Kara Swisher · 1:03:37
Years, maybe even slightly more than that. I would be very surprised if it's printed in twenty years'
Guest · 1:03:43
Can I get my real beef with Mark Thompson and also Will Lewis so you don't forget to ask me about both of them?
Kara Swisher · 1:03:49
Yes. Yes. What's your real beef?
Guest · 1:03:51
They both got knighted, I think, in the same class, and I feel so unworthy to be completing
Kara Swisher · 1:03:58
Well, you aren't British. Which
Guest · 1:03:59
were... Right? They both got both got knighted. But the truth is, I I feel like this is kind of insufficiently talked about in media. The New York Times wants and believes the world desperately needs a very healthy ecosystem of other publishers and purely other serious news publishers.
Kara Swisher · 1:04:19
Alright. So what was your advice? That's your last question to Will Lewis. What is... He's British charming. Mark Thompson's British charming. He's overrunning CNN. I think he'll be fine. I don't think you have any advice to him necessarily. What advice...
Guest · 1:04:29
Mark Thompson and I have given each other a decade of advice.
Kara Swisher · 1:04:32
Right. Exactly. Will Lewis, what's... What is his... What would you say to him?
Guest · 1:04:36
The most important challenges in journalism to ensure that The New York Times and The Washington Post and CNN and The Wall Street Journal can do what we do for another hundred years. And then a hundred after that are kind of on the outside. They are about the public's trust in high quality independent journalism, the public's understanding of what it means to actually be and do independent journalism, the public actually placing a value on that. I think that is the number one thing we are all facing that we need to be working on and working on together. I think journalist safety and legal protection feels as fragile as I've known it in all the time I've worked on the business side of serious journalism. And I think we all need sustainable business models and the information ecosystem, not in most ways not controlled by us, needs to honor the value we produce. And I think those are the most important things we should all be focused on.
Kara Swisher · 1:05:42
So you know what I tell him? Get Jeff Bezos to open up your damn checkbook. That's what I'd say. Time to be buying.
Guest · 1:05:47
There is no substitute for investing in the product. That is the only answer. It's why the Times swear it is.
Kara Swisher · 1:05:54
Stop investing in yachts, Jeff. Start putting money in. Yeah, and my last question, what are you gonna buy next? Is it a time to buy?
Guest · 1:06:02
Well, I
Scott Galloway · 1:06:02
don't need
Guest · 1:06:02
to buy your house, Kara, because in DC, we're down the street from each other. I want to say the times, I certainly don't rule out that there's more to come at some point in the portfolio, but at the present moment we are intensely focused on the awesome portfolio of products we have in our news report, making our news report even more widely read, even more accessible. I've told you sports and games are giant spaces and we want to have the leading sports journalism product and we want to have the leading puzzles product in both of those spaces. We are intensely focused on executing on that vision. We've got an incredible recipe app. I hope everybody is going to get off this listening to this podcast, go download it and get ready for Thanksgiving next week. That's when we're at our finest, but it's useful all year. We have an incredible shopping advice site. So we already have a portfolio right now. Our focus is on executing, on being excellent there, and becoming essential to more people.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:10
All right. Meredith Levine, as you can see, an impressive executive who's someday going to be CEO of Disney.
Guest · 1:07:18
Really fun to be here.
Scott Galloway · 1:07:19
Thanks, Meredith.
Guest · 1:07:20
Keep running with me. We need to speed up. Thank you for having me. This was a treat.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:24
We appreciate it. Thanks so much.
Guest · 1:07:26
See you soon.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:27
Anyway, interesting times. Meredith is very impressive.
Scott Galloway · 1:07:30
She is.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:30
One of my favorite people. We'll take one more quick break. We'll be back for, Scott, your prediction.
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— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 1:08:51
Okay, Scott. Let's hear a prediction. You're so good at them. By the way, I got... I... Can I say I got one right? I got one right, which was my prediction that Marvel's wasn't gonna do well, which it didn't. It was a disappointment for Disney. I think they're not surprised.
Scott Galloway · 1:09:05
Did you... Have you seen it?
Kara Swisher · 1:09:06
I didn't go. I was busy this weekend. I now set a toothache, so I didn't I didn't... I sort of lay around and moaned quite a bit for the weekend. But, but it it didn't do well. $40,000,000, which is very not good for for a Marvel movie. So... But I think they were expecting it in any case. I will see it. I will see it. It.
Scott Galloway · 1:09:26
By the way, if you were Russian and knighted, do you know what you'd be called?
Kara Swisher · 1:09:29
What?
Scott Galloway · 1:09:30
Sergei. Do you know what I'd be called if I was knighted?
Kara Swisher · 1:09:35
Okay. That's good.
Scott Galloway · 1:09:36
You know what I'd be called?
Kara Swisher · 1:09:37
That one was good.
Scott Galloway · 1:09:38
Thank you.
Kara Swisher · 1:09:39
Go ahead. What would you be called?
Scott Galloway · 1:09:40
Cirrhosis. Oh, that's good. You know, because you're gay, and I drink a lot.
Kara Swisher · 1:09:46
Yeah. I get that.
Scott Galloway · 1:09:47
Because you're gay, I drink too much.
Kara Swisher · 1:09:48
I it. Like you had it.
Scott Galloway · 1:09:49
Cirrhosis. Like,
Kara Swisher · 1:09:51
it was interesting. It just took a second for you to lose it. You were... You had it, and then you lost it. Let's keep working on that. Keep workshopping the cirrhosis. I thought you're gonna say sir dog or something like that.
Scott Galloway · 1:10:01
No. Okay. Alright. So I think that the Democratic and the Republican Party going into 2024 will pick kind of one key issue to lead with to try and create this umbrella brand around why you should vote all red or all blue. I think that the issue for the Democrats is going to be women's rights, specifically reproductive rights. I just think it's a winner. It resonates with a lot of moderates. It has turned out people. It's a winner for them. And the Republicans have kind of backed themselves into a corner, especially if the nominee is anyone but Haley, it's going to be difficult. I think that's their lead. And I think the Republicans were it wasn't obvious what their lead was going to be. I think their lead is gonna be rooted in education, but they're gonna show videos of people interrupting math classes at MIT. They're gonna show these protests at elite universities, and they're going to juxtapose that with kind of thirties protests of pro Hitler protests. I think they're going to basically try and attach the elite, the far left universities with being just out of control in terms of their... What they will say is an inability to push back
Kara Swisher · 1:11:22
That's not gonna work.
Scott Galloway · 1:11:23
On terrorism or fascism. Think that's where they'll go.
Kara Swisher · 1:11:25
You know what I think the Democrats should do? I was just talking to a bunch of...
Scott Galloway · 1:11:28
No. That's what I'm saying with Republicans.
Kara Swisher · 1:11:30
No. I know. But you know what Democrats should do? Freedom. We're for freedom. Book banning. I think they should wrap the whole thing in a... We're for freedom. We're for your freedom of speech. We're for your freedom of freedom of medical choices, freedom of books you wanna read. Why why are the Republicans so censorious? I would turn it on them. Why are they so woke? I think they should turn the whole thing and use the word freedom. Freedom. Freedom is such a good thing for them. We're for your freedom. We believe that you should be free. I don't the good word.
Scott Galloway · 1:12:02
I need to I need to ruminate on that.
Kara Swisher · 1:12:04
Think about ruminate. It's a great word. Take back everyone and take it back patriotic. We're for defending Israel. We're for freedom. We're for democracy. We're for... Use the big words. Pull out the big ones. Patriotism.
Scott Galloway · 1:12:17
Shocked at how many conservative families I have met who have decided that they're not going to send their kids to college.
Kara Swisher · 1:12:26
What?
Scott Galloway · 1:12:26
Yeah. That they literally think college has become this
Kara Swisher · 1:12:28
I wouldn't do it because it's expensive.
Scott Galloway · 1:12:30
Weird and... No. These are people who can afford it, that they would rather the kids take a gap year and start working, that they are so turned off by what they see happening on campuses.
Kara Swisher · 1:12:38
Yeah. There are certain a lot of mad people. That's for sure.
Scott Galloway · 1:12:41
Did you know that just ten years ago, two thirds of Americans... American parents hoped their kids go to college? It just dipped below 50% for the first time in, fifty years.
Kara Swisher · 1:12:50
Largely because of the fucking cost and how bad it makes you feel to get in. Honestly, that whole experience was ridiculous.
Scott Galloway · 1:12:56
I think that's a big part of it, but that's been... I just don't think there's any getting around it. I think some of the imagery coming out of of campuses right now really turns off a lot of households.
Kara Swisher · 1:13:05
Really interesting. I don't know. I don't know. It's... I I don't know. I've had really good debates with my kids about this, and I I feel like it... I don't know. I don't think it's gonna work. I don't think people think about it that much. I think a very small slice of people do. But I think suburban moms are like, stop telling me what books to read and stop... Get get your hands off my uterus right now, like, immediately.
Scott Galloway · 1:13:29
Get your hands off my uterus is there are a lot of families who... And they don't... Maybe they don't talk about it, but at some point in their life have experience with reproductive rights and have said, look, that's all fine and good until it's your niece or you. And they recognize the distinctive their personal feelings that this is this is just a war on women, young women, especially young women of color. And anyone who's had any sort of scare around this stuff, it kinda comes to that that, what I would argue, correct position. I think in terms of the book stuff, while I agree with you, think it's reprehensible. I don't I don't think that's why... I don't think that motivates people to vote.
Kara Swisher · 1:14:10
No. But I think it's a package. It's the same thing. It's like, the gays alone. Why are you so mean to the gays? I have a gay cousin. Like, that kind of stuff. It's all like, what do you do? Get off of my lawn. Get off of my fucking lawn. That's what I would use. I think a lot more people don't like being lectured to by Glenn Youngkin, mister star of the Republican Party. Stop talking fifteen weeks. We don't wanna hear anything from you. We want you to get off our lawn.
Scott Galloway · 1:14:32
His... What was it? His...
Kara Swisher · 1:14:32
Got whacked.
Scott Galloway · 1:14:33
Yeah. Yeah.
Kara Swisher · 1:14:34
He got double whacked. He's lost control of the... He was gonna win the entire legislature. He lost the entire legislature and got... And made it worse. He's not gonna do anything for his next couple of years. He's washed up
Scott Galloway · 1:14:44
as far as pandemic. Thinking. In higher ed, we thought the disruption was gonna come in the hands of technology and costs and that there would be some sort of Old Navy AI driven certification that you could get for a fraction of the cost, and technology was gonna come in and hand us our lunch. I invested behind this. I started a net tech company. I've been waiting for the disruption in higher ed for a decade. Quite frankly, it hasn't happened. The elite universities until recently have never been stronger. The thing that's disrupting higher ed right now is what's happening on campuses. Distinct what side you're on, campuses are in a state of turmoil right now, and some of them are losing... I mean, they might wake up next year and see their fundraising down by 60%. And they have built cost infrastructures that demand that type of fundraising. And all of sudden, they're gonna wake up and think, okay. Last year, we raised 700,000,000. This year, we raised $2.10. Oh, and by the way, we have fixed costs with tenure and these ridiculous relexification of the campuses that we... Capital plans we have approved. The... It's it's really interesting. Disruption is coming from a place they weren't expecting.
Kara Swisher · 1:15:52
Although, at some point, that's also gonna... I mean, ultimately, it'll be interesting to see where these rich people send their money then if they're not... Because they love doing the campus thing, they love being on the boards and this and that. I've heard from so many wealthy people, mostly people who are upset by the antisemitic nature of so much of it, complained to me. And I was like, you know what? Just stop. Just stop giving money. I don't know what to tell you. Stop calling me. I don't wanna hear from you. Don't give money. That's all that's all you get for your money is an ability to lord it over people, so just don't give it.
Scott Galloway · 1:16:21
I like what you said. You don't like Chick fil A? Don't eat a Chick fil A.
Kara Swisher · 1:16:23
Don't eat it. Don't eat it. Literally, I've hung up on so many rich people. I'm like, I don't care. Just don't give the money. Stop talking. I think they do ultimately... That's all you can get for your money is is an ability to speak. And if you don't wanna speak, walk with your walk with your wallet. Take your wallet and go. And speaking of which, Jeff Bezos, give more money to the Washington Post, but you have to. If you wanna be successful like Meredith Levy and mister Lewis, you need to you need to milk that guy for some money. He should give it. It's a good it's a good spending of Jeff Bezos' money, I think, personally. I think there should be more than one major or at least three or four really important news organizations like the New York Times. 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. Well, you look lovely today. Your tie is fair. And I hope you get to see ten Downing.
— Predictions segment ends —
Scott Galloway · 1:17:18
At some point.
Kara Swisher · 1:17:19
Yeah. Or I'll take you next time I come in. Anyway
Scott Galloway · 1:17:23
Of course. Course.
Kara Swisher · 1:17:25
That's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. Please read us out.
Scott Galloway · 1:17:30
Today's show was produced by Lara Nayman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertaub engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miel Savara, and Gaddam McVane. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. I put a tie ons. I... Refer to me as cirrhosis.
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