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--:-- Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
--:-- Scott Galloway: And, Kara, I've decided to give up edibles. I was watching a program last night on mute for a full hour before, and I started crying because I thought I'd gone deaf.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. How many edibles did you take? That's good. That's good edibles humor.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Anyway, we're going to be in Miami next week. We're not going to try to sell it too much because someone got mad because we're selling. We're selling Miami. So what? Big deal.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Big deal. Come to our conference, bitches. How's that? Is that subtle?
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's right. That's good. That's good. It's next week. We're very excited. It's going to be good. It's going to be fun. It's going to be good. We're going to have a good time. A little Preet coming. A little Preet on the beach, as they say. All kinds of stuff. So it's going to be fun. Please buy tickets.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah. It's going to be a great program. It's really just a great program.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah. And it's full of new stuff and more to be added soon in NFTs and crypto, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. People think we're not whores. We are, but we're relatively expensive whores, which is a little bit more forgivable. And we're good at our job.
--:-- Scott Galloway: And between your 17 kids and hair products, you got to bring in the Benjamins. You got to bring... that's a lot of hair we got to take care of.
--:-- Kara Swisher: It's true. My hair looks good, doesn't it? Anyway, today we'll talk about the big...
--:-- Scott Galloway: You look nice today. It does look good.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I got a really nice haircut. I'm getting fit. You look nice today. I'm working out a lot. You'll see. Today we'll talk about a big reveal at Amazon, Peloton's new suitors, and the late... guess what? They have suitors. I wonder who talked about that. And the latest trouble at Spotify. We'll speak with author Wajahat Ali about humor, the war on terror, and growing up Muslim in a post-9/11 era. But first, Meta is threatening to shut down Facebook in Europe over data regulations. Zut alors! The regulations prevent the company from transferring Europeans' data to American servers. In a statement, Meta said that restrictions would, quote, "materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, and result of operations." So what do you think? They're trying to ban Europe?
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, I'll be curious. I think the likelihood that Russia invades Ukraine is exponentially greater than Facebook actually leaving Europe. I think if Facebook were to announce they're leaving Europe in the midst of their negative momentum around revenue growth and user growth, I think their stock would be off 10 or 20 percent. So I would definitely urge all EU regulators that probably the best political messaging you could do right now is to basically say to Facebook, "We call your bluff. We just don't buy that you're going to leave your second largest market in the world." What are your thoughts, Kara?
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah. Buy some servers. I think this is an issue all throughout the world, China, wherever, this whole server issue where they're located. In this case, compared to say a China, they're not going to do something scary with it. So they don't have anything to hide behind. But these are their laws. Guess what, Facebook? Other countries have laws, unlike this country. And they're going to have to deal with it. And I get that it will have a material effect. But this is the way they want to conduct their privacy issues. Facebook has long played weird... has long gotten a lot of rope around privacy and they haven't shown themselves to be our best guardian of privacy. Therefore, this is what happens. Chickens coming home to roost.
--:-- Think of the arrogance of this statement. "Unless an entire continent changes its laws, we're leaving." That might be true. But who threatens or says that? It's implicit in that notion: we as big tech, we as innovators, you should think twice around a continent's laws or we'll leave. You know what? Take your fucking ball and go home. Don't let the door hit your information thievery on the way out. Au revoir. Adios. Cheerio. Pip-pip. We're not going to play this game. Nonetheless, we'll see what happens. They can threaten all they want. I think it'll just highlight the need for users' data protection everywhere.
--:-- Scott Galloway: That's right. I say a rebate. I like them playing hard knocks with them.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Wow, I don't know if everyone in Germany is going to be crazy if they can't use Facebook. They'll use TikTok. Whatever.
--:-- In other Facebook news, after Meta's dramatic market value drop, which still remains, by the way, it's still down there. I thought it would rebound, but it didn't. Mark Zuckerberg is encouraging employees to, quote, "pivot to video" again. In a company-wide meeting, he told staff that the company faces an unprecedented level of competition from TikTok. As usual, he's right this time. Zuckerberg also said Facebook might offer its employees long weekends, a sign the company is worried about employee retention. A lot of people are going to this four-day work week thing. So it's interesting. They keep cycling. They keep trying to do different things: live video, TikTok shorts. They can't be creative if they're not creative. I don't know what they're going to do. So what do you think about this? The stock has remained very low. I was just looking at it a second ago. Facebook has sort of been kicked out of the cool girls table in the cafeteria. They now have less than 22% or 24% of the market cap of Apple. They're half of what Google is, less than probably a third of what Amazon is. So they're no longer sort of big tech. They're sort of upper middle class big tech, if you will.
--:-- Scott Galloway: A lot of it comes down to a couple things. One, they don't control their distribution. Apple has proven that controlling the distribution can take another big tech player down 27%, which is what has happened since Apple implemented the opt-out tracking policy. In addition, if you look at Amazon's earnings, which were just staggering, the thing that really stood out to me is Amazon Media Group, which is now bigger than YouTube and is doing more revenue than Twitter, Snap, and Pinterest combined. It's a bit of a head fake to call it Amazon Media Group.
--:-- I'll circle back to the disarticulation of Google and Amazon from Facebook. Apple disarticulated because it controls distribution. Google and Amazon disarticulated and announced fantastic earnings because they're in a business called Search, which is about as bottom of the funnel as you can get. The funnel: top is awareness, middle is intent, bottom is actual purchase. There's no bottom of the funnel like search. Amazon Media Group really is Amazon being the second largest search company. It should be called Amazon Search. If you type in "diapers," you can then go to Kimberly Clark and say, "Would you like Huggies to come up when someone is clearly shopping for diapers?" Search is just an incredible business that keeps on giving. Facebook has been booted further up the funnel because of Apple. You are seeing a disarticulation here of three of the four. If I were going to write the four again, it might be called the three, because Facebook is not Amazon, Apple, or Google at this point. They are losing a lot of ground.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, they are. And it's interesting that Apple has turned out to be the protector of privacy. It shouldn't be. By the way, we need accountability. It should be the government. But it is Apple here doing this. I think people are deciding... before it was sort of tech just goes up, and they're deciding between... like Snapchat's up a lot. People are being much more picky about what they like. Obviously, you saw Snapchat and Amazon going up rather significantly.
--:-- It is a really interesting time for Facebook. I was just looking at the stock price while you were chit-chatting here. It's up a little bit today, maybe under 5%. But over five days, it's down really 28%. Over one month, it's down 32%. Over six months, 37%. Year to date, 33%. One year, 15% because it had a little bit of a drop. Five year, of course, it's up 67%. But still, it's a significant drop and it's not recovering, which is interesting. I think people are starting to see the threats like Apple and Amazon, TikTok, of course they're going to keep blaming TikTok, but it's a much broader problem, including people don't like using it. It's a much broader problem. They're hoping you don't see that. I think that's their goal in some way. Anyway, it's interesting. Not good. We'll see if they get back. We'll see if they can create their own TikTok. I doubt it. They can also create the metaverse.
--:-- Speaking of missing audience, the Olympics are on, but no one is watching. NBC Sports says the opening ceremony drew 16 million viewers total, which is down 43% from the last Winter Games in 2018. This mirrors last summer's Olympics, where views were down 36%. What do you think? I haven't watched one bit of it. And Amanda Katz, who loves the Olympics, is not watching it.
--:-- Scott Galloway: It's really wild. I want to go to a more simple narrative and think, well, sports... people have finally figured out that the ratio between the amount of time you spend sweating versus watching other people sweat is a forward-looking indicator of your success, and people are deciding to get off the couch. But that's not true. The NFL is stronger than ever. Premier League viewership is stronger than ever. I bet the World Cup will set new records. The Super Bowl ads are sold out at $7 million per 30 seconds. There's something about the Olympics that has jumped the shark. I don't know if it's their distribution is harder to find. I don't know if it's the politicization of it. I don't know if people just aren't as excited about curling and they become more tribal and have easier access to other things.
--:-- The digital innovation around places like the NBA and the MLB and, to a lesser extent, the NFL has been really, really strong. I wonder if it's because they're not intermittent. They're not every four years, so they're able to maintain that sort of momentum. Whereas with the World Cup, they're not every four years because you're following those teams in those countries. This is my long-winded way of saying I don't know what's going on here. Do you have any ideas?
--:-- Kara Swisher: I don't know. It's staggering the decline. I never liked the Olympics. I couldn't care less for years and years and years, for a long time, unless I was forced to. There's so much to watch. I think that's what I feel like. I never think, "Oh, yeah, the Olympics." I honestly would rather watch cable news, which I really don't like watching anymore.
--:-- It's interesting. I watched a sporting thing the other day. I was sort of going, there's so much to watch, whether you go on the Disney app or the Netflix app or even the Peacock app. I found something called *Torn*, which is an amazing documentary about a climber named Alex Lowe and his family. It's a great story. It was all about this guy that died in an avalanche and his climbing partner married his wife. It was really fascinating. This guy's sacrifice. He had a large family. I watched every bit of it. If you're a rock climber or you do base jumping, it's irresponsible to have a family, in my view.
--:-- Anyway, back to the Olympics. This stuff is so grounded. I remember the specific moment for the first time in my life I saw something on TV and I registered in my parents' faces, something is wrong. Something is very uncomfortable here. We were watching TV and this man came out on the balcony of a hotel in a ski mask. My mom visibly gasped. It was when they took the Israeli team hostages in the 1972 Olympics. I remember I was seven at the time. That was the first time I ever looked at my parents and they were visibly shaken by something they were watching on TV. Then I remember Nadia Comăneci. I remember. There's been so many amazing moments. Michael Phelps. Muhammad Ali lighting the flame in Atlanta. I wonder if those moments... my kids aren't going to remember that. They're going to have new moments. My kids could give a shit about the Olympics. I don't even think they know they're on. This is crazy. It's jumped the shark. It really has jumped the shark.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Maybe if there's a compelling story, but there are compelling stories. Is there a Chinese skater that fell?
--:-- Kara Swisher: Anyway, it's an interesting issue. I think it's just part of a trend. Just like a lot of the other trends, people have moved on.
--:-- Scott Galloway: People have moved on.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, I think that's right.
--:-- Speaking of not moving on, let's get to our first big story. More bad news at Spotify. In a compilation video making the rounds on Twitter, Joe Rogan uses the N-word a lot. The video features clips from 12 years of Rogan's show. Rogan apologized for using the racial slur. He said the clips are taken out of context. I'm not sure if he said all of them were. Spotify pulled at least 70 episodes. Some of them are him talking to comics about different things. Spotify pulled at least 70 episodes of his podcast archives, although they said he did it. It's not clear why or if he used the word in those episodes. One fan website says the number of pulled episodes is actually more than 100. Again, Spotify said that Daniel Ek said the removal was Rogan's decision. The missing episodes all predate his deal with Spotify. Obviously, he didn't listen to them, which brings to a kind...
--:-- He also had what I thought was a pretty awful statement to his employees, which he kept going back to cancel culture and silencing. No one said they were silencing anybody. It was ridiculous. It's such a virtue signal by these people. He sort of explained why, but he put it on Rogan. I don't understand the caginess. I put out a lot of tweets this week about this and got a lot of response. Even though there's some crazy Rogan fans. I wasn't really attacking Rogan. I was talking about Spotify. But what do you think?
--:-- Scott Galloway: I think Rogan has handled this much better than Spotify.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, we said that before.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I've heard from a lot of people. A lot of people have written me really thoughtful emails about how disappointed they are that I took my content down. They see that this is a world where people tend to shoot first and ask questions later. That the dissenter's voice is really important. That he didn't do this with any malice. That this feels like you're going down a slippery slope of cancellation. That this dissenter's voice couldn't be more important. When you decide that certain issues you don't want to hear dissenters' voice, the road is paved to hell.
--:-- I want to be clear. I agree with all of that. What I spent so much time writing over the weekend to these very thoughtful responses from people who really seem genuinely let down by me is that there's a difference. No one is trying to silence him. Neither you nor me has said we need to censor him. At least I'll speak for me. My beef is with Spotify. Like any responsible media company that has huge influence, they have an obligation, especially around content they publish, to fact-check things such as vaccines. We are sitting here at 65% vaccination versus 90%. We have the highest death rate per capita of any wealthy country. If you look at the data that explains it, it seems to be one of two things: our vaccination rate above 65% versus 90 in other G7 countries, and our obesity problem. The right has weaponized and politicized vaccines. The left has politicized body shaming.
--:-- If you are a large... I've done interviews with the BBC, the Wall Street Journal, and the Nikkei Times. Someone calls me back the next day and says, "You said Honda is only getting $7,000 in market cap per company. Where did you get that data?" They're not silencing me. They're not censoring me. They're fact-checking. When Spotify says across any of their network that a vaccine alters your DNA, they have an obligation to fact-check that and say, "No, every medical journal we have read has said no." So we're not trying to silence them.
--:-- I also want to say, just so I can piss off everybody, I don't like what's going on. I think India Arie has every right, if she's offended by anything he does, to pull her music, pull her content. That's our right. We're capitalists. We get to decide who we work with. Fine, I get it. What I don't like, what feels uncomfortable to me, is when people pull out their Guardians of Gotcha outfit and pull out a time machine and editing software and start looking at an entire body of work and going after somebody with what I feel is unfair cherry picking. I think a lot of people rightfully say any use of the N-word disqualifies you. I get that. But if you're talking about any comedian or anybody, I don't care if you're Howard Stern, I don't care if you're Oprah. If someone decides to come after you and they have the benefit of tens of thousands of hours and an editing machine, boy, they can come after you. It makes me uncomfortable that this is unfortunately more from Spotify's obligation to what feels like a personal attack.
--:-- People want us to slam Rogan. He is what he is. To me, they didn't listen to him, right? They didn't do the due diligence of listening to them. That's what it feels like. They feel flat-footed on this stuff.
--:-- Kara Swisher: One of the apparently deleted episodes was an interview with former far-right troll Chuck Johnson, in which he spouts racist pseudoscience nonsense. He actually just wrote a piece saying, "I apologize for that." And also, I think Joe Rogan should be thrown off the platform, which is the only really big person who was on the show who said that, which is interesting. Absolutely, India Arie should be able to pull her music if she wants to. I don't know why people need to attack Neil Young or Joni Mitchell. They're just doing what they're allowed to do.
--:-- One of the things that's interesting is the silence and cancel culture thing. I was so surprised and disappointed by that. They should just take responsibility. A lot of their defenders are calling Joe Rogan "not corporate media." I'm like, come on. He's really powerful. OK, fine. He's just Joe Rogan Media. And that's more powerful. They're like, "You're just jealous." I'm like, no. He has responsibilities. He's not a little guy, guys. He's not William Wallace. He's the king's guard.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yes.
--:-- Kara Swisher: He's affecting the stock price of a tech company that paid him $100 million. The removal was his decision. He's a big boy. Stop it. Stop babifying Joe Rogan like he's a babe in the woods. It's exhausting. I acknowledge he's powerful. They so much want to be like, "You media people." It's like, I don't hate him. Congratulations on your success, even for people I can't stand. I usually am like, especially if it's startup-y, I kind of like it. I love tweaking the corporate media. I work for a lot of corporate media, but I also have created media companies myself. We don't want him to fail necessarily. It's just... that's their little calling card. "Oh, it's just a couple of Substackers." It is so wrong in my view. Exhaustingly.
--:-- And you've written about this. Spotify has gone to the big tech playbook. "Let's wrap ourselves in a blanket with words like 'silencing.'" They claim we want the platform to remain an open platform. Spotify isn't an open platform. You charge people to go on there. I can't post content on Spotify. It's not an open platform. This notion that he's being silenced. No, he's not. People are asking that you show some of the same fidelity to key issues around fact-checking and editing that every other responsible media company demonstrates. Or maybe listen to the guy you hired. I wrote: "The use of the pointedly scary and loaded word 'silencing' is a tech tell here, creating a false narrative where most are just asking for corrections of blatant and dangerous inaccuracies. Not a gag on Rogan." It's ridiculous. They're trying to create a fake story.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Here's where they blew it. Joe Rogan strikes me as a reasonable guy that doesn't wake up in the morning and say, "How do I disenfranchise and belittle people?" I just don't think that's his MO. If Spotify had sat down with Joe Rogan...
--:-- Kara Swisher: And by the way, reasonable people can disagree to that. A lot of people think he is. But go ahead.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Go ahead. If they had sat down and said, "Look, people for a lot of reasons, as the nation has decided that it's time for COVID to go endemic. Unfortunately, we're going into a steady state of 'living with this pandemic,' which means not taking the precautions we were taking when we're at 65% versus 90%, which is really unfortunate. Vaccines, the more we learn about them, we find that all science, which is iterative, points to how fantastic these things are. So we're going to decide on issues as it relates to vaccines across our network that we need a certain amount of fact-checking. Joe, are you up for that?" I think he would have said, "Yeah." Then they could have put out a statement saying, "We get it. This is what we're going to do about it. Joe's agreed to it. And so has every one of our other vertically controlled podcasts."
--:-- Instead, we get "We want to remain an open platform." This bullshit. "We will not be silenced." What it is, is there was another tell in the statement where you said that exclusive content like Rogan's gives Spotify leverage to make deals with critical hardware partners like Amazon, Google, even Tesla, who are building out their own streaming services with overlapping content. That was the tell. "We need this guy." And that's fine. Just say that. Just say that.
--:-- Kara Swisher: They also said they're committing $100 million to license, develop, and market music and content by creators from historically marginalized groups. What does that mean? They're going to stream more Kanye? What does that mean? I don't know. I'm a gay. I don't know. I don't want their money for that. So you're $99 million. Whatever. Who gets the other million? I mean, seriously. What does that mean?
--:-- I don't know this whole thing. I want to talk to Daniel. I think Daniel's really smart. It's just... people who have been close to him, and I've talked to a couple of them, are like, "He's just in total denial." I've talked to several people who used to work there, and they're all like, "This is so playbooky for him. He thinks he's in the old world where he can just pontificate endlessly about the First Amendment." And he can't.
--:-- Also, by the way, one podcaster is claiming that Spotify pulled a Rogan episode with no racial slurs, but in which he criticized the Saudi Arabian government. That I'm not surprised by. I could see them doing that. They selectively pull things. They do, and they can, and they will. They just have to talk in plain English. It would be so nice if they talked in plain English and stopped with all the libertarian virtue signaling. I think I'll use that word: libertarian virtue signaling.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Agreed.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Scott, are you feeling good about being off? You're still feeling good?
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yes. I've learned a lot. A couple of things. Roxane Gay's article really moved me because the thing I was struggling about in doing it was the glass house I was erecting for myself. I don't have moral clarity around this. I advertise on Facebook because I don't think we have any choice. I'm an influencer, not a decision maker. But Roxane Gay pointed out, in a capitalist world, it's almost impossible to be pure. But that shouldn't stop you from trying to do the right thing on specific issues.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Agreed.
--:-- Scott Galloway: There's also this thing in yoga called "your behavior off the mat." If you spend an hour and a half trying to be peaceful and mindful and stretch and challenge yourself and think about balance, your life off the mat gets healthier. You think, "Maybe I shouldn't have this ice cream or this waffle." What I found is since doing this, it's motivated me to be a little bit more consistent. I called my CEO at Section 4 and I said, "How can we get off of Instagram? How can we stop advertising on Instagram?"
--:-- Kara Swisher: Off the mat. Why don't you do a podcast called *Off the Mat*, Scott, and try to do challenges off the mat?
--:-- Kara Swisher: But what I would say to people is that it's easy to decide I'm not going to do this because it creates hypocrisy in my life. And I get that. I feel that a lot. But at the same time, that shouldn't abdicate you from saying, all right, maybe you got it wrong here, here, and here. Maybe everything isn't a perfectly round ball. But that shouldn't stop you from trying to do the right things. This, for me, is a nod to science. It's a nod to vaccines. It's a nod to someone I lost in my life. I'm backing you, Scott Galloway. I'm not backing him.
--:-- Kara Swisher: By the way, speaking of hypocrisy, the tweets from people like Mark Andreessen, it's the witch trials. First of all, Mark, you need to go to history class. I was blocked by him. I feel validated. You blocked me, too. I was blocked by him on Twitter. He blocks everybody. He's become such a delicate flower. But that's just crap. That's just crap. Like, witch trials. What did he—I don't know. I'm not familiar with it. He just put a tweet about Salem. I'm not supposed to be able to see them, but someone sent it to me because I'm blocked.
--:-- Kara Swisher: But nonetheless, let me just – oh, Salem's roses are about women and misogyny, Mark. But whatever, however you want to take them, you're not the one I want to get historical, shitty historical interpretations from. I really – I could go to lots of places for that, and you're not the one. And it's so victim mentality, these people. They're not just like – they're not just virtue signaling sort of bizarre libertarianism. They're also shitty victim acting. I know real victims. I've met real victims. They're not them. They're not. They're victimizers is what they are. It's just ridiculous.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break. And when we come back, we'll look at big news from Amazon and Snap. And we'll speak to a friend of Pivot, Wajahat Ali.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back with more news from quarterly earnings reports. There's so many, we finally know the size of Amazon's ad business. As you said, a massive $31 billion. That's big in the ad business of Microsoft, Snapchat, and Twitter combined. Twitter's got to keep up, but got to say, not that Snap is complaining. The company had its first profitable quarter, according to its latest earning report. And the stock is getting a nice boost, more than 40%, even more. I think it went and soared up more.
--:-- Kara Swisher: They weren't alone. Shares of Peloton also surged Friday on the news that Amazon is looking to acquire, but Nike is also said to be interested. Or? Nike. Nike. Oh, who said that? Oh my gosh, who said that? You did. We both were talking about the Peloton thing.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Anyway, let's start with, we talked about Amazon. So big, big deal. Big deal with the advertising, correct? That makes perfect sense. Why should they pay for every place when they've got their own networks, right? That's a good business for them. Search. Correct. Search is pulling away from display advertising. Amazon, the second largest search engine, Google the first. It's a different business. But I have to say, I use search on Amazon quite a bit more than I used to and continuing. Second largest search engine in the world. Should be. I searched a lot. But they still are also on Google. They pay a lot to Google. So it's huge. It's going to be huge and huger. It's a big business for them.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Snap. What do you think about Snap? So it found a way to work inside Apple's privacy changes. That's because they behave better. Snap is succeeding because it's not an information thief. So what do you think about that?
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, I mean, Snap is trading like a penny stock. I think it was up 50 or 60% on the earnings. It went way down and then popped back up. I still think Snap, Pinterest, and Twitter are all going to be probably acquired in the next 24 months. But they've carved out a niche. Good for them.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Switching gears because I don't have any more to say about it. Did you see Frontier and Spirit Airlines are emerging? Kara, I am the spirit airlines of relationships. It's like, okay, I recognize you have a lot of choices, but you fucked up and you chose me. You're stuck with me. Spirit airlines. That's good. That's good airline humor.
--:-- Kara Swisher: No. Well, what's interesting, I think, about this is Amazon's ad business is based on sponsored search results, not social media. Google, this whole idea of monetized user data, I think, is over. It's what do you want? It's contextual. What do you want? And here's the search, which they talked about at DuckDuckGo and everywhere else. I think it's an interesting situation instead of this targeted bullshit that goes on that really does have, in the very end, you end up with Alex Jones. I don't know how else to say it, but it gets there. It ultimately gets there.
--:-- Kara Swisher: So very interesting business models. I think Facebook has got to pay attention to this. They don't need to make a pivot to the metaverse. They need to pivot their business, their real, their actual business in a way that is different. And I don't think they're able to do it.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I don't know. I think they've got to get – I mean, look at the two things that have happened. They've lost out to a company that controls the distribution, Apple. So they have to establish their own distribution. I think that's the right move. I don't think the tactics are the same. And they've gotten kicked up funnel, which is bad for them. And so they want to find more opportunities where they will control the distribution, create more user engagement, and have more data. So it strikes me that they're actually trying to do the right thing. I just don't think it's working.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah. And Oculus will take too long. You know, I have an Oculus. I'm going to start trying it out. Do I have to join Facebook to do it? I mean, I have joined Facebook. I just don't want to close it down but didn't get rid of it. I don't know. Maybe I'll make a fake Facebook account.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Anyway, this Peloton thing, let's have a little crowing here. But by Amazon, does it make sense? It makes sense. It totally makes sense. I don't think we mentioned Amazon.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, it does. Once you heard it does. I mean, if they roll it into Prime, they could scale that thing. And they could also say to Foley and his team, you know, you can either wait till this thing recovers to $60 or $80 or we'll buy you and we'll create an incentive system that when we 10x this thing, we'll give you a participation in that. And very few companies can offer that sort of upside. Otherwise, they'll say to any suitor, I'm not going to be bought on the cheap here.
--:-- Scott Galloway: And Amazon solves their supply chain. They immediately could roll it into the ultimate recurring revenue bundle. They work with hardware, too. They're not terrible. Imagine, like, would you like to buy this outfit now? Would you like a better diet? I mean, they could start putting stuff on the screen while you're in this immersive metaverse called Peloton and start selling you stuff. Start programming stuff. And if they wanted to, they could take the user base up tenfold by saying for 90 days, it's part of Amazon Prime Plus, which is X dollars per month. I mean, they could just, they could absolutely scale this thing. And who's got the second best supply chain in the world? Well, Apple's got the best probably. The second best is Amazon. And that's really been their Achilles heel.
--:-- Kara Swisher: And you're right. It does fit in nicely with books or food or whatever. And also, the stock is down 79% from a year ago from $1.15 to right now it's $29. It's up over the past five days 6%. Not a lot, but enough. So it's not going to get a huge freemium, but it's maybe half of what it was last year.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, but this is the thing. This is the problem with dual-class shareholder companies. The shareholders will get a slight premium, but the people who control the company will get their own deal. And that is Jeff Bezos will say to them, all right, we'll pay a 40% premium to the shareholders. Fine. They end up with an okay deal. But John Foley and his band of 10, 15 insiders, we're going to give you a billion dollars in internal earnout based on our ability to scale this thing. And that's the problem with dual-class shareholder structures. Anyways, I wish I'd thought of it. Amazon now seems like a pretty rational fit. We'll see.
--:-- Kara Swisher: It does. It does. It makes sense in a lot of ways. Amazon is also increasing the annual price of Prime to $139. Everyone's going to pay it.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I think this is going to be a raging stock. It's going to be a raging stock. I don't ever give stock recommendations. Just for my own usage. Unless they raise it to $13,900, which I would still do. I mean, they've got incredible pricing power.
--:-- Kara Swisher: This is about as high as I would. This is getting close to me.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, right. I telling you it is I like mm Those hair products aren going to get there on their own Kara
--:-- Kara Swisher: That true I do I use Amazon so much I just use it a lot It one product I use a lot
--:-- Kara Swisher: All right, Scott. Fascinating times. We'll see what happens. And when we win, let's take a victory lap, okay?
--:-- Kara Swisher: All right, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Wajahat Ali is a columnist for The Daily Beast and an author of *Go Back to Where You Came From and other helpful suggestions on how to become an American*, in which he describes coming of age after 9-11. He also responds to racist hate email with a good deal of wit at the beginning. Welcome to Pivot. I'm going to call you Old Man Waj, because that's what you've named yourself on our Riverside recording. Welcome, Old Man Waj.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Well, either that or not Kumail Nanjiani, like I said, or Freed Zechariah 2. Or I should say Freed Zechariah 2A.
--:-- Scott Galloway: 2A.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: But I feel like I finally made it because I'm talking to Kara Swisher and Scott. And I'm a resident of the Bay Area. So for all the nerds, I feel like this is like, you know, nerd Valhalla when you finally reach this point where you talk to Kara on the podcast.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Congratulations. This is a nice moment for you. Let's acknowledge that.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Let's acknowledge that. You're lucky to be here.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: You're lucky to be here. The immigrant parents, that's why they came here. They said, you know, eventually. You got to get on with Kara. They don't know who we are. They're probably like, who? I don't know. Anyway. Kira? Kira. What? Anyway.
--:-- Kara Swisher: So I really enjoyed this book. It was very funny. I was much funnier. I thought it'd be angrier than funny. I don't know why. Because a few weeks ago, we spoke to Jonathan Greenblatt, not the same tone of it could happen here. He's the ADL. Your book makes the case for Muslim Americans. It has happened here. But the beginning of the book was very funny, where you respond to racist hate mail, which must be just a delight to do. But instead of being angry, you were very funny. Can you just talk about that a little bit?
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Yeah, so the book is what I call a love letter to a country that doesn't love us back. And perhaps an elegy for the rest of us who aren't running for Congress through a sham narrative of the hillbilly elegy where we exploit the trauma of the Appalachians. Maybe I said too much. My bad.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: And I think oftentimes when you are brown skinned or black or the other or Jewish or a woman in this country, LGBTQ plus, whoever's marginalized, we get a lot of unsolicited recommendations from our fans, oftentimes to go back or go kill yourself or go F a goat or a camel. So, you know, you can respond through anger, which is legitimate.
--:-- Scott Galloway: You don't have to say F here. I think they were saying you're already a goat fucker, correct?
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Oh, yeah, yeah. Thank you. No problem. Please feel free. But so I decided, why not respond like Bugs Bunny? Because oftentimes we respond like Daffy Duck. And if you ever see those cartoons, this is why I'm an old man, because I'm referring to these old cartoons that the young folks won't get. Like the anvil always drops on Daffy Duck's head. But like with Bugs Bunny, they always forget like Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd are always chasing Bugs Bunny. Like if you watch those cartoons, Bugs Bunny is always chilling in his bunny hole, relaxing.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: And so the way Bugs Bunny responds is sometimes he kisses Elmer Fudd and destroys him. He uses his own traps against him. He uses wit. And so I thought the book opens and I tried to be stylistically a bit different, a little bit irreverent. I'm like, okay, let me just hit you right out of the gate with these amazing, beautiful, exquisite, lovely email recommendations I get. Go back to where you came from. Go fuck a goat or a camel. And so I respond, why only goats and camels? Why limit my options? Two legs good, four legs good.
--:-- Scott Galloway: That's how Scott feels. That's a Scott Galloway mantra, you know, in many ways. Two legs good, four legs good. Spread the love.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: So that's how I respond. Like, maybe you can respond. If you can use humor.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I get it. I get you're using your own, but you get a lot of attacks online. You've written to me before and others. And they're pretty ugly. Like, I just, I'm sort of, you know, you can joke with these people for so long. But you think this is the best way to deal with them? Because you get a ton on.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: No, no, no, no. It is my way to deal with them in the sense that because if you sit there and respond to it, as you know, it's exhausting. Racism ultimately is exhausting. You spend all your time fighting bad faith actors who demand that you prove your civilizational worth to them. And then when you do, they still say it's not enough, right?
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Especially with Muslims. I mentioned this in the book after 9-11. We're supposed to condemn violence done by violent people we've never met. And no matter how fast you condemn, no matter how hard you condemn, and no matter how much you engage in the condemnathon, no matter how much you prove your moderation, never enough. And so you've just wasted the entire day.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: So most of the times what I say, I really mean this for those who are listening, is ignoring is a response. I'll repeat this. Ignoring is a response. So I ignore most of it. But then when I choose to engage, I try to take the piss out of them. And humor, like my humor, I think is also blunt. It's not just silliness. You can dismantle your opponent with humor sometimes as well. And it's like a slap in the face. And so sometimes mocking the bully disrobes them and shows them how impotent they really are to a public right. It could really debase them. So that's what I choose to do sometimes. And there is some rage in there. I think that rage is earned.
--:-- Scott Galloway: A couple of questions. First off, nice to meet you. Secondly, what do you think Americans – what do you think the biggest misperception of the stereotype or damaging stereotype is about Muslim Americans? And also, I think we sometimes – I don't want to call us the coastal elite, but people who think of themselves as progressives, just assign all of the type of bigotry you assigned to people who are, you know, whatever, not worth the effort. But I think there's signs of this type of kind of bigotry light in fairly sophisticated circles. And I'd be curious, what are the stereotypes that you would like to or the biggest misconceptions of Muslim Americans that you think people hold into? What are some examples of what I'll call more insidious anti-Muslim rhetoric that you find in New York and L.A. and among, quote unquote, the elites?
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Oh, yeah, it's there. So, first of all, only one. There's several, but one of them is that somehow a practicing Muslim is similar to a violent extremist. That the prototypical Muslim is Osama and Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah and not me. The second one is that Islam is a foreign thing. That somehow it's separate from America or separate from Americans. And that it belongs to a 1980s action movie where Chuck Norris goes and kills like this brown booyah base of terrorists. That literally is the image that was force-fed to us for years that actually helped the war on terror. It made it much more palatable. Look, these are the enemies, axes of evil, them, the villains, the terrorists, the bad guys. And would you not forfeit your civil liberties and your freedoms to empower the war on terror to go after them? Surveillance and Patriot Act, torture. And people are like, yes, of course.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: When it comes to this type of Islamophobia, anti-Muslim bigotry, if you don't like the word, that's fine. I call it the last refuge for bigots. I'll give you an example. Bill Maher, the type of stuff he openly says against Muslims. Just replace Muslim with any other group. Impossible. You know, the mafia, they bring the desert stuff here, they don't respect their way. He just said it recently. Look at these people. He cedes the ground to the extremists. It's a this is real Islam. And you sit there and go, huh, nobody ever on a show, progressive coastal elites liberals, ever checks him. The only two people who ever checked him.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Well, Ben Affleck did.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Batman Ben Affleck. Yeah. And Glenn Greenwald before he became a complete freak. Those are the only two.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: When it comes to my personal interaction with the type of what you're saying, the educated, worldly, Ivy educated Democrat voters, I've had so many people who told me, like, you're one of the moderate Muslims, the casual.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, you talk about that in the book, the moderate Muslim. I found that really interesting, the way you characterize that. Explain it.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: The safe, neutered Muslim who is not a threat. The unicorn. You're not like them. Are you? And usually within these elite circles, it's like, do you drink alcohol? And I'm like, I don't. You don't? Do you actually believe in God? I'm like, I do. Do you fast? You're like, yes. And yet you're not violent and you made a witty joke and you read books. Huh?
--:-- Wajahat Ali: There was this one agent in New York who was trying to like dine me to get me one time as his client. And he said, before reading you, I didn't know Muslims could be funny. And I'm like, why not? He goes, yeah, why not? And then he had like this weird monologue with himself and he goes, when I looked at Muslims, I just thought they were very, he made this face. And I'm like constipated. He goes, no, no, just very serious, serious. And then he had like this five minute monologue with himself where he was trying to interrogate himself as to why he thought Muslims were serious because we're people. And the whole time I was just eating Branzino fish for the first time. I'm like, thank you for this delicious fish. So these are some of the comments that me and my friends casually get in liberal, educated circles.
--:-- Kara Swisher: It's interesting, because you talk a lot in your book growing up, you're quite a culture. You just talked about Bugs Bunny, but culture was an important part, American culture, especially television culture. And so many of the depictions were like this. Now, dozens and dozens and dozens, you don't even understand the impact on you. You know, I'm a big, not Chuck Norris necessarily, but a lot of those movies, like I like all the action movies, and every one of them have bad representation, like bad, very bad. And some of the others have been corrected, never that one. You know, I can't tell you how many I've watched. I don't even know. Do you think that's changed over the years? Because I'm trying, I'm thinking even when I was watching some cartoon with my kids 20 years ago, the depictions of people from, not Muslim necessarily, but were very bad. Like, I was thinking very bad when I looked at them at the time. So do you think it's changed over the last 20 years?
--:-- Wajahat Ali: It's a little bit better. But remember Sex in the City 2 that came out 10 years ago? It's like this Orientalist fantasy. I remember I saw that. I'm like, what's happening? How can...
--:-- Kara Swisher: The condom thing. You wrote about it. The condom dropping.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wrote about it. Just go watch Sex in the City 2. It's so hilarious.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Can you say more as a Sex in the City fan? I don't know what you're referring to.
--:-- Kara Swisher: By the way, don't watch. And just like that, it's really...
--:-- Scott Galloway: The unfortunate movies.
--:-- Kara Swisher: The unfortunate movies. Yeah, the movie. And then I think the cartoon you're referring to is-
--:-- Wajahat Ali: When they go to Dubai, is that what you're talking about?
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Yeah, when they go to Abu Dhabi, but it wasn't Abu Dhabi. And apparently the filmmakers were pissed off because Abu Dhabi said no. So the entire movie is like this two-hour screed against Abu Dhabi. And it's just like every trope you've ever imagined. It's remarkable. So that was just 10 years ago.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: And I think the cartoon you were talking about was Aladdin, the one without Will Smith when Robin Williams was there. It's like where they don't like your face, it's barbaric, but hey, it's home. And then Disney had to cut out that line years later. They're like, oh yeah, this is problematic. And so, yeah, growing up, imagine if you're a brown-skinned kid and you sit there rooting for Chuck Norris in these movies. And then years later, you go, oh, I was the villain. I was the bad guy. I was a sidekick. I was the cannon fodder.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: And then after 9-11, very quickly, it changed to the only good Muslim is the Muslim that helps the CIA.
--:-- Kara Swisher: That's right.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Or the national security. Who's turned on his own people. And it's only one, like the unicorn. Right. And so what that does is, is that the only utility of you moderate Muslim is if you're killing ISIS. Then you get to like Sex and the City. It's still goofiness. And I think now, 2021, 2022, you're finally seeing the emergence of the complex character who happens to be Muslim, like the Rami or the Hasan Minhaj or the Ms. Marvel comic book. It took a long ass time.
--:-- Kara Swisher: But what about online? Has that gotten worse? Because it seems like it has. I see a lot of stuff that I'm like, wow, you couldn't do that with a lot of things.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: So someone said this to me. They're like, but Wajah, this has gotten better precisely for the reason you mentioned. Like, look, you have Hasan Minhaj and you have Kumail and you have Ms. Marvel and this and that. And I'm like, yes. But let me tell you how frightening it's gone with one example. If George W. Bush, and I think all of us are old enough to remember the disaster that was his presidency. And we assumed he'd be the worst president of our lifetimes. But America is like, nope, I got a surprise for you. If George W. Bush ran for president in 2024, the Republican Party would reject him for being a Muslim lover. The entire conservative movement and one of the two major political parties openly traffics on anti-Muslim bigotry. It's part and parcel of the party. So much so that they say it openly without apology. And when Lauren Boebert says what she says, none of them condemn her, right? And so that's something remarkable and new, that you have an entire right-wing movement, which the foundation rests upon xenophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry unchecked.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, it's Boebert, but I'm going to let that one go. Thank you. When you coach young men, young Muslim men, and you say this is your role in helping advance or helping to – other than – I mean, you're effective. Humor is an incredible equalizer. It's incredible at disarming people. Do you coach young men around what they should expect and what they can do in their role in making it better for future generations?
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Thankfully, no one looks at me as a leader and a coach.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Dude, you wrote a book. He must have been thinking about it.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Yeah, yeah. But like, you know, what I do tell people, though, and it's not just Muslims, right? And I mean this. I guess I'm a writer. That's what I've chosen to be. That's one of the very few only superhero skill I might have is once in a while I can spin a good yarn. I think it's important to tell your own story. If you aren't telling your story, your story is always being told to you in America by others. And the importance is not just to tell your story, but tell your story with all the authenticity.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: And I always joke with the merchant masala that they always tell us to take out. That's the advice I was given that I rejected 15 years ago. Take away everything that makes your story unique. And I'll give you the euphemism. Your ethnic story has to translate to the mainstream. Translation. Hey, Darkie, make your story palatable to the whites. And I've had agents tell me this and producers tell me this. And I just ignored it. And I said, I have faith in the whites. I think the whites will appreciate a good story. You don't have to hold the hands of the whites. And so telling your story in any avenue that you can and with authenticity and not ceding the ground is critical in a country which, as we are talking right now, is actively trying to ban and erase our narratives from the textbooks.
--:-- Kara Swisher: And from schools.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Mm-hmm.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Does it seem like it's a backward thing? Because one of the things I was going to ask you is what your definition of the American dream is now with all this happening.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: The definition of the American dream sometimes is just surviving. And I'm not trying to be glib about that. I feel like survival during a pandemic and survival during this time where there's Muslim bans and people are celebrating the president, the former president, saying, go back to your asshole countries. It's victory. Surviving with dignity.
--:-- Kara Swisher: You can also say shithole.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Yeah, shithole. Surviving with joy is a victory. And I think maybe thriving with joy is still, in my definition of the American dream, that why can't our kids survive and thrive with joy and dream audaciously that they can be the co-protagonist of the narrative? If they can, number one, dream it and actually be it, we have achieved the American dream.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: The problem is, I think us, we're trying to expand the American narrative to include the rest of us. And we have forces. We've always had these forces in America who are always trying to restrict. And you're seeing it now. Restrict what we can read. Restrict our history. Restrict the starting point of our history. Who gets to be the hero? And they're so unsettled and unnerved by the fact that we're not trying to replace them. We just want a speaking role. And they're like, nope, those roles belong to us. So this is a tension that's always happened.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: And I said this in the book. I'll say it on your program. I think we're witnessing the death rattle of white supremacy, which has transformed into a global death march. That's one of the major struggles of our life. What do we do with this death march? They're sure noisy on the way out. We assumed it was headed in the one direction, but it can absolutely head the other direction.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Do you see any silver linings? My sense is more Muslims, and not a lot, but have been elected to Congress. We might have our first senator, a Muslim Republican senator, which who cares, a big fan of in Pennsylvania.
--:-- Scott Galloway: No, I'm not. Running for Senate. Sorry, I couldn't resist.
--:-- Kara Swisher: But anyways, do you see any silver linings or progress here?
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Yeah, of course. I mean, look, you have to. The opposite of that is apathy and cynicism. And then we just eat Ben and Jerry's ice cream and, you know, just dilute ourselves and give up. Just sit in the corner, watch Netflix and cry. But yeah, look, I'm invited as a guest on your show. My book was published. I was joking with Sam Sanders, who's a host on NPR, who's a black man. We were joking. Like if, you know, in 2006, can you imagine me and Sam talking for an hour on NPR?
--:-- Wajahat Ali: And we went through all the scenarios. Every scenario was like every white host would be sick or staying at home watching a friend's episode, and they'd be desperate for the one person who could speak into a microphone or track the listeners and put them on a list of enemies of state.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, they're like Samuel L. Jackson talking to Fred Zachery. He goes, "My name's Sam." Like, whatever.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: So the fact that we're here, the fact that we have elected officials, the fact that there's a multicultural coalition, the fact that Democratic presidential candidates actually said the word "white supremacy" and were against it in 2020 — baby steps, but steps. That's what we have to look at. We have the numbers, but the problem is what I call the flabby moderate majority, going up against a very zealous ideological minority that wakes up every day with a mission.
--:-- Give me a zealous minority versus a flabby moderate majority, and that zealous minority can carve us like butter. And they have the internet to help them. Disinformation and internet and greed, where people — let's be honest, Zuckerberg and Les Moonves and the guy from Spotify — they're perfectly fine.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: And with this ridiculous statement a couple of days ago. Was it yesterday? Yeah, "silencing." They're being silenced. I liked your tweet. That was a very good tweet. "They're silencing." Like no one's silencing them, bro. Joe Rogan will be fine.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, exactly. Let me ask you one of the last questions I have. You write a lot about your child who was sick and the agony that was. It was just recently. So how are they doing?
--:-- Wajahat Ali: She's right next to me. You could probably hear her chirping. She's doing virtual school. She's wearing one of her three costumes of the day. That's Nuseba. She's five years old. She was diagnosed with stage four cancer right before the pandemic. So far, all is good. Brand new liver. All the tests came back negative. Her hair's come back. She doesn't remember much of it. I remember everything, of course.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, you write very movingly of it, I have to say.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: And we have a pandemic baby, Khadija, who was born, who doesn't understand these things called crowds and people. And then we have Ibrahim, the seven-year-old, and apparently he got me addicted to Lego during the pandemic. He just commanded me that I have to finish a Pirates of the Caribbean ship by next week.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, wow. That's great. It was so interesting. I was reading two books last night — a Sandy Hook book, because I interviewed one of the parents today, and I was like, "Oh, phew, now Waj's book is going to be funny." And then I was like, "Oh my God." But you wrote about it beautifully. It was really quite lovely. Scott, do you have a final question?
--:-- Scott Galloway: First off, it's such good news that your daughter's doing well. But just on — you have your role to work, you have your role to friends, and something comes off the tracks of one of your kids and the whole universe just shrinks to that kid. That's right. How has that changed you as a dad, as a husband?
--:-- Wajahat Ali: That's a good question. You're just grateful. You realize how quickly there could be a plot twist. And like you said, your entire world can unravel. You feel like even if you have everything under control — this was pre-pandemic. What do they say? Man plans, God laughs, right? So you realize how powerless you are, especially as a dad. I write about this. You're like, "How do I fix cancer? I'm the dad. Dads are supposed to fix everything."
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: How am I supposed to be a protector? I can't do this. Even with the pandemic, how can one mortal soul take on a pandemic that has killed five million people? It humbles you in many ways, but it makes you live in the moment and realize you can only control what you can. Do what you can with your hands and then leave the rest. That's the last chapter of the book. There's a great saying in Islam: have faith, but tie your camel. Do what you can with your hands and then leave the rest to fate, God, kismet, destiny, Tom Cruise, whatever you believe in.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, nobody believes in Tom Cruise.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: And I feel like even with democracy, people feel like — Kara, you were saying, "What are we doing?" I feel like anyone and everyone who's listening, I understand you feel so overwhelmed, but you can just, at the end of the day, do what you can. Model the best behavior you can. Change your family, the discourse. Run for school board. Run for city office. Don't cede ground. If that's the least you can do, that's a massive victory. We're not going away.
--:-- Kara Swisher: There's an old gay chant we used to do during the gay rights movement: "We're not going away."
--:-- Wajahat Ali: We're not going away.
--:-- Kara Swisher: They think — but isn't that the same one?
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Yeah, "We're not going." You can't dismiss us. Can't ignore us.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Wait, we're here. Oh, wait, never mind. "Queer, get used to it." Not "get used to it." I didn't say that.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Neither you, old man.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Anyway, it's a very hopeful book, although there's a lot there. And I like the humor because you've got to laugh at these people. You've got to laugh because it's very disturbing, a lot of it. Anyway, the book is called *Go Back to Where You Came From*. It's on sale now. Thank you, Waj Ali. We really appreciate it.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Thank you, Waj. Best to you and your family.
--:-- Wajahat Ali: Thank you, Kara. Scott.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Scott, that was a very fascinating discussion with old man Waj. Very good book. Very likable. One more quick break.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I know. I know. You fall for a handsome man every time.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I do. I do. I like the good-looking dudes.
--:-- Scott Galloway: You're such a lookist.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Everyone off mic. I offered to do a book party for him in Manhattan. He said yes.
--:-- Kara Swisher: But it's because he's good-looking. I'm going to have fabulous people there. Everyone is going to think I'm progressive and I hang out with handsome men. And they will love me, Kara. They will love me.
--:-- Scott Galloway: You should actually read the book like I do.
--:-- Kara Swisher: You should actually read the book.
--:-- Scott Galloway: We'll smell you.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Smell you. Read all the books.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Okay. You haven't read my fucking books.
--:-- Kara Swisher: You should actually read my books. No, you haven't.
--:-- Scott Galloway: My son did and told me about it.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, okay. That's it. Oh, so you just lied? Is that what you're saying?
--:-- Scott Galloway: I did read them.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, actually, my son read them. I've got things to do. Let's move along. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, wins and fails. I'm just going to let you — do I have any wins?
--:-- Scott Galloway: You go ahead. I think you have a long one.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Is that correct?
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, I have long ones.
--:-- Kara Swisher: All right. Not too long.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Okay. Go ahead. Go for it.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Thanks for that. I see you're excited about them. Let me do mine very quickly. Win: *Watch This Porn* on National Geographic. It's really quite gripping. And fail: the Republican Party with this "legitimate political discourse" bullshit. What an unforced error of idiocy. Jesus, Ronna McDaniel. Like, Mitt Romney needs to go speak to his niece.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yes, that's what we need. More Mitt. I'd rather him than her. So my fail is — I'm on the board of a company that's about to go public. And as they always do, they do this training for directors around the difference between a director of a private versus a public company. Insider trading and insider information is a function of this really elegant construct called asymmetry of information. The day before the earnings call, the directors know what the earnings are and the surprises to the upside or the downside. So we can't trade in the stock. People say, "If it only goes up 5%, that's not that big a deal." Actually, if you know the stock's probably going to pop 5% or 10% the next day, you could take a million dollars and turn it into three million with short-term options. Once your knowledge of what's happening in that organization becomes totally asymmetric to the market's knowledge, you're not allowed to trade, because that results in a lack of confidence in the market, a feeling the market is rigged.
--:-- We turned this unbelievable organism — capital formation and economic security — into a corrupt, crony-filled organization. Asymmetry of information. There has never been a group of people who have been allowed to engage in stock trading with more asymmetry of information than elected representatives to the House and to the Senate. The notion that anybody — whether it's Republican senators or our Speaker of the House — who would not see how ridiculous it is that someone who has information on interest rate movements, multibillion-dollar defense contracts, vaccine efficacy trials, can then go out and trade stocks is insane. Conflicted everywhere.
--:-- So this is what I'm going to do. One of the legislations being proposed — another head fake, it feels like big tech — is that we're putting in place laws that if you trade stocks, you have to give up, they'll confiscate your entire salary. So this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to loan Dog 2022 $10 million. I'm running for Senate as an independent against Rubio and Val Demings if she doesn't get any traction. When I get elected to the Senate, I'm going to forfeit my salary and I'm going to raise money that will become a hedge fund. I'm going to say, "I'm giving my salary. Assume I'm going to trade stocks based on all information I'm going to get in the Senate." And I'm going to show a greater return than any hedge fund in history when I can call Jerome Powell and say, "What's happening with interest rates?" When I can call Lina Khan and say, "Can you brief me on FTC actions over the next 90 days?" When I can call the Department of Defense and say, "Which submarines are you planning to buy and from whom?" And I'm going to show —
--:-- Kara Swisher: So you're suggesting insider trading, correct? I think that's what you're suggesting.
--:-- Scott Galloway: There has never been a group of bigger insider traders than our elected representatives. The fact that it is even a discussion is insane. Nancy Pelosi, tell your husband to stop trading stocks. This bullshit narrative that we should be able to engage in capitalism — you should absolutely be able to engage in capitalism. What you should do is either put it in a blind trust or put it in ETFs and have trading windows. You have much more asymmetry of information than any director of any company. The notion that you can trade stocks freely, with a slap on the wrist, is an insult. It undermines the social contract and social capital we have between the markets and investors. It is insane. Pass legislation: no elected representative in the Senate or the House should be allowed to trade stocks, full stop. That's my fail.
--:-- My win — that was a speech, wasn't it?
--:-- Kara Swisher: What do you think?
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, I like that. The Dog Senator starting a hedge fund?
--:-- Kara Swisher: Just say, "I'm forfeiting my salary. I'm just going to trade stocks based on information I'm going to get." That would be a lot of fun.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Why not? That would be a lot of fun. It would be like that Eddie Murphy movie. "A chicken in every pot, Cialis in every medicine cabinet." That's my bumper sticker.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Do you remember the Eddie Murphy movie where he came as a grifter to be a congressman? He thought it was the ultimate grift, and then he turned into a good person. That's what would happen.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Yeah, I'd be the first part of that. I'd be half of that story. So my win: When I was a kid in the early 70s in Laguna Niguel, or the mid-70s, we weren't allowed to park our cars in the garage. We had a Gran Torino and a Mercury Capri, the foreign import from Detroit. The reason we couldn't put them in the garage is my father worked for O.M. Scott. My father literally sold shit — it was fertilizer. He would go in with his charming Scottish accent and establish friendships with the head of lawn and garden at Sears or Lowe's. We had, I'm not joking, about 120 40-pound bags of fertilizer in our garage, all lined up in their green and white packaging that was the O.M. Scott brand.
--:-- About once a weekend, once every other week, someone in bad plaid pants and a penguin shirt would pull up in an AMC Pacer and bring in something like a garbage disposal or a hot cream shaver heater or a food processor or a crock pot. My dad would look at me and go, "Hold up one finger or three fingers." That meant go to the garage and put two bags of O.M. Scott's fertilizer in this person's trunk. My dad was basically doing barter with fertilizer from O.M. Scott's.
--:-- One day, this guy came over, and he looked at me very excited, and he flashed his hands a couple times. It was 12 bags. I'm like, "Okay, that's 480 pounds of fertilizer." An eight-year-old has to get into a car. But he said to me, "Tickets to the playoffs." I'm like, "Okay, what does that mean?" So I get the 12 bags in there, and he comes back and goes, "Have you ever been to a Rams playoff game?" We were so excited. My dad took me to see — and there's a point to all of this — the Rams play the Washington Redskins at the LA Coliseum in 1974, which is a shitty place to play a football game, but that's not what this is about.
--:-- The reason that game was significant was that for the first time in the history of the NFL, the starting quarterback was black. His name was James Harris, born in Louisiana to a minister father, Grambling State. There was a general unaccepted or accepted narrative: the quarterbacks in the NFL were white and were always going to be white. What it said to young people was the play caller, the smart guy, had to be white. James Harris went on to be the first black man to win a playoff game. And the Rams are back in the Super Bowl. So I ordered my son a Roman Gabriel jersey. I'm going to wear number 12, which was James Harris. My other son is going to do 99. But my win is James Harris, the first black quarterback to win a playoff game. It was a huge moment.
--:-- It kind of reverses back to something we need today. The NFL has probably done the worst job — specifically the NFL owners — of putting players to coaches and owners. There are 660 coaches. There is a dearth of people of color as coaches. There are some lawsuits going on about that. 111 of them are relatives, which is the same problem that curses us at elite universities, where because the majority of people who went to school were white in the 50s and 60s and 80s, the kids getting into the fantastic schools are also people not of color. The Premier League has done a good job of hiring people of color. The NBA has actually done a really good job putting people of color in coaching positions. But the NFL, whose ownership primarily is a bunch of white Republicans, has — shock or spoiler alert — done a really shitty job. Anyways, my win is James Harris, the first black person to start and win an NFL playoff game in 1974 for the Los Angeles Rams.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Very nice. Okay. Wow. That's a lot, Scott. That was a lot today.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Well, let me just say, be better, NFL. That's what I say.
--:-- Kara Swisher: By the way, that Eddie Murphy movie was *The Distinguished Gentleman*, just so you know.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Good to know.
--:-- Kara Swisher: You would not be The Distinguished Gentleman. Go watch it. It's pretty funny. It's pretty funny. I love Eddie Murphy movies. What do you think? The Dog, 2022?
--:-- Scott Galloway: No?
--:-- Scott Galloway: No?
--:-- Kara Swisher: No. It could happen.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I would totally. It could happen. You know, like Jeff Bezos' brother-in-law dropping a dime on him? The sex? I'm transparent. What is there to drop on me?
--:-- Kara Swisher: I'd find some dime. I'd drop it. I'd make it up.
--:-- Scott Galloway: What is there to drop on me? Just because. Then it would be kind of an interesting story. And then maybe Olivia Nuzzi would write the whole thing.
--:-- Kara Swisher: By the way, you'd get the Olivia Nuzzi treatment that your friend Dr. Oz got, which I thought was fantastic. That's what would happen.
--:-- Scott Galloway: I'd send her in to interview you.
--:-- Kara Swisher: You would throw me a party. You would raise money. You would help me.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Totally help me.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Absolutely not.
--:-- Scott Galloway: No, yes, I probably would.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yes, you would. But not for Dr. Oz. Anyway, we'll take a listener question. Thank you, Scott. That was very thoughtful, both of those things. We'll take a listener question in our next episode. And now there's a new way to reach us with your questions. You can call us at 855-51-PIVOT.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Oh, my God. We have like a sex line. We have our own number.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yes, we have our own number.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Are you lonely? Meet Hot Singles, 976 The Dog.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Just submit your question. 855-51-PIVOT and keep it clean. As always, you can go to nymag.com slash pivot.
--:-- Scott Galloway: That is the worst 976 line in history.
--:-- Kara Swisher: God, we'll pay you $4.99 to call and talk dirty to me. The link and the number are in our show notes. Keep it clean, people. And Scott, don't you call in that number. Don't you dare call that and bother our nice staffers. Anyway, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. And then next week in Miami. I'm so excited. It's so cold here. I hate it in this cold weather. I'm so sick of putting on my coat. Today when I took the golden child to school, she's like, "You're putting on your coat again?" I said, "Yes, I hate it." And she goes, "I hate it." It was fantastic. Anyway, Miami. Next week in Miami. I'm so excited. All right. Read us out.
--:-- Scott Galloway: Today's show was produced by Lara Neyman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Indratot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Emil Saverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to *Pivot* from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. James Harris, number 12. We honor you at the Super Bowl. Right on, my brother.
