Resist and Unsubscribe: Scott Galloway’s Plan to Hit Big Tech Where It Hurts | Pivot

1. 0:00 – 3:30

   Intro

   1. SGScott Galloway0:00

      What you want is the most impact with the least amount of sacrifice. Make it easy, and also maximum impact.

   2. SPSpeaker0:06

      [music]

   3. KSKara Swisher0:11

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

   4. SGScott Galloway0:16

      And I'm Scott Galloway.

   5. KSKara Swisher0:17

      Before we do anything, I'd like to point out that as of this episode drops, it's been forty-two days since the deadline passed for the DOJ to release all the Epstein files. Though we do have an update, DOJ officials said in a court filing this week that they expect to release the files, quote, "in the near term," but they did not provide a specific date. Pam Bondi, get on it. Scott, after Sunday's bonus episode about the violence in Minnesota, we've gotten a mountain of responses to our discussion of the economic strike that you suggested. I know you're working on something, and we'll talk about that in a minute, but first, here's what some of our listeners had to say.

   6. SPSpeaker0:50

      I'm seeing online some suggestions of people stop paying their income tax by updating their W-2.

   7. SPSpeaker0:56

      I and many of my colleagues are watching with sadness, a lot of anxiety [chuckles] and anger at the escalating violence, and I keep wondering what, if anything, people outside the US like me can do that's actually useful.

   8. SPSpeaker1:07

      Reportedly, Vanguard, BlackRock, and Fidelity hold half of the shares in two companies, GEO Group and CoreCivic, which run nearly ninety percent of ICE detention facilities. If investors divested from these collaborators and others, could that put a stop to ICE's worst abuses?

   9. KSKara Swisher1:28

      And given a lot of you have been writing in, wondering what you can do personally, we asked financial educator Vivian Tu, host of Networth and Chill, uh, to give some tips on how to make an impact. Let's hear what she had to say.

   10. SPSpeaker1:40

       Hey, Scott and Kara. Heard you guys were talking about an economic blackout. I've got a couple personal finance tips. For our friends with a lot of financial discipline, you could consider changing your W-4 withholding for your taxes. You'll pay fewer taxes throughout the year and then pay them all in one lump sum come tax time. You're not going to get to pay fewer taxes overall, but why let the government hold your money and do stuff with it for longer than they need to? Make sure you are taking advantage of time value of money. Up next, everybody talks about shopping local versus corporate, but another thing you can do is pay in cash. These local businesses oftentimes might even give you a small discount for doing so because then they have to give less up as well. Wink, wink. And last but not least, for the economic blackout, money that you aren't spending on buying stuff, make sure you're putting towards a really smart, strategic cause, things like paying down your debt so you aren't so heavily tied to financial institutions, but also causes that you care about that might support things like immigration or human rights. The main takeaway is this: economic boycotts do not work if a small population stops spending cold turkey for one to two days. What we're actually going to need is a critical mass of people to scale back their consumerism over weeks and months, and even if they can only do it to seventy or eighty percent of their ability, that is going to have a bigger impact.

   11. KSKara Swisher2:56

       Scott, you should know Vivian's upcoming book is called Well Endowed. I thought you'd like that. Um, but you-

   12. SGScott Galloway3:01

       There you go.

   13. KSKara Swisher3:01

       What, you... This has taken off a little bit.

   14. SGScott Galloway3:03

       She did not interview me.

   15. KSKara Swisher3:04

       [laughing]

   16. SGScott Galloway3:04

       She did not interview me.

   17. KSKara Swisher3:06

       So tell me, you-- tell me what's, what... We talked about this. It had a lot of people were talking about it. Go for it.

   18. SGScott Galloway3:11

       Well, last night, I was about to make love to my sweet, sweet-

   19. KSKara Swisher3:15

       [chuckles]

   20. SGScott Galloway3:15

       -lady, and, uh, she put my penis in her hand, and then-

   21. KSKara Swisher3:19

       [chuckles]

   22. SGScott Galloway3:19

       -it was dark out, and she said: "I'm sorry, I don't smoke." Um, [chuckles] national economic strike. Uh-

   23. KSKara Swisher3:26

       Yeah. [chuckles] Okay, great. You keep stepping on your penis there, Scott.

   24. SGScott Galloway3:29

       Yeah.

2. 3:30 – 12:48

   Resist and Unsubscribe

   1. KSKara Swisher3:30

      Go ahead.

   2. SGScott Galloway3:30

      Uh, my bluff has been called here, and that is, uh, I think that, uh, America feels a lot of anxiety around its government not providing security and prosperity, but terror and anxiety, and I've thought a lot about this. And if you look at where Trump and the administration respond, they don't respond from citizenry, co-equal branches of government, or even the Supreme Court. Where they do respond really crisply is, uh, from markets, and within twenty-four hours, he backed off of tariffs, annex in Greenland, um, pressure on interest rates, tariffs when one thing has happened, the S&P has gone down, or the bond market has started to get wobbly. So then the question becomes, if that's the fastest blue line path to getting ICE out of cities or to putting in more protocols or, or just flexing that we're watching, the fastest way to do that... W- what you want is the most impact with the least amount of sacrifice from the citi- citizenry.

   3. KSKara Swisher4:27

      To make it easy.

   4. SGScott Galloway4:28

      Make it easy, and also maximum impact. I think not buying groceries, there's not a lot of impact because these companies are very low margin. Uh, they're not companies CEOs that he listens to or cares about. So I've bifurcated it into two types of companies, what I call ground zero. Big Tech controls forty percent of the S&P. They are growth companies that are very, very highly valued right now. So any, any slowdown in growth could potentially have a disastrous effect on them. So that's kind of the soft tissue of the economy right now and where our consumer economy, which is seventy percent consumer spending, could have the greatest impact with the least amount of effort. So I've listed a series of Big Tech companies and, uh, launching the site, uh, probably on Sunday.

   5. KSKara Swisher5:15

      What's it called?

   6. SGScott Galloway5:16

      Uh, it's called, uh... Thank you for asking.

   7. KSKara Swisher5:18

      Well Endowed? [chuckles]

   8. SGScott Galloway5:20

      It's called, [chuckles] it's called Resist and Unsubscribe.

   9. KSKara Swisher5:23

      Oh, I love it.

   10. SGScott Galloway5:23

       So if you like what we're saying, don't like and subscribe, resist and unsubscribe.

   11. KSKara Swisher5:27

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SGScott Galloway5:27

       I've also got the URL, um, uh, unsubscribe February, because to Vivian's point, it can't be one day or a week, it has to be sustained, and there has to be a viral component to it.

   13. KSKara Swisher5:38

       Mm-hmm.

   14. SGScott Galloway5:38

       So the companies in what I call ground zero are Amazon, and I have instructions on how to unsubscribe from Amazon Prime, Audible, Amazon Music, Prime Video, Anthropic, Apple-

   15. KSKara Swisher5:47

       So you could pick what you want, right? You could, you could pick-

   16. SGScott Galloway5:49

       Well, hopefully all. And not only that, I don't want to tell people what to do and what not to do.

   17. KSKara Swisher5:53

       Right, exactly.

   18. SGScott Galloway5:53

       People have different means-

   19. KSKara Swisher5:54

       That's was the point I was making, yeah.

   20. SGScott Galloway5:55

       Uh, people have different means and ideas on how they can participate, and I'm not going to tell anyone-... to not buy groceries, to not show up for work. But if you want to have the biggest impact possible, I've tried to identify those companies: Disney, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, OpenAI, Uber, and Meta, and-

   21. KSKara Swisher6:11

       And then you've given the argument why, why-- what they've done, so you can decide what you think is acceptable or not.

   22. SGScott Galloway6:18

       The reason why I, I really do think this idea is so powerful is you get a couple free gifts with purchase. Not only do you achieve the "economic slowdown," but you have an outsized impact unsubscribing specifically from these companies that are driving the market right now.

   23. KSKara Swisher6:32

       Mm-hmm.

   24. SGScott Galloway6:32

       Two, it just so happens that the majority of the CEOs of this comp-- of these companies have been especially sycophantic-

   25. KSKara Swisher6:39

       Mm-hmm

   26. SGScott Galloway6:39

       ... and played a really large role in enabling all this bullshit, whether it's Tim Cook, Cook showing up and prostrating himself for the Melania documentary, whether it's Amazon green-lighting a-

   27. KSKara Swisher6:50

       Mm-hmm

   28. SGScott Galloway6:50

       ... thirty million dollar, um, uh, uh, documentary that made no fucking sense, that was just pure grift or bribery.

   29. KSKara Swisher6:57

       Mm-hmm.

   30. SGScott Galloway6:57

       Whether it's, uh, uh, obviously, Meta, whether it's Satya Nadella sitting there and trying to communicate to people: "I don't like it, but I'm going to continue to do it."
3. 12:48 – 21:59

   Kara’s New Show

   1. KSKara Swisher12:48

      is important. Anyway, I have an announcement now, onto me.

   2. SGScott Galloway12:51

      Yes.

   3. KSKara Swisher12:51

      Guess what? We've named my show on CNN that is coming in the spring.

   4. SGScott Galloway12:55

      The baby has a name.

   5. KSKara Swisher12:55

      I can't say the exact day. Well, it's called Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever. What do you think? [chuckles] The name of the show.

   6. SGScott Galloway13:03

      Uh, I think the tagline should be, "Oh, fuck!" [laughing]

   7. KSKara Swisher13:06

      [laughing]

   8. SGScott Galloway13:08

      Is it really Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever?

   9. KSKara Swisher13:10

      It is. It is. It's called Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever.

   10. SGScott Galloway13:12

       But what if you have a stroke in the middle of the preview-

   11. KSKara Swisher13:13

       Exactly!

   12. SGScott Galloway13:14

       ... or something?

   13. KSKara Swisher13:14

       It's brilliant, don't you think?

   14. SGScott Galloway13:16

       Yeah, for sure.

   15. KSKara Swisher13:17

       That's what Amanda said. A- Amanda said that, too. Like, she's like, "Oh." Well, then it would-- more people would watch it, right?

   16. SGScott Galloway13:23

       I, I would... I think it should be, "What if we live-- What if we live forever? Question mark, with Kara Swisher." I would- I wouldn't make it-

   17. KSKara Swisher13:30

       Ah, well, it's already done.

   18. SGScott Galloway13:31

       It's already done?

   19. KSKara Swisher13:31

       Done, done, done.

   20. SGScott Galloway13:32

       Oh, well, then I love it. I love it. [laughing]

   21. KSKara Swisher13:34

       [chuckles] I love it. Anyway-- well, let me just say, let me just very briefly say, for far too long, the longevity space has been captive. This is the idea behind it, of rich tech bros, jock dude influencers, nonsense sellers of useless supplements, and some lady who sells candles that are named after her private parts. Uh, sorry, Gwyneth, but you started it. Uh, well, after-

   22. SGScott Galloway13:53

       She's lovely, by the way.

   23. KSKara Swisher13:54

       I know. I know, you talked to her. But [chuckles] I'm taking, I'm te-- there's a new sheriff in town.

   24. SGScott Galloway13:59

       [chuckles]

   25. KSKara Swisher13:59

       A- after enduring endless conversations over the years, how to live forever. I, I can't tell you how many dinner parties I've been in with tech bros telling me a- all manner of things, none of whom are doctors. I, I want in, except I'm gonna show you the way for the rest of us. It will be grounded in science and facts about the best and most affordable ways to stay healthy, s- happy, and smart. Also, I took ketamine, so you don't have to, and Scott takes a nap in it, just so you know. [chuckles]

   26. SGScott Galloway14:23

       [exhales]

   27. KSKara Swisher14:24

       That's, that's what's coming for you. So-

   28. SGScott Galloway14:26

       Um, so a couple things.

   29. KSKara Swisher14:27

       Right.

   30. SGScott Galloway14:27

       One, I think the market was screaming for another person without medical training to tell us how to live our lives.
4. 21:59 – 41:03

   Minnesota De-escalates?

   1. KSKara Swisher21:59

      media trials going on. So let's dig in. White House border czar, Tom Homan, he of the bag of money, just gave a presser in Minneapolis a little while ago, noting he's on the ground to, quote, "Regain law and order." It's, oh, Tom. Tom says he's made a lot of progress since he got there, like, three days ago. This follows Trump saying he would de-escalate a little bit earlier in the week, but the violence hasn't stopped. Uh, Representative Ilhan Omar was attacked with an unknown substance at a town hall on Tuesday. It's the latest instance against a member of Congress. Representative Max Wells Frost was physically assaulted at Sundance last week, and both are Democrats, just so you know, and quite, uh, more on the liberal end of everything. Meanwhile, the two federal agents who shot at Alex Preddy have been put on administrative leave. Border Control Commander Greg Bovino has left Minnesota, but Homeland Security, uh, Secretary Kristi Noem is hanging on to her job for now. She's now-- There's a lot of pictures of her, her, and a head of lettuce going on. Three court-- And there, there's a lot of infighting in the m- in the between and among all those people. Three-quarters of House Democrats are backing her impeachment, and a couple of Republicans in the Senate are calling for her ouster. Tom Tellus, who's leaving, doesn't give a fuck anymore, has finally found his balls. Uh, w- what do you make of the changing of tact? And also note, Amy Klobuchar has just officially announced her bid for, uh, Minnesota, uh, governor. Your thoughts?

   2. SGScott Galloway23:15

      Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that, that Senator Klobuchar is running for governor. I think that's a great idea. Um, I think, you know, I've called this before, and I've been wrong. I do think this is a turning point, and the... When I was in high school, my mom gave me a bunch of John Irving books.

   3. KSKara Swisher23:30

      Mm, great writer.

   4. SGScott Galloway23:30

      You know-

   5. KSKara Swisher23:31

      Of course

   6. SGScott Galloway23:31

      ... The World According to Garp. They made me just feel a lot better about myself when I realized everyone else is fucked up and neurotic and having weird thoughts, and it had a big impact on me. And one of the books that also had a big impact on me was George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. I think in some ways it kind of might be the reason I kind of went down the progressive path. But there's a line in there, and I'll get it wrong, but it's basically, and-... The last act of the government was to ask us to ignore or deny our, our, what we saw and what we heard. That basically, all of a sudden, the government had gone to no longer trust your faculties of observation, just-

   7. KSKara Swisher24:10

      It was the last and most important.

   8. SGScott Galloway24:12

      There you go. Thank you. And you always have to one-up me.

   9. KSKara Swisher24:15

      I'm just saying I read the book.

   10. SGScott Galloway24:16

       Why does Kara Swisher want to live forever? Anyways, [chuckles] so-

   11. KSKara Swisher24:19

       So I can be with you.

   12. SGScott Galloway24:21

       But that... [chuckles] Yeah, there you go. Now, we're like that cou- we're like that-

   13. KSKara Swisher24:24

       I'm going to stuff your corpse and have it next to me, like I'll just like a, like a-

   14. SGScott Galloway24:28

       I'm, I'm doing taxidermy? [chuckles]

   15. KSKara Swisher24:29

       You're doing taxidermy. Go ahead. Go ahead.

   16. SGScott Galloway24:32

       That moment, that literally that quote just popped into my mind when Kristi Noem or Secretary Noem got up, right-- We generally have these Judeo-Christian values, and I imagine there are also other, other religions. I don't mean to limit it, but that says: when someone dies, you don't desecrate them.

   17. KSKara Swisher24:49

       Mm-hmm.

   18. SGScott Galloway24:50

       And when she got up and was so disrespectful of Alex Pretty-

   19. KSKara Swisher24:54

       Mm-hmm

   20. SGScott Galloway24:54

       ... and then also claimed he was a domestic terrorist-

   21. KSKara Swisher24:58

       Yeah, factually inaccurate, too

   22. SGScott Galloway24:58

       ... and that he was there, and that he was there to massacre.

   23. KSKara Swisher25:02

       Mm.

   24. SGScott Galloway25:02

       He was brandishing a weapon and was there to massacre federal agents.

   25. KSKara Swisher25:06

       I think that was Steven Miller.

   26. SGScott Galloway25:07

       That was a moment where I thought: Oh, my gosh, I've never seen-- I've seen people spin shit. I've seen people exaggerate. I've seen them lie. But I've never seen the administration feel confident that it could just look people in the eyes and say, "You know, ignore your faculties of observation and t- t- trust-- just believe what we say because we're saying it." That, for me, was... That felt very weird and chilling and like a turning point. And I think if you look to the Americans' credit, the majority of people, and a lot more Republicans, have said, "Okay, this has just gone too far." And you know how far it's gone-

   27. KSKara Swisher25:40

       Yeah

   28. SGScott Galloway25:40

       ... when all of a sudden, when all of a sudden, a guy who took fifty thousand dollars in a brown lunch bag feels like the adult in the room.

   29. KSKara Swisher25:45

       He does.

   30. SGScott Galloway25:45

       And people are relieved that he's there.
5. 41:03 – 47:10

   Social Media Addiction Trials

   1. KSKara Swisher41:03

      Scott, we're back with more news. This is a really interesting Big Tech trial taking place that we haven't really paid attention to. It's kicked off in LA this week, where a plaintiff is suing Meta, TikTok, Snap, and YouTube, claiming personal injury through addictive products. The suit claims, uh, features like infinite scrolling and algorithm recommendations lead to compulsive use, resulting in problems like depression and anxiety. Um, executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to testify, with nine cases likely to be heard. TikTok and Snap settled with the, with the first claims before the trial began. Uh, it's kind of a little bit of a big tobacco moment. I, and I know these trials, you never know where they're gonna go, but really, people are, have not been paying attention to this trial, and it's in an area you and I talk about a lot, and there's plenty of, plenty of-... texts back and forth about obsession and addiction. Um, and, and there's a lot of discovery here, um, that should be really interesting of the, of these executives talking about what they're doing. Very similar to big tobacco. Yeah, we know when they smoke it, they love it. Like, we know they're addicted, that kind of stuff. And so I think it should be a really revel- I mean, we know they know this, and someone like Tristan Harris has been talking about it for years. I've been talking about it, you've been talking about it, um, you know, and now it's got to the dangers of suicide with young people, too. So any thoughts?

   2. SGScott Galloway42:19

      We're gonna look back on this era and decide that letting a sixteen-year-old on Snap or on Instagram or on TikTok is probably more harmful than if we'd let sixteen-year-olds smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol. Six percent of teens, um, qualify as being addicted to drugs or alcohol, twenty-four percent qualify as addicts to social media, and the heaviest users are twice as likely to have suicidal intent. They're also, the group in the highest usage, are more likely to, uh, express poor body image, uh, more than the lowest use group. The bottom line, this is-- the, to say this is like kids smoking is unfair to tobacco. When, when I, I, I mean, this is gonna sound... Uh, I've said this, and I got a ton of shit for it a few years ago, and it was the first time I was featured on late-night TV, not in a good way. I said, "I'd ra-

   3. KSKara Swisher43:06

      No, let's do it again. Let's say it again. Go ahead.

   4. SGScott Galloway43:08

      Well, I said, "I'd rather give my sixteen-year-old a bottle of Jack and some weed than-

   5. KSKara Swisher43:13

      Mm-hmm

   6. SGScott Galloway43:14

      ... uh, uh, uh, a TikTok."

   7. KSKara Swisher43:15

      Oh, now I agree with you, but go ahead.

   8. SGScott Galloway43:17

      And, and they played that and said that was so ridiculous. When I, I didn't-- I hung out with a Mormon kid all through, and a, and a, and a, a great athlete in high school, and neither of them drank. I actually think I could have benefited from easing into alcohol. Anyways, this, social media, the, I've said this, the, the, the thing we're gonna regret most, we're gonna look back and think: How did we let this happen to our kids? And then, and even outside of hardcore addiction, I'm not exaggerating, sixty percent, maybe seventy percent of the family anxiety my family registers, arguments between me and the kids, arguments between the kids and their mother, arguments between me and their mother revolve around the fucking phone-

   9. KSKara Swisher44:02

      I-

   10. SGScott Galloway44:02

       ... and social media.

   11. KSKara Swisher44:03

       I feel you. I feel you, Scott. I feel you.

   12. SGScott Galloway44:05

       And when we leave our kid alone, and we go on vacation, and we're checking Qustodio, and he calls us, and he's not at school, and we find out he was on social media all night, and, a- a- and people say, "Well, that's bad parenting. You're in control," yeah, that means you don't have kids.

   13. KSKara Swisher44:22

       Mm-hmm. Exactly.

   14. SGScott Galloway44:23

       If it's not a collective movement, if you take your kid off of Snap, he, he is then further depressed 'cause he's ostracized, 'cause this is how these kids communicate with each other.

   15. KSKara Swisher44:34

       Yep, yep.

   16. SGScott Galloway44:34

       It needs to be a collective action. There should be no synthetic relationships.

   17. KSKara Swisher44:37

       Speaking of collective actions, ca- can I add?

   18. SGScott Galloway44:40

       Yeah.

   19. KSKara Swisher44:40

       I have to say, one of the greatest [chuckles] moments of my parenting is when my son, without, but unbeknownst to me, used Amazon to order a box to put his phone in, Alex did it, um, and lock it away, to do his homework 'cause it was distracting him. You know what I mean? Like, he... This, when he was in high school, I was really proud of him. Like, he understood the issue e- easily. And one of the things that's really hard, w- um, i- is, i- including for adults... I, I, I was at one work meeting, and I made everyone put the phone in the middle of the table. It was very uncomfortable.

   20. SGScott Galloway45:10

       I'm addicted. Let me be clear.

   21. KSKara Swisher45:11

       Yeah, it was-

   22. SGScott Galloway45:12

       I'm addicted.

   23. KSKara Swisher45:12

       I was like: "Put them in the middle. Don't touch them. Don't touch them." Like, "Oh, I have to. My kid." I'm like: "It'll be fine. Nobody's, nobody's gonna get an emergency, and if it is, I'm sorry in advance, but it probably isn't." Um, it's really hard, and I think what's gonna be interesting here, and we have to move on from this, but let's pay at- we're gonna pay attention to this trial 'cause it's really important. But we're gonna read out some of the texts and emails that these people know exactly what they're doing, and they, they, they relish it. They relish the hold they have on people. They relish the hold they have on teens, and they are very aware, just like Big Tobacco, of what they're up to here, and e- no matter what they say in public, and so that will be stuff. We'll be doing dramatic readings of that. All right, Scott, let's go to on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk big tech earnings. [upbeat music]

   24. SPSpeaker46:00

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   25. KSKara Swisher47:08

       [upbeat music]

6. 47:10 – 56:53

   Big Tech Earnings

   1. KSKara Swisher47:11

      Scott, we're back with more news. The S&P 500 crossed the seven thousand mark for the first time ever on Wednesday, ahead of major tech earnings. Tech, of course, fueled it. Let's walk quickly through the results. Meta posted a strong quarter, uh, with fourth quarter sales up twenty-four percent year over year. That's really impressive. Its AI spending spree continues, with a projected CapEx of up to a hundred and thirty-five billion in twenty twenty-six. Probably a lot of that will be dedicated, hopefully, to advertising for them 'cause that's where they'll get the most bang for their buck.... Uh, Microsoft also shows no sign of pulling back on AI, spending thirty-seven point five billion dollars on CapEx in the latest quarter, uh, sixty-six percent increase from last year. The picture was less rosy for Tesla, which reported, uh, a sixty-one percent drop in net income for the quarter, down forty-six percent for the year. The stock is still soaring inexplicably. Tesla is also scrapping the Model S and X cars, using the factory space to build robots. He's going all in on robots. Like, one thing I say about him is, when he goes for it, he goes for it, and I've heard some of his robotic stuff is very impressive, but nonetheless, he's betting the farm on it again. It's investing about two billion dollars in xAI. The combination of robotics and XI, uh, and X, excuse me, um, AI, to me is really important. I've talked about this before. Um, also, there's layoffs at Amazon and, uh, related to AI and Pinterest, uh, very large layoffs. Uh, they're all sort of using AI to, to, to cut labor costs. Um, what jumps out at you the most?

   2. SGScott Galloway48:33

      Well, I think AI is gonna add a lot of shareholder value, but not where we think it's gonna add the most value. I think the AI-native companies are overvalued right now. I think the Nvi- NVIDIA's, uh, OpenAI, the Anthropics of the world are probably overvalued. Where I do think you'll see an increase in shareholder value is the application of it, specifically autonomous. I think Waymo is gonna be a trillion-dollar company on its own. Um, targeting of ads and, and making the consumer experience better and creating a better advertising stack. I got to be honest, I think, I think, um, I think Instagram and Threads get better every day.

   3. KSKara Swisher49:10

      Yeah.

   4. SGScott Galloway49:10

      I think they're fantastic.

   5. KSKara Swisher49:11

      They do.

   6. SGScott Galloway49:11

      I think the consumer experience and also-

   7. KSKara Swisher49:14

      So does Gemini on Google, by the way.

   8. SGScott Galloway49:16

      I've done a little poking around, around how an adverti-- I, I just don't see why. I, I can't imagine what it's like to be selling ads for MSNBC right now when the person, the person from Meta or Google show up and sh- and show you what they can do. "Oh, you're targeting kids who just got their driver's licenses in Montclair, New Jersey? No problem. We can reach them one at a time at scale."

   9. KSKara Swisher49:38

      And with perfect ads that are helped AI.

   10. SGScott Galloway49:40

       Yeah, at the right moment. It ends up people want to buy life insurance, uh, and, you know, at seven pm, right after din-- I mean, [chuckles] anyways, um, uh, so, uh, Meta's earnings, incredible. Revenue up twenty-four percent-

   11. KSKara Swisher49:55

       Percent

   12. SGScott Galloway49:55

       ... year on year.

   13. KSKara Swisher49:56

       It's a big company.

   14. SGScott Galloway49:57

       And not only that, their employee base wasn't up twenty-four percent.

   15. KSKara Swisher50:00

       I know.

   16. SGScott Galloway50:00

       I don't have the number, but I think it was barely up.

   17. KSKara Swisher50:03

       Yeah.

   18. SGScott Galloway50:03

       And then-

   19. KSKara Swisher50:04

       Microsoft

   20. SGScott Galloway50:04

       ... um, uh, the one that was down six or seven percent, they were up seven percent. The one that was down was Microsoft because, uh, Azure didn't lit up. Its cloud company didn't, um, uh... It had growth of thirty-nine percent, which still topped analyst expectations, but unfortunately, the new expectations is that you blow away expectations. Um, uh, but still, Azure cloud computing, uh, the demand is so great that Microsoft's backlog of commercial bookings were up a hundred and ten percent to six hundred and twenty-five billion. There's some concerns about over-reliance on OpenAI, where a, a whopping forty-five percent of this backlog is attributed to their quarter of a trillion-dollar agreement they made in October, and also, its gross margins, because of the increase in CapEx, is the lowest it's been in three years, coming in around sixty-eight percent, which spooks some people. Tesla, I can't even, I can't even begin to understand what the fuck is going on there. I think the k- the stock should be down ninety percent. It's become a meme stock. It's just-

   21. KSKara Swisher51:05

       It is. That's all. I, I have heard-- I, I suspect he's just decided cars aren't the way to do it, and then he has some advantages in robotics. And several people have s- who, uh, have called me recently and said, actually, he's doing a lot of really innovative stuff around robotics. It's just he's betting the farm on that everyone wants to have an Optimus robot in their house, I guess. But, you know, he's-

   22. SGScott Galloway51:26

       But that is a... I'm sorry, go ahead, Kara.

   23. KSKara Swisher51:27

       Uh, he's done it before. Like, that's the only thing I would say, but he hasn't shown... The other thing he's done before is say, "We're gonna land on Mars. We're gonna..." He makes promises he never-- H- his mouth makes promises he can't keep in, in reality. So the question is, like, getting rid-- The, the Model S and X cars were made by Rivian and Lucid and, uh, and, and the Chinese, right? He's gotten out of this business. He's not in the car business anymore, it seems like. And so the question is, can this robotics business meet the challenge? We'll see.

   24. SGScott Galloway51:58

       Well, to be fair, they did beat expectations, but-

   25. KSKara Swisher52:01

       Yeah

   26. SGScott Galloway52:01

       ... let's talk about what those expectations were.

   27. KSKara Swisher52:04

       Yeah.

   28. SGScott Galloway52:04

       The revenues are down. Of all the companies we talk about, no one, no one is down. My-- You know, what, Meta's up twenty-three percent? Um, and then overall, a horrific quarter. Their operating margins, and that is the amount of money you get to hold on to, was seven point two percent in last year. In the same quarter this year, it was, uh, down to forty-six percent. That's like a-- That's a meltdown. Their free cash flow decreased thirty percent. Their GAAP net income decreased sixty-one percent. They realized-

   29. KSKara Swisher52:35

       I get it

   30. SGScott Galloway52:35

       ... they got a half a billion dollars in automotive regulatory credits that are gonna be running out, thanks to the big, beautiful bill. And also-
7. 56:53 – 59:05

   Predictions

   1. KSKara Swisher56:53

      uh, you want to go first, or shall I?

   2. SGScott Galloway56:55

      You go first.

   3. KSKara Swisher56:55

      No, you're going to go. Oh, you're gonna... I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make one quick prediction, okay, if you don't mind. The Super Bowl is just a few weeks away, um, and go, uh, Seahawks. Um, but I've already, uh, have a prediction for the best ad. Lady Gaga, did you see that, singing Mr. Rogers' Beautiful Day in your Neighborhood in an ad for Redfin and Rocket Mortgage? I don't really care about the ad, but they, they released a teaser clip, and she sounds amazing singing.

   4. SGScott Galloway57:19

      She's got an incredible voice.

   5. KSKara Swisher57:20

      Oh, it's going to be the best ad. I'm gonna... We'll, we'll talk about the ads later because I think it'll be fun.

   6. SGScott Galloway57:23

      That was not the prediction I was expecting.

   7. KSKara Swisher57:25

      Okay. What was yours?

   8. SGScott Galloway57:26

      It's very similar to mine, and that is we're about to, uh, engage in military strikes against Iran.

   9. KSKara Swisher57:31

      Oh.

   10. SGScott Galloway57:31

       So very similar predictions.

   11. KSKara Swisher57:32

       Yeah, okay. [chuckles] Lady Gaga!

   12. SGScott Galloway57:34

       Mm-hmm.

   13. KSKara Swisher57:35

       Okay. [chuckles]

   14. SGScott Galloway57:35

       It's just so strange that the Epstein files are now a distraction from it. It's like the behavior-

   15. KSKara Swisher57:39

       Yeah

   16. SGScott Galloway57:39

       ... keeps getting more and more depraved that we have to come up with even-

   17. KSKara Swisher57:40

       Someone said that the sa-- the safest thing in America is, are the Epstein files, but go ahead.

   18. SGScott Galloway57:44

       No, I, I, I've, I've made this prediction before, and I'm just making it again. Uh, it feels like... I follow this, I love this guy, The Geo Hussar, on TikTok, and there's a-- I mean, I'm fa- I'm sold. I'm just fascinated with military [chuckles] equipment, and it just, it appears that all our assets are being coordinated in the Gulf for a pretty obvious reason, and I don't know if Trump is doing it for the right or the wrong reasons, maybe as a distraction, but I think he absolutely loves the Tarzan flex of, of leveraging the best organization in history, and that's the military. And it appears to me that they are absolutely... Even the planes that are flying to the area are like giant gas stations in the sky.

   19. KSKara Swisher58:20

       Mm-hmm.

   20. SGScott Galloway58:21

       Um, I think Israel's on board because I think they think it would be-

   21. KSKara Swisher58:23

       Yeah

   22. SGScott Galloway58:23

       ... good for their brand.

   23. KSKara Swisher58:25

       Mm-hmm.

   24. SGScott Galloway58:25

       So I think you're going to see a coordinated, some sort of coordinated strike in Iran in the next-

   25. KSKara Swisher58:28

       All right, okay

   26. SGScott Galloway58:28

       ... seven to fourteen days. And I've said it before, but-

   27. KSKara Swisher58:30

       I think you're going to see a coordinated strike against Ohio or wherever they're going to attack the Haitians, who are not eating the cats and dogs. That's where I think you're going to see the next strike.

   28. SGScott Galloway58:40

       Do you think-- So you, you don't think they're going to pull back at all?

   29. KSKara Swisher58:42

       No.

   30. SGScott Galloway58:43

       Yeah, you're probably right.

Episode duration: 59:05