Guest · 1:02:35
Daughter is very athletic, going to go to baseball games, and, our son is more cerebral and, you know, computery and all that sort of stuff. But, no, you know, embrace each
Scott Galloway · 1:02:46
kid's smiling as he describes his kids. Look at him smile. You gotta love this guy. Anyway, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Guest · 1:02:52
Well, they're they're great. You know, every... Everybody see this sort of... You know, you love them where they're at and you enjoy the time with them. Our kids are 10 and 12, so they're... You know, we're... We just try to enjoy every moment where we where we can with them, and they're a lot of fun. I'm home for dinner pretty much every day. Sometimes we have dinner a little late side, 07:30 if I'm late, early if I'm back by 06:30, but we have dinner every day and have good discussions. Just one quick follow-up. What about being a good partner? Well, Marlon is a great guy himself. His first gentleman at Colorado, his focus is animal welfare issues. So adopting cats and dogs and protecting wildlife. And he's very involved with that, and I support him in that. And we have a great home life. We do gaming at home. You know, we we play League of Legends most nights and sometimes, sometimes watch TV, but we love, computer games and and hanging out.
Kara Swisher · 1:03:47
Interesting. So he's a cat lady. Interesting. No. I'm teasing. Let me... That... That's my last question. What do you make of the efforts by the Republican Party to, like, weaponize parenting? It's... You know, I have four kids. I don't talk about anyone lesser or more than. I don't, like, judge people for having kids or not. Is is... Does this backfire from your perspective?
Guest · 1:04:08
Well, absolutely. It's just strange, first of all. It's very... And, again, we talked about Donald Trump not having any core beliefs. But Republicans saying we want the government to parent your kids is very opposite of where they traditionally been. Also very off putting, I think, to many in the tech community, but that's basically what they're saying. I mean, what what what the mainstream message is that many Democrats, myself included, embraces. Yeah. Look. There's different value sets among different parents. You raise your kids different ways. That's great. You know, we're not saying I'm not for or against how you raise your kids. Like, even the relationship with tech is a very personal one. Some parents don't want their kids using any tech till they're 16. Others introduce it at age six. I mean, this is not for the government to decide. This is for parents to decide in their in their families and in their homes. And, do I think that's a winning message? Absolutely. But is is it the right thing? Of course. And so that's a contrast that I'm, you know, willing to raise every every day of the week. And I think the Republicans keep burying themselves deeper with trying to take over parenting, when most parents just wanna raise their kids and be left alone.
Kara Swisher · 1:05:12
Right. 100%. Anyway, we really appreciate it, governor Jared Polis from Colorado. And you're a real star. I I... Your journey has been so fascinating to me, where you've been and where you're you're going. So I'll really be eager to see what's next.
Guest · 1:05:29
Thank you. Always a pleasure.
Scott Galloway · 1:05:30
Thanks, governor.
Kara Swisher · 1:05:31
Alright, Scott. Isn't he a good guy? He's a really good guy.
Scott Galloway · 1:05:34
Could I have been more sycophantic? I was literally like Kara interviewing a lesbian journalist from the Atlantic. My questions were like, how can you be this awesome?
Kara Swisher · 1:05:44
He is awesome. He was very funny
Scott Galloway · 1:05:46
I love that guy.
Kara Swisher · 1:05:47
Back in the day. He had, like, a little briefcase. He was like... I used to call him Michael J. Fox because his parents were hippies, and he was, like, wearing a suit all the time. He's a funny guy. He's really... I'm glad he's he's really come into his own. I really enjoy him quite a bit. Anyway, it shows you how good government officials can be. Right? He has a lot of choices, and he took this.
Scott Galloway · 1:06:05
It's a really well governed state. They have great elected officials there.
Kara Swisher · 1:06:08
Does have the benefit of money to be able to do that. Like, so he doesn't... You know, it's he... This is... He's doing it for himself and for the people of Colorado. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.
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— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 1:08:17
Okay, Scott. Before we get to predictions, Don Lemon just texted me. He's suing Elon Musk for refusing to pay him after the canceled X deal. X executives used Don to prop up their advertising sales pitch, then canceled their partnership and dragged Don's name through the mud. Lemon's lawyer said in a statement, just so you know, good for you, Don. I wrote him back. Yay. Because I don't think he's getting his money back, but nonetheless, it's yet another lawsuit, for Elon, and Linda Yakiriano looks like an idiot once again. Okay. Now tell me your predictions.
Scott Galloway · 1:08:46
Well, so I thought the prediction was gonna be around VP, and I'm I'm picking Shapiro. The the other prediction I'm making, I'm just thinking about it because we didn't get to it, is I think we've hit sort of peak tweeting of... Or peak the founder tweeting of funds. So the dream of every fund manager is captive capital because the way you go out of business as an alternative investment manager is mismatched durations, and that is you invest you invest long and you raise money short. And that is you aggregate a series of positions that are not that liquid, and then your investors put in a redemption, and you either have to sell so desperately that it takes the value of the fund down or you can't even sell. Right. So you
Kara Swisher · 1:09:26
can't keep going with your investments. Yeah.
Scott Galloway · 1:09:27
So you have to put up gates saying your investors can't withdraw their money, which is effectively the end of your fund because once you put your gates down, everyone redeems. Anyway, so captive capital is the dream of every hedge fund manager. And Berkshire Hathaway and Apollo have both been very smart, and that is they have insurance companies, so they have captive capital. Another way you get captive capital is you do an IPO, and you raise capital from shareholders who own a stake and the returns on your investments. And Bill Ackman's Pershing Square plan to do a $25,000,000,000 IPO. And just this week, they announced that they're they're pulling the IPO. And it's pretty obvious that the reasoning is that his... He took a calculated risk that awareness is everything, and there's some evidence of that when guys like Chamath or Kathy Wood basically offer just terrible returns.
Kara Swisher · 1:10:16
Buffett or Warren Buffett. It's folksy. But go
Scott Galloway · 1:10:18
ahead. Yeah. But Warren has Warren has performance on his side. Warren Sure. Warren is both a good brand and has underlying performance that is you know, so far, Chamath and Kathy Wood have one of those things. They have awareness, and their performance has been abysmal to worse. And Ackman, to his credit, has actually been... Is is, a lot of people would argue, a brilliant investor. But when he's out there with these tweets circulating conspiracy theory weighing in on higher ed and DEI, it appears that institutional investors have said, you know what? We're just not We see that as a bug, not a feature, and he had to pull his IPO. And I think it's gonna give pause to a lot of these fund managers who's decided that they're celebrities or Internet celebrities and that the world needs to know what they're thinking about stuff. And the most ridiculous tweet of the year from a person that manages billions of dollars was from Kathy Wood of ARC, and the tweet read as follows. This is from this is from Kathy. As a result, our trading related capital tax losses should offset trading related capital tax gains for years and underappreciated asset associated with our strategies. What she's saying is our returns have been so shitty. We have lost so much of your money that those losses we've aggregated are gonna be so valuable to offset future gains that this is an underappreciated asset.
Kara Swisher · 1:11:46
Oh, we suck, but let me turn it to something else.
Scott Galloway · 1:11:49
Yeah. So my my incompetence as a fiduciary for your capital, I've lost so much of your capital that these losses are an underappreciated asset. Yeah. I mean, is a good
Kara Swisher · 1:12:01
These people are such grifters.
Scott Galloway · 1:12:03
Honestly. The PR person's saying, wait. How do we turn a negative into a positive? And your sycophants on Twitter might even buy this. And by the way, she deleted the tweet because I'm sure about a million people waited and said, what? Let me get this. Okay. My my my incompetence is your advantage. Anyways, I I think that these these these, very iconic investors, the day of them being bored at night and tweeting out shit, I think a lot of their a lot of their institutional investors are gonna go, put put the fucking phone down. You're
Kara Swisher · 1:12:39
Yeah. And do your job. Do your fucking job.
Scott Galloway · 1:12:42
Focus on returns.
Kara Swisher · 1:12:43
Palatin has become such a horse's petite. And he was before, by the way, but he had results, he kept his mouth shut. Right? There's all the stories of him being a jerk to people, but whatever. He did a good job. He had some wins. He had some losses, but a very good investor. Right? Good at his job. This this era of him has got to be. It's just been so depressing to watch in a lot of ways because he's an interesting fella. Right? Like, he really is. And what's happened here is that he thinks he mistakes that his... Who his audience is, and he thinks his investors are all these dumbasses who are gonna just be a meme stock, when actually they're institutional investors who just don't want this nonsense and sloppiness. He apparently released a letter he shouldn't have released. He told people who his investors were. He's just like, you know what? You live in the investing world, and that... That's your audience. And if you think you're gonna sort of trick someone into buying into your IPO, it's not happening for you. It's just not. And that's that's what I thought. They sort of misjudged his audience completely or hid the power of his audience. And they're just a bunch of people that like to troll. They're not real investors. They're just, you know, either... They could be dumb money, but they're not even that for you. So, you know, whatever. Good luck with that. But it's it's... You know, it's... I... So I find it just him going on and on about DEI. I feel like I should do a whole thing about hedge fund investing about which I know nothing, and I would like to tweet about it endlessly. That's what I kind of compare it to. Anyway, you're correct. So it's over.
Scott Galloway · 1:14:08
Yeah. He's... He spoke before me at TED, and I'm mixed on Bill because I think he's actually an interesting guy. And I think... In some ways, I do think his heart's in the right place. He's he's philanthropic. Anyway... But he said something on stage, which really struck me that this is what happens when you become powerful and you surround yourself with yes people. The person interviewing him said, you know, you're... You throw your weight around around DEI essentially because you're a billionaire. And he said, no. My my fame around DEI is because of my ideas. It has nothing to do... And it's like, are you really that tone deaf? You really think that your ideas around DEI not being a great idea are so
Kara Swisher · 1:14:47
In Ukraine. Let's hear what you think about Ukraine. It's like, whatever. These people have so many hairs up their ass. They just can't stop itching.
Scott Galloway · 1:14:54
It was like, wow. You really you really don't get it. Anyways... But he is a big handsome man. I'll give him that. I I sat next to him I sat next to him or stand next to him at the urinal, and he looked over and said he said, circumcise? I'm like, no. That's just the wear and tear of Bill.
Kara Swisher · 1:15:12
Talking about Bill Ackman's penis. Just just Boom.
Scott Galloway · 1:15:15
Always closing the show with a dick show.
Kara Swisher · 1:15:17
Sitting at... I didn't wanna go into this.
Scott Galloway · 1:15:18
Okay. Sit next to each other at the urinal, though, or stand. I'm sorry. Stand next to each other.
Kara Swisher · 1:15:22
Alright. Okay. Then we end on the penis, and Bill Ackman. Lovely.
Scott Galloway · 1:15:26
It was that kind of convention.
Kara Swisher · 1:15:29
Anyway, Bill, just get back to your job and stop yammering away. Honestly, you know, I'm sure your wife loves that you dragged her through the mud, by the way. That was a nice job for doing that. 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 Okay, Scott. That's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot. Please read us out.
— Predictions segment ends —
Scott Galloway · 1:15:53
Today's show is produced by Lara Nayman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and Ortod entered into this episode. Thanks also to Jaburo's and Neil Savario. Yashad Kouroua is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you 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.
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