The Tesla and Hertz Mystery, a Tough Election for Democrats, and the Squid Crash

Kara Swisher: Not all journalism is the same. Take The Guardian. Our coverage has something unique. Fierce independence. Nobody owns us or tells us what we can and can't say. So we're free to report the whole picture. We connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe. Expose corruption wherever we find it. And give fresh perspective on everything. From wellness and soccer to culture, the climate and more. Read, watch and listen to The Guardian for free at theguardian.com.

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Kara Swisher: Hey, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I have a Great Dane that is going through heat and having stomach issues. This is literally season one, episode two of Chernobyl. Not episode one where we set up the characters and find out that Russian firemen are humans too before they get radiated. Okay. Literally, the reactor has blown up at the Galloway household. I am ordering hazmat suits. Do not get anywhere near my vicinity right now. Ugly doesn't even begin to describe what is going on.

Scott Galloway: You have dog problems. You have dog problems.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my gosh. I thought kids were awful. I mean, this is—

Scott Galloway: No, they're not awful. This is rough. Why do you have these pets if you don't understand the burdens that come with that?

Kara Swisher: Because they unconditionally love me. They're literally—they don't complain, they're never disappointed, they never say I'm quiet and I don't share my emotions and then I don't do anything around the house. I'm sorry about your dog. I hope your dog recovers anyways. How are you? Good? How are you? I'd like to discuss some photographs if you don't mind. Can we do that, or are we not allowed?

Scott Galloway: Well, is this the part of the episode where we discuss my off-mic behavior? Is this that part of the episode? Do you approve or not approve? It's either you're horrified and you're okay with it.

Kara Swisher: You know what? I, Scott, you be you. That's what I say. People ask me all the time—

Scott Galloway: Do I have any choice?

Kara Swisher: No, exactly. People ask me like, do you believe you do? I'm like, whatever. What do you care? I'm always like, what do you care to people when they ask me about you and these kinds of things? Scott posted some terrific pictures of himself. He looks great. I have to say, I think you looked fit. And I like that you're celebrating your fitness and you were very fit. My son, Alex, was like, "Ooh, nice abs," essentially. Or maybe it was Louie. It was probably Louie. You looked good. I think I'm going to just support you in your continuing efforts to show off your body.

Scott Galloway: Good one. I'm glad to see you're finally investing in our relationship.

Kara Swisher: I think if it was total nudity, I might have a different issue. But I think probably—

Scott Galloway: Big Ed and the twins want a little love.

Kara Swisher: Oh, I don't think I want to see that. Let's bring them out. Let's bring them out. I don't think anyone wants to see that, really.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's fine. I think Stephanie Ruhl's comments were very funny. She is funny. Twitter knows Stephanie loves the dog.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I know. But they know Stephanie loves the dog. They gave it to her. They were like, let him be proud of himself. Did you notice that? There was like a little shift towards Scott Galloway. I thought that was interesting.

Scott Galloway: So let's be clear. 90% of it is narcissism. The 10%, or the way I rationalize the irrational, is—everyone asks what my fitness secret is. And I'm like, it's very simple. I've worked out four times a week for 40 years. It's been my antidepressant. It's been a ballast in my life.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, you really do.

Scott Galloway: You are not your body. And I lecture young men on this all the time. You are not renting your body. It is not a loner. If you want to be less depressed, make more money, find a means of controlling your emotions and making better decisions, work out three to five times a week. It is a gift from God as a species.

Kara Swisher: Yep, I do. It helps my sons for sure.

Scott Galloway: As a species, we are happiest when we are in motion surrounded by others.

Kara Swisher: Sweat.

Scott Galloway: Sweat.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's why I like it. That's why I encourage it.

Scott Galloway: I'm going to keep doing it, and I'm going to keep showing it off and feeling not better about myself, but less bad about myself.

Kara Swisher: I think you should do a book. I think you should do the Scott Galloway workout book. I think that would be interesting. What do you think?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, the problem is it all falls down around alcohol in my diet.

Kara Swisher: Well, you can talk about that. It could be that kind of book. You know what I mean? It could be really interesting. I think that's a genius idea.

Scott Galloway: I had a big thing on fitness in my Algebra of Happiness book, which you clearly did not read.

Kara Swisher: No, but I mean a whole book about you working out and lots of pictures of you. That's what I'm saying. I like that. You know what I mean? I think it would be very—I think people would like to hear how a regular Joe, like yourself—you're not a regular Joe. A regular Joe. An aging athlete. Whatever. I think it would be interesting. You work out. You do Peloton. Are you still doing the Peloton?

Scott Galloway: I am. I'm back to it. I was off for a little while and got my pandemic 10 that I need to take off. So I've just started again. I'm doing the Power Zones program on it. I've gone four days now, and I'm going to—seven weeks, I'm going to do it. And then I'm going to move on to another one. It's better if I have a program and people tell me what to do, or else I don't.

Kara Swisher: I agree. I'm so busy all day. I find that's really—there's so many great apps. Even Dreamy Chris Hemsworth has an app. The other thing is I think there's a connection—there are really good apps. There's a connection between physical strength and grit and mental. And on the days I work out—I'm sorry, the off days—I try and test myself mentally, especially on writing. I try and sit down. And this isn't easy. I open my laptop and I try and write straight for two hours with absolutely no distractions.

Scott Galloway: Wow. Good for you.

Kara Swisher: And that is—I find that more difficult than doing CrossFit—to just say, I'm going to do nothing but write and edit for 120 minutes straight. I'm not going to look at my phone. I'm not going to look up. I'm not going to eat. I did it in the back of a car.

Scott Galloway: You are really—

Kara Swisher: I'm very productive that way.

Scott Galloway: What is your—actually, this is a really—I think a lot of people would like to know. You're extraordinarily productive or prolific. What is your method? When do you write? What is your process?

Kara Swisher: It's interesting. Last night, I was sitting in a car in a parking lot in Lorton, Virginia, because my son is taking this glass art class, and it's three hours, and it's a pain to drive there. So I literally sat in the car and did my column. That's where I do it. I can write anywhere. I can sleep anywhere. I'm one of those people. I really just do it. I don't agonize over it. I just start writing. I am very organized. The thing that relaxes me, honestly, is cleaning. I clean and organize and stuff. I'm a little anal retentive. And a lot.

Scott Galloway: Hold on a second. Just going back to your writing, because I think there are so many people who are following you and admire you and admire your work. What is your laptop? What is the software?

Kara Swisher: Oh, it's a Macintosh. Just a Mac. Not a very—

Scott Galloway: Google Doc, Word. What do you use?

Kara Swisher: Everything. I use Word to write. But I use this thing called Scrivener for my book. I use Evernote. I do use Evernote. I use notes. I use SimpleNote. I do a lot of notes. Again, I'm very list-oriented, and then I just tick down the list. And I think that's really how I do it. And then when I get ideas, I put them in a document, and I work on it all week. Something strikes me. You say something I like. And I have little pieces of paper. You can see them right here, just little Post-it notes. When Oswalt said "too odious"—that word "odious" really struck me.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I heard.

Kara Swisher: And then he called Bitcoin—I think either you or he called Bitcoin a version of gold. I thought that was just smart. And I just put "version of gold." And I'm going to figure out a way to attribute it to him. Incorporate it. And then I was talking to Evan Spiegel from Snapchat yesterday. And he was talking about diversity. And he said he prefers to look at it now as a talent agenda. And I just like those two words together. So I write it down. And then I start, and then I spin out from that. So I don't agonize.

Scott Galloway: So in this process, do you do a lot of research? Do you go online and try to find interesting stories? Or do you just have a few themes?

Kara Swisher: I have themes that I stick with almost constantly. A lot of it. And they change. Like right now, climate change tech is really interesting to me. So anytime I see something, I keep educating myself throughout the week. But what I don't do is agitate. I just type. I literally am like this. It's like I'm a plumber. Like I'm fixing the toilet. That's what I'm doing. I don't think about it. I think a lot of writers agonize, and I just don't. I just get it done.

Scott Galloway: And is there a time of the day you find you're more productive?

Kara Swisher: After I clean something. I have to clean first because it settles my mind.

Scott Galloway: Except for the cleaning part. I drink. You clean, I drink. It settles my mind.

Kara Swisher: I settle my mind by cleaning. Someone's always like, why are you cleaning? I'm like, I like it. I like it. And it makes me calm. So that's what I do. I clean before I write. It sounds really crazy.

Scott Galloway: There's a great book on mental illness called The Unquiet Mind. It's an interesting book just to understand—not only does everyone talk about flow, but mental illness, or this book, is an interesting means of understanding what I'd call a lack of flow and how you can get to flow. I don't know what you think of that. It's interesting how you do it.

Kara Swisher: My son was telling me, doing this glass class where he does a lot of—it's not glass blowing, it's glass, whatever, you make art out of glass. And he said it calms him just to look at the—he's so in his head with work.

Scott Galloway: Is this Louie or Alex?

Kara Swisher: Alex. He's so in his head with work. And this makes him—it's like meditation for me, working with his hands. So whatever you find, as you said, working out, cleaning, whatever it is, whatever calms you down is what you should be doing. And in my case, it has to do with paper towels and cleaning cabinets. Anyway, this is too much information. Let's talk about the other things.

Scott Galloway: I agree. Thank you for asking me that stuff. And I really did like your pictures. I thought you looked great.

Kara Swisher: Thanks. So a couple things. The cryptocurrency Squid cratered this week after its founders seemingly cashed out tokens worth millions of dollars. Squid launched in October and skyrocketed to over $2,000 per token before disappearing from social media. The project was named for Netflix's Squid Game. There's going to be a lot of these, correct? These kinds of little startups that come and go.

Scott Galloway: Well, it's not even a startup. This is a—I mean, there will be a lot of startups that have legitimate founders and don't—I've started a couple of them that are running on a hope and a prayer. And then when the cheap capital runs out, they crash. This was a fraud. What's so strange about this time is it's become so frothy that the haze or the froth is literally dying every red flag white. There were red flags everywhere on this. If you went to the site, there were misspellings everywhere.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: You could buy the coin, but you couldn't sell it. And then they had what's called a rug pull. That is when people try to redeem and there's no liquidity. The thing went from $2,100 a share to zero. This will be further fodder for why the SEC should issue another thought piece, which will say absolutely nothing. But they have to step in here because Squidcoin threatens every legitimate coin. And there's a ton of interesting innovation.

Kara Swisher: This happened in the early internet. It did. Remember? There was a lot of this stuff going on, and it did hurt the rest of them, the ones that were legitimately trying to do things.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, we're just going to look back on this. There's going to be so many articles going, how on earth did we not see this coming?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. Well, they didn't actually ever regulate the internet, but in this case, it has to be because it has to do with money and things like that, very significant. The other thing that was, I think, a little bit disturbing to the market—and I tweeted about it and everyone sort of responded—was Zillow is quitting the home buying business. This is sort of a trend started by Opendoor, which is still doing fine, it looks like. I think it has results this week or maybe they just did. The CEO said the housing market is too unpredictable. What they would do is buy houses, renovate them, and then sell them—essentially become flippers. It needs the companies to offload 7,000 houses worth over $2 billion, which could impact the housing market. They just determined that being an iBuyer was too risky, too volatile, and ultimately addressed too few customers, too narrow. They're also cutting 2,000 jobs. But they were trying to mimic some of the interesting startups, which is not the worst idea. Obviously, the job market is tighter. Getting people to work on these houses, I think, was one of the issues. They misjudged the cost, which is incredible because they have all the data on these houses. What are your thoughts?

Scott Galloway: This is a disaster. First off, Zillow is an incredible company. If you think about Google—it's an unbelievable search engine—and Facebook is an unbelievable social network. Zillow is both of those things for one of the largest asset classes in the world: U.S. residential real estate. They own—I think they also own StreetEasy. They have so much data and they have managed to exit the stranglehold of Facebook and Google. People go directly to Zillow. They have incredible data. They have incredible ad tech. If you're a broker in Short Hills, New Jersey, you have to be on Zillow. It's the go-to for this enormous asset class. It's an incredible company. The stock's gone from $200 to $75 based on the excitement over iBuying and then the disaster of it. What's also interesting is that there appears to be no contagion here. It appears to be an operational issue specific to Zillow. And that is—Opendoor is fine. It's a surprise from Rich Barton, who I've known for many years. His brand took a huge hit here. Rich Barton was seen as one of these kind of iconic Reed Hastings-like executives.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, 100%.

Scott Galloway: I would argue he would probably be fired if there weren't two classes of stock. This is the kind of thing that CEOs do and should get fired for. This is a disaster. I personally think they'll be fine. They have over $3 billion on the balance sheet. They have a lot of debt, but it's not coming due for a while. And the core business is just an unbelievable business. But when you announce—I mean, think about this. His statement that the real estate market was unpredictable. Well, actually, the real estate market has been one of the most predictable asset classes in the world since March or April. And that is, it keeps going up at record rates. So the fact that they're losing this much money—I don't want to say it's hard to lose money in real estate right now. But what they achieved is pretty incredible because supposedly the real estate market is going to go up another double digits this year in a low interest rate environment. You just never see that. So the fact that they were able to figure out a way to lose this much money speaks to the notion—and people have always said this—that real estate is a local business.

Kara Swisher: You need to walk the property.

Scott Galloway: You need to see the way it angled versus the sun, whatever it might be. You need to understand, is there mildew? Are there termites? What's the school district? All that stuff. And algorithms couldn't figure it out, or at least they couldn't figure it out for Zillow. But this was—if you look at what happened here, it's breathtaking. The dynamic it reflects, coming back to froth, is that they chose growth over everything, even when it meant—it reminded me of Cyber Shop, this e-commerce company that started in the late 90s and went public. It used to go buy this hot toy called Furbies for $29 and then sell them for $19 so it could show incredible top-line growth. And they were going and buying houses for X that had a resale value of 0.8X just to show top-line growth. And you know what, Kara? For a while, it worked. The market said, oh my gosh, here's something interesting.

Kara Swisher: Barbara Corcoran, who's a very famous real estate person—she's also on Shark Tank—said, like many others, the company was likely tempted to control the entire house-hunting market since Zillow had access to sellers. They probably saw Keith Rabois and others over at Opendoor and were like, we can do it. That's our business, right? That's one thing. The other thing is the idea—first of all, they're unloading 7,000 houses. They didn't understand the cost structure. Barton obviously founded the travel site Expedia also, so he's clearly a talented entrepreneur. But using algorithms to buy homes, repair them, and sell them is really not—they just didn't approach it. And what was interesting is at the time, Keith Rabois, who was an investor—he's a venture capitalist in Opendoor—said this was going to be a problem. And of course, everyone was like, oh, it's just sour grapes from a competitor. But what's interesting is that it seems like lots of people saw this. Lots of real estate people at least were sort of not surprised by what happened here.

Scott Galloway: But the real estate industry poo-pooing iBuying is sort of similar to Jamie Dimon poo-pooing crypto. Everyone was like, okay, boomer, you just don't get it. And also, it is an incredibly inefficient market. Anyone who sold a house and sees a nice guy or a nice lady roll up in their Jaguar every Sunday and put out balloons and then get 5% to 6% of the transaction—you're kind of like, okay, this is very inefficient.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And it's a market that is ripe for disruption. But this was—it's striking how dramatic the fall was. iBuying is less than 1% of transactions, but institutional buying of rentals is up to 20%.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: This could have easily been a chill that could have really rattled the market. If all of a sudden the next day Opendoor also made a similar announcement, you could have seen a real chill in the market.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. But it looks like this was endemic or specific to Zillow. It's just very interesting. But the housing market has been on such a tear. And iBuying and institutional buyers coming in—typically when institutional buyers come in, it reflects a top. And everyone complains that it's going to drive housing up. It does in the short run. But oftentimes they screw up. And then there's a fire sale and there's an opportunity to go in and buy stuff cheap. Because no asset, whether it's a company or a house—there's no better deal than trying to buy an asset that's been orphaned by a large company because they just want out.

Scott Galloway: And one of the things—they tried to blame it on the labor market. And then everyone was like, everyone else is doing fine in the same market. Let's figure that out. And so they did say they couldn't predict the prices accurately, which I can't believe that they had all this data.

Kara Swisher: The other thing is, as you said, it's interesting because you have a company like Carvana, which is kind of doing this, which is also intriguing because the way buying cars is broken, right? It's been a broken thing. And buying a house has sort of been a broken thing, but you can't make it necessarily any easier just by algorithms.

Scott Galloway: Well, the auto industry—I spoke to the management team of what was previously the most valuable automobile company in the world until Tesla came along. Pre-pandemic, less than 2% of cars were sold online. Now it's 30%.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And the automobile industry is suffering from the same challenge that the banking industry is. It's even more extreme in that the banking industry sees their operating system as a ready teller and a bank branch. And they've been letting the tail wag the dog. They build their business around a bank branch that needs $50 million in deposits to be profitable. And they try to drive people into the bank branch. Young people and the emerging wealth does not want to deal with a bank. The same is true of cars. Young people don't want to deal with an auto dealership. They don't want to go to the outskirts of town and walk into a dealership. Look at Tesla. They've dispersed the sales of automobiles to their website. And then when my Tesla breaks down, I don't even take it—there isn't a Tesla dealership. They come out and they repair it in my garage. The problem with the traditional automobile supply chain infrastructure is that their partners are the wealthiest guy. When I was in Africa, I stayed at this—

Kara Swisher: Yeah, the local—

Scott Galloway: Ridiculous place, and it was owned by a billionaire. I'm like, how did this guy make his money? He's like, he's the largest Toyota dealer in Texas. So you have this infrastructure of independently owned dealerships that have been amazing partners for these automobile manufacturing companies. But the reality is they're turning into a legacy liability, similar to bank branches. But you're going to have a much harder time closing things for the long-term health of the business because these are entrepreneurs.

Kara Swisher: It's the worst experience. It's the worst experience. We're going to get into cars in a second, which I—

Scott Galloway: Terrible retail.

Kara Swisher: Terrible retail. But we're going to get that in one of our big stories. But I agree with you. There's more to come on this story. It's really—and the implications for Barton too. Just very briefly, Facebook is getting out of the face business, maybe. Shutting down facial recognition platform, citing growing concerns about the use of the technology. There's lawsuits. There's been lawsuits aplenty that cost Facebook a big chunk of change. Facebook told Gizmodo it's limited to Facebook app only, not other apps like Instagram. There's a lot of fine print, and also they're going to continue to reserve the right to use it. It obviously was used as a growth hack many years ago for people. You post a photo and then you can see yours so that you can say your photos on Facebook and this and that. So good move. But I'm sure there's a lot of hooks to it because it's Facebook.

Scott Galloway: I don't understand this. To unlock my Apple phone, they're using facial recognition. The difference is people trust Tim Cook and they don't trust Mark Zuckerberg.

Kara Swisher: Also, there's been a lot of scraping by companies like Clearview AI of Facebook on these photos. And it wasn't giving them enough bang for the buck and was causing all kinds of headaches. Good on them. But they're probably doing it for very selfish reasons. Anyway, we'll see where it goes. I think they're not nearly out of this business because it's only on the Facebook app. But again, they want a little credit, and I'll give them a slight amount of credit. But I think probably they're doing it for not the reasons we'd imagine. Anyway, time for the big story. The big Hertz Tesla announcement is getting odd. Tesla shares soared last week after Hertz said it would purchase 100,000 vehicles. Then Elon Musk tweeted, no contract has been signed yet. Hertz disagrees that the deliveries of Tesla had already started. And now Hertz said it will buy back $500 million of its stock. The biggest seller is an investment fund associated with its chairman, Greg O'Hara. I don't know what to say. Explain this to me, Scott. I'm confused.

Scott Galloway: Well, we're just in uncharted territory. You have a company that was bankrupt, purchasing $4 billion worth of cars, and it increases the value of the automobile company in 30 days by the equivalent of five General Motors. It goes up $130 billion in value. So a bankrupt company buys $4 billion worth of cars, and the automobile manufacturer that sold those cars increases $120 billion in value. There's just no doubt about it. We're in crazy town right now. What also struck me as strange—and Oswalt said it—he said you can't find intrinsic rationale to value Tesla right now. It makes absolutely no sense. Tesla is now worth more than the entire automobile manufacturing industry globally, and throw in Boeing and Airbus and maybe every specialty retailer. And then what I find interesting is the brand implications. Tesla recognizes they're a luxury brand, and they look at all the cars and the fleet sales coming out of Hertz. Someone reminded them that it is not great for your brand to have a bunch of champagne-colored Ford Tauruses being sold to consumers after Hertz has driven the shit out of them for 24 months. I wonder who sat Elon Musk down and said having a disproportionate number of cars in the Hertz fleet may not be great for our brand? Because all of a sudden, he's backpedaling.

Kara Swisher: Right. And I don't understand why. I don't even know if it's a brand issue, a deal issue. I don't know what's going on here. But when you have two CEOs—you never see this. The CEO who just made the largest purchase in the history of the company, the CEO of the automobile company, is saying that no, the deal isn't official. And then Hertz is saying, yes, it is.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, and also they had hired Tom Brady to promote the pact, which was another sort of football player.

Kara Swisher: It's completely—I'm not sure who's in the wrong here, right?

Scott Galloway: Correct. We don't know. But I'll tell you who's in the wrong, though, in my opinion: that they're buying back $500 million of stock.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, there you go.

Scott Galloway: I mean, what did they—give me a break. I think the moment you buy back stock, you become ineligible for the next decade of any sort of government assistance, loan, bailout. So let me get this straight. The chairman is going to buy back stock. Stock buybacks are an efficient way to return capital to shareholders. But it just strikes me as really—you'd hate to see the same thing happen again where all of a sudden Hertz hits a tough patch of the economy and they go, we're in this together and we're great employers and we need a government handout. I would love to know what Hertz took during the pandemic in terms of economic relief. But I think rental cars—I don't know about you, but I just never need to—I find renting cars, the traditional thing where you fly into an airport and then go to a strange parking lot, I find the whole thing—and then you get in and it smells like cigarettes. I find the whole thing just not an interesting experience.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's true. But many people—I use it a lot. I use it when I used to travel. You rent cars in strange cities?

Scott Galloway: Yes, and I use—the cigarettes, the whole thing.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's right. And I get in fights with the Hertz. I use Hertz, actually. Anyway, it's an odd story, and it should continue to unfold. Obviously, people think these contracts tend to be negotiated even after they're agreed to. It's a good thing for Hertz because a lot of the customers are demanding electric cars. And of course, Tesla doesn't want to be seen as selling at a discount, which they say they aren't, which Elon said they weren't. Some of the rules are you can't use them for an Uber kind of thing. Anyway, it's a really complicated story. There's a good Wall Street Journal story that I read, and I still don't understand what's happening. Presumably it'll be sorted out. But Tesla has more demand than supply at this point still.

Scott Galloway: Sounds like you should head to a parking lot in Virginia and get things sorted for us.

Kara Swisher: I will. I shall. I shall not. Do some reporting. But I shall do some reporting because I think I don't know enough here. But they're not supposed to use the cars for ride shares, rentals, and this and that. But I think it's a very complex story. Hertz coming out of this bankruptcy is going to be a much more interesting story, I think, than any of them, because whether business travel is back, whether people use these things. And as you said, this might be a broken system as it is. But what is the solution? What is the actual solution when you want to rent a car when you travel?

Kara Swisher: It goes back to a key thing we've been talking about, and that's dispersion. And that is simply put that the rental car counter and the place where the rental cars are stored in a garage, those things not only don't add any value, they add negative value. And we are moving to a point in enterprise kind of pioneered this 30 years ago. They used to drop off the car at your house. They did. And just as I never need to go to an auto dealership again, I never need to go to a rental car place again. And if I'm renting a car, and I think they can do this, and I think people who rent cars probably have the money to do this, they should meet you at the curb. You get in, and then he or she takes that fucking stupid bus back to the rental car place.

Scott Galloway: No, I agree. There's been a lot of startups in this area, and they've all kind of flamed out. A ton.

Kara Swisher: There's been a ton.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, a ton. It's a very logistically complex thing, and you have to have the right employees. Speaking of labor shortage, you really do. Enterprise is probably the best experience of all of them. Great company. And I keep going down these rabbit holes, but Enterprise employed the same thing that Chick-fil-A employed, and it doesn't get enough attention. And that is they push equity and ownership down to the desk. And that is the guy or gal running every Chick-fil-A owns a big piece of that Chick-fil-A. And also at Enterprise, they had created incredible career paths for people starting at the locations and made them owners. And so when you're in an Enterprise, you just can feel it. The owner is there. There is a difference. There's a big difference.

Kara Swisher: Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the election results in Virginia, big news, and elsewhere, including New Jersey. And also take a listener mail question about your kid's cell phone.

[Ad Break]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we back for our second big story. I mean the politics. The Democrats' canary in a coal mine has died officially. Election results around the country are in and Democrats lost races big and small. Republicans took the governor's mansion in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin.

[Clip: Glenn Youngkin: We're going to introduce choice within our public school system.]

Kara Swisher: New Jersey governor, current governor, incumbent Phil Murphy, defeated the Republican opponent by the slimmest of margins.

[Clip: Phil Murphy: I am humbled to be the first Democratic governor reelected in the great state of New Jersey since my dear friend, the late Governor Brendan Byrne, did this in 1977.]

Kara Swisher: Seattle might elect a Republican to citywide office for the first time in 30 years. Obviously, there's all these defund the police things failed in many cities. That said, Michelle Wu became the first woman and person of color. She's quite a progressive to win in Boston. There's a lot going on here. I have a lot of fascinating things. And let me just begin by saying, I just wrote a piece where I said that Glenn Youngkin should send a basket of flowers to Jack Dorsey because he managed to distance himself from Trump and yet be Trumpy at the same time, be Trump-lite essentially, or more Romney-heavy. I don't know what you would call him. And he used critical race theory, et cetera, all the stuff that was swirling around on social media, but managed to keep Trump away from himself. And Trump not being on Twitter and on social media probably helped because he would have been dealing with it every day had that been the case. So people seem to think this guy wasn't like Trump and it helped because these were the voters that rejected Trump in the 2020 election. Scott?

Scott Galloway: Yeah. So I also think that Governor-elect Youngkin should send flowers to the Squad and Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Because what could Governor McAuliffe say he has done for the people of Virginia? I brought you hearing aids for seniors. I brought you pre-K. I brought you family leave. No, he couldn't say any of those things. And so the Democrats literally have – the Democratic Party has given people running for office the weakest hand in the world right now. And in addition, I think the Republicans have been very smart around messaging, and that is critical race theory is not being practiced anywhere in New Jersey or Virginia. But they have managed to basically position us as critical race theorists by virtue of the fact that, okay, you're saying standardized tests and gifted classes are racist. You have safe places at schools. True or not, they have figured out a way to position us as out of touch and a bunch of privileged people lecturing each other. And they've done a great job absolutely cementing this notion that we are out of touch. And it is really the fact that we have splintered into three different parties, the Democratic Party, the Squad, and then the narcissist posing as moderates. They have just played us like a fiddle. And I'll tell you, we almost lost New Jersey. New Jersey, where there are a million more registered Democrats, because here's the thing. People would – the notion that we are going to shame the other side or moderates through being very persistent, very loud on Twitter is going to work. It's not. It reflects nothing. It's absolutely not. And we come across as being so out of touch. We control all three houses of government and we can't get anything done. I think people would rather vote for people who they don't necessarily agree with or that they find distasteful, but get shit done.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. If we can't get shit done with all three houses. But Trump is a step too distasteful. That's the thing. Trump really does engender like not him back with these moderates. And I think Youngkin did an excellent – Trump sort of immediately was like, well, because of me. And I'm like, no, actually, he is. It's not good news for Trump, because I think they found a way through the Trump, you know, the alley where you get beat up, essentially, when you go with Trump. And so there's either been these, what they call RINOs, the Republicans in name only, sort of Liz Cheney gang, or the group that is just so obsequious, like Nikki Haley or even Ron DeSantis, et cetera, who are obsequious and it works where they are. But it doesn't work nationwide and it doesn't work with independents. They don't like Trump and they don't like you kissing up to him. And this guy managed to keep close with Trump without him staining him, right? That was what was really interesting. He looked like a banker. He was a banker. He's from the Carlyle Group, you know, with the fleece and the khakis and everything else.

Scott Galloway: The Allbirds.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, the Allbirds. He was just like – it was perfect. And then he used – he's sort of like the old-timey Republican, which you dog whistle racism, you know, just the way the Bushes did around Willie Horton. That was a Lee Atwater special. They sort of do that and they're good at that part or scare people about gay people or whatever things they want to scare white people with, essentially. And then they remove themselves from it. So they're not – and Trump is so explicit and they prefer to be implicit. And that's what Youngkin did. He was implicit rather than explicit and therefore got the benefit of both doing these things, attacking critical race theory, et cetera, and then also distancing himself from it. It was really, it was quite a thing to watch.

Scott Galloway: The most successful or the best-selling soft drink in the world is the Republican Party's new strategy, and that is Diet Coke. And everybody here is going to be, the new strategy for the next two years is going to be Trump-lite, and that is embracing his policies, embracing his political incorrectness, embracing his lack of fear around saying, you know, quote-unquote inappropriate things, calling things out, positioning us as out of time, all those things. But just don't embrace the man. Just don't let him on stage with you.

Kara Swisher: And this is, he is literally, they are going to adopt this playbook. He's a prop. They're going to be Trump-like. He knows it, by the way. That's why he was so like, you could see him like, where do I fit in this power structure? I'm like, you're the prop. You're now the prop, just so you know.

Scott Galloway: His endorsement is still hugely powerful, though.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, with that group. So you got to keep that little group that you need. You need the Trumpies. You need the diehard Trumpies. But the independents don't want that, though. It's a really, it's a, one of the things I thought, I thought when the race was lost, when McAuliffe said, with talking about, you know, parents are sick and tired of keeping their kids home. They don't, you know, they're tired of masking, even if they did, like a lot of these people were vaccinated, followed masking rules, you know, and, but got exasperated by schools, right? Got exasperated. And then started to see things they didn't love their kids being taught. Although everybody disagrees on that if you're a parent. You're like, oh, really? You know, I always do that when I see them. I'm like, that book? Okay. You know, why? And when McAuliffe said parents should stay out of school, no curriculum, I was like, what? No, like, it doesn't mean we run it. But then you allow the crazies to take over these school boards all over the place, which is happening, of course, some of which are disturbing, like trying to censor certain books that are wonderful books, like Toni Morrison's Beloved, and important books. But when he said that, I was even like, what? What did you just say? Like, I have no say in my child's education. Are you kidding me? Like, don't say that. Don't say that. And especially to women who shifted over to Youngkin rather significantly.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, I actually, I think it was a tone-deaf statement. They grabbed it and ran with it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's what I mean.

Scott Galloway: As someone, I've been on the board of my kid's school. I know what he meant. I do think that, I do think at the end of the day, schools, I think it's, we haven't, it's sort of like advertising. Anybody who watches TV immediately believes they're a mild expert on advertising. And anybody who knows someone who had COVID thinks all of a sudden they're a junior epidemiologist. And anyone with kids thinks they have insight into learning. What I have found is that it is similar to being on the board of a company. You are there to support the person. You are there to provide advice. They get to make decisions because ultimately they need to be held accountable. And if you don't like the way the school is run, you fire the headmaster or the CEO. But I don't. I had a real problem with a lot of parents. And I know this is not what you're saying. A lot of parents showing up and deciding that they had PhDs in education. And it was just like, okay, we understand you have kids. We understand you have a choice here. We understand you have a huge vested interest in what we do here. But your job is to put pressure on the board to fire and hire the right guy or gal and then let them make the decisions, quite frankly, because this is not easy.

Kara Swisher: I think this was under a backdrop of people being cooped up at home. They're being told what to do, told what to do with their kids. And that their kid has to stay at home if they leave for Thanksgiving. Do you know?

Scott Galloway: Yes.

Kara Swisher: I'm just saying people were tired of being told, even like among, especially among the liberal groups of people, the parents I know, they're like, what are they telling us now? Like, nobody's liking this. And I think this guy hit at that frustration when most people are reasonable. And most people are reasonable, by the way. These groups of crazies are just noisy and loud, just the way any group like this is. But I think it did hit at this, like, now what are they telling me what to do? And then he was there with, like, don't let them tell me what to do. And you're like, yeah, I don't want to, you know, I don't know. It was interesting.

Scott Galloway: Just case in point, I have a family member. I do not have a big family. We really wanted to get all the cousins together for Thanksgiving. And one of the schools that one of the cousins is in has explicitly said, if you leave for Thanksgiving, your kids need to isolate when they get back.

Kara Swisher: Isolating, not just test?

Scott Galloway: I think it's both. And you think, okay, so now the school is dictating my ability to have family gatherings over the holidays. And it is really – and the school is trying to just be responsible. They are. And their heart's in the right place. But, I mean, here's what it comes right down to, Kara. People wrongly or rightly have decided whether or not the pandemic is actually over or burning out. The pandemic is over. They're like, okay, I've played by the rules. I've done my best. People are going to die. But I think people have sort of mentally decided, I'm kind of done. Let the chips fall where they're going to fall. And I'm vaccinated, right? And so I'll take the risk kind of thing.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. The numbers on this is really interesting, the shifting numbers back and forth. And the power of these independents, I guess you'd call them, that shift back and forth, whether it's New Jersey or Virginia, are really interesting. And they are very affected by online stuff, too, like this suggestion. And so a lot of this stuff really worked. And then when you, I think what the Democrats said that was a mistake is they're like, you know, if you're for him, you're racist. And it's like, no, don't do that because they're not, not all of them are.

Scott Galloway: They are. They counter that with, well, when you look at everything, and this isn't true, but when they position far-left Democrats as looking through the lens of everything through the lens of race, then boss, you're the racist. And that's how they've positioned us. They have. They've positioned us as fighting racism with segregation at a young age. And moderates go, no, the first thing we should teach our kids is about shared experience and victories and hopes before we start saying to people. And I don't think most schools are doing this.

Kara Swisher: Which they do. Let me just – they take individual little dumb things.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, go ahead.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I'm talking about messaging. They've positioned us as saying, okay, and this isn't true, but there's enough data points they can pull, they can make a character of. They love the anecdote. At the age of 8 or 19, oppressors on this side of the classroom, oppressed on this side. And the Republicans have been masterful in positioning us as privileged people that want to lecture each other. And the Democratic Party has been a disaster around positioning. I also think there's some remnants. I think that – and again, there's no elegant way to lose a war. But I think our exit from Afghanistan was just bungled so badly. We can't get anything passed. I'm hoping this is a low point. I do think that the House and the Senate Democrats are going to get the message here. I got to think this is a really fucking ugly call this morning talking about what happened last night. And I got to think Nancy Pelosi is calling the Squad and calling Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and say, get your shit together. Get your shit together. Did you see what happened last night? So I'm hoping that this is a burning platform, which the Democrats needed to say, OK, this is going to get really ugly in two years if we don't get our act together.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I thought Jonathan Chait, who I don't always agree with, did quite a good short story about this, which I think if you ask most progressive analysts why Republicans usually try to change the subject away from publication, have seized on schools as their message, they'll answer you. You'll hear something like, because they're racist. There's a lot of truth to this. The Republican Party has a huge number of racists in it, and those who aren't still, by definition, tolerate racism by the party's leaders. A non-trivial part of the backlash to education comes from parents who are offended by accurate teaching about slavery, reconstruction, and structural racism, or don't want their kids to be exposed to Toni Morrison. The actual policies Republicans are pushing on schools are illiberal to make a mockery of their professed belief in free speech. And yet this kind of response has made it difficult for liberals to acknowledge that maybe Republicans are focusing on schools, at least in part because they detect genuine policy failures that have alienated part of the Democratic constituency. I think that's – and this last thing, let me just read it because I thought it was so good. The overlapping debates over school closing and racial equity have both been characterized by heavily moralistic language compressing the issue into a false binary. It's possible to favor some measures to contain the pandemic while wanting to keep schools open or to support unvarnished history without the Robin DiAngelo jargon. That's the White Fragility book. Anyway, I thought that was great. I think this is a really interesting one.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, agreed. I was forwarded the same article. They've got to get on the phone and stop. You know, don't let them – because Republicans are deeply cynical. That's what it is. And, you know, they're going to keep doing it.

Kara Swisher: And then one of the things that I was at a party and one of them, you know, it was quite liberal group of people. And they're like, can you believe he's saying this? I'm like, yeah, I believe it. Like, of course he wants to win. Like, what are you talking, like, yeah. Like that you have to stop pretending they're not going to be this cynical and do this and just move in there with some elbows, some sharp elbows.

Scott Galloway: Sharp elbows.

Kara Swisher: But you know I advocate that.

Scott Galloway: The militia as a ratio. Sharp elbows.

Kara Swisher: No. No. I would be playing as tough a game as they do instead of agonizing and attacking each other. Yeah. Our messaging has just been abysmal. Anyway, I feel bad for Governor McAuliffe. I thought he was a good governor. I think he was a very decent man. And we sent him—

Scott Galloway: He was a good governor. We poured honey on him and sent him hunting for bears in that election. We just did not help him at all.

Kara Swisher: That's a visual.

Scott Galloway: The edibles are kicking in!

Kara Swisher: I'm assuming he's not posing like you do.

Scott Galloway: That's it. I'm taking off my shirt.

Kara Swisher: No, please don't.

Scott Galloway: I'm taking off my shirt.

Kara Swisher: Please, for the love of God, don't.

Scott Galloway: Gun shows in town. I feel triggered. I feel unsafe.

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, I really don't. I don't ever feel unsafe around you. Let's pivot to a listener question. You've got, you've got.

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

Kara Swisher: This one came in an email from Sarah Smith. I'll read it. "I'm curious why tech isn't developing exciting mobile devices suitable for the tween age group. I don't know any parents who are thrilled about getting a smartphone for their kid, yet we'd all like to have a way to contact them that isn't a flip phone. A friend of mine is considering an Apple Watch for his almost 10-year-old. Is this the best option if you want to be able to contact your kiddo but don't want to have full access to the web? Any advice for the 9 to 12 crowd?" There are phones. There are phones that are, there's a product called, our producers are putting here, Relay. It's a screenless push-to-talk phone marketed to kids. There's not a more featured phone. I don't believe there's too many featured phones like that beyond flip phones, which, of course, at one point I gave to one of my kids because they were driving me crazy with all their apps. And they didn't know what to do because it only makes phone calls, essentially. So I don't know. Scott, what do you think? Should there be different phones for kids or versions that are kids? I don't imagine any of these. Like a beeper? What? Go back to a beeper?

Scott Galloway: A beeper. I don't know. For me, the phone plays a critical role in the father-son relationship. It's the only thing I can threaten to take away that has any impact.

Kara Swisher: Oh, wow.

Scott Galloway: Go to your room. Okay, fine. They love going to their room. I literally have no leverage over my kids whatsoever other than taking away their phone. That is the only thing they respond to.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I did that too. I did that too. You know, that's it. Other than that, we have absolutely no leverage. I'm sure there's also, I would imagine, I don't know this, I would imagine even on iOS, there's like a kid version.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, you can do all kinds. There's things you can, Sarah, you can do things on Apple phones that really make them. And there's Verizon apps that allow you to know what they're doing and to restrict times. And I did one thing where I turned off the phone after, I don't know, nine o'clock at night. And the first, I didn't tell them. We take their phone when they go to sleep.

Kara Swisher: Oh, do you?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I just turned it off. And then they were like, well, my phone's broken. I'm like, no, it's not. I have complete control of your phone. You can do all kinds of things like that. But here's what you should do. Talk to your kids about the uses of phones. I gave my kids phones pretty early compared to most parents. And we had a long talk about the uses of it, when they could use it, what they could have on it. I don't like to monitor my kids. Would you check the content on here? I don't. We've had arguments over that in our household. You know what? My ex-wife and I argue about it quite a bit. She's much more monitor-oriented, I would say. And I am over the years, not now, but I do not think you should track your children. I just don't. I just have a thing about that. Something you said really resonated with me, and it was something along the lines of we all have the right to have secrets. And it's one thing when I find very objectionable content in the history of my kids' YouTube viewership at the age of 11. I think that you have an obligation to kind of check in and see what they're doing on YouTube. But I don't think – I think people have the right to have secrets. And even – I'm not sure if that's true of an 11-year-old, but my son, my oldest, is 14. And we have some pretty heated arguments in the house. I'm like, you know what? I was doing stuff at 14 that I didn't want my parents to know about, and that was okay. Or that would have been embarrassing. And I don't know if we need to be the East German Stasi just because we can. Just because we can monitor their entire lives doesn't mean we should.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I did it once on Snapchat with one of my sons. He was off meeting a girl.

Scott Galloway: And you pretended to be the girl.

Kara Swisher: I found him.

Scott Galloway: You went online. Hey, handsome. Heard you're a butcher.

Kara Swisher: No, he just was, he was gone. He was gone from the house at an hour I did not like. My other son had been playing, turning on the Sonos and waking him up a lot, you know, doing that game that they do. Like, I don't know. You'll see what happens. You can turn on loud, irritating music. And he came in, my younger son, and said, no, he's not here. I couldn't annoy him. Like, he didn't get annoyed because he wasn't here. And it was in the middle of the night. And then I did track him that time because I was both irritated and also worried. And so, but in general, I tend to think either you talk to your kids about it. And I do check in, like this morning, one of them was listening to YouTube. I'm like, what are they listening to? And it turned out it was about the Continental Congress. And I was like, oh, okay, good. But I try not to spy. I don't like it. I don't, I just don't like it. I don't know. So the advice is for the younger, younger people, there are a lot of things you can put on the phones that are – Apple Watch is not a bad idea. What else? I don't know. Flip phones tend to work. I don't know.

Scott Galloway: Isn't that asking a kid to be bullied when he shows up with an Oyster phone? Isn't that – it's not saying, hey, wear this members-only jacket. The kids will love it.

Kara Swisher: Those are cool now, Scott. But it is amazing. It is amazing how fast I with these technologies – I have the boys this week. So I let my youngest son sleep with me, and we had the dogs in the bed.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, pooping.

Kara Swisher: And this morning, the first thing, he set an alarm for, you know, 7:20. The alarm goes off. Like, literally, I can't get this kid out of bed. He pops up, and he goes, Alexa, announce, nobody likes you, Alec. That's his younger brother. That's the first thing that runs through his mind is we need to announce the entire household. The first thing we need to hear at sunrise is nobody likes you, Alec.

Scott Galloway: Can I tell you, it does not stop. That's his first sin. House fire when he wakes up.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. Because he wants to terrorize his brother.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that happened this morning in my house, too. And it was like, okay. And then what we did for the first 10 minutes with my youngest is we searched for like 20 minutes for the Almond Joy that I had eaten the night before from his Halloween take.

Kara Swisher: Oh, and you just did a minute? But I was very earnest in the search. Wait. Like, I don't know where it went. It's got to be here somewhere. I can't believe you Almond Joys. Ugh.

Scott Galloway: Oh, they're the best.

Kara Swisher: Oh, mounds and Almond Joys. Candies from heaven.

Scott Galloway: Oh, no. No, Almond Joy.

Kara Swisher: Oh, gross. I'm going to send you your own box so you stop taking your kid's candy. You got to stop doing that.

Scott Galloway: Sometimes you feel like a nut, Kara. Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you live like a nut, like Scott Galloway.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, that was a good question. Send us more. If you've got a question you're curious about, go to nymag.com slash pivot and submit it for the show. A lot of people on Twitter this week had lots of questions from our guests. They loved Osoba.

Scott Galloway: Oh, my gosh.

Kara Swisher: Twitter loved Professor DeModeran.

Scott Galloway: Yep, they did. They did.

Kara Swisher: They did. And we'll have him back again. So lots of questions. Ask questions, we'll ask him and see if he'll answer them and different things like that. So, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

[Ad Break]

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, give us this week's predictions. Make it snappy.

Scott Galloway: Make it snappy. In the next five days, we're going to see more progress around the Build Back America bill or the infrastructure on both bills. We're going to see more progress in the next 72 hours than we've seen in the last 72 days. I think this was –

Kara Swisher: All right. Explain yourself.

Scott Galloway: Well, nothing brings people together like being bombed from overhead. I mean it's pretty clear that the Republicans have literally taken us behind the woodshed and kicked the shit out of us last night. And this is going to create the burning platform to unite all this ridiculous infighting. The best way to defeat an enemy is to atomize them. And they've not only split the Democratic Party in two. They've split it in three. And I can't imagine that Schumer and every party leader and Pelosi are sitting down with their caucuses and saying, OK, OK. Any questions? We need to figure this shit out pronto. So I think we're going to see a lot of progress.

Kara Swisher: Although, you know, I think the Republican Party is going to see a bit of a fight with Trump. I think Trump's not going down like this. Like he's going to like assert – he has no ability not to assert himself. So I don't think it's over. Some of the emails were so not chill because he's got a lizard sense of what's happening, which is they're trying to put him on a shelf and preserve him in amber to get rid of his grosser characteristics, of which are very gross. And so they want to keep him from volcanically erupting. But unfortunately for Trump, as I said last year, his tools get less and less. The rallies don't work with the independents. The fans are the fans. It's sort of like that's what it is. And so I think there'll be fractures over on the other side too. I have a media recommendation for the weekend. I have a show for you.

Scott Galloway: Go for it.

Kara Swisher: A really important original scripted miniseries from Hulu. Dopesick.

Scott Galloway: Oh, I've heard that was good. I've seen ads for it.

Kara Swisher: It's fantastic. And just give me a minute here. Who's in it?

Kara Swisher: Michael Keaton. Keaton. Who's similar to John Travolta. Everybody talks about his comeback. But the reality is he never went anywhere. This is an incredible actor. And an underrated actor, in my view. Nominated for Birdman. Started with Night Shift. And Mr. Mom was fantastic. In my opinion, was the best Batman. I think he's... Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. He was wonderful as an addict in a movie in the 90s. And in this, he plays a small-town doctor. And I won't spoil it. But the show is about the opioid crisis, which is claiming more Americans every year than the entire Vietnam conflict. And for two of the last three years, for the first time in our history, we've actually seen a decline in life expectancy.

Kara Swisher: But more than that, the show is really about, in my view, the show is about love. There's a young lesbian couple in it trying to just live their lives. Michael Keaton is a widower that misses his wife and can't get past the death of his wife. And it got me thinking about public policy, and I realize this is going to sound very, I don't know, existential, but we have unfettered access to guns. We have unfettered access to capitalism. We encourage and get clear all the obstacles out of making money. We have pretty much unfettered access to free speech. To get in the way of people being able to decide where their heart wants to go, and I think that's what this program is about, is incredibly unproductive and incredibly un-American.

Kara Swisher: And I come back to this legislation that we're not going to have maternity leave. We're going to tell people who should and shouldn't be in emergency rooms when people are sick. We're going to have tax policy that gets in the way of people loving who they want to love. I think that this show, it really struck me that the key to America, if you really want to talk about central freedoms, it really is about caring for who you want to care about. And it just – I think it is such a lovely series that really touches on a lot of things. Anyways, Dope Sick with the incredible Michael Keaton. And it's not a very important issue that we should really – has literally ripped apart the heartland of America for the last decade. It's a fantastic show.

Scott Galloway: I shall watch it, but not until I go see The Eternals, which is coming out, the next Marvel movie. I love everything.

Kara Swisher: Really? I don't even know what that is.

Scott Galloway: It's the next Marvel movie. Angelina Jolie is an Eternal. Guys in tights? Gemma Chan. I think it's Gemma Chan. And Camille Nanjani. It's like this incredible cast. It's very long, and I don't care. I'm going to be very excited.

Kara Swisher: Wait, is it a superhero film?

Scott Galloway: Yes, it's the next Marvel movie. It's like, you know, these side Marvel movies.

Kara Swisher: Jesus Christ, make it stop.

Scott Galloway: No, I shall not make it stop.

Kara Swisher: Make it stop.

Scott Galloway: No, it was wonderful. They're wonderful, all of them. You may not insult my Marvel movies. And then, of course, you and I are going to go see Top Gun Maverick together.

Kara Swisher: Oh, I'd like that.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that'll be fun. We're going to fly into the danger zone. And you can be somewhat shirtless if you want to be.

Kara Swisher: Not underrated. He is an artist that's not underrated. Kenny Loggins is not underrated.

Scott Galloway: Oh, my God. I love that movie. Everybody footloose. That guy is living on the beach somewhere, and he should be really grateful. He could have very easily not hit it big. Kenny Loggins.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, well, that's just the song. We're talking about the movie. Because you know what? Maverick's going to be in trouble again, in case you're interested, because he's brash and he does what he wants. That's what's going to happen in the movie, just so you know. I think they should bring back Val Kilmer.

Scott Galloway: I might have. Is he in this one? He might be. I don't think so. I don't think Val's ready for the screen anymore. I think his agent's like, look at Tom Cruise. He looks like he's 22. And Val Kilmer. When he's chewing the gum. Remember that chewing gum thing with that fantastic chiseled jaw? I am dangerous. I am dangerous. He has the chiseled jaw. Kelly McGillis.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Kelly McGillis. Remember her?

Scott Galloway: Yes. That's a tall drink of lemonade. Witness? Hello, hottie. She later moved into being a lesbian.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We know that. We know that.

Scott Galloway: What? I don't see sexual orientation. I just see her and Harrison Ford making sweet, sweet Amish love.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. Was that hot? Was that hot? And then Alexander Goodenough, the Amish man in the waiting in the wings. A lot of sexual tension. Witness.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, I'm excited for the channels. I will watch Dope Sick, though.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, this has been a great show. We'll be back on Tuesday for more. We're having so much fun, Scott. Are you excited for PivotCon? Many people have asked me about it.

Scott Galloway: I'm excited. I'm super excited. It's going to be awesome. Miami, we're going to have, we're going to, Aswath is going to be there. We're going to have, hopefully, super, super deep thinkers around crypto. It's going to be, I think it's going to be a lot of fun. And Senator Rubio, it'll be like Sofia Coppola at the Oscars. Can I come? Can I come? Rubio, we should have Rubio.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, anyway, we'll be in Florida. All we need to do is send him an invitation. He'll be there. We're going to Florida. Does anyone there have a cousin in Iowa? Okay, I'm in. I'm in. All right. I'm in.

Scott Galloway: Okay, Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ernie Intertod, engineer this episode. Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts. You're being an Android user. Check us out on Spotify or, frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next Tuesday for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Kara Swisher: What is the least American thing? What is the least American policies we could ever have? Anything that gets in the way of why we are here, and that is to be courageous with our heart and to love whoever we want to love.