Corporations Adapt Post-Roe, Disney’s Bob Chapek is Here to Stay, and Cassidy Hutchinson’s Testimony

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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 in a relationship with a quarter of a million people, Cara.

Kara Swisher: You are. I see that. I know you texted me in the middle of the night, which I ignored completely until the morning.

Scott Galloway: I do some what I think is good work on my blog, a bunch of stuff I think is going to get reactions talking about the economy and various topics of interest. And all anyone is emailing me about. And when I say anyone, I mean a couple dozen people a day. Why are you moving to London? And what procedure did you have? So you mentioned in passing that you'll be attending a lot more Chelsea football games, although they're having some troubles there at Chelsea. There was a good New York Times story about all the hubbub inside the company. But tell us about London. Tell us about why you are moving to Londinium. I know you need to be near the Queen in her last moments, but what is the reason?

Kara Swisher: So a lot of people have said, are you moving because of guns or Roe? And the honest answer is I am moving because of America, but not because of anything bad about America. It's a function of how wonderful America has been for me. I have the opportunity to expose my kids to a different culture. I have the opportunity to go back to a place I've always felt a calling as my dad and mother are from Glasgow and London, respectively. I have a chance to spend a lot of time in beautiful places with great food and in wonderful cultures. So the honest answer is I'm moving to London because I can. And I want my kids, we can't do better, but we want to do different. And I'm blessed because of the incredible-

Scott Galloway: Your wife is also from Europe. Is that correct?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, born in Poland, raised in Germany. And the reality is because of the incredible opportunities this amazing country has afforded me, I have the opportunity to go live in another country.

Scott Galloway: So why London versus, I don't know, Krakow or Berlin?

Kara Swisher: Well, if you like cities, which I do, I think I've spent probably 60 days in 17 of the 20 world's great super cities. If you like cities, I think New York probably edges out as number one, but I think London is number two. I think London's just an amazing city. And I need a place where they can speak English, a place where I could potentially at least theoretically get some work done. London has gone through because of private property laws, which have had some externalities. But basically, London has had the equivalent of a $2 or $3 trillion facelift over the last 20 years. London's an amazing city right now.

Kara Swisher: It is. I was just there. It's really vibrant. It's fun. It's not very far.

Scott Galloway: Are you going to miss Florida?

Kara Swisher: Florida's been wonderful to us. It's been a great quality of life. I don't like the politics, but we have wonderful friends there and it's been wonderful for our kids. So Florida, look, just as there's a lot about America I don't like, I owe most or all to the country. I owe a lot to Florida. I don't think we'll move back to Florida to be blunt, but it's been a wonderful decade there. And you know what it is? At this point, I'm getting very sentimental about Florida because that's where we raised our kids. But what you want from a place where you live is a secure, loving place to raise a family, and Florida's been that in spades. So I feel very positive about the people and the lifestyle in Florida.

Scott Galloway: Right, but the politics.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, but you know what? You can't let that define your life.

Scott Galloway: You can't, actually, but okay.

Kara Swisher: Okay, then you're going to be really upset 50% of the time.

Scott Galloway: That is correct. That is correct.

Kara Swisher: Speaking of which, today we'll discuss how corporations are responding to the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Also, there's some rare good news for the CEO of Disney, Bob Chapek. We'll hear from a listener with a question about pizza. But first, the fallout from Cassidy Hutchinson's blockbuster January 6th testimony. Let's listen to a clip.

[Clip plays: Cassidy Hutchinson testimony audio]

Kara Swisher: The House Committee wants the White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to testify, issuing a subpoena for his testimony. He has so far resisted publicly testifying, even though he seems like he tried to do the right thing every time Trump tried to break the law, or allegedly tried to break the law. John Eastman is dropping his bid to keep his phone records from the committee. Problematic for the president, I suspect. Ginny Thomas's lawyer, the wife of Clarence Thomas, says she won't testify and that there is no sufficient basis for her to do so. OK, Ginny, whatever you say. Are the hearings having an effect on what the Democrats want? What did you think of these hearings? And will the GOP just put its fingers in its ears? I think a lot of people were pretty appalled after this testimony by a young woman who was clearly part of the Trump movement. There's a lot of women who have actually stepped out of that. So the right wing is trying to punch holes in her testimony. I think it's difficult. But what do you think?

Scott Galloway: I think in law schools they'll play her testimony and they'll highlight her as what makes a credible witness. It really is difficult to imagine a more credible witness because you got to go to incentives. You got to go to the complexion, the way they present themselves.

Kara Swisher: The price she's going to pay?

Scott Galloway: Oh, exactly. She has disincentive from what she said. She's worked for Ted Cruz and Mark Meadows. She was very good. Steve Scalise, too. And not only that, but where you gain domain expertise. And again, I always like to try and reverse engineer it to a lesson for a young person. One of the ways you demonstrate your domain expertise is to, on a regular basis, acknowledge that you don't know. And she was careful to do that. She was careful to say on several occasions, "I don't know, I wasn't in the room," or "I'm not sure you could say that." People would try and lead her, and she would say, "No, I didn't hear that." And she came across as not emotional. She put on a master class in what it is to be a credible witness.

Kara Swisher: And I don't think you asked about the hearings. I admire—I've always felt and I resent the Democratic Party because I think we're ineffective and stupid. I think we're right, but I think we're ineffective and stupid. And I don't know which is worse, whether to be wrong or ineffective, which is the two parties right now. But I thought that January 6 hearings really got their act together and they have played for the crowd in terms of the way they have orchestrated it, the way they have led and teased the hearings, their use of social media, the way they have framed things, even the camera shots and the lighting. They have done, I think, a fantastic job. I don't think it changes at this point. I think we're so polarized. I'm not sure it changes a lot of opinions. But I do think, Kara, for the first time, I actually believe the president is going to be indicted because now there is evidence that connects him to an intent to incite violence.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And that can trigger an indictment. So I think it has a huge effect on Trump. You're seeing a lot of Republicans be like, "Whoa, whoa." Even my mom was like, "Whoa, this is problematic," even if they don't believe it. And they keep trying the witch hunt thing. It's not—I think Trump is losing enormous ground. I think that's the point here is we can't have this man in office again. He's a dangerous character. You can have your problems with Ron DeSantis. I have enormous problems with Ron DeSantis, sort of Trump-lite. But I cannot imagine he would try an insurrection. I just, for some reason, I feel as if perhaps he would stop there.

Kara Swisher: They all have to pay lip service to the ridiculous election lie whenever, but he lost ground on a bunch of primaries in Colorado. A number of election non-deniers won over election deniers, which was a good sign for the Republican primaries. I think people are getting a little tired of Trump. And you can see it with DeSantis sort of coming up. Glenn Youngkin in Virginia. There's all kinds of activity among Republicans trying to both use Trump as "I love the Trump," but try to get rid of the actual Trump, the actual person. And Cassidy Hutchinson also said Trump threw dishes to the wall. No surprise to me. I'm sure he did it many times, which she sort of insinuated and left a trail of ketchup after she heard that Bill Barr said there was no election fraud, which gave us the best tweet of the day from Justin Chang: "We probably should have known that presidency would end with ketchup dripping down a wall." But hindsight is 20-20.

Scott Galloway: It's shocking that anyone's shocked, but I think there's some nuance. I think the people who like Trump still like him. I think the way it's hurt him is that people now believe even if they like him just as much as they did before or they don't believe what's being said here, they believe he is a less viable candidate and everyone wants to back a winner. And so fewer Republicans who probably would have supported him and written him checks. More of this, quite frankly, the big winner coming out of this, Kara, is Ron DeSantis. I think Ron DeSantis comes out of this hearing. If you look at as much as we'd like to believe this is a big call to the ballot box for Democrats. I hope you're right, my sister. Right now, the odds on favorite to be president, in my view, is Ron DeSantis. And he comes out of this with, I would say, another 5% to 10% support.

Kara Swisher: Well, you do remember how popular Scott Walker was. Remember him? No, you don't because he was Mr. Wisconsin and it didn't work out. Giuliani, Fred Thompson, there's always somebody. There's lots. I say it's a long road. I think we'll be—

Scott Galloway: That's a great point. And usually the person who's identified as the leader at this point, what you know is they won't be the nominee. Biden was way back in the pack. And so I just wait and see.

Kara Swisher: You did not.

Scott Galloway: I did, actually, which is interesting. Anyway, we'll see where it goes.

Kara Swisher: I just want to take a pause here to highlight that yet again, you were right and I was wrong. As always. But let me just tell you, I think Donald Trump is toast at this point. And I actually have not said Donald Trump is toast. I've never. At this point, he is, I think, unless something changes. People are sick of him. He's a nasty old man who throws plates and causes insurrections. That's really pretty much what it is.

Kara Swisher: Snapchat confirmed it's launching a new subscription platform. Snapchat Plus will include a collection of exclusive experimental and pre-release features. It will be $3.99. It will be an added revenue stream for Snapchat, which is mostly dependent on advertising. I mean, we'll see. We'll see when it comes out, I guess. The Twitter one hasn't worked out rather well. But again, it's the directionality that's important. What do you think of this?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I didn't think that was the big news. Look, when it comes to subscription, it's absolutely a more enduring business model. So Aswath Damodaran, my colleague at NYU who I think is probably the best teacher in the world right now, the question he was asked in this podcast was, "How do you make a company enduring or inflation proof?" And he said, "You have to make it something that's not discretionary. You have to go from being a discretionary product to non-discretionary." And he had this really interesting point about Apple. And he said, and I've been saying this for a long time, is that Apple is actually quite vulnerable because Apple is really the iPhone and the seven dwarves. And in a recession, would you be more likely to upgrade or less likely to upgrade to the new iPhone 13 or cancel your Apple subscription that gave you all your products? And his whole point is, and this is what is so powerful about subscription, is that it's a much more enduring business model. If Adobe still had Adobe Illustrator and we were headed into a recession and it cost $1,300, companies might say to their creative director, "We're going to wait on all upgrades of software right now." There's no upgrade policy. But nobody is going to cancel their enterprise license that turns off all Adobe software at once. So their ability—and if you actually look at Apple, some of it's China risk, it has real issues here. Anyways, the move, I think we've talked about this before. The strategy is the right one, but here's the hard part. The memo is out around the power of subscription and the shareholder value it creates, which has created such a massive investment. You could even argue an overinvestment, as typified by Netflix now has a content budget that is the defense budget of many nations. What you have is an expectation from consumers that if I'm entering into a monogamous relationship with you, you better be ridiculously fucking hot. And what I mean by that is you better be offering me a billion dollars a month per dollar of subscription fee. And so the barrier, the hurdle to get someone to sign up for a recurring revenue relationship is so enormous. And Snap doesn't even get to the hurdle, much less clear it with this ship.

Kara Swisher: We'll see how good it is. Let's just see how good it is, what they'll do. But in any case, it's a move in the right direction, I think. And we'll see. They're very creative. And I suspect they'll be much more creative than Twitter was. I think Evan Spiegel, who's also coming to Code, is very creative. So maybe he'll roll out some things and show us. But it has to be good.

Scott Galloway: You absolutely right.

Kara Swisher: So let's go to our first big story. Corporations are trying to adapt to a post-Roe world with mixed success. Major pharmacies, including Walmart, CVS, Rite Aid, are capping purchases of emergency contraception due to increased demand. That's the morning after pill. Amazon is limiting the sale of Plan B, although CNBC found a way around it by ordering a different brand of that drug. Walgreens temporarily sold out of Plan B for delivery orders. This is sort of like the vaccine, the COVID test or formula problem. Meanwhile, Facebook and Instagram are removing posts that offer abortion pills to people who may not be able to access them, which was bizarre. But you can put guns in there and it's just fine. An AP reporter tested the ban by posting an offer to forward abortion pills by mail. The post was removed within a minute. Similar posts offering to forward weed and guns were left up. Is Facebook complying with the law? Is this an overzealous CYA? Twitter and Reddit don't appear to be removing those posts. 13 states have trigger laws that take effect after the Roe reversal. Some have already kicked in. Abortion pills may be illegal in Wisconsin, for example. Most abortions in the U.S. are now medication abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. So let's start with that. What do these companies start to do? There's just so much there.

Scott Galloway: I think medical abortions—I was actually happy to hear or see so much press around the supply chain shortage of Plan B and, quote unquote, Plan C. The majority of women terminate a pregnancy very early. But I think the more awareness that's brought to this fantastic technology and companies like Hey Jane and what I'll call femtech. I think one of the most discouraging symbols of the lack of progress in the venture community is the woeful underfunding of women's health.

Kara Swisher: Mm hmm.

Scott Galloway: And so I think attention, even if it's a temporary supply chain around medical abortions, is a wonderful thing. Because when I think about Roe, like a war on society, war on rights—it's not a war. Is it really a war on women? I would argue no. I think it's a war on poor women of color in certain regions. I mean, it really is when you really think about who it's impacting. It's probably arguably in terms of its impact on the ground, one of the most bigoted things we've done in the last century. When you really look at who it's going to impact, it's all the same. It's a similar person of the same age, of the same economic group, of the same racial background. And the whole point of the fucking court is to not let that happen. Anyways, so I like the fact that this fantastic technology is getting a lot of attention because unfortunately, I think a lot of women or just a lot of people in the US aren't as cognizant or as aware of their options as we would hope that they are. What is really frightening, and I think what the Democrats should be working on instead of marching around Washington Square with colored signs thinking that Amy Coney Barrett is going to change her mind, is figuring out a way to ensure that these medical abortions can be legally, safely, effectively, crisply distributed to all four corners of the country without any hindrance.

Kara Swisher: I think you're being unfair. They are doing that. They can march if they want. It's also a symbolic thing. It's a clearly symbolic thing.

Scott Galloway: I'm not questioning the right to march, but anyone who thinks—the bottom line is we have a super majority conservative court. That is correct. They're not going to change their mind. It is not going to change until we have more moderates in the Senate. And had we had just a few actual moderate Republicans, including many who have retired in the last 10 years, they would have said, "We just can't vote for this individual." Look at her track. It's like, again, let's go to a business learning. Interviews, I think after hiring and firing 12 or 1,400 people over the last 30 years, I've come to believe that interviews are almost worthless, just as Senate hearings are almost worthless. And the best thing you can do when you're hiring somebody is do everything you can using LinkedIn and using second and third degree connections to get an arm's distance reference, honest view off the record of this person. And I have hired people that have had terrible interviews when someone has said they're great. It's an automatic hire. If someone I trust calls me and says, "This person's great," they could have thrown up on me and I'll hire them. And then I've had other people I thought, "This person just seems great." And then I call someone and go, "Yeah, they don't deliver or they're hard to get along with," and I won't hire them. And here's the thing. These hearings are ridiculous.

Kara Swisher: All right. But this is the way it is though, Scott. One of the things, of course, they should have done this. Susan Collins, Susan Collins, Susan Collins or whatever. This is what we have as the system. I think what's important in this case with the technology, and it really is technology, is that these companies have to take a stand. They can't be sitting in the middle. Now, it's legally problematic because a lot of these states now, anti-abortion people are even worse. They're not even just happy to get what they got, which is everything, is they're now trying to go after legally people who cross state lines, people who go to other states. So people who live in their state, they're going to try to prosecute if they go to another state to get an abortion and come home. That's really frightening. That's surveillance. We have to get these tech companies not to allow it to happen. We talked about this on Monday with Evan Greer and many others. This kind of stuff is very smack in the middle of technology, and they've got to resist governments that are trying to do this. Now, blue states are trying to pass laws saying we're not going to cooperate with these red states. But in effect, it's a legal civil war that's going to happen. And people tracking, you're allowed to cross state lines to do commerce. As actually Brett Kavanaugh noted in his concurrence, he lied. Hello, he lied. But nonetheless, he noted that. I think he was trying to signal people to cut that stuff out. But there's all kinds of stuff these tech companies have information on, including movement, where people go, that they cannot allow these appalling state legislators to use to prosecute their own citizens. That's one. Two, the ability to get these abortion pills should—good luck trying to stop that. That's all I got to say. Good luck monitoring Amazon and the mail. And these companies have got to step up and not allow it to happen. If people want to buy those pills, they should buy those pills. They can walk across state line and take it. Whatever they want to do, they should be able to do. But they cannot ban abortions in other states if they believe what this ruling says. So, it's interesting how Facebook is taking down this stuff because these are the free speech maximalists, right? So will free speech absolutists like Elon come out in favor of keeping those posts up? And by the way, where is Elon anyway? He's been strangely quiet since the ruling. He probably should. That's probably a good idea. So I think that's the question is these people that go on about free speech, of course. I put up a post that said, "It seems they can moderate."

Scott Galloway: I think you're focused on the wrong thing, Cara.

Kara Swisher: Why?

Scott Galloway: Because we keep, when government doesn't step into the void, or creates a void through a lack of leadership, we keep hoping for this hollow strategy, waiting for tech CEOs' better angels to call them.

Kara Swisher: No, I didn't say it's the only thing. I just think—

Scott Galloway: Okay, but hold on. Tracking is critically important. Okay, what Amazon or Google does or doesn't do, or the courage that their CEOs show, and I think this is an opportunity to show leadership around this issue, it just doesn't have a lot of impact on women of color in Mississippi. Amazon and Google don't have a lot of operations there. So I understand what you're saying. But until we restore, until we have a process in this country where we unfuck the electoral system—it used to actually be congressional districts actually represented the people in the district. And instead, they've slowly but surely been gerrymandered. We have an electoral process that gets extremists. I mean, it all comes back to the same thing for me. And that is, everyone's talking about a movement to the ballot box. I hope it happens. I'll get involved in it. I'll give money to it. I'll canvas for Democratic candidates. But until we have more moderates actually figuring out who should sit on the Supreme Court, we're just going to have batshit crazy decisions that we can be outraged about. But the outrage doesn't translate to anything. And the thing the Republicans do to the Democrats—

Kara Swisher: I'm sorry, that is so not true. Outrage translates to lots of action. Outrage is the beginning of action. Without ACT UP, we wouldn't have all the things that gays and lesbians acquired.

Scott Galloway: Mitch McConnell has calmly torn our outrageous ass limb from limb.

Kara Swisher: Well, this is true.

Scott Galloway: We need to be more Chinese. We need to think long term here and go do what the Republicans did and go up and down these middle and lower tier offices, state legislatures, assemblymen, figure out a way to create an electoral process where we get more moderates who can come together. I mean, if you read this decision, it's just striking. This decision basically reads, one, they've neutered the chief justice. The chief justice used to be an actual role. There was a chief because the chief was supposed to bring some sense of moderation and get everyone saying, "That's a little extreme on the left or the right. Don't we want to think about this?" He has now been neutered. The super majority, if you read this opinion, it's basically like, "Fuck you, bitch, I'm on top." It doesn't even acknowledge the rights of the woman. It acts as if the unborn is being carried by a robot. I mean, it doesn't even acknowledge her rights. So until we have a body that gets to decide this person is probably not the person who should be on the Supreme Court, i.e. moderates, this is going to happen over and over. And what Mitch McConnell has done that the Democrats are unable to do or think is he's played the long game and he's been very strategic. And they have made huge investments in these little elections that people don't think about.

Kara Swisher: Well, that's how a minority takes over a majority of opinion.

Scott Galloway: I would agree with you.

Kara Swisher: What's interesting, one of the interesting things is a test for Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs. I'm going to get back to tech in that way. His mail order pharmacy carries 14 types of birth control and emergency contraceptives, prescription needed. It doesn't take insurance, but sells drugs at cost plus 15% markup and some small fees. I do think these kind of companies will play an important role in the interim in terms of getting people the needed medical care they want. Have you talked to any of them, though? Do they see it as a priority? Are they upset and want to participate, or are they just like, "Shit, we don't want to wade into these waters"?

Scott Galloway: That is correct. That is the latter, is what I would say. I haven't talked to all of them, but I think they're tired of being in the middle of this. But they, of course, put themselves there by talking about free speech absolutism. If they believed in that, they'd let these posts stay up, right?

Scott Galloway: and they're worried most of all they're worried about legal exposure. That's always been their problem, that's always been their thing, no matter what else they said. Legal exposure and financial exposure was always their concern, and they should just say that. I wish they would just say that.

Kara Swisher: I think Mark could be a really interesting player here in terms of getting people these drugs, but we'll see. But you're right, we have to get these people who cannot afford it the abortions they want. But I think it's really important to, there's a tactical game and a strategic game, you're correct. But the tactical game is just as important right now, because there's going to be a lot of pain for a lot of women up and down the chain, poor women most especially be impacted. So the tactical stuff is just as important, the ability to get these pills, the ability to go to other states without being prosecuted, etc. And that is a ground game. Now, it's actually showing some interesting numbers in Georgia. Suddenly, Stacey Abrams is competitive with Brian Kemp. Warnock is up 10 points on Herschel Walker. These are voting issues. I agree that inflation and crime are also critically important, but I think we'll see.

Scott Galloway: One of the things, Facebook had blocked searches for abortion pills last September in the wake of Texas anti-abortion laws. They said they were blocked in error, but now apparently they're not. And posts about pills aren't the only abortion content Facebook was blocking, by the way. Meta also designated the abortion rights group, Jane's Revenge, as a tier one terror group subject to the strictest censorship on Facebook and Instagram.

Kara Swisher: I have long given up on them to do anything consistent. And I don't even say right or wrong. It's just consistent. They just change at will. And that's what we're going to get from these people. So it's nothing fresh and new, in my opinion. In any case, James Irvin has taken credit for acts of vandalism against anti-abortion groups, which both neither of us, I think, I see why people do it, but it's not what we would do or support. But it is not alleged to have targeted or injured people. For context, the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters, two groups that participated in the insurrection, had lower designation of Tier 3 last year. It's not known how Facebook classifies these groups. Again, inconsistency and confusion seems to be what they do at every one of these junctures.

Scott Galloway: The observation I made when you forwarded me that about Facebook is that I've always thought that the complexity and difficulty of moderating content on a quote-unquote open platform has always been exaggerated for the benefit of the company. And that is, okay, we close one account and somewhere between 30% and 60% of election misinformation goes away. And there's no way that Twitter didn't have some idea that was going to happen. And it seems that Facebook has been remarkably efficient at pulling down posts that talk about medical abortion. And which says to me that they have the technology to moderate content.

Kara Swisher: That is correct. That's what I noted. They just decided we're going to use it when it's convenient. When it gets in the way of selling more Nissan ads, even if it involves hate content or content that might depress teens. I always thought these problems have been totally exaggerated. Like they throw up their arms like, what can we do? What can we do? I think they're the squirreliest company on earth. I always thought they were the most compromised company. For example, it says they will pay for employee abortion travel, quote, "to the extent permitted by law." What does that mean? It also bans employees from discussing abortion. You know what? The squirrels are out at Facebook, as always.

Scott Galloway: Let's move on to something else. By the way, Clarence Thomas may want to make it easier for politicians and celebrities to sue the press. Currently, public figures who sue media organizations for defamation have to prove malicious intent in an uphill battle. Just ask Sarah Palin. The Supreme Court declined to take up the case that could have removed that burden. Kind of ridiculous. We're not Britain, speaking of London. Justice Thomas disagreed with that decision, saying the current arrangement allows media organizations to, quote, "cast false dispersions on public figures with near impunity."

Kara Swisher: Justice Thomas, you need to fucking get over it. It's big time politics. You're a Supreme Court justice. You don't have to continue to give everybody hell for your shitty hearing that you felt was shitty. Others did not. Anyway, he keeps trying. He keeps raising, getting rid of gay marriage. He raises getting rid of all kinds of things. He's using that bully pulpit for doing that. So anyway, the Thomases are quite a pair.

Scott Galloway: So one of the things that I do think is important to talk about, though, is the U.S. government being a noble force for change. Here you have Biden sort of hamstrung in many ways what to do. Others think he's not pushing hard enough. I hate to say this, but from a marketing point of view, with inflation and everything else, the concerns about his age and whether he's running, that, of course, is a typical Washington dinner party thing. What is the move here for the Biden administration?

Kara Swisher: That's a correct question that requires a more thoughtful answer. What I would comment on or the observation I would make is that you have your annual conference code, you know, sort of the premier gathering at tech. What I would say is that almost every cabinet member, every Democratic senator and several Republican governors will come if you invite them, because I think it's become almost common knowledge now that people believe Biden is not going to be president in 2024.

Scott Galloway: Well, not according to Biden, but go ahead.

Kara Swisher: I think Vice President Harris is already campaigning. I think she's already positioning herself for a run. I think there are several Democratic senators who will say publicly, and one of them, I'm a huge fan of, I will likely support Senator Amy Klobuchar. I think she's a wonderful leader and brings confidence and ethics. I like people who do the work. Anyways, I think she's already running. And they say publicly, "I'm supporting Biden and he's running." And then they say, "Oh, oh, there's something in Iowa. I'll go." I mean, and what you're also going to see when you just think about kind of knock on a second order of facts, I think you're going to see a ton of people who we weren't expecting and who they themselves weren't planning on running. I think Mark Cuban is likely going to run. I think Michelle Obama might run. I think people are just so upset by this that I think they might decide maybe this is a moment for me to take this risk.

Scott Galloway: Howard Stern says he's going to run. He could be his running mate.

Kara Swisher: Okay, John, I think Jon Stewart might run. I mean, there's, I think there's just a lot of people out there that people respect, that have awareness, that have voices. And like, if Trump, if there's, if there's a B-level reality TV actor could end up inciting a mob to take over the Capitol, maybe I do have a calling and a responsibility. Maybe this is my moment in time, right to try and—

Scott Galloway: All right. If you had to pick any of those celebrities, I get it. It's not completely out of line to think that possibly. Which one would work from your perspective? Oprah, Howard Stern, Mark Cuban—and I'm putting him in the celebrity category.

Kara Swisher: That's a really interesting question.

Scott Galloway: The reason why I think I sort of go towards a little bit towards Mark Cuban, because I think it's really convenient to be a billionaire when you run for president in our society, because it frees up about 40 percent of your time to focus on campaigning as opposed to fundraising. I think Michelle – I hate to say it. I think Michelle Obama would be amazing, but I don't think the presidency should be passed back and forth between family members. That's always bothered me, whether it's the Bushes or Hillary and Bill. But let me put it back to you because I don't feel like I have a thoughtful answer.

Kara Swisher: Cuban. Because I would like to see Senators Klobuchar and Bennett run. But unfortunately, neither of them are very good at Twitter. So anyways, what are your thoughts?

Scott Galloway: Cuban. Cuban. Cuban. Cuban Klobuchar would be interesting. Cuban. Adam Abrams. You know, Cuban, that would be fun for us, too.

Kara Swisher: Well, here's the thing. He's going to Air Force One for the first time in our lives. He's smart. I think he's a high character person. You know, he has the capital. I think he understands social. He understands technology. He kind of has this thing he's doing with Cost Plus is at the center of a huge issue that a lot of seniors will relate to. Yeah. So he's a very viable candidate.

Scott Galloway: But the wonderful thing, I think actually kind of the wonderful thing about the presidential race is whoever we settle on, it's almost like a hex, right? It just never works out that way.

Kara Swisher: Here we agree.

Scott Galloway: Here we agree. In any case, we'll see if he does it. It might be a giant frigging headache for him. Anyway, we'll go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Bob Tu's good week and take a listener question about work and pizza.

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Kara Swisher: Scott, we're on our second story now. More news from Disney and Bob Two, also known as CEO Bob Chapek. This week's Disney board voted to extend his contract for three years. He recently came under fire for the company's response to Florida's Don't Say Gay bill. And under his reign, Disney was the respondent in the lawsuit from Scarlett Johansson. He didn't handle that very well. But not every chief executive is having a great week. Pinterest announced CEO Ben Silberman is stepping down. Google Commerce executive Bill Ready will take his place. What do we think?

Scott Galloway: I knew they were. We said that. We said they were going to keep Chapek. They were going to give money. His contract runs out in 2025, which allows if there's any real problems, they can pay him out. So we'll see. They let people have a long leash at Disney. And so we'll see. We'll see. I think he's getting his footing. He's following a very successful CEO.

Kara Swisher: And I'm actually hoping to have him at Code. Also hoping to have Mark Cuban at Code. So we'll see where he goes from here. He's got a lot of challenges that he has to deal with. Not political necessarily. All business, I think. Lightyear didn't do well but Thor looks fantastic. They're real high quality content makers, very difficult time.

Scott Galloway: First, I'll start with Chapek and then talk about Silberman. Like Disney, a board like Disney doesn't scare easily. A political or PR snafu, whatever you want to call it, an error in communications in Florida, that's not why you fire the CEO at Disney. And he's a proven executive. He ran, I think, their most profitable division, their parks division. Is that where he came from? They know him. The board's had exposure to him. They just don't scare that easy. They're not going to fire Bob Chapek after. He's going to be there minimum six years, probably nine or 12. And if you look at the thousands of decisions Disney has had to make or the CEOs have had to make, I mean, when you get a sense for when you're on boards, this is how I've evolved. When I first went on boards, I thought I was there to heckle from the cheap seats and demand more from the board and ask them hard questions. And then what you realize is your job is really there to support them until the moment you kind of all meet in the parking lot and go, "We need to let go of Bob or Lisa." Until that point, you're there to support them because the reason you support them is because it is such a difficult job. Your inbox is never empty when you're the CEO of a public company. And you have to sacrifice relationships with your family, with your health. It's just there is no balance in that job. It is a very difficult, stressful job. Now, are they overpaid? Yes, but it is a difficult job. And the thousands of decisions Disney has had to make and that Bob has had to make, I would argue his batting average is pretty strong here. If you look at Disney+, probably one of the most ascendant stories in tech in the last 36 months is Disney+. Started by Bob Iger. Right, okay, but at the end of the day, Bob didn't fuck it up. Bob Chapek, Bob 2, is carrying the momentum. And the parks have been open through a very difficult time. He's got a difficult job. I think this was not a surprise. Again, Disney's not a tetchy company that has to move by public opinion. And I think the board probably did the right thing. They'd look idiotic if they got rid of him. They'd look idiotic. I mean, everyone would look, including Bob Iger, by the way, because he picked him, right? So even if they don't like each other, which apparently they don't or maybe they will someday again or don't get along, you know, he'll figure it out. He'll figure out that he needs to be a little bit smoother. An excellent interview with Kara Swisher would work well for him, I think. In any case, we'll see. I think he's – we thought this was going to happen. It's exactly what happened.

Kara Swisher: Silberman stepping down again is not a surprise. I think he's missed a lot of turns in a lot of ways. I think it's because his enthusiasm for running it was not, you could feel it from him. They missed a lot of turns and now the stock is down. I don't think they evolved enough. They had a lot of, they had to talk about management turnover there. And then the self-inflicted problems around women, one of their high-ranking women executives sued them. Also, two people of color sued them. Just a lot of stuff going on there. And never really moved into the e-commerce space like they're moving now. I was always perplexed by that. But anytime I had dinner with him, he was enthusiastic about everything but Pinterest. That was my experience. And he's a lovely guy, by the way. But just he wanted out. Even years, I remember one dinner and I was like, he felt like he wanted out then. And just the burdens were heavy on him as a CEO. So what thinks you?

Scott Galloway: Well, it represents a few things. The first is you got to acknowledge as he's stepping down, he built a great company. Yes, 100%. And he's obviously an incredibly creative guy. So hats off to him for building something exceptional. You know, 99.99% of entrepreneurs would pray for Ben Silberman's success and vision. Having said that, and I said this two years ago, I listened to an earnings call. He's not a CEO. He doesn't inspire access to cheap capital, although they got that because of the space. I never thought he just demonstrated the qualities, I would say, of a CEO. A CEO needs to, one, demonstrate excellence, have the ability to attract and retain the best people, and also be an amazing storyteller such that they can attract cheap capital over and over and over.

Kara Swisher: Right.

Scott Galloway: And I've always thought he just struck me as an incredibly creative guy who was sort of this accidental CEO.

Kara Swisher: Yes, I would agree.

Scott Galloway: And what it also represents on a macro level is that I think what we saw with Adam Neumann. So when I was starting companies in the 90s, it was just conventional wisdom that once the company became real, once you got to the point where the company is like, okay, it might go public, it might get sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. It was like, okay, now we got to bring in the 55-year-old guy from Pepsi or IBM. I mean, it was just because founders were a necessary evil. We were crazy. Okay, fine. We birthed companies, but we should not be there to run companies. We're crazy. We're entrepreneurs. And then you had Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. And slowly but surely, the pendulum swung so far back to the founder that they didn't, in my opinion, investors have tolerated founders who were visionary and brilliant. But shouldn't be CEOs.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Some are good and some are bad. It's a mixed bag. Like Gates obviously was good. Bezos was good. You know, it depends. Pierre Omidyar left. He was smart enough to leave and let Meg Whitman take over. It's a difficult thing for these people. I don't know why Ben stayed. I think I asked him that. Yeah, I don't understand. I think this should have happened five or seven years ago. I just don't. He's an incredibly creative guy. I don't know why he'd want to do that job.

Scott Galloway: But you're seeing what you're going to see. You're going to see a lot of this over the next 12 months, Kara, because nothing distinguishes the bright line between a founder and a CEO like a bear market. And that is when everything's going up and to the right, everyone's fine with, "Oh, he or she is the founder. They're the DNA of the company." But when there's inconsistency around earnings, when they don't appear to be articulating a strategy or during a bad earnings call, have the ability to calm investors' nerves, make hard decisions around cost cutting. Everyone who talks about the ability to grow a company, it's also really important to be able to effectively shrink a company.

Kara Swisher: Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm. You know, I just, I like him. But honestly, if you spent five minutes with him, it's sort of like, "Oh, oh, oh, this is terrible." And also, by the way, the stock has mostly flatlined and declined. It started off in the 24 range. It had a peak of course during the pandemic especially to 85. Crazy. And now it's back at—I was disappointed. And I know their CFO, I served on a board with them, Todd Morgenthau. He's a really thoughtful, I think great operator. I was hoping he'd be the CEO.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, the new guy is really quite good. He's worked on a lot of things at Google and stuff. I know him a little bit and very competent. I think he's probably a better choice for this. In any case, Ben, bon chance. Congratulations. Have a good time. Go do something you like. Smile. Good for you.

Kara Swisher: Smile. They shouldn't tell men to smile. They always tell women to smile. You could smile more. In any case, let's pivot to a listener question. You've got, you've got. I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. This one came via email from a listener we'll call Mark. I'll read it. "Hi, Kara and Scott. I recently received a call from a headhunter about a position at Papa John's organization. The job is good. The pay is right. The benefits are there. And this would be a step in the right direction for my career, title and responsibilities wise. The only problem is dot, dot, dot the politics. Papa John's is a polarizing brand. I want to work with more progressive companies in the future, but will my resume be tainted if I work for a company that does not align politically with companies I would like to work for?" That's an interesting question. Thank you, Mark.

Scott Galloway: Well, Mark, that's a – wow. I guess you would call this question a "personnel pan pizza." [laughs] That was a joke written by – I don't know. Fuck. Evan, was that you? Anyway, this goes to a bigger question of whether there can be a separation of corporations and politics. This is a big question.

Kara Swisher: I think it's important. I left News Corp because I just couldn't stand Rupert Murdoch. I just couldn't. And I wasn't worried about my resume. I just was like, "I'm not working for this fucker." Like, I just don't want to. And I had the choice. I don't know. I don't know. They make a perfectly good pizza, but there's a lot of pizza places. I think it's more important to live in states and work for companies that align with you, both on either side. If you happen to be conservative, if you want to work for, you know, whatever, the Cracker Barrel, go for it. Or if you want to work for, you know, live in the state that makes you feel good, you should do that. I do think politics is more important and pretending it isn't is kind of a waste of your time, I think. But I don't know. What do you think? If you're at Meta and you can't discuss the Supreme Court ruling on Roe versus Wade, are you at that Kraken where that jackass is in charge? I would leave. I don't know. What do you think?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, look, I think, I mean, if a lot of people decide to go to work for Patagonia or Ben and Jerry's because they get huge psychic income from going to work for a company with those type of values. And a lot of people just could never go to work for Hobby Lobby. They would hate it every day.

Kara Swisher: Or they like it. Or they like it. Let's go positive.

Scott Galloway: But I think the vast majority, like 90 plus percent of people should and will make their decisions based on where they feel they can best develop economic security for them and their family and have some balance in their lives. I think that's the role that work plays in your life. And what I've also found, I did some work with Chick-fil-A. And everything I knew about Chick-fil-A was in my world, I thought, "Oh, Chick-fil-A, they're the homophobic fast food company." And what I found is when I worked with people there, and I never ate there just because of that. And what I found out is that, hey, that shit's for real. That's almost In-N-Out like good food. And B, there's a lot of very talented progressives working there who realize the opportunity to make a good living there. And we have a tendency to make a caricature of these companies. And so what I would say to this individual is that if he's someone who really carries his politics with him everywhere, and there are some people like that, there's nothing good about that, there's nothing bad about that, that's who you are, then fine. But I would say for the majority of us, work is meant to be a place where we can establish the economic security so we can focus on the important things in our lives. That is the relationships. Because without that economic security and enjoying your work in America, your life can be very stressful. So unless you describe yourself as a political animal, brother, go where the opportunity and the Benjamins are.

Kara Swisher: So I don't think people will hold it against you. I've never had anyone hold it against you. I work for Rupert Murdoch or something. I mean, and you could always say, "God, those assholes." You know, when you, I did a great job, but God, those assholes. Like you can play it for benefits later. And management changes and companies change. Yeah, I think, I wouldn't work for them, but, you know, I don't think you'll hurt. Resume be tainted? Probably not.

Scott Galloway: No. No. No. That is 100% not true. I don't think people do that unless you, you just, it won't. It won't. I think it's a one word answer. Congratulations. It sounds like you got the job you wanted.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. That's a great thing. But if it really bothers you when you're there and you have to listen to some shit, get out. That's where you get out of companies when there's like, I'm just saying in general, that's why you leave companies when there's abuse. You know where that happens more is in the tech community because the CEOs have invited it. They've pretended to care about their employees' political views and they kind of started a riot. And then they got surprised when people showed up.

Scott Galloway: That is true.

Kara Swisher: You know, with torches. I think most companies, people show up and do their job and go home. And that's what they should do. Many. The only reason you leave a company, again, is because of real issues of abuse or screaming bosses, toxic worst places, which exist. And I had one where I worked for a conservative, John McLaughlin. And the work was interesting. And I'm liberal. And he was conservative. He was a Reagan conservative at the time. And he just was an abusive fuck. And that's really why I left. Right? And not I didn't I never thought it would hold against me, but he was sexually harassing women. He was an asshole. He was abusive. He screamed. And that's why I left. So anyway, we'll see.

Scott Galloway: Can I just add one suffix to that? I've only had one job, really, other than working at NYU and starting companies. And that was at Morgan Stanley right out of college. Very conservative. Very abusive. I had a chair thrown at me. I'm not exaggerating. An actual physical item thrown at me. Very much a testosterone-filled, macho, like abused children syndrome, embarrassed people in front of others. And there was a line out the door and I would do it again. And I'm glad it's changed. It should change. But I was there to learn. I was there to get into graduate school. I was there to work my ass off, make some money and create a platform. I'm not by any way condoning it, but I think there are things that should weigh bigger in your life. I think work, no one should tolerate what people had to tolerate in the 80s. But I look back on it, and all of that stuff was present there. I was a progressive back then and, you know, mocked for my political views.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I left because of it. It was great. It was nuts. This was a fucked up place. And so I certainly learned things, but it was a fucked up place. So it doesn't matter.

Scott Galloway: But it's the same thing that plagues Facebook and the cigarette companies. And that is, as Upton Sinclair said, it's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. And this individual was paid not to understand it. Now, because of an overdue movement and the courts wising up to this and a lot of public shaming and people's livelihoods being, in many instances, correctly threatened or canceled, you are now paid to understand when abuse is happening. Anyway, it's an interesting time. We'll see what happens, but go take the job and send us a pizza. Although that's not really good pizza.

Kara Swisher: There you go. There's other better pizzas, by the way. All right. If you've got a question of your own you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

[Ad Break]

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Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. There's so many fails. Oh, ketchup.

Scott Galloway: I think the sentencing of R. Kelly and Ghislaine Maxwell were good. I guess it's a win. Maybe people don't think it's enough, but they're going to jail. So, sure, that's good. And maybe they'll get off, but that's a substantive amount of jail for both of them. It does not weigh against what they did, either of them, but substantive amount of jail. So I'm going to call that a win. Even if people think it's a fail, it's not. They got tried, they got judged, and they got put in jail. So that's my win.

Kara Swisher: I'll say the hearings are my win. I think that they've handled them really well. I think they've been measured, thoughtful. I like the way they rolled it out. And I think I do, even if they don't have an impact on voters, I do think an indictment is coming. And I think that'll be a big deal. So that's my win.

Scott Galloway: I think, and this goes more to predictions, but my fail is you're going to see a ton of funds, VC funds. There's going to be a lot of news about failing VC funds and tech investors because what's happened here, there's so many different ways to look at supply chain. Effectively, the largest investors in the world are these endowments and institutions and sovereigns, and they rebalance their investments based on how much they have in private equity and venture and public stocks. And they're all out of whack right now because the public markets have taken such a shit kicking and it continues today, all of a sudden, and because the marks lag, the valuations lag, the marks of their private investments, all of a sudden they are way overweighted in private venture-backed companies.

Scott Galloway: And so a lot of them are going to have to dial back their commitments, their investments, and you're going to see a lot of brand name funds close or put up gates. You're about to see a ton of stories in the Wall Street Journal about big names. And I'm saying big names-like. I don't know if it's going to happen to places like Tiger or SoftBank. I mean, these places, the reckoning there, people like to think they're always insulated, that they've invested in something that's different. "Oh, I'm an Apple, it's not going to get hit." Or "I'm in privates, it's different." Actually, privates, in terms of valuation oftentimes have, you know, are more volatile than the publics. And we're about to see a lot of private market tech investors, big names in the news for the wrong reasons.

Scott Galloway: I mean, some of these companies are down 50, 60, have lost 70% of their value, and it's going to start having an impact. They're going to put up gates and they're going to start also, there's going to be a really active, this is getting very detailed, there's going to be for the first time in over a decade, there's going to be a very active secondary market where funds are so desperate to raise capital, they sell the positions in the companies that are working. There'll be an active secondary market just as it was in 2008. There's a lot of that. A lot of companies, you know, I'm just thinking Ron Johnson's and Joy, which was kind of an interesting company, went bankrupt, a whole bunch of them. There's a lot of stuff that's kind of interesting.

Scott Galloway: And I'll say the win is, I don't mind the clearing out. Like, look, Sam Bankman-Fried was going to buy Celsius. I think he agrees. 1,200 Bitcoin coins, not Bitcoin, coins is too many coins. And so clearing out is not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. It creates clearance for what's really promising. And everyone has a reset. And that's good. That's a good thing.

Kara Swisher: But I have to say my win is Thor's, the Thor new movie. That's a great win.

Scott Galloway: You saw it?

Kara Swisher: Oh, no, I didn't see it yet. I'm so excited. I'm so, so excited. Who's in it? Who's Thor at? Who's the Thor woman?

Scott Galloway: Tessa Thompson and, oh, hello, Natalie Portman. Natalie Portman is the new Thor. She was the girlfriend in the first one.

Kara Swisher: You're not in the Marvel universe with me. Anything where they're wearing tights and capes, I just can't do it.

Scott Galloway: They are so hot. And the two ladies, and he's funny, Chris Hemsworth, it looks so very good. And worse, Chris is in it.

Kara Swisher: I don't have as big a problem with him as other people do, but that's Chris, whatever, that other Chris. Chris Pratt or Chris Hemsworth?

Scott Galloway: Pratt. Pratt is in it, too.

Kara Swisher: Let me guess. He's not wildly progressive?

Scott Galloway: What do you mean?

Kara Swisher: No, no, no. That's not it. Actually, he gave a really interesting interview for GQ that you should read.

Scott Galloway: No, I don't have a problem. I don't care. Whatever. He can do whatever he wants. Look, he's an actor. I don't care. Chris Hemsworth, on the other hand, is fantastic. He's gorgeous. He's not just dreamy. He's funny. He has a fantastic fitness app.

Kara Swisher: Does he?

Scott Galloway: Yeah. I just love him. I just love him. He makes me happy. He makes me happy. And I got to say, Tessa Thompson is hot. And the director, Taika Waititi, who is also an actor, is so talented. He did a movie you love, which is—

Kara Swisher: Oh, Jojo Rabbit?

Scott Galloway: Yeah. He was the director of Jojo. He's so talented.

Kara Swisher: Really? He's fantastic. He's the director of this?

Scott Galloway: Really? I didn't know that. Just one of these amazing talents. Like Greta Gerwig, great actor, great director, great et cetera.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. And in that vein, see the pictures from the Barbie movie coming. It looks fantastic. Greta Gerwig, it looks fantastic. It looks hysterical.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back for our quarterly review. To our American listeners, enjoy the holiday. Scott, you don't get to celebrate the 4th of July anymore. I'm sorry.

Scott Galloway: But I have Boxing Day.

Kara Swisher: What?

Scott Galloway: I have Boxing Day.

Kara Swisher: I don't know what that is. I don't know what that is. We're going to miss you, but you're not really going very far. So how can we miss you if you won't go away? Anyway, please read us out.

Kara Swisher: Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and Jertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Miel Silverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Kara Swisher: Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Scott Galloway: Who's going to cement the greatest alliance in the history of the West between the United Kingdom and America? Who will ensure they recognize that Americans are a loving, generous, and profane people? That's right. He's taking his vanilla starfish to the UK.

Kara Swisher: Oh, we are going to be so at war, our next war with Britain. We'll be right back.