Thiel Thinks BlackRock is Woke, Tesla Stalls Out, and a Crypto Crash

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

Scott Galloway: And I'm Scott Galloway.

Kara Swisher: So, Scott, I hope you haven't looked into your retirement account today. The stock market is just down, down, down it goes.

Scott Galloway: Down it goes. Yeah. So, I think before this market built down, when I was rich, I used to be quirky, and then I got rich, and then I was just fucking fascinating. People started laughing at my jokes.

Kara Swisher: You're quirky again.

Scott Galloway: People found me kind of handsome in a weird way. Now, I'm just a quirky old man again. So, here I am back again.

Kara Swisher: Back again. Quirky. Yeah. I wouldn't say quirky would be the adjective I'd use for you. No. Honestly. No. Spry. Tons of fun. Tons of fun. So delicioso. I just want to say, Scott, you didn't come home the other night, and I'm not going to go into it.

Scott Galloway: I was there.

Kara Swisher: Well, our first story is on Grindr, isn't it?

Scott Galloway: Yes, it is.

Kara Swisher: And we're going to get to that. But today, also, we're going to talk about Peter T.

Scott Galloway: I didn't come home. You go to bed at like 7 p.m.

Kara Swisher: No, I do not. I was doing something pretty lame. I was speaking. I was actually speaking at a conference anyway.

Scott Galloway: Were you? Sure. Speaking. Speaking at a conference and his name is Lamar.

Kara Swisher: Today, we're going to talk about Peter Thiel wants to take down BlackRock. Elon Musk might want to renegotiate that Twitter price as Tesla hits a roadblock in China. Also, we'll take a listener question about TikTok. All right. But first, this is an area that you wanted to talk about. Grindr wants to meet up in SPAC Alley. That is a thing written by Evan, and I'm horrified by it completely. The dating app will merge with Tiga Acquisition Corp with a valuation of more than $2 billion. But that's not the only thing. It turns out Grindr's user location data was available for purchase until two years ago. No surprise. And meanwhile, the Match Group, which owns Tinder, also OkCupid, is suing Google over dominance in Android Payments. Match says it is, quote, hostage to Google's payments policy, which can mean 30% cut in the Google Play Store. So what do you think of this? What do you think of these things? You have thoughts on dating from what I understand.

Scott Galloway: Well, I think that a key thing to remember in strategies is specific crowns out the general. And it just seems obvious now that Grindr would focus on a cohort, right? And they've done a great job. I love how kind of nakedly profane they are, quite frankly, even in the name. I actually have the Subway app and the Grindr app. So I either have a footlong sub coming over or something entirely different, Kara. Something entirely different.

Kara Swisher: Okay. Can we talk for a moment? All right, that's enough. I want an actual business insight here rather than a series of butt jokes.

Scott Galloway: Okay, so I have a few observations around Grindr other than online dating is a great business. And match. It's a great business. IAC has kind of dominated it. And if you look at how people are meeting, they're increasingly meeting online. Pre-pandemic, it was something like a third of relationships. There's some estimates that it's not over half. I don't know if it'll go back. But what people don't talk about is there are massive second order effects from online dating. And that is it takes out as a criteria, it takes out vibe. It takes out things like smell with pheromones, which supposedly are a big deal in terms of our mating preferences. And it also creates something that is a big issue that we don't talk about. And that is, we talk a lot about income inequality in our nation, but we don't talk about mating inequality. And that is, if you have 50 men on Tinder and 50 women, 46 of the women will demonstrate all of their interests across just four men. And it's mostly based on their ability to signal their ability to garner resources, not necessarily how many resources they have at that moment. But if you're coming out of MIT and have a job offer from J.P. Morgan, you do really well on Tinder. And then for women, it's basically just looks. And so what you end up with is this crazy –

Kara Swisher: All right, this is a straight world. Grindr happens to be gay, but go ahead. Keep going.

Scott Galloway: But in sum, when you have digitization of any sector, it becomes a winner-take-most environment. 50% of e-commerce to Amazon, two-thirds of social to Facebook. And it's happening in mating. And the existential of the second order effect here is the top 10% of attractiveness for men are getting all of the 80% of the opportunities, which doesn't encourage long-term relationships. And the bottom 50% of men are totally shut out of the market. And it's leading to an environment where a large cohort of young men in America essentially have no mating opportunities and are creating this underclass in mating. And I think it is a real threat in terms of instability of a society because the most unstable societies in the world produce too much of one cohort specifically.

Kara Swisher: Possibly. May I make another observation? I know a ton of amazing straight women. This is in the straight women area.

Scott Galloway: Yep.

Kara Swisher: Who are single, who are wonderful, who cannot find a date and have a difficult time meeting people. So these men are picky and they actually have a lot of choices.

Scott Galloway: I think it's the other way around. The data shows that it's the women and they have every right to be. But here's the bottom line. In the next five years, there's going to be two female college graduates for every male college graduate. And women mate socioeconomically horizontally and up. Men mate horizontally and down. Women aren't interested in mating. A college graduate woman isn't interested in mating with a guy who didn't go to college. So your friends, I know a lot of the same women who haven't found the mate, quite frankly. They can't find a mate that meets their criteria because there are fewer and fewer economically viable men in this country because young men are failing for a lot of different reasons. But essentially, we have too many men who aren't economically or emotionally viable. We are producing a huge cohort of men who, quite frankly, just aren't viable mates. They aren't going to college. They're immature. They're spending too much time watching porn and playing video games. They're not developing social skills.

Kara Swisher: So this is—

Scott Galloway: And so you blame the match group on this or online dating.

Kara Swisher: Oh, gosh. There are so many—I think a lot about this. There are so many factors, starting from the fact that two-thirds to 90 percent of primary school and high school teachers are women. So who do they champion? Men, young men. We don't talk about this because we don't feel sorry for them. Four times is likely to kill themselves. Nine times is likely to be incarcerated.

Kara Swisher: No, I'm aware of this raising sons. I noticed that. I observed a class where the boys were always caught. The girls were more clever when they were misbehaving.

Scott Galloway: But you're going to have two female college grads for every one male college grads. And the bottom line is women college grads aren't interested in mating with men who didn't get home.

Kara Swisher: All right. We're getting away from this SPAC, which is, is this a good thing? I see your point. I think this is a really big issue that we're not talking about.

Scott Galloway: And you know who resonates when I talk about it? You know who calls me and says, first off, women get upset because they think I'm somehow saying they have an obligation to service men. I'm not saying that at all. No one has an obligation to service anybody. Men get insulted because I'm calling a group of men basically incels. But you know who totally this resonates with and I hear from?

Kara Swisher: Who?

Scott Galloway: Mothers. My daughters at Penn. My other daughters moved into Chicago. And my son's in the basement vaping and playing video games.

Kara Swisher: Well, I have two very attractive sons who would make excellent dates and have not had trouble, but, you know, I'm just saying there's a lot more availability out there. I just think people get on these websites and the way people meet has changed rather significantly. I think that's what it is, is they don't know how to meet each other. And these online dating services. Grindr is transactional for the most part from what I can understand, people who use it. There's also Ruff, there's a whole bunch of them in the gay space. And so they're transactional is what they are, which is sex. And I think Tinder and others have been too transactional. I think people see dating as transactional, which maybe it has been forever, but it's sort of laid bare when you're on any of these groups. And so that's the issue I see is that people don't know how to meet each other in normal ways. But when high schoolers, the number of high school kids who see their friends every day has been cut in half. When you have a pandemic, if the government, and I always turn to government, maybe I shouldn't, but if you wanted to make, you know how we have, we make parks and everything. We need social and civic groups and volunteering opportunities. And I would say social service that forces young men and women or men and men or women and women to meet each other in person and to spend time together. We should have dances. We should have a business where you have dances. Men and women need to get together and fall in love. Country line dancing. And there's not enough of that. And they go to these apps, and the apps create, like you said, a certain transactional bigger, better deal mentality. And the majority of the people I know, and again, I'm sounding like a boomer here, when they spend a lot of time on apps, they find it kind of depressing.

Scott Galloway: It is depressing.

Kara Swisher: It is. It's like watching Instagram or on Twitter. It is. I think it has a lot to do with how they meet each other. And I would agree. The other issue is I was spending a lot of time not looking at my phone lately, which is interesting, and looking at other people, looking at their phones. And we went out. Amanda's birthday was yesterday. And so we took her out to dinner for some oysters and stuff like that down at the wharf in D.C. And all the couples were on their phones and not talking to you. It was fascinating. It was really fascinating to watch. I see that a lot where couples are together and not interacting in any way. And I know that's kind of like, oh, pick your head up from your phone. But there's something happening, not just with the transnational nature of these apps, but also the way people are having relationships. Their best relationships are with their phone.

Scott Galloway: I noticed the same thing. But I noticed that if I'm out to dinner and I see a group of young women out, they're totally comfortable, like five or six of them. They're totally comfortable with all five or six of them just on their phones, not talking to each other. I'm not talking about two people checking their email. I'm talking about an entire – it's like why did you even go out together?

Kara Swisher: Yes, I agree. And I'm trying to do the same thing. We must remove the phones from people. I'm trying to, in meals, turn my phone off because I have the same addiction to just turn it on and see, you know, if people love me on Twitter or not love me.

Scott Galloway: Well, we're going to have to move on from this. But here's another thing. We're going to – another thing.

Kara Swisher: Democrats are in control of the FTC, the confirmation of Alvaro Bedoya. Democrats now have a majority of the agency. That should give Lena Kahn, who is the head of the FDC, more room for aggressive action. Let's see. Is she going to do anything, Scott? I don't know. She's got, you know, she got that bad review from internally. Now she's got an ability to do something. But what can she do? Can she take out the Amazon MGM merger, deal with the Microsoft Activision merger, these privacy lawsuits, these algorithm lawsuits? What do you, I don't know. The clock is ticking. So what do you think?

Scott Galloway: I think it's a good thing. I think that it's become so partisan that she probably had roadblocks put up every which way, and you pointed that out. I don't know if you saw it, but the SEC, and we predicted this and it was pretty obvious, is in fact going after Elon Musk for his failure to disclose his ownership stake.

Kara Swisher: Oh, did they do that?

Scott Galloway: And also the FTC is involved. But here's the bottom line in terms of the FTC. I think it's reputationally, psychologically from a morale standpoint. I don't think things really get better for the FTC until they shoot the generals, until they go after one of the big tech guys and say, you need to spin Instagram or Google. You need to break up your buyer and seller and control the market and digital marketing.

Kara Swisher: Look, I would have all hands on deck. I mean, I just thought it was so kind of ridiculous. They announced a case they're taking legal action to block Sony's acquisition of some video game. And I'm like, that's who you're being heavy handed with. And by the way, that might be that might be the right suit. But I feel like they've just sort of said thrown up their arms and said, we're outgunned with the big guys. We give up. Yeah. And I just don't think they're taken seriously until they say we're the sheriff. The law is clear. I'm sorry, Facebook. You need to unwind Instagram or Google. You can't be the buyer, the seller, and the lemonade stand and control the market. I'm not sure why the FTC is involved in this, the Musk thing. They should stay in the lane in that regard.

Scott Galloway: You know, they really have, they can't be too, they've got to pick one big case and go for it. You know what I mean?

Kara Swisher: Exactly right. And I think it probably has to be around Amazon. And win it.

Scott Galloway: And win it.

Kara Swisher: It's hard enough to win it. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. But she's got to really, she's got to, the clock has been ticking. Now it's really ticking. It's super loud. By the way, speaking of the market being off, things aren't looking good from the world of cryptocurrencies.

Scott Galloway: Oh, my gosh.

Kara Swisher: Coinbase's stock dropped this week after reported poor earnings in the first quarter, and stablecoin called Terra collapsed overnight this week. It's causing ripple effects throughout the market, maybe dragging down the price of Bitcoin, which is at its lowest. What's happening here? People don't want risky investments. That's what I seem to have read into it.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but the thing that—

Kara Swisher: Because you had talked about having a basket of things.

Scott Galloway: Well, what I mean is if you're going to go into speculative assets like crypto, you want a basket and you want to limit the percentage of wealth you just put in it. Because I don't own a single coin and I don't want to poo-poo it because everyone's talking about how Bitcoin is down 50%. But the bottom line is if you bought Bitcoin five years ago, you're still up 13x. So now Bitcoin and Ethereum, I think outside –

Kara Swisher: Yeah, you are. You're up 13x.

Scott Galloway: That exactly right. If you not investing in Bitcoin or Ethereum I think it literally just lottery and keno. I don see the value of the utility in any of these things. What is interesting about crypto is that in a down market where people are getting margin calls and risk off environment the thing that eventually supports an Apple or a Facebook or a Procter Gamble or what have you is that they look at their earnings and say okay at some point when it trading at five times earnings It's so cheap that you can go in and realize you won't get that badly heard. There's no – the thing that gave it no gravity in terms of its ascent up with crypto because that has no underlying cash flows. You could argue, okay, maybe it's a store of value, but there's no real kind of tangible or intrinsic value or asset there.

Kara Swisher: Well, you said scarcity.

Scott Galloway: Right, which meant it could go with Bitcoin, only with Bitcoin. And there's some technology around Ethereum around minting NFTs. But that same lack of benchmarks or ability to value it in any tangible fundamental way gave it no tether to the earth. It had zero gravity. So when people were feeling optimistic and there was more buyers than sellers, people could say, oh, yeah, it makes sense that it's gone up 13x in the last two years and I could still buy. Now that it's going down, it has no floor because there's no earnings to look at. So you could see it's the tail of the whip. On the way up, it goes up more than the market. And on the way down, it goes down more than the market. And you want to talk about regulatory bodies. I'll tell you who pulled a gangster move. You want to talk about the most powerful words uttered in the last five days. It was from Gary Gensler, the commissioner of the SEC or the chairman of the SEC, who said, by the way, if Coinbase or one of these exchanges goes bankrupt, your assets aren't protected. And then Coinbase had to confirm that, which means that if Wells Fargo goes out of business, your life savings are still safe. Those assets are sequestered from the operations of the bank. That is not true with Coinbase. And that sent a huge chill through the market because people are thinking, OK, Coinbase stock.

Kara Swisher: I think the CEO said they were protected. He said they weren't, but they said it in the disclosure, but then he was trying to say walk it back a little bit. I mean, this is a company that went public at $300, went to $400 for a hot minute, and now what's it at? $50?

Scott Galloway: I know. I mean, it is. He's an interesting character. He likes to have dinners of intelligent people all the time, which I do not go to. But now maybe he needs to focus on his company.

Kara Swisher: Let me just show it. Do you get invited to a lot of those things?

Scott Galloway: I'm not bragging. I get invited to that shit all the time.

Kara Swisher: I don't. They don't want me there.

Scott Galloway: They don't want me there. They want all people who agree with them. So-and-so CEO is having, I always hear from some PR hacks. So-and-so is having an intimate dinner with thought leaders and we'd like you to be there. I'm like, why the fuck would I want to hang out with this guy? They only want people who agree with him. I'm not a very good dinner guest in that regard.

Kara Swisher: So interestingly, look, all time it's up 8,000% Bitcoin from way, way back. All right. So its high was in November at 61, almost $62,000 a share. It did have a high also, and that was in November. And then it also had a high in the springtime of last year in the high 50s and low 60s. Then it dropped to 34 in July. And then it went up again to 60. Now it's down at 28,000, which is really crazy, which is a really – it's down 20% in the past five days, which is nuts. This is – it just – you have to recognize, as Scott said, this is just speculative, all speculative. And has no, there's no reason it goes up or down. It's just that people buy it, I guess. Correct?

Scott Galloway: Correct?

Kara Swisher: Well, there's parts of the market that have really been harmful. And that is Tether, which was supposed to be pegged to the dollar and was especially attractive to people in, I don't know how to call them, volatile or merging markets where the currencies were volatile. They thought, okay, if I transition my money into Tether, it's dollar denominated, so it's safer. That has totally split from the dollar. So people who thought they were going into an asset pegged to the dollar found out they weren't. This is, and no one, we said this a couple of weeks ago, no one is being spared here. Last week or in the last few days, the generals have taken out and been shot. And that is Apple and Microsoft are now dropping pretty. Airbnb, which had great earnings, for example.

Scott Galloway: Well, that's, and I've said this, it's my biggest holding, it's down 40%. And if you had read their earnings, you would have gone, oh, my God, the stock must be skyrocketing.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, and they just introduced a new upgrade to its app, by the way, speaking of which, which is fantastic looking. In any case, it looks like a reckoning, but you just never know because it did it before and then went straight back up in last year. So we'll see. It had a real low in July and then went up back up again in November. And people say, well, what do you do?

Scott Galloway: I'm comfortable saying your emotions are your enemy in a market like this. And great investors typically don't have stock picking acumen. What they have is great temperament. And that is if you're diversified and you didn't over leverage and you didn't over margin, you just don't panic sell and you don't let your emotions take over. Your emotions are your enemy here. And just recognize that typically you make money by selling stocks when the optimism is frothy and you make money by holding onto them when there's a panic like this. So I would just be careful right now. Obviously, people have to do what they think is right in consort with their financial advisor based on their situation. But panic selling, be very careful about your emotions because typically speaking, like right now the sentiment is so negative. And what I found in the markets is when the sentiment is this negative, the market's about to rip up. So you just don't know. You just don't know.

Kara Swisher: Look at the numbers last year. It was way down in this range. It was way up, then way down, and then it went way up again. So I would hold on to it. And when it goes way up again, maybe sell a little bit and take some gains, even if it goes up any further. Okay, let's get to our first big story. Peter Thiel thinks BlackRock is too woke and he's ready to do something about it. Thiel and fellow billionaire Bill Ackman, a very well-known hedge fund guy, are pouring money into a new fund manager that would urge companies to avoid taking political stand. That's in opposition to supposed activism by BlackRock and other funds like Vanguard and State Street. Together, these three firms manage $20 trillion in assets. That is a lot of money. BlackRock, Larry Fink has talked up stakeholder capitalism in recent years, of course. The money in here is very small. It's $20 million. That's probably out of the couch change of these two billionaires. But, you know, are these investment funds actually woke or is Peter Thiel just mad that they talk about being woke? And also, this is his brand, I guess. They have taken progressive steps at BlackRock, removed firearms manufacturers from some of its ESG funds, which makes sense. Talked about climate sustainability and social good investing and exited some investments along those lines. But BlackRock, State, Street, and Vanguard are still top investors in energy banking, weapons manufacturing, not exactly progressive. And The Guardian even called Larry Fink one of its dirty dozen climate villains because BlackRock's funds profit off of deforestation. So what do you think of this? This is a new fund called Strive. Is it going to make money or is it just for another one of his branding moments for Peter Thiel?

Scott Galloway: This is no different than Elon Musk, you know, putting out this bold statement that the Chinese like to work and Americans are lazy, basically, is what he said. He has such a pathological need to be in the news. When you're talking about a $20 million fund, which is meaningless, that's literally meaningless. And you have guys saying, let me get this. Aren't you supposed to be the free speech weirdos? BlackRock having a political position and advocating for certain political viewpoints or certain approaches to climate change, isn't that free speech? Isn't this a private company, Peter? Aren't you the big private property? I mean, this is just so fucking hypocritical. And A, it's meaningless. $20 million. I mean, this is literally-

Kara Swisher: It's meaningless, yeah.

Scott Galloway: It's meaningless. It feels like a desperate yelp. Why is Bill Ackman here? What is Ackman doing here?

Kara Swisher: I agree. You get them on a phone. They all go on and on about this stuff. So what are they going to do? They're going to be like, as a means of unlocking shareholder value, we want you to not make any statements or we want you to be conservative. Because they're not saying be apolitical. What they're really saying is don't be woke. And Larry Fink has said as an investment strategy, we think that people need to embrace climate change. So are they calling their buddies or are they calling the activists who took a stake in Chevron and said you need to – or was it Exxon? You need to transition to renewables faster. Are they critical of them as well? None of this makes any fucking sense, Cara.

Scott Galloway: It's interesting. It feels like I just want to be in the headlines.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, this is called Strive Asset Management. It's being founded – it was founded by pharmaceutical investor Vivek Ramaswani who's very famous. He wrote the book Woke Inc., which is his branding thing. And he's going to base it in Ohio, where he's from. And he said they're going to focus on excellence over politics. Americans want, quote, iconic American brands like Disney, Coca-Cola, and Exxon, and U.S. tech giants like Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and Google deliver high-quality products, improve our lives, not controversial political ideas that divide us. This is horseshit. I'm sorry, Vivek. It's just horseshit. They are excellent companies. And so they can have it. Are they going after Hobby Lobby for not supporting? Are they saying to Chick-fil-A you shouldn't make statements around homosexuality? In any case. They always seem to want to encourage companies to be apolitical when they happen to be political on the progressive side.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: They're not taking active stakes in companies that are very conservative and saying you should be apolitical. This is, hey, we want to pretend we're advocating for you being apolitical. But this is nothing but a thinly veiled way of saying we want you to be right. We want you to have more conservative libertarian views.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, interesting. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who cracks me up, who does the stakeholder capitalism, just wasn't having any of it in his letter to CEOs that he published earlier this year. He argued that ComSense is not about politics or woke. It is capitalism driven by mutually beneficial relations. You and the employees, customers, suppliers, communities, your company relies on to prosper. This is the power of capitalism. They said that businesses shouldn't cave to political pressure by any activist to hijack your brand to advance their own agendas.

Kara Swisher: This is so strange. It's not strange for Teal or Ramaswani, but it is strange for Bill Ackman, honestly.

Scott Galloway: Well, I mean, there's an argument to say, like, if you're to say if an organization is flailing and it's spending more time doing all hands to talk about political issues, I do think there's some merit to the notion that CEOs were posing for the cameras and pretending to be really woke. And then when their employees believe them and started saying, we want the music to match the words, they're like, oh, just kidding. We're really not interested. I think they deserve some scrutiny. And I do think there's something to the fact that do not bring your full self, specifically your politics, to work. It's a platform for building economic security. I get that. I buy it. But the notion, by the way, whatever BlackRock has been doing, woke, conservative, guess what? They're fucking killing it. They're killing it. So this notion that somehow there's a problem at BlackRock, it's like whatever BlackRock is doing. You know, that's what you do. You attack the big dog when you have a tiny, tiny little yappy dog like this. This is going to be a gnat hitting a windshield on a Mack truck called BlackRock. These guys are excellent operators.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I got to tell you, Peter, Bill, if you really mean it, put some actual money in here. Like, I'd be more interested. $20 million?

Scott Galloway: $20 million.

Kara Swisher: Let's say they're coaches. Ackman bought, I think Ackman bought an $80 million condo.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, yeah. He just got approval for his glass walls that cost like $20 million or something, at least. You know, he wants to put these special glass walls in. Do you know about this?

Kara Swisher: Oh, it's ridiculous. This is a must-like. I need to be in the headlines for some reason. This is nonsense. I'm just, let's call it nonsense. This is bullshit nonsense. It's so ridiculous. I was with someone for lunch the other day, someone who knows all these guys. Because these guys, when they get on their calls with each other, all complain about cancel culture and this kind of stuff. And he's always like, this is such horse shit. I like can't even sit listening to it. It's such horse shit. They're just like, just anyway, horse shit is how I'm going to put it. We've had it. We're on Team Larry. If Larry calls us for an intimate dinner, we're in.

Scott Galloway: That is right. It's like, you know, the people that gave us a hard time out leaving Florida. You know what? We're capitalists. We want to take our money and give it to Gavin Newsom or Jared Polis. It's our business. Get out of our business, you bunch of communists in Florida. They're the communists in Florida. I can't get over we got press for that.

Kara Swisher: Do you see they brought it up in the Bloomberg conference? They brought it up.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, they brought it up again. It's ridiculous. Guess what? We're capitalists.

Kara Swisher: I think that's caraposturing a little bit. I got to be honest.

Scott Galloway: No, it's not.

Kara Swisher: I don't want to give my money. I don't want to fucking give my money. That's it. I'm a capitalist. Hi, LGBTQ community. I'm a leader. Just sweet. I'm a leader. Just a capitalist. And guess what?

Kara Swisher: It's my money. I'm with you, sister. I'm not sure boycotts work, but I want to be supportive of my business partner. I just don't want to be there. I don't want to give them my money.

Scott Galloway: It's like, you know, my kids go to Chick-fil-A. I don't care. They can make their choices. Better or worse. This is a marriage. I'm doing it.

Kara Swisher: Pretty soon, we're just going to be doing events in Vermont and in San Francisco. There's plenty of states to choose from. There's getting fewer.

Scott Galloway: There's getting fewer.

Kara Swisher: We're not ever going to do something in Mississippi. Are you kidding? We're headed to Louisiana. Maybe New Orleans. That's a disappointment happening there. Anyway, we're not going there anyway. It's too sweaty.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it's too sweaty. New Orleans is wonderful. It's like natural grit. That state is pulling all the stops around abortion. Anyway. We will not fly over the state. We are capitalists.

Kara Swisher: No, but we're capitalists. They're communists. They want government overreach.

Scott Galloway: That's what I say. I sound like a Trump person.

Kara Swisher: Hold on. Just one quick note. Do you see Disney's earnings? Disney's killing it. Killing it. Killing it. Bob, I'll tell you, no man has ever been happier about a good earnings than Bob Turepik.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They added a bunch of people, unlike Netflix, they added a bunch of people to Disney Plus, and their theme parks are absolutely killing it. I can tell you living in Florida, the roads have never been more packed. Tourism hit an all-time high last year and this year is going to blow through it. And Disney is firing on all 12 cylinders right now. I literally lost my mind in traffic. Everything was packed at the wharf, and people are going out. And good for Disney, and Florida can suck it.

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back—

Scott Galloway: Wait, you're in San Francisco? What?

Kara Swisher: No, I'm not in San Francisco.

Scott Galloway: The wharf? Where's the wharf?

Kara Swisher: It's called the wharf. Oh, it's a cool area. Yeah, I'll take you down there. It's great. It's wonderful.

Scott Galloway: Say that. Another date you will not deliver on. You never come here. You never show up just like the other night.

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about supply problems. I was with Lamar. Okay. My footlong sub. Question about TikTok. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today.

[Ad break]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back with our second big story. I don't want to hear another word about Lamar. I don't want to hear your total ghosting of me.

Scott Galloway: Everyone has to have their hobbies. Okay. All right.

Kara Swisher: Okay, Tesla's hitting the brakes on his Shanghai factory, important factory. Production came to a halt this week as the carmaker deals with supply chain issues in China. Shanghai is now in the sixth week of a COVID shutdown. Elon has said this will pass essentially in April. Tesla employees have been sleeping and eating in the factory as part of a closed loop system to combat COVID, but that's not all. Tesla also recalled nearly 130,000 vehicles this week due to touchscreen issues caused by overheating of the CPU. Not uncommon. This has happened a lot, but nonetheless, this China thing is a big bump for them. And they only have a handful of factories that do vehicle assembly. The German factory is still ramping up. This is what happens when you have a product that's so complex. You're going to run into these kind of things. So the Tesla relationship with China is very important. And obviously, the increasing tensions between China and the US and certain politicians is certainly coming on. So, you know, he's saying it's just a bump. Others are like, you're really in it with China a lot. I don't know. So, and it's relatedly that the shares of Tesla are down. They're down today again, 732. Well, they're going up and down, but for the past five days, it's gone down 16%, 17% over the month, 25%. six-month, 28 percent, year, 40 percent. And since he announced Tesla, I guess that would be about Twitter, excuse me, in the 20s, in the 20s. Anyway, one short seller predicts that Musk may seek to reprice his Twitter bid below $44 billion. Now the tech stocks are slumping, and the only reason Twitter's not gone down into what I called yesterday the Mariana Trench, where other tech companies are is because of this deal. Oddly enough, Keith Raboy noted that's what he's going to do. He's going to walk away and pay the billion dollars and then maybe come back when the stock is higher, I guess. That might be his plan B. What do you think, Scott?

Scott Galloway: The deal is off. I mean, it's just – and have you noticed in the last week, Elon's gone surprisingly silent about Twitter?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yes. I mean, he was tweeting every day. What if we had a blue, blue check? What if we did this? Also, I like chocolate milk. Yeah, he was very active. All of a sudden, he's not talking about Twitter because here's the thing. Well, he did. He did say that Trump shouldn't have been permanently banned, like I said, he would say. Anyway, go ahead. Sorry.

Scott Galloway: He did say that. That took a lot of it. Stock was in the low 30s. He started buying, didn't disclose that he was buying. Stock ran to 39, made the announcement. Stock went to 49. He's saying he's going to buy it at 54.50. Now, what would have happened had he not come in? What is the natural price sort of in absentia of this deal? Where would Twitter be trading right now?

Kara Swisher: In the 20s, 30s, 20s.

Scott Galloway: Well, if you look at all its peers that are off between 20 and 50 percent, you're looking at a stock that would conservatively, generously, optimistically be in the 20s right now. So he's effectively paying 100 to 150 percent premium. By the way, his bank account is off 20 or 30 percent. This deal is off. This deal is off. At this moment. He will come up with reasons, something around woke or conservative, or he will try and reprice the deal. There's a specific performance clause in these deals. He'll definitely have to pay the breakup fee, but sometimes they claim that they can force you to close. I don't see how you force anyone to close on a $45 billion check. But I think as of now, as of now, this deal is off. It makes absolutely no sense for Elon Musk.

Kara Swisher: Can he just sit and wait and then reprice or not?

Scott Galloway: That's the correct question. For a billion dollars, he has six months to kind of see what happens.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: But I think that at some point that what will be obvious, the thing that might call or force his hand here, Cara, is that if Tesla stock keeps going down, people will start to say, and Elon is going to have to margin more and more and sell more and more Tesla stock when the closing happens. And if that becomes a real overhang that grows in ugliness over Tesla stock, he's going to need to say, you know what, just kidding, deal is off. I tried to renegotiate with the board based on recent market dynamics, and we could not come to an agreement.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. And I was saying that it would go to 15 billion and then he'll come in as the hero to buy it at that price. I don't think the board will do that again. If he were to leave and then come back and say, hey, I'm back, I think the board would have every right to say, sorry, boss, you have no credibility here. And there will be more buyers at that point. At 15 billion, tons of buyers. You and I should put the money together and buy it. But this stock right now, Twitter, the day he announces that, I mean, Twitter actually, I mean, it's an investment recommendation, which I don't like to make, but Twitter puts right now are probably trading at a decent number. Because if he announces he's out, the stock's at probably 20 or 25 bucks, not at 49, waiting for a close at 54. As of today, unless things get the market's dynamics shift dramatically from today, this deal is off. This deal does not make sense for him. It makes sense for Twitter shareholders who are going to get a ridiculous number on a stock that would be trading at 20 or, you know, it might even be sub 20 right Now, look what's happened to Pinterest. Look what's happened to Snap. Look what, you know, Meta's off 50% from its high. And Twitter hit its 50. This deal, and it just really struck me that he has-

Scott Galloway: It's the only thing keeping it up, keeping the shares up is the Elon deal.

Kara Swisher: I think it's fascinating. And again, the tail wagging the dog here is Tesla stock. And if people start to-

Scott Galloway: Well, let me focus over there because it looks like it's going up and down and up and down. It looks like the shorts are starting to gather. And he's always been plagued by shorts over at Tesla. But they seem to be gathering. And yet, and then all his fans are gathering. And so it's kind of an interesting situation. But that stock is dropping quite substantively over the past five days, over the past month. And it's still not as, it's still doing better than other stocks. It's only down 25% over the past month and 28% over the past six months compared to some others. So its fans are keeping it aloft, let's say that, like the people who love that shares.

Kara Swisher: The other thing that someone was noticing was that some of the people he's brought in as investors are Qataris and others. And there's a Russian investor in there who was an early investor in Facebook. That's going to cause U.S. government scrutiny. Again, it'll delay the deal even further. So delay it, push it out until next year now. So even though Elon acts like he's owning the place, he doesn't own the place. He doesn't own the place in any way, and he's not even close to owning it yet. So that's another issue is pushing it out because of these. He's going to have to get money from foreigners, essentially, and that's going to cause a look at the thing. And who wants to buy it at this price? They'd be like, Elon, the company's worth $20 billion, not $45. Why would we invest in this? And I said this initially, on the things he's not on his side hustles, he brings volatility. He doesn't bring value. He's brought massive volatility to Twitter. He'll bring disruption, distraction, tumult. But in a lot of PR for him, which he sees is worth a billion dollars, it's going to be terrible for Twitter.

Scott Galloway: Terrible for Twitter. It's a huge distraction. Like, what do they work on? What do they – anyways, I don't – And also with this Shanghai factory, even if it's temporary, and I would tend to agree with him that it's temporary, these things happen and China will get it back together. And as with all these things, but he's got to focus on his car company, honestly. Someone's going to say, hey, boss, without the golden goose, you don't get to have adventures and whatever the fuck your synapse, your neurons fire that night. And the thing I have a group of, and it's related to China, and the thing that struck me, I have a group of people or friends I call on a regular basis. I'm like, just what are you seeing out there? And one of my friends is this really impressive businessman, a guy named Bobby Julian, who started Coulter Homes. He's a developer, and he's been hugely successful, very insightful. And I call him, what are you seeing out there? I spoke to him this morning, and he said, the things that was really shocked everybody is the supply chain issues have gotten worse. Everyone thought that because prices were skyrocketing, it would create incentive to be thoughtful, agile. Go to the store. He said it used to be like we couldn't get garage doors or for refrigerators. It was always something you couldn't get. He said now we can't get like 35 different things to build a house. He said housing prices have never been stronger. Demand's never been stronger. We need 1.4 million new houses. We're only going to be able to build 900,000. But he said, you know, the little winch that connects, you know, the foundation to something or the latch on a window. He's like, you find, he said, you're really finding out where all this stuff comes from. You're like, oh, you find out that this plate comes from Turkey and it's been shut down. Supply chain issues, it's interesting, are getting worse.

Kara Swisher: Listen, someone hit our car the other day and it's going to take eight weeks to fix it. It's crazy. Like, if that. So it's, we've had to rent a car, everything else. And so, yeah, it's everything, everything, everything. But let me just say, he also noted that Trump should be back on. And what was really interesting, and I'm going to note this because I like Jack Dorsey, but what he's been doing lately around his responsibility is really reprehensible.

Scott Galloway: Same or not? I don't know what you're talking about. I like Jack Dorsey. I thought he was thoughtful.

Kara Swisher: He said that banning, he put a tweet out. You know, obviously, Vijay Gadi has been attacked for this decision to ban Donald Trump and others. Dorsey called the ban a business decision and took responsibility for the move, but then he had an asterisk. So the asterisk CEO. It's like saying the buck stops here. Asterisk. He wrote on Twitter, every decision was made was ultimately my responsibility. Asterisk. It's also crazy and wrong that individuals or companies bear this responsibility. Well, Jack, don't build it then. I don't know what to say. It was a crazy tweet. It was like, I take responsibility, except that kind of thing. And so I thought that was irresponsible on his part. You know, Trump is going to have to stay on Trump Truth Social for now. And we'll see where that goes. I think that was just allowed. This is something we said he would do anyway. So I just was really disappointed in Jack Dorsey's behavior because, again, I find him to be thoughtful. I've always had a pretty good relationship with him. But I don't know what's going on here. He should just take responsibility, and that's enough. That's my feeling. I don't know.

Scott Galloway: Hushed tones and beards and silent retreats don't mean you're thoughtful.

Kara Swisher: He has been. I haven't seen him in a while, but he has been, compared to a lot of people, thoughtful. I will say that.

Scott Galloway: Okay, he has thoughtfully created a mendacious company that has made our discourse more coarse and has threatened people all over the world. And so he goes on silent retreats as there are coups in that country that are being organized on Facebook and Twitter.

Kara Swisher: Yes, I'm aware.

Scott Galloway: He's thoughtfully a mendacious fuck that isn't taking responsibility for the shit show that was Twitter. I mean, you want to know something? You know what's not going to age well? You know what is not going to age well?

Kara Swisher: What?

Scott Galloway: His tenure at Twitter. Because my sense is, like Sheryl Sandberg, he's incredibly charismatic and likable. And when likable Jack is no longer around the office with his cool, quirky beard and nose rings, they're going to go, you know what? We wouldn't be in this shitty position had we performed at a fraction, at a fraction of the excellence of every other tech company when the sun was shining for the last seven years. Twitter was the only tech company that went sideways for seven years.

Kara Swisher: They did. Let me just say this whole debacle will hurt only Twitter. That's all I got to say. Anyway, let's pivot to a listener question. You've got, you've got. I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail.

[Listener Question]

Kara Swisher: Hi, Kara and Scott. My name is Ryan from Austin Texas and I have a question for you about media coverage of TikTok. My perception is that we know a lot and we talk a lot about the power players and the strategies of Meta, Google, Apple, Twitter, Snap, and Tesla, but it doesn't seem like we talk the same way about TikTok. I couldn't name a single executive there. I don't understand its new structure with ByteDance or with Oracle, and the whole operation is a real mystery to me. So I'm curious, given the platform's popularity, why don't we seem to talk as much about TikTok's corporate happenings or the executives who run the platform? Thanks.

Kara Swisher: Gosh, Ryan, I don't know if you've been following coverage, but there's been a ton of talk about TikTok's ownership and how it works, especially when Donald Trump was attacking it. The CEO we've had on our show, Vanessa Pappas. We've talked about the possibility of it going public and moving out of China's control, although that seems problematic. Oracle was involved, but is not now involved yet. It could be involved again. Same thing with Microsoft. So I think there's been a lot of talk about its growth and the fears around the China ownership. But I don't know about you, Scott. What do you think?

Scott Galloway: I actually think Ryan has a point. I think TikTok has been brilliant. And that is, they've said, let's just stay out of the news. We don't want stars. We don't want megalomaniacs posing for the cameras. Let's let the press cover that Facebook was circulating misinformation around us. And let's just continue to perform. Because I think the story, and you don't know what happened. I think this business story that would be splashed across every page right now and be bringing a ton of attention to TikTok both positively and negatively is that if TikTok was a public stock right now, I think it would be obvious that what Netflix did to Hollywood, TikTok is doing to Netflix. And I wouldn't be surprised if TikTok is up. If you saw their most recent quarter.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I bet. They added the population.

Scott Galloway: I said this in the last podcast, but it bears repeating. They added the population of Japan and the United Kingdom, and they have zero content budget. And it's just so interesting. They're now with $350 billion in the private markets. I think if they were public, they'd be much more than that. I think the stock would be up right now, and everyone would be talking about the juggernaut that is TikTok. But instead, they're like, we want to stay out of the news because it can go to bad places right now, and our numbers are going to speak for themselves. I think TikTok is the most – actually, I would argue TikTok is the most underreported business story outside of what's happening on a macro level. I think this thing – I spoke to a friend of ours, Kara, who's interviewing the folks who run Netflix. And the bottom line is we are raising a generation of youth that can't sit through a 58-minute episode of Bridgerton. They've been trained that they just can't – they're not capable of it. And so what do they do? They lie on their sides and they watch this ultimate streaming network that, by the way, is free to the 80 percent of the global population that can't afford 12 bucks a month.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: Called TikTok. And it's got a zero content budget. So I kind of with Ryan, I think TikTok is arguably the most underreported story in the world. And he's right. Everybody knows who the CEO of Tesla and Microsoft and Netflix is. Nobody knows who the CEO of TikTok is.

Kara Swisher: Because it's a division of.

Scott Galloway: Yes, of course. Ultimately, it's a Chinese CEO. And then the U.S. CEO is a former Google executive who's been there.

Kara Swisher: And they had some of it. Who we like. We had her on. Yeah, Vanessa. I thought she was an impressive woman. And they used to have two. One of the executives from Disney was there when they thought it was going to go public, former Disney executive. But we'll see what happens there. I think eventually they'll go public and try to separate themselves from China, I think, when the pressure will return. There'll be probably some relationship with Oracle or Microsoft or something like that, eventually. But here's the deal with TikTok. Scott is 100% right. It is entertainment. It has become, I had an interesting podcast today with Ben Smith and Matt Bellany, and we all agreed TikTok was the entertainment future. I literally spent an hour and a half on TikTok the other day. It's a K-hole. It's a digital K-hole. I used to watch just air fryer content. Now, you know, ASMR, this is that with the whispering. They have other ASMR stuff like cleaning and also cutting of sand, that noise of sand, you know, that magic sand. I literally watched it. It was so pleasing. And I felt good afterwards. I felt relaxed. It was like meditative because I was watching people clean and – not clean refrigerators, arrange food in refrigerators. Now, I know it sounds weird. I happen to be a very neat person. And you can find whatever you like there, which is amazing. And it's beautifully curated. It's weird. It's no question it's weird. But I had a choice of watching a wonderful show called Hard Stoppers or doing this. And the lift was so much lighter on TikTok that I was tired and I watched it for an hour. And it was pleasing.

Scott Galloway: I have seen every species of animal innocently saunter up to a watering hole and settle in and have a little drink of water and then be ripped apart by a crocodile that lurches out of the water. I can't stop watching crocodiles ruin animals day as they go to get a light refreshment from the watering hole. And I can't look away. I'm like, oh, my God, it's a warthog. Oh, my God, it's a deer. I'm watching magic sand being sliced and the noise, a ch-ch-ch noise. And you like gazelles being attacked.

Kara Swisher: Did you see my TV show where I did angry ASMR?

Scott Galloway: No, was it angry?

Kara Swisher: ASMR is old news on TikTok, I know, but I love it. I didn't watch that one. Sorry, I will watch it. Is it there? You need to start investing in this relationship.

Scott Galloway: I'm telling you, what Netflix did to Hollywood, TikTok is doing to Netflix.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's interesting. It's an interesting time. Anyway, we think you're right. TikTok deserves even more attention, Ryan. If you've got a question of your own you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Scott, one more quick break on this longest show. We'll be back for wins and fails. Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should. One, it's $15 a month. Two, seriously, it's $15 a month. Three, no big contracts. Four, I use it. Five, my mom uses it. Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right? Okay, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three month plan, $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com. Learning through play starts with Lego Duplo. With Lego Duplo, toddlers can develop real-life skills while having fun with colorful bricks made just for them. Large, easy to grip, and safe to explore. When children express themselves with Lego Duplo, they build patience, problem-solving, and empathy. See your child learn perseverance and self-expression with everything they imagine and create. Visit lego.com slash preschool to learn more.

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Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, we've got to do quick wins and fails. You go first.

Scott Galloway: I don't really have a fail other than to say that I've been really bummed out and thinking too much about the markets. And I kind of step back and think, okay, I'm still economically secure. My kids still want me to take them to school. You know, I hope that all, I hope people out there, it's so easy to have an emotional reaction to the scorecard you get every day. And the scorecard is really ugly. But most of us, really, the profound stuff in our life hasn't changed a hell of a lot. And so that's what I'm trying to focus on. That's more advice than it is a fail. My win is this wonderful show called Slow Horses, which is a spy thriller based on the 2010 novel by Mick Heron. And it's on Apple TV+. Gary Oldham is fantastic.

Kara Swisher: Yep. Crotchety, right?

Scott Galloway: Crotchety. What's his name? Price. Jonathan Price, who I think is a fantastic actress in one of my favorite films, Brazil, is in it. And also Kristen Scott Thomas, who is in my favorite movie of all time. And I want to see how well you know the dog. What's my favorite movie of all time that Kristen Scott Thomas was in, Cara?

Kara Swisher: It's not Four Weddings and a Funeral, is it? She's in that movie? Really? You think I'd like something that optimistic and happy? Movies like that give me a rash.

Scott Galloway: Oh, the one where it crashes into the – with Ralph Fiennes, that one?

Kara Swisher: You know, there's hope for us. Maybe you do love me.

Scott Galloway: The English Patient, my favorite movie of all time. A wonderful film. Anyways, this is a fantastic. Who's in that? Julie? Julia Binoche.

Kara Swisher: Binoche. Binoche is in that. She's a saucy little number. She's fantastic. She's in Call My Agent. And by the way, you said you thought Johnny Depp was overrated. Life like chocolate or life for chocolate. She's in a wonderful movie. One of the most beautiful women ever. Also a really, really competent actress.

Scott Galloway: Yep. I should have reversed those two things. Anyways, Slow Horses is my win. It's on Apple TV+. It is wonderful. Gary Oldham will go down. I think is one of the better actors of our generation. And there's this guy who's going to be, I think, a leading man, Jack Loudon. I think he could be kind of like the next Bond, if you will. I think he has such great presence.

Kara Swisher: Okay. That's a win. What's your fail?

Scott Galloway: I said my fail. I don't know. There's enough fail out there for all of this. I just hope that people have some perspective around what's important.

Kara Swisher: I think a fail is I think we've got to focus back on Ukraine today. The Soviet Union, the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said NATO risks, quote, full fledged nuclear war. It continues sending weapons to Ukraine, training its troops and conducting military exercises. This rhetoric is crazy, including around Finland, joining NATO. They're backed into a corner. I think it's Julia Ioffi who wrote this piece about Putin's origins of growing up in a very poor part of, I think, St. Petersburg. And he used to play in these things called Devor's, which are these teeny pieces of grass that there's all kinds of man playing going on, young boy playing. And one of the things is a story about him backing a rat into a corner. And then the rat turned around after being backed into the corner, turned around and attacked him and chased him. And this is what it feels like right now. These are a bunch of rats who are now trying, you know, really been backed into corners. So Biden's been talking about it like that. Like, we've got to be careful with this guy because he's his natural instinct is to attack when he's backed into a corner. And I know we shouldn't. It's just words like this from a country talking about nuclear war is really disturbing.

Scott Galloway: What was it? One of the first responsible. One of the first sort of lessons in Sun Tzu is the art of war, which every high schooler reads and thinks they understand war and conflict and strategy. But one of it is unless you're going to annihilate your enemy, you always want to give them an out. And what I thought was most interesting is when they decided not to sanction Putin's girlfriend. And basically the word was, why didn't you do that? I said, well, we want them to still have things to lose. We want them to know. A very dangerous person is someone who gets to the point where they think they have nothing to lose.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And they don't want to put Putin in that position. But I think I appreciate you bringing that up. If you want to talk about the most underreported story relative to its potential impact on the world, that's absolutely it. 100 percent.

Kara Swisher: This worry about Finland joining NATO, which Europe is pushing through with, and Finland wants to do, it's very serious. I just did a really good interview with Clarissa Ward, who is the international correspondent for CNN, and she's done amazing work in Ukraine and probably will now have to go back. I interviewed her from London. But I got to say, this is something we need to really pay attention to, what's happening. I know there's all kinds of things happening here in this country. And then, and that's a, I don't know if that's a win or a fail. I'm not so sure. It's either one. And then, interestingly, the bull seaman guy, I don't know if it's a win. What?

Kara Swisher: Because a very conservative person won. But the bull seaman guy backed by Trump in Nebraska, who seemed to be ripping Nebraska apart, did not win his bid for— But just to go back to the Russia, I've been to Russia a few times. I have a couple of friends who are immigrants, Russian immigrants. You'd think really the problem here is Putin and the people around him because with a different leader and the natural resources they have and the landmass they have, they have an incredible appreciation for science and incredible appreciation for art. The greatest threat in modern history, we joined hands with them and it's a team beat back Hitler. It just – it doesn't make sense that we're not friends. I don't understand. So much of what they do is so in line, is so simpatico with the West. It just feels like why can't we be friends? You know what I mean? I understand sphere of influence and we should probably be more generous in making them feel secure around their borders. But you would think that if you just looked at – Putin's a thug and a murderer.

Scott Galloway: But that's my point. But if you look at the history of Russia or at least some of the – it's just in many ways, it's a very impressive and in some way, a lot of ways, more similar. We're more similar than we are to a lot of nations. I've just never understood why we wouldn't – why can't we be friends is what I've never understood about Russia.

Kara Swisher: Because they're thugs and criminals.

Scott Galloway: Because they're thugs and criminals. Not the population.

Kara Swisher: No, of course not. But they keep voting for him. So I don't know what to say. They're a completely propagandized population that at this moment is irredeemable in terms of dealing with them. You know, they're not throwing him out. They're embracing him. I don't know what to say. I'm not an expert on Russia. But from my small amount of knowledge, this is a criminal organization, this country. So I'm not sure what to do with nuclear weapons, which is frightening.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, on that note, on that happy note.

Kara Swisher: I'm not happy now. We have a win. I don't have a win at all. Anyway, happy birthday, Amanda. That's my win. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Why don't you read us out?

Scott Galloway: Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Bros and Emil 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, the Subway app. We'll see you next time.