Pivot · Mar 18, 2022

Universities Cut Ties with Russia, Antitrust Action, and Guest Preet Bharara

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 48:33. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Guest · 48:33 Against Holmes will be brought to gear against... Brought to bear against Sonny himself. So it's probably an uphill battle for Scott Galloway · 48:40 him. Guest · 48:41 Now it it will not come in, and it's not permitted to come in that there was another defendant who got convicted, and they're gonna have to screen well in the jury pool to make sure that people are not aware of that. That can't infect their decision. You someone else's guilt in a matter is not supposed to bear on the guilt of the particular person on trial, and that's Sonny in this case. So it might be a little bit of a trick. I don't know how, you know, well known it is, and you you have to rely on jurors to tell the truth about what they know about the matter. But, you know, many, many, many, many people have never heard of this. Kara Swisher · 49:09 Well, there is Hulu show and documentary too. Not just that. There's Guest · 49:13 other No. There's a lot. There's a lot. But, you know, you know, that happens all the time. Yeah. In America, there are famous cases. You know? Right. We talk about them on the podcast. You and I talk about them sometimes. You're always able to see the jury. You know, if there were ever a trial... We didn't talk about this, and I think it's unlikely with respect to the Manhattan DA's office. If there were ever a trial against Donald Trump, that would be a circumstance in which you would never get a jury pool of 12 where nobody's heard of nobody's heard of Donald Trump. Kara Swisher · 49:44 Or what he's done or has an opinion about him. But... Well, then that takes the question. Is there gonna be one? So that that Manhattan DA was Guest · 49:53 Well, no. There were these there were these two... As people may recall from news reporting, you know, there were two very well respected former federal prosecutors. One was a federal prosecutor. One was in the DA's office who stepped down reportedly over a dispute about how viable the case is against Donald Trump. And they got the impression from the reporting that the New Manhattan DA thought there were problems with the case and maybe it was weaker than these two attorneys thought. So they've gone. The DA's office has said that they still are looking at the case, and it's ongoing, and they've assigned someone new to oversee it. But it doesn't look great Yeah. For the prospect of a of a prosecution. For a couple of... You know, one, you know, Donald Trump does not use email, does not use texts. Mhmm. You know, that's a way to tell what's in someone's mind. People send them inadvertently. People send them late at night. People say more than they sometimes mean to say in text and emails, and Scott is smiling because I I think he's probably guilty of that. Kara Swisher · 50:48 Yes. Is. Yes. Scott Galloway · 50:49 He is. You should see... No. You should see the shit that that Cara sends me late at night. Literally, you should see it. Guest · 50:55 That's all gonna come to court. It's all gonna come into court. Scott Galloway · 50:57 Yeah. It's not. Guest · 50:58 And then... But the other thing you need is is someone to flip and cooperate, and, you know, there were two prospects. One, Michael Cohen, who has a lot of problems of his own and problems with veracity and plead guilty to lying to congress. And then the other, you know, this guy, mister Weisselberg, the former CFO, who clearly the DA's office was pushing really hard to flip and to tell the truth about Donald Trump. That didn't happen. And we know it didn't happen because they had to charge him with various things last year relating to tax evasion on fringe benefits. That's not the heart of the investigation against Donald Trump. So in the absence of a cooperating witness and communications, it's not hard for me to believe, and people don't like it when I say this, It's not hard for me to believe that a case against Donald Trump, a criminal case where you have to prove his intent, his state of mind, is uphill. It's difficult. And reasonable people who are smart can disagree about the quantum of proof, and that seems to be what's happened here. Kara Swisher · 51:56 When you have someone like Alan Weisselberg, do you yell at him? What do you do if you don't... You're gonna flip. What do you yell? Guest · 52:03 No. You don't yell. I don't I don't... So as I write in my book called doing justice, most professionals Kara Swisher · 52:10 Yeah. Guest · 52:11 I think it... It's different depending Scott Galloway · 52:12 on different Guest · 52:12 circumstances, both for getting truth out of people and for persuading them to do the right thing for themselves. I don't think yelling and screaming works, particularly with sophisticated people who are advised by sophisticated lawyers. What you wanna do is you actually wanna be human to them and say, look. You know, some version of, you know, what you think is important to them, you're gonna go to jail for a long time, and we're not bluffing, and we're gonna charge you. In fact, I don't know how tough these charges are and what the sentencing might be. You know, think about what's important to you. Know, there was a detective who used to use... They used to work with. He used to use the method of of when he was trying to flip a guy, this was in narcotics cases, it was little bit different. He would try to find a photograph of a member of their family, and he would put it on the table. And he would say, you know, you wanna be a man? You think you think doing your time and keeping your mouth shut is being a man? You know? Maybe being a man is is being around for your daughter's graduation from Kara Swisher · 53:06 Oh, Bad. Guest · 53:07 Or your son's wedding. Maybe that's being a man. Maybe maybe think about that. And he would leave the room. Kara Swisher · 53:12 Rather do just Elon level fisticuffs. But... Okay. Scott Galloway · 53:15 How's your book doing, Preet? Guest · 53:16 It's doing well. Justice is a picture book. It's been received very well. I didn't draw the pictures. We have the wonderful illustrator, Sue Cornelison, who did it. And it's basically an introduction to very young people, to courageous figures who would advance the cause of justice, you know, in modern times in America and also in in other ages in other parts of the world. We have Malala Yousafzai. We have Gandhi. We have John Lewis. We have Nelson Mandela. We have so many Well Lincoln. Scott Galloway · 53:44 Give us one we may... We likely haven't heard of. Guest · 53:47 I don't know if everyone knows the name Elizabeth Eckford. No. She was the young black girl who was the first to integrate public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. And there's this iconic photo. Scott Galloway · 53:56 Yeah. That's the image of her being walked in by a federal agent. Guest · 53:59 Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, people I think know the image and know the idea, but they don't necessarily know the name. And it's basically a way... You know, like, the way I think about it is, you know, we we have kids reading comic books with superheroes who wear capes, and that's all well and good. But... You know? And and they're they're about the fight between good and evil, presumably. Why not have a picture book that's also entertaining that's about real life people Yep. Who are fighting against evil and fighting for good? And and then parents can choose to learn more and and answer questions about other people. I I don't think it's ever too that there's not too young an age to inspire people to be good. Kara Swisher · 54:33 Oh, on that note. Alright. If you're in New York, you can see Preet live with Gary Kasparov and Ben Stiller at town hall on March 31. Tickets are available at cafe.com/events. Thank you, Preet. We really appreciate it. Scott Galloway · 54:48 Thanks, Preet. Guest · 54:49 Thanks, folks. Stay out of trouble. Scott Galloway · 54:52 No. Never. Kara Swisher · 54:52 No. Alright, Scott. One more quick break. As usual, Preet was a genius. We'll be back for predictions. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 56:05 Okay, Scott. Give us a prediction. I haven't heard a good prediction from you of late. Give me one. That hurts my feelings. Well, know, but I need one. Scott Galloway · 56:14 Just because you're just because you're rolling around and getting pedicures with Jon Stewart, you think Kara Swisher · 56:18 you can be disrespectful with partners? Do you think I get a pedicure? I'm not a pedicure lady. Scott Galloway · 56:23 Each other's feet, rub La Roche Posay on the small of each other's back. Kara Swisher · 56:26 I don't Guest · 56:26 know what what is... Kara Swisher · 56:27 You're so jealous. Scott Galloway · 56:28 I'm very excited Kara Swisher · 56:29 I am for Scott Galloway · 56:30 a little jealous. Is he a nice man? What's he like? Kara Swisher · 56:33 He is. You know what? Let me just give you a little moment with Jon Stewart. Guy facilitated all of the others. He was like, you know, like, he was like me with tech reporters. A lot of the top tech reporters worked for me at one point. He's the one that started a lot of God. This stuff to... Whether it's any of them, like John Oliver, Sam B was there, Stephen Colbert. Come on. You gotta give him credit for Scott Galloway · 56:56 Yeah. Kara Swisher · 56:56 Creating the genre, if you wanna call him washed up. I think he's got a lot of kick in him. Yeah. I think he still has a lot of kick in him. So there you Scott Galloway · 57:04 very honorable guy. Did a lot Kara Swisher · 57:05 for our first responders. Doing a lot of work for first responders and vets and things like that. And so I appreciate, you know, you don't have to have a TV show and be all fancy like yourself to make an impact. I like John. Scott Galloway · 57:20 So my prediction is, and I was inspired by just comments earlier, I think we're gonna find out, Kara, in about Uh-huh. Three to six months Yeah. That in the last two weeks through, call call it the end of February and the middle of March, a bunch of distressed credit hedge funds and banks, including Goldman Sachs, that their best performing once in a kind of generation investment was buying distressed bonds from Russian companies. Woah. These things have been beaten up so badly. And the notion, the headline risk here, you're gonna find that there were some companies that their bonds were down 20¢ on the dollar. They still have a ton of assets inside of and outside of Russia. And while everyone had to be a forced seller to get out of these investments, anyone that has any public reporting has to sell them. You know, if the University of Texas had bonds in Gazprom or whatever, they had to sell them, which put ridiculous downward pressure on these things. And I think we're gonna find out that a bunch of people are gonna make billions moving from buying the stressed assets of Russian Russian bonds. Wow. Kara Swisher · 58:29 And then what does that mean? What does it... That they'll just Scott Galloway · 58:32 That doesn't mean... I just think Kara Swisher · 58:34 when things are calmer? Scott Galloway · 58:37 I think capitalism is great. I think... I I don't even fault. I don't own any Russian assets. And I think... I understand the I understand the the intention and the rationale for for going after the economy and not financing that. I get it. But there's just no getting around it from a pure capitalist animal standpoint. Yeah. The last couple weeks were probably the buying opportunity of the century for for the the fixed income vehicles of good Russian companies. I think we're gonna find out that some hedge fund managers had a crazy return, and Goldman Sachs made a shit ton of money off of, you guessed it, buying distressed Russian assets in the midst... Right in the heat of all of this. Kara Swisher · 59:17 Interesting. Well, let me ask you, speaking of distressed stocks, Facebook, Mark Zucker appeared at South by Southwest tripling down on the metaverse. The stock is slightly up. It was down in the 1 eighties or something like that in the last month. Now it's at $20.04. It's climbing back a little bit. It's still way down from its $323 price, back in February. Scott Galloway · 59:44 Well, I don't know if you heard. They're going into the business of mining NFTs, and I've heard their first NFT is signed by Mark and Cheryl, and it's of a 15 year old girl who's five, ten, a hundred pounds, who's addicted to dieting sites. Kara Swisher · 59:55 That's their first NFT. You're so mean. Scott Galloway · 59:57 Too much, Karen? Guest · 59:58 Too much. Kara Swisher · 59:58 Yes. Too much. I wanna know about their stock. Is that is that a buying opportunity? Scott Galloway · 1:00:02 I think I'm the only person that's ever lost money on Facebook stock. I owned it, and then I felt bad about it, and then I sold it. Look. I think Aswath Damodaran summarized it perfectly. He said that a name change Yep. When the general viewpoint and complexion of your company is so negative, you have to change your name, it's usually not a great forward looking indicator. I also believe the metaverse is already shaping up to be a 10,000,000,000 thud for them. Kara Swisher · 1:00:28 Yeah. Could be for the initial parts. And the other people are quietly working on it like Apple and others. So you don't see their stock is... You know, it's it's moving up. It's moving up. It's been Scott Galloway · 1:00:38 I I wouldn't wanna a Kara Swisher · 1:00:39 bit today. Scott Galloway · 1:00:39 I wouldn't wanna I wouldn't wanna put a sell recommendation on Facebook's art because if you look at the... Its core business is still a spigot of cash. And as a multiple on earnings, Facebook does not not... Still growing. Yep. Incredibly profitable. I mean, it's a dream come true, a media company that has no media costs. I mean, that's... Look at what we do here. What if we paid Vox? That's the equivalent to do this, and they were able to sell against it. It's still an incredible cash generator, but I... So I wouldn't feel comfortable saying, you know, go short on the thing, but I I just think there's so much overhang here. It's gonna be about all about meta and whether they can diversify into meta. People are gonna find they can't. I think they're gonna find they can't, but they'll still have these incredible cash flows. Kara Swisher · 1:01:27 The slide is really interesting, and we'll see. I've been watching it very carefully. So... In other words, don't invest in Facebook. Invest in Russian stocks... Bonds. Excuse me. Scott Galloway · 1:01:36 Correct. Wanna tell anyone to invest in Russia. I'm not saying I'm just saying we're gonna find out that the vultures came in here, and, boy, did they make out. Kara Swisher · 1:01:45 Alright. That's a pretty interesting prediction. Anyway, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday for more. Hopefully, my voice will be back. Read us out, Scott. — Predictions segment ends — Scott Galloway · 1:01:54 Alright. Today's show is produced by Lara Naaman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin, Ernie Intertaut, engineering this episode. Thanks also to Drew Barros and Neil Silverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. How do we deescalate future conflicts? How do we turn enemies into allies to the great connective tissue of our universities? Let's continue to embrace the best and the brightest globally. Our wonderful Russian students and faculty members, we continue to embrace you and welcome you. [Ad break]