Noem Out, Iran War “Far From Over,” and Talarico’s Win

10:52Kara Swisher:But let's just say he's Canadian, even though he's not Canadian.

10:55Scott Galloway:Can I tell you the first time I heard his name?

10:56Kara Swisher:What? Yeah. My first board meeting at the New York Times, they were going around and we have this succession strategy.

11:04Scott Galloway:And that's when I knew the CEO wasn't very good was it was clear she was like shooting everybody that got near the CEO spot. And they went through and we're trying to everyone was asking about compensation and equity awards. And they mentioned this one young reporter and everyone's like, well, offer them 8 percent, you know.

11:21Kara Swisher:Yeah.

11:21Scott Galloway:And they mentioned, they go, oh, and we have this young reporter who's really talented, Andrew Sokran. And everyone went, pay him whatever he wants.

11:27Kara Swisher:Oh.

11:28Scott Galloway:Everyone literally said, you know, we're trying to manage a company that we need fiscal discipline. It wasn't doing well.

11:34Kara Swisher:Yeah.

11:34Scott Galloway:And his name comes up and everyone looks like, pay him whatever he wants. We can't lose that guy.

11:38Kara Swisher:Yeah. Well, he looks great. He gave, he got the First Amendment Award. And he gave a beautiful speech. Anyway, congratulations, Andrew. Was it a fun party? It was a good party.

11:47Scott Galloway:Daddy's going to a big party. What are you doing? Well, you were invited, but you wouldn't be my plus one.

11:51Kara Swisher:Oh, the Vanity Fair. Actually, the guy who's the editor's boyfriend, Sean McCreech, was there, and he sat where it's going. I said, well, Scott Galloway is going to be there, so he'll shut the place. Fuck down.

12:02Scott Galloway:You want to see someone at the bar having a good time? Yeah. I've been so nervous about what to wear. You're going to be really nervous. I spent most of the weekend trying to style myself, which is not easy.

12:11Kara Swisher:Don't wear jeans and a tux like Ted Sarandos. I didn't think that worked.

12:14Scott Galloway:I'm rolling up to the bar, and I'm getting fucked up, and I'm just going to observe. I don't need to speak to anybody. No, you need to talk to people. You know what I do? I talk to Ted Sarandos about strategy and who we should acquire. No, don't do the executives. That's the limit of my social capabilities.

12:28Kara Swisher:Do not do the executives. Can I tell you two quick stories of Vandy Fairberg?

12:32Scott Galloway:I want to meet the gay hockey guys. Will they be there?

12:33Kara Swisher:Oh, they probably.

12:34Scott Galloway:Oh, I'm sure they'll be there. Oh, yeah.

12:36Kara Swisher:Yeah, meet the gay hockey guys.

12:37Scott Galloway:Are you allowed to take selfies with that thing or do they kick you out?

12:39Kara Swisher:Well, I don't know. They used to. Let me tell you two quick stories. I went to one when it was up at this, it was in that hotel, Sunset Towers. It used to be at the Sunset Towers. And it was small, much more intimate. And one year, all the tech people got, went. Like, they invited all the tech people. And so I was like, fuck, I don't want to see these people. I want to see celebrities. And they kept, they're really shy at the time. And they kept bothering me, like, to talk to me. And I was like, I don't want to talk to you, Sergey Brin. I don't want to talk to you, all you people. And Sergey Brin wasn't able to talk to anybody, but except they were wearing Google Glass.

13:13Kara Swisher:He was wearing a Google Glass. And he goes, no one's talking to me. I'm like, take off your fucking Google Glass and, like, say you're a billionaire. That's how it's going to work here. The second time I went there, I ran into, I was talking, as you did, to Bob Iger or, I forget, Comcast Head, may have been Ted Sarandos. And the guy who plays Harry Potter came up to me and said, excuse me, you know, and he said, I've noticed all the really important studio people are sort of kissing.

13:46Scott Galloway:I'd like you to have a story that makes you sound powerful.

13:48Kara Swisher:No, I did. No, let me finish the story. Shut up. So he said, I've noticed you're talking. They're all talking to you and they're very interested in talking to you. Who are you? This guy was really smart. I love him, Daniel Gradcliffe. And I said, I'm their drug dealer. That's what I did.

14:02Scott Galloway:But I'm not.

14:04Kara Swisher:Anyway, I have a lot of good stories from you. You'll have a good time. Talk to people. Say hello to Robert De Niro if he's there.

14:09Scott Galloway:Yeah, that's not my style. I wasn't going to go. I said no. And then someone we both know said, you have to go once. So I'm going. You do. But I literally, it's been very stressful picking out my outfit. Yeah, it's early.

14:20Kara Swisher:Remember, it's early. You go like 10 o 'clock in the morning.

14:23Scott Galloway:I'm literally leaving you at South by Southwest. I'm changing on the plane and I'm going straight to the event. I only think I was invited because they thought I was going to be your plus one. No, that's not true. And then you said no and I said yes.

14:34Kara Swisher:No, I don't think so. Anyway, have a great time. You'll have a great time. We've got a lot to get to today because we also, we're going to be in, this weekend, we'll be in Minneapolis. We'll talk about that in a second. On Sunday, we're very excited. to do Resist and Unsubscribe there. But let's get to the news first. Let's dig in. First, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the war in Iran is far from over, warning that we've only just begun. It was such a ridiculous press conference. As we record, the House is set to vote on a measure to block President Trump from taking further action in Iran without congressional support.

15:05Kara Swisher:And the Senate already failed to do that, by the way. European leaders are pushing back on Trump, notably Spain's prime minister, who said, we can't play Russian roulette with the destiny of millions of people. He's absolutely correct. The White House said they were cooperating and then they said they weren't. Trump is also facing pushback from parts of his MAGA base over the war, even as he insists MAGA loves what I'm doing. They do not love what he's doing. And looking at the economic impact, U.S. gas prices saw their biggest single day spike in three years this week, and oil prices continue to rise.

15:35Kara Swisher:This drag in the U.S. economy is going to be very tough for Trump and the Republicans as we approach the midterms. I've been talking to a lot of Republicans. In fact, I had a meeting with a very prominent one yesterday. And I can tell you they do not like this. Or they think Pete Hegseth is an imbecile. That's for sure. And they don't think this was well thought out at all, I think. And that's the Republicans. And these are people who maybe publicly are being supportive by at least voting against the restrictions on Trump. What are your thoughts about the economy? What's happening here?

16:11Scott Galloway:It really hasn't taken much of a hit yet. It's the existential threat that it could digress into something much bigger and more dangerous. Oil is up about 11 bucks a barrel or 10 % or 12%, which translates to about 25 cents a gallon. typically wars, the markets go down and then they check back. And actually the year after a war ends, markets typically outperform. So I don't think you can say that the markets have responded or that we know this is going to be inflationary. What I think you can say is that I believe if he had gone to Congress and made an argument for why we're doing this, why now, and what are our objectives.

16:52Scott Galloway:He might have gotten the authorization for the use of military force. They never get declarations of war any longer. They get AUMFs. But unfortunately, what they've done is because they had to position this as a defensive action, they said, oh, one of our allies was about to be imminently attacked. We were going to have to respond. So it's like, okay, you just gave into this very dangerous trope that Israel's controlling the U.S. Yes. That was just, and you have had such inconsistent messaging.

17:23Kara Swisher:Absolutely.

17:24Scott Galloway:This is regime change. No, we don't want regime change. This is going to be five days. We'll be there as long as it takes.

17:29Kara Swisher:Yeah.

17:29Scott Galloway:This is a special -

17:31Kara Swisher:Now the Kurds. We're bringing the Kurds in.

17:32Scott Galloway:Yeah, now we're going to operate the Kurds. Well, okay, what does that mean when the Kurds get fired up in other regions? This is a special combat operation. No, it's a war. They have so much inconsistent messaging and the fact that they didn't reflect the confidence to at a minimum think about the American citizens in the Gulf and a plan for getting them out of there.

17:51Kara Swisher:Oh, that seems like, makes Biden's Afghanistan with your all seem like minor.

17:56Scott Galloway:In addition, just tactically, bombing Tehran, the majority, the real danger here is that the Iranian people are not on our side, turn against us. Because what the Iranian biggest miscalculation was firing, they basically, Jon Stewart summarized it as two guys start beating up on you. So what do you do? You try and start a fight with everyone in the bar. That was a real strategic mistake on the part of Iran. But our potentially biggest mistake is when we're bombing Tehran, you're essentially flattening neighborhoods of people who are probably more pro-West and empathetic. It's the kind of religious, the theographies in the rural area.

18:41Scott Galloway:So no one really trusts. I think the why, why now and objectives had legitimacy here and he potentially could have got 77 % of Republicans or 72 % of Republicans are in favor of this, only 17 % of progressives.

18:55Kara Swisher:But that's low. 72 % of Republicans is low. It's usually 95%.

18:59Scott Galloway:The broader number is 4159. So let's be clear, the majority of Americans do not support this. I still think had he had a well thought out plan, he could have gotten potentially.

19:09Kara Swisher:I don't agree with you. I think this was interesting listening to this Republican, very high profile politician. He was like, they have 15 days to resolve this, like because if it drags on more and they don't seem to have a point, it's a problem. And one of the things he was pointing to was unaffiliated voters. He said this, he says across there, there are red lights everywhere for Republicans around independents and independents hate this. And he said, if he doesn't have a very tight, sharp plan in place, I mean, he was lummoxed that they didn't have one, Mike, that they didn't have, and they weren't communicating them.

19:45Kara Swisher:And I'll tell you when he had gone to that briefing about whether there really was an imminent threat. And one of the reporters asked him, was there an imminent threat? And he said, well, there's been one for 47 years. That's what it sounded like. Like he was like, didn't even buy their nonsensical reasons.

20:01Scott Galloway:But you asked about the economy. So the decision to go to war, in my opinion, is not what is going to be, quote unquote, the downfall or really hurt the Trump administration. It's the following. It appears that these types of actions, unilateral actions, where you don't make any attempt to get European or Gulf nations involved to increase legitimacy, much less the resources. These nations could have helped shoot down. These nations have their own military, their own intelligence. They could have served a real valuable role in help protecting those Gulf states, achieving the objectives. The fact that we now have a$1.1 trillion military that appears to be run by incompetence.

20:41In addition, America was the operating system.

20:45Scott Galloway:Everyone settles their trades in dollars. They operate on the IP agreements of America. We largely enforce the flows of energy with our Navy, our military bases. make sure that rogue nations don't go too rogue. We're sort of been the operating system. Now, this decision amongst others, specifically going about it unilaterally with no attempt to even consult Congress or our allies, all of a sudden shows the nation that used to enforce that no nation go too rogue, they're now that rogue nation. But I think the real existential threat to the economy and to American prosperity is the following. It's yet another data point that shows we used to be the cop or the protection when we hear a knock at the door.

21:27Scott Galloway:Now we are the knock at the door.

21:29Kara Swisher:Yeah, I get it. It's really what's interesting is how many people are secretly not for it. Right. It's a really you do see the strength of of people pushing back now on Trump, which is really interesting, much more so all over the place, not listening to him, not going along with him. Now, typically, politicians go along with anybody when there's a war happening. They try not to be too difficult. But one of the things is this further abrogation of power by the Congress, you know, in terms of where they, where they, and they're sitting around talking and debating about whether they have power or not.

22:02Kara Swisher:I don't know if you've followed any of that. It's kind of ridiculous. And they do. And one of the, it just, I think it just creates more chaos around Trump. Like it's chaotic. At the same time as all his, his, his work, the people at work for him are incompetent, that seem more and more, and especially Pete Hexeth, he seemed completely out of sorts for this. And one of the, of course, there's conspiracy theories everywhere, but one of them is that if Iran hits the United States in some way, a city, a United States city, which is entirely possible, that's what he'll use as the excuse to call martial law.

22:36Kara Swisher:Just so you know, there's a lot of things happening all at the same time. And I just So it's not good because it's chaos and Trump, chaos and Trump. And so I think Trump is the same thing as our domestic problems here with him. It's chaos. It's chaos and it's not thought out and it's incompetence. And, you know, obviously the Republicans are worried about the midterms and they should. The first primaries of the 2026 midterms. Here are some of the highlights from Tuesday's elections. In Texas, incumbent Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are headed to a late May GOP Senate runoff.

23:12Kara Swisher:The GAP clash is already the most expensive Senate primary in history, with Republicans alone racking up nearly$100 million in ad buys. Trump is supposedly going to pick one and tell the other to get out. But Ken Pax has already said he's not getting out, even if he doesn't get picked. And state Representative James Tallarico beat Representative Jasmine Crockett in Texas's Democratic Senate primary. Let's listen to a clip from Tallarico's victory speech.

23:37Scott Galloway:To the billionaires who have taken over our state and taken over our country, your unchecked power is coming to an end. Your days dividing working people are numbered.

23:54Kara Swisher:Oh, he sounds like a guy we should hang out with. Good, good, good. It was a good speech. And actually, I have to say, Crockett handled the defeat. Well, they seem to come together. Everyone's like, we're all going to come together. and they both ran really tough campaigns and I have to say everybody acted. The Democrats look like they're not in disarray, as they say. Texas Supreme Court stepped into block a last-minute voting extension in two counties after GOP primary polling mix-ups backing an appeal from Ken Paxton. It seemed like he was just trying to create chaos. In North Carolina, former Governor Roy Cooper won the Democratic Senate primary quite easily and will face Republican Michael Watley for Senator Tom Tillis' seat in a race that could help decide Senate control.

24:41Kara Swisher:So interesting stuff going on there. A lot of people lost their jobs. Dan Crenshaw lost his job. He was targeted by a billionaire, speaking of billionaires, who spent enormous amounts of money to get rid of him. There was, in North Carolina, the head of the state Senate, who'd been in power for a long, long time, is in a very tight race. A lot of people losing their jobs, like all over the place. So what do you think this means for Democrats this year and for Republicans?

25:09Scott Galloway:It's very exciting for Democrats. I mean, the Tallarico race. First off, if Tallarico wins the seat against the Republican nominee, I think he's likely or very likely to be the vice presidential pick in 2028. Because if he wins this and shows an ability to win in Texas, if as VP, they think he could deliver Texas, it's game over for whoever's for the Democrats win. If you could flip Texas in a presidential race.

25:36Kara Swisher:Don't you think he should stay there for a little bit? Get mass power?

25:41Scott Galloway:Well, how long did how long was Obama senator? Yeah, that's right. I mean, the VP is supposed to be the person who could take over. It's not. The VP is brought on to hopefully win a state that is a swing state for the most part. Anyways, so it's an exciting moment for Tallarico. But what's really exciting for Democrats is that through the odds, the majority or the number of Democrats turning out in a primary was in the high hundreds of thousands, 700 or 800 ,000. 2.1 million Democrats turned out. And the other very exciting thing is that I think it was 1.8 million Republicans turned out. So whoever, whatever party is able to turn out more people for the primary gives you real insight into what's going to happen in the general.

26:27Kara Swisher:Especially among Hispanics. He really pulled in. He shifted them.

26:31Scott Galloway:And if we have the first Texas statewide Democrat elected in 20 or 30 years.

26:37Kara Swisher:Lloyd Benson was the last one, I think. It was Ann Richards. No, no, she was governor.

26:41Scott Galloway:She was governor. There you go. So this is an exciting. This is just a super exciting moment for Democrats. So I don't think you can overstate it. All the races look to have been closer. The surprising stuff was some of the Republicans who lost their seats. That was very interesting. I was thinking of sending some money to Paxton because I'd love to see him against Tallarica because I think that means Tallarica wins.

27:09Kara Swisher:Yeah, yeah.

27:10Scott Galloway:Anyways.

27:11Kara Swisher:He's refusing to get out. I mean, who knows? Trump's going to try to get him out. Supposedly, they think Cornyn is the better person to run against. Well, he's more electable.

27:20Scott Galloway:He's absolutely more electable.

27:21Kara Swisher:Right, except within the MAGA, it doesn't excite the MAGA groups, right? They like Paxton. He's backed by all the MAGA groups, all of them.

27:28Scott Galloway:Yeah, it's, this is, like, I looked at the results and all I thought was, and I tried to screen out my biases, I thought, there's just no getting around this. This feels really good.

27:40Kara Swisher:Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll see. It was really interesting. And I thought that Tallarico's continued focus on the rich was really interesting. It's really it's it's he's got a similar vibe of obviously you would point to AOC and Bernie Bernie. And of course, Mondani, like he's like the Texas Mondani kind of thing. And so, you know, I kept saying, you know, if he wins and of course, Trump attacked him quite a bit, he'll be at the White House hanging out with Trump. Like Trump will be hugging him like and stuff like that because he loves a winner, that kind of thing. He's just the kind of person that will do, pull a similar thing that Mondani did.

28:16Scott Galloway:Well, Mondani was, to his credit, Mondani was smart. He showed that he was a pragmatist and he was willing to, he wanted to be effective versus right and not politically grandstand. And he got that woman released. He's proven to be quite pragmatic.

28:29Kara Swisher:He's kept Jessica Tisch as police commissioner, who is very effective. I just have a feeling Telerica is going to have the same experience with Trump, that Trump will bear hug him.

28:39Scott Galloway:But the class warfare, if you will, around the billionaire class. So the Gini coefficient, which is a measure of inequality, it's zero to one. If you're at zero, it means everyone has exactly the same amount. If you're at one, it means one person has everything. I think the revolution always takes on a different complexion. I think what we have now is a series of smaller revolutions. But when you start identifying a class of people based on their wealth, I mean, that kind of means the revolution is coming. and Trump and Epstein and the people Epstein surrounded himself with, it has created, I mean, we are, I mean, the revolution here might be a series of tax increase.

29:21Scott Galloway:I don't know how it's going to play out.

29:23Kara Swisher:Let me just read something. This was in a story I read. The richest Americans have amassed enormous wealth in recent years, while most Americans have seen their stagnate. The net worth of the top 0.1 % doubled from 2020 to a collective sum of$24.9 trillion in the third quarter of 2025, and now accounts for 14.4 % of the total household wealth, according to the Federal Reserve. That's an astonishing figure.

29:50Scott Galloway:Well, yeah, what William Gibson said about technology is true about prosperity and that prosperity is here in America. It's just not evenly distributed.

29:58Kara Swisher:Yeah, but it's really not.

30:00Scott Galloway:And it's made us more fragile as an economy to sink to the morality of it. 10 percent, the top 10 percent of U.S. households are now responsible for 50 percent of the spend.

30:07Kara Swisher:Right. I think tech billionaires have done so much damage to themselves in the way they behave. And they do act like they have. And I think Elon Musk will go down in history as someone who really began the pushback against this because the way the imperious and ridiculous way he conducted himself. And all of them, all of them do. All of them do.

30:24Scott Galloway:Well, becoming the wealthiest man in the world, so you can cut off a day to HIV positive. Yes, exactly. That's not a good look.

30:28Kara Swisher:Yes, not a good look. Anyway, congratulations to Tallarico and others who won.

30:34Scott Galloway:And to Jasmine Crockett, by the way. I thought she ran a great campaign.

30:37Kara Swisher:She went right up and then attacked Kristi Noem beautifully, like did a beautiful takedown of Kristi Noem, which is she's very good at her job. We haven't seen the last of her.

30:48Scott Galloway:Hope not. I think she's great.

30:49Kara Swisher:She really is. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, what Sam Altman is saying about OpenAI's deal with the Pentagon and what Dario Amodi is saying about Sam Altman. It's pretty eviscerating.

31:22Scott Galloway:to her. She's different.

31:26Kara Swisher:I just want my daughter back.

31:30Scott Galloway:Lee Cronin's The Mummy only in theaters April 17th. Rated R under 17, not admitted without parent. Hi, I'm Brene Brown. And I'm Adam Grant. And we're here to invite you to the Curiosity Shop. A podcast that's a place for listening, wondering, thinking, feeling, and questioning. It's gonna be fun. We rarely agree. 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. For the last 10 years, everything in American politics has basically revolved around one man.

32:09Scott Galloway:And as a political journalist who came of age during Donald Trump's rise in 2016, I've had a front row seat.

32:16Kara 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.

32:31Scott 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.

32:41Kara Swisher: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.

32:48Scott Galloway: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.

33:12Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back. OpenAI has updated its deal with the Pentagon, adding language that says its AI system shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance. CEO Sam Altman wrote it's critical to protect the civil liberties of Americans. But in an all hands meeting this week, Sam told staff that OpenAI had no control over how the Defense Department uses its software. And while defending the deal in the Pentagon, he acknowledged that rolling it out so quickly made the company look, quote, opportunistic and sloppy. That's the app producing sloppy is the porn name of OpenAI. Sam said it's been painful to try to do the, quote, right thing and then get, quote, personally crushed for it.

33:52Kara Swisher:Oh, my God, Sam. This is so he needs to stop talking. I've got to say it's a question of whether he's actually tarnished the brand too much in his actions. ChatGPT uninstalled search 295 percent the day after the Pentagon deal was announced. Clawed downloads continue to spike. Meanwhile, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodi told his staff that the Trump administration didn't like Anthropic because it hadn't given dictator-style praise to Trump while Sam has. He really laid into—if you think Elon Musk and Sam Altman have a problem, Dario Amodi and Sam Altman have a problem. What do you think about this? This is like a real, oh, God, something's going on over there at OpenAI that they really need to fix.

34:35Scott Galloway:I think of it on the other side. And as people know, we're going to be resistant, unsubscribed in Minneapolis on Sunday. And the way we're evolving it is we're now going to try and encourage people to sign up for who we think are good actors. And the most obvious contrast here is the contrast between open AI and Anthropic. and I've been saying for six months that I thought one of the biggest commercial opportunities was for a CEO basically to say no and say we're done enabling this type of depraved behavior. We're not going to engage in the violation of Americans' rights. And the hero we didn't think we needed is Dario Emoto.

35:14Scott Galloway:He's basically stepped up and he said no. And just to the point of it being a huge commercial opportunity, Anthropic immediately searched number one in the app store and its annual recurring revenue has gone from 14 billion to 19 billion in just one week. So this is going to be, this is a big moment because what Dario and Anthropic have done, even if they don't realize it, is they're all of a sudden gonna give a bunch of CEOs across America the confidence to start saying no. because I thought it was going to be Nike, but we said this six months ago. It's a huge commercial opportunity.

35:52Kara Swisher:It's got to be a tech person. Since tech has been so in bed with Trump, it's got to be a tech person doing it. Fair point.

35:58Scott Galloway:But the point is the opportunity here was for someone to just stand up and say, enough already, I'm not going to, I'm done.

36:06Kara Swisher:I'll tell you, a lot of Republican senators really have not liked the way Hegseth has handled, I've been talking to a lot of them. Quietly, they have been saying this. It's anti-capitalist. Yes, it's very, they're very not disposed. They're like, when did we become communists, essentially? And one of the things that'll be interesting, I mean, sort of anthropic is a little like what Tom Tillis has been doing. He's left, but he has enormous leverage over the Trump administration now because he can say things. And so he says this sucks, Stephen Miller sucks, right? He does say it outright. And then others say, well, I'm not really liking some of the things Stephen Miller.

36:43It gives them the courage to say slightly less critical things.

36:47Kara Swisher:And I think that's a great way to be. And Dario is sort of playing that role. I get it, but he's playing the role of a heat shield in a lot of ways.

36:54Scott Galloway:If you're Anderil, you get to make weapons for the government. It's legal. If you're Palantir, you get to sell data to the government as long as it's legal and for whatever purposes they might use it for. And if you're Anthropic, you get to work with who you want. You can't discriminate or not work with people based on their sexual orientation or their ethnicity, but they can absolutely. We get to decide who we take ads from. We say no all the time to advertisers and say, no, we're not comfortable with it. The big thing here is that in one week, Claude went from number 42 to number one in the free app store.

37:36Scott Galloway:so this is i mean this is a big moment this is a turning point because i just trust me on this in the next 30 days all of a sudden we're going to see these these ceos cosplaying nelson mandela

37:51Kara Swisher:and acting all righteous i don't know i don't know about that one of the things that was interesting there was a poll out at emerson i can't remember that was at emerson it was a it was a more normal poll um that said that people want ceos to remain neutral but they also want them to be genuine. So they kind of like this, you know, even though they say they don't want companies to weigh in, they kind of do, which is interesting that people answer differently. I do think people do vote like with resistance unsubscribe. If you don't like how chat, so many people have told me they have dumped chat GPT more than any of the other ones.

38:26Kara Swisher:And Amazon would be the second one when they come up to me to ask me about your efforts with resistance and unsubscribe. It's always Amazon and OpenAI that they focus in on. That's what I've noticed.

38:36Scott Galloway:But we haven't had an option to the upside. We haven't had a carrot just to stick.

38:40Kara Swisher:Great idea. And this has given everyone the ability to say, all right, my lack of spending is a signal,

38:46Scott Galloway:but my spending can also be a signal. And I think there's a big opportunity here. And I'm personally going to urge people to sign up for and patronize Anthropic and to unsubscribe and not use open AI and send a very strong signal that people notice. And when certain companies stand up at potentially, you know, potentially pretty severe risk of retribution from the largest customer in the world. It is.

39:12Kara Swisher:It still is. There's all kinds of second order effects of Palantir uses Claude. A lot of people use Claude. 100%.

39:18Scott Galloway:It's a real risk. It might cost them in the short run.

39:20Kara Swisher:Well, there's a lawsuit too.

39:21Scott Galloway:Over the medium and the long term, I believe this is one of the biggest commercial opportunities presented to companies right now.

39:27Kara Swisher:Yeah, we'll see where it goes. The issue, let me just make a warning for Anthropic. Dario, who is a typical tech person, arrogant, it can be arrogant and imperious kind of thing. He loves to write, which I appreciate. I like a CEO that is a good writer, actually. He's got to be careful not to appear too righteous, right? Too self-righteous. I think that's where -

39:53Scott Galloway:I think he should go dark and just let his action speak for his words.

39:55Kara Swisher:Yeah, exactly. I think there is that, you know, he's definitely getting attacked by the idiot Emil Michael and David Sachs, the other moron.

40:04Scott Galloway:Well, again, government officials deciding that we're now, like you said, central planning.

40:10Kara Swisher:Yeah.

40:12Scott Galloway:It's another data point you asked about the economy. Every time we diminish the rule of law, everyone is entitled to and subject to the same laws. Every time we say, okay, the law is now a tool for political retribution based on who's in power. We lose money. Our price earnings multiple on the S &P goes down.

40:31Kara Swisher:He's more powerful. Derry Modi is more powerful now than he was because he's the only one, right? And the same thing with the Tom Tillis. He has more leverage now in his 300 days left because it gives people permission to push back. Like, you know, maybe not. He gets to be the louder one, both of them. And it'll be interesting. It'll be all over the place. Speaking of not pushing back, FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who I love to call a moron because he is, says he expects the Warner Brothers Paramount merger deal to get through approval pretty quickly. Of course, you lapdog. Let's listen to what he said when asked about whether he would have concerns about the Netflix deal.

41:11Scott Galloway:There was a lot of concerns in D.C. and you can see it already. Just the scope and scale on the streaming service in particular, they would have a very difficult path forward from a regulatory perspective. This deal is a lot cleaner, does not raise at all the same types of concerns. I think there's some real consumer benefits that could emerge from it.

41:27Kara Swisher:He's right about it. It was obviously smaller. That's right, Brandon. But Brandon has nothing to do with this deal, and he always mouths off on everything. Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings, one of Wall Street's big credit rating agencies, has cut Paramount's credit ratings to junk status. No surprise, enormous debt. I think from 75 to 100 billion dollars in debt. It's a big it's a big chunk of money. They say they're going to deleverage quickly, but it's always hard, as Bill Cohen noted. And David Zasloff, also not looking so good, president and CEO of Warners. He's looking good to shareholders, filed to sell over 114 million dollars worth of stock in a company.

42:00Kara Swisher:He's getting pilloried by it because it's very clear that that Paramount will have to cut. They say six billion. It's much higher. You know, car does not play a role here, just for people to understand, a real role. But it will get through. It probably will. You know, they've been working Europe. They've been working the government. It's just a question of how they get through and what damage they have done by doing this very non-economic deal. Any more thoughts on that?

42:29Scott Galloway:When the book on the worst acquisitions in history is written, it should just be called Warner Brothers. It's true. I mean, if you ran into Time Warner executives in 2005, Steve Case, super smart. He realized that AOL had nowhere near the value it was trading at. So he said, this is a time to trade it in for boring revenues that come from records and books and parks and movies. And if you find a Time Warner executive two or three years later, literally their retirements were ruined because of what was the worst acquisition in history. and that's Time Warner's merger with AOL. And AOL within like 36 months was worth 10 % of what Time Warner had to pay for it and give up.

43:16Scott Galloway:And then AT &T bought Time Warner and then had to take a haircut. And then Time Warner merged with Discovery and basically it turned into just a giant public benefit organization. It's like basically the merger between Discovery and Warner Brothers is if David Zaslav had been honest, he would have stood up and said, look, this can make me almost a billionaire regardless of whether I destroy or make shareholder value.

43:46Kara Swisher:He certainly didn't improve it.

43:49Scott Galloway:It did not. It's underperformed the S &P by any stretch of the imagination. He's a brilliant investment banker and he's going to walk away with$700 million, whatever. It's legal. Good for him, shareholders. What I don't get is if I was Netflix, I'd be much meaner or more Machiavellian, and I'd be trying to fire up as many Democratic lawmakers as possible.

44:10Kara Swisher:I think they are. I think probably they are. They're saying a lot of public... Jerry Cardinale, who's one of the investors, tried to clap back at Netflix. I've talked to some Paramount executives, and they're all like... What are the unions?

44:21Scott Galloway:I can't get over...

44:23Kara Swisher:Paramount executives, like Netflix has got sour grapes. I'm like, they're accurate sour grapes. Like, sorry. I think it's very effective by slapping them, you know, making them a villain. But yeah, I agree. The unions.

44:34Scott Galloway:It's going to be 8x. And also Edgar Bronfman, Sherry Redstone, and now David Ellison. There's a general trend throughout history where dad makes a shit ton of money through grit and creativity, and then dad junior loses it.

44:50Kara Swisher:Yeah.

44:52Scott Galloway:But basically the only ones who are willing. Rupert Murdoch.

44:55Kara Swisher:Rupert Murdoch took his dad, but that was like a small. Oh, no.

44:58Scott Galloway:I mean, he was a rich kid, but he turned his fathers into an empire. And anyways, anyone involved in media now is basically a billionaire's kid looking to go to the Oscars and make the family 80 % less wealthy.

45:16Kara Swisher:Yeah, it's true.

45:17Scott Galloway:And that's what Bronfman did. That's what Sherry Redstone did.

45:20Kara Swisher:She definitely did, yeah.

45:21Scott Galloway:And that's what David Ellison is about to do.

45:24Kara Swisher:Well, he has a lot of money, so there's a lot to lose. He really, really, really likes making movies, Scott.

45:28Scott Galloway:This company is going to be, they're going to try to go to AI to cut, I think, and I think you're going to see a lot of AI slop. I think the creative community is going to turn on them. And I think this is going to be very, I would not want to own those bonds right now unless they're seniors secured in the stack. But I think this is going to be very difficult.

45:48Kara Swisher:And of course, they're going to get a lot of attention with the news thing, even though it's a smaller part of the empire. I wouldn't be surprised if they sell it.

45:56Scott Galloway:I've never bought they want to control this.

45:58Kara Swisher:I know for sure they're merging CBS and CNN. They have to. It's economically untenable not to do so. I would hope they would put Mark Thompson in charge of the whole thing. I think he's a really good person and very well liked. I can tell you it's hair on fire over at CNN in terms of being... like covered with CNN. What's happening, Kara? What's happening, Karen? I have some knowledge, I will say. But they're definitely merging the two of them. There's no other choice for them.

46:29Scott Galloway:I think they should have CNN anchors on Survivor, the CNN show. Dana Bash, oh my God, she would so...

46:36Kara Swisher:That's good when. Caitlin Collins would kill them all, don't you think?

46:40Scott Galloway:Oh, no, I think Dana Bash is the kind of person that would smother you in your sleep if she needed to.

46:45Kara Swisher:Really? I feel like Caitlin Collins. Did you see her? No, no, no. Like kicking the press secretary's ass?

46:51Scott Galloway:I think there's a very dark, interesting side to Dana.

46:53Kara Swisher:Okay, all right. And I'm here for it, Dana, by the way. All right, but Jake probably will get gotten. Anderson, of course, is so sweet. I'm trying to think if there's an outside person. Bruno? I don't know. There's a lot of people there. There's a lot of people. I'm going to vote Galen Collins. You can invite Dana Vash. But we definitely think Anderson and Jake will be dinner.

47:17Scott Galloway:I think Fareed just opens a bar on the island and says, I'm done. I'm done. I'm sick of telling people what's going to happen.

47:24Kara Swisher:That stack rank, the survivability on an island of CNN anchors. Oh, that's so funny.

47:29Scott Galloway:Yeah. Who wins in Survivor? CNN Survivor. They're literally going to have to do –

47:35Kara Swisher:That would be so good.

47:36Scott Galloway:Survivor, the CNN edition.

47:38Kara Swisher:Oh, Scott. What do you do with Scott Jennings? What do you – where do you put him in?

47:41Scott Galloway:Oh, he's killed by his own troops. He's like, he's, I mean, yeah, he's the guy they bury up to his neck in sand and lift up the tide, come in slowly. They're like, is there a fire ant?

47:59Kara Swisher:I don't dislike this idea.

48:01Scott Galloway:Is there a fire ant hill on the island? We have an idea for Scott.

48:05Kara Swisher:I know it's kind of sick, but it's such a funny idea to have something like this.

48:09Scott Galloway:No, we have Michael Smirconish leading campfire songs at the end of night to make everyone feel good. We have AC 360, that guy who substitutes for Anderson. He just has to walk around with his shirt off. He's hot. He just has to walk around with his shirt off. Okay. I've got it all planned. Ellison's called me. I take back everything I've said. I have a way to pay off your debt. You should let us run. You should let us run. Survivor, the CNN edition.

48:34Kara Swisher:I'm telling you, Caitlin Collins will take them all down. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, the return of the burger wars. This is right near Wheelhouse.

48:51Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back with more news. Burger King and McDonald's have some social media beef. I can't believe I just read that. McDonald's posted a video of its CEO eating the company's Big Arch Burger last month. And while he says he was taking a big bite, the bite was small. Molly also called it the product. The video went viral because of the discrepancy. And then on the day of the release of the Big Arch, Burger King posted a video of its president eating a Whopper burger in a more enthusiastic fashion than the rest of them. There's a Wendy's one. I think there's a Taco Bell. I don't know. There's so many of them now.

49:24Kara Swisher:And while it was, what did you think? Very briefly, what did you think of this? It's kind of fascinating. It really took off the burger eating situation. It was McDonald's and Burger King. And then the other Wendy's got involved. They're all in there. They're all in there. Funny? Stupid?

49:40Scott Galloway:Well, what no one wanted to talk about was there was a CEO of McDonald's who I think died of colorectal cancer in his late 40s. I don't. That's a real pick-me-up story. Thanks, Scott. I don't know why I brought that up. I don't know. I could not be less interested in this story other than to say that, as I'm sure you are, I've been talking to all these presidential candidates who call me for ideas, which is their way of saying send me money. I'm like, negotiate, buy a billion doses of a GLP-1 drug. Right.

50:15Kara Swisher:Yeah. Actually, these businesses are under siege. You're absolutely right.

50:18Scott Galloway:Distributed to rural communities. If you want to solve the deficit, all roads lead to health care. If we want to reduce health care costs, all roads, in my opinion, lead to GLP-1. And the best investment we could make. I think fast food, by the way, I got to be honest, I look forward. The only thing I like about travel is if I'm at an airport, I grant myself the luxury of eating McDonald's. I have a general rule. I don't eat fast food or go to strip bars in cities I live in because that could just go bad places. But when I'm at the airport, the McDonald's in Newark is the best McDonald's in the world.

50:52Kara Swisher:You like In-N-Out, too, and Shake Shack.

50:54Scott Galloway:Oh, that's not even fast food. That's different. That's very fast. That's the best meal in the world.

50:58Kara Swisher:It is.

50:58Scott Galloway:You're right. That's literally the best meal in the world. Well, then let me get on this.

51:01Kara Swisher:We're on food chains. RFK Jr. question what's in Dunkin' Donuts products in Massachusetts is not having it. Governor Maura Healy posted an image with a Dunkin' Cup saying, come and take it. But others are having fun with the jab on social media saying things like, if this administration changes anything that goes into Dunkin', I will make January 6th look like a tea party. You know, it's interesting. They're going after brands. Like, well, R.K. is another moron. It's interesting because remember when Bloomberg did this with the sugar? It wasn't good. It wasn't a good minute for him. The big gulp.

51:32Kara Swisher:The big gulp. What do you think about this? I think Dunkin' is not a good thing to go after. I feel like people really like that Dunkin' Donuts. They really do. And they know. They know it's full of sugar. They're aware.

51:43Scott Galloway:America runs on Dunkin', Kara. Look, I think people have the right to kill themselves. And if they want to do it slowly with McDonald's and Dunkin', that's kind of their opportunity. I think the government has an obligation to go the other way and provide more education. 70 % of Americans are obese or overweight. It's like 38 % are obese. In Japan, it's 4%. And it starts very early. they have every public school has to have a nutritionist, and they are not allowed to have any processed food, and everything has to be made fresh in the morning.

52:13Kara Swisher:Same thing in Korea. There's a whole scene in my documentary with me in a Korean school eating their food. It's astonishing.

52:19Scott Galloway:And you ask these kids what their favorite food is? They're like broccoli, rice.

52:22Kara Swisher:Yes, no, they were like, oh, there's kimchi here. It was a fermented food. It was miso soup. It was rice, certainly. It was so good. It was so healthy. It was crazy.

52:33Scott Galloway:And they end up paying$6 ,000 or$7 ,000 per consumer on health care, and we pay$13 ,000, folks. Let's do the math. So I don't like demonizing. Like, I like McDonald's. I like Dunkin' Donuts. I like to think that because of education early on, I got some, you know, I'm focused on eating the right foods. Also, the reality is fast food is a function of poverty, and that is – or going back to the same income inequality. And that is, if you're a single mother, the cheapest caloric intake is fast food. And people want to get moral and lecture people about the importance of cooking at home and cooking with good food.

53:11Scott Galloway:Actually, the myth is that cooking at home saves you money. No, it's not. To cook at home with natural ingredients is really expensive. It is. And also time. A lot of people have two jobs. Or food deserts. Yeah. But again, I've said this before. I think the most transformative technology over the next five or ten years is not AI. I think it's GLP-1. But love McDonald's, think people should have the right to kill themselves fast or slow if they want. But I think a really good investment would be giving people enough money and enough education such that they want to and can afford to eat well.

53:44Kara Swisher:Yeah. But I have to say, I wouldn't go up against Maura Healy. If I were URFK, she's a tough nut. She's a big basketball player. I don't know if you know that. She's a very good one. Anyway, we'll see what happens. She came to our event, right? That one? She did? Yeah, she's great. I love her.

53:57Scott Galloway:And we met her wife.

53:59Kara Swisher:Yes. Anyway, we'll see where it goes. But it's really interesting that these, I have to say, some of the brands on social media are really interesting. And some of them are better than others. Wendy's does an amazing job, for example, online.

54:12Scott Galloway:Well, you know what Peter Pan's favorite place to eat out is.

54:15Kara Swisher:Where?

54:15Scott Galloway:Wendy's. Oh, God.

54:18Kara Swisher:I can't believe you have a dirty joke about Wendy's. Oh, thank God. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

54:35Kara Swisher:Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. I have something very quickly to say in the prediction department. For people who didn't notice, there was a story, again, on bots about problems with wrongful deaths and suicides. This time it's Google with Gemini AI chatbot coached a man towards suicide. And the story is devastating. This is an adult, not a young person, not someone underage, but it's still just as devastating what it did and what it told him to do. And it made him go to places and look for things in order to find a robot to put this digital girlfriend into. I have to say, I predict some really significant legislation around this in a way that is probably going to be too reactive.

55:20Kara Swisher:and at the same time necessary because of the way these companies are conducting their chatbots that interact with people on a personal level. And they have done nothing to rein them in. And so I think there's going to be a flood of things around how we interact with technology that's going to be bipartisan and pretty ugly for the tech companies.

55:41Scott Galloway:Yeah, and I didn't mean to make light at fast food. There was that mass shooting at a fast food restaurant where the guy was screaming, you've ordered your last McRib. And then one of the workers said, sir, this is a Wendy's. Oh, my God. That's so wrong, Kara.

55:53Kara Swisher:It's so wrong.

55:54Scott Galloway:That's so wrong.

55:56Kara Swisher:Anyway, what's your prediction?

55:57Scott Galloway:I want to take some license here, and I wanted to talk, I wanted to do kind of a fail and a win. And that is, I just, I watched, one of my living heroes is Madam Secretary Clinton. It's the only person I've ever canvassed for. And when I saw, I watched her entire testimony, I just thought the level of sexism was so fucking insane. And that is, so first off, when is the last time a man was asked repeatedly to explain his wife's behavior or actions? and the absurdity of holding wives accountable for husbands. And here's what's so incredibly fucked up about this.

56:48Kara Swisher:I don't hold the audit responsible for you, so go ahead.

56:51Scott Galloway:We live in a world where a woman with her own 50-year career in public service, senator, secretary of state, presidential candidate, gets hauled in front of a committee and asked to explain what her husband did, not what you did, what he did. And also there's this implicit assumption that like, and why didn't you stop him? And we've seen the same bullshit for decades. When a powerful man does something wrong, we turn to his wife and ask, where were you? Why didn't you know? Why didn't you leave him? Why are you still with him? And we never ask the inverse. When a woman in power screws up, we don't holler husband in and ask him to explain her choices.

57:29Scott Galloway:We don't demand he account for her behavior. We don't ask, why did you stay with her? Because implicit in all of this,

57:37Kara Swisher:Well, we do ask that, but go ahead.

57:40Scott Galloway:Implicit in all of this is this assumption that men are autonomous agents responsible for their own actions, which is right, whereas women are responsible for everyone's actions, including their husbands. The double standard is staggering. If Hillary had left Bill after the Lewinsky scandal, she'd have been called a calculating opportunist who abandoned him and that it was politically convenient. And if she stays with him, she's complicit in everything he's ever done. So I just think it's insane that they kept asking her questions when he was testifying the next fucking day. Well, ask him. She handled it beautifully.

58:19Scott Galloway:Yeah, I agree. So now just to piss off the Brooklyn sandaled or Birkenstock crowd on the other side, there is absolutely a double standard for women when it comes to asking them to explain obvious discretions or conflicts of interest. Watching the exchange and basically saying, are you having sex with, are you in an extramarital? And I'm going to be clear, I'm not judging them on having an extramarital affair or having sex. When you're having a relationship with your number two who is unqualified, that is reason to be fired at any organization, any corporation, much less a cabinet position. And what the exchange reminded me of was how selectively we apply accountability in politics.

59:06Scott Galloway:And as someone who considers them a feminist, that means you're subject to the same opportunities. And also, you're entitled to the same amount of shit as everybody else. And when male politicians face questions about personal conduct, the expectation is clear. Answer the fucking question. And when they dodge, the press and the opposition usually press harder until they either deny it or outright, until they deny it or admit it.

59:30Kara Swisher:Evasion becomes the story.

59:34Scott Galloway:But when a woman, Secretary Noem, respond to a direct question about a relationship, calling it total garbage and declining to actually say no, the moment largely passed without the same relentless follow-up. It will float away because of this double standard of being accused of slut-shaming. This is sexism the other way. If a male cabinet secretary responded that way to a similar question, the headlines would read, refuses to deny, and the questioning wouldn't stop. So there is sexism asking women to take responsibility for their husbands. But at the same time, there was a double standard and a lack of accountability amongst women for the same types of things where the press and other lawmakers would not let up.

1:00:17Scott Galloway:God, I'm so preachy today.

1:00:18Kara Swisher:I know. I think lawmakers did not let up. I think they said it. It's over.

1:00:22Scott Galloway:It's done.

1:00:23Kara Swisher:They are not. They are doing their job. They did ask and they asked several times.

1:00:28Scott Galloway:If this had been Bill Clinton or another, it would be it would be ongoing until they clarified their comments.

1:00:36Kara Swisher:I'm going to say you're right about the media. I say I think they they asked as hard as they could. And she just refused. She went.

1:00:42Scott Galloway:See, I think I think they should have said the following. And it's easy to be. I think one of them should have said you are having an inappropriate relationship with your number two who is unqualified. And this puts the nation at risk. I would have backed her into a fucking corner.

1:00:56Kara Swisher:That's fair. They could have done it a different way. You're right. So I'll move on.

1:01:00Scott Galloway:Okay. Real quick. My prediction is no. And that is Dario Amodi has given license and permission to CEOs to say no. And in the next 30 days, you are going to see a raft of CEOs find their testicles and start saying no to this administration.

1:01:18Kara Swisher:No. There's going to be a lot of that. I agree with you 100%. Okay. Well, speaking of yes, we will be in Minnesota, everybody. Just so you know, we're going to be there on Sunday night and we are very excited and we're very excited to do the show. It'll be a pivot show. And at the same time, we're going to talk a lot about Resist and Unsubscribe. And Scott's got some tricks up his sleeve. We've got some special guests, secret guests. We're sold out. So it's not like we're selling it, but we're very excited to do it and raise money for a legal organization that helps immigrants there. Anyway, we want to hear from you.

1:01:52Kara Swisher:Send us your question 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. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe, this week on Prof G Markets, Scott spoke with big short legend Steve Eisman about why he thinks the war in Iran is unlikely to rattle markets and why the bigger risk investors should be watching again is AI. Let's listen to a clip.

1:02:16Scott Galloway:Everything that's being created by people who are doing AI has value. The question is how much value? So much money is being spent. Are the returns that these companies are going to generate, are they going to justify those returns? I suspect not. If I had to take my life on it, I'd say we'd have some kind of replay where, you know, in the internet bubble, the first generation of internet companies basically failed. And it was the second generation of internet companies that took us on to glory in terms of the value of the internet.

1:02:52Kara Swisher:Very good. Very sensible. That makes sense. 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 next week with an episode, as I said, taped live in Minneapolis. Scott, I can't believe we did it. I mean, we just thought about it on the show and then we made it so.

1:03:09Scott Galloway:Yeah, I had an idea and it's happened.

1:03:10Kara Swisher:And again, thank you to all our staff for helping us here. And of course, to Tane Danger in Minneapolis, who's been really amazing. We're very excited to come. We're going to have a hooped up show and have a lot of fun with people in Minnesota. They deserve all the fun they can get. Scott, you have to read us out.

1:03:29Scott Galloway:Oh, thanks. Yeah. Where am I? Where am I? Reheat my soup. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and Todd engineered this episode. Manolo Moreno edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ms. Saverio, and Dan Chalon. Nishat Kuroa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Three words.

1:04:00Scott Galloway:First word, mini. Second, app. Third, or less.