Pivot · Dec 9, 2022

The Growing U.S.-China Divide, Senate's Journalism Bill is DOA, and Congressman Ro Khanna

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 48:46. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Guest · 48:46 We had to give up a prisoner. My understanding is it was someone in Russian arms trafficking, but I think that they made the right decision to secure the release. It also shows, frankly, I was criticized for saying that we need to maintain diplomacy and diplomatic channels with Russia, but I think it shows why we do. Kara Swisher · 49:07 Scott, you want to follow-up there? Scott does not have this opinion. Scott Galloway · 49:10 Well, my my fear, representative, that that this was very strategic, that they incarcerated Ms. Griner knowing that they wanted this merchant of death back and that we've been played and that that there's no moral clarity around these types of things. But over time, what we, unfortunately, I think we've done is just guaranteed that more people from communities, disenfranchised communities are going to be incarcerated. I think this is a bad deal for The US long term, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Know this very gray. Guest · 49:39 I hear the perspective. I understand your concern. It's why we typically say we aren't going to negotiate with terrorists and aren't going to engage in these kind of swaps. In this case, though, I think that the humanitarian concern outweighed it. I mean, politics is never perfect, and I give the president credit, but we have to be sensitive that this doesn't become a pattern. And I hear your point. I don't think it's an easy answer, but I do give the president credit for this. Kara Swisher · 50:12 All right. I'm gonna move on to the privacy bill, and you always joke with me about it. It's not gonna get passed. It's gonna get passed. So if congress had passed a privacy bill years ago, it probably should've. So how do we get to one? How do we place limits on how long companies can retain user data? How do we mandate end to end encryption? What are the actual chances of a strong privacy bill ever emerging from Congress? Guest · 50:35 We have a bill that's passed, as you know, the House We Committee, should just pass it. Look, I know this is not popular among some of my California colleagues. There's a sense that California's regulation is stronger, and I agree with that. Let's try to get as much of California in, but ultimately something strong is better than nothing. And if we don't do it in the lame duck, we're going to get very unlikely, we're going to get it in a Republican House with a Democratic Senate. So I think we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And there are strong provisions in privacy policy. So Kara Swisher · 51:08 will it pass in the lame duck? Guest · 51:10 I hope so. I mean, you know, people like me coming out, not that I'm IMAP voices is determinative, but if a few more California members start coming out for it, then it can. But I think it would be a real missed opportunity if something that passed the committee 55 to two doesn't pass Kara Swisher · 51:26 So the you've also called for a new federal agency to... For tech regulation. Is that a way to go with this? Is there anything wrong with our current system that combines the FTC, f... FCC, DOJ, state regulators, congressional laws? The idea of a federal tech agency for tech is very controversial. Guest · 51:45 Well, here's why I think it matters, Kara, because you know as well as I do that these tech companies often run circles around the regulators. Kara Swisher · 51:51 Yes, Guest · 51:52 We we're all have any law requiring consent, and they'll figure out how to have the check button bright enough in the right place on the screen, and they do the dark patterns. So I think it requires people of real technical competence to regulate tech. It requires Congress to have regulation, but I think we need an army of better equipped tech regulators. That's no knock on the people there. They just don't have enough staff. They don't have enough technical, expertise. So that's why I've called for this. Now what agencies it's under, I'm open to. Kara Swisher · 52:25 An agency, a new agency, a new federal agency or part Guest · 52:28 No. Of I think it could be part of the FTC. I think it could be part of the FTC, or it could be some agency that FTC, that's for FTC, FCC, and DOJ to report to. But Kara Swisher · 52:39 I What would you call it? Department of information's not a good Guest · 52:43 FTC's technology department. We created this with the CHIPS Act at the NSF for a positive reason. We created the NSF Tech Directorate, and that was to help science funding be commercialized into technology. This would be for helping regulators figure out how regulate technology. Kara Swisher · 53:03 Any chances of this? Guest · 53:06 This one is harder because this requires spending. And I don't think a Republican Congress is going to want to expand government oversight. Ironically, some of their concerns would be better met if they're really concerned with big tech, if they had a strong FTC. Scott Galloway · 53:23 Something I'm just shocked it's not getting more coverage. I'm curious what your thoughts are regarding president Biden's proposal to move South Carolina up to be the first state that holds the primary for the presidential race. Guest · 53:34 Yeah. You know, I mean, here's the thing with South Carolina. Someone was telling me... Jamie Harrison was actually telling me this, which I didn't know. 40% of black slaves came through the Port Of Charleston. So there's a huge symbolic place that South Carolina has in our nation's history. And I have no problem, I think, with it being first, as long as you also have Nevada, New Hampshire, and I think the three of those together, where you have a population that is a Latino Asian, a white working class population in New Hampshire, and a significant black population in South Carolina would be great. I think not having the three would be problematic. And I don't think it really matters who's first or who's three days after. Kara Swisher · 54:24 Yeah. Alright. Let me ask in that... Graham, you're you're a member of the House Progressive Caucus. Where are progressives right now? It would seem to be the election was very much like, we like the middle. The voters were like, we like... We don't like the election deniers. We like the competent people in the middle kind of thing. How do you look at the progressive agenda going forward? Guest · 54:44 Well, the president basically implemented a lot of the progressive agenda, so they liked the agenda enough. I mean, the American Rescue Plan had a lot of progressive ideas in terms of the Child Tax Credit. The CHIPS Act I wrote as a Progressive with Senator Schumer. The climate bill was progressive. The President forgave student loans. That was progressive. The President made a decision on marijuana. So I think that you're right. And the abortion issue, I think, is a I mean, that's beyond a progressive issue, but it's an issue that obviously progressives were strong on. I guess what I think the voters were saying is, yes, want to protect a woman's right to choose. Yes, we want to protect a democracy, but we're still concerned about the economy. And then the question is going to be for the next two years, what are we going to do on the economy? And I still think progressives have good ideas on that. Kara Swisher · 55:31 Should a progressive candidate primary Biden in 2024? Guest · 55:34 No, no. Mean, I Biden's done well. He's achieved things. You've got Trump DeSantis lurking out there. You know, I think that I've said this a number of times that I think that the time for the Democratic Party to have the fight about the future is 2028. I think we wanna have this president succeed as much as possible. Kara Swisher · 55:53 Last... I have a last question. Scott may have one more. Is Jack Dorsey called on Elon. I wanna get back to the... What happened with your stuff. You... Your your emails were released. He called on Elon to release everything without filter, presumably meaning more emails. Do you support that given the privacy stance? Like, these are these are letters people wrote to a company. They're owned by a corporation. Should should that be sort of the way corporations operate with radical transparency? Is that even possible? Guest · 56:18 You know, I think in this case, if there are emails from people of significance and you can have that be transparent, it's probably for the good. I don't think, I know that I try to assume anything I write on email anyway eventually will get out. Doesn't mean that I haven't written bad emails, but I think that that's different than taking information from someone on privacy, right? Like when we write a letter to someone, which is what an email is, you can't really say, well, they took that letter and they shared it with someone else. I mean, you're sending a letter. There's no expectation necessarily of privacy. But I think that there has to be sensitivity, particularly for those people who are in lower level positions, and they shouldn't be opening up, I think, people's inboxes without consent unless the company had clear policies on that. Kara Swisher · 57:19 And what did you think of what came out so far? I know there's Twitter Files two coming, but Twitter Files one was not a particularly good movie. It showed a group of people struggling in a good way. Guest · 57:29 No. I mean, I seen your commentary on it, I I tend to share that view that there wasn't some... There it wasn't that there were be... There was some smoking gun that, you know, they were being pressured in a in a nefarious way to hand Biden the election. I mean, think that there so I didn't see that being a smoking gun. I did see this genuine debate about what the First Amendment principles should be about and speech should be about. And I think to the extent that it has opened up that debate in this country, the Twitter followers, I think that's a good thing. But I didn't think it was a gotcha moment as much as a this is a new forum, we've got to really think what the rules of these forums are going to be that respect different people. I will say this. I was surprised at how many conservatives who have criticized me in the past liked my stance on Kara Swisher · 58:19 Yeah, your favorite. Guest · 58:20 And I think it made me think that it's not about Hunter Biden, it's not about the laptop, and it's not about Biden. What's going on in this country is there are too many times where we try to silence people we disagree with. We try to condemn people we disagree with. We try to act as if sort of we're morally superior than people we disagree with. And I think some people were just like, thank you for believing that you can have honest disagreement in this country, and that someone doesn't have to be morally inferior if you disagree with them. And I think to the extent we can have more of that spirit in this country, can have some chance of getting past the culture wars, which have really polarized the nation. Kara Swisher · 58:58 Well, I think we'll end on that. Ro Khanna, hero of conservatives. It's really great to hear. Ro Khanna is on Twitter at rep Ro Khanna, and you can find his email address in the Twitter files if you need to do it. He still has it. We really appreciate it. Please write him, as many of you as possible, and say, hey. Guest · 59:13 There you go. Kara Swisher · 59:14 Say, hey, hero of conservatives. Anyway, thank you. Guest · 59:16 There there goes my South Carolina bid. Kara Swisher · 59:18 Oh, alright. Okay. Alright. Thank you, congressman. Scott Galloway · 59:21 Thank you, representative. — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 59:23 Alright, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Okay, Scott. Let's hear some predictions. Let's hear one from you. Scott Galloway · 59:43 So I did my predictions, webinar yesterday. 13,000 people, Kara. Kara Swisher · 59:47 Very nice. How many did you get for your colonoscopy? Guest · 59:52 Slightly fewer. Slightly fewer. Scott Galloway · 59:54 But they had soft, gentle, loving hands. Anyways, 2023 is going to be just as whatever the metaverse or crypto. 2023 is going be the year of AI. I think in my long shot acquisition here, I think Disney could acquire Roblox. Just Eiger's been the Kara Swisher · 1:00:12 best He said he's not going to be doing too much, but okay. Scott Galloway · 1:00:15 Got to do something. He's got to do something big and bold, Kara. The current model, he's got to do something big. And he's got the license to do something big because he has so much credibility. So this is my thinking. Just as their acquisitions have been to take characters from subscale companies like Lucasfilm or or Pixar and bring them into the parks and monetize them all sorts of ways through content in the parks, I think that they could go the other way here and take Disney to Roblox and create the Disneyverse. Kara Swisher · 1:00:45 Yeah. Remember, he talked about that. He talked about the worries about Facebook's version or other people's version because he was worried about things that would happen to their characters. But go ahead. Scott Galloway · 1:00:54 Well, 50% of American youth are on Roblox. So what if they figured out a way to take all those incredible characters that they have at Disney right now and put them on Roblox? And because Roblox stock, like every other stock, is off 50% or 60%, it's got a market cap, I think, of $18,000,000,000 And I think Disney's 160 or 180. For the first time in a long time, Roblox is quote unquote acquirable. Anyways, my long shot, long ball here is Disney acquires Roblox. Kara Swisher · 1:01:19 Yeah. And you think Tesla. This is the year. This is the year. Right? Scott Galloway · 1:01:22 Yeah. This this thing this... Anyways, as you said, my Waterloo. And my final prediction was The US reasserts its dominance and hegemony. If you look at everything geopolitically, food independence, energy independence, our economy appears to be growing again, and we're reducing inflation. Our vaccines are working. The smartest people in the world wanna come here. I... We're kicking the out of Putin in a proxy war without putting any boots on the ground. I just think The US right now, if you look at it honestly, as much as we dislike each other, as much as we want the situation room and to shitpost America or feel bad about ourselves, America has pulled away from the rest of the world on almost every important dimension. Kara Swisher · 1:02:02 Yeah. Well, we'll see. The only issue is... Look. People are getting weary of funding Ukraine all the time. I think there's statistics showing that. I do think China coming online is gonna raise inflation. Scott Galloway · 1:02:12 That should decrease inflation. Kara Swisher · 1:02:14 Well, maybe. Scott Galloway · 1:02:15 If they get the gunk out of the supply chain, that should lower costs, I think. Kara Swisher · 1:02:19 That... But also they have energy demands. Energy prices could go up, stuff like that. And they're they're a demand economy now in lots... They're a food demander, by the way, so food prices could go up. They... They're they're an importer of food now. So we'll we'll see. I agree with you. I think things are going well for the Biden administration at this moment. Scott Galloway · 1:02:36 What did I get wrong there? Do you... What do you very much agree with or very much not agree with? Kara Swisher · 1:02:40 I think Disney is a a tough row for mister Eiger. I don't think he's gonna be able to do a whole lot. I think it's gonna... He's gonna be doing a lot of cutting is what he's gonna have to do in consolidating more than anything. But, you know, that sounds like a good acquisition. I don't think they're gonna be acquired. That's a big rumor that was out there. 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 Before we go, we're nominated for best cohost for the SIGNAL award. You can vote for us. Go to signalaward.com. Find the link to vote for us in our show notes. Okay, Scott. That's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday for more. Read us out. — Predictions segment ends — Scott Galloway · 1:03:22 Today's show was produced by Lara Naim and Evan Engel and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertaut engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Miel Silverio. 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. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. I have the colon of a supermodel.