--:-- Kara Swisher: So, your AI agents make the team that uses them more productive, right? But if they aren't connected to other agents, or your data, or your existing workflows, how productive can they really make your teams? Any business can add AI agents. IBM connects your agents across your company to change how you do business. Let's create smarter business. IBM.
--:-- Kara Swisher: AI agents are getting pretty impressive. You might not even realize you're listening to one right now.
--:-- AI Agent Voice: We work 24/7 to resolve customer inquiries. No hold music, no canned answers, no frustration. Visit sierra.ai to learn more.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
--:-- Scott Galloway: And I'm Roaring Kitty.
--:-- Kara Swisher: No, you're not. Stephanie Ruhle is Roaring Kitty. I just called her that. She is such a Roaring Kitty. I was on her show. She's the roaring lioness.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, she's like... I don't know if I'm ever going to talk about this guy except as Roaring Kitty.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I said, well, that's how we talk about you when you're not looking.
--:-- Scott Galloway: She's the panther to your jungle cat.
--:-- Kara Swisher: She's a panther. I would give her panther. What kind of panther? Since I'm jungle cat, what is she? What panther? I don't know. Tree panther? No, it's not. Savannah panther? I don't know. Where panthers hang out? Yeah, I don't know. Rebecca, get on it. We need to do some serious research. The only panther I know is a black panther. I thought, oh, I'm going to trigger someone if I say that.
--:-- Scott Galloway: No, no, no. We'll have to call her panther. She's a panther, though. She could be a jaguar. Jaguar. You know, a jaguar is one of the few species that's ever been proven that when it's being hunted, it will run ahead and then turn around and come back and hunt the hunter.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, well, whatever. Hunt the hunter. Whatever. Jaguar. I'm going with the person with the gun, if that's the case. Anyway, let's get on to banta.
--:-- Scott Galloway: You're betting on the gun. You're going with that whole gun thing.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I'm betting on the gun. I'm always betting on the gun.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Okay, especially in hunting situations.
--:-- Kara Swisher: All right, Public, an app competitor to Robinhood. The thing that Stephanie and I were talking about with the GameStop hearings going on Capitol Hill today, which we'll talk about in a minute. But you are an investor in this company, Public. I'm thinking of having their CEOs on my Sway show because I want to talk about this. They hit 1 million users. Obviously, everyone's signing up. This has happened before. It doesn't mean that it's going to last. But what do you think having 1 million? And remember, you're disclosed that you're invested in the company.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, so I just want to provide some context here. I think capitalism, one of the wonderful things about capitalism is that you can invest. The basis of capitalism is that making money does not necessarily mean you have to support menace companies. That good companies, you can do well while doing good. And then we had a show about six months ago, I think, and we talked about Alex Curran's suicide. The alerts or the Aaron alerts saying it was down 700 grand, his attempts to get customer service on the line, and in the morning, him writing a note saying that he didn't want to indebt his family and killing himself.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right.
--:-- Scott Galloway: And I said this company was a menace, and I heard from the CEO of this trading app no one had heard of and said, "We are 40% women. We don't let people trade on margin. We're about education. We don't do options." And I said, "I like this." This company's from Europe, correct? The CEOs?
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, they're actually, they have a headquarters here, but they're out of Northern Europe. But anyway, so I said, "I like the cut of your jib. I like what you're doing. It's about investing, not trading."
--:-- Scott Galloway: Do you literally say, "I like the cut of your jib" to people?
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yes, just to submit my status as an old white male.
--:-- Scott Galloway: What do you like a country club? "I like the cut of your jib, young man." What do you like a professor at Yale Law School? "Now work for me at my nuclear power plant." Excellent, excellent.
--:-- Kara Swisher: So anyways.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Cut of your jib.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Who knows what a jib is these days? That's all I have to say, except for like the candidates. I hate sailing.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I hate sailing.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Well, I'd really like to hang out with that guy that sails a lot. Said no one ever.
--:-- Scott Galloway: No one ever. My brother has a boat.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Back to me and my capitalism. So I said, "I want to invest." And I invested at a valuation, and people don't like to talk about numbers, which is how the rich suppress the poor. Or one of the many ways, I should say. And I invested at a valuation of $100 million. No one had heard of this thing. And then I started noticing really cool people were going on this thing. Cindy Gallop, Paul Rabel, you have gone on public.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I haven't done a thing on it, but go ahead. I just did it for you. I appreciate that. I will. I will. You know what? I'm glad to see you're starting to invest in our relationship. I just wanted to see how it worked.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Anyway. It's very lovely. It's not gamified like Robinhood is.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, and it's education. I did a thing going over all my stock holdings and 1,800 people signed up. I just like it. And most recently, they recognized that when you do trading for free, when you offer something for free, ultimately it leads to bad places. And in contrast to Robinhood, which sells order flow, which when the heroin is order flow, then really—
--:-- Kara Swisher: Well, everybody does order flow. Let's be fair. Schwab does it. They all do this particular act.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Okay. Public does not.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah. They said they're going to tipping. They said if you make money off of order flow, then your motivation is to get people to be—
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, tipping's interesting. Then your motivation is to get people to trade more. And Robinhood, if it had a true tagline, it would be, "The more you trade, the more you lose." 80% to 95% of day traders lose money.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's why I don't day trade.
--:-- Scott Galloway: That's right. Because it's a dumb idea or it's a bad idea for most people unless you have PhDs in supercomputers. And I'm not criticizing a movement. I think investing is great. Anyways, I just like these guys a lot. I think they're trying to do that.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Here's the deal. They're really interesting. They could be a little funner. They're not fun at all compared to, they're fine. They're good. They're excellent.
--:-- Scott Galloway: You mean no confetti and graffiti convincing you that everyone around you is making more money?
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yes, I am teasing. I'm teasing. I'm teasing. None of it works on me. So get this. Tiger stepped in. So in the GameStop drama, a lot of people said, "I like the approach and the zeitgeist and the gestalt of public." They rocketed to a million users, and Tiger has stepped in, and his funding is investing, I think, 200 million at a pre-money of one billion. It's a good one to get into right now, especially. One billion. GameStop, you wonder where it's going to go. It could be a pioneer here.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, you know what should happen. Goldman should buy it.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Sorry, not GameStop. Goldman should buy it.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's a great idea. Like, we'll see where Robinhood goes. They certainly have a lot of fans, but they got a black eye from this, especially in how they... I don't necessarily know. We'll see what these hearings say today. We'll talk about them in a minute. But let's get back to them in a second.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Okay. But Parler also, which gave a voice to the far right, is back online this week. They got a bunch of different vendors to Epic and others to help them out. What's your take on that? Do you think Parler is—
--:-- Scott Galloway: I think they missed the turn. Unless they get Donald Trump to go on it, I guess. If they get Donald... and there were talks previously that had been reported, apparently, or allegedly. And we'll see. Let's see if they get people on it, like well-known people by offering whatever. But they missed the turn. They missed their... the whole Capitol attack did not look well upon them.
--:-- Kara Swisher: But they're a global brand. Everyone's heard of them.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I mean, I hope you're right, but everyone has heard of Parler.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I know, but they've gone to Signal. They've gone to... I don't know. We'll see. We'll see who does it. We'll see who jumps on. Like, look, it could be Cancun Ted Cruz, if you can see them. Ted Cruz. They apparently confirmed it finally. It was like a detective match. Dividing us. Did you know about this Cancun meme?
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, he took off for Cancun.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Maybe, but nobody knew for the longest time. Apparently, it's been confirmed now, but his office isn't returning calls.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I'm just hoping he's vacationing. One of his colleagues. My hope is that he's vacationing with Jimmy Hoffa. That's my hope.
--:-- Kara Swisher: There were so many good memes on the Ted Cruz Encyclopedia Brown. Did he go? People were circling his belt. "This is a belt he wore here." This is like whether it was a fake Ted Cruz. And it was so good last night. Before anyone confirmed it, I believe it has been confirmed now, but I'm not even sure. But it was so wonderful, watching the internet go to work last night on the hair, on the mask, on the wife, on the... he had a can of cup of noodles. Anyway, it was really lots of fun last night. And the jokes were so good about Ted Cruz. Let me reel you back in. Parler.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Parler.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Well, he's in Parler. That's why I said he's on Parler. Maybe he could go on there. So you don't... you think they've missed the turn.
--:-- Scott Galloway: He should. He needs to leave Twitter at this point.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Hmm? You think... well, I've clearly triggered you with Ted Cruz. But so, Parler, you think they've missed the turn. You don't think they come back?
--:-- Scott Galloway: I don't. I don't. I think it's difficult. I think it's difficult, but you never know. If they put some money in, they got a new CEO. The Mercers, who are one of the big investors, have a lot of money in there. Maybe they can make it happen. I just think they missed the... If they had gotten Donald Trump in there after he got thrown off of Twitter, it could have made a lot more. They shouldn't have done the interview with me. That's really where I put it, because I called attention to what they were already having problems with, with the big platforms.
--:-- Kara Swisher: We'll see. We'll see. All right, last thing. New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is being much of a badass, sued Amazon this week. She's done a lot of suits with Trumps, all kinds of things, Google. She argues that the company has not given projections for workers in New York City during the pandemic and then retaliated against employees who raise concerns. This is an issue for them, lots of people. Last week, Amazon preemptively sued her in federal court to stop her from bringing the charges. So, you know, this is going to be... as I said yesterday to someone, employee issues are going to be the big issue at Amazon going forward. The marketplace is also important, like whether they control the marketplace in an untoward way. But these employees, they're going to be the nexus of these employee issues, I think.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, I think this actually... so I'm a fan of A.G. James. I think she's a gangster. I think she's fearless. To be blunt, and maybe you know more about this than I do, I think it's a little bit posing for the cameras a little bit.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Well, all those attorney generals do that.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, sure. They all wake up in the morning and say, "Hello, Mr. or Madam Governor." But this feeds into, I think, a big shift. Whereas Chuck Schumer was bragging constantly about his daughter working at Facebook, they all wanted to be basking in the warm glow of the innovation light and out-compete each other to say, "We need to embrace innovation. Let's not charge sales tax for Amazon. We need these nascent platforms to grow." So don't hold them to the same standards as every other media company. And now the worm has turned. It's like in third grade when everyone decides...
--:-- Kara Swisher: Little Scott.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, that he's a dork and we should make fun of him because he's pigeon-toed.
--:-- Kara Swisher: That was me doing that to you.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, everyone finds, "Oh, wait, we have spotted the weak gazelle. Let's tear it apart, limb from limb."
--:-- Kara Swisher: I laugh. Kids are cruel.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Jesus Christ, kids are cruel. Anyways, except... just to digress for a moment, I dropped my kid off, my seventh grade son at school, and a bunch of ninth graders came walking down the hallway, and I was behind them so they couldn't see me. I thought, "Uh-oh."
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right.
--:-- Scott Galloway: And they said, "High five, little dude," and they high fived him.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, kids are a lot nicer.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Oh, my God, the world has changed. They would have thrown me in a trash can if I was in the same hallway as ninth graders.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I'm often surprised by the kindness of kids. By the way, I'm not sure it's a good thing that kids don't get a little bit of bullying.
--:-- Scott Galloway: No, no, no. That was never good. That was never...
--:-- Kara Swisher: I learned how to be funny. I learned how to navigate. I learned how to make alliances.
--:-- Scott Galloway: You know what? I'm going to come there and hit you on the head and see how that teaches you. A certain amount of bullying. As long as it doesn't traumatize you, a certain amount of it is good.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, all right. We've been coddling our kids for way too long.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Casual cruelty among children. We don't want them, Kara, we don't want our kids psychologically safe. We want them psychologically strong.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I get it, but that suits. That's Van Jones, by the way. Debate, not bullying. Anyway, okay. Debate. Good sir, you have three minutes.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, right. I like the cut of that gym of yours. By the way.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Listen, we have to get to the big story. Make your point about land the plane here.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Land the plane. If you want to get bullied, brag about being on the debate team, which I was.
--:-- Kara Swisher: All right.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Which I was.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, God. I would so bully you in high school. Anyways. All right. Letitia James. Make your point. Make your point. Let's move on.
--:-- Scott Galloway: These guys, big tech, has earned a reputation as not being on the side of society. We have finally figured out they're not going to take care of us when we're older. They're not conditioned with the state of our souls. And people have had it and the worm has turned. People have said, "We're fed up." And the new blue line path to the governor's mansion from the AG's mansion isn't to talk about how incredible these companies are. It's to go after them.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, she's been consistent. She's consistent. And New York is where it should happen. And so that's a good thing. And that's where a lot of stuff should happen. All right, but that leads into the big story. Let's talk about the global battle with tech giants. Australia has a bill that has got to be passed, that it's getting close to being passed, that will require Facebook and Google and others to pay news publishers for content in some ways. It's a complicated bill, and it's called the code, the news media arbitration code. We talked about this on Tuesday's episodes, but Google had threatened to leave Australia if the bill were passed, but didn't make the move. And then made a deal with three of the biggest publishers in Australia, including News Corp. And it made a more global deal with News Corp, not in the U.S., but in other places to do some payment. Facebook instead walked away from the table in negotiations over amendments and this and that, and it said it wasn't going to pay and it wasn't going to be part of it. And so it closed off all the news links and then by accident closed off all kinds of important links, health and safety ones, because of the way they machine learned it, essentially. The proposed law, let me just say, this is the Facebook managing director in Australia: "The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content. It left us facing a stark choice. Attempt to comply with the law that ignores the realities of this relationship or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we chose the latter." They had a heavy heart, Scott. Are they okay?
--:-- Scott Galloway: Are they okay?
--:-- Kara Swisher: Are they okay?
--:-- Scott Galloway: No, they've never okay.
--:-- Kara Swisher: So look, you going to... I know you actually have been speaking to Facebook. So give us your take on this.
--:-- Scott Galloway: You know, I hate to say this. This bill in Australia has been very much pushed by Rupert Murdoch and his minions, Robert Thompson and others. So you got to wonder, right? So it feels like, and I think I'm going with Casey Newton's... there's others who think differently, but Casey Newton, The Verge, has essentially said it's a shakedown. He's not The Verge anymore. He's a thing called Platformer. He has a subset called Platformer. And I think what he wrote is correct, that this is a real problem for... it's not the way to solve the problem. And it looks like a payoff, he calls it crony capitalism. I think it's a racket kind of thing for Rupert Murdoch. So even if you don't like the tech companies, this law is, many people, is deeply flawed. But even if you don't like Facebook, I think the key internet principle of hyperlinking should be free and clear is important. Now, what they've done is Google... they don't want to get it to be paying for being in the search engine, right? They don't want to pay for every search link for news media. So what they've done is they have this special area of Google where they're going to be paying people for being on it, the three news publishers, and they'll make deals with all the others, I guess, and then we'll go from there. Essentially, that's what Google is. Google should have done this because they have a different business. Facebook was like, "No." And because news is a very small part of its business, like 4%, they decided, "No, we're going to take them down." They pushed away from the bargaining table and they said, "No, thank you." But it caused a lot of hubbub, like "How dare they." David Cicilline was like, "This shows they're a monopoly." It doesn't show their monopoly. It's just they're not having the news links. And everyone was like, all kinds of nefarious things. In this case, no Australian news orgs will be linked to Facebook anywhere. International news was restricted on the Australian platform. You can put up cat videos. But what they did is they dragged some pandemic information sites and other things into it, which caused great consternation. But let me just say, they were right to do so if they wanted to, because they don't have to pay for news links that is not corporate business that shouldn't have to. Very much like we talked about Amazon not wanting to host Parler. It doesn't want the business. And so it shouldn't be forced into even binding arbitration to do this. Other people say this is a great way to do regulation. It's loose regulation where parties talk to each other. But I don't know if anyone should have to pay for links if they don't want to. And again, I think it's a gimme for Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. So, but it's going around the globe too, this idea of paying for content on these platforms is going around the globe. And you talked about it with the New York Times. So I don't think they did it really well. And to be looking like evil compared to Rupert Murdoch is hard to do. It's hard to do. But that's what has happened here, it looks like.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, there's so much here. So one of the, I think probably the most, or one of the more interesting things is the distinguishing. It shows the distinctions between Facebook and Google's core business. And I've always said that Google is God. You trust the return. A prayer is just a query into the universe hoping for some divine intervention that sends you back an answer that you think is more credible than any other answer from an entity you don't understand that sees everything, evaluates everything, and then distills it back to a great response. That's prayer. We pray to Google 3 billion times a day, and we trust it more than any priest, rabbi, scholar, mentor, or boss. And their business is largely dependent upon getting really accurate, up-to-the-minute credible news. And Google, unlike Facebook, does need credible news. So if your site gets links from the New York Times, which is evaluated as credible, you come up in the search rankings and we all benefit. Now, Facebook is a friend that wants to keep your attention all the time, even if it's selling gossip or lies. Its job is... they're not in the news business, they're in the friend business and their motivation is not credibility, their motivation is engagement. Now, YouTube is more like Facebook than Google. YouTube is also one menace, but the two are different. And Google has decided that news is so central. And also Google is pulling a little bit of an Apple card here and saying, "We want to separate from Facebook." And while I agree with you around some of the Murdoch stuff and that, okay, maybe he's an unwitting winner of this or a winning winner. He's been lobbying for this. He runs the Australian government. Do you remember though, 15 years ago, he tried to do the same thing?
--:-- Scott Galloway: He did. He did. And in Germany, they tried to do it. And then people, including myself, when I was on Bloomberg TV said, "No, we need to support our new guys. The old guard is just trying to entrench themselves." But here's the thing, when you're in the business of importing into Australia and pulling up tankers every day and then unloading some good things, but a lot of division, a lot of hate, a lot of misinformation, and then you fill it up with money and leave. And there are no hospital wings or universities in Australia named after Facebook billionaires. They start doing the math. And even if this specific action is not logical or pure, at the end of the day, people are just fed up with these guys.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I get it, but it doesn't mean you should put a law like "All Mark Zuckerbergs are declared illegal."
--:-- Scott Galloway: I mean, I agree with you. There's tons of ways they could have taxed it. They could have done a million different things here. And by the way, one of the things, we don't know if any of this money is actually going to journalism. I think it's going to Rupert Murdoch's pocket. And so there wasn't anything in the law that said this money had to be spent on more journalism, but then Rupert Murdoch was acting like the bastion of journalism. I'm sorry, this guy has spewed more toxic waste out into the news world than almost anybody in history. So I'm not like getting my journalism cues from Rupert Murdoch in any way. And so even though he owns the Wall Street Journal, and that's a very good news organization, I think it's great in spite of his ownership.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I don't know. This is like the...
--:-- Scott Galloway: But this is not the bill to do it.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, but if this is a war between Murdoch and Zuckerberg, I hope the bullets win.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Okay.
--:-- Kara Swisher: But it's not the way to do it. It's not a way to help. It doesn't create a new business model for journalism.
--:-- Scott Galloway: This is where it's all headed, Kara. And I said this two years ago, but I got the regions wrong. I said that a nation in Northern Europe or in Latin America was going to ban Facebook. Well, that could happen with this action. This is a step. I love Australia. I'm friends with a decent number of Australians. I've been there. I feel like I have some connection to the culture there. You know what? You don't fuck with Australia. Whether this legislation is elegant or not. But when Zuckerberg and then the spokesperson from Facebook says, "In terms of the trade between Facebook and news media, news media has garnered more out of this relationship." Oh, my God, what bullshit. And when they take their ball and go home, whereas Google tries to be, I think, a little bit more statesmanlike.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Well, they were... Sundar Pichai is a peaceful. He's like, "This could be more problem than it's worth. We'll just pay up." And they were going to pay a billion dollars over three years. But this is where it happens.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Anyway. The legislation is unimportant. All this is is a skirmish battle that's going to escalate because Facebook has not handled it well.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Agreed. And Australia, oh my gosh. They aren't afraid of anybody. They will shut Facebook down.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, let me again bring in Rupert Murdoch. I think Facebook just handled one of the most unscrupulous men on the planet, a major who has major sway over politics in the U.S. and Australia, a potent PR weapon. I think that's really the heart. And what I would imagine they should take away from this is the level of ire at Facebook is receiving over an issue where it is not the wrong thing to do what it did. You have to notice how much... it's an ugly preview of what's to come when it gets scrutiny for things it actually does wrong. And people, no one really likes or trusts Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg. They just don't. And that's really where it goes. And when he does stuff like that, even if it's the principal thing to do, and I think linking in a free and open internet is, it doesn't matter. He gets no benefit of the doubt because he's not likable. He's not likable. He'll pay. No one's in a hurry to be fair with Mr. Zuckerberg anymore. No one's in a hurry to be thoughtful about legislation. They're in a hurry to be angry and deservedly so.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I look at Murdoch almost like... I take everything back to World War II. They're the Russians. Do we share their values? Do we especially like them? No, but we need them. And also the thing about News Corp. Well, hold on. Let me ask you this, though. And I ask this as an honest question. Facebook and Google control 70%, 80% of every digital dollar. Does News Corp control that much? Is News Corp really that dominant?
--:-- Scott Galloway: They might be. News Corp has heralded in the era we live in now through their cynical and persistent use of media to divide, to anger, to spread disinformation. They're in a lawsuit right now with Dominion and others. I think they're in trouble in that regard. I think they have done... they're outsized their size in terms of tarnishing civic discourse on the planet. I think he's one of the most damaging. If I had to pick between him and Mark Zuckerberg, I would pick Rupert Murdoch.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Two things. First off, I'm not sure you can really say that when Tucker Carlson has accused the president and the first lady of their relationship being fake. I'm not sure that's fair, Kara.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I tweeted, "Okay, stupid." That's my way of acknowledging the point.
--:-- Kara Swisher: My second question is, had you not worked for News Corp and been so scarred, would you be this triggered?
--:-- Scott Galloway: I wasn't scarred by it. He got along with me. We got along. I had dinner with him. I call him Uncle Satan because he's so affable. You know what I mean?
--:-- Kara Swisher: Tell me about it.
--:-- Scott Galloway: He's just a terrible human being. I'm sorry. He's been a terrible influence on the planet.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I immediately go to, "Oh, my gosh, what food did they order? Kara and Rupert at dinner." We had quite a dinner. It was me and Walt and the guy, one of his CEOs that came and went, and his ex-wife, Wendy. And he used to call me on the phone during the whole... when he was trying to find out about what was going on with Yahoo. Remember when Yahoo was sort of for sale? He kind of wanted to buy it with Peter Chernin. He called me at 3 in the morning because he was up when I was in California.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Quick pause, but isn't it crazy? I have a couple billionaires in my life, and one acts as a mentor for me.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Mm-hmm.
--:-- Scott Galloway: And it's hilarious. There's something about when someone becomes a billionaire where when they call you, they don't even tell you who you are or ask or announce themselves or ask if you're busy. They just start talking.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right. No, that's what he did. They just call. He mumbles too. It's like, "What?" It's not, "Do you have a minute?" It's just you pick up the phone and they just start talking. What was funny, I found out later. I'm not going to say how.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Are you having another stroke or are you trying to impersonate Rupert Murdoch?
--:-- Kara Swisher: Listen, this is my last story. Then we're going to move on. He had a secretary who was wonderful, I have to say. He had one of those longtime secretaries who was wonderful. And she would call.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I like the term "assistant." I think "secretary" is somewhat disparaging.
--:-- Kara Swisher: She was a secretary. And she would place the call. My mother was a secretary. It was like old timey. I'm like, "Can't you just text me, Rupert? Like everybody else does." Everyone else texts me.
--:-- Scott Galloway: They do that. Does your agent do that?
--:-- Kara Swisher: My agent calls me, "Hold the line for David Worshap." Yes, that kind of thing. It's like, "Okay, this isn't the fucking 50s." I make everyone text.
--:-- Scott Galloway: We're literally going to go see the Johnny Carson show and have drinks with Angie Dickinson afterwards. "Hold for it."
--:-- Kara Swisher: I'm like, whenever he got something, I'm like, "Yeah, I know you're very important. You really need someone to call and ask me to hold for you." And she was so nice, I would hold. She was so nice. She was the loveliest woman at Rupert Murdoch's surgery. Anyway, I would hold and he would get on. And I was in California.
--:-- Scott Galloway: By the way, David Worshaw, lovely man. I'm sorry, go ahead.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Okay, good. Lovely man. He would just say, "What's going on?" He literally was always calling for information. I appreciated that about him, right?
--:-- Scott Galloway: Oh, he's clearly intellectually curious and a genius. It's just, unfortunately, he's working for Satan.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah. Let me just tell you one time. I'm going to tell one last Rupert Murdoch story. He's going to die and his kids are going to take over. He never knew my name for the longest time. He loved Walt Mossberg. He loved Walt Mossberg. It was always, "Walt, Walt, how you doing?"
--:-- Kara Swisher: I got to be honest, Walt is much more likable than you care. I know that. But he loved reading Walt. He did. He loved newspapers. That's one thing I think he did.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, he does love newspapers.
--:-- Kara Swisher: He would circle things and stuff like that. So he literally could never remember. He just pretended he didn't, that he never called my name. And so one time I said to him, I said, listen, I think you don't know my name. It's Kara Swisher. Next time I see you, could you try to remember my name? And he has a hearing problem, kind of, I think. And he pretended he didn't hear me say that to him. And then he knew my name the next time.
--:-- Scott Galloway: That is great.
--:-- Kara Swisher: It was great. Anyway, in this case, he's the villain. I'm sorry, even though Mark Zuckerberg looks like it. Okay, last thing we're going to do. We're going to move on. We'll see. They're going to settle everything in Australia eventually. But meanwhile, Epic Games, they will. Facebook, it's not a good look for Facebook. They've got to settle it. He's already talking to whoever he needs, the commissioner there. They're very tough. The commissioner, the antitrust guy there is really tough. The video game maker behind Fortnite, Epic Games, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and the European Union. Again, availing themselves to other venues. There's similar lawsuits in the U.S., Australia, and the U.K. At the core of the legal dispute is how much control and revenue share technology giants should have in relation to popular apps. Fortnite was kicked off both Apple's apps during Google Play Store last year after cutting off the companies from 30% of their revenue, which is the vague. Again, going international. This is going international. What do you think about this?
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, it's simple. Like I said, when you get all of the election perversion, when you get all of the job destruction, when you get the anti-competitive behavior, when you get the division, and you get a fraction of the upside because you're not getting the taxes, you're not getting the jobs. You don't know that people in Europe don't have that many nephews or nieces who have made a bunch of money at Google or Facebook. It stiffens their backbone. And so these companies have decided they want to go to more friendly venues where the tide has turned a while ago against these companies. And it's more of the same thing. Epic tried to build a platform within a platform so they could charge or charge less. They wanted to charge, I think their creators or their developers, they wanted to do different things. And Apple said no thanks, we're not going to allow that. So they're going after them. It's going to be very, very interesting.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Here's the difference. People like Apple. They're very deft at lobbying.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Fair point.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Fair point. It's going to be much tougher for Epic to handle this one. And we'll see. And I don't mean like, like law is law, right? You know, I don't think Donald Trump lost because people don't like him. I think he lost because, you know, it was all Trump judges. Like, no, this is not good law. So I don't necessarily think likability, but there is an element of Apple being more willing, just like Sundar Pichai at Google, to play the game. And I think that's, and Facebook isn't. I can see Mark deciding this, like this decision on Australia, but he's going to have to walk it back. He's going to. They've got too many, their antitrust, the commissioner, the community, I think, forget his name. He's a tough customer. And even if he's controlled by Murdoch, this is not good for Facebook. Anyway, all right, let's go for a quick break. We'll come back to talk about congressional hearings about Robinhood and GameStop and a listener mail question on Bitcoin.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, we're back. Congress will be hearing testimony today, or tomorrow, about the GameStop incident. We're recording on Thursday. It takes place today. Maxine Waters is doing it. And she has several days of hearings on this issue. But they're bringing in the leaders of Robinhood, Melvin Capital, which is the hedge fund that lost all that money, Reddit and Citadel, which owns part of Melvin Capital, and also Orderflow, et cetera. They'll testify over the House Financial Services Committee. They're expected to address Citadel's relationship with Robinhood and Melvin Capital and why the brokerages shut down trading and how to protect retail investors. As a reminder, last month, amateur investors on Reddit, retail investors that are also called Thread, skyrocketed the video game retailer GameStop stock. Robinhood later put trade limits on game stocks, which caused a lot of people—first they squeezed the hedge funds, and then they squeezed some of these retail investors. So, Scott, what do you think about this? What comes of these hearings?
--:-- Scott Galloway: I think nothing. Nothing, honey. I think it's going to be theater. And I hope that our elected representatives demonstrate more acumen than the initial kind of big tech hearings. And also, to be blunt, I really like what Adam Grant said, that if you have – a thoughtful person evolves and admits they were wrong, I hope they don't make the same mistake I did and start stereotyping the traitors as one demographic that needs paternal protection. That is not the way to go. Any legislation, any regulation should be – what happened here was what I would call is an honest pump. And they use different methods, different mediums, but it's nothing that Bill Ackman and other hedge funds haven't been doing to each other for a long time. The other thing is on the other side of the aisle. That is the generation that kind of empathizes with Roaring Kitty. Roaring Kitty will be there today, too. And thinks there was a conspiracy against them. They're going to find out. The good news is the conspiracy that they want to buy into, that Citadel partnered with Robin Hood to stop the trading such that they could protect their buddies in Melvin. That is just not true. Citadel, there wasn't an antitrust conspiracy. It was a liquidity squeeze.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, this Apex Financial is the one you don't hear about that stepped in.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, they just said, look, 50% of your accounts are trading in GameStop. We can't provide margin on this thing because it can go up or down 50% in a given day, and we're not going to track down 500,000 young people and try and get our $700 back when the stock goes down 70%. Anyways, that's the good news is the conspiracy they're worried about and has been promoted, quite frankly, by some billionaires and congresspeople all posing from the millennial cameras. The good news is that conspiracy did not happen. The bad news is that there is a broader, much more dangerous conspiracy against young people. And that is slowly but surely, whether it's mortgage interest on mortgages, whether it's capital gains tax, whether it's transferring a trillion dollars from young people to old people, the wealthiest cohort in history, whether it's skyrocketing education costs. Everything we've done in America the last 30 years is simply a transfer of wealth from young people to older rich people. So the conspiracy of two hedge funds trying to go after young people, that's not true. That's the good news. The bad news is the conspiracy is worse against young people right now. And I hope they talk about that because if they talk about any regulation, they've got to say, all right, we're going to regulate everybody, not just the younger apps. I think Robinhood is a menace. I think there's something to be said for watching these – you know, the CEO of Reddit is going to be there, Steve Huffman, too. I think watching these platforms and ability to manipulate them is a good thing. But going after Roaring Kitty for being a licensed broker, maybe a slap on the wrist for this guy because, you know, he didn't disclose that he was. But nothing he – I looked at the stuff. He was not doing anything that was not easy to – it was an insider.
--:-- Kara Swisher: What is he doing that Bill Ackman doesn't do?
--:-- Scott Galloway: No, exactly.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Well, he should have disclosed. He should have disclosed.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, this is – that's the – But that's a parking ticket. There's a key, key thing here, and I actually think this is going to – I believe that the anonymity, the people pretending to be someone else on the internet and not disclosing their intentions, I think that is going to be a big, big issue of the next two to three years.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Agreed. And I've complained about this, but I think there are some very well-known people who create multiple accounts and go after other people to attack their credibility.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, you know that happens. I've read about it a hundred times with a month.
--:-- Kara Swisher: But it is out of control.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Bobby Axelrod right now is trying to figure out how to game this one. Right now, he's like trying to figure out how to become Roaring Kitty or something like that.
--:-- Kara Swisher: That is a fictional character, Bobby Axelrod. That's from Billions.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Billions.
--:-- Kara Swisher: But, you know, this will probably be a plot on that show when it comes back.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Oh, 100%.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I think it's good to have them for educational purposes. And Elizabeth Warren was talking about, did the interview with Stephanie, the SEC getting off its rear. As things change, they really do have to spend a lot more time monitoring things and policing things in different ways. And they haven't done that. And she's 100% right about that. And so more transparency in how this is done and bringing more people into the market is a great thing. More education, more, you know, if it turns out there's an effort to addict people, that should be looked at. But we can't treat these kids. You know, one of the things Stephanie said was that her cables guy was saying he's in it when she was putting the thing and she was like, should we prevent these people? I was like, you're not their mama. Like, you know what I mean? Like, but at the same time, we have to protect people with education, literacy, and give them a leg up, a fair leg up here. And I think we'll see how much this goes. But I think this whole anger thing by everybody's sort of virtue signaling on this thing of the youngs versus the oldest. Did you see the Winklevoss twins on CNBC?
--:-- Scott Galloway: Whatever. I just didn't like stop it. They want to stop us trading. Let's show the man. Let's go into silver. Okay. Say billionaires educated at Harvard, the road crew who have a position in silver.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I know.
--:-- Scott Galloway: When a billionaire is telling you to hold the line or claiming there's a movement, you're about to get a spear in the chest.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yep, agreed, agreed. And there's a few things here because I think this is fascinating. People should be allowed to buy and sell stock. That's their right. Their right is to – people should be allowed to trade and have fun. People should be allowed to learn. What I hope, though, is that people recognize that trading is usually gambling, that 80% to 95% of people lose money. Just be cognizant of that. If you're getting a DOPA hit, great. I love DOPA, but just be clear, getting DOPA usually costs money. And that if you day trade, 80% to 95% likelihood you will end up with less money. If you invest in the markets and focus on something else, unless you want to be in finance full-time such that you can spend less than you make and then put that money into the market. If you hold stocks, a basket of stocks, for at least 20 years, no one has ever lost money in the history of the markets. Do you know what Kara Swisher does? She just sticks it. I don't even know. I don't even look at it. I'm just going to hoping when I'm a certain age that it's not going.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, here's the answer. Here's the good news. I 100% know how you can get rich. Here's the bad news. The answer is slowly. Yeah. And it requires a certain stoicism, and that is spending. Everything around you is convincing you that everyone is more successful than you.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Well, there's FOMA. You want to get in. Even I was like, why am I wasn't in GameStop? And I'm like, I got to stop. You got to stop. You got to get the FOMA out of the way or stock fear of missing ends.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, I keep making predictions about Bitcoin, and people say, well, do you own any? And I say, no, I'm probably going to buy some one because I just don't want to have the pain. If it goes to $100,000, which I think it's going to, or even if it goes to $500,000, I don't want the FOMO, so I'm going to buy a few coins. And the problem is, and the reason I haven't and one of the reasons I'm not, you know, one of my many flaws as an investor is I always want to buy stuff on sale. So I have a tough time buying into something when it keeps on the way up. The other thing is the reason I bought it is that if you're going to be in finance and you're generally learning about finance and you want to go get certified and be in the field, more power to you, brothers and sisters. It's a great industry. But if you're just watching Netflix all the time and telling your parents you're interested in film, that's not a way to make a living. You have to – the best thing to do to get – or one of the means to get rich is focus on something that will get you enough income such that you could spend less than your income. And I think a lot of people are using excuses, or I'm learning, or I'm interested in finance. Well, okay, are you really, or are you just gambling for a dope ahead?
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yep, yep, exactly. Very fair point, Scott Galloway. So everybody jump in the pool, but just at least know what's going to happen when the water goes out. Just be honest with yourself.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, yep, 100%. Gambling's fun. Learning is great, but those things usually cost money.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Not that we recommend that you spend all your money gambling. You know what? Highest suicide rate of any addiction because people don't know what's going on until it's too late. When you're a raging alcoholic, people step in. Even when you have a—
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, gambling addictions are scary. I've had some friends who—
--:-- Kara Swisher: And you know what? And people got angry at me because I made a stereotype that it was all men, and I heard from a bunch of women.
--:-- Scott Galloway: But did you know in gambling, 23% of men develop a problem and only 7% of women? The male brain seems to be more predisposed to gambling addiction than women. And also the highest suicide rate of any addiction.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Well, thank you for that information. It was also a plot on Bridgerton. Anyway, moving on. Let's take a listener mail question. You've got, you've got. I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. Hi, Scott and Kara. My name is Michael. I have a question primarily for Scott. Scott, you predicted that Bitcoin is going to cross the $100 barrier. And yet you also mentioned that you don't own any. I was wondering what makes you stay away from Bitcoin. I've heard many good reasons to stay away from it. One of them is environmental reasons, but I'm curious about yours.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Just so you know, Michael, it's a $100,000 barrier. $100 is...
--:-- Kara Swisher: Let me ask you this. Were you triggered when you said primarily Scott? This question is for primarily Scott. You're a little jealous of the dog.
--:-- Scott Galloway: This question is for primarily Scott. Between us, I'm the only one that actually owns Bitcoin somewhere in a closet.
--:-- Kara Swisher: That you can't find because you lost the password. I love that.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Oh, my God. If it goes to $100, I literally, that's a million dollars somewhere in my trash or in my box in my house.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, God. It's gone.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I think it's gone.
--:-- Kara Swisher: You know, pretend like most rich people that you don't think about money. I think about that.
--:-- Scott Galloway: That I think about.
--:-- Kara Swisher: That's the one I love. They're like, oh, man, I could buy a hitman and get rid of Scott.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, right. I hate when rich people say that. I've never really thought of it.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, now I've gotten my plot out. Anyone who says they've never really thought about money is obsessed with it.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I have thought of it. I have investigated hitmen, and they're very expensive.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Anyway. All right, let's answer the question of this young man who asked the question primarily Scott.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Primarily Scott. I sort of answered this. One, I'm going to buy a few coins so I don't just hate myself if the thing goes crazy. But I don't want to buy an investment. The way I make my living is through teaching, writing, and speaking. And I don't want to be tracking, and I fall into this trap. I don't want to be checking my phone 20 times a day and tracking Bitcoin. I find it exhausting. And I find that it leads you to an emotional state where you end up trading a lot. And there's just a ton of research showing the more you trade, the more you lose because you can't trust your emotions. And there's fees. Even when you're trading on what's supposed to be a fee-less platform, you're not. There's fees because the way they make their fees is by giving you a worse price on the bid or the ask. So, one, I will probably buy some coins and then just ignore them. But I don't want an investment that you have to track and invest a lot of time.
--:-- Kara Swisher: You're totally going to track it though, aren't you? If you buy like two, you're just going to be sitting there watching.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Okay, maybe a little bit.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Maybe a little bit.
--:-- Scott Galloway: A lot bit.
--:-- Kara Swisher: A lot bit.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Maybe a little bit. You're just going to talk about Bitcoin incessantly.
--:-- Kara Swisher: But you don't- What about other cryptocurrencies? Is there any others you want to buy?
--:-- Scott Galloway: Something like 99 of coins Dogecoin Have gone to zero Doge not Dogecoin Because Elon Musk Dogecoin was constructed or invented by a 34 who basically said this is a fraud and it has billion market capitalization right now But if you think about, so let's go back to why my thesis is around Bitcoin going to, I predicted we'd go to 50 when it was at 19. Right. It's going to 100. Also, I should disclose, I also thought Palantir was going to go down and went public at 10. It's at 30, so I got that one wrong. Anyways, Bitcoin right now has got so much heat around it. And I think you're going to see several dozen companies, big companies, announce that they're converting part of their treasury to Bitcoin. That'll do it. And it's going to potentially, and the limited scarcity around it, very intelligent people, including Michael Saylor or intelligent people. No, they're just getting it. It's a speculative purchase, right? As are most stocks.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Well, no. You know Disney has a business. This is not. Gold, I guess, would be. Although you can do things with gold, right?
--:-- Scott Galloway: See, that's an interesting point. Gold funds are going down. And the correlation, the inverse correlation, there's definitely a correlation between Bitcoin going up. And I don't want to say – I don't even think of Bitcoin as investing. I do think it's speculation because you could wake up tomorrow and it could be down 40% or 50%. And I personally don't like anything. People say, people who are pretending to give investment advice think that they assuage their bad advice by saying, you should be prepared to lose it all. That's not investing. If you're investing, you should not be prepared.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Do you think assuage? It's assuage.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Assuage.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Assuage.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I like the cut of your jam, but not your English pronunciation.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Jean-Claude Juncker is the EU commissioner who said, I didn't give him credit the last time. We all know what needs to be done. We just don't know how to get reelected. Assuage my fears, Cara.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I'm not going to assuage anything.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Assuage my fears, Cara. It sounds dirty.
--:-- Kara Swisher: It sounds dirty. Listen to me. So you're not going to buy anything else. You're just going to buy your two Bitcoin and pretend you're not paying attention to it every second. Is that correct? Is that the move?
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, here's the thing. Any investment that you have to track and spend a lot of time either is filling a DOPA hit where you should be getting your DOPA somewhere else. And it also lowers your returns because you have to track it and follow it. And I don't want to do that. It's like owning a lizard. And also, I have trouble personally. I can't quite get my head around. I think I understand Disney stock. I think I understand even currencies. I think I understand real estate. I do not understand Bitcoin. I can't figure out if it's an asset, a currency, or a payment method. And I think it benefits from hiding in that nether, netherland where no one really knows what it is.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Smart. Scott, you are on fuego today. All right. That is correct. Thank you, Michael. I'm just trying to assuage your criticism of me. You tell us when you buy the Bitcoin, okay? Let us know. When you buy the coin.
--:-- Scott Galloway: And by the way, if I find mine, we're going to go somewhere. Champagne and cocaine for the cat and dog.
--:-- Kara Swisher: We're going. We are getting. We're doing.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Let's go to Cancun and party with Heidi Cruz.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Heidi, let's do rails with Heidi Cruz.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Oh, my God.
--:-- Kara Swisher: So damn with the young people.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Oh, my God. The young drug lingo. The dlingo.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Let's take another moment and talk about Ted Cruz. I'd like to party with Heidi. I think Heidi seems very like her. I don't know. The whole thing is fantastic. It's like, you know, it's like several different movies. We've got Contagion going on. All the time. You know, the movie Contagion. And now the day after tomorrow, which is the Jake Gyllenhaal, like. Where, freezing cold. Freezing cold thing. And like, there's the evil vice president who is played by Ted Cruz, who doesn't believe anything. Right? Like, so, and then he like dunks on reporters all day. People, like the stories of people in Texas, like starving, there's ice everywhere. If he did this, man, oh man, what is going. And someone said, they said, they said the problem is if Ted Cruz went to Cancun in the middle of a Texas weather crisis, energy crisis and weather crisis, it's only the second worst thing he's done this year. Which is, of course, backing the insurrection, which was a nice move. Yeah, refusing to certify the vote. Does he not want to get elected again? Beto O'Rourke is busy, like, calling seniors and bringing seniors warm soup. Like, that's what he's been doing the whole time. I mean, Jose Andres is making food for everybody. Like, do they want to turn Texas blue? Is that what their goal is here? What is the deal? And Abbott, like, blaming wind energy? Like, he's frigging Donald Trump? What is going on? I just sand Beto next to Ted Cruz, and I literally think of, like, don't assuage. Go assuage yourself. Anyways, and I put Beto next to Ted and I literally thought this is the least and the most sexy people in the world and they're running against each other and less sexy one. I just, I couldn't, that made no sense to me. I think now, I think he's finished. Maybe if he isn't finished, Texas has got to secede at this point. You've decided they need to secede. Texas and Florida have got to go. Okay, just FYI. Make themselves instead of Texas, Florida.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Just so you know, Texas and Florida, if they secede, the nation. There are no states doing better right now than Texas and Florida.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Fine. Other than the snowstorm.
--:-- Scott Galloway: You know what, California will be back, and we'll carry it.
--:-- Kara Swisher: California, New York will be back, and we'll carry everybody. Don't worry about it. And they can have other states. I'm not against secession at this point. They can have other states.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, that's mighty fine of you, Cara. We'll give them that.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, Cara. They take some. You know, whatever. How old are you, Katha? Dean? You know, a lot of Silicon Valley people want to secede California. Anyway, and break it up, too, into pieces, whatever. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, prediction time. I don't predict Ted Cruz loses the election, but okay. That's my prediction. It's not another four or five years. Maybe so. You know he's in some tacky hotel in Cancun. I know. You know he's into some bad hotel that's like all you can eat. It's like sandals or something. It's just, you know.
--:-- Scott Galloway: No, I know the name of it. They had it on the internet.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Really?
--:-- Scott Galloway: The Encyclopedia Browns of the internet have located him. They called the hotel. It was like they were looking at his wrinkles.
--:-- Kara Swisher: It was such a good moment for Twitter. You're giddy. You are literally giddy. It was fun to watch. It was fun to watch the whole thing. And, you know, people were actually being like, if he was in Cancun, this would be, his haircut wasn't right, his belt he was wearing, his face mask had this thing saying, come and take it. Or, you know, it's a stupid gun reference. And so anyway, so prediction time, prediction time.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, I stole my thunder. I just think you're going to see, and I said this on Tuesday, there's what I call an honest pump. An honest pump is Bill Ackman going on CNBC and saying why JCPenney's is undervalued. An honest pump is a CEO talking about why their sector is powerful and trying to position a kid in their accounting department using a spreadsheet as AI, right? There's these honest pumps. I think what the Reddit movement was at its core kind of an honest pump around coordination, people trying to, and it's nothing anyone hasn't done. I think there's going to be a ton of what I'll call honest pumps by companies converting treasury to Bitcoin. And that is going to – similar to like the craziness when Kodak said it was producing – I forget those machines where you can mine Bitcoin and the stock went up 400% in a day. Twitter, Facebook, MicroStrategy, and Tesla have all gone into Bitcoin. And the stock bump has ranged from – MicroStrategy stock is up 500% since in the last 12 months. And everybody, and I've even heard some discussions on some of the boards I'm on, is thinking about this. In addition, one specific company, and we've talked about this, I think Jack Dorsey has an incredible feel for products. And also, he obviously understands a lot about payment, given that he's the full-time CEO of a company called Square. I think he is going to announce something at Twitter around crypto involving like your ability to start your own coin trading plan. I don't know what it will be. He's brighter than me. But you're going to see some big announcements from what I'll call old line, old economy companies around Bitcoin. And I think that honest pump – and I'm not saying Bitcoin is a good long-term investment. I don't understand it. I don't own any. But it's going to be in the news a lot in the next 60 days. Anyways, that's my prediction. Corporations and Bitcoin.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I'm going to make a tiny prediction about today's hearing since we already talked about it. I think it'll be a real test of Vlad Tenev, the CEO of Robinhood. He's finally clarified his stances and everything else and is trying to be articulate. They've hired a lot of fancy people to help him, by the way, a former SEC commissioner and a lawyer that helped Mark Zuckerberg at the hearings. So I'm interested in how he performs and whether he stays in his job. I'm biased because I think these young men are the new menace economy. I think their idols are Facebook and Google. I think they have the wrong role models. And also, I've heard him speak. I don't think he's ready for prime time. If there's a really ugly moment—
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, they hired some fancy people to help him, I'll tell you that.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, but they hired a lot of fancy—
--:-- Scott Galloway: They got some fluffers. They got some fluffers in there, as they say.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I'm so glad you said that. But they had a lot of fancy people around Mark Zuckerberg, and he looked like he was going to have a stroke when you interviewed him. You started asking him real questions. You work with what you got. I've heard that guy respond. When he was on with Andrew Osorkin, I don't think he served himself well. And by the way, that shit's hard. I say stupid things on TV all the time. So I'm not saying it's easy. I don't think he's ready for prime time. We'll see.
--:-- Scott Galloway: You wouldn't come on my Sway program. You wouldn't come on Sway?
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah. Yeah, but that's what you call good judgment.
--:-- Kara Swisher: What?
--:-- Scott Galloway: I'm a pussycat. Step into my lair. I'm a pussycat. I'm a pussycat until I rip your fucking aortic artery.
--:-- Scott Galloway: No, I hand you a knife and say, would you like to use this?
--:-- Kara Swisher: I was like, look at this sharp knife. You should put it at your neck and say something stupid. Please say more. Say more. Say more is what I always say.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Continue? Continue. Go on.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Anyway, there's so much news, everybody, and there's going to be lots more news next week. And I think it'll be interesting to see what happens in Australia. I mean, in one way, it would be kind of nice that people go to actual people's websites. And I think breaking the, as Casey Newton wrote, breaking the idea that they need Google and Facebook for everything could be an interesting moment for news organizations. This is the slow ban and go Australia. Literally, don't fuck with Australia. They're not scared of anybody.
--:-- Scott Galloway: No, they're not. They are not scared of anybody.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Well, I don't know. I don't think we should necessarily follow some Australian things. In any case, it'll be fascinating. Well, interesting to come here, interesting where it goes. Scott, as usual, this has been a fascinating discussion about you being bullied and your feelings, FOMA feelings about Bitcoin.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I'm just trying to assuage your insecurities, Cara.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I don't like the cut of that jib. Anyway, that's the show. Go to N- I can't believe you just said that. That's going to keep going for a while.
--:-- Scott Galloway: It's going to be a bit for a while.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your questions to the podcast. The link is also in your show notes, in the show notes here. And read us out, Scott. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Ernie Indratot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business, a democracy, one of the most beautiful regions in the world, unafraid of anybody over-indexing in the Olympics every four years because they're amazing athletes. Go Australia! Boom!
--:-- Ad Break: What do walking 10,000 steps every day, eating five servings of fruits and veggies, and getting eight hours of sleep have in common? They're all healthy choices. But do all healthier choices really pay off? With prescription plans from CVS Caremark, they do. Their plan designs give your members more choice, which gives your members more ways to get on, stay on, and manage their meds. And that helps your business control your costs, because healthier members are better for business. Go to cmk.co.access to learn more about helping your members stay adherent. That's cmk.co.access. Support for this show comes from Nike. What was your biggest win? Was it in front of a sold-out stadium? Or the first time you beat your teammate in practice? Nike knows winning isn't always done in front of cheering crowds. Sometimes winning happens in your driveway, on a quiet street at the end of your longest run, or on the blacktop of a pickup game. Nike is here for all of the wins, big or small. They provide the gear. You bring the mindset. Visit nike.com for more information. And be sure to follow Nike on Instagram, TikTok, and other social platforms for more great basketball moments.