Kara Swisher · 50:35
Bullshit. Like, let's get... And I get there's part of that is important, but it's all through the negative lens instead of... Again, I'd point to someone like Mark Cuban, the positive lens. What can we do to make this better and not demonize everybody? And a lot of government employees are great employees, and they do not deserve this kind of bullshit, even if we should have a more efficient government. I would agree. I would be on their team, except they're such assholes. I don't wanna be on their team.
Scott Galloway · 50:59
I'm gonna hold my judgment for the recommendations. So, know, there's there's just some interesting... There's an... It's catalyzing an interesting dialogue. We have five air forces in the military. Do we need five air... I mean, there's just some interesting conversations here.
Kara Swisher · 51:10
I wish they would go after the military. When they started to do that, everyone was like, uh-oh. And I was pleased with that, and so was Bernie Sanders. Anyway, and I I love the military. I think it's important, but everything could be more... Made more efficient. It's just how you do it and how you treat people when you're doing it. It's like laying people off. There... Elon laid people off with cruelty... Needless cruelty, and he didn't have to. He could lay people off. And so, anyway, maybe you could get nicer boys, but doubtful considering who you are. If you got a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 85551 a big thanks to everyone who had pivot on their Spotify wrap this year. Be sure to tag us on social media when you share your list. Scott, what was your... Did you look at your wrap? What was it?
Scott Galloway · 51:55
My wrap?
Kara Swisher · 51:55
I think this is a cool thing, and they did an AI movie on Spotify. You know, all the music you listen to?
Scott Galloway · 52:00
Oh, yeah. I I keep getting forwarded people who say that we're the... One of our top pods. Yeah. Yeah.
Kara Swisher · 52:06
Yeah. So what... Did you look at yours or not?
Scott Galloway · 52:08
Yet. No.
Kara Swisher · 52:09
Can can you guess who my top artist was?
Scott Galloway · 52:12
Taylor Swift?
Kara Swisher · 52:13
Yes. And she was everybody's top artist.
Scott Galloway · 52:15
Oh, my rap. I just pulled it up. Do wanna hear mine? Okay. Hold on.
Kara Swisher · 52:17
Okay. What is it? Yeah. Go ahead. Tell us.
Scott Galloway · 52:19
Alright. Top artist. Number one, Electric Light Orchestra. Number two, Calvin Harris. Number three, Fleetwood Mac. Number four, Fine Young Cannibals. Number five, Supertramp. Your top song.
Kara Swisher · 52:29
You're living in the eighties and nineties, Scott.
Scott Galloway · 52:32
Wouldn't you? Did you... Have you seen pictures of me in the eighties? Seriously, that should work.
Kara Swisher · 52:36
You've been putting out social media things, Very lovely songs, by the way. I like them a lot.
Scott Galloway · 52:40
That's how I relax is I pretend I'm just out... I'm I'm in my junior year at UCLA. Right. And, anyways, my top songs were the safety dance, Men Without Hats. That's a great one. Enola Gay. Enola Gay, but I think that's orchestral maneuvers in the dark. You get... Oh, you get what you want by the new radicals. She drives me crazy, again, fine young cannibals, and give a little bit by super tramp. I'm shocked that Don't Bring Me Down or Even The Losers by Tom Petty.
Kara Swisher · 53:09
Can't believe Electric Light Orchestra, mister Blue Sky.
Scott Galloway · 53:12
Former London Symphony musicians who kept seeing each other in studios doing serial commercials and said, let's start a rock
Kara Swisher · 53:18
band. 1979, hard... Highest charting hit in The United States was don't bring me down.
Scott Galloway · 53:24
Another example of how The UK dominates IP. Name a great American band, and I can name you five UK bands, and yet all the money is made in The US. Anyways, the original AI, they invent it, and we monetize it.
Kara Swisher · 53:35
So question, not Taylor Swift is your favorite. She was everybody else?
Scott Galloway · 53:39
No. Taylor. Yeah. No. I... I'm stuck in the eighties.
Kara Swisher · 53:41
Okay. You are. It was... That's lovely. Electric Light Orchestra. I haven't thought of them in a hundred years. Anyway, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.
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— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 55:59
Okay, Scott. Don't bring me down. Let's hear a prediction.
Scott Galloway · 56:04
I've been taking these ridiculously long walks with my dogs. I have weird predictions. The first is sort of a serious one. I think that we're so focused on some of the stuff domestically that the biggest news are usually things we're not thinking about. I think you're gonna see an uprising in the beginning of potentially what is a revolution in Iran. Iran's proxies, of which they've invested tens of billions of dollars over the last couple decades, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and now Syria, which is in the midst of its own uprising, has essentially had their hands cut off. And I think a lot of the people within Iran... You know, you shouldn't say Iran. You should... When you're talking about the leadership there, should talk about the Islamic regime or the Islamic Republic because the Iranian people, in my view, this is a this is a leadership that is corrupt, incredibly... I think the Ayatollah is sitting on a house of cards right now or Khomeini, I should say. And I think that the Bashar al Assad's weakness, the second largest city, Aleppo, has been taken by rebels or or HTS. I don't know how to pronounce his name. But I think effectively Iran is more vulnerable right now than they have been in a couple decades, and I imagine adversarial parties within the country sense that and will strike soon. So 2025, I think the biggest... One of the biggest news stories will be an uprising in Iran based on
Kara Swisher · 57:23
be great if an incumbent lost power in that regard An incumbent. Of incumbents.
Scott Galloway · 57:27
Oh, yeah.
Kara Swisher · 57:27
You know, we were talking about incumbents losing power across the globe.
Scott Galloway · 57:30
Well, I mean, Hamas has the support of the Palestinian people. The Islamic regime does not in Iran. And and I think that all of their proxies being weakened and also all of their buffer states, you know, Iranian air defenses are really vulnerable right now. Israel, it's really weird. The Middle East is being dictated by three non Arab nations. It's really, it's really Iran, Israel, and you could argue Turkey right now, which is kinda filling that vacuum. I mean... And Assad was gonna turn to Russia. Russia has its own issues in Ukraine. I think all of the cards, all of the tea leaves are turning up really bad for Iran right now. And I think domestic domestic rebel forces or people who wanna overthrow this regime, which I think the West would like to see, probably feel more jonzed up and confident right now than they've been in a while. More... That's a serious prediction. I have a less serious prediction.
Kara Swisher · 58:19
Alright. Okay. Because Scott Zakaria... We have Scott Zakaria going on here. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Scott Galloway · 58:23
I'm I'm dumb. It doesn't mean I'm wrong. Oh, Farid Farid, Oh, Freed Freed, that that guy's guy's
Kara Swisher · 58:33
a a genius. Sort of.
Scott Galloway · 58:34
I don't care. That guy's a genius. Surround him with a few buffers. Fine. But that guy that guy's a clear blue flame thinker. Kind of. Nice man too.
Kara Swisher · 58:41
Anyway Not every time. Go ahead.
Scott Galloway · 58:42
Who is every time? Anyway, so my second one is a little bit more, I don't know, trivial but equally profound, and that is I think that you're gonna see a strike, another strike, but I think it's gonna be by the world's top football players. Oh. And that is because of the outrageous explosion in value of these teams, a lot of the owners are trying to monetize it and meet the demand of the sport, which is growing exponentially by creating more fixtures and more international competitions. And there's this weird dynamic in football where a 22 year old can basically play every fucking day. But by the time you're 26 or 28, which is what the best players in the world when they peak, they're getting fed up, and they're getting injured, and they aren't playing around the calendar. And I think that that's hit a bit of a breaking point because the best players in the world are the ones with the most demands on them physically. And I think with the announcement, like FIFA, which has always been a a tad corrupt, if if a tad means a lot, has just announced another tournament, another fixture. I think it's at a breaking point. You're gonna see the best players in the world decide we've had enough and go on strike Anyways.
Kara Swisher · 59:45
Although getting paid, you saw Larry Ellison's wife. No one knew she had gotten married. She was a University of Michigan person. They grabbed that that player from Louisiana. Everyone in Louisiana was crying, and Larry paid $12,000,000 to get this call. I like them getting paid. I don't know. I like college students getting paid.
Scott Galloway · 1:00:02
It is ridiculous. This notion that somehow the n c two a, which pays themselves a shit ton of money and then wraps himself in some sort of bullshit purity of college athletics, figures out a way to pick to pay the 55 year old white guy on the court 3,000,000 a year. But all the black kids on the court, no. No. It's the purity of the sport. It is, I mean, enough already. Yeah. Absolutely that these kids get paid.
Kara Swisher · 1:00:26
$12,000,000. I love that.
Scott Galloway · 1:00:27
Good for him, man.
Kara Swisher · 1:00:28
And Larry Ellison, just like, here she... The peak... Alex called me, like, beyond belief excited. And, of course, someone from Louisiana was like, how dare they do that? I'm like, what are you talking about? He deserved the money.
Scott Galloway · 1:00:38
Free market. Free
Kara Swisher · 1:00:39
market. Anyway, good predictions. Elsewhere in the Scott and Cara universe, this week on ProfG Markets, Scott spoke with Michael Saylor, great idea, the founder and executive chairman of Perfectly Timed of MicroStrategy to discuss MicroStrategy's decision to become a Bitcoin treasury and why it emerged as the best performing stock in the S and P 500 this year. Let's listen.
— Predictions segment ends —
Guest · 1:00:58
Volatility is fire. If you're a normie, you run away from fire. If you're Henry Ford, you put the fire into an engine, you put it in a horseless carriage, and you create an automobile, and now people can go. And then you put it into a plane and a train. You see? So engineers are putting volatile... You know, you're a nuclear reactor in the spaceship. It's scary in the submarine. But Bitcoin is is like the financial fuel. These things are crypto reactors. It's a technically better way to do this, and it's the volatility that's actually the motor that's driving the portfolio or the treasury forward.
Kara Swisher · 1:01:43
That was really good. I liked it. I really enjoyed listening to it. I was gonna talk to him.
Scott Galloway · 1:01:47
The number one, the best performing stock in the S and P. Number two is in video. Number one, MicroStrategy. I mean, this guy took a business intelligence firm that was worth, I don't know, a couple billion dollars, and he'd levered up the company to buy He did. Bitcoin. And then now he's just he's just issued zero coupon bonds, which means he doesn't have to pay interest to buy even more, and his stock is up sevenfold this year. And you listen to this guy speak. I'm skeptical of the whole space. I think partly, one, because I've missed out on the bull run. And two, I've... I don't like the idea of the de dollarization and replacing the dollar. I think it's it's like the kind of invisible aircraft carrier for us.
Kara Swisher · 1:02:26
Dangerous.
Scott Galloway · 1:02:27
And also, I do think there's some real downsides that Bitcoin maximalists, including Michael, don't don't acknowledge in terms of the danger of it funding. I think it's good occasionally where we see the flows of power and money. But, anyways... But I've known Michael for twenty years. The thing I like about him in this... He is the voice the space needs because he's not only a very effective cheerleader, evangelist, whatever you wanna call it, advocate. I have known him for a couple decades. He's a nice man, and he never... He doesn't start calling you a pedophile if you're not a Bitcoin maximalist like the rest of the Bitcoin Taliban or the crypto Taliban. He's not in jail. He's he's actually quite a... I've known him enough... Long enough to say this about him. He's a generous nice man. That's the voice they need right now because the other the other folks hyping this thing or evangelizing it are not nice people, or they generally don't acquit themselves well. You're either you're either sign up for their religion or you're an apostate. So, anyways... But the conversation, it's already, I think, our most downloaded pod so far this year. But this guy, you wanna talk about balls of steel? He's kind of the Elon Musk we want. He took this enormous risk that paid off enormously, but he didn't start accusing people of sex crimes along the way.
Kara Swisher · 1:03:39
Well, that... That's the lowest bar, but, yes, indeed. I... It was a great... I was thrilled that you interviewed him. It was great. I recommend everyone listen to it. It was terrific. I listened to it yesterday. Okay, Scott. That's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot. Please read us out.
Scott Galloway · 1:03:54
Today's show is produced by Lara Nayman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Savaria, and Dan Shulan. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you're subscribed to the show where every listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at noymag.com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.
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