Elon’s Texts, TikTok’s Wins and Fails in Europe, and Guest Gabriel Debenedetti

Kara Swisher: Not all journalism is the same. Take The Guardian. Our coverage has something unique. Fierce independence. Nobody owns us or tells us what we can and can't say. So we're free to report the whole picture. We connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe. Expose corruption wherever we find it. And give fresh perspective on everything. From wellness and soccer to culture, the climate and more. Read, watch and listen to The Guardian for free at theguardian.com.

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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 Scott Galloway.

Kara Swisher: So what's going on with the economy over there? Truss looks like she's shifted again. What's happening? I need an update from London.

Scott Galloway: So effectively, they've gone back. They've decided to not change. What they had decided to do was eliminate the top tax rate. So the idea, again, trickle down Reaganomics, that if we have our most productive citizens give them more money, it'll all trickle down to people. And the market threw up on the idea. And also, I like this move. And I want to applaud the prime minister. I think a step back from the wrong direction is a step in the right direction.

Kara Swisher: I see a lot of Twitter activity like, "What an idiot." And, "Oh, that was quick."

Scott Galloway: You know what? What I like about what she's done, the majority of our leaders in the U.S. would double down. "Oh, it's inflamed the other side. I'll double down." I think it's okay to say we screwed up. I like this move. It was a bad move, and she's undoing it. Good for her.

Kara Swisher: Right. Yeah. There's a lot of economic pain coming, you know, in the... And the pound recovered a little bit.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. The market likes it. Yeah. That's something Margaret Thatcher might not have done.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, I had a lovely weekend with Clara's third birthday. I had a lovely toddler birthday party.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. Wow.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: It starts to get good from here. It starts to get good.

Kara Swisher: Well, yeah. And then she's good the whole time. And then, well, it's my wedding anniversary. I took my lovely wife out to a dinner at a beautiful restaurant, six-course meal.

Scott Galloway: You guys have been married how long?

Kara Swisher: Two years.

Scott Galloway: Two years. Two years, right? Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. That's nice. We've been together longer than that. But yeah, wedding. We had a little outdoor wedding during the pandemic. So today is our actual anniversary. Same thing as Barack Obama's and Michelle Obama's, just so you're aware.

Scott Galloway: I'm just impressed you remember your anniversary. I couldn't tell you what my anniversary was.

Kara Swisher: Oh, no. We had a lovely meal. It was really very fancy. It had a wine pairing. It was very nice. So I want you to wish Amanda a happy anniversary and Claire a happy birthday.

Scott Galloway: Happy anniversary, Amanda. Thanks for jumping on that grenade.

Kara Swisher: What about Clara? We need a Clara one.

Scott Galloway: The golden child, give her her due. She's three. She got a lovely present. She got a bike. Come see Uncle Scott. Come to London. Come to London. Come see Uncle Scott.

Kara Swisher: She will. She got a tea set, a real tea set, and also a bike, a balance bike. So she's very excited. It was a very good... She doesn't listen to this podcast, so I will say we haven't. It's not her actual birthday for a day or two, but this is when the party was. I got her a Frozen headset, headphones. She's going to love me more than ever.

Scott Galloway: That's really shocking because the cracks in the Vox research department came back and said that our two most loyal viewers are tech bros and three-year-old girls. I also got you Frozen headphones for Christmas, so I'm so excited to give them to you.

Kara Swisher: Anyway.

Scott Galloway: You know, I would wear those.

Kara Swisher: You would.

Scott Galloway: Just as a conversation starter.

Kara Swisher: They're very comely and they'd show up well on that pate of yours, that pate. Otherwise, I fought against people who don't like Scott Galloway this weekend. It was stupid of me, but I can't stand them when they're just mean to you. I don't like it. I'm sorry.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, you know what? I was really flattered. So what Kara's referring to is I wrote a blog post, No Merit and Malice, on identity. And essentially, one of the things, after writing this book, where I'm trying to identify the issues ailing America such that we can talk about solutions, I generally think our biggest problem. What I recognize is I think we've never been stronger geopolitically. I think an honest appraisal of where America is right now is we're somewhere good to great externally, relative to our competitive set, food independent, energy independent, consistent GDP growth, everybody wants to come here. I think what really ails us, our biggest problem, is we don't like each other. We're turning on each other. And we no longer believe that Americans' greatest allies are other Americans, that if we're a horror movie, the call's coming from inside of the house. And I said, is there a way to enforce some sort of third party or a decentralized identity such that if Russian or Chinese troll farms come in and just try and create incendiary content that pits us against one another, could you more easily figure that out and then screen out that shit or vile content or what have you, or promoting a cryptocurrency through thousands of bots.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. You just put out some ideas, some of which people disagree with, which you noted.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. And what I find is similar to whenever you talk about 230 or crypto, there's an absolutist mentality where it's not, "Let's discuss the issue." It's like, "Okay, you insanely rich shithead."

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I agree. That's what pissed me off. They kind of go after, "Stop, you can't respond. Like, easy for you to say, a person of privilege that doesn't live in China." It's like, okay, how do I respond to that? And mama bear came out swinging. I did. I was like, you know what? Here's the thing. He's an insanely rich idiot, but he's my insanely rich idiot.

Scott Galloway: There you go.

Kara Swisher: Okay, first of all. And secondly, like, that's exactly right. It was like, don't agree with him. But, and then he's like, "Because God influences scads of companies." I was like, why don't you write about, I don't know, Tim Cook or Sundar Pichai.

Scott Galloway: Everyone everywhere listens to me. I know.

Kara Swisher: I'm like, really? Really? I mean, like, come on. Like, I wasn't minimizing you, but I was like, okay, first of all, you're using an "insanely rich" excuse, which I'm like, weak, weak. Like, have an actual debate. And this is a guy I respect, Mike Masnick, and he and I have argued about 230. I tend to be on his side on this issue, too. And then, you know, like the Jeff Jarvis of the world came out and had to have their say patronizingly. But it was really weird. I was like, let's have our actual debate about this and talk about it.

Scott Galloway: Well, he's usually... I find some of his analysis, but lately he's been like, "Amy Klobuchar's an idiot. You're an idiot." I'm like, you know what? Actually, I'd like to have an actual debate. And I tend to be on his side on a lot of things compared to you. Like, I disagreed with you last week because of that. But nonetheless, no one's going to do that to Scott. But let's just bring this down. We do try to reverse engineer to a learning here for a younger person.

Kara Swisher: That's correct.

Scott Galloway: That is correct. The learning here for me is if you're not... I consider myself a thought leader and I realize how arrogant that statement is. If you're not on a regular basis saying things that really gets a lot of pushback, then you're not saying anything.

Kara Swisher: Right.

Scott Galloway: And the key isn't to be right or wrong. The key is to catalyze a conversation that might result in productive dialogue that shapes and reshapes better solutions.

Kara Swisher: Right.

Scott Galloway: And I get it wrong all the time. And by the way, I just didn't have the energy to go on last night and respond.

Kara Swisher: That's okay. I did it for you.

Scott Galloway: What I would say is I wouldn't get back in his face. I'd say, "Boss, post where I got it wrong in the studies and I'll retweet it. I want to get to a better solution. I realize I don't have a monopoly on the truth here. But there has to be some... It's worth thinking about right now."

Kara Swisher: I agree. Because there are too many people. I mean, you saw what happened with the Women's March, how bad actors got in there and basically ruined a woman's career and started reshaping people's view of the Women's March. There's got to be a technical solution or new incentives to screen that stuff out. There's got to be a way to stop.

Scott Galloway: I would agree. It's a complex topic, but nonetheless, you're a rich guy who's flying around like some... It was so insane. Like I was like, you've lost me on this one.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, I defended you and I think you should have. And I don't always agree with you, by the way, FYI.

Scott Galloway: I don't always agree with me.

Kara Swisher: I know, exactly. Sometimes I write shit and I'm like, I don't know about this.

Scott Galloway: I was actually, I was doing some of it from the three-year-old party. I was like, "Fuck you."

Kara Swisher: Oh, would you like a cupcake?

Scott Galloway: That's why you were angry. Now I understand why you came in so hot.

Kara Swisher: No, no, no. I was just annoyed by that. I was super annoyed because we try to get to comedy here, which is really good. Anyway, there's a lot going on. Also, Amazon is facing lawmakers led by Senator Elizabeth Warren, want the FTC to block the company's acquisition of iRobot, which was interesting. Warren says the company's code shouldn't be allowed to just buy their way out of competing. And an Amazon spokesperson said of the letter request, "The letter contains a number of falsehoods and is broadly inaccurate," which, of course, they don't point to anything. But, you know, we talked about this. I don't know if the FTC will do this because it's quite a competitive arena. Again, Amazon's being very canny in what it's buying. MGM, tough, kind of competitive in the entertainment business, tough in the robot, well, vacuum business, I guess, what's up, what they're doing there. Home presence. I don't know what to call it.

Scott Galloway: This is a master class. I like Senator Warren. Do I like Senator Warren? I think she's fighting the good fight. But I think she's more right than effective. And I just don't think this is where they should be focusing their energy in terms of the antitrust case to go after. And what's going to happen is she's going to spend her political capital railing against Amazon because they're big and powerful. And that's not what antitrust is about. You're allowed to be big and powerful. Does this make the market less competitive? And I don't know much about home appliances, but my nascent knowledge of the home appliance market is there's no monopoly that's emerged. There's Dyson, there's Hoover, there's a lot of them.

Kara Swisher: And this is where she decides to put her would?

Scott Galloway: Well, there's only one drone one.

Kara Swisher: I don't even know of another one. Maybe there's some from China. This is a very specific kind of vacuum. There's Swiffer Picker Upper? I don't know.

Scott Galloway: I know, but there's not that many drone ones. There's not that many drones.

Kara Swisher: I don't know quite why this is the one there. Speaking of other legal issues, Kim Kardashian is settling a charge for promoting a crypto called Ethereum Max without disclosing that it was an ad. Kardashian was paid $250,000 for the post, incredible. As part of the settlement, she's agreed to pay $1.26 million and not promote any cryptocurrencies for three years.

Scott Galloway: First shot across the bow on this one. There's a lot of celebrities sucked into this. I think this is foreplay to what will be a much bigger set of fines and investigations around people who are not transparent around their intentions when they go on media to try and pump the value of something. And what's different here is my understanding is she didn't disclose that she had a position here or that she was getting paid. But I think this is the tip of the iceberg. And I think what we're going to stare down when we do the analysis, especially around SPACs, and we had all of these individuals going on media platforms and using their massive Twitter followings to essentially pump and then dump. I think that there's going to be some sort of regulation, and I think it'll be warranted, that says, "All right, if you own over X percent of a company and you're on CNBC making a compelling argument and then using your Twitter followership to promote it and go after anyone who dares question you. And at the same time, you are selling like there's no tomorrow, that people should have transparency into that." What I think the rub here is that we're going to find out so many people made hundreds of millions or even billions as others lost money. And that is the Adam Neumann effect. Should you get a commission on other people's losses? And it's always the same algorithm. I have a big Twitter following. I'm very charismatic. Media loves me because I say provocative things. I make it such that I'm not on the board of the company so I can sell stock without making disclosures.

Kara Swisher: She's a paid celebrity spokesmodel, essentially. This is different because she should disclose that, right? But I think this is a bridge to a broader conversation around how do we ensure people understand not only your incentives, but your actions when they're on CNBC pumping a stock and that afternoon selling it. This is interesting. Gary Gensler said Ms. Kardashian's case serves as a reminder to celebrities and others that the law requires them to disclose to the public when and how they're paid to promote investing in securities. There's lots of Floyd Mayweather was involved and there's lots of celebrities. Now, this is interesting. Her attorney said Ms. Kardashian fully cooperated with the SEC from the very beginning. She remains willing to do whatever she can do to assist the SEC in this manner. She wanted to get this matter behind her to avoid a protracted dispute. The agreement she reached with the SEC allows her to do that so she can move forward with many different business pursuits. That also includes, she just co-founded a consumer-focused private equity firm with a former Carlyle Group partner, and they're looking to do a debut firm. She's doing a lot of stuff, actually. And so, yeah, I agree. I mean, they have gotten into trouble for versions of this before, but there's a lot more here. There's a lot more here. And I agree, in the SPACs area, you've been very vocal on this issue. But you said this. It's easy to stereotype Kim Kardashian because of her physical appearance and just how hot she is. I think she's actually a pretty savvy businesswoman.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, she's new to get out of this. But she handled it well. She knew she was wrong. She didn't double down. She didn't appeal it. She basically said, "You're right, I'm wrong. Here's the fine. I apologize. Let's all move on." She didn't have to admit wrongdoing. She acknowledged the issue and she's paying it. I think it was poor judgment. I mean, it goes back to the trust thing. Everybody fucks up. The key is you don't necessarily need to double down. The SEC, the population, everybody loves to forgive. Admit you were wrong, pay the fine, move on.

Kara Swisher: Yep, yep. And they can make a case ever to scare other people. And there'll be a lot more, you'll see a lot more of this. It's very easy for the SEC to do these, by the way. They can make some money and settle very quickly with most people. All right, let's get to our first big story. Another big week in the world of Elon Musk. First, the court documents revealed private text messages between Musk and tech A-listers like Jack Dorsey and Joe Lonsdale, in which they discussed the Twitter deal. Joe Rogan, as we've talked about before, and even Gayle King were in the mix. Among the revelation, Matthias Döpfner of Axel Springer wanted to be Twitter's CEO. Elon pitched Oprah as a potential board member. By the way, that's been pitched before by Jack Dorsey. He said that he shouldn't be anyone's boss. He also was in a discussion with Bret Taylor about bots. And that was, to me, the more important thing. Some of this stuff is just kind of fun and games of them talking. But two weeks before he signed the merger agreement, he wrote to Bret Taylor, "Purging fake users will make the numbers look terrible. So restructuring should be done as a private company." And so I think it puts him in a very bad position in this court case. He's got to settle and figure out this $11 billion difference between what he agreed to pay for it and what Twitter's worth right now. Some of these texts are, as I said, silly. The others are very significant, I think.

Scott Galloway: Well, I think you've zeroed in on it. And this is celebrity porn, and it's illuminating about rich people in society. But the substance is exactly what you said, that he knew about the bots. He was planning to address the bots. It was a key component of why he was drawn to the platform was he thought that one of the ways he could add value was cleaning it up. The text you just referenced will be exhibit number one that Wachtell will put forward on behalf of Twitter's case. That the notion that he somehow was shocked by the number of bots that he knew about it and know his interest in this thing waned when he came off his manic episode and realized he was paying $44 billion for something worth probably $18 billion. I mean, I'm curious to get your take. And when I read these texts, at first I thought, should I be reading the text of other people commenting? I'm like, well, it's part of a case. It's a legal case.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: A few things really struck me. The first is just income inequality. And I know that sounds classist, but Larry Ellison offering a billion dollars on a deal he hasn't looked at over text. It's like...

Kara Swisher: Well, Sam Bankman-Fried also wanted to give money. Five billion. With that, just he'll come and fly out there and then it'll be a handshake. And give you five or ten billion dollars.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. It's just like, I mean, Kara, who hasn't had a friend offer him a billion dollars over text? "Would you fly here and give me money, Scott?" I mean, really. So I just want to bring this back to me. In late, I think it was '99 or 2000, my company Red Envelope was struggling and we had to raise more money. And Sequoia came in and smelled blood and said, "Okay, let's wash out the founders and do a rights offering." And I didn't have any money to defend my position in the company. And my friends Greg and Cindy Shove, I'll always remember this. I was really stressed out. I was going through a divorce. I was broke and I was about to get washed out of a company I'd started. But, you know, kind of the classic, the Silicon Valley story you don't hear about in Fast Company. And I was just so stressed and disappointed on a number of personal and professional things going on in my life. And my friends Greg and Cindy Shove called me from the car and they said, "Hey, we were just talking about you." And they said, "Could you use a million dollars?" What? Can you imagine that? I mean, they're good friends.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: But they called me and said, "Could you use a million dollars?" And you know what I said? "Yes." And they wired me the money. No agreement. This is a rich guy's thing. This is a rich guy's story. And I paid them back. I paid them back with interest. But I remember thinking...

Kara Swisher: Loan. They loaned you.

Scott Galloway: That was the most crazy, generous thing.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And they have taught me. I've tried to pay it forward on a regular basis. And now I'm virtually signaling. I call and offer people money when I get the sense they're stressed about money.

Kara Swisher: Oh, that's interesting. I'm very stressed about money.

Scott Galloway: At the time.

Kara Swisher: Nice try. Nice try. Clara needs a new pair of shoes.

Scott Galloway: That's right. Anniversary gift.

Kara Swisher: See, the keys to God. Forget the anniversary. I got a beautiful gift. And I thought that was the most, and it was, an extraordinary thing that had ever happened to me on a friendship money level. This is Larry Ellison offering a thousand times that. Although he was sort of pushing him off, like, "I'll get to you," like that kind of thing. That's how little it mattered to him.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I mean, these people, you want to talk about playing on a different level.

Kara Swisher: So the first thing is, and I don't know what to do about it, and I realize this is class warfare, but I'm like, Jesus Christ, these people really have this much money.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Well, they all want a piece of Twitter. They all want a piece of it. They were like, "I'd like to get a good idea, like a piece of Twitter." I could see that going through their little brain because they can't own. They can buy almost anything else. This they can't buy. So the second thing is the Achilles heel of every really famous wealthy person is they become so entrenched in their own bubble and they have so many people around them telling them they're amazing. They just lose touch. And the sycophancy here is so overwhelming.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, yeah.

Kara Swisher: Just how, I mean, it's just like, let's just give everyone a moment to take his dick out of your mouth. I mean, it's just like, my God.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, there was a lot of it. There was a lot of that.

Kara Swisher: But again, it doesn't matter. The one to Bret Taylor, I think I wrote him, "Whoa, want to do an interview." I think that's what I wrote, text. I mean, I didn't text him. I think I emailed him. Away from all of this and the Oprah on the board, again, Jack Dorsey many years ago wanted to bring Oprah. Many times have they thought about Oprah on the board of Twitter when they were looking for a lady. But she's never... She's not getting near this. Let's just say Oprah is a little smarter. The most interesting story is about my stalker in those texts. Jason Calacanis.

Scott Galloway: Well, they're very close friends, just so you know.

Kara Swisher: OK, his close friend. Two or three months ago, Matt Levine wrote that Jason was out there marketing access to the Twitter deal and saying that "I can get you into the Twitter deal." And he was going to take a fee for it and then 10 percent of the upside. And then, and I'm like, that sounds desperate. We even sat on the show. I said, that sounds kind of desperate that Elon has to get Jason Calacanis, who deals in pretty small checks to raise money for a $45 billion deal. Here are the texts, Musk to Calacanis: "What's going on with you marketing an SPV to randos? This is not okay." "Not randos. I have the largest angel syndicate. That's how I invest. We've done 250 plus deals." And then he goes on to say, "Morgan Stanley and Jared think you are using our friendship not in a good way. This makes it seem like I'm desperate. Please stop." So Jason was out there marketing access to a security that he did not have permission to market.

Scott Galloway: Right.

Kara Swisher: To me, that is... I think that was good for Elon, though. I mean, in that case, I was like, good on Elon for doing that. I think these texts on the whole actually reflect fairly well on Elon.

Scott Galloway: I would agree. I would agree. Who they reflect poorly on is his...

Kara Swisher: All his hangers-on are in friends and who are trying to get in on him.

Scott Galloway: Then Jason goes on to say, "I'll die for the sword for you. I'll jump on any grenade."

Kara Swisher: Yeah, they say that all of a sudden. He comes across like a man whore who gets caught stealing his watch and then drops to his knees, hoping if he fellates him, he'll forget about the watch he's just trying to steal.

Scott Galloway: Too much?

Kara Swisher: Yes, a little bit. A little bit.

Scott Galloway: That's how he talks.

Kara Swisher: But in any case, I think what he's got to wonder is like who's his friends and who's not his friends. And I think that's hard when you're that rich. It doesn't matter, no matter what you do. I've said this to so many of these billionaires. I'm like, I'm your best friend because I don't care, that kind of thing. I just want the interview, of course. Anyway, one of the things that he does was he openly sparred with Parag Agrawal.

Scott Galloway: Oh, yeah.

Kara Swisher: Obviously, if he is forced to buy it, Parag will not have the job. I continue to believe, and I've been texting with people who know, you know, Ari Emanuel entered the picture. That's probably a good idea to have someone who's close to Elon who is very convincing and charming. There's all these relationships between Ari and Egon Durban, who's on the board of Twitter. He's on the board of Twitter still. And he also was, I think, he was very close to Ari through the WME deal. I believe he's still on the board there. He may not still be. But he was very integral to that deal. There's all kinds of interpersonal relationships here. If Elon was smart, he would let people who are smarter on this stuff make the deal and get the hell out of it. There's an $11 billion delta. So somewhere between zero and 11 billion dollars, there's a number that he should take and run as fast as he can.

Scott Galloway: But you bring up another key point is that in addition to trusting people or having third parties do a deal, I used to think when I was younger, I was too smart. And when I did an M&A deal that I would do the deal myself. And I quickly learned that's really stupid. There's a reason why investment bankers make so much money. And third parties are better at representing you than you are yourself. There's another lesson here, and that is you have to have in your circle people who are prone to disagree with you. And if you look at corporate governance history, whether it's Theranos, whether it's Enron, the boards all had one thing in common. They all got along too well. They all agreed with each other on everything. All the board meetings were super civil.

Kara Swisher: Great point. That's what we should do. Never questioning the CEO.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. Just go along, get along. And this guy has absolutely no guardrails.

Kara Swisher: He's got a few. That's not true. There's a few people around him that do. I just hope they get some voice. They're not texting him. No, but I think Ari Emanuel and Egon Durban will probably, they all want to have good relationships with him. But I suspect they will be, Ari will be charming and also tough. And so, because he's always looking for the angle, right? And same thing with Egon. Very smart investor from Silver Lake. Like, just, I would, Elon, if you're listening, please listen to them. Just do, get to a settlement here, because if not, it's going to just drag on and going to occupy your life.

Scott Galloway: I don't think he can.

Kara Swisher: I think he can. I think he can. Through these texts, I was like, oh, there's the Elon I know. There's the Elon I know.

Scott Galloway: But play it out, Kara. Say he offers him $10 billion. The shareholders go, "No, this deal, this legal case against him that he's going to lose is worth $20 billion." And I don't think he's going to pay that.

Kara Swisher: Well, there's an $11 billion delta. So I don't know. I think everyone's going to want to like, if not, they're going to end up with nothing. Everyone's got to be very clear. If they keep going at this, they're going to end up, you know, they keep fighting and everyone's going to end up without anything. So two other observations.

Scott Galloway: Okay.

Kara Swisher: I haven't been involved in a deal this big, but I've been in the center of like multi-hundred million dollar, even low single digit billion dollar deals. Elon went from going on the board to deciding he was going to acquire the firm. And when he decided he was going to acquire the firm and no longer wanted to be inside the tent, he put out a tweet saying, "Is Twitter dying?" And then Parag, I thought, sent exactly the right email. He said, "Look, boss, you can say what you want, but you're not helping." I thought that was direct. I thought that was CEO behavior.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, Parag's like that. That's his nature too, very.

Kara Swisher: And Elon wrote back, "What have you done this week? What have you gotten accomplished this week?"

Kara Swisher: And I thought, you know, that was kind of an asshole move. You don't like him. In most of the corporate leaders I've dealt with who are very aggressive, they maintain a certain level of decorum and respect for other people. It's not like him. He's very direct. And Elon doesn't do that.

Kara Swisher: The other big observation: I believe if you got a room of people who make OK livings but aren't rich, and then you got a room of millionaires together... and I realize this doesn't sound great... I think you could immediately figure out which room were the millionaires and which room were the people who are just doing OK. I think if you had two rooms with millionaires and one with billionaires, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Kara Swisher: The thing that comes out here is these people are playing checkers, not chess. They're impressive people. But the reason they're billionaires and not millionaires is mostly luck. It's mostly not their fault. When you see the way they behave, the way they acquit themselves, it's pretty obvious. There's no secret sauce there other than being born at the right place in the right time.

Scott Galloway: Well, I don't know about that. But some of the people... I was listening to an interview that I'd forgotten that Steve Jobs did with Walt Mossberg, and it's so smart. He was talking about making mistakes and also iterations in tech. I'm going to send it to you because I was like, oh my God, this guy really did have a big mind, in terms of thinking practically. He was talking about where to make the risk, where not to make the risk. It was so well thought out.

Scott Galloway: I think some of them are. And I think among these people, when you get him going, when he's not in this weird celebrity bubble, he is very smart like that. You can have a really fascinating discussion. I think the problem is these suck-ups that these texts showed you. You should see this all day long. "Hey, dude. Hey, bro. Good job. Woo." That kind of stuff. And sometimes, he deserves a good job, like landing that rocket on a thing. I'm sure I sent him a text that said, "Fucking impressive." But it's not because I wanted anything from him. It just was. And you should acknowledge that.

Kara Swisher: The relationship between intelligence and wealth is positive. There's a correlation. But it tops out at about 110 or 120 IQ. The difference between intelligent people and geniuses, there's no correlation with wealth. I think that there are a lot of really impressive comments you just highlighted from Steve Jobs. I can find you a lot of people who are just so strikingly impressive. And they've made a really good living. I have never been able to discern the difference between someone who is successful and someone who is a billionaire, other than luck.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's the problem you have with me, right? That's the thing. I'm brilliant. Anyway, why isn't she a billionaire? Case in point.

Kara Swisher: Case in point. I am pretty smart. Anyways. All right. They put their pants on one leg at a time. You know, whenever I get... I don't know about you, whenever I get an offer, someone will say, "My husband loves the show and is dying to meet you and wants advice and I'll donate X to a charity." I never say no because I'm like, they're going to be disappointed. Your husband has this vision of me that's just not reality.

Scott Galloway: Oh, don't be mean. I meet with everybody.

Kara Swisher: Not being mean. Not being mean.

Scott Galloway: Be nice to your fans. Be nice to your fans. They're nice to you.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back...

Scott Galloway: Sorry, go ahead.

Kara Swisher: When we come back, TikTok's European numbers are out and they're huge. And we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Gabriel DiBenedetti, about the hidden sides of the Biden-Obama relationship.

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Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back. TikTok is tallying up some huge gains and losses in Europe in filings with the UK. The app reported close to a billion dollars in turnover for 2021, according to Financial Times. That's nearly six times its previous take in Europe. On the other hand, it lost nearly $900 million. The company says staff compensation was the primary cause. It's been hiring like crazy.

Kara Swisher: I spoke with TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas about getting certified by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. Should TikTok go through a similar process for its European businesses? I did ask her and she didn't answer. She was much firmer. I asked her what she would have said to Josh Hawley if she had thought a little harder. She was talking about the reductive nature of those things. She was pretty good in this interview, very strong.

Kara Swisher: They're thriving in Europe. They're thriving where they're losing money, certainly, but it's certainly a business on the upswing and would be able to be profitable, presumably, as long as they get these go-aheads in these countries. What do you think?

Scott Galloway: It's unprecedented, this firm. Keep in mind, a billion dollars and still losing money. The year before... years go by pretty quickly. They grew 500%. This firm is growing much faster revenue-wise, users, daily active users are all growing faster than Google or Facebook did at a similar point in those companies' history. If you just take a straight line out, this company should be, if it can maintain this trajectory, one of the three or four most valuable companies in the world in five to ten years.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's really interesting. I think they're going to be a little more aggressive on the attacks, like you saying they should be banned. She's a very impressive executive from Google, a former Google executive, worked at YouTube, really does know this creator economy very well. Perfect choice for them in lots of ways.

Scott Galloway: Well, how did she surprise you? I'm curious, what was your takeaway after talking to her about all this?

Kara Swisher: She was quite forthright about their efforts. I thought she could have done the Facebook thing, and she didn't. Very canny person, I think. She answered pretty much every question, and there were a lot of tough ones in there about the banning.

Scott Galloway: Does she want to spin? It seems to me that'd be the answer.

Kara Swisher: No, they do not. That's not where they're going. It's going to be owned by ByteDance. I think that's not where they're going. Of course she didn't answer the IPO question because, of course, she'll do very well and others. She was a little lighter on who's really running it and who has things, but she said they don't have control of U.S. decisions in China. That said, she had a better answer about the Chinese Communist Party members, as we talked about. Apple probably has a few. She can't ask them that. It'd be silly not to say they aren't there because there's lots of people in China. I thought she answered well.

Kara Swisher: I think they will pass the U.S. rules that they need to with adequate protections. I don't know what will happen after that. But she seemed to push off an IPO or a spinoff right now. Let me ask you, you know, I think you sort of have an inside track or view into a lot of different parties around this issue. Do you think ByteDance ever gets public in its current form without severe... Does this happen? Did you ask her about that? Supposedly the deal they're working on with Biden. I've heard rumors there.

Scott Galloway: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kara Swisher: No, she said they're working on it and it's going to come soon. She was very clear. She's like, they're going to have a deal where it's going to be safe. The information is safe, she said, and it will be very clear and transparent, safe. She didn't pretend there weren't issues on TikTok and it's the friendly. She goes, "We are trying to be the friendly entertainment brand and we're going to get all kinds of the same crap that ends up on Twitter or Facebook we're going to get. And we have to move towards getting rid of it." She very clearly understood the worries and was not acting like it was stupid, any of it. And of course, that's what you should do. So there you go. It's an impressive woman.

Scott Galloway: She is. She was very impressive.

Kara Swisher: One of the things that she did note, that a lot of the ownership is foreign. I brought up the issue. There's a branch of ByteDance, the ByteDance tech that the government official sits on the board. This is one of the divisions, separate division of it. And she made the also salient point that a lot of ByteDance and this company is owned by U.S. owners. There's all kinds of U.S. owners of this thing.

Scott Galloway: Do you still believe in a ban if they're approved by the U.S. government? If the U.S. government with this administration, I find them to be very thoughtful. I had a chance to sit down with some representatives of our cyber command at the Code Conference. I think they're smart, thoughtful people. If they sign off on something, I would just be prone to say I think they've done the homework.

Scott Galloway: Also, when you're on Code on stage or you're on Bill Maher, and this is one of the many things I need to work on, I'm prone to being provocative to get attention.

Kara Swisher: You are.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. I don't... Lots of people said the same thing at Code, not just you.

Kara Swisher: I know.

Scott Galloway: But what I'm increasingly uncomfortable with is the idea of using the terms "ban" and "media" in the same sentence.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, you said that. It's a bit of a shift.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. And I think that there's got to be some sunlight in between here. But I still go back to the notion that you're going to have to separate the product and the ownership, but the ownership has a direct influence over, or the CCP has influence over it. Or could. I can't get over how powerful this thing is.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Gabriel DiBenedetti is a national correspondent for New York Magazine and the author of *The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama*, which looks at the often misunderstood relationship between the two presidents. Welcome, Gabriel.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Kara Swisher: So what do we get wrong about the Obama-Biden relationship? Because people tend to have their thoughts about it. We think of it as warm and friendly. They did all those videos, getting ice creams, things like that. Can you talk about it? I was having a discussion with someone about vice presidents, including Vice President Harris. I'm like, they never really get along. They're there to replace them. But what are your thoughts?

Gabriel DiBenedetti: Yeah, I think you're sort of touching on the central tension here. The public perception of this relationship is that it's a bromance. That's what people have called it for a long time. That's partially true. It's definitely true, as I've come to see it, that it's the closest relationship between a president and vice president or president and former president in modern history. But that's a really low bar.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: The reality here is that they are friends, which is unusual, but it's a political relationship before anything else. And it has been for over 20 years now. These are two men whose relationship has fluctuated wildly, often behind the scenes in ways that are not known to the public, and who see the world very differently at times, whose perceptions of ways that you make change are very different. Even to this day, it's not as if Biden is calling Obama that often for advice. They still do talk, but it's much more like therapy than it is, "What should I do on this bill?" or "Who should I be calling on this?"

Gabriel DiBenedetti: They're vastly different men as we've come to see by their times as president. And that has borne out over their 20 years of knowing each other now. The reason I decided to write this was basically, when Biden won, so many people were saying this is going to be the third term of Obama, or at least the tone of the coverage was, "Obama's back, baby. The last four years didn't happen." As we've seen now for two years, that's clearly not the case.

Kara Swisher: No, they're not at all the same. I'm just curious, and then Scott will have a question, is, Bush and Cheney certainly had a close relation, but that was more like master and submissive, it felt like.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: Sure, but by the end of their time together, they really didn't have much of a relationship. If you look back, Gore and Clinton, obviously, same sort of idea. They did not have a good relationship by the end. The only other one that you can kind of compare this to in terms of president and former president, not president and VP, is the Bushes. But of course, they had a very complicated relationship, too. Obviously, they're father and son, so different to start here.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: But like you alluded to at the beginning, the fact of the Biden and Obama relationship being this one that we sort of hold up in the public consciousness as what it's supposed to be, it's really sort of been unfortunate for the Harris vice presidency because so many people say, "Well, why aren't they so close?" Well, the expectation was never that they were going to be best friends until the Obama and Biden years. But we can talk more about that.

Scott Galloway: Isn't that a relationship that's set up to fail? Because what you have is two adversaries. You choose your VP, not because it's someone you're going to get along with. You choose your VP because it's someone who's shown the ability. I mean, I think Vice President Harris is vice president. She got on the debate stage because she's incredibly impressive, or at least her resume. But the reason she was chosen as vice president was she really went after Biden and was effective. Doesn't the relationship just start from a position of failure?

Gabriel DiBenedetti: Well, these two certainly didn't have a relationship that started. It wasn't even that it was a failure from the beginning. It was like a non-entity, this relationship. They knew each other in the Senate, obviously, but they just didn't have any reason to really care about each other for the longest time, even though they worked together on Biden's Foreign Relations Committee. So it took a really long time.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: When Obama essentially decided he did want Biden to be the one to be his vice president, first off, Biden didn't really want to be considered. Partially artifice. But the reality was he didn't think he'd be a very good number two. He'd been in the Senate for 36 years. Why would he want to for the first time in his life be someone's second in command? He thought he could be Secretary of State, which is a much better job in terms of autonomy, at least.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: When it came time for them to actually have their first conversation about this, Obama said to Biden, "I need you to just promise me that this is the capstone of your career. That's the only way this is going to work." And Biden's response was, "Oh, not the tombstone." The joke being, OK, this is the end of the career, obviously. But they never really hashed that out in a serious way.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: In fact, if you look at the *New York Times* story from the morning after Biden was chosen, one of the final lines says something to the effect of, "It's really convenient for Obama that he's not going to have to worry about Biden's political posturing, because obviously Biden is going to be too old to run for president after their eight years together." At the time, that was conventional wisdom. That's certainly what Obama thought. Almost immediately, though, their different views of politics... It's true that they agreed over the long term on a lot of policy points, but they definitely disagreed a lot over their eight years together in terms of how to actually achieve those goals.

Scott Galloway: So, Gabriel, what's the actual state of the relationship today? And how helpful can he be to Biden, Obama in 2024? Obama's sort of been wandering around doing podcast deals and being a friendly guy, but not particularly political, I would say.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: Yeah, he's doing a little bit more than he expected to be doing at this point in his post-presidency, but that's a Trump thing, not a Biden thing, obviously a reaction to the Trump years. There's a few different answers to this. The short version of what the relationship is like now: Obama took a long time to get involved with Biden 2020, but he eventually did and was very useful to him. At this point, they're sort of talking every few weeks or so, but it's very informal.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: Unlike any other call that Biden has, except for a family member, no one else is on the call when he does these calls. So it's very hard to get a readout of what they are because they are personal conversations. But it's much more gut checks. It's like I said, someone once referred to it to me as political therapy. He's not saying, "What should I do in Afghanistan? What should I do with this bill?" And Obama has said that he's going to be as useful as Biden wants him to be. He's not offering advice unprompted. He is trying to live his own life. He's got his own projects. He's trying to be a post-president.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: He used to joke, even before he became president, that the best job in the world wasn't president. It's the ex-president. So he's been thinking about this for a long time, what he would do as a post-president. But the question of 2024 is a really delicate one for both of them.

Scott Galloway: And the midterms, too, because I assume he's got more of a draw for the midterms than Biden does, correct?

Gabriel DiBenedetti: No doubt. And he's going to be out there. He's already said that he's going to be out there campaigning for folks. He's endorsed some people. He's cutting ads. Same as always with him in the midterm. Same thing he did in 2018. Except that this time he's talked a little bit more to people who are trying to figure out what his presence is going to look like. He's talked more about what it would look like for him to have more of a presence when it comes to talking about the future of the democracy issues. He talks about disinformation a lot.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: One thing I think we're going to see him do is campaign for or cut ads for or endorse even Secretary of State candidates in the midterms, all the way down the ballot, because those are the people who are administering the elections in '24. But when it comes to the question of whether Biden should run in '24, they actually have not discussed it. There's been some reporting to the contrary, but they haven't discussed it. One of the reasons is Biden doesn't really think it's a question. He thinks he's going to run again.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: The more probably important politically question is presidential elections are difficult for them to talk about because the first time they had to have this discussion for real was 2016. That's when Obama essentially pushed Clinton to run over Biden. Now, Biden obviously had the personal mitigating circumstances. His son was very ill and then passed away. But Biden saw very clearly that Obama also had made a political calculus, which he did, which was, "I don't think that Biden is the right person to succeed me in this moment." He didn't think he was the future of the party or of the country.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: Then in 2020, it took a really long time for Obama to get on board with Biden as well. At one point they had a conversation and Obama's version of dissuading Biden in 2020 was essentially to say, this is late 2018, "Joe, you really don't have to do this." Then Biden essentially said to him, "Sorry, Trump's the president. I think I have a good chance."

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Obama, bad calculation by Obama in my estimation.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: And of course, Obama at this time was talking to every other person on earth who wanted to run for president because he had said that he was willing to. So Biden took a lot of this stuff pretty personally, even though he tried really hard not to. Which is all a long way of saying it shouldn't be that surprising that they're not talking about 2024, because if you're Biden, the public image might be that they're best friends and they're advising each other on everything.

Kara Swisher: No, I don't. But clearly not. It's not as if he would go to Obama as a first call for "Should I be doing this again?"

Scott Galloway: As someone who is a Beto fan, Scott, what do you think about this? So I'm curious, Gabriel, whenever you really get to know a relationship between two presidents, it's going to yield insight about the individual presidents. Is there one or two things you can tell us about President Obama or President Biden that would surprise us or that surprised you?

Gabriel DiBenedetti: Sure. I think one of the things about Biden that has surprised me is he is a lot like the public image that he has tried to portray for himself. What I mean by that is he is someone who genuinely does do things like read Irish poetry and think of himself in these historical terms at this point. And it took him a really long time to do that. He's someone who is, and this is a related point, very self-conscious. He's been very wary of how other people view him his whole career and has been very self-conscious about not having an Ivy League education for one thing. He talks about that all the time behind the scenes still.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: But at the same time, now he has been thinking a lot about "What am I in history?" He doesn't like to say that out loud because he understands how it sounds. But that is really how he is. And with Obama, I think people might not, because of the public perception of how his post-presidency has been, understand this, but I think he has been changing a lot in his post-presidency as he thinks about what he represented. He obviously still thinks that he was a very successful president, but I think that he now sees himself on this continuum of history much more precariously than he did before. Because the Trump experience has thrown into some serious questions what the Obama legacy will ultimately be, especially if Trump comes back.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: But Obama remains this singularly self-confident figure in American politics. And that really comes through even in their private conversations over the course of their relationship. Even in the earliest days, I tell the story in the book, but the first time they ever met one on one or ever sat down was when Obama wanted to join the Foreign Relations Committee as a brand new senator, 99th in seniority. Biden invites him over to his office and essentially says, "Sure, yeah, come on over. We'll talk." Obviously, Biden's going to let him on the committee because he can see that he's a rising star, even if he's not so sure about him.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: At the end of this quick conversation, Biden says, "Well, I got to go to Wilmington. You got to go to Chicago. But this is good. Let's sit down and have a proper dinner sometime and get to know each other. I know a cheap place, cheap Italian place here on Capitol Hill. It'll be great." And Obama sort of rears back up and says, "Wait a minute. What do you mean, cheap Italian place? We can go somewhere nice. I can afford it." Because Obama is, of course, thinking, for one thing, Obama has money for the first time in his life because Random House is going to reprint his book. But he's also thinking, "Who is this old school guy, this older white senator who thinks he can talk down to me and thinks I need to eat at some cheap place?"

Gabriel DiBenedetti: And Biden, meanwhile, is taken aback and says, "Well, who does this guy think he is? I can't afford it. I'm the poorest senator." So they walk away from that first meeting both thinking, "This other guy is so presumptuous." And they, of course, didn't set that dinner date. It took them a long time to really truly understand each other.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, he didn't mean it that way. Of course not. No one knowing him. And Obama is certainly self... and I don't mean that in a positive way. Having interviewed him several times, it's one of his failings, I think, in a lot of ways.

Kara Swisher: So you also wrote about the Florida governor race. How will the Hurricane Ian response affect that race, especially since DeSantis has been working with Biden on the recovery? He's been as complimentary as he can be.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that it's obviously hard to figure out what the political end of this is going to be. Usually governors who govern through disasters see some political upside for that, especially when they work with the president.

Kara Swisher: They have to. They have to.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: It doesn't always work that way. Charlie Crist knows well that he was a Republican governor back in the day, and he hugged Obama when Obama came down to Florida to talk about economic relief. And that was, of course, the end of Charlie Crist's career as a Republican. So he understands well that there is some danger here. But DeSantis doesn't seem to be getting a lot of blowback in terms of working with the federal government, though a lot remains to be seen in terms of what the pure level of devastation is and what the amount of federal help is needed. He has, of course, not loved these headlines about how he had voted against federal aid in previous circumstances.

Kara Swisher: Too bad. That's what he did.

Scott Galloway: So you think Biden's in... In your view, Biden is running again.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: My view is that in Biden's view, Biden is running again. I think a lot could change. I think that people sort of underestimate when he says, "My expectation is that I'm going to run again, except I know that history can intervene." He is a man who knows a lot about tragedy and a lot about mortality and thinks about that all the time. So I genuinely think that things could change. His health could take a turn. His family could go against it. But right now, he's certainly operating as if it's a go.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: By the way, in 2020, he knew that it was a go long before he said it publicly. Even though he takes forever to make these decisions, his staff had to tell him, "Stop talking about this so openly because you're going to trigger the FEC rules and we're going to have to file your candidacy according to the laws." The same thing has happened now. He knows that he cannot say, "I'm running." He just has to say, "I'm expected to run."

Scott Galloway: No, he's 100%. And by the way, much more successful legislatively. I mean, obviously, Obamacare was very important. But if you weigh them one-to-one, I think Biden has had the more successful presidency at this point. And that's a big part of their relationship these days. You can imagine they talk about that.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, but Obama has more style, apparently. I like Dark Brandon. I think that's also part of him. I don't know.

Scott Galloway: You and Joe both.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, but he's like that. He's like that, I suspect. Yeah, that's all real. Quite genuine.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, the book is *The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama*. Fascinating. It's going to be really interesting. Gabriel DiBenedetti, thank you so much.

Scott Galloway: Thanks, Gabriel.

Gabriel DiBenedetti: Thank you both.

Kara Swisher: All right. So I think we're like Biden, Obama. Which one would be Biden? Which one would be Obama?

Scott Galloway: You're Obama.

Kara Swisher: I'm Obama? I'm shocked. I was shocked that you didn't... For the first time, I always learn more about you. I would have thought you would... You like Obama less than I would have thought. A lot less.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Isn't that interesting? And what? Yeah, I've said that. Can you say more? What is it that you think he deserves more scrutiny around?

Scott Galloway: The success of legislation. I think he had a lot of style. I think his post-presidency compared to like a Jimmy Carter, he has so much power. And he's sort of hanging out with celebrities.

Scott Galloway: He's on David Geffen's boat. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And that's kind of disappointing. And I have to say, when I interviewed him, he didn't like pushback. And Biden, never that way. Very comfortable with pushback. Very comfortable with debate. And just a more genuine, I think he doesn't get the credit he gets. That's why I backed him way back when. I was like, this guy can win one and this guy can get things done. And I do think that's the case. I think making fun of his age, I get it. I get it. And Obama's handsome, tall, smooth. But Obama reminded me a lot of tech people I covered. I know it sounds crazy, but—

Kara Swisher: Oh, that hurts. I was like, yeah. Don't say that about my hero. Don't say that. That's wrong.

Scott Galloway: Listen, historically, such an important, historically. I just think when the assessments come, I think Biden has had a more successful presidency thus far under very difficult circumstances. And Obama could have done a lot more. That's my feeling. I was not as big a fan of him as others.

Kara Swisher: That's interesting. Yeah. But I get the appeal.

Scott Galloway: I'm going to get like strafed. But I've said this before. I don't care. I think Biden has been a very successful president under – like, listen, he's got crazy, crazy pants down in Florida yelling at him every crazy stuff all the time. And he's handled it with a lot of decorum, including the attack on the Capitol. There's lots of ways he could – I always look at people's choices. Anyway, but I hope Obama's enjoying his yacht going.

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

[Ad Break]

Kara Swisher: Okay Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I'm gonna go first. That Bella Hadid spray-on dress. Loved it. Loved it.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, oh fast. I didn't know where it was going and I was like, what is happening here? And then when the person – my favorite part was the person who then cut it after they sprayed it on and then it was a dress. And of course someone said I'd look like a bag of cats if you put that on me. But it was, I loved it. It was so techie and interesting. It was cool. Loved it. It made me like clothes, you know what I mean? Like, oh, here we are. We're making some clothes. And I thought that was kind of cool. I don't know. That was my win. You go for your win and I'll think of a fail.

Scott Galloway: Well, you foreshadowed my win. My win is James Earl Carter Jr., better known as President Carter, who turned 98 this past week. Such a good man. This is someone who served his country after graduating from the Naval Academy, served on several submarines, and then after the death of his father, took over a failing peanut farm and turned it into a thriving business. He, as president, he was a dark horse. There's a candidate who was a dark horse. He started the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, was critical in SALT II talks, obviously had to deal with stagflation, was kind of dealt a bad hand. And then the October surprise, the failed mission to rescue the hostages in Iran. He will go down or has gone down as an average to less than average successful president, but he is by far the most successful ex-president we've ever had. The moment he left office, he began building homes via Habitat for Humanity and at the age of 98 has been married to his wife, Rosalind, for 76 years. She's fantastic. I just don't – I think you can't underestimate how many wonderful Americans America produces, and this is one of them. And I like the fact that he's been given the gift of so much praise and what I call overdue recognition. I love the fact that he's gotten to share his life with the same person for three quarters of a century. I think he's a fantastic role model for young men. Talk about a great post-presidency. Now, that guy had lots of troubles as president. And it's hard to – the Reagan train was charming and fantastic. And I voted for Reagan, I mean, the first time over Jimmy Carter. And I have to say, this guy has shown us the way to behave as an ex-president. I think he's had the most stellar – I mean, it's cute with George Bush painting, but honestly, this guy has done stuff, has done stuff and used his podium in a way that is super moving and effective.

Kara Swisher: I agree with you. I agree. So my fail is the distinctive weddings or the pivot to the metaverse. I think it's important that we remember that Meta continues to be a menace to our society and not take responsibility. This week in the UK, a coroner found that harmful online content likely contributed to Molly Russell, a 14-year-old, to her death. And he put in quotes, and this is unusual for a coroner who they try to be very careful whenever they stray outside of trying to lay responsibility around the death of somebody. He said that harmful online content likely contributed to Molly's death in a more than minimal way. And the father has decided to sue the company and basically saying that they're monetizing misery.

Scott Galloway: Monetizing misery, what a line.

Kara Swisher: Right? You know, there's so much, there's this cultural and so much attention around this notion that has no evidence. There's no factual basis. As someone who's the father of kids who spent the majority of their school age years at a school in Florida, as someone who served on the board of their kid's school, I have never seen any evidence, nor is there any peer-reviewed evidence, that teachers are institutionally or systemically trying to pull the gay or the heterosexual tendencies of children out of them in school. I have never seen that. And I think it's a culture war meant to rouse people, play to their worst instincts. But something that is true is that when algorithms for Meta, when a kid who shows no signs of mental illness, when a kid who is thriving at school starts getting bullied online and starts contemplating suicide and then begins the algorithms recognize this and no joke Meta and Pinterest also begin serving her images of nooses, pills, and razors. So what these organizations are doing and there's proof here is they're pulling out of girls suicide to normalize suicide.

Kara Swisher: We speak so much about Nasdaq and all this bullshit. What's the point here? What's the point of any of this?

Scott Galloway: I know how you feel. It's you know, you have sons, I have a daughter. I think about it all the time, all the time now, as she grows up. And I think your feelings about it should be like most parents are very emotional and it requires that level of emotion. The feelings you're having, because it really does matter. And I think at some point, these companies have got to understand they're not completely to blame. Certainly there's all kinds of societal pressures on girls and women and things like that, but this has taken it to a level that's really very clearly problematic. And this case in Britain was really interesting. I think it should be more like it. Let's have it out in court is how you do it. Let's make the bastards pay.

Scott Galloway: And what I want to say is my emotion and my thoughts and prayers don't mean fuck all. I hope people Google Molly Russell and get involved and advocate for holding these companies responsible. These are problems that can be fixed. There is no way the brightest minds in the world couldn't figure out that this was a young girl and couldn't figure out that she was beginning to become comfortable with suicidal content. They could have figured that out and they could have intervened. If you have a kid in any organization that starts talking about suicide, whether it's a mass shooter and they start drawing images, people intervene. And these companies absolutely have the technology and the ability to intervene. Unfortunately, it would reduce their profits. It would be expensive, and I don't doubt it would be hard. It is overdue. Exxon lied to us. RGR lied to us. The Sacklers lied to us. And the people in Meta are lying to us. We should absolutely hold these firms accountable.

Kara Swisher: I think what we have to do is see it in court. Let's see it in court. Let's see it. If they say no, let's have a little court time to have some proof and go through it. But it should completely be scrutinized, and I think it's an important point you're making here completely. My fail, I don't know if it's a fail yet, but I do think we should talk about it on Thursdays. The Supreme Court is taking up two cases around Section 230. They involve terrorist content, but it could challenge broad immunities, as has happened before. But it's the first time it's gone to the Supreme Court. So much of this stuff is going to be going to the Supreme Court, by the way, and a lot of it is, a lot of these cases, because it's about our society as a whole, which is worrisome given this particular Supreme Court. But they're going to decide whether social media companies can be sued for hosting and recommending terrorist content. Even though it's not the same, it's not that different. It's similar, right? What can they be sued for? And so we'll see where that goes. I am worried about this particular Supreme Court, but I think it might free them up even more and we'll get in Citizens United kind of thing, in the interests of free speech kind of thing. So it's a very complex case, but we absolutely have to be thinking harder about how we manage these very important communications things. And Scott, it's very appropriate for you to be upset by that. There you go.

Scott Galloway: There you go. Clara is three. She's three. She's three. She's three. How's Saul doing?

Kara Swisher: Oh, good. Jolly as ever. Eating everything in sight. Just fantastic. He's a fantastic kid. He's really great. They're all great. Alex is great. He approved of shoes I was wearing recently. So that was a big thing. And he's being very sweet, but it's because he's got a nice girlfriend, I think. He's in a better mood. And Louie's coming down this weekend and I'm so excited to see him. We're going apple picking. We're such a straight family. It's crazy. So yeah, we're picking apples. I'm going to make some applesauce for you. We'll send it to you in Britain. Really, we won't, but still.

Scott Galloway: I really am very touched by the way you feel about this. Anyway, 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 for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. There's always going to be plenty to talk about, maybe even a settlement like we talked about with Elon. Who knows? Who knows? Please read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andrew taught engineering this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Emil Saverio. Make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Kara Swisher: Applesauce.