But have they too much to lose here, Doug? If they don't go along with the narrative here, do we need to follow the money here?

Yeah, and I think you've just hit on exactly the point, Bobby.

Both of these companies, right from the beginning of the second Trump administration, showed an immediate degree of fealty to this administration.

Both of them have been trying at every turn to curry favor with this president.

And one has to ask why.

Well, you don't have to scratch too far below the veneer to find out that Google has multiple antitrust cases before the courts right now.

Some of those in the penalty phase that Trump could be very, very influential in.

Tell me your thoughts on that, firstly, and how different things are now.

But have they too much to lose here, Doug? If they don't go along with the narrative here, do we need to follow the money here?

Yeah, and I think you've just hit on exactly the point, Bobby.

Both of these companies, right from the beginning of the second Trump administration, showed an immediate degree of fealty to this administration.

Both of them have been trying at every turn to curry favor with this president.

And one has to ask why.

Well, you don't have to scratch too far below the veneer to find out that Google has multiple antitrust cases before the courts right now.

Some of those in the penalty phase that Trump could be very, very influential in.

Tell me your thoughts on that, firstly, and how different things are now.

Mm.

So I wanted to understand how we got here.

And, and what became very apparent right away was that the business sector, enabled by government across the political spectrum, this wasn't a right versus left thing.

They were enabled by all political parties to start a march over about 45 years toward a society of haves and have-nots.

And in that environment, our trust in institutions, our belief in the fairness of capitalism, even our commitment to things like education had begun to shatter-

Hmm

... as a governing principle, you know, which was just shocking to me.

So, uh, that, that unfairness sort of breeds distrust.

So what's your sense as to when the tide started to turn against malls?

Yeah, I think that, you know, and again, I think we have to appreciate this from two standpoints.

I think there's no doubt that the Internet has had a significant impact on both the shopping center and department stores.

Because when you think about it from a practical sense, the shopping center was the starting point for most shopping journeys, right? If we go back 30 years, that's where you went to start shopping.

looking for things.

And the department store was kind of the pinnacle of convenience.

It had the most products, the most brands in the most categories.

So, you know, I mean, maybe we've reached peak detachment from malls and the kids can save us.

So before we start talking about the future, we really need to understand where we're at right now.

Yeah.

Well, and that's sort of where I started.

My journey for this book started in 2024.

And it was born out of the realization that at that time, the business sector was kind of having the same conversations that it had had a decade ago.

You know, same debates, same headlines.

And it seemed to me that meanwhile, the world that our business sector depends on was changing beyond recognition.

Tell me about the differences, the big ones between the two.

So tell me, why should they care about political systems?

Yeah, great question.

And that was really where I sort of started in my thinking about the book.

You know, like you, around 2024, I was hearing the business sector talking about a lot of the same themes that we've been talking about over the last 10 years.

We're talking about technology, we're talking about customer experience.

Of course, there was the obligatory AI chatter, and yet it seemed to me that we were in real time seeing the whole world changing.

Democracy was clearly under threat in 2024 and into 2025, basically the pillar of the free market.

Yeah.

So before we dive in to the many topics that you cover in the book, why did you decide to write a book like this?

So a number of things collided for me around 2024.

And at that time, I was hearing the business sector talking principally about the same things that they'd been talking about for a decade, the same debates, the same headlines, the same conversations.

And meanwhile, the world that our industry depends on was sort of coming apart at the seams.

Democracy was hanging by a thread.

Income and wealth polarization had reached an inflection point.

And AI was set to deepen and widen that gap.

I kind of have my own theories on what happened, but what is your opinion? And you do address some of this as well.