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Speaker · 29:20
Everyone's talking about the prospect of a democratic wave in the midterm elections. But here's something that matters just as much, the battle to control state legislatures.
Speaker · 29:31
That's the most important thing we should be focusing on right now.
Speaker · 29:34
The GOP has a trifecta in 23 states, which means they control the governor's seat plus the state house and the state senate. For Democrats, it's 16 states.
Speaker · 29:45
Meaning that the opportunity to pass the policies that the majority of our state supports, things like increasing minimum wage, legalizing marijuana, codifying abortion.
Speaker · 29:56
If Democrats flip just a handful of state legislatures, the majority of Americans will now live in the state under full democratic control, which could have big policy implications.
Speaker · 30:07
That's all on the table with the democratic trifecta.
Speaker · 30:10
This week on America Actually, we're in Wisconsin, and we talked to Francesca Hong.
Speaker · 30:14
We have an opportunity through Wisconsin to actually start improving the brand for Democrats.
Speaker · 30:21
Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast.
— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 30:28
Okay, Scott. Let's hear a prediction.
Scott Galloway · 30:30
Well, I I do think European tech is gonna have a pretty good year. Raspberry Pi went, and I'll come back to them. Salonis in Germany. Mistral is probably the most interesting AI company in Europe. I do think we're going to start to hear a little bit more from we're going to start to see a pulse in European tech this year. But my prediction is what I'm calling exchange wars, And that is the LSE has gone from about $4,500,000,000,000 in total market cap of its companies to about 3,000,000,000,000. It's
Kara Swisher · 30:59
This is the London Stock Exchange.
Scott Galloway · 31:00
The London Stock Exchange. It's literally off 30%. Whereas The US exchanges have gone from something like 15,000,000,000,000 to 50,000,000,000,000. They've tripled and the LSE is down 30%. Over the next twelve months, the biggest IPOs of 2024 and 2025 are going to happen on the LSE and a new exchange in America. Specifically, the biggest IPO of 2024 is going to happen on the LSE from Shein, the company that's gone up in 30,000,000,000 to $42,000,000,000 Next year, it'll probably be $60,000,000,000 It'll probably be the biggest apparel company in the world that's growing that fast and is that profitable. And similar to NVIDIA, it doesn't have any actual assets. It's just essentially AI or software figuring out how to figure out a way to get you your stuff more inexpensively. And then the biggest IPO of 2025 will be SpaceX on the new Texas exchange. So we're about to see what I would loosely call exchange wars. And Raspberry Pi, which decided to go public on the LSE last week, this is a cool little company, actually chose the LSE. So the LSE is no longer going to be seen as the exchange of last choice. It's going to be something where cool companies go public. That is going to add 5,000,000,000 or $10,000,000,000 in market cap to Sheehan, which people see us going to the LSE only because they have to. And then you can bet Elon Musk is in the background on this new Texas exchange. The first the biggest IPO of 2025 will be SpaceX on the new Texas exchange. So for lack of a better term, Exchange Wars, two biggest IPOs of '24 and '25
Kara Swisher · 32:26
is a good thing.
Scott Galloway · 32:26
Are the LSE and the Texas exchange.
Kara Swisher · 32:28
What would seem to
Scott Galloway · 32:29
saying is
Kara Swisher · 32:29
right now I'll end on this. The biggest 40% of the run up of stocks has to do with Nvidia right now. It's Unbelievable.
Scott Galloway · 32:38
One company this is I apologize, but this is one other canard or another misdirect. Market's at all time highs. We must all be doing fine. Somewhere between 110% of people own between 8090% of stocks. The NASDAQ and the NYSE, these indices are really dangerous because they give us the illusion that we're doing well. It's not. They're an index on rich people. And spoiler alert, rich people are killing it. So if you're trying to sell a football team or a penthouse in Antibes, you're all set. But if you're of the majority of Americans or you're under the age of 40 and you haven't been able to aggregate wealth to buy stocks, life is not champagne and cocaine for you. As a matter of fact, for people who are millennials, they say well their average wealth is really strong. It's not because the Gini coefficient is so enormous. There are some people at the age of 30 that get into the right information economy do really well. But on the whole, these kids are really struggling. And then 200 times a day, they get a notification telling them that they're not doing that well and that everyone around them is rich and is hot. So these indices are actually really damaging. You know what we should publish every day? How many people died from opioid overdoses? How many teen girls have admitted... Been admitted? Why aren't there indexes for self harm in The United States? Instead, we're like, ding ding ding ding ding. S and P a new high. Everything must be great. No rich people are doing really well.
Kara Swisher · 33:59
It's sort of the same idea of life is not Twitter, and life is not the stock exchange. I think that is actually an effective message that the Republican Party has for people, is that not everybody is on the stock exchange. And so it make you feel better if you're not participating. But we should. People should be aware of those. And unfortunately, I think people actually are more than you think. I think people... I think catastrophe is part... Is inbuilt into all these social media systems. And so you are constantly aware of catastrophe everywhere you go. And so
Scott Galloway · 34:30
But if you own S and P stocks, if you own any of the 400... If you own a mix of any or all of the 499 stocks in the S and P that aren't Nvidia, you're either flat or probably down, and your investments probably aren't keeping pace with inflation.
Kara Swisher · 34:45
Correct.
Scott Galloway · 34:46
But because the NASDAQ and the S and P are up, you think, oh, I must be doing well. Not unless you own Nvidia. So we have income inequality within income inequality in our markets. And that is why Lena Khan and the FTC and the DOJ need to go on a breakup Lollapalooza and break these companies up.
— Predictions segment ends —
Kara Swisher · 35:03
Well, on that note, Rose, everybody. So with that, we'll open up the floor to audience questions. We just have a few minutes. Let's get some questions. We have a a mic. Anybody? Right here. Hold on. We have a mic.
Speaker · 35:15
Hi. I'm Anne Riley, and I work with quotefromabroad.org. And getting back to the elections
Scott Galloway · 35:20
I am.
Speaker · 35:21
That the US election really does have global implications.
Kara Swisher · 35:24
Sure. Yeah.
Speaker · 35:25
And, actually, only... There's about six and a half million Americans overseas, and only 10% of them usually vote.
Scott Galloway · 35:32
Great.
Speaker · 35:32
Yeah. And it's a... There's a huge amount of American university students abroad
Scott Galloway · 35:38
Yep. That
Speaker · 35:38
don't know they can vote and don't know how to request their ballot and things like that. But what what do you think about the possible impact of the elections and how to actually get more Americans abroad to vote? Because if you talk to any non Americans here, they probably know more about the elections and the electoral college than the average American.
Kara Swisher · 36:00
Yeah. I don't... I I think one of the great disappointments is how little care Americans take for their privilege of voting. It's really amazing to me that, you know, I'm not gonna vote. I have a lot of people saying that to me now, and I'm like, get the fuck away from me right now. Like how dare you not take, which is the greatest privilege in the world, really, to be able to vote in a free election. You know, even with my own kids who are voting, my son is in Michigan now, and so he's registering there because he lives there. Literally was like, if you don't vote, I'm not paying for college. Like, is... I'm sorry. I hope sorry to solicit your vote, but you have to make a choice. I I think it was something... In that case, I would imagine it would probably benefit the Biden administration more. People are abroad, maybe more open to things. So I'm guessing it would probably be a very good thing for the Biden administration to solicit. I don't know. I I I
Scott Galloway · 36:57
I Well, it means they have money and a college degree. Yeah. Hello,
Kara Swisher · 37:00
Exactly. So I I don't know what to do to get them to vote. I just... I I am perplexed by the by the low levels of voting. I... And then a small group of very committed people, badly committed people, are the ones that vote. Literally, it's Yates poem all over, is the two sides are full of passion and intensity, and the other people don't care, and it affects the people in the middle. Although I do think this election, there's a silent majority of especially women who have had it and are... And you've seen it in election after election where they say it's gonna be even, and then the Democrats win, especially around women's reproductive rights. I still think it's a majorly potent issue with women of all sides of the political equation, more than people think. This one statistics of 170,000 women moving around The United States to get abortion care or health reproductive rights care, and then they're piling on, the evangelicals are piling on with contraception, IVF. One hundred and seventy thousand people moving around the country because you're you're... And you may be criminalized in your state is a big frigging deal, much more than people think. I I think. I think beyond anything else. But we'll see. I don't know. Any of the quick thoughts? And then one last question.
Scott Galloway · 38:20
We're living in London, and we'll we're doing... We'll do vote by mail. I think we should come to some sort of accommodation with Republicans. I'm not offended by, requiring, identification to vote. I I I don't think that's unreasonable. But I think in exchange, we should say, I would like to see voting by handheld phone. I I just... I think it just makes... It would just make life so much easier. That's where people are spending their time. Yeah. I don't even know... I'm not even entirely sure how to mail stuff anymore. So everybody wants stuff that goes to their advantage.
Kara Swisher · 38:48
I will help you with that.
Scott Galloway · 38:49
There you go. But, yeah, I... We're all, I think, in violent agreement that that everyone should exercise their their rights to
Kara Swisher · 38:57
vote. I... It's... But there's a lot of people talking about it, smart people. Like, literally, I'm shocked by it every time I hear it, right there.
Scott Galloway · 39:04
What advice do you give your graduates who wanna get into this industry? Because it's getting tougher for them. It comes down to what is the primary skill you would want to give your kids and try and suss out your kids and surround them with resources such that they become pretty good at it. The only skill I know will survive the test of time. Do you remember when in private schools they were all offering Mandarin? Do you remember basically computer science has replaced civics? That's and that's by the way how you get Mark Zuckerberg. We need civics and history back and computer science out. The only skill, and I think this is a skill to be in this industry or quite frankly any industry, is if I could give my two young men who are here today any one skill and it's how I've made my living and it's the our species, our superpower is cooperation. And the facility or the vehicle for leveraging our superpower cooperation is communication. The key attribute of any successful CEO, entrepreneur, media executive is one thing, it's storytelling. It's the ability to communicate across different mediums. And what I have my kids do in my class, when I say my kids, my students, I tell them to pick a platform and it can be PowerPoint, it can be texting, it can be LinkedIn. And I say come back with the metrics that would make you one of the top 1% on that medium in terms of communication. And by the end of the semester, you're gonna be, you have to be in that top 1% because there's so many different say you're shy and you don't like to do this, right? But you know how some people are fantastic on 140 characters or less or they are fantastic with imagery on Instagram? You have to be an outstanding storyteller such that you can take your thoughtful ideas and bring scale and leverage to them. Oh, I'm great at writing posts on LinkedIn. I'm really good at long form journalism on Medium. But what I would task every high schooler and college student with and especially in your industry is you have to be able to answer the following question. Where are you a 1% storyteller? And figure out the metrics, figure out the medium. There's so many mediums. Well, I'm shy. Well, you don't need to be in front of people to be on Reddit or Discord or TikTok. I'm not, you know, I'm not good looking. Well, guess what? Podcasting. Hello? Five TV shows canceled, by the way. Five TV. Time five. Everyone has their medium. Everyone can be a great storyteller. And I don't care if you're Jeff Bezos or Winston Churchill or Maya Angelou, the most influential successful people in history all have one thing in common. They're great storytellers.
Kara Swisher · 41:39
Yeah. That's a very good point. And I don't know if you know this, but Scott's the top 1% in puppetry. So in any case, it's his quiet little hobby. Anyway, we really thank you a lot. I'm hearing the next group is coming here, so I'm gonna read us out. Okay, Scott. That's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot.
Scott Galloway · 41:55
Today's show was produced by Lara Naaman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Aliyah Jackson engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Breaux's Milsavirio, Vox Media's Lauren Stark and Adweek's Will Lee. Thank you, Will. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Let's get together more often. Alright. Let's get together more often.
Kara Swisher · 42:29
Thank you, Adweek, again, and thank you for the audience.
Scott Galloway · 42:32
Thanks, everybody.
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