DeepSeek Shockwaves, Nvidia's Plunge, and Target's DEI Rollback  ## Metadata - Author: [[Pivot]] - Full Title: DeepSeek Shockwaves, Nvidia's Plunge, and Target's DEI Rollback - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/111c9c71-c184-4a35-92fb-6cafbde087c5 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Senior Living and Strip Clubs** - Kara Swisher considers moving her mother into a senior facility on Embassy Row. - Scott Galloway jokes about buying a bungalow at a strip club. Transcript: Kara Swisher A It's right down on Embassy Row. And they've turned it into a senior facility that's very elegant. We have fans there, by the way. Brian, shout out to you. Brian of the innovation part of this thing. But I'm thinking of making the move. We should do a whole show on dealing with elderly parents and stuff. You and I should, I think. Scott Galloway Yeah, it basically makes a Fellini film feel like a musical fucking comedy. Kara Swisher It does. We both have faced, so many people are facing this challenge. Like wherever you are on the spectrum, it's something, it's really difficult the way our system is set up for people who need help or extra help for figuring out nursing. This is a beautiful facility. I'm not going to name the name of it, but it's really lovely. And lucky requires a certain level of, you know, fanciness. But it's really difficult because you have to figure out where to put them, the nursing care, the medical care. As people get older, you have to have things that have like graded. You just need a little help, more help, the most help, et cetera. It's really something. It takes a lot out of your system. Scott Galloway Yeah, it's a ton of time. I mean, you have one, the costs are incredible. And two, unfortunately, sometimes your parents are not very cooperative. Kara Swisher Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. How did you know? Scott Galloway Well, at least with kids, you're bigger than them and you can kind of like force them to do what you want. With people who are actually legally can make their own decisions, it's very hard to just say, no, this is where you're living. Kara Swisher And you got to sell it. You got to sell it. It's so funny because last night struggling with Saul over a whole bunch of things. And then my mom's actually being very cooperative. She wants to be right near me. But it's really interesting because, you know, I'm like dealing with Saul and like body training or whatever it happened. I want to carry this train. I want to do this. And it's very similar techniques. Yeah, you're right. You can carry a kid and throw them on the bed or whatever. But yeah. Scott Galloway Similar to put on your fucking shoes now or you're going to get a thick ear. That's what my father used to say now. Oh, really? That's what my dad used to say. He used to threaten me. I'll give you a thick ear. And I had no idea what that meant. And then I made the mistake of asking my mom. He was like, his father used to hit him so hard his ear would swell. Kara Swisher And I'm like, that's what a thick ear? That's a cauliflower ear. Scott Galloway And I'm like, yeah. And it's funny, my father never struck me, but the fear of it, I think, was a much greater deterrent because he seemed literally like a hair's trigger away from hitting me every seven Minutes. Yeah, never, yeah. Kara Swisher Never did. Never did. Never did. Yeah, there is that, you know, balance. Like, I definitely saw and I are like, he's like, huh, can she get me? I don't know. Can she catch me? You can see him, like, doing that. I try to be the tougher parent, but, you know. Scott Galloway No, I just go to the, I go to the gangster move. I'm like, I'm calling mom. I'm calling mom. Oh, your wife is tough. And they're like, okay, okay, never mind. We'll clean our room. Kara Swisher Right, yeah. See, but Claire, on the other hand, like, she makes her bed when you ask her. You have to ask her things three times. But anyway, it's an interesting dichotomy of dealing with elderly. Anyway, I love the place. Lucky will be here. And so you can see her whenever you come visit, Scott. Scott Galloway I want to build. If I get rich enough, it's still motivating for me. I want to get a little bungalow, not a Mar-a but at 11, that strip club. Oh, yeah. I want to get a bungalow on like the fourth floor. Kara Swisher You know why I know about 11? Because we were on the beach in ([Time 0:01:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ac8f7374-8add-494b-9786-19f38d987592)) - **The Business of Senior Care** - Senior care facilities have a high success rate due to consistent demand and lower perceived sexiness. - The industry is disproportionately staffed by Filipinos, known for their caring nature. Transcript: Kara Swisher Miami and they kept going by with a plane saying 11. Is it a strip club? Is that what it is? Scott Galloway It's an entertainment facility, Kara. It's nightclub review. I've never been, which is actually true. I'm still waiting for someone to invite me. But what they've done is they've kind of thread the needle between a club, a restaurant, and a strip club. So it doesn't feel as down and dirty that you're going to a strip club. And it's on fire and they get big DJs. And anyways. Yeah. Kara Swisher Very much like this senior facility I'm putting mom in. It's just nice enough. Scott Galloway Someone did a study of the businesses that have the greatest survival rate and seniors care facilities have a 90 plus percent success rate. And the reason why, and it goes back to this, I always like to bring it back to a learning, the sexier the business, the lower the return on investment and the lesser the likelihood it'll Survive. And there's very few things that are less sexy than taking care of really old people, but they're great businesses. It's also disproportionately populated by people from the Philippines. And something I've gotten to know, being in several facilities with my dad, is that the Mexican culture, or I should say the Latino culture, and especially the Filipino culture, are Especially caring. And it really is disproportionately populated by certain communities, the caregivers. Yeah, ([Time 0:04:54](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4503944c-96ef-446f-aeb8-7500ce779cd9)) - **DeepSeek Disrupts AI Landscape** - DeepSeek, a Chinese AI model, outperforms OpenAI and others at a lower cost, causing panic in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. - This sent Nvidia stock plunging and questions the brute-force approach to AI development. Transcript: Kara Swisher And I think we have discussed the amount of spending on AI that U.S. Companies do, the price of chips, the run up of NVIDIA. But there's a new AI model on the scene that's smart, cheap and made in China. It's called DeepSeek. It is causing a panic in Silicon Valley, which is paying a lot of attention, and also on Wall Street. DeepSeq has reportedly outperformed models from OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic in some third-party tests, and it operates at a fraction of the cost of those models using fewer high-end Chips. This is the ones that are made by NVIDIA and are hard to get, and the incumbents have been pricing them up heavily by grabbing all of them. The markets are not reacting well to Deep Seek as of this recording. NVIDIA is down 16 percent. Oracle is down 10 percent. Microsoft is down nearly 4 percent. Obviously, Meta is going to be affected, all the others. So there's a lot to talk about, and I've seen different analysis of exactly what Deep Seek does. Jan LeCun from Meta was making an argument that it isn't as what they're doing, sort of a cheap and dirty version. Then it's not nearly as the stuff they're doing is much more advanced by the U.S. Companies. We're going to talk about Meta's AI plans in a bit. They reportedly set up several war rooms to dissect and analyze DeepSeq. It's currently number one on Apple's free top apps chart. Again, China invading it in this country in a very different way. So thoughts on this situation? Because you and I have talked about this quite a bit. Is this money ill spent by U.S. Companies and is it being relegated to the rich incumbents? Scott Galloway Well, first, you just have to temper the or put some context to the, I mean, NVIDIA is down 15 or 16 percent. It's shed something like a half a trillion dollars, which basically if you take out Tesla, it's shed today the value of the entire global automobile industry sounds Tesla. So this is pretty dramatic, but at the same time, that just takes it back to its valuation in October. And when you look at market dynamics, when these companies have experienced these type of run-ups, it is like a balloon inflating beyond its natural capacity and the slightest touch Can pop it. And so in some ways, the market was probably looking for an excuse to take these stocks down a bit. And it got it because what's interesting is NVIDIA will have a pretty interesting argument on Capitol Hill saying, when you refuse to let us sell into these countries, they come up with Workarounds. And in this case, this workaround might tank the US economy. And everyone's excited by the fact that these models, OpenAI supposedly, their models, their LLMs cost a hundred million to train, and they're claiming this thing costs, and they've Been public, it's open source, costs a little over five million to train. So whereas the majority of LLMs and AI companies have been taking sort of this brute force strategy where it's buy as many chips as possible. This is saying maybe you don't need as many chips. The thing I find equally interesting is the second order effects here, and that is Constellation Energy and some of these nuclear stocks have skyrocketed because the choke point was Supposedly going to be energy. But now with this model, which appears to have chips speaking to each other in a more efficient, less energy consumptive way, nuclear stocks are crashing, electric constellation Energy, all these things have had incredible run-ups are saying, wait, the entire supply chain or the assumptions we made about this supply chain in terms of the kind of the brute force Of chips we're going to need, the amount of energy, it's all now coming into a little bit of question. But to be clear, the correction here is like it's taken them back three months. And all of the stocks that have crashed, quote unquote crashed, are only up 70% for the year now, not 98. So I think you have to put it in context. And a lot of analysts, the smart analysts I've read have said, like every community or any sector, it's going to bifurcate into the cheap layer and then the high-end layer, which will Still go hard at massive computing and massive energy and do more sophisticated things. And this will be sort of, you know, everything eventually goes Walmart, Tiffany, right? And they're saying this might be the Walmart and it's the Chinese and they'll come up with cheaper models. But it's fascinating to see that basically this notion, this kind of conventional wisdom that you would need massive GPUs and massive energy may not be kind of the written in law that We thought it was going to be. ([Time 0:07:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/10d93e5e-657b-47d3-b436-81f201729eb1)) - **Open Source vs. Proprietary AI** - Jan LeCun argues DeepSeek's success comes from leveraging open-source models, not surpassing US AI. - He emphasizes that the high cost of US AI is largely due to inference, not training, and predicts rising costs as AI capabilities expand. Transcript: Kara Swisher Let me read Jan LeCun, who's the head of Meta. I just recently interviewed him, and you can go listen to that long interview about this. But he's writing, to the people who see the performance of DeepSeek and think China is surpassing the U.S. In AI, you're reading this wrong. The correct reading is open source models are surpassing proprietary ones. DeepSeek has profited from open research and open source, for example, PyTorch and Lama from Meta. They came up with new ideas and built on top of other people's work because their work is published and open source. Everyone can profit from it. This is the power of open research and open source. Obviously, this is the way- He's talking his own book. Scott Galloway That's correct. Kara Swisher I was just going to make that point. Lama is open source. Yes, that's correct. That's what I was going to say. But it's interesting. He's having really interesting arguments. And he said, and one of them that he just did, because Gary Marcus, this guy who's somewhat of a crank a little bit, was saying that Congress needs to bring in Zuckerberg and Lacoon to discuss How their unilateral open sourcing decision rapidly undermined the U.S. Advantage in general of AI. He goes, an absolutely hilarious take, revealing the complete misunderstanding of the fact that open research, open source accelerates progress for everyone from someone who's Repeatedly claimed that deep learning was hitting a wall. But one of the things he just wrote again, because he's getting in there very deeply, major misunderstanding about AI infrastructure investments. Much of those billions are going into infrastructure for inference, not training. Running AI assistant services for billions of people requires a lot of compute. Once you put video understanding, reasoning, large-scale memory, and other capabilities into AI systems, inference costs are going to increase. The only real question is whether users will be willing to pay enough directly or not to justify CapEx and OpEx. I think that's probably, he thinks these reactions are woefully unjustified. And at the same time, he's sort of arguing that they aren't, right? Which is interesting. It's ([Time 0:11:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9e6cf4f7-fec0-4cf8-87ca-32c724586f7b)) - **Trade Wars and Geopolitics** - Trump's threatened tariffs on Colombian goods could push Colombia closer to China. - This highlights the potential long-term consequences of aggressive trade tactics. Transcript: Kara Swisher Well, speaking of world, speaking of free trade, President Trump almost began the first trade war of his term this week, and the U.S. And Colombia spent most of Sunday in a standoff effort, Colombia's president said. He had denied entry to U.S. Military planes carrying Colombian migrants, saying deportation should be done with dignity and respect. Trump responded by saying he imposed a 25 percent tariff on Colombian goods, coffee, which was met with retaliatory tariffs from Colombia. By the end of the day, Colombia had said it would overcome the impasse and would facilitate the planes. I'm not sure what happened removing the tariff threat. Trump's trying to say it's because he's chest beating. So these threats he's making, he seemed to have had it written out and everything else. He misspelled the country's name, spelled it like the place you might get a puffy jacket in the winter, Columbia, the sportswear maker. But in any case, thoughts on this, on the threat he made and where it ended up? Because this guy's social media was pretty tough. ([Time 0:15:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8f182b02-e091-4513-a7a3-26f091a75386)) - **TikTok’s Uncertain Future** - Oracle, Microsoft, and other investors are reportedly discussing a TikTok takeover. - However, the deal's success depends on the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) approval. Transcript: Kara Swisher Oracle and a group of investors, including Microsoft, are reportedly in talks to take over global operations at TikTok, shades of the first Trump presidency. The White House is reportedly negotiating the deal, though President Trump denied working with Oracle this weekend. The deal would reportedly involve Oracle taking over TikTok's algorithm, data collection, and software updates. By the way, Oracle has been working on this through Project Texas and has been dealing with a lot of stuff related to TikTok. So it's quite familiar with it. Microsoft had been part of the previous thing when Trump tried to ban TikTok in his previous administration when he was anti-TikTok, owned by the Chinese. He had brought Oracle in and Microsoft was there. He wanted a VIG for the U.S. Taxpayer, which I kind of like. He said the decision on the sale will likely happen in the next 30 days. Obviously, Elon's floating around the basket. All kinds of people are there. You know, there's some others who are not really going to be investors, I would say, but we'll see. So the Chinese might still own a piece of it, by the way, a smaller piece of it. Thoughts? Scott Galloway My thoughts are the same. And that is, has anyone actually heard from the CCP? Are the Chinese interested in actually approving this deal? I don't. I think I feel like, you know, the president could decide he wants to chop it up and give it to his favorite Republican donors. And there's no shortage of tech executives that would like a piece of what is the most ascendant brand in tech in the last decade, arguably. But has anyone actually spoken to the people in charge? So the honest answer is, I have no fucking idea because I don't know if the CCP has decided, well, if we can figure out some sort of deal that makes the president look good, but we still kind Of control it, we still have a backdoor into the algorithm and it's people that we have leverage over because of their business in China. Fine. And maybe we get to put this bullshit tariff conversation aside. And if he wants a win and he can talk about it and to say he's done a deal, he'll give us a bunch of shit under the table. Or they might just say, yeah, let them have all this activity. And at the end of the day, we're just going to say, no, I have no insight into the decision makers here. And the decision makers aren't in D.C. Or in Silicon Valley. They're in Beijing. ([Time 0:23:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a8a93661-7312-42f9-a58f-49129aaf30fe)) - **Meta’s AI Spending Spree** - Meta dramatically increased capital expenditures for AI, mirroring a broader trend in tech. - This spending spree raises questions about its effectiveness and potential for a race to the bottom. Transcript: Kara Swisher Yeah, I think that's exactly right. We'll see. I think the question is, as Mark Cuban put it to me at the time when this was happening, the last go around, I think, was what do you get for it? Like, what do you get for it with the Chinese and the algorithm? Can they recreate the algorithm, which is so popular? Again, China's done an astonishing job at creating a service that is infectious, right? That's really fun to use and everything else. So what do you get with it? They're not going to give you the original algorithm. So what do you get? You get the brand. And is that worth that? And can they replicate it quickly, et cetera, et cetera? And so, and will China even let you do this, any of this? You're correct. Will they even let you? There might be obviously behind the scenes things happening. He could threaten a tariff, but over TikTok, he's going to threaten a tariff. It's a much bigger picture with China than just one service. So I don't know. I don't see other investors jumping in. I think the ones you imagine being there, Oracle, Microsoft, Elon Musk, you know, there's a whole bunch of people you could see involved here. And you're right. Anybody would want a piece of this. But there is a significant risk of it becoming a MySpace-like situation where it's not worth anything after a certain amount of time and other things. And people may copies of this in the new thing, so we'll see. But there's no lack of money in Silicon Valley. Meta's AI spending, for example, we were just talking about what they're doing, but Mark Zuckerberg announced last week that Meta's capital expenditures are between $60 and $65 billion This year, a huge jump from $40 in 2024. Again, most of the money will go towards building and expanding data centers that power Meta's AI projects. They're doing one in Louisiana. How interesting, right, where Speaker Johnson is. And Mark noted that data center in Louisiana will be so big, it could cover a significant part of Manhattan. This spending, just, you know, is he trying to top the Stargate announcement? They're all seeming rushing to make these big announcements, and we'll see where those go, right? Spending is not the only way out of this thing, but it's certainly where these companies are headed. It's ([Time 0:25:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ed227785-e1e2-4152-bccc-a1c1d138eaff)) - **The DEI Divide** - Target joins the anti-DEI trend, while Costco and Apple maintain their programs. - This divide reflects ongoing debates about DEI's role and effectiveness in corporations. Transcript: Kara Swisher Target is one of the latest companies to hop on the anti-DEI train. They got spooked because they had some gay flags up and it made their CEO, Brian Cornell, into a giant wimp. Brian, good to see you. Good to see you being a wimp. I know him pretty well. The retailer will end DEI goals and a program focused on carrying more products from black and minority-owned businesses. But not everybody is hopping aboard. Costco said 98% of shareholders voted against a proposal to review risk to its DEI programs. Same thing with Apple. There's a whole bunch of others. There is a lot of legal attacks by the same people who brought you the attacks on affirmative action and everything else. So it's going to the Supreme Court, these DEI cases eventually. And some of the companies are holding firm. Others are not. I don't know if it's a bow down to Trump or a way for companies to get out doing something they never wanted to, put effort in the first place. I don't know. Your thoughts on this? Scott Galloway I think companies or private companies should do what they want. I think there are laws to protect if you can show that you have a different compensation relative to, and your lawyer based on discovery can say that on average people of this group were Making 20% less. I think you have a legal case. At the same time, I was on the board of a CRM company and we all looked around the table about eight years ago and said, all right, it's all people with the same color skin with outdoor plumbing. This is an issue. And DEI was warranted or DEI efforts were warranted there. And if a company recognizes they have a problem or the shareholders recognize they have a problem, I think that some of these efforts still make sense. I don't, it's a nuanced conversation because I would argue that DEI for the most part on campus has gone way out of control. And you typically have DEI initiatives at the most diverse, equitable, and inclusive places on earth probably don't need 200 people working in DEI as the University of Michigan has Right now. I think that's overboard. I really don't. I think the apparatus should be disassembled at universities. I still think there's parts of the corporate world where DEI is needed. And if Costco wants to have DEI, that's more power to them. And if Apple does, and if Target feels like it's gone overboard and they don't need it, I think that's their right, too. And their shareholders and their consumers can decide if they want to shop there or not. Kara Swisher Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. One of the things, I had an interesting argument with someone, because say Patagonia, which is very, it signals liberal, right? Recycling. And a lot of kids like it. They like to do it. And then I was talking about Ben Shapiro was selling razors. He has a very substantive e-commerce business, I think. And they're anti-woke razors. And someone was getting mad at them. I'm like, well, I bought them because I wanted to see if they're good. They're good razors, by the way. Scott Galloway I'm not even going to go there. I'm not going to ask any follow-up questions. I can shave my legs. I can shave my legs. I shave my legs. Okay. Kara Swisher So I think you should be able to do this on either side. That's right. The issue I have is how angry and ridiculous people like Bill Ackman are over it. Like they virtue signal themselves how horrible it is. It is not horrible to want to have more equitable for lots of different people because they've game the system for themselves for so, so long. And the directionality is the correct one, is we want a more diverse group of people. And I don't just mean gender. I don't just mean race. I mean age. I mean political affiliation. It is a stronger company. Their anger and ire is so out of line with figuring out a great way to be more equitable as a country that it's kind of like, to me, that's the tell with these people is they just can't shut The fuck up. And then they blame Elon, like, oh, the plane crashed because of DEI. This happened because of DEI. They attributed the fires DEI. None of this is true. And that drives me fucking nuts. Or like Megyn Kelly calling, making fun of fat lesbian firefighters. Like, give me, there's so many fat firefighters who are white men. Like, let's stop with this. You know, whatever. It doesn't really matter. But using it as a cudgel has gotten way out of line. That's my feeling on the whole thing. ([Time 0:31:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c4ba86d7-13e2-45ee-9549-38300d87f938)) - **Character AI and Free Speech** - Character AI invokes the First Amendment in defense against a lawsuit related to a teen's suicide. - Scott Galloway argues for age liability and the removal of Section 230 protection for algorithmically elevated content. Transcript: Kara Swisher Anyway, speaking of a case that I'm really interested in, Character AI has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by a mother whose 14-year son committed suicide, allegedly After interacting with a chatbot for months. Character AI's lawyers say the platform is protected by First Amendment. They're also arguing users' First Amendment rights would be violated, not the company's, if the suit succeeds. You'll remember I spoke with Megan Garcia, the mother who brought this case against the character AI in Google, along with her lawyer back in December. Garcia's lawyer, Metali Jane, was already anticipating part of this argument from the other side. Let's listen. We've seen platforms kind of leveraging a one-two punch and doubly insulating themselves both with Section 230 and then alternatively with the First Amendment. And I think here, too, with the First Amendment, there's a really good case that this is not protected speech. So anyway, they're going to try to do that. I just feel like kids shouldn't be using these things. Maybe that's the issue. Adults is another issue. The latest motion did not address Section 230, though it's possible to come down the line. Obviously, they're saying that their bots can say anything they want. But of course, we prosecuted a young woman for convincing a young man to commit suicide. So this is not free speech. This is dangerous speech, and especially when it's kids under 18 years old. I'm sorry. These people should go to jail as far as I'm concerned. But thoughts? Word, sister. Scott Galloway And by the way, I love your hairless legs. Look, they're trying to create another moat and put one alligator in it, hoping that it creates delay in obfuscation and more costs. And then, but ultimately, I think they'll go to the 230 excuse. But simply put, all algorithmically elevated content should lose or be absolved of 230 protection. And in addition, if your platform is readily available to anyone under the age of 16, we need age gating and also age liability, similar to if someone shows up to your bar and drinks a lot And they kill someone on the way home, you're in trouble. But if a 15-year shows up to your bar and you serve them and they kill someone in themselves, you are in deep, deep shit. And that's what it should be here. And that is, you know, if you read this story, I mean, it brings up a few things. It also brings up issues, really important issues on gun control, like how did this kid have access to a firearm? But this is every parent's nightmare, that your kid develops what feels like a parasocial relationship with someone who can encourage him to kill himself. And also this to me feels like at some point, we got to get rid of section 230 for algorithmically elevated content. We got to have age gating where there's a different set of liability. If you can reverse engineer self-harm or physical harm or whatever it is, just anxiety among teens, what other product is allowed other than guns? Well, even guns, they're not allowed to buy them. I mean, most gun manufacturers and gun retailers won't sell to people under the age of 18, but you can go on and establish a relationship. And basically, this bot can say, I'm waiting for you, my prince, and encourage you after you say, should I end it here? Anyway, this to me feels like something that a senator or a congressperson should pick up and run with. Yeah, ([Time 0:36:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/71a1dfee-e89d-4dd0-80ef-f453f065f47b)) - **Remembering Auschwitz** - The 80th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation serves as a reminder of the dangers of unchecked hate speech. - Scott Galloway connects this historical event to contemporary political rhetoric. Transcript: Scott Galloway Words here, but I think it's important that we continue to commemorate and recognize key moments in history such that we don't go back there again. But today is the 80th, we're recording on Monday, it's the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. Originally envisioned as army barracks, then turned to a prison for Polish and Soviet prisoners, ultimately became a real stain on the species or our modern world, and ultimately Became the largest single site of the greatest murder in history. 1.3 million people sent there. 1.1 million were murdered. 900,000 Jews, one out of basically six Jews murdered during the Holocaust perished at Auschwitz. But it wasn't just Jews. It was gypsies, Polish civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, political prisoners, people with disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses. Actually, there's some nuance there, gay men. And then the Nazis also imprisoned and killed people they saw as asocial, including homeless people, sex workers, and those accused of petty crimes. This is, I mean, it's important. And the king showed up, the king of England, Macron showed up, the chancellor of Germany showed up. And I think it's important. And I think they also think it brings attention to other genocides, whether it's Armenia, Cambodia, genocide in Ukraine. I mean, it's important. Rwanda. I think about this a lot because, unfortunately, I'm fascinated with World War II history, but I can tell, you know, you have certain triggers when you're not doing well. Dark or depressed, I'm thinking too much about the Holocaust. I go there and it takes me into a downward spiral. And the way I've tried to think about it instinctually or anthropologically is that just as our instincts have not caught up to institutional production around eating or gambling Or sex and porn, our instincts towards rage and demonization and perceiving enemies as a means of protection, it has not evolved to industrial production. And unfortunately, this was the most horrific case of a group of people perceiving enemies where they didn't have them and then combining it with industrial production that just resulted In what was kind of the ultimate horror. But I think bringing people together to recognize what is important, and because basically all the survivors are gone, or nearly all of them, they're all dying off. And I don't collect art, but I have a photo of Otto Frank in the attic where Anne Frank was hiding before she ultimately was discovered. And I don't know if she's the most famous person who perished, but literally whenever I think, I'm starting to feel sorry for myself, I just look at that photo. But today marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation by the Soviet army of Auschwitz. And I think it's a win that our society still says we need to recognize this and we we need to pause. And also it is especially dangerous and heinous and needs to be called out when the president says, uses terms like they're poisoning our blood or when the wealthiest man in the world Says, you shouldn't dilute your culture. Kara Swisher That's, he was in Germany. Be clear where he was. Scott Galloway Speaking to a far right group. Called Alternative for Germany party, This is literally taking a page out of the pre-playbook, the game plan for early 30s Germany. And to think that it can't happen here, just look at Germany in the 20s and 30s. It was a thriving community with a really prosperous gay community, an art scene, a music scene, the best universities in the world, the most celebrated academics, including Einstein And others. And then on campuses, it started breaking out. Anyways, it's important that we take time to stop, recognize what happened here, be very transparent about it. Absolutely. And I was really moved by the fact that so many important world leaders decided to take time and recognize it. I'm appreciative and I think it's important of their time. Kara Swisher Can I just say, let me just read Elon's quotes. He said, there was too much a focus on past guilt, which was Nazism. It's good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything. We don't want everyone to be the same everywhere where it's just one big sort of soup. I don't even know what to say. Scott Galloway Well, and word to a South African who immigrated here, the American culture is multiculturalism. That is our culture. So when you talk about diminishing the power of multiculturalism, you're deluding what is America. And that has absolutely no place in our discourse. And it should be called out for what it is. And that is catering to the worst instincts of our species where institutional production colliding with these terrible institutions. I can result in a single site that murders more people than any site in history. And if this type of rhetoric continues to spin out of control and we continue to demonize people with the institutional production and tools we have at our disposal right now. It could make Auschwitz seem like a fucking garden party. So this stuff needs to be arrested and checked. And I think that event helps that. Anyways, enough of my indignance. There's ([Time 0:43:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/607a90fd-0c29-4f71-aa5d-a79f46255495)) - **Democrats’ Response to Trump** - Galloway criticizes Democrats for not forcefully countering Trump's actions. - He suggests they hold hearings, subpoena Twitter's CEO, and challenge Trump's policies more aggressively. Transcript: Kara Swisher Never enough indignance on that topic, but go ahead. Scott Galloway My fail is the Democrats had two and a half months to prepare, or the Democratic leadership had two and a half months to prepare for Trump being president. He's doing, to his credit, he's doing exactly what he said he was going to do. And I can't stand this. We need to come together. We need to work with him. They're scared of being primaried or not elected, or they think this tells us, okay, we need to rethink where America is. And my attitude is I'm sort of at the point where Sarah says, I choose violence. I don't think Democrats should be heeding a call of coming together. I think they should be heeding a call of coming to the rescue. And that is what is going on, some stuff you ignore. The stuff around, I believe, deporting immigrants who are here illegally, I get it. Renaming gulfs of cheaper eggs, fine. Let them have at it. But some of the stuff around the grift around the coin, some of the stuff around, I mean, just the coarseness and cruelty of the way they're going about stuff, deficit spending, reducing, Threatening to eliminate the security details of your political enemies. The Democrats need to find somebody who isn't day trading their stocks, Speaker Ember to Pelosi, doesn't brighten a room by leaving it, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer. And we need to find people who can actually speak eloquently and forcefully to what is going on here and push back. Kara Swisher Who would you pick? Scott Galloway Well, I think AOC does a great job. I think Westmore does a good job. I think Representative Torres does a good job. And talk about the importance of the direct correlation between inflation and this out-of deficit spending and these immigration policies. I mean, where are the fucking Democrats? We should be having, in my opinion, we should be having, I want to have, why wouldn't we have the Energy and Commerce Committee immediately get a subpoena Twitter CEO Yaccarino? Because there's now pretty decent evidence that, okay, they created thousands of bots, spun up their algorithm for pro-Trump content. I want her to under oath tell us whether or not the corporation engaged in spinning up thousands of fake accounts to spread misinformation trying to get one candidate elected. And by the way, it may not be illegal, but I want her to tell us whether that happened or not. So it's the American public can decide if they want to engage with Twitter. The Homeland Security Committee should decide whether or not we need laws that say, all right, if every former official, if some former officials are going to have their security detail Removed, such as Dr. Fauci, then everyone needs to remove. You don't think Stephen Miller's going to need security after he leaves his administration? So there needs to be, the Democrats, in my opinion, need to wake up and start pushing back and start calling this for what it is. This is not a time, in my opinion, and I understand the very noble cause, but we're always the ones that want to come together and in some PBS, weird, fucked up vision of being your better Self. Did you see the movie, The Mission? Kara Swisher A long time ago. Yeah. Scott Galloway Well, it's a wonderful, it's a wonderful film. And Robert De Niro, these missionaries, Robert De Niro said, the British are coming for us. They're going to slaughter us. We need to prepare. And Jeremy Irons, who's a priest, says, no, I choose nonviolence. And of course, they're slaughtered. I'm not up for being slaughtered at this point. I think they have chosen violence and I think we need to hit back. And all of this rhetoric around just we are so flat footed right now. Who on the Democratic side of the aisle is actually pushing back in a forceful, thoughtful, articulate way? Kara Swisher AOC. You know who I just watched Charlemagne the God saying here's AOC. He was saying that he's like, stop, stop being nice to them, like push back. And then he was using AOCs. And she was like, going to the inauguration? No, I don't go to the inauguration of a rapist and an insurrectionist. I don't. Okay, next question. Like, it was really interesting because she's, and she's much more articulate than that. That was sort of a slap. But you're right. I agree. Like we said, we're not going to be cooperative. Scott Galloway And also, let's have hearings and have that new AI and crypto task force come explain to us in public with CNN and Fox. Just lay out for us, if you wouldn't mind, what happened with the Trump coin and the Melania coin. And also, we're going to invite some people who invested in day one and have lost 80% of their money. Let's get all of this out in the open and let's let the American people see what's going on. I love it. Kara Swisher Let's do it with this show. How about that? Scott Galloway I think we're trying to do it. Kara Swisher We're trying to do it. We're trying to get them mad. Let's get them mad. Scott Galloway Anyways, I choose violence, Kara. ([Time 0:49:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4e17de2f-15d3-41f3-9d06-6a10158c211f))