More hearings for big tech, GameStop stock surge (again), and predictions come true

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Kara Swisher: Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott Galloway: And I'm Scott Galloway, and I'm here for you, Kara, because you're frustrated. So frustrated right now.

Kara Swisher: Okay, so I get an alert last night that I am among the people eligible for vaccines, right? Because I had a pre-existing condition. They added people who've had strokes to it in DC, and I had a stroke many years ago. And I was like, oh, yay, finally. So I go to the website.

Scott Galloway: Yay for strokes. Yay for strokes.

Kara Swisher: Thank you. Strokey wins. And I'm not old enough, but I'm getting close to that. I'm not 65.

Scott Galloway: Oh, you're close, Kara.

Kara Swisher: I'm close, but I'm not 65.

Scott Galloway: You're so close to that old age requirement. I get that. You're very, very close.

Kara Swisher: Nonetheless, I get on the site, which sucks for at least 10 minutes, right? It just won't, you can't... It's amazing that you can get on Tinder and have someone at your house in two seconds and you can't get this. So I get on. I literally ordered Amazon stuff, Ginger Ale, and it arrived 14 seconds later. It's just amazing how bad this system is. And DC's apparently is pretty good.

Kara Swisher: So I get on. I put everything in. It takes me 10 tries to even get them. I go through CAPTCHA and all this other stuff. 10 tries to do it. I get to the end. I put my correct birth date in. And I say that I had a preexisting condition. I list it, everything else. It keeps saying I'm not 65. And on the website, it says "or," not "and." It says "or" very clearly. I took a picture of it. It's literally the most frustrating thing I've ever experienced.

Kara Swisher: And I did. And I'm now, Amanda's downstairs on the phone. I finally got through after not hanging up on me 20 times. And I've been on 25-minute hold to talk to them. I understand the crush of interest, but it was really like... it was astonishing, them telling you one thing and doing another. I know why people are so frustrated by this thing, but I was hopeful for a moment, Scott, that I could get my vaccine, but not to be.

Scott Galloway: Well, a couple of things. One, it is a sad, sad story when you have to live the same life as everyone else.

Kara Swisher: I don't have to. I do have to live, unlike you.

Scott Galloway: No, you have more white privilege.

Kara Swisher: No, you have more white privilege. Anyways, look, we...

Scott Galloway: In Israel, they put their best and brightest and basically everybody into the military. In Britain, they admire and respect people who go into government.

Kara Swisher: Right.

Scott Galloway: And I think this all comes back to the same place. We need to restore faith and the resources that match that faith in our government. Why aren't the brightest people out of MIT, Georgia Tech, or kids from high school that show incredible aptitude for technology but perhaps aren't ready for college and want to take a gap year? Why isn't there a national service that gets them involved? I mean, this younger generation, this is an ageist thing to say, they just get technology better. They grew up with it.

Kara Swisher: I don't know.

Scott Galloway: They understand 100%.

Kara Swisher: 100%. It was really interesting because now they changed. Have a 60-year-old explain Bitcoin to you. I wouldn't know. If I was older or didn't know how to use a website, and I'm really good at it, you'd be able to do it. I'm sort of this white lady sitting in a mixed neighborhood in DC and good on the computer. And if you were older, you didn't know... lots of older people know how to use computers. Lots of different people know how to use computers. But if you didn't have a great computer ability, forget it. Just forget it.

Scott Galloway: That's my point.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And that is we need an investment. This is infrastructure. When you don't invest in the ability to create an interface with everybody that now interfaces with the world vis-a-vis a screen or a phone, their ability to get a vaccination, and it has a national interest, that is infrastructure that is a government-run program. And when you don't have the resources, when you've underinvested, when you haven't maintained the bridge, the bridge is going to collapse when you need it the most. And any reduction in infrastructure spending is nothing but a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Because who is most dependent upon infrastructure?

Scott Galloway: Here's the bottom line. You will figure it out. You will figure it out. I agree. The kid or the 70-year-old person from a middle-income or lower-income home that's trying to figure out a way to get them and their spouse registered may not figure it out.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I've heard tons of stories like that from friends. And the thing is, what's really interesting about it, it's not that I just realized the infrastructure sucks. I've always known the infrastructure sucks. But it was interesting because I've been very careful to wait in line and make sure and stuff like that. And so I don't want to sound whiny, but I was in line. Like it said it. And then they just now, interestingly, on the website, changed it to "and," even though it was very clearly "or" in a big black ladder. You know what I mean? They just changed it very quickly. And so you don't know. It's just a very kludgy system. I'd love to know if people could write in what states really do well. This one is fine, but it's just typically kludgy.

Scott Galloway: You know what states are doing really well around vaccinations?

Kara Swisher: What?

Scott Galloway: Israel.

Kara Swisher: I mean, actually, that's not fair.

Scott Galloway: The US is doing better than all but five nations. And it's kind of sad when the US begins to brag that it's number six.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. But the vaccination... way behind that, I'm thinking.

Scott Galloway: No, in terms of vaccine rollout, we're actually doing fairly well. We're vaccinating about 2 million people a day. I think so. The numbers are up everywhere.

Kara Swisher: But at the same time, in DC, and I'll finish this up, the mayor's sister died of COVID yesterday, which was announced. It's incredibly sad, her older sister. And I think it's her only sister. It's just the way this entire process from the testing, which I finally figured out at great expense, to this, to information, to figuring out masks. I understand it's a pandemic, but for some reason, I have this feeling it does not have to be this hard. It just doesn't. And it's not because I just experienced it, but really it is extraordinarily hard.

Scott Galloway: This has shined a real bright light on things we knew existed.

Kara Swisher: I figured out testing no problem.

Scott Galloway: You know why?

Kara Swisher: I have money.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: I had someone come to my house to test my whole family. My kid's school was testing everybody once a week. And the reality is I live in a different world.

Scott Galloway: And it's one thing. We live in a capitalist society. If you're looking for moral clarity, you're not going to find it in capitalism. But we're supposed to have regulation that doesn't make the delta immoral and corrupt and bad for our country long term. And when we refuse to go on a war footing, when we insulate, when we segregate, when we disperse to our homes and we don't have empathy, and when quite frankly, it's not thin white rich people dying from the pandemic, we don't show this virus what America is capable of. This virus has not seen the real America. Or I guess you could argue it has seen the real America, and it's really fucking ugly right now.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because I was hopeful. I was like, oh look, it's finally like yay, like it's working, that kind of thing. But that's just the way it is. It's not like tickets for Springsteen when I was 14 or whatever.

Scott Galloway: You went to Springsteen?

Kara Swisher: No, when I was in college, yeah, I did. He was playing at Jadwin Gym.

Scott Galloway: I wouldn't take you for a Springsteen person.

Kara Swisher: Well, of course I'd go to a Springsteen. I went to a Kansas concert. I went to a Journey concert.

Scott Galloway: Sure, when I was a kid.

Kara Swisher: Dave Mason. Oh, my God. I'm totally dating myself. I went to lots of concerts when I was a young woman. Kansas, wow.

Scott Galloway: I went to the Go-Go, Squeeze at the Greek Theater. I went to the Clash at the Palladium. The dog knew how to roll when he was 17. My army jacket, I knew how to squat.

Kara Swisher: They went to Dan Fogelberg concerts. That's what the lesbians went to.

Scott Galloway: Oh my gosh.

Kara Swisher: Did you see these things that more young people are identifying as gay and lesbian?

Scott Galloway: Can you say more about that? Because I can't comment.

Kara Swisher: Trans, bi, everything. It's so interesting because it immediately got into a ridiculous Twitter war with a variety of people. But what do you make of that?

Scott Galloway: What do you mean?

Kara Swisher: They're just identifying. That's all. Some people are like, oh, now they're being forced to be trans or they're being forced. No one's holding a gun to their head. No, come on. They're just identifying. And let me just say, someone asked me to talk about it. When I came out, it was incredibly difficult and there was a price to pay. Huge price. And I was silent for a long time, like a long time, and didn't identify. And the fact that people are just comfortable identifying is a good thing. And instead, they try to make it into this idea that the media and LGBT groups are trying to force others to declare themselves. You have no idea what it was like. You know what I mean? It's amazing that they've turned something that's really good, that people are identifying themselves better, into something like they've been coerced.

Kara Swisher: And then there was one back and forth about how there's fewer lesbians. I didn't even understand it because they declare themselves as trans. It was just like anything that could be good news is taken into a bad place when it gets upon the social media sites.

Scott Galloway: People don't recognize... I think about this a lot. My five closest friends, and we all kind of hung out together. You have your kind of circle of friends at UCLA.

Kara Swisher: Sure.

Scott Galloway: All of us in fraternities, all living a life that I would describe as frat bro-ish, reeked of testosterone.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: Of the five, three of us gay.

Kara Swisher: Oh.

Scott Galloway: And I remember saying to them when they came out, like, why would you feel so reticent to have told me about this? And they basically said, and they were right, they're like, Scott, you couldn't be gay at UCLA in the 80s.

Kara Swisher: You couldn't?

Scott Galloway: They're like, look at our lives. Look at how people perceived. You could not. Homosexuality. It's not easy now, by the way, from a lot of people. And they were absolutely right. And then just about the time we started thinking, well, they love themselves and they want to be loved and they love their children and they're patriots and they want the same things. And we started developing some empathy. The AIDS crisis hit.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And the Republican media started turning them into people who deserve a plague.

Kara Swisher: Well, except it did engage everyone. That's when I was like, that's enough.

Scott Galloway: It did create some empathy. I think eventually.

Kara Swisher: It's just empathy. That was anger is what it created in me. Like, that is fucking enough with you people. You know what I mean? Like, people were dying. That changed everything. I thought ACT UP, I had such admiration for ACT UP. I know a lot of people have come to, they're like, ACT UP was so mean. It's like, good. You deserve some mean. You know what I mean, you people.

Kara Swisher: So, it's interesting. I had a total move back when I saw all that stuff coming out yesterday. Like, ugh, I remember these awful people. It's still not easy. It's still not easy.

Scott Galloway: No, try being in Russia. Look at how many. Some countries are trying to declare it legal. Try to be an elected Republican leader and be gay. How many of them are closeted right now because they don't feel... Everyone I think immediately goes to very... they cast aspersions on them. But you got to say, look, it's still not easy to be in our society who you want to be.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: At the very basis of America. Walk in the park compared to others. That's what's supposed to... that literally is what America is supposed to be. I mean that is exactly what defines America, is you're supposed to be able to live the life you want to live. It's also the number one regret of people on their deathbed is they wish they had lived the life they wanted to lead, not the life that their parents or society wanted them to lead.

Kara Swisher: Well, let me just say, if I get a vaccine, I'm going to try to live an identifiable gay life. You know the life I want to live? I want to live my life on a table with a bottle of Ruinart champagne in the Gouverneur's Beach in St. Barts.

Scott Galloway: You identify as lesbian, don't you? You do.

Kara Swisher: Let's not get into that.

Scott Galloway: You identify as lesbian, too. There's almost nothing. You're literally painting me into the cancel corner right now.

Kara Swisher: I painted you into the cancel corner. You're painting me into the cancel corner. I want to ask you one thing. Did you listen to my Sacha Baron Cohen interview? And by the way, congratulations on being mentioned by Andrew Ross Sorkin. I'm throwing you a bone here. This is a bone I'm throwing.

Scott Galloway: So you constantly toy with my emotions. And I am not going to go here. Think of me. Think of me as someone who plays acoustical guitar, depressed and sensitive.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that is a lesbian, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Or like a Great Dane, big, strong, but emotional and sensitive. By the way, I'm getting a Great Dane. I'm getting a Great Dane. I'm so excited. I can't believe I can't visit you now because it'll jump on me and it's taller than me. I can't do it. I have all my life. I grew up with a Great Dane named Thor. All my life I've wanted a Great Dane.

Kara Swisher: I'm asking about Sacha Baron Cohen, but who looks like a Great Dane? I'm not going there. I'm not going there. Did you notice he called me a fan?

Scott Galloway: You're trying to gaslight me. You called me a fan at the end.

Kara Swisher: That was for you. You and Sasha can ride off into the sunset together as far as I'm concerned. Andrew Ross Sorkin mentioned me. That's my consolation prize. In an interview with Bill Gates. That's my consolation prize.

Scott Galloway: That was good.

Kara Swisher: Is Andrew Ross Sorkin mentions me. I'm going to let you at the end of the show tout your predictions. How about that?

Scott Galloway: How about I do that?

Kara Swisher: Go on.

Scott Galloway: All right.

Kara Swisher: Later in the show you can tout yourself. But the fact of the matter is you should listen to the interview. Sasha Baron Cohen was very good.

Scott Galloway: Yes we all should. We all should. We should all listen to your podcast. That's what we should do.

Kara Swisher: You'll like it.

Scott Galloway: Let me get right on that. Then listen to the dog mushroom. If you're getting a Great Dane and listen to the dog lady.

Kara Swisher: I'm going to listen with my favorite lesbian, Senator Lindsey Graham, and I are going to listen to Sasha Baron Cohen on Sway. That's my day.

Scott Galloway: Oh, he was in with Trump all weekend. The calling up the threatening senators. That was nice.

Kara Swisher: Oh, God. That's my day.

Scott Galloway: What have they got on him?

Kara Swisher: Let's get to the news. I'm done with your vaccine frustration.

Scott Galloway: All right. Okay. Your devastation.

Kara Swisher: Let's big stories. Okay. We've got a lot of big stories. I just want to note one that we talked about last week, the UK, an Uber one. They are classified as workers, not employees, which is a different designation. And the Uber people call me right away. But nonetheless, it was not a victory for, I said, how well that you make chicken shit into chicken salad. But just so you know, that's a clarification for Matt.

Kara Swisher: OK, so let's get into the big story. As the United States gears up congressional hearings around big tech, let's check in on Facebook and the Australian news content battle. Earlier this week, Facebook reached a deal with the Australian government to restore news content to the platform in its country. Facebook removed news from its platform as legislation required Google and Facebook to pay. It's a complicated situation, essentially, news media companies for content. How they do it is quite complicated. Apparently, Facebook got some changes as part of the deal. And then we'll see how it plays out in Australia because it dictates how they deal with media in other parts of the world.

Kara Swisher: Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee, Antitrust Subcommittee, will kick off a first in a series of hearings to explore competition in the digital economy. So much is going on. And then next month, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hear from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg again, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai about misinformation on its online platform. It's probably related to the January 6th attack on the Capitol. I don't know what to say. This is going to go on forever. It feels like Groundhog Day with these people coming up to Congress.

Scott Galloway: There's a lesson in the Facebook Australia debacle, and that is crisis management. And there's only three things you have to remember in crisis management. And they typically get ignored when you have kind of groupthink. And that is, one, you have to acknowledge the problem. And Facebook never acknowledged the problem. Facebook basically said, no, there's nothing wrong here. And there is. When media and newspapers are getting the oxygen sucked out of the room because Facebook has basically figured out a way to monetize it to the extent that it has monopoly power and the result is that journalism or the number of journalists has been cut in half in the last 30 years, there is a problem. They didn't do that.

Scott Galloway: Two, the second thing is the top guy or gal has to take responsibility and be seen as addressing it. And then three, you have to overcorrect. So let's look at Google. Google acknowledged the issue. This is an issue. We recognize it. Sundar Pichai was the one in the press releases. And they immediately got out ahead of it. And you could argue maybe that wasn't an overcorrection, but they donated or they pledged, I think, like a quarter of a billion dollars to trying to address it. Boom. They are out of jail. And they step away from the line of fire.

Scott Galloway: What does Facebook do? They don't acknowledge the problem. They have Campbell Brown, who is basically, in my opinion, was a legitimate, likable journalist. And they said, OK, we fucked up here. There is no way to back out of this. There's no way to exit gracefully. So we're going to let you put out the press release, right?

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: They basically threw her on the funeral pyre. They threw her to the dogs here.

Kara Swisher: On the Barbie.

Scott Galloway: They threw... and did you see the statement she put out? "This reflects our continued support of journalism in Australia as we support journalism around the world." I'm like, oh, my God, that must have been about 200 consultants gangbanging a sentence and leaving that thing just so, so tired. And so, I mean, it was just the most ridiculous statement. And I'm like, Campbell, sorry, we're paying a shit ton of money. And part of that is we're going to ruin your reputation and your credibility globally. And that's what Mark Zuckerberg is. The Donald Trump of the digital reputation. No one gets out of here alive.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: Sheryl Sandberg is an incredibly impressive, competent, charismatic woman. She's not going to get out of this with her reputation intact. My sense is she keeps waiting, hoping for some silence, and it just doesn't come.

Kara Swisher: It's not coming.

Scott Galloway: So they have absolutely botched this. And there's a lesson here. Three things in crisis management. Acknowledge the issue, top guy or gal seen as the person addressing it, and overcorrect. Facebook, 0 for 3.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I think it's an interesting thing. I think it'll be interesting to see how it goes around the world. As you know, I thought the bill from Australia was a little bit... it wasn't the best bill. It was bad legislation.

Scott Galloway: Bad legislation.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. But this idea of what's going to happen in Canada and other places. I'm hoping to talk to the Canadian person who's dealing with this, the minister. But it will be replicated in other parts of the world because people are beginning to understand. What's going to be interesting is how long these hearings are going to go on before there's actual action. They're just going to examine everything as if we don't already know what happened, essentially. And it's pretty disappointing that there isn't major legislation. But with the vaccines, with everything, and with approving people for the Biden cabinet, the getting going on this thing, and of course the stimulus bill, everything else that has to go in front of it. I think that this is all to the benefit of these tech companies, as we've talked about. So there's going to be Robin Hood hearings. It's the hearings, hearings, hearings thing I'm getting a little exhausted by. I just want action at this point. But I'm in an action kind of mood this morning.

Scott Galloway: I think Stacey Abrams is probably the most seminal force in big tech right now.

Kara Swisher: Oh, why?

Scott Galloway: Because she flipped the Senate.

Kara Swisher: Yes, okay.

Scott Galloway: She flipped the Senate. And now all the committees overseeing legislation against big tech are now run by Democrats.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: Stacey Abrams is the most significant thing to happen regarding the regulation of big tech in the last 20 years.

Kara Swisher: I guess I shouldn't tell you I'll ask her when I talk to her tomorrow.

Scott Galloway: Literally, I expose my feelings to you, and you know what you do? You jab. You jab.

Kara Swisher: Look how happy you are. Thank you. Look how happy you are.

Scott Galloway: No, I'm not happy. I'm not in a good mood this morning.

Kara Swisher: You're a little happy.

Scott Galloway: I'm a little happy.

Kara Swisher: I'm excited to talk to her.

Scott Galloway: God damn it. Andrew Ross Sorkin mentioned me.

Kara Swisher: He mentioned you in front of Bill Gates. He mentioned me.

Scott Galloway: He mentioned you. You're getting a Great Dane.

Kara Swisher: Great Dane. Talk about grasping for emotional straws.

Scott Galloway: I'm sorry. That's a good point.

Kara Swisher: I'm going to bring that up with her. That's an excellent point. I hadn't thought of that. Thank you for that thought. I'll say Scott Galloway. How about that? I'll say your name to her and she'll hear it in her ears. How's that?

Scott Galloway: You'd think at my age, I'd be more secure.

Kara Swisher: You'd think.

Scott Galloway: And you'd be wrong.

Kara Swisher: And you'd be wrong. You would be wrong. I'll tell you one person I'm talking to, just so you know, and this has nothing to do with tech, is the head of Space Force. I'm very excited to be talking to him.

Scott Galloway: Such an awesome name. Space Force. I kind of want to join Space Force.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, getting back, getting off this planet, getting off this planet so that we have better lives than Mars. I think it'll be interesting to see what happens. This is going to go on until there's significant legislation. And one of the things will be around Robin Hood and the SEC and reporting and what happened there and what have we learned and what can we change. I don't know where it's going to lead. I just don't know. And it's interesting. Apple and Amazon are not in these meetings, obviously not for misinformation. Neither of them are culpable in this regard. But they may be back for antitrust hearings at some point. So we'll see where it all goes as we're going forward. But I think the slow roll is working rather well for these people and sort of walking out of the room like they did in Australia. And I think they're going to see more and more obstreperous legislators going forward.

Scott Galloway: Obstreperous. Did you use that word with Sasha? Did you use that word with Sasha?

Kara Swisher: By the way, the big story this morning, and you're usually really good at framing this stuff, and I just react and get emotional, is GameStop up 250% in the last 24 hours. And there's going to be hearings about Robin Hood hearings next week. Last week, excuse me, there was last week. And then Vlad Tenev went on Dave Portnoy's show, which was probably a better interview than a lot of them. He refuses to be interviewed by me, by the way.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that was interesting. You mean diamond hands, Dave Portnoy, that claims that stocks always go up?

Kara Swisher: I guess.

Scott Galloway: And has a background in gambling?

Kara Swisher: Everyone gets interviewed, but actual reporters, huh?

Scott Galloway: Yes, I'm aware of Dave Portnoy's thing, his act and stuff. But what's interesting is that the stock is going up. What do you think of that?

Kara Swisher: They're just doing it again. They're doing another run. This is just fascinating. AMC too, right?

Scott Galloway: So there's a couple things. One, I have a lot of thoughts on this. You're going to have to give me some running room.

Kara Swisher: Please don't trigger me. Do not use the word Sasha Baron Cohen.

Scott Galloway: I'm going to take a moment. We're going to go on a quick break. And when we get back, instead of talking about net neutrality, we're going to talk about this. I tell you what's important to me. And you're like, that's nice. I'm going to give you road to run. You're going to let me run.

Kara Swisher: We don't care. Where's my Great Dane?

Scott Galloway: Great Dane, I'm letting you run. And I, even though Stephanie Ruhl called you a poodle, you are indeed a Great Dane.

Kara Swisher: Sure, whatever you say.

Scott Galloway: So we're going to take a quick...

Kara Swisher: She said I wasn't sexy. That hurt.

Scott Galloway: She did not say that. She said you were more like a poodle, which I thought was more helpful.

Kara Swisher: I'm so bringing sexy back.

Scott Galloway: All right, listen. I am so bringing sexy back.

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're going to have a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about GameStop instead of net neutrality in California. We'll mention that also. And a listener mail question. So let's go to break. And then when we get back, we'll talk about it.

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Kara Swisher: All right, Scott, we're back. Time to run on GameStop. Go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Well, so this is, if you could, you would argue this is an honest pump, meaning that, so for example, Dan Loeb took a big position in Yahoo, got Marissa Mayer to come in. Everyone was very excited. Posters that said, keep hope alive, put people on the board, talked about all the potential of Yahoo. And then put people on the board. And I'm fairly certain the people on the board observed Marissa Mayer and said, she is a terrible executive. And then perceived to watch her take EBITDA down 50%, revenues down 20%.

Kara Swisher: 20%.

Scott Galloway: And Dan, just as they were starting to take down the keep hope alive posters with a picture of Marissa Mayer, got the hell out of Dodge and sold all his shares after what I would call an honest pump. That's what an activist does. And these individuals, he got the previous CEO fired too.

Kara Swisher: That's right.

Scott Galloway: On what I would argue was to be blunt.

Kara Swisher: Very fair.

Scott Galloway: You thought that was very fair.

Kara Swisher: What he, that guy with the, with the thing I wrote a lot of those stories.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: I think that guy lied about his resume. He said he had a minor in computer science.

Scott Galloway: That's where you fired somebody?

Scott Galloway: No, it was more complicated than that.

Kara Swisher: Okay, fair enough.

Scott Galloway: There was no such course at his college. He sort of lathered over his resume. Anyways, another talk show. Unfair, but he did indeed lie. So the honest pump of GameStop is a group of individuals, and it's going to be very interesting once forensic analysis is done here. I have a hunch, or I speculate it's a group of people who aren't as retail or aren't as unsophisticated as we think, who figured out algorithms for planting, getting a position, and then catalyzing a lot of chatter and then pumping an honest pump of their position. Or it might be, and also getting people who believe it's part of a movement, maybe want to make a little bit of money, maybe enjoy it, maybe want to learn about stocks just fine.

But here's the thing. It goes to a bigger issue. And that is volatility. It's sort of intergenerational warfare. And that is volatility plays to young people and is damaging to the incumbent wealthy. In 2009, the reason I'm somewhat economically secure now is because of the volatility coming out of the economic crisis where Apple and Amazon were allowed to fall to pretty serious lows. I was able to buy Apple at, you know, basically $11 a share. I was able to buy Amazon at $160. They're both up 10 to 20x.

When you try and reduce volatility by flooding the market with quantitative easing keeping interest rates low or you find this type of volatility threatening and you want hearings, what you're basically saying is the incumbents want to hold onto their wealth because volatility creates risk that current asset holders don't want. And if you're a younger generation that has a little bit of money and quite frankly, not as much to lose because your generation now controls 9% of wealth versus 19, and you see that the game isn't rigged, but it's tilted, volatility isn't as scary to you.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. It's not.

Scott Galloway: So they embrace volatility. Younger people have that profile.

Kara Swisher: Well, no, they have it. Volatility and change.

Scott Galloway: You know what would happen if we let small business be more volatile and we let restaurants go out of business? We would shed skin and a lot of 50-year-old restaurant owners would lose their restaurants, which would make room and opportunity for 30-year-olds to come in.

Kara Swisher: You're a cruel man, Scott Galloway.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but unless you let the winds of creative destruction gale, unless you let volatility run wild, all you're doing is protecting the existing asset holders. And younger people are like, we want some chaos. We want some volatility. We would like to see Brooklyn real estate prices maybe get cut in half. We would like the opportunity to have real volatility in the market because if it's just we want the markets to go up 4% to 6% a year, that just plays to the existing asset holders. So I think this reflects, again, greater income inequality and a transfer of wealth from the young to the poor. And as a result, the young are ready to rock. They want volatility.

Kara Swisher: So did you see how Jim Cramer went kind of crazy on this issue yesterday? What did he say?

Scott Galloway: Oh, he just wasn't liking it. He didn't like it. He wanted the SEC to get in here.

Kara Swisher: And it's just interesting, the different reactions. They're going to come in. This is getting a little bit strange. The thing that worries me most about all of this is not Reddit. The thing that worries me most is Elon Musk. And that is the one truism throughout history, I think, that is hard to deny is that power corrupts. And I'm not saying he's a corrupt person. But when one person can start moving – basically, Bitcoin is moving towards a default currency. And when one person can take a default currency up or down 20%, 30% with one-word tweets, that doesn't lead to good places. The reason why America, to a certain extent, our greatness in America is all the checks and balances. And quite frankly, no one person has ever been able to corner the market. They get really hurt when they try and corner the market, whether it's the Hunt Brothers and Silver, whether it's Carnegie and Steele. And it strikes me that whether it's seven companies controlling 51% of the S&P by market capitalization or an individual who has this kind of sway over the markets, that's frightening.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it's true. It's sort of this cult. It's the cult of personality situation where you have – it's an autocracy does that a lot. Those are the sort of hallmarks of autocracy.

Kara Swisher: But you're right. There's been a lot of stories about this that I read recently about this cult of how personalities can move things. Here's what Jim Cramer said. Obviously, Jim Cramer is a well-known stock pundit. He said, "We need fair, deep markets" in an evening tweet. "We want investing, good investing. We want to trust prices. What happened at the end of the day was a mockery of what was supposed to happen. Where is government?" This is what he said, which I think a lot of people got slammed on. And then he wrote 44 minutes ago, "I have been a polarizing figure all my life. So it isn't like I just turned into Jefferson or something. I do my homework. I try to outwork everyone. I say what I believe. And for that, I am hated by many. But I say, game on." There you go from Jim Cramer.

Scott Galloway: Well, here's the thing, though. Where is Jim calling for legislation when he makes a comment about the fundamentals and the stock goes up?

Kara Swisher: Well, he himself has been, you know, he runs stocks up and down too.

Scott Galloway: Well, that's my point. Not quite the same way. This is really something else. The bottom line is the incumbent powers are just angry that we don't understand the mechanisms and the mediums that these individuals are using to pump. What I think we're going to find out, though, is that the people who are doing the pumping and organizing it are more sophisticated and more the establishment than William Wallace and we'd like to believe.

Kara Swisher: Interesting. Yeah. I think we're going to find out it was the King's Guard, not William Wallace, who was pumping this shit and making money. And they're leveraging a movement. They're leveraging this notion. People think they're sticking it to the man.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. But to say that – to all of a sudden move in and say, all right, if there's systemic risk and volatility, then fine. Let's look at the systemic risk and volatility that hedge funds who are able to short a stock to 140 percent of its outstanding shares, which I still don't understand how that happens.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. They halted the stock. But again, this is-

Scott Galloway: The stock's been halted. GameStop's been halted. This is again, and I would argue my word of caution all along is day trading is just a great way to lose money. And so if you're doing it for dopamine, fine. If you're doing it to learn, fine. But don't kid yourself. When you sit down to day trade, you're sitting down at a poker table that doesn't take advantage of time. And two or three people at that table have supercomputers, PhDs, someone whispering in their ear, and they have enough chips to ride out any bad hand.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: So just be sure that, just be clear, you are at a poker table with the best players in the world. And typically, if you looked at GameStop, I'm sorry, if you looked at Robinhood, they have this thing with the most popular stocks. If you just invested, if you kept buying the most popular stocks according to GameStop, there's been analysis that said you would have lost 80% to 95% of your capital.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. And here's the problem. When we have these platforms that are just, quite frankly, trying to get you to create more activity because they sell your clicks, they sell your information, they sell your order flow, then that agency or that company is no longer a fiduciary. They no longer have your best interests at heart. They just want you to do more and more and more.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. And that's what Robinhood is. In my opinion, Robinhood is the new Facebook. It is the new menace.

Kara Swisher: Well, one of the things, Vlad Tenev was all over the place in a lot of places talking about it because he was getting ahead of sort of all the insults that he endured after when they closed trading, half of the trading down, where you couldn't buy Robinhood stock on their platform. So anyway, it's an interesting situation. And I think the power dynamic is changing. It's hard to know because you can also almost be on two sides of this thing. Like, well, you do need calm markets at the same time. Too bad. Like this is what it is. So it's certainly going to, we'll see where it ends.

Scott Galloway: We will see where it ends, but I think you're right. Did you run far enough? Do you have enough running room there?

Kara Swisher: Oh, thank you. Thank you for that. I feel loved. I feel loved. Okay. I feel good. All right. You still have to listen to Sacha Baron Cohen. Anyway, moving on. Let's take a listener mail question. You've got mail.

[Listener voicemail plays] Colin: Hey, this is Colin calling from Austin, Texas, where we have had six consecutive days with uninterrupted power. Do you think that companies that have relocated here in the last decade are going to be paying very close attention to what Texas leadership does to prevent another energy failure? If there's more Republican douchebaggery like blaming wind turbines, won't companies consider the potential damage to future recruiting? And won't other tech hubs like Miami leverage this disaster to lure businesses to their cities? Oh, and this question is 54.7% for Scott and 45.3% for Kara. Thank you.

Kara Swisher: So primarily for Scott. I think they were just throwing you a bone. That's called throwing you a Texas bone.

Scott Galloway: I like "Republican douchebaggery," but go right ahead, Scott. Do your 54.7%.

Scott Galloway: Look, there's no doubt about it. Texas gets a black eye here. States like Florida and Texas that don't have—I'm of two minds about this. I used to think, okay, anyone that doesn't have a state income tax has really weak infrastructure and really weak schools. And Florida, quite frankly, has weak public schools. Again, another transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. And hurricanes. Everybody knows something. Texas comes out of this with a black eye. There's no doubt about it.

In terms of his actual question of companies moving down, whether it'll force them to think twice, absolutely not. And you know why? These are the people that are immune from it. These are the people that can take off for Cancun. These are the people that can afford their own generators. So the reason for the great migration in the U.S. is driven by two things: sunshine and low taxes. And what you have is any individual that is sitting on an unrealized gain of greater than $10 million, and there's thousands, if not tens of thousands of people with SPACs and the market's accelerating, thinks, you know what? If I have $130 million, a $13 million unrealized gain because the stock market's gone crazy or I was a shareholder in a SPAC, why don't I move to Miami and with my tax savings, I'll buy some big fat house in Coral Gables, or I'll move to Austin and buy some amazing home in the same neighborhood where Michael Dell lives on a golf course. So this stuff really impacts the lower income and middle income people. The rich are just fine. They're not boiling water in Austin.

Kara Swisher: Well, it's interesting because I think one of the things that is true, though, is that I've had a lot of people who may there, they're like, oh, this sucks. They called me, you know, like I was bragging about it. No, I'm not bragging about it. I do think Texas has got to figure out a way to get uninterrupted power. They also have other weather issues, including all kinds of weather issues, as does California, as does Florida, as does everybody. But I think it shows, like, Wall Street Journal had a great story about how much more expensive it's been power in Texas. Have you seen what's happened with these floating variable rate pricing?

Scott Galloway: Not just that. Over the years, since they deregulated, people in Texas are paying more for power.

Kara Swisher: The Wall Street Journal had a really interesting story. So they think they're being like, oh, we're Texas, we don't get regulated, and they just get screwed. The consumer just gets screwed. That's what happens through deregulation. And that these companies didn't upgrade, that they charge more. It's just sort of like, what a deal that you weren't on the national grid, or you weren't regulated in any way. I do think it's something that's not great. It's also not great. This is the second year that South by Southwest won't happen, won't be happening live as well. How much do we miss that? I miss South by Southwest a lot. We're going to be happy next year when we go and have a little barbecue together and do some lovely things there. But it's definitely a hit. That, for example, was a really good event for tech, like tech-related stuff. You and I both went. So I think it's, you know, Elon's moved there, which is interesting, speaking of Elon. I don't think it's going to be an enormous hit. I just think it's something Republicans have to think about.

Scott Galloway: Why do you think Elon Musk has moved there?

Kara Swisher: SpaceX, probably.

Scott Galloway: No. It has nothing to do with company. It's taxes.

Kara Swisher: Okay.

Scott Galloway: Elon Musk has added to his personal net worth the GDP of Hungary. He's gone from $10 billion to $160 billion in 10 months.

Kara Swisher: Oh, it's great to see that rich people are really feeling the pain of the pandemic.

Scott Galloway: Anyways, $150 billion in an unrealized gain because he hasn't sold the stock yet. In California, 13% of $150 billion is $19.5 billion. So, by moving to Texas, and when I say move to Texas, he buys a home there. He gets a vet there. He gets a dentist there. He registers to vote. And he makes sure he's not in California more than 183 days a year, which, by the way, is easy for him because he's roaming the earth and his Gulfstream 650 or he's in space or whatever he's doing. He gets $19.5 billion. He can go out and say buy William Sonoma and Tiffany. It's just the amount of – it's very simple. Find everyone with an enormous unrealized gain. And guess what? They got a hankering for Texas and Florida.

Kara Swisher: Hankering. Where do you live, Scott?

Scott Galloway: Florida. But I moved here when I was poor. I moved here in 2010. I've been paying heavy taxes for many years in both California, D.C. and New York. My kids' grandparents are here. That's why we moved there.

Kara Swisher: Oh, I see. It's nice.

Scott Galloway: And my speech delayed son couldn't get into a Manhattan school.

Kara Swisher: I still think the Republicans got to clean it up. You can't have this. You've got to clean up that energy market. It's just not. They have their own grid. It's so strange. There's three grids. There's the Western, the Eastern, and the Texas. The whole thing's strange. All the board resigned. A whole bunch of them resigned. This is the board that runs this stuff. It's just, read the Wall Street Journal. I recommend people reading this Wall Street Journal because it's sort of like, looky here. This did not work out so well, the deregulation. In any case, things are settling. The weather is turning. But at the same time, thank you, Colin, from Texas. But just his question, it's not going to slow the migration of companies. All right. I still don't see the Googles and the Facebooks moving yet. That's where I will be like, aha, Oracle moves, yeah, whatever. I think that when you see the very big companies moving from California, that's when I'll pay attention.

Scott Galloway: I don't know. If I was going to predict that one would move, the one I would predict, it'll really rattle everybody.

Kara Swisher: What? Tell me.

Scott Galloway: Salesforce.

Kara Swisher: Oh. Mark Benioff spends a lot of time in Hawaii.

Scott Galloway: Well, he does that already.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, but so why not get – anyways, I think Salesforce, and they've embraced remote.

Scott Galloway: That's what they've done. That's what they've done. He's a very forward thinker. Also, quite frankly, I think the governor has his head in the sand around this. I think both – I really don't think he's outlined –

Kara Swisher: He's facing a lot of political challenges.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but basically what they say is they break into someone. They're asked a legitimate question around how are you going to stem the flow. Your state has basically become expensive but bad in the eyes of corporations. How are you going to stem the exodus? And quite frankly, Governor Newsom's answers have been a bunch of California blah, blah, rah, rah, rather than acknowledging the issue and saying this is our three-step program to trying to fix this. I don't think he's done a great deal of leadership here.

Kara Swisher: I'm not going to defend some of the things he's done, but I have to say he's stymied by the propositions. There's a lot that stymies governments in California. And they have been doing well for a decade like under Jerry Brown. Like it's been agreed. Everybody gets hits their wall. Every state. And so will Texas, by the way. And so will Florida. And probably much sooner, both of those. I think the California sort of miracle went on for a very long time.

Scott Galloway: I'm telling you, Kara, it is staggering. Staggering. I'm going to an event that the mayor is hosting in Miami tonight, Mayor Suarez. It is staggering the number of people and companies it feels like overnight have decamped to Florida.

Kara Swisher: All right. Well, you give us a report on Monday how that party went.

Scott Galloway: It's not a party.

Kara Swisher: Just don't get arrested.

Scott Galloway: I want to see him speak.

Kara Swisher: I'm teasing you. Florida is just – we're going to have a little event down there, I think. We're going to have to – you talk to him about that.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. See what we can do and kind of the interesting people we could – and focus on the future. There's Florida. Dreamy Mayor Suarez.

Kara Swisher: He's dreamy. McDreamy Mayor Suarez. He's a dreamy Republican. Let's see. See if he's all Trumpy. Will you check that out?

Scott Galloway: I don't think he is. I don't think he is. He strikes me as practical and friendly and smart, and I like him a lot.

Kara Swisher: Speaking of Trumpy, Trumpy's going to be in Orlando, like, Trumping it up. Let's not even talk about it. All right, we won't. Let's not talk about it. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. I'm going to let you really predict when we get back.

[Ad Break]

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, prediction time. Every year you make predictions, you make them all the time. And three have come true in 2021 so far. Bitcoin, which was trading at $18, now surpassed 50 or maybe 60. And there's more companies just announced that they're going to be buying it. Sonos was at $19 a share and you predicted it would hit 40 and it happened. And also you said Twitter, which was at 40, is now at $60 a share when you said they'd be moving to subscription. So take a little bow and tell me how you feel about each of these things or more stuff.

Scott Galloway: Well, so actually Twitter is at, I think it's at 70. It's at 79. I'll look while you talk.

Kara Swisher: No, it's at 79. I predicted we'd go to 70. I was wrong. It's at 79. On a move to subscription. That's a novel idea.

Scott Galloway: Look, so Bitcoin has tremendous heat around it. We've talked about that.

Kara Swisher: Sorry, $79 almost. Yeah, 79 bucks. It's up 9%, 10% today.

Scott Galloway: Whoa, 78, 78.

Kara Swisher: Wow. Yeah. And why? Because they said they're finally getting serious about subscription. Anyway, and by the way, if they make an announcement, they should so buy CNN. They should so buy CNN. People love that idea. So many people have asked me about your prediction.

Scott Galloway: Oh, it makes such perfect sense. AT&T needs to reduce their debt. If you look at what happened to Spotify and Netflix when they announced original content, if Jack Dorsey today announced they were acquiring CNN, the stock, that day, that day, the acquisition would be paid for in the stock increase. He could buy it for free right now. Anyway, so my prediction, I love this notion of who would benefit most. The most accretive actions in history in terms of shareholder value have been one verticalization when you go right into content or your retailer, the reverse engineers back into the product itself and you go all vertical and also move to a subscription model. And so I'm looking for great brands that could pull an Apple and go vertical into distribution like they did with stores or an Amazon. And I think that my prediction is that one of the strongest brands in the world – actually, I think it's the strongest brand in the services economy globally and has underperformed all of its peers the last five years and would see an increase of 50% to 70% if they got serious about subscription or going vertical. is Goldman Sachs. I think Goldman Sachs is going to attract an activist in the next nine months. And by the way, full disclosure, I work with Goldman. I love them. I think they're great at what they do. I think there's a cartoon of them being weird, greedy, Monty Burns people. They have the core asset of any company in an information age. And that is they are seen and perceived in the marketplace by young people as an accelerant. The number of incredibly talented, young people, mostly women now, because seven out of 10 high school valedictorians are women, and more women are graduating from college. The number of really impressive young people that continue to start their careers at Goldman is staggering. This is an incredible firm with incredible assets that has a head up their ass strategy that focuses on transactional deal-based revenues. They go vertical, they buy a trading platform, and they start charging.

Kara Swisher: Like what? What trading platform?

Scott Galloway: I don't know. The one I'm an investor in, Public. Starts their hat wide. Don't take Robinhood public. What the fuck are you thinking? Go into trading. Do you know how many young people would pay $25 a month for advice, education, and investing advice and trading opportunities with Goldman Sachs? Call it GS Plus. Do a Disney Plus move. If their revenue goes to 10% recurring revenue, and by the way, $400 of the $500 of Fortune 500 would pay Goldman between $1 and $3 million a year just for ongoing advice. Instead, what happens in a transactional business is when I'm on the board of Urban Outfitters, Goldman shows up and just tells us, says anything to get us to buy a company so they can get a fee. When I'm on the board of Gateway, Goldman shows up and says anything that leads us to selling Gateway so they can get their fee. They need to get on the side of subscription revenue. They need to go vertical. The thing goes up 50 to 80 percent. Goldman Sachs moves to subscription.

Kara Swisher: What would be in their way for doing such a thing?

Scott Galloway: Traditional poor strategic thinking and muscle memory around "our model works." Muscle memory. "We're paying our, you know, we're paying. We've always swung the golf club this way. We all make good money." Meanwhile, their shares have underperformed. Morgan Stanley's outperformed. Do you realize Goldman Sachs is now worth less than Wells Fargo. It's worth less than PayPal. It's worth less than Square. It's worth less than Airbnb. It has underperformed all its peers on a five-year level, and it has the best brand in the world.

Kara Swisher: It does.

Scott Galloway: And it also has beautiful offices. The most talented young people in the world. So, underperformed.

Kara Swisher: That's interesting. A failure of leadership around strategic thinking, a failure of the board. You went after DJ? DJ, whatever his name is. DJ Saul.

Scott Galloway: I think when you're talking about strategic thinking, you have to go back a generation because DJ Sol has actually been quite aggressive in moving into consumer businesses with Marcus and also with the Apple card. I think he will be seen as somebody who said, "I'm the one that took us to consumer," which is where they need to head. They need to go vertical into consumer. So I think he deserves some credit actually. But this has been the definition of baby boomer encephaletic. "I get paid a shit ton of money. I'm going to stick here." I compliment him, but baby boomer encephaletic.

Kara Swisher: Go ahead. Activists going into Goldman.

Scott Galloway: Oh. And encourages them. And by the way, the best-

Kara Swisher: Which activist? Come on, you know something.

Scott Galloway: Okay, hold on. I can't go there. Best way to predict the future is to make it happen. The best way to predict the future is to make it happen. Goldman Sachs, the most undervalued brand in the world right now.

Kara Swisher: Well, you just declared war on them. You understand that.

Scott Galloway: No, I didn't declare war on them. I'm going to be a partner with them in this. I love Goldman. They manage my money. I love Goldman. I just think they're undervalued. I just think they're massively undervalued.

Kara Swisher: I think muscle memory is a very good, that's my takeaway from it is people doing, I think about that a lot in media. "This is the way we do it." Well, too bad. You know, like now this is the way we do. I think you talked, this is your theme today because you talked about it in GameStop. You talked about it here. Muscle memory is what you're talking about. Getting rid of muscle memory, correct?

Scott Galloway: That's right. Stretching out, stretching those limbs.

Kara Swisher: That's right. Stuff like that. The yoga-nator. It's a very great day in a view, I have to say. You like that? You like the Dane. I can't believe you're getting a great Dane. How many dogs do you have? Like 80?

Scott Galloway: No, we have Zoe, who is 14 and a half and is doing well, really well. And we have our Puerto Rican rescue dachshund. We think it's a dachshund. Felix, gangster.

Kara Swisher: Okay, so what are you, readying a replacement for your older dog?

Scott Galloway: That's what it is. 100%. She's going soon. She's going. I'm readying a replacement for you. That's what I can do.

Kara Swisher: Which comes first.

Scott Galloway: Oh my God, that's so cruel to have this Dane just sitting there.

Kara Swisher: Are you planning to adopt to rescue Sacha Baron Cohen? Are you already planning this?

Scott Galloway: Yes. Now she's 14 and a half. She's such a sweet girl.

Kara Swisher: So let me ask you one last question. Such a sweet girl. Who would really make you upset if I got an interview with? Just curious. We're still here. We're still here. Who would it be?

Scott Galloway: No, I'm done. I'm done. I'm done with, I'm delaying this game. Who would just be like, "I cannot believe you talked to that person." We've played it out.

Kara Swisher: Just asking for a friend. If you could get it, if I say this person, you have to, and you get this person, you have to put them on our show.

Scott Galloway: Okay.

Kara Swisher: Okay. You know who I would love, who is, I think, an incredible role model?

Scott Galloway: Yeah. Okay. Tell me.

Kara Swisher: I would love to have Mackenzie Phillips.

Scott Galloway: Mackenzie Phillips. I'm sorry, Mackenzie Phillips. Who the fuck's that?

Kara Swisher: Oh, that's from Three's Company. Oh, wait, no, that's from that old show. Remember her? Three's Company. From One Day at a Time.

Scott Galloway: One Day at a Time. That's who I want on this show.

Kara Swisher: God, I'm literally, hello, remember when we first started, grandpa with dementia?

Scott Galloway: Mackenzie Scott. Mackenzie Scott. Mackenzie. If I get Mackenzie Scott, I'm doing a live interview in front of a thousand people. She's my hero. I'm not gonna do the whole big like "look at me giving" thing. I'm just gonna push money out to people who need it. I like that. I think she has a lot of grace and dignity.

Kara Swisher: I cannot make that promise. If I get Mackenzie Scott, I hung out with her many years ago. She's of course lovely. It is lovely. I haven't spoken to her in a million years. You literally said that just so you could get that person on Sway, right?

Scott Galloway: I don't know even how to reach her.

Kara Swisher: Honestly, Mackenzie, if you're listening, hi, it's Kara again. We're huge fans. By the time we spent together. She was my 2020 person of the year.

Scott Galloway: Okay. All right. Well, good. She's really great. What a thrill for her.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. Let me just say, you picked a nice person, like who I always liked, who I always thought was a lovely, smart, erudite person. and now is doing really interesting, unusual things.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, plus she's not doing all this bullshit. You know what I can't stand? This whole movement towards space.

Kara Swisher: What? Space?

Scott Galloway: Here's an idea. Here's an idea. I love space. The most powerful people in the world should be talking about moving to Mars. They should be talking about making their home a better place.

Kara Swisher: Well, you know, they think this is how to do it. I wrote about it because those pictures from Jupiter and Mars were so beautiful. Did you see those?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I love the pictures. Literally, you could take like the zoom down to a rock. I was like, I'm looking at a rock 130 million miles away.

Kara Swisher: But you think it's kind of abdicating responsibility for making your home a better place?

Kara Swisher: I don't know. Granted, sometimes after arguments with my kids, I just want to get in my car and drive. But I decide to actually invest in the house versus them. I'm different than you. I think we should explore space. But I think it shouldn't be by two billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk fighting it out. I think we should all invest in exploring the cosmos, not just for Tibet to get our planet to be a multi-planetary species, but that there are things out there that would be great. I know we've made a mess here, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't go there.

Scott Galloway: I think we should re-explore steel towns in our manufacturing base in the red states and try and reinvigorate them instead of all this sword fighting with their dicks. "I'm going to Mars. No, I'm going to Mars." There are a lot of issues, but everything's not perfect at home and you still travel. I don't know. I just think it's part of the same thing. I think space travel—one of my other predictions—I think space travel and all the excitement around space is a technology that's going to end in tears for investors. I think it's expensive and dangerous.

Kara Swisher: It is expensive. The Mars mission was $2.7 billion. I don't think it's meant to make money necessarily, but we know if they get minerals and things like that. There are a lot of people trying.

Scott Galloway: There are.

Kara Swisher: Actually, Musk is going to put up an all-civilian crew by the end of 2021. Bezos' Blue Origin, which he'll be focusing a lot more on, people think, is going to be putting humans in space for orbits at least soon. So, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I'm on the other side of that trade than you, but I don't know about the money part.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Okay. That's the show. That is the show. I feel better. I feel better. That is the show. I'm still on this planet without a vaccine, like a lot of people, like way too many people. But anyway, I will get one. I will keep trying. J&J is coming out with a vaccine.

Scott Galloway: They are. J&J is coming out with one that doesn't need to be refrigerated quite as much. One dose.

Kara Swisher: One dose. Very exciting. It shows a lot of efficacy, which is going to be great. There's all kinds of good news in lots of spaces. Israel—there's one last thing I'll say, which I didn't mention at the top—Israel is showing huge rates of uptake, even though there are still all kinds of problems there. And then, as you said, the J&J one dose has 72 percent efficacy at protecting against COVID-19. That's pretty great.

Scott Galloway: It's pretty great.

Kara Swisher: All right. See, we can do things in this country. And also interview famous people like Mackenzie Scott. All right. I'm done. I'm done. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Cerny Indratod engineered this episode. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business.

Scott Galloway: Who gets mentioned by the most lovable Canadian in history? Andrew Ross Sorkin. The dog does. You take it when you get it.

Kara Swisher: The dog does. You take it when you get it, Scott.

Scott Galloway: All I got to say, Andrew, is woof.

Kara Swisher: Thank you.