Pivot - Election Predictions, Comcast Spinoff Plans and Guest Dan Harris

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

Election Day has finally arrived! Kara and Scott discuss the last-minute polls, the debate over equal time on TV, and how this became the "Elon Election." Plus, the final predictions about the race. And if you're feeling stressed out by the election, Friend of Pivot Dan Harris is here to help. Dan is the host of the "10% Happier Podcast" and he shares his tips for reducing election anxiety. Follow Dan at @danbharris Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Pivot comes from BetterHelp. What comes to mind when you hear the word gratitude? Maybe it's a daily practice, or maybe it feels hard to be grateful right now. Don't forget to give yourself some thanks by investing in your well-being. BetterHelp is the largest online therapy provider in the world, connecting you to qualified professionals

via phone, video, or message chat. Let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp. You can visit betterhelp.com slash pivot today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-in-one solution for premium freelance talent. You can connect with dedicated hiring experts who will help you find your perfect match. Plus, you get access to project management tools and flexible hiring options. Designed to handle projects of any size, Fiverr Pro empowers you to build faster, scale smarter, and turn today's projects into tomorrow's growth. Visit pro.fiverr.com to sign up and use the code PIVOT for 15% off any service.

Support for Pivot comes from Huntress. Huntress is one of today's fastest growing cybersecurity companies. His platform was designed from the ground up to work for small to medium-sized businesses and promises enterprise-grade security driven by the technology, services, and expertise you need to defend against today's cyber threats. All at a price that makes sense. Today, it seems like even the most sophomoric hackers can still do a ton of damage to your small business. That's why Huntress built a fully managed, highly sophisticated security platform

for its customers to guard against potentially devastating threats. Plus, you can rest assured knowing that the elite human threat hunters running their 24 by 7 security operation center will offer real protection all day, every day. So if you want cutting edge cybersecurity backed by experts who monitor, investigate,

and respond to threats with unmatched precision, you can visit huntress.com to learn more and start your free trial. My favorite poll is a short one that has a non-switch and then I stick it up my ass. Maybe I should try that. I'm so stressed out. Xanax and Aspley.

There you go. That's the peanut butter and chocolate. You asked me what I was going to do tomorrow night? There you go. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. How are you feeling today, Scott? You're posting a lot on the threads, the fast-growing threads. That sign of neuroses, when people say, how are you?

I say, you know, I'm okay. And then the voice in my mind goes, you're pretty fucking far from okay. I'm actually really stressed. How are you? Are you? Yeah. I'm a little stressed. But Clara was sick, so that sort of got me out of my stress.

You know, I've decided to be zen. I'm going to try to be zen. Can you decide to be zen? Is that a decision we get to make? I can. I don't think you can, but I can. Yes. I have a lot of control over my emotions from years of having to be controlled. You know, I watch Menendez documentaries. Oh, we started watching. I find that really disturbing, but it's really good. I love both of them. I like the Ryan Murphy one. And I love the documentary. I thought it was great.

I was... I've been watching the original scripted series with... Ryan Murphy. Yeah. Is that Ryan? Yeah. I'm two episodes in. Keep going. I grew up with that.

I was a senior. I was a first year in grad school or a senior in college when that happened. That was a big deal. It's a lot. It's a lot about stories and narrative and what we think about men being abused. You know what I mean? Like the second trial, which they went to jail on,

the judge said they couldn't use the abused woman defense, essentially, because men don't get abused. It was really amazing. Things have changed so dramatically. And it looks like there's more proof that the father was indeed exactly what they said he was. So this imperfect self-defense thing, they may get out.

The two of them may get out. Anyway, that's what I'm watching to feel better. Let me just say, I went to Miami for a wedding this weekend. Oh, how was it? I love the breezes. It was nice. It was lovely.

She lives in Miami Beach. It was very pretty on a waterway. I don't know miami beach it was very pretty on on the waterway i don't know which waterway it was the venetian causeway i don't know i have no idea anyway i just took an uber there um it was uh it was nice i stayed at the audition was there for five minutes literally 24 hours in miami we got there with tammy hatted uh saw a lot of friends did you go to the matador room it's's beautiful, all the paneling. Not really. No, I didn't.

Did you see the bowling alley or the ice rink? Didn't. I spent a lot of time at the audition. That smell, is that jasmine? Whatever, it's lovely. It's lovely to go off on the beach, et cetera. The Pollo Con Arroz is their specialty at the matador room. And yet, I didn't do any of that.

So I literally, the plane was late. I got there, got dressed, went to the wedding. Had drinks on the deck there at the hotel afterwards. and then left the next morning by 8 o'clock. So I was good. But I have to say, you know one thing I did like, and I forgot how much I like, not just Miami, but Hawaii, the Caribbean, is that those warm breezes. No, it's warm here. We have warm weather here. It's more the breezes, the tropical breezes.

I love that feeling. You know, it goes. You know what I miss that they don't have in London or most places? Really fucking hot women wearing nothing. They are everywhere

enjoying those. Oh, it's a warm breeze. I think I'll wear a halter top. Oh, God. Love Miami. Yeah, not in London. Love Miami. A lot of tweed.

And they love the wealthy, older, ugly guys. Hello, ladies. Oh, that's you. That's you. That's you. Yeah.

No, you're not supposed to agree with that. I just didn't say anything. So anyway, so I had a good time. I saw my friend, Jennifer Beals. I saw my friend, Carrie Farrell. Hello, Name Drop. What was that? That was three and a half minutes in.

And you sent me a picture. She took a friend of mine. I don't tell you. Yeah, she's great. She's a very tall woman. She's very tall. She took all the pictures for me because I was way in the back. Let me just tell you, I was stopped several times at the airport. About how much people love us? No. Yes, they do. Yes, that they did. But white men, Republicans, when I was like, oh no. And then they're like, I'm voting for Harris.

How do you know they're Republicans? Because they're white and they're men. I'm triggered. They said it. There's a stereotype. No, they said it. I was a McCain. Yeah, and you owned a Subaru Forester. Sorry, go ahead. I'm just telling you, they said it. They said it. I was waiting for the, ugh, pushback. And then they're like, I'm voting for Harris. And you all convinced me. That's one of the reasons. And they're like, I love John McCain. I love, you know, I'm always a Republican.

All men. And I literally was expecting some incel nonsense for most of them. So, just was interesting. It's so funny because I have, I'm not exaggerating, I have women come up to me all the time and say, I'm now a lesbian because of you. That's good. Anyway. That's good. It's usually an ex-girlfriend.

Oh, I'm lesbian now. Oh, okay. Thanks for that. I started off lesbian. Watch, I'm lesbian now. Oh, okay. Thanks for that. I started off lesbian. Watch, I'll turn straight because you're so attractive. Yeah. No risk there, Amanda. Absolutely no risk there. Anyway, I just want to play a quick clip from Instagram of comedian Ami Kozak. He does this bit called, If Scott Galloway Was a Weatherman. Let's listen. What we're facing Wednesday for the forecast

is a chance of rain and then an absolute disaster. Looks like over the weekend there'll be some rain and mixed with some sunshine and then an absolute disaster. So if we don't do something soon, I mean, this is catastrophic proportions in which the weather's just going to be an absolute disaster. We're facing absolute disaster. It is just a disaster for young men. And I love that kid. I didn't know you guys were going to do that. You know me. I'm a narcissist,

so thank you for doing that. It makes me feel nice. Yeah, he's good. It's an absolute disaster. He's got you cold. I always love when people make fun of you. It's very fun. They usually got you dead on. Thank you. That was really great. We've got a lot to get to on this Election Day from the last-minute polls to the final campaign polls. Plus, our friend of Pivot, this is who we brought in to make you all feel better today because this will be published on Election Day.

Dan Harris, host of the 10% Happier podcast. Dan is going to tell people how they can manage some of their election anxiety, including people who, if Trump loses, you guys are going to have to deal. So, not that we care very much how you feel, but you're going to have to deal if he loses. Anyway, we're not going to skip our business and tech stories today, though. Up first, NVIDIA is replacing, this is interesting, rival chip member Intel on the Dow Jones Industrial Average this week. The change is being made to, quote, ensure more representative exposure to the semiconductor industry. NVIDIA stock was up nearly 3%, and after hours trading after the change was announced, which

makes sense. Last week, Intel was down nearly 2%, one of those fallen angels, as Scott calls them. Intel also just posted a $16 billion loss for the third quarter, the biggest quarterly loss in the company's 56-year history per lot of charges in that one. But what do you think of this move to put NVIDIA in the Dow? And does it matter? Or Dow used to matter a lot more, I guess. I don't know. What do you think? Well, I think it does matter because it sends a signal about one company doing poorly and one doing really well. And also, I believe there are certain funds, kind of quote-unquote passive funds, that buy the index and they only buy companies in the index. So it puts some selling pressure on companies that are kicked out and

puts some selling buying pressure moving the stock up. It's just an indication of how well and how poorly each of these firms are doing respectively. And it's happened so viciously. I think there are a few companies that have been more poorly managed than Intel because typically when you talk about a company- Many leaders, many leaders. Well, okay. Look at Time Warner, for example. That company has fallen really far in that it made a terrible acquisition or merger. It was convinced by Steve Case, who recognized he was sitting on a company that was going to go down 90% of value. And Steve did his shareholders a solid and said, it is time to get out of Dodge. And we're not going to merge with an internet company.

We're going to merge with a company with real old world assets, which are less likely to implode like he correctly foresaw these internet assets, especially a dial-up asset was going to implode. And then since then, essentially Warner Brothers or Time Warner has, you know, Time Warner since going public or doing this merger with Discovery has lost 70% of its value. Yeah, I thought Jeff Bukas did very well to sell it. I thought that was kind of a good thievery on his part in getting it over to AT&T. Well, Jeff pulled off, there's one kind of person who likes Jeff

and that's shareholders. He sold the magazines right before the magazine industry imploded. He sold the cable business when cable was peaking. And this is what's so unusual about this is CEOs have a habit of acquiring and not disposing of assets because traditionally their compensation

is linked to how big the company is. And then he got the hell out of Dodge when AT&T saw Verizon buy Yahoo AOL and he sold it for $115, $120 billion. And now it has an enterprise value of barely half that. And the reason I bring it up is that Zaslav can legitimately say, the CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery, he can legitimately say, I have faced enormous headwinds. Now, granted, there's no excuse for why he's paid himself a

third of a billion dollars while the stock's gone down 70%. But he can legitimately say the market is bigger than any specific company and the market dynamics here around cable and broadcast and ad supported media have been terrible. What's unusual about Intel is it is a shadow of itself in what is arguably one of the best business sectors in history. So where this was a company everyone wanted to work for when I was going out of business school. Remember Intel Inside. Intel Inside. Andy Grove was the CEO of the century.

I covered Andy Grove. The CEO. And they had Mark. They had a whole bunch of people. They did keep shifting after he died. He ran it up the table for years and years and years like he really was the he was such a character too but uh one of the things that you there's a lot there i think there's a lot of brand there but you can see how

quickly this thing can you know topple but it's do you would you buy the intel would you now that it's off now i like to signal myself if intel goes below 20 bucks a share, and this is why I've lost a lot of upside. I always think stuff's not cheap enough. I think that at $100 billion market cap, if this company shows they have incredible IP, a lot of patents, they do have a lot of fantastic managers there. They have incredible supplier relationships, capital. If this thing shows any sign of life, it doubles or triples. Whereas NVIDIA has to be a $10 trillion company to triple. Yeah, we keep saying that it keeps coming up.

I think Intel is absolutely. If someone said, I do not own either Intel or NVIDIA, but I'm actually looking at Intel because I think any pulse here, the thing doubles. You might get a new CEO. We'll see. Anyway, interestingly, a Chinese EV company, BYD, just scored a major victory in its battle for dominance, topping Tesla in revenue for the first time. in revenue for the first time. BYD's Q3 revenue is $28 billion, up 24% from a year ago. Tesla recently reported at $25 billion for the same period. Tesla still has a lead over BYD in terms of net profit. BYD is set to face some headwinds with the EU. Recently announced tariff increases on Chinese EVs taking duties as high as 45%. Same thing if they come to the U.S., by the way, especially if Trump takes

it. He's going to put tariffs on everybody, including Mexico, apparently, today. He was talking about fluoride and tariffs for Mexico. Crazy stuff. We'll talk about that in a minute. You know, BYD also has some very innovative stuff that Tesla does a lot of hand-waving, has not introduced the smaller cars, the cheaper cars. You know, talk about, he's going to continue to increase tariffs on Chinese EVs if Trump wins. Trump did soften his anti-EV stance back in August, saying, I'm for electric cars. I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly. But I don't know. Look at this guy.

The last three days, we'll talk about it. It seems addled as can be. So where do you imagine this going? There's just no getting around it. BYD, as far as I can tell, is kicking Tesla's ass. Yeah, yeah. In terms of the global EV market, in 2021, BYD had 7%, Tesla had 21.

By May of 2024, BYD is now at 16%, and Tesla 17, probably meaning as we sit here now, given this momentum, that BYD likely has a greater share of the EV market than Tesla. I mean, the biggest complaint about EVs is a lack of charging infrastructure. And number three is range. But number two is cost. And BYD has cracked the code on this. They make what is supposed to be an outstanding EV for, I think, sub- It's adorable, too. Yeah, for something like sub-$15,000. Really cute.

I would love to see this thing. Every time I see a Tesla, I'm so bored with them now. I mean, even if he wasn't such a chode. I'm like, oh, look at that. And when I get picked up, I'm like, oh, I would like a different car, like a different looking car. It feels like, you know, like, I don't know, like 1980 wants you back, like kind of thing. It's a great car. It just hasn't.

I like the word used, needs a freshening. Needs a freshening. And I have to say, some of the other cars I've seen, I'd love to get in one of these Chinese EVs. I'd love to see them. I haven't seen them because they're not in this country widely. I don't think they're here at all, actually. Anyway, we'll see.

I think, you know, they're going to dominate. This is the country wants it to work. They're going to flood the market eventually. But, you know, I think probably Harris will be pretty tough in that regard, too, would be my guess. Interesting story. I was curious what you thought of this. Comcast is exploring the creation of a separate company for its cable networks, which include MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, and USA. Comcast president Mike Kavanaugh, who I think is very smart, I've spent some time with him, announced the spinoff possibility on the company's earnings call last week. He said the new company would be owned by Comcast shareholders and be well capitalized. I don't think they're going

to shove a bunch of debt over there. Who knows? Do they have a bunch of debt? The NBC broadcast network and streaming service Peacock would remain with the core company. It's sort of more of a cable thing, I guess. Comcast shares gained more than 3% on Thursday after that earnings call. What do you think of this spinoff? You know, a lot of people were talking about this and I thought it was, hmm. It's typically the sign of a company in decline that doesn't think they're getting the credit they deserve. And that is when you're doing really well and you have cheap stock, you go make acquisitions. And then at some point, oftentimes, the synergy doesn't manifest. And all of a sudden, your stock is getting hurt and the company has good assets. But typically, when a company in the conglomerate model, as Comcast is with a mix of

businesses and different businesses, the way investors evaluate company and structural decline is they say, let's look ass the shittiest part of the business and assign that multiple to the whole thing so at the New York Times we owned about.com which on its own was

worth probably a billion dollars we owned the tallest seven tallest building in America that was worth close to I think I forget what it was worth it was

worth a lot at some point it was worth more than the paper so I'm like are we in the are we a reet or are we a newspaper company we own 17% of the Boston Red Sox, which made no fucking sense. So when you pull these assets out, especially when a stock's price has been under pressure,

the disposition of assets are accretive because essentially there was no multiple on, there was no EBITDA from the Boston Red Sox. So we got no credit for it, for owning a baseball team. Meanwhile, some midlife crisis guy was going to show up and pay 100 or 150 million. Or you could spend, I wanted to spend about.com because I'm like, we could get a billion dollars to this thing right now. And then, so this is a smart move. And so what they do is, and all only that, it creates a cleaner story. Investors like a clean story because this is what CEOs do. They claim their synergy, but there's not usually.

Usually what they're trying to do is they're trying to say, I hate being responsible for one type of business that is volatile. And I like to smooth out my earnings. So I'll buy assets, which will increase the size of my business, which likely gives me bigger compensation because my compensation is based on the size of my business. And then it makes my life a lot nicer. But here's the thing. Investors, in their own way, via a stock price, will say to the CEO, I don't need you to diversify for me unless there's real synergy here. Yeah, I can do it myself. Let me ask you, why isn't NBC in this?

I don't quite know. Is NBC in this? No. No, the spinoff would not include streaming service PCOP or broadcast network NBC. I guess they see- Why? Because MSNBC picks up stuff from NBC, and so does CNBC, or I don't know. It seems that's the confusing part. The only thing I can figure out is one of the Roberts is very affectionate around NBC and doesn't want to, I don't know, that they see it as too core or too central to the whole brand positioning. It doesn't make any sense to me. Pretend you're him. He's a lovely guy, by the way. Pretend you're him.

Why would you? I'm a billionaire that's going to be dead in 20 years and I get to do things I enjoy and I enjoy having NBC as part of this. I don't know. It doesn't make any economic sense to me. You would put it in there, I would think. Yeah. I can see why the streaming service stays because it's part of a cable offering, but then you have a relationship with them. Basically what they're doing here is kind of good bank, bad bank. And that is the bad bank is these companies in structural decline that have really good cash flows. All right, people know how to value that. The good bank is a streaming service

that has some, you know, has some momentum. And these things trade at a much higher multiple. So, and those things lose money, but the market

will afford some capital or at least more capital. I guess because if you're keeping Peacock, you have to keep NBC for the entertainment assets. This is what Warner Brothers Discovery

is going to do after Comcast, which is considered a better managed company, does. Warner Brothers Discovery will do the same thing. They'll go good bank, bad bank. The bad bank will be all of their cable assets, all the Discovery stuff, CNN, the movie company, which has a lot of IP and can feed stuff directly to HBO. They'll say, this is the good bank, which will trade at a higher multiple because it's a growth company and has more definitive or defensible assets. This is the bad bank. And by the way, the bad bank is still a good, might be a good investment because these companies still create, generate a lot of cash flow. But when you mix companies of different ages, if you will, or different investor complexions, unless you can really justify the synergies there, the market goes, I don't like it.

I can't figure it out. I'll go buy Netflix, which is a pure play. Pure play, right. Or I'll go buy Gannett, which is a shitty company still spending cash flow in New York Times, right. Yeah. All right.

Okay. Well, good explanation, Scott. Okay, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, it's finally Election Day. How close are we to the end of the race? Hopefully soon. And for everyone who's anxious right now, our friend of Pivot, as I said, is Dan Harris on how not to drive yourself crazy today. Support for this show comes from ARM. yourself crazy today. the smartphone revolution and is helping define the AI revolution. That company is called Arm. Arm designs compute platforms for the biggest companies in the world

so they can create silicon solutions to power global technology. Arm became a NASDAQ 100 company in less than a year of its IPO and is proudly NASDAQ listed. Arm touches nearly 100% of the globally connected population. 99% of smartphones are built on Arm.

Major clouds run on Arm as well as all major mobile and PC apps. Thank you. But for now, relax and enjoy this podcast. It's very likely running on your very own ARM-powered device. Visit and establishing trust is more important than ever. Vanta automates compliance for SOC 2, ISO 7001, and more, saving you time and money while helping you build customer trust. Plus, you can streamline security reviews by automating questionnaires and demonstrating your security posture with a customer-facing trust center, all powered by Vanta AI. Over 8,000 global companies like Atlassian, FlowHealth, and Quora Thank you. Out costs spiraling out of control? Time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI. OCI is a blazing fast and secure platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, plus all your AI and machine learning workloads. OCI costs 50% less for compute and 80% less for networking. So you're saving a pile of money. Thousands of businesses have already upgraded to OCI, including MGM Resorts,

Specialized Bikes, and Fireworks AI. Right now, Oracle is offering to cut your content cloud bill in half if you move to OCI. For new U.S. customers with minimum financial commitment, offer ends December.

See if your company qualifies for this special offer at oracle.com slash pivot. That's oracle.com slash pivot. That's oracle.com slash pivot. Scott, we're back. It's a day we've been anxiously waiting. Roughly half of the 2020 electors has already taken advantage of early voting, including Republicans. They're voting early now because now Donald Trump has decided it's not evil. But today is the last day to cast your vote. Have you voted already?

Do you have a voting plan? Oh, yeah, yeah. I voted. I had a weird experience. This is how old I'm getting. I'm in Florida, and I thought, oh, this would be nice. And I went to the place behind the tennis courts in Delray Beach, and I walked in to do my voting thing.

And I walked up, and they said, it says you've already voted. And they looked at me like I was trying to vote twice. And I said, are you sure? And they're like, yeah, we received a mail-in ballot nine days ago. I'm like, oh, fuck, I've already voted. I totally forgot I'd already voted. So I tried to vote twice. The Republicans are right.

It's a conspiracy. I'm literally the person there. But it's my age. It's my early onset Alzheimer's. There's no conspiracy theory. And just so you know, they knew right away. They turned around and they're like, yeah, you had a mail-in ballot and we received it eight days ago at 11, you know, 1131 AM. And here's your signature. And I'm like, oh, nevermind. Thank you for your service. I hope you voted for the right person, Scott. I am going to go to the, I love going on election day.

And we're taking Clara. I used to take my boys every year to vote. I think it's really important to take kids to vote to make them understand the privilege that we have. So Amanda and I are going to take Clara. Both sons voted also, by the way, early. Congratulations, Alex, on your first election. Congratulations, your first presidential election. I'm very pleased that you voted in an important state. But Vice President Harris will watch election returns at her alma mater, Howard University, here in the D.C. area. Former President Trump has a watch party, where do we guess it?

West Palm Beach. What are you going to do the night with hours left in the race? I think I'm going to go out because I'm going to try and not watch. I say this and I won't be able to do it, but the plan is I'm going to go out and I'm going to get up really early on. I mean, we're now we were four hours ahead. Now we're five hours ahead because you guys, I guess you guys fell back yesterday. But I don't want to look at it until Wednesday. I don't want to look at it until Wednesday. Close to the end.

I remember in 2016 when I was following it, and essentially I can do math, and they showed all these Florida counties, and I go, oh, immediately I could tell Florida's going to Trump, and then I did the broader math, and I'm like, Trump's won. And it was fairly early in the evening. And the thing I don't like about it is they try and create tension as if no matter, you know. Yeah, they do. You know.

Yeah. That noise they make. Oh, and then they go to some reporter in a, you know, on a basketball court in a high school gym saying, we just found someone, someone who's not that smart to talk to us about what they think about the election. Exactly. I'm going to watch Menendez documentaries. It reminds me of the IPO of Meta. This is like, I don't know, six or eight years ago. Exactly. I'm going to watch Menendez documentaries. It didn't go public till noon. So we sat on air for two and a half hours trying to talk about meta. And the producer kept coming out on the break and going, I'm sorry, maybe talk about WhatsApp. And me and Alex were sitting there like, we're out.

We thought we were going to be here for six minutes and we're supposed to talk about this shit. Anyways, there's Stockholm syndrome. I'm convinced that's why Stephanie Ruhle and I like each other so much. We have literally been. Because you were stuck. We have been through. Let's get back to the election. Sorry, go ahead. Let's get back to the election.

With hours left in the race, they're neck and neck apparently in swing states according to the final New York Times-Santa poll. More specifically, it shows Harris marginally ahead in Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin. The poll has Trump slightly ahead in Arizona. Michigan, Georgia, Michigan is more Harris actually. Georgia, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Pennsylvania

are extremely close. One surprise, a separate outlier Iowa poll showing Harris three points ahead of Trump Michigan is more Harris, actually. Georgia, Pennsylvania. Georgia and Pennsylvania are extremely close. One surprise, a separate outlier Iowa poll showing Harris three points ahead of Trump in a state he's won twice. This is not a state that was even considered being played, but the pollster is one of the most respected. The one who is not an irritating chode, Jay Ann Seltzer. She is considered the best pollster in politics. And then there, of course, is Scott's favorite poll, which I do not agree with.

considered the best pollster in politics. And then there, of course, is Scott's favorite poll, which I do not agree with. Trump media stock price up 54 a week ago, down in the low 30s, and headed down as we head into election day. You may use that. I'm not going to use that, or the predictions market. So thoughts, right? Top line thoughts. Well, first off, that's misinformation. My favorite poll is a short one that has an on switch, and then I stick it up my ass. That's good. That's good. All right. Anyways, maybe I should try that.

I'm so stressed out. Anyways, Xanax and Aspley. There you go. That's a peanut butter and chocolate. You asked me what I was going to do tomorrow night? There you go. Oh, I didn't wish I had an ass switch. That's my Tuesday night, and it's not just election week either.

Yeah. I don't even remember the question I got so excited about. Stop laughing at your jokes, Elon Musk. Let's go. Okay. What are your overall thoughts? Because I'm going to move on. Oh, my overall thoughts.

I'm going to move to credit. I got to be honest. Jess Tarloff had the exact right term to describe my mood. I'm nauseously optimistic. Okay, nauseously optimistic. Kara, I was bereft about seven, eight days ago. The momentum is squarely on Harris, on Harris right now, or for Harris. And this poll, this Seltzer individual is probably the best pollster in the nation, hands down, in terms of her ability to predict stuff over the last

eight or 10 elections. And she has Harris up three to four points in Iowa. And in addition- I think it's all over the place. It's whether it's happening in other states nearby. That's the idea. I thought that's pretty interesting. And two, I think his media coverage lately has just been horrible. I think he looks old. Horrible. Saying crazy shit. The crowds, there's a lot of videos of the crowd this morning in North Carolina. It's half full. All his venues are half full.

And that's not just Kamala Harris trolling him, which she is, but they're actually half full in several places. Name one good thing that's happened for him in the last five days. Nothing. Fluoride with Robert Kennedy Jr. What the fuck is that guy keeps showing up saying, don't drink Gatorade, mayonnaise or fluoride? Like, what the fuck? Like, have you seen that? All of these self-inflicted wounds. Tony Hinchcliffe. Hinchcliffe. And then the Mike Pillow guy, Al Capone and the Mike Pillow guy with Trump. I was like, what are you doing, Grampy? Go back in the home. But these are unforced errors. You could have said about RFK, we're going to have them on the

environment. It would have softened them. Instead, they said, we're going to put this guy in charge of vaccines and also women's bottles. I mean, all of these self-inflicted injuries that they don't. And also, I've heard, I have friends canvassing in Pennsylvania, and they run into other canvassers from both sides. They said the number of canvassers in Pennsylvania right now is running, people getting kind of souls to the poles, feet on the street, is 10 to 1 Harris canvassers. He's running there at this way. It looks like he's running it like he's running Twitter and not Tesla or SpaceX. It's the Twitter Elon running this, not the SpaceX Elon, who is very competent. It does not mean the madness is going to slow down, though. The election is everything from the FCC to Cardi B, who gave Elon a real slap in the head, which she's so, you know. It turns out she was like in AP history.

She never talks about her academic career, but all her teachers were like, she's the smartest kid we had. Grew up from very humble background and she whacked Elon Musk hard in the head over on Twitter. But NBC gave Donald Trump free airtime during Sunday's NASCAR race in order to stay compliant with the FCC's equal time rule. The move came after Trump appointed FCC Commissioner Brandon Carr, who is such, I'm sorry, he's just such a, he's so thirsty, claimed Kamala Harris's Saturday Night Live appearance this past weekend violated the rule. Fine, Brandon, you were so thirsty. I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with that. He was all over the airwaves. He could just have said it and not like, he's thirsty. Anyway, we can talk about the relevance of equal time in the broadcast in just a second,

but it's interesting comparison to see how each candidate used their time. First up, Kamala Harris on SNL. Maya Rudolph was doing her regular Kamala Harris impression, which is fantastic, and the vice president popped up to play her mirror image. Together, they poked fun at Donald Trump's recent stop in Wisconsin. Let's listen. Nice to see you, Kamala. It is nice to see you, Kamala. And I'm just here to remind you, you got this. Because you can do something your opponent cannot do. You can open doors. I see what you did there. Like to a garbage truck, right?

Next up, Trump campaign commercial that aired after NASCAR race. We've never seen anything like it, at least for the last 40 years. We have to straighten out our country. We have to close our borders. We have to lower our taxes. We have to get rid of inflation. And we're going to do it. Just remember, Kamala and her friends broke it.

I'll fix it. Most important election in the history of our country. Go and vote. Wow. Okay, equal time for both of them that we give them here at Pivot. I thought that was terrible, but whatever. He seems angry. They were both strong.

I don't know. Trump hit the notes at his base once, and people wanted to hear. That was strong. I guess. In any case, she was funnier. The equal time rule requires broadcast stations and candidates' comparable opportunities to appear on the air this close to the election. I think that's one of the things, seven days. It doesn't mean they have to be on the same show or that they have to give advance notice.

But in any case, they did that. And I did think Gamla was charming. I don't know about you. I thought she was terrific in that. Oh, you got to think. Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the majority of the SNL writing staff leans progressive. A bunch of Harvard educated people who live in New York writing for SNL. I'm just going to go out on a limb and assume that they're probably progressives.

They got the assignment. They sat down and said, we need to make her look likable, funny, intelligent, deposition him. And the writers there, wow, they showed up. That is not an easy thing to do. That was really well done. Can I say, I thought she did, because when Hillary's been on, it's been a little stiff. When other people have been on, it's been a little stiff. I thought she handled it beautifully. I was surprised by how adept she was. She usually can be a little awkward, but she was quite good. I think she likes Maya Rudolph. I think there was a real rapport between them.

I thought that worked really well. It was interesting. And I also think that, and she also looked good. I hate to say that, but she looks younger than he does. She looks significantly more attractive. Yes. And I know that's dumb, but it's the thing. It's the thing.

Dumb? I'll work for Newsom because he's handsome. What do you mean dumb? It matters. It's hugely important. It does. He looks really old. He looks really old. He looks really saddled and old. But interestingly, speaking of his top surrogate, Elon Musk, as I noted, Cardi B in here fighting, Musk called the rapper a puppet following her endorsement of Harris in Wisconsin last week. Her response, I'm not a puppet, Elon. I'm a daughter of two immigrants' parents who had to work their ass off to provide for me. P.S. Fix my algorithm. And she didn't say please.

On the latest episode of On with Kara Swisher, I assembled a panel of experts to look at Elon's role in the election. I thought that was the perfect thing for my show because he's been so active. I got the reporters who have broken a lot of these stories, whether it's on Putin or all manner of things, the million dollar giveaway, whatever. Reporter Zoe Schiffer talked about how Elon's ex-management provides some hints about his potential future in government if Trump wins. Let's listen. Let's listen. a much scarier prospect. Anyway, you talked about a range of things. You know, Elon's really, as I said, I think it's the Elon election. You've talked about it being the podcast election. Probably it's both. His on-the-ground canvassing efforts, as you noted, seem completely disorganized. Lots of stories of putting people in trucks without windows, without seats and stuff like

that, and not paying them and stranding them in Michigan. Do you think if he loses, I suspect they're going to point a lot of fingers at him and Trump, of course, but him in particular. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, at must. Do you think? Or what do you think? We all concluded that he'll be fine in either administration. He'll be more irritating in the Trump administration and dangerous, but in the Harris administration, he's done rather well in the Biden administration,

by the way. So what are your thoughts of where he goes in each scenario? Well, we talked about it in this last episode. That's the problem with autocratic tendencies is that it pays to support the autocrat because there's, you're right, there'll be no downside for him as far as I can tell if Harris wins. And also, I think if Harris

loses, people are going to, correctly in my view, blame Biden's narcissism and the Democratic Party's consensual hallucination that this guy had any business running for reelection. that this guy had any business running for reelection. And two, a huge tactical error, not rising to the level of why she might, you know, why she didn't do better than she did in retrospect. It was a huge tactical error for Biden not to kiss Elon's ass. And I know that sounds, I know we want to say.

Yeah, a long time ago, I agree. I know we want to say, good for them. They don't kowtow to Elon. To have an EV summit and not invite him. Keep in mind, Musk did vote for Obama. And neither of us are fans of Elon Musk. He's an outstanding surrogate for Trump because there are few people in this nation or globally who more young men look up to. And he's robust. He's in it. He's

unafraid. He's out there for them. It's just too bad. And another talking about unforced errors, it's an unforced error that Biden didn't kiss his ass and do what everyone does for Trump, and that is kiss his ass to get him on his side. But if he loses, I don't, I don't, my sense right now, Musk is, okay, Twitter, he's got the value by 75%, but SpaceX is on a roll. SpaceX is on a roll that one of the most seminal images. I mean, quite frankly, I think two, two of the most, the images of the year, I think it's a toss up between Trump with pumping his fist in the air after the failed assassination attempt or that rocket being captured by those metal chopsticks. And that's Trump and Musk. So, yeah. Although I give you a third, the picture of Kamala Harris's niece looking up at her.

I thought that was a beautiful photo. Do you know the one with her head? I know what you're talking about. her. I thought that was a beautiful photo. Do you know the one with her head? I know what you're talking about, yeah. It was beautiful. That was a beautiful picture. It kind of depends who wins, right? What will be seen as the image of the year. Oh, I think the Trump one was quite a picture.

I mean, I'm talking just pictures. I think those two, to me, Harris with the niece and Trump, I thought those were the most important political pictures of the year. Yeah, I think one's more sweet than historic. I think that anyways, but there's no getting around it. Musk is an outstanding surrogate for Trump.

And it was a self-inflicted wound that we shouldn't have made to alienate him the way the Democratic Party did. And I'll put some insight in here. When that happened, two things. I heard from Musk a lot about it. He was like, why are they doing this? Why? This is shitty. He could not stop talking about it in a very manic way, I would call it. We were speaking then. And I was sort of perplexed. I was perplexed, too. I was like, huh, you kind of do, even though you're an egomaniac, you kind of deserve that one. even though you're an egomaniac, you kind of deserve that one. And I was like, well, it's the union thing, I assume. But he wasn't taking any of that. He's like, I was like, it's the union thing. Don't get your nose out of joint. And which made sense to me. But then, and when I actually called people in the Biden administration, I'm like, this was a big fucking error. This guy is pissed. They're like, oh, come on. He's not that pissed. He gets it. I'm like, no, no, he's pissed. I said, this is not a normal person,

and he has normal emotions. He thinks he's the father of all electric cars at this moment. Well, he kind of was. Well, no, but technically, no, but yes, yes. He was the one that pushed it through the way jobs were to the front. I'm sorry, we're going to have an EV summit, invite the person in charge of the Pontiac Leaf, but not Tesla? I know that. I get that. I get it. This is what I said to the Biden people. And I thought it was an error the whole time, although I thought they traded a very short-term thing, which was the unions being angry at him and one being Musk.

And I always felt Musk was more dangerous than the unions to them. But you're right. That really was a moment for him. And he overdid it at the same time. He could have gotten over it, but he wasn't going to if they understood him as a character. And he really does have a Jesus complex. So in any case, we will see what happens. Let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Dan Harris is the host of the 10% Happier podcast. Welcome, Dan. Thanks for having me. It's so weird. I'm sure you hear this all the time. So weird to be on a show that I've listened to for so many years. Oh, well, welcome. We're so thrilled you're here. And I am 15% happier right now for you to be here. Anyway, because we're here on Election Day. This is publishing on Election Day. We want to share some numbers. 69% of American adults say that 2024 election is a source of stress.

That's mostly Scott Galloway in that survey, but it's a survey of the American Psychology Association. 72% are worried that the election results could lead to violence. I am too, actually, shockingly. I usually am not that way. So let's start off sort of high level. What's your advice for people, specifically Scott Galloway, in terms of managing stress and anxiety on election day and the days that follow? On both sides, please. I mean, Scott, whose career I follow quite closely, is actually doing the thing that I would recommend as a first step. There's a great expression. I did not come up with this, but the expression is action absorbs anxiety. So I follow Scott on social media. He's out there talking about what he believes and he's taking action. And we all have

the capacity to exert our agency, even though, of course, none of us can single handedly affect the outcome or control the outcome for sure. But you can take action by joining a campaign or doing what Scott does is speaking out publicly to the extent that you have that capacity. It doesn't even have to be related to politics. However, you can just volunteer at a soup kitchen or an animal shelter. You can just be more useful to the people in your environment. There's a little, you know, little inner inquiry I ask people to do, which is, what does it feel like when you hold the door open for somebody? It feels good if you're paying attention, and that feeling is infinitely scalable. Oh, I like that idea. You know, it's interesting. A lot of my friends are,

who are driving me crazy, actually, because they're very stressful people. They've all gone out canvassing, and they are so much happier. You know, even if they see people who don't agree with them, every one of them is now not irritating in the way they were, which was interesting. So you recommend worrying, making worrying a team sport. Can you explain that? I mean, we're doing that right now. This is based in an enormous amount of evidence. So just for some context, there is this study that you guys may have heard of, the Harvard Study for Adult Development. It's been going on for nearly 90 years,

and they've been following several generations of families in the Boston area to try to figure out what contributes to a long, happy, and healthy life. And the number one variable is not sleep or exercise or whether you're achieving ketosis. All of those things, I guess, are helpful, but the number one variable is the quality of your relationships. That is what matters most. Why? Because stress is generally what kills us, and the most effective way to regulate stress for a social species such as Homo sapiens, the most effective way is through quality relationships. Hence the expression, also not mine, never worry alone. Make your anxiety a team sport.

Call your mom, call your friends, talk about it with people who you respect. That is, I think, probably the best way to get through this. Interesting. So, Dan, essentially you are a less neurotic, friendlier, better haired person than Scott, but you're the same person. So here you are at Scott, ask your question. You're his doppelganger in a weird way. Yeah. So let me just say, I love Dan and his content. And I'd steal your sayings. I'd say I'm 10% more Jewish now. steal your sayings. I say I'm 10% more Jewish now. Yeah, I heard you say that actually. And, but your content for me is a little too optimistic. I don't like that part of it,

but what has really moved me with your content is you come across as just so shit together and like the guy you would want in a crisis. Like you remind me, like if you're ever in a movie, you're going to be that medic on D-Day, just running from injured person to injured person. You come across as so, quite frankly, just shit together and can handle everything. And you've been very transparent about your struggles and anxiety. Even so much, I've seen videos of you deplaning because you couldn't handle it because you were having a panic attack. And I think it's really important that people see who they perceive to be very strong men having that sort of vulnerability.

So for those of us who do struggle with anxiety, what, talk a little bit about your struggles with it, where it's happened recently, and what kind of cognitive therapy or behavioral therapy you've incorporated that has helped you. Well, thank you for that. One of the little jokes I make is that some people teach from the mountaintop and I teach from the fetal position. And I'm not some sort of perfected being. And occasionally people will say to me, you know, you're pretty anxious for a meditation guy or a happiness quasi expert.

And my answer is you have the causality wrong. I am into meditation and well-being because I'm so anxious. And, you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think this is, first of all, we're at a time where we have unprecedented anxiety in our culture. But the good news is there are ways to treat it. I'll talk about two that have been very helpful for me. Not only am I anxious, I also have panic disorder. So that can show up in public speaking or in claustrophobia, so on a plane or in an elevator.

Two things that are helpful for me are one is called exposure therapy. And this is just everyday bravery, being afraid of something and doing it anyway, saddling up anyway, and approaching the things that scare you as counterintuitive as this is. If you can carefully and slowly and systematically approach the things that scare you, that is the way through anxiety for many people, myself included, and especially with panic. So elevators have been tough for me historically. And so I'll ride an elevator at the Westchester Mall with my shrink for an hour and it's uncomfortable, but that's how you get over it. The second thing for me is learning how, and to me, this is just so radically powerful and such good news that you can rewire the way you talk to yourself. And so for me, just learning to

And so for me, just learning to talk back against my inner critic or my inner anxiety dragon to channel my capacity to mentor other people and direct it toward myself has been really helpful. So social media, of course, can be a source of stress and people will likely be doom scrolling as they do all the time now. Is it helpful to take a break or not? Because I think people can't, or news, more than just social media, but news consumption, like every little moment. Yes, this is a short answer. The slightly longer answer is we all have to make the call individually. But it's about, for me, it's about drawing the line between being an engaged citizen and informed citizen, which is important, and being a crazy person. And we have to figure out how much is enough, how much can our nervous system handle. To me, one of the most powerful tools in terms of gauging this, in terms of walking this line, is mindfulness, which is, of course, the fruit of mindfulness meditation,

which helps you have more self-awareness so that you might notice, oh, yeah, I'm on hour eight on X slash Twitter, and I'm typing in all caps. Maybe it's time to put this thing down and take a nap. Or, you know, my stomach is rumbling. I haven't eaten. Whatever it is, to have the self-awareness of what's happening in your body and mind so that you're not owned by it, mindfulness is very helpful in that way, especially as it comes to the titration of your news consumption. Scott? titration of your news consumption. Scott? So, Dan, your career was, I mean, you essentially rose to be, I think, either the anchor or the co-anchor of Nightline. Is that right? Yeah, one of the co-anchors of Nightline. So, that's a pretty big seat. And the majority

of the anchors I know from broadcast television, whenever I speak to them, they're complaining about just how shitty their career and compensation and prospects have become because that business is melting. And you managed to transition to, I think you actually have a bigger footprint right now than you used to, maybe. You're one of the few that kind of, you got out of you know made it out what what advice well let me let me go back what were the pivotal moments and how did you manage to do that successfully when so quite frankly just a lot of people have had a really difficult time transitioning out of old media into new media i mean that, it's brutal in old media. I'm not telling either of you anything you don't know. And I started to really think about this many years ago. I remember as early as 2008, 2009, thinking, I better build a personal brand. And I didn't know

what that was going to be. At first, I had a little show on YouTube about indie rock. I'm a big indie rock fan. That show did horribly. And most of the comments were really, really negative. So I ended up euthanizing that. And then I around the same time, I was starting to get interested in meditation and mindfulness. And I had this entrepreneurial sense that, yeah, there's a lot of science that shows that this stuff is really good for you. And most of the books I'm reading about this are really annoying. And so I thought, well, let me write a book that tells really embarrassing stories and uses the word fuck a lot and see if I can, you know, get people who otherwise would

reject this material interested in it. And yeah, so that became a book called 10% Happier. And that ended up sort of swallowing my life. And I spent a lot of time trying to do two things at once, maintaining my career at ABC while becoming this, you know, traveling evangelist for meditation. And most of that was kind of based in fear. But eventually, a couple of years ago, I was able to make the leap and retire and just do this full time. When did you start the pod? Yeah, how did you start? What advice would you give to people still there? I bet they call you, correct? Yeah, I mean, I hear about this all the time. I think I did it incorrectly in that I waited too long to leap. But I think you can start developing your personal brand while you are within the belly of the beast. And there's a way in which being associated with a major organization, for me, it was incredibly helpful. I was employed by Disney, which owns ABC News. And, you know, that allowed me, you know, an enormous, that gave me just a huge platform

from which to build. So I think it's possible to do this straddle. But I mean, the good news, and I mean, I'd be curious to hear from the two of you, but my reading of the media landscape is that while there's, you know, it's largely a blightscape, media landscape is that while it there's a, you know, it's largely a blightscape, the one bright area is what the three of us are doing is, which is building a brand around a distinctive voice and figuring out what you what you can add, and then building around that now, there's never been a time better than right now for that. Would you would you agree? Yeah, absolutely. We love it. We've never

done better, I think. Right, Scott? Don't you think? In a lot of ways? Or happier. We're at least 10% happier. We're going to need a bigger boat. The bottom line is you can have a third of the audience that you used to have, but it requires a 10th, if not a 20th of the resources, making it a much more profitable economic venture. And I mean, I can't imagine the infrastructure you had to have around you to produce Nightline. And you can garner maybe 50% of the audience or a quarter of the audience. You have a top 200 podcast on a fraction of the resources, making it a better economic model. Having said that, the unfortunate thing about podcasting, which is taking over everything that's been digitized, is there's tremendous inequality. And that is, you're talking to three people who are in the

top 200 podcasts of a world that produces 600,000 a week. So unless you're in the 0.001%, this is a brutal industry as well. But if you get there, it's where media is headed. It's just a better economic model. Yeah, but podcasts are- We're all so happy. Podcasts, and happier, I totally agree with you, Cara. Podcasts are really brutal. However, I do think social is a place that's become more democratic in that as we've moved from the social graph to the interest graph, I can create a video with very few followers that reaches millions of people because the algorithms have changed recently. So I think there are places where you can build an audience that would be easier, more hospitable than the podcast space. Yeah, absolutely. All right, a couple more questions about the election.

I have just two more. For parents out there, how can we avoid passing our anxiety on to our kids? We have a lot of kids. I don't know if you have kids, but I assume you do. And what will you be doing on election night to stay calm as you're, maybe you're not watching results. Scott is not watching.

He's going out. I am not going out at all. And I'm going to read history books. Wait, so you're avoiding it, Scott? Well, I live in London, and generally speaking, this really does, I don't know if I'm older, and so I have a better perspective on how important this election is, or I'm just older and more stressed. But because I'm not going to know anything on Wednesday morning, tomorrow night, I'm going out with some buddies and I'm just going to enjoy myself.

And I'm going to wake up Wednesday morning and freak out then. But yeah, I'm not going to engage. Oh, I'm going on Brian Williams on Amazon for a few minutes. But other than that, I'm not going to engage. Karen, you're going to read? I'm going to read too.

I'm interviewing some historians right after the election. So I'm reading history books. That's what I'm doing. I think you're election, so I'm reading history books. I think you're totally posing. I don't believe you. I will watch TV. I think you're going to have eight TVs on. No, just one. Just one, and I'll flip among them. I'm going to read poetry and go to the classics.

But I'm not going to a party, that's for sure. I'm not going out, because I just can't. I just can't do it. There's lots of parties, but I'm not going to any of them. What are you doing, Dan? I just can't. I just can't do it. There's lots of parties, but I'm not going to any of them. What are you doing, Dan? So just to respond to all of that, first of all, I think it's great to do whatever is in your best interest to keep yourself sane. And as a parent myself, I have a nine-year-old, that is what osmotically is likely to land for your children. Better than any lecture you could give them

is taking care of yourself in a way that they observe and will, I think, absorb. And in terms of history, there's some evidence that reading history actually is a bomb in the face of our current tumult, because you can start to see that we've been through horrible stuff before. Would you rather be where we are right now or on the lip of World War II or the Civil War? Personally, I'll take today. So I think I hear a lot of wisdom in both of your election evening plans. And also, Scott, I'll be on with Brian Williams as well. Oh, I'm on at like 4 a.m. They have you up first. It's as tight as a tick in a da-da-da. He'll have a million of those, right? He'll be like,

that's like watching a moose drive a convertible. And everyone's like, I don't know what that means, but it sounds good. You know, you guys are going to the nicest place. Mr. Williams is very calming. I think that's a good choice. They have to have you on

if you have a prime membership. So 87% of America is invited on. I'm going's a good choice. They have to have you on if you have a prime membership. So 87% of America is invited on. I'm going to just watch Rachel Maddow. That's all I'm going to do because she makes me feel better. Jesus, and that's going to help your stress? It is.

She does. The lesbians make me calm. That's like two Subarus colliding into each other at 150 miles an hour. Oh my God, so inappropriate. A Subaru Forester and a Subaru Impreza had a head on collision on election night.

If Trump wins, we have to we have to initiate the militia etherage. And so we've got to move on. So anyway, I think I think I'm going to stay home and just be calm about it. Anyway, Amanda, of course, is like lost, is already losing her mind already. So we'll see where it goes. She already warned me. She goes, I will not be good if he wins. I was like, okay, great. Sounds fantastic. Anyway, Dan, are you writing 15% happier next? What is your next thing? I am working on a book that I've been writing for six years that I have not been able to

get right, which really moves from mindfulness, which was the subject of my first book, to, and I don't know the right word for this, but I'm going to use the word love or warmth or friendliness or this capacity we all have for compassion that we can direct not only toward other people, but also ourselves. That seems like the missing skill in an anxiety epidemic and in the middle of a really divisive time. So that's what I'm thinking about. So you mentioned you have a nine-year-old at just one or? Just one. So I really relate to some of the stuff you talk about around anxiety and panic attacks.

I also get them rarely, but consistently when I'm speaking. And one of the things I've found really helps when I'm feeling stressed is time with my boys. In general, my boys just raise my stress level, but when I'm really stressed, I find they bring it down because they can be so awful, it demands that I go out of my own head. Any thoughts around time with kids?

I mean, to me, this goes back to action absorbs anxiety. If you can be useful to anybody else, it will pull you out of your stuff. And so parenting for all of its vexations can do that. And you can up the effectiveness of that by just tuning in to what does it feel like if I'm taking care of another being? It feels pretty good. So let's turn the volume up on that and turn the volume down on our own self-centered rumination. I mean, another of my little dumb quips is that the view is so much better when you pull your head out of your ass.

And I think that's where we will end it. That's really exciting. The view is so much better. It is, you will be 26% happier if you pull your head out of your ass. That's my feeling on that one. Dan, you're fantastic. We love your podcast. We love all your work.

Thank you. And thank you so much. I already feel better. And you can listen to Dan on 10% happier. Thanks, Dan. Bye. Wasn't that lovely? Isn't Dan lovely? So you didn't come

through. You purposely tried to get in between me and Emily Ratajkowski, but I want to be friends with Dan Harris. So I need you to set us up for a mandate. Now, I want Emily, but I need Dan. So I realize you're a little jelly of me and Emily's budding relationship, but you can make up for it by setting me up with, I want to mandate with Dan. I need that guy in my life. That guy just makes me feel calm. I will. He's a total baller. His hair is spectacular.

He's very handsome. He's very successful. That's who I want to roll with. And I'll have lunch. Does he live in D.C.? He seems like the kind of guy who would live in D.C. I don't know. I don't care where he lives. But I go to dinner with him and people are like lunch. Does he live in D.C.? Seems like the kind of guy would live in D.C. I don't know. I don't care where he lives. But I go to dinner with him and people are like, oh, there's

Scott with Dan Harris. I always knew Scott was more interesting than he seems. And people will love me. I will make. I will make. He lives in New York. I need a play date. So next time you're in New York. Set up a play date. That's your job. I will set up a play date for Scott Galloway. I will do that. That will be your birthday present. By the way, everybody wish Scott a happy birthday. The birthday that will never end.

The last weekend. It will never end. I know, I forgot. But it was his birthday just recently. So congratulations. Thank you very much, Karen. All right. We'll be back for,

we're going to change wins and fails to predictions. And then we'll do wins and fails on Thursday. So we're obviously going to predict about the election and we will do that in a minute. Support for the show comes from HubSpot. Picture this. You're at a party and someone asks you what you do as a marketer. How do you even begin to describe it?

You have to generate leads, score them, contact them, create content, gather data. And tomorrow, do it all again. And wonder if it's even working. Marketers are spread way too thin. But HubSpot has a better way. With the help of Breeze and tools, including Content Remix, now you can turn one piece of content into a suite of assets. Pinpoint the best prospects with predictive lead scoring and level up your campaign's KPIs with a new analytics suite. So your day-to-day becomes less busy work and more driving revenue through the roof.

And most importantly, you'll have a way easier time describing what you do at parties. Visit HubSpot.com slash marketers to learn more. Support for Pivot comes from NetSuite. Planning for the future in business is like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube that keeps changing colors. Economic variables are always shifting, whether it's a bull market or bear market, and if inflation's up or interest rates are down. The whole thing is a game of constant recalibration. That's why so many businesses are finding their footing with NetSuite by Oracle. With real-time insights and forecasting, NetSuite says they're the go-to management suite for nearly 40,000 companies. Thank you. faster decisions. So if you're wondering what AI can do to your bottom line or your industry in general, NetSuite is already there giving you the data edge to stay sharp for whatever's coming next.

Speaking of AI, you can download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com slash pivot. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash pivot, netsuite.com slash pivot. NetSuite.com slash pivot. AI system from Anthropic empowers your team to rise to new levels of productivity and innovation by providing vast knowledge and rapid analysis. With Claude, your existing talent can harness cutting-edge AI to work smarter, brainstorm bigger, and pursue visionary goals, complementing human ingenuity. What a word salad! I'm going off script just to tell you I, no joke, use Claude almost every day. I think it's fantastic. Claude is next-generation AI assistant built to help you work more efficiently without sacrificing safety or reliability. Anthropix Midway model, Claude 3.5 Sonic, can help you organize thoughts, solve tricky problems, analyze data, and more, whether you're brainstorming alone or working on a team with thousands of people,

all at a price that works for just about any use case. If you're trying to crack a problem involving advanced reasoning, need to distill the essence of complex images or graphs, or generate heaps of secure code, Cloud is a great way to save time and money. Plus, the Anthropic Leadership Team was founded in AI research

and built Cloud with an emphasis on safety. To learn more, visit anthropic.com slash Claude. That's anthropic.com slash Claude. Okay, Scott Galloway, prediction from you, obviously, about the election, unless you want to talk about something else. Well, I'll do two because we're supposed to be tech and business, so I'll try and, I'll do something about tech and business,

and then obviously people either come here for a prediction or either will love or hate this prediction. But I think there's a really decent chance. I think Intel is probably the ripest, large, it's not large cap now, it's mid cap. It's the ripest candidate I've seen in a while for a take private.

That is, it's got outstanding assets, decent cashflow. I think actually a pretty talented CEO, depressed stock price. And it needs to be out of the public view or public markets for a good 12 to 36 months. Similar to what Dell did. The investments they need to make,

the layoffs they need to make, quite frankly, the efficiencies they need would best be done as a private company, not a public. And it's got so many outstanding assets in terms of its management, its suppliers, its supply chain, its vendor relationship, its customer relationships, its brand, its global brand. It's arguably one of the probably the 10 most recognized tech brands in the world. It to me, Kara, just screams. Are you up to something? I am not personally, no. Are you up to something?

It just screams take private to me. This would be, I got to think that this would be one of the better. It's just so fucking ripe. It's about to fall off the tree for a big private equity firm to come in and put together a great investor group and take it private, in my view. My other prediction is simple. I think this poll out of Iowa shows there's real surprising momentum. It just feels everything is coming our way. And then just the feet on the street operation organized by the Harris campaign because of the money in the organization here. I don't even think this is, I'm predicting, Cara, that it's not just a win for Harris, it's a decisive win.

Sorry, Scott, I had to change to my iPhone because we had a power surge. I'm blaming Tucker Carlson. I said that Kamala was going to win and was going to be decisive. Well, Scott, I think I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's something I've been saying for a long time. I think women are the quiet majority of people

who are going to be active in this election. It doesn't mean that Trump hasn't done very well given all the hair on this guy, and there's a lot of it. But he was a president, and so there is that popularity element of it. I just think the people he's aimed at are people who are low propensity voters, and they don't leave the basement because they're stoned. Like, that's the people he's trying to get to vote. I think the last week, all the mistakes have been massive and really significant, much more so than people realize. I think reporters have spent far too much time on Twitter. And so they think that the world is more dire than it is

because Elon's managed to create a terrible environment there. And so media reporters just cannot possibly imagine being pro-Harris at this point. So that's why they're doing that. And they spend too much time focused on polls and easily gamed predictions markets. My biggest thing, two things have been, and then you can react, is one, the amount of money she's raised from small donors. It says a lot to me. It's about motivated people. I do think women do vote, and they don't, and they're tired of incels. They're tired of rapists. They're tired of being told what to do with their bodies, and they are much more motivated than the men who are just like, I like a tough guy, like that kind of thing. I don't think they like him that much. Lastly, today and the last week and a half at least, his rallies have been sparsely attended. And right now, there's pictures

of him in North Carolina on the final day of the election, half-empty halls in North Carolina. It says a lot to me. These people are tired of the show. And as a longtime watcher of The Apprentice, let me just say, I got tired of the show in the last season and stopped watching it. And that's what it feels like. And you can decry me for watching The Apprentice, but it was a good show. So that's where I feel I think she's going to perform better. But I have to tell you, I think he's going to do everything possible to stay out of jail, including declaring victory very early in the evening. So it could be a very long few days, and I'm worried a little bit more than probably you about violence. So I agree with Annette. I do get a little bit defensive. I think there's some misandry in there, Cara, when you refer to young men as saying women are tired of rapists and incels and are getting stoned in their basements.

I don't think the Democratic Party has done itself any favors by ignoring the struggles that young men face. And I think the Democratic Party has lost a lot of potential voters. Young men are actually is in favor of gender equality as young women. They just don't feel that the Democratic Party, they feel the Democratic Party by purposely advocating or stating that they try and advantage 76% of the population is not advantaging that 74%, but it's discriminating against the 26% that are young men. And I think sometimes we have a tendency to stereotype them and not recognize the nuance and just the very real struggles that young men face. I don't think the Democratic Party's draping self in glory there. I 100% agree. And I think it's one thing Harris should spend a lot of time doing, bringing in people like you and Richard Reeves and stuff like that, because I think it is a crisis. I'm just talking political strategy. I don't think this is a dependable group of voters.

I think you're right. I think you're right. That's what I mean. And I think we have to. I have three sons. It matters a great deal to me how young men feel about their lives. And we want to bring them in and make them feel better. I don't love that a lot of, say, men of color right now are like, oh, Trump doesn't like us. That's why I'm not voting for him because he's saying we're garbage. I don't like that either. It's like they should feel good about this country and they should feel good about their role in it.

But I do think women have had it, really had it with, and I'm not saying incels. You made this argument yourself, which was, you know, like women are tired of being like told what to do with their body, really and truly. And I think that's the quiet thing that men are now saying out loud about being unhappy. I think women are very unhappy underneath in a way that will motivate them to vote. And we should begin to bring ourselves together as a group of people. And I would recommend you watching the Will.i.am video of the song. We used to get along not as well as we could have, but better than we do now. And all this garbage has to stop.

Everything with garbage has to stop. We're not garbage. We're the American people. It has to stop. And hopefully that will mean kicking Trump to the curb finally, because he is a part of our personality that exists but shouldn't anymore.

Word. Word, my sister. Word. Sister, brother. Well, we'll see. We'll see on Thursday. We could be totally depressed. But we my sister. Word. Sister, brother. Well, we'll see. We'll see on Thursday. We could be totally depressed. But we're here for it.

We're here for it, and we'll do whatever we can. We're still going to build a great country, regardless of what happens. But we want Kamala to win because she's super cool. But I think that's an important point. Something that's unproductive is the catastrophizing on both sides to claim America is over if he or she wins. America has endured worse than he or she. And while I do think certain groups, in my view, young people who would incur deficits or what are effectively tax increases that will be unprecedented, obviously women in terms of a continued loss of domain over their own bodily autonomy,

women in terms of a continued loss of domain over their own bodily autonomy. But to believe that America is not going to be around in four years if he or she wins just doesn't recognize history or how enduring and outstanding America is. I agree with you, Scott, and I think it is. And I do like her message, which is much more about unity on the way out. His is about fluoride, whether you should have fluoride in the water, and Al Capone. We're done with that. And I'm glad that she's doing a unity message at the end. Hopefully she can stick with that. And I hope she does if she becomes president. And it would be a great moment in our history to have the first woman president of the United States.

Just exciting. And I'd be just as excited if it was a Republican, honestly, as long as it was a good one. But I'm very excited about that. Anyway, Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naim and Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Christine Driscoll. Ernie and Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Brosmius-Severio and Dan Shulon. Nishat Kerouan 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. Cara, I will see you on the other side. And go vote, everybody.