Pivot · Apr 6, 2021

Global corporate tax, Facebook's data breach and a Friend of Pivot on "cancel culture"

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 1:00:03. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Guest · 1:00:03 On that is that we must battle power differentials as the central focus of our being. Intellectual activity has to be about battling power differentials. Your art has to be about that. The way you talk has to be about that. Legal theory has to be centered upon that. Notice today the whole idea that your local bakery puts out a statement about George Floyd, and you're thinking, well, what does one thing have to do with another? It's because of this idea that we must be committed to overturning power differentials. Now I think anybody would say that power differentials are a major problem, but the hyper focus, the laser focus on it that we're being taught is necessary, that you must do the work, that if you're white, you will always have this white privilege that stains you like original sin. All of that is based on originally this critical race theory idea. And it's an interesting idea, but you don't run a society upon the basis of such a narrow conception of what it is to act as a person. Battling power differentials alone is not what most of us would think of as the focus of any worthwhile existence. There are some people who will live that way, but a lot of the rest of us have other things to do as well. That's the problem that we're faced with these days. It's a very narrow and punitive ideology that we're being told we're supposed to live under. Kara Swisher · 1:01:22 And at the same time, when someone like Donald Trump saying nonsense, it creates a... It adds the layer of white supremacy onto it. Like, that that Guest · 1:01:29 it's Yeah. Kara Swisher · 1:01:30 It's being pushed as completely ridiculous by people who are problematic at the very least in their attitudes towards people of Guest · 1:01:38 color. Because they're using critical race theory as a stand in for basically anything they don't wanna hear, which is not what the theory was supposed to be. Once again, the the term... Well, there, it's not the term evolving. It's ignorant people misusing it or using it to evil ends. Yes. That was very disappointing to see. Because I mean it. The critical race theory is not ridiculous in itself. It's just what's being done with it these days. And I'm questioning a certain aspect of it. And then you have people on the right who are saying stop talking about race. Stop talking about identity. Get rid of this critical race theory. Kara Swisher · 1:02:09 That's Completely. Guest · 1:02:10 Not what I mean. Kara Swisher · 1:02:11 Yeah. Mhmm. Okay. Alright. This is fascinating. I'm sure we'll do lots of, canceling for it. It's it's alright. It's fine. We'll take it. We can take it. We can take it. Anyway, professor McQuade. Scott Galloway · 1:02:23 Thank you. Are you Spartacus? Are you Spartacara? No. No. Kara Swisher · 1:02:29 I'm still like Those those assholes in Georgia calling war corporations can go fuck themselves. Don't pass bad laws if you don't want. Scott Galloway · 1:02:38 There's the linguist in Kara Swisher · 1:02:39 you coming out. Guest · 1:02:40 Bad laws. Kara Swisher · 1:02:41 If you wanna pass bad laws, it makes the MLB pull out of Georgia too frigging bad for you. Scott Galloway · 1:02:47 It's called I agree. Kara Swisher · 1:02:48 I don't know. Consequence. You know, there... The other word is consequence culture, which you've heard, of course. Guest · 1:02:52 I'm gonna keep that. Scott Galloway · 1:02:53 Yeah. Kara Swisher · 1:02:54 Keep that. No. But I think it's Roxanne Gay. She's consequence culture. So... But it's as if there's only two choices and there's more than two. That's really the whole point. That's what I think. It's complex. It's complex culture is what it is we got going on here. Scott Galloway · 1:03:05 Darn it. Kara Swisher · 1:03:06 Anyway, we really appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming in. Scott is all smiling right now. Scott Galloway · 1:03:10 Thank you, professor. Guest · 1:03:11 You, folks. Scott Galloway · 1:03:12 Made my day. All Kara Swisher · 1:03:13 right, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Are you happy right now? You got your cancel culture friend now? Scott Galloway · 1:03:21 I I thought that guy was fantastic. Kara Swisher · 1:03:23 He is. He's great. Like, brings lots of of view on this show. Scott Galloway · 1:03:26 I'm telling you, that guy, I can tell you right now, gets an endless stream of shit from his colleagues at Columbia. I'm glad tenured. Kara Swisher · 1:03:35 He'll be fine. Okay, Scott. We'll be back. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 1:04:36 Okay, Scott. Wins and fails. So what do you got? What do you got? There's so many. Scott Galloway · 1:04:41 It's funny. I was thinking about this morning. I had trouble coming up with them. So a fail, I think AOC coming out and saying that the stimulus or the the infrastructure bill isn't big enough and then using the number 10,000,000,000,000, I think that undermines our efforts on the left to get something done. Think that's a ridiculous number. Think it's unrealistic and kind of paints us as progressives as people that just want to, that we've kind of lost touch with the economic reality of what it means to create that sort of inflationary pressure. We couldn't put trillion dollars to work responsibly. It just, so I love AOC. I think she's courageous. You know. I just think she's a gangster. Love AOC. And I heard her say that and I just cringed and I thought, oh, you're just doing a solid disservice. You're making it less likely we're gonna get anything done when you say it's not big enough, it needs to be 10,000,000,000,000. That's my loss. Kara Swisher · 1:05:32 Think I she's reacting against how much money we've spent on the military over the many years. I think that's where it's from. She talks about that quite bit in her Mhmm. Mhmm. Scott Galloway · 1:05:41 And my win is I have a weird win. I've been... I've been trying to wrap my head around crypto. China China came up with their own cryptocurrency today or announced some sort of coin or I'm not entirely sure what it is, which seems to be totally oxymoronic to the point of crypto that that it's a... There's no central there's no central bank or no source of information, that there's a lack of transparency, if you will. So the idea that the Chinese security apparatus would understand money flows seem just totally constrained to the notion of crypto. And then you have, like any digitization of any sector, you have power to a few currencies. And it feels like we're going to, I think, go to the yuan, go to the euro, go to the dollar, maybe the yen. But things like the real, I think other kind of tier two currencies are just going to get hammered. And then Bitcoin or Ethereum or, I mean, there's a couple others that might, that are showing some promise that I'm trying to wrap my head around. But a long winded way of saying, I think the winner here might be India. And the reason why is just as Joe Manchin is a swing vote, if there's a if there's this war lining up between American and Chinese currencies or cryptocurrencies, the swing vote will be India. And if India decides to embrace Bitcoin, you could see Bitcoin go to skyrocket if you see India decide, no, this is the default currency. But it strikes me that India is shaping up to be the swing vote the swing vote and what will be the default currency, the default crypto. But I'm still trying to wrap my head around this shit. Do you understand this stuff? I can't do my Kara Swisher · 1:07:18 own thing. I need to study it more. I can't say I'm an expert. Scott Galloway · 1:07:21 I don't feel that way. Kara Swisher · 1:07:22 Dabbled around in it. Scott Galloway · 1:07:24 Anyways, that was a weird that was a weird win. That's Kara Swisher · 1:07:27 alright. That's alright. I'm gonna Scott Galloway · 1:07:28 Do you have any? Kara Swisher · 1:07:28 Yes, I do. I I was I was saying the the stock market is gonna continue to... That's not a prediction, but it's this... They... They're all at all time highs, Facebook, Alphabet, Microsoft. They're just going up and up and up. All the whole stock market's gonna go up, up, up, up. Scott Galloway · 1:07:44 Go ahead. But the weird thing about that, though, is I agree with you. But the weird thing is that don't underestimate the market's ability to disarticulate itself in the real economy. Yes. I'm very confident the real economy, unless there's some sort of variant that shows up that can sneak around the vaccine, which is why we all need to get vaccinated sooner rather than later. But other than that, the real economy is going to boom, but the stock market doesn't always reflect the real economy. You can see the stock market starting to go, uh-oh, there's inflationary pressures and then start to creep around the corner. Well, what happens when we run out of stimulus? What does the world look like? You could see a market where the GDP goes up 8%, consumer spending is at all time high, and the market corrects 20%. Those could happen. Kara Swisher · 1:08:28 Yeah. Yep. And then the fail is, I mean, win... It's kind of a win fail for... Was a fail for Amazon. The National Labor Relations Board just said that Amazon illegally retaliated against two of its most prominent internal critics when it fired them. Last year, these two employees, Emily Cunningham and Marin Costa, had pushed the company publicly to reduce its impact on climate change and address concerns of its warehouse workers. And so I'm reading from the New York Times story here. And the agency said it would accuse the company of unfair labor practices. I think that's a really interesting case. We'll see. Scott Galloway · 1:09:03 Have you heard anything? What's going on now? I thought we were going to have the results by now, or have we? Kara Swisher · 1:09:06 Not yet. No, it's going to take a longer time. I Spaces had with Jason Del Rey, and he filled this in. It could take a while. And then Amazon can either decide to go into negotiations with the union if they win, or they can... They have to quest... They can question every vote. Each side can question every vote. So even if it's a couple thousand votes, it can take forever. And so they expect Amazon to push back on every single vote and think... You know what I mean? And so it can take like a very long time apparently, if if that's the case, if that if that happens. And so we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Scott Galloway · 1:09:39 Could they just leave Bessemer? Kara Swisher · 1:09:41 They could. That was another thing we talked about. They could leave Bessemer. That would be a pretty tough thing to do because they just opened a new plant there and it's a new fulfillment center. So that would be hard because they've invested quite a lot of money there, but you never know. Pull, you know, they're like that. Scott Galloway · 1:09:57 So on my way to this breeder yesterday, I was asking the driver, I said, what's going on in this area of Kentucky? And he said, it's booming because there's a new Amazon plant. And we went by the Kentucky, the Cincinnati, That's Northern Kentucky where we flew in and out of. And there were this row of Amazon prime planes with a smile on I'm like, the economy is just, is really reconfiguring before our eyes. Kara Swisher · 1:10:23 They cannot pull out of everywhere is my feeling. I think they're gonna be losing these things at the National Labor Relations Board in lots of places. They need, as I said many times, employment is gonna be their biggest opportunity and vulnerability, and they have to focus on it. And they can't just be obstreperous across the nation. Scott Galloway · 1:10:40 No, my oldest son will attest, pulling out doesn't always work. Wait. Come on. That's good. That's I'm canceling you from that. Cancel I'm so that. I don't feel safe around you. — Predictions segment ends — Kara Swisher · 1:10:53 I feel unsafe. Scott Galloway · 1:10:54 I don't feel safe around you. Kara Swisher · 1:10:55 I don't feel... Nobody feels safe around you. I don't know who that student is, but nobody feels unsafe around you. Just for a piece of news Scott Galloway · 1:11:01 close to my flame, you might get burned. Kara Swisher · 1:11:03 God. I can't believe I'm coming to Florida. I'm gonna have to bring We're Scott Galloway · 1:11:05 gonna have such a nice time. Kara Swisher · 1:11:06 I'm gonna bring my weaponry. Scott Galloway · 1:11:08 We're gonna have such a nice time. Kara Swisher · 1:11:09 I wonder if I get on the plane. Scott Galloway · 1:11:10 Guns in Galloway. Have my Kara Swisher · 1:11:11 time I've flown, and it's for Scott Galloway. Let me just say. Scott Galloway · 1:11:14 That's right. Kara Swisher · 1:11:14 What do Guest · 1:11:15 That's right. Do Kara Swisher · 1:11:16 you you think think about about that? Scott Galloway · 1:11:17 We're excited Kara Swisher · 1:11:17 to see What's the what we've been talking seems really like in the emails, Scott... The text, Scott is insane and doesn't know anything, and his wife gets in and she breaks it down. Right? Scott Galloway · 1:11:25 Like There's a word for that, German. Kara Swisher · 1:11:27 Anyway, she's great. Scott Galloway · 1:11:28 I'm not allowed to talk to her. That's part of a real nonspice talk to her on the show. Let me just say she operates this place like a panzer tank division. Kara Swisher · 1:11:33 Let me just say she's great. Thank you so much. Just so you know, quick news, Supreme Court, we'll talk about it maybe Thursday, ruled six to two in Google's favor in a copyright dispute with Oracle, which has been going on forever over Java APIs. Anyway, they overturned Oracle's win, and we have... I've written so many stories about this or edited so many stories, so we'll talk about it maybe on Thursday. But that's just news just in. Anyway, Scott, this has been a great show. I'm so glad you liked our guest. Scott Galloway · 1:12:01 And you would. Kara Swisher · 1:12:02 I knew you I knew you would. And it's just... I think it's time to get to a more cogent discussion, although not forgetting problems of the past. Thank you very Scott Galloway · 1:12:11 Yeah, but I apologize. That was gonna be a good wind down. I think we need stronger institutions. Think we need better infrastructure, corporations, and more responsible governments such that real time we can deal with these things before they turn into, mean, I wouldn't it be wonderful if clueless men in their 50s or 60s were told, you know what, this behavior just doesn't wash, stop And arrested for everyone's good, arrested them kind of before these things turned into terrible, I don't know. There's gotta... Our institutions are weak. Kara Swisher · 1:12:40 It is. It's absolutely true. Although there's not... You know, watching the George Floyd thing, there's not anyone that's gonna say, stand down, everybody. Don't worry about racism anymore. It just... That is not Scott Galloway · 1:12:49 gonna fly. Not Not gonna Kara Swisher · 1:13:06 We're not gonna broadcast. We'll do it blue. We'll do it in piece. Dance in front of Scott's incredibly expensive pool. Okay. We'll be back on Friday for more. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit your questions. It's a pivot podcast, and also link also, the link is in our show notes. Read us out, Scott. Scott Galloway · 1:13:23 Today's show is produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Ernie Intertaut engineered this episode. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or an Android user. Check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Who discovered Florida? I don't know, but the jungle cat is rediscovering the craziest fucking state in The Union. Kara Swisher · 1:13:51 Come on down, switcher. Going to Miami. Hey, Francisco Suarez. We're coming for you. [Ad break]