The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
Apple’s Future Under Trump, Voter Turnout in the 2024 Election, and Scott’s Writing Advice
Wed, 20 Nov 2024
Scott discusses Apple’s future under a second Trump Administration, specifically how tariffs could affect the tech company. He then speaks about the voter turnout in the 2024 election. He wraps up with advice to a listener looking to develop their writing skills. Music: https://www.davidcuttermusic.com / @dcuttermusic Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Buy "The Algebra of Wealth," out now. Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is Apple's future under a Trump Administration?
Self-regulation is nothing but an attempt to create a prophylactic in the 11th hour, hoping that if you make a peace offering, it won't be as bad. There is zero self-regulation as far as I can tell. I've always been a fan of Apple, but let's be honest, Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are really likable, but they're really likable crack dealers outside of junior high school.
Oxford just came out with a study showing a linear correlation between social media use and depression, anxiety, and eating disorders and self-harm among teenagers. Let me repeat that. Social media use is directly correlated to self-harm, anxiety, depression, and self-harm. So is it Mark Zuckerberg's fault? Yeah.
But also, also, the person delivering and selling this crack cocaine or these opiates or this meth is in fact Google. and Apple. They're the ones that could probably more easily age-gate their products. There's no reason any 14-year-old should have a smartphone. There's no reason anyone under the age of 16 should be on social media.
We're starting to see real pushback from the private sector, I would say the public private sector, specifically schools that are starting to ban phones, mostly because my colleague's breakthrough seminal landmark work, The Anxious Generation, you're seeing entire countries. I think New Zealand has banned phones in schools. It's just a talk everywhere, banning phones in schools.
And as someone who's a father of two sons, spare me your bullshit that it's about parenting. It's not. If you have kids, they're going to be on social media because when they're not on social media, they actually end up more depressed than the depressed kids on social media because they're ostracized and they feel alone. I don't think there's going to be any self-regulation here.
I think that you're going to see, I mean, they might do it to try and stave off more punitive regulation, but be clear, if we're waiting for the better angels to show up, you're going to Yeah, I don't know. You might as well wait for autonomous Tesla. Anyways, in terms of tariffs, Tim Cook has been very savvy. Trump seems to have a soft spot for Cook.
He was able to avoid the majority of tariffs on most of its products during the first Trump presidency. How? Back during Trump's first term, Apple CEO Tim Cook convinced the White House to keep most of Apple's products, including iPhones, off the tariff list. Does that make sense? No. even though most are made in China.
He argued that tariffs would end up raising prices on products including smartphones, tablets, and computers, which would hurt Apple and some of its tech peers. The White House seemed to agree. And he's right, but why do you have tariffs on fucking anything? The argument that Tim Cook made could be made for any toy, any piece of clothing, anything.
This is nothing but attacks on consumers, except Tim and Apple are cool. And I think Trump liked hanging out with Tim Cook and thought, no, Apple's kind of Apple-y and I want to be with the cool kids. Makes no sense. Now things could possibly change with Trump's second term. I doubt it. Trump has talked about putting a 10 to 20 percent tariff on all imported goods with a 60 percent higher tariff on
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Chapter 2: How might tariffs affect Apple products?
Thanks for the question, John. About two-thirds or 66% of eligible voters participated in the 2020 election. That was the highest turnout for a national election since 1900. Wow. As we're recording this, ballots are still being counted for this year's election, but according to estimates from the Associated Press and the University of Florida Election Lab, 64.5% of eligible voters participated.
So I think that's actually a pretty decent turnout. So I think this was a very emotional election, and I think that this shows that this turnout was actually as high or higher than most elections. And typically, oftentimes people don't vote because they get discouraged or they're confused or they don't know who to vote for.
But in this instance, I think a lot of people were very motivated, very polarized, very emotional, a lot of rage. So actually, I think voter turnout was pretty strong here. Not as strong as two-thirds. I think some of that was There was a bit of a gag reflex around Trump, very emotional time around COVID. And I think there were a lot of people who were just less comfortable with Trump.
Now, having said that, why didn't you have greater numbers in 2024? The honest answer is I don't know. But historically speaking, we had pretty strong voter turnout here. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.
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Okay, so the other day I was in Portland, Oregon on vacation. I'm hanging out, feeling really good about myself. And I walk past this store where a guy is offering free skincare samples. I say, sure, I'll take one. Then he literally grabs me by the hand and pulls me into his store. And suddenly he's putting like this goop under my eyes. And I'm not a big skincare girly, but I dabble.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of low voter turnout in 2024?
Chapter 4: Why is self-regulation in tech companies important?
Chapter 5: What are Scott's tips for improving writing skills?
I also think this might be an opportunity for them to kind of stick it to meta in another way. So your thoughts on Apple and self-regulation?
Self-regulation is nothing but an attempt to create a prophylactic in the 11th hour, hoping that if you make a peace offering, it won't be as bad. There is zero self-regulation as far as I can tell. I've always been a fan of Apple, but let's be honest, Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are really likable, but they're really likable crack dealers outside of junior high school.
Oxford just came out with a study showing a linear correlation between social media use and depression, anxiety, and eating disorders and self-harm among teenagers. Let me repeat that. Social media use is directly correlated to self-harm, anxiety, depression, and self-harm. So is it Mark Zuckerberg's fault? Yeah.
But also, also, the person delivering and selling this crack cocaine or these opiates or this meth is in fact Google. and Apple. They're the ones that could probably more easily age-gate their products. There's no reason any 14-year-old should have a smartphone. There's no reason anyone under the age of 16 should be on social media.
We're starting to see real pushback from the private sector, I would say the public private sector, specifically schools that are starting to ban phones, mostly because my colleague's breakthrough seminal landmark work, The Anxious Generation, you're seeing entire countries. I think New Zealand has banned phones in schools. It's just a talk everywhere, banning phones in schools.
And as someone who's a father of two sons, spare me your bullshit that it's about parenting. It's not. If you have kids, they're going to be on social media because when they're not on social media, they actually end up more depressed than the depressed kids on social media because they're ostracized and they feel alone. I don't think there's going to be any self-regulation here.
I think that you're going to see, I mean, they might do it to try and stave off more punitive regulation, but be clear, if we're waiting for the better angels to show up, you're going to Yeah, I don't know. You might as well wait for autonomous Tesla. Anyways, in terms of tariffs, Tim Cook has been very savvy. Trump seems to have a soft spot for Cook.
He was able to avoid the majority of tariffs on most of its products during the first Trump presidency. How? Back during Trump's first term, Apple CEO Tim Cook convinced the White House to keep most of Apple's products, including iPhones, off the tariff list. Does that make sense? No. even though most are made in China.
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Chapter 6: How does social media usage correlate with mental health?
He argued that tariffs would end up raising prices on products including smartphones, tablets, and computers, which would hurt Apple and some of its tech peers. The White House seemed to agree. And he's right, but why do you have tariffs on fucking anything? The argument that Tim Cook made could be made for any toy, any piece of clothing, anything.
This is nothing but attacks on consumers, except Tim and Apple are cool. And I think Trump liked hanging out with Tim Cook and thought, no, Apple's kind of Apple-y and I want to be with the cool kids. Makes no sense. Now things could possibly change with Trump's second term. I doubt it. Trump has talked about putting a 10 to 20 percent tariff on all imported goods with a 60 percent higher tariff on
Imports from China. Good fucking luck is all I have to say with that. First off, the reason why I don't think tariffs are going to come through or be levied to nearly the extent that Trump has been blustering about. First off, for Apple, economists estimate that if Trump implemented new tariffs on goods made in China, the price of your next $1,000 iPhone would cost an extra $300.
If you want to see people get really angry before they start self-cutting or throwing up their lunch, raise their iPhone price $300. But Some experts think it's possible that the next White House will skip tariffs on smartphones, computers, and tablets again.
100%.
Also, one of the reasons I don't think these tariffs are going to have nearly the traction he's hoping is a couple things. One, Republicans do get the economy. Oftentimes they get it more than Democrats. And you're going to see a lot of Republicans grow a backbone and say, if you put these kind of tariffs on this, you're going to raise 88% of toys under the Christmas tree come from China.
What happens when everyone's Christmas gets 20% more expensive for people with kids? You're going to see a number of Republicans break from the administration because one, they understand economics. They like populist arguments. And also, also what people aren't talking about is In a couple weeks, President Trump is a lame duck. He can't run again. He can't boot people out of office.
He can probably boot them out of office if they're up for reelection in the House in 2026. But other than that, he's not going to carry the kind of valerian steel he's had all along. He's been able to make or break careers. Pretty soon, he's going to be kind of Joe Biden on his way out and not be able to intimidate nearly as many Republicans. Synonym for tariff? Let me think. Tax.
Thanks for the question. Question number two.
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