Iran Quagmire Questions, SpaceX IPO Plans, and The White House App

5:51Scott Galloway:West Elm is the fastest zero to a billion dollar brands in history have been that axiom. 80 % of the kind of industry leader for 50 % of the price, whether it's Southwest or Old Navy or West Elm.

6:03Kara Swisher:West Elm's a little nicer. And then there's the one room and board, which is nice. I get a lot of stuff.

6:06Scott Galloway:Oh, they do a great job. They do a beautiful. I get a lot of their stuff from my other house. Yeah, not nearly as successful financially, though.

6:11Kara Swisher:Yeah. And then what's the one that has the big air couch, the big—

6:15Scott Galloway:Well, Restoration Hardware. Restoration Hardware.

6:16Kara Swisher:I have a—that has all of my stuff in San Francisco. I get Restoration Hardware.

6:21Scott Galloway:Well, Gary, I used to be very into merchandising because I was in that business. So the greatest, in my opinion, the greatest merchant of the last 20 years is Gary Friedman, the CEO of Restoration Hardware.

6:30Kara Swisher:Yeah, it's an interesting cloud couch. It's a cloud couch.

6:34Scott Galloway:He and I are friends. He gave me a tour of their space in the meatpacking district. It was really interesting in the restaurant, which I think does more dollars per square foot than the store combined, but they don't serve alcohol because he said he wanted a safe place for women to come and just hang out. And then when people drink alcohol, they get rowdy and obnoxious, which I thought was interesting. so it doesn't serve hard alcohol.

6:55Kara Swisher:Oh, well, they have a beautiful store in Manhattan. They go to lunch there. It's nice. Anyway, I have different levels of furniture depending on the house. San Francisco is all restoration hardware. Anyway, all right, we'll move on. We love furniture. Let's do that. The furniture of privilege people? Let's go on a furniture date. No, no, I went to IKEA. I assembled furniture this weekend. Anyway, before we get to the news, this weekend, around 8 million people, one thing I didn't do, I didn't go to a No Kings rally because I was assembling IKEA furniture, over 3 ,300 events around the world. I went to the last one, I think.

7:28Kara Swisher:Over 200 ,000 people attended the flagship rally in Minnesota. Incredible crowds. Some signs stand out, including, you can't bum your way out of the Epstein files. My country went to hell, and all I got was this lousy ballroom. And balls for grabs with a sign that said, free balls for Republicans. I love the signs. You know, it was really interesting. A lot of people, 8 million people. That's a lot of people. Was there one in London?

7:51Scott Galloway:I'm in London, although they did have a protest here, which I didn't go to. But I don't know. I did what all lazy people do to virtue signal. I reposted.

8:00Kara Swisher:Yeah.

8:00Scott Galloway:I reposted other people sacrificing their Saturday.

8:03Kara Swisher:No, it was, they looked wonderful and festive. I thought Bruce, I thought they were also, the messaging was excellent. I thought it was affordability. It's about no kings. It was, everybody has, all the progressives have modulated in a way that I think is very attractive. Very, they're moving into the James Tallarico version of Democrats, right? The, hey, what are we going to hear to help you? Affordability, we want a thing. And the one thing I really like, there was a picture, a beautiful picture of Joan Baez and Jade Fonda that was with gray hair together. It was gorgeous. I thought that was, I just thought it was visually very attractive.

8:39Kara Swisher:I think there is a real movement of people of all these elections happening and people are so sick of feeling bad and feeling like everything's a grift. It just feels there's definitely a tide. I don't know if these protests help, but I like them. I think they're great.

8:54Scott Galloway:Supposedly. Well, first off, it just feels, and I say this all the time, but my buddy Dan Harris, action absorbs anxiety. It feels really good to do things with other people. and Timothy Snyder says that protests start to build an infrastructure for organization and taking names and people get invested in it. So they want to turn out again and they want to register people to vote. Also, supposedly there's a tipping point where if you get 3.5 % of the population to demonstrate, that usually connotes change. So this wasn't that because that would be, I think about 11 or 12 million people, just some data here.

9:28Scott Galloway:The October protest drew roughly 7 million and Saturday's turnout was nine million. So it's building. And what's interesting or the most interesting piece of data, I thought, is that two-thirds of the RSVPs came from outside major urban centers, including conservative-leaning states such as Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota, Louisiana.

9:50Kara Swisher:I saw that. Yeah. There's protests. That takes a thing for people to do things like that there, like the villages. Did you see all the little villages cards?

9:57Scott Galloway:Yeah. Yeah. That was kind of cool. What is traditionally very conservative. And also kind of the flagship was at Minneapolis, where almost a quarter of a million people turned out. Springsteen performed, you mentioned, Joan Baez and Jane Fonda, Maggie Rogers and Senator Bernie Sanders. Good spot to do it. So just some context. The Women's March in January 2017, previously considered the largest single-day protest in U.S. history, drew an estimated 3.3 to 5.6 million people. so this was bigger. The BLM protests in June of 2020 drew an estimated 15 to 26 million people, but over several weeks, but that was spread across multiple days.

10:38Scott Galloway:So if the 9 million person turnout estimate holds, Saturday's protests would be the largest single day demonstration in American history.

10:46Kara Swisher:People are tired and they want to do something. And it's not hopeless. I went to the women's, when I actually, I took my sons to that. I made them wear pussy hats. Well, that's the way it goes. We had actually had a wonderful time. I like doing things like that with my kids because they can see things in action. Okay, moving on. President Trump says the U.S. is in serious discussions with the new regime in Iran, but he's also threatening to completely destroy key energy sites if a deal is not reached. That's a nice way to negotiate. This is the Pentagon preparing for what could be weeks of ground operations in Iran, according to the Washington Post.

11:19Kara Swisher:Total number of U.S. troops in the Mideast are now 50 ,000, around 50 ,000. That is insane amounts of people, roughly 10 ,000 higher than typical levels. The Iranian military is warning that any U.S. occupation would lead to captivity, dismemberment, and disappearance. It is worrisome with all those people there. There's always something bad going to happen. And as the war drags on, markets are sliding down, with NASDAQ and Dow falling into correction territory last week, and the S &P down about 7%. Markets are sort of a trailing indicator of some of this stuff, I think. But I think it creates a jittery feeling just because of the shifting back and forth.

11:54Kara Swisher:And if you noticed, a lot of Trump people, especially Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance, were not on any of the Sunday shows. They're avoiding all the cabinet members are avoiding the Sunday shows. I had a really interesting interview before I went to New York with Tom Tillis, which I think you should all listen to. It's up today. I mean, he was expressing great distaste for this whole action. He's obviously a very conservative senator from North Carolina. and he's leaving Congress so he feels like he can say whatever he wants, which he did. So what do you think is happening here, Scott? I mean, the back and forth and the people are sort of trying to get out of the Trump blast zone on this situation.

12:32Kara Swisher:I'm sorry to use that metaphor.

12:33Scott Galloway:Well, to say it's complicated is an understatement, but I'm one of the people that would argue that we've been at war with Iran for the last 47 years. The first act of this regime in 1979 was to take Americans hostage. the question is is this escalation in the war uh was it a smart idea and i think if it had gone 72 hours in terms of getting some coordination with european allies and even gulf allies you could have potentially declared victory and really had to win um but this is kind of the definition of a quagmire and that is i'm not sure at this point he has any choice but to put boots on the ground, and I had Senator Warner on my podcast.

13:13Scott Galloway:I would argue at this point, Kara, Iran is winning. That the IRGC has shown that they can push back the great satans of Israel and the United States. And at the end of the day, I think this is an enormous failure of our intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, to not contemplate or consider a scenario where they cut off the Straits of Hormuz.

13:40Kara Swisher:But she probably advised that. She didn't want to go. She's the America First great. Her and Vance are on the maybe not so much kind of group.

13:49Scott Galloway:Yeah, but you, okay, but they're claiming now that they're going to try and work with their allies. We're all saying, fuck you, if you're going to be this much of a prick to us. But they're doing shit in reverse order. They should have secured the Straits of Hormuz before doing this. Of course. They should have contemplated, well, what happens if they start firing shihad drones that cost$20 ,000 and it costs us$2 million to shoot them down. What if they start firing them into Dubai? So some basic scenario planning and intelligence from the people.

14:17Kara Swisher:I think he got that. I think some guy told him to do this. Yeah, but there's no leadership.

14:23Scott Galloway:It doesn't matter if it doesn't bubble up.

14:26Kara Swisher:Which is what Tillis said. Tillis was like, he always tries very hard not to insult Trump himself, but he's like the advisors. And he's particularly, for example, went after Stephen Miller on immigration. situation he particularly goes after the advisors he's like he's either you have an advisor who's stupid and just like tells them dumb things or you have an advisor who knows better who says nothing right who doesn't who tries to like assuage the president versus and he goes either way his advisors suck you know and I think that's true but at some point it's treating Trump like a toddler oh we managed to keep him this or that so it's a complicated situation there is this guy wants to do what he wants to do now.

15:04Kara Swisher:And he has advisors who are either too weak to tell him the truth or tell him the truth and then get fired or slapped for it kind of stuff. I don't know. It's a problematic situation. It's certainly not the group of rivals that Lincoln had.

15:18Scott Galloway:Well, but a lot of people would argue on the opposite side that basically Secretary Rubio is the shadow president making these decisions. And so is his son-in-law Kushner. So, you know, which is it? Is he listening to people or is he not? Because to me this is just such a striking intelligence failure to not do some basic scenario planning around what if. And we are now in a position of weakness where, I mean, the general, not the consensus, but when I speak to people in the intelligence community, there's a feeling, okay, the most obvious next step here is that he feels to save face because the IRGC has said, fuck you, you can pretend you're talking to us, we're not talking back.

15:56Kara Swisher:Right, you're not sending your presence.

15:57Scott Galloway:We did scenario planning. We anticipated what if our leadership is killed and they have dispersed military and executive authority out to the various regions. So they're like, cut off the head of the snake. That's okay. The snake's going to keep moving. So there was no essential basic scenario planning here. And the general feeling is that he will land troops potentially on Karg Island and then try and secure Karg and do a deal to exchange Karg for opening the Straits of Hormuz.

16:28Kara Swisher:Right. No, but that's what we had before. Like, one of the things that -

16:31Scott Galloway:I'm not arguing it's like we're in a good spot. I agree.

16:33Kara Swisher:One of the things when I talk to Tillis and when I also talk to Warner is that the same thing you're talking about, these drones and everything else, like the word obliterate, that he obliterated it months ago, the nuclear facilities, but now he's obliterating more. And, you know, Tillis, who's sort of seems to have run out of Fox, was like, yeah, we obliterated again and then we obliterated it. Like, you know - You can't.

16:54Scott Galloway:That's like, to say you obliterate, all right. So essentially what you have - Well, he was making fun of Trump, I believe.

16:59Kara Swisher:That's what was happening there.

17:00Scott Galloway:Again, the key word in all of this coming out of Ukraine and now this war is asymmetry. And that is wars and shaping of energy routes and ability to solve things when diplomatic means have failed have been based on very expensive platforms and technology no one else had access to. It has gone the entirely other way. And now you can essentially build a drone for$20 ,000 with a two-stroke engine similar to what's in a motorcycle. And that's like to say you're going to obliterate it. If we all of a sudden declared war on Texas and most of the Southwest, actually, which Iran is bigger than, and said, okay, how do you find every little factory that's pulling together lawnmowers?

17:43Scott Galloway:That's what you're up against. You're not going to be able, and then they launch 40 of these things and the defense systems get confused and all you need, it's similar to the Department of Homeland Security or the FBI. They have to stop every terrorist attack, right? And the notion that just one ship is set on fire or the Burj Khalifa is taken down in Dubai, that's all they need. And what's actually stopping this, and you can imagine, if you're transporting tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of a product called oil through a dangerous area, there needs to be insurance against that payment, against that substance arriving at its destination.

18:26Scott Galloway:In other words, there's cross-party collateralization in insurance. And right now, I would argue what's actually holding up the Straits of Formos is I don't believe any insurance company is willing to insure these tankers right now.

18:37Kara Swisher:Yeah. I don't know what I would do if I was running these companies. Anyway, we'll see what happens. It's still confusing, and it's gone on far too long, this confusing. And I think that's the real problem. He's really stuck in a quagmire.

18:48Scott Galloway:A quagmire. This is the definition. Painted in a corner. Corner painted. If he had, after 72 hours, said, we've further diminished their ability to fund proxies. We have substantially denigrated their launch capabilities. We have made the leadership infrastructure much more insecure and diminished it vastly. we are now going to work with our Gulf allies and European nations to try and maintain a sense of security and keep them in a box. He probably could have declared at some level victory.

19:16Kara Swisher:But Scott, chaos follows this guy. The chaos is his brand right now. Anyway, let's move on. The boys are really back together. Speaking of chaos, Elon Musk reportedly joined a phone call with President Trump and India's Prime Minister Modi about the Strait of Hormuz. It's unclear whether Musk spoke on the call and neither government mentioned his presence in the official readouts. Meanwhile, as we all know, SpaceX is preparing to launch the largest IPO of all time, reportedly targeting a$1.75 trillion valuation, which is kind of a lot over their revenues. But okay, fine. It's a Musk company. Musk reportedly wants to have investors come to SpaceX's seat facilities and rocket launches.

19:53Kara Swisher:He does that a lot. He invites people in to show off his wares, impressive wares. He's doing that with robotics too, which are pretty cool. The company is also considering limiting share sales by early investors, a preferential treatment for investors in Musk's other companies, which is why they suck up to him. So that's why they buy Twitter, so they can get into this. And reserving a large portion of the shares for individual investors. That's fine. That's great. Speaking of making amends with his enemies, text released as part of Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI show that Zuckerberg tested Musk saying, looks like Doge is making progress.

20:26Kara Swisher:I've got our teams on alert to take down contact, doxing, or threatening the people on your team. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Oh, he does want to content moderate. Musk hearted the message and then asked Zuckerberg when we opened a bidding on open AI with him, which the two seem to have spoken about on the phone. I mean, these people say one thing in public and another in private, but talk first about the phone call, then the IPO, and Mark Zuckerberg will talk to anybody if he means a deal. So that's what I think about that.

20:53Scott Galloway:I don't have a problem with the president inviting people into a call that he thinks can help achieve the objectives, whether it's someone who has domain expertise, whether Musk is the right person to have that on the call, but I think the president should bring to bear any resources he thinks is going to result in a more productive conversation.

21:09Kara Swisher:Sure, I guess.

21:10Scott Galloway:And Modi is probably wants, probably wants, you know, Starlink or maybe Modi and Musk have a preexisting relationship, who knows? Or maybe like you said, he's just showing them off. The staggering thing for me is I can't wait for the S1 because the target valuation of$1.8 trillion, this company, you know, it's projected or generated roughly 15 to 16 billion and about 8 billion in profit in 2025. That means at the IPO, it's trading at 109 times trailing revenues.

21:46Kara Swisher:That's a must company, right? Are you going to do like you did with WeWork? Oh, but that's more than pound.

21:51Scott Galloway:Oh, no, no. This is a real company. It might be overvalued, But WeWork, as it scaled, lost more money. This is a company with an unbelievable product and moats. But two things can be true at once. Is it an unbelievable company with, I think, probably the widest moats in the business world right now? Absolutely. For now. But everyone feels like a distant number two. Like, who's the number two here? I don't know.

22:16Kara Swisher:I think people will catch up in this. I think it's going to take a while. Look, everyone said no one would catch Tesla. everyone caught Tesla and it was a lot faster than we thought, right?

22:24Scott Galloway:Yeah, but manufacturing, manufacturing an EV versus launch capability?

22:29Kara Swisher:No, I just, I think.

22:30Scott Galloway:You think someone's going to catch up?

22:32Kara Swisher:I think, I think Bezos is working on it. I think a lot of countries, there's the ones happening in Europe. I think, look, it's not going to be the only one and everyone's going to be like, why are we, you know, it's sort of like the Lockheed problem, right? I think a lot of people think it's an attractive thing to do.

22:46Scott Galloway:90 % of launches. I get it. He was early. I remember when he said it. They are the only company in the world right now that is capable of putting humans into space.

22:56Kara Swisher:Yep. Yep, I get it.

22:56Scott Galloway:And when you look at space and whether it's energy or connectivity or space military or space defense, they're all for a while going to have to come through SpaceX. At the same time. No question. At the same time, is it worth 109 times revenue? I don't think so.

23:15Kara Swisher:This is the Tesla situation. Tesla is declining precipitously and yet it still trades at a ridiculous sum.

23:20Scott Galloway:But Musk owns roughly 42 % of SpaceX. So this IPO could make him the first recorded trillionaire in history. And on Calci, the odds that he'll become a trillionaire this year are 71%. So there's almost a three in four chance, according to a lot of people, that Musk is about to become a trillionaire. And that is, in my view, really troubling. Because I think as a species, we need guardrails. and money directly translates to power. And I don't think any unelected person should have this much power.

23:56Kara Swisher:Yeah, he definitely pushes himself into every single aspect of our lives, you know, in some way, and he'll do it more so politically.

24:03Scott Galloway:Well, with a trillion dollars, say he says, okay, I'm going to die soon and I want to be worth five trillion and I want to decide who the next president is. I'm going to take 3 % of my net worth, which would be$30 billion. There's evidence that he had influence on Trump's election with$250 million.

24:25Kara Swisher:But he didn't in Wisconsin with$25 million. That's a lot in that state. Like, I think it's a mixed bag. When he shows up, it's a lot of money. When he shows up, it's a lot of, yeah, no.

24:36Scott Galloway:Citizens United and a guy being worth a trillion dollars is really scary.

24:41Kara Swisher:It also has effects of, if this guy is, he's like the Soros or, he's the Soros of the right, essentially, now, right? on some level. And I do think it has a negative impact and alerts people to this situation that he, I don't think money buys everything. He's failed in a number of areas like Doge. He's failed in like, he fails quite a bit, which of course is his brand as I fail and then I succeed.

25:05Scott Galloway:I think in a close election, which most presidential elections are, he could absolutely swing it.

25:09Kara Swisher:He already has. He already has had more impact than any individual in recent history, especially killing people across the globe with Doge. I mean, again, we'll see what happens here, but they certainly, it's going to be the blockbuster IPO, and it will be overvalued by a lot, given, you know, they'll have a lot of skis to cover, and then they'll have the money to do so, right, to sort of create that moat even wider.

25:34Scott Galloway:It's an incredible, I won't even call it a product, because what it really is, it's global infrastructure. They have the largest commercial satellite constellation, Which, by the way, is no longer NASA, it's SpaceX. And as of May 2025, Starlink controlled more than 7 ,600 satellites or two-thirds of all active satellites in orbit. The majority of new satellites launched globally in late 2024 were Starlink. And SpaceX plans to scale to 42 ,000 satellites. That's up sixfold.

26:02Kara Swisher:Yeah, it controls global information system.

26:05Scott Galloway:Making Starlink the de facto broadband backbone in space. And projections for the end of 2025, 6 million subscribers and 62 % of global satellite broadband revenue going to one company. And most competitors can match SpaceX's price, cadence, or reliability.

26:22Kara Swisher:I know Facebook has tried. Amazon has tried. They're all trying. I always feel like these are these high watermarks for these people. But you have to hand it to them. I remember when he talked about it for the first time to me, creating this. Two people were talking about this at the time. Him and, oddly enough, Jerry Yang had an investment in a low, and it's the first time I learned of it, so I got real, I got caught up on the topic, like what it was going to do. But Jerry Yang had an investment in one. He's the first person who talked about it and then Musk, that same year, started talking about it.

26:57Kara Swisher:This was a long, long, long time ago. And it was really, at the time, I remember thinking, no one's talking like this. Like everyone else was like doing a fucking dating service or some dumb thing.

27:07Scott Galloway:It comes down to some very boring numbers, and that is the cost to launch a kilogram of material, usually a satellite, into low Earth orbit. And this is what SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket can launch into a kilogram for. They can launch a kilogram into space for$1 ,500. Ariane's 5G, it costs them$9 ,200.

27:33Kara Swisher:Yeah, they got it right down.

27:34Scott Galloway:Their Electron product costs$19 ,000. Their launches, SpaceX's launches occur every two to three days. No other provider is within range. So they are 6x less expensive. The Chinese certainly have capabilities here.

27:48Kara Swisher:So anyway, it will - Do they?

27:49Scott Galloway:I don't know that much about Chinese launch capabilities.

27:51Kara Swisher:And so, you know, one of the things, it'll be interesting to see what happens here and what the, these forces are really powerful and he is a very powerful single person. It does put him at great risk, too, of being not a physical target. That's not what I'm talking about. But when something like this happens, there's always forces against it that I think that will start to build. He becomes Soros. He becomes Soros in a weird way.

28:17Scott Galloway:I feel much more benign about Soros. Well, I do, too.

28:21Kara Swisher:But I'm talking about to the right or the Koch brothers. Like, pick whatever one who's – or Henry Ford back in the day. There was also a Texas billionaire, and I can't remember his name, a million years, like in the 20s, that did stuff like that.

28:33Scott Galloway:But there's a difference. Sosa and Koch, the Koch brothers, they were all quite philanthropic.

28:38Kara Swisher:Well, not him. Not Elon, for sure.

28:41Scott Galloway:Musk is not. And Musk is infinitely more powerful and has a technology that can basically decide wars. And this is a guy who is reportedly addicted to ketamine.

28:50Kara Swisher:Yeah, that's what I mean.

28:51Scott Galloway:There's a lot of things that are wrong.

28:53Kara Swisher:Let me just tell you, I'm glad I'm in part of that.

28:55Scott Galloway:It does feel like a Bond film, but less believable.

28:57Kara Swisher:Kara Swisher is glad she's in Park Slope. I'll be protected by the lesbians there.

29:00Scott Galloway:You're safe in Brooklyn. Yeah, a nuclear device gets detonated 500 meters above midtown. Yeah, Brooklyn's going to be fine.

29:06Kara Swisher:No, what I mean is that, like, if he's coming after me, he's not a fan of Kara Swisher. But maybe you should make nice with that.

29:12Scott Galloway:That's what I don't get about. I talk to one of these guys that is building the bunker in New Zealand, a guy you know. And I'm like, you realize if shit gets real and you fire up the G650 and head to peace out to New Zealand, you realize your pilots are going to kill you and fuck your wife, right?

29:29Kara Swisher:That's correct. And the table went quiet.

29:31Scott Galloway:I know.

29:31Kara Swisher:I said that to one of them who had a plan. I said, what's your plan? I said, I'm going to kill you and take your motorcycle out to your big city.

29:37Scott Galloway:And fuck your wife.

29:38Kara Swisher:I was like, of course. And then they were like, you can see them calculating, how do I stop Kara from killing me? I said, you won't see me coming.

29:44Scott Galloway:You think if the shit goes to where these people think it's going, the people who die right away are the lucky ones.

29:53Kara Swisher:Exactly. I sometimes think that living in Washington, I feel okay about that. Anyway, let's not go there. Let's not go there. Congratulations, Elon Musk, on your SpaceX victory. Yeah, on your SpaceX IPO. You're still a terrible person. No matter how rich you get, you're completely unlikable. Anyway, I have to say one Brooklyn thing. So there was this crazy Cybertruck parked across the street. I thought, oh, who's doing this, right, where my apartment is? And it was tricked out. It was all manner of shit on it. It was some sort of commercial thing. and you know there's a bunch of teen boys and they weren't they were just hanging out and i thought first they were like admiring it and what was really funny is and they weren't they weren't sort of typical parks i'm trying to like they were they were sort of sitting in front of it like talking about it i went over and i'm like what do you think and i wasn't making an opinion they're like what a douche and it was like they were like it was interesting because i just interviewed Louis Theroux, who's Justin's cousin.

30:49Scott Galloway:Oh, you interviewed about the Manosphere?

30:51Kara Swisher:Yes, exactly.

30:52Scott Galloway:You're beating me to my content.

30:53Kara Swisher:I'm so sorry. I'm way ahead of you. How was it?

30:55Scott Galloway:That's Justin's cousin. Fantastic.

30:57Kara Swisher:I know, it's Justin's cousin. He's also a great filmmaker. I got to say, what was really interesting is one thing you pointed out is even though a lot of these Manosphere guys are really popular, there's also a whole group of young men who are like, they mock them and enjoy being in on the joke and mocking them at the same time. and also liking some of it, but mocking them. And that was going on in front of the Cybertruck. They're like, I'm such a douche, but like, whatever. And they were so cool. And I was like, oh, I feel so much better about you after talking to these guys, because they were so cool.

31:29Kara Swisher:And they also were in on the joke. And I don't know, I just felt better. Anyway, yes, Louis, yes, it was great. And we talked of you. Oh, good, I'm glad.

31:37Scott Galloway:I'm supposed to have them on. I wrote a, in my numerous mouths, I wrote a review of the show.

31:42Kara Swisher:I loved it.

31:43Scott Galloway:Yeah, it was really illuminating. for me.

31:46Kara Swisher:Can I tell you the one line I love the best? What's that? I like his interview style and I was actually looking at it as a professional how he does the interview style. Yeah, I agree. When he's working, when he's HS, whatever, T-Diddy, whatever, Tiki, Taki, whatever, Tiktaki, he was working out and he goes, is this your leg day? He's British. And the guy goes, of course it is. Of course, you know, like an asshole. And like shows off his thigh, which is quite a beefy thigh. And Louis looks at him and he goes, you could work on those calves. And the guy just melts. And I was like, I love you, Louis Theroux.

32:21Kara Swisher:I love him. He pronounced it Theroux, unlike Justin. They pronounce it differently. Anyway, he has all these lines like that in there that he just eviscerates these people with kindness in a way that's really...

32:32Scott Galloway:Yeah, I agree.

32:33Kara Swisher:It's a really good show. Anyway, Elon, good luck. Elon, you can work on your calves. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Anthropic scores a win against the Pentagon.

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34:03Kara Swisher:Mom, can you tell me a story? Sure. Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car. Was she brave? She was tired, mostly. But she went to Carvana.com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required. Did she have to find a dragon? Nope. She bought it 100 % online. From her bed, actually. Was it scary? Honey, it was as unscary as car buying could be. Did the car have a sunroof? It did, actually. Okay. Good story. Car buying you'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on... Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.

34:34Scott Galloway:For the last 10 years, everything in American politics has basically revolved around one man. And as a political journalist who came of age during Donald Trump's rise in 2016, I've had a front row seat.

34:47Kara Swisher:I am officially running for president of the United States. It's going to be only America first. America first. Thousands of supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S.

35:02Scott Galloway:Capitol building. But is it possible to talk about politics without talking about Donald Trump? That's the question I'm going to ask in our new show from Vox. The idea of like a post-Trump or not exactly Trump-focused show can exist because he's not really driving any agenda items. It really does feel like so reactive. You know, I think this Iran thing is also going to cause a big split in the GOP. So far, it doesn't among like people who say they're MAGA voters are still with Trump. But like for the first time, you see on a major issue, open opposition from the start of this war. I'm Estet Herndon and welcome to America Actually.

35:42Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back. Anthropic just scored a win in its fight with the Trump administration, obviously. A federal judge in California granted a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the Pentagon's efforts to label the company a supply chain risk. The judge didn't mince words in her ruling, saying this is a classic illegal First Amendment retaliation. Exactly. She also called it a, quote, Orwellian notion to brand an American company a potential adversary for expressing disagreement. The Pentagon is pushing back, expected to appeal, of course, with senior official Emil Michael, another loathsome character, tweeting, the ruling is a disgrace.

36:14Kara Swisher:Oh, Emil, get over it. The final decision in this case could still be months away. There's also a second lawsuit pending in D.C. Anthropic won the battle. You know, it's problematic to be in this ridiculous fight. I think it'll be over by midterms when they jack Hegseth out of the place. But also a potential factor. Anthropics is really considering going public as soon as October. That is problematic for them. So what do you, and related, a federal judge has put on hold the$6.2 billion merger between Nexstar and Tegna, which would create the largest operator of local TV in the country, 69 % over the former 30-some percent amount you're allowed to bring together.

36:55Kara Swisher:The judge granted a request from DirecTV arguing the merger violates antitrust laws. A 14-day restraining order has been issued and a hearing is scheduled for April 7th. eight attorneys general have filed a separate lawsuit. I'm going to just play this. Let's listen to what our least favorite FCC chair, Brenda Carr, I'm sorry, Brendan Carr, had to say at CPAC.

37:15Scott Galloway:President Trump took on the fake news media and President Trump is winning. Look at the results so far. PBS defunded, NPR defunded, Joy Reid gone from MSNBC, Sleepy Eye Chuck Todd gone. Jim Acosta, gone. John Dickerson, gone. Colbert is leaving. CBS is under new ownership, and soon enough, CNN is going to have new ownership as well.

37:39Kara Swisher:Boy, this guy is just not doing his job, honestly. Seriously, he's such a suck-up to the Trump administration. He's just explicit about it. And he's also not very smart. He's a moron. So talk about these Nexstar, the anthropic thing. It looks like everything, as usual, Trump does. He does something aggressive and stupid and loses in court, but he still does damage. So talk a little, and then you can talk about Brenda if you want, but that's up to you.

38:04Scott Galloway:Well, I'll go in reverse order. Brenda Carr has no business in the federal government. You're not supposed to go into the government to use it as a means of attacking your political enemies and freedom of speech. I mean, just the notion, this guy makes Goebbels look thoughtful. And that is directly calling out people who don't agree with your political views and then weaponizing government to try and get people whose views you don't agree with off the air. That's, it's like, it's just so blatant. It's, okay, so when we get to appoint an FCC chair, we're going to go after Hannity. And I mean, is that where we're headed?

38:43Scott Galloway:You want us to start?

38:44Kara Swisher:Let him blather on his idiotic stuff. I don't care. He annoys people.

38:47Scott Galloway:It's just not qualified to be in government. With respect to Anthropic, most major AI companies have bent the knee to the government. and worked with them in any military context. Last year, Google dropped its ethical guidelines that included a list of applications it would not pursue, including weapons and surveillance.

39:05Kara Swisher:But it used to be able to do so without a problem.

39:08Scott Galloway:Is that right? And then they put in guidelines and then they relaxed their guidelines.

39:13Kara Swisher:They did relax them. But I'm saying they used to be able to say no and nobody had a problem. They just didn't work for them. That's all.

39:19Scott Galloway:Well, that's the whole point of private enterprise. You can fire your clients. It's just the way consumers get to pick companies. Companies get to pick their consumers unless it's based on sexual orientation or race or what have you. Meta changed its policy to allow U.S. government agencies and contractors to access its LAMA models for national security purposes. OpenAI, which once stated its goal was to benefit humanity as a whole, now has multiple contracts with the military and defense contractors. And by the way, I don't mind when companies like Palantir say we're going to work with the government and the Defense Department.

39:53Scott Galloway:I get it. But you should also have the right to not to. I don't. So Anthropic is really, they're the only major AI company that has drawn a public line on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. And now it's the only one being punished for it.

40:07Kara Swisher:Right, but it's also winning in court, which is good. But is it problematic for the IPO from your perspective?

40:13Scott Galloway:Well, it depends. The threat to the IPO is a bunch of companies say there are alternatives out there. We appreciate your stand, Dario, but for the time being, we're not expanding our enterprise-wide relationship with you because we don't want to be put on a list. Now, having said that, having said that, again, see above what I believe is the biggest commercial opportunity in decades is to say no. And if you look at what's happened to Anthropic, they're now getting 70 cents on the dollar of every new AI dollar being allocated to AI from the enterprise. us. So it looks as if their ability to say no and get a court to say, yeah, this is bullshit.

40:59Scott Galloway:This is socialism, cronyism, whatever you want to call it. I think Anthropic right now, I've said that. I think Anthropic at this moment is worth more than OpenAI. What happens is the mark that people invest at is a bit illusory because if they get a preferred return, meaning no matter what happens, they get their money out sooner or they're getting a guaranteed 17.5 % return, which is what Sam is offering to private equity firms, then that$850 billion number is a bit of a head fake because as long as I'm getting 17.5%, regardless of what it goes public at, but I would argue right now the momentum around Anthropic is really strong and the momentum around OpenAI is really weak.

41:45Kara Swisher:So you think it won't affect it. What about the Nextar thing, speaking of more on Brendan?

41:50Scott Galloway:Well, we heard, I was actually really moved. A lot of people pushed back on my comments about how local news is a dying business. Yes, they did. And a lot of people pushed back and said, I hate to hear this. It's really important work. And also, to be fair, there's a lot of local corruption. And the only check on it is local news. You know, seven, I remember, seven on your side.

42:12Kara Swisher:Seven on your side.

42:13Scott Galloway:From the hills to the seas to the San Gabriel Mountains, I'm Jerry Dunphy. Yeah. Who, by the way, Ted Baxter from Mary Tyler Moore was based on. Supposedly Jerry wasn't very smart. But he had broad shoulders and just made you feel safer.

42:25Kara Swisher:I love local news. I used to watch it all the time. I loved Doreen Gensler in D.C. when I was in college.

42:30Scott Galloway:And they also had Bruce Hershenson and Jim Tunney and Point Counterpoint, where they would have. And that 27 minutes of real news was bested by the three minutes of two people arguing like crazy.

42:41Kara Swisher:Can I tell you, if it had been that era, you and I would have been a good local news team.

42:46Scott Galloway:Oh, I would have predicted hell the size of canned tomatoes. I would have loved being a weatherman. I actually took meteorology my senior year. When I was trying to figure out what the fuck to do with my life. Meteorology? My senior year in college, I thought, I could be a weatherman. And I took meteorology. I certainly thought I was thinking about a weatherman.

43:05Kara Swisher:I was going to go in the military and you were going to be a weatherman. Perfect. Perfect. I would have been an admiral, not standing next to the president.

43:13Scott Galloway:Yeah. David Letterman started as a weatherman. Anyways, but we got pushback saying how important, or I got pushback saying how important local news is. And so I agree. They do a great job. God be with you. Yeah.

43:27Kara Swisher:So Nexstar, Tegna.

43:29Scott Galloway:Okay, sorry. A judge has temporarily blocked, what is it, a$6 billion merger?

43:33Kara Swisher:Yep, 6.2.

43:34Scott Galloway:Between Nexstar and Tegna, which would create the largest operator.

43:40Kara Swisher:It moves the number from 30-some percent to 69%.

43:44Scott Galloway:Yeah, two-thirds. Basically, they'll have a lock on it.

43:46Kara Swisher:And a U.S.

43:47Scott Galloway:district judge, I think it's in Sacramento, granted, temporary restraining order, and siding with Director V, who argued, Director V, God, they're still around, which argued the merger violates federal antitrust laws. And eight state attorney generals led by California's Rob Bonta filed a separate lawsuit. And then in the ruling, he noted that companies do not contest the merger will increase Nextar's bargaining leverage to extract higher fees. And what does the ruling mean? It means that Nextar and Tegna can't integrate operations for 14 days. A hearing is set for April 7th to decide whether to issue a preliminary injunction.

44:23Scott Galloway:So like you said, if the merger goes through, Nextstar would own roughly 260 television stations across the country, reaching about 60 % of U.S. households. And like you said before, it was about 39%. And the deal does violate FCC rules limiting how many stations a single company can operate.

44:41Kara Swisher:Well, Brenda let it through, but go ahead.

44:42Scott Galloway:As we said, look, it's not a great business to be in unless you're in a swing district where they just basically start trying to advertise like crazy. Less than half of television stations report generating any profits from news. And last year, about 40 % of surveyed local television stations reported decreasing their news budget. And local television has lost, get this, about half of its media spending market share since 2017. The business has been cut in half in the last nine years. And as of June last year, local TV accounted for just 6 % of total media spend. Digital video, on the other hand, accounts for about 50%.

45:18Scott Galloway:So, I don't – I mean, we're going to – I think at some point we got to end up with – and people hate the BBC, but I like a certain amount of public funding. You're troubled right now.

45:31Kara Swisher:We should talk about that. But later, another time.

45:33Scott Galloway:A certain amount of public funding for what I'll call – Local. Yeah. Local public news. That's not happening. I think there's – like what Craig Newmark did, I think it's really important. And I don't know if it's a philanthropist. I don't know if it's government funding like we do with the BBC here with a house tax.

45:49Kara Swisher:I don't think anyone should own 60 % of any industry. That does feel uncomfortable. Even if it's dying. I don't care. They can eke out a good little business from it and influence things in ways. And they're the ones that sort of sucked up to Brenda during the Kimmel thing.

46:05Scott Galloway:Brenda, yeah.

46:05Kara Swisher:You know, I just, nobody, I don't want a liberal running 60%. I don't want anybody. Like, I just feel like it needs to be dispersed, even if that problem is like a lot of media, it's a bad business if you don't have monopolies. And then it's just an okay business. I don't know. Whatever. I hope they stop it, but they're not going to. But nonetheless, I hope then the industry dies.

46:26Scott Galloway:And I hope there's all new entrepreneurial local efforts going on.

46:30Kara Swisher:And there are a lot of them, by the way, across the country in Mississippi and Baltimore. So let's just have new stuff and forget these compromised.

46:39Scott Galloway:I'm shocked you didn't bring up Vox. Our company is in play.

46:43Kara Swisher:Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Would you like to discuss that?

46:45Scott Galloway:Well, I have, first off, let me say, I have absolutely no insider information here. And I have a lot. You have a lot. I'm on the outside. I'm on the inside. But supposedly, Vox is in discussions with Comcast, who is an existing shareholder to take...

46:57Kara Swisher:Versant, not Comcast.

46:58Scott Galloway:I'm sorry, Versant. Yeah, which owns MS... Versant, like Croissant. MSNBC and CNBC to take the pods. Then they would sell the digital business and also sell off NYMAG. And the way I would loosely describe it is the digital stuff is a shitty business getting worse. Anytime you're dependent upon Amazon, Meta, and Google, eventually they will screw you and take all the margin. Those are difficult businesses. The New York Magazine is a trophy asset. What do I mean by that? there is some crypto or hedge fund douche that will pay an extraordinary amount of money to own New York Magazine. There's a lot of people.

47:36Kara Swisher:It does well, too. It doesn't, it's not like a big money sucker.

47:38Scott Galloway:It'll trade at an irrational price.

47:40Kara Swisher:Yeah, it will.

47:41Scott Galloway:Football teams make no money. They get sold for five, seven, and$10 billion because some guy wants to go from being an overweight tech guy to the sexiest man in Cleveland by owning the Browns overnight.

47:50Kara Swisher:Okay. Can I just say, it's also a really good journalistic enterprise and it does okay. I'm I'm sorry, I'm going to make that.

47:55Scott Galloway:Okay, it won't go for an okay price. I'm saying it'll go for an irrational price.

48:01Kara Swisher:It's a nice problem.

48:02Scott Galloway:The new owner is not going to be into it for the cash flow or for journalism. The new owner is going to be someone who wants to say, I own NYMAG. It's like billionaires own football teams, Democrats own media companies. It'll go for an...

48:14Kara Swisher:So Scott will be buying it soon.

48:16Scott Galloway:It's a trophy asset. No, I'm sponsoring the Met Gala. I don't know if you heard. And I'm taking Emily Ratajkowski. If that's what it takes. I am sponsoring the Met Gala.

48:26Kara Swisher:We're not discussing her because you didn't introduce yourself when you were in her presence.

48:29Scott Galloway:I got texted Vanessa Friedman, who I think is a wonderful writer at Devers Fashion, texted me. She's like, do you have any thoughts on the Met Gala and Jeff Bezos? I'm like, tech has way too much money, way too little cool. Fashion has way too little money, way too much cool. This is an exchange of value.

48:44Kara Swisher:Yes, a good quote.

48:46Scott Galloway:This is the most expensive midlife crisis in history. Wouldn't it be easier for these guys just to buy a Ferrari and start banging their assistants?

48:53Kara Swisher:Our penis enhancement.

48:54Scott Galloway:Versus sponsoring the Met Gala.

48:56Kara Swisher:But anyways, I'm here for it. Yes, it will sell. We know this.

48:59Scott Galloway:So NYMAG will go for an irrational price. And then the trophy assets, and I'm not talking my own book here because Prof. G is independent. We just sell our ads through Vox, but Pivot is co-owned by you, me, and Vox.

49:11Kara Swisher:Well, no, they don't own it. We own it, and they're our partner for the next three years. I wish you would do that correctly. People think they own it, but they don't.

49:18Scott Galloway:Okay, we own it, and we can't do anything with it for the next three years. But anyways. That's okay. Those are the assets. Podcasting at Vox, and I'll just talk about us, is growing 25 plus percent a year, maybe 30 percent a year. And when they get scaled, they're amazing businesses because quite frankly, there's not a lot of costs involved in these things. And quite frankly, I also think we're benefiting from Trump to the extent that I think people are really hungry for thoughtful, I don't want to call it progressive, but a thoughtful pushback.

49:53Kara Swisher:But we also do good at, you did Warner, I did Tillis. We do all kinds of manner of things. Anyways, the crown jewel is the Vox Media Podcast Network.

50:03Scott Galloway:But the thing that makes the most sense here, which is what Jim is doing, is that when you have a conglomerate that doesn't have really obvious synergies, which quite frankly, I would argue this one doesn't, people, the market looks at the shittiest asset in the portfolio, which is these digital properties, and it assigns that valuation to the entire thing. So the disposition of assets is accretive to shareholders. And Jim has figured that out, and he's going to split up the company, and he's going to have a very focused podcast company that tries to industrialize podcasting, which will trade -

50:31Kara Swisher:Podcast and video, I would say, because podcasts are video now.

50:34Scott Galloway:That's a great point, because effectively what you have is podcasts are the new TV shows with a lower means of cost of production. But I would argue if he sells, he'll get an amazing price. And I don't, again, I see above, I have no insider information here. He'll get an amazing irrational price for New York Mag. He could sell the digital stuff for a dollar and just be a podcast company growing 25 % a year, and it would be worth more. So this, it makes all sorts of strategic sense. Comcast is probably, Comcast I think invested.

51:06Kara Swisher:Comcast did invest, yes. Well, Comcast was the initial investor. Yes, but the investment went over to Versant, just so you know.

51:13Scott Galloway:Okay, the Roberts family is ready to get some money back. They've been in this thing for 10 years, 11 years. they've probably said, okay, we want some money back. You need a strategy here. I think it's going to be very interesting to see.

51:25Kara Swisher:Yeah, we'll see. One of the things that I think reporters have gotten wrong about it, and I'm not going to say much more because I do know a lot, is one of them is like, you can pick off these podcasters. What's it worth? Because you actually can't. And Scott and I went out in the market and looked at lots of people, and a lot of them were great, but a lot of them don't have stuff, right? And so this would be attractive to people who, it's really hard to sell advertising well. It's really hard to do distribution well. It's very hard to do production well. And Vox does that well. And there's a couple of companies like that that do it well, too.

51:57Kara Swisher:Crooked, I think, does a nice job. So it's valuable. And it's not as easy to replicate as you think. And getting picked off is you sign four-year deals, everybody. And some people have guarantees. We don't happen to have that because we wanted more revenue to us. But it's harder to do than you think. And even if you're not satisfied with the advertising sales or whether you got big or not, Box is one of the better ones, which is why we stayed, right? And we could certainly sell our own advertising. It's just a slog and it's hard. It's really hard to do it well. And so it is an attractive asset.

52:34Kara Swisher:Now, there's a lot of people this could plug into a lot and just use your imagination. And also not just companies, but individuals who want platforms.

52:43Scott Galloway:CNBC needs to do something.

52:44Kara Swisher:Exactly. I mean, you're seeing CNN trying to do podcasting with Jake Tapper and Anderson.

52:51Scott Galloway:CNBC is local news with sleeveless dresses and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Blast they're going to be your new friends. By the way, why does Joe Kiernan get sleeves and none of the other people do? Anyways.

53:03Kara Swisher:We do not want to see them arms.

53:04Scott Galloway:Brian Roberts and Comcast, they are very smart. It's not Comcast.

53:08Kara Swisher:You have to say Versand. Okay, whatever. The Roberts family. No, it's not whatever. They own only a certain portion of it as a public company. It's similar. There's others. Anyway, it would help Versant, which also needs to be innovative. So in that regard, but there's lots of others.

53:22Scott Galloway:MSNBC, MSNOW, I'm sorry, MSNOW. MSNOW and CNBC need a growth strategy. They are in businesses and structural decline. The average age of MSNOW viewer, I think it's 64, CNBC at 67. The average age of a podcast listener is 34. The average age of pivot listener is 42. too. They need an audience that is going to be around for another five or 10 years that buys shit that is in the midst of buying homes, having kids, making investments, buying mutual funds. And they're smart people. So they do, I mean, CNBC does an amazing job. They have some of the finest financial journalists in the world. MSNOW has some of the most talented people in the world.

54:03Scott Galloway:So, but what they need is, is they need a structural growth engine. They need to find platforms that are growing and are attracting a younger audience.

54:10Kara Swisher:And to help their talent, too. And they've been trying, but they've definitely been trying more than other companies.

54:14Scott Galloway:You know who probably inspired this whole idea?

54:17Kara Swisher:Me. What? No.

54:18Scott Galloway:Other than you, is Nicole Wallace.

54:20Kara Swisher:Yes.

54:21Scott Galloway:Because Nicole, who's got a very popular show on MS Now, started a podcast that immediately went to the top of the range. I would bet Nicole's podcast is probably doing$7 or$10 million in ad revenue, which doesn't seem like a lot. But I bet six or seven of that goes close to the bottom line. So you got to think the folks at Versant, Comcast, Roberts, Joey Bag of Donuts, HBO Now, whatever you want to call it, have said, we need to be in this business.

54:50Kara Swisher:When you look at the charts, you and I are near the top in pivot. Individually, both of us are. All your market stuff are. Lots of Vox podcasts are near the top and over all the network ones. We're always higher than all of them. So anyway, it's interesting. It's an interesting time. We'll see what happens. And we're nothing at all. Nothing at all might happen. We'll see. Anyway, it makes sense to us, though. We'll go on a quick break. And when we come back, the White House launches an app.

55:38Scott Galloway:But we almost never disagree. And we're always learning. That's true. You can subscribe to the Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app to automatically receive new episodes every Thursday.

55:55Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back with more news. The White House just launched an official app for iPhone and Android featuring press releases and affordability tracker and an ice tip line. Of course, the Trump administration says the app offers a direct line to the White House, letting people text the president and sign up for newsletters. But those features just link to White House contact forms that are already there, letting the administration access users' personal information and some additional privacy concerns. People digging into the app, it took five seconds, found that it's tracking GPS location data every four and a half minutes.

56:23Kara Swisher:It's a privacy nightmare. Do not download it.

56:26Scott Galloway:I would rather give my ex-wife access to my text message history than sign up. I mean, who is fucking stupid enough to do that?

56:36Kara Swisher:I know. It's not trustworthy. Don't sign up for it. Oh, you think? No. But I mean, I wouldn't mind that the White House has an app. It's just this one is a thing. People were like, okay, a company doing this, you'd call them scummy. The government doing this to its citizens?

56:50Scott Galloway:The same people that are demanding voter rolls that are targeting people, that are hiring Palantir to surveil people and you want to sign up for their app?

57:01Kara Swisher:Don't. And it's really sad because the White House should have direct communication with people. But to help people not to take advantage of their fucking information, these people, like literally, but someone who does apps is like, I would think this is scummy for a scummy person, right? Not our federal friggin' government. Very typical of the Trump administration. Do not get it. Do not get it. And also, an ICE tip line. What kind of person are you that you tip on people? Ugh. My grandfather was, you know, a mob adjacent, I would say. Not really in the mob. But, like, I hate a rat. A rat. A rat.

57:37Kara Swisher:A rat. Like, you know, it's fine to see something say something. You see a bag in an airport. Yes, report it. But reporting on your fellow citizens is, especially if they're not criminals.

57:46Scott Galloway:But they haven't committed a crime.

57:48Kara Swisher:If they're not criminals, fuck you for doing that, you terrible people. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

58:12Scott Galloway:Plus, get a free DeWalt 20-volt max 5-amp hour battery when you buy a select DeWalt tool. The deck's stacked in your favor with Brands Pros Trust. Our best lineup is here in Lowe's. Valid through 422, while supplies last. Selection varies by location.

58:32Kara Swisher:Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. There's so many. I think I shall start.

58:38Scott Galloway:You go.

58:38Kara Swisher:You know, I really, I have to say, I really like Barb's slope. if I didn't think I'd say that, but I do. I'm a Manhattan girl, but I really enjoy being there and spending time there. I like going to different places. And, but I mostly want to say the win is Scott Galloway for being such a good landlord to me when I was in New York.

58:54Scott Galloway:That's nice. Thank you.

58:55Kara Swisher:He's been generous and I love his apartment. It's wonderful. But I really, I love being in, like, I feel really good about cities and I feel like New York feels great. Washington does feel great. I'm going to San Francisco soon. I just, I'm very, up on cities these days and like kind of the creativity that you see everywhere in them. And just kind of, I just love a melting pot of people. I really do. So I really, I'm winds or cities again.

59:24Scott Galloway:A melting pot at$3 ,000 a square foot. Yeah. Who's melting? Dalton and I'm just saying, I went all over the city.

59:30Kara Swisher:I went all over the city and it just was, I just love a city. I just love a city.

59:35Scott Galloway:I so could have predicted you to end up in Brooklyn.

59:37Kara Swisher:I did. No, I would have done I would have done the West Village. But Amanda really likes that area. And she has friends there. And I get it. And I get it. I get it. I get it. Anyway.

59:49Scott Galloway:You're going to have Birkenstocks. No, I'm not. I never wear Birkenstocks.

59:53Kara Swisher:It's never happening. No, I wear Vans. Let's be clear. All right. And my fail is there's so many. But I think the worst one is. I mean, I was going between Melania Trump's robot for teaching children, which I'm like, worst idea ever. I'm sorry. Like, I don't mind robots folding laundry, and I'm sure we'll have them. And I don't mind them delivering things. Fine, whatever. But teaching children should be done by people with help from technology. That is fine. But this personalized educators for American children and her walking out there, I couldn't tell which was the robot and which was Melania, which is a typical joke.

1:00:27Kara Swisher:But honestly, what an idiot. She's really, what a moronic thing to feature. at the White House as a featured stage and to stage the idea and insulting teachers. My kid just got in, my little kid got into the same public school Claire is in for next year. And I went, walked by the teacher and I said, Saul got in to the class and she was like, yay, go. And I just love, I love the teachers. They really are dedicated and committed, the ones we have dealt with, especially in public schools. But all the schools that the kids have been to. And so I just hated that thing. And Trump's signing the U.S. currency.

1:01:03Kara Swisher:It was always been a Treasury secretary person. Just another grotesque, like, look at me, mommy didn't hug me moment. So just gross. Just, just, I can't wait till we get rid of all this stuff off all the gold in the office, which has gotten out of control. And the whole thing, I can't wait we tear it all down every bit of it. So including getting his signature off the dollar when he puts it on. Anyway, Scott.

1:01:28Scott Galloway:I like this. So my win is, and you mentioned this, I watched Louis Thoreau's documentary, The Manosphere, and it was very illuminating for me. And a few of the takeaways, first off, these quote unquote, icons of the Manosphere, these podcasters or the folks portrayed, they're grifters. And they don't even buy the things that, they don't even buy into the ideology. There's always a crypto scam or a trading platform or, you know, buy their course or whatever it is. And they themselves, this is not about ideology for them. This is just purely a grift. And I think a decent limit.

1:02:14Kara Swisher:They're selling ideology as a product.

1:02:16Scott Galloway:Well, and they're also trying to sell masculinity. And what I would argue is a decent proxy or a decent query for masculinity is simple. and ask yourself a question, are you optimizing for attention or for service? And these guys are optimizing for attention, full stop. And the other takeaway is I thought that Louis really did a good job of exemplifying that strength is more about, he's this slight guy who's a bit awkward and he owns the room when he's in it.

1:02:49Kara Swisher:He does.

1:02:50Scott Galloway:Because he's quiet, he asks hard questions, He's not mean. And the other thing, the takeaway, I think, for younger men watching that is it's okay to occasionally absorb a blow. And I didn't learn this until I was older. I thought if someone was rude to me or coming off in traffic, I had to restore equilibrium to the universe and get back in their face. And at one point in the documentary, his subjects were making fun of him, mocking him, and he just takes it. It's like, I got a job to do. I'm in service here. The other thing that kind of rattled me was, and I think this is true of the manosphere, and it's a lesson for the left.

1:03:27Scott Galloway:I don't think, I think a lot of the young men who are, quote unquote, in the manosphere or are drawn to these men or these, I don't know what you would call them, grifters. it's not that they necessarily buy into this bullshit ideology of dominating women or, I mean, actually some of these, some of the stuff, it actually starts off fine. Be fit, take control, be aggressive, initiate your life, manifest success. And then it comes off the fucking rails. And it's usually about just dominating women and being a total misogynist. But what you found, I thought what was most interesting is when they interviewed some of the acolytes, the people who are really drawn to these people.

1:04:08Scott Galloway:It's really upsetting because what these kids, what these boys, and they aren't boys, what they're looking for, it's not that they're drawn to this ideology or this political viewpoint. It's not even they're drawn, I don't think, to the misogyny. They're drawn and they're so desperate for community. They want a reason to hang out with and have a common bond among other young men. They want to get better.

1:04:36Kara Swisher:They want to feel better about themselves. They want to improve.

1:04:38Scott Galloway:And this is where the left has failed.

1:04:40Kara Swisher:I agree.

1:04:41Scott Galloway:What orthodoxy or ideology on the left creates a community for young men?

1:04:46Kara Swisher:Yeah. What is it? You said that early on when Kamala Harris didn't have stuff on her thing about men.

1:04:50Scott Galloway:Well, if you tell young men they're the problem, that's not a community to rally around.

1:04:54Kara Swisher:No, Louie pointed that out. And I think what we have to do is feel like we're in it. The questions I got, you know, I have expert questions. One was for the guy who did adolescence, Jack. And then I had Gretchen Whitmer ask a question, which who's been doing a lot of man boy stuff in the state because she understands it. And so you're right. You're 100 percent right.

1:05:15Scott Galloway:It was my win. I thought Louis Theroux's documentary in the manuscript. I found it so rattling. I thought these young men just so sad. One of the young men he was talking about, his brother took his own life. You could tell these young men are just so desperate to find community and a sense of safety. And other people who it's not even the ideology they're bonding over. They're just bonding.

1:05:36Kara Swisher:Bonding, that's right.

1:05:36Scott Galloway:Anyways, that's my win. My fail is that I believe that the Democrats continue to show a lack of creativity and leadership around a series of incentives of what they are going to do and spell it out very specifically, what they are going to do when they get control of the House and potentially the Senate. And it should be something along the lines of the following. Everyone is saying, oh, we can't go after these individuals despite their crimes because they're just going to get a pardon. Bullshit. it. If you look at the law, once Democrats control Congress and Senate, they have subpoena power. Once they get subpoena power, they should go after specific individuals for crimes, and then they should coordinate, and this is the key, with the attorney generals in blue states and start going after these individuals who are no longer protected by federal pardons.

1:06:25Scott Galloway:So, for example, the attorney general in California might decide that if a trade on crypto went through and that family members of the Trump administration were illegally manipulating markets or engaging in any sort of insider trading, that California AG can coordinate with Democratic representatives to bring a case against them. And that case is not subject to the protections of a federal pardon. They need to sooner rather than later put these people on notice that if you are murdering people under the auspices of a secret police, if you are lying under oath, if you are engaged and crypto scams, if you have companies that overnight get contracts from the military violating the emoluments clause, to be clear -

1:07:06Kara Swisher:Some of this stuff is crazy.

1:07:07Scott Galloway:And a candidate for president or a senator or democratic representatives should outline specific cases they are going to bring against specific individuals in coordination with specific AGs in specific states that are not protected by a presidential pardon. And who's done that?

1:07:29Kara Swisher:Fucking nobody. Some of these attorney generals are working at it, Scott. I think that's not fair. I think they are preparing them.

1:07:34Scott Galloway:We got close with, what was her name, Fannie Hill? Fannie in Georgia, the Fulton County.

1:07:40Kara Swisher:Yep.

1:07:41Scott Galloway:But unfortunately, she, like Christy Nome, was fucking her number two, which blew that case apart.

1:07:46Kara Swisher:Yes, that did.

1:07:47Scott Galloway:But there is real opportunity here. There is.

1:07:50Kara Swisher:I think there's more. I'm being contacted by a lot of it. I think attorney generals are really starting to coordinate quite a bit on and around these things. And one of the things that's critical for all of you people waiting for a Trump pardon, remember, he's not going to give it to you till the very end because he's loyal only to himself and he's going to extract something from you. And that might be too late.

1:08:07Scott Galloway:I'm saying take that off the table.

1:08:08Kara Swisher:Yeah. No, I know. But I'm just saying it just I think a lot of people are going to get it.

1:08:12Scott Galloway:If the AG in Minnesota is saying you committed manslaughter and you lied under oath. And as a result, we have an ICU nurse who is who is buried. We can come after you. Presidential pardon or not. And these are the people we're coming for. And these are the subpoenas we're issuing when we're in control of Congress and the Senate. Anyways, that's my that's my fail is I think that Democrats need to start punching back more creatively and more aggressively.

1:08:36Kara Swisher:I like it. I like it a lot. 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. Submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe from the latest episode of On with Kara Swisher. I spoke to North Carolina Republican Senator Tom Tillis. We talked about his upcoming retirement and how he can more freely criticize the Trump administration right now. Let's listen to a clip. I have expressed my concern in the past. I no longer have to worry about what language I use to communicate it because I don't have to go through the cost benefit.

1:09:11Kara Swisher:You can be clearer than some of your colleagues, because I have to tell you, when I talk to some of your colleagues off the record, the Republicans, they're much more critical of Trump. Of course. But look, I mean, you know what all martyrs have in common? What? They're dead. And in politics, that's losing elections. Very smart guy. Very interesting guy. But some people call him too late. Tell us that he's done, he always thought this and didn't say it. And other people think, well, good for him. And he is actually holding up the Fed chair thing because of the bullshit thing. And he's holding up a lot of stuff.

1:09:42Kara Swisher:He helped get Kristi Noem out of there. So I'm, you know, whatever.

1:09:46Scott Galloway:My friend Neil Brennan, he said something very cogent. And he said, despite the temptation to say, you idiots, we told you so or whatever, We need to be really good at welcoming anybody and praising anybody.

1:09:59Kara Swisher:Yeah. I agree. I agree. I think he's going to be very effective through January of getting stuff. Because he's a very complex politician who is very behind gay marriage and stuff. Like, he's a complex conservative, and that's what we should encourage.

1:10:13Scott Galloway:When you say behind gay marriage, you mean against it?

1:10:14Kara Swisher:No. He helped pass it when he was in North Carolina or something of protections. He's much more complex as a politician. and we should allow our conservative and liberal politicians to be complex and maybe not fully be on board with the purity tests on either side. Anyway, 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.

1:10:37Scott Galloway:Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Unertod engineered this episode. Rich Shibley edited the video. Thanks also to Dubros, Ms. Saverio, and Dan Shalanda, Shaq Crowes, Vox Music Executive Producer Podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot for New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at mymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, what is a hipster's favorite cigarette? What? Yours.