Apple's podcast play, Netflix's rough quarter, and a listener mail on crypto's carbon footprint

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Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, and I'm packing right now my teeny weeny bikini.

Scott Galloway: I'm not going to touch that with a 10-foot pole, and I am Airbnb dog. That's right.

Kara Swisher: Okay, so this is what it means to be professional friends with Kara, and then we decide to make the bridge into friendship after knowing each other for 11 years.

Scott Galloway: We're not really friends.

Kara Swisher: Okay, so that hurts my feelings.

Scott Galloway: Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher: So, okay. It was meant to. First, it's like, hey, let's meet in Miami.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: To go check out some venues. And it's like, you know, I'll bring Amanda. She's bored. And then it's like, oh, you know, we have a kid. She goes everywhere with us. And then all of a sudden.

Scott Galloway: What, do you want to leave it here with like a cracker and the cat?

Kara Swisher: And then, oh, wait, our 16-year-old son is bored. Can he come with us? He's coming. It is literally a harem coming over here. I'm thinking, do I need a bigger house?

Scott Galloway: No. I heard your house is big. What can the Swishers expect, the Clampettes, when they get there? I'm not bringing Louie. Louie wanted to come suddenly, but he can't. I got to be honest. You are such my liberal progressive cred. I'm inviting all my friends over to meet Cara and Amanda. They're lesbians. And then I'm going to turn on Christiana Amanpour and wear my Berkeley sweatshirt, and boom, I'm fucking Alinalda. What can I expect in this house? Don't question my purple cred.

Kara Swisher: Is this a nice house? Do I need to bring my own sheets? What's happening?

Scott Galloway: Nice house. Yeah, I got a beer fridge.

Kara Swisher: Right, okay.

Scott Galloway: I got like a big, fat, flat screen TV. I got video games.

Kara Swisher: Good. Okay.

Scott Galloway: You have a basketball court, I understand. It's a total man cave and a basketball hoop. Alex is going to dunk on you. He's very excited.

Kara Swisher: Well, that's what his mother does every week. Boom! He's really good at it, actually. He's really, really good at it. So this is going to be really fun. We're going to take pictures. Then we're going down to Miami. I'm still trying to schedule our meeting with the mayor because you keep saying you can't do things. So the mayor of Miami is going to meet us. We're going to visit all kinds of things.

Scott Galloway: What? Mayor Suarez. He was already a vice presidential contender, right? He is. He was meeting with Nikki Haley. He's a very handsome man.

Kara Swisher: And so we're going to meet with him. He is handsome. And we're going to go see some venues. We're coming to Miami. We're coming to Miami.

Scott Galloway: Miami's coming to us, let's be honest.

Kara Swisher: That is fair. That is fair. Miami Beach. This is very exciting. We're going to take pictures everywhere. I'm very excited. Our spouses are going to be horrified with us.

Scott Galloway: Well, that's called a weekday. What do you mean?

Kara Swisher: We'll make it all about us, our whole thing, okay? Gonna be.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it's going to be fun. We're going to have a good time in Miami.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, I'm not bringing a bikini. I don't wear bikinis. That happened.

Scott Galloway: Oh, I got a banana hammock. I got a Speedo.

Kara Swisher: No, no. N to the O.

Scott Galloway: I got a little kilt for Big Ed and the Twins called a Speedo. That's right. I like to scare people off the beach.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. I'm going to be wearing sunscreen. That's all I have to say. Anyway, we got to get to what we're doing. This is going to be really fun. We're going to do our whole episode on Monday about our adventures. Sorry, we're very excited. Very excited.

Scott Galloway: All right. Me too. I'm kind of excited. I'm really excited. It's going to be great.

Kara Swisher: All right, listen, it's been a year since we've seen each other, really.

Scott Galloway: It has been a year.

Kara Swisher: So a couple of stories we have to talk about bantering. That must have been rough on you.

Scott Galloway: Rough on you. No, it hasn't been. That's rough. So listen, Lena Kahn.

Kara Swisher: I'm a hugger. I'm a hugger. Don't hug me. Don't even try.

Scott Galloway: I'm a hugger. Lena Kahn has been in her confirmation hearings to join the Federal Trade Commission. She was real tough. She still stays tough on the tech. She's been a progressive big tech antitrust hero since her Yale Law School paper, Amazon's Antitrust Paradox. And now she's in line to be one of the FTC commissioners, Democratic commissioners. Pretty cool.

Kara Swisher: I think this is super exciting. I think her and Professor Wu are just sort of, you know, Batman and Robin.

Scott Galloway: And, you know, I'll say she's Batman so I don't get hate mail on Twitter. But look, I think they're both incredibly thoughtful, smart, and they're reasonable, right? I think they recognize that good antitrust is about creating stakeholder value. It's not seen through the lens of punishment. I think they're both capitalists. But we are blown by any reasonable standards for antitrust.

Kara Swisher: Agreed. And it's happening. I mean, I read somewhere that Google has a couple dozen suits already against them.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: So I'm very excited. And not only that, I've gotten to know Lena and Tim a little bit. And they're both just incredibly impressive people.

Scott Galloway: If you thought, all right, I want, you know, we talk a big game here.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And I get angry at these guys. They know what they're talking about. We don't know what we're talking about compared to them. But what you want is elegant antitrust oxygenates the economy. It's not a punishment. It liberates shareholder value. And I think both of these folks get that.

Kara Swisher: I've been having a lot of meetings with lawyers, like on both sides of this thing. There's others that have arguments against what Lena and Tim have been talking about. And so it's going to be an interesting time. I think they're all excited. I think all the antitrust lawyers seem excited to talk about it and what should happen. And there's others that don't think there needs to be anything done in here in that regard, that that market will take care of itself. And so it's a really interesting time. And, you know, Senator Klobuchar, who may come on the show, which will be really fun, has her book out on it. It's a big topic. It's a big topic.

Scott Galloway: Well, for the first time in history, both epidemiologists and antitrust lawyers think people are actually interested in us.

Kara Swisher: They are. People actually want to talk to us. I know. That's true. I know. It's true. For the first time, our mom seems interested in what we actually do.

Scott Galloway: I love a good epidemiologist.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, what else is the news? By the way, applications to masters and for schools of epidemiology, the Fauci effect, they're up like 171%. In fact, I had interviewed the head of the T.H. Chan School of First Way, Michelle Williams, Dr. Michelle, who's really impressive. And she said they were up 177%.

Scott Galloway: You're kidding me.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: Wow.

Kara Swisher: I know. Wow, got it. She's amazing.

Scott Galloway: Wow, that's crazy.

Kara Swisher: She's an amazing figure. Anyway.

Scott Galloway: She was married to Heath Ledger, right? That Michelle Williams?

Kara Swisher: No. That one? No. I love it. She's a great actress. I can't name a single film she's been in, but I'm supposed to think she's a great actress. No. She's got in that sort of like sun dance. Well, again, always makes the joke that everybody thinks she's Michelle Williams.

Scott Galloway: Really?

Kara Swisher: Which is really funny. Obviously, the biggest story this week is Derek Chauvin found guilty on all counts for the murder of George Floyd last summer. Good news, I think, for anyone who believes in justice. And bad news for apparently Tucker Carlson and some others. But it was a relief, I think.

Scott Galloway: Tucker Carlson didn't think he was guilty? They just are going off on it. And today, Alan Dershowitz was another about how he should stay out of jail while he appeals, this and that. And so, you know, they sort of looked at it as a negative, I would say. So, but, you know.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, look, there's a lot here and it's, it does, I mean, I was relieved. I don't know about you. I was relieved. I thought, Jesus, this is like, if they get this one wrong.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: But I've been thinking a lot about organizations and systems. And a lot of this really reflects, I think a lot of the things that have blown up into scandals reflect a failure of organizations and systems. And that is police receive four hours of what's called, I think, nonviolent or de-escalation training. And when you're a police officer, I do think we lack an appreciation for your fight or flight or your Amangala response that takes over in situations. That is not the case here. I think he had, obviously, a lot of time to think about what he was doing. But I think a lot of situations require a lot more training. And also, I'm a big fan. Everyone talks about strategic hires. I think that government and small businesses, and people don't like to talk about this because it's not aspirational. And the more progressive you are, you tend to think it's the system's fault, not the individual's fault. I'm a big fan of strategic firing. Mr. Chauvin had 18 complaints against him and two involved some sort of, I believe, violence. And the reality is he should have just never been on the police force. And I think we keep finding reasons not to fire people because of legal liability or this notion that they need to be retrained or whatever. I'm a big fan that you're not – I believe you're not doing anyone a favor keeping them in a job they're never going to be successful at.

Kara Swisher: Well, you know, the Biden administration is doing a lot of investigating. Obviously, Merrick Garland announced investigations in the Minneapolis Police Department. I mean, a lot of these, I think, I've been listening to a lot of police officers. Val Demings has talked about this, like what goes into the training. And I think that's, it's going to be on the front burner for a long time. And it should be that these issues. I think the thing that was, I think I saw over Twitter was that it's depressing that we were worried if he was going to be found guilty. It was really strange to think, oh, my gosh, there's a possibility that he might not. That was, I think, the takeaway I had from that. And obviously the shooting right afterwards of a young woman after that was looked like another. Not this not in the same situation, but nonetheless, it was another. Why do people get why is shooting the place it goes immediately?

Scott Galloway: And I know even more than that, I'm sorry to interrupt you. The thing that always shocks me is it's never one shot. It's it's in Michigan. I think it was seven shots.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And I think it goes to the notion that when that flight or fight incident kicks in, it is very hard. It's just incredibly hard to make rational decisions.

Kara Swisher: Well, no excuse. They're here to serve the people, not themselves.

Scott Galloway: I'm not defending it. I'm saying that that's my point is when you hear about these things, it's like, okay, if you shoot someone once in the back, you'd think just rationally. That's probably going to disable them or take the threat level down substantially. And what you see a lot of times is they didn't shoot them once. They shot them seven times. And it's just, there really needs to be a great, I think, a great deal more training about how to modulate and counter your fight or flight instincts that take over here. Because I don't believe these are all bad, violent people that have a badge. And when they shoot someone seven times, you think, okay, something. Look, I think that at a minimum, we need to absolutely revisit. that there's some great police forces that do a fantastic job of training people that your job is to de-escalate full stop. And a lot of police forces get a total of police officers get a total of four hours of training around something loosely related to de-escalation. Anyways, I feel much better. I'm relieved that this individual is going to be put in prison for the crime he committed.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, we'll see where it goes and if there's any appeals. But at least for a momentary relief. And there's a lot of investigations going on in these various shootings, which are, I'm just reading a clip from the Cleveland paper about the shooting in Columbus. And it was, it just is sort of like, from a few few days with people on either side of him, the officer fires four shots and the teen slumps the ground. A black handle blade similar to a kitchen knife or a steak knife lies in the sidewalk next to her. The man immediately yells at the officer, you didn't have to shoot her, she's just a kid man. The officer responds, she had a knife, she went after her. It just, there's got to be better.

Scott Galloway: Well, okay, but to be fair, and it sounds like you know more about that situation than I do, some of the pictures I've seen of that show someone stabbing another teen.

Kara Swisher: Yes, I get it. I get it. It's talking about how to handle these things.

Scott Galloway: There was also a picture of a white guy hanging off, pulling an officer off a truck. He didn't get shot. I'm just saying.

Kara Swisher: That's a fair point.

Scott Galloway: They seem to be able to de-escalate when it's white people. So, anyway, I've seen lots of photos like that. That's a very good point.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, we're not experts on this area, but Derek Chauvin, I hope you rot in prison. That's how I feel about that. Let's talk about Apple's biggest push into the podcast space yet, and most importantly, what that means for us, of course. This is our big story breakdown. This week, Apple announced a lot of stuff, including a purple iPhone, which I'm going to get immediately. But major change is coming up in his podcast app, including more discovery options, better layouts for publishers, space for more content. They'll offer premium subscriptions. Podcast publishers like Pushkin and Radiotopia, they're taking a vig again. I think it's 30%. Apple first launched Apple Podcasts in 2006. There was big news around Facebook Audio earlier this week, which we talked about on Monday's episode with his interview with Casey Newton and the announcements they made. So what is happening here? What do we imagine is occurring? You have Spotify in this space, you have Facebook saying they're coming into it in a significant way, and others. The New York Times is doing it. I think Vox is trying to sort of coalesce around certain people with the pre-acquisition. What is happening here from your perspective, and what's the difference between a subscription and sort of these free ad-based ones?

Scott Galloway: Well, we talked about it. I mean, it's a collision of a few things. One, if you own the rails, you let kind of everyone have playtime and come up with their own media. And then if you control the rails, you can begin inserting yourself in between folks and starting the margin. And I think Apple sees okay this arbitrage around MPS where people feel more loyal towards the host organization when they consume media as opposed to consuming you know an iPhone or e or what have you And so they see the same arbitrage and opportunity to go vertical And they can I mean Apple with a mediocre Apple can do for the morning show. The morning show, had it been on Hulu, would have gone absolutely nowhere. But because it was on Apple and they could put it in front of everybody, what was it, The Bird Box, that ridiculous film with Sandra Bullock?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that was Netflix.

Scott Galloway: You had to watch it because Netflix decided you were going to watch it because they have so much interface. And Apple will probably, my guess is, within two to three years, have three or four of the top ten podcasts. Because they'll be able to take good and make it great in terms of downloads by ensuring that it just pops up everywhere.

Kara Swisher: Right.

Scott Galloway: And so they're moving in, and they're going to take control of that. It'll be an interesting exhibit for their antitrust case. The app store needs to be regulated. I don't think they should be broken up, but they charge an incredible tax.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's a tax. To these guys. But the podcasting, it's a really interesting space right now. I think it's probably – I think Vox either goes – either SPACs in 12 months or less or gets acquired because, to Jim and Marty's credit, they invested early and it hasn't been easy and often in podcasting. You were sort of early here. You deserve something big.

Scott Galloway: Yes, I was. You deserve the big piece of chicken or something.

Kara Swisher: I was here seven years ago. You were early to podcasting. But here's the thing. Podcasts, you know, have mostly been free until now with us relying on ad revenue that we read. We enjoy doing it and other, you know, like an event that we might do. So this idea of, you know, you think of Substack with the, you know, Substack could get into podcasts, for example. There are, you know, more opportunities for creators to make money. And so this is subscriptions, podcast subscriptions. Why not do that? And obviously, Luminary is one of these companies. But so they can participate in this Apple podcasting program to do this. What do you imagine? Because there's also people, there's Patreon for some podcasts. There's YouTube channel memberships. There's all kinds of things. What do you, how does it shake out? Is it move into sort of that sub-Stackian model? And that's now a word, apparently, that I just made up. Or does it stay, you know, does it stay in this sort of advertising space? Because, you know, Spotify is a subscription, right? You have to have that, and then you get to use their exclusive podcast. Will Apple have to buy content, real content? Well, Apple usually is not acquisitive. But, look, the most secretive move in business history is this move from transactional to subscription. And consumers, Marc Andreessen had a really thoughtful comment. He said that one of their biggest mistakes with Netscape was they didn't build micropayments into the browser. And if you look at how much traditional content that's ad-supported is able to monetize your viewership. So if you watch an hour of Fareed Zakaria, which, by the way, is like, you know, butter on toast. Butter on toast was amazing. It's just an amazing hour. But Fareed is, you know, unfortunately, Fareed is surrounded with all this bullshit convincing you of how much it sucks to get old, telling you you're an opioid-induced constipation.

Scott Galloway: I was working on an Apple show, just so you know. But go ahead.

Kara Swisher: But do you know what they get for that? They get a total, for pelting you with, gosh, 19 minutes of ads, they get 49 cents. And so if you could easily, it's not the 49 cents that gets in the way. It's the technology and the friction around payments. If you could just blink your eyes or click a button and you would automatically be charged 49 cents or your browser had super easy ability to create micropayments, we would have.

Scott Galloway: I agree.

Kara Swisher: The move to subscription or just pay, you know, just micro, micro payments would be substantial because here's the here's the dirty secret about the brand industrial complex. It's a shitty trade for you.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it's a shitty trade.

Kara Swisher: If you if you only let your kids watch Netflix and don't let them watch ad supported television, they say between something like nine to 13 days a year just in commercials. And you think, OK, that's probably worth 150 bucks a year. So there is no, I think the future for ad-supported TV is really, it's just the sun has passed midday on that play. And there will be a bifurcation. There will still be a large percentage of the population that watches Fox, that has an Android phone and uses a Discover card that doesn't want to pay and is willing, you know, their time is less valuable. They have more time than money. And they would rather just see ads and get it for free. And there will always be a big audience for that. But the audience is smaller. The revenue stream is a lot smaller than it is right now. We're seeing the cable bundle disarticulate. It's happening everywhere. It'll be interesting to see what Apple does because, you know, Spotify owns Anchor FM, which is an app that lets you create and distribute your own podcast. Obviously, Spotify has a bunch of tools for people to do it. You also stay – they've paid certain people to stay within, like Joe Rogan and others within the system, although he's also outside the system. But they've had others. They have Gimlet and things like that. So it's kind of interesting to see all these various and different sundry business models sort of running around to figure out what would be right. But Apple is the biggest player in this space. If you're on the Apple podcast lists, you do really well at the top. That's where we look, right? We don't look at the Android list. We don't look at this and that. And so I think advertisers look at them. And so it's going to be interesting to see whether it does become this subscription-based thing where you are part of a team. You're going to buy the New York Times podcast. You're going to buy the set from Amazon or whatever. But it's certainly still – the jury is out. But with Apple in here doing this, it's both problematic for Apple and also interesting for creators, for sure.

Scott Galloway: The thing, the moat here is that Spotify has done an amazing job. I mean, if you think about it, I just think it's remarkable what Spotify has been able to do. They've been able to distill an entire medium down to one app, one button, and organize it all. Podcasts, songs, Tom Petty, George Michael, it's all in one place. And no other, you know, what app has brought all television together? What app has brought all news and stories together from, you know, respect it out? No one has been able to do it with Spotify. So Spotify is a pretty, you know, they have some pretty powerful modes. But I would bet. This is tough on them. You know who Apple's, you know who Apple, I think Apple's first big move and the most underpenetrated or the biggest opportunity is in news and business news. I think somebody is going to come up with competitors to, one, the daily. I think Apple's going to come up with something that looks like the daily.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And two, CNBC is the ripest kind of old white guy, head up their ass, Joe Kiernan Media Company. in the world.

Kara Swisher: Hey, everybody, don't take the pandemic seriously. You're overreacting. Go ahead. Keep going.

Scott Galloway: No, I'm telling you, at some point, Andrew Ross Sorkin is going to say, okay, I'm sick of the dumb fucking senior home here. I'm leaving the village of stupid and letting the old angry white guys from New Jersey spread misinformation disguised as market information. And he's going to be the anchor of a new business network that is actually Anyways, I think CNBC, I think there are a few media companies more ripe for disruption that have kind of sort of early stage prostate cancer mentality than CNBC.

Kara Swisher: I get your message. It is interesting. You're right. There's an interesting story here from Android Central. I don't read it often, but it said Spotify owns Anchor FM. Anchor FM launched a phone-based app that lets anyone easily create and distribute their own podcast, but also includes analytics, performance tools, monetization options. like ability to earn ad revenue with no minimal listenership, the ability to do your own ad reads, even ability to raise funds directly from listeners. In addition to Patreon, these tools and services are what Apple's podcast subscriptions are in direct competition with. So once again, Spotify finds itself in the crosshairs and in competition with Apple, which is, I think, interesting.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, Apple's got to be really careful, though. These guys all have to, it's interesting, and this is why, you know, the innovator's dilemma, almost everything Apple, Google do right now is to say, okay, what is Lena Kahn and Tomb Will going to do with this move?

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: Are they going to use this as Exhibit H? Whereas Facebook clearly, I think Mark Zuckerberg has told his team, don't worry about anything. Someone says, someone says as a joke, hey, why no, let's release Instagram for kids. And everyone laughs because that's such an outrageously stupid thing. He's like, good idea. Let's go for it. And so you realize that every parent in America is going to freak out and call their representative. He's like, I don't care. Is there an extra dime for daddy in it? Yeah. Whereas I think Google and Apple and Amazon are like, okay, do we really want to poke the bear with a spear here?

Kara Swisher: Here's the irony. Apple was first out of the gate popularizing podcasts. They were.

Scott Galloway: They were.

Kara Swisher: They were the first people. But it hasn't moved in to be sort of the monetization engine. You know more about this space than I think almost anyone on this podcast.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, definitely.

Kara Swisher: What do you see? Who do you think are the players here? I'm always fascinated with Apple because they were the first to do this, right? They're the first to popularize it, and they're the first to really make the podcast the thing. I mean, that's where it happened, really. And so who gets to monetize it and how it gets to monetize? I don't know. Like, we think about this. Should we have a subscription or should it be free or should it be a hybrid model? I don't think I have an answer yet because once you get into a gated community where only the people that subscribe get it, what do you offer them? Like, interestingly, Casey, I was talking to Casey Newton, who does the platformers on Substack, which he's getting pretty big. A bunch of them got together, not just Substack people, people on Medium in the sort of the same generalized tech area. And they created something on Discord called Side Channel, which is in order to keep subscriptions going, they have to offer them something else. So when you're in a subscription model, you have to keep upping the game just like Amazon did with Amazon Prime. And so they have this Side Channel thing, and their first guest was Mark Zuckerberg, so that was great for subscriptions. And they've seen subscriptions go up, each of these various members of this collective, on Discord. That's where they located because they didn't want to – because it was free. They didn't do it anywhere else, which was interesting. They could have done it on Facebook. They could have done it all kinds of places. And so, or Clubhouse, there's all kinds of ways they could do it. But it's an interesting time. It's a very creative and interesting time. And I have to sit and think about it. In fact, perhaps we'll do that by the ocean together. We'll sit and contemplate business models.

Scott Galloway: Holding hands.

Kara Swisher: Holding hands.

Scott Galloway: All right. As you spread La Roche-Bosay on the smile of my back.

Kara Swisher: I shall not do that.

Scott Galloway: On my tramp stamp.

Kara Swisher: That shall not be.

Scott Galloway: Do you have a tramp stamp? I'll find out.

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott. Quick time for a quick break.

Scott Galloway: Wouldn't you like to know?

Kara Swisher: No, I wouldn't, actually. You and the 45 other Swishers you're bringing with you. I mean, literally, there are nine Swishers showing up. Where's Dr. Swisher? Why isn't he rolling?

Scott Galloway: Oh, you know what? He should. Why isn't he rolling? I'd love to meet Jeffrey.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, he's a good Swisher.

Scott Galloway: Oh, I haven't met Dr. Swisher.

Kara Swisher: Yes, you haven't met him, but he'll roll in. Don't worry. They're all coming. They'll all show up. We're a gang is what we are.

Scott Galloway: God knows he rolls into our Twitter feed a lot.

Kara Swisher: I know he does. I think he is so, he is clearly, he got out to an early start. Mom, I'm going to be a doctor. And then you have jumped out ahead of him. And he's like, hey, love me, mom. Love me. That guy totally hijacks our Twitter feed. I need your reaction to my mother when you see her.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, Scott, it's time for a quick break. We'll be back. We'll talk about Netflix earnings report. Not good. And a listener mail question.

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Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, we're back. Netflix released its quarterly earnings report, and it was not pretty. The company saw a huge slowdown in their subscriber numbers. Probably not a surprise since they had a huge upsurge. They added about 3 million versus 6 million they had expected. Shares for the company fell 11% following the news. In a shareholder letter, the company said, "We believe paid membership growth slowed due to the big COVID-19 pull forward in 2020 and a light content slate in the first half of this year due to the COVID-19 production delays." Well, even though they pumped out more content than anyone else, really. Flashback to this time last year when Netflix was having its biggest quarter ever. Here's what we said back then.

[Audio clip plays from a previous episode]

Kara Swisher: I gotta say, Reed Hastings is flawless as far as I can tell in everything. So including his weird little bedroom. So tell me what you think of this and what do you think is gonna happen?

Scott Galloway: Well, it's not surprising, right? But it's okay. So Netflix, I believe, is up 28% year over year. So they're obviously accelerating through the crisis. What do they do? This is a company now worth more than Disney. What they do is they either buy Spotify or they start making these massive, super interesting investments, as they did in Madrid, where they have hired 10,000 creatives, and they're creating content that can be morphed into German and Norwegian and Ukrainian content really easily. They just slip in into the same sets with the same scripts, different, you know, the hot star from Kiev, and they make a Ukrainian version. They're the only company other than Amazon.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, they're the Amazon of entertainment. That's what I was just thinking.

Scott Galloway: 100%, because by virtue of the fact that they're, as long as they manage that incredible story they have in concert with this, that's the peanut butter, the chocolate is access to the cheapest capital and the history of entertainment. And they can keep making these forward-leaning investments. And then the wind of corona will eventually subside and people will hopefully be spending less time in their homes, but they're still going to spend more time in their homes than they did pre-corona. And you have one company that is just going out and absolutely making such incredible investments. And they're making, if you're making triple the capex of anybody else and you're just as good or better, which Netflix is, you kind of can't compete.

Kara Swisher: So I thought they were very good. I still think they're very good. But people think some analysts thought that future growth prospects were problematic. Once COVID ended, when people were not inside, they got an enormous boost from COVID. And they, of course, have spent a lot of money. They're ahead of people. They also got an enormous amount of competition from HBO, from Disney, from all over the place. BritBox. I was just watching BritBox the other night because I wanted to see something. So what happens here? They sort of have been lapping all the other competition, and now the other competition has met them. And they benefited from COVID, which is people are now going out, and they're not watching as much, and they didn't have enough content. That was like – did you see the movie Defending Your Life? I feel like we're in heaven looking at ourselves. I'm Albert Brooks. You're Glenn Close.

Scott Galloway: No, I'm Meryl Streep.

Kara Swisher: I'm sorry, Meryl Streep.

Scott Galloway: Same, same. Tomato, tomato. Both amazing actresses.

Kara Swisher: True. Look, the thing that's catching up, I think, to Netflix is that the novel coronavirus has slowed production. And the reason why, I think the most interesting thing here is Disney's progress against Netflix. I think Netflix has almost a quarter of a billion subscribers, but Disney has breached 100 million.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. And what Disney has that plays to their advantage in an era, a crisis where production is slowed, if not halted, is they just have the biggest bank of content.

Kara Swisher: Peacock? Let's not leave out Peacock. It's not doing badly. Friends and Star Trek.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. I mean, they do have a lot. I just – nothing matches the franchise value of Star Wars or of Marvel or of the animation or the kids. So it strikes me that more than – so the novel coronavirus has been a fantastic win in the sales of all streaming. But it's been especially – but the catamaran here, if you will, are the one that's just able to leap out ahead relative to the rest. A little bit of a sailing metaphor from the dog.

Kara Swisher: A little nautical dog. We're not going sailing. Go ahead.

Scott Galloway: is Disney because they, if it's about capital and new production, Netflix wins because they have access to the cheaper capital. But if it's about a base of content that you have to draw on because production has been slowed, then Disney makes more progress than it's any of them. And if you look at what's happened over the last 12 months, I mean, Disney has basically gone from zero to 60 in like two seconds.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah, and they had a lot to. You said this before. You don't want to bet against Reed Hastings and Netflix. I never do. Here's an interesting quote from this guy, Nat Chandler from Bank of America. He said, "People aren't talking about the fact that they beat revenue. People aren't talking about the fact that they crushed EPS estimates. People are talking about the fact they missed net subscriber additions in the quarter over last quarter. Not year-over-year growth, not even total subscribers. It was just off by less than 1%. So this is really a tertiary metric. It's extremely volatile. It's extremely difficult to predict what's going to be in the given quarter. I look at this as a buying opportunity because if you look at what happened in the past and the times Netflix has missed in the past, that's on this really hard to predict number, the stock has rebounded immensely." That's a fair point. Like they really have, I would say against those previous times, they didn't have competitors. And so when you have a thing, COVID ending, some are happening, you know, they don't have quite enough content and everyone else has some really good content. I mean, I've noticed what I've been watching and it's not only on Netflix and it used to be only on Netflix. And I love Netflix. Let me just underscore. I think they've ran circles around all these companies. But they've gotten their tricks. They've figured out their tricks, I think. And that's really going to be hard, especially as streaming wars heat up overseas. And that they can't, that they are competing for talent in a way they weren't before. So those are all, it needs, you know, they had Bridgerton. and so now it needs what else? They need to keep feeding the beast of consumers' expectations, I think.

Scott Galloway: There was, I mean, Netflix really benefited from the fact that they effectively had no competition. I mean, Amazon Prime came in, but I think relative to the amount of capital they spent, I would argue that Amazon was spending $350 million for every Emmy to like HBO 60. I mean, they just didn't have the culture were punching out creativity at the same efficiency as everybody else. HBO kind of was caught a little bit flat-footed.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And Netflix came in and, you know, arguably, given how much they grew the space, didn't have a lot of competition. And then competition exploded three years ago with all these people trying to – coming in with kind of half-baked efforts to protect their legacy assets that didn't threaten their legacy assets. And then all of a sudden, AT&T got very serious when they took their franchises direct to HBO Max. And Disney has absolutely come in like a house on fire.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, great move by Bob Iger.

Scott Galloway: But I think the thing you take away when I talk to companies from subscription is everyone says, okay, it's a better economic model. But it's more than that. And that is when you go to subscription, when you're in a transactional model, all you're focused on is how do I get the next consumer in the door tomorrow? And your best and brightest are focused on creating more traffic. Whereas when you enter into this what I call long-term monogamous relationship, you're really focused on the relationship and pulsing value to the end consumer. And you just end up with a more product, consumer-focused organization. And you end up, I mean, when you think about it, Netflix and HBO, they just have better content. And there's no logical reason why they should have better content than ad-supported media, except ad-supported media takes its best and brightest and sends them to Procter & Gamble to talk about new ad packages and doing whatever they can in the short term to juice viewership the next week.

Kara Swisher: Yep. They're just not as creative. They're not as creative. And they can't invest it long term. They can't say, okay, this show needs time to marinate. Or this show is about not a huge audience. It's about extreme quality because that pulses value to a smaller segment. Well, Harry and Meghan to the rescue. They have their first series on Netflix, just so you know.

Scott Galloway: I think one of the things, there was a really interesting article in CNN.

Kara Swisher: Harry and Meghan? Oh, that's right. They did a deal with Netflix.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, they did a deal with Netflix. They did a lot of- You know what her greatest accomplishment to date is?

Kara Swisher: What?

Scott Galloway: She has accomplished what every spouse wants to accomplish, and that is she has convinced her spouse that their family are total assholes. I think that's a huge accomplishment. That's what we all try to do. We all try to convince our spouse, hey, your family, let's be honest, they're total assholes. She's done that. She's convinced him.

Kara Swisher: Well, we'll see how long that lasts.

Scott Galloway: She's convinced him. We'll see. We'll see.

Kara Swisher: And one of the things that the CNN story is like, Disney, I don't want to go into Meghan territory. Disney has-

Scott Galloway: Oh my God. These 98-year-old white people are racist. That's a shocker.

Kara Swisher: That's a shocker. The queen looks so sad at the funeral, though.

Scott Galloway: That's a shocker. I like that queen. I don't know why.

Kara Swisher: Anyway. We've matched on Tinder. You heard.

Scott Galloway: You heard. I know. That's right. That's right. The dog's taking her red onion. Two for one Long Island iced teas on Fridays. Will she be in Florida with us? Exciting. That'll be great.

Kara Swisher: I wouldn't be surprised. She could play basketball with Alex.

Scott Galloway: I wouldn't be surprised. That would be great. Listen, Disney has other businesses. This is a point that was made in the CNN story. Theme parks, Baby Yoda dolls, et cetera, ESPN. Comcast has obvious. Amazon obviously has all the toilet paper it sells. Warner has its other businesses. Netflix only has its Netflix. And so that's one of the problems is can it get into other businesses? Like they were suggesting ad-supported Netflix possibly or other things they could buy. You had talked again in that quote about buying Spotify and whatever. And so you wonder what other businesses it's going to get into, what other to support itself. They need a dumb hardware device. They've got to go vertical. Netflix, it's very hard, and this is Disney's Achilles heel. It's very hard to get past a quarter of a trillion dollars without investing in and owning the rails because at some point Apple can come in and start. I mean, it's just amazing. If you look at Apple across – do you realize Apple gets somewhere between 3% and 12% of the top line revenue of every streaming service? They really are the toll keeper.

Kara Swisher: They are the toll keeper.

Scott Galloway: Because if you want access to their app store, which you have to have, you've got to pay the tax. And so Netflix at the end of the day and Disney to a lesser extent, because I guess they have some vertical with ABC, but I got to think these guys are going to get into some sort of dumb device. And that's why Roku is so powerful. And this goes. You keep pushing the Roku thing. You're right. I think you're right. Roku is the most innovative company that gets the least amount of press.

Kara Swisher: Although here's a quote from Reed Hastings. They were talking about, asked about Netflix's second act during the company's post-earnings call on Tuesday. Hastings again placed the company's focus on pleasing subscribers. "We do want to expand. And we used to do that shipping DVDs. And luckily, we didn't get stuck with that. We didn't define that as the main thing. We defined entertainment as the main thing." So he's sticking with his plan. I think I would never count out Reed Hastings ever. Not once. I think he's brilliant.

Scott Galloway: Oh, that guy's a genius. Brilliant. That guy's a genius.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, let's listen. We'll see what happens. But definitely, this has happened before to them. And we'll see how they cope. But it's a harder time. I feel bad that I was so mean to see. I love Carl Quintanilla. I think he's wonderful.

Scott Galloway: Quintanilla?

Kara Swisher: Quintanilla, yeah. I think he's wonderful. He seems like a real gentleman.

Scott Galloway: He's a sweetheart.

Kara Swisher: He's a sweetheart. Yeah. All right. I feel bad that I was so harsh. You're like nobody there but Carl. I had Jacqueline Novogratz on my other podcast, Prof G. And after the podcast, she literally said to me in a very sincere way, she goes, "Are you all right?" And I realized, like, she's like, "Do you need –" and she asked me this sincerely.

Scott Galloway: What?

Kara Swisher: She asked me this sincerely. Jacqueline's an interesting person. She said to me, she said, "Do you need a hug?" And I thought that was so nice. And she said it in such a thoughtful, earnest way.

Scott Galloway: Oh, no.

Kara Swisher: And anyways, now I'm all of a sudden looking back on my life that was the first half of this podcast. It was too harsh. It was too mean. It was too mean. You're not getting a hug from me, just so you know.

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, let's move on to listener mail. Roll the tape. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail.

[Listener mail audio clip plays]

Bridget McGraw: Hey, Scott and Kara, Bridget McGraw here from Oakland, California. Love you both. I'd like to marry you both, but I don't think my wife would appreciate that. Her work husband wouldn't either. Anyway, my question is, why on earth nobody is talking about the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies? They are created by computers crunching numbers. I'd love to know what you guys think. Thanks.

Kara Swisher: They'd like to marry us. She'd like to marry us?

Scott Galloway: There you go. Yeah. I say we date first.

Kara Swisher: I know. By the way, if you show up with her, I wouldn't even notice. You could literally show up with Prince Andrew and say, "Oh, it's my older son." And I wouldn't know. There are so many strangers showing up in my house this afternoon. All right. Listen to me. I know you're getting triggered here. Jesus Christ. I have talked. Thank you for your great question, Bridget. I do talk about the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies. Actually, when I interviewed Beeple, we talked about it at length. And a lot of these kind, I think, have written about it. and I think we've talked about it here, is that there's an enormous environmental impact. There's all kinds of movements to change the way Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are mined in order to be less problematic on the energy grid. A lot of the mining is done in China, which is not under everybody's control, but there are all kinds of movements of creators and those involved in it to want to make it more environmentally better, I guess. And so they're changing it. There's a thing called point of work and point of whatever. There's all kinds of ways they're thinking about doing it to make it more efficient from an energy point of view. But right now, yes, it's a real drag on energy grids. Scott?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, this is like everything involving crypto. It's a religious war. And on one side of the war you have, okay, so crypto is now consuming more electricity than Argentina. And it really is an issue. The power consumption here and then subsequent carbon footprint is a real issue. Now, on the other side of the argument is 75% of mining takes place or is geographically located close to alternative energy sources. And that a lot of people feel that crypto in fact might subsidize the development of alternative energy sources because a lot of crypto mining is locating near hydro facilities and thereby creating more revenue streams for alternative energy thereby if you will subsidizing it or creating more demand for alternative energy So there's two different ways to look at this. You could argue that crypto is only expediting what is perhaps the crisis of our lifetime, which is climate. And then other people say, no, crypto is actually expediting the move towards alternatives. It's just, it's what side of the argument on. I don't have a viewpoint. I don't have enough domain expertise to take one side or the other. But like everything crypto, it's very, I find it's hard to get your arms around to say, okay. Anyways, I find this stuff, it's fascinating, but the amount of energy and not only that, the amount of energy consumption is only going to go up. So, it'll be fascinating to see. But the primary input or cost for miners is energy.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, but there are efforts to do cryptocurrency more sustainably. And they're addressing it immediately, actually, compared. Look, it takes a lot of energy to make a dollar. It takes a lot of energy to make coins. Is that right?

Scott Galloway: That's a fascinating stat.

Kara Swisher: What? What? That it takes a lot of energy to make a dollar. Anything you're going to use for anything creates energy. But it always causes energy to make dollars, to make coins, to make all kinds of things has an impact on the world. We just don't talk about it. But I think people are talking about this quite a bit in the cryptocurrency space. I don't have a conversation with cryptocurrency people of any repute that don't care about this issue. And especially creators and others are worried about this and buying carbon footprints, buying carbon whatever offsets and this and that they're doing. And so I think it's good. I think Scott is right here. It's going to be possibly a change agent in a good way rather than let's just make a big old carbon mess here. And, you know, look, there's a question. Is it a reason not to invest in crypto? You shouldn't invest in anything. Like Disney parks use a lot of energy. So does like if you start to really think about the carbon footprint we all have. Breathing is a carbon problem. And so it's an interesting thing. But I do think the industry, as it becomes more in the mainstream, is going to deal with it in a way that's – and they're already doing all kinds of stuff around how they – all the proofs happen. Again, I'm not an expert, but I certainly have heard about it extensively.

Scott Galloway: I've been thinking a lot about crypto, and I think the discussion around the environment, and it's a worthwhile discussion, but I think it actually benefits crypto because I think there's a much bigger concern around crypto that doesn't get nearly the attention it should, and that is its threat to the USD as the default currency. People just don't recognize our greatest asset to our greatest, I don't know, our biggest arrow, our biggest bazooka for U.S. is that our values, I would argue, wrapped in the steel hand of incredible ability to deploy force and violence across the world, 138 bases overseas, aircraft carrier squadrons that can deliver unbelievable force. A close number two is the US dollar as the default currency. 60% of foreign exchanges held overseas are held in dollars. And that usually means it runs through a US bank, which means we have transparency and influence over almost every organization in the world that wants to participate in the global economy. And the reason that China's all of a sudden jonesing to create their own crypto, the reason India is playing the reluctant bride and might step in and support one crypto over another. If the USD goes from 60% to 40% to 30%, that's almost the equivalent of taking out several aircraft carrier squadron in terms of our foreign influence. And no one's really talking about that. And my fear, my real fear here is that if you think about our lawmakers and our regulators, they used to be kind of citizens that came from industry. So they came from the oil industry because there were a lot of people in energy. They came from consumer products and they sort of understood the externalities of oil or aluminum or financial services. They sort of understood it because a lot of people came from that. The tech industry, the domain expertise, the gap between the actual what's happening in these industries and trying to understand them or domain expertise that leaks into our elected representatives. The delta is so huge that it creates an extraordinary opportunity for delay and obfuscation. And what you end up with is because 8% of our elected officials don't understand technology, technology continues to wreak tremendous damage. And we don't know how to regulate it because all the regulators and elected officials are catching up. That gulf is even wider between cryptocurrency and elected representatives' understanding of crypto. And I worry that similar to just as big tech has run unfettered for way too long. I think it's going to take our elected officials a long time to catch up to the externalities of crypto. I think it's a huge threat.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Yep. And they don't love to talk about it. I can tell you that. I've been trying to get a lot of the more official people to talk about it. And they certainly are going to have to on some level.

Scott Galloway: Well, it's because we're all scared to look like idiots.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. People ask me every day about crypto. I don't think they get it. I think they don't understand it. Do you get it?

Scott Galloway: I don't feel as if I get it.

Kara Swisher: No, I do on a big level, not on a specific. And the impact, I don't, you know, you have Peter Thiel on one side talking about the impact. And you sort of are like, it makes sense. and then there's others who say this and that. Anyway, it's an important time for currency, let's just say.

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

[Break]

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, you already gave us some predictions earlier this week, but it's Friday and we want more. More, we want more.

Scott Galloway: I think Val Demings, Representative Demings, kind of had her moment. I think she'll be the Democratic nominee for governor of Florida, which makes her a vice presidential candidate for the Democratic Party.

Kara Swisher: Explain what she did for the people who didn't.

Scott Galloway: Well, she just – there's these kind of moments of what I'll call brightest indignation when Representative Jordan, who I think is one of the – kind of – he's kind of a representative gaslight. I mean, he takes pride in – look, the defense all of a sudden, Republicans finding an incredible defense and affinity for the good work police do when they commit these sorts of atrocities. And yet they don't seem to empathize with police when they're bludgeoned with fire extinguishers at the behest of a mob encouraged by some representatives in Congress and our president. It's just she pointed out that protecting or endorsing or supporting officers in uniform, which she was for, I think, 24 years. Rings hollow when it's just purely, you know, when it's convenient.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, he's politicizing the police for his own gain. And I think everyone, I think at least here in Florida, a lot of people are seeing that clip. And I think she comes across as very strong. And I thought, you know, that's the person that should represent. That's great about her. I think she's, these issues are really complex. You can have, you know, look, she was a longtime police officer. Really complex. She recognizes the complexity of the job and the abuses and wants to have a real discussion about it versus him who just wants to, you know, they just want to reduce everything to a ridiculous cartoon characters of each other. And she's not having it. You know what I mean? And also, by the way, she has more respect for the people that police serve or supposed to serve than he ever would. And he also doesn't. It's like those people that sort of are like, I'm for the military, never been in the military, and lecture people who've been in the military and also people who have problems with the military. You know, he doesn't want a complex society because then it's hard. Then it gives a hard situation. And so he's just worse than a gaslighter. He's a reductive nincompoop, really. That's what I would say.

Scott Galloway: And I have a couple more. I think that just as WeWork rose from the ashes, you're going to see another brand rise from the ashes, and that is Quibi.

Kara Swisher: Quibi? What?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, Quibi.

Kara Swisher: What?

Scott Galloway: Or at least the content from Quibi.

Kara Swisher: I've heard it's for sale at various places, right? Roku was looking at it. Roku bought it, I think.

Scott Galloway: Bought it, right. And I think they're going to bring a lot of that content in short form, quick bites, back to life. And I think all of a sudden Roku and its vertical content. This is a gangster movie no one's talking about. Roku has the hardware. They have the rails.

Kara Swisher: Own Roku? You love talking about Roku.

Scott Galloway: No, I don't own Roku. I wish I did. It's been one of the best performing stocks of the last decade.

Kara Swisher: You love that Roku.

Scott Galloway: Incredibly bright CEO. He's probably, I mean, he again is kind of what I would call the kind of the mini Reed Hastings. Let's put him on our show. So the air to that kind of strategic blue flame thinking. Can we get him on our show, please? And also one of the early product guys, Steve Shannon, is one of the brightest guys I've ever met. anyway so so anyways bot Quibi is going to make I think Roku going vertical and I don't know if it's branded Quibi but I think there's Quick Bytes in that format and that jump start that it will give Roku around vertical content is really interesting and I think we're going to hear more about that and the other thing we're going to hear more about by the way can I just every idea around Quibi wasn't bad it's easy to make fun of Katzenberg but he is still a great programmer and there's a lot of good stuff on there it's just something was wrong about it but it wasn't some of the content for sure.

Kara Swisher: Content wasn't really the biggest problem there.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it's just that they were trying to charge. You get a dollar for every billion dollars in content from most of the streaming services, and they were trying to charge eight bucks. And shocker, people didn't want to sign up for every billion dollars in content. Anyways, also, I think we're going to have a much broader conversation around the role, whether or not elite universities should in fact be nonprofits. And that is if Harvard is accepting 3.4%, if 54,000 people are applying and they're accepting 1,700 to fill a class of 1,400, so 1,400 people, a Starbucks will serve more people than that in a day. And yet they sit on the GDP of El Salvador. It's like, well, okay, is Harvard really a nonprofit? Is their mission really to do, to make society better? You know, what is exactly the mission of these elite universities other than to make the faculty, the alumni that already have a degree and the leadership there feel like some douchebag who shows up in a Lamborghini with a diamond encrusted Rolex and says, "Look at how blingy and look at how rich and prestigious I am." I think that is really where these universities have gone. They have decided that they're luxury brands, not public servants.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. And I think people are sick of it. I'm going to say, should they be able to buy real estate and then not pay taxes on that real estate when they scrub it? Yeah. Or they make it. And what is the point if a nonprofit is supposed to, at its core, be adding social good? And that clearly isn't at the forefront here. You know how the thing I hate the most, I just hate it.

Scott Galloway: What's the most?

Kara Swisher: There's so many things. When someone says, "Oh, I went to school in Boston," it's like, okay, and what they're really saying is, "I want you to know I went to Harvard" without actually telling you I went to Harvard. It's like that whole thing. "Tell me you're a total douchebag without telling me you're a douchebag." Then just say you went to college in Boston.

Scott Galloway: You hate it. Their messification. And my university is guilty of it, too. We have decided that prestige and exclusivity is the benefit we provide ourselves and other people. You're not a nonprofit. You're Chanel. Okay, fine. There's a market for it, but you got to pay taxes.

So I think there's going to be a bigger conversation around elite universities where you're 77 times more likely to get in if you're in the top 1% of income earning households. There's more people from the top 1% at a third of the top 105 of the Ivy Leagues than the bottom 60%. And we're going to have a more thoughtful conversation around, all right, are they really nonprofits? What is the social good here? I think that's a conversation that's going to go front and center and it's overdue.

Kara Swisher: All right. I like all those. That's a lot of predictions. Those are many predictions, Scott Galloway. Here's what I predict.

Scott Galloway: Yes.

Kara Swisher: We are going to have a great time. We are going to have a great time. I'm making plans for us. Hey, Rick Scott, to some Headed Down. Get ready for Kara Swisher. That's all I got to say. Seriously, it's Prince Andrew and your carry-on luggage. Who else is coming down? Lucky's coming down, your aunt. She's there. My mom lives there for this winter. And then my aunt does too.

Scott Galloway: That's why.

Kara Swisher: I got to see them. That's like 14 people. They might just show up at your house. They might look through your things, rifle through your expensive items, and then leave.

Scott Galloway: That's what we're like.

Kara Swisher: That's the Swisher family. That's how we roll. And I'm coming down, people of Florida. So put your mask up, so mask up is what I got to say to you. I got a little baby.

Scott Galloway: That'll happen. That'll happen.

Kara Swisher: You know what? I'm going to make some noise around that issue. I'm just so excited to go to Florida.

Scott Galloway: I see.

Kara Swisher: And Matt Gaetz, can't wait to see you.

Scott Galloway: Rep Gaetz?

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: He doesn't live in Florida. He lives in the panhandle.

Kara Swisher: That's in Florida. I don't know what that is.

Scott Galloway: You know he's going to be in Miami in some club. He's going to like, we're going to sidle up to him.

Kara Swisher: You think?

Scott Galloway: Yeah. I'm going to give him a big old bear hug when I see him.

Kara Swisher: You pig. Anyway. All right. Don't forget. You're salty today. We're both salty. I'm going to have so much good Florida fun. And anyway, don't forget, if you have a story in the news and want to hear our opinion, submit your questions to nymag.com slash pivot. Scott, read us out.

Scott Galloway: Today's show is produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Ernie Andrew Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or be an Android user. Check us out on Spotify. If you like the show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Kara Swisher: The Swisher Posse. The Swisher Posse, all 73 of them, are coming to hang out with the dog in his pack.

Scott Galloway: Oh, my God. What a thrill.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, there can be only one.

Scott Galloway: Let's see who survives this particular show.