Scott Galloway · 39:03
You can say that. And, I mean, most people are reasonable, and they'll say, okay. Fine. Whatever. Get someone else to print the things. But generally speaking, they're at will employees. And off... And and printing up a Charlie Kirk poster, there's nothing illegal about it. There's... I don't think there's anything wrong about it. If it offends your sensibilities, okay. I get it. But, folks, it sucks to be a grown up.
Kara Swisher · 39:26
Yeah. I just think people should also be able to say no and then reap the consequences. That's all. I think they should be able to say no. There's just... You can't... Pam Bonney is saying that she's gonna prosecute them for political discrimination. Shut the fuck up, Pam.
Scott Galloway · 39:38
Stop. Fire the employees?
Kara Swisher · 39:40
Yeah. They fired them.
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Scott Galloway · 39:41
what is she suing them for?
Kara Swisher · 39:43
I have no idea. She has no right to do so. She has no right to do so. What? It's called the First Amendment, Pam. As usual, you don't know what it says for some reason. Even... It's just ridiculous. It's just ridiculous.
Scott Galloway · 39:55
Again Ridiculous. Yeah. Go for it. Just keep Epstein out of the news.
Kara Swisher · 40:00
Keep Epstein. Right. Exactly. You know, again, I I probably wouldn't wanna do it. I don't know. I don't know about those signs. But, you know, if someone came, I was working in an office depot, and it was like, gay people should be hung or whatever, I wouldn't print them.
Scott Galloway · 40:13
I think that's different than the Charlie Kirk poster.
Kara Swisher · 40:15
I guess. But they can still decide. You still get to do what you want. You still get to do what you want, and then you reap things. What would you do? The CEO? You fire them. Right?
Scott Galloway · 40:23
That's the them. I I respect your political beliefs. When you sign up to work at Office Depot, we all have to occasionally do shit we don't wanna do. I appreciate your values, but we... If we immediately start letting people decide what work they're gonna do or not do based on what sent... Offends their sense of political sensibilities, I'm sorry we can't operate a company that way.
Kara Swisher · 40:45
Yeah. Or or you're a company that says, sure. You can do that. Right?
Scott Galloway · 40:49
Look. If if somebody if somebody comes in wearing a swastika or buys a Halloween costume with a swastika or whatever or comes in... The bottom line is, you know, that's hate speech. But is it free speech? I don't know. You serve them, you thank them, and they leave your store. You don't... And it sucks, but these things are tested. The whole point of these protections is they're protected when they're really fucking offensive. And I don't think a Charlie Kirk poster even rises to the level of very offensive. Think we
Kara Swisher · 41:17
should even decide. If they wanna not do it, they should not do it, but they still have
Scott Galloway · 41:21
to reach out fired. Okay. You may fired. You may not wanna work in a Target that sells beef because you think it's genocide against cows. Fine. They have the right to say, well, no. We're in the we're in the business of selling Hammer. Meat. You can't work here.
Kara Swisher · 41:36
Right. Alright, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for
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— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 43:38
Okay, Scott. Let's hear a prediction.
Scott Galloway · 43:42
Well, this is where we are. We're gonna see a Time Warner like acquisition that's gonna be unprecedented in scale and also a disaster. Because what you have is you have companies... Basically, 55% of the gains in the S and P since 2021 have been driven by 10 companies. And these car companies are now so far out over their skis in terms of valuation that it's the equivalent of... Say you have a preloaded credit card. My kids have the green light credit card where we load it for them. If you're trading at three or four trillion dollars in value and you're really smart and you look at, okay. Traditionally, a company like this would be worth one to one and a half. It's like having $2,500,000,000,000 on your credit card that likely will go away if you don't spend it. And so I think these companies... I think we're gonna see, and I said this last week, a series of not only the biggest M and A deals in history, but I think we're gonna see a company that in three to five years will be seen as the most disastrous M and A deal in history. These guys are absolutely about to go shopping, and they're just gonna get so promiscuous and do so many so many weird things, so many related party transactions. This NVIDIA thing, this OpenAI thing is so strange. But I just wanted to take a moment on a tangential issue that has nothing to do with a prediction. But for those of you... I keep getting served all of these Instagrams of all these adorable dogs that are at shelters. So people surrendering their pets... The Nasdaq and the Dow Jones are the worst indices, in my opinion, in history because they give people the illusory notion that the economy is fine. The top 10% are now responsible for 50% of consumer spending. Sales of Hamburger Helper are up, which is a negative looking forward indicator on the health of the middle and lower income. The pawn shops are booming. There's just a lot of signals that that the economy is not good on the main street economy. And one of those signals is that people surrendering their pets Oh, interesting. Gone way up. Just a quick add them. Just a quick add for for... In terms of mental health, joy, things that are great for your kids. Just generally, if you're worried about crime, the... Literally, the best security system you could ever have is a dog. It teaches your kids about loss, responsibility. Dogs have been arguably the most accretive thing. Maybe next to exercise, the most accretive thing for my mental health. And these shelters are literally overwhelmed. In addition, my plug for a rescue dog. I've had purebreds and rescues. Rescues are rescues and mutts are hands down the best breed of dog. They are healthier. They are happier. It's as if they know they owe you. So there is... If you just type in how to adopt a dog into Google, there are so many shelters that are so desperate. And not only that, have so many fantastic dogs right now. So if you're thinking to yourself, I'd love something that reduces my stress. I'd love something that provides me with a great deal of additional security. I'm I'm... I I wanna take responsibility for something and have something that loves me unconditionally. I wanna give my kids something that will teach them responsibility and care and love. And you wanna feel more mammal and you wanna feel more connected. And just every day, you want consistent tiny bursts of joy in your life. Think about adopting a dog. There has never been a better time to adopt a dog because there are a ton of wonderful dogs out there right now.
Kara Swisher · 47:22
I will add. All of the dogs I've ever had have been rescue dogs, and I'm thinking of getting another dog soon. It's... There is the wonder... Most wonderful thing you do, and I... There's some amazing rescue, operations going on, and it is an indicator of people giving up dogs means they can't afford them or the difficulty level, etcetera, etcetera. And so it is an indicator. But if you can adopt a dog, it's a one... It's a really... It will give... It will pay off over your life.
Scott Galloway · 47:48
And you can go on Instagram. If you type in the name... If you just say shelters in, you know, Brooklyn, you type it into Instagram, you will literally see videos of the dogs that are available. You don't even have to go down.
Kara Swisher · 47:57
Gonna get a dog, Scott.
Scott Galloway · 47:58
What's that?
Kara Swisher · 47:58
I'm gonna get a dog now.
Scott Galloway · 48:00
Oh, you should. They're just
Kara Swisher · 48:01
I've had a dog my whole life. This is the only time, but my cat's been peeing on the rug, so it's been a little much.
Scott Galloway · 48:06
So you're bringing in a dog to get the cat in shape?
Kara Swisher · 48:09
No. I just... It's just like when when that starts... My cat is older. When it starts to happen, you sort of like, oh, pets. But I... You're right. We should get a dog. We should get a dog no matter. Good one. Good prediction, Scott. One thing I do wanna note, here's a prediction. We talked about... I talked about k pop demon hunters, on the last show, and I got contacted by the creators of the two directors, and they're gonna come on on, I think. So I predict that will be off the charts.
Scott Galloway · 48:35
Wow.
Kara Swisher · 48:36
Takes dead. That's very exciting. I know. They listen to us. That's because we're 23, Scott, just so you know.
Scott Galloway · 48:41
Number 23.
Kara Swisher · 48:43
I have one prediction actually Okay. That I think is important. I think you're gonna see a lot of ridiculous deals by the Trump administration. Here, are taking VIGS from Nvidia or or AMD or whoever they're taking VIGS from or Intel buying the PCs, But they'll turn around. Right now, they wanna give farmers aid. I think Mark Cuban raised something that I thought was absolutely true. If taxpayers funds this, should the president ask for equity in farms? I say no. But if they're gonna be consistent, same with money going to rural hospitals. We took equity from Intel and and MP. Why shouldn't we do it for all profit companies that get funding? And so I agree with him. This is ridiculous. Same thing with Argentina. Free... Mister free market's gonna get a bailout. Like, give me a fucking break because he's a friend of Trump's. This is Malay in Argentina. This is crap. If they're gonna be doing this to some companies, they have to treat all companies. They're only doing it for their friends, so, you're gonna see more cronyism a 100%. So, anyway, just... There's gonna be more of this ridiculous hypocrisy of helping your friends and acting like it's not exactly what it is, which is a handout. 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 Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe this week, this week on professor g conversation, Scott spoke with doctor Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at Brookings, really well known for those trials around the the one perfect call. Let's listen to a clip.
— Predictions segment ends —
Guest · 50:11
Look. The federal government's being dismantled. The states are pretty much on their own right now as well. And, you know, I think the sinking realization is coming in for a lot of people, you know, that this isn't quite what they expected that they were voting for. They didn't think that all of the safety nets, the insurance policies were going be removed. And it's the same in Europe. You know, Europeans absolutely made a huge fundamental error for decades of just relying on The United States and basically outsourcing their security. It was always a mistake. And now they've realized it, and they're gonna have to do something different.
Kara Swisher · 50:44
That... She's amazing. She's amazing person. She's absolutely right.
Scott Galloway · 50:47
Yeah. There's there's very few people... Well, there's very few people that intimidate me. She intimidates me. And by the way, met one of... Another woman who I think is really outstanding, Anna Appelbaum, and she is...
Kara Swisher · 50:57
I didn't know this. Had her on the podcast many times. Yeah.
Scott Galloway · 50:59
Ironically, I saw this great speech, and I met her husband. She's married to Poland's foreign minister who gave a really powerful speech the other day, essentially saying that if Russian planes are in fact shot down, he hopes that they don't come crying and whining to the to the to the UN body. Mhmm. He was very powerful.
Kara Swisher · 51:18
Great. That was a great speech. Yeah. I love Anne Applebaum. She's amazing.
Scott Galloway · 51:21
Yeah. She's very good.
Kara Swisher · 51:22
But that was a great interview that you did with Fiona Hill. Before we go, Pivot is nominated for a signal award for best thought leadership show. Scott, we're thought leaders.
Scott Galloway · 51:31
Yes. That's right. Yes. Thought leaders. We
Kara Swisher · 51:35
think with our heads with
Scott Galloway · 51:36
thought leaders. Malcolm Gladwell and Simon Sinek had sex and gave birth to twins, Karen the dog.
Kara Swisher · 51:42
Yeah. I just saw I just saw Malcolm Gladwell, oddly enough. He said, hey. Yeah. You can help us win by voting at the link in the description. The deadline to vote is October 9. We would like you to stuff the ballot boxes and make us win because we are 23.
Scott Galloway · 51:58
Yeah. Let's deploy the national guard to cities.
Kara Swisher · 52:01
Right. Thank you for listening, to Pivot, and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out.
Scott Galloway · 52:10
Today's show is produced by Lara Nayman, Zoe, Marcus Taylor Griffin, and Kate Gallagher. Ernie Nurtado engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Jeboros, miss Severio, Dan Shalon. Nishat Karouz, Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. 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 care. Have a great weekend.
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