Pivot · Dec 8, 2023

Taylor Swift, AI Alliance, University Presidents, and Guest Lou Paskalis

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 1:02:25. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Guest · 1:02:25 Accountable. And I think that's what you're gonna see. And I think there's gonna be a whole lot of skepticism about programmatic moving forward, is a huge part of the digital ecosystem now. Kara Swisher · 1:02:33 I have a last question, Lou. You have been pushing for this, for for people to buy into news, advertisers, which they don't wanna do, even though they willingly go into more controversial platforms like X. Can you, very briefly, we only have a little bit of time, why is this important? You and I had a great talk about this in France at Cannes, Lyon. Guest · 1:02:55 So we're living through an era where there's a war on truth. And I mentioned this to you when we talked. You know, it was eight years ago when Kellyanne Conway was standing on the lawn of the White House and answering a reporter's question by saying that the president was using alternative facts. And I naively googled that. I thought that was a thing. Well, now it is a thing, and the only people who are defending the truth and the war on truth are journalists. We've seen about one third of newspapers in The United States fail, and most of them are now going to a weekly publication. That's allowing for gerrymandering in the local markets. It's allowing for all sorts of zoning and school board issues that lead to the burning of books, which, you know, sounds like Germany in the mid 1930s to me, because you don't have local reporters there calling it out. And marketers are uniquely called out in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights and their role to support journalism to keep politicians on track, and we've got to do more there. And Kara, it's not just an eat your vegetables message about, it's your civic responsibility to support journalism. It delivers enormous return on advertising spend. It delivers enormous unduplicated reach. These are the things that advertisers crave, and they're ignoring that because of unfounded fears about getting caught up in the cultural wars, which again, are being driven by corporate communications and have no basis in fact. Kara Swisher · 1:04:20 Yep. So people should advertise in Yeah. It's so much more dangerous elsewhere. It's so funny that they just... They probably wanna keep up with the young people. Guest · 1:04:28 I was just saying, know we're at a time, but what they're doing is ironically, they're moving their money, unbeknownst, into MFAs, these made for advertising sites, which are engineered to appeal to that money and appear to be brand safe when in fact they're not and they're actually taking the money away from journalism. That $10,000,000,000 slice of pie that's going to MFAs, if that went back into journalism in The United States, you would see robust newsrooms and robust local reporting. Kara Swisher · 1:04:54 We're the real deal, Lou. That's right. Are you. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. So insightful, and fair. I have to say, I know you like Linda, and I know you were very close to her. This... I I hope she listens to you because you're you're a better you're a better friend than she realizes, I think. Guest · 1:05:11 Agreed. I appreciate you saying that. It's an honor to be on with both of you. Scott Galloway · 1:05:14 Thanks, Lou. Kara Swisher · 1:05:14 Isn't he smart? I... I'm glad. What a... I I learned a lot there. I learned a lot there. Alright, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for your predictions. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 1:06:25 Okay, Scott. Let's hear a prediction. I got mine right, obviously. I won't say about what. Scott Galloway · 1:06:30 I have two and one I already made. One or two of the three university presidents that testify to be gone within twelve months. They'll wait till this is... They'll return to a faculty position, but you're gonna see donations to these universities plummet, and they have created these gargantuan dragons that require feeding of capital every day. It Kara Swisher · 1:06:50 I say it's the Pennsylvania one. Scott Galloway · 1:06:53 Probably because I think Mark Rowan carries a big... A really big stick. But so does Bill Ackman at Harvard. And Kara Swisher · 1:07:00 I Rowan's played it better. Scott Galloway · 1:07:01 He's been a little bit quieter. He's not he's not legislating it through Twitter. I have a... I wouldn't call a friend, but somebody I know here is a billionaire Israeli. And he was just so negative on Netanyahu and really just so disappointed in the far right policies and extremist policies of Israel. And then when this happened, he basically pulled out a huge dollar commitment to Harvard right away, I'm out. And I think I would bet a place like Harvard that raised so much money, I would bet that they've seen $1 to $5,000,000,000 in commitments just go away. Because people say, you know... Kara Swisher · 1:07:39 Yeah, it's a lot. They've got a lot, but that is a lot. Scott Galloway · 1:07:43 Yeah, but you know what? Money is an addictive substance care. Trustees won't go, well, we have enough. We can survive this. They'll say, sorry, guys. We have built the beast, and the beast needs feeding. And we can't tell the beast Kara Swisher · 1:07:59 students don't get to run this place. Scott Galloway · 1:08:01 And the beast beast doesn't we're not gonna put the beast on a diet. Kara Swisher · 1:08:05 It's gonna be a hard thing because you should let people say terrible things on campuses, but not heinous things. There's a there is a line. So that's the hard part is that campuses should be a place where people, say offensive things to each other. Offensive is different than some things. Scott Galloway · 1:08:24 Yeah. But this is the problem. It's not about where the line is. It's about having a line that you're consistent around, And that is not publicly shaming and finding your testicles when an English professor says something stupid and then really requiring thoughtful nuance and context again around when people call for genocide. Kara Swisher · 1:08:43 Yeah, I know. It's interesting. I wonder what's going to happen because everyone's offended. You know what I mean? Everyone's pre offended. How do you get back to a place where campuses encourage all kinds of debate, even offensive debate, and at the same time respect and are empathetic. It's very difficult. Scott Galloway · 1:09:04 Well, ultimately, it's a nuance call. But, look, to say that... I think along the lines of what Steven Pinker said, to say that university leadership is there to be the sponsor and the host of critics, but not critics themselves, that's probably a smart way to go. You just don't weigh in on the shit. But at the same time, I think on a regular basis, you poll people in front of a student committee and say, why were you, you know, banging on the doors of a Hillel group that was meeting? Why would... Why... You're at this... You are on campus, and and we have tape of you saying, you know, calling for genocide, and we're gonna let a peer group, including administrators, faculty, and students decide whether you should return to this campus. I I mean, for god's sakes, I was almost kicked out of UCLA for much less. And then my other my other prediction is more kind of in our wheelhouse, if you will, and that is I think one of the biggest business stories in tech in 2024 will be the entrance into AI of Apple. Apple's the most valuable company in the world, most trusted brand in the world. I just don't think they're gonna let everyone else run away with the AI pie. And if you look at Kara Swisher · 1:10:14 I have a different point of view, but go ahead. Go ahead. Scott Galloway · 1:10:16 The phone, if you look at m p three players, if you look at streaming media, if you look at... And, you know, wearables, they kind of watch, listen, wait, and then they strike. They're the ultimate example of the second mouse gets the cheese. And the only place they didn't was in search where they were basically bought off, where Google said, here's an idea. We'll give you 28 or $36,000,000,000 a year, whatever it is. Kara Swisher · 1:10:39 10. Scott Galloway · 1:10:39 10,000,000,000. I thought it was more than that or was it 28 A Kara Swisher · 1:10:42 little bit maybe. Scott Galloway · 1:10:43 Yeah. Well, anyways, we'll give you this amount of money, which will all flow to the bottom line and in a p of 20, that's $250,000,000,000 market cap to not go into this space. But I don't see that happening. I don't think anyone's gonna risk the antitrust scrutiny. Kara Swisher · 1:10:56 Yeah. The the comparative is search that they didn't. And mapping. Remember they didn't, then they didn't. Right? Essential. Well, they are still there, but they're not committed in the same way. Scott Galloway · 1:11:05 But there's a huge opening here because to use your word, I love this word, all the generative AIs feel very... All the chatbots feel very anodyne right now in terms of design. They don't feel very consumer friendly. They don't feel very aspirational. Kara Swisher · 1:11:17 So why do it themselves? They took them a while to get to their own chip. They didn't do their own search. I talked to a lot of people, Apple came up. I kept making everyone make the list of where everybody ranked, and no one said Apple, which was interesting. And I finally said at the end of these conversations, What about Apple? And they're like, Well, they don't have as much compute compared to Google and Microsoft. Absolutely not. And Amazon's third. And that's not their area of expertise. Secondly, they tend to take advantage of technologies like this, like search, rather than make it themselves. And so they can integrate it into all their products. It's a question whether it's core to what they're doing. Right? It will help the phone no matter who makes it. Right? And if they offer the right thing so that they thought it might be a similar situation as search. So it was interesting. I literally just had this conversation for a long time yesterday, but nobody said apple in this group because of these reasons. That also makes a lot of sense of why they wouldn't necessarily, but the other side is they could say this is core, like the chips that they decided to make or whatever's core to them. And they do have a lot of data, they certainly do around music, but they also make a brand out of not using data. Right? Scott Galloway · 1:12:39 It just feels like it's too big a too big a barbecue not to show up to the table. Kara Swisher · 1:12:44 Yeah. But they don't... They make a deal of not keeping your data or not owning your data or not... Scott Galloway · 1:12:49 But isn't that... Okay. But couldn't they, for example, pull in Adobe and say, we're the first generative AI that has all fully licensed data and doesn't... I mean, they could put a privacy spin on it. Kara Swisher · 1:13:00 Yeah. They could. They could. It'll be interesting to see. I think they must be thinking about it, but someone... Every single person I talked about who knows and who's... Some people were... Had been at Apple, they're trying to figure out if it's core. Right? If they... Or they can just get it from others and still benefit and integrate it. I think it will be core because it's all about, hey, iPhone, do this for me. Get me this. And they want it to be high quality. That's the thing is there... I think quality is the thing everybody talks about. Everything Apple does has to have high quality and privacy protection and content respect. These are the three things that they stand for, and they have to keep standing for it. Scott Galloway · 1:13:37 As the most valuable company in the world and the strongest brand in the world and probably the biggest player in tech, can they miss out on something that is the greatest wealth creator in recent history? And that is in 2023, the stocks that drove the market were mostly AI inspired, whether it was NVIDIA or Microsoft's really deft integration of AI. Does Tim Cook want to be the guy that didn't participate in that? And also Apple just has the luxury of... And by the way, they might outsource the technology. There was initial talks with the Apple car that there's supposedly still a rumor on. They were going to partner with Hyundai. They weren't going to do the manufacturing. They were going to do the software and the design. They could do the same thing here. Any... I just got to think, like, Apple is the ultimate signal that your kids are less likely to have infection and be taller and be faster, smarter. It's the ultimate soft signal of mating attractiveness. And I just see a lot of people, if given the opportunity, would say, oh, I use Apple AI. Because pretty soon people are gonna have self expressive benefit. They're gonna say, I use Anthropic or I use Kara Swisher · 1:14:42 Right. They have to put it in their products. It has to be part of their products. Absolutely. And it's not. It's it's absolutely not. It's in Google products right now. It's everywhere. So it has to start to talk to you. Scott Galloway · 1:14:55 For me, it's not whether they get into this business. It's the extent do they vertically integrate. Kara Swisher · 1:14:59 Yeah. Interesting. Great predict... It's really so interesting. It's so funny. I literally just had discussion after discussion about... And Apple was my last question for everybody because they're just not anywhere here. Many people did point out they don't have the compute and technical capabilities that the that the other two have. That was a really great prediction, that last one especially, Scott. We wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for this show or call 85551 Okay, Scott. That's the show. What a good show that was even though it started off rockerly. But, you know, I'm your man, Scott. I'm the man. — Predictions segment ends — Scott Galloway · 1:15:36 In so many ways, Kara. In so many ways. Kara Swisher · 1:15:39 We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot. We just have a few before the holidays, but so much to talk about. This has been such a newsy year. Scott, read us out. Scott Galloway · 1:15:48 Today's show was produced by Lara Nayman, Soe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Indertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Rose, Miele Savaria, and Gatti McBain. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, have a great rest of the week and weekend. [Ad break] Kara Swisher · 1:16:55 We just moved into our new house and I didn't realize just how close we were to the neighbors. That's when my friend told me about blinds.com. [Ad break]