TikTok in Court, Shein and Temu Crackdown, and Guest Evan Ratliff

So, your AI agents

make the team that uses them more productive, right?

But if they aren't connected to other agents, or your data, or your existing workflows, how productive can they really make your teams?

Any business can add AI agents.

IBM connects your agents across your company to change how you do business.

Let's create Smart to Business, IBM.

Support for this show comes from Robinhood.

Wouldn't it be great to manage your portfolio on one platform?

With Robinhood, not only can you trade individual stocks and ETFs, you can also seamlessly buy and sell crypto at low costs.

Trade all in one place.

Get started now on Robinhood.

Trading crypto involves significant risk.

Crypto trading is offered through an account with Robinhood Crypto LLC.

Robinhood Crypto is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services.

Crypto held through Robinhood Crypto is not FDIC insured or SIPIC protected.

Investing involves risk, including loss of principal.

Securities trading is offered through an account with Robinhood Financial LLC, member SIPIC, a registered broker dealer.

This month on Explain It To Me, we're talking about all things wellness.

We spend nearly $2 trillion on things that are supposed to make us well.

Collagen smoothies and cold plunges, Pilates classes, and fitness trackers.

But what does it actually mean to be well?

Why do we want that so badly?

And is all this money really making us healthier and happier?

That's this month on Explain It to Me, presented by Pureleaf.

Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

This is Kara Swisher and I look fantastic in a kilt.

Scott, happy birthday.

You do look fantastic and a kilt.

I'm Scott Galloway and I heard you were excellent on the archery range and axe throwing.

And shooting.

Let's leave that out.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was.

It was really good.

We're going to talk about your second, but I did.

The Scottish men didn't kept calling me wee lassie, which was irritating.

And so I love that.

They were like, oh, do you need to ride wee lassie up the hill?

You got the

full Scottish experience.

Scotland's actually quite progressive, I think.

I think the UK is more progressive than

the U.S.

on a lot of ways.

Yeah.

But tell me about you.

We had such a lovely time in Scotland.

What a beautiful place.

And beautiful, gorgeous.

Your friends are lovely.

Beata, let me say, did an astonishing job.

And by the way, it was interesting in all the tribute videos.

It was all about how lucky you were to have her as a wife.

And I would concur.

How did you feel?

I was anxious for a while.

And then once the speech was over on Saturday, I was able to enjoy myself.

But, you know, when you ask 80 or you ask 100 people to come to Scotland, you know, you're really hoping they have a nice time.

I mean,

it's not, I had friends from LA and San Francisco.

So it's not, it's not, you don't want everyone to have a good time.

You want everyone to have a great time.

And I, to be honest, Kara, I was just a little bit overwhelmed with emotion.

I had everyone from my sister to my best friend from the fourth grade to,

you know, I just, it was just a lot for me.

And once, once all the speeches were over Saturday and I got the sense everyone was having, I'm a transistor.

I'm not

with my family, if my kids are happy, I'm happy.

If I'm somewhere and everyone's having, if someone else is laughing, I'm happy.

So for me, it was once we got to kind of through sort of halfway through Saturday night and it was obvious that everyone was having a nice time and all the speeches were over then I could I could relax and everyone had a great day Saturday and so yeah, it was very it was very rewarding.

I don't think I'll do it again.

Right.

It was well, I don't know.

This was the big one, what, the 75th?

Probably the 75th, right?

No, I still, in 10 years, I'll do my 60th.

Okay.

There's an active thread on Reddit

trying to figure out how much it costs.

Oh, which is sort of interesting.

And also a Reddit talking about how on Instagram, I only follow hot women.

I'm like, you didn't know that?

What am I supposed to call economists like what's the point of instagram it's like my cinemax well let me just say it was a beautiful place it was at a haunted hotel that was nice um and uh and it was just there was full of like animals that were preserved and it was really fantastic it was so scottish it was so like

um

It just felt like we were in a movie in a lot of ways.

But let me just say, Scott, you have a blessed life.

That's all I do.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

You really do.

And I know you have a hard time.

We had a little chat while we were there on the couch there looking like we're dating.

A lot of people thought we're strangely disturbed by this.

That's because you had a tattoo in my initials.

That's right.

And it's still there, by the way.

It's a good tattoo.

But it was very, you were very, you have a hard time.

You should know you're very much loved.

I appreciate that.

And I know that.

Thank you.

Can you ask?

I have one question now.

What was that thing in the front that we're wearing?

Is that a merce?

The little furry thing that you wear in front of your penis, which I didn't know.

No, it's just a little purse.

I don't know the actual name of it.

Did you get a knife for your sock?

Yes, I got a little knife, but it wasn't, it's called a sporin, apparently.

That's what Lara tells me.

I got a little knife, but it wasn't a real one, so I was vaguely, I was vaguely disappointed about that.

No, it's, I'm sure there's a Scottish name for it.

Sporin.

It's a sporin.

No, the sporin.

The purse Mercer talking about.

The purse was called a sporin.

Oh, you're right.

Sporin.

Very good.

You know more about Scotland than I do.

No, Lara just typed it to me, so I didn't know that.

I just said furry weird.

Oh, wait, she sends you tips and not me.

I had the deck so stacked against me here.

It's true.

I'm always the one that gets in trouble.

Yes.

I'm always the one that has my jokes edited.

You would even read the script, which you never do.

You would be part of it.

I'd like to be authentic.

It's the real dog.

It's the real dog.

He doesn't go to the groomer.

He doesn't respond to hand commands.

Which dog are you?

Are you like a Scottish people saw the picture of us because I'm so short and you're so tall and they were surprised by us and kilts, but it did look like that Danny DeVito Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Twins.

You're a Scottish wolfhound and I'm a terrier.

That's what someone said.

I'm sorry.

We saw that picture and I look like a recently divorced father dropping off his five-year-old daughter at Edinburgh Elementary School.

I mean, we look ridiculous.

There's a reason we're on a podcast and not on TV together.

I'm sorry.

We are just not Mika and Joe.

We are not a strange pair.

We are a strange person.

We are a strange pair.

Thank God to the audio medium because

I saw those photos.

Strange pair.

yeah yeah i looked i looked like the alien from close encounters of the first time you look like a scottish redo of irve villichez going the kilt the kilt i mean the cute boss

we look so odd we do anyway i mean cute

you know why i look you look childlike you look childlike

i looked like with george hawn i looked good and by the way george hawn turned his kilt into a britney spears uh video at later in the day yeah he did that thing with his shirt and he started Oh, God.

Yeah.

Hit me one baby hit me.

Dirty dancing.

I admire anyone that behaves that way and he doesn't drink alcohol.

I just think that's a good time.

I know.

He had a good time.

George Hannah.

Your wife was a very good time.

I saw Amanda bust in a move.

Bust in a move.

She likes to dance.

You do not.

I could tell you were hating it.

I was.

And then the kilt.

I can't dance in a kilt.

So anyway, we have so much to get to today, including President Biden cracking down on Sheehan and Timu, your two favorite Chinese retailers, and TikTok gets its day in court, but there's so much more going on.

Plus, our friend of Pivot is journalist Evan Ratliff.

He's got a brand new podcast, Shellgame, where he's embarked on a fascinating experiment with his AI voice clone.

Kind of cool.

But on to serious news.

The FBI is investigating what appears to be a second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

It's not clear yet.

Trump was on his Florida golf course Sunday when a Secret Service agent opened fire on an armed man hiding in the bushes.

The suspected gunman is Ryan Wesley Roth.

I think it's Roth or Roth.

a 58-year-old formal construction worker.

He's been charged with two federal gun crimes.

He supported Trump in 2016, but more recently favored other Republicans like Nikki Haley.

He's registered unaffiliated, but voted in a Democratic primary this year.

He's got some, he's all over the map, but pretty much a Republican

again.

What were your initial thoughts when you heard this?

Look, this is

if you're going to have, we don't have a monopoly on mental illness.

We don't have a monopoly on disaffected young men, although this guy was unusual in that he was 58, who are looking to recapture social capital through what they perceive as some sort of heroic act of violence.

But

this is just happening too much.

And I mean, whether it's school shootings, I mean, all Rosalie did the same thing.

When we were in Scotland, the guy who drove us to the hotel

was taking everyone shooting.

And I said, tell me about the gun laws here.

And he said, oh, you can get a gun here.

It's just you have to take a psychological test.

You can't have a criminal record.

And then the local police officer can then, if they want, say no.

And they oftentimes come to your house.

They want to see where you're storing the gun.

And what do you know?

And by the way, after they had this horrible mass shooting at a school, they, within a couple of weeks, passed laws

outlawing assault weapons.

And I actually believe if we had fewer mass shootings in the U.S., there'd be more momentum against them because they'd be such spectacles.

But because we have so many of them, what you said was actually really radical or kind of radically insightful and depressing, and that is humans adapt.

And Americans have adapted to the steady state of mass shootings in a nation where NRA and far-right folks claim that there's nothing we can do about it in a nation where it's the only place that it happens.

So for me, it all just reverse engineers to guns.

And if you look at key moments in history, arguably the most seminal person of the 20th century was a 19-year-old man, joined a group called the Black Hand.

I mean, when you're 19, like, I don't even know what that means.

And he ended up murdering Archduke Francis Ferdinand, which not only kicked off World War I, but set the stage for World War II.

So if it's not school shootings, if it's not worrying about our kids being shot or cut up by hot metal, at some point you'd like to think that maybe we'll see that you destabilize the world when you have so much access to so many guns by people who are going through a mental health episode.

And then

just things like that.

I was looking at the social media for this guy.

You know, it's typical.

I mean, there's all these nutters online now.

They're just nutty.

They're just, and, you know, you wouldn't necessarily, you know, his son said something lovely about him saying he's, I can't believe this is him.

But, you know, there's, he just was intense online and and um

just over overstimulated let's just say you know and speaking of overstimulated after the last shooting just thoughts there were calls to dial down rhetoric and trump certainly has not done that um hasn't happened at all um

people have not dialed down rhetoric at all and speaking of which elon musk of course because he cannot keep himself out of the center of attention because he's a truly heinous person at this point had a horrific post on X after the incident, essentially encouraging violence against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

He later deleted it.

I'm sure his lawyers got involved and said, oh, he, what was funny in the room among his employees and paid people wasn't quite as funny online in text.

What a fucking asshole.

I don't know what else to say.

He should be investigated.

He has contracts with the government.

I just, this is just, he won't pay a price for it, but what a truly horrific person he has, he is, is and has become.

Yeah, it's my dad, my dad asked me once, he said, a few years ago, he said, as your profile is going, have you found that you're more measured in your comments?

And I proudly said, no, I want to be authentic.

And if I'm thinking it, I say it.

And my dad said, you should be more measured, Scott.

He said that as your influence grows, you need to be careful about shooting from the hip in the sense that

you have an impact.

And if a few people who are unstable or are extremists are listening to you now, now it's hundreds or even thousands.

And you want to be really thoughtful just about

the ripple effect of some of the things you said.

And I thought, wow, he's, you know, I hate it.

I hate it when he's right.

And when you have, there's just a different, there should be a different set of standards for when you put out a communication to 175 million people.

Well, they don't.

I mean, he essentially had a very rapey one at Taylor Swift, which was followed.

I didn't interpret that as rapey.

I did.

It was creepy, as every woman is.

Yes, I agree.

It was weird.

I'll get you pregnant.

Like, what?

Like, excuse me?

It was grotesque.

For women, every woman I know was like, ah, that's really gross.

And the other one was Donald Trump saying yesterday, just before this shooting, this recent attempt, was,

I hate Taylor Swift.

I felt worried for Taylor Swift, who has so much security around her.

That was really dumb.

That just seems to be a good idea.

Well, it adds up.

She's a woman.

Right, right.

But I hate in all caps, it calls out people to do something to Taylor Swift.

It really does.

And what an irresponsible person and then himself, you know, be the subject.

I don't think the assassination,

if it is that, will have any impact on the election because, again, we've gotten used to it with him

and in general.

Yeah, I don't think so.

I think the first one, first off, his political instincts with the blood on his face face to pump his fists and the image of the flag in the background.

That'll be the image of the decade.

We're going into the RNC convention.

I mean, it just, the momentum is there.

This is a bit of a nothing burger other than at some point, at some point you'd like to think we're going to do something here.

Because

if

a world leader is assassinated, it potentially can lead to world war.

And

I don't want to be resigned about it, but when you have have this many guns, these many, I mean, this guy, this guy, I believe, was convicted of owning

a firearm in 2002.

He's had run-ins with the law

in any other Western nation.

If you have run-ins with the law,

you don't get an AK-47.

So anyways, all roads lead back to the same place.

And,

you know,

I find the whole thing a bit of a distraction.

I don't think it's going to have any impact on the race.

But at some point, you know,

I'm a broken fucking record here.

There's no reason to have weapons of war in a nation with 350 million people.

It just doesn't make any sense.

100%.

100%.

It's a shame.

And stop.

Stop with the fucking tweets.

They're not funny.

They're not funny right now.

They're not funny ever, but they're really not funny right now.

And again, Elon Musk is a heinous piece of shit.

Thank you.

All right.

The Biden administration is proposing new shipping rules targeting Xi'an and Timu and Alibaba.

A long-standing trade law that allows low-value shipments to enter the U.S.

without duties and fees.

It's been abused by companies, the administration says.

The new rule would prevent those exemptions.

A report from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party says Xi'an and Timu are likely responsible for more than 30% of all packages within the exemptions.

According to committee, GAP paid $700 million in import duties in 2022, while Xi'an and Timu paid none.

I think that's probably needs to be fixed.

What do you think about this?

It does make things more expensive for the American consumer, for the average.

Yeah, look, just disclosure, I'm an investor in Shein.

I think this is hard to argue for maintaining.

I don't, I mean, two things.

They are, they're taking advantage, as companies do, of a loophole.

And what I would like to see is these taxes done away for everybody.

I'm totally anti-tariffs, anti-taxes, unless it's used as a strategic weapon if we're outsourcing pollution or someone or the Chinese decide to try and dump steel, whatever it is.

But I'd like to see the taxes.

I mean, Gap and HM, you know, say they paid $700 and $200 million respectively on this tax, because this is a loophole that says if it's less than $800 and it's going direct to the household, you don't have to pay these, or I think it's import taxes.

So I think this is hard to argue that this shouldn't be closed or they shouldn't get rid of the taxes or the import duties on the other brands.

What they don't realize is this is only a small cost or delta in what gives these companies such an incredible advantage.

And Shein, and the reason I invested in it is that if you look at companies over the last 20 years that have added tens of billions of dollars in market capitalization, they tend to have one thing in common, and that is their asset light.

And the really amazing thing, the reason I invested in Shein

and the reason why even with if they have to pay these tariffs, they're still going to have an unbelievable advantage over these other players.

And these two companies will be responsible for one in $5

spent over the holidays.

And their advantage is the following.

It's all software.

They don't own any assets.

They don't own a single factory, a single truck, a single plane, a single warehouse, or a single store.

And what they do is they use AI to examine activity on their site.

And with this machine learning and AI, they can go, okay, we're going to need exactly 7,700 pairs of bell-bottom tie-dye jeans.

And then within a microsecond, the software goes, these are the three best factories to produce it.

And then other pieces of the software start going, okay, this is the fastest way to get it to the consumer.

And because it goes, because of all of this incredible demand estimation, it's because it's such a low price, there are fewer and fewer returns.

It's more efficient.

And they're able to charge a fraction of the price of Zara.

I mean, it's what Zara did to everybody else, these guys are doing to Zara, and it's all with software.

There's no assets here.

So as a result, Shein is going to be the second largest apparel company in the world, surpassing Amazon this year.

Next year, they're probably going to surpass Walmart with no assets.

So this will hurt them a little bit.

I think it's unfair.

You should pay the price.

Yeah, they should pay the tax.

But be clear,

it's barely going to slow their growth.

That's not the issue here.

The issue is these other companies have an outdated business model, and Shein has just a much better business model.

Yeah, well, Walmart was ahead and technologically.

That's why they did so well.

Technology always matters in these cases.

But we'll see.

They deserve to pay the tax.

Sorry.

Sorry, companies.

You have to pay the tax.

All right, Scott, let's go in a quick break.

When we come back, we'll talk about some big changes coming to OpenAI, and we'll chat with our friend of Pivot, Evan Ratliff.

He'll share what it was like to create an AI clone of himself.

We need an AI clone of Scott Galloway.

As a founder, you're moving fast towards product market fit, your next round, or your first big enterprise deal.

But with AI accelerating how quickly startups build and ship, security expectations are also coming in faster, and those expectations are higher than ever.

Getting security and compliance right can unlock growth or stall it if you wait too long.

Vanta is a trust management platform that helps businesses automate security and compliance across more than 35 frameworks like SOC2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and more.

With deep integrations and automated workflows built for fast-moving teams, Vanta gets you audit ready fast and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring as your models, infrastructure, and customers evolve.

That's why fast-growing startups like Langchain, Writer, and Cursor have all trusted Vanta to build a scalable compliance foundation from the start.

Go to Vanta.com slash Fox to save $1,000 today through the Vanta for Startups program and join over 10,000 ambitious companies already scaling with Vanta.

That's vanta.com slash box to save $1,000 for a limited time.

Support for Pivot comes from LinkedIn.

From talking about sports, discussing the latest movies, everyone is looking for a real connection to the people around them.

But it's not just person to person, it's the same connection that's needed in business.

And it can be the hardest part about B2B marketing, finding the right people, making the right connections.

But instead of spending hours and hours scavenging social media feeds, you can just tap LinkedIn ads to reach the right professionals.

According to LinkedIn, they have grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals, making it stand apart from other ad buys.

You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority skills, and company revenue, giving you all the professionals you need to reach in one place.

So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience and start targeting the right professionals only on LinkedIn ads.

LinkedIn will even give you $100 credit on your your next campaign so you can try it for yourself.

Just go to linkedin.com slash pivot pod.

That's linkedin.com slash pivot pod.

Terms and conditions apply.

Only on LinkedIn ads.

Attention all small biz owners.

At the UPS store, you can count on us to handle your packages with care.

With our certified packing experts, your packages are properly packed and protected.

And with our pack and ship guarantee, when we pack it and ship it, we guarantee it.

Because your items arrive safe or you'll be reimbursed.

Visit theupsstore.com/slash guarantee for full details.

Most locations are independently owned.

Product services, pricing, and hours of operation may vary.

See Center for Details.

The UPS store.

Be unstoppable.

Come into your local store today.

Scott, we're back with more news.

TikTok is heading to court to fight for the right to remain available in the U.S.

as we tape on Monday.

The case stems from the law signed in April, which would require ByteDance to sell the app to a non-Chinese owner or face a U.S.

ban.

ByteDance sued to block the law in May, arguing ban would violate free speech rights.

The court ruling will not likely be the final say as legal experts expect the case to go to the Supreme Court.

Is there anything TikTok can say that would be impressive enough to get them out of the ban?

Obviously, it's going to, they'll probably be a stay and back and forth, but it looks like they have to do something now.

Yeah,

look, I don't,

I think this is going to get solved.

I think if I think they're playing, my guess is TikTok's doing everything it can to try and delay until hoping that Trump gets elected or hoping that after the election, people, that it's

I think they're hoping that it's Trump because even though Trump is now turned, you know, is now says he's for TikTok because he hates Facebook, they're hoping that similar to other issues that we're like a cat chasing a light and then we get distracted with something else.

But I don't,

I think this, and I've said this, I think it will on the eve of the banning, the White House and the quote-unquote folks at TikTok, meaning including the CCP, will come to some sort of accommodation because

I think a decent way to bet on anything is just to follow the money.

So I think they'll come to some sort of accommodation in terms of spending it or divesting it.

There is a face-saving element with China, though.

They don't, they do not, they feel that they are bigger than the U.S.

You know what I mean?

They aren't going to act like they acquiesce to the U.S.

So I think there's elements of that, of not, you know, standing down.

It'd be interesting if Vice President Harris has part of this.

Obviously, she has legal skills.

And, you know, this is a dicey thing.

She's been sort of in the middle of this.

Like, well, there should be a ban.

There should be not a ban, but a new owner.

That's, I think, how she's putting it.

And so, and I think she must be fully aware of the constitutional issues around free speech here.

So.

It'll be interesting if she was, they sort of gave her a gimme here and let her be the face of a settlement of some sort

where everyone gets to keep their TikTok and yet U.S.

security is protected, right?

That's that seems to me what will happen here if something will happen.

If not, it's going to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court will decide what's a national security issue and what is, you know, if we can as a country do that.

We do it in other areas and whether this is a free speech right or just a national security issue or both in some fashion.

Yeah, but it falls under the same rubric if we've decided that anything that's communicated digitally can be can be be categorized or immunized for any scrutiny, whether it's a defense threat or hostility or crime, if we just call it speech.

And we have consistently, frequently, early and often decided that defense trumps free speech.

And I believe that the Supreme Court would find that.

would find that here.

So I don't think.

There's certainly precedent with broadcast networks, magazines, other media, right?

They can't really own it in the same way.

And

any remedy would probably involve a divestiture of ownership.

And to your point around China not wanting to save face, I think that argument would have held more water two years ago.

Because in the last two or three years, the Chinese stock market has shed three, the Chinese stock market is literally off.

That's a very good point.

By a third, it's been cut in half.

And here's the thing.

When the economy goes really bad and people's quality of life goes down, in most democracies, they vote in the other party.

Voting in the other party in China means revolution.

And to a certain extent, I mean, granted, they're autocrats, but to not think that they're not very sensitive to what people are thinking,

they need to understand.

China has to keep pulling about 30 to 50 million people out of poverty into the middle class each year, or there's going to be a revolution.

And things do not end well.

It's not like

they go start building homes for habitat for humanity and a library gets named after them.

They end up getting killed when they're overthrown, if you will.

So these guys, if you think about Xi,

he cannot kneecap his thoroughbreds economically.

And the kind of really tough line,

the really tough line he's taken with Didi and some of these companies,

there are now big companies in

Alibaba's been cut by 60%.

They have because of what they did to Jack.

Yeah, there are analysts now who are saying that Chinese companies are uninvestable.

And this is a big issue for their economy.

So, China,

you remember all this bullshit that China was going to overtake the U.S.

economy by 2028?

We have absolutely,

we're killing it.

We're absolutely beating the shit out of them.

Anyways, my point is, I think they need to come to some sort of accommodation.

They're hoping that, like on so many other issues that we have, the attention span, you know, of a, of a cat.

Yeah.

It's got to be done very deftly.

It's got to be done super deftly with cooperation from decent Republicans.

And

I think Harris is going to be right.

Just like

the hostage negotiations with Russia,

I think she might benefit here from it looking like she handled it, right?

Handled.

That's a strong, with a strong thing with minimal criticism, right?

And that we can get it out of the way.

But it is better to get it out of the way than have it go to the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court will rule in favor of defense,

especially this Supreme Court.

Although

it has done a lot of free speech stuff around companies and ruled against like Missouri and Texas.

So who knows?

Next, speaking of people that are killing it, Sam Altman has told OpenAI staff the company's nonprofit structure is set to change next year, according to Fortune.

An OpenAI spokesman responded to reports saying the nonprofit is core to our mission.

We'll continue.

It exists, how much it exists, we'll see.

But as we discussed last week, OpenAI is now in talks to raise about $6.5 billion.

It would value the company at $150 billion.

That was a big leap from $100 billion.

It's doing very well.

It's selling a lot of, it has a really good strong balance sheet right now.

Of course, but things cost a lot.

That's the problem.

Microsoft is set to participate in the funding round, and Apple and NVIDIA are also in talks to invest.

I mean, they're going to need money from all over the world for this kind of funds.

Talk about the new funding.

What do you think of these numbers?

And what's your latest prediction for when OpenAI goes for an IPO?

I don't know.

It's difficult to predict when companies go public because they're now, what's different is you just maybe 10 years ago, you wouldn't be able to raise $7 billion in the private markets.

So, and not only that, the reason you went public was a fundraising event to raise this kind of capital and also provide liquidity to the existing shareholders.

And you can do both of these things now in the private markets.

So it's like, well, when do we really want to, unfortunately, what that's led to is the starching of all the upside to private investors, VCs, and institutions.

Now, if OpenAI goes to $150 billion,

it might even go to $500.

And unfortunately, when these companies decide to go public, oftentimes the best companies is when they think it's gotten so fucking expensive, the only people we can convince to invest at a higher valuation are retail investors.

So a lot of the kind of fun, a lot of the kind of the white meat or the real value here gets starched out in the private market.

So I don't think they could stay private.

I mean, the question is, why would they go public unless they thought retail investors were the only ones dumb enough to keep bidding this thing up?

And at 150 billion, we said this the last time, relative to other AI companies, I think it's undervalued because if these other companies are raising at what they're raising at with a fraction

with a fraction of the strategic assets, the leadership.

I mean, Sam Altman really is kind of the Bill Gates or the Elon Musk, whatever the analogy is of his generation.

He has managed this thing really well.

They are pulling away.

They're raising a ton ton of capital.

The new, you know, I don't know if you've seen this new feature where they, they, it thinks longer.

I think that's brilliant marketing.

They have more capital to spend.

I, but I don't, I wouldn't expect an IPO anytime soon.

They don't need it.

Why do they need it?

Why do they need to go public?

Well, it's interesting.

Well, because they've got competitors everywhere.

I mean, just Larry Ellison just gave an interview, Oracle.

He's his best buddy, all time of us said that.

Yeah, I know, it is.

That's having, he's become the second richest man for, I think, briefly.

I think he's probably down again.

But he said that vast AI-fueled surveillance system can ensure citizens will be on their best behavior.

Thanks, Larry.

We should be watching you.

Jesus, tomorrow belongs to me.

I know, I know, I know.

I was like, maybe we should watch Larry.

Best behavior.

Define best behavior, white man.

What is happening?

Between you and Musk.

God, we really do need AI to watch you too.

But he also, you know, he was saying they begged Jensen Wong for GPUs over dinner in this interview.

You know, this is people are are really spending here.

And so I would suspect they need, they, they, they absolutely have to,

they have to be

geared for to be competing with these people who are, you know, not, who are spending money all over the place.

And Musk, he did some, I think it was in Tennessee or one of those,

he, he put, he, he did illegal or things that were questionable about the power grid there.

He put, I think he put in methane things, hurting people there.

They're all in the race.

And, you know, Ellison talked about nuclear reactors that he needs to build to create the energy necessary.

So the money is just, the costs are massive.

And again, even though I think fewer players will win here than others, it's a race.

The race is on.

So he's got Sam Altman's got to be as strong as he can against these.

And he needs as many allies.

There isn't sort of an Ellison Musk team and a Microsoft Altman Apple team.

NVIDIA is sort of in the middle, but I suspect,

you know, probably will maybe invest here too, which I think then the Justice Department has to look at the stuff too.

So there's enormous money happening here.

So we'll see.

But just real quickly, one guy, Ellison, is probably the kind of the

billionaire no one's talking about in AI.

I think their AI group is growing really quickly.

Yeah.

Talk about their stock.

Their stock is

at an all-time high.

Yeah, because he said AI several times.

But it's more than just AI washing.

They are actually their fastest growing.

I think their revenues are 6% or 7%, but their AI group is exploding.

Just this week, it started September 9th, and now it's gone.

It was down in the hundred, it's been around 139, 140, and it just came up to 173 in the last couple of days.

Since September 9th is when it's a really well-managed company, and no one ever, I mean, quite frankly, he's the billionaire.

I mean, A, second, second,

there are very few people that are as powerful and executing as well and as rich as him.

They get as little press.

You don't really hear about him or Oracle a lot.

And they are executing really well.

He saw AI.

And I mean, Microsoft was obviously the visionary in terms of existing companies around this.

Alphabet, you would argue, has been slowest, but he has, to a certain extent, kind of turned a tanker.

And you could argue maybe a little bit less Dell, but the stock's at an all-time high.

He's an outstanding manager, and the team there has done a great job.

Yeah,

he's also an older gentleman.

Speaking of age, he's an older gentleman.

You know, Salesforce stock has gone up too, even though it's down for the last month.

It's been moving since September 11th or 9th or something like that.

It's been moving slowly up from the 240s to the

260s close.

Anyway, it's interesting to see what's happening with all these shares

in that genre area.

But yes, Larry Ellison's a very sharp cookie.

So we'll see what happens.

I think they need to go public.

They need as much

Howitts or Power.

We're using too many shooting metaphors, but they need as much power as possible.

They need as much whiskey power as possible, Scott Galloway.

Anyway, do you like that?

The Scottish accent is worse than mine.

Do you like it?

That sounds like a language that twins speak to each other.

Yeah.

Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

Evan Ratliff is a longtime tech journalist and the host of a new podcast, Shell Game.

He's been a great podcaster for many years.

So, Evan, tell us what this new podcast is about.

We sort of previewed it as about AI capabilities, but give us

your elevated pitch on this one.

It is about AI, but it's sort of taking AI from a very personal, immersive approach, I would say, which is that for the show, I created a clone of my voice.

I attached that clone to

a phone line.

I attached it to an AI chatbot to power it.

And I created what's called a voice agent, which is basically a semi-autonomous AI voice that could be sent out into the world.

And then I kind of let it loose.

I let it talk to people.

I had it call people.

I had people call it.

I set up a line for it to talk to telemarketers and scammers.

I talked to my friends and family.

And so I started doing a combination of things, kind of seeing where the technology was when it comes to voice AI and also how people reacted to it.

Cause I think what I was most interested in was just sort of the reaction.

The reaction, like how knowing it wasn't you, correct?

It wasn't tricking people necessarily.

It was tricking people.

Sorry, just tricky people.

Some people.

Some people.

Yeah.

Oh, some people.

It wasn't, it was, it was only, it was sort of, it had varying success at tricking people.

I mean, I had to call my friends and family from my phone number, attached to my own phone number, without them knowing that I was doing any such project.

And

most of them pretty quickly realized it wasn't me.

They realized something was amiss.

Or something was wrong with you.

Let me just say, it's called show games.

So after making the show, are you more or less worried about it?

Because one of your friends, I mean, again, as you said, you do lots of things on your behalf, including talking to therapists and friends and marketers.

One of your friends said he felt so lonely talking to the AI.

So

do you feel more or less worried about the capabilities?

I would say more worried than when I started, although

I was fairly worried at the beginning.

Why is that?

I think partly because there's a lot of talk about sort of the big AI safety issues,

the more doom related issues or the kill switch or this and that, but less about sort of the daily infiltration of AI into our lives and what we want to do with that and what that's going to mean for us to be human.

And I think voices actually sort of brings that to light in a way that just typing into a chat box or sending an email that ChatGPT is composed doesn't, in that you're going to be interacting with AI voices.

You're going to be hearing AI voices that are almost real, very real, sound real, can fool you.

And the question is, how much of that do we want in our lives?

And I just think that discussion is not even happening.

Like there's AI therapists out in the world right now.

Right.

But your friends were not fooled necessarily.

I mean, they weren't, right?

Correct?

Because it doesn't really mimic you that well.

It mimics me well.

I mean, not for my oldest friends.

I mean, I had one friend who spoke to it for 10 minutes, believing that it was me, but that I had had a mental health break.

Okay.

Okay.

And on that note, Scott.

Nice to meet you, Evan.

My sense is.

So the entertainment community is really worried about AI replacing actors and that, you know, podcasts at some point.

They, they listen to Kara

and me and then start mimicking.

We feed into the LLMs, today's or this week's news, and it uses it, throws in a dick joke.

Kara gets angry at me.

Kara talks about somebody she knows.

And then boom, we put out a reasonable facsimile of Pivot.

And pretty soon, Vox no longer needs Kara and Scott.

I have found that is not the case, that it is shockingly anodyne and so far hasn't made the progress that everyone was worried about.

You've been there.

A, do you agree with that?

And B, what advice would you have for creatives who are looking to inoculate themselves as this gets better?

Is it being more salty, differentiated?

Advise your kids, if they're creators, on how they stave off the advances in AI.

Well, I mean, I would agree with you that it is fairly anodyne.

I mean, the sort of running joke of the show is that when you have them speak at length, it becomes incredibly anodyne.

So for instance, we have them talk to each other.

They have these conversations that are sort of unbelievably mundane.

But on the other hand, I think the problem is for many, take podcasting, for example, there are so many people speaking into microphones now, and many of them are just mimicking each other.

And when the content that is being created is itself anodyne, it's relatively easy to replace.

So I think part of the problem is we've dumbed down much of what we consider journalism on the internet to a level that it actually is replaceable by an anodyne LLM or a voice-powered LLM.

And so

if I was giving advice, it would be to try to find unique ways to express yourself that are not based on everything that you hear every day.

Because the problem is people are just mimicking what they're hearing.

I mean, you can go on Instagram and just get clip after the algorithm just feed you clip after clip of people saying literally the same thing in different forums.

And so I think uniqueness is going to be at a premium because even if it can replicate your voice, it's going to have a much harder time replicating that creativity, which doesn't mean that creativity is

necessarily safe.

Like the more creative you are, the more, the safer you are.

But I do think that the more anodyne what you're doing is, the easier it is for it to be replaced.

Right.

But it's like the emails you get.

They aren't very good, right?

They're not interesting as writing yet, at the very least.

Do you wish it could do something else?

I was surprised.

And I think a lot of people who have listened to the show are surprised at how good it is, actually.

Like, I think as much as tech journalists write about LLMs, they write about OpenAI and how the model, what is the new model and this and that, most people are not consuming all that stuff.

And when they find out that they're, you can make a voice clone that sounds reasonably like you, that is powered by AI and can have its own conversations, a lot of people are quite shocked and concerned about that.

So I found that in that sense, it's actually more powerful right now than a lot of people think it is.

Now, we say, well, it can't do this, it can't do that, it can't act in a movie, it can't actually be a journalist, but even it's sort of pushing the boundaries of those things too.

Like I had to conduct interviews.

interviews that I would have conducted.

And the fact is, like some of the questions that I would ask, that I would put into a document for myself to ask, it's pretty good at asking those questions.

It's not very good at following up.

But even some of the people it talked to, they didn't know it wasn't me because they're expecting a journalist to ask questions and that's what they got.

But that's being you.

I would like it to be like Jarvis on, you know, on

the Avengers movies, like that, where I have a discussion, do this for me, do that for me.

I could see that being much more attractive than it being me.

Like a digital assistant kind of thing.

Yeah, that seems very logical to me and very helpful, actually.

You produced this show independently.

I'd love to know a little bit of why you decided to do this.

Of course, you were the longtime host, along with others, of Longform.

You also did Persona, the French Deception.

And you also did a very famous thing way back when, about 12 years ago, I guess, where you vanished.

You vanished and there was Wired had a reward when you worked for Wired.

I think you worked for Wired.

But you were off the grid communicating,

which was hysterical.

I remember that at the time.

they eventually found you in the challenge to to get you.

You left a coded message, etc.

Um, you've done a lot of different things, obviously.

That was honestly my favorite, The Vanishing, but um, you and many people talk, yeah, talk about why you decided to do this independently and about the end of long form, which was, I think, in June.

I think June is one of the things it was, yeah, right at the end of June.

Um, I mean, there's a long answer to short answer when it comes to doing it independently.

I think the shortest answer is, I knew what I wanted to do, and I wanted to have complete control over how it was made.

I mean, if you listen to the show, it's like a lot of it is very weird and it's very funny because we kind of push the boundaries on these strange ways you can use it, like having it talk to therapy or having it talk to itself.

And I just didn't want in this day and age.

When you do a podcast with a big platform, a lot of people get involved and they have a lot of opinions and they're very institutional.

And so some of those opinions are, they're not really willing to take risks.

And I was very happy to take risks that I didn't want anyone telling me not to.

That's the basic answer.

Well, welcome to our club.

That's what we don't like.

What?

And that's what we say.

We often are like, are you speaking to us?

Because we're not listening to you.

So I did, we built a Prov T AI.

And one of the things I found, I'm curious if you believe this or found the same thing.

I find that AI is.

progressive or woke is the wrong term.

It's politically correct

and that it's been trained on, I think, because these companies are worried about, you know, everybody tried to start getting it to say racist things or say stupid things.

And so I think which it did, which it did.

But as a result of that, I think it's built in so many protections that I find that it errs on the side of being very overly sensitive is the term

I found it that it's it's it's over correcting to the

I don't know like your you know your stepmother or your, your mother-in-law doesn't want to say anything that might offend people, even when occasionally Kara and I will say to somebody, that's just fucking stupid.

It would never say that.

Did you find that it kind of errs on the side of being over-mannered or politically correct?

That's what I found.

It's certainly over-mannered.

I didn't really explore the political correctness or the wokeness aspect of it.

Like that's not a big interest of mine.

But it did, when it came to being well-mannered, I would take it even further, which is that, so for instance, when when we had two of them talk to each other, so there's two AI versions of me in conversations with each other, and I would prompt one to be angry at the other.

I would say, you're angry at the other one.

You're angry at this person you're about to talk to.

The reason is up to you.

They would resolve their differences within.

a minute or two of the conversation.

And I believe that's because, and they would often do it using mental health terminology that I think the training data tends to center on.

There's so much discussion of mental health now.

There's so much discussion of

mirroring back what someone says that it would use all these techniques.

And I would have to really prompt it very severely for it to stay mad.

I have to literally have to say, there is nothing that will make you let go of this anger.

And then it would do it.

But other, short of that,

they would always come to an agreement.

It was actually quite lovely, but it was also, there was something very strange and funny about it.

Well, although.

I would argue if you had real people not on Twitter and you had them in a room, that's exactly what they do.

People don't, you know,

they'll do it on a, on a, on a social network, start really going down a rabbit hole of anger and rage.

But when you have two people in a room, they tend to try to come to an agreement.

I don't know.

I've always noticed that, which I think is the difference between online and offline sometimes.

Certainly in person.

Yeah.

I mean, it all highlights a value of

in-person communications.

I mean, the whole thing points to what you get when you sit across the table from someone.

Right, right.

It's very hard to get people, except if you're on Jerry Springer's show, but that's all designed for bullshit.

But I have one more question.

What will you have the AI do in season two

of this?

I'm not sure yet.

I mean, the question is, will I even, will season two even be AI driven?

I mean, the sort of premise of the show is it's a show about things that are not what they seem.

So that covers a lot of my journalism over the last 10 to 20 years.

So it may be AI.

I mean, I'm surprised the extent to which people love the AI agent.

Like, they want to hear more of it.

They want more calls.

They want it to be prompted in different ways.

People want to call it.

Now I have people, people can call it and talk to it, and people love doing that.

And so there's something in that that I might explore further.

But I also, I don't want to be the AI voice guy forever either.

Yeah, that's true.

I mean, it's interesting for now.

And in 10 years, I'll be bored with it.

Like, why would you want to talk?

You know what I mean?

Sort of trying certain things.

Scott, last question.

Curious after getting deep here, what jobs do you think are most at risk?

And if and what businesses

would you advise people to consider starting leveraging this technology?

I mean, the most obvious thing that's immediately at risk is all sorts of call center-based telemarketing stuff.

I mean, that's the stuff that it's used for right now.

So that's an obvious one.

But I think anything where people are just sort of reading off a script, I mean,

a lot of the advertising you're going to hear is going to have AI voices in it.

Be surprised if you're not hearing that already a little bit.

I mean, you both probably know, like there are podcasters who use this to fill in parts of podcasts using clone voices.

Like that is already happening right now.

There's a major podcast platform that tried to launch an AI-hosted podcast.

And so

this doesn't mean like podcasting is under threat necessarily, but I think they're going to infiltrate.

It's going to be much less sort of like everyone getting wiped away in an industry and much more just sort of like little places where it starts to

infiltrate and then it kind of grows out from there.

We were thinking of translation, right, Scott?

The idea of translating.

Well, that's an easy one.

You can now put almost any podcast and even the video.

It doesn't get the eye movement right, but you can do it with other languages.

But the customer service is really

what Evan was talking about.

It's just crazy

how much more efficient I've been using all these bots for airlines or whatever you call them, chat agents.

It's been really striking.

Do you think there really is a threat?

Do you think that the fear of the writers' unions about an AI in these writers room, we're putting together a writer's room and

the showrunner said, should we have AI in the room?

And I said, no, you should have people know how to use AI in the room just for brainstorming.

Do you think that their fears are overblown, underblown?

I don't think they're overblown.

I mean, I think it's very smart to try to have discussions about this

before it's absolutely everywhere.

Because the risk is like it's being put into the market without any of these discussions.

And so places, unions and other places.

And that's never happened before in tech, but go ahead.

Right, exactly.

And so anywhere where these discussions can be had, whether it's around trying to ban it from writers' rooms or whatnot, it doesn't necessarily mean like it has no place there or it has no place in.

getting you past a writing block or prompting creativity or whatever.

Like without condemning the technology, I feel like having the discussion, well, what do we want out of of these rooms?

What do we want out of human writing?

Those are discussions that are worthwhile to have.

Yep.

That's a fair point.

Anyway, does our boy spoon have another name, Evan 2, Evan AI?

Over the purpose of the show, it was always me.

So it's just AI, AI, Evan Ratliff, but oftentimes it was just operating under Evan Ratliff until questioned.

All right.

Okay.

Evan Ratliff.

That's interesting.

Anyway, we really appreciate it.

It's a really cool podcast.

It's called Shell Game.

Listen wherever you get your podcast.

Thank you, Evan.

Thanks, Evan.

Thanks for having me.

All right, Scott, what did you think of that?

That guy's impressive.

He should be on TV.

He's got a great voice.

He's very handsome.

It's obviously very talented.

But I found it really interesting what he was saying about trying to get

the AIs to be angry at each other.

But what people don't realize,

there's only three things you need to have in your arsenal for all conflict resolution.

When things get really heated, you pick one of the following three things.

You just pause, you look at them in the eyes, and you say, I'm taking the kids.

I'll be at my sister's.

That's number one.

Number two,

number two, man or woman, you pause and you look at them and you say, Is that the menopause speaking?

Question mark.

And then the third thing, if you're really, if things get really heated, you look around and then you look at them and you go, wait, you can see me?

Boom!

Conflict over.

World,

Tara, you're welcome.

I like Scott in this seventh decade of his

fifth.

I'm seriously, I'm done.

We need to stop.

The scrotum lift is kicking in.

Anyway, whatever.

You do whatever you want.

You're 29.

Okay.

All right.

Next up, wins and fails.

Support for the show comes from Saks Fifth Avenue.

Saks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to shop for your personal style.

Follow us here, and you can invest in some new arrivals that you'll want to wear again and again, like a relaxed product blazer and Gucci loafers, which can take you from work to the weekend.

Shopping from Saks feels totally customized, from the in-store stylist to a visit to Saks.com, where they can show you things that fit your style and taste.

They'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in or when that Brunella Cuccinelli sweater you've been eyeing is back in stock.

So if you're like me and you need shopping to be personalized and easy, head to Saks 5th Avenue for the best fall arrivals and style inspiration.

At blinds.com, it's not just about window treatments.

It's about you, your style, your space, your way.

Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right.

From free expert design help to our 100% satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows.

Because at blinds.com, the only thing we treat better than windows is you.

Visit blinds.com now for up to 50% off with minimum purchase plus a professional measure at no cost.

Rules and restrictions apply.

I get so many headaches every month.

It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting lasting four hours or more.

Botox, autobotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine.

It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month.

Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor.

Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms.

Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition.

Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk.

Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection, side pain, fatigue, and headache.

Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness.

Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection.

Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lugarix's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

Why wait?

Ask your doctor.

Visit BotoxchronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails.

Shall I go?

Sure, go ahead.

The Emmys were delightful.

I watched Piss.

I didn't watch it in real time, but I thought the outfits were great.

And I thought it was, I thought Steve Martin, the group from Only Murders in the Building, Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short.

He's dating Martin.

By the way, he's dating

Meryl Streep.

He's dating Meryl Streep.

But not dating?

I don't know.

It's not confirmed.

Whatever.

They seem like they're dating.

You mean actually in real life?

Yes.

Just rumored.

Oh, no.

They're sitting together all the time.

They're out Martin Short and Meryl Streep.

I don't know how I feel about that.

Not confirmed, but I know, but that's what it has happening.

They were sitting together.

They've been going to things together.

I'm sorry.

Sophie chooses Martin Short.

I just don't know.

It's a rumor, but I'm just telling you.

Yeah, I think it's so.

Anyway, the Emmys were really delightful.

There's so much good television.

Baby Ren, dear.

They both won.

Yeah.

Jean Smart.

winning for hacks.

I just love it.

She gave a great speech.

I thought it was, TV is really, even though the economics of it have changed drastically and not in the better.

It's great for consumers.

Yeah, it is.

I got to say, Hacks is so good.

Gene Smart.

That's my win.

My fail is

Elon Musk and Donald Trump tweeting very dangerous things around people's, I hate Taylor Swift and the threat against Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.

It was, it's repulsive.

You cannot, you need to stand the fuck down.

I don't think you will because you're both toddlers, but it's dangerous.

It's actually dangerous.

We can make as many memes as we want about this thing, but it's not funny.

You're not funny.

You're only funny to the people you pay and they don't think you're funny, really.

And they're, and, and they have to laugh.

They're forced to laugh.

So that's my fail.

Nice.

Yeah, I wanted, um, I was really excited about, I thought

Richard, Richard Gadd, I, I, if I think about all the artists who have really changed the world or I admire, they're just sort of fearless and they do something that they could easily be mocked and they show a level of vulnerability and courage where it's like, okay, no one ever thought of that.

And this guy, Richard Gadd, I thought his performance because it was autobiographical was just so raw and so

I just thought it was so powerful.

I couldn't, I'm really happy for him.

And also, I believe his counterpart, the woman who plays a stalker, I believe she also won

Hiroyuki Sonata won for Shogun.

By the way, Shogun record 18 Emmy wins, just so you you mentioned.

Oh, it did.

I didn't know that.

But what people, we talk, we should post a lot about, you know, how stupid the union is or I do, or how these, these companies are becoming a shadow of themselves and consolidating because Netflix is running away with it.

But what we don't mention enough is that the biggest winner here are the consumers because

the quality and depth of original scripted television right now is just insane.

It's just incredible because they're all in a content war and they're all basically putting each other out of business, quite frankly, with the exception of Netflix.

Anyways, I'm like you.

This is a weird one, but I wanted to share it because I thought it was interesting.

There's this wonderful TikTok or Reels of this woman

who has alopecia.

And she's talking about, she goes out with a wig on for the first time.

And she does a 30-second video showing her hair loss.

And she's very emotional.

And she's saying that this is the first time in a decade I've gone out without a wig to run errands.

And I'm not going to let alopecia change my life.

It's really a wonderful, very gripping TikTok, or I can't remember if it was TikTok or Reel.

And I remember thinking, I was looking at this woman, she had this most beautiful skin, a great smile.

And it's like, yeah, people are going to look at her and think, okay, she has hair loss.

But then they really, they look at the whole thing and they think, she's an attractive woman who looks nice.

She had the great nails.

And anyways, and what I would say, and I so related to this, because I remember

when I was a young man, when I started losing my hair, and it was like five years of just ridiculous stress.

Because for me, it meant kind of my manhood, my youth.

My hair was something I took a lot of pride in.

I had a ponytail.

I had spectacular hair.

I was amazed by those photos.

I did.

And when you start losing it for a lot of reasons, it's just devastating.

And like so many things.

What I realize now and what I would want to try and communicate to people, especially young men and also especially young women, a lot of whom experience hair loss, but they have to wear wigs because it's unforgivable for a woman to lose her hair in the eyes of a very look-ist America.

I can promise you, the thing you're going to regret is how upset you were about it.

And that people, when they look at you, they look at the whole thing.

And there's, you can be in shape, you can take great care of your skin,

you can dress interestingly.

There's so many, people look at the entire thing.

And anything to do with my looks or insecurity, my acne when I was younger, my hair loss when I was a little bit older, the thing I really regret about it is how upset I was.

I don't regret the acne.

I don't, I mean, I would rather not had it.

I don't regret the hair loss.

Yeah, I would rather have, I would rather have George Clooney-like hair.

But what I regret is how upset I was.

And I wanted to reach into TikTok and tell this woman, Let me be clear: guys look at you and they think, oh, there's a nice woman that I would like to know or date.

Yeah, you have hair loss, but that's it.

They don't, they look at the whole pattern.

Hair has a lot of power.

You know, it does.

Let me just tell you, I think you look very good without hair.

I appreciate that.

You're very complimentary.

I think

you look very stately.

You know, Patrick Stewart, think about all the people.

I so look like that alien from close.

I look so like that guy.

But, anyways, I stand.

Whatever.

Whatever.

I think you look great.

I think you look great.

And go ahead.

I have hair transplant in the form of money.

I've long flowing, long-flowing loss.

God, that birthday just showed that's not why people like you.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

You're being generous.

But what I want,

it's impossible to communicate this to people.

You can tell them till they're blue in the face, but anyone who's struggling with something about their aesthetics,

that's not where you're going to regret.

You're going to regret how much you beat yourself up over it.

And there's so many different ways to be attractive.

Unfortunately, there's more ways for a man to be attractive.

If a man is funny, does well professionally, it is interesting.

Unfortunately, women are mostly evaluated based on their aesthetics, but there's so many different ways to express aesthetics.

It was this, this TikTok really moved me, and I thought, I can totally relate to this woman.

Okay.

All right.

Well, we will, we will watch this.

guess I did two wins.

Baby Reindeer.

Baby Reindeer and Shogun and this young woman's courage.

And I wanted to like wrap my arms around her and go, trust me on this.

People look at you and think, you're an attractive woman and I'd like to know you or I'd like to date you.

And that's all you got to be focused on.

That's it.

All right.

It's so interesting what affects you, Scott Galloway.

I have to tell you, you're always a surprise to me.

By the way, I forgot one win and fail is you're cheating on me with Jessica Tarloff and I love it.

See, that's a win and a fail.

It's generous of you.

You're being very supportive.

I think people are, I know people are tuning in for her, but we.

Yeah, we talked about it last week, but it's done very well.

People seem to like it.

So tune in.

Tune in.

Raging moderates.

We're raging.

We want to hear from you.

Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind.

Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

Okay, Scott, that's the show.

We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot.

Please read us out.

Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Undertod engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Emil Severio, and Shakt Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio.

Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod.

We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Young people, if there's something about your physical appearance that's giving you making you insecure that keeps you up at night, trust me on this.

You're going to look back and the only thing you're going to be upset about is how upset you were.

Figure out a way, and there's a million different ways to be attractive to others, and most importantly, attractive to yourself.