Pivot - Amazon's worker problem, Andreessen Horowitz's new website and a prediction about inflation

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

Kara and Scott talk about a blockbuster story exposing worker issues in Amazon warehouses as Mackenzie Scott donates money to counteract the forces of her ex-husband's company. 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. 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. to get your customers to notice you, Constant Contact has what you need to grab their attention. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform offers all the automation, integration,

and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by their expert live customer support. It's time to get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. 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 Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. How you doing, Scott? This is a busy day. It's move day for Kara Swisher. It's move day. Where are you moving? I'm getting, we're buying a new house, but it's very complicated.

Low interest rates. You just outbid several middle-class families. You just pulled the rug out. You went in and bid. You said, I'm not only going to overbid by $50,000, I'm offering 10 Doja coin and 100 shares of stock in the Vox Media Group. No, I actually said Scott Galloway will pay for it. That's how I did it. And they said, Scott, does he have to come here? I said, no. And then that's how I want it. Anyway, I'm moving studios, et cetera, et cetera, because of our burgeoning pivot empire. And so this is the day I'm doing it. It's really, I hate moving, Scott. I hate moving. That's why most people love it.

Most people love to move. Love to move. Honestly, I'm kind of a maximalist in my life, but on days like this, I turn into like Marie Kondo, like everything must go. And anyway, whatever. Well, you know what I use for moving that helps a lot money yeah i know i just leave i just leave and i say okay can you make sure the change is in the same place in the new house that's right i'm having movers but i like to i i'm very particular about my things in any that's a shocker that you're particular who would have guessed that who would have guessed i thought you were so laid back and easy going no no problem speaking of particular the the particular person who's just uh announced the chairman of the federal uh chairperson of the commission elegante segue well played well

she's very exacting she's also very exact lena khan has been i was surprised that she just made the chair i thought she was gonna be made the chair. I thought she was going to be made the commissioner, as did many people. She's 32 years old, the chair of the FTC. She was associate professor of law at Columbia Law School and previously served as counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law. one behind those David Cicilline hearings. And I actually just interviewed David today, Representative Cicilline, who with Ken Buck is announcing all kinds of this and that against the tech industry with all these legislation, finally. But what do you think of this? She's kind of a, she made her bones writing this amazing essay on Amazon and how it should be broken up. And here she is, not 10 years later. Well, I think it's inspiring. I think the government on a regular basis takes incredibly

young, incredibly talented people and throws them in the deep end. And I think we've been better off as a nation when we, you know, whether it was, I don't know, there's a ton, there's just throughout history, we have taken incredible people and said, all right, distinct of your age, we're going to give you an incredible opportunity here. And I just love the fact that a London-born woman of Pakistani descent at the age of 32 is now riding. She's not only riding shotgun with Bezos on, you know, there's a he might stay in space. Well, she's not riding shotgun. She's opposite him.

Right. She's not on his team. You know what I mean? All right. Okay. Writing shotgun is what you're doing with me. Sometimes I'm doing. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to go through cowboy metaphors with you. Nonetheless, let's say she is his is his nemesis. Now she he's got a worthy nemesis. So she probably doesn't see it that way. And also people complain that Amazon doesn't advance careers as fast as it should. It absolutely advanced the career of Lena Kahn. I mean, she basically looked at Amazon and said,

okay, this is the definition of monopoly behavior. And her piece on Amazon's antitrust paradox was literally her catcher in the rye, whatever you want to call it. It took her from obscurity and created momentum that's landed her as the chair of the FTC. She's known for being very hardworking, obviously very smart. And I think it's nice. Look, it's just inspiring when talent and a little bit of luck result in people getting to extraordinary places. I think it serves as a beacon of light and hope for a lot of people. She's got a lot ahead of her. I mean, obviously, she's got a thousand people that she gets to

direct. The chairman has enormous amounts of power in the FTC, even though there's other, she's got to convince other commissioners. There's, I think, five in total. Yeah, five in total, two Democrats, two Republicans in the chair, who is typically whoever the president is, the party of the president. And so she has to convince the other two Democratic ones, I guess, or any of the Republican ones to go along with what she wants to do. But she has enormous sway because she can direct the investigation. She can direct the staff. And so it's a really, you know, it's a huge job for her to run a federal agency like this. And, you know, this is about to get more funding and everything else.

And so one of these bills that David Cicilline and Ken Buck are working on, and it was interesting because they have various people, you know, attached to each of the bills. And they're all, each of them are different, including Matt Gaetz is attached to one, if you can believe it, and several others. And so it's a really interesting time. She's in a real position of power. And again, I would urge people to go back and read that piece that she did about Amazon. She also, you know, one of the things that's interesting about her is that she's sort of trying to shift, and this is the next legislation coming, which is a wholesale redo of the um of the antitrust acts which has gotten a borkian feel uh after bork uh had made arguments about how it uh how it should be it's all it's legalese but essentially it changed in terms of favoring companies um via some theories that ro Robert Bork had in the Chicago school. And so she's

shifting that and probably will be part of that legislation to shift it back to sort of the Sherman Antitrust Act or an antitrust law that's for the new day, essentially, which it hasn't changed in a long, long, long, long time. And everything else has. So it's a really interesting time. The gaining factor on her work won't be her colleagues or fellow commissioners or even other lawmakers. It'll be judges. And what people don't realize is the real impact or the enduring impact of any administration is the lawyers that are appointed for life. And I think she will absolutely file suit. She will block mergers. She will file antitrust action. And I think there'll be support in the House and the Senate.

I think she'll convince two commissioners to go along with them. And I bet a lot of it is overturning courts. Yeah, the Supreme Court just overturned something the FTC did around the company. So, yeah, I mean, that's where the conservative courts are going to be her nemesis. Nemesis. Ooh, nemesis. I like that. And not only that, she's married to a cardiologist.

I like to think of all the pressure those kids are going to have on them. Why can't you be more like your father or your mother? I mean, talk about growing up in a household where it's easy to be an underachiever. Right. Yeah. Anyway, I wish her well. I did a really good interview with her on Sway, and maybe we'll get her to come on here. I may have to invite her to Code.

I was thinking of pairing her with Marguerite de Vestey, who's coming. The two of them. Gangster one and gangster two. Would that be something? They've got to work together, too. That's Tony and Soprano on stage. I know. I'm thinking, what do you think?

I think that's like, God, it would scare the shit out of the audience, which I kind of would like to do. You need a moderator. You need some sort of abusive monopolist to moderate the conversation. I have Bezos right in the middle. Bring in Rupert Murdoch or I don't know. How about have Bezos in the middle and they just take shots at him? Because he's like fit, right? They can have like a kind of thing.

I like it. I think they shoot up his ass with Andro. And they say, okay, live on TV and we're auctioning it off, you motherfucker. Let's see if we can get $29 million. And then he then he goes into space oh he'll be back from space by then i don't know allegedly we'll be back we'll see all right he'll be back he'll be back all right so the other thing is president biden and vladimir putin met in person during historic summit in geneva switzerland on wednesday um biden brought up concerns over human rights and cyber attacks um you know he was a little firmer than President Trump has been.

Not a lot of licking up and down, but somewhat cooperative. I don't know, of course, what went on behind the scenes, but that was an interesting thing. We'll see where Putin lands on all his cyber attack activity that he that came to the fore during the Trump administration. This is, you know, I followed this closely. I'm just interested in looking at this in terms of the moves and strategy between a long-term player and a short-term player that, you know, no one is there for longer than four or eight years as U.S. president. And typically a president, shocker, has an enormous ego.

And if you look back across all the presidents that have dealt with Putin, and I think it's like five of them now, they all are kind of have a little bit of megalomaniacal view that I'm going to fix our relationship with Russia. That he'll see I'm tough, but a good guy. I'm going to come in. And really, Biden's the first president to say, okay, I'm not going to do what Obama did and not give him audience. And I do think that you reduce the likelihood of things escalating when you've met. Yeah, I agree. of him audience. And I do think that you reduce the likelihood of things escalating when you've met. There's an instinct where you go, hey, there's a submarine off the coast of Irkutsk, and we're about to go gangster. Well, why don't I just call him first and make sure

that I don't misunderstand? There's a value, I think, to open engagement. But at the same time, he didn't say, well, let's try and do this and announce it. I looked into his eyes and I trusted him. And keep in mind, Russia's strategy, Russia's GDP is in between South Korea and Canada. Someone once described Russia as upper Volta with nuclear weapons. Are they moving while you're doing this? I hear shit in the background. I know. We're going to let her do this.

She's going to grab it really quickly. Hold on. This is our baby. I'm glad to see you're prioritizing our're prioritizing our show listen i have a very complex life scott galloway i don't know what to tell you i have very many children's we have people and i got things i got things to do she's gonna be no one's allowed to touch my shit all right she's trying she's moving as fast as she can let you know just let's just tape you know what i have a life people can understand that two. Why do you need movers?

That's right. Because my one son, as I've said, is a butcher. And the other one is hiking in the Adirondacks. So there you have it. That's what you have. Talk about you and your white privilege. Anyways, I hope we're recording this. Hiking in the Adirondacks is good.

He's camping. He's camping. That's good. You mean glamping? No, he's not glamping. There's no glamping going on with the swishers. Some 19-year-old is cooking top ramen. No, no, no. He's doing really well.

My other son is working all summer. He's a worker. He got a tattoo yesterday. I shouldn't say this, but he got a giant tattoo in New York yesterday. Can you say that like it's a good thing? I think it's a great thing. It's a beautiful tattoo. I'm not discussing this with you.

Listen, we're moving on to something. Go ahead. Finish with Putin. I bet Putin has a tattoo. Finish up. Look, this country, in terms of economic power, is somewhere between South Korea and Canada. The GDP is smaller than Canada, but bigger than South Korea. A glorified gas station run by, I think that's what you said, a glorified gas station run by the mob.

So it is in Putin's best interest strategically to be, quite frankly, disruptive and cause problems. And just as any nation strategically is well served by pursuing a nuclear weapon, because then someone in the West shows up and says, we'll give you billions of dollars to just stop doing this. Kind of Putin's only, you know, only playbook here is to be disruptive. So, I mean, this is a guy who's supported Assad, has incurred Western countries to kill people, has seized or annexed Crimea. I mean, this is a real nemesis or a real menace globally. And if you look at flashpoints of instability around the world, there's like a 50 percent chance it involves Putin. So I think they handled this just right.

I think they showed up and said, okay, you have a direct dialogue, but be clear. We're not here to try and show some goodwill such that you can take advantage of that goodwill and then find out we were wrong to ever believe we should extend you any goodwill. The cyber stuff is really, I think is the biggest issue actually,

that it's state-sponsored cyber terrorism and we have to figure out a way. What is he going to do about that? What's he going to do about that? Well, I would bet, I would bet, I think people underestimate the power of our NSA and our security services and our cyber, whatever you call it, our cyber force or space force. I would bet that, slowly but surely, we've made it pretty clear that the quo per quid here is going to be pretty ugly if you keep doing this. And the fact that we were able to track down and reclaim the payment for Dark Web, I got to think that we're going to start in a very tactful, elegant, and planned out way, start switching, you know, turning off the light switch around certain things in Russia. I just – Attack them?

Attack them? Oh, 100%. U.S. Cyber Command, by the way. around certain things in Russia. I just, I have to- You mean what, attack them? Attack them? Oh, 100%. U.S. Cyber Command, by the way. It's called U.S. Cyber Command. 100%. I think we will pick, if we haven't already, I think we will pick facilities and infrastructure and turn it off and say, by the way, that was us. And it's going to get worse if you don't put an end to this shit. And this whole, we don't know what's going on, just doesn't work. I just have a lot of faith in our government to be both responsive, creative, and professional at this stuff, especially this government. So I actually think cyberterrorism

is going to get better, not worse. Well, I don't know. We have a broad attack scheme. Look at all the attacks that have happened. Oh, you mean in terms of your point is the landmass is just so huge. I think that one of the things that they're saying is the attack space is so vast here and we're so interconnected in the way we conduct our digital stuff. You know, we have so many lines of attack

for someone like Putin, a thug like Putin to come in. So I think it's just, we have to just show- You described it as our landmass is so big, which I thought was an interesting analogy.

Well, our surface area. Surface area, excuse me. Surface area of attack is large. And they don't have as much to attack, but we can certainly. We can certainly do a lot of things and there's sanctions, etc., etc.

And so this is, the Cold War was lost by Russia. They're winning this particular war or have more opportunity for advantage. But you're right, they're not a big country. They're not a... But you know who we go after when we try and hit them hard? Well, when we try and hit Russia hard, we go after the oligarchs.

We start fucking with the economic. We start fucking with the wealth of the 50 wealthiest people in Russia who are all there because of Putin and have some influence back and forth. So my guess is we make life uncomfortable for his buddies. And the way you do that is you go after their pocketbook. Anyways, but who knows? We'll see. I'm excited that I thought they handled it. I thought he handled it as well as he could have.

Good. He got a little testy at a reporter who misasked him a question. I have to say. Good for him. Good man. He apologized too. It was good. So last thing, very quickly,

we're going to get to our big stories. Apple officially launched a subscription service allowing users to pay for ad-free episodes and exclusive content. Meanwhile, Spotify signed another deal with one of the most downloaded podcasts, Call Her Daddy. Have you listened to that? I've never listened to it. I haven't. It's like Dirty Girls, essentially.

Really? The three-year agreement is reportedly worth $60 million, and the show will be exclusive to Spotify beginning July 21st. Spotify has also launched a Clubhouse competitor called Green Room. What thinks you of this, Scott Galloway? Well, I was excited because, you know, we got 61 million. Oh, wait, 61,000 for four years. Never mind. What, you want me to talk dirty about my whatever?

I'm not even going to go there? No one wants to. You do talk dirty. I do, and it doesn't work. But it doesn't work as much as call your daddy. It doesn't land. Doesn't land. Yeah, no one wants to hear a 56-year-old man with erectile dysfunction talk dirty.

Okay, all right. Moving along, what do you think? Spotify is really doubling down. Well, look, one of the strategies here is to go vertical, whether it's Facebook trying to go vertical into VR so they control the experience, whether it's Apple going into stores, whether it's Netflix and House of Cards, Spotify with Joe Rogan. They either got to forward integrate into hardware or forward integrate into content. And they've decided that podcasting is, I mean, we predicted this last year, podcasts are going to go for an irrational amount of money as a multiple of revenues because

there's an NPS arbitrage and then attention arbitrage. And that is if I can get a high income young person and a lot of them listen to podcasts, if I can get 60 minutes of their attention graph or 120 minutes a week, that's worth a lot. And also, it's one of the few mediums where people are actually listening to advertising. And the notion is every medium has eventually gone, or at least component of it, or valuation-sensitive component of it goes to subscription. And the thing about Apple that's just so powerful is that if you want to subscribe to a podcast and they're talking about prices as low as 45 cents, their payment solution is just so elegant. It's like double click here, as opposed if you go to Spotify and try and get

a subscription with the exact same content, the exact same podcast, it takes you to a- That's right. It takes you, they don't own the rails. You have to go to a site outside of the app. It's very cumbersome. Whereas Apple's like- That's what these They don't own the rails. You have to go to a site outside of the app. Yes, you do. It's very cumbersome. That's what these lawsuits are about. That's right. Owning the rails is a wonderful place to be. The thing that gives you pause around this, and we have been hugely affected by this, is I'm obsessed.

I have a desperate need for affirmation, and I check our rankings every week to see what our listenership's like. And all of a sudden, about two weeks ago, our listenership fell off a cliff. I'm like, well, what the fuck is going on here? And I found out that we were not, I was getting a bunch of emails saying, you're not in the app store. You didn't come up on Apple. And I went there and they were right. And immediately I got mad at Vox. I'm like, what's going on here? You guys don't get the easy stuff, right? And the reality is it wasn't them. It was Apple and something about them updating, updating, uh, uh, iTunes or the app store to, to, I think, provide this ability to subscribe has monkeyed

with the ability to, um, upload content. So they're not off to, they're not off to a good start. And keep in mind, Apple says, all right, and this is the scary part, is we're ad-supported right now. And so Apple is going to start deprioritizing us because they don't make any revenue from us. They use podcasts such as ours to gain traction,

to gain credibility, but slowly but surely, they're going to want to prioritize podcasts where they can take 30% the first year. Do we have to sell to one of these people? Honestly. Well, we did sell to one of them. It's called Vox. Yeah, I know, but Vox will probably sell us off to one of them.

We're whores. We're just dumb whores. We're just having sex with a guy with not as much money. Let's be honest. If we were going to sell our dignity, we should have done it to a John that was richer. Okay. All right. Okay.

Enough with that. What's worse than being a whore? By the way. A dumb whore. Okay. All right. And Scott is now canceled. All right.

Spotify also launched its Clubhouse competitor, Greenroom, which is interesting. That's another company that's getting sort of aced out by all these people. You know, we obviously have Twitter spaces, which I use, and Spotify is doing this competitor, and the Spotify artists will probably do it there versus Clubhouse. Why start a new interest graph there if your music is there and you can click into it and this and that? So it's a really, you know, everyone's disrupting everyone else, but the bigs and those who have the control certainly and certainly have more control than we do. Can we officially, so I just want to take a victory lap. We were the original haters around Clubhouse.

Yeah, we were. Refused to go on. And I want to officially say Clubhouse is dead. And I think we should stop talking about it. All right. The concept is a useful one. We had 1,000, 1,300, 1,400 people as I'm listening to Jodi Kantor talk about the very next story. So it's a useful feature for sure.

It's just that it's not a separate company. But that's exactly the right word. It's a feature, not a product. It's not just a feature. It's a great feature. Okay. It's a great feature, which a million other people with built-in user bases have flipped on. Yeah.

And it also, I think, got a bad brand right out of the gates. Yeah, yelling at your tech journalists. All right. Speaking of which, let's talk about that. I agree. So we have declared Clubhouse dead, although we like the technology. Well, I love this. You realize, I think it was just three or six months ago, Clubhouse was valued at $4.5 billion.

It'd be very interesting to see what their next round has done. Yeah. Yeah. That'll be interesting. They'll fob themselves onto someone and pretend and take a victory lap. That's what they'll do. That's what, that's what. I mean, I remember literally 60, 90 days ago, maybe it was more than that. You heard, you just heard a ton about Clubhouse. I get emails every day. You should really come on Clubhouse. I never hear about it.

That's why, because it was very pandemically prompted. In any case, let's move on to that. We're going to talk about Andreessen Horowitz, which is one of the pandemically prompted, prompted, pandemically prompt. Have you been drinking again? Have you been drinking again? All right. But first of all, we're going to move on to big stories because I did have Jodi Cantor talk about her story and also Jason Del Rey. The New York Times story released an investigation of how the pandemic exposed the pitfalls of Amazon's employment system,

specifically at its fulfillment center in New York City. It's JFK8, I think it's called. Reporters interviewed nearly 200 current and former employees and reviewed company documents, legal findings, and government records. Here's some highlights. Throughout the pandemic, Amazon meticulously tracked its workers,

not a surprise, did not disclose information about COVID-19 outbreaks in the warehouse and relied on a buggy system that led to unintentional firings and benefit losses. These poor working conditions led to failed unionization attempt we saw earlier this year in Bessemer, Alabama, in which Amazon was victorious. Workers also expressed frustration over the little opportunity for advancement, which you just talked about within the company. You just push buttons there, essentially, and they have it down to a science and the use of technology to hire, monitor, manage workers. Meanwhile, Mackenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos' ex-wife, who married the science teacher now,

announced she had donated $2.7 billion to 286 organizations, part of a year effort where she's given, I think, almost $8 billion. It's her third round with no strings attached donations. And she wrote in her blog post that these donations are an attempt to, quote, give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change. Feels like they're talking to each other over in a weird way, having a little bit back and forth. But she's taking his money, which keeps getting bigger because Amazon's doing so well, and keeps giving it away to stop him. So anyway, what do you think? Well, as your ex-wife reminded me, it's not his money, it's her money,

and she doesn't get the credit she deserves as a co-founder, which I actually agree with. I agree, yeah. Look, it's just so interesting to contrast the two, right? Basically, Bezos has showed up to those stupid auctions they have at a high school and said, come ride in my yellow canary Ferrari because I'm awesome and I'm famous. And he does a bid and everyone goes, oh, Jeff, you're so successful and you're so interesting. And I want to participate in the mother of all midlife crises. And he says, okay, I'm going to give the $28 million to charity so you can come into space with me as I try and, I don't know, as I feel my

prostate getting bigger and bigger and realize I can't buy life and I need to start lashing out with this stupid ego-driven shit. And what does she do? She takes a hundred times that and gives it to things like legal efforts to protect- This is just this time. It's just this time. This is the third round. Go ahead. Just this time, and gives it to fantastic people fighting for LGBTQ rights. I mean, there is one type of faux, come watch me get my hair plugs philanthropy,

and there is real giving. Now, I think this individual, I think Mackenzie Scott is literally one of the most inspiring people of the last decade. I think she's a tremendous role model. And not only that. Should she get out of Amazon stock? It's gone up so much that she can't give it away fast enough. She's gotten more money. Like, for example, Jeff Bezos has gone, his wealth has increased from 110 billion to more than 190 billion during the pandemic. She's gone from 34 to 60. She can't give it away fast enough. So should she get rid of the Amazon stock? So it was sort of like the Rockefellers that did the

environmental stuff later or whatever. Some people think she should just get out of all of Amazon stock, but it's providing her with the cash needed to fight Amazon or give groups that fight Amazon. It's really interesting. So in general, your Kevlar as you get older is diversification. And that is you don't want to have more than 20% or 30% in any one asset class. Well, this is a moral thing, but go ahead. Yeah. Well, beyond the morals, but go ahead. Yeah. If she were to sell the stock to diversify, all she would be doing is giving up, incurring a tax-shrinkering event and have less money to give away. So she should give away stock and let them decide what to do with it. 100%. Here you go. Yeah, it's interesting because a lot of people feel she shouldn't.

I kind of like the whole thing. You know what I mean? A lot of people were giving Roger McNamee a hard time. He's like, you made money on Facebook, and now you're using your money you made there to attack them. So it's kind of interesting. It's an interesting dilemma. I don't really care, honestly. Give away the money, McKenzie. Go for it. I mean, it could be worse. You could be on the faculty of an institution and accuse them of being morally corrupt and continuing to work there. Do as I say, not as I do. Do as I say, Carol. Do as I say.

All right. But these working conditions are really, it was interesting because I thought the piece was rather fair. Also, you know, a lot of people like working there. They like the health benefits. They like the regularity. They like, a lot of the workers,

I thought Jody said last night, also expressed that it's a better place than restaurants or fast food places, which is like a totally low bar, right? So, it seems to me that if you're doing these tech things, being just better than restaurants and stuff is not good enough. If you're wanting to change the world, then change. Because the last thing Jeff Bezos said when he's leaving his last letter, we want to be the best employer on the planet. Well, on his way out, he says this after exploiting people,

both his executives and these workers. And so, you know, I'm not screaming. It's not exploitation in the way, you know, diamond mines are, but it's still, I hate to quote Melania Trump, but be better. Like, why isn't tech, why aren't tech employers better

than what previously- You're quoting Melania Trump. I did, but that's who said it. That's who said it but be better. Why aren't tech employers better than what previously... You're quoting Melania Trump. I did, but that's who said it. That's who said it. Be better. But, you know, they could do better. They could try harder and be better as employers. All of these tech companies, instead of saying

we're slightly better than what came before us. Because it's just, to me, like a meat factory or a restaurant with a gropey manager or shitty working conditions. came before us. Because it's just to me like a meat factory or a restaurant, you know, with the gropey manager or shitty working conditions. Well, I want to acknowledge as you get older, you realize how important regularity is. Now, but here's the thing here. I'm being serious. Is it going to change? Is it going to change? Bezos said that's what he wanted for the company. He's still a big part of it, but he didn't do anything previously.

Here's the thing. No one cares or or the people who matter don't care, because the general perception of the U.S. public, incorrectly or correctly, is that Amazon pays well. Yeah, it's hard work. Yeah, they may monitor you, but they pay $16 an hour plus health care. And a bunch of individuals at a plant were given a choice to unionize or stick with Amazon. And two to one, they voted to stick with Amazon. And this goes to one, the same place. And that is the best enemy you can have is an incompetent, feeble enemy. And the middle class has had, or corporations have had the mother of all incompetent, feeble enemies in the form of unions.

So maybe unions aren't the answer. Like, because in this case- 100%. You know who the answer is? I apologize. I'm interrupting. Lena Kahn is the answer. Because if Lena Kahn breaks up monopolies, there will be more organizations bidding for

human capital and it'll bring wages up. In the 40 largest economies, if you look at union membership, it's declined by 30 to 60% over the last several decades. Unions have been a total failure. They're ineffective. One of the things, let me just say, I'm going to interrupt you now. Jody said that the turnover rate at Amazon, they hired 500,000 people during the pandemic. They're on the way to becoming the country's largest employer, Walmart, right now is. Two things. One, she said that they have 150 percent turnover think about that they

want and in fact jeff bezos wants that he wants he doesn't he thinks people get lazy over time and the second thing is they don't have uh an opportunity to advance from the warehouse as opposed to walmart where the ceo was like in the grocery section he was unloading and so walmart is completely opposite. People have this upward trajectory there as you do better. And in Amazon, they kind of want you to leave. He likened it to being in the Marines.

You get trained and then you go, but it's even faster than that. And the one thing they did is this no lights off hiring or something like that, or I forget what it's called, but they essentially don't do any checking. And then they just want to see raw talent, which is another thing. But is that a bad thing?

That's not necessarily, but the turnover rate is good. It means they think of them as fodder, just fodder. So, I know a guy, I know a guy who struggled with addiction his entire life. And he moved to Florida, I mean, really struggled, in and out of rehab, never been able to really hold on to anything, attached to anything in his life. And he got a job at an Amazon fulfillment center. And their attitude is, we'll hire you and then we'll track you. And also, he ended up leaving six or seven months later. He wasn't fired.

He was doing really well. He ended up leaving because, as you can imagine, he doesn't have making a stereotype about people who are struggling with addiction, but he doesn't have a great judgment. And my attitude is I like the fact that Amazon brings a lot of people in and kind of says sink or swim. And that's not to say that OSHA and people shouldn't be looking at it. And I'm no fan of Amazon, but I like an organization that is hiring like crazy. I'm not sure I buy that there is an opportunity for people who prove themselves. And the thing I like about Amazon

that I hate about corporate America- Well, there is none. There is none. Is there's a fetishization of people with bachelor's degrees. And this is a part of the economy you can enter into without a bachelor's degree. I can't believe I'm protecting Amazon.

You can't go any further. You can push buttons. Is that correct? And eventually, yes. Is that true? That's the whole point. It's like there was one spot to go up and 700 people applied. They just don't have a path at all, which is interesting.

Okay, you know that going there. And the other thing is I think right now so much human sweat to run this company. It's crazy how many people they need. So they don't really want them to move beyond their class where they are. And so once they get automation in there as much as they can, including picking and packing, I think they'll just replace them. One of the things Jody said, this is the last thing, is they're very protected right now politically because they have so many employees. If they had more automation, and she is the one that originally wrote the how tough Amazon is on their executive team. If you remember that one a couple years ago.

It's like, pregnant? Too bad. You know, person with a college degree. And so, if they could replace people, they probably would. At the same time, they're very protected by the employee base, by having it. It's just bad. It was fascinating. Yeah, look, I've always believed that capitalism gives companies the right to fire so they can hire. And I think this is an example of that.

What I do think we need is, and I'm going to start virtue signaling here, but I love the term fiduciary. And when you go on a board, you need to decide, I think, which stakeholder you're a fiduciary for. And most people on a board immediately have this knee-jerk reaction of, I'm here to represent shareholders. And shareholders are overrepresented on boards. And I used to say, I'm here, and whenever I went on a board, I would state this, I'm here to represent management. I've been management. The board is very good at showing up and heckling from the cheap seats, especially if it has VCs or hedge funds on the board, and providing a lot of advice. The people on the board are typically oftentimes, especially

the people who are investors, are the smartest people you've ever met who don't know a fucking thing about the actual business. And I've decided over the last three years, I'm now a fiduciary for frontline workers. Because guess what? They have no representation. But you just totally said you like the Amazon system. They're not. I mean, I guess if you know going in. Hold on.

$16 an hour plus health care. Day one. But read this piece because let me just tell you, they get fired by accident because their systems – you know how perfect Amazon is on logistics, getting a package to you, and they never make mistakes. They make a lot of mistakes with their workforce. It's interesting. I would bet somewhere between 10% and 30% of the American workforce, after working somewhere for a year or two years in frontline work, makes less than you do on day one at Amazon. Not possible.

Anyway, it's an interesting story. I urge people to read it. We'll see what happens here. I think they are protected by their workers. I think they still rely on the sweat. The strongest union representative in the world right now is Lena Kahn. Lena Kahn. All right.

Lena Kahn is going to solve everything. She's going gonna solve everything. Well, no, but if we have- She's gonna solve everything. If we have more, if we have, right now we have 50 cents on the digital dollar, e-commerce dollar going to Amazon. And so the bottom line is, there's one place to make 16 bucks an hour in Bessemer. If there were two places, slowly but surely,

people would be making 18 bucks an hour. So the best union in the world right now is the FTC and the DOJ, because guess what? Traditional unions, they haven't worked. Well, you look like wacky union every five minutes you do. I'm just saying they could work. Like how do- I'm a member of a union. Okay. I'm not, fascinatingly. And so one of the things that's really interesting was how some of the ideas that Jeff had around workers being lazy. I thought that

was, it was kind of scary a little bit, honestly. Even if he thinks that, he shouldn't say it. But look, we're seeing a lot about this guy's character. Right. Wouldn't you love to ride shotgun with me in my yellow Canary Ferrari on my way to get my vasectomy and hair plugs? That is how he decides to approach philanthropy. I don't know if he got hair plugs. Did he get a hair plug? No. He doesn't have hair plugs. Did he get a hair plug? No. He doesn't have hair plugs. He doesn't have hair plugs.

It's just, you know, the human resources, once again, is a very weak area. You know what I mean? And one of the things that the last thing that Jason pointed out, Jason Del Rey, was this is a company. This was, he said in his last letter, Bezos said, we have always wanted to be the Earth's most customer-centric company. It has accomplished that at the expense of everybody, right? Expense of the Earth, the employees, everybody. And now he added, we're going to be the Earth's best employer and Earth's safest place to work. So that, you know, I think this customer-centricness of Jeff Bezos sort of has has everybody pays for that particular theory of his now we'll see if he has the if andy jassy under his was going to do that

i don't know we'll see um and listen one more thing all right amazon's founder didn't want hourly workers to stick around for long viewing a large viewing a quote large disgruntled workforce as a threat mr new kirk recalled this is someone who was helped him create the system company data showed that most employees become less eager over time he said and mr bezos believed that people were inherently lazy what he would say is that our nature as humans is to expand as little energy as possible get what we want or need the conviction was embedded throughout the business from the ease of instant ordering to the pervasive use of data to get most out of employees.

Fascinating. There's a learning here. And that is since kind of Chainsaw Jack Welch and Milton Friedman, we have this monolithic response that the right business strategy is to focus on one constituency, and that's the consumer. right business strategy is to focus on one constituency and that's the consumer. And that at some point that comes at the expense of your suppliers, your vendors, your employees, the Commonwealth, the environment. And what people need to realize is beyond kind of the,

you know, liberal wokeness of screaming for other people, it's a good business strategy to pick other constituents. Shopify is not consumer driven. Their customer and- Well, their consumers are their, then the people they serve, right? Right, but they've decided if Amazon's gonna be obsessed with the consumer,

we're gonna be obsessed with the customer, and that is the retailer. Right, okay. Okay, Better Mortgage is obsessed with treating their employees well. Their mortgage consultants make more money. And they're like, if we can attract the best mortgage. Goldman Sachs, I think, is employee-driven.

They've said, if we can pay our people the most, everything else will work out. All right, good. What are you obsessed with, Scott? What are you obsessed with, Scott? Right now? Besides me, yeah. I have 100% adopted the strategy. I've been in services firms my whole life.

I started a strategy firm. I've always been bought into this obsession with the consumer. And I have pivoted in the last five years, and I have my core constituent is attracting and retaining the most talented colleagues. And everything works out. If you treat them well, if the best people

don't leave, if occasionally you leave some money on the table, if you're ever accused of overpaying people, that's not a bad thing for society. But if you can attract... The bottom line is, if you're a successful entrepreneur, you're going to do just fine. And if you can figure out a way to give people the notion that they're going to do really well if you do really well and you're really focused on them... I'm not saying you're not focused on your end client or end consumer, but I generally believe in an information economy, the team with the best players wins. And so I've been very employee driven. I'm obsessed by snacks. Snacks? That's your constituents?

We have to move on. Yes. No, I'm obsessed by making good stuff. And if I can't, I'm out. That's how I feel. That's everything. So you're product obsessed. Product obsessed. And I don't care about anything else. I don't. I just, that, if I had to pick, if I had, you know, that game where you have to kill

everybody else, the quality of the product, which will lead us into our next story. Hold on. I just want to identify. I would describe you as a little bit of an individual contributor. And I'm more, I'm more a person that, that my attitude is my job is to attract really talented people and the product just gets better. And I think there's a strategy around both. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So we know we're obsessed with snacks and product and people. Schnaps. Schnaps. All right, Scott, we're going to have a quick break. We talked a lot. Come back,

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Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is launching a content site called, I cannot believe this, Future. Honestly, they've already failed. They've already failed, by the way. I love when VCs get into my beeswax. I don't get into their beeswax. In any case, whatever. They can do whatever they want. But let't matter here. It's not a news site, but instead will focus on future-focused informational and editorial content rather than daily tech news. Future.com's pitch guideline states we are pro-tech, pro-future, pro-change, and we are also informed optimists, not freewheeling futurists making predictions

without any skin in the game. Oh, God, I hate them already. The site will also feature Andreessen Horowitz's podcast Clubhouse Rooms and eventually Video Cup. I can't wait to see their piece on that one, which will be interesting. I'm excited for their piece on Facebook, stuff like that. But they've hired some big names, and they've got someone who's a pretty

decent editor running it. But the whole tone was, again, as they did on Clubhouse, bash the tech press, which is just ridiculous. It just infuriates me. But whatever. Whatever. Good luck.

What do you think? Yeah, what they should have said. The truth is we're going to be pro-portfolio. Yeah. And what this is, just as we talk about going vertical, there's a 900-person team at Facebook manicuring Mark and Cheryl's image. It's not working very well. That calls people like you and says, hey, do you want to do a sit down with Cheryl? Do you want to come to her book signing? Hire the brightest, smartest people

to try and put them in a likable light. And this is going vertical. This is like, fuck that. Instead of calling Kara Swisher and trying to put our most likable people on stage, let's start creating our own content. And they are also very explicit to say we're not a news organization because they don't want to be held responsible for fact-checking or generally the truth. I think the problem here is that people who have real influence in this environment, such as you, are going to be inclined to just roll their eyes at everything they do. Right. When they come out with puff pieces-

They'll have some good pieces. They'll have some good pieces. I'm sure. And they'll have pieces that are just puff pieces on their por... They will... You watch. The majority of the content they're going to be optimistic about is going to be trying to legitimize and create heat around sectors where they have companies that are funded. Yeah, I would agree. And everybody is going to throw up on it.

And there'll be some very good journalists who, similar to Nick Clegg or similar to Sheryl Sandberg or similar to Dara Kostrashahi, have said, I have built a lifetime creating reputation and credibility. Now I'm going to go shit all over in exchange for money. I'm going to trade my credibility. I'm going to trade my journalistic credibility for money. That's what this is. This will have a difficult time. Even when they write good things, a lot of people will say they're just going to have a tough time.

Media is an uphill battle, much less when you come out of the gate. They want to have it both ways. They don't want to have the agony of it, and they just want to have the upside. Peter Koska interviewed Margaret Van Mitchers, who ran a pretty big PR firm and then was hired by Andreessen Horowitz and really focused on their communications and PR. I think she's a partner now. She explains why our company is bypassing journalists like me by talking to me. That's what Peter wrote in his thing. He has an interview with her. I know her very well. And, you know, they've always tried to do these, like, get togethers. They've had

sync times. I've been to a couple of them where Mark interviews a big name and they can get the big names, obviously. Suddenly, Mark is interviewing Jay-Z, and trust me, it was a very soft interview, or whoever it was. I don't remember if it was Jay-Z. It was someone like that. You know, it was Michael, the guy who's the agent, that famous agent. Anyway, it was very soft. And so, whatever.

It's fine. You know, I don't know. They don't want to call it a news site. They want to bypass journalists. First, they tried to bash them on Clubhouse and there's idiot rooms. And Marc Andreessen acted like an 11-year-old who had had too much sugar. I'm just here listening to this bashing.

It's just such, it's complete bullshit is what it is. And now they can do their own thing. They've been doing this already through a couple of their writers. They, you know, Ben Horowitz writes. They've got Benedict Evans, who, whatever. And so they've been playing in this space. And I think now they're just organizing it together.

So good luck. This is the premise that we want to present an optimistic view of technology. I know. And this is how incredibly detached and tone deaf the Valley is from the world. And that is, where has the damage from tech come from? Is it because we've been too pessimistic about tech? Yeah. The damage that has been levied on the Commonwealth, voting, on disenfranchised cohorts, on vulnerable people, is because we have been too optimistic

about technology. The problem isn't that we're too pessimistic and we need more people pimping the wonders of venture-backed companies and the good they're doing. We have no shortage of that. We are choking on optimism and it has delayed and obfuscated and blurred our vision. So the notion that we need an optimist, we don't need an optimistic view. For God's sakes, everyone is masturbating to missions to Mars and photo sharing apps and all this. What we need is a more pessimistic, realistic view of technology and its limits and how it can be abused. So, to me, this just starts to like, okay, you've outed yourself as you just don't fucking get it.

Yeah, yeah. It's what's really interesting about this. You are angry. Let me just say, I have had lunch with all these people and they love to lecture. They just love to lecture. And one of the pleasures of not living in Silicon Valley

is not having to have lunch with these people anymore. Honestly, I have to say, I hate to say that, they don't give you any good information, by the way, except if it's to write their own book. And they just pontificate at you, right? And you have to sit there and listen, because you're hoping at one point they'll give you one good scoop. And one of the things, you know, one of the things is, it's just ridiculous i i tweeted from the people who owning everything is not enough but you know i think ben ben smith has it right you know we were all panicked that they were doing this i wasn't particularly panicked uh that they were

doing this but it's not um it's i we're not worried let us just say we are not worried but you know this is of course what they would do this is this is of course what they do because they just can't stand it that someone else has a say. But honestly, I think we've had just as big an impact by saying these things. I thought Elizabeth Spears, who is a great writer and just a great subtext, said, pretty sure most tech journalists already have an optimistic view of technology, less so of the humans who run and fund tech companies and are apparently annoyed that the cheerleaders aren't cheering as loudly as they'd like. I think that kind of just says it. What do you think? This is 100%. It's like, well, let's buy the newspaper and turn the newspaper. It's just, they're going to have, there's some good things here. First, there'll be more jobs for journalists. I had some interaction with a woman who runs their podcasting group, and she struck me as a talented person.

They'll, you know, maybe they probably will do some good coverage, produce some good product. But this is simply, this is the coal industry deciding we need to be more pro-fossil fuels. And so let's put out content that's more optimistic about carbon. We need, carbon is, carbon emissions, Cara, are misunderstood. And so we need to hire legitimate journalists and trade in their reputation. We'll pay them more than they would at a legitimate news organization. They will trust their reputation in exchange for money. And we'll put out interesting, well-produced –

They'll have some good stuff. Yeah, we'll put out well-produced stuff. well-produced. They'll have some good stuff. Yeah, we'll put out well-produced stuff. But the bottom line is, you watch it. If all of a sudden Andreessen gets very excited about disruption in voice and healthcare, there's going to be a lot of articles about the brave new world of tech and healthcare ignoring, all right, is there anything we should be worried about? Should there be any checks and balances on this? Yeah, they have such a fucked up view of journalists. It's so weird. Just because you don't like every, you know, you don't hug them.

And I mean, sometimes I wonder how many of these people didn't get hugged as children. Oh my God, they call you. Do you know why famous people, a famous person called me yesterday? I told you about this. Yeah. The only time famous people call me. Yeah, is when you insult them. Is when I write something.

And I wrote something about. Someone. A famous Hollywood executive and his short bite video platform. Oh, my gosh. And he called and said, can I speak to you? And to his credit, we're obviously talking about Jeffrey Katzenberg. I like him, though. At least he, like, comes to play.

But go ahead. Go ahead. He's impossible not to like. He's extraordinarily successful. He's very charming, and he's obviously very smart. He's really mad at the press. He's just like, it is what it is. Like, he lives in the real world. Here's the thing. He's very charming, and he's obviously very smart. He's not mad at the press. He's just like, it is what it is. He lives in the real world.

Here's the thing. He made a really good point. I had said in my blog post that they burned, of the $1.6 billion, they burned a billion and a half because they sold the content for $100 million. And the reality is they returned a half a billion because he realized that there was no product market fit, and he wanted to be responsible and return as much capital to investors as possible. And I want to acknowledge that oftentimes young entrepreneurs, then they have to be a little bit delusional, but they not only crash their company, they run it into a wall and it blows up and they don't pay their payroll taxes. So he's clearly the adult in the room, but it just struck me. This guy has such extraordinary success. And also he's doing so well.

Now he has a security startup that's killing it. You know, and no one, quite frankly, we're just sort of like, we don't even remember. These individuals, they're so successful that they're not, that any mild ding in the public, they just say, I need to update your thinking. And it's really interesting. I said, we should have him at Code because he's working on this really interesting security startup. And he's doing some very interesting things. But I just want to correct the record. He returned half a billion dollars to investors, not $100 million.

Okay. Well, in any case, I know Jeffrey is a – I like talking to him. I mean, at least I don't get the same, like, anger. He's smart. Impressive guy. Yes. I don't get the same, like – anger. It's a weird, yes. I don't get the same, like, and I know he's wrangled with all kinds of Hollywood reporters, etc. So, I don't know his, but in general, like, the weird, you know, they're so sore.

They're sore winners. I don't know how else to put it. A lot of people in Silicon Valley are sore winners. They should just win and shut the hell up, but they won't. They won't. But okay, fine. Make what you want to make. I'm so excited. I hope they get some good essays that are worthy of reading. But you know what? I'll take Ben Thompson any day of the week and twice on Sunday. That's what I want. He's fair. He does great pieces. A lot of the sub stack. I would take almost any journalist over this on any day.

But you know what? Knock yourselves out. You got lots of money. Be sore winners that you are. And the media, just do your thing. And if they don't like it and they don't give you access, well, you'll do a better job. But access is overrated. As someone who has a lot of access, it's overrated.

And it makes you a little less sharp, I think, which is, I don't mean unfair. I think fairness is important to me, but it's just, anyway, it's interesting. We'll see what's going. We'll see how they do because money is no object. Obviously, they bought future.com, which probably cost us a billion dollars.

Future.com, future.com. I'm going to buy sore winners and just copy all this stuff. All these dudes should collectively, they should pass the hat and buy prostate.com. This is all just such a giant fucking midlife cry. I'm rich. I'm blessed. I like Jeff's better.

He's going to space. I'm rich. It's kind of cool. I'm rich. I'm blessed. And I'm still going to get angry at the few people who have the gall to say my shitty startup isn't worth $4.5 billion. Oh, that Karen Swisher. Whatever.

I'm not their friend. That was the error. I'm not helping her move this weekend. half billion dollars. Oh, that Karen Swisher. Ugh. Whatever. I'm not their friend. That was the error. I'm not helping her move this weekend. That's it. I know. That's it. And I'm starting a podcast to talk about the great new world

of photo sharing pictures of your sneakers. Let's become VCs. I think we need to become VCs. Like, what the? You're kind of a VC a little bit, right? I invest a lot

in small and growing companies. I'm going to become a VC. It's hard work. I'm not're kind of a VC a little bit, right? I invest a lot in small and growing companies. I'm going to become a VC. It's hard work. I'm not going to become a VC. I've been offered VC positions, and I'm like, I'm incompetent to the task, which apparently a lot of people don't say. So speaking about optimism and pessimism, you know I'm not a good VC. I always invest in later stage companies. You have to be an optimist to be in VC because literally every idea I hear I hate.

I'm like, that'll never work. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, what? I don't mind the optimists. I like them. All right, Scott, we're going to go to pivot, listen, or question. We've been chit-chatting away this today. We just can't get enough of each other. We're making media. Mark, take notes. We're making media, Mark Andreessen. This is how it's done. Okay. Let's pivot to a listen or question. Roll tape. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a listener question. Roll tape. has signed the United States up to the Christchurch Call, which was an initiative launched by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to tackle radical extremist content online. Do you think the United States joining this initiative

is in any way meaningful or just PR? And do you think the Christchurch terror attack and the live streaming of that attack have led to any long-term change at Facebook and other social networks in terms of blocking extremist content. Second, how do you think the rise of remote working will impact small nations like New Zealand? Anecdotally, I've heard of a US-based tech firm hiring increasing numbers of New Zealand software developers to work remotely and offering to pay more than double the going

rate in New Zealand. That's obviously great news for these developers, but it could be really bad for the New Zealand startup tech scene because it just doesn't have access to the deep pockets of US venture capital, which means it can't afford to pay Silicon Valley rates. Nga mihi nui. Thank you very much. Ah, that guy's likable. Talk about likable. I like him.

I love the New Zealand accents. Chris Liddell, who ended up working for Trump, but I like a lot, worked for Microsoft, had the same kind of thing. He should start a podcast. Charmed. Charming accent in New Zealand. Wow, there's a lot there. Let me just go from the back very quickly. I interviewed Brian Chesky and Steve Case last night for Steve's event, Rise of the Rest.

And one of the things they were talking about was hiring increasing numbers of software developers at different places and whether that was going to hurt the startup scene in individual spots. I thought that was an interesting point. I think that's what they're going to do because Brian was talking about how much he's sort of a more radical remote worker now, even though they had a beautiful headquarter. And they're really pushing remote if people want to do it and letting the employees lead the way on

that. So I think that is absolutely going to happen that a lot of these areas that are trying to create their own ecosystems locally are going to get sucked up by the Googles and Airbnbs and Facebooks of the world. So that is, I think, absolutely true. Scott, what do you think about the other stuff? Well, on the extremist side,

so the stat that came out that was really frightening was that somewhere around two-thirds of people who joined an extremist group on Facebook, that extremist group was suggested to them by the Facebook algorithm. So, the notion that the defense these platforms put forward is that there's a certain number of people who are just drawn to these groups and we can't be responsible. It's like, well, yeah, you're actually promoting extremist groups. So he asked if he thought the US joining meant anything and if whether these companies had changed activity. I believe when the Christchurch massacre happened that primarily Facebook said, okay, how do we minimize this? They went into damage control mode. What I do think it does, though, is that it highlights... And what's interesting is stuff

like that happens in the US. Mass shootings happen all the time. But when it happens in New Zealand, we get freaked out because it typically doesn't happen in countries that have a saner approach to gun laws. And I do think it has an impact because it was so horrific and tech played such a kind of a weird role in it that the public becomes less sympathetic to tech and wants to see more action against tech. So I think it does impact it, but it's not, we've got to get out of this notion of waiting for the better angels of these companies to show up. They don't, when the Christ Church, my guess is, and Kara, tell me if you think that my thesis is that when Christ Church happened, Facebook didn't sit down and said, wow, what was our role in this?

And how do we rethink our approach to business? I think their first emergency meeting was how do we minimize the fallout here? How do we delay and obfuscate? How do we wallpaper over this? It wasn't how do we change our product and our platform. Yeah, I agree. I think that it was really, that it doesn't matter, but it does, even if it's just signaling being in this, not being in this is a problem. Being in it

is not a problem. The U.S. can really turbocharge this stuff by entering climate accords, these kind of things. I think the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, has been amazing about this. And I think it's okay that they're part of this. It puts pressure on companies like Facebook, especially when the U.S. is in these things. And so I think they'll continue again. Lena Kahn is the answer. These are all the, you know, these kind of people, putting her as chairman said a lot to me

about the Biden administration, putting Tim Wu in there, you know, putting Ann Neuberger in there. It says a lot about what their intent is, which is to push back this series of legislative moves by David Cicilline and Ken Buck, for example, and Amy Klobuchar and even Grassley and others in the Senate. It is all signaling, but it's also movement forward. So I think it is meaningful to do these kind of things. Facebook will respond to pressure. That's how they're going to, that's, that's, they don't do it because they want to do it for the good of the world or they, they, some of them do, that's not

fair. I think they will do it because they get pressure and they will do it badly because it's hard by the way, like, you know, the, just information about vaccines, where it comes from, the Wuhan lab, were they right, they wrong? They have to make these decisions that are very difficult for them. And at the same time, they do it cloddishly. So it's super complex, but I love seeing this happen, that we do this. And I think it's important for that. And one of the things that I would love to know, you know, I answered what Brian Chesky was

saying, that they're hiring more people. And Steve was thinking that maybe that would cause them to maybe not have as many cities growing, because his goal is to get as many cities as possible to be tech forward, essentially, and great places to work. And with people moving, they can work from anywhere. And it looks like tech companies are going to let them work from anywhere for at least the near-term future. So what do you, one of the things that another thing they talked about was immigration laws, bringing people into this country, more people in. But do you, do you think people care if a job location isn't an issue going forward? You have this belief that young people should be close to HQ. There may not be an HQ. Brian was talking about

you are, you, you don't do this hybrid thing, which is three days a week and two days off, because you don't really get time off. You come in for three weeks at a time and do intense work together, and then you all go away from each other and work remotely. What do you think? I don't know. I'm a bit boomer on this. I think there's certain industries where you're going to want people together on a regular basis. And I don't know if that's two days a week, three days a week, or one week a month, but there is a certain entropy, I think, especially in services industries where you need to be able to just kind of yell over the desk to somebody or pull people into a conference room. And I do think young people want to be, or most young people, I think, want to be bumping off of other people.

And so, look, I tell young people, get into the office. And it's what I call a Walmart store effect. Pankaj Shemawat, a colleague at NYU, did this great research where he found that the further a retail store gets from headquarters, the lower the ROI of that store. The most profitable Walmarts are in the Southeast. And then as you get away from the Southeast, they become less profitable. And I think the same is true of headquarters. But it's not going to be campuses. Just think about it. Airbnb built a pretty series of buildings. They're now down to one building. They had three in San Francisco. Microsoft, it used to be you'd have to be on the campus all the time. Yeah, but I would venture that if you take the 50 people who get the most traction at Airbnb over the next five or 10 years, who get promoted the fastest, who make the most money,

90% of them will have one thing in common. They're at HQ a lot physically. It's just that there's just no getting around it. In corporate America and big companies, your career progress is a function of your talent, your grit, and more than anything, America and big companies, your career progress is a function of your talent, your grit, and more than anything, the relationships you're able to establish within that company. And relationships are correlated to proximity. There's no free lunch here. If you want to live in Visalia and overlook the great hills of the California foothills or whatever it is, there's a trade-off here. And there's no free lunch in terms of remote work. And I would advise every young person to get to HQ while they can

because when you start collecting dogs and kids, it gets harder and harder to live near work because the campuses are usually or increasingly in urban areas because they know that's where young people want to be. I think we're not going to see these big campuses like the Microsoft Global Campus going forward. MasterCard and Purchase New York and these big corporate campuses. Not going to happen.

Not going to happen. All right. We're going to get back. This was a really great question. Thank you so much. William from New Zealand. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Okay, Scott, prediction. Make it quick. We've been chit-chatting away today. Okay, Scott, prediction. Make it quick. We've been chit-chatting away today. So something happened. So I own some rental property. And when a family leaves, as long as the family's there, we don't raise the rent. If they're good tenants, we like having good tenants. But when they leave, we get a broker to left, they said, maybe the market's up a few percent or whatever. This year, we had some people move out and the broker came back and said, you could charge 30% more. And it strikes me that inflation is on the way. And this narrative, there's always a narrative to support why the market should go higher. And everyone's supposed

to sign up to the narrative, whether it's the economists, CNBC, everyone says, all right, let's buy into the narrative. And the narrative goes something like this. Inflation will subside because the supply chain will get worked out, and there'll be more supply again, and things will normalize, and people will come back to work as remote schooling, people go back to school. I think the level of inflation here across everything I see is so extraordinary that the narrative is just BS. And I think we're headed into an era of higher interest rates in the last half of the year. And we should track this. I think the economy is going to boom.

GDP is going to go way up. A lot of companies have gotten fighting shape. The consumer has money. And we're going to see the markets absolutely throw up. This is going to be me like in my fraternity pledge pinning care. Throw up because of inflation. The market, it's really interesting. Right now, of course, everyone assumes that if the underlying economy is strong, the markets will be strong. But here's the wonderful thing about the markets,

is the markets have an uncanny ability to look around the corner, and they're constantly asking itself, what's next? And so I think in the last half of the year, the underlying economy will be really strong. But I was going to say that now, Joe, is my fraternity pledge pinning, where I drank about two or three bottles of pink champagne and it was so much fun. And then, wow, did I start throwing up. I think in the last half of this year, the market is going to move into the latter stage of this. And it's like, we've had a lot of fun. The market's accelerated last year despite the- Despite the-

So money in the mattress. Money in the mattress. Yeah. Well, the hard part is what, it's hard to time the market. And I would argue in an era like this, if you become bullish, you just, or if you become bearish, you just lower your leverage and your exposure. But I think we're headed for,

so anyways, my prediction is that the markets end up lower by the end of the year, and we're going to have extreme volatility in Q3 and Q4 with some kind of four-figure drops in the Dow. Everybody thinks that the underlying economy is going to power the Dow. I think that this inflation and higher interest rates is not, you know, we'd like to believe that it's just episodic. I don't know. The price increases I'm seeing out there, and one in three dollars, one in three dollars was printed

since January of 2020. I mean, there's so much. There's so much cash chasing fewer products. Republicans will try to push the inflation situation for that's Biden's weakness there in terms of that. But we'll see. Anyway, we'll see where it goes. I think people are feeling good. I think people are out and about. People are wanting to buy.

I mean, just everywhere I've been, Washington, New York, all the cities, they're back and rocking kind of thing. But we'll see. That's a very good prediction, Scott Galloway. Vegas is on fire. You know, Vegas is sold out right now. The national parks. Everybody's all over the place. Let me just say.

Vegas and the national parks. You never hear that in the same sense. I'm just saying. There was a story in the New York Times. National parks are like, people are waiting in line to get to see things. To see Big Ben erupt? Yeah. Yes.

I guess so. Whatever. I'm just going to go and sit on a lawn somewhere. I'm going to Vegas. You and I are going to Vegas. You know, you promise me all the time. We're going to Vegas. I'm done.

I don't even get my hopes up anymore. We're going to become VCs and we're going to Vegas. That's what we're going to do. And we're not going to invite Mark J. Clubhouse to talk about the optimistic future. All right. Don't forget that we're done, Scott, today. This is a long and exciting show, I think.

It was one of those. It was one of those. Thank you for being... No, it is. People will like it. We made a lot of content and the people at Injuries and Horrors are taking notes,

which they will listen to. They will do none of them because they have to be optimistic. Anyway, and we are both optimistic and pessimist because that's what a journalist is in case they're interested. Don't forget, if there's a story in the news you're curious about, want to hear your opinion on, go to nymag.com slash pivot and submit a question for the show. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Rebecca Sinanis and Caroline Shagrin. Ernie Andretide engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows.

Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. What's worse than being at a water park? Moving.

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