Guest · 55:04
Every bit of data that I see about that is a positive impact, you know, not only on diminishing the amount of obesity that an individual would have, but also diminishing some of the other risks, heart disease or hypertension or what have you. So I think we're still in the early phases of the GLP-one, but I I would like to watch it carefully and think that ultimately it's gonna be a very positive impact on a lot of different people who cannot control, their obesity for the normal ways of just saying, you know, stop eating so much, which, you know, in someone who's morbidly and chronically obese, that is not a good answer.
Kara Swisher · 55:53
No. Not at all. And it leads to so many other outcomes. When you're thinking... Right now, obviously, health... Mental health is something that's, has also been a big deal. When you look at all the swirl around both Donald Trump and Joe Biden around their cognitive abilities, it seems like medicine is something that is just there nothing. There is nothing. Everyone's a everyone's a doctor. Everybody's knows what they're talking about. Everyone comments on it. And yet we have we're gonna have a next pandemic. We're gonna have a next health care crisis. How do you change that? When when you think about that dynamic when when everybody is an expert, is that... Does does that have a deleterious effect on health, public health?
Guest · 56:39
Well, yeah, because everyone thinks they're an expert. I think I would correct what you were saying. If everyone was an expert, there would be no problem. We'd have a lot of expertise floating around, but it's just that everybody thinks they're an expert. And that's when you get into a problem because then people can't determine the difference between one and another.
Kara Swisher · 57:00
Do you look at, do anything around AI? Are you, a lot of people I talk to in Silicon Valley are, you know, they, they talk about the, the possibilities of AI helping health care, drug discovery, drug interaction, cancer research. How are you approaching that?
Guest · 57:18
Well, I don't... I mean, I'm in a position now of not utilizing AI, but I observe from my perch of experience in medicine for over fifty years that there are many, many positive aspects of AI. Obviously, there were those who were concerned about the negative aspects of AI, but the ones that are obvious, like for example, with all of the information you put into things like reading x rays or reading skin biopsies or reading visual, imaging of retina or CT scans or MRI scans, AI is... Can have a very positive effect. I think we obviously have to have the proper controls so that it isn't used inappropriately. But I myself, you know, that's not my lane. I don't utilize that.
Scott Galloway · 58:07
You were demonized. I mean, and I I wonder... Alright. You've got a very esteemed career. You've highly credentialed. You've earned your accolades, your titles, and you're demonized. You're working your ass off, and people are demonizing you. There's just no way that can take a toll on you mentally and emotionally. I'm just curious what practices or or what you did to kinda manage your own mental health.
Guest · 58:35
You know, Scott, that's a great question. And I have the ability, and I've developed it over the years, to compartmentalize and to focus like a laser beam on what my what my goals are, what my function is. You know, as a physician, it was taking care of patients and everything else gets shielded out. As a scientist, it's to do the best possible science. And as a public health official, to keep my eye on the ball of my goal and my function is to preserve and protect the health of the American public. And since The United States, you know, is such a leader in public health indirectly for the rest of the world, all of the other stuff, although, you know, when you look at it at face value, it's, you know, nobody likes to be demonized. But I try and I believe succeed in filtering that stuff out and realizing that it's just one of the, you know, the liabilities of our society today. The other thing is I have an amazing support structure. I describe it in my memoir. My wife, Christine, is just an amazing person with rock solid person in being able to just always keep me grounded in reality of who I am and never let me forget about who I am and what I should be doing. So support structures are really, really important. I'm fortunate enough to have someone who's lived through it with me and is a very wise person whose counsel I hold very, very dear.
Kara Swisher · 1:00:15
So, what's next for you? What are you... What is your next move?
Guest · 1:00:18
Well, you know, one of the reasons I stepped out besides wanting to go ahead and and write my memoir, which I've now finished, and it's out. So that's that's behind me, was I wanted to use my many decades of experience to perhaps inspire younger people who might be thinking about getting into public health or public service or who are already in public health and public service. So I now am a distinguished university professor in a dual appointment in the School of Medicine and the School of Public Policy at Georgetown. And I enjoy very much the interaction with students. When I was at the NIH for more than fifty years, it was mostly interacting with doctoral level and senior scientists and others. Here, when you're dealing with 19, 20, 21 year old, 25 year old students, there's a whole different milieu that you have there that is really very gratifying to be able to help them, advise them, inspire them. That's what I'm doing now, and I'm enjoying it very much.
Kara Swisher · 1:01:24
If Donald Trump wins, there are threats to you and others. Are you worried in any way? They have made threats, a lot of them.
Guest · 1:01:32
You know, Kara, I... The answer is I I don't wanna seem like I'm a, you know, the brave hero, but, no, I'm not worried about it. You know, what is gonna be is gonna be if they if they do the ridiculous thing of retribution and revenge, I I don't know what to have a revenge about. I look at what what have I done that you wanna have revenge against me. But, you know, if you do well, you know, well, I don't know what to say except I'm not gonna let it bother me.
Kara Swisher · 1:02:00
All right. Well, keep teaching. We really appreciate it. Doctor Anthony Fauci. Again, the book is called On Call, a doctor's journey in Public Service.
Guest · 1:02:08
Thank you, doctor. Thank you.
Kara Swisher · 1:02:10
Scott, one more quick break. We'll be right back for predictions.
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— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 1:04:10
Scott, let's revisit some predictions we got right. Trump media and technology is down almost 70% in the last month, which we predicted would happen. It's just... It's not a company. Stop it, people. It's a it's a it's a it's a thing on whether Trump is gonna be president or not. That's what it is. It's an indication of whether he is. And as I predicted, JD Vance is strange to be a poor choice for the GOP, largely because I know him. So that... You know, I think he's charmless and weird, and the... Everything about him is strange. And I think he's actually... Usually, vice presidents don't matter, but in this case, what a bad choice. In any case, I had I had the nightmare idea that Trump would dump him and then pick Nikki Haley, which would be... It would probably cause him to win in some ways. But, Scott, give us your prediction.
Scott Galloway · 1:04:53
Well, I just love correlating or reverse engineering from the financialization and politicization of everything means that what happens in the political spectrum has impact on stocks now. And our prediction last week was that it went from 46 to 36, and Donald Trump media was gonna below... Go below 30, and it's hovering at about 30 today because it's become a tracking stock for Trump's likelihood of of recapturing the White House. And I think the same thing is gonna happen to Tesla. Tesla is kind of... There are meme stocks. DJT Media is a total meme stock. It's trading on things that have nothing to do with the underlying valuation. Companies like AMC and GameStop are pretty close to that. They've kinda disassociated their valuation from the underlying businesses, which are generally shitty businesses. A company that's kinda squarely in the middle is Tesla because it is a... It is... To be fair, it's a great company. It's... It has incredible products. It's been incredibly innovative. It does spin off free cash flow. It's growing. It has marked the EV revolution, but it trades at kind of a meme stock valuation that is even with its growth prospects, it's very hard to imagine it ever growing into a valuation of, again, twice the PE ratio of Ferrari, which is kind of a vanity buy. So I think what's the narrative that's gonna play out is the following. I think we're about to be a bunch of stories saying that all of these tech libertarian billionaires cozying up to Trump in exchange for political favors and advantages that would advantage their business, I think there's gonna be more stories about, okay. You've gone all in on Trump, and you think it's gonna get you business, which by that logic means that if, in fact, it's a Harris presidency, it's gonna be really bad for your business, that it's gonna be unlikely she's going to put more tariffs on BYD. It's gonna be unlikely that she puts pressure on the Fed or Janet Yellen to come up with some batshit crazy lack of regulation that sends crypto through through the roof.
Kara Swisher · 1:06:48
Also, it's unlikely she'll stop the SEC from coming after your ass.
Scott Galloway · 1:06:51
That's that's exactly right. And so I think people at the media is gonna start connecting the dots there, and companies associated with this new techno libertarian all in on Trump are gonna think this could be bad. I mean, typically speaking, companies wisely, other than behind the scenes funneling money to people who are behind their interest, do not come out in favor of certain candidates. So I think, one, you're gonna see... I think Andrews and Horowitz and Sequoia were just... Just did not do the scenario planning here around giving a full throated endorsement of Trump. But I think the stock that will... And this is not financial advice. I've never been more wrong than when I talk about Tesla stock, but I can't help but think people are gonna start to write articles on how bad will a Harris administration be for Tesla, and I think that's gonna impact the stock.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:37
As she does better, the stock will do worse. That is absolutely true. Although Exactly right. DJT is still worth 5,770,000,000. Yeah. Think Yeah. If that's doing bad
Scott Galloway · 1:07:48
But, Kara, it's but, Kara, it's got 4,000,000 in revenue.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:51
If love and use wrong, I don't wanna be right. You know?
Scott Galloway · 1:07:53
It only lost a third of 1,000,000,000 on 7,000,000 in revenue.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:56
I know. God. Wait. How can we get into this racket? We need to get into a racket.
Guest · 1:08:01
Caramedia. Caramedia. Dog jungle cat social.
Kara Swisher · 1:08:04
Scott and Caramedia.
Scott Galloway · 1:08:05
She's Caramedia.
Kara Swisher · 1:08:06
She's... No. It has to have your name in it too. I know you're gonna leave me someday, but that's gonna be okay. I'm just
Scott Galloway · 1:08:11
the good looking guy in the background.
Kara Swisher · 1:08:12
I'm just the side people think of us, you, the good looking
Scott Galloway · 1:08:15
I'm just the side piece.
Kara Swisher · 1:08:16
Yeah. Well, you did look good on the Today Show. Have to say, you were even handsome.
Scott Galloway · 1:08:19
Thank you for saying that. That's really all that matters to me.
— Predictions segment ends —
Kara Swisher · 1:08:21
Really good. I really appreciate it. Anyway, I love seeing you succeed. Okay, Scott. That's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Please read us out.
Scott Galloway · 1:08:31
Today's show is produced by Lara Nayman, Zooey Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and your Todd engineer in this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Miel Savario. Nishat Krewa 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 later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great weekend.
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