Pivot · Dec 15, 2023

Epic Games Wins Against Google, COP 28, and Guest Naomi Alderman

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 1:06:32. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Kara Swisher · 1:06:32 Will have zapping power, and it would be great. I I can I can do that for you? Okay. Good. Naomi, this book is fantastic. Everybody should read it. It's a very thoughtful book, and not just because the lesbian is one of the heroes. I really appreciate it. Again, the book is the future, and the author is Naomi Alderman. Scott Galloway · 1:06:50 Thanks, Naomi. Kara Swisher · 1:06:51 Thank you so much. It's been great. Alright, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 1:08:02 Okay, Scott. Let's hear a prediction. Scott Galloway · 1:08:04 I was trying to decide between two. I did my predictions event, which you did not ask about. Kara Swisher · 1:08:09 Yeah. I did ask about, didn't I? Oh, I asked about it Speaker · 1:08:13 on the Kara Swisher · 1:08:13 s stair thing. Scott Galloway · 1:08:14 In our therapy session. Kara Swisher · 1:08:15 How was your predictions event, Scott? Yeah. 20,000 people. Yeah? Scott Galloway · 1:08:19 How many people thousand people registered, think about 8,000 people showed up. Anyways. Wow. Okay. Kara Swisher · 1:08:25 Alright. Good. Do you do they pay you for that? No. No. Scott Galloway · 1:08:27 I I do it because I think it's interesting and... No. It's not paid. I don't... My own feels like Kara Swisher · 1:08:33 Oh, interesting. 8,000 is a big audience, Scott Galloway. Can I ask you one more question? How many predictions did you make? How many predictions? Scott Galloway · 1:08:39 I think I ended up with, 15 or 16, something like that. So my two relevant to this show or tech that I made, one, my tech... I always make a tech stock pick, and I I got I got it right last year. I picked Meta. I just thought Meta was so ridiculously undervalued when I made the prediction it was at $80, cash volcano, anyways, and had been over punished because of the metaverse. And this year, my tech, big tech stock pick is Alphabet. And I just think, been looking at Gemini, and my thesis is that the actual LLMs will be somewhat commoditized and that the generative AI that wins will be the one with one, not even the one with the most compute because that's sort of table stakes. They're all going to have to have massive compute. But the one that has the greatest fodder or coal to shove into the furnace, specifically rights to crawl information. And it just sort of got me thinking about the proprietary access that Gemini will have. And I started thinking about, you can turn on access to your Gmail, and it'll be able to go into your email and go, Scott, we see that you have 11 speaking gigs lined up. Here... We see where they are. Here is exactly... We're gonna send you alerts on when you should book the airfare. And we know that you always eat at Casa Dona in Miami when you're there. Do you want us to make reservations? Because we see you're there. It it just... It strikes... It looks... It could look at your YouTube viewing patterns. It could look at all of the the text of your emails. It could... It strikes me it's gonna have such an extraordinary amount of information that it'll be to be able to proactively... I'm I'm going to Florida. I get my teeth cleaned when I'm in Florida. It has taken me an hour or an hour and a half to figure it out. And at some point, doctor Craig Spodak in Delray Beach will be Gemini compatible, and the AIs will just speak to each other, and the AI will go, Scott, whenever he's in Florida, gets his teeth cleaned. When is your next available appointment? And it'll look at my calendar and give Doctor. Spodak's AI, Gemini capable AI, the Windows, and they'll do it in a microsecond. And I'll get an alert saying, before we confirm, we wanna we wanna confirm your teeth cleaning. And I'll go Kara Swisher · 1:10:54 Yeah. So you're you're you're... Now I think they're in a world... If they don't get... If they lose these ad and... They... They're they're gonna have to replace some big businesses. That's all. You know what I mean? Ads and search. Scott Galloway · 1:11:05 They'll be able to push off the remedies. They'll do the big tech, thousands of lawyers, delay an obfuscation. It'll be years before the remedy actually takes effect. YouTube, and I've learned this from you when I started looking into it, YouTube, unlike many of the... YouTube's actually the fastest... If you think of YouTube's cable, it's the fastest growing cable company in the world. Kara Swisher · 1:11:24 It is, indeed. I've said this a number Scott Galloway · 1:11:26 of Yeah. So when I look at when I look at their... What still still is the largest tollbooth in the history of mankind, specifically search, which is not... Which is still growing low double digits. When I look at YouTube being the fastest growing... One of the fastest growing media companies in world, and I look at the amount of what I'll call data capital they have or data coal they have to feed into Gemini that other people won't have access to, I think this is the year of Google. Kara Swisher · 1:11:52 Just so you know, Meta Platforms went up. Started December 13 or fourteenth of last year, 2022, it was a $121, and now it is, $332. That's a good choice. Scott Galloway · 1:12:06 Yeah. It's basically... In November, when I made the prediction, it's basically tripled since then. I I made three stock picks, Airbnb, Meta, and Chinese Internet stocks. And I got Airbnb and Meta both outperformed the Nasdaq substantially. Chinese Internet stocks substantially underperformed the Nasdaq. Anyways... And the other one, and I've come Kara Swisher · 1:12:28 Alphabet's not up much in a year. Scott Galloway · 1:12:29 Well, also, part of my prediction, and I didn't mention this, is on a relative valuation basis, while Alphabet has had a good year, it looks not cheap, but reasonably valued relative to the rest of big tech right now because they look flat footed. Kara Swisher · 1:12:42 It's up 35% over the past year. Scott Galloway · 1:12:44 The second prediction is I think by... And I get the timing wrong. By the end of twenty four, the end of twenty five, Musk is gonna lose control of Twitter. He's either gonna sell it or be forced to sell it. I think there's so many existential risks he's created for himself. One... And I actually said this on predictions deck, but I think there's a there's a non zero probability now that that he's violated the terms of service of the App Store of Apple. And that would, in my view, probably be, if not the final nail, a pretty big spike in the coffin of Twitter if Kara Swisher · 1:13:15 it's A big call from Tim Cook. That's a big call. Scott Galloway · 1:13:18 Yeah. But this would be... Think about this. This would be this would be so quintessentially Tim Cook. He waits. He's thoughtful. And I really do think that putting Alex Jones back on the platform has really upset a lot of people. I think they're sort of like, is this guy really... Kara Swisher · 1:13:37 It's Just in... Into that void, guess who floated the idea of working with him? Kevin McCarthy. Scott Galloway · 1:13:43 Floated the idea of working with who? Kara Swisher · 1:13:45 With Elon Musk. He wants to work on AI, and he meant... He was floating Scott Galloway · 1:13:49 He's looking for money. He's looking for a job. Kara Swisher · 1:13:50 I get it. But, of course, you... Kev McCarthy would go for Musk. Of all the many people, has choices up in California. That's who he Scott Galloway · 1:13:56 But there's that. There's also an existential risk of... Keep in mind what he's done here around the new X dot ai, the structure he's trying to... Basically, it's thievery. He's essentially said, okay. Everyone... They handle the media well. We're gonna give 25% to Twitter shareholders. No. What he's doing is taking 75% of the assets they own for himself. Kara Swisher · 1:14:18 Yeah. Scott Galloway · 1:14:18 That's what he's doing. Kara Swisher · 1:14:19 That's he's doing. Scott Galloway · 1:14:20 And by the way, some of those investors are like Sequoia and Andrew. I think he's gonna have shareholder lawsuits from investors at Twitter. I think they're gonna say, what the fuck are you doing? You wipe out our equity because you can't control. You you have no impulse control, and now you wanna take 75% of the assets here for your for your own AI purposes. I think he has lawsuits. I think he has deplatforming risk. I think the feds are fed up with this guy, and and also the people who Kara Swisher · 1:14:49 dying over at Neuralink. He's starting a university. Scott Galloway · 1:14:54 Quite frankly, I'm a fan of that. I I I I think we need more innovation and more pressure on universities. But so... Anyways. But Kara Swisher · 1:15:01 I don't think it'll ever happen. Scott Galloway · 1:15:02 I do think by the end of the year, I think he might even just throw up his arms. And when it starts... When the virus jumps the lab of Twitter and starts infecting SpaceX, which is becoming the new or the next golden goose or Tesla, I think he and his... I guess he doesn't have a border investor. He's gonna say, you know what? It's not... Your adventures in media should come to a quick end. I think he'll declare victory and leave. Kara Swisher · 1:15:23 Yeah. He does... He lost a Scandinavian Tesla suit, union suit, just so you know. He's that. Of course, there's the the jokes around the incel car, the Cybertruck, see how good it is. You know, he's got a lot of federal people on his ass. Scott Galloway · 1:15:41 I just think this is gonna be a rough q one and q two. Kara Swisher · 1:15:44 He's got a lot. He's got a lot. He's got a lot. And... But then again, can I just push back on one thing? SpaceX just got valued at a $180,000,000,000. He's as rich as ever, if not richer. So Scott Galloway · 1:15:56 Yeah. And I used to say... People say, well, he won't be able to make interest payments. It won't be a function of interest payments. He's some... Kara Swisher · 1:16:02 Someone told me he's not very liquid. Scott Galloway · 1:16:03 Well, he's he's already pledged 60% of his Tesla shares. I just think at some point, even a guy like that goes, this just isn't worth it. I think that I think that Twitter is about to become just a constant source. It's like death by a thousand, not even cuts, but death by a thousand, you know, shivs. I think he's... I think the next couple quarters are gonna what happens when everyone starts leaving because they realize their equity value and their options are worth nothing? And maybe... Who knows? Maybe some people at Twitter who actually have kids of their own go, you know what? I'm just not down for for for this Alex Jones stuff. Kara Swisher · 1:16:37 I do think it's gonna get worse. I think he's got... You know, I I know it's... Everyone was focused on his mother thing. If his mother's not speaking to him honestly, instead of being this this kind of feral cheerleader who's gets... Who's who's on the payroll like everyone and everyone who works for him, I just don't think he has anyone. If my son behaved like this, there would be hell to pay. And then pretending, you know, he wants to save humanity, it's it's it's, he needs some guardrails, and he doesn't got... He he don't got none. He don't got none. That's the biggest problem. Scott Galloway · 1:17:08 Anyway, so I think Alphabet is the best big tech performer in 2024. Revenger, The Empire Strikes Back at the hands of Gemini, YouTube. And I think that by the end of '24, maybe '25, Musk is gonna decide the juice is just not worth the squeeze here. Kara Swisher · 1:17:25 That's two years. You're not getting '25 end of '25. You, like, just get... You don't get to say someday he's not gonna be in it. Just, alright, next year. Scott Galloway · 1:17:32 Someday. Yeah. I guess I guess technically, that's that's that's not... Yeah. At some point, he won't own it. That's not much of a prediction. Yeah. — Predictions segment ends — Kara Swisher · 1:17:38 Yeah. I think it's gonna spiral even worse. There's no guardrails. But we'll see. But he's got a lot of money. So... Anyway, Scott, I have to say, it's been another fantab... We've grown. We've grown individually and together. Scott Galloway · 1:17:50 I've shrunk. I used to be six through... Six three. Now I'm six two. True story. Kara Swisher · 1:17:54 We've we've we've grown in size of the podcast. We've grown personally, I... Except for your penis jokes, which continue to be terrible. I'd like you to improve on those next year. Scott Galloway · 1:18:06 Making funnier? Kara Swisher · 1:18:06 I'm gonna hire you a comedy writer, I think. I'm thinking of Scott Galloway · 1:18:09 it. Did you know your ears, your nose, and your penis are the only things that keep growing? No joke in there. That's actually a fact. Okay. Kara Swisher · 1:18:16 On Okay. That note, we wanna hear from you, especially about how you need Scott to have better penis jokes. 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 I also wanna sew it out to our fans. I get stopped... Oh, I got stopped a lot this week for some reason. We love when you come up to us. It's the nicest feeling. Someone's saying, hey. It's you. I love your show. It it makes... It means a lot to us, and not just because we're narcissistic folks. But That too. That too. But we like it, and we love your feedback. You know, you don't have to agree with us, but we're trying our best to do our... To be as genuine as we are. And we will correct ourselves when we're wrong, at least I will. Anyway, that's the show. Happy 2023. Welcome to 2024. Scott, have a beautiful, beautiful holiday season. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, happy Kwanzaa, whatever you happen to celebrate. Read us out. Scott Galloway · 1:19:14 Today's show was produced by Lara Nayman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mille Savario, 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. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, my New Year's wish is that reincarnation is a thing because that means statistically, there's a really good probability I'm coming back with a much bigger penis. That's good. That's good. 2025. Same old dog. Same old 2024. Where are we? What year is it? Fuck. Kara Swisher · 1:19:56 Happy New Year, everybody. [Ad break] Scott Galloway · 1:20:31 They kept asking for middle finger. Next thing we knew, had, like, 10 students running around flipping each other off. [Ad break] Kara Swisher · 1:20:39 Our big vision is to make it rain and snow on demand. Scott Galloway · 1:20:42 What if you wanted to not make it rain somewhere else? Like, one day, we're just like, screw Arizona. [Ad break] Kara Swisher · 1:20:51 I never imagined my life journey would be milk. [Ad break] Speaker · 1:21:02 We just moved into our new house, and I didn't realize just how close we were to the neighbors. [Ad break]