Scott Galloway · 44:18
3% of their GDP to work. Trump put 27%. We overdid it. So there's too many dollars out there. So if you were gonna blame anyone for the demand side, it would be Donald Trump. The only nation that spent more as a percentage of their GDP on stimulus was Singapore. And then on the supply side, we've had a supply shock courtesy of Vladimir Putin, where he's come in and interrupted the food supply chain and the energy supply chain. So I think you just got to make sure you got to understand, and when voters go out and are angry or the Republicans try and position Biden as it being his fault, inflation in The US is less bad than it is most places. And it's just a little bit sophomoric intellectually to blame Biden for inflation right now. And then on the supply side, we have to make big investments. Because just as nine women can have a baby in a month, you can't build a semiconductor plant overnight. But my prediction, and I've said this, I think inflation is going to come down faster than anyone thinks, especially in The US. The dollar is incredibly strong, which takes all of our
Kara Swisher · 45:25
I did think that until the OPEC thing
Scott Galloway · 45:27
in. I do think that the incredible gains of the Ukrainian army against the Russians makes the likelihood the conflict might come to an end in the next six months more likely. The energy markets will perceive that.
Kara Swisher · 45:37
So what is the win here with this? You had just talked about that everybody gets a little bit leaner and meaner. Is there any win in this? I don't see any win in this. This is not good for poor people. It's not good. It's fine for rich people who can ride it out, of course. But I don't see any win in the inflation. I don't think a cleansing is, this is the way to do it, but your thoughts.
Scott Galloway · 46:00
Inflation is good for very few parties. It's hard to find a winner with inflation. Inflation is typically, if a government is ransacked or kicked out, and you don't know what happened, but you have to guess, and if it's really abrupt, the number one reason is inflation. Because basically inflation takes everyone's quality of life. Their ability to go to Disneyland, their ability to buy chicken and beef is based on their purchasing power. And typically wages don't keep up with the cost of goods and inflation. So as a result, you have a decline in the quality of life for everyone, which everyone feels, everyone's angry, and justifiably or not, they blame the current party in power. So I think it's hard to think of a winner around inflation.
Kara Swisher · 46:44
They did the Republicans in the midterms. It could come right back again.
Scott Galloway · 46:48
But it's just so ironic that
Kara Swisher · 46:50
I mean, can have as many abortions as they want, but if they are able to get that message through, look, Oz is stronger, all of the Republican candidates who are lagging are doing better because they're zeroing on two things, inflation and crime.
Scott Galloway · 47:04
But the biggest win despite... There's some very negative things. Right? I mean, being on the precipice of war, and one thing Ian Bremmer said is whenever you have a proxy... He said, essentially, the European Union and NATO are at war in every respect of the term with Russia, except they don't have troops there. We're providing weapons, intelligence, training. We're there. And he said anytime you have a shooting match like that, it could go to a very bad place very fast. So we all have a vested interest in just getting that shit cooled down as quickly as possible. But I think the biggest win that's come out of that and inflation and some of the very negative things in the world is that for the first time, I would argue, Europe is actually a union. For the first time, we've had, at least to a certain extent, some sort of bipartisan agreement around what to do in Ukraine. And everyone has said for the last twenty or thirty years, the reason why Americans are turning on each other, the primary reason and I actually believe it's social media, but in a lack of contact with each other, physical contact, but most people would argue we don't have the external threat we used to. Right? We don't have the Nazis. We don't have Russians. And now all of a sudden, we have an external threat. And what do you know? We seem to be more unified in the West than we've been in a long time.
Kara Swisher · 48:18
That is true. Okay, Scott. Let's pivot to a listener question.
Scott Galloway · 48:22
You've got you've got I can't believe I'm gonna be a mailman. You've got mail.
Kara Swisher · 48:26
But first, wanna mention, we get a lot of emails thanking Scott for his comments on Molly Russell. Scott, that touched a lot of people. Very nice. Very nice.
Scott Galloway · 48:35
Thanks for that.
Kara Swisher · 48:37
Okay. I'm just saying, people, we
Scott Galloway · 48:38
gotta Thank love you.
Kara Swisher · 48:39
People like that. I like when Scott comes out. By the way, it's a it's a message. Don't be scared to talk about your feelings, And Scott is not in any way scared of that. So that's a really good thing. You all should be.
Scott Galloway · 48:49
I don't have control of it, but I will say A
Kara Swisher · 48:52
lot of men wouldn't do that. I'll tell you that.
Scott Galloway · 48:53
Yeah. But this... And this is... I say this a lot, on my podcast. And we get 82%, I think we have 82 male listenership. From the age of 29 to 44, I never laughed out loud really hard, and I never cried. Lost the capacity to like
Kara Swisher · 49:09
really Yes, men have have emotions from A to A often.
Scott Galloway · 49:12
Well, we're taught that part of your role, and I think there's some value here, is to be the strong one and to be a stoic. And I think there's some value there. And here's the problem, that if you don't at some point get in touch with your emotions and really lean into them, you start, A, really living life, and B, you become numb to what's really important to you. You become numb to what you find inspiring. You become numb to figuring out this relationship with this person is really important to me. You become numb to empathy for other people. So I tell young men, when you find something that moves you or upsets you, bring on the sloppy part because you're going to learn more about yourself, and you're going to start slowing time down, and you're going to realize how wonderful things are and things you miss and things that are important to you. And also, something I still haven't mastered, when you find something funny, try your hardest to laugh really hard.
Kara Swisher · 50:09
Yep, that's true.
Scott Galloway · 50:10
Because it's infectious. One of the things I love, I quite frankly, I think the success of our podcast, Kara, is that I say something off color, inappropriate or weird, and people pause, and then you laugh out loud, and you give everyone permission to laugh. True. There is nothing more joyous than hearing people laugh, and you wanna lean into laughter and try as hard as you can to laugh out loud a lot because you
Kara Swisher · 50:31
know Well, I try not to take people too seriously. In some cases, someone... Yesterday, someone was talking about that right wing dating, I think it was Naim on on. And my... Know, isn't that... She wasn't saying it was terrible, but people were like, the left was losing its mind over it. I'm like, what do you care? Like, what... Whatever. Like, whatever. You should have that attitude towards a lot of things and and enjoy some things and not get overly... Overwrought about the things that are not worth getting overwrought about and getting overwrought over the things that are completely over that way, sad. Be sad about sad things. Be happy about happy things. Anyway, our question today comes from Paul in Canada. Let's listen.
Guest · 51:08
Hello, Scott and Cara. It's Paul from Canada calling. Really enjoy the show. I'm wondering, you two are so incredibly well informed and up to date on current events, political events globally. What are your sources of information? What are your news feeds? What do you go to read and listen to? What keeps you up to date on all of these events? Love the show. Thanks very much. Cheers.
Kara Swisher · 51:29
Paul from Canada. Nice, Nice question. Twitter. We read Twitter a lot. See... I I I follow really well on Twitter, so I find people... Stories, and then I go from there to those stories. I read the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, all those things. I take a look at them. I read a lot more newsletters than I used to. I I really am enjoying... Oliver Darcy has just taken over Ryan Stelter's newsletter. I love all the Puck News newsletters. I dip in on the information sometimes. Casey Newton, I read. I know it's George Conway is actually a very good tweeter, and he actually links to a lot of stories that I wouldn't have found, for example. Lots of people. I just... I wander all over the place, and I add people as I've... During Ukraine, I had a bunch of people. I'm not reading it as much as I did. But I don't know. What about you, Scott? I don't read physical anything. Yeah.
Scott Galloway · 52:16
Get asked this all the time, and I wish there was a more sort of compelling answer that, oh, this is my secret go to. Like, in the nineties, my secret go to was this weird magazine called American Demographics.
Kara Swisher · 52:26
What?
Scott Galloway · 52:27
And Okay. Yeah. This... That literally talked about demographics.
Kara Swisher · 52:31
I'm so surprised you never got laid, but go ahead.
Scott Galloway · 52:33
That's a shocker. Right? That's how you stay a virgin till you're 19. Anyways, I'm the same as you. For me, it's not as organized. Twitter is kinda where it all starts, And I get a lot of morning emails like Bloomberg's email. I
Kara Swisher · 52:46
get Oh, that's
Scott Galloway · 52:47
five things from CNN. I get the information's email. Get I mean, I just kind of spend almost, I would say, it feels like an hour or two hours every morning, although it's chopped into little pieces in between things, just reading and looking at stuff. I love the Feet. If I have one hard piece for me, it's like a great meal just to sit down with the Feet, and I think it makes me look smarter to have that salmon thing wrapped around me. Mhmm. But I don't have like a go to. Do you have a go to? From used to be the New York Times. I have turned off the New York Times a little bit. Mhmm. I still think they have amazing journalists, but sometimes I read stuff and I'm like, that just feels wrong to me.
Kara Swisher · 53:24
Yeah. I don't read a whole paper. Increasingly, it's Twitter 100% over the years. The people I follow, I always find something. I use Twitter's News for You. I don't use Facebook at all. A lot of people do to get news. Mhmm. I don't use Instagram. I I think that's it. I think Twitter really is the center.
Scott Galloway · 53:41
Yeah. You know? And then you have individuals. You brought up Matt Levine. I think he's fantastic. I love Shira Ovidea. I think she does a great job. I read almost anything she puts out. I love reading Maureen Dowd. Also, this morning, when I wanted to learn more about OPEC, I immediately went to The Daily and said, do they have something on the OPEC? I find if you wanna go single issue, find a great media source and listen to a podcast. I think it's an interesting way to learn.
Kara Swisher · 54:03
Also, may I just say, I also watch TV. I do. I watch cable at night. I thought some of it's good, some of it's bad. What do
Scott Galloway · 54:09
you watch? I'm curious. I didn't know you watched TV.
Kara Swisher · 54:11
Oh, I just leave it on Stephanie Ruhl. I certainly do.
Scott Galloway · 54:14
Love Stephanie.
Kara Swisher · 54:14
I'm having to be up then, and some of it I find very just, like, predictable in a way. I wish there was some innovation in that space very much so. And I also I also consume conservative stuff. I read the bulwark. I was just on the podcast with Charlie Sykes, so I think he asked some very intelligent, smart, substantive questions. I don't just read sort of... I I read widely, let's just say. I read widely. So... But I do watch TV.
Scott Galloway · 54:38
I started watching BBC. It just makes me feel more British.
Kara Swisher · 54:41
Does it? Do you like BBC?
Scott Galloway · 54:43
Well, you know what? There's something to be said for. I now believe in whatever you wanna call it, government supported media, because they do try to call balls and strikes and hit it down the middle.
Kara Swisher · 54:52
Right. Yep. Yep. It's nice.
Scott Galloway · 54:54
I think it's healthy to have both, to have a to to have a layer. That's right. I think they do a great job.
Kara Swisher · 55:00
Alright. If you got a question of your own you'd like answered, thank you, Paul. Send it our way, our nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551 Alright, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for prediction.
[Ad break]
— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 56:29
Okay, Scott. Let's hear a quick prediction.
Scott Galloway · 56:31
I think that Elon has screwed over so many people, and I think this 60 or 70% decline, on day one and the value of that asset means a lot of the equity players are probably gonna back out. And also the idea of trying to make a super app, I think, a really interesting idea. So I think that Sam Bankman Fried
Kara Swisher · 56:52
Sam Bankman Fried. He was on those texts. Although Elon kinda trashed him. Do I have to listen to that Bitcoin nonsense?
Scott Galloway · 56:58
Right. But you're gonna see... I think you're gonna see... He's gonna have to raise more equity because I think the kind of Wall Street crowd is just kinda had it with this guy.
Kara Swisher · 57:06
Yeah. He's gonna have to get his friends.
Scott Galloway · 57:08
Because what he says literally means nothing. And the amount of time he wasted of very talented people who have a very high opportunity cost is extraordinary.
Kara Swisher · 57:20
Yeah. Yeah. He's gonna have to go to the faux crowd. There's a lot of people in that crowd. Would you invest if he came to you and said insufferable nun skull? Would you invest? Would you give him the $54.20 price?
Scott Galloway · 57:32
I wouldn't invest in that. I would invest in the debt. I'd be at the top of the cap structure. Would invest in the debt because if... I don't think he can get debt now. But anyways, he's gonna raise money from a payments guy slash sycophant. He's gotta hit the sycophant source of financing.
— Predictions segment ends —
Kara Swisher · 57:48
Always a sycophant when it comes to Elon Musk, and that's probably true. Anyway, thank you, Scott. This has been a fantastic show, and we'll be back for more.
Scott Galloway · 57:57
Number one, on with... I'm I'm on with Tara Swisher.
Kara Swisher · 58:01
Me and my friends of the right. Yes. You know, I I have to say, I'm gonna read one thing. Amanda's tweet about your tweet, which was very funny. I couldn't help but wonder had I accidentally married a right wing talk show host. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Scott Galloway · 58:15
Do you start talking conservative before you guys go at it just to get get things kinda hot and angry? We need federal law. Come here, you bitch.
Kara Swisher · 58:25
Social media companies should be forced not to censor us because we're always... We never shut up. Can I show you that list? It's... They never shut up. They're not censored. Look at it. It's Dan Bongino who I'm
Scott Galloway · 58:37
We shouldn't be talking about sex in school.
Kara Swisher · 58:39
By the way, I'm trying to get Dan to come on. It's been an ongoing effort, and he always said he was bigger than me. But, Dan, guess who has the bigger penis, Kara Swisher?
Scott Galloway · 58:48
That's my cue. Today's show is produced by Lara Naaman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Entratot engineered this episode. Thanks to also to Dubrow's Emile Salvario. 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 next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. On with Kara Swisher, numero uno, ahead of the crazies. Crazy, crazy, crazy, and Kara.
