Trump’s Iran Deal Is Even Worse Than You Think | Pivot

Scott Galloway 0:00 In terms of American politics, what this means is the following: J.D. Vance will not be president.

Kara Swisher 0:07 [upbeat music] Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott Galloway 0:16 And I'm Scott Galloway.

Kara Swisher 0:17 Before we get into it today, a reminder, uh, to check out our YouTube channel. Be sure to like the videos and subscribe. We're, we're into the YouTube situation, and we're also in Roku. We're a lot of places. We've got a lot to get to today. So, uh, Donald Trump is defending his deal to end

Kara Swisher 0:33 the war in Iran, saying critics who think he hasn't been tough enough are jealous, bad people or stupid. His comments come after he signed the memorandum of understanding, or MOU, at the Palace of Versailles on Wednesday, which was m- the most epic troll by Macron I've ever seen. He lured him there with gold and, uh, and it's the place, of course, where the Germans, uh, signed, uh, the, the, the World War I accord. Um, so let's talk about the Treaty of Versailles. Let's talk about some of the terms of this agreement. The Strait of Hormuz will open immediately, and Iran will be allowed to sell its oil freely. Also, they'll get some sort of fees which didn't exist before. Every... It's exactly the Obama deal, but worse, essentially. The US will end sa- I mean, Obama got a lot more stuff and paid a lot le- paid, paid a lot less and nobody died, and there wasn't the impact on the e- economy globally and in the United States. The US will end sanctions on Iran and unfreeze assets. The $300 billion fund will be established to help rebuild Iran, though Trump says the US will not contribute to it. Iran agrees to not procure or develop a nuclear weapon, but before, um, the, the Obama agreement was much more stringent. Um, the deal is set to be officially signed on Friday. It is not a final agreement. Doesn't seem much has been agreed at all. Uh, the two sides have 60 days to negotiate a longer term deal. Either side can walk away. Uh, the Republicans are, are not liking it, and those who are trying to defend it are pretzeling themselves. You know, he's lost the support of all manner of people, including Ben Shapiro, uh, uh, T-Tucker Carlson, of course, um, lots of Republicans, Bill, uh, Bill Cassidy, and many others are like, "This is a piece of shit deal." Es- they're saying it out loud, um, uh, Senator Kennedy, um, you know, the Democrats don't have to say anything. Um, be... And even Fox News is attacking him. Thoughts on the situation? 'Cause Ben, someone, uh, Donnie Deutsch said, you know, "I was for this, you know, this attack on Iran, but now this is, like, bullshit." He, he reminded me of you the way he talked about it, but any thoughts?

Scott Galloway 2:31 Yeah, I've gotta own it. I, I thought there was real legitimate rationale for military action. Um, th- there's just no doubt about it. It... Hillary Clinton talks about the dominion of failure, and I f- find this fascinating that-

Kara Swisher 2:42 Isn't that great? Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 2:43 Well, it-

Kara Swisher 2:43 Explain that for the people, the dominion of failure.

Scott Galloway 2:46 Well, just to relate to it on an individual level, have you ever been at a, you know, you're in a conversation with family or at dinner and you say something and someone disagrees, and you double down, and then you find yourself two months later defending and going deeper into a position that you've probably realized was wrong?

Kara Swisher 3:03 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 3:03 But you've doubled down-

Kara Swisher 3:05 Yeah

Scott Galloway 3:05 ... and you keep going further and further.

Kara Swisher 3:06 Or gambling. You're gambling at that point.

Scott Galloway 3:06 And unfortunately, the American public rewards that doubling down as opposed to being contemplative and recognizing that a step back from the wrong direction is a step in the right direction.

Kara Swisher 3:15 Right. Right. Correct.

Scott Galloway 3:16 And we basically told our politicians, "Never admit you're wrong. Double down. Never acknowledge that things have not worked out the way we'd hoped, and we need to change course." And just to go to the, quote-unquote, "memo of understanding," let's start with the term memo of understanding.

Kara Swisher 3:32 Right.

Scott Galloway 3:33 Memo of understanding is a business term, and I have written and received dozens of memos of understanding, and this is what they are. If you're thinking usually in a business context about acquiring a firm or doing a large deal, you outline general parameters. "Okay, this is what you do-"

Kara Swisher 3:52 But not specifics. Correct. Not-

Scott Galloway 3:53 Well, you, you, you identify ranges. "This is what you do. This is what we do. We're interested in acquiring you, and this is kind of evaluation range subject to the following conditions. These are the people who would stick around." You kind of outline to basically say, "We need to at least agree on some basics before we get serious-

Kara Swisher 4:11 Mm-hmm

Scott Galloway 4:11 ... and start conducting diligence and papering a deal." And it means noth- I would bet that somewhere between a third and maybe 50% of memos of understanding are consummated in a legally enforceable deal, and that's the same thing here. It is... This is obvious. They said, uh, Trump wanted an agreement, and they said, "We'll give you a memo of understanding because-

Kara Swisher 4:34 Right

Scott Galloway 4:34 ... we know you're on your way out."

Kara Swisher 4:35 Right.

Scott Galloway 4:35 "This will not be enforceable." I don't even think... We can get into a conversation around how terrible this deal is, including the fact that it doesn't include random inspections. It's gone from one and a half billion in the JCPOA to 300 billion, and that sounds like a-

Kara Swisher 4:50 And people have died

Scott Galloway 4:50 ... VC opportunity for Witkoff and Kushner.

Kara Swisher 4:53 Right. Yes.

Scott Galloway 4:53 The fact that they've essentially, have not, have a, have a, have an opening to start charging tolls again, this isn't an equivalent deal. This is a much worse deal. But here's the thing. It's not even a deal, Kara.

Kara Swisher 5:06 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 5:07 It's a memo of un-

Kara Swisher 5:08 No.

Scott Galloway 5:09 It-

Kara Swisher 5:09 It did seem kind of sketchy

Scott Galloway 5:09 ... I don't know if you heard, but this morning it was announced that Mexico has presented the US with a memo of understanding, and they're taking back Phoenix.

Kara Swisher 5:17 Mm-hmm. [laughs]

Scott Galloway 5:17 I mean, this is so f- This is... H- Here is the reality.

Kara Swisher 5:22 I like Phoenix, but go ahead. Sorry.

Scott Galloway 5:24 Withdrew from a deal, fought a stupid war, or apparently a stupid war, with 13 people dead, hundreds injured, thousands of Iranians killed.

Kara Swisher 5:33 Let's not forget those schoolgirls that got accidentally killed.

Scott Galloway 5:37 Alienated allies, uh, weakened our relationship-

Kara Swisher 5:41 Gas prices

Scott Galloway 5:42 ... with Gulf nations, provided accidentally Iran with insight into a weapon more powerful than a nuclear arm, destabilized the global economy such that we could get a much worse deal. In terms of American politics, what this means is the following. J.D. Vance will not be president

Kara Swisher 6:02 Oh, no. Trump keeps trying to hang it around his neck

Scott Galloway 6:04 The president is throwing Vice President Vance under the bus

Kara Swisher 6:09 No, he's just, he's just his servant to go there and do it

Scott Galloway 6:12 Basically, he has sent the equivalent of a, I don't know, a reputational mob and noose for the latest vice president. He is hanging Vice President Vance

Kara Swisher 6:24 He's pencing him. He's pencing him

Scott Galloway 6:27 The most conservative Republicans are saying this is a terrible deal

Kara Swisher 6:32 Right. The comparison-

Scott Galloway 6:34 A terrible deal

Kara Swisher 6:34 ... between the o- comparative list between the Obama deal and this, and you're like, "What? We lost all this stuff?" Like, what? Why? Um, and you know, he had the advantage when he just, say, bombed some of the, uh, uh, the areas, right? He had the w- we're watching you kind of thing happening, which I think was strong. I agree with you. When the original bombing of those, um, even if they didn't take them out, they didn't completely and totally obli- I don't know why he had to say that. He could've just said, "We, we set them back again, and we're gonna keep doing that if they keep developing nuclear weapons." Um, but that was good, and then he couldn't resist because of the Epst- As you said, the person on his shoulder is Jeffrey Epstein, and so he wanted to do something after Venezuela. He felt emboldened, um, and did this. Like, this is, this is... To me, I don't think, uh, I don't think... You're right. He is hanging, uh, J.D. Vance out to dry, but this is hanging on him. This doesn't come off.

Scott Galloway 7:28 Oh, I agree.

Kara Swisher 7:28 It doesn't.

Scott Galloway 7:28 He won't be able to escape this, but let's-

Kara Swisher 7:29 He won't-- He doesn't escape it. He can't blame it on anybody. He's-

Scott Galloway 7:33 I agree

Kara Swisher 7:33 ... he looked-

Scott Galloway 7:33 He's in charge

Kara Swisher 7:34 ... let me just tell you, he looked real old in, at the G7. Like, they kept moving him around, and he was sort of wandering more than us- He usually wanders, but he was wandering. He looked sickly. He looked cankly. His hands looked like suddenly there's all these cuts on his hands. Um, you know, Macron was wander- m- moving him around like he was an elderly parent at a, at a old folks' home, which I thought Macron did on purpose 'cause he looked fantastic, right? He was fit and lively and stuff like that, but Macron was looking like he was his friend, but made him look elderly sitting next to him, and I think he was. And then the Versailles thing. Oh my God, did nobody on his team understand the symbolism and the marketing of that thing? And I know only... I mean, it's just, he's so dumb. Like, that's the whole thing. Like, he just continues to look bad. I think this will all hang on him. You're seeing the po- the polling is all down, and, you know, they think Georgia's gonna be, gonna be all Democrat, which is unheard of, that Texas is now absolutely in play. He's gonna have the worst two years of his life after November, just the worst. I think it's gonna go on and on and on. This is one thing. The algae is another. The Kennedy Center. It's all, like, this old man. Like, I, I, I think we have to seriously talk about whether he had a stroke or not, and we, you know, we did this with Biden, and I think it's fully appropriate to discuss it at this point

Scott Galloway 8:57 We don't agree on the non-important stuff. I think, I think Trump looks remarkably robust for a guy of his age. I don't, I don't see any degradation, or I should say any change in his cognitive ability, and his cognitive ability at 76 was exceptionally poor judgment from a narcissist who doesn't care about anything but himself and coming across as strong, and that he is arguably am- or verifiably a terrible businessperson. I, I think he's the same person he was four or eight years ago, and that is someone with absolutely terrible judgment that, that diminishes our power soft and hard abroad. Let's talk specifically about the JCPOA. It required Iran... This is the deal that, that the Obama administration and Iran signed. It required Iran to reduce its enriched uranium stockpile by 98%, dismantle two-thirds of its centrifuges, cap enrichment at 3.7%, and accept IAEA monitoring. The 2026 MOU contains no nuclear constraints at all, just a pledge never to build a weapon. A pledge from the IRGC, oh, that's worth a lot, which Iran already made when it signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970. The key here, quite frankly, is verification and inspection, and let's compare the two. The JCPOA had IAEA inspectors, continuous monitoring, and 24-day access provisions. The MOU defers all of this to a 60-day negotiating window with no guarantees. Th- think of this in consumer terms.

Kara Swisher 10:39 No leverage. We have no leverage

Scott Galloway 10:40 We are paying more for less.

Kara Swisher 10:43 Right

Scott Galloway 10:43 The MOU comes with a $25 billion price tag, released assets, plus a $300 billion reconstruction framework exceeding the JCPOA's cost while delivering fewer nuclear concessions. This, in two words, is a fucking disaster for the American brand, and it... I, I, I gotta be honest, I'm gonna enjoy watching all these acolytes and, and-

Kara Swisher 11:07 Well, they're not

Scott Galloway 11:08 ... and, and weirdos try to [chuckles] try to explain this one away.

Kara Swisher 11:11 Well, they are. S- Only a few are, but many more are being quite explai- Like, you didn't have to hear a Democrat yesterday 'cause all the Republicans were saying it, right? They were like... They s- I was like... I was listening to the television. I was packing for this trip to France, and I'm like, "Oh, another Democrat," and I looked, and it was a Republican senator. It was, like, so vehement, right? It was so... Except for one who was trying to defend it, but it was very hard. Like, you could see them... Fox News has been very tough for Trump, and of course, Wall Street Journal is, like, strafing him, um, which is a Murdoch property. So I, I don't know. I feel like all of the... And I, I, I'm gonna disagree with you on his health. I think something happened, and he, he, he c- he still looks-

Scott Galloway 11:52 It very well could. Yeah

Kara Swisher 11:53 ... looks robust. But his physical demeanor and the way he wandered around-

Scott Galloway 11:58 All the specialists he's seeing. Yep

Kara Swisher 11:59 ... yeah, all the specialists, and I felt like Macron knows exactly what's happening because he, 'cause he kept, he kept m- It, you... It's how you move an elderly person if you... Like, as my mom got, got less mobile She was in that zone that Trump is in, and she was mobile and very robust. As you know, my mother never shuts up. Um, but it was like... And then it started to crumble, essentially. But we'll, we'll see. Anyway, it's a bad deal.

Scott Galloway 12:25 But I just wanna, I just wanna-

Kara Swisher 12:26 Go ahead

Scott Galloway 12:26 ... briefly, and you put out a great chart on this.

Kara Swisher 12:28 Right. Right

Scott Galloway 12:28 But at the end of the JCPOA, when he tore, when he tore up the agreement, Iran had enriched uranium to 3.7%. It is now 60%, just a short step away from weapons-grade material. Uh, US military leverage, given away. This memo of understanding, uh, commits the US to not increasing its regional forces with Washington or the US withdrawing forces within 30 days of a final agreement. And we typically-

Kara Swisher 12:55 Yeah

Scott Galloway 12:55 ... that's not negotiable for us. One of our key advantages is we have these things called aircraft carriers that we can put anywhere in the world to deliver-

Kara Swisher 13:00 Yeah

Scott Galloway 13:00 ... violence on an unprecedented level-

Kara Swisher 13:02 Yeah

Scott Galloway 13:02 ... which is an enormous advantage that we're giving up. The other thing that people aren't talking about, or the press isn't talking about, is that the JCPOA was multilateral. It was signed by the US, the EU, the UK, France, Germany, China, and Russia, whereas this is bilateral. So if they walk away from this, it doesn't impair their ability to sell oil, do business with all these nations, whereas the JCPOA was the-

Kara Swisher 13:26 Did. Yeah

Scott Galloway 13:26 ... entire Western world-

Kara Swisher 13:27 Yeah. Awesome system

Scott Galloway 13:28 ... and China and Russia saying, "You have to stick to this agreement."

Kara Swisher 13:32 This guy, he can't clean fountains and he can't do wars. You know, and then he... The thing he said at, at the, that press conference, go watch that press conference, Scott. You will have another thought about his mental health.

Scott Galloway 13:41 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 13:42 Um, and, uh, he goes, "Well, we'll just bomb 'em." And I'm like, "What? Like, that's your plan? Like, we'll just bomb 'em if they don't keep up?" That... It's just, it, it's, it's just, it's so embarrassing. And, uh, you know, the Republicans know it, and I think he's gonna, he's, he's in for a world of hurt. And Epstein's roaring its way back, of course. The New York Times did a great piece. Um, very briefly, I wanna say the Ukrainian bombings in Moscow, whoa.

Scott Galloway 14:06 Absolutely wild.

Kara Swisher 14:07 That has shifted rather significantly. Putin's the other one that's gotta be on the ropes, I would imagine. As I said, I thought I'd heard from people that he was.

Scott Galloway 14:16 Well, well, well, I mean, just a couple thoughts. One, that is the most exciting, positive thing happening in the world right now.

Kara Swisher 14:21 I agree

Scott Galloway 14:22 ... is that the West has a huge victory. Europe deserves incredible credit for being steadfast, which is in their interests economically. And also, the learning from both Iran and the war in Ukraine is the following: Our military budget should be cut in half, and it should be focused on one word, asymmetric warfare.

Kara Swisher 14:41 Asymmetric warfare, yeah.

Scott Galloway 14:42 These expensive platforms that risk too much, where we can't... There's no way we're sending 50 B-2s into a hostile area. We-

Kara Swisher 14:50 Yeah

Scott Galloway 14:50 ... because America doesn't have the stomach or the money to lose-

Kara Swisher 14:53 For the death. Mm-hmm

Scott Galloway 14:54 ... on HIMARS or lose its soldiers. Whereas if you build basically what are go-karts or motorcycles with bombs on them, and you send 50 out and 48 get shot do- down, but two make it through, this has totally changed the game of warfare. And how do we turn chicken salad into chicken salad fricassee or something even better, is this is the opportunity, and America needs this. This is how fucking stupid the administration is. Oh, wait, warfare's changing. Let's increase expensive platforms and the monetization of our military and defense by increasing our military budget by $400 billion. We should be thinking about opportunities to take our military budget down to $500 billion and making it more lethal and more deadly with asymmetric warfare. That is the learning here, and they aren't taking the learning.

Kara Swisher 15:40 Yeah, they aren't. No, they aren't. Anyway, I think it's a disastrous week for Trump. As you... Uh, and I, every... A truly disastrous one. Anyway, Scott, the Reflecting

Kara Swisher 15:49 Pool. I wanted to ignore this, but it's crazy. The paint's coming off today. This $14 million renovation, they put this American flag blue on it, and they pa- Trump insisted on it. When there's other problems with that thing, it's for years and years. You know, like all fountains, all pools have problems. Um, and this is a big freaking pool. Um, but it, it's usually just the, the stone color, and he had painted it this color, and, and it's turned algae green. There's algae everywhere. Now the paint is coming off. There were pictures this morning. The Interior Department says it was a residual algae from the supply lines that were sitting there while the pool was being renovated. Most people say this is nonsense. Uh, any pool-- All these pool people are weighing in, which I'm enjoying very much. Um, they're deploying, quote, "high-tech nano bubble ozone technology" to combat this. Except workers were seen pouring bottles of hydrogen peroxide into the pool earlier this week [chuckles] like by hand. Um, some experts say the pool's new color has worsened the preexisting issues. Darker blue absorbs sunlight, increasing water temperature, making the pool ripe for algae. Um, apparently, there's phosphates in it. It's like... I, I, I... It's ridiculous, and what a fucking mess-up because they picked the wrong people to do this. They shouldn't have painted it. It's very much Trump, sort of like lack of transparency, overly expensive, and badly done. But I wanna talk about bad messaging because this is the Reflecting Pool, which is the head of the 250 celebration. That's a center of... Along with the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial. You know, th- those are symbolically beautiful and actually much visited during the 4th of July, and it's gonna look like shit. Talk about it from a brand... Is there a branding perspective? 'Cause it's getting a lot of traction, and usually I think these things are silly, but this one I'm like, "Yeah, this really... He fucked this up like royally in a way that seems ridiculous." Anyway, your thoughts.

Scott Galloway 17:37 Yeah, look, the, the analogy here, the symbolism is pretty strong. I would argue that the Reflecting Pool is actually what, doing its job and reflecting what's going on 500 feet away. I... By the way, I stared into a reflecting pool for too long, and it made me think.

Kara Swisher 17:50 [laughing]

Scott Galloway 17:51 Um, I know. Uh, I, I feel like it's been staring, the Reflecting Pool has been staring at Congress for several hundred years, and it's just finally given up.

Kara Swisher 18:01 Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 18:01 And it went full moss.

Kara Swisher 18:02 Right. Right.

Scott Galloway 18:03 Um, I, yeah, I don't know. Uh, what do you... Uh.

Kara Swisher 18:07 It's a... I think symbolically, it's for a lot of people.

Scott Galloway 18:10 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 18:10 Most kids have gone to the Reflecting, like Americans, when they go on trips to Washington, if you get to go to, on a trip to Washington, as many people do. It's just like everything about it is like Can you do anything that doesn't suck? Like, it's, it's sort of l- uh, e-even though it's just the pool, it's the easiest thing to fix in all the many things that are hard in this country. And to fuck it up this royally is really quite something, I think. You know, it's, it does... It's a messaging of sort of this old man who is addled, who overspends our money. It's all tax money, and we're gonna have to pay for whether it's cleaning up the East Wing, whether these physical things. And you had talked about this, the, the destruction of the East Wing or what he did at the Kennedy Center with the name coming down. It's just... It's all, like, destruction we're gonna have to clean up after this, uh, you know, this elderly toddler, essentially.

Scott Galloway 19:01 Yeah. I was asked-- I was on a podcast yesterday, and they asked me what I thought about the Reflecting Pool in D.C. turning green, and I said, "No notes." I mean, it's, uh, uh, the, the metaphor, the analogy, whatever, uh, it's just, it's just perfect.

Kara Swisher 19:17 Anyway, algae, bad messaging, because, uh, just, it just sort of piles on. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll discuss SpaceX's busy first week as a public company.

Scott Galloway 19:27 [gentle music] Support for the show comes from Framer. If your team wants a website that looks and feels handcrafted but is still fast to ship, Framer is built for that. You design on a visual canvas with responsive layouts, hosting, and a CMS built in, so the work is production ready from day one. Agents work alongside you to draft pages and polish sections. Then you review and publish what goes live. Framer is the pro site builder for creators, teams, and businesses that want a professional site and care enough to get every detail right. Agents solve the gap between AI-generated ideas and production-ready website work. The agent works in the same place where the real site is designed, managed, reviewed, and published. It lands on the canvas, stays editable, and can be published when the team is ready. Agents and Framer work alongside teams to streamline collaboration on the same canvas, build custom code components, create and manage CMS content, optimize SEO settings, and ship everything all in one place. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist, or get started building for free today at framer.com/pivot for thirty percent off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com/pivot for thirty percent off. framer.com/pivot. Rules and restrictions may apply.

Kara Swisher 20:35 [gentle music] Support for this show comes from Teleport. In the AI era, one of the biggest questions is how to contain agent behavior in your production infrastructure. In Teleport's survey of more than two hundred infrastructure leaders, the company found that those confident in their AI deployments have more than twice the incident rate of those that aren't, seventy-two percent versus thirty-three percent. Let's talk security basics. The most frequent causes of data breaches are human error and compromised credentials. But in the AI era, the challenge is that agents with broad privileges can find these credentials and gain access to sensitive data. Teleport establishes a unified identity layer for humans, machines, and agents that is cryptographically backed, which enables agents to be controlled and contained with the same rigor that you apply to other actors in your infrastructure. Security is complicated, but with Teleport, it doesn't have to be. Download the free report at goteleport.com/pivot. Scott, we're back. Let's go through

Kara Swisher 21:35 a rundown of the latest SpaceX news. As we tape, shares are down six point five percent to a hundred and seventy-nine dollars, valuing the company at two point three five trillion, which is what it was when we last talked. Shares surged around fifty percent in the first days of trading, making SpaceX the fifth largest company by market cap, surpassing Amazon. Tuesday was the first day that investors could buy SpaceX options contracts and about one point eight million contracts changed hands. And amidst all this, SpaceX announced it will acquire AI coding startup Cursor for sixty billion dollars in an all-stock transaction. I thought this was rather smart. Cursor's annual sales recently hit four billion, making it a reliable source of revenue. It also gets them up to speed in enterprise. It moves... It takes the shitty product of Grok and makes it... You know, this is a smart mo- This is a very typical Elon move, is to buy, uh, something to get ahead, and I thought that was smart. Um, in another win for Musk, the DOJ told a Mississippi federal court that it should throw out a lawsuit against X AI, saying it is, uh, it has the right to run dozens of gas, uh, burning turbines despite not having permits for them. I'm not sure this is a victory for Musk. I think this is gonna come back to bite him. Before we get to our own thoughts, let's hear from our friend and founding partner of Puck, Bill Cohen.

Speaker 22:45 Hey, uh, Karen, Scott. So SpaceX, I mean, I think that, you know, Scott has been nailing this for, you know, weeks now, which is that it's one great business, Starlink, which is a fabulous business and kind of revolutionizing the world in many ways, and one glamorous business, the rocket business, uh, and one lousy business, uh, uh, X and X AI that they crammed in there, uh, and one a-astounding, uh, valuation, uh, with, you know, infinite multiples because only Starlink is, uh, really profitable. Uh, and, uh, it's just, uh, the latest example, frankly, of the Wall Street hype machine that, you know, is so, so good at, uh, hyping up, uh, stocks that, um, and companies that need to raise huge amounts of capital. I mean, you gotta give Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley credit for, uh, you know, raising eighty-five billion dollars of equity and, uh, getting this thing launched at a huge, uh, valuation, two point five trillion now, uh, exceeding Amazon. Uh, and it's been trading up, uh, although for the last couple of days it's, uh, been trading down, so maybe we've, uh, at, at, at a minor peak and maybe, as usual, uh, it'll be the retail investors that get left holding the bag here.

Kara Swisher 24:11 And of course, uh, s- a bunch of lockups come off over the next couple of months. Scott, how do you feel now? And, uh, talk about the acquisition of Cursor. Uh, I think it's smart. I do. I think the, the thing in the data centers is a mistake on the government's part to do that 'cause I think people are truly mad, but your thoughts?

Scott Galloway 24:27 Look, the IPO is nothing short of remarkable, and the fact that it, it's gone up so much, I mean, it's off a touch today, but I think it's up, what is it up thirty or forty percent since it initially priced? Kinda the game now is for the first, whatever, hundred years of the market, CEOs were compensated to underpromise and overdeliver. And the last 30 or 40 years, or 20 years at least, it's been overpromise, get your stock up based on these incredible projections of the future, and then use that cheap capital to pull the fut- future forward by investing at a rate no one else can match.

Kara Swisher 25:03 Right, using-

Scott Galloway 25:03 Amazon or Netflix

Kara Swisher 25:04 ... u- using this inflated stock

Scott Galloway 25:06 Or go acquire companies. So for examp- with Cursor, and it, Cursor's a really good company, and they're buying it, um, they're buying it at a multiple of, what is it? Uh, I think they're buying it at a multiple of 15 times revenues. Uh, so when SpaceX is trading at 130 times revenues, it's accretive. So a, a $60 billion acquisition, which is a lot of money, but that gives them a really strong company that, a really strong AI coding tool that has 26% share for a three and a half percent dilution of that crazy t- two and a half trillion dollar market cap. So-

Kara Swisher 25:48 Right. And, and it makes the Groq story go away, the Groq failure story go away

Scott Galloway 25:52 ... I mean, it, when you are sitting on a company, a stock that's at 130 times revenues, you tell every investment bank, and you tell your corporate debt people, anything that makes sense, buy it.

Kara Swisher 26:05 What would you... Give me a name. What should he buy?

Scott Galloway 26:07 Oh, shit, Kara. I don't know enou- enough about the AI space.

Kara Swisher 26:09 He's gonna shove Tesla in there, as I said he would, 'cause it's his-

Scott Galloway 26:12 Well, yeah, but that's not an acquisition. That's him stuffing another-

Kara Swisher 26:14 No, but I'm saying, what would you... Is there, there's a bunch of-

Scott Galloway 26:16 That's adopting one of the dwarfs so you can continue to sleep with Snow White. I think we're gonna see a lot. I think the M&A space, I think, I think if you're any investment bank and says, "I have this cool AI tool that would help shore up this component of, of X AI," uh, they get the r- calls returned right now. Because the way to think of it is, if you're looking for a house in San Francisco, and it costs $2 million, and you're worth... And it, it's a lot of money, and you're worth 3 million, it's worth... You, you really think about it. If overnight you're worth 30 million, you're like, "Honey, buy it."

Kara Swisher 26:51 Right. Exactly.

Scott Galloway 26:52 So everything in the world looks cheap to them right now.

Kara Swisher 26:56 Right. It does.

Scott Galloway 26:57 Because almost anything is technically accretive and adds to earnings because nothing out there is trading at 120 times revenues.

Kara Swisher 27:04 Yeah, like perp- they could get Perplexity. They could get a bunch of them.

Scott Galloway 27:06 Perplexity, I... Yeah, that'd be an interesting one. Or it-

Kara Swisher 27:09 Yeah, 'cause they, they will paper over their problems with Groq, which are rather significant, which you make-

Scott Galloway 27:14 Well, uh, regulators, regulators won't get it through, but if they could, they should buy it. They could acquire Mistral.

Kara Swisher 27:19 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 27:19 I mean, they could-

Kara Swisher 27:21 Oh, yeah. That's a good idea. Yeah

Scott Galloway 27:22 ... uh, they, that, that would not get past regulators. But what could they not buy right now? I mean, there's rocket sci- does, does Rocket Lab or whatever the fuck that company is, does that have any technology they could use? They are looking at everything right now.

Kara Swisher 27:36 Yeah, they've got to. Yeah, there's some really interesting stuff. The thing is, he doesn't wanna create sort of like a, a basket of nothing fits. It's gotta be strategic, like in terms of what... Like, so Cursor gets him enterprise business, it gets them, you know, highly talented people, it gets them a product people like-

Scott Galloway 27:54 Super smart

Kara Swisher 27:54 ... that are, people are using. You know, that's what they gotta look at. They can't just buy anything, um, because I think it... His big mistake with Groq was that he, like, overstuffed it with geniuses, and then it was sort of like a hot mess, essentially. Um, and this is more his way, the way he bought Tesla from the, the creators, you know, of it. He didn't make Tesla. He bought it from their inventors. And he does that with a lot of stuff, and I think that's what he does best. He's a little Henry Ford-like in a lot of ways, if you think about it, versus an Edison, right? Everyone looks at him like as if he's, he's an inventor, but he's not. He's a, he's a, he's a collector, right? A really good collector of things.

Scott Galloway 28:33 He hasn't been an acquirer typically, though.

Kara Swisher 28:35 No, no, he-

Scott Galloway 28:35 He, he, he tries to go vertical

Kara Swisher 28:36 ... He does, but he buys c- things that are... He sees things that are promising and buys them. He doesn't found them in a lot of ways.

Scott Galloway 28:43 Right.

Kara Swisher 28:44 You know, so I think this is more his... Cursor, I thought, okay, s- maybe he's laid off the ketamine or something, 'cause that's a good idea, right? That kind of thing. Um, and it's not, it's, it's just the right thing. It's sort of like if you put them in charge of their AI, the way he put Gwynne Shotwell in charge of SpaceX, you really could do well. And he keeps, he just wanders. Someone described him, he comes in, he kicks some cans, and he leaves, and that's what they prefer, essentially. Um, and so I think that's probably good to put it in the hands of better people than him at this particular thing. Um, and that's a smart move. It is. You're right. He could buy anything.

Scott Galloway 29:20 The bankers taking, um, Anthropic and OpenAI out are looking at SpaceX and thinking, "Okay, that manufactured scarcity thing was really smart. How do we do it?" I bet they're actually reducing the size of their offerings. 'Cause they go, uh, this, this, a ton of people rushing through a small door-

Kara Swisher 29:39 Wow. Yeah

Scott Galloway 29:40 ... of, of smaller float and increasing demand.

Kara Swisher 29:43 Right.

Scott Galloway 29:43 Wow, did that work out well for those guys.

Kara Swisher 29:45 And then those lockups come out right when they were gonna go public. The SpaceX lockups come out in the fall, in September, I think, a lot of them. It goes to, I know, s- se- 40%? Something. There's a big, there's a big float.

Scott Galloway 29:58 There's all sorts of things. If it trades above a certain amount for a certain number of days, there's soft lockups if you're on cer- if you bought the stock on-

Kara Swisher 30:05 But the big ones come in the fall, and which is right when these people are gonna go public, right? Presumably. Which it means a possible decline. [chuckles] Like, that's the thing. That's when you would see the decline. I-

Scott Galloway 30:14 Yeah, but there's, there's gotta be... Everyone has just thrown their numbers in the trash bin and said, "I would love to be Anthropic going public to say, 'Oh my gosh, if you like this company at 120 times revenues, we're growing, we're not growing 24% a year. We're growing 400% a year, and you can buy us for the low, low price of 40 times revenues.'"

Kara Swisher 30:34 Right. You're excellent.

Scott Galloway 30:34 I would love to be an IR for-

Kara Swisher 30:38 Yeah

Scott Galloway 30:38 ... um, Anthropic. The weird thing, um, and I'm in, I talk to a lot of companies about their AI efforts. What's gonna be weird for OpenAI is what you're seeing a lot of in corporations right now Is they are, they're blaming the model. A lot of corporations right now are swapping out, uh, ChatGPT and OpenAI for Anthropic, and quite frankly, some of it is not OpenAI's fault. What it is, is all these companies who are not seeing the return that was initially promised-

Kara Swisher 31:11 They're blaming it on the initial-

Scott Galloway 31:12 ... are blaming the model. [chuckles]

Kara Swisher 31:13 Yeah. They're blaming the initial-

Scott Galloway 31:14 And swapping out OpenAI for the hotter brand right now, which is Anthropic.

Kara Swisher 31:19 Yeah, yeah.

Scott Galloway 31:19 So it's gonna be very interesting to see-

Kara Swisher 31:21 The numbers that got leaked of OpenAI, whoa, whoa, they lose money. [chuckles] Wow.

Scott Galloway 31:25 Yeah. They're burning a, they're burning a lot of capital. It's gonna be very, very interesting to compare, um, OpenAI and Anthropic's revenues. Now, uh, OpenAI's, to be fair, OpenAI's losses were somewhat exaggerated by the conversion from nonprofit to for-profit-

Kara Swisher 31:41 Right. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Scott Galloway 31:42 ... and compensation costs.

Kara Swisher 31:43 Good for you to say that.

Scott Galloway 31:43 But once somebody smart like Bill Cohen actually looks into it and goes apples to apples, what'll be most interesting is to see how much momentum Anthropic has gained and how much momentum OpenAI has lost.

Kara Swisher 31:54 Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 31:55 Um-

Kara Swisher 31:56 Yeah

Scott Galloway 31:56 ... because that kind of sets the tone for everything.

Kara Swisher 31:58 Yeah. It'll be-

Scott Galloway 31:58 But I'll tell you, their valuations went up. Their first day valuations are up 40 or 50% 'cause of SpaceX, and even smaller guys. There's this really cool company out of Italy called Bending Spoons. It's a private equity company that's about to come public, and they did a roll-up of like Vimeo and-

Kara Swisher 32:17 Oh

Scott Galloway 32:18 ... AOL and, um, uh, uh-

Kara Swisher 32:22 Like Bending Spoons, like that Ari person-

Scott Galloway 32:24 Eventbrite

Kara Swisher 32:24 ... galler?

Scott Galloway 32:24 Basically, they found a bunch of orphans, WeTransfer, Evernote, Eventbrite, Meetup, all these c- all these kind of companies that, that were sort of left for dead or-

Kara Swisher 32:36 Oh, that's like covered for years, yeah

Scott Galloway 32:37 ... and they've, they've streamlined the back end, which is what private equity does, and they're taking them publ- I love this company.

Kara Swisher 32:44 Oh, Bending Spoons. I'm-

Scott Galloway 32:44 I think it's a really smart idea. They probably got-

Kara Swisher 32:46 Oh my God, I have to look at that

Scott Galloway 32:47 ... they probably got them at really good prices.

Kara Swisher 32:50 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 32:50 And, and these are companies that needed scale.

Kara Swisher 32:53 Like how they cleaned up Yahoo. Like how they cleaned up Yahoo, right? How it, yeah.

Scott Galloway 32:55 E- exactly. And-

Kara Swisher 32:56 Yeah

Scott Galloway 32:56 ... but every, every banker and every company going public right now because of SpaceX, I mean, there's an argument that they get hurt 'cause there's not enough capital out there, but I'd go the other way. I would say everything looks cheap now in the context of SpaceX. [chuckles]

Kara Swisher 33:11 I think Bill is right. The retail investors will be left holding the bag when, when it comes to pass that, you know, a few earnings in. Um, all right. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Snap's new smart glasses. This is a treat for Scott, I know. [upbeat music]

Scott Galloway 33:27 This is advertiser content from Harvey AI. We have a choice over who we work with and who we don't, specifically who we allow to advertise and who we don't. And for those of you who watch my content, I am not an AI catastrophist, I'm an AI optimist. I think it's gonna create more jobs than it destroys, and I think our job as professionals is to figure out how to leverage these, these tools. AI, uh, more than almost anything I do in terms of what I could point to for real economic leverage and savings, is 100% in the legal field. Harvey is the AI designed specifically for legal work, trusted by leading law firms and enterprise legal teams. All right, so now I'm looking at their demo. It plugs into tools that lawyers already work with, LexisNexis, Microsoft. And this is a key, and I do this internally with my LLMs. With permissions, it lets you look at the firm's own files and databases. So here it's answering a question, reads the complaint, pulls the relevant terms, checks the web, weighs the evidence, and drafts a response, but it also can do this in a shared workspace between the firm and the client, so they both have visibility into the work being done and can both add value to it. I, I think this space is clearly sort of hand in glove for AI, right? So there's no doubt about it. This, I think, is, uh, is gonna be super helpful, not only for law firms themselves, but internally for general counsels at companies. Harvey is AI tailored for law. You can learn more at harvey.ai. [upbeat music]

Kara Swisher 35:03 Support for this show comes from Nivon. Business trips are great. The baggage that comes with them is not. The shuffle of paper receipts, the dreaded post-trip paperwork. Nivon deletes all the grunt work so employees can actually focus on the business part of business trips. More than 12,500 companies, including Box, Anthropic, and Crate & Barrel, refuse to work the old way. They choose Nivon to make the manual expense report extinct. So if you wanna save 15% on your T&E budget, yes, 15%, check out nivon.com. Scott, we're back, and there's a new wearable that I

Kara Swisher 35:40 know you'll be rushing out to buy. Uh, Snap just announced its augmented reality smart glasses called Specs. Uh, Evan Spiegel called it a way to bring computing into the world and make it more human, though the style-wise, Wired notes the glasses are chonky. I would think that's a, that's a perfect word, actually. And at a price point of $2,195, they're well above the cost of most Meta Ray-Bans, which are a couple hundred. Um, and then though it's still about a thousand cheaper than Apple's Vision Pro, which people think they're gonna get rid of and replace with their glass version that'll compete with the Ray-Bans, investors don't seem to be impressed. Snap shares fell nearly 10% on Tuesday after the glasses were unveiled. I mean, n- n- I, I like, I very much like Evan Spiegel, but that was bad, him putting them on. I can't say anything else. It just... He's a handsome man, and it immediately rendered him unhandsome, and they looked kind of ridiculous, and pretending otherwise, um, seems silly. It... They're... And by the way, Meta's version of these glasses, which have more utility, and they have to be this big and chonky, um, uh, the Ray-Bans don't, almost have no utility. There's just a few things. But the ones that have more utility w- like mapping and, uh, all kinds of things, like, as if you're, you have a, a cell phone in your hand are very heavy, no matter how you slice it. So your thoughts on the chonky glasses?

Scott Galloway 36:58 I've ne- this is the first time in my life I've ever seen an image of Evan Spiegel and thought, "I'm cooler than Evan Spiegel." $2,200 for four hours of battery life, bulky frames, from a company that has never turned a profit. Let's go. I mean, [laughs] it is a terrible thing to say. I've never been a fan of Snap. I've always thought it was subscale. I think Evan is an innovator. I'm glad he's a billionaire. He seems like a lovely guy. He is a lovely guy. I've met him. Lovely guy. Uh, this is the beginning and the end of Snap as an independent company. This thing is dead on arrival. It makes a mixed, mixed reality headset from T- Tim Cook look like a viable product.

Kara Swisher 37:33 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 37:33 This is... Uh, I mean, I don't know if you've heard, I'm not a big fan of these-

Kara Swisher 37:37 No

Scott Galloway 37:37 ... wearables and headsets.

Kara Swisher 37:38 I am looking forward to seeing what Apple comes in with a li- a lighter version. I am looking forward.

Scott Galloway 37:42 I-

Kara Swisher 37:42 But they are very chonky. Have, have you tried these on? I have. I've tried the Specs and, and the Meta ones.

Scott Galloway 37:47 Oh, no, I'm not, I'm not part of the in crowd, the cool crowd. Uh, this is where it's all headed.

Kara Swisher 37:52 They're very heavy.

Scott Galloway 37:52 It's all headed to AirPods with AI and cameras built into them.

Kara Swisher 37:55 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 37:56 And maybe there'll be some cool li- things, sunglasses, but here's the problem. Snap doesn't have the capital because, because what Meta can do is Meta can bu- burn $60 billion on a failed product and it's like a speed bump. Uh, this product is overpriced, under-engineered, because Snap at whatever it is, six or eight billion market cap, doesn't have the capital to compete in the hardware space.

Kara Swisher 38:25 A- and you can't make those smaller. I mean, from what I understand, they got a lot packed in there. You know, even, even the Ray-Bans are a little heavy, that I don't wear them 'cause I find them, like they're heavier than my glasses. And so... And they have limited features, like limited, limited features. And so it's like take a picture, record something. I, I think one of the things... You know, recognition is important. I think, you know, like if you were blind or other things, like who is that? Very helpful. That kind of stuff with limited features is great, but if you want anything really substantive, like... And I, and actually when you put them on and look through them, it's cool 'cause the room becomes... Like I saw one thing with the Specs, this was many years ago actually, um, they brought it to my house and I tried them on, and they were so heavy. They were ridiculous. But when you look through them, there was the planets in front of you, and you could walk through the planets, and it was beautiful. Like I have to say, that was cool, and I was like, how can we get to this kind of thing? So I, I, I... For the first time, I understood the planets. I know it sounds dumb because they were swirling around me, and I was like, how do you create this in a way that is light? And I don't think you can. I think you kind of have to have some sort of holographic room or something that you live in, or your room has cameras. Um, but this idea that you can have it all from the glasses means you have to wear these chonky glasses. And, uh, but when you're in it, it is quite lovely. It's just the, the... I don't know how they're gonna make these light and easy to wear, you know. They're, they're in the movies. They're always in... Iron Man always has a pair that looks pretty cool, but.

Scott Galloway 40:02 There's military applications, there's commercial applications, but from a consumer standpoint, these glasses and these 3D... It's always been like, it's always been like going to the planetarium at Griffith Park, which I used to do with my college buddies. We'd get ridiculously fucking high, go to the planetarium, and think, "This is amazing. We gotta do this again in another 24 months."

Kara Swisher 40:18 Yeah. [laughs]

Scott Galloway 40:18 I mean, this-

Kara Swisher 40:19 That's a really good-

Scott Galloway 40:20 It's just not...

Kara Swisher 40:21 Yeah. Yeah, you're right.

Scott Galloway 40:22 The commercial application is the most ubiquitous screen in the phone, I mean in the world, your iPhone, that you can hold up to something and use AR, not VR. And then where the, the only wearable in my opinion that's gonna, gonna really take off is the one that's already taken off, and that is AirPods. And the n- I mean, keep in mind, Specs, Snap launched Specs, and they are an innovator, in 2016 for 130 bucks, and nobody bought them, so naturally the solution was to make them 15 times more expensive and way uglier.

Kara Swisher 40:54 And heavier. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 40:54 So-

Kara Swisher 40:55 Specs sort of look like the Ray-Bans, I'll tell you that. They definitely do. They did.

Scott Galloway 40:58 This is dead on, this is dead on arrival.

Kara Swisher 41:00 The ear- the early Specs. Yeah, the early Specs.

Scott Galloway 41:01 This is dead on arrival. Snap is an innovative subscale company that should be searching for an acquirer right now.

Kara Swisher 41:07 Yeah. Who would buy them? Elon. [laughs]

Scott Galloway 41:09 I don't know. I don't, I don't know if, I don't know if Meta-

Kara Swisher 41:11 He'd like to trade them

Scott Galloway 41:12 ... is allowed to. I don't, I don't know. It's probably someone will-

Kara Swisher 41:14 Yeah, since he's the chief product officer at Meta for so many years.

Scott Galloway 41:17 And even, ev- even despite the fact the stock is now 90% or whatever it is in the last five years, it's still not... $6 billion is not chump change.

Kara Swisher 41:24 Yeah. Remember he was offered a ton of money to be bought by Zuckerberg? I think it was in the mil- It was in this area. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 41:30 Well, it's interesting.

Kara Swisher 41:31 He turned it down. He turned it down.

Scott Galloway 41:31 I, I think he was offered a three billion and now it's worth six or eight.

Kara Swisher 41:33 True though.

Scott Galloway 41:33 But if it had been three billion in Facebook stock, that would be worth 30 or 50 billion now.

Kara Swisher 41:37 Yeah. No, I know. Anyway, uh, good try, Evan, but really you don't look good in those glasses. I'm sorry. You don't. I like you, but we have to tell the truth. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. [gentle music] Support for this show comes from Quince. It's really hard to get everything that you want when it comes to breathable quality clothes that elevate your fit. Quince comes pretty close to perfection. Quince European linen pants and shirts are a perfect warm weather upgrade to add to your rotation, starting at just $34. Their tees are soft and easy to wear, and their lightweight cotton sweaters are perfect for cooler summer nights. Everything is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands, plus Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, so you're getting premium materials without a markup. I've gotten Quince. I actually buy it myself now. They gave me a chance to get some free stuff, but I actually have been buying it myself, including especially all the athleisure stuff. But I've also recently bought some of the T-shirts that are terrific, and they seem that they'll last a little longer than some of the other stuff I get at fast fashion companies. I wear, I have a cardigan. I love, I like everything they have, and I really enjoy their colors and their ease of use, and they're very comfortable and they fit me great. They also have a lot of great seasonal colors and prints for spring that'll make getting dressed a breeze. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com/pivot for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E .com/pivot for free shipping and 365-day returns, quince.com/pivot. Support for the show comes from Mint Mobile. We've all come across things that sound too good to be true, like high salary, low experience job postings, or cheap coffee where the price makes sense after the first sip, or certain gluten alternatives that don't hit the same as the real stuff. Phone plans fall under this too. You see a great deal and immediately wonder, "What's the catch?" But sometimes the catch is that there is no catch, like Mint Mobile offering premium wireless for just $15 a month. It's just a good deal, plain and simple. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com/pivot. That's mintmobile.com/pivot. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/pivot. That's it. There's no catch. $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 a month, new customers on the first three-month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

Kara Swisher 44:03 Um, I have to say... Can I make one quick prediction?

Scott Galloway 44:05 Sure.

Kara Swisher 44:05 I was really struck by how... And I was just on The View, and I like those ladies of The View, but I thought they did a fantastic job with that interview with, um, um-

Scott Galloway 44:15 Vice President Vance

Kara Swisher 44:16 ... J.D. Vance.

Scott Galloway 44:16 I agree.

Kara Swisher 44:16 I thought they did a great job.

Scott Galloway 44:18 Yeah, agree.

Kara Swisher 44:18 And I have to say, I... Because I'd be thinking like someone was like, "TV's over." I'm like, "Is all TV over?"

Scott Galloway 44:23 Yeah, it's important. Yeah

Kara Swisher 44:23 ... or can you innovate TV? And when you see things like that, you're like, they created a viral moment that was also substantive. There are ways to innovate in the broadcast space, I think. And, uh, uh, oh, not secularly, because secularly it's going down. But I... When I saw that, I'm like, there would be a way to do this that was... Like, they did a great... They showed you could make products that are really people like, and I think it was viewed by a lot of people. It did like a huge, uh, social thing, and I was just like, "Good." Like, what would you do to innovate television, was really... It made me start thinking. And I have to say I pay compliments to them because that's not where you expect, I think, the best interview of him was done, I have to say, of all, all of them. And I thought they asked exactly the right questions. They had the amount of fairness and, um, fairness and quality, and also had a lot of good side eyes. Uh, Sunny Hostin and, and Ana had the best side eyes, but it was, it was well done, I have to say. So I predict more of that.

Scott Galloway 45:22 Yeah, I agree with you though. I, I, I, I thought they, they did as good a job as... They were very respectful. They were pushback when it was appropriate. I thought he did, I thought he did the best he could with the, the hand he's been built or dealt, I should say. I don't... You know, he was... You know, kudos to him. He wants to be president. Kudos to him. You gotta go into the lion's den like that.

Kara Swisher 45:43 He did. He did. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 45:44 And I thought he was... Actually, th- in a weird way, I thought it was a win for both of them. I thought he came off as-

Kara Swisher 45:50 It was, it was well done

Scott Galloway 45:51 ... more human.

Kara Swisher 45:52 Yeah, I thought it was well done. Here's the problem. He's... Uh, what they should... The only question they didn't ask him is the one they asked Kamala. "How are... What would you separate yourself from?"

Scott Galloway 46:00 Oh, that's a great question.

Kara Swisher 46:01 That's the one I would ask.

Scott Galloway 46:02 What would you do differently?

Kara Swisher 46:03 What would you do differently?

Scott Galloway 46:03 What would you do differently?

Kara Swisher 46:04 Like, I would ask the... I would ask exactly the same.

Scott Galloway 46:06 That's exactly right.

Kara Swisher 46:07 That, that would've killed him. He could... 'Cause he'd have to have the same answer Kamala did, which is, "Not a thing. I can't think of a thing." He ca- he couldn't say anything is the thing. So that would've been the killer question. Sadly, I was not there. Anyway.

Scott Galloway 46:22 There you go. Uh, he wouldn't have come on if you were there, I don't think.

Kara Swisher 46:25 No.

Scott Galloway 46:26 Um, anyways, uh, okay, so my, my prediction is, and I've sort of already made it, uh, an activist is gonna show up in Four seven either to sell or spin the Specs division. They've spent three and a half billion over the past decade on their fever dreams of a wearable with no real return, and they spend about a third of their adjusted EBITDA on specs per year. And, and better capitalized competitors, including Apple and Meta, are struggling to make this product category work. And if they spun or shut down their Specs division, it's actually... It's not a great business, but it's a good business, and that is Snap for all of its issues and being subscale is only one of four scaled social networks. It has a billion monthly active users and nearly a half a billion daily active users, said my children.

Kara Swisher 47:16 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 47:17 Uh, and Snap-

Kara Swisher 47:17 Mine, mine too. My kids, my sons use it.

Scott Galloway 47:19 Still like it.

Kara Swisher 47:19 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 47:20 Snap has over six billion in revenue. It's still growing ten percent a year.

Kara Swisher 47:23 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 47:24 And it has a billion in subscription revenue growing sixty percent a year. If Snap, if Snap were able to achieve Reddit's forward revenue multiples, it would be worth three and a half X what it is today. So anyways, I think there's an activist play around saying to Evan, "You have got to stop with the spec shit, and either spin that into a separate company for other dumb people to finance. But the core business is a good business, and you've saddled it with a shitty business, and you don't have the capital to do that, unlike these other companies that could go play in traffic. You can't... You have to be more disciplined than this, Evan." And the person or the entity that's gonna impose that discipline will be an activist that comes in and buys five to ten percent of the company and says, "Shut this down or spin it." I think you're gonna see that in the next several months.

Kara Swisher 48:12 Who? Who is the activist?

Scott Galloway 48:14 You know, I always go to the, I always go to the same people, but there's activists everywhere now.

Kara Swisher 48:18 Yeah, it is... Yeah, you're right. That's smart.

Scott Galloway 48:20 You're about to see, quite frankly, you're about to see twenty new hedge funds from former SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI employees. Do you... You know what I'm saying? I was ta- I had, I had dinner with a group of friends last night, my friends Fernando and Tony and Steven last night at R- uh, Roof Gardens. Beautiful night, Kara. Beautiful night. And then we watched Team England. Oh my God. Was that fun.

Kara Swisher 48:43 This is in New York or-

Scott Galloway 48:44 Four-two.

Kara Swisher 48:45 Where are you?

Scott Galloway 48:45 I was in London.

Kara Swisher 48:46 London, okay.

Scott Galloway 48:46 Um, we were saying, and granted, these are... Do you realize how expensive, like, Europe is gonna be this summer with all these newly minted douchebags headed to Europe this summer?

Kara Swisher 48:58 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 48:59 Can you... [chuckles] I mean, I can't wait to see, I, I'll just hear about it, what a table in Ibiza costs.

Kara Swisher 49:06 Ibiza.

Scott Galloway 49:07 For a big event. When you have a bunch of 34-year-old, and let's be honest, they're almost all dudes. When you have a bunch of 34-year-old dudes who woke up and are like, are worth 11 million, the first thing they're gonna do [laughs] is head to Saint-Tropez this summer.

Kara Swisher 49:21 Saint-Tropez.

Scott Galloway 49:22 And I th- I said, I said-

Kara Swisher 49:24 Cinq, cinq. Is it cinq, cinq, cinq?

Scott Galloway 49:26 Cinq on cinq.

Kara Swisher 49:26 Cinq on cinq.

Scott Galloway 49:26 55, yeah. I'm like, "Do you realize how expensive?"

Kara Swisher 49:29 A radish costs $50.

Scott Galloway 49:31 I mean, we talk about San Francisco real estate.

Kara Swisher 49:33 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 49:33 Just wait till you see what the price of a bottle of bottle service is.

Kara Swisher 49:36 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 49:37 Uh, you know, it, it-

Kara Swisher 49:38 Well, that's what you're paying when we're there next week, Scott. That's why.

Scott Galloway 49:41 Y- baby, I always pay for you. I always pay for the women.

Kara Swisher 49:44 I know you do.

Scott Galloway 49:44 I think all men should always pay for the women. I'm, I'm highly sexist that way.

Kara Swisher 49:46 Al- although at the same time, I really don't like when things cost ridiculous amounts of money. It makes me uncomfortable.

Scott Galloway 49:51 Unless it's at the Hotel du Cap with the dogs.

Kara Swisher 49:53 I sh-

Scott Galloway 49:54 Then it's worth it.

Kara Swisher 49:54 I have the children.

Scott Galloway 49:55 Then it's worth every penny.

Kara Swisher 49:56 Let me try to stop that. Guess what?

Scott Galloway 49:57 Another bottle of rosé for my friend who doesn't drink.

Kara Swisher 50:00 Guess what I'm bringing? The children. [laughs] And he's like, "Wait a minute. Maybe don't come."

Scott Galloway 50:02 No, you're not invited. I forgot about that.

Kara Swisher 50:03 Oh, yes, exactly. That's what I thought.

Scott Galloway 50:05 Yeah. I love your kids.

Kara Swisher 50:05 You were very sweet with them in the pool last time you came.

Scott Galloway 50:08 Your kids are less, your kids are less awful than most kids.

Kara Swisher 50:09 My kids are gr- They're great.

Scott Galloway 50:11 I do think... Wait, I just gotta reveal that one moment, though.

Kara Swisher 50:13 What?

Scott Galloway 50:14 I'm at the Hotel du Cap [laughs] with you, Amanda, and your two kids. And I'm going down to the pool-

Kara Swisher 50:21 Oh, no

Scott Galloway 50:21 ... with Amanda and the kids. I'm like, "You wanna come down with us?" And you're like, "No, and please just keep them down there as long as possible." [laughs]

Kara Swisher 50:28 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 50:28 And you literally just splayed on a chair.

Kara Swisher 50:30 I did. I needed to splay.

Scott Galloway 50:31 And you said to me, you gave me kind of that dad-to-dad look. You go-

Kara Swisher 50:35 Yeah, I was

Scott Galloway 50:35 ... "Just do me a favor. Keep them down there as long as possible."

Kara Swisher 50:38 Yeah, do me a favor. Keep them. Cover me.

Scott Galloway 50:38 Keep Amanda and the kids down there as long as possible.

Kara Swisher 50:40 Yeah. You like to swim. I don't like to swim. I'm like a cat. I don't like to swim, so there you have it. So anyway, do you have your, um, your, whatever your, your, what is it, Zodiac?

Scott Galloway 50:50 Oh, I hire the same guy. He somehow manages to gr- to navigate that thing with a lit cigarette at all times.

Kara Swisher 50:57 Yeah. [laughs] I love you and the Zodiac.

Scott Galloway 50:59 I pay him, I pay him, I think-

Kara Swisher 51:01 Ugh. People call it. Cool it.

Scott Galloway 51:01 I, I pay him like €800 a day.

Kara Swisher 51:03 Honest people.

Scott Galloway 51:03 And he just circles the hotel and waits till I'm ready to go somewhere, and zooms me there like-

Kara Swisher 51:06 I wanna ride your Zodiac this year

Scott Galloway 51:07 ... fucking James Bond.

Kara Swisher 51:08 Take Scott. T- no, take Saul. My son is already a, a 34-year-old hedge fund zillionaire. [laughs] He just asks. That's how he goes through life.

Scott Galloway 51:16 He's ordering bottle service.

Kara Swisher 51:18 Anyway, I'm very excited. By the way, we're, we'll be in France, and we'll be doing, uh, a live Pivot, which we'll- we're very excited about, um, and hanging out on the Croisette. And-

Scott Galloway 51:26 We're doing a live Pivot?

Kara Swisher 51:27 We are doing a live Pivot.

Scott Galloway 51:28 I did not know that.

Kara Swisher 51:29 Yes, we are. [laughs]

Scott Galloway 51:30 All right.

Kara Swisher 51:31 What do you mean you did not know that?

Scott Galloway 51:33 I did not know that.

Kara Swisher 51:33 What? Oh, my God.

Scott Galloway 51:34 I thought I had the week off.

Kara Swisher 51:36 Recorded live. We're gonna record it live. I mean, not broadcast live, but we are gonna be together. Oh, my God.

Scott Galloway 51:42 Nice. Where are we recording it from?

Kara Swisher 51:43 Just show up where MJ tells you.

Scott Galloway 51:45 Okay, I'm in.

Kara Swisher 51:45 We wanna hear from you. Send us your questions 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 Karen Scott universe this week on Prof G Conversations, Scott spoke with the legend Heather Cox Richardson about the future of American democracy, the state of both political parties, and what history suggests comes next. Scott, you did a great job, I have to tell you.

Scott Galloway 52:08 Well, thanks.

Kara Swisher 52:08 Let's listen to a clip.

Scott Galloway 52:10 It does raise a larger question, I think, about where the United States is in this moment, and that is, obviously, this is hitting consumers incredibly hard. They were already hurting from the tariffs, now they're gonna be hurting even more from the rising cost of diesel and the cost of what that's gonna do to food and gasoline and so on. But to what degree is the, uh, corruption and the incompetence and the self-dealing among Trump and his inner circle affecting the way that ordinary Americans who are not paying a lot of attention to that because they're working three jobs to put food on the table, you know, to what degree do those things speak to each other?

Kara Swisher 52:54 That is a very good point. I do think the algae, the algae, I think it's a, it unites us all. Anyway, uh, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. We'll be back next week, and congratulations to New York Knicks, especially, uh, the Brunson family. He, there were some pictures of him with his daughter.

Scott Galloway 53:08 Lovely.

Kara Swisher 53:09 That lo-

Scott Galloway 53:09 Yeah, really lovely.

Kara Swisher 53:09 What? They all really exhibit masculinity and-

Scott Galloway 53:12 Agreed

Kara Swisher 53:13 ... and community in the way that is wonderful. So congratulations. I hope everyone's having a good time right now at the, uh, ticker tape parade. And we'll, we'll be next week in France, Scott and I.

Scott Galloway 53:24 That's right.

Kara Swisher 53:24 So we'll, we'll-

Scott Galloway 53:26 How exciting.

Kara Swisher 53:26 I hope you'll enjoy our shows from there. [upbeat music]