Pivot · Apr 28, 2023

Disney Sues DeSantis, Meta's Good Quarter, and the Case Against TikTok with Senator Michael Bennet

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 44:50. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Guest · 44:50 Your generation has to figure this out because nobody in my generation can't figure it out to make it into something that, you know, can actually support and strengthen the democracy instead of eroding it or sending a whole bunch of people to to Washington DC to invade the capital under false pretenses. But I really do think, I mean, I know that my I have maybe a different view than my children have about, you know, the right to privacy. That's possible. We may have a generational difference on that. Kara Swisher · 45:21 I'm asking about this particular owner, Elon Musk. I mean, he's got a lot of influence all over your areas. All of... Just love your thoughts on that. Guest · 45:29 All the reason more why we've got to... I think the most... The thing that we could do that would be most substantially or most significantly important, whether you're talking about Elon Musk or anybody else, is having a regulatory body in Washington DC staffed by experts whose job is to put the American people in a negotiation with Elon Musk, the negotiation with Mark Zuckerberg. None of these people have ever had a negotiation with anybody about privacy, about the economics of their entire business model. They never have, and they should. And they're treating it like, you know, the robber barons of old who got to dictate all of this for the American people. I don't think the American people are gonna take it anymore, and the reason is not the same kind of environmental toxins that we faced in prior generations, but the kind of toxins that have affected our children's mental health. That's something that parents aren't going to stand for anymore. Scott Galloway · 46:25 I know your emotions run deep here. Your mother was separated from her parents in Nazi occupied Poland. What are your thoughts on America's role in supporting Ukraine and what is another invasion of Europe? Guest · 46:40 You know, it's such an interesting question for me because my mom is still alive, Scott, and I appreciate you're talking about her. She's 85 years old. She just spent a month in the hospital and she's out of it. She's at home. She can't believe she's lived long enough to see another land war in Europe, but what she would say is we have to stick in there. We got to make sure we're doing everything that we can do to support the, you know, courage of the Iranian... Of the Ukrainian people, and I think we do. And by the way, all these threats, these are all related. These are not unrelated questions. All these threats we're seeing and the... To our democracy and the fragility of our democracy, we have all that on the one hand. And on the other hand, you have in the case of Putin's invasion of Ukraine a stumbling incoherent despotic action on Putin's part that was caused in part because of who Putin is, but also because he's sitting on top of itarian society. And that society wouldn't tell him the truth about the quality of his army, about the way the Ukrainians would fight back, about how the rest of the world would come together. Wouldn't tell him the truth. And now the world has come together, and you've got people living in free countries all over the world in democracies who are saying to their elected officials, people like me, do more, do more, do more. So what I would say is the fight is on that democracy is rising to the occasion, that it's a demonstration that we might be fragile, we might be down, but we're not out. And I think the elections last November in The United States say the same thing. So I think we ought to be hopeful about about where we're headed. I think that we ought to be supportive of the Ukrainian people who have stood up here in ways that never could have imagined. And and and and only they could maybe have imagined because like my mom, they were... Went through the brutality of the second World War, and they know what's at stake. When you have a tyrant on the march, we need to stand with them. Scott Galloway · 48:48 Given all the huge issues we face, given this moment in time, given that 70% of Americans do not wanna see Biden run again and the majority of Democrats do not wanna see him run again, don't you think it would be in the spirit of democracy to have several people throw their hat in the ring here and say that we need the American people to decide who should be the Democratic nominee for president? Guest · 49:10 I think the practical reality of this, Scott, is that he's the one guy out of 330,000,000 people who beat Donald Trump. I think that he has a record that is better than virtually any record in modern American history to run on. I just ran on that record myself running for reelection in Colorado. It's nice to have a chance for once to be able to run on stuff like capping drug prices for seniors, like requiring Medicare to negotiate drug prices on behalf of the American people, like the most important bipartisan infrastructure bill since Eisenhower was our president, like the chip sack, which is bringing back an industry the first time since Reagan was president, like our climate bill. And Joe Biden has been president during all that stuff. I think that he's got a record to run on, and I think that he's gonna beat Donald Trump. And so I'm glad he's running, and I and I sure hope he wins. Kara Swisher · 50:05 Alright. Scott's... It's not gonna work, Scott. Scott keeps trying to get him to not run. Scott Galloway · 50:11 Come on. Kara Swisher · 50:11 Anyway, senator Bennett, you would have made a great president too, and maybe you will. Keep running. Keep running. Guest · 50:18 Thanks for having me, you guys. Scott Galloway · 50:20 Keep fighting the good fight, senator. Kara Swisher · 50:22 Alright. Thanks, senator Bennett. Guest · 50:24 I appreciate it. See you down the road. Thanks, guys. Kara Swisher · 50:28 Isn't he smart? He's so smart. I like that senator Bennett. Scott Galloway · 50:31 Every time... I I mean this sincerely. Every time I I hear from or have the opportunity to spend any time with senator Bennett, I just feel better about America. Kara Swisher · 50:41 Yeah. Yeah. Alright, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 51:51 Okay, Scott. We're gonna do some bridges. I have a prediction. I have decided to have one today. So I was fascinated by, Tucker Carlson's video on Twitter. It was... Looked like it was from Wayne's World. Like, he was down in the basement. It was little... He's so small on Twitter. He's such a tiny little thing. He's like, and I thought, oh, Elon's gonna fund him. That's what's... He's gonna... You know, he's been talking about having a media company and boy, feel like there's something gonna... He... I don't think Tucker knew this was happening, so there weren't necessarily plans in place. But if I had a guess, that's one of the, you know... And, course, he got an offer from RT, the Russian news, of course, because he's he's their best friend. But I thought, oh, Elon will do something with him. I... Like, he's an opportunity because he's got a big following, and he's... Could be like Joe Rogan. And if he brought into Twitter, I just... I don't know. I can't stop thinking about it. And I've heard, you know, you've heard rumblings of it and this and that. So some people were telling me there were some talks. I don't know. What do you think? Scott Galloway · 52:48 We... Great minds. Right? It must be... We must be destined to go on a cruise together and announce Horpack because I I agree with you. My prediction was gonna be that Elon and Twitter are gonna launch a TV show or some sort of media property or centered on Tucker Carlson. I think he was setting it up for that saying that traditional media is lame. We don't have a voice. And also, I I just... I feel as if Twitter has gone so red pill and and that Elon is fine with that. Kara Swisher · 53:22 No, think he's a perfect opportunity for Elon. I think he's a perfect opportunity. Scott Galloway · 53:26 100%. And he'll say to Tucker, look, I claim it's worth $20,000,000,000 I'll give you 1% of it. That's $200,000,000, and I want you to start a daily thirty or sixty minute show on Twitter. Kara Swisher · 53:38 Yeah. It makes two Scott Galloway · 53:39 It's more a good idea. Kara Swisher · 53:42 It is a good idea. I... We... You know, someone was saying I like Tucker. I don't like... I think Tucker Carlson is vile, but I... You can't deny he's got appeal to the audience that he has. They're terrible people, but nonetheless... And I do think that, I think... It was interesting, though. I don't think he'll still have the same impact because he's small. Like, he looked so small in that little thing. And I thought he doesn't have the same thrust, so to speak, for rockets, as he does on a on a big platform like Fox. And so I'm not sure the Fox audience will find him necessarily. So he's gotta really do some heavy lifting to to to to become sort of Joe Rogan esque, and I don't I don't think it's as easy. What I really was irritated by into that particular little speech he gave, besides wearing his weird clothes that he wears, he should he should loosen it up, was that he's talking about, no, I've spent I've spent the past few days looking at TV, and it really is stupid. I'm like, you were in the center of stupid. You were like king of stupid. Speaker · 54:38 The other thing you notice when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are. They're completely irrelevant. They mean nothing. In five years, we won't even remember that we had them. Trust me as someone who's participated. And yet at the same time, and this is the amazing thing, the undeniably big topics, the ones that will define our future, get virtually no discussion at all. Kara Swisher · 55:04 And so him just pretending, like, now I see that it's... The debate is not really that, was kind of disenjoyed. I'm not... He is disenjoyed. What am I talking about? He he says he hates Trump, and then he praises him in person on on the air. So that was interesting to me. I think he's small in the thing. Do you think it'll work? Scott Galloway · 55:22 I don't know. What the history... What history tells us is that these individuals without their platforms Kara Swisher · 55:29 They're original platforms. Scott Galloway · 55:30 The original become increasingly small. And that they're just... Well, let me put it this way. Name a Fox host that has gone on to bigger and better things. Kara Swisher · 55:39 I think they've made a lot of money. I think Bill O'Reilly does pretty well, but he doesn't have influence. Right? Megan Kelly screams Scott Galloway · 55:44 all franchise. Kara Swisher · 55:45 She's got a book franchise. Megan Kelly's got her podcast. I think it does pretty well financially. I don't know, but you never know. You know, Glenn Beck, he's sort of screaming away somewhere into the abyss. You know, we'll see what happens with Dan Bongino. Maybe maybe he ropes a couple of these people in, right, and makes a new Scott Galloway · 56:02 Everything they do is a different version of troop Beverly Hills, and that is Shelley Long decides she's too big for the greatest to come in history at that point. Cheers. Kara Swisher · 56:12 Shelley Long. Come up with a better... Okay. Shelley Long... You gotta move on from Shelley Long. So so do you think... So could he rope in more people? Dan Bongino just got fired. You could bring in Maria Bartiromo who's still at Fox, but there's lots of rumors. Scott Galloway · 56:27 No one no one is there is gonna... They're gonna let... They're gonna ride out that whole foxing recognizing at point they'll probably get fired and get a big severance payment. No one's gonna leave under their own volition. But 100% Dan and Tucker and Elon will structure an interesting deal for them and say, I've got three I've 50... I mean, the thing that's so amazing about or I find so striking is that these audiences... Tucker Carlson had the biggest audience in cable television at 3,000,000. Anderson Cooper, who's the star of CNN, is a million. I mean, talk about CNN, and this goes to Senator Bennett's point about the need for regulation. We are obsessed with CNN and Fox, and the reality is they're a dumpster fire compared to what happens on Instagram and Meta every day in terms of actual influence. TikTok? 1,700,000,000 people? Okay, Lucky's on Fox two hours a day. Kara Swisher · 57:22 Two. Try eight, but go Scott Galloway · 57:23 ahead. But she's one of a couple million people there. We are obsessed with cable television, and you know what? It's a pimple on the elephant of actual media and influence. Kara Swisher · 57:36 I agree. Anyway, we'll see. We'll see if he has influence. I don't know if he will translate. I think others will. Right? There'll be a Joe Rogan of this, and I wonder or someone like that, who it is, and and we'll see. But I... That's where he's headed. It's so, that thing was, like, it was a big sign. Anyway, good luck, Tucker. 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 the show, or call 85551 Scott, that's the show, an excellent show we've had. We'll be back next week for more. Can you read us out? — Predictions segment ends — Scott Galloway · 58:08 Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Endertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Silverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Horpack, making the world a better place and embracing Scott's hobby. [Ad break] Guest · 59:20 With the score [Ad break] Speaker · 59:45 Visit blinds.com now to save up to 50% off-site wide during our annual Scott Galloway · 59:49 fall Speaker · 59:49 blowout sale.