Pivot · Feb 2, 2024

Social Media & Child Safety, Elon's Paycheck, and Guest Conor Dougherty

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 58:46. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Guest · 58:46 Might change. So I think that's all great. The only hesitation I have, Scott, is when people say, It worries me that this is how the process is. It worries me that the only way you can get this done is through this imperious process. I think that's a fair critique. Now what you seem to be saying is, well, but that's the situation. What are you going to do? Sit there and do nothing? I get that view too, but I just think my job is to document how it happened. Kara Swisher · 59:13 This guy who's doing it, how did he get these rich people to do this? I mean, I I can see why it appeals to them as... Because all these people are like, yeah, we can build a better city. You know? Yeah. Cool electrified streets. I can see I can see the dinner party right now. But who is this guy? Guest · 59:30 I don't know if it's, like, fully nailed down, but I have a feeling that I think it actually is maybe the opposite of what you're thinking, which is this. So his name is Jan Sremek. He's a guy from the Czech Republic. He had wrote this little biography of himself, you know, typical Silicon Valley guy in the sense that he was very precocious, good at math, other things. Went to London School of Economics and was like a star trader at Goldman Sachs. He left Goldman Sachs to start a couple startups, didn't go very well, eventually finds himself in Silicon Valley, and is part of a milieu of youngish, smart, wealthy ish people who are interested in big ideas. He's in a book club with people from Sequoia. He's good friends with Patrick and John Collison, are the billionaire brother founders of Stripe. So he's in this world of people Kara Swisher · 1:00:20 Who I may say loves to talk, but go ahead. Guest · 1:00:22 Well, yeah. He's in those... That world. Right? So he somehow goes out to Solano County. He's into fishing, and he is sort of interested in this land, which if you've ever been out there, it is sort of weird and it's relatively flat. If you drive around and you're not a farmer, it looks like there's nothing out there. I mean, there are some sheep and some cattle, but it's not like packed or anything like that. Okay. So how did he get these people to do this? When you talk to him or when I interviewed him, his answers, and this might be part of a strategy, but might also think it was real. His answer was very spreadsheet y. He's like, Well, this land could be bought for this price. It's not super high value agricultural land. So if you think about it, a Napa Valley vineyard might be as much as $500,000 an acre. This land is $4,000 an acre. It about $4,000 when they started buying. So that's the agricultural value of that land. He talks about how, oh, well, it's pretty easy to protect this area from wildfires because it's just grass, so you could mow it. There's not a lot of trees and all that. Kara Swisher · 1:01:33 So he was doing the geek approach. Guest · 1:01:34 Yeah. And he's like, It's not a huge earthquake area. On top of that, there are some long range plans from the '50s in the Bay Area that earmarked that area as like, oh, this would be a good place to build. So I think his answer is sort of like this is actually a very good place to do this if we could get the land and if we could bend the politics. I think his pitch to them is probably like, this is a this is a undiscovered gem. The only thing is we have to wage a political gambit, basically. Kara Swisher · 1:02:10 Yeah. Okay. Scott, last question. Scott Galloway · 1:02:12 Well, so housing and the travails of, really wealthy, powerful people is important. But what's profound and I want you to talk about is Nick Offerman's, Emmy award for episode three of season one of the last of us. And then a follow-up question, is Pedro Pascal, in fact, the best leading man alive today? Your thoughts. Guest · 1:02:34 You know? I I think it's great. I... Well, Kara's gonna be unhappy. But Kara Swisher · 1:02:41 That's okay. Answer very quickly, and then I'll... I will ask the last question very quickly because we gotta go. Scott Galloway · 1:02:46 This is important, Kara. Do not shame me. Do not shame me and and mister Dougherty here. By the way, I don't know if you figured this out yet. Guest · 1:02:54 It is a it is a factual opinion that the last of us is the best video game adaptation in the history of the world. Scott Galloway · 1:03:00 100%. But anyway Kara Swisher · 1:03:02 Guy Conner, answer his question briefly. Guest · 1:03:04 You know, anyway, I'm excited for season two. Scott Galloway · 1:03:07 When does it come out? When does it Guest · 1:03:09 come out? I mean, they're supposedly filming right now. Oh my god. You have no idea. Scott Galloway · 1:03:12 That last episode rattled my world. It was so violent and so upsetting. Well, you Guest · 1:03:18 know what's... Again, Kara wants us to stop talking about this. I bought that game the day it came out because I was so into Naughty Dog games. They have other games. And I, like, that weekend, tried to make my wife watch the, like, little cinemas. You know? Like, if you play... As you play the game, it has, like, little movies in it because I was like, this this, like, changed me. Like, when... Because the last scene in the game is not terribly different than the one in the movie. But anyway Alright. Kara Swisher · 1:03:46 You two. Looks like you can have a... I think you guys should move up to Vacaville together and watch... Play video games. Guest · 1:03:52 Well, it's actually Rio Vista, but it's in the Vacaville area. Kara Swisher · 1:03:55 I love the word Vacaville. I know. I wanted to name one of my children Vacaville. Okay. Is this gonna happen just very quickly? Yes or no? Twenty years it'll take. Right? Guest · 1:04:05 I think it'll take ten, twenty years. Here's the way... The only way I can imagine this happening quickly is this. As you know, there are these big environmental laws in California. One way you can get out of them is the state can say you get out of them, which they do for big baseball and football stadiums all the time. That's conceivable. Kara Swisher · 1:04:23 But maybe Guest · 1:04:25 Well, it'd have to be like a whole legislator. Maybe news. I actually don't know how it works. The point is stadiums do it all the time. You could do this does happen and it happens at very special moments. I don't see how they could even put a shovel on the ground within three, four or five years without something like that. But that's why this vote is so important because there... We could enumerate hundreds of steps that we'll take to get them to get there. The question is, does anybody want... Where's the pressure points? And if they have this vote, I think they start to have the pressure points. Kara Swisher · 1:05:00 That's true. They'll they'll find some rare prairie dog. I'm sure of it. That's what's gonna happen here. We'll see what happens. It's not... This ain't Texas. It's California. In any case, fascinating stories. I'm really following, and I hope you're writing a book on this. Guest · 1:05:12 We'll see. Kara Swisher · 1:05:13 I'm hoping... Well, that would be great. I'd love to hear. It's really... I... When people do this and away from the billionaire part of it, which also makes it interesting too, it's really cool. You know, if it was just any developer, it would be boring, but this is fascinating. Anyway, Connor, I recommend everyone reading them and obviously watching The Last of Us. Thank you. We look forward to seeing what happens. Guest · 1:05:35 Thank you so much. Nice to meet you, Connor. You too, Scott. Bye. Kara Swisher · 1:05:38 Alright, Scott. That was interesting. I'm glad you guys had a man moment there, a little man bonding. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Guest · 1:05:56 Favorites dressed to impress and made to be devoured. Warm roasted sweet potatoes, crisp apples, maple glazed brussels, and crave worthy flavors in the autumn harvest bowl, maple glazed salmon plate, and roasted bacon brussels side. The season's most desirable menu has returned to Sweetgreen, featuring Fall's best dressed. Make your move. Order on the Sweetgreen app. Kara Swisher · 1:06:19 I get so many headaches every month. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 1:07:52 Okay, Scott. Let's hear a prediction. Scott Galloway · 1:07:55 Okay. So this is a this is an advocacy or a viewpoint wrapped in or posing as a prediction. But, yeah, every manager's job and every leader's job is to allocate capital to a greater return than another manager or another leader. And the ultimate the ultimate managers, if you will, is the US government and the president. We have to decide whether they allocate our resources and our revenues and our military to a greater return than other leadership around the world. That's the whole shooting match. And my prediction is that in ten or twenty years, we're gonna look back, and the greatest return on investment in this era wasn't an investment in NVIDIA. It wasn't even an investment in infrastructure. The greatest return on investment will be the $75,000,000,000 and the $92,000,000,000 that America and the EU, respectively, have invested in helping Ukraine push back on Russia. And in exchange for that investment, this is what we have received. We have received one that the EU has become a union for the first time and has has, in a very purposeful way, said that we are an ally of The United States and that we can work together in pushing back autocracy and when individuals decide to try and invade and expand their borders. Two, this has effectively been... People are under the false impression that this is sending money over to Ukraine that is then immolated. It's not. This is the... An effective stimulus plan for The United States. Because of that, if you will, a $160,000,000,000, approximately two thirds, if not more of it, ends up in one of 38 states in The United States that builds military equipment. This has been effectively a stimulus plan for United States, and we have given every autocrat, every autocrat, whether it's Xi or, Kim Jong Un, we have given them all pause that if they want to invade an island off the coast, Taiwan, that a well armed, technically sophisticated sovereign nation with the support of a unified West should not be fucked with. This is the greatest return on investment of capital. This is about 10 of our military budget Great. That we have recognized in decades. And I hope... And also this bullshit that the EU isn't paying their fair share. The EU has paid a greater Kara Swisher · 1:10:22 They pay more. Scott Galloway · 1:10:23 They have paid a greater... Invested a greater percentage of their GDP, much of it coming back to Western suppliers and weapons producers. We have battle tested weapons technology. We have developed an entirely new technology around effective drones. This... I I hope we continue to get... Make one of the greatest investments, on an ROI basis. And by the way, folks, we have not put a single boot on the ground here. So to not continue to make what will be seen as the greatest investment by the West in the last thirty or forty years, just selfishly just selfishly, we are investing in a stock that keeps going up and returning enormous dividends to The United States. And I hope I hope that congress begins to frame this as the greatest return on investment, or the greatest investment we have made in a Kara Swisher · 1:11:15 long, long time. That that Kennard about it... About them not paying their fair share, they pay more than their fair... They pay more than us. It's so ridiculous. They just keep repeating it. Scott Galloway · 1:11:24 Well, not pay. Invest. I wanna use different... They've invested more than us. Kara Swisher · 1:11:27 They've invested more than us. It's an investment. You're right. It it it... It'll it'll... If we do not do this and Putin prevails, it'll be so costly later. It'll... It'll... We'll be spending this much money. It'll be trillions later when we're gonna have to push them out of all kinds of places, and then it'll be US troops going there. Anyway, the Ukrainians are doing our work for us, and, of course, there's corruption. Of course, there's other issues. But, Scott, spot on. I agree with you. Anyway, 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. We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot. What are you doing for the weekend, Scott? — Predictions segment ends — Scott Galloway · 1:12:09 Well, I'm going to Tulum. What am I doing? I'm doing a lot of MDMA, but I'm going to Tulum. Ah, Kara Swisher · 1:12:14 cool. I... We're gonna... Soon the FDA might be approving MDMA for treatment, so that'll be a nice little time thing to talk about. Anyway, read us out then. Scott Galloway · 1:12:23 Today's show was produced by Lara Nayman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertaught engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Savario. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. 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, have a great weekend. [Ad break] Scott Galloway · 1:13:45 tomorrow [Ad break] Scott Galloway · 1:13:45 for details.