Twitter and Elon Head to Court, The Uber Files, and Guest Mark Leibovich

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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 from San Francisco.

Scott Galloway: And I'm Scott Galloway. And you have been what? What happened to you today?

Kara Swisher: Oh, that's right. So I got blocked by Elon Musk, which is unusual because I wasn't following him. So it was what I call a proactive block.

Scott Galloway: But, you know, Kara, let's be honest. The sexual tension is palpable. And if I was more in touch with my feelings, I would have said, "Elon, block me harder, you wanton bitch." Too much? Too much?

Kara Swisher: You know what? It's just right in this case. It's really weird. You weren't following him.

Scott Galloway: I wasn't following the guy. I wanted to find out what he had said about way back when about the bots. So I went to his Twitter account and it says, "You're blocked." And I'm like...

Kara Swisher: No, do you need help? And he hasn't blocked me yet. I was like, "You're going to ruin it for me for everybody, aren't you? I'm going to get blocked because of you."

Scott Galloway: You're speaking in the future tense. It's already over.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I guess that's true. You have broken bad with the dog. You're in.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, Chuck Mate. He had a good one today with Chess with a picture of Chuck Mate. Get it? Chuck Mate? He had a picture of Chuck Norris. I won't go into it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, but he's already trolling Twitter. Did you see the thing where he had a cartoon of himself? Anyway.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, whatever.

Kara Swisher: So I'm blocked. Whatever. I'm blocked.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. Well, you'll live somehow.

Kara Swisher: We'll talk about that more, obviously. The legal battle is brewing between Elon Musk and Twitter, because that's the real deal. None of this nonsense. The big revelations about Uber under Travis Kalanick in the Washington Post. And our friend of Pivot is a friend of mine, also Mark Leibovich, who's a wonderful reporter. He's worked for a whole bunch of places, New York Times, Washington Post, I think. And now he's at the Atlantic.

Scott Galloway: Yes.

Kara Swisher: He's the author of one of the buzziest books in the post-Trump era. It's called "Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission."

Scott Galloway: That sounds very, very sexual tension palpable.

Kara Swisher: But first, let's talk about a few things. Klarna is no longer Europe's most valuable private fintech company. The Buy Now Pay Later pioneer, who you've talked about, among others, has been slashed to around $7 billion after a very difficult funding round. That's 85% down from $46 billion just over a year ago. That is just astonishing. I'm seeing VCs here, and they're really saying everything's the bottom's falling out. U.S.-based competitor firm is also down almost 90% from a November high. I mean, wow. I mean, the investment, every investor I've met here has been like, this is really bad. Although they're trying to find good in it. So what do you think about this?

Scott Galloway: They're trying to find good in the private markets declining or specifically the BNPL space?

Kara Swisher: It's good because now we can really get them focused, that kind of thing. It's good for business kind of thing.

Scott Galloway: Well, VCs can't. A, they have to be optimistic because to invest in companies really early requires just a level of consensual hallucination and optimism that is really admirable. I could never be an early stage investor. I hear everything. I'm like, "That's stupid." And these guys, you have to give the venture community credit. They venture. They really find someone they think is intelligent and an idea and they're willing to pour millions if not tens of millions behind it. And it's also something that really is uniquely American. The problem is – and this is just part of the cycle. We're in the part of the cycle where things got so frothy and VCs were able to raise so much money on the backs of incredible returns that they kind of woke up. I would imagine that two-thirds of the investments made, and this is conservative, allocated in 2021 are dramatically underwater. And that all the vintage – you know, they all have vintages. Once they get to a certain point, they just raise – once you get to fund five, you're sort of bulletproof. Because even if fund five is terrible, you're already raising fund six. It's the VCs that will go away are the VCs whose first fund was raised in 2020 or 2021 because they've had to compete at these irrational and sustainable valuations.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, which they didn't like. You heard a lot of grumbling from them when you talked to them. But they're going to be swept off the – they're going to be – they're just out of business. Do they have any level of ability to be differentiated by the way they – is there anything they can value add to these things that make them okay?

Scott Galloway: Yeah. There's very few markets, Kara, that are a better case study in the power of brand, because while they all claim to add value in their operators and they all love the entrepreneur and are emotionally supportive of the entrepreneur, they all say the same thing. 97% of them, their value add ends the moment you cash their check. There's very little differentiation. A good VC can't save a bad company. A bad VC can absolutely ruin a good company. But the majority of them are kind of their capital providers. And some, I've done work with General Catalyst. They have so many resources, whether it's looking for compensation benchmarks or an operator to help you. They have that kind of reach. I think Andreessen Horowitz has that kind of reach. But more than anything, it's like a college degree. And that is, it's not the value add of the education. It's the certification.

Kara Swisher: I get that. But the services, they spend a lot of money on services on the side or that they're someone there that can really understand them. Recruiting is an important thing, I know, for a lot of startups. But a lot of these services seem ridiculous. I have a lot of friends who are startup people, and they're always like, "I would like my VC to shut up." That's what they really say.

Scott Galloway: Oh, VC is one of – you should expect, generally speaking, when you put a VC or a hedge fund guy on your board, they will be the smartest person you've ever met that knows absolutely nothing about your business and keeps forwarding you interesting ideas. And because they're an investor and on your board, you've got to respond. So I've stopped. Unless it's really important, I don't bother the CEO because the board has decided that that means that they can just send crazy, bad shit, weird ideas. But once Sequoia, once Andreessen Horowitz, once General Catalyst is in your deal, everybody else plows in and your financing is oversubscribed because everybody thinks that they're smarter than us because of their previous success. But there's not – I always tell entrepreneurs when they take money, be clear, this is on you. They will assume they will do nothing and you won't be disappointed. It's the same way with – do you have a publisher? I know you're writing a book. I write books. I supposedly am with the best publisher in business, in the business book world. And I just assume they're going to do nothing for me. And I'm not disappointed.

Kara Swisher: I would agree. Although I haven't turned in my books, I shouldn't say things. But I agree. I used to play a game of that game where everybody dies, but two people that are critical. And I was always living. Me and Jeff Bezos always lived. And everybody, I'm like, "I don't need any of you," kind of thing, which wasn't a very good selling point.

Scott Galloway: But I'm sorry. You've decided the two people that are going to inherit the earth are Jeff Bezos and you.

Kara Swisher: Well, no, if you're making a book, I was like, you put people in the room: the publisher, the publicist, the editor, me, the seller. And I was, Jeff Bezos was the seller or Walmart or whatever, wherever they sell. So would you propagate a generation of people in permanent midlife crisis stasis? No, but I'm saying he was running Amazon. So I needed Amazon. I couldn't replicate that and they couldn't replicate me. So that was all that was needed. That's all I'm saying.

Scott Galloway: I'll give it, I give you that. It would be hard to replicate you, Kara Swisher. I'm still fascinated by the two people on earth that are going to be Kara and Jeff.

Kara Swisher: I know. Exactly. So then everybody dies but me. It's that game of it's called like werewolf. Anyway, let's move on. You were right. This reckoning of VCs is really coming. I got that feeling when I was here.

Scott Galloway: After you said that, I went and visited a whole bunch this weekend. And they're blessed. They're blessed with – and this is important in life. You got to be careful around the scorecards that dictate your life, because when you have public stocks or you have a Robinhood account and you're checking your stocks every five minutes, an investment and a level of stress you don't want. The nice thing about privates is that they don't have to mark them every day. So you can pretend that your investment in this cute little company that's a SaaS platform is still worth a billion dollars.

Kara Swisher: All right. We're going to move on. A liberal advocacy group is offering up to 200 – this is a thing you're going to like – $250 to D.C. service industry workers if they report sightings of Supreme Court justices. That's the reaction to Justice Brett Kavanaugh fleeing a D.C. steakhouse when abortion rights protesters showed up outside. The group Shut Down D.C. is specifically targeting the justices who overturned Roe versus Wade, tweeting out an offer for $50 for a sighting and $200 if the judge is still there 30 minutes afterward. I don't know what to think of this. I believe in protests. I'm not surprised given how they've decided to really stick their necks out on things that are very controversial and lie when they were in Congress about what their intentions were. The money thing, it makes me uncomfortable, very uncomfortable, I would say. And Twitter told Axios in an email that Shut Down D.C.'s tweets were not in violation of Twitter's safety policies. What do you think?

Scott Galloway: So Amy Coney Barrett, in my view, over the next 50 years is going to be one of the most damaging people in the history of America. And I think she's not going to pay any attention to legal precedent as she claimed she was with Roe versus Wade or established precedent. I think she's going to decide to dictate all her decisions based on her notion of what her Christian God believes. And she could be there 50 years. So it tickles my tribal censors to think that people are making her life uncomfortable and protesting her. Having said that, I think this is bad, and we're going to need new laws to protect that basically say protest is fine. If you want to be at the restaurant and outside and maintain a certain distance, that's fine. But anybody who has not broken the law, which she has not, and especially people who occupy positions in government of importance, which she does, should be afforded a certain level of privacy and ability to go about living their lives. So I don't think you do away with free speech, but I think that if you're a paparazzi and Heidi Klum is checking into the Equinox, they can photograph her. There's nothing you can do about that, but they have to maintain a certain distance. They can't go inside private property. And also, as it relates to people offering bounties for sightings, I think it should be made clear that if anything happens to those people, you are liable. You're the person that incited this potential violence. So I got to be honest, as much as it kind of tickles my tribal censors to think that Justice Thomas and his wife have their dinner interrupted, the bottom line is they should be able to dine in peace.

Kara Swisher: I don't like it when people get... A lot of people talk about this. Peaceful protests are fine. Noisy protests are fine. It's when they tip over into what happened on January 6th. And that's why I don't love trying to bribe people, telling people. But that happens in Hollywood like every five minutes, right, with celebrities. And sometimes celebrities call in their own paparazzi.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's right. They alert people.

Kara Swisher: I think they should be able to protest. I get the issue around judges, but it's a very fine line here in terms of the money thing makes me deeply uncomfortable. And I don't think it's a violation. I just think it's a very bad practice. Protesting, if they see them or somehow find out where they are, but not through bribing people, is fine, I think.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but there's some nuance here, Kara. There's some nuance in that is you've seen those inflatable rats in front of buildings in New York. I bet they have them in D.C., but in New York.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, the rats. I've seen the rats.

Scott Galloway: If a restaurant or a business goes non-union or is not being cooperative with unions trying to establish membership, they inflate a giant rat in front of the building and they have protesters. The police put up a police barrier. You're not allowed to restrict people's access to their place of work. They are not allowed to go inside. They are not allowed to follow people home and make them feel unsafe. So protest is one thing. But I do think people have a right to go about their lives when they have not broken the law. So I think there needs to be standards here. And when you start providing bounties, I don't know.

Kara Swisher: Bounties. That's right. It's bounties. It's scary.

Scott Galloway: It's not.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I'm not. I think there's going, just as technology is creating a host of questions we never had to answer before, this is one. And that is, if you say, "Oh, Justice Thomas is at this national park hiking with his wife and he's alone and has very small or little or no security," I would imagine at some point these people don't want security around them. I don't think they do that. I've spoken to a justice. They are with their security all the time.

Scott Galloway: All the time.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, especially in this environment. When you're doxed, this really is just a form of doxing, these bounties. I think the people and the – maybe – I don't even want to say platform because it brings the bell to it. But the people who do this, I just think you're legally liable if anything then happens. I think it's a bad look if something bad happens to especially judges, especially after this Abe assassination in Japan, which is very odd what happened there. But it's just the homemade gun and that he had no security really, that he was so exposed. It's a very dangerous society, and there's too many guns in this country.

Scott Galloway: But what if okay so Justice Barrett knows a little bit what she got herself into. Does that mean she shouldn't be able to go to Chuck E. Cheese with her kids and have a peaceful birthday party?

Kara Swisher: She can, but she cannot not expect protests. I'm always on the side. People are always like, "Oh, I want to censor people when I talk about dangerous stuff online." I think protests are – I've been protesting. I'm fine with it. I'm fine with it. I just like the idea of her having to go to Chuck E. Cheese because I don't like the woman. And I think that's a punishment worth some death. And anyway, it's unfortunately the price of admission into democracy right now. And that's the way it is. I don't love it. I'll think one time a group of people protested at my brother's house. He runs one of our companies and he brought out lemonade to them. I mean, just, you know, he was like, "Hi, guys. Good to see you." I was in a fraternity and we used to get protested, right? You know, justifiably all the time for all the ridiculous shit we were doing. We should do a little Elon protest to your blockage.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, finally, very briefly, Theranos CEO Sunny Balwani was found guilty on 12 counts of fraud. More than his partner, Elizabeth Holmes. Sentencing will come in September for Holmes and November for Balwani. Not a surprise. Both face 20 years in prison as well as millions of dollars in payments to victims for Balwani. He seems to be the brains of the operation, even though she was the face, it seems like it. I don't know.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, look, I wasn't familiar with the case, but it would have been very strange and brought up a lot of very uncomfortable comparisons if the man got off. Because it doesn't appear, I don't know if he did anything. You say he's a branch of the operation. I don't know enough about, yeah, my sense is, I don't think he was any better or any worse than her. Is it a general, you know, you look at the case and you're like, I mean, we always say, "Well, it's the top guy or gal," but he entered into a relationship with her when she was very young. And it sounds like whatever wrongdoing happened here, they were co-conspirators in.

Scott Galloway: That's exactly, they were a pair. They were a pair. The larger question, or I think the thing that's most interesting about this, is that this is a function of pissing off the wrong people. And that is, I think, so people will say, "Well, Adam Neumann exaggerated and they lied, and there's a distinction." And I agree with that. But the real distinction here, the reason why two of them are headed to prison and one's headed to Coachella is that Masayoshi Son was never going to legally go after Adam Neumann because it would have involved a loss of face. Whereas the investors on the board of Theranos went after Elizabeth Holmes and Balwani. And I think it would have been an entirely different situation for Adam Neumann had Masayoshi Son, a billionaire, decided that Adam Neumann had committed fraud and committed a crime. And so this is a reality. The law protects the protected class who the law is willing to go after people is old, rich investors. You do not want to piss off Secretary Schultz or Larry Ellison, because if they decide you've committed fraud, there's a good chance a lawyer is going to make a good case for it. And the reason why Adam Neumann got to leave with $1.5 billion was because Masayoshi-san didn't want the company put into bankruptcy and have an American vulture buy it for pennies on the dollar. It would have involved a loss of face. So he had to say, "No, I wasn't fooled. I wasn't fooled. I just made a bad decision, but I'm going to save the company," which involves buying his single-class shares back at a premium. So Adam Neumann, every time he's surfing or lighting up, he should be really thankful. He got, in my view, he got very lucky. He pissed off the right people.

Kara Swisher: Okay. Okay. Speaking of that, pissing off the right people, let's get to our first big story. Elon on Twitter headed to Delaware Court. We've talked so much about. I have talked about it a lot this weekend. Meet the Press with Kara Swisher – Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. I wasn't expecting it. I watch Meet the Press very late at night when I'm alone which is my favorite time, no dogs, no kids, just nothing. And I pulled up Meet the Press which I watch late on Sunday nights and I was so happy to see you. You look nice. I thought you did a good job. You were very calm. You have that sort of the way you answer anything it's like this thin little like, "Well, your questions are really they're so stupid, they're kind of cute. Chuck, let me tell you what's going down here." But you stand in a polite way. Let's play a little clip.

[Clip plays]:

Kara Swisher (in clip): Is he still going to own Twitter anyway? Well, if a court makes him buy it right now, I mean, I think that's where it's going to go to. It's all a legal proceeding now. And I think it'll be hard for the court to force someone to pay that much money for something. And it's a little unprecedented. And of course, they have Elon Musk who likes to fight. And so he's going to fight with the Delaware courts. He's going to fight with Twitter. He's going to fight publicly. And so it could be a big mess and everyone might want to just have him pay the billion dollar breakup fee and go. But it could be a lot higher. He may have to, if Twitter presses it, he may have to pay a lot more for trying to get out of this deal.

Kara Swisher: Oh, see, there we go. I thought that was very reasonable. Twitter is assembling a legal team, a very tough one. And as of our taping on Monday, has plans to sue Elon for dumping his $44 billion takeover of the company. It's a necessary step here, but we'll see where it goes. Elon is said to have hired the same firm to defend him previously in his pedo guy defamation case in the aftermath of his "funding secured" tweet. Twitter shares dropped as much as 7.8 percent in pre-market trading on Monday. We'll see where it goes in the next few days. Donald Trump even weighed in on the situation at a rally in Alaska over the weekend. "He's lost his friend Donald." We're going to play that clip.

[Clip plays]:

Donald Trump (in clip): Elon. Elon is not going to buy Twitter. Where did you hear that before? From me. From a fake account. She says fake. A lot of them. Nah, he's got himself a mess. You know, he said the other day, "Oh, I've never voted for a Republican." I said, "I didn't know that." He told me he voted for me. So he's another bullshit artist, but he's not going to be buying it. He's not going to be buying it.

Kara Swisher: Wow. He actually called Elon "Leon" at the beginning of that. He was like rambling quite a bit. So what do you think? Very briefly, Twitter co-founder Ev Williams tweeted, "If I was still on the board, I'd be asking if we can just let this whole ugly episode blow over. Hopefully that's the plan." And this is ceremony. Let's move on. Like you just said, like Masayoshi Son. What do you think? Lower price? Anything? New prediction, Scott?

Scott Galloway: No, he doesn't want a lower price. They're not going to give him a lower price because they can't trust anything he says. I don't – I want to be clear here. I have a bias and I might be projecting. But what I know of these board members, what I know of the abuse he is subjecting them to, what I know of the literally thousands of man and woman years he has wasted. Do you realize he had every banker on the debt side or the capital market side at Morgan Stanley roaming the earth to raise $12 billion, of which they would get nothing now?

Kara Swisher: I don't think they had an automatic fee.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, Bill Cohen pointed this out. They're pretty pissed. The arms are pissed, the bankers are pissed. As always, the truth is in the details. When he first, quote unquote, referenced concern around the bots, right? Exactly 30 days later, he withdrew from the deal, and there was in the agreement a 30-day waiting period, and then from which point you gave notice to back out of the deal. So this is all cooked. This is everything he said. If you look at the list of information requests they made, they included things as esoteric as what was the valuation method used by Goldman Sachs issued the fairness opinion for Twitter to get approval from the board? That serves no useful utility or insight other than to create more tripwires so he could say they didn't live up to their information transfer requirements and I can back out of the deal. So I would imagine, and I might be wrong, the two things that are happening here. And I don't understand the law, but I understand human nature among very confident slash narcissistic men. The majority of this board and this organization called Tesla are run by. And that is he has abused these people.

Kara Swisher: I don't think they're going to do anything, Scott. I think you're wrong.

Scott Galloway: Okay. They're not.

Kara Swisher: Okay. They don't, I don't think. They're taking them to court, Kara. What do you mean they're not going to do anything?

Scott Galloway: I think they're scared and they want to get out of this. They want to get him away from them. What I'd ask is he sells back his shares. He sells his shares, maybe at a loss, pays the billion dollars and goes. I wouldn't let him just move. I know it's like, we're like justice against Elon, but I think this board wants to get out of this.

Kara Swisher: So let me just acknowledge. Employees are pretty pissed, too. Let me just acknowledge the majority of smart, thoughtful people I talk to agree with what you just said. I believe that there's a lot of ego involved here and that the Twitter board has said, "Here's $50 million to Wachtell," and said, "Pursue this guy to the end of the earth." And the other thing I don't agree with that's in the narrative right now is that this process will be distracting and damaging for Twitter. I think it's going to be much more damaging and discovery will be much more damaging for Elon Musk because all that will come out is that he's lied consistently and been a bad actor. I think Twitter, if you look at the Twitter board here, they, in my opinion, have handled themselves perfectly. They did exactly what they were supposed to do as fiduciaries.

Scott Galloway: There's a lot of anger within Twitter, within the employee base saying everything will be fine. A lot of them are focusing on the money that the management would have made if this deal went through, which is substantive. Including the CEO. Anyone with options would have made money. They would have done well, let's just say. And so they don't love hearing. General Manager Nick Calder wrote a memo to staff saying, "I do think we'll be okay." I think they're sick of that. There's a lot of rancor. A lot of people are looking. Casey Newton wrote a lot about this really smartly the other day. I do think they want it. And some of the board members I could see being like, "Let's get this." There's a couple of them who have not been through something like this. I think they hired Wachtell to scare him and that into settlement. And I think that is where it's going to go as a settlement of some sort sooner than you think. I don't think they want this to go into court by any means at all. It's not good for anybody, even if it's bad for Elon. I don't think I think there's no hurting this guy. Like, right. I mean, he blocked Scott Galloway. He doesn't have any sense whatsoever.

Kara Swisher: Look, I have some I have a real bias here, but I think this represents on so many levels this idolatry of innovators that needs to stop.

Scott Galloway: I don't think it's an idolatry. It's like he's like trouble. Like, let's just get him in our rearview mirror. I don't think it's anything you don't like it. Being shameless is a superpower. Donald Trump was able to get away with all sorts of illegal behavior because the judge and the person on the other side go, "He'll just continue to lie and come up with different reasons to appeal and just keep fighting and say whatever's required and lie to people and start shitposting us." I don't know, Kara. I think that-

Kara Swisher: I don't think they're the sheriff going to do this. Maybe someone else will have the balls to do it to this guy. But I just think it's a waste of their time. Ultimately, you have to like do a cost-benefit analysis and there's no benefit from fighting with him publicly. There isn't. The drama needs to end. There's way too much drama on this company. I believe me, I think he's acted abominably. But-

Scott Galloway: I don't think they're going to let him off that easily.

Kara Swisher: You want- All right, we'll see. We'll see about that. I think lawsuits, he's going to be swimming in lawsuits, though. You know what's going to be called? Shareholder lawsuits. All these shareholders are like, "OK, you have significantly damaged my economic well-being by doing ahead by, A, not disclosing that you were buying shares when you were supposed to." So a lot of people sold shares for less than they would have gotten ahead. He made the disclosure. And a lot of shareholders, there's going to be all sorts of shareholder lawsuits. What will be interesting in discovery is, if it goes far, is I think we'll get to find out if there were other bidders and who they were.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I don't think there were them, right?

Kara Swisher: Who knows? And the other thing is the SEC should have stepped in a long time ago on Elon in a much more significant way. They didn't. They let this happen in a lot of ways, this kind of behavior. So I think if it does go far, the Delaware Chancery Court is the sheriff that is needed. That will probably slap Elon back to last Sunday. But we'll see. We'll see what's going to happen. But nonetheless, I'm so sorry he blocked you. I will keep you informed of his movements if you'd like, but others can too.

Scott Galloway: It's a cry out for my attention. Let's be honest. I almost tweeted, "He may be insufferable, but he's not a numbskull. He was right about what you did."

Kara Swisher: Yeah, there you go. But I did not. There you go. Yeah, yeah. They're just, you know, I have a new name for all these people that they give him on, which is the "ha-ha boys." Like, you know, this is funny. They're the bro-iest bros in Broville. Honestly, they're just so exhausting. They're exhausting. They exhaust me in many ways. Anyway, we'll go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the Uber files and we'll speak to a friend of Pivot, Mark Leibovich, about his new book, "Thank You for Your Servitude."

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Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, we're back. We knew Uber wasn't the world's most ethical company, but new revelations show just how ruthless they were in their efforts to expand into cities around the world and how many top politicians helped them along the way. Color me shocked. Over the weekend, The Guardian published the first of many upcoming articles on an investigation of the five-year period when Uber was run by co-founder Travis Kalanick. The investigation is based on what's called the Uber files, which they love to slap on whatever documents they have. A leak of sensitive texts, emails, invoices, briefing notes, and other documents exchanged by top Uber executives, bureaucrats, and world leaders. This is no surprise.

Kara Swisher: Some of the big revelations include Uber's alliance with Emmanuel Macron when he was France's economy minister. He runs France now. The company used Covert Tech, which we knew, which they called a kill switch to keep regulators from accessing data during raids. They had done this to Apple. So this was a technique they had to keep information out. Geofencing was one. And one of the guys who did this is in some legal trouble right now. Travis Kalanick dismissed concerns over driver safety, telling other execs that violence guarantees success. Not a surprise. Again, sociopathic, I find.

Kara Swisher: I don't know if there's any fallout because Uber, of course, said, "Well, that wasn't us. That was then. This is now." A spokesman for Kalanick said, "Mr. Kalanick never suggested that Uber should take advantage of violence at the expense of driver safety. Any accusation that Mr. Kalanick directed, engaged in, or was involved in any of these activities is completely false." What do you think?

Scott Galloway: Well, there's some advantages to youth. And the reason why venture-backed companies tend to be run by people who are younger than other companies is that their lack of what I'll call knowledge, concern, adherence to traditional norms is an advantage. And that is, they're like, "Why can't I have people drive their own cars and pick people up? Why can't we do that?" And the one thing I will give to Uber, I do love Uber. I interact with it a lot. I remember taking taxis from downtown San Francisco to SFO. The thing felt like it was about to fly apart on the freeway if it went over 50 miles an hour. The driver was rude and it'd be like 110 bucks. Taxi service in the Bay Area was so terrible. It was such an opportunity.

Scott Galloway: The approach that Travis brought to his business, it sounds like he went overboard. If there's illegal behavior, I think the company should still be subject to that scrutiny. But I think that the press and media and people who have not been in a startup don't understand is that if a small business is to be successful, it's not about necessarily being just really good people and letting people have two or three days off for pet bereavement. The startups I've run, and maybe it's because I'm a bad manager, it's been like fucking Vietnam. And I'm not actually equating it to actual Vietnam. But you have to be harsh, scrappy, and almost rapacious. You have to be more nimble, more aggressive, quite frankly, to a certain extent, more violent in the sense that if someone's not doing their job in a startup, you got to fire them and find someone right away. If you're about to lose a client, you have to do anything possible to keep that client. I'm not suggesting unethical behavior, but there's this cartoon of what it means to have a successful small business. And I've never been in a small business and never run a small business without a certain level of full body contact violence that a lot of people would shutter at.

Scott Galloway: This kind of crosses the line. I get that. Travis pushed it. There's this, and then there's Travis. He really was incredibly aggressive and pushed lines. The stories we wrote that got a guy fired was around rape victims and using their medical reports unethically. He crossed lines constantly. Whether he crossed legal lines or not is a big question. I think we'll see more of these, but none of this should come as a surprise.

Kara Swisher: I have never seen... Apple was livid about the stuff they were doing. It was all line crossing, almost continual, even their parties. I published a memo where he's like, "Don't vomit on each other or throw liquor, throw kegs from the roof." And "I can't fuck anybody because I'm the boss, but I would like to." That's overstating it, but he pushed lines more than any other. He was unusual. Let me just say, in terms of he took everything and made it bigger, all those bad tendencies.

Kara Swisher: Just so you know, the company's official statement on the report reads, "We have not and will not make excuses for past behavior that's clearly not in line with our present values. Instead, we ask the public to judge us on what we've done over the last five years and what we will do in the years to come." They're just sort of like, "Goodbye, see you later, alligator." I think this will just go away. These stories are perishable and people aren't going to want to revisit the past. And Uber's got bigger problems, specifically ride hailing as a shitty business that can't seem to make money.

Scott Galloway: Yes, that is correct.

Kara Swisher: But still, it's good to know we were all right when we were right. This is the beginning of the revelations. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists says more than 180 journalists at 40 media outlets will be publishing series of investigative reports about the tech tribe. It seems a lot for this company, which has moved on. And again, like you were talking about Elon, I think these people get to move on.

Scott Galloway: I don't know him, but I went to a party he hosted and it was like a hundred guys and 700 models. I was so offended. I stayed until 4am. I just found it really inappropriate, Kara. Just awful.

Kara Swisher: This is ridiculous.

Scott Galloway: What's your name?

Kara Swisher: It's the same Ha Ha Boys. They were the worst. They were toxic. They were just a toxic, nasty group of pricks. I don't know how else to put it. They would go for anyone. They went for their own PR people. They went to the mattresses in a way that was so untoward and grotesque that it was hard to, at the time, I was like, "You bunch of fucking assholes." So anyway, we'll see, but we'll move on. I think Travis will be just fine.

Kara Swisher: So now we're going to go to our friend of Pivot, Mark Leibovich, who is a staff writer at The Atlantic, an author known for his incisive profiles of politicians, media figures, and D.C. society. His new book is called *Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission*. He is also a very old friend of mine. Welcome, Mark.

Mark Leibovich: Thanks, Kara. It's great to be with you.

Kara Swisher: So, so much to talk about. This is a really funny book. So you didn't focus on Trump, but his enablers. There's a ton of Trump books out there, obviously, and every awful thing he did. I love that you focus on the enablers because they're really almost worse in some weird way. So who is the worst enabler of all from your perspective?

Mark Leibovich: Kevin McCarthy, hands down. I'd say that Lindsey Graham maybe won a silver or something, but I would say Kevin McCarthy is my personal favorite because he knows better. But then they all pretty much know better. And by "they," I mean the elected leaders, Republican leaders in Washington mainly, who despise Donald Trump privately, live in fear of him publicly, and will praise him to the nines with this panting adulation that you see on TV and have seen for six years. McCarthy is first among equals because he just works at it so hard. He is constantly on the phone. He was the first to really do a very public ring-kissing down at Mar-a-Lago after January 6th. And he is a pretty good bet to be the Speaker of the House in November after the midterm elections, which will make him the second or third most powerful Republican and chief enabler among equals as we sort of hurtle towards what could be a return engagement from this nightmare in 2024.

Kara Swisher: Why are they doing this? Why does Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham is particularly slavish. What's the end game? Just power? It seems small.

Mark Leibovich: Power. It is good for them.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I think a lot. It's just very sad.

Mark Leibovich: I think they're very weak people. Donald Trump, when I profiled him in 2015 towards the end of the year, he said, "Look, these are very weak people and I'm going to exploit their weakness." I knew he sees weakness in people and he knows how to bring it to his advantage. And he said he would bring it to the country's advantage. If shamelessness is one of Donald Trump's superpowers, being able to detect weakness in people that he can dominate is another one. In this case, he can dominate, or did dominate, an entire political party with some exceptions, but not many.

Scott Galloway: Mark, nice to meet you. And thanks for your good work. It struck me when Boris Johnson stepped down that it wasn't him deciding to step down. It was so many of his subordinates and ministers who said, "This is unethical. I'm stepping down." And it struck me what a contrast that is to our government, that these folks never step down. They're so horny for proximity to power. Have you thought about what distinguishes our culture or the construct of our government that creates such an incredible contrast where these people, regardless of how much they're abused publicly by him, regardless of even the laws they may be breaking, continue to show up and just kiss ass?

Mark Leibovich: That's a great question. I think all around us is an example of that, of the cowardice that we see in the Kevin McCarthys and Lindsey Grahams of the world. The British one right now is front and center, but even the contrast to Cassidy Hutchinson, Liz Cheney in some ways, the anonymous state election officials, White House officials who are now beginning to come before the committee showing courage at a very late moment, but a very pivotal moment. It's a very basic duty. I like the basicness of Cassidy Hutchinson's story. It's like, if you're going to tell the truth, you have a story to tell, tell it. But the people that Donald Trump has allowed to remain in power that he hasn't kicked out of office have been extremely easy for him to manipulate like silly putty. It's everywhere.

Kara Swisher: And you write about them, everyone being in on the joke, like the entire GOP seemed to say behind his back. They say it to me. "The man is an idiot." They literally say it. And I'm like, "I don't know what to do. It's so ridiculous." And I refuse to talk. I'm like, "I'm not talking to you anymore." When is that going to actually come out? It's obviously Liz Cheney has spoken the quiet part out loud a lot. Then they've suffered. Everyone who has done that has suffered, obviously. Maybe that's why they don't say anything. But I even hate that they're saying bad things behind his back.

Mark Leibovich: Yeah, it gets very tiresome. As a journalist, these are the ethical quandaries we confront. I could blow the lid off all of this, but that would involve violating every ground rule I have with these people. And even though they might be objectionable and hateful people, you can't be burning people on your ground rules. Look, there are tapes coming out. People are being caught on tape. McCarthy was caught on tape. Graham was caught on tape. It's happening a lot. After a while, and a while in this case is seven years, maybe shame does creep in, or at least exhaustion creeps in, and you have some kind of critical mass reached and some change. But right now it's a really depressing picture.

Scott Galloway: I apologize. I'm going to skip books. The book that I know you for is *Big Game*. My son, out of nowhere, is all of a sudden fascinated by the NFL. I would just be curious. Mark wrote an interesting book about the Patriots and the NFL. The NFL is the most successful league in the world. What are two or three insights you gleaned from studying the NFL and the team that might surprise people about the NFL?

Mark Leibovich: Well, a lot of them are very seamlessly applicable. Again, shamelessness is a superpower. I think that applies in this world. Billionaires and politicians from my world, they're not like us. There is always some kind of screw loose. There's often a pathology or a trauma or something either in their background or in just the voraciousness of their hunger for whatever it is they're looking for. People simplify it very simplistically in wealth or stock price or whatever. But it goes so much far beyond those metrics and elections. Lindsey Graham sort of spoke to it maybe explicitly, which is that it's fear of irrelevance. It's fear of being forgotten. "I gotta put myself out there. If the light's not coming on, I'm dead." I remember in a different context, Larry King, who I did a profile of for the Times Magazine after he was kicked off CNN a few years later, and bin Laden was killed a couple of years later. And he was like, "Oh, I have to go somewhere. It's a Sunday night. I need a car to come pick me up. I need a red light to come on in front of me or else I'm dead. I feel like I'm dead, but now I don't have anywhere to go." I think that was the working title for a while. But essentially it's the same dynamic with people in the public eye, people of great wealth, people of great power. It becomes an addiction.

Kara Swisher: And they also think the rules don't apply to them, right? The rules don't apply. We were just talking about Elon in that same genre. Let me get back to the book, though. It is the same. It's the power dynamics, whether it's Bob Kraft or any of them. So do any of the Republicans you've spoken to actually want Trump back in the White House? You actually said they want him dead, essentially. Die or go away.

Mark Leibovich: Yeah, there was a Republican. And dead would work. This is not me talking. This is a Republican congressman saying to me, "Look, we have no plan about how to deal with this guy going forward just like we did two years ago. Our only plan is just sitting around waiting for him to die." And I was like, "Are you serious?" He goes, "I am 100 percent serious. That is our only plan."

Kara Swisher: I've heard that. Yes. "Maybe he'll die. Maybe he'll die." That's profiles in courage right here. Just sit around. Just do that plan.

Mark Leibovich: Liz Cheney, at great expense to her, her career in the Republican Party is pretty much done. But you could say, "Oh, well, she got a Profile in Courage Award at the Kennedy Library in Boston a month ago. And then she got another award at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley a couple of weeks ago." She'll get a lot of those.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, so she should.

Scott Galloway: But what's that going to get you in the real world?

Kara Swisher: Board seats.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, sure. She'll be fine. She also has a security detail. Possible presidential run.

Kara Swisher: Oh, absolutely. Possible presidential run. She could probably get 15% of the Republican vote and be great. I'd love to see her voice in there. But Mark, as you talk to these people, did you get a sense for who they would like to see in that position? Not Donald Trump.

Mark Leibovich: As a default, a very lazy default, they say Ron DeSantis. But they don't know Ron DeSantis. They don't like him. Republican congressmen and women who served with him say, "This guy is a weird dude. He does not scale well. He does not wear well." Same with the other Republican governors I talked to. And he's also not a slam dunk to be reelected in Florida at all. Charlie Crist, his Democratic opponent, is a very flawed character, and they're basically neck and neck.

Kara Swisher: So I can't imagine he would hold up well to who, DeSantis or Crist?

Mark Leibovich: Crist. Yeah, no. DeSantis is humorless. That's why he's not going to win. Crist is like the host at the diner I go to. He's a very lovely guy. But no, he's impressive, though. He's a former governor. You know the expression, "She's likable enough" with Hillary Clinton? He's not likable. And I think that's going to be a problem. He's a weird dude. He's not likable. And he doesn't smile enough. It's not even that. They say, "Oh, he's Trump with a brain." He's obviously very smart, but...

Kara Swisher: No, Trump is funny. Trump is very charming to his audience, if you're into that. Even though he's appalling, he's also funny.

Kara Swisher: All right, let's pivot to the January 6th hearing, to finish up. And Biden. Do you think, a lot of people do think there really has been, they've gotten, Liz Cheney has gotten some real licks in. Bannon now says he's testifying. What do you think the impact is? I think they're playing it beautifully.

Mark Leibovich: They are. This committee has done a great job. The impact certainly beats my expectations. It's also a great template of how a hearing should be run. Don't let everyone give their little speeches and then give all 20 people, or even six, a turn to talk. Very short, directed questions, a couple of people doing the questioning, very thematic presentations, video friendly. And they've gotten a lot of good material to work with. I like that it's making the right people nervous.

Scott Galloway: All right, Scott, finish up. I know you want to ask a Biden question. Scott has decided Biden is too old to run. I'm just from an insider who, or my sense is you are an honest bystander with great access. I'd just be curious to get your rundown on how the Democratic side of this is shaping up. It feels to me like everybody's publicly says, just as they say they like Trump and privately say they don't. I get the sense on the Democratic side, everyone's saying they're supporting Joe Biden. And meanwhile, they're getting their own Kamala Harris for president posters ready. What are your thoughts on the Democratic side?

Mark Leibovich: I'm hearing the same thing, except without the Kamala part. Joe Biden is too old. I'm happy that my mother stopped driving at age 78 or 79, however old he is. And I don't want her to be president either. It's obviously not an optimal situation. There's no natural heir apparent. I've talked to a ton of people who, and some have said this publicly, and some more will say it publicly, I think, as Biden becomes more entrenched in his mid-30s approval rating, and the swoon continues, they say, "Look, he really needs to step aside and throw this open to a field of Gavin Newsoms or Stacey Abrams or AOC or J.B. Pritzker or whoever. Just anyone new. Just open the gates." You cannot be as afraid of Donald Trump as the Republican Party is, because the inherent risk aversion that made Joe Biden the Democratic nominee a few years ago is a product of Trump, too. It's like, "No, we can't afford to lose this. We're going to throw grandpa out there and hope he can take one more spin around the block."

Kara Swisher: Yeah, because he beat him once. He beat him once. And the others didn't. And the other thing is, why should he give up power on some level? He got to be president. "Yeah, let someone beat him. Screw you."

Mark Leibovich: Yeah, exactly. I think the complaints about his age are not being made to Biden. I just think they're stating objective truths. He is down. 64% of Democratic voters said they would prefer a new standard bearer in 2024, according to a new poll. And also, he's down at 33%. Although I don't think people are necessarily linking him to some of the candidates. He's not dragging candidates down as much as people thought.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, maybe. Sort of. It depends. Not in Georgia, not in other places. We'll see. Is there anyone we haven't mentioned? I mean, there's always, Cara and I always like to bet on horses, but typically at this point in the cycle, if you bet on a horse, that only guarantees they're not going to win. Are there any unknowns we're not talking about? Remember your Beto love?

Scott Galloway: Speaking of Elon love, remember your Beto love? I love Beto.

Kara Swisher: No, we didn't. We didn't. Cara didn't.

Scott Galloway: Tall and he's handsome, which makes him 80 percent.

Kara Swisher: No, Kara calls him a man boy who's not qualified to be president. Means he should be president. Tall and handsome is important for our leaders, Kara.

Mark Leibovich: Well, yeah. I think Chris Murphy of Connecticut, he's been very successful in the gun control getting this done. Very charming guy. I like him a lot. A lot of people like him a lot. Amy Klobuchar doesn't get mentioned a lot, but probably should. She had a decent race the last time. She checks a lot of boxes, definitely qualified. Mitch Landrieu is a name I always hear.

Kara Swisher: Me too.

Scott Galloway: What do you think of like a Mark Cuban or even someone like a Jon Stewart? Do you think that Donald Trump has paved the way for kind of famous private sector candidates?

Mark Leibovich: Yeah, it would be interesting. But man, if Donald Trump paved the way, it's a rocky pavement in my mind. Donald Trump is sort of a unique figure. But one thing I do appreciate about Joe Biden is he kind of knows how to do this. Jared Polis, Colorado, is another person you hear a lot.

Scott Galloway: I'm on Team Cuban because I'm his enabler.

Kara Swisher: All right, fine. I think you'd be hysterical. The theme of enablers is actually a nice little...

Scott Galloway: My goal is to get Scott and I on Air Force One quite a bit. That's my whole goal.

Kara Swisher: That could probably be arranged if the right things happen. But first, Kara must emerge.

Scott Galloway: Yes, must emerge.

Kara Swisher: Maybe Elon will run. No, he can't, actually, because he's not an American citizen. I mean, he's an American citizen. He's not born here. I'm going to be ambassador to Australia. They'll love me. They'll throw great parties. Go to Australian football games.

Kara Swisher: All right, last question, Mark. What are you writing about next? What's your next topic?

Mark Leibovich: Well, I do have this book thing for the next couple of weeks. Still trying to figure that out. I might write about baseball or basketball. I need a little break sometimes after a big, exhausting topic and cycle, if you can jump off for a little bit. I have a little more freedom now. The Atlantic, The New York Times, that was much more politics. So maybe I'll get the freedom to do that. But vacation in August if there's time. Right now, I'm just focused on this thing.

Kara Swisher: All right. Thank you so much. *Thank You for Your Servitude* is out now. Mark, we really appreciate it.

Scott Galloway: Can I just say that shamelessness remains a superpower? Nothing has changed in the last 15 minutes. Thank you, Mark. It's good work. It's a good book. Congrats on your success.

Mark Leibovich: Thanks.

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

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Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, let's hear a good prediction, a nice fat prediction. Besides the fact that you and Elon will be getting married, I'm very excited. I've got to pick out what I want to wear. Go ahead.

Scott Galloway: You know, I'm glad that he's finally becoming more in touch with his emotions. And his anger towards me, I get it. Anyways, look, my prediction is a boring one. You believe, and I think you're on the side of most people, that they are going to look at this drawn-out ugly mess and want to just get out and move on. My prediction is that's not the case, that they have a lot on their side here. I think discovery is going to be really awful for Elon. So my prediction is this is going to go on further and that Elon is going to be served a colder lunch than people are currently anticipating.

Scott Galloway: The other thing I think will be really interesting is I do think there were likely, and I think they're going to have to disclose this if the case goes long enough, other suitors who wouldn't pay this price, but would say we'd be interested in talking.

Kara Swisher: Like who? Give me a name. Don't be all coy.

Scott Galloway: Disney, Salesforce, private equity firms.

Kara Swisher: Oh, Chapek's not wandering into this neighborhood. No way. You might be right. I asked Mark Benioff directly. He said no. He didn't even like, "Well, you know..."

Scott Galloway: Well, given also Bret, the co-CEO as the chairman, it would have created all sorts of issues.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I think it's going to be hard. They're going to have to be on their own. Actually, I would recommend a Bill Cohen column about this. Being on their own might be the best thing that ever happened. They could make it into, they had some freedom and some ability to do some things. They could do pretty well.

Scott Galloway: They could. They could.

Kara Swisher: So we'll see. It's certainly a wake-up call for this company, which has sort of floated around for the longest time. But we'll see. I'm going to take the other side of that. I think they're going to settle.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's what you said.

Kara Swisher: And it's also an opportunity to do what they should have done a long time ago, and that was move to subscription and actually clean up the platform. And payment. I think your payment idea was important. I just know these board members, and they are not pugnacious. Not one of them.

Scott Galloway: Really? No. Maybe Egon Durbin. Is he still on the board?

Kara Swisher: I don't even know if he's still on the board. He's a big and important person. He's treated them like such just, he literally has abused these people.

Scott Galloway: I think, no.

Kara Swisher: I think I know almost all of them. And I think they're like, let's get this person away. I think they would like him to sell his shares and not buy anymore. That might be a condition. That would be something I would, you don't want him near you anymore.

Scott Galloway: I still don't understand why they don't kick him off the platform.

Kara Swisher: By the way, if Triland doesn't buy this, Trump is never coming back. They're not going to wade into that. They've already gotten the damage from not letting Trump, kicking him off. They're never letting him back on. That's the end of it for Trump. So this is, we'll see who's right. And I think the good money or the smart money right now is on your side. But you're taking it. Our prediction is, I think this is going to go longer and be uglier for Elon than people are currently saying. And I think you're saying cooler heads will prevail and they will settle and move on. They're very reticent people. These people are not like, fuck this guy. They're just not. So we'll see where it goes. We'll see where it goes. But it'll be a bit. It'll be a bit.

[Pause]

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. Anyway, read us out, Scott.

Scott Galloway: Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Miel 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 later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

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Scott Galloway: Block me harder, you bitch!

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