Scott Galloway Professor of marketing at NYU Stern and author of bestselling books including The Four and The Algebra of Wealth.

“When you make a name change, it doesn't work, whether it's ValueJet to Transair or like, oh, I'll definitely go to work for Altria, not Philip Morris. … Generally speaking, it's a negative forward-leaking indicator when you think the general perception of us is so negative that we're not going to change it.”

Pivot (Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway) · Tech Strategy & Big Tech · November 2026

Context

Kara read that OpenAI wants to call its AI data centers 'compute campuses' to improve public perception, and asked Scott, as a brand expert, what he thought. He said renaming almost never works unless it follows a merger, and that a rebrand signals a company has given up on fixing how it is seen.

Listen to the episode → More from Scott Galloway → More Tech Strategy & Big Tech quotes →

Transcript

Pivot (Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway) Around 33:26 into the episode

Scott Galloway

…branding event. It's totally rigged. And the people in this audience get to buy it after that pop when it hits its natural pricing level. So if you're fortunate enough to get in pre-IPO or on from Goldman or JP Morgan, you buy it and then I would just sell it on the first trade. The

Kara Swisher

…after the election, you think? Sam Altman, oh well. Too many lunches at Trump at the White House, I guess. Mr. Branding, does the name change? I think they should just call it, I don't know, Train Daddy or something. I don't know. Something that's appealing. Compute campuses. Thoughts, Mr. Brander?

Scott Galloway

…company out of Minneapolis, acquired Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo is a great brand, so they absorb the Wells Fargo brand. But generally, when you make a name change, it doesn't work, whether it's ValueJet to Transair or like, oh, I'll definitely go to work for Altria, not Philip Morris. I mean, it doesn't really work. You know, it's like, okay, there's such good people at Meta. It's not Facebook. So generally speaking, it's a negative forward-leaking indicator when you think the general perception of us is so negative that we're not going to change it. I had a brand strategy firm, and we actually did work for Exxon. I know, hate me. But they were thinking about a name change. And we said the global recognition, the association with the Tiger, investors still love this company. Fossil fuels are huge. You're a global brand. No, you're not going to escape this ecological disaster by changing your name. Yeah,

Kara Swisher

remember that. The CPA was beyond petroleum. So I have some knowledge here.

Scott Galloway

I teach at a campus, and your electricity rates aren't going to go up in my campus.

Kara Swisher

Yeah. Yeah. So not a good idea.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

More from Pivot (Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway)

“Theft is hands down the best way to grow an economy. … $6 billion on a $30 billion economy means they grew their economy this week by 20%. … They essentially, relative to their government, paid for all government expenses for a year with this hack.” — Scott Galloway, Pivot (Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway)

“The IPO market is rigged, folks. … They'll use AI and they'll do all sorts of demand scenarios to make sure it gets a 20 or 30% pop on its first trade. … So if you're fortunate enough to get in pre-IPO or on from Goldman or JP Morgan, you buy it and then I would just sell it on the first trade.” — Scott Galloway, Pivot (Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway)