Supreme Court Saves Social Media, Montana Bans TikTok, and Sam Altman Wants AI Regulation

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Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. And I am Christiane Amanpour. Actually, we all are. She gave a great speech, Scott, but hello. How are you doing?

Scott Galloway: Okay, say more.

Kara Swisher: She gave an amazing commencement address at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where I went, and she works for CNN. She's a very well-known CNN person, and she actually went against CNN. She said she had spoken to Chris Licht, and then gave a stem winder of a speech where she said a lot of stuff, a lot of really interesting stuff, which I obviously agree with. It was elegant and also eviscerating at the same time. One of the things she said that really struck me is, be truthful but not neutral. Both sides-ism does not get you to the truth. Drawing false moral or factual equivalents is neither objective nor truthful. And she sort of schooled CNN on some stuff. She's just the kind of person they say they want, who's super, delivers the news and you don't ever think of her as a pundit in any way. And she sort of handed them their heads. It was quite something to see. They knew she was going to do it. She told them. I don't think they have much control over her or she wouldn't really listen to them. So anyway, it was an interesting speech and I applaud her for it.

Scott Galloway: Thank you. My most viral video clip of 2023 is when I was on with Christiane. I like her. She's an impressive woman.

Kara Swisher: Well, just as it's great to live in America where you can shitpost America nonstop, but if someone asks you about Turkey or China, you become very thoughtful and measured because you're a total prostitute for money and you're a truth teller in democratic free speech environments. And then you become—I'm of course talking about Musk. It's great to work for CNN where they say to the reporters, we respect your rights to say what you want to say off camera versus working at Fox. Not everybody. I didn't like Oliver Darcy's newsletter.

Scott Galloway: What, because he went on background with you and bitched about a bad meeting?

Kara Swisher: No, he did not. He did not. I didn't write one story about it. By the way, I haven't had breakfast. I'm hangry.

Scott Galloway: I see that.

Kara Swisher: I didn't write one story on this company. But nonetheless, I'm sure they're not happy that she did this, but she has a higher status. Like, I can say things that maybe others at Fox can't say.

Scott Galloway: Oh, and also, I'm getting calls from my lesbian friends saying, you really don't know how lesbians have children from our last episode.

Kara Swisher: I know. Many people were surprised by that. And by the way, I just want to point out, I absolutely don't understand how it happens.

Scott Galloway: This is how it happens. Oh, Scott.

Kara Swisher: We're moving on to lesbianism. I'm going to finish with Christiane Amanpour. She's a real hero. I thought she elegantly did it. These are people she works for. She obviously has greater status, so can say more than other people at the company who are not allowed. I know you don't think it's a big deal, but there is a real groundswell of upset within that company. And I think she articulated it with a lot of class. You know what I mean? And I think that's a great thing. I think all news organizations have to get used to being covered themselves, including being talked about by the people who work there. And there's this old school idea that you're not supposed to talk about the place you work. And I think that's bullshit because it's a media organization. It's not like you're working for Exxon or whoever. So I think that she, as usual, met my already high expectations doing a classy dissent. And in a really great way. I know inside of CNN, it's much appreciated because she has a lot of status and can do these things while others get slapped down. In any case, well done, Christiane and Scott. If you have any questions about lesbian procreation, why don't you proceed?

Scott Galloway: So they literally called and said, you really don't understand how lesbians have children. I'm like, of course I do. You guys cry and hug for several hours as Riverdale plays in the background. And a German shepherd pulls up in a Subaru and delivers a baby.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. How can I be so wrong yet so right?

Scott Galloway: Oh, God. I'm not even going to tell you. I don't even imagine.

Kara Swisher: Oh, good God. We go to the doctor's office. We go to the doctor's office and get inseminated. That is how it happens. As you know, I've told this story before. I happened to be on the phone with Walt Mossberg while I was undergoing the procedure. Yeah, I was. That's what happens when you get to my age and Walt's age. A lot of procedures.

Scott Galloway: Let me just say, if that ever happened, I would not be talking to you during such a procedure. Multitasking.

Kara Swisher: You wouldn't be making rude jokes throughout any kind of insemination procedure. Thank you. So there you go. So just so you know, I do make jokes during insemination procedures. It doesn't work. Just so you know. If I don't bring some humor to me during that situation, it's a disturbing experience.

Scott Galloway: Why did I even start? I'm trying to start this morning on an elegant way with Christiane Amanpour. And you take it right down to lesbian procreation.

Kara Swisher: All right, whatever. We're going to move on. We're going to move on. You're in Miami, right? You and your virtue signaling around how much you like Christiane Amanpour. Who doesn't love Christiane Amanpour? Why don't you just not be a cynic about someone who's doing something great? Just say, God, that was cool. She's doing great work.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, we have a lot to talk about. The CEO of OpenAI says he wants Congress to regulate artificial intelligence. We'll get into that. I know you had a little tweet situation on the whole thing. Also, the U.S. state bans TikTok outright. Shocker, it's a GOP state. And we'll unpack some of Elon Musk's latest failings. But first, the Supreme Court has punted on its Section 230 decision, like we said, Scott, in the case of Gonzalez versus Google, the one about the family whose daughter was killed by ISIS in Paris. The court sent a decision back down to the lower court, punting. Another related case, Twitter versus Taamneh, the court ruled unanimously that Twitter did not provide assistance to ISIS. In that case, the family lost someone in an ISIS attack in Istanbul. The rulings are being called a win for social media companies because they are. We predicted they would not touch this thing. The courts are not going to be regulating social media, nor should they in this case. And Congress, of course, does nothing. So where does that leave things, Scott?

Scott Galloway: Leaves them where they are. And it's really interesting.

Kara Swisher: Well, I don't know. Can you think of another body right now that has lost more credibility this quickly than the Supreme Court?

Scott Galloway: No, no. In this case, I think they made the right decision.

Kara Swisher: I agree. I agree. Yeah. No, it's, I think, like I said, I know we should just give Clarence Thomas a million dollars to stop being so corrupt. Just, you need the money.

Scott Galloway: Well, actually, it's an interesting point. And that is, should we be paying? And I think this is worth exploring. I wonder if we should be paying our elected officials a lot more money. Because I think a lot of them are prone to... But then they need to raise money. Maybe the Supreme Court or regulators.

Kara Swisher: Well, the Supreme Court also. But I do think a lot of these elected officials have their eye on the paid positions and jobs.

Scott Galloway: The next price, yeah.

Kara Swisher: And I think it's unhealthy. I think it ends up perverting their decision-making. And there's something to be said for—I mean, we had Senator Warner on. Senator Warner can't be bought. Yeah. He's—and I'm not suggesting we only have rich people in Congress, but there's something about maybe paying these people more that I think warrants consideration.

Scott Galloway: Well, in any case, any thoughts on these? I think this was not the appropriate place for these decisions, and they were not correct. You cannot hold them accountable. This is not how—change Section 230 if you don't believe. Like, legislate. Rewrite it. 230 is the law. They interpreted 230 correctly. And to—I just don't know what—I can't imagine the precedent it would set in the number of cases that we filed the next day if a tourist in Paris, which is a tragedy, who was killed by ISIS, is somehow they find Twitter liable for that.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that was Google. That was Google.

Scott Galloway: Excuse me. But that to me just—okay, now what? Right?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I agree with you. I think they got this right. I don't mind that they brought it and tested it, but it just seems like this is not what the law says. Again, change the law. The problem is not the Supreme Court here, although the Supreme Court has become a massive problem, I think, in terms of their ethics and standards. But this is Congress's job. This is Congress's job. This is Congress's job, as with most things. And they can either do it around this or AI or anything else, or they could not and then reap the whirlwind, which they have reaped.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, there's a new group leading negotiations over the debt ceiling, and it's inspiring confidence across parties that the deal might happen. The White House has called on its counselor, Steve Ricchetti, Budget Chief Shalanda Young, and Legislative Affairs Chief Louisa Terrell. Republicans are sending Representative Garrett Graves to negotiate. He has a pretty good reputation. Ricchetti and Terrell are said to have the full confidence of President Biden. I assume Young does also. Oddly enough, I was at a dinner where I sat next to Steve Ricchetti, and he's the most avuncular, sort of Midwestern-y, friendly guy I've met in Washington to date. He was such a lovely fella. So I suspect he was being that way. He's like that all the time, so I had a little more confidence when I heard his name. But I think he seems to cross aisles quite a bit and is very well-liked by the Republicans. I can't imagine he wouldn't be. In any case, will we get a deal before default day of June 1st, according to Janet Yellen?

Kara Swisher: I think so. I think this is a loser. This is mutually assured destruction for both parties. Biden would look terrible. It'd be terrible for the country. The Republicans would come out of this. Look, the incentives are aligned here to figure this out. And that's what they're going to do.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. I mean, there's some worry on the left. They're going to do these work requirements, but Biden said it's no big deal around payments. So there's that. And there's certainly worry that McCarthy will get more than he deserves for throwing a tantrum. Nobody loves giving into a tantrum, obviously.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, what I've seen is—I'm curious to get your thoughts here—but what I've seen is basically Speaker McCarthy has said, wink, wink, just give me something symbolic that has no meaning that I can throw at the crazies and say we got something.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. Because—I wonder if they say that when the door closes. Like, oh, good fucking heavens. Anyway, sorry, go ahead.

Kara Swisher: Well, you know what? I forget who it was. I don't know if it was Senator Bennett. So that's something I thought that was really insightful. And it made sense. And that is, once the cameras go off, these people are surprisingly reasonable. And that is, we live in a society where the algorithms reward craziness. And that raises donor money from the crazies. And so people want to, once the cameras are on, they make these very bold, principled, angry statements and then they go behind closed doors and they're more reasonable. And what Senator Warner also said, which I thought was interesting, is that if you look at the last couple of years, it's actually been a fairly productive Congress.

Scott Galloway: That is true, especially the Senate.

Kara Swisher: Especially the Senate, yeah.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's true.

Kara Swisher: I think the fact that they're doing it in front of the camera is like, does everything have to be this performative bullshit? Like, they're obviously going to get to an agreement.

Scott Galloway: Said two people with three podcasts.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, but we're paid to be performative bullshit, let me just say. These people, no, they're not. They're paid to do the budget.

Scott Galloway: No, they're paid to do the fucking budget. And it drives me crazy.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, likely they will get to that. Wall Street will be happy. Stocks will go up, et cetera. Another story interesting, since I know you know this guy pretty well.

Scott Galloway: I don't know. I know him just vaguely.

Kara Swisher: WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani will step down. He became CEO in 2020, led the company to going public in 2021. WeWork has since struggled to turn a profit and earlier this year struck deals to cut debt by $1.5 billion. Current WeWork board member David Tolley will take his place as interim CEO. Shares of the company have tumbled at the news, leaving them down 96% for the year. Obviously, they're suffering from nobody's going to work or the startups aren't starting up as much, et cetera. So what do you think? You were sort of positive on this guy. I know you sort of smacked at WeWork for years, but you had good thoughts about him.

Scott Galloway: Sandeep is one of those sort of elder statesmen of the real estate business. He ran General Growth Properties, very, very well liked. I wouldn't call him a friend, but I've done some work with him. Very smart, very well respected. And my guess is he got an enormous pay package to come try and be a shepherd or a steward of WeWork. I would say that this is probably the beginning of the end of this chapter of WeWork. It strikes me as a similar situation. I haven't spoken to him or anyone else at WeWork. But it strikes me as being similar to when that very well-respected CEO of Vice left. This means the company is likely going to file Chapter 11. It just doesn't—I read the numbers. It did $800 million in revenue, and it lost $300 million. And this isn't a growth company with IP that can justify those types of losses. It means that the business just doesn't work.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it never did, did it? They spent too much money. They entered into a series of long-term leases that basically made it impossible for them to ever make money.

Scott Galloway: No one's willing to look at this thing. The markets aren't willing to look at this thing as a growth company. And so effectively what you have is a company that is probably going to go BK. It'll be interesting to see if whoever the creditors are that take control of the company can go through and cherry pick the WeWorks that are making money. But this is—I don't know, enough already. Put this thing out of its misery.

Kara Swisher: Is there room for this kind of thing, office, like quick office rental space? Because the whole commercial office business has got to be crying almost every day.

Scott Galloway: Well, that's the most interesting thing about this. People will spend some time talking about WeWork and reminiscing, but they're exhausted by it. And the reality is it's gotten about 10 times more media than the significance of the company. What they'll talk about, though, is what it says about the larger commercial real estate decline coming. And this is the next Greece sovereign debt or the recession. The thing we're going to start wringing our hands over is the structural decline and the pain that's about to be felt in commercial real estate. And like everything else, it's nuanced. There are some buildings in Manhattan that are doing really well. And then there's other buildings in San Francisco that just got sold for 20 or 30 percent of their value from just a few years ago. So there is going to be a lot of pain. The enduring structural change out of COVID, if you look at e-commerce, even if you look at teen depression, everything is where it would have been had that maintained its growth rates before COVID. In other words, the biggest thing is retail, e-commerce. If you didn't know COVID had happened and you just looked at where they are, you wouldn't know that COVID happened. The enduring structural change appears to be remote work.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's true. But, you know, it's morally wrong not to go back to work. I don't know if you know that. Elon Musk said that. The guy who makes cars so we can commute says it's morally wrong not to go back to work.

Scott Galloway: It's morally wrong? In that interview on CNBC, did you know that? You're committing a moral offense to Elon. People should get off the goddamn moral high horse with the work from home bullshit. Because they're asking everyone else to not work from home while they do.

Kara Swisher: I still feel obligated to say that young people should get into the office. It's a feature, not a bug for young people. It is. It's just going to be a different kind of office. And I wonder if something like WeWork would do better if you create—the one thing that the enduring attraction of WeWork was that they were kind of cool spaces to work in, right? And most offices are really—

Scott Galloway: Oh, and flexibility.

Kara Swisher: Deadly, flexibility. And that was to me the most—it wasn't the beer or the kombucha on tap or whatever. I felt it was like it was a nice place to go. You felt okay going to an office. And that's, I think offices have to rethink that if they want to bring more people in. And through most of the country, people are going back to the office, but not in these big cities where people have choices and still have more power. But we'll see. And also, just to pause on WeWork, the real innovation around WeWork—so first off, it's not innovative to give someone $100 worth of office space and charge them $70. And that's what WeWork essentially has done. They've given you—it's like those mattress companies that were sending you $800 worth of mattress for $600. It's a great deal for the tenant. The real innovation around WeWork is that if you're an entrepreneur, and I've experienced this, the real estate industry would make you sign five-year leases and one-year deposits. It was just incredibly onerous and inflexible to get into this key component of organizational value, and that was an office. And they came in and said, just show up, and then you can kind of leave when you want. But enough already. Take this thing out back and put a bullet in its head.

Scott Galloway: All right, then. EU's Competition Commission says it's game on for Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The approval is conditional. For one thing, the companies have to honor multiple 10-year deals making Call of Duty available in all gaming platforms. They were going to do this anyway. Why wouldn't they? But the deal still faces hurdles. Last month, regulators in the UK said they plan to block it, and the FTC here in this country sued to do the same. The bid expires in July, but could be extended. What do you think?

Kara Swisher: I mean, the European Commission holds a lot of weight here moving it forward if they get these conditions. I think it means the deal goes through. You know, we thought it might not, but yeah. The UK blocking it, the EU is the bigger—I also wonder if it's political at all. I wonder if the EU is kind of fed up with that little Brexit bitch called the UK and has said, all right, you can scream and get angry and throw your toys on the ground. But Europe is the second largest economy in the world. There's just no getting around this. This is a huge win for Microsoft and probably creates momentum that they'll get this. The FTC is the one. If FTC settles with them and gets conditions, which they'll get, they'll sort of probably get similar conditions. It'll go through. And no one cares about the UK.

Scott Galloway: Was it Brexit pitch?

Kara Swisher: That's a really lovely term that you just made up.

Scott Galloway: I just made that up. It's almost as good as the German shepherd showing up in the Subaru.

Kara Swisher: I'm more proud of that. I don't feel that was good.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, yes, we both think this is probably going to go through. I think, you know, they would like to get it. If they don't, someone else will buy this company. And it looks like the game's in Lina Khan's corner right now to figure out what kind of conditions she can make it look good that she got some stuff out of them.

Kara Swisher: You interviewed her, didn't you? I just want everyone to know, when Kara's interviewing someone important, who does she call and ask for questions? Who does she call and say, give me a couple questions? By the way, a bunch of anchors do that.

Scott Galloway: Okay. Who does she call second?

Kara Swisher: You. I called you. That's right. That's right. I did. Did you interview her?

Scott Galloway: I did. Yes, I did. Last this week. It's up. It's up. Thanks for listening.

Kara Swisher: Yes, it's a really good interview with her. And actually, she has a much more...

Scott Galloway: Should we all listen to it?

Kara Swisher: I would say a less fiery... Yes, we should. Less fiery tone. She's learned how to deal in Washington. She seemed very reasonable at the same time firm. It was a very—she's really coming up to speed rather quickly. And they're still very firm on issues. She sort of whacked at Facebook quite a bit. She called them recidivists, which made me laugh several times. It didn't make Facebook laugh, but I like the word recidivist. She's like, oh, did I say that word? How did I come up with it? She's so smart. It's crazy. But yeah, she's probably going to do a deal with them.

Scott Galloway: She'll do a deal with them.

Kara Swisher: All right, let's get to our first big story. The nation's leading AI entrepreneur wants Congress to regulate artificial intelligence. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, went before a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday to answer questions about the danger of AI. He was joined by an executive from IBM. But unlike other tech hearings, senators were light with their criticism. They were even kind. They asked Altman about potential rules for AI tools. Here's one exchange between Altman and Senator Blumenthal, who's usually beside himself, of Connecticut.

[Audio clip plays] Senator Richard Blumenthal: Should we consider independent testing labs to provide scorecards and nutrition labels or the equivalent of nutrition labels? Sam Altman: Yeah, I think that's a great idea. I think that companies should put their own sort of, you know, here are the results of our test of our model before we release it. Here's where it has weaknesses. Here's where it has strengths. But also independent audits for that are very important. And I'm excited for a world where companies publish with the models information about how they behave, where the inaccuracies are, and independent agencies or companies provide that as well. I think it's a great idea. [End audio clip]

Kara Swisher: It was a love fest. That clip had been edited a little for clarity, but it was very much a love fest. It was a very information-gathering feeling. They didn't attack him the way they did Zuckerberg, for example. You have tweeted, "Does he actually want regulation?" As you pointed out, Zuckerberg had said, "Regulate us," while lobbying against regulation. There's no evidence that Altman has lobbied against regulation. He gave $250,000 to the Democratic Super PAC in 2020. He's also donated to California Democrats. He called for three things: a new regulatory agency, a set of safety standards for AI, and independent audits of AI models. He didn't call for transparency requirements around what data was used for training. And he didn't call for prohibitions on using copyrighted works, although that's going to be a mess of trouble for a lot of companies. What do you think?

Scott Galloway: Well, I thought at some point he was also going to call for the important conversation around gender balance or write a book on personal loss. I mean, we've been to this movie before. We live in a country where to be one of the wealthiest people, to be a billionaire means to have people admire you, want your opinion on stuff, to laugh at your jokes. To be a billionaire in the U.S. is to be loved, and people want to be loved.

Kara Swisher: I don't think he's a billionaire, just so you know.

Scott Galloway: Okay. Yet.

Kara Swisher: Well, he doesn't actually have a stake in this.

Scott Galloway: Okay. All right. Well, let's play a game. Who said this? "We need a more active role for governments and regulation." October of 20. Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg.

Kara Swisher: Okay.

Scott Galloway: No, she said—Sandberg calls for government regulation. That was June of 19. Google CEO Sundar Pichai: "Companies such as ours cannot just build promising new technology and let market forces decide how it will be used." That was June of 20. Twitter CEO Dorsey: "Generally, I think regulation is a good thing." April of 19. CEO Nick Clegg: "Much has been said about Facebook recently, but there's one thing we agree on. Congress should pass new internet regulations." That's October of 20. Snap Spiegel: "We definitely support thoughtful regulation." That was in May of 2022. That is up to Congress not to pass it. I agree. I don't know. In this case, I think they are actually trying to be thoughtful and going around early to do these things. Now, whether Congress does anything is another story.

Kara Swisher: Let me say, speaking of people I interviewed, Altman said a lot of what he told me in March when I spoke to him on my other podcast, which will not be named. Except here you went a bit further. Let's listen to that.

[Audio clip plays] Kara Swisher: Congressman Ted Lieu said there needs to be an agency dedicated specifically to regulating AI. Is that a good idea? Sam Altman: I think people like us that are creating these very powerful systems that could become something properly called AGI at some point, those efforts probably do need a new regulatory effort. And I think it needs to be a global body, a new regulatory body. And then having existing industry regulators still do their regulation. Kara Swisher: Who should head that agency in the U.S.? Sam Altman: I don't know. [End audio clip]

Kara Swisher: Anyway, he had said this very clearly and has been talking about a global body. Same thing Lina Khan talked about. She thought she had enough rules in place that she could do the regulation. And so this is way further along than other previous efforts, I would say.

Scott Galloway: I would have to push back on you on that. But go ahead. I hope you're right. I hope that Sam is true to his word and he seems like a lovely young man. You like him. Everyone I know thinks a lot of him. And every piece of data says that he is full of shit and that he uses two weapons of mass distraction that have been used on us before. One, pretending to want to be regulated. And the new weapon of mass distraction is to refer to this company as the governing body as a nonprofit. I think 100 times the original investment goes back to the investors and management before the money goes back to a nonprofit. So they just shouldn't use the term nonprofit when they're talking about this company.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that is true.

Scott Galloway: To create some sort of distraction that somehow they're more noble and not as profit motivated as everybody else. So I agree. This was a love fest. We have the RESTRICT Act. We have antitrust from Amy Klobuchar. And there's always a lot of head nodding. We always think we're going to get something done. So you're right. Let's move to the part where we actually create that regulatory body. I think the first regulatory body should probably be—or hopefully we can walk and chew gum at the same time. I'd like to be a division of NATO. I think we need cross-border, multilateral agency looking at this from a defense standpoint. I do think this is a defense issue. But enough already. Appoint somebody, get the commission going, have it be ground up, start with people who have technology backgrounds. But I just feel—I'm sorry, we've been here before and we always get our hearts broken.

Kara Swisher: Well, let's talk about—I would agree. I would agree. But I think, one, this particular technology is not protected the way the other one is. So they knew there was nothing they could do. And so there is liability. So they're going to tread much more lightly. There's all kinds of significant copyright problems. There's going to be another hearing on that coming up. I do think Congress is doing the right thing doing these meetings. This was a little bit of a love fest, I would agree. I don't necessarily think they have to smack them. But it was more of a fact-finding mission. And I don't mind them doing that for a short amount of time. But let's talk about specific things. We got a listener question via email. Let's read it out. "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Swisher"—that's funny. "Do you think audio and visual media should have information about how much of the content written or formed is generated by AI? Do you think there will be some kind of labeling system like organic food that media will adopt so the customers at least have some idea of what they are consuming? Thank you, Lars." Well, Lars, I think that's a great idea. And actually, so does Sam Altman. It's not a bad idea. Like, where's the provenance of things? I think you're going to have to have some sense of where they collated all your information from so you can judge it. I don't know. Scott, what do you think about that one?

Scott Galloway: I think it's a good idea. And it gets to one of the economic points. If you're—I've been spending a lot of time in something called a writer's room. And we've been talking a lot about the writer's strike. If you feed into an LLM every episode of *Modern Family* so that you can help write the next great sitcom about an American family, those writers should be compensated.

Scott Galloway: There should be some sort of tool that not only indicates what percentage is AI generated. And quite frankly, I don't think the consumer is going to care as long as they feel like it's good information, or more importantly, it makes them feel good about themselves, whether it's misinformation or not.

Scott Galloway: But what you're going to need is something similar to what the record industry has done a decent job of in the music industry. If you're KROQ 106.7, the greatest radio station in the history of mankind, and you play a bunch of B-52 songs, another amazing band, they at the end of the year send you a bill and say, "Okay, you've used this content to build your company." There's going to need to be some sort of AI generative model that says, "This is where you have fed the LLM. This is the input to the LLM, and we need to compensate them."

Kara Swisher: Yeah, and I think a lot of these companies, including OpenAI, have been quiet about the details of the sources of data and all kinds of things. They're trying to keep quiet about its training techniques, the amount of computing power. And so they're a lot less open because there is more competition.

Kara Swisher: But here's the thing. If you're a nice white kid who's in technology, when you stand in front of Congress, the first three times are really nice to you.

Scott Galloway: God, I just—I literally have PTSD from this bullshit. Whether it was Marissa Mayer standing in front of Senator John Kerry saying about Google, "Well, it's early, Senator," while he's saying the *Seattle Post-Intelligencer* just went out of business because their classified business was gone. I mean, I just—we've been here before.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. Anyway. I would agree. So what would a regulatory agency look like and who should head it besides me?

Scott Galloway: I would say the following. The most important thing is to get a regulatory body going. The second most important thing is to ensure that when someone takes an Uber-Kalanick-like approach with their generative AI and starts doing mendacious shit because they're like "move fast and break things," that they get hit really hard really early.

Scott Galloway: I think the algebra of deterrence needs to be set here. "Okay, we're going to err on the side of prosecuting people that start generating misinformation around certain categories, regardless of whether or not you think you're an innovator, regardless of if a name brand VC has given you money." That shit's not going to hunt here. I think early and often.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, well, it might not have the same First Amendment issues that stymies social media regulation. And as I said, may not be protected by Section 230. There is a lot more—they can't just bring in false First Amendment free speech arguments that they often tend to make that sometimes are applicable and most times are not. So that's that. They have liability just the way *The New York Times* does or anybody else.

Scott Galloway: That's right. But the hard part is, how do you reverse engineer it? If somebody creates—says, "Give me 10 or 100 or a million tweets that are automatically uploaded, or content uploaded to LinkedIn in the voice of a regulatory body or a legitimate medical journal that vaccines alter your DNA"—it may be really difficult to reverse engineer it to the source.

Scott Galloway: But let me circle back. I don't want to be a total Debbie Downer on this. The most positive thing about all of this is that this is likely the most enduring technology since probably mobile. People say since web, I would say since mobile. This is really exciting. And the really wonderful thing is it's American. The best companies in the world doing this are in America. And that gives us an edge on our adversaries. That's going to spawn incredible economic growth. I think this is going to result in job creation, not job destruction. The most innovative product of the last 50 years has been the vaccines. And this is a close number three behind either the web or mobile. And it's American.

Kara Swisher: That said, when I interviewed him and he also said it in Congress yesterday, he called for an international body, which I tend to agree. He compared it to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That said, nuclear arms and power have always been products of the government, not individuals and individual companies. And so that's a little different here.

Kara Swisher: So how do you regulate private companies? You could sort of link it, I think, more to CRISPR and cloning and things like that than you necessarily would the government. But it certainly has to be—there has to be an international standards body of what you can't make. Like killer robots? No. Yes on this, no on that. So there are rules of the road from the get-go. And what's most important is who is going to be—it should be the U.S. leading this effort to create this international body.

Kara Swisher: Probably should come out of the State Department, or I'm not sure where it should come from. I had a dinner with Tony Blinken and he was very interested in the State Department being part of it. So I don't know which one would push forward, the Commerce Department? There's national defense. There's some sort of regulatory body to ensure that it doesn't get out of control or we move even further into a post-truth society. But there's even three or four levels down beyond that.

Scott Galloway: The thing I am most worried about with AI is that I see this terrible trend that stuck during COVID. People, specifically young people, are using some sort of digital form of a relationship where they think they have friends, but they're not experiencing friendship. Rather than taking the risk of going out and making friends, meeting mentors, finding mates, they try and find some weak, low-risk facsimile—whether it's Netflix or Tinder or porn—that decreases their motivation to socialize with other people. The result is a slow slip into depression.

Scott Galloway: And I wonder with OpenAI, or I worry about OpenAI, if we're going to be able to create everything from fake friends, fake girlfriends, and reasonably good sex bots, where we have an entire generation of young people that mistake friends and relationships for friendship and actual relationships and become more and more sequestered from each other.

Kara Swisher: I mean, literally, the movie *Her* is playing out. I guess. I don't know. I didn't like that movie.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, I'll have to go back and rewatch it.

Kara Swisher: I kind of—the director asked me what I thought, and I was like, "Eh." At the time. I don't know.

Scott Galloway: It's just that's the first thing is a relation. That thing was ahead of its time. It'll send chills down your spine when you watch it again.

Kara Swisher: All right. I'll watch it now.

Scott Galloway: All right. Okay. Or probably a better film—what is it? *Ex Machina*?

Kara Swisher: *Ex Machina*? Yeah.

Scott Galloway: That one I thought was great. I just—the fact is the AI was part of it and I think the AI could care less. And that's—I could see a person falling in love with AI. I can't see an AI falling in love with a person. And one of the most rewarding things in life is to have real desire, real pining. There's a reason that romantic comedies are two hours, not 10 minutes. And we're creating a world with low-calorie, low-reward relationships where there's no obstacles or no disappointment. And it leads to a lack of life. It leads to a lack of victory.

Scott Galloway: It's really exciting, speaking for a friend, to get asked to prom at a different school when four girls at your own high school say no to you.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, you said that.

Scott Galloway: I can say this firsthand. It's really exciting. When you ask four girls to your prom at University High School and they all say no, and then someone asks you to their prom at a different school.

Kara Swisher: I ask four girls and they'll say no. Oh, wow. But that's life. Ouch. That's the wonder and the victory of life. And instead we're like, "I know, I'll have a fake relationship on a digital platform that's enhanced by AI and I'll never know real desire and I'll never know real victory." Scott, stay away from the AI. That's all I have to say.

Scott Galloway: I'm not going to tell you that I went to all four proms. That is unfair.

Kara Swisher: That is unfair. Anyway, Scott, I had lots of boyfriends and I'm a lesbian, so think about it that way. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the new TikTok ban at West and take a listener question about the future of writing.

[Ad break]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back on our second big story. Bad news for fans of air fryers and crocodile videos in Montana. On Wednesday, the state became the first in the union to ban TikTok. Governor Greg Gianforte signed the ban into law. It imposes a fine on app stores that let users download the TikTok app. It also fines TikTok itself if it operates in the state. There are no fines for TikTok users. This ban is set to take effect on January 1st of next year. Of course, it'll be overturned. Both TikTok and the ACLU issued harsh statements, the bill violating the First Amendment. It completely does.

Scott Galloway: This is such endless fucking virtue signaling by these dumb, body-slamming governors of Montana. The states should have no business here except for maybe banning TikTok on government things. They really need to stop. They were busy—they finished doing their anti-trans stuff, anti-trans reformer bills, and then moved on to this one. They really should focus on roads and other issues in Montana, but they didn't. What do you think?

Kara Swisher: I'm not sure I see the two as being equivalent.

Scott Galloway: I don't—all I have to say about—

Kara Swisher: It's just a waste of time.

Scott Galloway: It's a waste of time. I love the great state of Montana. I think it's incredibly beautiful. I don't like TikTok. I'd like it to be banned. So I'm—but you're right. What? In terms of—it probably doesn't make sense for states to start banning media. It's ridiculous. There is a real danger from China. But our governor from Montana is not going to help anything. And he's going to ruin it, too, at the same time because he's shredding the Constitution.

Kara Swisher: You're right. I agree. It's just—it'll be torched by the courts. There's lots of ways to do it. And instead, this guy just wants to jump out in front of, I don't know, Kristi Noem or whoever the fuck is going to do it somewhere else.

Scott Galloway: It's literally—the reason I'm comparing it to the trans thing is they all just got on the thing when they should be doing stuff for the people in the state of Montana. It's not going to work. It's endless bullshit. And this guy has no business being—just get on the porch, young man.

Kara Swisher: Well, it could be. It's not like he's a governor telling principals what pronouns they can use in schools. Oh, wait, that's Florida.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I'm sure he does have a bill like that.

Kara Swisher: Oh, come on.

Scott Galloway: They have whatever. All these states are doing these meaningless things. The next one will be that lady in Arkansas. They all want to be president. And they can't—they don't think they can be—they can't inflame the crazies in every other state by just making sure the fire department and the police department are working effectively.

Scott Galloway: I can't stand it when governors run for Senate and vice versa. They are totally different jobs. One's lawmaking and legislative. One is an operational job. You're supposed to make sure the roads work, that when it rains, the sewers are actually working. Water. Deal with water issues, Governor. I mean, come on. This is bullshit.

Kara Swisher: And by the way, it also gets in the way of actual things our government needs to do around this particular company.

Scott Galloway: I'm with you on this, Kara Swisher. I'm with you. I'm just pissed at this guy. We stand together.

Kara Swisher: I will go out on a limb here and I'll say he's being—even if he's being truthful, he's not being neutral. He's not being truthful.

Scott Galloway: Oh, stop it. You stop that. Listen, don't insult her because I will come to Florida. I will fly to Miami and slap you. I love Kristi Noem.

Kara Swisher: You know, look, this also gives TikTok a lot of high ground that it probably deserves in this moment. But it doesn't allow you to really look at this correctly. And, of course, they've been deploying ads. The senator said that. Everyone's a TikTok lobbyist. This is overreach on every single thing.

Kara Swisher: Speaking of right-wingers on social media, Elon Musk tweeted an attack on George Soros this week, likened the billionaire to X-Men villain Magneto and said he wants to erode the fabric of civilization. Actually, Elon is eroding the fabric of civilization. One thing he didn't mention is Soros sold over 100,000 shares of Tesla stock in the first quarter.

Kara Swisher: He was asked about his tweets and the conspiracy theories could alienate customers and hurt his business. He paused for quite a while because that's what he does. It's part of his little "I'm a genius and I must think for a minute" thing. And let's listen to what he said.

[Audio clip plays: Elon Musk: "I'll say what I want to say. And if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it."]

Kara Swisher: Said every three-year-old toddler wanting to keep his truck everywhere in the world. Anyway, he certainly went on to say what he wanted. Here he is later in the interview arguing that the man who killed eight people in Texas earlier this month was not a white supremacist, even though everyone else does, including the state of Texas. Go ahead.

[Audio clip plays: Elon Musk: "Ascribing it to white supremacy was bullshit."]

Scott Galloway: Okay. And there's no proof, by the way, that he was not.

Kara Swisher: There's no—I would say that there's no proof that he is.

Scott Galloway: And that's a debate you want to get into on Twitter?

Kara Swisher: Yes.

Scott Galloway: Because we should not be ascribing things to white supremacy if it's false.

Kara Swisher: Yes, you shall not besmirch the good name of white supremacy. Didn't he have a swastika tattoo?

Scott Galloway: Yes, yes, yes, yes. And the state of Texas. That's kind of a tell, isn't it? He had hundreds of posts online that included neo-Nazi material and white supremacy. I honestly—you know, you don't want to say bad things to someone from South Africa, but boy, is it bleeding through that terrible history of that country.

Scott Galloway: One of the many things that bother me about—I have never understood the conspiracy theory and the hate that George Soros evokes. And for Elon Musk to say about anybody that they hate humanity—that's what he said about George Soros. "George Soros hates humanity." George Soros is a Holocaust survivor. George Soros spends a dramatic amount of his wealth trying to promote democracy and freedom around the world. And I'm sorry, he hates humanity? That is a very aggressive thing to say about somebody. I don't like Elon Musk. I would never say that about him. But again, he's like trying to go red pill. I think he's angry that he sold his stock.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that to me. I've never understood—and Bill Gates gets some of that too. I'm like, thank God that we have these people who make so much goddamn money and then turn around and think, "Okay, Bill Gates says I'm going to try and cure infectious diseases. And George Soros says I'm going to try and protect democracies all around the world." I'm like, well, okay, billionaires could do a lot worse. I've never understood this red pill hate for George Soros. I just don't get it.

Kara Swisher: But this whole thing, besides George Soros, is pretending this guy isn't exactly what he is. I feel like if you have Nazi tattoos and several, you might be a Nazi. That's just me. Or you might like them. You might enjoy them. You might enjoy their repertoire. And I don't even know why he's picking this fight. And can you imagine Linda Yaccarino going, "Oh, this is all she's going to do." He's going to say, and he doesn't care about money. Like he does.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, shareholders would like to have a word. So do advertisers.

Kara Swisher: Shareholders. Yeah, but well, there's no shareholders of Twitter, except his friends who just are like, "Oh, Elon."

Scott Galloway: By the way, Tesla said it was going to advertise for the first time. That's what he said. That was a big takeaway from that. They said they need advertising. That's a problem. It usually just marketed on his fame. They used that for years and years. At one point in one of their filings, they said, "Historically, we have been able to generate significant media coverage of our company and our vehicles and believe we will continue to do so." That was alluding to Musk. "To date, vehicle sales, media coverage, and word of mouth have been primary drivers of our sales leads and have helped achieve sales without traditional advertising and relatively low marketing costs." Now they might advertise. Thoughts?

Kara Swisher: So, and I will bring this back to the story, but two nights ago, I got a call from Stephanie Ruhle saying, "Come on the 11th Hour with Kara. It'll be great." And I'm like, "What are we talking about?" And he said, "Well, we're going to talk about Elon Musk." I'm like, "I'm out. I'm going to go drink. I'm done talking about this guy." He lives rent-free too much in my head. I want to know about advertising.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but I've got a bunch of calls from media outlets saying we comment on Elon and advertising. And I looked at what he said. I think it's just one of his things where he just said it off the top of his head. I don't think it means anything.

Scott Galloway: In my opinion, one of the really most innovative things about Tesla is that Elon Musk has massively leveraged Twitter and new mediums to get the equivalent of billions of dollars in free advertising. And one of the reasons that Tesla has much greater margins than the other automobile companies is they spend almost nothing on advertising. It was like Lee Iacocca, right?

Scott Galloway: And as a professor of brand strategy who made his living preaching about the power of intangible assets resulting in a rational margin and advertising, the reality is advertising, to a certain extent, kind of outs you as not getting it. If you think about the best products in the world and the best companies in the world, show me a company that's aggregated or acquired or accreted more than $100 billion in market cap within 36 months. And I'll show you a company that doesn't really advertise like a traditional company in its sector.

Scott Galloway: So this was another head fake to get a headline. I don't know, I doubt they're even going to do it.

Kara Swisher: They don't think they're going to do it. I think they're going to need to. I don't think people are as hot on Tesla.

Scott Galloway: Hot on Tesla?

Kara Swisher: They ought to find a way to sell them. Yeah. I think they're going to need to. They're going to need to be like doing their advertising. I don't think they can avoid it with the competition. There's too much.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. He gets so much—negative now. Negative attention now. Before it was largely positive. And the same thing on Twitter. He's got to get advertisers to want to advertise there.

Kara Swisher: Maybe Tesla can advertise on Twitter. That's a key point. This is the trick that Google and Meta used to do. First they throw parties and they call these advertisers and people, their partners, as they basically put a gun to their head and execute them. But they used to advertise a little bit, right? To maintain good relationships with their quote unquote partners. "Can you help us? We're going to spend a little money, throw them a bone." And here's kind of your last meal. Amazon would advertise a little around the holidays. And I don't know if they were testing it, if they were sincere about it, or they just wanted to throw a few bones at the people that they were putting out of business.

Scott Galloway: Except he needs advertising compared to them. They didn't need it.

Kara Swisher: I think they do. I think Tesla needs it.

Scott Galloway: I think they do. Look, the margins were down. The numbers were down. These aren't going up. These are not going up because of him anymore.

Kara Swisher: They're not. That's a function of competition.

Scott Galloway: The question is—

Kara Swisher: It's also him. He's like—I literally—I'm not just talking to—a lot of people are like, "Oh, I'm looking at—" I have gotten so many emails and calls from people. Not they don't say they're woke people because they're not. They're like, "What else is out there?" That's the nature of people. They want something fresh. So I don't know. I think he needs to advertise.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but what you're saying, though, is that advertising offers an ROI. How is it going to get people to buy the cars if other cars are just as good and prettier?

Kara Swisher: Honestly, they're all prettier than the Tesla now.

Scott Galloway: Well, I mean, that's a different issue. That's a product problem. But what you have is the companies that have added a lot of value. It used to be—I'm thinking about watching an entire series with my kid. My 15-year-old and I just ripped through *Game of Thrones*, which is probably inappropriate, but it's bonding. And I'm thinking about when he turns 16, I would like to watch the entire *Mad Men* series again. I just thought it was amazing and so interesting. And it's such a lesson on kind of the—it's such a great period piece. And it's also really interesting insight into work and advertising.

Scott Galloway: When I came of professional age, a good ad campaign could literally change the trajectory of a company. Kia or Hyundai, I forget who it was, had this amazing ad campaign and it literally increased their market share three points, which is enormous in the world of automobiles. That doesn't happen anymore because people aren't glued to their TVs. People with any money aren't watching ad-supported media. Product innovation went through this massive golden age, unlocked with digital innovation. And all of a sudden, product innovation and supply chain innovation became the way you built your brand, not advertising. So I'm not even sure a limited amount—

Kara Swisher: Sure. But I don't know. The golden age of Don Draper has been drawn. I don't know how they're going to sell cars then because someone's got—this guy is getting negative attention and he doesn't care if it has consequences. But advertising isn't going to save him from himself.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. He needs to butt the fuck out of this stuff and just work on the products. That's all he needs to do.

Kara Swisher: But he's not going to do it. OK, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question. You've got mail.

Scott Galloway: I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail.

Kara Swisher: This question comes from Tuverd. "Hi, Kara and Scott, not Mr. and Mrs. Swisher. As an independent author, I've been watching the rise of narrative AI with interest. Right now, their prose is fever dreams, but it's going to improve. Do you see a future for human authors? And if AI written books flood the market, what can human creatives do to stand out? Thank you, Tuverd." I don't know, Scott. What do you think?

Scott Galloway: Do you like the idea of being married to me?

Kara Swisher: Be honest.

Scott Galloway: I don't. I'm thinking of seeking a divorce. Yeah, I'm gonna hire a very high-priced divorce attorney. I've already talked to every divorce lawyer in town to contaminate them.

Kara Swisher: Thanks, Tom. I had the best divorce in the world. It was called my—my divorce was tragically amicable. We're still friends. That's what actually made it more sad. Like, "Wait, why are we getting divorced again?"

Scott Galloway: Mine was amicable too.

Kara Swisher: Ours is gonna be ugly, though. Ugly. AI written books flood the market. Can human creatives do to stand out? Can you stay on topic? Are you planning to divorce me?

Scott Galloway: I am. Since the beginning. I would just want you for your money and your apartments.

Kara Swisher: I want the apartment in the settlement.

Scott Galloway: Said every woman in my life, quite frankly.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, exactly. I think I deserve it, honestly. Yeah. I really, in a weird way, I really do put out for you. Anyway, human creatives, what can they do to stand out? Answer Tuverd's question.

Scott Galloway: That was good.

Kara Swisher: I know. I'm getting better at these sex jokes.

Scott Galloway: Every technology has a similar effect. It consolidates the market. If you're a middling lawyer drafting vanilla leases, you're in a lot of trouble. If you're a writer who just does okay work but not great work, watch out. Here it comes.

Scott Galloway: But if you're a thoughtful person that's creative and knows how to—AI is not going to take your job. Someone who understands AI is going to take your job. I'm already using Notion AI, one of our advertisers. I will take—for example, we're talking about starting something called the original AI Prof G. And feed in my book, my most recent book on—I wrote something called *The Algebra of Wealth*. Feed in every transcript from every property podcast and create a generative AI that could potentially answer questions.

Scott Galloway: But the thing is, the thing you feed into it is what makes it original or different. So if you're someone who can produce really great original work, your compensation is going to go up. If you're someone that needs to constantly rely on generative AI for other stuff, you're probably in trouble. But if you're doing original work and using generative AI to help you, to inspire you, to fill in gaps, to make stuff better, you're going to become a warrior.

Scott Galloway: So this doesn't make you obsolete, it makes mediocre people obsolete. And what will happen is there'll be unbelievable new businesses and there'll be new adjuncts and new services and new jobs created by these little companies and they'll become medium and big size companies to do really cool things with generative AI.

Scott Galloway: There is an interesting thing. This guy named Jake Ward on Twitter put—"We took a website from zero to 750K a month SEO traffic using 100% AI-generated content. 7K total pages generated. Hit 300K a month after six months, 750 after 12. 4K plus keywords in positions one and three, 13K plus keywords in positions four through 10." He did this whole breakdown. And to me, it's Demand Media AI edition. That's what it's doing for that market, right?

Scott Galloway: If you remember Demand Media, who kind of was a content farm. And this is a version of a content farm. And he's right. Mediocre, you're fucked. Any press releases, earnings releases, things like that, anything that can be done in this way, and then a human checks it, sure, is gone. Much marketing material is just easy to copy. It's easy to do. So you have to be creative, really hyper-creative.

Scott Galloway: Look, there are certain industries that are just going to... I've always thought that disruption is more a function of how ripe the industry is.

Kara Swisher: I think everyone's talking about writers right now, and I do have a prediction around the writer strike. We'll get to that.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. I think the industry that's going to... Okay, there's the mother of all chins right now, which is healthcare. I would not want to be a pathologist or virologist or radiologist right now because there's no reason.

Kara Swisher: Radiologists have already been under siege, yeah.

Scott Galloway: So there's no reason why... What AI is really good at is looking at patterns and then predicting. If you give me a million data points, I'll give you with really great accuracy what the million and first data point will be. It strikes me that looking at stuff under a microscope and trying to understand what the pathogen is, AI is just going to do that better. And we've been over... I don't want to say we've been overpaying these people because the practitioners haven't done as well. But the insurance companies and the people who have inserted themselves in the middle, the pharma companies, you've got to think that's where AI is really going to boom.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's going to be a mirror. But books, too. I'm sorry to tell you, there's a lot of mediocre writing out there. And this will be mediocre for you. But mediocre but necessary, banal but needed. Like, you just have to have it around. Here's your explanation for this and that and the other things. So there's... You just don't have the imagination big enough to figure out where this is going. But we have to move on.

Scott Galloway: Go ahead. Last thing.

Kara Swisher: Last one. I like you all know Harari, the guy who wrote *Sapiens*.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. Harari.

Kara Swisher: Him armed with AI. His next book, I can't even imagine the kind of content he's going to be able to produce. Because the way his mind works, his ability to connect instinct with human behavior and what the future might look like, I just don't think any AI can come up with that. But what he'll be able to do is say, "All right, give me a history of Homo sapiens in this era and what happened." And he will have a level of rigor and research he didn't have access to before. As long as it's from good sources, that's the thing. So we'll have to see. But you still require creativity and a certain flair. Yuval has a beautiful writing style, I think.

Scott Galloway: You can start to mimic it, but it's still very hard to mimic certain people, like Scott Galloway, for example.

Kara Swisher: God! No generative AI comes up with a German shepherd. My ex-husband, Scott Galloway.

Scott Galloway: My ex.

Kara Swisher: That's right. My ex. My soon-to-be ex. I'm taking the kids. I'll be at my sister's. If you've got a question of your own and you'd like them answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

[Break for advertisement]

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

[Ad break]

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

Scott Galloway: So in the 80s in Britain, the coal miners, I think it was the national...

Kara Swisher: You're doing a coal mining prediction? But go ahead.

Scott Galloway: I'm setting it up. I don't want to be replaced by AI. I'm trying to provide some creative context here. So I think it was the National Mineworkers Union took on Margaret Thatcher. And basically, Thatcher said, "This is my moment to show that I'm the Iron Lady. We need to move to different types of energy." And she just said no over and over and basically broke the back of the coal miners union. The same thing's about to happen here with the writers. They have the same skill set or a similar skill set to authors, to journalists, and they make a lot more money. In addition, this is a dream come true for the studios: an enforced multilateral pause in spending as they recalibrate and have cloud cover to come back with fewer employees.

Scott Galloway: The union here, the writers union, has so badly miscalculated the power dynamic. The studios are going to slowly but surely, quietly, they are going to break their backs. This is going to end really poorly for the writers. I wouldn't be surprised if we found out that the studio heads got together and said, "Piss off and upset the writers union so they go on strike and force all of us to stop spending on producing content," because every individual is like, "I've got eight shows I haven't gotten to yet that I'd like to watch." So this is the information age coal miner strike in the UK. It's going to end really poorly for the writers. They are totally... and all this virtue signaling with stars who make 10 and 20 million dollars a year showing up and pretending that they stand with their brothers and sisters. I just think it's hilarious.

Scott Galloway: You're going to see this union come back to the table and the studios are going to just do what used to happen to me when I was trying to raise money through the 90s with VCs. They're going to grin-fuck them and say, "That's interesting. Writers are really important to us. We should keep talking." And they're going to do nothing. Then when a bunch of the writers who are going to be replaced by AI anyway start thinking, "I can't pay my rent," and start putting pressure on the union to settle, the union's going to end up with a worse deal than they had going into this thing. So my prediction: the information age equivalent of the British coal miner strike is happening with the writer strike, and it's going to end the same way.

Kara Swisher: Who's Margaret Thatcher?

Scott Galloway: The studio heads are Margaret Thatcher. You don't get my analogy? I thought that was pretty good.

Kara Swisher: I do. I get it. I agree with you. A bunch of writers and actors have written me and I'm like, I think you don't have leverage here. I don't see the leverage. Maybe I'm missing it.

Scott Galloway: Well, you know who the culprit is? We're creative. "We're creative" is not enough leverage. And I applaud writers. They're angry. They're angry at the studio heads. The real culprit is all the kids who work for me at Prof G. They don't watch ad-supported TV. They all watch TikTok. 850 million creators on TikTok. Assume 1% of them are any good. They have so misread the situation. If I were a studio head, I would be thinking, "Oh my God. Thank God for this union. They have given us a gift."

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: Their signs are creative. But the leverage? I don't see it. I don't see it.

Kara Swisher: I'm getting a lot of angry letters from writers. But I'm sorry to tell you, I'm not sure what you should ask for. And I agree. There are going to be smaller writers' rooms. They just don't want to pay as much, and they're not going to have to on some level. The danger here is creating a disgruntled group of creatives that work for you eventually, because you do need creativity to really do well. But I have to say the leverage is not there. I think you're right. Good prediction, Scott. Good prediction. Do you have anything, Kara?

Kara Swisher: What? No, I don't have a prediction. I'm just right. I just seconded him correct. This is the second week in a row. I don't know what I'm going to do the third week in a row. I'll think of something.

Scott Galloway: I got two in a row so far. I've got to think about what I want to...

Kara Swisher: Unfortunately, I'm often right about Elon Musk stuff. Unfortunately, I'm often right.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's your biggest problem, how right you are.

Kara Swisher: Here's one. I had a whole show on it with Ryan Mac and Zoe Schiffer today about it. But one thing that came out that Ryan just tweeted was about some guy suing him who was working on their operations team. They wanted to install shitty locks in offices that would put people in danger and said, "Just do it because no one will catch us." This guy is alleging this. Every time I think I'm like, "I'm disappointed," I'm like, "You're kidding me. Really?" Anyway, it's just... I don't have a prediction except that I'm always surprised by the depths of bad behavior.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Can you read us out?

Scott Galloway: Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mille Silverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, my wife, have a great weekend.

Kara Swisher: Thank you.