Audience Q&A and Future of Media

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Sadly, sadly, sadly, it's the worst relationship of my life and my finest Hi everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media podcast Network. I'm Karris Wisher. And I'm Scott Galloway Wow, that was really good. And we're recording this episode in front of a live audience here at the Awek House at Can Lions's International Festival of Creativity, Is that what it's called? All right, fine. We're doing that. Welcome, everybody So let's c, Scott, we haven't seen each other at all, correct? Not even slightly. Yeah, no, it's a great I mean It's a great can for both of us though we don't have to see each other. I brought my children. We've having a lovely time. They were just in the Mediterranean this morning. and I've had a lovely time with them except for the heat. But how is your con going? Can, Sorry, Jesus Christ. I love it here Um, but I don't know if you saw that crazy drone show. Yeah, that was ago. Yeah. It's actually The word is, and I can validate this It's an alien craft. It's an alien species of women who are No joke or abducting guys with enormous sticks U, so you're safe But also just so you know, the spaceship is incredible. Oh yeah. Hello Frs! That took like five seconds to get to a penis joke And a highly complimentary one to yourself, which is inaccurate. but nonetheless. Don't ask me my nickname in a fraternity. Just. J'. T pod. Yeah. Tripod. Anywways, sorry. It's T. It's Ti pod. tray pod A Bery pod. It's like you should You should take intentions or gestures with the intentions that they're made or that are intended or. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Okay, No, I don't. exightly. All right, let me just how is your Can Jhn. How's it gone? It's great. It's the first time I've left my hotel. Okay. All right. He's staying When I was there age, I used to have to work here and like you know, meet with Martin Sarerell as I'd have lunch with them and he'd take calls and just go one minute One minute And now it's like Mr. Beast is the man. Yeah Yeah, I love I ab about. what's what do you think are the big takeaways so far? So hands down, the biggest trend is the crater economy. There's five hundred here. this year, there were four hundred last year They used to be ab It's sort of ironic that this is meant to be a gathering. It's thirteen thousand people from ninety countries. It's meant to be a gathering to celebrate the industry, but the industry hasn't yet recognized. they're no longer the protagonist And that the industry, if you think of it as the means of production, talent used to command tencent or fifteen percent of the total revenue because in between there were these means of production or mes an ad agency, distribution, a studio, makeup, unions, a cable going into people's homes. And now people with these few platforms that command a disproportionate margin, they do really well But you have thousands, it's no longer Madison Avenue. It's a bunch of studios And the celebrities here are no longer. when I used to come here, Maurice Levy, Martin Sarerell, John Wen, they own the closette Now it's some creator who's talking about food. you know, So it really has there's a distribution from institutions to individuals AI last year was what do we do with AI? Now it's how do we organize our company around AI? and how do we get an ROI there I think there's been people have come to the conclusion that AI is all chipp and Osalsa and that creativity has never been more important where social media takes people to the extremes, AI takes everyone to the middle and it's very moderated. And so creativity has never been more important. Remember, AI was going to produce commercials. There's more designers now at IBM as a percentage of their employment in creatives than there was last year. So creativity appears. I have noticed the sort of fall off in the AI deimmentia that was here last year. It's really, I mean, that's everywhere actually. when everyone's sort of coming to the conclusion that they're not really clear efficacy this stuff has instead of having to. I mean, the drone showh did do AI and it was it was not AI. it was It wasn't artificial intelligence, it was something else. They had another word. What it was Art and intelligence instead of artificial intelligence Yeah, the other big trend is sports. there wasn't a sport beach here. a sport really is the cultural religion now. It's one of the I mean, the biggest I think the two biggest stories taking place right now, one's positive and one's negative. And the things we'll be talking about in two weeks, I like to predict what will be the biggest business stories that are happening The biggest cultural story would be the coming together that basically the World Cup is doing what the UN was supposed to do And these wonderful creators and this content that makes us feel better about the world when we really needed it. We needed to feel better about America and Waffle House and how wonderful Norwegians and the Scottish areo team Scotland against Brazil. It could happen tomorrow night That is the best cultural story I'm tolding right now The biggest story that will that's taking place right now, you're going to see that the predictions markets have a scary fucking amount of betting on the World Cup right now, mostly from young men whose prefrontal cortices is very immature and are prone to addiction. I think that's the biggest story playing out right now. You're going to see One third, two thirds of young men in the United States bet on the World Cup. And you're going to see Polymarket and Cal Sheet basically show the kind of numbers They get Goldman and JP Morgan saying we're ready to go public. That's the bigest st. see of course Zuckerberg wading into it. He's going to start a predictions market. He is, which is called Arena, which I mean, did he ever have an idea he thought of himself that he didn't the thieve? Yeah, but that's the key to shareholder value. The innovator, the first iPod, the first computer, the first social media network Who's on my space? I mean, it's It's the second mouse that gets the cheese. Apple talking do you imagine because he tried it in a number of ways. They tried to do a dating service. Do you remember the Facebook dating service didn't go anywhere or thebook, this, the Facebook, that. Is this a good area? You're just it's an important area right now, but they're also under enormous scrutiny by even in the by U.S. standards, they're under enormous scrutiny in the U S, all these markets. They're getting pushback all across the world from a regulatory point of view And then Mark, whose reputation is just even this week got even more tarnished. We talked about it on the last episode because Trump essentially called him a sucker U He did, he did, essentially, and was accurate and Do you think it's a great time to wade into this area for a company like Facebook, or do you think these are inevitable companies that are happening? Yeah, I think so if I were the head of corporate deevelopment at Meta, I would take a two percent to three percent dilution and take a forty to sixty billion dollars flyer on either Cow sheia or polymarket as opposed to trying to compete with them and go from letter A to F But we use the term innovation really promiscuously. In terms of shareholder value, it's not the innovor The innovator and the pioneers get mud on their face and arrows in their back. It's the number two. Apple has never invented anything. What they do is they come in and they commercialize it and they do a better job of it If I were Meta and I'm not, and I would be rushing to get things done before a Democrat takes the White House and actually starts trying to break up companies, which is what we need to bring affordability down is the rent's being charged on advertisers and consumers in parents gets higher and higher as we let these companies consolidate with no regulation But I would be looking at everything. and if I wanted to get into that market, I would pick up one of those two players for twenty to sixty billion, which at this point would be a minor Isn't it a particularly good thing for their corporate image to go into an area that's under it's clearly going to be under attack in the next two years. I don't think they give a shit. Yeah. I don't think they're worried about their image. Yeah, Yeah, I mean, there's As we sit here, there's a bunch of fourteen year old girls self cutting because of Cheryl Sandberg's business model And too much? Yeah. So I qu I don't think they I think they're very willing to endure hits to their image. I don't think that's their first priority. So they will go this is an area they should go into. Their image. The only thing that fucking matters is Mark Stuckerberg keeps delivering unbelievable shareholder returns. That's the only image that matters in a capitalist America with no regulation And we can sit here and talk about purity tests, no one give us a fuck. All right. Well, in Europe, let me just they're trying to break up U.S. big tech. Here in France, the budget minister called for a country to break free of American systems, sort of on trend with the Europeans feeling the American century is over, which I think is very clear. They've stepped up in our Ukraine, they've sort of pulled away from the U.S. You have Georgia Maloney every day insulting Trump, which is really enjoyable. And the EU just rolled out a new sovereignty package to boost homegrown tech, a very difficult thing to do. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon control seventy percent of Europe's cloud market, and eighty percent of European software spend goes to US companies you know, it also has to deal with these climate goals that they have in data center Lobbyists say European's power grid isn't ready to fuel advanced AI infrastructure. We willll need to lean on new gas plants to stay competitive, which is a big issue in the United States, and actually gaining enormous amount of traction with voters, one hundred percent. Europe's biggest TaxiOos want to say in shaping EU policy, a new group called the European creators is pushing the EU to cut red tape looseen merger rules the way the U. S. and China cut back theirs Is that something you see happening? This is not the direction Europe had gone in and has had much less success. Obviously, all these U. S. companies, whether it's open AI or anthropic or all U the latest basket of them whether they're going to make it or not are US companies. Yeah. so America used to be the uncle who showed up who was obnoxious, showed up to the European, know picnic. obnoxious, but nice, paid for your kids tuition, G genererally harvest in the right place Now the uncle's showing up. He's on meth and he's doing his karate moves and he's hitting on And he's hitting on underage girls at the p. I mean, we are we have become so unreliable and quite frankly, just gross that the EU has finally come to the realization we can't count on this guy any longer. R And it can go one of two ways. The good way is that they figure out a way Germany or I think thirty forty percent debt to GDP Netherlands, they need to probably go into some deficit spending, ramp up their technology investment in their own military, support their own companies, mistrel, vertical aerospace. Daniel Eck is a big investor in a European defense company. I think that would be good If they use this as yet another excuse to slow down their thoroughbreds with overreulation, which is what Europe does Y' Great, be righteous, worried about the environment, and we'll kick your ass from a shareholder standpoint And that's the story of Europe, thoughtful regulation that gets in the way of every company killing it And America makes a mistake of underregulating, Europe makes the mistake of overregulating, and you'd rather be the former becausecause then you have the capital and the strength to fund a Navy when you do get a good leader in place, economic growth It's kind of everything. You have to have the UK has its heart in the right place, super smart, and they can't do any of the shit because the economy is not growing. So there's a medium. If they use it as an excuse to support, to force companies to purchase their own models support European born native Internet, e commerce AI companies, defense companies, great. If they use it as yet another excuse to increase regulation, talented entrepreneurs and capital shrug arms in. Is it even possible at this point? because these companies are sort of barreling to IPOs? desespite the fact that, for example, SpaceX has really taken yet another fall. We talked on Monday about this, but it took a decent fall again. It's still up from the IPO. It's trading at one hundred twenty times revenues as chill for their problems Yeah, I get that, but do you see it Is there a way to catch up in any way for other parts of the world to do so, or are these the companies that will? Well Europe has some great companies, and I'm actually in my prediction I'm going to talk about. I think the hottest IPO of the digital of this month is actually going to be a European company and I'll talk about that in predictions. Look, they have some they have some great companies that I do think there's going to be a lot of talent The team of the best players wins, and I think you're going to see a trend where the most talented people in Europe used to have one goal. G out It's like my homeland or my father's homeland, Scotland. my dad used to joke, What the most talented people in Scotland have in common they left And I do think that the rivers of flow of human capital benefit Europe right now. I think there's a lot of people are thinking, you know what? mayaybe I'll put off going to the Bay Area Maybe I'll put off going to the Glf moving. the most you the youngest talented most aggressive, ambitious people used to get to the biggest city in their nation, then to London, then to San Francisco and New York. I think a lot of human capital and financial capital is going to come back to Europe. because of lifestyle and two, because Europe has been left for dead The valuations are really low. So they're low. so you can take advantage of this. But they've got to have a government that gets out of the way in some fashion. although not to the extent that ours does presumably There's got to be a sweet spot. We've gone too far to free markets. The EU is way too over. I mean, the European Union's not a union. It's a dis union where nobody has control, but everyone has veto authority. Right. And it creates just It supposed it takes about there's a measure how long it takes to start a company, to get all the filings, the permits, hire people. It takes six weeks in the US. It supppposedly it takes sixteen months in France I mean that's just a problem, right So I think there's a sweet spot. Although I do think in the U.S. there is pushback coming, whether it's, you know, Elon Musk threatening Rokana over normal statements about USAID to what happened in New York with M Bami, There's a real push against a lot of this billionaire power unfettered capitalism that's coming, I think, hard and fast. and they're starting to win elections. They're starting to have a say. And you know, you wouldn't normally see a a politician like Ro Kana pushed back against Elon Musk at this point, given, well he's maybe he's not a trillionaire right now. He came down to nine hundred and ninety six billion dollars whichich I feel bad for the guy. But one of the things that I do see coming is a massive amount of payback to these guys. I just see it I see it everywhere you go. And I think they're not going to be able to attack Trump in the same way they might like to. But this is going to be their vehicle of attack is these guys And these companies are going to be in a world of hurt. And you're seeing pushback from Disney to the Trump administration. You're seeing pushback from politicians like Re. you're seeing You're seeing pushback all over the place by average citizens across, and you're seeing winning by Democratic socialists around this billionaire issue that I think is really growing in a way that is significant. And when the Democrats come back, if they sort of shove the old Democratic establishment to the side, there's You know, a lot of the Republicans or a lot of the tech people don't think there's going to be payback, but I do feel like is You know, I hope so. I think since the eighties, America has been obsessed with how to create wealth. I think the next ten years The dominant conversation is going to be what do you do with wealth Yeah? And what are the expectations of wealth and tax policy I mean, we talk about rich versus poor. I don't think that's right. I've talked a lot about young versus old. I'm not sure that's right. I think the conversation is going to be around Entrants versus incumbents. If you already own assets, if you already have a company that's weaponized regulation, if you already own a home, if you already have a college degree, there's been this unhealthy zeidgeist among the incumbents to create scarcity such that entrants can't get a house can't get a college degree, can't get out of the crib and get customers because the incumbents have weaponized government to basically make it impossible for entrants. And the entrants who typically are younger, middle class are just up Alough it was interesting. There's an interesting story in the New York Times this week. It was a column that I thought was great talking about Let me be more. Eeducated than you are, Socrates, and what was happening in He's bling tonight at Spotify now. You love me. I do. You love the sadly, sadly, it's the worst relationship of my life and my finest. C on. No, it's true. It's true. I do. I have weird affections. Someone literally came up to me. I'm so your bos. This is what's happened to me here. Everyone laughs and I go,it am I supposed to laugh. You need to stop objectifying me, Scott. Okay. someone came up to me last night and literally just went like this. How do you do it I was like, I like him And I'm like, So do I? That woman s said, so do I? It was weird. But wasas it Emily Rodkowski, you can be honest? No. ye She's been asking about me, right? Never in your life will that ever happen. She's playing that game. You know what I'm going to do something about. about not camera right? No, she's's probably called security on you at this point. anyyway. In any case, but the point I was making was that they had these issues back in ancient times where where the oligarchs the regular people, the equality got out of control in a way that was really significant. And that's exactly when you had pushbacks and pushbacks and push from both sides. And I think we are absolutely at that time. And I don't think it's particularly helpful to say eat the rich, but there is a real movement in our country that is significant. You Again, New York elections or New York elections, but it says something when there's pushback. So we'll see what happens. I'm not worried for them, but they're going to have to armorplate their Teslas at some point if it starts to get ugly. And there is going to be an ugly moment, unfortunately for them. And I think it's just it's inevitable if they continue to sort of take everything and damage everything in the thing L that's a nice story. I hope it comes true. I hope we see the manifestation of that at the ballot box. But the reality is I think Donald Trump is going to sleep well and die a Mar a lago And I think Bezos and all these guys are going to have really nice lives. And I think we've just got to decide what we want moving forward. but the notion that They're going to pay a price for this. money buys you a lot of protection. Well, it does. We'll have to see what happens, but I'm really interested in US elections coming up. All right, let's take a quick break. We come back, we'll talk about Hollywood's record breaking year whver you think Canda helps you make that thing Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design with our magic AI tool things. on social media your thing, generate images or videos of your thing, make tecks or presentations to show your thing. Whatever needs to be done for your thing, Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing Support for the show comes from Zbiotics. Let's face it, none of us bounce back like we used to, especially after a great night out. One solution, pre alcohol by Zbiotics. Zbiotics pre alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this product, not dehydration that's to blame for rough days after drinking Preree alcohol produces an enzyme to break this by productuct down. Just remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and feel your best tomorrow I speak about alcohol a lot. I enjoy alcohol. As I get older, I'm trying to moderate it. so let's be honest. My liver can't process it the way it used to when I was a younger man When I do go out and know I'm going to be drinking, I start the night with Zbiotics. and I was doing this before. they were an advertiser on the podcast. Go to zebiotics dot com slash pivot to learn more and get fifteen percent off your first order when you use pivot at check out Zbiotics is backed with a one hundred percent money back guaranteee, so if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zebiotics. com slash pivot and use the code pivot a checkout for fifteen percent off Support for this show comes from Cohere As AI advances, one thing matters more than ever, staying in control. Most AI comes with strings attached like sharing your data and infrastructure or compromising your independence. With Chere, you don't have to give up control to gain capability. You can have both. Cohere started seven years ago with a bold mission, scale Enerprise intelligence without sacrificing sovereignty With their solution, AI leaves you in charge of your data and infrastructure allowing you to maintain your competitive edge. It's designed for enterprises, governments and organizations that refuse to give up control in pursuit of innovation From frontier models to out of the box tools, Cohere gives you everything you need to build and deploy secure, scalable AI that drives growth and delivers results. Their platform is designed around your business with models that can be customized and trained on your proprietary data so the solution is uniquely yours. And control doesn't stop at customization. Cohere is built with multilayered protections, access and industry certified security standards that help safeguard your data while supporting privacy compliance and other requirements As AI continues to transform every industry, Chere gives you the power to put it to work today on your terms. Take charge of your AI with Chere. To learn more, visit cohere d. com slash box Scott we're back we're live at Adwek House at Con Lyons. We We're officially in the summer movie season, and Hollywood is hitting new heights, which is really interesting. Toy Story five, just open to three hundred twelve million dollars globally. Total domestic box office year is estimated four point four six billion do the highest since twenty nineteen. It's recovered.. And you predicted those? Yes, I did. Lots of movies brought in the B box proroject Hail Mary, Michael, The Devil Wears Prada, which am starring in Plus, low budget horror movies, backrooms and obsession, and they're becoming blockbusters. but they it's the first movie since ET where the box office has moved up. And I noted my son went to see both these movies, and he's not gone to the movies since I took him to Toy Story three, I think, at that point talk about this trend because these theaters, these movies it's actual mo movie theater experience and it's a range of movies. It's not these these big It's not an Avenger movie. though there's one of those coming. It's a lot of I would say smaller movies in a lot of ways. and they seem to have been really spurring people not just to go to the movies. And of course, Story Story five is five is the fifth one And it's apparently wite. Really? It's the fifth. The fifth, Yes, Gor story five, Yes Anyway, what what do you make of this and how right was I about this situation You called this. It went like this. That's ridiculous. Well, the question is is it a trend or is it a debad cap bounce Look, the movie industry, to be fair, some of the best performing stocks in media are actually theater stocks. Cinemark and IMAax are up Theatater is forty and forty five percent respectively in last twelve months stub Theater business is becoming like airlines. They's Southwestn Jet Blue, which is streaming.'s Netflix serves you content for thirty cents an hour That's an incredible deal And then there's Eirates. and Qatar, airlines in Singapore, that's IMax. That's an incredible experience. h the guys in the middle like AMC or Delta United are getting crushed. So people are willing to spend twenty or thirty or forty bucks to go to iMax or have a really like I love iPick, although that just went bankrupt But they want an experience or they just want thirty cents an hour and reasonably good content. But it other I mean, the other biggest trend culturally right now is IRL coming out of COVID. people probably lost somebody. People do have disposable income. The economy has been fairly strong and people want to get out and touch grass and I think they're just having a really healthy gag reflex over isolation. Yeah. I do think there's gag reflex over social media and everything else. I think all's really it's interesting. Gary Vaynnerchck here now says analog is in versus, which I was like, no, Sit Sherlock, it's really but the idea of O the idea that this pushing way, I have long thought that social media is going to decline rather precipitously, especially among young people and become more of a, because you're starting to see tech companies like Google just invested in A twenty four, which I thought was everyone lost their minds in Hollywood. They thought they were going to pull their data. I think they're using it to try to figure out how to do better storyboarding, how to use AI, and how to figure out how to change the movie making process, which isn't such a bad idea to use those tools Although Hollywood does have a gag reflex to all of these things in favor of these in real life cinema experiences Yeah, I think both can be true because If you look at I don't understand, People go on Instagram to find out about a yogurt store they'll spend forty minutes in line for. So that's a combination of the two things. The downside to the IRL trend is the following and that is I mean, there's a couple of things. You're about to see tables in Mcinos And aet increase forty, fifty percent in price this summer. Bea there's about to be twelve thousand new millionaires in the Bay Area through Anthropic SpaceX and open AI And if you're a thirty six year old who got a CS degree from Carnegie Mellon quite frankly, haven't had You know, you weren't didn't have the most social capital in high school, quite frankly And you wake up and you've been broke and you've been paying your student loans and you wake up after the IPO and you're worth eleven million dollars, you're not going to Disneyland. You're going to a bea and you're seeing black coffee The flush of douchebag money about to roll over about to roll over Europe this summer is going to be just frightening And The other thing that's really kind of sad about this is the reason why these concerts and these music festivals can charge two, three, five grand for VIP tickets It' because twenty and thirty something, when I was twenty something and thirty something, you know what I was doing with all my money? I was saving for a house And I worry that twenty and thirty something have just stopped saving for a house. They've just given up They're like, okay, we're not going to save two hundred grand for a house. Houses are two million st our homes are two million dollars. Yeah I'm going toachella. Yeah. The smaller houses are a million. Your point being Well, these are just fascinating tres about in real life, Kar. All right, Okay.. In any case, what does that mean? Because one of I expose myself to you emotionally and you jab. Yes, I do. You jab I was still on douche bags with money in Aisa, because you're the only person I know that goes to ABisa. He's having a fantasy moment. I pay for everything. What do you say to like a drug? I love drugs. love that We're gonna to get questions from you all Who would want to roll with me in a beista? sereriously That's right. Meet you there I absolutely would not. So she literally texts me like, Where are you? Where are you? are you? are you? How are you? No? No, I said, I'm downstairs talking to Paris Holton. I will not be com upstairs. My favorite actress He just made a Paris Hilton joke that was gross. Just try not to ignore it. So seen that movie ten, twelve times. Okay. All right. in any case. Instram I think a lot of the tech companies really are moving into media, not necessarily in the nefarious ways that they are also moving into media, but Instagram wants a spot in your streaming lineup. The app is testing horizontal video, long form content, episodic series, which I think is really interesting. just met some Instagram people recently is they're also reaching out to creators, which they were doing in my case to start making not microdramas, but what is the stuff you want to make? shhort serialized episodes of one to three minutes each, which was a trend many moons ago and didn't really work out. If you recall, a bunch of creators were trying to do that. And obviously Quibi was the other one. Is this sort of back again? Do you think it'll succeed at this point Well, the clip economy, whatever you would want to call it, huge trend. I don't know about you. I'm abolutely I hate to admit it, I'm absolutely addicted to Instagram reels. and I think it's become my primary source of information.. Me too. Yeah. I think the algorithm is incredible. So do you think they can take it to the next step to create mini dramas? becausecause it didn't work the first several times. This is the third I just don't think you ever I h to say, I just don't think he ever bet against Mark Zuckerberg. I find I used to think TikTok was going to disrupt meta. Now I find myself spending less time I don't know about you. This close marketing on TikTok and more time on reels. I think theyd look at it and said I think Mark says, You look That's amazing. Steal it Steal it and then make it better and then point our billion and a half person fire hose at it. Yeah. So if you're marketers here, where do you start to point stuff at entertainment there, right? It continues to be there. That's going to be entertainment It's a hard one because any business dependent upon alphabet unless you're the creator. If you try and get in the middle, Your margin is their opportunity. ten years ago, some of the biggest firms here and houses were SEO companies and then Alphabet said the whole point of our technology is we eventually make you obsolete. So I'm very reticent you know, if you're a creator and you can displace comcast or ABC or A andE with one of these platforms that will give you a greater share revenue. I think YouTube does that pretty well.. But any business banking on You're interviewing Marith Levin tonight, the CEO of New York Times. I don't know if you know those hosts from the Port of the New York Times We owned something called aboutout dot com and it was worth a billion dollars. And then one night, our revenues were down sixty percent because Google did some panda thing and basically just crushed our traffic So a decent test, anyone should ask themselves is what percentage of our revenue and margin is dependent upon one of these platforms because ll they'll keep you in business just long enough until you get real margin and then they'll come for you. Anyways, I'm droning on here. I think it's situational, but I think these guys are basically in the business of just finding except for the creators. they you know, they do some there, but I wouldn't want to be in a business focused ever on these platforms. On these platforms, but that's exactly where it's going. This is the first time I've thought about creating stuff not. You know, I just did this television show, but now I'm thinking how would I do it not with any of the regular TV entities, like what would be the way to make, say, if we decideed to make a pivot television show, for example, what is a television show going forward And that's something I'm thinking about a lot. Well be on yeah, you're right. It would be on YouTube with clips And But if you look at why is podcasting Drawing much talent right now growing so fast. It's not your looks, but go ahead. When we first started an easy one. I'm very That was a layup. So when we started this podcast almost eight, nine years ago U And I'm very transparent about economics. I think rich people not talking about their money is nothing but an effort to suppress the middle in the lower class. rich people talk about their money all the fucking time. Start talking about money Anyway. U When I first started on Pivot, I got fifteen percent of the revenue because the means of production, a company with capital and a studio. I used to go into that lame studio on Broad Street. And they knew how to do podcasts and it was technology and union people. and And so the means of production, whether it's MSNBC or CNN or podcast back then meant that the talent got fifteen percent. You probably got more. you were the star Now talent on podcast gets seventy percent because the means of production just doesn't have the power. Yeah. That's effectively the arbitrage that's taking place across all media is the means of production is being arbitraged and getting out of the getting people out of the middle such that creators with great content and the end consumer can enjoy. podcasts are eighty percent of a television show for five percent of the production cost. Yeahbsol. So there's opportunity for advertisers and creators. And the example I always use is Colbert. sixty million in revenue, one hundred million in cost, a band, a theater, unions everywhere, makeup artists, five people on the guest booking team It made sixty million was not economic. He's going to go to a podcast. He'll take he'll six people will make it out of the podcast arrc It'll do twenty million as first year, and it'll cost four million to produce So that's a pretty good deal for Stepven. Yeah, if that, abbsolutely. All right, we're gonna to go on a quick break. We have one more thing to talk about when we're back Fourth of July savings are happening now at the Home Depot with select appliances starting at three hundred and ninety eight dollars Plus, get free delivery on appliance purches of three hundred and ninety eight dollars or more, no membership required. Upgrade your kitchen with a modern sleek GE profile refrigerator featuring hands free autofill for the perfect pour every time. And make laundry day easier with two in one washer dryer combo innovation that completes laundry in about ninety minutes. Shop top brand appliances now at the Home Depot. offer about june seventeenth to j Juieth US onlyn S Store online for details Chronic migraine, fifteen or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more, can make me feel like a spectator in my own life In Botox, onabacha Linum tooxin A prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those with fourteen or fewer headache days a month. 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Ask your doctor, visit Botoxpronicmigraine. com or call one eight hundred four four Botox to learn more This episode is brought to you by Street Easy. You gota ask yourself, W to talk about the time you lived in the greatest city on Earth or still live in it In the city where a matinee leads to two AM tacos Your New York era can last a lifetime. With twenty years of MYC know how, Street Easy can help you become a forever New Yorker. Visit streeteasy dot com to buy or rent in NYC. Street Easy is an assumed name of Zillow Inc, which has licenses in all fifty states Okay, Scott, we're back with more news. The World Cup right now. As you said, there's going to be a lot of gambling andre markets are worry. But what do you imagine the effect of World Cup will be going forward? What is your thoughts on where what are the takeaways from doing that? Because it really is, I think the most important, as you said, economic story right now across the globe. I don't have any real insight other than what I said. think I think the world in the West needed a reason to like each other again and recognize that Americans distinct of our leadership are an interesting, loving, kind people with really fattening, but wonderful food. And the Europeans and all these nations have incredible cultures and they bring a little taste of that culture. Yeah. You're going to see the prices of teams go up And even I go back to the wealth creation of these these companies that just went public That probably took the price of these companies going up because sex drives everything. And if you're a forty five year old who quite frankly never got laate in high school, you're trying to figure out a way to become the sexest man in Cleveland. And the way you do that is by buying the Cleveland Browns. And so all of a sudden, there are a ton of people who want to own sports teams right now that have capital So you just saw the price of every shitty football, cricket team, whatever, go up twenty, thirty percent. SpaceXp went up twenty percent. The price of most sports teams globally went up thirty or forty because you're going to have midlife crisis money, which is irrational chasing trophy assets. Very excellent. All right. lastast thing, prediction and then we'll get questions from the audience My prediction is the following. The biggest IPO of this the biggest tech IPO of this month in terms of first day pop is not SpaceX, it's actually a European tech media company that's pricing next week. Do any this is a test? Any guesses? Bending Spoons. Bending Spoons is essentially the Berkshire halfaway of beloved but forgotten internet brands. Evernote, event Brright, AOL Um Fimo, we transfer meet up All of these companies that were supposed to be the next Airbnb or they were all the unicorns of the Europe. All the unicorns, super fat And then this company out of Italy comes and buys them, consolidates the bac endnd, which is aly way of saying cuts costs dramatically, increases their prices. A lot of these companies have very strong margin power and consumer loyalty Q one, twenty twenty five, two hundred seventy million, one hundred and twenty million losses this quarter, six hundred twenty five million, twenty eight millionars in profits They're getting a ton of momentum It's essentially it's orphans brought together. It's orphaned internet companies with a lot of margin power that have been forgotten and they're rolling it up. And this is a callback to the most profitable disruptive company that used to own can This is a callback to WPP They used to buy companies for seven times EBITDA cut costs on the back end, reduce keyman risk, so to speak, and then take it to the public markets at twelve times EBITDA I think this is an incredible company. It's out of Italy, which is interesting, Re good human capital. And there's about a thousand of these companies that never quite made it across the gold line. And the most fascinating thing about their numbers is eighty eight percent of their revenue. is recurring revenue. All of these companies are subscription So basically this is SaS meets Berkshire Hathaway. I like the fact that it's out of Italy. I like the fact that it's not AI U So it's just a simple cleanup. two and a halfion two and a half billion revenues that'll go out at seven to eight times revenues. I think this company will have the largest pop of any internet tech IPO of the month. That's price wee. It's a classic is what's happening here. Well, it's essentially there's a value in these brands. They still have very loyal audiences Yeah. and they were also They also grew up in a time where capital was cheap, so quite frankly, there's a lot of fat to cut And these guys are executing like crazy. And once they have a public stock Think about how big the list is of companies that were once hot and they're still good companies. Yeah. And they spent billions of dollars of venture capital aggregating audiences. Yeah, like Red Evelope, for example Ohry why am I so hostile? Jesus Christ. No, that was a good company. I think sort of got Yeah Thankks to that. was. That was a good idea. You can have the kids every other weekend. No, but there are a lot of value in a lot of these companies.' eas. My prediction is the biggest IPO in terms of first A pop is going be a European, the Berkshire Hathaway of forgotten Innet brands And that's this company called Bending Spoons that I had not heard of until two weeks ago. I'm kind of fascinated with it. Anyway. All right, questions from the audience Let's where's the thing? Here we go. We're going to go around. Keep them tight so we can answer as many as possible. Hi, Kim Mackenzie from Ladies to Strategies. You guys often talk about poolymarket? Do you think that it's going to be used as a legitimate polling data and predictions for the new U S election? and should it legitimate howouse so. I mean, people are on it, so you can't really stop it. I think people pay it it's one of these things during elections. U S. people go and stare at them for a minute and then they go away from them. I think it's being used more as opposed to going to all there was a bunch of others that people would go to, all the different polling accumulation sites. I think Scott's been very negative on polling. I think a lot of these prediction markets are easily gamed and so I worry about their reality, but they often do reflect. sentiment, right? So I think it's just one of those other signals you have to get, but I definitely pay attention to them more than I should, and I know they're gamed in some fashion. I think they're also easily manipulated by a wealthy person, say, named Elon Musk, who has enormous amounts of funds that he's going to put towards the midtermss to create all manner of confusion. And so that's the real danger in it. I'm not sure voters pay attention to it I just don't. I don't know if voters spend a lot of time. I think a lot of the pundit class certainly does. I use Calci all the time for and I find I think hlling firms that are non qualitative are basically out of business. Calschi has never gotten an interest rate cut wrong. They have predicted every single bed action. hundred percent. I totally rely on the prediction market, specifically Cal sheet for because there's something about pundents saying what they think is going to happen and then looking at where people actually put money If you really want to know how someone feels, see where they're spending their money So think they' I think they are and I'm fascinated by the data. I think they're incredibly accurate and on But they have to self govern themselves more because' because the government' coming out. You're seeing all these different arrests. And so if they don't self govern sort of the gaming that goes on, I think it's going to be they're going to sort of shoot themselves in the foot in that regard Y There's case after case of someone doing something funy. Yeah. I hope you're right. That's the right thing. The internet is littered with companies that were supposedly going to be regulated. Yeah that' doing. I mean, we'll see. I hope there's want to go after these companies. You've noticed a lot more action very quickly as opposed to bigger social media companies right away.. But the amount of big back end, the amount of money, we're going to find out in two weeks, the amount of money being wagered on these markets around the World Cup. Yeah, huge. stagging. staggering. It's going be bigger It's going to be bigger than what was What was gamed in Vegas during the same period? Yeah, I think more than five billion dollars already been traded on the World Cup outcomes across those two platforms. enormous. Next questionll Hi. Hi. Great episode. Ted from the agency, advertising aggency, Park and Battery. Quick question. I love your unvarnished opinion on this Do you see a big next act from some of the CEOs that were pushed out I'm thinking Adam from WeWork, Travis from Uber. and they've gone on to do their own thing. But given all the dynamics and excitement, you know that we've been seeing and talking about today, do you see a big next act from them and similar former CEOs? I mean, they've tried, like Adam's tried with that rental weird fucking thing. I don't know what that is. It's actually done okay. okay. Yeah. I mean, they're fine, and Travis has done his ghost kitchen thing and now he's doing R Robotics, something around robots. They're going try. I think most of these people don't have a second act. They just sort of wander around and pontificate. That's been my experience. They had one great moment, often fueled by anger, and then they don't really. There's very few that have double acts that I've seen. I can't can you think of one someomeone who like, got sort of turned around and then came back. I think they get rich happy they surround themselves by enablers who violently agree with them at all times and saying you you know, you got screwed, you know, or Karis wish it was mean to you, like or something. you were right the whole time. And I think they just don't most of them don't learn from their mistakes and they don't And that's the way you develop the next thing to me, but that's The good money is on no because a couple things happen. One One out of seven companies works is so much has to go right for the company. just probability that if you nailed it and so many moons lined up for your success, You're kind of due for them not to line up. It is really hard to Repeat, reallyally hard because so many things have to line up. And the other thing is, The majority of great artists stop can't You know, they sleip in the shower when they're twenty four and they have a hit song and then they hit thirty and it just all stops because you have kids, because your brain changes, because you start evaluating risk. All of a sudden you stop. thinking crazy and you have the guidelines of societal norms. You're not working eighteen hours a day because you're rich and you don't need this shit and you want to spend time with your kids. So the mojo and the creative genius that's fking I mean, who told Michael Jackson to grab his crotch with a glitter glove I'm telling you forty old fathers don't think that way It's just so you lose that creative craziness. You lose some mojo and just statistically speaking to repeat I've started nine businesses. I'm generously three, four, and two And all of them seemed like great ideas at the time. And more of it than anything was just luck and timing And it's very hard to hit the lottery twice. So the good money is usually on no. Yeah. I think most of you as suceeder that Zuckerberg continues to excel. whatever you think of the golden statue continued to excel. The people that stay at the companies tend to like such an addela. like you've seen like that kind of thing. I don't see a lot of new rebirth There's not many rolling stones out there, I would say, right here Goodday, the name's David. Good day. I've got a question for you US related. There's a lot of news about redistricting Voting rights, voting machines yada yada. Yeahah, We've noticed that. You've noticed that. Yeah. So what's your prediction of how that will impact the elections? I'm asking on behalf of the world Well, I think a lot You know, it's I would agree I have I read a lot about it. I'm not an expert in this area, but from what I understand, the Republicans have vastly overreached in this area and it's not working. and they may live to regret their efforts. I don't think people like it. I don't think voters like it. That said, they've done a lot of like we've created all these partisan, like if there's a chart Pisan you know, purple areas and blue and red. and it's like there used to be a lot of purple. Now there's not a lot of purple. They've managed to do it. And then of course, the Democrats reacted correctly to try to mute it in California and everything else, but that's not the way you want to go, right? You want these districts. And so I think I believe in I don't know how Scot feels that. I believe in voters I think they ultimately push back. And I think the republicans have started to see some real losses in some of these redistricted areas. And you're seeing a lot more. There was a story in the Washington Post this week about the enthusiasm of Democratic voters, even if they're not enthusiastic about Democrats, they're turning out more And Republicans are kind of they are disgusted with Trump. You know, they really are. He's losing base after base after base until it's finally Kid Rock and that lean Greenwood guy. likeike essentially, he can't get entertainers to go. He's losingatin Latinos, he's losing all v young men, for sure He's losing all the stupid comics. So I don't I don't know if it's going to work, but it's not a good thing. There's three things I think have hurt our country more than anything. One is gerrymandering two is Fox News and the third is social media if I had to pick the three things. Yeah, I would I would add citizens United in there. Look, the vibes are really good right now for Democrats and for pushback on Trump. You know, he's, I think the least second least popular president at this point No, he was the least He was the least off least. Yeah The So things look good. Gerrymandering and just taking a grid and placing it over America or de gerrymandering is a great talking point. and want to happen for this election. The X factorors are following. This is what I think happened in the last couple of months. I think Elon Musk called President Trump and said, If you lean on the SEC chair and the NASDAQ to include me in the NASDAQ one hundred indices, which will create an incremental ten of thirty billion dollars in demand for my float, Wil still take my net worth up twenty to forty billion I'll spend onene to ten billion dollars on the midterms And there's nothing to stop them. So I think the X factor is mus is musk because the reality is as much as we like voters and Americans are smart and d d d the elections are kind of won and lost in a ten percent in the middle And those people are busy and have things to do and they're influenced by media and the good work you do And If you increase your net worth by one hundred or two hundred billion dollars because of SEC Yeah NSDAq anomalies that have never been granted to any other company And you have a direct line to the president who can make this shit happen, why wouldn't you say, hey, boss, I'll spend ten billion dollars ten billion dollars is going to win a lot. He spent he influenced the last presidential election with two hundred fifty million doars And this is the power. this is the problem. This is why throughout history, a known known as the following, power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts. And in a democratic society with network effects money and technology create power on a level and a reach we've never seen before So a combination of Citizens United, a very smart guy understands technology, and a willingness to spend one, five or ten billion dollars in the election lick bel. The only thing the quality of their candidates is really quite bad. And that's really and some of the Democratic candidates are very compelling, I think, has a better bench. And there is an element to that. They've managed to pick really unattractive, horrible people. And in the Musks case, I do agree with him. He's got enormous amounts of power. The thing is a lot of reporters and others are onto him and the more you expose him, the more people are repelled by him And so there is an element to take advantage of there. The more he looks like he's manipulating the elections, the more people push back against it. He and Trump of the brand has gone down. I think more than Trump than anything. Okay, last quick question Weere right here? I tend to get my news from Blue skky, but following dispersed creators and media like Heather Cox Richardson, you just had on? Yes, she's amazing. And substacks and things like that Is there enough reach there to actually make a dent and get in front of people? Or is that just kind of like a losing model, subscription base and it'll probably go nowhere given It's a lot of collections of little voices. U the answer is yes. I think I think u What is it blo out Blue sky, I'm sor I think it's a cute and adorable and' going to die a slow death. Um I just don't think it's got I think it got some early traction. This is just vibes. I don't look at the I haven't seen the data But Substack, I think is a winner And I do think that these platforms There's just too much creator content. The most encouraging thing about creator content right now is fifty percent of the ad spend on creators is in nano or microcreators. And that is people doing little niche things. And so trust from institutions is leaking to trust to people who go after v the specific crowds out the narrow. I've been watching this dad, who Wally Cooks talks about universal healthcare, and I just find fascinating. So I think some of them will win. The when you brought up Blue sky, I'm not I'm not U I think it's a better brand than a business right now U But yeah, I think there's going to be a ton of cool little little niche platforms that will likely be swallowed up by the big players I'll make the final comment on that. I think the increasing power of all these smaller things are going to really becoming very strong at this point in terms of not just but numbers too, and people listening and everything else. But I do think we can't abandon certain central institutions like the New York Times or CNN or all these things they have to be