Pivot · Jul 23, 2021

Jack Dorsey's Bitcoin hopes, Biden picks a heavy hitter, and the Pegasus spyware scandal

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 33:03. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Kara Swisher · 33:03 Retirement brand. I just keep hoping. What what do you what do you, Scott? Give the kid some hope here, please. Scott Galloway · 33:08 Well, off, Nick, this is what the world's gonna be like for your children. It's gonna be wonderful. And and historically, what we've seen is that the arc of progress has dips and it's jagged, but it bends towards increased prosperity and freedoms. 80%... We have an 80% reduction in abject poverty globally in the last thirty years. I mean, as cynical as I am, as hateful and as angry as I am, if you look at the data, and this is one of the things that bothers me about some of the, I don't know, progressive social movements is that they never wanna acknowledge. They never wanna zoom back and go and just register and acknowledge the type of progress we've made. So first off, boss, it's important that you have cynicism. It's important that we hold people to task. It's important that we model out that we have too many nuclear weapons. It's important that we model out that if the the seas begin, continue to increase in temperature, we're gonna lose cities and have forced migration and we need to address that. But generally speaking, I think you can rest assured with a lot of confidence that the world is gonna be a wonderful place as long as there's thoughtful young men such as yourself. As it relates to retirement, Nick, oh my God, boss. What it means to be a man is to take economic responsibility for your household. And by the way, sometimes that means getting out of the way of your partner and saying that she is better at that whole money thing or your husband's better and being supportive of them. But economic security in America is key to your children's happiness. So you absolutely wanna begin saving and investing. And this whole nihilistic notion of why even save, boss, your lack of economic security will be worse than any climate change. If you don't start saving and you don't live a little bit of a stoic lifestyle, you don't get good at something, you don't save more than you spend. Early investing with a focus on retirement, time will go faster than you think. Start saving, start investing right away. Kara Swisher · 35:10 Alright. Scott Galloway · 35:10 Right away. And then develop the resources and economic security such that you can make a real change around the things you're passionate about, including climate change. But oh my gosh, boss. Investing is a wonderful thing. The reason why I can get kicked off at CNBC is I don't give a fuck because I'm economically secure because you know what I did? I didn't back into my couch and go, the world's gonna be a worse place and not save. I saved. I invested, and now I can get kicked off CNBC. Get kicked off CNBC, Nick. Kara Swisher · 35:40 Alright. Okay. Nick, I think the world is gonna be the day after tomorrow, which was the movie with Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal, which I watch over and over again. I watch all these, like, disass. I watched 2012. Remember that was John Cusack. I watched Greenland with my favorite... What's his name? That guy who was... Oh, he's so good. Damn him. Gerald Butler. I watch all these like apocalypse movies. If you remember many years ago, the one that where the nuclear weapon went off, that's... That was a great movie. I I have a more apocalyptic feeling about this planet at the same time I keep having children. So there you have it, Nick. Save for tomorrow. That's all I gotta say. Scott Galloway · 36:20 Just think be now. They're Kara Swisher · 36:20 gonna continue the worst. Assume the worst and prepare for the best. How about that? Assume the worst and prepare for the best rather than assume the best and prepare for the worst. That's what Scott Galloway · 36:29 I say. Kara Swisher · 36:30 That's how I would say I conduct my life. So I'm Scott Galloway · 36:32 actually One of those ways you can prepare yourself for future. Saving and investing early. Kara Swisher · 36:35 Yes, you do. You do. That is a good thing. Just assume assume maybe things will break for you. And even if it doesn't, it's okay. And by the way, Jeff Bezos won't be on this planet anyway. It's so funny. The world's richest person on the planet leave... Likes to wants to leave the planet. Just let's get back Scott Galloway · 36:50 to it. Kara Swisher · 36:50 Now everything about it, everyone was like, had a real bad feeling. You know what I mean? Like, I don't think many people were like going yay for him. I have If people did it, they would. That's right. Scott Galloway · 37:01 In the history of media, I have never seen so many people tune into something they had so much disdain for. Kara Swisher · 37:06 Really? It was amazing. It was amazing. It was interesting because I didn't see an Elon comment. He didn't drag him, which I thought he might, but he didn't. It was interesting. Scott Galloway · 37:16 Like he's... I think he's actually the winner here because the scrutiny shows that that space hauling is a great business and the rest are shitty business. It's not space exploration. It's space execution. Anyone you send to Mars, you're executing. Yeah. Virgin Galactic is a Mach three train wreck. Kara Swisher · 37:32 Yeah. Scott Galloway · 37:32 And then you have space scientific exploration, which should be done by the government because we don't know where the payoff is gonna be. But space hauling, SpaceX has already secured 3,000,000,000 in contracts in the Pentagon and NASA. Kara Swisher · 37:46 Was awesome. Scott Galloway · 37:46 Blue Origin has a lot of Kara Swisher · 37:47 The catching whole thing with the hats, the whole thing. The old lady I liked. That's the only part. Scott Galloway · 37:52 Oh, was inspiring. Kara Swisher · 37:53 Yeah. But at the same time, I was like, you know, there was was the moon landing, and then I was like, I'm inspired by those people. Like, in their... They're long dead, you know, whatever, 50 ago. It was just... Don't know. Anyway Scott Galloway · 38:04 Sal... Come on. Sally Ride, youngest person Kara Swisher · 38:07 in space. Scott Galloway · 38:07 I agree. I agree. Now the youngest person now now the youngest person in space is the son of a Dutch private equity billionaire. What's wrong with our world? Nothing. What's wrong with our... By the way, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that that is the mother of all bad parenting. Kara Swisher · 38:23 You think? Scott Galloway · 38:23 We're gonna take away your iPad or we're gonna spend $28,000,000 to send you into space. I I just... I I Kara Swisher · 38:30 We... We're we're... I know. I know. We should... I feel like we should be nicer about it. Like, inspiring. I do. Scott Galloway · 38:37 Oh my god. I couldn't... I... It's one of those things. I couldn't look away, and they're like Yeah. For all mankind, a rocket up 60 miles and then it floats down? Yeah. What the fuck? What the actual fuck? Kara Swisher · 38:48 Alright. I need a prediction from you. We need to... Thank you, Nicholas. We feel like you should... We... You should be hopeless and hopeful at the same time. So, so please, please do both things. That's gonna be difficult, but please do both things. Alright, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 39:57 Scott, we need need it. We need a prediction from you. Scott Galloway · 40:01 So once a year, my mom and I used to take a vacation and we would take two weeks and one year we went to Niagara Falls, which was lovely, which was lovely. That's the kind of vacation you took in seventies with a single mother. And we flew through JFK and this was like 1974, think, or '75. And my mom said, have a treat for you. And this was a time when they didn't have security and you could just walk around the airport and go to any terminal. And we went to the international terminal and she showed me the Concorde because she knew it was there. And that was the kind of thoughtful person my mom is. Was really into science and I saw this thing and I thought it was just so incredible. And the link to the prediction here is that I hope and I expect, I think the real economic opportunity and the real problem that needs to be solved is as it relates to space is not around, far, it's around fast. And I think companies including Overture and some of these sonic, sonic, transportation companies or supersonic transportation companies deserve and will start to get more attention. Because the reality is the addressable market to go up in a plane and then go, you know, go for eight minutes into near space for $250,000, much less $40,000. I mean, is how fucking ridiculous that thing is. They're claiming they wanna do 400 missions a year if they execute perfectly. So let's assume they do. That capsule holds four people. That is a total of 1,600 people. That's if they execute perfectly. They're claiming they wanna bring the price down from $250 to $40. So that's a total revenue of 6,640,000. The company's trading at 7,500,000,000. So it's trading at a 120 times revenue if they execute perfectly. Perfectly. Yeah. Anyway, it just makes no sense. You know what does make sense? Kara Swisher · 41:46 Moving people. Scott Galloway · 41:47 If I can get from New York to London Yeah. In two and a half hours Yeah. There is an enormous market of people who will pay $5.10, or $15,000 for that. Yeah. So if you wanna talk about the economic opportunity Supersonic. Kara Swisher · 42:00 That's coming back. Supersonic's coming back. Scott Galloway · 42:02 Yeah. Overture, United Airlines just just put down a commitment. So I think if you... And I say this because I'm hoping one of them calls me and lets me invest. I think that's a huge market underreported. That's where the money is. Kara Swisher · 42:15 That's a different way to get at it. Scott Galloway · 42:18 Yep. So this is the bottom line. The opportunity and increased excitement and common sense around really exciting collision of science and actual utility for people here on earth. Money is nothing but the transfer of time and work. And if I can save a lot of time and I can connect with people more easily, I'd like to go to Australia six times a year. And the reason I don't is because it's so Kara Swisher · 42:43 Takes forever. Scott Galloway · 42:43 It's not that it's so far, it's that it's so long to get there. Kara Swisher · 42:47 It is. Scott Galloway · 42:47 So much time. Kara Swisher · 42:48 It is. Scott Galloway · 42:48 And if I could get there in five hours, I'd be there every eight weeks. So this is... And I would pay a lot of money, and there's a big market. If you look at... The reality is 1% of the population, the global population, that's 75,000,000 people have the money to pay for supersonic. Yeah. It's a huge market Kara Swisher · 43:05 So it's a Scott Galloway · 43:05 market opposed to 600 people who've signed up to go to the near Carmen line. — Predictions segment ends — Kara Swisher · 43:09 So rich people flying all over above us and noisily, is is a good business. Scott Galloway · 43:14 That hurts my feelings. Kara Swisher · 43:15 Okay. Alright. Fine. So I'm gonna end on two tweets speaking of this topic since we've been on this. This one is from my lovely wife who I thought did the most perfect tweet about the Jeff Bezos thing. Everyone watch... She goes, everyone watches on TV. This is Amanda Katz. Everyone watches on TV richest guy takes what would have been government funds if he paid taxes and uses it to go to space for a few minutes in a ship shaped like a giant penis, America. I feel that was Scott Galloway · 43:40 Yeah. And then Brooke Hammerlein said she wanted to do a badger rocket. It was their turn. So just some stats. Kara Swisher · 43:47 Let me read one more. Dan Rather, these were so many good tweets. I would prefer watching the launches of independent bookstores. They're a lot more entertaining and they actually occupy space. Scott Galloway · 43:57 Who knew Dan Rather was so funny? Kara Swisher · 43:59 Twitter's been great for Dan Rather. Funny. Funny. Right. Yes. Anyway. Scott Galloway · 44:02 But here are some stats. Okay, so Beza, okay, the entire budget for NASA is $21,000,000,000 21,000,000,000. In the last five years Bezos has added a $100,000,000,000 to his net worth, and he has paid 1% taxes. If he had paid the same tax rate as, say, you Yeah. He could have... We would have garnered just enough tax revenue from Jeff Bezos to double the budget of NASA. Yeah. And so you gotta hate the game, not the player. I don't resent Jeff Bezos. I resent I resent us for not electing leaders who've decided to have a more progressive tax structure such that we can properly fund NASA, who puts the daughters of ministers who are PhDs in chemical engineering into space. Those... That's who we want to be our explorers. What we have now is we as a society have decided we no longer want astronauts. Want egonauts. Ego. And that is peace. Kara Swisher · 44:54 Oh, is that a new Scott? That's a new term. TM. Scott Galloway · 44:57 That's a new... We used to have astronauts. Now we have egonauts. Kara Swisher · 45:00 Ego. Boom. Boom. Alright. I'm gonna end on that, Scott. So we'll see what happens. We're gonna Scott Galloway · 45:05 be my OnlyFans account and spill some bills for me. Kara Swisher · 45:08 That's right. So listen. You're gonna only gonna be here another week. Right? You're gonna... And then you're going away from August. Aren't you going away Scott Galloway · 45:13 from Oh, that's right. August. I'm so European. I take August off. Kara Swisher · 45:17 He does. That's I will be here with lots of guests. Yes. He Scott Galloway · 45:19 marry me. I make you very Kara Swisher · 45:21 happy wait to hear the guest. Somebody's gonna tell you the guest. You're gonna be so jealous of all the guests that I'm having. Well, hold Scott Galloway · 45:27 on. Hold on. Wait. Who who is it? I'll tell you about him next it's not Chuck Todd, who, by the way It's only Chuck Todd. Trying... He is clearly trying to get my attention by, again, not inviting me on Meet the Press this weekend. Well, you know what? Kara Swisher · 45:39 So many people. They're so good. They're so good. Oh, yeah. I wanna just Is it Canadian? Scott Galloway · 45:44 Are you bringing back Kara Swisher · 45:45 the Canadian? Thursday. Will. Sorkin? There's a lot. There's a lot happening. There's going be a lot, but there's some new faces that you're going to enjoy. You're going enjoy the Yes. Whole It's going to Scott Galloway · 45:54 be I want them good. They just will want them We're going to try to keep, Kara Swisher · 45:57 you know, what happens Scott Galloway · 45:58 is fact, Kara Swisher · 45:59 because of the our ratings go down and vice versa with me. And so we are, I'm going to see if I can keep the ratings up. That's what I'm going do. And then you'll feel smaller probably. I don't know. Scott Galloway · 46:10 Anyway. Reach out to Bezos around trying and to keep it failing and failing and failing. Okay. Kara Swisher · 46:17 Alright. Enough Jeff Bezos bashing. That's enough. Alright. Don't forget if there's a story in the news and you're curious about and wanna hear our opinion, go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show. Read us out, Scott. Scott Galloway · 46:30 Today's show was produced by Lara Naaman, Camila Salazar, and Evan Engel. Ernie Entratot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows. And for a limited time, you have a chance to fill out our survey. What a thrill. That's right. We want you to tell us how we're doing. Go to newyorkmag.com/pivotsurvey and sound off. That's newyorkmag.com/pivotsurvey. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. Or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or frankly wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. If on the survey, you say you are not enjoying the show, we will issue a full refund. [Ad break]