00:25:13 · Scott Galloway, Ed Elson
[00:25:13] S0: I would even think at some point, the Supreme Court is gonna go, Jesus, this is out of control. We have to do something about this. By the way, when you're with Caddie Kay and the mooch, my guess is that'll be topics one, two, and three is campaign finance reform. That is, I was with senator Mark Kelly in Arizona, I asked him what is the first thing he would do if elected president, and a lot of them are saying that the number one issue is campaign finance reform. [00:25:37] S4: It's ridiculous. $366,000,000. He has now spent... Elon has now spent more on this cycle than George Soros has spent his entire life. So it's gotten completely out of control. And and you mentioned, like, the next... I mean, we talked a lot about how to build wealth and and and the next sort of era of politics and and policy is gonna be about how how to keep it if you're already a billionaire. I mean, one of the big things to to watch out for in this election will be prop 40 in California. And talk about spending a lot of money on politics. Sergey Brin has spent a $102,000,000 to fight prop 40, which is the wealth tax. So, I mean, this this... These midterms are weirdly important on so many different levels, and you you can see it in the amounts that people are spending, especially the amounts that billionaires are spending. They are very, very worried about how, how this election might turn out. We'll be right back after the break. And if you're enjoying the show, send it to a friend, and please follow us on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:27:03 · Scott Galloway
[00:27:03] S0: Support for the show comes from Upwork. You've built every part of your business yourself from the ground up. That also means your operation might still be running on various spreadsheets that were definitely thrown together by an amateur. While there's nothing wrong with doing it all yourself, eventually, there will come a time where you'll need to hire highly skilled freelancers, and you'll need to hire them quickly. Upwork gives your business fast access to over a 170,000 freelancers all with deep expertise. With their help, you can fill critical skill gaps, launch projects faster, and scale support up or down without committing to a full time head count. You can find experts in everything from software development and AI implementation to marketing design and business operations. Browse profiles, review past work, and get help scoping the role. There's also business plus, which lets you access the 1% of talent on Upwork. And when it comes to operational stuff such as contracts and payments, Upwork takes care of it all. Visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That's upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's upwork.com. Upwork.com.
00:28:08 · S3
[00:28:08] S3: Support for the show comes from TikTok. There is a scientifically documented correlation between listening to podcasts and curiosity. So since you're here, you probably enjoy discovering new things. One great place to indulge your curiosity is TikTok. Whether it's how to forecast volcanic eruptions, strange phenomena that the James Webb Space Telescope picked up near the beginning of time, or a literal deep dive on the ocean's deepest reefs, TikTok has a wealth of fascinating videos just waiting to be discovered. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Learn more at tiktok.com/discovermore.
00:28:52 · Scott Galloway
[00:28:52] S0: Support for the show comes from Framer. Framer is the AI website builder that helps creators, teams, and businesses ship production ready sites faster than ever while getting every detail right. Prompt, inspect, edit, and publish in one place at a whole new pace. Agents and humans work in tandem. Agents bring speed and scale while people bring taste, judgment, and control. Agents solve the gap between AI generated ideas and production ready website work. The agent works in the same place where the real site is designed, managed, reviewed, and published. It lands on the canvas, stays editable, and can be published when the team is ready. Here's everything that can happen when your team and agents collaborate. You can build custom code components, create and manage CMS content, optimize SEO settings, audit for issues, and ship everything all in one place. Learn how you can get more out of your side from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com/markets for 30% off of Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com/markets. Rules and restrictions may apply.
00:29:58 · Ed Elson
[00:29:58] S4: We're back with Prof G Markets. Last week's earnings reports from Microsoft and Google gave investors a look at how two of the biggest players in big tech are performing, and the market's reaction could not have been more different. Microsoft shares jumped as much as 5% after the company beat expectations with revenue up 19% year over year. It also disclosed Azure revenue in its earnings statement for the first time, revealing that its cloud business grew 48% from a year earlier. Google shares, meanwhile, dropped more than 13%, wiping out $500,000,000,000 for its worst market cap loss ever. That pain came despite reporting 25% revenue growth in the third quarter. Investors were disappointed by weaker than expected search and advertising revenue and negative free cash flow. Scott, really interesting week for the hyperscalers because we have the Anthropic s one, which came out, which has polarized a lot of people as to whether that was great or whether that was bad or something in the middle. But then also we have these big tech earnings coming out. Microsoft was great. Investors are very happy about it. Google's... On the surface, like, not terrible, I thought, at least from a revenue perspective, but investors were very, very freaked out about this idea that search revenue growth is beginning to decline and all of the fears that we that we were hearing about, I would say, two years ago, basically when ChatGPT was starting to to gain steam, suddenly those fears have come back where investors are saying, oh my gosh. AI is going to kill Google search. That plus the fact that their free cash flow is negative, and they're plowing more and more money into the AI data center, something we're also seeing from Meta, something we're also seeing from Amazon. What do you make of of this week in big tech land?
00:31:52 · Scott Galloway, Ed Elson
[00:31:52] S0: I thought it was pretty shocking, and it's sort of the tale tale of two cities. It's the same AI arms race, but entirely opposite verdicts. Microsoft was up 5% on cash flow discipline, and Alphabet down double digits on cash burn. And the way I would describe it is both companies had amazing year on year revenue growth and really outstanding businesses. But I think it's two things that punished, Microsoft was able to thread the needle here. And that, as I said, we're gonna surprise to the upside on the top line and the bottom line. And what I think really excited people is their CapEx looked fairly disciplined. Now granted, it's still unbelievable. It's still out of control, but it looks fairly disciplined. [00:32:35] S4: Compared to the alternatives.