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Can We Get Back Together With Canada? | Pivot

November 11, 2025 / 01:00:31

This episode of Pivot features hosts Scott Galloway and Cara Swisher discussing various topics including Canadian tourism, US-Canada trade relations, and the impact of AI on society. They also touch on local politics, flight issues, and the cultural dynamics between the US and Canada.

Recorded live from the Queen Elizabeth Theater in Toronto, Galloway and Swisher express their admiration for Canada while addressing the challenges posed by US tariffs on Canadian imports. They highlight Prime Minister Mark Carney's efforts to diversify trade relationships and the potential economic impact of the current political climate.

The conversation shifts to the implications of AI technology, with Galloway emphasizing the need for regulations to protect young people from disinformation. They also discuss the importance of personal relationships in a polarized society and the role of young voters in shaping future elections.

Throughout the episode, Galloway and Swisher maintain a humorous and engaging tone, sharing anecdotes about their experiences and thoughts on masculinity, leadership, and the future of tourism between the two nations.

As they wrap up, they encourage listeners to foster connections across differing viewpoints and express their love for Canada, reinforcing the idea that both nations share a deep bond.

TL;DR

Scott Galloway and Cara Swisher discuss US-Canada relations, AI impacts, and the importance of personal connections in a polarized society.

Video

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We love Canada so much and we really might need to come here actually. Uh, it's feeling very Handmaid's tail down
00:00:07
there.
00:00:13
Hi everyone, live from the Queen Elizabeth Theater in Toronto. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox
00:00:19
Media Podcast Network. I'm Carara Swisser. And I'm Scott Galloway. And where where are we cara? Here.
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Toronto. As I I said, this is the first stop on
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our seven cities in seven days tour, which should challenge our relationship quite a bit. We're spending all our time
00:00:36
together. Um before we start, we want to say a big thank you to our sponsors, ODU and Upwork. Um we're taping the show,
00:00:43
as I like to say, kaching. Okay, we're taping the show for audio and YouTube distribution. So, look
00:00:50
pretty. You'll be able to hear it or watch it next week. And let's begin.
00:00:55
Let's begin. We've got a lot to talk about tonight, Scott. From terrace to tourism to local politics and beyond.
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We're g we're we're making these in each city, whether we go to uh Boston, we're making them local. We're localizing
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them. That's what we're doing. So, we're going to talk a lot about Canada and things like that. We learned up on y'all. Um but first, uh how was your
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flight here? My flight here? Yeah. I feel like you're setting me up. My flight here was fascinating.
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Not mine. Not mine. No. See, this is when she asks a question, it's not really because she wants to know me. She
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wants me to say, "Cara, how was your flight?" By the way, just quick fun fact, there are more raccoons in Toronto
00:01:32
than kids under the age of 10. Okay, good to know. True story. True story. 5% of
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Torononians are vegan. I don't know if that's especially high or low, but is it Torononians or Toronto?
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Well, it's Toronto, but it's Torononians. Oh, Tonians. Oh, hello.
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Passport coming my way. He was literally We're in the car here the entire time. I haven't seen him in a
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while on Chat GPT having a relationship with a chatbot the whole time. And this is what he was doing. He was asking
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questions like this. I'm in a relationship. I'm in a synthetic porn relationship and I just I'm addicted and I can't and plus you're
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like you're not doing this. No, no, no. That was sexist. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Anyway, flight
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cancellations, mine was three hours late actually, across the US could rise 15%
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or even 20% if the government shutdown continues. The FAA started off by cutting around 3% of flights at select
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airports, including mine. Uh, we're taping this Saturday. By the time it airs, that number could be up to 10%.
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Here's uh What do you think of this? What's going on? It's bad for every everybody. Business, tourism. I thought
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I almost wouldn't make it here. It feels as if somebody has asked chatbt that how
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could we most elegantly reduce the prosperity of Americans because if you
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think about if you think about we we generally think of innovation as things
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uh that can capture economic value. So we think about e-commerce or search or social because a small number of
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companies were able to sequester the value through IP or distribution and
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capture value for a small number of companies. But if you look at the most impressive innovations in history that
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really change things, they're typically things where we're the winners and that is no small group of entities called the
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Delaware Corporation are are able to skim massive value. So it's consumers and the public that is able really are
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the big winners. And some of those things are I believe the greatest innovation in history is the western
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nation middle class. Longer story, but close up there would be vaccines. And and by the way, if you don't think
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vaccines are the biggest innovation in history, your head's up your ass and I can't save you. Yeah. Um there's
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but literally tens of millions of kids every year get to be adults because of vaccines. But no one company has really
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been able to sequester and capture shareholder value. Another example would be the PC. Think about just the you were
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basically able to put a $30 million supercomput from 1970 on everyone's desk for about 300 bucks by 1995. And then
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the third biggest I would argue innovation in terms of how it's changed the world is we're going to be in seven
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cities in seven days skirting the surface of the atmosphere for at 710 the
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speed of sound for very little cost. Whereas to get across the US just 100 or
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150 years ago we'd begin eating our nieces and nephews. Yeah. And so who do you think would survive that? You
00:04:32
or me? Me? Oh, it's pretty obvious you. Right. It would pretty be obvious to you. You own the prison yard.
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It would be both gamey and stringy to eat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just thinking. No, I don't think it would be like how
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about how about some Scott with your makers and ginger. Yeah. If you bit into me, I would totally kill you and eat you if
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I needed to. Go on, as you say. Okay. Uh but anyways,
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I may have to in the United States. But if you if you if first off, I would argue that the administration is trying
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to threaten people and has conflated coarseness and cruelty with masculinity and leadership and is basically trying
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to say we're going to make your life miserable and they're not afraid to. And I I wonder I mean when you think about
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airline travel there's few things that have created more connection, more
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global commerce. It's just uh deploying human capital to its best use whether
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it's for a few days or over you know a couple of years but I just think it's amazing and what's interesting about
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airline if you think about the airline industry again going back to the notion that as capitalists we like to think the
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greatest innovation creates a small number of companies with trillions of dollars in values trillions of dollar in value what's happened with the airline
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industry if you added up the profits of Boeing Airbus Bombardier a Canadian manufacturer I own a Bombardier plane.
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That was an incredible douchebag. That's why his trip was easy. Anyways, by the way, if you buy a plane
00:06:03
from Bombardier, you're getting it for 50% off because Canadian taxpayers continue to bail that company out. So, thank you. Um, but essentially, uh,
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you're you're I added up all of the profits and losses of all the airlines
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in history, all the jet manufacturers in history, this year, they're at break even. So there's something around the
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notion that and I'm going to bring this forward to technology. I'm waiting for you to land the plane, but go ahead. Yeah, this is this is where Cara says,
00:06:32
is there some is there something I I'm thinking it is there's a big is there something resembling a period at the end of this,
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right? I wonder if AI is going to be I'm hoping AI becomes one of these innovations
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where no small number of companies are able to aggregate trillions of dollars in value and that is we win. And I think
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there's some geopolitical concerns here. I think China is going to dump into the market a bunch of inexpensive LLMs to go
00:06:56
after the jugular of America. They're sick of [ __ ] with them. But I think that AI could be more like the airline,
00:07:01
the PC or the vaccine industry. And that is it could end up benefiting all of us, but it's not a small number of companies
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aren't going to be able to sequester that kind of value. I don't know how I got here, Carol. I don't either. I'm like watching this go.
00:07:13
Anyways, my flight was fine. How was yours? I'm going to be on his plane tomorrow.
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Um to Boston. Uh here's the problem is that this is this is a I was thinking
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that if I miss this flight given I have to fly commercial as opposed to you for example. Um
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like we have all these people working for us. We have this whole tour going and it just eats into economic vitality.
00:07:38
We've sold out. We've sold out everywhere. It's all the people you come here. You go to dinner. Everything that
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leads to it. And then this this idiot who was on like I forget what stupid reality show he was on. Sean Duffy is
00:07:51
running our transportation department. Secretary of Transportation. Okay, fine. Whatever. The idiot, the incompetent [ __ ] Um and and then he
00:07:58
just they're using it as a political pun, which is grotesque. And then from
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the safety point of view, two planes almost collided in LA today. There's going to be a a collision in in midair
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or something terrible is going to happen. Airlines are among the most safe thing to do in general compared to
00:08:18
almost any other transportation which is there was a real visionary innovation around the FAA and that is I mean if you
00:08:26
think about from from Kittyhawk to a man landing on the moon I think it was 70 or
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80 years. Yeah. I mean just the innovation there has been incredible. But what was really visionary about the
00:08:38
airline or the air transportation industry is they said it feels very
00:08:43
unnatural. I don't know how many of you are like this, but out of the blue I started getting on planes and I think why am I sweating and feel like I'm
00:08:49
going to die? And I realized that I had anxiety. It was the first time I noticed I was getting old and suffering from
00:08:56
depression and anxiety was on a plane when I started freaking out. And when I
00:09:01
did some research on it, it is not natural. Our in our species is not used to skirting along the surface of the
00:09:07
atmosphere at 500 miles an hour. So every you know 300,000 years of instinct says to you get the [ __ ] to the ground.
00:09:14
This is not a good idea. And so it is a very anxious process. It's much more anxious than going at 0.1 the speed of
00:09:22
sound on the ground in a four- wheeled vehicle. You just get anxious in a plane. and the vision of the FAA and
00:09:29
different air um regulatory bodies around the world as it related to transportation air transportation and
00:09:35
said whereas we're making auto safety one sigma we're going to make planes
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four sigma I love aviation I invest in aviation companies and they're generally speaking really shitty businesses
00:09:47
because the the cost and time to get FAA certification is so intense because they
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decided early on we are going to make this the safest form of travel because you un you naturally just feel so unsafe
00:10:02
in this thing. If you started meeting if you knew as many people who had been hurt on an airliner as you
00:10:09
knew people who had been hurt in an auto accident, you'd never get on an Air Canada flight. You'd be like, "No, I
00:10:14
think I'll just take the Greyhound or what I used to call the dog. You'll take a bus." But it was visionary
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because now most of us while anxious get on a plane because we see those stats that the most dangerous part of your
00:10:27
your airline travel is the ride to the airport. So it was somewhat visionary to create standards
00:10:32
and of course we're we're blowing it as always. We're blowing it with this stupid thing because people become there's lots of statistics showing
00:10:38
people are now cutting flights. We're going into Thanksgiving and Christmas. The economic toll will be gigantic on
00:10:45
this whole thing. And so, well, it's I like it's almost as if we were so [ __ ] stupid, we'd impose
00:10:50
tariffs, right? Exactly. We'll get to that. We'll get to that in a minute. But one of the other things the United States is these
00:10:56
SNAP food benefits. Um, last week we talked about which we correctly predicted that Elon Musk would get his
00:11:03
trillion dollar pay package, which he's not going to get until he meets all kinds of criteria. Um, but it had the it
00:11:09
wasn't related, but it had the juxtiposition with these SNAP food benefits. The Supreme Court is letting
00:11:15
the Trump administration continue to hold back full benefits. That's actually a very smart move by Judge Jackson who's
00:11:21
a liberal justice because it goes down to the circuit court who will probably quickly uh force him to do so and not
00:11:28
that the Supreme she wanted them to make the decision because it's a more liberal um court than the Supreme Court. So
00:11:35
actually it was a smart chess move on her part. Um so she judge uh Jackson
00:11:41
currently is in charge of the emergency decision. since she sent the appeal back to the first circuit court of appeals can handle the matter quicker will
00:11:47
probably decide against President Trump and his uh people who want to stop children from eating food. Um and and
00:11:55
you know one one of the things that's happening is you have these juxapositions of very wealthy people largely tech people and children and
00:12:04
people who are desperate for food and of course there's all this uh misinformation online about um the use
00:12:10
of SNAP that you can buy all manner of things which you can't get hair extensions whatever uh it's quite racist in general
00:12:18
um but again another another bad black eye on the United States we're going to
00:12:23
get the terrorists in a minute, but it really does reveal the ugly side of the United States. My dad used to say
00:12:30
that America is a terrible place to be stupid. And I think that was a harsh, unfair way of saying America is a
00:12:35
terrible place to be unfortunate. And capitalism at its core does believe
00:12:41
in winners and losers. That we create an incentive system where people who work hard, are talented, and also quite
00:12:46
frankly really lucky can have an extraordinary life. And quite frankly, the people who aren't as lucky or as
00:12:52
talented don't have as nice a life. That is a basic trade-off that we we opt for
00:12:57
in a capitalist society. But when the net gets so low that people just massively hit it just hit the ground, it
00:13:04
reveals something ugly about a culture, especially when it's been recognized the kind of prosperity that America has.
00:13:10
Prosperity. This is astonishing that we're allowing kids to be starving in the United States. Well, where I was
00:13:16
headed with this was that a budget and fiscal priorities on behalf of of voters
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reveals a nation's character. And this is America's character right now. And that is somewhere about 22% of America's
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population is under the age of 18, but 40% of SNAP recipients are kids. So we
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have decided to overindex in the wealthiest nation in the world the number of kids who uh go hungry. That is
00:13:45
a really poor reflection on our values because effectively what's happened in
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the United States is people my generation really car's generation because she's much older than me but
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essentially not much older than essentially old people have figured out a way in the US to vote themselves more
00:14:03
money the Dian democracy is working too well and that as old people vote so as a
00:14:08
result we are now spending more you know those masked icelike weird secret police
00:14:15
force. We're now spending more money on ICE in the United States than we're spending on um children. So, your your
00:14:24
budget reflects your values. And I think this is bringing to light some very ugly things about America that we have
00:14:31
decided we're no longer capitalism believing in winners and losers. We're about the Hunger Games where if you win,
00:14:37
it's a life you couldn't have never imagined, but for everybody else, you die a pretty slow, ugly death.
00:14:43
Yeah. It's a really it's it's we'll see how it goes. I don't think it's a particularly good look for Go ahead. You
00:14:49
can um I think it will have implications. I think between the ICE raids and the
00:14:55
cruelty of them and SNAP benefits and the juxosition between Trump tweeting 17
00:15:02
photos of the Lincoln bathroom, which has a lot of marble now, and the Oval Office, which I don't even understand
00:15:08
what's happening in that Oval Office. So much gold um uh is happening there. And then the this ridiculous ballroom, all
00:15:15
of it together is is I think an indictment on the Trump administration. And it looks like I'm I'm like waiting
00:15:22
for Three Spirits to visit him on Christmas this year. That's my feeling. You know, that's what's happened to
00:15:27
Marjorie Taylor Green, in case you're interested. So,
00:15:34
we don't know what to think of that. I think it's a scam. We all think it's a scam. We know it, but we're here for it.
00:15:40
We're fine as long as she's the best. She is the We were talking about there was this poll recently of who was the
00:15:46
leading uh who was the Democrat and it came up no one. You know, it was 17% no
00:15:51
one. But I feel like it's Marjorie Taylor Green is the leader of the Democratic party at this point. Don't you think?
00:15:56
Well, there they did some analysis where they tried to figure out so Trump's Trump's popularity is really taking a
00:16:02
dive and they tried to sus out what?
00:16:08
Yay. Sus it out. Well, yeah. They they figured out he's a menacious [ __ ] Um the and they think
00:16:17
they think a bunch of there's some academic research now saying that the one thing that they think has had the
00:16:22
greatest uh impact on his popularity has been the visual image of them
00:16:28
tearing down the east wing. And we are a highly visual species. So it's not these these visual metaphors are
00:16:36
incredibly the ice people. There's a lot of visuals now. But they say that image of a crane
00:16:41
tearing down the east wing has somehow conoted or or inspired a visceral
00:16:47
reaction. Yeah. And what he's going to put in place from the American public. Well, I don't know what the next president's going to do. Presumably,
00:16:53
it's You know what it's going to look like? It's going to look like the best wh house in Iraq. Yeah.
00:16:59
Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine going by the way, the
00:17:04
East Wing wasn't all that, but that's okay. They shouldn't have torn it down. They should have renovated. That's what I felt. Um, so, uh, we're going to go on
00:17:11
a quick break and when we come back, we're going to talk about the US Canada trade war, which won't be awkward at
00:17:16
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00:19:37
Scott, we're back. Recording live from Toronto. Hello, Toronto.
00:19:44
Oh my god. Yeah. Scott has remained dressed this entire
00:19:51
time. It's early in the program. You have so much respect for your Canadians. It's early in the program
00:19:57
in Austin. The shirt came off immediately. I get the sense the ladies want a little dessert. They don't
00:20:02
little dessert. That's right. No. Surrender to the dog. They do not want a little dessert.
00:20:10
What kind of dessert would you be? I'm thinking chocolate pudding.
00:20:16
Or no, vanilla pudding. Excuse me. I'm sorry. I'm a tall drink of lemon cello.
00:20:22
Lemonchello. Like lemonade. Like a tall drink of lemon. know what lemonchella is. All right,
00:20:28
move on. Okay, I'm trying to think of what dessert you are. I got I'll think about that later. Um anyway, we're back, as I
00:20:35
said, recording live from. So, it's a great time to talk about trade tensions between the US and Canada. Uh elbows up.
00:20:42
Uh since President Trump took off, we're paying attention. Um since
00:20:47
President Trump took office, the US has imposed sweeping tariffs on Canadian imports. Many Canadian goods face up to
00:20:54
35% tariffs and steel and aluminum face rates of 15%. After four decades of close economic partnership, Prime
00:21:00
Minister Mark Carney is saying it's time to date other people. He's looking to uh
00:21:05
double exports with countries other than the US within the next 10 years. His government's new budget proposes
00:21:11
spending 280 uh billion uh Canadian, that's 200 mill billion US over the next
00:21:17
5 years to help offset the effects of the US's trade war. attract investment and increase defense spending. By the
00:21:24
way, Carney is two seats away from a majority government. A conservative MP defected to the Liberals. Um he's doing
00:21:32
rather well. Um and of course there was the Doug Ford ad which angered President
00:21:39
Trump. Um which you I wasn't seeing it coming from Doug Ford. I'll be honest with you, but I'm I'm also down for
00:21:45
that. So talk about what's going on here because that of course incense Trump. Um
00:21:51
and uh we're sorry about the World Series by the way. Not really. No.
00:21:59
I'm from California. Too bad. Sorry. Um but I grew up in LA and I was rooting for
00:22:05
Wait for it. The Blue Jays. Were you wearing You are such a suckup to Canada.
00:22:12
True. I I tweeted about Um that's cuz you were conceived here. Um so talk a
00:22:18
little bit about the terrorists because it's a really difficult situation this and of course he continues to say you
00:22:24
you do not want to be the 51st state I assume. Thank you. Um but he keeps talking about
00:22:30
it. Um it's demented obviously. That's a waste of time. But talk a little bit about where the
00:22:35
tariffs are because by the way we'd like it. We're progressives. We we'd win every Democratic House. We can you imagine
00:22:42
what would happen if Canada became the first 51st state? We'd be so [ __ ] liberal be out of control.
00:22:47
Yeah, it's true. It would Anyways, so just a little bit of context.
00:22:53
We have the the the strongest alliance in the world. Churchill said the the only thing worse than fighting with your
00:22:59
allies or fighting uh with your allies is fighting without your allies. And I think America right now is taking for
00:23:06
granted a lot of things. We're taking for granted the FAA. We're taking for granted Veterans Affairs. We we taking
00:23:12
granted competence in in the administration and across all of our great public sector employees, but we're
00:23:19
also quite franking frankly taking for granted our friends. Canada has the largest undefended border in the world
00:23:26
with the US. That says something. It would cost us somewhere between 20 and $50 billion a year if either side
00:23:32
decided to militarize their border. But we don't because we trust and we like each other. Canada uh in World War I.
00:23:40
And I looked this up because someone pinned this on on me and I thought, well, I should try and figure out what this means. Canada went to World War I,
00:23:47
a colony came back, a nation, actually went to World War II or entered World War II before we did. They were in
00:23:53
Afghanistan with us. So, this has been this unbelievably prosperous
00:23:58
relationship where, in the words of Animal House, quite frankly, you [ __ ]
00:24:04
up. You trusted us. And that is about somewhere between 60 and 70% of exports
00:24:10
from Canada go into the US. It's about 17% of ours. That's a bit misleading
00:24:15
because of the exports that come into the US from Canada, they're generally low margin products. They're oil,
00:24:21
petroleum, lumber, and they're in companies that trade at a P multiple of about 20. Whereas the products that we
00:24:28
import or export into Canada are more like automobiles, electronics, iPhones,
00:24:33
pharmaceuticals that have double or triple the operating margins and usually our revenues in a company that trade at
00:24:40
about a multiple of 20 to 30. So for every dollar of exports that we push
00:24:45
into Canada, we recognize about three times the shareholder value. So trade,
00:24:52
if you will, between the US and Canada is asymmetric in that is for every
00:24:58
dollar we push into you that you buy versus every dollar you push into us, we
00:25:04
get triple the amount of shareholder value. So if anyone's getting has been taken advantage of over the last 20 or
00:25:10
30 years, it's been Canadians. We benefit more from this trade than you do. But we've decided,
00:25:18
we've decided, and this is what is just so sclerotic and stupid, economically stupid about what we're doing. We've
00:25:25
decided because we're, it's like going through an angry divorce and one partner is much wealthier than the other and has
00:25:31
said, "Well, I'm going to over I'm going to damage myself more, but because I have so much more money, it's going to
00:25:37
hurt you more." So, it's not only irrational. The bottom line is it's just, for lack of a better term, it's
00:25:44
just unkind. And what you're seeing is uh Carney. By the way, I don't know if
00:25:50
you know this, I have another podcast called Prop G. No, I haven't heard of it. My most my most viewed podcast with this
00:25:56
was this guy who reached out to me his office and said, "We want to come on your podcast." And it was Mark Carney.
00:26:02
And I had no idea who the guy was. This was What do you mean you had no idea who the guy was? I didn't I'd never heard of the guy.
00:26:07
The prime minister of Canada. No, no, no. This is This was during the election. That's why I called. Okay. Um, and he came on and by it's like 70
00:26:14
minutes later, I'm like, "Hold me. That guy, I'm like, "Dad,
00:26:20
dad, seriously, that's the dad I want." Wait, wait. You didn't have those feelings for Justin Trudeau.
00:26:26
Justin's more like, "I'd like to roll and pick up chicks with Justin."
00:26:31
Justin's like, "That seems to be his job right now." I think I met him in person like 3 days ago and
00:26:37
I'm like Jesus Christ look at this guy's skin and he's beautiful. He looks like he's
00:26:43
in a [ __ ] boy band. He doesn't look like Anyway,
00:26:49
where were we? Bring me back. Mark Carney, what do you think of him? Anyways, so what are these leaders
00:26:55
doing? Trump and the trade wars have absolutely accomplished what he was
00:27:00
hoping to accomplish. They've inspired a massive flurry of deal making. That's
00:27:05
the good news. The bad news is it has nothing to do with us. So essentially every world leader is on a global tour
00:27:13
trying to figure out new supply chain and new alliances that don't include America. And the unfortunate thing about
00:27:18
this is that if and when Trump is out of office in 28, it's going to take us a
00:27:24
decade and to repair if at a minimum to repair these trade alliances. Cuz once
00:27:30
you establish alliances with other nations for your lumber and for your parts and for your whatever it might be,
00:27:37
your petroleum, your oil, whatever it might be, you're not going to say, "I'm sorry, girlfriend. We can't trust you
00:27:43
the next time some weirdo comes into office. We When COVID hit, I was on the board of a
00:27:50
company called Urban Outfitters, an apparel company, and we recognized that 70 or 80% of our tops were coming from a
00:27:56
10-mi radius of Shenzen that basically got shut down. And we said, "Okay, never again. We can't be this." Supply chains
00:28:03
were maximized for no slack and just pure efficiency, which made us vulnerable to a supply chain shock. What
00:28:09
Canada is going through is sort of a self-imposed own goal COVID from America
00:28:14
where they're going to diversify their supply chain and never put themselves in a position again where they need to
00:28:20
trust this meth lab that they have an apartment on top of. So one of the things that
00:28:28
actually your point your point about it being a good thing for Canada I think absolutely because it creates a
00:28:34
situation where you have to be one of the issues around Canada. I'm sorry to insult Blackberry because when I had my
00:28:40
baby I was holding a Blackberry um in the in the delivery room in my hand because I I was texting with someone at
00:28:48
the time. Um Wait, so you you actually bur the child? Yes, I did. You know that.
00:28:54
Okay. Louie. Oh my god. Don't say anything. You need to invest. Don't say anything.
00:28:59
You need to invest in our relationship. He's coming tomorrow to the Boston. Louie. Louie. Oh, great.
00:29:05
Okay. I actually had him. I had a cesarian scar. Do you want to see it right now? Oh, god. No.
00:29:10
Okay, good. All right. Um, but now I'm getting back. Anyway, I love BlackBerry,
00:29:15
but one of the innovations in technology didn't happen here as much
00:29:21
as it should have because of the dependencies on the United States. And it's a good thing to get out from under
00:29:27
a a dependency because with the US, BlackBerry was absolutely out front in
00:29:32
terms of innovation, in terms of usage, but as you know, it got run over. It got
00:29:38
run over by Apple and Google and everything else. And that to me was and and again Waterlue is an astonishing uh
00:29:46
technology school. Um did you know about Waterlue
00:29:51
a little bit? Yeah. Okay. You didn't. Um so one of the things that I think is interesting is what how can
00:29:57
you revive innovation in places like Canada like and not rely because the
00:30:02
reliance on I was looking at a list of American the most valued companies in the world. They're all US companies
00:30:09
whether it's Nvidia or Apple or or Meta or Alphabet. And it's really important
00:30:14
to establish and not just to support them to really think about innovation within each of your countries and to get
00:30:21
off to get off the relationship with the US may not be the worst thing for most countries in the world given how
00:30:28
repugnant we are at this moment. But also because it's important because I think of Blackberry. I just they
00:30:35
dominate it. they dominated the early technology era of mobile uh computing
00:30:40
and then absolutely didn't. Yeah. Look, it's this is the question I
00:30:46
get most. I live in London right now and it's like why can't we you know one company? So I think Nvidia right now is
00:30:55
worth more uh than the Canadian GDP. Is that right?
00:31:02
Yeah. It's worth 5 trillion I think Canadian. Anyways, the bottom line is you don't command the space you occupy
00:31:09
in terms of technology. There's just no getting around it. And we can talk about Blackberry and root for a company that's been irrelevant for 10 years, but
00:31:18
it's true. But you got great universities. You got a great culture. I think there's something to the I mean I hate to admit
00:31:24
this but the ready the ready fire aim regulatory environment in the US does
00:31:29
create a lot of fast movers opportunities in addition we I would describe the
00:31:35
benefit of the US as being kind of comes down to one word and that is risk so
00:31:42
people you know when I describe I don't know if this is true of Canada because 50% of the people living in Toronto were
00:31:47
born in other countries but when you describe when People when I'm in the UK
00:31:52
say, "Why are you guys doing so much better than us?" I was like, "Well, you're the ones that decided to stay."
00:31:59
And so, for example, what you need is quite frankly, you need 10 or 20 Shopifies. Cuz what happens is a company
00:32:06
starts, it gets huge. They have huge liquidity events. The people who started
00:32:11
these companies decide to stay there because they collect mates and dogs. and then they start a VC firm and start
00:32:18
salting the environment with more and more venture. In addition, and this is unfortunate, but the environment in the
00:32:26
US where there's more upside because of lower tax rates on the wealthy, we have a very strange tax system. It's
00:32:32
progressive, right? Until you get to about the 99th percentile and then once you get to the 99th percentile, it
00:32:38
plummets. So the tax rate on someone in the 99th percentile, if you're living in a blue state, might be 52 points. The
00:32:45
tax rate on the 25 wealthiest families in America is 6%. And the the the superpower of Americans
00:32:52
is their optimism, but it's also the Achilles heel because all of us in America think our kid is in the top 1%
00:32:59
and I can prove to every one of us 99% of our children are not in the top 1%. But what it create and then we have a
00:33:05
very low safety net. So, what it creates is an incentive system where people are encouraged to take more risk because
00:33:12
there's just so much more upside. But there's got to be something else. And I'm not sure entirely sure what it is
00:33:19
why, you know, when you get to the Canadian border, quite frankly, those unicorns somewhat stop. And the honest
00:33:25
answer, I don't have an answer for. Well, it's an opportunity. Um, but uh we're going to move on, but it's really
00:33:30
it's just an interesting time. I think ultimately Trump taco, you know, he will
00:33:36
taco the the thing out. Trump always chickens out. Um and so at some point he'll repair those relationships,
00:33:42
although he has to wake up first. Um anyway, we're going to he's been sleeping a lot lately in meetings. Um he
00:33:49
just did yesterday when that guy fainted. The OMPic guy fainted. Anyway, we're going to go on a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about
00:33:55
something New York City has in common with Toronto, a progressive mayor.
00:34:00
Support for the show comes from ODU. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't
00:34:06
need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for
00:34:11
accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is
00:34:18
where ODO comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. ODU is an all-in-one, fully integrated
00:34:24
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00:34:30
overload. No more juggling loginins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that ODU
00:34:36
replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business. Whether
00:34:41
you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to
00:34:47
streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business.
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Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try ODO for free at odo.com. That's odo.com.
00:35:06
Scott, we're back. How much do we love it here?
00:35:11
What? How much do we love it here? I do. I know. We're moving here. Another 20 years of global warming. This is going to be the greatest city in the
00:35:16
world. Yeah, it's going to be great. Seriously. So, back in the US, we had one local
00:35:22
election that transfixed the whole country. The New York City mayoral election. Toronto's mayor, Olivia Chow,
00:35:28
is a progressive who campaigned on affordability issues when she ran in 2023, like a certain newly elected
00:35:34
mayor. Uh her advice to him in a recent interview, she was talking um about the issue that defines affordability is
00:35:40
housing, not so much free buses. I just want to ask you a question. You've got a thing from now, how do we pronounce it?
00:35:47
Mam Dani. Um one of the I have no thing for him. You have a thing for him so you can pander to your
00:35:53
Pakistan liberals. No, no. Here's what I think. I want to ask you this question. You talk you're
00:35:59
on his incredible book tour and Scott's book is number one on Amazon right now. Notes and men.
00:36:04
I'm gonna throw throw you a bone there because it's worthwhile to be that way. But here is a man who is the description
00:36:09
of the men you're talking about, right? Who is respectful, who's communityoriented, who has gone around
00:36:16
the city and met people, etc., etc., etc. I'm just curious. A rich kid living in a rent control apartment.
00:36:22
No, it's not rank. No. Lot listen. Cuomo Cuomo was in a a rent stabilized
00:36:27
apartment too before. I find it interesting, but this these are the kind of people you want to men
00:36:34
to be like or look up to or not. You don't think so? Oh, I I honestly I hadn't I hadn't run
00:36:40
the macho test on Mandami. I think he's a I think he's a super impressive young man. I think he's an incredible
00:36:47
candidate. I think the Democrats can learn a lot from him. I thought he ran a great campaign. He's bold. He takes
00:36:52
risks. He's smart. Um I and I want to be clear, we talk about this a lot. I think
00:36:58
once someone is elected, you have an obligation as a citizen to rally behind them and and and hope for their success
00:37:06
and support them and let them prove you wrong. Voting, it's not a su we're not when you go to a voting booth, we're not
00:37:12
in a suicide pack. Well, you know, one one of the things I keep saying about I I've been thinking a lot about quote
00:37:18
unquote the the mating crisis because I wrote this book on young men. And
00:37:24
one of the another yet another reason why young people aren't hooking up is
00:37:30
because women are becoming slightly more progressive and men are becoming much more conservative. And women don't want
00:37:38
it. The moment a a a dude starts talking about his conservative values, she's like, "Okay, I'm out." And I literally
00:37:45
try to think, can you name Can you think of anyone when you were dating when you were single?
00:37:50
Well, maybe you did. I've never been single. You never been single? No. I've been single most of my life.
00:37:56
Anyways, I've literally a month. I was single for a month. Single for a month. Well, you know, I'm beachfront property
00:38:01
in Malibu, but among lesbians at least. Go ahead. Yeah. I'm the part of the beach that
00:38:08
washed away and it's gone forever. Anyways, but I can't remember the Inland Empire, I guess. I can't remember what the political
00:38:15
leanings were. And it's yet another reason why people are writing each other off. But to your point, as I think about
00:38:23
it, I think of a I think of masculinity as being three things. Uh provider. I
00:38:28
think every man at the outset of his career should assume that at some point he needs to take economic responsibility
00:38:34
for his household. And sometimes that means getting out of the way and being more supportive of your partner who's
00:38:39
better at that money thing. But I don't think it's a bad idea to start out saying, "I'm going to have to be economically viable in a capitalist
00:38:45
society that disproportionately evaluates men and my self-esteem is largely based on my economic viability."
00:38:52
I'm not saying that's the way the world should be, but it's the way the world is, too. Once you have that prosperity,
00:38:57
you move to protector. I think this is the part of the program that the men we're supposed to look up to for
00:39:02
masculinity, specifically the richest man in the world and the pres president, have totally missed the whole protector part of masculinity. Yeah.
00:39:09
And then three, procreation. I think sex and being horny and wanting to have sex,
00:39:14
makes you a better man. Makes you want to dress better, smell better, have a kindness practice, be resilient, make an
00:39:21
approach while making expressing romantic interest and making someone feel safe. Stop demonizing sexual
00:39:26
desire. It's an amazing thing. It makes men better men. Mom Dami.
00:39:33
Mom Donnie. You got it. Yeah, you got it. Stop it. Stop shaming me. I get him
00:39:38
right. I think he's a great role model for, as I think about it, I think he's a great
00:39:43
role model for young men. He takes risk risks. He's I think he's happily married.
00:39:49
He seems to be talking about protecting other people. So, as I'm thinking about this real time, yeah, I think he's a
00:39:56
great what I'm best of luck to him. In any
00:40:03
case, what do you want? In any case, I think he's a great role model and you know, I'd even [ __ ] him. So would you. Um, so, but you would.
00:40:11
That hair. Come on. A few beers. You never know. I'm down. I
00:40:17
mean, all right. And I know you hate, very quickly, we have two more things. Um, and then we'll get to questions from the audience. I know you hate the idea of a
00:40:24
state-run grocery stores, but here in Canada, most provinces have governmentr run liquor stores. Some states in the
00:40:29
United States have them. That's That's okay though, right? That's No, it was a bad idea here and it was a
00:40:35
bad idea there. When Alberta got rid of their government-owned liquor stores, the number of liquor stores tripled, the
00:40:41
number of employment tripled, and the number of products available to consumers was up eightfold. That's nothing but a transfer of wealth from
00:40:47
consumers to the government for shitty service. There are certain things the government does really well. They're really good at taking care of our
00:40:53
national parks. They're really good at collecting taxes. They're really good at the Navy. They're really good at the DMV. Someone from the DMV should not be
00:41:00
picking out your produce or your alcohol. The private sector does some things really well. One of them is
00:41:05
grocery. We do not need food sponsored food lines called government-owned grocery stores. Grocery is the last
00:41:12
thing that should be nationalized. I get it. I think it's the idea of getting better nutrition to poor people who now can't
00:41:18
give them money. Give them money. Well, we are not giving them money because of SNAP being cut. The problem when government gets involved involved
00:41:25
on a lot of this stuff is it creates an infrastructure where the majority of the money does not end up in the pockets
00:41:30
that you're supposedly helping. If you want to get more food or make food more affordable for people, what you do is
00:41:36
you give them money, more money in their pockets, $25 an hour minimum wage, which he is pro proposing, which I'm a huge
00:41:42
fan of, and then let them force Trader Joe's, Kroger's, Loblaws, or whatever
00:41:47
you call it up here, to compete against each other and battle it out in this full body contact violence called the
00:41:54
private sector. All right, I we will talk to him. I I I see your point, but I would I I
00:42:00
appreciate you acknowledging he's a good role model for men. I think he is a good role model. I'm glad you pointed that out.
00:42:05
Last last thing, tourism is down between the US and Canada. Last year, Canada was the top source of international tourists
00:42:11
to the US, generating over 20 billion dollars in spending and supporting 140,000 American jobs. In the first half
00:42:18
this year, can US saw a 25% drop in Canadian We Canadian visitors. Uh this
00:42:25
summer, for the second time in nearly 20 years, more US residents travel to Canada, largely escaping, um than
00:42:31
Canadians traveling to the US. Um why don't you think they want to come see
00:42:36
us, Scott? It's so funny. We we supposedly these tariffs are going to reinvigorate the
00:42:43
manufacturing sector. But here's the problem. Nobody wants to work in the manufacturing sector. You don't get to
00:42:49
take your dog to work on the sha on the on the shop floor. And 11% of the the
00:42:55
American public works in manufacturing. Yet 80% of Americans think we need more manufacturing. We have this fetish of
00:43:02
around manufacturing. And the reality is over time America has been very good at
00:43:08
arbitrageing out of low wage lowwage jobs into more service more in information more innovation industry.
00:43:14
12% of American public is employed in the tourist industry. So our obception
00:43:19
with trying to falsely, sclerotically, idiotically prop up the manufacturing sector with quote unquote tariffs is
00:43:26
taking down faster an industry which is higher margin and employs more people called the tourist sector. When you come
00:43:33
to Disneyland, we get much more money, much more margin, support much more jobs
00:43:39
than if we tariff your [ __ ] such that our lumber's more competitive. This again if you were look it's as if the
00:43:45
Trump administration said to chat GPT how can I elegantly reduce the prosperity of Americans inch by inch and
00:43:52
make it almost irreversible for it's not that elegant. It's not elegant at all. Um but what could bring
00:43:58
Canadians back to us? What could bring Canadians back? Yeah. What could we do?
00:44:04
[ __ ] A new president. I mean,
00:44:11
so so let let me get a prediction from you because you know what the world cup is Canada
00:44:18
team? No, they're not coming for the World Cup. Are you coming for the World Cup? I'm coming to I'm coming to Vancouver.
00:44:25
There's two cities, two cities or three cities in Canada. Toronto, Vancouver,
00:44:30
and then Montreal. There's lots of cities in I used to come every year in June to
00:44:36
Canada for tourist reasons. Anyone want to guess? F1 Montreal. Oh my god. Oh my
00:44:43
god. Hello. European food and hot women. Did I just say that? Yeah. So, what could what could we do? Say
00:44:50
Trump leaves, right? His tiny minion doesn't win. JD Vance,
00:44:56
um the most uncharming person in politics that exists. Um,
00:45:01
talk about pandering. Yeah. Uh, South Park has him exactly right.
00:45:07
Yeah. Um, what could the what would should the first thing the US should do to get
00:45:13
tourists back to the US? Canadian tourists.
00:45:23
I I just don't I think all we need to do is make America America again. I I just
00:45:32
don't Yeah. I don't think we need advertising. I don't think we need Disneyland and Niagara on the American board.
00:45:38
We have Niagara, too, but go ahead. I just this I mean, let's be honest,
00:45:44
we're pretty much the same goddamn people. We're we're fraternal or maternal twins, right? And the fact that
00:45:51
we don't we just we love each other so much. We
00:45:56
take each other for granted. It's like you wake up in the morning and you're spooning your your wife and you just you
00:46:02
forget how wonderful it is. It just this is not a Canada and America like we're
00:46:09
we're you and you're us. And the thought that we even have this kind
00:46:15
No, they don't think so. They don't. want to be spooned by you, Scott.
00:46:22
And neither do I. But that's another issue. This is really interesting, though, because
00:46:28
we Americans are so narcissistic. That's correct. That
00:46:34
listen, we agree with you. Scott was shocked by that. Americans, I was not.
00:46:40
Americans feel much better about Canadians right now than Canadians feel about Americans.
00:46:46
Yep. So Scott, they hate us. They really hate us.
00:46:51
So I don't I don't think there's anything we can do other than what I
00:46:56
would call just going back to a sense of normaly and someone who doesn't declare war on its friends.
00:47:02
Yes. I would say the one thing we could say is we're so sorry. We are so sorry.
00:47:07
That's what I see. That's how you do it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Yeah.
00:47:13
Can I tell you I was conceived here? Look at you. Were surprised by that. They don't like us. I'm just telling you. Anyway, we're going to finish up
00:47:18
and then we're going to get to questions from the audience. Support for the show comes from Odo.
00:47:23
Running a business is hard enough and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for
00:47:29
inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what
00:47:36
matters, growing your business. This is where ODO comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. ODO
00:47:41
is an all-in-one fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app
00:47:49
overload, no more juggling loginins, just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that ODU
00:47:55
replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether
00:48:00
you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to
00:48:06
streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business.
00:48:11
Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try ODU for free at odo.com. That's odo.com.
00:48:24
Okay. All right. So, we're gonna Scott in his head is going, "Love me, Canada."
00:48:30
It's going to be all night tonight with us discussing this. So, let's get some questions from the audience. Where are they? They're okay. Right here. There's
00:48:37
a podium here. So, we would love any questions you have. There is no question
00:48:43
uh too rude. And Scott made it through the entire show without a dick joke, so you should be happy.
00:48:50
Thank you so much. Um we've been watching and we're kind of terrified as
00:48:55
to what's happening in America. uh and uh we've been watching the
00:49:02
dismantling of democracy with the legal systems and the military and I could go
00:49:09
on with 250 things. Yeah, there's a lot to say. There's a lot going on these days. So my question to you is what is your
00:49:15
suggestion because it seems to be there's a mobilization around Donald
00:49:20
Trump and all of his followers. Who are we supposed to follow on the opposite
00:49:27
side? What is your suggestion? There needs to be a leader. Well, the recent election said something, didn't it? Didn't the recent
00:49:33
election? Absolutely. And it's not just at the top levels. It was down in the city councils like
00:49:38
and we're very hopeful that and I think that says to us that the American people
00:49:44
have a voice, right? But who's leading that voice? Who's going to take it to
00:49:50
the next level? And that's my question to you. We don't know right now. You know, we don't know. We don't know who the
00:49:55
Democrat there's a lot of Democratic Party officials. There's other people maybe you've not heard of yet. There's
00:50:00
leaders. My whole take on the whether you like uh Mamani or not is we contain
00:50:06
multitudes is how the Democratic party should be. Not that we have to agree on socialism or or Abby Spanberger in
00:50:14
Virginia is much more conservative or if you're Jared Pace in in Colorado. The
00:50:19
Democratic Party has to say here's the three things we care about. affordability, dignity, and democracy or
00:50:25
something like that. And I think it's really going to be interesting to see who emerges. But there's some great candidates. It's just a question of the
00:50:32
fever of Trump is a fever that the United States has all the time. Whether from the Salem witch trials to the m,
00:50:39
you know, to the McCarthy era to the Civil War, we have fevers that are really ugly and grotesque. And we're
00:50:46
going to come out of I feel like we're going to come out of this and this I agree this sad decrepit cruel man will
00:50:55
be gone but we'll see. He's got a lot of ad he's got a lot of people who love him you know. Absolutely. Any quick things?
00:51:02
Yeah, but to to build on Cara's point, America has been in very dark places
00:51:08
before and has actually it's tested our democracy and the democracy has been damaged in like a muscle that's damaged.
00:51:14
It's grown back stronger. At one point, slave owners controlled our dem quote unquote democracy. Right after the Great
00:51:20
Depression, there was Henry [ __ ] Ford. [ __ ] that guy. I
00:51:26
mean, he's dead, but he should be dead. Veterans were marching on the capital
00:51:33
and this guy named this young general named Douglas MacArthur opened fire on them. We were essentially putting we
00:51:39
were interning people because of their Japanese background in camps. We have been through very dark times and each
00:51:45
time we have come back, learned from it and come back stronger. So that's not an excuse to be complacent, but we're our
00:51:52
democracy is being tested. I think a lot of Americans are recognizing that a lot of our blessings we've taken for
00:51:57
granted. So I'm I'm hopeful that our democracy like a muscle is being tested
00:52:03
and it's going to grow back stronger. We've been through worse before. I also believe in young people. Um
00:52:08
again, New York mayoral, you can have all the feelings you want about it. young people voted and they said what they wanted and they said we don't want
00:52:14
an ass grabbing terrible Trumploving Democrat. So we'll
00:52:20
see. I believe in young people. That's who I believe in. Hello Scott and Cara. My name is Daniel.
00:52:25
I'm here with my wife. Um it's our first anniversary tomorrow and we both
00:52:31
Congratulations. Thank you. Uh we both love you and I wanted to ask both of us have worked in
00:52:36
advertising. I had an agency that I uh exited last year and I'm still working you know as a strategist and consultant.
00:52:43
Um she works in advertising. My question is and I also teach in postsecary. So my question for you mostly Scott is uh are
00:52:50
we screwed to work continue to work in these industries? Should we pivot now? Uh yeah. Yeah. What are your thoughts on
00:52:57
that? It's it's situational because I'd say if you're over the age of 40 and you have senior level sponsorship and you're
00:53:04
doing well and you own relationships, which is always the key in a services industry, I would say ride it out and
00:53:10
keep going. It's it if you're younger and thinking, okay, I have some options
00:53:15
in other industries. I think you want to get out of the adsported ecosystem. I think it's going to be a difficult industry. It's better to be good in a
00:53:22
growing industry than great in an industry that's flat or declining. uh within your industry. If you decide to
00:53:28
stay in it, I would say try and get as close to the relationships with the clients as possible. And also try to get
00:53:34
good at buying media and creating content for a small screen. The return on investment of your human and your
00:53:40
financial capital will be inversely correlated to the screen you're creating content for. If you're in the business
00:53:45
of big screens, movies, that's a shitty business. It's only going to get worse. If you're in the business of a
00:53:50
medium-siz screen TV, that's a huge business. It's gone flat. But if you're in the business of designing creative
00:53:57
for this is champagne and cocaine, my brother. All right, last question really quick.
00:54:05
Make it a good one. Um, hi, I'm Kelly. Um, I'm here with the bummer question. Um,
00:54:10
oh, okay. That's So AI has been the fuel on the fire that is disinformation.
00:54:16
Yes. How do we curb that? Or is the horse too far out of the barn, as my mom would say? It
00:54:21
It's not AI. It was here before. By the way, propaganda has been around since the beginning of time. Let's be clear.
00:54:26
Um, it's just been amplified and weaponized in a way. And social media has certainly done its job. So, it's not
00:54:33
a new thing. Um, I think the question is now that we have AI here and it's not as protected legally, at least in the
00:54:39
United States, as social media is. Um, it's time for our regulators to get very
00:54:44
clear about guard rails. Uh, beginning with young people in terms of the usage and safety. Um, let me tell you, my
00:54:51
whole book was about how they do not give a [ __ ] how safe you are. They are people who have never felt unsafe a day
00:54:58
in their lives. Don't care about safety. They don't care about your safety. And so, we have to engage as citizens to get
00:55:05
our legislators to get a [ __ ] backbone and start to really legislate guard reasonable guardrails. I'm not
00:55:12
talking about innovation killing guardrails, but the fact of the matter is, as Scott's pointed out, the AI boom
00:55:18
right now is allowing Trump to has kept the stock market up, which is allowing Trump to do all manner of heinous
00:55:25
things. Like that's an aftere effect. But we have to absolutely get control of
00:55:30
the technology industry and pass. We don't have any laws in our country, regulating them. We have to start
00:55:37
understanding how easy it's going to be to destroy all our democracies, not just the US because we're so vulnerable, but
00:55:44
everywhere without understanding there should be reasonable and important legislation around transparency,
00:55:51
privacy, usage, safety, all kinds of things. And it's not that hard. We do it
00:55:56
with every other industry and it should be done here. I This is all I talk about now. And I I want to start with young
00:56:02
kids because everybody agrees on that. like everybody agrees on the safety of children and so that would be my my
00:56:09
beginning. Scott, why don't you end it? So, you're zeroing in on what I think is the most important topic that has the
00:56:15
least amount of coverage and that is we're all like what's going on with our kids? What's happening to our society?
00:56:21
And it's because people don't want to acknowledge and the incumbents want to make sure we're focused on other weapons
00:56:27
of mass distraction. But the thing that really ails the West right now is the following. Our economy in the United
00:56:34
States is a giant bet on AI. The economy would be flat. The stock
00:56:40
market would not be up 16%. It'd be up 0% if it wasn't for the massive runup in
00:56:47
these 10 companies related to AI based on incredible expectations.
00:56:52
So we've effectively connected the entire global economy. 40% of the S&P is
00:56:58
these 10 companies. that represents 20% of global market value. Right? If these c if these companies sneeze, the whole
00:57:05
world gets pneumonia. And these companies are in the business of a lot of things, but mostly they're in the business of dividing, polarizing, and
00:57:12
sequestering people from one another. There is now unfortunately the deepest
00:57:17
pocketed god-like technology has connected trillions of dollars in shareholder value to separating our
00:57:24
children from their parents and each other and making them feel shitty about the flag, each other and democracy.
00:57:31
There is now unfortunately a profit incentive attached to evolving a new
00:57:36
species of asocial asexual youth. And it is terrible for the species. It's
00:57:42
terrible for the economy. It's as if we have connected a profit motive into planning our own extinction. So what do
00:57:49
we need to do? No synthetic relationships for anyone under the age of 18. No phones in schools. No social
00:57:55
media under the age of 16. And quite frankly holding these companies to the same account as every other company. We
00:58:02
need antitrust. We need fines. And quite frankly, someone needs to do a [ __ ] per walk.
00:58:10
other than that, but you need to get involved. And on that note, we want to thank you. Scott's book is really
00:58:17
amazing. It's called Notes on Being a Man. It's number one on Amazon right now. Is that correct?
00:58:23
I think it's going to be He does, of course, because he's so insecure. He's like, it's going to be two or three on the New York Times bestsellers. It's
00:58:28
going to be one. And so, I urge everyone to buy it in bulk. Um, so that he gets
00:58:34
that little moment in the sun that he would adore. But it's a great book. And one of the things we like to end on, we
00:58:39
want to thank obviously Canada, but one of the things we always talk about in this era of AI and separation and
00:58:46
anxiety and partisanship is you got to get along with people you don't agree with. And obviously Scott and I don't
00:58:51
agree on a lot of things. Um, but it's been a real journey. Um, you saw it here right now. I'm correct about Zoron. Um,
00:58:59
uh, but but it's really important that you have personal relationships in the real world. We talk about tech a lot. We
00:59:06
talk about online a lot, but the most significant relationships are with each other and unlikely ones where you have
00:59:12
disagreement and challenge each other. And that's the most critical thing to do. We make our money with tech and
00:59:18
media, but we really make our money because of a relationship, a personal, don't you think? I
00:59:24
Yeah. Anyway, he's he can't stand it. I think we need to embrace our imperfect
00:59:30
allies. Canada, hang with us for your Please do. Thank you so much. We love
00:59:35
and Americans love Canada. We really do. Scott, read us out.
00:59:41
Today's show is produced by Larara Neman Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Karen Ruff. Ernina and Todd in this episode. Jim M
00:59:47
edited the video. Thanks also to J Bros. Miss Aro and Anchelon. Amazing ground
00:59:52
support provided by Trish I don't know how to say. Hornto. Hornetto, Kelly Schwatner, Kayn Lynch,
00:59:59
and Nico Alvarez. And a big shout out to the Vox exper experiential team, Tara Riley, Courtney Given, Abby Aronovski,
01:00:07
and Caitlyn Burla. Nishakuro is Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your
01:00:12
favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at
01:00:17
noag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and
01:00:24
business.

Episode Highlights

  • The Importance of Vaccines
    Vaccines are hailed as one of the greatest innovations, saving millions of lives each year.
    “Vaccines are the biggest innovation in history.”
    @ 03m 39s
    November 11, 2025
  • Airline Travel Innovations
    The airline industry has transformed travel safety and accessibility, but faces challenges today.
    “The most dangerous part of your airline travel is the ride to the airport.”
    @ 10m 27s
    November 11, 2025
  • Trade Tensions with Canada
    Since Trump took office, the US has imposed tariffs on Canadian imports, prompting Canada to seek new trade partners.
    “It's time to date other people.”
    @ 21m 05s
    November 11, 2025
  • The Strongest Alliance
    America is taking for granted its strong alliance with Canada, which has historical significance.
    “Churchill said the only thing worse than fighting with your allies is fighting without them.”
    @ 22m 53s
    November 11, 2025
  • Trade Asymmetry
    Trade between the US and Canada is asymmetric, benefiting the US more significantly.
    “For every dollar we push into you, we recognize about three times the shareholder value.”
    @ 24m 45s
    November 11, 2025
  • The Mating Crisis
    Young men face challenges in dating as women become more progressive and men more conservative.
    “The moment a dude starts talking about his conservative values, she's like, 'Okay, I'm out.'”
    @ 37m 38s
    November 11, 2025
  • Canada and America: Fraternal Twins
    A discussion on the deep connections and similarities between Canadians and Americans.
    “We're pretty much the same goddamn people.”
    @ 45m 44s
    November 11, 2025
  • The State of American Democracy
    A reflection on the resilience of democracy in the face of challenges, with hope for the future.
    “Our democracy is being tested, but it's going to grow back stronger.”
    @ 51m 52s
    November 11, 2025
  • The Role of Young People in Politics
    Highlighting the importance of youth engagement in shaping the future of democracy.
    “I believe in young people.”
    @ 52m 08s
    November 11, 2025

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

  • Tour Announcement00:25
  • Flight Delays02:17
  • Trade War20:42
  • Canada's 51st State22:42
  • Economic Kindness25:44
  • Political Predictions44:11
  • Hope for Democracy51:52
  • AI and Disinformation54:10

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown

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