Cheaper Teslas, OpenAI’s Cash Burn, and Apple’s CEO Succession Plans

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Kara Swisher: And, you know, there are some gay rednecks.

Scott Galloway: Yes, I understand that. There's gay everything.

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 Scott Galloway.

Kara Swisher: Scott, guess what I'm doing tonight?

Scott Galloway: I know what you're doing. You're interviewing Kamala Harris.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. What do you think?

Scott Galloway: I suppose I'm Harris.

Kara Swisher: You know, I'm not going to focus. Honestly, she's answered a lot of questions about Biden. I want to spin it forward. I feel like that's what we should do. Like, I can ask. She's answered a lot of questions about why she didn't say anything. And the answers have been okay. I don't know if I'll get a better answer out of it, but I feel like I should spin it forward. Don't you? What do you think she's going to do next?

Scott Galloway: I don't know. I'll be honest with you. I think she wants to run for president. That's my impression.

Kara Swisher: She's still young. She is the best known one, right? Like no matter how you slice it, she got the most name recognition. And a lot of men have failed and tried again, right? George Bush comes to mind. Lots of people do. John McCain tried a number of times. So there's no reason she shouldn't necessarily.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, there's no reason other than she'd lose for a third time and we wouldn't have a female president for 50 years on the Democratic side. But other than that, she should have it.

Kara Swisher: I'm just saying.

Scott Galloway: And then she brightens up a room by leaving it. And her total political victories have been not making it to Iowa.

Kara Swisher: Okay. That said, that was so... George Bush tried it 83 times, like, and that was okay. And then he got to be president. I'm just saying, like, she was a senator. She was the AG. She's had a lot of big jobs.

Scott Galloway: I don't know. You know my view on this. I'm incredibly classist. The only thing I know is the Democrats are going to nominate a white heterosexual male over six feet tall. Full stop. That's the only thing I know. Maybe Wes Moore, maybe Governor Moore. America seems comfortable with non-whites. I don't think they're comfortable. What's weird is I don't think the Democratic Party is comfortable with a gay president, but we'll see. But it's going to have to be somebody tall.

Kara Swisher: And you know who's very good, who I interviewed or we talked to for Raging Moderates, is Governor Pritzker. He has very comforting dad energy.

Scott Galloway: He has comforting dad energy.

Kara Swisher: But, you know, let me just point out, not to put a too fine a point on it, but you've been spectacularly wrong about political predictions.

Scott Galloway: Oh, I'm awful at politics.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, so that's why I'm like, I don't know. There's a real opportunity, not necessarily Harris. I think someone from outside, like someone that we aren't thinking about, right? Not someone who's unknown, but someone we're not...

Scott Galloway: It's definitely going to be Kamala Harris and Taylor Swift. That's definitely what's going to happen.

Kara Swisher: She would be great. She knows how to sell records. She just beat everybody's record again. I don't have to dwell on it, but she could do well. One of the things was you saw the scare about Dolly Parton. I would like to vote for her. Her sister put up something on Facebook like she was dying. We need prayer warriors. And then she had to get up and say, I know, but then she had to do a video. It was like, I'm not dead. I'm not dead.

Scott Galloway: I get the sense the sister's in the will. I was praying for a different outcome.

Kara Swisher: No, I think they're very good.

Scott Galloway: Oh, that's awful.

Kara Swisher: Oh, that's awful. Have you been to Dollywood?

Scott Galloway: I have, of course.

Kara Swisher: Oh, what's it like?

Scott Galloway: Oh, I love it. I love it.

Kara Swisher: I went when my nephew, Will, who I love, and his wife, Lee, got married. They went to Vanderbilt but then they got married in where Dollywood is, in Pigeon Forge, but it's next to a big city in Tennessee. And so I did go.

Scott Galloway: You sound like such a cultural elite right now.

Kara Swisher: No, I loved it. What are you talking about? I did not. I'm not a cultural elite. I went. I was very excited. And so I brought all the kids.

Scott Galloway: Look at you triggered. Look at you with your Georgetown sensibility.

Kara Swisher: I love Dolly Parton. I've been to Tupelo.

Scott Galloway: You have not.

Kara Swisher: Let me just say, I'm a very complex liberal. I love Elvis. Dolly also unites the country. But I went and I took all the kids and there's butterflies everywhere, which is wonderful. But one of the things that struck me, and it's a very good theme park, I have to say. It's really homey. The food is fantastic. It's really beautiful. It's not too big. You see the coat of many colors, et cetera, et cetera, which is great, the Dolly Museum. But what really struck me, and it was highly noticeable, it was all kinds of different people. It was the gays, obviously. The gays were out in force. Then it was like sort of the rednecks. They were there too. Then it was sort of the Christian-y kind of people.

Scott Galloway: And you know, there are some gay rednecks.

Kara Swisher: Yes, I understand that. There's gay everything. And then there was like sort of Christian conservative type of people. And let me tell you, everybody...

Scott Galloway: Sounds like America.

Kara Swisher: It was. But in Dollywood, everyone was getting along. We're all like, Dolly! It was so interesting because the minute you step out, it changes outside of Dollywood. I wish the whole world was Dollywood because everyone was getting along. Everyone liked Dolly. There was a lot of talking. It was the most enjoyable theme park I've ever been to. But then we got out and Pigeon Forge is a little much. It's sort of gotten overrun with all kinds of touristy stuff. But my son, Louie, wanted to get a knife. And so we went into this store that said "the world's biggest knife store" on the top of it. And I missed the "and gun" part. When I didn't see it, it was behind the thing. And we go in and it was like people throwing bullets and guns and everything into these carts, like a lot of bullets and stuff like that. And Louis went off and got the knife he wanted for cooking. And I'm sitting there watching this woman put like maybe a thousand bullets into the cart. And I was just curious. I'm like, why do you buy so many bullets? Like, not "you shouldn't buy." I wasn't saying that. I was like, I'm just curious why you're buying so many bullets. And she goes, "It's my right to buy bullets." And I said, "Hey, you absolutely should be able to buy as many. I'm just curious why, why, why you're doing it." And she said, "Because Antifa was coming."

Scott Galloway: It was...

Kara Swisher: And then I just was thrown out of Dollywood because I was like, oh, yes, of course, Antifa. That's what's happening.

Scott Galloway: If someone had been buying a lot of Plan B, would you have asked them why they were buying so much Plan B?

Kara Swisher: I would have.

Scott Galloway: Why they're buying so many condoms?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. I do. I talk to people in stores.

Scott Galloway: I think that's passive aggressive. By the way, I like to shoot guns. I hate to tell you, but I like it. And I think people should have gun rights. I just think there should be controls, too.

Kara Swisher: We're really going off topic.

Scott Galloway: I'm going to try and save you here. You mentioned Vanderbilt as someone who's in the midst of the most manufactured stress in history, college apps for their son. Parents want to send their kids to college in the South. They don't want protests. They don't want wokeness. They want a pure college experience. And the Southern schools are booming.

Kara Swisher: Oh, are they? Interesting.

Scott Galloway: And public schools because they're a better value.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Well, Vanderbilt's also a beautiful school and a very good school. Maybe the parents want the non-wokeness, but I think it's because kids love the party. That's a party school. All that stuff that's going on there.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, handy.

Kara Swisher: I think it's not as woke as you think. It's not as unwoke as you think. It's really, it feels like you're in the middle of a big city in Nashville. I love Nashville.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, so do I.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. And also hot chicken. Go hot chicken. Anyway, I love Dollywood. Thank God Dolly is not that sick. And I'm thrilled for her to live for decades to come. We've got a lot to get to today, including OpenAI's cash burn and Apple's succession plans. But first, Tesla had people buzzing about an exciting reveal this week, possibly the roadster that Elon has been teasing for years. But instead, the company rolled out a cheaper version of the Model 3 and Model Y. The new cars run about $5,000 less than the current models with simpler interiors and fewer luxury features, like that cool light on the front that's gone. And the cheaper cars could offset some of the hit Tesla expected to take with the end of the EV tax credit, they're hoping. But investors seem to be unimpressed so far. Tesla stock fell 4% after the announcement. Talk a little bit, Scott, about these cheaper cars. Because a lot of the things I saw online were like, this is just a shittier car. And it wasn't very exciting. And cars are about being excited about the cars, right? Or maybe not. I don't know.

Scott Galloway: The way to summarize it is less for more. With the end of the tax credit, they couldn't compensate for the end of the tax credit in terms of a value, a product to cost ratio. The new cars are about $40,000 and $37,000 respectively, or the Model Y and the standard Model 3. They're more expensive than the Model Y premium and Model 3 premium costs just last month because the tax credit expired. And also these cars are a significant downgrade. Essentially, Tesla customers are paying more for less. And when you compare that against... I mean, the market is as it has. If you want to understand what's happening in Tesla, watch the movie Tucker. There used to be like 50 or 60 automobile companies and it's consolidating. Unfortunately, it's consolidating not around American giants, it's consolidating around Chinese giants. The costs are coming down and Tesla can't keep up and doesn't have the scale. GM, Nissan, and Hyundai all offer EV models that are cheaper than Tesla's most inexpensive vehicle. And in China, the BYD Seagull is now under $8,000. And even if we ring fence our market, the CCP has had to send a letter to Chinese EV manufacturers and say, "Please raise prices," because a lot of these EV companies are seen as national champions for the local jurisdiction and they're being subsidized, but an $8,000 EV. So the amount of pressure here... I mean, I don't know if you saw, but he came up with this, they're kind of shelving their robot plans, which was their latest attempt to distract people from the fact this is an automobile company, not a SaaS or an AI company. But the death spiral here continues. Tesla's market share in the U.S. dropped to its lowest level since 2017.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, but that stock keeps flying, right? It's a meme stock. I can't explain it. But how long does that continue when there are really such obvious results here?

Scott Galloway: I have been wrong about Tesla for a long time, but all I can report is Tesla sales were down 43% year over year in the EU, and they're down 6.3% year to date in China. And although September was a record-setting month for EV sales in the U.S. because people were trying to get the tax credit, which helped them a little bit, Tesla sales were muted. Tesla sales were only up 7%, versus Ford, whose EV sales, granted off a smaller basis, are up 20%, and GM EVs were up 107%.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, because of this tax credit expiring, people rushing your car. I thought about getting another, replacing my Kia with one of the Kias actually, which are really nice. One of the things is, we're focusing on the price and everything else and the credit, but one of the things is it's a shittier version of a car and it's not interesting. I've been looking at more electric cars again, something you've gone fully electric on. And there's so many cool cars out there, like so much fun, like shopping them a little bit. And I wouldn't even look at a Tesla because this hasn't changed. Lots of reasons. I don't want to give money to him, but that's not why. If he came up with a delightful car, I'd have a hard time not buying it, right? Even him. Because I use Amazon and Jeff Bezos gives me a headache because it's good, right? And so I was like, when I look at the BYD cars just online, I've never actually seen... I haven't been to Europe in a while and I haven't seen it. They look delightful. It's something I would buy if it was available.

Scott Galloway: I've been in several BYDs because I took Ubers all around Brazil when I was in Sao Paulo. And you get in one and you think you're in... your first impression is, "Oh, you're in the cheap Tesla." But the cheap Tesla is 30 or 35 grand. And this thing, this guy told me, I asked him how many reals it was, 80,000. That's about $16,000. You're basically in what feels like kind of the low model Tesla but it's for half the price. And also what I found interesting is that Tesla, they announced kind of under the cover of dark that they're abandoning the plans for producing the Optimus, their transition to AI. And earlier in the year, Musk said, in an attempt again to justify what is just an unsustainable stock price, he said on an earnings call that Tesla would build 10,000 Optimus bots for internal use and that eventually, get this, Optimus would make up 80% of Tesla's enterprise value. He's just making it up. And by the way, I mean, he's just like throwing stuff out there. There was one at the Tron premiere I saw. Just like, this is ridiculous.

Kara Swisher: Well, the thing that kind of triggered it and said, "Okay, we got to put this thing on hold" or basically find a polite exit from this, the head of Optimus just left the company to be a research scientist at Meta. And he also confirmed on exit, he took a pay cut to do so. But meanwhile, Tesla stock is up 14% this year.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I know. It's crazy.

Kara Swisher: If he made a great car, I bet people would buy it, right? That's one thing. The thing that's interesting, even though he goes on and on about robots, is his spectrum and a mobile phone, right? The stuff that Starlink is doing, to me, is actually a great product. It could be a great business. He could steal market share from Verizon and the rest. I mean, to me, that is the boring stuff that he could actually do rather well on. Or he could make a car that's delightful again, or innovative, or feels fresh, but he won't do that. He's not interested in that at all.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I think he's a brilliant guy and he's trying to reposition the entire thing as AI and a combination of... he does have an exceptional product with SpaceX, autonomous driving. He's got a lot of data. He's got Grok. He's raised, he's about to raise a ton of money for that. I mean, you can never count this guy out. But he's trying to figure out a way to maintain Tesla's market cap so he can fund his move into AI and this other stuff. And also he's raising a lot of money and raising debt because a lot of people just want to be involved with him in hopes that they can either get into SpaceX or into the SpaceX IPO. And just his name associated with anything takes the value up tens of billions of dollars. But there's just no getting around it. The weak link in all of this is that the company that's worth the most is overvalued by 10x. And he keeps coming up with Robovan or autonomous cars or Optimus robots. And it's like, "Please, please look over here. Don't look at here as I try and pull this dead rabbit out of it."

Kara Swisher: We should pull up to our tour in a Robovan. Can't, they don't exist. I know that. We should bring a robot. We should bring an Optimus robot. Can you go buy one?

Scott Galloway: You know what? I'll just take Xanax. You'll think it's a robot on stage with you.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, Elon, make a better something. Like stop moving stuff around. He actually just paid off all those Twitter people he tried to keep their salaries after he fired them. He had to pay. Of course, he ended up paying everybody back. Anyway, moving on. This story is getting more and more interesting. OpenAI has now signed about $1 trillion in deals this year for computing power, partnering with NVIDIA, Oracle, and others. This week's massive deal with AMD sent the chipmaker's stock soaring by more than 40%, a crazy, crazy amount of money. OpenAI's cash burn is probably an estimated $115 billion through 2029. And the latest valuation puts it at $300 billion, making it the world's most valuable private company. We know that analysts are sounding the alarm about these circular deals. As we talked about previously, it feels very AOL PurchasePro circa the last century. A small network of companies pouring money into each other's coffers, fueling an AI bubble. They're all waiting to make money. They're all desperate to make money to back this up. Now, NVIDIA is also investing in xAI's latest funding round. They're all sort of propping each other up with the same $5, essentially. So talk a little bit about this so people can understand. There's been some great stories showing all the interconnections, especially charts. And it's really quite something. It's like someone called me when I said it was a round tripping. They're like, "That's rude." I said, "Would you prefer I use 'circle jerk'?" And they were like, "No, stick with round tripping." So anyway, there we have it, circle jerk. Your thoughts?

Scott Galloway: Well, let's just do the math. If NVIDIA invests $100 billion in OpenAI, with the agreement that they're going to turn around and buy and spend all of that $100 billion on NVIDIA chips. Okay, so they're trading at $4 trillion. So it's approximately a 2.5% dilution of the stock price. So all else being equal, the stock price should go down 2.5%. That's the cost. They're taking 2.5% of their company or they're increasing their dilution by 2.5% for that $100 billion to invest in OpenAI. That money comes right back in the form of chip purchases. The operating margin on the GPUs that NVIDIA sells is about 55 points. So that creates $55 billion in incremental earnings or profits. The company trades at about a P/E of about 33. So loosely speaking, that's about a $1.8 trillion increase in market cap. So a $1.8 trillion increase in market cap off of a $100 billion investment is a 1,700% return. The problem is, so theoretically, it's a wildly accretive thing to do. But all you're doing is... I remember we were doing this in the late 90s. We were buying software from all the other startups we worked with, backed by the companies who had backed us. And then when the music stops, it's not like the music stops and they take away one share. When the music stops and one share gets taken away, a dozen shares get taken away because everything just accelerates downward. So these deals, we've talked about it. These deals feel very late stage bubble.

Kara Swisher: Can I ask you, I saw Ken Griffin talking, who seems like a grumpy fella, but he's a smart guy. Like, that's what I'm saying. But he was talking about gold, you know, the price of gold. We're going to talk about gold in a second. But he was discussing this. He's like, "This is a real problem, the frothiness around tech stocks and that they're holding up the whole thing." And he and many others are predicting this sort of market collapse. I think they're not even using "downturn." They're like "collapse" kind of thing. And sometimes I believe those things, but he had such a cogent argument about it. How do you look at that?

Scott Galloway: Well, I'll give you a thesis and I'll tell you what I'm doing as opposed to offering financial advice. First off, just some caveats. When the experts, the most knowledgeable people, are all convinced about something happening, I forget the name of the effect, but it almost never happens. Like experts on average, when experts have consensus, it's usually wrong. And if you look at the arc of the growth of OpenAI, it's kind of mimicking what happened in Netscape. And it's at a point where it's still two years away from the bubble bursting. So like I said, the economists called the dot-com implosion perfectly, but they called it in 1997 before those stocks went up another 30 or 40%. So do we know they're going to come down? Yeah. The hard part is figuring out when they're going to come down and if they're going to scream to new highs. Now, what I see is effectively America right now is a giant bet on AI. Why? Because 40%... let me just get political here. If the S&P had been down 23% instead of up 23%, there's no way, in my view, Trump would have the cloud cover to send troops into Portland. If he was totally distracted with, "Okay, you get into office and all of a sudden the market goes down, loses a quarter of its value," he would be putting out fires and not have the cloud cover to start raiding Home Depots. So essentially, the bet on AI, the extraordinary valuations of AI, the acceleration of these 10 stocks which are responsible for 70% of the uptick in the S&P, are enabling Trump behavior. I think AI and the market valuations of AI are the reason that Trump has the cloud cover to move towards fascism.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, of course. And there they were, front row, getting all the gimmies. The lack of guardrails, the money, the cryptocurrency. They got all their stuff, and here they are helping him.

Scott Galloway: Well, and then he shows up and says, "Okay, I'll pass AI legislation where you can suck value from the 490 of the S&P that aren't you. The tariffs don't impact you. They probably help you because you can get talent." Who is going to go to work for Ford if they have an offer from Google or Meta or Broadcom right now? Now, you have some of the smartest people in the world. Warren Buffett is selling like a maniac. So what I'm doing is, and I've been doing it for a long time, I have been buying European and Latin American stocks, and I am now contemplating, I'm trying to find an ETF and a way to go short the Magnificent 10. I just... and by the way, there's a great saying: the markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

Kara Swisher: Explain what you mean, "short the Magnificent 10." Tell people what you're doing so people understand. Because they're here for our business advice, give them yours really.

Scott Galloway: There are now ETFs. And what they do is they go out and they sell covered calls against those 10 companies, meaning they think that they take a premium. And if the stocks don't go up, they get to hold onto that premium. And they do it across the Magnificent 10. They're basically... you can invest in vehicles that are betting on the Magnificent 10 going down. But just a point of caution here: you do not want to invest more than you are willing to lose all of it. I'm doing it as a hedging strategy because I think if these 10 companies unwind, literally every company in the world is likely going to go down. Because in the 80s, there was some incredible academic research that showed that you get risk-adjusted free return and upside based on diversification. And so everyone believed that and everyone started diversifying like crazy, meaning that if an iron ore company in Australia goes down in value, the people who own that iron ore company will probably have to sell Japanese stocks. So everything's sort of interconnected now. And when you have 10 companies responsible for 40% of the S&P's value, and the S&P makes up 50% of the total world value, you have 10 companies responsible for 20% of the entire valuation of public equities globally. Meaning that is the string that, if it gets pulled, everything goes down.

Kara Swisher: What pulls it then?

Kara Swisher: What pulls it then?

Scott Galloway: In my opinion, it's that MIT study, which was not great research, but it was, I think, directionally correct, showing that 95% of companies when surveyed said they are not yet getting the ROI they'd hoped based on these extraordinary expenditures and site licenses with LLMs. So everybody has signed big agreements with Anthropic, with OpenAI, they have purchased chips to try and build their own things. And so far, they're excited about it, they see a lot of potential, but they're not seeing the ROI. And if all of a sudden, a bunch of big companies all come out and say, we're scaling back our investments in AI because it's not showing the ROI, and NVIDIA throws up and goes down 20 or 30% in one day, you could see just an unwinding very similar-

Kara Swisher: So NVIDIA is the domino.

Scott Galloway: Well, NVIDIA most likely, Kara, because the thing about OpenAI is they're private. So they don't have to announce that they threw up their earnings and you don't see the stock go down 30% in one day.

Kara Swisher: I see. Okay. This is where it pays to be a private company. So, you know, NVIDIA, Broadcom, Oracle, all these guys, Palantir. If Palantir went down 70% in two weeks, we would say, well, of course it did.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, right, right. It still wouldn't look cheap. Now, the company that probably creates almost like a global, a real slowdown, and we're very vulnerable right now because there's indications that we are seeing a weak job market while inflation is persistent, which is the S word, stagflation. But the company, you never know. It's almost impossible. By virtue of saying it's NVIDIA that is the epicenter of the earthquake here, it probably won't be NVIDIA. When this shit happens, it usually starts in a place you didn't expect it. But it's definitely feeling like, you know, Nassim Taleb, the notion of anti-fragility. We have way too—let me finish where I started. America right now is a giant bet on AI. Everything, whether it's Trump's policies—

Kara Swisher: All in, as those idiots say.

Scott Galloway: Whether it's Trump having cloud cover to make the aggressive moves he's making, whether it's the fact that we can impose ridiculously stupid tariffs and the economy still hasn't gone into a coma. It's because of the massive amount of capital chasing returns and momentum in 10 stocks right now. Everybody head for the hills. And speaking of which, gold.

Kara Swisher: OK, Scott, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, why investors are going for gold.

[Ad Break]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back in our very business-focused show today. The price of gold soared past $4,000 for the first time this week. Prices are up more than 50% since the beginning of the year. Gold traditionally climbs during periods of uncertainty, and it's currently on track for its best year since 1979. That's a long time ago. What were you doing in 1979? How old was I?

Scott Galloway: I was still in high school.

Kara Swisher: This latest rally kicked off right as the government shutdown began. Up and up since Trump announced his Liberation Day tariffs back in April, obviously. Are you going for the gold, Scott? Are you wearing a gold belt right now, like in Billions, where you have a little gold doubloons, etc.? Ray Dalio said this week that people should allocate as much as 15% of their portfolios to gold. Thoughts?

Scott Galloway: Thoughts about gold. Gold is best. The first crush I ever had and the first woman I ever remember registering as pretty was a woman named Carson Evans. Her and her husband Charlie, he owned a printing company. They were the first people I ever observed were rich. They used to have big parties where people would drink and they lived up in the hills and they'd hire these bands. And I thought these people are so cool. And Carson was just beautiful. And her husband, Charlie, I was gonna go to work for his company after high school because I didn't think I was going to go to college. And really good man, my godfather, and his company went out of business, very depressed. She told me he was leaving him. And he went into his room, or went in the garage, and killed himself. Anyways, that's not the moral of the story. She was a very good friend of my mom. And when my mom was dying out of nowhere, she was by this time a raging alcoholic in her 70s, addicted to opiates because of back pain.

Kara Swisher: Is this going to get better?

Scott Galloway: Okay. All right. It ends on a funny note. She'd become addicted to opiates and Johnny Walker Black because of the back pain from failed surgeries. She showed up. She called me and said, "I'm going to come take care of your mom." And I'm like, "We're fine." I didn't want an alcoholic there. Canary Yellow Corvette shows up with a dog and 12 bottles of Johnny Walker. And she's like, "I'm here." And every night she would make hot pockets for us and keep my mom company.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God.

Scott Galloway: Anyways, so my mom passes. Carson goes back to San Diego. Carson dies four years later, and I get a call from a lawyer in San Diego saying you're the sole beneficiary of Carson Evans.

Kara Swisher: What?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, she left me everything. Everything wasn't a lot, but she had no friends. She had no kids.

Kara Swisher: Oh, God.

Scott Galloway: So one of the things I inherited—

Kara Swisher: This is something I did not—my mind is being blown right now. You had Jennifer Coolidge as your godmother, essentially, right?

Scott Galloway: You know what? Actually, that's the most apt analogy I would have ever used to describe Carson.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. A really drunk Jennifer Coolidge.

Scott Galloway: Okay. So I said to my dad, I said, "Go down there and find out what there is or anything." Neighbors, I had a funeral for, three people showed up.

Kara Swisher: Oh, no.

Scott Galloway: And yeah, one of them was the maintenance guy who she was fooling around with, I guess. But anyways, I walked in on her topless, fooling around with a maintenance guy when she was taking care of my mom and I still, that's like, still starts in my memory. Anyways, so one of the things I heard is she had a safe. No money, nothing, but she had a safe. So we had to hire people to come out and drill open the safe. And in the safe I saw something that I used to see her wear all the time. And it was this massive gold belt that had Indian head $5 gold coins. It was a belt with 12 gold coins on it. And these gold coins, I guess, this is the only gold I've ever owned, were worth like $3,000, $5,000, or $10,000 each. And at one point, gold soared, and my closest friend was going through a divorce. And I'd hid the gold coins, the belt, because I didn't know what to do with this thing. And my oldest friend from home was going through a divorce, and I had just sold my home in the Hamptons.

Kara Swisher: This story is getting douchier and douchier.

Scott Galloway: And so I shipped him all the furniture because he was going through a divorce. I'm like, "I don't need this furniture. You can have it." And then about two years later, gold spikes. And I figured that, and I didn't have a lot of money. I just started at NYU and I'm like, "I could really use that money." And Indian gold heads were going for like $18,000. So I'm like, "I have a $200,000 belt." I racked my home looking for this fucking belt. And then about six months later, my friend calls and he goes, "Oh, by the way," he goes, "my youngest son, Nick, has been wearing this cool costume jewelry Halloween belt you have."

Kara Swisher: I'm like, "What are you talking about?"

Scott Galloway: And he's like, "Yeah, we found it in the drawer. He wears it to school every day because he thinks it makes him look like a rapper."

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God.

Scott Galloway: So two years later, I found out that my friend's 13-year-old was wearing a $200,000 belt to school every day because he thought it made him look like Snoop Dogg.

Kara Swisher: I can't believe this. He would wear it around his neck. Where's the belt?

Scott Galloway: He would wear it around his neck.

Kara Swisher: Where is the belt?

Scott Galloway: And so anyways, got it back, gave three of the gold coins to this girl next door who used to go and get Carson her prescription drugs. And then we still have the other nine.

Kara Swisher: You still have the belt?

Scott Galloway: No, I just, I didn't. It's not the belt. It's the nine Indian head gold coins.

Kara Swisher: Where are they? You have them?

Scott Galloway: I just got very insecure again because, again, I can't fucking remember where they are.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God, Scott.

Scott Galloway: Anyways.

Kara Swisher: You need to wear that belt to our tour. But every time I think of that belt, I think of this woman who, this woman literally in 1979 was the toast of the town. And then wasn't. And then like 25 years was addicted to painkillers and an alcoholic and broke.

Scott Galloway: Well, okay. Anyways. Gold is best. Gold, gold. I don't know. I think we should stop now. Thanks for that walk down memory lane.

Kara Swisher: Oh my God. Oh my God, Scott. I was fascinated by that. I thought at first, "Oh my God, he needs to stop." And then I was like, "I want to know all that." I want, I need you to find the belt now.

Scott Galloway: Okay. Like my Bitcoin. Like my Bitcoin that's missing, wherever it is.

Kara Swisher: You need to find-

Scott Galloway: Same thing.

Kara Swisher: Mine's on a hard drive. That's the whole story. Okay. So I'll bring us back to gold. The bottom line is the run-up in gold is essentially an indictment against the U.S. Because gold is sort of a-

Scott Galloway: Also dollars, everyone's going into, that's what Griffin was saying, they're going into everything but dollars, right? So people no longer have as much faith in the dollar and they are no longer, typically when there's kind of a risk on trade or you want something that might endure inflation or some sort of risk, there's just so much, it feels like there's so much risk everywhere, you go into treasuries. And people are even losing confidence in treasuries and that's foreign central banks are moving into gold because they no longer consider U.S. debt a safe asset. And per your comments last week, Citadel's Ken Griffin said investors are starting to view gold as a safer asset than the dollar, which is obviously really concerning because what people don't appreciate is, well, whenever there's tumult in the world or danger, the president's typically the first question they ask is, "Where are our carriers?" The most powerful carrier strike force in history that's invisible is the U.S. dollar because very few companies, very few countries can transact a lot of business without going through U.S. dollars. So we get to see everything. Our sanctions have teeth. We can, the economic firepower we have because the dollar is the default currency. Now, fortunately, nothing looks like it's rivaling it. But the fact that gold's above $4,000, it doesn't speak well. And Bitcoin's up. All the other, he called them dollar alternates. Griffin called them.

Kara Swisher: By the way, I did just say that about 10 minutes ago and it's because that story was so long. You forgot, I didn't say it last week. Anyway, I love that story. Can I ask one? I need you to answer this briefly. Where's the fucking Corvette?

Scott Galloway: Oh, I don't know what happened to the vet. I think she sold it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: For drugs.

Kara Swisher: No, Carson is a cautionary tale for me.

Scott Galloway: Took care of my mom. I checked in on her only a few times. I remember thinking at her funeral, like this woman who was taking care of my mom and I couldn't find the time to go visit her.

Kara Swisher: Oh, don't, don't, don't.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. Total lack of character.

Kara Swisher: We're going to move along. We're going to move along. That's a great story. That's a great story. Carson. Here's to fucking Carson.

Scott Galloway: Here's to Carson Evans.

Kara Swisher: Here's to Carson Evans. We're moving on from gold, since gold is best. People, go look "gold is best" in Apple, and you'll laugh your ass off. Tim Cook may step down as Apple CEO in the near future and the clear front runner for his replacement is emerging hardware engineering chief John Ternus. Ternus has already been in the Apple spotlight, unveiling new Macs and iPads in the past. He's 50 years old, really interesting guy, the same age as Cook was when he took the role and has a strong technology background as opposed to operations or sales. There was the guy who left, just recently left, was thought to be the CEO. I think it's Jeff Williams was supposed to be the CEO, but now it looks like this guy. Talk about the shifting over this.

Scott Galloway: I think they'll probably do a very smooth transition at Apple. I don't think it'll be sort of ugly like many, many others like Disney or whatever. Not ugly, but just slow or confusing as many companies when they do these transitions. I suspect they'll do it pretty smoothly. The thing that I'm sort of shocked by is that Cook has been so acquiescent to Trump if he's leaving. What does he have to lose to have some dignity? But go ahead.

Kara Swisher: Well, Apple is arguably, I mean, if you look on just consistently for the last 20 or 30 years, has been the best run company in the world. And kudos to Cook, by the way. Everyone thought it was going to fall apart when Jobs died and he's made it bigger and better and stronger. $300 billion when he took over. Now it's $3.5 trillion. And look, there's a real, the biggest lesson people can take away from Apple specifically right now, and it's a really important lesson that our elected leaders and Bob Iger need to learn, fucking leave. Leave. You are too fucking old. Leave. Two thirds of Congress will be dead in 25 years because they're so fucking old. You really think they're worried about debt or climate change?

Scott Galloway: No, they're not.

Kara Swisher: You really think a 74-year-old Bob Iger can read the room right now?

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Leave. Tim Cook added more shareholder value than any individual in history, with the exception of Jensen Huang. He's 64, and you know what he's doing? He's realizing it's probably time for someone else. And if you were to, and I know I say this a lot, but if you were to reverse engineer the world's biggest problems, they reverse engineer it to some dude who won't fucking leave. Some guy who won't get out of the way. Cook does not strike me as that person.

Scott Galloway: That's my point. Yeah. Kudos to him.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Kudos to him. He has nothing left to prove or accomplish. He should go watch Bama games or whatever he does and have documentaries made about him and go to film festivals and have sex with much younger men and just enjoy himself.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. He could be on the board still, too. Follow his lead, Congress.

Kara Swisher: Right. Follow his lead. How old is he?

Scott Galloway: He's 64.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, he's not old. He's not that, he actually is incredibly fit too. You're right. He's in great shape.

Scott Galloway: He's in great shape. He's with it. He's done a great job. Some missteps here and there. Humble, nice, everything. Granted, probably produced the most dangerous device in the world, but like, kudos to him. I love that this guy is saying, okay, it's time to let someone else take over. Very well-run company.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, he's got a lot of choices there. What's interesting about Apple, and I remember when, I think I've said this before, when Walt retired, they had a little surprise party for him at one of the events, Cook and Eddie Q and the whole gang of them. And I have to say, I was really, sometimes I think when people all stay together for a long time, that sucks too. But I thought this group of people, they kind of reminded me of the Rolling Stones. They kind of kept going pretty well for a long time. And the fact that they've injected this new guy, who was a relatively new guy and I've never met him, John Ternus, into the equation without having to go to one of the older guys is kind of great, actually. I'm sure he's been there a while. I don't know much about him, but it's not one of the ones right below Cook, right? That's the natural thing a lot of people do. And so, you know, they should really, you're right, Disney should do it. Interestingly enough, Dana Walden was the one people think is going to possibly be hurt by the Jimmy Kimmel thing, but Kimmel just said she was great just publicly. So these things should all just happen. Like, there's never a good time to leave, right? Presumably. I mean, you're a board member. What's the problem? What's the biggest, just ego? What do you put it at?

Scott Galloway: This is the problem and I'm virtually signaling or patting myself on the back. I always put, I always have a self-imposed term limit of four years on boards. I always leave after four years.

Kara Swisher: Exactly.

Scott Galloway: Okay. One, because I want to do a variety of things because I'm going to be dead soon and I need to shift stuff off my plate regularly to put more stuff on. But also this is what happens when you're on a board. You start vacationing with Bob and Willow and you find out they're really lovely people and you just want them to win and you like them personally. And even though you decided, okay Bob, you've made some really bad decisions and you're 74, maybe we should give that Parks guy or gal a chance. You don't because you're on the board and you play golf with them and you like them and they're nice and you start making excuses for them. And guess what? Every CEO I've met is effectively not the fraternity president or the sorority president, but definitely the fraternity or sorority rush chairman, and that they are really, really likable. Because how you get to be CEO is not only being outstanding, but by creating a lack of enemies, because you are so fucking likable. And everyone on the board—

Kara Swisher: Or they're scared of you. There's another version of a CEO that's scared of you.

Scott Galloway: Well, that's more the Musk thing.

Kara Swisher: Or you get paid off, like the Musk thing.

Scott Galloway: It's also they pay these board members off. Good boards are meant to be, I mean, one of the first things I demand in every board is an executive session where, and CEOs hate this and good boards do this, where for at least 15 or 30 minutes at the end of the board meeting, the CEO leaves the room and you talk about how the CEO is doing. And then you have the chairman give them feedback. And what bad boards do, and I've seen this in Fortune 500 companies, is they don't do it because, oh, the CEO is doing such a great job and they all get paid off and they all start and they all want to be on other boards. And before you know it, they are totally co-opted. And there's usually two board meetings. There's usually a board meeting, the official board meeting, and then what I call the real board meeting. And that is the two or three people that have power on the board. It's usually the biggest shareholders and the one person everyone kind of respects on the board. And they meet in the parking lot after and they start saying, "I'm worried about Bob. I'm not sure he's the right guy." And that's the beginning of the end when it happens. But people on boards typically don't like, and not only that, good boards have shareholders on the board, not just their buddies.

Kara Swisher: You know, a little like a president who doesn't want to leave requiring the vice president to go in and say leave, which is vaguely traitorous. Anyway, just thinking about that.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, there's a real lesson in this, and that is, and I, you know, you want to surround yourself with people. This is why I think kids are so valuable, are teenagers. You have to have people in your life that go, on a regular basis, "That's just fucking stupid. You're wrong. You're wrong, stop it, you're wrong." And if you don't have those people in your life, if you don't have people saying that to you, it means you have the wrong friends or your family is scared of you because nobody, I don't care who you are. It is really hard to read the label from the inside of the bottle.

Kara Swisher: It depends on who they are. I will say Bob Iger does seek out people who don't agree with him. I have spoken to him. You know what I mean? You know him, I don't.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, he does. He does. And he doesn't shy from it. So maybe he will in that case.

Kara Swisher: But Tim Cook, good for you. So we do have to move on, though. Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about major banks wanting a role in the IPO of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

[Ad Break]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back with more news. Major banks are schmoozing with the Trump administration for a role, of course they are, for a role, as you noted last week, how do you work with the White House, for a role of the IPO of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. CEOs of the country's six largest banks are making business with the White House and attempting to become the favorite. All six banks are expected to play a part, but all are pushing to have the two lead roles. The administration is looking for an IPO combined value of $500 billion, raising roughly $30 billion, which could make it the largest IPO offering in history. What is this? Is this like another big payoff this time for the banks versus tech companies, correct?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it's the reason why Jamie Dimon, who I think is a leader, or David Solomon, who I also think is a great CEO, are less inclined to speak their mind and say the Fed needs to be independent, although they have said that, or these tariffs make no fucking sense because they're all hoping to get a part of that underwriting fee for this. First off, this shouldn't happen. Anything like this where the government has input, which it probably shouldn't, he should recuse himself from the decision and have a panel of thoughtful, smart people who say, "What is the best syndicate?" And the reality is the syndicate for an offering like this should be just everyone because they want to get as much distribution as possible and then competitively bid it out to try and get the lowest fees possible. But instead, like TikTok and everything else, he's going to decide who are his political allies and who will say things and show up to the White House. And Jamie, will you say nice things about me? Because if these guys come out and actually say, "I don't know, I'm worried about stagflation and these policies don't make any sense." Which Dimon has been doing compared to others more. I think Jamie, to his credit, has been a leader on this. And also I think Jamie right now he has a lot of power and he's also very powerful. In addition, the banks are rocketing right now because of this M&A Lollapalooza because of a lack of FTC oversight and these incredibly...

Kara Swisher: Do you have any insight of who's going to get the two lead roles?

Scott Galloway: Oh, it'll be the big guys. It'll be J.P. Morgan and Goldman. It'll be everybody. I don't know who the book runner will be.

Kara Swisher: Right. They're all going to be in it, but there's two lead roles.

Scott Galloway: I got to think it's going to be two of three. It's either J.P. Morgan, Goldman, or Morgan Stanley, because Trump is very brand sensitive. And also these companies have the largest networks and probably the best research and they're probably the most capable. But this will end up being a syndicate for everyone because it'll be such a massive offer.

Kara Swisher: But the whole thing, the president shouldn't be influencing these decisions because it creates an unfair market and it creates an ecosystem that withers away and erodes democracy.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, smells like TikTok. The downside to autocracy is you punish your enemies. The flip side is over-rewarding your allies. And the problem is, if you're not in the president's ear every day, you're just a smaller or medium-sized business which is responsible for two-thirds of the job creation. Those companies suffer and the economy suffers. So the president shouldn't, not even a cabinet-level decision should be involved in this. It should be an independent committee of really smart people that includes bankers but don't have a vested interest or own shares in these companies picking who the syndicate is.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, well, there you have it. Really briefly, 500 National Guard members are currently in Chicago despite a lawsuit challenging their deployment to the city. They're outside the city, apparently. President Trump has said several times this week that he would invoke the Insurrection Act if necessary. The federal law from 1807 grants the president powers to deploy the military domestically to federalize national troops, but only in certain cases. I think it was used during the riots in L.A. last time, I believe. President Trump also took to Truth Social this week to further attack the city, saying Governor J.B. Pritzker, who you just had on, Scott, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson should be in jail for failing to protect ICE. 58% of Americans, including half of the Republicans, think armed troops should only be sent for external threats. What is this? It just goes on. And then there's these photos from Portland where people dressed as frogs.

Scott Galloway: That's hilarious. As dinosaurs.

Kara Swisher: Dinosaurs and frogs. You know, it's crazy. And then you have Kristi Noem cosplaying, talking about Ice Barbie. Like, what is she doing? What do you think about this? Nobody likes this on any spectrum. It's sort of organically hateful for everybody. What's happening? I don't know. Very briefly from a marketing point of view, Scott.

Scott Galloway: I mean, just a couple observations. I think we're going to look back on this era and we're going to be horrified, even those of us who think we liked it, that somehow we understand what's happening to us. We're going to be horrified when we realize how much mind control, profit-seeking people who aren't concerned with the well-being of our emotional and financial health, how much influence and how far they have taken us to really ugly places. We'll be embarrassed. And when I go online and I see all of these images around, these horrible images of what's happening in ICE raids, I feel so bad about America.

Kara Swisher: Yep, you said that last week.

Scott Galloway: And the rest of the world looks at us and goes, wow. And also they say they're distracted. Let's fly attack drones over Estonia. And it's bad for the brand. It takes our eyes off of real problems. It's really dividing America. I mean, it's like liberal cities versus the federal government and all that. It's incredibly fraught with risk. What happens if someone loses it and starts firing on these troops? Or the troops start firing. It's just a more likely situation. And also it totally feeds into the juice, the mojo, the creatine of fascism. And that is that the enemy is within.

Kara Swisher: I don't think everybody... It doesn't divide us. It's the Trump administration doing this. I have not run into anyone who, including conservatives, who thinks it's a good thing. Nobody, except for the occasional Fox person, is like cities are crazy war grounds, which is so ridiculous. People have never been to cities. So I just think polling shows that most people largely do not like this.

Scott Galloway: I think there actually, Kara, I think there are an uncomfortable number of people who are angry and have been convinced by Fox and Trump that these immigrants are disproportionately criminal and that they hurt their economic well-being and that these cities are so poorly run by virtue signaling Democrats that they don't like it but they're willing to tolerate it.

Kara Swisher: Would you have thought? I have a lot of concern. They don't like it. Nobody likes the troops in cities that I have encountered among my conservatives.

Scott Galloway: We're tolerating it?

Kara Swisher: Certainly. But that's different than thinking. I don't think it's a—I just have this feeling, people, this is one of many things. Like, look, what set people off? Jimmy Kimmel, right?

Scott Galloway: The Jimmy Kimmel thing. What a surprise.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I wouldn't have guessed that. This stuff sets people off, too. It's like, no, no. Look at the polling. We have some actual data here. New polling on these deployments revealed that 47% of those surveyed opposed the deployments in D.C. 46% opposed the deployment to Memphis. 49% opposed a deployment of the National Guard to cities for law enforcement. 52% opposed deployments to their local area. See, to me, only half of people oppose this?

Scott Galloway: Some people are paying attention. I don't think those people are vehement. I guess what I'm saying is I don't think they're vehement. I think they're passive.

Kara Swisher: Right.

Scott Galloway: That's the difference.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, we'll see. We'll see what happens here. You're right. The issue is, sooner or later, someone's going to lose an eye, like that expression.

Scott Galloway: Okay, let me back up. There are organizations cooperating with ICE, right? There are companies from AT&T to Palantir cooperating. The outrage and the pushback, the red line, if someone had said, okay, basically a mass secret police force at the behest of the president is going into predominantly democratically run cities and in masks, incarcerating and terrorizing some people who have been here for 10 and 20 years and a small but non-zero number of people are actually citizens and creating a sense of fear and terror in the homeland, or a late night talk show host gets canceled for saying something innocuous about Charlie Kirk, which one is going to trigger the red line? I wouldn't have thought it was Kimmel. I would have thought it had been this.

Kara Swisher: I guess the question is, what can we do about it? I think it's because it's a slow burn. I think this is like, look, in the 60s, it was a much slower burn. It felt like it wasn't a slow burn. We were just children at the time. But I think it took Kent State. It took a number of things. The same thing with civil rights. It took that bridge. It took those images. Like, it takes a thing. Unfortunately, it's often a violent thing. And so to me, the crossing line will be if the troops start shooting people and killing people. Right? And I think it's a much slower burn on something like this. But we'll see.

Scott Galloway: I don't think I'm speaking out of school because this person called me, but a lot of people are running for president right now. And I said to this individual, "Okay, you're running for—call this what it is. You're running for president." And the person ultimately came to—and I can never tell when people ask me for advice if they want my brain or they just want access to you or to the podcast. It doesn't matter. They asked me for my advice or money.

Kara Swisher: Fair enough. Thank you for that.

Scott Galloway: And I said, in my opinion, the smartest thing you could do to be elected president right now would be to get arrested. Whatever high profile governor gets arrested first has a moment to say, "I'm sorry, I'm just not putting up with this," and gets arrested. I think that person jumps to the head of the polls.

Kara Swisher: I like it. I like it. Should we get arrested? I've never been arrested. Have you?

Scott Galloway: I have twice.

Kara Swisher: Twice?

Scott Galloway: Very briefly, I will tell you. Once I was riding my moped, they pulled me over.

Kara Swisher: Was that you in Vegas?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, no, not in Vegas, in D.C. I was arrested. I'll just tell one of them. I was riding my moped back from something. I got pulled over. And at the time, D.C. was undergoing a lot of drug issues around crack. And so a lot of apparently dealers were on mopeds. And so they pulled me over.

Kara Swisher: Oh, yeah, you look like a dealer.

Scott Galloway: I know. So they pulled me over and I was like, "What?" And then they wanted to look in my things.

Kara Swisher: A dealer in the Wizard of Oz?

Scott Galloway: Yes, exactly. And I said, "You can't look at my stuff. You can't. There's no cause here. You don't consent to search?" It's just because it's a moped. I'm like a college student. I was at the Washington Post at the time. And I was like, "You can't look at my thing. I won't open it." And so they said, "Can you turn around?" And I just turned around. And then they cuffed me. Because I refused to let them look inside the seat of the moped. I wouldn't open it. And they put me in one of those paddy wagons and I was flying around the paddy wagon. It was the park police too who arrested me, I think. Or maybe it was Secret Service. I don't know. I was way over in Haines Point. They stuck me in a cell. They put me to the wall. They took my belt, my shoelaces. Like I was committing suicide over this. It was so ridiculous. I shouldn't have behaved like that, but I was a kid. And so I was super rude. And my friend, Renee Sanchez, who was the editor of the St. Paul or the Minneapolis paper, and now is doing this amazing thing in Louisiana. He and I were interns together and he came and got me and just laughed his ass off. I didn't have anyone else to call. That was it. And I was arrested.

Kara Swisher: Oh, I was arrested for making out in a public park as a lesbian. I'm not going to go into that.

Scott Galloway: Oh my God.

Kara Swisher: I know. Indecent exposure.

Scott Galloway: Tell me more.

Kara Swisher: I was somewhat naked in a public park and fell asleep at night making out with a girl. And they let me off. Let's just say.

Scott Galloway: I just got to say, I knew I was partners with you for a reason. I literally—I didn't think you could command any more respect from me. I was wrong.

Kara Swisher: I forgot about that. That was bad.

Scott Galloway: Oh, you got arrested.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, because I was making out with a girl and we were naked.

Scott Galloway: That's awesome. That is—oh, hold the phone. You're my queen. You're my queen.

Kara Swisher: Well, they let us off. They did. They were like—it was close. It was an international—

Scott Galloway: I've had—I'm the guy that gets people out of prison.

Kara Swisher: I know. I was lucky. Excited to get that. But can I just tell you, at the time it was bad to be—it was scary to be found out as a lesbian at the time. By the way, it was International Lesbian Day on Wednesday and I still haven't gotten my flowers from you.

Scott Galloway: Well, that's because I take the day off to pray and listen to Melissa.

Kara Swisher: All right.

Scott Galloway: You made me tell a story I really didn't want to tell.

Kara Swisher: Okay. We're going to move on for a quick break. We'll be back.

Scott Galloway: Oh, my God.

Kara Swisher: I know. I'll tell you that one. That is a new spin on the caribou. You know what? When you come to D.C., I'll show you where I was.

Scott Galloway: That is literally the only reason I'm going to watch your biopic, just so I can see that scene.

Kara Swisher: Anyway. Get someone hot to play you. That's all I ask. It was in my Honda Civic. I had a Honda Civic. It was—oh, God. Now I'm remembering a whole horrible thing.

Scott Galloway: This civic's a rockin', don't come a knockin'.

Kara Swisher: Let me just say, I have to tell you, at the time it was terrifying because everybody was closeted. You know, now today I'd be like, "Yeah, I'm naked."

Scott Galloway: Oh, so people didn't know?

Kara Swisher: No, but it was bad to be gay. Police particularly were not nice to gay people.

Scott Galloway: Well, I've heard.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. So you had to call Lucky and say, "Mom, I got two things. I got bad news and I got worse news."

Scott Galloway: No, you think I'm going to call Lucky? Lucky stopped parenting me when I was six years old. Who sprung you from jail, you little saucy minx?

Kara Swisher: No, I didn't go to jail for that. When they let me out, I talked my way out, but they gave me like a summons and everything else. But the jail was the moped drug dealer. The crack dealer was the jailing.

Scott Galloway: OK, that's enough.

Kara Swisher: All right. Good for you. Now I'm turning red.

Scott Galloway: I can't top that. I can't top that.

Kara Swisher: Can I just tell you, I think it would be you that would be indecently exposing things, but it's me.

Scott Galloway: You'd think so. Yeah.

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

[AD BREAK]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're hitting the road, bringing Pivot Live to the people. Seven cities, Toronto, Boston, New York, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, and L.A., of course. You went to Oasis. You went to Beyoncé. You saw the remake of Wizard of Oz in the sphere. All those suck compared to the Pivot Tour. This is the biggest tour. Same people that are organizing our tour that organized Taylor Swift's tour. They are much more excited about our tour.

Scott Galloway: All right. That's enough, Grandpa.

Kara Swisher: It's going to be so good. And we're bringing our brand of whatever we do to the people. And we're excited to meet our fans. We love our fans. For tickets, head to PivotTour.com. See you there.

[AD BREAK]

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, we're going to do predictions slightly differently. You and I are going to do guesses and see who's right on two predictions, okay?

Scott Galloway: Okay.

Kara Swisher: So, Nobel Peace Prize. We're recording this ahead of the Nobel Peace Prize announcement, which is tomorrow, or today, or later today. Trump has been so thirsty for this prize. The committee reportedly made the decision about this year's award on Monday. So before the Gaza deal was announced, I think Navalny's spouse is going to get the Nobel Prize. In his name, both of them, right? I think he's going to get it. I think she's going to accept it on his behalf. That's what I think.

Scott Galloway: I like that one. I'm going to go with other. I think it's been so politicized. I think they're going to pick an organization like, I don't know, Sudan's emergency response rooms. That's the top in Polymarket.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's the top.

Scott Galloway: Because I think this whole thing's been so politicized that I think they want to avoid it and they're going to pick something that's going to be hard to criticize that's not an individual.

Kara Swisher: Oh, okay. So like something like the International Criminal Court, the ICC.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, maybe. Because if I'm on the committee, it's so charged. It's so ugly.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, except look, the Pope is doubling down on politics. I think they will. I think they're like, "Fuck this guy."

Scott Galloway: That's right.

Kara Swisher: And if he does the Gaza thing next year, he can have it next year. If he does it and it sticks, he deserves it, right?

Scott Galloway: Do you think Trump deserves it? If he ends the conflict in Ukraine and Gaza?

Kara Swisher: Yes, yes. I can't stand him, but if he is the critical person—

Scott Galloway: Oh, I think you're giving him way too much credit. If he ends the conflict in Ukraine and Gaza, yes. I can't stand him. But if he is the critical person—

Kara Swisher: Oh, I think you're giving him way too much credit. I think if we'd had a better president, both of those conflicts, I think we would have had a peacekeeping force already.

Scott Galloway: Fair, fair.

Kara Swisher: Oh, then he'd cause the problem.

Scott Galloway: Okay, all right, I'm just saying. Tomahawk missiles destroying the oil infrastructure, and they would have already come to the table.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right. But I'm biased. So you're going for the other, and I'm going for the Navalny's.

Scott Galloway: I'm going for a non-person. I'm betting on an organization as opposed to a person.

Kara Swisher: Smart. That's smart, too. But I'm going to go for her because I think he's a hero.

Scott Galloway: The second is the government shutdown, the length of the government shutdown. Odds are currently at 62% for shutdown going longer than 20 days. But if these flight delays get worse—by the way, I had one yesterday when I was taking some flights from the Midwest. Do you predict it will end sooner or can people just hitch a ride on your plane, Scott? How many days in are we, Kara?

Kara Swisher: I don't know, like a week and a half?

Scott Galloway: Seven, eight?

Kara Swisher: Eight, nine. I'll go longer just because shit takes a while. I do think that they're going to come. By the way, I thought Caitlin Collins did a fantastic interview with Representative Jordan.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: I thought she was great. She's killing it. Great getting back in his face. I wrote her a note about that question she asked about Ghislaine Maxwell.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I thought she was great with Representative Jordan. I think that they're—and again, I'm in my filter bubble, so I see the stuff that the algorithms think I want to see. I think the Republicans are going to come up with something that gives the Democrats the ability to claim victory here.

Kara Swisher: Do you see Marjorie Taylor Greene go all Democrat? You want to talk about a statement in our society? What does it mean when Marjorie Taylor Greene is the sane one in the Republican Party right now?

Scott Galloway: Right. And she's also been very effective. She personalized it. She said, "My kids—the premium for my kids is about to double."

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I was like, who is this person? I've been openly critical of Leader Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Schumer. They have been very smart going after health care.

Scott Galloway: They have, actually. Did you see him go after Lawler? Lawler came and tried to, like, thirsty up the situation.

Kara Swisher: That was his best social media post yet. You posted it.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that was Schumer. That was Schumer. He definitely looked old as dirt, but actually it was effective, looking old as dirt.

Kara Swisher: Oh, he is old as dirt.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but it worked. It worked in his favor in that regard. All right, so you're picking what time?

Kara Swisher: He's slightly younger than Tim Cook's father.

Scott Galloway: I'm picking 47 days, just like those Trump people.

Kara Swisher: 47?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's it. They want it to be the number of his presidency. I'm not exaggerating. If it's 47, that'll ruin our pivot tour because I think you're going to have a shutdown in the FAA or the air traffic controllers.

Kara Swisher: All right. Okay. I've heard National Airport is pretty much almost closed.

Scott Galloway: It was actually—no, it wasn't. I got in.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. You know, I talked to all the TSA people. They were lovely, I have to say. Shout out to the TSA people working yesterday.

Scott Galloway: Did you get caught making out?

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. One time at TSA, I bought a set of handcuffs in New Orleans, and it was in my bag, and I forgot I had bought them.

Scott Galloway: You're a total gangster.

Kara Swisher: I do not like handcuffs, but I bought them for a friend. I threw them in the bag because they have all that stuff in New Orleans, and someone pulled them out and just dangled them in front of me, in front of everybody.

Scott Galloway: Oh God, Jesus. I'm a terrible person.

Kara Swisher: Literally, you were arrested for sex and drugs. All we're missing is rock and roll here.

Scott Galloway: No drugs, no drugs.

Kara Swisher: Well, they thought you were a drug dealer. Although I gotta be honest, I don't think you look much like a drug dealer.

Scott Galloway: I don't. That's probably a racist statement.

Kara Swisher: That's why I got all testy. Anyway, whatever. I was in a jail. I was jailed.

Scott Galloway: Actually, you're like the Gus Fring that's selling 2C or ketamine to all your sorority sisters.

Kara Swisher: I wouldn't do that. In exchange for sexual favors in a park. You know, sending a lesbian to jail is not that scary for a lesbian, just so you know. Anyway, I saw Orange is the New Black. It looked kind of fun.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind.

Kara Swisher: Gold coins and lesbian sex in parks.

Scott Galloway: That's why they come here, Kara. That's why they come here.

Kara Swisher: Okay, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question.

Scott Galloway: This is not CNN.

Kara Swisher: For the show.

Scott Galloway: This is not CNN.

Kara Swisher: Call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe. This week on Profiteer Markets, Scott spoke with Catherine and Edwards, economists and columnists for Bloomberg News. Let's listen to a clip.

[CLIP PLAYS]

Clip Speaker: You can't function in a $30 trillion economy with the data that you need to manage it if you are starving your statistical agencies for funds, which we've been doing for the past 15 years. Firing the BLS commissioner, halting government data collection. We are pushing over the edge something that was already deeply problematic. So we can see this as a, well, we should have done the right thing 20 years ago, but it doesn't matter when you get to the party, as long as you brought a bottle of wine.

Scott Galloway: That was great. That was really good. I'm coming back as an economist, a Navy SEAL, or a Broadway dancer. Those are my three things. Maybe a chiropractor. You would be really good as an economist.

Kara Swisher: And reminder, we're going on tour as we said. We'll be going to Toronto, Boston, New York, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, and L.A. Visit pivottour.com for tickets, which are going fast. Several cities are sold out. And please, please stay away from scalpers and third-party sellers. Very quickly before we go, I want to put a shout out to Marie Samuels. She's a fifth grader who came up to me yesterday in an event I was at in Minneapolis. And she asked an amazing question about what we should do about kids and social media. Such a smart kid. She actually started a fourth grade newspaper late last year, and she's now in fifth grade. And they sent me copies of it, and it's wonderful. Marie, you're going to be an amazing journalist someday. I just want to say that.

Scott Galloway: That's nice.

Kara Swisher: Okay. She had an astonishing amount of poise, and a great question. Anyway, I really appreciate that. And again, keep going. You're doing a great job so far.

Scott Galloway: Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out.

Scott Galloway: Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Annika Robbins. Ernie Undershot engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mr. Vera, and Dan Shalana. Scott Kerouac is Vox Media's executive producer for podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Folks, we do need to reopen the government. We need our military. We need to pay our great employees. And we need to keep those national parks open so Garrett can get some.

Kara Swisher: I love that. I love that.