The 'Creepy' Truth About Meta's New AI App | Pivot

Kara Swisher 0:00 You're much more promiscuous in loading up your information.

Scott Galloway 0:02 Yeah, my attitude is violate my privacy as long as I can see that my QX60 is one minute away. I, I could just get edibles-

Kara Swisher 0:08 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 0:08 ... and order Ubers and watch how close my car is.

Kara Swisher 0:11 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 0:11 I find it fucking fascinating. I'm like, "Why is he making a right turn on Broome? Doesn't he know where he's going?" (instrumental music)

Kara Swisher 0:20 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott Galloway 0:25 And I get a call from this iconic media company that is doing... Or a reporter there, and I won't say which company, that is doing a profile on Kara Swisher.

Kara Swisher 0:34 (laughs) You've had one there.

Scott Galloway 0:36 And her first, uh, question was, "What qualities make Kara such an amazing leader?"

Kara Swisher 0:42 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 0:42 And I'm like, "Oh, fuck, this is gonna be rough."

Kara Swisher 0:45 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 0:45 This is... I literally... I'm not exaggerating, Kara. I went and made myself a drink. I'm like, "Okay."

Kara Swisher 0:50 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 0:50 "Okay, this is how it's gonna go?"

Kara Swisher 0:52 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 0:53 "This is how it's gonna go?"

Kara Swisher 0:55 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 0:55 And it was literally like getting a colonoscopy without anesthetic.

Kara Swisher 0:59 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 0:59 I just sat there and said, "Okay, it's gonna be over soon. It's gonna be over soon."

Kara Swisher 1:03 Did you embarrass me? My instructions to you were to embarrass me in some fashion.

Scott Galloway 1:08 Well, here's the thing when you do these things, what you realize is it's entirely up to them. They could twist your words anyway. Yeah, and they could use, you know, one or two things I said to support some narrative that was negative or ... But I, I definitely got the feeling it was gonna, it's gonna be a giant puff piece, but we'll see.

Kara Swisher 1:26 No, it's not. No, I have a very complex... You know, they'll find someone who doesn't li-

Scott Galloway 1:30 Oh, I'm not saying you deserve a puff piece. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 1:33 I gave them, I gave them recommendations of people who don't like me. I'm like-

Scott Galloway 1:36 Yeah, they-

Kara Swisher 1:36 ... "They're gonna give you an off-the-record piece on me, so you might as well just call them and just..." (laughs)

Scott Galloway 1:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I do the same thing.

Kara Swisher 1:42 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:42 But I just make sure they're assholes.

Kara Swisher 1:44 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:44 I, I'm a big believer in what FDR said.

Kara Swisher 1:46 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 1:46 And that is, "Please judge me by my enemies."

Kara Swisher 1:47 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:48 I love giving out the names of some people who hate me-

Kara Swisher 1:50 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:50 ... 'cause I'm like-

Kara Swisher 1:51 I'm like, "Here's who's gonna say something to me nice on the record and n- not nice off the record. Here's someone-"

Scott Galloway 1:55 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 1:55 ... "who's gonna..." You know, I gave them a range of people. I think it's focused on me helping people get away from old media. I think that's my impression.

Scott Galloway 2:02 Yeah, they wanted to talk about the people you've nurtured and all that stuff.

Kara Swisher 2:05 Yes, there are a lot. There are quite a lot.

Scott Galloway 2:07 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 2:08 There's quite a... Yeah, including you, Scott Galloway.

Scott Galloway 2:09 Yes, that's right, although I was ne-

Kara Swisher 2:11 God.

Scott Galloway 2:11 ... I was never really in, in media. I was, I was... Yeah.

Kara Swisher 2:13 No, you weren't. I brought you into-

Scott Galloway 2:15 No, I, look, I, I always say the same thing. I'm like, "The most rewarding thing about our relationship-"

Kara Swisher 2:19 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 2:19 "... is that it is very purposeful and nice to resuscitate someone's flagging career."

Kara Swisher 2:25 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 2:25 And that has been very nice for me. I saw that you were struggling, and I thought, "Okay, if, if Tina Fey can do this for Alec Baldwin, there's no reason that Scott Galloway can't do it for Kara Swisher."

Kara Swisher 2:37 I know. Thank you so much. I, I just, I'm in so much in your debt. I was struggling.

Scott Galloway 2:41 Success has many fathers and failure is an orphan. I remember, I remember working at Levi Strauss & Company in the '90s. And this is the weakest flex in the world, but the fastest zero-to-billion, uh, apparel brand at that point, and then the fastest one after that was Old Navy. But before that, the fastest one, what apparel brand? It's literally the lamest apparel brand in history, but it was the fastest zero-to-a-billion apparel brand. And it was owned by Levi Strauss & Company. It wasn't Levi's. You know what it was?

Kara Swisher 3:09 What, Jordache?

Scott Galloway 3:10 No, it was like screaming to the world, "Don't have sex with me." It was-

Kara Swisher 3:13 Oh.

Scott Galloway 3:13 Do you remember Dockers?

Kara Swisher 3:15 I love Dockers.

Scott Galloway 3:16 Oh, God.

Kara Swisher 3:17 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 3:17 Don't say that. Jesus, stop. Please make me stop.

Kara Swisher 3:20 They had extra pockets on the side-

Scott Galloway 3:21 I could, thing is I can totally see that.

Kara Swisher 3:23 ... from, I think. (laughs)

Scott Galloway 3:23 I can totally see you in Dockers.

Kara Swisher 3:26 (laughs) I love Dockers.

Scott Galloway 3:26 Oh, my God.

Kara Swisher 3:27 They're very comfortable.

Scott Galloway 3:29 Oh, my God.

Kara Swisher 3:29 I've... Scott, I literally have the same clothes since high school. When I, I'd-

Scott Galloway 3:33 Anyone who believes being gay is-

Kara Swisher 3:35 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 3:35 ... anything to do with nurture, it is so nature. You were literally born in Dockers, weren't you?

Kara Swisher 3:40 I was. I love Dockers.

Scott Galloway 3:42 Dockers and, uh... I'm not even gonna try and describe the kind of lesbian fashion or lashing.

Kara Swisher 3:45 They had extra pockets. That's all I remember.

Scott Galloway 3:47 But anyways-

Kara Swisher 3:48 I love them.

Scott Galloway 3:48 ... back to me.

Kara Swisher 3:48 I gotta find my Dockers.

Scott Galloway 3:49 I would walk around. Levi Strauss & Company was my biggest-

Kara Swisher 3:51 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 3:51 ... consulting client or-

Kara Swisher 3:52 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 3:52 ... profit for, like, two years in the '90s.

Kara Swisher 3:55 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 3:55 And everybody-

Kara Swisher 3:56 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 3:57 Everybody would introduce themselves as-

Kara Swisher 3:58 Dockers.

Scott Galloway 3:58 ... the founder of Dockers.

Kara Swisher 4:00 Oh, okay.

Scott Galloway 4:00 Because it had been so successful.

Kara Swisher 4:02 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 4:02 There would be, like, nine people who were the f-... Not the co-founder, but the founder of Dockers. Everybody decided that they had started this idea. And it, it-

Kara Swisher 4:08 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 4:09 It's so interesting. It basically took advantage of this huge trend.

Kara Swisher 4:15 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 4:15 And that was casual work Friday was the stay-at-home, the work-from-home trend of the '90s.

Kara Swisher 4:20 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure.

Scott Galloway 4:20 And men had no fucking idea how to dress for it.

Kara Swisher 4:23 Uh-huh.

Scott Galloway 4:23 And Dockers said, "Just trust us." (laughs)

Kara Swisher 4:25 I used them as, uh, as fan-... You know, we went to this party last night for Keith McNally. Uh, he has a Minetta Tavern here. Uh, what a great restaurant, by the way. And he's lovely, let me just say. Um, and it's... He's written this astonishing... It's the best book party I've been to, 'cause it was not about the book. It was b-... But they read from the book. Richard E. Grant read sections from it and everything else. Um, and it was great food. They said it was dinner-adjacent, and then it was bigger than any dinner I've ever eaten. And he's... You know, I don't know if you know this, he had a stroke. Um, we cha- chatted about it quite a bit. Um, he, he's much, uh, he has much more issues around speaking in his, one of his sides of his body. But just a beautiful book that he's written. And they had music and food and everything else, really fun. But I wore, like, such sloppy clothes. And I said... Amanda's like, "Oh, I should dress up a little bit." I said, "Don't ma- matter what you do, I will be u- more underdressed." And she goes, "Oh, okay." (laughs) And I'm better dressed. I show up in, like, almost pajamas to parties now. That's what I'm doing.

Scott Galloway 5:21 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 5:22 I-

Scott Galloway 5:22 You can get away with that, though. It's sort of your brand.

Kara Swisher 5:24 I know. I can. I don't know why-

Scott Galloway 5:25 You dress it up every once in a while, no?

Kara Swisher 5:26 Not really, not really. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get my Dockers and find them and wear them with you on something we do.

Scott Galloway 5:32 I think that we should officially... I think if Vogue ever decides, "We've just fucking had it with this Met Gala bullshit," and they want to jump to shark, they should invite us. They should absolutely-

Kara Swisher 5:42 They should.

Scott Galloway 5:42 ... invite... We would-

Kara Swisher 5:42 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 5:42 We would literally put an end to that whole thing.

Kara Swisher 5:45 We would put an end to it. Oh, my God. Anna Wintour, I know

Scott Galloway 5:48 Anna Wintour, if you're listening-

Kara Swisher 5:49 ... I know you're listening.

Scott Galloway 5:49 ... if you need a reason to retire, just have-

Kara Swisher 5:51 Do you know what? I'm gonna somehow get that message to her that she should invite us.

Scott Galloway 5:54 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 5:54 Maybe they'll do a tech one, and then we'll show up as like a... We'll dress like Elon or something.

Scott Galloway 5:58 Back to me. So, in the '90s-

Kara Swisher 6:00 We have to get to our show. (laughs)

Scott Galloway 6:00 ... when I started Red Envelope-

Kara Swisher 6:02 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 6:02 ... and because I had a shaved head, I was white-

Kara Swisher 6:05 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 6:05 ... had outdoor-

Kara Swisher 6:05 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 6:05 ... plumbing, and-

Kara Swisher 6:06 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 6:07 ... a pretty good gab, I could raise tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars-

Kara Swisher 6:10 Sure.

Scott Galloway 6:10 ... for my crazy commerce startups. And I'd raised so much fucking money for Red Envelope. And we'd al-... You know, I was the brand guy, so I thought, "Oh, we gotta build a brand."

Kara Swisher 6:17 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 6:17 So, my-... college roommate, David Carey, who was the head of magazines, I think, at Condé Nast.

Kara Swisher 6:24 Yes, he-

Scott Galloway 6:24 He's, uh, he'd always been just a lovely guy. We were friends. But I used to fly to New York-

Kara Swisher 6:28 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 6:28 ... because I wanted to hang out in New York and spend, overspend on Vanity Fair and-

Kara Swisher 6:35 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 6:35 ... um, Vogue magazine, these ads for Red Envelope. And literally the weapon was the coolest place on the planet was-

Kara Swisher 6:42 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 6:42 ... the Vogue cafeteria. Did you ever eat there?

Kara Swisher 6:44 Oh, it's... Oh yeah, it's fantastic.

Scott Galloway 6:45 It was beautiful and it was all these ridiculously beautiful women and hot-

Kara Swisher 6:49 People.

Scott Galloway 6:49 ... gay men. And then-

Kara Swisher 6:50 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 6:50 ... Si Newhouse and Anna Wintour would be sitting in the corner and you'd walk in-

Kara Swisher 6:54 Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 6:55 I remember thinking, "I gotta move to New York." (laughs)

Kara Swisher 6:57 Yeah, yeah.

Scott Galloway 6:58 And I would buy these-

Kara Swisher 6:58 It's a sexy place.

Scott Galloway 6:59 ... $120,000 a page ads. I don't even know if they worked or not-

Kara Swisher 7:02 No, they did not.

Scott Galloway 7:02 ... but I just wanted (laughs) to go to lunch with my friend David Carey.

Kara Swisher 7:05 Yeah. That, they did not work.

Scott Galloway 7:06 I probably spent seven or eight million bucks of-

Kara Swisher 7:08 Wow.

Scott Galloway 7:08 ... other peoples money just so I could have lunch with David Carey-

Kara Swisher 7:09 And then you got to eat in the cafeteria. Well, that's nice.

Scott Galloway 7:11 ... at the Vogue.

Kara Swisher 7:11 That's a good thing. All right.

Scott Galloway 7:12 At the Condé Nast cafeteria.

Kara Swisher 7:13 All right. Well, we've got a lot to get to today so we gotta move on, including Meta's creepy new AI app, Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard's continuing sloppiness around d- like digital pr- privacy and protection of their stuff, and Disney's latest earnings.

Kara Swisher 7:27 But first, tensions between India and Pakistan are escalating after India launched military strikes against targets in Pakistan this week in retaliation for a deadly attack in Kashmir. This conflict is happening at a pivotal economic moment. India is doing trade deals with the US and the UK, and Pakistan is emerging from a years-long financial crisis. You've also got China recently, uh, allied, uh, with Pakistan, recently calling Pakistan an "ironclad friend" and an all-weather strategic, uh, cooperative partnersh- partner. For his part, President Trump has offered to help to defuse things, saying, "If I can do anything to help, I'll be there." Of course, the Trumps themselves are doing some, some deal with Pakistan too, a personal deal. So there's that thrown in there. Both countries are, uh, nuclear powers. Um, I, I, I in fact interviewed Christiane Amanpour so I'm gonna channel whatever she says in my comments and pretend they're mine. Yesterday, she had a lot to, you know, it was an interesting inter- interview. But this is sort of the day's conflict. Any thoughts?

Scott Galloway 8:25 Oh yeah, whenever there's a border skirmish with nuclear powers, you have to take it very seriously. And, uh, on a much less substantive level, India's a big trading partner with us. On the e- economy you could see oil prices and gold prices, uh, skyrocket with that kind of instability. But when two nuclear powers who border each other start, you know, arguing, it's very scary. And it all can be (laughs) sort of reverse engineered to, of course, the West, uh, specifically the UK dividing up India into Pak- Pakistan in a very sloppy way that's created all sorts of, uh, religious and regional tensions and fights over Kashmir. And, um China will probably, or China's a very strong ally, they describe themselves as an ironclad friend of Pakistan. Uh, India has very strong relationships with Japan and Israel and the UAE. I just hope the adults show up and, and defuse the tensions because typically these types of crazy conflicts are real exogenous shocks. It's not the shit you're worried about that, that gets you, it's the shit you're not thinking about. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 9:25 Well, uh, you know Christiane was saying that it requires really good diplomacy and she's worried about the Trump administration, because the US has always been a key person here and he, she said into a vacuum something always flows, and so that would be China. And, you know, there are these complications of the Trump's personal financial interests, um, in, in the countries, uh, and it, it just makes a big mess of it. And she was worried there wasn't someone who could, like they'll send in that idiot Steve Witkoff or someone like that h- to deal with it rather than someone more competent. And if Stephen Miller becomes the National Security Advi-, I mean, seriously so over his skis, um, and doesn't like brown people, uh, from what I can tell. Um, and, uh, so they... it's a real problem if you don't have the US in a, in real fighting shape, uh, among these people to sort of shut the whole thing down. Um, and, uh, you know, it's another one of these conflicts. The next one will be possibly Taiwan, and so there's going to be one conflict after the next as China starts to really flex its power, um, especially as its economy is, uh, suffering, uh, because of the tariffs. It'll, it'll want to, it want to expand elsewhere I think. Anyway, we're not experts on this but, uh, I would recommend listening to, Scott interviews lots of foreign, uh, experts and I just did Christiane, and so listen to them. But, um, but still troubling for the, for the, for the stock market, for the economies, and for stability in general with all the different conflicts around the world. I thought he was going to be the settle-it president but I guess not.

Kara Swisher 10:52 Um, OpenAI will abandon plans to place its AI business under control of a for-profit entity. Instead it will transform its for-profit subsidiary into a public benefit corporation controlled by the non-profit parent, which I think was, they were considering a lot of things. The decision was made after talking to civic leaders and AGs of California and Delaware who would need to sign off on the plan. Obviously they didn't like what was, you know, the possibilities. Sam Altman, CEO Sam Altman said the changes will still allow the company to access $30 billion investment from SoftBank. As a reminder, Elon Musk has been attempting to block the company's restructuring. His lawyer says the announcement changes nothing, which means he didn't really care about the non-profit part if this is what they're doing. Uh, obviously he wants his vague because that's what Elon wants. Um, I talked to, uh, to, um, Sam and Bret Taylor about it and I think, you know, I was like, "This is a back walk." Um, they were like, "No, because we were considering lots of things then we got feedback and we made the decision," and th- said that the Musk thing had nothing to do with it and it was evidenced by the fact that Musk didn't pull the lawsuit after, uh, they did this and they felt like they still had enough ability to, um, um, you know, to raise money. I think their issue is they've got to raise money and at the same time reward people and then they have a lot of people feeling they should stay true to their original roots, which was in a, was a mission-driven company. So probably, uh, probably will be a good thing for them to get this in their rear view mirror and then move on. Um, but I don't know if you have any thoughts.

Scott Galloway 12:18 So I, I, I'd love to speak to Preet Bharara or someone who's close to the issue but my general take, uh, on-... first blush is the following, and that is, uh, Elon Musk has absolutely catalyzed this.

Kara Swisher 12:29 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 12:29 And that is, just as there is law fair, I think this is what I would refer to as nomenclature fair.

Kara Swisher 12:34 Hmm.

Scott Galloway 12:35 And that is, the judge, a judge, uh, the attorney general essentially told OpenAI that their proposed transition doesn't fit the, the strict criteria for transition from a nonprofit-

Kara Swisher 12:45 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 12:45 ... to a for-profit.

Kara Swisher 12:46 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 12:46 And so effectively, what they've done is by saying, "Oh, no, just kidding. We're one of these ridiculous private benefit corporations that a bunch of VCs could virtue signal and say, 'I still want all the money, but I wanna pretend I'm actually helping humanity.'" I think it's the most ridiculous corporate classification in history. Um, they, they go back and say, "No. We're a not-for-profit," but they're lifting the cap on when the for-profit is entitled to the profits of above $100 billion, which I think only three companies have ever achieved. So this effectively, from a mechanical situation, or, or the complexion of the company, the operations, or the shareholder governance, has absolutely no impact, but I think somewhat inoculates them from the kind of, the, the white meat of Musk's accusations in his case. I think the lawyers came back and said, "Okay. Fine. Tell, tell, uh, Musk and his lawyers, 'Oh, just kidding. You win. We're still a, a nonprofit, but it's not gonna change anything we do practically.'"

Kara Swisher 13:47 No. The, let me tell you something. They said the for-profit corporation board and the nonprofit board will be the same people, right? And so-

Scott Galloway 13:54 Mm-hmm. Makes sense.

Kara Swisher 13:55 ... you know, it's usually this nonprofit has hegemony over the for-profit corporation now, but it's the same board. It's the, it's the same board. So-

Scott Galloway 14:04 It's the sa- it's the same-

Kara Swisher 14:06 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 14:06 Uh, nothing changes here except OpenAI's lawyers can say, "Oh, we are a, a not-for-profit. He has no case." That's how-

Kara Swisher 14:14 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 14:14 ... I read it.

Kara Swisher 14:14 Except he didn't pull the case 'cause he wants this-

Scott Galloway 14:16 Well, of course not.

Kara Swisher 14:16 ... one of his-

Scott Galloway 14:17 He's not, he- he-

Kara Swisher 14:18 He didn't do it to help anybody at all, helped himself, to help himself or slow them down. That's what he did it for.

Scott Galloway 14:23 Yeah, I think that's right.

Kara Swisher 14:24 Yeah. So we'll see. I think it'll give them, it'll, it'll get e- everyone else will back off and he will just continue 'cause he thinks he's owed more. I think that's really at the heart of his case is he thinks he created it and funded it and deserves more money from it, but in fact-

Scott Galloway 14:38 He has seller's remorse.

Kara Swisher 14:39 ... he walked away. He walked a-

Scott Galloway 14:40 One, one of the biggest mistakes, uh, ever in terms of just-

Kara Swisher 14:43 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 14:43 ... pure wealth is he said, "I'm outta here." And he said he signed away the company le- ironclad-

Kara Swisher 14:48 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 14:48 ... documents. He's out.

Kara Swisher 14:50 Mm-hmm. Which he did with Twitter.

Scott Galloway 14:50 It's-

Kara Swisher 14:50 Remember? He was gonna buy it and then he just pretended he-

Scott Galloway 14:53 Well, no. I, my house in San Francisco?

Kara Swisher 14:55 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 14:55 Is next to where Mark Zuckerberg moved.

Kara Swisher 14:57 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 14:57 And I bought it for $760,000 and 24 months later when I moved to New York so I could spend more time in the Condé Nast cafeteria, I sold it-

Kara Swisher 15:05 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 15:05 ... for $950,000. I thought I was the fucking greatest real estate investor in history.

Kara Swisher 15:09 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 15:09 Uh, Kara, it is worth substantially more now. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 15:11 It is. I live in that neighborhood. (laughs)

Scott Galloway 15:12 Okay?

Kara Swisher 15:14 It's-

Scott Galloway 15:14 It, it's worth substantially more. This is absolutely no different in terms of legal veracity-

Kara Swisher 15:18 Yep.

Scott Galloway 15:18 ... than if I went back and said, "I want my house back." (laughs)

Kara Swisher 15:21 "I want my," or, "I want the money."

Scott Galloway 15:22 "I want my house back."

Kara Swisher 15:23 "I want the money my house is worth."

Scott Galloway 15:24 "I want my house back."

Kara Swisher 15:25 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 15:25 "You owe me. It's gone up... I, I know I signed legal documents transferring ownership of this asset."

Kara Swisher 15:30 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 15:30 A- and private property laws are pretty, pretty detailed, but I've decided because I fucked up selling it-

Kara Swisher 15:35 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 15:35 ... that I want it back.

Kara Swisher 15:36 But I threw a-

Scott Galloway 15:36 Or at least I want some money.

Kara Swisher 15:37 I threw a tizzy. He threw a fucking tizzy and lost money. And they're pulling way ahead. I mean, the ChatGPT is really, the numbers are really quite startling in terms of the usage. Um, they're obviously spending money too. This is really... But it feels like they're really pulling ahead in that regard. And they're gonna get, they're gonna get theirs. One of the things, someone was like, "Why is it so chaotic?" I'm like, "You were not around for Google and then they were fine." You know what I mean? Like, I think they're probably on a Google trajectory and not a Netscape trajectory. Um, but Google was a fucking chaos monkey of a shithouse for a long, long time and, before they settled in and, and, uh, went. Anyway, before we move on, we're gonna be listening to some predictions from listeners today, just so you know. Um, let's listen to the fir-... We asked, we asked listeners to give them, our predictions 'cause w- I'm trying to replace you quietly. So let's listen-

Scott Galloway 16:23 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 16:23 ... to the first one now (laughs) because we're already on the topic.

Matt Marr 16:26 Hey, Kara and Scott. Matt Marr here from M7 and my prediction is on the AI arms race and which model will win in the long run. It's not gonna be GPT, even if it's the superior product, not Gemini, not Claude. It will be Meta's LLaMA. It's the only model that is truly open source, which means it will be the technical layer of infrastructure developers and vibe coders can build upon. And, oh yeah, they can flip a switch and connect your entire social graph to the decades of data they've collected on you. So, open source plus social is, as Scott would say, the peanut butter and chocolate of AI models.

Kara Swisher 16:56 That's a good argument. That's a good argument. He's right. I mean, th- I mean, I, when I interviewed AMD's CE, uh, CEO Lisa Su, she was sort of, everyone's sort of leaning into the open source model. They definitely are the second competitor. I think that's what OpenAI thinks. I think they think it's Gemini themselves and, and LLaMA, and LLaMA would be number two. Scott?

Scott Galloway 17:16 My, um, view is that Meta is the AI company actually of 2025. Uh, they're, they're the second-largest purchaser of Nvidia GPUs just behind Microsoft, so they have the most processing power n- other than Microsoft. In addition, what is underappreciated is Reddit, which is an amazing company, and the fifth or sixth most trafficked site in America. It generates 1.3 trillion tokens of data. And that's really the, you know, that's the... You could argue that's the rare resource here. It doesn't, it doesn't matter how much refining capability you have if you don't have the fossil fuel to put into it or the coal to put into the furnace. And so Reddit has 1.3 trillion tokens of data, and just to give you a sense for just how much data (laughs) Meta produces, they have 183 trillion tokens of data. And I think they made the move, and unfortunately, um, Mark Zuckerberg is as brilliant as he is sociopathic, and I think he decided, "Okay. The, the train has left the station around a, for consumer, uh, subscription model. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna make this open source and we're gonna use this the same way we use WhatsApp as a body bag for data to feed our other paid platforms."... I think that Meta and LLaMA... And if you look at LLaMA, LLaMA's really frightening because it has- because it's open source and has absolutely, as far as I can tell, no guardrails. If you go to LLaMA and say, "How to kill your husband slowly?" it literally goes, "Well, what kitchen supplies do you have?"

Kara Swisher 18:43 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 18:43 "How often is he in the house?" I mean, it's-

Kara Swisher 18:45 Mark Zuckerberg, people. I give you-

Scott Galloway 18:48 It's- it's got, it's got no guardrails. It'll-

Kara Swisher 18:49 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 18:49 It'll... And it'll start helping you do whatever it is you would like to do.

Kara Swisher 18:53 Yeah. Sounds about right.

Scott Galloway 18:54 And he'll get massive traffic. He'll- I think he'll make it free, and then he'll use all of that data such that I get served ads for, you know- for, you know, hemorrhoid cream at- at the exact right moment. Uh, I think- I think Meta... I mean, four out of five people who aren't in China are on a Meta platform once a week. He has more data. He's making huge visionary investments with the capital he has in-

Kara Swisher 19:19 He made the pivot from the metaverse quite smartly-

Scott Galloway 19:22 Yeah, so I think-

Kara Swisher 19:23 ... pulling the money in. Yeah, I- I think that's a good one.

Scott Galloway 19:25 I think this guy's rising.

Kara Swisher 19:25 Matt-

Scott Galloway 19:25 And I think Meta is the AI company of '25.

Kara Swisher 19:27 We like to think, Matt. I see your point. I'm just saying, right now, OpenA- uh, AI is in the lead. But you're right. They've got a lot of throughput. I suspect that OpenAI will get sold as one of them at some point, or maybe not now that they're a nonprofit, but...

Scott Galloway 19:38 Well, just on a meta level though, um, a meta, a meta-meta level, uh, I now believe that similar to, uh, jet transportation technology or, um, the p- personal computer, I'm not convinced that any one company is gonna be able to sequester trillions of dollars in shareholder value. I think the big winners are gonna be open source and the general public. I do think that AI is gonna make everyone more productive, or mostly everyone, 100%.

Kara Swisher 20:06 Electricity. Yeah. We have to move on though. Um, as- that was a great one, Matt. Thank you. That's really smart. And, uh, the fact that you're using Scott's phrases now is very nice.

Scott Galloway 20:13 She's not that nice.

Kara Swisher 20:14 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 20:14 She interrupts me all the time.

Kara Swisher 20:15 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 20:15 Just saying I said that.

Kara Swisher 20:16 I have to though. I have to.

Scott Galloway 20:16 I said that.

Kara Swisher 20:17 O- okay. Uh, I know you did. And Matt, we appreciate it. As we tape on Thursday, President Trump is set to announce a framework of a trade deal with the U- uh, with the UK. Teasing the announcement on True Social, Trump called many other deals

Kara Swisher 20:28 will follow. And speaking of our allies, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney sat down for a meeting with President Trump at the White House this week. Trump was, of course, asked about Canada becoming the 51st state again. Let's listen.

Narrator 20:39 Mr. Prime Minister, I'd like to get your response to this too. But Mr. President, you have said that Canada should become the 51st state. Were you joking?

20:46 No, no. Well, I still believe that, but- but, you know, takes two to tango, right?

20:50 (laughs)

20:51 Uh, but no, I do. I mean, I believe it would be a- a massive tax cut for the Canadian citizens. Uh, you get free military. You get tremendous, uh, medical cares and other things.

Kara Swisher 21:03 Medical cares. You get tremendous medical care in Canada, not in the US.

Scott Galloway 21:05 Yeah, Canadians are dying for our medical care system-

Kara Swisher 21:07 They re-

Scott Galloway 21:07 ... so they can be more obese, depressed-

Kara Swisher 21:08 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 21:09 ... and anxious, and pay more.

Kara Swisher 21:10 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 21:10 They pay twice, twice as much for their healthcare.

Kara Swisher 21:13 Anyway, when Trump was-

Scott Galloway 21:14 They pay eight times what anyone else pays for-

Kara Swisher 21:15 Medical cares.

Scott Galloway 21:16 ... for pharmaceuticals.

Kara Swisher 21:16 Don't have any cares about medical. Anyway, when Trump was asked about whether Carney could say anything to lift the tariffs on Canada, he said no. Uh, the president also told the room that Canada's a very special place to him and that he loves the country. Speaking of tariffs, uh, w- w- we'll... This'll- this is an interesting thing. Internal documents obtained by the Washington Post show that the State Department pushed, uh, nations to clear hurdles for Starlink. Huh. Leading to some, uh, leading to some to believe there would be a tariff relief for following through. Totally by the books, as always. Total grift. Um, so what... I'm gonna just n- note some things. Um, Matt Stoller, who's a- who's, um, sort of a person who deals with a lot of stuff like this, noted that this UK is hoping to get reduction on 25% tariffs the US is levying, um, but the baseline 10% tariff will remain in place, officials say. In return, Britain is offering concessions on a digital tax it levies on U- big US companies, uh, big US tech companies. Um, and so Stoller noted, so these trade deals are just cuts and tariffs in return for Google and Meta. Explain how this is an attempt at manufacturing renaissance by demanding consumer sacrifice. Uh, so let's go from there, Scott. It was first the- the British thing, then Canadian. And I love Mark Carney. He's such a hunk. Um, and- and the Starlink thing is exactly as I expected, total pay-for-play. Go ahead.

Scott Galloway 22:36 I thought the more insightful and- and in- e- educational clip was what- how Mark Carney handled the question. And I think anyone who's in communications or anyone who handles- s- does speech writing or wa- or generally just wants a lesson in how you push back forcefully but in the most dignified way, and you don't antagonize, uh, a very sensitive person who's entirely about ego and not about stakeholder value, i.e. the president. He- uh, Mark Carney's comments were just such a- a masterclass in terms of tone of what he said and he said, "Well, you know," because he- he gave him an opening. Trump said, "Well, I think of it as a real estate deal," and you look at the big, beautiful nation of Canada.

Narrator 23:15 Having met with, uh, the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign, uh, last several months, uh, it- it's- it's not for sale. Won't be for sale, uh, ever. Uh, but the opportunity is in the partnership and, uh, and- and what we can build together. And we have done that in the past.

Scott Galloway 23:30 And I thought that was such an insightful way to frame it. And he said, "And the owners- the owners have told me that, uh, this piece of real estate is not for sale." And that is such an elegant and non-combative way of saying, "Yeah, uh, go fuck yourself." (laughs)

Kara Swisher 23:43 Yeah. Go fuck yourself. And then, of course, Trump goes, "Never say never." Ugh.

Scott Galloway 23:47 Right. Yeah. Well-

Kara Swisher 23:47 Like, so that's... He did a great job. I thought Carney was quite a spectacularly... Uh, just he seemed erudite and approachable at the same time. So go to the tariffs, because I do think this is like... They're all, like, really not tariff deals. This seems like a bunch of shakedowns all over the world, including the Starlink thing, which is exactly what I expected and remains horrifying.

Scott Galloway 24:09 Uh, this is... A kleptocracy is you- you figure out a way to a- ascertain or usurp or attain power, and then you use that power to make a small group of people very rich who have proximity to you who then give you a vig.

Kara Swisher 24:23 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 24:23 And everybody else gets less wealthy. And that is what is happening across the entire country.... as we have an individual that is acting like a mob boss who monetizes the United States and the White House. And this is exactly that. This is, he has proximity to big tech firms. He wants, A, he thinks of them as iconic. They give him a lot of money. He calls them and they take their, their, their tariff pricing down. He calls them and they say, "Oh, we're now in the business of, of," quote unquote, "free moderation. And we call Trump a badass and we give him a million dollars for his inauguration." And okay, so we're gonna give them a lead over every other tech or media firm in exchange, such that we can call it victory. And small and medium-sized media, media firms are shit out of luck. It's like, okay, they don't get this special advantage. They don't get this relief. And he can claim victory by ... And this, this Starlink thing is literally like, "Okay, this guy put a quarter of a billion dollars into my campaign. And so I'm going to force countries, I'm going to ..." I mean, Buffett said it. He said, "Trade, these types of trade wars are, are form," or, "Tariffs are a form of warfare." So the US is, uh, threatening war. In exchange, you have to give sweetheart deals, non-competitive advantage to the companies owned by the guy that gave me a quarter of a billion dollars to my campaign. He's literally-

Kara Swisher 25:45 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 25:45 And who does that hurt? It hurts everyone.

Kara Swisher 25:47 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 25:47 You're paying unfair taxes, unfair prices. And the small and medium-sized businesses in this country who create two-thirds of our jobs and don't have lobbyists and don't, can't get on the lunch calendar of the president-

Kara Swisher 25:59 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 25:59 ... and can't donate to his campaign or aren't going to, they lose essentially.

Kara Swisher 26:05 Yes.

Scott Galloway 26:05 L- look at the biggest kleptocracies in the world, whether Poland was emerging into a kleptocracy, Russia has been a kleptocracy for a long time. There are some of the wealthiest people over the last 30 years have been generated in Chi- uh, generated in Russia. Meanwhile, there's potholes in Moscow. Uh, Senator Warren summarized it perfectly. And that is, she said, "Okay, they're getting rich, you're losing your healthcare." That purp- That, that perfectly describes what happens in a kleptocracy, and this is a kleptocracy. If they were to say, "Fine, no tariffs across. You have to drop your tariffs on all of our media or all of our tech companies and have a systemic law," that's fine. But when the president starts picking winners and losers, eh, effectively everyone loses.

Kara Swisher 26:47 Yeah, 'cause he loves to be like, "I make a deal, I make a deal," but it's always in the interest. The Starlink thing was amazing. Maybe it's the best one, but these countries shouldn't h- be forced into, "If you only take our, you know, if you take our salami, you know, you'll, you'll get what you want. You won't be, like, beat up," kind of thing. And that's what it feel, feels like. Everything, and of course, it's Starlink. And when there's other choices that they could make with European satellite, whatever it matters, that might be their choice in the end, but they don't get the choice of the choice. And it's, it's, what, the worst thing is it's a lot of small countries, right? A lot of small African countries. It's not just one. There could ... Uh, the Post noted, it was noted, that was like Vietnam was in there. I forget, the Congo may have been in there. But, um, and these are not all the ones on the list. So this is a policy of the government to sell Starlink. Now, our government does go around and sell our companies, you know, for, for decades, you know, used Lockheed, used Boeing, whatever. But nothing this explicit with someone so close to the president, right? In terms of like, "Let me get you a deal," and giving them unfair advantage.

Scott Galloway 27:47 Uh, our trade representatives are, our head of our commerce secretary will take a group of iconic American companies, but they will also take a representative for small businesses. And they will say, "Okay, we're here with Boeing, Procter & Gamble, Estee Lauder, North Face, and trade representatives for small and medium-sized businesses and manufacturers. And we're here and we go to China and we try and cut a deal and we speak with one voice and talk about, you know, great American companies." But they don't go over and say, "Oh, by the way, you know, Exxon gave me a shit ton of money. I need you to build a, an Exxon field here." Uh, uh, that, then everyone in oil and gas but Exxon loses. And what happens is companies start allocating more and more money to the kleptocrat, which-

Kara Swisher 28:30 That's right.

Scott Galloway 28:30 ... their consumers pay for. And the companies, it creates just an incentive system that's just a downward spiral.

Kara Swisher 28:37 Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Scott Galloway 28:37 And it's a similar incentive system right now, unfortunately, because of Citizens United, around companies allocating more and more capital to lobbying and weaponizing-

Kara Swisher 28:44 To wasting. It's waste of money. Lobbying is a waste of money.

Scott Galloway 28:47 100%. 100%.

Kara Swisher 28:48 And, and, and then the Trump boys go around the world doing either, you, you were on Anderson Cooper, uh, I think it was last night. Um, the crypto stuff, the real estate stuff, they're building a big building in, um, uh, in Saudi Arabia, one in, uh, all over the Mideast, and just getting, like, they're just coming with a, with a, like, a bag of money. Like it's, they, they feel like mob people, like, "Here, put the money in the bag and then we'll do whatever you want." Anyway, it's, it's grotesque. It really is. Anyway, Scott, and these trade deals, let's watch, let's l- take them apart very carefully, but most of them are gonna be in this genre, giving a favor to someone and not bringing manufacturing back to the US. That was never the goal. That was a giant lie they were telling. Um, and people did these sort of virtue signaling things they were already investing in, um, to pretend that they were bringing manufacturing back to the US. So regular workers are ni- probably not gonna benefit very much, as they didn't in the first Trump administration when he made all those promises, none of which came to fruition, about manufacturing facilities. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth's password fails. What a surprise. Tulsi

Kara Swisher 29:53 Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, uh, that's, that's, that's working hard, that word right there, those two words, um, reportedly has a history of not following best practices when it comes to cyber security. Gabbard used the same easily cracked password across multiple accounts, I'm surprised it wasn't 1234, for years according to Wired. The password showed up in multiple data breaches and was linked to her Gmail, Dropbox, and LinkedIn accounts, and it was apparently some nickname she had in some strange group she belonged to. During the time the breaches occurred, Gabbard was serving in Congress and sitting on the intelligence-related committees with access to sensitive national security information. Then again-That's, hold my beer, (stammers) lot of beers, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also had passwords exposed in multiple data breaches, including the one that was e- reused across personal email accounts, according to New York Times. I mean, uh, this is, like, worse than my mother, these two. And, um, we also learned that he used Signal, Pete Hegseth, even more for Pentagon business, engaging in at least a dozen separate chats, The Wall Street Journal reported. I mean, uh, I've never seen more promiscuous people when it comes to bad data practices. And talk about your concerns about this. It doesn't, uh, like, these people do not know how to keep classified information safe, um, a- and even their own personal information at the same time.

Scott Galloway 31:08 Well, you know what happens when Pete Hegseth takes Viagra?

Kara Swisher 31:11 (laughs) What?

Scott Galloway 31:14 He grows taller, Kara. He grows taller.

Kara Swisher 31:16 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 31:18 Uh, (laughs) look. When we send our young, our daughters and our sons to serve in uniform-

Kara Swisher 31:26 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 31:27 ... they leave their families for months at a time.

Kara Swisher 31:30 Right.

Scott Galloway 31:30 They forgo economic opportunity, and they put themselves in harm's way and oftentimes come back severely traumatized because, you know, they, they face such intense and incredibly stressful situations. And in exchange for that, we have unprecedented ability to deliver violence all over the world that has created prosperity and security for Americans for 250 years. And the reason why the US military is the most impressive organization in the history of the West is because from top to bottom, people take it very seriously, and that is they appreciate, even, even if you're anti-war, anti-military, if you're in a position to help and protect our men in uniform, you do it, and you don't do anything-

Kara Swisher 32:16 Right.

Scott Galloway 32:16 ... you know, you don't do anything to, to threaten their safety. And this is especially true, it is very hard to ma- hard to maintain morality, or excuse me, uh, maintain morale if anyone within the organization, whether it's the CIA case officers on the ground feeding them bad information, whether it's the person repairing your plane, trusting they're literally sweating all night that there's not gonna be a mechanical failure. And the idea that the Defense Sec- Secretary is being reckless with classified information and putting them in harm's, potentially in harm's way, and you may not even know, know how this manifests. Let's, you know, who should comment on this? Let's, uh, use, let's get Pete Hegseth's words on this. In 2016, he said the following when referencing Hillary Clinton storing confidential information on an email server. "How damaging is it to your ability to recruit or build allies with others when they are worried that our leaders may be exposing them because of their gross negligence, of their recklessness in handling information?"

Kara Swisher 33:16 Oh, he's such a hypocrite.

Scott Galloway 33:17 And, uh, he then went on to say, "The people we rely on to do dangerous and difficult things for us rely on one thing from us, that we will not reveal their identity, that we will not be reckless with the dangerous things that they're doing for us. That's the national security implications of a private server that's unsecured." I mean, this guy, uh, he literally defines hypocrisy. And, uh, then he went on to say, "If at the very top there's no accountability, then there's two tiers of justice," said Hegseth. Yeah, yeah, Pete, the Secretary Hegseth, there appears to be two tiers of justice here. And this is, you know, these, uh, uh, the people in the military have one thing in common. They all, uh, th- the most patriotic people in America are our veterans, and anyone who has kids knows why. When you make this type of investment and sacrifice in something, you become invested in its success, and that's one of the reasons I think we need mandatory national service. This guy does not appear to be invested in our success by virtue of the fact he's just so fucking reckless.

Kara Swisher 34:19 And then all the planes falling off of aircraft. I've never heard of this. Like, what in the world is happening? All this sloppiness.

Scott Galloway 34:25 Uh, they'll, they'll blame it on Bernie Sanders. They'll figure out a way to... Yeah.

Kara Swisher 34:27 They'll blame it on someone. I just, it's, I've never heard of a plane... Like, uh, when's the last time that was a story and now it's like a double story? Like, these people are sloppy in every single aspect of their lives. Anyway, uh, whatever, there'll be more of it and they'll, we'll find out. I mean, I, I'm sure our, our, our rivals are just lovin' it.

Scott Galloway 34:45 And they're really kind of, this, (sighs) this kid named, uh, this ROTC kid who couldn't go to college unless it had been for ROTC, Martin Ortiz, uh, my fraternity brother, this guy was so irresponsible, so reckless, so crazy, right? I mean, we were literally, uh, you know, we didn't shy away from crazy behavior in the fraternity. Everyone was scared of this guy. He would come to my apartment because he lived f- far away from his base, and he would sleep in our room on the floor, and he would wake up at 3:45 in the fucking morning after drinking all night so he could be a half an hour early at his base. Because he knew when it came to, uh, when he came to, when it came to his military service, there was no margin of error, period. No margin of error. And this is a guy who couldn't, who couldn't get a D in, in, in basic English and couldn't figure out a way to rally himself to write a paper or whatever. But when it came to the commitment to the Armed Services, the culture they have created is you have to be near perfect.

Kara Swisher 35:46 Yep. And Pete Hegseth is not. Anyway, whatever, it's gonna be a constant disappointment until they dump this guy, and he'll probably get dumped 'cause he dumps planes off of aircraft carriers that have cost $60 million each, that, the money that we're supposed to be saving. Anyway,

Kara Swisher 36:00 uh, the Gates Foundation is marking its 25th anniversary with a major announcement that will officially wind down operations and close its doors permanently in 2045, decades earlier than originally planned. In the meantime, Bill Gates has committed over $200 billion in aid over the next 20 years, astonishing number, with a focus on ending preventable deaths, eradicating infectious diseases, and lifting millions out of poverty. The announcement comes as the US foreign, uh, and foreign aid faces growing political pressures. They're cutting it everywhere, Trump administration is. Gates has been really, he's got a hair up his ass about this for sure, because in an interview with The New York Times, Gates pulled no punches about recent cuts in USAid, putting the onus on Elon Musk, saying he put, uh, he put it in the wood chipper because he didn't want, he didn't go to a party that weekend. Gates went on to say the world's richest man has been involved in the deaths of the world's poorest children. I was, like he's been a little bit more, um, like, n- Trump positive just 'cause he, he wanted to sort of get the aid back in some way. But now he's like, "Fuck it." Like, "I don't care. This is what's going on here." So, uh, the fact that w- the, the, the w- one of the other world's richest men is spending $200 billion of his money in stuff that the US government should be doing, um, a- and the fact that he's calling on Elon, I thought it was good for Gates. Good for Gates, yeah, 'cause I, I was worried he was sort of-... modulating himself in a way that I know he doesn't think. So what do you think about this?

Scott Galloway 37:22 There's a popular saying that, um, a society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit, and Elon Musk is, is cutting down these trees. America has been planting shade, uh, planting trees, the shade of which we will never, ever sit under. Uh, uh, George Bush with, I think it was PEPFAR, he saved tens of millions of people by making a huge investment and rallying really competent people to try and distribute, uh, AIDS cocktail drugs to people in Africa. I, I, that had no impact on me, other than it was nice that we had the ability to do it, and we used our scale and our strength and our expertise and our science and our universities to do that. Elon Musk is doing the opposite. He's cutting down the trees, the shade of which he will never sit under, 'cause his attitude is, "If it's not providing me with shade, I don't give a fuck. And I'll call it- I'll say that I'm in- I'm saving money for the government."

Kara Swisher 38:15 Or to go to Mars. Mars is what we really need to do, so we can save humanity.

Scott Galloway 38:19 When you make... There are certain investments where, if you make a small amount of mon- investment, and $75 billion is not a lot when you look at the world's issues-

Kara Swisher 38:28 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 38:28 ... you can allocate that capital to places of such need that-

Kara Swisher 38:31 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 38:31 ... a little bit of money has enormous ROI. When-

Kara Swisher 38:35 But this is 200 billion, Scott.

Scott Galloway 38:36 No, but-

Kara Swisher 38:37 In terms of Gates.

Scott Galloway 38:38 No, the, the... I'm talking about USAID, 75 billion.

Kara Swisher 38:40 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 38:40 My point is, I, I think Gates, who's one of the most brilliant people and also, I think later in life-

Kara Swisher 38:46 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 38:47 ... as you would hope from a man, really developed a great deal of empathy. He thought, "Okay, what could I do with my quarter of a trillion dollars in wealth? I could create other great companies. I could build the biggest VC firm in the world. I could decide who gets to be president or who doesn't." And he said, "At the margin of the efficient rontier, uh, efficient frontier, I can save tens of millions of lives because one small pill that, uh, staves off or prevents a case of malaria-"

Kara Swisher 39:15 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 39:15 "... is not that expensive in certain regions of the world."

Kara Swisher 39:18 Or the netting, or netting or whatever. He was doing all kinds of different things.

Scott Galloway 39:20 Yeah. Toilets. He spent a bunch of money on toilets. He's like, "It's not romantic, but if I can bring, save potable water and sanitation to certain regions, I will literally save millions of children who otherwise would have died of dysentery."

Kara Swisher 39:31 He's a complex guy, and, and it's not always... Listen, he was a very difficult person. I was there when he was younger and kind of a jerk. He was a jerk. Um, and all kinds of stuff he's done that is not great, uh, in lots of ways. At the same time, the transformation of this person into this kind of philanthropy is really something to see. And the fact that... Listen, it's no, it's no small risk for him to call out Musk, who has been, by the way, attacking him relentlessly with fake stuff around vaccines. M- Musk was one of, is... And Twitter has been the purveyor of this nonsense that Gates is putting chips inside of people's heads, all kinds of, like, through the vaccine. And, uh, I... The, the fact that this M- Musk, all he does is make trouble for this guy and insult him and, and create all kinds of mis- dangerous misinformation about him, and then... I'm glad he did this. I'm glad he said it 'cause it's what he thinks.

Scott Galloway 40:26 One of the most wonderful things about America as a society is we have created a, a complexion or a gestalt in our society where typically, as you become more powerful, there's an onus and an environment that encourages you to evolve, to become kinder. Bill Gates has become kinder. I think guys like Marc Benioff and Brian Chesky and e- even, you know... I, I, I interviewed Melinda French Gates. You can tell as they've gotten more powerful, they really take it very seriously that, "I need to evolve as a person. I need to become kinder." The worst thing that can happen in a society is where you create a gestalt that, "Okay, once I become president or once I become the wealthiest man in the world, I digress."

Kara Swisher 41:07 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 41:07 "I become an even bigger asshole."

Kara Swisher 41:09 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 41:09 "I become even more damaging-"

Kara Swisher 41:11 Take more.

Scott Galloway 41:11 "... to the world." And it's not an... I, I, I gotta think, quite frankly, and this is more of a philosophical question, what is it about our society where we are evolving this new species of man in the United States where, as they become more powerful... Even the robber barons, who were not nice people, once they achieved a certain level of power, they did flip the switch and think, "How can I build big projects and big universities that would help society?" And these guys are not thinking that way.

Kara Swisher 41:35 Yeah. If only someone had a book coming out in November that discussed what kind of men we should be. Uh...

Scott Galloway 41:40 God.

Kara Swisher 41:41 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 41:42 It's more a discussion of, of (laughs) what kind of man you shouldn't be. It's a sort of a...

Kara Swisher 41:45 Well, you're telling it. Anyway, we, we've got to go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Disney and Uber's latest earnings. But good for you, Bill Gates. Good for you.

Kara Swisher 41:54 Scott, we're back. Disney is out with its latest earnings. I'd love to hear what you think about this. The company reported $23 billion in revenue, up 7% from a year ago, and $3.2 billion in net income, a big turnaround from the net loss of $20 million last year. These numbers were fueled by higher streaming profit. That seems to be doing well. Good bet by Bob Iger. Domestic theme parks and home video sales of Moana 2. I can tell you, I've watched it 109,000 times. And speaking of theme parks, Disney has also announced plans for its, a new park in Abu Dhabi. That makes sense, its seventh theme park resort. I thought they had one there. I don't know why. Disney is often seen as a bellwether for consumer confidence. These numbers tell you consumers aren't too worried, or is it just another calm voice from earnings report? Um, I'm gonna add in Uber's earnings too. The company reported $11.5 billion in revenue, up 14% year over year. Good... Not a huge company, but a good solid revenue thing, but slightly below Wall Street's expectations. Total bookings grew 14% to 42 billion. Um, that's the amount, and then they have to take out blah, blah, blah. They, they have to pay drivers, et cetera. Uh, Uber has also just announced a joint venture with Chinese self-driving car company Pony.ai to roll out robo-taxis in Mi- Middle Eastern markets. So looks like Uber is becoming the partner for all these things like Waymo and, and, and, uh, what Pony.ai is doing around the world. So, um...I- I'd love to hear what you, um, what you think about. And then we have another listener, uh, prediction around earnings. But first Disney and then Uber.

Scott Galloway 43:19 Well, Uber w- Uber just sort of barely missed expectations. I would argue they met expectations. And what's interesting about Uber is their relationship with all the... They're striking up with all these different autonomous driving company. It feels like... There's an old Hemingway line. Uh, "How did you go bankrupt? Gradually, then suddenly is the answer." It feels like the autonomous wars have been slow and now it feels like it's about we're on the eve of war among, uh, autonomous, whether it's Uber doing deals, Waymo, at some point Musk will enter. It feels like autonomous-

Kara Swisher 43:48 Waymo and Uber have a deal. Like because they're the reservation system.

Scott Galloway 43:52 Right.

Kara Swisher 43:52 Like that's what-

Scott Galloway 43:53 They're the front end.

Kara Swisher 43:54 I've always thought Uber was the reservation system-

Scott Galloway 43:56 That's right.

Kara Swisher 43:56 ... for someone or a lot-

Scott Galloway 43:56 And they are closer to the consumer and you're used to, you're used to just booking a car on them. But I- it, th- that's what I took away from the Uber earnings, but I didn't-

Kara Swisher 44:04 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 44:04 I didn't think they were that interesting. The more, really the more interesting one-

Kara Swisher 44:07 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 44:07 ... was the surprise of the upside from Disney and that is their stock popped 10%. It's a-

Kara Swisher 44:12 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 44:12 A- after really touching kind of 10-year lows.

Kara Swisher 44:15 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 44:15 Revenue up 7%. Uh, the Disney+ uh-

Kara Swisher 44:19 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 44:19 ... not only raised prices but grew their subscriber base, which a lot of us weren't expecting.

Kara Swisher 44:25 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 44:25 Uh, Hulu added over one million subscribers. But the real story here is that I think strategically they're being very smart 'cause what are they doing? They're leaning into their core advantage and point of differentiation and that's its parks business. Uh, parks was mentioned five times more in this earnings call than the prior quarters call because they realized that Netflix isn't opening a park. Alpha- Meta can. It takes 10 years, 20 years maybe to build a park like this. Their cruise line is killing it. Um, and they also realize, quite frankly, they're probably always gonna be a distant two or three maybe if they're lucky in streaming, but they can be number one and command unfair margins in their parks unit and their parks unit is just killing it. And to Bob Iger's credit, this was, this was the strongest earnings call Disney has had in a long time. And that is okay, the streaming is no longer a sinkhole of capital and we are. We o- our parks business, which is truly differentiated and singular-

Kara Swisher 45:27 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 45:27 ... is killing it. So good, good for them. I, I, you know, I-

Kara Swisher 45:31 Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think he's... And then we'll f- see who takes over, but he, he's, you know, he's a pro. This man is a pro.

Kara Swisher 45:37 Um, uh, okay, Scott, while we're on the topic of earnings, let's hear from another prediction from a listener. This one about the economy. Let's play it. By the way, our listeners are so smart.

Rich (caller from Germany) 45:44 Hi Kara and Scott. This is Rich, an American living in Germany since 2016. My prediction is that the US falls into a recession, possibly even worse than 2008. On the consumer side, tariffs push prices even higher after years of inflation, crushing demands. Businesses cut jobs even more than they are already due to tariffs and AI. Then on the credit side, investors demand higher yields after we voluntarily drive our economy off a cliff. Unlike 2008 though, the Fed can't just cut rates in a stagflationary environment. We're stuck in a vicious cycle, or Zwei Flüsse Kreuz, as Kara knows.

Kara Swisher 46:31 Zwei Flüsse Kreuz. Mm-hmm. Scott, this is, this is... You know, most people are, can't tell if we're gonna run into this recessionary environment. Um, it f- it certainly feels like that's what we're being set up for unless he does something. I mean, he, this is self-in- self-inflicted, of course.

Scott Galloway 46:48 Well, there's, there's sort of the known unknowns and then the unknown unknowns and it's usually-

Kara Swisher 46:53 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 46:53 ... the unknown unknowns that, that get you. But in terms of the known unknowns, the fulcrum here about whether we probably go into a recession or stagflation is this nonsense around, around tariffs and what happens. If anything resembling the proposed tariffs actually sticks, you're gonna see an increase in inflation, an increase in interest rates and a decline in the economy. The word for that that most young people don't know is stagflation. And when you have stagflation, when the economy is shrinking even as interest rates go up, which is the worst of... That's, you know, that's nitroglycerin for an economy. You have to sacrifice jobs and massively increase interest rates because basically typically what the Fed says is, "We will opt for lower or higher unemployment versus higher inflation." That's the real danger. In my opinion, if we go into recession, uh, that's a, that's something that's supposed to happen every seven years. It brings down prices. Quite frankly, it gives young people over the medium term a little bit of an opportunity to buy into assets at a lower price. I don't think recession is the worst thing that could happen to us. If you look at the Fed's, uh, notes or, or Chairman Powell's notes yesterday, he essentially said, "We're in a bit of a vibe session." And Kyla Scanlon, who I love, this young, uh, woman who does a ton of great, um, work on, uh, economics. Uh, essentially, consumer confidence is at a low since COVID. The uncertainty index is at a high since the '80s. But if you look at the underlying data, if you look at employment, if you look at retail sales, if you look at spending, quite frankly the economy still looks pretty strong right now. And so he, he kept interest rates, he kept interest rates flat. So this is all about in the short term unless, you know, if... Look, if there's a nuclear detonation on the, on the Indian-Pakistani border, all bets are off, right? But in terms of where we are economically right now, the fulcrum or the arbiter will be just how fucking insane, how down crazy road we travel with these, um, with these tariffs. So w- we'll see, but the thing I'm most scared of, um, is not a recession. I actually think that recessions, I think we're due for not an extended recession. Housing prices and stock prices need to come down such that people like you and me, Kara, maybe transfer a little bit of our wealth and create some opportunity for younger people who want to buy their own homes and buy their own stocks.... I don't think that'd be the worst thing in the world. What would be nearly the worst thing for the economy would be a spike in interest rates as the economy goes, goes down. And the thing ... What's so interesting is, any economist under the age of 50 doesn't even know the word stagflation. They don't even think it can happen.

Kara Swisher 49:28 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 49:29 It can happen. It happened in the '70s.

Kara Swisher 49:30 It's like a horror movie, Stagflation. I feel like Besson's got the upper hand here, Besson and Rubio, over the crazies, I think, I suspect. A little bit more so.

Scott Galloway 49:39 It's the 10-year. It's the bond.

Kara Swisher 49:40 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 49:40 If, if the bond market starts spiking, they all freak out.

Kara Swisher 49:43 They all freak out. You're right. But I'm saying, with the te- with it having to do with Trump's crazy, he seems a little more willing to deal, besides himself, self-deal. Um, in any case, um, we'll see. We'll see. Great, great ... Thank you so much, Rich. That was really great. Um,

Kara Swisher 49:59 very quickly, the new Meta, uh, AI app is creepy, according to a detailed account in The Washington Post. Speaking of, of these AI stuff that, where Meta probably will dominate in many ways. The app assures personalized AI and delivers via personal information from Facebook and Instagram and memory files where details about users are kept. Geoffrey Fowler, who wrote The Post, the article, found his memory file contained interests like natural fertility techniques, divorce, and payday loans. Uh, Meta (laughs) also feeds conversations back about Meta's AI training system without an option to opt out. I ... Like, I know you're saying they're gonna dominate. There is ... The thing I worry about, you always say, "Oh, I loaded this up, I loaded that up." And I'm always like, "I'm not loading my stuff up." You know, and you can pay a little more to ChatGPT so they don't train on your data, and they allegedly protect it. Um, I would not load up, like, what I ate for lunch yesterday to Meta. I have to say. I mean, except for Instagram and Threads, which I use largely for marketing. Um, I gotta say, I'm not loading a damn thing up to this person because of the way it was used and the lack of any guardrails. I, I would never use their AI app. I don't know how you feel about it, but you're very ... You're much more promiscuous in loading up your information, so.

Scott Galloway 51:12 Yeah. My attitude is violate my privacy as long as I can see that my QX60 is one minute away. I, I could just get high. I could just eat edibles and order Ubers and watch how close my car is.

Kara Swisher 51:22 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 51:22 I find it fucking fascinating. I'm like, "Why is he making a right turn on Broom? Doesn't he know where he's going?"

Kara Swisher 51:26 (laughs) Those are fake maps to see ...

Scott Galloway 51:27 I, I find that shit fascinating. And occasionally, I have a moment, I'm like, "How do they know?" Like, uh, you know, "How do they know I have prostatitis?" How are they know ... I mean, I find the shit fascinating.

Kara Swisher 51:37 Mine is food p- food porn, like people making food, uh, tool tips, t- tip, like little hacks, hardware hacks, and Mission: Impossible.

Scott Galloway 51:49 Dockers.

Kara Swisher 51:49 Mission: Impossible. Dockers. Which is coming out May 23rd, and I'm going by myself, just so everybody knows. Do not speak to me on May 23rd. I'm going to see The Final Reckoning, and I'm gonna probably see it twice. But go ahead, Scott. So, so what do you think about this, this, this app? Are you gonna use it? You probably will.

Scott Galloway 52:07 Look, I, I am ... Uh, I, I do a talk ... I was just in Hamburg, Germany.

Kara Swisher 52:12 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 52:13 And I do a talk on ... Everyone want- everyone wanted to know, had two, you know ... Questions really around two topics in the Q&A. "What the fuck is going on in America?" And they wanna know about AI.

Kara Swisher 52:24 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 52:24 And I've said-

Kara Swisher 52:25 Yeah, that's about right.

Scott Galloway 52:26 ... I'm an AI optimist for the most part. I don't think it's gonna turn on us. I don't see any reason why AI can't be used to create defensive measures, against offensive measures. I don't think it's ever gonna become sentient. I think in the short run, it'll destr- destroy jobs. But like every other technology, it'll create, in my opinion-

Kara Swisher 52:41 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 52:41 ... more jobs than it destroys over the medium and the long term. The biggest threat of AI is that it's going to speedball loneliness. And that is ... I'm, I'm frustrated. I can't ... I don't have friends. I, I can't figure out the social pecking order. I, I am really upset. I don't have a girlfriend, so I have this incredible, uh, AI girlfriend that's a mix of porn, and maybe I even have an AI robot/sex doll. And I never developed the skills or take the risk to establish a romantic relationship. And this is the fear. This is what young men have fighting against them, is they have the deepest-pocketed, most talented people in the world trying to convince them they can have a reasonable facsimile of life with no human contact. You need, you need the community.

Kara Swisher 53:24 So, you're not concerned with loading your stuff up (laughs) , which is my question.

Scott Galloway 53:28 Well, okay, it's too late for me.

Kara Swisher 53:29 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 53:29 And not only that, quite frankly, I have economic security and people who love me unconditionally. So I, I'm there. I'm at the promised land. What I'm worried about is young men who are struggling to find a connection to school, to work, or to other people, and get a reasonable facsimile of that dopa hit that you get from a relationship. From Reddit, Discord, porn, Robin Hood. "Oh, I'm, I'm not gambling, I'm investing." And they spend all of their time in their basement, never going through the hardship of trying to make-

Kara Swisher 53:56 Yes, agreed.

Scott Galloway 53:57 ... relationships work.

Kara Swisher 53:59 L- Let me say. We have to move on, but Scott ... Every ... Scott will be everybody's friend-

Scott Galloway 54:03 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 54:03 ... next friend. Just so you know, Scott is everybody's friend. I'm very unfriendly, but Scott will be everybody's friend. Um, okay. Uh, w- I'm not using that app, uh, that's all I'm saying. Uh, all right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions, including one more listener prediction.

Kara Swisher 54:18 We're gonna do a prediction now, Scott. I'm gonna do a very brief one.

Scott Galloway 54:21 Okay.

Kara Swisher 54:21 They're giving out Golden Globes for best podcast next year. I think we need to win, even though we're not in the top 20. You have to be in the top 25 to be in it. Um, we have to get to the top 25.

Scott Galloway 54:30 The top 25 most listened?

Kara Swisher 54:32 Yes. Apparently. Some dumb criteria.

Scott Galloway 54:33 It's all fucking crazy right-wingers that are in the top 25.

Kara Swisher 54:36 I know that. Exactly. So we need to, we need to lobby these people, because-

Scott Galloway 54:38 What about the top 25 revenue? Because the thing is, the people who listen to those people-

Kara Swisher 54:42 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 54:42 ... don't have any money unless they're like-

Kara Swisher 54:43 That's correct.

Scott Galloway 54:43 ... looking for dental implants or, like, trucker hats. What about the top 25 in terms of revenue?

Kara Swisher 54:46 So, we need to kiss up to the Golden Globe people, all those foreign press associates.

Scott Galloway 54:50 Let's threaten to tariff them. Let's threaten to tariff awards ceremonies.

Kara Swisher 54:52 Let's tariff them. We wanna come ... We are so much fun at a party, we would have such a ... We would be so good at a Golden Globe. We will drink, we will cause problems, et cetera, et cetera.

Scott Galloway 55:00 So Much is doing a lot of work there, but okay.

Kara Swisher 55:02 We ... You will drink and I will drag you-

Scott Galloway 55:04 You fall asleep on the couch. Everyone's wondering who the nine-year-old boy-

Kara Swisher 55:06 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 55:06 ... who is asleep on the couch ... And everyone's like, "Who's the guy just at the bar who won't leave?"

Kara Swisher 55:11 (laughs) That's correct. Um, and as I said, I will be at Mission: Impossible. One thing I will ... I'm gonna do a quick prediction. I was talking to the people at Aurora, which is the self-driving, um, trucks.

Scott Galloway 55:21 Truck driving.

Kara Swisher 55:22 Um, everyone's focused on self-driving cars, but these driverless runs of trucks, they're now going on every day between Dallas and Houston. Um, I just think that's something that isn't, uh, focused in on. Um, they hauled pastries. The first driverless haul transported pastries. This is an area nobody's paying attention to. I think that is the real money, is, is that kind of stuff.... 'cause that's where it's gonna be. That's where we really do need these, these driverless things going on. Um, and, and I- I'm excited by driverless cars in cities. I am, personally. But I think that's where the big money is gonna be. That's where you should be focusing in on if you're interested in the sector. All right, Scott. Make a prediction.

Scott Galloway 56:02 Uh, this first 100 days of the Trump Administration, mostly using the vehicle of the Trump Coin, will go down in history as the greatest grift in the history of our economy-

Kara Swisher 56:11 Yes.

Scott Galloway 56:11 ... in terms of the amount of money stolen and the size of it over the shortest period.

Kara Swisher 56:15 Billions.

Scott Galloway 56:15 Just some, just some data here. Uh, so Trump-affiliated entities have made at least $300 million. This is distinct to the value of his stake in Trump Coin in trading fees. The Trump family's net worth has increased by $3 billion, or $1 billion a month, since he took, uh, um, he took office. Uh, just some timeline. The Trump Coin launched on a Friday night under cover of dark with all the news about the inauguration. By 3:00 AM on Sunday, it was valued at more than 70 billion. And there were a small number of coins, uh, a small number of investors who made large investments on a Friday. Maybe they got a tip or something. They made, they made 10s if not 100s of millions. And then, over the course of the next couple weeks, about 800,000 smaller investors lost billions. So that's-

Kara Swisher 57:05 Is this the Melania Coin one? Is this the-

Scott Galloway 57:07 The Melania Coin, two dozen traders made al- almost $100 million-

Kara Swisher 57:11 Incredible.

Scott Galloway 57:11 ... the weekend it came out, right? So one person, uh, uh, 64 seconds, i- invested almost $1 million, 64 seconds before the project was publicly announced, and with- within 24, uh, hours, had made 40 million. But since then, Melania has lost 96% of its value.

Kara Swisher 57:28 Sure has. It's such a scam.

Scott Galloway 57:30 And this market manipulation, this, what would technically be called insider trading by the SEC, we'll never know because on April 8th, Trump's Deputy Attorney General ordered the DOJ's crypto fraud investigation arm to disband.

Kara Swisher 57:43 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 57:44 The next day, the se- the next day, on April 9th, the same day that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent affirmed that it was Main Street's turn to get wealthy, Trump posted on Truth Social, "This is a great time to buy @DonaldTrumpMedia" at 9:37 AM.

Kara Swisher 57:59 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 58:00 Between 1:00 and 1:10 PM, there was a huge increase in bullish zero-day, uh, S&P 500 call options. And then, just eight minutes later, uh, Trump announced a 90-day pause on all of his tariffs and the market soared almost 10%, one of the biggest one-day gains-

Kara Swisher 58:16 Incredible.

Scott Galloway 58:16 ... in history. So someone knew what was going on. That's-

Kara Swisher 58:19 Of course they do. He calls them. Like, it feels like-

Scott Galloway 58:21 That's called inside, that's called insider trading.

Kara Swisher 58:24 Ugh.

Scott Galloway 58:24 The market gained $4 trillion while Trump Media closed up 23%. Trump's 53% ownership stake in the company, uh, increased his net worth by 415, 15 million. On April 23rd, Trump announced that the top holders of the Trump Coin would win an exclusive dinner with him-

Kara Swisher 58:41 Dinner?

Scott Galloway 58:41 ... and the coin surged over 60%. A small group of investors have generated massive returns. Just 58 wallets made more than 10 million apiece, totaling w- approximately 1.1 billion in gains. Meanwhile, 800,000 wallets of mostly smaller holders have lost money on their Trump Coin. And this isn't just a vessel for corruption. It's an open invitation for foreign manipulations. Three-quarters of the token value held among the top 220 wallets are believed to b- uh, be held by foreign owners. So if he's hosting a dinner for, uh, for his Trump Pac, and it costs a million and a half dollars, and say you're hungry and you wanna get rid of these tariffs, don't you pay someone, have someone, a proxy go, uh, spend the million and a half bucks and go, "Oh, just FYI, let the President know, as a gift to him, we're gonna buy $50 million in Trump Coin this week," which will increase the value somewhere between half a billion and a billion, which means he'll get somewhere between 4 and 800 million. And we're really hoping he's kind to us around the tariffs.

Kara Swisher 59:46 This is, I, I agree. I've been talking to a lot of investigative reporters right now. And by the way, a lot of techies are keeping, uh, tabs of this stuff, I have to say. Uh, uh, th- in a couple of years, there's gonna be a massive investigation. He'll probably be n- not, uh, too old to put him in jail for it. But boy, is this a grift. You're absolutely right.

Scott Galloway 1:00:03 Well, and it gets worse.

Kara Swisher 1:00:05 O- okay.

Scott Galloway 1:00:05 Now, the-

Kara Swisher 1:00:05 Okay, go ahead.

Scott Galloway 1:00:05 ... the kids went on it. World Liberty Financial-

Kara Swisher 1:00:07 The kids.

Scott Galloway 1:00:07 ... a crypto firm run by Trump's sons, Eric and Don-

Kara Swisher 1:00:10 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:00:10 ... Jr.

Kara Swisher 1:00:11 Yep.

Scott Galloway 1:00:11 Uh, 60% of it is owned by a Trump-affiliated entity. And they are entitled to 75% of its revenue. It's raised more than a half a billion dollars from investors who purchased the, um, the World Liberty Financial governance token. And now, it's being leveraged to facilitate pardons for criminals.

Kara Swisher 1:00:29 Yep.

Scott Galloway 1:00:29 Justin Sun-

Kara Swisher 1:00:30 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:00:30 ... a crypto billionaire, was under SEC investigation for securities fraud under the Biden Administration after investing 75 million in World Liberty Financial.

Kara Swisher 1:00:39 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:00:39 Guess what, Kara? The SEC dismissed-

Kara Swisher 1:00:42 Guess what?

Scott Galloway 1:00:42 ... his case.

Kara Swisher 1:00:42 That's correct. This is a, this is a crash. And we ha- we have to move on. But it, it, it is really, this is the story I keep telling reporters. And you've talked about it quite a lot. This is the story. The c- the, the absolute kleptocracy and it's in plain sight. Absolutely.

Scott Galloway 1:00:56 But, but this is what, this is what fucking infuriates me. I- I'm a realpolitik guy. I don't mind a little bit of corruption (laughs) as long as it's good for all Americans. I don't mind a little bit of strong-arming. But here's the problem or the tragedy. If Trump bought h- if Trump brought half the competence, expertise, and elegance to governance as he does to grifting, the country would be in a much better place. We have a mob family running the country.

Kara Swisher 1:01:23 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:01:23 That's the bad news. The worst thing, the worst thing is that Michael Corleone is managing the crime and Fredo is managing the government.

Kara Swisher 1:01:34 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:01:34 It's like, for God's sakes-

Kara Swisher 1:01:36 That's a good analogy.

Scott Galloway 1:01:37 You are, you are so good at stealing.

Kara Swisher 1:01:40 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:01:40 Can you bring some of that elegance, that timing, that experti-

Kara Swisher 1:01:43 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 1:01:43 ... that expertise-

Kara Swisher 1:01:44 No.

Scott Galloway 1:01:45 ... to the government?

Kara Swisher 1:01:46 No.

Scott Galloway 1:01:46 To actual government?

Kara Swisher 1:01:47 'Cause mobsters are usually stupid.

Scott Galloway 1:01:48 Fredo is in charge of our fucking military right now.

Kara Swisher 1:01:51 That is correct.

Scott Galloway 1:01:51 And Michael Corleone is in charge of the Trump coin.

Kara Swisher 1:01:54 Right.

Scott Galloway 1:01:54 So, I forgive everything if you take the people managing your grift-

Kara Swisher 1:01:58 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 1:01:58 ... and put them in charge of our military and Social Security.

Kara Swisher 1:02:00 We do not want Eric Trump running anything.

Scott Galloway 1:02:01 But you get my point.

Kara Swisher 1:02:02 This is just... Yeah, I get it, but they're not even smart. I don't even think they're smart. I think they're stupid and they're just putting their bag out and saying, "Put money in here." Mobsters are, are notoriously stupid. They just, they're just muscle, and that's what's happening here.

Scott Galloway 1:02:14 Anyways, the prediction is the biggest grift in history is happening as we sit here right now. In five years, 10 years, when this all comes out, and it will, this'll be the greatest grift in an economy over a shorter period of time that has ever taken place. This will make Putin blush.

Kara Swisher 1:02:31 Yep, absolutely. Okay, Scott, you've made your prediction. Now it's time to hear one last one from a listener. This one is super serious, so please try to focus, okay? Let's play it.

Mike from Oakland (caller) 1:02:41 Uh, this is Mike from Oakland, California, and I think my prediction is if Scott isn't already shaving his balls, he's gonna start doing that, because I think there's nothing more depressing than gray ball hair. Um, and that's really my prediction.

Kara Swisher 1:03:00 Okay.

Scott Galloway 1:03:02 Uh...

Kara Swisher 1:03:02 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 1:03:04 I am speechless. Uh...

Kara Swisher 1:03:06 (laughs) Excellent.

Scott Galloway 1:03:07 I occasionally clip my whole body so I can feel like a jungle cat, and then I put lotion all over my body-

Kara Swisher 1:03:12 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 1:03:12 ... and I just love me.

Kara Swisher 1:03:14 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 1:03:15 Yeah, I'm not a big...

Kara Swisher 1:03:16 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 1:03:17 I'm not a big manscaper. I like Big Ed and the Twins to have a little bit of a beard.

Kara Swisher 1:03:20 Yeah. I gotta say, it's a big business. It's a big business.

Scott Galloway 1:03:24 No, it all down there-

Kara Swisher 1:03:24 They have good names. They all have such good names, all those manscaping things. They have really funny, um, brand names. Anyway, I don't-

Scott Galloway 1:03:31 You know, at this point-

Kara Swisher 1:03:32 I'm not gonna say how I know this, but I do.

Scott Galloway 1:03:33 Yeah, my junk looks like, like an aging anteater. It just looks sad.

Kara Swisher 1:03:37 Okay.

Scott Galloway 1:03:37 It just looks sad. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 1:03:39 (laughs) Well, I don't know what to say. That, but, uh, um, Scott is speechless, which is excellent. Thank you, Mike.

Scott Galloway 1:03:44 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 1:03:45 All, all right.

Scott Galloway 1:03:46 No, I'm not. No, I'm not.

Kara Swisher 1:03:46 We want to hear... (laughs) I think clipping is good. Keep it clean for the ladies, Scott. Keep it clean for the ladies. This is what I tell my sons.

Scott Galloway 1:03:53 My, my-

Kara Swisher 1:03:53 Keep it, keep it clean for the ladies.

Scott Galloway 1:03:55 My wife came in, or actually, like, came in on me while I was manscaping once-

Kara Swisher 1:04:00 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 1:04:00 ... and she asked me what I was doing. I, apparently meal prep was not the right answer.

Kara Swisher 1:04:04 (laughs) Okay.

Scott Galloway 1:04:06 Uh...

Kara Swisher 1:04:07 Keep it clean for the ladies. That's my advice to all men.

Scott Galloway 1:04:10 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 1:04:10 All right, we wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about business t- oh, ladies and men, let me be clear. We wanna hear from you. Send us your question about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe this week, uh, this week on Proftgy Conversations, Scott spoke with Anne Applebaum, one of my favorites, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian.

Scott Galloway 1:04:32 Oh, that's so good.

Kara Swisher 1:04:33 And she's so good.

Scott Galloway 1:04:33 So good.

Kara Swisher 1:04:34 And staff writer at The Atlantic. Let's listen to a clip.

Narrator 1:04:37 Donald Trump is somebody who's constantly seeking to shape reality to his own benefit, and he feels no need to, to be accurate. And so, anybody who does and anyone who cares about telling the truth or, or who cares about making policy based on reality and not on this fiction that, that Trump promotes is uncomfortable. And that means that all the people around him are either manipulable and they're willing to just do whatever he says, or they're people who have made a big, uh, uh, kind of moral sacrifice, you know, who, who are doing something they know to be wrong.

Kara Swisher 1:05:12 Hello, Marco Rubio. Anne is terrific. And that's-

Scott Galloway 1:05:14 She is great.

Kara Swisher 1:05:15 I can see why you're in the grift mode right now, 'cause she talks about this a lot. She's an expert on this. Uh-

Scott Galloway 1:05:18 I love her. I love her.

Kara Swisher 1:05:20 She's great.

Scott Galloway 1:05:20 I love when-

Kara Swisher 1:05:21 She's great.

Scott Galloway 1:05:21 I love when... Unfortunately, I'm like, it's, it's terrible she's having a moment. It's like if someone writes about famine-

Kara Swisher 1:05:26 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:05:26 ... I hope they don't have a moment, but she is having a moment.

Kara Swisher 1:05:28 Yeah. She is. She's great, and well worth reading. Uh, okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out.

Scott Galloway 1:05:40 Today's show was produced by Lara Nehm and Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie and Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Soverio, and Dan Chalon. Yashar Kherwath is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, what economic theory opposes manscaping? Laissez-faire.

Kara Swisher 1:06:12 Laissez-f- (laughs)

Scott Galloway 1:06:16 Golden Cloak, Golden Globe winner for best podcast.

Kara Swisher 1:06:19 (laughs) Podcast.