Pivot - Amazon’s podcast acquisition, what led to Slack losing its lead, and Trump's move on 230

Episode Date: December 4, 2020

Kara and Scott talk about Amazon's move into podcasting companies and Salesforce buying Slack. They also talk about Trump threatening to veto a defense bill in Congress if it doesn't include striking down Section 230. In listener mail, Kara and Scott answer a question about food insecurity and the future of grocery. 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 are in lettuce, as they say.

Did you hear about this? Amazon is in talks to acquire podcast company Wondery for $300 million. So what does it mean for competitors like Spotify and the industry as a whole? And mostly, what does it mean for you and I, Scott Galloway? So Cara, do you know Hernan Lopez, the CEO of Wondery? I do not. He's a wonderful guy. And it's nice to see companies like that that are pretty bold. I think he got into podcasting, or what I will call long-form, creatively driven, original content in the podcast format or medium. There's just no doubt about it. That was a risky, bold bet. And it's nice to see entrepreneurs and companies and the people who back companies like that do well. So, I think that's sort of uniquely American. That was sort of a crazy idea. And they

did something exceptional. They do a fantastic series called Business Wars. They did a great documentary called We Crashed. And they sort of said, okay, we're going to be the HBO of podcasting and really put a lot of production values into it. And I can't imagine, I bet their first one they spent $5 million on and made $100,000. I mean, it's just one of those things where it really was visionary and it was interesting to see. It's just good for them. So that's my first comment. May I just make the note that he is facing a legal battle on federal issues around money laundering and wire fraud over his work at Fox, I think it was. Hernan is?

Yes, yes. Oh, I didn't know that. He seems so lovely. Mr. Lopez, yes. He's charged with money laundering and wire fraud over alleged bribes involving broadcasting rights to the World Cup and high-profile soccer tournaments. He's pleaded not guilty. He says, I'm completely confident when I have a chance before the jury, if I ever get to trial, I'll be vindicated. But he says he has no intention of stepping down.

But nonetheless, he did a very good job with podcasting. He's a former TV executive. This is literally news to you. Is he personally charged with it or is this company? Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Well, let me just put my VC. Two former Fox TV executives.

Let me just impersonate or parrot every douchebag VC and CNBC. You know, money laundering pales in the face of innovators. It just, we should overlook these things. This is working Fox. If they can come up with great podcasts or cloud-based applications. Crime is really not crime. It's a quirk. He says he not crime. It's a quirk. He says he's innocent.

It's a feature, not a bug with these individuals. Let us focus on Andre being sold. Talk about pulling the rug out from under me. Sorry. I thought you did your homework. Oh, my God. No, no. He's Hernan.

Is it Hernan? I had breakfast with him in the Soho house, and he seemed like a lovely guy. That's pretty much all it takes for me. Yeah, he's got it. People like a lot of him. There's also a story in Entrepreneur Magazine three days ago, 13 Leadership Lessons with Wondery founder and CEO Hernan Lopez. So, obviously, Amazon doesn't mind. You brought up number 14, don't launder money.

Yeah. Don't launder money. Amazon doesn't mind. Throw it in the middle. Let's focus on us and not Hernan's legal issues when it comes to soccer, right? But go ahead. Throw in the middle. Let's focus on us and not her non-legal issues when it comes to soccer rights. But go ahead. First, it was, I mean, if you think about this, fulfillment or this notion of featurization where you take a business that is profitable and among its own right or that portion or

that part of the value proposition is profitable, you make it, you pay numbers for it. They don't make any sense. They vastly take the multiple on earnings, can't justify what it is being acquired for because you're using it as a feature or a point of differentiation to sell something else. So, fulfillment, when you used to order a Calphalon from, or a Chenille pillow from Pottery Barn, the pillow was $49.95 and they would charge you $29 to ship it. And shipping used to be for Williams-Sonoma something they made $3 to $5 million in EBITDA a year. And then Amazon came in and said, not only are we going to take shipping from seven days to two days to 24 hours to 45 minutes in some areas,

we will make it free, price it below cost, because we're going to use it as a point of differentiation and feature for Prime and the Amazon platform itself. And then slowly but surely, entire industries became featurized. Hollywood, the entire industry has been featurized. I like that. To sell toilet paper. I'll spend $350 million for every Emmy, whereas HBO only has spent $70 million, which makes it just unprofitable. But if I can sign up or raise my NPS scores on Prime, it's worth it to me.

And podcasts officially, as of yesterday, have been futurized. Futurized. And that is the numbers they are paying not only don't make any sense now, they don't make any sense for the revenues these companies will likely produce in the future in and among themselves. in the future in and among themselves. But if Amazon, if Spotify, who knows, if Apple can use distinct IP, and not only that, here's the thing.

I want to differentiate between Amazon and Spotify. Years ago, when one of the very big names that was on Amazon, I kept telling this person that they were there to sell toilet paper and they should get a cut, a vig of the toilet paper sales. I said, you're not there because of your talent. You're just a way to sell toilet paper, essentially. You're the wrapping of what they're trying to do. But there is a difference between Spotify and Amazon. Are they featurizing it to do what?

Because their business is content. Spotify is verticalized. Spotify is doing what Netflix did with House of Cards. They're like, okay, at the end of the day, what we become is a co-op for all of the music industry. And the beauty of Spotify, and it really is incredible what they've done, no medium, not newspapers, not television, has figured out a way to take the entire medium and put it on one elegant app that figures out what you want to watch next. Think about it. Think about how dramatic would... Think about in television, if there was one app on your phone that had all TV and created playlists of television shows that seemed to be fairly attuned to your taste. And all of TV was on one app and searchable and elegant and easy.

What Spotify has done is remarkable. Now, what they're doing is they're having their Netflix house of cards moment and realizing they need original, ownable content. Yeah. And so they're buying and they figure out, okay, to get Taylor Swift to be exclusive to Spotify is even too expensive for Spotify, but they can come in and buy original podcasting. But what's happening here across the other guys

is that typically the areas that get featurized are areas with really high NPS because what it does is it creates an emotional- Explain what NPS is for the civilians. Well, net promoter score. In other words, everyone hates their cable company, but most people love their streaming network, right? There's just certain industries

that create an emotional connection. And so what's happening is that emotional connection of an industry is being monetized. People love Modern Family. They don't feel as passionate about, I don't know, they don't feel as passionate about their software package or even their handset. And so things like music, things like television, they're being featurized because they can create greater NPS and greater affinity and greater customer loyalty. And you're going to see, you could go down, and this is obviously talking our own book here because I think we're probably the premier IP in technology meets business. But you're going to see so many names in IP in podcasts, go for irrational numbers as a means. The featurization of IP around podcasts has begun. So you and I are a feature.

Are we a bug or a feature? I think we're both a bug and a feature. I think the answer is yes. We're going to be used. At some point, our stuff will be used to sell, as you said, more paper tiles, more handsets, or make subscriptions more loyal. But if you could go through industry and find the highest NPS, and those ones will likely be

purchased at an irrational premium, it'd be an interesting exercise to go through and say, okay, what are the highest NPS industries? And those companies will likely be acquired. Ah, interesting. Interesting. What do you think? That's my take on it. What's your take on it? I think it's lettuce time for Kara and Scott. What does lettuce time mean? Is that your way, what I call champagne and cocaine? I guess. I don't do either of those things. Or disco? It's disco time? It's really interesting, but it's sad to think of like this as content as a feature. Like we make content well i do i don't know

about you but i make content because i like think it's an actual product like that you people want to consume and not in order to help jeff bezos sell toilet paper or apple sell handsets or spotify do whatever it's doing you know i think they're more in the very clear content space comparatively they're like netflix They're very much like Netflix. But, you know, it's sort of the Netflixes and Spotify's the world versus these big conglomerates like Amazon and Apple that are using it for other means.

In any case, it's not economic. It doesn't make any economic sense. That's the one thing is it doesn't. Like selling, I think the journal was saying this, or one of them was saying that it's a $40 million in revenue. And you and I don't think that's probably accurate necessarily or that it has everything glommed in there. But that's still an enormous run-up for a company that does that. And it's also dependent on hits, right?

Dependent on getting the talent when there's enormous amounts of competition for that talent. Yeah, it's just, when you think about it, I would bet that their trailing 12 months revenue look more like 20 million in terms of actual revenue. So that's 15 times revenues. But if you can get people listening to Amazon music more, if it can get people using their Amazon show and their Amazon speaker and just basically spending more time with Alexa, it's probably worth it. I mean, they can just monetize that. Anything that takes the NPS of their voice and content products up, you know, a one basis point in NPS and loyalty is worth a lot of money to Amazon. So, I mean, they're very, I think actually this is kind of a no-brainer

because if they get something interesting, if they end up getting what ultimately might become the HBO of podcasting. Yeah, why not? And they have the muscle, they have the creative talent, they might do crossovers in terms of movies and podcasts. You know, I'm sure they're like. Yeah, there's a lot of that actually. Wondery is very strong on that. You know, that going back and forth between the two. It's a really interesting time. It continues to be a happy time for podcasting. Well, but what you're going to see

is, I think, and this kind of goes to my prediction is, I think you're going to see what I'll call multi-platform content creation is going to get some legs behind it. And that is, I bet the next three or six big original series on Amazon Prime Video also launch concurrently with an audio version podcast on Wondery. So they'll start, the creatives will start saying, okay, when we green light transparent, we need to have a series, a podcast series. Yep. That's already happening in a lot of ways, but in a more substantive way, you're right. We're going to need to monetize it across multiple platforms and add new dimensions to it and have the podcast version, the original scripted TV version. I think it's so interesting in terms of, I think there's going to be a ton of innovation.

I know I'm rambling on here, but I had a conversation with Judd Apatow and then I think his name is Chris Molendrino. Judd Apatow, I think, is one of the best film storytellers of our time right now. And Chris Molendrino is kind of the Disney of our generation. He did the Minions series. And I said to both of them, I said, you know, they're both trying to figure out the industry is moving so fast. And I said, it's all about format for you. And that is, if you look at the movie, The King of Staten Island starring Pete Davidson. Yes, Pete Davidson.

I think it did okay, not great at the theaters. And I said, the problem here is the format. And that is, you should have taken 120 minutes, turned it into 240, and then sliced it into eight 30-minute segments and put it on a streaming video platform. Yeah. And then I'm like, the next time. They're not used to that. And then Chris Malangino, I said, the next time you do a Minions series, a Minion movie, which I love and think is genius,

don't make it an hour and a half. Make it four hours and, again, do eight 30-minute segments. Because if you think about The Mandalorian... Yeah, I was just talking to someone from Netflix about this. He says he says that to them all the time. Like, a lot of them, they still want to make the movie. That's what they did with The Mandalorian. Lucasfilm and the guys from Disney are geniuses.

Somebody said, The Mandalorian will make a billion dollars at the box office. We've got it all storyboarded out. We're about to kick off production at Pinewood Studios. And someone, some visionary at Disney said, no, we're not. We're going to do a four-hour movie, and we're going to slice it up into, you know, eight 30-minute segments. And now they have people totally attached to Disney Plus for several years waiting for season two. Yes, 100%. You know, The Queen's Gambit was a movie.

It wasn't really. Yes. That blows my mind. I just finished that, by the way, last week. Yeah. Just finished it. And then they decided, and he was sad he had to cut so much of it. And then the people from Netflix was like, don't cut it.

Make it into a eight-part, six-part series, whatever it was, how many parts. Anyway, fascinating times. People have to rethink. I love that you're giving Jed Apatow and the Minion guy advice. In any case, Scott, good news for us. I'm not saying they're listening. Yeah, they're listening. I give anyone I meet advice.

I am so good, Kara, at living other people's lives. I know exactly what other people should do. Don't look at what's going on in my life. Don't look at what's going on in my life. Don't look at what's going on in my life. Do as I say, not as I do. Fair point. All right. Another is just so you know, Amazon, by the way, while it's busy doing this, is also rolling out Monotron from AWS, which is the scariest sounding product ever.

It's a new tool that allows factories everywhere to monitor their workers and machines. Why don't they call it Skynet? I mean, seriously. It's just like, could they? They probably were like, let's call it Monotron. They use it in their own facilities, and now they're monetizing. It's a smart group of people over at Amazon, no matter how you slice it. Explain to the people what that is.

They have it in their own factories. It monitors workers and machines. It just monitors them if they're doing everything right. When you're in an Amazon factory, when I was there the other time, like how you do the boxes, they watch you and then tell you how to get better, essentially, like to be more efficient. Like you're grabbing the wrong box, you're grabbing it in the right, wrong way. You're not doing it. One guy was like, you have to do it this way or else it monitors. Are you sure it's called, wait, I'm sorry. Are you sure it's called

Monotron? Isn't that called Marriage-tron? You're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. Jesus Christ, you're fucking useless. They love to monitor things on Amazon. That's a Galloway household. As you know, they love to monitor everything. They're monitors. I know, I know.

They're hall monitors of all time. Let's just say they have a lot of information about you and I and their workers, and now they're going to get it all around the world. And they're selling it. They do that. They're a logistics company. Let's remember, Amazon is not just all these other things, but logistics is at the heart of what they do. All right, we're going to move on to big stories. Salesforce has officially bought Slack, something we have long

predicted, not necessarily for Salesforce, but that Slack would sell. We speculated about this for some time, but this week, the $28 billion deal went through. Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff called the move a bet that the pandemic-driven shift to remote work isn't temporary. The deal still needs regulatory approvals. 55% of Slack shareholders have committed to supporting the sale. It's absolutely going to go through. It's interesting, the Slack didn't do,

hasn't done very well in the pandemic. I didn't think they had enough tools. I think people were using it exactly the same way. And of course, there's competitors like Teams, which is really up the ante in lots of ways, including in video. So what do you think? I mean, I just think they couldn't compete, right? And they had to sell, as we've talked about. Just the more I, and I don't, I'm not, you know, I'm still trying to fully understand this.

But when I think about this, I think this could probably be the best acquisition in 2020. Okay, tell me why. Well, like most acquisitions, the market doesn't like it initially. When Facebook bought Instagram, people totally second-guessed it. That's right, they did.

It's $28 billion, which is a lot. And I think Salesforce is around $200 billion, so it's That's right, they did. It's $28 billion, which is a lot. And I think Salesforce is around $200 billion, so it's about a 14% dilution. But think about what it does. I think about Salesforce being kind of a CRM first, then cloud. And basically, there's one or two people in your company, usually, that have any idea what Salesforce is. Like, I know all of my companies use Salesforce, but I'm not entirely sure what it does. Occasionally they yell at me for not putting stuff into Salesforce,

but I don't really understand it. Slack is gonna almost take the entire thing, what I would call it. It's almost like busting a move to consumer because the majority of the smart young people in your company are in Slack, and all of a sudden they're gonna have an interface and a direct relationship with Salesforce.

And it takes them from cloud-based CRM to true enterprise productivity. It plays into the incredible dispersion of work from home. I mean, and it also says the whole, the marketplace is going to go, okay, let's look at Microsoft, the most valuable company in the world, one and a half trillion dollars. Who's a close second to Microsoft for the first time? Salesforce at 200 billion. I think this stock, I think Salesforce, whose stock has consistently gone up, I think it's going at $200 billion. I think this stock, I think Salesforce, whose stock has consistently gone up, I think it's going to keep going up.

I think this is really a visionary, strategic acquisition. And Slack really couldn't, I mean, Microsoft did look at Slack early on. They tried to buy it, went public several times. Peggy Johnson was leading that effort there. And, you know, Google certainly looked at them.

They were looked at by everybody who would make sense, you know. And what's interesting is what happens now to Zoom and others, like who sucks that up? And I think they have to be sucked up at some point. That's a purchase by, well, probably by Salesforce again. What do you think of this? I think, you know, I've listened, been on the receiving end of Stuart Butterfield saying he's not interested in selling because he wants to build his own thing.

No one says they're interested until they sell. I know, but he was particularly adamant about it. And so were the investors. And I was like, there's just no way you're getting out of this one. The people you're competing against are so good, you know, and Microsoft will just gin it up and they're quite good. You're in an area where they're, an area where some companies like Spotify or YouTube, I was like, don't sell. They suck.

You know what I mean? But in this case, their competitors didn't suck. They just were slow. And once they caught up, once they started to catch up, and again, I think they weren't keeping as many executives there as they needed to. A couple of executives left. I think it was, you know, it's exhausting to try to be the little guy, even if you have the better product.

And they couldn't, the security issues, the selling into corporations. This is a business that really requires heft. It's sort of like, it's interesting. I interviewed the two scientists who did BioNTech, who just created this Pfizer vaccine that Pfizer is distributing. Pfizer did not create it. This German company did. But they were saying we couldn't distribute it. We couldn't do the trials by ourselves, we're too small,

and we needed the help of Pfizer to do this. And so they made perfect partners. And this seems to be the same kind of thing, is that here's this innovative group of people making a great piece of software. It sort of hit a wall, because these things inevitably do, right? You've got to really have a great sales force. You've got to have security.

You've got this. And they're hooking up with a company that will, you know, sort of like Kind Bar selling to Mars. Like there's only so far certain people can go before you can't go any further. And I think that was the case here. I didn't think, I thought it was always a feature of some other person's company. By the way, Kind that I think I bought for, what did I get bought for? One and a half billion dollars.

Yeah, I was going to say, Daniel Lubezki is such a wonderful man. Yeah, he is. You know, who basically wanted to start a company that helped facilitate connections between, I think, the Palestinian people and Israeli people and tried to come up with a company. He has a foundation. And tried to come up with a company. He has a foundation. But he's really a wonderful young man who brings together kind of purpose-driven companies. And obviously, an incredible business acumen. So, good for Daniel.

Anyways, off topic. He got it in, you know, actually business was problematic under the pandemic because people would eat them at the offices. It was sold into offices. Right. Cafeterias. You know, the deal they made that was so big for Daniel was with Starbucks. Oh, really? I know a little bit because he owned the code.com.

I tried to buy it from him. I tried to buy when we did the code conference. And I think it was code conference. He owned whatever the thing I needed, the URL. And he said he would lend it to me, but I had to do a conference on peace. That's so Daniel. I was like, I'm literally warlike.

That's so Daniel. But he was lovely. I was like, he was like, if you could do a conference and focus on peace, I'm like, yeah, no, not Kara Swisher, it's Brandt. But it's like that. Like he could only go so far. And he actually said it very clearly.

He needed the heft of Mars and the distribution and the international. And this is the same kind of thing. It's a great piece of software that was made actually out of a failed gaming company, which was called Glitch, I think. And he's taken it as far as he can. You know, and Stuart's done this before with Flickr and other things. And so I don't know how long he'll stay there, although a lot of people, Brett Taylor, who also had another failed sort of social network, was sold into Salesforce, same thing.

Mark is good at doing this, and of course he wanted to buy Twitter, if you remember, people forget that. So it's a good purchase, it makes sense. He was in a good spot because nobody else could buy it. I don't think Google could have gotten it through. Microsoft certainly couldn't have. Would have been very difficult. So it's kind of a perfect dollar. Do you want to know how I knew Daniel Lubetzky?

How? Let's get back to- Yeah, let's get back to the important stuff. Candy bars, essentially. Let's get back to me. Healthy candy bars. Go ahead. I think you know this, but I peaked at the age of 32. Yeah, I know that. In 1999, I was starting an internet company. I had you know this, but I peaked at the age of 32. Yeah, I know that. In 1999, I was starting an internet company.

I had a shaved head, so everybody thought I was a fucking genius. And I got invited. I was given this thing called or asked to be a global leader of tomorrow. And that means you get to come to Davos. They pick 100 people a year. Yeah, my ex-wife was one. Yeah, and we're supposed to educate the you know, the CEO of Exxon about the future, and everybody thought we were the next big generation of, you know, we were Padawans, so to speak. Yeah. And on the plane, all these gorgeous Audis pick you up at

the Munich airport, and they have these things. And in my car were a bunch of guys I didn't know were my minivan, and it was Pierre Omidyar, Daniel Lubezki, Mehmet Oz, and me. We were four of the hundred of that year. I wonder if we were there the same year. Well, my question is, what the fuck happened to me? What happened to me? Look at Pierre Omidyar is like buying and selling islands in the nation states. He's doing well. He's a nice man.

What another nice man. Mehmet Oz, whatever you think of him, he is a force in the world of media, right? Daniel Lubezki is selling candy for a billion and a half dollars. And I'm stuck in the middle of you, my lover.

Stuck in the middle of you. I wonder if we were in the same van. Because I remember hanging out with Pierre. I went as the wife of a global leader of tomorrow. And I just wandered around with a special badge and bothered people because I didn't have the press badge, which is less good than the global leaders of tomorrow badge.

Yeah, the white badge. They call it the white badge. It was a big thing. Whatever. I wandered around. I told you my whole thing. I used to just hang in the coffee room and, like, talk to people and annoy them. And at one point, I have to tell you this story.

This is really funny. So I'm in the coffee room and I'm like the wife of. And this woman was getting coffee and I said, hey, how are you doing? What do you do? And she's like, I'm the prime minister of Latvia. Well, of course you are. And I went like this. I go, that's a good job.

That's a good job. That's what I said to her. That's what I said to the prime minister of Latvia. That's a good job. And I didn't know. Riga's an awesome party town. I've been to Riga. I get that.

But I literally was like, I can't believe I said that to the prime minister of Latvia. Anyway. I remember. So I don't know if you know this about me, but I like to drink. And I remember going down to my hotel to the bar. And on the left of me was Warren Beatty. And on the right was Yasser Arafat. And I'm like, I like this.

Whatever's going on here, I like this. I hate Davos. I hate Davos. It is where rich people lick each other up and down. That's in snow. I was invited three times and they haven't invited me back in 15 years. I gotta get back.

I gotta get back. They don't invite me. The head of it, Klaus, whatever, Klaus Ding Dong, doesn't like- Professor Schwab. He doesn't like Kara Swisher. I think it's impossible not. I think he's smart at just keeping the bar pretty high.

I suppose. I don't like Davos. I'm on the record about that. Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break. I don't like it either, but please invite me back. Please invite me back. You need to invent something. You're not keeping up with the people in your minivan.

Oh, you think? When we get back, I can see that like careening through the Swiss Alps. It would be really funny. All right. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Trump's latest move to repeal Section 230 and a listener question. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. 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. And honestly, that's not what

it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better.

One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim and we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. you know and trust.

Okay, Scott, we're back. Oh, God, the exhausting Donald Trump. Among the other things. See, now he's gone beyond this with his 46-minute whatever-the-fuck-that-was, is vowing to veto the defense spending bill unless Congress repeals Section 230,

as you know. In a tweet, Trump said, quote, Section 230, which is a liability-shielding gift from the U.S. to big tech, I don, quote, section 230, which is a liability shielding gift from the U.S. to big tech. I don't even know what that means. The only companies in America that have it, corporate welfare, exclamation point, is a serious threat to our national security and election integrity. Our country can never be safe and secure if we allow it to stand. What bad

writing, but essentially he wants to attach 230 to the defense bill. If he doesn't get his way, Trump is threatening to nix this year's National Defense Authorization Act, which never gets nixed. And all the senators and congressmen are like, no way, Trump, good luck. And they took it out. They stripped it out. So, or they're stripping it out.

So what's the deal? What do you think? Why is he so fixated? I mean, it's just part of this, like, dementia? Or what's happening here? So my youngest son, my oldest, his nickname is Favorite. My youngest son, his nickname is Terrorist, or at least that's the nickname in my mind. And every day, he constantly, my 10-year-old son, is constantly assessing the household and all the personalities in the

household for their weaknesses and their vulnerabilities so he can strike. And he usually strikes, like clockwork, about 15 or 20 minutes before he's supposed to go to bed. It just, the whole house kind of implodes into a big, I don't know, he starts hitting his brother, he starts arguing, he gets tired. And we used to respond to the behavior by saying, that's wrong. We'd start parenting him and getting in his face and he would get back in our face and the whole thing would just kind of digress.

And we just hate the idea of our kids going to bed on a bad note. So we spent a ton of time trying to ease him down off this ledge. And actually Sam Harris said something to me that really, I don't know the term, has moved or registered me. And he said, instead of trying to, I asked him for advice on parenting, he said, your natural reaction is to parent, to coach, to be a role model. And he said, more often than not, what he's trying to do is just love their kid. Not think about whether it's

right or wrong, but just love them. And I tried that and it did not work. But anyways, what we ultimately end up doing is just saying to our 10-year-old, that's it. Go put on your pajamas. Yeah, you're right. We're all awful. Your brother deserves to be hit. Just go brush your teeth and put on your pajamas. And what is obvious is that our son is lashing out and wants, is kind of desperate for relevance and attention. And it's time for Donald or the president to go brush his teeth and put on his pajamas. This is nothing but him acting out. This is a desperate plea for relevance. It makes no sense. Attaching our national defense to Section 230, I mean, it's just kind of— I know, it's weird. I was like, all of it's weird, but this one was particularly odd.

Why this? Because he's getting labeled? I think that's what it is, right? The labeling or diaper Don? I think that made him upset. No, you said it. You know how we have this extraordinary ability to take almost any story and reverse engineer it to candy? And then our experience is at Davos because I won't say this about you, but I'm a narcissist, which is the bad news. The good news is I know it. This guy, take that narcissism times 100. He just wants to be in the news every day and express and say, okay, okay. I mean, it's just sort of every day I have to be the story and I'll show you. The 46-minute thing.

Nobody aired it except for maybe OWN, right? Well, everyone's just starting to ignore the guy. Yeah. Everyone's just starting to say, okay, yeah, right. Yeah, it's just not – it's gotten kind of – I mean, it really is getting pathetic. He talked about martial law and everybody ignored it. That was astonishing. Made me nervous, frankly.

Yeah, just ignored it. Or he's going to fire Bill Barr. That was astonishing. Made me nervous, frankly. Yeah, just ignored it. Or he's going to fire Bill Barr. That makes me nervous. I don't know. He's definitely trying every... And then, you know, they roll out that woman yesterday that looked like Cecily Strong, the woman you don't want to talk to at a cocktail party. Did you see that video?

I didn't. She was so crazy. She was in a Michigan hearing or something. She was so crazy, Rudy Giuliani was telling her to calm down. She was just like... It was a bizarre exchange. exchange and it's like what's the theory here because he's pretty good on his brand like what what do you think has happened here because I think he's always been pretty canny about how he presents himself as the fighter or tell it like it is or whatever this seems not maybe I'm missing here, but it feels like he's off his

crazy game. Yeah, but even Umberto Eco, the Italian philosopher, calls it the Monica Lewinsky effect. And that is our society now rewards people just for being famous, just for being relevant and maintaining a certain level of awareness, regardless of what it is, what the catalyst is for that awareness. And I hate even grouping. I think Monica Winske is actually an impressive woman. She's wonderful. I was just going to hit you for being mean to her. Yeah, well, I'm sincere.

I didn't mean to be mean to her, so my apologies. I do think she's an impressive person. It's a thing. But she's famous for something that a lot of people would say is probably not great for our national character. Anyway, I'm going down a rabbit hole here that has absolutely no upside for anybody. Not for you, but go ahead. There you go. God damn it. I was in a car with Pierre Omidyar. I got you twice. Federal charges for money laundering. My buddy, Hamant. Great guy. Why didn't you know this? Anyway, let me finish your thought here.

What is he doing, Mr. Brand Ambassador? If I did due diligence on people, I wouldn't be on this podcast right now, Cara. My gosh. Anyways. Listen to me. I want you to explain what's going on from a brand management point of view here. It's awareness. I mean, nobody ever thought Trump condominiums were going to be tastefully done in interesting layouts. It's just

98% of purchases are done through organizations, brands, and services that we have heard of before. So, awareness immediately makes us feel safer. So, when a big building in Chicago says Trump on it, even though it probably means 12 karat gold and ridiculously over the top bad fashion, it still is worth it because people immediately go, oh, the Trump building. And so he's figured out that awareness is more important than necessarily what generates that awareness. And also, I just think the guy can't stand to not to feel as if he's irrelevant. He's like, I'll show you. You know, it's like when someone's fired and they all of a sudden get angry and start acting out at work. And there is a lesson here for young people. And that is what I coach young people around is you can spend 10 years at a company. The way you behave the last

30 years is important to your memory, impression, and brand is the first nine years and 11 months. And that is people remember how you leave. And it doesn't matter if you've been fired. It doesn't matter if you've been treated poorly. If that has happened, call a lawyer and go gangster. Otherwise, you're gracious. How can I help? How can I transition my responsibilities?

You thank people. You take time to be gracious because 50%, think about this, you can spend 10 years developing a great reputation as an organization and what's just as important as how you leave. And the temptation is to all of a sudden start airing grievances and stick up the middle finger on your way out the door to the elevator for the last time. The grievances is his brand. Grievances is what he does. It's such a bad move. People remember how you leave. Anyways.

I guess. You know, I think the question is what will happen to Section 230. Even the Republicans are like, this needs to be done in a bipartisan committee way to figure out what to do about reforming 230. It's almost like defund the police. It's like, get rid of 230.

That's not the thing. It's actually reform 230. And I think it's interesting It's like, get rid of 230. That's not the thing. It's actually reform 230. And I think it's interesting that the Republicans just have ignored it as usual. Well, you know what's going to happen. You know what's going to happen. That's exactly right. Nothing.

Zero. Nothing's going to happen. Yeah, and tech companies aren't even reacting. Nothing's going to happen. They're not even bothering. They're not even putting out press releases. Because the reality is, you know who gets sued? Who? The New York Times. Every time

some batshit crazy person comes and comments on any story and says something slanderous, the New York Times could get sued. Yep, absolutely. So this is you and your ability to bring in really thoughtful guests, including that guy from the New York Times to talk about 230. I have been totally educated about 230. I went to gross oversimplification, and I was a ban 230 guy. I remove it. And what you realize is, no, it needs to be modified. Complex. Yeah.

Complex. 100%. And Donald Trump is the opposite of complex. Nothing's going to happen. Moving on. Let's take a listener mail question presented by Yappa, which is pretty frigging cool. I saw it on Twitter, but go ahead. You've got. You've got. I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail.

Hi, Kara and Scott. Love your show. My name is Lila and I live in Scottsdale, Arizona. I support our local food bank that serves most of the state. And I've seen firsthand as this pandemic continues, the increasing number of cars stretching for blocks waiting for groceries. Scott's mention of one-third of New Yorkers being food insecure reminded me of a question that's been on my mind for a while now. Would you both give us your thoughts on how the grocery industry, farmers, food distributors, and logistics tech experts might find additional ways to coordinate in order to accelerate emergency food distribution, decrease the number of food deserts, and decrease the amount of food waste in this country? Is this even doable? Thanks. Wow, that's a great question from Scottsdale.

You know, the food insecurity is astonishing right now in this country. And again, it requires, to me, a federal response, once again, a federal response to coordinate in a coordinated way across states. And we're not seeing any kind of federal coordination of even vaccine distribution. Everyone's sort of left to their own devices.

And so I think it's super difficult because the federal government is not concerned. The current administration is not concerned with this issue at all. It has never mentioned it, has never discussed it. And so among the many things it's never discussed

and it needs to. The issues around food waste, I've always been astonished that there hasn't been more technology and other solutions brought to bear on food waste. It's always been, you know, you read a story every now and again about this terrible issue of how much food we have and how much it on food waste. It's always been, you know, you read a story every now and again about this terrible issue of how much food we have and how much it goes to waste.

And there's all kinds of reasons for it, perishability and things like that. But I've always sort of been amazed that no one's really taken on this issue in a way that would match food to people who are food insecure. Yeah, I find it jarring when you see some of these statistics come sort of full force in the midst of a pandemic. And I think there's just no getting around it. Our national character, I think, has been revealed to be a lack of character.

And it's not just about food companies. I think, as I always do, I go to World War II with immediately when the war broke out, a Chrysler factory was converted to a factory, and within two weeks, they were building Bradley tanks. And over the course of the war, that one factory in Michigan punched out more tanks than the entire Third Reich. What company has immediately converted to fighting this pandemic? Third Reich. What company has immediately converted to fighting this pandemic? And also, it happened with PPE, too. The PPE, the stuff that was just, everything we do needs to be coordinated federally in things like this. It reminds me of...

100%. But you could see like a Whole Foods or Amazon or Delivery Grocery Partners responding to this. That's a fun... That would be a great... It's not just Big Food. They should have said, okay, we have 110 million households. All of them need to be tested every week. So we need

Glaxo, Amazon, Walmart, Apple. We need all of you to come together. Well, they had that press conference.

It was a bullshit press conference. We need all of you to come together. Profits are at an all-time high. NASDAQ's at an all-time high.

And today, today, we have more deaths and more infections eight months into the pandemic. So, okay, if the markets are at an all-time high, savings rates are at an all-time high,

your stock is at an all-time high, and more Americans are dying every day, then perhaps, perhaps, corporate America, under the auspices of leadership and, quite frankly, some sacrifice. You know what we also did

in World War II? Everyone's talking about their individual liberties to wear a fucking mask. We put 5,000 men in jail who avoided the draft because we decided this is about sacrifice. And you may think it's individual liberty to say, well, World War I was a terrible war. I'm not signing up for the draft. Fine. We're putting your ass in jail. There is no leadership. There is no mandatory federalization of our supply chain around food, around testing. And it also, and no one individual wants to disarm unilaterally. I think a guy like Doug McMillan would absolutely participate in this, but he's not going to do it on his own.

If you remember, you've forgotten that press conference Trump had. He dragged them all out without masks, of course, when they said they're going to do this in the parking lot of Walmart and this and in CVS. I forget who else. He had a whole bunch in there, but it was all bullshit. One, because Jared Kushner organized it. And two, Peter DeVaro was wandering somewhere around doing it. And so the inclination was there.

But, you know, one of the problems is with food deserts, after we come out of this pandemic, we already had grocery issues in poor parts of cities, like that there weren't enough grocery stores, there wasn't enough produce, there isn't enough good food. There's a lot of shitty food in these areas, but not a lot of healthy food. And, you know, with the delivery industry where people getting their groceries delivered now and it's expensive, that's going to be a real, there's going to be more groceries closing everywhere. And they certainly aren't going to be locating in areas that are problematic for them. And so that's really another

worry and where the grocery industry goes post-corona. Well, speaking of post-corona, someone has a book on it. Where does the grocery industry go? Well, I'm just glad to know you care. Yeah. Look. It's a book by Scott Byatt. It's called Post-Corona. So, look, by the way, you didn't notice.

Oh, I'm not even going to. What? No, I'm not going to brag. Tell me. No, no, I'm not going to brag. I'm not going to brag. Oh, come on. You just mentioned it.

You're like one of those people like, I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. Say it. Is it number one? Did you beat Jeff Bezos? No. No, I'm number nine on New York Times bestseller list. Nice.

No, number eight. I'm one position behind Doris Kearns Goodwin. Doris, I'm coming for you. Number four, Fareed Zakaria, 10 Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World. This is nonfiction? You're number eight nonfiction? Seriously, Fareed Zakaria, number four.

His book, 10 Lessons, Who Was a Guest for a Post-Pandemic World. What is his publisher? BuzzFeed? Anyways, I'm sorry. Of course, I turned back to me. I want you to kick Fareed Zakari's ass too. Don't go after just Dr. Ness. He's streaming. Buttery Skin, 140 IQ. And yet you want to be in front of him. Anyway, your book is doing rather well. It's called Post-Corona. Now give us some wisdom. My professional role model. Anyways, that was awful. We're talking about food insecurity. I think there was a huge opportunity for an individual, whether it was Satya Nadella or Mark Benioff, I know they're civic-minded to say, to call all those people in a room and to call this board and say, we're turning our company to the pandemic.

And it's going to cost us shareholder value. It's going to cost us revenue. I think there was an opportunity for someone here to say, we're not punching out Buicks, we're punching out Bradley Tanks. We are, the markets are at an all-time high, stocks are at an all-time high, homes have never been worth more, there's never been more wealth in this nation, and what company has pivoted to a crisis that is killing three times the number of people that the access power killed? It's got to be Amazon to do this one.

Well, Jeff Bezos, okay, he's 56. He's going to be dead soon. Life is going faster and faster. I know this personally. No, I'm the same age as Jeff Bezos. All right. Years become seasons. Seasons are becoming months.

Jeff, you're going to be dead soon. Are you going to be remembered for Amazon Prime or Transparent? One of these guys, and let's be honest, they're almost always dudes, has an opportunity to say, country, flag, and people's well-being supersedes anything here. And we are turning our attention until the vaccine is out across 60% of our society. We are turning our attention and our resources to the pandemic and to helping our brothers and sisters we call Americans. And not a single firm has done that. And there's been no leadership of the government to say,

all right, a bunch of you have to do this. And I just don't, it reflects such poor character on us as a nation. There's just no getting around it. So I think it's not only disappointing from a national character standpoint, I think it's a huge missed opportunity for somebody to say, for a CEO to say, yeah, I sat down with our shareholders, I sat down with our board, and we've decided that this is the biggest existential threat of our generation. And we want to tell our grandkids. We want to tell Americans that we heard the call. We heard the call.

And it's not just grocery. It's not just Publix or the food. Yeah, but groceries are important. Here's a good industry that is actually easy to do. Two companies really do spring to mind to me that could really be in front of this. Uber, you know, and this is what we're going to do. We're going to deliver groceries. We're going to coordinate or because there are logistics or Amazon.

Those two companies should do something either together or in some way that would be or Walmart and Walmart. Those are the three companies in this case and the groceries. Between Amazon, Walmart, Google, and Apple because you're talking about handhelds and technology that everybody has. It's all about communications and information. So that's about testing and tracing. And then with Amazon and Walmart, you're talking about testing and food. Those four companies could, in my opinion, save tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives if they decided— Yeah, well, they sort of tried. They tried with the tracing. It's just—it has to have federal—it

has to have some federal cooperation. Agreed. Agreed. It's a lack of leadership. In any case, excellent question, Lila—is it Lila or Lila? Reminder, for the month of December, we're partnering with YAPA to get more listener mail questions. They're pretty cool. Someone did a whole whiskey thing with Pappy Van Winkle for us, which was exciting, which when we were referring to James Carville, who I watched and enjoyed last night on MSNBC. Anyway, go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your question for the Pivot podcast. That was an excellent one. Food insecurity is a problem that we can solve in this country. And we should, more people, especially leadership, should get involved much more.

People going hungry in the United States of America is appalling on every level. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Okay, Scott, give us a prediction. You kind of made one about a feature, not a bug, that kind of thing. I would like another one. Well, at about, so it doesn't happen often, but occasionally a 45-year-old man has something happen that should have happened when he was 13 or 14, and that is his testicles descend at a later point in his life.

And I think all of a sudden Republican senators at the age of about 80 are going to have their testicles descend at a later point in his life. And I think all of a sudden Republican senators at the age of about 80 are going to have their testicles descend. And we're going to have the first override of a veto around this bullshit defense linking Section 230 to defense. And Trump has threatened to veto. I think he's so desperate for attention and relevance that he will likely veto this Defense Act and demand that 230 is attached to it. And I think all of a sudden,

all of a sudden, Republican senators for the first time are going to reach down and feel these spherical things and decide, you know, at the age of, you know, kind of in the bottom of the ninth inning to show some leadership, and I think they're going to override the veto. So we're going to have our first veto override in the next— That's a good one. —between December and beginning of January. That is an excellent prediction.

I'm going to make another prediction. I think the Democrats are going to win both seats in Georgia. Wow. How do you like that? Wow. That would be really—I don't know. I think America loves balance. It's going to be really interesting. I don't know. I think Lynn Wood is doing the best job for Democrats ever, that crazy lawyer in Georgia. I watched that Sidney Powell, Lynn Wood thing. They are really a cup of conspiracy. Yeah.

Several cups of conspiracy passed crazy. But I feel like, I don't know. I just think quietly Stacey Abrams is, they're yelling and screaming at all her little tiny little rallies. And I think she's signing people up and she's a quiet one. You know what I mean? Like just working her little magic. And I think, I don't know. I think we might be surprised. I know people like balance, but I think they're really doing everything. We'll see what happens with Trump this know people like balance, but I think they're really doing everything. We'll see what happens with Trump this weekend going to Georgia, but I think he's going to say something crazy and tell people not to vote. That's not much of a prediction. I know, but I think he's going to tell people not to vote. favorite moments of all time yesterday in the Congress was Mike Pence

administering the oath of office to Mark from Arizona to be senator, astronaut Mark. And then it's Kyrsten Sinema, whatever, I can't pronounce it. She was wearing a purple wig and like this fantastic, I think it was a zebra coat, the whole thing. So Pence was accepting the election, like the certified results, swearing this guy in. And then she was there and the whole scene was like, it's just one of these marvelous American scenes that I liked a lot. So I miss that.

I don't know. That's my prediction. I think. Oh, speaking of shows, I'm jumping around a lot. Have you seen Industry? No, but I'm supposed to. Someone suggested it to us. I think. Like it? I'm curious. Well, I'm jumping around a lot. Have you seen Industry? No, but I'm supposed to. Someone suggested it to us. I think.

Like it? Yeah, I'm curious. Well, I kind of lived it. I worked at Morgan Stanley right out of college, and it was kind of the late 80s, and it was sort of the peak of the testosterone-filled investment banking. I'm not exaggerating. Once, I was very insecure. I was from UCLA, and most of my 70-person analyst class, and you were given this impression that you were the luckiest person in the world to be part of this analyst class. Sixty-nine of them went to like, no, like 60 went to Harvard, seven went to Dartmouth, and one went to INSEAD. And then there was me, oh, I'm sorry, and like 20 of them were from Stanford. The story of Scott's life.

So I was really insecure. And every week, and I'm being very honest here, every week I decided once a week I was going to pull an all-nighter. I was going to go to work Tuesday morning and I was going to go home Wednesday at five. Because all I had, I felt on these people, was grit. Work. way too hard. And it's a bit of a dramatization. People weren't, people were assholes, but they weren't evil. And in this one, and it's, you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of girls. And that is some of the behavior and the sex is shocking for somewhat of my generation. I'm like, is that how young people, is that their approach to sex now? And maybe, maybe it is. But anyways, you should watch it. And it takes place in London, which is the coolest part about it it and it takes place in London which is the coolest part about it

everything usually takes place in New York or LA they went from like Princeton to London to Goldman Sachs I had a whole bunch

of friends who went to Goldman Sachs it's really it's really I thought it was really really interesting

I'm deciding whether to watch The Undoing or not because everyone hate watches it so I have to wait and see

if I'm going to watch that I think Hugh Grant's fantastic he's dreamy speaking of dreamy he watch that. I think Hugh Grant's fantastic. He's dreamy. Yeah. Speaking of dreamy. He's great.

Let's get Hugh Grant on this show. I'd like to have Hugh on. That would be great. I love him. I don't know why I love him so much. Anyway, in any case, Scott, those are excellent predictions, and a good recommendation. Industry, watch that.

Industry. People seem to follow our TV recommendations. They seem to like them. Yep, yep. I'm going to watch Mank. That's what I'm going to watch because I'm thinking of interviewing David Fincher. All right.

Yeah. Anyway, okay, that's the show. As a reminder, we love the listener mail questions and we're trying something new. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your question for the Pivot podcast. The link is also in our show notes.

Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Fernando Finita engineered this episode. Erica Anderson is P in our show notes. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Fernando Finote engineered this episode. Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. 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 like the show, please recommend it to a friend. Doris Kearns Goodwin, I am coming from you. Lincoln, blah, blah, blah. Fareed Zakaria, Fareed Zakaria, you have nothing on me other than IQ, credibility, buttery skin, great hair, a global platform, and a ton of charisma. Other than that, I'm number eight. I'm coming for you. Doris and Fareed, sleep well tonight. 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 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 than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers.