EV Declines, Net Neutrality, and an AI Executive Order

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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: All right, Scott, what is with your costume? I don't know what to say. Come on!

Scott Galloway: I was triggered. I was triggered. I literally opened threads up, and there you were. And then there you were with Bill Maher. It was very disturbing in the entire, and everyone was like, find out what happened, Kara. So what happened, Scott Galloway?

Scott Galloway: Well, the costume was genius. I went as Deadpool. Yeah. And I mean, Halloween's by far my favorite holiday. And because I'm friends with Kara Swisher, I get invited to fancy, cool parties.

Kara Swisher: Okay. And so... Which I did not get invited to, but please go on.

Scott Galloway: So I went to this great party in LA after Bill Maher. And then Bill Maher showed up, which meant I must be at the right place.

Kara Swisher: Okay. Or maybe not, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway: That was great. I had a ton of fun.

Kara Swisher: So you dressed up as Deadpool. Why? And where did you get this costume? And how long did you wear it?

Scott Galloway: Well, I'm still wearing it. I'm taking it off. I'm like a four-year-old that just loves this princess, little princess outfit.

Kara Swisher: Yes, because Claire's been in her outfit quite a bit. Go ahead.

Scott Galloway: No, the reality is I can't take any credit for it. I have the most wonderful, thoughtful assistant who literally said, you're going to be in LA for Halloween weekend. We need to get you a great outfit. And she did. And she had a makeup artist come over and make me, I went as Deadpool after the fire. So I had a makeup artist come over. And the very sad part was I said, I need to look like someone who's been totally mutilated. And she looked at me and she's like, no problem. It's going to be easy. But she put all these scars on my face. And it was a time. God, it was great. I had a ton of fun. I'm really blessed.

Kara Swisher: You had a good time. You had a good time. Was it very Hollywood-y? Was it like all the Hollywood people?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, there were. I think I'm kind of their diversity invite. Like, oh, yeah, invite the professor. That's kind of funny. It was a bunch of fabulous, good-looking young people, and none of those things. But, yeah, I had a great time. Great time.

Kara Swisher: What did you do? Amanda and I took Claire to see the Taylor Swift Show concert movie, which was fantastic. She dressed up, and she had a great time. She watched the whole thing through. She's only four, but she managed to do a lot of little girls dancing in the aisles. And it was a great film, I have to say. Another flawless effort by Taylor Swift. Totally classy. Everything that you might indulge yourself doing, like behind the scenes, she didn't do. It was just the concert, beautifully photographed, beautiful. Even like at the end, the end credits were beautiful. Like it was really well done. And then I decorated Halloween all weekend. I did an excellent job as dad, dad swisher, decorating the house.

Scott Galloway: Can we make a deal? If I stop with the dick jokes, will you never bring up Taylor Swift again?

Kara Swisher: No, no, no. because you're not going to stop with the dick jokes.

Scott Galloway: Fair enough. Fair enough. Big Ed and the twins are still with us.

Kara Swisher: All right. But let me just say dick jokes do not, you know, are not the engine of our economy and keeping us out of recession. But let's not go into that. And she's not a billion. She's a billionaire now, by the way.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, Scott, we were all over the airwaves this weekend. I was on The Simpsons. They did a mockumentary episode about Elizabeth Holmes type character. Let's listen to a clip.

[Clip from The Simpsons plays]

Kara Swisher: And you were on Real Time with Bill Maher. Let's hear a clip where you're talking about the new speaker of the House.

[Clip from Real Time with Bill Maher plays]

Kara Swisher: How did your show go?

Scott Galloway: Thanks for asking. It was the least enjoyable Bill Maher experience I've had, not through any fault of their own. But I know them well enough now that I can kind of feel, not their stress, but I know that the two producers are these like Friday Night Lights people. They're like the people you'd want as parents. They're these impossibly good-looking and cool parental people. And I've become fond of them, for lack of a better term. And they had Governor Cuomo on. And it was just very, I don't want to say tense, but they realized they had a very difficult, near impossible job of threading the needle of trying to be not being seen as an apologist for him, but at the same time, afford him some respect. And the panel, the interview was with him and his top aide. And it went 17 minutes instead of 12. So we had very little time on the panel. So me and Jessica Torlov, who is the other panelist, who, by the way, is wonderful. And she did a great job. We didn't get much time to talk. And then the panel afterwards, the overtime, Jessica had to leave because Fox won't let her do anything that has to do with CNN. And they put overtime on CNN. So it was me, the governor, and his assistant. And so the topics were genocide and people dying in nursing homes. And at one point, I'm literally like, I'm a marketing professor. Can we talk about TikTok or something? And I wanted to be airlifted out of there. It just got so serious so fast. I was out over my skis so much. I did not know really how to. I'm there with the governor and his aide on Bill Maher, and I remember thinking, like, you know, Calgon, take me away. How did I get here? Anyways, I always love going on the show. I'm always flattered. I also, and I've told you this, I get very nervous on that show. I don't get nervous anywhere else.

Kara Swisher: Why is that? You've done really well.

Scott Galloway: I appreciate you saying that. You haven't seen this show.

Kara Swisher: But, Scott, the most important thing that we're doing, first of all, let's begin because it is on the news, is we're going to the White House.

Scott Galloway: Good, more about us.

Kara Swisher: I know, more about us. But we're going to the White House. We're going for lunch. We're going for a tour. But we're going to the White House because President Biden is launching a new approach on AI on Monday, and we're going to be there to hear about it. We may speak to some people on Thursday about it who are in the middle of it. The executive order will create standards and rules around AI, taking on algorithmic housing discrimination, cybersecurity, data privacy. It will require developers to follow new safety guidelines and create government standards to discern AI-generated content. So it's going to be interesting. My issue is always is why hasn't Congress acted here? Why is this an executive order? But we'll listen to see what they have. Some of the stuff is leaked out of what's in it. You have been deemed an AI influencer by the White House, Scott. Are you going to behave?

Scott Galloway: I'm being very serious. I'm very excited and a little bit nervous about it. So I'm excited to be here with you. I feel as if I have sort of an insider. I've never really felt, I haven't spent that much time in D.C. I definitely feel like a fish out of water here. but I'm just super excited. It took me, you know, 58 years to get to the White House. So here I am, or here we are, I should say.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, so from the AI rules, do you know anything about them or are you just gonna show up and look pretty and I'm gonna do all the talking? Is that what's happening?

Scott Galloway: I'm literally just gonna listen and try and keep an open mind and be very supportive of what I, look, you can't sort of heckle from the cheap seats about an absence of regulation and then they try to get out in front of this, which I think is the right thing to do. And I'm going to try and be very supportive. And should they want feedback on it? I think this is a big issue. And I respect the fact that rather than trying to let it grind through the gears of Congress or not, they're trying to get out in front of it. I think it speaks well to the administration that they're at least thinking about it. My guess is they won't get it right. They won't get it perfect. But for God's sakes, at least they're starting, right?

Kara Swisher: Is there one area you think they really need to focus in on from your perspective? They're doing a lot of things here. This is sort of a broad thing of how agencies should act and all kinds of, you know, they're focused on algorithmic discrimination. Obviously, it's important to someone like me. But I think also standards about where AI-generated content come from is going to affect every industry, especially media, which we're in. So these are the kind of things they have to be thinking about.

Scott Galloway: I'm worried they're going to spend, and this is going to come off as get off my law and privilege white guy, but I'm worried they're going to spend a ton of time, you know, trying to figure out the biases. The problem is this thing is going to have a bias because historically we are a biased nation. So every piece of content that's fed into this thing will reflect our biases to date. And I think that's an issue. But I think there are much more important fish to fry here, specifically ensuring that foreign bad actors don't use AI-tested misinformation to pervert the elections, to further divide us. I think the biggest threat to America right now is not Putin. It's not jihadists. It's the fact that we're being divided internally by these platforms. And then when you have an amoral management team of platforms willing to cash anyone's check and someone can AI test information to try and get Trump elected such that they overnight win the war in Ukraine. I think this is a defense issue. I think it's a propaganda issue. So yeah, let's make sure that it uses the right pronouns. But I don't think that's our biggest problem.

Kara Swisher: Okay. All right. I want you to say that's President Biden. He's going to be there, you know.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I'm excited. I don't do we get to take a picture with him or anything like that? I don't even know. How does this all work?

Kara Swisher: We'll see if we can get you a picture.

Scott Galloway: That's literally how I'm saying. I'm such a tourist. I'm such a tourist. Do we get a picture with him? Mom?

Kara Swisher: Two things before we go. One is you are not to wear that outfit. You are not to wear that outfit to the White House. One.

Scott Galloway: No, I've been hauling a suit. I've been hauling a Deadpool costume and swords and a suit around America.

Kara Swisher: You're not wearing any of that to the White House. Number two, do not touch anything when we're there. I want you to keep your hands.

Scott Galloway: Why would I not touch anything?

Kara Swisher: Don't touch vases. Don't touch buttons. Don't set off a nuclear situation.

Scott Galloway: I'm very well behaved. I don't go, don't wander around like you're in like national treasure.

Kara Swisher: I just want you to just stick with me. Okay. And we'll be good.

Scott Galloway: You got it. All right. I'm both a little bit insulted and flattered that you're worried about me.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I thought you might wear the outfit. You know, I have been to this stuff before. Okay. All right. But it's the White House. This is the White House. You know, I've been to like bar mitzvahs and stuff. This is the White House. You'll see. You're going to be odd. I have to say I'm odd every time I go into the White House. You still do. As cynical as I can be, I'm always awed by the White House. We're right near it. So we're going to walk over. We're going to wander over and go over there. I'm going to give you a little historical facts as we walk over. You're going to be irritated. It's going to be great.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, before we move on, a sad news about actor Matthew Perry, who died this weekend at age 54. He's best remembered playing Chandler Bing, of course, on Friends, but had a number of other roles in TV shows and movies. But really, he was Chandler Bing. He was very candid about his issues with substance abuse and addiction over the years. That book was something else. I know a lot of people like to drag on friends, but I liked it. I watched so many episodes. He was obviously a very gifted comic actor, seemed to be a very kind person, suffering from, you know, people kept calling him sad clown this weekend, which was sad. And he, of course, died in a very sad way. I don't know if you have any thoughts on this, but he was very candid about an inability to beat his substance abuse issues.

Scott Galloway: Look, I think one of the ways you grow and mature as a person, and maybe unless you're more evolved, when I was younger, my attitude towards addiction was quite frankly a little bit like get your shit together, as if it was something that was more controllable. And then as you get older and if you get exposed to people, I remember, Kara, because I was someone's boss, being invited to an intervention of a kid who had an addiction to heroin. And quite frankly, it was a high-functioning person. I had no idea. And they all went around the room and told him how much they loved the kid and how fucked up his life was. And I not exaggerating. He said, "I love you all. I get it. I choose heroin." I mean it was just so like, oh my God, did he just say that? And you just see the kind of grip that substance abuse has on people and how they know it's ruining them. I love I saw this meme that said, addiction is choosing one thing over everything else. And recovery is an attempt to choose everything else over one thing. And some people just don't have that choice. Their brain makes that connection, and it just takes over their life. And it's sad because you get the sense, I mean, I didn't know the guy. Maybe you knew him. He just seemed like a nice guy. He was really struggling. And so you feel for him and his family.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. It's interesting to watch all the reaction because every single person, there's not one negative thing. There was one comic was obnoxious about how he died, but it seems like every single person has written a lovely thing about him. You know, like that lovely guy struggling. I thought that book was, I thought it was quite a gripping book. I thought it was very honest. You know, he'd spent, I think he said he spent $7 million trying to get clean and just couldn't. Now he was apparently in a clean period, but he was very honest about his struggles of depression and mixed with opiate addiction in his case. And he, you know, he had one thing where he said, you could tell what, where I was in my addictions by what I look like on the show. If I was heavy, it was alcohol. If I was skinny, it was pills. And if it was skinny with a goatee, it was lots of pills. I mean, which is funny, but, but not really, you know, it just was, he was, he, you know, I just thought he was a really, he did a good, really good job at what he did. And it's sad that he, it is sad. It is sad. Anyway, Matthew Perry. Godspeed, Matthew Perry. You have a lot of enjoyment to a lot of people. And really, again, just a very lovely, seems like a lovely person who had a very troubled life.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, let's get to our first big story. The FCC is ready to restore net neutrality. At a recent meeting, the commission voted to move forward on a proposal to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, making it subject to oversight and regulation. The FCC chair says the move will, quote, protect internet openness and consumers, defend national security and advance public safety. The final vote on the proposal is likely to happen next year. Federal authority over broadband would likely include regulation of blocking, throttling, and paid traffic prioritization. Reminder, the FCC under President Obama moved to reclassify broadband in 2015. The FCC under President Trump reversed that in 2017. This has been a real volleyball match, net neutrality. and not an interesting one. Thoughts? Any at all?

Scott Galloway: You know, Cara, you're going to forget more about this than I'm ever going to know. I just don't really, I understand the basics here, but I don't get the nuance. What are your thoughts here?

Kara Swisher: Well, you know, I think of the internet as a utility, but it's also, look, these are for-profit. I don't know why we don't consider it a utility. I never understood that. And if you call the net neutrality, it's a confusing debate, right? And in a lot of ways, when I hear from, say, the cable companies or the Internet service providers or various things, they have a point. You know, they built these things. They've made them possible. And at the same time, prices are crazy all over the place. You know what I mean? Like it's not doesn't make any any sense. And so I think this has been sort of a capitalism versus communism, I guess, or the commons argument for a very, very long time. I do not see why it is not regulated like telecommunications. I've never understood that. And that it's one of these things like with telephones, but even more so that Internet openness and consumer access to this seems like both not just national security and public safety, but a priority for education for I just have never understood how it became so capitalistic and not thinking of it as a commons. That's my, I've always thought there should be a federal, you know, and that companies get to decide the blocking, the throttling, you know, which, as you recall from many years ago, that was the, you know, that you could pay to be faster at these things. And I think you should be able just like, kind of reminds me of medicine or access to medical things. Like this is kind of a, I don't know, it seems like table stakes for a society to have, you know, the U.S. has always been way behind in this when you look at all the statistics and the highest in price and the least connectivity. And it seems I just can't believe we're still arguing for this decades later.

Scott Galloway: But to be fair, I do remember when they did away with kind of net neutrality or the FCC did away with another Trump administration. And there was a lot of the sky is going to fall and poor people won't be able to get broadband and they'll start throttling different things to price gouge. And I haven't, at least as a consumer, seen that. where I do think it makes sense, or I think the better argument around regulation is that when this very important channel is controlled by for-profit entities, similar to social media, they're not going to have the same incentives around defense issues, around whether or not, you know, they'll just go to the lowest cost bidder. And if it's Huawei and there's a defense risk there, you know, Meta or Netflix, whoever it is, quite frankly, doesn't care. And I do think there are defense issues around operating the backbone that kind of delivers oxygen and all information to Americans. And I like the idea of a bureaucrat or a regulator saying, okay, this could pose a defense risk when you're inserting Chinese hardware technology, or could someone potentially just shut this thing off? So I look at it more through a defense lens? Because I don't see the same kind of monopoly abuse here. Maybe it's because I'm privileged and I don't look at my bill.

Kara Swisher: Well, I think, I don't know. This is, there's an interesting Washington Post editorial, which I kind of liked. And they noted that. They said, dismayed, abacus warned the world that without protection place, the internet would break. You'll never guess what happened next. Nothing, or at least almost nothing. The internet did not break. The internet service providers, for the most part, did not block. They did not throttle. All the same, today's FCC under Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has moved to reclassify broadband. The interesting part is that her strongest argument doesn't have much to do with net neutrality, but with some other benefits the country could see from having a federal watchdog keeping an eye on the broadband business. That's really what I think is important. And this is the last part. Asserting federal authority over broadband would empower regulation of any throttling, blah, blah, blah. It could help ensure the safety and security of U.S. networks. The FCC has on national security grounds removed authorization for companies affiliated with adversary states such as China's Huawei from participating U.S. telecommunications market. The agency can do that for phone carriers, but it can't do it for broadband because it isn't allowed to. Same thing with public safety. I think those are more of the arguments. I think it sort of got sucked up into this, somehow Comcast was going to fuck us, right? That was basically one side. And the other was, we're not going to fuck you. We're making it better kind of thing. And I just think, you know, the fact that the fact is, again, getting back to our White House visit and everything else is so much of this stuff has not been updated by Congress, you know, because it's it's the Telecommunications Act is is is archaic, like is the Washington Post calls it. And I think that's the the you need some sort of Internet governance. And so what is that? And they resist governance, but they haven't written any new laws for the new era, right? And there's some very serious things, including around public safety, including around national security and cyber attacks, that other telecoms are policed in some fashion. And so that, to me, is the best. I mean, the word net neutrality, your eyes glaze over, right? Like, your eyes glaze over and you can't understand it. And when it becomes a capitalist argument, it becomes a partisan fight. And that's why it degenerates. But when you think of it as an important common utility that we all need for both public safety, national security, and education, it's a much better argument to make for having some government oversight of this. So that's my argument. Thank you. I'd like to be FCC chairman. We'll see where it goes from here. We should have the chairperson on from there talking about what's going on so she can explain it to us. And then someone who doesn't agree with it still, but not the same argument. We should start to think about in a new, fresh way.

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back. Why the EV gamble isn't paying off.

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Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back with auto execs pumping the brakes on the electric vehicle expansion due to slowing sales and growing inventory. GM and Honda announced last week They're ditching a partnership aimed at developing lower-priced EVs, with GM also banning a target to build 400,000 EVs by mid-2024. Ford just announced on a third-quarter earnings call that it's postponing $12 billion in planned spending on EV production. Toyota's chairman was recently asked about this downtrend in U.S. EV demand and said people are finally seeing reality, although they were deep into it. What do you make of this slowdown? And Toyota's been more investing in hybrids, where people are just, they're still in hybrids. They like electric, but they don't want to go fully electric. How do you look at this?

Scott Galloway: So I think that everybody was so intoxicated and getting so shamed about not being Tesla. You know, when Tesla became worth more than the entire auto market, correctly, every board said, well, what's the difference between us and Tesla? And they thought, well, it's EV production. And you can understand that. But it was a lot more than that. Musk had done a great job leveraging the media, got people very excited about this future, dominated what was supposed to be the next thing. And that conference I was at with you, there was someone from the oil and gas industry, and he said that effectively, if you asked auto companies to just figure out a way to buy carbon credits or invest in reforestation and go carbon neutral with all the cars they were producing, that that would be a more economical way of helping the environment and giving people transportation needs because EVs are still very expensive and they have their own environmental issues. Now, whether you believe that or not, it's clear that the automobile manufacturers, I mean, you could argue strategically that this was a bit of a dumb move. You got to skate to where the puck is, but you also got to realize we're really good at building internal combustion engines. And we're really good at building cars with consumers who still, for the most part, when they look at the value trade-off, like internal combustion engines. I mean, they're voting with their pocketbook. It's still kind of the dominant technology platform out there. But these companies are now thinking, okay, did we make investments that were just too aggressive and they're scaling back a bit? What are your thoughts, Cara?

Kara Swisher: Here's the thing. I do think people will eventually, I think everyone who wants an EV has bought an EV, right? Or they're in it. I like mine. I love mine. I think it's great. And those who can afford to put electric chargers in their homes they coming down in price obviously and it still not built out So people are still nervous about it And then the price point is not, I think at one point when I interviewed Bill Gates, he called it the green premium has to come down to equality, right? That it's just as cheap kind of thing. And they tend to make choices if that's the case, economic choices. What's interesting is Toyota, who's, there's this new Toyota CEO that's sort of lecturing everyone, but the company itself had an in-house startup that was supposed to take the company into the future. This is a great story in the Wall Street Journal. They did a great job on it. The unit's plans included a multi-billion dollar city where people could test out self-driving cars and live in smart homes. Also a new operating system for Toyota cars. It's been delays. They hired a very prominent Google car person. I do think everyone did get ahead of themselves where the consumer wasn't yet. At the same time, and I think you're right about sort of the Tesla envy that sort of pushed, it's sort of, it reminds you of streaming, right? Everybody rushed into streaming after Netflix in some ways, and then there was only Netflix left to make money at this.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it's, so Ford said it's postponing 12 billion in plan spending. They've already abandoned their targets. The bottom line is, is they all thought they would get the same sort of Tesla bump, and they haven't. What they did was the worst of both worlds. They don't get credit for forward-leaning investments in EVs. At the same time, their profits are going down because people still want to buy Escalades. And the most profitable part of the U.S. auto industry is trucks, kind of the gas guzzlers, the internal combustion engines. And there's something also, I don't know if it's like my, I don't know, fake masculinity or desire to be strong or caveman instincts. But the majority of people, including myself, still like the feel of an internal combustion engine.

Kara Swisher: And- Yeah, I don't know. I think they would switch pretty quickly. I mean, you know, I think everyone liked landlines, I guess, and then they didn't, like they liked mobiles. I was driving the Ford 150. It's a great car, I have to say, the Lightning. It's a very powerful car. It was a terrific car. It's just expensive. And I think people are nervous, right?

Kara Swisher: And it's not that it's, they did a beautiful job. It's gorgeous and strong and powerful and expensive. And I think people have that worry about being able to charge it. The consumers haven't shifted over yet. So do you imagine there being the same thing with streaming, where these people are all in for this, but they're going to lose a lot of money and then Tesla cleans up? Because I don't know if this will help Tesla necessarily, but maybe it will.

Scott Galloway: Well, already 50% of U.S. adults have said they don't see themselves as likely EV buyers. And the scariest thing about that number is that it's risen. More people now see themselves as less likely to own an EV. Most of it is they blame a lack of EV infrastructure. There is something weird about going on a trip and feeling vulnerable. You know that you go to Disney, there's always a gas station. I remember I checked in when I went to Orlando and I said, "Can you charge our car?" and they said, "Oh, the thing we have is broken, not working." You feel vulnerable.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And then you have GM and Ford. Ford's off 14% year to date. And this is an environment where their stocks look cheap and the S&P is up. Now, granted, that's largely been driven by just a small number of stocks inspired by AI. They're saying they could be a quarter of new sales by 2035. But at that point, only 13% of vehicles on the road would be electric.

Kara Swisher: I was really fascinated at this conference talking to this oil and gas guy. And granted, he's talking to his own book. But he's like, if the goal is to grow the economy and the goal is to decarbonize the world or get in the way of climate change, there are cheaper, more efficient ways to do it. He talked about what I thought was really fascinating. He said the cheapest way to take carbon out of the air is reforestation. Although Bill Gates isn't for that, but go ahead. There's lots of arguments. But it just sort of fascinated me. If the goal is just to get carbon out of the air, one means is to spend money. I've been really excited about the idea of sustainable aviation fuels that put less shit into the air. And he kind of walked me through the math and said you'd be much better off planting trees. I think the answer at the end of the day is we need to do all of it. We need to really go after it.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: I do think people would pick an EV if that green premium came down. They start to move in that direction. Not everybody likes to go vroom, vroom. But it is a different sound. There are a lot of electric cars and a lot of hybrids in my neighborhood. People seem to feel safer in a hybrid. But the electric cars have that "hmm" when they come down the street. You can barely hear them.

Scott Galloway: I can hear them.

Kara Swisher: I kind of like it. I find it rather soothing rather than a vroom, vroom, vroom. There's a guy who comes every night in front of our house and parks and vroom, vroom, vrooms for some reason, plays music. It's kind of this weird thing we don't know what to do about. And it's really irritating because he vrooms and he plays really bad music. And then the other person has an EV and it goes as it comes in. So we'll see where it goes.

Scott Galloway: One of the stories that got a lot of attention is self-driving cars. I love self-driving cars. I do not ride in Cruises because I'm more worried about them. I thought the Waymos are doing a better job in San Francisco. But there was a terrible accident in San Francisco where a driver hit someone, they were tossed into the road, and a GM Cruise ran over the person and wouldn't get off because the car didn't know what to do. It was initially caused by a human, which is a mess. GM's subsidiary Cruise announced this week it is proactively pausing driverless operations nationwide. The California DMV suspended its license to operate, calling the vehicles not safe for the public after the incident. Waymo did not. Again, I ride in Waymos and I do not ride in Cruises because I know a little bit about what they're doing at Waymo versus Cruise. I felt less safe in those. This driverless thing is still going to be problematic largely because of the interaction between cars and people, human drivers, human pedestrians, people getting used to these things. It's a very problematic transition. I still do think eventually everyone's going to be in driverless cars, and I'm a proponent of them, but it's definitely a setback.

Kara Swisher: The thing I don't get about it, and I wonder if some of it is political or being sponsored, the backlash is being sponsored by varying lobbying groups who have a vested interest in the status quo. Because it strikes me that we're holding algorithms and machines to a much higher standard than people. There's something kind of scary about the idea of a machine running over someone. But a lot of people hit people and run over people. I'd love to see the data because my hypothesis would be that these things are actually less dangerous.

Scott Galloway: What I have heard about EVs is that it's like your 16-year-old paranoid, very careful new driver. They are so slow as to be painful.

Kara Swisher: They are. I told you that. They used to be like your grandmother driving, not a good driver and too slow. And now they're like your good aunt driver who's too slow.

Scott Galloway: I think what it is, is the intersection of drivers who are human and drivers who are driverless. If it was all driverless, I think we'd be a lot safer with some incidents. And there's always going to be incidents no matter how you slice it. But this one was a human who hit someone and then they fell into the street. It was terrible.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it is terrible.

Scott Galloway: The real tragedy for me is, when I drive an electric car and I've been on a long trip, it's like when I have diarrhea. I'm just hoping I make it home, Kara. I'm just hoping I make it home.

Kara Swisher: Sorry. Oh, God. You usually do. I have a vision of all gas stations being turned into electric charging stations. I was like, why can't we just turn a bunch of gas stations into it so that you drive up?

Scott Galloway: That's the correct point. I don't think Tesla disrupted the auto industry. I think Tesla disrupted gas stations. The reason I loved my Tesla, and I'm waiting for the new Range Rover EV, is that I think the worst retail in America is TSA, grocery stores, and gas stations. Gas stations definitely feel like this is where I will somehow get cancer that emerges 20 years later or I'm going to get shot here. Gas stations are the worst retail in the world. The opportunity to avoid gas stations—EVs are now, I think, like 52 grand and regular cars average like 48 or something. But the thing I love about an EV is that if you have to go to the gas station once every week and it takes you a total of 15 minutes to pull in, do your thing, the credit card doesn't work, you go in—you're talking about 13 hours of time in a gas station per year. What would someone need to pay you to wake up at 6 a.m., get to a gas station at 7 a.m. and drive around the block to the same gas station all day long and fill up until 8 p.m. that night? People would pay a lot of money to avoid that. I think it's gas stations, the worst retail, that has really driven EV sales.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, we'll see where it goes. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails.

Scott Galloway: My win is being in our nation's capital. I'm always very inspired to be here. I feel very fortunate. I think we're talented people and we work hard, but we lived these extraordinary lives because of huge investments and vision that people have made before us. The smartest thing I ever did was being born in America. I love being here. It's inspiring to see the monuments and to see how many talented people are working their asses off, to see just how badass America is, how wealthy we are, and how beautiful the buildings are here. In New York, we make the money, and in D.C., they spend it, but I think they spend it really well. It's just nice to be here. I'm also very appreciative that you got me involved in this, and you're going to take me on a tour of the White House. It's fun to know important, influential people, so my win is being in our great nation's capital.

My loss is, and I'm going to harp on about this, and I realize I have a tinfoil hat here, but I saw that 70% of boomers support Israel, and among Gen Z it's 20%. That 50% gap can be explained at least partially by a few things. One, young people have a very healthy skepticism of anything that their parents believe. That's part of making it easier to leave the pack. It's also part of innovation and experimentation and evolution that young people want to do things differently. I get that. I think there's also an incorrect, in my view, conflation of civil rights and some of the obstacles that non-whites have faced in the U.S. But I don't think young people really understand the historical context here. More than that, I still don't think that explains the 50% gap. I think that we frame our lives and our view of the world through the media we consume. I still don't think we have come to grips with the impact of one frame that is dominating all media amongst young people, and that's TikTok. Just as we have weaponized media and propaganda around the world to our advantage, I think the same thing is happening here. I think we're going to find out in the fullness of time that the CCP is doing what we have done in the Middle East, all over the world, when we were able to drop leaflets. We are used to an American hegemony where we control media outlets and get to control the narrative. They would be stupid not to be doing this. This is what we would be doing. But I wonder if the frame through which young people get their information—I also think people my age, especially in Washington, just don't realize the scope, the penetration, and the dominance that a CCP-controlled media outlet has over an entire generation because we're not on it. The lack of diversity of media through which young people are getting their information—I'm not only disturbed by what I'm seeing on campuses, I'm actually really surprised. I'm thinking, where are they getting their information?

The other thing that's really interesting here is that when we firebombed Dresden, if they'd had live TikToks running of a family, this is just changing everything.

Kara Swisher: People forget that the Bush administration—well, there was an America First movement back then. Actually, Rachel Maddow has a book called *Prequel* about this. But go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but the difference is that in the Iraq war, the Bush administration said we're going to have immediate blackout because we don't need to see people being killed. There's no elegant way to kill people. They just don't float away. When you go on TikTok, and maybe this is what we need, maybe people need to have the horrors of war thrown in their face on both sides. But when you see this beautiful mother and father and this gorgeous child and you hear missiles in the background and they're Gazans, it just brings war home. We're not used to this. We're not used to war being live streamed like this. We're used to being in charge. We're no longer in charge of the media that young people consume. That might be a good thing, but I wonder if they're doing to us what we have done all through the 20th century, and that is try and frame the narrative to their advantage.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I think it's interesting. I would push people to a really very good piece in *The Atlantic*. I think I'm not going to pronounce this right—Simon Sebag Montefiore. It's called "The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False." The subhead is it does not actually describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians. I think that's what's really hard. What happens is these medias reduce things to these—it does remind you of the leftist intellectuals who supported Stalin and those aristocratic sympathizers and peace activists who excused Hitler. You do see those kinds of things. I think it's important to really understand things with a little more depth and also understand that within Israel, there's also a split, especially around Netanyahu. Before this, he did not have his—it happened in this country after 9/11 with George Bush, who was sort of on the bad side, and then everybody rallied around him. I do think it's a much more complex thing, and I would suggest you read that *Atlantic* article, everybody. I think it's really quite—it is existential for both the Palestinians and the Israelis. And Hamas is a terrorist organization. Full stop.

Scott Galloway: To that point, it's so hard for me not to get boomerish here, but I see these protests on campuses, including mine, NYU. It's so striking because it's people who you would generally categorize as being very progressive and very liberal. I think you should try and find a representative of Hamas and discuss your preferred pronouns with them. It just seems so counter to everything they stand for 23 and a half hours a day. And yet, this has evoked enormous empathy. I'm having trouble squaring the circle here. I really am. I imagine the Israeli government taking, for some reason, having power, taking over the White House, taking over our military. I think it's sort of business as usual in America. I think they appreciate democracy, women's rights, reproductive rights, civil rights, prosperity, capitalism. And then I imagine what would happen to gay people, women, and Christians or non-Muslims if Hamas took over the White House and the U.S. military. I see a fairly big distinction there. I don't understand how these progressive forces on campus fail to see that. But I've got a lot to learn here.

Kara Swisher: Let me just read this last thing from *The Atlantic*. "So the war unfolds tragically. As I write this, the pounding of Gaza is killing Palestinian children every day, and that is unbearable. As Israel still grieves its losses and buries its children, we deplore the killing of Israeli civilians, just as we deplore the killing of Palestinian civilians. We reject Hamas, evil and unfit to govern, but we not mistake Hamas for the Palestinian people whose losses we mourn as we mourn the death of all innocents." I thought that was very well said. It's a very difficult issue. We know we're going to get flack. Bring it on, I guess. I'm going to go to something totally different because we need to pull this out. If you want to have one.

Scott Galloway: Oh, God. Are you going to talk about Taylor Swift?

Kara Swisher: No, I'm not. I'm going to talk about another fantastic woman, Brie Larson. She executive produced and stars in a series based on a novel by Bonnie Garmus called *Lessons in Chemistry*. It's an adaptation of that. It's on Apple TV. I got to say, it's delightful in every single way. I've just started watching it. It's about a woman—let me read the description—"whose dream of being a scientist is obstructed by the patriarchal society in which she lives. When Elizabeth finds herself pregnant alone and fired from a job in the lab, she accepts a job as a host on a TV cooking show, all while craving to return to her true love: science." It's shockingly fantastic. Brie Larson is just so terrific. I was so happy after watching it. I just don't know what else to say. I was totally happy after watching it. I think you should.

My fail is this speaker. The more that comes out about the new speaker, Mike Johnson, and his wife, which is a pair. I think they're a pair. Their podcast, I've been listening to it, is disturbing. They have an obsession with gays and the end of gays, essentially. Gay marriages, gay everything. They think having sex between a man and a woman only in a straight marriage is everything else is sinful, linking everybody else with bestiality and all kinds of things we shouldn't be linked with. The more that comes out about what this guy has said, the more disturbing it is that he's second in line for the president. It's really very *Handmaid's Tale*, this pair reminds me of. I tend not to like to demonize people, but boy, these videos are like—I just had a flashback to the 1980s when I was coming out, the 70s and 80s really. A flashback of that kind of language that I haven't heard in a long, long time. And there they are. The most senior Republican in our government right now is someone who said a couple things. One, that school shootings are a function of the fact that they're teaching evolution in schools. He believes that. And then last week when asked for his worldview, when people said, "We barely know you," he said, "Pick up a Bible."

Scott Galloway: In my view, that used to be disqualifying. If you look at the mullahs, if you look at governments that really have an ability to levy enormous cruelty on their populaces, it's usually driven by one thing: religious fanaticism. We always perceived that danger and said, okay, it's important. You have the right to worship whatever God you want. But when it comes to interpreting the Constitution, you need to recognize that many of us worship a different God or no God at all. This religion-first framing of the Constitution or American exceptionalism through the context of one God's viewpoint leads to very ugly places. We used to say that was disqualifying. Even if people felt that way, they kept it to themselves. Now we have a guy that's two heartbeats away from the presidency who's just openly saying it's about the Bible. We never used to go there.

Kara Swisher: Yep. Just so you're aware, I'm going to read this. Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson defended his extremist anti-LGBTQ views on Thursday, telling Fox News, "I'm a Bible-believing Christian," adding, "Go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That's my worldview." He's had a long campaign, not just against gay rights, abortion, everything. He thinks biblical beliefs are inseparable from public affairs. I know a lot of people think this, but that's not our Constitution. CNN uncovered editorials written by Johnson from 2003 to 2005, in which he argued for the criminalization of gay sex, calling homosexuality "inherently unnatural," "dangerous lifestyles," that marriage equality posed a threat to our entire democratic system, warning that polygamists, polyamorous, pedophiles, and others would be next in line to claim equal protection. An old trope, but that's 2003, not that far away. It's disturbing, I have to say. He's not moderate. He's just smiley. He's a smiley Christian nationalist. I'm sorry. That's what he is. That's what's going on here. That's my fail.

Scott Galloway: Oh, we ended up on not a good note.

Kara Swisher: Let's go back to Brie Larson and dressing up like Deadpool.

Scott Galloway: Oh, by the way, a fantastic movie of Brie Larson. Did you ever see *Room*?

Kara Swisher: Yes. Oh, I can't watch that. It's so upsetting. I can't.

Scott Galloway: Oh, that's not a good one. She's amazing. That's where she got all her notice.

Kara Swisher: It is disturbing and outstanding. I can't. Oh, now you went bad places. Let's go to *The Marvels*. *The Marvels* is coming out. We did see that at the Taylor Swift preview. There are so many good previews of movies coming, including the new *Hunger Games*, which looks really good. That's also negative. All right. Let's go back to Brie Larson. Anyway, let's get to the White House, Scott. We got things to do. Let's go be influencers. Let's go to the White House. Let's go talk about AI. That's why we're invited. We're influencers. And we're so excited. White House, are you ready for us?

Anyway, we want to hear from you. Our listeners, send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 855-51-PIVOT. Scott, that is the show. We'll be back on Friday for more with a report from the White House and maybe some more chitty chat with some White House people. Maybe who knows? Who knows what friends will make? Maybe we'll be hanging in the Oval for a while. I don't know. Read us out and let's hustle over there.

Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. And Ernie Entretot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miel Silverio, and Gaddy McMahon. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to *Pivot* from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Scott Galloway: Who is at the center of the most important, greatest experiment ever? That's right. That's right. The jungle cat and the dog in our nation's capital.