AI transcript
0:00:05 The DQ freezer, home to all the blizzard flavors of the past, is opening to bring back the salted
0:00:09 caramel truffle blizzard for a limited time. It’s too good to share. Everyone has to get one for
0:00:17 themselves. Hurry before it’s gone. DQ, happy taste good. Looking to buy or sell a used vehicle?
0:00:23 Forget the selection and protection of BCAA auto marketplace. Try some random guy off the internet.
0:00:34 Some random guy. Yes, zero security, zero peace of mind. Some random guy, the risk is part of the ride.
0:00:40 BCAA auto marketplace helps you buy and sell vehicles just like we help you every day. Visit
0:00:52 bcaa.com/marketplace and avoid some random guy. I’m Scott Galloway and this is No Mercy, No Malice.
0:00:54 As read by George Hahn.
0:01:07 I believe President Biden will announce he is withdrawing from the 2024 race imminently.
0:01:13 Just as anybody who’s seen a commercial or a logo believes they’re an expert in advertising and
0:01:20 design, I’ve convinced myself I have insights into the inner workings of the Beltway. I don’t,
0:01:28 however, I do understand the male ego, family dynamics, and scenario planning.
0:01:35 The story the Biden camp has been telling is things are better than they feel and Joe is the best
0:01:45 available option. It’s him or chaos. Any narrative has a life of its own. And last week, the narrative
0:01:52 rear ended reality so violently that after the airbags deflated, there was a stunned pause that
0:02:02 crisply turned to panic. And panic was the correct emotion. Laid bare in front of us were our worst
0:02:09 fears, plus a feeling of embarrassment, having let the media and handlers manipulate us.
0:02:15 But communication is with the listener. And despite evidence everywhere,
0:02:19 we Democrats had entered a self-imposed exile from the truth.
0:02:27 Biden has engaged in fewer media appearances and press conferences than any president
0:02:35 in recent history. The fewest since Reagan, who at 74, began to show signs of Alzheimer’s.
0:02:44 The last three presidents to win reelection, Clinton, Bush, Obama, were an average age of 52
0:02:49 at the beginning of their second terms. Three decades younger than Biden, should he return
0:02:56 to Pennsylvania Avenue. Democrats in the media wrote indignant open letters to biology regarding
0:03:03 ageism, biology’s response, “Hold my beer. How could we be this fucking stupid?”
0:03:11 The narrative now stands at, “I am an old man and worse another malignant narcissist who won’t get
0:03:17 out of the way.” It’s the political equivalent of turning on the radio and hearing John Legend’s
0:03:27 all of me again and again and again. The result? In the last week, Trump’s lead among likely voters
0:03:36 has increased from 3% to 6%. A substantial shift in a race where the majority have already made up
0:03:45 their minds. Democrats have been saying for years correctly that Trump is not fit to be president.
0:03:52 “Okay, now do Biden,” said the universe. “Yes, an impaired Biden would still make a better second
0:03:58 term president, but we’ll probably never know.” The polls say how moderates and young voters
0:04:07 will opt for criminality over senility. The real tell is how quiet Trump has been about Biden’s
0:04:15 debate performance. Trump desperately wants Biden to stay in the race. If or when Biden is
0:04:23 nominated and there is no turning back, the Trump media machine will turn him into a vegetable.
0:04:32 Ambition is not in itself a bad thing. It’s where innovation, wealth creation, and a lot
0:04:39 of other good things in life come from. It can turn pathological, though, when it overwhelms our
0:04:45 feeble ability to make decisions and act in accordance with facts and not emotion.
0:04:54 Estes Kefauver, a senator best remembered now for his mafia probes, famously quipped,
0:05:00 quote, “Presidential ambition is a disease which can only be cured by embalming fluid,”
0:05:06 unquote. Joe Biden has had a bad case for a long time.
0:05:14 In what it takes, his classic account of the 1988 presidential race, journalist Richard
0:05:22 Ben Kramer quoted an aide warning a 46-year-old Biden that running meant sacrificing friends,
0:05:28 family, his entire life, quote, “You’re going to want this worse than anything,
0:05:36 and it’s going to take over,” unquote. Biden’s answer essentially was, “I’m willing to take that
0:05:46 gamble.” At a campaign stop in 2020, Biden said, quote, “I view myself as a bridge, not as anything
0:05:54 else. There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw standing behind me. They are the future
0:06:03 of this country,” unquote. But since then, he’s convinced himself that he, at age 81,
0:06:10 is the future. The actuarial charts suggest he doesn’t have much of it, future, left.
0:06:18 Let’s ignore cognitive decline. Something else makes it even harder to govern. Death.
0:06:25 According to actuarial tables, there is a greater than one in three chance he’d die in office before
0:06:32 the end of his second term. Note, it’s not much better for Trump, but cue the indignant denial
0:06:42 machine. He appears much more robust. Having the grace to leave is a gift, and many otherwise superb
0:06:50 people don’t have it. Ruth Bader Ginsburg set back women’s rights by her refusal in the face of all
0:06:56 the medical and political evidence to retire from the Supreme Court when a Democrat could name her
0:07:04 successor. Despite all the good she did, her ultimate legacy is that she enabled the overturning
0:07:12 of Roe v. Wade. Likewise, if Biden loses to Trump this November, that is the only thing
0:07:20 anyone will remember about him. An underrated superpower socially and professionally, and
0:07:29 something great brands do, is creating a sense of scarcity. The easiest way to achieve this
0:07:36 is to leave too soon instead of too late. Why do smart people ignore such common-sense advice?
0:07:42 There is a great deal of research on humans’ capacity for self-deception.
0:07:51 William S. Burroughs, who divided humanity into hustlers and marks, put it bluntly, quote,
0:08:00 “Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat, the mark inside,” unquote.
0:08:09 We can’t imagine our own end. Try to picture what it’s like to be dead. You can’t, not really.
0:08:15 You might think of darkness or sleep, things you’ve actually experienced in this life,
0:08:19 but your brain has no meaningful point of reference for the real thing.
0:08:27 As a result, we believe decline and death are things reserved for other people.
0:08:35 If we are badly designed for the task of conceiving of and accepting our cosmic sell-by dates,
0:08:41 we’re even less apt to recognize the smaller endings that come along the way.
0:08:46 Politicians and CEOs are particularly bad at this.
0:08:52 Washington is a large assisted living community full of rich people who believe the world can’t
0:08:58 get along without them and will never have to. The result has been a disastrous transfer of
0:09:03 prosperity from young to old, as old people keep voting themselves more money.
0:09:10 As I’ve written before, we need more ageism, specifically churn.
0:09:18 Ranjay Gulati, a professor at Harvard Business School, recently told The New York Times,
0:09:26 quote, “Most leaders left to their own devices will not recognize the right time to leave.
0:09:33 It’s really hard to stay grounded and humble when everyone is telling you you’re right.”
0:09:45 Which brings us back to the possibility that Trump, a genuinely bad person, may be re-elected.
0:09:52 Biden, a genuinely decent person, has let his ego wager all our futures.
0:10:00 His willingness to do so reflects a common human failing. That doesn’t make it any
0:10:06 less wrong or selfish. He and his family have put their own hopes and wishes ahead of the countries.
0:10:14 However, I believe his catastrophic performance in the debate has catalyzed a conversation
0:10:19 and a reckoning that will result in the Biden family deciding he should withdraw.
0:10:28 Why? The dam has broken. Post-debate, the most powerful voices in tech,
0:10:37 media, Congress, party, i.e. Reed Hoffman, The New York Times, South Carolina Representative James
0:10:45 Clyburn, Pelosi, Obama have all, as gently as possible, started suggesting he should withdraw.
0:10:51 Like a teen boy or girl who senses they’re about to be dumped and can’t stop sending text messages,
0:10:59 the Biden camp has sent me eight emails in the past 24 hours assuring me they’re in it to win it.
0:11:07 The most fucked up part is the lame attempt by loyalists to shame people online and to
0:11:14 sticking their heads back up their asses. Take a breath, sit down, 90 minutes shouldn’t define
0:11:26 a presidency, etc. Seriously. Wake the fuck up. The two most likely candidates to replace Biden
0:11:32 are Vice President Harris and California Governor Newsom. Nobody else has the name recognition.
0:11:40 Either would be up substantially in the polls within a week of the baton being passed. Branding
0:11:47 is about differentiation and the contrast with Trump would be stark. Neither has been
0:11:54 involved in an insurrection, then found liable for sexual abuse, nor forced one in five women who
0:12:01 needed to terminate a pregnancy to leave their state. And most distinctly, both were born when
0:12:08 Trump had already graduated from college and was working for his father. Harris would be the most
0:12:13 seamless as the quarter of a billion dollars Biden has raised is technically also hers.
0:12:19 In addition, the nation appears to be finally ready for a woman president and she seems to
0:12:25 have found her voice since the debate debacle. Finally, though she hasn’t distinguished herself
0:12:32 as VP, she was a strong AG and senator. This indicates she’s probably better in an executive
0:12:39 role. Newsom is straight out of central casting, built in a factory with parts from lesser candidates.
0:12:46 He’s already the president of a nation larger economically than India, France or the UK.
0:12:55 He’s a great debater. Lastly, he’s hot and people are more likely to vote and canvas
0:13:02 for a candidate they’d like to have sex with. Newsom is the candidate who scares Trump.
0:13:11 Scenario planning is not an attempt to predict the future, but to imagine several possible futures
0:13:17 and determine a course of action that has the best outcomes across several futures.
0:13:24 And in my view, most or all roads lead to President Biden stepping down.
0:13:29 The polls suggest that the status quo will lead to a Trump victory.
0:13:35 The following are three alternate scenarios and speculation on what each would mean for
0:13:44 the Biden family. One, Biden withdraws. Trump defeated. Biden cements his legacy as one of the
0:13:51 great presidents and receives a standing ovation upon entering any room. The remainder of his life
0:13:56 is the mother of all victory laps. He is on the short list when polls are taken about who should
0:14:04 be added to Mount Rushmore. Two, Biden withdraws. Trump wins. I don’t see this as a realistic
0:14:11 scenario or more specifically, I don’t want to think about it. These are my scenarios. Regardless,
0:14:16 if this came to pass, nobody would hold Biden responsible for trying to do the right thing.
0:14:25 Three, Biden remains and wins. This is the one that makes me believe he will withdraw
0:14:33 in the coming days. Joseph Biden and his family have experienced staggering loss.
0:14:39 It’s difficult to know the specific dynamics of a family, but it’s a safe bet his family
0:14:48 loves him a great deal. The worst outcome for their husband, dad, brother wouldn’t be losing to Trump.
0:14:56 It would be a second term. His life would become an awkwardly choreographed dance,
0:15:03 family and aides trying to sequester him from public view. He’d experience an infinite number
0:15:10 of small private and public humiliations every day as he succumbs to a foe that cannot be defeated,
0:15:19 see above, biology. Staying in may be what he wants and what the Bidens believe they want,
0:15:26 but with some distance, his loved ones will recognize that remaining in the race presents
0:15:35 two outcomes, bad and worse. Seriously, for those of us who’ve cared for a parent in their 80s,
0:15:40 imagine his life should he win for the next four and a half years.
0:15:46 I don’t believe his family will let that happen to him. I think love wins here.
0:16:02 Life is so rich.
0:16:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]
0:00:09 caramel truffle blizzard for a limited time. It’s too good to share. Everyone has to get one for
0:00:17 themselves. Hurry before it’s gone. DQ, happy taste good. Looking to buy or sell a used vehicle?
0:00:23 Forget the selection and protection of BCAA auto marketplace. Try some random guy off the internet.
0:00:34 Some random guy. Yes, zero security, zero peace of mind. Some random guy, the risk is part of the ride.
0:00:40 BCAA auto marketplace helps you buy and sell vehicles just like we help you every day. Visit
0:00:52 bcaa.com/marketplace and avoid some random guy. I’m Scott Galloway and this is No Mercy, No Malice.
0:00:54 As read by George Hahn.
0:01:07 I believe President Biden will announce he is withdrawing from the 2024 race imminently.
0:01:13 Just as anybody who’s seen a commercial or a logo believes they’re an expert in advertising and
0:01:20 design, I’ve convinced myself I have insights into the inner workings of the Beltway. I don’t,
0:01:28 however, I do understand the male ego, family dynamics, and scenario planning.
0:01:35 The story the Biden camp has been telling is things are better than they feel and Joe is the best
0:01:45 available option. It’s him or chaos. Any narrative has a life of its own. And last week, the narrative
0:01:52 rear ended reality so violently that after the airbags deflated, there was a stunned pause that
0:02:02 crisply turned to panic. And panic was the correct emotion. Laid bare in front of us were our worst
0:02:09 fears, plus a feeling of embarrassment, having let the media and handlers manipulate us.
0:02:15 But communication is with the listener. And despite evidence everywhere,
0:02:19 we Democrats had entered a self-imposed exile from the truth.
0:02:27 Biden has engaged in fewer media appearances and press conferences than any president
0:02:35 in recent history. The fewest since Reagan, who at 74, began to show signs of Alzheimer’s.
0:02:44 The last three presidents to win reelection, Clinton, Bush, Obama, were an average age of 52
0:02:49 at the beginning of their second terms. Three decades younger than Biden, should he return
0:02:56 to Pennsylvania Avenue. Democrats in the media wrote indignant open letters to biology regarding
0:03:03 ageism, biology’s response, “Hold my beer. How could we be this fucking stupid?”
0:03:11 The narrative now stands at, “I am an old man and worse another malignant narcissist who won’t get
0:03:17 out of the way.” It’s the political equivalent of turning on the radio and hearing John Legend’s
0:03:27 all of me again and again and again. The result? In the last week, Trump’s lead among likely voters
0:03:36 has increased from 3% to 6%. A substantial shift in a race where the majority have already made up
0:03:45 their minds. Democrats have been saying for years correctly that Trump is not fit to be president.
0:03:52 “Okay, now do Biden,” said the universe. “Yes, an impaired Biden would still make a better second
0:03:58 term president, but we’ll probably never know.” The polls say how moderates and young voters
0:04:07 will opt for criminality over senility. The real tell is how quiet Trump has been about Biden’s
0:04:15 debate performance. Trump desperately wants Biden to stay in the race. If or when Biden is
0:04:23 nominated and there is no turning back, the Trump media machine will turn him into a vegetable.
0:04:32 Ambition is not in itself a bad thing. It’s where innovation, wealth creation, and a lot
0:04:39 of other good things in life come from. It can turn pathological, though, when it overwhelms our
0:04:45 feeble ability to make decisions and act in accordance with facts and not emotion.
0:04:54 Estes Kefauver, a senator best remembered now for his mafia probes, famously quipped,
0:05:00 quote, “Presidential ambition is a disease which can only be cured by embalming fluid,”
0:05:06 unquote. Joe Biden has had a bad case for a long time.
0:05:14 In what it takes, his classic account of the 1988 presidential race, journalist Richard
0:05:22 Ben Kramer quoted an aide warning a 46-year-old Biden that running meant sacrificing friends,
0:05:28 family, his entire life, quote, “You’re going to want this worse than anything,
0:05:36 and it’s going to take over,” unquote. Biden’s answer essentially was, “I’m willing to take that
0:05:46 gamble.” At a campaign stop in 2020, Biden said, quote, “I view myself as a bridge, not as anything
0:05:54 else. There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw standing behind me. They are the future
0:06:03 of this country,” unquote. But since then, he’s convinced himself that he, at age 81,
0:06:10 is the future. The actuarial charts suggest he doesn’t have much of it, future, left.
0:06:18 Let’s ignore cognitive decline. Something else makes it even harder to govern. Death.
0:06:25 According to actuarial tables, there is a greater than one in three chance he’d die in office before
0:06:32 the end of his second term. Note, it’s not much better for Trump, but cue the indignant denial
0:06:42 machine. He appears much more robust. Having the grace to leave is a gift, and many otherwise superb
0:06:50 people don’t have it. Ruth Bader Ginsburg set back women’s rights by her refusal in the face of all
0:06:56 the medical and political evidence to retire from the Supreme Court when a Democrat could name her
0:07:04 successor. Despite all the good she did, her ultimate legacy is that she enabled the overturning
0:07:12 of Roe v. Wade. Likewise, if Biden loses to Trump this November, that is the only thing
0:07:20 anyone will remember about him. An underrated superpower socially and professionally, and
0:07:29 something great brands do, is creating a sense of scarcity. The easiest way to achieve this
0:07:36 is to leave too soon instead of too late. Why do smart people ignore such common-sense advice?
0:07:42 There is a great deal of research on humans’ capacity for self-deception.
0:07:51 William S. Burroughs, who divided humanity into hustlers and marks, put it bluntly, quote,
0:08:00 “Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat, the mark inside,” unquote.
0:08:09 We can’t imagine our own end. Try to picture what it’s like to be dead. You can’t, not really.
0:08:15 You might think of darkness or sleep, things you’ve actually experienced in this life,
0:08:19 but your brain has no meaningful point of reference for the real thing.
0:08:27 As a result, we believe decline and death are things reserved for other people.
0:08:35 If we are badly designed for the task of conceiving of and accepting our cosmic sell-by dates,
0:08:41 we’re even less apt to recognize the smaller endings that come along the way.
0:08:46 Politicians and CEOs are particularly bad at this.
0:08:52 Washington is a large assisted living community full of rich people who believe the world can’t
0:08:58 get along without them and will never have to. The result has been a disastrous transfer of
0:09:03 prosperity from young to old, as old people keep voting themselves more money.
0:09:10 As I’ve written before, we need more ageism, specifically churn.
0:09:18 Ranjay Gulati, a professor at Harvard Business School, recently told The New York Times,
0:09:26 quote, “Most leaders left to their own devices will not recognize the right time to leave.
0:09:33 It’s really hard to stay grounded and humble when everyone is telling you you’re right.”
0:09:45 Which brings us back to the possibility that Trump, a genuinely bad person, may be re-elected.
0:09:52 Biden, a genuinely decent person, has let his ego wager all our futures.
0:10:00 His willingness to do so reflects a common human failing. That doesn’t make it any
0:10:06 less wrong or selfish. He and his family have put their own hopes and wishes ahead of the countries.
0:10:14 However, I believe his catastrophic performance in the debate has catalyzed a conversation
0:10:19 and a reckoning that will result in the Biden family deciding he should withdraw.
0:10:28 Why? The dam has broken. Post-debate, the most powerful voices in tech,
0:10:37 media, Congress, party, i.e. Reed Hoffman, The New York Times, South Carolina Representative James
0:10:45 Clyburn, Pelosi, Obama have all, as gently as possible, started suggesting he should withdraw.
0:10:51 Like a teen boy or girl who senses they’re about to be dumped and can’t stop sending text messages,
0:10:59 the Biden camp has sent me eight emails in the past 24 hours assuring me they’re in it to win it.
0:11:07 The most fucked up part is the lame attempt by loyalists to shame people online and to
0:11:14 sticking their heads back up their asses. Take a breath, sit down, 90 minutes shouldn’t define
0:11:26 a presidency, etc. Seriously. Wake the fuck up. The two most likely candidates to replace Biden
0:11:32 are Vice President Harris and California Governor Newsom. Nobody else has the name recognition.
0:11:40 Either would be up substantially in the polls within a week of the baton being passed. Branding
0:11:47 is about differentiation and the contrast with Trump would be stark. Neither has been
0:11:54 involved in an insurrection, then found liable for sexual abuse, nor forced one in five women who
0:12:01 needed to terminate a pregnancy to leave their state. And most distinctly, both were born when
0:12:08 Trump had already graduated from college and was working for his father. Harris would be the most
0:12:13 seamless as the quarter of a billion dollars Biden has raised is technically also hers.
0:12:19 In addition, the nation appears to be finally ready for a woman president and she seems to
0:12:25 have found her voice since the debate debacle. Finally, though she hasn’t distinguished herself
0:12:32 as VP, she was a strong AG and senator. This indicates she’s probably better in an executive
0:12:39 role. Newsom is straight out of central casting, built in a factory with parts from lesser candidates.
0:12:46 He’s already the president of a nation larger economically than India, France or the UK.
0:12:55 He’s a great debater. Lastly, he’s hot and people are more likely to vote and canvas
0:13:02 for a candidate they’d like to have sex with. Newsom is the candidate who scares Trump.
0:13:11 Scenario planning is not an attempt to predict the future, but to imagine several possible futures
0:13:17 and determine a course of action that has the best outcomes across several futures.
0:13:24 And in my view, most or all roads lead to President Biden stepping down.
0:13:29 The polls suggest that the status quo will lead to a Trump victory.
0:13:35 The following are three alternate scenarios and speculation on what each would mean for
0:13:44 the Biden family. One, Biden withdraws. Trump defeated. Biden cements his legacy as one of the
0:13:51 great presidents and receives a standing ovation upon entering any room. The remainder of his life
0:13:56 is the mother of all victory laps. He is on the short list when polls are taken about who should
0:14:04 be added to Mount Rushmore. Two, Biden withdraws. Trump wins. I don’t see this as a realistic
0:14:11 scenario or more specifically, I don’t want to think about it. These are my scenarios. Regardless,
0:14:16 if this came to pass, nobody would hold Biden responsible for trying to do the right thing.
0:14:25 Three, Biden remains and wins. This is the one that makes me believe he will withdraw
0:14:33 in the coming days. Joseph Biden and his family have experienced staggering loss.
0:14:39 It’s difficult to know the specific dynamics of a family, but it’s a safe bet his family
0:14:48 loves him a great deal. The worst outcome for their husband, dad, brother wouldn’t be losing to Trump.
0:14:56 It would be a second term. His life would become an awkwardly choreographed dance,
0:15:03 family and aides trying to sequester him from public view. He’d experience an infinite number
0:15:10 of small private and public humiliations every day as he succumbs to a foe that cannot be defeated,
0:15:19 see above, biology. Staying in may be what he wants and what the Bidens believe they want,
0:15:26 but with some distance, his loved ones will recognize that remaining in the race presents
0:15:35 two outcomes, bad and worse. Seriously, for those of us who’ve cared for a parent in their 80s,
0:15:40 imagine his life should he win for the next four and a half years.
0:15:46 I don’t believe his family will let that happen to him. I think love wins here.
0:16:02 Life is so rich.
0:16:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]
As read by George Hahn.
Time to Leave
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