Audience Q&A and Closing

Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business takes everything you've got, and a lot of the tools out there that are supposed to make your life easier just aren't great at talking to each other, and that means you end up having to toggle between a dozen different apps and services just to keep the lights on. Enough of that. Now there's Odoo, the all-in-one fully integrated platform that actually might help you get it all done. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at Odoo.com. That's odo. com. Support for this show comes from MongoDB. If you're a developer stuck fixing bottlenecks instead of building the next big thing, then you need MongoDB. Mongo is the flexible unified platform that gets out of your way. It's ASIC compliant, enterprise ready, and built to ship AI apps fast, and it's trusted by so many of the Fortune 500 with their most critical workloads. Developers have a word for that kind of reliability. Actually, five words. It's a great fucking database. Start building at mongoDB.com slash bu ild Security program on spreadsheets. New regulations piling up. An audit dread. It's time for Vanta. Vanta automate security and compliance brings evidence into one place and cuts audit prep by 82%. Less manual work, clearer visibility, faster deals, zero chaos. Call it compliance or call it compliance. Get it? Join the 15,000 I'm curious what you think because you have sons. I have sons. They don't gamble. Yeah, but you're a better parent than me, so Yes. Ye ah. Hi everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. And we are live from South by Southwest in Tex as. So before we before we get to it, um again I work psyched to be here uh this live episode. We want to thank our presenting sponsor, Odoo. They've supported uh they sponsored our pivot tour last year, so they're really into us. Um anyway, uh we've got a lot to get to well first of all, ha you having a good time here?? Are you enjoying it I'm having a great time. I'm so sick of rolling up to the the parties now kinda suck 'cause you meet some guy and they're like gonna grab a drink and he's like, I'm eight years sober and now I'm a Peloton influencer. Fuck yo . I want to find the guy who's in a custody battle so he can never see his kids. That dude I'll roll up . No, I'm having a nice time. You're having a nice time? Everyone is working on their sleep. Well, good for you. So uh you're leaving, you're going to the Vanny Fair Oscar party. That should be fun. Hello. Yeah. That should be good. I'm not going with you. I'm staying. Oh, it's the plus one and the plus one RSPP'd yes. And Kara said no. So you'll have a good time. Try not to bother the celebrities. That's my only advice. Just be cool, okay? Can you do that? Uh thank you for that. That's hugely helpful. Thank you. Just be cool for me. Is there anyone you wanna meet? Is there like Sean he probably won't be there because he's I wanna meet uh uh simple. I wanna meet the um I was gonna say the gay hockey guys. What's it called? He did rivalry. He did rivalry. I'm sorry. I'm just announcing now. Executive producer, season two, he did rivalry. Swedish women's team. Biggest show of next season. Biggest show of next season. Oh I might go for two here. I'm I'm gonna alert security at the Vanity Fair Oscar party for this. But anyway, just be cool. Say nice things. I'll be at the bar. Okay. All right, excellent. All right, we've got a lot to get to today. We've got a lot to talk about. There's so much it's crazy amounts of news all the time and every every moment. But uh first thing, surprise, surprise, wealthy people are swaying elections with their money. Billionaires made up about nineteen percent of all reported campaign donations of twenty twenty-four federal elections. This is a a well, it's a quantum leap in numbers. Within the nineteen percent for every dollar that went to Democrats, $5 went to Republicans. The billionaire families gave an average total of $10 million each, roughly equal to the amount 100,000 typical donors give combined. Scott, before Citizens United the share of billionaire spending was under one percent. This is nineteen percent. That's an enormous amount of people uh enormous number for a small amount of people. Let's talk a little bit about that because obviously billionaires taxes are being discussed. Um there's all there's all manner of things happening here, but their influence is absolutely clear. Yeah, I've I mean if you think about nineteen percent from nine hundred people and it's um look it's the boring stuff that kind of moves the needle that that's not that uh interesting to talk about. But we're gonna wash, rinse, and repeat a cycle of autocrats. Uh I actually believe there's uh if you look at history, there's as much danger of an autocrat coming from the far left as from the far right. I believe the far left is as dangerous as the far right. It's the extremes that present a threat to society. And the two things that are probably most important to avoiding a strong man or a strong woman from either side of the party are very boring things. But until we have them, we're gonna have the weaponization of a decline in the structural and economic standing in my, opinion, of the of middle class, especially middle class males, who tend to be unfortunately more violent and upset when they don't have economic or romantic prospect. But the two major reforms that need to happen, or we're going to have a cycle of strong men and strong women th for the next 50 years, is one we need to deger gerrymander the U.S. Because the general election no longer matters. It's the primary. And who turns out in the primary? The crazies. So every district now is hard blue or hard left and we keep sending um five hundred and thirty-five very far left or very far right people who share no comedy, no collective values, don't want to work together, and nothing happens, and they genuinely don't like each other. And the the narrative from our leadership is not how do we work together and get something done. It's that the other guys are wrong. And so it creates a level of division and stasis that's really unproductive. And then the other thing is citizens united. We can't have a small group of people who aren't evil, but incrementally will say, hey, Charles Schumer, and I'll use a Democrat as an example because we always talk about Republicans. Democrats take a lot of money too. It's Republican, it's it's Republican donors typically, but also Democrats do do bask in a lot of the PAC money. And what happens is Republicans are much more overt about trying to get tax cuts for who they think are the most productive people and corporations in the world. What Democrats do is just wring their hands and kill stuff in committee and say they have concerns about things. But if you have uh until we have Citizens United overturned and D. Gerrymander, we're just gonna ping from the far left to the far right for the foreseeable future. And but the number from going from one percent to nine And it actually it's a small amount of people from Silicon Valley. So it's a very particular I mean there's there's the U Lane's the box people, there's a bunch of other rich people you don't know as well. And by the way, look on your bottom ear boxes. That's what you're getting from Amazon. It's from this very far-right family. But one of the things that's the problem here is that that this stuff is done in plain sight And what's uh they're not gonna under overturn Citizens United from what I understand. Th I interviewed Larry Lessig recently who has another case that could hollow out Citizens United in terms of super PACs and dark money. Um but what is the solution until then? Because I don't think they're letting up. I don't I think they won't let up in this presidential election. It doesn't seem like all of a sudden Elon Musk is gonna call start calling himself they them. It's not happening for us. So what what could be done in the interim? Because he will continue to spend, he's sort of the the poster child for this, but then you quietly have a whole bunch of them doing the same thing. The honest answer is I don't know. I don't know if there's a way to prohibit certain political spending across certain more targeted media. Um so I have a movement called resistant unsubscribe and neither alphabet nor meta would take my dollars to drive traffic. But if you want to, you know, promote coal and get in the way of the Ern Child Tax Credit, spend away. So I also I think there might be some workarounds that people have talked about by going state by state. Mm-hmm. But until I I I think until unl unless it's overturned, which I agree with you, it doesn't like this is all a word salad of saying, I don't know. Yeah. So when you think about, we've talked a lot about the billionaire tax. Um you have proposed other things like an AMT tax. And there's some things in committee right now, speaking of Democrats, which seem much more effective, which is giving tax relief to people under a certain number, and then at the same time making the group of people taxed larger. Well there's three different tax proposals. So the Democrats, to our credit, have finally wised up and realized that they need to move from their objective of redistributing virtue, telling other people they're not as worthy, constantly talking through identity politics about what's right and what's wrong with the world. And if you tell billionaires they're evil and white people they're racist and young men that they're predators, they'll leave the party. And like, okay, this party's not for me. And if you look at those three groups, they have largely abandoned the Democratic Party. So what they realize is that the key to 26 and 28 is to talk less about redistributing virtue and redistributing income. And also that the best narrative for redistributing income is tax cuts, not handouts. Now, the three, there's the Connor proposal, there's the Booker proposal, and then there's the Warren proposal. Warren is basically class warfare. It's a five percent tax, wealth tax every year. That may not sound like a lot, but the majority of people don't have five percent liquid taxes sitting around. I can't imagine the hundreds of thousands of people who would be hired to try and diminish or decrease or lower the value, assessed value of billionaires' wealth. It goes after basically nine hundred people. Actually that's not true. People over a billion it's five percent. But to tell billionaires they have to come up with five percent of their wealth every year, I do think that that's the tipping point where you would lose somewhere between a quarter, at least from a residency standpoint, to a third of billionaires in the US. The example is the non DOM tax in the United uh in the United Kingdom. It was theoretically, it made all the sense in the world. It's like you've been here for a while, you should pay UK taxes. The tax receipts this year are going to be lower because 10,000 millionaires have moved away in the last year. And people have this populist bullshit of let them go. Well, okay, who's gonna pay for the NHS? So the wealth tax doesn't work. The wealthy are the most mobile people in the world. They have homes all over the world. They can have really nice lives in Milan or in London. So if you're looking to actually be effective, not, you know, not just write, the wealth tax doesn't work. Rose is more about social services and and corporate corporate taxes, expanded child tax tax credit. The one I like the most is Booker's. His he's saying, okay, it's the first 75,000, it's tax-free. Right now, what people don't realize is that, first off, the myth that wealthy don't pay their taxes. The top 1% paid 19% in 1980, now they pay 42 percent. It's the point one percent that are getting away, quite frankly, with murder. They can use all sorts of tricks to lower their tax But the 1%, the workhorses, mom's a baller at a law firm, she's a partner making a million and a half, two million bucks, dad owns three chiropractic clinics, he's making 800 grand. They make 2.3, 2.8 million. They probably live in a blue state in a blue city. They're paying 48 or 52 percent uh marginal tax rates. So the whole notion of tax the rich doesn't go very far. What I think what Booker is saying is essentially if The first twenty-nine thousand, pay almost no f pay no federal taxes right now. He's saying be at the first seventy-five thousand. Now the devil in the details is that even though it sounds like, oh, that benefits people who make up to $75,000 the most. It actually benefits people who make $150,000 the most because they get to apply that free seventy-nine in the lower tax rate on a larger base. It's a good idea. It's time that we level up the middle class. So I like that. And it's it's a little bit more elegant. Whenever you send money to Washington as opposed to lowering taxes, there's some inefficiency and friction in Washington. So I think it's a good idea. But I think they're more elegant ways to raise tax revenue. Um lower basically do away with or lower the estate tax, the uh the exemption on money that's inherited from thirty million to 1 million. We're creating dynastic wealth. And the key is to have taxes that are least taxing. If your kids inherit 11 million instead of 14 million, you're obviously less happier because you're not around to see it, and the kid isn't any any less happier if he gets eleven million or she gets eleven million versus fourteen million. The other thing we need is uh AMT, and that is if you make over, say, a million bucks or you're a corporation that makes over 10 million bucks, use the 4,000 pages of loopholes to skirt it down, skirt it down twelve oh two depreciation. But if you're not paying at least 40%, there's an AMT. So an alternative minimum tax, and then triple the budget of the IRS, because the biggest tax cut in history that we want to talk about is that the Trump administration has essentially neutered the IRS. So crime's gonna go up when there's no cops on the beach. Supposedly seven hundred and fifty billion dollars a year is called the tax gap, which is uncollected taxes that are owed. So get rid of the estate tax exemption, alternative minimum tax of forty percent. And support the IRS. As opposed to what feels a little bit like class warfare. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I don't think it works very well because people are aspirational. That said, the tech people, especially which who are the wealthiest, um, have not really slathered themselves in glory in terms of people. We I mean they the the the brand has gone down and so I think people don't when when Jeff Bezos rents Venice or uh England or or Alex Carp talks about disenfranchising white democratic women. I think that's what he was sort of saying in his statements the other day. Um it it feels like let's get them. Like they're they're sort of they're they're creating an anger toward them that uh that I think is unnecessary and unproductive and at the same time you sorta wanna take all the you know leave them naked without clothes. Um no well I don't want to see them naked, that's not true. Um but uh i i it's a real it's a real conundrum and I do think one of the things that has to happen is there's got to be some neutering of citizens united in that regard because I think it's very clear what the trends have been. On a middle metal level, the biggest tax cut would be having the stones to go after entitlements. Because we spend seven trillion dollars and five trillion dollars in receipts. And every time we do that, in order to keep the government pumps up and going and the asset prices, the assets which you and I own keep them elevated, we issue more debt. So the biggest tax cut in history would be fiscal responsibility. And it's a tax cut on your kids in the future who are going to have And if you really want to be that serious about quote unquote taxing future generations, some Democrat is going to have to be the adult in the room and say that if you make over a million dollars a year as a senior citizen, you're not getting social security. And we need to move back the age and we need to means test it and we need to distribute GLP1 and bring down healthcare costs. But if we're serious about lowering taxes on future generations, we can have populist ideas. But what we need to do, quite frankly, is just have more fiscal responsibility because the deficit every day is a two-trillion dollar tax on future generations because someone's gonna have to pay the share Well that may be true, but the it's the Trump administration who has brought up the deficit more than any other uh any of the uh we've it that's been a bipartisan thing. Certainly, but Trump is seven trillion George Bus George Washington to George Bush, thirty trillion since George Bush. But Trump's been the worst. So um we're gonna move on to March Madness kicks off this week. The f the and sportsbooks are expecting to take in four point five billion dollars in bets on the NCAA college basketball tournaments Now only eleven percent of that will come from the prediction markets this year, which is a large amount, but that's a perfect time for Polymarket to announce that it's bringing in Palantir and uh TWGAI to monitor sports contracts and flag anything suspicious. Reminder, Polymarket is backed by Peter Thiel and uh 1789 Capital, which is uh Donald Trump Jr.'s fund. In AI system monitoring predictions markets. But is it meant to is it meant to so it's uh in the Mamdani race, what was strange, when you see billboards everywhere saying that Mam Dami chance of winning 91%. If you're voting for Cuomo or some other candidate, I I supported a guy named Whitney Tilson, I'm not a New York resident, but my friend Whitney ran, anyways, you don't show up. Or you think, oh great, you get excited. So these prediction markets actually the polls have the polls have an influence on the actual voting. I think AI in terms of monitoring, I like the idea. I I've always cell that AI could be used for defensive measures as much as offensive measures. Whether or not Peter Thiel has other objectives, that's a little bit scary. Maybe he does . So that you're right. It's not AI as a defense mechanism or for compliance. It's the fact that Peter Thiel, who believes in a no democracy, I believe, is his own. Yeah, feels like democracy is an outdated mode. So but just in terms of gambling, huge threat to young men. And what people don't know about gambling as an addiction is that it's got the highest suicide rate of any addiction. Because if you have a meth addiction, people people notice it and they weigh in. You can spend your kids' college fund, mortgage your house, spend everything, and people have no idea. And oftentimes people feel like it's it's it's just too late. And when in states where they legalize gambling, bankruptcies skyrocket thirty five percent in that same year. I was just in Vegas. Vegas is dying. Because why be in Vegas when Vegas is in your pocket? And I I I'm curious what you think, because you have sons. I have sons. They don't gam ble. Yeah, but you're a better parent than me. So the question is speaking theoretically as a parent. I don't think they gamble. If for young men, do we infantilize them? Do we have more regulation I mean just between my my daughter, it's he's more comparable, uh my daughter who's six and my son who's four, he's so risked, I mean, penis out every moment of the day. Like, and it's you're always like, wow, those that's gonna hurt when you get to the bottom of those stairs on your head. Like and my daughter is very careful. So it's a really it I hate to say that because I don't like to play into gender tropes, but it's true. It just is. Um but when you trope away, we're different and that's okay. She happens to be. I was very risk-takey uh when I was a kid. I go that any moment it will be over with Scott. which which it never happens. It's like a really exciting series that ends on a cliffhanger every every episode. But one of the things that I think about with gambling is I I my sons don't gamble, which is interesting, and I kinda like gambling better than they do, which is interesting. But um I think the fact that it's fine, you're right. AI should be used in positive ways and we should mitigate the negative ways. But again, a lot of this is controlled by people with self-interest that you never understand. And so what are they and earlier today I did uh an interview with the Cast of the Audacity, which talks about these issues. It's a new Silicon Valley show. And the idea of the manipulation of our information for in all manner of way, I think we do not understand where it's about to go. And so who owns it and who's running it, same thing with media, where are the interests is going to be a huge problem going forward? Aaron Powell But your point is your point is the right one in what you just said, and that is AI should be applied to monitoring and compliance. It should just be an AI that reports to a federal agency that's trying to prevent a tragedy that comments, not to Peter Till. But keep him I mean it's this is a difficult one, because I think a lot about young men and between uh twenty-four by 7 porn and gambling and an economy that's basically linked to dopah hits that's trying to evolve a new species of asocial, asexual males, I believe that our economy now is essentially tied to evolving this new species of male that is basically a shitty citizen who starts blaming immigrants, prone to conspiracy theory, prone to misogyny, prone to obesity, depression, anxiety, never develops the skills outside of their house. Males aged 20 to 30 are now spending less time outdoors than prison inmates. And unfortunately, they're up against this indomitable foe of an AI-driven platforms that at the exact right moment will convince you, hey, don't go to class, bet on the Jets game, or hey, you know you can get rich and screenshots of people trading crypto. And why go through the eff ort? Perseverance, cost, showering, resilience, developing a rap. You know what movement, I'm gonna go off script here. You know what movement I fucking hate? I think the worst movement in America right now, besides some of the far-right crazy shit, is the incel mov ement. And involuntarily celebrated. And I speak to a lot of young men, and some of them identify as being in cells, and they say it as a point of pride. Like they have found their community. And that it's not their fault, and they just come out and say I'm an incel and they give up. Sixty-two percent of men under the age of thirty aren't even trying to date. Forty-two percent of men 18 to 22 have never asked a woman out in person. And this movement infuriates me, cause just a heads up, a spoiler alert, for 99% of history, 99% of men have been involuntarily celibate. I was involuntarily celibate the first 19 years of my life. I absolutely wanted to be incelibate, but I couldn't participate in my program. I'm sh I I'm so surprised by that. I know shockers. Six two six two one forty with bad acne. Not a great rap. I totally got a lot. But this is the basis. Scott, I got a lot. You've you've told me that over and over. The basis of evolution and the basis of mating and civilization is the following. Women, i if we were at the Atlanta Smore Set conference concert last night and there was alcohol involved, the majority of the men in this hall would have sex with the majority of the women, the majority of the women in this room would have sex with none of the men. That is the basis of evolutionary progress. Men are exceptionally promiscuous and feel their job is to spread the s their seed to the four corners of the earth. Women feel their job is to put up a much finer screen and select the smartest, fastest, and strongest seed. So what do you know? The majority of us are incelibate. And this is what we do. We level up? We get certification, we get a plan, we get a sense of humor, we start making girl friends that teach us how to behave around girls and maybe find we're a decent guy. We start thinking about dress, we develop a sense of humor, a plan, a kindness practice, such that over time we can be voluntarily insulated. And the notion that somehow this is a movement. Well, welcome to the fucking work week. Level up, bitch. It's been hard for all of us. You know what ? I feel like there's a book in there. Anyway , speaking of someone I wish was incelibate, in case anyone is wondering where the Defense Secretary Pete Hegstess sto od stood on the Paramount Warner deal. We know now at a briefing on Friday. David Ellison takes over the network the better. Um also Randon Carr, Morin number two, oddly enough, not even as smart as Pete Hagthas, which is an awfully low bar, his threatening networks because that he doesn't like their coverage of the war and is calling it fake news. It's astonishing that the head of the FCC says these things. It's actually illegal what he's saying. Um and he's threatening the broadcast licenses of networks who do not comply with the correct news. Teamsters are also, by the way, urging the DOJ to block the deal unless Paramount agrees to protect jobs and increase U.S. production. Talk about talk about this, because they like you'd think they'd be on their back foot at this point, but they're doubling down on uh n lack of const well, just everything terrible. But this was sort of astonishing to hear from him and then followed by the FCC chairman around a deal where obviously the the Ellisons licked Trump up and down. Like it wasn't even I mean, they did. They didn't even pretend this is not what they were doing. They made promise, they're making they apparently made promises, well reported about CNN, uh and and what they're gonna do there. W hat talk a little bit about this and where you him saying the the loud part out loud, I guess. Well uh uh three it's not only wrong, but it's stupid. Because it creates but it creates legal it's exhibit A in uh a case trying to block this to say it's an unfair merger and that it's not based on market dynamics, it' iss based on government interference, which it's not supposed to. I'm not as worried, and I mean you're the journalist here, but I am not as worried about suppression of speech because what I see is alternative media ni,che media thriving despite these threats, and it only brings oxygen, you know, bulwark and uh you know uh puck, they'll have their biggest days today being outraged about this on YouTube. So I don't think I I don't think that as much as these folks would like, I still think the courts will hold around First Amendment. But what it indicates, in my opinion, is something more dangerous, and that is we generally decide we have regulated competition, and if we have regulation, it applies to everybody, and that everybody gets to play by the same rules. And when the president starts deciding I know how to run a steel company, which microchip companies we should invest in, and who's saying the right speech and who isn't, it reflects, I just think I think we're just going to get, and I've said this before, we're going to get poorer. Our earnings trade at the highest price earning multiple because of systemic laws where you don't get on the wrong list and get the wrong call. I'm not as worried about I mean it's just so nakedly anti-First Amendment, but I think it'll be slapped down in court. Yeah, but the the the tactics they use is they create a problem and they get slapped down in court like they just did with Jerome Powell with box of w uh you know, prosecutor box of wine, uh Ginine uh per gin whatever, box of wine lady. Uh watch s Cecily Strong on her. Perfect. You know, they do the thing, create the damage, cause a chilling effect, and then move on when they lose in court, right? Or they get pushed back and then they're outraged about losing in court and then attack the courts. I mean, it just goes it it does cause actual damage to people and not just outrage. It's not just, I can't believe they said that. I totally believe they said it. I I I don't f I don't find it outrageous. I just find it astonishing that they they do it in order to create the kind of crisis that will occupy people until they're slapped back. And by the time they're slapped back, it's The fear is that it creates a chill and people think twice before writing an article about the Trump administration and are more promiscuous writing articles truth-telling about Democrats and Republicans, we start having a chill around speaking openly about Republicans. My sense is that if you look at Kimmel, Colbert, is that quite frankly it's only emboldened um uh journalists and institutions uh to write. And also I don't know if the chill is working, and I think it's giving rise to a new set of media players who can honestly say we're about truth to power and we're unafraid and that there's a market for it. Trevor Burrus Well, why not just remove the broadcast networks from those rules? Why are they I I'm suddenly they shouldn't be bound by that moron Brandon Garr, who's clearly looking for his next job, which will be dancing with the Nazis. But anyway, uh it's wrong. I guess the question is, we always talk about the difference between being right and being effective. They're wrong, in my sense, is so far they've been ineffective. I think the best thing to happen to Colbert and Kimmel, the ratings exploded when the FCC threatened threatened them. So my sense is the autoimmune response of Americans who value free speech is kicking in here and it's working really well. Perhaps, but at the end of the day, the Ellison Zone will own this and then we'll have say over it and we'll quietly do you know smother people possibly. I don't even know if they will. Honestly I don't. I don't care to stick around and find out. But one of the things is that you create a situation where where where you don't trust your your owners, right? You don't I mean when I worked at the Washington Post, I mean it was there's it was a different environment for media and everything else, but I completely trusted the grams. I got you know, I didn't feel like they would toss me over under a Bezos thing. Abs and I know he was just there this week talking to some of the reporters and was answering questions, which he should. Um I I I can't I have no idea what they do, and in fact probably opt to go to Mar-a-Lago over protecting something he bought. Look, you you're gonna forget more about journalism than I'm gonna know. So I'm gonna defer to you, but what I see happening is the following. They make these ridiculous, onerous, fascist, autocratic statements trying to control the press and trying to put a chill around free speech. I feel like that attempt to chill free speech is backfiring. I also don't have any nostalgia or think that we've talked about this. I don't think the CNN, I think CNN and the Washington Post can go away and it's not going to mean anything. I I just don't I I I think that these folks, quite frankly, many of them I think Fried Zekaria starts a podcast and a newsletter and has the same reach with a lower cost of production. I think these incredible journalists go to different places, start alternative media that quite frankly is maybe more effective. So I think that you're gonna see a dispersion of truth to power in journalism. The key is as long as the courts at the end of the day support those people and fall in the light of First Amendment. But I think what happens a lot of times when we talk about this is the journalists and these organizations see themselves as iconic and very precious. What's precious is First Amendment protection to speak truth to power. And what I see is that every person who's laid off from the Washington Post or CNN who has any talent now finds incredible platforms and outlets and subscribers. I just launched on Substack. And it's so much fun. You see subscribers and you can make good money. You know a lot of people who've left big institutions and are doing well now. So I'd I feel like the attempt to chill is like when they when they hit CNN, it breaks into a hundred different alternative ni niche media companies. The only issue with that is covering a war costs money. Covering you have to have a larger thing. And so one of the things, instead of reforming the costs of something like a CNN or whoever, fill in the blank, NBC, instead of reforming that that economy, they're doing damage to it so it can't revive itself in a way that's cost that that those things cost like that kind of thing. So you're not gonna have a a blogger go go over to Iran and do the ri correct coverage. Anyway, w we'll see what happens. Okay, we need to take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll get to more of the latest headl ines. Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't speak to each other? 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Hot or iced, there are so many ways to love this stunning serve. Uber vanilla. Pouring now at Starbuc ks. Subject to availability while stocks last. Scott, we're back recording live from South by Southwest . So Apple is entering its affordable era. Affordability counts. The company just introduced the MacBook Neo, a laptop priced at $599, wrestling half the price of a MacBook Air and powered by an iPhone chip. Well some analysts are saying this is a smart way of getting new market share. Others online are wondering if the budget Apple laptop is a quote recession indicator. Talk about this about Apple, what's happening uh over there and where it goes as they start to figure out uh their next leadership group, which has been in there since bef a long forever, actually since it's revival back twenty-five, thirty years ago. It's the same executives. Um so I think the strongest luxury brand in the world is not Chanel or Vitane. I think it's Apple. And essentially Apple says Apple is the most the perfect luxury brand is one that says you're wealthy, you're part of the creative class, but you're not trying to exhibit your wealth. When you roll around with a Birkenbag, you're say ing, I'm rich and I want you to know it. And I or I have such an incredible sense and passion for this type of design, I'm willing to sacrifice a great deal of resources for it. The iPhone, basically, the iPhone is become so dominant in identifying the billion wealthiest people in the world. They're billion iPhone iOS contrac ts. And the other six billion, when you pull out an Android, it's like sending a date, a request for a Venmo. You're not getting laid. It's it's sort of it it it When you have an Android, you're essentially saying to the wor ld, life hasn't really panned out the way that I'd hop ed. And I should be starch from the gene pool. Um and the pricing uh people don't recognize I'll go back to my sub stack. I'm waiting. Most substacks are eight bucks a month or you know or twelve bucks a month, hundred bucks a year. We purposely did twenty bucks a month and two hundred bucks a year. Because pricing is a signal. And one of the case studies I love that we talk about in my brand strategy course. The most successful or fastest zero to billion alcohol brand in history was Gray Go ose. And I do a taste test in class, and everyone thinks, oh yeah, you know, all these young douchebags, I can tell the difference. And none of them could tell the difference between Smiranoff, Sky, Absolute, and Grey Goose. None of them. Like nine out of ten, not even that can tell the difference. But the owners of Grey Goose said, all right, the fifth of Oc or whatever costs about thirty-five bucks. Charge fifty-five. Because think about it, when you walk into a store and you're looking at anything, you're immediately sort of want to check out the most expensive thing. Pricing is a really strong signal. And I think that Apple's genius is its self-expressive benefit. The strongest self-expressive benefits in the world are the country you come from. I'm proud to say I'm from the U.S. As much as as head up our ass as we are right now, I still like The second strongest self expressive benefit is where you went to college. If you have two people in a mating environment and the dude went to a good school and doesn't have much else going on, he and's like, well, a Cornell. Um that's the second strongest self expressive benefit. The third strongest self expressive benefit is your phone, because it's immediately apparent. And the Apple has really become So you think this NEO is a mistake. I would always be premium priced if I were Apple. I'd always be unattainable for seventy-eight, eighty-five percent of the world's population. Really? What do you think is an indicator of then? Aaron Powell I don't know. Near luxury or you they want to expand their market. And by the way, these are some of the smartest marketers in the world, second most valuable company in the world. So if it's like the strategy team at Apple or Scott Galloway, you go with the strategy team at Apple. But I I think this is this is a luxury brand. I mean, keep in mind what Apple's been able to pull off. Margin is is Latin for irrational . When you pay a lot of margin for something, it's either because you think it'll make you feel closer to God, it's a monopoly, or it thinks you make makes you um more attractive to potential mates. Margin means irrational. And the irrational margins that Apple has been able to garner. I was on the board of Gateway Computer, remember then, which I realize is the weakest flex in the wor ld. But our margins were eight percent. If we sold a computer for a thousand bucks, it cost us nine twenty to assemble the thing. Meanwhile, Apple was getting thirty and forty points of margin because people wanted to I was I remember when the the seatbelt light goes off. Do you grab a Dell computer that says you work for a corporation? Do you, you know, grab an ACES, which means you work for a bad corporation, or do you pull out your Apple and say, Well, I'm in the creative community, I'm interesting, I think different, right? And so what you have with Apple, they have pulled off the impossible. I want you to qu say why they're doing it then. Okay. You're in that meeting. We're gonna sell a five hundred and seventy five ninety-five dollar computer. Just let me finish my last sentence here. Apple has the margins of Ferrari with the production volumes of Toyota. No company has ever pulled that off before. They think they're going to expand share and clear out a bunch of their competition is why they're doing this. And and it good, bad, you think it's a big thing. I think it works in the short run. I think in the ba in the long run. If Chanel came out with a four hundred dollar bag, they would sell a shit ton of them. And then over time it erodes their margins and the truly aspirational people stop start buying, you know, more Hermes or what have you. So I think it's a I think it's a a trade off of market share in the short run for what is the core asset and that is a rational margin as the premier luxury brand and and consumer product. And very briefly, how are you feeling about their sto right now as as they transition and away from Tim Cook? Well, I've been selling down my Apple stock because I think Tim Cook is a duplicitive motherfucker who's benefited from the American society and is not but is not giving back. Um Okay . But that's why you did? I would hold on stock is your investing I would hold on to Apple stock. I I I think Apple is I think these are incredible companies. Uh it hurts to sell the stock. Uh I'm just trying to walk you know, trying to walk the walk and virtue signal. So resist and unsubscribe. You know it. Um anyway we, need to take a quick break and we come back, we'll get to wins and fa ils. Support for the show comes from Odoo. There's an endless supply of software out there that promises to streamline your workflow. That may be true for a specific aspect of your business, but if you need one app for accounting, one for inventory management and another for sales, how streamlined can your workflow actually be if you have to be the middleman between them. Odoo says they're the answer you're looking for, the only business software you'll ever need. Udoo can be your one-stop shop for CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more plus, it's super customizable and easy to use out of the box, and the best part? They say not only can they replace multiple applications, but they say they'll do it for a fraction of the cost. Whether you're just starting out or already well on your way to scaling, OD wants to help you put the clutter aside such that you can do what you set out to do when you started your company. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at Odoo.com. That's Odoo, O D O O Scott, we're back recording live from South by Southwest. All right, we're gonna do one win and one fail each. I I think am going to start. I think um the win this week uh for me was um the impression I don't know the guy's name of Tucker Carlson on SNL last night. If you watched it, it was fucking superb. And oddly enough, in some cases, um, and some of the things he's Tucker Carlson's a terrible person. Let's I'm not gonna agree with him, but I thought it was a beautiful rendition of a lot of these sort of noisy uh right wing people who are parodies of themselves and I thought it was it just got to the heart of the problem with him um that I thought was just beautiful and it was highly entertaining. It made me laugh. And by the way, Harry Styles was terrific, and I love Harry Styles so much. I don't know why, but I do. I find him incredibly appealing. Um the negative this week was uh Elon Musk saying Grok didn't quite work as planned at at the same time and they're and everybody leaving Grok, even though it has these incredible valuations. Nine of the eleven original founders have left. Obviously, you have Mecca Hitler, you have all manner of things that is doing. You have uh consensual uh uh non-consensual sexual images, child pornography. It's not doing great as an AI product and again a low bar. Um but I thought it was interesting uh um that he admitted what a mess it was. Um it still will not have any effect on the valuation because any anything Elon does they will invest in no matter what. But I thought it was r a moment where he sort of admitted what a disaster Grok is. And I think you're going to see more of that going forward. And at the same time, uh, in continuing disasters wrought by Elon Musk, the two if do yourself a favor and watch the the testimonies, the the the interviews on video of two of the Doge bros, it they're worse than you thought. Like it's I couldn't believe they were worse than you thought. But these were speaking of incels, like an incel mode. I don't know if they're incels or not, but they should be. Any women thinking of dating them should watch these. Um I thought they were just sort of this banality of evil kind of thing where you just watch these ignorant st,upid young men telling you why they were cutting and essentially in many cases murdering people across the globe by do using chat GPT and search to decide and make decisions and someone I couldn't believe this kid asked I mean maybe I could. I don't I kept thinking who raised I want to find this parent and go have a discussion with them. But one of the things they said is why did you cut it and he's like, Do you think you're qualified to make the decision on something that was very complex around expertise and everything else? And he said, Yeah, I'm qualified. And he goes, Why? And he goes, Well, you don't have to read all the books to know things. I was like, actually, you need to read all the books to know things. And I if you do if you do yourself any favor, it was such a failure of these obviously probably very good coders in technology and uh that that had talents in a certain area being being unleashed upon things that took a lot more and I don't think you can't cut government programs. I'm not one of those people, but the fact that they made these decisions in such a haphazard, ridiculous, stupid way is something it's it's a real sight to see. And one of the things many years ago I found a column I did that I wrote about the need for ethics, history, and philosophy courses with technology people and vice versa by the way uh l liberal studies people should understand AI and everything else. And one of the things that I thought I one of the better things I think I did as a as a parent and and Megan and my ex-wife is here too, is our son Alex, for example, is a techno is in technology, but he takes design, he's really interested in history, he's he's got a like a wider range of interests around politics and everything else. And I I don't that's not our fault, but I think we encouraged him to have a wider range of Louis could learn more about AI. Our older son could probably learn more about AI than he does. But um but it was it was really a moment where I thought, what are we making? What kind of children are we making here that they think this is right? And so I thought it was a real it's an eye-opener to watch these testimonies. And they sit there with these very fresh young faces and i it was so disturbing to me on every level. So I encourage you to watch it and be disturbed yourself. Trying to it looks like it's gonna be dead on arrival, but the act would force people to show up with either a passport or a birth certificate. Only fifty percent of Americans have a passport. They cost $160 to get. A lot of people have to change their birth certificate because they get married or they hyphenate their name. This is just such a naked attempt to suppress voter turnout. It's just it's it's difficult and I do it does feel like it's dead on arrival, but it's difficult to imagine anything more anti-American. Yeah. They're doing everything to pass it. Yeah, I'm hoping. Yeah. I mean Ken Paxton's already sort of criminalicious, criminal adjacent, but this guy used to have values and now is anything to be in office. Representative James Talarico yesterday and he had the most moving um description of and he wasn't framing it this way, of masculinity. And he said that his father every weekend would mow his lawn and then without asking, without talking about it, would go next door and mow their la wn. And he said that was masculinity. I thought that was just so perfect. You know, I struggle with trying to identify it through a series of adjectives. And it just, it's just without asking, mowing your neighbor's lawn. I just love. that You can mow my lawn. I have several lawns. I'm not going to go there . I did watch the thing. That is just too easy and too wrong. I'm just just season two Swedish US women's hockey. Uh he's got I got to meet him. He is the baby Jesus is very old. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I really call him to ask all these zingers like dude, we follow the same people on Instagram. Um you'll get it. He's followed supposedly look it up. Supposedly follows all these hot women on Instagram. I wanted to ask him if he dates, and I just couldn't do anything that he's so earnest. That's right. He's so real and so earnest and you're just looking I'm like literally like take my money. Uh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it's a real it's gonna be an interesting ra ce. Anyway. Um okay, we need to take a quick break and we come back, we'll take some questions from the audien ce Immerse yourself in Herbal Essence's new Moroccan Argan Oil Elixir infused with pure argan oil. Just one drop delivers up to 100 hours of hair nourishment with the indulgent scent of a Moroccan garden. Herbal Essence's new Moroccan Argon Oil Elixir. Spar quality hair repair without the price tag. Try it now. Herbal Essences. Surface repair to smoothness, nourishment with regimen use versus non-conditioning shampoo. Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run, and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand, marketing tools that get your products out there, integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time, from startups to scale-ups, online. And on the go. Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash set up. Need anything from Tesco? Like Nescafe Azir and 90 grams instant coffee? For just £3.50 this Easter with your Tesco Club card . Because every little hel ps. Majority of larger stores are 090 grams ends 14th of April. Club card or app requi red. Alright, Scott, we're back recording live from South by Southwest . All right, we're ready to take some questions from the audience. We only have time for just a few, so keep them short that we can answer quickly and easy for Scott, please. Hey guys, Melissa Richards person, and I'm from Louisville, Kentucky. Um Wow. My dad is turning 103 months, and the reason I offer that, thank you, is that he was a civil engineer and he was engineering things built to last. Got it. And I think about us. Have we as a have we lost the ability to think long term as opposed to short term? That's a great question. That's a great question. Scott? Well, technically, we're focused on shareholder value and the markets reverse engineer earnings way out in the future. So technically, these big capex investments that are driving the economy, you would argue, are actually long-term investments. So I think the financial markets would say no. We are actually still the second largest manufacturer in the wor ld. Um, I think people have a fondness and a nostalgia for quote unquote building stuff. But the reality is 80% of Americans think we should have more manufacturing, but only twenty percent of Americans want to work in manufacturing. You can't bring your dog to the factory floor. So I I would argue that Americans still do have more risk capital to invest long term. But quite frankly, just like we were talking about CNN and Washington Post, we have this romanticism for manufacturing, but very few young people, other than Kerason, when you ask them what they want to do, say, I want to I want to go into manufacturing. Um so I still think we're thinking long term and make make great things. I think our products are still some of the best in the world. I do think we go through cycles of that. And I think we're probably headed into a more long I think especially if you if anyone who's a young person, they're moving away from a lot of this quick, fast. I I've noticed just a little more community. There's a lot more of a need and a desperation for community connection long termness. I picked it up and that's just anecdotal. Next one. It's uh it's a fair point. I'll I'll turn to my journalists. Uh I I worry myself. I like uh y you think about it. You know, I don't do it I of course immediately run right into the breach, but I do think it does create a situation when I always like to see the enemy, right? Like back in the day when everyone's like, how dare these anti gay people, I'm like, I can see them. It's the ones I can't see I'm worried about. And so I like to I see what their move is. And so na it's an easier person to fight when you see who they are and what they're up to. And what they're up to is very typical of aut autocracies, is try to slowly bring it down.