Every Tuesday and Friday, tech journalist Kara Swisher and NYU Professor Scott Galloway offer sharp, unfiltered insights into the biggest stories in tech, business, and politics. They make bold predictions, pick winners and losers, and bicker and banter like no one else. After all, with great power comes great scrutiny. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
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And also, Andrew Yang. I was in this this session called provocateurs. Oh, dear. I'm like, we're not that provocative. More we're more like milk toasters of provocation. We're not that provocative. And they had this scientist who lives in extraterrestrials who was kind of adorkable. No. That guy. Yeah. It's really not I need to get out more. The only the only problem for me with going out in the public is that the public is there. What did people say? I come up and ask you about? Well, okay. You know what's happening to me wherever I am. And I've look, people are really generous and lovely, and that's one of the things I'm a glass half empty kinda guy. People are so lovely in person. That I can't get over how fucking cancerous and toxic online is. Mhmm. Because I would think that the world is just an awful place if I just looked at the comments around content online, people are so lovely in person. So and whenever you speak, and if you do okay, people line up to meet you and be nice and get photos with you. Every time now this happens, someone comes up they look around and they throw dramatic pause, and then they have me sign your book. Oh. And they think it's the funniest thing ever. They think it's the fine. They come up with a signature page open and a pen, and then they look around for dramatic effect. And then they turn it around and they're like, it's Cara's book. Oh, that's nice. I'm just happy to be here. I'm having a wonderful time. Good. I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. We'll come to Ted together. I think you would love it here. They would love people. They're a hot no. They will not have me on stay. I've been there, since the beginning. I used to go in Richmond. You said that about Bill Mar, and they keep inviting you back. I have never been invited to Ted. Never. Chris Anderson will hear this, and he will invite you to speak next year. I will give you a doubtful Chris Anderson will not. I we have a long history. I doubt it. Really? I love Chris. Yeah. I think he thought of us as a competitor at code. I don't know. He came to code. You know, I'm happy. I spoke at a TEDx for sure, and that but that's organized by other. Well, never will he me on stage there. Tanya, they do a great job. I know they do a great job. They do. There's a whole patented to patent kind of thing. Yeah. So We I'd like to roll
You know, kind of this you call them, I think, gumshoe reporters. When you don't have an ecosystem where you can pay for that, you just end up with small time corruption everywhere and a lack of scrutiny. So I'd like that the government's stepping in here and saying, look, you make so much money, and there's a public service around supporting these news outlets that we're essentially gonna transfer wealth. I don't I don't I'd be curious if it holds up. I hope other states adopt it. What do you think, Carrie? You're in this business. They probably I I they probably think it doesn't matter to have these links there. They're trying you know, as you know, we talked about last week, Facebook trying to escape news. I mean, one of the things that was we'll talk about in a second is the the situation in the Middle East. It was very hard on threads to get a lot of you know, it was 2 day ago news. And so the question is, is it help them or hurt them not to have news? Right? That's they know. They know whether it helps or hurt, or is it just enough to have fun videos to dancing Beyonce, etcetera, etcetera. They know what works, and I suspect they wouldn't cut these if they knew that these things aren't worth the money, right, for them to pay for them. See, I I think it's a power play. I think they're trying to do Yeah. I think they're trying to threaten these folks and say, not only are we not gonna give you the money you deserve, you're not gonna get any traffic. Right. That's right. Take your 2¢ on the dollar and be happy with a bitch or where, like Yeah. That's what they're doing. That's what they're doing. I don't know how important the news is to their sites. I just I would like to know, and I would love there to be a lawsuit so that we can find out. So, anyway, we'll we'll see where it goes. This is gonna this is an ongoing thing. It's happened all over the world, and it has to do also with, with AI too. This is how much are these are these companies gonna start really paying the the the freight that they are getting from these media companies and have gotten them? Because they certainly damage them. And and these companies have gotten damaged themselves by not being part of you know, not being by allowing these companies to run over them many years ago. So, we'll see. I really would love to know how much it does contribute, though, because, of course, they won't tell us in any way. They know. But but but what this represents, though, I I this is
Use it as a means of suppressing competition. And also, they use it as a means of trying to get unearned PR. For example, Amazon will file a patent for a, not only a floating warehouse, which is probably, physically, impossible for the next couple centuries. They will file a patent for a projectile defense shield of their floating warehouse. And the reason they do it is they know that reporters at Forbes and other business magazines troll patent filings and then write about them. So IP protection has taken on all this different nuance, including intimidation, including well resourced monopolies that constant because if you get a cease and desist letter and you're a small company, you're sort of inclined to say, am I really gonna take on this well resourced company? Or am I just gonna find another name? But this is an example of a gone haywire. These are generic terms, and I believe the court will say, sorry, this term has become generic. You can't own it. I think that this is exactly why I need to talk about this. Even though people are sort of losing their minds on, on the Internet here, it's really important what he's he's done here. Like, and I agree with you. I agree with you. This is a where do you think it's gonna end up? It'll be dismissed. Dismissed. Meaning, he won't be able to to cease and desist them. No. He he yeah. It it'll be this will be, as you call it, legal harassment. They'll say, you have no domain over this name, and and you should pay back the legal fees for the people where you're creating, you know, whatever whatever you call it, superfluous or whatever those terms. Issue around the trademark office too because I think he he does own the trademark. Right? He owns it. Well, but but if it's trademarkable Right. That's right. I can't believe he got the trademark at all. Right. So I I just don't I I don't know, you know, I look. This is a this is for IP lawyers, but your ability to maintain your ability to to encourage people to make the requisite investment in developing
Last 5 days. The jump comes after analysts raised targets for the stock saying it has competitive advantage to gain in the digital ad market as it integrates AI. Also, in m Meta's favor, a motion filed to dismiss the FTC's monopoly claims better revealed Instagram's ad revenue for 2021, 30 $2,000,000,000, which is more than YouTube. Oh my god. That was such a great purchase. The pop also caused Mark Zuckerberg to pass Elon Musk in wealth, taking over the top spot as the 3rd richest person in the world. Oh, Scott. Well, I mean, there's obviously not he's won the wrestling match whether he likes it or not. I don't really care about Elon here, but, what a what a performance. This is something, again, you had stressed, had not bought but had stressed. Yeah. Each year, I make a stock pick. In November 22, my stock pick for 23 was Meta, and it's up 353% since then. This company I mean, first off, at some point, we're gonna have to have an actual wake and a and some closure and a funeral for this ridiculous consensual hallucination around headsets. I mean, granted, they continue to send weight loss tips to 5 10, 95 pound 17 year old girls, and, I really appreciate a business model where I get to vomit up all my inventory of all my experiences and pretend that it's poetry. I mean, I don't like the company. I don't like the people who run it. It's arguably the best run business in the world right now. And my colleague at my former colleague at NYU, a guy named Peter Golder, strategy guy, really brilliant, who ended up going to the tech school at Dartmouth, he had this fascinating insight that I I wrote about in my first book. And then he said, the true innovators are terrible for shareholder value because they have to be so far out in front that they get, you know, mud on their face, arrows in the back. It's the number 2. Apple's the perfect example of the second mouse coming in. So you could argue around the key issue here. Elon Musk is the innovator. He came in and he laid off 80% of Twitter staff. And from a consumer standpoint, the fact that he can run this company on 1 fifth the number of people, granted it's not
Which is just crazy and seems sort of unprecedented with, with something in the stock market like that tied to politics. How do you look at I mean, because people tend to people on the left tend to make it into a joke. I think it's fast I think it's more important than that that you could have foreign countries put money in here. You could have his supporters. It's a way to funnel money to him. Even if there's no actual business in the background, I think it's actually much more serious even though it's laughable at the same time. Oh, yeah. No. I we were saying on Pod Save America that, he gets in the White House again. It is the you know, he's gonna run into the emoluments, challenge again, which is if a foreign government wants to curry favor with the Trump administration, the easiest way to do that is to just buy up a bunch of, Trump media stock. And, and they can do that. And, I mean, look, it's it's a scam like everything else. He does is a scam, but he tends to get richer off these scams. And people, you know, you can say, like, people just wanna buy it. Right? Because he has got this huge base of support, and people wanna help him get rich, which is crazy, but they do. And they wanna support him, and so this is a vehicle to do that. And do you find it dangerous? Because you you have the SEC come in here and everything else, but maybe not if if there's a Trump administration. Yeah. Like, I don't know all the I mean, certainly, there's a few investigations into it right now. I don't know what all the SEC rules are. But, yeah, it is danger. I mean, it's not it's it's clearly not the way that, businesses are supposed to operate or politics is supposed to operate. But, like, once again, in this Trump era, we're just in this in this bizarre world where, Donald Trump can scam a bunch of people and seemingly get away with it. Yeah. Absolutely. So do you take this as his next criminal case? Probably, of the many that will be added upon him. Well, he's got a few to get through before he gets to this one. So Yeah. Absolutely. So, another thing is John Stewart says Apple wouldn't let him interview FTC chair, Lina Khan on the podcast that was an extension of his Apple show. Stewart's comments came weeks after the justice department sued Apple for abusing its monopoly position, The Daily
