Dept. of War Rebrand, Trump's Tech Bro Dinner, and Elon's Pay Package

24:32That's what we're really bad at. Can I just point out, you put up something about taxing the rich I thought was interesting, your statistics about how we've moved from 90 percent to like 28 percent. Well, we'll talk about that when we talk about Elon. Right. Okay. Our taxes on corporations are the lowest they've been since 1939. And with these deficits, it's pretty easy, folks. We've got to do one of two things. We've either got to spend less money or we've got to tax people more. Otherwise, our kids are just not going to have the benefit of the investments in public infrastructure and technology and education that we've enjoyed.

25:07Yep, absolutely. Anyway, we'll see what happens, but these tech companies will still lead the way. And when we get back, we'll find out why. We'll go on a quick break and we come back, Trump's big tech dinner party.

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28:12Scott, we're back. President Trump hosted a big dinner party at the White House last week with attendees including Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Sam Altman. All of them were there. Tim Cook was there, Sergey Brin, everybody was there. One notable figure was missing, Elon Musk. Musk says he was invited but couldn't make it, but other people say he wasn't invited. I don't care. I don't care. The guests were full of praise for the president. It was pretty grotesque to watch. Bill Gates thanked him for, quote, setting the tone such that we could make a major investment in the U.S. I think Bill Gates is doing it so he can save USAID.

28:43Vaccine research. I'm okay with him. I'm going to give him the only out. The rest of it was so, they will live to regret what they're doing here, I think. Or maybe they won't. I mean, this short-term gains, I think this was so grotesque. And it reminded me of that story I wrote in 2016 when they went up the Trump Tower and did the exact same thing because it was in their interest. They're not going to grow a backbone, anybody. They're going to keep up this shtick. It's good for their business. it was particularly gross, and especially Zuckerberg, who tried to explain himself, looked like a real toady in a room full of toadies.

29:18Any thoughts on this? I thought they made sex work look dignified. I mean, I think paying some guy 50 bucks to suck my cock is more dignified than what these guys did. What do you really think, Scott? What is the point of aggregating all these skills? These guys work so hard. They're so talented. They rally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. They build these amazing products so they can become billionaires, so they can go and fillate an insurrectionist. What in the fuck? And they all complained about the insurrectionists, by the way. I understand the notion of staying below the radar.

29:59Don't antagonize him. Don't say anything. Just stay out of his way. I get it. I'm meeting, I'm having lunch with the chancellor of an iconic public college tomorrow when they want to talk about a variety of things, including how they respond to Trump. And I'm like, you are not, and I'm loathe to even say the name, which I won't, but my basic thing is don't say anything. Just stay out of his sights. Stay out of his crosshairs. But these guys, Sam Harris sort of changed my life of Making Sense, the podcaster. He said, if you have economic security and people who love you unconditionally, you have an obligation to speak out because so few people can.

30:40People have to worry about their economic livelihood. They have to maybe, you know, there's a lot of reasons why you may not want to be provocative as a younger person if you're not economically secure. And these guys will always say, well, it's about shareholder value. I'm going to add a lot of value to Apple because I'm going to get this contract. I don't want tariffs, blah, blah, blah. But you would think one of them would say, okay, the ass cancer is showing up pretty soon, Bezos Cook. You're not young men. And are you going to say on your deathbed, I would think one of them would think, you know what, I'd like to be that guy.

31:16Yeah, I just don't. And we're not asking them to fall on like. Benioff maybe? Who's pushed back? No, no, no. He probably wanted to go. You know, nobody. Nobody, nobody, nobody. They're just, all they do is fillet. That's all they do now. And I'm sort of like, I got some texts from someone that were like, oh, yes, we're embarrassed too. I'm like, fuck you. Like, at this point, like, why have all that money if you can't at least? That's exactly right. What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? Is there nothing you could do? Look, you know, of all the people, at least Elon went out on a limb for Trump.

31:50He did something, right? He thought that, however misguided you may think he is. Like, do any of them? Like, I guess Reid Hoffman does and has been pretty firm about it. Yeah, but even Reid's— Yeah, pull back a little bit. Reid is— He's been quiet. I think Reid is probably justifiably, like, worried. He is worried. He's talking about it. And he's trying to stay out of his crosshairs right now. The economic opportunity is not for a tech company, but for a consumer company to just, in a very thoughtful, elegant way, without even saying the president's name, run commercials talking about what an important role immigrants have played.

32:21What an important role the gay community and the transgender community have played in our defense department. What an important role how rights in America and, you know, equality and respect for institutions. I mean, you could fire up so many amazing creative agencies to have the most powerful commercials that would be very clear what you are saying. And you know what would happen? they would have a torrent of business because the bottom line is the people who are against this bullshit are mostly the only people who really matter in consumer America, and that is educated people with disposable income.

32:56You know what's interesting? The only people who actually are much more public would be celebrities like Colbert or Ariana Grande. When she won yesterday, I think it was MTV Music, whatever, said, I want to thank my therapist and the gays. It was just like adorable. She's adorable. But it's really celebrities seem to be saying things, right? And not worrying about the consequences. Yeah, it's comedians and celebrities, but. Yeah, I'm just saying they're much more, I would say they're much more outspoken than they've ever been. And it's not just virtue signaling. But here's the problem. It kind of doesn't fucking matter.

33:28I know it doesn't. It matters that these guys do. I know. I'm just trying to think of who speaks up. Celebrities don't sway a lot. We fall under the cold comfort of believing that America is a democracy. Okay, sort of. Because the reality is the passive populace doesn't win elections. It's organized special interest groups. And technology is now so powerful and has so much money that they can kind of sway elections and sway government. I mean, I'm increasingly about this notion that the only real means of fighting back at this point is if we can rally enough Americans to at least pick a time period and stop spending money.

34:06Right, or stopping, stopping doing things. Because it's these organized special interest groups that impact Washington and have all the power. And if tech, if we could figure out a way to get tech on our side, they could absolutely check back on Trump. If they all together met in the parking lot and said. They didn't in 2016, Scott. They won't. But I just, I mean this sincerely. I sincerely mean, how many times have they been in front of the fucking president and other people don't get to be? Like, how many times have we seen Mark Zuckerberg at the inauguration, Mark Zuckerberg at the White House, Mark Zuckerberg, Marco Lago, Mark Zuckerberg on the stupid White House?

34:42Like, enough. You've had enough FaceTime with that fucker. So, like, what, why did the, why does, why didn't they have the head of Caterpillar there at least? Or something, some company that matters beyond these bunch of. But if Bob Iger just said, look, I've been around the block. You know, Disney is about American values. And I'm just very uncomfortable with the idea of censorship. I think Disney Plus subscriptions would triple in 60 days. I think he'd come under the scrutiny. If Elliot Hill from Nike said, we're about winning and part of winning is strong American institutions. We are an American company.

35:21They could do such an outstanding commercial. I didn't make a comment after the vaccine thing in Florida. Said nothing. Well, I think this is, I think it's not only the right thing to do, I think it's an enormous commercial opportunity for a consumer brand to just talk about traditional American values. Let me say crickets is what is happening. Speaking of weirdnesses, Elon Musk could become the world's first trillionaire under a new pay package from Tesla's board. Yeah, I don't think he's going to be the world's first trillionaire. What do you think, Kara? I do not think he's going to be the world's first trillionaire.

35:49The compensation all in Tesla stock is tied to hitting ambitious targets in the next 10 years, including getting the company's market value from where it's around just above$1 trillion, which is a ridiculous price anyway, to$8.5 trillion, delivering a total of 20 million vehicles, which the declining sales, it's now at its lowest rates, putting a million Robotex on the road and also a million, I think, of those robots that don't exist, or there's just a few of them. The board is also saying that Elon needs to develop a succession framework to earn out a portion of this ridiculous payout. These benchmarks are just watered-down versions of promises Elon's been making for years, as TechCrunch pointed out correctly.

36:29Tesla shareholders are also set to vote on investing in XAI in an upcoming annual meeting. I mean, the whole thing. He should just mash all his companies together and hope for the best. I don't think we need trillionaires, but I don't think we should get in the way of people becoming trillionaires. I think one of the wonderful things about American capitalism is that if you take risks, you start your own companies, you invent something new, literally the upside is unlimited. And no government agency or bureaucrats is going to tell you, it's going to say to you, you're too rich. That's fine. Have at it.

37:00I like having billionaires. I like having trillionaires. Let's talk about this specific pay package. It's saying we're going to give you options on 14 % of the outstanding stock of the company. That is well outside of the range of most CEO packages. is fine. He's an exceptional individual. It's given the benefit of the doubt. In addition, the board of Tesla, which has a compensation committee deciding the compensation package of the CEO, which by the way is the hardest thing on a board I find is compensation, is elected by the owners. We believe in private capital and we believe in private property.

37:33So the owners of a company get to decide what they're going to pay the CEO. So there's nothing, In my opinion, if I was on that comp committee, I would say, no, it's probably more like 3 % to 8%, not 14%. And what it's basically saying is if he increases the value of all shareholders for$7 trillion, he gets a trillion dollar commission. I don't think that is totally outrageous. What we should be focused on is if somebody makes a trillion dollars, that they pay an incremental marginal tax rate of 90%. So I like the idea of full-body contact capitalism that motivates people to work really hard and come up with new ideas.

38:12I just think those people need to pay a lot more taxes rather than move to Texas and end up paying, you know, he'll end up paying about 17 or 18 percent if, in fact, he gets that money, whereas the people working in those factories are probably paying 30 or 35 percent. Okay. I want you from can he hit these targets? What can he do to get to$8.5 trillion? deliver 20 million vehicles and put a million robo-taxis on the road. The cars are being overwhelmed by competitors like BYD and others, by the way. There's two new competitors to him, I think, from—I can't remember who it was. There's some really beautiful cars out there.

38:49How does he do it, Scott? Whether you give it to him or not, sure, why not? I want to, you know, Caro, if you can beat, I don't know, LeBron James, you can be in the NBA, sure. Like, I don't get it. I don't get how he gets there. Standing here and now with BYD basically offering a Tesla, let's be kind, 80 % of a Tesla. Some people think it's 100 % or 110 % of a Tesla for 40 % to 60 % of the price, where his autonomous driving seems to be well behind. and all these jazz hands trying to distract people from a trillion-dollar market cap company that's really probably worth somewhere between$50 and$200 billion with bullshit like robots and Mars.

39:32How he would get there, in my view, or to be clear, SpaceX has a monopoly. That's, you know, having 80 % market share of space is really enticing. But if you just look at the actual numbers and what would be required to add$7 trillion in market cap, they're basically saying you're going to get a trillion dollars if this becomes the most valuable company in the world by a factor of two. It looks near impossible. I would take I would be willing to bet a lot of money that he is never going to get a trillion that trillion dollars. Having said that, Cara, I said the same thing seven years ago, that Tesla could never be worth more than every automobile company combined and he would be able to launch SpaceX.

40:14Right. But that was when it was a meme stock and he was on the upswing, right? But it happened. Right, it did. So he would have to do again. What he has accomplished to date in terms of valuation, in terms of performance, it's remarkable. In terms of the market's response to it, it's insanely, like, unbelievable. So could he do it? Is it likely to happen? Highly unlikely. Was it likely he was going to get to this point? Also highly unlikely. Oh, much, much. Do you think this is much more aggressive than even what was outlined five years ago? I don't think. I think he's old. I think he has some personal problems.

40:54I think he's got some health problems. I think he can't come up with a new trick. I think, listen, everyone's like, oh, if anyone, he can. I'm like, can he now? This is a number that's just beyond belief. It could be a meme stock. That's the only way, to me, it could happen. Or he merged SpaceX with this, and who cares about XAI or the other one? And maybe if he merged them all, I guess, and then pretended it was called Tesla, I suppose. But meme stocks have generally had, other than you could argue Palantir. Is Palantir a meme stock trading at a higher time? A little bit, yeah. Generally speaking, they haven't had, there aren't enough meme investors to justify a multi-trillion dollar market cap company.

41:35But again, it all comes back to— He needs a new product is all I'm saying, and a new bit of energy in and of himself. I don't know. Yeah, we continue to talk about him like he's a runaway teen. He's getting AARP mail. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I 100 % agree with you. But again, I don't think we're having the right conversation. And I like the idea of a kid reading someone might be a trillionaire. I want to pay him a trillion dollars, and then I want 90 % of it to go to the U.S. Treasury. because here's the thing. We're spending$7 trillion. We're taking in five. We have to raise taxes. We have to cut spending.

42:12So let's shelve cutting spending for right now. All roads lead to entitlement cuts, by the way. But let's talk about revenues or taxes. The key is to find taxes that are the least taxing. And what Israeli-American psychologist Daniel Kahneman discovered, he did a lot of research here, is that once you get above a certain level, no incremental happiness. If Elon Musk on that trillion dollars gets to hold on to 800 billion of it or 200 billion of it, it's going to make no difference in his life. In addition, I'm going off scripture, we should eliminate the exemption on trust because you inheriting 10 million versus 15 from lucky, it's going to make no difference in your life.

42:57Okay, so the vast majority of wealth that is inherited is from a small number of people to a small number of kids. And if your kid is going to get$5 million instead of$7 million, no one's any less happier. So there are some fairly – when we had a society with much less income inequality and people felt much better about America, guess what? But the incremental tax rates on people making so much fucking money they couldn't spend it all were much higher. Anyway, I'm ranting. Lower taxes on everyone up to a million and above a million. Oh, my God. Progressive all caps tax structure. And no one was any less happy.

43:41They looked so miserable at that dinner. Plus, they didn't get to go on to the new patio, the new rose garden. It looks like such a cheap version of a Marriott. It looks like a Marriott. Like a medium level marriage. They're prostitutes with a half bottle of cheap Jack, of cheap bourbon drink, condoms hanging out of their ass. And the pimp has just said, you've got another 11 Johns tonight. Oh, my God. They look exhausted, abused, tired, and humiliated. They're like, how did I end up here? Okay. Did you see Gavin Newsom say he's going to jackhammer that fucking thing if he's president, the stupid Trump club?

44:19Anyway. Well, there's, first off, eliminate, I hate to say it, eliminate ICE, just symbolically. Absolutely. Department of Defense. There are so many, whoever the new president is, assuming he's not Vance, is going to have. He's going to spend all his time cleaning up. Is literally going to be the circus clown behind an elephant just scooping up shit for the first three or six months. All right. Let's go on a quick break. And when we come back, RFK Jr. continues to create chaos. What a fucking mess.

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46:40One big question I've got is why in 2025 are late night TV shows like Jimmy Kimmel's show still on TV? Even in our diminished times, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, they're just some of the biggest faces of their networks. If you start taking the biggest faces off your networks, you might save some nickels and dimes. But what are you even anymore? What even is your brand anymore? I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, and that was James Ponowozik, the TV critic for The New York Times. This week, we're talking about Trump and Kimmel, free speech, and a TV format that's remained surprisingly durable for now.

47:25That's This Week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

47:35Scott, we're back. President Trump has mixed reactions to RFK Jr.'s heated appearance at the Senate Finance Committee last week. Let's listen to a clip from the hearing. Do you accept the fact that a million Americans died from COVID? I don't know how many died. You're the Secretary of Health and Human Services. You don't have any idea how many Americans died from COVID? I don't think anybody knows that because there was so much data chaos coming out of the CDC. Oh, my God. His voice just driving. That was Senator Warner. In response, Trump said of the vaccines are, quote, pure and simple. They work, but also defended RFK Jr.

48:15saying he's a different type of guy. And he's not the only one. Several Republican senators, including Bill Cassidy and Tom Tillis, expressed concern during Kennedy's hearing. Meanwhile, RFK Jr. reportedly plans to announce that pregnant women's use of Tylenol is potentially linked to autism. He has no proof of much of this. And in fact, it's the same thing with the Florida Surgeon General said he didn't use any science when it came to deciding on the vaccines. Conservative polling firms reported warning Giapu lawmakers that only 75 percent of Trump voters believe vaccines save lives. Thoughts?

48:46Second most dangerous person in the administration is Peter Nabarro, who will substantially reduce our prosperity. most dangerous person is RFK because when he gets up in front of Congress and lies and says, I'm not anti-vaccine and anyone can get a vaccine. No, when you now say that it has to be under prescription or from a doctor's orders, you're going to reduce the penetration of vaccines one third to two thirds, and you're going to increase disease by much more than that because you'll have a bunch of kids in third grade that have measles or rubella. This is arguably if this guy gains more traction and the CDC continues to be emasculated and this anti-vaccine conspiracy bullshit continues to gain traction and people are confused, even if they believe it or not, if you don't make it easy for people to get vaccines, fewer people are going to get vaccines and more kids are going to have their limbs cut off from advanced measles.

49:43This is just, it's one thing. Europe is not prospered because they haven't grown, but they make good decisions. They're generally a smart people. We are growing, and yet we've decided, how do we take a giant step back? This is insane. I do have to be honest, though. I was really proud. That was Senator Warner. He's fantastic. I wish he would run for president. I thought Senator Bennett was good. I thought Senator Warren, Elizabeth Warren was really good, Senator Cantwell. I also thought Senator Cassidy was actually quite deft. I know, but he had to win because he had been the one that wasn't going to vote for him.

50:19And he would have been the deciding one. And then he did. He got pressured from Trump. They all claim to have concerns and then they all vote for what the Trump wants. That's what I mean. But he did say, he did say, look, you told me that you were going to support vaccines and you don't seem to be doing this. So I thought he, let me put it this way. He's done a whole hell of a lot more. But if you want to talk about a lasting legacy of death, disease, and disability, this is Bobby Kennedy. And also to the president's credit, he did say in a presser after that, I think some vaccines are good. I mean, it's a start.

50:55It doesn't matter. Again, it's like, Cassie, I don't care. Get rid of it. Well, have you heard this Florida Surgeon General equating vaccine mandates with slavery? He is so stupid. I don't, he's so stupid. And then was asked about the science and he goes, I didn't use science. I just think parents should be able to. I think really interestingly, like someone had a question online and my brother, the doctor, answered, like, if you get a vaccine, what do you care if they do? Like, it's a public health issue. You get other, there are immunocompromised people who can't get vaccines for one. Secondly, if you make them hard to get and more expensive, insurance, if the CDC doesn't back them, insurance companies don't pay for them.

51:35And therefore, poor people don't get them. People with money can get them, as always. But people who don't have means can't get them. And then lastly, it's a public health danger because also little babies don't get vaccines for, what, a year and a half, two years? I have so many children, I don't remember. But there's a period of time when babies, that's why when you go to like any cemetery before we had vaccines, you see so many baby graves, right? Because they died of all kinds of diseases. We have eradicated. And now it's back. It's just there's so many reasons to do it that will protect everybody.

52:13But it's such a typical Trump thing. I feel as if, quote unquote, the worm has turned against R.K. Jr. Yes, seems like it, but he's still there. Trump doesn't let people go. People, Trump doesn't, he doesn't want to admit he was wrong. I think that's a bigger issue. I think he's. You think his job is safe? I think it would take a lot for him to get, he's done a lot. And I think a lot, I don't know. I just think Trump just sticks to his guns. He doesn't, I don't think Trump cares. I think he's an old man and he was always a selfish prick and he's going to remain a selfish prick the day he dies.

52:43That's all. Doesn't care. Doesn't care about public health. Doesn't care about people, poor people. doesn't care about. Like, I don't think he thinks about one day in his life. He thinks about whether people booing for him or cheering at the U.S. Open, by the way, they were booing mostly. Anyway, let's move on. Last thing, Anthropic has agreed to a one point, this is a really interesting case, I really want to know what you think about this, $1.5 billion settlement with a group of authors and publishers. That's after a judge ruled the company illegally acquired millions of copyrighted books. They nicked them, as they say.

53:13The settlement,$3 ,000 per work for about 500 ,000 authors, is the largest payout in the history of U.S. copyright cases. By settling, Anthropic avoids a trial that could have carried damages in the hundreds of billions. Also, I bet there were some nice emails around. All this comes as Anthropic just closed a$13 billion funding round, tripling its valuation to$183 billion. What do you think this means for other AI companies? I just love your thoughts on this because, you know, there was probably a lot of stuff, would be my guess. And they thought, let's get this out of our way. We just got this funding.

53:45We can just fork over this money as part of it. It goes away. I think you have a better grasp of IP and journalists and books. I want you to take this and I'll comment on it. Okay. You know, I may have been in this group. I didn't do anything. But I have found my books stolen by these people. And maybe they paid for one copy, I guess. I suppose that's what they did or something like that. Oh, no. They don't have to buy it. Right. Exactly. Or maybe they buy the audit. Or maybe they do. You're right. Maybe they have to buy one. One copy, right? It's so ridiculous, the kind of stuff they're stealing.

54:19And to me, if we have these U.S. copyright cases, copyright should matter here, just like it did YouTube back in the day. YouTube figured it out and ended up paying people, and it's turned out to be a great business. You know, you don't talk about YouTube stealing, but you did forever. Why would you build your business on stealing other people's content and then remaking it and putting, you know, these people worked on these things. they deserve to be paid. If you don't, you're a shoplifter. That's the only thing I can think of. And I suspect they settled because I'll bet there was emails. I bet there was some proof of what they did.

54:54And they would have been on the hook for, this would have been over for this company had it gone to trial, would be my guess, probably. Yeah, the incumbents benefit from the illusion of complexity, like what's crawling, what's actual IP infringement, what isn't. No, it's pretty simple. This industry needs to adopt some sort of similar construct to what musicians do. And that is, if you're KROQ in Los Angeles and you're playing the B-52s, and every year they say, okay, it's very seamless. You just track it. You play B-52 songs 1 ,100 times. you have to send Warner Brothers or whoever is the publisher of the B-52s, you have to send them $1 ,100 to a rights management group.

55:42The rights management group then sends out checks to everyone from Madonna to Luke Holmes, and that's how they make money. And they say, okay, we have an infrastructure that's seamless, frictionless, people can use our content, but we get paid for it. These guys have plenty of money to pay for these rights. All they need is a tracking mechanism them that says, okay, Kara's books informed us on this many queries, so she gets X amount of money, and we send it to a rights group who then distributes the payments. This is a system they could easily prop up, but instead they pretend it's too difficult because they'd rather just steal it.

56:20So I like this because it sets a precedent that these companies have committed IP theft. That's what it says. It says that they have taken something that has economic value and they owe these authors. The next step that I think is really what we really need is, again, what I wanted the New York Times to do is I wanted us all to get together and bind together as one group and then negotiate Microsoft against Google to see who got to crawl our stuff and who didn't. Because the biggest mistake we made back then was to just let them crawl it thinking it was going to send us more traffic and we'd serve them banner ads and that just didn't work.

56:57So this is a moment in time. I think this is a step in the right direction, but I still think we got to get to a point where it's like, okay, when your book comes out, when your TV show comes out, when your podcast comes out, we have a means of tracking what percentage of it in terms of nuance and context or direct data or direct quotes from this book have been used across all of our queries and we're going to give you a certain percentage of our profits and we're going to figure out a mechanism for figuring out who gets what. It's just, these guys could figure it out with a bunch of economists and what we don't have is on our side, we don't have strong representation.

57:36We don't have someone, I mean, you know our idea. We wanted Barry Diller to do this, right? To get everyone from Penguin Portfolio Random House to Disney to Condé Nast to Hearst to Dow Jones and then basically say, all right, it's a bidding war and whoever gives us the biggest slice of their pie gets access to this data. And maybe it's both. Maybe we do it for both, for everybody, anthropic, llama. But there's enough money here to go around. It's theft. It's theft. Let me just say, I just went to Amazon, right? Remember I complained when my book came out that they were ripping it off? So the first thing that results, when you do Kara Swisher, is my burn book.

58:09And then my book, There Must Be a Pony in Here somewhere, and before that, AWOL.com. Those are all Kara Swisher books. Then, right away, Kara Swisher, the field's voice of tech, speaking up, asking questions, and making a difference. Like, as if I wrote it, like, and it's by some fake name. And then there's Kara Swisher, text Queen Bee with Sting. And then there's Kara Swisher, navigating the digital area, insights and perspectives from a trailblazing journalist. I cooperated on none of them by someone named Scott P. Monday. That's all AI. They're thieves is what they are. They're thieving my stuff.

58:41And I paid for it with my time and my money, and I should get all the money related to my stuff. And same thing with you. Let me look up Scott Galloway. Well, they're going to start crawling our podcasts and they'll be able to say, put out a pivot like context, same voices, same feel, same banter, same dick jokes, but cover business. Not the same dick jokes. But cover business in Turkey and they'll be able to spin it up. And I'm actually down with that as long as we get paid for it. Well, except for a Scott Galloway biography, honest reflections on being a real man and dad in an uncertain, ever-changing world.

59:18a new 2025 memoir from you. I don't know if you know that. You know, it looks like that's yours. Then, okay, biography of Scott Galloway, including exercises for notes on being a man. They've already making an exercise book for you. The Algebra of Wealth Workbook, Fixed in Scott Galloway's Teachings, Into Your Mind. Esu McDonald wrote that, whoever the fuck that is. Scott Galloway, the untold story. Oh, I'm going to get that one. the untold story of Scott Galloway. There's nothing that hasn't been told. I mean, seriously, fuck you. This is Amazon? Amazon. That's just Amazon. All right, we're going to move on.

59:59We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore. That's what I say. Behind the music. I just need a heroin habit. I want to hook up with a former supermodel. I'm going to order the biography and read from it. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for Wins and Fails.

1:00:18The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America, and Google is helping Americans innovate in ways both big and small. From improving emergency response times to protecting against cyber attacks, local, state, and federal governments are innovating with Google AI. This is a new era of American innovation. Find out more at g.co slash American Innovation. How does everyone know what everyone knows? It's a state sometimes called pluralistic ignorance or a spiral of silence, where everyone mistakenly thinks that everyone else believes something and no one actually believes it. I'm Preet Bharara, and this week, cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker joins me on my podcast Stay Tuned with Preet to discuss his latest book.

1:01:05It's called When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows. We discuss what common knowledge can teach us about collective behavior. The episode is out now. Search and follow Stay Tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts.

1:01:23It's been more than five years since President Donald Trump said that we were either going to ban or sell TikTok. And now, more than five years later, it seems there might actually be a TikTok deal. Sort of. Potentially. Maybe. This week on The Verge Cast, we go into all of the things happening with TikTok and how TikTok is almost inevitably going to become something very different in its next phase. That, plus what YouTube and Instagram are trying to do to copy TikTok, and lots more on The Verge Cast, wherever you get podcasts.

1:02:01Okay, Scott, I guess I'll start with wins and fails. I think, gosh, the fail, you got to read this story in the New York Times about J.P. Morgan enabling the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein. It's an investigation. It's astonishing how much they were warned about all this money. They ignored red flags, suspicious activity. Executives were concerned, and they continued to let Jeffrey Epstein use their bank to do his— and they kind of knew it. They kind of knew it. And so I just think that kind of enabling— I'm sort of in an enabling point of view right now, especially with those tech assholes sucking Trump's dick, as you say.

1:02:43And my win is E. Jean Carroll's appeals court upheld her$83 million judgment against Trump. She'll probably get the five. The$83 million is a different story. But they're going to ask to go to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court has been very Trumpy lately. It just allowed ICE to make indiscriminate stops in L.A. temporarily, at least, upturning another federal judge's order not to do that. So it's got to go to, they're going to ask the second, I was talking to the lawyer for Eugene Carroll, Roberta Kaplan, and she said they'll ask this entire Second Circuit to reconsider, and then what? They'll ask the Supreme Court to decide this.

1:03:23I think he'll probably have to pay at least part of the money to her, and she deserves it, and I think that's great. I hope he has to pay at least someone for his behavior at some point. And then the last very quick things, I don't know, Scott, there's actually really also another great story in the New York Times about how your zodiac sign is 2 ,000 years out of date. Do you know that? I'm not a Sagittarius. I'm a, let me tell you what I am. It's another thing called a, there's an earth wobble that our worth has moved and the zodiac signs are very out of date. And I'd have to put your birthday.

1:03:58Can you, will you say your birthday publicly? I think you know, right? It's November the 3rd. Okay, I'll look it up. Oh, okay. So mine is now this thing called, hold on, Opphiuchus. I'm an Opphiuchus. It's the 13th constellation. I've always said that about you. Opphiuchus means serpent bearer in ancient Greece. That's me. So I'm not Sagittarius. I'm Opphiuchus, which is the 13th constellation. They just decided to do 12 because of the month. All right, I'm going to put yours in while you tell yours and I'll tell you what your actual zodiac sign is. I actually have two wins, and I'm hoping that our team can pull together a mashup.

1:04:34But I thought the senators at the Senate Finance Committee were off-caved. Yeah, finance. Testified. People are very cynical about our elected officials. I think Senators Cassidy, Warren, Cantwell, Bennett, Warner, Sanders. I thought they were outstanding. and they were not taking prisoners. This is a serious issue. And we elect these people to prevent a tragedy of the commons and think long-term. And there's nothing that can better prevent a tragedy of the commons and is more long-term than vaccines. And these guys, in my view, they just brought it. I thought they were outstanding. And also - They did their job.

1:05:13It was clear that Senate offices continue to attract incredibly impressive staff and aides because these guys came ready to play. Their facts were on point. They had charts. I mean, it's just, it's the, you know, the team of the best players wins. I thought there were really talented people behind the scenes pulling together this data for our outstanding elected leaders. So that was my win. My other win was, I was thinking about, it's about to be, what is it, the 24-year anniversary of September the 11th. And I just want to reflect on that for a minute. it. I was in New York when it happened, and my ex called me.

1:05:56We had split up about a year before, but we were still good friends. She called me and said, can you come over? And I said, sure. She said, the World Trade Center is on fire. And we went over and it was on fire. She had a huge deck overlooking the World Trade Center, about a mile north of it. And then we saw a second plane disappear behind the second tower and come out the other end. And right then we knew it was a terrorist attack and the flood of people coming up Sixth Avenue. And I remember the radio, they come over the radio and said, there's 23 planes that are unaccounted for. I remember thinking like, am I in a building that's too tall?

1:06:27Should I get down to the ground? And for the next several days, it was the quietest Manhattan has ever been. No honking. Occasionally you'd see someone on the street on the cell phone crying. But other than that, no one was talking. No one was saying anything. It was very strange. No, it was very, it was like we were out at, and probably it was as if the city was in mourning. The thing that really struck me, and I will remember for a long time and serves as sort of marks the event, was I went to Union Square to that memorial, and there was this tiny couple, they must have been like four foot ten, in very cheap clothing, Ukrainian, they were passing out flyers, similar to the flyers you get when someone has lost their dog.

1:07:06And it was a picture of this, you know, of course, this beautiful young man who was a waiter at the windows of the world, and they thought they might find him. They were out walking around trying to find their son, right? Very upsetting. And then the reason I bring it up as a win is that it really did show that our reach as far in our memory as long. If you think about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, it started in the 90s with criminal charges, and we had some early setbacks, including bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora in 2001. And then with some key intelligence breakthroughs and some intelligence officers that would not give up, we tracked a courier to Abbottabad.

1:07:44And then it culminated in this incredible SEAL raid in May of 2011, which ended in bin Laden's death. And in addition, this left a treasure trove of intelligence files and spurred critical retrospection on foreign and domestic intelligence operations. And I just, I take huge pride in the, in our security apparatus, our defense department, our incredible special ops. I love the idea that the last thought that ran through this guy's head before we put a bullet in his eyes is that we had found him. And it was also, I would argue, the last time America really felt like it was unified. And it was just such an incredible demonstration of persistence, resilience, our intelligence apparatus, our bravery.

1:08:36And I love my favorite visual memorial in history is each year they light up two beams into the sky right where the Twin Towers were. But there were just so many people who came together to, I would like to think, give some semblance of closure to the people who lost people and to demonstrate that America, again, our reach is far and our memory is long. But I just wanted to comment on the 24-year anniversary of September 11th. If you were in New York, it really stands out as a big moment. Do you know where Amanda was? Underneath the towers. She was in a subway going down there. Oh, really? Did she know what was going on?

1:09:25No, the subway stopped and filled with smoke. She thought she was going to die and didn't know what nobody knew. And they managed to get them out and get up in the street and far enough away that it didn't before it fell and stuff like that. So one of them. One of the strange things about 9-11. It was terrifying, I'm sure. They had that hospital over in the meatpacking district and they fired it up and said, get ready. And the thing was, you either died or you got off scot-free. There were actually very few injuries. Yeah. It's tragedy. But, you know, we lost something like 350 firefighters, lost about 3 ,000 people.

1:09:56And continue to from the cleanup. And another 4 ,500 people have died from 9-11 related illnesses. Right. And who knows who was down there who would actually, you know, anyway. But my emotionally manipulative moment is if you really want to like feel like emotional, go listen to the calls from the people on the plane so you knew that that was it. All of them, none of them called to say take care of my affairs or there's money in the banana stand. Buy some stock. Or I never told you how much I'm pissed off. They all said the same thing. I'm just calling to say I love you. I love you. Really gripping.

1:10:30Really gripping. Anyways. Good one, Scott Gallagher. Our fine public servants, our elected senators, I thought did an outstanding job at that hearing. And it has been 24 years that unfortunately because of tragedy, I felt like we were a nation. But I think the nation really did pull together and demonstrate a great deal of excellence post 9-11. And let's guess who was the one person who told lies about it and said he was there and said fake things about people of descent from Muslims. And he's the president of the United States. But anyway. This is when he said they're celebrating New Jersey. Yes.

1:11:07And also that he was down there. All this stuff. Anyway, we've got to finish up. But just so you know, Scott, you're a Libra, not a Scorpio. Really? I like being a Scorpio. It means I'm an asshole, but I'm interesting. You're now a Libra. So just remember, you're a Libra, my friend. A Libra. Go look. I'll send you the link. You're a Libra. Sorry, you're going to have to rethink your whole life. Anyway, I'm an oofcook. I can't even pronounce it. I'm the 13th constellation. I think I have a sweater made from the hide of that. Anyway. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind.

1:11:37Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe, this week I spoke with historian, New Yorker, staff writer, and Harvard University professor Jill Lepore about her new book, We the People. It's a giant book about the history of the Constitution. Let's listen to a clip. I think Trump and Trumpism are also a product of a world where the Constitution became unamendable. I mean, after the ERA, the amendment that Americans most seriously considered in the 70s and 80s was the balanced budget amendment, which had, like ERA, about 80 percent popular approval, like, say, around 1979 or so.

1:12:15There's just a lot of people who were really worried about federal government spending. So that essentially constitutional frustration of a large segment of the American public, I think Trump tapped into that. Yes, the unamendable constitution. We had some good ones, but not now. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kate Gallagher. Ernie and Jatot entered into this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ms.

1:12:50Rivera, and Dan Shalon. Nishak Karra, Fox Media's executive producer podcast. 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. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great rest of the week.