Twitter subscription service, Tesla invests in Bitcoin, and Friend of Pivot Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel

[Podcast Intro: Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network]

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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 am the weekend. In my next life, Kara.

Kara Swisher: You wish you had that much hair. Oh, my gosh. Is that young man talented?

Scott Galloway: Yeah. You see, a lot of the ladies thought that J-Lo and Shakira shook it much better last year than a lot of the ladies.

Kara Swisher: Is that where we are already?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's where we are.

Kara Swisher: Is that where we are already?

Scott Galloway: I'm just saying, a lot of people know that. I say that The Weeknd is talented and we immediately go to, okay, Mr. Man.

Kara Swisher: You know, Amanda thought it was sad. It was like all the bodies and the masks and it was just sad. And then I like that the thing became a meme, him in the confusing, like, I don't know, funhouse, mirrors kind of thing with the lights. That was kind of cool.

Scott Galloway: That was really cool. And everybody put a different thing of what it was. And one of them was Sheryl Sandberg looking for the exit.

Kara Swisher: I saw. There were a lot of them. They were funny. I saw The Weeknd at Coachella five years ago. And you know why I remind you of that?

Scott Galloway: Old Chella, you mean. Go ahead.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. It makes me feel younger. If I say that a hundred times, I feel as if I feel 54 again.

Scott Galloway: All right. Okay. He's incredible.

Kara Swisher: He was good. He was good. He's incredible. I like to know. What did you think?

Scott Galloway: I don't know. It was so boring. So boring. Tom, I looked the entire time at Tom Brady's skin, and I was wondering how many avocados he had eaten that day. That guy, it's like he's freakishly good looking, isn't he?

Kara Swisher: Freakishly. It doesn't look like he's had any work done. He's just eating. It's just through eating. It's avocado and bands. I mean, working out with bands. You know, he's a handsome man. I share a publisher with him. My publisher published his book and published my book. And I'm like, dude, what's going on here? Look at him. I need some personal, like, whatever he's got going on in his life.

Scott Galloway: Do you realize he's been in one out of two Super Bowls for the last 20 years he's been in?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's amazing. And if you look at what's also fascinating is the ads that ran.

Scott Galloway: Oh, yeah. The ads that ran.

Kara Swisher: Give me a quick ad thing. Give me a quick ad thing, and then we'll get to a prediction that you were making that's coming true. But go ahead. Give me the ad that you like best.

Scott Galloway: Well, no, no, no. The thing that was interesting is if you look at the ads that ran during the Super Bowl that he first played in.

Kara Swisher: Oh, yeah. I saw this.

Scott Galloway: AOL, Blockbuster, Radio Shack, Circuit City, CompUSA, Sears, Hot Jobs, Yahoo, Voice Stream Wireless, and Gateway Computers, a company I was on the board of.

Kara Swisher: Gateway. Were you?

Scott Galloway: That is how incredible Tom Brady is.

Kara Swisher: What was that guy's name? What was the CEO's name?

Scott Galloway: Ted Waite.

Kara Swisher: Ted Waite. Yeah, Ted. Oh, God. I used to interview him a long time ago.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. That was a brick ago, as they say. Michael Dale won, and then Steve Jobs won.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. You know, won all of it. It's a continuing series of things. Which one is your favorite ads? Which was your favorite ad?

Scott Galloway: You know what? This is going to sound... I have a difficult time. I spent my entire first 20 years of my career in brand strategy, so I used to be obsessed with ads. And I'm just so jaded. I find these ads are basically, we have 30 seconds and we need to spend $10 million. So let's put John Travolta in. It just feels like an orgy of money and they're not very creative. The Reddit one, the Reddit one for five seconds.

Kara Swisher: For five seconds, yeah.

Scott Galloway: That was great. And then you went to social media. I thought that was the best money spent. It was a very nice little note. And I thought Steve Huffman made a nice move there.

Kara Swisher: Steve, I just interviewed him. I thought that was the best one. I agree with you. The only one that was mildly amusing was the one of Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani meeting with Adam Levine with the bad phone. That was cute.

Scott Galloway: Cute. And by the way, how good does she look?

Kara Swisher: She looks good. She looks good. He doesn't look as good, I'll have to say. A little too much hard living, seems like.

Scott Galloway: I don't know. That's worth it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I guess so. That's so worth it. They're the most unlikely couple. He seems like such an oaf, but he's not. I think he's actually a very talented musician. In any case, any case.

Scott Galloway: A little shout out to the Red States from the Jungle Cats. He repels everything about that. I'm repelled by him, but I'm sure he's very talented.

Kara Swisher: Hello, Kansas. Who are from the red states than you do. And I have a lot more red state type of relatives. My brother's a chumper.

Scott Galloway: From the mean streets of Calorama.

Kara Swisher: No, no. I don't live in Calorama. That's where my ex-wife is, my friend. I do not live in Calorama. I live in Shaw. That's right. In any case, I do fine. She got her Knox at Georgetown and her master's of fine arts posse.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, right. Let me just say, all I'm saying is I am acquainted with people of the red states.

Kara Swisher: I don't doubt that you have met someone from a red state. No, my relatives. Are you kidding? I've got all these more to get relatives.

Scott Galloway: Oh, that's right. I forgot about that.

Kara Swisher: I'm just, I have relatives. My brother is a Trump voter. My cousin. I live in a double Y, mic drop.

Scott Galloway: No, all of them are doing rather well.

Kara Swisher: But in any case, they are of the Trump persuasion. Anyway, let me just say, I have to give a shout out to you. Twitter is mulling a subscription product, a concept that Scott has long advocated for.

Scott Galloway: Yes. Really? You don't say. Some ideas are poorly being mulled over. You don't say. Are charging for the tweet deck and tipping Twitter users. I would like some tips for my fantastic tweets. And then Twitter stocks instantly jumped on the news. So tell me, tell me of this.

Kara Swisher: One of the most damaging things to our society is these algorithms of amplification. Social media is addictive. It's nicotine. But the shit that gives you cancer, the tobacco is these algorithms that want to get your intention. And they figured out that as a tribal species, they want to enrage you. So the platforms that unite us, Netflix, LinkedIn. You know, I would even argue the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal unite us. But the ad-supported model around algorithms of hate and rage are literally tearing the fabric of our society. So, A, it's good for the Commonwealth. And B, the most accretive move in business history. And business history has been Amazon, Adobe, Restoration Hardware, Apple One moving to a subscription model. And so there are only three things and three things only that Twitter needs to do to be $100 stock.

Kara Swisher: All right, what is it?

Scott Galloway: One is subscription. Got it. Two is going vertical into content. They should acquire CNN, which they could get for $7 to $8 billion, take about a 10% or 15% dilution, and they would overnight be the trusted news source everywhere. And then third, they need a full-time CEO. I'm not going to make personal attacks. I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that that company deserves a full-time CEO. Those three things, triple digits, Twitter.

Kara Swisher: That was very well said, Scott. That was reasonable. You weren't screaming at Jack's beard. It's unusual for you not to drag the beard into a situation.

Scott Galloway: Just jealous.

Kara Swisher: You are. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a lot of hair too. Jack does also like the weekend and unlike you. But tell me more about this because what do you think they'll actually do it or are they just floating the idea? It seems like they take forever to do everything.

Scott Galloway: Well, that's the problem here is the execution. But not the biggest idea.

Kara Swisher: Okay. So what does the subscription product look like? First of all, how long will it take and what does it look like? Will it be partially free? Some free? What do you think?

Scott Galloway: Well, first off, I've been fooled before. They did this head fake a few months ago. They said they were exploring a subscription model, I think, in response to my letter, but I'm a narcissist. And the stock jumped 7%. And then on the next earnings call, they said, hey, Jack, which, by the way, he speaks 6% of the words. On the Twitter earnings calls, 25% of the words at the Square call. Where is his mind? Where is it? And most CEOs speak 50% of the words. Anyways, they asked, well, what about the subscription model? And the CFO gave this bullshit, well, you can expect us to be working on a number of things. In other words, we haven't done a fucking thing because Jack's off at some archipelago with Sean Penn thinking about payments. Anyways, anyways, so this might be a head fake, but this is what something – it looks something like this. Less than 10,000 followers free, so you maintain some of that heft and that viscosity and maybe hold on to those ad dollars while you're making the transition. Ten to 100,000, $10 a month. But once you get to $100,000, $500,000, a million, the reality is there's so much surplus value there. Clubhouse, Substack, all these things were stolen out of the Twitter garage.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I agree.

Scott Galloway: And Clubhouse is about to go subscription because they're like, okay, why don't we just steal all this shit? There's a brand new LG washing machine in the Twitter garage. We'll take that.

Kara Swisher: Right, yeah. So you and I would probably, you have a million and a half. I don't know, you pay $100 a bunch, $200 a bunch. And here's the thing. Why would I pay? I wouldn't pay at all.

Scott Galloway: Oh, yes, you would.

Kara Swisher: No, I wouldn't. I don't get anything for it.

Scott Galloway: Oh, my God, you pay in a heartbeat. I don't make any money from Twitter. You have 1.5 million followers. Who do you virtue signal to once Twitter is gone? Anyways, you would pay.

Kara Swisher: No one. I'm thinking of not virtue signaling anymore, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I struggle with that. You would absolutely pay a little bit of money. And guess what? Their revenues could go down 20%. If they get to 10% of subscription, their stock doubles. Their stock doubles because the markets don't like living with a manic depressive company that's based on the ad model, which creates rage. They like predictable subscription-based revenue. And once you go to a subscription-based platform, IE Netflix, you start focusing on the customer, the person using the shit, as opposed to trying to enrage the customer so you can sell their data or use them like a data feed.

Kara Swisher: I'm not sure they try to enrage the customers. It just happens by virtue.

Scott Galloway: Well, their algorithms are indifferent and figure it out. But even look at Robinhood, right? That is not a subscription model. It's a ad model. Specifically, they're selling order flow. And where is that headed?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Anyway, I think this is very exciting. I think it's good for the Commonwealth. I think it's good for the company. Good, good. Maybe sometime we'll talk about Clubhouse. Although I'm not on that much. I don't want to give away all my stuff.

Scott Galloway: That's how I feel. I'm not on there either. I keep getting invites because I know you.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, no thanks. No. I mean, I think it's fine if there's lots. I think it's whatever. In any case, it's interesting.

Scott Galloway: Well, there's lots of famous people going on it now.

Kara Swisher: I think they drop off, you know, eventually. And it should be won or lost based on interesting rooms, not things. I hear a lot of, I got to come there too. Well, that's because Mark Zuckerberg drop-ins, Elon Musk. I think the real value is in the, they like, they're making splashy things. Those people don't, having run events, they're very hard to keep booking, as they say. So I think what's really important, and to be interesting, have the, because right now they're pretty like lick them up and down kind of interviews. Or just be, or boring, is what I've heard. But it will rise and fall based on the other stuff that's interesting. Like there was a whole sex Kama Sutra room the other day. Like stuff like that. Like, well, not that one in particular, but any of them, like a history one, that's where they might end up doing well. And I'll wonder what happens after the pandemic when people don't have time to sit around and chit-chat on a thing. So we'll see. It's an interesting idea in any case. Okay, on to big stories. Tesla has invested one speaking of Elon Musk who's on here has invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin this comes just as Musk has been promoting cryptocurrencies over Twitter over the past several weeks he's been promoting just today or yesterday Dogecoin which is sort of beanie babies for cryptocurrency Tesla said in its annual report that the company had made the move to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash. The company is also starting, could, well, they said they were thinking of accepting Bitcoin as payment as well. They didn't say they will start. They just, it was rather vague about that. So in any case, they signaled their intent. So Scott, what do you think of all this?

Scott Galloway: Well, Bitcoin is just a phenomenon. And the notion that I believe, and I still can't wrap my head, you know how there's some names you just can't remember? There's just some people you just can't remember the name. Bitcoin is one of those concepts I just can't wrap my head around. I'm, or at least I acknowledge I can't, there's probably a lot of shit I can't wrap my head around, but I've convinced myself I can. And in this instance, I know what I don't know. I don't understand Bitcoin. What I do believe though, and I made this prediction in my annual predictions when it was at 18 grand, that it's going to hit 50 grand. I think it may hit 100 grand because it has developed a reputation as a hedge to inflation. It's a reverse proxy on our trust for central governments who just keep printing money. It's an interesting way to transport money. Try and transport $10 million worth of gold to London. I mean, it's more divisible. They have created a great deal of security that there will, in fact, be scarcity around supply, that there's only going to be 21 million coins. And I had Michael Saylor on my Prop G podcast, and he talked about social energy built into money. And I heard him talk about it. And I'm like, I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, but it sounds really exciting. And I just think of it as almost like an entity that's got now a $600 billion market cap. And I think it will have, based on its awareness and its positioning, probably a bigger market cap than that.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. And I apologize because I'm running on. But I do think there's a bad sign.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. The thing that bothers me about all this. It feels very speculative. We're going to get, like, attacked by the Bitcoin boys, which, by the way, shut the fuck up, boys. At this point. I was literally saying positive things about it on the air, and they, like, came out. And they can shut the fuck up, boys. Like, really, seriously. All I said is it is what it is. What is an asset worth? Why is gold or money or anything worth? It's an interesting hedge if you're making lots of investments. I said all the right things, and they're still not happy. I don't know why. Whatever. But here's what I find troubling. Suck it, boys. Sorry. What I find troubling. But I like that Blake Shelton. What I find troubling is that the key to robust markets, whether it's the Everglades and there's competition, and then you introduce an apex predator, an African python that has no predators, and it starts wreaking havoc with the deer and the alligator population. When seven companies in the S&P 500 are 51% of the market capitalization, when the top two or three companies in every industry control more power, consolidation of power is ultimately bad for an ecosystem and power corrupts. And it bothers me that one individual, even if he's the most brilliant individual on the planet, is moving entire asset classes 10% and 20% one day. When one individual has that kind of power, it usually doesn't end up in good places. Markets are meant to be such that if somebody tries to corner the silver market as the Hunt brothers did, if Bill Ackman tries to create a narrative around Herbalife and a short squeeze, it's good to have what I'll call a collective ecosystem where no one person has too much power. And he's basically – he says buy Signal and a company called Signal Technologies, which has nothing to do with the messaging app, goes up 1,500 percent.

Kara Swisher: Yeah there is something weird Dogecoin It was a 34 who basically said I don get what going on here And it says on the homepage this is the best kind of dog I find this, and again, I'm ready for the OK boomer from the Tesla and the Bitcoin guys, but I think healthy markets and ecosystems, no one individual has too much influence.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I think here's what I do. Look, they always act like Elon's the first one to make this. Lots of companies have invested in Bitcoin as a hedge. Lots of investment companies, lots of banks, all kinds of people. I've heard people saying, I'm playing in Bitcoin now just for a hedge, just for an extra asset. I'm going to go up and then I'll get in and out. Speculative. All of them are speculative, essentially. And then Elon does it and everyone goes nuts, right? I do think he does lean into things that are really interesting and in the future. I had a pretty interesting discussion with Mark Cuban about this, same thing. He doesn't know if it's going to be Bitcoin or cryptocurrency as a useful mechanism. and that's really what I think is what people are waiting for. But nonetheless, it's like an asset class, like anything else. Like, what is gold? What is this? And so, I mean, you can have jewelry. I guess you can't make Bitcoin. Oh, there is Bitcoin jewelry made of gold.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but an asset class typically is connected to cash flows or can be repurposed for fillings like gold or rare earth materials.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I get it. I get it. I'm just saying.

Scott Galloway: This thing is more like, I think of it, and again, it's hard to pin it down. It's more like a currency where just two parties agree it's a store of value and that it's worth something.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, well, that's all right. That's what it is, right? But I'm thinking, I've been saying, and this is one of my flaws as an investor, and I have many flaws as an investor. I don't want to buy something unless I can wrap my head around buying it for 10 years.

Scott Galloway: You're like Warren Buffett said that.

Kara Swisher: Look, it's not timing the market. It's timing the market. Anyways.

Scott Galloway: Anyways. So, by the way, just real quick, a real quick stat.

Kara Swisher: Sure.

Scott Galloway: Because I think a lot of people are being seduced into day trading. If you, 80% of day traders lose money. You know how many people in the history of the markets who buy more than five stocks and hold those five stocks over 20 years? You know what percentage make money?

Kara Swisher: Mm-hmm. What?

Scott Galloway: 100%. Yeah. 100%. And I can tell you as someone who was literally 22 yesterday, play to our species flaw. And that is time will go much faster than you think. Play for the long game. Look at Jeff Bezos. We keep saying that stock. We seem so dull. Play for the long. Yeah, there's no DOPA hit. If you want DOPA hits, I'm all for DOPA. But just recognize DOPA costs money. It's not a way to make money. Dopa usually involves—

Kara Swisher: Scott, you don't want young people to invest. Don't you understand that?

Scott Galloway: No, I'm kidding.

Kara Swisher: Oh, yeah, no. I'm trying to protect my hedge fund friends, and I'm crying over my losses, which I have not registered. Scott, on that one, suck it, boys. Like, suck it. That's not what he's saying. If you actually listen to him, he's talking about responsible investing. He also says, go ahead and speculate if you want. Go ahead. Nobody cares.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, look, I think—

Kara Swisher: That's what it is. Nobody cares, but they need to say it all the time.

Scott Galloway: Look, I think gambling and strip clubs are a ton of fun. Great. You lose money. You lose money there. By the way, I haven't been to a strip club in 10 years just such that people don't come after me. Anyways, don't know how I got there. Don't know how I got there. In any case, we are for people investing. The way you get rich. We are for people investing. It's like I'm that guy with the Lamborghinis. I know how you can get rich. That's the good news. The bad news is I know how to get you rich slowly.

Kara Swisher: Yep.

Scott Galloway: And it's about discipline. It's about investing every day. And you know what? There's a personal analogy here. The people with the most rewarding, enormous portfolios of satisfaction and happiness make small investments in relationships every day their entire lives. And they wake up and they have wonderful economic and emotional security.

Kara Swisher: Yep, yep, yep. Anyways. I agree. I agree. I don't know how we got here. I were just mad. Where am I? You know what? But here's the thing. It'll be interesting because the mayor of Miami is looking at ways to incorporate cryptocurrencies into the municipality. He's all up and everyone in Tex Grill, the mayor by name, Francisco Suarez. So you'd of course be there. But it's interesting. It's interesting. Good for you, Elon. I think, again, 80% of it is forward-looking. 20% of it is stick it to the man.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I read that. And everybody else, you shouldn't. The only reason you should do what Elon says is because the money goes up. And so if you're a speculator, do what Elon says and then get the fuck out if it looks like it's going south. That's what I would say. But, you know, and he is forward. It is forward-looking, but he's not the only one. There's lots of people that have been doing this. And especially as a hedge, as to other investments. You know what you're going to see? I mean, look at the four companies that have converted their treasury into Bitcoin. It's Square, Tesla, Twitter, and MicroStrategy. You're going to see 40 companies in the next 90 days.

Kara Swisher: Agreed, agreed.

Scott Galloway: A portion of their treasury.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, they have to. They can't feel like they left out. It's a great branding move. The old guys can't feel like they left out. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back. We're going to talk about Apple getting into cars briefly. And then a friend of Pivot, acting chair of the FCC. Jessica Rosenworcel is coming on. She's not yet the chairperson, might become that. And we're going to talk about FCC issues.

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Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, we're back. Let's talk about Apple cars briefly. Apple talks with Hyundai and Kia to manufacture autonomous vehicles fell apart over the weekend. Apple started looking for potential partners late last year as the company considered plans to launch driverless electric cars in the next five years. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was in talk with Hyundai to develop the vehicles and Kia to manufacture them in Georgia. Then over the weekend, the company filed, the Kia did, officially saying they're not in partnership with Apple. They were not in the partnership talks with Apple to make those vehicles. This has been going on for a long time, and this is this Project Titan, I think it's called. So, any insights into it? I haven't been focused on it because I think they're not that interested in it, but maybe I'm wrong. I was going to ask you because you just have more feelers. I can give you a sense from a shareholder.

Scott Galloway: Give me a sense from a shareholder perspective.

Kara Swisher: Well, okay. So if you were to add up, the world has something like, I don't know, $120 trillion in assets or something. And then if you collectively added up everybody's time and then you multiplied it by their income, you would end up with a correlation between attention times the capital you control divided by that total asset class. In other words, the amount of money that streaming video platforms have invested in TV is because at five hours a day of consumption from the wealthiest people in the world, Americans, it wasn't getting the type of capital it garnered. So now the streaming video platforms are investing more in original scripted television than the defense budgets of many G7 nations. Because even if they don't get money back right away in the form of box office, they can monetize your attention other ways, whether it's getting you to sign up for Prime or buy a $1,200 phone that costs $599 to produce. So there's an arbitrage here around trying to find things that command a lot of our attention graph, especially among rich people that have a low market cap. One of them is we spend, a lot of people, especially a lot of wealthy people, spend an hour, two hours a day in their car. That is a point of attention because you are interfacing with an operating system.

Scott Galloway: Sure, yep.

Kara Swisher: And the auto industry, because it hasn't been very forward-looking, whether it's internal combustion engines, commands about the entire market cap of Twitter if you're not Tesla. So, I think they see an opportunity there the same way they see an opportunity in streaming video. And if they can get an operating system into, I think they're smart to probably get a manufacturing partner.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: But if Apple, for every incremental minute that Apple gets from the wealthiest people in the world, which is the billion iOS users, in front of their iOS, they get another $10 billion in market capitalization.

Scott Galloway: Right.

Kara Swisher: So, they're going to go after, where do we spend our time? Media, all right, they're all over that. The other place they're going to really look to is, I think they're going to buy, one of the operating systems guys is going to buy Peloton. If they can get another 30 minutes a day from Oprah and President Biden, that's worth it. So, and this is just now they're going after the car. And also what they also see is at $800 billion, the moment Apple displays and they have Tim Cook or some of his very compelling people on stage displaying an Apple car, I will buy an Apple car. It's the strongest brand in the world. It could look like the Pontiac Aztec from Breaking Bad and I will buy it. The moment they get real about a car, I believe Tesla loses about a quarter of a trillion dollars to Apple because Apple will be seen as a credible, one of the few. Nobody's worried about Tesla when General Motors announces the new Pontiac Leaf. If Apple gets into cars in a serious way, I don't think if Tesla was at $800 billion, they would have reignited Titan. My feeling is they have said, you know what, this is just too big for us to ignore in terms of the attention of market capitalization. But ultimately, it's a play for a greater portion of the wealthiest people in the world of their attention graph.

Scott Galloway: I agree. I think that's a very smart analysis, Scott Galloway. I don't know what else to say. I think you're right. I think it's a lot harder to make these things. And Elon certainly does have this, as you can see, by anything he talks about. He said everybody eat pretzels. Everybody of his fans would eat pretzels. I think he has that sort of swaggering Iron Man kind of thing going on.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, 100%. I agree with you. I think if Apple got into it with all its money, it's just the question of who they have that's truly committed to doing this in a great way. Because it has to be a perfect product. I think Peloton's a whole lot lighter lift for them and in areas they're quite good at. And it's much more complex. So they'd really have to hire up and really get people that are compelling and I think focus almost entirely on the product itself. But you're right. I would buy an Apple. I don't own a car and I would buy an Apple car. I would.

Scott Galloway: I don't.

Kara Swisher: I would. First in line. First in line. I would. I would. And I don't know why I don't buy a Tesla. They're too expensive. I'm worried about the service. I know they're great. Tesla's a great car. It's a great car. You have one. My brother has one. It's a great car. I know they are. But I think I would, I still haven't bought one, right?

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: So I would buy a, I don't know why it is. I'm just like, I don't need it. I don't think it's that, as great as I need to pay for it and maintain it and stuff like that. But certainly an Apple car I would think about.

Scott Galloway: You drive a Pink Hummer, right?

Kara Swisher: No. Pink Hummer? What was your car when you were a kid, when you were in T.I.?

Kara Swisher: We had a Pacer. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. My dad had a Gran Torino.

Scott Galloway: Oh, wow.

Kara Swisher: Then a Plymouth Fury. We had muscle cars.

Scott Galloway: Oh, wow. Yeah. We had a Pacer. That Pacer was a hell of a car. I love that car. It was like a gumdrop.

Kara Swisher: That was literally—the AMC Pacer—that was literally such a bad car.

Scott Galloway: It's iconic. It was such a good car.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. The whole back of it was like the windows. I love the Pacer.

Scott Galloway: I love the Pacer. Oh, God. I love that car. I love that car. I've been getting into Twitter wars with people who accuse me of being this rich hedge funder, like protecting my friends. I'm like, I was driving a 1984 Honda Accord until I was 35. Where do you get this shit? By the way, Honda Accord, amazing car. What was your first car?

Kara Swisher: A Honda Civic with a stick shift. I have always had stick shifts, and I didn't really know how to drive a stick shift. My boyfriend from high school taught me once, and I bought the car in Pennsylvania where my grandmother lived, and I drove it all by myself back to Washington, D.C., learning how to drive a stick shift along the way. That was it. I only had stick shifts.

Scott Galloway: Civics are awesome cars.

Kara Swisher: I only have stick shift. The little one that looks like a boot?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, yeah, it was tiny. Oh, those are great cars. Those are tiny.

Kara Swisher: Then I had a Volkswagen, and then I had a... I don't know, I had a bunch of cars. And I don't have any money. No cars, no more. But I would buy an Apple car. So you think they're going to get into it? You think that is really the way it's going to go?

Scott Galloway: I think any $850 billion industry that involves technology and a brand, Apple looks at it and goes, "Okay, okay." Their Greek lenses get going. But you're right. It's a big area. So I don't know. Maybe they're just screwing with Elon and stuff like that. Who knows? But these talks are very complex, and they have to have someone else make it. They're not going to be able to make it themselves.

Kara Swisher: I always thought they were going to buy Tesla.

Scott Galloway: Too late.

Kara Swisher: I know. And also, Tim Cook was probably like, "Ugh, that guy." You know what I mean? They're all sort of older there, and they'd be like, "Oh." I don't think he'd sell it either. Although, at one point, he was thinking of selling it to a range of people, I think, in the dark days.

Scott Galloway: Funding secured. Funding secured. Funding secured.

Kara Swisher: Yes, a long time ago. In any case, it'll be interesting to see. If you had to, do you think it would face antitrust scrutiny if it did this?

Scott Galloway: You know, that's a really interesting one. I don't think so because I think the auto market is pretty competitive. And I guess the question would be, do they have an unfair advantage? The honest answer is I don't know. I think Apple is less prone to antitrust than the rest right now.

Kara Swisher: Okay. Less susceptible, I should say. In any case, it's very interesting to see if they get in this and how they make it and who else will be in it. Is there any other player you think will enter the picture? Google's sort of always around the edges and was one of the first.

Scott Galloway: There aren't any. But Google's basically said—kind of Whitney Tilson, this great investor, is talking about transportation as a service. And he said, there's Google, there's a bunch of them. Google, I think, is committed to being the software. And basically what Apple has said is Google is the technology, and that's largely the play that Apple's going to do. But Apple's going to take their brand and put it on the hood, probably, of a product that has 37 parts that come from different parts of the world that only Volkswagen has the supply chain to figure out or Toyota.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: But I think they're smart to partner with someone around the very difficult and low-margin business of coordinating that kind of supply chain. It also signifies a transition here. Automobiles used to be about product, atoms, and upgrades to the physical product. Now it's really about software. My brakes and my transmission and my tune-up can happen with software over the airwaves. And they realize it's increasingly more about software and zeros and ones than about atoms.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I hope they make my Pacer when it comes back. In any case, moving on, we have a friend of Pivot. We have with us this acting FCC chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel. Jessica, welcome to the show. Or Chairwoman, welcome to the show.

Jessica Rosenworcel: Thank you for having me.

Kara Swisher: Wow. So I saw your tweet. We've known each other like a brick, right? We've known each other a long, long time. So you tweeted—I caught my attention—your first 10 days as acting chairwoman, or chairperson, whatever you like, of the FCC, which is the Federal Communications Commission. Talk a little bit about those accomplishments and what made them your priority.

Jessica Rosenworcel: Well, here I am taking over this agency that has all sorts of responsibility for making the digital age reach everyone. So right out of the gate, I thought, let's make it our priority and hit the ground running. No apologies. So we came right out and said we're going to work on something called the Emergency Broadband Benefit, which Congress passed late last year and can help low-income households get online, which during this pandemic, being able to go online is a lifeline. And then I also have made it a priority to do some work to map where broadband is and is not in this country because you can't manage the problems you don't measure. So we've got to figure that out so we reach 100% of us with high-speed service. And then I also started a proceeding to do more with telehealth because that's also been a lifeline in this pandemic. And then I made it a priority to try to address what I call the homework gap. Because when I was in school, we didn't need the internet. We needed paper, a pencil, and my brother leaving me alone if I had schoolwork. But between the pandemic and just the realities of the digital age, every child needs internet access to succeed in school. And we have too many kids who are sitting outside of fast food restaurants right now just trying to go to class. They're locked out of virtual school if they don't have internet access. So I want to focus on those things.

Kara Swisher: It's a shame. It's an incredible shame. I mean, my kids have a difficult time and they're lucky. You know what I mean? It's already very problematic to resume school and keep people excited, et cetera. But talk about why is this taking so long? Explain to people—I know who used to run it, Ajit Pai. So talk to us about how the FCC works. We had FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter on. It's a similar thing. Explain the agency so people understand what you guys are responsible for.

Jessica Rosenworcel: Sure. The Federal Communications Commission has been around since 1934. That is a long time ago. I certainly haven't been around that long. And communications was different way back then. But today, it really oversees the communications we rely on for every aspect of our life. It's broadband. It's broadcasting. It's satellite. It's radio. It's telephone service. Try to go a day without using one of those things. I think it would be pretty hard.

Kara Swisher: And internet.

Jessica Rosenworcel: And internet. Yeah, yeah. But the communications aspect of it, not the platforms, but the sort of engineering that resides below it that makes sure we can make connections. That's some of the most important infrastructure in the digital age. And so over time, the Federal Communications Commission, I think, has become more important in civic and commercial life. And right now it has four commissioners.

Kara Swisher: Right. And more political. We have five.

Jessica Rosenworcel: Right. So now you're—is it a 2-2 thing or is it Republicans and then the Democrat will be chairperson, correct?

Kara Swisher: It is a 2-2 thing at the moment. So that's got to forge some compromise to get things done. But I hope in the not too distant future, there'll be a majority that reflects the administration. So I'm going to ask one more question, then Scott will have a question. But who—Ajit Pai just stepped down and left, correct? He's gone.

Jessica Rosenworcel: That's right.

Kara Swisher: And so what was taking them so long? And here's your chance to take a shot, but what happens where this has been sitting around since we've been in this pandemic for quite a bit of time now? No kidding.

Jessica Rosenworcel: I just think you have to choose your priorities. We can make incremental progress when it comes to getting every kid online, or we can decide to make it a national priority. So that's why right out of the gate, we started with the homework gap and also getting low-income households online, because too many of them are just locked out of opportunity, especially now in this pandemic.

Kara Swisher: Scott?

Scott Galloway: So my question is, Chairwoman—by the way, nice to meet you.

Jessica Rosenworcel: Nice to meet you too.

Scott Galloway: What's the friction? Is it money? Is it that mom is at home in many of these low-income households, so it's difficult? The dispersion of responsibility is not being picked up in the home? That feels obvious. I think most reasonable people would go, "Yes, low-income kids should have access to water, i.e. bandwidth." What's the friction here? Why is this not happening?

Jessica Rosenworcel: The answer is really all of the above. Look, if it was easy to solve our nation's digital divide, we would have done it already. But I think in the end, it's really two problems. The last administration focused on one, which was how do we get it to rural America? Those places where infrastructure could pass them by without some stimulus from federal or state programs. That's important. We've got to reach every community in this country because people don't have a fair shot living there without it. But we also have to recognize there's this second problem, and it involves affordability. A lot of households right now are under serious economic strain. Making sure that you can keep paying that bill and keep groceries on the table is important, but it's really vital right now because it means, can your kid continue to go to school? So I think we've got to focus on that second piece in addition to the first—deployment and adoption.

Scott Galloway: So subsidizing or forcing regulated monopolies that control the access to bandwidth—some sort of either forcing a certain amount of access to low income or just subsidizing it, just saying, "Okay, we're going to do like a housing plan." This isn't really a new idea, right?

Jessica Rosenworcel: Back in 1985, when Ronald Reagan was president and most phones had a jack in the wall and a curly cord, policymakers in Washington came up with this idea called Lifeline. Lifeline was a program to make sure that every household had basic telephone service. So if they had an emergency, they could use the phone. If they wanted to seek out a job, they had a phone number for someone to call them back. If you advance to the here and now, what you have to recognize is dial tone in the digital age is internet access. And we need programs to get us all connected 100%.

Kara Swisher: So you have emergency powers to do that right now. Is that correct?

Jessica Rosenworcel: Well, we're working on figuring out how to use the law as it exists to see what progress we can make as soon as possible.

Kara Swisher: You could just do it without any legislation or any permission. Is that correct or not?

Jessica Rosenworcel: But we're going to have to go look at the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the Communications Act of 1934 and find a legal way forward. So we are working hard to do that because this crisis has put so much strain. What's in our way? I've got to make sure that there's a pathway that makes it legal under the law and that I convince a majority of my colleagues. But I just don't think this should be hard because if we entered this pandemic thinking broadband access was nice to have, I think we've proven conclusively it's need to have for every household.

Kara Swisher: But you can't just convince these telcos and others and the cable companies to just do this.

Jessica Rosenworcel: Well, we're putting a lot of pressure on them, too. Some of them have some programs, and good for them. But we've got to make sure that those programs reach everyone everywhere. And right now they do not.

Kara Swisher: They do not. All right, Scott.

Scott Galloway: You mentioned something about telemedicine and telehealth. My sense is that's going to be probably one of the most interesting sectors in the world. Largest business, arguably, in the world, 17% of the U.S. economy, ripe for disruption. Telehealth remote medicine is super exciting. What is the FCC's role in that? And what are any initial thoughts around why and how that needs to be regulated or what you can do to foment increased primary health care over remote means?

Jessica Rosenworcel: First of all, I totally agree with you. I think one of the most exciting things that's going on in our economy is the expansion of telemedicine. I spent some time during this pandemic visiting with practitioners here in Washington, finding out what new things they're doing. It turns out there's a whole bunch of health care issues that can be managed more easily over internet access and by keeping connected. They can get people in their households who are not likely to show up at successive appointments more easily using a device. They can set them up to read their pulse, to read the oxygen in their blood and do all that stuff from home. I was just talking to some folks here in Washington at Children's Hospital, and they were describing how behavioral therapy done at home makes people so much more comfortable that their practitioners were finding it was easier and better than bringing folks into this generic setting at the hospital.

Scott Galloway: Chairwoman, I'm going to interrupt you and I apologize. Let's assume we buy into that and buy into the promise. How does the FCC catalyze and expedite that?

Jessica Rosenworcel: In the very near term, we were just given $250 million to give out to telehealth projects all around the country. That's on top of another $200 million that was given out by the agency last year. What I think we're going to have to do in the future is study all of that funding because we're in that crisis mode now where we're just pushing it out, and try to find out where we get the greatest improvements in healthcare at the greatest reductions in cost. So there's going to have to be some study down the road, but that's going to be a mix of getting bandwidth to these facilities and to these patients and also studying reimbursement and licensing, which are probably impediments in ways that technology is not.

Scott Galloway: Meaning that you're able to do this telehealth in a safe HIPAA-compliant way, which has really held back healthcare in a lot of ways online.

Kara Swisher: So what about the net neutrality debate? Is that going to be picked up by the—that's been going on since I was a young girl.

Jessica Rosenworcel: I feel the same way.

Kara Swisher: And you too. So where is that now?

Jessica Rosenworcel: Back in 2017, the last administration rolled back net neutrality. Over the objection of myself and the vast majority of the American public. The year before last, I think the House passed a bill to try to bring it back. It got stalled in the Senate. And so while the FCC stepped out of the fray, some states stepped in, like California, decided to build their own net neutrality laws. And then the last administration started to sue them. So we've got this sort of mess in the courts. We've got state activity. And we have an FCC that vacated the space. It's my hope in time that we can again make net neutrality the law of the land, but we're going to have to figure out a pathway to do that.

Kara Swisher: So let me ask you, because this is a perfect example of what happens with a lot of like the FEC or the FTC—things switch. Now the FTC has actually stayed relatively bipartisan in a weird way, but the FCC has always been sort of the flashpoint of partisan politics for a long time. How do you stop it shifting from administration to administration? Every administration, they just shift it completely and nothing stays in place, or is that just not possible?

Jessica Rosenworcel: Let me be optimistic for a second and say that I think we've got to work on making that possible. When you look at things like telemedicine, telehealth, or spectrum policy, there's a lot of opportunity for bipartisanship. I don't think we've seen that in recent years, but I want to see if we can do some things to bring it back. I think that's good for the agency and good for the country.

Kara Swisher: But how do you get to a situation where we don't go back and forth? Net neutrality is going to be debated until the end of time, until we are communicating by our brains, essentially, by psychic.

Jessica Rosenworcel: Well, we'll see. I do know that it's an issue where people have really strongly held opinions.

Kara Swisher: What's yours?

Jessica Rosenworcel: Mine, I definitely support net neutrality. I think non-discrimination matters.

Scott Galloway: I ask this generally not as a comment, but trying to get your view on this. I immediately went to net neutrality is really important, and I was outraged because I think I immediately kind of adopted the narrative of people I trust and media I trust. Since net neutrality was done away with, the sky has not fallen. Is there anything that maybe we overestimated the fears around net neutrality?

Jessica Rosenworcel: That's a good point. I would say that the providers of our nation's broadband service have been on their best behavior because there's been these looming lawsuits and this looming legislation. It's a good fact that they've been on their best behavior. We've all benefited from it. But at the end of the day, if you're a provider and you've got the technical capability to block or throttle services, you've got the engineering in place and you've got the business incentive to do so, and the FCC gave you the green light, I think those are things you'll experiment with. I'm not sure that redounds to the benefit of the American public who would like to see an open internet.

Scott Galloway: Well, how do you see innovation in the sector then? Their argument has always been, "We can't innovate if we have these strictures."

Jessica Rosenworcel: I think that innovation in this sector comes from competition for that broadband pipe. Let's go ahead and see what we can do with fixed wireless service, with low earth orbiting satellites, and all these new technologies that can bring bandwidth into our home. I think competition is where you find innovation. That's something that we should promote first and foremost.

Kara Swisher: And then what do you think is going to be the big—this was a longtime fight, the whole net neutrality fight and some others. What are you looking towards that you think the FCC's role in internet regulations is going to be more broadly? Will you play any role in any of these other efforts going on by regulatory efforts? Or what do you think the big issues, if you had to pick them, are going forward?

Jessica Rosenworcel: I think we're going to spend a lot of time talking about Section 230.

Kara Swisher: That's right. You were charged. I can't be the first person to point that out.

Jessica Rosenworcel: The next thing I think we're going to spend a lot of time thinking about.

Kara Swisher: I'm going to keep you on that. You were charged by that executive order by President Trump, correct? Are you still under that?

Jessica Rosenworcel: Well, they filed a petition with us that's still pending. But the substance of that petition seems to try to make the FCC into the president's speech police. And I don't think we should take that bait. So I think Congress is going to spend a lot of time thinking about Section 230. It already is. But I think the other big issue is when you start talking about next generation wireless and 5G. Right now there's so much hype. The hype machine is in overdrive. But when you get past the point that you're just talking about mobile phones and you start thinking about sensors on all sorts of equipment and in the world around us, we're going to have this constant stream of intelligence explaining to us where we're efficient and where we're effective. And then we're going to use that data to inform machine learning and eventually artificial intelligence. To me, that's where 5G is most powerful. The challenge associated with it is getting it everywhere, but also recognizing that it expands the surface for cyber vulnerabilities and privacy issues. I don't think we fully grappled with that next. It's not here yet because most of our discussion is about the phone. When we talk about mobile, that's like the sun in the center of the universe. But I think the real power in 5G is when it moves into the landscape and the world around us.

Kara Swisher: So just returning to 230 for a second, do you think there should be carve-outs, just as there's carve-outs for sex trafficking from the protections of 230 for things like health or national defense? Do you think there should be carve-outs?

Jessica Rosenworcel: I think that these are subjects that are above my pay grade right now.

Kara Swisher: As chairperson of the FCC?

Jessica Rosenworcel: Section 230 is in the law, largely self-effectuating, but the agency has not really been asked to make those kinds of decisions. But I think that's a dialogue we need to have because online platforms and social media are frustrating. They're sources of misinformation. We need to make sure that their incentives are right for keeping us civil and safe.

Kara Swisher: So essentially, you seem to be saying—and this is my last question—that the FCC's role here is not one, that you all shouldn't have one. Who should, if that's the case?

Jessica Rosenworcel: Well, right now, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act amended Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. So that's that for the law nerds out there, which means that it falls within the FCC's general purview. But it's always been perceived as a section of the law that largely is self-enacting. And so major changes come from Congress. They don't come from the regulatory agency.

Kara Swisher: But won't they ask you for an opinion? Won't you be meeting with senators and congresspeople saying, you're very knowledgeable on these issues?

Jessica Rosenworcel: In this area, we don't have a history of rules or precedent. So while that's normally the case, I would say this might be different. But we will study and be responsive if asked.

Kara Swisher: I don't think you want to get near it, right? I don't think you want to be the speech police, correct?

Jessica Rosenworcel: I think that making the FCC into the speech police has problems, and it's why I opposed what the last administration tried to do.

Kara Swisher: Okay. Commissioner Chairperson Rosenworcel, thank you so much for coming on today.

Scott Galloway: Nice meeting you, Chairperson. We really appreciate it.

Kara Swisher: When is the next person going to be selected, the fifth wheel?

Jessica Rosenworcel: Oh, we'll see what happens. That is not yet clear, but I'm going to do the best I can.

Kara Swisher: What does that mean? What does that mean, "not yet clear"?

Jessica Rosenworcel: I think that the administration has taken some time to get up and running. And I will do my best to make sure that this agency is in good stead no matter what, if I am there for the short term or the long term.

Kara Swisher: Okay. Thank you so much.

Jessica Rosenworcel: Thank you.

Kara Swisher: We really appreciate it. All right. Take care. Thanks.

[Guest exits]

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott. We're going to take one more quick break, and I'm going to prepare my speech police outfit, and we'll be back for Wednesday.

Scott Galloway: I didn't find that meal very satisfying. I think the chairperson should run for office. I think she is very deft at avoiding. She can't say anything.

Kara Swisher: I don't agree with you. They're in a position where there's four people, and she's got to make some deals. She's got to make deals.

Scott Galloway: I'm hearing commissioners take a stand and have a view for them.

Kara Swisher: Not when there's two, two, and they've got to figure out who's going to be it. They need a tiebreaker. They need a tiebreaker. Just like any other. So until then, they have to be cooperative and unified, like Bruce Springsteen said in his Jeep ad. We all are at fault for what's going on, even though we're not all at fault for what's going on. Anyway, we'll be back for Wins and Fails.

[Ad break]

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott, wins and fails. What do you got?

Scott Galloway: There is some exciting news. There's actually been more new businesses started in 2020. People are being very resourceful because the wealth of wealthy people has exploded, and oftentimes they're angel investors or the capital source. A lot of savings. And people are being very innovative. Now, the flip side of that is—and people don't like to talk about this because we've romanticized small businesses—the best thing that could happen for new businesses is to let existing small businesses go out of business if they're not prepared for a post-COVID world. Propping them up, if you don't let the gale cyclone of creative destruction blow, all that is is protecting old people's wealth so young people can't come in and start their own businesses with that real estate that's now vacant. But anyways, there is something exciting happening around new businesses. I think that's encouraging. My fail.

Kara Swisher: Can I just note on that? I have to say, I was walking the other day, and I was thinking all these restaurants, for example, so many of them are trying so hard to do new and interesting things. It was quite touching on some level. Someone did something in a restaurant setting, and I was like, "Oh, wow, that is a great idea." I kept thinking what a great idea when I was walking down the street. And I kind of like that idea of them. You're still facing incredible odds right now, especially in the dead of winter on the East Coast. But I still felt a little bit of hope. I know it sounds crazy, but I thought, how creative, especially in New York, for example. That was one place I saw a lot of that. Do you have a loss? I want you to finish yours.

Scott Galloway: Yes, I do. So, fantastic. And I'm totally shilling the New York Times, but gosh, I forgot her name. Woman wrote this fantastic article, "Working Moms."

Kara Swisher: Jessica Bennett.

Scott Galloway: Jessica Bennett. It was a whole series of articles, too, by the way. It just brought up—we have lost, and this was your guest last week—we have taken almost every labor participation for women has come back to the 80s.

Kara Swisher: That was great. And I'm really into this. The loss, the silver lining here, one of them is, what do we leave behind? Isn't this an opportunity to really rethink things? For example, I love this plan, Marshall Plan for Moms, that your colleague came on the show and talked about. But why do we transfer a trillion dollars from mostly young people to the wealthiest cohort in America in the form of Social Security? Social Security has taken seniors who were 38% in poverty down to 11%. Why wouldn't we continue to give money to those 11%? Why wouldn't we have Social Security for young people who've incurred the greatest shit-kicking for the first time in our society?

Scott Galloway: Interesting.

Kara Swisher: Do not make as much money at 30 as their parents. All of this stuff—I believe Black Lives Matter, GameStop—I think it all comes back to one thing. The central compact in America that if you play by the rules, you're a good kid, that by the time you're 30, you should be making more money than your parents. For the first time, that is not happening. But we continue to tax them such that Pop-Pop can take a cruise on Silver Seas. Why wouldn't we think about social security for young people to give them a start?

Scott Galloway: I think if you were running the vaccine program, you would vaccinate no old people, wouldn't you?

Kara Swisher: That's not true. Are you kidding? I'm like you, spending hours on the sites trying to get my in-laws vaccinated. Where did that come from?

Scott Galloway: I don't know. No, I just—we have—I think there's an opportunity here to rethink.

Kara Swisher: I agree on that. Young people, the wealth of people under the age of 40 has come from 19% to 9%.

Scott Galloway: The wealth of billionaires has come from 1.9 trillion. Why do these retail investors think you're in with the hedge fund guys?

Kara Swisher: I agree. Well, my buddies that I hang out with in a steam room and smoke cigars with—who are these people that I'm hanging out with and protecting?

Scott Galloway: You do look like you could be in a steam room. Let's be clear. You fit the bill. Sure, I could see you wrapped in a towel, smoking a stogie.

Kara Swisher: I do think some of this is the latest.

Scott Galloway: I think I look like such an old douchebag that I'm an easy target. But anyways, if we're truly going to redistribute income to where it has a greater return, why wouldn't we be investing more in our young people?

Scott Galloway: I just don't get it. Why wouldn't we have social security for young people versus old people? Old people, wealthiest cohort in America, in history.

Kara Swisher: I like this. Globally. I like this.

Scott Galloway: I had a great discussion with my oldest son about what he wants to do with his life. I'm not going to relate it, but it was really great. I thought it was a really interesting, innovative ideas that he was having, and I was very appreciative that he was doing that.

Kara Swisher: Yes, they have a lot of energy. They have a lot of energy and ideas, and they should be investing. But here's what's happening.

Scott Galloway: Well, I am investing. Again, I bring everything back to GameStop. They think there was a conspiracy against them between hedge funds. No, that's not true. That just didn't happen. It's worse than that. There's a conspiracy against them at the federal level. At every level, there's a conspiracy to make them less wealthy and the existing rich old people more wealthy.

Kara Swisher: Well, speaking of rich old people, I would say it's a win. Yes, go ahead. Fox canceling the highest rated show, Lou Dobbs Tonight, after its host was sued as part of a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit. How much did you love that? How much did you love that? That made me happier than I could believe it.

Scott Galloway: I don't know why it was so schadenfreude. I'm like, don't feel bad for people who lose their jobs. And I thought, that asshole. Like, he's been spewing so much election bullshit, him and Janine, Judge, whatever the hell.

Kara Swisher: Pirro.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, her. Getting Maria Bartiroma sleeping a little less well right now. I don't know, but they're moving her to the main show, which is interesting. She's another one. Like, all of them. But Lou Dobbs, chef's kiss.

Kara Swisher: I'm sorry. My mom had him on once, and I literally wanted to take the television and throw it out the window. It was just so infuriatingly inaccurate, and it was spewed at my mother, and I was sort of, like, furious.

Scott Galloway: I saw a woman last night. Couldn't it happen to a nicer guy? This wonderful woman I know. She's in her, I think, her mid-60s, late 60s. And I was speaking to her last night, and she said, no, I'm not taking the vaccine and just kind of went on, and I'm not going to New York because it's crime-ridden. And she watches Lou Dobbs. And I think this goes to a larger narrative. And that is, I don't think you can unify as a country until there's some accountability and we decide that the truth is a thing again. And when you constantly knowingly spread misinformation that results in smart people or maybe not smart, but people that 14% of black Americans don't trust vaccines. And there's a history behind that. But when you knowingly spread that kind of stuff, I think there has to be accountability.

Kara Swisher: This is a win. He started with his anti-immigration tropes. Awful nonsense. And like, he's the one that got, you know, this was in the stories, and this is my last thing. Trump called him during Council of Economic Advisors meetings and like dialed him in. That old coot. Like, are you kidding me? Like, that is just like, goodbye, goodbye, sir.

Scott Galloway: Where does he's going to fire up again? The space.com website. Remember that? Remember that? He left CNN to go to space.com. That's right. He left CNN because he was a birther. That's why. He's just an appalling human being in terms of how he's conducted his career. And couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Kara Swisher: He's appalled. We're appalled. We are appalled. We're officially appalled.

Scott Galloway: Someday someone's going to say, I'm so glad that Scott and Kara show got dumped for. What do we get dumped for? Something bad. We got to go down hard, Scott, I have to say. That's how it's going to go for us. It happens to everybody.

Kara Swisher: They're trying to pull down Winston Churchill's statue now. Oh, stop it. Are you going to do the woke culture bullshit to me? It happens to everybody. Oh, God. It's called sometimes people reevaluate.

Scott Galloway: Algorithm for happiness, Kara. Algorithm for happiness, be rich and anonymous.

Kara Swisher: Whatever. Yeah, whatever. Be rich and anonymous. In any case.

Scott Galloway: Take it from me. Let me just tell you something. And I'm neither.

Kara Swisher: Some things are overuse of attacking people. Some things are just accountability. Like we can differentiate between the two. Thank you very much. Don't woke cancel culture stuff on me. I'm not going to have it. I'm not having it.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, I'm a little bit testy today, aren't I?

Kara Swisher: It's interesting. Yeah, but it's a nice testy. It's a nice testy. All right, Scott. You're all salsa no chip today. I like that. I like that. I like that. Scott, we have a lot of plans. Scott and I have a lot of plans, but they aren't come to fruition yet. But they include cocktails, correct?

Scott Galloway: That's right. There'll be a lot of fun. Scott and I are making fun plans for the next few years.

Kara Swisher: Can we tease one event? What? Tech event, Miami? Well, maybe. Can we tease one event? We're talking to that mayor who talks to everybody. Let's just say he's a little bit loose.

Scott Galloway: Do you think he's flirting with other people or just us?

Kara Swisher: He flirts with everybody. That guy, Francisco, come on.

Scott Galloway: I don't care, though. It's Miami. They're flirts.

Kara Swisher: Yes. I don't care. No, listen. I like him. We're thinking of doing an event in Miami.

Scott Galloway: I like him. What does he look like? Is he handsome? Most importantly, is he going to be president?

Kara Swisher: Is he handsome? He is very political, but he does tweet with everybody. I'm sure he has other friends on the Twitter. Smart, nice, action-oriented. I like him. We'll see. I like him. We'll see. We'll see if we'll see. We're going to put him to the test. Instead of just tweeting at us, we'll put him to the test. Anyway, Scott, that's the show.

Scott Galloway: That's right. That's right. We'll be back on Friday. For more, go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your question for the Pivot podcast. The link is in our show notes. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Ernie Entretot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like the show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Kara Swisher: Tech event in Miami. Come hang out with the jungle cat and the dog.

Scott Galloway: That's right. That's right.