Musk vs. Bezos: The Battle to Control Space — with Josh Tyrangiel

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Scott Galloway (1:01)

What do you want, Mr. Hagen? I want my life back.

On October 23rd, the procedure is causing, traveling physical changes.

SPEAKER_2 (1:12)

What's happening to me?

Scott Galloway (1:14)

Look fear.

SPEAKER_2 (1:15)

You have to learn to control it.

Josh Tyrangiel (1:17)

In the face.

Scott Galloway (1:18)

I have no idea who you are anymore.

SPEAKER_2 (1:23)

Tell me who you want me to be.

Josh Tyrangiel (1:26)

Kray Face, only in theaters October 23rd. We did all.

Scott Galloway (1:31)

Episode 417, 417 is here at Cook, covering Southwestern Missouri. In 2017, the first Fyre Festival imploded. My partner often says I'm not instilling enough grit.

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Scott Galloway (2:07)

All right, what's happening? The Prof G Pod is a Signal Awards finalist, and today is the last day to vote. Please do us a favor and help us win the Listener's Choice Award and vote using the link in our show notes. We have a small team, means a lot to us. Mostly them, they go to the dinner, I stay at home, and it's nice for them. So if you would, please go to the link, vote for The Prof G Pod for the Signal Awards. Moving on, in today's episode, we speak with Josh Tyrangiel, staff writer for The Atlantic and author of AI for Good. We discussed with Josh the rivalry between Bezos and Musk, and their ambition to build space empires. Plus Bezos' shifting policies and the risks of putting America's future in space in the hands of just two billionaires.

Josh, where does this podcast find you?

Josh Tyrangiel (3:01)

I'm in the Atlantic office in Soho. It's delightful.

Scott Galloway (3:04)

What's it like in New York? I'm not there right now.

Josh Tyrangiel (3:06)

It is perfection. It's like one of those 14 days a year where you're like, fucking fantastic.

Scott Galloway (3:13)

That's where they film all the movies in New York. They film them all typically on their Upper East during the fall. But let's bust right into it. We wanted to spend more time with you after the release of your latest cover story in the Atlantic. Choose your overlord, Musk versus Bezos. You cover Musk and Bezos, their ongoing space race, the drama that follows both of them, and what it means for two corporations to lead the push toward the next frontier of humanity.

Just to start, set the table, just some context on the article.

Josh Tyrangiel (3:44)

Yeah. This really started with a baseline question, which is what is Jeff Bezos actually been doing these last 10 to 12 years? Meaning, the memefication of Bezos in which it's about his girlfriend and his yacht and his muscles and the Met Gala has all been fun for a lot of people. But what is his decision-making actually been about? So I started just reporting that, and almost immediately, I had known that he invested a lot of money and ran Blue Origin. What I didn't know is that it was really where his heart is. Not where his head is, his head is very clearly with Amazon and lots of other rational decisions he makes. But so much of his decision-making over the last decade plus, including The Washington Post, including his change in partner, has been driven by this desire to get to space in a very specific way.

As I was beginning to report it, it was very clear that this was not a one-man story, that there is another person who's essentially racing to get the same thing, albeit in very different ways, and that's Elon. The ways in which they're clashing with each other, competing with each other, but genuinely becoming as powerful as many nation states, and beginning to determine what our future is in space, became very clearly the story. It's a complicated story to tell for all the reasons I'm sure you know.