Kirk Suspect Motives, TikTok "Framework" Deal, and Tucker Carlson Plays Detective

[Podcast intro music fades in and out]

Kara Swisher: [singing] Adobe Acrobat Studio, so brand new. Show me all the things PDFs can do. Do your work with ease and speed. PDF spaces is all you need. Do hours of research in an instant. With key insights from an AI assistant. Pick a template with a click. Now your prezzo looks super slick. Close that deal, yeah you won. Do that, doing that, did that, done. Now you can do that, do that, with Acrobat. Now you can do that, do that, with the all new Acrobat. It's time to do your best work with the all new Adobe Acrobat Studio.

[Ad break]

Kara Swisher: Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded, so you can take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like Tea Time You. Or this Tea Time You. Or even this Tea Time You. Said you hear about Dave? Or even Tea Time Tea Time Tea Time You. So update on Dave. It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse, it's time to be great.

[Ad break]

Kara Swisher: These days, every business leader is under pressure to save money, but you can't crush the competition just by cutting costs. To win, you need to spend smarter and move faster. You need Brex. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that breaks the tradeoff between control and speed with smart corporate cards, high-yield banking, and AI-powered expense management. Join the 30,000 companies that spend smarter and move faster with Brex. Learn more at brex.com slash grow.

[Ad break]

Kara Swisher: It's exactly what we need at this moment, I have to tell you. It brings together MAGA and lesbians in a way that's really satisfying. I don't know how they did it.

[Podcast theme music]

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: Hey, Scott, how's it going? What a week. Yeah. How was your weekend?

Scott Galloway: It was good. A lot of really interesting stuff. And then I took my mom out to lunch yesterday with my ex-wife. That was nice.

Kara Swisher: That's nice. How is Megan?

Scott Galloway: She's good. She's really been lovely to my mother, I have to say.

Kara Swisher: That's nice.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. And then just getting ready today for all the week because there's a big week ahead. And a lot of news. What did you do?

Kara Swisher: You know, I had one of those really lovely, but somewhat bittersweet weekends. It was my son's 18th and he had some friends over. I spent most of the weekend looking through old photos of him and trying to hold back the tears. It's just wild how fast it goes.

Scott Galloway: 18. That's a big birthday.

Kara Swisher: It is a big birthday.

Scott Galloway: He doesn't have to listen to you anymore.

Kara Swisher: Well, that happened on his third birthday.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but in England they can drink and he invited over a bunch of his friends. He goes to this great school and he has great friends. They came over and they had two beers and acted like they had 12 beers. I think it's more the Pavlovian effect than anything. They're just such smart, good kids. A couple of them are trying to get into Cambridge and Oxford. They're at that age. Another one is interesting. One of them has decided he's going to go to the Gulf. He's this kid who just sees all this opportunity in the Gulf, and he wants to move to either Riyadh or Dubai. They're just such lovely young men. My son seemed really happy. So, it's just very nice, very rewarding.

Kara Swisher: What was your word of advice, your 18th? I remember, it's probably a little different with a dad and a son, I have to say. But I remember when they both turned 18. It was a big deal. 21 is also a big deal.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. My advice has been to my oldest and also a little bit to my youngest is that I talk a lot about what makes a man. I said, manhood — there's a lot of males who get older and never become men. Most of them.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Okay, fair enough.

Scott Galloway: But in the delineation, when you become a man, is this idea of surplus value. You take a lot of love from your family as a kid. At some point, you do what you're doing. You're taking Lucky out. You're adding surplus value. You're adding much more value to Lucky than she is to your life, quite frankly. That's pretty much all I was saying. But also, Kara, you're...

Kara Swisher: That's a deficit.

Scott Galloway: You're making a lot of money and paying a lot of tax. You're creating more tax revenue than government services you've absorbed. That's surplus value.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I'm a man. I am a man.

Scott Galloway: But that's my point. My point is at some point, you notice people's lives. You absorb more complaints than you complain. You do more cleaning around the house than people cleaning up after you. You provide more emotional support at some point. Then you're a better father to your kids than your dad was to you. So I'm really into this idea of surplus value. At what point do you get there? He lives in a little house at his boarding school with 40 other young men. At what point are you seen as somebody that is adding more to the house than you're taking? And it's okay to occasionally lean on people. That doesn't mean don't be vulnerable. It doesn't mean don't be a stoic, because I think being a good friend means occasionally opening up to people because that's what friends want. Friends want people that occasionally need them.

Kara Swisher: Right, 100%, both ways.

Scott Galloway: 100%, yeah.

Kara Swisher: One thing I noticed with Louis, he was always giving a little more to his friends than they were to him. We had a long talk about it. I was like, you need to ask for things because he's one of those guys, right? "Let me fix it for you" kind of thing, which is good. But it's also important to take at various points in your life.

Scott Galloway: I find there's hacks around this. First off, I've met people who say, "I pride myself on never asking anyone for anything." And I'm like, well, then you're never going to be that close to anybody because people don't want to be charities. People don't want to be your patient. People want to occasionally have the opportunity to help you. One of my hacks is, when you ask someone how they're doing, let them respond and then stop and say, "No, really. How are you doing?" And then another hack is to say, "I'll go first. I'm struggling at work. Or I'm in a bad place with my wife right now. Or I've got this thing acting up. I was just diagnosed with high blood pressure and it's got me totally freaked out." When you pause and say to someone, "No, really, how are you doing?" and then say, "This is what's going on with me," you literally open the doors to a lock of a million gallons of water. The moment you're willing to open up, especially as men, and say, "Fuck, I'm worried about money." Scott, how are you doing?

Kara Swisher: I'm actually — okay, so the honest answer is —

Scott Galloway: No, we have to ask the second part. You have to say fine, and then I have to say —

Kara Swisher: Oh, I'm fine, Kara. How are you? How are you really doing?

Scott Galloway: Ever since this Kirk thing, I have been extremely online and I think it is taking a toll on me. I think I am disassociating from reality and relationships. I have been going down rabbit holes around this shit and it is taking a toll on me mentally.

Kara Swisher: Oh wow.

Scott Galloway: And that's fine. That's probably a natural part of the cycle. But the last five days have quite frankly been awful. We talked yesterday — I have this eerie feeling that this is very ominous, that this is different. When January 6th happened, I was angry, I was embarrassed, but this feels different. This feels as if it's a cauldron or a crow showing up or a black cat. A black swan. And I don't know — I have trouble dissecting my own anger and depression as I get older, or what is probably better than most people's spidey sense about cultural and societal norms. But the last four or five days have just not been great. How are you?

Kara Swisher: I have hemorrhoids. No, I'm kidding. I asked for something from you yesterday. I said, "I want to be on your planes, guys." That's what you're focused on.

Scott Galloway: I like that. Which part of the trip should I join you for?

Kara Swisher: And I'm like, oh, okay, no problem. I'm here for all of it. I asked. He told me to ask.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's fine. You're not a charity.

Kara Swisher: I am good. I'm actually — I feel less — look. You're able to disassociate pretty well. Here's what — I didn't disassociate. I look at history. That's what I do. And we're going to talk about this more. I put on from Hairspray, "You Can't Stop the Beat," that song. I played it. Hairspray is about an integration of a TV show in Baltimore. It's by John Waters, obviously Hairspray. I put it on and I listened to it three times. I was like, it's a really good song. And that's what I do.

Scott Galloway: Hairspray? That's your answer? Hairspray?

Kara Swisher: I feel like the forces of retrograde, which are always there, are particularly desperate and strong today. It's like mercury in retrograde or whatever you call it. It's like right-wingers in retrograde. I think they are desperate to turn back the clock on every single thing. And as they become more desperate, they get more vicious and violent. That's a worry. At the same time, you can't stop the beat. I just don't want to say you can't. You can't. You can't. They can't. History has shown again and again. They try and they never win. So we'll talk about this in a little bit more. This is getting very intense.

Scott Galloway: But just to press pause on that, you said something really powerful that does give me comfort. I do start reading a lot about history. For all the people saying this feels like it's going to be a civil war, we have been much closer. I mean, there was the actual civil war, but since then, we have been much closer to civil war than we are now.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: People forget 20,000 former World War I veterans marched on Washington to protest the economic conditions of the Great Depression. A young general gave the order to fire on those veterans. That young general was Douglas MacArthur, who would go on to be a World War II hero. The civil rights movement — there was much more anger on both sides. So the notion that people who don't have a sense for history believe that — or even just logistically, how would civil war happen here? You think, oh, it would be the red states declaring war on the blue states. The red states can't afford to declare war on the blue states. They're takers. They get so much money from the federal government as a means of channeling additional surplus revenue from blue states. There might be an increase in political violence, and we'll talk more about this. But the Civil War — one, historically, we're nowhere near the same temperature as we've been several times before, as bad as it might seem. And two, logistically, it just doesn't make sense how it would unfold.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, they still are so enthusiastic about their retrograde behaviors. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. Why don't we just get started on this. First, we have some competition as we tape — J.D. Vance hosting the Charlie Kirk show over on Rumble. He announced on X it would be an honor to, quote, "pay tribute to my friend." Charlie Kirk's suspected killer. 22-year-old Tyler Robinson is expected to be formally charged this week. He's currently not cooperating with authorities. I think he's in that "fuck that" mode since he did what he did. It seems, as Scott and I have talked about, to be terminally online. Robinson's motive is still unknown. There's a lot of speculation and misinformation floating around. Utah Governor Spencer Cox shared some details, saying Robinson was indoctrinated with leftist ideology and spent much of his time on the deep, dark internet. Cox is saying that Robinson had a roommate and romantic partner who was transitioning. Again, they're not providing any details, so I'm not going to believe anything, including what Cox said. I think he is trying his best and he's getting enormous pressure from Trump. But when asked if it was irrelevant to motive, Cox said, "That's what we're trying to figure out, though." FBI Director Kash Patel shared a link to a Fox News story about it on X. I mean, literally make your own announcement, Kash Patel, if you don't mind, rather than doing stuff like that. What an idiot he is. So we don't know his motives at all. Again, as Scott and I have been saying, let's find out. Obviously, when you move to murder, there's something very deep and tragic going on, and also possibly mental illness. Talk a little bit about your overall thoughts in terms of what we know and don't know. Since you've been down a rabbit hole — I just don't believe anything until a trial. That's my feeling. I just don't trust Kash Patel in any way. I think people are grabbing bits and pieces for their own purposes. "The bullet was trans. No, it wasn't. The shooter was trans. No, he wasn't. Oh, his roommate is trans." I don't know. And I don't even know what any of that has to do with it. That's the really key part. So your thoughts?

Scott Galloway: It's clear what's happened here. Governor Cox made the mistake of acting like a leader and trying to take down the volume and not engage in the violence entrepreneurship that the president and some people on the left, but mostly people on the right, have engaged in to find an opportunity around violence to create advantage at the expense of potentially fomenting more violence. So let me go to the notion. Let's assume his roommate was transitioning. So the fuck what? If he had been in a relationship with a white girl in a sorority at ASU, does that mean this is the Republicans' fault? Who the fuck cares? What does that have to do with anything?

Kara Swisher: I agree. His grandmother was like, "We're MAGA." I'm like, I don't care. That has nothing to do with it. Thank you, Grandma.

Scott Galloway: This all goes to — what's so frustrating for me about this is look at the data and try to figure out who the real culprit is so we can stop this or reduce the likelihood of it happening again. 98% of mass shooters are men, mostly young men. Almost every act of political violence — of course, here's my rabbit hole — the right, mostly the right, but also the left, is doing everything they can from interpreting the font on these bullets to who their roommates are to find evidence, to cherry pick evidence, to try and show that it's the other side's fault. This is the bottom line. This kid, he was 22, was raised in a Republican household, registered unaffiliated. I'm not sure, but I don't think he's voted yet.

Kara Swisher: No, he didn't vote.

Scott Galloway: Okay. Thomas Matthew Crooks, the person who shot Trump in Butler, registered Republican and when he was 17 he gave 15 bucks to a voter registration drive that used ActBlue. Luigi Mangione — he was more mission and policy oriented in so much as he took on corporate greed and healthcare as his cause, but he didn't come across as partisan of any left or right aligned political movement. Vance Luther Bolter, age 57, the alleged killer of the Minnesota political figures — he was more politically oriented, but ultimately no more politically engaged than the stereotypical angry uncle at Thanksgiving who rants. Cody Allen Balmer, age 38, arrested after the attempted arson and attempted murder of Governor Josh Shapiro. No political associations beyond some angry social media posts. David DuPage, age 42, attacked Pelosi's husband with a hammer, broke into Pelosi's house, very online and immersed in conspiracy content, but again, not a member of any group. Each side is trying to blame the other, and then media tries to play referee to get their ratings up. But this is the bottom line. What do we have in common across all these acts of violence? They are almost always young men and they are almost always not political extremists, but extremely online. So if you want to reduce violence, including political violence, including mass shootings, let's figure out how we get more young men to engage with guardrails in the form of relationships, more male mentorship, more males in high school, more economic opportunity, more safeguards. And how about we hold the rage machine that is driving 40% of the S&P's value? How about if we hold them to the same standards we hold every other media and say, if you elevate content that has been directly correlated to rage, which results in violence — mostly violence against themselves — social media creates a lot of violence against themselves among young girls, a lot of violence of young men against themselves, but also with young men sometimes. I don't mean to pathologize young men who are extremely online. Most of them will not pick up a gun, but some of them do.

Kara Swisher: That's right.

Scott Galloway: So if anyone is interested in actually reducing the violence, they're going to talk about removing Section 230 protection for algorithmically elevated content and providing more opportunity and more empathy and, quite frankly, more love and relationships for young men.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I'm going to interject. I would say they don't want to do that. Groups do not want to engage in this sort of "sharks versus jets" kind of situation that's going on. I have to say one thing — I picked up my mother's phone. She's somehow gotten on some Trump group things. Her texts were full of the most heinous efforts to get money. "Charlie's a martyr. Charlie's this. You must fight the left who's trying to kill us." It was so upsetting to read her texts. I deleted every single one of them. I tried to block them all. Her email was worse. It was all these efforts. It's fine. J.D. Vance can go on his show, but they're all doing it in order to raise money for themselves and to push their cause. This is just grotesque. Same thing with Donald Trump Jr. They're all trying to push. They literally are walking over this guy and using him as a way to raise money, a way to get people mad, a way to get political advantage. It's grotesque at this point. Have they forgotten their friend died? I just find it really strange. The stuff on my mom's phone was so disturbing, Scott. I couldn't — and then you have someone like Elon Musk, who is making it worse. "Democrats are the party of murder." Party of murder. He's putting out lists of people who said negative things about Kirk. He's done a number of things. We have to stop these people. And now the words are "de-indoctrinate." It sounds like fucking Russia. It's really disturbing. Let's move to that because people across the country are getting fired, suspended, or investigated over posts criticizing Charlie Kirk after his assassination. Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah just shared a little while ago that she's been fired over her Blue Sky posts, which are at best nothing. Seriously, nothing that she's done here has engendered it. They're waiting to fire her. That's another story. But far-right activists have been doxing people they say are celebrating Kirk's death. Then they're just deciding what a celebration is and what's not — just regular criticism. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered his staff to identify military personnel who mocked Kirk's killing so they can be punished. These are the free speech warriors. These are the people that went on and on about cancel culture, they used it to their advantage, and now they are doing cancel culture in full. They are the most cynical, non-free speech people I have ever encountered. It's really astonishing how quickly they move to this. Thoughts?

Scott Galloway: Again, it's a term I like — violence entrepreneurship. Trying to reap capital and advantage from an opportunity where you see violence. Another thing we're just not talking about is the CCP and the GRU are having a field day. Do your own research here. Go on TikTok or Threads or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter. When you see something really inflammatory from either side, look at the comments. The algorithms elevate content that gets a lot of comments because every comment results in the people who respond coming back, and that's another impression, another ad, more shareholder value. Look at the really heinous comments that would likely incent and motivate more comments, more Nissan ads, more shareholder volume. Click on the profile. It's someone with 38 followers.

Kara Swisher: Yes, exactly.

Scott Galloway: Guess what? If I were in the GRU, in the CCP, and I couldn't beat us economically or kinetically, might I decide to do what is happening now and divide us internally, make the call come from inside the house? Putin has talked about this very specifically to us. The Nazis talked about it. They have done a great job of convincing us — no, the threat isn't massive energy, a willingness to kill millions of their own people, technology, the largest consumer economy in the world, India, China, and Russia binding together to push back on our interests. We've decided, no, it's some young white liberal saying really heinous things — and they are heinous things. So let's elevate that content, or let's listen to senior advisor Stephen Miller claiming that it's civil war against the Democrats. Let's elevate that content by filling up those feeds with bots, with comments that take that content beyond its organic reach on its own.

Kara Swisher: Yep.

Scott Galloway: What Governor Cox initially said — go out and touch grass. Go out and touch people because generally what you find is —

Kara Swisher: Well, with their consent, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Just go touch people. Go out —

Kara Swisher: I don't think that's right. I think we need to be more affectionate. But anyways.

Scott Galloway: I understand, but you should really ask. I also think we need a lot more sex and a lot more alcohol. Trust me kids, the risk to your 25-year-old liver of alcohol is dwarfed by the risk of social isolation. I go to conservative places. I meet a lot of people in person. It is shocking how lovely people are.

Kara Swisher: I get it. I agree with you. But I'm just saying, speaking of you going down a rabbit hole, you have to get offline. You must literally just — someone said, "I am now 100% confident that some guy named Aesthetica, that Charlie's assassination was carried out by Charlie's — because he's a friend of his, right? — was carried out by radical left-wing transgender terror cell. Let's get into the evidence." And then Elon Musk tweeted, "Seems likely." Now, Elon, I'm sorry your kid's trans and you have this reaction. I'm not sorry your kid's trans. I'm sorry that you're such a jackass about it and such a strange, twisted person. To do things like this, just to create this — I think they believe there's a transgender terror cell, which there isn't. But fine. There's no evidence. The only evidence we have on mass shooters is the following: the overwhelming evidence is that there are young men who are disenfranchised. This isn't about division. It's about the disenfranchised. I would argue it's not even about political extremism. It's about being extremely online.

Scott Galloway: Yep. You and I agree on that. You could get around the most hostile table of political — you could take Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson — these shooters, these folks committing this political violence, they are less politically affiliated than those two. These are people who have not connected to others and have easy access to weapons, to guns.

Kara Swisher: And have no judgment.

Scott Galloway: And go extremely online and don't have a good friend. Don't have a romantic partner. Don't have in-person work. Don't have a male role model to say, "Something's going on with you. What's going on? What are you thinking? Where are you spending your time? No, that's not right. Come to my church group. You're going to see how good people are from both political spectrums. Hey, have we been thinking about getting in better shape? I noticed you're acting strange lately. What's going on? You know how much we care about you, right? Are you all right?" It's a case of lack of mammalia. If you put an orca in a tank alone, it goes fucking crazy. Most animals. The worst thing you can do to a dog is leave it alone. And then when you put it in a tank where they start pumping in sound waves to make the orca go crazy because whoever pumps in the sound waves can make billions or trillions of dollars in shareholder value — which is effectively what's going on. 40% of the S&P right now is represented by companies that have an economic incentive to divide us. And instead, we want to dissect the font on a fucking bullet so we can blame the other side. It works so well.

Kara Swisher: Let me go back to Spencer Cox because people are like, "You shouldn't like him." I'm like, I'm going to a little bit, okay? He has kept up his criticism of social media since you're doing it right now, calling it a cancer. In an appearance on Meet the Press, he appeared to be taking notes from you, Scott Galloway. Let's listen.

[Audio clip plays]

Spencer Cox: I think anyone can change the trajectory of this. It truly is about every single one of us. I can't emphasize enough the damage that social media and the internet is doing to all of us. Those dopamine hits, these companies, trillion dollar market caps, the most powerful companies in the history of the world, have figured out how to hack our brains, get us addicted to outrage, which is the same type of dopamine, the same chemical that you get from taking fentanyl, get us addicted to outrage and get us to hate each other. I'm seeing it in real time since the tragic death of Charlie Kirk. I'm seeing it in every corner of our society. The conflict entrepreneurs are taking advantage of us and we are losing our agency and we have to take that back. We have to turn it off. We have to get back to community, caring about our neighbors, the things that make America great, serving each other, bettering ourselves, exercising, sleeping, all of those things that this takes away from us.

[Audio clip ends]

Kara Swisher: Conflict entrepreneurs. I love that. You should steal that. Conflict entrepreneurs. That's exactly what they are.

Scott Galloway: 100.

Kara Swisher: And the same conflict entrepreneurs, may I point out, people like Elon and Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, are shutting down actual free speech, which people should be able to do. Thoughts? At what point do we get serious about this problem? The media has a vested interest in pretending they're referee and getting more clicks and more views. Notice how quiet big tech has been on this. They know what's going on. They know.

Scott Galloway: They'll try to shut down Cox. You know that.

Kara Swisher: Anytime you arbitrage one substance into another, you have externalities. The greatest arbitrage in history has been fossil fuels to energy. You can't build a hospital without massive fossil fuels. The externalities there — carbon — are obvious. The externalities of turning attention into shareholder value — the externality there is rage. These guys know it. They know what's going on. They know that they profit off of this divisiveness and this rage. They're not bad people by commission. They didn't set out to do this. They are bad, irresponsible Americans by efforts of omission. They are ignoring and obfuscating what is going on here. They know what's going on. The illusion of complexity has been weaponized here. There are common sense — people are bereft and throw up their arms and say it's only going to get worse. Bullshit. There are absolutely common sense solutions here. No social media under the age of 16, no smartphones in schools. They have banned phones in I think about 19 states. A lot of teachers tell me that kids can't wait to get to their phones even when they ban them.

Kara Swisher: That's even a problem. Okay, but at least they're not. I don't think my kids are capable of any longer sitting through a two-hour movie because of the way their brains have been rewired. And again, it's political. I don't care. In the next six hours, there's going to be more gun deaths in America than there will be in the UK over the next 12 months. This is, if we want to get serious, there are a variety of programs, more after-school programs, national service, more men in primary education, more money for young people such that they're more economically secure and they start mating. Eight million houses in 10 years such that people have something to look forward to and a way to save money and don't feel as hopeless. Also, let me just take a page out of the right. We have orientation at universities for a week. We have increasingly spent more time at orientation talking about mental health and saying, look, if you're feeling bad because you get your first D, if you're feeling bad because you haven't had a lot of experience with relationships and someone breaks up with you, that is a normal part of life. And what has happened over the last 20 or 30 years is because kids are so sheltered with concierge parenting and with social media, you might feel hopeless. It's not hopeless. Trust me, we've all been there, you need to reach out to someone. There is something to the notion that these kids have turned to this oppressed or oppressor ideology and are going on the hunt for people that say certain things.

Scott Galloway: I do think that's changing stuff.

Kara Swisher: Well, I hope so, but—

Scott Galloway: And now it's the right that's doing it. Just let's be clear.

Kara Swisher: I actually don't agree, Carol. One out of three people on campus now believe that political speech and certain words are violence and can warrant actual violence. And it is mostly from kids who are strongly on the left. I think that's changing. Hold on, let me finish. College should be a safe place physically. It should be a dangerous place intellectually.

Scott Galloway: Yes, agreed.

Kara Swisher: And we have to tell these kids, and I've seen this firsthand. I've seen them turn on each other. There's like two or three kids who are brave enough to support Trump in my class and everyone turns on them. We are supposed to say provocative, offensive things.

Scott Galloway: Can I make a point there?

Kara Swisher: Yes.

Scott Galloway: If they want to do that, then they should be strong enough to defend it. Like that's actually a good thing to be turned on.

Kara Swisher: Agreed. Right. Critical thinking. Let's debate it. Let them have it. But I have to say, one of the things you accused the left of, not you, one accused, is like, oh, they're shutting things down. It's the people that are actually banning, getting people fired. Agreed. Are the free speech warriors. And it wouldn't be so irritating that they were such free speech warriors lecturing us. You know, someone like Chris Ruffo, the rest of them are now using cancel culture oppositely. And it's just, it's typical. We have to move on. But conflict entrepreneurs, Governor Cox has that right. That's what they're trying to do. And unfortunately, because this is a dopamine hit, we are drug addicts.

Scott Galloway: We are addicts.

Kara Swisher: But you've already seen his narrative changing. Quite frankly, Governor Cox, stick to being a leader. You can see, you know what happened over the weekend. He tried to go back again. Over the weekend, Trump called him and said, sign up, motherfucker. And all of a sudden, he's saying that there was certain leftist ideology. No, there isn't. Certain leftist tendencies. He may have had a roommate that was going through transition. Who cares? Why would you even bring that up? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all. This is a young man. He was dating someone that went to a gun range. This clearly is the right's fault. Said no Democratic governor ever in the midst of this type of violence. Nothing about his grandmother. Great. His grandmother's MAGA. We're not blaming her. Who cares?

Scott Galloway: Right? Exactly. He likes Sidney Sweeney and her family is MAGA. It must be a conspiracy from the right.

Kara Swisher: Yes, exactly. It's exhausting, people. Just pull yourselves out of it. OK, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Frump teases a TikTok deal. We'll see.

[Ad break]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back. President Trump says the big U.S.-China trade deal in Europe is going, quote, quite very well. Who knows? He posted on Truth Social that the two countries have reached a deal on TikTok that will make the young people very happy. I don't think he named TikTok, but whatever. That's what he was talking about. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, meanwhile, is calling the, quote, framework of a deal, which always makes me wonder what the hell's going on. Parent company ByteDance is supposed to sell U.S. assets or face an issue I banned by Wednesday the 17th, which is just a few days. Trump is saying he'll talk to Xi Jinping on Friday. All of this comes as China accuses NVIDIA of violating antitrust law. I don't know. It's good. Everyone who's near this deal tells me it's such a fake deal. It's such a like they're really not separating. It's really not going to be anything but a lot of fakery on top of what it is. And then they'll give some pretty stuff to Larry Ellison, who seems to be winning all day long. Your thoughts?

Scott Galloway: I just think it's bullshit. I think this is a fake story. Let me use the term. Fake news. I just don't.

Kara Swisher: You don't do it with conviction.

Scott Galloway: I don't buy it. I don't buy it.

Kara Swisher: Me neither.

Scott Galloway: It's fake news. It's from. Yeah, sure. OK.

Kara Swisher: Sure. They're just trying to stave off that deadline.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. And it's an excuse to not ban TikTok because Trump has decided that TikTok, the CCP, when they're about to be banned, said dial up the algorithm to be positive Trump. And then somebody on his team came back and said, oh, no, TikTok's good for us. And all of a sudden, he now likes it. And one of his biggest donors who gave him nine figures is one of the biggest shareholders in TikTok. This is pay for play. And he thinks it's good for him. So he didn't like it until he liked it. And also, this represents a breakdown in government because this was a law passed by both houses, signed into law, and we've decided just not to do it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's ridiculous. By the way, Scott Besant is starting to really irritate me on so many levels. He's such a suck up and such a like he's punching people. I don't like that much either. I don't care if it's Elon, he's punching. I don't like him punching anybody.

Scott Galloway: Well, I thought violence was never the answer, Cara.

Kara Swisher: That's correct. I know. I just find it so like, ugh. Anyway, yes, Scott, and I will believe it when we see it. And we think it's probably a lot of nonsense and that you aren't going to be protected from the CCP with this gang. That's for sure. OpenAI is also making some big moves on the way to becoming a for-profit company. This is something they've been trying to do. Musk has been trying to stop that. They're finalizing terms for a new agreement with Microsoft. Microsoft is expected to take roughly a 30% take in the reorganized company. OpenAI's nonprofit parent will also hold an equity stake valued over $100 billion. But attorneys general in California and Delaware say they still have serious concerns about user safety, good for them, and want to see improvements before signing off on restructuring. What do you think about this? I assume there'll be an IPO, correct? That's the way it looks like it's heading. Once they get this through, this idea of essentially a for-profit company with a vague nonprofit hanging over it. And Musk still has legal challenges to a lot of this, and he has a lot of allies still.

Scott Galloway: I think it would be so interesting to see what OpenAI's legal bills are.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And what's happened to the cadence of those legal bills, because there is so much money on the line. And this thing is so, just as there's technical debt, you know, you come into an organization and they've invested so much in old mainframe technology that was on the board of Yellow Pages Company. And they said when we actually fired the CIO was when he came in and basically said, you know, it's going to take us 18 months to reconfigure the technology. It's a fucking Yellow Pages company. This isn't a cloud company. And he kept going on about technical debt. So the term technical debt means pre-existing investments make it just really difficult to sort of untangle everything inexpensively. I would love to know what the legal debt is at OpenAI. And that is this company has such an unusual corporate structure that they are trying to unwind. And how much they've invested in legal work. I would love to know how much they're using AI. They must be spending $10 or $20 million a month on lawyers right now. At least. I would love to know as a case study how, if and how they're deploying their own AI to reduce their own legal costs.

Kara Swisher: That's so funny. But what about an IPO? I assume if this gets through and the restructuring gets through, which probably it will given the money at stake here, because they're spending money all over the damn place. They got to get cooking on the making of the money.

Scott Galloway: It's a really interesting question because there are 3,700 publicly traded companies right now. That is down by 50% since 1997. It's down 17% just since COVID. Because every time there's an acquisition or bankruptcy or a take private, it's like in China now, there are more people dying than there are being people born. So the same thing, there are more companies coming off of the NASDAQ and the S&P than are going on. And we'll talk more about this. Some of it say it's regulation, but more than anything, a company like OpenAI, I think OpenAI just did a secondary where they gave every employee like a $1.6 million bonus. They can raise capital, they can acquire companies and they don't have the regulatory burden of being public. So unfortunately, unlike in 2003, when Google goes public, it effectively what was $2 a share and gives retail investors the chance to 100X their money. There's so much money in the private markets that effectively, as long as the company is still jamming, its current investors and private market investors and institutions, which tend to be wealthier Americans, say, no, no, no, no, we wanna hold onto all that juice ourselves. So increasingly, you would have never had a company like OpenAI worth a half a trillion dollars having not gone public. So what does that mean? It means the retail investor no longer has access to these great growth companies. And these guys have less incentive to go public. And typically when they do go public, it's the following. All right, the smart guys who really know our company have decided there's not much upside left here. We got to find a group of people who will turn this into a meme stock. Oh, I know, public market investors.

Kara Swisher: Right. Just like what's happening with Tesla.

Scott Galloway: So all of the juice, you know, the juice has been squeezed by the time these guys go public. Now, does that mean there's still not opportunity in the public markets? No, there probably still is. But you would have never. It used to be it took a company seven years to go public. Now it's 14. The really good companies are staying private because they can get everything they need in the private markets now.

Kara Swisher: So we'll see. This is the seventh most valuable company in the world, I think, right now. I know. It's not public. It's crazy.

Scott Galloway: The only one that I was thinking that was really valid but never went public was Mars. Remember, the Mars people never went public. The Mars family also, it used to be a company called Bechtel. Then before that, my biggest client in the 90s was Levi-Strauss & Company. These were not big companies because the only way you could attract employees, make acquisitions, all of that good stuff was to be a public company. All of those things are now available in the private markets.

Kara Swisher: So, I mean, we'll see what happens, but they definitely probably will go public, presumably, correct? That's my, I'm assuming they will at some point when that moment passes. I want to mention a bizarre moment from Tucker Carlson's interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last week. Carlson brought up a conspiracy theory about the death of an open AI whistleblower, which is being pushed by Elon Musk, by the way, suggesting it was murder, not suicide, as authorities had ruled. Let's listen.

[Tucker Carlson audio clip plays]

Kara Swisher: Well, now, thank you, Inspector fucking Clouseau. What are you talking about? This is like this was the craziest thing. Like, don't you think we should entertain conspiracy theories that there is a cult in, you know, there's a murderous cult inside of OpenAI? I mean, I don't know why he sat down. I couldn't understand why he would talk to this guy, given. I get why he would, but ew. Ew. The whole thing was really strange. Tucker Carlson's gotten really strange. Like everything else, first off, Tucker Carlson now appears to be a fully credentialed psychiatrist around self-harm.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Also a detective.

Scott Galloway: Because he's decided that this guy does not qualify as one of the 25,000 people who every year decide, I'm really down, I'm really depressed. And oh, by the way, there's a gun upstairs. I know what to do. Okay, first off, this is just all about money. And that is Tucker Carlson, who I think is a bright guy, decided, oh, I know how to get this to be a Ted Cruz-like viral moment and be number one instead of number four in podcasting and make more money. I'll create a rumor in front of one of the most powerful people in the world that he's a murderer. That's what he's saying right here.

Kara Swisher: Yes, he is. That's what Sam was like, I've never been accused of murder. He's saying, I think you murdered this guy in some sort of thriller. And let's go back.

Scott Galloway: Aside from the fact that while I think Sam Altman might be a sociopath, and that is ignoring the harm of AI because there is so much pressure on him to live up to the incredible expectations. And that's not a nice thing to say. But I have a lot of fact patterns around all these guys who in their hushed tones pretend to give a flying fuck and then go on to build character AIs with no guardrails that result in real harm. I think, I believe that there is no, that economically it would be really stupid for Sam Altman to put out a hit on one of his employees. For a lot less money, he can give money to Charles Schumer and to Senator Cotton and make sure that there's no legislation that gets in the way or slows down AI or show up to a dinner and say, gee, President Trump, your big orange cock is like nothing I've ever seen. And it's so huge. Apparently it's little and mushroom shaped, but go ahead. And you're such a great kisser. It is so much easier and low risk for Sam Altman to pursue legal means of economic success than to order a hit on one of his employees. Sam Altman is already a billionaire. He would never risk spending the rest of his life in prison. He would never risk the economic implosion of putting a hit out on his own employees. And Tucker Carlson, in my opinion, no one should go on that show if they're going to be falsely accused of being a murderer for clicks.

Kara Swisher: Agreed. I agree. I think it's crazy that he sat there. I actually texted him. I'm like, Jose, you're a murderer. Good to know. It's just ridiculous that this guy did this. Anyway, we don't believe he's a murderer, just officially. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Paramount Skydance tries to shake up Hollywood with a new deal.

[Ad break]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back in the small ball area. As I predicted last week, Paramount Skydance is preparing for a mostly cash bid for Warner Brothers Discovery, backed by the Ellison family, who's richer than ever. For those trying to keep score at home, Paramount itself was just acquired by Skydance last month, and Warner Brothers Discovery has plans to split into two separate companies, one with the big studio and streaming properties, the other gets the live cable networks. Currently Warner Discovery has doubled the market cap of Sky, and it's a lot of money. It's $30-some billion. This would be for all of it, so not to split it up. Obviously, they want the Warner Brothers studio and streaming properties. I'm not sure why they're not waiting for the split. The bid hasn't been submitted. We'll see what the FCC thinks, although that guy's a toady to the Trump administration, and if Ellison wants it, Ellison will get it. And, you know, we'll see. There'll be other bidders, presumably Comcast and some others, if there are bidders. In fact, thoughts?

Scott Galloway: This is huge. And the last, I mean, because there's so much news, this would have been huge news. It's been drowned out. Warner Brothers Discovery, who has the highest paid investment banker in history, their CEO convinced a bunch of investors to buy Warner Brothers from AT&T. And in exchange for destroying a massive amount of shareholder value, has taken out about a third of a billion dollars. Maybe with the exception of Chamath Palihapitiya, he's the most well-compensated investment banker in history. Now, what you have here is in the last five days, the stock is up 55%. It's had its best week in history. Why? Because Larry Ellison figured out there should be a number two to Nvidia, stopped doing stock buybacks, made a massive bet on being the number two infrastructure provider in AI, and announced an agreement where OpenAI was going to commit to $60 billion a year and compute from Oracle, despite the fact it's only running at $10 billion a year. And in one day, Larry Ellison increased his net worth $130 billion. So he can afford this easily. Larry Ellison could buy three Warner Brothers with the gain in wealth he registered in one day. And this is where it all heads. And I think it's fucking fascinating. And I wish I had the time to do more about this. But instead, I'm spending a ton of time trying to talk about young men and its relationship to online speech and everything. Anyways, I went to go see The Fantastic Four. I hope there is never a sequel or a superhero movie ever again. I just I hate these superhero films.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, this one didn't get good reviews. Superman did, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Anyways, I love Vanessa Kirby. I think Pedro Pascal is a movie star and my son loves superhero movies. So we went. And like all 15 year olds, or not all, my son makes me stay through to the very end because these goddamn movie makers always have an Easter egg at the very end. Do you realize how long the credits went on for?

Kara Swisher: A long time.

Scott Galloway: I've done it. I've done it, my friend, with my sons.

Kara Swisher: Okay.

Scott Galloway: So I typed into AI approximately how many people worked on Fantastic Four. Somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 people worked on that film. And I got screenshots online. It had things like costume design, Sweden, and it had 20 people. This is what's going to happen. They're going to roll up these companies. And then at some point, Larry's going to go say to his son, all right, I gave you a bunch of money to plan traffic. Now it's time to get serious. Are they going to do that through innovation or new types of movies? No, this is what they're going to do. That movie probably cost $200 million to make before even marketing. He's going to go, we're very good at AI. We have the best AI infrastructure, cloud relationships with LLMs. I need you, David Ellison, to come here and we're going to figure out how to take a $200 million film and produce it for $20 million by going through each line item. Let's say costume design, 50 or 60 people. We're going to use AI, the agentic layer that speaks to AI-enabled fabricators in China, and we're going to need three highly skilled costume designers to basically put in long prompts that use 3D imaging and all sorts of shit to basically get the costumes made with three people, not 20. And they're going to go through each of these things that have 30, 40 people, and they're going to reduce it to three or four. And it's going to happen at Ellison's company with the help and the urging of Dad at Oracle. And then with TikTok involved with it too, the whole thing.

Kara Swisher: And that's interesting. You thought this was like a nothing burger, small ball. You always was like, Paramount, who cares? But you think this is a big deal? Or you just said it's...

Scott Galloway: In the world of media, it is. But when I say small ball, if Larry Ellison had 15 kids, he could give each of them a Paramount with the economic gain he had in one day. So there's the economy, and then there's the economy, which is AI. I mean everything is being driven. Who would have thought you're about to see costume designers, 70 of them, get their real estate licenses in Hollywood because Oracle announced its best earnings in history. This is impacting everything.

Kara Swisher: Well, see, others will try to get this. Comcast will try to go for this. Maybe Amazon. I don't think they can afford it.

Scott Galloway: That's the thing. He's so fucking rich. This is the thing, Cara. These are shitty businesses and they're declining. And I put together, I was approached by a group. Here's two examples of companies that are going to get the shit kicked out of them with AI. Gartner has this amazing business where if you're a small regional bank trying to figure out should we use Azure or AWS, you call a stay-at-home mom who's learned everything about cloud companies, who lives in Madison, Wisconsin. She makes $200,000 a year. She works from 7 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon answering questions from clients. And Gartner charges First National of Oklahoma $120,000. Now that person, the CTO, and they do a good job. It's an amazing business. Stock has tripled since 2017. They do an amazing job. Now, the CTO at First National of Oklahoma has figured out if they type in a thoughtful prompt, they can get pretty much the exact same answer back for their $20 a month GPT-5 Pro subscription. And since the beginning of the year, Gartner's stock has been cut in half. And I think AI is going to come after that business. OnlyFans, I was approached by a group of people that said, we're putting together an investor group to buy OnlyFans. Why are they selling?

Scott Galloway: Because to do 60 minutes of video cam with a live creator costs anywhere from $300 to $1,200, depending on the popularity of that creator. AI is going to start to create AI girlfriends that get closer and closer to the thrill of watching a live person talk dirty to you or whatever. Not illegal either. And the guys, the folks that own OnlyFans are like, "We're out. We have seen the future."

Kara Swisher: So much of this stuff.

Scott Galloway: So many interesting places. And here's the issue, moving to solutions. This is going to create so much economic value. Here's an idea. Any company that does over a billion in profits, we have a progressive tax structure of, say, 40%. And we figure out really thoughtful retraining and apprentice programs that people can sign up for and say, "I see the writing on the wall. I always wanted to be a plumber, a therapist, a nurse, do something with my hands." Retraining, right? But instead we're like, "Let the thoroughbreds run and let the shit shake out where it is."

Kara Swisher: That's right. That is correct. Guess where we are. Andrew Ellison is now Train Daddy from *Gilded Age*. That is what's happened here. We'll see how that goes. It's not going so well for Train Daddy right now.

Scott Galloway: That was almost as good as your reference to that 50s musical, The Sharks and the Jets, *West Side Story*.

Kara Swisher: I'm very culturally...

Scott Galloway: Oh my God, could you be any older?

Kara Swisher: Oh, stop. Jesus. Train Daddy, *Gilded Age* is very popular. I'm sorry to tell you that.

Scott Galloway: Is it?

Kara Swisher: It's owned by Warner Brothers, by the way, speaking of which, he will now own Train Daddy.

Scott Galloway: Oh, is that the one with Cynthia Nixon?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, Cynthia Nixon. Excuse me. Nixon, yeah. Miranda.

Scott Galloway: Well, anyway, we'll see if they get it. I can tell you one thing, Kara Swisher will not be working for the Ellisons. Let me just make that statement right now.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, one more corporate shakeup very quickly. Trump is now suggesting that U.S. public companies should no longer report earnings quarterly, but every six months. I think you might like this idea. I didn't hate it.

Scott Galloway: I do like it. It's a response. And the reality is, there's a fine line here. One, there's too much administrative and very costly burden on public companies. It costs two or three million dollars a year at least just to be public. More than that, CEOs, CFOs, IR professionals spend two weeks of their life every 12 weeks managing the earnings call and trying to figure out the right words and legal liability and the fallout from the markets. So it makes sense that the administrative burden should lessen.

Having said that, one of the reasons our market trades at 26 or 27 times PE and every other market trades from 22 to 12 is because of the regulatory burden. Orphans and widows are less likely to find out they own stock in Enron when they buy a company in the S&P versus a company I was pitched by a hedge fund 10 years ago that said, "All we do is find fraudulent companies in China." And they're everywhere. Because the regulatory standards, and they have gone up the last 10 years, weren't as high. So the whole idea of these regulatory standards is when you buy a company in the S&P 500, it may go down, it may not have a good future, but there's much less likelihood of outright fraud because of these regulatory constraints.

Now, good private companies, every company I've run or been an investor in that's a good company, we do effectively what is an earnings call every three months. However, it's not the same level of regulatory burden. What I think is going to fill the void or the delta, quite frankly, and this is an opportunity, is some sort of AI "Good Housekeeping" seal of approval. That is, "Okay, company X, if you send us your financials and let us tap into your APIs, we're every three months going to put out a rating on the financial health." Basically, these companies every three months are to signal growth and also to make sure there's not fraud. I can see an AI Good Housekeeping seal of approval, a Better Business Bureau, a Rotten Tomatoes, which has become an arbiter of whether you want to waste your time, that says, "It doesn't look as if there is fraud here. It's got a 2% rating of fraud, not 99."

Kara Swisher: Well, that calls for more scrutiny then, not less. You like six months or do you not like six months?

Scott Galloway: Oh, I like it because the reality is the administrative burden. It goes back to what we said previously. There's too few companies that are public and there's too few companies for retail investors to pick from. Part of the reason companies are not going public is because of what has probably become burdensome regulatory oversight. Now, it's a fine needle to thread. You do want some disclosure requirements. I believe that AI will create a level of disclosure and fraud protection should you decide to engage with it. They could give you a Good Housekeeping seal of approval that it's unlikely fraud is taking place here. And there will be hopefully more public companies. Because the reality is, if you can bet on whether there's civil war, which you can right now on Polymarket, should we really be infantilizing investors and not letting certain companies go public for risk or a belief that we need to protect them? Jesus Christ, people can bet on the Super Bowl on their phone right now. So it's gone overboard. We need more public companies. We need retail investors to have access to more companies. I do like it.

Kara Swisher: I thought you would. I actually do too, because the short-term thinking of all our companies is really problematic, I think, in a lot of ways. That's a bigger problem in the United States than America, but still. All right, 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. Would you like me to go first?

Scott Galloway: Please.

Kara Swisher: Guess what's coming back? *The Hunting Wives*.

Scott Galloway: I thought you were going to say *The L Word* or something.

Kara Swisher: No, that is maybe coming back. *The Hunting Wives* is coming back for season two. And they did the funniest announcement. Malin Ackerman and Brittany Stowe did the funniest announcement using a cell phone conversation that was very hysterical. And congratulations, ladies. And I'm hoping to interview the creator of it because it's just so funny. It's exactly what we need at this moment. I have to tell you, it brings together MAGA and lesbians in a way that's really satisfying. I don't know how they did it, but they did it. That is my win.

My fail is Donald Trump and his incessant lies, and especially Bill Pulte, who is just a nepo baby imbecile. They accused this woman, Lisa Cook, of mortgage fraud. It turns out it's bullshit. Fuck you, Bill Pulte. Oh my God, stop it. She registered it as her vacation home. You liars. They raise up a lie, and then it's not true, but they've caused damage along the way. They do not care about the truth. And that is Bill Pulte, and any other place, so would Kash Patel, so would Pete Hegseth, so would Kristi Noem be fired for their rank incompetence. But as long as they salute the dear leader, they're going to stay in their jobs. That guy is a really heinous piece of shit. And let me tell you, Bill Pulte, call me up. Come and visit Kara Swisher, because what you did to this woman is reprehensible. And I know why you're doing it, but it's grotesque. And at some point, this has to stop. Maybe it doesn't, but it should stop. Anyway, that's my fail.

Scott Galloway: So funny. One of my favorite movies is a movie called *Hannah and Her Sisters*.

Kara Swisher: Yes, yes.

Scott Galloway: And there's a scene, Max von Sydow is having an affair with a much younger woman, who I thought was one of the most beautiful women. And I'm dating myself with Barbara Hershey.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And I always remember that movie. Oh, God, what was it with Bette Midler? *Beaches*.

Kara Swisher: *Beaches*. Thank you.

Scott Galloway: And I just thought it was hilarious. I always joke that, of course, one of them gets cancer and dies. And everyone's crying at the end. And I thought if Bette Midler was dying, there wouldn't be a tear in the house.

Kara Swisher: Not so. I love Bette Midler.

Scott Galloway: Oh, no, no, when it's the hot, sublime, beautiful one that dies of cancer, everyone's crying.

Kara Swisher: Bette Midler is a national fucking treasure. I'm not making a statement on Bette Midler. I'm making a statement on how lascivious we are. Anyways, in the movie *Hannah and Her Sisters*, Barbara Hershey wises up and decides that she's going to leave Max von Sydow. And he panics and he's upset and he's like, "You're my link to the outside world." I feel like you have become my cultural link to the outside world. I watch Premier League football. Other than that, I don't turn the TV on anymore. Trust me on *The Hunting Wives*.

Scott Galloway: I take your recommendations. I just wrote down *The Hunting Wives*. Anyways, okay, so my fail is along the lines of government incompetence. One of the most storied, best brands in government institutions, one of the best institutional brands in the world, is the FBI. I've known some people who work for the FBI. And universally, they're these low-key people who literally reek of competence and humility.

Kara Swisher: Competence, that's correct.

Scott Galloway: They are the last people to go on social media and start saying, "I have a suspect in custody" and then have to go back and say, "Oops." What an idiot. The FBI typically doesn't speak. They speak with arrests, indictments, and prosecutions. That is how they communicate. And with a workforce of incredibly talented people who could make a lot more money elsewhere but decide they want to serve their country. And what is the elite of the elite of our law enforcement until fucking Kash Patel, who is, there are so many reports inside of the FBI about what a bumbling idiot this guy is. Announcing they have a suspect before it's confirmed and having to walk that back. Firing competent people because they're a woman or a person of color.

Kara Swisher: Go ahead.

Scott Galloway: And then the ultimate contradiction of the "speak softly but carry a big fucking stick" that is the FBI, he goes on national TV and says on a press release, "And my friend Charlie... rest now. We have the watch. I will see you in Valhalla." Dude. First off, if this is your friend, you should recuse yourself from the investigation as every FBI director would have done.

Kara Swisher: Yep.

Scott Galloway: And this is not... people have the right to own their grief and miss their friend. I get that, brother. But they're so performative. Good for you. And I think it's important that men say how much they're going to miss their friends. That is not what the head of the FBI does. That is the last thing that...

Kara Swisher: He's a podcaster.

Scott Galloway: That is so opposite. He's a children's book author. That is so opposite of the FBI brand. Have you no sense of the history of the FBI? No. This guy makes J. Edgar Hoover look great. They are just quietly very good at what they do, tracking down bad guys. They don't go on social media.

Kara Swisher: No, they don't.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, the continued incompetence and erosion of some of the best institutional brands in history run by people who are more there for personal satisfaction than operational excellence, as evidenced by RFK Jr. and now Kash Patel, who has no business running one of the finest institutions, one of the best brands in the world. All right, fail. That's my fail.

My win is New Mexico announced that they're going to basically have universal childcare. And distinct of the morality of it, I'm not going to go into "mothering is the hardest job in the world." I've never bought that.

Kara Swisher: Fine. Okay.

Scott Galloway: It's a difficult job. Most people are pretty decent at it. I've never bought this notion that it's the toughest job in the world. Let's just look at the economics of it. When you give people universal childcare, it stimulates labor force participation, particularly among mothers who, by the way, are increasingly more educated and in higher demand for information economy jobs. It reduces poverty and income inequality, because childcare costs can push working families into poverty or force them to no longer work. It boosts disposable income and consumer spending because typically the person going to work, when you have the scale of universal childcare such that it costs less for good care, then they have this positive arbitrage where they have more money. Because when you send a highly qualified woman into the workplace, she makes more money than the cost of good childcare at scale. When you get universal childcare, it strengthens the childcare sector as employers pay better, facilities improve, it creates jobs. It improves future economic outcomes via better early childhood development, which means less remedial education, higher earnings, et cetera. The return on investment studies show, distinct of the morality and all the stuff about the toughest job in the world...

Kara Swisher: It is the toughest job. I'm going to keep my mouth shut. It's one of them. Go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Well, okay. But the majority of...

Kara Swisher: Literally, both my kids were sick separate weeks and Amanda and I are about to fall over dead. But go ahead.

Scott Galloway: I get it. But 90% of parents manage, in my opinion, to do a pretty good job. This is a different conversation for a different day.

Kara Swisher: Yes.

Scott Galloway: But if you look just at the economics, there was a study at the Wharton School at Penn and it found that childcare expansion and universal childcare increases GDP by 0.1% relative to even if you were to deficit finance it. Even if you were to borrow money to pay for universal childcare, you get a positive return on that investment. We are the only G7 nation that doesn't offer it. So I'm not going to make a far-left argument around how difficult it is and that mothers need help. All I'm saying is, let's go for the money. More money.

Kara Swisher: I like your argument.

Scott Galloway: Let's create economic growth, more shareholder value, more household income, more Netflix, more trips to Disneyland, more money to take care of our parents. What is a way to get there? How do we get a positive return on investment from the government? Universal childcare.

Kara Swisher: I like it. High standards. Ensure that you're getting your money's worth. Every other democratic nation does it too, by the way. And it pays off. So my fail is Kash Patel undermining one of the great brands in institutional history, the FBI. And my win is this new universal childcare program being implemented in New Mexico which creates economic benefits and economic growth.

Scott Galloway: Let me say, a woman governor there. Men can do this too, by the way. It doesn't matter. Do you hear the stress in my voice? I sound like I'm ranting.

Kara Swisher: I know you are ranting. That's okay. You know what? It's been a hard week. It's been a hard week.

Kara Swisher: We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, I recently spoke with Cristóbal Valenzuela, the co-founder and CEO of Runway AI. We talked about how Hollywood is using AI and why it's not necessarily a job killer. I didn't agree with this, but let's listen to him.

[CLIP PLAYS] Cristóbal Valenzuela: Technology will change jobs all the time. Look at the history of film. It is a history of technology. It has changed many times before through many of the decades we've seen. And it wasn't really about the jobs as much as the people doing the jobs. And so if you're hiring people, if you're a guild member, if you're in a union, help your people understand how to use these tools. Train them, get them on board with the latest, understand how they can upskill what they already know. I think it changes a little bit the perspective. And I think that's been my position so far. I think it allows us to work alongside them in much more productive ways. [END CLIP]

Kara Swisher: He's making a good case, but we'll see.

Scott Galloway: Did he bring his crack pipe with him?

Kara Swisher: Okay, okay. He's selling. Anyway, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out.

Scott Galloway: Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Corinne Ruff. Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Misa Vareal, Dan Shalon, and Kate Gallagher. Nishat Kharouaz, Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

[OUTRO MUSIC]