "Well, the markets are up 9 to 10% a year. That's nothing. I'm not gonna invest in the markets. I can make more money as a baller opening a restaurant or hoping my company goes public."

Kara Swisher 48:33 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 48:33 You are gonna graduate from collegeYou're gonna blink, you're gonna have a couple kids, you're gonna have some joy, you're gonna have some grief, and you're gonna wake up and you're gonna be fucking sixty years old.

Kara Swisher 48:42 Yep, I agree.

Scott Galloway 48:42 It happens so fast.

Kara Swisher 48:44 It's great to save money.

Scott Galloway 48:45 So this is what you wanna do. You wanna, at a very young age, figure out a way where you don't even get the cash in your hands, matching programs at work, 529s, baby bonds, automatic withdrawals, and just a little bit of money from an early age, and then blink, you're sixty-five, and you look at that account, and you have a shit ton of money. This is a flaw. This is your revenge on the... This is a way you put scaffolding on the instincts that are flawed. Anyways, start investing young.

Kara Swisher 49:16 Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. [gentle music] Support for this show comes from MongoDB. If you're tired of database limitations and architectures that break when you scale, it's time to think outside the rows and columns, because let's be honest, you didn't get to tech to babysit a broken database. You got into it to actually build something. MongoDB lets you do that. It's flexible, developer-first, ACID compliant, enterprise ready, and built for the AI era. Say goodbye to bottlenecks and legacy code. Start innovating with MongoDB. There's a reason it's trusted by so many of the Fortune 500, and that's because it's a platform built by developers for developers. They swear by it, literally. They call it a great fucking database. Start building at mongodb.com/build.

Kara Swisher 50:05 Okay, Scott, let's hear up predictions. Is it about Allbirds now that it's an AI business? No, just move along. [laughs]

Scott Galloway 50:11 No, I had two, and one of them was Allbirds.

Kara Swisher 50:13 Okay, go for it.

Scott Galloway 50:13 Okay, so I'll, I'll go to that one 'cause, uh, you're, you prompted me. My, my prediction was gonna be Anthropic IPOs before OpenAI, but that's boring, and I've already talked about Anthropic, so I'll go to the one you suggested. Uh, the Allbirds pivot to AI will inspire a bunch of copycats. You're gonna see Chegg, GameStop, Rent the Runway all decide they're AI companies. All... So, uh, this is what's happened. Allbirds, the once hyped sneaker brand, they just sold its IP for thirty-nine million two weeks ago, down from a four billion dollar peak valuation.

Kara Swisher 50:46 Uncomfortable sneaker business.

Scott Galloway 50:47 Is rebranding as-

Kara Swisher 50:48 But go ahead

Scott Galloway 50:48 ... is rebranding as New Bird AI and pivoting to leasing AI chips, GPUs. The company is buying fifty million dollars, or secured fifty million in financing to buy GPUs and lease them to customers, and shares spiked nearly nine hundred percent-

Kara Swisher 51:03 It's so stupid [laughs]

Scott Galloway 51:03 ... at intraday highs on the announcement. Uh, so what is this gonna do? Just like remember when Bitcoin treasury companies-

Kara Swisher 51:10 Yeah, yeah

Scott Galloway 51:10 ... went crazy, and all these different companies decided they were now Bitcoin treasury companies? So we've seen this movie before, and it doesn't end well. Long Island Iced Tea Corp. rebranded as Long Blockchain in 2017 to ride the crypto wave, and its shares were eventually delisted, and the SEC brought insider trading charges. New Bird, if you will, what I call New Bird, will soon, soon be No Bird. So the prediction is the following. Allbird and this ridiculous fucking jazz hands pivot to AI that resulted in a massive one-day spike, ton of competit- ton of copycats, and it doesn't end well.

Kara Swisher 51:44 Oh. What, what does it end? How does it end?

Scott Galloway 51:46 These companies have short-term pops. The insiders who get the shares before they announce it dump the bag, and then the people who think this is anything resembling an, a company with enterprise value end up losing a shit ton of money. Similar to all the blockchain tr- all the Bitcoin treasury companies, uh, when you try and... It's like, remember in the early 2000s when... I remember being in a meeting, a board meeting at Williams Sonoma, where we seriously contemplated changing the name of the company to williamssonoma.com 'cause we thought that would add shareholder value. And Howard Lester, who was one of, like, the clearest blue flame thinkers in retail, was like, "That's just fucking stupid. We're not doing that." Uh, anyways, w-w-w-when you're just trying to create the illusion you're in a hot area with absolutely no domain expertise, IP, or advantage, sure, call it AI, a pop. If you're in Allbirds right now, just take it from me, sell, but you're gonna see-

Kara Swisher 52:41 Ugh

Scott Galloway 52:41 ... a dozen of these things announced in the next ninety days.

Kara Swisher 52:44 Sounds stupid. People did mock it, which is good. All right, um, I, I have no predictions today. I predict that Scott Galloway will be a star of my show this weekend. Everybody watch it, 'cause Scott is very funny and actually has a lot of s- serious and significant things to say about healthcare and longevity, and it's re- he's really good.

Scott Galloway 53:02 I don't remember that part. I remember falling asleep. I don't remember saying anything substantive.

Kara Swisher 53:06 You did, and you sound great. You sound really good. You actually say a lot of substantive things.

Scott Galloway 53:10 Ah, okay.

Kara Swisher 53:10 Anyway, he looks great, and he's... and you get to see him sleep. Anyway, we wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nytmag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe this week on Prof G Markets, Scott spoke with Catherine Anne Edwards, PhD economist and Bloomberg News columnist, on why AI is only one factor behind the challenges young workers are facing. Let's listen to a clip.

Speaker 53:35 It's not as if the only thing standing between young workers and a job is what private employers are doing or say they are doing or will do with AI. We have a weak economy and a weak labor market with terrible social supports and almost no investment in people that don't have a job. There are solutions that don't have to come from just knowing more about AI, but have to come from holding our policymakers accountable for economic mismanagement. AI is today's story, but there will be another one. Weakness is weakness in the labor market. We don't have great infrastructure for helping people who don't have a job.

Kara Swisher 54:07 That's 100% right. It's so true. Anyway, she's super smart.

Scott Galloway 54:12 She's super smart.

Kara Swisher 54:12 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 54:12 You like her.

Kara Swisher 54:12 Anyway, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll have lots to talk about next week. There's so many topics happening, and we'll be back next week to do so. [upbeat music]