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— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 1:03
Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
Scott Galloway · 1:08
And I'm Scott Galloway.
Kara Swisher · 1:09
Scott, we've made it to the end of 2020.
Speaker · 1:12
There's still time to fuck it all up.
Kara Swisher · 1:21
It's our annual end of year prediction show. And we have predictions from our favorite friends at Pivot, and we'll give some of our takes on how the world would change in 2021. But talk about how you feel about our relationship, I think, through 2020.
Scott Galloway · 1:34
Well, typically, I was thinking about you last night and how sometimes when I expose myself, my emotions, you reach out and you jab, you jab. And your harsh words several times this year, Kara, left me nothing but a hollowed out soul of dust and tears turning Dust to and tears, Kara. Dust and tears. But on the whole, I think it's getting better.
Kara Swisher · 1:58
It's getting better.
Scott Galloway · 1:59
I feel actually very... I actually, in all seriousness, I feel very grateful and... Yeah. To you and
Kara Swisher · 2:05
I feel grateful to
Scott Galloway · 2:06
you, I've had a wonderful year. You're kind of, we have the perfect relationship. We see each other maybe two hours a week. Yep. And we make each other money. Yeah. What's not to love? Two hours and cabbage.
Kara Swisher · 2:19
Talking to someone about our relationship versus Walt because I had a long term relationship with Walt, obviously, for years. And Walt, like, walked me down the aisle at my wedding. I saw him all the time socially. We don't see each other socially, do we? We don't. We just meet here, and people think we're the closest of buddies. We are in a weird way, in an odd, unusual way.
Scott Galloway · 2:35
It's because we don't know each other very well.
Kara Swisher · 2:36
Yes. That's perfect. That's a perfect relationship.
Scott Galloway · 2:38
Now it's working for me.
Kara Swisher · 2:39
It's working for me. It's working
Scott Galloway · 2:41
for me.
Kara Swisher · 2:41
So let's go to 2021 then I say. I say, let's try another year and see how that goes. Okay?
Scott Galloway · 2:46
Let's do it.
Kara Swisher · 2:47
How about a year to year relationship? Let's do that. I'm signed up. Assess and say, this sucks.
Scott Galloway · 2:51
I'm signed up.
Kara Swisher · 2:53
Alright. Sounds good. Alright. Well, we have predictions from our favorite friends of Pivot. We'll give some of our takes, how the world will change in 2021. But as I said, and what we're also gonna do is put in some of our thoughts too. Are we gonna do that too? Are we gonna be reflective?
Scott Galloway · 3:08
No. You know us, we're we're delicate little flowers and we don't like to we don't like to comment. Yeah. We'll just let everyone else talk and we won't make Yes. You don't think that we're we're gonna put aside our extraordinary ability to turn everything back to us?
Kara Swisher · 3:21
Us. Exactly. That sounds good. That's what I was hoping is we've got a lot of guests.
Scott Galloway · 3:24
Yeah.
Kara Swisher · 3:24
So we're gonna kick us off with our dreamiest friend of Pivot, Andrew Ross Sorkin. Sounds very He dreamy in this particular
Scott Galloway · 3:32
Dreamy.
Kara Swisher · 3:33
Prediction, and he's dreamy as ever. Of course, Andrew is the host of CNBC Squawk Box where he takes on... Who does he take on? Those other two guys who are assholes. Who are
Scott Galloway · 3:42
the The dinosaurs? Yeah. Wait. You mean the prostate control group or prostate cancer control group?
Kara Swisher · 3:47
Those guys. I gotta say, Andrew, you had a great year doing that and gave us a lot of pleasure here
Scott Galloway · 3:51
on I agree. Our
Kara Swisher · 3:53
I think he's a great guy. He also was a guest host for one week.
Scott Galloway · 3:56
Super impressive wife too. You gotta respect men who have really impressive wives.
Kara Swisher · 3:59
Yes. He happens to be
Scott Galloway · 4:00
my thought
Speaker · 4:01
there was
Scott Galloway · 4:01
something sexist in there. But, anyways,
Kara Swisher · 4:03
super important. Editor of DealBook in the New York Times too. So let's listen to Andy.
Guest · 4:08
Hey, Karen Scott. It's Andrew Ross Sorkin here. 2021 is gonna be the year of takeovers in tech. Now I'm gonna give you a list of names. I'm not promising you all of them are gonna be involved in a merger, but I will promise you all of them will be involved in talks, and there will be lots of speculation about some of these names, all of which have been off the field but are now gonna be right back on. On the list, Dropbox, Box, Twitter, Snap, and Adobe. Call me in a year, and we'll see who's taken out.
Scott Galloway · 4:44
I thought that was bullshit. That's like saying, okay. I'm pretty sure there's gonna be a hurricane in Florida. So he
Kara Swisher · 4:49
takes No.
Scott Galloway · 4:50
It's not. A dozen names.
Kara Swisher · 4:51
Don't listen, first of all, that's Was the most extremey that a McDreamy voice?
Scott Galloway · 4:56
It was very sexy there.
Speaker · 4:57
Got him mad.
Kara Swisher · 4:57
Was very sexy. It was interesting. He was, I think he was trying to like
Scott Galloway · 5:01
He was very sexy.
Kara Swisher · 5:02
Take you on and make you jealous as usual. So why why... What's what's wrong with this? I feel like he gave I names and hadn't thought about Adobe. I hadn't thought about Adobe.
Scott Galloway · 5:12
Andrew's smart. Andrew's basically made it impossible for that to be an incorrect prediction. He said, Dolby talks. How could there not be talks about one or more of those companies?
Kara Swisher · 5:21
I don't know. Which one of the... When he mentioned, would you say
Scott Galloway · 5:24
My prediction is the markets will be both up and down.
Kara Swisher · 5:27
I mean Listen. Yeah. Listen, smart ass. Which of the ones he mentioned do you think would be sold?
Scott Galloway · 5:33
Adobe's probably too expensive. Snap's What an interesting else did you say? Twitter.
Kara Swisher · 5:40
Fox, Dropbox.
Scott Galloway · 5:41
I don't know enough about Dropbox. What do you think?
Kara Swisher · 5:44
I think Adobe was really interesting. I hadn't thought of that. That was the one that sort of struck out at me. I don't know what he means.
Scott Galloway · 5:50
Who would balance sheet to take Adobe out? I think Adobe's more of an acquirer than an inquiry, but
Kara Swisher · 5:55
Interesting.
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Kara Swisher · 5:56
Apple? That's too big for them. That's too don't think so. Snap with Apple? Apple Snap?
Scott Galloway · 6:03
Don't think I don't I don't Twitter, well, one of my predictions is finally a chance to turn it back to me.
Kara Swisher · 6:11
Okay. Good.
Scott Galloway · 6:11
I think Twitter is going to 70 plus bucks a share on very simple moves. One, they get rid of the nose ring and two, they...
Kara Swisher · 6:21
This is Jack still, you're still working
Scott Galloway · 6:23
I'm on that still, at some point.
Kara Swisher · 6:27
When he retires in twenty years and you go, I was right.
Speaker · 6:29
I was right.
Scott Galloway · 6:32
And also any signs of life around subscription, that stock, full disclosure, bought the stock earlier this year, advising Elliot.
Kara Swisher · 6:42
Let me just say, what what about when the the Trump leaves or moves along or they kick him off?
Scott Galloway · 6:47
Yeah. I don't... I think that hurts, but I think Twitter is... Any... We've said this before. Any social media platform that has anything regarding anything close, any reasonable facsimile of the influence, Twitter's the only ingredient brand that shows up on every other media brand in the world. It's the new moniker for everyone's name. The most influential people in the world have one thing in common. They're all on Twitter or they announce, you know, when the Fed announces a hike in interest rates, it takes to Twitter.
Kara Swisher · 7:17
Right.
Scott Galloway · 7:17
So, and any other organization or social media network that has PR anything
Kara Swisher · 7:23
Newswire now. It's interesting. And
Scott Galloway · 7:25
any other social media network that has the same type of influence trades at 15 to 30 times the market capitalization. So, you know, this thing may show some signs of lies. It has some reasonable cover governance, some reasonable move to subscription. Imagine if it'd be $70 a share, it could go to a $100 a share.
Kara Swisher · 7:43
No, all right.
Scott Galloway · 7:44
I'm very bullish. I'm talking my own book, I own the stock.
Kara Swisher · 7:46
All right, okay, all right, okay, fine. Okay, interesting idea. Snap would be interesting. Dropbox, I don't know Who
Scott Galloway · 7:52
do think would take Snap out though? It's gotten It's boom. By the way, that's a prediction I got wildly wrong. I thought they were gonna be run over by Instagram, but who do you think would
Kara Swisher · 8:01
And take who believed in Snap? Kara Swisher.
Scott Galloway · 8:03
You did, yeah, because you like Evan. Because I because that was your ovary speaking.
Speaker · 8:07
You don't wanna make out with him.
Kara Swisher · 8:09
He's a lesbian. I have no interest in him in that regard, and I do not find him dreaming spectrum.
Speaker · 8:13
You're the one who find all
Kara Swisher · 8:14
the men dreaming, my
Scott Galloway · 8:15
friend. It's spectrum.
Kara Swisher · 8:16
Be clear.
Scott Galloway · 8:17
Well, Karen, I'm not gay.
Kara Swisher · 8:18
I know a creative person. But I'm not. Listen. I know a creative person when I see one, and I always bet on creative people. And that would be... If I was a VC, that's what I'd bet on, creativity. Thank you.
Scott Galloway · 8:28
Yeah. You bet on creative people with dreamy hair and broad shoulders.
Kara Swisher · 8:31
No. He doesn't have a You
Scott Galloway · 8:32
so have a type.
Kara Swisher · 8:33
Literally, he's
Speaker · 8:34
the skinniest person. He wears
Kara Swisher · 8:35
size two jeans. No. He's a
Scott Galloway · 8:37
skinny man. So have a type.
Kara Swisher · 8:39
He's not have a type. He's like, no, I do not have a type. Anyway, just so you know, your predictions in the dispersion markets, you have said that SPACs are going to underperform that Robinhood is the new menace. So those have been your, your business ones.
Scott Galloway · 8:53
Well never underestimate the market's ability to provide product when people have cash, whether, you know, within, I described the financial markets as Manhattan, when it starts raining, of a sudden people pop up with umbrellas, know, where did that guy come from?
Kara Swisher · 9:07
Right.
Scott Galloway · 9:08
And the marketplace, the public markets, which traditionally let companies trade at a greater multiple, especially when they're this frothy, have said, oh, there's not enough IPOs. And what do you know, people show up and raise money, go through the process of what typically takes six to nine months and two to three months to get the SEC on board and have a just add water IPO and go find companies. And some have been very successful. They've actually outperformed the market, but typically over the long term, they underperform. And the reality is if you look at $70,000,000,000 and de SPAC capital levered up to 200,000,000,000, there just isn't enough good private companies out there, which means they're going to overpay and these things are going to vastly underperform over the next two to three years. What happens in the next year? I don't know. But SPACs are definitely a canary in the coal mine that are kind of froth.
Kara Swisher · 9:55
Do you see any that you like? Are there any SPACs you're like, that's a good
Scott Galloway · 9:59
Well, I'm being biased because she's a friend of ours, but I think BarkBox is an interesting one. Joanna Coles was involved in that spec. Subscription revenue, pet adoptions are up 40% year on year. Recurring revenue, a million subscribers at 30 a month, $360,000,000 in revenue. Is it worth five times revenue? I don't know,
Kara Swisher · 10:16
feel but I like like that people are gonna dump their pets. That's what we're gonna unfortunately.
Scott Galloway · 10:20
It's not that easy to dump your pet.
Kara Swisher · 10:22
Oh, is. Are talking about? I'm just telling you, people do that. They buy like weird things and then get rid of pets after a
Speaker · 10:29
while.
Scott Galloway · 10:29
Know, my dad's third wife is a wonderful woman, but not a great pet owner, she'd always get a pet and then the pet would magically disappear to a farm.
Kara Swisher · 10:36
Well, I'm just saying, they just, they, I just say people, people are not that nice of But I see, I see your point. So you like that SPAC. Is there any other SPACs you like?
Scott Galloway · 10:44
Well, does been
Kara Swisher · 10:45
Paul Ryan's doing with his SPAC? We better check-in on Paul Ryan.
Scott Galloway · 10:48
Yeah. So I mean, there's been a bunch. Yeah. I'm not if he's bought anything. Shammoth Papadia has been kind of the SPAC He's a boss. Virgin Galactic so far has been really successful. They're doing Opendoor, which I want to dig into. I don't fully understand that business. They laid off a third of their staff and now they're going public with the SPACs. We'll be curious to see how they're going to do. But SPACs, generally speaking, the pause and the scrutiny that the SEC and the markets and investment banks force companies to go through before going public probably isn't a bad thing. And so the fact that so many companies are bypassing that is indication that we're reaching further and further into the barrel. And so you're gonna, I mean, my big prediction is 2021 is gonna be the that SPACs dramatically underperform. There'll be some winners. There'll be some great companies.
Kara Swisher · 11:35
You also were possibly waiting for Robinhood's IPO, which I think you're waiting in the wings for that one.
Scott Galloway · 11:40
Yeah. I I think that the the dispersion of stimulus to record savings and to ends up in the hands of bored and vulnerable young men who put the money into this to story stocks, creating exceptional volatility, systemic risk, much less depression among young men. And when you have the CEO of Goldman Sachs saying he's worried about froth in the market and then they're working with Robinhood to take them public, there's some inconsistency there. Yeah. So I think if investment banks actually wanna live up to this business round table, aspiration they're all on the board of, that they need to start thinking about stakeholders, not just shareholders. That we have a menace here. So I'm hopeful that Robinhood, that people realize this dispersion and removal of friction in this instance is a negative externality.
Kara Swisher · 12:31
I like your Menace companies. I think that should be your
Scott Galloway · 12:33
next book.
Kara Swisher · 12:34
Menace economy. Menace economy. Yeah.
Scott Galloway · 12:35
Next book. Uber.
Kara Swisher · 12:36
Although I don't think people wanna buy sad books.
Scott Galloway · 12:39
You don't wanna buy what? I
Kara Swisher · 12:40
don't think people wanna buy sad books next year. I'm just saying Menace Economy would be a really interesting book.
Scott Galloway · 12:45
Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. But what do you think? How do you feel about the markets and Robinhood?
Kara Swisher · 12:51
I don't really follow. I think Robinhood needs to clean itself up, and they won't, and they have a lot of menace investors and the whole the whole... They're... They just love to shove this crap at us all the time. And some of the parts of it are good. I think people should... You know, I always like E Trade and things like that. But again, they're sloppy. They're sloppy, sloppy, careless young men. I don't know how else to put it. Sloppy, careless young men is the problem we've had the whole time, and that's why these antitrust hearings are coming up for big tech sloppy, careless, young white men mostly, but not always. But but in terms of... I just think that they're... They just are careless people who rush ahead and call it innovation a lot of the time when it's actually just sloppiness. And it and other people pay the price for their sloppiness.
Speaker · 13:35
Thank you.
Scott Galloway · 13:36
Well, it's we've moved from we had a manufacturing based
Speaker · 13:38
economy That's
Kara Swisher · 13:38
excuse my son didn't clean up his room week.
Scott Galloway · 13:40
We have a manufacturing. We had a manufacturing based economy. We went from agrarian to manufacturing to service and to innovation. And the scary part is have we moved to an exploitation economy?
Kara Swisher · 13:49
Exactly. I think we have. And I think, you know, just watching this vaccine rollout, like Marco Rubio lecturing us about coronavirus and then getting... Being... Rushing to the front of the line, and I know people in congress got it. But, like, I say we put anyone who went to a super spreader event and was obnoxious about masks and all that, you'd put them in the back of the line. Back of the line. Back of the line. Anyway, typical. Anyway, let's move on. We also have prediction from our friend of Pivot, Aminatu So. Aminatu is a best selling author of the book big friendship, and you can find her newsletter creme de la creme at aminatu.substack.com. If you wanna find out more about her, you can also find that in our show notes. Alright.
Guest · 14:30
Hello. I'm Aminatu So, and I am very nervous about making predictions. If anything, COVID has taught us all that nothing goes according to plan. But let's see. Anything for you, Kara and Scott? Here is my prediction slash wish for 2021. I really want to see America really embrace automation in, cool and new ways. This country is so behind. You go anywhere else in the world, and they are doing contactless and touchless mechanisms for consumer and employee interactions. You know, the automation is just better everywhere else. And America likes to act like we're a rich country, but we're just a poor country in a Gucci belt. So I am hoping that next year, we live up to our status of being a rich country and, like, you know, get some, like, automation up in here. We really need it. And it would be nice. And, you know, also coronaviruses really show that automation is really meant for times like these. So that's what I want to see. America, get it together. Happy New Year, everyone.
Kara Swisher · 15:38
Well, that's an interesting one for Mina. You know, that's an interesting issue because when you are in Europe and other places, they're they're they do have better systems. I don't know how else to put it. Like in terms of buying, in terms of all kinds of things that you do with your phone or with these lots of lots of ways to do that. What do you think about this?
Scott Galloway · 15:58
It's interesting because what Aminatu said sort of my first reaction is that automation has been to a certain extent incredibly damaging to the middle class because it's not immigrants that have taken American jobs, it's basically robots. And I wonder, you know, I like the idea of, automation is really interesting. You go into a European airport, you put your passport in, your boarding pass and it lets you in as opposed to speaking to someone who's, you know, just waiting for their job to be destroyed. So I think there's tremendous opportunity. I think what I would hope is, is that we come up with some sort of tax on the technologies and the robots because what's happened in America is it's more tax efficient for a company to figure out a way to outsource the human to a robot, even if the robot isn't as good or as productive as the human, because we don't have to pay payroll taxes on them. We don't have to, So I think automation is a very loaded term.
Kara Swisher · 16:56
Yes, it is. I'd agree.
Scott Galloway · 16:58
But we'll see. Yeah. I guess I'm
Kara Swisher · 17:00
looking know, for... I want to just pursue this for one second more, but automation is a loaded term because a lot of it is great. Like the contactless stuff, I think a lot of the ways we do business is so is is old school. And when you see it... When you go to other countries and any... Almost any country, South Korea or China or Japan or Europe, it's just a very different world how things work. And you have to sit there and you go like, oh, this is the easy way to do it. And so you feel that The US should be ahead on this. Now there... You don't have to eliminate jobs necessarily when you do these things. Like, you could you could deploy workers to do better customer service if they didn't have to do the rote tasks, you know, that just don't require... It doesn't make them better to have a person doing them, and in fact, they're just dead end jobs. And so, you know, I look at some of the the the warehouse things like in Amazon or something like that, and some of them are just clearly gonna be automated that it's not... You know, pretending otherwise is kind of silly. But I think the idea is to figure out what they... What people can do better and how you... There's lots of ways people can do things better than robots. And so that's really where I think the issues around automation have to be discussed, Not just make it a sort of boogeyman for everything, but really start to think about where jobs should be and how we should train people for them.
Scott Galloway · 18:12
Yeah. Look, automation's coming. I don't wanna be a blood eyed. The question is do we take some of the prosperity that comes from that progress and help to retrain the cashier into someone who understands
Kara Swisher · 18:21
for robot tax? Bill Gates. You and Bill Gates.
Scott Galloway · 18:24
I think
Kara Swisher · 18:24
that's the
Scott Galloway · 18:24
right way to go.
Kara Swisher · 18:25
Let's go to a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about, what we think is coming up in work and business culture, health care, and media.
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Kara Swisher · 19:36
Okay. We're back, and we have a prediction from Baratunde Thurston, the creator and host of the podcast, How to Citizen with Baratunde.
Guest · 19:45
What's up Pivot producers? Thank you for having me on the show, a couple times in 2020. Here are my predictions for 2021 in response to, how big business will or will not change their work cultures. Big business will continue to increase the volume of its talk about diversity, equity, inclusion and even the new kid on the block, anti racism. We're gonna see more hashtags, more initiatives, more pictures of black people in the recruiting imagery. Some of these businesses will even make meaningful changes in the form of financial contributions or recruiting of retention approaches. But many of those same businesses will continue to perpetuate exploitative business models that extract data and value from their customers. They will continue to talk about being good corporate citizens while taking advantage of every possible tax avoidance scheme thus indirectly defunding the very society they claim to be a part of. They will continue to put profits over people because they'll feel stuck in the cycle of short term shareholder value creation while failing to expand their definition of shareholder adequately and rapidly enough. Oh, and they're gonna talk a lot more about how they want their employees to bring their full selves to work, and a few of them might even mean it.
Kara Swisher · 21:07
We have more about Baratunde's podcast in the show notes. Well, daddy was so smart. He's so smart. Baratunde's so smart.
Scott Galloway · 21:12
Impressive man.
Kara Swisher · 21:13
Just say, I just had this discussion with a bunch of people the other day about how, the the the the Black Lives Matter and, racial... Systemic racism discussion sort of went... Fell apart... Or not fell apart. It didn't fall apart. It went away and has been quieter now suddenly. This... And, obviously, it's because of the constant, you know, fire that that Trump prompts and the and the election and everything else. But it was... They were talking about whether it was gonna come back, whether that's gonna be something meaningful. And I really... I hadn't thought about that, but it was really a, it was a great discussion I had about this. And I... It really did. It didn't fall by the wayside, but it got drowned out by other things that came after it, including right now with Trump trying to do a coup of the US government, for example. Mhmm. So what do you think about this?
Scott Galloway · 22:01
Such a complicated... So you can be hopeful. Where I see progress is at a board level. And that as I've always said, we're a tribal species. Boards of directors typically are white men and we pick a white man to be the CEO and white male CEOs have a tendency to surround themselves with other white males and it just trickles down. And so I think a lot of the change has to start at the board level. In Germany, one of the ways they've supported a middle class is that they have federal mandates that a certain percentage of your board of directors has to be represented by workers. What do know? What do you know? Workers in the middle class have done better in Germany and at the percentage, you know, the CEO doesn't make three fifty times what the average worker does in Germany. So the NASDAQ has said if you don't have one woman on your board, you can't be listed on the NASDAQ. I don't think if we're waiting for their better angels to show up, I think it's happening, but it's happening too slowly. I'm not a fan of regulation, but I do think that certain indices, certain investors, I like the fact that they're saying if you don't have some reasonable semblance of diversity on your board, and I do think that's where it all starts. We're not gonna list you or give you access to the capital markets. There has been enormous progress every day and until the pandemic where we've seen this economic apartheid explode, where black and Hispanic households have an average wealth of around $20 and white households $160. There's just, mean, is, Bill Clinton kind of summarized it. He said it in the early 90s that systemic racism is the biggest issue our country faces. So I think this is gonna continue to be a a huge issue.
Kara Swisher · 23:46
It's... It is it is amazing, but it never gets to... It gets to... It loses... It's interesting because I was watching all the way the a l... The LBJ. I'm interviewing Brian Cranston, so I was watching the HBO version of it. And it's so resonant to today, these struggles between and among the different groups and, obviously, people... The awful, terrible people like Strom Thurman, but many others. And how many... How much compromise did you get to the Voting Rights Act, which, of course, was then recently gotten rid of, and then the the the civil rights bill of 1964. And it just... It's the same discussions we're having today. And I do think what happens is these things come come upward, and there are protests and everything else, and then these corporations just slow roll everybody and sort of put it into the drawer again. And I just see that happening. And so on lots of issues, and not just that because this pandemic, if it's shown anything, and I I... This was an interview I did with, Nicole Hannah Jones. These are... We have made people sacrificial workers. There are... Like, you you call them the menace economy. I call it sac... Sacrificial workers that we've decided that they are... We call them essential, but they're really sacrificial. You'll see it in this, like, why
Speaker · 24:58
are we
Scott Galloway · 24:58
They're the expendables.
Kara Swisher · 24:59
They're the expendables. They're... We just do that. And it and it tends to be people of color because they're in the... A lot of these jobs, in some of these jobs. And the people that did well in this pandemic are people who can work at home like ourselves, by the way, who can work... Who have no problem doing Zoom, who are in the information economy. And we don't talk enough about this continuing cycle of short term shareholder value creation without being the stakeholders. And you hear it's compassionate capitalism, inclusive capitalism, stakeholder capitalism. Like, let's... It it... Let's actually do it versus this... The the the the talking points to it. And so I just feel like... I just think this... The the gig economy, they're all sort of screaming at... And this pandemic and the gig economy and the way it takes advantage of workers, it's just screaming out for serious change finally. Mhmm. And you... When you hear people like AOC and others, you know, I know she's become sort of the boogeyman for the right to... That's their new thing to attack since they won't necessarily have Trump all the time, is is this, is is the worker. When she starts talking about the worker, it makes sense to people like my kids and to everybody else. Like, it's really interesting to hear her listen to from various points of view if you're not sort of an old white man.
Scott Galloway · 26:15
Mhmm.
Kara Swisher · 26:15
It's just, like, what she's talking about makes a lot of sense. Now you may not agree with how to get there and you may struggle with... She may struggle to get legislation through, but her her basic building blocks are correct into how we have to think about workers going forward.
Scott Galloway · 26:29
Yeah. She brings... I love AOC. I think she's an inspiration, but she brings a certain contempt for corporations.
Kara Swisher · 26:36
Well, she's had it with them.
Scott Galloway · 26:37
Yeah. But I think some of it is unhealthy because I think she's she's playing into their hands by saying, you know, capitalism and companies and profits and people becoming wealthy, you know, there's something very noble in that. And that is we take the prosperity and hopefully share it. We haven't been taking the prosperity and sharing it. I would argue that the problem, I mean, to be blunt, I think AOC is at fault. And what I mean by that is that we should have minimum wage that's $20 an hour. We should have corporations paying their fair share of taxes. We should have wealthy the wealthiest man in the world paying taxes. And guess who gets to decide that? Our legislators, the houses of government. So, yeah, I understand, but it's on you to figure this shit out and it's on us to elect representatives that not only have the ideas but have the ability to form a consensus and reach across the aisle instead of going on Twitter and insulting each other to get shit done. And the reality is they haven't gotten anything done.
Kara Swisher · 27:31
I I mean, when I interviewed Annie Spozzi, she's like, let let every... Get the votes. And I agree with elections that you win these things. It's who you put in place. The same time, literally, it... Like, today's thing on the deal on this on this stimulus bill, like, the the martini lunch thing, every economist is like, this doesn't help the economy, but Trump wanted to get it through, and they probably had to give it him. Like, how ridiculous is that rich people can deduct their lunches? And then what the Democrats got in return was was money for poor people. Mhmm. Like, it's insane that that that was their priority. It's insane. It's insane. Yeah.
Scott Galloway · 28:06
The stimulus bill... Look. The stimulus bill is, and that's a separate talk show, but I do think that the American corporation when left to the full body contact of competition and Darwinism creates incredible prosperity. Don't think anything like competition and capitalism creates a type of prosperity such that we can be more loving and generous with people. So I think contempt for corporations is, anyway, it is a complicated topic.
Kara Swisher · 28:35
Yes. Is. I'm, alright, I was saying I don't trust. I think Veritundi's talking the right thing is they'll try to put it in the drawer if they can, because not as much as like that they don't care is that it's just not, they're, it's number 15 on their list and they got a big list, that other stuff. So let me just very quickly before we get out of this section. Some of Scott's predictions in dispersion of home and work, coworking renaissance is one of them. Airbnb is worth more than the top five hotel chains combined because people are gonna be working in different places. Restoration Hardware becomes a thousand dollar stock, and Apple acquires Peloton. So what do you think will happen post pandemic, post, when the vaccine does get to actual people in a CVS?
Scott Galloway · 29:16
There are a lot of young people that want to find mentors, friends and mates at work. And there is a serendipity and a creativity that happens when people bump off of each other. So there will be somewhat, unfortunately it'll create greater inequality just as firms are on their heels and saying go all remote and using those cost savings to juice... To help them get through the pandemic. Google, Facebook, and Amazon are actually leasing up space in Manhattan because they're gonna offer a form of Xanadu for any 25 year old e e from MIT and say, come live in New York in this Tinder meets Ted meets billions kind of work environment. But you're going to have so I do think there's going be a co working renaissance because I think small and medium sized firms are not gonna want... They're gonna want flexibility around office space. They'll need less of it, but they'll need it more on demand, if you will, and that's what coworking is. Airbnb, you know, we predicted was gonna be a $100,000,000,000 company. It went public or was supposed to go public at a value. It was 18,000,000,000 earlier in the year. It's already at close to 100,000,000,000. I think it's somewhere between 90 and 100 right now. And the restoration hardware prediction is more, commercial real estate is a $12,000,000,000,000 asset class. We're going to spend, I think, somewhere between 2030% gross net destruction in demand or time spent in commercial. And that most of that time is going to be reallocated across our attention graph to residential, which naturally means that 20% of the $12,000,000,000,000 or a couple trillion dollars Right. Will move out of commercial and into residential. And when you think about commercial real estate to a certain extent, everything from Herman Miller to Aaron shares to Microsoft to Oracle to Siebel, these are all great brands in the workplace. There really aren't that many great brands in the home. Think about how many, think about when you, it's always struck me There's that
Kara Swisher · 31:05
brands, CB2s, Craig and Barrel, Restoration Harbor, West End.
Scott Galloway · 31:10
They're West Elm. Yeah. But that's And one think about how many great apparel brands there are.
Kara Swisher · 31:14
Anyways That's the Williams Sonoma and that gang.
Scott Galloway · 31:16
But the thing that always struck me is you'd see a real estate tear sheet and they'd be selling a $3,000,000 home and they would advertise that it had a $3,000 sub zero freezer. And I'm like, refrigerator. I'm like, there are so few great iconic brands in the home. Restoration Hardware is one of them. And unfortunately it plays to the top 10% who are going to kill it. And a lot of people are just saying, you know what, I didn't realize how old and ratty that carpet is. And my corporation is giving me money to stay at home. I'm saving money. And Sonos
Kara Swisher · 31:43
I just bought a carpet, Scott, for the home. I just bought a big TV too.
Scott Galloway · 31:47
And Sonos is another great brand in the home. If you really said how many great brands are in the home, there really aren't that many. And they're about to get, you're about to see a couple of trillion dollars go transfer out of commercial and residential. Alright. Plywood costs all time highs. Residential real
Kara Swisher · 32:04
estate leaving all time highs. The home. Kara Swisher wants to get out of her home as soon as she gets the vaccine, and then she's gone. She's gone from her home. She's never going back again. Anyway, moving on. We have a prediction speaking of, the pandemic on health care from Andy Slavitt. Andy Slavitt is the host of the podcast in the bubble, and he was head of Obamacare under the Obama administration.
Guest · 32:24
Hey, guys. Prediction for 2021. Well, it's gonna start as chaotic as 2020. The pandemic has a few more surprises left in store for us, and it's gonna be rough going for a while. But we are gonna exit the year, in a much better spot, having gotten partially way through it. But, boy, the public patience in The US, just isn't tolerating of much. We are, of course, going to be moving into the Biden Harris regime, and I think we will see quality people focused on real results putting their head down, and I think that'll be nice for a change. Biden's big challenge, of course, is how does he deal with an ex president and a kinda loud group of people that don't want him to succeed. I think he'll do as well as anyone can, and I think competence and compassion will help rule the day. I wish everybody the best 2021 possible.
Kara Swisher · 33:21
Well, interesting. Well, what does he mean?
Scott Galloway · 33:23
That guy adopt me. Seriously, will that guy adopt me? By the way, he has a really impressive son. I went on his podcast and he and his son are both really impressive. The one thing I felt when I got off Andy's podcast
Kara Swisher · 33:36
Andy's podcast, yeah, it's a great podcast.
Scott Galloway · 33:38
Was I was angry that I thought this is the kind of competence we had in the Obama administration. We had thoughtful, competent people and that had literally got run out of what.
Kara Swisher · 33:49
Now we have That Peter
Scott Galloway · 33:50
got run out of DC. And
Kara Swisher · 33:52
Scott, what's his name, that asshole? Atlas. Whatever, him. God. Anyway. What bunch of cranks. I mean, really, seriously, we would put up with these hydroxychloroquine with a whole gang of them. They're insane. They're insane. They're really like insane.
Scott Galloway · 34:06
I don't mind insane. I'm not incompetent.
Kara Swisher · 34:08
Even that Deborah Birx, come on. She was very competent and now she's like up in trouble because she's been like going to her, she has four homes and she was winterizing one and so she got together her whole family. Just, it's really just something else.
Scott Galloway · 34:21
Yeah, but I think she is a competent woman. Think
Kara Swisher · 34:24
Whatever. I'm sorry. She sat there while he did it. She should have taken her scarf, flounced out of the room. I'm sorry.
Scott Galloway · 34:30
It's very hard. Very hard to
Kara Swisher · 34:32
No. It's not. No. It's not. No. It's really not. Like, I hate when people say that it's really hard. It's not really hard.
Speaker · 34:37
Well, okay. What I have
Scott Galloway · 34:39
found out same thing. I mean, Fauci was... Fauci kind of found his testicles about with a month left.
Kara Swisher · 34:43
He did. He kept did. Should be driven pushing back. He kept, she did not say word one. And I hate to say that as a woman, but he like pushed back. Kept saying opposite of what was That's fair. She could have stayed there and said it.
Speaker · 34:56
Yep. That's fair.
Kara Swisher · 34:57
She didn't say a word. She didn't say a word. I'm not gonna give her an easy time. And and letting Scott Atlas get away with anything. I don't know what went on behind the scenes, but she should have made it public. I just completely should have made it public. It's too important. It's too... These these are people's lives, and that's the way I feel about it. Anyway, I'm glad he thinks that. Your predictions in, health care are really interesting. And I wanna talk about pharm... How pharmaceutical companies will do coming out of this, but Walmart gets into health care via acquisition. You also said Amazon sucks a $100,000,000,000 from top health care firms. So talk a little bit about that and then we'll talk about pharmaceutical companies, how they come out of this. Looking good, I guess.
Scott Galloway · 35:33
Well, someone reminded me that Walmart is already a big player in healthcare but I think they're gonna be, I think the quiet or the proxy battle to end all battles is taking place right now, and that is Amazon and Walmart going after each other in healthcare. 17% of our economy, dollars 3 to $4,000,000,000,000 and it's up for grabs. And the level of consumer behavior change, the level of regulation change, the amount of venture capital funding going into remote medicine, the most exciting, probably the biggest silver lining coming out of this cloud we call COVID-nineteen is the opportunity to embrace or disperse healthcare past or away from doctor's office and hospitals, which are intimidating, expensive, and get into primary care and service people on their smartphones such that the rash doesn't become an infection and someone doesn't end up in the start managing people's weight better, their diet better, and offer a level of primary care that would be, you know, that's been unprecedented. So I think that the opportunity to disperse 17% of our GDP and have it reach people who traditionally haven't had as much access to healthcare is the most exciting thing in our economy. Also the most exciting thing from a stakeholder level. And in terms of Amazon, Amazon can perform Jedi mind tricks. When they announce, when they acquire PillPack, CVS and Rite Aid hemorrhage tens of billions of value, you're about to see over the course of 2021, you're gonna see the 10 largest healthcare companies, in my view, probably lose 100 to 300,000,000,000 in combined market cap and it's all gonna go to Amazon. I don't know if you saw it but Amazon today announced that Amazon Health is gonna be rolled out to other companies where they connect you with doctors for chats, they can prescribe you medication and they're gonna start offering it to other companies. Here comes Amazon. And Amazon just needs just needs to give another industry the stink eye and can begin suffocating and asphyxinating it without touching it. You're gonna start to see that Jedi mind trick come into health care.
Kara Swisher · 37:31
Yep. Agree. Agree. Alright. And pharmaceutical companies, I think they're gonna come out very well. They've done a... They've they've of shined up their sometimes very tarnished reputations about high prices and stuff like that. So they certainly can swing into action when they need to. And I think this will be an interesting case study of how quickly these vaccines were made and, you know, the real story about how it happened. I think that's... I've why I've been reading all these stories. Alright. Next one, prediction. We're moving into media. Finally, our next friend is very close to our show. Our executive producer, Erica Anderson, is leaving us at the end of the year. Here's what she has to say about the future of podcasts.
Guest · 38:07
Hey, Karen Scott. This is Erica America, your executive producer. This is my last show. So first and foremost, I wanna thank you both for being incredible friends and mentors and hosts. This has been an incredible ride, and I can't wait to see what you guys do in 2021. Alright. So let me just share my take for how the podcast market will shake out in 2021. Number one, Netflix is going to make a major play for narrative podcasting. It'll terrify the competition. Number two, Spotify will begin to show far less interest in pods that aren't made for or by them, especially the talk show kind. Number three, Amazon Music is going to become a major contender through content acquisition. Most importantly, as the platforms start to get serious about highly produced audio content, the era of everybody has a podcast will close out. Only the best content will survive and be amplified. And on topic of talk shows, shows like Pivot that are daily habits, have social consequence, and are largely driven by the personalities of the hosts, they'll become major franchises as they should be. And this is my last prediction. 2021 is going to be a huge year for Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. Thanks for having me on as your EP, and don't forget to take my calls when you move to Los Angeles, replace Bill Maher, and become bigger than Howard Stern. Love you both.
Scott Galloway · 39:30
She's a charmer.
Kara Swisher · 39:31
She's a charmer.
Speaker · 39:32
She's a
Kara Swisher · 39:32
charmer. The end, let me just say her first prediction is entirely wrong. Netflix is not gonna embrace its role as a media company to take a major play to podcasting.
Scott Galloway · 39:40
Don't think so.
Kara Swisher · 39:41
I do not. I have to ask them about this directly and rather in detail, and that is not the case. I think they're not... They're... They've got their hands full with international. I think they're really leaning into international quite heavily. And so that one, I don't agree with. I don't think they're even slightly interested in podcasts, not even a bit. Spotify, you take that one.
Scott Galloway · 40:00
Well, just more broadly speaking, if you look at Apple, Spotify, and Netflix, and you were to look at when their stocks accelerated at the greatest velocity over a short period of time and then you tried to backward integrate into what was the catalyst, the catalyst was the launch of original owned IP or programming. Yes,
Kara Swisher · 40:19
original for sure.
Scott Galloway · 40:20
When Netflix did House of Cards, when Spotify did the deal with Joe Rogan, and also when Apple launched Apple TV, and I think there were other catalysts there, but all of these vertical own controlled content as opposed to being the distributor of the content seems to be the gangster move. So any IP that is up for grabs right now Mhmm. Oh my gosh, those values. And it goes back to what we're talking about next week. They're just these larger companies are going to arbitrage NPS and consumer loyalty and affinity across
Kara Swisher · 40:52
So who? Who in podcast? She's talking specifically about podcast. I don't Netflix is not getting in here 100%.
Scott Galloway · 40:57
Yeah, I don't know what I didn't understand that one either because I don't know the device that Netflix would play it on, but oh my gosh, Amazon, Spotify, Apple will get into the business. I think there's going to be bidding wars for any sort of because the thing is nine women It can't have a baby in a takes a long time to build Call Her Daddy or whatever that podcast is. It takes a long time to build that affinity, that goodwill, and that that subscriber base. And those companies are gonna go for irrational multiples to these really deep pocketed bidders who've recognized that their house of cards could be Joe Rogan. So they'll start looking at other podcasts.
Kara Swisher · 41:31
Well, it's interesting because Joe Rogan has his own thing, and that's the thing. It's it's owning the IP. I think you're right. It's... If you wanna link it to Netflix, Netflix has really come into its own. It's not just it has IP like House of Cards. It has got your... They've got stuff all over the globe that they're doing. And that's really where their strength is, is this in... Not just IP, but international IP. I... IP that jumps globally. It jumps like right now, Dark Heist, I think it's called, and money money money money heist. One's called Money Pots, one's called Dark, The Witcher. They have a lot of stuff that's jumping across. Mhmm. You know? They did... They used to just have The US market, this market. So that's the thing is what... Not just what can jump, but what what IP you can own. And you're right. I think Spotify, if it gets it together, will certainly, be a big player of it. It seems to be not much... It's not much of an editorial company. They've hired some people who are very editorial minded there, which is great. A friend of mine, Lydia Polegreen, works there, and that was an interesting move, I thought. She's from New York Times. She ran the Huffington Post. So, yeah, we'll see. We'll definitely see. I think you'll definite... She's definitely right about this idea of daily habits and people that get there and everybody has a podcast is sort of over.
Scott Galloway · 42:39
The podcast jump podcast jump geographies. I mean, I don't if you know this, we're the twenty third most popular podcast in The UAE for some reason, but what you're talking about Netflix, such an impressive company. They have 10,000 people in Madrid and what they do is they buy, they pay up for the best screenplays, they pay up for the best production value, and then they do a car chase in Copenhagen and they say cut and they swap in the most popular Romanian actor. They've said, okay, what we've found is that local content
Kara Swisher · 43:10
Local content.
Scott Galloway · 43:10
With international scale and production values is the gangster cocktail.
Kara Swisher · 43:14
Well, I just did interview with Bella Bajaria, who is the head of all of TV, global TV for Netflix, who you don't know who she is, but she's she's been she's the one been doing all this. And so it was a really fascinating interview. And so I think they're totally focused on that. But nonetheless, there will be a lot of players in the in the podcast space, and therefore, yay for Karen Scott. You know, I also did a podcast with an astrologer, and apparently, we're gonna have a big deal this year, Scott, you and
Scott Galloway · 43:39
Really? I'm not sure what that means.
Kara Swisher · 43:41
The astrologer is predicting great financial success for you and I.
Scott Galloway · 43:45
The dog is ready. The dog wants more
Speaker · 43:48
big bucks.
Kara Swisher · 43:48
A business partnership I have is going to be huge this year by midyear.
Scott Galloway · 43:52
Thank you.
Kara Swisher · 43:53
Awesome. Isn't that good?
Scott Galloway · 43:54
Bring it on.
Kara Swisher · 43:54
Astrologer says so. All right. Just a few more things in media. Thank you, Erica. We really appreciate it, and we will not return your calls. Thank you very much. Erica who?
Scott Galloway · 44:03
Erica who? I have to bring
Kara Swisher · 44:05
green M and M's.
Speaker · 44:06
We we
Kara Swisher · 44:07
will become so, and then let's crash spectacularly, think. Don't you think?
Scott Galloway · 44:11
I'm Shirley MacLean, and she's Anne Bancroft. I will ignore her once I make it big. I will ignore her.
Kara Swisher · 44:17
Let's have, again, we'll have a big fight in Lincoln Center. That would be so cool. Post COVID, of course. Anyway, with... This is a movie that both Scott and I remember, and nobody else does. Anyway, it was a good movie. It was a ballet movie. Scott's predictions, dispersion of media, CNN goes behind a paywall, which Jason Kyler has talked about in these apps and stuff like that. These these different things they're thinking of streaming products. AT and T hits $40 a share or divests HBO. Maybe not so much now. They've sort of doubled down. Roblox, we'll see, triples in value, but we'll see because they've delayed their IPO. And then, of course, there's TikTok, which we don't hear of anymore because Trump's busy again trying to have a coup that isn't working well because he has a bunch of idiots helping him do the coup. The same gang that helped him do the legal challenges. Anyhow, Scott, very quickly, we have only a short time. What do you think?
Scott Galloway · 45:11
Fried Zakaria, my professional role model.
Kara Swisher · 45:13
Yeah. Your other McDreamy.
Scott Galloway · 45:16
Amazing content, amazing delivery. And in order for you, when you watch an hour for read, they pump it full of, I think it's twenty minutes of commercials and they get 23¢ for pelting that shit at you. Yeah. So that basically says your time, according to CNN, is worth a dollar an hour. Yeah. And people are going to decide my time's worth more than a dollar an hour, use technology to figure out a way to clean out all the tier two anchors, which they have a lot of.
Kara Swisher · 45:44
Oh yeah.
Scott Galloway · 45:45
And give me an hour to two hour of gorgeous Fried Zakaria, Anderson Cooper, Christian Almanpour content, and I will pay for it. Don't tell me I constipated from opioids. This is just a natural. If you talk, if you really want to talk about people who've made hundreds of billions of dollars in value, they've created time machines. Netflix is a time machine. If you just watch Netflix, you save seventeen days a year in commercials. Amazon saves you time. They build time machines. It is time for CNN to stop pelting all the crap at us, save us time, get us to the best news, politics, content. News and politics is the only thing that hasn't gone behind a wall. It's just ripe. And CNN Alright. Not only not only is the best content, but it appeals to the progressives who quite frankly have more money now and are willing to pay some money to say, just let me opt out of the advertising industrial complex, which is nothing but a tax on the poor and the technologically illiterate.
Kara Swisher · 46:35
Yeah. Alright. A TikTok thing, very quick, very quick.
Scott Galloway · 46:38
TikTok, the biggest thing there is a commerce and Walmart is doing that. Walmart's talking about short form video to sell products and TikTok will continue to be massively in the news. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg will use it as their defense for a breakup. It'll be a constant volleyball or whatever the term is bandied around when we're talking about whether or not China should have unfettered access to our markets when we have restricted access to theirs. So you're gonna hear a lot about TikTok for the wrong reasons, but I still think TikTok is genius. I can't, I think it's just staggering what they could So do with I that I
Kara Swisher · 47:14
was watching it the other day for hours.
Scott Galloway · 47:16
Yeah, you just, you wake up, you lift your head up and you're like, where did that two hours go?
Kara Swisher · 47:20
Chinese And
Scott Galloway · 47:20
then AT and T shows
Kara Swisher · 47:22
my information.
Scott Galloway · 47:22
That giants can dance. I think they I think their move, the baller move in media was them sticking up the middle finger to the film industrial complex and theaters. All of a sudden, all of a sudden, they've got new power, new mojo, and it's a no lose scenario for them because either that multiple on AT and T goes up because the narrative shifts from the worst acquisition in the last decade to the largest script company. Yeah. They say, okay, we're not getting additional multiples, so let's spin HBO, which will go at a monster number and
Speaker · 47:51
see and I
Kara Swisher · 47:52
And by the way, let me just say
Scott Galloway · 47:53
$40 a share AT and T
Kara Swisher · 47:54
by the Guess what? Everyone's watching Tenet now because it's in the home. And now That's right, the most popular thing. You're getting so many reviews. Like, stop with the fact that he didn't call you back or send you the fruit basket. Like, fuck that. Like, sorry, but your movie is now seen by everyone, and you're getting brilliant reviews. So suck it up, Sally. Thank you.
Scott Galloway · 48:13
So Alright. Enselada. Enseladito. Is that right?
Kara Swisher · 48:17
In any case, I'm just like, come on. Like, gets to see it. Thank you. You couldn't see it because they die if they saw it before.
Scott Galloway · 48:23
And Roblox, you're gonna hear a lot more about Roblox.
Kara Swisher · 48:25
Roblox. Alright. Alright, Scott. One more quick rake. We'll be back with our absolute favorite friends of Pivot and our personal predictions for 2021.
[Ad break]
Kara Swisher · 49:36
Okay, Scott. Last year, we had our parents with our final word. I'm not doing that this year. COVID lucky is not getting her final word. She doesn't have COVID, but she's trying very hard to give it to me. This year, our favorite people are on to tell us their predictions. Let's start with someone from the Galloway house.
Speaker · 49:53
Hi. My name is Nolan Galloway, and my prediction for which console or a watching platform will get big and maybe take over the world. I think Disney plus will get bigger and bigger because with all of the people that like Marvel and Star Wars, it's, like, amazing for them. And I also think Sony might because Sony owns PlayStation. And with the new PlayStation five coming out... Well, it came out, It's been crazy. Like, we've tried ordering it, but it kept on going out of stock over and over and over. My name is Nala Gawo, and my position for 2021 is that Apple is going to make a lot of money through the new Apple search browser and Apple TV plus because Apple owns, makes a lot of iPhones and billions of people on iPhones and is probably one of the most successful phone making companies in the world. And if they can self promote their search engine on their phone, it could become really popular, really strong and they can make a lot of money off of it. Apple TV plus also could be really successful because Shimbu and Disney plus only support certain shows and certain TV. Apple TV is going to cover everything. It's going to be able to cover things from Hulu and Disney plus all in one thing. It's also probably going to be a lot cheaper because Apple is a very, successful company, and they don't need that much money.
Kara Swisher · 51:29
Okay. Your kids are smarter than you are. That's really the situation I see coming here.
Scott Galloway · 51:34
Pretty low blow.
Kara Swisher · 51:34
I'm replacing you this year. Maybe that's the people I'm doing deals with, the Galloway's sons. Yeah. Those are good predictions. He's right about Disney plus I have to say.
Scott Galloway · 51:43
My youngest son, the the new antitrust lawyer saying that. Yeah. Basically saying that they own the rails. Yeah.
Kara Swisher · 51:50
Yeah. I thought that was great. That's absolutely true. That's one of the reasons my kids like Disney plus they watch it a lot because of Star Wars and and all the stuff that's on it. As to the PlayStation, we can't get one. I haven't... I am not gonna go out of my way, but a lot of bots... Tell your son a lot of bots are trying to order. There's a great story in the Washington Post, I think, about how these bot buyers are doing it, and that's why you're not getting them. But there's not that... They're trying to they're also trying to keep Playstations out of the market so that they can get sell more later to create, there's some, because they don't make any money on the first ones, but they'll make more going, I don't know, there's some, there's some financial incentive not to have too many of them out there.
Scott Galloway · 52:24
Well, the illusion of scarcity, whether it's Panerai choking supply, it just creates, they are available like every day I'm trying to figure out what to do for Christmas. They are available on StockX at about a 60% premium.
Kara Swisher · 52:37
Oh, yeah.
Scott Galloway · 52:37
And it's not that I wouldn't mind paying the 60%, but I think like, god, my kids are so indulged. Do I really need to go into the secondary market and pay up? I'm like, so I've
Kara Swisher · 52:44
decided My not son to told me that. I'm like, sorry. You're not getting it. You can take it a job and buy it some if you wanna do it that way or or you can wait. Because I think there's a reason why it's waiting. I thought your son's correctly... Correct about Apple, about what he was saying about Apple. And I think Apple's probably a platform we tend to discount more than others for some reason. Do you think we do?
Scott Galloway · 53:04
Oh, Apple, look, it's great to own the rails. It's just anything they launch, if it wasn't Apple, if a streaming network had a launch, if there wasn't Apple had launched their content and spent that kind of money, everyone would have said it was a flop. But because they own the rails and they can guide everyone to watching the morning show, which was Murphy Brown on 10 times the budget. And there was some interesting stuff, Tehran's great, but they
Kara Swisher · 53:33
They're really not committed to it in the same way.
Scott Galloway · 53:35
Yeah, but they don't need to be because they can stuff it down our throats. To get to watch content, to be watching content on an iPhone, on Apple TV plus is three clicks. On Netflix, it's 17. And so they get between 312% of total revenues from every streaming video platform I
Kara Swisher · 53:56
get it.
Scott Galloway · 53:56
Because of the should total people.
Kara Swisher · 53:58
Still do better. Girls get out
Scott Galloway · 53:59
of Well, get there. They've got Richard Plepler. They'll get there. Money eventually. I mean, despite Christopher Nolan's, you know, protests and the people at CAA, they're going to go where the next dollar is, and Apple and Amazon have the most dollars. And slowly but surely, they'll start to, you know, they'll scoop up all the time.
Kara Swisher · 54:18
Think, as something your son had, they... The Disney is blessed by its excellent IP. It just does. It has the best IP of all, speaking of which.
Speaker · 54:26
Well, it's
Scott Galloway · 54:26
got the biggest library and also it's, as we said, Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel are fantastic franchises.
Kara Swisher · 54:32
Yep. And we'll see if what Warner can do with theirs. Alright. Now predictions from the Swisher household.
Speaker · 54:37
Hello. My name is Louise Swisher, son of Cara Swisher and heir to her podcast, Empire. My prediction for 2021, that the new movie, The Many Saints in Newark, will be the best thing since sliced gabagool.
Guest · 54:49
Hi. This is Amanda Katz. I'm a writer and editor and a special friend of both Kara Swisher and Pivot. My prediction for 2021 is that as the Trump era and the pandemic near their end, that a new era of vapid fluff unlike one we've ever seen comes to the fore. This is a time for pettiness, for trivia, for gossip. This is all anyone is going to wanna think about after the troubles that we have seen in 2020, And I, for one, am looking forward to it.
Scott Galloway · 55:19
Special friend and vapid fluff. Well, hello.
Kara Swisher · 55:22
She wears the word vapid easily. Vapid. That's what I married. Indirectional.
Scott Galloway · 55:27
You're her you're her special friend. So clear you're newlyweds. I'm trying to imagine my after ten years of describing me as her special friend.
Kara Swisher · 55:34
I sure wanna say wifey. Listen. Louie was talking about the many saints of Newark. He's a huge Sopranos fan and has been enjoying that on whatever. I think it's HBO, HBO Max.
Scott Galloway · 55:43
I think it's HBO.
Kara Swisher · 55:43
Yeah. And he was just being funny. He literally did that in ten seconds this morning. He he's so funny.
Scott Galloway · 55:49
What's the special science of New York? Don't
Kara Swisher · 55:50
even It's like, know get a ghoul. It's what what it's what it's what Tony Soprano eats. The Many Saints of New York is the prequel to the Sopranos or young Tony Soprano.
Scott Galloway · 55:59
Really? Who's playing the young Tony Soprano?
Kara Swisher · 56:00
His son. The guy, James Gandolfini's son. No kidding. No kidding.
Scott Galloway · 56:06
Oh my gosh. My
Kara Swisher · 56:08
mind is one of the ones Warner's putting out on... In its... On online. My son couldn't be more happy. He wasn't gonna go to the theater to watch. Well, he might have because he loves the Sopranos, but he didn't want to, and he's thrilled it's coming out on Warner, by the way. So that's interesting.
Scott Galloway · 56:22
That's really that's really exciting. And vapid... What did she call it?
Speaker · 56:25
Vapid what?
Kara Swisher · 56:26
Vapid fluff. I think she's right. I think we're gonna, like, enter a period. Like, look at the story that got a lot of attention this weekend, the Martin Scarelli thing. Like, everybody was talking about what... Which was kind of a sad vapid The woman who worked for Bloomberg who fell in love with Martin Scarelli, the guy... The pharma pharma bro.
Scott Galloway · 56:42
Mhmm.
Kara Swisher · 56:43
Remember that guy?
Scott Galloway · 56:44
Yeah. The guy that was selling EpiPens for 5.
Kara Swisher · 56:46
Yeah. Well, she's She... Well, apparently not according to her. In any case, she was covering him. She she broke the story about his arrest and a bunch of other stories, and she fell in love with him and she's now in love with him. Then by the end of the story, he ghosts her. And it's just, it's this incredibly petty trivia gossip story, and everybody ate it up this weekend. And that's an interesting question of whether people are gonna go to very serious stuff or they just need a break from
Scott Galloway · 57:08
Adam Malter, my colleague at NYU, has done a great research around this. In very serious times, we like comedies, and in very prosperous times we like Ingmar Bergman depressing films. We want balance. We want Feng and Shui. So it makes sense that we would want something, a lot of light stuff for
Kara Swisher · 57:24
a writer. So what do you think is gonna do well then?
Scott Galloway · 57:27
I don't know, comedies, rom com. Where's Matthew? Roll out Matthew McConney, rom coms.
Kara Swisher · 57:31
He's running for governor of Texas apparently.
Scott Galloway · 57:34
Yeah. He's, that guy's my favorite. That's hilarious.
Kara Swisher · 57:37
A stupid things lately, but whatever.
Scott Galloway · 57:39
It's a potluck dinner and daddy's brought the egg salad. I mean, that guy is good. That guy
Kara Swisher · 57:44
is He's just... He's such an idiot. Come on. I knew you'd like him.
Scott Galloway · 57:48
He's very good actor. Not like Matthew McGaughey.
Kara Swisher · 57:51
He's just such a...
Scott Galloway · 57:52
Just had to
Kara Swisher · 57:53
act. He's fine. He's very good. He he gets a lot of attention for his talent. A lot of women actresses who are just as good don't get as much attention. I just... I... He's just got... He's he's good in some things. He's bad in others. And fine. He's fine. He's got his whole, alright. Alright. Alright.
Scott Galloway · 58:08
That's it. That's great.
Kara Swisher · 58:09
Whatever. Come on.
Scott Galloway · 58:10
Dazed and confused, that guy's amazing. I'd vote All for
Kara Swisher · 58:14
right, okay, fine. Move to Texas like the tech bros
Scott Galloway · 58:17
You know, like everybody else.
Kara Swisher · 58:19
To Texas like Anyway, you're already in those are very good predictions from all our family. They're so smart. They're so much smarter than we are. So Scott, what's your personal prediction for 2021?
Scott Galloway · 58:29
So listening to my kids is sort of an out of body experience and I have the same, I think predictions are meant to be resolutions. I think we predict or I predict stuff that I wanna not only think is gonna happen, but that I wanna see happen. And I have the same resolution every year and listening to my boys speak a few minutes ago, sort of an out of body experience for me to think that like these little, little boys are like growing up. It's just so strange. But yeah, my prediction or aspiration is the same thing it is every year. I wanna be the man my boys think I am. And every year I try and write down all the fucking virtue signaling and bragging that I do each year, like how my actions don't actually fit to those things and what I can do to bridge the Delta. That's every year I have the same resolution.
Kara Swisher · 59:14
Oh, that's very nice. I hope I'm helping you get there, Scott.
Scott Galloway · 59:17
Little bit, very little.
Speaker · 59:19
A little bit.
Kara Swisher · 59:20
You're a very good parent. Have to say, I agree. I think family is really important to me this year coming up. I really do. I think it's... I I work a lot and so do you by the way. And so does our fantastic producer here, Rebecca Sinanis. And I think we... I I really do wanna focus more on the family this year a little bit more, and and and they've been... This has been a hard year for this whole country and for some more than others, but I think around making sure that you keep your family safe and then and then going outward, people at work safe, people in your community safe. I think we have to start thinking a lot more like a community, like beyond family. Mhmm. I think that's something that's been lost in this grabby, grassy, twitchy era of Trump, and we have to leave that behind. I often wonder if we're always been this way, and this is just the perfect... He's the personification of our very worst ways of us as Americans, and I think he is. I think that's... It's really like looking in a mirror when we look at Trump as much as we like to pretend he's not like us. He's just like us. And so I do hope we put the pettiest trivia and gossip in our entertainment.
Scott Galloway · 1:00:25
Mhmm.
Kara Swisher · 1:00:25
And maybe be better citizens, you know, be better better citizens to each other. And I don't know if it's possible. I honestly don't. I gotta say, I'm worried about... I I... I'm worried... I'm already worried about Trump in 2024, like, that this continues. And I'm hoping that this this smallness and tininess of mind goes away in this crazy era, but then you have someone like Sidney Powell in the White House this weekend with Michael Flynn, the disgraced felon... Pardoned felon, is sitting there in our in our major offices of power and
Scott Galloway · 1:00:58
it makes
Kara Swisher · 1:00:59
me sick. So I hope I hope she gets sued this year. I think she will. Yeah. I hope those people go back into the holes they belong in, but But I don't know, we'll see. We'll see.
Speaker · 1:01:12
Well, did have a, we've seen a
Scott Galloway · 1:01:14
couple of vaccines. We saw a vaccine against COVID-nineteen, a product of our humanity, our science, our embrace of data. And we also saw, I think the immunities kick in against the misogyny, the misanthropy and the general stupidity and competence that has plagued this nation. I think the immunities have kicked in there as well. And there's tons of silver linings everywhere. We could use technology to increase primary healthcare, decrease costs of education. We could leave emissions behind. We could use this as an excuse to join hands with our brothers and sisters not only across the nation and realize that the biggest companies in the world shouldn't be paying no taxes, that we should respect our institutions, that we should coordinate with our brothers and sisters overseas. I mean, hopefully there's a lot of awareness that'll translate and that a new generation of younger leaders will step up and recognize that capitalism doesn't work unless it sits on a bed of empathy and love. We need to move back to this violence at a corporate level and empathy at an individual level. And I worry, or I hope that it was just temporary that we flipped a script and became very loving and empathetic with companies and harsh on individuals. Hopefully, we go back to where capitalism rests, protect people, not companies.
Kara Swisher · 1:02:27
Indeed. So thank you to our wonderful families. I also wanna thank my son, Alex Wisher, who doesn't like to do. He's not. He's got a lot of opinions, but he keeps them to himself in a lot of ways, but he's wonderful too. And and, again, thank you to Rebecca Sinanis who's done an amazing job this year.
Scott Galloway · 1:02:41
Yeah. Thank you, Rebecca.
Kara Swisher · 1:02:42
She's the most amazing thing. We predict she's gonna be even more amazing next year. That's what we predict.
Scott Galloway · 1:02:48
That's right.
Kara Swisher · 1:02:48
Because she is. She has great ideas, and she always works incredibly hard to make this a wonderful show, and we thank her very much for that. Okay. That's the show. We'll be off this Friday, but back in your feeds next Tuesday into twenty twenty one. I'm gonna have some guest guest Who's
Scott Galloway · 1:03:03
your guest? Who's
Kara Swisher · 1:03:04
Including Louis Swisher, who's gonna come on.
Scott Galloway · 1:03:06
Who's the guest?
Kara Swisher · 1:03:07
I don't know yet. We're working on it. We're working on it. But Louis
Scott Galloway · 1:03:09
is Who's in the the final running? Who replaces... Who howls for the dog for the last week of the year at the Obviously.
Kara Swisher · 1:03:15
That's clear. I've got a full a full path to your heir. You've got an heir and a spare, by the way, in case you're interested in the in the British crown terms. By the way, enjoy the crown over your your vacation period.
Scott Galloway · 1:03:26
I'm having a tough getting through the first season. I'm having a
Kara Swisher · 1:03:29
tough season time. First. Go to the go to the Diana season.
Scott Galloway · 1:03:32
Husband must be the chairman of the coronation committee. I'm like, that's an hour long episode? That's really an hour long episode.
Kara Swisher · 1:03:38
Go part and then go backwards and then watch Cobra Kai. That's what I told you. Anyway,
Scott Galloway · 1:03:45
Oh, by the way, I got undone this week. I binged all of the undoing.
Kara Swisher · 1:03:48
Oh, don't tell me.
Scott Galloway · 1:03:49
Okay.
Kara Swisher · 1:03:50
I know the answer.
Scott Galloway · 1:03:50
It's really good. You should watch it.
Kara Swisher · 1:03:51
I know the answer. But I will watch. I'm handing
Scott Galloway · 1:03:53
it to
Kara Swisher · 1:03:54
She's too much of an intellect.
Scott Galloway · 1:03:55
Spoiler alert, Nicole Kidman weeps a lot, but she can't fill her tears. Can't Can fill tell her you
Kara Swisher · 1:04:00
then? I recommend, although not everybody loves it, prom, I loved it. Nicole Kidman looks fantastic. If you wanna see sexy Nicole Kidman, watch her sing and dance in prom. It's also on Netflix.
Scott Galloway · 1:04:10
She peaked she peaked in flirting with Mindy, Mindy... Oh, Sandy Newton. Ugh, most beautiful woman in the world.
Kara Swisher · 1:04:16
Just watch prom. You'll like her
Speaker · 1:04:17
in it.
Kara Swisher · 1:04:17
I'll watch prom. Like, you'll like her. She does great. She does great. And they call her antelope legs in it. It's very funny. Alright. As a reminder, we love the listener mail questions, and we're trying for something new. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit your questions for the podcast. The link is also in our show notes. Scott will be back in a few weeks, but I shall remain and hold down the fort. Scott, have a beautiful vacation. Have a happy New Year. It really has been a wonderful year with you.
Scott Galloway · 1:04:42
Likewise, Garrett.
Kara Swisher · 1:04:43
Thanks. All weepy, and please read us out.
Scott Galloway · 1:04:45
That sounds great. Today's show is produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Ernie Indradot engineered this episode. Erica Anderson is and was Pivot's executive producer. Thanks so much, Erica. Best to you and yours. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Thanks for a wonderful year. You know, greatness really is in the agency of others, so thank you very much. Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts. Or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business. Let's say goodbye to 2020, but let's not forget our humanity. Let's use it as a means of fixing America. There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with. Let's try with it. The vaccine is here. The immunities have kicked in. Let's embrace capitalism as it's meant to be that sits on a pool of empathy and love. I will see you, Kara Swisher, in 2021.
— Predictions segment ends —
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