Pivot · Jan 26, 2024

Netflix’s Subscriber Surge, Tesla Earnings, and Guest James Bennet

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 57:05. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Guest · 57:05 And in and in some newsrooms today. That's what I'm worried about. Scott Galloway · 57:08 I think we have a tendency to look through the American experience and say, okay. Now we need to get the non white or we need to get the LGBTQ view of this. Do you think maybe a better way to look through... A better rubric or lens to look through the American experience is wealthy or economically secure versus economically insecure? To me, that's the more important divide. Guest · 57:28 Yeah. I think we don't... I think right now, you know, we're we're so focused. We don't think enough about the role of class in American society. I think that's what you're saying. I think we... You know, particularly, I think this is particularly true on the left among the college educated kind of elite of the left, very, very focused on the role of race, not thinking enough about class. And honestly, I think that's partly because it makes a lot of white people, privileged white people feel uncomfortable, like they've just managed to cross the Rubicon and recognize that their skin has given them privileges. And to then say, Oh my gosh, I also have class privileges on top of that, would it's almost it's almost too much to to cope with. Know? Scott Galloway · 58:21 It also means voting to increase your own taxes and get money away as opposed to putting out an Instagram post that says black lives matter. It's much harder. Right? Guest · 58:29 Yeah. It's much harder. And exactly right. It would compel you to reckon in a way that I think would be ultimately much more constructive for the society with the way your, privileges are actually distorting opportunity in this country. You know, just shifting just just shifting the racial composition of the elite that attends Ivy League schools is not gonna address, you know, the long term problems in this country. Kara Swisher · 58:59 Oh my god. You two are like brothers. Scott Galloway · 59:01 I feel attacked. I feel unsafe. Kara Swisher · 59:03 Oh god. This is Scott's thinking. Scott Galloway · 59:05 And if I say I feel unsafe, that must mean I'm right. Shut the conversation down. Kara Swisher · 59:08 Unsafe. Scott Galloway · 59:09 Baby, I'm dangerous. I'm dangerous. Kara Swisher · 59:11 You are the least dangerous person I know. But let me, ask you a question because we've only have a few more minutes. But one of the things... I'd love to know if you were assigning right now, if you still had your job... Two things. Right now, the financial models... The Times is doing rather well with its business model. It went over 10,000,000 subscribers recently, but others are not. We saw the layoffs of the Los Angeles Times, Business Insider, number of media organizations, tech billionaires swooping in for control. Now they're losing money. They're nervous about it. So there's all kinds of precariousness. But if you were running the section now in this incredibly even more partisan time, what would you assign right now? Guest · 59:54 Gosh, Kara. I I haven't thought... I I don't really think in those terms anymore. So Kara Swisher · 59:59 Oh, broadly. Guest · 1:00:00 I would be I would be urging. Again, I would be pushing people to... I would... The opinion writers too. I'd just be urging them to... I'd be pushing them to get out and engage, basically do more reporting out in the country. I'd I'd I'd think, as you know, I was trying to slow down a lot of the pace of the opinion work there and increase the ratio of reporting to opinion. And I I think, you know, I I would... I I think the time still is a problem with capturing voices in Middle America. I'd be pushing really hard also. This is something I really struggled with there is... Back to Scott's point about class, trying to find more voices outside of the stable, the regular lineup of of people who just are out... Who see the world super differently. They're working at Walmart. They're... Whatever the voice today of kind of the working class of of America, that used to be, like, a a pillar of opinion pages back when all when all journalists weren't college educated, back when so many of them didn't... You know, it was much more of a of a kinda working class profession. That voice has kinda disappeared now, and I was trying when I was there to find it largely unsuccessfully. I'd be pushing really hard for that right now. Kara Swisher · 1:01:35 Alright, Scott. Last question. Scott Galloway · 1:01:36 So I I don't know if you have other siblings, but just based on you and your brother's professional success, your parents did something right. What what advice would you have for parents? Well, I mean, the two of you have done pretty well. Guest · 1:01:50 My my parents just set a really powerful example for us. So, you know, my mother... Our mother, is pulled from Warsaw. She survived the Holocaust as a child, immigrated with her family to The US, and my grandparents were... Her parents also survived a profound influence of... On us. They they they were the most patriotic Americans I've ever known. They loved this country, and they felt that it was forced for good in the world. And our father, know, was a... He worked in government, public servant, and he worked, you know, incredibly hard. He... Every day of his life. And and, again, I think was a man of... I'm sorry. It's a... He was a man of great integrity. He kept going up, you know, and they just set an example for us of what you owed. You know? So we're very, very, very fortunate. Kara Swisher · 1:02:51 I do have I do have one final question. When you're looking at the politics right now, your brother is is quite forceful on the right. You know, he talks about the damage and everything else. How how do you look at the current political situation given it was hot when you had your troubles at the times? How do you look at it now? Like, what are we going into very briefly? Very briefly. Guest · 1:03:14 Yeah. I mean, it's terrible. I'm covering this campaign, and it's it's it's already quite toxic. You know? And and right now that, you know, there's Ukraine funding and a resolution, you know, progress on the border, two things that we really desperately need, you know, that I think are really in the interest of the American people, You know, the deal that was starting to come together looks like it's falling apart, and the reason is that it's inconvenient for the people that are running, particularly for Donald Trump, you know, he's deliberately torpedoing this deal because he wants to keep the problem at the border for his own politics. That's just a terrible... Like, that's a terrible reality that that our politics have gotten so toxic that now they're they're they're standing in the way of of that kind of progress. So, you know, I I think we as journalists, all we can do is report this stuff as powerfully as possible and calm as we see them. That's our role. And I'm really hopeful that in the end, the the American people were gonna make the right choice next fall. That's all we can can count on. But I don't know. It's a it's a it's a really scary destabilizing time. Kara Swisher · 1:04:33 It certainly is, and it's getting worse, unfortunately. In any case Scott Galloway · 1:04:36 Thanks, James. Kara Swisher · 1:04:37 James, thank you so much. James and I always disagreed and argued, but I always enjoyed it. I have to say you were... I really enjoyed working for... With you... With you... For you, with... Not really Guest · 1:04:46 for I think I I was working for you, Kara, just to clarify what you said at the outset, which that's Scott Galloway · 1:04:51 Tell me about it. Me about it. Kara Swisher · 1:04:54 You so much, James. We really appreciate it. Scott Galloway · 1:04:57 Thanks, James. Nice to meet you. Guest · 1:04:58 Thanks for having me on, guys. Kara Swisher · 1:04:59 Alright, Scott. That was a gift to you. That's someone who's like you. I thought you'd like him. We'll be back after this break for predictions. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 1:06:46 Okay, Scott. Let's hear your prediction. Scott Galloway · 1:06:50 I only have one. I've joined this WhatsApp group talking about, discussing TikTok, and, there's some data coming out. An analysis has been done of videos served to young people. And if you look at people under the age of 25, the ratio of people loosely categorized as pro Palestine versus pro Israel, it's about a three to two ratio. And then they looked at the number of videos served to young people, and they categorized those issues talking about the conflict in The Middle East as either being pro Palestine or pro Israel. Do you know what the ratio was of videos viewed by young people, pro Palestinian videos versus pro Israel videos? Do know what the ratio was? What? No. 54 to one. 54 to one. TikTok has has become the pro Palestine. I won't say pro Hamas, but the pro Palestine media network for young people. I mean, the amount of video that is being served to young people... And you'd say, well, that's just a reflection of what young people want. No. It's not. If you look at if you look at the same ratios on Meta or on YouTube, it's not anything like that. Something is going on here. And I've been saying this for a while, and I think the evidence is overwhelming that there is an outside force, the CCP, putting their thumb on the scale of content that they think will further divide us internally. The numbers here are staggering, and it bothers me and it upsets me that the White House has been banned. Anyone in government has been banned from using TikTok, so they don't see this what's going on. Kara Swisher · 1:08:23 Well, yeah. I mean, it's... Maybe some people should watch it on safe... I think they're worried about safety in that case, but go ahead. Scott Galloway · 1:08:29 But my prediction is the following. I think sooner rather than later, we're gonna find out that we have been, subjects of what is one of the most elegant, insidious, and obvious in hindsight, propaganda attacks by the CCP. That is, they can't beat us kinetically. They can't beat us militarily. They can't beat us economically. By the way, the Chinese stock market for all the shit posting of Biden around the economy, which makes no fucking sense, the Chinese stock market has shed $6,000,000,000,000 in value in the last three years. The Hang Seng is up 40%, and the Dow and the Nasdaq keep touching new highs. So what do you do? We can't beat them economically. We can't beat them militarily. We gotta divide them internally. And that is exactly, in my view, what is going on here, and I think there's more and more evidence coming out that confirms that. Kara Swisher · 1:09:17 I... You... As you know, I'm one thinking, if this... If I was the Chinese, this is what I'd do. But it's... It is certainly complex, and we certainly do it to ourselves too. Let's make clear about that. We don't ever act right when we get manipulated, or or we we fall for it every time because we're an emotional people. Anyway, this has been a very, very full full full episode. But we wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. We do love your feedback. By the way, we wanna thank everybody for for all the answers, on our, social media about their their first concerts. I'm wearing this other one. Another one I went to is a Steve Miller band. This is some people call me Maurice. Remember that? I'm wearing a t shirt today that says that — Predictions segment ends — Scott Galloway · 1:10:03 I love Steely Dan. Kara Swisher · 1:10:04 This is not Steely Dan. This is a Steve Miller band. Scott Galloway · 1:10:07 Oh, Steve Miller Kara Swisher · 1:10:08 call me the space cowboy. Some people call me the gangster. Some people call you the gangster of love. Scott Galloway · 1:10:13 Go on. Go on. Really? Kara Swisher · 1:10:15 No. They don't. And, again, the music stuff was hysterical. I've been listening to them all. I hadn't thought of Electric Light Orchestra for a long, long time. Scott Galloway · 1:10:24 Oh my god. Don't bring me down. That's what I work out to. Kara Swisher · 1:10:27 Yeah. I know. Right? Like... Or or Emerson Lake and Palmer. Haven't thought of these. I was like, yeah. That... Remember? There was a lot. But they're also young people too. Was good. Anyway, go to n y mag dot com slash pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 85551 Okay, Scott. That's the show. And, again, also, by the way, if you don't agree with us, you know, that's fine. We don't we don't mind. We like it. We like to hear from you, so please disagree with us. As as as James was saying, it's fine. We... We're... We can handle it. We can we can handle it. Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot. Can you read us out? Scott Galloway · 1:11:03 Today's show was produced by Lara Nayman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Nurtot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Miel Silberio. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, have a wonderful weekend. [Ad break]