Kamala’s Presidential Run, CrowdStrike’s Meltdown, and Guest Lydia Polgreen

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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: Well, there's been a lot of news, Scott Galloway. My goodness. It happened the way we said, as many people thought it would: that Biden would step down eventually after a lot of grumbling. We'll obviously talk about the Democratic Party's path forward with Joe Biden stepping down and endorsing Kamala Harris, the Vice President. In just a bit, we'll bring in *New York Times* opinion columnist Lydia Polgreen to talk about what Harris needs to do to win. Lydia was one of the first to signal this in the *New York Times*, which was... she was kind of an outlier. But now, of course, she's an inlier, I guess. How are you feeling? What are your feels, Scott Galloway?

Scott Galloway: That's nice of you to ask. I felt a mix of relief, excitement, and sadness. I was actually quite stressed over the week. In general, I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or the world is really a shittier, more unstable place, but between October 7th, Donald Trump, Biden, I find this all quite stressful.

Kara Swisher: How are you feeling? You know, I'm not one to... It was interesting. Amanda came home; she was in Boston for the weekend. I had the kids all weekend. Louis came home, by the way, he was amazing help and cooked for us all weekend. I am like, let's just get this oxygen. Let's deal with whatever it is. I'm one of those people. I don't have time to mourn anything essentially. She has been like, "Oh, what are we going to do?" Just like you. And she came home and goes, "I just want you to know I'm thrilled today." And I was like, good, because this is what we've got. Let's make the best of it. Let's get to work. That's how I feel. This has got a lot of interesting possibilities. Obviously, the Republicans are very nervous, I think, because it's exciting. The fundraising is just indicative of that.

Scott Galloway: Speaking of fundraising, how many texts did you get from Democrats yesterday? They got more than $50 million online on Sunday, making it the single biggest day for online Democratic contributions since the 2020 election. People were waiting. They didn't want to give it to Biden because they felt sad and like we're going to lose, they're going to throw the money away. How many did you get?

Kara Swisher: Oh, it's everywhere. But it's exciting. I do empathize. When he first announced, I had this cathartic release of a mix of sadness and relief. Then as we came into this morning, there's a palpable sense of hope and optimism and excitement. One of the stats I love is that Trump immediately boasted that post his conviction, he raised $53 million. And what it ends up is that $50 million of that came from one person.

Scott Galloway: Right, right, right.

Kara Swisher: The biggest haul in this election cycle so far has happened in the last 24 hours for Vice President Harris. That's very exciting. Not only that, it's mostly small donors, which I think people are just really excited to get behind someone other than Biden and specifically someone other than Trump.

Scott Galloway: That's right. It's giving them an alternative, especially if she makes the right choices. Now, you've been lukewarm on her in the past. Have you changed your—

Kara Swisher: I have not. I know her very well. I really think she's still... it's not unsung. It's just she's had a lot of accomplishments. J.D. Vance has no accomplishments and he gets touted. She has real up and down, by the way. I don't agree with everything she's done, but certainly an accomplished person. I really like her husband quite a bit. I think he's fantastic. She's not what people think she is. She's much more conservative. She's certainly open-minded, but she's not the left-wing. For California, she's conservative. I'll tell you that. Has it changed your mind at all, or is it just her being vaunted there makes her more substantive to you?

Scott Galloway: I'll give you what I see as the pluses and minuses. I also want to acknowledge, I think you're a great judge of character, and it's heartening for me that you admire her and think a lot of her. Here are the pluses. The reality is we are where we are. She starts a letter E or F if they just pivot the infrastructure, the field offices, the money, the staff. She starts at not a sprint or a gallop, but a canter. The momentum is maintained if she's the pick. I do think that while Secretary Clinton didn't break the glass ceiling, I think she shattered it. I think America looks back on that election and says, we were ready for a woman president then, and we're definitely ready for one now. I really do think America is ready for its first female president.

In terms of a race and competition, I think in terms of brand, it's about offering distinct lines of differentiation. When she gets on stage with him at a debate, she's going to make him look as old as he made Biden look. Having a woman of color who's attractive... the first tweet I put out this morning was that every presidential candidate in history at this age has dropped out. Donald Trump is too old to be president.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I saw that. I like when you did that.

Scott Galloway: All of a sudden, there's going to be stark relief. What's interesting is that just as age was the primary consideration in Trump versus Biden, I actually think it's going to be the primary consideration here, but it's going to be our asset, not our liability. The brand position I would absolutely go after if I were her is: I'm a prosecutor. He's a felon. There is an ad at whether she's doing that. I prosecuted sex crimes, fraud. I would just be like, this is what I did to people who ripped off people. She put a bunch of degree mill universities out of business and say, this is what Trump did. He was the degree mill guy. I would absolutely macho myself up around the AG stuff. I'm the prosecutor. He's the felon.

Now, the downside: she has not been a successful presidential candidate. She is not battle tested. She dropped out before she ever won a single delegate. She has not resonated with the American people in her role as vice president. Some people will say that she hasn't been given a fair shot. There's probably some truth to that. But I think the most negative thing you could say about her is that I find her staff has done a really bad job of messaging. What they talk about is that she hasn't been given a fair shake, as opposed to saying she's outstanding. Nothing's perfect, but I'm sort of at a point where I got to be honest, Kara, I just want someone who can beat Trump. I'm not going to get perfect. Perfect is not on the menu for me right now. I think if they wrap her with talented people...

Kara Swisher: Well, they already have that. By the way, there's not enough time for her to mess up that much. That's the one thing: the timeframe is squeezed. She's the best known person. She makes the right two things. She makes the right choice on vice president. She'll get a lot of credit. There's just not enough time. But you know her pretty well. One of the things I've noticed is on online, he's popular on crazy Twitter. She's popular on TikTok. They do the coconut thing. Everything is in context. My mother used to give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, "I don't know what's wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you." Instead of making fun of her, people love it. Someone was telling me that there was a meeting of women of color last night and it started off at 7,000 and then it was 17,000 people, all excited. Someone else who is Indian told me that the anti-Desi network, the Indian network, has gone crazy. These are motivated women that are going to do things. So what should Democrats do in the next week from your perspective?

Scott Galloway: Well, I'm going to push it back to you. It sounds like you're advocating for what I loosely call a coronation versus a competition.

Kara Swisher: Why is the word coronation? She's the obvious choice. She's the vice president. Speaking of those 14 million votes, they were voting for Biden, but she was on the ticket.

Scott Galloway: Kara, no presidential candidate, with the exception of Gerald Ford, has not been forced or asked to run something resembling a campaign with competition.

Kara Swisher: I don't think there's time for it, unfortunately.

Scott Galloway: I think that's a good argument, but let's be honest. It's a coronation, not a competition.

Kara Swisher: Well, except that the people that are picking are the Democratic Party. It's not just the pooh-bahs.

Scott Galloway: No, it's not.

Kara Swisher: Which, by the way, there's some problems. Should it be the party elders making them? I heard the Dean Phillips argument that he made yesterday. Quite frankly, I think at the end of the day, I'm on board with you. I feel like we're like an abused family at this point, and we've got some reasonable sense of function back in our household and we just need to go with it. I don't think we're dysfunctional at all. I think the Republicans are dysfunctional. There are so many Republicans who don't want Trump and they can't say anything. They're in a cult. Look at J.D. Vance. He's had to literally castrate himself for Trump. He's a eunuch. He used to be anti-Trump. Then he had to do things. This is healthy to argue in public. But you're... okay, I won't use the word coronation. You think we should rally around Vice President Harris?

Scott Galloway: I think they have. You don't want a series of debates to try and battle-test her?

Kara Swisher: I'd be happy to have her do that. I think she's quite good on the stump already. I think she's done a ton of stuff that you don't see that never gets covered. But sure, none of the ones... the only person she's going to be debating is Dean Phillips at this point and maybe Joe Manchin, right? Because all the others are backing her. Newsom, Whitmer, Buttigieg, all the ones that would be her competition have pieced out. Let me ask you a question. Do you think that was part of the deal?

Scott Galloway: I don't think they could organize it that fast, but maybe. They're certainly in touch with each other, I would guess.

Kara Swisher: Right, right.

Scott Galloway: I wonder if part of the deal was Biden saying, "Look, this needs to be... part of my legacy is handing it off to my vice president." And he called all these folks and said, "I'm going to drop out and you're going to endorse her within 12 hours," because it all happened pretty fast. Obama didn't immediately do it. I think all the candidates were smart from a political perspective. There's no reason for more chaos at this point.

Kara Swisher: I think it's a good argument. How is the market going to react to this?

Scott Galloway: The market's been such a unique animal. I don't think it's... I don't see a ton of what I'd call good or bad in the market. I think the market is going to wait and see. I don't think she's seen as a Bernie Sanders-like raise taxes kind of candidate. At the same time, the markets don't seem to be scared of Donald Trump. They like the fact that they see him as being pro-business. Quite frankly, I think the markets are just kind of saying "yawn" right now. I don't think there's a clear consensus candidate from the market standpoint.

Kara Swisher: I don't think they're worried about her comparatively. She's friends with rich people. We just have to remember one thing: record job growth, markets touching new highs, lowest inflation in the G7, the best economic growth. The economy has been a master class the last three and a half years. If you were to try and find someone to inherit that economy or that approach to the economy, it would likely be the vice president. So I don't see the market getting all freaked out about Biden-Harris. She's not as leftist as you think. So, Kara, I'm curious what you think vice president will mean for the big tech community.

Kara Swisher: She's been a mixed bag. She's not been totally obsequious to them, and at the same time, she hasn't been that hostile necessarily. She did a bunch of things around privacy when she was senator and attorney general. At the same time, she's quite close. Everyone's like, "Oh, Trump has Elon Musk and that sad little bag of bones, David Sachs or whatever." She has Lorraine Powell Jobs. She's got Sheryl Sandberg. She's got Melinda Gates, I would guess. She now has Reid Hoffman. She has strong relationships. She has repeatedly assured donors she's a capitalist. I believe her. Her brother-in-law, Tony West, is the chief legal officer of Uber. I know him very well. She and I talked a lot about AI. Last May, she told Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, Sundar Pichai they had a moral obligation to safeguard against AI's possible dangers. I don't think they thought she was out of left field saying that. She contacts a lot of people to get opinions about lots of things. She sort of approaches it like a prosecutor. She's not anti-tech by any stretch of the imagination. She has just as many rich friends as Donald Trump has, and in fact more so because I don't think they had any relationship with Biden. They definitely had a relationship with her.

Secondly, and more importantly, her husband is a media lawyer in Los Angeles and very well liked. She lives in Los Angeles. She has lots of friends. I've seen her at innumerable events with big media people. She has very good relationships there. So I think she's very well situated. She has her billionaires, let me just say. I think they're the better class of billionaires. There are more women in that group, especially Melinda Gates, the Wojcickis, Sheryl Sandberg, and definitely Lorraine Powell Jobs.

Scott Galloway: So if Harris clinches the nomination, speaking of which, who do you think she gets for the VP slot? Who do you think she's excited about?

Kara Swisher: Newsom is not going to be that person. According to the 12th Amendment, a ticket of two California residents would essentially void the state's 54 electoral votes, according to legal experts. So who's your pick?

Scott Galloway: I love Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania. Swing state, fresh face. I think he's incredibly articulate. Is America ready for a non-white woman and a Jew? I don't know. I absolutely adore Mayor Pete. I just think he's so good. Having said that, if we're going to be Machiavellian here, my literal objective here, 99% of this entire race for me right now is that it's anyone but Trump. I'm one of those people. If we were truly strategic, the VP would be Mitt Romney.

Kara Swisher: That's kind of nuts, but okay. That would drive Democrats... That's crazy. That will make people unexcited on the Democratic side. They're going to vote for Trump? No, but still, it doesn't create excitement. We have plenty of Democrats on the bench. Come on.

Scott Galloway: I would. But I'm in a very cold, sober analysis. You need to get the people who are going to decide this race. You want enthusiasm, you want donor money, you don't want to compete against the couch. But the race is won by people in the middle. I would love to see 7% or 8% of Republicans sucked away from Trump.

Kara Swisher: All right. I'm going to go with someone who I think would do that: Mark Kelly from Arizona. He'd be very good. He's a hero. He's an astronaut. That's a great pick. He protects her on immigration. Victim of gun violence. Gabby is fantastic. He has a twin, so he can double campaign. His brother is hysterical. I just spent some time with him. His brother is hysterical. He's less hysterical than his brother, but he's also really adorable. He's just a stand-up guy. Also, Katie Hobbs, he can stay senator. If he wins, Katie Hobbs appoints the senator.

Scott Galloway: What about Whitmer? Whitmer is... if we didn't have a risk, if it wasn't Trump, go for it. But two women, I don't know if America can take it. But I love Gretchen. She's genuine. Do you want to have a beer with her? She's hysterical. She's a great campaigner. They love her in Michigan. Even people that don't like her. I've asked everyone who's like, "I don't like her, but I like her." That's the worst you get for her, except for the people that wanted to kill her. You set off, Mike, that you didn't think it would be Newsom. Why is that?

Kara Swisher: First of all, the 12th Amendment. They'd lose the California electoral votes, which would end the election. And it's too much California. The other person, people have joked Mark Cuban would be hysterical. I just don't think he brings any electoral heft to this situation, although people would love it. I think probably I would say it's either Kelly or Cooper or Shapiro. He's really well liked in that state. But on a national level, the Trump people, some of them are anti-Semitic. Some of them aren't. But any of these picks are exciting. I love Jared Polis from Colorado. That's not a state in contention. I think Michael Bennett would be great. There's so many people. I love Maura Healey, but I think that's too liberal.

Scott Galloway: What about Senator Klobuchar?

Kara Swisher: Ah, that is what I was just thinking this morning. Amy Klobuchar, if you wanted. But why not pick Gretchen then if you're going that direction? Gretchen is a firecracker of a campaigner.

Scott Galloway: Well, and she's also in a swing state. She's a firecracker. I'm more about just how do we get elected. So I really like the idea of Pennsylvania or Michigan involved here. And even Arizona too.

Kara Swisher: Arizona, yeah. That's right. Arizona never used to be a swing state. He's really well-liked in Arizona. It used to be a Republican state. I think he has the backing of a lot of people. Anyway, that's where I think. I'm going with Mark Kelly. I really like him. Again, the twin thing is not a small thing to me.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot to talk about this. Lydia Polgreen is an opinion columnist at *The New York Times* and a co-host of the *Matter of Opinion* podcast. A few short weeks ago, she wrote an opinion piece titled "Kamala Harris Could Win This Election, Let Her." Welcome, Lydia.

Lydia Polgreen: Thank you. Great to be back.

Kara Swisher: So tell me about writing that piece, "Kamala Harris Could Win This Election, Let Her." This was before a lot of this started. Explain why you did that and give us a short version of your argument and what they weren't giving her credit for.

Lydia Polgreen: I am sort of allergic to political punditry. I've never really covered national politics, so I'm always hesitant to go out on a limb on these things. But I remember watching her that night of the debate. This column came out the day after the debate. I was thinking, as she was interviewed by Anderson Cooper, what an incredibly polished case for the Biden-Harris administration she was making. How crisp and clear she was, how strong she was on the core issues. She was even good at defending Joe Biden in a way that didn't seem completely unintelligible. I think it was a really useful reminder that she has real skills as a politician.

Kara Swisher: She was good that night. I think everyone noticed. She was really good that night.

Lydia Polgreen: I think everyone sort of thought, "Well, but she was terrible in the primary. She wasn't able to distinguish herself. Her first year and a half as vice president wasn't so good." So I think there was this really strong underrating of her talents. What I saw that night was a person who, in a moment where it's very clear what the job is to be done, can immediately and in a very disciplined way rise to the occasion. We have this fantasy about politics, that it's about the ideal person coming along at the ideal time, when in fact history is completely contingent. Seeing the way that she performed that night, I thought, "Oh, this is a person that could actually be the right person to do this very particular job." That doesn't mean she's the greatest politician since sliced bread, but she doesn't have to be. She just has to be the right person to take on Donald Trump.

Kara Swisher: So what was the reaction at the time and now?

Lydia Polgreen: At the time, the reaction was pretty muted. There were a lot of people who just kind of scoffed. They're like, "Oh, no, America is too racist and too sexist to have a woman president." There were a lot of responses that felt very knee-jerk and also people just kind of telling on themselves. But what's happened subsequently is that she's had to go out and make the case for herself without actively making the case for herself, which is a very high degree of difficulty thing to do. I think she's been really effective. My colleague Ezra Klein tweeted the other day that she really has not put a foot wrong since this whole debacle began with Biden's debate performance. I think that's given people a lot of confidence in her ability to prosecute the case against Donald Trump. Will she make a great president? Who knows. But could she win the election? I think quite possibly, yes.

Scott Galloway: Good to see you, Lydia. I would actually argue it's the opposite. I think she has better prospects of being a good president than she is a good candidate. Despite all the excitement, I would argue she just didn't resonate with the American people. My question would be, what do you think she needs to do? I do think she has momentum. I would agree that over the last three weeks, she's kind of found her footing and her voice a bit. But if you were to give her advice on how to get more of that resonance with the American public, which in my view, she failed to achieve as vice president, do you have any advice for her?

Lydia Polgreen: She failed to achieve it as vice president, perhaps. But I've been out on the campaign trail with her. I've seen how voters are responding to her. I'm also seeing how people like us, the journalists, are seeing how she's doing and are responding to her. It remains to be seen how she performs in polling. It's very early. The switch has just happened. I think that people who underrated her as a primary contender—and by the way, I was not a supporter. I was supporting Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 primary. That was my candidate. But I think it's a very different thing to distinguish yourself on a stage with a bunch of other Democrats. I think there are reasons of gender and race that make it actually quite hard to do that. It's worth remembering that the only female presidential candidate ever to emerge came out of more of a coronation than a truly competitive primary process. That's Hillary Clinton, who was essentially tapped on the shoulder by Barack Obama. So I do think there are very particular challenges for women in the context of a primary. The office of vice president is very hard to distinguish yourself. She got a thankless portfolio, working on things that are very hard to solve. I think she's done as good a job as any. She's done a great job on abortion. I think she's got a good message on law and order. It was her very bad luck to be running the one cycle that being a former prosecutor was a bad rather than a good thing. She is, I would say, a pretty generic, relatively moderate Democrat. You don't get to be a successful black politician of her age without being fairly moderate. The "cop" route is how many black women came into political power. They had to be tough on crime. I think she's been beaten up much more from the left than from the right.

Kara Swisher: That is absolutely true. So what would you say her greatest strength and weakness is right now? I think people are excited. There's a jolt of energy. You can feel it. Obviously, the fundraising. People are reconsidering her. I was noting to Scott before, she's very popular on TikTok, which is smart for her, versus Twitter where they attack her relentlessly. Who cares? That's now a Nazi porn bar. They're even taking the coconut thing, which seemed kind of wacky, and making fun with it. She seems more fun, I guess. Talk about from your perspective, her biggest strength right now. You mentioned the word coronation. Scott has used it just before this. Is that her biggest weakness, that it feels like a coronation? Give me a strength and a weakness.

Lydia Polgreen: I think her strength is definitely that she can lean into what is already her strength: this persona as a prosecutor, as a person who can take on a very specific, almost crusading task. That is a tremendous strength for her. She's running against a very particular opponent. She's not running against a generic person. I would argue that Donald Trump is a very weak candidate. He's a person who's never won the popular vote. His policies are not popular. There are lots of things that make him a weak candidate. I think her greatest weakness is that, and this is the place where I think she really fell down in the 2020 primary, is that she has not done a good job of articulating or showing what her vision is for the country. That it's not just, "I'm going to defeat Donald Trump." I think you have to articulate a vision. It could be as simple as, "I am actually going to be a bridge. We need to turn the page on this era of American history, and I'm going to help get us to where we're going." I don't think it necessarily needs to be much more than that. But there has to be a rationale for her candidacy beyond "I'm the most skilled person in the right place to take on this particular candidate." It's got to be more than that.

Kara Swisher: So the Trump campaign is obviously going to attack her, including mispronouncing her name. I think she's ready for that. I think she's as tough as nails in that regard. Obviously, Elon is already having a meltdown. He tweeted, "I'd just like to thank Alexander Soros for keeping everyone in suspense about who the next puppet would be." Speaking of puppets, Elon, you know a lot about that. Everything he writes is about himself. He was also mocking her for introducing herself with her pronouns, which she does. Fine. She's from San Francisco. She does that. Big deal. So where do you think the big line of attack is?

Kara Swisher: Because this weekend in your piece, you wrote, if Kamala Harris is a DEI candidate, so is J.D. Vance. So talk a little bit about the attacks.

Lydia Polgreen: Yeah, I mean, I think people are going to try and argue that she only got into her positions of power because of race. I think that's something that will happen. Race is going to be very touchy for the Republicans to deal with. Americans might be skeptical about the talents and abilities of black people, but I think there's also a discomfort with outright racism. So they're going to have to be really careful, and it'll be harder to attack her the way they attacked Hillary Clinton on gender because of the combination of these things.

Lydia Polgreen: I don't think anyone should assume that her being black helps her with black voters or particularly helps her with black men. In fact, I think it could hurt her. There's a strong strain of anti-Black woman misogyny among younger Black men that should not be ignored. It's a serious issue she's going to have to confront.

Lydia Polgreen: Look, I don't think this is going to be a cakewalk by any stretch. This is going to be a hard race. It was going to be a close race no matter what. I think she's got a fighting chance. She's got some real talents, but she's got some real challenges too.

Kara Swisher: Lydia, who would you like to see as the VP pick?

Lydia Polgreen: You know, all the jokes and memes on Twitter have been about "interesting whites" or "generic whites." The conventional wisdom is that there's going to be a kind of generic white man from a swing state. A lot of this is probably going to come down to who's compatible and who brings the most to the table in terms of diversifying the ticket. Remember, diversity is a concern. We need diversity. And people think diversity is just about race, but it's about geography, religious belief. Every single vice presidential choice is a diversity pick. One person can only represent so much.

Scott Galloway: Except for J.D. Vance.

Lydia Polgreen: Well, J.D. Vance is a diversity pick. He's age diversity, class diversity. I agree there's ideological alignment, and it was definitely a pick that betrayed a misplaced confidence that Trump was going to walk to victory. But he certainly does represent diversity in some very important ways for Trump, just like Mike Pence did.

Lydia Polgreen: Who do I think should get the nod? I actually don't think it makes that much of a difference. The range of options are probably Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear, Roy Cooper, all the names you've been hearing. There are pluses and minuses to all of them. Someone in that vein is probably who we're going to end up with.

Kara Swisher: Just so you know, Scott. I don't know. Who do you think, Scott? Go tell her, Scott. Tell her. See how she reacts.

Scott Galloway: Well, I would like it to be Governor Shapiro. I think if we were totally focused on winning, they would pick Mitt Romney.

Kara Swisher: [Laughs] Well, I mean, listen, I thought if Donald Trump was really focused on winning, he would have picked Nikki Haley. Because I think he would have been unstoppable if he had.

Scott Galloway: And so I understand your theory. Some people have bounced around the idea of Joe Manchin as a running mate.

Kara Swisher: No, he's unlikable.

Scott Galloway: I know, he's unlikable. I mean, is Mitt Romney that likable? Let's just remember, he lost his presidential race. And that's the other last thing I would say about Kamala Harris. Think about how many people who've won their primaries who've lost the presidential race. Winning a primary is by no means an assurance of victory.

Lydia Polgreen: No one's ever won president without competing competently in a primary, which she hasn't done.

Scott Galloway: I wouldn't say that's true. Would you say that Joe Biden competed competently in a primary?

Lydia Polgreen: I think he was carried across the finish line by Jim Clyburn.

Scott Galloway: Oh, but he competed.

Lydia Polgreen: Oh, no, he won that race.

Scott Galloway: After Democratic elites all came together to engineer an outcome?

Kara Swisher: She got you.

Scott Galloway: Absolutely. No, I mean, this happens all the time. I think there's a difference. Did Hillary?

Kara Swisher: I mean, I guess, like, I'm just dumb. She was on the debate stage with a bunch of Democrats. So there should be a debate. We think it's her and Dean Phillips and Joe Manchin.

Scott Galloway: That's because the others have bowed out.

Kara Swisher: By the way, the Congressional Black Caucus has endorsed Harris. Can I ask you what you did? Let me read a tweet from comedian and podcaster Akilah Hughes: "So now it's Kamala. I think, again, every white person who wanted him to drop out needs to figure out how to defend a black woman online for the first time in their lives. That's the job now. I'd like to see it, but I never have."

Kara Swisher: Can you talk about that skepticism for white people to do that and also skepticism from men? Black women are the real driver of voting in many elections. And I think it was Anil Dash saying the anti-Desi network is now in overdrive. Kamala Harris's mom is Indian. How do you thread that very difficult racial needle in this country?

Lydia Polgreen: I think this is going to be one of the big challenges. But I also think that people make assumptions about other people's racism that may have to do with their own beliefs. If you think other people are racist, maybe it's worth looking at what your own beliefs are about race and about people's competence. Same, I would say, about sexism. This is a country that has a capacity to surprise people.

Lydia Polgreen: Donald Trump is a particularly weak candidate who is particularly ill-suited to attacking this particular opponent on matters of race and on matters of gender. This is a person she has prosecuted sex offenders and rapists and people who've committed sexual assault. We have many photos of Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein. He has been found legally liable for sexual assault.

Kara Swisher: Prosecutor versus felon.

Lydia Polgreen: Yeah. I don't have any illusions. I'm making the case here in a way that I think is absolutely defensible. But I also know that all historical events are contingent. There is a very real possibility that Kamala Harris becomes the nominee and that she loses. That would be extremely unfortunate for the country. It is possible. It feels less likely to me than Joe Biden winning the campaign. And that seems to be where we are now.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, absolutely. And she'll bring back the donors, which we'll be talking about also. Donors love Kamala Harris.

Scott Galloway: Donors love Kamala Harris.

Kara Swisher: That's what I was telling him. I was like, she's no lefty. They love her. She is not a lefty. She shows up at their parties. I've seen her there because I've been there. And they love Kamala Harris. She also enjoys it too. She enjoys that whole set.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, Lydia, thank you. That was really—when you wrote it, as you know, I wrote you, I was like, "Well done," because everyone was going in a different direction than that. And I thought you made a good case for it. And I was like, "I'm hanging up my spurs."

Scott Galloway: No more. Hang up your spurs. Good job. Excellent job.

Kara Swisher: Well, you did a good job on your first outing. And I appreciate it.

Lydia Polgreen: All I ever want is to stun Scott Galloway into silence.

Kara Swisher: The two of you, the two of us beating up on him. It happens all the time.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, the masochist likes being beaten up by powerful women. And I know it.

Kara Swisher: Mitt Romney! Can we do it again together? Say Mitt Romney, Scott.

Scott Galloway: What do you guys say? I think it should be Mitt Romney.

Kara Swisher: Mitt Romney! Mitt Romney! You idiot!

Scott Galloway: Literally, you guys might...

Kara Swisher: Scott, you ignorant slut. You're the personification of the comments in every social media platform I'm on. Basically, it's different dimensions of "Jesus, you're a fucking idiot."

Scott Galloway: Yeah, yeah. Well, we're not saying idiot. That's a little far.

Kara Swisher: Which is mocking you. Definitely not. I'm mocking you. Anyway, thank you, Lydia. We appreciate it.

Lydia Polgreen: Thanks for having me. Take care, guys.

Scott Galloway: Take care, Lydia.

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back, a look at the fallout from the massive CrowdStrike outage.

[AD BREAK]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back. The world is still crawling its way back to normal operations after a CrowdStrike update caused 8.5 million devices to crash on Friday. The cybersecurity firm's software update wiped out devices using Microsoft Windows operating systems, impacting airlines, healthcare facilities, emergency services, retail locations, and millions of PCs. Still on Monday, over 700 flights have been canceled by 7:30 a.m. at the time of this taping. CrowdStrike stock is down more than 30% in the last five days. Talk a little bit about your perspective on this.

Scott Galloway: Well, it's interesting. We had Y2K. We just had it in 2024. This was exactly what they were predicting would happen on the turn of New Year's in 2000. I think the larger learning here is the following: I love the idea of a robust versus an anti-fragile industry. If McDonald's goes out of business, the fast food industry doesn't miss a beat. There's Panera, Chipotle, Five Guys, In-N-Out Burger—best of them all. But it's fine.

Scott Galloway: If Jamie Dimon called Powell or Janet Yellen and said, "Look, I had some rogue trader in Singapore and we accidentally missed a compliance, they levered up a million times, and unless you give me a $100 billion credit line, I'm out of business," they have to say, "Yes, we'll send the money," because if JP Morgan goes under, it might take the global economy with it. So I would argue the banking system is not robust. That's one of the reasons they have such tight stress testing.

Scott Galloway: What this reflects is that technology, because of consolidation and concentration, is not robust. If one cybersecurity firm can take down an airline and the economy for a day, that means it's too concentrated. This is yet another example. It'll be really interesting how much this comes up in the FTC or DOJ review of Alphabet's proposed acquisition of WIZ. Southwest flights were fine because they hadn't updated their software to the latest operating system.

Kara Swisher: Right, right. And Apple was fine, obviously.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. So I think it's just another indication that we need more antitrust. It's just too concentrated.

Kara Swisher: So costs for this outage could top $1 billion, according to Anderson Economic Group. Many companies plan to file insurance claims, and Microsoft has released a recovery tool. But here we are relying on limited tech companies. You were talking about the antitrust thing—how do you solve the problem? Because you do need a commonality of some of these systems. Everyone was like, "Is this a secret attack?" Is it China flexing? But here we are, whether it's being attacked by other countries or relying on limited companies, we are kind of stuck in that regard. Everything is knitted together in this way, and they don't care enough about security.

Scott Galloway: Well, 298 of the Fortune 500 companies use CrowdStrike. This brings home for me the concentration of power. You need diversity in the ecosystem. This is a preview. It could be much worse than this. What if every hospital network goes down or power generators? We got off pretty easy here. This was flights being canceled. I'm the same. I'm the breakup person. I just think there are too few companies that have too much critical infrastructure.

Kara Swisher: Sure. But how do you do that if you want to knit together a system? This is the discussion around every sci-fi movie. There's one system. Remember the Sandra Bullock one where everyone was using that one thing and the little sign showed up and it stole everyone's information? It's really difficult not to have a singular system or one that's knitted together well. But you're making the argument that scale and common standards are really important.

Scott Galloway: I get that. The name of that type of firm that you grant the capacity to do that is a utility. And utilities are highly regulated. So if you make the argument that it makes sense to have one cybersecurity firm and operating system running 400 of the 500 biggest hospital systems in America, then you are going to need pretty serious government oversight, a lot of stress testing, and scenario planning for what happens when X, Y, or Z takes place.

Scott Galloway: These companies have an economic incentive not to let this happen, but you mentioned CrowdStrike stock is down 14%. It's still up 24% year to date. The market is telling us—and this is the scary thing—that a potential catastrophe like this that ruins millions of people's vacation plans is worth it because the concentration of power that sends your stock up 24%, maybe you have to give half of it back, but you're still up. The concentration of power without the expensive stress testing and "go slow" mentality of a utility is worth it to take the risks. That is not a good risk complexion for corporate America.

Kara Swisher: So you think the stock will recover?

Scott Galloway: A hundred percent. They're working with 300 of the 500 Fortune 500. It might be an opportunity for someone to come in. But the market has already said, "OK, the stock's up 24%. It gave back half its gains for the year." It's not like the thing has crashed.

Kara Swisher: Right, right, right. That's true. Well, we'll see with the lawsuits and anything else that can happen or the insurance claims. But again, you're right. It requires it to become a utility, which is something you and I have both argued many times.

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. Do you want me to go first?

Scott Galloway: You go first, Kara.

Kara Swisher: Okay. One of the things I like about news events is how the internet reacts, the special social. This is the part I like about social media, besides looking at cooking and Japanese woodworking videos. There were a lot of really good ones immediately, and it's highly entertaining. I loved everything The Daily Show does, and on Threads they were going crazy.

Kara Swisher: They had a picture—remember when she won the election and there was a picture of Kamala jogging, looking very fit? She's on the phone. She was talking to Biden at the time. And it said, "Hello, is this the Midwest white guy emporium?" Which I think was cute. I thought Hunter Walk did a great one on Threads: "Lights must be flickering in Brooklyn from equipment power search for all the emergency pods." So true.

Kara Swisher: I really enjoyed a back and forth between Mark Zuckerberg and Mark Zuckerberg on Threads. He put up "Serene row before a big week." And then Casey Newton wrote back, "Mark, you will not believe what happened while you were rowing." And Mark's like, "Best to check the news before I thread."

Kara Swisher: What I really liked is Elon Musk is truly losing his mind over on X. He said, "My smartest friends, including those living in San Francisco Bay Area, have been lifelong Dems are excited about Trump Vance." And Jan LeCun, who's head of AI at Facebook, wrote, "Your smartest friends aren't very smart," which I really liked.

Kara Swisher: My single favorite one was from Jordan Schneider. He wrote, "What a classic VC move to buy Trump at the peak." And then Reductress wrote, "Nation with increasingly limited access to birth control thanks man for pulling out." And the last meme: There's one picture of Kamala Harris coming out from behind a blue curtain, and it said, "Did somebody say black job?" That's funny.

Kara Swisher: The fail is—I don't know why finance reporters are not writing about this—but Bill Ackman is sharing a lot of conspiracy theories this week. Really crazy ones, including one that Joe Biden did not make this decision and that his signature wasn't actually his. He said, "If this were a hostage situation, that letter would not qualify as proof of life." He also had videos showing there were two shooters in the Trump shooting.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, he deleted that.

Kara Swisher: I know. Why don't they hold him accountable for this stuff? He just gets to do this. I find him irritating on every level—on the DEI stuff, his thoughts on Ukraine, everything else he's manifestly unqualified to do. But now he's moved way down the stack to stuff he should not be. And he's raising money for this new investment fund. I would worry about this guy very much because he literally spends all his time trafficking in conspiracy theories. Really weird ones, too.

Scott Galloway: All right. So my win is going to be the millionth pile-on of people recognizing the tenure and presidency of President Biden. I think economically, he created more jobs in three and a half years than have been created in any eight-year tenure. He brought inflation down to the lowest level of any advanced economy while maintaining growth. Markets are touching all-time highs. Legislatively, one of the most productive sessions. I think he's been very strong on Ukraine.

Scott Galloway: I don't think he gets nearly the credit he deserves because he has been a little bit wishy-washy on the communications, trying to placate the far left while on the ground. He immediately deployed two carrier strike forces to the Mediterranean in solidarity with our ally Israel. I think he's been a decent man. He's been really good on LGBTQ. He's been forceful around bodily autonomy. He set a good tone of decency.

Scott Galloway: He will be remembered—and not only that, I think this was an incredibly difficult decision for him and his family. Did he probably take too long to make that decision? Yes. But people will remember him for the decision that he made for the country. I think President Biden is going to go down as one of the great presidents. And I think it's going to give him and his family tremendous comfort to know that he had an outstanding presidency.

Scott Galloway: I think he should go nuts now. Just do whatever he feels like. Just go off.

Kara Swisher: You know what? I have executive order: everybody wears pants.

Scott Galloway: I don't know. I would pardon Hunter.

Kara Swisher: That would hurt her. That would hurt her if he did something like that.

Scott Galloway: For anything he's going to do, too. I think he could do a lot of stuff now. He's sort of free, right? He's kind of free to do what he wants. The other thing is he could make some money. He deserves it. He's been a lifelong public servant. I know everyone thinks he's corrupt Joe Biden, but honestly, it doesn't look like he has that much of a lifestyle. And the Obamas have cashed in, that's for sure.

Kara Swisher: I have to tell you, when you're talking about this, you're right. He took too long to do it. But he gave up the presidency. Just think about that. Think about that. Wow. After he spent his life trying to get there.

Scott Galloway: Absolutely. Yeah. And not only that, I think we're all thinking: if Biden can quit his job, maybe I should quit mine.

Kara Swisher: Oh, no. Oh, are you doing that again?

Scott Galloway: No, no, no, I'm fine. It's August. You'll be going on vacation for a little while soon. It's close to August.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's very sad, though. "Parks and Recreation star Joe Biden has announced he will no longer be running for president." It's like he's broken up with all of us. He left a post-it that said, "Sorry, I can't. Don't hate me."

Kara Swisher: But also, just so you know, young people, you should never quit your job on a Sunday. That's just batshit crazy.

Scott Galloway: That is crazy.

Kara Swisher: All right. What do you think is your fail?

Scott Galloway: I don't have a fail. I'm starting to recover from the shock and weird feeling of Sunday. I'm trying to feel better and better about American Democrats and be hopeful. I'm going to rally. I want to be one of these people whose actions sort of foot to all the bullshit that comes spectating out of their mouth all day. I'm going to try and get involved in the campaign, which looks like it's going to be Harris.

Kara Swisher: So it unlocked it for you because you were pulling back, right? It unlocked the idea of giving money.

Scott Galloway: Oh, no, no, no. You said you were a part of that letter. No, now I will donate. I will try and—this would be impossible, but I'm going to hold myself to allocating my time, treasure, and talent to all the constant yammering I do about this shit. It's time for all of us to either canvass, start talking to people, even on social media, be supportive, break out your wallet, whatever you can give, give.

Scott Galloway: You're a dolphin, right?

Kara Swisher: I'm a dolphin, yeah. I'm not a whale.

Scott Galloway: But I'm already talking to people about trying to do a fundraiser and doing fun matching programs. I'm going to go do some canvassing in one of the swing states. Maybe even do—anyways, I'm excited about this. I want to look back on this regardless of what happens. If you do believe that—I hate that positioning Donald Trump as the end of America. I think it might be a serious degradation in our democracy. I don't think it's going to be the end of America, and I don't think that's useful. But if you do think this is an existential threat and an important election, you should have a war plan for the next 10 or 11 weeks.

Scott Galloway: I sat down with my boys and they were kind of like, "What are we doing?" I'm like, "I want to plan out the next 11 weeks as to how we can be effective here." If everyone is really serious about it, just posting shit on Twitter isn't enough. Get involved.

Kara Swisher: I think LFG is what you're talking about, right? Let's fucking go.

Scott Galloway: There you go. That's right. Let's get on it.

Kara Swisher: Let's get on it. That's what I said. I had someone who was like, "Oh," and I was like, "That's fucking enough. That's enough." Look, you got a chance now. You got a shot. This is the oxygen we have. Let's stop saying what's wrong with her. Let's say what's right with her. Sure, there's plenty wrong with her, like Lydia said. But I don't think I've ever seen a candidate that is more superior than her opponent.

Scott Galloway: Yep, absolutely. I'm excited for the debate.

Kara Swisher: Do you think there's going to be a debate? He's not going to do a debate. No way.

Scott Galloway: That's an interesting question.

Kara Swisher: There's no way he's getting on stage with her. First of all, he doesn't like women. He doesn't like black women. You think he won't get on stage with her?

Scott Galloway: Oh, I don't think he can. He'll talk about cognitive decline.

Kara Swisher: He will. It will be the same thing. He can't help himself. If you think Hillary Clinton drove him crazy, remember he called her "nasty woman"? Oh, man, he can't do that and he can't help himself. Look what happened at the speech where everyone was hugging him. He fucked that up.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I'll take the other side of that because what you just said, I think it's true. I don't think he can help himself. The smart thing might be to not debate. I don't think he's going to be able to resist. When people start calling him a chicken and insulting his manhood, he's going to be like, "Oh, I'll show her."

Kara Swisher: Yeah. We'll see. I think he's going to be really bothered by her quite a bit. It's going to set him off in ways that he doesn't even understand about himself. Anyway, we'll see, which is a good thing.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, we want to hear from you. 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. Okay, Scott, we'll be back on Friday with more. As always, Scott, read us out.

Scott Galloway: Today's show is produced by Lauren Amon, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Silverio. Nishat Khurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Let's get on it.