Transcription:

Below is a transcript of an interview with “Pivot” podcast co-hosts Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway that aired on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, March 19, 2023.

Margaret Brennan: And “Pivot” podcast co-host Kara Swisher from San Francisco and Scott Galloway from Miami this morning. And for full disclosure, Galloway is a professor of marketing at New York University who was directly or indirectly involved with several companies that had funds in SVB Bank and, due to their failures, liquidity. No one is facing a problem. Scott, I’d like to start here. After this failure, what are the broader implications for America’s ability to continue to innovate?

Scott Galloway: Nice to meet you, Margaret. Well, you see, the modern US banking system is a miracle. Turn short-term deposits into long-term loans to grow the economy. The question is whether Marjorie Taylor-Green has what she asked for and that is the US split in her two. Not between Red and Blue, but between Silicon Valley venture capitalists trying to find constructive solutions and venture catastrophes who seem to have a vested interest in the weakening of the US banking system. It’s a problem. dollar. There have been letters issued in an attempt to facilitate a transaction signed by several hundred VCs. What’s even more interesting is who isn’t on that list? It’s people who have a great deal of interest in cryptocurrencies that have seen their 20% rise, as the system has been injected with a lot of anxiety by constant catastrophes of this sort. So in Silicon Valley, I think he’s trying to ask, are there two Americas, and should lawmakers and Americans back the Americans and the agents of chaos?

Margaret Brennan: Who are you thinking of? Who are these agents of chaos?

Galloway: Yes, people pretending to be social media algorithms say chaos will continue. Investing in crypto, don’t share – don’t share a kind of collective interest in the health of the banking system. And those individuals who see America as a crossroads between the Hunger Games and capitalism on the rise believe us believe us. Must be Danish. In other words, neither upward-looking capitalism nor downward-looking socialism is nepotism.

Margaret Brennan: Carla, you know, so many start-ups have relied on this Silicon Valley lender to get business and get their business off the ground, but they can’t necessarily go to the bigger banks. Seeing this huge part of our economy crippled, is there a ripple effect here?

KARA SWISHER: No, they have money. they always have money. They said there wasn’t enough rat holes – there – to push all the money into Silicon Valley. However, the bank was particularly attentive to them, offering them personal mortgages and personal loans, and using the fact that they were invested by stocks and venture capitalists as collateral. So they had a hard time with traditional banks, but this bank treated them that way. It was sort of a Silicon Valley creature, they had advisors from Silicon Valley, and every startup in Silicon Valley belonged to this bank in some way. And spread it to events and so on. So banks that are too niche for one particular group. And it’s also a group of people who react very quickly. This is why banks ran on the bank when they realized they couldn’t sell their bonds.

Margaret Brennan: I’d like to ask you about what’s happening here in Washington at this week’s hearings, and the CEO of TikTok will be called in to testify. Kara, CBS has confirmed reports that the Justice Department is investigating the company for spying for location data on American citizens, including American journalists. And some of those doing this were reportedly based in China. The parent company says they are no longer employed. Is this kind of monitoring done by other social media companies as well?

SWISHER: Well, another way. Of course they are selling you ads. Because the country does not have a national level privacy bill. What that means is that whatever these companies want to do, they have a lot of power to do it. In-I call them information thieves, but they-, that’s for another reason. It’s to sell you ads. In this case, it feels a little more terrifying in that it’s a state government. Now Tiktok says these are rogue actors, but the fact that they can do it means they can. It’s not just surveillance, it’s propaganda. So when Facebook offers it, or Meta or whatever, they’re doing it for business reasons, and neither is great. By the way, governments can get in there, and any government can get in there. So we have to be very careful about what all these companies get, but we are especially concerned about state actors.

Margaret Brennan: It looks like news development is actually throwing sand into the progress of what ByteDance and TikTok had proposed as a way around this problem, called Project Texas. They don’t want a ban. They don’t want to be forced to sell. Scott, how is this finally resolved?

Galloway: America is waking up to the fact that it has a neural jack plugged into the heads of its youth who spend more time on TikTok than on any other media streaming media platform. The CCP is stupid and does not give a thumbs up to the scale of anti-American content, raising the next generation of American civic, nonprofit, business, and military leaders. About America. How it is resolved is very simple. The Chinese Communist Party wants us to never get out of our way and there is a lot of evidence they may have been right. We want to preserve shareholder value. And on the eve of the ban they will decide if they can’t both hold hundreds of billions of dollars and agree to a spin.

Margaret Brennan: Carla, what do you see here? So the Washington Post had TikTok running a huge ad in the local paper. . Gina Raimond said “the politician in me she thinks you literally she loses voters under 35 forever” this is the political element here this is she 200 million What if it’s on the device of an American?

SWISHER: Well, there’s the problem of people using it, it’s very popular. I believe some progress is being made by other services now. But I don’t think there will be mass protests by teens. I think the question you have to think about is what happens if they ban, what happens to the money. This company has a lot of US investors, so let me be clear. And many US investors are very interested in his TikTok decline. Behind the scenes, it’s happening at the same time, but it’s very popular and true for politicians to use this as anti-China. By the way, it’s bipartisan. It’s Josh Hawley, but it’s also Mark Warner. So three years ago, four years ago, I love his TikTok, great product. I don’t trust the Communist Party, so I use it on my burner phone. And that’s the problem. This is a propaganda tool. And the question is, what do we do about it? And why aren’t US companies allowed in China? I’m not sure, but I don’t agree with the ban with Scott, who has been calling me for a while. I think there are ways to protect people, but if it’s not a wholly US-owned company or somewhere else, it’s very difficult. And it’s going to be difficult for this company, at this point,

Margaret Brennan: I want to emphasize what you said, for years you said this device was unsafe to use. I use a phone I take nowhere because of the level of risk here. So this is in the pockets of millions and billions of Americans.

SWISHER: Yes. Yes, I don’t use Facebook either. that’s me I don’t trust any of them, but I really trust the Chinese Communist Party less than Mark Zuckerberg.

Margaret Brennan: Wow. Quickly, Scott, as you know, we are looking into a possible indictment of the 45th President of the United States who is back on social media his platform. With tools or dangerous methods when he calls for protest?

Galloway: I don’t know, but this kind of empty discussion about the First Amendment and speeches and pretending these organizations are really hard decisions is kind of borderline I think it’s comical. It’s pretty easy. In other words, organizations or individuals add shareholder value to these companies in one or two ways. They either generate a lot of engagement through engagement and awe, or they spend a lot of money on the platform. And around the time President Trump became less furious or less content, Meta found their backbone and kicked him out about days before Biden’s inauguration. about to spend another $1 billion or his $1.5 billion on They suddenly decided he should be back on the platform. caused So if they wanted an excuse not to bring him back onto the platform, they have it. or a sense of loyalty to the Commonwealth.

Margaret Brennan: Well, on that cynical note, let’s just leave it at that, Scott. Carla, it’s always nice to talk to you. We will be back soon.