OpenAI’s Trillion-Dollar Future: “This Will Be a Monster IPO" | Pivot

1. 0:00 – 0:50

   Intro

   1. KSKara Swisher0:00

      Would you buy into it?

   2. SGScott Galloway0:01

      I mean, this will be a monster IPO ever- CNBC will just sit there touching themselves talking about this for three weeks. (instrumental music)

   3. KSKara Swisher0:12

      Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

   4. SGScott Galloway0:17

      And I'm Scott Galloway.

   5. KSKara Swisher0:19

      I have returned to our country, Scott.

   6. SGScott Galloway0:21

      Yeah. You look much better, um-

   7. KSKara Swisher0:22

      Thank you.

   8. SGScott Galloway0:23

      ... how was your travel back, your trip back?

   9. KSKara Swisher0:25

      Uh, it's like takes, you know, you leave yesterday and arrive today, or no, you leave tomorrow and then you arrive today. I don't know. It just like, I got, I left at 10:00 AM and then I got back, it was the same day at 10:00 AM. That's all I know.

   10. SGScott Galloway0:38

       It's funny 'cause I, I can confirm you have not aged since yesterday.

   11. KSKara Swisher0:41

       (laughs) We've got a lot to get to today, including NVIDIA making history kind of crazy and Elon making Grokipedia. Oh my God.

2. 0:50 – 7:09

   ChatGPT and Mental Health

   1. KSKara Swisher0:50

      But first, OpenAI is finally a for-profit company, and I knew this would happen, Elon tried to stop it, but announced this week that has formed a public benefit corporation similar to the structures of AI, uh, xAI and Anthropic. Under the new setup, OpenAI's nonprofit foundation gets a 26% stake worth about $130 billion and will run, uh, the for-profit arm, Micro- it's the same board by the way, I think. Microsoft gets 27% and keeps exclusive rights to OpenAI's tech through 2032. Sam Altman reportedly does not have a significant stake. I, I, I feel like he's gonna do just fine. There's a buzz about an IPO as early as next year, possibly at a trillion dollar valuation outta the gate. But Altman's saying there's no specific timeframe yet. Um, uh, talk a little bit about this 'cause we've talked about the idea of them going public and this looks like, and, and a lot of companies not going public. And I just wanna note, uh, OpenAI is also sharing estimates for the first time, this is a drag on them I think, how many ChatGPT users are struggling with mental health issues. The company says in a typical week about 0.07% of users show possible signs of mental health emergencies. And while that percentage sounds small, remember ChatGPT has 800 million weekly active users. OpenAI says they've consulted with more than 170 mental health experts to help improve responses during "challenging conversations." Uh, Character.AI, which is probably the worst of them, is barring people under 18 from using its chat box starting next month. You're kidding, Character.AI. Uh, long time coming, should have happened right at the start. Um, so, th- these are a drag on these companies too, because these companies do know much more so than a Google Mental what people are asking specifically, uh, about. So talk a little bit about the IPO and possible drags on... I would say this would be a drag on it, but maybe not.

   2. SGScott Galloway2:37

      I think it's actually good that they're releasing this data and supposedly, uh, some people have said although that the chat has calmed down, that the number one app of AI was therapy. And so if you can imagine a significant portion of those 800 million people are using it as a therapist, you know, 0.07% of users showing possible signs of mental health emergencies, that just may be representative of the population who wants to talk to a therapist digitally or in person. So I don't, I don't think-

   3. KSKara Swisher3:04

      They should be governed by therapy rules if they're gonna be a therapist. But go ahead.

   4. SGScott Galloway3:08

      Uh, I think that's a, I think that's a really good point. Can you say more about what that means? I don't, I don't know what that means.

   5. KSKara Swisher3:13

      Well, when I was doing the parents of one of the kids who committed suicide, the ChatGPT parents, she happens to be a therapist and she's like, "If I had given this advice, I would've been arrested." Um, therapy, therapists are governed by, you know, there's lots of bad therapists by the way, let's be clear. But they have repercussions if they are. Um, and so they have, first of all, privacy issues and, uh, you, you're pro- it's just they, thi- these people have no, d- what you put into OpenAI is not, doesn't have any privilege, just like legal stuff, financial stuff.

   6. SGScott Galloway3:44

      Mm-hmm.

   7. KSKara Swisher3:44

      That's one. And then this, uh, or privacy, and then two, they don't, they're not governed if they do something wrong, if the AI bot says something wrong like they have, um, there's no repercussions for it. Um, and so therapists are governed, people are governed if you, if you shame someone into suicide, you could be tried for it and have-

   8. SGScott Galloway4:03

      Mm-hmm.

   9. KSKara Swisher4:03

      ... people have been. And so that's the issue. They have none of the, they have all the usage and none of the responsibility I would say. So if they're gonna do mental health work with people, they should be licensed therapists and should, uh, pay the price if they fuck up.

   10. SGScott Galloway4:18

       Look, I agree with that. I, I think that more broadly they should have adopted a similar approach than most content or the military or bars, um, put in place. And that is there should be different versions of AI and you have to show your age and your identity. And if you can't prove you're over the age of 18, you get an entirely different set of algorithms and, you know, processing and warnings. And also I think kids, look, if I went in and tried to buy beer-

   11. KSKara Swisher4:50

       Yeah.

   12. SGScott Galloway4:50

       ... under the age of 21 and I got caught, they call the cops and my parents get to know. (laughs)

   13. KSKara Swisher4:56

       Right. Yeah. Exactly.

   14. SGScott Galloway4:57

       And my parents weigh in and say, "Okay, you shouldn't be buying beer. Why are you buying beer?" Or what-

   15. KSKara Swisher5:02

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SGScott Galloway5:02

       ... or "Why did you try to buy a gun?" Or your kid was here with a fake ID trying to get a driver's license.

   17. KSKara Swisher5:09

       Right. There's repercussions.

   18. SGScott Galloway5:09

       So I, I think that it is pretty simple. There needs to be a n- a different version of AI and there needs to be a, in my view, I, I've never bought into the notion of... So for example, I wanna give the right, uh, you know, throw the right about I don't think kids under the 18 should be allowed to engage in, in gender affirmation drugs without the consent of their parents.

   19. KSKara Swisher5:34

       Right. Yeah.

   20. SGScott Galloway5:36

       And-

   21. KSKara Swisher5:36

       Okay.

   22. SGScott Galloway5:36

       ... and some, when someone is under the age of 18, they're a kid and kids are stupid. They make irrational decisions. Their brains aren't fully formed.

   23. KSKara Swisher5:43

       Mm, right. May I point something out? Most-

   24. SGScott Galloway5:45

       Sure.

   25. KSKara Swisher5:45

       ... this is almost every case they are. So th- it's, it's-

   26. SGScott Galloway5:48

       The proto- it's a very rare case and it has been-

   27. KSKara Swisher5:51

       Rare.

   28. SGScott Galloway5:51

       I agree with you, it's been weaponized and politicized, but there are instances where parents found out after a lot of other adults knew, and that, that is wrong. I think when you're under the-

   29. KSKara Swisher6:01

       Okay, but it's small.It's, like, the number of trans fencers. But go ahead.

   30. SGScott Galloway6:05

       I know, but it j- but the b- I'm saying just theoretically, it just shouldn't happen. What I'm saying is there, uh, there should also be no kid who types in how to ki- different ways to kill yourself and not have their parents notified. (laughs)
3. 7:09 – 16:15

   OpenAI’s IPO Future

   1. KSKara Swisher7:09

      different ball of wax. Talk a little bit about the, th- about the public offering though, because this is gonna be the blockbuster, right?

   2. SGScott Galloway7:14

      We, we predicted this.

   3. KSKara Swisher7:15

      We...

   4. SGScott Galloway7:15

      I mean, I personally think all this stuff around, "We need 50 nuclear power plants" - just OpenAI - I think what he's saying is, "My business is gonna be so big, bad, awesome, and valuable, I'm gonna need 50 nuclear power plants." I don't think he has any fucking idea at this point how much power they're gonna need. I mean, generally speaking, there's a, there's a, there's a, a bunch of catastrophizing about how we don't have enough power. And my thesis is that China's just gonna develop AIs that u- or LLMs that use a lot less power. But in also signing a $300 billion deal with Oracle, what does that say to the market? It says, "Oh, my God. He thinks it's gonna be... He knows more than us. He thinks it's gonna be a trillion-dollar revenue company." And all of this, uh, uh, he is a very bright guy. And to be clear, he is focused on nothing but his, quote-unquote, "insignificant stake"-

   5. KSKara Swisher8:08

      Mm-hmm.

   6. SGScott Galloway8:08

      ... in AI. And his insignificant stake might be only 5 or 6%, but if a trillion-dollar valuation-

   7. KSKara Swisher8:14

      Yeah.

   8. SGScott Galloway8:15

      ... w- it might get, he's gonna make $50 or $60 billion.

   9. KSKara Swisher8:17

      And he has energy companies and he has blank, blank, blank, blank, blank.

   10. SGScott Galloway8:21

       And, uh, uh, I, I just love how we continue to fall for the hushed tones-

   11. KSKara Swisher8:25

       Yeah. (laughs)

   12. SGScott Galloway8:26

       ... and, "Oh, I don't get paid."

   13. KSKara Swisher8:26

       He's gonna make a lot of money.

   14. SGScott Galloway8:27

       "I don't get paid. It's, this isn't why I'm doing this."

   15. KSKara Swisher8:30

       Yeah. He's getting paid.

   16. SGScott Galloway8:31

       Yeah. But meanwhile, I've decided that porn for kids, synthetic porn, lifelike porn for kids is good for the world and is helping the original mission of using AI to improve and protect humanity. I mean, wh- when do we clue in and realize everything these guys do-

   17. KSKara Swisher8:50

       Oh, right.

   18. SGScott Galloway8:50

       ... is to get the incremental dollar? And I-

   19. KSKara Swisher8:52

       Absolutely.

   20. SGScott Galloway8:52

       And in my view, that's fine, as long as we recognize it, regulate them, and then tax them such that we can reinvest (laughs)

   21. KSKara Swisher8:59

       Yeah, whenever they say, "We're not here for the money"-

   22. SGScott Galloway9:01

       Oh, yeah.

   23. KSKara Swisher9:01

       ... I'm like, "You're here for the money."

   24. SGScott Galloway9:03

       Oh, no, my, I always tell kids, when some-

   25. KSKara Swisher9:04

       This is the only reason I appreciate Trump. It's like, "How much money can I make?"

   26. SGScott Galloway9:07

       He's naked. Yeah. He's transparent.

   27. KSKara Swisher9:09

       Right, naked. Yeah.

   28. SGScott Galloway9:09

       I've always said, any... I've always said-

   29. KSKara Swisher9:11

       I don't appreciate Trump.

   30. SGScott Galloway9:11

       ... the VCs who get on stage at business school and say, "Well, it was never about the money," would fuck their sister for a nickel.
4. 16:15 – 24:22

   Nvidia’s $5 Trillion Milestone

   1. SGScott Galloway16:15

   2. KSKara Swisher16:15

      Scott, we're back. NVIDIA just became the first company in history to hit the $5 trillion in market value a little over three months after it hit the $4 trillion mark. To give you some perspective, NVIDIA is now worth about 25 Disneys, 50 Nikes, or bigger than the GDP of Germany. It's been a busy week for NVIDIA. The company is also taking a $1 billion stake in Nokia. Oh, that seems... Uh, I'm not loving that move. Plus partnering with Oracle to build the Energy Department's largest ever AI supercomputer, and NVIDIA's annual conference, CEO Jensen Huang took an opportunity to lavish praise on Donald Trump. Why wouldn't he? Trump has made him really rich. Uh, let's listen.

   3. NANarrator16:52

      President Trump gets... deserves enormous credit. His pro-energy initiative, his recognition that this industry needs energy to grow, it needs energy to advance, and we need energy to win. His recognition of that and putting the weight of the nation behind pro-energy growth completely changed the game. If this didn't happen, we could have been in a bad situation. And I wanna thank President Trump for that.

   4. KSKara Swisher17:17

      Oh my God. Jensen.

   5. SGScott Galloway17:19

      So let me interpret for all of you out there what he was saying.

   6. KSKara Swisher17:21

      Yeah.

   7. SGScott Galloway17:21

      "Mr. President, let me sell my shit to China."

   8. KSKara Swisher17:26

      Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking.

   9. SGScott Galloway17:27

      "Let me sell my..." Okay, weapons.

   10. KSKara Swisher17:30

       Weapon, whatever.

   11. SGScott Galloway17:31

       Greater likelihood they can hack our systems.

   12. KSKara Swisher17:34

       Yeah.

   13. SGScott Galloway17:34

       More cyberattacks on us.

   14. KSKara Swisher17:36

       That's-

   15. SGScott Galloway17:36

       And increased-

   16. KSKara Swisher17:36

       ... exactly what I thought.

   17. SGScott Galloway17:37

       And increased probability they're able to invade Taiwan w- in a hot or a cold war using our GPUs, which American universities and IP protection have made me worth more than Boeing.

   18. KSKara Swisher17:49

       Mm-hmm.

   19. SGScott Galloway17:49

       Let me sell my chips into China-

   20. KSKara Swisher17:52

       Exactly. Exactly.

   21. SGScott Galloway17:52

       ... and ignore all of the concerns from the Defense Department.

   22. KSKara Swisher17:55

       And look how rich I've gotten off of you. You know, let me tell you something. I knew... I've known Jensen for a long time and I interviewed him many times when he had the company that was just selling chips to video game companies, essentially. He will not do an interview with me. I've kno- I've known him 30 years. Like, he refuses because I'll be like, "So, let's talk about China. Let's talk about President Trump. Let's talk about, you know, your-"

   23. SGScott Galloway18:19

       Yeah, he's smart.

   24. KSKara Swisher18:19

       Yeah, I... It's just, like... A- a- actually, you know what? I ha- I lost a lot of respect 'cause I like Jensen, but boy, is he, like-

   25. SGScott Galloway18:26

       He should go... Actually, he should go on your show 'cause he'd be fine.

   26. KSKara Swisher18:29

       I would agree, but he won't because I, because I know him, right? Like, talk about someone I've known for, like, just...I, I, I, it's fine if he wants to do it this way, but, you know, at some ... He, he, he probably looked at a Cisco or something like that and, and is so much smarter, like that he, he ... Speaking of wanting to keep, you know ... He doesn't want AMD to show up, he doesn't want Apple to make c- ... He wants to control, he wants to avoid the mistakes of Intel over the years. You know, he kind of wants to own it for the next, for the future, essentially. So sucking up to Trump, he'll do it. He has no problem doing it. What's he want?

   27. SGScott Galloway19:05

       I mean ... (laughs)

   28. KSKara Swisher19:06

       Though he dresses like a, like a very attractive lesbian, I think. But go ahead.

   29. SGScott Galloway19:10

       (laughs) I'm sure that's what he's going for. That's what he says to his stylist.

   30. KSKara Swisher19:13

       Well, look at- look at that outfit. Look at the outfit.
5. 24:22 – 36:55

   Grokipedia & Truth Predict

   1. KSKara Swisher24:22

      Anyway, uh, let's also talk about Grokipedia, the encyclopedia powered by xAI and is rival to Wikipedia. It sucks so bad. I tried it, I just couldn't. It has complained about so-called propaganda on Wikipedia. He's been doing that for a while. Grokipedia went online with around 900,000 articles and briefly crashed after launching. It was full of like ... It loves Elon. It loves Elon, that's for sure. It's full of errors, it leaves things out, like a lot of stuff out. Um, factual stuff. Um, and it's ... Uh, g- does he have ... Why is he doing this? Like ...You, you, what does he have, just an extra f- five minutes to do something? I don't know. Um, at the same time, Truth Social, which is majority owned by President Trump and his family, is launching a crypto-based prediction market platform to compete with Polymarket and I guess KalShi. Uh, Truth Predict will allow Truth y- social users to place crypto bets on outcome events. Uh, uh, uh, the guy in charge of the outcome events is gonna have a betting platform? That's interesting. Um, also, I think Don Jr.'s on the board of both the Polymarket and, or he's, he's involved with them, um, and he, I just, uh, uh, I don't know what to say. And the last thing about Elon, of course, Tesla's looking for internal CEO candidates in case his trillion-dollar pay package is not passed and he leaves. So, any predictions here? Any of these, any of these topics? Grokipedia?

   2. SGScott Galloway25:43

      Grokipedia is an attempt to sort of establish a new truth, right? And one of the things I like about Wik- Wikipedia is it's, it's almost impossible to have a functioning democracy if we don't all agree that there is a, an objective truth. And Congress used to fall in line when peer review research would come in or data would come in, they wouldn't ... I mean, they'd try and spin it, but they would acknowledge, "Okay, this is the data and we all need to rally around it." That's no longer the case. Everyone's decided there are, there are, quote-unquote, "alternative facts." There is an alternative truth. And I just see this as an attempt to try and mimic what a lot of people ... One of the things I love about Wikipedia, I was also, I was freaked out when my Wikipedia page went up 'cause I thought, "There's no taking it down." That's the thing about a Wikipedia page. It goes up. And then what really struck me was some misinformation went up. It said, you know, it's, uh, it said one of my companies was now defunct and I'm, and I went, "No, it's not. It's still, that company's still going." Other people weighed in. It's a community-based thing, and if you show your notes and your work, you get to edit a page. So it's like this, this kind of user-generated, but they're, they do try to pursue the truth. I find it actually quite apolitical.

   3. KSKara Swisher26:51

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SGScott Galloway26:52

      Which I like. And what you see here-

   5. KSKara Swisher26:55

      Yeah, me too. Yeah.

   6. SGScott Galloway26:55

      What you see here is they're saying shit like, uh, instead of sh- instead of showing suggestions for gay pornography, it, it falsely suggests that porn exacerbated the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the '80s.

   7. KSKara Swisher27:07

      Yeah. Yeah.

   8. SGScott Galloway27:07

      Uh, I mean, uh, something like that, that's just not helpful.

   9. KSKara Swisher27:12

      Why is he doing it? Why is he doing it?

   10. SGScott Galloway27:13

       I, I, I-

   11. KSKara Swisher27:13

       Does he care if he's helpful, Scott? (laughs) Like, really, seriously.

   12. SGScott Galloway27:16

       Yeah, but I think you said this. I think something happened to the guy and he's traumatized and angry at the left and wants ... I mean, he's talking about, he keeps going on and on about a white genocide.

   13. KSKara Swisher27:29

       Uh, he's just ... Uh, I, uh, uh-

   14. SGScott Galloway27:31

       Uh, I, I mean, I, I, I use a lot of examples for how the term genocide has been perverted and overused in a lot of different regions of the world, but there's very few perversions that are less egregious or laughable than that right now, there is a white genocide taking place.

   15. KSKara Swisher27:45

       He, he's like a plot of White Lotus at th- this point. Like, you know, between him and David Ellison, they look like the, the n- next cast of White Lotus. Um, but, uh, something, uh, it's just stupid. So why would he, why would he do this? Why would they ... 'Cause getting in on the action?

   16. SGScott Galloway28:02

       I'm sorry. Say more.

   17. KSKara Swisher28:03

       Trump doing this on Truth Social, Truth Predict.

   18. SGScott Galloway28:06

       They've gotta do something. The social media ... Okay, this is their second pivot. The, the social media company doesn't work. No one's going there, so they pivoted to become a Bitcoin treasury company, and they took their cash and bought Bitcoin. That's sort of working, not really. So their next pivot is to become a, uh, a betting market 'cause there is ... Actually, I do think there's opportunity for new players there, and you're gonna see Polymarket or KalShi go out in a monster IPO. These things are the new casino, but they feel less dirty, like, "Oh, it's about politics, so it's not just gambling."

   19. KSKara Swisher28:37

       Yeah. They do everything. They don't just do poli-

   20. SGScott Galloway28:38

       But I gotta give it to the guy. The stock is up 10% this week and 22% up this year at Tesla. The fact they're able to keep this thing in the air just is-

   21. KSKara Swisher28:46

       This is Tesla?

   22. SGScott Galloway28:46

       Yeah. This is just amazing. And his stock package, he, he's looking for a grant of up to 12% of outstanding Tesla stock, which could feasibly be worth a one trillion dollar package if the company hits a market value of 8.6 trillion, which I think is up six or sevenfold. I actually, I think one of the things about capitalism that I think works is you can't get in the way, I don't think you should get in the way of limiting compensation at a gross level. Uh, I think if, if, if ... I, I think you should continue to publi- publish statistics showing what multiple of the average worker's salary the CEO makes, but I think one of the intoxicating things and the incentives that works in the United States is that there's no limit on the upside.

   23. KSKara Swisher29:31

       Well, here's the only thing. And this is ... Look, first of all, it's offensive to people. That's part of it. I mean, the, the whole, like, h- hand-waving part of it is offensive to people, so he, he knows he's doing that. He knows he's trolling people. The other thing is, if it gets an internal CEO, we will all value it at what it's worth, right? It will not get the Elon bump. And-

   24. SGScott Galloway29:50

       Yeah. It'll look like an auto company.

   25. KSKara Swisher29:52

       A- a- a- and it's not selling as many cars, and it's not as good, and it will become what it's worth, correct? A very good car company that has seen better days.

   26. SGScott Galloway30:01

       Yeah.

   27. KSKara Swisher30:01

       And, you know, uh, one of the things that it's cost, uh, uh, there was another Yale study out showing that his involvement is costing them, I guess, one million cars or something, some number. It was a massive number. Um, uh, so he's also a downside candidate. I think him out of there would be great for Tesla as a car company.

   28. SGScott Galloway30:21

       (sighs) But you're right, not for the stock. But what I, where I was going with this one trillion dollar pay package ... And, and you did something you n- almost never do. You didn't let me finish. That's really unlike you.

   29. KSKara Swisher30:28

       Okay. Oh, yeah, right.

   30. SGScott Galloway30:29

       Uh, anyways-
6. 36:55 – 44:45

   Big Tech Earnings

   1. KSKara Swisher36:55

      Scott, we're back. It's time to do some rapid fire highlights of the latest tech earnings. First up, Microsoft. The company's Azure cloud service, saw revenue jump 40% in the quarter. Amazing. And the total revenue rose 18%. Shares are up around 2% as of the last five days of the taping. As for Meta, the company saw a 26% rise in sales year over year, and net income of $2.7 billion. I- impressive, which... But it still didn't meet expectations. Meta blamed the net income shortfall and one-time tax bill, but also warned of growing capital expenditures and spending enormous amounts of money on AI. Shares are down 12% at the time of the taping. They got a real haircut there. Lastly, Alphabet, the Google parent company, saw a 16% jump in third quarter revenue, topping $100 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time. Uh, really amaze- really impressive. Cloud revenue for the year rose 35% from last year, uh, a little less than, um, uh, Microsoft's. Shares are up around 3%, uh, at the time of the taping. Uh, anything sticking out for you? And we'll note that earnings for Apple and Amazon are coming out after we record today. Um, well, uh, by the way, Amazon's laying off 14,000 corporate workers as it invests more in AI. Um, but any thoughts on, on, on not... We'll talk about Apple and, uh, Amazon next, next week. But what, uh, what do you think about these three, the three biggies?

   2. SGScott Galloway38:13

      Nothing short of extraordinary. Advertising revenue at Meta up 26%, and you want to know why your employer is dying, CNN, or your partner CNN? Instagram video time was up 30%. Up 30%. And-

   3. KSKara Swisher38:28

      That's... Much of that is me watching it. But go ahead. Yeah.

   4. SGScott Galloway38:31

      (sighs) I, I hate to say this. I'm embarrassed to say this. People constantly ask me, "What are your, what are your sources of news?" And I always say, "The BBC, the FT, and The Economist," which is all a fucking lie.

   5. KSKara Swisher38:41

      Well, you do watch those.

   6. SGScott Galloway38:43

      (sighs) I subscribe to them so I can signal... For me, they're self-expressive benefit.

   7. KSKara Swisher38:46

      Oh, I, I read it. I read those. But go ahead.

   8. SGScott Galloway38:48

      When I go to breakfast at the Crosby, I take my FT 'cause I think it makes me look smarter than I am.

   9. KSKara Swisher38:52

      Oh.

   10. SGScott Galloway38:52

       And I barely read it 'cause my eyes are going.

   11. KSKara Swisher38:54

       (laughs)

   12. SGScott Galloway38:54

       And then I go back and I watch reels on my phone, and I watch The Geo Husar or Justin Wolfers or a reel from some economist or-

   13. KSKara Swisher39:02

       Or YouTube, yeah.

   14. SGScott Galloway39:03

       ... or David Frum or... And I, and these little two and three minute hits of really thoughtful people on YouTube and Instagram, that is now where I'm getting my news.

   15. KSKara Swisher39:12

       Me too.

   16. SGScott Galloway39:13

       I hate to admit it.

   17. KSKara Swisher39:13

       You and I both. You and me both, sister.

   18. SGScott Galloway39:15

       And they will take the best articles and they'll summarize them for him.

   19. KSKara Swisher39:19

       Mm-hmm.

   20. SGScott Galloway39:19

       And they'll put someone better looking to, to explain the article or more articulate. Remember when the New York Times started doing video about 10 years ago?

   21. KSKara Swisher39:27

       Mm-hmm.

   22. SGScott Galloway39:28

       It was like, "Oh my God, that guy s- that guy writes so much more handsome than he is."

   23. KSKara Swisher39:34

       (laughs)

   24. SGScott Galloway39:34

       You know, you think-

   25. KSKara Swisher39:35

       That's why they, that's why they glowed up Ezra. They're trying to glow up Ross.

   26. SGScott Galloway39:39

       Well, but that's... When you find someone like-

   27. KSKara Swisher39:41

       Do that. But that's impossible.

   28. SGScott Galloway39:41

       When you find someone like Ezra who's handsome and kind of-

   29. KSKara Swisher39:43

       Yeah, yeah.

   30. SGScott Galloway39:44

       ... dreamy in sort of a-
7. 44:45 – 49:29

   CNN Streaming

   1. KSKara Swisher44:45

      last thing, CNN has launched its new subscription streaming service. The service will be like, quote, "Close sibling of CNN's cable product, offering access to select live programming for 6.99 a month." Uh, it's not really CNN Blue. I, I think it's all of this.

   2. SGScott Galloway44:59

      How is it any different?

   3. KSKara Swisher45:00

      Uh, exactly. (laughs) That's exactly-

   4. SGScott Galloway45:02

      How is it any different?

   5. KSKara Swisher45:03

      It's not. It's not. It's-

   6. SGScott Galloway45:04

      Except now it's Vaslav and Mark Thompson's idea?

   7. KSKara Swisher45:07

      It's, it's, you know what? It's C- it's CNN with CNN. Remember when it was Blue, and I said, "How can you have CNN+ without CNN?" This has CNN.

   8. SGScott Galloway45:14

      Oh, okay. Yeah.

   9. KSKara Swisher45:15

      That's it.

   10. SGScott Galloway45:16

       They have to do this. Seven bucks a month, uh, and subscribers will be able to access... My idea, and then this was an idea that I, I said this earlier, I mean, you should have a bug on CNN plat- uh, on their streaming thing, where c- uh, where you're just live streaming live CNN. And, uh, uh, Mark Thompson implement ... This is typically what happens with managers. You have, one, you have a business that works, and you think that's the playbook for the rest of your life. And he, uh, to Mark Thompson's credit, he moved the company, he moved New York Times from an ad-based model to not an entirely subscription-based model. But the stock run-up in the New York Times, which has been strong, not exceptional, but stock was largely because the revenue mix moved much more to subscription under the leadership of Mark Thompson. The problem is, it just may be too late. CNN is struggling, even in comparison with other dying cable news networks. In the September primetime slot, get this, Fox News averaged 2.5 million viewers, that's flat. MSNBC, 810,000, down 43%.

   11. KSKara Swisher46:20

       Right.

   12. SGScott Galloway46:21

       And CNN averaged 543,000, down 36%.

   13. KSKara Swisher46:24

       Tiny.

   14. SGScott Galloway46:24

       And in the coveted 25 to 54-year-old demo, which is all advertised. The, the, the people buying their product, advertisers, they only care about people 25 to 54. Fox News averaged 280,000 in the core demo, down 14%. CNN averaged, get this, Kara, 87,000.

   15. KSKara Swisher46:43

       Yeah, we're bigger. I know.

   16. SGScott Galloway46:44

       And MSNBC averaged 68,000. Our, if you look at our downloads plus our video views, we're averaging I think around f- 350 or 400,000. 60 to 70% of our listeners are in the core demo, so we're getting about 150 or 200,000 in the core demo versus MSNBC and CNN at 68 and 87.

   17. KSKara Swisher47:04

       Our tiny little selves. We have like six... (laughs) We could fit everyone around a-

   18. SGScott Galloway47:07

       These things literally, no one-

   19. KSKara Swisher47:09

       ... a table. We did fit everyone around a table-

   20. SGScott Galloway47:10

       I, I, and I-

   21. KSKara Swisher47:11

       ... at lunch.

   22. SGScott Galloway47:11

       ... I flew back, I flew back with Van Jones last night, and he said something really interesting. He said, "All we're doing is bringing on people, encouraging them to yell at each other such that it gets clipped and goes on social and goes viral."

   23. KSKara Swisher47:23

       Yeah, which makes no money.

   24. SGScott Galloway47:24

       Which we know, but what he said that I thought was really insightful, he said, "Just two years ago, occasionally we would make news live. Something would happen live on the program that would make news and change things. Instead, it's like how do we get this shit on Reels and on TikTok, and then it starts having an impact." They're all just essentially a content creation machine, hoping to get to clear the hurdle such that it goes viral on one of these platforms.

   25. KSKara Swisher47:52

       It- it's not a moneymaker, that's for sure. I don't think they'll sell many of these, I gotta say. I don't know. I think it's all, like, uh, look, they're all gonna get bought up all together, whether it's Comcast or David Ellison with his-

   26. SGScott Galloway48:04

       It's a trophy property though.

   27. KSKara Swisher48:05

       You know, nepo money-

   28. SGScott Galloway48:06

       There-

   29. KSKara Swisher48:06

       ... which is fine.

   30. SGScott Galloway48:07

       There is a, yeah, there's a-
8. 49:29 – 1:00:55

   Predictions

   1. KSKara Swisher49:29

      Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. What's your prediction?

   2. SGScott Galloway49:33

      Well, I've been saying-

   3. KSKara Swisher49:34

      I predict we're gonna have a great tour coming up. It's one more week.

   4. SGScott Galloway49:37

      That's right.

   5. KSKara Swisher49:37

      And by the way, I predict your book is gonna be at the top of the New York Times bestseller list.

   6. SGScott Galloway49:41

      You're very generous. Thank you for saying that.

   7. KSKara Swisher49:42

      By the way, can I just make an insight before you start?

   8. SGScott Galloway49:44

      Yeah.

   9. KSKara Swisher49:45

      The back cover, is that your back cover that you sent?

   10. SGScott Galloway49:47

       Yeah, yeah.

   11. KSKara Swisher49:48

       That is wonderful. It's a picture of Scott as a teenager. I don't know how old you were, 12, 13?

   12. SGScott Galloway49:52

       13, yeah.

   13. KSKara Swisher49:53

       13. And you, and I love... I thought it was... Both Amanda and I were like, "Wow, that was really good." It looks-

   14. SGScott Galloway49:58

       Oh, thank you. That's all-

   15. KSKara Swisher49:59

       It's a won- I didn't see the back cover. I love it. I love it, love it, love it.

   16. SGScott Galloway50:02

       It's all Kathryn Dillon. My partner for the last 15 years in business has been a professor of the arts at the Tisch School named Kathryn Dillon, and she's, she's a creative, she teaches-

   17. KSKara Swisher50:10

       Well done, Kathryn.

   18. SGScott Galloway50:11

       She teaches visual design, and she's essentially run, uh, my companies. In addition to being a great manager, everything we do just has a certain level of aesthetic strength that-

   19. KSKara Swisher50:20

       It's very touching, actually.

   20. SGScott Galloway50:21

       Yeah. Oh, thank you.

   21. KSKara Swisher50:21

       It's very hard to pull that off, but it was very touching.

   22. SGScott Galloway50:24

       Thank you. Um, so look, my prediction is the following. AI is now absolutely the equivalent of corporate Ozempic, um, in that is what Ozempic or GLP-1 drugs do is they turn off the switch, uh, kind of the instinctual switch that if there's food in front of you, you need to keep eating. And I hadn't realized how obvious or how linear... When you're on a board and the CEO is planning the next year and trying to get approval on CapEx and hiring, uh, he or she will come in and say, "Our plan is to grow revenues 8%, and that means we're gonna grow our headcount 6% 'cause that'll increase profits by, you know, 8 or 12%." And there was always a correlation, and if they came in and said, "Uh, business is tough, I think revenues are gonna be down 8% next year," then okay, we need to lay off between 6 and 12%. So, the corporate growth number, the hunger, if you will, was always matched by how much calories you were gonna intake or get rid of. And then Meta said using AI for better targeting, they announced what I still believe is one of the most seminal earnings quarters in history. They said, "Okay, we, uh, grew 20%..." I'm sorry. "We grew 23% last year with 20% fewer people." So, there's this entirely different gestalt in corporate America, especially among information age companies, that says, "Wait, just because I'm growing doesn't need, I mean, to h- doesn't necessarily mean I need to eat more. I d- I don't need more calories. I don't need more people. As a matter of fact, I may need... I may be able to pull off the ultimate gangster move for shareholders here, I'm not saying it's good for society-

   23. KSKara Swisher52:05

       Mm-hmm.

   24. SGScott Galloway52:06

       ... is that I can grow while reducing-

   25. KSKara Swisher52:09

       Costs, yeah.

   26. SGScott Galloway52:09

       ... my headcount."

   27. KSKara Swisher52:10

       Yeah.

   28. SGScott Galloway52:10

       So Amazon announced that they were, uh, doing a restructuring, 30,000 corporate job cuts, roughly 10% of its white-collar workforce, to, they say they're aiming to reduce bureaucracy. Do you realize Amazon has said on the retail unit that they think they can maintain the same level of top-level revenue, or they can double their top-line revenue by 2032 or '33-

   29. KSKara Swisher52:36

       Mm-hmm.

   30. SGScott Galloway52:36

       ... while maintaining the same-

Episode duration: 1:00:56