Trump Term Limits, TikTok Status Check, and Scott's Presidential Prospects

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1:25Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. And today we have a listener mailbag for you because we love our listeners. We love our fans. By the way, everyone's come up to me in the past couple of weeks. Thank you. I appreciate it. And they all say hello to Scott. But now we're going to listen to them. So let's listen to the first one. Hey, Scott and Kara. I'm always amazed when I'm listening to you all on 2X feed, how quickly you're able to pull up facts and stats to back up your points and give more texture to them.

1:58As somebody who's less up to speed on how podcasts are run, how are you able to get your information so quickly? Are you on ChatGDT looking these things up? Do you have it prepared ahead of time? Or do you have a whole team of people who are looking these things up for you? I would love a better idea of how the sausage is made. And yes, I just handed you a dick joke too. Thank you so much. Bye. Well, well, well, well. Let me just tell you something. We have a producers and we have great producers and writers and researchers. Scott has a bunch. And they give us a whole script of information and some of which we use, some of which we don't, but it's at our fingertips.

2:35We also know a lot of stuff. We also ourselves know a lot of stuff and have been covering things or talking about them. But Scott, you can talk about what you use. I know you use ChatGPT and other things much more than I do. But we have lots of amazing people. For this show, I'll call them out. Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin, for example, and Scott? Yeah, so the first is, and I'm not a humble person, I have an aptitude for numbers and I like data, but more than anything, greatness is in the agency of others. And I have people think that it's us producing this content. We obviously have our producers here.

3:12My small media company has 18 people and I have three people who do nothing but try and find interesting data. And also my trick is when I find an interesting piece of data myself, I text it to my data team and I ask them to incorporate it in my presentations. And then I will write it down on my Apple notes to try and cement it in my memory. So for example, yesterday I saw a piece of data that just blew me away and I wrote it down and it'll show up on my next deck when I do a speaking engagement. And that piece of data was the following. Over 50 % of 18 to 24 year old males have never asked a woman out in person.

3:45And I thought that was so illuminating and horrifying. that I wrote it down. And you can bet you're going to hear it again across all my different media channels. So greatness is in the agency of others. But also when you find an interesting piece of data, it's not like I'm some sphengali that can just recall shit. I write it down and I use it over and over such that it becomes a static part of my wet matter. Yeah, but we do work from scripts. We're very loose with them. And at the same time, they're critical and necessary. So we can give you the right facts. And we have fact checkers, by the way, also.

4:16so that if we get anything wrong, and by that I mean Scott, we can check them very quickly or change them. So we spent a lot of, there's time on that. A lot of podcasts do not do that, but we do. 98 of lesbians end up divorced. Okay. 98%. I'm not getting divorced ever. My wife is wonderful. Anyway, Scott, the next one comes from a TikTok employee. How exciting. Let's listen. Hi, Karen, Scott. It's me, your girl in Austin, Texas. this. I am a current TikTok employee, and I feel like we have been left out of the conversation surrounding TikTok entirely. There's a thousand employees just in the city that I live in, and there's many thousand more throughout the U.S., and I'm just wondering what are current TikTok employees in the U.S.

5:08supposed to do? Are we sticking around? Do you think we should jump ship? Please let me know. Thank you so much. Bye. I think there's going to be a deal soon. If I'm going to make a prediction here, Scott usually makes his predictions, but I think there's going to be, it's being, the process is being run by J.D. Vance and Mike Walls. And I think they're trying to figure out if there's a way that the bigger U.S. owners probably be Elon or Ellison, Daryl Ellison or something like that. I don't know what to say. If Elon buys it, do you want to work for Elon Musk? if Milan gets the big shot, which of course he's, he loves, he's grifting around all over the government.

5:46So maybe he'll get it. Do you want to work for him? I think you have skills that are transferable everywhere in terms of what you're doing at TikTok. What a great product away from all the mishegas around the ownership and the Chinese government. Um, so I don't know, I might wait and see to see until the deal is done. Scott, humans will do almost anything to avoid pain. And a subset of pain is the unknown, not knowing what's going to happen. And so I get a lot of calls like this when companies are in play, being acquired, not doing well, should I leave? Is it going to be shut down? So this is that type of question.

6:20And my general advice is the following, is that change and disruption, you need to ask yourself what could go right. And that is, one, you don't know what's going to happen. But also, if a lot of people get saved, it gets closed down and a lot of people get laid off, but the U.S. operation becomes the headquarters for North America, SANS, the US, and a lot of people leave, that creates a lot of opportunity for promotions. So my general advice in situations where there's a lot of change and disruption is to ignore the psychological damage to the extent you can or the insecurity of the unknown, because disruption brings a lot of opportunity.

6:58And you might find yourself in six months, in 12 months, after a big event or non-event in a much better place than you'd anticipated. So especially with a company like TikTok that's got so much consumer power, stick around and play it out. See what the next card, when they turn it over, see what it is. Okay. All right. A good one. Okay. Well, let's go on a quick break. We come back. More listener questions.

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9:06Scott, we're back with more listener mail. Let's listen to another one. Hi, Sarah and Scott. Love the pod. My name is Whitney, and I'm from Dallas, Texas. I feel like nobody's talking about the fact that every corporation is completely gutting their organization. restructuring, reworking, renaming, C-suite executives, and putting tons and tons and tons of workers. What's going on? And what is going to happen in the future for all of these workers looking for jobs, but also the fact that the companies are kind of wiping middle management and there's not going to be anyone to mentor this younger talent?

9:51I'd love your thoughts. Thank you. Wow. You know, we talk a lot about the Department of Government Efficiency. Companies have been doing this really recently. They've seen that they can really cut people and don't need them as much as they did. And so they're taking the opportunity to do so. Every company's got to be looking at the costs. Scott and I were with someone recently who said he's going from 6 ,000 software engineers. It's not just affecting middle management to 2 ,000 next year. I mean, I think everyone's looking for what they can make do with and not to just ruin it. They don't need as many people with AI.

10:24They don't need as many people for what they're doing. And they're trying to put efficiency in. And you're going to see this happen everywhere. And if you're a company, that is your job is to, of course, they'll pay themselves more. That's what Meta just did. It just gave top executives more money. And meanwhile, they're doing layoffs. So even the very successful companies are doing this, not just the ones in distress. Yeah, I think I have a little bit of a different take. And I think the underlying assumption is there's a lot of unemployment. And the reality is unemployment is still at pretty much historical lows, hovering around 4, 4.1%.

11:00Jobless claims are up a bit. There's a lot of headline news. I think the media loves, the media is like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. It likes movement and violence. And any indication of things bad in the jobless market or unemployment gets a lot of noise. But the reality is employment in the U.S. is still very, very strong. That's right. And distinct to that, there's a lot of change, tumult, insecurity, catastrophizing around AI. And then a lot of people argue that that unemployment number is a bit illusory because you're considered a discouraged worker or if you're no longer seeking employment after two years.

11:34But having to say that in general, it would be really difficult to make the argument that unemployment is bad right now. It just isn't. And I would argue that it's not about unemployment. It's about wages and it's about the percentage of workers' wages relative to GDP, relative to the stock markets' percentage and corporate profits. It's essentially labor as a percentage or wages as a percentage of GDP are at a near all-time low or near 40-year low, whereas profits and shareholder value as a percentage of GDP is staggering. So in sum, it's easy to get a job. It's just not easy to get a job where you can make a good living.

12:12And I think that's the focus. Right, but I do think companies are finding ways to successful and not just really efficiency. And they should. That's their job. That's what they're doing. And the people who figure out how to be part of that efficiency are going to make more money. So that's just capitalism. But unemployment is actually at historic lows right now. So I think there's a lot of insecurity. I think there's more job changes. Let me move to what is actionable. A lot of people call me and say, I hate my job. What do I do? And I'm like, I think every three to five years, you should quit your job, even if you don't quit.

12:45And what I mean by that, well, you're different. You actually could. What I mean by that is I have been at NYU for 23 years, but I quit every three to five years. What do I mean by that? I go get an offer from a Columbia or a Wharton or somewhere else, and then I walk up to the dean's office and I say, this is the offer I have, and I'm totally transparent. I don't want to leave. I want to stay, but I need you to match the offer because this is market. And they hum and they ha, and they make a bunch of excuses, and then they match it. So no one's going to manage your career for you. What you need to do is constantly quit.

13:17As a matter of fact, the surveys show the people who make the most money are job switchers. Not every year, but every three to five years. But here's what you do if you don't want to leave your job. You quit without quitting. You do a market check. You don't be an asshole. You go into your boss and you say, I got approached. This is what they're offering me. I'd like to stay. Be transparent. The truth has a nice ring to it and get a higher salary. But unemployment? No, unemployment isn't bad right now. Also, you have to know what your leverage and value is. So you should always, even the negative parts.

13:47And the way you do that is with a market check. And you might find out that you're being overpaid. That's correct. And you should shut the fuck up. Don't tell anybody. Shut the fuck up. That's correct. Scott, say nothing. All right. Next, this one comes from Steve. Let's listen. Hello, my name is Steve. I have two questions that I would love to hear your thoughts on. Number one is your thoughts on term limits for Supreme Court justices. And number two is, what are your thoughts about Trump's end of his four-year term when he probably will find a way not to leave? You know, he won't respect the two-term limit for U.S.

14:31president. So, curious what you think that will look like four years from now. Thank you very much. I love your show. Bye. Steve, thank you. That's very sweet. I'm four-term limits on Supreme Court justice. There's a number. I think it's 16 years, something like that, that I think works, or a certain age. I think probably age gating would be what I would do on the top end. I guess 75, I suppose, would be, I think, fair. Maybe even 72, maybe 70. I don't know, somewhere in there. Number two, I think he will try, but I think he's going to be old. I think he's already, even though he seems vigorous, he's been nodding off.

15:07I don't think he really wants to govern. He just likes to make pronouncements. So in four years, I don't know if he'll be capable. I think that doesn't mean they won't try to prop him up. like Weekend at Bernie's, kind of do a pull of Joe Biden, essentially. And I think he likes to talk about it to bother us quite a bit and to show he has power over picking the successor. He may try to pick one of his kids. That's something I can see happening easily. Not Eric, obviously, not Tiffany, but Ivanka or Junior. So I don't know. I think that's what I'll try to do more than anything. Scott? 100%. I'm an ageist, and so is biology.

15:43We age-gate the Senate. You have to be 30. We age-gate Congress at 25. We age-gate CEOs of companies in the UK. They say at 65. In India, I think you have to retire at 65. In the UK, the mandatory retirement age for UK Supreme Court justices is 75. Your prefrontal cortex when you're a male does not catch up to a woman's until the age of 25. And guess what? From the age of 40 on, your prefrontal cortex begins to shrink. And Senator Feinstein did not know where the fuck she was the last year she was in the Senate. And you lose the ability and the judgment and people around you want to give you some dignity.

16:25And it ends up really hurting America. We absolutely need age limits. What's the age? Pick the age. You know what? But I like personally, I would go, I'd go younger than most people. I'd probably go 70. Not 65, not 65. We'd have to retire. No, people have gotten, people are in much better shape now. And, but I also, in a weird way, I think it's the right thing to do for people because it takes that anxiety away. It's like, all right, it's time for you to go enjoy your life. Yeah, 70, you're probably in pretty good shape if you take care of yourself. Yeah, go have a nice life. go, you don't need to leave this place fee first.

17:03And also the thing I don't like, and this is one of the things I don't like about academia, is that nobody fucking leaves. And so there isn't room for young stars to advance at the rate they should. Because we have some dude who was the bomb in Gap 1 accounting in 1978 who won't fucking leave. And because he has tenure, we can't fire the guy. And then he not only becomes unproductive, but is a means of trying to maintain some sort of relevance, he becomes obstructionist and general pain in the ass at faculty meetings. There are exceptions. Like, for example, I love Robert Reich right now. I love this whole Robert Reich videos.

17:39He's lively. He's informative. He's 78 years old. Certain people just shine. Sure. Take to YouTube. He doesn't need to be a Supreme Court justice. No, I'm just saying it depends on the person, but you just have a basic age. I think 75 is probably pretty fair, but I can make an argument for 72. Bring in neurologists who say, look, this is the thing about age decline is it's not linear. It really drops fast. And at what age are people most likely to start really seeing a serious cognitive decline and have an age gap? But it is insane that we would have lower age limits, but we don't have upper age limits.

18:13By the way, a couple of the 14-year-old girls my son had over for a Halloween party would have done a better job and had a better command and grasp of the issues facing the Senate than Senator Feinstein. I mean, there are these stories all over the place. So absolutely for them, for us, for our Constitution, yeah, we need age limits. A hundred percent. No rock Trump and with Trump. I just can't even go there, Kara. I'm so fucking triggered. I'm so between surrendering to Putin and measles. I can't even think about what might happen then. You take this one. Like I said, I think he's going to try to get one of his kids in.

18:54I think he's I think he's also old. I think I literally you can see, you know, again, he's a vigorous declining person. I don't see any evidence of that. I haven't seen any evidence he's declining. He just says things off the cuff. I think he's declining. I think it'll come fast, too. He's kind of like Reagan. He didn't see it and then he saw it kind of thing. He seems vigorous, certainly, but largely because that's the way he's going down. But to me, he's turning into, he'll be an old man in four years, no matter how he slices it. He just will. He just will. All right, Scott, one more quick break.

19:29When we come back, more listener questions.

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21:41Scott, we're back with more listener mail. Let's listen to another one. Hi, Scott and Kara. This is Amy from Newport, Rhode Island. we've been listening to your show and we love it Scott I wanted to ask you about how you're always talking about men should rise up to be the best men they can and take responsibility especially coming from America and we were wondering why don't you run for president we need someone like you and I think it'd be great well you know Kara I hate to talk about me but um uh god can you imagine how much ass i would get if i was president oh my god i couldn't do it as president but post-president um look uh i'll be very transparent i've been approached twice in the last two years by people who said and actually a firm and a person who said if you put in 10 million we'll put in 10 million uh not for president but run for um senate or governor And let's be honest, I have all the attributes to do this.

22:50I'm a narcissist and I have outdoor plumbing and I'm white, which are the three primary considerations for running for office. And I also, I have money. But here's the bottom. Clever and interesting. Go ahead. I appreciate that. I appreciate you saying that. Here's the bottom line. I'm not qualified. I don't have the domain expertise. I'm not especially good with people. I think you have to be really good with people. And also, and Kara knows this, this isn't an act, but this is a side of me that is not in many ways the real me. And that is I'm an introvert. And when I'm not on a podcast or on television, I don't enjoy people.