Paramount Merger Pause, Meta AI Optimism, and the Peptide Boom

5:21Scott Galloway:She looks great. She's very vibrant.

5:24Kara Swisher:Very vibrant. And so we'll see how it goes. You know, it's interesting because YouTube just signed Becky Kennedy's doctor, very popular, on social for a show. There's a whole renaissance of things happening now again in terms of sort of reformulating television and everything else that I think is really interesting. at this moment. I think we were very early to it and have done a very nice job figuring it out. We're pioneers.

5:49Scott Galloway:We're trailblazers. We're pioneers. We're trailblazers.

5:52Kara Swisher:We made it to California.

5:53Scott Galloway:We're the innovators in our seventh decade. It finally happened.

5:56Kara Swisher:No, but that's what I mean. I think it's just a really interesting time for substantive voices. I think post-Trump, there's a real market for smarts, experts, smarts, scientists, things like that.

6:07Scott Galloway:Well, I mean, if there's any one theme, it's that these institutions in this middle this middleware is going away yeah and and great talent bubbles through i mean that's the most positive thing i think you can say about these platforms and social media is that people no longer need to give money to the dnc they just give money to john ossoff right exactly yeah and people don't need to go kiss the ass of some executive on the 45th floor of the rockapella center to try and get on ms now they can just you know they can just go live on substack um Um, anyway. Yeah, it's an exciting time.

6:42Kara Swisher:It's an exciting time.

6:43Scott Galloway:It is an exciting time, especially with the reinvention of that iconic piece of culture, Cats. Jesus Christ. Talk about something I'm definitely not going to see.

6:51Kara Swisher:I'm telling you, it's been, I did not want to see Cats and it's amazing. Everyone who doesn't like Cats loves this. And I'm telling you, it was, it was joyful. It was beautiful.

6:59Scott Galloway:I don't like anything cultural though, but anyways. You're not, come on.

7:03Kara Swisher:That's not true. That is not true.

7:04Scott Galloway:The Odyssey will be the most cultural thing I've done in years. It's true. The Odyssey and the World Cup. That's it.

7:08Kara Swisher:Yeah. My funniest one for The Odyssey, there's this continuing discussion of it and what it means and everything else and all these sort of knock-on effects. And when it says it's a movie about a man who finally faces consequences, which I thought was funny. Anyway, there's a lot of really interesting discussion. I love all the discussion around The Odyssey. It's all interesting in different ways. And people are having a good time talking about mythology. They're having a good time talking about literature, about the moviemaking itself, some of the stuff he did. around the themes, around the arguments about the themes.

7:42Kara Swisher:I just love it. I love the whole thing. People are...

7:44Scott Galloway:Yeah, I'm going to see it. I'm going to see it on Thursday with my son.

7:48Kara Swisher:I'm excited for what you think. Yeah, I'm excited to see it too. Yeah, because you're not part of the cultural conversation if you haven't seen it. Anyway, it's sold out here in New York at the IMAX until like late August at this point, which is really interesting. Anyway, I highly recommend it.

8:02Scott Galloway:I was either going to go see The Odyssey or I was going to go see Phantom of the Opera performed by, I'm trying to think of a politically correct term for someone who's incredibly woke. I can't go there. Anyways.

8:13Kara Swisher:All right. In any case, I'm having a great time in New York. New York is very exciting. I have lots of fun things to do this week. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. Speaking of Hollywood, Paramount Skydance is pausing a Warner Brothers Discovery merger until legal challenges are resolved or until June 1st, 2027. That's like a long time from now, folks, whichever happens first. The decision comes after a federal court granted a temporary restraining order preventing the merger from closing for at least 28 days. Paramount is calling the pause a significant win, which is not, saying it provides a direct path to a trial based on evidence.

8:47Kara Swisher:But investors do not agree. Neither does Kara Swisher. Paramount shares hit a 52-week low on the news. The delay could get costly. $650 million per quarter ticking fee begins in October. And if the deal falls apart entirely, Paramount would owe$7 billion breakup fee. By the way, Paramount just brought on Beth Wilkinson, someone I know pretty well as its lead attorney, very good attorney. She successfully defended Microsoft's Activision acquisition. She's also representing Nexstar in its antitrust case, Beth. The company you keep.

9:18Scott Galloway:She's going to win. She'll win.

9:19Kara Swisher:Well, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. What's winning at this point? So talk a little bit about what you think. I have thoughts on it. But I'd love to hear yours first.

9:30Scott Galloway:Well, I don't think they have a legal leg to stand on. What they have is delay. And delay costs shareholders, employees. It's effective. And they'll probably extract a pound of flesh because in order to win the deal, one of the things that Paramount Skydance offered in the purchase agreement was a ticking fee of $650 million per quarter while this deal sits in limbo. That's roughly$7 million per weight. So these Democratic AGs who are probably sick of a Republican weaponized DOJ have said, fine, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And they'll probably be able to extract something, whether it's guarantees of certain shooting within their state or spinning a certain thing.

10:12Scott Galloway:They're going to, and, you know, no one, all of a sudden, less than no one is going to know who the California AG is going to be, right? They'll start getting a lot of time on MSNOW. So this is political. They'll get some awareness. They might get a pound of flesh. But I think ultimately Beth will show, will bring up a bunch of expert witnesses in the form of economists who will say emerged Warner Brothers Skydance is 8 % or 6 % of all viewing time versus Netflix at 9 and YouTube at 13. mean. The market has already voted. Paramount, as you referenced, hit a 52-week low after celebrating what management called a legal win.

10:50Scott Galloway:This was such a Trump thing, trying to pretend this is anything but bad news. And investors understand something executives often don't, and that is winning a court can still mean losing economically. So again, the real competitor here isn't Skydance or Warner Brothers. It's YouTube, Netflix, TikTok, and increasingly probably AI generated entertainment. And as usual, legacy media is fighting yesterday's war while tomorrow's competitors are scaling. But this is, again, this seeds economic value and advantage from the legacy players to the new guys who aren't caught up in court right now. And YouTube can just scale.

11:27Kara Swisher:Yeah, that's absolutely true. I don't think she's going to win at all, actually. Really? Yes, they don't. And look at right now the price of Warner shares,$25. The delta between the 31 and 25, as Bill Cohen actually pointed out, is quite high. It's supposed to be about 4%. It's a lot. That's a lot. Investors have decided this deal isn't happening. That's what I think is exactly what's happening. Well, they want a premium.

11:49Scott Galloway:So, what you're referring to is merger arbitrage. There's a whole class of investors who, when a deal is announced at, I think this is announced at 31 bucks a share, whatever it is, if it's trading at 25, what is that? That's about a 22 or 23 % premium.

12:04Kara Swisher:They don't think the deal is happening.

12:06Scott Galloway:That's right. But what merger ARB guys do is they say, okay, I think it's going to close. I buy the stock now. When it closes, I got my 31. And it's hard to find 22 % or 23 % return. But what you're saying is, to your point, the market is saying there's now approximately, if I'm doing my math correctly, a one in four chance this deal doesn't happen.

12:25Kara Swisher:That's correct.

12:25Scott Galloway:And what would be interesting is what happens to the stock if it doesn't close.

12:31Kara Swisher:Collapse. Collapse. Here's what I think. This is what I think. All right. Let me go. So this is someone sent me a very interesting legal document, which I thought was great. They chose financial hemorrhage over legal precedent. This tells you everything about how they assess their chances on August 3rd. They were going to lose on the preliminary injunction. They were absolutely going to lose on that. And that would have devastated the stock, devastated the stock. And you couldn't overturn it on appeal. This is something called abuse of discretion standard. And the merger would have been over if they lost on August 3rd.

13:04Kara Swisher:So this lawyer they had, a guy named Kessler, in hiring Beth, it's a great hire. She's great. She's terrific. I don't really care how terrific she is. This is, I think they have decided, let me read you this. Paramount Blink, they looked at August 3rd hearing, two PI motions, two markets, A-list writer declarations, a judge who already tipped her hand, and decided that no ruling was better than another bad ruling. That's a rational litigation decision and a catastrophic business signal. Peace Guy isn't just scared. They've entered a survival mode, and they're trying to control the bleeding. The question is whether the patient can survive long enough to reach the operating room.

13:43Kara Swisher:And as you said, other competitors are scaling, including all these tech competitors and also Disney and others. They have all kinds of freedom to do things. They have this ticking fee that's very expensive. And at some point, the savings that they were going to recognize in this deal are going to disappear, right, that they were going to do through the coordination. And so Oracle stock is way off. This is what's paying for part of this. This is delay. You don't have to win at litigation here. You have to delay the litigation. And Beth can push for, and she's going to try to do this in court, a shorter time span in between, you know, what's happening here.

14:22Kara Swisher:But it's frozen. It's really pretty much frozen. So she can say, let's try a scheduling. It's on July 31st. They want to get it this fall. It's not going to happen this fall. And the judge is going to set this schedule. And this judge doesn't seem in any rush. Now they've also foregone the appeal into the Ninth Circuit. That's going to take until the trial is over. So you know that California and the group is going to appeal if they lose. It just keeps dragging and dragging on. And so I don't see how they get this out the door unless they have a settlement. And so another document I got, which was really interesting, and they said these are the most likely ones.

15:01Kara Swisher:One, states win at trial. Permanent injunction, merger blocks, skydance walks, Paramount restructures or finds a new buyer. Settlement, possible. Paramount offers structural remedies, divest the studio, sell cable networks. States accept or reject. Deal collapses economically, also possible. Ticking fees exceed value of Warner Brothers or Skydance, invokes termination clause, merger dies without a verdict. And then if Paramount wins at trial, merger closes after more than$1 billion in ticking fees and severe reputational damage near certain appeal by states. I just don't, I got to say, I don't know.

15:41Kara Swisher:She's a talented lady, but time is not on the side of Paramount here. in that regard.

15:48Scott Galloway:So again, as I often do here, I'm just sort of flying on instruments and thinking out loud, but I wonder if the fulcrum here, so economically, if this goes on long enough, it will close because...

16:00Kara Swisher:It will close the deal.

16:02Scott Galloway:If it goes on long enough, but, and there's a big but here, the data, the only way this legally doesn't close when they chase it all down and they've had a chance to actually evaluate it is to prove it's a monopoly. And I think they're going to have a very difficult time, the AG is proving that, because essentially a combined Warner Brothers and Paramount would represent about 12 % of total US TV watch time, and YouTube currently stands at 13. And in terms of box office sales, a combined Paramount and Warner Brothers represent roughly 25 % of the domestic box office. Now, having said that, if the fees, if this becomes economically untenable because of delay and ticking fees, they might just say throw up their arms and blame Democrats.

16:54Scott Galloway:And by the way, this is political. All 12 AGs filing cases are Democrats here. The judge has decided this was a Biden appointee. But what's good, again, what's good for the goose?

17:01Kara Swisher:But the Trump administration waved it through when lawyers of the Justice Department didn't want to.

17:06Scott Galloway:What's good for the goose is good for the gander. This is if you're going to weaponize the DOJ against us, whether it's cutting off fees to our greatest research universities with no legal precedent, if it's if it's if it's carving up tick tock like a political give back to your Republican donors. Fine.

17:25Kara Swisher:You want you want to go that way or waiving this deal through when lawyers of the Justice Department did not want it to go through many.

17:31Scott Galloway:I mean, there's a ton of examples. The FTC going after the view. I mean, it's just, if you're going to be ridiculous, folks, I actually like Democrats punching back. At some point, I do think the merits of this case or the lack thereof will result in a judge saying, okay, this is going to close. The fulcrum, I want to get your view on this. I think the thing, if this dies, I think the reason it will die is if OpenAI continues to have negative momentum. Why is that? But Oracle stock for a while, about I think it was nine or 12 months ago, Larry Ellison became the wealthiest man in the world because they announced a deal for something like a trillion dollars in CapEx commitment from OpenAI to help build out their infrastructure around compute and inference.

18:23Scott Galloway:Oracle stock is dramatically off. and if open AI begins or the cracks continue to widen at open AI, Oracle has now become a tracking, a public tracking stock for open AI. And I got to think that dad's piggy bank, which is Oracle shares, are quite frankly, that's where this check gets cashed. And if Oracle shares come under enough pressure and dad goes, you know what? All of a sudden, this went from 5 % or 10 % of my net worth to 20 % or 30%, and it's going to, quite frankly, I'm going to wake up in a suit that's uncomfortable for me at this age in terms of finance and debt. He might decide, sorry, son, I can't refill your Greenlight credit card as I do because the Deliveroo and the Uber has become too expensive.

19:16Scott Galloway:I'm not using the metaphor for what I do. Yeah, it's down 52 % in the past year.

19:20Kara Swisher:52%. That's striking. That really is striking. Year-to-date, 39%. Six months, 32%. One month, you know, it's just headed down. You're right. I mean, this is what I had said. Remember I had said this a couple of, this Oracle stock thing that I was paying attention to? That's besides the point. I think that they just over-indexed on their confidence. They were like, well, we got the Trump administration to roll over. We gave the EU some stuff they wanted. And then they were like, China said yes. I'm like, what's the difference? It doesn't really matter. because these guys have what I thought Bonta did very smartly.

19:52Kara Swisher:And I agree with you. It's a different market, but the judge is also calling that irrelevant, the streaming market irrelevant here for this particular case. So I don't think they have a great way in with this judge. And I thought they were overly confident. They did not think Bonta would be quite so controlled because he could have done a get rid of CNN, horrible CBS. They did none of that. They did only a very specific, small, discreet lawsuit that will move, will delay this just enough. They don't have to win. They really don't have to win here. They just have to delay it. And the question is, how much will the Ellisons put up with to own this?

20:30Kara Swisher:That's the thing. How much they're rich enough to do it. It's just a question of how much they want it, right, I guess, on some level. And, again, delays in dealmaking for Warner Brothers, delays, I mean, the asset becomes less valuable. They can't make any major deals now. They can't do any major things and the other people will benefit. It's not a good situation.

20:51Scott Galloway:Well, but I think we're in violent agreement here and that is the legal merits here are important, but I would argue the legal merits all point to eventually this would close. But they can get in the way of the closing and force the Ellison's to perhaps walk away if they make getting to closing too expensive for them. And it's not only a function of the price and the expense, it's a function of how much money the Ellisons have. In sum, if Oracle is down another 50%, I don't think this deal closes. If it's up 20 or 30%, I think they have the staying power to weigh these guys out and hire your very talented friend, who, by the way, has a very handsome trophy husband.

21:29Scott Galloway:I just want to point that out.

21:30Kara Swisher:David.

21:31Scott Galloway:He's dreamy. He's dreamy. She's going to be mad at us. Oh, really?

21:36Kara Swisher:Yeah.

21:36Scott Galloway:I like it when Baller women have like a trophy, a trophy husband.

21:40Kara Swisher:No, he's a very talented journalist.

21:43Scott Galloway:Come on. We've been doing that shit forever. Why should you be the only one with a trophy husband?

21:49Kara Swisher:She thinks we've gone too woke, I think. I think she does think we've gone too woke.

21:52Scott Galloway:Oh, well, word to your mother, sister. A lot of people think that. Anyways. We're woke-ish. We're woke-adjacent. Woke-adjacent. I like that. We're woke-adjacent. We wear one Birkenstock.

22:07Kara Swisher:We wander around. Listen, this is a devastating business problem. It's really bad. It's not good. You know, this is, look, it's just, this is to me, they were too arrogant. They were too arrogant. They didn't think this guy would come to play.

22:23Scott Galloway:It's going to, media is obsessed with itself. They're going to constantly report about it.

22:27Kara Swisher:Come on. It's an interesting case. It is interesting. It's all the tech people. It's media. It's tech. It's Larry Ellison, the satanic looking Larry Ellison. It's so much good stuff here. Come on. It's a great story. And now that you brought in Beth Wilkinson, the star litigator.

22:43Scott Galloway:I'm not going to get in trouble. I had drinks with the guy who runs Warner Brothers movies or one of the co, and he's just like the loveliest guy, this guy Jesse Herman.

22:52Kara Swisher:Yeah, there's one.

22:53Scott Galloway:And he's just so nice. And I'm like, what's going on there? He's like, I just show up and I do my work.

22:58Kara Swisher:You do my work.

22:58Scott Galloway:You know, it's just like, I don't know. I'm just showing up trying to find good ideas to turn into movies that people want to see.

23:04Kara Swisher:Yeah, I just, I don't know. I don't, I think, I'm going to go out on a limb and say this deal doesn't happen. This deal doesn't happen.

23:10Scott Galloway:But again, I agree with you. You might be right.

23:14Kara Swisher:I agree with you on the market, but I don't think that's what it's going to get judged on. This judge has already signaled that.

23:20Scott Galloway:No, no, no, no, no. There's no, I mean, I've done a little. Winning isn't winning.

23:24Kara Swisher:Winning isn't winning. Yeah, but we're saying the same thing.

23:26Scott Galloway:This isn't about the legal argument. It's about the prospects. It's about Oracle's stock price, which is directly linked to the prospects of OpenAI at this point. So if you want to know whether this deal is going to close or not, tell me what the narrative is and the value of OpenAI is in six months. Yeah. That's it. Well, we'll see.

23:44Kara Swisher:We'll see. We'll see if they've got the staying power, you Ellisons. Boy, they weren't expecting this, I don't think. And also, let me just throw in one last thing. Guess what's happening in November, the midterms. this family does not look good during the midterms given all the crap they were doing at CBS and all the statements about what they were going to do to CNN. They are going to run into a buzzsaw of Democrats on top of this, like, by the way. So just all down and to the right. So to the right, to the right. I hope so. I hope you're right. And they shouldn't have done the CBS mess. It brought ridiculous attention to a very small part of its business.

24:19Kara Swisher:It was stupid. I think that's accurate. I think they created smoke where they didn't need to. They could have just let it run quietly and then done all their nasty stuff later, but they didn't. They couldn't resist. Anyway, the rescheduled White House Correspondents' Dinner took place. Jesus Christ, this thing. Speaking of media, what a story. Three months after Obama forced the original net to be cut short, Trump opened by saying the show must go on and condemning political violence. That was good, but quickly shifted to an hour of attacks on Democrats, celebrities, and journalists, many of his jokes falling flat.

24:50Kara Swisher:And even Republicans didn't think it was good. Those attacks include personal jabs at CNN's Caitlin Collins, how dare he, who was accepting an award for her White House coverage. Trump was also sat there as the Wall Street Journal accepted an award for its reporting on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein in that famous birthday greeting thing with the lady's vagina. This, I, you know how I feel about this correspondence dinner. I think it's just repulsive. And I had offered to pay for the scholarships because I hated it so much. But I covered it as a young reporter. I thought it was terrible 20 years ago.

25:24Kara Swisher:This was just bad. And, you know, don't come for Caitlin Collins, my friend. I thought she acted rather well, although I suspect nobody should have been there in the first place. But that's just me.

25:34Scott Galloway:Well, let's bring this back to me. I need your advice. All right. So this is a picture I'm holding this up for our viewers on YouTube.

25:39Kara Swisher:You and Caitlin.

25:40Scott Galloway:This is me and Caitlin. Notice what she's doing here?

25:42Kara Swisher:Smiling.

25:43Scott Galloway:She's smiling. She's, in addition to being a very talented journalist, she's also a lovely person who smiles when appropriate.

25:50Kara Swisher:She smiles when appropriate. That is correct.

25:52Scott Galloway:I saw this thing. I mean, the clip's everywhere. And I just thought, I think about our brand, right? The U.S. brand. There are a few things that have been worse for the brand than the White House Correspondents Dinner.

26:02Kara Swisher:Never. If the worst, the worst.

26:04Scott Galloway:Well, first off, what better marks America than an event with our, you know, technically our most iconic journalists and the president and a mentally ill man with guns manages to interrupt the whole thing. And then we reschedule it and we have this 80 year old man making the creep. This wasn't even about insults. It's like this dude is just so fucking creepy. It's like your grandfather whose doddering shows up and won't stop talking about his grandson's girlfriend in a very uncomfortable way. It's like, dude, just take your limp dick and just take it somewhere else. Get out of here. It's so, the air, I don't know, the clip, the air in that room was like, oh, fuck, God, this is just the worst thing.

26:51Scott Galloway:And let's go macro. The White House Correspondents' Dinner is like Blockbuster holding an award show for who has the best DVD. No one gives a shit. It's like, come on. And the institutions here, there's a theme across all of this. The through line is the institutions are ceding power to individuals and to individual journalists who go on social media. This thing needs to be buried. Or at a minimum, don't invite the president. This thing just was so awkward. Yeah, exactly.

27:22Kara Swisher:Just have a nice dinner with you. I'm not a big awards person. I hate awards. I don't go to them anymore because I hate them in the first place. And now I've said, you know, I actually hate them. Why am I going? I have never I've only covered this as a young reporter I never went I've gone to the parties but I've always found it to be this little like ha ha laugh laugh with the cabinet members whether it's Obama people or whether it's Trump people it's gross it's gross in a way that really makes people hate journalists and that was always my issue with it it's like it's fine for those cabinet people to go it's like whatever they get to like influence journalists But just dressing up and my issue, the whole thing was I knew he was going to do this.

28:07Kara Swisher:Everyone knew he was going to do this. So what's your choice? Not showing up, which I think is the best choice. The second one is what if walking out in a tuxedo, a how dare you, sir, makes you look idiotic? And sitting there makes you look. There's no winning for the journalist. They shouldn't have gone. Yeah. But yes, exactly. And that's the problem.

28:28Scott Galloway:They should have done a nice dinner or something for the winners. And the scholarships. But to sit up there and have him like hand down an award to the Wall Street Journal. The whole thing, it's like we have lost so much standing globally.

28:42Kara Swisher:Everybody has.

28:43Scott Galloway:We just look like, oh, wait, they had to reschedule it because a mentally ill person with access to firearms interrupted it. So they redid the thing and this president had to sit there and then make a stupid, creepy comment. it's like how how could we how could we damage the brand and just look like a more a more strange weird nation i agree and then laughing with him and then the incoming president of it jackie

29:10Kara Swisher:heinrich from fox like laughed and joked it up with him after he did the creepy i mean seriously it's like the whole thing is like i don't jackie i don't care if you're at fox and you're conservative That was gross. That was gross from a conservative or a liberal point of view. And not just Caitlin, like, and then using Dylan Mulvaney. Anyway, please don't do this anymore. When I said don't do this anymore after the shooting, I got so many press people like, Kara, that's really unfair. I was like, go fuck yourself. This is bullshit. We shouldn't be doing this. It should be over.

29:43Scott Galloway:So, folks, just in terms of how precious broadcast journalists think they are, podcasts reach exponentially more people. Do we have an award show giving each other little trophies?

29:55Kara Swisher:There is one. Did we go?

29:56Scott Galloway:Oh, wait, we got awards. Never mind. I take it back.

29:59Kara Swisher:Yeah, but we don't, it's fun. Like it's, there's no president there. It was the Webbys. We got one at the Webbys. That was fun as fuck. That was a really good party. There was no, there was no president. There was no, there were all these cool people there. It was fun. I don't, and I, that's the only one I like because I think it's an actually fun party. But mostly no, right?

30:17Scott Galloway:Did we talk to any? There's no— We wouldn't invite the president.

30:21Kara Swisher:We're not going to shake hands with the president. That's what we're definitely not doing. Anyway. Yeah. Anyway, folks, Caitlin Collins, we love you. You did a great—let me tell you, she acted with a lot of dignity. She's a young woman, and she acted—I would have been, like, slapping him silly, but of course you would have gotten arrested then. But anyway, it's just terrible to put people in that situation, and putting themselves in that situation is not the best thing either. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Meta pushes AI optimism.

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32:44Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back. Meta just launched a new campaign making the case for AI optimism with an ad showing Meta products as tools for human connection. The video is set to David Bowie's Five Years, which is a song about the end of the world. Now, let me be fair. Bowie did say later that he wrote it in hopes people would be optimistic, just so you know, just so you know. I want to correct that. A lot of people were like, it was about the end of the world, but he was hoping to turn that around. But let's listen to a clip first.

33:11Scott Galloway:Some people will have you believe AI will make us less connected, that it's going to leave us behind. We couldn't disagree more. Call us optimists. Call us dreamers. Just as we've always done, we're betting on people. Make it stop. Jesus Christ, seriously, make it stop.

33:33Kara Swisher:Mark Zucker, we share the ad on Facebook, writing, as we enter the next wave of AI, we continue to believe the future is for everyone. The message comes months after Meta told staff it was cutting 10 % of its workforce and scrapping 6 ,000 open roles to offset AI spending. I would like your marketing. Let me just tell you, I'm just telling you, this says midterms all over it. It's like now we believe in people. Before we believed in giving Donald Trump money. But now people. Thoughts? Marketing professor, put your hat on and tell me what works and doesn't work here.

34:03Scott Galloway:I know exactly what's going on here. Somebody really attractive who wears black has shown up and talked about intangible associations and emotion. And they have so much fucking money. And then Mark and the CMO there has convinced themselves this was a good idea. This goes back to the notion of, don't these people have friends? I mean, Mark, can you tell us how connecting people fits into teen girls self-harming? Or are you hiding evidence that one in eight British teens cite Instagram as a catalyst for their mental health? I mean, when I sat next to the woman, you know, Dina Powell, and she wrote, she tweeted the thing and said, it's always been about connecting people, call us optimists.

34:45Scott Galloway:And the only thing I could think of was, sit down. I'm an AI optimist. You're, I mean.

34:54Kara Swisher:Come on, marketing professor. Yeah.

34:56Scott Galloway:Meta's new ad has this incredible soft-focused family using AI glasses to connect more meaningfully.

35:02Kara Swisher:The stalker glasses, yeah. Yeah.

35:03Scott Galloway:Okay, nothing says intimacy like a$300 pair of glasses beaming your kid's birthday party back to a fucking server farm so Zuck can serve the moment back to you as a Nissan ad. It's just, this is so cynical. They are the last people to be talking about the upside of AI. They're going to invite so much criticism. I don't know who the CMO of Meta is. You're a fucking idiot for approving this thing.

35:28Kara Swisher:What would you do here? Because they have other ones. They have another video I saw about data centers. They're trying to turn that idea around, that it does help people, it creates jobs, et cetera. They're now moving. And again.

35:41Scott Galloway:That's a good one. That ad is smart. PR and talent is very adroit. No ethnically ambiguous people pretending they're happy wearing these glasses. None of that shit. Just communications around what is trying to call balls and strikes. Their program around vocational training and investing in vocational training. That is a great program. That is great branding. It shouldn't be an ad. It should be their PR team, which are some of the most talented people in the world, getting that thing placed everywhere, but not running ads on it. This thing is so tough. It's going to invite so much scrutiny around, okay, this is Jeffrey Dahmer running a jack-in-the-box commercial.

36:25Scott Galloway:It's just, you just don't do this. What are you thinking? Approving an ad saying that you're AI optimist and you're connecting.

36:34Kara Swisher:What the hell? They also cursed in it. I don't like when they curse in ads. I don't like it.

36:38Scott Galloway:Yeah. So I don't. I find. And I just, when Dina, she seemed like a lovely woman and she put out the ad. I just, the first thing I thought of my mom, I can't do this because she's friends of care. I thought, sit down. You're the last people that you should be claiming that you're AI optimist.

36:52Kara Swisher:But what do you do if you're trying to get back the, you know, look, I'm telling you, This is so motivated by what's coming in November and the payback.

37:00Scott Galloway:What do you mean by that?

37:02Kara Swisher:Because I think they're all, like, let me just tell you, there isn't a tech company that suddenly hasn't hay-girled me recently. All of them. All of them. They're like, Kara, we haven't talked in a while, like, after the Trump thing. Because I'm like, you fuckers for, like, throwing in with Trump, you corrupt pieces of shit, like, essentially. And now they're like, we need to talk because we believe in safety. Like, I'm getting a lot of safety. We should have a meeting. You know, what you've been saying has really resonated with us. Like what you're saying about like corruption. I was like, aren't you paying the bribes?

37:35Kara Swisher:Like it's really, I just feel like there's an understanding that there's going to be payback right now. That's one. Two, what would you do? Like at some point, like I know people hate when I say this, but you know, how do you turn it around? Is there a world in which Mark Zuckerberg could do something to not seem like so villainous? Or maybe not. Maybe not. I don't know. I mean, I recall when Gates was villainous. And then until the Epstein stuff, he was non-villainous, right? So what did they have to do? What would the ad that you would do here? Let's help them. Let's help them in their thing.

38:11Kara Swisher:Say they're genuinely saying we made a mistake. We want back into humanity. What would you or they can't be or they can't come in back into humanity because they're doing all this other damage.

38:22Scott Galloway:I hate to say it, but it's the Rupert Murdoch brand strategy. Rupert just owns it. He's like, I am who I am. I work behind the scenes. He doesn't run ads trying to make the Murdochs more likable. He doesn't run ads trying to say, Fox, we're good for America.

38:35Kara Swisher:Well, there was fair and balanced, if you recall, for a minute and a half.

38:38Scott Galloway:But they just, quite frankly, they just own it. And the reality is that the Zuckerberg brand and the meta brand is, for the most part, a very strong brand for the following reason. America has opted for shareholder value over competence and the well-being of the Commonwealth. We really respect and admire a company that's able to create this sort of shareholder value. Their products are amazing. I hate to admit this. I am addicted to Instagram reels. I think it is incredible. I think it's incredible.

39:12Kara Swisher:I like threads, as you know.

39:14Scott Galloway:Their performance, their shareholder returns, the fact that they hire a ton of talented people and create economic security for them, the fact that housing prices are up 28%, in large part because Meta's making so many people wealthy. A lot of people have registered enormous shareholder gains. Do your thing. Go on background. Try and defend yourself. Fine. I think the vocational investment, I think it's$150 million, is absolutely genius. But having an ad where the tagline is presence reimagined, that to me feels like them saying, we already have your face, your friends and your location. Now we'd like to own your depth perception.

39:55Scott Galloway:I mean, I don't want they should not bring attention.

39:59Kara Swisher:They have a they have a need to be liked. They do. You know, also running these ads. Yeah. They have a need to like we're not villains. And I don't know what they could do. I mean, do, you know, admit to some of their big problems, admit to it. If they want to be liked, like, that's what I mean. I think wanting to be liked is part of this. And look at, like, look at that interview Elon did with the financial, with the…

40:23Scott Galloway:Economist.

40:24Kara Swisher:The economist. They can't help it. Betos.

40:27Scott Galloway:They feel like they're misunderstood. He couldn't shut the phone.

40:30Kara Swisher:I kept thinking, stop talking. You are like, you know, and she's so adept. She's amazing. And I was like, stop talking. Oh, my God. Like, stop talking. At some point, I was, like, wanting to get him off the stage because I thought he doesn't even know how awful he is, right, at some point. I think in the case of Metta, I think they do want, they do understand there's a shift happening, a vibe shift, rather significant. And they're trying to figure out how to be liked again. I'm not so sure they're ever going to be liked. I think you're right. I don't know.

41:01Scott Galloway:The advice is the same. They should take the advice from Albert Brooks to William Hurt. When William Hurt says, what happens when your reality exceeds your wildest dreams? And Albert Brooks says, keep it to yourself. They should just continue to perform, continue to add shareholder value, go on background when they feel they're being treated unfairly. But to run this sugary ad of we're here to connect people? No, you're not. That's not your aim. That's not what you're trying to do here.

41:31Kara Swisher:They should just put wins on the board on things they can put wins on the board in, like helping people get jobs, maybe giving money to like, well, you see teen girls, like we don't want their money, right? Like you're the ones that caused the problem or part of the problem, not all of it.

41:47Scott Galloway:Their economic growth, economic engine, incredible products, incredible shareholder value. I personally think it would be a good move at this point for these guys to self-age-gate, say we're not letting anyone onto the platform under the age of 16. Yeah, I think they're going to do that.

41:59Kara Swisher:I think they're going to start to do that.

42:00Scott Galloway:They're going to do it the night before it's about to pass, and Congress is when they'll do it.

42:04Kara Swisher:I think they're going to move into that space. But then there's the beef with Apple and Google over that. Who decides age verification? That's another fight, by the way. And Apple and Google aren't distinguishing themselves in that fight either. Anyway, it's a really – it was not a great ad. Stick with the simple ads. We're providing jobs. We care about people's – you know, we're going to help this. You know, it's interesting because Mark does switch between I want to be liked and fuck you. And I think fuck you is probably where he mostly lives. And he has to become comfortable in that spot. But I don't think he is.

42:38Scott Galloway:I felt like, okay, them spending$100 million to try and say we're likable and we're cool again, it's like your uncle's showing up with a Ferrari to convince everyone he doesn't miss his ex. It's just, it doesn't ring true.

42:52Kara Swisher:I don't know.

42:54Scott Galloway:They're trying to make surveillance capitalism seem aspirational and likable. Yes, I know.

42:58Kara Swisher:They should get rid of the creepy glasses or lean into the creepy glasses or something. It's really interesting. And I think ultimately he's going to have to live with the fact. And this movie is coming out, The Social Reckoning, which I think is not going to make him look very good. So I don't know.

43:17Scott Galloway:I just hope a lot of the creators do like, what if ads were on us? Because this would be, we're bringing people together, usually to sell them creatine that they talked about with an earshot of a phone. I mean, that would be the real ad, right? Or to suggest innovative waves of self-harm or how 90 pounds and 5 '10 is normal. That's how we're bringing people together.

43:39Kara Swisher:That's not funny. Why am I laughing? That's not funny. You know what they should do is, you don't like us. We know. But we have some good stuff. Like, we're not, what can we say? We're not Elon Musk. We're not Elon Musk.

43:53Scott Galloway:We're bringing people together by elevating your aunt's conspiracy theories. I mean, I just can't wait for the—

44:02Kara Swisher:We should go in there and do a presentation. I think we're not Elon Musk is their best argument. So just—anyway, to be fair, the song is fun. I know people made a big thing of it. Actually, he was talking about a better future in that song, too. Oh, wait, I got another one. But if you have to explain your joke, it's not funny. I got another one.

44:20Scott Galloway:Where Meta, where you found your college roommate? Now it's where you share your roommate's dad's post that Michelle Obama is secretly a linebacker.

44:31Scott Galloway:I mean, bring me in. Bring me in, coach.

44:34Kara Swisher:Let's go in there. I'm ready. Let's go in and help them. Let's help them. They should have a sense of humor. That is one thing Mark has not had enough of is a sense of humor. He does not have enough. He's not going to laugh at you. Sorry, Dina. I tried.

44:48Scott Galloway:Metta, we're going to try and sell you something you searched about at 2 a.m. six months ago.

44:54Kara Swisher:Okay, stop. All right, we're moving on. This Trump administration, moving on, sorry, Mark, we apologize. Not really. I got one more.

45:02Scott Galloway:Okay. Based on my feed, the future is AI-generated Jesus holding six puppies while giving away free RVs.

45:15Scott Galloway:Literally, Netta, if you have any sense of humor, you will run my ads. You will run, I should do this on AI. Can't you create ads using AI now? Maybe. Yeah.

45:24Kara Swisher:Yeah.

45:25Scott Galloway:I think this is genius. I should start a podcast on ads for Meta.

45:29Kara Swisher:I've got one. Meta. Fucking elections since 2006.

45:33Scott Galloway:There you go.

45:34Kara Swisher:Nice. Anyway. All right. Moving on. Donald Trump. We have to stop making these up. Donald Trump says administration is launching a trade investigation at the European Union after it hit Google with a$1 billion antitrust fine. In a true social post, Trump accused the EU of robbing American tech companies. Trump claimed the latest fine was issued without explanation, even though the EU regulators said it stemmed from failure to comply with the Digital Markets Act, which we've known about for a long time. Regardless, Trump said the U.S. is not a piggy bank for Europe and is threatening to hit the EU with substantial tariffs, as usual go-to is his tariffs, because those just expired.

46:08Kara Swisher:And he's trying all manner of ways to put new tariffs on. You know, listen, Obama released a similar thing at the time of the original Digital Markets Act and the other act. And so, you know, a lot of presidents do this, but, you know, the tariff, he never did anything about it. Obama complained about it, as I recall, and was defending U.S. tech companies. But thoughts on this?

46:35Scott Galloway:I'm so exhausted by all of it because I have trouble understanding it. And usually the stuff that's boring is the important stuff. So, like, two decisions, half a billion fine for self-preferencing. its own search. The EU has essentially become the de facto regulator for American tech because America won't do it itself. So I'm a little bit, I'm of two minds here. And that is when the primary form of tech innovation coming out of the EU is regulation, that's not a great sign. It reflects poorly on both of us, quite frankly. I don't have a lot to say here, Kara. What are your thoughts? By the way, I do have the new meta tagline, though.

47:18Scott Galloway:We're not the same Facebook that ruined Thanksgiving.

47:24Kara Swisher:This time. We won't drink this time. We promise not to drink.

47:30Scott Galloway:I got a new job as an agency. I'm literally starting the new meta agency, whether they like it or not. I'm the new meta agency. Wouldn't it be cool if they brought us in?

47:37Kara Swisher:Bring us in, Mark. Bring us in. We can help you.

47:40Scott Galloway:Put us in. Put us in, coach. Put us in.

47:42Kara Swisher:Put us in. pay us enormous amounts of money to insult you.

47:45Scott Galloway:Metta, we're not just ruining Thanksgiving anymore. Yeah. If you thought your drunk uncle practicing karate at Thanksgiving was creepy, wait till you see what the algorithm's going to feed you.

47:58Kara Swisher:All right. I'm going to very quickly dispense of this, and I'm going to say one thing. Let me just tell you, Metta, you really should have us in. You should 100 % have us. That would show you understand the problem that you have. I think it would be really good to have us in. But you know how you get your hey, girls?

48:12Scott Galloway:You know what I get? I don't get Hey Girl. I get, hey, hey. And by the way, they don't call me. They're PR representative, the comms person who shadows them. Hey, so-and-so is going to be in town and would love to grab a drink with you. Everyone thinks that if anyone offering me a drink, I'm there. Yes, he is. He shows up.

48:31Kara Swisher:I do not Hey Girl.

48:32Scott Galloway:They're literally like, he's an alcoholic. I invite him out for drinks. I'm like the less intelligent Christopher Hitchens.

48:39Kara Swisher:I'll tell you what I do when I get the Hey Girls. I go because I'm like, okay, sure. I'm happy to re-engage with you given I was accurate. No, I want to find shit out. What are you talking about?

48:48Scott Galloway:Do you see this picture of me and Caitlin Collins? I see.

48:51Kara Swisher:She's the best. I love that Caitlin Collins.

48:53Scott Galloway:This is my credibility right here.

48:55Kara Swisher:I think she works hard. I really like Caitlin Collins. All right, with the EU thing, this has been going on forever. We don't do any regulation. They may be guilty of doing too much, but too bad y 'all knew the fines that were going to be here. do something about our tech industry in a way that satisfies European regulators. And if you want to operate there, you live by their rules. I'm sorry. And Trump can complain about it, but hitting with tariffs, his old trick is ridiculous. Tariffs are bad for the economy. They cause inflation. They're a stupid way to hit back, and it's not going to work.

49:28Kara Swisher:So it doesn't matter. So I think it's just a wash in that regard. Remetta, you can keep making jokes all the rest of the show. All right, let's go on a quick break when we come back. The FDA loosens restrictions on peptides. Ooh, something Scott likes to talk about. We'll talk about what happens next.

49:50Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back and talking about the latest buzzword in wellness, peptides. I'm so tired of hearing about peptides from people after my show. People take them for everything from weight loss to anti-aging to muscle growth. They're the miracle drug. By the way, GLP-1s are peptides. Right now, people are getting on these so-called gray market online through longevity clinics, even TikTok, outside of the FDA approval process. But last week, a panel of doctors and pharmacists, all of whom are in the tank, voted to recommend the FDA ease access to several peptides that are popular with influencers, celebrities, and RFK Jr.

50:22Kara Swisher:That's in spite of government scientists warning about the lack of data showing these drugs are safe or effective. It's like nuts. The FDA isn't saying that drugs are dangerous. They're saying they don't have enough information, which they should get, and maybe not a good enough reason to restrict access, but approval would benefit telehealth companies, compounding pharmacies, and frankly, RFK's agenda. I will say one quick thing since I didn't cover them in my show, but the gray market is so dangerous, and they are mostly made in China. It's a very dangerous thing to be putting in your body, and there still are very unclear studies on whether these things work, and there should be.

50:59Kara Swisher:by the way there should be studies, paid for by the government, which we used to fund these scientists to do these things. But just letting them out there among the people is such a mistake if we don't have, and I understand slowing things down is a problem, but sometimes it's for the best. And these things can be very, very dangerous in terms of where they're coming from and whether they're safe for use. Scott, go ahead. Peptides.

51:24Scott Galloway:Well, peptide's an overused term. GLP-1 is a peptide. And my understanding is peptide is just a series of molecules. I agree with you that the, again, it's the same through line. It's a lack of trust in our institutions. We used to trust our institutions to tell us what we should put into our body or what we shouldn't, or that we had a smart FDA or a smart CDC that would help protect us. I had dinner with two actors on, when was it? Thursday, I think, or Saturday. Anyways. And they're both on this Wolverine stack, peptide. And I like this stuff. I take supplements. I'm on testosterone therapy.

52:01Scott Galloway:I was doing NAD for a while. I like to be out. I do believe there's something to this stuff, but I wait till there's a decent amount. I guess NAD is the most, and I also do creatine. But as someone who does a decent amount of research, the peptide jury is not in, or these peptides, I should say. Yeah. GLP-1, they are.

52:24Kara Swisher:They're getting there.

52:25Scott Galloway:GLP-1, it's FDA approved. I mean, many of these GLP-1s are FDA approved. And by the way, every piece of research that comes out, the externalities are positive, which is the most unique thing about that.

52:35Kara Swisher:And we're getting real-time data of people using them. Usually, they're now done by doctors, much more so than at the beginning. But go ahead.

52:42Scott Galloway:Oh, by the way, the same ad agency that's helping Meta is rebranding Marlboro as a wellness startup, just so you know. anyway so finish your thought your peptide thought i i like i again i think this is people deciding to do their own medical research and come to their own conclusions because an influencer tells them that you know leo is on this thing and i actually i don't know if he is or isn't right yeah and i know i get your point yeah i do think there's something i have never done all the stuff i've done. I have never done it without medical supervision, meaning I have my blood drawn all the time now and I do all these crazy analyses of it.

53:25Scott Galloway:And they'll say, you are low on these omegas, take fish oils. Fine.

53:33Scott Galloway:I'm a fan of intervention and being thoughtful about plussing up the gaps in your nutrition or whatever it might be, especially as you get older. and I'm, my view is between the ages of 20 and 50, your body's pretty goddamn good at figuring out what it needs. Unfortunately, it starts to die because the majority of us are supposed to be dead by now. So some intervention I think makes sense. This stuff feels cutting edge to the point of buyer beware. I don't. Yeah, I would agree.

54:02Kara Swisher:I have a lot of people that are like, it works. I'm like, does it? Do you know? Do you know there's, there are studies. I'm like, actually, no, no, there aren't. Like, they're not, they're very inconclusive. And my worry about them, and they should be studied, absolutely, is where they're coming from and where you're getting those things. And you wouldn't, like, it's sort of like getting, like, here's some milk from a guy on the corner. Like, it might be good, it might be bad. And so a lot of it does come from China, especially these compounding agencies, and there are no strictures on how they are.

54:31Kara Swisher:It's like eating poop lettuce. Like, you might have a good meal, you might have exploding diarrhea. And it's too dangerous to do it. But everybody, I get so yelled at. That's the one thing of peptides. And I'm like, I'm sorry. I wish it would be great if they worked the way they say. They also are ascribing far too many, like, it's a solution for everything, which is all these supplements. They're not. Sometimes they're a very small little addition to your life. Sometimes, like GLP-1s, they are truly groundbreaking. But to say they do everything is just unproven, and you have to stop pretending so.

55:07Kara Swisher:Every person who comes up to me, I'm sorry, you're incorrect, and you shouldn't be putting things like this in your body without medical supervision or scientific proof. Sorry, I'm on the scientific proof. Anyway, that's the way it is. That's the way it is. But, you know, meta now with more peptides. All right, Scott, one more quick break. Well, hold on, hold on. New tagline.

55:27Scott Galloway:Facebook, where a nuance goes to get beaten to death with a folding chair.

55:34Kara Swisher:Oh, I feel so bad for Dean.

55:35Scott Galloway:But isn't literally, isn't this ad, isn't essentially this ad, just the broadcast embodiment of an abusive ex-husband Zuckerberg seeing you and whispering in your hair, baby, I've changed.

55:48Kara Swisher:Baby, I've changed. Baby, I've changed. Baby, I've changed. Here's the thing. Why don't our listeners write in their taglines for Meta to help them? Well, it's also, you know what's disingenuous as a brand guy?

55:59Scott Galloway:These ads. We're invited.

56:00Kara Swisher:Yeah.

56:00Scott Galloway:These ads are absolutely beautiful. But the thing is, their actual product in terms of design, it feels like Craigslist fucked QAnon. It's like QAnon. QAnon. QAnon. QAnon.

56:14Kara Swisher:Let's read. Brand that. Baby, I've changed. Baby, I've changed.

56:18Scott Galloway:I'm a new man. Baby, I've changed. Take me back, baby. I just love you so much. You forced me to hit you. I just love you so much.

56:27Kara Swisher:We should not be laughing at that. No, it's terrible. You're terrible. You're terrible. We're terrible people. Anyway, I'm sure we'll get lots of letters. Anyway, why don't you all write in and tell us what you think the taglines for Metta should be, and then we will read them. Anyway, see if you can do better than Scott, who just doesn't seem to stop. All right. Look at him, the marketer in him is just energized. I'm ready. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

57:00Kara Swisher:Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I think I'll go first. Go ahead. First fail was the story came out in The Post, which I was, the Post news side is doing a great job, I have to say. This is the headline. Police vetted dubious allegation only after Buttigieg was separated from children. The people, this is the Pete Buttigieg kids were taken away from him for a time and questioned in a really terrible way by authorities. They were investigating these allegations made, and the former cabinet secretaries was separated from his four-year-old twins. And now the Michinac Attorney General is investigating how the accusation led to it.

57:42Kara Swisher:And it turns out the Post talked to the woman who did it, and she seems unhinged from what I can tell from the interview, and didn't really understand it. And basically, I think, made it up. And nobody was, like, I think it started in Indiana, and then he was supposed to be in Alabama. But none of the authorities, before they took the kids away, checked on the source of the information. I have said this again and again, Chastain and Pete should sue these people for what they did. And the damage is done to their kids. It's like unnecessarily without any checking because of these ideas around gay parenting, which you know was part of it because this woman essentially did not think gay people should be parents.

58:26Kara Swisher:From what I can tell from this interview, and I have to say it's just, it's mind boggling that our authority, I get it one crazy lady is going to make some allegations. That happens all the time in this world now. The fact that the police and others didn't vet it is really, it's just such an incredible indictment of Michigan authorities. So I just, it's such a fail, such a massive, enormous, repulsive fail, I have to say. And my win is, I have this beautiful show, This Cat's Jellicle Ball. It's closing soon. I recommend people go see it. Just beautiful. It's so kind and human forward. speaking of something that is human forward and funny and just everything Broadway's great at.

59:11Kara Swisher:And I just, Clara dressed herself up in this beautiful spangled fierce dress and this wonderful fascinator hat. And it was just a wonderful thing. So I just love when people are out at the theater and in theater, in movie theaters and things like that. And so I can't recommend these lovely, joyful, beautiful, artistic, human-centered stuff that's coming out lately. And it's really, it does, there seems to be a shift where people just want to get together or celebrate real humanity, not in meta ads, but in that way. So I would say get out and do something with a lot of people and have some fun.

59:45Kara Swisher:All right, that's my win. Go ahead.

59:49Scott Galloway:Well, my loss is the White House Correspondents' Dinner. It should be canceled or they need to reinvent it. It was the one I'd built to fake a truce and it couldn't hold for two hours or it hasn't been able to hold for two hours. And the tell here was during this ridiculous, weird, creepy rant on a respected journalist. The whole room just went so silent. It felt like you could cut the air with just ick. And terrible, terrible for our brand. Anyways, we covered that. That's my loss. White House Correspondents Dinner, whoever the governing organization is, has to realize like, this is over. It should be canceled.

1:00:28Scott Galloway:They're not done for a couple of years. They need to reinvent something else. My win is it's not getting very much coverage, but what's gotten a decent amount of coverage is Ukraine with their incredible supply chain and drone and AI technology has been going after oil infrastructure. What they've done, which I thought was genius, is they've gone after something that has hit Russia perhaps even harder, and that is they blew up the Wildberries factory, and it ends up basically Wildberries is the Amazon of Russia. And this supposedly has caused more rage about the war than a million deaths and casualties, because the reality is the majority of the soldiers and the fatalities that toll on families has been levied against kids and families from, lack of a better term, rural Russia.

1:01:19Scott Galloway:And the elites don't really care. But you start fucking with their ability to sell their fashion into people in St. Petersburg. Supposedly, this has just outraged all these creators and all these small business people. And also, it has had an impact on the front lines because a lot of people were buying kind of basic military equipment and gear. And I thought it was just so interesting that they decided—

1:01:44Kara Swisher:And Putin's on the run, it looks like. He looks like he's hiding away, too, at the same time.

1:01:48Scott Galloway:People, well, A, supposedly he's paranoid, and B, he's very scared. This is so, I thought this was so interesting. They want, what are they doing? They're saying, okay, we've shown we can kill a thousand people a day. Russians don't seem to care. The Russia's, arguably Russia's core competence, it's an incredibly educated populace. It's an incredible, incredible appreciation of culture and the arts and technology. A lot of very redeeming qualities about Russian culture. But their core competence, quite frankly, is they're willing to endure more suffering than any society in history. We lost 400 ,000 people in World War II.

1:02:31Scott Galloway:They lost 20 million. And they were ready to keep fighting. But what they've said is, okay, we're going to hit you where we think it hurts most for you. And that is going after your ability to order shit overnight. And I thought it was just such genius there. And I think Ukraine is not only showing, I mean, they're essentially, they've said, okay, we're bringing the war to you. And it's just interesting how they've decided to bring it to the Russian populace. So instant visible pain versus sanctions kind of year-long, you know, year-long impact, if you will, or years-long impact. I thought it was very innovative.

1:03:11Scott Galloway:Anyways, my fail. You know, this would happen.

1:03:15Kara Swisher:This would be like if we declared war on Canada. They would get us eventually. You know what I mean? Like they're right next to each other. They've proven very strong. Although there's been some back and forth. He fired one guy, one drone guy, and then everyone got mad about that. And then he ended up firing another defense minister in Ukraine. There's a little bit of back and forth there. But can I note something else that he was doing that I thought was rather clever? So he's now going to the MAGA right to talk to people. Did you see Laura Loomer, who was so anti-Ukraine and pro-Putin, went there and interviewed him as suddenly his biggest follower?

1:03:54Kara Swisher:Like, he's so great kind of thing. I think that's also very clever. Even though he has his own issues internally with corruption and everything else, he's been very adept at also appealing to the MAGA base here, which I think is probably very smart.

1:04:06Scott Galloway:Yeah, it's, I mean, you get mixed emotions. You're like, why should anyone care what Laura Loomer thinks? But at the same time, anything that gets pressed that highlights even the crazies have recognized that it's in our best interest to support Ukraine, I'm here for.

1:04:21Kara Swisher:Yeah.

1:04:21Scott Galloway:So, yeah, have at it, Laura. And next, maybe next you can do a segment on how the greatest innovation in history is vaccines. That's the one I'm waiting for.

1:04:31Kara Swisher:She suddenly is going to be pro-vaccine. Anyway, those are good ones. Those are excellent ones. Oh, by the way, I have one more quick win. Everybody go see Ride or Die with Octavia Spencer and Hannah Waddingham. Oh, my God.

1:04:42Scott Galloway:What's that?

1:04:42Kara Swisher:It's a show on Amazon, and it's hysterical. It's two ladies. It's so ridiculously, it's such a ridiculous conceit that they run around and they're spies. But these two couldn't be the best pair, and they look so different, and they're so different in general. and I have to say it's hysterical. Ride or die. It's called Ride or Die? Ride or Die. And I love Hannah and I love Octavia. I think she's one of my favorites. It's Hannah from Ted Lasso. And she's amazing. She's amazing. I love her.

1:05:12Scott Galloway:Oh, the one, the Hannah that was in Game of Thrones?

1:05:14Kara Swisher:Yes, she was in Game of Thrones too. Yes, that's right. Yeah. She's amazing. She's a tall drink of water. And Octavia is incredible too. Just incredible. Just incredible. Go see it if you want to enjoy yourself all day long and twice on Sunday. You'd like it, Scott. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, this week on On, I'm talking to actor and comedian Jeff Hiller. He's in two of the buzziest TV shows of the last year, Pluribus, where he just got an Emmy nomination for just a guest role.

1:05:49Kara Swisher:He's amazing in it. And Widow's Bay. He talked about why people are drawn to these shows. Let's listen to a clip.

1:05:56Scott Galloway:These are dark worlds, but it's not like our dark world. You know, it's like we can figure it out. We can pull apart the lore and figure out this mystery, whereas we don't have that kind of control in our own life because there's, I mean, every time you open the New York Times, it's like, what?

1:06:19Kara Swisher:That happened? Anyway, he's a really great guy. He's sort of a character actor, and I love characters. There's so many great character actors in all these shows, and also Severance, same thing. Just really nice to see all these shows do so well, and he's terrific. 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.

1:06:42Scott Galloway:Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, Todd Wiseman, and Christine Driscoll. Additional assistance from Kate Gallagher and Brad Sylvester, and you're tied to entering this episode. Thanks also to Dubroz, Miss Averia, and Dan Chalon, the Chakras, Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back later in the week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, have a great rest of the week.

1:07:20Kara Swisher:None of them talk to each other. That's where Odoo comes in, an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all-in-one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try for free today at odoo.com slash vox. That's odoo.com slash vox.