EVERY SPOKEN WORD
70 min read · 14,487 words- 0:00 – 8:15
Intro
- KSKara Swisher
Jeff, you're bad at this. Just at least have a talk with me. Just meet me. I don't like you, you don't like me, so what? [upbeat music] Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
- SGScott Galloway
And I'm Scott Galloway.
- KSKara Swisher
Go Seahawks! Yes. [chuckles]
- SGScott Galloway
[chuckles] You like the Seahawks?
- KSKara Swisher
I like Jody Allen, the owner, uh, sister of Paul Allen. I, I know her a tiny bit. Um, I knew Paul, her brother, who died, um, who was one of the Microsoft founders.
- SGScott Galloway
Oh, got it.
- KSKara Swisher
Just really cool lady, and, uh, I can't stand Robert Kraft. I think he's a terrible person. I- the whole Ka- Kats family was for, um, uh, the Patriots, only because they live there. Nobody likes Robert Kraft, so I was happy about that. I like the Seahawks.
- SGScott Galloway
Well, I'm happy you're happy.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
The, the, the thing that summarized how I feel about it was the Elmo, the Elmo account said: "I hope h- both teams have a really fun time."
- KSKara Swisher
[chuckles]
- SGScott Galloway
That's about how much I care about the [chuckles] Super Bowl. And the other one was, Elmo said: "He's not a bad bunny. He's a good bunny."
- KSKara Swisher
[chuckles] He's a good bunny.
- SGScott Galloway
That, that's, that's how I feel.
- KSKara Swisher
Then MAGA lost its fucking mind. We'll get to that.
- SGScott Galloway
Oh, my God.
- KSKara Swisher
But first, let's have a little bit of, um, a, a, a, it's, uh, Resist and Unsubscribe. How's it going, Scott? You everywhere. You're like, you are like-
- SGScott Galloway
[chuckles]
- KSKara Swisher
... the village whore, as they say.
- SGScott Galloway
No, I'm not, I'm not a whore. I'm a whore. I'm a whore.
- KSKara Swisher
We have a montage of Scott everywhere.
- SGScott Galloway
Okay, great.
- KSKara Swisher
Let's check it out.
- SGScott Galloway
Resist and Unsubscribe. Resist and Unsubscribe. Explain to me why I should unsubscribe from Amazon Prime. If you really wanna hurt or send a message to the president... What he does listen to is the following: If you look at the times when he has really checked back, immediately responded and pulled back, it's been when one of two things has happened, the bond market yields have spiked, or the S&P has gone down. This is when he backed off of his plans to annex Greenland. It's when he's backed off of tariffs. When you go after big tech platforms, which is a small decline in spending, this is what moves the markets. I think the string we can pull here is to go after the subscription revenues of big tech that now represents forty percent of the S&P. You're hitting them with a ten thousand dollar decrease in market cap with just one subscription cancellation. So this is a chance to go after the soft tissue of big tech, whose leaders, the president, appears to be listening to.
- KSKara Swisher
Soft tissue, you make hard.
- SGScott Galloway
There you go.
- KSKara Swisher
You are. Tell me-- So tell me where we are.
- SGScott Galloway
[chuckles] Came out of the gate strong. We're getting about a hundred thousand uniques a day, and I asked ChatGPT if I wanted to get a hundred thousand uniques with no paid or what would it cost me to drive a hundred thousand people to the site?
- KSKara Swisher
Stripping, but go ahead.
- SGScott Galloway
[chuckles] It was interesting. It said a hundred to two hundred thousand for the site, but it would take four to five million dollars. So we're getting, quote, unquote, "four to five million dollars in traffic" to the site with-- And I haven't paid a dime for anything. Um, but it started going down earlier in the week, so I did some research on the, uh, bus strike in Alabama. Was it Alabama? And then the Kimmel thing, and what it ended up was that the study from Kellogg, which I'm really into, about the protests that are effective versus those that aren't, is the unsubscribe to Disney were actually declining dramatically. But the thing that got Disney to reverse course was a ton of, uh, um, media that was shaming them and creating dissent, and that the media that impacted that was traditional media. So I decided on Tuesday I was gonna get on as much traditional media as I could, and I was able to do it, and then all of a sudden, the site visits are now back to about a hundred thousand. But just to do the math, uh, a good e-commerce site gets two to four percent, uh, conversion. This gets more 'cause these are people just coming to the site. People are unsubscribing two to five platforms, so let's call it three. So I'm thinking I'm getting about ten thousand unsubscribes a day, or three hundred thousand subscribes over the course of, um, over the course... Anyways, I've done the math here. I think, I think I can notionally take about a quarter of a billion dollars in market cap out of these companies.
- 8:15 – 18:18
Super Bowl
- KSKara Swisher
Bowl, right? No?
- SGScott Galloway
No.
- KSKara Swisher
No.
- SGScott Galloway
I have almost no interest in the Super Bowl.
- KSKara Swisher
So did you watch any... You watched the ads on other places where they had them c-
- SGScott Galloway
I watched some of the ads that people sent to me.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah.
- KSKara Swisher
Many of them stand out? I still like the Anthropic ones, I have to say.
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, I thought, I thought they won the day. Uh, I didn't like the one on the Jewish kid being bullied. Um-
- KSKara Swisher
You didn't?
- SGScott Galloway
I didn't. I don't-
- KSKara Swisher
Too, too virtue signaling?
- SGScott Galloway
[sighs] I think there are better, more effective ways to talk about the risks of antisemitism. I, I actually don't... In a weird way, I feel like it almost normalizes it or raises the prospect of bullying a Jewish kid.
- KSKara Swisher
A little after-school special kind of tone, that kind of thing.
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah. It's so funny, what I noticed with-- I don't know if you've noticed this. I went to my kid's school, uh, when he was a s- seventh grader in middle school, and there were ninth graders coming down the hall, and I was way behind him, and I thought: "Oh, this is gonna be interesting." In the seventh grade, if I ran into ninth graders in an unsupervised environment, they would pants me and throw me in the trash and take my lunch money.
- KSKara Swisher
Sorry. [chuckles]
- SGScott Galloway
And instead, now they're like: "Hey, little man," and they high-five him.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah. [chuckles]
- SGScott Galloway
I think things have changed a lot.
- KSKara Swisher
For some people.
- SGScott Galloway
In school.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah. The ads are always fun to watch. I don't... I just could-- The whole Bad Bunny thing, I'm like, he's the most popular entertainer in the world, but I'm saying-
- KSKara Swisher
We'll get to Bad Bunny in a second.
- SGScott Galloway
Okay.
- KSKara Swisher
But my favorite, I, I liked-- I really liked the Anthropic ads. I liked the Elf ad. I like the funny ones, the Elf ad. There's a whole bunch of them that were super funny, and I, I prefer those. And, of course, I have to say, the Lay's potato chip ad got me. Got me!
- SGScott Galloway
Oh, God.
- KSKara Swisher
Got me.
- SGScott Galloway
I thought that was so fucking ridiculous.
- 18:18 – 25:28
Crypto Winter
- KSKara Swisher
50,000 last week, crypto has been heading the other way into a crypto winter again. Bitcoin has just had its work week- worst weekly decline in more than three years, down roughly 45% from its all-time high last October. The downturn is being blamed on a few things: volatility in other markets, tariff fears, uncertainty around Fed Chair nominee Kevin Warsh. I don't know about that. The ongoing decline has been brutal for some of crypto's biggest champions, Michael Saylor's Strategy, I know you're an admirer, just reported a $12.4 billion quarterly loss. Wow! But don't expect a Bitcoin bailout. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a congressional hearing last week that he has no authority to do that. Um, of course, Trump was crypto president. Nice job, David Sacks, by the way. Um, what do you- w- they got what they wanted, the crypto people from Trump, everything they wanted. Um, they got rid of, uh, the, as the Gary Gensler, they got rid of Sherrod Brown, they got rid of critics. Uh, what do you think? What's happening here?
- SGScott Galloway
Well, first off, I should just point out that I am easily the worst crypto investor in history.
- KSKara Swisher
Yes, 'cause you just [chuckles]
- SGScott Galloway
I finally threw in the towel, and I bought some shares in a Bitcoin treasury company.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
I bought it at 14-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah
- SGScott Galloway
... and within forty-five days, I sold it at $4.50.
- KSKara Swisher
Oh, nice job. Well done. Well done.
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, well done. Uh, look, CoinMarketCap's Crypto and Fear Green Index is now at a nine, indicating extreme fear. This is the highest reading in the index's nearly three years of existence. Bitcoin, Bit- Bitcoin's basically been cut in half since its high, and investors, um, had $2.5 billion of Bitcoin liquidated in just one day alone. Even after Friday's-
- KSKara Swisher
And certain Bitcoin, Bitcoin and then the others have gone down 90, now, like the Melania coin, the Trump coin.
- SGScott Galloway
Oh, the shit coins, yeah.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah, the shit coins.
- SGScott Galloway
Even after Friday's rebound, Bitcoin is down 43% from its peaked, uh, from its peak, and then the, and the stocks related to Bitcoin, per your comments, have been hammered. MicroStrategy is down nearly 70% from its peak last summer and down 15% this year. Coinbase is down 60% from its summer peak, down 30% this year, and Tom Lee's Bitmine is down 85% from its peak and 34% this year. Crypto volatility is currently about eight X higher than that of the S&P 500. But w- what I would say is the following, and I don't get this market, I, I, I, I respect that Bitcoin has established itself as a tangible asset because of scarcity value, because of its technology. I think the re- rest is pure speculation. But what typically has happened over the last decade is when Bitcoin has these drawdowns and there's all this fear, over the last ten years, when we look back, those have been buying opportunities. So I don't- I mean, I, I always like to talk about what I'm thinking of doing. If Bitcoin keeps getting hammered, I actually might buy a little bit, not because I believe in crypto, but because I like diversification, and I do think this market is incredibly volatile. I do think Bitcoin has established itself as a legitimate asset class, but there's just... What's unusual is typically Bitcoin is meant to be-- it should benefit from a weak dollar in inflation-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm
- SGScott Galloway
... and it's not.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
And it should, uh, i- it ends up that it's not the default contraindicator of a weakening dollar, so-
- KSKara Swisher
It's silver, gold, that kind of stuff.
- SGScott Galloway
We'll see. At the end of the day, the crypto is really, it's not investing, it is speculation. I, I would argue that a little bit of money, one to three percent of your portfolio in Bitcoin, may not be a bad idea. But like I said, I am, I- I'm the world's worst-
- KSKara Swisher
And only Bitcoin, not the other shit coins. [chuckles]
- SGScott Galloway
I would not do any of the others. The others, to me, are just greater fool theory come to life.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah, you sucker. I call them sucker coins. They're really suckers.
- SGScott Galloway
You have to watch it every day, and all of a sudden, it can take a real... You, y- volatility is fine. If you're willing to endure volatility, it means you'll get greater returns. But what you wanna do is, you want to diversify across multiple vol- volatile asset classes such that your mental health is somewhat protected. You know, you just-- One of the reasons I like owning real estate is I don't have a scorecard every day. And also, if you're looking at your phone too much, and you're really good at this, if you're looking at your phone too much 'cause you're checking your stocks all the time, A, that's, that's a hit to your human capital, and B, you don't wanna be- you never wanna go all in on one thing-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm
- SGScott Galloway
... because the markets trump individual dynamics, and e-
- KSKara Swisher
Always
- SGScott Galloway
... Uh, Amaz- if you bought $10,000 worth of Amazon in 1999, it was worth $400 by two, by the end of 2000. And that takes a huge emotional toll on you.
- KSKara Swisher
It does.
- SGScott Galloway
So what you wanna do is you wanna be, you wanna be diversified, and you wanna be in good, good ETFs, good ind- indexes, and then put them away and not look at them. And think of them as things you wanna hone for five or ten years.
- 25:28 – 34:44
Amazon’s Spending Spree
- KSKara Swisher
spending plans are making waves on Wall Street after the company signaled massive CapEx ramp up. Amazon said it expects to spend about two hundred billion dollars in twenty twenty-six, nearly a sixty percent increase from last year. Uh, CEO Andy Jassy justified the spending by sending strong demand for AI, robotics, chips, and satellites. Makes sense for their business in a lot of ways. The announcements appears to spook investors, though, sending stock down ten percent and wiping a hundred and thirty-three billion dollars off of Amazon's market cap. What a massive amount! Um, let's talk about this. Um, uh, they, they are, at the same time, they're the, the, the, the suck uppery that Jeff Bezos has been doing, uh, and Andy Jassy, too, for Trump, is reaping benefits under Trump's new tax. So the company's corporate tax bill fell to about one point two billion dollars last year, down from nine billion dollars the year before, even though profits, uh, jumped roughly forty-five percent. So what Scott says is corporate tax is just like, this has been a boon for... Trump has been a boon for these people. Um, so talk a little bit about these spending, 'cause, you know, they, they, they need to spend in robotics. They obviously need AI to go with the robotics and chips and, of course, satellites, delivery. They have, they have such an unusual business that it's both analog and, and, and advertising and where they market things. It seems like a company that should be spending here, but your thoughts?
- SGScott Galloway
Well, uh, the problem with, or one of the things that makes our economy so fragile is there's just a small number of companies that can make the- can allocate this sort of capital. And this week and last, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft unveiled plans to spend a combined six hundred and sixty billion on AI build-out this year. That's a sixty percent increase from last year. Apple is the only big tech company whose CapEx decreased from last year, and the, and the sheer magnitude is just shocking. That's three times the global R&D of the pharmaceutical industry. So we're now spending more on data centers and chips. We're spending triple what we're spending on trying to research treatments for cancer and diabetes. It's more- they're spending more than it cost to build the US Interstate Highway System. We're spending more... Those, those four companies are going to spend more than we spent on the Apollo Moon program and the International Space Station combined, and it's the equivalent of spending about two billion dollars a day on AI. And but what I think you're looking for, if I look at the stocks that are responding to the market positively versus negatively, it's okay. A big I is really impressive because it separates you from the rest. Like, [clear throat] Snap can't spend billions of dollars to increase the AI targeting of its ad sta- of its ad stack. Most companies just can't spend that kind of money. But the companies, the company that's really done well here is a company that not only has the huge I, huge CapEx, but also is right away showing that they can garner the return that justifies that I, and that company is Meta. Meta is showing, uh, increased click-through, increased advertising, increased ARPU, and it's saying: "This is working for us, so we're going to outspend every other media company in the world," maybe with the exception of Alphabet. But these types of investments, there's just no getting around them. They're absolutely staggering. I can't figure out if it's good or bad. I guess it's- I'm hoping it results in a lot of vocational jobs.
- KSKara Swisher
But wouldn't you imagine lots of their business does need this kind of stuff? Like, you're thinking of- speaking of advertising, they do a lot of it in marketing, right? So they have to understand what's effective to, to bring up for people when they search on Amazon. Um, their, their, their logistics of, of their, their, their various ce- centers, where they, the fulfillment centers, the robotics. It seems like a lot of this stuff does lend itself to AI being more efficient in that or giving them efficient instructions. It's, it would i- I would imagine their business lends itself to this, and you're right, they're the only ones that can spend this much. Um, and then once it's spent, nobody can catch them ever, ever, ever, ever.
- SGScott Galloway
It's just going to have very weird second-order effects, 'cause if you look at where the money is being spent, if you look at data centers, most of them could have their lights off during the day. They... A, a huge data center that costs hundreds of millions to build employs what a Chili's employs, and so obviously a huge burst in vocational skills. But then what happens? There's no really ongoing employment here. And what, what I look at is, all right, if you think about... I mean, people say: "Is AI going to affect me?" And my standard line has been, "AI is not going to take your job. Someone who understands AI is going to take your job." And what you need to think about is-... Is AI complementary to what I'm doing, or is it a substitute? And Justin Wolfers, the economist from Michigan, pointed this out: if you think about sec- my mother was a secretary. She would be out of work right now, 'cause AI came along and word processors. At the same time, everyone thought ATMs was gonna put bank tellers out of business. There are now more bank tellers than there were pre-ATM, ATM. 'Cause what they said is, "Let's use technology to upskill you so you can give people mortgages, figure out their financial planning." So, uh, just as at a ground level, it's like, okay, how do I use AI as a weapon as opposed to being on the wrong end of the weapon? But this is-- the, the economic reshaping here is just, is staggering. But I do think we're at that point now with all great technologies that end up going on to be hugely important, that this is, um... I think we're overdue for a correction, and the technology I keep coming at, and I'm about to buy stock, is Novo Nordisk just hit a, like, a five-year low. Novo Nordisk actually rebounded yesterday, but Novo Nordisk, uh, the maker of, I think it's, I forget which one it is, Ozempic or Wegovy. And I'm-- I always tell people the most important technology is not AI, it's GLP-1. And talk to somebody who loves AI and uses it, who's also on-
- KSKara Swisher
Speaking of, there was an ad for it. Um, Serena Williams did at the Super Bowl, by the way.
- SGScott Galloway
Well, talk to anyone who use-- someone who uses a lot of AI at their work, really enjoys it, gets a lot of use out of it, and then, there, but that person is also on GLP-1, ask them what's having a more profound impact on their life.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
Uh, so-
- KSKara Swisher
Can you do a short rant about the corporate taxes and the benefits of being in the Trump administration for these companies by sucking up? Unless you don't want to.
- SGScott Galloway
Well, look, as a percentage of GDP, corporate taxes have never been lower, and as a percentage of, uh, uh, uh, GDP, wages have never been lower. And as a percentage of profits, corporate profits have never been a higher percentage of the SM-- of, of GDP. In sum, there's always a healthy tension between capital and labor, but basically, what you have with AI, shareholders love AI, because what you're seeing across all of these companies is margin expansion, but no incremental increase in employment.
- KSKara Swisher
And then lower taxes.
- SGScott Galloway
That's great for shareholders. And then, the lower tax argument is basically the strategy for the last forty years, and the Republicans, "If we just lower taxes, it'll trickle down." All it's doing is just pushing back debt on young people. But if you just look at the bal-- If you just assume at some point we have to pay for our navy and our parks and for food stamps, the question is, well, who pays?
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah. I can't believe they went from nine billion to one point two billion. That is a savings of... That is a-- Oh, God, I wish my taxes-
- SGScott Galloway
What's this? Repeat that, K- Kara.
- KSKara Swisher
Amazon's st- under the Trump's new tax law, the companies... This is Amazon's corporate tax-
- SGScott Galloway
Oh, yeah
- KSKara Swisher
... bill fell to one point two billion.
- SGScott Galloway
Automatic expensing.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah. Yeah, it's 'cause you can-
- KSKara Swisher
Profits jumped forty-five percent.
- SGScott Galloway
It's really-- The tax code has gone from four hundred pages to four thousand, and the thirty-six hundred pages, one by one, kind of fucked the middle class. And it wasn't-- These aren't malicious people say, "Let's fuck the middle class." What they are is really talented people on behalf of lobbies like Amazon that says, "Let's figure out a way to expense all capital expenditure in year one."
- KSKara Swisher
But it's Trump's new tax law. It's, it's even more advantageous to them. This is, this is what-- This was always the game, folks, is them getting more for themselves. [chuckles] It really was with Trump. Uh, some of them don't like him, some of them do.
- SGScott Galloway
This has been happening across Democratic and Republican administrations.
- KSKara Swisher
Yes, agreed.
- SGScott Galloway
The-
- KSKara Swisher
But this new tax law is one point two from nine billion. That's quite a lovely bit of-
- SGScott Galloway
Okay, I, I agree with you.
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- SGScott Galloway
And two things can be true at once. Biden, for all the talk about progressive policies-
- 34:44 – 46:02
Bezos on WaPo Future
- KSKara Swisher
up, Jeff Bezos is finally speaking about the future of The Washington Post following last week's layoffs. He said in a statement, The Post had "an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity." Bezos added that readers provided a roadmap to success and that data tells us what is valuable and where to focus. Well, data, they all left after he did any number of things. The Bezos statement came shortly after, uh, Post CEO and publisher Will Lewis announced his exit from the paper. I think, um, I think he was exited from the paper, uh, allegedly. Uh, Post CFO Jeff Donofrio, I met him when he was at one of the tech companies he was CFO at, is stepping in as acting CEO. Um, what a big... I, I'm gonna comment on this. "Data tells us what is valuable, where to fo-" You're kidding. No shit, Sherlock. At the same time, you have to create products that doesn't necessarily follow data. You have to use both data and creativity to create a journalistic prod- I mean, anyone would tell you, don't get together with Scott Galloway, data speaking, and of course, it worked out beautifully. You have to have lots and lots of things that go into media. Jeff Bezos has made a number of errors recently over the past two years, and that's the reason people have fled in droves from the Post, as other places are doing much better. In New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the numbers are up. Um, lots of really interesting independent media companies. It's not true that he couldn't do something better here. And, of course, he's never blamed himself for this fuckup. Will Lewis?... Good riddance. He's been terrible. Bezos didn't, Bezos, again, did not step in and deal with this guy when he was very clearly fucking up. So that's my thoughts. You don't have to have any, but you can.
- SGScott Galloway
Well, what I don't get is, and maybe you've done some reporting here, we have these ideas about putting together a new group. The bottom line is it's subscale. Why wouldn't The New York Times or even-
- KSKara Swisher
Bloomberg
- SGScott Galloway
- The Wall Street Journal take this on and starch out some of the overhead costs, but take that-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah
- SGScott Galloway
-traffic and the great brand and try and do something with it?
- KSKara Swisher
They could. They could. They could. I would think Bloomberg is always sort of the one.
- SGScott Galloway
Oh, Bloomberg, that's a great one.
- KSKara Swisher
Bloomberg, to me, would be the m- most, but he's, you know, he's getting on.
- SGScott Galloway
Right.
- KSKara Swisher
I mean, I hate to say it. A, a younger Bloomberg, certainly. Um, that's, that's always-- That was one of the possible buyers way back when, when they were trying to keep it out of Rupert Murdoch's hands. Um, but you're right, the, the, The Wall Street Journal would be interesting. The, um... But why, why? I mean, I could-- Let's-- I'll call Meredith Levine and ask her, and she'll probably just go, [chuckles] "What do I need that for?"
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, I don't-
- KSKara Swisher
Right?
- SGScott Galloway
Why do I need that headache?
- KSKara Swisher
What do I need that headache for?
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, but they take... [sighs] The bottom line is-
- KSKara Swisher
They've got a great, they've got a great Washington-
- SGScott Galloway
Sorry
- KSKara Swisher
... firm. They, what do they get? What are they getting? Nothing.
- SGScott Galloway
Well, I'm-
- KSKara Swisher
Nothing, honey
- SGScott Galloway
... just going to be very-- I'll, I'll tell you how this would work. They would go in, they'd buy the brand, they'd buy the subscription. They'd pick their forty or sixty percent most talented, uh, journalists.
- KSKara Swisher
Most of whom they'd fire, but go ahead.
- SGScott Galloway
They'd, they'd clear out the admin, the sales teams. I mean, uh, the bottom line is print journalism, or whatever you want to call this type of journalism, is in structural decline.
- KSKara Swisher
Yep.
- SGScott Galloway
And it requires-- And everyone wants to talk about reinvention. Sure, you have to invest in innovation, but more than anything, it requires consolidation and cost cutting.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
And The Washington Post, but, I mean, why wouldn't-- I would just think that The Washington Post would be an outstanding Washington bureau, and they've built a lot of credibility. They have a big-- They have a decent subscriber base-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm
- SGScott Galloway
... but they don't have the techno-
- 46:02 – 57:56
Media Merger Politics
- KSKara Swisher
is now endorsing Nexstar Media's takeover, a six billion dollar acquisition of Tegna, saying it will help knock out the fake news because there'll be more competition. These are two giant local, uh, firms. Back in November, Trump seemed to be opposed to the deal, writing on True Social, "No expansion of the fake news networks." Now, I guess they, they sucked up to him because of Jimmy Kimmel. Everything else, Nexstar owns or partners with over two hundred stations, with the addition of Tegna, would cover roughly eighty percent of the company- [chuckles] country, excuse me. I would call that a monopoly. Uh, the FCC, uh, currently prohibits companies from owning broadcast stations that reach over thirty-nine percent of US households, so that's double. So Trump obviously shifted because... I don't know, is there a donation somewhere or something else? I don't know. But it's, it's a massive... It-- They're allowing this merger and then opposing the Netflix one. It is, it's, it's so ridiculously hypocritical. Every time they turn around, they, they like one thing but not the other. Any thoughts on this Tegna, Nexstar thing?
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, but The Atlantic is like the person that ruins brunch-
- KSKara Swisher
[chuckles]
- SGScott Galloway
... by asking about the long-term implication of eggs.
- KSKara Swisher
[chuckles] Okay, move on. They're doing great without your, without your insults. What? Tell me about this one.
- SGScott Galloway
Every Atlantic journalist thinks that sex is a phase you'll outgrow.
- KSKara Swisher
Okay, let's move along. Nexstar, Tegna, much more significant.
- SGScott Galloway
I, I've ta-- You and I are both talking to Democratic candidates for president.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
And one of my, one of the platforms I think they should adopt is, um, trust busting. You, you, we need to go the other way. We need-- If you want to bring prices down, you, you can't have three chicken companies, you can't have three pharmaceutical companies, you can't have four streaming media platforms, you can't have one search engine. You need to break all of these guys up, and we need to go the other way. And we need to separate... The whole point... I mean, let's-- Can we talk about Ted Sarandos' congressional testimony? Because I think it's related.
- KSKara Swisher
Sure.
- SGScott Galloway
Y-you had some coin-operated Republicans who are being funded by the Ellisons-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah
- SGScott Galloway
... try to say-
- KSKara Swisher
Tim Scott, particularly recently, has been trying to-
- SGScott Galloway
Try to say, "I'm worried about Netflix claiming that fifty percent of Netflix children's programming is LGBTQ content?"
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
And, and just so you know-
- KSKara Swisher
They never cared about antitrust.
- SGScott Galloway
Media companies are allowed to have a viewpoint.
- KSKara Swisher
Yes, they are.
- SGScott Galloway
Fox has a viewpoint.
- KSKara Swisher
They don't, though.
- SGScott Galloway
It has a bias.
- KSKara Swisher
They don't.
- SGScott Galloway
CNN has a viewpoint. It has a bias. Netflix, as far as I can tell, is the most apolitical of all of them.
- KSKara Swisher
Agreed. They really don't.
- SGScott Galloway
And the way it works in a capitalist society is the person with the biggest check shows up-... And then it goes under regulatory review around whether the concentration of power will ultimately be bad for consumers. It has nothing to fucking do with how much LGBTQ content you think incorrectly has been incorporated into kids' content. And to see all of a sudden these Republican lawmakers start talking about media bias and free speech, it's just insane. It's like, uh, okay, how much money are you getting from the Ellisons, who don't want to do what you do in a capitalist society and just pay more for the prize you want? So this politicization or weaponiza- i, i, the Trump, Trump should have nothing to do with any of this.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
He should be, "Oh, well, as far as I understand, highest bidder wins, and I appointed the FTC and the DOJ to do a review."
- 57:56 – 1:09:12
Wins and Fails
- KSKara Swisher
I'll go first. My fail, as always, Elon seems to be abandoning his plans to go to Mars. He posted over the weekend that SpaceX has shifted its priorities to build a self-growing city on the Moon in order to get to Mars so that we can save the human race. This guy ch- changes his [chuckles] tune so much. It's just like, oh, my God, when are you gonna stop believing this nonsense? He's done an amazing job with the things he's had here on Earth, but not, not compared to the lies he tells about what he's gonna be doing in the future. But he's going to the Moon, folks, so that's what he's doing. Again, sounds good. He should go. I think it's a great idea. More Elon off the planet, the better. Sounds great. My win is I got Scott Galloway to watch Heated Rivalry. [laughing] How'd you like it, Scott?
- SGScott Galloway
I did it on edibles when I was jet-lagged, and I am rethinking everything, Kara. I am absolutely rethinking everything. I, I, I thought it was... I thought it was wonderful. I really, um, it's just really well done, and I think it's important. I think young people need to have more sex, and I think-
- KSKara Swisher
There's a lot of sex in it.
- SGScott Galloway
Oh, my God!
- KSKara Swisher
[chuckles]
- SGScott Galloway
Crazy sex.
- KSKara Swisher
[chuckles] I know.
- SGScott Galloway
Um-
- KSKara Swisher
Well, sex is their way to get to intimacy. You do s- see that, right? That's how they-
- SGScott Galloway
Well, dudes use sex for intimacy. Women use intimacy for s- no, wait. Women use sex for intimacy. Men use intimacy for... Did some of it kinda shock me, and, like, I immediately had to go to that lesbian series just to get my mojo back?
- KSKara Swisher
[chuckles]
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. Um-
- KSKara Swisher
I'll tell you what was interesting.
- SGScott Galloway
But it's like-
- KSKara Swisher
I interviewed the creators, so you should go listen to it.
- SGScott Galloway
I saw that.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
They're Canadian, right?
- KSKara Swisher
The Canadians, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah. I wanna do an erotic drama about the behind-the-scenes going on of the world's best badminton team. [laughing]
- KSKara Swisher
[chuckles] That's what everyone's thinking. Like, they're like: "What about rugby? What about this?" Can I make one other observation?
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah.
- KSKara Swisher
I think one of the things about it, and then you can get your win and fails, is that there's this-- There was... One of the things they said in the interview, and I think there was this whole incredible market of people who like this particular book series. It's a romance novel for w- women, right? This is a women, straight women-oriented romance novel that was hugely popular. And one thing, they were like: "How could it miss when it had such a massive market of fans?" And people ignore these markets, and that's, that's one of the reasons. It's already caught on with everybody else, but the initial strength of it was for this romance novel market, that ev- that all these sort of guys that are, like, green-lighting things did not understand. And I thought that was a real win for smart creators who understood, who understand where their fan base is in market. So I thought that was... It, I talked a lot about the business of Heated Rivalry with these guys. Um, and so I thought that was, it's just a real win on a business point of view, too. All right, your wins and fails?
- SGScott Galloway
... Yeah, and, uh, I go, I come back to, um, when I was thinking about a heated rivalry, because everyone's asking me, "What do you think about your rivalry?" Um, I think a decent place to start an entire political platform or guidance for, um, a political system, an economic system, it sounds corny, it's love. And that is, all right, if, if people can't make enough money in a low-employment economy such that they're so stressed out they can't raise their kids well, that economic policy is getting in the way of love, and we need to revisit it. If the divorce rates are skyrocketing because of economic anxiety and because forty percent of, of ho- households have medical debt, that's getting in the way of love. We need, we need to stop. If, if, if any sort of discrimination is stopping people from loving each other, committing to each other, and I think marriage is a good thing because it, you know, it stops you from exiting relationships just because they both have outdoor plumbing, that's getting in the way of love. I think you could reduce-- I think the whole nation, the whole idea of a, a prosperous nation, we tend to think it's the S&P. It's not. It's someone's ability to find someone else and to share their life with them and notice each other's life. And that's why I'm-- I, I think the sex recession among young people is absolutely terrible. And I also think about all the men I grew up with who basically imposed... Society imposed on them a set of rules and standards that said, you're not supposed to be in love because your, your inclinations towards love are to- are perverted according to our laws. But I think you could literally start from the notion of love or connecting with someone economically, spiritually, psychologically, financially, and reverse engineer into what makes good, uh, public policy.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
Anyway.
- KSKara Swisher
There you go. Love, sweet love.
- SGScott Galloway
There you go.
- KSKara Swisher
That's what Bad Bunny said.
- SGScott Galloway
Love. That's my platform.
Episode duration: 1:09:12
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