Russia vs. Big Tech, Facebook Responds (Dismissively), and Friend of Pivot Max Chafkin on Peter Thiel

Kara Swisher: [Sniffling] I'm Kara Swisher with a very bad cold.

Scott Galloway: We have such really big news here, and I'm very serious.

Kara Swisher: Yes. Scott is getting a vasectomy.

Scott Galloway: No, no, no. That's not what's going on. It's related. It's related.

Kara Swisher: So do you want to break the news or should I?

Scott Galloway: I shall, because it is not about you.

Kara Swisher: Oh, everything's about me. Come on, go ahead. Bring it back to me.

Scott Galloway: Trust me, I'll be able to do this. Because you love my children so much, and because you always talk about how I'm a perfect parent, which I am, I've decided that it's a good idea, and of course I had nothing to do with it, that we have yet another child. My lovely wife and I, Amanda, are having another baby due in December. So we are four kids. That's what we're doing.

Kara Swisher: We're being very inappropriate. And are we allowed to talk about the sex of the kid?

Scott Galloway: Sure. Yes, I guess. It's a boy. So I will have three boys and one golden child girl. And I'm very excited.

Kara Swisher: I feel like only lesbians and evangelicals are having that many children, except ours are getting vaccinated. I am so excited. And by the way, like every piece of good news, I have a nice emotional response. I think people like you and Amanda should have kids. I think that's good for the world.

Scott Galloway: Yes, we have good kids.

Kara Swisher: And I'm not bothered by your age because you're rich. And the fact that when this kid's going to college, you'll be, let me see, dead. You'll be dead. That is the only thing.

Scott Galloway: I thought, you know, my oldest son turned to me and he said, "You were almost out, mom."

Kara Swisher: You mean Bain?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, Bain, my 19-year-old, lovely son, Louis. He turned to me and he was literally like, "You are this close to Bain." I think you lean in. And there's a Sultan of Brunei with 45 kids. You're the Sultan of Wokistan. I think you go for like a dozen kids.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, my other son was saying that some men, he was telling me about, I think it was Genghis Khan. He had like 300 kids. So I feel okay. I feel okay. I cannot have 300 kids.

Scott Galloway: So you know there's a decent chance I'm the father, right?

Kara Swisher: No. 100%.

Scott Galloway: Okay. So this is a true story. There was an item when my first son was born that Jeff Bezos might be the father. So that's got as much accuracy as this. But go ahead. Please avail yourself.

Kara Swisher: Okay. So true story. Because I was an athlete for seven months, I had something called Access to the Athlete Job Board at UCLA. One of the jobs is, you know, people say follow your passion, the money will follow. Well, I found that for nine months, and that is no joke. I became a sperm donor.

Scott Galloway: Yes. I remember this. And me and two water polo players went to this clinic, and they took pictures of us basically naked, an IQ test, a personality test. And then also probably too much information. We had a VD test, and at that point I decided I would rather die. Now they do hundreds of tests, just so you know. But go ahead.

Kara Swisher: I would rather die of a venereal disease than have another VD test. I fainted when they gave me the VD test, and I remember waking up to a semicircle of nurses thinking, "How do we get to Scott's VD?" They're never going to want my fainting sperm.

Scott Galloway: No, they don't. They're very strict now. Anyways, I got called back like three or four times a week, and it made no sense because I went with these two guys who are better looking but smarter than me. Let's land this sperm plane.

Kara Swisher: Okay. So, you know what I had? I asked the people at the clinic. I said, "All right, why is my sperm like Bitcoin?" Although we didn't have Bitcoin like that. And they said, "You have the peanut butter and chocolate of sperm donation in West Los Angeles." Can you guess what that is?

Scott Galloway: What is it? It's such a disgusting metaphor you're making, but go right ahead.

Kara Swisher: Tall and Jewish. True story. And it put me through my junior year. Story's not over.

Scott Galloway: No joke. Put me through my junior year of college doing something I was outstanding at.

Kara Swisher: And then my mom. Oh, my God. This is a true story. My mom sat me down and said, "You need to stop."

Scott Galloway: Okay. We need to start talking about the Emmy soon, but go ahead.

Kara Swisher: "Because your kids could meet their brother and sister and fall in love." No. And this is totally unregulated. So there's a chance I have 11,000 or 12,000 children. So if your son, when you go to get its driver's license, is 5'10", 120, with bad acne, angry, but funny, and really good on a skateboard, chances are I'm your baby daddy.

Scott Galloway: Your sperm is too old and it was unregulated. No, you are not the father at all. Let me just disabuse everybody.

Kara Swisher: Wouldn't that be nice?

Scott Galloway: No. Wouldn't that be nice?

Kara Swisher: It wouldn't be – except I could sue you for a lot of money. No. I think that would make us much closer.

Scott Galloway: You know, I just interviewed today Ann Wojcicki from 23andMe, and we had a lot of discussion about this. I still don't understand what they're doing, except you're not supposed to do it, right? Because then people can find out if you're their dad.

Kara Swisher: Well, you know, if they put it up on the internet, yes, if people do that. 23andMe isn't doing it. People put up their results. So there's a site you can go to as a former sperm donor, and if you acknowledge that you want to be contacted, an email goes out to everybody. The problem is you don't know if it's two people or 200.

Scott Galloway: Yes, that's true. My son's found two of their sisters this year through another one.

Kara Swisher: Really? Yeah. They look just like him. We were joking with Louis about whether he would make an attractive woman one day, and the next day we saw a picture of his half-sister. She's very attractive. It was very funny. This is life with the lesbians. So now four children.

Scott Galloway: Okay. Let's get back to Amanda and me and the children.

Kara Swisher: No, I want to finish where I started. I think that the reason we're here is to create a better world through happy, loving, secure children, and I think the two of you are outstanding at that. I think all your kids share those qualities. So well done. It's a good service. Scott, I'm okay with you having kids at the age of 78. You and Tony Randall, I'm fine with it.

Scott Galloway: I'm fine with it. All right. I'm very excited. I think four is my limit.

Kara Swisher: That's great news.

Scott Galloway: If not, I turn into like an Appalachian story. So I am very excited. And Amanda is the best parent. And my other kids are great. And I co-parent my kids with a very wonderful person too. So I'm a very lucky lady with all these children.

Scott Galloway: I agree. I would agree with you.

Kara Swisher: And my fifth child, who is always Scott Galloway. Anyway, who is the most difficult, who is literally like the golden child is so much easier than you are in every aspect, just so you know.

Scott Galloway: That's right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Anyway, thank you, Scott. I'm very excited. And I asked Amanda's permission to say this, but we're super excited. So I may take a few weeks off during that time period, but probably not.

Kara Swisher: Unacceptable. Unacceptable. And by the way, the reason you are in this relationship with someone younger, cooler, and hotter than you is because you make the cabbage and the Benjamins.

Scott Galloway: That's true. Fair point. Let me give you a little inside track on what it means to be a daddy. It means you bring home the cabbage. That is true. So no time off. No time off.

Kara Swisher: No time off. So I will see you at Code next week, too. So we'll talk about that. That is very exciting. Code. Code is coming.

Scott Galloway: So speaking of which, going to Hollywood, did you watch the Emmys last night?

Kara Swisher: Did you watch them?

Scott Galloway: I joined several hundred million people in not watching it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, there's a lot of not watching of the Emmys and the Oscars. They're all worried about that.

Scott Galloway: Well, they should be. And not only that, it was essentially the thing that struck me, and The Hollywood Reporter had the best line on this. This was CBS airing its own funeral. Do you realize that nine years ago, not a single OTT show was nominated? And this year, the broadcast commercial-supported networks got one award for Colbert's election night coverage. I mean, it's literally, they literally aired their own funeral. It's just striking how the baton has been passed so aggressively and completely.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, except for, yeah, you're right. The Crown and Queen's Gambit from Netflix cleaned up. Ted Lasso and Hacks did in comedy. That's Apple TV Plus and HBO Plus, which does make a lot of TV. Hulu had 21 nominations and came out with zero statues. One thing that was disturbing is there was a lot of people of color nominated and it was Emmys. So why once again? I think it was true. I think Matt Bellini wrote a great piece about this. And not just the Emmys, but the Oscars, all these awards, I find them really unsatisfying in the way I didn't used to. And I don't know what that is. I think it's because I don't mind watching just the clips. They have commercials, and they're boring. Michaela Cole made an amazing speech. And Jean Smart, who won for Hacks, did an amazing speech. And then they take her off. It was just like, what's the point of these? The only thing that's cool is sort of the clothes, I guess, just like with the VMA or the Met Ball, that's kind of cool. But it also feels like another era. I don't know about you, but I don't know what happens to these. What do you imagine happenings in the digital age with streaming services sweeping all these times?

Scott Galloway: I think we all go have a high ball at the polo lounge with James Garner and let every, you know, this shit is just so outdated. You literally feel older just watching. I didn't watch it. I'm like, I'll find the funnest bits on Twitter. I was trying to look for the second order of the meta theme effect here. And what strikes me is that we talk a lot about income inequality. But typically when anything becomes digitized and certain players attract a lot of capital and implement technology, there's inequality or the genie coefficient goes up and there's a concentration of power. And it's happened with content. There are 500 original scripted programs. And basically five swept all the awards.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. It's really interesting because everyone's sort of bemoaning streaming in Hollywood. But I've never watched more TV and liked it.

Scott Galloway: Oh, 100%. But the semantics of it have changed. One, people will no longer tolerate advertising because they don't need to. Two, the new water cooler is social. I've been talking about Mr. Inbetween, and I talked about the White Lotus. And I heard from both networks saying, "Do you want information about it?" Because the new, quite frankly, Twitter, people no longer talk about programs. It's their social graph. I think it'll be interesting to talk to Ari Emanuel next week at Code and some others because it's really, it's changed rather dramatically.

Kara Swisher: And they keep talking about streaming in Hollywood. I'm like, it's just entertainment. It's like when people talked about the internet versus as a separate thing. And I was like, at some point, it's electricity. It's just what it is. Anyway, it's an interesting-

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but their business models are different. And one group, I mean, keep in mind, the traditional cable bundle still does three times the profits of the OTTs, but it trades for a third of the market capitalization because the world has decided both human and financial capital are running to non-ad supported streaming. So it presents this really interesting challenge for the traditional guys where they have to change a jet engine while flying. And that is how do we make the sorts of requisite investments and content to keep up with these guys while at the same time trying to hold on to our opioid induced constipation ads? So it's a very-

Kara Swisher: It'll be interesting to see what David Zasloff, I met him by the way, does at Warner because he's banking on the idea that that is the only thing they do and they do it really well. And I get that. Something that was interesting is they lost for the first time Chris Nolan, who went over in a bidding war. I don't believe people were bidding for a hundred, some hundred million dollar deal where he gets to release it in theaters and it's about the making of the atomic bomb. And I like him well enough, even though Tenet, like whatever. But it was just sort of interesting how they seem to be playing in an old school while acknowledging the new school. Anyway, it's going to be an interesting time.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, Zaslav and Zucker, first off, I've never heard of a company with two guys with Zs running them. But CNN Plus, I think it's going to be super interesting. I'm super excited about it. But these guys, so far, the traditional guys streaming networks, whether it's Peacock, Fox has something, have kind of been a thud. Because if you don't go all in, it just doesn't work.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it doesn't. We have to get to a bunch of things. But just so you know, your man boy, Beto O'Rourke, is expected to run for governor of Texas. He keeps doing this, like, coy thing. Drives me crazy.

Scott Galloway: He drives me crazy, too, that little hunker.

Kara Swisher: No, not in a good way. No, listen. But current polling shows that Greg Abbott has a five-point lead over O'Rourke, even after the Texas abortion and stuff. That's down from a 12-point lead. But in context, Matthew McConaughey is polling better than O'Rourke against the governor. All right, all right, all right.

Scott Galloway: I would so like—I occasionally consult to a candidate on his communication strategy. And I'm the kiss of death.

Kara Swisher: Who?

Scott Galloway: I am the kiss of death. Nobody ever wins that I consult to. Lindsey Graham?

Kara Swisher: Who? Who are you consulting?

Scott Galloway: Well, I'll just say I'm a big fan of Senator Bennett. I'm a fan of Andrew Yang. And occasionally they, I don't want to overstep my role. I've just, occasionally they're nice enough to call me, which probably means they just want me to write them a check. But anyways, I think Matthew McConaughey could just win with just one statement.

Kara Swisher: What?

Scott Galloway: "It's a church picnic and daddy's brought the egg salad. Hello, hello, hello." I mean that guy, he will say absolutely nothing and it'll sound very compelling. All right, all right, all right. Unfortunately, between him and Beto, it's like watching two Venezuelans in Miss Universe. It's like, "Okay, she hot. She hotter. No, she hotter." We'll see what happens. Greg Abbott is going to squeak in there. He's such a menace.

Kara Swisher: But there you go. I would bet the good money on him getting reelected. We'll see. Unfortunately.

Scott Galloway: We'll see. I don't know. They're very attractive candidates for sure.

Kara Swisher: OK, Scott, I'm going to slip into the MC booth here. I am Cedric the Entertainer.

Scott Galloway: OK. I don't know. Time for our first big story. Russia versus big tech. A couple of things went down here. First, Google and Apple pulled an election-related app after the Russian government outlawed it. The app was used by Russian opposition candidates. The Russian government reportedly threatened Google and Apple employees with prosecution. Well done. Also, Google pulled down YouTube videos and Google Docs used by supporters of dissident leaders Alexei Navalny. So do you think Google and Apple had any options here, or do you think this is just big tech continuing to say, "We're not paying a lot of attention to what's happening abroad"?

Kara Swisher: Well, what's going on in India and Russia. Russia and wherever they are, they're facing massive problems, which are almost opposite the ones here, which are kind of interesting, where they have to really apply themselves to the laws of those countries. This has happened before in Germany in the past and stuff like that. But it's really difficult to know what to do here, except not have employees in those countries, which complicates the situation. But every country is going to have their own splinter net, which is, I don't envy these companies operating under these things. And at the same time, they look terrible. They look like Putin's puppets in lots of ways. What do you think?

Scott Galloway: I think it's easy to be a purist when you're not running a global company. And the reality is global companies have to comply with the law, the domestic laws they want to operate in. And sometimes these laws are kind of the externalities of a kleptocracy or an autocracy. And they have a very difficult decision to make. And that is, do we want to engage and support and create economic growth for what are sometimes very corrupt governments? And sometimes even worse, we want to be vehicles for that corruption in terms of forking over data or letting them have our servers. They're in a very tight spot. I usually am not that empathetic or sympathetic to tech companies, but it's very difficult. I usually side on the side of the companies. And I think there's a political reason to continue to engage with these companies. And that is when companies, I was talking about international students with a friend. And the bottom line is the easiest way to get into an elite university is to have an exceptionally wealthy parent from a foreign country and get your kid in by making a big donation. And that's a bit of an overreach, but I think it's largely true. But I still think it's a good thing because when people interact with each other, they're less likely to go to war with each other. So I think that when Pepsi went into Russia, I think actually Apple in China is actually good. I think it takes the temperature down of conflict because we have a lot to lose. And everybody understands the currency of money. And so before China gets all angry about Australia in a submarine, they still have to think, well, how gangster do we want to go? Because there's a lot of people here making a living from our relationship with an American company. So I like our American companies being overseas.

Kara Swisher: Well, I think they have no power in these countries. I mean, that's the problem. What's going on in India is particularly – because that's a democracy, right? It's not like Russia where Putin runs the show and everything else or China or anywhere else. And what's interesting is in this country, of course, right, accused them of censoring over Trump's big lie. They were not censoring. They were cleaning it up. But where they can do things about it, they do. In the case of Russia, they certainly had very little choice, and it gave the Navalny people a big focus, even though they didn't win United Russia, which is Putin's party, won rather handily, I think, but not as well as they did before. And I think he's going to try to hold on to the reins of power, and that's via internet companies no matter what. And they may be different in what they do in each country. And so they'll look like it'll be like a patchwork of solutions, none of which will agree with each other. Telegram blocked a chatbot used by Navalny supporters. So what do they do there? They don't. I don't know what people in fascist countries do because these people are going to control no matter. And by the way, Trump would have done it if he could in this country too.

Scott Galloway: That's right. That's right. I don't know. You know, I don't tend to side with the tech companies, but in this case, boy, I would not want to. These people did not study for this test.

Kara Swisher: No, it's a tough spot. And I usually, I don't usually fall on the side of tech, but I think you got to, I think they deserve a bit of a hall pass here because I do think there's real benefits not only to Americans pulling revenues out of these countries or monetizing activity over there for the benefit of our shareholders and our employees mostly, mostly. But commerce has been kind of the solvent or the Neosporin for a lot of war, I think. I think we're just less likely when we trade with each other to go to war. I don't know.

Scott Galloway: I think if one of them stood up to them, it would be quite a thing. I would like to see that.

Kara Swisher: Well, Google, to be fair, Google kind of did, right? Sort of. You don't think so? Google said, "No, we're not playing"?

Scott Galloway: Well, you know, in certain places, I think it's really, I just, there's no good answer here. Just like our next topic.

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll discuss Facebook's attempt at damage control, and then we'll talk to a friend of Pivot about Peter Thiel.

[Ad Break]

Kara Swisher: Okay, we're back with our second big story. Facebook is responding to The Wall Street Journal's outstanding series on Facebook. VP of Global Affairs Nick Clegg says the journal, quote, "deliberately mischaracterized Facebook's actions." Well, that's a shocker. Clegg said Facebook doesn't conduct research and then systematically and willfully ignore it if the findings are inconvenient for the company. That's exactly what the fuck they do, Clegg. Anyways, the latest reporting covered Zuckerberg's failed vaccine push and looked at the role of Facebook comments in undermining vaccine confidence. The journal reported that at a gathering of Facebook's leadership this month, some officials wondered whether Facebook had gotten too big. A Facebook spokesperson pushed back on that depiction as well. What are your thoughts here?

Scott Galloway: I have a lot of thoughts. I wrote about it. I mean, his thing was called "What the Wall Street Journal Got Wrong" or "What Nick Clegg Got Wrong." You know, it's actually – he's their company's smoothest operator, let's be clear. And unlike other executives who've been responding on Twitter, he didn't embarrass himself. But what he did is he said absolutely nothing because I think probably he was sitting in his office and he's gotten very close to Zuckerberg and others there and powerful. And he had to say something because saying nothing was a problem, right? And it's not just one topic. It's like 10 topics they've sucked at, right? And so one of the things I think that he tried to do was put confusion and obfuscation in, in a way, by saying things like, "This is complex and people are working on it. And we're not bad people. How dare they call us bad?" That's not what the journal story said. So nobody is saying that Facebook is Thanos. They just didn't. But he pretended that they did. So he said, "At the heart of the series is an allegation that's just plain false, that Facebook conducts research and then systematically and willfully ignores the findings or the findings are inconvenient for the company." They didn't say that. They said that they make these calls and they're usually made by Mark Zuckerberg and he makes a lot of bad calls. And that's different. There's a lot of people. And then the second thing is he talked about cherry picking pieces and selective quotes from the stories. And then he cherry picked a study that's favorable to Facebook. And then the last thing he did, which drove me crazy, is he did this. "The jury is still out on whether social media is to blame. It's nascent. It's early. And so we don't know yet." And it sounds so much like the cigarette manufacturers. You know what I mean? Like, nobody's saying they caused the January 6th attacks. People are saying they're part of the problem by letting President Trump do all these things. So he's a very clever man, and he got to this problem late. He's trying to throw FUD into this. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know.

Kara Swisher: Well, that's what they do. They create their great series when Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant and his defense attorney said, "I create muck." You know, I kind of gum up the prosecution's case. And I think this all I was on a panel this morning with Sir Martin Sorrell with Reuters. And he we brought up teen depression and he said teen depression is complex. It involves alcohol. It involves drugs. And I said, "You're right. And we've regulated all of those things. But one key component or what appears to be a key component where one in eight British girls are citing as their motivation for actually contemplating suicide is a company and an industry that we don't regulate. We decided that people under the age of 21 should not drink alcohol. We criminalize drugs. We decided that pornographic content should be age-gated. But yet this industry, you're right, it's multidimensional. But every other dimension seems to have regulators concerned about it."

Scott Galloway: For me, it goes all the way back to the classified ad business. And that is the classified ad business was a monopoly. If you wanted to sell your 1984 Honda Accord, great car, which I had and sold, you had to run a little $30 ad in the classifieds. Classifieds and papers had monopolies or duopolies, and that was used to fund outstanding newsrooms. And slowly but surely, newspapers and specifically classifieds got picked apart. And then technology started garnering all the resources. And what have we had, Kara, in the last 30 years? The number of journalists in the United States has been cut in half. And the number of PR executives has gone up sixfold. So the ratio of bullshit to investigative journalism has gone in the wrong direction, 12x. And Nick Clegg is an example of that.

Kara Swisher: What's interesting here is when Amazon objected to that story the Times had, they had a detailed, detailed argument against it. And in a weird way, I respected it more. This was like, I don't know, a thousand words or less. I don't even think it's a thousand words. And he didn't say anything except he didn't say anything. Like that's what I was like sort of – so a lot of people are calling it a non-denial denial. I don't really know, but I was like I get to the end. I'm like, "Okay, where's the – oh, it's not here, right?" So what we want from you, Nick Clegg, is transparency. Like if you – let your researchers in. Let people in. And explain yourselves better instead of being so fucking defensive. That's never going to happen.

Scott Galloway: Let's send in Senator Klobuchar.

Kara Swisher: We're not. That's who we need to send in. We're not Thanos. Send in Klobuchar. It's kind of funny. It's weird. I literally was – I got to the end and I was like, "Where's the rest of this? Like where's the actual defense?" The journal thing was like a zillion words long. "What are the selective quotes? Which are misquoted? Can you explain what you're talking about?" Like that's what's not in here. And I think it's just typical. They're like victims and they've been like badly treated by people. And "Why don't you love us for all the good you've done?" So if he's going to bring it, bring it a little bit more.

Scott Galloway: Let me present a question. I've been thinking a lot about this. I mean, I feel like they've overrun government. They've overrun media. They've overrun communications. And resources have entirely flipped where the government used to show up with the biggest stick. And now it's tech companies where 44 states ask, have to ask Facebook not to launch Instagram for kids versus they used to just tell them. I've been thinking a lot about Michael Milken. Michael Milken, innovator, became a billionaire, was found of wrongdoing and went to prison for 10 years. Do you think that Mark Zuckerberg or Michael Milken, who has levied more damage on the Commonwealth, Michael Milken or Mark Zuckerberg?

Kara Swisher: I'm not sure. Probably Zuckerberg. I don't know. Let me ask you another question. If Michael Milken were born 30 years later and he was the CEO of a super hot fintech company and got accused of insider trading but he was an innovator and a billionaire as the head of a fintech company, would he be sent to prison for 10 years?

Scott Galloway: No, no. You know, I remember that Connie Bruck book was so good, *The Predator's Ball*. Do you remember that?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Great book.

Scott Galloway: It's the same bullshit. You know, anyway, we've got to get to our friend at Pivot. But let me just say bring the evidence, Nick. Like that's all. Do something detailed and specific instead of this "we're not bad people" nonsense. We don't think you're bad people. Some people think you're bad people. I think there is a problem with the architecture of what has been made that it's impossible to fix. Let's have that discussion. They don't want to have that discussion.

Kara Swisher: Anyway. Yeah, I'm hoping that Lina Khan and Tim Wu bring specifics on the antitrust case. And if they federalize the Texas AG's cartel investigation, which has criminal remedies, that's who needs to bring it. 100 years from now, we'll know the real damage here. But honestly, it feels like cigarette makers now. This is what Marc Benioff said to me years ago, and I laughed at him. I was like, come on.

Scott Galloway: So let's bring in our friend to Pivot, Kara, Max Chafkin. Max is the author of *The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power*, which is out today. What a thrill. We have access to Max. I'm here.

Kara Swisher: All right, Max. Okay, so first question. You report on a meal between Thiel, Zuckerberg, and the Trump White House where Zuckerberg and Kushner cut a deal: Facebook won't fact-check political speech and the White House won't regulate social media. So the unholy alliance. Say more.

Max Chafkin: Yeah. We've seen conversations about this going on. There's been lots of conjecture and quite a bit of persuasive evidence suggesting that Facebook was trying its best to cater to Donald Trump to avoid pissing off the Trump administration. There was this dinner at the White House with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Peter Thiel and his husband, and Jared Kushner and Ivanka and Donald Trump and Melania. After the meeting, as I report in the book, Thiel told a confidant that basically Zuckerberg had cut a deal. Now, it could have been a tacit deal or a wink-wink. I'm sure there's opportunity for dispute, but at least Peter Thiel's understanding was that it was a deal.

Kara Swisher: Oh, can I ask you a question? Because I know Peter really well, and I met him a decade ago.

Max Chafkin: Of course.

Kara Swisher: He tends to exaggerate sometimes, you know what I mean? Like for his power, around his power and what power he has. In this case, he did have a lot of power with Trump. And I think he finds—let me just say, Peter Thiel is one of the smartest people I've ever met in Silicon Valley. He's so interesting of mind. I don't like everything that comes out of his brain. But talk a little bit about how he got into power there and whether he sort of wielded it in Silicon Valley right at the start with that crazy meeting that Trump had with him.

Max Chafkin: Yeah, absolutely. It was this big mystery back in 2016 when Thiel shows up on the list of delegates for Donald Trump, then speaks at the convention, then donates to Trump. There was some dispute. Some people said, well, he doesn't really like Trump. This is some kind of contrarian head fake. Or maybe this is an expression of his total value system. I think it's a bit of both. It did a bunch of things for him. It got him in the room with Trump, got him a significant role in the transition. It also put him in a position as a power broker, as somebody who can sit between Mark Zuckerberg—arguably the most powerful media mogul in the world, maybe in human history—and the president of the United States. We saw that in an early 2016 meeting with Zuckerberg and a bunch of conservative pooh-bahs where Thiel was right in the middle. That has continued where Thiel has sat in that power broker role. You can argue about how much influence he's really had. Of course, Zuckerberg is the absolute dictator of Facebook, so Peter Thiel can't force him to do anything. Although I do think, and Kara, you've brought this up a bunch of times, I think Thiel has had a big influence on Zuckerberg's ideology, his worldview. You just continually see that in the news that comes out about Facebook, in things Mark Zuckerberg says.

Kara Swisher: The only thing is Mark is not nearly as smart as Thiel. I know that sounds crazy from someone who doesn't agree with him on almost anything, but one of the things he has is he's very smart. I don't know how else to put it. He's so smart. And I think his books are interesting and things like that. Again, I don't typically agree with him on a lot of things. But talk a little bit about why you focused on him, because I think he's a unique personality in Silicon Valley in terms of being disdainful of liberalism. He does play with the idea that "there's such liberals here" when in fact, Silicon Valley people aren't that liberal. Actually, they're more like Peter, in my experience.

Max Chafkin: I totally agree with you on that political judgment. I think he's interesting because he's one of the most important, if not the most important, venture capitalists. Of course, there are people who have more money and have had better returns. But in terms of cultural impact and philosophical impact, it's pretty unusual. Just to take one example: which other Trump-adjacent figures have come out super well out of the Trump administration? Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller—the people he was really playing with—they have not come out super well. Thiel, on the other hand, has come out looking rather good. It depends on your point of view, but he's out there making new political moves, supporting Senate candidates J.D. Vance and Blake Masters, who are both employees or ex-employees. They're really ideological extensions of Peter Thiel, I would argue. He's had this continued political impact. He's still on Facebook's board, despite giving Zuckerberg a zillion reasons to can him. So I think he's done very well navigating a very difficult and controversial period.

Scott Galloway: Max, it strikes me that Peter Thiel is genuinely misunderstood. Not in the sense that people have a more negative or positive impression than they should, but it's difficult to put your thumb on this guy or understand the pulse of what drives him. He's obviously brilliant and arguably one of the best investors in history, incredibly influential, but really likes Trump, then doesn't like him. What about his complexion, his personality, what drives him, what's most surprising to you? What do you think the public may not understand about him?

Max Chafkin: One thing that is overlooked about Peter Thiel and is overlooked about many of these tech figures is the extent to which he's a really great marketer. You can talk about Peter Thiel as an investor, as an operator. Of course, he ran PayPal for a short amount of time. But where he's really been influential is creating this larger-than-life persona. That's Peter Thiel, the hero slash villain.

Scott Galloway: The contrarian, I think.

Max Chafkin: The contrarian, yeah. That's right. What's really interesting to me is the extent to which he has been the architect of that. I don't think it's been totally an accident. He wrote that book and has been very judicious in how he speaks. But he also has this army of followers. It's not a conventional network. You have the PayPal mafia of this inner circle. But then you have outer regions of it, like Thiel Fellows—these young people who get $100,000 to drop out of school. And then there are aspirants who are basically auditioning for Peter Thiel's money, for some piece of this empire.

Kara Swisher: What's also interesting is a lot of people like Reid Hoffman and others remain friends with him who are much different politically. They're always saying to me, "Oh, you hung out with him. I've hung out with him not a lot but enough. You really like him." He does maintain those friendships, compared to some people who get abandoned when they're considered conservative or Trumpy.

Max Chafkin: I understand that Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel are at opposite ends of the political spectrum in some ways. Reid donates to Democrats and Peter donates to the Trumpiest of Trumpy Republicans. But I would argue they have maybe more in common than—

Kara Swisher: Oh, me too, yeah.

Max Chafkin: —you know what I mean? There are some disagreements, but I think Reid shares many aspects of Peter's worldview. And as you said, Kara, earlier, Silicon Valley as a whole is not as left as people think. It's much closer to the sort of Thiel libertarian stuff. Maybe they're not all going to go all the way to hardcore Trump support, but I do think they agree with him. And I think they also just respect success. That is something that should give people pause. I'm not sure that success is something that makes right. But among a lot of techies, they sort of believe that at their core.

Kara Swisher: Do you have any sense for what he'll do next? I mean, it seems like he's—I'm half expecting him to announce that he's going to build a rocket. What do you think is his next thing as he just continues to invest?

Max Chafkin: I think you have two things going on. One is this continued political engagement. He's donated $10 million to J.D. Vance, $10 million to Blake Masters—pledged to their PACs, not a direct contribution. That's a 20x increase of his political spending from 2016. He's definitely cranking it up a notch. The move to Miami is part of this to some extent. There's a conservative play to become the patron of this far-right, populist nationalist movement—the Trump party, whatever you want to call it, the 30% of the country that really loves Donald Trump. I think Peter Thiel wants to cultivate candidates in that domain and maintain influence there. He's continuing to invest. He's similar in some ways to the Koch brothers in the way he combines politics and business. He has a business project and a political project, but those two things are always connected and feed into each other. His candidates are always going to advocate for positions that help his bottom line and the bottom lines of his companies. And then those companies in turn reinforce the political side. For example, he and J.D. Vance invested in this right-wing YouTube competitor, Rumble. He's definitely got some interest in crypto, although it's hard to figure out where exactly he wants to take that. So I think he's going to keep on keeping on.

Kara Swisher: I think at the heart, I think he thinks Trump's an idiot. That would be my guess because for him, Trump would be an idiot. But I do think he hates government. I don't know what else to say. I remember an interview I did with him at the time and both of us are gay. I had just had children and I was talking about getting adoption rights, equal adoption rights. And he kept saying "special rights." And I was like, "Equal rights. I don't have the same rights. I have less rights." It was a really interesting discussion between us at a very early time in both our lives. It's just government he hates. I don't want government in my business. I said, "I want them out of my business too. So get out of my adoption rights that everybody else has." At the heart, anyone who wants to destroy government, I think he embraces. Or minimize it to an extent.

Max Chafkin: Totally agree. I think of course he thinks Trump's an idiot, but he probably thinks a lot of people are. Even if Trump were 50% more suave, he would still think he was an idiot. But Trump in a lot of ways hits some of the buttons for Peter. They're completely different. Trump is a reactionary from real estate, an industry I don't think Peter totally respects. Trump's crass character probably rubs him the wrong way. On the other hand, Trump's entire thing is this idea that he's going to say the things that normal people, that the elites are afraid to say. Political incorrectness was core to Trump's candidacy, core to the appeal of Trump to a lot of voters. And I'd say core to Peter Thiel's appeal. He wrote a whole book in the 90s called *The Diversity Myth*, which is all about trying to poke the left establishment in the eye. I think there is some genuine affinity between the two men.

Kara Swisher: Why doesn't he run? Why doesn't he run? That's exactly what would happen. Do you think he has it in him? Do you think he'll run for office?

Max Chafkin: No, I kind of think not. There were rumors in 2018 that he was going to run for governor of California. I think that probably came from a well-wisher or somebody who wanted to be hired to run his campaign. I think he's more comfortable playing that behind-the-scenes role. He's not a particularly charismatic dude. He is in person. Kara, as you say, he's very likable. There are aspects to his personality that are very attractive, and he's a good-looking man. But he doesn't have that charismatic politician thing. He stutters. He's constantly revising. For somebody who loves bomb-throwing, he's weirdly too careful to be a political animal. We saw it during the Trump transition. It was almost like the dog that catches a car.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, he didn't seem to like the attention and liked it at the same time. He didn't know what to do with it. Trump was touching him. Do you remember? He was hitting him or whatever. And he looked like he wanted to get out of there. Maybe he liked it. I don't know. Don't ask me. But let me ask you a question about the story that was written about the $5 billion Roth IRA. It's so Peter Thiel that he could unlock it in 2027. He saved all this money. Everyone's like, "How dare he?" And he, of course, is probably like, "Yes, I did it. I tricked the government into taking my money again."

Max Chafkin: Right. Yeah, no, totally. It's not like wanting to get out of paying taxes is any secret for Peter Thiel. That's the whole point of seasteading and a whole slew of his political activist projects—they're around tax exposure. It is a super aggressive thing that he did. These Roth IRAs were created for middle class and lower middle class taxpayers, not designed to be used by billionaires. I do wonder if he got to a position where it got too big for its own good. Once you have $5 billion in that—and it's probably a lot more by now—you're maybe a target in a way you don't necessarily want to be. Talking to people in his network, that fact hangs over a lot of his dealings, a lot of his personal interactions. When you're in a position where if things go bad politically at any point, you could owe a couple billion dollars. He's got a lot riding on every tax policy conversation, including some conversations going on right now.

Kara Swisher: He's been depicted. I worked a little bit on the *Silicon Valley* show by two different people. The one guy in the first season who I thought actually did a great job with the hamburgers and this and that. And then also this whole blood thing. Can you talk about that? Because this life extension thing, and there's others. Larry Ellison has made some investments in that area. Lots of Silicon Valley people do that. Can you give us what's actually happening? Because it's easy to call him blood boy.

Max Chafkin: I spent some time trying to look into this. I don't think there's a lot. The blood boy thing is satire, basically.

Kara Swisher: It's going to be my gossip. I think he wants to look good. That's my whole thing. I'm sure. And not die so quick.

Max Chafkin: I'm not even sure how big into this life extension thing he really is. He's definitely made some investments and made comments about wanting to fund life extension research. He's also really into the idea of deregulating the pharmaceutical industry, which feels like more mainstream Silicon Valley stuff. I kind of put this in the category of Peter Thiel, the brand. Being the guy who funds the crazy out-there stuff. I don't know that it's a huge amount of his time. If you look at the amount of money he spent, it's really not that much.

Kara Swisher: I think he just likes to fuck with people. I think he likes to fuck with people.

Max Chafkin: Absolutely.

Scott Galloway: So the thing that first put him on my radar was when he decided to essentially put Gawker out of business. A lot of us looked at it, at least initially, and I thought Gawker was, for lack of a better term, depraved. Some of the things they did. I was rooting him on. And then you start thinking about, okay, what does it mean when billionaires can put media companies out of business? Do you think there's any other company or media company in his sights? He strikes me as someone who, simply put—I think your book's going to do really well because he is a fascinating character. I also don't think people really understand him. So if your book sheds light on this seminal character, I think it's going to do really well. But he strikes me as someone who definitely holds a grudge.

Max Chafkin: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: Who or what is in his sights right now?

Max Chafkin: I talked to some folks who worked on that Gawker campaign. As you said, you almost have to separate the specifics of Gawker from the long-term implications for free speech and freedom of the press. I don't think he's got another press target. I talked to some folks who were trying to egg him on and find one. As I understand, he was resistant to it. He wanted to grind Gawker and Nick Denton into dust. Check that box. When you look at who he's beefing with, Google is an interesting candidate. I don't think it's quite as profound as the Gawker thing, but he has been needling at Google in all sorts of ways—with his public comments, with political contributions, and with proximity and funding and encouragement to these conservative activists who have been making it their business to mess with the tech companies. Two years ago he said that Google was like a bunch of Chinese spies or something. He's definitely training the cannon there. There are a bunch of different reasons for that. Some are genuine, like genuinely ideological. He doesn't like Google too much. But also, knocking Google down a peg is probably helpful to Facebook. It's probably helpful to Palantir. It's probably helpful to many of the companies in which Thiel is an investor. It's partly ideological, partly selfish.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I would say so. He's a really interesting guy. I was always like, "Oh, he's going to sue us at some point." And someone actually told me, "No, he likes you." You know what I mean? I was like, "No, he would sue me if he needed to at any moment in time." He's a fascinating person. I think it'll be interesting what happens with J.D. Vance.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but the good news is you have an army that's beginning to look like the Navy SEALs called your children.

Kara Swisher: That is correct. We will deploy. You're very safe.

Scott Galloway: All right, Max, the book is called *The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power*. It is available now. Thanks for your good work. Good luck with the book.

Max Chafkin: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Kara Swisher: Thanks, Max.

Scott Galloway: All right, Kara, one more quick break. Still to come, we'll tell Pivot listeners how to get into *The Verge*'s 10th birthday party. What a thrill. And we'll be back for wins and fails.

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Scott Galloway: Okay, Kara, wins and fails. What are yours? Do you have any or what's the deal here?

Kara Swisher: Here's the win. I got a win. The announcement that some of the early testing on children 5 to 12 on the vaccines is looking good. It looks like a lot of those kids—my daughter is too young at this point. Obviously, the baby isn't born yet. But that's really great news for a lot of parents. I know a lot of parents are nervous. We've done a COVID test already with the school because she had a little cold and this and that. I think it'll be a real relief to a lot of parents who are interested in getting their kids vaccinated. Many, too many are not. I think that's a win and a fail. I don't have a fail. Go ahead, Scott. I'll think of it.

Scott Galloway: Well, first off on your win, word, my sister. It is a state of chaos down here, as much chaos as you can have in our circle. We have an unvaccinated 11-year-old boy and the entire second grade. One person, one kid tests positive. We fell into this cold comfort of thinking—and it was a false narrative—that, oh, kids, don't worry about kids. That's just not true. You need to be worried about kids. To be clear, so far in Florida, I don't know if you say only 20 kids have passed away, but this is really frightening. The vaccination for a lot of us has been a real source, a real blessing, a real source of security and comfort. To not have that across what are your most valuable assets is really, really stressful.

Kara Swisher: Did you see some of the things they're doing in schools though now instead of quarantining kids? They're testing them. They're doing more testing in order to keep them in school.

Scott Galloway: Well, testing is key. I mean, we test our 11-year-old every 48 hours.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: My win is my first day back. My fail was a lack of leadership on the part of President Biden to institute vaccine mandates. There were a lot of good reasons, legal reasons. You can't do that. You can't do it at state level, at school level. And literally on cue the next morning—and I'm not claiming it's because of us—he announced a series of vaccine mandates, including the most powerful: any employer over 100 people has to vaccinate their employees. Immediately people were saying, "Oh, it might not be legal." And he said, "Have at it." I think that's what leadership looks like. When FDR sent destroyers to Britain when it was illegal, we have invaded nations and killed hundreds of thousands of people under what most lawyers would describe as illegal. Gavin Newsom married you and it was probably illegal.

Kara Swisher: He didn't marry me specifically. But go ahead.

Scott Galloway: He didn't get married by Gavin Newsom. But go ahead.

Kara Swisher: I thought you told me Governor Newsom married you.

Scott Galloway: No, he passed the thing as mayor of San Francisco. I got married by, I don't know, the controller of the city. Whatever. Go ahead.

Kara Swisher: I thought he married you. I like that image of dreamy Gavin Newsom and you.

Scott Galloway: No, he didn't. You're getting married.

Kara Swisher: I wish I'd like that image. Anyways, that was going to be my Christmas card this year.

Scott Galloway: Maybe he could marry you and I if I can get him to come to the co-tellers.

Kara Swisher: That's right, because I am your baby daddy.

Scott Galloway: The dog is the daddy.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, no. Come on. No, no. Neither is Peter Thiel.

Scott Galloway: Great skateboarder.

Kara Swisher: None of you, not Jeff Bezos. Great skater. Angry, prone to depression, terrible acne, but a great skateboarder. All right, your win is fine. Well, my fail.

Scott Galloway: Okay, my fail. I could not figure out my emotions when AOC showed up in the "Tax the Rich" dress. I thought, okay, she is exactly the kind of person that should be at the Met Gala. She's influential. She's fashionable. She's scorching hot. Not that I notice looks and I don't want to objectify women, but the Met Gala should have ridiculously fashionable hot people like AOC. But I thought if a ridiculously good-looking, hot Republican woman showed up with a dress that said "No Mask Mandates," it really would have pissed me off. And that's not even my fail, because everything's been politicized. But the thing that I didn't like about it was that afterwards she got attacked and she immediately went to, "Well, there's always a ton of criticism around powerful women." And it's the same thing Tucker Carlson does. When anyone criticizes him—

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I thought it was a mistake.

Scott Galloway: —anyone criticizes him for spreading misinformation, he immediately goes to, "It's the cultural elite and the establishment coming for me." My favorite comedian, Michelle Wolf, described it as this Louisville sluggering. Kellyanne Conway kind of invented it where you would say, "Okay, 26 people have accused the president of assault." And she would somehow end up within three seconds talking about how great America is. And it was like, what are you talking about?

Scott Galloway: So I found that AOC – We call it a cleg this week, but go ahead. There you go, a clegging. But I thought, OK, I didn't think that was a good move. But what I think made it worse was immediately wrapping herself in the sexism defense. And I don't think this was about sexism. She should just have owned it. She should have just owned what she did. And I thought it was a bad visual. I really am a big supporter of her. But I was like, oh, no, I can't do this.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, I have a fail very quickly. The Didi co-founder and president, Jean Liu, who I've had on stage at Code, by the way, many years ago, is going to step down. And she expects China's government to take control of the company, which is its ride-sharing company. The stock's down. This move by China, they just did something else with their version of TikTok. I think it's Douyin or something like that. They're just trying to absolutely control the tech industry. This is – I'm watching this with a lot of interest, I'll just say. I like Jean. I like Jean. She's also the daughter of Lenovo founder, who is also getting sort of attacked in China. She's from an elite in China, 100%, but an incredibly interesting woman. Just very troubling what's happening. This is reported by Reuters, by the way, sources said.

Scott Galloway: Agreed. That is super interesting and also disturbing.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. We're taking a listener question on Friday's show, as usual. Want to hear from you, and I mean here. Record a question for us at nymag.com slash pivot.

[Music fades in]

Kara Swisher: Okay, Cara, that's the show.

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Kara Swisher: Pivot listeners might like this. The Verge is turning 10, and they're celebrating live in NYC with an epic two-day event, October 22nd and 23rd. There will be some incredible guests, immersive tech, and art experiences, all-day DJs, and great food and drinks. And for a limited time, we're offering our pivot listeners $50 off a standard ticket. Go to voxmediaevents.com slash ontheverge for tickets and enter the promo code URGETOVERGE for your $50 off. That's URGETOVERGE, one word, all caps, no spaces.

Kara Swisher: We'll be back on Friday for more. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Evan Engel, Taylor Griffin, Ernie Endertod, engineer this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. If you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify. 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 later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Scott Galloway: Making money is meaningful. Being relevant is meaningful. Having friends, being a good citizen is meaningful. But it's all a means to the ends. And the ends are raising children with someone you love. That is profound.

Kara Swisher: Today, Kara Swisher, you are profound. Thank you.

Scott Galloway: And Scott is not the father. I can confirm that.

Kara Swisher: Hello, Daddy. Hello, Daddy.

[End of episode]