Pivot - 2021 Predictions Special: the future of markets, healthcare, and media

Episode Date: December 22, 2020

Kara and Scott are joined by a slew of Friends of Pivot to look ahead at what to expect in markets, acquisitions, automation, work culture, healthcare, and media. Thank you to our friends: Andrew Ross Sorkin, founder, and editor of New York Times Dealbook Aminatou Sow, creator of Crème de la Crème newsletter, and author of the bestselling book Big Friendship Baratunde Thurston, host, and creator of How To Citizen (send his community number a text at 202-894-8844) Andy Slavitt, host of In the Bubble and head of Obamacare during the Obama Administration Erica Anderson, Executive Producer of Pivot PLUS members of the Galloway/Swisher households Rebecca Sananes produces Pivot Send us your Listener Mail questions through our site, nymag.com/pivot and use Yappa to leave a video or audio message. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Pivot comes from Virgin Atlantic. Too many of us are so focused on getting to our destination that we forgot to embrace the journey. Well, when you fly Virgin Atlantic, that memorable trip begins right from the moment you check in. On board, you'll find everything you need to relax, recharge, or carry on working. Buy flat, private suites, fast Wi-Fi,

hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London and beyond, and see for yourself how traveling for business can always be a pleasure. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, we've made it to the end of 2020.

Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? There's still time to fuck it all up. It's our annual end of year prediction show. That's right. And we have predictions from our favorite friends at Pivot and we'll give some of our takes

on how the world would change in 2021. But talk about how you feel about our relationship, I think, through 2020. Well, typically, I was thinking about you last night and how sometimes when I expose myself, my emotions, you reach out and you jab, you jab. And your harsh words several times this year, Kara, left me nothing but a hollowed out soul of dust and tears turning to dust.

Dust and tears, Kara. Dust and tears. But on the whole, I think it's getting better. It's getting better. I actually, in all seriousness, I feel very grateful to you. I feel grateful to you too, Scott. I've had a wonderful year. We have the perfect relationship.

We see each other maybe two hours a week. Yep. And we make each other money. Yeah. What's not to love? What's not to love? And cabbage. You know, I was talking to someone about our relationship versus Walt,

because I had a long-term relationship with Walt, obviously, for years. And Walt like walked me down the aisle at my wedding. I saw him all the time socially. We don't see each other socially, do we? We don't. We just meet here. And people think we're the closest of buddies. We are in a weird way, in an odd, unusual way. It's because we don't know each other very well. Yes, that's perfect. That's

a perfect relationship. No, it's working for me. It's working for me. It's working for me. So let's go to 2021 then, I say. I say, let's try another year and see how that goes, okay? Let's do it. How about a year-to-year relationship? Let's do that. I'm signed up. We'll assess and say, this sucks. I'm signed up. All right. Sounds good. All right. Well, we have predictions from our favorite friends of Pivot. We'll give some of our takes, how the world will change in 2021. But as I said, and what we're also going to do is put in some of our thoughts too. Are we going to do that too? Are we going to be reflective? No, you know us. We're delicate little flowers and we don't like to we don't like to comment yeah we'll just let everyone else talk

and we won't make any yes you don't think that we're gonna we're gonna put aside our extraordinary ability to turn everything back to us us exactly that sounds good that's what i was hoping is we've got a lot of guests so we're going to kick us off with our dreamiest friend of pivot andrew ross sorkin. He sounds very dreamy in this particular prediction, and he's dreamy as ever. Of course, Andrew is the host of CNBC's Squawk Box, where he takes on, who does he take on? Those other two guys who are assholes. The dinosaurs?

Yeah. You mean the prostate control group or prostate cancer control? Those guys. I got to say, Andrew, you had a great year doing that and gave us a lot of pleasure here on our show. I think he's a great guy. He also was a guest host for one week. Super impressive wife too. You got to respect men who have really impressive wives.

Yes, he happens to be my agent too. I'm sure there was something sexist in that. But anyways, super impressive wife. Anyway, the founder and editor of Dealbook in the New York Times too. So let's listen to Andy. Hey, Karen, Scott, it's Andrew Ross Sorkin here. 2021 is going to be the year of takeovers in tech. Now, I'm going to give you a list of names. I'm not promising

you all of them are going to be involved in a merger, but I will promise you all of them will be involved in talks. And there will be lots of speculation about some of these names, all of which have been off the field, but are now going to be right back on. On the list, Dropbox, Box, Twitter, Snap, and Adobe. Call me in a year and we'll see who's taken out. I thought that was bullshit. That's like saying, okay, I'm pretty sure there's going to be a hurricane in Florida. No, it's not. He gave names.

Listen, first of all, that was the most McDreamy voice. Was that a McDreamy voice? He was very sexy there. I got to give him that. He was very sexy. He was doing the McDreamy voice. It was interesting. I think he was trying to like egg you on and make you jealous as usual.

So what's wrong with this? I feel like he gave names and names. I hadn't thought about Adobe. I hadn't thought about Adobe. I hadn't thought about Adobe. Andrew's smart. Andrew's basically made it impossible for that to be an incorrect prediction. He said,

there'll be talks. How could there not be talks about one or more of those companies? I don't know. Which one of the, when he mentioned, would you say? My prediction is the markets

will be both up and down. I mean, listen, smart ass. Which of the ones he mentioned do you think would be sold? Adobe's probably too expensive. Snap's an interesting one. What else did he say?

Twitter. Box. Dropbox. I don't know enough about Dropbox. What do you think? I think Adobe was really interesting. I hadn't thought of that. That was the one that sort of struck out at me.

I don't know what he means. Who would buy Adobe? Who has the balance sheet to take Adobe out? I think Adobe is more of an acquirer than an acquiree. Interesting. I don't know. Apple? That's too big for them. I don't think so.

Snap with Apple? Apple Snap? No, I don't think so. I don't. Twitter? Twitter. Well, one of my predictions. Finally, a chance to turn it back to me.

Okay, good. I think Twitter is going to 70 plus bucks a share on very simple moves. One, they get rid of the nose ring. And two, they- This is Jack still. You're still working on that one. I'm still, at some point.

When he retires in 20 years, you're gonna go, I was right. I was right. When he retires in 20 years, you need to go, I was right. I was right. And also, any signs of life around subscription, that stock. Full disclosure, bought the stock earlier this year, advising Elliot. Let me just say, what about when the Trump leaves or moves along or they kick him off?

Yeah, I think that hurts. But I think Twitter is, any, we've said this before, any social media platform that has anything regarding, anything close, any reasonable facsimile of the influence, Twitter's the only ingredient brand that shows up on every other media brand in the world.

It's the new moniker for everyone's name. The most influential people in the world have one thing in common. They're all on Twitter or they announce, you know, when the Fed announces a hike in interest rates, it takes to Twitter. Right. So, and any other organization or social media network that has anything- It's like PR Newswire now. It's interesting. And any other social media network that has the same type of influence trades at 15 to 30 times the market capitalization. So, you know, this thing shows some signs of lies. It has some reasonable cover governance, some reasonable move to subscription.

It might even be 70 bucks a share. It could go to 100 bucks a share. Oh, all right. I'm very bullish. I'm talking my own book. I own the stock. All right. Okay.

All right. Okay. Fine. Okay. Interesting idea. Snap would be interesting. Dropbox, I don't know. Who do you think would take Snap out though?

It's gotten expensive. It's boom. By the way, that's a prediction I got wildly wrong. I thought they were going to be run over by Instagram. But who do you think would take that out? And who believed in Snap? Kara Swisher. You did.

Yeah. Because you like Evan. No, because I was too young. That was your ovary speaking. You want to make out with Evan Spiegel. I'm a lesbian. I have no interest in him in that regard. And I do not find him dreamy in any way. Kara, it's a spectrum.

You're the one who finds all the men dreamy, my friend. It's a spectrum. Let's just be clear. Well, Kara, I'm not gay. I know a creative person. But I am, but I'm not. Listen, I know a creative person when I see one, and I always bet on creative people. And that would be, if I was a VC, that's what I'd bet on, creativity.

Thank you. You bet on creative people with dreamy hair and broad shoulders. No, he does not have broad shoulders. He's skinny. He's so have a type. Literally, he's the skinniest person. He wears size two jeans. No, he's a skinny man.

He's so have a type. He's not have a type. No, I do not have a type. Anyway, just so you know, your predictions in the dispersion markets, you have said that SPACs are going to underperform and that Robinhood is the new menace. So those have been your bidness ones. Well, never underestimate the market's ability to provide product when people have cash.

I describe the financial markets as Manhattan. When it starts raining, all of a sudden people pop up with umbrellas. Where did that guy come from? Right. And the marketplace, the public markets, which traditionally let companies trade at a greater multiple, especially when they're this frothy, have said, oh, there's not enough IPOs. And what do you know? People show up and raise money, go through the process of what typically takes six to nine months and two to three months to get the SEC on board and have a just-add-water IPO and go find companies. And some have been very successful.

They've actually outperformed the market, but typically over the long term, they underperform. And the reality is if you look at $70 billion in de-SPAC capital levered up to $200 billion, there just isn't enough good private companies out there, which means they're going to overpay, and these things are going to vastly underperform over the next two to three years. What happens in the next year, I don't know, but SPACs are definitely a canary in the coal mine that are kind of froth on the market. Do you see any that you like? Are there any SPACs you're like, that's a good? Well, I'm being biased because she's a friend of ours, but I think BarkBox is an interesting one. Joanna Coles was involved in that SPAC. Subscription revenue, pet adoptions are up 40% year on year. Recurring revenue, a million subscribers at $30 a month, $360 million in revenue.

Is it worth five times revenue? I don't know, but I like that one. I think a lot of people are going to dump their pets. That's what we're going to see, unfortunately. It's not that easy to dump your pet. Oh, it is. I've had it. What are you talking about?

I'm just telling you, people do that. They buy weird things and then get rid of pets after a while. My dad's third wife is a wonderful woman, but not a great pet owner. And she'd always get a pet and then the pet would magically disappear to a farm. Well, I'm just saying, I just say people are not that nice. But I see your point. So you like that SPAC. Is there any other SPACs you like? What are Paul Ryan's doing with his SPAC? We better check in on Paul Ryan. Yeah. So, I mean, there's been a bunch.

I don't think he's bought anything. Chamath Papatia has been kind of the SPAC king. Yeah, he's the SPAC king. Virgin Galactic so far has been really successful. They're doing Open Door, which I want to dig into. I don't fully understand that business. They laid off a third of their staff, and now they're going public with the SPACs. I'll be curious to see how they're going to do. they're going to do. But SPACs, generally speaking, the pause and the scrutiny that the SEC and the markets and investment banks force companies to go through before going public

probably isn't a bad thing. And so the fact that so many companies are bypassing that is indication that we're reaching further and further into the barrel. And so you're going to, I mean, my big prediction is 2021 is going to be the year that SPACs dramatically underperform. And there'll be some winners. There'll be some great companies. You also are possibly waiting for Robinhood's IPO, which I think you're waiting in the wings for that one.

Yeah, I think that the dispersion of stimulus to record savings and to ends up in the hands of bored and vulnerable young men who put that money into story stocks, creating exceptional volatility, systemic risk, much less depression among young men. And when you have the CEO of Goldman Sachs saying he's worried about froth in the market, and then they're working with Robinhood to take them public, there's some inconsistency there. Yeah. So I think if investment banks actually want to live up to this business roundtable aspiration they're all on the board of, that they need to start thinking about stakeholders, not just shareholders,

that we have a menace here. So I'm hopeful that Robinhood, that people realize this dispersion and removal of friction in this instance is a negative externality. I like your menace companies. I think that should be your next book. Menace economy. Menace economy. Next book. Uber. Although I don't think people want to buy sad books. You don't want to buy what? I don't think people want to buy sad books next year. I'm just saying menace economy would be a really interesting book. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. But what do you think? How do you feel about the markets and Robinhood? I don't really follow.

I think Robinhood needs to clean itself up and they won't. And they have a lot of menace investors and the whole, they just love to shove this crap at us all the time. And some of the parts of it are good. I think people should, you know, I always liked E-Trade and things like that.

But again, they're sloppy. They're sloppy, sloppy, careless young men. I don't know how else to put it. Sloppy, careless young men is the problem we've had the whole time. And that's why these antitrust hearings are coming up for big tech, sloppy, careless young white men mostly,

but not always. But in terms of, I just think that they just are careless people who rush ahead and call it innovation a lot of the time when it's actually just sloppiness. And other people pay the price for their sloppiness. Thank you. Well, we've moved from, we had a manufacturing-based economy.

And that's not just because my son didn't clean up his room this week. We have a manufacturing, we had a manufacturing-based economy. We went from agrarian to manufacturing to service and to innovation. And the scary part is, have we moved to an exploitation economy?

Exactly. I think we have. And I think, you know, just watching this vaccine roll out, like Marco Rubio lecturing us about coronavirus and then getting, being, rushing to the front of the line. And I know people in Congress got it, but like I say, we put anyone who went to a super spreader event and was obnoxious about masks and all that, put them in the back of the line, back of the line. Back of the line. Anyway, typical. Anyway, let's move on. We also have a prediction from our friend of Pivot, Aminatou Sow.

Aminatou is a best-selling author of the book, Big Friendship, and you can find her newsletter, creme de la creme, at aminatou.substack.com. If you want to find out more about her, you can also find that in our show notes. All right. Hello, I'm Aminatou Sow, and I am very nervous about making predictions. If anything, COVID has taught us all that nothing

goes according to plan. But let's see, anything for you, Kara and Scott. Here is my prediction slash wish for 2021. I really want to see America really embrace automation in cool and new ways. This country is so behind. You go anywhere else in the world and they are doing contactless and touchless mechanisms for consumer and employee interactions. The automation is just better everywhere else. And America likes to act like we're a rich country but we're just a poor country in a Gucci belt so I am hoping that next year we live up to our status of being a rich country and like you know get some like automation up in here we really need it and it would be nice and you know also coronaviruses really show that automation is really meant for times like these.

So that's what I want to see. America, get it together. Happy New Year, everyone. Well, that's an interesting one from Mina. You know, that's an interesting issue because when you are in Europe and other places, they do have better systems. I don't know how else to put it.

Like in terms of buying, in terms of all kinds of things that you do with your phone or with these lots of ways to do that. What do you think about this? It's interesting because what Aminatou said sort of my first reaction is that automation has been to a certain extent incredibly damaging to the middle class because it's not immigrants that have taken American jobs. It's basically robots. And I wonder, you know, I like the idea of automation is really interesting. You go into a European airport, you put your passport in, your boarding pass, and it lets you in as opposed to speaking to someone who's, you know, just waiting for their job to be destroyed.

So I think there's tremendous opportunity. as opposed to speaking to someone who's, you know, just waiting for their job to be destroyed. So I think there's tremendous opportunity. I think what I would hope is, is that we come up with some sort of tax on the technologies and the robots, because what's happened in America is it's more tax efficient for a company to figure out a way to outsource the human to a robot,

even if the robot isn't as good or as productive as the human, because we don't have to pay payroll taxes on them. We don't have to. So I think automation is a very loaded term. Yes, it is. I'd agree. But we'll see. Yeah. I guess I'm up for- I want to just see this for one second more, but automation is a loaded term because a lot of it is great. Like the contactless stuff, I think a lot of the ways we do business is old school. And when you go to other countries, in almost any country, South Korea or China or Japan or Europe, it's just a very different world of how things work. And you have to sit there and go like, oh, this is the easy way to do it.

And so you feel that the U.S. should be ahead on this. Now, you don't have to eliminate jobs necessarily when you do these things. You could deploy workers to do better customer service if they didn't have to do the rote tasks, you know, that just don't require, it doesn't make them better to have a person doing them. And in fact, they're just dead-end jobs. And so, you know, I look at some of the warehouse things like in Amazon or something like that, and some of them are just so clearly going to be automated that it's not, you know, pretending otherwise is kind of silly. But I think the idea is to figure out what people can do better and how you,

there's lots of ways people can do things better than robots. And so that's really where I think the issues around automation have to be discussed, not just make it a sort of boogeyman for everything, but really start to think about where jobs should be and how we should train people for them. Yeah, look, automation's coming. I don't want to be a, not just make it a sort of boogeyman for everything, but really start to think about where jobs should be and how we should train people for them. Yeah, look, automation's coming. I don't want to be a Luddite. The question is,

do we take some of the prosperity that comes from that progress and help to retrain the cashier into someone who understands robots? You know who wants a robot tax? Bill Gates. You and Bill Gates. Yeah, I think that's the right way to go.

All right, let's go to a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about what we think is coming up in work and business culture, health care, and media. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the

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my predictions for 2021 in response to how big business will or will not change their work cultures. Big business will continue to increase the volume of its talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, and even the new kid on the block, anti-racism. We're going to see more hashtags, more initiatives, more pictures of Black people in the recruiting imagery. Some of these businesses will even make meaningful changes in the form of financial contributions or recruiting of retention approaches. But many of those same businesses will continue to perpetuate exploitative business models that extract data and value from their customers. They will continue to talk about being good corporate citizens while taking advantage

of every possible tax avoidance scheme, thus indirectly defunding the very society they claim to be a part of. They will continue to put profits over people because they'll feel stuck in the cycle of short-term shareholder value creation while failing to expand their definition of shareholder adequately and rapidly enough. Oh, and they're going to talk a lot more about how they want their employees to bring their full selves to work. And a few of them might even mean it. We have more about Baratunde's podcast in the show notes.

Well, that is so smart. He's so smart. Baratunde's so smart. Let me just say, I just had this discussion with a bunch of people the other day about how the Black Lives Matter and systemic racism discussion sort of fell apart, or not fell apart, it didn't fall apart, it went away and has been quieter now suddenly. And obviously,

it's because of the constant fire that Trump prompts and the election and everything else. But they were talking about whether it was going to come back, whether that's going to be something meaningful. And I really, I hadn't thought about that, but it was really a, it was a great discussion I had about this. And I, it really did, it didn't fall by the wayside, but it got drowned out by other things that came after it, including right now with Trump trying to do a coup of the U.S. government, for example. So what do you think about this? Such a complicated, so you can be hopeful. Where I see progress is at a board level in that, as I've always said, we're a tribal species. Boards of directors typically are white men, and we pick a white man to be the CEO.

And white male CEOs have a tendency to surround themselves with other white males, and it just trickles down. And so I think a lot of the change has to start at the board level. In Germany, one of the ways they've supported a middle class is that they have federal mandates that a certain percentage of your board of directors has to be represented by workers. And what do you know? What do you know? Workers in the middle class have done better in Germany. And the percentage, you know, the CEO doesn't make 350 times what the average worker better in Germany. And at the percentage, the CEO doesn't make 350 times what the average worker does in Germany. So the NASDAQ has said, if you don't have one woman on

your board, you can't be listed on the NASDAQ. I don't think if we're waiting for their better angels to show up, I think it's happening, but it's happening too slowly. I'm not a fan of regulation, but I do think that certain indices, certain investors, I like the fact that they're saying, if you don't have some reasonable semblance of diversity on your board, and I do think that's where it all starts, we're not going to list you or give you access to the capital markets. There has been enormous progress every day and until the pandemic where we've seen this economic apartheid explode where black and Hispanic households have an average wealth of around 20 grand and white households 160 grand. So

there's just, I mean, this is, Bill Clinton kind of summarized it. He said it in the early 90s that systemic racism is the biggest issue our country faces. So I think this is going to continue to be a huge issue. It is amazing, but it never gets to, it gets to, it loses, it's interesting because I was watching all the way the LBJ, I'm interviewing Bryan Cranston, so I was watching the HBO version of it. And it's so resonant to today, these struggles between and among the different groups and obviously people, the awful, terrible people like Strom Thurmond, but many others. And how many, how much compromise did it get to the Voting Rights Act, which of course was then recently gotten rid of. And then the Civil Rights Bill of 1964.

And it just, it's the same discussions we're having today. And I do think what happens is these things come upward and there are protests and everything else. And then these corporations just slow roll everybody and sort of put it into the drawer again. And I just see that happening. And so on lots of issues, and not just that, because this pandemic, if it's shown anything, and this was an interview I did with Nicole Hannah-Jones these are we have made people sacrificial workers there are like you you call them the menace economy I call it sacrificial workers that we've decided that they are we call them essential but they're really sacrificial

you'll see it in this like why are the expendables they're the expendables they're we just do that and it tends to be um people of color because they're in a lot of these jobs, in without being the stakeholders. And you hear it's compassionate capitalism, inclusive capitalism, stakeholder capitalism. Like, let's actually do it versus the talking points to it. And so I just feel like,

I just think this, the gig economy, they're all sort of screaming and this pandemic and the gig economy and the way it takes advantage of workers, it's just screaming out for serious change finally. And you, when you hear people like AOC and others, you know, I know she's become sort of the boogeyman for the right to, that's their new thing to attack since they won't necessarily have Trump all the time, is, is this, is, is the worker, when she starts talking about the worker.

When she starts talking about the worker, it makes sense to people like my kids and to everybody else. Like, it's really interesting to hear her listen to from various points of view if you're not sort of an old white man. It's just like what she's talking about makes a lot of sense. Now, you may not agree with how to get there

and you may struggle to get legislation through, but her basic building blocks are correct in how we have to think about workers going forward. Yeah, she brings, I, I love AOC. I think she's an inspiration, but she brings a certain contempt for corporations. Well, she's had it with them. Yeah, but I think some of it is unhealthy because I think she's, she's playing into their hands by saying, you know, capitalism and companies and profits and people becoming wealthy, you know, there's something very noble in that, and that is we take the prosperity and hopefully share it.

We haven't been taking the prosperity and sharing it. I would argue that the problem, I mean, to be blunt, I think AOC is at fault. And what I mean by that is that we should have minimum wage that's 20 bucks an hour. We should have corporations paying their fair share of taxes. We should have the wealthiest man in the world paying taxes. And guess who gets to decide that?

Our legislators, the houses of government. And so, yeah, I understand, but it's on you to figure this shit out. And it's on us to elect representatives that not only have the ideas, but have the ability to form a consensus and reach across the aisle instead of going on Twitter and insulting each other to get shit done. And the reality is they haven't gotten anything done. I mean, when I interviewed Annie Sposy, she's like, let everyone get the votes.

And I agree with that. It's in elections that you win these things. It's who you put in place. At the same time, literally, like today's thing on the deal on this stimulus bill, like the martini lunch thing, every economist is like, this doesn't help the economy. But Trump wanted to get it through, and they probably had to give it to him. Like, how ridiculous is that rich people can deduct their lunches? And then what the Democrats got in return was money for poor people. Like, it's insane that that was their priority. It's insane. It's insane. Yeah, the stimulus bill, look, the stimulus bill is, and that's a separate talk show,

but I do think that the American corporation, when left to the full body contact of competition and Darwinism, creates incredible prosperity. I don't think anything like competition and capitalism creates the type of prosperity such that we can be more loving and generous with people. So I think contempt for corporations is, anyway, it is a complicated topic. Yeah, it is. All right, I was saying, I don't trust,

I think Baratunde's talking the right thing, is they'll try to put it in the drawer if they can, because not as much as like that they don't care is that it's just not there. It's number 15 on their list and they got a big list, but other stuff. So let me just very quickly before we get out of this section, some of Scott's predictions in dispersion of home and work,

co-working renaissance is one of them. Airbnb is worth more than the top five hotel chains combined because people are going to be working in different places. Restoration Hardware becomes a thousand dollar stock and Apple acquires Peloton. So what do you think will happen post-pandemic, post when the vaccine does get to actual people in a CVS? There are a lot of young people that want to find mentors, friends, and mates at work. And there is a serendipity and a creativity that happens when people bump off of each other. So there will be somewhat, unfortunately, it'll create greater inequality just as firms are on their heels and saying, go all remote and using those cost savings

to juice, to help them get through the pandemic. Google, Facebook, and Amazon are actually leasing up space in Manhattan because they're going to offer a form of Xanadu for any 25-year-old double E from MIT and say, come live in New York in this Tinder meets Ted meets billions kind of work environment. But you're going to have, so I do think there's going to be a co-working renaissance because I think small and medium sized firms are not going to want, they're going to want flexibility around office space. They'll need less of it, but they'll need it more on demand, if you will. And that's what co-working is. Airbnb, we predicted it was going to be a $100 billion company. It went public, or was supposed to go

public at a value. It was $18 billion earlier in the year. It's already at close to $100 billion. I think it's somewhere between $90 and $100 right now. And the restoration hardware prediction is more, I think they're, commercial real estate is a $12 trillion asset class. We're going to spend, I think, somewhere between 20 and 30% gross net destruction and demand or time spent in commercial. And that most of that time is going to be reallocated or across our attention graph to residential,

which naturally means that 20% of the $12 trillion or a couple trillion dollars will move out of commercial and into residential. And when you think about commercial real estate to a certain extent, everything from Herman Miller to Aeron Chairs to Microsoft to Oracle to Siebel, these are all great brands in the workplace. There really aren't that many great brands in the home. Think about how many, think about when you, it's always struck me that- There's brands, there's brands, CB2, Crack and Barrel, Restoration Harbor, West End. They're at West Elm.

Yeah, but that's one company. And think about how many great apparel brands there are. Anyways- That's the Williams-Sonoma, that gang. But the thing that always struck me is you'd see a real estate tear sheet and they'd be selling a $3 million home and they would advertise

that it had a $3,000 Sub-Zero freezer, or refrigerator. I'm like, there are so few great iconic brands in the home. Restoration Hardware is one of them. And unfortunately, it plays to the top 10% who are going to kill it. And a lot of people are just saying, you know what, I didn't realize how old and ratty that carpet is. And my corporation is giving me money to stay at home. I'm saving money. And Sonos. I just bought a carpet, Scott, for the home. I just bought a big TV too. And Sonos is another great brand in the home. If you really said how many great brands are in the home, there really aren't that many. And they're about to get, you're about to see a couple of trillion dollars go transfer out of commercial and residential. Plywood costs all-time highs,

residential real estate, all-time highs. I think people are going to be leaving the home. Kara Swisher wants to get out of her home as soon as she gets the vaccine, and then she's gone. She's gone from her home. She's never going back again. Anyway, moving on, we have a prediction,

speaking of the pandemic, on healthcare from Andy Slavitt. Andy Slavitt is the host of the podcast In the Bubble, and he was head of Obamacare under the Obama administration. Hey, guys. Predictions for 2021? Well, it's going to start as chaotic as 2020.

The pandemic has a few more surprises left in store for us, and it's going to be rough going for a while. But we are going to exit the year in a much better spot, having gotten partially the way through it. But boy, the public patience in the U. the US just isn't tolerating of much. We are, of course, going to be moving into the Biden-Harris regime, and I think we will see quality people focused on real results, putting their head down, and I think that'll be nice for a change. Biden's big challenge, of course, is how does he deal with an ex-president and a kind of loud group of people that don't want him to succeed. I think he'll do as well as anyone can.

And I think competence and compassion will help rule the day. I wish everybody the best 2021 possible. Well, interesting. Well, what does he mean? That guy adopted me. Seriously, that guy adopt me? Seriously, will that guy adopt me? By the way, he has a really impressive son. I went on his podcast

and he and his son are both really impressive. The one thing I felt when I got off Andy's podcast. Andy's podcast, yeah. It's a great podcast. Was I was angry that I thought this is the kind of competence we had in the Obama administration. Yes.

We had thoughtful, competent people. And that had literally got run out of DC. Now we have Peter Navarro. That got run out of DC. And Scott, what's his name, that asshole? Atlas. Yeah, whatever, him. God.

Yeah, anyway. What a bunch of cranks. I mean, really, seriously, we put up with this hydroxychloroquine with a whole gang of them. They're insane. They're insane. They're insane. I don't mind insane. I mind incompetent. Even that Deborah Birx.

Come on. She was very competent. And now she's like up in trouble because she's been like going to her, she has four homes and she was winterizing one. And so she got together her whole family. Just, it's really just something else. Yeah, but I think she is a competent woman. I think. Whatever. competent woman. I think-

Whatever. I'm sorry. She sat there while he did it. She should have taken her scarf, flounced out of the room. I'm sorry. She's a doctor. Very hard.

No, no, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's really not. Like, I hate when people say that it's really hard. It's not really hard. Well, okay. Fauci did the same thing. I mean, Fauci kind of found his testicles

about what a month left. He did, but he kept pushing back. She did not say word one. And I hate to say that as a woman, but he pushed back. He kept saying opposite of what was said. She could have stayed there and said it. Yeah, that's fair. She didn't say a word.

She didn't say a word. I'm not going to give her an easy time. And letting Scott Atlas get away with anything. I don't know what went on behind the scenes, but she should have made it public. I just completely should have made it public. It's too important. It's too, these are people's lives and that's what I feel about it. Anyway, I'm glad he thinks that. Your predictions in healthcare are really interesting. And then I want to talk about how pharmaceutical companies will do coming out of this, but Walmart gets into healthcare via acquisition. You also said Amazon sucks $100 billion from top healthcare firms. So talk a little bit about that. And then

we'll talk about pharmaceutical companies, how they come out of this. Looking good, I guess. Well, someone reminded me that Walmart is already a big player in healthcare, but I think they're going to be. I think the quiet or the proxy battle to end all battles is taking place right now. And that is Amazon and Walmart going after each other in healthcare. Yeah. 17% of our economy, $3 to $4 trillion, and it's up for grabs. into remote medicine, the most exciting, probably the biggest silver lining coming out of this cloud we call COVID-19 is the opportunity to embrace or disperse healthcare past or away from doctor's office and hospitals, which are intimidating, expensive, and get into primary care and service people on their smartphones such that the rash doesn't become an infection and someone doesn't

end up in the ER and start managing people's weight better, their diet better, and offer a level of primary care that would be, you know, that's been unprecedented. So I think that the opportunity to disperse 17% of our GDP and have it reach people who traditionally haven't had as much access to healthcare is the most exciting thing in our economy.

It's also the most exciting thing from a stakeholder level. And in terms of Amazon, Amazon can perform Jedi mind tricks. When they announce, when they acquire PillPack, CVS and Rite Aid, hemorrhage tens of billions of value, you're about to see over the course of 2021, you're going to see the 10 largest healthcare companies, in my view, probably lose 100 to 300 billion in combined

market cap. And it's all going to go to Amazon. I don't know if you saw, but Amazon today announced that Amazon Health is going to be rolled out to other companies where they connect you with doctors for chats, they can prescribe you medication, and they're going to start offering it to other companies. Here comes Amazon. And Amazon just needs to give another industry the stink eye and can begin suffocating and asphyxiating it without touching it. And you're going to start to see that Jedi mind trick come into healthcare. Yeah, agreed. Agreed. All right. And the pharmaceutical companies, I think they're going to come out very well. They've sort of shined up their sometimes very tarnished reputations about high prices and stuff like that.

So they certainly can swing into action when they need to. And I think this will be an interesting case study of how quickly these vaccines were made and the real story about how it happened. I think that's why I've been reading all these stories. All right, next one, prediction. We're moving into media. Finally, our next friend is very close to our show. Our executive producer, Erica Anderson, is leaving us at the end of the year. Here's what she has to say about the show. Our executive producer, Erica Anderson, is leaving us at the end of the year. Here's what she has to say about the future of podcasts. Hey, Karen Scott.

This is Erica America, your executive producer. This is my last show. So first and foremost, I want to thank you both for being incredible friends and mentors and hosts. This has been an incredible ride and I can't wait to see what you guys do in 2021. All right, so let me just share my take for how the podcast market will shake out in 2021. Number one, Netflix is going to make a major play for narrative podcasting. It'll terrify the competition.

Number two, Spotify will begin to show far less interest in pods that aren't made for or by them, especially the talk show kind. Number three, Amazon Music is going to become a major contender through content acquisition. Most importantly, as the platforms start to get serious about highly produced audio content, the era of everybody has a podcast will close out. Only the best content will survive and be amplified. And on the topic of talk shows, shows like Pivot that are daily habits, have social consequence, and are largely driven by the personalities of the hosts, they'll become major franchises, as they should be.

And this is my last prediction. 2021 is going to be a huge year for Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. Thanks for having me on as your EP, and don't forget to take my calls when you move to Los Angeles, replace Bill Maher, and become bigger than Howard Stern. Love you both. She's a charmer. She's a charmer.

She's a charmer. To the end. Let me just say, her first prediction is entirely wrong. Netflix is not going to embrace its role as a media company to take a major play in podcasting. You don't think so?

I do not. I have to ask them about this directly and rather in detail. And that is not the case. I think they're not. They've got their hands full with international. I think they're really leaning into international quite heavily. And so that one I don't agree with. I don't think they're even slightly interested in podcasts, not even a bit. Spotify, you take that one. Well, just more broadly speaking, if you look at Apple, Spotify, and Netflix, and you were to look at when their stocks accelerated at the greatest velocity for a

short period of time, and then you tried to backward integrate into what was the catalyst, the catalyst was the launch of original owned IP or programming. Yes, original for sure. When Netflix did House of Cards, when Spotify did the deal with Joe Rogan, and also when Apple launched Apple TV, and I think, I know there were other catalysts there, but all of these vertical, own controlled content, as opposed to being the distributor of the content, seems to be the gangster move.

So any IP that is up for grabs right now, oh my gosh, those values. And it goes back to what we're talking about next week. They're just, these larger companies are going to arbitrage NPS and consumer loyalty and affinity across- So who? Who in podcast? She's talking specifically about podcast. I don't, Netflix is not getting in here, 100%. Yeah, I don't know what, I didn't understand that either because I don't know the device that Netflix would play it on, but oh my gosh, Amazon, Spotify,

Apple will get into the business. I think there's going to be bidding wars for any sort of, because the thing is, nine women can't have a baby in a month. It takes a long time to build Call Her Daddy or whatever that podcast. It takes a long time to build that affinity, that goodwill, and that subscriber base. And those companies are going to go for irrational multiples to these really deep-pocketed bidders who've recognized that their house of cards could be Joe Rogan. So they'll start looking at other podcasts.

Well, it's interesting because Joe Rogan has his own thing. And that's the thing. It's owning the IP. I think you're right. If you want to link it to Netflix, Netflix has really come into its own. It's not just because IP like house of cards.

It has got your, they've got stuff all over the globe that they're doing. And that's really where their strength is. Not just IP, but international IP. IP that jumps globally. It jumps like right now Dark Heist, I think it's called. Money Heist.

One's called Money Puts. One's called Dark. The Witcher. They have a lot of stuff that's jumping across. They used to just have the US market, this market. So that's the thing is not just what can jump, but what IP you can own. And you're right. I think Spotify, if it gets it together, will certainly be a big player of it. It seems to be not much. It's not much of an editorial company, but they've hired some people who are very editorial minded there, which is great. A friend of mine, Lydia Polgreen works there. And that was an interesting move, I thought.

She's from the New York Times. She ran the Huffington Post. So, yeah, we'll see. We'll definitely see. I think she's definitely right about this idea of daily habits and people that get there and everybody has a podcast is sort of over. The podcast jump geographies. I mean, I don't know if you know this.

We're the 23rd most popular podcast in the UAE for some reason. But what you're talking about Netflix, such an impressive company. They have 10,000 people in Madrid. And what they do is they pay up for the best screenplays. They pay up for the best production value. And then they do a car chase in Copenhagen. And they say, cut. And they swap in the most popular Romanian actor.

So they've said, okay, what we've found is that local content with international scale and production values is the gangster cocktail. Well, interestingly, I just did an interview with Bella Bajaria, who is the head of all of TV, global TV for Netflix, who you don't know who she is, but she's the one been doing all this. And so it was a really all this. And so, it was a really fascinating interview. And so, I think they're totally focused on that. But nonetheless, there will be a lot of players in the podcast space and therefore, yay for Karen Scott. You know, I also did a podcast with an astrologer and apparently we're going to have a big deal this year, Scott, you and me. Really? I'm not sure what that means. The astrologer is predicting great financial success for you and I. The dog is ready.

The dog wants more pig bones. A business partnership I have is going to be huge this year by mid-year. Thank you. Awesome. Isn't that good? Bring it on. The astrologer says so. All right, just a few more things in media.

Thank you, Erica. We really appreciate it. And we will not return your calls. Thank you. When we get really famous. Erica who? Erica who? I have moved on. Green M&Ms. I have moved on. And then let's crash spectacularly, I think. Don't you think? I'm Shirley MacLaine and she's Anne Bancroft. I will ignore her once

I make it big. I will ignore her. Let's have like, again, we'll have a big fight in Lincoln Center. That would be so cool. Post COVID, of course. Anyway, this is a movie that both Scott and I remember and nobody else does. Anyway, it was a good movie. It was a ballet movie. Scott's predictions, dispersion of media, CNN goes behind a paywall, which Jason Kyler has talked about in these apps and stuff like that. These different things, they're thinking of streaming products. AT&T hits $40 a share or divests HBO. Maybe not so much now. They've sort of doubled down. Roblox, we'll see, triples in value, but we'll see because they've delayed their IPO. And then, of course, there's TikTok, which we don't hear of anymore because Trump's busy,

again, trying to have a coup that isn't working well because he has a bunch of idiots helping him do the coup. The same gang that helped him do the legal challenges. Anyhow, Scott, very quickly, we have only a short time. What do you think? Fareed Zakaria, my professional role model. Yeah, your other McDreamy. Amazing content, amazing delivery. And in order for you, when you watch an hour of Fareed,

they pump it full of, I think it's 20 minutes of commercials, and they get 23 cents for pelting that shit at you. Yeah. So that basically says your time, according to CNN, is worth a dollar an hour. Yeah. And people are going to decide my time's worth more than a dollar an hour, use technology to figure out a way to clean out all the tier two anchors, which they have a lot of. Oh, yeah. And give me an hour to two hour of gorgeous Fareed Zakaria, Anderson Cooper, Christian Aminpour content, and I will pay for it.

And don't tell me I constipated from opioids. This is just a natural. If you talk, if you really want to talk about people who've made hundreds of billions of dollars in value, they've created time machines. Netflix is a time machine. If you just watch Netflix, you save 17 days a year in commercials. Amazon saves you time. They build time machines.

It is time for CNN to stop pelting all the crap at us, save us time, get us to the best news politics content. News and politics is the only thing that hasn't gone behind a wall. It's just ripe. And CNN, not only is the best content, but it appeals to the progressives who quite frankly have more money now and are willing to pay some money to say, just let me opt out of the advertising industrial complex, which is nothing but a tax on the poor

and the technologically illiterate. Yeah. All right. A TikTok thing, very quick, very quick. TikTok, the biggest thing there is e-commerce and Walmart is doing that. Walmart's talking about short-form video to sell products and TikTok will continue to be massively in the news. Mark Zuckerberg and

Sheryl Sandberg will use it as their defense for a breakup. It'll be a constant volleyball or whatever the term is bandied around when we're talking about whether or not China should have unfettered access to our markets when we have restricted access to theirs. So you're going to hear a lot about TikTok for the wrong reasons, but I still think TikTok is genius. I think it's just staggering what they could do with that algorithm. I was watching it the other day for hours. Yeah, you wake up, you lift your head up, and you're like, where did that two hours go? And then AT&T shows that giants can dance. I think their move, the baller move in media was them sticking up the middle finger to the film industrial complex and theaters. And all of a sudden, they've got new power, new mojo, and it's a no-lose scenario for them because either that

multiple on AT&T goes up because the narrative shifts from the worst acquisition in the last decade to the largest subscription company. Or they say, okay, we're not getting the additional multiple. So let's spin HBO, which will go at a monster number in CNN. Yep, I agree. And by the way, let me just say-

40 bucks to share AT&T by the end of the year. Guess what? Everyone's watching Tenet now because it's in the home. And now it's like the most popular thing. You're getting so many reviews. Like stop with the fact that they didn't call you back or send you the fruit basket.

Like, fuck that. Like, sorry, but your movie is now seen by everyone and you're getting brilliant reviews. So suck it up, Sally. Thank you. So. All right. Ensalada.

Ensaladito. In any case, I'm just like, come on. Like everyone gets to see it. Thank you. You couldn't see it because they die if they saw it before. And Roblox, you're going to saw it before. And Roblox. You're going to hear a lot more about Roblox. All right, Scott.

One more quick break. We'll be back with our absolute favorite friends of Pivot and our personal predictions for 2021. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. You already know that AI is transforming the world around us, but lost in all the enthusiasm and excitement is a really important question. How can AI actually work for you? And where should you even start?

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that puts humanity first. To learn more, visit anthropic.com slash Claude. That's anthropic.com slash Claude. Okay, Scott, last year we had our parents with our final word. I'm not doing that this year. COVID lucky is not getting her final word. She doesn't have COVID, but she's trying very hard to give it to me.

This year, our favorite people are on to tell us their predictions. Let's start with someone from the Galloway House. Hi, my name is Nolan Galloway, and my prediction for which console or a watching platform will get big and maybe take over the world, I think Disney Plus will get bigger and bigger because with all of the people that like Marvel and Star Wars,

it's like amazing for them. And I also think Sony might because Sony owns PlayStation and with the new PlayStation 5 coming out, well, it came out. It's been crazy. Like, we've tried ordering it, but it kept on going out of stock over and over and over. My name is Yala Galloway,

and my position for 2021 is that Apple is going to make a lot of money through the new Apple Search browser and Apple TV+, because Apple owns, makes a lot of iPhones and billions of people on iPhones and it's probably one of the most successful phone-making companies in the world.

And if they can self-promote their search engine on their phones, it could become really popular, really strong, and it can make a lot of money off of it. Apple TV Plus also could be really successful because Hulu and Disney Plus only support certain shows and certain TV. Apple TV is going to cover

everything. It's going to be able to cover things from Hulu and Disney Plus all in one thing. It's also probably going to be a lot cheaper because Apple is a very successful company and they don't need that much money. Okay. Your kids are smarter than you are. That's really

the situation I see coming here. I'm replacing you this year. Maybe that's the people I'm doing deals with, the Galloway sons. Those are good predictions. He's right about Disney+. I have to say. My youngest son, the new antitrust lawyer, basically

saying that they own the rails. Yeah. I thought that was great. That's absolutely true. That's one of the reasons my kids like Disney Plus. They watch it a lot because of Star Wars and all the stuff that's on it. As to the PlayStation, we can't get one. I am not going to go out of my way, but a lot of bots, tell your son a lot of bots are trying to order. There's a great story in the Washington Post, I think, about how these bot buyers are doing it, and that's why you're not getting them. But there's not that. They're also trying to keep PlayStations out of the market

so that they can sell more later to create. There's some, because they don't make any money on the first ones, but they'll make more. I don't know. There's some financial incentive not to have too many of them out there. Well, the illusion of scarcity, whether it's Panerai Trucking Supply,

it just creates, they are available. Like every dad, I'm trying to figure out what to do for Christmas. They are available on StockX at about a 60% premium. Oh, yeah. And it's not that I wouldn't mind paying the 60%, but I think like, God, my kids are so indulged. Do I really need to go into the secondary market to pay up? My son told me that. I'm like, sorry, you're not getting it.

You can take it a job and buy it some if you want to do it that way. Or you can wait. Because I think, sorry, you're not getting it. You can take it a job and buy it some if you want to do it that way, or you can wait. Because I think there's a reason why it's waiting. I thought your son's correctly correct about Apple, about what he was saying about Apple. And I think Apple's probably a platform we tend to discount more than others for some reason. Do you think we do? Oh, Apple, look, it's great to own the rails. It's just anything they launch, if it wasn't Apple, if a streaming network that wasn't Apple had launched their content and spent that kind of money, everyone would have said it was a flop.

Yeah. But because they own the rails and they can guide everyone to watching the morning show, which was Murphy Brown on 10 Times the Budget. And there was some interesting stuff. Tehran's great, but they... They're really not committed to it in the same way. Yeah, but they don't need to be because they can stuff it down our throats. To get to watch content, to be watching content on an iPhone, on Apple TV Plus is three clicks. On Netflix, it's 17. And so, they get between 3 and 12% of total revenues from every streaming video platform because of the tollkeeper. I get it. I think they could do better. They should still do better or else get out of it. Well, they'll get there. They've got Richard Plepler. They'll get there. Money eventually,

I mean, despite Christopher Nolan's protests and the people at CAA, they're going to go where the next dollar is. And Apple and Amazon have the most dollars. And slowly but surely, they'll start to, you know, they'll scoop up all the talent. But I do think, something you said, Disney is blessed by its excellent IP. It just does. It has the best IP of all, speaking of which. Well, it's got the biggest library. And also, as we said, Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel

are fantastic franchises. We'll see what Warner can do with theirs. All right, now predictions from the Swisher household. Hello, my name is Louis Swisher, son of Kara Swisher and heir to her podcast, Empire. My prediction for 2021? That the new movie, The Many Saints of Newark,

will be the best thing since Sliced Gabagool. Hi, this is Amanda Katz. I'm a writer and editor and a special friend of both Kara Swisher and Pivot. My prediction for 2021 is that as the Trump era and the pandemic near their end, that a new era of vapid fluff, unlike one we've ever seen, comes to the fore. This is a time for pettiness, for trivia, for gossip. This is all time for pettiness, for trivia, for gossip. This is all anyone is going to want to think about after the troubles that we have seen in 2020. And I, for one, am looking forward to it. Special friend and vapid fluff. Well, hello. She wears the word vapid easily. That's what I'm married, an intellectual. And you're her special friend so clear

you're newlyweds i'm trying to imagine my wife after 10 years of describing me as her special friend i sure want to say wifey listen louis was talking about the many saints of new york he's a huge sopranos fan and has been enjoying that on whatever i think it's hbo hbo max and he was just being funny he literally did that in 10 seconds this morning. He's so funny. What's the special Saints of New York? I don't even know what that is. Stryce got a ghoul. It's what Tony Soprano eats. The Many Saints of Newark is the prequel to the Sopranos,

or Young Tony Soprano. Really? Who's playing the Young Tony Soprano? His son. The guy, James Gandolfini's son. No kidding? No kidding. Oh, my gosh.

My mind is blown. Yeah, and that's one of the ones Warner's putting out online. My son couldn't be more happy. He wasn't going to go to the theater to watch. Well, he might have because he loves The Sopranos, but he didn't want to and he's thrilled it's coming out on Warner, by the way. So that's interesting. That's really exciting.

And Vapid, what did she call it? Vapid Fluff. I think she's right. I think we're going to enter a period. Look at the story that got a lot of attention this weekend, the Martin Shkreli thing. Everybody was talking about it, which was kind of a sad, vapid story. It was sad.

The woman who worked for Bloomberg who fell in love with Martin Shkreli, the guy, the farmer bro. Remember that guy? Yeah, the guy that was selling EpiPens for character prizes. Well, apparently not, according to her. In any case, she was covering him. She broke the story about his arrest and a bunch of other stories, and then she fell in love with him.

And she's now in love with him, and then by the end of the story, he ghosts her. And it's just, it's this incredibly petty trivia gossip story, and everybody ate it up this weekend. That's an interesting question of whether people are going to go to very serious stuff or they just need a break from all this relentless. There's a pattern. Adam Alter, my colleague at NYU, has done great research around this.

In very serious times, we like comedies. And in very prosperous times, we like Ingmar Bergman depressing films. We want balance. We want fang and shui. So it makes sense that we would want something, a lot of light stuff right now. So what do you think is going to do well then?

I don't know, comedies, rom-coms. Where's Matthew? Roll out Matthew McConaughey, rom-coms. Where's Matthew? Roll out Matthew McConaughey. Rom-coms. He's running for governor of Texas apparently. Yeah. That guy's my favorite.

That's hilarious. I don't know. He says stupid things lately but whatever. It's a potluck dinner and daddy's brought the egg salad. I mean, that guy is good.

That guy is good. He's just, he's such an idiot. Come on. I knew you'd like him. He's a very good actor. How can you not like Matthew McConaughey? Because he's just such a...

Dallas Buyers Club? He's fine. He's very good. He gets a lot of attention for his talent. A lot of women actresses who are just as good don't get as much. He's good in some things. He's bad in others. And fine.

He's fine. He's got his whole, all right, all right, all right. He's great. Whatever. Come on. Dazed and Confused? That guy's amazing. I's got his whole, all right, all right, all right. He's great. Whatever. Come on. Dazed and confused. That guy's amazing. I'd vote for him.

All right. Okay, fine. Move to Texas. Like the tech bros. Like everybody else. Move to Texas. You're in Miami. Anyway, those are very good predictions from all our family.

They're so smart. They're so much smarter than we are. So, Scott, what's your personal prediction for 2021? So, listening to my kids is sort of an out-of-body experience, and I have the same. I think predictions are meant to be resolutions. I think we predict or I predict stuff that I want to not only think is going to happen, but that I want to see happen. And I have the same resolution every year. And listening to my boys speak a few minutes ago is sort of an out-of-body experience for me to think that like these little, these little boys are like growing up.

It's just so strange. But yeah, my prediction or aspiration is the same thing it is every year. I want to be the man my boys think I am. And I got to, every year I try and write down all the fucking virtue signaling and bragging that I do each year, like how my actions don't actually fit to those

things and what I can do to bridge the delta. That's every year I have the same resolution. Oh, that's very nice. I hope I'm helping you get there, Scott. Little bit, very little. Picking your ass. A little bit. You're a very good parent. I have to say, I agree. I think family is really important to me this year coming up. I really do. I think it's, I work a lot and so do you, by the way. And so does our fantastic producer here,

Rebecca Sinanis. And I think we, I really do want to focus more on the family this year a little bit more. And they've been, this has been a hard year for this whole country and for some more than others.

But I think around making sure that you keep your family safe and then, and then go an outward people at work, save people in your community safe. I think we have to start thinking a lot more like a community, like beyond family. I think that's something that's been lost in this grabby, graspy, twitchy era of Trump. And we have to leave that behind. And I often wonder if we're always been this way, and this is just the perfect, he's the personification of our very worst ways of us as Americans. And I think he is. I think that it's really like looking in a mirror when we look at Trump as much as we like to pretend he's not like us, he's just like us. And so I do hope we put the pettiest trivia and gossip in our entertainment and maybe be better citizens, you know, be better,

better citizens to each other. And I don't know if it's possible. I honestly don't. I got to say, I'm worried about, I'm worried, I'm already worried about Trump in 2024, like that this continues. And I'm hoping that this smallness and tininess of mine goes away in this crazy era. But then you have someone like Sidney Powell in the White House this weekend with Michael Flynn, the disgraced felon, pardon, felon, is sitting there in our major offices of power and it makes me sick.

So I hope she gets sued this year. I think she will. I hope those people go back into the holes they belong in. But I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. Well, we did have a, we've seen a couple of vaccines. We saw a vaccine against COVID-19, a product of, you know, our humanity, our science, our embrace of data.

And we also saw, I think, the immunities kick in against the misogyny, the misanthropy, and the general stupidity and incompetence that has plagued this nation. I think the immunities have kicked in there as well. And there's tons of silver linings everywhere. We could use technology to increase primary health care, decrease cost of education. We could leave emissions behind. We could use this as an excuse to join hands with our brothers and sisters not only across the nation and realize that the biggest companies in the world shouldn't be paying no taxes,

that we should respect our institutions, that we should coordinate with our brothers and sisters overseas. I mean, hopefully there's a lot of awareness that'll translate and that a new generation of younger leaders will step up and recognize that capitalism doesn't work unless it sits on a bed of empathy and love. We need to move back to this violence at a corporate level and empathy

at an individual level. And I worry or I hope that it was just temporary that we flipped a script and became very loving and empathetic with companies and harsh on individuals. Hopefully we go back to where capitalism rests, protect people, not companies. Indeed. So thank you to our wonderful families. I also want to thank my son, Alex Wisher, who doesn't like to do, he's not, he's got a lot of opinions, but he keeps them to himself in a lot of ways, but he's wonderful too.

And again, thank you to Rebecca Sinanis, who's done an amazing job this year. Yes, thank you, Rebecca. She's the most amazing thing. We predict she's going to be even more amazing next year. That's what we predict. That's right. Because she is, she has great ideas and she always works incredibly hard to make this a wonderful show.

And we thank her very much for that. Okay. That's the show. We'll be off this Friday, but back in your feeds next Tuesday into 2021, I'm going to have some guests. Who's your guest? Including Louis Swisher, who's going to come on. Who's the guest? I don't know yet.

We're working on it. We're working on it. Who's in the final running? Who replaced it? Who howls for the dog for the. Who's the gap? I don't know yet. We're working on it. We're working on it. But Louis Swisher's going to be- Who's in the final running? Who replaces- Who howls for the dog for the last week of the year? One of your sons, obviously. That's clear.

I've got a full path to your heir. You've got an heir and a spare, by the way, in case you're interested in the British crown terms. By the way, enjoy the crown over your vacation period. I'm having a tough time getting through the first season. I'm having a tough time. Go to the fourth season first. Go to the Diana season.

My husband must be the chairman of the coronation committee. I'm like, that's an hour long episode? That's really an hour long episode? Go to the Diana part and then go backwards and then watch Cobra Kai. That's what I told you. Yeah, I love Cobra Kai. Anyway, as-

Oh, by the way, I got undone this week. I binged all of the undoing. Oh, don't tell me. Okay. I know the answer. It's really good. You should watch it. I know the answer.

But I will watch it. Amanda won't do it. She's too much of an intellectual. Spoiler alert, Nicole Kidman weeps a lot, but she can't fill her tears. She can't fill her tears. I recommend, although not everybody loves it, Prom. I loved it. Nicole Kidman looks fantastic.

If you want to see sexy Nicole Kidman, watch her sing and dance in Prom. It's also on Netflix. She peaked in flirting with Thandie Newton, most beautiful woman in the world. Just watch prom. You'll like her. You'll like her. She does great. She does great. And they call her antelope legs in it. It's very funny. All right. As a reminder, we love the listener mail questions and we're trying for something new. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your questions for the podcast. The link is also in our show notes. Scott will be back

in a few weeks, but I shall remain and hold down the fort. Scott, have a beautiful vacation. Have a happy new year. It really has been a wonderful year with you. Don't get all weepy. And please read us out. That sounds great. Today's show is produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Ernie Indradot engineered this episode.

Erica Anderson is and was Pivot's executive producer. Thanks so much, Erica. Best to you and yours. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Thanks for a wonderful year. Greatness really is in the agency of others. So thank you very much. Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts

or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business. Let's say goodbye to 2020, but let's not forget our humanity. Let's use it as a means of fixing America. There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with what's right with it.

The vaccine is here. The immunities have kicked in. Let's embrace capitalism as it's meant to be that sits on a pool of empathy and love. I will see you, Kara Swisher, in 2021. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere and you're making

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