Pope Leo’s AI Warning, UFC at the White House, and CBS Shakeups

6:51Scott Galloway:No, I think we're in the Wiltern. Is that right? Does that sound familiar? And then I go to Vancouver Island for a speaking gig. And then tomorrow I take the Red Eye to Miami and we're on Miami Saturday night.

7:02Kara Swisher:Oh, that'll be fun. You love Miami.

7:04Scott Galloway:Yeah, I do.

7:05Kara Swisher:Anyway, well, good. I do love Miami. Well, we've got a lot. Congratulations on your tour. Congratulations to Ed, Elson, too. It's really nice. These tours are really fun. I'm excited for ours in the fall. We have one in the fall, so get ready. Rest up.

7:17Scott Galloway:There we go.

7:17Kara Swisher:You'll have August off so you can rest and everything else. So first off, I have to ask you, by the way, you're doing a lot of stuff, but did you watch the Enhanced Games last weekend?

7:26Scott Galloway:I didn't, although I got to be honest, I'm sort of here for it. I think it's kind of, I mean, I kind of had this idea that just take, you know, holds barred and let freak shows show up. People are doing this to themselves anyways, but I did not. I did not watch it. Although it wasn't.

7:39Kara Swisher:Let me just say, let me, for people who don't know, the Enhanced Games is a new sports event that allows athletes on performance-enhancing drugs and encourages them to try to break world records. Events included swimming, track and field, weightlifting, and strongmen. The experiment calls itself a global movement that unites humanity, of course, as a publicly traded company. Investors include Donald Trump Jr. and Peter Thiel. There's also a German executive I've met many times who's really into it. There were no things broken except by someone wearing a swimsuit that was barred this special swimsuit.

8:11Kara Swisher:I don't know. The stock has gone down. I'm curious if there was a fight where both of us were enhanced, who do you think would win? You or I?

8:19Scott Galloway:Well, you know the answer there.

8:21Kara Swisher:Me?

8:22Scott Galloway:Yeah, 100%. I've never been in a fight. Yeah, I'm not a violent person. If someone hit me, I wouldn't know what to do. You've never been in a fight?

8:29Kara Swisher:Wow.

8:29Scott Galloway:I've never been in a fight in my life. You've never been in a fight.

8:31Kara Swisher:Let me think. That might not be true. No, I haven't. No, I haven't. Yeah. Yeah.

8:35Scott Galloway:And I, you know, I was beaten up and abused, ex-wife, but no, I was never, never been in a fight. I think that, I talk a lot about this, that I think that one of the cores to, I never miss a chance to virtue signal and preach, but I think one of the core principles for men as they get older is just, quite frankly, is emotional regulation. Are you willing to sit in discomfort, and do you have control over your physical and mental well-being?

9:07Kara Swisher:Well, it's an impulse to punch, right? An impulse to punch, and men have it much more. Well, let me think. Saul's probably the most aggressive license.

9:18Scott Galloway:So there's no arguing that men are more violent, but that doesn't mean women don't engage in violence. domestic violence rates in LGBTQ couples is about 25 % according to the National Institute for Health. And according to the CDC, anywhere from 17 % to 40 % of men are victims of intimate partner violence, depending on the research methodology. There's discrepancy between whether it was a phone survey or a web survey. And then furthermore, there's only about three shelters. there's only three shelters across the entire U.S. devoted to male domestic violence. There's still a lot of shame, and there's a view that it might be underreported.

10:00Kara Swisher:Mostly women suffer from those problems, Scott.

10:03Scott Galloway:Yeah, but it's true. There's an assumption. Yes, I get it. There's no arguing that men are violent, but that doesn't mean women don't engage in violence either.

10:12Kara Swisher:It didn't say that, but the comparison is most violence is committed by men in general. in general in general murders blah blah everything every statistic is largely it's not really it's just i i do think it's a function of gender i do think it's a function of impulse control and

10:29Scott Galloway:everything else but i'm no scientist testosterone and cultural norms and yeah yeah yeah yeah this

10:34Kara Swisher:manliness this man there was a really great cover of the atlantic recently about the sort of the man-hating groups and they're they're always back they're always like they're back i'm like they're always there in some weird way. Speaking of men, there's a construction cruiser building the UFC fighting cage on the South Lawn of the White House in preparation for the night of mixed martial arts, celebrating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. independence. Over 4 ,000 spectators plan to watch from inside the arena. It kind of looks like a roller coaster. And there's all this complaining by Joe Rogan and others about gnats and bugs and outside.

11:09Kara Swisher:And And a lot of, some of the champions aren't coming because it's, they don't usually do it outside. And it creates, if you're going for world, you know, these are actual competitors. If you're going for titles, it's not a good thing to fight outside, apparently. Weigh-ins will be held at the Lincoln Memorial, which is, I don't know what to say about that. But okay, fine, fine, fine. I just don't know what to say. I, it looks, it's ridiculous, you know, it feels clownish. But whatever, he's the president. I don't know what to say. I'm not going to get overly angry about it, but it seems ridiculous.

11:46Kara Swisher:But I don't know how you feel.

11:47Scott Galloway:I was invited. I said, no, I don't enjoy that stuff. And I don't need to be, you know, I think it's disingenuous for me to show up and break bread or party with someone who I'm constantly critical of. The event itself is brilliant.

11:59Kara Swisher:You think?

11:59Scott Galloway:Oh, gosh. There's just an entire generation of young men and quite frankly, a lot of women, their mothers and their sisters who in America, and this will trigger some people. still vote for who they perceive will be most beneficial for their husbands and their sons. And young men are doing really, really poorly. And if you think about government, government in the United States, largely speaking, has been feminized if you look at the events. The events are basically like, you know, like the queen was merchandising and throwing them. For government, events are very feminine, for lack of a better word.

12:34Kara Swisher:Wait a minute. Come on, Scott. Today, you're very anti-woman today. I'm not curious why do you mean they're feminine. I don't think feminine's a bad thing. I understand, but what do you mean government things are feminine?

12:42Scott Galloway:Oh, go to anything at the White House. It feels like it's been designed. Oh, 100%. They're very proper, gentle. They're very feminine. And by the way, that is a wonderful thing.

12:55Kara Swisher:Well, men can be proper and gentle. I don't think that men can be proper.

12:59Scott Galloway:Yes, men can demonstrate wonderful feminine attributes.

13:02Kara Swisher:You mean like metal giving is a feminine activity?

13:05Scott Galloway:I wouldn't describe metal giving, but the events. There's a lot of metal giving at the White House. Government events and ceremonies tend to be very what people would consider, I think, somewhat more, well, they're not a UFC fight. They're not a competition.

13:19Kara Swisher:No, but the UFC fight is way down the list.

13:21Scott Galloway:Even like comedy, the White House dinner comes the closest to sort of something stepping out of what is seen as overly planned, nurturing, appropriate. Yeah, I think the events are very kind of very feminine. And what are these guys doing? They're throwing a UFC fight. And it's kind of, I think you're going to have, they're going to have huge viewership. It says to Trump, reaffirms his view of one of the reasons he won the election. And that is like, I'm a man's man. I see men. I appreciate, quote, for lack of a better term, masculinity. Unfortunately, it's a fucked up, weird, performative, dominant form of masculinity.

14:01Scott Galloway:But it's a brilliant marketing strategy. It's smart.

14:04Kara Swisher:I'm not, I don't, I think it sometimes works. Like, let me give an example of this attempt to turn James Tallarico, like Stephen Miller, who is literally the most weak, weak looking person you've ever seen, is call, you know, he and others are calling because they're terrified of Tallarico. So they're pulling out the anti-trans stuff immediately, saying the first trans senator, he doesn't know how to eat barbecue. Is that a Ted Cruz? Another like someone I could easily beat in a fight. the tofu barbecue, the idea of soy boy. I mean, this is not manly in any way. This is like this, I don't, and I don't think it works as much anymore with people.

14:47Kara Swisher:It's deeply insulting. It might work in Texas. I hate to say it. I think the Tallarico people should take this very seriously because Kamala Harris didn't with the trans stuff that worked really well in the election, and it might work in Texas, but they're trying to, you know, paint him as gay. I think that's what they're, where's the girlfriend? I think that's what they're into, Manny. Trans, is she trans? He's a soy boy. You know, this is all, like, and what I think about, it's so grotesque because I'm like, these are all men over 50 or whatever. I don't, I mean, Stephen Miller looks over 50 even though he's younger.

15:22Kara Swisher:But this is this, like, name-calling, bullying bullshit that is not part of being a man, any men I know that I think are decent men. It's fine if people want to do this. When I was a kid, I went to fights with my grandfather and went to wrestling matches. He was a promoter, and he loved it. So I see the entertainment and everything else in it. But the soy boy trans thing that they're pushing on Tallarico is so ugly and toxic, and unfortunately it does work. at some point. I don't know if you think it'll work in Texas, but it might. It certainly could.

16:01Scott Galloway:Yeah, I think there's a fairly large distinction between a sanctioned sport where it's a lot of men in top physical shape. I don't like it. I don't enjoy watching it. But I think that that is a legitimate sport. It's a huge sport. It's, I think, arguably one of the most successful sports of the last several decades. It's a well-run sport. Creates a lot of economic value for many of the fighters. So I, you know, I think you can, I think in a bipartisan way, you can say that the UFC serves a purpose and is successful. The ugliness around Tallarico is not only that one, it's not true, but two, to assume that loving an accusation that someone is gay or trans is supposed to be negative.

16:44Scott Galloway:It trains young people or people that if you call someone that,

16:51Scott Galloway:But your opponent doesn't call you something unless they're trying to say to the world, that's a negative.

16:55Kara Swisher:Right. Absolutely. No, no. No. A hundred percent.

16:58Scott Galloway:And I hope at some point people regurgitate on things like that and say, quite frankly, it's, you know, someone we used to call in college, you used to call people fags. Yeah. To say this, to be gay is to be bad. It's an insult.

17:14Kara Swisher:Dikes and fags. Yep. I got it.

17:15Scott Galloway:At some point, some people, someone says, yeah, and, or what? It's like people online call me a Zionist, and I respond, proud Zionist. I mean, I just, at some point, people are going to realize going after people's sexual orientations just says more about you than it says about them.

17:32Kara Swisher:It does, but it's a tactic. They're trying to drum that in, in that race, and unfortunately, it might work in Texas.

17:38Scott Galloway:Well, it's an indictment on Texas that these people have done the research and decided that it works.

17:43Kara Swisher:Yeah, yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

17:44Scott Galloway:So I hope he responds. I will say this.

17:48Kara Swisher:I'm not sure what the response is. In defense.

17:49Scott Galloway:I'm not gay. In defense of James Tallarico, he and I follow many of the same people on Instagram. And it's not the leaders, Cara.

17:55Kara Swisher:Yes, I know.

17:56Scott Galloway:It's some scorching hot young ladies who make their living with a webcam.

18:03Kara Swisher:They did it. They also tried to do it to Andy Beshear. They obviously Beto, everything. You know, to me, it's at the end misogynistic. And speaking of that, the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation. Of course, this all leads to the same thing. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the formal magazine writer who won two civil lawsuits against Trump, totaling, you know, close to$90 million in payments tied to sexual abuse and defamation. The DOG probe is reportedly focused on whether Carroll committed perjury and testimony. Typical, this is what they're doing, whether it's to Letitia James or whoever they're trying to go at.

18:41Kara Swisher:Specifically, Carroll's saying she hadn't received outside funding for illegal bills. Her lawyers later said Reid Hoffman had contributed. This is the latest in a series of DOG probes targeting Trump's opponents and critics like James Comey, Letitia James, and others. Though none of these investigations have led to convictions. In fact, they get laughed out of court. I spoke to E. Jean Carroll for an episode of On in July 2025. She talked about the threats she's received and why she has no fear. Let's listen.

19:06Scott Galloway:It's stupid to be afraid. Why live your life that way? I've been here 81 years, and I'm not going to waste the last of it worrying about that guy in marmalade-colored makeup. It makes no sense. So that's what I'm going to do.

19:22Kara Swisher:So what do you think about this? Talk about misogyny and getting, you know, she's won the cases against him, and he's trying not to pay them, and he's doing everything possible to try not to pay them. And this is the latest. Perry using the Justice Department to carry out his toxic, misogynistic efforts.

19:38Scott Galloway:I think it comes down to this. So one, if she did say something that wasn't true under oath, that's real. And they're claiming that she didn't acknowledge that she was getting help with her legal bills. I don't know to the extent, though, in a case like that, that is grounds for revisiting a case when it doesn't have anything to do with the actual crime she's accusing the president of. What is consistent here is the weaponization of the DOJ to go after his political enemies. So this is just another example of the fact that we don't have a government that's meant to protect the people. It's now there to protect the president.

20:15Scott Galloway:And I think E. Jean Carroll, I mean, I thought, okay, E. Jean Carroll is ending the presidency because he was, I mean, just to keep in mind, folks, this was a jury of his peers. who heard a ton of evidence. And they said, well, it was in liberal New York. Well, okay, New York, if you had nine jurors, five are probably Democrats, but four are Republicans. And to mature a conviction, all nine have to agree. So this was a, you know, there's a reason that when someone is usually convicted of a crime, the public used to come together and say, this person is guilty and, you know, should be disqualified.

20:57Scott Galloway:or, you know, we keep it, every time this stuff happened, we kept thinking, that's it, it's over. And it wasn't. But it's just, I do think it's important to have a legal scholar to say, in most cases, with this type of infraction, if in fact she, and she did, she did not acknowledge that she was having her legal bills paid for. Well, it depends on when she was paid.

21:19Kara Swisher:They're going to have to investigate that. But still, they're just grabbing at straws here, is what they're doing. That's what they're trying to do, to find some way to impugn her. and so he doesn't have to pay that money. It's all the same. It's all about money.

21:29Scott Galloway:I don't even think it's about the money. I think it's about overturning a conviction of a perceived enemy and going after her. The guy's made billions of dollars illegally on crypto. I think it's - He still doesn't want to pay.

21:42Kara Swisher:He's a cheap bastard. He still doesn't want to pay.

21:44Scott Galloway:I'm personally, I'm surprised they did this. I would have thought they would, I think this just brings it up again. I would have thought they would want it to fade into the distance. He doesn't care.

21:51Kara Swisher:He doesn't care. Anyway, E.G. We hope this goes away, but it's such a fucking nuisance. It's such a ridiculous nuisance. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Pope Leo's warning about AI. I'm very excited to talk about this.

22:11Kara Swisher:Hey, I'm Matt Buchel, comedian, writer, and floating head you may or may not have seen on your For You page. And I'm starting a brand new podcast. Wait, wait, don't swipe away. It's called That Sounds Like a Lot, as in that feeling when you check your phone in the morning, you read through headlines, and you immediately think, Oh, that sounds like a lot. I can't deal with all this. But guess what? I can deal with it. And I'm going to get into it every Friday. I'll break down whatever chaos is happening in the world. Then I'll sit down with a comedian. You can be progressive and not be like fucking annoying.

22:36Kara Swisher:Maybe an actor. They go, feminism has gone too far. You go, why? Because the Sadie Hawkins dance happened?

22:42Scott Galloway:Maybe a filmmaker. Since leaving that show, I'm challenged sparing my life. I just kind of hang out and try to do stuff. You're the one with the charmed life. Could be a politician. Basically anyone who responds to my cold DMs. We're recording the whole thing in a beautiful studio, so yes, you can watch it on YouTube, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.

22:59Kara Swisher:This is not the place to get the news, but it is the place to feel a little better about it. That Sounds Like a Lot, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

23:11Scott Galloway:Support for the show comes from ZBiotics. ZBiotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration. That's to blame for rough days after drinking. Pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. So I have been using Z-Biotics even before they were an advertiser.

23:43Scott Galloway:If I know I'm going to drink, I take a Z-Biotic. And I found that on average, it takes away about a third of the yuck the next morning, if you will. So for me, that's absolutely worth it. May is packed with back-to-back reasons to be out. Don't let a rough morning after keep you on the sidelines. Drink pre-alcohol to stay ahead of it and make the most of every Saturday this month. Go to zbiotics.com slash pivot to learn more and get 15 % off your first order when you use pivot at checkout. Zbiotics is backed with 100 % money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money.

24:14Scott Galloway:No questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash pivot and use the code pivot at checkout for 15 % and off.

24:24Scott Galloway:Support for the show comes from Odoo. There's an endless supply of software out there that promises to streamline your workflow. That may be true for a specific aspect of your business, but if you need one app for accounting, one for inventory management, and another for sales, how streamlined can your workflow actually be if you have to be the middleman between them? Odoo says they're the answer you're looking for, the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo can be your one-stop shop for CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. Plus, it's super customizable and easy to use out of the box.

24:55Scott Galloway:And the best part? They say not only can they replace multiple applications, but they say they'll do it for a fraction of the cost. Whether you're just starting out or already well on your way to scaling, Odoo wants to help you put the clutter aside such that you can do what you set out to do when you started your company. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo, O-D-O-O dot com.

25:26Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back, and we're going to start off with our next topic with a question from a listener.

25:30Scott Galloway:Hi, Kara and Scott. My name's Bridget, and I'm calling from Oakland. I'm asking as a Catholic Buddhist pivotarian, I was so delighted to hear that Pope Bob, also known as Pope Leo XIV, delivered his first encyclical, which was about AI, and he was speaking truth to power from a place of power, which is pretty rare. Have either of you read it? And if so, what do you think? Do you think it can move the needle towards putting guardrails up for this juggernaut that's really careening off the road already? Or maybe even rein in those dickheads who are mindlessly amping it up for their own self-serving profits.

26:13Scott Galloway:Thanks for all the humor and wisdom you've provided over the years and keep it up. Haha. Yep.

26:21Kara Swisher:I just set Prof G up for a dick joke. I love Bridget. I love our listeners and pivotarian. Let's start a religion. That would be so good. Thank you, Bridget. That was a great question. We love your sassiness. That's the kind of listeners we love. So to catch people up, Pope Leo released his first encyclical this week, a 4 ,200-word letter to all about AI titled Magnificent Humanity. Magnificent, I can't say it in Latin, but it's Magnificent Humanity. The Pope acknowledged that artificial intelligence can be a valuable tool. He did not trash it, but also warned the AI race could become a new Tower of Babel.

26:57Kara Swisher:He shared some strong words about what needs to happen next. Let's listen to him himself talk about it.

27:04Scott Galloway:Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed. The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention, awakening consciences, and indicating paths forward for humanity.

27:24Kara Swisher:Some of the specific things the Pope is calling for. Government regulation of private companies driving AI development seems normal. Protecting children from violent sexual or fake information generated by AI. Excellent suggestion. gesture and safeguards to make sure humans are responsible for all decisions tied to the use of weapons. Again, a great thing. He also didn't shy away from talking about people at the helm of AI. That was really the focus is who's running it. In the abstract, technology in and of itself is not a solution to humanity's problems, just it is not inherently evil. In practice, however, technology is never neutral because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it.

28:02Kara Swisher:Some big tech folks are on board here. Anthropic co-founder Christopher Ola joined the Pope at the Vatican as the encyclical was presented, but reactions from D.C. and Silicon Valley have been mixed. Vice President J.D. Vance called the Pope's warning profound. That was interesting. But Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox News, I didn't know what tech editorializing was part of the role of being a Pope. Well, it is, Doug. It's certainly not part of your role as Interior Secretary. David Sachs wrote, the Pope rightly warns that AI must serve human dignity, not become a tool of domination or exclusion.

28:34Kara Swisher:Well, someone who dominates and excludes, which is a nice thing to hear. But it goes on. Of course, he goes on. If we hand the government sweeping power over AI development in the name of safety, how do we prevent it from being used to censor, surveil, or control citizens? Honestly, this guy is so hypocritical. Anyway, what did you think of the take? And I think he's been listening to Pivot, a lot of stuff we talked about for years. I love Pope Bill being on this team, but thoughts on this?

29:00Scott Galloway:Well, we talk a lot about the actions of the administration and different things that are just been really bad for brand U.S., whether it was the insurrection or cutting off USA. There's just been so many poor decisions that have really hurt our brand. I actually think the best thing or one of the best things that's happened for the U.S. brand, you know, to a certain extent, AI and just the economic boom out here and the fact that we've the most seminal technology in a long time in terms of shared recreation and what might have an impact on the world. It's just owned and dominated by the U.S. That's very good for our brand.

29:29Scott Galloway:Now, I think it's been great for our brand is Pope Leo. He's just incredibly articulate. He comes across as measured, brave, connects real world issues with spiritual issues and issues of dignity. And he's American. He went to Villanova.

29:43Kara Swisher:Yeah, that voice. Yeah. He's got such a Chicago accent. I think he wanted to go, the bears. Yeah, right.

29:51Scott Galloway:But just his comments, if you were just to distill his comments that were really powerful, he believes that AI should serve humanity, not replace it. The biggest danger is the concentration of power. He's clearly, he's talking a lot about income inequality. And he's skeptical of a small number of companies controlling the infrastructure of intelligence. When he wants, he thinks AI could amplify inequality and create, you talked about a new oligarchy where private firms wield enormous influence over truth, labor, and governments. I would argue that, you know, the cat's already out of the bag there.

30:28Scott Galloway:One of the more controversial things or interesting things I should say is you said AI is not neutral, that the algorithms encode the values of the creators, not some sort of neutral view on of different views of humanity, which I'm not sure, I actually think in a weird way why social media has polarized us. I think that because AI is different. I do think from a viewpoint and ideology standpoint, it's more moderating. And sometimes it comes across as quite politically correct, I think. He also talked about job displacement being a real moral issue. Autonomous weapons terrify him. He called for it to be disarmed and worried about weapon systems operating beyond meaningful human control.

31:13Scott Galloway:And then he talked about human connection, the thing I love, and I like the softer stuff, human connection mattering more than synthetic intimacy. And then, and this is the thing, I think if you were gonna try and translate this into some sort of legislation, and we're not focused enough on this, is that children are the most vulnerable. And I was just thinking about, you know, think about when you learn to write and how difficult it was. Like, I know you were on your school newspaper. Is that right?

31:43Kara Swisher:Yeah, I was. But Claire's doing it right now. It's really interesting to watch.

31:46Scott Galloway:I got, in my senior year of high school, I got a C in English. I had a real difficult time writing.

31:52Kara Swisher:Yeah.

31:53Scott Galloway:And I went through that pain. I went through that friction. And if I had just had AI, like, write my papers, I never would have made those connections. I never would have gone through the friction of making those connections. And so, and I think the really -

32:08Kara Swisher:Trouble writing? You're a very good writer, actually.

32:10Scott Galloway:I got seasoned English.

32:11Kara Swisher:Happily surprised on the upside with your writing.

32:16Scott Galloway:Well, because I did the work, right? And I think the question is, if kids have AI, do they ever do the work and make the connections? As a matter of fact, in my first year at UCLA, I was failing English 1. And I said, what happens if you fail English 1? Because it was a core class. You had to take it. It was a requisite. They say, well, you have to take English as a second language, despite the fact that I didn't speak a second language.

32:36Kara Swisher:Wow. Wow.

32:37Scott Galloway:Yeah, that was a pretty big, I got my act together.

32:39Kara Swisher:Yeah, the friction. You're right. The friction is what made you a better writer to struggle with it, to figure it out yourself.

32:45Scott Galloway:And this is the problem and the threat of technology across all of our youth. And that is, why venture outside and go through the pecking order and the bullying order and figuring out your place and trying to find or join a gang, if you will, of friends when you think you can have a reasonable facsimile of friendship on Reddit or Discord? Why take risks, go through the expense, humiliation, enduring rejection of trying to find a romantic relationship when you think you can replace it with synthetic lifelike character AIs or porn? So the defrictioning of life and AI kind of takes it to a new level, especially with academia or academics.

33:24Scott Galloway:It teaches young people to never develop the key skills they have to really be successful in life and enjoy life.

33:30Kara Swisher:Yeah, absolutely. I think most important parts is this. I do think who's making it matters. And he was very clear about that in terms of, he was saying, like, for example, it's not the morality of AI, it's the morals of the people who make it. And I think he was talking about being a very small group of people who are very interested in money, really. And, you know, I thought it was very, one of the things, he was named Pope Leo because of the last pope to do something like this was over manufacturing and the mechanization of things. And he was very selected to pick this topic. He very carefully didn't insult technology, but he really clearly insulted its creators or said, we need to do better.

34:13Kara Swisher:And I think being the conscience, saying Doug Burgum is such a moron. I mean, of course he's the conscience of, you know, J.D. Vance acknowledged that, I think. He's the conscience of the world, of his world, and it extends well beyond Catholics, let me say. And I think it's really important for leaders like this to step up and suggest it. And I do think it does have an impact because people are talking about it. And they are talking about the issues he brought up, including these safeguards around weaponry, protecting children. And this is already in the air with people. And the fact that the Pope doesn't stand up without any and then had some tech people there, I thought it was – he's such a savvy person.

34:54Kara Swisher:I'm excited to see what else he takes on. And, you know, of course, the stupid Trump people call him the woke pope. But honestly, he's just, it's called conscience. It's not woke, it's conscience.

35:04Scott Galloway:But he did say, just to wrap up, when you were talking about automation and the last time technology appeared to be sort of a threat, the industrial revolution mechanized labor. And what he's saying is that AI risks mechanizing judgment and creativity and intimacy and even meaning itself. And the way I would interpret his comments was less catastrophizing around AI will kill us. But AI could potentially make us less human while concentrating extraordinary wealth and power in the hands of a few firms and states. I think this guy distills right to the core of the issues. He is very smart. He is very impressive.

35:47Scott Galloway:He is not afraid. I mean, as smart as he is, he clearly had very smart people working on these.

35:52Kara Swisher:The people I've met at the Vatican have been amazing. But I love that he called it Magnificent Humanity. And by the way, I love that he made cliff notes for people. He made a little chart, which is really good. It's an excellent chart. I love a chart and I love a cliff note. Anyway, there's lots more AI to get to. A lot of little stories, but important. Installs for DuckDuckGo have jumped 30 % after Google announced its first overhaul in 24 years. Many people are disturbed by this. Google changes include a shift to AI with bigger, more interactive search box that lets users ask longer questions and upload photographs.

36:22Kara Swisher:it's a significant change for search. I have not used Google search in a long time in a weird way. I definitely use it for some things but I tend to use, I use all kinds of search services but it's not only through Google is all I'm saying. It used to be only through Google and I like the simple box. I feel lucky box. I've always thought it was fine but I see why they're doing it. At the same time, a lot of people are like now they're never going to link to anything but what they want to link to. They've just sort of ended it for most people using Google to get to, say, media websites or whatever you're looking for.

36:58Kara Swisher:So that seems to be a shift.

37:00Scott Galloway:I think it's a smart, bold move. I think they've been accused. When you risk what is arguably or do any twix, the temptation around what is the most profitable, largest toll booth in history, when you risk, you know, there's just probably so much momentum to, like, guys, don't fuck with it. Like, don't.

37:18Kara Swisher:Absolutely.

37:19Scott Galloway:Don't change anything. So I think it's actually a pretty bold move. And I do find when I do Google search, those AI overuse are actually quite helpful.

37:25Kara Swisher:They've gotten better. They were bad and now they're good.

37:27Scott Galloway:You said that. You said you like them. I do. So it's, I think it's the right thing. They have to respond. They have to push back. The reason why Alphabet was such an incredible buy trading at 17 times earnings last year was the market believed that open AI and AI queries were an existential threat to search, that it was going to become the new search. And what we're saying is they're both growing like crazy. But I find that I do oftentimes go to Claude instead of Google.

37:57Kara Swisher:Yeah, exactly. And Google just never gives me what I want anymore. It's useless in some ways. But when I look for, like, how do you boil an egg? I don't do that. But how many minutes for a jammy egg? I'll go to Google, right? But now, actually, I might go to Claude. You're right. I might do that. So they kind of have to. You're right. I know people are bothered, but they have to change. You're absolutely right. Next up, President Trump abruptly postponed signing an executive order on AI after former AI czar David Sachs reportedly voiced concerns it could prove too onerous for the industry. He got back.

38:30Kara Swisher:He had lost power. Then he got it back, I guess. The order would have granted the government oversight on a new AI models before they were released to the public. Very temporary oversight, by the way. And some of it was voluntary. AI companies have also been told that Trump was not happy that many of their chief executives could not attend the signing. That's probably more to the point, being invited just 24 hours prior. I don't think this order will resurface. There was a brief attempt by certain people within the Trump administration who were more interested in safety issues. And David, you know, got in there.

39:04Kara Swisher:And so did Zuckerberg and someone else. I can't remember who was, a third person, who got in there and convinced him otherwise. Elon, it was Elon.

39:14Scott Galloway:This was, I thought it was a good idea. The order would have required AI labs to share frontier models with the government 90 days before public release for security review. That seems like a very important and basic first step for any of this. I mean, something that really struck me was the founders of this technology, the people that know more about it than any in the world, are saying that this technology is potentially more liberating than nuclear fusion and potentially more dangerous. So here's a technology that the people who understand it the best are saying is potentially more dangerous than nuclear weapons.

39:53Scott Galloway:We didn't let Oppenheimer start a company and start selling bombs to China.

39:58Kara Swisher:That's a good comparison. That's actually a very good thing. Well, I think there's a really decent rational argument that if, in fact, you have something that is potentially more dangerous than any weapon in history, wouldn't you want the government controlling it?

40:12Scott Galloway:Yes.

40:13Kara Swisher:We want it to be part of the decision making.

40:15Scott Galloway:We're not only not controlling it, it's not only done under the auspices of the Department of Defense, cooperating with the private sector or Lawrence Livermore Labs or what have you. We have people trying to go public and to have lawyers and lobbyists, many of whom stepped in here to say, you know, we all talk about the need for regulation. We've been to this movie before. We talk about, we show up and stand next to the Pope and say, and cosplay Sheryl Sandberg, we need to do better. We need to regulate. We are open to regulation. And then, oh, no, get on the phone. Tell him no. Tell him to stop.

40:52Scott Galloway:Tell him his big bet on AI, 93 % of GDP growth is now from AI, CapEx, can't do anything to get in the way. And if you slow our runners down, the free games, anabolic steroid pumped up Chinese models are going to come for us and beat us. And there's no truth to that. And if they did this correctly and they had standards, government review might actually make the industry better and make them less prone. Regulation at this point would be a feature, not a bug in terms of capitalism and these companies' ability to know how to develop what they can, what they can't do, what they need to check. But a 90-day review?

41:28Kara Swisher:I know. I know.

41:30Scott Galloway:It takes a drug a decade to get through the FDA? Exactly.

41:33Kara Swisher:It's ridiculous. There's a real beef going on in the administration. and Saks is on one side and some others are on the others. And we'll see, you know, eventually this will happen for these companies. I just want to put it off as long as they can. And Saks is not working for the safety of the United States or anything else. He's working for his friends in Silicon Valley.

41:50Scott Galloway:You know who's actually increasing AI legislation and regulation? China.

41:55Kara Swisher:China. They are. That's right.

41:56Scott Galloway:The Beijing State Council issued a 2026 legislative work plan in May with AI governance language appealing. And about jobs

42:03Kara Swisher:because they know what will happen if people feel adrift in China. That's not something that can happen. You're absolutely right. They're so much smarter in how they handle these things, which is really a depressing thing to say.

42:14Scott Galloway:They released, they enacted binding rules on AI emotional interaction, identity disclosure, and content accountability.

42:23Kara Swisher:They read the Pope. They read the Pope.

42:25Scott Galloway:And we've passed zero AI legislation. Zero.

42:27Kara Swisher:Zero. Except in the States. And there's more to come. There's a real anger brewing, and it's something a Democratic candidate it should not like kill the billionaires kind of thing or pitchforks, but there's a pitchforky. I was just talking to Tim Miller on his podcast and he feels a pitchforky moment. And that's not what you want. You want something that makes sense. And unfortunately, because the tech people just can't possibly accept any kind of stricture or speed limit, they're going to unfortunately get the worst outcome for themselves eventually, but probably they'll be just fine.

43:02Scott Galloway:Just as Lincoln said, no country can lose a war when it has public support. No country can win a war when it doesn't have it. If you look at what China has done with AI, and it has released a series of legislative policies around emotional security, concentration of power, and it's made them public. The difference is the following. The Chinese now support AI. 87 % of Chinese people trust AI versus just 32 % of Americans. Because why? Because the Chinese believe that their government has the ability to protect them against AI and is regulating the technology effectively. 54 % of Chinese people embrace greater use of AI versus just 17 % of Americans.

43:48Scott Galloway:And 9 in 10 Chinese aged 18 to 34 said they had faith in the technology versus 4 in 10 of Americans in the same age group.

43:55Kara Swisher:And young people particularly. I mean, good job, David Sachs. Everybody hates you.

43:59Scott Galloway:So you have the populace of China is embracing AI and trusts it and trusts that they have a government to kind of soften the edges or reduce some of the externalities. Whereas in the U.S., you have people driving hundreds of miles to protest a fucking data center. Yeah.

44:13Kara Swisher:Agree. Agree. It's crazy.

44:15Scott Galloway:So that, you want to talk about, we just get it so bass-ackward. We do. We think.

44:19Kara Swisher:Well, it has to do with tech people being up in Trump's grill and controlling him. That's right. That's what it is.

44:24Scott Galloway:But Trump, believing that a lack of regulation, he doesn't understand the difference between—

44:28Kara Swisher:He moved toward it, though. Why did he move toward it? Why was he going to—it's really interesting. Largely probably because they wouldn't show up to his party. That's my guess with him because he's so ridiculous. But in any case, we have to move on to this because this is a topic that you've talked about. Uber's CEO says it's hard to draw a connection between the company's rising use of cloud code and the expense, especially the tokens, and innovation meant to serve consumers. This comes after reports the company already burnt through its entire 2026 AI coding tools budget. This is to buy tokens in just four months.

45:01Kara Swisher:This is one of these indications you were talking about, right? This idea that what are we getting here for our money? Am I paying too much for this muffler? That kind of stuff. There are 95 % of CFOs, and an interesting study done by a professor out of MIT said that only 1 in 20 CFOs can point to a positive ROI.

45:23Scott Galloway:And it's starting to bubble up into a real expense. And there's even, NVIDIA is claiming they're spending more now on AI internally than they're spending on humans. And so it's going to be very interesting, Cara, because, for example, Claude is about nine times more expensive than some of the Chinese open-weight LLMs. And when the CFOs see these bills and aren't immediately able to connect it, Uber's blown through its AI budget in a few weeks or a few months. And someone's going to ask, how is this making the consumer's experience with Uber better? And this is how the whole thing unwinds. One, a really credible CEO says, okay, we're going to scale back our investment here until we can figure out a way to more directly attach it to some sort of consumer benefit or ROI.

46:12Scott Galloway:And I think where if you go second and third order effects, I think it goes to the following places. Supposedly 80 % of startups are hacking or using some sort of Chinese open weight LLM. One, they use less expensive chips. They have cheaper power. I also think they're pricing it below market because a lot of local provinces in China have sort of their local champions that they're subsidizing. And I think what we're going to see is the Trump administration, when they start to see companies opt for their cheaper Chinese models. We've been to this movie before. China steals our IP, develops 80 percent of what we have and sells it back to us for 40 percent on the dollar.

46:48Kara Swisher:Yeah. Can I I'm going to interject one of the things Mark Cuban had when I was interviewing Dara Imoti at a recent event, I said, send me a question. And I said, I had just written his essay, Dario's essay, Machines of Loving Grace. And Mark wrote me this. The first thing he wrote me back was, explain the token economy to everyone here. Do you see a scenario where the high cost of tokens makes it cheaper to hire people for certain jobs? I thought that was a great question. I did ask that. It was a really, he was already clocking this issue that maybe people are less expensive than these tokens that it costs.

47:24Kara Swisher:and tokens are what you spend on computing, just for people who don't know.

47:28Scott Galloway:Yeah. Humans are less expensive.

47:30Kara Swisher:Or can be.

47:32Scott Galloway:I mean, I think it's Cloud Code Max or Cloud Max. I've already run out of tokens. I'm playing with this shit so often. I had one of those prompts that says you need to upgrade to Cloud Max, which is$200 a month. What's interesting.

47:44Kara Swisher:Do you get the benefits? Do you get the benefits of the money you spend? Or just you're playing with it?

47:48Scott Galloway:At this point, it's well worth it for me. I'm just fascinated by it. I have discussions around.

47:52Kara Swisher:Right, so it's a hobby.

47:53Scott Galloway:Yeah. And I also use it to, I use it to find data. If I'm struggling, if I have a paragraph that just sounds clunky, I say, how would you edit this or what analogies would be better?

48:03Kara Swisher:You know, you could call me for free and I would probably do a better job.

48:06Scott Galloway:You're not available. And by the way, define free. I'm just saying. In terms of economic costs, I would say it's free. In terms of non-economic costs, I would argue you're pretty expensive.

48:19Kara Swisher:Anyway, we have to move on.

48:20Scott Galloway:As Sitting Bull said, what is free, white man?

48:22Kara Swisher:Oh, I have to say.

48:23Scott Galloway:Anyways, but what's interesting, what I found out about CloudMax, the$200 a month thing that I'm about to upgrade to, is that it costs them, for you to use CloudMax, it costs Anthropic$5 ,000 a month to deliver that product to you.

48:40Kara Swisher:Amazing.

48:41Scott Galloway:Yeah, just the cost on infrastructure and power.

48:44Kara Swisher:Once we sell more, volume, we'll make it up in volume, right? Is that the argument?

48:48Scott Galloway:Well, no, what they're hoping is the laws, one of the first economic concepts you learn.

48:55Kara Swisher:Comes down.

48:55Scott Galloway:Is that, and it's called, it's not Jehovah's Paradox. I forget this guy wrote a brilliant paper on it, but I just thought he just summarized the term elasticity. But the economic term elasticity is that as the price of something goes down, the demand for it goes up. And everybody thought, well, as computing power goes down and becomes so cheap, chips will go out of business because you won't need as many from Intel. And what happens is the cost of something goes down, more and more people use it. And there's a viable argument, and I've sort of been making this argument about what I call apocalypse no, and that is all the catastrophizing around labor destruction is total bullshit, that as the costs of AI go way down, we're going to find more uses for it, and we're actually going to end up hiring more programmers or vibe coders.

49:34Scott Galloway:Could be.

49:34Kara Swisher:I do think the costs are going to actually go down eventually, but just not today. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Elon possibly combining SpaceX and Tesla, just as Kara Swisher predicted.

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50:52Scott Galloway:Support for the show comes from CoreWeave. AI isn't just a new tool. It encompasses so much more. It's spurring a revolution across all industries and reshaping itself to become a big part of our future together. CoreWeave is at the center, powering some of the biggest names in AI. As the essential cloud for AI, CoreWeave provides an AI platform that combines next-generation infrastructure, intelligent tools, and expert support. It's powering the world's most complex AI workloads faster and more efficiently. From medical research and diagnosis to education, from complex visual effects from movies to breakthroughs in science and technology.

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51:52Kara Swisher:Hi, I'm Maria Sharapova, host of the Pretty Tough podcast. Each episode, I sit down with high-achieving women to discuss the pursuit of excellence without apology. This week on the show, clinical psychologist and founder, Dr. Becky Kennedy and I unpack what it really means to raise kids today. I think parenting is the most important job in the world and the one that has the most impact on your world and the world. It is non-stop. Check out Pretty Tough, new episodes on Wednesdays. You can watch it on YouTube or listen in your favorite podcast app.

52:31Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back with more news. As SpaceX prepares to go public, rumors are again circulating that Elon Musk will eventually combine the company with Tesla. Obviously. God, I mean, we're not speaking, but I know how this guy thinks. Musk has reportedly discussed the possibility with colleagues that two companies already share engineers and collaborate. There's all kinds of cross stuff, a lot of sketchy cross stuff. if you recall at the time when he took over Twitter and collaborated on power and compute issues. Also, by the way, SpaceX got a$2.29 billion contract to build a satellite communications network to connect military sensors and weapons platforms around the world.

53:07Kara Swisher:They have to deliver an operational prototype by the end of 2027. So he's doing well. He's doing well with his help of Trump, etc. It's a mutual benefit society for them. But this putting Tesla in here, it just makes complete sense. Someone said it was mortgage-backed securities, a bunch of companies that can't pay, wrapped around Elon Musk and a company that's okay, which is Starlink. So it's like a sort of a collection. And so he's shoving this stuff all together. It makes sense on a data point of view. It makes sense to hide a bunch of stuff. He already had these weird, very questionable transactions like buying Cybertrucks for SpaceX, which makes no sense except if you want to look good.

53:53Kara Swisher:So why not just mash the whole fucking thing together and then make everybody buy it who is in an index fund, which is another thing. So any of these comments, the contract, the merger, the NASDAQ situation?

54:07Scott Galloway:Well, you did predict it, but my analogy is the following. Snow White is hot. And the prospect of getting to marry Snow White is super exciting. It's Snow White at SpaceX. But unfortunately, to buy SpaceX, you've got to take on these seven fucking weirdos who are expensive and neurotic. And, I mean, XAI, which has been attached onto SpaceX and an incredible company, is a money furnace that's playing catch-up.

54:30Kara Swisher:It's trying to be an infrastructure provider now. So is Meta, by the way. But go ahead.

54:35Scott Galloway:And SpaceX, I'm sorry, and Tesla. I still think Tesla's a great product. I got them one the other day. I do think they have a fantastic car, but it's a struggling business with a multiple of 192 times forward earnings. And Apple trades at 33 times forward earnings. And then if you look at Tesla's just business in Europe, sales have fallen for 13 consecutive months. Its market share in Europe has gone from 1 % to 0.8%, while the EV market has expanded about 30 % in 2025. In Norway, sales were down 90%. Netherlands down 80%. UK down 50%. Meanwhile, BYD registrations are up 260 % in Europe. And the reason why it's valuation - Can I just note, I didn't say it was a bad car.

55:24Kara Swisher:I said he didn't innovate in it. There was another new cars and BYD keeps innovating. Every time you see a new one, you're like, cool. Tesla's the same, pretty much the same car for the past. And then they deliver Cybertruck as their innovation. So that's my beef.

55:39Scott Galloway:Stocks are like brands and that is they're part promise and part performance. And the promise, no one articulates and gets more cheap capital on the promise part of that equation than Elon Musk. He's arguably the best salesperson and communicator in the history of the public markets. And the promise though, the performance is like so far behind the promise. For example, these things have not, the promise has not worked out. So robo-taxi miles, they doubled sequentially in Q1, but he was saying that there would be a thousand robo-taxis on the road about five years ago. Across all three Texas cities where robo-taxis operate, Tesla has just 25 unsupervised vehicles.

56:24Scott Galloway:I mean, none, right? Meanwhile, their SF robo-taxi service still uses a safety monitor in the front seat. And there are five more cities on the way, but Musk's timelines famously cannot be trusted. And then he tries to create all of these distractions. Look over here at robots. I'm staying in Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. If I go to my deck, I can see a Waymo. They're everywhere in LA, Cara.

56:46Kara Swisher:There's actually fewer of the Tesla taxis, robotaxis in Austin. They've cut them back.

56:52Scott Galloway:And then the worst car release, or the worst tech product of the last year was the Cybertruck, which by the way, is about to be bested by one of the great brands in history. You're about to see one of the biggest brand failures in history, and that is the equivalent. Tech has literally infected so many things, and it's infected one of the purest brands in the world. It's infected Ferrari. The new electric Ferrari is about to be just panned.

57:16Kara Swisher:Yeah, it's getting panned right now.

57:18Scott Galloway:Oh, it's going to be. It's getting. It's Johnny Ive.

57:20Kara Swisher:The Johnny Ive design.

57:21Scott Galloway:It's going to be one of the brand stories of the year.

57:23Kara Swisher:They said it looks like a Honda, right? Right.

57:25Scott Galloway:It's basically, they said, Apple gave up on their Project Titan and they slapped a stallion on it. You're going to see, oh my God, you're going to see the Ferrari pierce. You're going to see so many 80-year-old old men going on TikTok for the first time in their lives to shit post this thing. and SpaceX, get this, SpaceX accounted for nearly 20 % of Cybertruck sales in Q4 2025 because he bought back a bunch of Cybertrucks. So I think it's smart for him to do. It's more jazz hands. It's more pretending, attaching something to something amazing to try and, I mean, he's very good at this and you predicted it, but to take, put Elon on top of something that's very exciting around rockets, data centers in space.

58:06Kara Swisher:Of course, rockets.

58:06Scott Galloway:Yeah, and he is a visionary. We need to be an interplanetary species.

58:11Kara Swisher:And now you have to buy it with NASDAQ. Explain to people very briefly what that is so people understand. The index fund issue is that they've lowered the amount of time before big IPOs go into the index, and now people are going to be forced to buy his company. Also open AI, also anthropic, et cetera.

58:31Scott Galloway:So basically the rule was before you joined the S &P, you had to be profitable for a certain amount of quarters and you had to be in the index for at least a year. They've waived those rules because they realized, and it makes sense, they're big, important companies. What that means is if you invest in an ETF or an index, you automatically own these companies at those prices. And at these prices, at these valuations, I would argue, I mean, to a certain extent, the IPO markets might be over. And that is, the way I see it is, the reason we went public, the reason Google went public was you couldn't raise$3 or$5 billion from venture capitals and private institutions in 1997.

59:06Scott Galloway:Now there's almost as much capital, if not more, in the private market. So logically, you have to ask yourself, why does a company decide to go public? And one reason, it's a branding event. Two, it creates more liquid currency potentially, but these companies have very liquid currency on the secondary markets. They do it because I think largely speaking, and they don't want to say this out loud, once the private investors go, look, this thing's getting pretty frothy. Most of the juice has been squeezed out of it. Well, who is stupid enough to take the valuation even further up? Well, okay, the last stop on the chump train right now is the public markets.

59:40Scott Galloway:So typically a company like OpenAI would have gone public when it was worth 30 or 50 billion. But the existing investors of OpenAI and Anthropics say, oh, no, no, no, no. They're still juicier. Let's keep this to ourselves and we'll find you capital. And then when they start going, wow, this valuation is rich for even us. Let's go see if mom and pop retail investor and people on Robinhood and people on Reddit who love Elon and people around the world who want to participate in the economy are actually willing to invest. My prediction is these three companies, especially AI, are going to go through a pretty serious repricing, not a collapse like a 2000 collapse, but a repricing.

1:00:17Scott Galloway:And then when you combine that with the fact that you now have access to private companies with different secondary markets, potentially the tokenization of small companies, it's just going to make the IPO less and less relevant because of the reporting standards. And this is the indices trying to say, we want to make it more attractive for companies to go public and also reflect. The S &P should reflect.

1:00:39Kara Swisher:I get it. It's just that people shouldn't have this unprofitable company held up by one guy shoved down their throat. It's like getting the U2 album. Yeah, but you could say that.

1:00:50Scott Galloway:Is P &G shoved down their throat? It's the same thing.

1:00:53Kara Swisher:It is, but it's a profitable company. It's been a business like, let's just give it a sec.

1:00:56Scott Galloway:Yeah, but the best returns have been in companies that are growing faster and not profitable.

1:00:59Kara Swisher:Yes, it is. And at the same time, let them buy it themselves then. I mean, it just seems like a risky thing to stick in there this quickly. That's all. I just, I'm like, it's going to benefit the people. It's going to benefit Elon Musk, but maybe not the pension funds of nurses. Like, I don't know. And I just don't think that risk is necessary.

1:01:17Scott Galloway:Well, in a weird way, there's so many dynamics at play.

1:01:19Kara Swisher:Well, my index fund, I don't want to own SpaceX. I don't want to. Not right now.

1:01:23Scott Galloway:I mean, if you look at the valuation of these companies going public, it's going to be combined$4 trillion. It's like from 1980 to 2020, the amount of money being raised just across these three companies.

1:01:34Kara Swisher:Yeah, it's huge.

1:01:34Scott Galloway:is just staggering. And what it probably will do in the short run is it'll probably take the S &P down because so much money is going to come from every corner of the earth to participate in these things. To raise$150 million, the rest of the market feels that. If you want to talk about, I mean, what happens, I'm fascinated by this, because what happens, when these three companies go public, 11 ,000 people in the Bay Area are overnight, imagine everyone who goes, walks into Madison Square Garden, places sold out. Everyone who walked in was a 31-year-old product manager making$180 ,000 or$240 ,000 a year, good living, but some student debt, can't afford a house.

1:02:17Scott Galloway:And they walk out on the worst$7 to$11 million. What happens? They have more kids. They buy a new house, as evidenced by skyrocketing prices. Upside here, you're going to see a lot of fun started. There's also tremendous new business development. The other thing you're going to see, which is a good thing, You are about to see the mother of all increases in philanthropic giving in the Bay Area.

1:02:39Kara Swisher:One would hope.

1:02:40Scott Galloway:Well, people do. These people do start foundations.

1:02:44Kara Swisher:Let me just say, if you look at the actual statistics, it's Mackenzie Scott, which is an enormous graph, like a big, long bar. And then all the others, including Elon Musk down here. I'm not talking about the big ones.

1:02:58Scott Galloway:I'm talking about a lot of people. Americans are very generous philanthropic people. Not these people. Sorry.

1:03:33Scott Galloway:suicide prevention.

1:03:34Kara Swisher:We've got to move on, but we'll see where it goes. But it's a really interesting time. And I think Scott's right. There's going to be a decline in a lot of these. Anyway, but it's a really interesting time given all three of these are going at once. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

1:03:56Kara Swisher:In the span of a decade, Ben Shapiro built the Daily Wire into a conservative media empire. He produced hit podcasts that bit at liberal excesses and documentaries and lectures about the founders, the genders, the gospels.

1:04:08Scott Galloway:He peddled polos, hats, candles, provided a home for deplatformed conservative stars like Matt Walsh and minted stars like Candace Owens. Let's put a pin in that.

1:04:18Kara Swisher:The Daily Wire even has kids programming a judgmental puppet named Zoodles. Zoodles. Zoodles. Who shares Shapiro's load-bearing eyebrows. This year, though, the empire showed signs of collapse. The Daily Wire's YouTube videos are down from millions of views to the lo-fi figures. Web traffic is plummeting. And recently, Shapiro laid off 13 percent of his employees. Asked by The Washington Post what had happened, Shapiro accused other conservatives of click-whoring by embracing radical Islam, theorizing about the evils of Winston Churchill, and mocking the widow of Charlie Kirk. The kids still got it.

1:04:49Kara Swisher:On Today Explained, the fall of Ben Shapiro. Today Explained drops every weekday afternoon. Hey, girl, it's Teffy. This week on Teffy Talks, we're talking Kendall and Jacob, reality TV villain Spencer Pratt running for mayor, and a look inside the Cannes Film Festival. Mind you, I bought the majority of my crystals from Pratt Daddy Crystals. Incredible quality, but I never thought he'd be running for mayor, and it does pain me to say the words Pratt Daddy.

1:05:16Scott Galloway:If you're not already following the show, find us everywhere at Teffy Talks. Subscribe on YouTube and all the podcast platforms and Instagram and TikTok

1:05:23Kara Swisher:so you can share with your other work bestie. See ya.

1:05:55Scott Galloway:zero to nearly 36 % overnight, and the uncomfortable truth about what it really means when you need to split a$200 purchase into four payments. Plus, I'm answering your questions, including what to do if you're already in over your head. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com slash yourrichbff.

1:06:17Kara Swisher:Okay, Scott, I'm going to start just very quickly. I want to call out something that happened. Two things. Quickly, CBS News just named tech journalist Nick Bilton as the new executive producer of 60 Minutes. Bilton is a longtime tech journalist and filmmaker who's never worked in traditional broadcast news. I know Nick. Interesting. It'll be interesting to see what he's going to do there. This comes on the heels of 60 Minutes correspondent Sharon Alfonsi announcing that CBS declined to renew her contract. She's an excellent reporter. She did great stuff on Character AI. She's been a wonderful reporter.

1:06:50Kara Swisher:The move comes six months after Alfonso's report on abuse inside Salvadoran prisons was abruptly pulled before airing a month later. The time Alfonso called the decision political, and it certainly was in a statement. She said she did a really, like, she just burnt the house down leaving. Alfonso said the exit is, quote, a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting. She added, sends a chilling message across the entire newsroom. And by the way, Sharon's not the only one. Anderson Cooper stepping out the way he is not usually, leaving a few weeks ago saying, I hope 60 Minutes remains 60 Minutes.

1:07:25Kara Swisher:He also was sending sort of a shot across the bow there. I just want to call it these two excellent journalists of 60 Minutes. And Sharon's a badass. I know her just met her on text, actually. But Anderson, I think, has done an amazing job. So these are two really, really great journalists. And I predict that they will do just fine, but good for them for speaking out and especially good. There was a student who won an award at the Emmys last night, which was named a scholarship for Mike Wallace. And he delivered a blistering attack on supporting these two journalists and supporting others like them.

1:08:05Kara Swisher:And I thought that person was incredibly, it's very hard to speak out. And Anderson and Sharon and this young student did so. And I really, you guys will do just fine. Anderson particularly, but in general, good for you for standing up. That's all I have to say.

1:08:22Scott Galloway:I think it's a really interesting, it'll be a really interesting case study on organizational behavior and management classes in business school. And that is corporations continue to fall for the notion that if they bring in a small company they perceive as really innovative, that that small virus is going to infect the entire corpus. and generally almost always what you find is that the corpus rejects the virus. It's like acquisitions work when the acquiring company has the scale and distribution or capital to help scale the small innovative company, but to believe that the innovation is going to infect the larger corporation or corpus almost never works out.

1:08:58Kara Swisher:That's an interesting story. That's an interesting point.

1:09:00Scott Galloway:So let's give the free press the benefit of the doubt. Innovative little company, subscription-based, interesting positioning, and the Ellison's thought, that's the kind of mojo and juice and infection we need at this larger, somewhat encephaletic corpus called CBS or Paramount. There's been organ rejection. Also, what CEOs of smaller companies fail to recognize is the following, and it's the reason why I've never been able to grow a big company to small companies, and that is a small company is ready for our aim. The person at the top really does get to make swift, crisp decisions. I am the decider.

1:09:37Scott Galloway:This is the way we're going. One of our key things here is speed, which means this is not a democracy. There's very few things that are less democratic than a small company trying to work fast or go fast because it's kind of like, what do we think? Okay, get on it. Ready, fire, aim. Let's start yesterday. In a large organization that's scaling, it's more about consensus and getting people on board and culture. And you're a speedboat ramming a tanker. And what you fail to realize is the CEO of a company like this, and what I think Barry has failed to realize, is you're Phil Jackson, the coach of the Bulls.

1:10:11Scott Galloway:And that is your job, you're blessed with some unbelievable assets. Your job is not to coach Michael Jordan. It's to get along with him and be a resource for him. You're not in charge. They are. They're the assets. When you're Mikel Arteta and you're coaching Bukaya Saka at Arsenal, which, by the way, I just won the Prem League. This is very exciting. When you come into an organization like CBS and you do have kind of these stars that are iconic, your job is to get along with them. And so I think.

1:10:44Kara Swisher:Well, let me say 60 Minutes have been enormously successful. It's not. That's my point. I mean, no, but I'm just saying like pretending it's just because they're encephaletic and this sassy new startup is going to change things. I think a lot of these errors are errors of incompetence, not of trying to change things. And these old people won't change. These are like top level journalists that were doing a great job and has had 52 years of success. Like, you know, they're doing well. It's not like they're not doing well. So why?

1:11:10Scott Galloway:I think we're speaking past each other. I'm agreeing with you. CBS is Michael Jordan. Barry Weiss is Phil Jackson. His job isn't to show up and reorganize and tell everyone how to dribble and play again. His job, quite frankly, is to get the only management of CBS is the following. Hi. Nice to meet you. How can I help? That's it. How can I help? Yeah. And if the answer is go away and leave us alone, fine. If it's we could use more resources here, we have trouble here, or we don't think our advertisers are, how can I help? That's it.

1:11:45Kara Swisher:I love what you, I'm sorry, I misunderstood. Let me say, one of the things that happened at the Washington Post too, blaming these reporters, like when Will Lewis was like trashing the reporters, is like, it's such an easy thing to do for people who think they're innovative. It's like, you all suck. And some of the things need to change, but to say it's a problem of, it's a bigger secular problem that's the issue in terms of costs and everything else. And so just telling people, just breaking things is not building things. And that is really hard to do when you're, that's why I never want to be at a big company.

1:12:20Kara Swisher:I don't know about you, but I like being a small speedboat. And if you make mistakes, you make mistakes. If you don't, you don't. That's how I feel, but I don't know about you.

1:12:28Scott Galloway:Oh yeah, and this is the reason why I've never built a billion dollar company. I sell companies, you know, when they, as soon as they have a CFO or someone in HR, I'm like, time to sell. Yeah. But having been involved with a lot of big companies, I just shocked me. It just shocked me right away. The first thing I thought, well, we should do this, this, and this. And the CEOs were always, okay, they really had to think about what would be required to get buy-in to potentially change the culture, to explain, be thoughtful, to create the right incentive mechanisms to ensure the behavior lined up.

1:12:59Scott Galloway:And I mean, you really are. There's some amazing things about a tanker, right? It can carry whatever it is, 100 million barrels or 10 million barrels of a product. But you are, you know, you're steering a tanker and it takes a lot of effort and a big engine room and a lot of people. It is a different, there's so few people that can go from, a lot of people, I would say, where are you in the alphabet? Are you from A to D? I'm good at A to D.

1:13:25Kara Swisher:Yeah, me too.

1:13:25Scott Galloway:Some people are good at coming in. My old CEO at L2, Ken Allard, was good at kind of D to H or I. And some people can come into a company that's gone public. Dara Khosrowshahi is amazing.

1:13:40Kara Swisher:Yes, very good example.

1:13:41Scott Galloway:And is like great from L to S. He came into a company that was already jamming, scaling, huge infrastructure, huge brand, and said, okay, somebody needs to be the adult here. And a lot of problems, yeah. And also there's some people who come into companies that are distressed who take a company from, you know, whatever it is, T to Z. They come in and cut costs and repackage something, take it through bankruptcy and make a lot of money.

1:14:04Kara Swisher:Scott, your next book is The Alphabet of Management.

1:14:06Scott Galloway:The Alphabet of Business. Yeah.

1:14:07Kara Swisher:All right. I want to hear your prediction, though.

1:14:09Scott Galloway:I'm all confused and jet lagged right now. So I thought we were doing wins and fails. So it's okay. I'm going to do wins and fails. Go for it. But my win is, and it just hasn't gotten enough attention. And it's just so exciting. and it's such a victory for the West, and I would argue it's actually in many ways, while Iran has overshadowed it and inflation, people really don't understand that something incredibly wonderful is going on here. And that is, three years ago, Russia was supposed to take Kiev in a weekend, and today, Ukraine is striking Russian military infrastructure, oil refineries, ports, bomber bases, and semiconductor plants, hundreds, sometimes more than a thousand kilometers inside of Russia.

1:14:52Scott Galloway:Putin is on the run.

1:14:55Kara Swisher:He is. I told you when I told you that a couple weeks ago that all these people said Russia, he's in much more trouble than you realize, but go ahead.

1:15:02Scott Galloway:Just recently, they've hit the Riazan refinery, one of Russia's largest fuel plants, supplying the military, the Tuopse refinery in the Black Sea. They're going after Their ships are going after the Black Sea Fleet. Oil infrastructure in Perm, 700 miles from the border. The Yazolovri refinery, 700 kilometers inside of Russia. And even the English strategic -

1:15:28Kara Swisher:Can you imagine in this country if that happened? Jeez.

1:15:30Scott Galloway:If they started bombing oil fields in Texas - Buffalo. Or our military ships in San Diego, can you imagine?

1:15:40Kara Swisher:No, no, no. Oh, those Canadians.

1:15:43Scott Galloway:Or North North Virginia building our submarines. What if drones were hitting? I mean, this is just incredible. And it's a function of drones. It's a function of Delta. That's a great win. It's also, quite frankly, you know, we don't like to say this, must turning off Starlink in Russia has ceded huge advantage to the Ukrainian army.

1:16:01Kara Swisher:No, that's always been a benefit. No question.

1:16:03Scott Galloway:But it is just, I mean, if you think about this, what are they doing? They're producing thousands of long-range drones per month in 2024. In 2025, they're doing 3 ,000.

1:16:17Kara Swisher:They're going to be a huge technology country when this is on.

1:16:20Scott Galloway:Oh, yeah. They'll attract so much capital, assuming they get this. Yeah, I'd go there.

1:16:24Kara Swisher:If I was a young person, that's exactly it. Though the corruption is really quite impossible to deal with. But if I was a young person, I'd go there. But there are significant corruption problems within that government.

1:16:34Scott Galloway:But there's a wonderful message being sent to the world, and that is there's a brutal lesson for authoritarians. Corruption scales until it collides with reality and technology and a motivated populace. Russia built the Potemkin village version of a superpower, yachts, parades, hypersonic missiles, shirtless horse cosplay. And the Ukrainians, meanwhile, built software, drones, and engineers. And just some numbers here to talk about. Okay, because we got it. How incredible this is. You're rushing them this morning. I'm not rushing you. We're almost an hour and a half. What weirdo that you're fascinated with are you about to go interview?

1:17:16Kara Swisher:I'm not. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to be in front of my thing.

1:17:19Scott Galloway:What is it, the ghost of Walter Mondale? Who's up next on with Kara Swisher? Russia has three times the population, ten times the economy, nuclear weapons, and one of the largest oil reserves in the world. And Ukraine is kicking its ass.

1:17:32Kara Swisher:I know. I love it. What does Ukraine have?

1:17:35Scott Galloway:Ukraine has coaters and hoodies turning Home Depot into Lockheed Martin. I mean, these guys. So, look, increasingly, and this is a lesson for us, unfortunately, right now, the future belongs to the side that can innovate faster than the other side can lie.

1:17:50Kara Swisher:Like the Iranians with the boats and the drones. So, that's my win.

1:17:53Scott Galloway:And it hasn't got enough attention. This is so exciting for the West, for Ukraine.

1:17:58Kara Swisher:Can I make one caveat? If Putin feels cornered and scared, he might do something terrible.

1:18:04Scott Galloway:Yeah, that's the fear.

1:18:06Kara Swisher:You know, that to me is the biggest fear.

1:18:08Scott Galloway:Unless you're going to annihilate your enemy, you've got to give him a way out. That's what Sun Tzu.

1:18:12Kara Swisher:Yeah, but I don't think he thinks that. I think he's terrified.

1:18:15Scott Galloway:But this is a victory also for the EU, who has been steadfast in their support, unlike Americans. It's just very exciting. Trump will back them if they win.

1:18:26Kara Swisher:He'll go like, oh, I'm with the winners.

1:18:27Scott Galloway:I'm with them. I was always behind you.

1:18:29Kara Swisher:I was behind them. All right, what's your fail?

1:18:30Scott Galloway:My fail is, I just, I think the best way, Timothy Snyder summarized it perfectly. I've been trying to figure out a way to describe what is effectively a$1.8 billion slush fund that Trump and his spokesperson Blanche have been trying to pitch. And even some Republicans are finally blanching. And the best way to describe it is a terrorist immunization fund. And that is commit violence on my behalf and I will not only legally protect you, I will pay you. In addition to the corruption, it sends a signal to weirdos out there who are cult members that if something gets in the way of Trump, whether it's people turning out to a poll booth, whether it's people showing up to inaugurate the other guy, which I'm claiming was not fairly elected, I want you to commit acts of violence.

1:19:20Scott Galloway:I want you to engage in terrorism. And you'll get off. And you will not only get off, I'm going to pay you. So this is not a slush fund. This is not only corruption. It's a terrorist immunization fund.

1:19:34Kara Swisher:I love that word.

1:19:35Scott Galloway:And that is the way, I can't take credit for it. It's Timothy Snyder, who's one I'm just obsessed with. And I've had on the pod a couple of times. He's at the University of Toronto and talks a lot about democracy and autocracy. He's fantastic and he's very brave.

1:19:47Kara Swisher:He's the dude, Heather Cox Richardson.

1:19:49Scott Galloway:But this is, that's right. But this is, imagine if a nation in the Gulf found, name your terrorist organization and said, you blow yourself up, you commit acts of violence, not only will I prosecute you, we've set aside money for you.

1:20:03Kara Swisher:Right. Well, they kind of did that.

1:20:05Scott Galloway:Well, the PLO used to do that. The PLO used to say any suicide bomber, we're going to give their family X amount of dollars. That's what this is.

1:20:15Kara Swisher:Yeah, I agree.

1:20:15Scott Galloway:And it's, anyways, I hope the Democrats adopt that phrase. I don't think it's going to pass.

1:20:19Kara Swisher:I think the Republicans tell us the others are all very much against it. There's a lot.

1:20:24Scott Galloway:And all of these hearings, why do you support the terrorist immunization fund? Good. They should absolutely label it that. That's what this is. Anyways, that's my fail.

1:20:34Kara Swisher:Terrorist baking fund, maybe immunization. Anyway. All right. That's great. Those are both great. And you're going to have to have new ones for Monday, just so you know. 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 85551-PIVOT. Before we go, I'm taping a live interview of On With Kara Swisher at the Rebecca Film Festival on Monday, June 8th. It is not the day.

1:20:57Scott Galloway:Someone's got their nose off Murdoch's ass.

1:20:59Kara Swisher:No, I'm not. Hi, new boss. I was booked before the deal months ago. Anyway, instead of Walter Mondale. You're not invited to the special dinner with Robert De Niro, but I am. Hi, Daddy. I'll be talking to comedian, actor, and podcast pioneer Mark Maron, not Mondale. The original gangster. Yes, thank you. Yeah, the originals. He's really quite a legend. And there's a new doc about him, and he's also a great actor and funny comedian and everything else. He loves to trash the tech pros. You know my favorite statement of his?

1:21:28Scott Galloway:My favorite, and I use it all the time. He's like, you realize Democrats literally annoyed America into fascism. I love that.

1:21:37Kara Swisher:Anyway, he's great. He's really great. Tickets are available now at thetrebeccafilm.com slash audio. What Scott's referring to is the Murdochs, James Murdoch. It's Rebecca. We will see you there. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure, Pivotarian, become a Pivotarian. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week.

1:21:57Scott Galloway:Today's show was produced by Larry Aiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Wiseman. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Jabros, Ms. Ferry, and Dan Jolanda, Chuck Crowe, Fox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Pivotarian. Pivotarian. Have sex. Have sex with the cult leader. That's okay. No. Cut off all contact with your parents. Give us all your money. No. Yeah.

1:22:28Scott Galloway:No. I'm into it. Pivotarian.

1:22:29Kara Swisher:Good luck in L.A. tonight, Scott.

1:22:37Thank you.