GameStop's eBay Bid, AI and the Midterms, and Senate Prediction Market Ban

6:58Scott Galloway:Oh, God. That's what I do. Jesus Christ. I just ate.

7:02Kara Swisher:What would you wear, seriously? What would you, if you had to think of some fantastic costume?

7:07Scott Galloway:I have, I literally have absolutely no idea. I don't.

7:10Kara Swisher:You love to dress up. You dressed up as like, at Halloween, you always dress up.

7:14Scott Galloway:Oh, no, I love dressing up in something outrageous. I love going as Deadpool or Starship Commander Jean-Luc Picard. Huge crowd pleaser. Okay. I went as Luke Skywalker.

7:26Kara Swisher:But not like for a costume, Met costume.

7:28Scott Galloway:I went as Ted Lasso. Any opportunity to put on a wig and be someone different, I absolutely love that. But to try and look good. Well, you don't have to.

7:36Kara Swisher:Not all of them do. Sometimes they look kind of crazy.

7:39Scott Galloway:That was the easiest no in the world. That's like the last thing. At some point, I lose all academic credibility.

7:47Kara Swisher:Yeah.

7:47Scott Galloway:And, you know, something that gets much closer to that point is showing up the fucking football.

7:52Kara Swisher:I wish you would go and wear an I don't care, do you shirt, like the Melania shirt.

7:57Scott Galloway:I don't like that either. I think if you get invited to something like that, you play along and you'd be a good, gracious guest. I don't think you wear a dress saying tax the rich. I thought that was low budget.

8:07Kara Swisher:I agree with you. I think that's stupid. You don't go. But you should go because I need to understand it. I need you to go in there because I would never do such a thing. I'm in London.

8:16Scott Galloway:And plus, I really want to hang out with you and your friends here. Not true.

8:19Kara Swisher:You are invited. Not true. Don't say I don't invite you. You are.

8:23Scott Galloway:I have nothing to do. I'm home alone. I've got the boys this week. You're off partying with your fancy friends from The Devil Wears Prada. No. And I'm home alone with my dogs. No. All right. That's all I got to say. Listen to me.

8:34Kara Swisher:It's a small dinner. You're invited. If you'd like to come, it would be great. Okay? Yeah. If not, I'm going to find you and see your house. Yeah, come by.

8:43Scott Galloway:I'm sure you're not staying here.

8:45Kara Swisher:No. They have me at the hotel next to the thing. But I would usually. But when I come back, I will. Are you staying there now? What's the deal?

8:53Scott Galloway:I don't know. Oh, okay. The honest answer is a monkey wrench has been thrown into our plans because my youngest, who has a habit of doing this, is all of a sudden getting A's. Anyways, I'm going to spend much more time in the U.S. There's a lot of moving parts here. All right. Well, let me know.

9:14Kara Swisher:Let me know. Anyway, I will come by and find you somehow. I'll break into your house. Anyway, let's get to the news. This is a weird one. And as we record, GameStop and eBay stocks are responding to real train wreck of an interview from the GameStop CEO. What a surprise. Ryan Cohen, who's somewhat of a moron sometimes when he talks, announced the deal of the century over the weekend. A$55.5 billion unsolicited offer to buy eBay at$125 a chair, pitching it as a future rival to Amazon. But then he went on CNBC's Squawk Box, where our good friend Andrew Ross Sorkin, our famous Canadian friend, pointed out the math wasn't mathing.

9:49Kara Swisher:It was amazingly awkward. Let's listen. You have nine billion dollars on your balance sheet, arguably if you're if you're providing effectively all of your stock.

10:02Scott Galloway:And then and then the cash that gets you to 20. You have this letter from TD. That's another 20. We're now at 40, but we're still off by call it 16. and the 20, as far as I understand, while it's considered a highly confident letter, meaning TD saying they're highly confident that they would provide the financing, it's not locked financing. Yeah, we'll see what happens.

10:38Scott Galloway:I hear you. I understand that. I'm just trying to understand where the rest of the money would come from. It's half cash, half stock. I hear you. I'm just saying that that math doesn't get you to the price that you're offering.

11:01Kara Swisher:It got more and more awkward after that. This is a meme stock. This guy is such a moron. He's always trying to get that stupid stock up, the game stock thing, and take advantage of people. So, I don't know. It reminds me of the story about Polymarket and Calci, only the top whatever 0.1 % make money and everyone else loses. But your thoughts on this ridiculousness? I love Andrew.

11:26Scott Galloway:Well, first off, Andrew did a great job. I think Andrew is one of those. You're like this, too. It is very difficult to ask really piercing hard questions to make people look stupid while remaining dignified and not coming across as an asshole. And Andrew's able to do that. You're able to do that. This is off, off, off Broadway theater, not strategy. This is just so fucking stupid and such a waste of oxygen. And a CEO who has, I looked into this, a compensation strategy that says, if you can get GameStop to 100 billion, you get 35 billion in a Musk-like compensation strategy. So he's trying to meme-ify his stock again.

12:07Scott Galloway:So this is noise. It doesn't pass the most basic smell test. First off, there's a scale mismatch. eBay is a 30 to$40 billion enterprise. GameStop doesn't have the balance sheet to do without massive dilution or leverage. And the stock they would have to offer, they'd have to issue so much stock that the stock would immediately go into a downward spiral. Correct, yeah. There's no way they can do this. The strategic fit is thin. We're both commerce isn't a strategy. eBay is a two-sided marketplace with decades of liquidity and tens of millions of customers. GameStop is still figuring out what the fuck it wants to be other than trying to become a meme stock.

12:46Scott Galloway:And then, as Andrew was pointing out, the financing reality here is nothing but a bad ayahuasca trip. Even a partial bid would require issuing a ton of equity, see above, massive decline in the stock. that's effectively asking shareholders to fund a ketamine trip. So what's left here, there's nothing here but signaling to retail investors. He's trying to say, we're bold, we're swinging, start taking, get someone on Reddit, get Roaring Kitty fired up so I can get in a rational compensation for not actually adding any fucking intrinsic value. To the market, what he said is we're a melting ice cube.

13:25Scott Galloway:And he's also, in my opinion, And this has backfired. By the way, GameStop stock, as we record, down 9 % today. This is not only – I blame the board here. A board of directors is supposed to be fiduciaries.

13:41Kara Swisher:Is there one? I mean, to speak of. That's a fair point.

13:45Scott Galloway:But this should never have even been allowed. Real acquisitions, the real work is done behind the scenes. And if you're going to make a hostile bid for a company, you show up with your financing locked and loaded. and it's done. And if you have to go hostile because they reject your initial offer, this should be a one sentence response from the board of eBay. Oh, come on. You are not a serious people, period. That's it. So this makes a headline. This is using financial markets and the press as you're taking them for clowns because you got a trip to the circus and COVID with your meme stock adventure.

14:23Scott Galloway:This is, I...

14:24Kara Swisher:Well, he's trying to get it going again. It's like that Wall Street Journal piece about who's benefiting from these prediction markets. And if you don't know who the sucker in the room is, it's probably you. This is not a real thing. It was showing who makes profits. And it's a small group of people who make all the profits. Everyone else loses, thousands and thousands, whoever's using it. And so it's, you know, you're a sucker. There's just, it's just like, I don't know why this is legal, this kind of nonsense. Not down 10%. You're allowed to, I don't know if it should be illegal.

14:57Scott Galloway:Here's the bottom line. The market is doing its job. They say, oh, remember GameStop? Okay, the CEO is a fucking idiot. And he clearly has no fiduciary oversight. And it's taken his stock down 10 % today, one day. Right.

15:11Kara Swisher:Except this has gone on for a long time, this nonsense, and people have benefited just like they are doing over on these predictions market. The certain people who are a little smarter, you know, supposedly, like I think Chamath was in there. Remember when it was going up and up and up, GameStop? Right. It just feels like they're just taking poor people's money. Like it just is so grotesque what they're doing here.

15:35Scott Galloway:I think the meme stock movement, I hated it. I got dragged on the internet because I said young men should spend less time on their phone and trading with this was just stupid. I do think a lot, I'd be curious to know, I mean, quite frankly, the meme stock movement, the whole gestalt of it was stick it to the man, stick it to rich people.

15:56Kara Swisher:Yeah, but it never, and then it became about a con.

15:58Scott Galloway:Right. And when you have the Winklevi telling you to stick it to the man, it means you're about to be impaled as a retail investor. Exactly. And so I agree with you that anyone, this is just pure gambling. It's not speculation. And the reality is for younger people or people doing this, if you want to have some fun, it's like Vegas, fine, have at it. But the thing is you've got to stay your phone all fucking day because the moves are so wild here. But this is, in my opinion, I think, and I don't know if there should be regulation here. It's free speech. But the question is, should you be able to have this kind of impact on the markets, which I don't think it has, when you make offers that are not in any way realistic?

16:43Scott Galloway:In other words, is this market manipulation? Is it trying to do something -

16:47Kara Swisher:Right, that's what I mean, yeah.

16:48Scott Galloway:With absolutely no serious intent of, I wonder what's happened to eBay stock price. God, that's a company that's.

16:57Kara Swisher:Let's just thank Andrew, our favorite Canadian, Andrew Ross Sarkin for like slapping this guy. He's really polite. I'd be like, at this point, after he says, have cash, have stock, I go, you fucking moron. That would be my next line. He's like, the math doesn't work. eBay stocks up 5%.

17:12Scott Galloway:That's really interesting.

17:14Kara Swisher:Well, that's been a long sort of troubled company, right? It seems like an opportunity for someone. Anyway, we'll see. It's a great brand. Everybody knows it. I wrote one of the first stories about it. I remember meeting with the venture capitalists. They were at, what's that firm? Benchmark. It was all the handsome Benchmark men. It was me across from six tall white men.

17:36Scott Galloway:Yeah, not very tall.

17:37Kara Swisher:And they were telling me about eBay. And I know Pierre a little bit, who I like very much. Yeah, he's a nice man. Anyway, it's had a rocky, it sort of missed a lot of turns. In any case, let's move on. The Supreme Court just temporarily blocked a lower court's ban on the abortion pill, mifeprestone. Being sent through the mail, two pharmaceutical companies had filed an emergency appeal warning the lower court's ruling could create chaos and leave patients around the country in limbo. medication is now the method used in nearly two-thirds of abortions in the United States. The FDA approved the drug in 2000.

18:12Kara Swisher:Experts say it's safe and effective. We're going to be talking more about the midterms in a bit, but is this a fight that Trump and Republicans want to have right now? As Melinda French-Gate said on threads, everyone deserves health care that's guided by science, not politics. Melinda for the win. FTW.

18:30Scott Galloway:Thoughts? Well, I'm just going to refer to it as an mTone. M-Tone is an enormous breakthrough. It's used by millions of patients worldwide. It's one of the most studied and safest medications on the market. Serious complications are very rare. The safety profile is comparable or safer than many common prescriptions. It's effective. It reduces the need for more invasive procedures. procedures. It expands access, especially in underserved areas. Earlier care, safer outcomes. It's consistent with medical authority and standards. The legal consistency argument doesn't hold up here. Other medications with higher risk profiles remain legal.

19:12Scott Galloway:Singling this one is often just inconsistent.

19:14Kara Swisher:Well, it's because it's working. The anti-abortion activists, that's why they're focused on.

19:20Scott Galloway:Again, this is what is so mendacious and un-American. rich people don't need government. I have benefited enormously from standing on the shoulders of other people and taxpayers, assisted lunch, University of California, rights, rule of law, the SEC, all these things I've benefited from. Now that I have wealth, I don't need the government. I have my own transportation. I have my own security. I have my own schools. I have my own healthcare. The people who need government the most are the most vulnerable among us. And just when the government needs to step in and protect a 15-year-old non-white woman in the South from something that could impoverish her for her lifetime, traumatize her, put her in real serious health risk, that's who they go after.

20:12Scott Galloway:I've even said the anti-abortion movement is not a war on women. It's a war on poor women. This is, who needs this? Who is this a breakthrough for? The people who don't have the resources or quite frankly, the sophistication to get on a plane and go to a clinic to get an abortion in a state where it's legal.

20:32Kara Swisher:And then they disdain them after they're born. They can make this illegal.

20:37Scott Galloway:You and I would have no problem getting it. None. This is government at its worst. This is not protecting the people who need government and laws the most. This is, there is, there is no, no medical, no moral, no, in my opinion, American reason to do this.

20:57Kara Swisher:You get why they want no abortions whatsoever.

20:59Scott Galloway:I get that. But when you, but here's the bottom line. They want abortions, but only on the down low for if and when it happens to one of their friends. what they they're you know they're they're very like you're not into abortion that don't happen to abortion but i think you would find that that one of the reasons that people are a lot of people especially wealthy anti-abortion people to have no empathy for this is they know if shit ever gets real for them or anyone in their family they can figure it out and so i find this i find efforts to do away with. This drug is a gift. Yeah.

21:41Kara Swisher:Well, the Supreme Court has just temporarily, though. This is just a temporary. Well, my understanding is as we were

21:46Scott Galloway:just a couple hours ago, they've temporarily halted the ban or blocked the ban. Yeah, but it's a temporary block. This also goes back to what I think a lot about young men. And the number one reason, I think it's most women who have terminated pregnancy go on to have children. One of the top reasons stated by women as to why they terminate a pregnancy is lack of partner support. And so if you're really serious about reducing the number of pregnancies terminated, then we need economic policies and we need more men my age to get involved in young men's life and instill a set of values such that we produce more economically and emotionally viable men.

22:26Scott Galloway:This is true, but they don't like them once they're born, Scott.

22:29Kara Swisher:They don't like these people once they're born.

22:32Scott Galloway:No, no, but that's a different issue. What I'm saying is, well, I get that, but we're talking past each other right now. I'm talking about if you were serious about reducing the number of abortions, you would figure out a way such that there were women who felt they had more reliable partners. If you want more kids and you want fewer abortions, we need to produce a new generation of more responsible, economically viable young men. And you're right. The same people who are most rabidly anti-abortion tend to be the same ones who don't want universal child care.

23:05Kara Swisher:Or give them money or they disdain them or, you know, everything. It's just, it makes no sense. It makes no, and then they're the most for the death penalty. And you're sort of like, where is the consistency here in any way? Well, it's that joke.

23:20Scott Galloway:If you want to save someone from the death penalty, just shove them up a women's uterus. Oh, my God.

23:27Kara Swisher:I can't believe I laughed at that. That's kind of funny. Anyway, let's look. I hope it's not just a temporary ban. I hope the Supreme Court, you know, gets slapped since. They've had some very dicey and horrible rulings recently around the Voting Rights Act. But this is something that is just ridiculous. It's bad for companies. It's bad for people. The abortion foes have won enough, I feel like. But they won't. They'll keep going. Okay, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, how AI is upending the midterms.

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27:25Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back with six months to go until the midterms. AI regulation has become a hot-button issue, and the money is pouring in. AI super PACs are taking a page out of the crypto playbook, which worked rather well, spending millions to influence elections. They're backing both Democratic and Republican candidates. Whoever is more friendly to AI and big tech, the biggest PAC leading the future, is funded in part by Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman. On the other end, there's the public first action, a PAC backed by$20 million donation from Anthropic. And tech billionaire Chris Larson is putting up$3.5 million in New York to back Democratic congressional candidate Alex Boris, who supports AI regulation.

28:08Kara Swisher:I was texting with Chris about this the other day and also Alex. Let's take a look at the ad that Larson's PAC just launched. You think you know what they're watching.

28:22Scott Galloway:But with AI, they can land on anything. Violence, child sexual abuse, and predators. Who would be against AI safety laws? OpenAI, the company behind ChachiPT. They're attacking Alex Boris for writing the toughest AI safety law in the country. Don't let OpenAI shut down child safety. You Can Push Back is responsible for the content of this advertising.

28:47Kara Swisher:It's an interesting ad. And from a marketing perspective, it's an interesting way to counter child safety as the number one thing that people are all bipartisan about. And also AI increasingly. And just for speaking of AI legislation, the Senate Judiciary Committee just advanced a bill that would require AI companies to implement age verification process. It would also ban minors from using AI chatbot companions. I'm not sure this will pass. And at the same time, the Senate just unanimously passed a ban on prediction market trading for senators and their staffers effective immediately. Smart. Calci and Polly Market both praised the Senate's move.

29:26Kara Swisher:The Senate Minority Leader Schumer called it a no-brainer, saying must never allow Congress to turn into a casino. He urged the White House to follow suit. Of course, the White House has already warned staff about betting on the Iran war, but I doubt they'll go for a full ban. And again, the White House is probably in the way of any of this AI, even the safety stuff passing. because they're in the pocket of the AI industry. So thoughts on this effort by Chris, who was, Chris was a tech billionaire at a company. He's really interesting. He's been very involved in San Francisco politics, but this was interesting for him to sort of go against these pro AI PACs, which are led by essentially Mark Andreessen and his gang, his mob.

30:07Kara Swisher:Thoughts on this?

30:08Scott Galloway:Well, it's just, he's feeling a vacuum. It feels as if there should be federal legislation. What I find most interesting is I think that the entity or the part, the touchstone or the visible object or the cudgel, whatever you want to call it, is going to be data centers. And what's interesting about AI is that your approval of AI, the two brands that have registered the greatest brand destruction have been the U.S. abroad over the last few years. We used to be the enforcers protecting people of the West from rogue nations. Now we are that rogue nation. and AI. The brand AI has just taken an absolute nosedive because the only population or the cohort where AI has over 50 % approval is people making over$200 ,000 a year.

30:55Scott Galloway:Because if you're wealthy, you see AI as powering your 401k, an opportunity to make money. You may use it at work. You feel pretty secure about your job. But what a lot of lower income people think is that AI, the only visible representation of AI is a data center that's going to send their electricity rates up while private companies that they don't even have access nor the money to participate in boom in value. I think data centers are going to be ground zero for this battle.

31:22Kara Swisher:Yeah, it's one of them. I think a lot of it. I think people just have like a real antipathy towards AI at this point, even if it's a good thing in some ways, right? I think they've really, you know these packs they'll work they'll work day and night the same thing with the crypto industry you know which had sort of a faint distasteful aroma to it um and it real but it still was effective with all the millions they're spending all over and by the way musk is part of this they're all trying to stop it it's interesting that anthropics on the other side are chris larson's on the other side so there's a lot of tech billionaires um lining up to to stop that and And it's not good for anyone.

32:02Kara Swisher:Alex Boris is a really interesting candidate. He's in that part of Manhattan. I think it's Jack Schlossberg, George Conway are all. There's a whole pack of people running in that area. And Alex is trying to sort of stick his head up as the Mr. AI regulator. But it'll be an interesting case of who wins here. A lot of people think the candidates or the party that is sort of vaguely anti-AI has a better chance in the midterms. I don't know if you think that's so. But there is legislation. It's just that this administration is just not going to pass any of these laws because they're getting so much money from the AI companies.

32:39Kara Swisher:I don't see them. The only people they ever have at the White House are AI people. Never have a critic. Never have anybody who's against it.

32:46Scott Galloway:There was this great Hugh Grant, Nicole Kidman show called The Undoing where they're trying to solve a murder. And the defense attorney says, people hire me to create muck. And that's what's going on here. I think that's what the AI guys are going to do. I think they're just going to create a ton of confusion around this and make it difficult to pass anything. And also, they have the money. My understanding is they've already pledged about a quarter of a billion dollars. And just for reference, leading up into the 22 midterms, pharma spent - 26. No, this is - I'm using 2022 just as a benchmark.

33:20Kara Swisher:Oh, okay. Got it. Crypto, yeah.

33:22Scott Galloway:But the pharma lobby spent 380 million. Insurance spent 159. real estate spent 139. I think you're going to see far more than that spent by the pro AI lobby. I think it's going to be sort of, they'll try to couch it as we're for safety and children, we need to do this thoughtfully. And the anti AI will be a grassroots and it'll be focused on data centers. They're environmentally damaging to us. They're not creating any jobs. And all they're going to do is send your already soaring energy costs even higher. So it's going to be an interesting proxy for how people feel about AI and technology.

34:05Kara Swisher:I don't know. I feel like it goes back to the Bezos thing is they're trying, nobody likes them anymore. Like they have become villains. They are villains now. And so no matter how much money they spend, people are like, I can't tell you how many people come, Scott, really interestingly over the past week, people have come up to me and said thank you to you and I for being at least critical in a smart way, like very, you know, not just screaming about it, but explaining it. I just feel like these are villains now and they can spend as much money as they want, but I don't think it's going to, I think people in their heart feel very nervous about it and very, very distrustful.

34:46Kara Swisher:And I know it doesn't correlate with how much money like Prado was, but the story is about corporations fucking you, tech companies fucking you. That's really what it's about. And I think, and it did it in a very subtle way, but they've got, I'm not so sure it's going to work. And the same thing with these, the prediction markets, as much as they're interesting, everyone's got a little funny feeling about it. I mean, obviously the Senate, nobody in the Senate should be on prediction markets if they have information. Or trading stocks. Trading, well, both. You're right. Predict democracy is even worse on some level because it's like, let's bet on death, essentially.

35:26Kara Swisher:And it should be the White House. It should be the House. It should be all of them. It's not free speech. You have unique information. You're there for the public service. And while you're there, you're not going to be gambling, essentially, which is what I think it is.

35:42Scott Galloway:Look, there's two issues here. One, and we'll come back to this. One is how the general public feels about AI and how the brand has eroded dramatically. And then there's, in my view, we should follow the Singapore model. An entry-level minister earns the equivalent of$800 ,000 and$1.7 million U.S. for a prime minister. the objective of our elected representatives, the incentive should be you are there to make Americans wealthier, not to enrich yourself. And what Americans see right now around AI is the following. It's making a lot of people a lot of money, but the only thing I see is risk, peril, according to these guys, and my electricity costs are going to go up.

36:22Scott Galloway:So I'm supposed to like this. Oh, and by the way, the ultimate poster child for tech in this age is Musk. And he does not acquit himself well.

36:32Kara Swisher:No, he does not.

36:33Scott Galloway:So it used to be Gates. It was a little bit awkward. It used to be, and then went on to, I think, get very concerned about public health and developing nations. Steve Jobs, at a minimum, was likable and seen as a visionary. The new spokespeople for tech are Musk, Altman, right? I don't even think Bezos. He's kind of left, you know? Don't you

36:58Kara Swisher:No, I think people think of him, mm-mm. I think he looks like, you know, Daddy Warbucks, except not nice to Annie.

37:05Scott Galloway:And then unfortunately, or not fortunately or unfortunately, the other person at the center of this that's identifying or marking the age around technology because he was so close to so many of them is Epstein. So what do you have? You have increasing electricity costs, wealth accretion that you're not participating in, peril that supposedly the inventors of this shit think is everywhere. Oh, and let's add in a dash of pedophilia. Welcome to big tech. Like, who are the heroes? Who are, I mean, maybe Dario Almede? Who are the heroes here that are supposed to be?

37:42Kara Swisher:Cuban, Dario.

37:44Scott Galloway:Do you think Cuban's associated with technology?

37:46Kara Swisher:I do. I do. I'm just saying, but I think he's not associating with it. I'm just saying there are better heroes here. Like I would say a Satya Nadella could fill that role. Tim Cook could have, except now he looks like somewhat of a chode. You know, I don't know. I agree with you. I think I've never seen such a thing happen. I mean.

38:06Scott Galloway:Just 10 % of Americans are more excited than concerned about AI. As of March, two-thirds of Americans have not much or no exposure to AI at work. Two-thirds of Americans think that AI will eliminate more jobs than it creates. Less than a third of Americans trust AI. And 77 % of Americans think AI poses a threat to humanity. So, okay, threat to humanity, but my electricity costs are going up.

38:33Kara Swisher:Yeah. So while I'm living here, it kills us.

38:37Scott Galloway:I can barely afford gas.

38:39Kara Swisher:Yeah.

38:40Scott Galloway:I don't have my affordable care subsidies, but OpenAI is raising money at$850 billion. to fund something that supposedly is a threat to humanity. What do you know people are excited about AI? They've done. This is the worst managed brand in a long time.

38:57Kara Swisher:I don't know what they can do to get it back. I really don't at this point. We'll see if they can, but they're just all such, every time they open their mouths, I think they should stop talking. That's my feeling. Anyway, we need to go on a quick break and we come back. Apple is sitting on a ton of cash. Might they use it to make a big acquisition under their new CEO?

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42:32Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back. We have to talk about Apple's latest earnings and what they mean for the company's future strategy. They just had their best March quarter ever, beating expectations with$111 billion in revenue, up 17 % from last year. iPhone is still the engine, $57 billion in sales, up 22 % in their services business. That's iCloud, Apple TV, and subscriptions just hit an all-time record of nearly$31 billion. But the company also announced it's abandoning its net cash neutral target. Some analysts say this is a signal that Apple is about to make a major AI acquisition, possibly the AI startup perplexity, which has struggled compared to the others and has a range of issues around it.

43:14Kara Swisher:Should Apple buy into the AI business first? What do you think about this?

43:20Scott Galloway:Well, first off, this really is sort of a run through the tape, high five, you know.

43:26Kara Swisher:Nice last quarter for Tim Cook.

43:28Scott Galloway:Yeah. Best Q1 ever. Revenues of$111 billion up 17 % year on year, beating Wall Street estimates of$109 billion. The stock's trading up 3 % after hours. One of the things I love about Apple is they've figured out we're a mature company. We're not a growth company. We're still growing, but we're going to return money to shareholders. And they do it through buybacks. They just announced$100 billion share buyback. They've raised their dividend 4 % to$0.27 per share. iPhone revenue rose 22 % in the quarter with Cook calling the iPhone 17 lineup, which I wasn't a fan of. I got to own that. The most popular in our history, got that one wrong, the revenue was constrained by supply issues.

44:12Scott Galloway:It was Q3 guidance, revenue growth of 14 % to 17 % year on year. And the new CEO joined the earnings call and was introduced by Cook, which was the first time I think, first appearance since the transition was announced. He praised Apple's financial discipline under Cook. And the thing I love or respect so much about Apple is that companies typically have a tough time acknowledging they're no longer a teenager and they stuff their face with Botox and fillers and they don't want to act like a mature company and be very disciplined, which goes to your question around AI. I personally think and watch by the time this airs, they'll announce they've acquired perplexity.

44:54Scott Galloway:I think Apple's culture is so strong that they've decided that they are not an acquisitive company, that they don't like acquiring. They've made fewer acquisitions in any company of their size. And I wonder -

45:07Kara Swisher:The headphone company is the last one I remember.

45:09Scott Galloway:Beats, right? It just wasn't that big a deal. But in my view, what they've decided is similar to the search wars, let's not engage in the AI wars. It's too expensive. There's too much capital in it. Let's continue to be the arbiter, the toll, then custody of the billion most attractive consumers in the world.

45:33Kara Swisher:Like with maps, the way they sort of got out of maps.

45:36Scott Galloway:They get, and they manage, and granted, there's been antitrust action against them, but they managed to get a$20 billion licensing fee to be the default search engine from Alphabet. I wonder if they're going to say, look, we'll use AI to improve our targeting and improve our Apple Music, but we're going to, at some point, have an auction, and auction off access as the default LLM, and they're going to get tens of billions of dollars from one of these guys.

46:00Kara Swisher:Or should they buy something and just, because this is sort of the heart. Whatever you think of AI, it is at the heart of your services. You can't just like, it's not, you can't vendor it like you would search or mapping.

46:14Scott Galloway:Search has been pretty central.

46:16Kara Swisher:Yes, but it's not that, there's a whole bunch of things you do on an iPhone that's not just searching. And you don't use search internally on the phone. You use it when you go outside. That's what they use Google for, for your browser. They don't do it, they don't power the search inside of Apple. They have to have an AI company. They just do. They need it to integrate the way Google has done with Gemini. They need one. I think they have to buy one because they're not going to be able to build it. They keep having people leave who are running AI. It's just there's not enough action happening there for people to stay.

46:50Kara Swisher:There's more action.

46:50Scott Galloway:So you think it'll be an acquihire? Do you think they'll actually offer it as a service?

46:53Kara Swisher:No, I think it'll be integrated into their services, the way Gemini is. I mean, there is a Gemini separate service, but most of the usage of Gemini is within the search engine, right, into their current product. I don't think people necessarily, like, I go out when I want to use AI and go to Claw, right? And sometimes I get it in Gemini, but Gemini is not quite specific enough, and I don't want to pay for it, and I don't want more relationship with Google, and Claw is better for me at least. So I think they have to have something they integrate into their business for lots of reasons. And then they could also say, if you want to do something outside, like with search, we have a deal with open A.

47:38Kara Swisher:I think they did have some sort of deal. Anyway, I think they buy something. I don't see how they can't.

47:44Scott Galloway:But to be serious in AI involves this capex. You see, Apple's complexion in shareholders is Apple shareholders have gotten their lips wrapped around the crack cocaine of profits.

47:56Kara Swisher:I'm not talking about a customer service, a consumer service. I'm talking about integrated into their other services. They need to have some ability to do that.

48:05Scott Galloway:But why, I guess my question is the following. Anthropic and OpenAI both get public. Both of them call it a trillion dollars. The new CEO shows up and says, who wants to be the default AI for Apple products?

48:20Kara Swisher:Yes, but for Apple products externally, not internally, they need to have AI. I agree.

48:26Scott Galloway:They need to have AI competence.

48:27Kara Swisher:Right. And that's why they need to buy something like perplexity.

48:30Scott Galloway:Because you don't think they can recruit the people to build that.

48:32Kara Swisher:I can't. They have lost people. I don't pay attention to every turn of the screw with all these AI people moving around, which they do like a lot. But they've lost quite a few people running. It's just not where the action is. And so they're going to go. And so they have to have a competence by having like a perplexity to run the internal stuff that you don't see necessarily. And then for a consumer service, just like with search, there's search in Apple that's not Google, but then they go and get it for the external stuff for customers. Where it's like, why should we pay for a really robust search service?

49:07Kara Swisher:It just doesn't make sense. Why should we pay for a map? I mean, they still have maps. That's not true. But mostly it's Google Maps, right? That's who they get a big chunk of money from. And that's who their default is. Or default browser. Here we have, you know, the Google browser, essentially. And so that kind of stuff, it's like, why bother doing that? This is integral to their, how they get you songs, how they get you. They can't have open AI give you song information. It just doesn't make, they need to do it themselves, certain things. That's my feeling.

49:37Scott Galloway:Yeah, I find the product, I haven't, you know, I pull up, I'm now running and doing more zone two exercise.

49:48Kara Swisher:Good.

49:48Scott Galloway:Yeah, I know. Thank you. But I do, when I bring up Spotify, they have that AI DJ. I'm trying to think, you think that Apple needs AI. How would that manifest in the customer consumer experience?

50:01Kara Swisher:You don't see it. You don't, just the way when you go to search right now with Gemini, it's there, right? It says, this is the Gemini. You don't even have to tell me. It's just search. Like, I don't know why they have to differentiate.

50:11Scott Galloway:When I'm on an Apple phone, though, I use Google search.

50:13Kara Swisher:Right. Right, but internally, as they serve up all manner of things to you, they're using Apple technology. They just need to own, they need to have a basic level of competence in AI to serve much of their stuff. And then the external stuff, they can get piles of money from whatever company. I bet it will be Claude, that's my guess. But they need to own something. So if only to maintain those relationships, right? to under, I just don't think they can be without AI expertise, but they don't need to offer a consumer service. They're never going to offer a consumer service, not their strength anyway.

50:48Kara Swisher:Their strength is their ecosystem. Anyway, we need to move on. But the Pentagon just made a slew of AI deals. Speaking of, this is an AI week here. Jeff Bezos is tuxedo and AI dudes. Announcing last week that it reached agreements with Amazon, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and a startup called reflection to use their technology for, quote, lawful operational use. I don't trust them at all. These companies join XAI, OpenAI, and Google in providing Pentagon with AI tools. The Pentagon says these agreements will accelerate transformation toward making the U.S. military an AI-first fighting force. Notably, Anthropic is still out of the mix, despite that recent productive meeting at the White House.

51:28Kara Swisher:Just last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called Anthropic CEO Dario Amodi, an ideological lunatic. He's such a moron. You know, they should spread around the wealth here, but, and not just rely on one company, obviously, and let them fight it out. But I think, nonetheless, from what I understand from everyone who works in government, Claude remains the top player here. And it's stupidity on the, well, it's kind of saying things twice, stupidity on the behalf of Pete Hegseth. You have to assume he's smart in the first place, which he isn't. I think he's going to be out. I have this feeling.

52:03Kara Swisher:You think? I do. I don't know why. I just was like, oh, he's going to get rid of him. He's too much of a moron. He's such a, like, I know he looks the part and he's like, does his chest puffy thing for Donald Trump, which he likes. But I just think he's, I think the knives are out for this guy because he's such an, I just can't figure out which one they're going to get first, Patel or, and by the way, SNL did a great job on both of them this week. Oh my God. Aziz and Zaria did Patel. And of course, Colin Jost, as Pete X says, is just fantastic. But I think he's a moron. And it's fine to have all these people come in and do this stuff.

52:38Kara Swisher:Sure, why not? It just seems like that's a lot of people in there in that room. I don't think it's – I feel like somehow it's probably too chaotic to have all of them there on some level. Maybe not.

52:48Scott Galloway:It just seems to me that, to a certain extent, Anthropa can declare victory and go home and be one of the seven companies or not. the Department of Defense, they blacklisted Anthropic. Anthropic feels like, and Dario Amode feel like kind of the first person who sort of said no to the tech bros and to Hegseth and Trump. And he's gained, I think, a lot of stature from that. And, but at the same time, he can, you know, he can say that, fine, I'll be one of the seven companies. The breakdown wasn't over capabilities. It was over guardrails, right? The DOD wanted Claude deployable for all lawful purposes.

53:24Scott Galloway:Right, which they didn't, yes. And Anthropic said no to autonomous kill decisions. And so a federal judge said the Pentagon's move looks like an attempt to cripple Anthropic, which is an, it's just so weird. All these tech bros who are all looking for the next check and bail out in their own crypto scheme going after Dario. I think Dario's in a great spot right now.

53:50Kara Swisher:Oh, for the next era? Oh, wow. Wow. Let me tell you. Yeah, he looks really solid. Next, if there's a Democratic president, he's going to be the poster child for the Democrats. The most interesting argument I've heard, and it really made me think about this, was that all of these guys are claiming that this is more powerful than nuclear weapons.

54:09Scott Galloway:We don't have private venture-backed companies making nuclear bombs. Correct, sir. So it's like, okay, if you really believe that, then shouldn't you all, by virtue of defense, for defense reasons, be government-controlled and owned companies? Yes, yes, yes. Or highly regulated? Because you're claiming that these things are more powerful than any technology ever. We don't.

54:33Kara Swisher:Scott, stop making sense. Please stop.

54:36Scott Galloway:Well, it's just so, it feels to me like they're setting themselves up. I'm really excited about the potential for a democratic administration because I think there's gonna be a lot of momentum around. All right, here are some basic common sense regulations we would apply to any technology that is a quarter of what you claim the peril is here. You're the ones saying it's going to take employment over 20%. By the way, the French Revolution and the Weimar Republic descending into darkness happened when they hit 20 % unemployment. You're claiming this thing is learning so fast that it'll be able to turn on itself.

55:14Scott Galloway:Well, okay, so shouldn't that mean you are not allowed to release anything to the broader public until we have given you the badge of clearance on it? I think it's just gonna be so easy for somebody to kind of step in and say, all right, you guys win. You have scared us so squarely and so rightly that we are going to have regulators and the Defense Department and the DOJ in your fucking knitting, folks. And at the same time, they need to strike a balance such that Chinese LLMs don't get well ahead of us. But at some point you have to realize, okay, when does the well-being of civilization begin to even remotely rival the excitement of your IPO?

56:01Scott Galloway:So it's just the tech bros have become so used to as long as long as I'm going to get my face on the NASDAQ billboard, I can overrun all social concerns. And I can even brag about how fucking dangerous this is, as long as I use it to extract or pull the future forward with cheap capital. I think these guys are really sticking their chin out.

56:24Kara Swisher:They're sticking. And then they have, you know, again, Emil Michael is there, all their best buddy, which who is from there, you know, gaming the situation because the moron Pete Hegseth doesn't know anything. And so they're just they're sitting. Let me say when if the Democrats do get control in a strong way, you need to flush all these people down the toilet like immediately, like not even like let's all try to get along. First, you take them out and then you start over again. And I think puts Dario in the best position in that regard. because he had the guts to speak back, you know, or at least push back on just the most illogical, moronic statements by the Defense Department under this incredibly unqualified cabinet secretary.

57:07Kara Swisher:I mean, really, it's so ridiculous. One of the problems, you know, sometimes there's nefarious people who are smart, right? And you're sort of like, oh, we're in trouble. But this is a moron, like an actual, like the moronic nature of both Kash Patel. and Pete Hegg Seth is so apparent. They're not sly. They're not, you know, slyly evil or evilly sly or whatever.

57:32Scott Galloway:Dick Cheney is shaking his head. Correct.

57:35Kara Swisher:I was like, uh-oh, because he knows, right? He could do something. But I just, you're right. Dario puts himself in a much better position for what's next if we make it there. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for Wins and Fails.

57:55Scott Galloway:I'm Maria Sharapova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Follow Pretty Tough wherever you get your podcasts. So we are 250 years into this American experiment, and I'd say it's going okay. I'd give us like a C+.

58:32Kara Swisher:There is no perfect past, but there is also no exclusively negative past because humans are gonna human. That's what we do. I think the story of America is the struggle of people who have not been included in the promise of America to expand those principles to include more people.

58:52Scott Galloway:What's going to determine the next 250 years of America? And how do we write a new social contract that can give us the democracy we deserve?

59:01Kara Swisher:Okay, so I'm just going to be a jerk here because I'm a historian. So we have to have a prologue explaining, you know, we the people. Oh, okay.

59:10Scott Galloway:You know, I do still remember it from Schoolhouse Rock. We the people, anointed the former perfect union, established justice. What is it? Ensure domestic tranquility?

59:19Kara Swisher:So you're talking about a foundational document. So I'm building a document that will protect American democracy.

59:26Scott Galloway:That's this week on America Actually. Is the U.S.-China rivalry ultimately a race to build the future? The United States and China are the two countries that are really inventing the future. The future is being financed by Wall Street, invented in Silicon Valley as well as Shenzhen. I'm Jake Sullivan. And I'm John Feiner. And we're the hosts of The Long Game, a weekly national security podcast. This week, author Dan Wong joins us to discuss America's lawyerly society, China's engineering state, and why derangement might be a prerequisite for superpower status. The episode's out now. Search for and follow The Long Game wherever you get your podcasts.

1:00:13Kara Swisher:Okay, Scott, wins and fails, why don't you go first this week?

1:00:16Scott Galloway:Well, my fail is the board of directors for GameStop. If you're going to be an SEC publicly listed company, you have a fiduciary responsibility to not impose a tremendous burden on other companies who are trying to serve their shareholders and serve their consumers and their employees. And when you make these ridiculous offers to another company that has absolutely no credibility, veracity, likelihood of going through, you're just in some weird attempt to like ignite another meme craze in your stock. That's just irresponsible and reckless. And there needs to be, generally speaking, in business, within from public companies to other public companies, there is sort of a code.

1:01:01Scott Galloway:You don't, like when we were thinking about acquiring a company or a public company, and then we decided internally it doesn't make sense, we immediately sent them a letter saying we're withdrawing consideration because we don't want to tie them up. We want them to get on with their business and their life, even though you could do it to distract them. But I was on the board of Urban Outfitters, and at one point we were considering acquiring Abercrombie & Fitch, who at the time was hugely diminished. Oh, by the way, Cara, we missed that one.

1:01:37Kara Swisher:We could have picked it up for pennies, and it's come back hugely. Who hasn't?

1:01:42Scott Galloway:Oh, my gosh. Abercrombie? That would have been – that one got away from us. We came very close. The Haney family that runs and controls Urban Outfitters are very, very smart people. But ultimately, we passed. But the moment we made the decision, we could have gotten in the way of other competitors, American Eagle or whatever, to acquire it, kept it on the market for longer. But it was like, no, there's a code amongst good fiduciaries where you immediately say, we're not going to be a bidder here, such that they can get on with trying to sell it to somebody else. And this is such, it's just irresponsible.

1:02:18Scott Galloway:I just hate this from like a decorum standpoint. It's a waste of everyone's time. He's not serious. And I love the fact that the market has responded by taking the stock down 11%. Anyways, it's kind of a weird fail.

1:02:29Kara Swisher:Ryan Cohen's an ass clown.

1:02:31Scott Galloway:My win is Senator and University President Ben Sasse. Did you see a 60 Minutes interview?

1:02:39Kara Swisher:Oh, God. Oh, it's heartbreaking.

1:02:40Scott Galloway:It really, and of course, I turn everything back to me. I find he is such a, like, he's the best of conservative values. You know, his ability to talk about his faith, God, his fidelity to the Constitution, his fidelity to his family, and couch it as he struggles with pancreatic cancer. It's so eloquent and so moving. And I was struggling with something that happened to me that really upset me this weekend. And I watched his interview and he talked about that at one point before he had the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, he had, he said, hundreds of tumors around his spine unbeknownst to him. and he was in such intense, crippling pain that he was taking a dozen scalding hot showers a day that would provide him just minutes of relief and then he'd have to take another hot shower.

1:03:44Scott Galloway:And so I started a practice where I'm like, okay, imagine you have that kind of pain, tumors all over your spine and all you can do is lay down and then take another scalding hot shower. I'm like, what would this problem mean to me at that point? And it's a really healthy practice. Anyways, I have my Ben Sass tumor practice now. Oh, goodness, yeah.

1:04:10Kara Swisher:Can I point out, there's a lot of really amazing mRNA technology happening right now about pancreatitis.

1:04:16Scott Galloway:Well, he's still alive because of some of those technologies.

1:04:18Kara Swisher:Yeah, but it still is probably too late. But there's so much going on. Of course, this administration's been cutting all these things. But he's amazing. He was one of the first people to go against Trump, too, when it wasn't convenient.

1:04:30Scott Galloway:He also had a really lovely statement when they were talking about the worst thing about his illness. He stated that he was really sad that he wasn't going to be with his wife for a while. I mean, it was just such a lovely testament to his wife and the way he framed it, that he believes they'll be together again, but he's upset that he's going to have to wait. I mean, this guy, it's Democrats should a sigh of relief that he is not running for president on the Republican side.

1:04:59Kara Swisher:Well, except the Republicans rejected him because he was early. He was an early Trump opponent. And then he got sort of.

1:05:05Scott Galloway:Oh, I think he could have carved out a big lane.

1:05:06Kara Swisher:I don't know. He got drummed out. He was one of the people like Liz Cheney. And so he was in that gang that got shoved out of the whole party because they needed to be in, you know, the Trump Hallelujah Choir. So I always found him to have a lot of courage even before this.

1:05:25Scott Galloway:I reached out to him, his people over the weekend. He's going to come on the Prop Coupod. But anyways, my win is just the perspective. and I think I would recommend that everyone watch that interview. It really does remind most of us. It's like that monk saying that the man with good health has a thousand problems, the man with bad health has one problem. When you hear what this guy's going through and you hear how just articulate he is about government and his views on things, I really found it. I thought, God, this guy's such a great role model. I really hope he's around for – I love that he's getting attention now, but I think he's adding a lot of really wonderful value to the public discourse right now.

1:06:12Scott Galloway:Anyways, my win is Senator and University President. Good win.

1:06:18Kara Swisher:Excellent win. All right. Okay. And your fail is this board. Okay. So my fail – well, it's kind of a win in some ways, but the New York Times interview with Tucker Carlson, he's done a lot of interviews lately because he's trying out all his stylings to run for president. president, as we've noted. He's trying everything. It's fascinating to watch.

1:06:38Scott Galloway:The interviewer did a great job.

1:06:40Kara Swisher:Yes. Lulu Garcia Navarro, who's a friend of mine, did a great job pressing him back. He denied wondering whether Trump is the Antichrist. Lulu played it. Played the video. And then he denied it again. He denied it right after. Oh, I didn't come out of my mouth. She's like, it just came out of your mouth. He goes, I never said that.

1:06:57Scott Galloway:Yeah, right.

1:06:58Kara Swisher:I was like, wow. Funny.

1:07:00Scott Galloway:This guy looks like you saying that. This isn't you?

1:07:02Kara Swisher:You know, she did a great job with him, but it was just, I think the more interesting thing is you should watch all of them because he's preparing for a presidential run. And so his tricks and everything else, she's super smart. You may not like Tucker Carlson, but he's highly intelligent. And I think he's an interesting, it'll be an interesting fight over the Republican Party post-Trump. And, you know, obviously Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to prepare her way. She changed Trump derangement syndrome into Trump disappointment syndrome, which I think is probably more accurate for his followers.

1:07:36Kara Swisher:Anyway, just a really good interview. Watch it. Lulu's an amazing interviewer at the Times. But that exchange, the whole thing is quite good, but that exchange back and forth was really something. Obviously, my win is the money that Devil Wears Prada did. It's crazy. It's still on it. Sorry. You just did yours. You just did the same one of yours. the game's up. That is a lot of money. Also, it's really interesting what's doing really well. The Michael biopic did really well. Michael Jackson biopic is doing incredibly well. Again, it was really, here's why I think it's a win, because Hollywood always says, oh, that's a black movie, or that's a woman's movie, or that's a gay man and women's movie, and that's why it's doing well.

1:08:19Kara Swisher:It's just, they're both, I haven't seen the Michael movie, and I think they left out some of the pertinent parts of controversies around him in this one.

1:08:27Scott Galloway:Michael Jackson? What controversy?

1:08:29Kara Swisher:Yeah, exactly. Or let's bring in a white guy, Project Hail Mary. They're just good movies. Like, stop having to, like, say, ah, it's the women, ah, it's this. Like, you just make a really... What I loved about this movie and some of the others that have been doing really well is they show Hollywood at their very best. Beautifully told stories. there's not a in any of these there's not a stitch of fucking ai anywhere right it doesn't feel cooked and that's what really is working people are just flocking to these movies and by the way the theater was full of not women it was everybody it was really interesting it was young men it was it was not i was surprised by the audience because you get to thinking it's a bunch of ladies going out and having you know margaritas frozen margaritas with their friends and then kicking it up in their heels, but it wasn't.

1:09:17Kara Swisher:That was you. That was you, Scott. So I just, I really like -

1:09:22Scott Galloway:I'm going to start hanging out on movie theaters.

1:09:24Kara Swisher:Yeah, I know. Non-AI movies. I don't know what else to say. It's a push, just like people don't like brand AI, they like brand people. And that's what's done very good. They love stories. Anyway.

1:09:36Scott Galloway:Oh, I got a show recommendation for you. What? Shorzy. Shorzy? It's about this hockey team that's sort of the pride and joy of some small town in Canada. And of course, it's really a story about people, but it's really adorable and well done. Oh, and Kara, you'll love this. Shorzy is directed by the same guy who directed Heated Rivalry, Jacob Tierney. So there's got to be blowjobs in the locker room coming, episode two.

1:10:05Kara Swisher:I was watching Running Point. I think that's what it's called. The one with Kate Hudson and Justin's in it too. Justin's in it a lot in this movie. Yeah, he's very good in that too. It's good. It's adorable. I just finished watching it. Okay, Shorzy. All right, I'll listen to it. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT and elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe. You're going to love this, Scott. For the latest episode of On, I interviewed Aline Brosh McKenna and David Frankel, the writer and director of Devil Wears Prada 2.

1:10:35Kara Swisher:I wanted to focus on them. I mean, the stars have gotten a lot of attention, but I think these two are at the heart of why it's so excellent. And they're really incredibly good purveyors of what they do. Let's listen to a clip of David explaining how he approached Meryl Streep's character, Miranda Priestly.

1:10:50Scott Galloway:Miranda is not the villain here. Miranda is the heroine. Miranda is trying to achieve excellence every day. And why does she have to be nice to accomplish that? And there's a long long list of mostly men, of course, who are highly regarded for their superb work. I mean, they might be the goats in their business, and no one really questions how nice they are about accomplishing that.

1:11:21Kara Swisher:It's a really smart interview. I really like to show people behind the scenes, and they're great. And Scott, one of the parts you'll like a lot is Miranda trying desperately to avoid getting in trouble with HR the whole time. It reminded me of you. I don't know why.

1:11:35Scott Galloway:Trying to avoid HR?

1:11:37Kara Swisher:Yes. She says things and her assistant goes, no, no. And she's like, what? I can't say I want to kill myself? It's a little bit, but it works really well. And every time she did it, when I saw the same time, I thought, oh, Scott Galloway needs someone who sits next to him and goes. But then I realized that was me. Yeah, that's you. No, no, no, no, no.

1:11:58Scott Galloway:I think you give me, you realize I have never been in anything resembling any type of trouble like that at a corporation. I'm Alan Alda at work. I know.

1:12:06Kara Swisher:I know. I know. I know. I know. Anyway, it was good. Anyway, it's David Frankel.

1:12:11Scott Galloway:Although I do call my assistant jiggles. Is that wrong?

1:12:14Kara Swisher:Oh, God. Is that wrong? There we go. No, no. No, no, no, no, no. We don't do that. We don't say that.

1:12:21Scott Galloway:At the Christmas party, I ask all the hot women to sit on my lap. Is that wrong? What do you want for Christmas, little girl?

1:12:26Kara Swisher:Oh, my God. All right, 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.

1:12:35Scott Galloway:Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, Todd Weissman, and Christine Driscoll. Ernie and your Todd, Andrew Newton, this episode. Thanks also to Dubroz, Miss Rivera, Dan Chalon, and Kate Gallagher. Nishat Kerouaz, Vox Media, is the executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com. slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

1:13:05Kara Swisher:Support for this show comes from Harvey AI. The future of law is agentic, not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from the secure data sources, run sub-agents in parallel and draft work product ready for your review, so you can delegate work and own the judgment. Trusted by more than 60 % of the AM, Law 100, and leading Fortune 500 legal teams, Harvey is an AI operating system designed specifically for legal work. Harvey, AI tailored for law. Learn more at Harvey.ai.