Pivot - Alabama's big fail, Uber's disastrous IPO, and the Facebook breakup debate

Episode Date: May 17, 2019

Recode's Kara Swisher and NYU's Scott Galloway discuss Chris Hughes' Facebook breakup proposal, Away Travel's big funding, how southern states are trying to ban abortion and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. So, Scott, I spent the morning in the hospital to find out that I am very healthy.

That was what I came away with. Are you sure you shouldn't be watching CNBC if you have health issues? Cara, tell me about what happened. I had a stomachache that has not gone away. I might have been a bad tuna sandwich, but it still continues to exist. And so I was worried because I've had it before. And so I went in, and I never go to the hospital. I haven't been there since I had a stroke many years ago. And I took blood tests.

They did ultrasounds. They did everything. And they literally were like, nothing's wrong with you. And now I guess they'll go right to ulcer next, but those are more involved tests. And you don't think it's stress? No. Stress from talking to you, perhaps, but no, no, no. You need to spend more time with me. No, I, you know, I need the algebra of happiness is what I need. That's what I need. Go on. Number three on Amazon as of today. Is it? One behind Melinda Gates. Cure malaria, curing malaria, blah, blah, blah. Let me talk about happiness. Wow, you're number three on the full list? No, no, I'm sorry. Number 30. I'm number 30 on Amazon.

Good, that's good. What do you think you're going to do on the New York Times bestseller list? You know, it's funny. I sent a thing to my publisher. I was like, okay, how long do we need to be on the Amazon list to get on the New York Times publisher bestseller? And it's interesting that that list has actually changed a lot. And they're very disciplined about the inputs for who they put on the list. So now it's a total black box, which it should be because guys like Ray Dalio went out and bought a million books so they could be at number one. Dalio, I did a podcast with him. That's what he did. That's what he did, wasn't it? Yeah. Anyways, I'm number 30. But anyway, I always turn this back to me.

So you don't know what it is. I just told you you're fine. I didn't comment. Yes, they don't know what it is. They don't know what it is. Nothing. They have no information. I find medical care now just, like, ridiculous. Like, they never know what it is.

But you do a lot of tests. They have the thing in my arm. I was on a gurney. They moved me around on a gurney, which was always so incredibly respectful way to feel like an adult, which you don't. Like, you feel like a complete, like, 100-year-old man. But otherwise, it was fine. Everyone was lovely. The people were very lovely at this hospital. But I had a similar thing happen. Enough of that back to me. Okay. What happened? Five years ago, I closed my, at L2, we only did one round of financing. And I closed my round with General Catalyst.

Nice people. Was really thrilled. Raised $17 million. By the way, we ended up spending none of it. But anyways, and right after it closed, like we closed on Thursday or Friday. On Sunday, I'm like, wow, I haven't gone to the bathroom in a while. And then by Wednesday, I realized I was turning into one of those elude Eskimos that never has a bowel movement or has one once a month.

Really, Scott? I know this is too much detail, but I find my lower intestine is a champs de la zay. It's just very interesting to everybody. Anyway, so I go in and they give me a colonoscopy. And I come out and everything's fine. And I was sort of worried, like, why did I just stop functioning? You know what the awesome thing is I had that drug they gave Michael Jackson

and I'm like okay all of a sudden I'm like well when are we starting it's over you're fine and I drove to the Hamptons it was as if nothing ever happened can I get some of that to go? My brother's an anesthesiologist he uses a lot of propofol. That stuff's incredible Yeah although Michael Jackson should not have been using it like that

as my brother lectured me. You mean every night to go to sleep? Yes, at length. My brother gave me the ins and outs of that. So anyhow. Are we going to get on to actual things besides us being creaky? Our lower intestine? Come on.

Yeah, yeah. That's an exciting topic. But let's move on because they offer me morphine. They immediately give you the opiates, and I said no, and I right now feel like I should have said yes. Anyway, Chris Hughes' op-ed, Fallout, continues. I obviously did a podcast with him on Friday too, and he wrote the op-ed in The New York Times,

and he's talked to a bunch of people. Fallout from Chris Hughes, what do you think? So I want to be up front here. I'm a bit jealous or resentful that Chris Hughes, who seems to me to be more lucky than talented. My sense is that he shared a dorm room with this genius named Mark Zuckerberg. And I do think the fact that Mark Zuckerberg continues to do tremendous damage to the world is a genius. And he made a ton of money.

You know, my sense is Chris wasn't even involved that long. But he wrote this op-ed and he basically summarized everything we've all been saying for a while about Facebook. And it's gotten a ton of traction, which is great. But it's really created a lot. It got a lot more attention than I would have guessed. Yeah, why do you think it did? Because it summarized everything and it had founder next to it. Yeah, you know what?

It's a correct question. I have no idea. I've listened to him. I listen to him on the daily. I think he's a thoughtful guy. I wonder if we're just at that point where the American public or people are just ready he kind of summarized everything that people have been saying. But I don't know why all of a sudden this, because a lot of people from Tim Wu, I mean, there's been a Roger McNamee has been saying, I mean, a lot of people have been piling on. And yet he, this seemed to be for some reason, Chris Hughes says it and everyone, everyone is all over it. Where do you think it's going to go? There are rumors that the

FTC was going to impose a 20-year monitoring process on Facebook. Would you imagine? I think it's going to happen. And then Biden jumped in and said, oh, these big tech companies suddenly. Yeah. What's interesting is, I don't know if you saw this week, but also the big news was that basically the court said or the Supreme Court said that the case can move forward against Apple in terms of their app store. And which I found interesting that that's happening before Facebook. But bottom line is Facebook should absolutely, FTC or DOJ action going after them to break them up. And even if it doesn't happen here, it's going to happen in another country.

They're going to make it so uncomfortable for them. And they can't, obviously, a foreign sovereign nation can't break up a U.S.-based organization. But it definitely feels as if the worm has turned. And I don't know, I don't know, I don't understand Washington well enough. A Republican lobbyist reached out to me yesterday and said we should talk. And I immediately thought, uh-oh, the dark side is coming for me. So I don't know what's going on. But I do think when every Democratic candidate is talking about it, when you hear from,

and I've heard from everyone from Senator Warren's office to Senator Cruz's office, which means this might actually be the first bipartisan action in a while. But I think after a long time, I think winter is coming for Facebook and it just couldn't happen

to a nicer group of people. But is Aria coming? I knew you'd get it back. Oh my gosh. No, no, we're not talking about- By the way, Cara. No, we promised our Twitter followers. You brought it up. No. You get it back. Oh my gosh. By the way, Kara. No, we promised our Twitter followers. You brought it up.

You brought it up. You may not. You may not go to the response. All I'll say is HBO needs to be more thoughtful about playing with my emotions like this. Alright, that's enough. Okay, we're moving on. Anyway, so where do you imagine going? I want to get to Apple. Oh, wait, hold on. Just one quick HBO diversion. Did you see the

final episode of Veep? No, not yet, so don't tell me about it. Best written show on television, and it's ended. It's really sad. Anyways, what do you think is going to happen with Facebook and Chris Hughes, and what are you hearing? Well, I think they are sort of overwhelmed. I mean, then, of course, they had the WhatsApp thing happen this week, which was

another thing, which is they own WhatsApp, and it was supposed to be the, you know, the iron clad thing, which Mark was pivoting to privacy, as you know. And WhatsApp is sort of the plan, essentially, or the idea of making Facebook like WhatsApp. And WhatsApp has been violated. So it's like, oh, great. The private network that was supposed to be like a vault is not.

It was Green Gods, except after Harry Potter got a hold of green gods, that kind of thing. I have no idea what you're talking about. Don't worry about it. Others will. Young people will. Young people? Yeah, people with kids. But what is Facebook's official response to all of this? Well, they had the guy, the British guy they hired, had a PR. What's his name? I can't remember his name.

Nick Clegg. And, of course, he gave this, we need to help American businesses. And it's great that we're big and big is great. And that's how to deal with this. And of course, they immediately found quotes by him. He was a British politician saying big is bad, like a dozen. Like it was like, and then people just put them side by side, like very short time ago. So I met Nick. Have you met him? No, not yet. He hasn't introduced himself. So he's, he's, I met Nick. Have you met him? No, not yet. He hasn't introduced himself to me. So I met him at Cannes.

He immediately came over. Super charming, super nice. Yeah, that's what I heard. Should find a more honorable way to make a living. But he's clearly a talented guy, and it's just too bad he's gone to the dark side. You met him when he was a British politician or when he was going to Facebook?

No, I met him when he was at Facebook at Cannes last year. When did he get there? Maybe I'm talking about the wrong guy. Anyways, I met him when he was at Facebook at Canva last year. When did he get there? Maybe I'm talking about the wrong guy. Anyways, I met a charming British guy. He just got there just recently.

He's yet to introduce himself to Kara Swisher, which I find fascinating. Off with his head. Well, it's interesting. I was like, huh, okay. He has yet to introduce himself to Kara Swisher.

I did. I indicated that I'd like to meet him, but I haven't heard from him yet. Oh, my gosh. Whatever. Okay. No problem. I have stomach problems. I got't heard from him yet. Oh, my gosh. Whatever. Okay.

No problem. I have stomach problems. I've got a million Facebook columns in my little quiver. I bet. Yeah, so it'll be really interesting to see if the FTC—I'm still waiting for Lena Kahn, who is a total gangster, to prop up her head now that she's working for Congress and say, okay, should it be the DOJ? Should it be the FTC? What would the lawsuit look like? What would the arguments about anti-competitive violations be here? But I'm sort of ready to see someone,

and the only one that's putting any flesh on the bones here is Elizabeth Warren, but it's time for someone in Congress. By the way, this would be a great way to, I think, get a lot of momentum and a lot of brownie points if you're thinking about running for another election to come out with something a little bit more thoughtful around.

Yeah. All right. This is how the breakup starts. These are the logistics. This is how we would break it up. You know, I'm not for the breakup. I don't think that's how you do it. But, you know.

You're not for it? No. How can you be not for it? Because it's stupid. It's not going to happen. I mean, it's stupid. Let's work on stuff that's actually going to happen and actually going to make some effect.

You don't think it's ever going to happen? No, I do not. Okay. The world isn't what it is. It's what we make of it. If we can break up Big Ol' and the railroads and aluminum, how come we can't break up Facebook? Because it's not a monopoly. A monopoly?

There hasn't been a single social media network of any substance founded since 2011. It doesn't matter. How is it not a monopoly? Where do you go to reach people on social media? In its business, it's not. It's actually 30-some percent. And it's actual, the stuff that makes money. It's big, but it's not the biggest.

I think Google's bigger. I'm sorry. 2.7 billion people? I'm just telling you. It's a big old walk down failure lane. This is not a slam dunk like Microsoft. Sorry. Any of them are.

None of them are. So let's figure something else out that they'll take. Let's shove something else down their throats. That's my feeling. Thank you very much. All right. Now, Apple, please speak quickly on Apple because I'd also like to get your takeaway

about the $100 million that Away just got at a $1.4 billion valuation. But first, Apple, the Supreme Court case in which people are allowed to sue them. The shocker there was Kavanaugh who sided with the liberal justices and said, look, this is your app store. Going back to what you would do with this, I actually think that Apple shouldn't be broken up. I think it should, the app store should probably be sort of a regulated monopoly because it is a monopoly. But

the key to breaking these guys up, in my view, is that you don't, you want to restore competition, oxygenate the marketplace. You're right, it's not about power, it's about anti, when they become anti-competitive or invasive species. And if you were to separate the App Store from the rest of Apple, it might kneecap the company because who gets the brand? And the idea that one person might not, or more than one entity might have access to what is their core asset. Or you let other people sell apps that work on Apple things,

which they don't want to do because they like to control the whole experience. So it's a really difficult, they'll fight this one tooth and nail. Oh, of course, but that's regulation. So size does matter. There are some instances where a natural monopoly makes sense

and can do what Facebook is, in my opinion, falsely stating, that size creates a level of capital that you can—regulates the capital to invest in a better service like a utility, right? There only needs to be one power plant or one grid in southern Florida. So Florida Power & Light is a regulated monopoly. I think the App Store should probably be regulated. I don't think antitrust makes sense with Apple. I think you'd probably kneecap them. But this is a tax. Apple is the rails.

If you're an app developer, you have to be on app 30%. I don't know if they would regulate the pricing or just, like you said, open it up to anybody who wants to be on it. But you don't think anything's going to happen? No, I just think they're not going to do that. They're very particular about things that. You don't think anything's going to happen? No, I just think they're not going to do that. They're very particular about things that are on their platform, so they're not going to want to open it up to anybody, you know, kind of thing. That's the whole point. And the other thing is, what I think is interesting,

is that basically the iOS, iPhones are, I don't want to say they're an inferior phone, but they're kind of on par, maybe not as good as Galaxy or other phones out there, supposedly. But it has tremendous self-expressive benefit. And that is you identify yourself when you have an iPhone as being part of the global affluent class. And then if you look at actual purchases, e-commerce and actual purchases of apps that require you pull your credit card out, despite the fact that, I don't know, iOS has 15 or 20% market share, it's something like, it's flipped. It's something like 60 or 80% of the revenue from in-app purchases goes to iOS users, showing

that the only people with any disposable income, or maybe that they've made the experience so far superior, is really happening on Apple. So when Apple comes out with this, the natural defense will be, we're a minority. We have a small market share. How can you come after us? But if you look at market share by revenue, they're incredibly dominant. Yes, that's true. It's true. But anyway, these are very problematic things to go after. And again, in that case, Apple's going to really defend that one. That's right at the heart of what they do in terms of controlling things. All right, very quickly, Away raising $100 million at a $1.4 billion valuation.

They're obviously a luggage company. I have, they were one of our sponsors at one point and I have one of their luggage. They're very nice luggage. They've opened some stores,

obviously, around the place, but now they're going to go into all kinds of travel needs. What do you think? Yeah, yeah. What do you think? So you have,

well, first off, you own a piece of Away. Do you like it? My son loves it. He loves it. Why does he love it? He loves, well, first off, you own a piece of Away. Do you like it? My son loves it. I find it. He loves it. Why does he love it? He loves, loves, loves it.

He doesn't like all the goo-gahs with the plugging in the phone. He doesn't give a, he doesn't care about that. And it's actually irritating because he has to take it off every time he gets on a plane because there are planes there. But he loves the luggage itself. He really does. I'm not sure why he's so attached to it given there's plenty of others that are like that. But that was their, the phone thing was their special feature. But he loves it. He likes

the brand. I don't, I'm fine with it. It was, you know, it's a good, it's a good suitcase. What do you think? I think they've done an incredible job. And the key to building, in my viewpoint, almost as important as the company you're building, and that is management, great execution, is you got to look at the category you're going into, hoping that it's ripe for disruption or that there's a bunch of fat and happy incumbents. So, and we've talked about this, I think Tesla comes undone because I just think the auto industry is actually fairly well run and efficient. Facebook and Google, their success is they went after the fattest and happiest $60 billion carcass of broadcast media. And if you think about luggage, luggage, in my view, is one of the least competitive categories in the consumer world.

How many great – name great luggage brands. Well, there's been a bunch. In the tech industry, we have all the trendy ones like Tumi and the others. Okay. Tumi has been around forever. Right. But there's another one. There's like lots of things that you wear on your back, like bicycle messenger things in San Francisco.

That's not luggage. You can't throw a stone without hitting one of those people. Topo? Topo's another one. There's a bunch of trendy ones. Okay, come on. Mostly backpacks. That's the weakest flex in the world.

Topo? Well, I know, but I'm just saying there's a lot of trendy backpack ones, but suitcases, no. Whatever. Brooklyn or whatever they call it. Whatever. Look, the bottom line is there's a big category, and there are very few categories, consumer categories like this, that have such a lack of great brands and great retail.

So this category was incredibly ripe to be disrupted. The new Samsonite. Yeah, right. Samsonite is basically saying don't have sex with me. I travel and don't have sex with me. That's what it says when you get on with a Samsonite. I like a Samsonite bag. I use them.

They're good. I have lots of bags. I have dozens of them. I have dozens of them. Literally, a Samsonite in the trunk of your Fiesta literally says, I should be screened from the gene pool. You know what? I should be run over. Once again, have a fantastic relationship, et cetera, et cetera. I'm sorry. It doesn't stop.

I think I'm so uncool. I'm cool. There's also the Japanese retailer who also sells luggage. What's that fantastic Japanese retailer that's here? Muji? Yes. Yeah. They sell luggage.

Cool luggage. That's pretty neat. Their store over in Hudson Yards is pretty cool. But you know what? Actually one of my favorite items in the world, and I don't – I'm all about now all this research on happiness shows that people underestimate the happiness that things will give them and overestimate the amount of joy they get. All right, Marie Kondo. Yes, what is it? Well, hold on. Kara, love me. Don't judge me. I'm going to call you.

Anyways, I'm trying to buy less stuff and spend more money on experiences. Specifically, that's me alone at a bar drinking until I'm shitty drunk. Those are experiences too. That is a happy moment for you, but go ahead. Anyways, how do you know I'm into you? I don't look at my shoes. I look at yours. I'm an introvert at a bar. Anyways, so one of my favorite, literally my favorite things in the world is I bought a piece of Ramoa luggage. Oh, yeah. That's a good luggage. Oh, my God.

I'm so German. I'm so cool. German luggage is good. Me and Gwyneth Paltrow. That's how the big dog rolls when he's getting on Mosaic class pre-boarding on JetBlue with my Ramoa. Okay. It's a beautiful piece of luggage. All right.

It's gorgeous. But anyway, away. I'm sorry, away. Yeah, quickly, because we have to get to an ad break to pay for this. I love this company. To pay for your luggage. Go ahead. I love this company.

Female founders backed by 4Runner Ventures. And I was curious about 4Runner Ventures because I met them at this conference. Yeah, and I went to their website. Oh, my God. It's going to start raining frogs. It's all females who are partners in the land. Excuse me. We've had her at our events many times.

You're not paying attention. We've known about her for a while. Well, at least she was smart enough to introduce herself to Kara Swisher. No, she's just smart. She's just been in a lot of stuff. They're just been in a lot of stuff. I usually follow who's at Code, but this time I didn't. But anyways, this venture group, in a way,

it's like they are breaking through the sea of white guys and pleaded khakis. And for InterVentures, I went to their website who backed Away, and it's all women except for one guy, and I pray he runs HR. I think that would be perfect. The one dude runs HR, I hope. Anyways, Away, they're a really cool store, a fantastic, really interesting product. And DTX are the direct-to-consumer market. And my Yoda on this is Tim Armstrong. I called,

I texted him this morning. I said, can you give me something smart to say about direct-to-consumer companies? And what he said, what you're seeing happen is that big investors don't want to buy IPOs because they're so ridiculously overpriced as we, as evidenced by Lyft and Uber, that they're moving further down the food chain as companies stay private longer and they're going into private companies and there's like there's a just a wash of capital or just huge swaths of capital in a way at a 1.2 was it 1.2 billion? 1.4. Oh my gosh. I know. I mean that's so that's amazing it's hard to imagine how they grow into that valuation. Feels like not a good idea to me, but okay.

For the investors. Yeah. Yeah, but their store's great. They like Uber investors to be. Well, that's a fair point. So, according to Tim, the DTX space has probably declined in value across all valuations 20% or 30% just in the last three to six months as people realized that a really cool toothbrush probably isn't worth a billion dollars. There's Quip. The company that just raised it a two-plus billion dollar valuation is Warby Parker, which, again, the key component there, in addition to great execution, fat and happy incumbent, right?

Also, I love their glasses. I get them all the time. They do a great job. They do a the time. They do a great job. They do a great job. They do a great job. But remember, we're used to buy glasses, $700 from Lavaluck. $400, $500, yep. These are $96.

I don't know how they do it. I don't care. I'm taking their investment. They do a fantastic job. All right. All right. When we get back, we're going to hear your wins and fails and also your predictions, Scott. Thanks very much.

wins and fails, and also your prediction, Scott. Thanks very much. 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 night.

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Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Scott. Tara. Wins and fails. You go first. Fail is my stomachache that I've had for 24 hours now.

No, fail. The abortion laws across the South, these Alabama lawmakers in particular, to vote to effectively ban abortion in the state. One of the statistics I saw was that they left out cases they're so bad, they left out cases they shouldn't have done this at all, but of rape and incest and the

doctors who will if the doctors do it, they get like 99 years in prison which is more than the people who committed rape and incest get. It's just insane. It's insanity what's going on down there. And they're trying to get, obviously, the case in front of the Supreme Court. But what a horrible way to do such a thing.

It's as if a lot of stuff that we just sort of took for granted as conventional wisdom are like – it's as if what we thought were known knowns, you know, don't call the FBI scum. Don't insult a judge based on his ethnicity. And now a woman's right to family planning. You know, we incorrectly, or at least I did, thought that, you know, five, 10 years ago, that that was kind of we checked that box. And to see states in the South doing this, it's really rattling. Yeah, it's rattling. Kudos to Governor Pritzker in Illinois, who has said that we are going to fill the void here. And granted, a lot of people who don't have, you know, people who are low income don't have the opportunity to travel to Illinois. But he's come out and he said we're going to try and step into the void here.

So kudos to him and his leadership. But the fact that states, I mean, this isn't even about resources. It's about a mentality. When the people elected by the populace are saying, no, we're taking women back to old Spain. It's just, it's, you know, there's just no getting around it. It's really discouraging. Yep. I agree. I agree. It's really, you know, you're going to see a lot more of this going on at lots of things, not just tech stuff, but these kind of very serious issues. It was settled law. Yeah. Which Kavanaugh said it was, but now

it's questionable once it reaches the Supreme Court what's going to happen with them. Anyway, what is your fail this week or win? So my fail is there was an article in Business Insider, and I don't want to say his name because I don't want to personalize this, but a senior level executive did one of these, I hate these articles, about his hiring strategy. And that is, he said, what's the one question? He says, this is the one question I ask every employee at Lyft. And he said that the question is, he asked them, who is their mentor? And if they don't have a good answer for that, he doesn't hire them. And, you know, it's just such incredible bullshit because most of the research shows, and I'm, you know, I've hired and fired, you know, hundreds or probably more than a thousand people at this point.

And the reality is in terms of interviewing is so 30% or 20, 30% of the people you interview, you know, okay, this isn't going to be a fit. 10% are just so outstanding and, you know, think with such a clear blue flame, you know, this person would be great. But the majority of interviews are worthless. And that is, if I were to take all the people who have really driven value at my firms and then look at their, how they did in their interviews, there isn't a very strong correlation. And Google spent a ton of time looking at data around who to hire, et cetera. And they found over time that, nope, we can't figure it out either. It's really about references, background, personal references. But all these early 30-something or these tech companies like to pretend that they're just not lucky, but they're success because of their insight into management,

and they do these stupid articles on the one question I would ask. So my suggestion to this person at Lyft is I would like him to go, first off, I've been asking Lyft drivers, did you get interviewed by this person? He says he's interviewed almost everybody and there's 1.4 million drivers. So far, I haven't heard from any of them that he was interviewed by them. And I have better questions for him to ask the 1.4 million people who he has basically gotten rich off the sweat of their backs. I think some of the questions he should be thinking about in terms of the drivers are, one, when you're working 11 hours a day in New York City, where will you urinate? What's your plan for actually taking a break and going to the bathroom?

Two, how do you feel about making the equivalent of $22,000 a year when a guy at headquarters is making approximately 1,000 times? How do you feel about that? Those are the two interview questions I would like to see this guy ask, quote unquote, everybody interviews, which is amazing because there's about 1.4 million people. Oh, wait, maybe it doesn't mean those people. But these articles that claim that people have insight into the one question that this person asked have built a great culture. So my lose here or my fail is Lyft and pretending they have some insight into the questions to ask their employees, not recognizing it's not the 4,000 people at HQ. It's the 1.4 million people out there that they're throwing a dime at their head for each ride in appreciation of their IPO. Wow, Scott. Man. Who is your mentor, Scott? My mentor? I have several. Because I'm thinking

about hiring you. Yeah. Pat Connolly, the former CMO of Williams-Sonoma, super generous. Todd Benson, a wonderful guy. I don't think it means anything, but it's very lovely to hear you say. Yeah, I have a lot. I'm blessed with mentors. The thing about guy. I don't think it means anything, but it's very lovely to hear you say. Yeah, I have a lot of—I'm blessed with mentors. The thing about mentors is you don't realize at the time that they're your mentor. Right, that's true. And then you wake up five years later and think, you know, this person took a vested interest in me and said a lot of things that were correct. And David Ocker, my professor at Secondary Business School. Anyways, you're probably not asking for that much detail.

Who are your mentors Kara? Walt Mossberg really? that's it that's nice and around professional and personal or just professional?

yeah he walked me down the aisle at my wedding even though the wedding the marriage didn't work out but it was a long marriage that's really nice yeah

what a wonderful thing to say about Walt Mossberg is the best that's nice he also gave my mother the what for when she was being a pain after I got pregnant. He did a lot. He's done amazing things.

That's nice. He has always been the mensch. He's a mensch. That would be it. Otherwise, nobody else. Him. Maybe my grandmother. Anyway, my fail continues to be Alabama.

And the win I had was Elizabeth Warren turning down Fox Town Hall invite, denouncing network as a hate for profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists. I like that. I think that says it all. I don't have to go along. I get it. Elizabeth Warren really does come through with some great stuff.

I get it. But I don't know. I like what Bill Maher said. If you claim to be part of the resistance, you go behind enemy lines. Ugh, please. They were going behind enemy lines in order to like like, we would just want to, come on. I love it. Whatever.

Fox is the most viewed network in America. If you can't hold your own, I go on Fox once a week, so I'm talking about it. If you can't hold your own on Fox, you can't hold your own. Hold your own. They're not good interviewers, please. That's not true. Neil Cavuto, Stu Varney, both good interviewers.

Okay. If you can't hold your own on Fox, you can't hold your own in America. That's Fox business. That's different. Sean Hannity, hold your own on Fox, you can't hold your own in America. That's Fox business. That's different. Sean Hannity, would you go on Sean Hannity? All right, then get out of the kitchen. I'm not getting out of the kitchen.

Is Hannity moderating those town halls? No. He's not going to moderate. They're going to bring on someone sane like Shep. I only know about this all because my mother watches it. I don't know. Elizabeth, you want into this, or Senator Warren, you want into the kitchen, get used to it. Go on Fox.

Okay, you're hard on Elizabeth. I think Elizabeth, at least she's causing some stuff. She's saying something. She's saying some stuff. She's actually saying something. She's got proposals. She's got policies. I like that.

I got a plan. She's got plans, and she's actually got them. Anyway. Oh, by the way, I don't know if this is another lose, but did you see Beto O'Rourke on The View? Oh, Beto, your boyfriend. Senator. Senator O'Rourke. Can I just say, for the predictions, I get to know if this is another lose, but did you see Beto O'Rourke on The View? Oh, Beto, your boyfriend. Senator. Can I just say, for the predictions, I get to get that one. I get that one.

You thought he was going to call him a man? It's not over yet. Go ahead. You know what is a definite negative forward-looking indicator? What? Is he looked like he belonged on The View. I don't think anyone who's—I don't think anyone who can be president should look comfortable on The View. He literally looked like, oh, they got a guy on the view now he just kind of fit in whereas they have biden on it's like okay clearly this guy is not supposed to be there yeah so he just

looked a little too comfortable you love that on the view but he had oh my god open collar shirt dreamy you love mcdreamy as i predicted he was a whole lot of nothing he's been a whole lot well we don't know that yet. We don't know that yet. Yes, we do. Hold on. Keep holding. Oh, it's early.

Dream until your dreams come true, Scott. It's not coming true. It's early. Your Beto dream ain't coming true. What about, okay, so win away is a big win. Right. Oh, you know what? Let's revisit our predictions.

What? Okay. Okay, so one of our predictions, we got one right and one wrong, and that is I said last week that Uber, the IPO would be meh and then hold. I was wrong. It was meh slash disaster. It was. So I would argue that it probably hit a new all-time low today, which will be an all-time high looking back.

Oh, man. Okay, you're going to take it down. Well, it's not that it's not a great company, if you will, or that it has incredible potential. It's just that the valuation is well beyond anything this company can execute against. It's just not—I don't see how this company grows into that valuation. And if you're watching CNBC, it's literally just been a stream of excuses. They're like, oh, it's China. It's the bad. It's the bad. They went public into a bad tape.

No, they didn't. This company is overvalued. And so if this company executes perfectly, it might be worth 20, maybe $25 billion, which, by the way, is about 60% less than it's trading today. And Lyft, I mean, there is no hope for Lyft. Lyft doesn't have the flywheel effect, doesn't have anything. But the Uber IPO was one of our predictions. I got that wrong, but one of our predictions is turning out to be right. And that is we said if you look at 19 across the entire unicorn class going public, I said that they post their opening trade will lose money, that these companies will be worth less than the

opening trade of their IPOs, where CNBC, retail investors, and these companies have all entered into consensual hallucination about what these companies are worth. And I think that's panning out. I think Uber's losses on its own have wiped out all of the market cap gains of some of the other guys, including Zoom or even Beyond Meat, which went crazy. So, so far, I think the unicorn class is failing in the public markets. So, Slack might be coming, Airbnb maybe, not for a while. Yeah, both those companies are gangster. Do you think they went too late? They're both going to do well. No, because the private markets were the gift that kept on giving.

The public markets are actually more rational, which is unusual. It's usually the private markets were the gift that kept on giving. The public markets are actually more rational, which is unusual. It's usually the private markets that are a little bit more rational. And what you see in the private markets is, again, to Tim's comments, all this capital has had to move downstream. And you can get liquidity through secondary offerings. You can raise a ton of capital. can get liquidity through secondary offerings. You can raise a ton of capital. And you can maintain sort of what I'll call this halcyon effect because you don't have to mark your book and you don't have to provide the type of transparency that the public markets demand. So once people actually go, OK, this is a company that lost $3 billion, how does this ever get to a point where it's spending the kind of free cash flow it needs to justify the current valuation?

And the public markets have said nine. And they can only foist so many shares when they raise $8 billion on retail investors. So I think you're going to see, I mean, the ride-hailing business is probably going to be one of the greatest value destructions from retail shareholders that we've seen in a long time. greatest value destructions from retail shareholders that we've seen in a long time. You're talking about a loss probably, in my view, over the next six to 12 months between Lyft and Uber, a loss of, a destruction of $20 to $30 billion in shareholder value. And I mean, that is real pain for people out there. Yeah, it is. It is. And so you're not going to see that come back. You don't see any promising ones in that group. I think Uber could execute perfectly and be worth half what it is right now.

Yeah. All right. That's not good. Yeah. That's not good. That's not good. That's a lot of money loss. All that investor money, including all that Saudi money.

Well, do you realize that— Couldn't it happen to a nicer group of people? Here's an interesting stat. As of today, no investor who's invested in the last four years in Uber has not lost money. So basically, the private markets, so far this whole IPO, rush of IPOs has said stay private longer. Stay private longer. Really? Or forever? Well, it's interesting.

Or go public sooner. You know, no. Well, that's interesting. Or go public sooner? You know, no. Well, that's an interesting point. But then if you're public sooner, you can't spend the kind of money you need. I don't know. I think this all goes one direction, and that is you know who's going out of business is the NASDAQ and the NYSE. We have 50% fewer stocks than we had 20, 30 years ago. And then Marc Andreessen has put together a new long-term stock exchange.

Direct listings. And the private markets, you can get almost everything you need from the public markets now. Plus, you don't have to... There's a prediction, Scott. That the NASDAQ and the NYC are going out of business? Yeah.

Now, my prediction is you're going to like this prediction more. Okay. I have another prediction. All right, quickly. And this is unfortunate, but in the next 90 days, I think people are starting nibbling around the edges. And I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to talk about politics, but I can't help it. I think people are starting, unfortunately, geopolitically to test this administration.

We have rockets going off in North Korea. That is a pure test. I think the Chinese who think in 20 and 30-year increments have seen a guy who's trying to wage a unilateral tariff war instead of partnering with our allies who he's alienated. And by the way, I think he's right on trade with China. I think essentially at universities, we spend a lot of time creating incredible human capital that takes advantage of an incredible financial market to create innovation that the Chinese then steal and sell back to us for 30 you know, 30 cents on the dollar. So I think that conversation was overdue. But as one would suspect, the conversation has been handled really in a very clumsy way without the benefit of our allies who could speak with a much bigger stick.

Bottom line is, I think we're unfortunately in the next 90 days going to see what I'll call more a significant test who senses weakness amongst an individual who is consistently every day with his bluster, his insecurity, and his lack of empathy demonstrates weakness every day. Maybe we should send him your book. That hurts. Come on. Let's do it. Let's go to the White House and deliver it ourselves. You think? Yeah, come down to D.C.

I like that. Together, we will say we think the occupant needs it. Number 30, 30th bestselling book on Amazon. I'm very excited. Everybody gotten by The Algebra of Happiness by Scott Galloway. Thank you, Cara. All right, we got to go. That's it for this week.

Have a good week. What do you have on tap this week? What do you have on tap? I'm coming to New York. You're not going to be there to do an event. What's the event? At a WeWork, actually. And then I have to take my son to some colleges up there, including the Culinary Institute of America.

It's his birthday today. He's 17. I'm very excited. Wow. And he likes cooking. He's a chef. He's a great cook. Yes, indeed.

Oh, that's nice. He's going to a very good restaurant tonight because that's what he wanted. And then we'll go to a different—I forget. We're going to go to somewhere. We're going to New York. I forget. He decides all the food places we go when we travel. But it's always a weird place.

He always finds a weird little joint and sandwich shop that is famous and he read about and stuff. So he's like that. So, by the way, your opening line at WeWork should be, and this is true now that Uber is public, it's great to be in the bowels of the most overvalued private company in the world. Okay. I'll do that. That's what I'll do. Do that.

Kick it off. Boom. I'm Kara Swisher. I have a lot going on, but I'll be here in D.C. next week, and I hope that you will come down soon. And, of course, I'll see you at the Code Conference. Anyway, Nishat Kerouat is the show's executive producer. Thanks also to Eric Johnson. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media.

We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Make sure you subscribe to Pivot on Apple Podcast. If you like this week's episode, leave us a review. It really helps more people find out about the show. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees. And it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform

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And it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers.